Madsen Pirie

The Hawk and Dove occupies a warm place in my recollections of my time on Capitol Hill.  Situated on Pennsylvania Avenue, a short walk away from the Congressional Office building in which I worked, the Hawk ‘n’ Dove (as it styles itself) was a lunchtime and early evening refuge.  It served a limited range of foods, simply presented, of which the Hawkburger was a particularly delicious offering.  Its popularity derived from its drinks and ambience, rather than its food.

It was the time of Watergate and the Vietnam War, and the Hawk welcomed all sides of the political disputes of the day.  Those protesting the Vietnam War were just as welcome as those advocating an escalation of US firepower there.  It was not the sort of high-powered DC eating-place where deals are made between power-brokers; the Hawk was mostly frequented by junior staff and interns.  It was packed at lunch and busy at close of business, and you could sometimes pick up some good gossip and tittle-tattle.  It even featured in an episode of West Wing.  I’m glad to see it back, and will certainly pay a visit when I next head Washington way.

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For my speech to Abingdon schools I chose to cover ten of what I called “the popular errors of political economy.”  I began with the mistaken notion that things have value.  No, we value them, but that value is in our minds, not something possessed by or within the object.  The whole labour theory of value that Marx was so fond of disappears when you realize this, as does the notion of ‘surplus value’ and exploitation.  I had a go at using the law to limit profits, or of trying to achieve ‘fair’ prices.  I showed the fallacy of supposing that everyone will be better off if we ‘live more simply’ or try to be self-sufficient.

If you could reduce my case to a single phrase of three words it would be something like ‘trade it good.’  It enriches, it creates wealth, it fosters co-operation, it opens up opportunities.  It also gives us the means to conquer diseases and malnourishment, and to engage in educational and cultural activities.  It has a lot going for it.

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The latest provisional GDP figures from the Office for National Statistics show a dip of 0.3 percent during the final quarter of 2012.  In addition to the usual cautions about subsequent revision as more data come in, there were two further caveats.  Disruption and late repairs to North Sea oilfields is reckoned to have knocked GDP by 0.2 percent, while the post-Olympic effect would have taken off an estimated further 0.2 percent.  The government could claim that the economy would have grown by 0.1 percent in the final quarter of 2012 without those two effects, but even this would still have been a poor performance after several sluggish years.

What the figures do indicate is a need, becoming more urgent every day now, of measures to boost growth.  Siren voices call for more public spending or for measures to boost private spending, whereas it is investment that is needed, and investment requires confidence.  It has to be made easier for new businesses to start up and to prosper, and the one proven way to bring this about is through lower taxes and a lighter regulatory burden.  Instead of talking about bringing in more taxes by a clamp-down on avoidance, the government should be introducing measures to broaden the economic base by making investment and expansion worthwhile.

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The year of the dragon is drawing to a close.  It is my year, and has been an excellent one, but after the Chinese New Year on February 10th a new animal takes over the year.  I asked a friend to guess which one.  He demanded clues so I told him “forked tongue, slithers around, can sometimes be slimy.”  He looked puzzled.

“Year of the Politician?” he suggested.

“NO!” I told him, “the snake!”

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The Prime Minister’s speech on Britain’s future relationship with Europe was a game-changer.  He will renegotiate the terms of Britain’s membership of the EU, and put it before the electorate in an in-or-out vote.  European leaders who want the UK to be part of their federalist ambitions now have a clear choice.  If they do not make substantial concessions to British desires for greater independence within Europe, they know the vote will be lost and Britain will leave.  If they do make the concessions that might keep Britain in the EU, they have to accept a two-speed Europe instead of the unified federal state they seek.

Some European leaders will probably shrug and accept a British exit as the price they must now pay for closer union with each other.  Others will try to contrive enough concessions to achieve a vote to stay in, and will have to face the possibility that other member states might follow Britain’s lead to secure concessions of their own.  Either way, the ball is now firmly in their court.  In a single bold move David Cameron has changed the landscape of European politics.

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It fills me with wonderment that we can take pictures like these.  This one, chosen recently as Wired’s “Space photo of the day,” is of Saturn’s moon Phoebe, taken during a Cassini fly-by.  When I learned, as a boy, the names of Saturn’s (then) nine moons, Phoebe came last because it was the outermost, at four times the distance of Iapetus, the second most distant.  Because its orbit is eccentric, unlike the others, it was thought that it might have been captured.  It has a low albedo, meaning it is very dark, and was thought to have perhaps been an asteroid captured by Saturn.

