Hotel art #2

Part of an occasional series.



Hotel Stadt Hannover, Göttingen, Germany (June 2013)

If we had to take up arms again, my heart would shed a tear

Am just getting ready to head off to Göttingen to give a talk (pdf) on my new project.

I've never been there before.

But this song about it sure is pretty.


(English translation of lyrics)

Hotel art #1

An occasional series: art in hotel rooms I (or we) have slept in.

Hotel Ullrich, Elfershausen, Germany (April 2013).

Notes from a fairy tale of commerce

One of the things I'm reading at the moment is J. B. Priestley's English Journey. It's curiously out of print (curious, as it's quite a well-known book) but I managed to find a cheap used copy from 1937 which has held up remarkably well.

In any case, I wish I had read this one earlier, as the book is full of excellent writing and quite amusing anecdotes.

I liked, for instance, this, during the opening excursion to Southampton:

The town was making money. At first I felt like a man who had walked into a fairy tale of commerce. The people who jostled me did not looked as if they had just stepped out of an earthly paradise; there was no Utopian bloom upon them; but nevertheless they all seemed well-fed, decently clothed, cheerful, almost gay. The sun beamed upon them, and so did I. Their long street was very pleasant. I noticed that it shared the taste of Fleet Street and the Strand for wine bars. I went into one of these; and it had a surprising succession of Ye Olde panelled rooms, in one of which I drank a shilling glass of moderate sherry and listening  to four citizens talking earnestly about German nudist papers, their supply having recently been cut off by Hitler. Their interest in these papers was genuine but not of a kind to commend itself to the leaders of the nudist movement. (English Journey, London, 1937, p. 13)

One of the other things I'm reading is Norman Collins's London Belongs to Me, excerpts from which will also, I believe, be featuring here in the near future.

Sleepless in Davos

I'm not familiar with the writings of Clyde Prestowitz, but I found at least three things to like about his recent comments at Foreign Policy on the World Economic Forum in Davos ('Clueless in Davos').

First: he uses the word 'glitteratus', and I've rather a soft spot for the underachiving singular forms of words that are almost always used in the plural (e.g. 'graffito').

Second: he makes reference to the 'gnomes of Zurich', a nickname for Swiss bankers that I first encountered as a teenager while playing Illuminati and which has since stuck in my mind, though I have the feeling it's been largely forgotten. What I never knew (and was inspired by this reference to discover) was that the phrase apparently originated via discussions among British Labour politicians in the 1960s.

Third: he has a rather jaundiced view of the Davos lifestyle, one that jibes well with our own personal experience of the town at the beginning of last month.

Yet, despite his anti-charisma, [WEF organiser Klaus] Schwab has managed to persuade a large number of the world's top CEOs, politicians, academics, media stars, and bureaucrats that they have to be in a cramped, second rate hotel in a cold Swiss village with mediocre skiing and food every year during the bridge weekend between January and February. 

Though I imagine that the kind of 'cramped, second rate hotel' being shared by most of these Davos men and women -- however cramped and second rate -- is in a different class than ours was. (Where the ambience was more 'sleepless in Davos' than 'clueless in Davos'.)

Though, as I noted, there are very nice things about the place.

Away, away, (I was bound)

Today marks the tenth anniversary of my relocation to Germany (from Baltimore), which rather astounds me. The intervening decade -- though it's seen its share of joys, sorrows, struggles, defeats and victories -- has flown by in a way that makes me more than a bit uneasy about the decade to come.

I think if I were to meet that rather younger man who disembarked from some plane or other on 21 June 2001, I'd not entirely recognise him as myself. Though I would certainly congratulate him on having taken a step that would lead to his life becoming better, richer and more exciting than he ever could have expected. (This, of course, was not only down to the move itself but also to the main reason for it. You've all met her, I believe.)

Anyway, at the moment, I'm too sunk in preliminary research on a new project (about which you'll be hearing more when I get a chance to surface) to really give this personal milestone the attention it deserves.

But thanks to one of The Wife's recent purchases, this song came on the car stereo this morning, and it seemed somehow appropriate.


Cake, 'Bound Away' from Showroom of Compassion

Here's to mad decisions.

