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2018: THINGS TO BE CHEERFUL ABOUT?
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Tag: Trade
Happy New Year everyone. As we approach a brand new, fresh year I am hoping that some things may happen to give me some optimism for the future. But I am struggling to foresee anything that might work that magic?
I won't look to this UK government to suddenly wake up, look around them and see what an utter mess this country is in. To pick one area where they could help, the NHS, they have cancelled all non-essential operations for January – apparently it is NOT in crisis!!?? Then there is the 3.4% fare rise on our railways whilst earnings have not risen sufficiently to make this hike affordable. Let's not forget poverty, how could we forget that the past Christmas saw more homeless children than ever before. Which takes us nicely onto the lack of affordable housing whilst around 610,123 homes remain empty in England; 31,884 in Scotland and 23,131 in Wales.
I won't look to the environment as we leave a year riddled with extreme weather. The fingerprints of climate change experienced throughout 2017 have featured supercharged storms, hurricanes, floods and heatwaves through to bushfires. 2017 has seen it all.
So I'll move onto world peace or the lack of it. With the crisis in Gaza, the rise of Islamist militants in Iraq and Syria and the international stand-off ongoing in Ukraine, it can sometimes feel like the whole world is at war. And experts believe this is actually almost universally the case, according to a think-tank which produces one of the world's leading measures of "global peacefulness" – things are only going to get worse. Out of 162 countries covered by the Institute for Economics and Peace's latest study says that just 11 countries were not involved in conflict of one kind or another.
Without even mentioning Donald Trump or North Koreait is looking like a rather bleak year that we are entering. Yes, little babies are fantastic and wonderfully full of potential but what sort of world will they grown up in? The planet upon which we live is beautiful and nature is wonderful but human beings are working hard to pollute it. Technology is a whole other bag of worms offering some potential advantages and some threats with multi-national companies in charge of whole banks of knowledge about us. We must not walk blindfold into this brave new world. If I have depressed you, I am sorry, and beg you to reply to this Blog with some ideas about 2018 that may cheer us up?
PS. What a shame these images by my favourite printmaker, Kathe Kollwitz, still resonates nearly a hundred years after they were created.
Posted on January 4, 2018 Categories 2018, action, Art, Culture, Depression, Environment, Equality, Europe, Giving Up, Ideas, Kathe Kollwitz, millennium development goals, Opinion, Politics, poverty, Printmaking, technology, The future, the world, Warfare, writingTags Criticism, Culture, Depression, Europe, History, Industry, Memory, Opinion, poverty, technology, The future, the world, Trade, war zones, writingLeave a comment on 2018: THINGS TO BE CHEERFUL ABOUT?
String is thought to be the earliest manufactured thread and has been described as the unseen weapon that allowed the human race to conquer the earth. String can be used for carrying, holding, tying and trapping, securing and decoration. Textiles underlie the great prints and canvases of Western Art and form a surface to write upon. Paper nowadays is largely made of wood pulp but is still made in the traditional manner with the fibres from plants in specialist paper mills; these fibres are pulped and bleached, washed and dried and then filtered onto a mesh and compressed onto a fine felt.
Sophisticated textile production dates to six thousand years B. C., in southern regions of Europe, and four thousand B.C. Egyptian women were weaving linen on horizontal looms. Archaeologists have unearthed fabric and rope fragments that date as far back as twelve thousand years in the past, making them the oldest known textiles in South America. In China, where the spinning wheel is thought to have first turned, sophisticated drawlooms had woven designs that used thousands of different warps. These prehistoric weavers seem to have produced cloths of extraordinary complexity, woven with ornate designs far in excess of the simple need to cover and protect bodies or to provide warmth and comfort for their dwelling places.
The production of 'homespun' yarn and cloth was one of the first cottage industries, pin money was women's earliest source of independent cash and women were selling surplus yarn and cloth, working as small-scale entrepreneurs, long before the emergence of factories or the mechanisms which now define the textile industry.
There were other spin offs from textiles too. The weaving of complex designs demanded far more than one pair of hands, and textiles production tends to be communal, sociable work allowing plenty of occasion for gossip and chat. Weaving was already multimedia: singing, chanting, telling stories, dancing, and playing games whilst they worked; these spinsters, weavers and needlewomen were literally networkers as well, spinning yarns, fabricating fiction and fashioning fashion. The textures of woven cloth functioned as a means of communication and information storage too, long before anything was written down.
