Atonement

There is no majesty in truth
No grandeur in simple reality
For these we need have fiction
Make-believe our love
And lies to be our joy
Without, the sky is grey
And pock-marked skin
Mirrors harshly back

So it was I died
Unseen - some years ago
But in my head I live
And watch the waves come in
And the moon cool light the trees
And rainbows arc the hill
And dream I may find love
Just one time, one time

You choose.

The past is still-born

And tomorrow is dead

All time is a fake

It lives in your head

Just choices to make

Turn left or turn right

A head or a tail -

Nothing’s wrong nor right

See – life doesn't care

If you’re here or not

Rich man or beggar

You’ll soon be forgot

It’s all ‘quantum soup’

No reason or rhyme

And nothing left after

Because - there’s no time.

Contradictions And Tensions

We are often in conflict, often in tension. Balancing one force against another. Action straining against reaction. The humdrum need to gather coin to pay bills and creditors versus the personal human quest for understanding, beauty, fulfilment or pleasure. The laughter and immediacy of inconsequential fun versus the deep and lasting commitment to care, love and commit. We balance our personal needs with the needs of our partner or family. On one side the logic and detailed technical understanding of how things work and how the universe ticks – and yet simultaneously our wild leaps of faith to believe in a particular God who can never be revealed, or a partner we have known for only a few months or weeks, yet we swear ‘is the one’. How is that possible? How do we ever square one side of us with the other? A few don’t and forever decide to show just side of their mask to the world, but most stay in some sort of balance of tension and contradiction. Or perhaps in some part of your life you follow – or have to follow – a particular path where you may show just one side for some time – become single-minded, dedicated, a zealot. Then at some time – a death perhaps, or a change of fortune - it reverses, and the engineer suddenly becomes more of an artist, or a doubter stumbles on a revelation, or a believer sees the light of reason and science.

I watched a programme on Edwin Lutyens a while ago. I have seen some of his country homes near here in Surrey and I love the style of them – somehow organically and sympathetically interwoven with the Surrey countryside, especially with Jekyll’s gardens. They can seem almost timeless, part of the soil, the landscape. Yet they were built – and paid for – by the privileged few. His great friend (and owner of one of the houses) was the founder of ‘Country Life’ – you just couldn’t get more Surrey than that. So here I am – a working class lad from a terrace in the North East admiring country houses in Surrey. The pubs of my youth had strippers and talk of ‘The Lads’ – now it might be guys in green wellies who have to go to pick up Pippa from the stables. Tension and contradiction.

I revelled in the richness of the Hollywood, Keira Knightley version of Pride & Prejudice on TV. A long way from the book of course, but hugely enjoyable, as are the original stories – landmarks in fiction, and yet… and yet… very much about privilege and idle, rich, spoilt young men with fortunes to live off and grand estates – and highly articulate, but sometimes rather silly young women chasing determinedly after them. The richness of English language, of theatre, of art and music often owed a great debt to rich patrons, backers and buyers. Poor artists and rich buyers. Art and Commerce. Is one devalued by the other? Is one enriched or excused by the other?

Maybe tension is good – it could drive us, give an extra edge, an extra dimension to us and to what others see in us? A rubber band, wound up inside to give us some energy. As a kid I made many a balsa plane powered by a well-wound rubber-band. I enjoyed them and they flew pretty well too. Well – that is - they did until the rubber band snapped, or the plane crashed. That’s made me feel quite tense now...

Time Machines

All the talk about OPERA and time travel made me interested again in Time Machines - is there some real physics that gives some hope that one could be developed some day?

Prof Ronald Mallett at Connecticut University is working on a technique. Mallett published a paper describing how a circulating beam of laser light would create a vortex in space within its circle (Physics Letters A, vol 269, p 214).

Then he had a eureka moment. "I realised that time, as well as space, might be twisted by circulating light beams," Mallett says.

To twist time into a loop, Mallett worked out that he would have to add a second light beam, circulating in the opposite direction. Then if you increase the intensity of the light enough, space and time swap roles: inside the circulating light beam, time runs round and round, while what to an outsider looks like time becomes like an ordinary dimension of space.

