How not to see an art exhibition – DB does London, yet again!

The Woman in Red

Yesterday I was in London again.  The plan had been to see the Ice Age Art exhibition at the British Museum, with my good friend S.  I had plenty of time before and after meeting her, and managed to do all my favourite things in London in addition to seeing the exhibition.

First off, I indulged in an opulent breakfast at Pain Quotidian opposite Selfridges.  Next door used to be a little Italian restaurant called The Lucky Spot which I adored, but they closed a few years ago and now there is some other restaurant there which I have not tried yet.  Anyway, PQ has my favourite breakfast, scrambled eggs with mushrooms and toasted bread (very nice bread!) and café latte (served in a huge bowl, which I dislike – you need both hands to lift it to your mouth, how am I supposed to do that while holding my newspaper steady?).  But aside from that it is good coffee.  The restaurant is quite large, so even when I am late I can find a nice table.  The décor is very pleasant, and I am particularly attracted by the large wall-hanging, a sort of tapestry made up of many coloured squares.  One day when no one else is around I shall photograph it.  The music in the background is cheerful and unobtrusive, and there are several large windows.  The toilets are clean, and the toilet paper is soft and absorbent.  Next door is a newspaper vendor, where I can buy an International Harold Tribune, so I have found the perfect location for a successful breakfast experience.

 Hermes Ecuries

Having lingered over my breakfast, and chased my scrambled eggs with a Danish pastry (an unusual extravagance, usually I go for either the cooked breakfast or the pastry), I meandered over to Selfridges for a quick look at the Hermes scarf counter.  I should have known better, there is no such thing as ‘Just having a look’.  Before I knew it I was demonstrating all my favourite ways of wearing a scarf to an admiring audience of two sales assistants and several other customers, and ended up selling several scarves to the latter, to much acclaim by the former.  It would have been churlish not to buy one myself ….  I escaped lightly, with a small orange scarf depicting horses in their boxes, Ecuries.  I don’t yet have an orange scarf in that size, so don’t blame myself too much.  If I had bought the tomato-red scarf I used to demonstrate my scarf tying techniques I would have kicked myself all the way to the British Museum, because I already have a very nice collection of red scarves and one must draw the line somewhere.  But it was a close call, I have such a weakness for red!

This is amply illustrated by some of the photos on this post!  A year ago I bought an amazing red swing coat, with black buttons.  It is by Jaeger, excellent quality, but sadly about three sizes too big for me, and all the sales ladies in the charity shop tried to talk me out of buying it since it makes me look twice my size.  I bought it anyway, it was cheap and I love red, and it is always good to have something to grow into, as my mother used to say when I was a small child.  The coat goes well with my purple hat, and also with the red one I am wearing in these photos.  The red hat clings to my head more than the purple one, and it was a cold and windy day.  Also the red one can be folded and put into my handbag, which is handy when one visits a museum.

It really was an unconscionably cold day, and I was cold despite my cardigan and coat and hat and three scarves.  S was already waiting under the Great Cuppola near the Egyptian Rooms and raring to see the exhibition on Ice Age Art, but was cruelly disappointed – the exhibition was sold out!!!!  Apparently one had to reserve a place on the internet.  We slithered off to the museum coffee shop, to have some coffee and decide what other part of the museum we should patronise.  Knowing me you will already know how this story will end ….  We chatted over coffee for three and a half hours and got kicked out of the museum because it was closing time and didn’t see a single thing!  We shall see the exhibition some other time.  Hopefully K and R will also have time to come and we can make it a foursome.

Having released S to rejoin her family I went back to my club to warm up a bit.  I took the occasion to take some photos of me in my amazing red coat & hat, and spend a few happy hours reading the papers and drinking more coffee.  Then I walked to Marble Arch, and took the coach back to Oxford.  On route to Marble Arch I discovered another piece of roadside art and photographed it for your delectation – it is rather different, isn’t it?

Love at First Kiss – 200 trillion Bacteria can’t be wrong!

DB’s Bacterial Theory of Romantic Attraction

I am doing this post early, because Lent actually starts before St Valentine’s Day this year, so go out there and party, before it is too late!

