The Tudors were a family not disinclined to eat their own if threatened which made them both entertaining and engaging.  The current royals pale in comparison, perhaps because of all the German dilution.  Sadly we can only stand back and watch as the English pride in their royals wains.  Because of the dreary state of English affairs, Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall is a welcomed read.

Our hero in the novel is not Henry VIII or Anne Boleyn although she comes in a strong second, it is the down and dirty street fighter Thomas Cromwell who makes himself the consummate royal councilor.  Cromwell eventually learns how to take the sludge and emesis, the animal and human waste of the Thames and make a very saleable wine of it.  His trick of survival was to never drink more than a ceremonial sip while others indulged themselves.

If in the past you have stumbled over the large cast of Tudor characters, the author has come to your aid by providing lists of characters and the family shrubbery of the Tudors.  Even so it is a hopeless task to try to understand how the English run a government.  Based on how they function at home it must have taken divine intervention for them to clutch their first colony let alone something approaching an empire.

  This leads to my theory on the nurturing of Shakespeare, yet another reason to enjoy reading about Thomas Cromwell and associates.  It was the fractious, bloody, in-your-face people with a language held together by thievery and the unwashed of street and tavern that brewed the right amount of vitamins, minerals, proteins, and hormones to give William Shakespeare the superior edge on stage.

For the main characters of the novel there are Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII as you would expect.  Then there are the queens Thomas Wolsey, Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, and Thomas More.  It is any wonder that by the end of the book, two had a forced exit with more to follow.  Peace and tranquility require one and only one queen.  Charles Marlin and John Hink

Robert Service’s new biography of Trotsky is reviewed in today’s Wall Street Journal. Having read Service’s excellent biography of Lenin a few years ago, this seems like a book worth reading. Joshua Rubenstein’s thoughtful review touches on some thoughts about socialism and socialists.

Socialism had three major failings. The first is what economists study most closely. It is the impossibility of economic calculation under socialism, because of the rejection of prices and money as a medium of exchange. Whether you support socialist ideals or not, it is literally impossible to achieve. Do away with prices and currency, and they will emerge in a different form. They are part of human society.

The second aspect of socialism intrigues philosophers: socialism genuinely sought to change human nature itself. People as they currently are are in no shape to realize Marx’s vision of communist society. So part of the communist program was to actively mold and change people so that vision could one day become a reality.

Before Marx came along, Plato’s Republic and Thomas More’s Utopia were also written about societies with a fundamentally changed human nature. More, knowing his ideal to be impossible, coined the word “utopia,” which literally means “no place.” His book is a pleasant dream (for a collectivist at least), but More knew it was one that could ever come true. We are they way we are. And we’re stuck that way, for better or worse.

This leads us to the third aspect of socialism, which most concerns Trotsky. This is, for me, the most remarkable part, and the most chilling. It is the sheer violence that accompanied Marxism-Leninism everywhere it was tried. And I mean everywhere. Every single country to adopt communism had a checkered human rights record. No exceptions. Not one had anything resembling freedom of speech or press, or due process, or property rights.

Most historians now estimate that communist governments killed around 100,000,000 people. Mostly their own citizens. At no other point in human history have governments been so murderous of their own people. No other ideology has had consequences so bloody as Marxism and its variants.

One reason for the violence is that it allowed the governments to maintain power; resistance is less likely when the prevailing climate is of fear. Another is that human nature is stubborn. If it is to be changed, force is required. But, of course, the basic tenets of humanity are immutable. We are who we are.

Communist leaders, including Trotsky, were simply chilling. Many of them come off as sadists. They seemed to actually enjoy bloodshed. Revel in it. Yet Trotsky still has his admirers today. They need to answer for why they look up to someone who would even have thoughts like the following, let alone give voice to such brutish impulses in public speeches:

“The strength of the French Revolution,” he shouted to a group of revolutionary sailors, “was in the machine that made the enemies of the people shorter by a head. This is a fine device. We must have it in every city.” And have it they did. Once in power, Trotsky advocated show trials and the execution of political prisoners; he suppressed other socialist parties and independent trade unions; he pushed for the censorship of art that did not support the revolution; and he created the institutions of repression that were later turned against him and his followers.

Today was one of the best days in my life.

Thank you Tim Draimin, Executive Director of SiG for extending an invitation to the Public Policy Forum today regarding: “Accelerating Social Innovation.” I am further grateful to Ilse Treurnicht at MaRS (for her stewardship and guidance through these treacherous waters). Also David J. Mitchell, President and CEO of the Public Policy Forum for assembling such a stellar group of people and organizations.

