Bath Abbey

This is a follow-up post to the 'stone' entry the other day. It's another photo taken during the recent trip to Bath. Posted because cathedrals are possibly my favourite buildings in the whole world. Proper gothic cathedrals, none of your classical tat. And a cathedral built with Bath stone, well, that just ticks all my boxes.

I don't think Bath Abbey is technically a cathedral - presumably the bishop's seat is at Wells Cathedral in the same diocese (an even more beautiful building). Regardless, it's stunning. I'm not remotely religious, I call myself an agnostic but when I'm brutally honest with myself I own up to being an atheist. Despite this, I get a lot from religious art, and in particular religious architecture and music. I suppose it feeds the spirit. I dunno, all I know is that I find it sustaining. For all the misery that organised (and disorganised) religion has brought to the world, it has also brought us choral evensong and cathedrals (and mosques and mandirs and mandalas and sufis and qawwali). While I don't for a minute buy into the meaning of the words being sung, nevertheless when I participate in the ritual I feel I'm contributing to the highest expression of human culture. I personally see no contradiction in this.

I'm away on holiday now for ten days, with no idea whether I'll have net access. So this may be the last post for a couple of weeks.

Details: Nikon D70, 18-200mm lens @ 18mm, f/9, 1/5s (with VR), ISO 200. 19 July 2006, Bath, Avon.

Lavender bee

No insect shots in a while! It's been at least a couple of weeks... I feel I'm neglecting them. Well here's one I shot in Bath a couple of days ago. I didn't have my macro lens with me but the VR zoom didn't do badly. Get stuck into that tasty lavender, my bee friend!

Details: Nikon D70, 18-200mm @ 200mm, f/9, 1/60, ISO 200. 20 July 2006, Royal Crescent, Bath. (No placemarks for the Bath shots as Google Earth still hasn't mapped it in high resolution.)

Stone

England has its faults but it's a beautiful country, and for me the most beautiful part of England is Wessex. The region has a soft, tamed beauty that comes from thousands of years of continuous human settlement. In Canada, and the US, natural beauty tends to mean pristine, unspoilt wilderness, the land as it was before humans left their mark. In the south-west of England, as in other places where humans have been settled for a long time, the beauty of the landscape and the influence of humans on the landscape can't be distinguished. The land is beautiful because of what has been done to it by humans, not in spite of what we've done.

This is never more obvious than when in a city like Oxford, Wells or Bath. These ancient towns are stuffed with buildings constructed from locally quarried limestone. This stone mellows with age, starting out a dazzling white and softening to a honey colour, creating a wonderful atmosphere. According to J. B. Priestley, "the truth is that it has no colour that can be described. Even when the sun is obscured and the light is cold, these walls are still faintly warm and luminous, as if they knew the trick of keeping the lost sunlight of centuries glimmering about them."

I've always felt that one of the things I would miss most about Europe, if I left it, would be the sense of living history in my surroundings. This has definitely proven true for me over these last two years in Canada, where a hundred year old brick warehouse is worth an hour's drive to see, and where a whole metropolis can spring up without a single building built to last.

I think these different experiences also affect our relationship with our surroundings, as Europeans and North Americans. In the sprawling urban agglomerations of North American cities, and the vast empty spaces outside those cities, it's easy to see things in terms of man versus nature. You can understand why conservation and progress have become mutually exclusive for many in the North American context. Man's impact on nature is more immediate, and obvious. Meanwhile, in Europe, conservation has as much to do with our homes and our offices and our high streets as with remote, untamed wilderness. As a result, it's not surprising that the environmental movement has made more headway in mainstream European political culture. (I know that these are very crude generalisations that I'm making, but applied to our respective political cultures as a whole I think they're valid.)

Details: Nikon D70, 18-200mm lens @ 18mm, f/10, 1/40s, ISO 200. 20 July 2006, Bath, Avon.

Ten years

Yesterday was ten years to the day since my wedding to the wonderful person pictured sitting here. She won't thank me for posting this, but then she never reads my blog, so I'm probably safe. :-)

Ten years married to one person is quite an achievement, I think. Congratulations to us both.

