Optimysticals (4) – Summer’s in the mind

Optimysticals (4) – Summer's in the mind

Torrey Orton
October 18, 2009

Melbourne is always special to those who inhabit it, leaving a small space for recent arrivals' discourse of distress for our 4-seasons-in-a-day weather. We are now sliding forwards and back into spring. Backsliding is more prominent in the last few weeks with more snow on the mountains than the rest of the season and a serious upturn in water resource holdings. Still, our ever optimystical* weather people promote ideas like sunny and warm (20C) in the midst of an evidence-based assault on heating systems, both personal and mechanical.

On such a day a client showed up in short sleeves (with T undershirt) and cargo shorts ready for therapy. I queried the premise of his presentation: that the day's forecast had predictive validity. He produced a model of optimystical perception. Roughly, it's time for summer and so I dress for how it should be, and appreciate whatever approximation to 'should be' I get. This is akin to my farmer friend's view that it will rain, sometime. Both have an indefinite certainty of what the future holds for them, modulated by flexible expectations of the turnaround times required to reach it….

…which reminds me of an experience 28 years ago when living in Beijing. The Chinese traditional calendar is lunar and is used for various festivals, underlying which is the schedule for managing agriculture. The autumn festival, around full moon time in September, signals the end of summer and start of harvest. Our students (in 1981-83) put off their light cottons and put on medium cottons with long underwear.

In Hong Kong at the same period the pools and beaches closed. The students did not seem to sweat in 30+C temperatures, while HKers were possibly thrilled to know they no longer had to run the sharky gauntlets of their beaches. Minds over matters. For both northerners and southerners it always got as cold as their superficially silly behaviour predicted.

Therewith, I've now established, to my evidence needs, the cross cultural substance of optimysticality. It's a human capacity and not merely a product of our Bureau of Meteorology or my need for linguistic cuteness. It may become a test parameter for distinguishing artificial intelligences from the real things. Feel free to shop it around to likely users.

 

* an optimystical is a purveyor of hopes I wished someone would purvey once I heard/understood they were doing it. It is often a counter-intuitive, maybe ironic, communication.

Emerging needs (2) – Ties that blind?

Emerging needs (2) – Ties that blind?

Torrey Orton

October 13, 2009

What I wear is seldom of much concern; it's just the same arrangement with slight variations. But occasionally I have a brief flitter of indecisiveness in the face of my wardrobe's slight variety. This only happens when I'm subliminally aware of needing to make an impression which does not align with my habitual want to look moderately presented with a touch of flare. The latter light is usually to be cast by a tie, of which I have 20 or so with heritages running back to the mid-90's – that is, the oldest are almost ready to come back into style, like my aviator glasses.

This occasional opportunity for a precisely contained visual confusion experience was brought to mind, as so often such things are, by another patient client. The container is the time between when I start dressing for an impression-demand event and my departure time to it – 15 minutes approx. Anyway, he, in the midst of dealing with a multi-level, multi-domain life shift, has quite significant mood swings as his various experiences and prospects clatter and crunch within him. The swings are sometimes energised by virtual or real engagements and brief encounters with his work colleagues.

An outstanding tie

A week ago he appeared for therapy in his standard work dress (dark suit, white shirt and dark lace-ups), with a tie of outstanding pattern and colours – the latest (would I know?) in thick upward coursing stripes of red and blue and white. An unmissable bid for recognition which I acknowledged at the time with a query about what had happened. Well, a good week had happened, a step up to achievement and a pause for relief before the next climb to a new life stage.

A week later a plateau had appeared where last week's step had fallen, a transitional terrace which felt like a step backwards to him. This was expressed in a tone-matched suite of vestments, all low key and low relief, including a tie of slight dullness melding into a pastel shirt. He was, as before, somewhat unaware of what he had done, though recalling that the struggle to select his impression this week had been particularly unsettling compared to the previous week. Perhaps the unconscious news was more troubling, as in deed it was. This terrace was unknown ground on his trip, reminding him of much earlier periods of deep depression years ago.

