Arts, Architecture & Design

Modern Medici

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There’s no shortage of coverage of the lives of the rich and famous. I’m thinking especially of the places where they live. As with everything these days, there is blanket coverage on YouTube of fantastically expensive real estate in places like Zurich and Barcelona.

I tend to see this simply as an electronic extension of voyeuristic tendencies that people have had since time immemorial. No doubt people always enjoyed peeking into lives of which they can only dream – but as always, there is the moralistic concern about the harm this might do. Seeing what privileged people have is a quick way to feel dissatisfied with less, for all that we might tell ourselves that we really don’t need two dishwashers and a walk-in wine cellar, and that those people’s live cannot possibly as perfect as they are made to appear. No doubt that is (sometimes) true.

At a global scale, the effects are also becoming marked. Now that internet connections and phone signals are increasingly widespread even in the world’s poorer countries, the ability to see what people have in more developed places is thought to be a significant driver of global migration. Once again, glamour – even if an illusion – attracts.

Idolisation of the super-rich lifestyle is also a reliable way to entrench excessively materialistic values, when one should surely be arguing that all lives are of equal value, no matter what the financial circumstances: a sentiment I heartily subscribe to. Perhaps reminding ourselves that wider good fortune is not strongly linked to material wealth is a helpful and necessary piece of schadenfreude…

My instinct is to reject shows of excessive wealth. For a start, there is certainly no guarantee that great wealth brings great taste, great likeability or great integrity. Being instinctively egalitarian, I find the over-the-top provision of many super-homes quite nauseating, and the aesthetic often gauche in the extreme. It certainly does not create an appealing impression of the occupants.

But there is one thing I cannot deny: those with seemingly infinite resources do happen to be the people who have what is needed to employ professional designers and architects and experiment with things that would be too costly for ordinary mortals. Ultimately, this is why their homes make it into the interiors magazines, while the likes of mine do not.

Again, it was ever thus. The artworks of renaissance Italy were largely created at the behest of wealthy patrons. A million Athena posters followed for the ordinary folks. Traditional British interiors derive from a mushy amalgam of formal Georgian and whimsical Victorian ideas of ‘good taste’, and how the lower orders furnished their homes was once again influenced by those further up the ladder. Part of the reason that the magazine features endure is undoubtedly that over time, ideas, fashions, trends and technological innovations (such as TVs and washing machines) do still trickle down to the mainstream.

Somewhere between reactionary indignation about this, and celeb-absorbed fawning, lies a sweet spot where the rest of us can use those good ideas without becoming fashion victims ourselves. Some high-fashion items do look absolutely stunning, and I don’t see that one shouldn’t appreciate the aesthetic. But one reason for that usually lies unmentioned: for example, in bespoke kitchens many multiple times the size of what most people can expect, and super-models with looks unknown to the average human. That is the deception – deliberately used, of course, to tempt people to part with large sums of cash in the pursuit of something they will never quite achieve.

But does that mean we should stop trying and settle for the mediocre? I would argue not. Quite apart from the historical precedent, some of these rarefied patronages do indeed result in works of great beauty – and a lack of wealth is no restriction on one’s ability to appreciate the sublime.

I think the answer for the rest of us lies in realistic and judicious use of the inspiration that dream-scenarios provide, while accepting their unrealism for ‘normal’ applications. A year ago, we replaced our 25-year-old kitchen with a new German one. Yes, we were seduced by a stunning display in a local showroom, and no, the end product does not look quite the same. But it is still far better than we would have achieved had we not allowed ourselves to be inspired by beautiful things that we could not afford. What was necessary was the acceptance that trying to copy the showroom was doomed to failure – and learning to use the most attractive elements in a way that worked in their own right, in the rather difficult space we had at our disposal.

Is this the sweet spot? And how to achieve it reliably? One thing is not to be completely intimidated by price. The maxim “Buy the best you can afford, not the cheapest you can find” is a good one – accepting that sometimes the two may in effect be the same. While generally speaking, it remains true that you get what you pay for, an eye for unexpected beauty costs nothing…

It is also worth saving for quality. While stunning objects mostly don’t come cheap, they are not always as far out of reach as may be thought. Sometimes spending on a single ‘centrepiece’ item and economising elsewhere can help.

Another non-obstacle is the social intimidation of up-market showrooms.  But from our experience, most of the staff in such places are quite gracious (that’s what you’re paying for!) and sanguine about the colour of people’s money. Things that some people buy without a second thought and dispose of indecently quickly become for us once-in-a-lifetime signature purchases, and suppliers mostly seem entirely relaxed about this. Maybe they even prefer people who will treasure those products, over those who will throw them out without a backward look when trends change.

Normally, the quality one ends up with makes longevity a viable proposition. Our previous kitchen lasted nearly 25 years, more than double the norm for cheaper brands. B&B Italia is known as the epitome of modern Italian furniture. Its iconic Charles sofa is one of the most perfect seating designs I have ever seen. To say it doesn’t come cheap is an understatement – but the ones we once stretched for are now around 27 years old, still going strong, and still making our living room look (and feel) fabulous every single day. And with furniture of this type, now a classic, we can be pretty certain that we will, in due course, be able to buy replacement covers whenever needed.

If it weren’t for those for whom such items are everyday disposables, then some fabulous designs probably wouldn’t exist in the first place – not all high-end design is crass. But I think it is entirely possible for ordinary mortals to benefit from this, by the judicious deployment of resources and a determination to impose one’s own interpretation, rather than just becoming fashion victims seeking to ape – badly – the lives of those with whom they cannot possibly compete economically. The secret is to see the beauty, not the status, that such objects can bring.

By doing so, the norm shifts away from the illusions to the truly real: after all, the triumph of gorgeous design is not to make super-models look great: they do that anyway. It’s what it does for the rest of us. It’s not as frivolous as it might seem either: the mindful appreciation of beautiful objects is known as a route to wellbeing.

And in any case, there are more of us than there are of them.

Arts, Architecture & Design, Food, Opinion & Thought

Props

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On our dusk walk back to the station during our visit to Lille, our eye was caught by a brightly-lit interiors shop. As with so many shops on the continent, it was the enticing window display that did it. Before we knew, we were inside. We had gone to Lille minus hand luggage, which is just as well, since we exited sporting two very large bags containing four nicely textural wool cushions for our sofas. It was also just as well that we had restrained our other purchases that day to a box of pâtes de fruits from Méert, since we had quite a job getting through Eurostar check-in and onto the train.

