Terrifying Bushfires in Australia

The bushfires in Victoria of the last few days - and the death toll from them - are completely horrifying. A scene from hell itself.
If you are so minded, you can donate to the Australian Red Cross here

The English Weather

We may have had some good winter weather over the past two weeks, but nothing unusual (see the old Flanders & Swann song below) - and a great deal less fierce than in most other places viz Melbourne's 46c on Saturday 7th February.

A Song of the Weather

January brings the snow,
Makes your feet and fingers glow.

February's ice and sleet
Freeze the toes tight off your feet.

Welcome March with wintry wind
Would thou wert not so unkind!

April brings the sweet spring showers,
On and on for hours and hours.

Farmers fear unkindly May
Frost by night and hail by day.

June just rains and never stops
Thirty days and spoils the crops.

In July the sun is hot.
Is it shining? No, it's not.

August, cold and dank and wet,
Brings more rain than any yet.

Bleak September's mist and mud
Is enough to chill the blood.

Then October adds a gale,
Wind and slush and rain and hail.

Dark November brings the fog
Should not do it to a dog.

Freezing wet December, then
Bloody January again!

January brings the snow ...

Flanders & Swann - At the Drop of a Hat

The Statue of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty has stood at the entrance to New York harbour since being gifted by the French in 1886. It has the most beautiful poem engraved on it, from which the contrast between America's attitude to immigrants in those not so far off days with the appalling treatment being given to many of them today could not be more stark.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Emma Lazarus, 1883

St Ronan's Reception

My old prep school, St Ronan's, held a reception at Brooks's in St James' on 5th February, the first old boys' gathering that the school had organised for some years. The purpose was both to reconnect with old boys and also to raise money for a sports hall, designed to take pressure off the use of the school's 'Great Space' - the vast ballroom that has been used for all manner of indoor events for decades.

The headmaster, William Trelawny-Vernon is a worthy successor to the Vassar-Smiths and Harris's who led the school since the early 1900s and intends to broaden contact with all alumni - which will now include girls, since the school became co-ed some years ago.

Click here for some photos of the event and here to join the Saint Ronan's Old Boy's Group on Facebook

My memories of the very happy time spent at St Ronan's in the 1950s can be found here

Yves St Laurent and Pierre Berge Collection at Christie's

A superb exhibition of Yves St Laurent and Pierre Berge's art collection was on display at a reception at Christie's given by Vintage Academe, a fashion store and blog specialising in vintage clothes.

Click the heading for some of the paintings on display and here for an article about the collection

The Joy of Cams

When planning a trip, or when friends are travelling, the best way (unless Freya Stark's been there first) to get a sense of place is by looking at photos that others have taken on Flickr or on a map like Panoramio. But even better are webcams and there are more of them around then ever. When friends went skiiing in the Haute Savoie this week, I could follow them via the webcams at the resort and on the slopes and get a good idea of what they were up to.

Now to get real time video via a 3g mobile!

Aristotle's Views on Money

Thinking about shopping and Ruskin's views on the use of money (see Westfield) Aristotle holds that "There are two sorts of wealth-getting.....; one is a part of household management, the other is retail trade: the former necessary and honorable, while that which consists in exchange is justly censured; for it is unnatural, and a mode by which men gain from one another. The most hated sort, and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself, and not from the natural object of it. For money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term interest, which means the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of all modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural."

Speaking of exchange through money, Aristotle says "it is worthless, and because it is not useful as a means to any of the necessities of life, and, indeed, he who is rich in coin may often be in want of necessary food..." Aristotle says people become avaricious and pursue money for its own end because of a confusion between the instrument of money (in exchange) with things that can actually be used...
"in this art of wealth-getting there is no limit of the end, which is riches of the spurious kind, and the acquisition of wealth. But the art of wealth getting which consists in household management, on the other hand, has a limit..."

Thomas Jefferson was equally prescient

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."
Thomas Jefferson 1802

Perhaps my own views on the bonus culture are not out of place here

Chopin Recital

A brilliant recital of Chopin and other works for the Chopin Society by Nicola Eimer in the lovely Inigo Jones church St Paul's Covent Garden - the 'Actor's Church'.

Click the heading to hear her playing Raindrop.

Westfield

Click the heading for more photos of Westfield
The Westfield Shopping Centre that opened last year at Shepherd's Bush is stunning. The largest urban shopping mall in Europe, it covers 43 acres and has 265 shops and 40 places to eat plus two supermarkets, a gym, a spa, a library and a 14 screen cinema (opening in March) plus 4500 parking spaces.

It's beautifully designed and feels light and airy and is very easy to get about. It also has lots of comfortable seating and of course is covered with wi-fi. Favourite shops include Desiguel, Amanda Wakeley, Apple, Donna Ira, Joseph, Links and M&S. Owing to the recession, amazing discounts are available. Donna Ira's superb selection of jeans were 75% off and an Amada Wakeley jacket was reduced by a similar amount, while a pair of Joseph boots was only £85. For those with a bit of money to spend, it's a paradise, but it's also a great place to go for a day out.

When shopping, it's wise to remember two pieces of advice:
Whatever you buy should be 'of good quality, well fitted for its purpose', and John Ruskin's aphorisms -
'A thing is worth what it can do for you, not what you choose to pay for it'.
' There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey.'

Favourite Poetry - Tintern Abbey

Tintern Abbey

Click the heading for the whole poem

And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.

William Wordsworth - Tintern Abbey - 1798