Talk by Robert Skidelsky: "A Keynesian Perspective on the Slump of 2007-8..."

Last night I attended a very enjoyable talk given by Sir Robert Skidelsky, British economic historian and biographer of Keynes, entitled "A Keynesian Perspective on the Slump of 2007-8 and How to Recover from It."

In 1936 Keynes was invited by Anglo-Spanish Committee to visit the historic Student Residence which is just across the road from the auditorium where this event took place.

It was fascinating to hear a survey of the current economic situation from someone with such a command of the economics of today and the history of the 20th century. Comparing events at present with those of the past, the austerity measures being imposed now do not seem to offer much hope.

There's a summary of the event (in Spanish) on the Foundation's website.

Diving in Fuerteventura

Spent a week in Fuerteventura. Part of the plan was to complete the course for the PADI Open Water Diver Course. I had done the theory and confined water parts in Madrid at Casco Antiguo, but needed to do the practical exercises in the sea. Thanks to Edgar and Santiago of Easy-Diving in Costa Calma, for making it so enjoyable. While we were diving of the harbour wall at Morro Jable we swam above a group of five adult rays lurking on the bottom and I was able to catch a few photographs. The pictures don't show the size of them; they were nearly the size of an adult human.

Also saw shoals of fish and a group feeding on the bottom, I suspect on dead fish thrown down by the tourist submarine that operates out of the harbour (the ray in the picture has the remains of one under its tail).

The landscape is spectacular, with the dark volcanic basalt lava smothered, sometimes completely, in sand. On the western (windward) side of the island near the lighthouse at Cotillo, snorkel exploration in shallow lagoons was disappointing, but they were filled with what looked like colourless sea squirts like inflated condoms stuck to the seabed sand. The ventricular basalt rock formations were bizarre. They look like they have been hollowed out by the movement of silicate rocks moving about inside holes in the solidified lava, giving them an almost organic appearance. After the first couple of days there were non-stop gale force winds. On the beaches, especially the sotavento beach so popular with windsurfers, it was like being sandblasted and I was glad to have swimming goggles to protect my eyes. I can't quite figure out why people voluntarily choose to stroll up and down in such conditions, especially some of them with their most sensitive bodily organs exposed.

The hotel, the Barceló Jandía Mar was very good, and having everything included meant there was no need to prepare food or even go out looking for restaurants. On the down side, for those who want to go out and are not in good physical shape the climb back up the hill from the beach is rather daunting. The entertainment shows in the hotel were very good, I thought. I would recommend Fuerteventura for someone with an activity in mind, like diving or windsurfing, but if it's just for lounging by the pool it might be better to find somewhere less exposed to the wind.

Este artículo Buceo en Fuerteventura en español.

Interviews with Reggio and Glass about Koyaanisqatsi

Just watched “Essence of Life” (2002), a short documentary with interviews with Godfrey Reggio and Philip Glass, part of the collaboration that made the film Koyaanisqatsi (1983), on the DVD of the film. I can't help thinking that, while many films lose their relevance with time, or at best maintain it, this one becomes increasingly important as technology becomes ever more pervasive. Reggio started out by making a public information film about the way technology was being used to invade privacy. In 1978!. Before the popular use of the Internet or the invention of the World Wide Web. Have things improved since then? I don't think so; quite the opposite. As technology becomes more pervasive it increasingly becomes what Reggio calls the “host of life”, supplanting nature. I think this film will become increasingly important as time goes on and technology becomes the place where we live (trapped by it), with the “day of purification” getting ever closer. Thanks to Jack Moore for introducing me to the film (around 1985 I think). More information about Koyanisqaatsi in Wikipedia. Clips of the documentary are on YouTube, but the DVD of Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi is available from Amazon ridiculously cheap.

Chip and Pin a la española

Just went to my bank (Bancaja) and picked up my new charge card. Hope that it'll make life easier now that I no longer have a valid residence permit and don't carry my passport around with me. Until HM Government gets around to issuing me with an identity card. Hopefully it'll also save explanations when I try to use it in small shops in the UK.

Why do they always put such tiny space on the back for the signature? Is there anyone who can write their signature in that? It's not even big enough for a fingerprint much less a signature.

Register of foreign residents

Go to Ministry of Interior in Plaza del Campillo del Nuevo Mundo (near Puerta de Toledo) to be inscribed on register of Foreign Residents. Under European legislation, EU citizens do not require residence permits, these are no longer issued.Unfortunately as the British government is only now starting to issue them again, I don't have an ID card. This means that I should carry my passport every time I go out, which is rather a non-starter I think.

I was given an appointment several months ago. They attended to me quickly and there was no problem. Had to pay a €10 fee at the bank down the street.

I downloaded the fillable form EX-16 in PDF from the Ministry's website and saved it, then printed it out on paper, which was very efficient, I thought. Although PDF was at least tagged after a fashion, it had loads of accessibility errors; they obviously hadn't checked it at all. It was done with Acrobat Distiller. So much for accessibility of government websites. It was only created three months ago, in compliance with a law passed in 2007, so no excuse. The site proclaims its WCAG 1.0 AA, compliance, but then that's no surprise either.

Work and study transformed by personal Wiki

I'm continuing to get acquainted with ConnectedText and marvelling at how easy it is to use and how powerful. ConnectedText is a personal Wiki. A wiki is intended for fast editing of a large set of hyperlinked pages using a simple text-based language. A personal Wiki keeps the easy language and hyperlinking, but drops the multisuer aspect. Rather than using directories and files to organise your documents, you hyperlink them using the document title as the address. They also support dynamic categories. ConnectedText is not the only product in the field as witnessed by the Personal Wiki article on Wikipedia.

It makes me annoyed with myself for not having thought about it before and having gone through all the hassle of installing and configuring Media Wiki on my laptop. Now I have to migrate everything from MediaWiki to connectedText but that isn't proving as bad as I thought: export from MediaWiki as XML and then use a quick-and-dirty Java program to use Xerces to pull out each article into a seperate file.

I've also bought Luminotes, which has to take the prize for simplicity and ease of use. I hope it will serve for people (mention no names) I know who are not as savvy with computers and have lots of information to manage.

Both of these products are excellent: ConnectedText is more powerful and sophisticated bu more difficult to learn (but not to use) and Luminotes is both easy to learn and use but is much simpler (but no categories). For personal use, MediaWiki is not much more powerful than ConnectedText (actually less so) and very complicated to install and demanding of system resources.

I'm using ConnectedText to manage my study notes for the the Open University course “S104 Discovering Science” I'm doing, but it soon spilled over into several other fields.

African Restaurant Kim Bu Mbu

Last night dinner at this restaurant that was new to me although it's apparently been there for a year now. Interesting design with adobe walls separating the booths and African wood carvings to decorate. Curious sheet metal tables with box-like chairs that slide out like filing cabinet drawers. Dishes from Congo, Cameroon, Kenya, South Africa. Had a salad of (cooked) carrots with rocket, with an orange sauce, followed by brochette of sword fish and pineapple which I enjoyed very much. The dessert of mango purée was also very good. At calle Colmenares, 7 (Chueca, behind Ministerio de Cultura), Madrid. Telephone 91 521 26 81. Reservation advisable.

On the way back we walk down the Paeo del Prado in front of the Botanic Gardens to see the open air exhibition of bronze sculptures by Baltasar Lobo.