On contrast

A piece of Hollywood kitsch on which I will most certainly not be wasting any money:



Though it contrasts nicely with the pictures of the athletes' village at this year's Commonwealth Games in Delhi that have been making the rounds these past couple of days.

As the lady with the big mouth says somewhere in the above: "I want to find a place where I can marvel at something."

Indeed.

Mae fy hofrenfad yn llawn o lyswennod

I'm off tomorrow to participate in a media history conference on 'social fears and moral panics' in Aberystwyth. I'm looking forward to it: not only do the papers look very good, but I've also spent hardly any time in Wales, so this is a chance to remedy that.

But it has brought out a concern (indeed, a social fear) all my own: I have this quite overactive dread of mispronouncing foreign words, names and places. (Is there a word for this anxiety?)

And Welsh...well, lets just say I don't know where to begin:

Genir pawb yn rhydd ac yn gydradd â'i gilydd mewn urddas a hawliau. Fe'u cynysgaeddir â rheswm a chydwybod, a dylai pawb ymddwyn y naill at y llall mewn ysbryd cymodlon.

This is the opening text to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

I believe.

I assume, though, that English of some variety will be spoken by the natives. And that they are, at least in large measure, friendly.

(Post title: 'My hovercraft is full of eels'. Source for that and other Welsh on this page. There, you will also find sound files.)

We'll be like bugs when they break through a cocoon

Well, after a couple of weeks and a couple of thousand highway kilometres around France (a vaguely oval shaped journey from north coast to south coast and back again with a quick stop in Spain thrown into the bargain) we are back.

We are also a bit swamped with Things That Need Doing, so the resumption of normal broadcasting may wait a short while.

Both of us have been, after all, largely bereft of world news (and almost entirely bereft of the internet...wi-fi is fairly readily available on the Route du Soleil, but in Normandy...well, not so much) for a good couple of weeks. We have catching up to do.

Rest assured, we'll be filling you in on our travels and thoughts on all and sundry sooner than you might think (or might wish).

But to be brief, we understand that, with regard to the international finance system, there was a near total collapse that made everyone very sad, then a rescue package that made everyone very happy and, since then, a lot of wondering about whether they should have been either so sad or so happy to begin with.

We have been pondering why we have assumed that the financial experts shoving tonnes of money around the world know what they're doing. We assume this no more. Which, if nothing else, might be a useful lesson to learn.

Otherwise, we mourn (and we mean this) the loss of Thomas Dörflein (the former caretaker of one very popular German polar bear), who died much too suddenly and young as well as Rick Wright (keyboard player for a band that has been important to one of us for going on about two decades now).

Otherwise, it seems like pretty much business as usual to me. But that view might change after some perusing of our friends' blog archives...

But, just to entertain you till we're back on track and also to support The Wife's astute recommendation, I wanted to give you another joyous dose of Herman Dune.




Herman Dune, 'I Wish That I Could See You Soon'

This song makes me very happy. I hope it does the same for you.

Even if you're an investment banker and haven't had a lot to be happy about recently.

En Route Greetings

Well, here we are at Chateau Bakewell in Carcassonne, sending you a quick musical missive before dinner. I don`t know how Herman Dune could have escaped our notice for so long ... I guess we have a bit of catching up to do!




Herman Dune, "Not on Top"

What is the French for 'road trip'?

So, we're back for a brief moment before heading off again....

Leeds was great fun, even if the weather was uncooperative. (On the other hand: what would a northern English town be without torrential downpours? Um...yes...far more pleasant. Never mind...) Thanks are due to the organisers of a consistently enlightening conference on cutting-edge crime history.

It's nice to return home, if only briefly, to find a house intact, several more tomatoes in the garden and my long-awaited gun licence.

However, we're off again tomorrow morning...

The way back was also interesting. We very much appreciate the efforts of the station manager at Manchester Piccadilly rail station (apparently known by a radio call sign something like 'Foxtrot Alpha Hotel Terrier' or something...at least that's what it sounded like) who helped to ensure that we got to Manchester Airport despite flooded train lines.