Impression/expression

The subject, we discovered, as we walked ourselves through my impression of his sartorial expressions over two meetings, was the difference between an impression and an expression, along with a place where they seemed inextricably intertwined. This is the matter of emergent perceptions, I suppose, where inner meets outer, greets outer, is affected by outer, is reflected in outer, or reflects outer in itself?

Choosing your expression/impression may provide a quick trial of your togetherness about a certain social event: see how long the vestment compilation takes and on achieving the finished presentation, reflect on what had passed for conflicting motives in the process*. It can be useful to get a reliable, instructive impression of how you are from someone who knows you enough to have a well formed impression. Observant close acquaintances can do a good job on a day to day basis. Therapists not necessary.

 

*this is one of a to-be-collected suite of mini-techniques for studying emergences and their inhibitors.

Rectifications (16) – How’s your day been

Rectifications (16) – How's your day been…so far? Then, Have a nice day…

Torrey Orton– October 6, 2009

Many are the assaults of false connectedness, few so offensive as "How's your day been?", exceeded only by "How's your day been so far?" Both come almost solely from the mouths of casual retail workers* aged 15 to 20, often recent immigrants or more likely students of English speaking backgrounds who cannot possibly know what they are saying, socially. It can also be found in banks where staff are moderately more permanent, but still not real. Closing with 'Have a nice day' rounds out the insult.

False friendlies

What's the offense here? I've already attacked the false friendly – the would-be personal relationship ambit of contemporary retailing. In addition, there's the irritation of being asked a real question which solicits a real answer – an invasion I do not want when shopping in a place where almost none of the staff are recognisable from week to week (by contrast with my barber, barista and butcher!).

This particular phrase grates screechingly. I may get over it, but move on? I know I am not alone among my peer group (over 50's). The usage is widely despised. Maybe we will all deal with it and go forward…but then there will be another to replace it until we die because the roots of false friendly are deep in the dissimulations and pretensions of our culture.

So, what to do?

Here the immediate rectification is obvious and dubious at once. The obvious is to tell them its offensiveness to me. Dubious it is, however, that they will personally deserve the negative energy which will be attached, and also it is dubious that they could change it if they wanted to (assuming a successful instructional foray from me which was minimally offensive to them). They would probably be fired for ceasing and desisting as requested, since much cash and little intelligence has been devoted to training kids, and their elders masquerading as kids, to be customer friendly by uttering similar inanities with the pretence of making the experience personal.

Equally, they would probably be irritated in return, since there is nothing for them to understand about the language itself. It is a grammatically correct English expression. It is the language gifted to them by our times. And, if they are foreign students or immigrants, even from other English-speaking places, they will be trying to be local by speaking local, as one does. Should they be disturbed in their progress by irritating oldies? But more likely a source of their irritation would be this: by raising the issue of the inappropriateness of a certain verbal turn I would be shifting the relationship from false friendly into real, personal and possibly unfriendly. Not the engagement they had signed up for, nor intended by their irritating query, probably.

How to..?

Tactics is all once a strategy is in hand. My initial strategy is to test my assumptions about local usage of 'How's your day been..?' This will be precursor to designing a more broad-spectrum strategy for rectifying such usages. My tactics could be:

• Check with myself that my emotional engagement level is moderate or less, so the performance anxiety of trying this tactic doesn't blow up my irritation into anger.
  
• Ask if the service person has a second to talk.
  
• If yes, then point out I'm going to raise an issue they might find challenging, and that I don't want them to be worried – it's not a complaint. Nothing for management.
  
• Then, say I'm trying to understand certain language which is broadly used by service persons, as you just did, and is irritating to me
  
• Viz – 'How's your day been…(so far)?
  
• Can u tell me why you say this? Where did you learn it?
  
• If I told you I find it very irritating what would you think/ feel?
  
• Do you want to know why it is irritating?
  

My aim is to try this over the next week and see what comes of it. I should be able to report in 10 days or so. The next strategy step should be available then, too.

* If what's happening at Coles' checkout counters is any indicator, those kids will soon be working elsewhere anyway. There'll only be a couple of personally serviced lanes left for customers who can't be trusted with a credit card or like untraceable transactions.

