Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Isabella of Castile
Had occasion to visit Elephant and Castle last week. I had forgotten what a cosmopolitan place it was. And the shopping centre underneath was the sort of thing one might find up North. But it also included a bookshop which I had not visited for a long time and was pleased to acquire a two volume biography of Walpole by one J H Plumb. I was told at school that he was a very reliable historian but had never come across anything much by him. So off we go. Know very little about the early 18th century so it will all be very new for me.
So far I have learnt that no-one (important or memorable anyway) at that time thought it was odd for the Chancellor of the Exchequer - then as now the minister in charge of the Excise - to indulge in smuggling from Holland on his own account. At a time when common smugglers were apt to be hanged if caught. So perhaps parliamentary morals are better than they were, despite the goings on of our current lot.
On the way there passed a very high tech ambulance, outside the headquarters of the London ambulance headquarters. Someone there clearly has fantasies about being in the SAS or being James Bond because the roof of this ambulance appeared to be covered in various kinds of high tech gadgets usually associated with military or television people. Maybe the idea was that you could poke some kind of a scanner into damaged person on pavement and the things on the roof would beam a moving picture back in real time to the traumatologist in his bunker at St Thomas's, who could then direct the team on what to do. Or maybe even control the scalpel remotely. I remember of an operation being done in such a fashion quite recently, so not completely off the wall.
A little further down the road there was a Blackwells next to the South Bank University. In for a quick look and was rather taken aback to find a book about cognitive pyschology in the 'x for dummies' series - the yellow and black books - no doubt by someone entirely respectable and probably eminent in the field (it's the filthy lucre what does it). While such books have been around the IT world for some time, I'm not sure that as a respectable student studying for a serious degree I would want to be seen with such a book. First, I would not care to be thought of as dumb - however apt the label might be. Second, I would not care to have what I thought was a difficult, serious and worthy subject presented in comic book fashion. I want my books to be solemn and serious. More seriously I still remember an adage from my teacher mother: there is no golden road to learning. That is to say, roughly speaking, if you want to learn something worth while you are going to have to work at it. On the other hand learning some things - certainly scientific things - can be made much easier with fancy aids. Good quality pictures at the very least. maybe computer programs which visualise all kinds of processes for you in some accessible, diagrammatical way. Four pint wisdom coming on again so time to stop this one.
And finally a differant sort of moment. BH bought some large dark red plums. Reddish yellow inside. Biting into one I tasted the smell of something which one might use for glue sniffing. A very odd sensation to be tasting someone which one recognised as a smell. On reflection, BH thought the substance in question might be acetone. All goes to show that that sort of thing is more under mind control than one expects. A related factlet being that both taste and smell were sometimes turned off by some hysterics in the last century.
So far I have learnt that no-one (important or memorable anyway) at that time thought it was odd for the Chancellor of the Exchequer - then as now the minister in charge of the Excise - to indulge in smuggling from Holland on his own account. At a time when common smugglers were apt to be hanged if caught. So perhaps parliamentary morals are better than they were, despite the goings on of our current lot.
On the way there passed a very high tech ambulance, outside the headquarters of the London ambulance headquarters. Someone there clearly has fantasies about being in the SAS or being James Bond because the roof of this ambulance appeared to be covered in various kinds of high tech gadgets usually associated with military or television people. Maybe the idea was that you could poke some kind of a scanner into damaged person on pavement and the things on the roof would beam a moving picture back in real time to the traumatologist in his bunker at St Thomas's, who could then direct the team on what to do. Or maybe even control the scalpel remotely. I remember of an operation being done in such a fashion quite recently, so not completely off the wall.
A little further down the road there was a Blackwells next to the South Bank University. In for a quick look and was rather taken aback to find a book about cognitive pyschology in the 'x for dummies' series - the yellow and black books - no doubt by someone entirely respectable and probably eminent in the field (it's the filthy lucre what does it). While such books have been around the IT world for some time, I'm not sure that as a respectable student studying for a serious degree I would want to be seen with such a book. First, I would not care to be thought of as dumb - however apt the label might be. Second, I would not care to have what I thought was a difficult, serious and worthy subject presented in comic book fashion. I want my books to be solemn and serious. More seriously I still remember an adage from my teacher mother: there is no golden road to learning. That is to say, roughly speaking, if you want to learn something worth while you are going to have to work at it. On the other hand learning some things - certainly scientific things - can be made much easier with fancy aids. Good quality pictures at the very least. maybe computer programs which visualise all kinds of processes for you in some accessible, diagrammatical way. Four pint wisdom coming on again so time to stop this one.
And finally a differant sort of moment. BH bought some large dark red plums. Reddish yellow inside. Biting into one I tasted the smell of something which one might use for glue sniffing. A very odd sensation to be tasting someone which one recognised as a smell. On reflection, BH thought the substance in question might be acetone. All goes to show that that sort of thing is more under mind control than one expects. A related factlet being that both taste and smell were sometimes turned off by some hysterics in the last century.
# posted by Jim @ 6:01 AM 