So once again, we returned from France with enticing stuff, an eventuality much more likely from there than here. And it started my mind rolling on why stuff is important; after all, I spend a lot of time on this blog talking about it…

In my head, I can hear a riposte to my frequent laments about poor quality in the U.K.: people who are secure in their identities and lives do not need emotional props to make their lives worthwhile. Maybe that is why the U.K. plays everything down: its citizens are already wholly secure in themselves….

If only the evidence supported it. Quite apart from the mental health crisis, it is not that the British eschew stuff: consumer culture has never been more dominant in the nation’s life, and shopping is apparently still a national recreation, even if now done online rather than on the high street. We have so much stuff that apparently self-storage facilities are a growth sector… But when we have so much, how can we possibly appreciate it all? 

I’m not going to decry stuff as a modern sin; people have coveted attractive objects since early human times. What has perhaps changed is the balance between quality and quantity: we are now so used to it, that stuff is as cheap psychologically as it can be monetarily.

So I am not going to apologise for, in effect, arguing for more veneration of stuff. Quite apart from purely practical necessity, personal possessions may well be props for our fragile egos, as they have been since early times. The secret lies in the appreciation: choosing more carefully in the first place, and then actively appreciating what we are lucky enough to have, rather than taking it for granted, throwing it away – and buying more. People have long had possessions – but the important bit is the treasuring – rather than taking for granted. If wool cushions can genuinely add a small amount of pleasure to one’s life, then why not? But choose carefully and don’t throw away and replace after a short period!

While writing this, my attention turned to the contents of our chocolate basket, sitting on the post-lunch table.  Even there, the issue was clear: Exhibit A (below) shows the contrast in how chocolate is presented in the U.K. and Switzerland. This is not contrived: the bar of Cadbury was given to me at Christmas by a student; the Lindt was our regular fare bought from a local supermarket, and is reasonably representative of how chocolate is packaged in Switzerland. And yet it is Cadbury’s that is the most popular chocolate in the U.K.: cheap – and almost taste-free. Once again, dumbed down ‘product’ triumphs over something altogether more rewarding.

I tried a square of the Cadbury but could eat no more. The packaging said it all: 20% cocoa solids and “contains vegetable fats other than cocoa solid”. Enough to have hitherto made the EU exclude the British product from being described as chocolate in continental markets. It tasted of nothing but sugar. The dumbed-down packaging says all one needs to know about the mindset of how such products are marketed in the U.K.: a childish candy, rather than the more complex, adult offering of the Swiss. To be fair, Hotel Chocolat and others are slowly educating the British public about the possibilities – but there is a long, long way to go….

While I’m generally a fan of mindfulness, I found the concept of appreciation journalling a bit over the top  – until it occurred to me that in part, this blog does exactly that: it makes the case for choosing and owning of stuff as something less trivial: a matter of active celebration rather than mere mindless routine. One might still have the guilt-trip about needless consumption, but one solution is to turn ‘mindless’ into ‘mindful’. Material possessions can bring real pleasure to our lives – if chosen carefully and appreciated to the full. And in terms of ‘total consumption’, I suggest that choosing better is more likely to decrease our overall consumption, since it reduces levels of boredom and the need for the constant replacement of what we own.

Purchasing may be fun, but the defining part of the process should not be that moment, so much as the ongoing process of appreciative ownership. Indeed, purchasing is more pleasurable when one has the anticipation of a meaningful relationship with what one is buying. I suspect the Saturday afternoon arms-full leisure-shoppers don’t get this: our culture shops on quantity over quality every time. Mainstream retailers probably prefer it this way – but if one does decide to patronise a more discerning supplier, one finds a rather different attitude, where fewer-but-better still makes sense…

The French, Italians and others seem to know this better. My impression is that they are not as indiscriminate in what they buy as many British. Food is a perfect example: the veneration takes on almost cult-like status with renowned foodstuffs, and the knowledgeable selection of ‘good stuff’ is the informed customer’s part in this ritual. It’s a courtesy to the producer to have a deep appreciation for, and discrimination of, what one is buying. It can apply to other things too: it’s notable that many of the world’s great brands come from these countries. But I am not suggesting that brands are essential; while they acquire their reputations for a reason, there are plenty of good products out there from unknown suppliers. It’s the quality, not the label that is important.

The word ‘prop’ has another meaning: as in the ‘properties’ that actors and artists use to express their lives and work, to make that work more intense and more effective. Every day is part of the drama of one’s own life; the careful use of props to amplify and express our experiences, even to affirm our identities, is not a crime, but an integral part of the human experience – at least if done in the spirit of genuine appreciation.  

But as with chocolate, in that respect not all stuff is equal.

Opinion & Thought, Travel

Li(tt)lle differences

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The transition from southern England to northern France on Eurostar is rapid, no more than 25 minutes or so. We took a daytrip to Lille a few weeks ago, our first since 2020, which was unknowingly made in the last weeks before lockdowns began.

Unlike trips made to the continent when I was younger, the brief suspension of daylight while passing under the sea is insufficient to make it feel as though you have come a long way; while the open spaces of France contrast markedly with the smaller landscapes of Kent, in many ways, the experience is one of continuity. We adjust pretty immediately.

And yet, unnoticed, many things do change, notably, the culture – a phenomenon that has always both fascinated and frustrated me. The crow-flies distance from our home to Lille is a mere 130 miles, but despite the short journey, culturally, it feels like much more. I’m not only talking about the language, though it is always a joy to be able to give my French a work-out, but Lille (unsurprisingly) is utterly French and thus worth getting up at an ungodly hour on a January weekend morning for a spot of flânerie, lunching and shopping.

I get withdrawal symptoms if I can’t do this from time to time. For me, continental city life – or at least the imagining of it – comes as close to lived perfection as I can envisage. And to be frank, there is almost nowhere in the UK that gets near that combination of architecture and cultural sophistication that is available even just 80 minutes from St Pancras.

