Victims and executioners

As we -decent- people are used to, last week the Financial Times gifted us with a putrid editorial about the "twilight" falling upon ETA. The piece looks much better in a nice web-page design -obviously, money, money, money- than its mere writing style, which is lousy (even worse than mine!). The statement is, plainly, an evil repetition of Eta's discourse, plus a clear message to the right-wing political party which, most likely, will rule the country after the up-coming November, the 20th elections.
The FT friends of the executioners and the boys wearing a balaclava helmet underneath a black, old-style beret should not be very worry about it. Yesterday, the true victims of terror demonstrated themselves in Madrid and the above mentioned right-wing party, and its leader, were missing. The party as a party is, at least up to date, on the traitors side. Shame upon them!
The leader of the victims, Jose Francisco Alcaraz predicted the bombings in the terminal T4 of Madrid airport during Christmas time 2006 (which ended the last tricked truce, let us remember) 1 month ahead it took place. The reason got nothing magical nor casual, but lays behind privileged information from Domestic Affairs Cabinet: the stream of putrid water running behind the bullshit we are fed everyday. The bombing (searching no casualties, albeit there could be, but of large dimensions) was agreed. It was to happen. Last Friday he declared in a Spanish network that this process of rendition -praised by the FT- is a pact: it is an agreement between the polititians and the hangmen, full of political compensations, and it is written and signed. The whole "treatise" was developed for a 12-year period, starting in 2000 and ending in 2012.
Alcaraz also declared that Eta will apologize. When?, he was asked. And he said: "I know for sure that Eta will apologize because it is in the written action plan, but I don't know for sure when. I would say, though, before the elections".
I will write specifically to the FT when that happen.

In the meantime, how much FT knows?
What kind of involvement is for the FT?
What is the relationship between socialist and terrorist on one side, and the FT on the other?

Young people in journalism in Spain: will you think it could be interesting to investigate and to tell?

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Three bulges

A bulge might be something scary.
But the word "bulge" is very keen to me. It is a sharp, poetic word. Little bulges, albeit small, can be strong and irradiate energy and influence overwhelmingly. Particularly, I like the Spanish word "bultito". Carmen Laforet describes in Nada a few terrible scenes. I don't remember the plot of one of them, but I have the image, as she writes, of the little bulge of the grandma (la abuela, un bultito) standing up in the middle of a whirlpool of fighting and physical violence, asking "what's wrong?" She looked so small, so weak and, at the same time, endurable and unafraid, strong and wise.
That's how I remember it. The image made a deep impression.
I like little bulges of tenderness, black holes of resilience and resistance. Dear John Paul the Second was a little bulge, folded and hunched in three other tiny bulges (like Flannery O'Connor brief and forcefully describes one of her characters), but immensely strong and given-in. These little bulges bring out the best of you -the best of me-, tenderness and rage in one nutshell, jerk my tears and shape them in beauty and profound meaning.
Last week, while waiting the bus to go up to Muswell Hill, a little bulge hidden inside a long coat was coming down the empty road along with a big black and colorful lady. The little bulge came down the road swinging left to right, pulling her feet away from shuffling as much as she could. Her head was resting down into the neck, unable to sharp motions. From her short position, she looked up with a content smile and gave me something to read. Then there she went down the street, her purse, hung and forsaken on her arm, swinging in endless motion.
Life does not matter, no matter at all. These little bulges content everything you need.
God bless them!

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Delusions de grandeur

At least one part of the great city of London -one big part, of course- suffers from megalomania. The picture is a self-confidence portraint of itself, rooted in a sort of belief (with keenness and devotion) in being specially designated from the Gods . Why or what for one does not know. "A world-class University for a world-class city", quotes the UCL, for example.

And so, the best museums, the best performances, the best restaurantes must be in London, the latest fashion, the brightest avant-garde, the greenest garden, the most infamous market, the best history. London is also a big magazine advertising the best food to eat and the finest drinks to drink and the hottest and coolest places for vacation and resort. London knows how to sport, how to socialize, how to be up-high and alternative at the same time but with timing. London is a nest of tolerance and multiculturality but the best spot for revolution and progress. London, the crossroad of the world, the eye of the hurricane. London is everything, and everything big. This week, London has been anounced the top Europen capital in divorces. Further, predictions expect to see the UK the most populated European country by 20.., ahead of Germany (I guess Turkey does not count) and one might expect to see such an honor bestowed on the city of London. For sure, London is a hot spot for violence in Europe, though I am not sure who might feel proud of it.

