Nov 20 2011

On charity…

In the aftermath of Children In Need I thought I would post on charity.

What is it with charity that we now need someone to do something, i.e. sit in a bath of baked beans, to convince us to donate? Is the thinking here: “Obviously I was upset about the child with cancer, but I couldn’t help until someone sat in a bath full of baked beans”? Was charitable giving always like this?

We no longer see need in our own society, so someone has to make a performance to draw attention to it and stimulate us to give. Charity stunts are a proxy for the begging bowl on the street.

My post is also prompted by Peter Tatchell’s proposal that there should be a 20% one-off tax on wealth applied to the wealthiest 10%.

Hold on!

That means me, or at the very least close enough to make me worried. I fall pretty much on the boundary of the 10% in terms of income, and well inside in terms of wealth, based on the value of my house and I imagine on the basis of a couple of pensions pots. (see here for income and wealth distributions in the UK). Obviously I find this fairly objectionable. It’s not so much an objection to paying any amount more but being singled out whilst most people don’t pay any more.

I’m not alone, Adele (a popular singer) got herself into a degree of trouble for her comments on paying tax at a rate of 50%, this was in part because of the way she chose to express herself but in part it’s a very good point: she is seeing 50% of her (substantial) income being taken away and it doesn’t sneak out in PAYE fashion. She receives the money and then very obviously hands it over, PAYE makes the process of taxation almost invisible. You’re not paying anything like this rate, and neither am I, my rate of tax on income is approximately 27% (see this post). Her observation was she made relatively little use of the services the government provides and paid a great deal for them, so felt aggrieved. For your own private provision for full replacement you’re probably looking at spending £10,000pa on health insurance, £12,000pa schooling per child and £40,000 provision for your own pension which covers off the major areas on which government spends, and you’ll get a much better service.

The principle of progressive taxation, i.e. the wealthy paying not only more in absolute terms but more in percentage terms, is well-established (Adam Smith was an early proponent) but a focus on simply the wealthy misses out the wider point that everyone contributes something according to their income. So when times are hard it shouldn’t simply be a case of “soak the rich”.

There is an odd parallel between the Daily Mail reader and the Occupy movement, the Mail reader seems to believe that if only large scale Benefit Scroungers could be stamped out then all would be well and the Occupy movement believe that if only the 1% (or 10% if you’re Peter Tatchell) paid their “fair share” then all would be well.

The link between tax and charity is in seeing tax as wide-scale enforced charity; in the past services and support for large parts of the UK population were paid for by charity. This worked poorly because the provision would have been patchy and in many cases below what we would consider a minimum level.

When Britain created its welfare state it subsumed a lot of charitable giving, the state was saying – “you don’t need to give to charity now because we will carry out those activities once covered by charity.”

The Big Society is much derided but it is about something important: it is down to us to care and help, we don’t lose that responsibility by paying tax to the state. The problem for the individual donor is where to spend our charity pound, everybody wants to help pandas and kittens but the unemployed, not so much.

None of the above is an argument for reducing taxation or reducing the size of the state, it’s an argument that the state doesn’t care – we still all have that job.

Nov 17 2011

Book Review: The Illustrated Pepys edited by Robert Latham

41dJ gYoaLL._SL500_AA300_In this post I review “The Illustrated Pepys”, extracts from Samuel Pepys’ diaries edited by Robert Latham and enhanced with illustrations from the period. You can download the full Pepys diaries from Project Gutenberg (here) in the earlier 1893 edition and the www.pepysdiary.com website has loads of additional information, it is working it’s way through the diary and will reach the end in May next year.

I feel somewhat ashamed for going for the “illustrated” and edited version which contains approximately one twelfth of the complete diaries, it feels like dumbing down but to be honest I struggle with 17th century English. However, I did enjoy the illustrations.

Samuel Pepys was born in 1633, his family appears to have been relatively well-connected, he attended grammar school, St Paul’s School the Magdalene college at Cambridge funded by two exhibitions and a grant from the Mercers Company (his father was a tailor). In 1649 he was present at the execution of Charles I.