It was a transformative event. I met numerous people who are all working toward impactful and meaningful change in the way that business, government and the not for profit world operate.

I was approached for advice and counsel by members of the Federal and Provincial Government, business and NFPs and feel that I was given a beautiful gift by Tim Draimin (and Ilse) SiG and MaRS in extending me the invite.

In the coming days I will explore in detail the experience through the lenses of: collaboration, vision, leadership, capacity, risk, convergence, communications, culture and sustainability.

Today it seems, toothpicks in my eyes, the world of social innovation became much clearer. The depth and caliber of people I met reassure me as to the direction I have chosen to take and have further revealed that this is a transformative issue of our time.

“To be educated, a person doesn’t have to know much or be informed, but he or she does have to have been exposed vulnerably to the transformative events of an engaged human life.” Thomas More

Be Inspired Today!

The New Currency SDM “Change…At the Speed of Thought”

So I’m done with my deadline. First time I’ve ever been ahead of schedule on that. Usually I’m doing things right up to the minute. I’m kind of bored lately, I realized. There’s nothing I want to do. Why? I used to always be doing something. Reading, writing, drawing..but no. I need to know why so I can fix it. I hate being this idle.

Being idle reminds me of that More book Utopia. I wrote a two page paper all about what my Utopia would be. Personally I think I’d hate living in his world. A lot. It sounds so dull and I say things sometimes to the affect of I wish life was dull and predictable and ‘dependable’ but I think I’d get bored so quickly. I think I need a certain level of freedom, spontaneity and uncertainty in life. Not all the time, mind you, but some of the time…yeah. It feels good. Makes me feel more alive.

What was this post about, even? Oh, have I mentioned that I’m doing things with my guitar again? Yup. Hard at work.  Stretching my fingers to make it easier for chords. I have a long way to go. Here, look at how I stretch my fingers. It yields amazing results!

Av alla vägar som leder till en kvinnas kärlek är medlidandet fågelvägen. (Sir Thomas More)

Sir Thomas More’s classic work Utopia (I used the translation done by Robert M. Adams) has, at times, been thought to contain elements of communism. One might argue that what More calls Utopia is in fact, to a certain extent, a communist society in the truest sense of the term. While there is evidence within the book for such an assertion, there are also aspects of Utopia that make it implausible for it to be considered a communist society.

First, let us consider the evidence that might lead one to conclude that Utopia is a communist paradise. More had no problem openly admitting that he believed that “unless private property is entirely done away with, there can be no fair or just distribution of goods, nor can mankind be happily governed (Adams, p. 31).” In the same vein, he suggested that laws could be created to limit the accumulation of property. Of course, More was careful to temper his assertion by admitting that private property “cannot be entirely removed (Adams, p. 31).”

The governing structure of Utopia is also vaguely socialistic in nature, and in fact Adams refers to the former USSR’s “managerial class” (Adams, p. 43) as being roughly analogous to Utopia’s system. In Utopia, local groups of houses elected a group of governing officials, who in turn elected a prince. This is remarkably similar to the Soviet system of workers councils (although in the case of Utopia it was groups of households) that elected communist party members (in theory, if not always in practice), who then elected a premier.

Another interesting feature of Utopia is that the citizens practice more than one trade. They are not necessarily bound to pursue the occupations of their parents. Although the state has some control over a person’s trade, a Utopian has the ability to stop one trade and pursue another, provided that the government does not need his services in his original trade (Adams, p. 40). Karl Marx discussed the concept of alienation from labor in capitalist societies (especially in his 1844 Manuscripts) by which he meant that workers would lose control over their own lives if they could not have any control over their jobs or what they produced. However, in Utopia, this alienation does not exist, or at least not on the same scale as Marx envisioned capitalism as causing. Utopians have some degree of control over their own work, in that they can, if the government has no particular need, leave their occupations and learn new ones freely. Consider the following quote: “But no one has to exhaust himself with endless toil from early morning to late at night, as if he were a beast of burden. Such wretchedness, really worse than slavery, is the common lot of workmen in all countries, except Utopia (Adams, p. 40-41).” Marx would probably have characterized such “endless toil” and “slavery” as being part of a capitalist system, but Utopians are free from such burdens. In this sense, they are closer to Marx’s vision of a communist society where such alienation does not exist.