Lille is much more manageable than Paris for a day trip. I know the city well, having visited many times over the years and have something approaching a routine for such visits – there are several streets and buildings that must form part of the base-touching. We have added to this over the years by, for example, heading to the Rue de Gand for lunch – a street a little outside the centre, which has a reliable choice of estaminets and crêperies, one of which we patronised this time for one of the best galettes I have eaten perhaps ever.

Despite the internationalisation of retail, Lille also retains many independent shops, and even the chains don’t seem as aggressively, homogeneously bland as they do in the U.K. I think the French consumer expects more, so even those shops have to try harder. Here we come to one of those marked differences: just why is it that so many independent shops survive in France, despite the fact that it too has a large out-of-town sector? And those shops seem very well frequented. They offer a far wider range of esoteric goods than one might see in the average British town or city.

I suspect it may concern approaches to things like city planning and business rates – things that have crushed many independent businesses in the U.K.  But I think it may also be a matter of attitude: those independent shops and restaurants can only survive because they are patronised – and I can see enough to note that it is not all tourist trade. Not on a cold Saturday in January. And even approaches to planning and tax rates are underpinned by a set of values.

The same thing might be said about the patrons. Unlike in the U.K., the majority of the populace of Lille still seems to think it worth dressing reasonably well for an afternoon in town. This is not to say that everyone is dressed to the nines – but there is little of the general scruffiness that one sees in the streets of towns on this side of the Channel. People make more effort.

Sitting in various restaurants and cafes, we noted groups of young people sheltering from the cold over hot chocolates – but the tarty clothes, fake tans and multiple piercings of much British youth were little in evidence. French kids somehow seem more wholesome; OK, I know that can’t possibly be the whole truth, but it is the impression. And while we’re on the subject of hot chocolate, that arrived as melted real chocolate in a glass cup, with a jug of hot milk – not the over-sweet Cadbury’s powder that is standard fare in the U.K.

 I know that it is too easy to see such things in a biased light, but this is nonetheless an impression that repeats on each visit; at what point does it cease being rose-tinted bias and just become the truth? And Lille is hardly an entirely prosperous city, so it cannot all be the product of economic privilege. For all that this may be subjective, it seems to me that France simply has a more sophisticated culture than the U.K. It simply does not tolerate the degree of dumbing down, dilution or outright bastardisation that is commonplace in the U.K. And I’m hardly the first to point this out. People at large in the UK are simply not brought up to expect good things, let alone with concepts such as “good judgement” that might allow them to discriminate more effectively.

One notes the difference, too, in small things such as the attractiveness of shop window displays. I have written about this before, but each return visit only confirms the impression. I can only conclude that that is a response to a culture that has different aesthetic expectations. This year, we added to our reference points with a gallery from where we are in the process of buying a painting that would be considered impossibly avant-garde for anywhere in this country – perhaps outside certain chichi parts of London.

Underlying my fascination with such contrasts is the question of why they arise; after all, these are communities that live a matter of only tens of miles apart, less than the distance between different parts of either country.

The easy answer would be “The Sea” – and it is surely indisputable that the English Channel is responsible for quite a lot of the contrasts between Britain and the continent. Over centuries, different traditions arose on either side of the divide, at times when crossing it was nowhere as easy as it is now.

But even this answer is not a full explanation. It does not explain why it is the British side that so often debases everything it touches or otherwise reserves it only for the elites with the finest breeding or the deepest pockets. Culture is about more than distance. And even the ease of international travel seems to be doing little to erode the differences between England and France. If anything, they seem to be getting wider, as this country plunges further into its Brexit-induced decline.

What really makes the difference is what happens in people’s minds. This is a topic I will return to, but it increasingly seems to me that the key to sustaining a cultural identity is what is sown in people’s minds. In the case of the U.K., the population under 50 years of age has never known a country not thrown open to the bleak functionality of the neo-liberal free market, with its chill commercialisation of almost every aspect of life; the replacement of cultural capital with the bland efficiency of big business, enterprises that have no interest in the warmth of the cultural fabric, but which exist solely to hoover up the maximum amount of consumers’ cash as efficiently and soullessly as possible. And most people now accept and collude with that. Maybe they don’t even know that different is possible.

The French, by comparison, seem to retain a much wider understanding of the meaning of the quality of life; they still understand that the intangibles are important – as experienced in the food and aesthetics witnessed on one random day in January 2026. Things that are not some elite luxury but are just the general daily fabric of a good quality of life. It is no accident that that country is known for these values; what perplexes me more, in this age of high-speed transport and international mobility, is why such values still seem to fail to make the journey a mere 130 miles to the adjacent country, where in some ways, life is as demoralisingly different as it could possibly be.

Opinion & Thought

Catharsis.

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I was told that blogs were dead and buried. Yesterday’s news. No one reads them any more. Yet over a thirty-month content drought, I have kept Sprezzatura alive, and much to my surprise, there has continued to be a reasonable level of traffic.

As any long-time readers will know, this blog was indeed intended to be catharsis – for my own mind during a difficult period of my life, and hopefully by extension, others in need of some soothing of their own. At least one item ended up in print, in a magazine-feature on mental health. It’s about things that can make our lives both materially and mentally better; things that are often perceived as rarefied, but which I believe we exclude to our detriment; things whose relevance for their own lives, people often seem to dismiss – but about which I utter a defiant “I do!”

I think catharsis is still most definitely required; life is no less perplexing than it was when I started writing back in 2017. I still think that over-indulgence doesn’t help, but neither does denial; that trying to find that sweet-spot between cloying self-centredness and hair-shirt abstemiousness, of treating oneself legitimately well is a valid and necessary quest.

A criticism might be that this blog is about expensive things – but it mostly isn’t. True, many good things come with a cost attached – but it’s about being and doing as well as having; in general, it’s about the act of appreciation. When it comes to spending, I have often found that it is not the amount that matters, so much as how it is deployed – what tolerance one does or doesn’t have for inferior things, and how much work one is willing to put into finding something better – where cost can be substituted with effort. It’s also about accepting that, as Terence Conran advocated, simplicity can often be better than bling. Coming back to the original Italian meaning of the word, sprezzatura is not really about living life expensively, but imaginatively. But on occasions, I can’t deny that it helps to believe that one really is “worth it”.