In case you wonder about the illustrations, I find it difficult to envisage even a single Bacterium, never mind a myriad of bacteria all interacting with each other while hanging out at DB Central.  Therefore I was quite pleased when I looked at my St Valentine’s Day scarf (‘Donner la Main’) and realised that all the little people depicted on it holding hands are a perfect illustration of what goes on in my body (and probably yours, too) when in the grip of romantic passion.

A few years ago scientists began to look more closely at the bacteria that co-habit in our bodies.  Most of the cells in our bodies are not our own, they are bacterial.  We each have around 100 trillion bacteria in our bodies, weighing around 2kg (half of them live in our guts).  A (human) body is a highly complex conglomerate of cells, bacteria, fungi and viruses, and every person has a different mix.  Because our bodies are made of only one trillion human cells, we are outnumbered by the aliens, and most of the genes in our bodies are from bacteria.

Most bacteria are benign, sharing our food but doing no harm – on the contrary, many protect us from dangerous infections by interacting with our immune systems.  Research into the human genome provided some bits of intriguing information - microbes in the gut can affect the body's responses to disease by influencing things such as the pH levels in the gut and the immune response.  More recent research suggests that some bacteria are able to influence brain development of mammals, and the mood and behaviours of adults (see link below for details, if you are interested). 
 

So what does all this have to do with Romantic Love?  Imagine the following scenario.  Person meets Other (I am trying to be all inclusive and politically correct here!), does the courtship spiel, and finally manages to kiss Other.  Now there are three possible outcomes: 

(a) Person & Other both think ‘Yeech!’ almost immediately and jump apart, resolving never to kiss again.  End of romance.

(b) Person & Other kiss for a few seconds, think ‘OK’ or ‘I could get used to this’ or some such mildly positive thought, and ceteris paribus (all other things being equal) they may meet again and occasionally even kiss.

(c) Person & Other never stop kissing until they get surgically separated or someone bumps into them or steals their wallet or needs to sit on their bench and pushes them off.  In this latter case they just move on to another bench.  This is Romantic Love, and it’s all down to bacteria.

 

Because consider what actualy happens when you kiss someone.  Basically kissing forces two sets of bacteria into the closest possible physical proximity.  Kissing isn’t the only activity which does this, but kissing usually comes first.  Also, it tends to be less frenzied than other such activities, and therefore everyone concerned has more leasure to pay attention to fine details and niceties (smell, taste, texture, pH balance, chemical compounds, salival viscosity, etc etc).  Going back to our three examples,

In (a)  200 trillion bacteria (Person’s and Other’s) recoil in horror at the disgusting microbes that inhabit the other’s mouth.

In (b)  200 trillion bacteria feel kind of neutral, or some like the other’s microbes and others don’t, but basically bacterially speaking the other’s microorganisms aren’t a deal breaker.

In (c)  200 trillion bacteria are completely and utterly smitten and overwhelmed by desire.  Imagine 200 trillion bacteria all holding hands and refusing to let go!  Every single one of them has been waiting for this moment all their little lives, and finally it has arrived and they will not be gainsaid.  If you want to separate Person & Other you are going to have to separate those 200 trillion bacteria as well, and by God they hold on tightly!

If you experienced (c) with an Other who shares your interests, has a similar disposition, is pleasant to live with, and generally speaking a decent honorable human being, you are lucky beyond belief, because you have found someone who suits both yourself and the teeming trillions that share your space.  You managed to find your perfect match, the sort which all fairytales go on about, and will live happily ever after (ceteris paribus, obviously).

 

Unfortunately this is often not the case, which leads me on to the Tragedy of Romantic Love.  Because sadly for the 200 trillion bacteria, their desires and those of their human hosts don’t always coincide.  Just because two people are totally bacterially compatable doesn’t mean that they will get on in every other way.  Only too often our two lovebirds will fight, argue, and finally break up, with scant regard for the 200 trillion bacteria whose little hearts (I know they don’t really have hearts, but you know what I mean) are irrevocably broken.  While the two humans involved go their separate ways, enjoying their new found freedom, 200 trillion bacteria mourn and grieve and suffer.

