winter arrives in the village

A few flakes of snow drifted gently down at 08.00 and the village (1,300 metres high) now lies with a thick covering.....and winter preparations are not quite complete.
This is my neighbour in the early afternoon preparing to recycle his cow manure on his fields.

My house is in the immediate background.

It's remarkably warm in the house with its solid rock base - although the car doors are already frozen.

Love of Words - Wry Fry

I spent a wet Saturday afternoon happily watching England’s most beloved and best performer/writer in action – namely Stephen Fry. The 50 Not Out video gives an excellent sense of Fry’s various roles over the past 4 decades – and why the British public (with very few exceptions) love him so much. I certainly do.

I would be interested to know how well his dry wit carries across cultural divides. I will never forget the incomprehending reaction of an Italian friend to a short clip I showed of the wild Scots comic – Billy Connelly. And it wasn’t so much a question of the West of Scotland accent as the subject matter, perspective and delivery!
Fry’s acclaimed role as the butler Jeeves in the televised series of the PG Wodehouse novels about the relationship between a butler and a “toff” in the 1920s might, similarly, seem a bit restricted in its appeal – delightful as it certainly is to a British audience.

His solo performance for more than hour at Sydney Royal Opera House is simply stunning – his intelligence and goodness come across so strongly even in front of such a large audience.
His Amsterdam talk to a more typical small group  is even more touching. Anyone who encourages reading and a love of words - let alone self-deprecation - is a hero in my terms.

He has been a prolific writer of essays from an early age – and has been very frank about aspects of his life which most people would rather hide. It took some time for his “manic-depressive” condition to be properly recognised – and his TV documentary on the secret life of a manic depressive must have helped a lot of people who suffer from this condition. He has even written a book about the writing of poetry.   

Talking of good and fair writing, the extended New Yorker editorial of Obama is a good exemplar.

Of conspiracy

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public..." 

thus Adam Smith in 1776

The catalyst for this post was today’s news that a Greek editor has been arrested (in mid-broadcast) for daring to publish an official list of tax evaders which the Head of the IMF (no less!) had given a year ago to a previous Greek Minister of Finance and which seemed to have disappeared - although it has led to some suicides. Here's the guy's story in his own words.

I had first come across this story of the Lagardes memory stick earlier this month in the Diary of Deception and Distortion blog whose admirable mission statement I wrote about a few weeks back and which I continue to read with a variety of emotions. At one level I admire the guy’s insights and confidence – but, at another, I have trouble with the degree of conspiracy his various stories imply.

The internet is full of conspiracy theories relating to such things as 9/11, the Kennedy assassination, World Government, the Bilderberg Group etc

But I’ve never been a great conspiracy theorist – more a naïve, cock-up man! Not that I don’t agree the world is full of scheming characters - more so in the last few decades under the malign influence of the neo-liberalist pandemic of selfishness let loose by Margaret Thatcher, The World Bank etc.

And neo-liberalism, I need to make clear, has never been a conspiracy – rather an open, full-fledged (and so far successful) war! 

Conspiracies are secret and face two major obstacles – first the lack of malleability of social and economic forces. Or, as Robert Burns put it much more eloquently in his great 1785 poem To a Mouse,   

The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

The mess which governments often make of things (and the counter-productivity of much ambitious policymaking) is, of course, one of the central arguments which neo-liberals have used in their (so far) highly successful drive to strip the state of powers and to hand its functions over to private interests. In passing we should note that their theory, of course, does not allow that private organisations (particularly the huge and unwieldy companies which dominate the markets) might also share these same features of “goal displacement”, inefficiencies etc. Nor does it recognise the additional costs for the public services now being taken over of (a) the huge “transaction costs” in parcelling rail, health and educational services into the manageable pieces required for contracting; (b) the additional managerial costs and profits the new private companies need; (c) the costs of the regulatory framework which has to be put in place to ensure various standards are met; and (d) the continued financial underwriting by the taxpayer when things (as they generally do and have!!) go wrong.   

