Twitteretter

I grew up in a poor corner of Western Europe, especially then, the Santiago de Compostela of the 1970s. I remember, as a child, watching with wide eyed fascination Wimbledon, the Tour de France, the World Cup, the Olympics, the ATP Masters, the V Nations, the chess World Champs or Vienna’s New Year’s concert. Events I grew up in love with, which, from my provincial perspective, seemed out of reach, confined to the realm of distant television voyeurism. Today, half a life later, I have been, in person, to all of them, at locations all over the World, except the last. Some, several times. And I just bought the tickets for the New Year’s concert. This got me musing about how much smaller the World has become, certainly for me, throughout my life. What seemed impossible in the 70s is now real life. Completely unbeknown to me, of course, this was already reality then for Spanish elites, those of ‘high breeding’, who will, I guess, never experience quite the wonderment that 1970s child does ...

I have a very apologetic piano learner at home at present. Truth is, she is pretty good, just rusty after years of oblivion following a long time spent at the Kaunas Conservatory in the somewhat distant past. I find the apologies unnecessary, and certainly less warranted than when, a few years ago, I had an unapologetic drums learner at home. Granted, the learning is not always tuneful or harmonious, in fact, it probably is not most of the time right now. We all like to witness accomplished performance, but we are typically not aware of the painstaking, long drawn process leading to it. For me, the process is as interesting, as fascinating, as the performance. The latter cannot exist without the former. Understanding how the performance is achieved, reached, adds to the experience of witnessing it. That is often missing from spectating and it can easily lead to the wrong conclusion, to the myth of talent over work. The very talented would often tell you their talent is built, not given...

The Christmas and New Year festivities are awash with traditions. For me, this includes a combination of Spanish and British ones, plus some family specials. For example, watching the Vienna New Year’s concert with a cup of espresso, followed by the ski jumping at Garmisch Panterkirchen. As I was growing up, I stuck to those even through some pretty terrible hangovers in the late eighties and nineties. After all, what good are traditions if one iconoclastically bails out just because one overdid the drink the night before? Some others have been abandoned through lack of practicality, a result of emigrating to the UK. And so a new combination of traditions is developed by me, to pass on, partly common with those of my parents, partly my own, partly Sandra’s contributions. This, I guess, is so much a part of our social environment as the political system or the economy, but this part we can protect and cherish, and their survival is entirely down to us. What are your traditions? Length: ...

Today I cooked a stew, but, distracted as I was, thinking of my next Twitteretter, I forgot to add salt. It is amazing the difference it makes. How can such a simple thing have such impact on flavour. Life has many mysteries, but one that really fascinates me is who, when, why and especially how did someone come up with the idea of adding salt to food? This seems like an extremely unlikely coincidence, the strangest serendipity. There is no clue, until you add the salt, that it will have such an enhancing effect, so how does it happen in the first place? I guess the key to the mystery is in the Law of Large Numbers. So many meals have been consumed over humanity’s history that possibly every single potential condiment has been added at some point. Some enhanced the flavour, some killed the diner. Trial and error, over such a large experiment, resulted in salt becoming a staple condiment, the champion of taste against insipidness. I wonder what amazing condiment we have not tried yet?...

It is so slender, so light, so visually unobtrusive, that it is easy to miss the great contribution the apostrophe makes to our language. Its elegant economy reminds you of Seb Coe’s gait or Hemingway’s prose. Just ‘, instead of ‘of the’. Such a saving! Most of us likely to go our whole life without ever noticing its contribution, missing, in our distraction, its power to simplify. Some of us may notice, at some point, but fail to grasp its importance. Probably use it sparingly, randomly alternating it with its much heavier, clumsier cousin. It is not until you start a project like Twitteretter, until every single character counts, that you come to appreciate the apostrophe in its full glory, its full power. I could not have kept my bargain, achieved my self-imposed limit whilst keeping my entire meaning, without its invaluable help. I know not how it came to be, or to whom we owe this magical resource. Even this small, inadequate homage, would have exceeded its length limit without it...

I’ve already introduced JJ Rousseau and his The Social Contract in previous Twitteretters. He is not only a very renowned philosopher, but quite possibly the most influential political author of our history. His work set the basis for the advent of modern democracy, providing the ideological backbone to the constitutional assemblies of the French Revolution and, nearly at the same time the other side of the Atlantic, to the American Revolution and its development of a sophisticated parliamentarian republic. However, and unlikely as it seems, Rousseau was hugely influential also by writing what is credited by many as the first romantic novel, La nouvelle Heloise, opening the floodgates of a genre that has produced incalculable pages and book sales of a volume unthinkable for philosophy works. Interestingly, and perhaps paradoxically, Rousseau both gave us the tools to challenge our social and political environment, to possibly improve it, and to evade it, reducing the urgency to do so...