Assisi

Today's trip out as a toss up between quite a few choices. Maybe the long drive to Siena, visiting the cathedral and the bookshops, and seeing the preparations for this Saturday's "Palio" horse race round the Piazza del Campo. Or perhaps a trip to see the villages of Todi, Orvieto and Montefalco, where some of the best wine we drank last week came from. But finally I setttled on Assisi, which I have seen from the terrace of the villa everyday for the last two weeks or so, nestled on the side of Mount Subasio

The key feature is clearly the "absurd" Basillica di San Francisco. Controversial since its completion, it is probably the worst example of a building put up to commemorate the life of someone. But that would be waiting at the other end of town from where I was parked. First stop for me was the Basilica di Santa Chiara. This is also a somewhat unusual looking church with three very ugly flying buttresses on the left side.

Saint Claire was more or less a contemporary of St Francis, and was committed to the same Christian philosophy of poverty. She found the Order of the Poor Claires who resided next door to the first Franciscans. Highlight of this visit was the crypt with her tomb tucked away. Her life is, in many ways, just as interesting as St Francis and Assisi itself seesm to have just as many souvenirs about her as it does about St Francis.

The city was pretty full of people, even mid morning. Large tour groups walking behind their guides holding up umbrellas. A surprisingly large number of monks and nuns walking round as well. Were they locals or on holiday?


Looking towards the centre of the city from St Chiara

The main square of the city - the Minerva Temple facade to the left dates from the Romans

An angel miming to a hippy harp player!

And so after a walk along the length of town, I reached the "imfamous" Basilica di San Francisco. This is a monsterous building dominating the sky line from the valley below at that end of the city. And a truly ridiculous way to commemorate St Francis, a preacher of poverty. The only good thing that can be said about it is that the frescos of St Francis's life were mostly painted by Giotto and members of his school and are interesting for that reason. But whoever could have thought that building this was a symbol of the greatness of St Francis and his message. Totally absurd!

The front facade of the Basillico di San Francisco

View to the valley below

After spending an hour or so in the Basillica it was back along the main street to the Cattedrale di San Rufino. Highlight here was a beautiful statue of St Francis

But at the eastern end of town, close to where I was parked, is the Santuario di San Damiano. This was the tiny church that St Francis had stumbled across in a state of disrepair and where God had apparently spoken to him through a crucifix and instructed him to "restore my house that is falling in ruins". So Francis sold all his belongings and made the repairs. St Claire then lived in this small complex of buildings for the next 40 years or so with the other sisters of her order. And no doubt at all, this is more like the way St Francis and St Claire should be commemorated

Statue of St Claire outside the Santuario

The tiny roof garden where St Claire grew flowers

A fresco of the Annunciation outside in the central courtyard - the lower part is shielded by glass, hence the reflections

The centre of Assisi from the Santuario

So a mixed visit overall. If I hadn't visited the Santuario, I would have probably come away with a much more negative view than I did do. As it was, the Santuario more than made up for the Basillico.

A day at the villa

Villa Casamanza, Nr Perugia, Umbria, Italy

Spent most of today at the villa - working on various books and swimming lots. I haven't done any yoga since everyone left on Saturday, but the swimming has been pretty good instead and I did 100 lengths of the pool today (in two separate swims it must be said)

A slightly better picture of my study area than the one I posted the other day. I may have damaged my camera by crushing a peach against it in my rucsack and it maybe isn't working as it should at the moment!

The typical orange sky just at sunrise

Assisi hidden in mist - maybe I should try to visit there at dawn for some photos?

I read two whole books today, though there were in the Oxford "Very Short Introduction" series - Evolution and Cosmology. The first was actually quite hard I thought. I haven't studied biology since I was about 14 and my reading on it since school has not been much. So quite a lot of the detail was actually quite complicated even though most of the terms were familiar. The Cosmology one was pretty easy though

And tonight I was finally tempted to watch a move on the laptop - the recent Will Smith film "Hancock". This was actually much better than I had expected, though I would have been tempted to have a much bleaker ending and have them both die

Also did the first bit of packing for the journey home - the roofbox and the first boxes into the boot. Loads to do still though.

Working on an academic paper

Most of today's detailed study was spent making notes on John Worrall's paper The Scope, Limits and Distinctiveness of the Method of "Deduction from the Phenomena": Some Lessons from Newton's "Demonstrations" in Optics. He is the professor who heads up my MSc course and indeed had been at LSE when I was there in the early 1980s, though I didn't actually see much of him at that time.

Much of my currently reading is of a reasonably high academic standard but I was keen to study an academic paper in some detail as part of my prep work for my own study. The main outcome was that I found the paper reasonably straightforward to review and take notes on, which only a couple of very technical arguments that I felt it worth glossing over. I wonder how long a paper like this would have taken him to produce - there are some references to it having been developed over several years. But how much effort would it really have taken? 15 hours a week for a month, two months, six months . . . ?

One of my longer term goals is to publish something in a properly refereed academic journal. Can it really be so hard?

More Philosophical studies

Villa Casamanza, Nr Perugia, Umbria, Italy

As I write this now, I am into day three of my study period. Still getting up at 6:30 and working in two hour blocks throughout the day. The Cohen summary has gone very well and I have moved onto Martinich's "Philosophical Writing". This is part of the background reading for the dissertation that we have to write as part of the course. Much of the book is taken up with discussions of the logic of arguments or on methods of analysis. But other bits are of more general interest to my study plans at the moment

In particular, his advise of actual essay writing has been very interesting. I am now considering whether a considerable part of my study methodology should be geared towards essay writing. Each course has loads of questions to choose from on each paper. So if I wrote short essays on every question on an exam paper, this would act as a very suitable guide to my studies. And there are, of course, years worth of exam papers to choose from.