Prior to the start of the diary in 1660 he had married Elisabeth de St Michel, a 15 year old Hugenot, in 1655. On 26th March 1658 he was “cut for the stone” that’s to say had a lithotomy to remove stones from his bladder, this was a painful and dangerous operation at the time. He celebrates the anniversary of this day in each year through the diary – under the circumstances I think I would too!

After university he starts work as clerk to Sir George Downing at the Exchequer and he was also a secretary to Sir Edward Montagu, a relative of his father’s who was later to become 1st Earl of Sandwich. The diary begins in 1660 when Pepys is 27 years old, on the eve of the Restoration, in which he is involved as a member of the fleet which travels to Holland to bring back Charles II as part of Montagu’s retenue. On his return he becomes Clerk of the Acts to the Navy Board, this seems to have been a relatively senior, but not top, position. Later in the diary he describes giving evidence to a committee of parliament on the conduct of the navy in the Second Anglo-Dutch War.

The diaries are an interesting mishmash of the mundane and high politics. Pepys was living in interesting times, he lived in London during the coronation of Charles II, the plague and the Great Fire – all events covered in his diaries.

Pepys has regular sexual encounters with women who are not his wife, he often drops in to an argot of foreign languages (French, Spanish and latin) to describe these encounters. Late in the book his wife catches him fondling their maid, Deb Willet and the repercussions of this last for several months. Interestingly he describes a later, non-sexual meeting with Deb in his argot. The diaries were written in shorthand and were clearly not intended for general readership, he expresses a degree of remorse and guilt over his affairs, so to me it seems this use of language is to separate him from his disreputable acts.

Aside from the womanising Pepys entertained himself with music making with his wife and friends, going to plays and trips into the countryside. Servants seemed like more of the family for Pepys than I imagined, he and his wife give two of their servants who marry a substantial wedding gift for their departure, he also talks of working with labourers such as carpenters who come to his house to work.

I wrote a diary for a period between 2000 and 2005, looking back at them the similarities with Pepys diaries are striking. The little domestic details, the meetings with friends, the extended descriptions of current events, the hints of the work he is currently engaged in, the brief formulaic entries for those days when you just don’t feel like writing, his joy at new clothes and gadgets (like a carriage). I should hasten to add for the benefit of Mrs Somebeans that no sexual encounters with anyone are described in my diary!

The details of his relationship with his wife are touching and domestic, he talks of them laying long and talking, of returning to share a bed with her after she has had a cold. He also describes accidently elbowing her in the face as he wakes with a start and grumbles about her leaving her belongings in a coach, grudgingly admitting at the end of the entry that she had given the items into his care.

I come to the diaries having read Alan Cook’s biography of Edmond Halley (reviewed here), a contemporary of Pepys. Cook’s biography of Halley is very dry, you can almost feel the transition between different sets of formal records. The personality of Halley can only be imagined. The life and character come from the diaries of associates such as Samuel Pepys, Robert Hooke and John Evelyn. Looking more widely biographies of Charles and Erasmus Darwin are both given character by their extensive surviving personal letters and diaries.

“British diaries : an annotated bibliography of British diaries written between 1442 and 1942” compiled by William Matthews lists the diaries known from the period in which Pepys lived, they are sparse: a handful in each year from people in a range occupations. Pepys diaries are well-known because they are preserved, along with his large library, they cover a very active period of history in which Pepys plays a small role close to the centre of action. They are readable and cover both the professional and personal.

He finishes the diary in May 1669, fearing for his eyesight which subsequently improves. Elisabeth, his wife, dies shortly after the end of the diary; over the succeeding years he takes up more senior roles in the navy, becomes and MP and serves briefly as President of the Royal Society. He dies in 1703.

Foot notes

You can see my rather incomplete Evernotes on the diaries here, I recommend www.pepysdiary.com for more detailed exploratory with added details and explanations.

