The yawning abyss between beliefs

Youtube's algorithms present me with an interesting choice each day: really excellent political comment from someone called Phil (his Chanel- a different bias) who really should be prime minister rather than the blond swaggering idiot we have in No ten at the current time . . . actually, any of my three dogs, even the small runty one with three legs would be a better candidate - no offence Phil!
Oh, yes, algorithms.
Apart from Phil, they (appearing in my mind as tiny white-coated scientists scribbling down my personal data) suggest various subjects: Climate change, Permaculture, unusual houses, greening the world's deserts, astronomy, runner ducks, John Roger's wonderful channel: The Lost Byway; psychogeography, Vernon Bogdanor's history lectures, a lovely channel called 'Mossy Bottom' - nothing devient - just a charming young guy talking about his new self-sufficient life in a cottage called Mossy Bottom in the West of Ireland; Will Self talking about anything, George Monbiot lectures, and lots of French documentaries - great way of learning language - put on something that fascinates and marvel at how the information creep into your brain's word-storage facility.

Yesterday, I listened to Mr Monbiot's lecture given at Falmouth Uni in 2018. Entitled 'How to truly take back control', it was a utterly insightful, intelligent and hope-giving talk, set against the impending wreckage of the world we currently know - the need for new communities, the need for a new human narrative beyond Keynesian economics and Neoliberalism.
I thought about it a great deal during the day as I went about dealing with the heat ravaged-garden, and then later while doing kitchen chores opened the laptop to see what Youtube would present me with - A choice of French Documentaries entitled Bling! Great choice you little tiny scientists. I was utterly hooked on the absolutely awfulness of it all: the world's richest people, hugest houses, biggest yachts, most exclusive hotels, most expensive jewellery . . .  I think the most absurd bit of all featured a certain Chinese real estate developer who owned four Rolls Royces and only seemed to wear suits that made Liberace's dress code seem rather pale.
On the fifth floor of the utterly exclusive Monaco hotel he was being chauffeured to there was utter panic as his three bedroomed, panoramic sea-view marble suite (at 30,000 euros per night) was not actually enterable as the key code was refusing to work. Of course, just in time, a locksmith (probably helicoptered in) did arrive and saved everyone from utter humiliation and multiple heart attacks as the person would have had to wait . . . And I don't suppose it would have been like waiting in a Travelodge reception area with a mouldering pot plant for company and a free token for a drinks distributer . . .



68,000 euros a night . . . Royal Penthouse suite: the President Wilson hotel in Geneva (Image - Elite Traveller)



One of the world's most expensive yachts - a mere 330 million. I've just seen one for 4.5 billion . . . but it does have a statue made of genuine Tyrannosaurus rex bones. Oh, that makes sense then . . .

Maybe if you experience stuff like this all the time, you don't worry about what might be lurking on the horizon line as far as the future of the planet, and us as a species, is concerned. There was a great quote in the Guardian yesterday by a well known environmentalist planning to leave Sydney for a new apocalypse-proof life elsewhere. I can't find it now but it was something like: 'people think they'll be okay (in the face of climate breakdown) because they have superannuation.'

timely things

During a trip back to the UK last week I met the publishers who will be publishing my novel.
It was a really enjoyable meeting, and I came away feeling motivated, excited, very happy, and all the other things one would expect after slogging away at the writing game for a very long time.
How great it would be, I thought, to celebrate this personally momentous point in time by commissioning a painting or other piece of art/craft. And then the very thing presented itself at the Wirksworth Art and Architecture Trail in Derbyshire.
Some years ago I had mentioned to Richard Bett, a jeweller whose work I greatly admire that it would be wonderful if he could create me a bespoke piece to mark the point when I finally found a 'home' for my novel. He must have had a psychic episode as on seeing me he exclaimed 'Kate. You're here! Look - I made something for you." He hadn't known that the book had found a publisher, or that I would be at the trail but there it was, a silver pendant featuring the heroine of the book astride her horse, Kafka.

                           

Colour

Walking into my friend's house yesterday was like entering a glorious multi-layered painting. Sadly, I didn't have my good camera with me but even the small one half together with duct tape managed to catch some of the shades and nuances of her chosen colour pallets. Much has been added and changed since my last visit a few years ago.

Her abode is an incredible, and almost edible, spectrum of opal greens, blues and lilacs, on the walls, fireplaces, doors, and contained in the hundreds of beautiful paintings and sketches, and works in progress. I found myself wondering how many shades of blue, green, mauve and occasionally bursts of bright orange and red could be counted within the houses's walls. Hundreds, thousands? It's not really something I've really thought about before despite having studied colour, to a certain extent, during my art college years.

When I returned to my brother's house this afternoon, I found he and my son were engaged in 'making a computer' - as you do . . . I asked what the thing was on the table that looked like a spool of 35mm film and he said it was an LED strip which could display about 16.6 million different colours. Still trying to digest this fact . . .
Here are a selection of the 16.6 million displayed in my friend's house.

Building Number 64

Haven't done one of these sub-blog list elements recently, but on passing this curved wonderment this afternoon in Sheffield, it called out to be added.

