Captive Jamaica Took Her Civilized Captor Captive...

When my younger brother was small, he used to watch a cartoon called Sharky and George, and once, years later, when it came up in conversation, I misheard the show's name, and thought someone had uttered the rather odd phrase 'Starkey and George'. That conjured up a very peculiar picture...

The Crimebusters of the BB-Sea?

... and before you wonder whether I'm implying something by associating David Starkey with an effeminate pink fluffy hippo, I can assure you that when I first misheard the phrase and enjoyed myself by mucking about with Photoshop for just my second time ever, I didn't know Starkey was gay. No, I'd not planned any insinuations. It just looked like it afterwards.

Anyway, I think it's a funny picture. Certainly, it's far more amusing than what Starkey said on Newsnight yesterday. He started pretty well, repeating somebody else's claim that the riots hadn't been real riots so much as mere 'shopping with violence'; a contentious claim, and not one that goes without saying, but certainly a point worth considering. But then, we had this:

'... I think there has been a profound cultural change. I've just been rereading Enoch Powell. The 'Rivers of Blood' speech. His prophecy was absolutely right in one sense. The Tiber didn't foam with blood, but flames lambent wrapped round Tottenham and wrapped round Clapham.

But it wasn't intercommunal violence; this was where he was completely wrong. What's happened is that the substantial section of the chavs that you [Owen Jones] wrote about have become black. The whites have become black. A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic gangster culture has become the fashion. And black and white, boy and girl operate in this language together, this language, which is wholly false, which is this Jamaican patois that's been intruded in England. And this is why so many of us have this sense of literally a foreign country.'

Emily Maitlis pressed him to clarify his position a bit, saying, 'In that speech Enoch Powell talked about in twenty years' time the black man having the whip hand over the white man--', and Starkey interrupted, saying, 

'That's not true. What's happened is black culture -- this is the enormously important thing -- it's not skin colour. It's cultural. Listen to David Lammy, an archetypical successful black man. If you turn the screen off, so you were listening to him on radio, you would think he was white.'

Now, at least, unlike the odious Kevin Myers, he's not putting forward an explanation that could as easily be summed up in the phrase 'black bastards', but just because his argument's not without sophistication doesn't mean that it's not wholly wrong-headed. 

Starkey's thesis, in essence, is that Britain has suffered from a detrimental version of how Horace said the conquest of Greece had affected Rome, when 'Captive Greece took her rude captor captive, and brought the arts to rustic Latium,' such that as far as Professor Starkey is concerned, 'Captive Jamaica took her civilized captor captive, and brought savagery to urban England.' And no, I'm not being pretentious by pulling out a Classical quote here; Powell was a Classicist, and his speech explicitly drew from the writings of Horace's contemporary Virgil.

Aside from being deeply offensive in its crude equation of whiteness with civilization and blackness with savagery, it's obvious that Starkey is simply wrong on this. As with the BBC having originally called the English riots 'UK Riots', this is a case not of political incorrectness but of factual incorrectness.

Insofar as Jamaican rude boy culture has affected British culture, it seems to have done so in two waves, the first being back in the seventies, giving rise to the Skinhead and Ska movements, and the second being in the mid-eighties, when 'Yardies' arrived in London, giving rise to a new form of British gang culture, where violence was often a first resort rather than a last one, and where wealth and firepower were ostentatiously displayed by gang leaders, these leaders becoming aspirational figures in the most broken of London's estates. That London's gangs, in particular, modelled themselves -- at least in part -- on these Jamaican gangsters seems indisputable, with them being further influenced by American gang culture, especially as codified in Gangsta Rap music. 

Part I, Chapter 4 of the Centre for Social Justice report, Dying to Belong: An In-depth Review of Street Gangs in Britain is very useful on this point. The whole report, to be fair, is excellent. I think we'd be well-advised to turn to the CSJ and ResPublica for a lot of help in coming months.

However, to single out the Jamaican influence in the way Starkey does is both perverse and lazy; he extrapolates later in the discussion from the fact that the first riot was connected to the killing of a black man, without pausing to consider whether the Tottenham riot may have had discrete roots to those in the rest of London, and without giving a moment's thought to the possibility that the riots outside London might have been radically different in character to those in London. Nobody has done anything even resembling a survey of the demographic profile of the rioters but it seems clear from footage and court reports that English people of all shades rioted side-by-side in a national frenzy of equal opportunity vandalism.  

What's more, it's deeply disingenuous to talk about thuggery on this scale without reference to the fact that during the seventies and eighties the English were proverbial throughout Europe for their penchant for mass violence, such that football hooliganism was known as 'the English disease'. Wild rampages through cities have been a hallmark of white English males, without any Jamaican influence whatsoever. And this didn't stop in the eighties either, despite the Heysel ban and Mrs Thatcher's pressuring the FA to pull out of European football. I still remember the shock in 1995 when English fans rioted at Lansdowne Road, such that I wasn't surprised about violence in London in 1996, in Marseilles in 1998, and during Euro 2000 such that England was threatened with being expelled from the competition. 

And in recent years, lest people were tempted to forget this stuff, there have even been TV documentaries that effectively glorified such havoc.

It is, frankly, claptrap to make out that mass English thuggery is due to a foreign intrusion. What happened this week wasn't remotely unEnglish.

Eolaí and his Painting Tour: Week Six

You'll remember how we left the Brother last Thursday as he coasted into Limerick to deposit himself at the home of Bock the Robber, he who once promised to mock me when I was on the radio, and then stayed eerily silent. Swiftly and happily filled with Bock's Chilli Surprise, he was happier still  in the pub a little later, filled with a fiery chilli and hunched over a perfect pint.

Friday was a day of wandering, with the Brother gazing up into the skies, presumably wondering whether what he'd seen had been a bird, a plane, or Jerry Seinfeld's mate, and admiring the Walls of Limerick. Saturday saw him wandering still, though with a bit of a limp, his foot starting to play up, which is hardly surprising given how he's cycled and painted a winding road halfway round the country. Still, limping though he may have been, he was reportedly looking pretty fresh as he ambled through the Milk Market. 

Culinary experimentation was the order of the day for him as he marshalled with pride a 'Celtic Egg', wrapping a hard-boiled egg in black pudding and musing whether there might be a market for 'Gaelic Eggs', with white pudding serving as the meaty armour. I'm not surprised he's going down this road; I'll not forget his delight at Sister the Eldest's back in the day when he experienced white pudding inside black pudding!

