My wife, Barbara, was taken into hospital at the beginning of September. She was splendidly looked after by the NHS including several weeks at the stroke recovery unit in Abingdon. She came home in January and is now visited four times a day by carers who move her from her bed to a wheelchair, prepare her meals, and put her back to bed at the end of the day. Thanks to our three daughters who rearranged the house, Barbara can move from her ground floor bedroom into our music room where she is able to play the piano and keep in touch with friends by phone. We cannot realistically look for any improvement in her condition.
francis cameron, oxford, 27 february 2012
Monday 27 February 2012
news from norreys avenue
Thursday 23 February 2012
john lanchester's capital
capital
I bought John Lanchester’s new book half way through yesterday morning. There was purpose in my purchase. I wanted something to get into. Something different from the items where I’d lost momentum and the other odds and bits where I’d tried and failed to work up interest in something attempted more than once before.
It worked. I’ve just finished reading it. All 577 pages. Quite a good tale. Must have involved a tremendous study of people and their surroundings in the London of 2008. Their thought processes rippling convincingly to the surface. Their hopes and fears shared with me, the reader.
I don’t want to say more about it. That would spoil it for anyone picking it up and beginning to explore its contents.
It did its job for me. For these two days I’ve been resuscitating. I’ve spied on life from a distance. It’s been a miniBreak rather than a thorough holiday. But that’s the way of the world.
francis cameron, oxford, 23 february 2012
dawkins and williams at the sheldonian today
dawkins and williams at the sheldonian today
Here’s how it looked to me.
Dawkins tended to dominate the proceedings. He interjects with his own established formulations even when someone else has been asked for a comment and is considering their reply. On the other hand, our Archbishop seems hesitant to express himself convincingly enough to match the assurance of the scientist.
Dawkins has his parameters, boundaries beyond which appear to be only imponderables and irrelevancies outside his dedicated orbit. Williams stands on different premises. His territory includes the metaphysical, a realm with its own valid realities. Not always expressible in terms comprehensible by other disciplines.
Science deals with hypotheses and theories. Temporary certainties subject to scrutiny and revision. Religion is cast in a separate mould. It deals with eternal certainties, aspects of which may vary according to the viewpoint from which they are approached.
francis cameron, oxford, 23 february 2012
Tuesday 21 February 2012
what a state I am in
I have just rung up someone to say I'd be late for our 10.30 appointment today. Consternation at the other end of the line. The appointment is for Wednesday. That's tomorrow. Part of me was quite sure it was already Wednesday today. Eheu!
Friday 17 February 2012
Wednesday 15 February 2012
oxford's temporary vermeer
oxford’s temporary vermeer
it’s on the second floor of the ashmolean. in company with several other dutch paintings. it’s here for only a short time. I’m glad I was told about it. it’s a little gem. it’s subject is alleged to be a lady playing the virginals. and, no, it does not feel like its much reproduced cousin. this beguiling little piece belongs to a private collector and is over here on fleeting loan.
why do I use the word ‘alleged’? why? because it appears to be an example of a work of art showing a keyboard instrument the wrong way round so that the highest sounds are towards the left and the lowest towards the right.
(only a few steps away is a 19th century representation of a woman playing a simple pipe organ. I suspect it was based on a pre-existing print. the tallest pipes, which make the deepest sounds, should be towards the player’s left. artistic licence and the rhythm of the portrayal prefer the unlikely alternative.)
did vermeer use an artist’s camera obscura? that could explain the discrepancy.
francis cameron, oxford, 15 february 2012
Friday 10 February 2012
Thursday 9 February 2012
Wednesday 8 February 2012
Tuesday 7 February 2012
Thursday 2 February 2012
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