The Dragon of Kraków

Meet the Kraków Dragon. A cheery fellow when he's in luminous green garb; a monstrous devourer of cattle and young virgins if you believe the legendary account. I've just finished writing a feature on his home city. This photo didn't make the final cut (well, it is a classical music travel feature), but he's found a home here – along with his scarily identical family – on Becca's Blog.

Beautiful coincidences

I like coincidences. Two days ago a friend recommended to me a BBC Four documentary (‘I never thought I’d say I had a good night in watching BBC Four,’ was his selling line). ‘Beautiful Equations’ does exactly what it says – it takes a look at the role beauty plays in maths. Art critic and artist Matt Collings is an engaging presenter as he investigates Newton and Einstein, quizzes Stephen Hawking on his black hole equations and gets scientists to explain what all those squiggles and numbers are all about. (It's for the general viewer rather than those who know their electrons from their positrons.)

My favourite squiggles were those of the so-called English Einstein, a Bristol-born physicist called Paul Dirac. Working in the first half of the 20th century, and using his own symbolic language, Dirac predicated anti-matter, and was one of the founding father of quantum mechanics. The reason he appeared in this programme was his underlying belief that the pursuit of beautiful equations would reveal the laws of nature. Beauty would be, in the words of Keats, truth, truth beauty. Nowhere was this more obvious than in the 'Dirac Equation' describing wave motions of electrons.

I was intrigued, although baffled by the mathematics. Anonymity was another of Dirac's desires (he had an incredibly literal mind that made social interaction a minefield), but biographer Graham Farmelo has written an acclaimed volume on his life. Time for a quick trip to the shops. I found a copy, and headed to the counter, where a girl in a festive green sparkly dress served me. When she saw what I was buying, her face lit up. 'Dirac. He's my hero!' Slightly surprised, given that I hadn't heard his name until the day before, we got chatting. It turned out that she was a physics student and artist, hence the love of Dirac. But there was another surprise to come.

'The programme talked a lot about the beauty of his mathematics,' I added. The reply: 'Yes, I've got his equation tattooed on my arm!'

Crosby Beach

Staring out to sea, one of the Gormley statues who stands vigil on Crosby Beach. Or the Gormless, as one local walker would have it.

Winter chill

I like the way Sibelius is a seal, Mozart a polar bear and – best of all – Beethoven and Bach are a pair of penguins! Bound to be their real names. I'm sure of it. More on freezing conditions in Liverpool to follow... (though hopefully the conditions planned for a trip this weekend won't be quite so arctic. Polar bears in the Mersey?)

The Paragon, Bristol

The Swallows of Kabul

Harrowing, thought-provoking, unexpected. Kabul, as conjured up by Yasmina Khadra* is, in the words of JM Coetzee 'hell on earth, a place of hunger, tedium and stifling fear.' A slim volume, this book transports you in few, but choice, words to the Afghanistan capital under the regime of the Taliban, where women are stoned to death, hide their faces and bodies under burqhas, and in which no one is allowed to sing, smile or dance. Freedom, responsibility, fate, death and love are a few of the book's themes, explored through the relationships of two couples who lives are crumbling. Day-to-day life in this hopeless place has shrunk their expectations, dimmed an appetite for life. So the choice of a Kabul prison as one of the novel's settings is meaningful. Who are the real prisoners? Those locked up by jailers for crimes real and false, most likely sentenced to death? Or those, nominally free, who are driven to violence, words and acts that would have been anathema to their younger, freer selves? People trapped in a living hell?

*Yasmina Khadra is a pseudonym of Mohammed Moulessehoul, a former Algerian army officer now living in France. The name is that of his wife's.

Rotterdam

Er, note to self. Make sure to press publish.

These photos are from Rotterdam, back in September. The Do Doelen concert hall, the Erasmus Bridge and the Cube Houses (which, I'm assured, people do actually live in).

Just Another Autumn Day

In Parliament, the Minister for Mists
and Mellow Fruitfulness announces,
that owing to inflation and rising costs
there will be no Autumn next year.
September, October and November
are to be cancelled,
and the Government to bring in
the nine-month year instead.
Thus we will all live longer.

Emergency measures are to be introduced
to combat outbreaks of well-being
and feelings of elation inspired by the season.
Breathtaking sunsets will be restricted
to alternate Fridays, and gentle dusks
prohibited. Fallen leaves will be outlawed,
and persons found in possession of conkers,
imprisoned without trial.
Thus we will all work harder.

The announcement caused little reaction.
People either way don't really care
No time have they to stand and stare
Looking for work or slaving away
Just another Autumn day.

Roger McGough

Take-home message: Make the most of Autumn, kick leaves, splash in puddles, smash conkers, admire trees of every awe-inspiring hue, pause a moment to watch the magical morning mist, savour sunsets – and enjoy huddling in for long evenings, telling stories and reading poems in praise of Autumn.

Unsuitable attachments

I've always had a bit of a problem with books. The best sort of problem, I'd argue. The sort that makes one incapable of walking past a secondhand bookshop without going in, that allows one to justify buying new books with the 'I'm supporting the author' argument, and that makes one borderline obsessive compulsive in the alphabetical organisation of the resulting library. I used to spend many happy hours taking all my books off the shelves, building a fortress piles of pages high, and making sure the order ran Joan Aiken to Sylvia Waugh with no hitches.

Sorting through childhood belongings recently, I discovered some notebooks in which I used to keep lists of all the books I read. I thought I might resurrect this as an occasional thread on this blog. The book, plus a best line and worst line. That sort of thing. I'll give it a whirl and see how it goes.

First up: Barbara Pym's An Unsuitable Attachment.

Set in a North London suburb, this glimpse into the suitable and not-so-suitable attachments formed by the parishioners of St Basil's is gently amusing. Will librarian Ianthe Broom marry John Challow, five years her junior? Or will the eligible anthropologist Rupert Stonebird catch her eye? Or perhaps the catty Mervyn Cantrell is most suitable suitor? It's not vintage Pym though, the characters being a little lacklustre, but well worth a read.

There's lots of lovely observation, but to continue the theme, here's part of a library scene:

Ianthe never knew how to talk to Mervyn when he was in this sort of [sour] mood. She felt she could have done better than she did with her next remark.

'Balham,' she said, thoughtful, yet desperate,' that's on the Northern Line, isn't it.'

'Yes, my dear. It's black on the Underground map, so very suitable, I always think. Picture us arriving there on Boxing Day in time for tea by public transport, of course.'

Encouragement

Success is going from failure to failure with enthusiasm. Winston Churchill

Manifestations

Bristol town centre. This evening, the backdrop to protests against the government spending cuts just announced. Orderly and respectful, these students and workers aired their opinions in a so terribly English manner. Meanwhile, over in France, events are more, erm, active. Lyon, where this blog started, is the scene of riots, violence and fires, making the protests there some of the most violent in the country.

The perils of secondhand books