King's College Chapel

Henry VI laid the foundation stone in 1441. In 1471 he was murdered in the Tower of London. Glazing began after completion of the fan-vaulted ceiling in 1515 and took another 30 years.


The fan-vaulted ceiling by John Wastell, constructed between 1508 and 1515. A similar ceiling is in Peterborough cathedral.

The Sentinel

In Cambridge yesterday, cold and clear as befits the winter solstice. My friend looked over his kingdom from his vantage point at Senate House. Nearby Dicky Deegan played the Uilleann Pipes. Good bread was to be bought in the market. King's College Chapel was open. What more do I need.

Dark times

From yesterday's Financial Times, closing paragraphs of Modern History's Greatest Regulatory Failure by Robert Altman,

"This will come to be seen as the greatest regulatory failure in modern history. The degree of leverage that these institutions took on is indefensible. The average large securities firm was leveraged 27 to one in mid-2007. They were not regulated by any prudential supervisor. In effect, they regulated themselves. The lack of transparency was stunning. Many big lenders did not disclose off-balance-sheet risks. In some cases, they did not understand these risks themselves. More fundamentally, we allowed a second, huge financial system to develop outside the normal banking network. It consisted of investment banks, mortgage finance companies and the like. It was unregulated, not transparent and way too leveraged. But with nine separate and mostly ineffective financial regulators, these risks were ignored. That is, until this second system crashed.

We will be climbing out of this financial hole for a long time. Three or four years may pass before normal lending functions are resumed. In the interim, our economy will not have access to all of the credit it needs and may underperform, at great cost to our society. All of this could have been prevented".

I'm on my way to London tonight.

Stop-Loss

On the flight to London I watched "Stop-Loss" a harrowing film revolving around a group of soldiers lured from their checkpoint in Tikrit to be ambushed in a narrow alley. From one moment to the next, alive young men are dead, dying and horrifically wounded, as are a man and his son, in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's the back-cloth.

The substance of the film is about the complex mixture of duty and despair that overtakes the soldiers back home in Texas. If you have come through an American airport and seen soldiers welcomed home and others departing - whatever your politics, you know that this is not black-and-white nor election sound-bites.

Then at the weekend the violent death of 9 US soldiers in a prolonged firefight in a forward base in Northern Afghanistan.

And Stop-Loss? The right of the military to involuntarily extend the term of service for another tour of duty. In the film, Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe), having done tours in Afghanistan and Iraq is ordered back. It's a sobering film.

Quiet Dawn

UK dawn
04:30 - jetlag has its virtues

Robust Zen

The trick is to practice while crossing the street, dodging people and cars, and immersed in noise and heat.

I can see Bodhidharma cussing drivers and whacking boot-lids with his staff. He's out there somewhere.

Back to London tonight for a few days.

(Bodhidharma, British Library, non-commercial use)

The Fifth Noble Truth

From the Financial Times, June 17th 2008:-

UK becomes biggest weapons exporter
By Stephen Fidler, Defence and Security Editor

Britain became the world’s largest arms exporter last year, according to government figures released on Tuesday, overtaking the US, which normally occupies the top slot.
The UK won £10bn of new defence orders in 2007 from overseas, giving it a 33 per cent share of the world export market, according to figures released on Tuesday by the Defence and Security Organisation, set up to promote Britain’s defence exports. Export orders totalled £5.5bn in 2006.

Fire

Timeless

The sun has started its journey back across the sky, though only two weeks on from the solstice, the change in direction is barely discernible. The cloud was low but the high clouds were lit up long before sunrise. Resonates deep in the collective unconscious this daily renewal.

Colour of a different kind in the splendid Buddha Tooth Relic Temple. The chanting was particularly fine yesterday, if incomprehensible to me. Maybe the better for being just that.



Then a concert of old music from Southern China, in the afternoon - "Soul Journey" was the concert title. More later on this extraordinary music.

From the BTRTS

From an upper level at the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple (henceforth BTRTS as on the website).

No words needed

As the solstice approaches (24th June?) a picture of the rising sun - I never tire of watching it rise. It now must be close to its most westerly position and will soon begin the trek back for the winter solstice. The angular movement seems far more pronounced in Singapore than ever it was in the UK.


Of late I have been preoccupied with renewing my lease (with a 31% increase, so sharply has the price of property risen since I came here two years ago) and my employment pass, so I am set-up for the final year of my contract. Writing has therefore not been as frequent as it might have been.




I have been spending time in the Buddha's Tooth Relic Temple in Chinatown, a very active Pure Land Temple in the heart of a very busy area. Pictures to follow as I get them together. This reclining Bodhisattva I take to be Guanyin (Avalokiteśvara). It is behind glass and in subdued lighting, but the grace and calm come through.