London suffers from megalomania, delusions de grandeur. It is an overrated town to me, a big disenchantment. It comes to my mind the comment that Rose Bukater throws at Bruce Ismay at tea time on the Titanic. Ismay was boastering about the size and robustness of the ship and Rose came: "Have you heard of the new theories of Mr. Freud? Apparently some men are obsessed with size, which is rotted to a sexual problem of impotence". Of course, Ismay says: "Freud, who's Freud? A passenger?".

So, that's my view after 1 year... .

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When shall we meet again?

I have been working on something till now and having the TV turned on to keep me company. At some point, I heard this song, and I rushed to listened it on the net. Cher Lloyd is not the same. The sounds of the version I recall here (1992) must be recorded in my brain's foldings per the analogical school, because the grooves of the old LP are sown  by fire up there, like the furrows of an indelible scar. When I listen to this song, I can hear the crackling of that year, feel the rubbing of my bed sheets where I use to lie, clung to my tape recorder until fallen asleep. If I click my tongue I can taste the potato omelette of any usual dinner time of the day; I can see _I certainly see it now!- the ligth of the desk lamp spilt over the book-crowded room and feel the ascending heat of the -still- communal coal boiler. I can see myself... Light years away.

If there is something new to this memory, which makes it even... better, like the vintage stainglass in today's sun makes the old LP new and fresh, is the sentence I discovered at the beginning of the video clip:

"When shall we meet again?
In thunder, lightning or in rain?
When the hurly-burly's done
When the battle's lost and won".

Oh! The wonderful witches of Macbeth! One has accumulated enough skin to feel the pins and splinters of beauty and normal life falling down. The look hurts but is attractive and magnetic: the water of our heart's lakes, already spilt and leaving, carrying away the memory of the days they were happily joint and embraced.

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News nibbles in the tube

If there is a place where the Evening Standard is read, that is the tube. I must say that I find fascinating the fact that, in the multicultural great city of London, all kinds of peoples, in type and number, sniff their daily doses of information out of the same, few sources: Metro, Evening Standard and BBC Ten o’clock news, in the morning, evening and night, respectively. I guess it won’t be all but, at least in the tube, all sophistication becomes sucked up into a single pattern of curiosity satisfaction.

Within the last years I have learned to be skeptical to free stuff. The ideal situation for me is when people pay for something you offer: it means that it matters to them. There is something about free-stuff that makes you not to take it seriously. Something taken for granted will not make any impression, I reckon. Free, unconsidered and irrelevant: three points that determines the plane of spiritless journalism.

The creased exemplars of the paper lay often forsaken after they have been used in seats or the windowsills beneath. I don’t think it is a case of drop-and-read kind of initiative. Obviously, not all with The Evening must work this way: I read it, try to learn something from it and normally bring it home with me. Even Agatha Christie used it to create tension as part of The Mousetrap!

**

I am curious at how the (still) tube drivers might have felt today when piles and tons of The Evening have been delivered with the following front-page: “Tube trains with no drivers by 2021. Exclusive: secret blueprint will close ticket offices and axe jobs”. One could draw a story out of it.

**

The voting tonight in the House of Commons has yielded 111 in favor to a referendum to review the position of the UK in Europe. BBC Nick Robinson’s predicted about 80 (without confirmation), voting against Cameron instructions, which is unseen.

I know not much about this, but Cameron’s position sounds reasonable: play smart and use the situation to negotiate a better dear for UK interests. This is what a politician should do.

I can see in this story of Europe two main groups of countries. On one side, Germany, France and the UK have not lost sight of their interests as sovereign countries and disputes the consequences of Europe and its burdens against their national positions. On the other side, countries like Spain behave as the mediocre student or professional whose only ambition is to perform at the level required by someone else, so the latter is calmed down and the former can dedicate to his internal affairs, which are not Europe, anyhow.