I think I have left at home the examples I do have of old exam papers - I would really like to have one to hand now.

I have also been working on a more formally academic paper - John Worrall's piece on Newtonian "deduction from the phenomena". This should prove a more challenging piece to summarize and should also give me a better idea of the sort of standard that I ought to be aiming for with my own dissertation - even though this isn't due until September 2010!

Finally I am trying to decide whether to read a "very short introduction" to Evolution or to Philosophy of Science. The latter rather annoyed me by deciding that inductive reasoning was perfectly reasonable (when it clearly isn't valid) while the former is an area I currently know little about. Maybe I will compromise and read the one on Cosmology instead.

Mosquito bites, torture and a medical experiment

Either overnight or at some point during the day yesterday, I suffered an extreme attack from mosquitoes. My feet have been badly bitten - as a rough estimate I would say that the left foot has 15 bites and the right 12. However some of the bites are so close together they have merged into single red masses.

I woke up in the middle of the night in some discomfort. Attempts to ignore the pain eventually failed. But, as luck would have it, some bite cream had been left behind by one of last week's guests so my feet were soon smoothered in it.

This has led me to consider some of the discussions that have been raised by Guantanemo Bay and what constitutes torture. Part of the definition seems to be that torture causes permanent injury. Insect bites presumably aren't permanent (other than if the body reacts into total shock)and so the deliberate infliction of insect bites might not be torture per that part of the definition. Perhaps it is simply cruel and inhumane punishment.

Eventually I decided on a small medical experiment. Emma is always criticising me when she sees that I have scratched off the bite and have either a bright bloody spot or a scab. Yet I have found that this usually results in the discomfort dropping sooner than if I merely wait for the bite to heal. So one foot has been heavily scratched and then covered in cream, while the other has just cream on it.

And the conclusion? It is definitely better to scratch and then re-cover with cream tha to just use cream!

Perseid Meteors

Villa Casamanza, Nr Perugia, Umbria, Italy

Last night was the annual Perseid meteor shower - one of the best meteor showers of the year. It is caused by the earth moving through the tail of comet Swift Tuttle and usually gives a good show.

So making good use of the clear skies here, around 10:00pm last night I was settled on a comfy sun lounger by the pool facing towards the NE and ready for a good show. And for the next hour or so, it was exactly that. I maybe saw ten meteors per minute at the most, and never less than one or two per minute.

Last week, when our life coaching sessions turned to hobbies, it was thought to be very amusing that I liked astronomy so much - that despite my earlier comments that hobbies were incommensurable between people. It seemed that the title of "Sky and Telescope" magazine seemed to remind people of "Have I got news for you" and the headline feature in which a strange and unusual publication is featured. My claims that S&T was the largest selling magazine of its kind in the world and was not just some geek publication fell on deaf ears I'm afraid.

But no doubt next week, when I get home from Italy, I will be off to Oxford to see if, among other magazines, the new issue of S&T is out. Is this a sign of a sad life, or the sign of someone who knows the value of hobbies?

And remember - "the meteorite is the source of the light, and the meteor's just what we see"

Perugia again

Villa Casamanza, Nr Perugia, Umbria, Italy

After 3 hours study this morning, a trip out to Perugia. Main aim was to visit the Pintoricchio exhibition at the Palazzo dei Priori, Perugia's most beautiful building. This was a really excellent show and a real treat I thought. I was reminded about art-mad Fiona who came on one of our Spanish breaks in May and with whom I visited a great selection of local towns, focusing on churches. She had just quit her job and was hoping to develop some ideas for work that would involve her in something connected to her love of art. I should get in touch with her again and see how she is getting on with her plans




The Palazzo dei Priori and the entrance to the Pintoricchio exhibition

From there I went round the Rocca Paolina for a second time paying particular focus to the collection of Indian musical instruments on show in one of the exhibition areas

Stunningly beautiful instruments - still don't know if they are for sale (though I doubt it would be seened favourably at home if I returned bearing a sitar, or even a tabla)

The view south from the end of the Corso Vannucci

The view east towards Assisi

Yet another view of the Palazzo dei Priori from the Corso Vannucci

The old part of Perugia is full of tiny side streets

After a drink and a cake at a cafe, I came across a really nice bookstore where I was able to buy a book in English on Pintoricchio as well as a souvenir copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance written in Italian. Then a real find - the huge Taschen book on Michelangelo written in English and only Euro 25 (it is about twice that amount in the UK) - another reason why having the car is so useful. Finally back to the villa for an afternoon and evening of more study. But what a treat to have somewhere so beautiful so close by.

More thoughts on this strange week

Villa Casamanza, nr Perugia, Umbria, Italy

I am now two days into my week of study. It is exceptionally quiet and peaceful. No one bothers me at all. I read and take my various notes, do a little sunbathing or swimming, cook some food, and so.

Last week, I was very struck by a few things Natalie said about living alone and the enjoyment she had in her own space. I am beginning to see something of this already even though it is only a day or two since everyone left.

Years ago, my mum and dad used to have a static caravan in the Lake District. They eventually gave it to my aunt and uncle who, for reasons that were never very clear, then seemed to fall out with the site management and so got rid of the caravan. I really miss the caravan now. It would be a great bolt hole to be able to go to for a few days every now and then. For a brief moment, I have even wondered how feasible it would be to get one (the answer is "not very")

But one alternative would be to occasionally rent one of the small cottages that frequently advertise in the back of magazines like "Resurgence". One I looked at a few weeks ago was in south-west Wales and, out of season, could cost as little at £240 a week. Or there is the writers cottage in the Dudden valley in the Lake District that can cost as little as £70 a week.

