today's one to watch

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2008/sep/10/cern.large.hadron.collider

thinking: join up

Population goes ZING. Need more food. Population ages, eats for longer. Fat people die earlier, but eat more.

Solution:

1) Ban meat
2) Expand the armed forces and drop entry criteria
3) Start an aggressive campaign to export the wonderful European model to the rest of the world; don't stop until achieved


Who needs an MSc?

Ask Oxford

In not-really-penance for swearing a while ago, I put up Ask Oxford's word of the day for a week. Of the seven that I featured, four were English, and perhaps loge is also in standard use. However, they are still arriving in my inbox, sourced from the Oxford Dictionary of English, Many of them appear to be misplaced from the Oxford Dictionary of Foreign.

Khanga – the East African fabric – is arguably in-place, since people in East Africa largely speak English (though khanga will have predated English presence there). But pensionnat and tupic are simply not English words. Likewise cantal and skyr, while several others have been legal or kitchen terms drawn from French.

The point of subscribing to such a service is to expand your vocabulary, to then slip those new words into your speech/use of words. So I guess it's fine if you are happy to keep explaining the funny words you're using (although knowing what a tupic is from having befriended a Canadian Inuit is preferable...). Of course, as an armchair polyglot I'm not complaining, but there are loads of obscure English words - or foreign ones that are used - which could feature. But maybe they've all been used in the years before I clicked on the service.

Having the time of your life

Wow. Forgive us, less than plugged in, for not realising that Mamma Mia would be a film based on ABBA. Flimsy plot, beautiful Greek-island scenery, clearly great fun to make. The older cast, women especially, had a riot, while the younger tried too much to act. The Julie Walters-Meryl Streep-ThatOtherOne WhoWasInThatOtherThing trio were great, the songs were fab. Meryl gets points for effort, Pierce gets points deducted for allowing the director to give him a second chance. Colin Firth, for the first time since he was frozen as Mr Darcy when I was but a whippet, made me realise that he is an actor. (Not, I must say, through his acting.) Didn't stop laughing :)

Mukuvani good, missiles bad

So Condi Rice and Ratko 'Radek' Sikorski toasted their missile defence deal with Georgian wine? I think they are missing a trick here. Recent events have shown the great capacity of NATO for defending its allies, members or soon-to-be. Makes sense for Russia to get its licks in now. What can Europe do to help? By now, Condi knows: Georgian wine is gorgeous. Su-perb, I can't put it strongly enough. The best I've had, including Hungarian. Especially the reds, lip-smacking, dreamy concoctions, legs up to here, and if it had eyes they would say take me seriously, and take me now. The whites were somewhat similar, but white. What? Never had any? Quelle shock. I've never seen a bottle of Georgian wine in London (or Bratislava, for that matter - or maybe one?) because the EU imposes import duties on it. Forget silly mutual defence pacts: as Kalman Mizsei, former UNDP Europe chief, said about Moldova, where he is the now the EC's man, it would make such a small difference to the European wine sellers, to have more access for Georgian wines, and it would bring plenty cash to Georgia.

Last year I met three Georgian ruling party MPs, who despite being in their twenties could say nothing about young people in Georgia. Perhaps the 'people' part was missing - like most of the population, they were in the Saakashvili's shadow. If Russia doesn't annex them and dispense with silly things like parliaments, these apparatchik cretins can carry on fighting with History as to who can screw Georgia most. Hard to be overshadowed by a fifty year old still living with his mother (or is that the brother?), so no such problems for Radek. A rising star, in the post-socialist free market radical mould, insulated by the deep resentment of Russia/communism. The role of the state? Out of the economy and into the bedroom (nobody said it was that consistent...). Getting the requisite CV testosterone as defence and foreign minister; next Polish president but one.

