10June1997

My dear folks,

Hello from Mave & me on a sultry London Wednesday afternoon. We’ve been listening to Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No 2, a quite exquisite work that has been refreshing me (& Mave for all I know) in those parts that ordinary music cannot reach. Mave is settled in a fat stripe on the study carpet, having roused himself from the sunny patch on the landing where he spent the morning belly up in the warmth.

This is one of those letters where I have nothing of importance to tell you. I may as well admit it at the start. I have, if you like, the luxury of a couple of pages, the English language & an hour in which to muse. As I walked down to the bank this a.m., I was recalling those grim post-birthday moments in the 50s when Mother sat me down at the dining room table in Durban to write thank you letters to my distant aunts. This was the sacrifice required to get my hands on the 10-shilling notes that had arrived inside birthday cards together with good wishes. I didn’t feel one way or another about the good wishes, but those 10-bob notes were really handy – & worth a few difficult paragraphs. Even so, after assuring my aunts that I was well & hoping that they were well & thanking them for remembering me, I was overcome by a sense of desperation. What on earth did people have to say to each other in letters? I guess you discover in time that you don’t have to say anything to write letters.

It makes me wonder whether I’d still write letters if there was no one to write to. I’m not sure. I think there are lots of people who go to church & sing hymns joyfully even though they entertain doubts about whether God is listening. My latest book on God & the universe, The Fire in the Equations (Science, Religion & the Search for God) by Kitty Ferguson, asks questions of this nature. For example, whether, if God made the universe, “He” had any choice; or could have made a different kind of universe obeying different laws. Of course, I have absolutely no idea. But I was quite fascinated by a computer experiment she recounts. It’s to do with the nature of evolution & that old tale about sufficient monkeys with sufficient typewriters eventually hacking out the works of Shakespeare.

Well, what a scientist (Richard Dawkins) did was to choose a single (goal) expression from Shakespeare, “Methinks it is like a weasel”. He then got his computer to generate randomly a “parent” sequence of 28 letters & spaces (& it came up with “WDMNLT DTJBKWIRZREZLMQCO P”. Next he programmed the computer to repeat this sequence over & over again, but occasionally to make random “errors” – to ape the mutations one finds in nature. After it had done this thousands of times, the computer had to seek out the line closest to the goal. This closest line, “the second generation”, became the new “parent” sequence that once again was repeated thousands of times with the odd mutation. And so on. Thirty generations later, the parent sequence had become: METHINGS IT ISWLIKE B WECSEL. The 43rd generation reaches the goal. The experiment took less than an hour, a lightning replay of an evolutionary model.

The author recalls the experiment to ask whether human beings might have been designed in a master plan in which evolving creatures come closer & closer to a divine model until they too – like the parent sequence – eventually reach the goal. She doubts it for reasons I won’t go into.

I am not sure that the experiment proves anything at all, except that it would take vast numbers of monkeys an awfully long time to complete even a page of Shakespeare, never mind his works.

At this point, we are hearing live the outcome of the first round of voting by Conservative MP’s for a new party leader. By a hair’s breadth the villainous Michael Howard has come last. This pleases me. My preference, Kenneth Clark, has come first. But I suspect that it is the young, bland William Hague, who will eventually win the contest as he is the only figure with a hope of uniting the bitterly divided party. Let me add that I do not have an interest to declare in the outcome.

Elections have been much in the news. Canada, Algeria, France & Ireland on the heels of Iran & the UK. It’s kept us on the boil at work. I was nearing the end of a busy shift on Monday morning when 2 Turks hijacked an Air Malta plane to Germany, sending us back into crazy mode for the last 4 hours. Like most hijacks these days, it came to a comparatively quick & bloodless end, coinciding with the dying minutes of the shift & prompting another frantic burst of activity to get the “surrender” pictures into the output. I don’t like hijackers.

I got around last night to ironing the pile of washing that I’ve been sharing the dining room table with for the past week. All done. I’ve a sense of satisfaction & a dozen ironed shirts for my troubles. I put ironing off but it only rates a minus 3 stars on my dislike meter. Hoovering is minus 4 & cleaning is the pits, minus 5. Still, I’ve whipped myself up into a state of steely determination to get both done within the next day – knowing that they won’t otherwise be done until I get back from Portugal in 12 days time. On the other hand, I’ve come to take growing pleasure in tending the patio where the flower display has improved out of all recognition since I took Stef’s advice & replenished the troughs. There’s a profusion of pink geraniums lining the front window boxes as well.

My weight continues to creep downwards in spite of my easing up on my dietary regime & taking the odd glass of wine “for my health”. It’s now 84 kgs on my fairly optimistic scale. I feel much better for it, down from the 95 kgs I’d reached by the end of last year. Mave, on the other hand, thinks dieting is strictly for the birds. He’s been rubbing his chin on the wall & peering at me sideways in his most alluring manner in a bid to inspire me into providing an early supper. I am underwhelmed.

En route to the bank, health shop, etc, I dived into “His & Hers” for a quickie from Elaine. I emerged, shorn, 30 mins later after our usual discussion of “life & times”. Elaine (late teens) & Vee (mid-thirties) believe in work & play. They get paid in cash on Fridays, which is the way they like it. What they don’t spend on bills, they spend on fun. They’d both had a wonderful day at “Pride” (the Gay Pride march) & were working on a trip to Glastonbury for the festival. Elaine is also planning a Mediterranean holiday with some under 30’s group. All booze, bop & beach. She’d had a wonderful holiday last year & can’t wait for the next one. They are my conduit to the other world – my wormholes to other universes.

Jones, I had a call from Dublin today from a man who’s very interested in taking Seventh Heaven from 5 to 13 July. I’ve sent him bumph & am awaiting confirmation. I’m off tonight. Wednesday I begin the first of 5 consecutive night shifts & Monday I fly to Portugal for a week. So you shall be left in peace for a while.

Blessings
T