**

On an even page of The Evening Standard, we find this piece of news: “Libya bows to pressure and agrees to probe ‘execution’ of Gaddafi”. The whole story stinks. I will avoid the easy joke by linking my last sentence with the stench of the body (that of Gaddafi, we supposed), long queued by “thousands”. I have said it before and I say it now: democracy won’t come. Significantly enough, on the very same page of The Evening there is a small column of the size of a business card rotated to the upright position with the following piece of news: “Islamic party leads in first Tunisian poll”. I would not expect something different. Remember: these “wars” in the North of Africa this year started out in Tunisia from, apparently, an unrelated incident.

The photograph of a young girl next to the small column supporting the Islamic Ennahda party is significant. Obviously, her parents (the whole family and clan, I would say) are behind. That's all democracy you will get.

**

Tomorrow, perhaps, more.

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Wang Yue

Videos like this have never seen before. (Few months ago, I came across the video of a man killed and eaten by lions during a safari -by accident, I certainly would have preferred not to see it, as I slept bad-).

Videos like the horrendous Wand Yue’s homicide should never be seen. It has made a deep impression on me. I don’t understand a single thing. The life of a 2-year old girl is as little valuable as that of a cat. 2 years can end in a second; the fearful abysm in Elliot’s handful of dust. The life kneaded in a 9-month miracle lasted no more that the three Nazi shots that killed Guide Orefice. The fact that Wand Yue was picked up by a street cleaner after (how much time?) 19 by-standers passed by, a few vehicles dodged and one rolled over her little body is quite significant to me: she remove her (it) from the road like a rag doll. It’s like she was doing her job! God, Almighty!

All of them killed her… How the fuck is a 2-year old girl walking alone in a road, anyhow?

I doubt sometimes we can think better than animals or feel more than animals. If animals don’t speak is because, perhaps, they don’t need it. If there is a difference between persons and animals is that we can value our life above everything else; we have the potential to become something, to collaborate, to aspire, to love…

At least, for God’s sake!, please, call “the Chinese girl” after her name: Wand Yue, Wand Yue, Wand Yue.

Dear sweety: it is difficult to understand but, now, close your eyes and go to sleep. There are some people really waiting for you there where you now go… They want to be friends with you, love.

…HORRIBLE…

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The King's speech

If I were the King of Spain –or His Heir, the Prince-, I would request a space of 7 minutes in all networks of TV and radio at peak-hour, dinner time or lunch time on Sunday, and this is what I would say about the statement of Eta on the end of the terrorist actions:

“Dear Spaniards: The importance and transcendence of the new developments regarding the recent statement of Eta have urged me to appear before all you, my dear fellow citizens, on the grounds of my duties as the Head of State and the responsibilities I hold before you.

I would like to convey a clear, crystalline message to our Evil enemy, Eta, and have you all, friends and decent fellows, be witness of my determination.

This is a message for the assassins of Eta: you must not forget what we cannot forget, that you are a disgusting collection of reptiles, like the ones you show in your anagram. You are, above all, a gang of cruel terrorists, grown blind for any sense of goodness and respect for the highest of the gifts: the human life.

You have just said that you won’t kill no more. Unfortunately, we have no reasons to believe you. How many times have you say it? And how many times was your statement a painful lie? You’ve cowardly appeared before a camera without revealing your identity and made a provocative and bully speech, untrue and violent itself, a bare offense to ourselves with no respect for our freedom and sovereignty and without any apology to the sorrows and pains of your victims, many Basques among them.

In any case, even if your statement were, against all the laws of Nature, genuine or, as it looks, the result of a mere political, cold and frivolous calculation you shall mark my words: we won’t stop prosecuting you! We won’t stop tracing you with all the power of the law and the instruments of the Righteous State; we won’t stop against you until seen your rotten souls judged and condemned. We won’t stop the fight until Justice is prevailed.

You can also be sure that we won’t restrict the efforts to the peoples of your network, but we will invest whatever money and resources shall be needed to prosecute unfaithful politicians and Security Agents who have betrayed the spirit of the Nation to which they represent and they swore to represent.

