Save the Hedgehog

Photo: Tim Melling /Getty Images 

As a rule, I don't like the idea of saving anything, be it a whale, an immortal soul, or a sum of money. Whenever someone says we need to save this, that, or other, I always wonder from what and for what. It seems a slightly futile - if not ultimately a nonsensical - concept.

However, in the case of the hedgehog I'm willing to make an exception, because it's such an exceptional little beast; one of the earliest mammals and little changed in its spiny perfection for the last 15 million years. 

It also, of course, has a special place in the affections of the British; indeed, in a recent poll, it was voted our favourite wild species. But as author and journalist Tom Holland asks: If we love hedgehogs so much, why are we letting them vanish?

The answer, of course, is because we prefer to convert our gardens into driveways and eat McFlurries in a lifeless concrete world, sprayed with pesticide. We might anthropomorphically fantasise about Mrs Tiggy-Winkles, but we are supremely indifferent as a nation to the demise of the humble hedgehog, whose numbers have crashed dramatically over the past 20 years (down by over 30%).

Today, entire regions of the country are hedgehog-free zones. As Holland notes, an animal once ubiquitous in our fields, parks, and gardens is now facing extinction. It's a national shame: we encourage other peoples around the globe to protect their tigers, pandas, elephants and gorillas, but we can't even ensure the survival of our own small creatures. 

I wholeheartedly agree with Holland that we have an ethical duty to protect our wildlife; to be kind, while there is still time, as Larkin wrote in a mournful verse after accidently killing a poor hedgehog with his lawnmower.   

Notes

Tom Holland, 'If we love hedgehogs so much, why are we letting them vanish?', The Guardian (9 Sept 2018): click here to read online. 

Philip Larkin, 'The Mower', Collected Poems, ed. Anthony Thwaite, (Faber and Faber, 2003): click here to read on The Poetry Foundation website. 

For a related post to this one, on hedgehogs versus HS2, please click here.

Reflections on the Snail

Henri Matisse: L'Escargot (1953) 
Gouache on paper, cut and pasted on paper 
mounted on canvas

The Little Greek hates snails, because they eat her plants. But I like them ...

Perhaps it's because I grew up watching The Magic Roundabout and had a particular fondness for Brian. But it's also because, like other molluscs, they seem to me to be fascinating creatures, gastropodding about in the dampness of the garden and leaving a silvery slipstream of mucus in their wake, an ephemeral trail that points the way for the beaks of birds that love to eat them. 

The fact that snails have little tentacles on their head, a primitive little brain, and possess both male and female sex organs (i.e., are hermaphrodites), also inclines me to view them favourably; they are both alien and perverse when considered from a human perspective. 

I particularly like the tiny baby snails, newly hatched, with a small and delicate shell already in place to conceal their nakedness. They are very pretty and very sweet. Francis Ponge speaks of their immaculate clamminess. The fact that people can kill them with poison pellets without any qualms is astonishing and profoundly upsetting to me. 

To her credit, the Little Greek only tries to dissuade the snails from eating her plants by using (mostly ineffective) organic solutions, such as coffee granules and bits of broken eggshell sprinkled around. Alternatively, she sometimes rounds 'em up and relocates the snails to the local woods - though this enforced transportation of snails also makes me a little uneasy, as it's all-too-easy to imagine little yellow stars painted on their backs.   

Not that this prevents me from eating them, prepared with a garlic and parsley butter when in France, or cooked in a spicy sauce when in Spain ... 

Note: the Francis Ponge poem to which I refer and from which I quote is 'Snails', trans. by Joshua Corey and Jean-Luc Garneau, Poetry, (July/August, 2016). Click here to read in full on the Poetry Foundation website.  

In Memory of Liz Fraser

Liz Fraser in Carry On Cruising (1962)

I was very sorry to hear of the passing two days ago of busty British beauty and much-loved Carry On star Liz Fraser, aged 88.

