F E Smith

Judge: I've listened to you for an hour and I'm none wiser.

Smith: None the wiser, perhaps, my lord but certainly better informed. 

- F E Smith 

- Quoted in "London Letter" by Francis Cowper in New York Law Journal (28 August 1961) 

Some further judicial exchanges: 

Judge: You are extremely offensive, young man!

Smith: As a matter of fact we both are; and the only difference between us is that I am trying to be, and you can't help it. 

Judge: What do you suppose I am on the bench for?

Smith: It is not for me, Your Honour, to attempt to fathom the inscrutable workings of Providence. 

Judge: "Are you trying to show contempt for this court, Mr Smith?" 

Smith: "No, My Lord. I am attempting to conceal it." 

Frederick Edwin Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead, (1872 – 1930), commonly known as F E Smith, was a British Conservative statesman, barrister and skilled orator noted for his wit, pugnacious views, hard living and drinking. A close friend of Winston Churchill, he died at 58 from pneumonia caused by cirrhosis of the liver.

Photographs, Art and . . .

"But the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old: 'It's clever, but is it Art?' "

- Rudyard Kipling, The Conundrums of the Workshops

My son sent me the pics above by telephone as examples of amazing art. He had seen them on Facebook.  They are by a 22 year old Italian artist Diego Fazio, who is self taught and who started as a tattoo artist. 

Some time ago I posted an item about the works of Alyssa Monks, who also works in the style known as photorealism. In commenting on her works, some of which appear below, I raised some questions about photorealism. Those questions remain, in my mind at least, pertinent and topical. 

The photorealism movement began in the late 60’s and early ‘70’s. The strict definition used to be that it was an art movement that used cameras and photographs to gather visual information which was then used to create a painting that resembled a photograph in its detail and realistic appearance. I’m not too sure that a modern day definition requires that the information be gathered by a camera, although perusal of photorealistic works often look like having been copied from photographs and, in many cases, are indistinguishable from photographs. These days the most basic computers and programs enable image manipulation to varying degrees, such that the term “photoshopped” has come to mean image manipulation. Just as artists can make paintings look like photographs, a computer user can make a photograph look like an art work. 

Some questions to ponder as you look at examples of photorealistic art: 

• How does photorealism affect you? Do you look at it for a second or two and move on? 

• If a painting looks exactly like a photograph, why not just take the photograph?

• Has the artist done more (or less) in the art work then simply paint a copy of a photograph? Is there something more than just an image? 

• Is photorealism more suited to some subject matter than others eg portraiture, naval vessels, military engagements? 

• What is the nature and function of art? Just to look pretty? To say something? To inspire emotion, discussion, to make us look at something in a different way, to challenge? Does photorealism do that? 

As usual, Mr Phelps, should any member of your team be...oops, wrong comment. 

What I meant to say was, as usual, I pose the questions, not supply answers or opinions. 

Here are some more examples of photorealism: 

Alyssa Monk

Tom Martin

Wayne Forrest creates his pieces with Adobe Illustrator 

Rob Hefferan 

Krzysztof Lukasiewicz

Dan Witz 

Richard Estes 

Now, who prefers the following, and why? Again, no answers given  . . .

Lenoid Afremov 

Picasso 

No, not shock jock Kyle Sandilands, but artist Jason Mecier (USA), who uses various materials to make collage portraits, the items used matching the nature or aspects of the person he is portraying.  Often the works are purchased by the subject of the portrait.

Amy Winehouse, made from pills 

Barak Obama, made from red, white and blue items 

Pink was so impressed with her portrait that she bought it and used it in her music video for Please Don't Leave Me

Just kidding you, this is from the movie Pleasantville, which has some thought provoking themes including art. If you haven’t ever seen it, it's worthwhile doing so.

Tuesday Quote

“One enlightened member said that in the past the Garrick Club excluded lunatics, gays and women; now the first two classes have been let in there’s no conceivable reason to bar the third.” 

- John Mortimer 

John Mortimer (1923-2009) was a British barrister, dramatist, screenwriter and author who is perhaps best known as the creator of the character Rumpole of the Bailey. Pictured above is John Mortimer (left) with Leo McKern, who played Rumpole in the TV series. 