Moral damages – ideological, technological and collateral

Moral damages – ideological, technological and collateral

Torrey Orton

September 29, 2009

We live in times marked by broad spectrum pleas for improved behaviour on the field, off the field and on the streets, and in the clubs and schools and corporate offices and government cellars and chambers…just about everywhere it seems the moral infrastructure is fracturing if not already collapsed. Almost daily we can find bullying at all levels of life, greed in a multitude of guises (M. Kloppers' salary doubling as BHP canned a mine in WA), deceptions and dissimulations across political (Victoria's north/south pipeline, the PPP in transport, etc.), social (the mateship pretence) and economic ("too big to fail") spectra, legal and illegal inebriations, violences against children, students, refugees and stray night drinkers, with an increasing array of weapons and injuries.

Many of the proposals for ameliorating (seldom eradicating) these behaviours are mono-factorial or mono-level – e.g. get rid of booze; punish without exception (3 strikes, mandatory sentencing, etc.). Almost never systemic or long term systematic initiatives. More just efforts to appear to have something "in place" than to make something happen (a difference, forefend?). The nice thing about having something "in place" is that later its place can be changed when the heat and light have gone out of today's issue(s). Distribution of police resources comes to mind. This tactic fails repeatedly in healthcare.

The behaviour decline is the signal of a moral* decline. It ranges from loss of civility to loss of life at the hands of the incompetent or malcontent. And, it's not only happening here. Similar tales come from the US and UK. Now, maybe moral decline is a periodic and certainly returning variable in the movement of history. Periods of moral decline mark the passage to new social forms and preferences, often giving rise to great innovations in all manner of human endeavours. The emergence of the three monotheisms occurred in periods of historic decline in the public moral and socio-economic fabrics in their foundational days. Christianity and Islam cannot be understood without the context of their arrival in clear view. Decline also involves substantial loss of values and systems. It happens at a pace and level that escapes the notice of the 1-3 year policy cycle. Values** and systems have century cycles at the least. Three generations or more.

My moral stake
I am attached to some aspects of the declining moral system of our times, so I treat them as important to the long-term course of human activity. Perhaps I over-endow them and, in doing so, give myself an elevated ethical platform of notionally objective origin and construction. From that platform I look out (I hope not down but probably somewhat so) on our present and near futures. This position has no special place in world history or local affairs but without taking it I have nowhere firm to stand and vertiginous psycho-spiritual confusion assails me.

My approach will be to explore certain irritating to outraging issues of our times in this place – Australia – with the awareness they have some degree(s) of application throughout the Anglosphere, and maybe all human places in their aspects touched by modernity. Pretty likely signs of decline appear already in economic hot spots like China and India.

We are subject to two systemic sources of moral damage in Australia – the ideological and the technological. The two prime impacts of the ideological on public goods are in education and health where public monies support private institutions. They come in two forms: degradation of personal morality and degradation of the public infrastructure of all morality.

The technological arises from advances in science which promise release from core conditions of life – namely those which distinguish us from the dead like youthful essences, Botox, etc. – and promise extension of our domain over the place we inhabit. The latter include "progress" in living conditions ranging from air conditioning to new materials to more travel…in short more of most essentials under the guise of musthave discretionary add-ons (home entertainment packages, rear facing safety TV in cars – "lifestyle").

Upward entitlement creep

The ideological appears as a kind of upward creep of unevenly distributed entitlements, only available to those who can pay for cosmetics by scalpel or injection and for extraordinary developmental opportunities for their offspring. Unfortunately they also creep upwards in the life-death stakes. A recent example is the recession of life sustaining capability to save premature. 24 weeks is now set as lowest limit for application of life-saving services. One wonders about the scientific decision which says the 23 week-olds are not viable enough for resuscitation. I'm waiting for some outraged, outside the guidelines, preemie parents to sue for discrimination, backed by a squad of co-litigants wanting to test retroactivity potentials for themselves?!!

