Slieve Donard

My wife and I paid a fleeting visit to N Ireland for a wedding. A longstanding friend had taken the plunge. The service took place outside Newcastle in County Down with the reception in a hotel in the area.

It was a pleasure to meet friends and former work mates at the service. The only constant is change. They confirmed they were well and were embarking on new professional challenges in their working lives. My wife remarked on their kindness to blow-ins from South East London. I am biased but inclined to agree.

A wedding in N Ireland is always a gamble with the elements. The summer months don't guarantee clear skies. A spring or autumn wedding foreshortens the odds considerably. The gods did not oblige and wind and rain meant that festivities were confined to indoors. The locus was still impressive with waves crashing on the Newcastle seafront and the summit of Slieve Donard mountain enveloped by cloud.

I have climbed Slieve Donard and walked in the Mournes a number of times. I enjoy the elemental pleasures of hill walking in my home and miss it when I am away. When I return to London I sometimes speculate on what an alternate existence would be like in N Ireland.We cannot lead two lives but we can wonder at paths not taken.

 

Age

Having celebrated a birthday I am conscious of age and getting older.

Both my parents are fit and active. Both are over 70. My mother walks 2 miles or more every day and looks after her well being. When we moved to Kent from Central London I noticed the increased use of the motorised scooters and powered wheelchairs noted in the photo. Canterbury and the surrounding towns have an elderly population.

I have seen users who are not disabled. They use them as powered transport for short trips in lieu of walking. I am not an expert but I am not sure this is a good. Keeping fit and active for as long as possible is a good for both mental and physical well being.

As noted I am not an expert and know too little about care for the elderly. I have an opinion and to quote Clint Eastwood opinions are like rear ends. Everyone has one.

 

Ghost Stories

It was a birthday and my sister in law kindly treated my wife and I to the theatre. We sent to see The Weir at the Wyndham theatre in London.

I hadn't seen the play before. I had seen Shining City by the same scribe and admired it. The Weir has similar themes and has been very successful. This was a starry revival with Brian Cox and Ardal O'Hanlon.

The playwright has a talent and ear for drink fuelled pub chat and the way language can provide solace for disappointed lives. The five characters in the Weir spend a cold windy night in a rural Irish pub . The four men have a new audience - a Dublin woman who has moved to a house in the area. They proceed to scare her and themselves with ghost stories from the locale.

The characters (save the taciturn barman) are all haunted. The ghosts are the past and the fear is of a lonely future. The other spectre is the role of drink as comfort and anaesthetic . If the characters calmly offered each other heroin the play would seem outlandish and surreal. Instead the reality of borderline alcoholism is barely noted.

 

The Saatchi Gallery

I had some days off between work assignments so I went to the Saatchi Gallery.

I had never been before and avoided Mr Saatchi's exhibitions in the past . He exhibited a bête noire called Jeff Koons ( he of Bubbles the chimp sculptures ) and the YBAs ( an acronym for the young british artists of the 90s). The work of the YBAs was mostly docile conceptual art. It was well suited to the time, commercial and made Damien Hirst a multi millionaire. N Ireland farmers need not have sold their herd for a pittance to the meat producers.Instead they could have put them in a tank, pickled them and gave them a voguish cod philosophical title . They could then have retired to the Bahamas.

My prejudices were partly confounded by the gallery. It had a good exhibition space and some of the art was interesting and provocative. When you go to the Tate your response is conditioned by familiarity of a Turner or a Monet. I knew nothing about the artists at the Saatchi gallery. I had to rely on my own response to the work.

I noticed the sponsorship though . Corporate sponsors like BNP Baribas are hardly going to sponsor art that frightens the horses ( pickled or otherwise).

 

Portraits

I spent yesterday studying faces.That is a gnomic statement so I will elaborate.

I visited my brother in law and was introduced to his new born son. It is a terrifying sensation to hold a week old baby. They are so fragile and vulnerable . It was also a gratifying one - at the risk of the new age you sense the whole of life. I read that a new father was shown the placenta by a nurse. The nurse held the placenta to the light showing the network of veins. She called the network of veins the tree of life.

I have had difficulty in the past determining who babies look like. Others (usually womanfolk) are able to identify family features. I found this skill beyond me. On this occasion when I looked I was able to identify characteristics and likeness in the new born. I paid attention and did not fall back on the lazy response adopted in the past.