Phoenix Lander

Ten kilometers up and three minutes to landing, the Phoenix lander drifts down to the surface of Mars. This extraordinary photograph was taken by the high-resolution camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Looking at the simulation of the landing I'm even more amazed at the achievement.

3 minutes to landing

The Mars orbiter presumably "knew", if that's the right word, that the landing was successful before we did on earth. It takes 15 minutes for the signal to arrive on our blue planet.

The strangeness of it all should keep us humble - we exist not by right but by accident.

Arvo Pärt

Listening to Litany by Arvo Pärt, based on the 24 prayers of St. John Chrysostom - one for each hour of the day.

Arvo Pärt in Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin, 2008
(from the Wikipedia entry)

"In the Soviet Union once, I spoke with a monk and asked him how, as a composer, one can improve oneself. He answered me by saying that he knew of no solution. I told him that I also wrote prayers, and set prayers and the texts of psalms to music, and that perhaps this would be of help to me as a composer. To this he said, "No, you are wrong. All the prayers have already been written. You don't need to write any more. Everything has been prepared. Now you have to prepare yourself.""

Arvo Pärt

Another Day

I sit in my humid 7th floor eyrie — the air-conditioning is off overnight — and watch the sun appear. It speaks of times we do not remember, nor need not remember. Each day is new.

Then the faint noise of the air moving from the ceiling.

Financial Spin

From today's on-line International Herald Tribune referring to UBS making another 5,500 redundant:-

"The Swiss bank wrote down $19 billion in soured U.S. subprime mortgage securities and other investments in the first quarter, bringing its total write-downs since the beginning of the credit crisis to about $38 billion."

"write-down", "soured", "sub-prime" — splendid euphemisms, unless you're one of the 5,500.

Long-term storage

An archivist will tell you that hand-writing on good acid-free paper stored well could last 500 years. I doubt that my digital records — text, music, images — will last 10 years. I can still read my microscopic handwriting written over 40 years ago, but have lost endless amounts of digital data through software becoming extinct or media changing, or just not having the motivation to move it on.



I'm always on the lookout for a decent pen, and prompted by a Yorkshire man via a Japanese blog, I found these Mitsubishi liquid ink pens in Kinokinuya. Cheap too.

With my Moleskine notebook, I'm set — I'm training myself to live without a computer. It may take a while, but I can try! Then such irrelevant connections need not concern me.

Then and now

The old shop houses in front of high-density public housing.
From Prinsep Street.

The washing poles retain a touch of stubborness - washing is supposed to be hidden as you may see if you look closely. It's not unknown for things to fall from great heights, and from time-to-time there is an advertising campaign to remind people to be careful. The pole is likely more dangerous than the washing.


HDB public housing must rank as one of the successes of Singapore, given the constraints of space, and certainly anyone familiar with high-rise living in Europe cannot but be impressed.

Land prices have increased sharply over the past year, and housing is now as expensive as in any major city. I am currently negotiating a new lease and find rents have increased 30% to 40% in two years. New land has been released for building and some tax incentives for speculators removed, so it is hoped that prices will stabilise.

Londoners, what have you done?

The election of Boris Johnson as Mayor of one of the world's great cities is depressing, but that's democracy. Maybe he'll rise to the challenges ahead. Ken deserved better.

Humid Day Ahead

While you sleep in the UK, the sun rises in Singapore through the City haze - another humid day ahead.

Oil reaches $120 a barrel — chilled air spills from the department stores cooling those passing-by.

Greed

On the screen was a page never seen before when logging into the bank. Wary of phishing I looked carefully, and it seemed to be OK, secure connection, etc. But you never know, and I noticed in the small print the usual rip-off telephone rate should I be unfortunate enough to need to call and listen to the 100 options at 4p a minute. But what really annoyed me was the set-up charge. What on earth do they do — plugs into switchboards?

"Calls from BT landlines will cost a maximum of 4p per minute and a 6p call set-up fee."

I remind myself that this mischief originates, not with some abstraction "the bank", but with an individual. Maybe they brainstorm new ways of ripping-off the customer.

I must be getting old!

Grain shortage?

Today's on-line edition of the International Herald Tribune (IHT) suggests genetically modified crops may get a better press in this time of rising prices, saying:-

Soaring food prices and global grain shortages are bringing new pressures on governments, food companies and consumers to relax their longstanding resistance to genetically engineered crops.

But The Economist is direct: "The changes reflect changes in demand – not problems of supply such as harvest failure."

Never take what you read at face-value – nothing in this world is simple. Nor are ad hoc solutions sustainable policy.

Hunger

"Last year wheat prices rose 77% and rice 16%. These were some of the sharpest rises in food prices ever. But this year the speed of change has accelerated. Since January, rice prices have soared 141%, the price of one variety of wheat shot up 25% in one day"

"The changes reflect changes in demand - not problems of supply such as harvest failure. The changes include ...the sudden, voracious appetites of western biofuels programmes, which convert cereals into fuel."