We also exchanged some interesting comments with him on the privatisation and fragmentation of transportation services in Britain. He was certainly a well-informed and opinionated man...who seemed to have a genuine sense of responsibility for the people in his station trying to get somewhere.

A rare characteristic these days.

We later encountered -- in some way -- both the best and worst of Brits abroad via the flight home. On the one hand, we were sat next to a 30ish woman coming over to Germany for some kind of DJ-related event who would not stop generating banal chatter about everything possible. Moreover, she demonstrated the heights of high-maintenance troublemaking by kicking off a minor fuss when the airline didn't have brown sugar. It was 'refined' she said, which made it All Kinds of Evil. At the same time -- for unexpressed reasons -- she was disappointed at the lack of 'real milk' to add to her coffee. Nonetheless: she had consumed about half a pack of Starburst fruit chews and scarfed the offered chocolate bar without a second thought about all the refined sugar and possibly questionable dairy products they might have contained.

She was, you might have guessed, rather an annoyance.

However, on the ground in Frankfurt and while waiting for our luggage, we encountered a delightful gentleman of a somewhat older generation (and rather working-class origins, as best I could tell) who raved to us eagerly about Berlin. 'A magical city' was the phrase he used, and he enthused about having walked down Unter den Linden as if it were the achievement of a lifelong dream. (Even if he had lost a pair of glasses on that trip.)

We spoke to him for all of five minutes, but his charm and normality were enough to (almost) wipe away the previous hour-and-a-half's torment at the hands of Rave Lady.

In academic terms, things went well, which means I made my point without having anything too sharp and pointy thrown at me. I learned a lot from what other people in my field had to say (and I have long thought that people in crime history are quite a good -- read sane, intelligent and creative-- bunch...this conference not giving me any reason to doubt that assessment) and I hope that they found what I had to say at least worth considering.

Tomorrow, it's off to France (as has been our practice in previous years, as also reported here). First to Normandy for a few days, then to Lyon (for another conference), Padern, Carcassone and then back to the Normandy coast for what will prove to be too short a while.

I'm bringing along a few books I've agreed to review in my field and some preliminary research for an upcoming project. Otherwise, I'll be delving into Richard Evans's The Coming of the Third Reich and H.P. Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu and Other Stories, giving me both a bit of real historical horror and some fantasy supernatural horror.

In our experience, internet cafes in provincial France are rather rare things. We will try to check in as much as possible, however, and might even post a few photos from what will be a rather long voyage de la route.

And, of course, we'll be thinking about you.

Well, some of you.

Uh....certainly a select few.

In any case: au revoir.

And keep those mooseburgers warm (note: four different links there...) until we return, you mavericks!

Obscene Desserts: Live at Leeds

We're off for a few days as we head to the far north (well...Yorkshire, Leeds to be precise) where I'll be giving a talk at a crime history conference.

This comes as an opportune time, as it will put a halt to my sudden obsession with the increasingly entertaining US election. Which I do not think is entirely healthy.

The conference promises to be very interesting. (I hope they'll say the same about my contribution...the organisers have put me in with some illustrious company.)

Even if it is certain to be a lot quieter than this:



Rock on!

Ferry very good?

After the first, positive reviews of his film Somers Town, which was released last week, Shane Meadows is now beginning to get some stick from the critics. Well, it had to happen, especially as Meadows had never made any bones about the film’s financing by Eurostar.

For David Cox in today’s Guardian, this is unforgivable. Somers Town, he writes, is a terrible precedent in cinema history and a despicable sell-out. Unlike the more benevolent critics writing warmly about the film during the past week, he refuses to see is as anything other than a cheesy ad disguised as art. Which is also why he relentlessly harps on about the film’s oh-so flawed and flimsy plot (Eurostar employees do not get free Eurostar tickets!) – as though a lack in plot had ever kept a Hollywood movie from becoming a blockbuster (quite to the contrary, I would think), or a nouvelle vague flick a cinema classic.

I haven’t seen the film yet – but really, what do you expect from this kind of improvisation filmed in two-weeks on 16mm (and which even with its Eurostar funding hardly went beyond the low budget)?