Gastonomic adventures complete, it was off to the pub again, there to watch Dublin beat Tyrone 0-22 to 0-15, in a match that the Brother had to admit wasn't really a game that any neutrals could have enjoyed. Seemingly the rain didn't skip Limerick that day, but settled in the pub as he was, he hardly noticed.

Sunday saw him cycling through east Limerick, admiring beautifully ramshackle houses, and stopping for a mineral -- that's a soft drink to people not from Ireland -- at Doon, before making his way through Cappawhite into Tipperary, his twelfth county. I must quiz him at some point about whether it's packed with orchards, as the Magners ads would have us believe. I've only set foot there twice, once to go to jax in Toomevara when I was eleven, and once to visit a graveyard in Carrick-on-Suir when I was fourteen or so, so I'm afraid I'm no expert on the county. Eventually, having cycled through a beautiful day of rain and sun, he reached the Rock of Cashel, and pulled up his Xtracycle to settle in for the night at Peggy O'Neill's B&B, there to chat at length with Bernie Goldbach, who described the Brother's 'subtle use of Twitter, Picplz, Latitude, Google Plus, Audioboo, Latitude and Street View [as] a case study in getting results from social media.'

Seemingly Bernie was ashamed of having kept my cycleworn brother talking beyond midnight, not being able to finish a chat with him in less than two hours, but given that I don't think I've ever really finished a chat with him in less than two decades, I don't think there's any shame in that. 

Up on Monday morning, the Brother had a gorgeous view from his window of Hore Abbey, a ruined thirteenth-century Cistercian monastery. Monday was a busy day, with no shortage of acrylic applied to canvas, and tea drank by the bucketload, not to mention a reviving bath being gloried in, with the internet largely being shunned, such that the Brother was shocked when he turned it on in the early hours of Tuesday, to learn what was happening in England. 

Bernie set the Brother up with a microphone to aid him in his audioblogging, and after they checked the lapel mike, the Brother turned around and cycled off into the distance, heading back westwards, leaving Bernie to muse on the trip thus far, describing the Brother as being, not merely 'a gold-plated member of the Irish Twitterati', but 'Ireland's first truly digital nomad'.

High praise, methinks.

It was clearly a remarkable day's cycle, the highlight of which was his seeing a group of swallows join forces in the air to drive off a hawk. Having said farewell to Cashel, he crossed the Suir by the Camus Bridge, and eventually left Tipperary and returned to Limerick, cycling through Abington, to new hosts in Castleconnell, as pretty as it was wet, there to revel in hospitality again, and to paint and plot into the night. Wednesday saw the Brother sitting painting in the company of a small child, and dining out on some fine Italian food, with him staying in Castleconnell again that evening, painting and poring over maps through the night, wondering about the practicalities of the rest of the trip.

Off we went again today, getting thoroughly damp as he cycled through the clouds, and past fields upon fields of stones upon stones, craving tea as he continued his constant sensory overload of being mesmerised by the scenery he was becoming part of.

And finally, then, after a long and glorious day of ninety kilometre's cycling, with him spotting a true avian highlight in a charm of goldfinches and taking advantage of a rare cessation of rain to photograph a beautiful wall, he entered Galway. Six weeks down, and thirteen counties visited.

There's more to come, of course, so rather than just tracking my summaries, you should follow the Painting Tour on his blog and especially on Twitter, where the hashtag's #paintingtour. I wouldn't bother following him on Google Latitude, though, given its habit of placing him somewhere he visited once upon a time. That was one of the great incidental revelations of Tuesday, when someone pointed out that it's not common for wireless mifi to have accurate gps support, such that most of them can easily revert to cached locations: this goes some way to explaining why several times in this trip Latitude's placed the Brother in Drogheda, Lucan, Cork, or anywhere really as long as it's eighty miles or so behind him!

Today's been a wet day, but when the right moment appeared the Brother hit the ground to capture this.

And again -- and especially importantly --  if you think there's any chance at all he might be passing within twenty miles or so of where you live and you have a bed to offer and fancy a painting, and especially if you're in one of the spots he currently doesn't have a host, you should let him know. Just send him a message to Ireland's first digital nomad™. It's not called social networking for nothing, you know...

Eolaí and his Painting Tour: Week Five

So we left the Brother last Thursday evening, and him sitting in a Kerry field beyond Killarney, chasing the sunset in a field of hay, cursing the farmer who'd started baling it. What's happened since then, you might wonder, in the ongoing saga that Ireland's twitterati call #paintingtour?

Well, as the night progressed the Brother mentioned his favourite sign of the trip thus far, one that'd have been too dangerous to stop and photograph, saying 'Cork Therapy Clinic -- Previous Left Turn'. That'd been a few days earlier, of course, but not nearly so much earlier as this marvellously iconic sight which he posted as a competition for his Twitter followers; if anyone guessed the county, said Eolaí, he'd allow himself a can of stout. I'd have gambled on Carlow, but after much disputing around the photo's geotag -- showing where the Brother was when he posted the picture, not where he took it -- it was eventually revealed in the early hours of Friday morning that it was taken in north Wexford, way back in week one!

Alternating between pint and paint, and with tea to ease the transitions, he carried on into the night. With another painting done, he set off again on Friday, looking back to the Reeks and struggling to Farranfore, having a bit of a scare on the way. Having used his tablet to work out his route, he hadn't secured it properly to the bike afterwards, and cycling down a hill it fell off, and was hit and run over by a tractor. However, thanks to the tablet's heroic sleeve, even hitting the ground at speed and being run over didn't damage it at all! And if that scared him, then he scared us, conjuring up a terrifying image that evening by warning us after his arrival that though he was happily ensconsed among his hosts, filled with food and clutching his tea, he had some concerns about his attire. 'I tell ya tho',' he said, 'these cycling shorts aren't going to see too many more counties.'

Still, erosion to shorts aside, it clearly proved a jovial evening, and suitably fortified and rested he set out again on Saturday, cycling past classic pub scenes and typically gorgeous Kerry landscapes on his way to Tralee. Unfortunately, given the weekend that was in it, with a bank holiday and golf going on, Tralee was booked up. There being no room in the inn, the Brother was forced to turn around and pedal back to Farranfore, making it back where he'd started just before dark. Still, his future hosts made plans for him appearing with all agreeing on the need for tea, beer, tea, wine, tea, curry, and tea*, and one boasting of having arranged for the importation of my Brother's clan. He may have been exaggerating on that one, as I certainly didn't get an invitation.