The lack of recent posts is not down to a sudden loss of faith, so much as the fact my own life resumed something of its prior pace, and to be honest, I felt that I had rather exhausted my message at the time. However, more of life’s ups and downs, and the chance of a series of conversations over the last year have made me think that it is time to say and share more.

I’ve once again had to fall back on my resilience, as there having been some challenging times over the past couple of years. Even as I thought I was perhaps past that bad period, more of life’s sadnesses arose, not least the loss of a good friend over two years to cancer, and some less serious but still worrying health concerns of my own. At such times, it is all the more important to try to keep one’s spirits up – and I have become increasingly aware of the power of ‘grounding’ – trying to anchor oneself in the present, to appreciate the good things that we experience and not to get unduly strung up about what might happen next.

This positive thinking is something that we can actively cultivate, and I have come to suspect that doing so has a practical impact on both our state of mind and our wider quality of life, as lived day-to-day.

So I think the time may now be ripe to reprise this blog, if perhaps not as intensively as before; as I move towards retirement, there are certainly many projects and events that are worthy of coverage, and if the reading of my esoteric and eclectic search for a ‘well-lived life’ provides catharsis to others as well, then all to the good.

Politics and current affairs, Travel

HS2 – another great British world-class failure.

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Standing on Bologna station some years ago, I was struck by the lack of express trains. Then I realised that they were all calling at a new underground station beneath the original one. In their place, the historic station was served by a frequent local train service, while a succession of long-distance container-freights rolled through. That is what High Speed 2 was supposed to do for Britain.

The case for High-Speed Rail is most often made in economic and environmental terms. But it’s a quality-of-life issue too. Anyone who has travelled on Eurostar, TGV or ICE network will realise that the quality of journey experience is generally vastly superior to most of the traditional rail network, let alone hours spent in motorway or airport queues. (The journey to my parental home used to take 3 ½ hours; five or more is now commonplace). In any case, economic prosperity and clean air are about the quality of life too.

In scrapping the northern stretch of HS2, Rishi Sunak has denied such quality to large parts of this nation. That may seem like an overstatement, but it remains true that the benefits of good infrastructure percolate the communities they serve in not always obvious ways: things that The Treasury cannot easily measure. Once again, we are being left in the dark ages compared with neighbouring countries, seemingly unable to take the steps desperately needed to modernise this country.

It is not only Sunak’s fault, though; sadly, he may be right about affordability at the current time. When HS2 was announced, the president of French Railways, Guillaume Pépy, urged the planners to learn the lessons of the French experience – key amongst which was not “gold plating” the scheme. Nonetheless, gold-plating is what we got – a failure, as so often in this country, to learn for best practice overseas. It seems we always need to reinvent the wheel to “British standards”. Well, now we will have very few (high speed) wheels at all.

It is also informative, that in the weeks when the writing was on the wall, the private sector contractors started falling over each other to propose cost-savings that they could magically find, now that it seemed the gravy-train was about to dry up. So much for private sector efficiency. Likewise, the multiple sops offered to vested-interest parties all along the route (do we really need air vents in the Chilterns disguised as farm buildings?) – which cumulatively increased costs unnecessarily. A lot of the expensive tunnelling was not necessary except for political reasons – and even some of the green mitigation measures are questionable. Yes, HS2 destroyed a small percentage of ancient woodland – but green campaigners were, sadly, part of the gravy train, demanding multiple pounds of flesh, while ignoring the fact that alternative modes of transport are far more damaging. They shouted similar things at HS1; look at it today:

The green lobby is far from immune to cakeism.

A failure to understand the logistics of rail networks seems to have played a part. Most obviously, the fact that time savings are only a function of capacity gains. The quicker trains go, the more can pass through the network. And in any case, would you engineer a new car to 1950s standards? There also seems to have been no realisation that repeatedly de-scoping the project would only reduce the viability of the rest – and yet the intended HS1-2 link, the Leeds line, and then the fast link to the Glasgow line were all surreptitiously cut.

The argument that the UK is too small to need HSR fails too, when both Japan and Italy (with similar geographies) both have successful networks. Density of population served is at least as important as large distances. That argument could have been reduced, too, had HS2 been linked to HS1, thus gaining both domestic and international economies of scale, not to mention operational synergies. As it is, a mere half-mile gap along the Euston Road will prevent the two lines from operating as one. And Heaven Forbid that northerners should have a direct service to the continent, as Londoners do! Apparently “the demand was not there” – in the same way that it is clearly not there for flights from Birmingham and Manchester airports and was “not there” for rail travel from London to the continent pre-Eurostar. Could it be something to do with Home Office paranoia – or London-centrism? Now more than ever, it would make sense to spend the money to link the stump of HS2 to HS1 – but of that common sense, there is no sign.

But there were deeper design flaws with HS2, which undoubtedly affected the business case. Terminus stations need a far larger land-take than through ones since train dwell times are much longer – which is why many cities on the continent have been busy tunnelling underneath them. They also preclude efficient route extensions in the longer term. And yet fancy termini are what were proposed in London, Birmingham and Manchester. The French advice to integrate HSR with the existing network at city centre locations seems to have been ignored.

The independent consultancy Greengauge 21 http://www.greengauge21.net/ proposed an east-west aligned through station beneath Euston and St Pancras, linking directly to HS1 and the continent. It would have made operational sense and reduced the surface land-take at Euston. It was never considered; likewise, the private sector proposal to link HS1 and HS2 via Gatwick and Heathrow, also appears never to have gained the government’s ear.

 Going deeper, if the purpose of HS2 is purely domestic ‘levelling up’, why did it need to serve London at all? The capital already has the best rail services to most of the country. Much more levelling up could have been achieved by building HS2 to link together the country’s regional centres, to create an economic mass genuinely capable of counter-balancing London. Had a HSR line been built from, say, Exeter/Plymouth to Newcastle or Edinburgh/Glasgow (not very much further than from Paris to Strasbourg or Lyon – lines built in one take by SNCF – let alone Marseille), this would have linked city-regions with a combined population much greater than Greater London. It would also have been a length much more suited to the maximum efficiency of high-speed trains.