Examination of its surface now suggests a more exciting explanation.  It seems to be made mostly of ice with a thin black covering, disturbed in places by meteor strikes.  This suggests it might be a Kuiper Belt object thrown out of its orbit, and then captured by Saturn.  This in turn means we can potentially study the original material of the solar system from relatively close quarters.

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Many City analysts think it might happen.  Roger Bootle thinks that the fourth quarter result for 2012 will show a contraction and quotes some contrasting figures.

UK GDP is still about 3pc down from where it was at the beginning of 2008. The US and Germany are up by 3pc and 2pc respectively. Incredibly, the equivalent figure for emerging Asia is up by 33pc, while China on its own is up by just short of 50pc.

Ernst and Young’s Item Club describe the Chancellor’s policy as “muddling through” and call for more innovative pro-growth measures.  The ASI takes the same line: that ‘Plan A’ is fine as far as it goes to restore fiscal integrity, but needs a corollary of measures to make business easier, especially for small and start-up firms.

There is a case for saying that what the UK really experienced was not a double-dip recession, but two separate recessions. The first was down to the banking crisis, and the second to the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis which followed later.  While the pound sterling was recently regarded as a ‘safe haven’ currency, 2013 has already seen it dip more than 2 percent against the dollar and 3 percent against the euro, as Richard Blackden points out. This could help UK exports, and maybe avoid those two negative quarters that would count as another recession.  Will the another dip come?  Odds seem to favour slow, steady but unexciting recovery unless government acts to boost growth.

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I went to Raindance Festival’s Saturday Film School at the Leicester Square Theatre in London. There were sessions on writing a screenplay, and dozens of tips on shooting movies and putting them together.  The principles of directing were explained, plus tips for those anxious to break into the movie industry.  The day was packed with good information.

I particularly liked Elliot Grove’s take on writing screenplay.  He explained the different settings in which movies take place (wilderness, village, town, city and oppressive city), and the different stock characters that inhabit movies.  What most beginners do not realize is that screenplays must be prepared and presented in the approved Hollywood style with the correct typeface, indentation, spacing, capitalization, etc.  Fortunately there is software that does this.  A page of screenplay corresponds to about a minute of movie time.

It was a great learning experience.  I didn’t come away determined to make a movie, but I did begin to consider turning one or more of my children’s stories into a screenplay…

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I’ve long had a fondness for Madeira wines, having been introduced to them as a student.  I was privileged to try the Cama de Lobos 1789 Solera (pre French Revolution), and later the 1815 ‘Waterloo,’ and I bought four bottles of the 1824, laid down while Thomas Jefferson was still alive.  I drank one of them with friends one very pleasant summer evening in Alexandria, Virginia, looking out from a balcony to some of Jefferson’s legacy illuminated across the Potomac.

Recently I attended a Madeira tasting at the Savile Club.  There were 12 different ones to taste, all of them Verdelhos with acidity overlaying a medium sweetness.  Some of them were spectacular, and I liked the 1895 Blandy’s best of all.  Dinner was served, of chicken soup, a delicious steak suet pudding, poached pear, and cheeses.  It by no means impacted upon the taste of the Madeiras, with the older ones described as having “an unusually complex character redolent of roasted nuts and sweet charcoal.”  That’s not a bad description.

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The new concourse at King’s Cross Station in London is very arresting architecturally, or at least its ceiling is.  Its shape rather calls to my mind the magnificent fan-vaulted ceiling of King’s College Chapel in Cambridge.  It is only the shape of the one that calls the other to mind.  King’s College Chapel is rightly renowned for its excellence, and features on television every year in “Carols From Kings,” usually recorded a few weeks earlier, but broadcast on BBC2 on Christmas Eve.

I am not a great fan of the positioning of the painting “Adoration of the Magi” by Peter Paul Rubens on the high altar of the chapel.  It is a magnificent work of art, but its position makes the altar look more like a museum display than a place of worship.  Its acceptance by the college and its placement in the chapel were controversial when the painting was given to the college because extensive work to lower the floor had to be done to accommodate it.  It remains controversial today.

The chapel is, however, one of Cambridge’s must-see sights, and is a splendid location for the organ recitals sometimes given by the organ scholars.

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