Kerry Road Markings

Out on Sunday, having had to abandon his plan for two days of gentle cycling, he set off again, pausing on the way to admire Kerry County Council's assiduous road maintenance, and again to rectify yet another puncture. Onward again through the misty rain, looking west to the Dingle peninsula, and through the hurling stronghold of Kilmoyley where the locals had quickly picked the Q, C, and K from the local Quick Pick, all the way to the home of Dat Beardy Man and Arwen the dog. 

Monday saw the Brother painting and inhaling tea at the side of yet another Kerry road, and with the sun down he put away his paints and turned to dinner and more tea.

Two hours behind schedule on Tuesday, he set off from Lixnaw through Finuge and Listowel, onward to Tarbert to get a ferry over the Shannon Estuary. He stopped to share tea and griddle bread with a needy if somewhat adorable dog that'd been chasing a chicken only moments earlier, and then continued pushing his legstraining way through Clare, his tenth county, making his way past Ballynacally, village of a thousand hanging baskets, to Ennis, his destination for the night.

Yesterday seems to have been an odd one, with him under orders to paint some zombies in the west of Ireland -- no, I have no idea, but he assures me they  weren't painted from life, though they may have been rendered from living death. Whatever about the Zombies, though, he also did a gorgeous painting of a couple of pugs for his hosts. Sadly, one dog didn't make the cut for some reason.

Quin Abbey

Today has seen him cycling southeast, more or less, stopping to eat a sandwich at Quin Abbey, taking a cattle grid at speed, marvelling at an unexpected sign in Sixmilebridge**, pausing to wish for tea, and eventually passing Thomond Park as he entered Limerick City by the old Cratloe Road, crossing the Shannon at Thomond Bridge to be hosted in his eleventh county by the notorious Bock the Robber.

Five weeks cycled, eleven counties graced with his presence, and I have no idea how many paintings painted or mugs of tea consumed. Let's hope his legs hold up. As I keep saying, you can and should follow him on his blog and especially on Twitter, where his hashtag's #paintingtour. I wouldn't bother following him on Google Latitude, though, as that has a habit of putting him in Drogheda when he's in the Dublin Mountains or Kilmore Quay, in Lucan when he's in Ardmore, and Garryvoe Beach in Cork when he's in north Kerry.

And again, as I've also said before, if you think there's a chance he might be passing within twenty miles or so of where you live and you have a bed to offer and fancy a painting, you should let him know. Just send him a message. It's not called social networking for nothing...

The Brother's Route Thus Far, as roughly reconstructed from Twitter updates

* Though you could argue that tea, wine, and spirits is the correct order of drinks.

** One needs to be warned of such sinister creatures.

Eolaí and his Painting Tour: Week Four

While I've been busy trying to do my work and make sense of the fallout from the Cloyne Report -- and if you want to read that, scroll down to Tuesday's post and to a few before that -- the Brother's been continuing his epic artistic cycle around Ireland.

We left him, last Thursday, painting in Clonakilty, before going to stay with some lovely people who refuelled him with spicy food and tea in a specially-bought big blue mug. More painting the next day, and then some sightseeing in the afternoon, visiting Drombeg Stone Circle, Glandore, Union Hall, and Castletownsend. The hospitality continued with tea being -- as the wonderful mother of a wonderful ex of mine said when I first set foot in her house -- on tap, and then he was away leaving behind him a lovely painting of Red Strand.

Having stayed on Friday with the same old friend he's stayed with on Wednesday, he set off again on Saturday, battling cramp as he cycled through west Cork, backtracking a few miles to South Ring to paint some more, listening to the curlews, and the terms, and the tide, putting on an extra T-shirt against the cold, and muttering in exasperation as boats he was painting would sail out of sight. In a heroic bit of stereotyping, a lady he'd never met before came out of her house, approached him, and bestowed upon him a mug of tea and a big plate of sandwiches and cakes. With two paintings nearly complete, and an hour and a half behind schedule, he saddled the bike and faced north then west again, heading off back through Clonakilty and onwards through the hills to Skibbereen. Settling in there was a near run thing, as his bike took a puncture, his phone got sickly, and a B&B that had promised him a room turned him away on arrival, saying they'd given it to someone else. Still, a wonderful hostel stepped into the breach, giving him for the price of a dorm bed a family room where he could paint in privacy into the night.

Sunday then saw him painting in the tranquility of Skibbereen, and then refuelling with tea and some much needed food before heading north towards Bantry, tired though he still was from the punishing effect of the back roads of rural Ireland. Monday began with him eating his breakfast with mixed feelings, noting that every time he finishes a rasher himself, he misses his dog. Even with another night's rest, he set off that day at far from peak condition, his calf still hurting from the cramp that'd first struck him on Friday, and his knees still far from happy with the punishment they were getting, ploughing his lonely and determined way past sights both bleak and beautiful.

Still, tired and sore though he was, he found time to admire gorgeous views whilst drinking tea and made it to Glengarriff, aching and exhausted from spending the day marvelling in pain at the beauty all around him. The view out his window was great, and perhaps nicer still in the morning.

I was reassured to see him tweeting again on Tuesday, as in the dead of night he'd tweeted a deperate cry that his tablet had died, rendering him computerless, but following a friend's advice and trying the hard reset had been all he'd needed to do to resuscitate the beast. He said his goodbyes to Glengarriff, where the local Gaelic club had obviously won something recently, and headed north, to torture his knees further by climbing through the mountains to Kenmare. Off he went, then, to great encouragement and with someone else having attempted a rendering of him with the air of, as someone said, 'the conquering barbarian about him'. Somehow his knees did the job and got him through Caha Pass, over the mountains, and out of Cork into Kerry, his ninth county, in one piece, consumed though he was with a bottomless craving for tea as he arrived in Kenmare and settled down in the street to paint.

More painting in Kenmare was on Wednesday's agenda, as he supped his tea and wondered how the weather would turn out. It was -- technically -- dry, but it was dark and cool and hinting at rain. Taking his paints to the street again, he settled down outside the aptly named Cupán Tae where €2.50 got him three pots of tea, and he'd no shortage of people to talk to. Onward and upward then on a few mouthfuls of brown bread to Moll's Gap, and down along a bumpy twisty road, thankfully free of coaches, through Muckross to Killarney itself, pushing just a few miles further to a little cottage and hot teapot, wrapped in cosy anticipation. During the night he fell asleep at the table last night, and waking shivering and with tingling feet, he took some more tea, making everything seem better, and then went to bed.

As for today? Well, last I looked he'd been watching a match, and muttering darkly about how frustrating it can be when you're chasing the sunset while painting a field of hay, only for the farmer to come along and start baling it. Now if only you could make the sun stand still...