From this very moment on, we will occupy ourselves to the best of our ability in a wide international campaign to isolate Eta. You have been unfairly condoned by international media and agents and this has gone too far. We won’t stop until the rest of the world knew by heart your true face.

You have my word of King.

Good night”.

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The true story, the true hero

Touched and enraged.

The world is playing the dumb pantomime of the Libyan tragicomedy, an absurd and grotesque game of pretence, a plot scattered with false joys, black lies and stinky information. In the meantime, Spain has on the table its own long-term tragedy, served in a cold-dish of shear treason. Eta just announced it won’t kill again… Ever. Apart from politicians and a few emotional demonstrations like that of one known, though little, media character –sad, sad, cheesy, and immensely frivolous show-, the normal guy remains astonished, with no mood whatsoever for any spark of joy.

Rooted in the heart of us Spaniards is the spirit of Sancho Panza and his wife, a gullible force of innocence, but loaded with a fine sense of suspicion ready to exert its mechanism when the moment comes. And time has arrived. Nobody believes this. The truth is horrendous. Although the BBC and major international media has succumbed for years to the siren chants of these ETA motherfuckers and have presented the case as a political conflict (indeed, there is not such case, but brutal terrorism), Eta is not finished nor repented. The announcement has been conveyed by three sons-of-a-bitch covering his identity. There is no surrender; there is no handing-over of weapons, documents or internal plans forever given in. There is no apology. The thing seems, however, oh, terrible woe!, a fulfilled agreement happily progressing for the last 12 years between politicians and Eta.

Fortunately, every Sancho Panza has his alter ego, and waits for his knight to come. The armor and spurs of Don Quixote echo through the land, and all the bustle of his tired pack-horse, Rocinante, comes along.

Fracisco Javier Alcaraz is our hero, our Don Quixote today. He is one of the outstanding figures against the totalitarian violence of Eta. Like poor Dulcinea (Quixote’s sweetheart, a plain peasant, friends with the pigs and of garlic breath), Mamen became the partner of Francisco after a turbulent previous relationship and brought her two children with her. She works in a fishmonger’s shop, with no more than basic studies. Francisco himself is a hairdresser (though successful) and could not even complete the Secondary Education. But since December 11, 1987 when Eta killed (among a total of 11 and dozens of wounded) Esther and Miriam, his twin nieces of only 3 years of age, and his younger brother of 17, he became, after surviving the annealing fire of sorrow and nihilism, one of the leaders of the “civic rebellion” and embraced and expanded the hopes and senses of all decent Spaniards.

There are only a few impressive exceptions among the politicians, but no one like Francisco has attracted as much hope and people (and hatred, of course). He is the hero of our time, the stumbling rock slowing down the betrayal to our nation. He has carried with him the voices of the common people, of all the victims than become heroes.

When I think of it, I find place for hope and victory. The Spanish knights, our Don Quixotes, are taunts and tricks of destiny, naughty wild-cats defying Satan’s fate, genuine and unafraid. They are pixels of light and goodness, gifts among the vast, choking weed of our countries.

Please, God, bless them! You know they are ready to fight… They want to fight!

Give them (give us all) a chance.

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A history of heroes

Upon the mighty sight of the Aqueduct of Segovia, I have been reflecting lately that, from Ancient Times, men (and women) have managed to produce outstanding pieces of Architecture out of mandatory duty or shear necessity. I guess such feature of humans can be found in our daily lives: we strive to be happy and content, despite our daily difficulties, frustrations and, sometimes, overwhelming tragedies.

Today I have come across two cases of such persistence and resilience.

The case of A. surprised me. This man has been working for over 39 years, last 15 in the workshop at UCL. He is quitting his job to start something on his own. Wow! I thought this kind of things only happened in the States, but I am glad, anyhow, to learn other people do it, somewhere else. Good luck to him!

The case of V. reinforce my belief that I could never live in Italy. I did not like Rome the only and first time I saw it, and I feel that I would be unable to live within. But the story of V. is the story of a brave woman pushing her best without a clear purpose.

The song of independence is the chant of winds above the vast lake of one heart largely misunderstood.