Last night's last reading was a chapter of Tom Hogkinson's "How to be Free" in which he was discussing "genteel poverty", having just enough for the bare necessities. I am hugely attracted to this idea as it frees up huge amounts of time for more important things like study. As I get older, the balance between time and money is switching strongly towards the former, and this is true even though I am going to have to do some paid work over the coming months.

I expect all this will remain a major part of my thinking in the future as it has done in the last few years.

Listening to music . . . .

Villa Casamanza, Nr Perugia, Umbria, Italy

With the villa empty but for me, I have made my base at the large table in the downstairs lounge. While our guests were with us, I wasn't able to listen to any music, but with the house to myself I have the ipod player on more or less all the time. This allows a suitably detailed listening to various artists for extended periods of time. As often described by Robert Fripp (see his blog at www.dgmlive.com) music remains a very mystical experience and, in many ways, is the most important thing in my life and the source of all that sustains me.

Today starts off with a live recording of Portishead from their spring tour, followed by two cds worth of Namlook & Schulze series "Dark Side of the Moog" and two cds of Ravi Shankar (no doubt inspired by seeing the sitars in Perugia yesterday). By the afternoon, I have moved onto John Fahey and Loren Mazacane Connors ("The Camellites" and "9th Avenue"), followed by a wonderful live recording of Joanna Newsom from 2006.

I haven't listened to Joanna Newsom for a couple of months, but it doesn't take long for me to be completly encaptivated by her again. It is possible that her track "Emily" as played by the full touring band is my favourite track by anyone ever!

What it is to be totally undisturbed by anyone or anything!

A serious study day

Villa Casamanza, Nr Perugia, Umbria, Italy

So I am now settled in for a week on my own at our beautiful villa. After the huge disappointment of the changing arrangements for this week, I am now really fired up about what I can achieve this week. I suspect this is another confirmation of an important insight I have often had into the way I approach life - making the best of changing circumstances. But to be so enthusiatic about the week is something of a surprise given how I felt when we first arrived here last weekend.

So awake at 5:30 and working by 6:00. My plan was based on the way I had previously done the long drives between countries over this summer. I would study for two hours then do something else for an hour, repeating this pattern for the entire day. Over the full day, I studied for 10 hours.

My study for the next week - in front of a great view

The entrance to the lounge from the main terrace

And the view from the main terrace out towards Assisi (hidden in the early morning mist on the hillside in the distance)

My study task today was to take some detailed notes from Cohen's The Birth of a New Physics which I completed reading a day or so earlier. For graduate study, I need notes that are less aimed at expounding ideas and are more critical. So the notes I prepared are heavily referenced back to the book and are very much outlines rather than expositions. They contain far more of my own comments than I would have done in the past. Overall I was very pleased with this test. The day went very well and I was able to take about 12 sides of notes on the first 180 pages and only have various "supplements" to cover.

Cohen's book itself was an interesting mix of ideas at varying degrees of difficulty. The description of Galileo's inertial physics was suitably complex and the identification of issues ready for Newton was very well handled. I would have liked to have seen slightly more on why Newton was able to derive that an inverse square law force would produce an elliptical orbit - maybe that is lurking in Cohen's more detailed book, The Newtonian Revolution.

When not hard at work on Cohen I have sorted through most of the boxes of stuff we have been carrying with us all summer, throwing out several bags worth of stuff we don't need anymore and packing up the remaining stuff to ensure that there is lots of space for wine and things that I will be buying over the next week in Italy and France as I travel back to the UK.

No sunbathing, though it remains very hot. No swimming, as I was too fired up by studying. No tv, though the Olympics have now started. And no watching the movies I have on the laptop. A day with lots of implications for the future I feel.

Departures

Villa Casamanza, Nr Perugia, Umbria, Italy

Our last four guests of the summer 2008 departed this morning. As we hoped, it has been a good week and everyone seems very happy to have been here. Vicky and Susie are first to go and manage to leave Vicky's insulin in the fridge. You would have thought something like that, which so dramatically affects one's life, would be something never forgotten. But then I suppose people leave passports and tickets behind when they go away.

Sad to have reached the end - but I have got very fired up about this next week when I will be living on my own at the villa. I have lots of reading that I want to do aimed mainly at the MSc. I want to do some practice note taking and begin to think seriously about how I am going to approach my study. And I am planning to visit some of the nearby art exhibitions in Perugia, Assisi and maybe Siena. So a week of study and culture.

After everyone has left, Linda and I have a quick trip down to Perugia, just the two of us - Emma preferred to do yet more yoga (she has been doing two classes a day from some downloads we have from the excellent http://www.yogatoday.com/ website). So a little bit of relaxation for the two of us together. With hindsight, it would have been really good if Linda could have stayed on this week, but we didn't manage to get it organised with all the many changes that took place to next week's arrangements.

So we sit and read the papers in a street cafe in the Corso Vannucci and then, with some effort, find the entrance to the underground streets of Perugia, the Rocca Paolina. This has a photo exhibition on show as well as an extraordinary collection of Indian and Asian musical instruments. I am very excited about the latter and will try to come back and see it next week when I have more time.

Last packing for Emma and Linda, a final meal of fried peppers and eggs at the outside table, and then off on the long journey back to Pisa airport to drop the two of them off. The round trip takes me over five hours and I skip dinner and have an early night - I intend to be up first thing tomorrow and then working all day.

