Cleaners on Strike

I took this picture in Bilbao Airport. The cleaners were on strike, but this mess wasn’t done by careless passengers, but by the cleaners themselves. They were trying point out how the world would look like without them. Fair enough, but this form of protest comes at a price: they will have to clean everything once the strike is over, and they were quite zealous spreading garbage around.

Bilbao

I’ve just got back from Bilbao, the largest city in the Basque Country, northern Spain. To be honest, I didn’t expect much from this place and if it wasn’t for professional reasons I’m not sure whether I would have ever visited this city. I remember in the ‘90s the infamous ETA making the news much too often: treacherous attacks and bombings killing innocent people and spreading terror throughout Spain, but mostly in the Basque Country. Not the first choice tourist destination.

But 10-15 years is a long time. Long enough for Bilbao to completely change its image. The city made its fortune during the industrial revolution especially because of its iron resources and shipbuilding industry and kept its industrial tradition for the most part of the last century. But heavy industry is difficult in modern times, so Bilbao has gone through a fantastic metamorphosis that completely changed its image. Major urban developments can be seen everywhere including a brand new transport system that would make London look half a century behind. Iron avant-garde artwork can be seen scattered throughout the city, telling the story of this place. But most of all, it has that European style that I so much love. The old town (Casco Viejo) is just great, with its numerous tapas bars, narrow roads and historical sites. A friend of mine grew up in the region and told me that traditionally people go on a tavern crawl in the evenings having small glasses of wine with pinxtos (very tasty slices of bread served with various ingredients) and singing traditional songs between stops. We did just that and it was fantastic to see all these people in the streets enjoying the evening. We didn’t do the singing part though, but some people were.
One evening I had a guided tour at the world famous Bilbao Guggenheim Museum. It was for the first time that abstract art made a lot of sense and carried a message. The building appears to be designed at random and has a lot of very reflective curves. It’s covered in titanium. The highlight of the permanent collection was a series of massive steel sculptures (with a layer of rust) called “The Matter of Time”. Among the temporary exhibition I’ve seen some work by the Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang. Ignorant as I am, I’ve never heard of him, but apparently he’s quite famous for using gun powder and explosions to create some of his art. Sometimes his work carries a political message, but critics say he’s position is often opportunistic.
One afternoon I went for a long walk along the coast. The sunshine and the sea reminded me how great it is to live in a warmer country. It completely changes one’s perception on life. It didn’t quite change ETA yet, maybe because in Bilbao it rains more than everywhere in Spain. :) But the major investments in this city have definitely had an impact. And I guess this is the long-term solution for social unrest. Give people jobs, entertainment and a better life and they will slowly became rational and sit at the same table with you.
Some more photos here.

The Philosophy of a Physicist

1. Stay as general as possible and work out the main principles.
2. There is always the odd example.

London Aquarium rip-off

We had some friends visiting us from abroad, so on Sunday we went to London. Since we don’t live there, we joined them and became tourists for a few hours. Our friends insisted that we visit the aquarium as quite a few adverts and guide books say it’s a must. “Your wish is our command” we said and we joined the queue. As it turned out, the place is actually a must not. A total rip-off. We spent half an hour there only because it was raining outside. Being very central, the underground building is inundated with tourists who fight for every good viewing spot, making the experience even less enjoyable. In addition the aquarium is being refurbished so some sections are not open for visitors. In every normal place, the whole site would be closed while major construction work takes place, but not here. We actually had to carefully avoid the builders and watch out for things falling. This is bad management and pure greed.

I’m sure the aquarium will look much better when the new £5 million renovation will come to an end, but I’m not going back. Actually two days later I had to go to London again, this time just by myself and since I had a few hours to kill, I decided to do something I always wanted: visit the National History Museum. It’s absolutely fantastic and free. It’s also too big to see in a day, especially if you’re interested in finding out everything about Tyrannosaurus Rex. Next door is the Science Museum, which can be great if you have a slight interest in nature, science and technology. They have a nice section on space travel with some life-size rockets on display. Walk for another 10 minutes towards Hyde Park and you have the Serpentine Galleries. All these for free! London has so much more to offer than an aquarium in construction overcharging its visitors.

Meet Larry Flynt

Larry Flynt is an American publisher most notably known for producing Hustler, a pornographic entertainment magazine. He came to the Union last week and I went to see him. The man is in a wheelchair. A golden plated wheelchair. I must say, I was expecting a much more interesting person given his background (!) but by the end I was quite disappointed. Anyway, two things are worth mentioning.

1. He spoke about freedom of speech as being a fundamental right in a democratic society, protecting not the speech that you like, but the speech that you don’t like. True! However, the question is how far can you go, and what sort of things can you hide behind this freedom? One can say that pornography is almost an accepted form of entertainment, but as it was pointed out by many of the people there, Hustler goes beyond these limits. The magazine has been criticised for treating with humour some very serious and disturbing issues like rape, child molestation and incest. This can be very painful for those who’ve experienced such traumas, but even more, it’s sending completely the wrong message. No matter how you put it, gang-rape is not entertainment. It is a crime! Many questions were asked, most of them to do with ethical issues, but very few answers were given. At the end, as if trying to pull out an ace to make up for the poor performance, Larry Flynt came up with one of his supposedly funny (and famous, as I later found out) lines: “From my experience I can tell you there are two types of people who oppose pornography: Those who don’t know what they’re talking about and those who don’t know what they’re missing.” Silence…
2. About 150 people came to this talk, most of them students. In a secular multicultural place like Oxford, it can be sometimes challenging to talk about common moral values. People with different backgrounds often have conflicting views on many ethical topics. But Larry Flynt’s talk and the discussion that followed made me see that the same people can still set an absolute reference when it comes to some subjects. Like the subject of this debate. There was a remarkable convergence of ideas from the public that in the end seemed to be saying the same thing: Yes, we can talk about moral relativism and push the limits quite far, but some values are universal and hard to change, even by Larry Flynt.

Martisor

Where I come from, spring is a spectacular event, nothing less than amazing. After a long and severe winter, at some point in March, the first snowdrops pop up here and there, telling the world that the nature is about to wake up again. And what an awakening that is! Flowers, bugs, plants, birds, bees, trees burst with such an incredible energy that every year for a few weeks everyone suddenly becomes much younger. The change is dramatic and the nature goes absolutely crazy.

Of course, the beginning of the spring had to be celebrated somehow. The tradition is called “Martisor” and it might have been around since the ancient Rome. The closest translation for “Martisor” that I can think of is “dear or little March”. On the first of March, men offer women little good luck charms consisting of small symbolic objects (flowers, horseshoes, hearts, etc.) tied to a red and white string. It was believed that those wearing the small amulet will be healthy and wealthy for the year to come. I wonder why only women get to wear it though… Surely men want to be prosperous as well, maybe sometimes even more than women. Never mind…
I found two fantastic pieces of music, telling the glorious story of the spring. It won’t mean much to you unless you speak Romanian, but who knows. The artist is Tudor Gheorghe.

Tudor Gheorghe - Salcamii



Tudor Gheorghe - Primavara