March 2025 Update

It has been another busy month and surprising at that for two anciently old men. At Cadogan Hall, we enjoyed the Ensemble Symphony Orchestra with conductor Giacomo Loprieno for “Discovering Morricone.” There has also been at the Bridge Theatre Jonathan Bailey in a stunning Richard II. We managed the Sienna Exhibit at the National Museum of Art which for me was exquisitely stunning. And then again at Cadogan Hall, the BBC Big Band “Rhapsody in Blue” Gershwin concert (Ray McVay directing, Barry Forgie conducting, & Emer McParland as the soloist) was a sheer delight. There has been further the Saatchi’s FLOWERS – FLORA IN CONTEMPORARY ART & CULTURE. Rather overwhelming but fascinating, nostalgic and moving especially when depicting protest movements. And at the Everyman, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy was indeed fun as well as tear-jerking. It has become a favourite film and incapsulates what life could and should be all about. Penny said that the film is very British. Maybe so, but I found it perfectly enjoyable and perfectly

enjoyable art.

We have had cappuccini with Kathy at Vardo. For Pancake Tuesday, Richard & I went to My Old Dutch. Since Gin had injured her leg, she could not join us at the October Gallery for the William Burroughs art show. The rest of us were Pavel & Tereza who had arrived earlier that day, Paddy & Keir, and Rix. We went to Antalya, a nearby Turkish restaurant, afterwards. The next day with Pavel & Tereza, we all went to the Warburg Institute for the tarot exhibit. It was interesting, but surprisingly for me there was no mention of the Swiss Müller deck. That evening the four of us joined Patrick & Sue at ROSL for a lovely ‘Pie Week’ dinner in the 1910 Dining Room. The following night we had dinner at Vardo with Pavel & Tereza. There has also been a lunch with Wendy & Nick at the Great Court Restaurant in the British Museum. We were able to view a lot of the museum both before and after – including the Elgin Marbles.

I had an appointment at the Royal Marsden, but only after getting there did I learn that the appointment had been cancelled. Reading-wise, I have finished Richard Lloyd Parry’s intriguing Ghosts of the Tsunami. The next book has been Laura Andrikopoulos’ 2025 Jung and Twentieth Century Psychological Astrology. With the lovely weather in London, I was able to read outside in the garden. And on the train to Paris, I have begun William Kowalski’s

Eddie’s Bastard that Santima gave me.

I managed to break our bedroom’s sliding door. It would not open or close & was stuck midway. Pavel got it a bit more open just before they departed back to the Czech Republic. A couple of days later I got Kas & José to repair it. We also managed to get about 75 cartons of mostly Richard’s papers collected over 50 years shipped to the farm. There was a rip-off from one of the firm’s drivers which was reimbursed to me by the head of the company. However, the reimbuser subsequently asked me to lend him £2,045 which I did and still have not got it returned. It turns out that both the reimburser and I have been scammed or hacked, and the money was reimbursed to a recipient with Monzo Bank. I have since started the process of changing my passwords. I’ve had a long session with Scott.

Finally on the 16th we had a longish wait at Saint Pancras, but the Uber ride went well. Tonysaw us off at Whitelands. In Brussels, we went to board our Amsterdam train after sitting in an office lobby and then discovered that the station was being evacuated. Eventually we got on the train – switching tracks in the process as well.

In Amsterdam, we had blood tests, and I have had a session with Hans. Richard’s tests were good; my iron is now too high. We now have Richard’s passport and identity card for NL. We got only once to Hashtag for the requisite smoke. This only amplified my distress over the Gaza & global situation. I felt / saw the whole world on the verge of a sudden & imminent obliteration. I also saw the schizoid aporia of cosmic consciousness as the underlying current of the universe, the oceanic chaos, and from which the terrestrial world is merely an ephemeral bubble of sane consciousness. Upon death, for both the individual or collective, all is to dissolve back into schizoid chaos. Not particularly uplifting. Nevertheless, we were 13 at Caramba for a margarita meal with Michael & Maxim, Stephen & Koen, Jimmy & Amir, Laura, Faye, Zelda, Santima & Carole. And the weather in Amsterdam has been completely lovely. This encouraged a walk to the Van Gogh Museum on the warmest day yet. The Van Gogh was fascinating as ever, and the Anselm Kiefer was interesting. I think I compare everything at present with Mad About the Boy which portrayed something comparatively perfect. We had our cappuccini at the Stedelijk where Part 2 of the Kiefer was. The videos at the end were probably the most engaging. And also at one point, we sat down on a bench on which it turned out that Marijke & her sister were also sitting. We then waited for a tram for about 20 minutes before giving up just as one arrived and took a taxi to Pizzeria Bella Roma on the Lange Niezel. We were a bit late but had an enjoyable evening with Carlo & Jean-Christophe. Another dinner was at the Nepalese Bhatti Pasal with Erdem and Felix. The next night was dinner at the WG Café with Santima, Jim and Amir. In the process, however, Richard lost his chip card.

