Paella Marinara

Well what else can you do

on a wet Easter Saturday.

Herself cooks a mean Paella Marinara and with help from family and an anniversary bottle a good time was had by all.
Which is more than can be said for the characters in High Rise (or the audience apparently)

Go Go Dancing

So that's it then we can all hang up our gobans and take to the bottle! (The machines have won. We're doomt, I telt thee, doomt. Are Go Bans like Ray Bans... Ed?)

No! See attached photo, ejit.

For those of you who are interested, there is a brief analysis of Lee Sedol's first game with Alpha Go and a nifty animated pictorial representation at the Go Game Guru site. Other sites are available and you may want to rummage in secondhand bookshops for a copy of the Master of Go.

 Mind how you go!

Thanks for all the fish

I witnessed an attack of the Zombie Herons the other day. It was in Thetford, of all places.

(Do you not feel there is something Trumpish about that hairdo...Ed?)
Strictly for the birds.

Orphan's of the Storm

To Cambridge. Confusing for a Foolish Old Man (FoM) First an Old Library with no books.  (Is this going to be a further tirade against the hardworking Mr Cameron and his Government's entirely reasonable policy of Austerity... Ed?) I believe the books have been moved elsewhere.
A Master who is a Mistress (Easy there! M'learned friends might have something to say about all this transgenderysexual stuff. Holy Mother, The Church,  would have had non of it...Ed!) No they would have had A Pope (and others) on the Grope.
Finally, Robert Macfarlane's Orphans, intriguing. (I had no idea the bloody fellow was deceased. All that walking his socks off and writing business. He would have been better off getting a proper suit and a job and looking after the kids...Ed!)

We pitched up at the Old Library Emmanuel College for the launch of a slim volume,  linked above, by Martin Johnson. The woodcut of a green lane on the cover is worth the price alone, in my view. I have mentioned the Patrician Press before. It is  a very courageous effort in these changing times for publishing. Have a look, buy a book!

Good to get that off your chess.

Here's what  Garry Kasparov had to say about in a review of Chess Metaphors: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Mind by  Diego Rasskin-Gutman, translated from the Spanish by Deborah Klosky in the New York Review of Books in 2010. The insight given into what it is like to be tanked intellectually by a machine is still worth it alone but there are some thoughtful observations about AI and the human mind and the way in which they can work together. I found it interesting that IBM seems to have closed down Deep Blue once the machine beast had bested the man. 'I'm going to take my marbles and go home'. Now where have I heard that before? Maybe Deep Mind has a greater life expectancy!

And six years before the broo ha ha over the computerisation of Go...

With the supremacy of the chess machines now apparent and the contest of “Man vs. Machine” a thing of the past, perhaps it is time to return to the goals that made computer chess so attractive to many of the finest minds of the twentieth century. Playing better chess was a problem they wanted to solve, yes, and it has been solved. But there were other goals as well: to develop a program that played chess by thinking like a human, perhaps even by learning the game as a human does. Surely this would be a far more fruitful avenue of investigation than creating, as we are doing, ever-faster algorithms to run on ever-faster hardware.

This is our last chess metaphor, then—a metaphor for how we have discarded innovation and creativity in exchange for a steady supply of marketable products. The dreams of creating an artificial intelligence that would engage in an ancient game symbolic of human thought have been abandoned. Instead, every year we have new chess programs, and new versions of old ones, that are all based on the same basic programming concepts for picking a move by searching through millions of possibilities that were developed in the 1960s and 1970s.

Like so much else in our technology-rich and innovation-poor modern world, chess computing has fallen prey to incrementalism and the demands of the market. Brute-force programs play the best chess, so why bother with anything else? Why waste time and money experimenting with new and innovative ideas when we already know what works? Such thinking should horrify anyone worthy of the name of scientist, but it seems, tragically, to be the norm. Our best minds have gone into financial engineering instead of real engineering, with catastrophic results for both sectors.

Well maybe not all our best minds. (Nice to get a bit of recognition now and then...Ed!)

Present company excepted. 

A Pun My Word

Some fun, reported in the Grauniad, with the publishing world, receipt books and authors.
I do like the idea of Honning Makrell. Maybe his latest book should have been Quicksandwich.
Fast food indeed.

Artichokes

Architects have been a source of annoyance for me in the past. You could never get the b***ers to do what you wanted, as the 'client', and as for doing it to time and within budget... I am old enough, however,  to realise that the antipathy was probably mutual.

