The Colossus of Rhodes

One of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the Colossus of Rhodes is a statue of the Greek sun-god Helios. This is he.

Rhodes is an island in the Dodecanese group of Greece. The medieval city is a World Heritage Site. It's a beautiful island. I've been there but I didn't see the Colossus. Maybe I'm not ancient enough (although getting there). Mr Wiki tells us that "Rhodes' nickname is The Island of the Knights, named after the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, who ruled the island from 1310 to 1522." I didn't see any knights either.

The Colossus is referenced in Emma Lazarus' poem The New Colossus:

The ancient Colossus and the new Colossus are both about 33 metres high. One built to celebrate success in a year-long defensive war, the other defying oppressors and encompassing all humankind (the seven stars on her crown may represent the seven continents; although the above drawing shows Helios with a seven star crown, no-one knows what the statue actually looked like). So freedom in both cases.

Of the seven ancient wonders of the world, I think the one I'd most like to have seen is the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Although it's not certain they ever existed, as no archaeological evidence has ever been found. They seem so pretty and Babylon sounds a nice place to live. Maybe not so much recently though.

Why seven wonders? The number seven was chosen because the Greeks believed it represented perfection and plenty. Worked for them.

Am I cultured? Ask Mr Plato

If the meaning of cultured, as applied to people is: polite, well-spoken, generally civilised in discourse, then I wouldn't consider myself cultured (none of the above). But I definitely am a lover of culture - music, theatre, visual arts, written prose, dance. Anything from ancient times to the present day. The only thing missing for me is poetry. I've never been into it and I find it difficult, even daunting. And is poetry supposed to be read or spoken? This is Billy Collins, US Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2003:

And this is the now well-known poetry performance by Amanda Gorman at Joe Biden's inauguration:

I'm also interested in the notion of the culture of a nation or a civilisation. What are those things which make up that culture? The arts obviously but much more - norms, behaviours, beliefs, customs, and values shared by the population perhaps.

Sean Bean says in Civilization VI: "The worth of a culture is not measured by its accomplishments but in how those accomplishments last and how they are remembered."

One of the problems with this is that measuring culture by longevity may devalue what that culture morphs into. The 2,000 year long ancient Greek culture was an icon of cultural greatness and you could argue that it survives to this day in our modern democracies but how fragile are those now? The Persians were the most powerful nation in the world for 200 years; a kingdom unified by Cyrus the Great and defined by leadership which respected the customs, beliefs and rights of conquered peoples. Are those 200 years less valuable than the 2,000 years of the Greeks?

If we look at our modern Western culture, how will our norms, behaviours, beliefs, values and customs stand up to the test of time? Even more importantly, to what extent are those shared by our increasingly fractured populations? I'm not sure how to describe our English culture, our British culture, our European culture or even if any of these actually exist.

We live in a time when every cultural norm is questioned, to an extent which hasn't been prevalent in any previous cultures. I suppose this in itself is an inevitable result of democracy, one which perhaps the Greeks (except for Plato - read on) didn't anticipate. Could it be that democracy is inherently unstable and cannot survive? Plato, in his Republic, postulates that democracy degenerates into tyranny where no one has discipline and society exists in chaos. Democracy is taken over by the longing for freedom. Power must be seized to maintain order. A champion will come along and experience power, which will cause him to become a tyrant.

Sound familiar? Plato clearly didn't have much time for the idea of democracy and his preference was for aristocracy, grounded in wisdom and reason and ruled by a philosopher king. I think our future Charles III might be attracted to that.

So cultures don't last but Sean Bean could be right to suggest that the longer a culture does last the more worthy it is. Except that, as in technological advance, there maybe an exponential decline in the amount of time required for change so maybe Persia's 200 years were equivalent to Greece's 2,000 years - and that means about 20 years today.

Our modern democracy probably only started in the early years of the 20th century with universal suffrage and so is a pretty recent phenomenon. It may be starting to decay but we can nevertheless see and value our cultural norms even though they may be transient.

Our (English/British/European/Western) culture is different today from what it was 20 years ago - in essence as well as in the engagement of the population - and it could be argued that the 20 year old culture didn't last and therefore wasn't worthy. But if you do argue that, you are effectively saying that there is no such thing as culture.

I believe my parents' post-war culture was defined by a respect for (maybe even deference towards) institutions - the monarchy, politicians, teachers, GPs who came to visit when you were sick - that doesn't exist today. Although those are not my cultural norms I still respect them for the time and context in which they existed. My parent's culture was as valid as mine is.

