Cypress swamp, Georgia, by Alex Mironyuk

Cypress swamp,  Georgia, by Alex Mironyuk

Click to enlarge.

“Palpably untrue” was all he said

From Trying to Please by John Julius Norwich.  Page 139.  On going up to Oxford.

There was, of course, a modicum of supervision; and my first priority on the day after my arrival was to call on my Moral Tutor—whose responsibility proved fortunately to be not at all what his title suggested. Morals had nothing to do with it. His job was simply to keep an eye on how I was getting on, to give advice when sought, and generally to be a friend when I needed one; and I had been delighted to learn that he was to be the great Isaiah Berlin himself. By now Isaiah already enjoyed a formidable reputation on both sides of the Atlantic; his name was normally spoken only in the most reverential of whispers. I, on the other hand, had seen quite a lot of him in Embassy days and knew just how unfrightening he really was. No one could possibly doubt the power of his intellect or deny the coruscation of his talk, but he was also a wonderful listener, with the enviable ability to bring out the best in whomever he was with. He could dazzle a dinner table with his brilliance, and two minutes later—since he was a superb raconteur—make his hearers laugh till they cried. He also happened to be a very nice man.

All this I knew from experience; but although Isaiah was, when you knew him, the least intimidating of men, many people were daunted by the prospect of meeting him for the first time. Among them was another moral pupil of his, my old Eton chum Anthony Blond. Never in the sixty-odd years that I knew him did Anthony strike me as a shrinking violet; but on our first evening at New College he confessed to me that he too had to call on the great man the following morning, and was terrified. I of course assured him that he had nothing whatever to worry about; in any case, I suggested, since our appointments were at 9 am and 9:15 am respectively, why should we not go together so that I could introduce him? He jumped at the idea, and promptly at nine the next morning we knocked on Isaiah’s door. No answer. We knocked again, once again without result; then we very gingerly opened the door into his study. It was empty, but there was another door on the far side of the room, from beyond which I thought I heard a noise, so I knocked on this as well. The answer this time was a loud grunt, followed by that unmistakable clipped bass voice calling “Come in.” In we went, and found to our horror Isaiah tucked tightly up in bed, face to the wall. “What is it?” he mumbled. I explained that we had appointments to see him, and that we had decided to come together. “My time was actually nine fifteen,” said Anthony: “I’m Blond.”

He turned and faced us for the first time, his eye lighting on Anthony’s jet black hair and swarthy complexion. “Palpably untrue” was all he said; then he turned back to the wall and went to sleep again. Our two interviews were over.

 

History

Emperor Constantine Mosaic, Hagia Sophia pic.twitter.com/kU63BoL0c9

— The Hidden Face of Istanbul (@thehiddenfaceof) February 18, 2021

 

An Insight

Petit bourgeoisie; small business owners, respect gained through their effort and earnings

Haute (upper) bourgeoisie; highly educated, respect gained through credentials and luxury beliefs https://t.co/llFfXGxm0j

— Rob Henderson (@robkhenderson) February 27, 2021

 

I see wonderful things

When the kids won’t let you sleep.. pic.twitter.com/eLlCqAAtut

— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden_) February 28, 2021

 

Offbeat Humor

Smart people: You're not dumb, the education system failed you.

Also: John von Neumann taught himself Ancient Greek at age 6.

— Alexander Kruel (@XiXiDu) February 26, 2021

 

Data Talks

Nature and nurture in early adulthood. The graph shows the extent to which individual differences in a range of traits are associated with differences in:

-genes (red)
-the family home (dark blue)
-other environmental factors + random noise (light blue)https://t.co/hxjQhD86yT pic.twitter.com/ShDMb8S2Qf

— Steve Stewart-Williams (@SteveStuWill) February 25, 2021

 

Snowfall by Natasha Newton

Snowfall by Natasha Newton

Click to enlarge.

Quotes

From Human Action by Ludwig von Mises.  Part I, Chapter 2.

Economic history is a long record of government policies that failed because they were designed with a bold disregard for the laws of economics.

 

Somewhat to my surprise got off with a reprimand.

From Trying to Please by John Julius Norwich.  Page 132.  

It seemed that we were hardly back in England before we went off again on the last of my three cruises. This time our destination was Scandinavia. The first stop was not, alas, Copenhagen but Esbjerg, a not terribly exciting city on the west coast of Jutland, about as far away from the capital as it was possible for a Danish town to be. But I had two friends, the writer Kelvin Lindemann and his wife Tot, who lived near Copenhagen and whom I had promised to visit if I could; and on the third and last day of our stay my oppo, Dental Sick Bay Attendant Tony Griffiths, and I decided to take the train across the whole country—the journey included two sea ferries—to the capital. We knew that we should have only a few hours there, but there would be time to have dinner with the Lindemanns before returning, and anyway the dubious pleasures of Esbjerg had been exhausted and there was nothing else to do. Kelvin was his country’s leading novelist, first introduced to me as “the Danish Somerset Maugham.” He was there to meet us at the station, and to tell us delightedly “all the plans he had made for the evening; and when we broke it to him that we had to leave in some four hours time his face fell. “You can’t,” he said. But then he suddenly brightened. “Don’t worry; I’ll get on to an old friend who happens to be head of the Danish Navy. He’ll telephone your Captain, who won’t be able to say no. Leave it to me.”

We left it to him. I had, I remember, considerable misgivings; departure days were always busy in the Captain’s Office. But no was clearly not going to be taken for an answer, and sure enough the Admiral telephoned back a few minutes later with the news that our leave had been extended until an hour before we sailed the following afternoon. It was midsummer; the days were long and the sun was still high in the sky when we arrived at Tivoli, a vast amusement park frequented by all classes and conditions of Dane, in which bands play, switchbacks clatter, jugglers juggle, and various other little performances go on under the trees. Several of Copenhagen’s top restaurants have branches there during the summer months. Neither London nor Paris can provide anything quite like it; perhaps the Prater in Vienna comes nearest. One of the first things that struck me was the fact that everyone was clearly having a wonderful time, slapping each other on the back and frequently shaking with laughter. A few, I suppose, were mildly drunk, but only in the nicest possible way. The prototype of the melancholy Dane was nowhere to be seen.
 
The Lindemanns gave us a glorious evening—perhaps the happiest of my naval career—before driving us back to their lovely modern house at Fredensborg for the night; and around mid-morning we boarded the train again. But when we returned, oh dear: it was naturally assumed that we had deliberately manipulated the whole thing, the Captain’s Secretary—my boss—had been up half the night doing the work I should have done, and he (and everybody else) was exhausted and understandably furious. I had, it was pointed out, put my Captain in an impossible position; this was a goodwill visit and he could hardly have refused a personal request from so exalted a source. I explained that we had never asked the admiral to act as he did, and somewhat to my surprise got off with a reprimand.