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Malcolm Grant: the narrow streets of the mind

The Provost –Head- of the University College London (UCL), Malcolm Grant, has recently confessed himself to the London Evening Standard against the urge of Cameron to universities of London to become a watch-dog against breeding terrorism in their dominions.

I find such request quite reasonable and in no way, in my understanding, the suggestion compromises the quality or excellence of London universities. Nor it necessarily accuses universities of being "hotbeds" for terrorism although it should be a compulsory commitment to verify continuously they are not.

The facts are well-known: in the case of UCL, several of its graduates turned to be ferocious terrorists within the last years. The most recent one, Abdulmuttalab, a former UCL Mechanical Engineering student (the young boy who tried to assemble a bomb and blow a commercial plain in the US with over 200 aboard on Christmas Day 2009), will be sentenced in January to life-imprisonment. In a sense, as far as I know, some departments are already  doing something to spot irregularities. In the Chemical Engineering Department, lectures and fellows have to record assistance of undergraduates quite often and must report any suspicious pattern of regular absenteeism.

So, I don’t understand the insistence of Malcolm Grant to detach himself and the University from the Government plans. I find his words improper of someone of his authority, "just stupid", as he says. Grant says that Cameron and Home Secretary, Theresa May, do not know a simple thing about Universities (which I can take it as they do not run universities), but then he throws a feeble argument on modern Colleges against Oxford style twenty years ago, when Cameron studied there (old class-clash, anti-system stuff here). So Grant says that Cameron knows nothing and that today’s Universities are complex and home of a large and rich variety of humans from around the world. And I say, what the hell is the relationship, for God’s sake!, between a modern University, whatever that is, and fighting against any form of terrorism that might brew within its walls and institutions. If illegal activities take place within the institutions of the University, the Provost, the Head, the Board of Directors shall hold the moral and legal responsibility to find out, report it and draw any measurements and policies in order to fight such activities back and eradicate them. If cub terrorists are registered for courses but university resources and groups are unrelated to their activities, nevertheless, is that much unreasonable to consider collaboration in a common effort to track the root of extremism?

In my view, Grant is a very narrow-minded politician. He just let an important opportunity pass by. He missed the chance to win a medal, get some notoriety and place himself in the first row of publicity. He could have said say: “I am proud as the whole UCL Community is proud of our University, faculty, researchers, staff and students. We have achieved a prestigious level among Universities in the UK and across the world. We count with one of the most colorful and varied schools in the world and we will continue any efforts to reach excellence in research and undergraduate education. We strongly believe in the growth of each of our students, personal as well as professional. For this reason, we will fight against any form of extremism in our Departments and Institutions and we will use any legal means to preserve the moral and legal integrity of any of their activities”. Etc.

Is the fight against terrorism so much unpopular for a politician like Malcolm Grant? If that is the case, what else are we missing?... Kind of disgusting, hm?

Oh, God! What moronic, narrow-minded, big-mouth, coward people… Mr. Grant.

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The London zoo

Now that I have TV and let it on at nights while I cook dinner or do laundry or write this, I feel that I should start paying some attention at some of the local comedy and night-shows gurus. A few weeks ago, I was unable to recognize Jeremy Paxman, as M. brought it to my attention. It’s being a long while since the last time I went back home at 5 pm and read the Evening Standard in the tube, but every now and then I come across with news about any popular and currently in the hot-spot character. So, I think I can at least jot their names down.

Today, we have Sophie McShera, the mannered scullery maid Daisy in Downtown Abbey. Now she is back to the West End with Jerusalem to play the malicious, perverse and wayward teenager Pea. During the coming fortnight she will be filming Downtown in Berkshire for a Christmas special by day and showing Pea in London at nights. That is interesting to me; see what it comes out of this!: a sort of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde dissonance running behind. My guess is that Sophie, 26, can be happy as likely as feel terribly alone… .

We also have today Liam Fox and Craig Dubow, two big mother-fuckers who, according to Ian Birrel in his column in the Evening Standard, “make difficult to defend capitalism”. Actually, his opinion about the anti-capitalist protesters who are camping in St. Paul’s Square since the weekend made me realize how much detached I am, how much I do not care about. I miss my Beatrice, and if I could live in a desert island, like the South of Flannery O’Connor, I would not give a shit about anything or anybody else. Just I and my Beatrice… Wherever she is… .

