A Nature Reserve
All round the outskirts of Mollans can be seen notices proclaiming « Non Au Parc ». The proposal is to have a nature reserve (parc naturel) whose boundaries would include Mollans and, as I've commented previously, many Mollanais are against it on the grounds that it would interfere with their hunting and right to sell plots of land for building. I think that is understandable but a shame. Anyway, voting in the areas of the Drôme affected is now complete and Mollans has formally rejected the idea.
The whole process is complex and takes time. Each commune in the proposed area has to vote, by region. Communes in two more regions still have to vote but are expected, on the whole, to vote in favour. When voting is completed, the regional authorities then have to try to assemble a congruent area from the communes that have voted in favour and put a proposal to the government based on the number of communes and percentage of population in favour. Mollans is on the edge of the area proposed for the nature reserve and so can quite easily be excluded without producing an embarrassing “hole”. Other communes that are against the idea may present a more signifiacnt challenge to the planners. The percentage of the population that has voted in favour so far is around 80% and, if that holds true of the regions yet to vote, any government going against the wishes of 80% of the population is surely asking for trouble. However, Sarkozy and his acolytes are against nature reserves, Hollande in favour of them, and so this is an issue that could have a bearing on the imminent elections.
The process so far has taken eight years and is likely to take another two before completion. If the reserve is established, funds become available from the EU to encourage conservation and tourism. Exactly how these are used is down to a governing committee authorised to run the reserve, drawn from representatives of the area included. This committee also makes the rules for the reserve; nothing is prescribed. So the Mollanais could have voted in favour of the reserve and then joined the governing committee to ensure that their rights were protected. I'm a bit disappointed that they didn't choose this route.
Brilliant Government Thinking
Like most of the people I know, I generally regard government intelligence as something of an oxymoron. Certainly, the examples of government stupidity that come to light far outnumber anything governments do that could be classed as intelligent. However, there are occasional flashes of brilliance that stand out like beacons in this murky record and a recent Guardian article pointed me at one of them.
Estonia, when it gained independence, was a poor country with a small ill-educated population and a distinct lack of physical infrastructure. It didn't try to repair its deficiencies piece-meal but rather decided on a genuine great leap forward. It saw the Internet as its future and made WIFI broadband access universal and, initially, free; that was 12 years ago. The result? A current population that is highy IT-literate with very saleable skills, 98% of bank transfers done electronically and a similar number of tax returns done the same way (UK, France, Gernany, etc, dream on.......).
It is a similar scale of transformation to that which occurred in Ireland in the 1980s. There, too, an essentially agrarian peasant economy that looked destined for gradual modernisation was transformed in one imaginative bound.
The other stroke of brilliance that occurred to me is rather different: national anthems. Leave aside the music; the words of every national anthem I know are bombastic, inane or even downright warlike and, in every case, an embarrassment. I suppose there is a case for retaining national anthems but they certainly need improvement. The improvement I discovered was while watching an international football match. The sight of footballers united in mouthing inanities is not uncommon but one team was silent: Spain. The Spanish national anthem apparently doesn't have words; sheer genius!
Monday, 16 April 2012
Thursday, 12 April 2012
Gardening And Elections
Gardening Time
I've now taken complete stock of the garden, replaced the casualties of winter and replanted elsewhere as necessary. Two casualties were a miniature rose in a pot in the front and my plumbago ; the latter has done well to survive thus far and I've replaced both by purple/blue solanums. I've another already in a pot in the front and if all three do as well as the one did last year they will make quite a display in the summer and into the autumn. The olive tree I planted last year has also taken a hit from the winter but dooesn't look quite dead. This is the northernmost area in which olive trees grow so they can be susceptible to the cold. I'm not sure if mine is the tanche variety, which is the hardiest. I shall just have to wait and see. There remain the annuals to be planted in the front but I shan't add them until some time in May, later this year than last so that the display continues (hopefully) further into August.
Friend Steve's 70th birthday was on Easter Monday and the the pizza crowd and I clubbed together to buy him an apple and an apricot tree. I also bought him some raspberry canes and a kiwi fruit vine. So it was over to his place on the Tuesday to dig suitable size holes and plant and stake the trees. The ground wasn't as stony as I thought it was going to be but digging the holes still took some time. And staking them well was necessary as the side of the house they are on gets the full blast of the Mistral when it decides to blow. Anyway, they have been properly planted so I hope they now do what they are supposed to.
The weather over the past fortnight has been very mixed with whole days of hot sunshine, days of rain and mostly a bit of both, with even a genuinely English grey day or two thrown in. I find that grey days depress me unduly although we get very few of them. Temperatures have dropped by several degrees since March and although quite comfortable and even ideal for gardening have had a noticeable effect on higher ground. Mont Ventoux had no snow on it after early March but is now blanketed in white again. It has been a very short season for the winter sports up there so the current extension is probably appreciated.