I really enjoyed the Architect's Apprentice by Elif Shafak. The link gives the review in the Grauniad which may entice you or not but I have spent the last week with Sinan and Jahan whirling about my head and have fallen asleep with the sights sounds and smells of Istanbul infusing my brain. The construction of transports of delight.

Do No Harm

Stories of life death and brain surgery may not be your cup of tea but I read Henry Marsh's book, Do No Harm, for a variety of reasons. I came across neurotmesis  in the eponymous chapter 14.  Having herself returned to me after life saving surgery, but not alas the function of her lower left leg, I was interested to see it defined in another context.  Mr Wikipedia has it as a peripheral nerve injury, the most severe, which in most cases cannot be completely recovered from even with surgical repair. It led me to the thought that - Life is so precious and hangs by such a frail thread that when it is cut.

Marsh seems like an interesting cove. I listened to his Private Passions last year and I think they are still available, as a downloady mp3 thing in good old you kay at least. On p195, in chapter 18 charmingly titled Carcinoma, he relates moments in the days before  his mother dies. He is, with his sister, caring for her. She is carried to the bathroom, washed and tenderly treated in the full knowledge of the three of them that the end is near. He describes their love for her in such terms that even a brick would weep...

"It felt quite easy and natural for us both, I think, despite our intense emotions. It's not that we felt anxious - the three of us knew she was dying - I suppose what we felt was simply intense love, a love quite without ulterior motive, quite without the vanity and self-interest of which love is so often the expression."

(Are there any perks for us in promoting this Marsh fellow, private brain surgery or what...Ed?)

Herself still has a very strong right leg which she needs to exercise! 

Dimpened

Go, a game I used to play, is under attack from DeepMind's project AlphaGo. Google's official blog on this is given here and  other reports are out there. However, John Naughton has a perceptive piece in Th'Observer.  Different take on the "OMG the robots are taking over we're dooomtd I telt thee, dooomtd" that usually comes with these tales. Fits in nicely with the wrecking ball image of this piece.

(Oh I see what you did there, DeepMind - dimpened, and here I am wearing my fingers to the bone trying to find the blessed word in the collections of Mr Collins and Mr Chambers... Ed )

I had often wondered why you had fingers of remarkably similar length, still you do have the opposable digits in the right place.

Top Shelf Stuff

Seen in local supermarket, exhibit 1 a photograph ( attached).

Thank god the owners are keeping this out of the reach of the children!
I know that some of you meterosexuals think that this kind of thing is passe. It is a short step from soft core fruit muesli to CRUNCHY GRANOLA. Hard core or what?

(My Da  (god rest his immortal soul) - said that it could only lead to one thing - mastication... Ed)

Does that parenthetical interjection not constitute illegal nesting by your Da in my blog?

A Modest Republican Proposal

As you may well know I am a fan of reading and libraries. I used the LRB archive to winkle out the Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett. It was a straightforward exercise and well worth the old sub. (Are we getting paid for this ...Ed?) I then started to read. I stopped. Such explosions of laughter, merriment, paroxysms of amusement and general helplessness are injurious to one whose health is, to put it mildly, delicate. Besides I have matters pressing and cannot spare the time at the moment. (Then why in god's name am I having to edit this DRIVEL... Ed?)

However it occurred to me that we could combine national library/book/reading day, whatever you want to call it, with a call for the establishment of the Republic of Britonia. How about organising public readings of the work?

(Two for the price of one... Ed?)

Bogof!

Flights of Fancy

A bright sunny day tempted me to take my nose for a run. The local heath provided exercise and a measure of solitude for myself, various dogs and their owners and assorted family groups. The, relative,  peace was disturbed by a micro lite, or some such, imitating a Singer (sewing machine) with a bad cough going at full belt! But the day was such a delight that it was easy to let it slip by with some grace. I moved from the light into the shadow of the trees to hear the raucous call of a bird. I saw a RookCrow challenge a much bigger bird.  Beyond this a buzzard was taking advantage of rising air to circle above the fracas. Its partner left the RookCrow with a disdainful flap and joined the stately dance. Like unwhirling dervishes they slowly precessed up and away. A ghostly half-moon looked on and down.

Miss Placed in Translation

Interesting project reported in the Grauniad.

Literary travel: around the world in 10 must-read books  Ann Morgan spent a year reading a book from every country in the world – 196 in total.

In the article she picks 10 favourites.
Discussed at the dinner table one of the ten reads - The Ladies are Upstairs, a volume from Grenada.
It  prompted...