Across the Engineering building, at UCL, there is a Sacred café kiosk. The coffee is good; and the people serving it are cut to the same profile. The girl there today, with hands as black and brown as muddy coal, was reading a biography of Russell Brad. I saw him several times on TV. It seems that comedians on TV must have the ability of quick and ingenious reply. I guess one of the first was Julius Marx (Groucho); a nice skill to practice.

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Flannery O'Connor

The life and writing of Flannery O’Connor could only happen in the United States of America. One gets the chicken skin and shivers along the spine: the story of just a woman who could write, without any remarkable fuss about. I am just starting to read her but the aura of her devastating writing is transcendent from the beginning. My expectations are high. She and her style –it looks like- prompts the memory of Raymond Carver, a unique genius in telling stories concerning the depths and abyss of the human condition. Flannery was a born Southerner and that adds something to her to my subjective scale of values _I have come to love the South; and its people and landscapes enjoys by principle a mythological and superior condition, bestowed by my loving and biased predisposition to them.

Flannery O’Connor was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1925. The place is today, along with Panama City and Pensacola, the favorite destination of College students for debauchery during the Spring break. 39 years after, she died from lupus, the same disease that took her father’s life when she was 16, in Milledgeville (Regina O’Connor, her mother, had to survive both losses!). She moved up North to study at the State University of Iowa and, apart from those years, she was a Southerner and lived in the South –in a farm from 1952 onwards (one of remote access, one might think, as it is almost everything genuine in the South). Her first complete novel appeared that year, when she already knew about her fatal disease.

Flannery seems to have accepted her fatality: she “began to plan her life in the light of reality”, as her friend Sally Fitzgerald wrote. It is touchy to me: during those years she wrote and re-wrote tirelessly her work and found content by raising peacocks, pheasants, geese and became an amateur painter. Her isolation, composure and quietness of life are what touch me the most.

And I am ready to let this woman touch me, handless and magical.

                              Flannery: flesh and bones, next to her self-portrait with a pheasant.

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What it takes to be a hero

"People must agree to differ about heroes", says Paul Johnson in his Heroes (2008), "one person's heroe has been another's villain". For him, Pinochet remains a heroe "because I know the facts". He explains: "I admire Chile and its people greatly, and became concern when my friend Salvador Allende became its president and opened the country to hordes of armed radicals from all over the world. The result was the world's highest inflation, universal violence and the threat of civil war. So I applauded the take-over by General Pinochet, on the orders of Parliament, and still more his success in reviving the economy and making it the soundest in Latin America. But by preventing the transformation of Chile into a Communist satellite, the general earned the furious hatred of the Soviet Union, whose propaganda machine successfully demonized him among the chattering classes all over the world. It was the last triumph of the KGB before it vanished into history's dustbin".

Four principal marks the author says a heroe today must have. The first one is courage, "the noblest and best of all qualities, (...) regardless of the consequences to yourself". Courage starts sometimes from quite simple things. Ronald Reagan was not an intellectual at all, perhaps he was more a simpleton who "ducked" the risk of make a fool of himself by other virtues, being his sense of humour an important one. He was not afraid of asking stupid, silly questions ("asking simple questions sometimes require courage", says Johnson): Where is Sri Lanka? Why are The Blue Ridge Mountains blue? What was funny about The Divine Comedy?

I know from experience that, sometimes, good-hearted people tend to smooth the sharp corners of critics and criticism by telling jokes about oneself (Reagan did that a lot) and I know from experience that such habit becomes a boomerang flying back against oneself. It is nice to learn that Lord George Curzon (is the cinema over Shaftsbury Avenue named after him?) "was a notable victim of this endearing propensity".

A heroe "is not a saint", can be evil (Johnson includes the evil De Gaulle in his essay) nor smart or successful _Heroes can become losers or victims or tragic beings. Marylin is a heroe to Johnson as well. And heroes manifests themselves at times inconspicuous.

The other three features of a heroe: absolute independence of mind ("to treat whatever is the current consensus on any issue with skepticism"), act resolutely and consistently and ignore everything the [media] says about you.

