Scuppered

Some visits i was going to do today and yesterday has been scuppered by the fact that a payment form one of my companies has not come through, although I expected and hoped it would have been yesterday. I may be able to change the ATOC jobs to another date if the research company allows me to do so..

Also the Co-op ATM is up the shoot again, so i couldn't check my balance. So I shall be relaxing today, and i might just pop over to Faversham later to sell some books and get some pipe tobacco as I have run out.

Ars Longa, Vita Brevis

I started dipping into the Modern European Art book i got in Canterbury. Having wondered at the abstract art of Rothko many years ago which was inspired and fired by me studying an O.U. Arts Foundation course, i have become an ardent advocate of contemporary art.

In terms of the Latin phrase above , art is long and has a long history but  life is short and artists die off, some to be remembered and some sadly forgotten . For me , the art of Mark Rothko is to be remembered.



Four Darks In Red 1958

From the Mark Rothko website -.

"Mark Rothko continued to simplify the compositional elements of his paintings. In 1950, he began to divide the canvas into horizontal bands of color. Despite the frontal composition and absence of spatial illusionism in these works, the broad bands of color appear simultaneously to float in front of the picture plane and to merge with the color field upon which they are place, as in Four Darks in Red. A luminosity results from the repeated layering of thin washes of paint, which allows some underpainting to show through the upper coats. In each work of this period, Rothko sought only subtle variations in proportion and color, yet achieved within this limited format a broad range of emotions and moods"

Book 26 - Gustav Temple, Vic Darkwood "The Chap Manifesto"

Gustav Temple, Vic Darkwood "The Chap Manifesto: Revolutionary Etiquette for the Modern Gentleman" (Fourth Estate)






This is a book for a tweed revolution.

As the anarcho dandyist followers attempt to spread their brand of urbane, civilised living throughout the world, they strive to enlighten those who are yet to appreciate absinthe, moustaches, houseboys and all manner of good manners. With sections on what being a chap is, how to spread civilised living throughout the world, and how to live as a chap, this is a handbook for all those who aspire to more than label-wearing, lager swilling and boorishness.


This is a clever, witty, acerbic little book. The humour is very English, which may leave some readers behind. However, this is an asset in my view, and they keep it consistent from start to finish. You may not actually learn much from this book, but that is not the point - it is a satirical look at the world, so just go along for the ride, and if you decide that moustache wearing and absinthe drinking is for you, go for it.

Following the `Manifesto' idea of the title, the layout is in circa 1950s Soviet style red and black with socialist style typeface for the chapter front pieces, which is a little incongruous compared with the suave, slightly bohemian style of Chappism. Some sections of the book are a little too dense with blocks of text, but in most places there are appropriately hilarious illustrations.

Book 27 - Lisa Randall "Higgs Discovery"

Lisa Randall "Higgs Discovery"  (Bodley Head)





Surely the smallest (48 little pages) of the opportunistic books put out just after the LHC's finding of the Higgs boson, but written by a well-qualified author. Serves nicely as an easy-reading addendum to her "Knocking on Heaven's Door" and "Warped Passages".

A personal insight into the discovery of the particle that has been confirmed as the Higgs boson, or at least the simplest type of Higgs boson that carries the Higgs mechanism which gives particles mass.

In fact, this may be the first fundamental scalar particle discovered as existent scalar particles tend to composites of quarks.In some sense , this is a truly new particle which operates with a new form of space and time symmetry, such as the theory of supersymmetry, or even of space itself such as a curled up extra dimension. It could be seen as the beginning of seeing new particles associated with the Higgs field and supersymmetric particles.

Who said that the end of science is upon us based on a law of diminishing returns.