COLOUR SUPPLEMENT: Back to Mono 2

Back to mono again…but this time in painting not photography. My exceedingly excellent tutor said to use a single colour only plus white to help learn about tonal values. She is a really good teacher.

Herewith the results of my efforts: top one is in oils and the bottom one is acrylic both using burnt sienna plus titanium white (the EU banned flake white in the weird belief that artists might mistake it for toothpaste.)

WEEKENDER: The push for sustainability, by Wiggia

It was browsing through some drinks-related articles that sparked my piece off this week, I came across this…

https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2022/07/one-in-four-uk-adults-willing-to-pay-more-for-sustainable-packaging/

The headline quotes 1 in 4 as willing to pay more for sustainable packaging; that is, 1 in 4 said they might be willing to pay more whilst 3 out of 4 don't want to pay more or can’t afford any more price increases on anything, but that isn’t mentioned, they don’t matter as they don’t support the narrative.

As with so much today corporations are following the agenda for all things climate change, for that is what this is actually about, it has nothing to do with saving precious resources. What all these aims have in common is more expense for the consumer, at a time when inflation is at its highest in thirty odd-years, earnings are falling in real terms and basics in particular energy are not only becoming a very expensive necessity but will naturally mean the general public will cut back as they have already started to do on various items.

Sometimes I wonder what planet these people and organisations are on. During a period of financial stress for the many they faff about adding costs to items that may well be off the agenda all together in the next year; what is the advantage for them in that?

Already in the magazine a piece on Philip Schofield, yes him, whose own wine brand (wine brands are the new celebrity cause célèbre, all must have one) is going to promote for the same reasons cardboard packaging i.e. bottles. No quibble with that but its sustainability advantage over glass is doubtful; will it also be cheaper? No comment on that point - with glass techniques producing thinner and much lighter bottles the advantage is not that obvious. 

I have to admit I can’t stand Philip Schofield, my problem, a modern day version of the obsequious  Uriah Heep, but plenty do like him as his endless appearances prove.

It seems that along with diversity managers, sustainability managers are now onboard most big firms. It seems sometimes as though the private sector is mirroring the public sector in creating jobs for the boys. If sustainability is something they deem necessary why not use one the agencies who specialise in the subject? No, can’t do that, they need the name of their own sustainability manager on the letter heading to prove how worthy they are, so another layer of management is created that we all pay for one way or another.

Sustainability is just another arm of the climate change industry, and it is an industry. Oil producing firms are changing to sustainable forms of energy not because they are particularly of the belief that they are polluting the planet but because having their arm forced by green led governments simply means they switch to an alternative way of producing profit that allows them to stay in business. 

Companies like Shell have moved into a range of businesses that enable them to use their huge resources and carry on making money. The fact that the man in the street has had to dig ever deeper just to stay afloat is not their or the green lobby's concern and so it is with the extension into sustainable products.

This quote from a Conde Naste article is taken out of context but you can tell from it which way the wind is blowing:

‘with the promise that the current climate crisis can be turned into a business opportunity through innovation, engineering and eco-modernisation.   If many of these schemes come to pass they will be lucky to have anyone left to afford their ‘business opportunities.’

Conspiracy theories aside there can be no doubt now that the green lobby has infiltrated the government hierarchy and workings of state,  not just here but throughout much of the western world.

Another part of the same document:

‘Last year, poor social and environmental performance caused the CEO of the world’s largest mining company to resign; the stock of three chemical giants plummeted; and corporations were called to the carpet for poor emissions offset programs. This shows that climate action is no joke among the public, and the stakes are only going to get higher.’

The truth is the public would likely know nothing about it, What happened was a leak on the performance and the threat from woke banks and institutions threatening the funding of further projects unless they comply, so the part about the public apart from the green blob is disingenuous.

They don’t want you to travel, yet apart from a few asides will not  come out with that fact outright and we see the creeping agenda: EVs that few can afford, the subsidy to the same EVs being withdrawn and the edge they have in running costs now evaporating with other ways of taxing.