Who wants to be a heroe? What for?

Sometimes I think that being a heroe is not that difficult, as it is part of one's fate, an urgency one must satisfy: nobody is a heroe if he is not meant to be. The difficult side must be to deal with this irrevocable, unabridged impulse to self-nomination as indictment against all odds.

But, alas! It is sweet. The sweet bitter-sweet flavour of the fight and loneliness.

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Don't go bike, London!

Precisely, yesterday evening I had the chance to tell an acquaintance that I cannot think of any advantage of riding a bike in Central London. The guy, naturally, rides his bike customarily.

A week and a half ago, I walked from Euston Station to the St. James park where I attend a Seminar at the Institute of Mechanical Engineers on Birdcage. I was horrified by the tremendous amount of bikes swarming in a bath of furious traffic. A simple thought came to my mind: why bikes do not have a rear mirror? This morning, while waiting for the bus, a cyclist (riding easily above 15 miles an hour) deviated significantly his way to avoid a car parked next to the curb without minding looking backwards. A taxi cab was moving as fast behind, he had to be aware of it, but he did not mind to look backwards.

The riding stuff is a foolish story to my view. I cannot think of any objective advantage, nor even for the riders, and the whole thing is becoming a battle of wills. Untactful behaviours, bad-mood demonstrations and a sense of unlawful behaviour is sprawling from this initiative. If the riders were to comply with any single traffic regulation (i.e. stoplights, zedas for pedestrians, stick to lanes and signpost any change accordingly, etc.) what advantage would remain? If they don't... Oh, boy! What a foolish story.

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A female touch

One of my favourite scenes of the movie It's a mad, mad, mad world is a collection of sequences when the young married-couple on their honey moon gets trapped in the baseman of an ironmonger shop while looking for a pick and a shovel. They try to escape to reach the hypothetical place where the "Big W" and the big dough are supposed to be found before anybody else. Of course, they tore the store down in the attempt. It is the lady who shows the only pitch of common sense and rationality (the man is absolutely off-mind), although the out-of-the-blue actions of the man are hilarious as much as the comments and the feminine touch sprinkled around by the woman (i.e. the hundreds of candles to light the room after the man blows the fuses).

Sometimes, I reflect that woman (in general), as complex as they tend to be in their thoughts and emotions, at occasions are capable of the most simple and straightforward course of reasoning. Their comments can be regarded as simplistic and plain, but often they are loaded with tons of common sense. As opposite, men tend to opt for very unreasonable and undoable requests at those moments -crazy, as to speak.

Specifically, I remember my visits to the Sterile rooms of a factory producing the active principle of antibiotics via fermentation. One day, while exploring the lines of the steam used for sterilization, the operator pointed out to a patch of pipes, all jumbled up and down, with endless bows and elbows and multiple cross-overs. The landscape had been sitting like that for years; apparently, when the sterile rooms were inaugurated, engineers and operators working there at the time think and re-thing of a possible lay-out and kept modifying their thought directly on the spot until satisfied enough. 

I said to myself, I remember: "a group of women would have never do something like this".

I feel that a woman's touch is missing in many important places crowded by men. The topic works against engineering professions. And sometimes it is true. But the spell seems to work for allegedly dim-witted, under-educated men as well as for geeks, nerds and "higher officers".

On another side, I can hardly understand why engineering labs or mechanical workshops are totally messy, all choked with piles of documents, food leftovers, scraps of metals and numberless useless stuff, in general. Here, women (always in general) seems to be as guilty as men easier. However, don't ask me why, the "practical" work showed in the photograph below, could only be done -seems to me- by men. Don't you agree?

                                  A "temporary solution" to avoid accidents. Engineering Building, UCL.

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The case for higher-education

I came to watch an archived piece of the BBC 10 o'clock news last weekend on the "riots" of the beginning of August. At some point, the father of one of the arrested young fellows assesses: "my boy is not violent... He is supposed to go to College!"

