Good at Hands: Frans Hals
The Laughing Cavalier by Frans Hals (1582-1666) is a paradigm of the immediately approachable in classical painting: the Mona Lisa of the unsubtle chuckle.
John Gray on Liberalism
John Gray demolishes the myths and self-deceptions of liberals with gleeful rhetorical flourishes. History-as-progress is bunk. Especially, the Enlightenment project of universal liberalism as the endpoint of historical progress is shot, finished, dustbinned by the intractable vagaries and contradictions of human nature and societies.
Two Funerals
On just such a November day, almost exactly 27 years ago, my father’s funeral took place. A still, bright day, low sunlight streaming through church windows.
Royal Greenwich; Van de Veldes Exhibition
For many centuries the best way to travel to the royal palace and park at Greenwich was by boat, Greenwich being in the countryside and ill-served by roads. Greenwich is still ill-served by roads, because of traffic congestion, and the quickest way to go from central or northern London is by the frequent trains. However, there are still boats.
In Memoriam Liz
A memorial service or secular event for someone you have known well is nearly always disconcerting because of the numbers of people attending that you have never met and of whose identities you have no idea.
You realise that you were just one part of your friend’s life, both temporally and socially. This should be in no way diminishing. It is equally humbling and uplifting to learn more. You leave with greater appreciation and a sadder feeling of loss.
Rawls’s Fragile Liberal State
John Rawls modelled his idea of a liberal state as a Venn diagram. Whilst the communities existing in the same state might have political, cultural or religious commitments at variance with, or even hostile to, one another, the business of the unitary state is conducted by all communities within institutions (political, legal and administrative) that all can uphold. Further, political debate is conducted according to “public reasons”- reasons that can be accepted as reasons by all communities, even where there is vehement disagreement over policy.
Thus, for example, a devout religionist should not invoke the Will of God in support of a policy, in a society where many do not follow any religion or follow a different version of God. (In the US- up to recently- and the UK ,Catholic politicians have acquiesced in, or even supported some degree of abortion rights in the public square.)
Stopovers in Northern Spain: Santander and Bilbao
Until recently, the north coast of Spain has been, for me, fly-over territory: if the weather is good, glimpses caught of the bay of Santander, far below, almost exactly an hour’s flying time until Malaga.