So, from this end of the life stage universe there is pressure to extend the perception of rights to certain treatments, opportunities, etc. Where a right is perceived a felt obligation to meet it is near at hand but disputable. The public/private education sector offers the loudest example of this trend. In Victoria, at least, there is a political argument (almost completely eclipsed by entitlement thinking of the well or better to do) which privileges private right to public money for what otherwise is a discretionary expenditure – the private education of children. But people don't know that anymore. Same thing in health with subventions of private insurance to improve the performance of public services without regard to capacity to pay – i.e. unmeans-tested! Here goes the public infrastructure of morality…

It's also worth remembering that a huge quantity and spread of subventions goes to corporates in the form of industry assistance programs (without which cars, for example, would be made only off shore perhaps) and guarantees like the bank deposit guarantees and cash infusions of the GFC response program. We know in other places where things have been similar to ours (eg. The US and UK) "too big to fail" has guaranteed the survival of the really big to the detriment of the small. And, self-regulation is emerging as a childish fantasy encouraged by the unregulated to the uninitiated – you and me. The struggle over emissions trading compensation occurs in the same moral space, defined by privilege and precedence rather than right and need.

PC in the dessicated heart of morality
Political Correctness, propelled by the ideology of niceness, includes encomia like 'do no harm, whatever you do'. I have suggested before that this is a recipe for repression of emerging needs and insights. It is more than an inconvenience that my or your needs at any specific time may not be equally achievable. Negotiation of who gets theirs first and who second may be necessary. If the needs cannot be asserted (because assertion offers the prospect of doing harm since it presumes some possibility that I come before you, even if not necessarily so in fact) they cannot be addressed or even acknowledged. But they do not disappear if still felt to be real by their owners. This is the passive aggressive cycle's circulating mechanism. A social system, not merely one of personality or family.

A sibling of 'do no harm' is 'experience no pain' which sustains the curriculum of self-esteem. It escalates even to the highest levels as in Melbourne University's motto "Growing Esteem", one of the launch pads for the new training university. It's mundane expressions are signs like the roadside warnings that "limbs may fall" and "overhanging limbs" (may who knows what?) and, where the sheer rock wall on one side of the road makes likely for anyone to guess, "rocks may fall" or "beware fallen rocks". This is the public edge of the private aspiration that life should never be a challenge in which pain – physical or psychological – occurs. And if challenged, a damages litigation team will pop up to assist your defence of your right to painless passages.

It's all relative (so, is there no truth?)
The moral system of 'do no damage' sits on assumptions that both facts and values are relative, This is foolish in some respects, since the claim of relativity itself assumes it is true in an important sense – that is, to know it and accept it is to live a different world of action. Such differences include the capacity to entertain and embrace in varying degrees the cultures of others, to engage the probability that another's action has understandable motivations which one cannot now understand, etc. This constitutes the basis for an ethics of knowing or understanding which underpins, for example, the rejection of the death penalty, but also the endorsement of the right to die (because experienced by the patient as unbearable for reasons of their own ((most of which could be understood by others if they came out from under their rigidly configured ethical umbrellas)). These are conflicting truths about which much struggle occurs. And, in brief, there are other truths established by our action choices / habits which are recognised by people's adherence to the appropriate systems of action.

On the fundamentalising of the moral context – collateral damages 1
A recent feature in public discourses is the audible intensification of the voices of extremity. This is a nice term for this progress since it recalls that all voices belong to some greater body, which is why no group, no matter how virtuous, can acknowledge publically the destructive parts of itself. The great religions, for one, carry deeply destructive parts (sects of various sorts) whose aim is total dominion in the name of the God(s) of the whole. Similar dynamics inhabit footy teams, businesses, ethnic groups …more or less any group of humans.

Lesser extremities are the one-eyed speakers for minority positions in all core systems – health, education, transport, finance… - who carry on with a ferocity which is not the style of the bulk of the population. This can be seen increasingly in politics as well. Out of this come absolutisms of all sorts, trouped up with one-issue fanatics. And, politically they are sustained by the marginality of the differences between the parties here. The model figure of this effect is the Fielding ascension, elected by less than 2 % of the electorate. The effects on the terms of public discourse are increased narrowness of vision and constriction of policy options.