In Paris, it has been another quasi-whirlwind. We arrived on the 24th, and Marie-Laure met us at the Gare du Nord. The next day went to the Russian Orthodox Cathedral Ste. Trinité and Cultural Centre for books and information on Zinaida Serebriakova and Benois-Lancerry-Solvebriakoff that Penny has requested. The ladies there were friendly and helpful, and Richard brought up Ukraine to them, and they commiserated and hoped the saints whose icons inside the church were overlain with golden revetment (or riza) would end the

turmoil. We had cappuccini afterwards nearby at Pierre Hermé Café near the Seine. The following day after purchasing a larger suitcase (a necessity), at Odeon we decided on Insider (Black Bag) with Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender. I adored it thoroughly. On Thursday, after the Tea Cady, we spent an hour or so within Notre Dame de Paris. The cathedral is pristinely restored and almost too clean, but it was impressive and attendants were friendly. But the shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe (Tonantzin) has been removed. From there we walked to Anahuacalli for margaritas and chile rellenos. Florence had to cancel because of the funeral of a cousin. Toby was ill and also could not come. Robin’s partner Theadora had had a cycle accident, so he cancelled as well. And Anne-Laure forgot, so it was a much less expensive meal for Richard & me with Marie-Laure and Yael. The next day Richard & I went to Montmartre. It was cold & horrendously crowded, & we could not even sit down in St. Pierre, we did have cappuccini. Back at Marie-Laure’s I finally connected with Neil and realised we had both been scammed. I then spent two hours unsuccessfully

trying to change my password to my business@ account. With Marie we went finally to La Robe du Giraffe, Robin’s restaurant. He was lovely, and we had a lot of Talisker (me soup, gnocchi & tarte tatin). The following day was beautifully sunny, so before my online session with Scott, Richard & I visited Pere Lachaise. We saw the tombs of both Oscar Wilde and Édith Piaf. Dinner that night was at Il Covo along with some delicious negronis.

For our last night in Paris, Marie-Laure treated us at the Philharmonie de Paris for Mahler’s 7th Symphony. The Orchestre National d’Île-de-France was conducted by Case Scaglione. Jean Nouvel’s theatre itself is an incredible structure, and I adored the orchestra being surrounded completely by audience. The Mahler was magnificent, and we sat with Toby and Sandrine. All in all, the evening could not have been more fabulous.

Finally, I have posted two things on my Facebook page:

Adam Gopnik’s ‘A Critic at Large’ article in The New Yorker (13.03.25:61-66) that is titled “Gilded: Plutocrats and anarchists, now and then” acutely presents the relatively affluent feudalism of our own times. He concludes that ‘we live in a truly barren time. Golden is better than gilded, but even gilt is better than iron.’ I myself am not certain about the last part, but without doubt the current milieu is one of uninspiring impoverishment. In ancient mythologies, the would-be narcissist oligarch is personified as a destructive dragon that the valiant hero comes to subdue. We live in a time today, however, in which any semblance of organic spirituality is marginalised into virtual oblivion and superseded by the likes of Evangelical eschatology, ISIL jihadism, Zionistic ideology, unworldly anarchic violence and plutocratic ostentation. Indeed, we live from at best a homeland on blessed Earth that is nevertheless ridiculously insignificant within an inconceivably enormous and perhaps meaningless cosmos. And yet, this is what we have and along with it the freedom to create our own meaning and value here-and-now. If those currently, and most likely only ephemerally, on top do not share such devotions, we at least have within our range of possibilities ‘a higher ideal of education or common welfare or simple beauty’. Though without lawless or selfish vehemence, we still ought to endeavour to find or become ourselves the heroic rectifier who begins to transform the truly golden dream into a reality. The champion is there somewhere. Maybe we find the winner when we concentrate along with kindness and generosity on what we have to enjoy: our immediate efflorescent

locations, our aesthetic and creative legacies, and our friends and loved ones. These joys and their like counterbalance if not overwhelm greedy and myopic mindlessness.