Elections
As the presidential elections get closer (just over a week to go) so the polls show the contest getting tighter. Sarkozy seems to be gaining ground on Hollande and, far from looking like the dead duck he did a few months ago, could even be inching into the lead. All really depends on which way the votes of the minor candidates go in the second round. I don't have the right to vote (only in mayoral and European elections) but Mana asked me what I thought one day last week when we were playing boules. I think that the result will be a negative one, either way. Sarkozy will lose if enough French people simply want to get rid of him. If Holland loses it will be because he hasn't a programme of any discernible sort and people prefer a devil (and programme) they know to one they don't. That situation strikes me as a pity but also not far off the one I perceive in the UK. Where have all the political personalities, the great statesmen, gone?
Footnote
My book has resurfaced, in Daniel's house. It has lost half its yellow dust-jacket and Daniel had been looking around his house for a yellow book. It is bound in red. I could have guessed his search would have been less than rigorous but I'm glad to have it back, even minus half its dust-jacket.
I've now taken complete stock of the garden, replaced the casualties of winter and replanted elsewhere as necessary. Two casualties were a miniature rose in a pot in the front and my plumbago ; the latter has done well to survive thus far and I've replaced both by purple/blue solanums. I've another already in a pot in the front and if all three do as well as the one did last year they will make quite a display in the summer and into the autumn. The olive tree I planted last year has also taken a hit from the winter but dooesn't look quite dead. This is the northernmost area in which olive trees grow so they can be susceptible to the cold. I'm not sure if mine is the tanche variety, which is the hardiest. I shall just have to wait and see. There remain the annuals to be planted in the front but I shan't add them until some time in May, later this year than last so that the display continues (hopefully) further into August.
Friend Steve's 70th birthday was on Easter Monday and the the pizza crowd and I clubbed together to buy him an apple and an apricot tree. I also bought him some raspberry canes and a kiwi fruit vine. So it was over to his place on the Tuesday to dig suitable size holes and plant and stake the trees. The ground wasn't as stony as I thought it was going to be but digging the holes still took some time. And staking them well was necessary as the side of the house they are on gets the full blast of the Mistral when it decides to blow. Anyway, they have been properly planted so I hope they now do what they are supposed to.
The weather over the past fortnight has been very mixed with whole days of hot sunshine, days of rain and mostly a bit of both, with even a genuinely English grey day or two thrown in. I find that grey days depress me unduly although we get very few of them. Temperatures have dropped by several degrees since March and although quite comfortable and even ideal for gardening have had a noticeable effect on higher ground. Mont Ventoux had no snow on it after early March but is now blanketed in white again. It has been a very short season for the winter sports up there so the current extension is probably appreciated.
Elections
As the presidential elections get closer (just over a week to go) so the polls show the contest getting tighter. Sarkozy seems to be gaining ground on Hollande and, far from looking like the dead duck he did a few months ago, could even be inching into the lead. All really depends on which way the votes of the minor candidates go in the second round. I don't have the right to vote (only in mayoral and European elections) but Mana asked me what I thought one day last week when we were playing boules. I think that the result will be a negative one, either way. Sarkozy will lose if enough French people simply want to get rid of him. If Holland loses it will be because he hasn't a programme of any discernible sort and people prefer a devil (and programme) they know to one they don't. That situation strikes me as a pity but also not far off the one I perceive in the UK. Where have all the political personalities, the great statesmen, gone?
Footnote
My book has resurfaced, in Daniel's house. It has lost half its yellow dust-jacket and Daniel had been looking around his house for a yellow book. It is bound in red. I could have guessed his search would have been less than rigorous but I'm glad to have it back, even minus half its dust-jacket.
Sunday, 18 March 2012
From Winter To Spring
From Winter To Spring
Daniel's dalliance with Patricia has proved short-lived and she has returned to La Reunion. It seems she was too feisty for him. So he has set about finding himself another partner and appears to have found a promising one, Marie, via a small advertisement in the local paper. She seems very nice, low-key and suited to Daniel but quite firmly rooted in her house in a village south of Valence in the north of the Drôme. So Daniel is splitting his time between there and Mollans. Anyway, he seems happy again.
An unfortunate consequence of Daniel's split with Patricia is that I have probably lost a book I treasured. I loaned Patricia my copy of Summerhill, which was given to me by Neill and signed by him. Patricia was using it for a study of educational methods she was engaged in. She says she left it at Daniel's house but he can't find it. She was fascinated by the book, as people sometimes are if they haven't come across similar ideas before, constantly plundering it for ideas and taking notes. So I find it difficult to believe that she really doesn't know where the book is. Daniel's search of his house may not have been very thorough but I can't really search Daniel's house myself and don't know whether to believe Patricia or not. In the past, I've lost copies of Eric Berne's Games People Play and Eric Fromm's Fear Of Freedom that way. Maybe one day I'll learn not to lend valued books.