Perhaps the one characteristic of Utopia which could lead one to describe it as a communist society is the fact that the citizens not only work in accordance with their particular talents, but they all get everything that they need. The Marxist principle “from each according to ability to each according to his need” is particularly relevant here. In Utopian marketplaces, there is always an abundance of goods. There is no need to steal or be greedy because each Utopian will always have enough (Adams, p. 45-46). Everyone has what they need, and everyone can work (for the most part) in the trade that they can do their best in.

Despite the features of Utopia that are indeed communist to some extent, the society cannot be fully communist due to the definition of communism. Marx did not provide too many details about exactly what a communist society would actually look like, but he predicted that communism, in its final form, would be a classless society where the government would “wither away.” The political apparatus of the state would, in effect, no longer need to exist. Utopia, however, had a functioning government, and there were in fact classes. The classes may not have been completely economic in nature (i.e. the Utopian priesthood, which is probably something that Marx would not himself have envisioned in a communist society, considering his assertion about religion being the “opium of the masses”), but if there is a prince in Utopia, even if an elected one, then there is still a hierarchy and thus not all Utopians can be said to be truly equal. Perhaps communism, like Utopia itself, is something that can be conceived of like the horizon. One can move toward it, but never actually reach it.

Utopia shares some of the hallmark features of a communist society as envisioned by Karl Marx. Property is owned in common (although More admits that, in practice, this would be impossible to completely enforce), the government shares some characteristics in common with the former Soviet Union, alienation from labor is markedly reduced if not eliminated and “from each according to his ability to each according to his need” is the law of the land. However, the presence of a governing authority and ruling classes makes it impossible for Utopia, like any present-day society that claims to be communist, to be completely communist in the sense that Karl Marx envisioned it, since communism is a classless society with no need for a government. Ultimately, true communism is like Utopia: it does not really exist and never has existed.

Copyright © 2009 neverwalkaway.wordpress.com. All Rights Reserved.

ATENÇÃO

A partir de hoje o blog continua em novo endereço:

http://faceaovento.wordpress.com

TODAS AS ATUALIZAÇÕES, BEM COMO O CONTEÚDO ANTIGO, ESTÃO DISPONÍVEIS NO NOVO ENDEREÇO.

Um forte abraço,
Orlando Brunet Filho

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Lincoln’s Inn  is one of four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray’s Inn. Lincoln’s Inn is able to trace its official records to 1422.   T he Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn is said to take its name from Henry de Lacy, 3rd Earl of Lincoln who died in 1311. His own great house was nearby and he is credited with being the Society’s patron. However, the origins of the name may as easily be derived from Robert de Chesney Bishop of Lincoln who acquired the ‘old Temple’ on the site in 1161. The present character of Lincoln’s Inn owes much to the fact that its precincts and buildings – the medieval Hall and Gateway abutting onto Chancery Lane, the late seventeenth century New Square in the centre, and the magnificent Victorian gothic Great Hall and Library beside Lincoln’s Inn Fields – survived nearly unscathed the devastations of the Blitz. Striking as they are, these buildings however are not merely architectural and historical tourist attractions but provide the professional home for the practicing bar and many of the educational facilities for the training of students. It is to meet those needs that the Inn exists and on which it expends the bulk of its resources.

Fifteen English Prime Ministers, from William Pitt to Tony Blair, have studied law here. The names of the novelists Charles Reade, Charles Kingsley, Wilkie Collins, Rider Haggard and John Galsworthy are all found in the membership records. The poet and preacher John Donne was Preacher to the Society and laid the foundation stone of the present Chapel, built in 1623. Thomas More, the author, humanist scholar and statesman, was admitted as a student in 1496 and went on to become a bencher of the Inn.

I just love its soft, old, stones and visit when I can just to wander quietly among its courts.  If you come to London – don’t miss its gentle peace and spirit of its gentle ghosts

From left to right, top to bottom: Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell, and of course Henry VIII and Cranmer (the one who managed to survive only to be burned by Henry’s daughter).

Ah, the promised “Dead Men Tell no Tales” comic. The quote that is referenced in this has absolutely nothing to do with Tudor England but rather 1970’s Cold War England which….are actually quite similar in some regards. The paranoia being one, and the backstabbing. But then, that’s pretty par for the course in any era.
The actual quote is from John le Carre’s “Tinker Tailor Solider Spy”:
“I’m surprised they didn’t sack you with the rest of us. You had all the qualifications for it, loyal, good at what you do, discreet…”
Or something to that extent, I don’t have the exact quote to hand.
Really though, Henry should not have killed off those three men. I mean, they would have eventually picked each other off and saved him the hard work.