Details: Nikon D70, 18-200 lens @ 31mm, f/10, 1/50s, ISO 200. 20 July 2006, Bath, Avon.

Dinosaurs

Here's one of the very cool dinosaur models inhabiting Crystal Palace Park in south London. It's close to my in-laws and we take M there whenever we visit. The models were built between 1852 and 1854 as an attraction for the new park, and to illustrate these new monsters which had only recently been discovered. They don't look much like dinosaurs as described by more recent science; and you can't get up close and personal as you can in Morrisburg, down the road from us in Ottawa. But I love them (so does Robert Silverberg). More pics here.

Details: Nikon D70, 18-200mm VR @ 150mm, f/5.6, 1/200s, ISO 200. 16 July 2006, Crystal Palace, London. Placemark.

Precipice

Warning: a political rant follows.

Rhetorical questions to start. When are we going to see leaders who understand that terrorism will not be defeated by further acts of terrorism? When will they get it? Why can they not see that acts of terror committed by a state in the name of peace engender nothing but more terror, with the state's own citizens the inevitable targets? Surely this is obvious even to the most narrow-minded bigot?

History is 100% clear on this: violence begets violence. Look at historical conflicts. There have only ever been two ways to break the cycle. One is to make the first move, and be the first to lay down arms. This is a seldom travelled path, but we've seen it in Northern Ireland for example. It requires a willingness to make concessions and understand the other side's grievances. It's the sort of thing of which a modern, liberal democracy ought to be capable. One thing's for damn sure, the terrorists won't do it, not as long as their grievances exist. The alternative is to defeat the other side utterly and totally. This has been the norm throughout history, involving unspeakable atrocities on civilians. Even then, if future conflict is to be avoided, either you need to eliminate every trace of injured party - and Israel really ought to know that genocide is not an option - or you show magnanimity and compassion to whatever's left (see the post-war reconstruction of Germany and Japan, compare and contrast with the Treaty of Versailles).

Israel can never utterly defeat its enemy. Largely as a result of Israel's own actions, its enemy is not just the Palestinian people, but the entire Moslem world. Does Israel seriously think it can take on the whole of Islam? Does it think 'the West' will join it in a fight to the death? (That some people want and expect this to happen frightens me more than words can express.) The only way in which Israel can achieve security for its people is to acknowledge the legitimate grievances of its enemy, and to seek reconciliation. But we know by now that Israel will never do this as long as its 'big brother' is standing behind it, unquestioningly flexing its knuckles and intimidating the smaller kids into backing away and finding sneakier ways of inflicting pain on the school bully (kidnapping its soldiers, suicide bombing cafés).

And so we come to the heart of the problem. Blind, vicious, disproportionate and ultimately defeatist retaliation is what we expect from Israel. What is truly scary is the sense that the United States will defend Israel unconditionally, regardless of any objective notion of justice. I say scary, and obviously it is, but I guess we can no longer call it surprising. You really do get the feeling that powerful forces in American government want a fight to the death with Islam. I can't see any other explanation for the rank hypocrisy of the US position on Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Palestine, Syria, when compared to other intractable parts of the world. To say it's just oil is to miss a part of the picture. I don't think you have to look too hard to see a fundamentalist religious agenda here.

And where do we stand? "We" being the secular western liberal democracies (obviously we can no longer include the US among our number). Tragically, we're impotent and our leaders are unwilling (perhaps unable) to defend our long term security. We're looking into the abyss and seem unable to act. I genuinely believe that Blair thought he could bring some positive influence to bear on Washington's Middle East policy by getting involved in Iraq - a doomed ambition from the outset, as anyone could have told him (and we did, in our millions); all he's achieved is a permanent stain on his personal legacy, in the process making his country (and the world) a significantly more dangerous place in which to live. The rest of us - what options do we have? Putin seems to be the only one ready to stand up - and he's hardly ideal.

I think it boils down to our same inability to take decisive long-term action on the environment (see my 'bike' post). Our political system brings many short-term benefits but it seems to be rubbish at making our planet a secure place for our grandchildren.