My apologies for this (rare) rant – but I am just so angry about how an intellectually fatuous and vacuous argument about government inefficiency has held sway for so long. The reality is that all human organisation is complex and difficult – regardless of whether it is private or public. Public perceptions are different largely because private enterprise has been able to buy itself a good press – both directly and indirectly (funding of a variety of intellectual activities)   

I said there were two limits on the conspiratorial scheming of elites. The second, I would suggest, is simple lack of trust – honour amongst thieves. People are more cooperative than ever imagined by economists – but not the elites (see Al Mant’s marvellous (but typically out-of-print) book on Leaders We Deserve). Three years ago I blogged about the positive aspect of trust and cooperation on which so many post-war governance systems operated (and some Scandinavian) still do) but which the neo-liberals have done their damnest to destroy. An excellent detailed history is here for those who want to know.

And the damage it has done to those who a few decades saw themselves as guardians of public integrity is vividly shown in this story of greed and hypocrisy.  

But one form of conspiracy I’ve always viewed as a "very real and present threat" as, I think, they now say – the conspiracy of silence which the Jimmy Savile story now running in Britain exemplifies very strongly. One of serial child molestation over several decades by a TV star which apparently most senior people in the media knew about but few complained of - partly because values were different from now; and partly because of calculated fear...

A year ago today, I had a post about the development of training systems in this part of the world. 

Finally a couple of examples of how great the art blog - It's about Time - is. Two recent posts about the English painter Stanley Spencer here and here

Essays and images

Three years ago today my blog paid tribute to the “essay” form of writing.

…. I remember the impact which the essays of 18/19^th century English writers such as Addison, Francis Bacon and Charles Lamb made on me at secondary school. “What is truth, said Jesting Pilot, and would not stay for an answer” is apparently Bacon – although I get rather confused that the wonderfully evocative piece on burning pork is apparently by Charles Lamb – not Bacon! I start to google the various names and find a wonderful website devoted to.....essays - y compris... Lamb’s on pork. It was, of course, Michel de Montaigne who started this art form in the 16^th Century in his castle near Bordeaux– and his "Complete Works" stands on a shelf above my study door. As I read Malcolm Gladwell’s essays, I suddenly hear in my mind the tones of Alaister Cooke - as he read his Letters from America (for almost 50 years). What an institution he was! Weaving a spell as he slowly moved from his opening ear-catching sentences through a charming analysis of part of the American system to a laconic conclusion. And then I thought of Tom Wolfe – whose 1970 essay “Mau-mauing the flak catchers” was such a merciless description of the funding culture which grew around the US War on Poverty. Unfortunately I couldn’t find this essay online – although (thanks to Wikipedia and New York Magazine) I could download his even more famous satire of “the radical chic”. If only someone would do a similar satire on EU funding – someone surely must have!! But it’s beyond a joking matter!

I then went on the say that Wolfe invented the marvellous phrase “shit-detector” – but I now discover that this was actually Ernest Hemingway’s phrase - 

The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it.

When I googled the phrase I discovered this lovely blog by an Australian ceramicist which, sadly, stopped in 2011. One of my quieter passions has been for ceramics. But the blog images of the ceramicist are still archived. Nothing, however, can compare with Barbara’s It’s About Time daily blog which performs two immense public services – introduces us to American and European painters (generally of the early 20^th century) few of us have ever heard of; and stuns us every day with beauty.

Tom Wolfe has not only been an amazingly creative and powerful essayist but has also - as this beautifully written essay argues -  uniquely captured sociological insights about particularly East-coast USA

The painting which adorns this post is one of a series on a recent post she gave us about a Russian painter Natalia Goncharova (1881-1962). Little wonder that her blog has had more than 2 million hits. Goncharova was a member of the Der Blaue Reiter avant-garde group from its founding in 1911.  Goncharova moved to Paris in 1921 where she designed a number of stage sets of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. She became a French citizen in 1939.

Scottish exceptionalism?

I am a Scot – although it’s interesting that I forgot to include this in the list of ways I set out in a 2010 blogpost in which I could (and had) describe myself over the years! Perhaps this reflects my ambivalence about nationalism.

Most people are proud of their nationality – I certainly am – but some are hesitant. We are told that Germans, for example, associate more easily with their Land (Province) than with the country – although Peter Watson’s recent and encyclopaedic German Genius sets out in amazing detail what German culture and science have given the world. At the other end of the scale, the Hungarian arrogance I experienced when I worked and lived there for a couple of years seemed to be a psychological defence against their feeling that Hungary had failed in everything it had attempted. Emigre Hungarians, however, have an amazing record – witness Arthur Koestler, photographic genius Andre Kertesz, and economist Thomas Balogh. 

