People want to know where they came from but they also want to know where they could have gone

Family history constantly goes back to the future, mapping the distances that grow between the branches, asking why some flourish and others wither – historical questions which are always more than a matter of individual character. People want to know where they came from but they also want to know where they could have gone and why their branch of the family did not go there.

A. Light, Common People: The History of An English Family (2014), loc. 1,680

Our lack of trust in politicians is problematic, but it’s a long-term condition rather than a sudden, acute crisis.

Our lack of trust in politicians is problematic, but it’s a long-term condition rather than a sudden, acute crisis. For example, less than one in five people in Britain trust our politicians to tell the truth – but this is the same as when the survey started four decades ago. 

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Britain is far from alone in its political leaders being trusted by only small minorities of the population. The overall pattern and level of trust in politicians is similar across a collection of around 20 countries in Europe, with consistently low levels over the last 16 years and not much difference between generations. The truth is that we’ve been disappointed in our politicians for a long time. 

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Even in August 1944, with the Second World War reaching a climax, when a polling company asked, ‘Do you think that British politicians are out merely for themselves, for their party or to do their best for their country?’, only 36 per cent of respondents chose the last option. 

B. Duffy, The Generation Divide (2023), loc. 3,336

College-educated women ... have a 78 per cent chance of their first marriage lasting at least 20 years, while women with a high-school education have only about half that chance

In our more individualized times, where we are less connected to extended families, affluent nuclear families can buy support that helps keep families together, from childcare to couples counselling. Less well-off families are on their own, and the impact is startling: in the US, college-educated women aged between 22 and 44 have a 78 per cent chance of their first marriage lasting at least 20 years, while women with a high-school education have only about half that chance.

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But in the end, stability matters, and it tends to be greater in married households, despite claims that long-term cohabitation is equivalent. Children in France, for example, are 66 per cent more likely to see their parents break up if they are cohabiting rather than married.

B. Duffy, The Generation Divide (2023), loc. 2,517 & 2,528

I know I shouldn’t be impressed, but I can’t help thinking that’s a great effort for a cohort in which the youngest is now 75 years old

Our relationship with alcohol is also highly related to when we were born. In fact, regular drinking is one of the clearest examples of a cohort effect we’ll see in this book. Figure 5.2 tracks the proportions of cohorts in England who have said they drink alcohol on five or more days a week over the last 20 years. The lines are incredibly flat, with a strict generational hierarchy and extremely consistent gaps between each. Around three in ten of the Pre-War generation drink alcohol five or more days a week; as far as we can tell, they always have and always will. I know I shouldn’t be impressed, but I can’t help thinking that’s a great effort for a cohort in which the youngest is now 75 years old.

B. Duffy, The Generation Divide (2023), loc. 2,049

the main outcome of taxation and welfare is lifetime redistribution

Contrary to common misconceptions, the main outcome of taxation and welfare is lifetime redistribution – the transfer of money between different periods in someone’s life – rather than the redistribution of money between different income groups.

B. Duffy, The Generation Divide (2023), loc. 828

We’ve got very used to this division very quickly, when it’s completely unnatural for humans

The same new survey we conducted in 2022 also tested whether we’d noticed this separation – and we have: two-thirds of us correctly say young people are more likely to live in cities and older people outside them. But over half of us say that’s always been the case, when this is actually a new trend that we’ve only seen in the last twenty or thirty years in the UK. We’ve got very used to this division very quickly, when it’s completely unnatural for humans.

B. Duffy, The Generation Divide (2023), loc. 175

The addition of a family of four to the typical urban area necessitates an additional ten thousand square feet of parking space

Since each major urban center served but a single function, parking lots began to multiple rapidly. Culture center parking serves only its patrons and is not used most of the time. Mall lots are all but vacant after nine in the evening. Arena lots, school lots, medical center lots, etc., enjoy no shared use but must be there. We have arrived at that point where the addition of a family of four to the typical urban area necessitates an additional ten thousand square feet of parking space to accommodate members’ vehicles at home and in the variety of separated centers at which they will have to park them. And now, we must use up a lot of land to secure houses and lots away from the congestion of auto traffic. Nothing was harder hit by unifunctional planning

R. Oldenburg, The great good place (1987), 216

Community social life is necessary to healthy religious life

It wasn’t that the American farmer lacked the social instinct or had any less of it than anyone else. It was that the conditions of rural life and, often, that of local clergymen, operated against its realization in the social habits of the people. In Clermont, Ohio, for example, a survey conducted in 1914 showed the clergy’s stand on the following social activities: Sunday baseball (100 percent against), movies (65 percent against), dancing (90 percent against), playing cards (97 percent against), pool halls (85 percent against), and the annual circuses (48 percent against). Only tennis, croquet, and agricultural fairs received general approval.

