Thinking Fast and Slow- Daniel Kahneman - good Horizon programme

As a teenager I worked out that there are 2 wheels in the brain, figuratively speaking, a small wheel for everyday actions such as cleaning the bath and ironing, and a large wheel for calculating the area under a curve, and such things as that.. And it seemed to me that most women find it less painful to not use the big wheel than most men do, and that they are more able to be patient with and even contented by small-wheel tasks, and that this must surely be why they have been subjugated as they have. It is not that they are unable to perform large-wheel tasks, clearly; many women make capable lawyers, engineers and business managers. But if they have to sit at a table folding books of raffle tickets they are fine with that, also sitting on a floor making towers of bricks for the baby to knock down, also photocopying a shelf of documents. Many women can perform these tasks for as long as it takes without getting frustrated.

I had not thought about my fledgling theory for years until I read "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman. Because one of his theories is that we have 2 systems of thought, which he calls system 1 (small wheel) and system 2 (big wheel). Basically, he says that system 1 makes loads of decisions all the time and it's quick and copes easily with quite hard things like how to walk down a busy street without walking into people, and system 2 needs to be engaged for more difficult calculations like multiplying 22 by 17 in your head. He can tell when system 2 is engaged because the pupils of the eyes change in size when it is working. So he can make a physical measurement of when system 2 is working.

But system 2 is lazy and needs to be made to work; we would rather rely on good old system 1 with its snappy judgments, and that's how we make silly mistakes and allow bias to creep into our thinking. Kahneman and his research partner found their own mistakes interesting and started to look at biases in decision-making. The kinds of experiment they did were so simple and elegant; I really admired them. There were no questionnaires involved. They used measurements and timers and scientific method to try to find out how the brain works. I really recommend this book because the experiments are so admirable. I can't remember the names of all the biases they explored, but the other night I watched this TV programme which introduces the viewer to Danny Kahneman, Nobel prize winner, and brings his theories to the viewing public.

The problem with the programme is the visuals. There are endless shots of New York streets and London streets to occupy your eyes, while the voiceover explains the research. That's all. The producer was posed with the problem of how to make this interesting, visually, and he failed to solve it.

But watch it anyway if you are interested in the mistakes you may be making in your thinking, especially where money is concerned.

Sorry the programme has been taken off iplayer.

further post here

Further post here

The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim by Jonathan Coe

Jonathan Coe is a good writer and this is one of his most gripping stories. It gives you all the clues and yet you don't know how it's going to turn out. He takes you on a journey and tells you many things.

My only gripes about J. Coe are firstly, that he can't seem to stop himself from writing off and ridiculing people who, for example,  prefer Cliff Richard's pop to classical music. Let's laugh at people who are culturally poor! No, I don't like that kind of snobbery. Lazy stereotyping. He may not be able to help thinking it but he shouldn't write it. 

Coe tries very hard to put himself into the mindset of Maxwell Sim, the protagonist and narrator of this novel, who simply likes the design of motorway service stations, etc, and fits well into the commercial world, but Coe can't do this entirely successfully because he wants to intrude on the first person narrative with his own perceptive comments on the state of England problem, which Maxwell Sim would not perceive. That was the whole thing about Maxwell Sim, he was really not a perceptive person. It's an interesting melange of two worldviews told in one voice. 

It is a really gripping read though, very, very good.

Writers must show that they are aware that realism is a construct, etc, etc, and all the rest of the current orthodoxy in literary theory, and they feel the need to subvert the form by puncturing the fictional bubble. Ian McEwan is one of the worst. Unfortunately, it's a bit like when an arrogant magician says: "well of course I didn't saw the lady in half!!! Are you an idiot? Look, it's just a trick, etc, etc", you wondered why he bothered to trick you if he's just going to ruin the illusion afterwards.

Valley film and fish and chips night - Sunshine on Leith

As we have not been able to do our sport - the river is too high - someone had the great idea of running a film night at the Valley. The projector was placed on the stepladder at the back of the room, the wall was the screen and an ancient-ish amplifier helped the sound from the laptop that played the DVD.

But Sunshine on Leith was so awful. We had the subtitles on for deaf members which didn't help as it pointed up the fact that the dialogue was so mundane and the plot non-existent. In short, it was a slice of reality. The most interesting character was a young girl who had a yen to travel to Florida. Florida, very alternative!! The rebel! The end of the film suggested that this daring piece of non-conformity wouldn't last long and she would be soon home again in Edinburgh, and all would be right with the world. One character was faced with the prospect of going to England and regarded this as a moral and cultural disgrace. Yeah, right.