It can’t be a coincidence that world wide we are seeing airports in chaos and ferry ports blocked. All the excuses have only a modicum of truth, as the fact that people would want to get away after two years of lockdown was obvious, yet here we are with everyone conveniently blaming everyone else.

The utter disconnect between what they wish for and what is possible, and it isn’t with current technology, is highlighted here; as he says at the end, we are being led by political science:

https://thecountersignal.com/toronto-pearson-international-airport-ranks-as-worst-airport-for-flight-delays-in-the-world/

Not only do they not want you to drive, they don’t want you to fly or travel unless it is by public transport. It will be made as difficult as possible in the short term by the mandating of vaccine passports; even if we in the UK are slow to this others will lead and all will follow. Only private jets as already will be exempt for the elite and the rich, anyone who thinks this will not happen is kidding themselves. The lying and scaremongering will continue unabated as it has been shown to work.

Schipol Amsterdam airport has just announced it will restrict the number of flights by ten per cent; interesting, as it is in the last phase of building a terminal to increase passenger numbers. So where did this bad business decision come from? It comes of course from the Dutch government who own the majority of the airport's holdings, the same government who are wanting to stop 50% of Dutch farming.

Were the Dutch public when they voted for this lot aware what was in store for them? If they were then on their collective heads be it, but I doubt that any political party would be shouting these policies from the rooftops, it will if at all be buried in the small print.

https://www.timeout.com/news/this-is-the-first-airport-to-limit-flights-to-combat-climate-change-072622

Sustainability has already been voiced by no other than the clothing industry which now has advocates of so called sustainable materials at much higher prices as the way forward despite years of the Primarks of this world dominating the industry. This philosophy is being applied to everything, in a recession of which we are on the edge, a lowering of living standards, and with wage stagnation over the last ten years. Simply, few will be able to afford this new way forward; in a growth economy there may be some justification for it in some areas, but that is not the case and won't be for years with the debt that has been forced on us.

Yet none of this will make the slightest bit of difference as outside the western woke world no one is listening. The climate change argument has no traction in places like China and India so we are impoverishing ourselves for nothing.

Remember this?

https://twitter.com/i/status/1552198551148576768

(President Trump warning in 2018 against overedependence on Russian energy supplies)

- Not laughing now, are they?

And finally, for those who believe that Britain should be turned into a version of Jurassic Park we have smug ‘conservationist’ Chris Packham at odds with smug SNP windbag Ian Blackford over Sea Eagles carrying his lambs away. My wish would be for the Sea Eagles to up their game and carry both of them away.

Blackford said this awhile back:

“Blackford’s calls come less than three years after a non-native mink killed his three-year-old ducks — named Mrs McGregor, Mrs Campbell, Mrs Morrison and Mrs McFarlane“

The price that’s paid for all this re-wilding and moves to sustainability have a price that is worth paying - until, that is, it affects you.

We will all be scavenging soon if this lunacy is allowed to carry on.

FRIDAY MUSIC: Darrell Scott, by JD

I first became aware of Darrell Scott when he appeared on the BBC's Transatlantic Sessions many years ago. Last weekend he popped up again on SKY Arts as one of the members of Robert Plant's Band of Joy in an hour long concert recorded in Nashville and very good it was too! I believe the whole thing is on YouTube somewhere. 

Anyway, Scott is an exceptionally fine musician and songwriter of American folk music loosely categorised as Americana or Roots music.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darrell_Scott

Conservative leadership? by Sackerson

From my Substack column...

----------------------------------

Now that the contest for the Conservative leadership has been whittled down to two candidates, we should look at what qualities might make a good leader.

Intelligent and hard-working?

In 1933 the chief of the German Army was quoted as saying:

Those who are clever and industrious I appoint to the General Staff. Use can under certain circumstances be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy qualifies for the highest leadership posts. He has the requisite nerves and the mental clarity for difficult decisions. But whoever is stupid and industrious must be got rid of, for he is too dangerous.

Erstwhile Chancellor Rishi Sunak humblebrags that his greatest weakness is working hard. Potentially that could be a problem, if as PM he allows himself to get over-involved in minutiae to the detriment of ‘helicopter overview.’