An X-shaped network also taking in South Wales and Manchester would have increased that further, as would regional parkway stations serving lesser centres along that axis. Reducing Newcastle – Bristol to around two hours (currently around five, or seven by road) would have had a huge effect on the provincial economy of this country – not to mention reducing domestic flights probably close to zero, if French experience is anything to go by. And yet it was never considered. Italy, Germany and Japan all have HSR networks that are not exclusively focused on one dominant city.

So HS2 was by no means perfect – but it was at least a start on an infrastructure network similar to what the French first opened in 1981 – more than FORTY years ago. Had we also started then (when instead Thatcherism was paring the existing network to the bone) we would not now be in this unaffordable mess.

I suspect it remains true that only a tiny minority of the British population has ever used continental high-speed rail, and thus remain in ignorance of its transformative effects on travel, let alone the wider impact. Until they experience it at first hand, indifference and opposition will probably rule. There will no doubt be claims that this shows that the public sector cannot manage major projects, or that the money would be better spent elsewhere.

On that latter point: what remains of David Cameron’s plans for major rail electrification? Or of the much-publicised structural reorganisation of the railways under Grant Shapps? Both buried after death by a thousand cuts, and conveniently swept under the carpet to almost no gain.

And of the former point: there is nothing demonstrably wrong with the public sector in this country that could not be fixed by removing the constant vacillation, changes of policy and short-termism of its political masters.

Opinion & Thought, Politics and current affairs

Free?

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The recent decision by the EU to require a single type of electronic device charger from 2024 is a great example of the kind of thinking that is too rarely evident in the U.K. Predictably, the U.K. will not be following suit – it is precisely the kind of thing that the likes of Johnson will seize as evidence of the “freedoms” created by Brexit.

The usual rhetoric about big government and personal freedoms accompanied that announcement, together with the vacuous “it will restrict innovation” – as though the future of the world hinges on how we plug our devices in. It might be more convincing if the U.K. had any kind of track record on innovation in such fields…

So it seems that we are to remain free to live with confusing tangles of multiple cables, none of which will fit more than one brand of device – and free to keep the frustration of never having the right one available just when we most need it. We will remain free to need to need new cables and chargers each time we buy a new device rather than re-using the existing ones. We will remain free to be exploited by manufacturers who perpetuate these things on purpose.

But we will not be free to reduce the number of irritating wires and chargers, to experience the simplicity of use of a universal system, nor will we be free to reduce the amount of electrical waste that we create as a result. We will not be free to refuse unneeded equipment and the additional cost that must come with it.

The thing is, freedom is not always an absolute: freedom from one thing comes at the expense of constraint elsewhere. In the U.K. and the U.S., Freedom is often invoked as the right of individuals to do as they please. But it comes at the expense of having the freedom to make poor choices – and to suffer the impositions of those who have more power to exert their own freedoms than we do ours. As a result, we live in countries which lack adequate co-ordination and which suffer the inefficiencies that come about from the freedom to create multiple, conflicting and wasteful systems.

‘Big Government’ is almost seen as original sin in these places – something that inevitably reduces individual freedoms. But big(ger) government, done effectively and with enlightenment, can increase freedom by reducing conflicts such as the one described above. It is the job of government to co-ordinate responses to the needs of millions of people, so that they may be effectively and universally delivered. As with any other mechanism, the failure to maintain it properly tends to lead to breakdown – as we are finding in many aspects of national life at present.

Ironically, true freedom may require a degree of conformity from those involved – but there are many times where such small sacrifices result in better organisation, higher standards, and liberation from those who use such hot air to keep us in chains.

Arts, Architecture & Design

Dove

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Some designs barely date. The Dove Lamp was designed by Marco Colombo and Mario Barbaglia for the small Italian lighting company PAF in 1984. I first came across a photo of it in a book of contemporary design in the early 1990s, and was immediately taken with its minimal, elegant but hi-tech poise.

The blade of the lamp has a very thin side-profile, and it almost hovers in mid-air, only being supported towards one end on two thin metal legs, reminiscent of a bird just before landing. Seen from above, the blade tapers slightly from tail to the head. The angle of the lamp head is adjustable, and thanks to a counter-weight hidden in the tail, the lamp can be placed in any position. I think it looks best at a low angle with a long reach, almost defying gravity. The head is also beautifully slim with a perfectly-judged compound curve to its upper side, and the whole supposedly evokes a bird in flight – even if, to me, that head is more reminiscent of a duck than a dove.

Either way, Dove won many design awards, and was featured on the front of the International Design Yearbook in 1985. It was a fortune-maker for the small company that designed and manufactured it, and reputedly became the second-best-selling desk lamp in the world. It was also the subject of a famous litigation case, when the original company took the manufacturer of an inferior copy to court.

At the time, the price of the lamp meant there was no prospect of owning one, but the design stuck in my mind nonetheless, and in due course the matter was rectified. I remember walking down a street in Lausanne, past a rather cutting-edge interiors shop, and seeing one in the window. It still seemed fearfully expensive for a desk lamp – but I decided to stick my neck out – the first time that I had seriously dug deep for a piece of great design. At the time it was much more difficult to obtain these things in most of the U.K. It was duly carted home on the plane.

That version of the lamp incorporated an early attempt at infra-red on/off control – simply by swiping one’s hand above the base one could turn the light on or off, or holding it there dimmed the light. It had many years’ service in my home, being sufficiently eye-catching to grace the living room rather than my desk. Sadly, one day a freak flash of lightning gave the sensor a shock, and the thing gradually degenerated into a nervous breakdown, seemingly incapable of switching on and off properly – or staying such. Eventually, the flickering became so bad that it had to go.

The earlier design with the PIR base.

Some years later, I was in need of a new desk lamp – so I had a second go with Dove. This time, it was easy enough to order from the U.K. – but the PIR version had been discontinued. So my second Dove lamp has the more conventional flat base with manual on-off switch. It loses a little of its elegance compared with the earlier version, whose base sloped in opposition to the arm, but it is still a great piece of design. This one came from Nemo, the company that seems to have taken over the design before discontinuing it in 2020. It seems that Dove is now quite sought-after.