The photo in today's post was taken at Niagara Falls, just over a year ago. I was involved in an international summit being held nearby. It was a fairly successful summit, according to the pathetic standards by which these things are judged. Much hot air was spouted at great expense to the taxpayer, producing instantly forgettable platitudes which left the world entirely unchanged. Meanwhile, outside, the water kept flowing relentlessly over the edge of the abyss.

Details: Nikon D70, 18-70mm lens @ 48mm, f/14, 1/640s, ISO 500. 19 June 2005, Niagara Falls, Ontario. Placemark.

Lifeguard

Another shot taken in North Rustico during our holiday in PEI last year. We spent a thoroughly pleasant afternoon on the beach, M & J swimming, me reading and trying not to ogle the lifeguard.

I'm shortly off on holiday again, might not fit in another post before leaving. I'll be posting from time to time while away, when I have net access. I might try something a bit different. Let's see.

Details: Nikon D70, 18-70mm lens @ 38mm, f/13, 1/125s, ISO 200, polarising filter. 16 August 2005, Rustico, PEI. Placemark.

Dolomites

Well in 1990 Germany won the World Cup in Italy, and in 2006 Italy won the World Cup in Germany, and seeing as I'm half-German half-Italian it makes sense for me to post a picture of Germany in Italy to celebrate! Actually I'm half-German half-English, but apparently I was conceived in Italy and that's reason enough for me.

Here it is: Germany in Italy. That's the Südtirol, or Alto Adige, the southernmost region of the Tyrol which is German-speaking but which is in the modern state of Italy (ceded by Austria after the First World War). This view is taken from the Rittner Horn across the Brixen valley. The little church there is in Lengmoos, if memory serves. We had a holiday there when Malini was just learning to walk. Lots of hiking up mountains with her in a Macpac and me with chronic back pain. Schnitzel every night, and good Trentino wine. Brilliant holiday.

Details: Minolta Dynax 5, 50mm lens, exposure not recorded. Lengstein, Italy, August 2002. Placemark.

Sandbanks

We were here this time last year, wish I was now! Instead I'm sitting in a very hot room watching the World Cup Final. It's a good match but I can't help feeling guilty at being inside on a day like this.

Sandbanks is a park on Quinte Island in Lake Ontario. It has (apparently) the largest system of sand dunes on any freshwater coastline in the world. It's hard to believe you're on a lake when you sit there watching the waves come in. Quinte Island is about an hour (maybe less) from Kingston, three from Toronto. It's very rural, dotted with highly picturesque farm buildings and pleasant Loyalist towns. It reminds me, a bit (just a bit) of Zeeland. I wish I was in that water now, and as soon as this match is over I'm off down the pool.

Details: Nikon D70, 18-70mm lens @ 18mm, f/11, 1/125s, ISO 400. Sandbanks Provincial Park, Ontario, 10 July 2005. Placemark.

Ripples

Aren't waves amazing things? I'm no physicist, I don't understand them, but they fascinate me.

Today has been one of those summer days straight out of the Lifestyle section. Late, lazy family brunch. Then me & the nipper on our bikes, through the midday heat, along the canal and up through the park to the farm to pet the animals and lie under a tree, chewing blades of grass. Then hide and seek in the experimental herbaceous borders followed by a downhill glide back to the canal and half an hour sitting on a willow tree paddling our feet in the water. After that came an ice cream and a beer with a randomly met friend, and a bronze medal for Germany, but let's go back and focus on the paddling for a minute.

Where do the ripples begin? Did they start in my mind, the moment I decided to kick the water? Did they start in the food that I ate to give me the energy to move those muscles to kick the water? Or in the earth that provided the minerals to allow the food to grow which I ate to... and so on. And why am I having these fourth-form reflections? I don't know. It was very strange, sitting there and watching the ripples grow wider and wider as a result of my conscious decision to kick the water. Thinking, those ripples are part of me, they're my energy. That's me, that is, spread out over a huge circle in this lake inlet. And I hadn't even been smoking anything.

The ripples in this photo were not taken today, or caused by me (at least not directly), they are in the Saint Lawrence River, shot from a cruise boat sailing from Gananoque through the Thousand Islands, this time last year.