Crushed velvet

On 21 August forty years ago, loads of troops from Warsaw Pact countries moved in to Czechoslovakia for a few days, to crush any ideas of further democratising the regime t/here, which was already one of the more liberal socialist regimes. Of course, the Russians have been celebrating in Georgia, but here in the Little Big City, people are also remembering. There was a guard of honour greeting I. and I off the bridge this morning at Safarikovo Namestie (just what the traffic needs with the current roadworks); they swiftly got onto coaches, with their bumfluff and shiny toy rifles, too young to remember anything interesting about being a soldier in Europe.

The other remembrance activities involve the Mestska Policia (city cops) - all of whom were probably enthusiastic army chaps in their day - pushing gypsies off bikes, and what I can only hope is a T mobile promotion, in typically thoughtless Slovak style. Unless, of course, it is a take on the new value system in the ex-socialist countries, which I will mention whenif I put up pictures from the last visit to Danubiana...

In other news, some of my work:

Escaping Europe's biggest housing estate for similarly noteworthy lake

The great Balaton

Trabant convention!

Made of cardboard... cheap (once), fuel efficient, and if you crash, you die.

Trabis everywhere! (Iron cross noted...)

This man's writing is winding, like running home with shopping to avoid encountering a hoodie in the twilight; the physical effort mixing with the shame of cowardice and the knowledge that it was probably just someone else with their shopping nervously finding their way home.

When they finish on the Paprikahaz, they'll start with the abbey.

For whatever reason, a one-night holiday felt like a week away, in a good sense. The almost complete privatisation of the shore, and the slightly tacky feel of the resorts, makes it not an ideal destination, but the water is lovely, and apart from the Trabi rude boys, it was utterly relaxed. No organised Having Fun, at least where we went (the previous weekend on the south shore, last weekend on the north). Tihany is pretty, and has a sad cautionary tale: before the (pretty tasteful) building began in earnest, there was an echo that would repeat eleven syllables, and now there is not. Skoda.

the essential bridge

or why Back to Basics isn't always a winner



(a collaborative project of the grim groll bros.)
(or indeed, perhaps, a foreshadowing of what happens when CERN ends the world)
(joe, please: what you told me about recording the essential sound of the room?)

OMG CERN is fly

LHC turn-on delayed by infestation of rappers

guzzla

How eco is my jetpack, compared to a budget flight? Ryanair operates Boeing 737-800s, which uses 0.01387 gallons of fuel per passenger mile (here), presumably with a full plane (quite common in my experience). On looking, I am hoping for a significant and obvious difference to help my decision, as the comments in that last link show that working out fuel efficiency for aircraft is not such an exact science. (Also suggests that comment boards on every topic attract similar relationships, no love lost in aerospace!)

Rationale for asking: I fell of my bike and tombstoned my wrist (without managing to break anything), so have done virtually no exercise for two months, therefore won't be able to cycle to the Big Chill tomorrow. Alternatives needed.

My jetpack eats 10 gallons/hour (gph), although with a fuel capacity of five gallons, this suggests half an hour's flight time. Its range is 31.5 miles, at a maximum speed of 63 mph. Which is definitely another victory for the airline industry. So we will fly.

babies not really the point, nor all bad

Okay, I was reminded by this article to write about the youth policy work I was doing. The article is about Nashi, Putin’s youth organization which apparently includes around 7% of all Russians aged 17-25. There you have a highly nationalistic pro-natalism – babies for the fatherland – aimed at making Russia great again, all tied up with the pastime of making threats against neighbouring countries and harking back to a time before they were born.

At one point, Scaffolder said surely too many people in the world. Probably that’s true, and to be honest I’m rather neutral on the whole drive to increase the birth rate; but the situation relating to old-age-dependency ratios, pensions and the like is certainly pressing, and it motivates policy-makers, meaning among other things that it attracts money. Immigration and change in the social security system will have some effect, but it’s politically impossible to solve it through immigrant labour schemes (and probably immoral, if it meant bringing workers from Africa and Asia for a limited period, then send them back, denied pensions and justified with reference to unemployment at home…). Maybe it will lead to the great crisis of capitalism that shakes our system back to a pre-agricultural blissfest, but in lieu of that…

For me, the concern about demographic developments is an opportunity to change society for the better. Narrowly, with regard to youth policy, it is a chance to have a largely ignored and patronized section of society have more involvement in development of policies which affect them; it’s opportunistic, but that’s not an argument against it, and anyway only a minority of the agenda is about more money ‘for young people’.

