That double-faced companion

Above all things he feared imagination, that double-faced companion, friend on one side and foe on the other – friend in so far as one distrusts it, and enemy if one goes trustfully to sleep to the sound of its sweet murmur.

Ivan Goncharov – Oblamov

Spinoza distrusted imagination, seeing it as the primary form of defective and deceptive thinking. However, both his view and Goncharov’s may have been influenced by the absurdly superstitious worlds in which they found themselves.

These days we value our imagination, often equating it to creativity. Yet I think Spinoza and Goncharov had a point and we should distrust its sweet murmur. It seems to me that vast swathes of political reasoning are little more than the sweet murmur of imagination swirling around some more or less nebulous utopian core.

Impossibilities dressed up as possibilities, like a dream where we swoop and soar through fluffy clouds supported by nothing better than the power of the unconscious mind to pooh pooh physics.

One day there will be an app for people who hanker after a more active imagination. An app which knows our habits and limitations will trawl the web to find some imaginative yet personalised possibilities complete with bespoke ads and special offers...

...and that’s enough imagination for one day.

Turbine visible from Birmingham

From derbytelegraph.co.uk
One of the wind turbines in Spondon

From the Derby Telegraph

A GROUP of villagers say they will fight a forthcoming planning application to erect a 252ft wind turbine which they believe could be seen from Birmingham.

Residents in Cubley are in talks to form a group called Cubley Against Wind Turbines (CAWT) to raise awareness of a planning application due to be submitted to Derbyshire Dales District Council next month.

They have my sympathy. We visited a favourite Derbyshire viewpoint today only to find it spoiled by a bunch of enormous wind turbines built after the Planning Inspectorate overruled the local councillors.

These things can be visually dominating, they radiate an unmissable message that we ordinary people don't matter, our landscapes don't matter, our lives don't matter because when it comes down to it we don't count for much.

A number of wind turbines have gone up across Derbyshire in recent years. Most prominent are two 130-metre structures in Spondon, which are six times taller than the Angel of the North.

Jukebox

For those of a certain age.

http://www.1959bhsmustangs.com/VideoJukebox.htm#

From PaulR

Where our enemy hides

In my view a significant proportion of the public sector generates junk. This is largely achieved by ignoring efficiency and by gold-plating regulations.

The private sector also generates junk via market logic – if the customer can be persuaded to accept it, then junk it is.

So we end up with two broad types of junk and have been conditioned to accept both. This is politically convenient because it generates an endless source of misdirection over those we see as the political good guys and those we see as bad. Good junk versus bad junk.

In order to form an idea of an unknown situation our imagination borrows elements that are already familiar.

Marcel Proust - À la recherche du temps perdu

The real problem seems to be one of power – obviously. If governments, bureaucracies or global companies have too much power then they abuse it by filling our lives with junk. They don’t necessarily abuse it because ratbags are running the show, although that’s often the case, but because there is no adequate opposition. We are insufficiently junkphobic.

So we have far too many regulations, far too many constraints on individual freedom and vast global companies buy their way into the corridors of power and our lives. These trends are obviously not desirable, but the surest way to misunderstand them is to present modern politics as an antiquated left/right dichotomy.

There is no left/right dichotomy except in our political traditions which have long outlived their usefulness. The same applies to traditional political parties.

The only political issue is who has the power, what they are doing with it. If those with the power collude as they now do, then we have power structures which cannot be effectively opposed from a traditional left/right standpoint.

So the only political reality is global trends in political and economic power. The old left/right dichotomy doesn’t even come close to an adequate narrative.

This is not where our enemy hides.

The Ripley Rattlers

From nottinghampost.com
A Ripley Rattler in Upper Parliament Street
waiting to begin the 15-mile trip to Ripley

D H Lawrence knew all about the tram service from Nottingham to Ripley in Derbyshire. Largely because of the gradients it had to negotiate, it was reputed to be the most dangerous tram route in England. The trams were known as the Ripley Rattlers.

There is in the Midlands a single-line tramway system which boldly leaves the county town and plunges off into the black, industrial countryside, up hill and down dale, through the long ugly villages of workmen's houses, over canals and railways, past churches perched high and nobly over the smoke and shadows, through stark, grimy cold little market-places, tilting away in a rush past cinemas and shops down to the hollow where the collieries are, then up again, past a little rural church, under the ash trees, on in a rush to the terminus, the last little ugly place of industry, the cold little town that shivers on the edge of the wild, gloomy country beyond.

This, the most dangerous tram-service in England, as the authorities themselves declare, with pride, is entirely conducted by girls, and driven by rash young men, or else by invalids who creep forward in terror. The girls are fearless young hussies. In their ugly blue uniforms, skirts up to their knees, shapeless old peaked caps on their heads, they have all the sang-froid of an old non-commissioned officer. With a tram packed with howling colliers, roaring hymns downstairs and a sort of antiphony of obscenities upstairs, the lasses are perfectly at their ease. They pounce on the youths who try to evade their ticket-machine. They push off the men at the end of their distance. They are not going to be done in the eye—not they. They fear nobody—and everybody fears them.

D H Lawrence - Tickets Please (1919).

Or more prosaically from Wikipedia:-

The original Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Tramways Company Bill of 1902 was an ambitious application which proposed the building of 79 miles (127 km) of track to link together the tramway systems of Nottingham, Derby and Ilkeston. 

However, when passed the following year the Act only authorized the construction of 39 miles (63 km) of route, of which only 11 miles (18 km) were laid, the section from Ripley to Cinderhill. This was the beginning of the service known locally as the Ripley Rattlers.

Rubbish theatre

Chad tells us of an exciting development in rubbish theatre.

A new generation of Derbyshire residents are being taught the importance of reducing, reusing and recycling rubbish with the help of a theatre production.

Derbyshire County Council has commissioned the Gibber Theatre Company to bring The Waste Watchers to Derbyshire secondary schools.

Year 7 or 8 pupils in 35 secondary schools will see an exciting 50-minute interactive performance which uses humour, music, multimedia and popular culture to capture the importance of key environmental themes such as food waste and the benefits of putting unwanted items to good use.

It all sounds dreadfully passive to this crusty old cynic - passive for the kids that is. It serves as a reminder that words don't really measure up when it comes to instilling a political message - which must be instilled because that's the only way to get those boxes ticked.

Not that I have any strong objections to reducing waste and even recycling where it is worthwhile, but this kind of thing has the unmistakable whiff of sanctimony. An invitation to join a self-righteous crusade rather than anything resembling objective appraisal. 

It's a covert nudge for kids to harangue their parents too I suppose - which many undoubtedly will. Trainee prigs for a brave new world.

I wonder if environmental themes such as flooding and land drainage will attract a topical mention? I hope not. Somehow I'm pretty sure what that message would be.

Croc shock

From PaulR