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The authors of that report concluded with some irony that the churches were strongest where the lodges were strongest and that “both are expressions of the same spirit of fraternity and sociability.” Two clear conclusions were drawn: “(1) Community social life is necessary to healthy religious life, and (2) If the church is going to succeed it must recognize the social needs of the community and assume its share of the leadership in social activities.” Perhaps the strongest indictment that can be made against the Puritanism and Protestantism of developing America is that, far too often, they sought to ensure the life of the church at the expense of the life of the community.

R. Oldenburg, The great good place (1987), 73

The more people moved about, or were moved about by the companies that employed them, the more difficult it became to penetrate the nation’s residential areas

Once America became the high mobility society it now is, with about twenty percent of the population changing residence every year, one might have thought that neighborhoods would have been designed so that people could be integrated quickly and easily. What actually happened, however, was quite the opposite. The more people moved about, or were moved about by the companies that employed them, the more difficult it became to penetrate the nation’s residential areas.

R. Oldenburg, The great good place (1987), loc. 258

When you see the words “delicious” and “polenta” in close proximity, you know the phrases “plenty of cheese” or “lashings of butter” can’t be far away

‘When you see the words “delicious” and “polenta” in close proximity, you know the phrases “plenty of cheese” or “lashings of butter” can’t be far away.’ Niki Segnit, author of Lateral Cooking, nails the simultaneous appeal and bemused distaste for polenta in one neat phrase. At its best, polenta is indescribably comforting, rich and naturally sweet, soft and luscious. At its worst, it’s lumpy, bland, claggy and, quite frankly, hard work. As so often is the case (and I think we can agree, I am entirely unbiased in this whole pursuit), the difference is butter.

O. Potts, Butter (2022), loc. 2,561

It is less that I have buttered bread to accompany a bowl of soup, and more that my soup is the accompaniment to the buttered bread

And then there’s soup. It is less that I have buttered bread to accompany a bowl of soup, and more that my soup is the accompaniment to the buttered bread. The simpler the soup the better, but it must be thick, and smooth, and terribly hot. There is nothing sadder than a lukewarm soup. The bread should be hearty (read: not white, and doorstep in size), the butter thick and opaque, and dunked with enough confidence that the hot soup is just starting to melt that slab of butter before wham you’ve eaten the whole thing.

O. Potts, Butter (2022), loc. 713

This was very good advice but she still thought that living in a major city was key

If you want to move to the city, you can, Miss Grehan said. And studying poetry at university is a wonderful thing to do. But more important is to read poetry, and write poetry, every day. It doesn’t have to be for long. If just once a day people read a poem instead of picking up their phone, I guarantee you the world would be a better place. When she had gone Elaine said that this was very good advice but she still thought that living in a major city was key.

P. Murray, The bee sting (2023), Loc. 800

This is not a time to speak, she says, but a time to keep silent

Carole takes a long drink of tea then stares into space. I cannot tell you how many people have fallen silent since Jim has been arrested, it is as though I am guilty somehow, why are we being made to feel guilty when it is an evil that has been done to us? Eilish finds herself watching the clock, she stands up, shaking her head. This is not a time to speak, she says, but a time to keep silent, everybody has grown afraid, our husbands have been taken from us and placed into this silence, there are times at night when I hear this silence as loud as death but it is not death just arbitrary arrest and detention, you must keep telling this to yourself over and over.

P. Lynch, Prophet song (2023), Loc. 589

I have always found a good sherry sufficient for my needs, but I dare say these American beverages are not unpalatable

‘Ah, yes; cocktails. A drink imported, I am told, from America. The custom of drinking cocktails at all hours of the day is on the increase, undoubtedly, amongst certain sections of society. I have always found a good sherry sufficient for my needs, but I dare say these American beverages are not unpalatable.