As I keep saying, you can and should follow him on his blog and especially on Twitter, where his hashtag's #paintingtour. And again, as I've also said before, if you think there's a chance he might be passing within twenty miles or so of where you live and you have a bed to offer and fancy a painting, you should let him know. Just send him a message. It's not called social networking for nothing...

Eolaí and his Painting Tour: Week Three

You remember Tuesday, when all the rest of us were wondering how the interrogation of Rupert and James Murdoch was going, admiring the forensic questioning by Tom Watson, Louise Mensch, and Paul Farrelly, and sighing at the opportunities wasted by the other eejits? Well, while all that was going on, the Brother was sitting on the bank at the side of a Cork road, painting a bridge over a river, more-or-less oblivious to the slices being cut from Murdoch's cucumber.

Yep, week three of the Brother's Painting Tour of Ireland has drawn to a close. In his first week he'd cycled and painted his way through Dublin, Kildare, Wicklow, Carlow, and Kilkenny, while his second one saw him pedalling through Carlow and Wicklow into Wexford, from where he turned west and had been pushing on through Waterford. We'd left him in Dungarvan...

He painted into the night in Dungarvan, as he does, working through his back-up supply of Barry's teabags, and wishing he could have brought a teapot. With his various devices leaking power more quickly than his knees, he turned them off to charge up and concentrated on the painting.

Friday morning was damp and overcast, as he plotted his journey west and when asked what he'd like for breakfast decided the main criterion was size: 'Something big'. The staff at the B&B gave him a second pot of  tea without him needing to ask. He needed it. He recorded some optimistic words for us, and then set off, heading south to Rinn, one of the less obviously likely spots for a Gaeltacht, and onwards, but before long being barraged with rain, such that, as he put it, 'Don't remember cycling with my eyes closed before.' Still, he made his way to St Declan's Hermitage -- reputed site of one of Ireland's pre-Patrician Christian settlements -- where he sat on an Ardmore clifftop and painted in the rain. Onward then, thoroughly sodden, past a rain-scorning fire in Ardmore with the smoke filling the bay, past the Round Tower and over the bridge on the Blackwater Estuary into Cork, his eighth county, there to take shelter from the rain in Youghal.

(Youghal's B&B, he has since revealed, had the most impractically conical taps, which couldn't be turned off until he'd dried his hands, and even then required the aid of a towel. A design flaw, methinks.)

On Saturday morning he recorded another message for us, left his B&B, had a look around, and set off again, fighting the wind as he pedalled southwest to Garryvoe Beach, where he settled down in the wind to paint at the beach, looking over towards Ballycotton island and setting about a commissioned painting of Ballycotton lighthouse, till the rains came down and the winds blew and beat against him, scattering his painting and his canvases, hiding from sight all he'd been painting. Gathering his stuff he sheltered as best he could in the rocks as the tide started to rise, creeping towards his bike, crippled as it was by a bungee hook having caught itself in a wheel, twisted around an axle and locked onto the spokes. With the water two feet from the bike, he dragged it to what he thought was safety and desperately tried to prise out the hook with a paintbrush, snapping the brush as he did so. Still the tide rose, and so he emptied the bike, and carried it and everything to safety among the rocks, there to call for help and wait, on the rocks, for the cavalry to arrive and whisk him away to Carrigtwohill.

Arrive they did, and it wasn't long before the Brother could pronounce himself 'Happy, and safe, and warm, and dry, and full of food, and fixed of bicycle, and full of wine. At home Hannigan.' 

Sunday was a day of rest, from cycling if not from painting, as he got stuck in to that on his stool in the garden, painting a little corner of the Hannigans' world for them.

Monday then saw him setting out a afresh, with Google Latitude, hitherto falsely claiming he was in Drogheda, now lying and placing him in Lucan. Off he went then past some very colourful houses zigzagging his way across Great Island towards Cobh, where he set himself up to paint and learned that our old Maths teacher hadn't told us the whole truth when he'd said that between two stools you fall to the grounds. Sometimes one can collapse of its own accord, and to your public embarrassment. 

Yes, that's Cobh Cathedral, sadly in the news for all the wrong reasons nowadays.

Still, with the painting done it was time to take another ferry, to cycle on to Carrigaline, and to accept the hospitality of the Swearing Lady and her Gentleman.

(Somewhere along the way he saw this lovely view. No, I can't for the life of me figure out where. Sometimes it's as difficult to disentangle the narrative threads as it is to -- well -- unhook a rogue bungee cord.)

Tuesday was another scheduled rest from cycling -- despite having crossed continents with them back in the day, the Brother's knees aren't what they once were, and besides, there's not much point cycling between friends if you're not going to spend time with them -- but painting was still on the agenda, and shopping too, successfully for canvases and less so for vaseline. While the rest of us were busy watching Rupert and James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks trying to deceive parliament*, he settled in at the side of a Cork road, by a bridge over a river, painting under a grey sky. Well, it was grey to start with. It was green when he was done. With the painting finished, and somewhat perturbed by Corkonian men winking at him, he settled in to savour some tea and to adjust his Painting Tour Website, with particular reference to what he eats, all the while half-watching a gory Japanese film, avoiding the gore by ducking behind the computer screen.

Wednesday morning saw him painting till lunchtime, working out his route, and then setting off again, though progress was slow as he pedalled west, with him suffering from stomach cramps. Still, he took a break at Inishannon, where he responded to some Twitter banter about him and the Tour de France by posting a picture he painted once of what he saw as he approached Grenoble and the Alps on a bicycle, before riding over the Col du Lautaret back in 1996. Slowed down though he was, and sticking to the back roads, he resumed the cycle and carried on towards Clonakilty and beyond, craving tea the whole while. Still, it wasn't long before his mission was accomplished and he could merrily proclaim, '8 mugs of tea, a beer, and a big plate of lasagne - me and the bike are settled in Clonakilty'.

And so to today, day 21 of the Painting Tour, with Clonakilty to be his base till Saturday, as he's a few paintings to be doing. Last I heard he looked like he was working very hard.

As I've said more than once now, keep following him on his blog and especially on Twitter, where his hashtag's #paintingtour. And again, as I've also said before, if you think there's a chance he might be passing within twenty miles or so of where you live and you have a bed to offer and fancy a painting, you should let him know. Just send him a message. It's not called social networking for nothing...

* In my humble™ opinion.