Last day of our breaks . . .

Villa Casamanza, Nr Perugia, Umbria, Italy

So to the last day of Well Being Breaks - at least for the foreseeable future. A bold idea that unfortunately didn't manage to find an audience at this time.

My last yoga class then also for the forseeable future. I videoed 30 minutes of the class and took some photos so there would be some proof for those back home that the participants had really done it.

Susie, Vicky and Linda in Trikonasana

Vicky had an especially fierce warrior pose

Three surprisingly stable trees

Always a challenging posture - Gomukasana

Two nice twists

Natalie and Susie have perfected Savasana during the week

And a final life coaching session just after lunch - did I have much of an impact in the end? Yes, I would say so - probably on a few people over the summer at least. What a strange career life coaching is!

It is the start of the Olympics in Beijing tonight and the opening ceremony reaches its climax just as Linda starts the evening pilates - very impressive fireworks. I wonder what London will come up with - something really poor I expect!

And Russia appears to have invaded Georgia to coincide with the games beginning. I am increasingly pessimistic about the outlook for the world. The majority of world GDP will be in non-democratic countries soon - not a good thought.

My last cooking for a large group tonight. Two types of risotto - spring veggie and a red pepper one. I am getting pretty good at risotto by now. A late night with quite a bit of limoncello drunk - never a good thing. And so the last night ends.

Last group meal - left to right: Emma, Vicky, Natalie, Trisha, Linda (hidden), Susie

Penultimate yoga class

Villa Casamanza, Nr Perugia, Umbria, Italy

Back into yoga again after a day off and everyone is really beginning to feel the change. Today was more or less a repeat of Tuesday's class but a little faster so we had time to add a couple more new postures. In particular, we had a go at headstands against the terrace wall. This is the first time I have ever taught headstands but both Natalie and Vicky managed to do them ok - the others didn't fancy having a go.

I finished the last 60 pages of Westfall's book this afternoon - still not sure what I really make of it, but it did get more structure as it went on, especially as John Locke started to feature more. But it might be useful to spend some more time on the idea of "Natural Philosophy" and "Natural Religion" as used by Westfall.

Emma had a quiet day as she recovered from heat stroke. So unfortunately, she wasn't able to come with us to Perugia for our meal out tonight. This went very well and we had a good time. Perugia is really lovely after dark with all the little ally ways lit up.

Siena

Villa Casamanza, Nr Perugia, Umbria, Italy

Today was our rest day from exercise and life-coaching and a chance for everyone, ourselves included, to have a longer trip out somewhere. Susie and Vicky had a trip planned to a designer clothes outlet village near Florence and were away first thing. Natalie and Trisha had a lie in and a trip to Assisi planned for later. We were off to Siena for the day.

This is our third trip to Siena - we went twice on our trip to Tuscany two years ago. Probably our favourite Italian city, even beating Florence. Today a rare change from our usual city touring with Emma deciding that she was happy going shopping on her own and so Linda and myself could go to a couple of the churches and have a general wonder round. Emma hates sight-seeing and only wants to shop. She would probably have prefered to have gone out with Susie and Vicky!

Classic views of the Piazza Del Campo

Linda and I headed out from the Piazza Del Campo towards the church of St Domenico, taking in the small monastry of St Catherine of Siena on the way. Plus a few bookshops that we passed as well - including one that had a book that might one day prove very useful to us called Walking and eating in Tuscany and Umbria.

The Church of St Domenico

Inside the Sanctuary of St Catherine of Siena

The most famous view in Siena?

On the way back to the Piazza we passed a little supermarket with loads of local produce in it. Linda would have been keen to load up there and then, but we have resisted for now. But I might try and return to Siena next week and have another look. I wuld also like to have had time for a longer look at the bookshops and some of the craft shops. It is the famous Palio horse race on August 16th. so maybe if I go in later next week and I can see the Campo set up for the race?

Lunch at a very expensive cafe in the Piazza - clearly paying a lot for the view. Needless to say, Emma had found one or two things on her travels and was keen to have Linda appraise them before purchase. Lunch was ok but Emma was clearly not feeling great and seemed to decline further as the day progressed. We suspected that the heat had got to her today.

Our guests decided on a evening out together in Perugia and I gave them a lift in just as the skies darkened and the occasional flash of lightning occured. Emma spent the night in her room and we had a quiet evening without the cooking and clearing up that we usual have.

Perugia

Villa Casamanza, Nr Perugia, Umbria, Italy

Yoga class three this morning and the intensity is rising just a little prior to our rest day tomorrow. We are up to five standing postures, including some vinyasa sequences of three at a time, and people are beginning to feel the beneficial effects. It is always amazing to see how people begin to change dramatically after just a few days of our yoga and pilates.

Then after brunch it is time for a quick trip doen to Perugia for a look round the old part of the city. Parking under the city walls, we made our way along some winding narrow streets towards the main central street - the Corso Vannucci. There we split up from Vicky and Susie.

The huge art gallery in the main street is an amazing building though the cathedral further along is considered one of the least attractive in the whole of Italy! From the side it is fine, but the front is truly awful. We buy some English papers (always a treat while abroad) and have a drink in one of the many cafes before having a bit of a walk round. We try to find the entrance to the famous underground streets, the Rocca Paolina, but don't have a map or enough time to really look.

The Palazzo Dei Priori, home to several museums

Instead we have lunch at a cafe/restaurant and have booked this for Thursday night for all of us to come out for a meal together. Linda and Emma split a pizza while I have an unusual ricotta and swiss chard filled pasta.

