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We Need Beauty and Positivity | UK Column Interviews · UK Column Radio

0:09
Speaker 1: Hello, everyone, this is Diane rasmuson with UK Column.
0:12
Speaker 2: I'm really happy to be joined today by Chris Dobson,
0:15
Speaker 2: who I'm really happy to say is going to be
0:17
Speaker 2: a new contributor to UK Column. He's got some interesting
0:21
Speaker 2: things to talk about that he'll be covering over the
0:24
Speaker 2: next little while, both in written and in podcast forum.
0:28
Speaker 2: But I think since he's here with me, I will
0:30
Speaker 2: just let him do his own introduction. So Chris again,
0:33
Speaker 2: welcome to UK Column. What would you like to tell
0:35
Speaker 2: everyone about yourself?
0:38
Speaker 3: Hello Diane.
0:39
Speaker 4: Firstly, it's a great honor to be a contributor to
0:42
Speaker 4: UK Column.
0:42
Speaker 2: Now.
0:42
Speaker 4: I've been watching the column for a few years since
0:45
Speaker 4: the COVID fiasco and it's great to be working with
0:49
Speaker 4: you all. So I suppose you want a little bit
0:51
Speaker 4: of a backstory for the audience.
0:54
Speaker 3: Yes, please, okay.
0:57
Speaker 4: I originally come from the world of art and antiques restoration.
1:03
Speaker 4: I started in nineteen eighty five. I established a studio
1:08
Speaker 4: to actually reconstruct and then later restore armor and edged weapons,
1:13
Speaker 4: and as time went on, I began doing more and
1:17
Speaker 4: more restoration, and my scholastic approach to the work was
1:24
Speaker 4: rewarded with me being granted the position of Master Armorer
1:29
Speaker 4: to the Royal Armories at the Royal Armories Museum in Leeds.
1:32
Speaker 4: I did a stint there, but I've been working in
1:36
Speaker 4: around in four museums for about forty years now, in
1:39
Speaker 4: the field initially of applied arts, working with arms and armor,
1:43
Speaker 4: and then I moved into graphic art paintings, and then
1:45
Speaker 4: sculpture and even architecture, and that's what I'm going to
1:50
Speaker 4: be bringing to the UK Column a little more of
1:53
Speaker 4: that in a moment. First of all, I think you
1:56
Speaker 4: wanted to know how I actually got here, and my
2:00
Speaker 4: story is the same as a lot of contributors to
2:03
Speaker 4: the column. I effectively said no to the wrong person
2:08
Speaker 4: and that got me canceled in a way I was
2:11
Speaker 4: never expecting. I started off, as I said, working on armor,
2:17
Speaker 4: so I said no to that particular person and that
2:22
Speaker 4: was when my work in the antiques field came under
2:25
Speaker 4: attack very heavily.
2:27
Speaker 3: And as time.
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Speaker 4: Went on, I lost more and more and more clients
2:32
Speaker 4: and that pushed me into more writing and that came
2:38
Speaker 4: under attack as well. So in the end, publication after
2:41
Speaker 4: publication not good. But I'd been looking at art since
2:47
Speaker 4: I started, really as a form of reference for my
2:50
Speaker 4: work on arms and armor and paintings aren't photographs, but
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Speaker 4: that they are extremely useful for studying that sort of thing,
2:59
Speaker 4: and I fell in with the art itself. I visited
3:03
Speaker 4: Florence for the first time in nineteen ninety one, and
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Speaker 4: for various reasons, I'd never really felt at home anywhere
3:10
Speaker 4: in the world before then, and that was when I
3:12
Speaker 4: thought home, that's it. And I began really studying the
3:17
Speaker 4: art then. And then quickly back to how I came
3:20
Speaker 4: to you. I began, since my publications had come under attack,
3:25
Speaker 4: I then began producing podcasts, which predictably came under attack
3:31
Speaker 4: from the same people, and so it just pushed me
3:35
Speaker 4: more and more and more in that direction. And I
3:41
Speaker 4: was when the COVID thing hit. I had originally foolishly
3:46
Speaker 4: been watching the BBC and other corporate media, and then
3:51
Speaker 4: I began, you know, looking at more alternative media online
3:56
Speaker 4: and I came across the UK column, came across people
4:00
Speaker 4: at James delling Pole on Odyssey, and my reaction when
4:04
Speaker 4: I was looking at you guys was frankly, should I
4:07
Speaker 4: even be looking at this stuff?