Romanians, as I said recently, are a proud people – that is not the same thing, I suspect, as being proud of their nation. Most Romanians I have known are ashamed of how their nation’s governing elites have behaved over the years - but react violently to external criticism. They are certainly proud of the contributions which various Romanians have made to modern life eg the jet engine (Coanda) – although the guy who became Head of Romania’s Cultural Institute in a recent political coup seems to have made a bit of a fool of himself in suggesting that Romania invented the…radiator    

All this is by way of an introduction to the post I did exactly two years ago on the Scottish contribution to the world – at least as seen through the eyes of an American historian, Arthur Herman in his book The Scottish Enlightenment – the Scots invention of the modern world (200). One of our younger generation of writers summarises the story nicely

The Knoxian reformation of the 16th century had resulted in 100 years of almost uninterrupted violence and bloodshed. Three consecutive failed harvests at the end of the 17th century, against the backdrop of England's imperial growth, set the circumstances for Scotland's ruling classes to sell out its sovereignty - literally. The Earl of Roseberry was paid £12,000 from a slush fund operated by the London government to enable the merger between Scotland and England to take place. But rather than suffer the expected dilution into insignificance, Scotland became proportionately the most significant player in the union's empire. And through innovations in philosophy, education, commerce, engineering, industry, architecture, town planning, soldiering, administration, medicine and even tourism, the Scots invented the modern world of capitalist democracy. The springboard for this was the most powerful legacy of the Presbyterian revolution: a universal (or near-universal) education system.
The Presbyterians popularised the notion that political power, though ordained by God, was vested not in the monarch or even in the clergy, but in the people. Yes, Scottish Presbyterians could behave like ayatollahs and the Kirk could regularly incite public executions for spurious blasphemy or witchcraft charges. But one of the last acts of the Scottish parliament was to establish a school and salaried teacher in every parish.
The effect of this was that by 1750, with an estimated 75% level of literacy, the Scots were probably the most well-read nation on earth. The dichotomy between authoritarian repression and liberal inquiry in Scottish society was embodied in Robert Burns. At 16, the poverty-stricken Ayrshire ploughman was versed in Shakespeare, Alexander Pope, Locke, the Scottish poets and the French Enlightenment philosophers. The knock-on effects of the education act were felt in universities and the book trade. By 1790 Edinburgh boasted 16 publishing houses.

I knew about Adam Smith and David Hume (although not properly appreciated the latter’s arguments eg “reason is – and ought to be – the slave of passions”). I knew about the openness of Scottish universities in medieval times and their strong links with continental universities (not least as a final stage of legal education); about the Scots role in the British Empire (and in exploiting the opium trade); and that most of the stuff with kilts is actually a Victorian invention. What, however, I hadn’t realised until I read the book were things such as 

·         The speed with which Scotland apparently changed from a backwater of Iran-like religious domination and prejudice to playing a leading role in the development of the “study of mankind”

·         just what a galaxy of stars there were in Edinburgh and Glasgow between the last 2 Scottish uprisings of 1715 and 1745. Frances Hutcheson I had vaguely heard of – but not his core argument that “all men of reflection from Socrates have sufficiently proved that the truest, most constant and lively pleasure, the happiest enjoyment in life, consists in kind affections to our fellow creatures”.

·         The role Scots politicians played in liberalising British politics in the 1830 period

·         How major a role Scots played in the American revolution – and, indeed (on the downside), in the development of its “revivalist” religious tradition!

Many people feel that Arthur Herman has gone too far in his claims - and there is a short professional piece here which takes a more balanced view and reminds us that most Scots (certainly in and around Glasgow) are renowned for a strange sense of victimhood and inferiority.
Coincidentally, another book with a similar argument has just appeared - Capital of the Mind - how Edinburgh changed the World

True Confessions

The weather has finally broken here in the mountains. At 09.00 it is still gloomy with mist encircling the house and the neighbours’ houses just eerie blots. Even the cat chooses to lie abed! A time for surfing, thinking and writing….So, for once, let me just follow the drift of the surfing (amidst my soup-making – bean, carrot, leek and celery!).

