Saatchi Gallery - New Art From the Middle East

A fascinating exhibition of new Middle Eastern art at the Saatchi Gallery. The Saatchi Gallery, newly renovated from the old Duke of York's barracks at the end of the King's Road, is worth visiting for itself. Click the heading for some more photos of the works of art

America Empire of Liberty

David Reynolds is Professor of History at Cambridge





David Reynolds's daily talks on BBC 4 on the making of the United States are riveting. Fortunately, if one misses them, you can catch up here

Edward Gorey

I have always loved the work of Edward Gorey, ever since being amused by 'The Beastly Baby' many years ago. This is in the same tradition: the dark deaths of (in these cases) 26 apparently undeserving children.

Note: This piece used to have a link to The Beastly Baby but sadly it's no longer possible to find it on line.

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