Unfortunately for the humans, they rarely do this quietly.  Bacteria have innumerable imaginative ways of causing their human hosts pain and anguish, and if you cheat them of their life’s happiness they will make it their business to make you feel miserable.  A happy contented bacterium is the nicest creature imaginable, and will do everything in its power to ensure you have a happy healthy joyful and long life.  But if it’s pissed off (excuse the profanity but it really is an accurate discription of a disgruntled angry bacterium) it will ruin all life’s pleasures for you.  You will have an upset digestive system from any piffling thing, catch any disease going (especially colds), develop a myriad of allergies, feel depressed for years on end, and become quarrelsome and morose.  Your muscles grow stiffer and your bones ache, and you feel ancient as the hills and think, I must be getting old.

Occasionally you may remember how blissfully happy you once were, long ago, in those glorious days when your body knew no pain and your heart was full of joy, while you were with that irritating/awful/aggravating (etc etc – fill in the blanks) Other who you imagined yourself to be in love with but luckily managed to escape from after a few horrible months - but you will never make the connection between being with that unsuitable Other and your happiness, because, after all, Other was awful!  But to your little bacterial buddies Other was perfect, and what you thought was Your happyness was actually Their happyness!  You just got a free ride, so to speak, carried along by the bliss of the teeming trillions. 

What is to be done?  Surely something must be done, to help those poor tragic romantically disappointed creatures who suffer so much on this earth - I mean those 200 trillion bacteria, obviously!

I think we've just got to be less selfish.  I mean, just because Other supports the wrong foorball club, refuses to take three helpings of our painstakingly home-made dessert, is an arrogant fascist, fails to appreciate our amazing ability to juggle three mutually exclusive principles (etc etc  - fill in the blanks), surely that is nothing compared to the happiness of 200 trillion bacteria who are, after all, part and parcel of our very own selves?  We have got to be less selfish, that’s all there is to it!

Happy St Valentine’s Day!!!!

http://www.economist.com/node/21528214

Confessions of a Glider Groupie – The Tiny Visitors

Part 2 – Fatty Messerschmitt

 

When I started my series about the Tiny Visitors I had intended to review them in order of arrival, first the Red Reihers, then the others that have taken their abode in the mobile, comprising Waltraud Weihe, Mechthild Meise, Fafnir, Mini Moa, and Rex Rhoenadler.  After that I was going to move on to Willibald Waco, who is the model of an American transport glider, and Heini Heinkel, who is not a glider at all but a bomber sometimes used to pull gliders up into the air.  Then, just before Christmas, I was surprised by the arrival of Fatty Messerschmitt!

Well let me tell you, I was absolutely flabbergasted when I discovered his bulk on my windowsill!  How on earth did he get there?  I thought he had been lost sixty years ago in the South of France?

The great thing about Fatty is that he has such a loud booming voice, so I had no trouble at all making out what he had to tell me, once he had lost his initial cautious taciturnity.  Apparently Rudolf Reiher had found out that he was living in the Creativity Workshop of the Old Glidermaster in Murat le Quaire, and send word to him from Paris that most of his old buddies from The Great Escape where hanging out in Oxfordshire!  Rudolf’s message – conveyed via sparrow/pigeon/crow/stork area messenger & long distance telegraph post – had come at just the right time, because Fatty was terribly agitated about the sudden disappearance of the Old Glidermaster and sorely in need of help.

But that is another story, and I can’t tell it until I know all the details, and anyway Fatty is worried it might endanger the Old Glidermaster if details leak out, as if thousands of people were reading my blog, hah!

Anyway, as I was saying, I had intended to do the mobile crowd first, but since I haven’t yet found a way to photograph them properly and there is great clamouring out there for more Tiny Visitor information I decided to feature Fatty in this post.  He photographs quite well, bless him.

 

Fatty is a Messerschmitt Gigant, Me 321/3 for short.  They were huge cargo gliders (Lastensegler) and used during WW II to transport large amounts of equipment to the front.  They were the size of a jumbo jet and able to carry 130 people, or a tank with all the trimmings (attendant troops and all).  It was not called Gigant – giant – for nothing!

