Is Everything You Know Wrong?

… or the Myth of Fingerprints.

There seem to be so many fundamental truths that are turning out not to be truths at all. However, this assault on one fundamental truth is just not in the same league. Do not believe the hype.

And this article about advice for Americans on how not to behave idiotically abroad made me chuckle in the first paragraph when a visitor to these sparkling shores remarks on how easy it would be to amend all the TO LET signs to read TOILET and wonders why no one bothers to. I can remember my mother saying that she used to do exactly this when she was young. But then again she did go to Dartington Hall School which is not far behind Summerhill School in terms of promoting freedom of expression. My aunt, who also went to Dartington, remembers tea with Bertrand Russell, whose children were there at the same time. I like to think of them being tempted to amend TO LET signs as well. I am of course the weedy, downtrodden product of state education designed to keep us all just bubbling under the dissatisfaction event horizon.

All of which makes me wonder if the sudden increase in the number of schools prepared to even just mention creationism is part of some grand educational plan with this very purpose. Am I being pernickety when I find it just plain wrong when fundamentalist Christians are allowed to finance schools? And then am I taking it a step too far if I think that these same sponsors will then want a say in what is taught in those schools? And surely I am overstepping the bounds of what might be considered conspiracy theory if I speculate on how enthusiastic the dear leader seems about all this.

I suppose an enthusiastic review of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe might seem a little out of place after this rant. I enjoyed it; the book brought to life. And my must-see TV over the weekend was the trilogy of The Private Life on an Easter Masterpiece which examined Da Vinci’s Last Supper, Dali’s Christ of St. John of the Cross and Piero della Francesca’s Resurrection. Thick father was wondering privately why they started with the last supper on Thursday when daughter said out loud that Jesus would have been having the last supper “about now” and the fact that it was the day before Good Friday hit me in the teeth. “Sunday School Pupil shames aging humanist”. Of the three, the best picture for me is Dali’s powerful crucifixion scene which has never leapt out at me before but simply due to its unusual perspective is almost overwhelming. I would love to see it for real. However, it does seem at odds with what I know about Dali and his at best ambiguous spirituality. This was said much better in the show and several of the critics dismissed the painting as a cynical act of self-promotion. I could only think of Vettriano doing something similar today but I don’t know enough about Vettriano’s beliefs to make any further comment. There was criticism too, from a former student at the Glasgow school of art who was leader of the protests against the purchase of Dali’s picture. He was pictured in a photo vaguely contemporary with the time with some of his own pictures which immediately struck me as being similar to the pictures Giles use to put into his cartoons when he wanted to suggest some poor sub-Picasso modern art. For all Dali’s cynical money-making, he certainly could paint and had his own style. “Humanist moved by Avida Dollars”.