One outcome is the spread of lunar perceptions and "solutions" (see climate change "debate") in tandem with the declining inclination of middle of the road stakeholders to participate (see steady below legitimacy levels of voter participation across the first world societies). Effects on policy and practice are stultifying if not stagnating.

Choicey consumption and moral corrosion – collateral damages 2

The ideology of choice constitutes the greatest moral disintegrator in our lives. We are encouraged to choose things – economic choices - and to choose values, goals, relationships. This encourages the idea that choice is possible (practically) and necessary/desirable (morally) – especially individual choice (since we have little concept of collective choice, eg. choice for the family). In other cultures there is mainly family choice and one's meaning comes from being a member of such entities. Personal choice is circumscribed by long-term family needs.

But individual choice is impossible in many of the most important domains. Consumer capitalism works hard to undermine our choices by presenting access to them (advertising) in ways to seduce and bind us to repeated choices (brand marketing, it's called, for brand bonding we might say… a virtual membership relationship with an object, not a person!!). A habitual response doesn't meet most criteria I know for being choices consciously and freely undertaken. Producers and retailers interests, as many have pointed out, are NOT the cultivation of our interests except in as much as they can be brought to sustain theirs.

A few other conditions obtain for choice to be real: (1) options to choose between have to be really distinct, and (2) distinguishable by the choosers – having the knowledge required to exercise choice if choices are possible, (see much of public debate choices in water, fuels, climate, regulation, etc., increasingly muffled behind PPP's and jargon); (3) the time frame for choosing is adequate (otherwise pressure constrains choice into either/or frameworks, largely in the habitual arena triggered by appeals to sentiment or grosser emotions like fear, anger, sadness); (4) pre-existing, pre-programmed (brand bonded) choice systems overwhelm thoughtfulness.

Strangely, the very people who extol choice and consumer capitalism deny or let pass unacknowledged the deeply corrosive effect of these processes on the ties which are supposed to bind, family ones foremost. I suppose that in the early stages of industrialisation there were similar pleas from the dispossessed (then tossed off their family grounds), those of one group becoming the old standard for the class – Luddite. Somehow this feels a bit different, but that may only be the judgment of a cultural loser.

*What do I mean by 'morality', 'morals'? Roughly, all things which have to do with standards of conduct and their application. These standards and processes / systems should circumscribe the domain of right living, well-being, etc. See here for a more thorough treatment of the matter.

**NB – values are highly subject to balances in material and emotional conditions. The material conditions which allow certain values – compassionate treatment of the unfortunate, extra efforts to combat disease(s) – are noticeably absent in many human settings, so the value of a life is objectively different (if value is measured in longevity – imagine what Mozart would say about that!). In our everyday life this is seen in the constant triage of cases arriving in emergency rooms. The pains of this process and the desire of authorities to avoid responsibility for it are constant company in our public media.

Appreciations (14) – Loyalty?

Appreciations (14) – Loyalty?

Torrey Orton

September 25, 2009

Loyal is never something I would have said about myself. It's not even a word I would have ever said in its own right at any time in my life…unless I was reporting someone else's speech or reading their writing. It is a word, even now, which I don't think I know the meaning of. It doesn't resonate, have feel or body, occupy space. It's almost a non-word: one of those I know but don't like and have banned not from memory or recognition but from acceptance and use.

I think it's a word which I don't trust; it seems almost intrinsically unworthy of anyone, though I know it is meaningful for others. My problem with it is that I always see/hear 'blind loyalty' when I hear/see 'loyalty'. This much attention to it means it does resonate, of course. That's what I'd say to a patient client doing to some other word what I'm doing to 'loyalty' here – extolling it with implicit denigration.

Visceral vocabulary
There are some other untrustworthy words for me I'm sure, but their protective covering is keeping them out of my sight at the moment. In my youth I had an aversion to simple intimate feeling language in a relatively typical boy's way for my generation. It arose in part from stereotypical gender socialisation. Then I added to it my aversion to linguistic enticements like claims of love and caring which I too often had seen used as covert manipulations, or so it seemed at the time. I distrusted their intent automatically.

