Quota creative misquote

I only just noticed it, but I do like this blog posting title from October 2016, from Archbishop Cranmer:

Brexit, pursued by a Blair

Blair wants another referendum, with an opposite result. The Archbishop doesn’t. But then, the Archbishop wants Brexit and Blair doesn’t.

The Archibishop quotes Blair:

The issue is not whether we ignore the will of the people; but whether, as information becomes available, and facts take the place of claims, the ‘will’ of the people shifts.

But what if, after Blair then gets the result he wants, and the matter is then, for him, settled once and for ever, yet more facts become available, replacing Blair’s claims, and that ‘will’ shifts again? Back again to Brexit being the good move? What if the EU then goes to hell and takes the UK with it, and the voters then want out, again? Then what? Then: the matter is settled, time to move on and stop grumbling. So, why is it not time for Blair to move on and stop grumbling, now? It comes down to the Divine Right of Blair. Is that a thing? I say: not.

Via Dan Hannan.

For those who don’t know their Shakespeare: the original stage direction. It’s famous. You should know this. Now you do.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Tower Bridge before it got covered in stone

If you’ve not been there before, I recommend visiting Handpicked London. I’ve just been browsing through it, and found my way from it to Photographs of Tower Bridge being constructed are found in a skip, from December 2011, which I do not remember noticing at the time. (The first two of those are Facebook links, and maybe they don’t last. You have to register, is what the second one just said.)

These photographs of Tower Bridge being constructed have been unveiled after a stash of hundred-year-old photos were found in a skip. The 50 sepia pictures, the most recent of which date back to 1892, reveal in incredible detail the ingenuity behind one of the capital’s most popular tourist destinations.

One of the photos:

Hybrid modernism. Modern in its manner of creation. Ancient in appearance. An architectural style with a lot of mileage in it.

LATER: More stuff from me about towers here.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

The text of my talk for Christian Michel last night on the impact of digital photography

As I said in the previous post, my talk about digital photography at Christian Michel’s last night went well, in the sense of me feeling it went well, and it seeming to be well received. I occasionally put my sheets of paper down and extemporised upon some point I was making, but mostly, this was it. No links, no photos, no extras. (They may come later, I hope, but I promise nothing.) Just the bare text that I read out, complete with all the errors of grammar and spelling, of fact and interpretation, that may or may not be present:

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

I have given several talks in this 6/20 series, but until now this has been because I have had both questions and answers to offer to the assembled throng. I have had theses to present, clutches of facts to pass on.

This time I don’t know the answers. I merely want to know the answers. What is the impact of digital photography? What is it doing to us? Since fixing this subject matter with Christian I have made, I think, some progress in arriving at answers, but only some. Tonight I expect to make further progress.

Luckily, for my purposes, we have all been alive throughout the period of digital photography’s mass use, and have observed it in action, even if we may not always have wanted to. Has anyone here not taken a digital photo? Just as I thought. (It actually says that here. And this.)

*****

I will start my remarks by quoting a remark made by an American whom I overheard about fifty years ago, on the Acropolis in Athens, the place where what is left of the Parthenon stands. I was there trying to do some sketching, a skill I never got any good at but spent a few years attempting. He was doing pictures with his seriously pre-digital camera. As soon as he had finished photoing, he wanted to leave, presumably to get to his next photoing place. But his family were enjoying the Acropolis in the morning sunshine. Said he to his family: “Come on, come on! We’ll look at it when we get home!”

This outburst captures a great deal about what people object to about digital photography, but it also reminds us that photography, by Everyman as opposed to by professionals, is nothing new. Digital photography is partly just the intensification of a process that has been in place in our culture for well over a century. But it is more than that.

Continue reading The text of my talk for Christian Michel last night on the impact of digital photography

Craig Willy on Emmanuel Todd

Incoming from Craig Willy, of whom I did not know until now:

Hello Brian,

I see you’ve written a great deal on Emmanuel Todd. I have just written a summary of his big history book, L’invention de l’Europe. I thought you might find it interesting.

I also see you have the impression he mainly criticizes the U.S. for being a “hollowed out,” financialized “fake” economy. In fact he is incredibly critical of the eurozone, for that very reason, which he argues is responsible for the hollowing out, dysfunction and financialism of the French and peripheral European economies.

All the best, and feel free to share if you write anything new on Todd. My Twitter.

Craig

In response to my email thanking him for the above email, and asking if he has written anything else about Todd, Willy writes:

I discuss him a fair bit on my Twitter feed as he offends many with his criticism of Germany and euroskepticism. Otherwise I just wrote this short piece on Todd and the euro from a while back.

This I have now read. Very interesting, and I think very right. Interesting parallel between the Euro and the Algerian War.

Things appear to be really motoring on the Todd-stuff-in-English front. At last.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Emmanuel Todd (5): A CrozierVision podcast

And speaking of Todd (see below), I really was speaking of Todd last Monday night, into Patrick Crozier‘s portable computer. Our conversation (click here to hear it) lasted just under half an hour. Like Patrick I felt, immediately after our conversation had ended, that it bordered on the shambolic, but it was his thing, so I said, if you think it’s okay, okay. Listening to it today, I find that I agree with Patrick. It is okay. Yes, I faff and fluff and fudge, but as I explain, what attracts me to Todd’s grand theorising is precisely its simplicity. In essence the story he tells is very straightforward. Anthropology is ideological destiny. Literacy sparks the ideological explosion and then, when the rubble has settled and the blood has dried, it is economic development. (Also fertility control.) However, the ramifications of this story are almost unimaginably complex. As, presumably, if I can find such, is any academic debate about the story’s truth or falsehood (of combination of the two). So, don’t blame me for not talking very fluently about the fine detail. If I could link to some exhaustive scholarly reaction to Todd, I would be mightily relieved. But, on the internet, I have found only tantalising rumours, and cold trails.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog