TWO TRAIN JOURNEYS

I recently watched this film on BBB iPlayer. I thought it was wonderful! One of the themes is about the randomness of life or in life; about 'chance' encounters.

It is based on a novel.

Night Train to Lisbon is a philosophical novel by Swiss writer Pascal Mercier. It recounts the travels of Swiss Classics instructor Raimund Gregorius as he explores the life of Amadeu de Prado, a Portuguese doctor, during António de Oliveira Salazar's right-wing dictatorship in Portugal. Prado is a serious thinker whose active mind becomes evident in a series of his notes collected and read by Gregorius.

The book was originally published in German as Nachtzug nach Lissabon in 2004 and was first published in English in 2008. The novel became an international bestseller. Danish film director Bille August adapted the book into a 2013 film of the same name, starring Jeremy Irons as Raimund Gregorius.   [Wikipedia]

The main character follows an incident which happens to him on the way to work. The ensuing story unfolds in which he addresses some of life's, especially in the mature years, philosophical questions.  What would have happened if I had taken the other option, taken a different path? What are/were the chances of this or that happening - both in the past and in the future? Etc etc etc.

About the film, the Guardian states:

Jeremy Irons plays Raimund Gregorius, a repressed academic in Bern who saves a young woman from jumping off a bridge. He discovers in her possessions a poetic memoir by a little-known Portuguese writer called Amadeu do Prado, and becomes obsessed by Amadeu (played by Jack Huston) and his relationship to the woman.

In flashback, as Gregorius traipses round Lisbon meeting Amadeu's friends and associates, we see snapshots of the author's life as a poet, philosopher, doctor, lover and revolutionary.

Gregorius realises how petty his own life is by comparison with Amadeu's. In its lesser moments, the film feels like a European art-house adaptation of a Mills and Boon novel or a Saga holiday commercial, but it is beautifully shot and packed with cameos from big-name actors.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * Chance * * * * * * * * * *

I often say that there is no such thing as Bad Luck or Good Luck; it is just Bad Management etc.  M-m-m-m, I am not so sure...!

This week I went into town to see a printer in the city centre. As there was no place to park at Milngavie Station I drove to Westerton and parked there knowing you can get any train west as they all go through this station.

After I got out of the train in Central Station I headed to the toilet (very clean!) and noticed that I did not have my pink wooly hat, a very much-loved hat.  M-m-m-m maybe I did not bring it with me ... but I was pretty sure I had.

Anyhow after our 45 minute meeting I headed back to get the train home dawdling along the way to visit a fabric shop next to Fraser's. (That's another story.)  I headed down to the platform where 2 trains going west were due.  I took the first one, a short train to Dalmuir.  I entered the door of the carriage, the last in the train, where it came to a halt in front of me.  I sat down.  Along came the conductor.  M-m-m-m... I recognize that lovely Irish accent; he's the same one as the train in (but it had been a long train).  I suppose he could have changed trains in the 2 hours I had been away.  Then I thought... maybe this is still the same train ... I have 5 stops ahead of me.  I will just get up and wander along the train and have a look for my hat which maybe got put up into the luggage rack.  As I moved along to the aisle to the end of the carriage I recogized the turquoise door of the automatic toilet.  I had sat opposite the curved door.  I walked up... nothing on the seat but look what I found on the floor underneath!!
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Unbelievable!  Now what are the chances of that happening, I wonder??!  

I think of the factors involved:  it's holiday period so the trains are quiet; there is so much litter around that people get 'immune' to stuff lying around; there isn't much footfall in that part of a railway carriage; I am a fairly pro-active person.  I could easily have come home without actually have done a search. (I hear Alastair's voice in my head "M-uh-ummm! Did you have look?  e.g. on Google!!!"   But to step into that particular carriage on that train at that time having dawdled my way back to the station... weird !!!!

THE SCOTS NOTICE 1: SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE AND WILLIAM WALLACE

Over the centuries in Scotland I have come across 'notices' (meaning a sign giving information) where feelings run high.  They may be plaques, monuments, headstones or obelisks.  The subject is always a passionate one, sits in a public place and, furthermore, doesn't mince words!

These notices have always intrigued me: certainly feelings run high and, clearly, someone was behind the drive to erect the structure plus carve the text. Someone (or group) 'noticed' that something needed to be said about a topic which was being overlooked or unheralded and felt justice needed to be served. Basically they about wrongs needing to be put to right!

Here is the first of several I am about to post: 

William Wallace Monument which has the following text carved on the base around the back.  

Aberdeen city centre.

The text states:

    Edward First of England, having attempted to annex Scotland to his dominions, was opposed by WALLACE, through whose consummate wisdom and valour the English were driven out of Scotland and her independence was restored.
    Renewed attempted by Edward to conquer Scotland were heroically resisted by WALLACE, till he was treacherously deserted by the Scottish Nobility and betrayed by Sir John Monteith.  He was thereupon seized, conveyed to London, and there arraigned as a traitor to the English King, amid mockery and indignity, which, conscious of his integrity, he bore with dignified compare.
   On 23rd August, 1305, this GREAT HERO was led to Smithfield, and, with Edward as an eye-witness, was there put to death, solely for his love of liberty, his effectual resistance of aggression, and his fidelity to his Native Land.

This gives 'the other side of the story'.  Question: is this aspect ever taught in history lessons?  M-m-m-m there is a title for a history series "The Backside of Scottish History" or better still .... "The Underside of Scottish History" (lots of material there!)

Carved in stone at the front:  In honour of William Wallace

Guardian of Scotland

'Guardian' is a word that deserves another history lesson.... but that is another story.


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Top photo is Wikipedia: the bottom 2 photos are mine with thanks to Alec and Christine (December 5, 2013 in the middle of Aberdeen dodging the traffic!)

A GLITCH IN THE SYSTEM

When all systems are working life moves along smoothly.  When not, it is a patch up job.  And today was one of those!

After taking friends (Louise and Andrew) to the airport at a comfortable hour this morning I arrived back at the house and drove up the driveway to the garage.  When I reached for the remote control mechanism to activate the up-and-over door ... it was not there in the little dashboard tray where I keep it.  In the short term this was not a problem as we have 2 others in the house.

This is a Back-up mechanism with a green ribbon on it to make it easier to find should it end up in any of 101 places between the house and the inside of the car.

However, I wondered what I had done to mislay my Everyday one.  Then I remembered that I got out of the car at the airport drop-off zone to open the boot/trunk of the car.  I must have replaced it in my lap upon leaving the house and then dropped it on the ground when I got out of the car.

And, indeed, that is what happened.

In situations like this I always operate on the Chappaquiddick Principle, namely, if you've got bad news, get it out in the fullest possible detail and as early as possible.  In this case: go back immediately (1/2 hour drive) and look where you think you dropped it.

It was right where I had stopped but had been run over as the "After" photo above shows.  Now I keep a Jingle Bell type bell on the cord attached but ... the system failed here ... I did not hear it drop.  

When I got home again I stopped in the driveway and thought "I wonder if it still works?"  It did!  And I think the whole mechanism was saved from being totally smashed because I had wrapped yellow and green electrical tape around it.  It is my "system" for seeing things in poorly lit places.

So now I need to find a tame electronic wizard to gently tape it back together so it can function as, at least, a replacement Back-up. 

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*  The Chappaquiddick incident occurred on July 18, 1969, in which Mary Jo Kopechne, a female passenger of U.S. Senator Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy, was killed when he accidentally drove his car off a bridge and into a tidal channel on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts. Kennedy swam free and left the scene, not reporting the accident within nine hours, but Kopechne died in the vehicle.  [Wikipedia]

THE RAILWAY MAN

This book has been in the news recently because Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth are here in Scotland to make the film based on the book.  The story is about one soldier’s battle to overcome his torture while a Japanese prisoner of war in World War II.

It is a book that had to be written; it is a book that should be read by everyone particularly people involved in conflict resolution, counseling, also people of all religions or none.  After five decades he pulls his life together.   As he says in the very last line: "Sometime the hating has to stop." I would go so far to say that founders of all the great religions must have reached this point, i.e. figures emerged at time propitious for ordinary people (of whatever culture) looking for a new way of thinking about how to get along together.

It is very well written ... yes, very traumatic ... but the way it resolves at the end (when he goes to Japan and Burma after 50 years to meet one of the Japanese men involved in his torture) helps to square the bigger picture in the drama of man's inhumanity to man.

The Telegraph (April 27, 2012) states:

"[They] will shortly start filming ... the true story of how Eric Lomax’s wife helped him overcome the trauma he suffered in Burma during the Second World War. Mrs Lomax set up a mission back to the Bridge on the River Kwai, where her husband confronted Nagase Takashi, the interpreter at his interrogations."

* * * * *

Lomax mentions (page 236) Helen Bamber, Director of the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture.  He states "Helen entered Bergen-Belsen with the Allies at the age of nineteen in 1945, and stayed for two and half years." I am aware of this story of going into Bergen-Belsen at the end of the war.  I played the fiddle with a gentleman who arrived there in the back of an army lorry at around that time.  He was a shorthand writer and his job was to be in the room where the Camp Commandants were being interviewed.  These interrogations were the job of the  Judge Advocate General (the legal advisor for the Armed Forces).

THE COMMENTARIAT

Given that my Main Approach to life is:

Those Who Can, Do

I would like to offer the following corollary:

Those Who Cannot, Comment

Having been out to dinner twice in one week I have had dined somewhat over my tolerance level on dinner table conversation of Those Who Know.

While I thought I was inventing a new word for such people it seems the word exists already: The Commentariat. It originally referred to media commentators but I would put it more broadly as anyone who makes comments on news, politics, the state of the economy, what their neighbours are doing etc.