N. Blake (C. Day-Lewis), Thou shell of death (1936), 5

What is the point of investing in a process of learning about the world if there is almost no time to put that information to use?

Once I knew this stage was coming, interacting with these animals, especially the friendly ones, became poignant. Their time was so short. This discovery also made the puzzle of their large brains even more acute. What is the point of building a large nervous system if your life is over in a year or two? The machinery of intelligence is expensive, both to build and to run. The usefulness of learning, which large brains make possible, seems dependent on lifespan. What is the point of investing in a process of learning about the world if there is almost no time to put that information to use?

P. Godfrey-Smith, Other minds: the octopus and the evolution of intelligent life (2017), loc. 1,986

Shells were the mollusks’ response to what looks like an abrupt change in the lives of animals: the invention of predation. There are various ways of dealing with the fact that you are suddenly surrounded by creatures who can see and would like to eat you, but one way, a molluscan specialty, is to grow a hard shell and live within or beneath it.

P. Godfrey-Smith, Other minds: the octopus and the evolution of intelligent life (2017), loc. 550

Cephalopods are an island of mental complexity in the sea of invertebrate animals

Cephalopods are an island of mental complexity in the sea of invertebrate animals. Because our most recent common ancestor was so simple and lies so far back, cephalopods are an independent experiment in the evolution of large brains and complex behavior. If we can make contact with cephalopods as sentient beings, it is not because of a shared history, not because of kinship, but because evolution built minds twice over. This is probably the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien.

P. Godfrey-Smith, Other minds: the octopus and the evolution of intelligent life (2017), loc. 127 

Drink Less, Drink Better

In the decade of the 1990s, total French consumption of wine dropped just 2 percent, but the decline in the lower-quality wines that are drunk daily was much more severe, falling 19 percent. The number of French people drinking wine daily or almost daily fell from 46.9 percent in 1980 to 23.5 percent in 2000. And people in their early sixties are four times more likely to drink wine daily than those in their early thirties. Some wine officials try to find solace in the fact that on average the French are drinking better wines. Boire Moins, Boire Mieux (Drink Less, Drink Better) has become the mantra of French optimists who hope that the business can make up in quality what it is losing in quantity. The higher-quality wines governed by the Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée system accounted for only 14 percent of domestic sales in 1950 but are nearly 50 percent today.

G. M. Taber, Judgment of Paris: California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting That Revolutionized Wine (2005), 281

Only to Spain and Portugal to check out the fortified wines

The world’s view of wine at that time can be seen in the itinerary of the seven-month tour Steven Spurrier made in 1965 on behalf of Christopher’s, his employer and London’s oldest wine merchant. Spurrier spent three months in Bordeaux, two months in Burgundy, one week in the Rhône Valley, three weeks in Germany, and one week each in Champagne, the Loire Valley, and Alsace. Then after a summer break, he went to watch the harvests in Jerez, Spain, for Sherry and Oporto, Portugal, for Port. Interestingly, he did not go to Italy at all, and only to Spain and Portugal to check out the fortified wines.

G. M. Taber, Judgment of Paris: California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting That Revolutionized Wine (2005), 27

Tradition is an experiment that has worked

They determined over time, for example, that Cabernet Sauvignon grapes did best in Bordeaux and Pinot Noir grapes performed well in Burgundy, so no one had to waste time trying to grow Pinot Noir in Bordeaux or Cabernet Sauvignon in Burgundy. The lessons of history had already been learned. As Émile Peynaud, a University of Bordeaux professor and the leading French wine guru of the twentieth century, said, “Tradition is an experiment that has worked.”

G. M. Taber, Judgment of Paris: California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting That Revolutionized Wine (2005), 18

Just an ordinary man who sometimes did the monstrous things his society said were legal and proper

His father wasn’t the monster he could have been with the power he held over his slaves. He wasn’t a monster at all. Just an ordinary man who sometimes did the monstrous things his society said were legal and proper. But I had seen no particular fairness in him. He did as he pleased. If you told him he wasn’t being fair, he would whip you for talking back.

O. Butler, Kindred (1979), 146

Trying either to forget who they are or to remember where they live

It was eight in the morning, a time when drinkers are trying either to forget who they are or to remember where they live.

T. Pratchett, Soul Music (1994), 252