Charisma and Chameleon



He Blends - That's What He Does.

Listening to Let England Shake - Number One Album of 2011 here and most everywhere.
I rejected the idea of some classic fiction in favour of some palate-cleansing dip-in which is Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman, a blunt and wide-ranging discourse from probably the greatest genius of the last century. What is more amazing is that despite his mind operating at a gear several hundred times above that of us plebs, he was able to communicate these complex ideas into the real-world. The book itself is light in tone and yet still contains musings on the higher things that made up his day job, and above all shows how to learn by understanding rather than by remembering. Doing is better than being told how to do something for forcing obscure concepts into the grey jelly. Laughing and learning in one easily-digestible volume.

PS. Book Dedications Blog by Wayne Gooderham

Web Mix

A Horse - Definitely Not yesterday

... though of course Magritte would have it that it is definitely not a horse either.

Listening to Nerve Net by Brian Eno

Well along with 11 holes in one during his first attempt at Golf and all the other Godlike properties of The Dear Leader, we hear that he didn't need to urinate which I suspect might give some of his useless doctors a clue as to what went wrong with this obviously-destined-to-be-immortal man. Is North Korea the ultimate real-world example of the world described in nineteen-eighty-four? All that wailing at the death of a brutal leader (not that he looked as if brutality was ever a strong point) is obviously orchestrated by shadowy groups of thought-police. Which reminds me that after the classic of The Bell Jar I really should read NEF again soon.

Edsger W. Dijkstra Was Wrong

Goto Considered a Very Nice Man

Well that was a very short book! I bought Bonjour Tristesse years ago and I've only just got around to reading it. There isn't much to it in terms of plot until near the end but it all sort of makes sense in an inconsequential way. It reads a bit like The Stranger in style - the same dream-like desultory narrative - but a Bourgeois version (for all its outward profession of being Bohemian and anti-normal). The only really likeable person doesn't actually make it to the end and in not doing so returns Cecile and her father to their strange hedonistic lifestyle. It remind me of a less-manic version of Wuthering Heights - strange family happy in their own way have this contentment disturbed by misfit outsiders - violence and dislike ensues - someone dies and everything returns to normal. I think. It is brilliantly written - structured nicely but ultimately none of the potential directions that spatter the story would give any sense of feeling for the characters. Cecile may have been played by Jean Seberg in the film but not even that image can keep from thinking of her as much more than a spoiled brat. Read for the language rather than the story is all I say.

Admiral Ackbar, General Bomgar and Field Marshal Tantawi ....

.... walked into a bar.


Of Course it Was a Trap

Where today? Well Semi Finals of Only Connect have ramped up the obscurity to a level that University Challenge can only dream of - lightweights. Vanessa Bell apparently looks nothing like Virginia Woolf. Youngest is still desperate to get one right in OC - it is only a matter of time.

Work involves cross-domain authentication and is not working meaning a re-examination of the options - not many of them to be honest but let's at least fail on the side of not letting anyone in rather than everyone. Our apps would be much better off without having to let people actually use them anyway.

Leisure time consists of approaching the end of Peripheral Vision with an ever-increasing pulse determined not to be surprised by anything which comes out of this Chick-Lit with emphasis on the Lit. Anything can happen in the next half hour and going on what already has probably will.

Och A Vay

Kindling

Doorplate at Snowshill Manor

Back off dead-tree books and on the Kindle for Peripheral Vision by Patricia Ferguson. This was one of the choices in A Good Read a few weeks back and I think I've already mentioned it as being in the queue/Stack/Floating-point Register before but now I've actually started it. It is strangely without dialogue which seems to match with its other worldliness quite well. It has many reasons to read on as well as being generally well-written with the promise of plenty of revelations to come. I remember that the reviewers on AGR did agree that it did not need the resolution that actually came along which may reflect the general post-structuralist desire to get away from neat and satisfying parcels of literature but does sometime make for an annoying lack of closure. Head says go with the flow of real life - heart says let them all live happily ever after but let's wait for the end of this one to decide.

PS. Later - Wouldn't you know it - The Graun has a piece on unresolved fiction this very day.

It looks like Christmas Day may well be marred in the deWeyden Household in that it seems that there will be no Schott's Almanac for 2012 and worse, no QI Annual either. I think I read something from Mr Schott himself about the lack of Almanac but there is nothing about the QI Annual and I am worried that they have gone for the Board Game instead which just seems a cop-out. Maybe they are just saving it up to go for concentrated sales.

What is coming out and what will not wait for Yule unwrapping is this - oh and also this, so a certain amount of pre-Christmas happiness will be had. I'll just have to hope that there is plenty of Lego to keep me occupied on the day itself.

Car v. Tram

This picture is here for no other reason than I like it but then again isn't that the reason for all of them? Other than this I have nothing to write about despite being blown away by the clarity of the stars last night which led in turn to an excited promise to read something scientific after completing The Eyre Affair and to be specific something astrophysical . Mathematical might be good as well though I always start mathematics books with enthusiasm and then it all turns to epic fail at the first point I can't understand something without reading it more than twice. I've been thinking of getting another graphic novel but the racks of them at Forbidden Planet just seem like geek fodder rather than something meaty and satisfying like Logicomix. There are a few Shakespeare Graphic Novels using the original text out there but the art looks like half-hearted and insipid when compared to the words. Ho hum - spring is on its way.

A Little History

My daughter bought me this book for Christmas.


I was surprised to discover that it is actually a book for children - precocious ones I suppose. I used to read VM Hillyer's A Child's History of the World over and over. That book was simpler than Gombrich's. Gombrich is also know for The Story of Art and Art and Illusion - both studious but readable books. A Little History is in the same category and while some of the assertions may not stand up to QI's standards of rigorous truth (NOT!), it is indeed a smooth, well-paced gallop over the essential items in history. The first edition being written in the 1930s makes it even more wondrous. I find that it is indeed a surprise as Philip Pullman says on the blurb.

Talking of which, my wife has just started reading Northern Lights which may or may not lead to ructions in the deWeyden household. Pullman himself says he did not intend the book to make a point about the existence or non-existence of God and yet I can't help worrying. I am of course desperately looking forward to The Book of Dust. No sign of it yet I am afraid. Many, many Oxen ... er ... books from the library so very busy at the moment.

None of us know what we are talking about do we?