The Garrick Club (above) is a gentlemen’s club in London that was founded in 1831 with the intention of "regenerating Drama". It is named after an esteemed 18th century actor, David Garrick, and was from the outset an exclusive club with restrictions on membership. The club today has about 1,300 members with membership being voted by secret ballot. The principle of membership is “that it would be better that ten unobjectionable men should be excluded than one terrible bore should be admitted.” The list of past and present members contains numerous well known judges, politicians, peers of the realm, lawyers, authors, playwrights, actors and people from the entertainment world. One of the most contentious aspects of the club is that it has consistently limited membership to males only, although women are allowed to attend the club as visitors. 

In 2011 Britain’s most senior female judge, Baroness Hale of Richmond, commented that "I regard it as quite shocking that so many of my colleagues belong to the Garrick Club, but they don't see what all the fuss is about." With a quarter of all senior judges belonging to the Club, Lady Hale went on to blame the culture fostered through club networking as one reason why so few women had reached the top judicial ranks. She pointed out that she is the only female out of 12 Supreme Court justices and that in comparison, in the US Supreme Court three out of nine justices are women; in Canada the figure is four out of nine (and the Chief Justice, Beverley McLachlin, is a woman); in Australia it is three out of seven; and in Israel it is seven out of fourteen. 

In 2011 the Club sent a letter to its members informing them that it had abandoned its prohibition on women guests from sitting at the hallowed centre table of its Coffee Room (above). The centre table of the Coffee Room had always been for male seating only.  For the first time, women would also now be allowed to visit the cocktail bar before 9 o'clock in the evening and venture "under the stairs". The relaxation of the rules was a response to the introduction of the Equality Act. Jonathan Acton Davis QC, the Garrick's chairman, said that the passing of the Equality Act meant that "each of those prohibitions was discriminatory and would be illegal". "All guests must receive the same treatment irrespective of gender", he added.  Members were left fuming and irate when, on the same day that the Equality Act was passed, Lady Antonia Fraser (below), the widow of playwright Sir Harold Pinter, walked defiantly into the Club and sat at the centre table.

Monday Pic

  

The Monday Pic today is a family picture. As regular readers of Bytes will know, I usually try to avoid posting too much personal stuff so as to avoid it becoming the equivalent of the old slide night (young people: ask your parents what they are). 

Nonetheless for the next 3 Mondays I am going to post a pic of each of my kids. I came across them whilst cleaning shelves and found some photo albums (young people: ask your parents what they are). In each case they have an appeal, imho, beyond a mere family photograph. 

The first pic in the series is of my son Thomas: 

The photo was taken when he had just turned 13. Whilst helping unload the grocery shopping, he walked past me just as I was doing something with my camera. I asked him to pause and lift the rockmelons (US readers: cantaloupes) that he was holding a little higher as I aimed my camera. He realised what I wanted to capture and he entered into the spirit. 

The expression says “I know this is naughty and cheeky but an adult is letting me do it so I am getting away with it!” 

I asked Thomas, now 23, whether he would let me post the pic and he responded, “Okay, but I'm embarrassed at the shirt.” In his defence, the shirt (those coloured markings are surfboards) was mine and he only wore it around the house. In my defence, it was given to by my mother and I didn’t wear it. Perhaps the appropriate place to post this pic is on the website Embarassing Family Photos. 

This is Thomas now: 

Waysides and Seeds

Whilst I pondered weak and weary on what to post today in Bytes, there came a visitor to my chamber door. Nahh, I don’t have a chamber door, ‘twas Kate with a coffee for me, only that and nothing more. But she did ask me to look into the origin of the phrase “fall by the wayside”. Having consulted many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, here are some comments.

 

To fall by the wayside means to fail to be completed, especially from lack of interest. 

The word “wayside” dates from about 1400, when it meant the side of the road, the side of the way. 

The phrase “fall by the wayside” comes from William Tyndale’s 1526 translation of the Bible. Tyndale’s translation was the first English Bible to draw directly from Hebrew and Greek texts, the first English one to take advantage of the printing press and first of the new English Bibles of the Reformation. Sadly, 10 years later he was executed by strangulation for heresy and his body was burnt at the stake. 