The Proclaimers' songs were always charming for the way Charlie and Craig sang them, so full of vim and sincerity, but their lyrics were seldom poetic (e.g. "I met you" (repeat  x 3)) and did nothing to help along this load of baloney. As the characters burst into song in pubs and art galleries, I had to stare at my feet in discomfort. Edinburgh looked extremely beautiful so I concentrated on the sunsets over the Scott monument, etc.

The acting was as good as it could be under the circumstances, the tall young man was charming and memorable. Towards the end of the movie the amplifier overheated several times and the dialogue stopped each time, which gave the whole event that pleasant village hall atmosphere.

The fish and chips were outstanding. The batter was a lovely crispy texture, a rich golden colour, and the fish inside was white and tender. The chips were unblemished and well-cooked. My half of IPA was, as usual, an unimpeachable brew, though not as full of flavour as London Pride. Hee, hee. Drivel is drivel even if it is in a beguiling Scottish accent.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, part 2

This is about a time in the future when people don't read books any more. Books are too long; they try to make you think; only strange, superior people read books, instead of watching short soaps on Tv or listening to the chatty voices on the radio (which people fix in their ears and the little ear-buds chatter away to them.) And so it seems right to burn all the books. This story is about a fireman (Montag) whose job it is to destroy books, but who becomes curious as to what might be in the books he destroys.

Guy Montag's wife has three walls covered in screens so that she can pretend she is really involved in the TV shows. She loves these but Montag doesn't: and one day he meets a young girl who likes leaves and flowers and conversation more than artificial amusements, and then his troubles and doubts, which already existed, become an issue. 

In this future, life is cheap and destruction is an entertainment. People love watching a real live cop chase on TV. and seeing an oddball getting his just deserts. "Their indifference and fear feeds into every aspect of their lives." Being unhappy about the way his life is, and wanting to know what is in the books, Montag starts to put himself and his wife in danger. 

The writing is gorgeous for the first part, vivid and magical and energetic. The book doesn't hang together very well as a story and there are ideas that go nowhere; but this is a fascinating book about the way wise books (not all books) humanise people and how we will all go to the bad if we don't make any effort to take on the difficult heritage that teaches us to be wise.

From the handout at the Southbank Centre:

Bradbury's bookless world is a stultified, conformist place entirely free from independent thought, knowledge, self-knowledge and imagination. It's extreme, of course, dystopias always are. And we today don't live in a society without words, books or stories: you could argue in fact we have too many of them. Novels still sell in their millions. The internet is one vast, sucking, swamping mass of words and opinions. Some people even still read proper old-fashioned newspapers. Yet Bradbury's novel is a terrific (and gorgeously written) warning against neglecting the importance of reading and writing properly, of not treating written language with care, consideration and love. When we stop bothering to read difficult books and instead opt to graze on a Facebook post; when we ignore a newpaper article for a news tweet; when we dismiss reading novels or poems because we just don't have time, what we are really saying is that we no longer want to listen."

Valentine's ball

This was by way of a family get-together, all paid for by my brother-in-law, the birthday boy: so very kind of him. The idea was that we would meet at a golf hotel near Liphook and have the special dinner and hear the entertainment, stay overnight and make use of the spa facilities, pool and gym the next day; and those who play golf could play golf.

Unfortunately, it did not work too well. The golf course was waterlogged due to the heavy rain, so golf was off. Then, after the final course and the coffee and the special birthday cake, all the lights went out out. There was a complete power failure. We all waited for something to happen. The staff were quick to bring everyone candles. We were all very merry after having drunk champagne and wine. It became colder. We departed to our distant bedroom and were met in the bedroom block by hotel staff waiting with tea lights in holders to show us the way. Obviously the lifts didn't work. We were allowed to keep the tea lights in our room as we had no idea where anything was without them.

all night the storm raged and the wind howled. I heard it all because I couldn't sleep in the strange, hard bed. 

In the morning the power was not back: we found that the loo had run out of flush, and there was no hot water. Our breakfast was fruit juice and cereal and fruit salad of different kinds. No toast, no bacon. Then the manager arrived with flasks of tea and coffee which he had prepared at his home, which was not far away but had power. Having drunk too much the night before, I was so needy for coffee!