Next week: Hussites!

I’ve seen every episode of Arrested Development. I’ve seen nearly every episode of Seinfeld but am delighted when I catch one that I haven’t seen. I’ve seen every episode of The Office and am very excited about the new season (Pam and Jim are having a baby!)

Other than that, it takes a lot for me to get hooked to a show. I suppose when it comes to TV watching, I’m unpredictable and picky about what I watch. I don’t watch a lot of TV, but when I do it’s usually something along the lines of TLC, OLN, the Discovery Channel or HGTV. I can’t get into those teeny-trashy shows like Laguna Beach, The Hills, The OC, One Tree Hill, The Slut Next Door … whatever. Reality shows like The Bachelor and Big Brother make me long for lost time and brain cells and every crime scene investigation or detective/murder mystery show comes back to haunt me everytime I’m at home alone.

This is why I’m pleasantly surprised to find a new show in my life. I watched a random episode on CBC a few weeks ago and have been trying to catch up online every since, starting at the beginning (while I write this, I’m a few episodes into the second season.) 

The Tudors, my friends, is absolutely fantastic.

heads will roll ...

There are many reasons to love The Tudors.  It’s entertaining, gorgeously shot and choreographed, the set and costumes are stunning, and everyone from Charles Brandon to Thomas Cromwell is very, very attractive.  

And it’s sexy.  What better way to get women–from the literary/history buff booknerds who drool over Mr. Darcy, to the teeny bopper adolescents who drool over Edward Cullen–into a tumultuous time in Europe’s history than casting Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as the somewhat-tyrannical, womanizing, infamous English king?

Aesthetics aside, the show is written in such a way as to illicit sympathy for even the most despicable characters (namely, Henry VIII himself).  There is an ambivalence to each character; there are no “good guys” or “bad guys” the way there would be in a crime scene drama.  Everyone is painted equally with the same grey strokes.  My view of the Tudor dynasty was previously shaped by my reading of The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory a few years ago: Henry VIII was an arrogant brat who got whatever/whomever he wanted and threw tantrums if he didn’t, and Katherine of Aragon was a devout and eternally good woman who was unfairly cast aside for the manipulative social-climbing of clever slut Anne Boleyn.  Watching the show has caused me to rethink these preconceived notions and even, at times, feel sympathy for Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn (I was an absolute wreck during the scene of her beheading and for an hour afterwards.  Girlfriend didn’t deserve that, even if she did steal Henry away from Queen Katherine.  And no, I didn’t spoil the end of season 2 because if you know your history, you’d know that it was coming).

Speaking of history, the fact that I know a bit about the Tudor Dynasty doesn’t make the show any less entertaining.  I knew Sir Thomas More (played by the handsome Jeremy Northam) eventually falls from the king’s favour because of his unwavering faith in the Catholic Church and its authority; that Anne Boleyn ceases to hold the king’s affection largely because she cannot produce a male heir; that she is beheaded, etc.  However, I still find myself glued to my seat and watching episode after episode on my laptop, getting so into it that at one point, following a particularly scathing rip at the Catholic Church by Thomas Boleyn to Spanish Ambassador Chapuys, I yelled, “Oh snap!”  The neighbours upstairs must think I’m nuts.

Of course, there are departures from history, but that is to be expected.  If we view history as malleable, as facts on which stories can be built, then the series is doing its job very well.  Nothing is ever 100% historically accurate, because then we’d never watch it.

I do have a couple issues, though, which are small, but issues nonetheless.

First of all, there’s a lot of bed-hopping going on.  Sometimes, the love scenes are racy enough to make me blush and turn the Mute button on if I’m not home alone.  This is nothing out of the ordinary for Showtime, but the pristine CBC?  Tsk tsk tsk.  You naughty network!  … But that’s not my issue.  My issue is how these people, in a time before vaccinations and reliable contraceptives and precautionary measure-type things weren’t contracting more sexual diseases, especially Charles Brandon (in Season 1, before he gets married for the second time) and Henry VIII (throughout the entire series).  Maybe their wealth and high status gave them access to the best physicians and medicines at that time, but still … this was the 16th century.  People weren’t exactly glowing examples of sexual cleanliness back then.  