Details: Nikon D70, 18-70mm lens @ 34mm, f/4.2, 1/400s, ISO 200. Near Gananoque, Ontario, 13 July 2005. Placemark.

Carpe diem

This isn't a great picture, but it's a great place. These are the ruins of a villa in the Sabine Hills outside Rome. The poet Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) lived there in the first century BC (he called it his Sabine Farm), and many of his greatest poems are set in the countryside around it. We visited in August 1999, we had a wonderful holiday in the region and I insisted on a pilgrimage. We were the only people there and the curator seemed quite bemused by my enthusiasm. There's little to see, but I got very emotional about it.

I'd have to say that Horace is my favourite poet by far. His work is very human, very lyrical. His poems somehow capture the fragility and beauty of life, and the bittersweet joy to be taken from moments that you know will not last.

This is a quick translation I did today of Ode 1.11, with the famous "carpe diem" line. It's not literal (obviously), nor is it very good, but it captures the spirit if not the beauty of the original and it scans, and rhymes, just about.

Don't ask about expiry dates, we're not meant to know.
Horoscopes won't specify the day on which you'll go.
Relax, and enjoy, the years that you've still got.
There might be many more of them, or, there might not.
This could be your last chance to watch the World Cup,
So grab another glass of beer and don't sober up.
The sensible approach is to manage expectations.
Time is ticking by while we have this conversation.
Don't put too much faith in a future far away,
Do the right thing now: seize the day.

Wine has become beer, and the waves of the Tyrrhenian Sea beating against the cliffs have become the World Cup, but hey. Doing this has reminded me how much I used to enjoy crafting translations, I think I'm going to do some more.

Details: Minolta X-500, 50mm lens, exposure not recorded. Licenza, Italy, August 1999. Placemark.

Birch tree

I think the birch is my favourite tree. I love the light, airy foliage which lets the sun shine through and which sussurates in the breeze (good word, that). I love the pale, grainy wood (in one of my alternate realities I'm a carpenter). Most of all, though, I love the beautiful, papery, white bark.

This young birch tree is on a little meadow at the base of the cliff below the Canadian Parliament. There's a wonderful walk along the Ottawa River where office workers can escape the city for ten minutes or half an hour. The cliffs are wooded and there are secluded staircases winding their way up to the Hill from the river, one can almost imagine oneself miles away in the forest. It's a magical place associated with wonderful memories.

I'm obviously not the only person who feels that way. I love the lovers' inscription on this tree trunk. Normally I'd let myself get cross with a piece of vandalism like this, but somehow this really made me smile. Using biro rather than a penknife, for starters. And the way the ink runs dry just as they get to "always stay alive"... This photo was taken just over a year ago, about six weeks after the lovers' inscription. I wonder if it's still there? Must go and look.

Details: Nikon D70, 50mm prime, f/1.8, 1/5000 (I was testing a new lens), ISO 200. 23 June 2005. Placemark (there under the clouds).

Eclipse

On 11 August 1999 parts of Europe enjoyed a total eclipse of the sun. The path of totality passed directly over my mum's home village in southern Germany. We were staying at my uncle's farm, and watched everything from the field in front of the farmhouse (see today's placemark). This photo was taken just moments before totality - handheld, with a short telephoto lens, an automatic exposure, and no filters. Very naughty but it seemed to work OK.

It was really very eerie. It became noticeably dimmer. Birds roosted on the barn eaves, silence reigned, just as we were told it would. Suddenly as totality began everything went very dark indeed. We could actually see the shadow racing towards us from the hills across the valley. Sadly there were clouds obscuring the view so we didn't get to see the corona. The clouds also meant that darkness wasn't quite total, as a few kilometres away they were still in sunshine. We were really annoyed to hear that everyone in the next village down had enjoyed an incredible view of the sun's corona - just our luck.

Any relation between today's post and another, less happy German eclipse is purely coincidental.

Exposure details not recorded - Minolta X500, 135mm lens. 11 August 1999, Maubach, Germany. Placemark.

