Friday, 29 November 2024

Which is more important to you, your family or Torres?

Despite the almost absurd paternalism, there is a familiarity about the relationship between Sr Torres and his staff which partly validates his claim that the staff are treated like family. ‘If one of them is ill, I pay for him to go to the best doctors in Barcelona,’ St Torres told me. I heard other stories: ‘I do not like that red jersey,’ one employee was told, ‘it is a foolish colour for a man your age.’ It may have been pure coincidence that the autonomous election campaign had just begun, with the Socialists threatening to win the local seat. Another employee was given a gruelling schedule of overseas visits, which mean he would be away for Christmas. ‘My wife is expecting our first baby at that time,’ he complained. He received the following poser in response: ‘Sr X, which is more important to you, your family or Torres?’

H. Eyres, Wine dynasties of Europe (1990), 166

Wednesday, 27 November 2024

We don't just have one, we have many hells!

"I didn't think there was a hell in Buddhism," I said.
"Oh yes," Jinpa said, with a tut. "We don't just have one, we have many hells! We have one where it's hot, one where it's cold, eighteen different hells in all. Everyone is terrified of ending up there."
"I seem to remember reading that, according to the Buddha, hell is more like a state of mind," I said.
"Do you mean to say there really isn't a hell?" Jinpa looked at me, thunderstruck. "Then what is the point of walking all the way around Mount Kailash?"

E. Fatland, High (2020), 503

Tuesday, 26 November 2024

While it is constantly said that the world is getting smaller and there are fewer and fewer boundaries, never before have borders been more rigid than they are now

The days when caravans could freely cross mountain passes and national borders are long gone. While it is constantly said that the world is getting smaller and there are fewer and fewer boundaries, never before have borders been more rigid than they are now. There can be no doubt that the map takes precedence over the terrain: the abstract red lines of the map are fiercely guarded on the ground by cameras, motion sensors, armed guards, and often also by physical barriers such as barbed wire, fences and walls.

E. Fatland, High (2020), 65

Monday, 25 November 2024

Like farming land, some patches of retail were just barren, would yield no crop

Like farming land, some patches of retail were just barren, would yield no crop. Other patches, perhaps very close, were fertile ground. Nobody could tell you why definitely. If you had selling in your blood, from generations, you could tell whether a site for a shop would work or not, as a farmer could tell good land from barren by picking up a fistful and sniffing it. It might be just the way that sun hit the front of your shop in the morning. It might be on the road that people naturally walked down to to get to the tube station, and preferably on the other side of the road to their path, so they would  get a good look at your shop rather than walking straight past it, head down.

P. Hensher, The Emperor Waltz  (2014), 147


Sunday, 24 November 2024

I came to feel that a man who had never ... tried to reach a compromise and never had to make a ruthless decision, could not have much knowledge of the day to day problems of politics

At the time I knew nothing about politics and scarcely listened. Later on, when I had spent some time on the perimeter of public life, I came to feel that a man who had never sat on a committee, never bargained with an opponent, never tried to reach a compromise and never had to make a ruthless decision, could not have much knowledge of the day to day problems of politics; and many of his [Berenson's] judgements on English politics were grotesquely wrong.

K. Clark, Another part of the wood (1974), 153

Saturday, 23 November 2024

You must be ... the other Sir Kenneth Clark is a fearful shit; everybody says so

I found myself among a group of members none of whom I remembered having seen, who naturally did not address a word to me. After about ten minutes a man who looked like a Naval Officer, wearing a claret-coloured bow-tie, advanced towards me and said "You're Sire Kenneth Clark." I agreed. "The Bart, of course", he said. "No," I said "I am not a baronet." "But you must be," he said, "the other Sir Kenneth Clark is a fearful shit; everybody says so." "Well, I'm afraid I'm the only one"; and as he left me I wondered if he had meant to insult me or was simply misinformed.

 K. Clark, Another part of the wood (1974), 13

Friday, 22 November 2024

Many people were richer, there can have been few who were idler

I was born on July 13th, 1903, at 32 Gosvenor Square, a space now occupied by the American Embassy. My parents belonged to a section of society known as 'the idle rich', and although in that golden age, many people were richer, there can have been few who were idler. They took no part in public affairs, do not read the newspapers, and where almost entirely without the old upper-class feeling of responsibility for their tenants.

K. Clark, Another part of the wood (1974), 1

Thursday, 21 November 2024

Wrote frequent letters to the Spectator which were never printed

Otherwise Helen ate a good deal, continued to work on her melodramatic novel and, like most members of the bookish upper classes, wrote frequent letters to the Spectator which were never printed. She had more luck with The Times. Something should be done, she insisted, about the decline of the stately homes of England

P. French, Younghusband (1992), 316

Wednesday, 20 November 2024

To describe Yak-rustling as ‘an overt act of hostility’ by a foreign power is plainly absurd

The fact that the Viceroy of India was sending telegrams about the fate of frontier livestock to the Secretary of State (and hence the Cabinet) shows the flimsiness of the justifications he was putting forward for invading Tibet. To describe Yak-rustling as ‘an overt act of hostility’ by a foreign power is plainly absurd. It shows the way Curzon was willing to use almost any excuse to obtain sanction for a further advance into Tibet, so certain was he that the Russian bear needed to be checked.

P. French, Younghusband (1992), 193

Tuesday, 19 November 2024

Just shake them up and tell them for God’s sake remember they are Englishmen

The world of officialdom sent him a memorandum in February outlining a proposal to withdraw representation from Chitral altogether. ‘One feels inclined to go up to these people who invent such timid counsels,’ he spluttered to Nellie, ‘and just shake them up and tell them for God’s sake remember they are Englishmen.’

P. French, Younghusband (1992), 107

Monday, 18 November 2024

One man was defined not by his rank or his manner of death, but simply with the bald words: ‘A Wykehamist’

[in Dharamsala] Streams of sunlight shot through the stained glass windows behind him, and ton to the stone tablets which remembered earlier members of the congregation; soldiers, traders and tea planters, dead from dysentery or fever . A lieutenant has been ‘mauled by a bear’. While a captain had died with his ‘faithful servant’ by his side. One man was defined not by his rank or his manner of death, but simply with the bald words: ‘A Wykehamist’

P. French, Younghusband (1992), 21

Sunday, 17 November 2024

Some people hate the very name of statistics, but I find them full of beauty and interest

Some people hate the very name of statistics, but I find them full of beauty and interest. Whenever they are not brutalised, but delicately handled by the higher methods, and are warily interpreted, their power to deal with complicated phenomena is extraordinary.

Francis Galton, cited in J. Vincent, Beyond measure (2022), 253

Saturday, 16 November 2024

Measurement, like speech and play, is the cornerstone of cognition

Measurement, like speech and play, is the cornerstone of cognition. It encourages us to pay attention to the boundaries of the world, to notice where the line ends up and the scales tip. It requires that we compare one portion of reality to another and describe the differences, creating a scaffolding of knowledge. … If we could not measure, then we could not observe the world around us; could not experiment and learn. Measurement allows us to record the past and by doing so uncover patterns that help predict the future

J. Vincent, Beyond measure (2022), 1