Study Guide: Teach Yourself to Read

 

 

 It may be a strange thing to say, but many students when they start college have little idea how to read! OK – I know that you can read in the sense that you can work out what the words on the screen mean, but do you really appreciate the difference between reading a web page and reading a book or a journal? Today, many courses are taught from handouts and Internet links, but that is not enough if you want to succeed at the highest level.

We have all become used to getting our information in pre-packaged chunks – I’m writing one now, come to that! – and students have got into bad habits in terms of copying and pasting from web pages to essay pages, so the prospect of using books as information sources can daunt the modern student.

Don’t Panic

That’s definitely the first thing to take on board!  If you have been given a booklist by your tutor, there will probably be some items on it that are “musts” and others that are “recommended”. With the latter, you don’t need to read them all. With the former, you don’t need to read them all at once!  If you can get hold of several of them, do so, but at this stage only look through them and see what it is that you need to know and that is contained within them.  Write this down, and make your list the basis of your study plan, either for the semester or the assignment to hand.  Work out a system of priorities, and a preferred order as to which books you need to tackle first, second, etc.

You should be able find all the books in your college library, but remember that there are other people looking for the same books and they may not all be there when you want them. Don’t take out everything you find, as this is unfair to your fellow students. Just take what you can manage to work on at the moment.

 

Choosing what to read

Don’t just rely on the books on your booklist. Indeed, you may find this hard to do if most of the items are missing from the library shelves. You can always ask the library staff for help in tracking down other books that might help with your assignment.

There are certain clues as to which books are likely to be most useful. For example, the well-thumbed ones have clearly proved useful to students in the past, and might have useful material in them for you as well.  

Remember that your college library caters for students at all levels, including postgraduates, and for academic staff, so some of the books will be more advanced than others. Use material that you are comfortable with.

 

Getting down to it

Read a small amount at a time, and re-read it if it doesn’t sink in the first time. If it does your head in, leave it and come back to it later. Find the key points and note them down. DON’T go through the book with a highlighter pen marking all the key points in bright orange or whatever.  This applies even if it is a book that you have bought for yourself.  Another time you might want to read it for another purpose, and the key points will not necessarily be the same.  However, if you photocopy the relevant pages, using the highlighter is not such a bad move.

You also need to learn to speed-read. This is the technique of focusing on only certain words on the page and ignoring the rest. You might need to get out of the habit (assuming that you are in it!) of “reading aloud in your head”. The idea is to gain an impression of what the text is about, so that you can move quickly between the sections that need more concentrated attention.  With practice you can become quite skilled at this.

 

Ask your own questions

This applies to any information source you may use, whether printed or web-based. It is certainly true that many Internet sources need to be treated with extreme caution as providers of trusted information, but just because something appears in print in a book does not mean that it must be taken as gospel. Note down things that surprise you, or look dubious, and compare them with what you read in other sources.

For one thing, how up-to-date is the information? You can usually find when the book was published by looking at the back of the title page. Is there a later edition of the book? Is this available to you? If you know that the information is old, it could be unreliable.

You also need to distinguish between what the author describes as fact and what comprises his/her opinion based on that fact. In most academic textbooks you will find that authors give references to the sources from which they obtained their facts. As a student you are not expected to check those sources yourself, but you could if you find the facts in question hard to believe!

 

Organise your notes

When you have read as much of the book as you need and are ready to move on to something else, you should have several pages of notes that contain the essential facts and opinions that you might want to make use of in your essay or assignment. Whatever you do, don’t lose those notes!  If they are handwritten, or are marked up photocopies, file them in a way that ensures they are easy to find. You could mark the page edges in a colour that you have assigned for that particular subject, and then go straight to that colour when you need to refer back to the notes.

A better plan is to make your notes on a laptop, which gives you many more options for using the material later. Don’t forget to make back-ups though!

Also, remember to include in your notes proper references to the material in question. If your college uses the Harvard referencing system, use it at this stage to label your notes so that you don’t have to go back to the book at a time when it might not be available.  If you have noted a particular line or short passage, include the page number(s) as part of your reference.

Good luck!

© John Welford

Miranda: a moon of Uranus

 

Miranda is the innermost of the five moons of Uranus that were known purely from telescopic observations before space probes ventured in its direction. Images returned by the Voyager 2 probe in 1986 revealed a surprisingly complex world, with a mixture of heavily created and smooth terrain, separated by deep canyons and towering cliffs. The most impressive features are regions covered in parallel grooves, which are known as coronae.

It was originally thought that this small moon, with an average diameter of only 293 miles (472 km), had shattered completely at some point in the distant past and then reassembled. However, it is much more likely that Miranda followed a much more eccentric orbit at some stage in its history that it does today. This would have caused extreme gravitational tidal pressures on the moon, leading to alternate periods of melting and re-forming. Large areas of the crust would have subsided and new material welled up from inside the moon to replace them.

With Miranda’s orbit becoming more regular, the tidal pressures would have ceased, leaving the surface to freeze into its current configuration.

© John Welford

What would happen if abortion was criminalised?

 

There are many people,  particularly Evangelical Christians, who are actively campaigning for the 1973 Roe v Wade judgement, that made abortion - under certain conditions - legal in the United States, to be overturned. The question then arises as to what the effect would be if such an event were to happen and abortion became far more difficult to obtain than it is at present.

