Me and Patrick talk television

Personally I thought that the recorded chat that Patrick Crozier and I did about World War 1 was better, because Patrick is an expert on that event and its times, its causes and its consequences.

Here, for whatever it may be worth, is the rather more rambling and disjointed conversation that we had more recently on the subject of television: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, and Part VII. But, as of now, it’s a lot simpler to crank up the entire site and scroll up and down.

I’m afraid I did well over half of the talking, so cannot be objective about whether all or any of this is worth your attention. I hope Patrick is right about the worthwhileness of this conversational effort, and that if you do listen, you enjoy.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Ashes lost – CDs soaked – cranes in the sunset

A mixed day. In the morning, Australia won the Ashes back. And in the evening, when I got back from a photo-expedition, I found water trickling down the wall of my kitchen, the wall in question being the one behind me in the picture at the top of this blog, a wall filled with CDs, a quite large number of which had their documentation soaked. It could have been a hell of a lot worse, but it wasn’t at all good. I have just spent most of the evening trying to sort that out, but probably not accomplishing much. Many pages of musical info will be stuck together irrevocably. Bugger.

But in between those two disasters, the photo-expedition was pretty good. I will surely show more of its results here Real Soon Now. For the moment, following an evening spent fretting about those CDs, here is just one such result:

I tend not to like sunsets, by which I mean that I tend not to like the photos I take of sunsets. But if there are cranes involved, that’s a different story. Also, for the cricket, a sunset is all too appropriate.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

A busy day that never happened

Today I had a taste of what my life would be if I had the Sky TV cricket channel. (It would be over.) I watched Surrey play Somerset on the live feed from the Oval which comes complete with the BBC’s sound commentary. I had all sorts of plans for today, but managed to get very little else of consequence done.

Surrey spent their day trying to ensure that they avoided all possibility of being relegated from Division One of the County Championship. When they finally managed to defeat Somerset, they found themselves lying second in Division One. Division One contains eight teams, two of which will be relegated, and it’s all rather close, apart from Essex, who have already won, and Warks, who have already been relegated. So, a very strange day, but ultimately a very good one.

So, quota photo time:

Yes, it’s a still life, with condiments instead of old school food in old school containers. Little Big Things, you might say. Photoed five years ago, in a cafe only a very short walk away from the Oval.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Chelsea crowds at Fulham Broadway

Yesterday was a complicated day for me, and when I went out to dinner it got more complicated, because I got swept up in this:

I was jammed in a no-standing-room-either tube carriage, on my way to dinner at my friends, and at West Brompton someone who’d been sitting got out and a seat became available. Me being Old, I was invited to have it. At first I was reluctant. “I’m getting off at the next stop”, I explained. I’d be stuck further inside the carriage with more shoving when I got out than if I stayed where I was. “Oh that’s okay,” said the guy. “Everyone’s getting off at the next stop.” Eh? How did he know? Was he psychic?

He was not psychic. He was a Chelsea supporter. And so, as he well knew, were most of the other people causing the train to be so strangely packed. Above is my photo of us all waiting to get out from the rather unfortunately named Fulham Broadway tube station, which is right near the Chelsea ground, but not nearly so near to the Fulham ground.

And here is a photo I took of Chelsea stuff that was being offered to the throngs:

They had a special scarf to commemorate this one game, which I’m guessing they do for lots of games. Good thinking. The game was against something called Qarabag. Chelsea won comfortably.

Earlier, sport also forced itself upon my attention, in the form of these flags in Regent Street:

The Americans are coming.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Watching the Surrey v Yorkshire feed

Here. Goodness knows what will happen to that link in future hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries, millennia. But as of now it is working very nicely, and Surrey are having a great day. Foakes has just hit four fours off four balls.

With its own built in commentary from Churchy and his pals, it still isn’t what you get from Sky or from national BBC, but it’s still good. The main drawback is there’s only two cameras, one at each end. It they hit a boundary, you just have to take their word for it about where it went and how fast. But this sort of thing can only get better. Hope it’s still happening tomorrow.

Scorecard of the game here. Close of play day one: Surrey 398-3. Sanga 85, Foakes 64. Nice.

Ex-Surrey batters Davies and Sibley have also been in the runs, for Somerset and for Warks. Also nice.

Off out very soon for dinner with friends, so that’s it here for today, and it makes my evening a lot better now that my duties here are done. Have a good one yourself, unless you are a Yorkshire supporter.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

A disruptive book about nineteenth century French painting

My recent life has been seriously deranged by this book, which is about French painting and painters during the nineteenth century. It’s by Ross King. Never heard of him until I acquired and started to read this book of his, but the loss was entirely mine. (Sounds more like a boxing promotor than an Art writer.) This is one of the most engrossing books about Art I have ever encountered.

