The Atheist, the Agnostic, and the Archbishop

Yesterday I saw a very special event held in the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford.  It was the sort of occasion I came to Oxford to all those years ago.  A discussion about the evolution of life on earth between Richard Dawkins, famous atheist and evolutionary theorist, Anthony Kenny, Philosopher and ex-Head of Balliol and Rhodes House, and Rowan Williams, the current Archbishop of Canterbury.

I never really liked Richard Dawkins, he is a bit too reductionist for my taste and also too arrogant – he could give David Starkey a run for his money!  However, he was quite civil during yesterday’s discussion.  What struck me most about him was that he seemed a bit slow on the up-take.  For example, when a questioner asked an admittedly confused question about the imperfections of the universe (children dieing early in life and such like) he only made the obvious point when he spoke for the second time (having had five minutes or so to think about it), namely that it is the whole point of Natural Selection to weed out the unfit!  I kept thinking, why don’t you make the point, come on, do yourself justice!  On other occasions, too, I wondered why he gave such a poor account of himself.  Considering his reputation it was a poor show.

The Archbishop did what one has come to expect of him.  Very civilised, very learned, very subtle, so much so that most of his congregation probably missed his points.  Personally I feel he could have stated more clearly the basics of Christianity.  For example, when Dawkins said that he did not see why Believers insisted on cluttering up the elegant and simple theory of evolution Darwin had developed by bringing God into the picture, surely the obvious riposte by a Believer would have been, God is in the picture not because he is needed to make a theory work but because he exists!

Don’t get me wrong, I believe in the theory of evolution and don’t think God created humankind.  But belief in God is different from belief in a theory.  I believe in evolution and natural selection because it explains the facts as I understand them, but I believe in God because I have encountered him.  I believe that he is a real being out there, just like my friends and relatives are out there.  I don’t have a theory that other people exist, I know they do.  Of course it can be argued that I can’t really know that others exists, I may just be a brain in a bowl of nutrients having my cells stimulated by scientists of an evil race of non-humans or whatever, but this is true for anything and everything I think I know.  I am not saying that Dawkins should also believe in God, I am saying that he should understand that people don’t ‘introduce God into a theory’ – they think they know he exists, and therefore assume that he must be part of the theory.  Dawkins gives the impression that he is so sold on his own theory that he can’t comprehend alternative theories – the hallmark of a fanatic, in my opinion.

I think Anthony Kenny gave the best account of himself.  He did what I was taught all those years ago by the most honourable and decent men I ever encountered, the Philosophers of Portland State University – he did real Philosophy.  Time and again he cut through the wooliness of Dawkins and pierced the clouds of learned obscurity that emanated from the Archbishop and got straight to the point.  It was a pleasure and a joy to see him in action, a rare treat even in Oxford today.  I fairly swooned.

If anyone wants to watch the event, it is freely available, just use the link below.  You may need to copy and paste it, somehow Blogger doesn't like it when I try to paste links - still have much to learn!

http://fsmevents.com/sophiaeuropa

How not to learn French - Lesson 6 – Listening to French Songs

I have not written recently about not learning French, and since I have actually come across one or two useful methods for learning languages I must get the negatives out of the way pronto!  Expect a few more posts on this subject soon.

French songs.  Only yesterday a friend who heard about my fruitless attempts to pick up the lingo suggested listening to French songs.  It is a common suggestion, like watching French movies and reading French children’s books, and excellent in its way.

Unfortunately it only results in success if actual work is involved!  I am not into work.  I have to do it all day long in the office, and then there is laundry and cleaning and taking out the rubbish and frankly that’s enough for me.  I want to learn French without lifting a finger!  It’s nice to have a dream.

Early on in my French learning attempts I actually bought a number of CDs with French songs.  Charles Trenet, Edith Piaf, and of course Jacque Brel.  Most of the songs are, of course, about love and heartache.  As a result I spent most of the time crying into my hanky and bedewing the dictionary, which is not conducive to the learning experience.  As for singing these songs myself, why it was impossible!  Every time I tried to sing about little birds in their nests (J’attendre toujour et la nuit j’attendre toujour ton retour, etc) I dripped hot and cold.  Take it from me, singing and crying don’t mix.  I abandoned those CDs pronto.

Then I came across a songster whose songs did not make me cry – Thomas Fersen!  Every morning before I get up I listen to Radio France Inter for a half hour in the vain hope of absorbing some language skills into my drowsy sub-conscious, and for a while they featured a song which I could not understand but which had a wonderful melody – Felix.  All I could make out was the refrain, which went J’ai jouis jai jouis j’ai jouis, so that’s what googled for.  It was a bad experience, because I mainly hit porn websites.  J’ai jouis means I enjoy.

