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Ginkgo cutting feeling a little hazy

Have always loved ginkgo trees–and cycle past several on my way through Grosvenor Square on my way to 2 Bloomsbury Place.  Sometimes take in leaves as they change through the seasons, but a few days back I took a twig–and we put it in a glass of water, with a touch of sugar, where it seemed to flourish.  Rather than having it develop a sweet tooth, I asked Sam to release the poor thing into the herbaceous border, in the hope that it might just strike root.  Her photo above suggests that it was feeling a bit woozy as it struggled to find its feet, but who knows?  A symbol, perhaps, of our constant struggle to make sense of this universe of ours–and of all the tides, current and eddies into which we find ourselves drawn.

Managed to deeply scratch my head on a fig tree, recently pruned and so sharp-edged, as I dragged fresh compost I had dug out of the heap this morning. The thing is so full that it’s blowing out one of the railway sleepers used to make its walls.  So action is overdue, if only I could work out how to do it without scalping myself.   

Quantum eye

In an era where TV seems to be doing its very best to prove the old adage, X channels and nothing on, we have been resorting to watching DVDs: Quantum of Solace, where the addition of an ‘e’ turns a Green into a villain, In Bruges, which seemed to lose a bit of momentum, but then took off towards the end, and Shine a Light, Scorsese’s film of The Stones in concert, where the highlight–for me at least–was the duet between Jagger and Christina Aguilar.

Have also been reading Caroline Murphy’s Isabella de’ Medici–slow to build, but her father Cosimo comes across as strikingly modern and liberal in some ways, at least by the standards of the time, and she seems to have been quite a handful. In the spirit of spring-cleaning, have also been moving cart-loads of books into the rooms that our painter, Andy, has repainted. Makes me realise just how behind I have got in reading the books I buy.  

Otherwise, have been catching up with email, doing email interviews, catching up with old paperwork and beginning to think through upcoming presentations in Paris and New York.  The weather is typical Bank Holiday fare, overcast and too cool to sit out in the garden.  But the birds are wonderfully lively and various plants and shrubs are teetering on the edge of bursting into flower.

Interesting to see 10 Belgrave Square, where I worked in the Earthlife days of the mid-1980s, on sale for an extraordinary £100 million–in the midst of the downturn.  How much can change over 25 years! Recently, Elaine also spotted a flat for sale in my grandmother Isabel’s old house at 4 Lennox Gardens in Knightsbridge. But I suppose there comes a time when you live in a city for pushing 40 years when you have lived in, worked in or visited a sufficient number of places to have an ongoing sense of déjà something.

An interesting New York Times op-ed on the work of British economist Frederick Soddy on ecological economics can be found here.  Peter Kinder sent the link to John Fullerton, who came in to see us at Bloomsbury Place this week, and myself.  Would be wonderful if the twenty-first century could embrace this sort of uncommon sense.