ILLUMINATIO MEA

Wozziss all about then, eh?

It's about the ancient craft of producing manuscripts by hand, and especially the art of decorating them with patterns, miniatures in capital letters, natural and fantastic forms, but above all by 'illuminating' them by the addition of real gold leaf.

This is a very tricky process, and mastering it has taken up a good deal of my time lately - hence the lack of posts recently. I have however manged to devise a pretty fool-proof technique, and in my usual generous way thought it might be a good idea to publish my findings. so -

GILDING

Gild before painting, except for minute areas.

Outline area with 2B pencil only.

Check that gesso is creamy and flowing. Flood it on to the area with a No.0 brush, using enough to form a raised dome. Leave to dry for at least 4 hours.

Coat the area with acrylic gloss medium [not gold size], aiming for a thin uniform glaze. Use brushes Nos.0 and 000.

Wait for 5 minutes. Then re-coat with a little more medium, aiming for a consistent semi-matte finish.

Wait for 5 minutes. Cut a piece of transfer gold leaf to fit the area. Press it down on the area with a finger.

Wait for 10 minutes. Remove the backing. Wait for 10 more minutes. Brush off the surplus leaf with a soft hair mop.

Wait for a minimum of 4 hours. Burnish lightly with a polished stone.

Can't go wrong!

RECALL OF TIME PAST


We live in age of constant change. This cliche is particularly true in the world of electronics, where today's must-have is tomorrow's old hat. Most of the exciting add-ons seem to me to be largely the result of nerds amusing themselves by seeing what new trick the box can be induced to perform, rather than arising from any deficiency they can supply.

And there is the tendency to confuse smooth technology with the need to have anything worthwhile to say. My experience of video games - very limited, gained from looking over younger shoulders - is that the images have become closer and closer to real time photography. This seems to me to have nothing to do with the value of what is being shown, which has no relation to any human sympathy, understanding, wit, articulateness, or any awareness of a world other than the non-existent virtual world in which so many young appear largely to live.


What is this extended approach march leading up to?


Only to this. As you know, I have an interest in the Victorian toy stage, which is a repository of a great deal of fascinating history which I shall be glad to expound to you any time you have an hour or two to spare. To the great majority this will seem the last asylum of the aging mind. Yet simply as an example of what was, and still may be, arrived at by the simplest of tools - in this case cardboard and paint - it is worth consideration. The greatest achievements of dramatic art are achieved by movements of men and material on a dusty stage, not by glossy video effects.


So here is a snatch of the world of the richly decorated theatres of the past, and the splendid effects that skilled technicians displayed in them, as recaptured in the cardboard world of 'penny plain and tuppence coloured'.

A QUESTION OF COLOUR

When you're choosing colours to distinguish three teams or three players you will automatically go for three primaries - red, yellow,blue. They are the most easily distinguished. But suppose you're designing for four teams - what's your fourth colour? Green, of course.

But why? Green is only one of three available secondaries. Why not orange, why not violet? But we all feel that green is the most distinctive. Orange might be a sort of weak red. Violet might be a kind of cool red. But green is no sort of yellow.

Why does green have this dominance over the other secondaries? Is it a matter of optics, something to do with how our eyes work? Or how our brains distinguish the messages that the retina sends? Is it a matter of familiarity - green being the most common colour to appear to us in large areas?

Or is it just tradition? Are children brought up to regard these as the inevitable four colours? Are school house sports teams distinguished by coloured motifs any more? I doubt if any infant minds are now greatly impressed by long winter evenings playing halma - if, indeed, they ever were.

Odd, this business of coloured playing pieces. Chess has only two uniforms, Black and White. Even if the exquisitely turned oriental pieces on the board are dyed crimson, officially they are Black. Strangely for a mathematician, Dodgson got it wrong. His Red Queen is the Black Queen of chess notation. But I suppose he wrote from the child's point of view, where the pieces are described as they appear on the board. Tenniel's illustration, being monochrome, would serve for either.

And while we're thinking about colour - what is happening to traffic lights? Clever lads were always keen to point out to their grandparents that the green lights were in fact blue-green to compensate for the yellowing effect of the foggy English climate. But now they seem to have gone turquoise. Are the authorities aware of some impending change in the colour of the atmosphere?

I have my doubts.

INTERIOR DECORATION

I have mentioned already a set of masks I have made for my own pleasure, based on an imaginary ballet of The Elements. In order to let us look at these occasionally I hang them, one at a time, in our hall, and rotate them with the seasons. A harmless eccentricity, I thought, until I remembered the picture of Mr. Pooter decorating his hall. Do I resemble him, I wondered, in such a pompous charade?

A disturbing idea - until I remembered that he, of course, was hanging a mass-produced plaster stag's head. This,he thought, gave his house 'style' (which in a sense it did). This seems to represent a level of absurdity all of its own, above which I feel a certain separation.

Still, it's odd, isn't it, what people display on their walls? I mean, of course, other people. One's own home merely shows a variety of interesting or amusing objects, all displaying the operation of a discerning mind. What, after all, could be a more rational ornament than the piggy-bank, an accurate representation of a Gloucester Old Spot, and affectionately known as Simpkin, which decorates our hearth?

And I can't feel that a frock-coat was ever a really suitable dress for doing anything - least of all amateur carpentry.

