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Relevant thought for the day*

Local libraries are gateways not only to other libraries, but to other lives. Of course, I can see that if you went to Eton or Harrow, like so many of the present cabinet, you might not understand the point of such lowly gateways…

It’s always been and always will be very difficult to explain to people with money what it means not to have money. It education matters to you, they ask, and if libraries matter to you, why wouldn’t you be willing to pay for them if you value them? They are the kind of people who believe value can only be measured in money, at the extreme end of which logic, lies the dangerous idea that people who cannot generate a lot of money for their families cannot possibly value their families as people with money do…

What could be better than handing people back the power so that they might build their own schools, their own libraries? Better to leave people to the already onerous tasks of building their lives and paying their taxes. Leave the building of infrastructure to government and the protection of public services to government, that being government’s mandate and the only possible justification for its power.

That the grotesque losses of the private sector are to be nationalised, cut from our schools and our libraries and our social services and our health care, in short, from our heritage, represents a policy so shameful, I doubt this government will ever live it down. Perhaps it is because they know what the history books will make of them that out policies are so cavalier with our libraries. From their point of view, the fewer places you can find a history book these days, the better.

Zadie Smith, speaking on Radio 4's Today programme this morning. Because it was well worth saying.

* Unlike the irrelevant platitudes that make up the official "Thought for the Day" slot.

The Swiss: not quite on a roll

 Following my culinary attempt to horrify the entire world, I see that the Swiss have been at it too:

I was just minding my own business at a conference in the Swiss ski resort of Davos when the lunch staff hit the world with a culinary monstrosity. Walking down the lunch buffet, there were seven different non-vegetarian options. "Ah", I thought, "the token vegetarian meal will be final option". Sadly no, the final option was tofu wrapped in bacon.

Is that all you got, Switzerland? Your puny bacon-wrapped tofu is no match for my kittens smothered in onions! MwahHaHaHAHAHA!!!HAHA!! 


I'll allow the Swiss a bonus point for irony, though.

Goodbye Kitty

Kittens: “either smothered in onions or in a ragout they are excellent”

Henry Du Pré Labouchère was present at the Prussian siege of Paris in 1870, when hungry Parisians had to slaughter and eat whatever animals they could lay their hands on. As well as kitten ragout, he dined on horse, full grown cat, donkey, rat and spaniel and found them all very tasty.

A Parisian Christmas menu from 1870, features stuffed donkey's head, elephant consommé, roast camel, kangaroo stew, antelope terrine, bear ribs, cat with rats, and wolf haunch in deer sauce. That's nothing, though. I once went to a works Christmas meal at a Beefeater in Luton. Having survived that experience, wolf haunch in deer sauce would be a walk in the park. Bonne app!

Via

Anachronism update:  "German" siege of Paris corrected to "Prussian". I very much hope my A-level history teachers are still alive and well - if not, they'll be spinning in their graves.

There is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.

To: H. R. Haldeman
From: Bill Safire
July 18, 1969.

Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.

These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.

These two men are laying down their lives in mankind's most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding.

They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by the nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown.

In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man.

In ancient days, men looked at the stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.

Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man's search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts.

For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.

PRIOR TO THE PRESIDENT'S STATEMENT: The President should telephone each of the widows-to-be.

AFTER THE PRESIDENT'S STATEMENT, AT THE POINT WHEN NASA ENDS COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE MEN: A clergyman should adopt the same procedure as a burial at sea, commending their souls to "the deepest of the deep," concluding with the Lord's Prayer.

On 20th July 1969, the Apollo 11 lunar module touched down safely on the moon - with only about 25 seconds of fuel left in its tanks. The world was half a minute away from hearing these words, with their odd echo of Rupert Brooke, rather than 'one small step for man'.

The dangers of manned spaceflight were all too real; in 1967, astronauts Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee were killed in a cabin fire that engulfed the Apollo 1 command module during a ground test. In the same year, Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov died when the parachute on the command module of his Soyuz 1 spaceship failed to open after re-entry, as recalled in these chilling words:

... an NSA analyst, identified in the book as Perry Fellwock, described overhearing Komarov tell ground control officials he knew he was about to die. Fellwock described how Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin called on a video phone to tell him he was a hero. Komarov's wife was also on the call to talk about what to say to their children. Kosygin was crying.

When the capsule began its descent and the parachutes failed to open, the book describes how American intelligence "picked up [Komarov's] cries of rage as he plunged to his death."

NPR

More than forty years later, the Soyuz spacecraft is still in use. When the shuttle is retired, later this year, the only way to get people to the International Space Station will be on board the tried, tested, improved descendant of the Soyuz  spacecraft that killed Komarov (and the crew of  Soyuz 11 in 1971).

Also in the news

Can the Prime Minister confirm that after his changes are introduced, English students will pay the highest fees of any public university system in the industrialised world?

Asked Ed Miliband at prime minister's question time, back in December. Channel 4's FactCheck blog took a look at the figures and concluded that students at English public universities will almost certainly be paying the highest tuition fees in the industrialised world. Not just higher than those in Europe, Canada and Australia, but higher than the fees charged by public universities in the USA. Of course, FactCheck had no way of knowing how many universities would charge the maximum £9,000

 Back here, Universities UK said it couldn’t say what universities would charge after 2012, when higher fees are introduced. And that’s an important point – because it’s safe to presume not all universities will charge the top limit of £9,000. So, we just don’t yet know who will charge what and so what the average will be.

Well, the list of top chargers is beginning to be populated. The BBC is now reporting that The University of Essex has joined Surrey, Oxford, Imperial College, Durham and Exeter in announcing plans to charge the maximum £9,000 annual tuition fees.

In related news, the government have announced new restrictions on overseas students wishing to study in the UK, choking off another source of finance for cash-strapped universities.

This won't make the headlines, as it's not exactly a slow news day, but it's an issue that'll be hanging around for a long time.

Update: the University of Manchester's just joined the £9 grand club, too - today must have looked like a good day to bury bad news

Epic doodle

When Einstein said that imagination is more important than knowledge, he probably didn't have robot elephants in mind but, hey, whatever...
(notes on) biology from ornana films on Vimeo.

Via