vitruvian lobster

This attitude that Man is the very centre and the purpose, the crowning glory of Creation can surely only be held by people who live in fear and terror of their own insignificance. I have no doubt that early Man, close as he was – necessarily close – to Nature, did not dare these absurdities. For him animals were his brothers, sometimes even his gods.

the conference, the paper and the iPad…

It’s unusual for me to write another post so soon, but I am trying to get into practice for what I hope will be quite regular postings from Iran. To this end I have been spending quite a bit of time setting up all the apps, online services and interlinks that will allow me, hopefully, to blog from there on my iPad. In truth, this device is not really well geared at present for the …

Spartacus: Blood and Sand…

I have been watching Spartacus: Blood and Sand with much enjoyment and would like to counter various sneering reviews such as this (it was another review I can no longer find that provoked me to write here)… The general drift seems to be to point out the banally obvious, that the show contains a constant diet of sex and violence, and to state that there is no plot. It seems to me that this entirely …

eros

Nothing seems to me more absurd than applying our social mores to other cultures. Some have raised nakedness to the heights: others have damned it to Hell. Is one right and the other wrong? The only person who it seems to me has the right to judge is someone from the culture whose mores and behaviour are being considered. The ‘Peoples of the Book’ (Jews, Christians and Muslims) have a particularly strong aversion to nakedness …

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