 Las mujeres estan arriba...

Until that is I corrected my pronunciation of the island nation!
The project is contained in the website Reading the World

(Conversations at the dinner table is it now...Ed?)

A Seasonal Salmagundi

To compensate in some small measure for the lack of postings.
(Phwaat in god's holy name is a salmagundi...Ed?)
Mr Collins (and others) will with their usual accuracy provide a brief description for those with energy left in their fingertips.

- Thinking about old age & forgetfulness. We will all, no doubt find ourselves in the position of wondering what it is that we wanted to go upstairs for. It is only the realisation that  we are now living in a bungalow indicates we have a problem.

- Told by Hugh Stephenson, the Grauniad Crossword Editor against himself...
 ‘How many times have you made pathetic excuses and tried to shuffle the blame onto someone else? You, sir, are unfit to run a whelk stall. Stand down, please, and let someone with more clout, more guts, more pride and more self-respect take over.’
Now who do we know to whom that could apply, answers please on a postcard to D Cameron!

- Shooting the bries with Pete and Sophie.

- Again the phrase in a book...

"almost her entire family had ended up behind bars"

... had me thinking that the tribe were all in catering. Tell me
 "Did they all work in pubs?"

Late Post

Well a belated good new year to all our readers, yes you at the back!

What have we been up to?

There was, of course, a glut of birthdays.

I'm not sure where the cake came from but...

(Ed... tell me do they make dog biscuits as well?)

Very creepy, very creepy!

The Quality of Silence

Super-Coolio  AWESOME SAUCE

(PHWATT on earth is going on? I see neither sight nor sound of you for over a month and then there is a three word post with the photo of a book... Ed)
Have you had a good holiday yourself? I have to admit the weather has been a bit disappointing. Whenever is it not?
We were reduced, much to our embarrassment, to a sing along with the Grauniad Bank Hol.  Xword!


Aputiak - from the Quality of silence by Rosamund Lipton. An igloo, built swiftly for shelter?

Postliterature

Interesting piece from Oor Pauli on Scribid.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/250612659/Wtf-is-Eleni-Haifa

Particularly like the heading

If you give Frodo Baggins a cellphone The Lord of the Rings becomes a considerably shorter book. 

Perhaps that should be Post Literature - Animal Farm anyone?

I'll just be off to my book group then!

Post Capitalism

I was castigated recently by the acquisitions department of our Library Service. (That must have been painful...Ed)
To continue. I had suggested Post Capitalism by Paul Mason as a suitable volume for the worthy burghers, neo-marxists and no good boyos of the county. A very swift reply advised me that 

 'Our Stock Team have responded, saying that they have ordered a copy of this title for our stock. They added that it is not yet published, and also noted that the correct title has the words elided i.e. Postcapitalism'.

As frequently happens when I am wrong I play out the Philosopher's Gambit in my head as a first defence.
Oh really! I was in fact looking for that book which discusses the role of capitalism in the fencing industry and it's effect on the restraint of beasts after the enclosure of the commons. Of course, silly me, that is by the renowned economic historian Paul E. J. Mason. However, I realised that my gross moral turpitude was compounded not by a lack of elision but a failure to concatenate.

The Grauniad has a wee video of Oor Pauli here. He looks well, Postauntieism seems to suit him.

In other parts of the meja jungle I see the Pinkun has gone east. I hope they retain the Saturday Xwd, one of the few cryptics that I can still do!

We're Younger than that Now

The BFI, whom god preserve, have joined the i madness! There is now a BFiplayer...
This morning, sat with a cup of coffee, I watched an 11 min. short film about the Essex villages of Finchingfield and Great Bardfield in the 30's. Music courtesy of Benji B, the link takes you right there.


A different world, I tell you.

Honourable Friends?

Lots to think about (and do) as a result of reading Honourable Friends by Caroline Lucas.

I attended a celebration of the Life, Loves, Laughs and Liberties of Bob Hall this weekend.
Robert, though I doubt many friends called him that, died earlier this year. He  was an inspiration. He also claimed to have had many fathers and that reversion of scripture(?) was reported in a touching eulogy. Positive stories  emerged in the course of the afternoon, all gave me hope, including the claim  that Bob believed in two things, democracy and that much could be covered by a good coat of paint!

Sometimes, Bob  said, you just need to grab the back of the chair in front of you, stand up, and say what you believe in!
But of course, you also need to organise...

Bob's Organiser's Box

Bob Hall  1923 - 2015