Or is there summat else involved? From the start, Mr Cox's slightly over the top grudge against all things Eurostar seems to betray a hidden agenda. Halfway through the article, one is suddenly struck by his quaintly phrased praise of “those excellent ferryboats provided by P&O”, which he thinks the film’s protagonists ought to have boarded to get to France.

Now, that would have made the film more convincing! Only on P&O, though. In wellies and flat cap. Plus whippet.

If Somers Town is advertising disguising as art, surely here we have an instance of advertising disguising as journalism (and investigative journalism, too, as Cox apparently had to make a couple of phone calls in the course of writing his piece). The murky waters of the Channel are criss-crossed daily by dozens of ferries from a variety of lines – both British and continental – so there’s no need to be quite so specific. Why not refer to Transmanche Ferries or SeaFrance? This unwarranted foregrounding of the excellence of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co. is suspicious to say the least.

It also seems to me that Mr Cox is idealising the pleasures of travel by ferry. I’m sure he’s never spent a cold night in a deep and dark December waiting in Dieppe for a ship that hasn’t even left Newhaven by the time you were meant to board it in France, navigated the pools of vomit on the staircases during a particularly rough crossing (or in the wake of particularly heavy boozing) or tried to doze away the endless hours before you get to Dover or wherever, wedged in a quiet corner between the toilets and the fruit machines.

Knowing full well that you still have several hours on a dodgy train before you get to London!

Believe me, the twenty minute Channel Tunnel ride beats the ferry every single time. Why should such a clean, swift and civilised service not be advertised? No need to be quite so irate, Mr Cox.

The title of this post? There is a Dutch transport firm that uses this slogan. I cringe every time I see one of their lorries on the motorway.

Following the herd down to Greece...

And now, a brief word from Konstantinos Lagoudakis, mayor of Malia on the island of Crete:

'They scream, they sing, they fall down, they take their clothes off, they cross-dress, they vomit.'

Who might 'they' be?

Bet you'd never guess...

Music for Sunday

Zipadeedoodah - the semester is over and, Deutsche Bahn permitting, I will be in London tomorrow afternoon! Due to a derailment in Cologne Central Station and subsequent extensive inspections of dozens of high-speed trains, there has been travel chaos over here since Friday - including, annoyingly, on the line between Cologne and Brussels - but I'm kind of optimistic that I will make my Eurostar connection.

Anyway, I'm terribly busy right now, what with packing and stuff, but I thought I ought to at least post some music for today. Inspiration via I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue:



And I'm sorry it takes a while to load.

Harry Pearson is a good man

An unexpectedly generous article in The Guardian tries to flog the pleasures of rural Germany to the discerning British tourist. The author, Harry Pearson, waxes (maybe a little too?) lyrical about a particularly pleasant visit to the Odenwald, a minor mountain range in the south-west of Germany (and really not that far from here). Reminiscing about the mild climate, mellow sights and pleasant (albeit exotic) food that he enjoyed there, Pearson contemplates upon the British reticence regarding travel to and in Germany.

And he reminds us that

at one time the Black Forest and Rhine cruises were immensely popular with British tourists.

Yes indeed: exactly where we live once was a British tourist hot spot. Had Wayne and Coleen tied the knot in the early nineteenth-century, they probably would have taken a cruise on the Rhine, rather than the Riviera. But then again: had Wayne and Coleen lived in the early nineteenth century, they probably wouldn't have had a high-end wedding sponsored by a glossy magazine, the details of which we can't avoid knowing thanks to the press hysteria surrounding it.

In fact, had Wayne and Coleen been early nineteenth-century people, they would probably have lived, slogged, bred and died without anyone noticing.

Literary evidence of the past popularity of Germany can be found in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818/1831), where the eponymous hero - partly in order to shake off the monstrous creation that haunts him and to finally find "tranquillity" (a word which appears on almost every single page in the novel) - travels (grand tour style) across Europe with his friend Henry Clerval.