As I wrote in an earlier post, any film in which she appeared is instantly improved, even if, sadly, not always worth watching, and seeing Liz in her black underwear always makes happy and nostalgic. She had the serious erotic charisma that Barbara Windsor, for all her infectious giggling, completely lacks and was undoubtedly one of the great comedic actresses of her generation and one of the smartest of all dumb blondes. 

For anyone like me who loves TV of the sixties and seventies, it's impossible not to think fondly of Miss Fraser, who had roles in many classic shows, including: Hancock's Half  Hour, Dad's Army, The Avengers, and Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased).    

And anyone like me who loves the Sex Pistols, will also recall that, like Irene Handl and Mary Millington, she also pops up in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (dir. Julien Temple, 1980).

Thus, with her place in the popular cultural (and pornographic) imagination happily secure, she can, I hope and trust, rest in peace. 


Note: the earlier post I refer to above is 'Why I Love Carry On Cruising' (2 Jan 2017): click here.    

The Prince and the Showbot (Or Why I Prefer Artificial Intelligence to Royal Stupidity)

HRH the Prince of Wales and ASIMO the humanoid robot  

It's ten years since Prince Charles met Asimo, the humanoid robot developed by Honda, whilst on a royal visit to Japan.

The latter - always ready to perform and go through his advanced motions - warmly greeted the man who would be king with a wave and a cheery konnichi-wa, before launching into a seven minute step and dance routine at the Miraikan Museum in Tokyo.   

If Charles was impressed, he didn't show it. Not only did he keep his distance from Asimo at all times, declining the opportunity to shake hands, but he displayed a regal coldness that bordered on contempt. Only after Asimo stood on one leg with his arms outstretched, saying bye-bye in English, did Charles give a half-hearted smile.    

But it's only now, however, that he's finally made his hostility towards robots and his opposition to AI a matter of public record ...

Speaking at a GQ awards ceremony, where the 69-year-old Prince was presented with a Lifetime Achievement honour for his philanthropic work, Charles warned that human beings were losing basic skills as a result of technology and expressed fears that machines could one day rise up and take over the world (including the English throne). 

Charles also conveyed his hope that humanity would see sense, listen to him, and make a return to a more traditional lifestyle; one that was less reliant upon smart technology and more about arts and crafts. The thought that we might voluntarily choose instead to forge an ever-closer relationship with our machines and become-cyborg, was one that he found totally and utterly objectionable.

He has a point, I suppose. The question concerning technology is an essential one, as recognised by many writers and philosophers over the past century, such as Lawrence and Heidegger. But simple-minded technophobia is as tedious as the techno-idealism of the transhumanists and experts in the field of AI have been quick to point out that the Prince's concerns are often born from ignorance and an anti-scientific worldview.    

As Professor Dave Robertson at the University of Edinburgh has suggested, rapid advances in this area could greatly enhance human experience and amplify our abilities, not see our demise as a species or enslavement to an army of super-intelligent machines.

And - push comes to shove - if I were to be stranded on a desert island, I'd sooner it were with Asimo than a royal half-wit. 

Note: readers interested in viewing Associated Press footage of the 2008 encounter between Prince Charles and Asimo (who was recently retired by Honda), should click here. 

On the Mythology of Wood (with Reference to the Case of Larry David)

Tile coaster by cafepress.co.uk 

I.

According to Wikipedia:

"Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin that resists compression."

Mankind has been using wood for millennia; as fuel, as a building material for ships and houses, and for making a wide variety of other essential objects (including tools, weapons, furniture and totem poles). Peoples everywhere love it for its firmness, its softness, and the natural warmth of its touch. Wood is not just an organic material, it is also a poetico-magical substance.

But high regard for wood, including the pleasure of its feel, is one of the things on which I differ from Larry David. The latter not only respects wood, he reveres wood and is considerate of it as a material, refusing to discriminate between types and grades of wood. Pine, walnut, or oak - it doesn't matter - Larry holds all wood in equal esteem.   

But in so doing, of course, he's subscribing to a certain mythology and reinforcing what Barthes terms a hierarchy of substances - a way of thinking in which certain natural materials are privileged over man-made ones, particularly those belonging to the family of plastics.


