Swimming at Frensham Pond

This has been on my To Do list for ages. Last weekend we finally swam in the Great pond, with the wind rustling through the reed-beds and the blue sky overhead, and the sun shining and the sand under our feet. You are not allowed to swim very far out, so you have the feeling of being free but also, very confined, which is a shame. There is a yacht club and the yachts were out in numbers having races, there is also good angling in the pond. The "beach" is a popular place where Russian is the main language. The Russian men look very macho - like bodyguards or security men - but here they bring their wives and children, sometimes gossiping in pairs. You wonder what secrets they know. Surrey is a very beautiful county, especially down there in the south, with the sandy paths and the fir trees, and it's a shame to be reminded of the oligarchs and the Putin regime.

As the water is pale green, it's probably not a good idea to swallow it, but many people were taking in babies and small children with no regard to whether they swallowed water or not. ah well, maybe it's a question of what doesn't kill you....

How to read literature by Terry Eagleton ( part 3) - Plot in Classical realism vs. modernism

"For classical realism, the world itself is story-shaped. In a lot of modernist fiction, by contrast, there is no order apart from what we ourselves construct. And since any such order is arbitrary, so are fictional openings and endings. There are no divinely ordained origins or natural closures. which is to say that there are no logical middles either. ...

"Some modernist works are thus sceptical of the while notions of narrative. Narrative suggests that there is a shapeliness to the world, an orderly procession of causes and effects. It is sometimes (though by no means always) bound up with a faith in progress, the power of reason and the forward march of humanity. It would not be too fanciful to claim that narrative of this classical kind fell to pieces on the battlefields of the First World War, an even which scarcely fostered a faith in human reason. It was around these years that the great modernist works were produced, from Ulysses and The Waste Land to Yeats's The Wild Swans at Coole and Lawrence's Women in Love. For the modernist mind, reality does not evolve in a tidy fashion. Event A may lead to event B, but it also leads to events C, D, E and countless others. it is the product of countless factors as well. Who is to decide which of these storylines should take priority? Whereas realism views the world as an unfolding, modernism test to see it as a text. The word "text" here is akin to "textile", meaning something spun of many interwoven threads. ...less a logical development than a tangled web... You cannot pinpoint where it begins or ends....

"So the idea of narrative is thrown into crisis. For modernism, knowing where something began, even if this were possible, will not necessarily yield you the the truth about it. To assume so is to be guilty of what has been called the genetic fallacy. There is no one grand narrative, simply a host of mini-narratives, each of which may have its partial truth. ..To narrate is to falsify. In fact, one might even claim that to write is to falsify. Writing, after all, is a process which unfolds in time, and in this respect resembles narrative. The only authentic literary work then, would  be one which is conscious of this falsification, and which tries to tell its tale in a way that takes it into account.

"That is to say that all narratives must be ironic. They must deliver their accounts while keeping their own limitations constantly in mind. They must somehow incorporate what they do not know into what they know. ... Narratives must find a way of suggesting that there could be many versions of their subject-matter beside their own. If they are not to appear deceptively absolute, they must point to their own arbitrariness."

This helps us to understand and appreciate what Ian McEwan is trying to do in any of his novels but perhaps "Sweet Tooth" most of all, and it helps us to understand what Sterne is doing in Tristram Shandy. Also I noticed it in Doctor Who recently (episode by Mark Gatiss).

Terry Eagleton part 1

Terry Eagleton part 2

Matisse cut-outs at the Tate: possible grounds for divorce.

You can see clearly in this cut-out picture why Matisse started to do them. It's covered with pins and nothing is glued. The papers are all odds and ends of shapes used to make outlines. This is so he could experiment with blocks of colour and get the right shapes for them - the most expressive shape, and also experiment with positioning the shapes. You might think he could get it right first time but he certainly didn't. This picture shows violence (black) wickedness (yellow) and a human (white). For a while he was interested in working with these symbolic colours but he did move on to use other colours.

He made a book called Jazz that was meant to illustrate poems, but the hand-written notes he make as he worked on the cut-outs were published as the text. These works are not the most gripping.