With Liz Truss we have the problem of deciding whether she is stupid or lazy; or even both. For example, in the runup to the invasion of Ukraine she walked into a meeting with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and told him ‘that the UK would never recognize Moscow’s sovereignty over the Voronezh and Rostov [Russian!] regions.’ It was hardly her first gaffe, but this one was huge: if you are going to confront a potential enemy, you absolutely must get your facts right. Lavrov accused her afterwards of being ‘unprepared.’

Truss has tried to ‘channel’ Margaret Thatcher, e.g. by the tank photo-op, and her choice of clothing for this leadership debate, thereby inviting damaging comparison, as Edwina Currie pointed out. At the least, this self-undermining image policy argues an inability to foresee presentational pitfalls, in a profession that relies so heavily on appearances.

Ability to dominate others

When General Montgomery first met Winston Churchill, the latter offered him alcohol. Monty replied, ‘I don’t drink and I don’t smoke, and I’m one hundred per cent fit.’ Churchill leaned forward and said, ‘I drink, and I smoke, and I’m two hundred per cent fit!’ Smiling at the memory decades later, Monty told the interviewer, ‘I thought then, we’ve got our man,’ i.e. someone with the aggression to lead the country to victory.

I may be wrong, but although Truss is ambitious, she doesn’t seem to have Thatcher’s intimidating diligence, force of personality and social skills, all necessary to bring the (still mostly male) serpents around the Cabinet table to order. I can imagine her as PM being briefed against, early and often.

Sunak is certainly clever - he used to be an investment analyst for Goldman Sachs (aka the ‘vampire squid.’) Like Gordon Brown, perhaps, he may come up with strategies, schemes and flowcharts - but can he lead? Like Truss, I think he’s a bit of a stiff, a natural big-corporation tie-wearer who chimes wrong when he tries casual as in the debate:

Image: Yahoo!

Ability to inspire

When Sven-Göran Eriksson chose David Beckham in 2001 to lead England in the World Cup, he said (and I wish I could find the quote) that Beckham had a winner’s state of mind that he could instinctively communicate to the rest of the team. That was borne out by England’s 5-1 victory against Germany in the qualifying rounds.

Beckham has often been guyed as apparently slow-minded or semi-inarticulate, but some people put one off by seeming too glib or ‘too clever by half.’

Does either Sunak or Truss pass the Beckham test?

Long-term vision

It’s been a long time since British politics has had a statesman at the helm. We stumble from one crisis to another; even Margaret Thatcher, voted in to ‘sort out the unions’, needed to cast about for a wider econo-political strategy and had to be guided into monetarism by Sir Keith Joseph.

In a way it can be an advantage not to have any beliefs. One of the reasons for Johnson’s entry to Number Ten is that his eyes had been fixed on personal greatness since childhood, irrespective of any moral or political principles. Rackety and sloppy, he was allowed to take over because he could see which way the political tide was turning, even while PM Theresa May was trying to hold it back, Canute-like.

Johnson’s egregious sense of entitlement, noted at Eton, is to many an attractive quality, even though perhaps it shouldn’t be. He has always felt that the rules needn’t apply to him; he is in a way a modern, a posh version of Neal Cassady. He is irrepressible - his resignation statement (7 July) and Parliamentary speech during the subsequent confidence debate (18 July) were amazingly bullish. Nothing will keep him down; goodness knows what further personal triumphs are ahead of him.

But what of our future?

The UK and the US have been systematically weakening themselves for what? forty years? while the East has been rising so rapidly at our expense and with the support of our multinational companies and globalist political class.

What will Sunak or Truss do to turn the tide? Do they want to?

COLOUR SUPPLEMENT: Fractal art 2, by JD

'Liquid landscapes' created with ChaosPro fractal generator - http://www.chaospro.de/index.php The last update on the ChaosPro page is 2011 so I am not sure if the program is still downloadable.