Secondly, the Boleyn sisters (especially Mary) have a reputation for being promiscuous before their respective marriages, when they’re teenagers.  Mary is said to have slept with a great many men, including the king of France, while Anne, despite defending her virginity to Henry and a skeptical court, is said to have slept with the married poet, Thomas Wyatt, before her marriage to the king.  All while their scheming father encourages them to use their seductive powers to get what they want and rise to the top.  Correct me if I’m wrong, but female virginity has historically been of the utmost preeminence and a selling point in the marriage market.  Wouldn’t Papa Boleyn have been a little more careful and investing in some foolproof chastity belts if he wanted his daughters to advance as much as he did?

The second issue perhaps rises from a personal bias.  Despite the fact that each character is portrayed in the most human way possible, I’m beginning to detect some anti-Protestant sentiments.  The religious politics at that time were messy, and Henry VIII is always snidely said to have become a Protestant in order to defend his divorce to Queen Katherine, but no side is any better than the other.  In the series, however, the unwavering Catholic characters (namely, Katherine, Thomas More, Bishop Fisher) are portrayed as steadfast saints, martyrs for the authority of the Roman Catholic Church.  The Protestants (Cromwell, the Boleyns, etc.) are manipulative, sneaky, sadistic, power-hungry and are always suited entirely in black, a detail that did not go unnoticed by me.  Research (thanks wikipedia), led me to discover that the series is Irish-produced, which may explain the anti-Protestant undercurrent, depending on if it’s Northern Ireland or the Republic of.

As an irreligious Protestant fascinated by but slightly uneasy about Catholicism, it pains me a little bit to see the early Reformers as such a violent, intolerant people.  Then again, as The Tudors will show you (with a slight bias), violence and intolerance were on both sides.

1538,Londres, National Gallery.Huile sur bois, 179×82cm.

  Un peintre allemand, qui, au terme d’un séjour en Suisse, se met au service du roi d’Angleterre, pour lequel il se rend en Flandre afin de réaliser le portrait d’une duchesse danoise, dont l’autorité s’exerce sur le duché de Milan : décidément, l’Europe humaniste du XVIe siècle préfigure notre géographie désormais sans frontière, et ce n’est d’ailleurs pas un hasard si le premier grand programme européen en matière d’éducation supérieure a choisi le nom d’Erasmus.

       De fait, Holbein le Jeune, qui appartient justement au cercle des amis d’Erasme, se rattache naturellement à ces artistes représentatifs du courant humaniste, où la mobilité des hommes  épouse celle des idées.
   
      Mais c’est à une autre grande figure de l’humanisme, Thomas More, qu’Holbein doit sans doute son introduction dans le milieu londonien : Deux années d’exil (1526-1528), salutaire au regard des événements liés à la Réforme, puis, après un retour à Bâle, une longue période dans la capitale anglaise (1532-1543) où il trouve la protection influente de la ligue hanséatique, dont il multiplie les portraits de ses représentants, et bien sur, du roi lui-même.
      Terrible privilège que de servir les intérêts d’Henri VIII (fig.1), surtout lorsqu’il s’agit d’aller peindre le portrait d’une future épouse ! Après Catherine d’Aragon, dont le mariage fut annulé, Anne Boleyn, décapitée, et Jeanne Seymour, décédée en couches, Henri VIII jette son dévolu sur une jeune veuve, alors duchesse de Milan : Christine de Danemark.

Fig.1.Portrait d’Henri VIII d’Holbein.1536,Madrid, Musée Thyssen-Bornemisza. 

 
      Il charge ainsi Holbein de se rendre à Bruxelles (mars 1538) afin de la rencontrer. Après l’envoi d’un dessin de son visage, le roi, aussitôt satisfait, ordonne la réalisation d’un portrait peint en pied. Mission délicate, parce qu’en l’occurrence, Christine ne manifeste aucun enthousiasme à l’idée d’épouser La Barbe Bleue… Sauf que pour Holbein, dont la pérennité de la collaboration avec son illustre protecteur dépend étroitement de l’entière satisfaction de celui-ci, il ne suffit pas d’exprimer son génie – étrange paradoxe des enjeux d’une peinture de cour  -  mais de rendre compte avec précision des charmes supposés de Christine. Holbein, peintre soumis aux nécessités de la neutralité, est-ce seulement envisageable?
      Qu’il suffise de rappeler le fiasco ultérieur d’Anne de Clèves – autre portrait pour un autre mariage (fig.2)– qui marque la fin brutale d’Holbein en tant que peintre du roi, parce que l’ingéniosité et les artifices déployés par l’artiste ont fini par tromper l’appréciation du roi lui-même, au point de l’épouser sans l’avoir vue. De fait, celle qu’il qualifie de « grosse jument des Flandres » lorsqu’il la rencontre pour la première fois, demeure  son épouse la plus éphémère, répudiée au bout de six mois.       