First I updated, as I usually do, some recent blogs – not least adding to my recent blog on caricaturists this magnificent record of every single Honore Daumier print and painting he ever did 

The superb blog of a couple who are spending two weeks in about 50 countries and who have, during October, been in Scandinavia was then accessed. Great on places and sensual experiences….

And then one of my favourite blogs - glamour granny travels - whose author travels serendipitously; was until recently based in Turkey (see below); and landed yesterday (par hazard naturellement) in Genoa.

An historical overview of FBI Director relations with American Presidents over the past 50 years really brought home again  how tenuous that country’s claim to democracy really is – with parallels with that ofcontemporary Russia 

An article about Turkish PM Erdogan reminded me of my love of that country – borne first of a memorable week-long official visit I made to Istanbul in 1984 or so  (courtesy of OECD) and then of several later trips, not least a motor tour from Bucharest in summer 2002 of the Aegean. For my first trip, I arrived late at night at Pera Pelas Hotel - made famous by both Ataturk (whose room is still kept as a museum) and by Agatha Christie! And woke early in the morning to the specific smells and noises of the Orient (sadly the smells seem to have vanished in later visits). I was there –with about a score of other European municipal leaders – to share our experience of governing metropoles with the Turks. Of course my experience of a declining West of Scotland economy (of just over 2 million people) seemed to have little of relevance to a chaotic and expanding metropolis of 10 million people – but who would give up the opportunity, for example, of being ferried around the Bosphorus in the Istanbul Mayor’s personal boat?  And our institutional arrangements were interesting – with one powerful Region having 19 autonomous Districts and four Health Boards. I quickly became friendly with a Turkish journalist who had a personal network with the (still heavily repressed) democratic Turkish opposition. For a week I led a double life – during the day being part of the official power system; in the evening meeting dissidents of various sorts. 

Because of her contacts and support, Gul was treated like a princess in these latter places. Inevitably I fell in love with her – the concoction of context and high-boned beauty was just too heady. On one memorable evening she took me in a taxi across the great bridge into the Asian side for a romantic dinner in a famous fish restaurant – where we pledged allegiance after only a few platonic kisses. 

Sadly we lost contact – once in Prague a decade later I had a mysterious message which promised a reunion in that romantic city – but it never happened. So there, dear reader, you have a rare confession…..heavens…where will this lead??

Like many Brits, I have contemplated living in Turkey – particularly Istanbul – I find them the most incredibly friendly people. And hope next year to make another long, car trip there to explore the many exotic parts of the country which Glamorous Granny writes (and photos) so well. 

For those wanting more depth analyses, Perry Anderson’s seminal essay still remains one of the best, serious  introductions  - one of several great pieces he has done on modern states. Those wanting more reading material on the country could look at this list. And also this one. A decade ago, I came across both the interwar poems of Nazim Hikmet and the writings of Orhan Pamuk about which I was initially enthusiastic but have latterly become ambivalent. 

Finally a good update on the Scottish situation on which I gave a brief overview of the past few decades earlier this year.

Neglect of Bulgaria

I am puzzling over the lack of interest British writers (of any sort) seem to have shown in Bulgaria and the larger interest British writers have taken over the ages in Romania, whether from novelists such as Bram Stoker and Olivia Manning; travellers such as Sir Sach Sitwell, Patrick Leigh-Fermor, Devla Murphy and William Blacker; or historians such as Robert Seton-Watson, Dennis Deletant , Keith Hitchins and Tom Gallagher (both of whom I referred to yesterday)

Romania has had a much larger and more industrial population than Bulgaria- with a highly educated and articulate intelligentsia (with strong French connections) making its mark in the inter-war period in various cultural fields. Unlike Bulgaria, it had been ruled with a light touch from Constantinople. Bulgaria’s experience of the Ottoman Empire and Turks was much harsher and its celebration of independence deeper and more lasting than Romania’s – which has had long reason to be sceptical of its governors, no matter how Romanian.

Bulgaria has seemed for the past century sleepily rural and romantic as caught in a marvellous book published in 1931 by the Balkans' correspondent for the Chrstian Science Monitor RK Markham. His Meet Bulgaria has delighful photos and can be read in its entirety in the link. And the country looked more to Russia for support – even before 1945 – although many of its painters spent formative time in France, Munich and Italy.