Nov 05 2011

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone…

It’s been a while since I last had a good rant but the sanctimonious pontificating of bishops on wealth has set me off, that and the wine!

The Archbishop of Canterbury was going on about it earlier in the week, and today the Archbishop of York says that we should see the very wealthy in the same terms as we seen racists and misogynists. He doesn’t think the very wealthy should receive honours from the Queen. He is, of course, an unelected member of the House of Lords something which is a very high honour which is utterly unearnt on his part. He writes:

Over the last few decades racism has lost its respectability and is seen as unacceptable.  The same applies to homophobia (the irrational fear of homosexuals) and discrimination against women. 

Hold on! the Anglican Church only appointed it’s first female bishop in 2009, the Catholics still don’t allow it, and the Anglican Church will only allow a homosexual to be a bishop if they are celibate.

Apparently the Vatican has had a go too, at this point my irony meter explodes. Leaving aside their rather generous treatment of those clergy that sexually abuse children, there’s also the question of their absolute refusal to countenance contraception even to combat disease.

I’m not theologically trained but I believe there is something in the bible along these lines:

And why behold you the mote that is in your brother’s eye, but consider not the beam that is in your own eye?

Of course one could argue that the Anglican Church’s attitude to woman and homosexuals and the Vatican’s casual approach to child sex abuse by it’s clergy are not relevant to their opinions on financial matters. However these are both very wealthy organisations, they became wealthy because for a very long time they have collected tithes from their flock. They are also treated favourably in tax terms, perhaps we could ask the Archbishop of Canterbury what fraction of their income goes on charitable work.

This follows the Anglican Church’s deep confusion as it failed to realise that it’s view of St Paul’s Cathedral (entrance £14.50) as a major tourist attraction and revenue stream was a little incompatible with it’s vague support of the equally vague OccupyLSX movement.

Thank you for hearing my rant.

Nov 03 2011

Going Home

For the half-term holiday, The Inelegant Gardener and I went on a road-trip to visit my parents in the deep south… of England via Malvern where The Inelegant Gardener’s father lives.

The first stop on the tour is Wool, where I grew up. It’s the furthest I’ve ever lived from a motorway: about an hour and a half from the M5 in Somerset. On the way we pass the outskirts of Dorchester where Prince Charles’ model village, Poundbury, is plonked down incongruously on top of hill, it’s pretty pricey. I experience a navigation fail since the bypass is largely new since I left 20 or so years ago and my mental map is slow to update.

Signposts near Wool are decorated with a graphic of a tank (for The Tank Museum) and a monkey (for Monkey World).

The Inelegant Gardener is always amused by the signpost at the edge of the village for “New Buildings”, it’s been there since I was a child. Funnily enough there are new buildings close to the sign in the form of Purbeck Gates, a new development of 160 houses just approaching completion.

Even for a middle-aged atheist like me, it seems the church is the best image of the village, this is the Anglican church where Father Smedley dropped me on my back whilst demonstrating the christening ceremony to the religious education class.

Church of England, Wool

Whilst staying in Wool we went off for a morning in Weymouth, there’s much road building going on since Weymouth will host part of the 2012 Olympics: the sailing part. There is also controversy since upgrading the roads approaching Weymouth will simply dump traffic faster into a small town that can’t handle it, furthermore the council appears to be thinking about charging people to access public land to view the sporting events.

Weymouth Bay

Weymouth has some rather fine Georgian and Regency Buildings.

Fine Georgian buildings on the Esplande, WeymouthIt was an early seaside resort, visited by George III. This is commemorated by a chalk horse on the road out of the town. There is also a statue celebrating his 50th year on the throne.

Statue of George III, 50th anniversary 1809/10

This is the house where my maternal grandmother started her working life in service at the age of 16, in around 1935:

109, The Statue House, Weymouth where Granny Hart started in service 1935

I’ve always rather liked Weymouth but we rarely visited when I was a child, it turns out this is because my mum went to school in Weymouth and this has put her off the town ever since!