Bike

We're supposed to turn Tory when we grow up, right? Well, for me, life's journey has (so far) been steadily in the opposite direction. If the thirty-something-year-old me met the sixteen-year-old me and we got into a discussion of politics, one of us would probably punch the other one in the nose before the evening was out. I suspect the older me would end up with the nosebleed.

In some ways, though, I've gone with the flow, much to my guilt. In my early twenties I was a bit of an anti-car activist, commuting by bicycle through London. (Aside: I was once even featured in a biking magazine - pulled off the road to be interviewed and have my photo taken - fame! Lost my copy though...) When I moved to Belgium I expected a quasi-Dutch cycling paradise. On the contrary, the homeland of Eddy Merckx was (is) obsessed with bike racing, but bicycle commuters are treated as insane and dispensable by the country's city 'planners' and homicidal car drivers. At first, I agitated, co-founding the EU Cyclists Group with some like-minded colleagues who also suffered anger management issues when faced with the Brussels traffic. Eventually, though, I gave in to conformity and bought my first car (even if I've only ever used it to get out of town, never to commute). We moved to the suburbs and a direct fifteen-minute metro line proved a lot more attractive than a forty-minute bike ride up and down hills with no shower at the other end.

My cycling career has revived a bit here in Ottawa with a relaxed ten-minute ride into the office for seven months a year, eight at a push. But I haven't given up the car, and I probably never will. It's a standing reminder of the contradictions that we face in our daily lives if we pay lip-service to 'progressive' politics. How can we be genuinely committed, on the one hand, to rejecting the pervasive consumerism that's busy sending us towards a mass-extinction event while, on the other hand, we drive petrol cars, buy plastic products, fly off on our holidays, and do all those other little things on a daily basis which contribute to the ongoing rape of the planet?

I struggle with this question, which is why I don't like to think about it more than I have to. Someone with a head for maths could probably tell me how I'm a rational individual belonging to a collective with a chaotic dynamic which explains why we, as a society, continue to do things which we, as individuals, know are unsustainable. Personally I blame participative democracy and our belief in the power of the free market (I'd elaborate but I've gone on too long already). There's no such thing as sustainable growth. Our whole system needs to change, and this will not happen by committee (believe me, I know). Some individuals do choose to opt out and to make a stand, and I applaud them for it, but I don't think such symbolic gestures have any chance of developing critical mass. (That's what I tell myself when the guilt creeps up on me. Can you tell I've just spent an hour throwing away perfectly good food that had gone rotten sitting in the fridge?)

If anyone reading this knows how to fix the world, leave a comment and I'll make sure that someone gets told. In the meantime, sorry that this post ended up the bleak way it did. I'll try and make amends next time.

Details: Nikon D70, 18-70mm @ 70mm, f/4.5, 1/160s, ISO 400, black & white conversion in Photoshop. 28 November 2004, Ottawa.

Canada Day

Yesterday was Canada Day. I took this (and a few others like it) in the evening from my office.

Canada Day in Ottawa is impressive. Free entertainment, all day, in several locations. Hordes of people wearing red and white. A wonderful atmosphere. All topped off with the mother of all firework displays over Parliament.

I have a confession to make: I'm slowly being seduced by this country. As a European, I'm still a bit uncomfortable with the unconstrained patriotism, and if you've read some of my other posts you'll know that I think the place has its faults. But on a day like yesterday I found it hard not to be caught up in the spirit of things. Canadian society is healthy, as a young (and rather artificial) nation their patriotism has none of the xenophobic nationalism associated with the word back home in Europe, and little of the jingoistic exclusivism that you get south of the border. As a foreign diplomat here I'm supposed to remain an objective outsider, but after two years I'm learning to love the place. I guess I'm going a bit native.

There are extenuating circumstances: it's the summer, which makes a big difference; and I'm privileged to enjoy the best aspects of life in Canada while being cushioned from the worst, employed as a European with European holidays, healthcare and working privileges. But yes, I could imagine living here. Let's face it, as a Canadian I wouldn't have to endure penalty heartache every two years.

Details: Nikon D70, 18-200mm lens @ 90mm, f/14, 4s, ISO 200. 1 July 2006, Ottawa. Placemark.