The Lyttelton Hart-Davis Letters

Recently I ordered 3 books from Amazon's used book market: The Lyttelton Hart-Davis Letters. They came into 3 volumes: from 1955-57, 58-59, and 60-62. It was quite a chance event that I came to know about them.

To be honest, I had always thought that reading others' letters wouldn't add too much to one's intellect. The other day I was reading the Daily Telegraph, one of the columnists there was lamenting that nowadays, pupils have lost their interest, and ability, to write decent English. The now generation can only type text messages, using acronyms, weird short-forms consisting of symbols and completely lacking style. He was very concerned that the art of writing is fading fast among the now generation, and that it seems nobody is willing to write letters anymore. At the end of his essay, he recalled how much he enjoyed the writing style of Evelyn Waugh's letters in the book The Letters of Evelyn Waugh, saying that it's an absolute joy to read; and in passing he also mentioned the Lyttelton Hart-Davis Letters, which the columnist considered the only possible collection of personal correspondence that ever got printed in 3 volumes.

I was intrigued and thus I searched on the Amazon.co booklist. Surprise, surprise. There were some second-hand books available at incredibly low prices. The books were in very good condition, and in fact, the prices were even cheaper than the post & postage!

So here they are: 3 chunky volumes of the Lyttelton Hart-Davis Letters and a comparble volume of Evelyn Waugh's letters. I would have a lot of reading materials before I go to bed every night from now on.

P.S. I only came to know recently that "Evelyn" could be a male's name! How naiive I'd been!

1089 and all that

Talking about " π ", I just finished reading a small book "1089 and all that" by David Acheson, Jesus College, Oxford (First published in 2002, reprinted 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006). It is a very interesting small book on Mathematics that brings readers into a journey of the wonders of Mathematics, or numbers, in laymen's terms.

I've always been fascinated by the magical number "e", which equals to 2.718... and I notice its omnipresence in the natural world, as well as in the realm of Accounting and Finance. What this book talks about is that, it links up "e" ," π ", and the imaginary number "i" (which equals to square root "-1"), the three most inexplicable figures; and demonstrates that a relationship amongst them exists:

e ^(i π) = -1

How fascinating!

I got the feeling that it seems to have an anology to the empty hole which is present in our Chinese Tai Chi symbol in the reverse colour!

Birthday of π

I almost forgot -- today's the birthday of π -- 3.14.

Maybe I should consider eating a pie (π) to celebrate? Haha!

Politics in moving places

Our department is finally going to move from the present, old, listed building on Southpark Avenue to the Main Building of the university. I haven't been to the new office to take a look yet. But I'm sure that the new office would not be as nice as my current one.

All the department staff have been busy packing their belongings. Though we were advised by Veda, the deparmental secretary, that staff from the moving company will help us pack our stuff (in case we overpack the cartons and make them too heavy to move at all), most of us would like to pack things up ourselves. The other day I went to Greg's room and found him in a T-shirt, already half-way finished in packing his books, files, journals, and mountains of sheets of papers into cartons. I have never seen his room so tidy before! He told me that he had been in the same room for 22 years. Blimey! "It's time to have a change now," I said to him.

Moving offices could have revealed a lot of politics. Who's going to sit with whom, and how big the room is, or even on which floor... etc., all of them can tell a lot about one's standing within an organisation. Greg told me that he wasn't too happy about his new room. By the location and the size of his new room, he felt being 'marginalized' and he knew it. Oh, tell me about it!

It's this kind of office politics that I dislike most. Sometimes, I wonder why people are so obsessed with power rather than brains, or with authority rather than knowledge. What kind of pleasure does it offer to an individual when he exercises some authority over others, when that kind of authority derives only from his rank/position in the workplace instead of his true self? If that individual holds his office no more, would others still take him seriously then? Would others still respect him anymore?

People come to workplace to work for a common goal. To achieve that goal effectively, members of the same workplace need to be organised. So some may become leaders, others followers. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the followers would have to remain followers all over their lives. In many situations, the group leaders can be, and are proven to be, inferior to their own members in many aspects other than the sole function in the workplace. So why the need to lord others over?

As AM wrote in her blog (it's a pity that she writes no more -- hope it's not due to illness or other mishaps?), why not let go of oneself?

Haven't they learned anything after all these years?

