Little-Known Facts 1: Laughter in Mesopotamia

One of the most popular features in the Sumerian equivalent of “Reader’s Digest” was a merry look at military life entitled “Humour in Cuneiform”. A sample is shown below:

The text reads: "What's an Elamite urn?" - "Thirty karsha silver* a year."

*(Regarded as a good wedge, in those days.)

The magazine throve because it was light reading - the monthly issue could be borne by a single yoke of oxen.

Ultimately it became a victim of its own success when the increased weight of advertising significantly diverted logistical resources during the Elamite siege of Ur, leading to the fall of the city, the abduction of King Ibbi-Sin and, of course, the slaughter or enslavement of its subscribers.

Choose your battles

Never contend with a Man who has nothing to Lose; for thereby you enter into an unequal conflict. The other enters without anxiety; having lost everything, including shame, he has no further loss to fear.

Baltasar Gracian - The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)

Why did Theresa May choose to resurrect the battle over grammar schools and selective education? She may feel strongly about it as many do, but the issue is controversial and Jeremy Corbyn should have no trouble making political capital from it.

Unfortunately for May, she has now engineered a situation where she must contend with a Man who has nothing to Lose. 

Friday Night Is Music Night: A Night At The Operetta

JD serves up a tapas assortment of tunes:

Here is another selection of music which reminds me of my good old daze in Madrid :)

Many years ago there was a bar in Madrid who would have, every five or six weeks, a musical evening. There would be three or four singers plus a piano and they would belt out a few operatic arias and popular songs from Zarzuela which is a Spanish style of operetta similar to Gilbert & Sullivan. The bar was always packed with customers who enjoyed a splendid evening's entertainment. And in the early hours we would meander homewards full of joy and good cheer! I say meander because who walks in a straight line when they are happy? The bar is still there but under new ownership so I don't know if they still have musical evenings. I hope they do and here follows a sample of what we enjoyed on those splendidly convivial evenings.



This next one may look like "The Good Old Days" on BBC TV but the costumes worn on stage can be seen on the streets of Madrid during the Fiesta de San Isidro, 15th May every year (actually a nine day festival)

ART: "Las Tres Gracias", by Alejandra Hernández

Source: http://www.gallerialaveronica.it/artworks/alejandra-hernandez-038-las-tres-gracias/#&gid=1&pid=1
Reproduced with the kind permission of the artist

This is a new work by the Colombian-born artist (1), part of a solo show at Marseilles entitled "Art-O-Rama". (2)

There are many things that attract and interest me about this painting, which I think is a masterpiece.

In the first place, it is women's nudity seen by a woman, and does not have that Peeping Tom feeling of so much conventional nude art, in which the models often seem to be irritated, resentful, uncomfortable. By contrast, I don't think there is much in men's art to match e.g. Zinaida Serebriakova's portraits of her daughters, clearly proud of them physically, in their entirety, and also full of love for them as her children and as extensions of that very confident, sexy and determined self that was apparent in her early dressing-table self-portrait. (3).

With Hernández's painting here, too, the figures are unembarrassed yet not showing off to a male eye. Not knowing at first the circumstances, I had the impression of flatmates in a hot climate, passing through the most enervating part of the day.

As Catherine Beaumont has observed to me, the girl at centre is not staring back at us directly, and this allows the eye to rove around the picture and explore the objects (the artist encouraged sitters to bring artefacts of personal significance with them). I love the innocent absorption on the face of the melodica player and she introduces another dimension - sound - which teases us to imagine what she may be playing and what the timbre might be like (and the puzzle of the grey fingers - a potter, perhaps?) I'm also drawn to the creature - a piranha? - with savage teeth; the fly-whisk; the rather young-child's toy at bottom right; the items on the wall; the studio light.

Then there are the different attitudes, again informal and demonstrating the unconsciously beautiful suppleness of the female body (I'm reminded of a favourite D H Lawrence word, "flexuous"). A series of meetings and conversations paved the way for the palpable atmosphere of relaxation and trust. There is clearly a sense of familiarity and engagement with their emotionally charged objects, with each other and the artist herself. In this nurturing one sees a parallel with Rubens' nude portrait of his young wife in a fur coat - her slight smile and shining eye said, as my wife noted, that she trusted him. (4)

There is humour in the extravagant, abandoned inversion of the girl on the left and its juxtaposition to the tensed concentration of the middle girl, while the one on the right is bored or patient, half-dreaming and with (if I see right) rather modern tattooed eyebrows. All are natural in their own way, but in a way not often seen in art, and merit the term Graces.

And the energizing colours! I love that milky blue, the sort of hue chosen to make you feel less oppressed by heat, yet contrasting with the sharp reds on the shawl and some of the other items.

The girls are self-possessedly adult and yet, because of the socks and some of the items they have chosen to accompany them, also still very young, a picture of transition, a group that will soon separate: I think of Larkin's trainful of people arriving at the final destination - "A sense of falling, like an arrow-shower / Sent out of sight, somewhere becoming rain." (4)

(1) Her site: http://alejandrahernandez.com/
(2) http://alejandrahernandez.com/gallery/art-o-rama-marseille-solo-show-with-galleria-laveronica/
(3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinaida_Serebriakova#/media/File:Serebryakova_SefPortrait.jpg
(4) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Peter_Paul_Rubens_-_Het_pelsken_1636-1638.jpg
(5) "The Whitsun Weddings" - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/resources/learning/core-poems/detail/48411

Japan threatens Britain

"Brexit: Japan warns firms may move European HQ out of Britain" -  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37270372

http://www.private-eye.co.uk/covers/cover-256

Russia And Korea In Free-Trade Talks: Oceania, Meet Eurasia And Eastasia

Latest article on TalkMarkets, here:

http://www.talkmarkets.com/content/economics--politics/russia-and-korea-in-free-trade-talks-oceania-meet-eurasia-and-eastasia?post=105194

Globalism: The Final Conflict Looms

The EU is just a model village of globalism. Leaving the EU - not that we've done it yet - is only the very beginning, tough as that was.

Now comes the big fight, against TPP, TiSA, TTIP etc.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2016/09/the-most-brazen-corporate-power-grab-in-american-history.html

"These three agreements solidify the creeping corporate coup d’état along with the final evisceration of national sovereignty. Citizens will be forced to give up control of their destiny and will be stripped of the ability to protect themselves from corporate predators, safeguard the ecosystem and find redress and justice in our now anemic and often dysfunctional democratic institutions. The agreements—filled with jargon, convoluted technical, trade and financial terms, legalese, fine print and obtuse phrasing—can be summed up in two words: corporate enslavement. 

"The TPP removes legislative authority from Congress and the White House on a range of issues. Judicial power is often surrendered to three-person trade tribunals in which only corporations are permitted to sue. Workers, environmental and advocacy groups and labor unions are blocked from seeking redress in the proposed tribunals. The rights of corporations become sacrosanct. The rights of citizens are abolished."