Anyway, after two days of patient searching I found a You Tube clip with the song and became an ardent fan of Thomas Fersen.  Great melodies, and intelligent texts.  Almost impossible to understand, unfortunately.  And since he is hardly known outside of the French speaking world, hardly any texts are translated.  I did my best, but full comprehension continues to elude me. 

Consider, for example, Le Chat Botte, one of my favourites.  First I thought it was about someone working in a pub, but slowly I cottoned on to the fact that it was in fact a song about someone working in a shoe shop.  It is about women coming into the shop with smelly feet and thinking their feet are smaller than they really are.  And they all want crocodile pumps – I think so, anyway.

As usual in my French learning attempts I went with the certainty of a sleep walker for the toughest lyrics possible.  I googled Thomas Fersen, and apparently he is known for his intelligent elegant verses.  I should have gone for lullabies!

I think he sounds great, even to non-French speakers.  I did try to copy and paste the lyrics from Le Chat Botte, but did not succeed, ditto for links to his songs.  You'll have to google them if you are interested.

Eh, did I mention that I did not learn much French by listening to him?  I did find out that Felix is about a French President who died in office and in-elegant circumstances.  It is kind of difficult to stay innocent when learning French!

Confessions of a Glider Groupie – my Glider Collection

Part 2 – Plastik by Roland Paris

My second most favourite glider is also stationary.  I prefer my gliders airborne, but when I saw this glider plastik by Roland Paris I was unable to resist.  Strictly speaking I did not buy it for myself but for MDL, but since I have encountered transportation problems and he doesn’t really have the space to properly display this beauty it is staying in my house for the time being.

There are any number of mounted glider models advertised on the internet.  Most of them are made in the Philippines and worthy enough, but they are hardly works of art.  My little plastik is!  It was designed by a genuine artist, one Roland Paris who came from Vienna but worked mainly in Berlin.  He is famous for his metal statues of birds, women, and such like, though he turned his hands to all sorts of other media as well, including painting.  He perished towards the end of WWII, apparently.

The glider plastik came with a newspaper article which explained that it was cast by the firm Paul Kraas, an old Berlin family owned business that specialised in quality castings.  It had been commissioned by Herman Goering as a Wanderpreis (a trophee which is kept by the winner for one year and then passed on to whoever is best the following year) for best performance by a glider pilot in the NSFK (National Sozialistisches Flieger Korps) Mitte (Germany was divided into three areas for purposes of glider flying, the statue was for the middle group).  The newspaper article said that the Gruppe Weimar was the first one to win the trophee, and it was bestowed by Goering himself.  The article is not dated, but I think it comes from the late 1930s.  I have no idea whether any other casts were made of this plastik.  The dealer thought not, and extensive googling did not yield any more information.

The article also said that the plastik was supposed to symbolise a glider which soars above the clouds, high above the earth which is indicated by the round bit at the bottom.  Well, my impression of the plastik was different from the start.  As far as I know, every cloud has three loops – not two, as in the plastik.  To me those are not so much clouds as two hearts, somewhat broken to be sure but hearts all the same.  You notice how the two hearts support and embrace each other?  Despite being broken and incomplete, they retain the strength to support a large glider, the symbol of a soaring spirit and hopeful endeavour against ridiculous odds. 

Gliders, like so many of the flying machines depicted in my favourite scarf, are quite different in their approach to flying than motorised airplanes.  While an airplane relies on fossil fuels to forge ahead, sometimes going full steam against the forces of nature arraigned against it, a glider works with those same forces and makes use of them.  An airplane seeks to dominate, a glider seeks to cooperate.  The skills necessary to pilot a glider are much more subtle, and require much greater awareness of the conditions it encounters, than those required to fly an airplane.  Flying gliders is all about guiding and understanding and going with the flow, following the principles of WuWei.

That’s why I am so fond of my plastik and why I have chosen to feature it as my Valentine’s Day post.  For surely the qualities needed to successfully fly a glider are very similar to those needed to have a happy long-lasting loving relationship.  So I don’t believe my interpretation of the plastik which I call Two Broken Hearts and a Glider is so very fanciful after all!

Happy St Valentine's Day!

Mouser Musings

It is still cold out there, the ground and pond remain frozen solid and the birds are having a hard time of it.  I woke up early, drew the curtains, and saw a blackbird sitting on a branch just outside the window, looking hungry and plaintive, so I put on my woolly robe and went outside to remedy the situation.  I have been having some plumbing problems, and the bird bath cracked.  OK, so maybe I should not have unfrozen it by pouring boiling water from the kettle into it, but it worked for years so why this sudden cracking up?  Now the birds have to make do with a plant pot saucer until I can think of something else.

