Month: August 2009

This is the kind of reporting that winds me up – I’m sure there is probably some good science behind it, but this isn’t it.

OK, so we see the birds (rooks – crows are pretty intelligent) raising the water level to reach their morsel of food by displacing the water with stones, selecting the larger stones to do it. But just look at the archive link to tool-using rooks – these birds have simpy been trained to drop rocks on white targets to receive rewards of food. There is no “thought” of displacement as a means to raise floating objects. There is no “innovation” in their thinking – they simply repeat the learned behaviour at the first attempt when presented with the new situation – the very opposite of innovation. Jeez.

BBC Washington Correspondent Justin Webb is returning from the US to the UK after 7 years. We know exactly what he means. The hypocrisy is part of the possibility.

And yet for all the ugliness, the deadening tawdriness of much of the American landscape and the tinny feebleness of many of its politicians – for all that nastiness and shallowness and flakiness – there is no question in my mind that to live here has been the greatest privilege of my life.

The immensity of America, the energy and the zest for life, …. shines a light on the entire human condition.

There is an intellectual ugliness as well: a dark age lurking, even when the president has been to Harvard.

We really miss the US too, and nobody believed us when we said we weren’t leaving because we didn’t enjoy living there.

Saturday October 24th “Art and the Metaphysics of Quality” at the Oxford University Dept for Continuing Education.

Good luck to Ant and Dave and Patrick. Wonder if I can be there ?