Six Flags

This amusement park in New Orleans was abandoned after Katrina and is due to be demolished next month.

What is the fascination of ruins? Partly that they show us what will happen. In one version, we look back from the future and see a morality tale of which perhaps the inhabitants were unaware. In another version, we can see there our own future undoing. And in this case, any easy romanticism is blown away by the horror of that storm, and the cruel ineptitude of a government that allowed people to drown and a way of life to perish.
Via

ooh-ahh

It was snowing the other day, but not so much here, so I paid little attention to the radio news stories of panic-buying of petrol. When I went to fill my three-quarters-empty tank at the local all the pumps were closed so I gave up, figuring I probably wouldn't need to go anywhere for the couple of days till it got back to normal. I gave DH a lift to Cambridge and on the offchance made a detour via Sainsbury's - they were out of petrol too. I took this as a sign not to bother. I don't tweet; I don't even do Facebook much, so I didn't pick up on any of the panic. But if it had been cash...

Eric Cantona was a brilliant footballer. I don't know so much about his grasp of economics. He wants to bring the banking system to its knees. He wants people to draw money out of the banks tomorrow to prove - gasp - that there isn't enough cash to pay everyone should they all demand it at once. Apparently, this makes banks teh evil. There are plenty of reasons to imagine (some) banks are teh evil, but this isn't one of them. Taking your money and using it to do something else, making a profit on that and giving you a bit of the profit for the opportunity to use your money - that's what banks do. It helps build roads and factories; it helps generate power and pay wages.

But hey, what do I know? If you were the elderly blind person over the road who can't get to the bank, maybe you wouldn't be so keen on this stunt. If your mortgage payment was due at the end of the month maybe you wouldn't be so keen either. Or a shopkeeper wanting to bank your takings and pay wages. Hey, you're capitalist scum, who cares about you?

So far, there are only a few thousand people signed up for Cantona's grand gesture. It would take a lot more than them to destabilise anything - until you think about the turbo-charging effect of social networking. How many tweeted queues does it take to make a crisis?

Uh-oh, maybe I should have kept quiet. All I know is that a bunch of sovereigns in a sock is jolly handy if a burglar smashes in your bedroom window.

Desert Highland Discs*

Six years ago I went on a writing retreat to Hawthornden. Somewhat daunted by its reputation for monkish austerity, I took a Walkman and a wallet of discs. In the event, I scarcely used it, and for various reasons the wallet remained largely unpacked until now. So here is a time capsule:
Philip Glass: Glassworks
Philip Glass: Songs from Liquid Days
Jan Garbarek: I Took up the Runes
Jan Garbarek: Works
Jan Garbarek/ Ustad Fateh Aki Khan: Ragas and Sagas
Miracles of Sant'Iago (Music from the Codex Cadixtinus)
Charpentier: Neuf Leçons de Ténèbres
Ali Farka Toure: Niafunké
Couperin: Quatrième Livre de Pièces
Meredith Monk: Book of Days
Meredith Monk: Volcano Songs
John Harle: Terror and Magnificence
The Sunday Times Music Collection: Gregorian Chant (I must have bought that edition specially)
Van Morrison: Enlightenment
Ewan McColl: Chorus from the Gallows
Zebda: Essence Ordinaire. Must be something my sister gave me.

I had a good time at Hawthornden. The wind howled, the snow hurled, and I was quite disciplined. Although I didn't think at the time I was making enough progress I went home with a stash of new work, revised work, and some drafts I have yet to grapple with - along with the twentyfirst century.

*Oh, and that's an unforgivable pun. Hawthornden is in the Lowlands.