When Funny Comics Aren't Good Comics

Just something light today, I think, as the last couple of posts have been about as serious as can be.  I've never got Dilbert, I'm afraid. I've no shortage of friends who love it, but while I see why they like it, I just don't think it's a very good cartoon strip.

Don't get me wrong: I think it's both funny and clever. I just don't think it works as a comic should. I've long subscribed to Scott McCloud's definition of comics as 'Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer,' and I think that Dilbert nearly always misses the point. 

That Dilbert is a comic is indisputable. Whether Dilbert is a good comic, however, is a different matter, and to me it's significant that the pictures contribute hardly anything to most Dilbert strips. Scott Adams' words are good and clever, but I don't think they ever really gain from being linked with pictures. In Dilbert, as far as I can see, the pictures don't complement the words, or add to the words, or lead one to wonder whether there might be more going on than is simply revealed in the words. All they do is identify the speakers, and literature isn't lacking in devices that do likewise. Most Dilbert strips could be one-paragraph gags, and probably would be, were it not for the fact that we're not used to newspapers running such things. In Dilbert, as far as I can see, the pictures are there not to add an extra dimension of meaning to words, so much as to give the words an excuse to be there at all.

I enjoyed the strip from last week I've posted above. It's funny. It made me laugh. And it's made other laugh more when I've told them the words. It doesn't need pictures. You couldn't say that of Peanuts. Or Calvin and Hobbes. Or Red Meat. Or even Garfield...

Eolaí and his Painting Tour: Week Two

And so the Brother's Odyssey continues.

We left him a week ago on a Kilkenny hillside, surrounded by singing sheep. He rested after that, and painted in the rain and then last Saturday pedalled his way from Carlow through Wicklow into north Wexford, where on Sunday he painted at Tara Hill and greenfly menaced him, doing their best to go for a swim in his tea.

Monday saw him summarising how things had been going thus far, and then set off on his first day of cycling without a host, and him making his way from north of Gorey towards Wexford town. He stopped by the beach at Courttown, as you do, and at an old friend's house, forgetting he was away in Turkey, and again to have lunch by the memorial for those who died in the sinking of the emigrant ship Pomona in 1859. Using Twitter -- that being a big part of the trip, after all -- he spread the word that he was looking for somewhere to stay, and planning on funding the night by selling a painting.

'We've just one room left and it's very small,' said one lady.

'There's only one of me and I'm very small,' he said, drawing her gaze away from his still-ample bolg.

Utterly knackered on Tuesday after the previous day's exploits, he set himself up at Wexford's Crescent Quay to finish the painting he'd been too exhausted to finish the previous day.

Off he went then to Kilmore Quay, fifteen miles or so away to the south and a place I know all too well from studying Ordnance Survey maps and town plans in Leaving Cert geography classes. The brother knows it rather better now, having worked on a couple of paintings there, and done some sketching in his notebook, and admired the Vigil Statue in the Memorial Garden, and gone for a cycle along the south coast in the evening.

Yesterday, he said in the morning, was the nicest day in the history of the Universe. He pedalled on west from Kilmore Quay, stopping to look at the curlews and oystercatchers, before making his way through Wellingtonbridge and on to Arthurstown, taking a ferry from Ballyhack over the estuary of the Three Sisters, the Nore, the Suir, and the Barrow to Passage East.

Finally and into his seventh county -- Waterford -- with knees aflame he made it to Tramore, and on a couple of miles further.

Today's been a Waterford day, cycling through his second Kill village of the trip, and eventually getting him to Dungarvan far later than he'd have wished. I'm fond of Dungarvan, as I'd a lovely family holiday there when I was fourteen or so; I don't remember too much of it, alas, other than the grey house we stayed in, the apple tree in the garden, days out at the beach, looking for cheap books in Dungarvan's shops, watching Zulu in the living room, and a long walk with my Dad on country roads at night where on spotting a white line in the centre of the road I declared with relief that we'd obviously hit civilization at last.

The Brother's knees, as ever on this trip, are killing him. I'm thinking he should get himself some Glucosamine; Sister the Eldest got me on it years ago. My favourite version was Jointace, with cod liver oil being the carrier; I don't know whether it made a real difference in itself or whether it just had a hell of a placebo effect, but it did the job.

Anyway, two weeks down, and seven counties cycled through. Only twenty-five more to go. Keep following him on his blog and especially on Twitter, where his hashtag's #paintingtour. And again, as I've said before, if you think there's a chance he might be passing within twenty miles or so of where you live and you have a bed to offer and fancy a painting, you should let him know. Just send him a message. It's not called social networking for nothing...

Looking at Vermeer

I watched Girl with a Pearl Earring tonight, feeling a need to get away from the claustrophic mounds and stacks of books, articles, folders, refill pads, scraps of paper, printed pages, pens, pencils, and random bits of stationery that are currently cluttering and breeding on every horizontal surface in the house. It's a busy time.

I liked the film. It's beautifully shot, in a manner reminiscent of Vermeer's paintings, and is remarkably still, with Colin Firth, Scarlett Johansson, and Tom Wilkinson all being excellent. Not a lot happens in it, and that which happens tends to happen in a restrained Merchant-Ivory kind of way, but somehow that seems fitting. Sure, it's mostly made up -- or, at any rate, the book on which it's based is mostly made up -- but then, given how little we know of Vermeer's life, this is hardly surprising. I have three books about him upstairs -- Wheelock's Vermeer: The Complete Works, Bailey's Vermeer: A View of Delft, and Gowing's Vermeer, the latter being widely regarded as one of the most profound pieces of art criticism ever written and being included in the Modern Library's 1999 list of the twentieth century's hundred greatest non-fiction books in English -- and yet none of them really tell us much about the man himself. We know hardly anything about him.

To be honest, I kind of like that ignorance. Vermeer epitomises the ideal artist as described by James Joyce -- or at least his youthful fictional alter-ego Stephen Dedalus -- in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man:

'The artist, like the God of creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails.'

There's a distance and an anonymity in Vermeer's work, a serene perfection that doesn't lecture or lure; it merely invites us to watch, and to see the transcendent beauty in the ordinary.  I'm not sure there's even one painting out there, with the very possible exception of Seurat's Bathers at Asnieres, that I've spent as long looking at as Vermeer's Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid which is in Dublin, but I don't think I've ever spent as much time on one occasion just soaking up a single painting as I did back in March when I went to London's Dulwich Picture Gallery to see The Music Lesson.