It seems to me that one has to look at this matter in the round and not be swayed by any prejudices one might have regarding abortion, based on religious beliefs or anything else.

There are many examples across the world that point to the likely outcome. These relate to the practice of women who desperately seek abortions taking all means they can to achieve that. The fact that abortion becomes illegal does not mean that abortions will not take place.

One recourse is to leave the country and seek an abortion in a country where the rules are far more relaxed. Some years ago abortion was far more easily obtained in Poland than in Sweden. There was a steady flow of Swedish women travelling to Polish abortion clinics. Then two things happened - Poland tightened its laws and Sweden relaxed theirs. The flow then reversed, with Polish women travelling to Sweden.

But suppose a woman cannot afford to make such a trip? The temptation then is to get a "back street" or "do it yourself" abortion. Many women have died as a result of undergoing an unsafe abortion, and the vast majority of these cases occur in countries where abortion is severely restricted in law.

The United States has a particular problem in this regard, due to the huge cost entailed in undergoing a live birth. One might say to a young woman that she should go to full term and have the child adopted - but suppose she cannot afford the huge fees that hospitals charge for births and maternity care, these running to tens of thousands of dollars? This prospect can only add to the sense of desperation that a woman of limited means, without health insurance, is likely to feel. She might well come to the conclusion that paying far less to an illegal abortionist is worth the risk.

This is not an easy moral dilemma, and I will confess to having changed my mind on the general question of abortion. I am well aware that - had abortion been freely available in Scotland in 1951/2 - I would quite likely never have been born. A young wife was made pregnant by someone other than her husband, who had no intention of bringing up another man's child. At that time, the adoption route was the only one available, so I was duly adopted.

So why am I not a "right to life" advocate"? It is because I am fully aware that it is always unsafe to generalise from a particular case, and I am also conscious of the big picture - which shows the misery and death that result when abortion services are severely restricted.

© John Welford

Factfulness, by Hans Rosling: A Book Review

 

Factfulness, by Hans Rosling. Sceptre, 2018. ISBN 9781473637498

There is hope for the future of mankind and the world, but only if we learn how best to understand it. That is the message of “Factfulness”, a book published in 2018 by Hans Rosling, a Swedish doctor and researcher who co-founded Swedish Médecins Sans Frontières and was an adviser to the World Health Organisation and UNICEF. He died in 2017, so the book was completed by his son and daughter-in-law, who had been involved in his research for several years.

The book is subtitled “Ten reasons we are wrong about the world – and why things are better than you think”. It begins with a set of 13 questions, these being the ones that the author posed when he gave presentations to audiences of influential people in many countries across the world. Each question has a choice of three answers which means that, as he points out on several occasions, a roomful of chimpanzees could be guaranteed to get them right 33% of the time, simply by pointing to an answer at random. Rosling shows that highly intelligent humans often score considerably worse that the chimps!

Here are three of the questions:

1.      In the last 20 years, the proportion of the world’s population living in extreme poverty has …

A.     almost doubled

B.     remained more or less the same

C.      almost halved

 

2.      How many of the world’s one-year-old children today have been vaccinated against some disease?

A.     20%

B.     50%

C.      80%

 

3.      Worldwide, 30-year-old men have spent 10 years in school, on average. How many years have women of the same age spent in school?

A.     9 years

B.     6 years

C.     3 years

The answers, which are based on evidence collected by world bodies such as UNICEF and the World Health Organisation, are quite likely to surprise many people, and that is borne out by the statistics that Rosling presents. For the questions quoted above, the least pessimistic answer is the correct one in each case, but very few people appreciate this. The chimpanzees apparently know better!

Rosling has no time for splitting the world’s nations into “developed” and “underdeveloped”. He prefers to see a gradation across four levels, where a population at Level 1 lives on $1 a day, water has to be collected from a distant mud hole, food is basic and hard to obtain, and there is no education. This is how roughly one billion people live in the world today.

However, it is possible to rise above this level of absolute poverty, and many populations have done so. As a result, three billion people in the world are now at Level 2 (earning $4 a day), two billion are at Level 3 ($16 a day) and there are one billion at Level 4 (at least $32 a day).

The tendency to regard the world as split into two vastly disparate camps is the first of ten “Instincts” that Rosling describes in the book, their explanations comprising most of the text. These are what prevent people from seeing the truth of what is really happening, and why – when the Instincts are taken into account and dealt with – everyone should gain a much greater degree of hope for the future of mankind. It is only by adopting the principles of “Factfulness” that a proper perspective is possible.

The ten instincts are:

• ·      The Gap Instinct – described above
• ·        The Negativity Instinct – the media would much prefer to give us bad news than good
• ·        The Straight Line Instinct - trends are much more likely to be curves or slides than straight lines
• ·        The Fear Instinct - proper calculation of risks often makes them less frightening
• ·        The Size Instinct – the tendency to get things out of proportion
• ·        The Generalisation Instinct - lumping things into categories and making false assumptions
• ·        The Destiny Instinct - assuming that Level 1 populations are fated to always stay that way
• ·        The Single Perspective Instinct - it is important to see things in terms of the “big picture”
• ·        The Blame Instinct - looking for scapegoats
• ·        The Urgency Instinct – saying that “something must be done” and then doing the wrong thing

Each Instinct is fully explained and explored, including examples from the author’s own experience, some of which taught him valuable lessons from very bad mistakes that he made. There are multiple suggestions for how each Instinct can be avoided and/or controlled.

