Thursday, June 12, 2008
Victory!
We have lift off. Yesterday, for the first time, I actually poured the cold water into the tea pot rather than into the kettle. On all previous attempts something kicked in and spoiled the fun.
We also have a new unfact. Someone or something alleged recently that one's comprehensive car insurance does not cover one for deer crashing through the windscreen. Something which happens about 500 times a year in this country. Something which none of the main line insurers cover you for. Unfortunately I forget the source of this allegation. But reading the exclusions - handily printed in red - in my insurance policy I can't see anything about deer. Not covered for civil commotions, nuclear accidents or carrying inappropriate livestock, but nothing about hitting livestock.
Then start to wonder exactly what one is covered for, the words at the front of the policy not shining with insight. Not covered if the car breaks down on the highway and just stops. Covered if a truck runs into the back 0f me while I am motoring along the highway, irrespective of whoose fault it was. Covered if I drive into a wall because I am tired because I was up all last night. Covered if the engine management system shuts down because I forgot to put any oil in the engine and a truck runs into the back of me while I am drifting to a halt in the fast lane. Is the trick that there has to be some immediate cause of damage, external to the vehicle itself? It can't just fall apart of its own volition. But am I covered if the car hits a bump in the road and my knackered exhaust falls off and car stops? Is the bump too marginal to qualify as an external cause? Perhaps we now get into familiar territory. Very few real problems admit of open and shut solutions at the margin. That is the feeding ground of the lawyers not five-pint enthusiasts. Those of us of age - that is more than eighteen these days - are supposed to know that.
Talking of which I learn from today's TLS that one Lady Margeret Beaufort, heiress to the Duke of Somerset, was widowed, and became a mother shortly afterwards, at the tender age of 13. I always knew there was something a bit dodgy about those Tudors. Presumably in those days of early death, a serious aristo would be concerned that his or her (her or his sounds very odd. I think we have to have male priority here for the sake of the sound of the thing) kids got on and preserved the line at the earliest possible moment. Not a moment to waste. A more tricky point would be to what extent, if at all, a bride of 13 would suffer all the traumas presently associated with precocious sex. Maybe there were so many other, far more traumatic, things going on, that this particular thing did not achieve any importance in the scheme of things. Or maybe some part of the trauma is of our own manufacture: something becomes a trauma because it is said to be one. Or maybe the world, and the people in it have just changed. Glad I am not expected to know all the answers here. But I do remember that one Norbert Elias has some interesting stuff on how much it has changed.
Back to St Dominic's Priory in Kentish Town the other day, even if our route there could have been improved with possession of a map. Not that we were lost, but there were faster ways of doing it. Priory just as impressive on the second visit as on the first, despite having talked it up a bit. Struck on this occasion by the way in which the saints and what not in the stained glass windows were portrayed, in the glass, as standing in the sort of stone niches as in which stone saints would have been exhibited in, in the main entrance of a cathedral. Niches also rather like those fancy choir stalls in a cathedral, or perhaps in somewhere like the Sainte Chapelle (where I think they were painted in dull reds, greens and gold) or the chapel at Windsor castle. Perhaps fancy versions of the things that kings would sit in when holding court (or boozing with their mates) at home. Struck also by the fine stained glass in the lady chapel to the North of the altar - which, oddly, was in the West rather than the East. Was that a consequence of entrance to the site being at the Eastern end, and it not being thought appropriate to have the front door opening onto the altar? Places like this are a wonderful sanctuary of quiet in London - where peace and quiet is not always easy to find.
And then there was pub which offered the same near by. Near empty. No music. Peaceful sunny afternoon, with the sun streaming in through the window while one knocked back a few of the glasses that cheer. All that was missing was watching the smoke lazily curling around in the sun beams. I guess it would be legal to have smoke from some contraption which was not nicotine flavoured, but it would not be quite the same.
We also have a new unfact. Someone or something alleged recently that one's comprehensive car insurance does not cover one for deer crashing through the windscreen. Something which happens about 500 times a year in this country. Something which none of the main line insurers cover you for. Unfortunately I forget the source of this allegation. But reading the exclusions - handily printed in red - in my insurance policy I can't see anything about deer. Not covered for civil commotions, nuclear accidents or carrying inappropriate livestock, but nothing about hitting livestock.
Then start to wonder exactly what one is covered for, the words at the front of the policy not shining with insight. Not covered if the car breaks down on the highway and just stops. Covered if a truck runs into the back 0f me while I am motoring along the highway, irrespective of whoose fault it was. Covered if I drive into a wall because I am tired because I was up all last night. Covered if the engine management system shuts down because I forgot to put any oil in the engine and a truck runs into the back of me while I am drifting to a halt in the fast lane. Is the trick that there has to be some immediate cause of damage, external to the vehicle itself? It can't just fall apart of its own volition. But am I covered if the car hits a bump in the road and my knackered exhaust falls off and car stops? Is the bump too marginal to qualify as an external cause? Perhaps we now get into familiar territory. Very few real problems admit of open and shut solutions at the margin. That is the feeding ground of the lawyers not five-pint enthusiasts. Those of us of age - that is more than eighteen these days - are supposed to know that.
Talking of which I learn from today's TLS that one Lady Margeret Beaufort, heiress to the Duke of Somerset, was widowed, and became a mother shortly afterwards, at the tender age of 13. I always knew there was something a bit dodgy about those Tudors. Presumably in those days of early death, a serious aristo would be concerned that his or her (her or his sounds very odd. I think we have to have male priority here for the sake of the sound of the thing) kids got on and preserved the line at the earliest possible moment. Not a moment to waste. A more tricky point would be to what extent, if at all, a bride of 13 would suffer all the traumas presently associated with precocious sex. Maybe there were so many other, far more traumatic, things going on, that this particular thing did not achieve any importance in the scheme of things. Or maybe some part of the trauma is of our own manufacture: something becomes a trauma because it is said to be one. Or maybe the world, and the people in it have just changed. Glad I am not expected to know all the answers here. But I do remember that one Norbert Elias has some interesting stuff on how much it has changed.
Back to St Dominic's Priory in Kentish Town the other day, even if our route there could have been improved with possession of a map. Not that we were lost, but there were faster ways of doing it. Priory just as impressive on the second visit as on the first, despite having talked it up a bit. Struck on this occasion by the way in which the saints and what not in the stained glass windows were portrayed, in the glass, as standing in the sort of stone niches as in which stone saints would have been exhibited in, in the main entrance of a cathedral. Niches also rather like those fancy choir stalls in a cathedral, or perhaps in somewhere like the Sainte Chapelle (where I think they were painted in dull reds, greens and gold) or the chapel at Windsor castle. Perhaps fancy versions of the things that kings would sit in when holding court (or boozing with their mates) at home. Struck also by the fine stained glass in the lady chapel to the North of the altar - which, oddly, was in the West rather than the East. Was that a consequence of entrance to the site being at the Eastern end, and it not being thought appropriate to have the front door opening onto the altar? Places like this are a wonderful sanctuary of quiet in London - where peace and quiet is not always easy to find.
And then there was pub which offered the same near by. Near empty. No music. Peaceful sunny afternoon, with the sun streaming in through the window while one knocked back a few of the glasses that cheer. All that was missing was watching the smoke lazily curling around in the sun beams. I guess it would be legal to have smoke from some contraption which was not nicotine flavoured, but it would not be quite the same.
# posted by Jim @ 6:10 AM 