Oceania comes next - a wall of cut outs made from white paper. He pinned cut-out paper fish, coral and leaves to the wall of his Paris apartment.

Interesting way of showing jellyfish - straight lines in the composition

Matisse began to have a glorious time playing with the colours and shapes of his cut-outs. He wielded the scissors himself but had his pretty young assistant to pin them on the wall.

Just one example from Matisse's wall of shapes

The chapel at Vence - this is where the offspring and I began to be engrossed. Matisse was asked to design the decor of the whole chapel.

And apart from the glorious stained glass windows he designed chasubles! the designs were made from the cut out method.

The cut out is much bigger that this -  life size and in the Tate show.

The fact that these designs were actually made is not made clear in the Tate show. Wow.

Other vestments designed by Matisse not in the Tate show:

Apparently Matisse did this for a religious friend who had nursed him through an illness. He became completely inspired by the project.

Matisse then began working on a larger scale.

The left hand picture, Zulma, shows depth in the composition. On the right, Creole dancer is based on the experience of having a dancer perform in the studio.

Personally, I love the largest compositions because of their exuberance and joy. I love the fact that an artist can communicate these feelings in his later years - his eighties.

And finally, we see all four blue nudes in one room - what a coup!

I found the show very inspiring and joyful. But husband didn't - he was very Brian Sewell about it. Here is Brian Sewell's view in the Evening Standard.

Enjoy the gaiety of colour. Be moved by the myth of the old genius, victim of a botched stomach operation, discovering new inspiration when told that death was on his doorstep. Be astonished by this sensualist turned saint, finding God in his own work, lying a-bed and drawing on the wall with a six-foot pole, cluttering every surface with the worst drawings this worst of draughtsmen ever did. Delight in the jaunty amusements of the infants’ school,  but do not discard your critical faculties. Is what you see in this Matisse really a match for Michelangelo’s Adam, his nude youths, his prophets and sybils, his Last Judgement? What nonsense.

Enjoy these seductive trivialities for what they are — insubstantial, deceitful, fraudulent and, we must hope, transient, rather than some spiritual and mystical essence of art. Having no doubt that the number of visitors between now and September will break the record for Tate Modern (and so, perhaps, it should), I hope only that, unlike the early critics, they will cling to reason.

the whole article is here for your delight.
Strange, isn't it? He thinks it can't be all that good because it's paper and scissors ("the jaunty amusements of the infants' school") and it can't be good because it's not Michelangelo and his lofty, educated themes. I do disagree so much. This is not art for the educated, or art that is linked with one religion and alienates adherents of other religions.

Husband felt that there was no craft or skill to it and I suppose he found the themes "trivial" too, but I disagreed so much that I felt offended.

I meet my friends once a year in Chelsea

This is crazy, isn't it? Especially considering we only send Xmas cards and otherwise make little effort to keep in touch for the other 364 days. We started this routine because we had small children (S & I) and responsible jobs (them) and we all had busy lives. So we started to keep a Friday in the summer in which to do lunch, and we ate at the bistro at the top of the Oxo tower. (great view from the balcony). After a while we got bored of the Oxo tower, and we tried the restaurant at Somerset House, but this was not nearly as good, service-wise. Then we tried the Skylon restaurant upstairs at the Festival Hall. This is extremely good. The food and the service are first rate and we met there for about 4 years. Then we talked about trying somewhere else, and S's sister recommended Medlar in the King's Road. We absolutely love it. It's very quiet and little-known and the service is wonderful and the set menu is £27 for 3 first-rate courses. Also it's in an area of London which is interesting and villagey. To get there, you take a tube to Sloane Square. Ignore Peter Jones! Walk straight past - there's a long way to go. You have to walk past many shops selling desirable clothes and furnishings and bits and bobs, past Habitat (yes there is one left!) Past Heals, past the Town Hall with interesting weddings going on, past the fire station and the Designers' Guild, all the way to the end, and then take a left at the Post Office and round the next corner on the right is Medlar. The front is open if it's a nice day, but we like sitting towards the back.