One danger that may come from suggesting that the world is not as bad as one might have thought, and that hope is far more reasonable than despair, could be complacency leading to the belief that everything is turning out for the best and we can all just sit back and watch it happen. However, that is not the purpose of this book and it is certainly not the message that comes across.

One area where this is particularly true is climate change, where the author is in no doubt that the world is definitely going in the wrong direction. Even so, despair is certainly not what Rosling advocates. By applying the principles of Factfulness, progress can be made on this front just as it has been on many others.

This is a thought-provoking and challenging book that deserves a wide audience. As well as being an enjoyable read, it cannot fail to change one’s perspectives and make one see things in a new light.   

 © John Welford

 

Clouds

 

A cloud forms when invisible water vapour turns into visible water drops. The warmer the air, the greater its capacity for holding water vapour. When air rises and cools it contracts and its capacity to hold vapour is reduced until it becomes saturated. Any further cooling results in a shedding of moisture as tiny water droplets, which form clouds. Clouds therefore indicate areas of rising, cooling air. Clear skies indicate areas of sinking, warming air.

Air masses sometimes rise quickly and vertically. When this happens they form one of two basic types of cloud – cumulus or stratus.

Cumulus clouds are brilliant white in those upper parts lit by the sun, dark grey in shaded areas. A cumulus cloud is constantly changing. From parts of it fresh towers of cloud rise, while other parts are caught in downdraughts of air and disappear by evaporation of their droplets.

Sometimes the top of the cloud rises high enough for its droplets to freeze into tiny ice crystals. These show in the sky as a frothy, dazzling white mass, falling diagonally in the direction the wind to form what is known as an anvil because of its shape. This type of cloud, known as a cumulonimbus or thunder cloud, can contain up to 50,000 tons of water and usually produces heavy rain or hail.

At other times air masses rise slowly and on a low gradient – often as low as one in 150. This is the case with a warm front, which is warm air gliding above a shallow wedge of cold air from more northern latitudes. As this warm air slowly rises and cools it forms the second basic type of cloud – stratus or sheet cloud. Light rain often falls from the thickest parts of this bank of cloud and in winter it tends to reach ground level as fog.

A cloud composed of small droplets reflects sunlight more than one consisting of large droplets. A silver lining occurs when sunlight behind a cloud composed of large droplets filters through its edges. A layer of strato-cumulus reflects 55-80 per cent of the sun’s energy. The amount reflected by other clouds depends on their density.

The highest clouds, known as noctilucent clouds, shine after dark on clear nights. They are found at heights above 50 miles above Earth and consist of ice-coated dust particles from outer space. But nearly all water vapour is found in the 6-9 miles nearest Earth. A slight amount of vapour is found at about 16 miles from Earth where ‘mother-of-pearl’ clouds can be seen on rare occasions.

© John Welford

The preventive conservation of antiques

 

Old things, just like old people, need looking after if they are to survive. Objects that have lasted for centuries may not last much longer if they are not treated with care and respect and protected from the threats that can cause damage.

The following factors are important elements in what can be called “preventive conservation”. Not every factor applies equally to every type of antique, but, for a general collector, they all have a role to play.

Relative Humidity

This is a major factor that hastens decay and deterioration in all sorts of materials, whether in a compost heap or a museum. Relative humidity refers to the wetness or dryness of the air surrounding an object, there being a safe range within which deterioration is halted or slowed. Some items are very sensitive to humidity, such as books that can show “foxing” or brown marks when exposed to damp, or wooden items that can disintegrate if allowed to get too dry.

A hygrometer can be used to measure relative humidity, and the values adjusted by changing the temperature or by using a humidifier or dehumidifier to add or remove moisture from the atmosphere in which the antique items are kept. As well as the actual value of the relative humidity, sudden change is another destructive factor, so any such adjustments should be made with care.

In museums, relative humidity can be controlled item by item, if each is enclosed in its own glass cabinet. However, this is not so easy to achieve in the home, so it might be desirable to keep antiques that require different relative humidities in separate rooms.

Water

Direct contact with water can come about as the result of flooding, which would have most relevance to furniture items. If there is a risk of flooding to a room, such as in a house near a river, for example, valuable items can sometimes be mounted on blocks that would keep them raised above likely flood levels. Alternatively, keeping such items in upstairs rooms might be advisable.

Another problem is spillage on wooden furniture, resulting in bloom or ring marking. Prevention is definitely better than cure in such cases, so placing flower vases on top of valuable pieces, for example, is to be avoided.

If water is to be used when cleaning an item, it is best to test the effects in an inconspicuous area before proceeding further, because water can dissolve adhesives, dyes, paints, etc.

Light

Excessive light can damage antique items, such as furniture or paintings, by causing fading or colour changes. It can also lead to deterioration in fabric items such as clothing, tapestries or book bindings. The damage is caused by the brightness or intensity of the light, such as through south-facing windows (in the Northern Hemisphere) and also by ultraviolet light, which cannot be seen but is just as destructive.

A lux meter can be used to measure the absolute amount of light entering a room, with this being controlled by the use of filters, dimmers, and so on. The positioning of light sources in a room is also important, so that bright light does not fall directly on to the objects. Ultraviolet light can be controlled by avoiding the use of fluorescent lighting, although sunlight also has a high UV content.