These images were created using either Windows Vista or Windows XP but subsequent versions of Windows produce much less elaborate images. A clear case of Hutber's Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutber%27s_law

WEEKENDER: New Leader, by Wiggia

And now, as Wiggia predicted, there are two...

The ferrets in a sack scramble to become the next PM hardly gives any of us confidence that the country will be in safe hands. In the real world we would discount two candidates straight away:

Sunak for having plotted his coup months before and made a promotion video to help his cause, not easy to accept after that - he is a team player, is it? - and Zahawi, promoted to chancellor by Boris despite being under investigation by the HMRC for tax irregularities. So much for parliamentary scrutiny on both counts.

Liz Truss puts herself forward as the one who will make Brexit work, despite having formerly being a Lib Dem and latterly a remainer. She is also the most wooden of all the candidates. I don’t really care about those aspects of an MP if they are any good, but there is something more than her wooden exterior that is wrong: do we believe her?

Jeremy Hunt, another who would have us back in the EU and has been described as Teresa May in trousers; another who says he is sorry about his mistakes as health secretary now that he is making a bid to become PM; don’t they all?

Penny Mordaunt: she is another who has never had a proper job; comes across well at the dispatch box and has nice hair! But she lies and has lied seemingly about everything and refuses to admit she said anything contrary despite it all being in Hansard or in the archives; like her bigging up of her ‘naval’ career, her close association with the WEF and Bill Gates. Bins her for me.

https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/will-the-penny-finally-drop-about-morphing-mordaunt/

The only two who give some hope for the future if they stay on track are the two young women of ethnic origins. Both have shown quite a good grasp of things that are currently of concern to the public and both are not cowed by more senior figures who would dismiss them as being without experience, a line many have used since both have garnered a lot more support than was believed possible. Yet even they along with all the others are pro the eco lunacy - though Kemi has rowed back on that - and vaccines forever.

Yes they are an unknown quantity as far as the top job is concerned but experience and supposed knowledge of the workings of government did not do much for the last two incumbents May and Cameron who apart from in May's case lying about her Brexit aspirations or total lack of them achieved bugger all other than tying us into an expensive commitment on net zero. So what is to lose? No one will ever meet all our individual or the country's requirements and most in recent years have met none. We as a nation have been poorly served and that is being polite. So what is to lose with such a poor batch from whom to choose?

Kemi Badenoch said this in an interview…

@LBC

taking questions from him and his listeners. Really enjoyed the debate and talking about my plan for the country.

6:43 am · 15 Jul 2022·Twitter for iPhone

https://twitter.com/KemiBadenoch/status/1547819008795107329

It was interesting in the comments underneath and elsewhere how many now indoctrinated with the oppressed black narrative started to slag her off, and almost funny, the inference being she is not black enough.

But she also said this, which is better than anything anyone else has come out with during this campaign, again not difficult as they restricted themselves to sound bites, we need more sound bites like we need more promises from Pritti Patel about how she is going to stop the dinghy people.

No idea if she is right for the job, whether she could, given the chance, get through the blancmange that confronts anyone stepping outside the lines of convention, but that sadly is where we are, up shit creek, and by the time this post goes up it will probably be the usual suspects in the running.

Meanwhile waiting to ‘pounce’ should the opportunity arise we have Captain Hindsight, leader of pride parades and his sidekick that towering intellect the ginger growler. None of it bodes well, and all of them are complicit in turning the HoC into a place of disrepute full of placemen, lightweights, seat warmers, expenses troughers, chancers and outright liars who believe this behaviour, see below, is perfectly acceptable because they can.

RNC Research

@RNCResearch

JOE BIDEN in Israel: "What am I doing now?"

1:40 pm · 13 Jul 2022·Twitter Media Studio

https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1547199385745989633

In my old age I like to believe I have seen it all with politics but today's leaders in the western world are symptomatic of its decline. Hardly one isn’t the product of incumbent parties simply choosing leaders to protect the status quo, or the result of the backing of vested interests; as with Macron, who wishes to succeed Merkel as the de facto leader of the EU and is there only because he profited from a system that can be manipulated to get him into and keep him in power. Not really much of a recommendation, is it?