Normally kept as part of the Queen's private collection, The Music Lesson was on loan to Dulwich as part of Dulwich's bicentennial celebrations. It's perfect, isn't it? The light, the shadows, the reflection, the detail, the colour, and perhaps above all that wonderfully geometric composition. I decided that day that I was going to try to see every Vermeer in the world before I die. I think I've only seen four so far, but I've plans for a fifth before the summer's out, and I'm already hoping to see at least another seven -- those in the Netherlands -- next year. 

With eight Vermeers in New York, and a further four in Washington, a trip to America will have to be on the agenda too. I guess I'd better start putting plans in motion.

Eolaí and his Painting Tour: Week One

Well, the Brother's cycling trip seems to be going well so far, barring a near-disastrous tube explosion early on. 

Over the first couple of days of the trip, he cycled through the hills of South Dublin, where he painted Glenasmole before cycling into Kildare where he visited the cemetery where Arthur Griffith is buried, and then went on to Sallins. From Sallins he made his way through the Wicklow Gap and on to Wicklow town, where he marvelled at the sunrise after a long night with his host, had a fine view of a coastguard rescue, and then sat painting on a windy hillside in Wicklow before crossing the Dereen into Carlow, where he did a colourful take on Duckett's Grove for his hosts. He's somewhere in Kilkenny now, a week into his travels, and is currently painting on a sunny hill, with cows lazing to the right of him, birds arguing behind him, and the whole world in front of him.

One of his hosts has posted the picture he did as a guest-gift. Nice, eh? 

You should follow his exploits, on his blog and more particularly on Twitter. And, y'know, if you reckon he might be passing within twenty miles or so, and you have a bed to offer and fancy a painting, you should let him know. Just send him a message. It's not called social networking for nothing...

Eolai's Cycling Tour of Ireland - And He's Off!

So, the Brother's finally set off on his jaunt -- a 32-County Painting Tour of Ireland. It was nodded to in a couple of pieces in yesterday's Irish Independent. 

He posted a thoughtful and witty and oddly poignant little recording on Audioboo in the early hours, before he'd packed and set out. It's worth a listen. I'm not sure where he is right now, but a few hours back he was painting in the hills south of Dublin somewhere.

The bike's impressively loaded, as you'll see, thanks to the Brother's Xtracycle, which he happily refers to on a regular basis as the best thing he ever bought. As far as I can tell he's carting around paints, brushes, canvas, a seat, tools, and all the other stuff you'd expect if you were cycling round a whole country, covering two or three thousand miles over a couple of months. Which, of course, you would do, wouldn't you?

Anyway, you should follow his adventures on his website, and on Twitter. I expect there'll be no shortage of pictures. It's about Irish social networking and the internet as much as it's about cycling and painting, after all.

My First Real Art Class

I know, I've been away. I've been incredibly busy, and I've had huge blog posts in my head, the kind of things that would have got in the way of work if I'd posted them. They've stayed in my head, so, except when my more forgiving friends have allowed me to indulge in a monologue or two.

Anyway, I'm just posting now to say that this week I went to my first ever life-drawing class -- indeed, my first ever art class of any sort since primary school. It was brilliant, and has me dying to find proper space in my life for this stuff again. We did loads of ultra-quick sketches, a couple of three- and five-minute ones, and then one longish one, for twenty-five minutes or so. Over the course of the evening I ditched my own pencils and borrowed some charcoal to try that. I did two drawings of the last pose, this being the latter:

I'm fairly pleased with it. It's not perfect by any means, but I think it's not bad for a sort-of-beginner. It's weird, really - I don't think I've drawn since I did this at Christmas 2007, so I'm surprised at how quickly I loosened up. I can't wait till the next class. In the meantime there's lots of work to be done.

Brokeback Times

There's an amusing post over at Heidi's Beat billed as a tribute to 'the Brokeback Pose'. The what? Well, remember a few weeks ago I talked about the astonishing phenomenon that was -- and, sadly, still is -- Rob Liefeld? Liefeld was one of the most successful comic creators in the world in the early and mid-1990s, and he managed this without any discernible drawing ability whatsoever. In particular, he understanding of human anatomy was astonishingly poor, and as these fellas have pointed out, 'the most important thing you need to know before reading about all the terrible things Rob Liefeld has drawn is that he has never seen or talked to a woman in his life and has no idea what they look like or how their bodies operate.'

Now, in the world of comics illustration, Liefeld is hardly the only offender in this regard. There is, after all, a tendency in comic art towards idealised female physiques, just as there is towards idealised male ones, and sometimes people have some pretty peculiar ideals, and with most superhero comics being read by adolescent males, they tend to be strewn with scantily clad athletic girls whose breasts are larger than their heads. To be fair, this happens: I've known one or two girls in my life who are indeed so endowed, and I've tended to frown on looking at them, and wonder how their backs take the strain.

Which brings me to the Brokeback Pose. The first of these pictures I've taken from Heidi's post, and it's a relatively inoffensive variant on the pose. It shows Felicia Hardy, the Black Cat, proudly displaying both buttocks and a profiled breast. This, it must be said, is quite difficult to do; as Heidi says, 'unless you are a member of Cirque Du Soleil it’s actually impossible to turn your ass and your tits in the same direction'.

I'd be curious to know when the pose first began to appear in comics, but the second picture here may give a clue. It's a Liefeld, and I neither known nor care who it's meant to be. You can look at it in colour on the 40 Worst Rob Liefeld Drawings site, where it is noted that this shot 'is a catch-all for "any time Rob Liefeld has ever drawn a woman."' Such a typical catch-all is necessary, as otherwise 'the entire list would be broken spines and colossal hooters'. It's not immediately obvious, as the rendering's so poor, but if you squint you'll can just about make out both breasts and both buttocks!

Ben Towle, leaving a comment on Heidi's post, actually points to this very picture, and says credit needs to be given the the great 90s masters who originally broke this pose's eponymous back. 'This,' he says, 'is where the real artistic innovation began. Once the spine was broken (aesthetically speaking), adding the "boob twist" was really just icing on the cake.'

The bizarre thing, though, is that this pose is possible! As another commenter points out, in classical figure drawing, 'This sort of pose is not unusual at all (as far as showing the upper body in profile, and the rear to reveal both cheeks). The spine is capable of enough rotation to capture that pose. In fact, as an artist, it is, in general, it is your duty to twist the spine whenever possible to bring life to your figures, and imply movement. Stiff symmetrical figures are the hallmark of amateur artists. I think what make it in such bad taste is the over arching of the back which serves to lift the buttocks and heave out the bossom.'