The passage from which the wayside quote comes is Luke 8:5.5: 

A sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it. 

Jesus develops the parable by saying that the seed of the sower falls in various locations but that only the seed – the Word of God – that falls on fertile ground grows. 

Which started me thinking about Onan, a minor Biblical character who has had a significant and profound effect on modern civilization. 

Onan makes his appearance in Genesis 38. His brother, Er, was killed by God for being wicked so under the rules that applied to that society, it was his duty to get his brother’s widow, Tamar, pregnant. I kid you not. Onan’s father, Judah, told him to do the right thing and put a bun in Tamar’s oven but Onan wasn’t having it. Perhaps he had sibling issues, maybe he was worried about liability for future child support, but at the climactic moment he withdrew, one of history’s first recorded instances of coitus interruptus. According to Genesis 38:9, “Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother.” Another example of seed falling by the wayside, so to speak. This mightily pissed off God, who then slew him as well. 

The consequence of the above was that Onan and his wasted seed were used as Biblical justification for the Catholic doctrine that sex is for procreation only. For the same reason masturbation was viewed as sinful, onanism being an alternative term for masturbation. 

Remember the musical number in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life? It includes the lyrics 

Every sperm is sacred. 

Every sperm is great. 

If a sperm is wasted, 

God gets quite irate. 

Let the heathen spill theirs 

On the dusty ground. 

God shall make them pay for 

Each sperm that can't be found 

If anyone is wondering how the story with Tamar finished, here is an episode synopsis: 

Judah told Tamar to live in his house with him and his wife until their third son, Shelah, grew up. After a long time, Judah’s wife died. When Judah went off to shear his sheep, Tamar put on a veil and waited at crossroads on the way to the sheep. She had seen that although Shelah had grown up, she had not become his wife. Judah, not seeing her face, thought she was a prostitute and asked to sleep with her, promising her a goat. She agreed, taking his staff and seal as security. She became pregnant and went back home. Judah, meanwhile, looked for the prostitute with whom he had slept so as to give her the goat and get back his possessions, only to be told that there was no known prostitute in the area. He headed home. Three months later he was told that Tamar was a prostitute and was 3 months pregnant. Judah hit the roof that his daughter in law was a prostitute. He ordered that she be burned to death. As she was led away she sent a message to him with his staff and seal, the message being that she was pregnant by the man who owned those items and asking whether he recognised them. He did, declaring that she was more righteous than he in that he had not given his son Shelah to her. She was freed and had twin boys, Pharez and Zerah, the ancestors of David. 

Oftentimes shows that are thought of as kids’ shows have risqué humour that only adults will detect and understand. That is the case with pantomime and it is also the case sometimes with shows such as The Simpsons. 

In one episode of the Simpsons there is a sign for Sneed’s Feed and Seed, a convenience store close to the farm on which Homer grew up. They sell seeds, candy and many other products. 

The sign says that the store was previously Chuck’s.

The Victoria Cross

In the last few years there have been 3 awards to Australian military personnel of the Victoria Cross, the highest military award for valour in the face of the enemy. The most recent award was last week. I recalled hearing, many years ago, that the medals were made from cannon seized in the Crimean War but I knew little else about the award. Some research came up with interesting facts . . . 

• The Victoria Cross is awarded to members of the armed forces of various Commonwealth countries and previous British Empire territories, of any rank in any of the services and to civilians under military command. 

• Since 1990, three Commonwealth countries that retain the Queen as head of state, which includes Australia, have instituted their own versions of the Victoria Cross. As a result the original Victoria Cross is sometimes referred to as the "Commonwealth Victoria Cross" or the "Imperial Victoria Cross", to distinguish it from the newer awards. 

• With the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854, Britain found itself engaged in a war against Russia after 40 years of peace. There was no standardised system of awards for gallantry, officers being eligible for the Order of the Bath and lesser officers for mention is despatches, plus promotions known as brevet promotions. In 1856, at approximately the same time as the end of the Crimean War, Queen Victoria authorised the creation of a new award that was independent of birth, class, rank, years of service and branch of service It was backdated to 1854 to recognise gallantry during the Crimean war. Intended to be simple in design, notwithstanding its supreme significance, Victoria vetoed the suggested name The Military Order of Victoria, preferring the simpler Victoria Cross. 