The kind of service it has, is this, they bring you a glass of ice cubes with tongs, and if they've been there a while and they're melting, they bring you fresh ice cubes. they let you sit there as long as you like, even if you've only had a set menu and a bottle of wine and are hardly last of the big spenders. The decor is discreetly eau de nil and nothing to get excited about. The chairs are comfortable. The food is amazing. Today I started with a crab raviolo with a subtle sauce and a sea vegetable I had never heard of (you get things you've never heard of) and then I had guinea fowl with a mixture of dear little vegetables, and another subtle sauce with truffles and some sort of tiny mushrooms with a strong flavour. For pud S and I had the warm chocolate tart with the nuttiest ice cream I've ever had. It was all fantastic and we enjoyed each other's company so much we decided to meet TWICE a year!!!!

By the way, these are the old girls, in that we were all at school together. It must have marked us very strongly because we all seem to have the same voice: the same desire to do the right thing, perhaps, but skeptically. S is a doctor, JB is a vet, C is an HR boss. And me: I am an abject failure, because I have never become qualified to teach adults in an H.E. setting, and am stuck with F.E. I would do a PhD if I had the money. At least an M.A.

Almost Famous, directed by Cameron Crowe, 2000

This is a good film. I had never heard of it before last week. It's about a boy (he's 15) who wants to be a rock journalist (this is set in 1973) and is thrilled to meet a real rock journalist, who sees his sincerity and gives him an assignment - a kind of subcontract. But the boy manages to bond with the band he's meant to write about - a medium popular rock band on tour in a bus - and gets a better offer, from Rolling Stone magazine. From then on he's trying to get an interview with people he's beginning to know very well - too well.

This sounds as though there are no parts in it for women, and this isn't the case. The boy's mum has some great lines. She's very intelligent and tough, and she keeps repeating "Don't take drugs!" She phones him from however many miles away to repeat this stricture to him, and one of the hooks of the film is to see whether, and how far, the boy falls away from her values. The other great female part is a beautiful groupie played by Kate Hudson. She has never looked so beautiful. She is original and witty too, and she sees her role in the music scene as being an inspiration for great music.The main man in the band is the gorgeous Billy Crudup who gets a small dose of William's mother who punctures his vanity with a few well-chosen words  - and he says - "she freaked me out, man". And William replies: "She means well."

Here is some dialogue from the middle of the film. The boy is phoning up his mentor, the established music journalist (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) to get some advice on writing his piece, now that he knows the band personally.

 Lester Bangs: Aw, man. You made friends with them. See, friendship is the booze they feed you. They want you to get drunk on feeling like you belong.

William Miller: Well, it was fun.

Lester Bangs: They make you feel cool. And hey. I met you. You are not cool.

William Miller: I know. Even when I thought I was, I knew I wasn't.

Lester Bangs: That's because we're uncool. And while women will always be a problem for us, most of the great art in the world is about that very same problem. Good-looking people don't have any spine. Their art never lasts. They get the girls, but we're smarter.

William Miller: I can really see that now.

Lester Bangs: Yeah, great art is about conflict and pain and guilt and longing and love disguised as sex, and sex disguised as love... and let's face it, you got a big head start.

William Miller: I'm glad you were home.

Lester Bangs: I'm always home. I'm uncool.

William Miller: Me too!

Lester Bangs: The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool.

William Miller: I feel better.

Lester Bangs: My advice to you. I know you think those guys are your friends. You wanna be a true friend to them? Be honest, and unmerciful.

Isn't that great? The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool.

The film actually has a good ending too, thanks to the girl, who is absurdly wise. She is wise in the way that nobody ever is wise. But we can dream!

Good and bad things about this time of year.

Good things

 The cricket commentary on the radio. "Oh, he's bowled!"  " ...And he's gone!" the hullaballoo from Lord's. G Boycott saying "His mother should have slapped 'im more when he were a lad", etc, etc.

Bad thing

We are often so maddeningly bad at cricket.

Good thing

It gets incredibly hot and it takes no time to dry the clothes.

Bad thing

Everything needs washing because we get so sweaty.