More exciting in my view is that talking to young people about their reasons for fertility decisions recognizes that you can take a non-laissez faire approach to this area of policy; on the back of which: a) governments will do something, so it’s better that their policies are in line with other goals about gender equality, participation, individual choice and are aware of related areas (e.g. housing, reproductive health). Which is where U. N. technical advice comes in… b) perhaps luckily, there is more and more evidence that policies which increase fertility tend to be those which also support gender equality, and the wider restructuring of our priorities, particularly about the relationship between work and the rest of life, but also about the role of the market and state intervention. Which means there is a pretty strong case to make in contrast to more militant, wombs-and-soldiers pro-natalism.

Countries with higher female labour force participation and better parental and paternal leave entitlements and flexible working options tend to have higher birth rates. If the young Romanians you talk to tell you they don’t have kids because they can’t afford to live independently, then maybe you would consider a policy which mitigates the shameful effect of western European property speculation in poorer eastern countries, and that kind of thinking benefits everyone.

That’s a kind of best-case thinking or justification; at worst, this work has no effect (more likely the more rubbish the managers); somewhere in the middle it leads to more involvement of young people in both UN programming and government policy-making, related to gender equality, and sexual and reproductive health, and with any luck education and labour market issues also. It’s links like the latter that show the overlap with other areas of social concern away from ‘just fertility’ – given that fertility-related behaviour is complicated, but is significantly influenced by (actual and expected) job stability, employability (money for vocational training has also been in freefall in non-western Europe, despite all your Polish plumbers…), ability to do things you want to do before having children (mobility policy) et cetera. Market fundamentalists don’t have an answer to low fertility (that I have read – simply paying women to have babies doesn’t really work), so maybe this helps lessen their impact, important in this part of the world as it is further west, south and east. And I guess north, to Russia, if they want to listen.

Have to run, maybe more later. Open for questions ;)

The sunshine of home

Having soaked up all the glamour Petrzalka has to offer, Taylor and OJ said a quick farewell this morning, silver-lined in that I will now have a little more time to be here. Pix2follow, when my camera turns up. I guess you got home safe, chickens - doubtless aided by a glass of crisp, dry white wine and a scratchcard.

Top stuff, thanks for coming.

In other news, "Basra is not Surbiton."

Higher powers

I was going to write a little something about the pathetic bigot refusing to officiate over gay ceremonies in her role serving society, but Dave's post sums it up, so I thought a comment would suffice. Otherwise, sorry for my absence: I have been entertaining (or at least giving a bed to) Oli and Sarah, with predictable hilarious consequences.

red star - swastika - west-east train of thought

On Tuesday, the European Court of Human Rights issued its judgement in the case of Vajnai vs Hungary. This case concerned a man, Vajnai, vice-president of the Workers' Party, who was arrested at a demonstration for wearing a red five-pointed star, and convicted (though not punished further). That symbol is banned in Hungary (and several other former communist states) for its association with totalitarianism.

The ECHR found that Vajnai's freedom of expression had been violated, as the restriction was not "necessary in a democratic society". This means in effect that Hungary's law - and those of other countries - banning that symbol can't be enforced and should be revoked. (Though in theory a country demonstrating that it suffered even more under Soviet influence, or facing a live 'totalitarian communist' movement dedicated to seizing power, could get away with a ban.)

Several European states, including Germany, Austria and France, have similar bans on Nazi symbols; after Henry Mountbatten-Windsor wore a swastika armband at a posh-idiots-only colonials and natives themed party, Germany moved to have a ban on the swastika covering the whole EU. Several former-communist states insisted such a ban should cover the red star and the hammer and sickle as well. Needless to say, it didn't pass, partly due to major Hindu opposition.

This ruling is relevant, but I don't think it will affect the bans existing on the swastika. The court clearly accepted that the red star is more than just the symbol of the USSR /advocating totalitarian rule, which is obviously true; in the ruling it is described as "a symbol of the international workers' movement". The swastika, by contrast, is much narrower and less ambiguous, partly due to its restricted use in (European) history (please ignore Hinduism and Latvian traditional knitwear).

I don't think banning symbols is an appropriate way of dealing with the threats associated with them, and obviously shouldn't be done for fear of causing offence. But this does raise a question about the relative western perceptions of the Nazi and communist totalitarian regimes, which I think has left Europe a bit deformed. Speaking for myself, but I think reflecting the tone used in western education/media/normal leftist view, the obviously important points about childcare and poverty obscure the suffering caused by the communists.

Even attached to their respective regimes, the swastika is far more offensive than the red star, right? Hitler-holocaust-dead Jews (and gypsies etc), incarnation of evil... Well, yes and no - it's hard to top the industrial slaughter of an entire race of people for 'badness'. But people suffered massively under communism: famine, large scale routine torture and execution of largely meaningless victims ('40s-'60s, smaller scale thereafter), and the moral-mental pain of the identification of society with the party and the destruction of trust and intellectual life and the scary arbitrariness of it.

Having a hot war with one lot and a cold war with the others makes a difference, and the German regime didn't survive long enough to become part of the furniture and get its belly lodged confortably under the table of international relations. But it's the war that was fought, rather than the holocaust, which means Nazi Germany keeps such a legendary status in english-speaking discourse - the intense dislike, coming from war propaganda largely unconcerned with the holocaust, has been kept up over decades, its basis morphing from existential threat in war to moral shock at genocide. In the UK at least, that kind of anger was never sustained (or developed?) regarding communism, and that over Nazism is a bit false.

Anyway, many leftist groups in the west (democratic and not) failed to judge the socialist regimes by any critical standard. The UK Labour government in the seventies even gave an honourary kinghthood to Nicolai Ceasescu! So when those regimes collapsed, the ambiguous sentiments of the centre-left meant the post-communist folk found the open arms of the market fundmentalist parties and politicians.

And this has its effects. One little one is the contribution to the further meaninglessness of political parties and their naming in Europe: no mainstream party in an ex-socialist country was going to join the Party of European Socialists in the European Parliament, so instead of renaming the EP group to the European Social Democrats or something equally bland (as it is called in German), parties fitting with PES (especially a PES which includes all these highly capitalist socialist parties from western Europe) are instead members of the European People's Party with the Tories. But there are exceptions, and Serbia's Democratic Party is aligned with PES. (Not that any of this really matters, or detracts from the damage which political parties to to democracy.) The PES is left with the renamed ruling communist parties. Which might from where UK Labour is getting its liberty-squishing zeal and intellectual nullness.

PS: Interesting to see that the ECHR ruling was unanimous, even with judges from Georgia, Hungary and Lithuania among the panel. (And Turkey, a country also quite into banning symbols.) But this reflects the fact that judges in the ECHR tend to be legal professionals in service of the convention, in contrast to their nationalist lackey equivalents at the International Court of Justice.

PPS: Aside on legal procedure: the Hungarian courts initially referred the case to the European Court of Justice, the highest EU court, for a judgement on whether the principle of non-discrimination prevents one member state from banning a symbol which would not be banned in another state. (The ECHR is a court of the Council of Europe, not the EU.) This looks like a rather strange move - as would be expected, the ECJ found this was totally not in their field of competence; but if it had been able to rule on it, the court would have almost certainly found that such measures do not contravene the principle of non-discrimination. This would maybe have strengthened the hand of the Hungarian government when the case came, inevitably, to the ECHR.

nothing much to report

I have just discovered that people post advert breaks on youtube. This isn't even narcissistic. It's just plain odd! Not a lot completely defies understanding or explanation. Can anyone help? (Thankfully, the colleague who just now tapped on my window to enquire about my shocked face is well disposed to me.)
~
At its height, the largest employer in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy was a classy ceramics factory in Pécs, which I think is rather nice. Although a lot of the stuff is quite ugly and kitch, Zsolnay's techniques were new to pottery. Including getting painted-style pictures onto high temperature fired pieces:~
Things we missed as children/How to make kids' TV stomachable to adults:

"Any more calls, Janine?"
"...ghost terrorists in the UN - they're protesting the Monroe doctrine - and some guy named Samsa called to say he's been posessed by a giant cockroach."