4:09
Speaker 3: Should I even I?
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Speaker 4: Am I safe doing it? Or am I going to
4:12
Speaker 4: wind up on a government list, not realizing I already was,
4:15
Speaker 4: but not for any heenous crime, simply for saying wrong
4:19
Speaker 4: to no to the wrong person. So I wound up
4:25
Speaker 4: becoming a guest on various podcasts, as we discussed previously,
4:29
Speaker 4: and that led to germ Warfare.
4:32
Speaker 3: Now on the UK column James delling.
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Speaker 4: Pole and this this is it. Finally, I made a
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Speaker 4: picture to the column about wanting to promote something which
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Speaker 4: is about positivity, which is about natural God given human
4:48
Speaker 4: creativity in this time where we're getting absolutely assaulted to
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Speaker 4: drive everything online, to have our natural culture, our art
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Speaker 4: history driven from us. That's why I pitched the ideas
5:02
Speaker 4: of the column, and I'm honored to have been accepted
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Speaker 4: by you.
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Speaker 2: Well, it's really great to have you here because, as
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Speaker 2: our audience will know, for those who have been watching
5:13
Speaker 2: us for a while, with my background in library, library
5:16
Speaker 2: science and information science, and you know, I went through
5:20
Speaker 2: similar stories as well, which people can find in other places.
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Speaker 2: But ultimately I really feel like one of the things
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Speaker 2: that they're trying to do is you will know from
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Speaker 2: your area of the world as well. In museum which
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Speaker 2: is really not that far from libraries, actually, is that
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Speaker 2: one of the things that we need to be doing
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Speaker 2: and that we were trained to do is to preserve culture,
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Speaker 2: preserve history, and even if history wasn't perfect in the past,
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Speaker 2: which it never is, the idea is that if we
5:46
Speaker 2: don't preserve it, we can't learn from the past to
5:49
Speaker 2: make a better future.
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Speaker 1: So I think that this can be.
5:53
Speaker 2: Potentially looked at as part of the agenda of when
5:56
Speaker 2: we talk about the issues of decolonization, which we won't
5:58
Speaker 2: get into in detail and here, but basically this idea
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Speaker 2: that we're destroying the history of Western civilization in Western
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Speaker 2: culture by attacking cultural institutions like libraries and museums. So
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Speaker 2: it's really great to hear, and I know we've discussed
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Speaker 2: this that you will be taking a positive approach because
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Speaker 2: the more that we talk about things that are positive
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Speaker 2: of the beauty and the aesthetics of art and sculpture
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Speaker 2: and for me written words, is that's one of the
6:25
Speaker 2: things that we can do to fight the things that
6:28
Speaker 2: are being forced upon us.
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Speaker 1: So thank you so much for bringing your knowledge and
6:32
Speaker 1: your skills to the column. We really appreciate your help.
6:35
Speaker 4: Okay, well, I've been writing about Florentine art and histories.
6:42
Speaker 4: You'll see behind me a few titles since two thousand now.
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Speaker 4: And what we're going to do this is partly a
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Speaker 4: response to this ludicrous idea of Tartaria and you know,
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Speaker 4: looking at all these neoclassical buildings, saying people couldn't have
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Speaker 4: built those with hammers and chisels and their bare hands.
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Speaker 3: They couldn't have done it. This is nonsense. This is
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Speaker 3: a deliberate.
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Speaker 4: Tactic, I think, in the overall strategy of destroying our culture,
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Speaker 4: of just saying that ordinary human beings simply couldn't have
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Speaker 4: built these things. Well, yes they could, Yes they did.
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Speaker 4: They created absolutely stunning paintings, amazing sculpture. And what I'm
7:28
Speaker 4: going to do in the podcasts that we're going to
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Speaker 4: be covering over the next months is I'm going to
7:33
Speaker 4: be showing absolute master works. And because I started life
7:37
Speaker 4: as a craftsman and an artist, and I'm going to
7:40
Speaker 4: explain how they were made. It's as simple as that,
7:43
Speaker 4: because humans made them, and my work was carried out
7:49
Speaker 4: literally with hammers and a forge originally. And if you
7:52
Speaker 4: can do that with metal, fire and a hammer, you
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Speaker 4: can create absolute wonders. If you were working in the
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Speaker 4: studios as some of the great Renaissance masters in Florence.