We have been making some changes around our home in recent months. Out has gone the T.V. (which we never watched) – leaving a hole in a rather key location. Having viewed literally thousands of other lamps online (I am not keen on the clunky retro-Scandi styles that seem to be everywhere at present), it suddenly struck me that I should move the Dove lamp from the office back into the living room – and suddenly that space came right. The Dove fits perfectly – that poise is still magnificent, the tension between the elegant weightlessness and the matt black surface still attracts – and the white wall it is now against sets off its slim silhouette beautifully. It is as much a sculpture as a light, particularly since the actual light source is now concealed.

1980s design seems to be going through the phase that many do, of being deeply out of favour – but as with all eras, the decade threw up a few items that have gone on to have iconic status, and never seem to date no matter what their setting. The Dove lamp is now perhaps not as well-known as it might be – Richard Sapper’s Tizio lamp for Artemide eventually eclipsed Dove in the icon stakes – but in my opinion, it is Dove that is the more appealing – an item whose presence immediately elevates its setting – and it fully deserves pride of place and its entry in the list of great, enduring works of design.

Hole filled
Opinion & Thought

Sophistry and the planting of seeds

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After over five years of waiting, I’ve finally had a reasoned, informed discussion with a Brexiter. The specifics aren’t important, but it was perhaps significant that the individual (who is not known to me personally) also has a background in education and the exchange did take place on social media. The former provided a little shared ground – but as the discussion developed, it quickly became apparent just how limiting the practicalities of conducting complex debate by such means actually are.

This coincided neatly with both my finishing Tim Harford’s book How to Make the World Add Up and the final proof reading of my own book on Critical Thinking (now begins the hard search for a publisher…)

After several other recent encounters where my attempts to reason carefully with Brexiters ended in yet more mockery and abuse, my concern about the balkanisation of public opinion had not exactly subsided. Whatever our views, it really is not healthy if all we can do is close our ears and call each other nasty names in lieu of searching for an accommodating way forward.

The Sophists were thinkers and orators of ancient Greece. Over time, rhetoric and winning an argument came to dominate reaching the truth (I will leave aside here the deep difficulties within that word…). Sophistry is alive and well in modern society. It seems that our formal politics depend on it – especially in the system we have in the U.K. where the “winner takes all” – and achieving that winning position in both a general election and more widely seems more important than wise (let alone conciliatory) government itself. It hardly sets a good example to society at large… (With this tail well and truly wagging the dog, much of what passes for governance in this country is now, it seems to me, little more than collateral effects of the supremacy battle within the Westminster Bubble).

Social media also seem to thrive on sophistry, if only because they tap into a fundamental human competitiveness and boost it by removing the usual social conventions that might make one keep at least one ‘glove’ on when debating face to face. So often it seems that the real purpose of interaction is to win the argument, rather than find factual accuracy – let alone approach consensus or deeper understanding of another point of view. Maybe I am being hopelessly idealistic here, but it is still a great pity, since more mature use of social media has, I believe, huge potential to boost proper civic debate.

Both Harford’s book and the art of critical thinking in general can perhaps inform the way forward, and even guide our personal conduct and strategy.

It is all too easy to get sucked into sophistry oneself, when operating in a sphere that encourages it. Regularly reminding oneself that ‘winning’ the argument is neither likely nor necessary can help. The chances of fundamentally quashing another view to the point of abandonment are tiny, as is easily appreciated if one reflects on the difficulty one might encounter oneself in conceding the same. People rarely make fundamental changes to their positions except through profound personal experiences – and the chances of a discussion on social media being one are about nil. A little respect simply accepts that one’s opponent will be in the same position, and it is all the more unlikely if those positions really are the product of genuine thought and experience, rather than dogma.

In which case, shifting the objective towards a genuine exploration of the issues and contrasting perspectives is much more likely to be productive. How to do that? My own approach is hopefully to model good practice, for example by:

  • never using ad hominems;
  • always being prepared to look for compromise;
  • trying to find commonality and consensus where it does exist, even outside the debate itself;
  • understanding the difference between fact and interpretation or opinion;
  • trying to address opposing points rather than ignoring or rubbishing them;
  • conceding when one does not have a good answer;
  • maintaining politeness and good humour;
  • firmly asserting one’s credentials without bragging or demeaning the other person;
  • most importantly, explicitly (and if necessary, repeatedly) stating one’s aims and code for the discussion.

I won’t pretend that I always achieve all of this, particularly under fire but it is still, I think, a good aspiration. Sadly, sheer experience suggests that many people are so preconditioned that they can’t respond in kind – but that too does not diminish the aspiration. Retaining the moral high ground is probably still good advice.

In the recent experience, my interlocutor sadly began by dismissing my points and claiming (without any basis) that I had no experience in the subject matter and did not know what I was talking about. Privately, I knew this was ridiculous – but how to prove otherwise without appearing condescending? However, just for once, continued engagement did shift the argument onto more constructive ground and we proceeded to have detailed and lengthy interactions over several days, before agreeing to close it simply due to the practical constraints. It finished courteously.

What did it achieve? Tim Harford points out the importance of curiosity: curious people are more likely to engage with alternative views because their own are subject to modification, whereas the incurious will simply close their ears and blast away. Such flexibility at least makes it more possible to respect and respond to another position even if one does not agree with or adopt it. It also makes a shifting of positions towards greater tolerance or consensus just a little more likely. A recent feature in The Guardian, which has put opponents face to face over a meal has found something similar: given the right conditions, balkanised positions can be eroded and consensus or at least mutual respect found.

Harford suggests that when it comes to real sticking points, it can be better to ask people progressively to elaborate their understanding of their own position, rather than attempting to contradict them. If they cannot, then this self-realisation is more effective than anything one can say oneself. It does not necessarily mean that they will concede openly, of course. In other words, the key to a successful debate is to pay attention not to your own views, but to those of the other, no matter how much you disagree with them.

In the recent discussion, it became clear that the other person was (unsurprisingly) no more likely to shift wholesale to my point of view than I was to hers. I felt there were omissions and contradictions in her stance – ironic given her claim to authority, and precisely a criticism she levelled at mine. I did my best to respond accordingly, though I felt that fewer of my own points were directly addressed in return. When presented with a challenge, it can feel easier to shift the argument that address it – but it is a weaker and less persuasive response. I drew my own conclusions – privately.