Another way to look at your mishap

In 2007, the US country music singer Dolly Parton turns 61.

I had seen several of her movies. Her squeaky voice, golden hair (a wig), and -- of course, one couldn't possibly overlook it -- her shape of body are almost her trademarks.

She grew up in a poor and ragged family of 12 children living in a single-room shack in Tennessee, and had always wanted to look pretty. She admitted putting on heavy make-up even at home because "I never know who is going to come by, but I don't want to look like a slouch for my husband either."

People tend to judge her by her look. In fact, Dolly has more than what meets the eyes. Her song writing skills and singing had turned into a business worth millions of dollars. She even sets up her own Dollywood theme park in Nashville, the Mecca for Western country music. More than that, she sets up a charity body, Dollywood Foundation, which funds scholarships for poor students in her state. The Foundation also provides every child in the state with a new book until the age of five -- every month. Unable to have children herself, she is quite an extraordinary matriarch in raising 5 of her siblings and supporting 100 relatives with her wealth.

"Well, I try to be sharing and giving. They can have half of everything I got, I'm there for them. I think, God didn't let me have children, so everybody's children could be mine."

What an exceptional view on a mishap from an exceptional woman! She had received no higher education, and yet she has a bigger heart than any of the business tycoons in Hong Kong. May God keep on gracing her with blessings.

Quotes from Private Eye

I couldn't help quoting funny mocking stories from Private Eye:

------

ONLY IN THE EYE

'Latin For Beginners'
by Harry Mountainofcash

Chapter 1: Conjugating Verbs (present tense)

Tesco = I build a superstore
Tescas = You go shopping there
Tescat = He closes down his local shop
Tescamus = We make even more money
Tescatis = You feel guilty about it
Tescant = They can't stop us

-------

Hahahaha!

The irony of Private Eye

I went to Tesco yesterday and bought a copy of 'Private Eye' (issue 1177, 2 Feb - 15 Feb) off the shelf.

This is my first time I've ever bought it. What attracted me to spend a quid and 40p for it was its cover. It featured Tony Blair and John Reid who laughed heartily together as if they were sharing a joke.

In the text messages, Blair says:
"You can't send me to prison."
[Due to the cash-for-honour scandal, Blair had been interviewed by the police twice about his involvment of the scandal]

"Because they are full," replies John Reid, the Home Secretary.
[Reid had been criticised for not putting criminals behind bars because the prisons were already full. He had instructed the judges to sentence only the most dangerous criminals to jail.]

This is truly British humour: there's always certain degree of truth in the statement that makes the victims hard to defend. Here's another good example:

Channel 4 has been under fire from the outraged TV audience that some racist remarks against the Indians were allowed to be aired on the real-life show "Big Brother" -- named after George Orwell's well-known phrase "Big Brother is watching you" in his book 1984. Because of such racist remarks, the principal sponsor of the TV programme suspended its financial support at once. In addition, there was an outcry from the Indian sector who threatened to boycott Channel 4. Some even demanded the TV station fire the directors and top management who were responsible for such racist remarks.

In Private Eye, there was a small announcement like this:

------
A Pompous Statement from Channel Four

Channel Four is firmly against the bullying of minority groups and deplores any attempt to incite hatred against any person on the grounds of who they are or where they come from; particularly if the victims of this bullying are directors of national boradcasting companies.

These people have an absolute right not to be abused merely because they work for Channel Four and because they happen to belong to a small group of individuals who believe that Big Brother should continue to be shown on national television.

We believe that using insulting or pejorative language to describe Channel Four directors is unacceptable, particularly phrases such as 'cynical, greedy tossers' or 'cowardly, self-serving hypocrites'.

Worst of all is the intimidatory call for Channel Four directors to "Go home and get someone decent to run the Channel". Such remarks are merely the result of the kind of ignorance and stupidity that are all too prevalent in a society which has been reduced to watching Big Brother.

Channel Poor
------

Ha ha! I guess I'd become a long-time subscriber of Private Eye soon!

The way to get your advice heeded

I went to the dental hospital this morning. Since Maz is gone now, I was under the impression that this appointment was with the oral hygienist that he had booked for me before he moved to Sheffield. To my surprise, it's another dental student.

Even more surprising was that this dental student was a Chinese Malaysian. She had a round, chubby face, and wore that distinctive Malaysian/Singaporean accent.

