Reading and writing

I love researching - a process of endless mystery and discovery. I am presently involved in researching a thesis but am being encouraged now to leave off the archival research and secondary source material and write up the results gained from all that reading.

This is an idea not entirely without merit; I often feel pregnant with ideas about original lines of argument and novel ways to express my thoughts on other people's criticism of my topic - until I attempt to write.

Then my innner pedant takes over; turgid prose seems to be all I can produce. The only way to relieve the monotony is to take interest, as I write and re-read my notes, or check biographical details ...or look up a reference... yes, you see where this is going... is to hop back onto the research carousel and just see where it will take me.

It will almost always be to a rewarding place, leading me off on a wide tangent until fairly frequently bringing me back to a nexus point with some other loopy thread of the narrative.
This is the problem: I am not writing a book, certainly not a Great Narrative (how we are discouraged from those C19th over-arching themes now) but a thesis in which my supervisor advises 'shorter is better'.

Trim, slice, pare, reduce. Describe less, analyse more.

Now is the summer of their discontent

It's odd isn't it? These groups of extremely well paid people who declare that they earn and deserve their huge salaries, bonuses and all the perks of the job because of their superb performance - are the very ones now shaming Britain.

We have the Bankers - the poorest people in the country are being forced to pay back for their mismanagement, the rest of Britain having bailed them out already so that they could continue their telephone number payouts. You should not call it a salary when it's more like winning the lottery - every year, and equally undeserved.

We have the oil companies - knowing they had despoiled Nigerian landscape and economy and the lives of many Nigerians who dared protest, they nevertheless were permitted to move on to pollute another huge area of the globe, bringing Britain into further disrepute. I wonder how much they contribute to the British economy -and is it worth it?

We have the World Cup debacle, ludicrously overpaid footballers, who appear unbothered to make the effort required even to match other years' lacklustre showing, demoralised, soft and simply not hungry enough to perform.

- and we have the politicians, fiddling expenses, involving Britain in a war it never had a mandate to enter and now, a Government elected by mistake, busy slashing the lives of its citizens to ribbons in a desperate effort to cobble together the credit rating of the country so they can borrow more - to pay each other bigger salaries, maybe?

Performance related pay? Where did that idea go? If we stripped this lot of the salaries they did not earn or deserve - I don't think there would be too much of a budget deficit left. I can hardly wait for winter.