Indeed, I'm not sure that I personally have a culture.

So maybe the answer to the title question is still: No.

Shout out for the Passport Office

I needed a new passport because mine had expired.

Looking at that sentence again and examining it for tightness and precision - as writers should - I wonder whether "mine expired" would improve it or if it would change its meaning. My original is passive - the passport was not responsible for its actions - whereas "the passport expired" could suggest the pages, much yellowed after years of use, simply refused to live any longer.

Anyway I digress.

The original expiry was in August but the Passport Office was in lockdown with reduced staffing and were discouraging renewal applications from those with no urgent need to travel such as me so I left it then made a renewal application on 9th April had to send the existing passport to them plus a different photo because the one I took on my phone you've no idea how hard it is to find a plain background with just the right amount and balance of light in your house wasn't sufficient then sent a new photo and finally received the new passport this morning.

I thought that I'd had enough of tightness and that a bit of stream of consciousness wouldn't go amiss in that sentence. James Joyce I'm not. Obviously.

The new passport is apparently blue, although you'd be forgiven thinking black, so dark is the hue. I was perhaps hoping for royal blue, which is such a nice colour, but at least it's no longer EU Burgundy. Hooray!

I'm the first to harangue organisations for poor service but good job Passport Office for a swift turnaround. 👍

Shah Jahan

Shah Jahan was a Mughal Emperor who reigned from 1628 to 1658. He is known for his architectural achievements, most notably the Taj Mahal.

He wasn't an architect or engineer but brought his experience of military command to the exercising of administrative organisation. He brought together a team of the greatest architects of the time - Ustad Ahmad Lahori and others - to create great monuments. He gave his name to Shahjahanabad, which he took as his capital as Agra, the previous capital, had become overcrowded. The rest of the world called it Delhi.

He built there the Red Fort, which was used both as a military barracks and a home for Emperors. It's a huge building, the size of a small city. Muhammad Waris, appointed as Shah Jahan's personal historian, tells us "it had six gateways with as many as twenty-one bastions, of which some were circular and some octagonal." I've been there and seen a Son et Lumiere production.

Lest we imagine that Jahan was always a power for good, let's ignore the vulgarity and self-serving of the Taj Mahal (it's a mausoleum where he and his wife are buried) and concentrate on the fact that he murdered his three brothers to take the throne after his father, Emperor Jahangir, died. I did say he was a military man, didn't I?

Eventually he was overthrown and imprisoned by his son. Karma.

But his monuments remain, so that we all know Shah Jahan and none of us his son.

I won't be joining any short term social media boycott

Reports today that the Premier League, English Football League and Women's Super League clubs, and other football organisations, will join in a four-day boycott of social media platforms in an effort to combat abuse and discrimination.

Four days. That'll scare them!

After four days they'll all go back to incessant tweeting about their boring lives (as do we all @usedtobecroque1), because they're hooked on celebrity and adulation.

Virtue signalling.

I'm not a great user of social media. I share my blog posts with my twitter account and I tweet about my video game successes from time to time. It's a low key plan to drive readers to my blog. I find both blogging and tweeting liberating: they allow me to express my life and my interests in a way which would otherwise be internal, talking to myself. When I tweet a screenshot of my latest video game win, I do so because that is part of who I am and it is one of the things I do in my rich and diverse life. If I ever feel down because one day seems much the same as the next (as I guess everyone feels from time to time), blogging and tweeting allows me to see that's not true.

It's obvious that social media are vehicles for horrendous abuse; I'm not blind to that. But the problem as I see it is not social media but people. It's people who abuse. Over the years, decades and centuries hopefully humankind will develop into a tolerant, kind and collective species. For the moment, we are what we are and there are people with ugly mouths and attitudes who exploit the freedom of social media for short term selfish gain.

But don't forget the positives. After the debacle of the European Super League this week, when some of the richest football clubs in Europe sought to make themselves richer, and the backlash from fans and players forced the clubs to re-think, a football agent said "had this stunt been pulled 20 years ago, the players would not have had a voice ... their voice comes from social media."

Ultimately, people, you have choices. If people were to abuse me on Twitter or in blog comments, I can choose to ignore the abuse - or to stop tweeting or blogging. I have the power.

If you want to make a stand against abuse - rather than against social media companies - don't do it for four measly days. Leave social media for good.

That's what Thierry Henry did.