From The Economist April 19th 2008, "The new face of hunger"

"The middle classes in poor countries are giving up health care and cutting out meat so they can eat three meals a day. The middling poor, those on $2 a day, are pulling children from school and cutting back on vegetables so they can still afford rice. Those on $1 a day are cutting back on meat, vegetables and one or two meals, so they can afford one bowl. The desperate - those on 50 cents a day - face disaster.

Roughly a billion people live on $1 a day."

The Economist, Leader "The silent tsunami" April 17th 2008

Changing Skies

I have an east-facing office on the 7th floor and can enjoy the beautiful skies that often precede the sunrise. One morning last week there was a striking cloud – maybe from a fire somewhere – back-lit by the rising sun.


Soon the upper winds were spreading it out, and within an hour it was gone.


It's very humid at present with almost daily thunderstorms – often timed for when I want to go home.


An umbrella is pointless against this.

Not a ThinkPad - for once!

My latest "toy" is the Asus eeePC. It's a low cost and lightweight "sub-laptop", with in-built wireless, perfect for travel. What is most striking is the very fast boot time (at least for the Linux version), well under a minute. It has no hard disk, but 4GB of solid-state memory and uses the cards common to cameras for expansion.

Asus eeePC

Cost, about S$600 (c. GBP200).

The New Casinos

Wall Street knows no excess. The International Herald Tribune today reports that:

"Combined, the top 50 hedge fund managers last year earned $29 billion. That figure represents the managers' own pay and excludes the compensation of their employees."

That's $580 million apiece, though some "earned" more, some less. The median earnings for an American family over the same period — $60,500.

Jade Mountains

As it's – unofficially – "Blogger Appreciation Day", I'll thank my good Sangha friend and teacher Rev Master Mugo at Jade Mountains for kicking me back into life – without trying to. That's how it works. Moving Mountains is even better in the new format of Jade Mountains, well laid-out and better spaced. It all works!

"Train as though your hair were on fire", she said.

The Lift

My train tonight stopped just opposite the lift, so in lazy-mode, I got in to go down one level to the concourse. Only it didn't. Two gentle drops of foot or so, and we stopped, looking at little more than eye-level along the platform, to the bemusement of waiting passengers. It was one of those lifts on a hydraulic ram so we were not going to plunge anywhere and we were released after ten minutes.

Lift logic interests me. Our laboratories have three lifts at the end of the building, and from the 7th floor, I have come to realize that getting the first lift down to ground can be a mistake, if one seems likely to follow. The first will make several stops, (maximum number seems to be three), whereas the later lift will go straight to ground. Of course, it's a gamble. There must be a whole arcane science of lift programming. What I need is a code to override all settings, something like Ctrl-Alt-Del, but in numbers — straight down, no stops. Maybe it exists?

View from afar

Can we destroy what sustains us?


Sometimes I think we are sleep-walking into disaster, no-more so than with "global-warming", or "climate-change" as the spin-doctors would have it. I was struck by this picture of the earth and moon taken from by an imaging satellite orbiting Mars that trained a camera on its home planet. Strikingly blue and home to a sometimes destructive species, H. sapiens.

I watched a short video clip of Al Gore talking about the crisis we face. He confronts what could easily become despair and offers everyone a challenge. 15 minutes clip - recommended.

London

I was in London last week for a much-needed few days out of Singapore. London may be scruffy in places, people put their feet on the seats and chewing gum is everywhere, but it is alive. I cannot remember a time when Tottenham Court Road was not being dug up, but that inevitability is my landmark. Likewise the deafening sirens from ambulances or the fire service – just ten minutes walking along Euston Road provided an unmarked police car at speed and an ambulance in quick succession. Unlike Singapore, they don't hang around waiting for the lights to change but push through the congestion on the wrong side of the road if necessary.

Euston Road may be an arterial route but has many treasures, including the British Library, The Wellcome Trust and the splendidly renovated St Pancras Station. The Wellcome Trust is now housed in a modern glass and steel building while the renovated original home houses the Wellcome Collection. I was there one day too early for the current exhibition "Life Before Death", a striking topic for our age of permanent distraction. As Rev. Master Mugo comments at JadeMountains, a must-see meditation.

The Wellcome Collection has links to some of the images as does the Guardian.

Further down, past the British Library, is Barlow's great train shed, St Pancras Station, a wonderful example of restoration and remodeling. The cost must have been eye-watering, but the results are stunning. I traveled to Sheffield during the re-construction and saw at least the top-side of a massive civil engineering project.

And it shows the correct time!

William Henry Barlow must be well-pleased with his great train shed.