Huntington, Huntington, clippety clop

My visit to the Huntington Library did not start well. I had visited a Chinatown eatery in Los Angeles and had suffered a stomach upset in the night. I was exhausted and in some pain. Fortunately, I had a lift there from the 1950s motel in Pasadena where we were staying and had the prospect of a ride back again in the evening.
The Huntington Library takes itself very seriously indeed. After some hours of induction into the ranks of scholars, as they call their research readers, I was permitted to investigate their archives. After what seemed to be a very short time a screeching double ring on a bell jolted me from the near silent aura of the library: at twenty minutes to noon, we were being summoned to return material and proceed to lunch. This I gathered from the behaviour of the other, mostly oldish and eminent-looking scholars.
Continuing to follow the lead of others, I trooped out of the building only to realise I had no idea where I could wash my hands or eat lunch. I knew from the family visit on the previous day that no food or drink was permitted in the gardens within which the research library is located. Anyway, I had no food to eat and eventually asked an unsmiling guard, who directed me to a cafe I knew to be halfway across the garden. After a wrong turn into a tearoom for geriatrics, I eventually located the cafe. By this time, my fellow scholars were halfway through their meals, taken at small metal tables outside the building. No one encouraged my approach so I ate alone. This was to be the pattern for most of the week.
The garden opened at 12 and swarms of Pasadena/ San Marino matrons 'hurried' arthritically over to the cafe or tearoom to partake of a limited (cafe) expensive, (tearoom) and very average-quality lunch menu. If you did not beat this crowd to the slow paypoint, you could spend 10 minutes waiting in line. Fortunately, there was a 20% discount for scholars' food ( and for books at the book-store), which made the pain more bearable.
The gardens are rightly famed. Sumptuously laid out landscapes of Chinese, Japanese and dry gardens, a Shakespeare garden featuring the plants mentioned in the plays, conservatories and other areas I did not have time to explore are laid out in the spacious rectangular area of the garden, which also contains the house where Henry E. and Arabella Huntington lived, now adapted (and possibly extended) to the Art Gallery, containing many Gainsboroughs and other C18th portraits but a smattering of stuff from other periods, decorative arts etc.,and the Library itself, and exhibition halls displaying selections of the original books and incunabula collected by the Huntingtons, an American art gallery (briefly visited) and other buildings...
All this is patrolled by a large number of mainly pleasant attendants and guides. However, the treatment of the scholars seemed to be characterised by unfriendly guards and ultra-serious librarians, intent on making one realise that you were merely one of a long train of vastly-better-qualified scholars who had made this pilgrimage and would now have to submit to constant scrutiny by cctv, made to open bags for inspection every time one left the building, and being at the mercy of pages who would frequently lose or misunderstand the call slips one submitted. Long waits for requested material were normal and no notice was given for when this material arrived at the desk, so it was necessary to trek from table to desk repeatedly, in order to discover if the desired manuscripts had arrived.
Naturally, by the end of the first week, most of these problems, delays and inconveniences had been absorbed and necessary adjustments been made. I found out where the card catalogue was on the third or fourth day ( a long trek through the corridors) and finally realised how to order individual items rather than entire boxes. It would have helped if this had been evident from the beginning; unfortunately, I left after 5 days, not nearly enough time to discover the treasures that I doubtless missed in my preliminary sweep. I felt even more unworthy in leaving on Friday night, when I realised that the scholar's week should consist of work from Monday morning to Saturday night, which I had originally intended to do but curtailed the trip in order to visit friends in Northern California.
I did introduce myself to an interesting and extremely knowledgeable curator/archivist/librarian who advised me to read a memoir which I had not heard of but is available in Trinity Library. That reference may turn out to be the single most useful item of information which I gained at the Huntington Library.

Mom goes to Iceland

I felt quite privileged to be able to quit Ireland on an aeroplane heading for the U.S. in these uncertain times of airspace closing and opening like a pub door. I was more surprised when we headed due north, skidding past the Uists and the other Outer Hebridean islands. I was able to recognise North Uist from the Monty Hall programmes, the last of which I shall unfortunately miss. I am sorry not to be able to see how he (and his fairly mad dog Rubes) cope with the demands of the job and whether they actually did manage to butcher the lovely Glos Old Spot piglets for Christmas dinner.
Anyway the pilot assured us that we will be able to see the volcano in an hour and a half and that those of us sitting on the left side of the plane will have ringside seats. There is no rush for the empty seats beside me, to my relief. What a change from packed Ryanair flights - more legroom and only a half-full plane. The aeroplane continues to climb slowly from 36,000 ft.
In due course, our captain advised us that we shall cross the Iceland coastline at 38,000 ft and there we can already see the ash plume streaming off to the left, heading off southwards to Morocco. Gradually, I make out the volcano itself, looking like an old briar pipe stuck in the ground, pumping out charcoal grey smoke over there almost on the horizon, under the wing. I begin taking photographs; a few people who were seated on the right side of the plane, stand in the aisle craning their necks to see but there is no concerted rush for the seats on the left side: maybe people are worried that they will tilt the plane over towards the volcano. It doesn't seem likely, as it is very far away.
I tried to work out where Reykjavik was: there seemed to be absolutely no sign of human habitation in this charcoal grey landscape enlivened only by large white snow patches and iced-over lakes, old craters filled with snow and - nothing else. A lunar landscape with snow.
I took more photographs. I realise that we are working our way around the cone of the pumper, to get upwind of the ash plume. This makes sense and I wondered why I had imagined we would go far to the south to avoid it. As it is, the flight was an hour late arriving from the U.S. and we will end up more than another hour late on arrival at Newark, as we are bucking a powerful southward airflow, the same one that is carrying the ash plume safely away from us to make life a misery for thousands in Portugal, Spain and now Morocco. A fleeting thought about what might happen if the wind changed direction is speedily dismissed; this seems to be a permanent feature.
Gradually we work our way north-west until we leave Eyjafjallajokul (approximately correct spelling) behind, cross the northern Icelandic coastline at 40,000 ft and head for Greenland. Much more snow here, with wickedly jagged rock peaks poking through a blanket of snow and the occasional dome of a very big old crater.
After what seemed a very long time we cross the Labrador straits and as we approach Newfoundland, there are what I imagine was pack-ice and maybe calving icebergs - it looks as if someone spilled a whole box of icing sugar, neither land nor sea, some looking like sand on a wide beach, in wave formations, some it pellet-sized white blobs. The scale is difficult to decipher. Finally I recognise the rocky shore of Newfoundland. No sign of habitation and I finally stop taking photos before we move south towards southern Canada and U.S. It would have been wonderful to see Niagara Falls at this point but our Capitan did not indicate that this was possible.