II.

As I wrote in a very early post on this blog with reference to marble contra plastic, the fact that certain materials, including wood, retain their high-ranking status within such a hierarchy and continue to be used by craftsmen and manufacturers who want their work to be seen as belonging to a long and noble tradition, means nothing to me. I prefer synthetic substances, such as laminate flooring, for their democratic cheerfulness and affordability, free from cultural pretension and snobbishness (even if bourgeois in origin).

Plastic may be a disgraced material with a purely negative reality - the product of chemistry, not of nature - but it enables the euphoric experience of being able to reshape the world and endlessly create new forms and objects, limited only by our own ingenuity and imagination. It doesn't necessarily allow one to live more beautifully or more truthfully, but I'm bored of these things posited as supreme values and of being bullied by our grand idealists who mistakenly equate them with the Good.


See:

Curb Your Enthusiasm, Season 7, Episode 10, 'Seinfeld', dir. Jeff Shaffer / Andy Ackerman (2009). To watch the relevant scenes on YouTube, click here.  

Roland Barthes, 'Toys' and 'Plastic', in Mythologies, trans. Annette Lavers, (The Noonday Press, 1991). Click here to read this text online.  

Note: the early post I refer to was 'Why I Love Mauro Perucchetti's Jelly Baby Family', (1 Dec 2012): click here.  

Jagger is a Punk

Mick Jagger as a Rolling Sex Pistol

One of the more interesting facts surrounding the death of Nancy Spungen in October 1978 and the immediate arrest of her boyfriend, Sid Vicious, who was charged with her murder, is the fact that it was Mick Jagger of all people who stepped up to pay for the Sex Pistols' legal fees and helped assemble a defence team.

Or at least that's so according to Johnny Rotten, who, I suppose, has no reason to lie, although he does use the revelation made in a 2013 press interview not only as an opportunity to praise the Rolling Stones frontman, but to take another predictable swipe at Malcolm, whom he remembers as being clueless and ineffectual at providing the necessary support (which might be true, but what, pray, did you do for your best friend Mr Lydon?).     

I suppose it shouldn't be that much of a surprise to discover that Jagger felt sympathy and affection for Vicious, as he is himself something of a punk at heart and responsible for writing one of the great nihilistic pop anthems in Paint it Black (1966).

Indeed, such was Jagger's fascination with the Sex Pistols that he even wore a Seditionaries Destroy shirt, as designed by McLaren and Westwood, whilst on tour with the Stones in America in the summer of 1978 and it's amusing to imagine what might have been if, after Rotten was exposed as a collaborator and thrown overboard, Malcolm had enlisted Jagger as the new lead singer instead of Ronnie Biggs ...


Afternote

I've been advised by Paul Gorman, McLaren's biographer, that Rotten's account of things isn't entirely accurate; that whilst Jagger did contact Malcolm with an offer to help financially, it was in fact never taken up. Further, Malcolm met with several lawyers and worked hard on Sid's behalf during this time. More details can be found by clicking here: paulgormanis.com 

As for the Destroy shirt, it was originally bought by Anita Pallenberg as a gift for Keith Richards. He refused to wear it, however, so Mick appropriated it into his own wardrobe. Again, many thanks to Paul Gorman for this titbit. 

Reflections on the Georgia Guidestones

Georgia Guidestones 

Photo by Gina Eric (2014)

I.

The Georgia Guidestones is, arguably, the world's ugliest monument.

Erected in 1980 in Elbert County, Georgia, it is best described as stupidity in stone, with prehistoric pretensions of grandeur and intellectual pretensions of philosophical profundity. It's the sort of thing that only idiots would find impressive. Yoko Ono, for example, praised it as a stirring call to rational thinking.

The monument consists of a central slab with four others arranged around it in, apparently, astronomical alignment and a capstone to top things off. A set of guidelines is inscribed on the structure in eight different languages, including English, Spanish, Swahili, and Chinese. There's also a brief message inscribed at the top of the structure in more ancient scripts, including Classical Greek and Sanskrit.     

