Expressionism

+I don't normally do travelogue sort of stuff on this blog but if there's a law in physics it must be that all laws are to be broken. So I'm writing here from my luxurious hotel bedroom in Copenhagen as I take a short break in the capital city of hygge. The main purpose of my visit was to go to the oddly named modern art gallery Louisiana 20 or so miles north of Copenhagen to see the final week of a William Kentridge exhibition, 'Refusal of Time.' Unfortunately I misinformed myself of its closing date, which was last month, so was to be disappointed. How did that happen? The rest that was on show didn't make up for the loss and I won't dwell on it. I did have a very nice lunch though in their cafe which overlooks the Oresund, with Sweden bathed in mist on the other side. I don't think you would find a more European place than this - I imagine a quick ferry trip from Sweden to Helsinger a short way further up the coast will bring Swedes on day trips to Louisiana. A little bit of water doesn't set them apart.
 
+Copenhagen almost has the feel of Amsterdam, but is more civilized (i.e. less crowded). Most of the bars seem to be full of locals (at least when it comes to happy hour). I noticed the high level of cycling, and further noted that (on my unscientific count) cyclists without helmets outnumbered helmeted ones 8 to 2. Much of the reason for this must be that every street has cycle lanes. It's also the case that everyone obeys traffic signals. Pedestrians wait dutifully for the green signal even when there's no traffic. What are these people taught at school? But I suspect that Danes still enjoy a sense of entitlement that comes with their relative wealth, civilisation and unthreatening global status. If you don't threaten anybody you will not have to suffer more at the most, than some patronising respect. As long as you continue to contribute your design principles in furniture and light shades.
 
+I visited the national museum of art, which is well worth a visit. But in its modern section too much space is given over to Expressionism, galleries full of dull, muddy depression and hence few viewers. How did this art ever become 'appreciated?' It defeats me. I doubt even the late lamented Brian Sewell could muster up an answer. Some art movements should be consigned to the storerooms, to be quietly forgotten. Apart from lovers of the emperor's clothes, nobody would miss them. The worst thing I have found visiting the SMK (national gallery) is that after about 11am it is taken over by adolescent school trip gangs, who find more pleasure in shattering the acoustics than appreciating dull expressionist paintings. There's never a teacher in sight to force them to wonder why pictures generally painted in different shades of manure should be so appealing to curators. There we go. You can take a donkey to the water but you can't make it drink.
 
+I shouldn't be too churlish about Labour to not recognize that some good will come of Starmer's government. I was reminded of this by this quote from Matthew Parris's memoir Chance Witness:
 
‘I was discovering that the key advantage a public school education gave a boy was a manner and a self-belief which shielded him from being found out too quickly. You often had to know an expensively educated Englishman for months, sometimes years, before you discovered he was thick. Fee-paying education was a sort of course in confidence-trickery.' (Penguin, 2003 p.116. Parris's subtitle is 'An Outsider's Life in Politics.' Never an untruer word was spoken - he only felt that way.)
 
So I'm all in favour of slapping VAT on private education. Indeed, if the product is as dire as Parris describes, private education should automatically be ruled out for charitable status. Labour won't go that far sadly.
 
+Dipping again into Parris's memoir I came across something which could be out of today's playbook, but this dates back 40 years or so:
 
. . . ' our programme [Weekend World] was centred on the aggressive stance which Israel was taking on some now forgotten Middle Eastern issue. That country's behaviour was thought hard to defend. In one of the weekly brainstorming sessions our Weekend World team would conduct to decide what to do and how to do it. I suggested that most of the rest of the media would be taking a square-on look at this controversy, and it might be more interesting, so to speak to turn our camera back on the United Kingdom, and that in pursuit of the question 'Is Zionism squandering the reserve of goodwill and sympathy upon which, ever since the Holocaust, Jewish causes and Jewish people have been able to rely?' we should interview a range of gentiles and Jews in Britain. Everyone nodded interestedly. Nothing more was said of my suggestion.' (p352  Emphasis added)
 
Parris, as presenter of Weekend World nevertheless worked with a top-notch team as two paragraphs later he says 'Do not let me paint a picture of a young TV star, his amazing ideas stifled by organisational deadbeats. My production team (which Peter Mandelson had not long left) were of high quality, many (David Aaronovich among them) going on to fame in their own right . . .(p.353) Say no more, as we say in Yorkshire.
 
 
+Hurricane Milton bore down on Florida almost immediately on the tail of Hurricane Helen. It seems to me that the Good Lord has already decided Florida should be punished. Recent polls have found an ever-growing level of support for the Rev. D. Trump. The mayor of Tampa warned residents to evacuate or die. Sounds reminiscent of New Jersey's slogan, live free or die. Is there a connection? And will all the people told to evacuate take the opportunity to vote early in mail-in ballots?