We never heard what had happen but it seemed likely that a tree had fallen on a power line, or that a power line had broken for some other reason. We could not use the pool or any other facilities.

On the way home husband and I stopped at Hindhead and went for a walk at the Devil's Punch Bowl. At that time it was dry and bright. This is a beauty spot and there is some fine ancient woodland of oak and beech.. It used to be environmentally spoilt by the A3 cutting close to it, but now a smart dual-carriageway tunnel has been built for the road and the old road is being melded into the landscape. It's a lovely place and we had a good walk, though a bit steep out of the woods at the end. We went to the cafe and, unlike other National Trust cafes, it does good ordinary bacon butties, not too expensive, which I highly recommend.

The river has not gone down yet. Many trees have been felled by the wind and sadly, many are Scots Pine. I do love Scots Pines.

The Library of Unrequited Love by Sophie Divry and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, part 1

Reading Ray Bradbury's book (published in 1954) made me feel as though I was falling in love, sliding into a situation in which I had no control. It's such a mixed feeling that I kept putting the book aside and reading other books and papers instead. And as soon as I had finished it I read this new book by a French writer, Sophie Divry, and it seemed to be on the same theme. Bradbury's book is 60 years old and this new one seems to share his concerns. Bradbury was so prescient.

Let me start with the Library one. First, it has only 90 pages, and it's all one soliloquy. The librarian is middle-aged, plain-spoken and impatient. She is angry about her snobbish senior colleagues, the ignorant, public that doesn't value books, and how she is ignored. She rather loves the Dewey Decimal System, she loves Maupassant and most of all she loves a young researcher named Martin, who works diligently in her section and once exchanged a few words with her. She loves the back of his neck. Going to work is great because he might come in. He might notice her.

But this is not her only story! She also loves Eugene Morel, who in 1908 published a survey of libraries and suggested that libraries should make it easier for the people to read. Secretly, she is an enthusiast for reading who believes that people can be seduced into reading literature. She is a cultural snob who hates trashy books.

"All the hundreds of books pouring off the presses, ninety-nine percent of them they'd do better to use the paper for wrapping take-aways. And for libraries, it's a disaster. The worst ones are the books on instant history, current affairs: no sooner commissioned than written, printed, televised, bought, remaindered, then taken off the shelves and pulped. The publishers ought to put a sell-by date on them, because they're just consumer goods."

"when you come into this library, what's the first thing you see? Kids wet behind the ears in front of the comic book shelves. And alongside them, Music. Just behind that, DVD's, that's where cultural democracy has got us. It's not a library any more, with silence reigning over shelves full of intelligence, it's a leisure centre where people come to amuse themselves. ... but it's all phoney, it's a lie ... Because culture isn't the same thing as pleasure. Culture calls for a permanent effort by the individual to escape the vile condition of an under-civilized primate."

She is concerned that young people are always wearing ear-phones:

"Noise, noise, noise, never the silence of the book. We ought to react, do something, the minister is deceiving you, you young folk, he knows perfectly well that people don't begin to foster thoughts of revolution when their ears are bombarded by noise, but in the murmuring silence of reading to oneself. "

So you see, the love of the book is not all about Martin, it's also about the love that the civic idealists - whose ideas were once revolutionary! - showed for the public, the love that involved making a quiet space for the public to read. To read great books, or newspapers; but the public didn't want those things; they spurned the love of the civic benefactors. That is the sad story, and Ray Bradbury's book sees this trend coming and does something else with it..., more next time.

Valentine's ball tonight, and nothing to wear...

The Wey floods in Weybridge, tree falls on boat trailer

This is as high as the Thames has come for many years.

This is meant to be a canal: the lock is completely submerged

Another tree collapses

This one has smashed a boat much needed by the rowing club

Cannery Row - John Steinbeck

I read this book a long time ago, maybe when I was a student or when I was on my travels, so I was glad when I came upon it in the bookshop last week because I had never owned it, and it was time for a re-read. It used to be a gaudy looking Pan book and now it is a Penguin Modern Classic - so much classier!

It's set in Monterey - pronounced Monneray. Such a lovely word, and sounds so much more beautiful than this rain-drenched, crowded, hemmed- in island.