Insects and mould

Organic materials are excellent insect food and also for the growth of moulds, if the conditions are right. Moths do not damage fabrics, but their larvae do. Likewise, the larvae of the furniture beetle, commonly known as woodworm, make no distinction between floorboards and valuable pieces of Chippendale. Other pests include the carpet beetle and fur beetle and, in some parts of the world, termites.

Getting the relative humidity right, and making sure that ventilation is adequate, should prevent moulds and fungal growths forming. If there is a problem, the important thing is to dry out the atmosphere gradually and increase the level of ventilation. Fungicides should be used with care.

Insecticides should be used with great care, as they can also cause damage to the items you are trying to protect. It is better to examine objects carefully and regularly for signs of attack and deal with small problems rather than large ones.

Heat

As well as its role in relative humidity, mentioned above, excessive heat or cold can have a direct impact on antique objects, and should be avoided. For example, resins and waxes can melt, and paint can blister.

Dust and pollution

Keeping antiques dust free is not only important aesthetically but also in terms of preventing deterioration, because dust can attract moisture and chemical pollutants such as sulphides that tarnish silver and also form sulphuric acid. Dust can also act as an abrasive that weakens textile fibres.

The use of dust sheets and plastic coverings can prevent dust from reaching valuable objects, although this makes it less easy to appreciate the beauty of one’s antiques! Acid-free tissues can be used to advantage when cleaning.

Abrasion and over-cleaning

Despite the above note about the value of keeping items dust-free, it is also possible to overdo the cleaning and polishing of antique items. For example, the value of a piece of silver will be greatly reduced if the hallmarks are rendered unreadable by over-zealous polishing, and the loss of fine detail will in any case detract from the appeal of the item as a whole.

The use of abrasive cleaning materials can cause scratching, and, for many antique items, the patina of dirt acquired over centuries is part of their attractiveness and should not be removed.

Cleaning must therefore be done with great care, only using mild cleaning agents and gentle pressure. The whole point of owning an antique object is that it does NOT look like new!

Handling and storage

The more that fragile items such as glass or porcelain are moved or handled, the greater their chance or being dropped. Excessive handling can also cause finger-marks which could in turn attract mould. The leather bindings of books can be damaged when pulled from a shelf, and ancient manuscripts should only be touched when wearing soft gloves.

Likewise, an antique’s safety may depend on how secure the surface is on which it is displayed. The top of a wobbly bookcase is probably not the best place for your priceless Ming vase!

Items in storage are also not safe from deterioration if the conditions of storage are incorrect. For example, an attic is quite likely to suffer from extremes of heat and cold or to be damp. Materials in which items are wrapped can also have an adverse effect, as such things as newspaper or foam rubber can release harmful chemicals when they deteriorate.

With all these factors to bear in mind, it sounds as though collecting antiques is an activity that is fraught with peril! However, the responsible collector appreciates that he or she holds these items on trust for future generations, and has a duty to posterity to ensure that they are preserved as carefully as possible.

That said, the above precautions should not be too arduous to take, and, as said earlier, not every hazard applies to every type of antique. It does, however, behove the collector to be aware of the threats that apply to the objects he or she wishes to collect, and to act accordingly.

© John Welford

St Roch: a legend featured in many works of art

 

The legend of St Roch begins in Montpellier (on the south coast of France) in the late 13^th century with the birth of a boy bearing a cross-shaped birthmark on his left shoulder, this marking him out as being blessed by God.

As a young man he set off on pilgrimage to Rome, with his dog, but on his journey he came to a town in Italy that was stricken by plague. He found that he had the gift of healing but also became a victim of the disease himself. However, when wandering outside the town he was found by a dog that took care of him, bringing him bread every day and healing him by licking his wounds.

When he got home to Montpellier he was not recognised by his friends and family because of the ravages of the disease, and was thrown into prison for being an imposter. When he died, still in prison, a tablet of stone was found in his cell on which was a statement to the effect that anyone who prayed for his soul would be protected against the plague.

At a later date, Roch’s remains were stolen and taken to Venice, where they lie today in the church of San Rocco.

St Roch is the patron saint of dogs, invalids, bachelors and much else besides. In recent years AIDS has been added to his portfolio. His feast day is 16^th August.

As a subject for art, St Roch is usually shown in the company of a dog, sometimes with a loaf of bread in its mouth, and he is showing somebody the mark he bears of the plague, namely a bubo on his upper thigh. At a time when bubonic plague was rampant in Europe, these images were very significant to people of all classes, because the plague spared no-one. Pictures and statues of a saint who had cured others of the disease, and survived it himself, were therefore a cause of hope.

However, it has been remarked that several artists overplayed their hand somewhat by giving Roch not only the buboes of bubonic plague but also the leg rashes and bumps that are associated with septicaemic plague, from which recovery was exceptionally rare.

Another typical feature of artworks featuring St Roch is the pilgrim’s staff he carries, this being a reminder that Roch was on a pilgrimage when his encounter with the plague took place.

However, one aspect of the legend that is not represented in art is the facial disfigurement that caused him not to be recognised. The Roch we are shown is generally smooth-skinned and, one would assume, instantly recognisable to anyone who had known him only a few months previously. It would seem that saints can be crippled or otherwise handicapped, but, if young, must never be ugly.

