Observations from a Hill

  Been thinking about memory over the last couple of days: a perennial topic for me in so many ways. Being possessed of an almost eidetic memory myself, I tend to recall in detail stuff that happened to me and in which I was involved many decades ago, which has a curious flattening, compression-of-time effect which collapses my time spiral [ referenced here ] in my personal historical visualisation. Pictured is the very-much-thumbed and abused copy of Madhur Jaffrey's wonderful book, which I bought the week we moved here from Birmingham, forty-five years since. Although we have never really scratched the surface of the recipes contained within its pages, it has proved to be the inspiration for not only my learning how to cook, but also the basis of thousands of meals we have cooked in the decades since. The weirdest thing is, though, is that because of the aforesaid timeline compressive effect of my eidetic recall, I still feel a form of imposter syndrome when it comes to cooking,...

I was drawn to a piece in the December "Oldie" [out now] by Quentin Letts, on his horror that the restoration of works of art constitutes a kind of criminal act against them [I exaggerate, but forgive me]. I agree that the over-extension of the restorer's art can lead to unfortunate attempts to re-interpret the original work in the 'light' of misguided historicist imaginings of the artist's original intent [never a good idea], but the assertion that an uncleaned 'old master' is somehow superior to the artist's original vision is frankly perverse. As a writer he should ask himself the question 'Would I prefer my writing to remain as clear and legible to a future audience - as true to my original intention - or should I prefer it to obscured by a cloud of obfuscatory noise and confusion instigated by age and degradation? For this is exactly his point about works of art: it would appear that he feels that the fog of history writ large in the agein...

This evening I've been caught up in the early-week ritual of watching re-runs of the late-seventies series "The Secret Army" [Google it if you're too young to remember it], which is, for someone of my generation, a bit of a guaranteed time-waster, as it is so compulsive. Whatever. Before settling down to watch the umpteen episodes in tonight's linear binge-feed, I was re-watching an interview on YouTube with Professor Sir Roger Penrose, regarding [particularly] his thoughts on the rôle of the 'observer' in the collapse the of the wave function in quantum mechanics. As you do. He, I think quite reasonably, argues that the notion of a simple observation of a quantum superposition of states by a 'consciousness' leads to that collapse is actually pretty daft. But the counter thought experiment that he uses is also basically flawed in my book: he uses the photographic medium as the intermediary recorded state of the quantum superposition, positing that ...

I have no fear of heights, only of falling. I have no fear of death, only of dying. This somewhat philosophical couplet I offer apropos of absolutely nothing: I've spent a lazy day today simply watching TV, which is something I seldom do these days, but today has been one of those sod-it days when inactivity becomes the norm and higher inspiration is there none. Sometimes the lack of something is substance in itself, not to be ignored or reviled, but embraced for what it is...

A weird, somewhat amorphous day today in the aftermath of last night's torrential tempest, which resulted in the discovery of a hitherto unknown point of ingress of rain into our dining room. I've worked out its origin, but the cure might turn out to be more painful [money-wise] than the problem itself. We'll see. I went over to The Bull Inn, Biwmaris, for a couple of pints of Bass [excellent - tip-top condition and served appropriately flat] and a bowl of chips [indifferent]. I spent a pleasant couple of hours over the papers and the beer, sat on a very comfortable sofa by myself, just people watching; a habit of a lifetime that began back in the early 1970s in The Bull Inn, Moseley , in Birmingham, after I had dropped out of school. One article that piqued my interest in this weekend's FT was by Quinn Slobodian, entitled "Libertarian eugenics is on the rise", which sums up the general tenor of the piece, that the Malthusian mentality of the elites is still a...

I wrote the other day that I had at last backed up my old iPod Classic to iTunes and refreshed the device itself with a factory reset and a reload. All true, but I think I did lose some tracks in the process, which must be down to Apple's abstruse and frankly weird file storage structure where such stuff is concerned. Whatever - there is still sufficient stuff on there to shuffle away for months and months should it be needed: anyhow, most of the music on there was ripped from my own CDs anyway, so making up any shortfall is trivial. Anyway, while I was scanning through the collection this evening I lit upon the single "Shapes of Things" by the Yardbirds from 1966. As I've written before, this was the first actual record purchase I ever made, motivated principally by my reaction to Jeff Beck's short but explosive guitar solo, which changed the way I saw and heard music for ever. Much like my exposure to The Kink's "You Really Got Me" a couple of year...

I've been wearing the old weskit more and more lately as the autumn kicks in yet again. I re-read the scribble I wrote about it a couple of years ago, and I've been reflecting on the remarkable fact that this old thing is the thick end of one hundred years old. I bought it from a church jumble sale over fifty years ago and wore it then with the irony of youth, and now I wear it earnestly and honestly as an old man. What is truly remarkable about the garment is the almost complete lack of wear to the material itself, or the stitching on the buttonholes, despite its age and the amount of use I personally have made of it over the last half century, let alone that of its previous owner(s) over the preceding fifty years or so. I think that by now, the old thing has more than repaid its carbon and water debt several thousand times over. There's also no doubt that quality such as this is pretty much impossible to find these days, outside of the most rarified of bespoke clothiers. ...