I filled several saucers, replenished the bird feeders, sprinkled dried maggots into snow-free areas of the garden, and put a few extra seeds down in several secluded spots for the more shy members of the feathered tribe.  In doing so I came across the tracks left by a neighbourhood cat, probably Molly who is a mighty hunter who knows neither rest nor compassion with the tiny denizens of my garden.

This put me in mind of my beloved Mouser again.  Bless him and stress him, he never hunted anything except in a half-hearted sort of manner when I was watching, no doubt to show that he was trying to earn his keep.  As he grew older he realised that he was loved for himself and that all that was required of him was that he behaved affectionately and looked cute, so he gave up on hunting completely.  He had a tough life as a stray before we started to keep company, and to him hunting was hard work best avoided.  He preferred his food well cooked and in a little dish, thank you very much!  Playing with food was contrary to his very serious nature.  He was, as mentioned before, a very grown up cat.  He never played, not even with walnuts.

Some time after he died I had a very nice dream.  I dreamed that I had died and knocked on the door of Heaven, which was surrounded by high walls.  St Peter opened the door, took one look at me and said, “We don’t want your sort in here, go away!”  Deeply hurt I sat down on the steps and cried bitterly.  Suddenly I saw a cat beckoning me!  He had emerged from a cat-flap in the wall of Heaven, some distance away, and was motioning me to follow him through this alternative entrance to Paradise.  So I squeezed through the cat-flap, and that’s how I got into Heaven after all.

It just shows what I always say:  If you want to get into Heaven you got to have loved.  For Heaven is all about love, and if you can’t even handle the imperfect fragile limited love available on earth how are you going to cope with the full onslaught of the unbounded passion of God’s love after you are dead?  You will shrivel up and burn to a little crisp, like Semele when she saw Zeus in his full glory!  Loving on earth is not only important for its own sake, but also as a preparation for life after death.  Not many people know that!

My Grimly Glamorous Life – Oxford in Winter

This morning I awoke yet again to a Winter Wonderland!  It is getting quite preposterous really, we had snow only last week.  I have lived in these parts for over two decades, and usually the best we can hope for is a little coating of white frost.  But the last few years we have been simply inundated with the white stuff, up to a foot for three years running!  Insupportable.

On the way to work I saw many miraculous sights.  Men with big red shovels clearing the snow off the sidewalks.  Grit on roads, large tracts of sidewalk wet rather than icy – a sure sign of salt having been applied, given the still sub-zero temperatures.  What has gotten into these people?  In the past when we had a foot or more of snow most people took one look at the white desolation outside and went back to bed, or at least stayed firmly inside.  Snow on roads and sidewalks was left to compact for three weeks until it became impossible to shift and extremely treacherous.  No one gritted or put out salt.  The roads were empty of people.  And that is saying something in the usually tourist infested Oxford!  Here and there I came across a few hardy individuals who had ventured out to do some shopping, or clear away the snow from their cars by shovelling it onto some other vehicle, cheerfully recalling the good old days and trying to channel the Dunkirk spirit.  But they were in the minority.

And now today this totally over the top attack on the two inches of white stuff!  How am I supposed to interpret this?  Either the city has finally got its act together and planned for snow – a strange departure from their usual frugal approach of laissez faire non-interference, or everyone has decided that they can handle two inches and got stuck in.  I suppose if a crisis is really huge everyone just throws up their hands and goes to the pub instead.  But if a crisis is small and cute it can be fun to get involved and sort it out.  Kind of like weeding in my garden – half an hour of light effort and the job is done, so I do it without demur.

However that may be, my hiking boots were not really necessary and on the way back most of the snow had disappeared.  Oh well, if the weather wizards are to be believed more snow could be on the way.

Poor snowman, he only lasted a few hours.  The Authorities deemed him undesirable and had him demolished.  Spoilsports!

My Grimly Glamorous Life – Paris in Winter

I had another weekend visit to Paris, and was determined to take photos this time!  The results are a little misleading, since Paris looked more like St Petersburg than itself, especially the bridge shots.  So here is another, taken just off the embankment, which looks more properly Parisian.

Paris was cold cold cold, more so than London, but there was no snow.  Most of the little book seller stalls that line the embankments of the Seine were closed, and for the first time ever in my experience there were more natives than tourists (all wearing black, of course!).  Except in front of Notre Dame, which, judging by the shreds of conversation I overheard, was firmly in the hands of Spanish visitors.