Friend Jo's mother died ten days ago so she and Steve have gone back to England and I have care of their dog, Crevette, a wire-haired terrier. It's not a breed I'm familiar with but I'm gradually learning her behaviour patterns. It seems strange that she is very docile with people, even children, but totally aggressive to everything else that moves: cats, obviously, but also other dogs, no matter how much bigger than her they are, and bikes, motor cycles, cars vans and lorries. The dust-cart's clanking sends her into paroxysms of rage. She's a bitch so it's not a surfeit of testosterone that's doing it; it must be in her genes. I wonder if any researcher has tried to identify an aggressive gene. If so, I have the perfect subject for study.
Several days of temperatures up into the low 30s in the sun have sparked me into removing the winter debris from the back garden. This year the debris includes several plants that would normally be hardy: colsicums, clematis and a campanula. The false jasmines have taken a hit and even my oleanders will probably have to be cut down to base in the hope that they will sprout from there. I haven't seen the ubiquitous oleanders in the village so badly affected before. The really wintry weather lasted only about three weeks but the intensity of the cold during that period seems to have done a lot of damage. Anyway, my narcissi are starting into bloom so spring must be here.
The winter of discontent seems to be over for Chelsea too (maybe!).
Daniel's dalliance with Patricia has proved short-lived and she has returned to La Reunion. It seems she was too feisty for him. So he has set about finding himself another partner and appears to have found a promising one, Marie, via a small advertisement in the local paper. She seems very nice, low-key and suited to Daniel but quite firmly rooted in her house in a village south of Valence in the north of the Drôme. So Daniel is splitting his time between there and Mollans. Anyway, he seems happy again.
An unfortunate consequence of Daniel's split with Patricia is that I have probably lost a book I treasured. I loaned Patricia my copy of Summerhill, which was given to me by Neill and signed by him. Patricia was using it for a study of educational methods she was engaged in. She says she left it at Daniel's house but he can't find it. She was fascinated by the book, as people sometimes are if they haven't come across similar ideas before, constantly plundering it for ideas and taking notes. So I find it difficult to believe that she really doesn't know where the book is. Daniel's search of his house may not have been very thorough but I can't really search Daniel's house myself and don't know whether to believe Patricia or not. In the past, I've lost copies of Eric Berne's Games People Play and Eric Fromm's Fear Of Freedom that way. Maybe one day I'll learn not to lend valued books.
Friend Jo's mother died ten days ago so she and Steve have gone back to England and I have care of their dog, Crevette, a wire-haired terrier. It's not a breed I'm familiar with but I'm gradually learning her behaviour patterns. It seems strange that she is very docile with people, even children, but totally aggressive to everything else that moves: cats, obviously, but also other dogs, no matter how much bigger than her they are, and bikes, motor cycles, cars vans and lorries. The dust-cart's clanking sends her into paroxysms of rage. She's a bitch so it's not a surfeit of testosterone that's doing it; it must be in her genes. I wonder if any researcher has tried to identify an aggressive gene. If so, I have the perfect subject for study.
Several days of temperatures up into the low 30s in the sun have sparked me into removing the winter debris from the back garden. This year the debris includes several plants that would normally be hardy: colsicums, clematis and a campanula. The false jasmines have taken a hit and even my oleanders will probably have to be cut down to base in the hope that they will sprout from there. I haven't seen the ubiquitous oleanders in the village so badly affected before. The really wintry weather lasted only about three weeks but the intensity of the cold during that period seems to have done a lot of damage. Anyway, my narcissi are starting into bloom so spring must be here.
The winter of discontent seems to be over for Chelsea too (maybe!).
Thursday, 1 March 2012
Stews, Social Models And Operating Systems
Stews
I had forgotten all about BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopy) until I went shopping, last week in England, for neck lamb chops to make my mother a stew. There were none to be had. Only when I put together the looks of surprise when I asked for them did the penny drop. So I had to make do with neck fillet. Ah well....................
Coincidentally it was only a week or so ago that I finally realised that the French don't have stews, at least not like the English version. I've made numerous stews since I've been here and always called them « une daube », whilst recognising that they were not quite like a French daube. When Mana and Daniel came to eat before I left for England they disabused me : stews à l'anglaise were definitely not a French dish. Basically, the French don't cook meat with a wide mix of vegetables ; the « pot au feu » is perhaps the most similar dish but there the meat and vegetables are always served separately and the liquor is served separately again, as soup. So in future I won't attempt a translation: I'll call a stew a stew (a peculiar English dish).
Social Models
A couple of items in the press caught my attention while in England. One was a report that the police were deliberately not recording a percentage of crimes. Why? Well if you're being judged on the percentage of crimes you solve and can't raise the number solved you can always reduce the total number of crimes (and thus raise the percentage solved). I have often railed against the simplistic use of targets by the UK government and there was the perfect illustration; measurement systems tend to corrupt what is being measured. Surely someone in government must understand that; or are the opportunities for newspaper headlines all that really matter?