Age has it rewards
My loyalty seems to be increasing with age. It was first noticed 25 years ago by others as a clear attitude of mine towards my wife. It seems I radiate a protective aura about her when I feel others are disrespecting her, especially figures with notional power and too much sense of the primacy of their needs over hers, even where there was no obvious or slight conflict between them. That instance is still definitely present. Others have to do with a small group of male friends to whom I feel connected, and persistently, though episodically, wondering about their welfare, not merely their work. There's not so much cause to radiate defensively on their behalf…probably not appropriate in anyone's masculinity??

But I doubt I really am loyal (not knowing what it is makes doubt easy to raise and hard to allay). I don't pay much attention to my siblings in their various USA places, nor to in-laws here. And I'm somewhat disrespectful of both wife and friends in various ways, but maybe that's not disloyalty, just attachment avoidance. I even get into trouble where my loyalty to someone involves attacking their organisational context. Institutions harbour mongrel twits who actively, though mostly passively as one would expect, disregard out-of-their-league contributions by their fellows to various futures they can't even imagine). It's hard to defend the leading lights without attacking the twit(s). Catch 22's latest incarnation.

Theory of loyalty?
So, I guess this is the beginning of my theory of loyalty. This is the kind of theory I have for most things I think matter. It is an account of the word, the value, the behaviour. I use them to give an account of something to others, either because it is important in a moment of my professional practice (as therapy clients will tell you, I bet) or because it is important to others but somewhat opaque to them – a mystery with attachments raising doubt instead of admiring wonder.

I can see I've got a ways to go with it. I couldn't convince anyone else what I've said is very defining of anything they might do or feel in life under the 'loyalty' title, while leaving my initial sense of its unworthiness as a sentiment and motivation mildly relieved. This is a funny position to be writing from because I can really say I don't have much of an idea about loyalty. Sometimes starting out with little more than an inkling in mind leads somewhere. In this instance the some is small and the times and where are fleeting and far. Loyalty clearly matters to others, so it warrants my further attention.

Appreciations (13) – Pacemaker pat downs please

Appreciations (13) – Pacemaker pat downs please

Torrey Orton

September 22, 2009

 

Being handled by men and women in uniforms is a regular requirement of flying. As a six year pacemaker porter I am a consistent candidate for the handy works of security characters. In fact, failure to announce my package could result in seriously unpleasant heart effects from an addled onboard computer chip. So I announce myself over and over again (my only irritation these days being the 'shoes off and put them here please sir' routine; if I've thought to wear slip-ons its fine; otherwise it's an exercise routine on back of a touching one).

Another growthful submission event

I celebrate here the persistence and variety of pat-down execution approaches I've experienced. By implication I'm also celebrating my growth in submission without recrimination or rage. These both feelings I have in other situations of much slighter invasiveness and greater repetitiveness (think "How's your day been..so far" and similar inanities of contemporary customer service).

For those of you with security consciousness, be glad of those who do the work for us. But wonder at the variety of its execution. For example, about three years ago I came home from the Kimberley via Perth. After a couple days' stay I headed for the domestic terminal to close the trip loop and found a new approach to pat-downs. Not one, but two, security guys took me off to a closed room (first time anywhere in Oz for this) and one read a prepared statement from his employer seeking absolution from any damage they might do in the consummation of their duties, in triplicate for my signature.

Then one did the deed while the other assured I wasn't violated or something…which I wouldn't have been if it had all occurred in public as usual, but then this access of PC litigation-avoidant precaution only took 20 minutes paid time for two. They were a little surprised to hear that theirs was the only airport in OZ with such a rigorous process at that time. The standard process follows in its small variety below.

The two approaches – forehand and backhand

I can't tell by looking whether the next patting will be a backhanded or forehanded one. The difference in felt effects is slight, but it signals (this is correct usage here I think) a certain delicacy in security staff self-perception of their role. I sense now that forehanded is the more competent technique - that is, the more likely to find something if there is any to be had on my person. Forehanded pats are a naturally rounded stroke which covers more thoroughly than the backhanded's gliding pass. It is also heavier almost unavoidably. On the same hand (arrgh!), the first is more invasive, more personal, too.