As usual I had all sorts of plans, but abandoned them when faced with -9C temperatures.  Instead I did a bit of Non-Shopping – it is still the Soldes (twice annual sales) Season, and numerous over-confident tourist baiters cracked their teeth on my granite-hearted stinginess.  I was so not in the market for a ten foot long plaster crocodile, and anyone trying to flog me a substandard scarf would have to either live in la Bourboule (where my usual protective mechanisms are non-operative) or catch me half-drunk (not likely at the best of times, never mind during a Great Freeze).

Incidentally, I am quite an expert at Non-Shopping.  It consists of going into a shop – the bigger the better – and demanding to buy the one item they should have but don’t.  Try watermelon-rind-pickle at Harrods; I had five flustered employees surround me in the Food Halls there once, all trying to explain why they did not stock this delicacy (one actually admitted not to know what it was!).  Asking for Elderberry-Port is another dead-cert, I had a long argument about it recently with a manager of a huge London wine shop who claimed it did not exist until I produced a label.  There is also Nefarious Non-Shopping, sometimes referred to as Aggravated Non-Shopping, which consists of asking to buy things which do not actually exist, although they jolly well should, but I try to restrain myself during the Soldes Season since the shop assistants have enough other problems.

Having thus filled the time I had intended to crowd with culturally praise-worthy exploits with exasperating numerous Parisian shop assistants, I went to my favourite Café and had lunch (and very good it was, too).  Then S arrived, who I often meet in Paris for intellectually (and linguistically) challenging conversations.  S is one of those utterly charming French women who claim that my French is not as horrifically awful as I very well know it to be, and proves her point by listening to it for hours.  I try to make up for it by spending the other half of our time together speaking English, not that she needs the practice, but the fact remains that I am deeply in her debt.

The point of this post, however, is not really about my time in Paris.  It is, in fact, about my trip back.

Normally going to and from Paris is a doddle.  True, getting up at 4am to catch the bus to London is not for the weak of character, but aside from that it is really just an extended commute, and since I commuted from Oxford to London every day for eleven years it is not a big deal.  Getting back is again no problem – if everything goes well!

Getting back from Paris this time everything did not go well.  The Eurostar journey from Paris to London went as scheduled and we arrived on time.  But a quick glance out of the window when we emerged from the Tunnel boded ill for the remainder of the trip.  White as far as the eye could see!  Not really all that much snow, just 10 to 20cm, but as usual no one was prepared and the roads were neither gritted nor salted nor cleared.  The Underground worked well, and I walked through the snow and to the bus stop without too much trouble.  But I had to wait almost an hour for the Oxford bus, standing in sludge in the falling snow.  By the time the bus arrived there was a long queue of shivering disgruntled passengers.  It got worse.

Our hopes for a quick trip back to Oxford and a warm bed were cruelly dashed by more snow, inexperienced drivers (if not to say retarded petrolheads), and a hands-off attitude by the civic authorities.  I have never seen such chaos on the road!  A heavy layer of snow was compacted into frozen grooves, and a three-line motorway became transformed into sometimes one-lane, sometimes four-lane, or anything in between-lane, demolition derby style highway to frost-bitten misery.

Cars broken down or abandoned in the slow lane, in the middle lane, in the fast lane.  Our intrepid bus driver dodged them one by one, weaving between them expertly and to occasional applause from us passengers (when we weren’t holding our breath).  But eventually the broken-down cars became too numerous, and finally a jack-knifed lorry did for us and we came to a complete stop.  We weren’t the only ones!

Right on cue radio communication had broken down, so no actual information came our way, but rumours and innuendo abounded.  Drivers were walking between their steaming cars exchanging unreliable news, policemen discussed the situation with the AA rescue team who also got stranded, and a lone snow-plow who had at first been loudly hailed as the saviour who would get us all out of the situation until he, too, got stuck, told us about the jack-knifed lorry.  I was lucky in having two seats to myself and sitting right up front, so I was able to hear a lot of the gossip being disseminated.  Whenever that paled I tried to sleep, though not too successfully it must be said.  After a few hours we were pretty hungry, and pooled our resources, and all my Carambars were eaten by fellow passengers.  And still the snow fell.

Half the time I felt terribly victimised and sorry for myself, the other half I thought it was all pretty cool and exciting and character-building and would make a great story to tell my grandchildren.  I was very tired by then, and had forgotten that I lacked all traces of grandchildren.  I wondered whether the fuel would run out and plunge us into freezing darkness before the road could get cleared, but in the end Fate pulled itself together and some strong people of the male persuasion pushed the jack-knifed lorry into the bushes and we managed to squeeze through the cleared bit of motorway this created and were on our way once more.

Back in Oxford the bus-driver got a standing ovation, certainly the most deserved one I ever witnessed!  It had been an epic journey and I would not have missed it for the world.  Come to think of it, that sentiment could be applied to my whole life!