Weaving is often used to mark or announcer information and a mnemonic device to record events and other data. Textiles do communicate in terms of the images which appear on the right side of the cloth, but this is only the most superficial sense in which they process and store data. Because there is no difference between the process of weaving and the woven design. Cloth persists as records of the process which fed into their production; how many women worked on them, the techniques they used and the skills they employed. The visible pattern is integral to the process which produced it, the programme and the pattern are continuous.
The lozenge motif dates as far back as the Neolithic and Paleolithic period and is tied to human fertility and land. The binary male and female principles serve as the basis for deciphering the meaning of this symbol. It consists of two triangles. But in the pre-Ukrainian period, it was believed that the woman held the three corners of the lozenge (the three corners of the home), while the man held the fourth, which completed the integrity of the family. A lozenge with a dot in the middle symbolizes a sown field, which meant abundance and prosperity. In addition to simple lozenges, we often see rhombuses with hooks (tiny horns) in Ukrainian embroidery. This design is called "zhaba" (frog) and symbolizes fertility. In ancient beliefs, this little creature was linked to heavenly moisture that gives life.
Lozenge-shaped patterns were embroidered on wedding towels and bridal gowns. Pregnant woman wore shirts covered with diamond patterns until childbirth as this symbol served as a powerful talisman.
As the frantic activities of generations of spinsters and weaving women make clear, nothing stops when a piece of work has been finished off. Even when magical connections are not explicitly invoked, the finished cloth – unlike the painting or the text, is almost incidental in relation to the process of its production. The only incentive to cast off seems to be the chance it provides to start again, throw another shuttle and cast another spell.
Posted on January 7, 2017 January 7, 2017 Categories Ada Lovelace, Art, Culture, history, Ideas, Industry, Looms, Memory, seeing, String, Symbolic shapes, technology, Uncategorized, Weaving, YarnTags Art, computing, Criticism, Culture, History, Image, Industry, Memory, seeing, software, technology, Trade, visibility, writingLeave a comment on STRING THEORY
PALACES OF PEACE – Crystal Palace 1851 and World Trade Centre 1973 – How History Repeats Itself
Crystal Palace 1851
The twins were unusually animated on that bright spring morning
"Shall I see the Queen?" asked Samantha.
"Shall I see the Queen's husband?" said Charles, not to be outdone.
"For goodness sake, stop hopping about or you'll see nothing", said Nanny.
"Shall I see the Queen?" Samantha repeated.
"Shall I see the Queen's husband?" They went on and on.
"Shall I see the Crystal Palace? Shall I see peace on earth?"
"I heard Papa say that the Exhibition meant peace on earth and goodwill to men", piped in Charles.
"That's as may be but there'll be no goodwill towards me, or you, if your Papa is kept waiting in his carriage.
At last everyone was ready and they set off, Papa busily telling them that it was the Queen's husband, Prince Albert's idea to invite all the nations of the earth to London, and how this Great Exhibition would put an end to wars and conflict between countries through trade, and how Britain would spread peace throughout the world. But the twins paid more attention to the great crowds that lined the roads cheering. Over the top of thousands of people you could just see the Crystal Palace rising up, which after early showers reflected the May sun off the still-wet glass surfaces and made them sparkle. It all looked unusually light and airy compared to the buildings they passed on their way, almost like it was floating over that part of South London.
Once they got closer the children could see what looked like a great glass and iron, tiered wedding cake standing in a large green field. Inside the building there were banks and beds of flowers in a rainbow of the loveliest colours, and there were tiers and banks of people whose clothes were of lovely colours too, so that everywhere was colour, on the ground and in delicate galleries. And there were palm trees, and an organ sending a wandering thread of music through everything, and in the centre there was a platform carpeted in red with a huge sapphire blue canopy above what Papa said was the dais.
Great elm trees grew behind it, indoors, and in front of it stood an intricate eight foot tall crystal fountain. Twittering sparrows darted about the elms, Charles lifted his head and watched the fluffy white clouds drifting slowly over a blue, blue sky – they were moving and changing shape, and creating the impression that it was the Crystal Palace that was moving and the clouds that were staying still. Looking up for a long time he was enjoying the sensation that the clouds were swirling around inside the vast curved dome that covered the palace.