Emma with half a pizza

Emma and Linda stridding back along the Corso Vannucci

Back at the villa and the temperature remains in the 90s, prompting some siestas and lots of sitting in the shade of the olive trees.

I am now reading Richard Westfall's Science and Religion in Seventeenth Century England, which has loads of interesting stuff in it, but is not very well organised and will be hard to extract much from later on. It is the sort of book that'll have to think carefully about as I approach note taking.

One of our best meals tonight - two Moroccan tagines featuring lots of veggies again and a delicious red wine from Montefalco. When I return to the UK in the Land Rover in a couple of weeks time, I am planning to take quite a lot of wine back with me - this one will definitely be on the list.

Last life coaching

Villa Mignola, Nr Perugia, Umbria, Italy

Not only is it my last week of yoga teaching for the foreseeable future, it is also my last life coaching course - "Learn to Relax", our course in stress management. Life coaching is definitely harder than it looks and I am not convinced that I have really got to grips with it. Yet again, I have switched the course format and am trying, yet again, to make the sessions more interactive. And it seems to go well today, which contributions from everyone and a feeling that I was providing some useful food for thought.

More plans for next week - maybe I will have a week of study and art. Perhaps a trip to see the big exhibition that is currently on at the main art gallery in Perugia, maybe a trip to Florence or Siena or maybe Assisi, etc. I am trying to raise my spirits and make the best of that week. Gradually a plan is coming to fruition.

Tonight is Paella night - the usual chicken and seafood paella, plus our famous vegetarian version with its 14 portions of fruit and vegetables. Another very successful meal and one we are getting really good at. The cooking on our breaks has been one of the most enjoyable parts of the whole experience for me.

Late this evening, one of our gueats, Vicky, who is a barrister, has a long chat with Emma about internships and work generally, which seems to have made quite an impression on her.

Last week of current work

Villa Casamanza, Near Perugia, Umbria

After a poor summer, this is our last week of working on running summer breaks. We have four guests this week (not quite enough to break even on the week) and though I am really sad that it is all coming to an end, I am determined to make this week a good one.

Our villa is located about 6km north-west of Perugia - the best side well away from the industrial part of the city. It looks like a "new-build" villa in an old style and is very comfortable. We hadn't seen the property prior to our arrival but it should be fine for our stay.

View from the driveway

Looking towards Assisi, early morning

From the pool towards Assisi - Susie in the executive floating pool chair!

Brunch on day two

So I have five more yoga classes to teach and have decided to adopt a more flowing style of class, even though I have four beginners and Linda as my participants this week. So we start with a gentle run through the easiest sun salutation, already finding lots of stiffness and aches from everyone. I keep having little breaks to explain stuff and so everyone manages a reasonably good first go. Linda felt that I should test people much more, but this was class number one of five and that will come later.

As a result of this weeks classes, my total teaching experience will pass 50 classes. I actually think I am actually quite an ok yoga teacher - not very spiritual, but fairly safe and able to produce a challenging class for everyone. But I'm not sure whether I will ever teach again after this week, which is rather a shame.

I finished reading Cohen's Birth of a New Physics this afternoon in the blazing sun by the pool. My tentative plans for next week here on my own involves doing loads of study and this will be one of the books I return to for some detailed note taking.

The temperature reaches 33 degree today and everyone is outside making the most of it, coated in factor 30 suncream and going for loads of swims to cool down. Such a contrasts to the UK which is still pretty poor weather. If only the poor weather had encouraged more people to come on our breaks this year. We blame the credit crunch for frightening off people!

Travel to Italy

Hotel Lido, Passignano, Umbria, Italy

After many really early starting flights this year, it is actually quite a luxury to have a slightly later start and be picked up by taxi as well. An uneventful trip with plenty of reading, some sleeping and some music. The car starts ok when we get to Pisa airport (despite four weeks in the long stay car park). The only problem is that the car park doesn't take credit cards, the nearby ATM isn't working and we don't have enough cash. They accept the cash we do have and £10 so that is all ok.

We stayed tonight at the Hotel Lido in Passignano on the shore of Lake Trasimeno in north-west Umbria. I stayed here one night a month or so again and was very impressed. It is exactly the sort of place that Linda and I most like staying at. We have been remindered again about how much we would like to do a trip round Europe just turning up at places to stay rather than having a firm itinerary. Otherwise, it is pretty certain that we would never stay somewhere like Passignano.

Sunset from the balcony of our hotel room

Views from the hotel room on the morning of our departure

One big disappointment is that our plans for week two in Italy are changing. Emma no loner wants to stay that week so it looks like I'll be on my own. I will have to think about what the most positive use of this time would be. For the moment, it is simply a big disappointment.

The Offer has been accepted

After a week or so of reviewing everything, I have sent off my documents to accept my MSc place at the LSE. But there are so many complex issues related to the MSc that I have little idea how it will work out in practice. This is due to issues related to work during the same period. My summer project has not been as successful as we might have hoped and I need to find some other work over the winter. This will inevitably encroach on the MSc and may even threaten it completely. Hopefully not but much to think about in the meantime.

I finished Drake's book on Galileo and am about to start on IB Cohen's Birth of a New Physics. Lots of books keep arriving in the post at the moment after I had a splurge of buying of second hand books related to the MSc. One is Cohen's Newtonian Revolution, which I remember reading in the LSE library years ago. The guy who sent it to me runs a second hand book store in Wallingford and says he has just bought a load of history of science books that used to be in the library of a professor from Rotterdam University. I don't have time to visit this shop before we leave for Italy, but it will be an essential trip when I get back. I am particularly keen to find a copy of Alexandre Koyre's Galilean Studies

So tomorrow we depart for a few weeks in Italy and despite having a load of books already in Italy (the car is currently parked at Pisa airport), I have slipped another half dozen into my bag - mainly MSc related stuff of course.