A typical painting is that by Parmigianino (Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, 1503-1540), which shows St Roch, accompanied by dog and bubo, healing a sufferer.

Tinteretto (Jacopo Robusti, 1518-1594) had a particular association with St Roch, because he was commissioned to decorate the church of San Rocco in Venice and also the neighbouring Scuola (Brotherhood) di San Rocco, a building dedicated to caring for plague victims.

For the latter, the four leading painters in the city were invited to compete for the honour of painting the round centerpiece of the main ceiling, by producing designs which would then be considered by the Brotherhood’s committee before the winner was given the commission. While the other three painters went away to work on their designs, Tintoretto measured the space in question, painted a canvas in double-quick time, and stuck the result in place. Naturally, the other artists were furious, and the head of the Brotherhood angrily enquired why Tintoretto had broken the rules. All he could reply was that that was how he worked. If the Brotherhood were not happy, he would make a free gift of the painting. As the Brotherhood’s policy was never to reject a gift, they had no choice but to accept, and so Tintoretto’s “San Rocco received into Heaven” (otherwise titled “The apotheosis of St Roch” - see illustration above)) is there to this day.

Tintoretto also painted, for the church of San Rocco, “St Roch presented to the Pope”, “St Roch taken to prison”, “St Roch curing the plague victims”, “St Roch comforted by an angel”, “St Roch in solitude” and “St Roch healing the animals”.

St Roch is sometimes shown alongside other figures such as the Madonna and Child, as he is begging for their help on behalf of plague victims. An early example is by Giorgione (1470-1510), which also incorporates an image of St Anthony, and there is a much later one by Jacques Louis David (1748-1825), who is normally associated with depictions of classical subjects and the glories of the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte.

In David’s “St Roch and the Virgin” he is shown as the intercessor between the plague victims at the foot of the rock on which the Virgin sits, and the Madonna and Child. Although Roch is shown with the pilgrim clothes and staff, and the dog’s head can just be seen, we are spared the bubo this time.

Many other artists have portrayed St Roch in various guises, a short list of these artists being: Giuseppe Angeli, Carlo Crivelli, Giambattista Pittoni, Bernardo Strozzi, Bartolomeo Vivarini and Girolamo Pellegrini.

Portrayals of saints and miracles have gone out of fashion over recent centuries, although images of suffering have not. With the addition of AIDS to St Roch’s list of responsibilities, perhaps it is time for a modern artist to revive the tradition and produce a modern take on an old legend.

© John Welford

Sergei Korolev and Sputnik

 

Sputnik 1 was launched on 4th October 1957, thus giving the Soviet Union the lead in the superpower space race. This achievement was primarily due to the drive and genius of one man – Sergei Korolev, the scientist who masterminded the top-secret space programme.

Born in 1906, Sergei Pavlovich Korolev was the chief engineer at Russia’s Jet Propulsion Research Institute in the mid-1930s. However, in 1938 he became a victim of Stalin’s purges and was tortured and sent to the eastern Siberian gulag, where he worked in a gold mine and suffered from scurvy. He also suffered a heart attack during his time there.

Released in 1944, he was appointed head of the secret Soviet space programme. It was his idea to launch a satellite that was heavier than anything the Americans could have considered launching at that time. It was a relatively simple craft, comprising a metal sphere containing a radio transmitter and  batteries. For three weeks it orbited Planet Earth sending out a simple beep that was designed to be heard by every territory over which it passed and which chose to tune in, with the United States being the chief intended target.

After the batteries ran out, Sputnik ran in silent mode until 4 January 1958, when it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere and burned up. By this time it had completed 1440 orbits and travelled some 43 million miles.

On 3 November 1957 Sputnik 2 was launched. This was a larger satellite, particularly notable for carrying a dog into space. Named Laika, the three year old female mongrel had been picked off the streets of Moscow to become the first living creature to leave Earth’s atmosphere. There was never any possibility that she would return to Earth, but she actually died sooner than expected when a system aboard Sputnik failed and the capsule overheated.

Korolev continued to have many successes with Soviet space missions, each one having the desired effect of catching the United States by surprise. He designed the Vostock spacecraft that launched Yuri Gargarin into space on 12th April 1961 and brought him back safely. In 1963 Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space, and two years later the first two-man crew was able to complete the first spacewalk.

The United States could only play catch-up with the Soviet Union at this time, but all that changed after 1966, when Korolev died. He had suffered poor health for many years as a result of his earlier ill-treatment in the gulag, and he died on the operating table during colon surgery.

Korolev had always been a magnetic personality who was able to control a highly complicated enterprise, but without him everything became embroiled in politics and bureaucracy. The Soviet space programme thus came to a virtual halt while the Americans went from strength to strength, culminating in the Apollo moon missions that landed a man on the moon in 1969.

© John Welford

Virginia Satir's five family roles

 

A healthy family life involves open and shared displays of affection and expressions of positive regard and love for one another. Compassionate, nurturing relationships play vital roles in developing well-adjusted psyches.

This was emphasised by the American psychologist Virginia Satir (1916-1988). Born to a farming family in Wisconsin, the fact that her father was an alcoholic gave her a strong awareness, from her childhood onwards, of the dynamics of caretaking, blaming and pleasing that were involved in family development, especially in families under stress. Originally trained as a teacher, Satir took a master’s degree in social work and developed the first formal family therapy training programme in the USA, which became known as the Satir Model.