The other item concerned the cost of child care in the UK, which is becoming beyond the reach of those who most need it. It appears that Denmark and Norway have for many years had a national policy of subsidised child care so that women can more easily seek work. It occurred to me that those countries (and no doubt several others) might have some form of national social model that informs their governments policies. England must have one (by default) but I think could do with a consciously thought out one, although the ministerial system would mitigate against implementing any such over-arching concept directly. Still, it could inform.
The idea of a social model reminded me of arguments about computer operating systems in the late 1960s. At the time, there were two extreme approaches: Burroughs versus IBM. The Burroughs approach was to design a database, TP monitor and principal compilers and utilities as part of the operating system, tightly integrated. This had many advantages regarding performance and usability but could arguably be restrictive. The IBM approach was to have minimal functionality in the operating system: memory management, interrupt handling and not a lot more; everything else was designed separately and bolted on. That allowed maximum flexibility in the add-ons but threw up performance and usability problems in the system as a whole, albeit that IBM's System 360 did have a coherent architecture behind it.
Anyway, there's a clear link to social models. England would appear to have more of an IBM approach to social models, as does America. The Scandinavian countries seem to have more of a Burroughs approach as does France. The French model is visible primarily through legislation introduced by Napoleon but I've no idea whether there has been any attempt to develop it from there.
At the time, there was a similar argument with respect to hardware registers. The registers on Burroughs machines were deployed as a stack and could be used only as such. But Gordon Bell, then VP Engineering for Digital Equipment, insisted that registers should be explicitly addressable in his designs for the PDP-8, PDP-11 and Vax machines, free for software writers to use as they pleased. But that has nothig to do with social models.
I had forgotten all about BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopy) until I went shopping, last week in England, for neck lamb chops to make my mother a stew. There were none to be had. Only when I put together the looks of surprise when I asked for them did the penny drop. So I had to make do with neck fillet. Ah well....................
Coincidentally it was only a week or so ago that I finally realised that the French don't have stews, at least not like the English version. I've made numerous stews since I've been here and always called them « une daube », whilst recognising that they were not quite like a French daube. When Mana and Daniel came to eat before I left for England they disabused me : stews à l'anglaise were definitely not a French dish. Basically, the French don't cook meat with a wide mix of vegetables ; the « pot au feu » is perhaps the most similar dish but there the meat and vegetables are always served separately and the liquor is served separately again, as soup. So in future I won't attempt a translation: I'll call a stew a stew (a peculiar English dish).
Social Models
A couple of items in the press caught my attention while in England. One was a report that the police were deliberately not recording a percentage of crimes. Why? Well if you're being judged on the percentage of crimes you solve and can't raise the number solved you can always reduce the total number of crimes (and thus raise the percentage solved). I have often railed against the simplistic use of targets by the UK government and there was the perfect illustration; measurement systems tend to corrupt what is being measured. Surely someone in government must understand that; or are the opportunities for newspaper headlines all that really matter?
The other item concerned the cost of child care in the UK, which is becoming beyond the reach of those who most need it. It appears that Denmark and Norway have for many years had a national policy of subsidised child care so that women can more easily seek work. It occurred to me that those countries (and no doubt several others) might have some form of national social model that informs their governments policies. England must have one (by default) but I think could do with a consciously thought out one, although the ministerial system would mitigate against implementing any such over-arching concept directly. Still, it could inform.
The idea of a social model reminded me of arguments about computer operating systems in the late 1960s. At the time, there were two extreme approaches: Burroughs versus IBM. The Burroughs approach was to design a database, TP monitor and principal compilers and utilities as part of the operating system, tightly integrated. This had many advantages regarding performance and usability but could arguably be restrictive. The IBM approach was to have minimal functionality in the operating system: memory management, interrupt handling and not a lot more; everything else was designed separately and bolted on. That allowed maximum flexibility in the add-ons but threw up performance and usability problems in the system as a whole, albeit that IBM's System 360 did have a coherent architecture behind it.
Anyway, there's a clear link to social models. England would appear to have more of an IBM approach to social models, as does America. The Scandinavian countries seem to have more of a Burroughs approach as does France. The French model is visible primarily through legislation introduced by Napoleon but I've no idea whether there has been any attempt to develop it from there.
At the time, there was a similar argument with respect to hardware registers. The registers on Burroughs machines were deployed as a stack and could be used only as such. But Gordon Bell, then VP Engineering for Digital Equipment, insisted that registers should be explicitly addressable in his designs for the PDP-8, PDP-11 and Vax machines, free for software writers to use as they pleased. But that has nothig to do with social models.