And you know what: on their way North (because they're England bound), they come past here (i.e. roughly where we are):

We had agreed to descend the Rhine in a boat from Strasbourg to Rotterdam, whence we might take shipping for London. During this voyage we passed many willowy islands and saw several beautiful towns.We stayed a day at Mannheim, and on the fifth from our departure from Strasbourg, arrived at Mainz. The course of the Rhine below Mainz becomes much more picturesque. The river descends rapidly and winds between hills, not high, but steep, and of beautiful forms. We saw many ruined castles standing on the edges of precipices, surrounded by black woods, high and inaccessible. This part of the Rhine, indeed,presents a singularly variegated landscape. In one spot you view rugged hills, ruined castles overlooking tremendous precipices, with the dark Rhine rushing beneath; and on the sudden turn of a promontory,flourishing vineyards with green sloping banks and a meandering river and populous towns occupy the scene.

We travelled at the time of the vintage and heard the song of the labourers as we glided down the stream. Even I, depressed in mind, and my spirits continually agitated by gloomy feelings, even I was pleased. I lay at the bottom of the boat, and as I gazed on the cloudless blue sky, I seemed to drink in a tranquillity to which I had long been a stranger. And if these were my sensations, who can describe those of Henry? He felt as if he had been transported to fairy-land and enjoyed a happiness seldom tasted by man. "I have seen," he said, "the most beautiful scenes of my own country; I have visited the lakes of Lucerne and Uri, where the snowy mountains descend almost perpendicularly to the water, casting black and impenetrable shades, which would cause a gloomy and mournful appearance were it not for the most verdant islands that believe the eye by their gay appearance; I have seen this lake agitated by a tempest, when the wind tore up whirlwinds of water and gave you an idea of what the water-spout must be on the great ocean; and the waves dash with fury the base of the mountain, where the priest and his mistress were overwhelmed by an avalanche and where their dying voices are still said to be heard amid the pauses of the nightly wind; I have seen the mountains of La Valais, and the Pays de Vaud; but this country, Victor, pleases me more than all those wonders. The mountains of Switzerland are more majestic and strange, but there is a charm in the banks of this divine river that I never before saw equalled. Look at that castle which overhangs yon precipice; and that also on the island,almost concealed amongst the foliage of those lovely trees; and now that group of labourers coming from among their vines; and that village half hid in the recess of the mountain. Oh, surely the spirit that inhabits and guards this place has a soul more in harmony with man than those who pile the glacier or retire to the inaccessible peaks of themountains of our own country."

Clerval! Beloved friend! Even now it delights me to record your words and to dwell on the praise of which you are so eminently deserving. He was a being formed in the "very poetry of nature." His wild and enthusiastic imagination was chastened by the sensibility of his heart. His soul overflowed with ardent affections, and his friendship was of that devoted and wondrous nature that the world-minded teach us to look for only in the imagination. But even human sympathies were not sufficient to satisfy his eager mind.

The scenery of external nature, which others regard only with admiration, he loved with ardour

The sounding cataract
Haunted him like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to him
An appetite; a feeling, and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, or any interest
Unborrow'd from the eye.

(Wordsworth "Tintern Abbey")

And where does he now exist? Is this gentle and lovely being lost forever? Has this mind, so replete with ideas, imaginations fanciful and magnificent, which formed a world, whose existence depended on the life of its creator; - has this mind perished? Does it now only exist in my memory? No, it is not thus; your form so divinely wrought, and beaming with beauty, has decayed, but your spirit still visits and consoles your unhappy friend.

It is a pity, given the sublimity that she had ascribed to the German landscape in her first novel, that Mary Shelley, when she travelled in Germany in 1842, wasn't too impressed by the country (let alone the language, of which she only had a passive knowledge). Which is why I worry that Mr. Pearson's praise might not have the intended effect, but lead to great disappointment. No deckchairs, no towels, no Yoga in German. Oh dear ....

Still: nice one. Though I have to point out that if you want to get to the Odenwald, Hamburg is about the least convenient place to fly to, as the article suggests, even if it might be the German airport closest to London.

Time to go

I've been in London for the last week on a research trip, hence the relative silence. It's not so much the lack of internet access this time, but more a result of being a bit mentally switched off after a day in the archives.

Too much haystack, too few needles.

And there are also times when I agree completely with W.G. Sebald (via):

[O]n bad days you don't trust yourself, either in your first or your second language, and so you feel like a complete halfwit.