A Concise History of Bulgaria is the only history book I can find (although Wikipedia has a long and useful note on the various phases of its history) – and it’s significant that the Lonely Planet website could list in 2010 as books worth reading only the 1912 novel Under the Yoke; other novels on the same theme of war with the Turks and books about gypsies!

The best Guides for me are The Rough Guide to Bulgaria which does contain at page 461-64 of the link a list of English books on Bulgaria (many out of print) as well as a useful section on the country’s music; I also highly recommend a locally-produced Bulgaria Tour Guide  (Tangra 2006). A heavy, glossy 670 pager with superb small illustrations – for only 15 euros. And also this delightful little book which features some of the amazing small bed and breakfasts in the countryside you can stay at for a song. 

And the only decent blog I can find in English from or about the country is a young American teacher's who, in a straightforward and charming way, describes her experiences (with Sofia mainly), including a variety of photographs which indeed give a good sense of the place. It was her blog which alerted me to the reopening of the National Gallery. And her kind response to this blog has given me access to her own list of books about Bulgaria worth reading. Many thanks!

Both countries have superb landscapes – and they are both proud peoples. Somehow, the Bulgarian pride is simpler. Since Winston Churchill’s put-down in the late 1940s of the Leader of the Labour Party – “a modest man – he has a lot to be modest about”, I hesitate to use that adjective. But that is part of the attraction of the Bulgarians – they are not pretentious and have not spoiled their country. My tour last year of the regional municipal galleries (notes at the back of my booklet on Bulgarian realist painters) showed me positive officials of a sort I rarely encounter in Romania. Their small country has so many more interesting places to visit throughout the country – from historic sites and buildings to sea and ski resorts – and the style and service you get is impressive. Their lack of Romania’s elitist intellectual tradition is, I think, their saving grace.

The aquarelle is by a not very well known Bulgarian - C Ionchev

Some good guides for the visitor to Romania

At the beginning of last month I did a roundup of blogs on/from Romania which are available in English. I omitted, however, one very significant one. It may not frequently post – but is always worth reading since it comes from Caroline Juler, the author of the excellent Blue Guide to Romania  – for my money far and away the best guide to the country.

Juler’s post of 30 August gave very useful background on how the EU farm policy affects the country

Romania has millions of small-holdings which are not considered commercially viable but which support the people who run them.  Calling them subsistence farmers implies that they are unable to support themselves in any way, which isn't necessarily the case.  A lot of 'subsistence' farms produce food for the families who work on them, and in Romania the coldly bureaucratic notion of a subsistence farm is so alien to the character of a small, working family farm that it's laughable.  Romanians use the term gospodarie, which means home, hearth, the centre of the family, a spiritual haven, a place where people grow real food rather than the processed muck that global corporations want everyone to buy, they embody self-reliance and self-sufficiency, and encompass hundreds of years of tradition and history...  If the world had more gospodarii, we might have less starvation.

Juler’s blog is part of a larger website which encompasses her other interests

Yesterday’s post raised some delicate issues about how foreigners experience modern Romanians and Bulgarians. I know this leads into some ridiculous generalisations – country folk are different from urban; young people from old; Transylvanians from those in the plains; etc etc. But those visiting other countries like to get a handle on these things – and will then proceed to make up their own minds on the basis of the places and people they find themselves with.

I was interested to find this (fairly recent) list of books in English which wold be useful for visitors to Romania

Alan Ogden’s books I have not, sadly, yet read. But several good books don’t figure on this list -

- The Pallas Guide to Romania edited by John Villiers is more of a cultural and historical treatment of the country as a whole than a travel guide. As with all Pallas Guides, it has superb old black and white graphics and photos – and rates in my collection of “beautiful books”. Cheap copies were easily found in Bucharest’s second-hand bookshops earlier in the year.

- Historian Lucian Boia’s Romania  can actually be downloaded in full from that link. It’s a very nicely written history – the only one which is easily available (Keith Hitchins is more detailed but covers only 1866-1947 and is older)

- Tom Gallagher has written extensively and vigorously about the country’s post-communist politics. Details of his two books on the subject are in the link – and his Theft of aNation can be googled here       

- Mountains of Romania is a lovely guide for the hill-walker