By the time this goes up no doubt it will be whittled down to Truss and Sunak. I don’t care any more, if that is the best on offer so be it. even Boris in his last PMQs was at least funny when describing Capt Hindsight as a plastic bollard and that is about the strength of it: plastic bollard, ginger growler vs woodentop or rich totally remote man in skinny suit who makes awful promotional videos. Is it all this country can offer up.

Still I did see Billy Bunter aka Gerald Campion MP for Greyfriars lurking on the back benches so there is hope yet, yaroo!…there is obviously no tax on pies yet.

FRIDAY MUSIC: Keith Jarrett, by JD

 Keith Jarrett is a jazz pianist who also plays classical concerts as well as more mainstream popular music. The first Jarrett record I bought was not jazz but the music of the Estonian minimalist composer Arvo Pärt. 

I have included the recording of Fratres with Gidon Kremer on violin and the contrast with the first video of an improvised blues is striking as well as illustrating the breadth of Jarrett's talent and musical explorations.

Sadly he has been unable to perform since suffering a stroke in February 2018. A second stroke, in May 2018, left him partially paralyzed and unable to play with his left hand.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Jarrett

COLOUR SUPPLEMENT: Back to Mono, by JD

Republished from yesteryear on James Higham's Nourishing Obscurity before its great technocrash:

Modern digital cameras are wonderful machines with their whirring and beeping and flashing lights and auto-everything but their reign was short lived as it seems everyone now has a camera built into their 'smart'phones (I wonder what the next fad will be.)

.......but sometimes I get all nostalgic for the days when all you needed was a roll of Tri-X and a camera that didn’t need batteries. Oh and there was also the quiet joy of messing about with chemicals to develop the films and to print the photographs, watching the image slowly emerge on the paper.

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be; all of these photos are about fifty years old. Where did the time go and why and how did it pass so quickly?

Somewhere in Keilder forest

Horse Guards Parade

... closing time

St Nicholas’ Cathedral

The cat in his favourite place – asleep on top of the central heating boiler

WEEKENDER: A couple of things, by Wiggia

He forgot his authorisation codes

I said I would leave the question of the incompetence of the NHS alone for awhile. I lied, the organisation can’t help itself as it is embroiled in multiple failures, but this week we saw both ends of the spectrum which highlight the disconnect between what we are told and reality.

Firstly the NHS as a whole was given the George Cross for its work during the pandemic. You can make your own mind about whether ‘all’ should have received the award, as only a relatively small number were actually on that front line in difficult circumstances; the rest, well I have spoken before, were at home for the best part of eighteen months, the evidence being surrounded by doctors and nurses from the local hospital was all too evident.

The neglect of all other diseases and procedures was always going to come back to the NHS and bite them in the backside. The waiting list for life saving operations being put on indefinite hold will have consequences for years, perhaps threatening the existence of the NHS itself. Nothing was more harrowing than the total neglect of a young woman who could not get to see her doctor for a year! The story is here:

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/familyhealth/teenage-girl-tragically-dies-of-cancer-after-waiting-year-to-see-gp-leaving-family-outraged/ar-AAZjiOz

This is not a lone incident: there have been many reports of similar cases. There is no need to say any more on this one, and in the wake of it all Dr Katherine Henderson president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine said, following the reports that patients are waiting more than twelve hours in ambulances outside hospitals, “the health service is slowly collapsing.” We could have saved her the trouble, we already know.

But today's gripe is a more personal one, it is online banking and other online activities requiring passwords plural and memorable names, usernames, codes, second cousin's middle name, favourite car and numerous other items designed to confuse and make any mistakes almost impossible to remedy.

The mistake in this case and as has been in the past is not mine, it is the bank's Changes are made and you have to go through various hoops to prove who you are to use the new and ‘improved’ service. The service of course is not improved, it is simply made more tedious to access one's own account and if something goes wrong as in this case, you personally have to put it right: your time, your effort, your utter frustration for something you had no hand in... read on:

I have just had a couple of hours when I nearly lost it completely dealing with my bank.