                

The interior must surely contain: ancient electric kettle, selection of mugs, digestif biscuits - possibly, 'rich tea' as well; found wellies, pinned-up leaflets advertising jumble sales, local bake-offs/ballroom dancing, dog shows, manure, open gardens, bowls club, trips to garden centres of note, society members ads: free cultivated blackberry cuttings - see Reg, free to good home: tabby kittens; unwanted gift of hedge cutters - see Mrs Plab, etc.
Or, maybe not. Perhaps it's all Prosecco, canapés, adverts for speed-dating clubs and leaflets concerning lost Chihuahuas.
That certain green perfect paint and tended pots suggests the former . . .   

Free food: post number . . .?

I know I've blogged about this many times, but each late summer/early autumn it always amazes me as to how much stuff gets left to rot on trees/bushes around here.
I keep forgetting to take a collecting bag with me on walks - blackberries are in super abundance this year. These plums were stripped from a few trees just down the road, and no one else was interested apart from a few blackbirds. Next up, pears, occasionally apples, and then finally, pomegranates - the finest fruit and utterly ignored here.
Climate heating is definitely making its mark as these fruits are about a month ahead in their ripening time - the jam prep something I usually associate with bright but slightly nippy November days, not late September/early October . . .
Dog walk beckons, this time with fruit bag.

Expanding universes and under-sink cupboards

Under the sink . . . it is a horrible universe in its own right. Stuff dwells in there, and it is only visited in order to find the dustpan and brush, a new sponge or the dog-rice.
This morning as I got the tin of rice out I realised a small lake had formed underneath it. Further investigation revealed a leak from part of the plastic sink 'gubbins' where a small piece of grey pipe had become unattached thus allowing a large percentage of any water going down the plug hole to end up in the cupboard rather than where it was supposed to be going.
Mark came and peered at it then retuned to the piano to play a Chopin Waltz. Lovely, but not overly helpful in solving the sink problem.
I prodded Youtube into life and selected a TED talk by Lord Martin Rees, (baron of Ludlow, member of parliament, and eminent cosmologist/astrophysicist) on the fate of mankind in the 21st Century and got down to trying to fix (bodge) the pipe back into where it was supposed to be.
Youtube algorithms had decided on the perfect choice for scratching one's head over leaky sink joints: the birth of the universe - possibly other ones simultaneously; the expanding of our universe, dark matter, possible forth spacial dimension, and, a wonderful fact that I shall certainly stock in my mind - if you represent the Earth's lifetime by a single year, the 21st Century would be a quarter of a second in June . . .
Suddenly the leak seemed less annoying. I stuffed a piece of old t-shirt into the hole, put a plastic box under the drippy bit, threw stuff away and shut the door on it all. Nick the builder is coming to look at our collapsing gate tomorrow so perhaps he could work out why the bit of grey tube has departed from the rest of the sink apparatus.

                         


                                                          Black hole of under the sink

                                  
 
                   Lord Martin Rees who I expect has a more organised under-sink cupboard than us

Hottest day ever in Paris

And we were there in an apartment the size of a wardrobe which was part of an attic - chambre de bonne (maid's room) and the fan broke within three minutes.
I texted the air B and B owner woman who said, and I quote: 'I'm off on holiday, good luck.' When I complained - rigorously - she said there had been a problem of stock and she hadn't been able to buy one. I implored her to ring a friend to lend us one - nope. Not happening. You could try the housekeeper, she suggested. Housekeeper arrived said, 'mon dieu, 'it's like a furnace in here, but sorry I don't have a spare fan.'
Suffice to say, we didn't sleep despite draping ourselves in wet towels.
Anyway . . . gay Paris. It was all wonderful despite the various incredibly sweaty tram and metro journeys to and from galleries and museums - we spent about four hours looking at Buddha statues in the Guimet museum; partly as they were fascinating but also as the museum's air-conditioning was particularly effective.
We also saw, and heard a brilliant exhibition on the history of electro music at the City de la Musique. Walking to the building from the metro I experienced the same fear that I had done while visiting Death Valley - not that there was endless sand and cactus but the heat was as, or almost, as intense. That sort of primal fear that if one doesn't find shelter within minutes one would most certainly peg out.
Global warming monsieur Trump? Nah . . . course not.
The next day was due to be slightly less hot but we were already moving off to London where it was forecasted as light drizzle and about 22 degrees.


         

The rooftop view from our chamber of Hell - actually, would have been perfect at any other time in the year.

       

A street on the Isle de St Louis - at 5.00 am. The only time to really enjoy walking about . . .

          

                 An hour or so later, one of the cafes starting up for the day

     

        Notre Dame's reconstruction underway

      

              One of many serene buddhas

               

                        Early LIKE



                An interesting bit of pavement-claiming

               

A wonderful fountain which I put my feet in and almost put the rest of me in except several police were nearby water-spraying their horses.

              

                          A lovely archway

          

                  My favourite door and name of the trip

                        

                            stupidest shop name of the trip

             

                  Part of the electro music expo

             

                       best graffiti

              

                   THE shopping cathedral

                      

  and one of its bargains (4.500 euros . . . for a bag you could just about fit a phone and a lipstick in)



My favourite restaurant - where they still do the 'addition' on the paper table cloths

                

                            a man waiting for the metro



                               Au revoir, Paris