She started the normal procedure all over again, charting my teeth with the assistance of a proper dental nurse. I was lying on the dental chair, half apprehensive and half suspicious as I wasn't sure she was a dental student or an oral hygienist student.

And because she forgot to wear a mask, I was able to see her full face (but upside down). She had a full-moon face, an immaculate facial texture (while mine is like the surface of the moon) and she was not wearing any glasses at all. I could see her deep brown iris when she was looking deep into my mouth. But as the entire image was upside down, I could not form a mental picture to tell whether she looked pretty or not.

Well, all I could observe was that her teeth were for sure much better healthy than mine.

"Measles..., bucket..., gingivitis..., upper left 6; bucket..., no.7..." She kept murmuring to the dental nurse as she was charting my teeth.

I was appalled by the grave condition of my teeth.

"How could such a pretty face like hers utter such horrible words like these?" I kept wondering. Also I wondered which year of her study she was in, as apparently she forgot to put on any protective glasses, nor did she ask me to put mine on.

Anyway, after the charting, she summed up with the conclusion: "You've got pockets all over your teeth. You'd better brush your teeth more thoroughly."

"But I always do," I protested.

"Probably not the right way," said she.

She showed me how I should use the toothbrush properly as if I'd never learned to use it before. "Press the head of your toothbrush firmly towards the gum line. Let it reach into the pockets to brush away the plaque hidden there." She even demonstrated to me the proper way to use the floss. Then she asked her supervisor to come over and presented me to him.

The supervisor was a 50ish year-old gentleman. He listened attentively first to the dental student's presentation, and then carried out an inspection into my mouth himself. He then demonstrated how to offer advice in a professional manner to the patient so that the advice could sink in more easily:

"Suppose I have some problems in playing golf. I could hardly hit the ball at all. I asked my coach for help. My coach came to observe my grip, my posture, my stance, my swing...etc. And he noticed I had committed 5 mistakes.

He wouldn't spell out 5 mistakes all at once, because he knew that I could only rectify one at a time, or 2 at best. Instead, he'd concentrate on the most serious error that I made so that I could improve my results drastically. After I'd made some progress, he'd then address the rest one by one.

If you want your patient to take on board what you have to offer him, you'd concentrate on the most serious problem first. Let the advice sink in. And wait for the improvements. Then you address the others. There, you could achieve the desirable effect and be able to gain your patient's confidence in you."

How marvelous an advice it was for every consultant!

As I was lying on the dentist chair, I could feel the teaching going in between a superb teacher and his student. Not only did the student benefit from such teaching, I as a patient also had an eye-opening experience unfolding right in front of my eyes.

What a job well done, professor!

Ronnie
31/1/2007

Love songs at Burns Supper

Last Friday evening (January 26th), I was invited to attend another Burns Supper at St. Simon's church. It was the second Burns Supper that I attended within a week, but neither of the two fell on the official date for Burns Supper (which should be January 25th every year).

Though we didn't have live bagpipe music at the entry of the Haggis, there was a recorded piece of such music. As usual, there were some traditional Scottish songs during the supper. I don't know whether these songs were composed by Robert Burns, but I do know that they are very touching in their simplicity. Here are two of them:

Red, Red Rose

O, my luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June,
O, my luve's like a melodie
That's sweetly played in tune.
As fair as thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I,
And I will luve thee still, my dear
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear.
Till a' the seas gang dry.
And I will luve thee still, my dear
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun.
O! I will luve thee still, my dear
While the sands o' life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only luve,
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile!

Tho' it were ten thousand mile, my luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile, my luve,
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile.

The Banks o'Doon

Ye banks and braes o'Bonnie Doon
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair?
How can ye chant, ye little birds?
And I sae weary, fu' o' care!

Thou'll break my heart, thou warbling bird,
That wantons thro' the flowering throne,
Thou minds me o' departed joys,
Departed never to return.

Aft hae I rov'd by Bonnie Doon
To see the rose and woodbine twine,
And ilka bird sang o' its luve,
As fondly sae did I o' mine.

Wi' lichtsom heart I pu'd a rose,
Fu' sweet upon its thorny tree!
And my fause lover staw my rose,
But ah! He left the thorn wi' me.