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peterbirksWent long on sterling this morning at 1.9560, March contract rather than intra-day. You have to take an eight-point spread on the longer contract, while the intra-day "rolling" spot deals are a three-point spread but, like the vig on a mafia debt, it's repeated daily.
Although I had been concerned at the precipitous nature of Sterling's decline, the bounceback when 1.9490 was touched was fairly immediate. I think I've got about a 60% chance of nicking 2.00 before March.
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As I have written before, I predict that in 50 years time, when, thankfully, I shall be long dead, people will look back on this decade and say "My God, they had some great writers in England early this century". Ian McEwan's latest, "On Chesil Beach", is a masterpiece -- certainly superior to his previous novel, "Saturday". You might recall that there were arguments about whether On Chesil Beach qualified as "a novel", because of its brevity. It's weird, because you don't hear of people arguing over whether something qualifies as a painting only when there are a minimum number of brushstrokes involved. A cartoonist of the late 19th century, one of the forerunners of more modern work, was Phil May. He was paid by the picture, and one day he was given less than his due. On enquiring why, he was told that his drawing "did not have enough lines". May patiently pointed out that this was because he had taken out all of the irrelevant lines.
Gombrich's The History of Art compares two pictures by Rembrandt, from his youth and from his old age. The author focuses on the detail of a coat (a bit of brocade, I think). In the first picture, that detail is lovingly reproduced, pixel-by-pixel, as it were. In the second, it's a single brushtroke. But, as EH Gombrich might have said, had he been from South London rather than Mittel Europe, what a fucking brilliant brushstroke it was.
Here's a single paragraph from early on in McEwan's latest, before it descends into tragedy (incidentally, a couple of women I have spoken to did not like this work, and I suspect that it's because the truth of the story -- that silence and delay in the hope that time will heal a problem, rather than biting the bullet and being the bearer of bad tidings, can often lead to a worse result. How many arguments have YOU had with a woman where you have uttered the phrase "But why didn't you tell me at the time!"?).
The year is 1962. The honeymoon couple are eating in their room in a Dorset Hotel.
Genius. Without wanting to head into literary criticism (which is a bit like telling you how a magic trick is done. Once you know how, it's obvious), I must mention the use of the word "cuisine" rather than "food". And "thickened" gravey rather than "thick" gravy. As for "potatoes of a bluish hue", well, what can one say apart from "I wish I had thought of that"?
It might be only 160 pages long, but On Chesil Beach is a story that will linger in the mind long after many 500-pagers will have been forgotten.
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Although I had been concerned at the precipitous nature of Sterling's decline, the bounceback when 1.9490 was touched was fairly immediate. I think I've got about a 60% chance of nicking 2.00 before March.
++++++++
As I have written before, I predict that in 50 years time, when, thankfully, I shall be long dead, people will look back on this decade and say "My God, they had some great writers in England early this century". Ian McEwan's latest, "On Chesil Beach", is a masterpiece -- certainly superior to his previous novel, "Saturday". You might recall that there were arguments about whether On Chesil Beach qualified as "a novel", because of its brevity. It's weird, because you don't hear of people arguing over whether something qualifies as a painting only when there are a minimum number of brushstrokes involved. A cartoonist of the late 19th century, one of the forerunners of more modern work, was Phil May. He was paid by the picture, and one day he was given less than his due. On enquiring why, he was told that his drawing "did not have enough lines". May patiently pointed out that this was because he had taken out all of the irrelevant lines.
Gombrich's The History of Art compares two pictures by Rembrandt, from his youth and from his old age. The author focuses on the detail of a coat (a bit of brocade, I think). In the first picture, that detail is lovingly reproduced, pixel-by-pixel, as it were. In the second, it's a single brushtroke. But, as EH Gombrich might have said, had he been from South London rather than Mittel Europe, what a fucking brilliant brushstroke it was.
Here's a single paragraph from early on in McEwan's latest, before it descends into tragedy (incidentally, a couple of women I have spoken to did not like this work, and I suspect that it's because the truth of the story -- that silence and delay in the hope that time will heal a problem, rather than biting the bullet and being the bearer of bad tidings, can often lead to a worse result. How many arguments have YOU had with a woman where you have uttered the phrase "But why didn't you tell me at the time!"?).
The year is 1962. The honeymoon couple are eating in their room in a Dorset Hotel.
This was not a good moment in the History of English cuisine, but no-one much minded at the time, except visitors from abroad. The formal meal began, as so many did then, with a slice of melon decorated by a single glazed cherry. Out in the corridor, in silver dishes on candle-heated plate warmers, waited slices of long-ago roasted beef in a thickened gravy, soft boiled vegetables, and potatoes of a bluish hue. The wine was from France., though no particular region was mentioned on the label, which was embellished with a solitary, darting swallow. It would not have crossed Edward's mind to order a Red.
Genius. Without wanting to head into literary criticism (which is a bit like telling you how a magic trick is done. Once you know how, it's obvious), I must mention the use of the word "cuisine" rather than "food". And "thickened" gravey rather than "thick" gravy. As for "potatoes of a bluish hue", well, what can one say apart from "I wish I had thought of that"?