Here is Air -

LIVING ON CREDIT

Some months ago Tiresias took the opportunity to suggest that credit card companies had some responsibility for the approaching credit crisis, and that it was time that they took action to restrict the use of credit to sustainable levels.

Such is the influence of this blog that response was almost immediate. Egg took a stern line with customers who evidently had no intention of clearing their accounts, by blocking any further transactions. A harsh move, but one in the right direction.

Less commendable was their apparent attempted dropping of customers who regularly cleared their accounts by direct debit, presumably because they never paid exorbitant interest charges.

Is this the sort of action that Tiresias was recommending?

Er - well, no. But then, that's the way of fairy wishes. Readers of the brothers Grimm will know that they generally carry a nasty sting in the tail. Perhaps Tiresias would do better not to dabble in financial matters in future.

HELTER SKELTER

Shuffling the rim of the endless shore,

The holiday fun already a bore,

What are we going to do today

To fritter our empty lives away?

Here is a thrill you might enjoy,

A petulant giant's twisted toy.

They clamp you tightly on a rack

To see how soon your joints will crack;

And swing you up against the sky,

A most traditional way to die.

Horizons tilt, the clouds drop down,

And overhead is the seething town.

(But in the iron filigree something grates -

Or is it a shift of tectonic plates?)

Far off in the alien world below

Oblivious mannikins come and go:

On damp flat sands the children score

Trenches of a forgotten war;

A naked girl on a cockle shell

Drifts to the beach with the onshore swell;

And a soaring boy who had no care

Falls through the unsupportive air.

(A rivet shifts in a rusting girder.

Manslaughter is it - or is it murder?)

Over the top in the scything wind -

Oh, tell me, brother, have you sinned?

Then who is that hoodie by your side

Rapt in his bone-white-knuckle ride?

Hold on to your hat, your hair, your head.

Have fun. Have fun.

You're a long time dead.

Frederick

UNPOPULAR WARS

Reports come through of British service personnel in this country being required to travel to duties in civilian clothes and change into uniform when at their unit. Apparently men in uniform have been attacked and insulted by those who wish to protest against the apparent failure of operations in Afghanistan and the detriorating situation in the shambles of Iraq.

Typically, these protestors choose the wrong target; but the fact that such things can happen in our society is disturbing. There are wide-spread doubts as to the advisability of our policy in Afghanistan, and the futility of the so-called 'war against terror' in Iraq was clear from the start, and has only become more obvious as time has dragged on.

During the Second World War the necessity of fighting made it possible to raise a conscript army with, in general, the support of the nation as a whole. During those years the fate of the services was identified with fate of the community. By contrast, neither of the current operations could have got off the ground if it had depended on general mobilisation. Not only does your average civilian very reasonably wish to stay well clear of any personal involvement, but it seems to me that a widening gap in sympathy is appearing between the civilian and service communities. The particularly nasty mock recruiting poster displayed may be an extreme example, but it does highlight a growing attitude.

The British army has been recklessly deployed in pursuit of aims that could not be achieved, and at the same time has been starved of reliable equipment. And no-one outside of the services seems to care very much. There appears to be a general sense that soldiers of all ranks chose to follow this peculiar career choice, and now things are going badly they should be left to sort out their problems as best they can.

Meanwhile, of course, the power-drunk politicians who pushed them into this chaos drift into comfortable and no doubt profitable retirement.

And now reports too well-authenticated to be ignored appear of British troops' uncontrolled and violent treatment of Iraqi civilians. In our comfortable peace-time world the army would find it difficult to recruit men with the required characteristics of disciplined aggressiveness at the best of times: embroiled as they are in meaningless wars is it any wonder that recruiting fails to find the numbers, let alone the quality, that it needs? And however much the red-top press bleats about 'our lads' the bitter fact remains that the man in the street cares little for them, and the parents and partners of the killed and maimed feel abandoned in their misery.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE AS AN ENDANGERED SPECIES

The view has been darkly expressed that this blog spends far too much space rabbitting on about standards of English speech.

Now, as you can see, the seriousness of the situation is being emphasised by Sir Jonathan Miller, Brian Sewell, Sir Peter Hall, Tony Benn........

Tiresias is glad to welcome support from such distinguished company; but don't forget - you read it here first.

THE PATH NOT TAKEN




So - it's only a ballad. But the voice is limpid (she could belt it out too when needed), you can hear every word, and the feelings expressed seem to articulate sympathetically the thoughts of a girl in one of those minuscule catastrophes which afflict the young. In any case, listening to any of the current chart-toppers, if you can get close enough to distinguish the words you will find that they are often merely sloppy sentiment disguised by a lot of bashing and strumming.

Why has so much of society rejected all tender feeling in favour of arrogant violence? Is our world really so much of a jungle that only harsh loud mindless noise can express it? Or does the constant outpouring of thumping banality induce this terrible insensitivity in the hearers?

For once, my ancient wisdom fails to see any answer to all this.

GALILEO

With this frail hand I stopped the sun,

Which else had geocentric run

Illimitable years;

And flung a million miles in space

The spinning earth, the human race,

The singing and the tears:

And though you rack my body, all

Your piety can not recall

The music of the spheres.

Frederick

MORE ARTWORK



Frederick



This is a watercolour of Pont's Mill, across the river from Fowey. It is based on a photograph of my own, taken in late autumn. I couldn't work in this detail devant le motif.