Saturday, October 23, 2010

The end is nigh

Well at least for my computer, which has been crashing lately; it needs replacing, so I have been copying email addresses, passwords and anything that needs saving to my external hard drive.
But the solid sound of a book hitting the floor as the postman delivered the mail through the letterbox this morning -David Abrams Becoming Animal and my Resurgence magazine means that at least I shall have plenty to read in the future!
Going out to find a new computer fills me with horror, I shall end up with a laptop of course because it will give me more space on my desk; I need at least two desks, a large table for ALL my other work, and another bookcase, space is always at a premium.......
Whether it will hit my access to my blog I am not sure, only remember Bovey Belle's trouble when she could not access her blog, we will see.
What else has ended? The marvellous radio programme A History of the World in 100 Objects, no more will we listen to the mellifluous tones of Neil Macgregor, or the rather good intro music, its finished on the note of a solar powered lamp and charger. There was a lot of discussion on the radio last week, sheer surprise at the dullness of this last choice to go out on. But Macgregor's choice was inspired for in the selfish world of this supposedly 'first' world, in which we think the technology of whizz bang internet mobile phones is the bees knees, he had chosen a small lamp and a charger for mobile phones for all the people in the rest of the world (one and a half billion) who do not have access to the unlimited energy consumption we have in the form of electricity. Solar power is of course the greatest energy source on this earth, it empowers people in the 'third' world (I do so hate that expression) to be educated and to conduct business.
And an interesting article in the Financial Times.. by Andrew Roberts, ending with the following words.....
"MacGregor could not have skewered our pretensions better; we too often think ourselves superior to earlier inhabitants of the planet simply because of the chronological – and all too swiftly altered – accident that we are alive. Look at the photographs of the majestic centaur and Lapith on the Parthenon Sculpture (440BC) or the Augsburg mechanical galleon (1585), and then fast-forward through the centuries to our own green plastic solar-powered lamp and mobile phone charger.

Look on our works, ye mighty, and despair. "

1 comment:

  1. I hope that your change over goes well for you. Would you believe that now I have my new blogger account I could, if I dared, transport everything across from my old blog. Hmmmmm.

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