8:02
Speaker 4: It's an amazingly creative world. So what we're going to
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Speaker 4: do is we're going to start for the first three
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Speaker 4: shows in Florence itself, and we're going to look at
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Speaker 4: the birth of the Florentine Renaissance, how it started, the
8:16
Speaker 4: fact that it could have happened really only because of
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Speaker 4: the money there. So out of the banking, out of
8:21
Speaker 4: the merchant class, the oligarchy that ruled Florence, they poured
8:27
Speaker 4: money into art as a form of patronage, as a
8:30
Speaker 4: form of political power, and that incident is reflected in paintings,
8:35
Speaker 4: as in Paolocello's San Romano so called series of three
8:40
Speaker 4: I would differ and an artist might be commissioned by
8:45
Speaker 4: somebody saying that in the Medici family to produce a
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Speaker 4: work of art which might only be displayed in private
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Speaker 4: rooms might be displayed publicly with an overt political message.
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Speaker 4: And sometimes this is an amazing thing because these people
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Speaker 4: were making so much money at the time, particularly from banking,
9:02
Speaker 4: which was usury and so are mortal sin to Catholics,
9:06
Speaker 4: they endowed works of art as a way of buying
9:09
Speaker 4: themselves literally out of hell. So we have some of
9:12
Speaker 4: these extraordinary works of art purely because of the sheer
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Speaker 4: fear that these immensely wealthy and powerful people had that
9:20
Speaker 4: once they left this mortal coil, they were going to
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Speaker 4: burn forever. So art is a way of trying to
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Speaker 4: buy yourself into paradise. Once we've done that, once we've
9:31
Speaker 4: looked at Florence, then we're going to go further afield.
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Speaker 4: We're going to look at symbolism in art. We're going
9:37
Speaker 4: to cast back to the ancient world and the Middle Ages.
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Speaker 4: We're going to come forward to the Baroque, and we're
9:43
Speaker 4: going to go to other cities like Rome, like Siena,
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Speaker 4: like Venice. We're going to cast around a lot even
9:50
Speaker 4: north of the Alps as well. And this is all
9:52
Speaker 4: going to be with a view to human beings are
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Speaker 4: naturally created to be creative and there's no reason why
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Speaker 4: anybody can't have a go at this sort of thing
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Speaker 4: and should do.
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Speaker 2: So.
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Speaker 4: All of these shows are going to be an absolutely
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Speaker 4: positive move to get people involved in creative pursuits.
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Speaker 2: That sounds wonderful, I you know, for me, it's always
10:16
Speaker 2: been music in my past. For most of my life,
10:20
Speaker 2: I've played flute. I've been interested in flutes. I've been
10:24
Speaker 2: a very very dedicated classical music a concert go and
10:28
Speaker 2: listener for many years, and you know which brings.
10:32
Speaker 1: Me back to the column.
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Speaker 2: Of course, our new magazine, which you know issues one
10:35
Speaker 2: and two are behind me here and issue three will
10:37
Speaker 2: be coming out shortly, which I'm very happy you'll be
10:39
Speaker 2: contributing to, which I want to get to in a minute.
10:42
Speaker 2: But that's one of the things that I try to
10:44
Speaker 2: do as well, is I've been contributing reviews of music
10:48
Speaker 2: to the column in the culture section, which is kind
10:51
Speaker 2: of in the back of the magazine, to try to
10:53
Speaker 2: balance out all of the really heavy geopolitical, hard hitting
10:57
Speaker 2: news articles which we have in the magazine, which are
11:00
Speaker 2: important to cover in the magazine as well as you
11:02
Speaker 2: know on the news programs. But I think you will
11:06
Speaker 2: all find that, even if we're not public about it,
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Speaker 2: there are most people at UK column play some type
11:12
Speaker 2: of musical instrument. I won't go into details, but if
11:15
Speaker 2: you've been to some of our live events previously, you
11:17
Speaker 2: will have seen Brian playing violent and me playing flute.
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Speaker 1: For me, it's usually after a few glasses of wine
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Speaker 1: before I'll.
11:23
Speaker 2: Get in front of the audience, but and then I
11:26
Speaker 2: said much better obviously. But you know, it is kind
11:31
Speaker 2: of that thing where if we can we get asked
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Speaker 2: a lot frequently, you know, what can we do?
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Speaker 1: This is also depressing.