• At the first award ceremony in 1857 in Hyde Park, Victoria awarded 62 of the 111 Crimean War recipients. 

• Although commonly believed that the VC awards were made from bronze parts of two cannon captured from the Russians at the siege of Sevastapol, historian John Glanfield has proven by x rays of older VC medals that netal used was in fact from antique Chinese cannon. It has been speculated that the guns had been captured from the Chinese by the Russians and hence their use at Sevastapol. 

• The front of the medal bears the simple words “For valour”. The original recommendation had been that the wording read “For the brave” but Victoria likewise vetoed this proposal insofar as it suggested that only Victoria Cross recipients were brave. 

• The criteria for the award is “most conspicuous bravery, or some daring or pre-eminent act of valour or self-sacrifice, or extreme devotion to duty in the presence of the enemy.” 

• The 1856 specification for the award directed that the ribbon of the medal be red for army recipients and blue for naval recipients. After the formation of the Royal Air Force in 1918, King George V signed warrant that all recipients would now receive medals with red ribbons. Living recipients with blue ribbons had theirs changed to red. 

• In 1867 the Victoria Cross was extended to colonial troops. In that year Major Charles Heaphy received the award for action in the New Zealand land wars. Subsequent awards for colonial troops established the principle that recipients could receive an award even when operating independently of British troops. Hence 4 Victoria Crosses were awarded to Australian soldiers in Vietnam, even though Britain was not part of the conflict. 

• The original warrant creating the awards contains provision for the award to be forfeited. Eight Victoria Cross recipients have had their awards forfeited between 1861 and 1908 for various reasons: theft from fellow military personnel, bigamy, embezzlement and desertion. In 1920 King George V’s private secretary relayed the King’s strong opposition to forfeiture:  “The King feels so strongly that, no matter the crime committed by anyone on whom the VC has been conferred, the decoration should not be forfeited. Even were a VC to be sentenced to be hanged for murder, he should be allowed to wear his VC on the scaffold.” No forfeitures have taken police since 1908. 

• In 1991 Australia became the first Commonwealth country to institute a Victoria Cross award of its own. It is known as the Victoria Cross for Australia. It is identical in appearance to the British Victoria Cross. Canada established its own award in 1993 and New Zealand in 1999. 

• The Victoria Cross for Australia is awarded for “most conspicuous gallantry, or some daring or pre-eminent act of valour or self-sacrifice, or extreme devotion to duty in the presence of the enemy or belligerents.” 

• Australians have been awarded the Victoria Cross in the following conflicts: 

6 in the Boer War 1899-1902 

64 in World War I 1914-1918 

2 in North Russia 1919 

20 in World War II 1939-1945 

4 in Vietnam 1962-1972 

Nine of the crosses awarded in World War I were for Australians at Gallipoli. 

• The last Australian to be awarded the Imperial Victoria Cross was Warrant Officer Keith Payne for gallantry during the Vietnam War (24 May 1969). Under heavy enemy fire Payne instigated a daring rescue of more than forty men, many of them wounded, and led the party back to the battalion base. 

• Ninety nine Australians have been awarded the Victoria Cross. Ninety six Australians have been awarded the Imperial Victoria Cross and three Australians have been awarded the Victoria Cross for Australia: Trooper Mark Donaldson (2009), Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith (2011) and Corporal Daniel Keighran (2012): 

Trooper Mark Donaldson

Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith

Warrant Officer Keith Payne (VC awarded 1969), left, and Trooper Mark Donaldson (VC awarded 2009), right, with Corporal Daniel Keighran (VC awarded 2012), centre

• Although the Australian Army Ceremonial Manual states that "Victoria Cross winners, unless they are serving commissioned officers in the armed forces, are not saluted", traditionally VC winners in Australia are saluted by all ranks up to the highest. When Trooper Donaldson was presented his VC in 2009, defence force chief Angus Houston saluted him and said: "As the highest-ranking member of the defence force, there has been no current serving member that I salute, until now. Tradition holds that even the most senior officer will salute a Victoria Cross recipient as a mark of the utmost respect for their act of valour."