A Productive journey

Wednesday July 30th

For various complex reasons, I had a long journey back from near Evesham today by a combination of bus, train and walking. 3 hours plus rather than the one hour that it would have taken by car, and it cost more. But a good chance to listen to some music and read.

Today's reading was mainly Stillman Drake's short introduction to Galileo. His main thesis is that Galileo was really trying to protect the Catholic church by stopping it aligning itself to scientific theories that might turn out to be untrue. I am not convinced. Galileo was much too argumentative to have these more complex goals. He was sure he was correct and has not pro-Catholic agenda it seems to me.

My main listening is PJ Harvey who I have only just put on the ipod. I have a new set of ipod headphones and the impact is enormous. Much of the music sounds really fresh again

Re-joining the Bodleian

Living close to Oxford, I have, in the past, had a readers ticket to the Bodleian library in the city centre. I had a ticket for 6 years ending in 2005, though it is fair to say that I didn't use the library a lot in that period. On a whim today, but clearly part of my planning for working on my MSc, I rejoined and bought a one year ticket, which works during both term time and vacations.

Soon after, while reading the guidebook to the library, I came across a mention of the Radcliffe Science Library. I have been passed this a couple of times on my way to the Pitt Rivers museum, but hadn't had a look round it alone before. One of the library staff explained the layout of the library and showed me how to work the online resources. Then I had a wander downstairs to the floor that contained history of science, astronomy and physics, etc.

This is a real find - many of the books that I could use on my MSc were on the shelves in the main area (rather than elsewhere on the stakes) and they also had complete sets of various periodicals dealing with history of science. So this could be a fantastic place to work. The library is even open on a Saturday and Sunday. I was really excited about this and am really looking forward to starting work there at some point.

Some recent music

There has been a flurry of articles in the press in the last week about the music industry's attempts to persuade the Government to levy charges through ISPs to compensate it for losses from illegal downloading. This smacks of desperation yet again from an industry that has had a negative public perception for years. So few businesses seem so intent on annoying their customers. I have been thinking about this issue for a number of years and of the new indistry model that this will all lead to. But claims that new talent will not be found are largely nonsense - there has never been a better time for a band to get themselves known - e.g. through myspace, etc.

And more small artists can get some access to the world than ever before. I have been particularly struck by the example of Jason Molina over the past few years. He would never have been able to release the large amount of stuff he has been able to, nor to make some sort of living from music, in the bad old days of limited numbers of big record companies.

The situation is really one in which large blockbuster albums (which were expensive to make) will become a thing of the past, while live performance will become increasingly important. But what can't be denied is that there has never been a better time to be interested in music (and I am pretty fanatical)

This week is my refresh week for my account with emusic.com and I have already downloaded about half of this month's tracks. Mostly tracks by the Japanese slow metal band Boris and some similar bands. Now this is an excellent example of a band that would not have been ever heard by anyone in the band old days before the internet. Beautiful slow heavy power chords, and a good compliment to Sun O))) who I listened to a lot last year.

Also downloaded some examples of African Blues guitar playing and 60 minutes of whale and dolphin sounds. All excellent stuff, I don't doubt.

Randy Pausch

A couple of the newspapers have obituaries for Randy Pausch, who died a few days ago. He is famous for his "last lecture" given following a diagnosis of cancer last year in which he discussed "life, the universe, and everything". Like 10m others, I saw the lecture on Youtube. There is no doubt that it is a powerful performance and one that I found very moving at the time - it joins several other pieces of work that have been important to me since my dad died of cancer a couple of years ago. For instance, Joan Dideon's "Year of Magical Thinking".

I haven't read the book that he also produced in his last few months. But anything that emphasises the power of dreaming, the transcience of material possessions and the fruitlessness of complaining has got to be good. No doubt it would fit in well with my recent re-reading of Tom Hodgkinson's "How to be free"

Some academic reading

I have managed to keep to my planned routine of work for the past few days and have finished a first reading of Reston's "Galileo" moving on to looking at a few of the contributions to "The Cambridge Companion to Galileo". Over the next few days I have to decide how much note taking I expect to take from a book and what form I want this in.

I was particular struck by a piece in the Cambridge Companion on the "God of the astronomers versus the God of the theologions", contrasting Galileo and Bellarmine, and which I will be studying in much more detail soon. A month or so ago I was reading a piece by Adolf Grunsbaum on attempts by theologians to use modern cosmology in support of arguments for God's existence. Some of the books published in response to Dawkin's "The God Delusion" have simply assumed that a creator God would automatically be the God of religion, but this needn't be the case. And the huge variety in religious believes leaves the linkage of a creator God to one religion as a very problematic leap

Some other recent reading including a book on atheism that suggested that the multitude of religious beliefs was actually a real problem for religious believers. Atheists have little trouble explaining why there are so many religious beliefs, but each religion should find other religions problematic. And in an important sense, believers in one religion are atheists about other religions - after all, such beliefs must be wrong if one's own religion is true. These are two arguments that could be developed more fully.

The John Peel show

I started listening to John Peel in about 1976. Punk was just beginning to break out and some people at school said that you could hear this on Peel's show - indeed it was the only place you could hear it. The record shop in my home town actually refused to order in punk records as the owner didn't like them! If one charted, then he had to stock them and the first punk record I bought was Siouxsie and the Banshees, "Hong Kong Garden". My dad was not happy with me playing this on his hi-fi and was convinced that the loudness would damage it.