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Speaker 2: This is all you know, there's war, and there's you know,
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Speaker 2: control and digital surveillance and all these things that are
11:44
Speaker 2: coming after us. Well, this is one way that I
11:47
Speaker 2: think we all need to be doing something, doing something,
11:50
Speaker 2: not only to make ourselves sort of deal with it,
11:52
Speaker 2: and because it is so refreshing and so human to
11:55
Speaker 2: be part of humanist activities if you want to call
11:58
Speaker 2: them humanism or artisticivities, but also I think it is
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Speaker 2: a way to fight the things that are coming up
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Speaker 2: against us. I'm really interested as well, you know, having
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Speaker 2: the privilege of being the commissioning editor for the column
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Speaker 2: and looking at your I've obviously read your article for
12:16
Speaker 2: the issue that will be coming out next month.
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Speaker 1: Again, thank you for your contribution.
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Speaker 2: One of the things that struck me, and I'm not
12:23
Speaker 2: going to go into detail about your article so that
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Speaker 2: people actually buy the magazine, but one of the things
12:28
Speaker 2: that I found so interesting that I was thinking about
12:30
Speaker 2: quite a bit when you were talking about these you know,
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Speaker 2: sort of these destructions and things that have happened in
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Speaker 2: the past. And as you've just said, powerful people being
12:37
Speaker 2: in control is that it made me think that what
12:41
Speaker 2: we're seeing right now is not something new to human civilization,
12:46
Speaker 2: that there's always been powerful people putting things into play,
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Speaker 2: trying to destroy things, even if they are things that
12:52
Speaker 2: they've benefited from. In your studies in art history, what
12:58
Speaker 2: have you have you thought about that at all and
13:00
Speaker 2: what have you discovered in your research?
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Speaker 3: Well, in the alternative.
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Speaker 4: Media circuit, you get people talking about a lot of
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Speaker 4: ancient knowledge which has been deliberately destroyed. One example is
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Speaker 4: the Great Library of Alexandra. It actually took centuries for
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Speaker 4: the Great Library of Alexandra to cease to exist, and
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Speaker 4: it was sort of collateral damage in various wars, and
13:27
Speaker 4: then it became a victim to religious dogma and only
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Speaker 4: then did the final manuscripts disappear. It wasn't some vast
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Speaker 4: cataclysmic act unleashed by Julius Caesar who simply decided no, no,
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Speaker 4: this has got to go.
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Speaker 3: On the other hand, and.
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Speaker 4: This is something I touch on in the article without
13:48
Speaker 4: going into details. Yes, there are deliberate acts of destruction
13:54
Speaker 4: that have taken place over the centuries. This is done
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Speaker 4: to subjugate people in war. This is an overt sign
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Speaker 4: of putting down the conquered.
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Speaker 3: There's a.
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Speaker 4: Statue I can't remember exactly where found in the Middle
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Speaker 4: East that was Roman and they had just a head.
14:18
Speaker 4: It might even be ahead of Caesar escapes me for
14:20
Speaker 4: the moment, and it was buried under somebody's front doorstep,
14:24
Speaker 4: and the idea was that every time they set foot
14:26
Speaker 4: in the house, they stepped on the enemy. So you
14:30
Speaker 4: can see the destruction of art can be something which
14:32
Speaker 4: is symbolic in that way. Statues smashed up and melted
14:37
Speaker 4: down for their aw materials. There's a lovely example of
14:44
Speaker 4: a sculpture of the Pope Pope Julius the Second made
14:48
Speaker 4: by Michelangelo, which was broken up and used to make
14:52
Speaker 4: cannon for the Duke of Ferrara, so works of art
14:57
Speaker 4: could be turned into weapons themselves. This is a another
15:00
Speaker 4: thing that happened. But what I essentially do in the article,
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Speaker 4: and people are going to have to buy the magazine
15:05
Speaker 4: to read it, is our juxtapser. Compare one vast act
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Speaker 4: of destruction that happened in the Middle Ages with what's
15:14
Speaker 4: happening in Western Asia now and I make the point
15:17
Speaker 4: that both of them come from a build up of
15:20
Speaker 4: geopolitical power, and both of them are deliberate acts of
15:23
Speaker 4: cultural destruction.
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Speaker 1: Oh absolutely.