Indeed.

I will hopefully stop feeling this way sometime soon and get back to pestering you with over-long diatribes about something or other.

In the meantime two things occur to me.

First, I am relieved to note that the urban apocalypse that was predicted in some quarters should Boris Johnson become Mayor of London has not yet made itself apparent. Don't get me wrong, I don't like the guy or anything, but the city seems to be grinding along in its typically shambolic way with no more than the usual amount of social strife and cannibalism. I hope that continues to be so.

Secondly, I realised a day or so ago that I have been staying around the corner from 'The best Indian food in the UK', at least according to Justin Hawkins, singer in the now sadly defunct rock band The Darkness.

There's Justin and his mates now, on a sign outside Red Rose Tandoori:



I can't testify to the quality of the food, as I've not yet eaten there. At the same time, I'm doubtful of the culinary authority one should grant a glam-rock band.

Still, they do know a thing or two about rock and roll.



It's been a long week.

Back home tomorrow.

Take care.

Chop off his ear!

There's only one way to deal with the kind of hooligan behaviour recently exhibited by a Finnish tourist visiting the Easter Islands.

Article in Deutsch, I'm afraid. Oops, no -- here's an English version, too.

Home Again

Our travels seem to be at an end for a while, so things should be picking up here again soon. Unlike some people, perhaps, I find it takes me a while to get back into the blogging rhythm. But it’ll come back. (Take that as a threat or a promise, as you choose.)

I’ve been catching up on some things I missed while being away from the internet for a while. I’m happy to find there are a lot of interesting and well-written things that have appeared, which I still need to work through before I can recommend and discuss them.

There is, of course, also the usual torrent of stupidity out there, and I’m wading through some of that as well.

But, trenchant social commentary aside, being on the road for a while—to the US and to Greece—did bring a couple of things to mind that I thought were worth mentioning.

The first was the reminder of how unrelentingly grim domestic air-travel in America has become. (Getting to an international flight is no easier, but at least in those cases—at least with Lufthansa—there’s some free booze awaiting you once airborne.) It begins with our friends in the Transport Security Administration. Now, I am well aware that the threat of terrorism is hardly a figment in the mind of George Bush, and I don’t even object so much to all the various little indignities which go along with the more intensive searching of bags and bodies (even if there is part of me that wonders how effective all that really is).

No, what I cannot figure out is how the American version of all this (since there is tight security within Europe as well) turns out to be such a cacophonous, zoo-like nightmare. Whether at O’Hare (which has long been a less than enjoyable place for various reasons) or even at BWI, hitherto one of my favourite airports (because it is relatively small and easy to navigate), there seemed to be a level of chaos and stress involved in simply getting to the gate that I’ve never experienced before.

Take dozens of uniformed people who, when they’re not chatting and joking amongst themselves are barking some not-very-well-enunciated commands; throw in a dozen or so different signs—in a dozen different typefaces and some of them handwritten, while others, I swear, included clip art taken from Microsoft Word and were printed on some crazily out-of-date colour printer—posted willy nilly in the ‘security zone’; finally, add a hefty amount of jostling from all directions by people who only realise at the last minute – despite all those shouted commands and confusing signs - that they have to remove their coats, shoes, laptops and little plastic baggie containing all their on-board liquids. This is a recipe for misery. (Not to mention the risk of serious burns among all those people I witnessed scarfing down the coffee they bought immediately before trying to go through security. Here lurks a future lawsuit….)

Since we were delayed by weather at O'Hare, we had several hours of listening to a voice intoning at regular intervals that our security alert level was ‘orange’; this was, simultaneously, unsettling, ridiculous and useless, a rare combination. We also had CNN running constantly on monitors strategically placed throughout the terminal so that you could hardly avoid them, and CNN on that day seemed to consist solely of a concerned (but strangely exhilarated) weatherman standing in front of a very nifty computer-generated map full of blobby looking green and orange shapes that, to be honest, told me nothing.

Or, at least, his frantic efforts and expensive technical wizardry aimed at expressing the horrendous severity of it all told us no more than the four words uttered by a helpful airlines employee earlier that morning: "We got weather comin'." Indeed. We did.

