THIS is how to mount an argument

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Observe the great Paul Krugman in action. There are no theatrical yellings, no mentions of the workhouse, no imputations of evil enjoyment. There is not any ad hominem attack at all. Krugman thinks the government is wrong, not because it is packed full of heartless Buller boys, but because its reading of the econmy is ahistorical. The worst he says is that the Chancellor believes in fairies.

Read it here:

British Fashion Victims - NYTimes.com

Things that I do not understand, numbers 5, 6 and 7

Posted by Tania Kindersley.


1. If someone told you that a group of doctors was ten years away from curing cancer with one pill, might you not hold the front page? It turns out that this is an actual news story. The BBC will run a programme on it tonight. Yet it is not mentioned anywhere in the broadsheets. Dr Ghulam Mufti, who is leading this extraordinary breakthrough, cannot compete with Wayne Rooney when it comes to headlines. (It is at moments like this that I am in grave danger of falling into the fatal Why Oh Why trap. I shall resist.) Also, in these days of Bad News, might you not be tempted to laud to the skies the fact that the eminent specialists in this radical field are British? I know that the accepted meme is that since the Chancellor started slashing about with his bloody axe we are all for the dark, but should that not mean that the tiniest crumb of good news ought to be lauded to the skies? Blighty still has world-beating scientists is the kind of headline that might bring a faint smile to our ravaged faces.

2. The current political situation seems to have put the hype back into hyperbole. I love a little hyperbole myself, and find a massive generalisation hard to resist. But I am not an elected representative or a serious political commentator. I'm not sure how it helps anything much when Tristram Hunt says that the Tory cuts will send us back to the Victorian Workhouse, or Laurie Penny calls the spending cuts 'the greatest assault on social democracy in living memory', or Polly Toynbee repeats her mantra that the difference between Labour and Tories is that the Conservatives 'enjoy' cutting, as if those evil right-wingers are having a party while the unemployed huddle sadly in dank doorways.

Over in America, the Right is indulging in even more crazy assertions. Obama is a 'racist born in Kenya who became President under false pretences'. He is compared, sometimes in the same sentence to Hitler and Stalin, also Pol Pot, just for fun. He is viewed as a Manchurian candidate, who is somehow removing America from Americans. We want our country back is the cry of the Tea Party, who devoutly believe that that evil Commie Fascist Kenyan Muslim went and stole it, probably in order to sell it to the Chinese.

I don't understand why people can't just argue the policies on the merits. I know it sounds bland and dull; so much more fun to accuse people of slashing sadism or Communist plots. It's just that the more outlandish the accusation, the less it achieves. There is a sober part of me that believes in utility, and all this intemperate shouting seems like so much sound and fury, signifying nothing.


3. Can this really be true? It just looks quite bonkersly mad, set down on the page like that.



And now, to take your mind off it all, the photographs of the day. The jury seems to be divided on whether the muted or the saturated are preferable. I keep an open mind. Today, however, I am back to singing colours, for those of you who like a full palette:












(Regard how the eyes match the colour of the fallen leaves. The chicness.)

Quick Visual Interlude

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

You know I do not usually blog on a Sunday, but I have discovered a marvellous new facility in my photograph software. It is called Tint, and you can bleach the colour out of a photograph and then slowly filter it back, so that you end up with a thrilling vintage effect. I think it makes it look as if all these photographs were taken in 1962. Usually I like my photographs singing and vivid, and if the light or the colours feel flat, my tendency is to increase the contrast so that edges are sharpened and shadows deepened. This does quite the opposite. It quiets everything down, so that we are in the land of subtlety and nuance. It is perfect for a Sunday afternoon.

See what you think:

The loveliness

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

The younger niece is home for half term, so all is joy and delight. She has the trick of bringing sunshine with her whenever she enters a room. Since the actual sun is also blasting down out of a blue autumn sky, there is an embarrassment of riches.

The particular loveliness of the niece is that she instinctively sees the good and wonderful in every person and every thing. Her first exclamations are always of the most positive kind. 'Oh I love your house,' she says, as if she had just walked into Chatsworth. It always reminds me of the Radletts arriving at Fanny's house in Love in a Cold Climate: the exclaiming. 'Look how beautiful the dogs are,' she says. 'I love those pictures, I love that photograph, I love your food.'

She is an exceptionally nice human. Niceness, as we all know, is an oddly hard trick to pull off. It can be bland, or dull, or grating, or infuriating. There are those terrible fake nicers, who put on their good humour like a hat, when you know that all the time they would like to stamp on your foot. The danger of the false note is ever present. Much easier, in some ways, to be sceptical and cynical and bitchy and even a little bitter.

With the niece, the niceness just radiates out of her, like starlight, natural and unforced. It leaves a smile on your face for hours after she has left.

Witness the loveliness:

In the interests of balance, here is the older niece, in all her equal loveliness:

And of course the lovely canines:

And here I am, the old aunt, this morning, at my desk:

I hope you are having a glorious weekend.

Yes, yes, yes, let's hear it for the dogs

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

There is almost nothing that touches the sentimental side of my heart more than seeing an elegant working dog in a war zone. This one is a particular beauty, not a million miles away in looks and confirmation from two certain ladies I could mention. I wonder if they are related?


Man's Best Bomb Detector - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan:

I LOVE these men

Here is something to warm the cockles of your Friday heart:

msnbc tv: Joel Burns and husband speak out:

(Especially watch out for the beaming smile of the gentleman on the right.)

In which I admit weakness

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

As some of you may have noticed by now, I have a fatal tendency to fall into pedantry. On and on I bang about people saying infer when they mean imply, or less when they mean fewer, or disinterested when they mean uninterested. Since it seems to be a law of the universe that all shall be hoist with their own petard, my own pedantry has snuck round and bitten me on the bottom.

Yesterday, I spelled Gandhi wrong. Put the h in the wrong place. A kind reader gently pointed this out, so I could rush to correct it. But really. One of the most important men in world history, and I got his name wrong. I am an IDIOT.

Today, I came upon the word synecdoche. It is a beautiful word; it looks so pretty on the page, and sounds so evocative and mysterious. I realised that, despite my ridiculous education, and the fact that words are my very business, I did not know what it meant. I thought about it for a while. Even in the context of the sentence it was in, I could not quite make a good guess at it. Something about a group? My mind shuttled about uselessly, like an ancient tram on a line no one uses any more.

Well, my darlings, it turns out it has about eight meanings. It can be a figure of speech where a single part is used to refer to the whole, i.e. greybeard for an old gentleman, or blue-stocking for a clever woman. Conversely, it can be where the whole is used to refer to a part: the law for a policeman. It can be the use of a specific name for a general class of thing: bug for all kinds of insect, even those which are not, in fact, bugs. Or the other way round, where the general is used for the specific: thief to refer to anything from a pickpocket to a Ponzi scheme perpetrator. It can also mean referring to a thing by the material of which it is made: steel for sword, irons for stirrups, silver for anything made of silver, from forks to candlesticks.

It is almost physical pain for me to admit that there are things like this which I do not know. But what do I think will happen, if occasionally I profess ignorance? Shall the world stop turning on its axis? Will the stars fall from the sky? Will people snigger behind their hands? Does it mean that all the things I do know are suddenly rendered moot?

One of the other things about which I bang on is the vital importance of embracing all our flaws. Sarah and I wrote almost the entire text of Backwards based on that premise. We hated the insane drive to perfection under which so many woman labour. Wouldn't it be rather lovely if I could extend this courtesy to myself? Theory and practice, I suppose, that old chestnut.

Luckily, there are some things in life which can be almost perfect, with only a little care and contemplation. I promised you pea soup, and a delightful, verdant pea soup you shall have.

Finely chop a leek; cover in chicken stock if you have it, or water with a couple of teaspoons of Marigold bouillon if you do not. Simmer for five minutes or until just soft. Add one sliced clove of garlic, a pinch of dried chilli, and two handfuls of defrosted baby peas. (I think the frozen ones are best; fresh peas do not give quite the right texture for some reason.) You may need to put in a little more liquid at this stage. Simmer again for two minutes, no more. I think the very quick cooking time is the key to this, as it keeps the flavours and the colours vivid.

Put into a liquidiser, with a gloop of olive oil, and the real secret of the whole thing: a teaspoon of sugar. I know it sounds mad, because peas are naturally sweet, but it makes all the difference. You do not taste the sugar, but it seems to bring out the full flavour of the peas. Occasionally at this stage I add a few watercress leaves, on a whim, but this is optional. Whizz up until smooth. If it is too thick, you may want to add a little more water. I like this soup quite thick, but I leave it to your discretion. You might need a pinch of sea salt. And there you are: glorious green delightfulness, in under ten minutes.

 

As always, when I embrace the idea of flaws, I like to do it properly (of course), so here, in the special Friday spirit of uninhibited imperfection are some rotten photographs. I present to you -

BLURRY DOGS:

Of course, they are so beautiful that even when out of focus they still contrive to look ravishing. Perhaps there are some things that can never be traduced.

Have a very happy Friday.

In which it turns out I may be posting more links than usual

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Another for those of you interested in American politics: the magnificent Rachel Maddow in full flow. What she has to say is shocking on about eight different levels.


Rachel Maddow: Media adopt Republican narratives for midterms

Excellent

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Good news. It turns out the Share button does work, although it only puts up a link. I had rather hoped it might copy the entire page onto the blog. Also it rather naughtily brags about how it comes from the Google Toolbar. The Google toolbar is a wonderful thing, and I am entirely dependent on it. From it, I can check my Google Reader, read the BBC news, bookmark articles I need for my work, translate a page, autofill boring forms, and now, it turns out, share vitally interesting things with you via the blog.

There is one thing about it I do not understand. It does not work with Google Chrome, which everyone says is a good browser. Google is making me choose. Why would they do something so cruel? I thought they were devoted to doing good. Silly people. As it is, I choose the toolbar, and stick with Firefox, which, for some reason, I admire but do not love.

Message for my mother: Don't worry Mum, that's the end of the obscure technical interweb talk.

Experiment

I am attempting to use the Share button. No idea what will happen. If it works, this is an excellent article on anyone interested in the American mid-term elections.

That failed stimulus | Michael Tomasky | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Universality, redux

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

I was going to do a nice soothing post about pea soup today, and give the politics a rest. However, the row over universal benefits is still rumbling on, and it is starting to make me crazy.

The reason I find it so fascinating is that it represents that kind of thinking where something is taken for granted as a Good, and even to question it makes one Bad.

Here is the premise: universal benefits, such as money for children, bus passes and winter fuel, which go to millionaires and the middle class and the poor alike, are an unqualified good. Why? Because they bind everyone into the system. And the reason that is a good thing is that otherwise welfare degenerates into a sad thing only for the indigent. A secondary ill is that recipients of welfare are stigmatised. The final nail in the argument is that Beverage said it must be thus, and Beverage was always right, as well as being an honourable and decent man.

This is the kind of argument that I once accepted without demur. It appealed to the old lefty in me. Yes, yes, Beverage said so, and we are all in it together. Hurrah.

But, once you have to think about it, because the money is running out, it seems not only an argument which should give way to pragmatism but which is actually incorrect on its face.

First, it says something very nasty about the middle classes. I've said this before, but I can't help repeating it, because it really bothers me. It says: the middle classes are so selfish and grasping and narcissistic that they will only support a welfare state which gives them fifty quid a week for their children. I think this is demonstrably not true. Not even the most heartless Home Counties plutocrat is calling for the dismantling of the entire benefit system. There might be a bit of squealing and squeaking and complaining, but the bourgeoisie is not about to tear down the walls of Jericho with its bare hands.

Second, it ignores all the other elements of universality beyond the cash in pocket elements of welfare. It writes off the health system, the public libraries, the roads, the police, the army and everything else into which our general national well-being is stitched.

Third, it makes a very weird practical assumption. The argument that if benefits are not universal they will become somehow bad, which the Shadow Chancellor insisted upon in an interview today, is really peculiar. What is going to happen? Is the government going to say: well, the middle classes are not getting any actual money, so we shall turn the whole system rotten? Are the affluent going to picket benefit offices? There is absolutely no logical reason that a welfare system which does not physically pay money to the better off should be intrinsically nasty, inefficient or third-rate.

Fourth, Beverage was a very great man. He did a very great thing. This does not mean that his words are set in stone. I expect even Gandhi or Nelson Mandela occasionally said things which were not quite correct. Some principles are set in stone. Do unto others is a pretty finite idea. Do not murder, steal or pinch other people's husbands all stand the test of time. Others may have to be adjusted to circumstance. This is not moral relativism; it is real life.

Fifth, I do not understand the stigma argument at all. Is someone who has sadly fallen on hard times going to refuse child benefit because hedge-fund managers no longer receive it? Are they going to feel like a second-class citizen because they get money for their children while the Duchess of Devonshire does not? It is a bizarre Alice in Wonderland conjecture. (There is an old self-help tradition in the British working class which does regard being on the social as a form of stigma, but this is as an objective thing rather than a relative one.)

Sixth, I think it removes equity. The new question on which every single discussion of this is begun is: what is fairness? This is asked in earnest, let's deconstruct the hell out of the thing tones. I think fairness, beyond its dictionary definition, means everyone getting a good shot, and one group of people not being penalised at the expense of another. It is treating all men and women as equals. (It is not fair, for example, that women may not be bishops or that the ladies of Saudi Arabia are not permitted to drive.) It seems to me that, in straitened times, it is not fair that the richer get cash which could go to the poorer. I'm not going all Marxist on your ass, but sometimes from each according to his ability to each according to his needs is not such a mad idea.

If you cannot get enough of this argument, which I personally cannot, there was a very interesting Moral Maze on the subject last night. I disagreed with everyone except the enchanting Matthew Taylor, who is so reasonable and interesting that he should have his very own show, in my opinion. You can listen to it here.

And now for your pictures. It is a dreich old day today; the sky is the colour of old teeth and the rain is dripping slyly off the eaves. Here are some photographs of sunnier days.

Berries:

The amazing hydrangea, still bashing on:

Trees:

And the obligatory single leaf:

No prizes for guessing what comes next:

I don't want to turn entirely into one of the really mad dog people, but would you just observe the delicately placed paws? As if she had been taking ballet or etiquette lessons. I really shall stop now, and we will say no more about it.

Money, money, money

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Ah, the intense experience of the Comprehensive Spending Review. I know, my darlings, three words that strike joy into your collective beating heart. Blighty, apparently, can think of nothing else. (It is our entire future, I suppose.) The BBC is all over it; there is rolling coverage on BBC2, Radio Four, News 24. The Twittersphere is tweeting its head off. The duelling economists, no two of whom can agree, are all pistols at dawn.

The absolute bugger of it is that I can see both arguments. You must cut because there is nothing progressive about handing on stupid levels of debt to our children. It is patently absurd to pay SIXTEEN BILLION POUNDS last month alone in interest. That's just the interest; the deficit is not being reduced. When I think of that figure, my head threatens to explode, and that would make a horrid mess. On the other hand, I also understand the fear that to cut too fast will take money out of the economy when we are still teetering on the edge of recession. I understand that real people will lose real jobs. I understand that hoping the private sector will rush into the breach is a gamble, which may not pay off.

So of course I cannot decide who is right.

All I can offer you are general impressions. There is an intemperance of language. Those who oppose the new cuts talk of slashing and burning. Those who will never do anything but hate the Tories accuse them of enjoying themselves as they 'throw half a million people out of their jobs', as if those naughty Bullingdon boys are personally going from office to office, turfing out innocent workers. (This is really stupid, and adds nothing to the argument.) There is also the the proliferation of cliché. Everyone is currently favouring the phrase 'in real terms', as opposed, presumably to unreal terms, or fantasy terms, or fake terms. Then there is 'ring-fenced', in contrast to square or rectangular fences, I assume.

Other favourites among the political classes: 'gap in provision'; 'investing in infrastructure'; the lovely 'distributional analysis'; the snarky 'deficit deniers'; and the jargonese 'modelling the impact'. Word of the day from Ed Balls is 'reckless'. He managed to say it seven times in a four minute interview. Goodness he looked pleased with himself. I wonder if he was doing it for a bet.

There was a lot of shouting in the Commons. Sometimes I am uncertain if the honourable members know what it is they are actually shouting about. Occasionally, even in these Troubled Times, someone makes a really good joke, and the entire House falls about laughing. I can't help but love it, but I do wonder what people watching from abroad make of the curious spectacle.

The moment comes for my cliché now. It is: time will tell. I feel it is a huge experiment. I really hope it will work, because you just can't go on borrowing SIXTEEN BILLION a month. Can you?

Meanwhile, in my small world, there was an unexpected snowfall. (Also, last night, such a crazy moon that it actually woke me up at 4am, shining hard through my bedroom window.) Here is what we saw on our morning walk:

After all that dashing about, there is a pause while the snow is eaten:

And then a little lie-down in the sun:

(Look at the Duchess's cross old face. Do I really have to sit for these infra dig photographs? The Pigeon on the other hand is, as usual, posing like a film star.)

Amazingly, some of the brave little flowers are still blooming:

Now I suppose I must go and see if I can work out the difference between the structural and the cyclical deficit. Happy Days.