The other day, as part of my continuing decluttering, I came across two boxes of cassette tapes in the garage, both full of "mix tapes" that I had edited out of the Peel show from 1977 (when I first acquired a cassette recorder) through to about 2003, when I finally stopped editing tapes from the show. Today I transferred half a dozen tapes to digital and am thinking that I may be able to gradually work my way through the two boxes (a huge job, but one ideally suited to the times when I will be studying).

So today's tapes were number 124 to 129 covering the period around 1988. Fantastic tracks that I had long forgotten by bands like the Bhundu Boys, Inca Babies, The Siddleys, I ludicrous, The Farm, Head of David, and so on. Plus tracks I hadn't heard for years by groups such as the Wedding Present, Eric B and Rakim (the fantastic cold-cut remix of "Paid in full"), Grynor, and so on.

I have also invested in a 500GB external hard drive to store what could become a huge amount of stuff over the coming months. I am rather shocked to discover that I actually produced nearly 400 mix tapes from the Peel show over the years.

Peel's death a few years back was actually a really big blow to me at the time - not far off the effect that my dad's death had a year or two later. For someone as fanatical about music as myself, Peel was clear evidence that other people shared this obsession. How great would it be to still be able to hear a show of his now?

Patterns of work

I have always enjoyed the pattern of work that comes with academia. The books to be read, thought about, questioned . . . key points to be picked out ready for future use. Emma and I were watching the movie of "The Paper Chase" the other day, a film from the seventies set in Harvard Law School and which features the "Socratic" method of teaching law, which always seems really tough. I re-read the book a few weeks back - my copy is from 1973 and is now falling apart. Still one of my favourite books and guarateed to raise my excitement about going back to Uni.

In the past, I have realised, I tended to be too uncritical in my reading - not really trying to appraise arguments, more to simply follow them. One of my aims in the MSc course is to really try to boosts my critical appraisal of arguments. I also want to develop a much better academic style of writing.

At present, I am also having to do quite a bit of other work related to preparing for some other work going forward. So each day I am up and working by about 5:30, do three hours related to this other work, have a break and then try to do another four hours related to the MSc. So far I have managed only a couple of days to this routine, but it could be a good pattern for the period to the end of September. It is very possible that I won't be able to do much of the MSc course in the first few months, so anything I can do now would be good.

Science fiction

I have recently been watching some old episodes of series 7 of Star Trek Voyager with daughter Emma. We have always been big Trekkies but haven't seen any episodes for some while. Science fiction is generally dismissed by serious media but I am often struck by the view that this is a mistake. Often the very artificiality of science fiction serves to highlight the human condition so much more clearly. A prime example would be the episode of Star trek Next Gen with Data and his daughter - still one of the saddest things I have ever seen on TV.

Tonight's episode was a major "Seven of Nine" episode. I read somewhere ages ago that the character of Seven of Nine was based on someone with Asperger's syndrome - a form of "higher functioning" autism. Tonight Seven was running holodeck stories to try to and boost her ability to cope with close relationships and it was desperately sad to see her failing yet again. It always strikes me that Asperger's is one of the most tragic of conditions - the desire for close relationships is there, but the ability to create them isn't. The constant disappointment of rejection and failure is very sad. I continue to think that Seven of Nine is one of the greatest characters created in a TV series.

Which probably just shows what a geek I am!!

More alternatives to rat racing

Of all things, "The Great Outdoors" magazine has a feature on a woman who, three years ago, gave up her journalist job on radio to take up the life of adventure! Renting out her house, she now travels the world climbing mountains. As an attempt to diversify her finances, she has written a book called "Meetings on the Edge - a high-level escape from Office routine". An essential purchase I would say. Over the past week or so I have been examining various brochures from treking companies and am very taken with Mackean's story

I am, at this moment, at rather a crossroads. There is tremendous pressure on me to take some time and earn what is taken to be decent money and this will inevitably impact badly on other ideas for living. Different philosophies of life are in sharp relief and are, of course, wholly incommensurable.

As part of my continuing de-cluttering, I have come across a box of print outs of Robert Fripp's diary from 2001 to 2005 (http://www.dgmlive.com/). This is the model for what I am trying to do with this blog. Reading six months worth today, I was struck by the universality of the issues being addressed.

And six more carrier bags of books went to Oxfam in Oxford this morning bringing the total to 16 in the last couple of weeks.

Fish, fishing and the meaning of life . . . .

Jeremy Paxman edited an anthology of fishing literature with the above title some years ago. And pretty good it was from what I remember. What always strikes me as odd about my fishing is that I don't go for ages, putting trips off for poor reasons, yet when I do finally go, the reasons why I love fishing so much come flooding back.

This afternoon I visiting Bushyleaze, a local trout lake. The other anglers seemed to be really struggling to after a quick review of what they were doing (mostly stripping buzzers and weighted nymphs) it was off to the far side of the lake (rule one - always walk the furthest distance from the car park to choose a spot to fish) and set up with a red hopper and a small Dwal Bach nymph fished close to the surface. It is rare that things pay off so quickly but within 20 minutes I had a fish of about 3.5lbs on the nymph.

The sun blazed down most of the rest of the afternoon and, sadly, as the sun set, so the wind dropped. So fish started to rise but presentation was very hard in the calm conditions. Fishing two hoppers, I did have a second fish about 8:30pm.

As always, I feel revitalised by a day out fishing. I really should think about having a good go after barbel and chub in September when we are back from our next trip abroad.