Thursday, 16 February 2012
A Spring In My Mind
A Spring In My Mind
Spring returned today : sunshine, 16 degrees and boules resumed, which means I can emerge from my last two weeks' hibernation. However, one of the things I started during that hibernation will continue : reading Bad Science by Ben Goldacre.
I've read only a third so far but the book has already shocked me and given me one important new insight and that is more than I expect of most books. The shock was the assertion, which I take to be true, that the so-called Mind Gym has been adopted by hundreds of UK schools. The insight was to do with placebos.
Adoption of Mind Gym, which is essentially a load of pseudo-scientific nonsense (the target of the book), suggests that the UK educational authorities are simply not up to their job. A cynic might respond: what's new? But I find the scale of incompetence this suggests appalling; it certainly shocked me. I gave up teaching with some reluctance. Being able to show a kid that he could do something he/she thought he/she could never do gave me the biggest of kicks. For me it was a real emotional high (better than sex?). But I felt my own mind was going to rot and needed to do something about that. I had, along the way, formulated the idea that what kids should essentially be taught (academically) was straight and crooked thinking (logic) and sources of information; everything else was perhaps important but peripheral. Given those two tools and the motivation to learn something, I thought and still think kids can potentially learn anything. I never bought into the idea that kids are good at either science or arts; that was a function of the educational system that forced the dichotomy. I remembered at an earlier time a Latin teacher explaining that learning Latin was a good idea because it taught you logical thinking. And I remembered thinking at the same time that if learning logical thinking was a good idea (I thought it was and still do) then why not teach it directly rather than through Latin? (Logic wasn't in the syllabus.)
I also remember my daughter, when she had written a thesis for her degree, refusing my offer to read it through for her on the grounds that I would criticise her grammar, which she knew was weak. It was weak because it wasn't taught in schools in her time. I had had enough discussion with teachers at her secondary school to know that not only was grammar not taught, it couldn't be; the teachers themselves hadn't been taught it and so had nothing to pass on.
These are criticisms of the UK school system but actually teaching hokum as gospel is on another level. Who on earth agreed to this? And, for Heaven's sake, what were their credentials for doing so? Not teaching logic is one thing; actually teaching the opposite is quite another.
On to placebos. I'm familiar with the general idea as are, I am sure, most people. What I had not realised was the power and intricacy of the placebo effect, which the book describes well. It does so as part of an aggressive deconstruction (even destruction) of homeopathy but, incidentally, points to the curative power the placebo effect has. The crux is essentially mind over matter and seems to me to have enormous implications which, unfortunately, the book does not explore. It is not the purpose of the book, I suppose.
Overall, the book illustrates well how the public is being manipulated in the medical arena. I'm sure I won't be alone in hating feeling manipulated in any way and, whilst many of the manipulations discussed are fairly obvious, some are not and have added importantly to my critical toolbox.
Spring returned today : sunshine, 16 degrees and boules resumed, which means I can emerge from my last two weeks' hibernation. However, one of the things I started during that hibernation will continue : reading Bad Science by Ben Goldacre.
I've read only a third so far but the book has already shocked me and given me one important new insight and that is more than I expect of most books. The shock was the assertion, which I take to be true, that the so-called Mind Gym has been adopted by hundreds of UK schools. The insight was to do with placebos.
Adoption of Mind Gym, which is essentially a load of pseudo-scientific nonsense (the target of the book), suggests that the UK educational authorities are simply not up to their job. A cynic might respond: what's new? But I find the scale of incompetence this suggests appalling; it certainly shocked me. I gave up teaching with some reluctance. Being able to show a kid that he could do something he/she thought he/she could never do gave me the biggest of kicks. For me it was a real emotional high (better than sex?). But I felt my own mind was going to rot and needed to do something about that. I had, along the way, formulated the idea that what kids should essentially be taught (academically) was straight and crooked thinking (logic) and sources of information; everything else was perhaps important but peripheral. Given those two tools and the motivation to learn something, I thought and still think kids can potentially learn anything. I never bought into the idea that kids are good at either science or arts; that was a function of the educational system that forced the dichotomy. I remembered at an earlier time a Latin teacher explaining that learning Latin was a good idea because it taught you logical thinking. And I remembered thinking at the same time that if learning logical thinking was a good idea (I thought it was and still do) then why not teach it directly rather than through Latin? (Logic wasn't in the syllabus.)
I also remember my daughter, when she had written a thesis for her degree, refusing my offer to read it through for her on the grounds that I would criticise her grammar, which she knew was weak. It was weak because it wasn't taught in schools in her time. I had had enough discussion with teachers at her secondary school to know that not only was grammar not taught, it couldn't be; the teachers themselves hadn't been taught it and so had nothing to pass on.
These are criticisms of the UK school system but actually teaching hokum as gospel is on another level. Who on earth agreed to this? And, for Heaven's sake, what were their credentials for doing so? Not teaching logic is one thing; actually teaching the opposite is quite another.