I remember it was comforting to read because there is a lot of love in it. There are lovable bums and kind whores and eccentric outsider artists, and Doc, who leaves his door unlocked and accepts gracefully all the life that comes his way: anyone whom the tide brings in... He looks into the rock pools at low tide and finds marvelous sea creatures, and to make his bread and butter he sells them to museums. At dusk the canneries go quiet (which is like the tide going out), and the life of the street returns to Cannery Row. The heroes here are those who live on the margins, like the sea creatures do on the shore. But of course sometimes they don't live - there are some deaths in the book. There is sadness but no tragedy, because life goes on. Also, there is food and drink - so much drink! - and sex and fun.

John Steinbeck varies his narrative by bringing in other characters, and a short telling snapshot of their lives, in between the chapters on Doc and the bums. So the book's structure is rather like weaving a rug in different stripes of colour, or making music with soloists and groups, like a Mass, ending with a big chorus in unison and then a short, sad, coda. The author is aware that he is mythologising his friends, and repeatedly refers to other myths. He knows that myth-making is what words do, and that this is what his art does.

The main business of the place was scooping sardines out of the sea, canning them and selling them for a few cents. This was the thirties and the people were poor. But the canneries were greedy, they over- fished until there were no more shoals of sardines. Then they all went bust.

This is one thing Doc says, and it's certain Steinbeck agrees with him.

"it has always seemed strange to me," said Doc. "The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest: sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first, they love the produce of the second."

Now Jesus also said this. I read the Gospels and I really thought this is what Jesus was trying to say. He did start a political movement - they were called religious orders. Men and women shared the work and helped the poor, and amassed nothing as individuals, but for the community. I really believe that monasteries were the political manifestation of Christianity.

I loved this book. It was written by Steinbeck at the end of the war, when he was looking back across 15 years, and I think he wrote it to comfort himself with a philosophy which can be shown in the telling of these stories, but can't easily be explained.

Being a Man - Grayson Perry

Grayson talked to us dressed as his alter ego, Clare. It seems to be his public persona. Clare is a little girl in strap shoes, short socks and a lovely flowery dress, all petticoats, and a big lace collar. But Clare is also a powerful figure: larger than life. She takes the stage, she walks up and down it to talk to us and to show off, and she enjoys herself. She makes us laugh. Is the laughter partly a result of being made uneasy - the collision of opposite sexualities?

I can't remember anything Grayson said, apart from his map of the male brain, which put self-righteousness right at the front and was backed by an area called baloney, which is called upon when a man needs to justify himself. Very funny. He talked about men with beards and men who can mend things and men with sheds but I can't remember what his point was! Was is just to amuse? He thought that it's good for men to open up and talk about the deep stuff that affects them - he told us about his experiences of group therapy in which everyone cried every week - and he felt that was liberating. It worked for him.

He also told us that he was an alpha male and that he is very competitive on a bicycle. He has obviously done loads of cycling, and in races, he gloats as he overtakes.

But his competitiveness extends into his cross-dressing. He is proud to be the most famous tranny in the country, and he out-feminines all the women around him. He makes real women look drab and a bit lacking in effort. This is interesting. I am a cords and jumpers woman. I wear a kind of Barber jacket (not a real one, an M&S effort). I have no sexual persona. But I envy Grayson his lacy skirts. I do like lacy skirts. Somehow, it's more OK for him to wear them than for me to wear them, at our age. For him, it's a big camp show he can put on, but for me it's a one-way trip to ridicule. I think that for Grayson his cross-dressing is art : he denied this in the Reith lectures but it's obvious to me. He is making lovely tapestries now. You can see some on the web. The colours are gorgeous.

From the Guardian reviewer, who went to a few different events at the BAM festival:

Still, it's early days; given the demand for tickets, Kelly has already committed to BAM being an annual event, perhaps even the start of a movement. All movements need a manifesto, and it took Grayson Perry in one of his Bo-Peepiest pink party dresses to provide one. Few men have done as much original thinking about what it means to be male as the transvestite potter, champion cyclist, therapy survivor, Turner prizewinner, devoted husband and father.

Grayson insisted that all we believed about men could be unbelieved – men can, despite the propaganda, multitask ("I never go upstairs without carrying something") – and they can prevail in the constant battle with testosterone and keep it in their pants (frilly or otherwise), if they put their minds to it.

He ended with a scribbled series of demands. "We men ask ourselves and each other for the following: the right to be vulnerable, to be uncertain, to be wrong, to be intuitive, the right not to know, to be flexible and not to be ashamed." He insisted that men sit down to achieve them. He received, deservedly, a standing ovation.