The story is that my old phone became, according to the bank, incompatible with their latest app for online banking, the inference being I would have to buy a new smart phone to be able to access my own bank account - perhaps they should supply one? Just a note, I do not use the phone for banking as such, but you need to be connected to get codes to be able to buy online and these are sent to your phone; they all do this now.

Anyway my newish phone has the app and I have been using it for a couple of years. Suddenly with another update it refuses to accept the password I have used all this time. I made several attempts to rectify the matter and was told I had to transfer all the info from my old phone to the new one, despite it having worked fine for at least two years, and then to be told it would not work?

What a performance and I gave up, so the online banking has been parked; but I got a letter this morning saying they were not sending any more paper statements after July 19th - a couple days' grace then!  and if I still wanted one, you guessed it, I would have to go online into my account to change it, but I can't get online for reasons given.

So I thought I would try one more time and used several old passwords from yesteryear and bingo one worked, but the next stage required a further password and that did not work so I went the trodden route of password change. Christ I wished I had not bothered; I entered the new password twice and it then said I had to verify with an identity number given by phoning a number given to get the password finally accepted.

I phone, and as usual no one answers and I hang on listening to drivel about how they are being kind to people with no money and giving them bank accounts (perhaps a mobile phone as well?) and none of the options eventually given aligned with what I wanted, there’s a surprise. So I went for any other business; another long wait. I then go through various security questions with an operative in Delhi or somewhere which I don't have to hand only to be told she cannot solve my problem and will pass me to security.

Security eventually answer and I cannot hear never mind understand the Indian person at the other end; after my saying several times he is inaudible he bothers to up the sound and I can hear him but understanding is another matter, having to ask repeatedly can he say that again.

Needless to say we go through the security questions again but they are different and I do not have them to hand, but we get there, or I thought we had, until he said I will now ask a couple of questions for which I need a yes or no answer and only the first response will be accepted: the second question is can you give a transaction on your CC since the 26th June? My statement only goes to the 26th and I can't access online so cannot give an answer as I use other cards as well, so after all that I am back to square one as he cannot go forward because of my answer. I should have shouted, it would at least made me feel better, but was told I would have to take identification to my nearest branch and resolve the problem there. The nearest branch, as they have closed them all, is five miles away.

All I could say was that because the bank's system doesn't work I and other customers are doing the security work for them and I have had enough, f*** you all and put the phone down, it has gone beyond stupid now.

I have the same problem with my Halifax account: the app works but the codes for online purchases are never sent. I gave up on that long ago, yet if I use Pay Pal which I am loath to do, the transaction goes through without a problem or need for codes to be sent. Am I missing something here or is it all deliberate? My other card still works, but for how long, as I had trouble with that a couple of years back and there has not been a recent update. It won't be long now. I feel, before none of the bloody things work.

They also keep asking me to use online payments and stop using cheques to save the rainforest or something. I refuse but the cheque book gets thinner, and if they have their way will disappear altogether, then I will really be stuffed.

My wife who was a dept head in clearing at the bank laughs at all this. She was in charge of the first computerised clearing operation in banking in this country and now won't go near a computer and only uses, whilst still available, telephone banking. As she says, even in the day computer banking was risky and the bad guys are very clever, this is why of course the security gets ever more tedious and frustrating and the onus is put on the customer to do their work for them.

It is noticeable that HSBC has gone full woke and has blundered into backing the statement that the Halifax put out about leaving the bank if you do not like our stance on the rainbow people; and to think that these once revered organisations were once the foundations of our financial system and the bank manager, remember him, was a pillar of local society!

Oh and the sun has gone in... perhaps that is a rehearsal for when the lights go out…

FRIDAY MUSIC; Cowboy Junkies, by JD

Cowboy Junkies are Margo Timmins with her very soulful voice backed by two of her brothers and a variety of guests. I'm not sure if they are a folk group or a rock group or a blues band but it is an eclectic mix of many strands of popular music and it works

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowboy_Junkies
https://cowboyjunkies.com/

COLOUR SUPPLEMENT: Golden Section 2, by JD

Continuing the examination of the Golden Section plus the significance of Ø in the formation of the universe; following on from part one here -

https://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.com/2022/06/colour-supplement-golden-section.html

It is not just the human body which grows out of Ø.