On to placebos. I'm familiar with the general idea as are, I am sure, most people. What I had not realised was the power and intricacy of the placebo effect, which the book describes well. It does so as part of an aggressive deconstruction (even destruction) of homeopathy but, incidentally, points to the curative power the placebo effect has. The crux is essentially mind over matter and seems to me to have enormous implications which, unfortunately, the book does not explore. It is not the purpose of the book, I suppose.
Overall, the book illustrates well how the public is being manipulated in the medical arena. I'm sure I won't be alone in hating feeling manipulated in any way and, whilst many of the manipulations discussed are fairly obvious, some are not and have added importantly to my critical toolbox.
Monday, 13 February 2012
Psychiatry And Winter Ruminations
Cold Thinking
The cold spell shows no sign of easing in the near future ; it is apparently the coldest continuous spell since 1985 so at least we shouldn't have to put up with it too often. Below is a picture of the fountain in the old railway station square, which gives an idea of what is happening.
Despite the weather I decided to venture out from the cocoon my house has become to the English Library in Beaumont, to hear a talk by one of the members on a book he has written and which has just been published. Albert Rothenburg is a professor of psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School and his book, called Madness And Glory, is a novel based around the actions of man named Pinel during the French revolution. Albert claims Pinel was the first ever psychiatrist. At the time, those deemed insane for whatever behavioural, social or political reason were normally locked up, chained and left to rot, perhaps occasionally being brought out for public entertainment. Pinel apparently changed all that (or started the change). I learned some useful nuggets both about psychiatry and the French revolution and so was pleased that I went.
After the talk I asked Albert for a definition of sanity. He replied that a psychiatrist would never use the word. There was an official definition but it was a legal one. So what happens when a court seeks expert advice as to whether a defendant could be considered insane? Albert said it was a matter of the defendant's grasp of reality. And the definition of reality....? Albert dodged again by saying that definition was legal too. I wanted to pursue the point further but wanted also to let others ask their questions so I let the matter drop for the time being. I do think concept definition must be a problem in psychiatry, particularly where there are no clinical indicators, but have little idea how psychiatrists go about resolving it.
On the drive to Beaumont I started to ruminate on what I think of as “triggers” in nature; conditions that make things happen or start to happen. I might not have gone to the talk had the day been warm and sunny; as it was, the weather provided an incentive, a trigger, to escape from the house.
But what was exercising my mind was the type and reason for such triggers in nature. Temperature is obviously one trigger. The warm autumn started my bulbs growing and the recent cold has totally stopped them. Hibernating animals, for instance, also respond to temperature to determine when they will arouse from hibernation and temperature rather than time seems to govern bird migrations. Water can be another trigger; most deserts have a form of spring season that occurs after rainfall and there are sticks of apparently dead wood that you can buy in garden centres that sprout when put in water. Animals too can use water as a trigger, as with fish eggs in deserts. Time, in some sense, is yet another, although I can think of few examples. Animals have a normal gestation period (an example of elapsed time) and some also have a more or less fixed spawning time (point in time). Crabs and turtles come ashore on some tropical islands to spawn, mate or whatever at known times of the year. Then there is fire as a a trigger for some seeds, global catastrophe for spurts in variety of species and, finally, the only other trigger I could think of, light also can play the same rôle. For bats, for instance, and some flowers open only when the sun is on them, closing if a passing cloud throws a shadow.
This is all probably elementary for a biologist but it caused me to wonder how these triggers came to evolve over what must gave been many millennia of widely varied climatic conditions. Only time as a trigger, and then only where the climate is even over a year, could have been constantly appropriate and yet time seems to play a minor role. And there are still some examples I find difficult to explain: the flowers that open only when the sun is on them, for example. The purpose of the flower is to attract insects and I know of no insect that buzzes around only when the sun is on it. Solar panels for insects haven't evolved yet, as far as I know. That could be my lack of biological knowledge or it could be an error in evolution, evolution being a fairly hit or miss affair. A problem with trying to puzzle out this kind of thing is that I seldom know which plants or animals have become extinct, perhaps because conditions changed and a vital trigger became inappropriate. Ah well, it's strange what thoughts a winter afternoon and an idle mind can evoke. Maybe I should stop musing on subjects I don't know enough about.
The trouble is I got used to playing the role of intelligent idiot early in my IT career. People who knew a lot more about IT than I did at the time used me to think of possibilities that they could not or would not or start a new train of thought because their experience constrained their thinking. It's a role you can play for only a short time in any one sphere of activity because you gain experience and thus you too become similarly constrained.
Footnote
After proposing to take my idea of a filmed portrait of the village to the mayor and getting the whole village involved, friend Daniel has backed out altogether. He thinks the idea is too ambitious and doesn't want to pursue it. I think something new and ambitious is just what we both need. Anyway, I shall continue; it will at least make me learn to use my camcorder more effectively and I'll do what I can with the editing software I have.