Wikipedia refers to this group of people as The Chattering Classes:

"The chattering classes is a generally derogatory term often used by pundits and political commentators to refer to a politically active, socially concerned and highly educated section of the "metropolitan middle class" especially those with political, media, and academic connections. ... Indeed, the term is used by people all across the political spectrum to refer to the journalists and political operatives who see themselves as the arbiters of conventional wisdom."

Too right! And arbiters of style and taste in All Matters!

I guess the world needs these people; it just seems there are more per square mile than there used to be! Ahem ... of course, anyone who writes on a blog must certainly add to the density....!

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Photo: blackbirds in the trees in our back garden, late October.

KEEP TURNING UP

In our household, a genius is someone who agrees with you! Other people say it is someone who is really clever/talented/has a high IQ.

It seems that the word did not always have this meaning. A video on Utube (which will not download here) is worth seeing. Do this by clicking on the link here. The subject is to do with nature of creativity and is 18 minutes long. The speaker is a writer and speaks well (even if she takes a little bit of time to get to her point).

No time? No sound facility? I will try to outline her talk. Where do our creative ideas come from? From within? Or without? She gives examples of how some writers, when they get an idea (or, I feel, it could be a musician who has a tune come into his head) describe the experience in terms of being visited by and therefore, coming from, their geni i.e. something outside, e.g. a guardian spirit or a daimon.


This notion of genius harks back to the Romans' and Greeks' concepts of inspiration and divine possession. She gives some examples of writers who are in the middle of something e.g. driving on the freeway, when an idea comes to them. They are not ready and lest it go by, they decided to try and deal with it by treating the 'inspiration' as a geni, saying "Look, will you go away for a minute until I have a chance to get a paper and pencil." I guess this would be called externalizing the ideas; she gives several humorous examples!

Finally, when inspiration is not forthcoming and the geni seems to be away, the writer finds the bottom line is "keep turning up". At least then you can say to your geni "Well, I kept my part of the bargain. Where were you?"!!
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Photos: Wikipedia

Flowers are without hope.

Because hope is tomorrow and flowers have no tomorrow.

By Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin

These flowers were given to me by Mairi and they are now in their second week gracing the front entrance of Larchfield. (The vase is Iain's mother's from years ago and suits the architecture here.)

However it all got me thinking of the book that was being read on the radio last week: Don't Sleep, There are Snakes by Daniel Everett. It basically comes into the category of ethnography and linguistics.

The book is on Amazon here. The Guardian review of it is here .

It is about a man who, with his young family, in 1977 lived with a hunting and gathering tribe, the Pirahãs, in the Amazon. His plan was to learn Pirahã so that he could translate the Bible. It took many years. He found them a happy, contented people but it is the dealing with the language that is most interesting.

Anthony's Guardian article states "We may all have the natural cognitive skills to derive meaning from language, but what determines the shape of the language, its basic architecture, is the surrounding culture." Pirahãs have little interest in that which they cannot directly verify. (Sounds a bit like scientists I have spoken to!)

There is lots of food for thought here. For example, the author of the book talked about how they basically live in the here and now. Is it that they have no concept of past and future? They do not have a word for "worry" for example! So that brings me back to where I started:

Flowers are without hope.

Because hope is tomorrow and flowers have no tomorrow.

THE STEALTH OF NATIONS

A guy in the States who made loadsamoney betting against US subrime home loans has written a letter to his shareholders of his company (Lahde Capital Management of Santa Monica, California). The letter (not long) is on his website here. It makes interesting reading. He refers to his "stupid" traders for making him rich; he thinks banks he says are too risky to deal with, and pleas for a philosophy of economics.

He is now off to spend more time with his money.

Well here is a somewhat double-jointed Adam Smith, fresh off the back of a Clydesdale Bank £50 note. If he does not look happy it is because he thinking that the best he can hope for is good luck; certainly not good management. Wheww! He must be turning in his grave these days!

I wonder what he would think of this fellow's epistle to the shareholders. Apart from smacking of the Dear Brutus Syndrome (all the world is to blame) there is something in that letter that really sticks in my craw. He deliberately deceived people. That, to my mind, is fraud. Furthermore, that is the lowest of the low when it comes to social, financial, or should I say, economic, deviance.

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Sub-Plot: What one does for Photoshop Art: I wanted a picture of Adam Smith. I ended up at the Clydesdale Bank. We are, as it happens, long-standing customers of this Scottish Bank (owned by Australians). Where was I? I was told to come back in 10 minutes for the note...which I did. I needed to hand over my debit card (in order that the money change could be recorded - yes, really....) All the while, I told the teller what I wanted it for. Then I asked, after handing over my £50 in smaller notes, "What if I was not a customer of this bank and wanted that particular note?" "Ah well," he replied, "it would cost you 5£." !!!!!!!!! ROGB (Rip Off Great Britain)

SPEND IT ON PEARLS

The week is over. The dominoes are tottering .....

In a nutshell:

"You're as well spending it as banking it." *


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* Source: Our butcher this morning.