When family members lack the ability to openly express emotion and affection, Satir suggested that personality roles tend to emerge in place of authentic identities. She noted five commonly played roles that individual family members are likely to adopt, especially in times of stress.

These are:

The blamer - he or she constantly finds fault and criticises other family members. They do this to hide their own feelings of unworthiness.

The computer - he or she is cold and unemotional, showing no affection. They use their intellect to stop them acknowledging their feelings.

The distractor - the person who stirs things up in order to shift the focus away from emotional issues. They believe that they will only be loved if they are seen as likeable and harmless.

The placator - the apologetic people-pleaser who is afraid of disapproval.

The leveller - the person who is an open, honest and direct communicator. Levellers maintain a healthy position and their inner feelings match their communications with other family members.

When family members adopt these roles, the family may continue to function, but at the expense of each individual’s authenticity. Satir maintained that it was important to accept one’s own self-worth as the means of casting aside a false identity. She believed that love and acceptance are the most potent healing forces for any dysfunctional family.

© John Welford

St Basil's Cathedral, Moscow

 

St Basil’s Cathedral has to be the most recognisable church in the whole of Russia, being a focal point of Moscow’s Red Square. It ceased being a place of worship after the Russian Revolution of 1917 and became a museum, but masses have been permitted to be held in the cathedral since 1991.

The cathedral is officially the Cathedral of the Intercession of the Mother of God, although the dedication to St Basil relates to a holy man who prophesied the Great Fire of Moscow in 1547.

The cathedral was built by Ivan IV (the Terrible) to commemorate his victory over the Tatars in October 1552. There is a legend to the effect that, after the building was complete, Ivan lived up to his name by having the architect blinded so that he would no longer be able to create anything to compare with it. However, given that the same man is recorded as having designed and erected many buildings in other towns after that time, the truth of the story has to be in doubt.

The cathedral has nine main domes, each with a different coloration and shape. The domes are supposedly a reference to the turbans of the Muslim princes defeated by Ivan during his reign. Unlike many Russian churches, St Basil’s is not painted on the outside but has retained a simple redbrick exterior.

The four octagonal towers surrounding the main church indicate the four cardinal points of the compass. Four further square towers standing at the diagonals between these complete the star-shaped layout. Four and eight were considered sacred numbers in the Middle Ages – there were four elements and eight was a somewhat obscure reference to Christ’s Resurrection and the Last Judgement.

The star forward by the architectural elements, connecting earth and sky, points towards the Holy Land and there is a small chapel at each of the eight corners, each commemorating one of Ivan’s battles.

© John Welford

Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon, by Pablo Picasso

 

Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon, by the Spanish painter and sculptor Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), is generally regarded as a cornerstone in the history of art and the seminal work of Cubism.

The oil on canvas painting, which measures 8 feet by 7 ft 8 ins (244 x 235 cm), dates from 1907 and was first exhibited at Bateau-Lavoir, a celebrated avant-garde studio in Paris. It was not shown in public until 1916. It can now be seen at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

The title was given to the painting by Andre Salmon, a contemporary art critic, and refers to “Avignon” as a street in Barcelona that was the location of a well-known brothel.

The painting is of five prostitutes (the “demoiselles”), although Picasso originally intended to include two male figures, namely a sailor and a medical student holding a skull. The violently jagged bodies of the five women face the viewer head-on, two of them pushing aside curtains and the others in erotic poses.

The painting is remarkable for several reasons. For example, Picasso flouts two of the conventions by which a painter creates an illusion of reality, namely shading to convey mass and perspective to give space. Where there is a shading, it contradicts itself and refuses to convey any three-dimensional effect, and there is no use of traditional perspective. The fragmented figures are what make this painting the foundation stone of Cubism.

The painting combines completely different styles within the same image. The three faces to the left are modelled on ancient Iberian sculptures, whereas the other two come from African tribal masks.

Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon marks a transitional phase in the evolution of Picasso’s art, towards the complex geometries of full Cubism.

Picasso was arguably the single most influential artist of the 20^th century, playing a major role in its artistic development. Even those artists not directly influenced by his work could not avoid its many implications.

© John Welford

Trying to Better Michael

 

If Michael Young hadn’t started it, there is every possibility that I wouldn’t have done it. But he did, so I followed his lead.

It all began over coffee in the cafeteria at the College of Librarianship Wales, which is on a windy hillside just outside Aberystwyth. This was in 1975, when we were both doing our postgrad diplomas and were two members of a little group of friends who had got together soon after the course started.

Michael told us that we should all listen to Radio 4 that evening at a particular time. This we did, and were astonished to hear Michael’s voice as he appeared as a contestant on the long-running quiz Brain of Britain. The recording had been made shortly before we started the course and Michael had said nothing about it until the day that his particular round was broadcast.

He scored seven points on the quiz, which was not enough to get him through to the next round, but we were all very impressed that he had at least got as far as being selected to take part. As I listened to the programme it struck me that there were several questions that Michael got wrong that I would have got right, and admittedly there were some answers that he knew but I did not. Even so, on balance I reckoned that I could have done better than he did.