The cold spell shows no sign of easing in the near future ; it is apparently the coldest continuous spell since 1985 so at least we shouldn't have to put up with it too often. Below is a picture of the fountain in the old railway station square, which gives an idea of what is happening.
Despite the weather I decided to venture out from the cocoon my house has become to the English Library in Beaumont, to hear a talk by one of the members on a book he has written and which has just been published. Albert Rothenburg is a professor of psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School and his book, called Madness And Glory, is a novel based around the actions of man named Pinel during the French revolution. Albert claims Pinel was the first ever psychiatrist. At the time, those deemed insane for whatever behavioural, social or political reason were normally locked up, chained and left to rot, perhaps occasionally being brought out for public entertainment. Pinel apparently changed all that (or started the change). I learned some useful nuggets both about psychiatry and the French revolution and so was pleased that I went.
After the talk I asked Albert for a definition of sanity. He replied that a psychiatrist would never use the word. There was an official definition but it was a legal one. So what happens when a court seeks expert advice as to whether a defendant could be considered insane? Albert said it was a matter of the defendant's grasp of reality. And the definition of reality....? Albert dodged again by saying that definition was legal too. I wanted to pursue the point further but wanted also to let others ask their questions so I let the matter drop for the time being. I do think concept definition must be a problem in psychiatry, particularly where there are no clinical indicators, but have little idea how psychiatrists go about resolving it.
On the drive to Beaumont I started to ruminate on what I think of as “triggers” in nature; conditions that make things happen or start to happen. I might not have gone to the talk had the day been warm and sunny; as it was, the weather provided an incentive, a trigger, to escape from the house.
But what was exercising my mind was the type and reason for such triggers in nature. Temperature is obviously one trigger. The warm autumn started my bulbs growing and the recent cold has totally stopped them. Hibernating animals, for instance, also respond to temperature to determine when they will arouse from hibernation and temperature rather than time seems to govern bird migrations. Water can be another trigger; most deserts have a form of spring season that occurs after rainfall and there are sticks of apparently dead wood that you can buy in garden centres that sprout when put in water. Animals too can use water as a trigger, as with fish eggs in deserts. Time, in some sense, is yet another, although I can think of few examples. Animals have a normal gestation period (an example of elapsed time) and some also have a more or less fixed spawning time (point in time). Crabs and turtles come ashore on some tropical islands to spawn, mate or whatever at known times of the year. Then there is fire as a a trigger for some seeds, global catastrophe for spurts in variety of species and, finally, the only other trigger I could think of, light also can play the same rôle. For bats, for instance, and some flowers open only when the sun is on them, closing if a passing cloud throws a shadow.
This is all probably elementary for a biologist but it caused me to wonder how these triggers came to evolve over what must gave been many millennia of widely varied climatic conditions. Only time as a trigger, and then only where the climate is even over a year, could have been constantly appropriate and yet time seems to play a minor role. And there are still some examples I find difficult to explain: the flowers that open only when the sun is on them, for example. The purpose of the flower is to attract insects and I know of no insect that buzzes around only when the sun is on it. Solar panels for insects haven't evolved yet, as far as I know. That could be my lack of biological knowledge or it could be an error in evolution, evolution being a fairly hit or miss affair. A problem with trying to puzzle out this kind of thing is that I seldom know which plants or animals have become extinct, perhaps because conditions changed and a vital trigger became inappropriate. Ah well, it's strange what thoughts a winter afternoon and an idle mind can evoke. Maybe I should stop musing on subjects I don't know enough about.
The trouble is I got used to playing the role of intelligent idiot early in my IT career. People who knew a lot more about IT than I did at the time used me to think of possibilities that they could not or would not or start a new train of thought because their experience constrained their thinking. It's a role you can play for only a short time in any one sphere of activity because you gain experience and thus you too become similarly constrained.
Footnote
After proposing to take my idea of a filmed portrait of the village to the mayor and getting the whole village involved, friend Daniel has backed out altogether. He thinks the idea is too ambitious and doesn't want to pursue it. I think something new and ambitious is just what we both need. Anyway, I shall continue; it will at least make me learn to use my camcorder more effectively and I'll do what I can with the editing software I have.
Friday, 3 February 2012
The Film And Politics
The Film
I've been putting down some first thoughts on the film, which I think should be called something like “Portrait Of A Village”, and had a chance to check them out today with Daniel. He invited me for lunch and I had already invited him, Mana and Steve to eat in the evening. We seemed to agree broadly about the approach and subject matter but....................