Those were the days, I am tempted to say, but I haven't watched children's telly for a long time, so it wouldn't be fair.

more sharp things

I listened to the first episode of the new sharp things series, and give it thumbs up. The Ways of the Country had a lovely twist; Egging On was chirpy, but I missed something. Anyway, have a listen.

fury i

Fuck governments. Or maybe Fuck dishonest, lazy responses to things your opponents say. (Or Fuck the axiom better Labour than the Tories...) It's admittedly easy to say whatever you like in opposition, but then this case is different, since Labour aren't so in power in town halls. In short, the Tory communities-and-local-government bloke has told Tory councils to 'not cooperate' with the government (in the words of the Grauniad). To read the article, it seems that the message is more not to let the central government present local governments with faits accompli that are strenuously against local wishes.

Overall, I'm in favour of local government, I like local responsibility as a principle, and I don't think the 'legitimacy' of central govt is greater than that of local. At the same time, I value the ability of the central level to prevail in some policy areas - what local council will risk pushing for a wind farm etc on its territory? Or for some consistency in healthcare in a country with a so far still national health (less convincing, perhaps!). Or immigration. Point being, there is a legitimate question to be asked about relative powers of different levels of government. Preferably not addressed in a spirit of strong-crushes-weak.

My despair: the issue comes into the open, and the government's response is

The statements amount to political posturing and political hubris. It will be up to the electorate to decide in two years' time who is running the country. I hope the majority of Conservative councils will have the sense to ignore this and continue co-operating with the government to benefit their local community.

which says nothing, completely ignores that there is an issue to discuss, and is arrogant. Make a principled argument for why the central government should have power in the areas of conflict raised by cantankerous local authorities... but not a principled peep out of the government, except the drivel over 42 days. (Mind you, even Liberty missed the ball on that... And someone tell David Davis that you cannot care for the individual's freedom from state power while supporting edath penalties.)

Not that the Tories have been any better (look at London local govt in the eighties...), and they will doubtless do their own version of the worst when in government. So it's not Labour or the Tories that is the problem, but the absence of principled discussion, driven by the attitudes of those who own and operate the media (on market principles). Which makes this as irrelevant as a calendar under the ocean.

modern world etc

Quote of the day: "Now, click on advanced settings. Which is a bit of a misnomer..."

A great advantage of flexible working arrangements is that I can take advantage of half-price Monday admission to galleries and the like. I proposed on Saturday night to dear Michel, a student, that we visit the KunstHausWien – ViennaArtHouse – yesterday, and we would have, but he had to do respond to something in the peer review process as he is a big shot of some sort in biochemical futurism. So I went alone, a quick pop over the border,* from the centre of Bratislava to the centre of Vienna in less time than it takes to navigate London Bridge station get from Lewisham to Islington. This is a total aside, but it’s such a nice feeling to be able to nip there and back and not feel required to spend eight hours in museums to make it worthwhile (the train is about seven quid, though).