More on Concentration . . . .

The Sunday Times has an article this week by Bryan Appleyard entitled "Stoooopid - why the Google generation isn't as smart as it thinks". This covers the same area as the article from the Independent a few days ago.

This tends to focus more on the idea of "distractions". It also notes that one way to consider the problem is to say that today we "go outside of ourselves to make all the connections that we used to make inside of ourselves"

And as "big money" is on the side of distracting us, the situation will not improve.

At a more general level, there is a quote from the ecologist, Bill McKibben

"The next generation will not grieve because they will not know what they have lost"

This is true more generally than just in respect of learning and the internet. It is the reason why no action will be taken on long-term climate change - each generation does not miss what the previous generation things of as a loss.

Spent much of the afternoon watching the Tour de France on tv and reading the first couple of chapters of James Reston's biography of Galileo. I am reading it more critically and, interestingly, more from the point of view of my MSc and the sort of scholarly attention to themes that I might not otherwise have brought to the book.

A list of goals

One of the reasons to start this blog was to provide me with a basis for thinking about my life and what I want to achieve in the future - hence the Blog's title. So here is a short list of some of the things I would like to do over the next couple of years - just to get me started.

In the shorter term (around two years out);

1. To successfully complete my MSc

2. To climb Mera peak in the Himalayas - I currently have November 2010 pencilled in for this

3. To catch a barbel over 10lbs from my local River Windrush or to catch a 5 1/2lb chub from the Evenlode

4. To travel to some interesting places with my wife, Linda - Finland is a possibility for this Christmas

Longer term (more than 2 years out);

5. To develop a pattern of work in which 6 to 9 months of each year is free

6. To make a long visit to India (at least a month)

7. To go on a one month retreat (ideally at the farm connected with the San Francisco Zen Centre)

8. To create a high-quality portfolio of photographs

So this is a decent list to get me started on thinking seriously about things.

Two little projects for today. To do a couple of hours sorting out in the garage followed by a trip to the local dump with a car full of stuff and to do an hour's clearing at our allotment (which has been rather neglected over the past year)

Some major news

A package arrived in the post this morning to say that I have been accepted onto the Msc course I had applied for and will be starting this October. This is really great news and will be the focus of my intellectual efforts over the next couple of years.

I will be studying "Philosophy and History of Science" at the London School of Economics as a part time student. It is over 20 years since I graduated from the LSE and I am very excited about returning there after such a long break.

There are, of course, all sorts of issues that this raises. Will it fit round the work I am planning to do? Will I feel silly being so much older than the other students? Are my intellectual powers in such steep decline that I will really struggle? Can I write a dissertation? Will I feel embarrassed if I meet my daughter's best friend who is an undergraduate at LSE at the moment?

It took about four months for my application to be processed and I have rather forgotten much of the course details. So I have been skimming through the department handbook and am back thinking about which course options I would most like to do and what reading should I try and do over the summer before I start. I have fished out my old copy of Arthur Koestler's "The Sleepwalkers", his account of Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo, and maybe that would be a good one to have a look at first?

Very exciting news!!

A day out in London

There is a long article in today's paper suggesting that use of the internet is causing people to lose their ability to concentrate on reading long articles or complex books. It suggests that knowledge might become wider and shallower, with less depth.

Over the last year or so, I have noticed that my own ability to just sit and read to long periods has definitely diminished but I had not attributed it to use of the internet. I don't feel a constant need to check my emails, I don't spend much time just flitting between web pages and I don't suffer anxiety if I don't have internet access. None the less, until recently, it had been a long time since I had been able to just read something for several hours.

By contrast, my daughter, 19 years old and very much in the thick of current trends in internet usage, is able to read for hours at a time. Indeed, after years of this, she is now tremendously well read. Most days she manages 50 to 100 pages of pretty serious stuff. Her current reading is Richard Dawkin's "The Ancestor's Tale", the 600 page hardback edition from a few year's ago.

A few weeks ago, we were in France and didn't have internet on demand. It was swelteringly hot and so there was little excuse not to read a lot. And for the first time in years, I found I could do several hours a day. What a treat. And perhaps a sign that the newspaper article is on to something.

Since France I have definitely done better. I read eight books while in France and have managed four more in the two weeks since we got back. Current reading is a collection of essays on Isaac Newton called "Let Newton be!" and the Oxford Very Short Introduction to Mathematics. I currently manage about an hour a day. As always, I'd like to read more, but this is definite progress.

My London trip covers a couple of meetings related to possible work going forward and the purchase of fresh pasta and sauce from our favourite Italian deli in Soho.

Some introductory thoughts

For many years I kept a diary, there are at least fifteen years on the bookcase beside me, going back to 1979. But for the last couple of years I haven't been able to. This is the longest gap I have had from not writing. But some events over the last few years were too difficult to describe and the act of trying made me feel worse rather than better.

However a couple of weeks ago I was talking with a woman who was looking to make a number of really significant changes in her life and she had decided that part of this process would be to write a Blog, not so much as a diary, but just to record things that interested her each day and to provide a little bit of focus to think about things. Inspired by this example, I am going to do the same.

So what will I be talking about?

Probably things I've been reading about - science, philosophy, religion, art, etc. Things I've been doing - fishing, mountaineering, photography, etc. And probably anything else I fancy. The internet is filling up with blogs that no one reads. I will add mine to this, but as long as I enjoy writing it, I'm not bothered. It will hopefully provide me with a base for jotting down some of the things that I'd like to remember.

At the moment, I have no intention of telling anyone about this. It is just for me.