The link between civilized behaviour and irreproachable morals to higher education is as much old as unbelievable but, still, it is quite often found it. Of course, education is a "good" thing. However, the argument that higher, specialized education will necessarily yield to a better world and to individuals of superior ethics is feeble _it is also constantly contradicted by the facts. At the same level of College education shall be placed the natural and legal responsibility that parents have upon their offspring education; most of the times the importance of this "private" education is paramount to any other.

I have sometimes commented on both these topics.

Now, if you are not eating or doing any sensible activity, please take a look at the first photography attached here. I took it one of the first days the College of Engineering opened its doors to new students for the course 2011-12 at the male toilets (of course) of the main entrance of the Roberts Engineering Building. It is not the photo of any shabby bar off a solitary and unfrequented highway.

                    Aspect of a toilet in the male bathroom. Roberts Engineering Building main entrance. UCL.

The second one is the looks of the backyard across the SOAS Center of the University College London on a Saturday morning two or three weeks ago. The fame of SOAS is remarkable, I heard, but still people gathering there for the Friday drinks (I was there) seem not to regard to the conventional morals of current citizenship.

                     After a Friday gathering. Backyard across the SOAS building. UCL
I will continue my personal crusade against the vicious belief of Universities as builders of ethical (and Utopian) societies. In the plane of individuals, I don't find any link, unless you believe a high-ethical society can be constructed regardless individuals! This topic could serve to feed an auditorium in a lunch-time lecture. Academicist and intellectuals will love the idea, I am sure.

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An Austro-Hungar thrill

Adolf Hitler was born in April of 1889. He was the monster everyone knows, but he was also an educated man and became a "superb whistler". Apparently, it was in fashion in the pre-war Vienna. I try to imagine the cold beast he was whistling his favorite piece. I get sick to the bone.

I have always found the dance balls of the high-aristocracy of Central Europe, as one finds them pictured in movies (whose epitome to the popular public is Romi Schneider's Sissi), cold and brutal, like the distance of a cruel and immensely ruthless and beautiful princess. The blue veins in a palid skin have been sickening to me; it cannot albergate anything warm, nothing remotely like the burning love.

Lehar's melody is as evil and cold to my ears as the dark night of the whole Universe. Underneath the sweet lament of the violin and the plain, artificial colors of the dresses of singers and musicians, there lies a tin-plate heart, the kiss of a mortal viper... I imagine the monster, cleaned and shaved, tidy and superhuman, whistling the melody, and I get the horrible thrill.

**

To end the night, I have search for the Grimm Brother's story, Rumpelstiltskin. I have a volume with the complete Grim's fairy tales. Pure ice. A horror story.
Oh, my God!

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The truth

The reading I have been doing today about Ludwig Wittgenstein strikes the most calm of all souls. He was a freak, a cold and ruthless genius, an obsessive mind. During his young years he worked as a research student at Manchester University in Mechanical Engineering. He was a geek genius: at the age of ten, he built a sewing machine from scraps of metal and pieces of wood. This engineering, creative part of the man interests me, strikes me.

What was he looking for? What was he looking for during his life? He seems not to have been afraid to put his life into a great risk during the times of the Great War. But, what was he after during his life?

Was it the truth?

I doubt it. He was the most attractive, secret and sort of masonic professor in Cambridge than the walls of that place can remember, but I think he hardly was in search of truth. During his early disputes with Russell and G.E. Moore, the wife of the latter forbid her husband to discuss with Wittgenstein for more than 30 minutes. Even though Moore was champion of the so-called common-sense philosophy, I believe the title belongs entirely to his wife. She exerts the same kind of truth of common sense that the wife of Sancho Panza shows at the end of the first part of The Quixote. After so many adventures, worthy to be told in almost 800 pages, food for thought and ponder of so many illustrious minds, Sancho and Don Quixote returns, worn out and battered, the latter suffering from dementia and secured into a cage. Sancho Panza's wife, with a tremendous practical sense, simply asks: "where have you been, man? How is the donkey? You better it is fine!".

Wittgenstein has been compared, in his teachings, to the Jesus Christ. However, I think they hardly resemble each other, apart from the authority exuding their teachings. Jesus say: the truth has been conceived to the powerful and the profound, but has been disclosed to the simple and poor.

Oh, yes. Something that Wittgenstein missed.... The truth.

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