Fig.2.Portrait d’Anne de Clèves d’Holbein.1538,Paris, Musée du Louvre. 

      Malgré une abondante littérature, complaisamment très diserte dès qu’il s’agit de la notion du temps dans la peinture,  singulièrement, dans le portrait, et qui ne se lasse pas d’évoquer la fugacité de l’instant (vieux poncif qui rejoint invariablement celui de l’éternité !), un portrait peint, n’en déplaise à ces chimères, ne capture jamais son modèle dans l’instant. Il nous livre une succession d’instantanés, cristallisés dans la durée de son exécution. Et, au risque d’irriter les esprits éthérés, il faut sans cesse rappeler la prosaïque formule de Maurice Denis, pour qui un tableau c’est avant tout « une surface plane, recouverte de couleurs en un certain ordre assemblées ».  Parce que le peintre demeure précisément soumis aux contingences des interactions permanentes de la matière avec l’espace et le temps, il recompose en une seule image des épisodes plus ou moins brefs, de postures, de visages ou de mains, alchimie plastique autant de la restitution du réel que de la réappropriation de segments de temps, dont l’ensemble constitue la matrice formelle de la psychologie de son modèle.

      Tableau magistral par la rigoureuse économie des moyens, avec un support spatial et chromatique qui confine à l’abstraction. Surface où le noir jette son ombre sur le fond turquoise (malheureusement impossible à distinguer sur notre photo) mais également, surface littéralement éblouie par l’éclat des blancs de ce visage et de ces mains, chapelet insulaire de nacre et d’ivoire.

      Il faut nous rendre à cette évidence : les portraits ont toujours une histoire  intime, et toujours, celle-ci nous fera défaut.

      Lors de la séance de pose, qui s’apparente à une étrange confrontation silencieuse, Christine, fixant Holbein du regard, ne cesse de voir Henri VIII, parce que dans cette géométrie du triangle, c’est bien l’absent qui impose de son autorité sans nuance les enjeux du portrait. 
  
      Que signifient cette bouche, dont le sourire, malgré la convenance, traduit un secret mépris pour son destinataire, et ce regard froid et déterminé (fig.3), sinon la marque implicite du refus? Regard distancié, corroboré par la position de ces bras, relevés sur l’abdomen, qui traduisent davantage une protection qu’une soumission.   

Fig.3

      Holbein, en représentant la main droite de la veuve avec l’auriculaire légèrement écarté, semble exprimer une certaine contrariété, du moins une évidente tension : celle d’une femme naturellement peu enthousiaste à la perspective d’épouser Henri VIII et qui ne craint pas, avec la connivence discrète de l’artiste, d’exposer ses réserves. Mais, puisqu’il s’agit d’une recomposition d’ensemble de la psychologie du personnage en constant rapport avec la fonction initiale du tableau, Holbein utilise la main gauche de Christine pour exprimer les vertus inhérentes à la future épouse : attente et retenue. Voyez l’auriculaire et l’annulaire repliés, tandis que le majeur et l’index semblent vouloir dompter l’autre main rebelle (fig.4).
       Ces mains qui prolongent les intentions de ce visage de faïence, procèdent  ainsi autant d’un code de convention que de sa transgression.

Fig.4

      Dans quelle mesure le tableau d’Holbein a-t-il contribué à suspendre le projet matrimonial d’Henri VIII, qui avait, il est vrai, multiplié les démarches dans toute les cours d’Europe ? Que m’importe au fond le dessous des cartes : comme un enfant impatient de connaitre la fin de l’histoire, j’aime à penser que la princesse, plus rusée que Barbe Bleue, soit parvenue à sortir du terrible conte avant d’en subir les irréparables effets.

          Mais  nous avons aussi appris, depuis Théophile Gautier, à nous réjouir de la gratuité des images, désormais libérées de leur fonction première. Ces images, qui semblent prétendre à une existence autonome, agissent comme un stimulant sans cesse renouvelé de l’imaginaire et constituent désormais autant d’offrandes oniriques à nos regards.
      Ainsi en est-il de la précieuse étoffe noire, dont les contours soyeux (fig.5) dessinent les échancrures d’un littoral chimérique, baigné d’eaux jaunies et limoneuses, géographie improbable d’une thébaïde équatoriale.

Fig.5

How could any woman say no?