It was an unexpected treat to see 'live footage', as it were, of this event which seems set to reshape summer 2010 air travel for European travellers. I may have a different attitude if it disrupts my return journey or if I cannot see the eruption from my seat on the aeroplane next time. Without the view, it simple made a long flight even longer.

getting an undeserved medal

Recently I was awarded a gold medal. Of course, it isn't really gold, just gold-plated but it is solid silver underneath, which is most gratifying. As I was awarded it last year but only collected it a few weeks ago, when the Winter Olympics were still underway, I felt like strutting about claiming to have been moonlighting on the Bobsled team but at the time I thought that Olympic gold medals were genuinely solid gold.

Subsequently on a TV trivia programme, I learned that they also were merely gold-plated but they are probably bigger and heavier than mine. Also, they have a convenient loop on them so they can be worn round the neck for decoration, whereas I have to carry mine around in a box and badger people to admire it.

Which I did for about a week. Then it occurred to me to admit I had been presented with it in advance of the performance for which it should have been awarded, so now feel rather fraudulent, although in fact I had no idea when I applied for some research funding that a medal was in the offing. To then be given it on the strength of the funding application, rather than the resulting research - or even a completed report on that research - is a bit questionable.
Nevertheless, they'll have to prise it from my cold dead fingers, if they decide I am not worthy. Yes, even if the committee are not satisfied with the report which I will write sometime - oooh - sometime this summer.

longtime no post

it has been a long hiatus, but with research, funding applications, administrative work at the college, conferences and what-not - not to mention trying to keep up with friends, exercise, run a household and take time off- - fer-God's-sake....

It's the same for everyone. Compared with the pace of life when I was a child - most people rush around as if chased by the Devil. If you have a job, you have to work too many hours and cover more ground than you feel comfortable with - if you have time to work it out. Nora Ephron said recently, there's no time for a gal to get laid, or words to that effect. I'm not surprised there are squads of singletons in London and SF, who cannot find mates. There isn't time to do so. Young marrieds with jobs and children must be the most stressed people in the world: when do they find time for themselves and a love life? I bet some will be quite relieved to lose those jobs and rediscover the other side of life. The trouble is, many will suffer worry and even homelessness as a result. The whole point of life is lost in the maelstrom of work : usually for someone else's profit. How few people there are at the top and how many scrabbling down below, desperately trying to make a living and/or move up the ladder.

I was watching a program on an unexplored volcano in New Guinea and life, for the animals living in one of the remotest parts of the world, exists on a plane we can scarcely imagine. It was only when I saw that the 'wild' animals had no fear of humans whatsoever, having never come into contact with them, that I began to feel apprehensive for them and even, in a wider context, for ourselves as a human race.

Getting better

It was a bit of a disappointment that I didn't get my stitches out today and my finger is once again encased in a splint. The splint is plastic, heat-moulded to the shape of my digit, rather than the ungainly plastered monster I have previously, but if anything, it is more restrictive.
I have to wait another week to have stitches removed. At least I did get to see my finger and very nice it looked, with about 10 stitches between the two joints, with no sign of redness or swelling.
Another long morning at the hand clinic...