It’s All Greek To Me!
I like Greece and the Greek people for that matter, even if they do smoke too much!
I also like the euro and on the whole think it is a good thing and we should have joined, just like we should have joined Schengen.
The trouble with Greece is that they don’t like rules and especially those imposed by others on their economy. One Greek told me that’s why they all smoke in restaurants despite it being against the law.
So perhaps their economy wasn’t strong enough for Greece to join the single currency, but for a few years it gave them a lot of cheap money, just as it did Ireland. So now that the lenders want it back, there’s problems all round. Robert Peston of the BBC analyses it all here.
I’m no economist, so where it will all end, I do not know. But I am a qualified control engineer and I do know that the Greek economy has all the stability of a bicycle with the handles stuck either turning to the left or right.
Just like the bicycle, the Greek economy will have an awful crash.
The villians really are not the Greeks here, but the politicians who wanted a single currency and didn’t really think through about how to make it work properly. If the right rules had been in place from the first day, then there would have been no need for a bailout of Greece, Ireland or Portugal.
I suspect now, that if it was that stable, then we would have joined the euro. Or we would have at least tried to!
Would Anybody Ever Use Western Union?
I had four spam e-mails this morning with a title of “You have $250,000.00 Lodged in our Western Union” and a body of “RESPOND FOR DETAILS”
I like the fact that they call it our Western Union!
Does it mean they own it or there’s another one, we don’t know about? The e-mails came from a supposedly Peruvian .pe e-mail address.
Western Union’s name is now so discredited that I and I suspect any serious person, who uses the Internet, would ever use it. I have never used the company in the past and probably never will in the future.
Although looking at the financial results of the company, they seem to be doing quite well.
Growing Old Gracefully
Joan Collins gives a superb interview in The Times. Buying the paper was worth it just for this quote, after she was asked how many men ha been her lovers and the interviewer had been surprised – “As I’ve been married five times, I’m more of a serial bride than a mattress!”
I did meet her once and from the pictures in the paper, she probably looks better now. But another of her comments about Bette Davis (difficult and ascerbic and coered in cigarette smoke) does suggest that she has given up the evil weed.
If she has, good on you, Joan and long may you keep us amused and entertained.
Does Cannabis Help Period Pains?
I wouldn’t know for obvious reasons, but according to The Times today, Queen Victoria was prescribed cannabis for this purpose. But it wasn’t illegal until 1928. There’s more here on the BBC Panorama web site.
What a naughty old Queen she was! Did she roll it herself or did she ask that nice Mr. Brown?
Is Opera and Ballet Elitist?
The question has to be asked after last night and my visit to the O2.
In my view it was a serious experiment to try to sell ballet to people, who would not normally go and it has been reported as such. Here’s Arlene Phillips, saying that ballet is for everyone.
But if it was so important, why is it that only the Independent seems to published a review this morning?
Perhaps those that feel very seriously about ballet think that the O2 is rather beneath it.
I think that this might be the problem. Those that go regularly, often subsidised in their corporate seats want to keep it not elitist but exclusive!
Here’s a few thoughts.
My mother was a humble comptometer operator in the Accounts Department of Reeves in Dalston before the Second World War. She and her friends regularly went to the ballet and the opera. Would the typical office worker on the equivalent salary to my mother be able to afford a weekly visit to opera or ballet now?
I was once at about the age of sixteen at White Hart Lane to see Spurs play Arsenal. It must have been after Spurs had disbanded their band, as the Metropolitan Police Band were playing before the match and at half time. At half-time, one of the band put down his instrument and immaculately performed a serious operatic work. The performance was very good and totally unexpected and he got a tumultuous response from the probably 50,000 or so in the ground. So when people say that the common people don’t appreciate opera, are they are putting forward the collective view to preserve the exclusivity?
One of the best theatrical performances C and I ever saw, was a performance of Jesus Christ Superstar by the Italian Youth Theatre in the theatre at Taormina in Sicily.
A Double First For Me!
Up until last night, I’d never been to the O2 at Greenwich or ever seen any serious ballet live. I did see Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo with C once a few years ago and enjoyed that, but it could not be described as mainstream ballet, although it is serious dance.
Last night, a friend who works at the Royal Ballet, took me to see Romeo and Juliet at the O2. So it was a double-first!
I enjoyed it immensively and felt that it worked well both as a show and as a spectacle. The only thing I didn’t like was that some in the audience, were constantly going in and out of the arena.
But don’t take my word for it, read the review in The Independent.
Here’s an extract.
Some details do get swallowed by this venue. The big crowd scenes blur, but Kenneth MacMillan’s famously impassioned duets keep their power. As the story’s focus shrinks to Juliet’s bedroom, then her tomb, the ballet reaches out to conquer this cavernous space.
So I think the Royal Ballet can say they have a success on their hands.
I should also say that because of my rather odd eye-sight, which could follow the detail well on the stage for a minute or so before my eyes tired, that the format with large video screens allowed me to rest them a bit, by watching the screens intermittently.
I would suspect that I might enjoy ballet and other shows in a large arena more than I would in a traditional theatre. But I do know that my eyes are getting better, as towards the end of the last football season, I found the action much easier to follow than at the start.
I would certainly go again!
Is Stress Good For You?
This article on the BBC web site, makes an interesting point.
I’ve had enough stress in my life to satisfy a dozen people, but was it worth it?
Of course it was!
I’m with Bertrand Russell on stress.
Necessity may be the mother of invention, but pressure is the father of genius!
If you have a serious problem, then think your way out of it. Moaning just makes it worse!
Christ Church Greyfriars
Tonight, I also had a look at Christ Church Greyfriars, the remains of which lies behind St. Paul’s. It wasn’t as lucky as its larger neighbour had been in the Blitz.
Like St. Luke’s in Liverpool it stands as a memorial to those who died and suffered in the Second World War.
St. Paul’s As I’ve Never Seen It Before
To me St. Paul’s is London’s church, if only because it stood unbowed to the Nazis as a symbol of defiance and hope.
Tonight though, in the evening sunlight, I saw it as I’d never seen it before in all its pristine beauty after a thorough cleaning.
The Newly-Cleaned St. Paul's
Thinking back, I don’t think I actually saw the cathedral until the 1960s, as my visits to Central London were usually fairly limited, despite living in the suburbs. As an example, I didn’t visit the Tower of London until I was probably twenty. And that was because I was showing a friend from University around.
A Piece of Concrete With a Lot of History
This piece of concrete in the Victoria Town Gardens behind the Palace of Westminster, looks like a very rudimentary and hurried repair.
A Repair to the River Thames Wall
But behind it all is a bit of forgotten history. This picture shows a steel girder, which could be a piece of railway line in the concrete.
Steel Girder in the River Thames Wall
And this shows that the detail on the river side, that is a feature of the Thames river wall is missing.
Missing Details in the River Thames Wall
So what is it all about?
I went to a lunchtime lecture at University College London about archaeology on the River Thames. The lecturer explained that during the Second World War, we identified that a serious break in the wall of the River Thames could have flooded much of the central part of the city. This would have probably flooded the London Underground as well.
So a top secret repair unit was set up to fix any breakages in the wall immediately. As the lecturer said, even today little is known about the unit. During the war they kept it quiet, as they didn’t want the Germans to know how vulnerable London was. After all, the Germans only needed to be lucky once.
But as you can see, even if the repair would not be acceptable today, it has fulfilled its purpose for seventy years.
The Anonymous Widower 