Routes 11, 344 (2 hours 12 minutes)

Route 11 is a marquee route. One for the show-reel. It’s stunning.

Starting outside Fulham Town Hall, it quickly heads east up the King’s Road to Sloane Square into Pimlico, past Victoria and into Westminster. It circles Parliament Square before heading up Whitehall, past Horse Guards Parade and into Trafalgar Square. Then comes The Strand, Drury Lane and Fleet Street before heading into The City and St Paul’s, Bank and Threadneedle Street and terminating at Liverpool Street. It’s 73 minutes right through the heart of London and as such a little difficult to write about because it sails past landmark upon famous landmark. What is there to say about the Houses of Parliament? Apart from the fact I still think Big Ben looks like it’s made out of matchsticks.

Today though, it’s raining, so the shine is somewhat removed, even on King’s Road, which runs for about two and-a-half miles which runs from Fulham through the heart of Chelsea to Eaton Square, was a private road right up until 1830. Until then, it had been the road Charles II used to travel to Hampton Court, while George III liked to use it to get to Kew. These days, as befits its royal pedigree, it is largely full of boutique shops, beauty salons, art galleries and antique shops, or in some cases, a combination of all of the above. Only as you reach the eastern end of the road do more familiar high street names start to make an appearance.

Typical of King's Road

Then it is into the somewhat undefined area of Pimlico and past Victoria Coach Station, where many an hour was spent in my youth waiting for connecting National Express coaches on my way to and from University. I still have the top deck to myself as Westminster Abbey marks our entrance to Parliament Square, the sky a portentious (my dictionary insists this is not a word, but I disagree. I like it) deep grey.

But traffic is unusually light, so Whitehall is soon upon us, the government offices fronted by statues such as Earl Haig and Field Marshall Montgomery. War memorials standing proudly in the middle of the road. Horse Guards Parade is full of tourists as a man uses a mirror to check underneath a van waiting to enter Downing Street. Then it is right at Trafalgar Square onto The Strand and into Aldwych. The theatres of Drury Lane pass on the left before a familiar road is found. Fleet Street. Here, a man displays absolutely no chivalry by holding an umbrella over his head but not that of his female companion. I tut disapprovingly, not least because she is, well… I’ll leave it there. Anyway, this is at least the third time I have been up here and past Ludgate Circus to St Paul’s, but I love it. It reeks of history and gin-soaked press copy of years gone by. Then it’s past Bank and into Threadneedle Street, with Liverpool Street quickly arriving.

Yep, the No 11 is a tourist dream, surely no other route passes so many landmarks? It almost feels like cheating and there’s certainly not a great deal that can be added to the thousands of tourist guides that document these features. No, I said at the start of this quest that I would probably find meaning as I went, and it appears my calling remains with the mundane, the unseen and the unloved.

Liverpool Street has an interesting monument outside the entrance though. The Children of the Kindertransport serves as a mark of gratitude “to the people of Britain for saving the lives of 10,000 unaccompanied mainly Jewish children who fled from Nazi persecution in 1938 and 1939.”

Children of the Kindertransport

I take a look inside the station, it’s platforms well below ground level. Until recently it was the location of a T-Mobile ad in their current horrific campaign to hijack the very modern pursuit of flashmobbing. I have been to one flashmob, back in December 2004. It was a pillow fight outside the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. Everyone had to be there by 6pm, but were not allowed to have a pillow in view. Then, at 6pm precisely, about 300 strangers removed pillows from their rucksacks and started hitting each other for 10 minutes, much to the utter bemusement of American tourists. It was a glorious moment and it’s taken corporate wankers a few years to remove any sense of spirit from the whole enterprise. They’ll be onto parkour next.

Look at those eyes, ready to batter a stranger

Anyway, Liverpool Street is a grand old red-brick station and stands proudly in the shadow of the Gherkin and The City’s shiny towers thanks largely to a £65m refurbishment in 2000.

Liverpool Street Station

Liverpool Street Station concourse

My next route means a short walk around the back of the station, to pick up the 344, which is to take me back south of the river to Clapham Junction. Pleasingly, it is there waiting for me as I arrive and briefly retraces the route of the No 11 before sweeping down Gracechurch Street and past The Monument, where I spent a happy hour a few weeks ago. However, once it has crossed Southwark Bridge (the only route to do so) things rather get bogged down at Elephant & Castle, enhancing the grim junction’s bid for my least favourite part of London. I despise this place, from its savage architecture, bewildering subway system and constant traffic mess. Apart from the Charlie Chaplin pub, only the origin of its name can possibly hold any interest.