The upshot being that I am on the lookout for a good biography of Friedensreich Hundertwasser – fine artist, architect (social housing, waste incineration, public toilets, kids’ care home), theorist on semi-utopian ways of living in accordance with ‘nature’ – who changed his name to ‘Peace-empire Rainy-day Multicoloured’, lectured naked and visited godknowshowmany countries. They didn’t even have one in German at the shop. Amazon doesn't look promising : (

His visionary bit – a lot of oppositional stuff about nature and humans, particularly urban life, and the ‘illegal occupation’ of nature by people – attracted my skeptical side at first, but I came away not thinking he was saying anything unachievable or undesirable, and certainly not crazy. Just stuff that would need some fundamental shift in the western psyche, and a bit more localism and pride in community than is fashionable, at least in metropoles. And the media be damned (ECO LOONIE GETS HANDS ON HOSPITAL). Wouldn’t need an increase in what is already spent on public works… just a bit of reeducation for architects and builders, and a social
willingness to live in a place that looks like The Shire.

Lots of his paintings were pretty cool, too, occasionally with names to die for (Two envelopes on a long voyage, People (compliment to trees)). And flags, and stamps, and all sorts. Quite a revolutionary revolutionary (to my eyes), in that he was often into tradition and parochialism, albeit on a world scale. Involved in 'policy issues' and such like, and extrovert in spreading his message, but maybe because he is an artist, no proper biography. He's been dead eight years now. (Opportunity to make some money?...) I mean, the Taschen book of this and that, lots of lovely pictures, is well and good, but it won't do what Roland Huntford did for Fridtjof Nansen, or what Roland Bainton did for Martin Luther.

* I love Schengen. I asked the machine at the "UK Border" in Brussels whether he has any inside info on when the UK would join. He told me such an idea was a 'waste of time', and called forward the next traveller in line, to feign a glance at their photo page and send them on their way.

bisect the sects

Update: I initially refrained from mentioning the other vile belief of these people, that women are less human than men, on the grounds that quite a number of Anglican dioceses across the world have female priests and deacons, and some have bishops, and I didn't want to be any more open to charges of generalisation than I already am. However, reading further about the defecting (defective?) group, they are also ambivalent-opposed to ordaining women. Oh, and I liked that in response to Williams' comment about their legitimacy, being self-selected, they responded that they are selected by god. hee hee. But scary, so not funny.
~
After many years of talking about it, the scriptural purists/anointed bigots in the Anglican church have finally done it, and struck out on a righteous path toward spiritual rebirth and the (multiple) repression of gayness. They won't formally call it a schism, for the most practical and material of reasons (division of the churches etc), but they will no longer accept the authority of that most confused of loving, little-bit-liberal archbishops Rowan Williams.

The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (or Nambla) is sick of the anti-Christian tendencies of their ex-fellows in USA and Canada (and England). These heretics have too long been allowing that gay people are capable of forgiving God his slanders and staying part of the CofE club despite the option of leaving to join a nice non-judgemental corps like the Quakers. As the Telegraph commentator points to, it might be easier for the less indecent-minded Anglicans if these pure souls simply left, instead of hanging around to make (even more!) protracted trouble for the leaders. But faced with a highly fertile Islamic enemy, splits in the Church may be seen as weakness... what to do?

Of course, my two pennies-worth are not usually taken on board by archbishops (or any bishops), but I suggest these folk make union with the Roman Catholic church. They can surely leave aside their childish standoff about whether the wine becomes blood and whether Mary is a deserving object of superstition - return to the original, Henry VIII Anglicanism - and enjoy enthusiastically accepting the need to do away with intrinsic moral evils. (Except when these occur within the church, in which case the acceptance should be a little more low key.)

Some sort of prisoner swap could perhaps be negotiated, in which the Catholics who don't agree with the pope could be taken under Rowan's grizzled wing, and the Anglicans yearning for authoritarianism and sexual obsession could come under the sway of Rome. Archbishes Akinola and the Ugandan one could reach an accommodation on division of leadership roles, which given the impressive record of the Anglicans in Uganda might mean the RCC was less likely to say nothing when moral evils do in fact occur. But only some.

bits of tree left everywhere

In this dayageculture, simply being human is not enough to acknowledge one another, but some things, like extreme weather, make strangerswilling to converse.


Not me though, I was in my room, taking photos.

Latest of several, with another coming tonight. Being driven through the first of these at 80 kph on misty, branch-covered 1.5 spaced roads was remarkably soothing