The Mist

In Kazuo Ishiguro's The Buried Giant the central characters are husband and wife Axl and Beatrice. They are on a journey to find, and be reconciled with, their long-lost son. Who is thought to live in a not too distant village. But enveloping everyone and everything is ... a mist. Which appears to cause forgetfulness in everybody. And may or may not itself be caused by Querig the she-dragon. It's a tale of Britons and Saxons, orcs and pixies, all of which may or may not be real - or figments of mist-addled illusion.

There are warriors and Authurian knights but it seems that it is down to simple peasants Axl and Beatrice to slay the she-dragon and release the mist. But they are ambivalent about whether this would be universally beneficial or would cause them to bring back memories which they might regret.

The tale proceeds at Ishiguro's usual pace: slow. Axl and Beatrice link up with Wistan, a warrior claiming to be on a mission for his King from a kingdom in the west, who is himself attached to a young boy Edwin, who exhibits strange behaviours but seems to be training with Wistan for warriorship. Then there is Sir Gawain (of course), an aged devotee of the long-dead Arthur, who clomps about in full but rusting armour, astride his trusty steed Horace.

This motley crew somehow find themselves joining together to try to kill Querig. Possibly by persuading her to eat a goat that has been infected with some kind of poison. By three children, living without their parents. It's clear that each of them has a back story which they may or may not be happy to be revealed and much of the story telling includes hints as to what those histories might be. Beatrice nervously reveals "I'm thinking I'm the one to fear most the mist's clearing ... it came to me there were dark things I did to you once, husband." And Axl muses "What became of our son, princess? Does he really wait for us in his village? Or will we search this country for a year and still not find him?"

They climb a steep mountainside towards the giant's cairn, where they tie the goat to a stake. It's not clear to me at this point whether the giant is the same entity as the she-dragon or exists just in the book's title. We'll see. Horace, by the way, has been left behind, being as old and lacking in mobility as his master. For some reason, Edwin has also been left behind, tied to the same stake as the goat.

Finally they reach the dragon's pit. And she is a sorry sight, "so emaciated she looked more some worm-like reptile accustomed to water that had mistakenly come aground and was in the process of dehydrating." "'Can this really be her, Axl?' Beatrice said quietly. 'This poor creature no more than a fleshy thread?'"

Now Wistan and Gawain prepare to battle each other, for the former wishes to complete his mission whilst the knight wants the dragon to be allowed to live out her remaining months in peace. And Wistan sees Gawain as "a kin of the hated Arthur".

Wistan kills Gawain and then Querig. He reveals a prediction that the death of the dragon and the clearing of the mist will result in Saxons and Britons, long at peace and living alongside one another, will recall their violent histories, rise up and fight a dreadful war. "The giant, once well buried, now stirs."

Very early in the book, at the beginning of their journey, Beatrice and Axl come across a sad couple, apart by virtue of their wish to be transported to a nearby island by a boatman who will only take one of them. The island only allows individuals to live separately rather than as a couple, other than in exceptional cases of extreme love and devotion, proven by each answering a question out of the hearing of the other in the same way. As they now descend Querig's mountain to the valley, helped by Horace, they again come across the boatman. He can take them to the nearby island, on which Beatrice hopes to find their son, but - purely as a formality - he must ask them each questions, out of earshot of the other.

As he does so, their back stories are revealed by their answers. Long ago, Beatrice was unfaithful to Axl. As a result, their young son left home, soon to be taken by the plague. Axl forbade her to go to his grave. Many years later, as old age mellowed them, he relented and they agreed to go on a journey to visit the grave. The boatman now carries Beatrice, too weak to walk, and places her in the boat. As Axl tries to board the boatman says "this is but a small vessel. I daren't carry more than one passenger at a time." Arguments ensue between Axl and the boatman but it is Beatrice who insists that she trusts the man and being  transported separately is the only way they can be together for ever more. They say farewells.

The boatman has the final word: "I hear him coming through the water. Does he intend a word for me? He spoke of mending our friendship. Yet when I turn he does not look my way, only to the land and the low sun on the cove. And neither do I search for his eye. He wades on past me, not glancing back. Wait for me on the shore, my friend, I say quietly, but he does not hear and he wades on."

For me, this is a 3½ out of 5 book because, despite the supreme story telling and wonderfully detailed descriptions, the subject matter simply doesn't interest me enough. Nor am I attracted to any of the characters. Nevertheless, I am glad I read this book. If you haven't read it and, as a result of my endeavours, are thinking of doing so, you might easily come to different conclusions.