It might be only 160 pages long, but On Chesil Beach is a story that will linger in the mind long after many 500-pagers will have been forgotten.
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no subject
Date: 2008-01-11 02:13 pm (UTC)I used to give the cherry away, mind.
"Thickened" to me implies intent: liberal application of cornflour, I suppose.
I think he missed a trick with the spuds, though. Boiled or roast? The bluish bit isn't helping.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-11 02:15 pm (UTC)PJ
no subject
Date: 2008-01-11 02:47 pm (UTC)I'm too caught up in my own fantasy world to read about someone else's.
Though I did download Diary of a Nobody. Maybe I should rename my blog.
I can manage bios of people who interest me - Woody Allen, Orson Welles, Andy Kaufman, Bill Hicks, Alfred Hitchcock, Jack Hargreaves, Fred Dibnah, Peter Sellers, Billy Connolly, Spike Milligan and Kenneth Williams. I am limited to what the local Oxfam Shop has to offer.
And now, as 3pm approaches it is time to tune into Secret Army on UK History.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-11 02:50 pm (UTC)I seem to read a lot about pooves. Is there are psychologist in the house?
Mellies and Fries with Mayo, please
Date: 2008-01-11 11:17 pm (UTC)Actually, the local Oxfam shop is usually a damn fine bet -- particularly if you live in a University town. (Not, say, Brighton, which is merely a "University" "town," although I understand there are a lot of pooves there, so it might keep you happy on a rainy Wednesday afternoon.) The one near Warwick University, which of course is in Coventry, is currently in receipt of my mother's entire lifetime's collection of books, courtesy of a house clearance. A few decent bios, some rather good Phaidons, and the odd gem on how to crush the opposition at no-limit poker when you're a grey-haired granny ... no, I'm joking about the biographies. I kept the Ancient Greek books for myself.
Funny thing, blog threading, isn't it? I was hoping to work this around to McEwan and blue-ish potatoes, but sans the ability to cross-link, which is unaccountably missing in the panopticon of cutting-edge software represented on this site, I can't. O for the days of zines, where you just sent in a scrawled mess of a missive, and some drunken idiot like Birks performed what I believe is nowadays termed a "mash-up" on it so that it made sense, before presenting a sanitized version to all twenty three of the viewing public who weren't watching Secret Army at the time.
To be honest, I didn't really get the thing about blue-ish potatoes, even though they were quite clearly boiled and not roasted. (What has Woodhouse been smoking recently?) This is a fairly standard trope, possibly confined to the immediate environs of south Birmingham and school dinners at K.E.S., but a standard trope nonetheless. I'm fairly sure I've seen it used as background detail in several written works, although, McCarthy-like, I can't quote any of them.
The rest of the paragraph was rather good, and well-balanced. The trouble with McEwan is that his paragraphs are sublime, but his novels strike me as the conceited in search of a conceit; ie, unreadable. I suspect that the main thing to commend "On Chesil Beach" is its brevity.
Of course, if it featured an amusing anecdote about Fred Dibnah on page 55, you'd be on it like a shot, wouldn't you?
Re: Mellies and Fries with Mayo, please
Date: 2008-01-11 11:34 pm (UTC)As for the rest of your missive? Well, that is the advantage of a BA over a BSc. One word from me and your creative mind expands to half a page.
I am not so wordy. My English master poked fun at my sci-fi ramblings and put an end to my desire to write. Thank heavens for JANet and the ASCII keyboard.
I could have been the next Asimov!
JayBee. "baci"
Re: Mellies and Fries with Mayo, please
Date: 2008-01-11 11:54 pm (UTC)[sympathetic cluck a la Church Lady]You'd have been better served by your not-quite-a-public-school (KES went the other way. It was a wanna-pretend-to-be-a-public-school) if they'd at least offered you an ASCII keyboard, as opposed to the ISO-8859 (Peterborough/Jesuit) keyboard supplied by the English department.
And English masters can be such bitches, can't they?
[/sympathetic cluck a la Church Lady]
But, seriously, nobody (least of all an English teacher) should have the temerity to put somebody off writing. Unless that somebody is Jonathan Coe. I went to school with Jonathan Coe, and I can safely say that he hasn't improved much over the years ... and from a very low level to start with.
Wrock And Rite On, baci!
This site is trying to sell me "Wholesale hip & cool designer dog clothes." Do I know something they don't? Where's my tin-foil hat? Michael Faraday, I need you now ...
Illiteracy
Date: 2008-01-11 03:15 pm (UTC)I hate Ian McEwan (along with William Boyd) for writing books that appear effortlessly brilliant. Your slice typifies this ability not to produce good words and good descriptive narrayive, but to produce the perfect words. Not unlike Jane Austen really.
Re: Illiteracy
Date: 2008-01-11 03:52 pm (UTC)Size matters
Date: 2008-01-11 11:45 pm (UTC)A work of fiction may be only a few pages long and excellent, but I think no-one would call it a novel.
I don't know On Chesil Beach, but unless it averages fewer than 250 words per page it would seem to be a novel, albeit a rather short one.
-- Jonathan