The Golden Section is evident in plants as can be seen in this graphic representation of the arrangement of seeds in a sunflower. The spirals are asymmetrical with 21 seeds in the clockwise spiral and 34 in the anti-clockwise spiral.

The same asymmetrical arrangement is evident in a pineapple with the diamond shapes being 8 one way and 13 the other. All of these numbers belong to the Fibonacci series as shown earlier and demonstrate that the growth of plants follows the same 'rule' of Ø.

The Golden Section appears as a spiral in plants, as seen above in the sunflower seeds, and in other animal life both large and small including the mollusc known as the nautilus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautilus

And in this cross section through the nautilus shell you can see probably the most beautiful demonstration of the golden section in the whole of the natural world:

And that is the point: the Golden Section, the Law governing growth of all living things is everywhere from the spiralling galaxies in space to the structure of DNA. It is what unifies the entire cosmos.

The Age of Reason and the Enlightenment which was the birth of the scientific view of the world make it difficult now to speak of the universe as a creation but if the Golden Section is not the creator’s design then what is it?

- - - - - - - - - -

A further illustration of these Golden proportions in and of the human body comes from one of the great heroes of the Modern Movement of the early part of the 20th century, the Swiss architect Le Corbusier.

Le Corbusier wanted to find a way of creating harmonious proportion in his buildings in a way that would allow people to feel “at home” when living or working in them. He returned to the idea of the Golden Section which was first recorded in Classical Greece although its origin is much older.

Originally he took as his starting point a hypothetical man 1.75m tall – a French height he called it. The modules developed from this starting point, as well as being difficult to calculate accurately, proved unwieldy and unsuited to everyday living; disproportionate in fact.

In one of his books he tells the following story:­

He had been working for some time on his Modulor system using these French decimal measurements but without much success. Then one of his collaborators, Py, said: “Isn’t the height we are working with rather a French height? Have you ever noticed that in English detective novels the hero is always six feet tall?” Le Corbusier continues: ”We then applied this standard. To our delight, the graduations of a new Modulor, based on a man six feet tall, translated themselves into round figures in feet and inches”.

The different positions of the human body during various activities fits the Modulor divisions.

The Modulor consists of two scales, the red and the blue scale (the above illustration shows the two scales combined). The dimensions of the blue scale are double those of the red and the divisions of each scale are based on Ø the phi ratio, the basis of the Golden Section. Thus the Modulor is not only an instrument of architectural proportion but also a means of ensuring that the buildings designed using it are of a human scale.

Here again we are coming closer to the answer as to why the Golden Section is important. If it occurs naturally in the human figure, as demonstrated by Leonardo, and in all other plant and animal life then by using Ø as well as the dimensions of the human figure as a starting point for design then such designs as are produced will, in theory, reflect the harmony within ourselves.

As an aid to creating architectural proportion, Ø is evident in many of the buildings of antiquity. The Parthenon in Greece for example, although it should be noted that in past ages, unlike the present, all buildings were designed on a human scale using Ø to create a harmony between man and his surroundings.

This explains why a modern building can induce a sense of unease without the source of that unease being apparent. It could even be said that this is one of the reasons for what is known as “sick building syndrome” where workers take sick leave with unidentifiable illnesses; their offices literally make them ill. Don’t forget that the word disease could also be written dis-ease.

…the essential importance of Ø is that it represents universal harmony; a picture which displays its elements according to the ratio will be pleasing to the eye; a building constructed in the same way will likewise be a thing of beauty… we all know it when we see it but without being able to articulate what it is that pleases us…

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Two books of interest related to the same subject.

The Power Of Limits http://www.cymaticsource.com/power.html
by
György Dóczi
ISBN 0-87773-193-4

A Beginner’s Guide to Constructing the Universe https://www.constructingtheuniverse.com/bookinfo.htm
by
Michael S Schneider
ISBN 0-06-092671-6