Good thing

The lime trees stop dropping flowers.

Bad thing

The lime trees drop their seeds.

Good thing

There's time to do all the things you need to do.

Bad thing

You feel as though you ought to be outside making the most of the hot weather, and out there, it's too hot to do anything.

Good thing

Spectacular thunderstorms

Bad thing

Humidity: 

A great speech by Mario Savio

S is endlessly interested in new music and new films, and via a band called Linkin Park he informs me of this beautiful speech from the US civil rights movement in 1964, when Berkley University had decided to take away the right to free speech from their students.

(President Kerr was the Dean of the University)

“We have an autocracy which runs this university. It’s managed. We asked the following: if President Kerr actually tried to get something more liberal out of the Regents in his telephone conversation, why didn’t he make some public statement to that effect? And the answer we received — from a well-meaning liberal — was the following: He said, “Would you ever imagine the manager of a firm making a statement publicly in opposition to his board of directors?” That’s the answer! Now, I ask you to consider: if this is a firm, and if the Board of Regents are the board of directors, and if President Kerr in fact is the manager, then I’ll tell you something: the faculty are a bunch of employees, and we’re the raw material! But we’re a bunch of raw material[s] that don’t mean to have any process upon us, don’t mean to be made into any product, don’t mean to end up being bought by some clients of the University, be they the government, be they industry, be they organized labor, be they anyone! We’re human beings!”

[Wild applause.]

“There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!”

the delivery is wow! Please look!

Thank you Linkin Park for pointing us at this remarkable speech.

A simple song: redemption song sung by Joe Strummer and Johnny Cash.

and of course, written by Bob Marley

Last 2 weeks of teaching -

The trouble is at the end of term you want to go out with a bang rather than a fizzle, but I really have run out of energy: I used to take along party food and party games to the last lesson. I still do games, but this time time it's Ramadan so we're not doing food or even fruit juice. It's a long day for the people doing Ramadan. In most Muslim countries the days are not so long in summer.

Today I had my students do doctor and patient roleplays and a drawing game, and they also had to fill in their self-assessment in their ILP's and their progression form. Some fun was had!

There are some students around but very few, and the library is wonderfully quiet. I wish it was as quiet as this all the time. I am particularly horrible to noisy sts in the library. A large number of staff is leaving the college (on the admin side) and because the college is "restructuring" we can expect even more chaos next year than we had this year. Almost every week there is a leaving "do" announced or a department announcing the departure of some good colleagues.

As yet I don't know if there will be any classes for me to teach next year. I expect to hear about it very soon.
I have a pile of exam papers to mark and hope to get them done over the weekend - Henley was a break at a bad time in that I should have started the marking at least..

But if I don't get much teaching next year perhaps it's a good opportunity to find something else to do.

Henley Royal Regatta

The reason I have not written much lately is because my mother has been very poorly, and my writing has consisted of postings to a group of close family (who live hundreds of miles away) about her health and what we are doing for her. Really, my mum has turned into my hobby; taking her to the doctor and to clinics, shopping for her food and making sure she has clean nighties etc. However, her memory has just about gone; (but it comes back at times) and she won't eat. I won't go into all of it but I am looking after her because I can. I always wondered if I would ever be able to do this (be a parent to my own mother) and I am pleased to say that I can, and I am doing it.

S has come back from university with something that might be scabies. Glorious with his 2:1, but not to be hugged in case I catch the ghastly infestation. He too needs looking after (have to wash every stitch of his clothing and bedding) and find him some employment.

But today we are taking part in a multi-media art installation at Henley on Thames. I have a dress which is my tribute to Grayson Perry, (large yellow watercolour poppies) and a very large yellow hat. I am pleased with my ensemble (it came from the Princess Alice Hospice shop in Weybridge) and hope to contribute a splash of yellow to the colourful scene. I do hope the weather improves. I have not bought a colourful umbrella.

Normal colours - but we can improve upon these!

In my Henley outfit (Grayson Perry tribute)

Gloriana, made for the Queen's Jubilee, but she spurned it!!!