"Don't keep craning your neck up Charles. Don't slouch Samantha. And do not chatter." Words which soon broke the spell and brought them down out of their own land of day-dreams.
Suddenly trumpets sounded, everyone stood up and the organ started to play 'God Save the Queen', and a choir sang the words. It sounded small and lost because the palace was so big, but as soon as it was over there was noise enough because everybody began to cheer and to wave handkerchiefs and papers. Then, at last, they could see Queen Victoria. She was dressed in pink and silver and she was walking with her husband, Prince Albert. She held a little boy by the hand – a little boy dressed like a Scottish Highlander – and the Prince held a little girl's hand. They all went up onto the platform which Papa called the dais, and there they stood for a while, all four of them, with the people cheering enthusiastically and the fountain leaping in front of them, and the elm trees behind them where the sparrows were hiding.
Prince Albert made a speech and then presented a copy of the illustrated catalogue of items in the exhibition to his wife. The Queen, Prince Albert and their group then went round the whole building looking at the huge variety of exhibits before returning to the dais and officially announcing the exhibition open to the public.
Then it was time to go home. As they left they could see vast numbers of people still queuing outside the building – they were told that these people would have to wait four hours before getting inside. Samantha and Charles now felt very tired and they were only half aware of their father talking as they dozed in the carriage on the way back home.
"A splendid occasion." He was saying. "The world has never seen the like. Nine hundred thousand square feet of glass. The Prince is justified if ever a man was."
"But there were no black men, no brown men, no yellow men, no red men", whined Charles.
"My dear boy", said Papa, "you weren't expecting that were you?"
"I was expecting to see all the nations of the earth in peace and goodwill."
"Well, so far as I'm concerned, the fewer foreigners we see over here the better. The best guarantee of peace on earth is British trade. The Great Exhibition will promote British industry and innovation. Glory to God in the highest and on earth room for the expansion of the steam engine and of British exports in general."
His conclusion upset the children who believed all the words that had been spoken about peace and goodwill. They started to cry but the effort was too great and they soon fell asleep. A strange disappointment filled them as they lay in their beds that night. Later Charles would wake up from a troubled sleep in panic; he had dreamed that he could see again that great glass and metal confection melting like ice cream, whilst firemen rushed around with hoses. He awoke Samantha, for whom else would he turn to in the dark of the night? They huddled together in her bed trying to dispel their fears. As they lay there they weren't to know that within two years Britain would be at war with Russia in the Crimea. In six years there would be a civilian rebellion in India which had to be quashed, and in nine years Britain's industry and innovation had turned to the building of iron warships. In just fifty years a bitter struggle with the Dutch in Africa would start the Boer war and a conflict in that continent that would run and run. They were not to know either that eventually their beautiful Crystal Palace would be destroyed by fire.
World Trade Centre 1973
One bright spring afternoon as the twins, Sam and Charlie, settled down in front of the telly to watch something that was making their father very excited. It was a documentary programme – something they would usually avoid like the plague. But this was a documentary devoted to a new building in New York City in the United States of America. The commentator was rambling on about the World Trade Centre bringing together businesses and government agencies involved in foreign trade. That it was a 'one-stop trade information hub' where 'an international business person would be offered the full range of services such as market research, trade shows, exhibition space, business services, trade education, group trade missions'…………….. Blah. Blah. Blah, thought the twins.
The commentator went on eagerly quoting figures. Charles was bored and took no notice but he liked the pictures of spandrel plates welded to the columns in the fabrication shop; he was fascinated by immigrant navvies digging out the Tower's supports with shovels and hands deep down in New York mud; he was spell-bound by other workmen balancing high up in the air like acrobats amid steel-plate girders.
Samantha was impressed by the size of the thing, one hundred and ten stories, one thousand, three hundred and fifty three feel tall, occupied by fifty thousand people. Even more interesting to both of them was that these buildings would be called the 'Twin Towers', surely that meant that it all had something to do with them?
These twin towers were part of a complex of seven building in Lower Manhattan, the interviewer explained, and had been designed by the architect Minoru Yamasaki. "You must be very proud of your design, Mr. Yamasaki?" he asked.