As I related this tale to someone at the crime conference we attended, he suggested that perhaps this would be a great opportunity for Americans to discover the joys of high-speed rail. It seems like a great idea to me. But I’m not holding my breath. (Perhaps America could buy some trains from France.)

In happier news, the conference in Crete was excellent. There were many thought-provoking and very informative papers, some good discussion and my own contribution seems to have been well received, which was nice. More importantly, though, the food and wine provided by the organisers was top-notch. Greek food, I discovered, is not only delicious but also comes in portions which I could barely comprehend. At the dinners we attended, new dishes just seemed to keep coming from all directions, and they were all great. From a culinary perspective, I can wholeheartedly recommend the place.

From the point of view of traffic, however…let’s just say there’s room for improvement.

It’s not so much that there is an enormous amount of traffic on Crete. No, it’s not that. It’s more an issue of quality rather than quantity.

As a historian at the conference with an insider’s perspective put it to me, Greeks see things like red lights and stop signs as ‘suggestions’ rather than imperatives. (The same is true, I noticed on the highways while travelling to and from Heraklion airport to the conference venue in Rethymnon, of ‘no-passing’ zones.) Likewise, parking is something that one does wherever an inviting space seems to present itself, regardless of what signs, double yellow lines or the safety of others might, um, suggest. The conference featured several papers about the figure of the ‘bandit’ in Greek history. In countless small ways, perhaps, his spirit lives on.

Finally, I had the delightful opportunity to meet for the first time several people whose academic work I have long appreciated. As ever, I was struck by the fact that authors never end up looking the way I expect them to. It’s not a question of better or worse: they're simply…different. I notice the same things with voices, and I have always been mystified as to why there is not some kind of greater match between people’s appearance and their voices (whether literal or literary). Maybe this doesn’t strike anyone else as strange. Maybe I'm just not good at putting face to voice.

Of course, then I get to thinking about whether others have thought something similar about me.

Hmmm.

Well, onward we go…

Touching back down to Earth again, ever so briefly

Your humble narrator and his beloved companion have been on the wing more than usual over the last couple of weeks, hence the shortage of commentary.

Unlike the common swift -- which manages everything necessary to its lifestyle without coming to rest -- I tend to find I need some familiar earth beneath my feet (not to mention a certain amount of solitude and my own desk) in order to really get anything done. In this it seems I am also unlike those hundreds of people I recently saw in airports crouching by power outlets in any free moment to write e-mail, manipulate databases and do things with spreadsheets that I don't even want to have explained to me. (Or, who knows, maybe they were just using airport wi-fi to visit Second Life.)

Nonetheless, I've found, some time away from the endless electronic world is actually not that bad a thing, at least once the first few days of withdrawal symptoms subside.

We're taking flight again tomorrow, though more briefly, to attend a conference on violence history in which I'm participating.

So, things will remain quiet here until some time next week, and, today, I really need to put the finishing touches on my paper and presentation.

However, I did want to quickly mention two things, while I have your attention:

First, a good friend of mine, Toronto-based artist Keith W. Bentley, has entered one of his artworks, Cauda Equina, in the 'Saatchi Gallery Showdown'.



As Keith describes it:

The hair of Cauda Equina comes from horse rendering plants and over the span of eight years, each hair was hand knotted into fabric. The end result being a near life size horse wearing the funeral veil of more than 250 slaughtered horses.

A lot of Keith's work deals with nature and death, and Cauda Equina can be seen here, where you may vote on it. I would recommend giving it a ten: when we were neighbours, I saw various stages of this work being produced and I know how much work went into it. The hair here was woven by hand and was incredibly time consuming. (Which is why completing the piece took eight years.) I think the end result works, both aesthetically and, once you know what's behind it, conceptually.

Second, I see that I have been 'tagged' by You Are Here as a 'Thinking Blogger', which is very nice indeed, and I didn't want to delay expressing my gratitude on that regard. Thanks!

This means, though, that it's my turn to nominate five blogs that make me think, and keep the whole thing going.

Hmmm....

To be continued, when we again touch down.