The idea of applying to take part myself was one that lingered in the back of my mind for some time afterwards, but it was not until about three years later, when I was working at a college library in Bognor Regis, West Sussex, that I actually did so. I wrote to the BBC and had a reply inviting me to an audition.

This took place at Broadcasting House, or rather in one of the buildings to one side that were later demolished to make room for the modern extension to the BBC’s classic HQ. The audition took the form of a one-to-one general knowledge quiz. I was told that there was a magic pass mark that would guarantee me a place on Brain of Britain, but I was not told what this was.

Things got off to a reasonable start, such as identifying which country had a flag consisting of red, gold and green horizontal stripes with a black star at the centre. I had cause to be thankful that my family had fostered a boy from Ghana for four years during my childhood, because that was the flag in question!

It struck me that the person asking the questions was going out of her way to be helpful, without actually telling me the answers. I was asked which French department had Nice as its capital. I said I didn’t know, but she suggested that I might be able to work it out.

“OK”, I said. “Nice is close to the Alps, and it’s by the sea, so how about Alpes-Maritime?” Honestly, I just made that up on the spot, but it turned out to be the right answer! I had a funny feeling that I could not expect such generosity on the quiz itself, were I to get that far.

The next thing to happen, a week or so later, was that a letter arrived at my home in Bognor Regis to say that I had been accepted for the London and South-East first round heat, to be held at a date a month or so later. The letter included three tickets for family members, should they wish to attend.

The event took place at the BBC Radio Theatre on Haymarket. Two quizzes are recorded on the same day, so eight competitors turned up. We were given the usual BBC welcome of a cup of tea and a plate of sandwiches and the redoubtable Robert Robinson introduced himself to each of us in turn. He was very good at putting everyone at their ease and made it clear that it was the general policy that everyone’s first question was an easy one so that we were virtually guaranteed a point apiece after Round One.

My appearance was on the second quiz of the evening, so my colleagues and I had front row seats during the first quiz. The questions were the usual mixture of easy and difficult, so I had no real reason to fear what would come my way when it was our turn.

The first quiz ended, the name plates were changed, and we took our places on the stage. The music played, Robert Robinson announced our names, and we were off.

The way Brain of Britain works is that each competitor is asked up to five questions in their turn. If you get the first one right you are asked a second, and so on. Get all five correct and you are awarded an extra bonus point. When someone makes a mistake the other competitors can buzz in and hope to gain a bonus point by getting it right. I was fourth in line and was just too late to pick up bonuses when two of the others failed to answer correctly. I soon realized that it paid to buzz in as soon as you knew that an answer was wrong and not wait for Mr Robinson to say that it was.

Then it came to my turn. What would my easy first question be?

“Which European capital city is served by Kastrup Airport?”

What? That was supposed to be easy? I hadn’t a clue! I guessed at Budapest, which was wrong. I was relieved that nobody else knew either, so it wasn’t as though I was woefully ignorant about something that was common knowledge. The answer was Copenhagen – a fact that I have never forgotten since!

People say that taking part in radio or TV quizzes is much more difficult than answering them at home, due to the pressure of the situation. However, I didn’t find that to be true. I didn’t fluff any questions to which I should really have known the answer or which led me to kick myself afterwards for having known the right answer but been unable to give it at the time.

It did not go well. I was never able to get more than one correct answer in my turn and most of my points came from bonuses earned when other competitors went wrong. Just like Michael Young, I went no further in the competition, although the modest cheques that later arrived in the post were very welcome. These were for the original appearance fee, another one for the repeat broadcast and a third one courtesy of World Service.

However, there was one other thing worth celebrating. I had managed to score eight points, which was one more than Michael Young!

© John Welford

A Volga Boatman Lost in a Russian Forest

My first job after qualifying as a professional librarian was with the British Council’s Libraries Department, which supplies library services to educational and diplomatic organisations across the world. After only one year I was sent to Moscow on a short assignment to establish a library within the Cultural Section of the British Embassy. This was in the summer of 1977 when the Soviet Union was at the height of its powers, led by Leonid Brezhnev.

I was there for a total of five weeks, split between two visits, and was well looked after by the Embassy’s Cultural Attaché. His wife and family were back in England for the first spell of two weeks, so I stayed with him in his flat and was shown around the city and environs during our spare time.

One Saturday he took me to the Embassy’s Rest and Recreation Centre some way north of Moscow, where the main road to Leningrad (as it then was) crosses the River Volga. There was a third person with us, namely a young lady who worked in a different section of the Embassy but with whom the Attaché was clearly on very good terms. It was not long before I appreciated that he would much have preferred my absence to my presence on this particular trip!

The R&R Centre offered a range of activities for Embassy personnel, including taking a rowing boat out on the river. This is what we did, the idea being to spend most of our time on an island half-way across quite a wide stretch of water. I learned later that this island was strictly off limits to Embassy staff for reasons of security, but my host had a reputation for bending the rules when it suited him. This did not stop him from advancing in his career to eventually becoming a British Ambassador.

I was invited to take the oars at one stage, despite having had almost no experience of rowing. It wasn’t difficult when I got the hang of it and I quite enjoyed being a “Volga boatman”, even if only for a short time. I noticed that this gave the Attaché a chance to place his arm across his companion’s shoulder, and she didn’t seem to object.