15:27
Speaker 2: I for my PhD dissertation, I worked with punajournalism professionals
15:32
Speaker 2: that you know kind of one of the major findings
15:35
Speaker 2: which I didn't expect to find when I started it
15:38
Speaker 2: was that they were really upset in some cases that
15:41
Speaker 2: the media or the newspapers that they worked for were
15:43
Speaker 2: using their work to lie to the public about what
15:46
Speaker 2: was going on, which was probably the most interesting finding
15:49
Speaker 2: for my PhD. But one of them that I spoke
15:51
Speaker 2: with had covered the invasion of Iraq in two thousand
15:55
Speaker 2: and three by the Americans and the British.
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Speaker 1: Of course, in.
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Speaker 2: One of the things because he was there at the time,
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Speaker 2: and one of the things that he observed happening were
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Speaker 2: you know, Western soldiers coming in and destroying statues of
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Speaker 2: you know, cultural historical significance in Iraq, and you know,
16:17
Speaker 2: there was sort of like he didn't see the point
16:20
Speaker 2: of why was it that these people were doing this,
16:24
Speaker 2: these acts of destructions had nothing to do well, we
16:27
Speaker 2: won't go into the whole why did we go into
16:29
Speaker 2: Iraq in the first place, we won't go there. But
16:32
Speaker 2: the issue of why were they destroying these there was
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Speaker 2: no reason for it.
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Speaker 1: There was actually no.
16:37
Speaker 2: Political tactical reason for them to come in destroying the
16:41
Speaker 2: statues and so what some of the photojournalists who were
16:45
Speaker 2: there were trying to take pictures of these things before
16:47
Speaker 2: and after they were destroyed, just to document what was
16:50
Speaker 2: going on. And I'm sure we can see this in
16:54
Speaker 2: many places around the world, and it's a very interesting
17:00
Speaker 2: and unfortunate, of course, human behavior when we go into
17:03
Speaker 2: these kinds of places where we're destroying for really no
17:07
Speaker 2: logical reason. And it seems I'm seeing more and more
17:11
Speaker 2: as I used to get very depressed about the fact that.
17:13
Speaker 1: This was happening.
17:14
Speaker 2: Now but it looks like it's a cycle that's repeating itself.
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Speaker 3: Would you agree with that, absolutely? Yeah.
17:22
Speaker 4: Looking at the way whole villages, towns and villages are
17:26
Speaker 4: now being bulldozed in southern Lebanton is completely eradicating culture
17:32
Speaker 4: because churches are going with them. The thing which is
17:36
Speaker 4: often forgotten, which Vanessa Biley covers admirably, is the number
17:40
Speaker 4: of Christian communities in that part of the world, and
17:42
Speaker 4: they are being absolutely eradicated.
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Speaker 1: Yes, that's true, and.
17:50
Speaker 2: Just to refewe people back to some articles that Vanessa
17:52
Speaker 2: Billi has written recently, as well as some of her
17:55
Speaker 2: colleagues who are based in Lebanon.
17:57
Speaker 1: Some of the coverage and some of the photos.
17:59
Speaker 2: That are being shared are they just show these acts
18:03
Speaker 2: of destruction which obviously have no logical reason to be
18:07
Speaker 2: happening whatsoever. So I really feel the more that we
18:11
Speaker 2: can do to showcase these things is.
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Speaker 1: The most important thing.
18:15
Speaker 2: That we can be doing for you and I who
18:17
Speaker 2: have particular interest in culture and art. I think is
18:21
Speaker 2: one of the ways that we can fight the battle
18:25
Speaker 2: against the destruction of Western civilization, if you want to
18:28
Speaker 2: say it that way.
18:31
Speaker 4: I think an important thing to say is because I've
18:36
Speaker 4: studied destruction of Italian art during the Second World War,
18:40
Speaker 4: particularly what happened in Florence in nineteen forty four. And
18:46
Speaker 4: people shouldn't get the idea that I think that a
18:49
Speaker 4: building or a statue or a painting is more important
18:52
Speaker 4: than a person. The destruction of human life is the
18:56
Speaker 4: worst possible form of cultural destruction.
19:00
Speaker 3: But this comes.
19:00
Speaker 4: Together in what I'm going to be talking about in
19:02
Speaker 4: these shows is that we are our culture so the
19:05
Speaker 4: objects we create, they're part of us. Any any any artist,
19:10
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm sure Jake fern On the column would
19:13
Speaker 4: agree that when you create a work of art, these
19:17
Speaker 4: are your children. This is a form of creation where
19:21
Speaker 4: you are leaving something to posterity, which is beyond yourself.