And then ‘Liberalisms’:

Digesting from literary critic Gary Saul Morrison’s The New York Review (13 February 2025:33-35) article “With Liberals Like These” on Russian Liberalism, I understand that Western Liberalism champions political pluralism, human rights and a decentralised economy that has been strongly influenced by English utilitarianism, Auguste Comte’s positivism and Reformation secularism. The social base in the West is the commercial middle class – something that virtually did not exist in 19th century Russia. In contrast, the original liberal thinkers of Russia were primarily enlightened aristocrats, professionals and

academics, and they rejected utilitarianism and positivism. Rather than endorsing laissez-faire governmental policy and free trade, Russian liberals argued for a strong welfare state. Western liberalism involves the rule of law as the restraint on government power in the protection of individual rights. But in Russia, conservative Slavophiles along with populists,Marxists and anarchists dismiss the notion that a person legally has rights. There is a fundamental rejection of law. To the degree that there are any individual human rights, these are based on idealism and religion. There is here an affinity with Kantian notions of personhood and the person is to be understood as an end and not simply a means. Freedom of conscience is considered as an absolute value rather than a relative one.

Since Bacon, scientific thought rests on the idea that nature is without intrinsic purpose. It just is, and Darwinian natural evolution is simply a part of it. Hence Western liberalism stresses the separation of church and state and the rejection of religious authority. But while Lenin denied human sanctity, Russian liberals upheld the conviction that ‘natural or moral law’ is justified because people have been made in the image of God. Religion here becomes the rationale. Since the Bolsheviks, however, with their elimination of any divine

justification for civil and political rights, there has been in Russia thought that time is of the essence for people first to become accustomed to legality and basic civil liberties. Only then can political rights be granted. The contrasting idea then between Western liberalism and Russian liberalism, apart for the greater or longer established democratic understandings that have prevailed in the West, is the Russian and/or non-Western belief that only through the strong authority of the state can liberal reforms be enacted. This was the operative factor of the Yeltsin era and is what now continues under Yeltsin’s chosen successor, Vladimir Putin. Russia today not only rejects liberalism but also opposes it in its forms of parliamentarianism, free markets, human rights and parochial Western values.

There is this question, then, of Western liberalism and its morphing into Neoliberalism and now a Trump-Musk reaction toward a populist capitalism that augments even further an un-precedented inequality and stagnation within the range of middle income. Trump favours tax cuts for billionaires and corporations, the end of the Affordable Care Act, and the sweeping tariffs that become a tax on consumers and businesses (https://www.socialeurope.eu/how-trumps-victory-exposes-the-failures-of-neoliberalism). It cannot be denied that Western liberalism has been tainted by oppression, colonialism, racism, patriarchy, centralised bureaucracy and exclusive rationalism. But what is the alternative between secular liberalism and Christian justified Russian liberalism or a Russian Orthodox supported Putinism that opposes multiculturalism and minority rights? The sacrality of humanity, rather than being something that is God-given, is what only exists by

the being of our species as an integral component within the overall sacredness of nature. This is a pagan perspective – pagan or earthen or naturistic. It is one that allows – or more than allows, encourages – individual rights and freedoms and moral laws in conformity with a viable environment and any progress in this direction regardless of the mindfulness and patience involved with the process. Business must be and remain subservient to ethics.

Politics as well. All this requires a generous and kind maturity as our continuing behaviour and hopeful goal. We indeed could all learn to compromise, negotiate and wisely recognise that there is not just ‘one way’ alone. We have all been wrong and have all wronged. For the treasures that are our children and their children and all the young on planet Earth, it is clearly time for the rest of us to grow-up and learn how to cooperate with each other and everyone.