When I left the proud parents I went to the National Portrait gallery. I spent an hour looking at bewigged Tudors and Hanoverians. Some of the portraits were wonderful. There was a picture of the playwright Ben Jonsen that was photo realistic and brilliant.

There was an exhibit of portraits from the First World War. The pictures of various generals and politicians were of individuals . They were identified and posed with medals and the regalia of their status. The pictures of the soldiers from the trenches were different. The men were not identified and were treated less as individuals and more as archetypes .They were either emblems of adversity or used as propaganda.

My grandfather served in the First World War. For his troubles he received medals, a perforated ear drum and shell shock. The latter is another description of post traumatic stress disorder. He never spoke about his experience and it had a marked impact on his life back in N Ireland .

The current revision of history portrays the Great War as an heroic enterprise and not blimpish generals using men as cannon fodder . I studied the period at school and I have no idea why my grandfather, a farmer from County Tyrone , was fighting in a field in France. I am not sure the generals portrayed in the National gallery knew either.

 

Flight MH370

For someone who is a timid flyer I take an obsessive and unhelpful interest in matters aeronautical. I have been following the harrowing story of the missing airliner from Malaysia and can relate to the awful nausea of waiting for terrible news. I hope the plane is found soon so that the families at least know their fate .

My cousin is a air traffic controller and another cousin is married to a long haul pilot. They have chatted to each other on occasion as they ply their trade. When relaxing they have merry tales of keeping dots apart and air proximity hazards (or airprox for short). In the presence of such conversations I excuse myself concluding ignorance is bliss.

The statistics are much quoted and correct. Flying is the safest form of travel. If one commutes on the congested motorways of the South East of England you regularly witness carnage and loss. If you are being rational you would not set foot in a car again yet I never have misgivings about driving.

I do have misgivings when flying though . On reflection it must be the issue of control. When driving you have the illusion of control. When flying you have the certainty you are not.

 

 

The Godfather

I have been asked to be Godfather . My wife's brother had a second child and I was given the honour.

I have been both Baptised and confirmed so I should satisfy the requirements of the Anglican Church . My apathy towards organised religion is another matter but I will not trouble the church with my misgivings.

I have done a little research. The font of wisdom that is Wikepedia provides a description. For many church denominations a godparent is someone who "sponsors a child's baptism". The modern secular view of a godparent tends to be "an individual chosen by the parents to take an interest in the child's upbringing and personal development." The sponsorship is straightforward. I will endeavour to take an interest in the youngster's upbringing.

I will turn up for the Baptism this time. I am ashamed to admit I did not when asked previously. I am godfather to my brothers eldest. When I was asked I didn't realise it conflicted with a previously booked trip to Paris. Paris won . The flight was with Ryanair so a change in flight was unthinkable . They didn't fly to Paris either but that's a different story.

My brother forgave my nonattendance. In retrospect I should have gone to the Baptism and gave Mr O'Leary whatever he required to change the flight. Paris will always be Paris ( or Beauvais to be more precise).

 

Artificial Intelligence

I always liked the joke (I think it is Monty Python) were someone prays there's intelligent life somewhere in space beause there is no evidence of it on Earth. It's elitist , despairing and funny.

I don't know why but I thought of said joke when reading an article about a Ray Kurzweil. Mr Kurzweil is employed by Google as head of engineering. By 2029 he imagines a brave new world of conscious machines. They will be benign rather than the Arnold Schwarzenegger variety. Instead of toasters threatening nuclear warfare we will have helpful machines that are smarter than their creators. They will take over tricky day to day tasks like sentience and thought. Mr Kurzweil (who is in his sixties) is also holding out for a break through in medical science that will grant immortality .

The idea of the singularity proposed by Mr Kurzweil is an interesting one. It refers to the Turing test – the moment at which a computer will exhibit intelligent behaviour indistinguishable from a human. It will raise interesting questions about identity and metaphysics but I cannot help feeling it is utopian. The problems faced by most people will not be answered by smart machines. Freud's statement that psychoanalysis is successful when it turns misery into ordinary everyday unhappiness will still hold true.Ordinary everyday unhappiness will remain with Robbie the robot for company or without. The clever machines will mainly benefit the wealthy of course - that will always be a truism.

I am aware of the irony in typing this missive out on a computer. I am also aware of the greater irony on posting said missive on a service provided by Mr Kurzweil's employer. I hope ET appreciates the joke.