"Yes, yes, I am. But what I am mostly pleased with is that these buildings are a physical expression of the universal effort of men to seek and achieve world peace."
"Why do you say that, Mr. Yamasaki?"
"Well now," he replied, "this building will be a monument to world peace, because I believe that world trade means world peace."
"In what way would you hope that this building will be regarded in the future?" asked the interviewer.
"It is my sincere wish that in some way this building will point to all the best aspirations of man to live in peace together." Minoru Yamasaki answered.
Over the top of thousands of people you could see the first of the two towers rising up, which, after early morning showers, reflected the Spring sunshine off the still-wet glass surfaces, making them sparkle. The columns, finished with a silver-coloured aluminium alloy made the towers appear from afar to have no windows at all. It was a structure that filled your vision then got smaller as you looked upwards; it was unusually light and airy and it seemed to be enveloped by and absorbed into the fluffy white clouds which drifted slowly by in the blue, blue sky.
The camera zoomed in to show tiers and banks of people; firemen with their oddly shaped helmets and dark clothing contrasted with the soldiers and sailors who stood erect in their blue, black, khaki and white uniforms; and generals with their medals glinting in the sun and ladies in their fine clothes. So that everywhere was colour, on the ground and in the banked tiers of the audience; and there was a brass band sending a thread of music through the whole congregation. In the centre of all this there was a platform carpeted in red, that the excited commentator said was called a dais.
Suddenly trumpets sounded, everyone stood up and the band started to play stirring music and then a choir sang an anthem called the Star Spangled Banner. As it played all the navvies and firemen removed their hard hats, engineers, designers, architects and invited dignitaries put their hands on their hearts and joined in. All was quiet for a short moment, then there was noise enough as everybody began to cheer and to wave handkerchiefs and papers.
A great cheer went round the enclosed space and a dark-haired man, who Samantha thought looked a bit like the proboscis monkeys they had seen in the Popeye cartoons, and his mousy wife went up onto the platform which was called the dais, and President Nixon – for that is who it was – stood as the people cheered like mad and waved their handkerchiefs and little flags that had stars and stripes on them. Suddenly it grew silent and he started to speak into a bank of microphones.
"On this day the fourth of April nineteen seventy three, we are joined together to celebrate the New York Port Authority whose vision it was to erect this building.
We celebrate human innovation…. And we celebrate this great country of ours that is leading the way in technology, manufacture and farming……
I am proud to cut this ribbon and to commend and praise the building and the ideas behind it. The World Trade Centre is a living symbol of man's dedication to world peace …. A representation of man's belief in humanity, his need for individual dignity, his belief in the co-operation of men and, through that, his ability to find greatness."
Everyone was clapping, smiling and whooping while thousands and thousands of small pieces of paper – which the commentator called 'ticker tape', filled the air. It was a very pretty sight. The brass band started to play a march and everyone watched as the monkey and his mouse got into their limousine and left that place.
Then a sudden coldness made Samantha shiver and a cold shudder ran down her back. "What's wrong Sam? Asked dad as the programme ended with a view from high over the top of the crowds showing all the people slowly leaving. "A splendid occasion." Dad continued. "The world has never seen the like. Minoru Yamasaki is justified if ever a man was. Amazing for a foreigner! But then he was educated in America. Now the best guarantee of peace on earth is trade, and with the prospect of limitless oil to lubricate the wheels of trade nothing can stop us. Let 'em try."
Oh what a strange sense of foreboding filled the children as they went upstairs to bed that night. Later Sam would wake up from a troubled sleep in a panic. She had dreamt that she could see that great, sharp-edged glass and steel edifice blurring and melting like an ice cream as people ran away from it in terror. Her moaning awoke Charlie and they huddled together in bed trying to dispel their fears. Hadn't this all happened before? Didn't it all end badly?
Posted on August 20, 2014 August 21, 2014 Categories Art, Crystal Palace, Culture, Ideas, Industry, seeing, World Trade Centre, writingTags Architecture, Art, Crystal Palace, Culture, environment, History, ideas, Industry, Story, Trade, World Trade Centre, writingLeave a comment on PALACES OF PEACE – Crystal Palace 1851 and World Trade Centre 1973 – How History Repeats Itself