It seemed as though we were seeing the world in through parallel lenses: broadly the same information interpreted in diametrically opposite ways, nothing profound enough to alter that fact.

Nonetheless, the discussion was civil; over time we found there were areas of agreement, and at the same time, I suspect some points were raised by either side that the other had not previously considered. If our interaction has any longer lasting effect, I suspect it will be incremental – and this is perhaps why we need to see such events as the ‘sowing of seeds’ that may just germinate given time and modify someone’s long term view. It works both ways, of course – and perhaps that is the final benefit: it is better to talk properly to our opponents than abuse them, give a little, learn a little and then part, disagreeing if necessary – but perhaps slightly the wiser.

Sartoria

Winter woollen wonders

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“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful,” said William Morris. It’s a good maxim.

There being nothing of urgency in the former category, Christmas ‘inbound’ this year focused on the latter, and the arrival of several rather gratuitous items of clothing. A little arm-twisting (see the previous post) created the possibility for the shopping to be done by yours truly, which for me is a pleasurable part of the whole process.

Given that the items hardly fall in the “necessary” category, the emphasis was on appreciating the tactility and craftsmanship of lovely fabrics.

Thus, another trip was made to Antonio Bellini at The Italian Shirt Shop in Ipswich, which yielded a beautifully soft woollen roll-neck pullover in golden yellow. While there, I was also taken by a short overcoat, stylistically superb, but high in synthetic fibre. I took a chance, but on getting it home almost immediately regretted it. Sadly, an example of Italian style trumping substance, and (for me) one of the very few ‘misses’ in Antonio’s shop.

After some days, I contacted Antonio, who in the true spirit of independent retailing was greatly saddened by my plight and agreed to a change of plan. Hence a second trip resulted in the return of said coat, and its replacement with two more of his lovely woollens, a rather larger addition to the wardrobe than anticipated, and the whole issue graciously turned from potential disappointment into pleasure. We both agreed that for a generally warm country, Italy’s winter clothes beat even its summer wear – and when it comes to wool, very little of the fogeyism that still dominates British styling. While one might have reservations about its idea of cold weather-wear, the lighter fabrics and closer fit make some lovely items, and so far, they have done their job well.

I had some of the same reservations about buying Neapolitan ‘winter’ trousers. Since buying a pair of his summer trousers, I had been seriously tempted by Massimo Corrado’s direct tailoring service. I took the plunge and again what arrived was superb – deep blue Tasmanian wool; a couple of tweaks to the measurements has resulted in a perfect fit – and all for not so much more than the price of a good high-street pair. What’s more, they arrived beautifully wrapped in tissue in possibly the grandest clothes box I have ever received. So far I have not started shivering.

Finally, Barocco Italia presented some too-tempting items on sale early before Christmas, and this solved the last “what do you want for Christmas?” conundrum. I hadn’t come across Fumagalli1891 before; it claims to be one of Italy’s oldest surviving producers of fine silk and woollen goods. Its website reveals some quirky designs and quite eye-watering prices – so I am not sure what they are doing offering items at much lower prices on Barocco. However, we know what one should not do to gift-horses, so a rather appealing scarf was duly ordered. Again a beautiful piece of fabric, even if it too adds to my over-supply of such items.

The number of clothes that one “needs” is, I think, surprisingly small. Especially if the items are good in themselves, it is very easy just to wear the same few items again and again. It seems to have got worse during covid lockdowns when there have been so few opportunities to go out in the first place.

The problem, however, is that over-wear means items wear out more quickly as they have no time to “rest” – so my new year’s resolution, such as it is, is to try to ring the changes rather more. Antonio told me that newcomers to his shop sometimes struggle with the higher profile of Italian men’s styles: “When would I wear something like that?” is not uncommon – to which his usual answer is “How about NOW?”

Good advice – and having added a few lovely items to the wardrobe, it will not exactly be a hardship…

Opinion & Thought

Presents of mind

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“C’est pour offrir?”

“Oui. S’il vous plaît”

I watched, enchanted, as the assistant deftly turned a small white card box into a minor artwork. But I also learned: how the paper needs to be only a little larger than the surface area of the contents; how thicker, better quality paper folds and cuts more cleanly than cheap stuff; how one should fold it in as closely into the corners as possible; how the end flaps should never stray onto the main surfaces, how to wrap tricky objects by starting from the largest surface, and how to use a minimal amount of tape so as not to mar the effect.

The package was expertly quartered with ribbon, the loose ends made into a bow and drawn across the back of the scissors blade to curl them, a decorative sprig attached. The Swiss are masters at such small acts of hospitality. My hosts were delighted; I went home and practised.

The giving and receiving of presents is a significant gesture and worthy of care: an expression of appreciation and understanding from one human being to another. Choosing something to give, gratuitously to delight another involves effort and insight; it means assuming proxy powers to enhance another’s life.  Dig deeper and you find yourself confronting profound questions about whether humans are fundamentally competitive or collaborative creatures: the act of voluntarily giving something away could even be counter-evolutionary, which may be why the sense of beneficence it generates can be so pleasurable for the giver too…

But while the giving and receiving of presents can be a delightful thing, offering moments of innocent joy, it is also a minefield of potential misjudgement and faux-pas; in this apparently simple act, there are so many judgements to be made – which may be why it is so often played down, made more pragmatic than symbolic, just another tick on the to-do list.

Perhaps the French phrase gives an inkling of this: something to be offered. Not insisted upon, nor taken for granted; perhaps something artfully chosen and presented, highly personal – tentatively, humbly proffered for acceptance. Therein lie imponderable questions about whom the present is really for, and what its purpose is:  the stage is set for a delicate pas-de-deux between giver and recipient. But while the obvious answer might be the latter, there is more to it than that.

 One can begin by wondering whether it is the act or the artefact that is more important; “It’s the thought that counts” might give us an answer – but which thought? Whose? Not all presents are chosen or given wholly willingly. And what if it’s wide of the mark?

An artfully-given present demands empathy from the giver towards the recipient, in order to know what will both delight and be of use. As important is the implied care that was taken in the choosing; to that extent, a present says much about the giver too, and this therefore allows him or her some sovereignty over the act. Thus it also requires receptivity, good grace and a willingness to be delighted on the part of the recipient.