And indeed, he illustrates his point by linking to a drawing by none other than Michelangelo, which I've flipped vertically below just so that all my brokebacks can face the same way. If this weren't enough to convinced you, though, the very first comment on the post, from one Steve Flack, was a claim to have witnessed this pose: 'I was shocked when I saw the video for Keri Hilson’s R&B hit, "Love Knocks You Down", and she actually manages to pull off this pose. Of, course, she has to lay down on a bed to accomplish it, but it still happened.'

He's right, too. You can watch the video if you want -- she contorts her callipygous form into this Fortean pose a minute and twenty-seven seconds in -- but to save you time, I've saved the key moment here:

It's amazing the things you can find out with the internet. Who would have thought that such a pathetic comicbook convention could have had such an artistic pedigree? Um.

How to Draw Comics the Liefeld Way

There was a time when I used to want to be a comic artist, and among my inspirations was one Rob Liefeld. Don't get me wrong: I didn't think he was good. No, I was astonished even then by how bad his drawing was -- and I could tell this by just flicking through his 'work' before buying something a bit more credible in the Forbidden Planet -- and was convinced that if he could make a fortune from something so egregiously bad, well, surely I could make at least a living.

Obviously, things haven't worked out that way, and as the years have passed my scorn for Mr Liefeld has faded along with my ambitions towards being a comic artist. You forget, after all.

Until tonight.

There's a lovely post on Crooked Timber today entitled 'The Dark Depths of Comics History', pointing to the odd 1990s phenomenon of Marvel Comics swimsuit issues. Yeah, I know. Look, don't blame me. I'm an ardent admirer of Sturgeon's Law. It highlights a detail of a drawing in which lush inking and subtle colouring are cleverly deployed to disguise the fact that the actual drawing is terrible:

'Where exactly is either his left shoulder or the left side of his chest? Did his shoulder just sort of give up on becoming an arm and then the arm tried again, launching itself out, a bit below, where the intercostals should be? I could stare for hours. It’s like a cross between a Japanese sand garden and a fancy butcher shop.'

It's quite special, really, but the post itself is utterly trumped by the comment thread which leads, by some comic book variant of Godwin's law, to the pit of excrement that is Rob Liefeld's artwork.

Here, for instance, is Rob's take on Captain America -- and I hope both Joe Simon and Jack Kirby were dead by the time this was drawn, as this sort of thing just shouldn't be allowed. One of the commenters, Gareth Rees, sizes it up and drily remarks that 'Liefeld’s Captain America is the result of merging two different perspectives into one picture: his shoulder is seen side-on, and his chest at an oblique angle. It’s the same kind of distortion used to get the buttocks and breasts of female characters visible at the same time. It’s a technique that goes back at least to the cubists.'

This drew the response that 'It’s not just that, but part of his back is visible as part of the side-on angle, and his other shoulder is missing from where it should be given the chest angle. You’d have to tear his torso in half to force it into that pose.'

Good, eh? It gets better, though, as Gareth Rees has linked to a marvellous site dedicated to 'The 40 Worst Rob Liefeld Drawings'. Now, I'd say they're not so much the worst Liefeld drawings as a representative sample, but what the hell, they need to be studied. I've hardly been able to breathe for laughing since seeing them, and given how my life has been the last couple of months, that's quite an achievement.

It's still beyond me why anybody bought this stuff, let alone why they bought it in such massive quantities. Baffling.

Take this beauty, for instance, number 16 on the list, of which it is entirely fair to say:

'How many teeth are in a mouth? Like a billion, right? I’ll just draw a billion, all the same size and shape.

All of the characters on this page are in the same room. Not that you’d know that, given the way Liefeld draws the majority of his backgrounds. Where most artists would include, say, details of the room or an actual background, Rob uses groundbreaking techniques like, DAGWOOD’S HAIR! HORIZONTAL LINES! CURVES! And CROSSHATCHING!

Seriously, if that establishing shot weren’t there you’d think these people were all just kind of abstract concepts. What are they, in a wind tunnel? Who gives a shit, get back to people holding swords.'

I know, astonishing, eh? And this isn't even close to being the worst piece of Liefeld art there. No, you need to see his reluctance to draw feet, his inability to draw hands, his obsession with really big guns that rest on clenched fists, his tendency to draw women standing en pointe if their feet must be shown at all, his fetish for pouches, his perplexing theory of shadows, his prediliction for drawing freakishly endowed men, and his utter ignorance of female anatomy. The last point, apparently, is easily explained:

'The most important thing you need to know before reading about all the terrible things Rob Liefeld has drawn is that he has never seen or talked to a woman in his life and has no idea what they look like or how their bodies operate. If you asked Rob Liefeld to draw a diagram of the uterus he'd put on a pair of gauntlets and punch the shit out of your chalkboard. This is how the man operates, and though I know it sounds like a lot, you have to believe me. I don't want you looking at the stuff he's drawing and think he's a conscious adult male with a creative job who can and has influenced the minds of young artists. The man is a pair of blue jeans with a face. He has on a backwards cap, and when he turns it around, it's still backwards.'

Seriously, it's priceless. And that's just his drawing. Because he wrote too...

Home is where the Books are

The Brother posted on twitter earlier to say his latest American Hell cartoon was one for book lovers. And indeed, having had a gander, it's properly bibliophilic.

Oddly, one of my shelves here in Manchester isn't wholly unlike it.

Alberta, in the middle, is, I'm sad to say, the only woman in my life nowadays. All the work stuff is on the two shelves below this one.

You'll note my effigy over on the right.

Is it 'Lent' or 'Loaned'?

Well, I'm glad to see that Rosmuc, An Aill bhuí, which I raved about here the other day, narrowly beat the equally fantastic Cliffs of Moher III in the Brother's competition.

He'd posted a set of five paintings to ask which one people thought should be put up for auction on EBay to raise money for Rape Crisis Network Ireland and St Patrick's Hospital and Marymount Hospice, the two charities supported by this year's Irish Blog Awards. It's his way of saying thanks for his paintings having been included in the event.

If you can’t join in the bidding, he says, you can still help by linking, blogging, tweeting, etc. If you can bid, though, it's surely well worth it. I mean, take a look.

Your wall'd look good around that, wouldn't it?

Having mentioned the Brother, his American Hell cartoon yesterday was a tad less bleak but rather more seasonal than usual, and it reminded me of Ardal O'Hanlon's spiel about Lent from a few years back:

One thing I found bizarre about the Catholic religion is the season of Lent, y’know, forty days, ends on Easter Sunday, and it corresponds to the time that Jesus spent fasting in the desert. You’re encouraged to make a little sacrifice during Lent, to show solidarity with Our Lord, who was cold and hungry and sandy, and all alone. And most major religions would have a period of sacrifice where they’d give up food completely and they’d nearly die of starvation, but not Catholics, ‘cause we know how to look after ourselves.