A person walking along in the right direction could actually be walking backwards in time -- as measured outside the circle. So after walking for a while, you could leave the circle and meet yourself before you have entered it.
Link: Mallett

Kip Thorne of CalTech has a nice discussion of the possibilities here: Thorne

In it he postulates that perhaps the Casimir Effect, by providing a source of negative energy, may be used to prevent space-time wormholes from collapsing. It just needs rather a lot of energy...

A Lover In Winter

Another winter now scores our years
But my gaze falls ever gently on you
Like the slow soft snowfall outside
It gently glides down your hair, your cheeks
Then melts away on the warm loved curves of your body
Be mulled this winter by love and passion
That make you tingle and be cosy inside
May you need no gloves but my cupped old hands
Nor wine to make your head spin and cheeks flush red
A look should do, a crinkled smile,
Eyes still bright and just for you
In this season for gifts and wishes
My humblest gift is just this
Be loved this winter
Beloved forever.

Ear Hairs... And Worms

As we ...ahem... ‘gain in maturity’, why is it that hair stops growing where you want it to, and where it happily always used to, i.e. on top of your head, and instead starts sprouting out of completely new and utterly pointless places - your ears and nostrils? And - why does it have the consistency of pubic hair that’s been taking steroids...? After these 1000's of years of evolution, why has nature deduced that one solitary curly black wire growing out of the edge of an ear-lobe is a ‘good idea’? And the tufts out of the nostrils - just why? To keep your old nose warmer in winter? Could they all be, in fact, examples of ‘negative natural selection’ to make us (i.e. the older, past- the-genetic-sell-by-date human Ford Zephyrs) less attractive, and therefore discourage potential mates who should be looking for younger partners, to better keep the species going?

Hmmm...seems to be working, then...

And do you ever get ‘ear worms’? Tunes that tunnel into your brain, and keep repeating themselves endlessly in your head, and you can’t make them stop, round and round ... like the windmills in your mind, like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel, never ending or beginning... stop! stop! Stop! ...all the dancing, give me time to breath... argh! The (splendidly-named) Martha and the Muffins recording of ‘Echo Beach’ ...far away in time, Echo Beach, far away in time... is always likely to lodge in my brain for a limited run, like Panto at the local theatre, but sometimes it can be a tune that I don’t even like - now how maddening is that? They’re like musical squatters in your brain - you just can’t evict them. Mental hiccups in the key of C. Maybe the ear-hairs act like wireless antennae picking up Radio 2, like old record player stylii used to?

Ah record players... 'far away in time...' That's it now.

I dare you:  echo beach

Down The Aisle

The thing about a little Surrey supermarket is that you do sometimes get interesting people popping in.

That Prince Albert of Monaco nipped in the other night – pleasant little chap. He rather shyly bought a packet of Durex – and a copy of The Daily Mail to hide it under, which I thought was sweet. He asked me quietly if he could get a refund later if he didn’t need them, so I just told him to keep hold of the receipt and that seemed to make the little fellow happy.

Rupert Murdoch was in. All he bought was phone top-up cards, which I thought was unusual, but then he has lots of relatives in Australia, doesn’t he, so he must be on the phone all the time...

Whenever I see The Queen going down the aisle, I always say hello and see if she needs a hand. She’s got to the age when she's starting to forget things – she’ll ask where the Marmite is when she’s standing right next to it, bless her – and she’s always asking me to get her a can of Basics tuna off the top shelf. She just can’t reach up there, the little dear. I do think supermarkets should consider the needs of short people more. Don’t tell anyone, but I put through her two cans of dog food but only rang one up on the till – well, you’ve got to help the old folk a little, haven’t you? She always gives a little wave as she leaves, which is nice.

Well – time to go, I guess. Oh - we might see Nick and Dave in the shop today. It’s so good, I think, that we’re so relaxed about gay couples now that a pair can govern the country and no one makes any comments. Nick will get his champagne, and Dave his six-pack of Stella... Nick always seems to pay though.

See you later!