Middlefocus

  Preparing for our trip to the Czech Republic I purchased a copy of Vaclav Havel's Power of the Powerless with an introduction by Professor Timothy Snyder. I've made this contract with myself that wherever I go abroad I'll delve into appropriate literature from the country, get a book, bring it with me and read it when there.  A cultural backcloth to the visit. In situ reading. Close to our hotel in Prague we spotted this memorial to the Velvet Revolution and returned to picture it with the book. Power of the Powerless is a challenging although instructive read. Notes: Check out the Vintage edition of the book here. See this related Wikipedia article here. Find the Velvet Revolution Memorial on Národní Trida in Prague

Here’s something I learned last week. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being used to produce wine. Really? What about the vintner? I always thought that their practised, artful skill is what wine making was all about it. Technology and machinery in the vineyard by all means but in the alchemy of turning grape to wine surely not. There’s a first time for everything and so it was back to school for a lesson on and taste of AI-curated wine. School in this case was a wine appreciation class where a dozen of us meet each week in a local social club. Our tutor - we’ve come to look upon him as a benefactor - selects several wines he thinks we’ll like and we spend a couple of hours tasting our way through them and comparing notes and picking favourites. In a recent class many of us also sampled for the first time “orange” wine and that might be the subject of a future post. But back to that AI curation. CTZN - Luminous Drift is a wine blend from South Eastern Australia, apparently bottled in Lo...

  Sense? Pencil shavings. Trees. Fallen by the wayside. Sawdust. Pooled like blood.

The beautiful church in central France where I met the Refugee Woman and Child I wrote the following poem 50 years ago. Scalded by an experience I found that I could only express my feelings through writing it. Whatever the poem lacks in style and structure, the act of going home and penning it had a powerful effect. Powerful enough to have stayed with me for 50 years. Still vivid in my memory. I had been at a church service in a town in France and during the ceremony a woman, clearly a refugee, head covered in a blanket and carrying an infant made her way up the aisle through the congregation reaching out her hand for money. It was a direct approach to a captive audience. I remember seeing the celebrant taking her to the side and discree tly giving her some money. She hadn’t finished just yet however and continued her path through the church, having much less success with others in attendance. Then our eyes met. The look in those eyes. Defiant dignity. I felt really uncomfortable as s...

  "Make sure," advised the museum art curator, "to always buy the catalogue of important art exhibitions you attend." She explained that a great deal of time and effort would have gone into bringing the various items together from different collections or galleries around the world. It would be fairly certain that those pictures would never again be together in the same exhibition. Since that talk about French art given to our Belfast French Cercle around 15 years ago I've heeded her advice as often as interest and my wallet would allow. Pity I wasn't aware of her good counsel for one exhibition I attended when I had just turned 20 and when such advice was beyond my maturity. Still, it was an exhibition that left an indelible mark and an enduring appreciation. Surrealist exhibition It was 1971 in Bordeaux. I had been working there as a moniteur / supervisor in a summer camp just outside the city. Having been given a free day away from the duties of the camp ...