Close encounters of a personal kind

On the whole it seems to me that I've had more genital tickles from men than women in a ratio of .25 of male patters to nil female. This shouldn't surprise. What does surprise is that it seems the little bit of testiculation that did occur happened most in countries where matters sexual are more circumspect than our own open land(s) – Dubai comes particularly to mind. I don't know what to make of this, acknowledging that the sample I 'm working with is statistically hopeless and scientifically under-investigated – i.e. bad research design. Maybe this will make a master's thesis worth of serious customer service ethnography for someone. A few pages in a work like Richard Sennett's Respect (2003) could result.

Checking my claim – do I really have one?

Interestingly, and again with no particular gender, age or ethnicity/country differentiation, some actively check that there's a swelling where the package should be kept. I usually indicate this as part of my announcing my unsuitability for electro-screening. The indication is a pointed sweep of my right hand towards my left shoulder, often with a finger or two sharpening the aim for the other's eyes. Most security operatives decline the offer, or do not seek it. However, see next for a twist in the tale.

Which is more real?

In one very recent case in Oz, I was asked for a card which was issued 6 years ago as proof that I had in my shoulder what could be felt open or backhandedly and which I offered to display by unbuttoning my shirt three buttons so it could be exposed to the light of day. Nope, just the card thanks, which I happen to carry as a partial defence against being MRIed at any time in the future (which would produce something more like an extrusion of the package or disconnection of its heart leads a strong chance).

No one had every looked at the card before. Just offer to display of a bit of upper chest really sufficed for most patters . This time the security officer was female and I had put her fingers on the package in question, yet still, 'the card please sir'. I would have thought the touch as close to certainty as practically needed, but…maybe people doubt their senses so often these days that the second most basic one is uncredible. Or, she had just read a story about micro quantities of Semtex which could be stored in pacemakers for computer activation at predetermined time, having been installed years earlier by agents of foreign powers….etc., etc., etc. Better than shoe bombs, eh?

 

I wouldn't want to have to make a living doing such work, would you? Imagine the sample of the gen pub you would have to be up close and personal with – predominantly male I think, but not solely. And this has been fun to write, since it is conceptually straightforward and pleasantly demanding descriptively, with room for slight linguistic adventures. Enjoy, as they say.

Appreciations (12) – A model eggplant

Appreciations (12) – A model eggplant

Torrey Orton

September 14, 2009

I was overwhelmed by the completeness of this piece in honour of the promising but tasteless (in my view) aubergine…filler accompaniment to many flavours and for its capacity to soak them up and retain them in a form suitable for babies – a not quite decomposed mush. The article's take is a bit more generous than mine, though European focussed, as so often even for acknowledge Asian transplants. They failed to mention a famous traditional Chinese dish….

I commend it to your taste for short sharp revelations of wonder and delight.

"Synonymous with Mediterranean cuisine, Solanum melongena, eggplant or aubergine is an Asian export, making it to Europe about a hundred years before Columbus. An unsalted aubergine owes its bitter taste to a tiny quantity of nicotine, but remove this minor piece of nastiness and an aubergine will behave impeccably, maybe mixing best of all with garlic, tomatoes and olive oil but also making surprisingly good jam with a silken texture and fullness of flavour. Often referred to as a fruit and usually cooked as a vegetable, it is officially a berry. Some varieties are indeed small and cute enough to qualify, but others are positively Rubenesque. The sun-warmed pile of fragrant purple lusciousness down at the market has a whole host of equally good-looking family members – creamy white, palest green, pink and striped, firm and fat, long and thin like fingers, round or oval, and eventually there will surely be a square one. Preserve them in oil with garlic and chilli and then watch the purple colour of the skin slowly leach out into the creamy flesh. And then eat them. On toast, with rice or pasta, baked and stuffed, fried, roasted, pickled, pureed, sugared and spiced and turned into jam, layered with mozzarella and tomato, stewed as ratatouille or minced as pesto. They look glorious, they taste fabulous, and we should be grateful that melanzane display none of the characteristics of their antisocial relative, the deadly nightshade – except for that wonderfully decadent belladonna purple."

From The Guardian Sept 2, 2009; Comment is Free section