So presents may be as much about giving as receiving; while I appreciated that as little as a child as anyone else, over time I have come to enjoy the act of seeking out suitable gifts that I hope will delight their intended recipients – but which also say a little about me and our relationship in the process. For there are, after all, two people involved in this act.

Literally and figuratively wrapped up in all this is the nature of the gift itself: should it be useful, or simply beautiful? Whom should it most delight – the giver or the receiver? Is the purpose to say, “Here is something I hope you will like” or “Here is something that I like, that I hope you will too”? In an ideal world, they will overlap of course – but let’s not get too ambitious… People nowadays tend to have very specific wishes, but there may be times when something more generic but genuinely charming comes closer to hitting the spot – as we tend to do with people we know less well.

If it’s really the thought that counts, then the nature of the present itself perhaps matters less, so long as it is not actually rejected. Most people are realistic and tactful enough to understand the occasional failures, though it is still an opportunity lost and a disappointment gained, for what is a present if not genuinely loved…? What is perhaps more difficult is misjudgements that persist year after year, with neither side apparently learning very much. A kind of entrenched resignation sets in at yet another tea towel from….. A seriously mis-received present can cause embarrassment and cause nearly as much offence as does a good one pleasure; see www.dauphin/henryV/tennisballs.…..

And so we very often play safe. We fall easily into judging a present by its content rather than its symbolism; I am as guilty as the next, though I am still as delighted by something genuinely unexpected, provided it genuinely pleases me – but that is the difficult bit, for that involves knowing me more than a little…and I’m not keen on the subterfuge required to cover up the less successful ones.

If specialness is the main criterion, a present doesn’t need to be large or expensive; I would rather receive something nice to eat or drink (nicely wrapped of course) than an ugly but ludicrously expensive watch, a bubble-packed green plastic smoke-emitting toy dragon with illuminating LED eyes, a baggy orange acrylic pullover that I really will never bring myself to wear even once, or even a pair of Beolab-28 speakers, which Bang & Olufsen’s website is (without apparent irony) offering in its ‘gift suggestions’, for a mere £10,750. A badly misjudged present suggests that the person giving it either does not understand, or does not care – or both; it wasn’t a present, just an obligation. Repetition only makes it worse…

Sadly, I think a lot of the charm has already been lost. I blame the usual suspects, namely commerce and the media, who shamelessly devalue everything they touch so long as it boosts the bottom line. Modern retail couldn’t care less about the niceties, so long as we all part with shedloads of cash in the process; it benefits from turning present-giving from a symbolic act into a utilitarian and expensive one. Many have been conned, seeming to believe that the important criteria are the size, number and cost of the presents, rather than how well-considered or genuinely delightful they are. Why does anyone need to give the same person multiple presents? Do two presents delight twice as much as one? If nothing else, the Law of Diminishing Returns says not…

With the loss of ‘well-given’ has also gone ‘well-received’: particularly now that we often know what the wrapping (if present) will contain, much of the delight is lost before we have even started, replaced by inevitability, no matter how nice the item. Once the present is opened, it is put aside on the pile with all the others, possibly (if it is lucky) to be revisited another day. Just another act of material acquisition.

Yet despite the foregoing, I admit I have become a complete Present Pragmatist. I think it was the realisation that this is indeed a two-way process that did it – and it seems I am, once again, in a very small minority. I’m not sure where else the best resolution can lie between two people who for whatever reason (perhaps great distance?) only have a rudimentary appreciation of each other, for whom presents may be bought more because of the relationship involved than a deep desire to delight that individual. I would rather receive no present at all than an inappropriate one, just because someone did not think hard enough about the pas-de-deux. That may sound ungracious, and appear to contradict my earlier point about the respective prerogatives of the giver and receiver – but the solution surely lies in the level of understanding necessary between those people in the first place. If the price of resolving that issue is to do my own legwork, then so be it.

It is not a matter of having expensive tastes. I would rather receive something small but well-chosen – or else add my own contribution, to make affordable something that otherwise might not have been – than be given something useless to me just because it was cheap, of an “appropriate” size/value, or because it briefly amused to the person who bought it. Not that this has proved much defence against “I changed my mind and bought you this instead…” – leaving me to pick up the entire bill for what we had previously been agreed would be shared….

All manner of complexities can simply be sidestepped by either specifying very closely what one would like (sending a hyperlink is almost fool-proof), allowing only a very small number of people to do one’s shopping – or even mutually buying one’s own, and settling up later. This seems to avoid most of the tide of polyester pyjamas, sugary snacks and joke socks (that play Jingle Bells) that might otherwise arrive. It even avoids some (but not all) of the gaudy, sticky-tape-plastered (and definitely not recyclable) wrapping paper that seems to be that national norm when it comes to ‘presentation’, Swiss standards being rare here. And given that much of the symbolism is already gone by that point, I am also mercenary in my use of online shopping to minimise the tedious logistics.

I hasten to say that I do apply the same logic the other way round: people should have what they tell me they want, no matter what I think. I learned years ago that there is no point going to great lengths to acquire something special for someone, only for it to be utterly lost on them. Nor to wrap things especially nicely if they are routinely shredded without a glance. My belief that nice things always cut through was shown to be hopelessly naïve.

So, I largely save my efforts for those who do understand, and accept that I will be buying a fair number of the watering cans, car tyre pumps, underwear and novelty nick-nacks that some people would just buy for themselves rather than requesting as presents. That is, I suppose, another form of good grace – the acceptance that one should completely suspend one’s own input when giving, and just do what was asked. I suppose it means that I accept (reluctantly) that my idea of Giving is not the only valid one. Except that inwardly, I don’t; too much of the essence has been lost.

There are, however, certain lines I will not cross: I always buy the best present I can afford rather than the cheapest (or first) I can find, I do not dilute my budget by adding needless extras – and I still wrap tightly and with minimal tape.

I don’t intend this post to be taken too seriously, but neither is its message unimportant. It may speak of ships passing in the night, of people who, for whatever reason do not really understand or value or think hard enough about each other, even when they may supposedly be close. Present-giving easily becomes tokenism, ritual, routine, rather than a genuine expression of delight, appreciation and respect – not of the thing itself, but of one person in another.

Happy Christmas.