What do we give up?

Sweets.

Yeah, just ask somebody next year, ‘Ah, hello Brendan, what are you giving up for Lent?’
‘Eh, Crunchies. No more Crunchies for me for a whole month.’

Bloody hypocrite! If he really wanted to make a sacrifice he should give up something he really needs. Like oxygen, for example.

To be fair, we probably ought to be a bit tougher on ourselves than we tend to, but the Church has always recognised that people can go to extremes on this one. Indeed, if we look at the history of early Christianity, it may strike us as ascetic to a degree that may border on fanaticism, but if we compare it with the myriad other cults and heresies that sprang up at the time, what's staggering is that the Church stood against their pessimistic tide by insisting on the inherent goodness of creation, and in doing so it insisted that our sacrifices should have limits: we might deprive ourselves of the good things of this world, but we ought never to hold that the world itself was not good. To quote Chesterton, as is my wont:

The early Church was ascetic, but she proved that she was not pessimistic, simply by condemning the pessimists. The creed declared that man was sinful, but it did not declare that life was evil, and it proved it by damning those who did. The condemnation of the early heretics is itself condemned as something crabbed and narrow; but it was in truth the very proof that the Church meant to be brotherly and broad. It proved that the primitive Catholics were specially eager to explain that they did not think man utterly vile; that they did not think life incurably miserable; that they did not think marriage a sin or procreation a tragedy. They were ascetic because asceticism was the only possible purge of the sins of the world; but in the very thunder of their anathemas they affirmed for ever that their asceticism was not to be anti-human or anti-natural; that they did wish to purge the world and not destroy it.

[...]

That the early Church was itself full of an ecstatic enthusiasm for renunciation and virginity makes this distinction much more striking and not less so. It makes all the more important the place where the dogma drew the line. A man might crawl about on all fours like a beast because he was an ascetic. He might stand night and day on the top of a pillar and be adored for being an ascetic, but he could not say that the world was a mistake or the marriage state a sin without being a heretic.

Which isn't to say that we mightn't do a smidge more than refrain from Crunchies. Am I fasting, and if so from what? None of your beeswax, as they say.

Rosmuc, by Eolaí

Not that I want to be posting more than once a day, but I ought to add that the Brother is currently seeking advice on which of five of his paintings, recently displayed and apparently 'pawed all night' at the Irish Blog Awards, he ought to auction off for charity.



My choice would be this beauty, Rosmuc, An Aill bhuí, which you need to look at in its original glorious colours.

Gorgeous, eh?

The others are great too, of course, especially the one of the Cliffs of Moher. Go and have a look, and toss in your two cents' worth.

The Power of Procrastination

Last term I went to a fine talk by Jorge Cham called 'The Power of Procrastination' in which he pointed us to the glories of such arch procrastinators as Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. One he left out, though, was Leonardo da Vinci.

It seems that

'Leonardo rarely completed any of the great projects that he sketched in his notebooks. His groundbreaking research in human anatomy resulted in no publications — at least not in his lifetime. Not only did Leonardo fail to realize his potential as an engineer and a scientist, but he also spent his career hounded by creditors to whom he owed paintings and sculptures for which he had accepted payment but — for some reason — could not deliver, even when his deadline was extended by years. His surviving paintings amount to no more than 20, and five or six, including the "Mona Lisa," were still in his possession when he died. Apparently, he was still tinkering with them.

Nowadays, Leonardo might have been hired by a top research university, but it seems likely that he would have been denied tenure. He had lots of notes but relatively little to put in his portfolio.

Leonardo was the kind of person we have come to call a "genius." But he had trouble focusing for long periods on a single project. After he solved its conceptual problems, Leonardo lost interest until someone forced his hand. Even then, Leonardo often became a perfectionist about details that no one else could see, and the job just didn't get done.'

I had no idea of this, though it rather tallies with the notebooks that were on display at the Chester Beatty Library a year or so ago: page after page of densely detailed notes on hydrostatics with the occasional comment that he needed to be more organised, to manage his time better, to sort his life out.

The article's well worth reading, and makes a serious if counterintuitive case, though its definition of 'genius' is - at best - contentious.

The Thirteenth Nation

I realise it's a little bit sad, but shortly after the Euro coins became available, I became an accidental collector of them. In truth, if you've known me for long this won't really surprise you. I've had a weakness for unusual coins since I was about twelve, and having studied Roman history hasn't done anything to lessen that.

It was a casual thing, at first. I was working in the pub, infuriating customers that New Year's Day with jovial allusions to the national campaigns to get us used to our new currency; 'the Euro,' I'd say, 'your money,' as I handed over their change.

As things settled over the next week or so, I became intrigued by how different the coins could be, as coins backed with Irish harps were interspersed with ones backed with German eagles, French women, Italian artistry, sundry monarchs and heads of state, and best of all that wonderful Greek coin-within-a-coin. The Belgian coins were definitely the dullest, I decided, concluding that as the British, were they ever to get with the programme, would almost certainly decide to follow a similar pattern, it was best for now if they stayed on the sidelines, brandishing their marvellous two-pound coin.

Foreign euro coins began to accumulate on my bookshelf -- a small pile at first, and then, as I admitted what I was doing, with some speed. I was going to collect them all. Sure, I didn't stand a snowball's chance in Hell of getting my hands on the coins minted by Monaco, San Marino, and the Vatican, but surely I could just watch the tills carefully in the hope of gathering the ninety-six coins minted by the twelve members of the Union that had adopted the new currency.

Eventually, I assembled the set, the Finnish coppers being given me as a friend and the almost equally rare Luxembourg coins being acquired while waiting for a flight at Hahn airport.

Slovenia started minting Euro coins a year-and-a-half ago, but it was only yesterday that I finally saw one, eagerly plucking it from the till and chucking in a 50c of my own. Nice, isn't it? The mountain, in case you're interested, is Triglav, the highest mountain in Slovenia, which is also featured on the national flag and coat of arms, and the quote on the coin is from a famous song about the mountain by a Catholic priest who's regarded as the father of Slovenian mountaineering, and who played a key role in making Triglav central to Slovenian identity; I have no idea why the Constellation of Cancer is on the coin.

Anyway, I guess this means I have seven more coins to collect.

Happy Canada Day, by the way. Yes, I've been listening to Tragically Hip. There are some things one must do, after all.