We landed the boat on a small beach at one end of the island and sat there watching the world go by. The river, despite being 2,000 miles from its final destination in the Caspian Sea, was already broad enough at this point for river cruisers to make their stately way up and down, presumably giving trusted workers and party members a well-deserved day out. Apart from that, there were few sounds apart from those made by the little waves breaking on the beach and the soughing of the wind in the silver birches that covered much of the island.

After twenty minutes or so I got the distinct impression that I was surplus to requirements as far as the Attaché was concerned. Despite being the only non-diplomat of the three people present I did the diplomatic thing and suggested that I might explore the island on my own. So off I went into the forest behind the beach.

It was a truly beautiful place, especially on a fine summer day such as this was. There were silver birches as far as I could see, separated by low-growing grass through which frogs hopped and croaked in Russian. I kept on walking, but the scenery did not change in the slightest – it was exactly the same in every direction I looked.

After a while I decided to turn back, but now I had a problem. Which way was back? I had completely lost my sense of direction and had no reference point to tell me which way I should go. I was lost in the middle of a forest somewhere in Russia.

There was one saving grace, and it was an extremely large one in that I knew I was on an island and not somewhere on the mainland with nothing but forest for hundreds of miles in every direction. All I had to do was walk in a straight line and I was bound to reach the river sooner or later. Once there, I simply had to keep as close to the river as possible until I got back to the beach where my companions were.

The next problem was that this island was shaped like a tadpole, which had been obvious from what we had seen when rowing across to it. In other words it had quite a large head – where the beach was - and a very long, narrow tail. For all I knew it could stretch for a mile or more down the middle of the river. Suppose I was heading down the spine of the island and would not see any water until I was close to the end of the tail?

There was nothing for it but to head off in one particular direction and hope it was the right one. It seemed to take an age, but eventually I was able to see a glimpse of water through the trees.

My next problem was that I did not know which side of the island I had reached, and therefore whether I needed to turn left or right to get back to the beach. If I could get close enough to the river I would be able to see which way the water was flowing and therefore answer that question because I knew that the beach was at the upstream end of the island. Unfortunately, getting close enough was impossible because the intervening ground consisted mostly of a very wet stretch of marsh.

Another piece of guesswork was needed, therefore, and a crossing of fingers. I turned left and kept as close to edge of the marsh as I could, always hoping that I might get a better view of the river before long.

I then heard voices and said to myself that everything would now be OK because I had found the beach at long last. However, when I was close enough to see who was talking I realised that the voices did not belong to the right people. This was another small group of people on another beach. I kept out of their sight – the presence of a strange Englishman turning up among a party of Russians might have led to all sorts of complications – but at least I could now see which way the river was flowing and was relieved that my guesses had been the right ones.

It did not take me much longer to get back to where I had started. The Attaché was living up to his job title by being quite firmly attached to his girlfriend, but the two pulled themselves apart and “adjusted their dress” as I approached.

I must have been away from them for about an hour and I had been quite concerned that they would be wondering where I had got to, but that was far from the case. Had I been gone for two hours, I am not sure that they would have minded – or possibly even noticed.

I had finished my assignment and flown back to London before the Attaché was reunited with his wife, so he had no fears that I might spill the beans regarding his dalliance on the island.

As for me, there were no more foreign assignments because I did not stay much longer with the British Council. My next post was in a slightly less exciting place than Moscow, namely Bognor Regis – although natives of the latter might wish to disagree!

© John Welford

Christina's World, by Andrew Wyeth

 

Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009) was the son of a popular illustrator who taught Andrew to paint. Andrew was home educated at Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, due to childhood ill-health.

Andrew Wyeth did not travel a great deal, but explored in detail the farms, houses and land around two small areas of the eastern United States, namely Chadds Ford and Cushing, Maine. He has been termed a super-realist for his meticulous technique in depicting everything he saw with great accuracy.

The painting Christina’s World (1948) can be seen today in New York’s Museum of Modern Art. It shows a young woman half lying in a hayfield looking away from us towards to a group of farm buildings on the horizon. The chief feature of interest of this painting is the fact that her arms and legs are thin and spindly, which we might assume is the result of polio, which at the time of the painting was a terrifying and mysterious disease from which many people died.

What we know today is that Christina was suffering from a genetic wasting disease that rendered her unable to walk. Her name was Christina Olson, and she lived at the house in the background. The artist had a summer home next door to the Olson farm (near Cushing), and he was inspired to compose this work on seeing her crawl across the field when he looked out of his window.

Christina was actually much older than appears in the painting, her torso being modelled by Wyeth’s own wife. However, that takes nothing away from the poignancy of the image.

What we are see here is the girl’s struggle, not only to make slow, painful progress towards the farmhouse that is her home, but also to make a prosperous life for herself in the world that lies beyond the stark horizon.

There is much that can be read into this painting that speaks to us of the world that Christina occupies. It is clearly a lonely world, as there is not a single living creature to be seen apart from herself. Even the hay stubble, following the harvest, is brown and lifeless.  

The field is large and slopes steeply away. However, it appears that the hay has been cut more closely as she approaches the farm. Is this therefore a message of hope, that the struggle to progress will get easier in time? Do better things lie over the horizon?

It should be pointed out there is a certain amount of artistic licence in this painting, given that Christina did not live alone and lived a reasonably contented life into her mid-70s.

We are given an imagined perspective on life lived by somebody in Christina’s situation in an understanding and unusual way.

© John Welford