Originally designed by Willy Messerschmitt for the invasion of England in just two weeks, they were intended to be one-way gliders, used only once and then abandoned, so were made of cheap materials like steel tubing and canvas.  Apparently it was a nightmare to travel in them!  It was also a nightmare to fly them – Hanna Reitsch tested one of them and found it very difficult to work the controls, being a small person with limited strength.  The first Gigants were produced early in 1941, and for a few years they did much of the heavy lifting of the Luftwaffe.

A major headache was getting them up into the air!  The only airplane large enough to pull one up by itself (just about!) was the four engined Ju 90, and they were needed for other jobs.  One experiment was using the Troikaschlepp (triple-tow) were three airplanes were attached with ropes to the Gigant and took off in unison, pulling the Gigant after them and into the air.  This often didn’t go smoothly, on one occasion the whole formation went up in flames killing everyone on board all four planes.  Eventually the problem was overcome by adding rockets and motors to the Gigant, transforming it into the Me 323.

This lead to a philosophical headache:  Was the Messerschmitt Gigant still a glider?  Gliders don’t have take-off rockets and motors, obviously.  On the other hand, many of the Me323s were simply the original Gigant gliders converted by the addition of the rockets and motors – no re-design/re-building took place.  Personally I consider them gliders, probably mainly because the thought of a glider the size of a jumbo jet is just to cool to abandon.

 

Anyway, as you can see from the photos, Fatty has motors, three on each wing.  He says he was converted, but that may refer to his religious beliefs rather than his physical appearance, he seemed to think it a rude question so I did not press the point.  On some of the photos Rolf Reiher obliged me by perching on one of Fatty’s wings, so you get an idea of the difference in size.  Fatty flies in formation with Heini, because they are used to it, Heini having pulled up Fatty any number of times in the past before he got his motors.  Heini is a bomber, quite a large plane himself, but you can see how he is dwarfed by Fatty.

There is much more that could be said about the Messerschmitt Gigant, and perhaps I will one day say it – I have read several books on the subject! – but for now I shall close by telling you that not a single one of them survived the war.  They all perished in the line of duty, and cannot be found in any museum, so it is perhaps not surprising that so few people remember them.  But to me they are a great marvel, and I am a fan, despite their ugly appearance – I mean, a glider the size of a jumbo jet!  Awesome, just awesome.

 

I paste a few links below to knowledgeable websites and old movie reels of the Messerschmitt Gigant, if you want to deepen your acquaintance with them!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OvyOeXnW0k

 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xtlkdfbn8I4

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_323

Confessions of a Glider Groupie – Parachute Pyjamas

One of the most fascinating facts I ever encountered in stories and movies about WW II is that people made clothes out of used parachute silk.  I imagined a thick, heavy duty fabric.  After all, it had to be strong enough to hold the weight of a man jumping out of an airplane!  And it certainly looked pretty substantial in movies like La Grande Vadrouille.  So when I looked for silk pyjamas on Evilbay and found one from WW II made from old parachute silk I immediately put in a bid.  I thought it would go for a small fortune (not mine, I hasten to add), but it was quite cheap – I suspect most people had no idea what they were.

Well, they arrived last week and I am so excited!  They are made of the sheerest thinnest silk imaginable, more like spider silk than the real stuff.  I cannot imagine wearing them except in the very hottest August heat wave – you hardly notice wearing them.  They are also way too big for me, made for a man twice my size, I reckon.  The waistband of the bottom has a hollow seam into which I threaded a thin pink ribbon for fastening so they will stay put if ever I try to wear them.  I might try to fob them off on MDL – he isn’t into PJs, but surely PJs made of old parachute silk are another matter!  Who could resist wearing a piece of WW II flying memorabilia like that?

While fooling around with my camera I also tried – again! – taking photos of the Tiny Visitors who inhabit the mobile.  The trouble is, there is always a breeze or thermal in my room, so they never stay still long enough for me to get a good shot.  And I hate taking them down, because if you take off one you disturb all the others – it is a two person job, whoever comes to visit me next will be pressed into service and instructed to hold the mobile steady while I photograph its little inhabitants one by one.

So for now I include a few night shots of Willibald Waco, Quercus Robustus and Fatty Messerschmitt in a fading sunset orange glow as they fly off to another mission.  As a matter of fact the glow comes from my salt-lamp, but hey if it works, use it!