We saw a lot of beach huts on our trip, these are some rather smart examples from Weymouth.

Beach huts on Weymouth Bay

We also visited Lulworth Cove, familiar to many as a geology field trip destination. This is Stair Hole:

Stair Hole (1/3)

I tend to take my home coast for granted, it is now branded “The Jurassic Coast”, and it’s spectacular!

Next stop Southbourne where my dad now lives with my stepmother, this is outside my home territory but not that far away.

Here you can see the lie of the land, with Hengistbury Head directly ahead and the Isle of Wight featuring the “Polar Bear” in the distance to the right.

Isle of Wight from Southbourne Beach

We went off to Mudeford, where Highcliffe Castle sits on the top of the cliff as you can see – glorious blue skies.

Highcliffe Castle

And to finish the trip we went up to the New Forest, Britain’s most recently created National Park. This is a woodland glade close to where dad wants his ashes scattering:

Woodland Glade

And here’s a mushroom…

Fungus

There was quite a lot of rainfall during the week!

Oct 20 2011

Book review: Edmond Halley Charting the Heavens and the Seas by Alan Cook

EdmondHalleyEdmond Halley (1656-1742) was one of the key figures in the early history of the Royal Society. He is best known for predicting the return of his eponymous comet but over-shadowed by contemporaries such as Isaac Newton, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Christopher Wren and Samuel Pepys. The biography I review here is “Edmond Halley: Charting the Heavens and the Seas” by Alan Cook.

Cook divides Halley’s life into three phases:

  • His early life including trips to St Helena (1677-78) to compile the first comprehensive star catalogue of the southern hemisphere; a visit to Danzig to establish the accuracy of Johann Hevelius’ star catalogue (1679), along with further travel to visit astronomers in France and Italy. This phase culminates in the publication of Newton’s Principia (1687), which Halley paid for and managed.
  • In a second phase Halley is found making two tours of the Atlantic (1698-1700), venturing to the very far south, with a view to establishing the longitudes (in particular) of various locations and measuring meterological and magnetic properties as he goes. He does this on the request of the king, as a member of the Navy. Subsequently he is sent to the Adriatic Sea (1703) to survey various potential naval bases for the English Navy. He also conducts a survey of tides in the English Channel (1701), following an earlier survey of the approaches to the Thames (1689)  and is involved in diving operations on the wrecked frigate Guiney to salvage its cargo (1691), inventing a diving bell and diving suit for the purpose. He is also Deputy to Newton at the Chester Mint (1696-97), which was created along with four other country mints for the Great Recoinage.
  • Finally he becomes Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford University in 1704 where he prepares a translation of Apollonius’s Conics – a classical text on geometry. After John Flamsteed dies (1720), Halley takes his place as Astronomer Royal at the Royal Greenwich Observatory. a post he holds until his death aged 85 in 1742.

The striking thing about the first phase of his life is the degree of responsibility and the quality of his connections at an early stage in his life. He goes to St Helena at the age of 20, breaking his study as an undergraduate at Oxford, with the blessing of both the Royal Society and Charles II; Cook comments that this responsibility at an early age is not exceptional at the time but the degree of high level support is notable. On his return the king directs the university to award him a degree. Following this, at the age of 23, he goes to Danzig to make measurements with Johann Hevelius (1611-1687) at the behest of the Royal Society to check out how Hevelius makes his measurements (he uses so-called open sights, rather than the more recently invented telescopic sights) and the Society wishes to know if his claimed accuracy is reasonable. This is a pretty delicate task for a young man!

On his return from Europe he works with Newton on the publication of Principia. Prior to Principia astronomy is about data collection and classification, after Principia there is a theory that will tie all of these data together (even if the calculations are not trivial)  based on the core idea of universal gravitation attraction following an inverse square law. Halley funds the publication of the book, and is responsible for the printing, along the way learns the contents inside-out which he will later apply to the orbits of comets and the motions of the moon. In a way Halley’s prediction of the return of a comet is the proof of Newton’s theory: at the time comets were rather mysterious it was not clear at the time that they were bodies that orbited the sun but by applying Newton’s theory Halley could predict the return of a comet (everyone knew that the planets were in orbits, even if they didn’t know why).