The anonymity of those responsible for the Guidestones - as well as the content of their message for mankind - has ensured the monument attracts controversy and gives rise to all kinds of crazy conspiracy theory (I want the Guidestones smashed, but not because I believe them to be of a deep Satanic origin).

In the summer of 1979, an individual using the pseudonym of Robert C. Christian commissioned the work on behalf of a small group of loyal Americans. Serving as a compass, calendar and clock, the monument is intended to withstand even catastrophic future events. But I'm hopeful that it will one day simply be bulldozed or blown up - much like the Buddhas of Bamiyan - without any undue fuss.

It's already been defaced with paint and had various pieces of graffiti written over it. Whether this was by art critics, iconoclasts, or individuals objecting to the New World Order, I don't know.         

II.

So what, then, are the ten great politico-moral principles of the Georgia Guidestones ...

Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.

Guide reproduction wisely - improving fitness and diversity.

Unite humanity with a living new language.

Rule passion - faith - tradition - and all things with tempered reason.

Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.

Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.

Avoid petty laws and useless officials.

Balance personal rights with social duties.

Prize truth - beauty - love - seeking harmony with the infinite.

Be not a cancer on the earth - leave room for nature.

Without wanting to sound too much like PC Plod, what is there to say other than move along - nothing to see here. For it's essentially the same old utopian bullshit, combining ideas of population control, eugenics, eco-fascism, world government, and Platonic Ideals of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. We've been experimenting along these same lines - with mixed results at best - for the past 250 years or so.

And so we really don't need the explanatory tablet (complete with punctuation errors and spelling mistakes) set alongside the stones to tell us what's being affirmed here: an Age of Reason founded upon genocide; for in order to maintain humanity under 500,000,000 we would need to first exterminate around seven billion people presently living.

The only real mystery here is this: why do so many idealists - acting in the name of Love, Nature and Reason - always fantasise about killing people?*

* To be fair, many commentators argue that the Guidestones are intended as a blue-print for a post-apocalyptic world and that they envision the best way to rebuild a devastated civilization. In other words, the suggestion to keep humanity's number below half-a-billion was made on the assumption that a nuclear war had already reduced mankind below this figure.

On Painting Ceilings

Kazimir Malevich 
Suprematist Composition: White on White (1918) 
Oil on canvas (79.5 x 79.5 cm)

I.

The Sistine Chapel ceiling, painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512, is certainly an impressive piece of interior decorating and design, incorporating over 340 figures, both clothed and nude, allowing the artist to fully demonstrate his skill in creating a huge variety of poses for the human body (poses that have been much imitated ever since). 

Contrary to popular belief, Michelangelo painted in a standing position, not lying flat on his back, and endured great physical discomfort; eye strain, neck ache, muscle cramps, etc. Little wonder then that he bodged certain sections and that it was left unfinished. Nevertheless, according to Goethe, those who haven't seen this work for themselves can have no appreciable idea of what greatness a single man is capable.


II.

I was thinking of Michelangelo and his High Renaissance masterpiece whilst painting a ceiling in my mother's house over the weekend. Not that I drew inspiration from the Italian; that came rather from the avant-garde Russian artist Kazimir Malevich and his Suprematist composition of 1918 entitled White on White (shown above).  

For that's essentially what I was doing: painting white on white, inch after inch and one polystyrene foam tile after another, using Farrow and Ball's All White Estate emulsion; an expensive but soft and sympathetic paint which provides a chalky, very matt finish, with just a 2% sheen (which is more than enough lustre for any ceiling in my view).      

Whilst most people today probably prefer to use a roller and get the job done as quickly and as conveniently as possible, I like to take my time and prefer to use a small (12 mm) brush, ensuring that individual brush strokes and small imperfections remain evident; the thought of machine-perfect smoothness - or machine-smooth perfection - is anathema to my tastes. 