I am learning about several subjects that greatly appeal to me. There’s French painting, obviously, which I have always wanted to know more about, in particular the rise to pre-eminence of Impressionism, which is what this book is about. There are fascinating little titbits about the rise of sport, the 1860s being one of the most important decades for that, because of railways. There’s French nineteenth century history in general, which this book, bless it, contains a lot of. In particular there is stuff about the 1870 war against the Prussians, and then the Paris Commune. There is French geography also, French geography being something that many of the more affluent French (including the more affluent artists) were getting to grips with properly for the first time, again because of those railways. There is a glorious few pages about a big bunch of artists going on strike! There are huge gas balloons. This is not the sort of book about paintings that is only about the paintings. Which means that it is much better than most books about paintings, because it explains their wider context. It explains what the paintings are of, and why.

I particularly like that the role of the media is well described. Tom Wolfe did not (with this book) invent that. Art critics, then as now, were a big part of the Art story.

But, although I know that I will be a much improved human being when I have finished reading this book, I am finding the actual reading of it rather tough going. For starters, there’s a lot of it, nearly four hundred closely printed pages, and my eyesight isn’t what it was. But worse, there are constant references to people and to things that a better educated person than I would already know a bit about. Who, for instance, was Charles Blanc? I feel I ought to have known this kind of thing, at least a bit. And then there’s the difference between Manet and Monet, which is all explained, concerning which about the only thing I knew beforehand was that they were indeed two distinct people. But, I feel I should have known more about exactly which of them painted exactly what. I could have whistled it all up from the www, but I do most of my reading away from my computer, because that way my computer does not then distract me. Ross King never assumes any knowledge, and introduces everyone and everything very politely, but I am still struggling to keep up.

Another problem is that this book is packed with little stories about excitements of this or that diverting sort, any one of which could have been the basis of an entire book, but in this book often get just one or two paragraphs. (I’m thinking of those titbits about sport, especially horse racing.) Accordingly, I find myself wanting to stop, to contemplate whatever fascinating little yarn I have just read, rather than dutifully ploughing on.

But plough on I am determined to do. Until I finish, you here must make do with inconsequential postings, based on things like my inconsequential photos, which I happen to have been trawling back through in recent days. But when I finally do finish this book, there may be some rather better stuff here. I promise nothing, but I have in mind to pick out some of those diverting little stories, and maybe also sprinkle in some pertinent paintings.

I also hope (but promise nothing) to do a more considered review of this book for Samizdata.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Malaysia crushes some real Myanmarians

If you think this game was a mismatch, try this game. Myanmar 45 all out off 22 overs in what was supposed to be a 50 overs each way game. Malaysia 46-0 in 4 overs. Ouch.

But what interests me is the names of the Myanmar side: KK Lin Thu, Lwin Maw, Zarni Thein (c), Min Wai, Paing Danu, Y Naing Tun †, H Lin Aung, Thuya Aung, YK Ko Aung, Y Naing Kyaw, S Htet Wai.

These guys are not just a bunch of expat Pakistanis who do construction work during the week and play cricket at the weekend, not that there’s anything wrong with that. These are real Myanmarians. Humiliating though this must have been for these guys, the scorecard alone tells us that the game seems to be spreading.

I hope they manage to learn, from this drubbing, that cricket is tough, rather than that it’s a waste of their time.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

David Bowie dead – 2005 Ashes winners alive

Wandering along the Strand towards Embankment Tube, after Turandot had finished, I spied this sign on the inside of a shop window:

I had not realised that there are now David Bowie stamps. Apparently so. Ten in all. The ones above, and six more featuring LP covers.

You know what they mean, but the phrase “DAVID BOWIE LIVE” seems rather … jarring. What got Bowie onto these stamps now rather than any sooner, was that instead of being live, he is now dead (LINK TO THE OLD BLOG). Only dead people, or royals, can be on stamps, right?

Not quite. If you were an England cricketer playing in the 2005 Ashes that England won, you might also have become an honorary royal:

Scroll down here, for that picture, together with some rather sneering and very Australian references to Britain’s alleged lack of sporting prowess, which (says the Australian sneerer) explains why so many went crazy (LINK TO THE OLD BLOG) when those Ashes were won. And why the Post Office also went crazy and broke its own rule of us only being allowed, on stamps, to see dead people.

My comment on the Six Nations so far

I am hopeless at drawing, as you can see.

But having been watching the Six Nations rugby tournament for the last few weeks, and having in particular been listening to the various television commentators, I feel the need to offer you all this attempt at a cartoon.

Anyone who wants to copy this, or indeed copy it and improve the graphics, is most welcome. I am surely not the first to have thought of this particular observation.

(There was a bit of fiddling about with the presentation of this, on account of my software not actually showing me exactly how a posting like this will look. Sorry about that.)

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Guess what this is

I’ve been meaning to post this image here for some time:

Guess what it is. If in doubt, look at the categories list below. Then go here, to confirm what you must surely have worked out.

Many have described the event at which this happened as historic, but not because of this. But I reckon what you see in the above picture is what historians will end up being most impressed by, about this event, because it was a very public manifestation of a very impressive sort of technology, which is going to have a very big future.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog