Philobiblon

Spent an interesting if chilly evening knocking up voters for the Kentish Town council byelection. The most fascinating voter was a woman whose son answered the door and who asked me in. She was seated in a lounge chair, with Green and Labour leaflets spread in front of her. There was only two hours until the polls closed, and she would definitely vote, but she was trying to make up her mind, and really agonising over it. She grilled me on the full range of issues, the candidates etc, for at least 10 minutes.

If only all voters took such care and paid such attention.

Which brings me to the US election – you might not have a “real” vote, but you can have a virtual one.

And the KT result? Well the fact that I’m not listing it here will tell you it wasn’t a great one from my point of view. You can find it here. The Lib Dems haven’t been punished for their councillor running off to Arizona, or for their 6am day of poll leaflet delivery, which certainly annoyed one voter I spoke to who owns a small, barking dog….

Is it any wonder that they ruined the world economic system.

My 24 hours.

Intelligent Finance, a branch of Halifax, send me a letter saying “oops, we’ve forgotten to send you your annual statement. Here it is, from November 2007.”

And the Cooperative Bank, trying to sort out a little snafu, has been ringing me non-stop for days. Or at least their machine has, and the first thing it does is ask me to enter my birth date – then presumably, if I did that, it would ask me for further private data.

Such a great thing to train your customers to do – give away their personal details to a machine call. Is the Coop actually employed by Phishing-R-Us, I wonder?

Spent part of this evening watching “War & Exile”, a joint performance by a number of local arts groups in St Pancras Old Church, with donations going to the Stop The War campaign.

Some powerful words I wrote down:
* “Unspeakable grief is only a politician away.”
* “Karl Marx puked in his grave” (an interesting variation on the old spinning)
* “taught to die with their black caps askew”
* ” he has to run without his shirt”, from a translation of a Somali poem by Abdullahi Botan, who I gather lives locally.

And much enjoyed a reading from Deborah Moggach, about a housemaid watching the village horses being taken off to war (must look up some of hers).

This is possibly the first time I’ve seen an attractive neologism – “greenslide”. Okay it is only talking about the Australian Capital Territory, which is practically a local council, even if it governs the national capital, but it still reflects the broader strength of the Greens across Australia.

And nationally in Australia, it would seem the Greens are getting decent mileage out of their balance of power in the Senate (where they now have five seats, and consequently “party” status – with the resources that goes with it).

And as this piece suggestions, the political ground is moving quickly:

Definitions of radicalism can change quickly, of course. As Brown’s office reminded journalists last week, it was only five years ago that George Bush, triumphant after the invasion of Iraq, addressed a joint sitting of Parliament. The Speaker tried to eject Brown after he said: “Mr Bush, this is Australia. Respect our nation. Return our Australians from Guantanamo Bay. Respect the laws of the world and the world will respect you.”
Close to blasphemous then but who would reasonably disagree with such sentiment today?

Across the Tasman, reports from New Zealand are suggesting that the strength of the Greens might keep Labour’s Helen Clark in power (and she’s generally of the “old Labour” school, so not at all a bad thing.)

Frightening statistic of the day: consumer spending is 70% of the US economy.

‘Just as rising markets had created a “wealth effect” , declines have a “poverty effect”, making people reluctant to spend. This may affect the economy negatively by $250bn to $300bn over a one- to two-year period.’ That would be more than 2 per cent of America’s $13 trillion GDP.

(And then of course there’s the fact that consumption has to fall dramatically for environmental reasons…)

But if you want to cheer yourself up, an archaeological cutey: a 4,000-year-old gold dagger has been found in a museum drawer.

The gold pins, thought to come from Ireland, were fashioned by craftsmen in Brittany, France, and inlaid in an intricate herringbone pattern into the handle of the ceremonial dagger, which had an eight inch bronze blade.

(A distinctly European time for Britain.)

* A celebrated death penalty case: the planned execution of Troy Davis, a case that has received considerable international attention, and which clearly appears to be a miscarriage of justice, has just been stayed for the third time, each time just before a scheduled execution. As the second link there asked, must this not be called torture?

* An inside view of the life of fast food delivery men in New York. If they’re robbed, their employers make them pay the money back – and that’s only the start of the abuses. Seems the fair trade movement needs to start working at home.

* And finally a less dramatic, but sad, account from small town America – environmental degradation and the lack of government support means a sympathetic grocery store owner is the only thing that stands between many people and hunger.

Drumroll please. Break out the trumpets… the Carnival of Feminist No 67 is now up on Jump Off the Bridge.

In the final roundup before the US election, there’s much to ponder on the Palin phenomenon, but it ranges much wider than that, with a strong focus on science and “math” (or maths as I’d say), and an unusual collection of isms…

But don’t waste time over here – do go over there and check it out!

(And after you’ve done that, you might also want to check out the Military History Carnival – about much more than tin soldiers, I promise – and the recent Britblog Roundup on Redemption Blues, done in the Chameleon’s inimitable style.)

You should now be seeing “atheist buses” all over the UK after a modest campaign to counteract religious propaganda paid off (at times of writing) seven times as well as the instigator expected.

For decades I belonged in the traditional atheist camp “as long as they don’t bother me, they can believe and do what they like”, but in recent years have come around to the view that if religion is just allowed to bumble along, it does an enormous amount of harm to society, so we all have a duty to challenge it. Particularly when the government is acting (through schools, support for charities etc) as a prosthelitiser at every turn.

The bad news unfortunately reflects a victory in Northern Ireland for some of the UK’s worst religious bigots (who just happen to have backed the government on Gordon Brown’s favourite, but now-abandoned, 42 days detention proposal).

The government’s “banner-leading feminist” (huh), Harriet Harman, has blocked discussion of amendments to modernise abortion laws, and most essentially, to give women in Northern Ireland the same access to abortion as women in the rest of the UK. Now it looks like they will retain that status indefinitely. (Although I can’t help wondering if it wouldn’t be possible to do something under human rights law.)

Over on Blogcritics I’ve a review of Neil Forsyth’s John Milton: A Biography. Decent enough short popular history, pity its subject is such an unpleasant misogynist chap.

The New York Times reports on campaigns against rape, led often by the victims.

European aid agencies are spending tens of millions of dollars building new courthouses and prisons across eastern Congo, in part to punish rapists. Mobile courts are holding rape trials in villages deep in the forest that have not seen a black-robed magistrate since the Belgians ruled the country decades ago.
The American Bar Association opened a legal clinic in January specifically to help rape victims bring their cases to court. So far the work has resulted in eight convictions. Here in Bukavu, one of the biggest cities in the country, a special unit of Congolese police officers has filed 103 rape cases since the beginning of this year, more than any year in recent memory.

And the Virunga National Park has a lively new website – and it needs links for that vital Google juice.

Wace, author of Roman do Rou, which extolled the virtues of Duke Rollo, the founder of the Norman line, write:

Je parol a la riche gent
Ki unt les rentes er l’argent
Kar pur eus sunt li livre fait.

(I write for the rich people, who have the rents and the money, for it is for them that books are made.)
… for which increasing substitute “the supermarkets”, and you’re just about there….
(From A Short History of French Literature by Geoffrey Brereton)

Notes from Living in the Morvan: Our Region’s Heritage: Guide to Renovation and Construction

Recommends for serious reading Marcel Vigreux’s Paysans et notables en Morvan au XiXth siecle jusqu’en 1914 “that gives us the keys to understand the men and the architecture of the Morvan at its zenith, the period when many of its homes were built”.

Suggests a typical farm of mid to late 1800s – couple, four children, who raise a cow, a pig, two goats, some rabbits, chicken and guinea fowl and on three acres grows rye, oats, buckwheat, potatoes and help, depending on the year. Has apple trees and beside them keeps bees. Man also works odd jobs, including floating logs on the river (which no doubt left the wife doing the bulk of the farm work. On the “ouche” (common garden?) everyone grows potatoes, and vegetable garden is women’s preserve.

Since them has been a “closure” of the landscape – with the abandonment of arable land and the integration of conifers into hardwood forest.

Houses are “often turned away from the North wing and the hard rain of the West”.

Arene is decomposed granite that is almost like sand. It is used mixed with clay soil or lime to make mortar.

A day labourer’s cottage would be just one room, originally houses had a thatched roof (chaume), so they came to be known as chaumiere.

A small farmer would have a block type house, with the cottage attached to a barn and cowshed.
Usually there would be 2 to 10 hectares of land with it.

The six-pane window is typical of most historic Morvan architecture, with a short lintel for economy. The model is of a man standing up to look out, but even seated the one meter high breast wall allows a view. Ideally the surround is dressed stone, or otherwise roughened concrete imitating this. (Village houses or mansions demonstrate they are showier with eight-pain windows.)
Normally there are very few openings in the gables – if inserting should be approached in the spirit of hayloft doors or aeration gaps “trous de chouan” – nesting spots for the barred owl.)
Shutters should have two crossbars and a top rail. Not – it is stressed diagonal “Z” braces in a colour that contrasts with the wood. They must be painted.

Inserting wall dormers – mistakes to avoid include one that is wider than high, making a shed dormer (imported from eastern France) and a skylight (Velux) larger than 78x98cm or in a horizontal format.

Traditional low bushy hedges – fly honeysuckle, common dogwood, raspberry bush, whortleberry, “toujours vert” rose tree, round-ear willow, common privet, wayfaring tree.
Traditional trimmed hedges – hawthorn, box, common oak, pedunculate oak, hornbeam, barberry, hedge maple, gooseberry bush, holly, yew, common privet, beech.

“White is not typically Morvan.” The tones of limes and local sands go well with a range of colours from green-grey to blue-grey. Also can use golden beige and greige “warm beige”.

Declaration de travaux (Declaration of building alterations) for small projects that do not create floor space, or that create a space less than 20m square. Need three copies with a map of the area, scale 1:5000 to 1:25,000, a dimensional site map on scale 1:200 to 1:500. Drawings, sections and facade drawings, scale 1:100 to 1:50. Photographs.

Expect a response in one month, or two months if there is a need for external consultations.
(When this book was printed anyway, free consultations with architects at the Parc du Morvan, Saint-Brisson, www.parcdumorvan.org.)

Why you wonder, the interest, well this is now my new “maison de vacance”…

… one room, literally, at the moment, but the good news is the 50s woodfired cooker and chimney seems to work fine, its pretty cosy. The bad – well there’s a fine crop of stinging nettles in the garden, and I haven’t tackled the attic yet, likely to be filled with some unpleasant items, judging on what was in the house…

And the Morvan looks lovely now – stand by for an “autumn colours” picture post.