Having now completed the second coat, I have to confess that I prefer my ceiling in all its infinite and abstract whiteness to Michelangelo's, which - for me - is far too busy and show-offy. It's nice to dispense with illusions of depth and to also rid painting of representation and colour. The foam tiles - that were so popular at one time, but which are now deemed to be a fire hazard - provide a richly textured surface.      

Although I don't much care for his ideal fantasies of purity and spiritual transcendence, I share something of Malevich's exhilaration and know exactly what he means when he claims in his 1919 manifesto to have overcome the lining of the coloured sky and learnt how to swim in the freedom of the white abyss ...

On Pythons in the Everglades

An adult female Burmese python captured in the Everglades

Photo: Wayne Lynch / Getty Images / All Canada Photos

As a life-long ophidiophile, any newspaper headline that contains the words hybrid python or super-snake is sure to attract my attention. 

And thus it was that I found myself excitedly reading a story in today's Guardian about a recent US study into non-native species that has discovered that some specimens of python slithering around the Florida Everglades are a genetic mixture of two species, potentially making it an even more formidable creature; one that is perfectly adapted to its sub-tropical environment;        

I appreciate that the good people of the Sunshine State may feel that they already have enough exotic fauna to contend with - a million alligators, giant carnivorous lizards and poisonous tree frogs, etc. - but I couldn't help smiling at the thought of this new and improved (all-American) snake feasting on the local wildlife and asserting itself as the region's apex predator, full of hybrid vigour.         

Apparently, researchers had expected to discover the snakes were pure Burmese python. Instead, they were surprised to discover the genetic signature of the Indian rock python also present; a smaller, faster, more aggressive creature that prefers to live on higher, dryer ground than its Burmese cousin. 

For those who hate the thought of invasive species and hybridisation - and who would, if they could, exterminate every last python in Florida - this is obviously an unwelcome development. But there's not much that can be done; the estimated 300,000 pythons that occupy the waterways of a 1.5 million acre wilderness cannot all be captured or killed. The population is thus only likely to grow, expanding its range northwards.

Still, every Eden needs its serpent, as they say ... And besides, Florida's 500,000 feral pigs are probably a bigger threat to the Everglades than pythons - at least until the latter eat them.

See: Richard Luscombe, 'Super-snake: hybrid pythons could pose new threat to Florida Everglades', The Guardian (25 Aug 2018): click here to read online.  

Notes on DIY

Bob the Builder

As a punk, one was obliged to subscribe to the political ethos of do it yourself: form your own band, print your own magazines, design your own clothes, etc., etc. 

I remember, however, that Rotten supplemented (and qualified) this idea by also insisting that whatever it was one did, one should always do it properly and was contemptuous of those who understood the first rule of punk as a license to be mediocre or inept. There was nothing shoddy or second-rate about the Sex Pistols; the look and the sound was all carefully contrived with an eye for detail and a profound understanding of style.

But for most people, of course, DIY isn't an anarchic method of self-empowerment and taking back control, it's to do with home improvements and having somewhere to go and something to do at the weekends; i.e., wander round Homebase, before then annoying the neighbours with a power drill as you work on the extension or loft conversion.

In other words, it's part and parcel of la vie domestique - i.e., the most boring form of life there is.

DIY encourages consumers to imagine they're skilled artisans, but it's more recreational than creative in character and more about cost-cutting than self-expression. At best - and at a real stretch - it's the idiot younger brother of the Arts and Crafts movement, though I still find it difficult to see a family resemblance between William Morris and Tommy Walsh.         

To paraphrase Wilde, a great deal of nonsense is spoken about DIY. There's nothing essentially dignified about hammering a nail, hoovering a carpet, painting a ceiling, or fitting a floor. Indeed, most - if not all - jobs of this kind are dirty, dusty, and depressing and such pleasureless activities should be admitted as such.

It's good to take pride in what you do - but when what you're doing is tedious and undignified, then it's best to be honest about it. Sometimes, it's preferable not to do it yourself, but to get on the blower to Bob the builder ... 


Note: I'm paraphrasing Wilde on manual labour in his 1891 essay 'The Soul of Man Under Socialism', written in his anarcho-libertarian phase: click here to read online.