One urban myth is that it relates to Infanta de Castile, usually said to be a reference to Eleanor of Castile, the wife of Edward I, but according to Michael Quinion:

The castle here is actually a howdah on the back of the elephant, in India a seat traditionally used by hunters. The public house called the Elephant and Castle was converted about 1760 from a smithy that had had the same name and sign. This had connections with the Cutlers’ Company, a London craft guild founded in the 13th century which represented workers who made knives, scissors, surgical instruments and the like. The guild used the same emblem. The link here is the Indian elephant ivory used for knife handles, in which the Cutlers’ Company dealt.

So, the explanation is as mundane as the landscape. Still, we trundle on and get a brief glimpse of Lambeth Palace, believed to date back to the start of the 13th Century and official residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was here in 1534 that former Speaker and member of the King’s Council, Thomas More, when asked to take the oath of succession by Henry VIII, refused to do so and was subsequently sent to the Tower of London. He was beheaded a little over a year later, his head boiled and placed on a pole.

A brief glimpse of Lambeth Palace

A shall return to the Palace for further delving at some point, but for now there are rather more modern security arrangements going on just up the river. As we pass Albert Embankment, a plethora of armed police have set up a checkpoint and are stopping random cars and dog-walkers. I sneak a couple of quick photos, aware that they probably wouldn’t be too chuffed to see me doing so, but my immediate thought is of bombdogs.

Checkpoint negotiated, the 344 continues its easy passage through Vauxhall, past the Power Station and Dog’s Home of Battersea to Clapham Junction. It chucks me out beside the Grand. After today’s grand proceedings, it seems appropriate.

When away on state business, Thomas More received word from home of a fire. In the letter he sent home, we can discern the essential lines of a Saint: absolute trust of God’s good will towards him and all his own, acceptance of whatever may befall as manifesting that Divine will, and solicitude for the good of others for God’s sake. These holy ideas and attitudes make life sweet; and when circumstances are at their most painful – even then – life is ’shot through’ with a clear note of joy.

I found this quote from the letter he wrote in “The Story of Thomas More” by John Farrow (Sheed and Ward, 1954):

I am informed by my son Heron of the loss of our barns, and our neighbors’ also, with all the corn that was therein, albeit (saving God’s pleasure) it is great pity of so much good corn lost, yet since it hath liked him to send us such a chance, we must not only be content, but also be glad of his visitation. He sent us all that we have lost: and since he hath by such a chance taken it away again, his pleasure be fulfilled. Let us not grudge thereat, but take it in good worth, and heartily thank him, as well for adversity, as for prosperity. And for adventure we have more cause to thank him for our loss, than for our winning. For his wisdom better seeth what is good for us than we do ourselves. Therefore I pray you be of good cheer, and take all the household with you to Church, and there thank God both for that he hath given us, and for that he hath left us, which if it please him, he can increase when he will. And if it please him to leave us yet less, at his pleasure be it. I pray you to make some good search with what my poor neighbors have lost, and bid them take no thought therefore, and if I should not leave myself a spoon, there shall no poor neighbor of mine bear no loss by chance happened in my house. I pray you be with my children and household merry in God. And devise some-what with your friends, what way were best to take, for provision to be made for corn for our household, and for seed this year coming, if ye think it good that we keep the ground still in our hands. And whether ye think it good why we shall do or not, yet I think it were best suddenly thus to leave it all up, and to put away our folk of our farm, till we have somewhat advised us thereon … I would not any man were suddenly sent away he knows not whither.”

 ”A melhor forma de correr com o Diabo, se ele não se rende aos textos das Escrituras é zombar e caçoar dele, pois o mesmo não suporta o escárneo.“

Martin Lutero – Teológo Fundador da Igreja Luterana

 ”O Diabo… o Espírito do Orgulho… Não suporta ser debochado.“

Thomas More – Humanista do Renascimento

Anda incomodado? Se irritando com a alegria alheia? Adora ser o engraçado, mas odeia ser a graça? Cuidado… Isso pode ser coisa do Diabo!

This month sees the publication of the special issue of Renaissance Studies I have co-edited with Harald Braun on The Renaissance Conscience. Full list of contents below.

Volume 23 Issue 4 (September 2009)

Special Issue: The Renaissance ConscienceGuest Editors: Harald E. Braun and Edward Vallance

Articles

Conscience in Renaissance moral thought: a concept in transition? (p 423-444)
M. W. F. Stone