Daniel wants to go to the Mairie and not only get it cleared there, so that everybody is in the know as to what is going on, but also to extract some money for the film from village funds. I feel fine with the former point; we don't want to make enemies unknowingly and any help and cooperation on offer would be welcome. The latter point worries me a bit. Daniel says he would need extra tape cartridges for his ancient camcorder and Martine could do with some money. OK again. He went on to suggest we could charge 20 euros for the resultant disk to get the money back and there's the rub. He did say we could give a number of disks away but I'd like to see the film, if we ever get to produce it, on the Web. The 20 euros conflicts directly with my stated aim, which Daniel has agreed, to get publicity for the village. To maximise that, the film has to be freely available. Maybe I can slip it past Daniel and Martine that we put the film freely downloadable from the Web as well as charge 20 euros for the disk. Daniel may not see the conflict but I suspect Martine will.
So the story begins.........................
Politics
Inevitably we got to talking politics and Steve asked Daniel and Mana whom they thought would win the upcoming presidential election. Mana was uncertain, Daniel thought definitely that Hollande would win. Currently, Holland is 5-6 points ahead of Sarkozy in the polls but their combined share of the vote comes to only around 60%. Around 25% appear to be unaccounted for, Marie Le Penn has 17-18% and a left-wing consortium which includes the communists has about 7-8%. The consortium votes would appear to be destined eventually for Hollande but, according to Daniel, the votes for Le Penn won't necessarily go to Sarkozy. Daniel argues that Le Penn's appeal is essentially simplistic and Sarkozy's arguments are complex, so the simple-minded may eventually vote left. Whatever; the outcome is most surely in the balance right now.
We got onto Europe and Mana's hope was that a future Hollande-led France would say “No” to Europe's financiers and powers-that-be and find a new direction. Steve and I both pointed out that such a “No” would be a “No” to Europe more generally. Mana said that that was not necessarily so if the rest of Europe took the same line. And so we came again to the fundamental anomaly of France as a principal supporter of a unified Europe. If there is to be a European club of some sort, there have to be club rules. France is fine with this as long as the rules are French rules; if not, the French feel they should be free to ignore or breach them. (I often wish the UK government would take the same approach.) However, it makes the French positioning of the UK as the European disruptive bogeyman look more than somewhat suspect.
Weather
And the cold weather continues. It was minus 6 degrees during the day today; Heaven knows what the temperature will be overnight.
I've been putting down some first thoughts on the film, which I think should be called something like “Portrait Of A Village”, and had a chance to check them out today with Daniel. He invited me for lunch and I had already invited him, Mana and Steve to eat in the evening. We seemed to agree broadly about the approach and subject matter but....................
Daniel wants to go to the Mairie and not only get it cleared there, so that everybody is in the know as to what is going on, but also to extract some money for the film from village funds. I feel fine with the former point; we don't want to make enemies unknowingly and any help and cooperation on offer would be welcome. The latter point worries me a bit. Daniel says he would need extra tape cartridges for his ancient camcorder and Martine could do with some money. OK again. He went on to suggest we could charge 20 euros for the resultant disk to get the money back and there's the rub. He did say we could give a number of disks away but I'd like to see the film, if we ever get to produce it, on the Web. The 20 euros conflicts directly with my stated aim, which Daniel has agreed, to get publicity for the village. To maximise that, the film has to be freely available. Maybe I can slip it past Daniel and Martine that we put the film freely downloadable from the Web as well as charge 20 euros for the disk. Daniel may not see the conflict but I suspect Martine will.
So the story begins.........................
Politics
Inevitably we got to talking politics and Steve asked Daniel and Mana whom they thought would win the upcoming presidential election. Mana was uncertain, Daniel thought definitely that Hollande would win. Currently, Holland is 5-6 points ahead of Sarkozy in the polls but their combined share of the vote comes to only around 60%. Around 25% appear to be unaccounted for, Marie Le Penn has 17-18% and a left-wing consortium which includes the communists has about 7-8%. The consortium votes would appear to be destined eventually for Hollande but, according to Daniel, the votes for Le Penn won't necessarily go to Sarkozy. Daniel argues that Le Penn's appeal is essentially simplistic and Sarkozy's arguments are complex, so the simple-minded may eventually vote left. Whatever; the outcome is most surely in the balance right now.
We got onto Europe and Mana's hope was that a future Hollande-led France would say “No” to Europe's financiers and powers-that-be and find a new direction. Steve and I both pointed out that such a “No” would be a “No” to Europe more generally. Mana said that that was not necessarily so if the rest of Europe took the same line. And so we came again to the fundamental anomaly of France as a principal supporter of a unified Europe. If there is to be a European club of some sort, there have to be club rules. France is fine with this as long as the rules are French rules; if not, the French feel they should be free to ignore or breach them. (I often wish the UK government would take the same approach.) However, it makes the French positioning of the UK as the European disruptive bogeyman look more than somewhat suspect.
Weather
And the cold weather continues. It was minus 6 degrees during the day today; Heaven knows what the temperature will be overnight.
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