In Notting Hill; Memories of Roy Jenkins

 In Notting Hill; Memories of Roy Jenkins

 

 

 

I don’t really know the Notting Hill area of London. Until recently, I’ve only remembered having visited the Eastern periphery, over towards Queensway and Paddington. The heart of the district, Portobello Road and the terraces set round private gardens off Ladbroke Grove, were pretty much foreign territory.

Re-opening the Royal Academy - Just a Little

 What if We Reopened the Gallery and Nobody Came?

At this time of year (August/September) the Royal Academy of Arts is usually bustling, if not bursting, with visitors to the Summer Exhibition of all-comers’ art, of all qualities and none. It’s not just an exhibition to be viewed- with reverence, excitement or raised eyebrows; it’s also a fair. The art is mostly for sale. Little red “sold” dots  grow like pondweed under many of the works (especially the prints).

Walking Near Combe, West Berkshire

 Walking Near Combe, West  Berkshire

 

 

The highest point in Southern England (an area of fluid definition) is at, or vey near, Walbury Hill in West Berkshire, on the edge of that region of the Downs facing the Kennet Valley (in modern parlance, the M4 valley).

Being a Zoom Student

Being a Zoom Student Many months ago, I signed up to a summer art history course at the Courtauld Institute: a week’s intensive study of Manet and Cezanne. The course would include guided time looking at works by these artists in the Courtauld’s gem of an art gallery in Somerset House. Alas, the suffocating blanket of Lockdown fell on us all. The Summer School was in jeopardy. The Courtauld decided to move some of the courses online, including mine, discounting for the lack of the real art. So it was, in mid-July, that some 20 students filed into a virtual lecture hall via their “devices” (the preferred, rather old fashioned, word for all our phones, tablets, lap and desktops).

The Covid Trolley Problem

The Covid Trolley Problem

 

 

Every student of modern Anglophone philosophy is familiar with the “Trolley Problem”, a thought experiment designed to tease out our moral intuitions when confronted with life-and-death dilemmas. 

Hobbes's Leviathan in the time of Coronavirus

 Hobbes’s Leviathan in the Time of Coronavirus

Thomas Hobbes’s famous treatise on political philosophy, Leviathan (published 1651) has been the subject of a couple of recent articles (May 2020). In The Guardian the political philosopher David Runciman writes that the imposition of national lockdown displays the raw power of governments over their subject citizens, in ways that Hobbes would have recognised and indeed advocated.

Spanish Walk Before The Lockdown

Before the Lockdown – a Last Hike in Spain

Long ago – you must forgive my faltering memory; age and distance make things so blurred, and ancient events hold on by their fingertips, and then drop away. It must have been March 2020 (can you remember then?).

Well, in those times, I went walking in the sierra behind Nerja, guided with friendship and expertise by professional guide, John Keo.