It’s during this time Halley falls out with John Flamsteed (1646-1719) with whom he had been familiar since the creation of the Royal Observatory and Flamsteed’s appointment as Astronomer Royal. The core of the problem seems to be Halley passing on Flamsteed’s data to Newton for his calculations in Principia. Flamsteed later makes everyone he feels is in the Newton camp his enemy, maybe I need to read a sympathetic biography of Flamsteed!

The creation of the Astronomer Royal and the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, along with Halley’s government funded and mandated trips around the Atlantic mark the start of scientific endeavours funded by the government. Prior to this great programmes of observation such as those by Tycho Brahe and Johann Hevelius are essentially the enthusiasms of wealthy amateurs – they die with their masters. For problems such as the determination of longitude there is a need for extended programmes of observation whose results are available to all. In a sense the clash between John Flamsteed and everyone else represents the birthing pains of this switch, he kept “his” measurements close to his chest and was monumentally reluctant to publish them. This is someone who adopts a lifelong program of detailed measurements who, naturally, will collide massively with someone like Halley, who although he undertook such a program late in his life and was a competent observer in his own right, was much more an aggregator of data from other people.

During his life Halley was respected as one of the leading European mathematicians, a reputation which hasn’t really maintained. I feel this is a little unfair, Halley’s strength was in compiling data on, for example, cometary orbits from a range of sources including other contemporary observers, his own measurements and historical sources. He then applies the most recent theory of the time to make future predictions – most famously of the return of his eponymous comet. He also devises the program of measurement for the transits of Venus and Mercury, which are conducted on James Cook’s mission after Halley’s death, these are used to determine the size of the solar system. (The key parameter to be measured is simply the length of the transit, rather than the absolute time of its start and end). This process of turning theory, in this case Newton’s theory of gravitation, into practical application is critical but less well recognised than the “original seed”. In contrast to Joseph Banks and Charles Darwin, who were passengers on Royal Navy ships, Halley is master and commander – he has a full Navy commission and salary and is a competent seaman.

Halley’s work on geomagnetism and trade winds is also notable – he publishes the first known examples of “isoclines” to visualise his data – and he makes use of a wide range of measurements from right across the globe. In fact as a classical scholar he also investigates historical data which he incorporates into this work and other independent investigations.

halley_isoline_1701

One longstanding project is the understanding of the motion of the moon, it is relevant because if the location of the moon relative to the fixed stars can be calculated in the future then the moon can be used as a clock to determine the longitude: a grand challenge of the time. As Astronomer Royal Halley sought to record the motion of the moon over the 18 year “saronic” cycle, this is the period over which the moon’s orbit repeats. The results of these observations are not published until after his death.

On subjects such as tides, the magnetic field of the earth, calculations of lunar locations, geomagnetism, the source of the aurora Halley is often producing results that are not bettered for a hundred or so years. 

Halley strikes me as an early version of Joseph Banks, someone with significant scientific reputation but also someone who can be relied on to competently complete difficult tasks – they share a little more in the sense that it is Banks who helps conduct the transit of Venus measurements in Tahiti that Halley described many years before. It also plays to the idea that, at the time, there were no professional scientists such as there are today, the 17th century model is equivalent to a cabinet minister who wins a Nobel prize for physics.

Alan Cook’s book feels very complete in it’s treatment of the source material, in several places he repeats tables of original measurements and covers some of the mathematics in some depth, the appendices contain yet more detail. However, Halley left nothing in the way of a diary or of personal correspondence so Halley as a person does not come through except by his public actions.

Footnotes

If you’re interested these are the notes I made in Evernote as I read (link)