19:25
Speaker 4: So objects that human beings create are an extension of them,
19:29
Speaker 4: but they are a reflection of them as well. And
19:32
Speaker 4: if you remove the people themselves, those objects will.
19:35
Speaker 3: Never be made again.
19:36
Speaker 4: So the whole, the whole thing is all part of
19:38
Speaker 4: a whole, you know, it's all integrated. That we have
19:42
Speaker 4: to look at us our culture together with the objects
19:46
Speaker 4: we create that reinforce that culture itself. So you know,
19:54
Speaker 4: destruction of art is terrible. Destruction of people is worse
19:59
Speaker 4: that it is. It's all part of the same.
20:01
Speaker 1: Thing, it certainly is.
20:03
Speaker 2: And the thing is is that if we destroy what
20:06
Speaker 2: people have created, the people who came before us and
20:08
Speaker 2: our ancestors in our you know, whatever background we come from,
20:13
Speaker 2: in any part of the world, then we are destroying
20:17
Speaker 2: their legacy as well, which is a horrible way to
20:21
Speaker 2: something for people who came before us that did all
20:24
Speaker 2: the work that they did, and that that is true
20:27
Speaker 2: in any place in the world. I when I visited
20:29
Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia, it was in twenty nineteen, and there was
20:33
Speaker 2: a protected area outside of Riyad, or it's kind of
20:37
Speaker 2: on the I don't know exactly where it was outside
20:39
Speaker 2: of the other's a unescope protected area anyway, that that
20:42
Speaker 2: sort of like, here's what was here, Here's what was
20:45
Speaker 2: created by the people, the sort of the long time
20:49
Speaker 2: settlers before Islam took over and before these other things happened.
20:53
Speaker 2: And just I took a bus tour sort of going
20:57
Speaker 2: around these areas, and you know, you'd think, well, to us,
20:59
Speaker 2: it just looks like it's just piles of sand and
21:02
Speaker 2: very primitive ways of living. But the thing is is
21:05
Speaker 2: that that was there far before any of these religious wars,
21:09
Speaker 2: any of these ideological wars, any of this happened, and
21:12
Speaker 2: people were just living in the way that they could
21:15
Speaker 2: and surviving off what was there in the land. And
21:20
Speaker 2: it really made me think a lot about you know,
21:22
Speaker 2: what we think about other cultures, other religions. You know,
21:25
Speaker 2: are we fighting Jews? Are we fighting Islamists? Who are
21:29
Speaker 2: we fighting? Like? None of these things are Also, I
21:32
Speaker 2: believe human created divisions as well and that's not to
21:37
Speaker 2: say that wars didn't happen in the past, But when
21:39
Speaker 2: you look at what happened before we had all of
21:41
Speaker 2: these weapons and technologies and ways to destroy each other
21:45
Speaker 2: in nuclear warfare and all of these mass destruction things,
21:49
Speaker 2: when people didn't have that ability, we survived for a
21:53
Speaker 2: very long time as humans before any of these things
21:56
Speaker 2: ever came about. And I think that's also an important
21:59
Speaker 2: thing to remember.
22:00
Speaker 4: M Well, the I was really an article this morning
22:05
Speaker 4: on Martin Armstrong's website about I think outages of power.
22:11
Speaker 3: It might have been zero edge.
22:12
Speaker 4: It doesn't matter about what would happen if you know,
22:15
Speaker 4: we get some massive internet out each or the power
22:18
Speaker 4: goes out. And if you wind back to the periods
22:21
Speaker 4: I study when these artworks were being created, there was
22:24
Speaker 4: no electricity. What what would have happened to them? Nothing,
22:29
Speaker 4: precisely zero would have happened. And this is this is
22:34
Speaker 4: why this digital world we've built, Okay, we're using it now.
22:38
Speaker 4: We're communicating between two different countries and this is going
22:42
Speaker 4: to go out to people all over the world. That's
22:44
Speaker 4: that's great. That that's now. That takes me back to
22:47
Speaker 4: using a hammer as a tool. This software the computer.
22:51
Speaker 4: I'm using the computer, you're using this microphone. They're just hammers.
22:55
Speaker 4: They are used to create something, but we should not
22:59
Speaker 4: be pendent upon them to live. So, you know, getting
23:05
Speaker 4: out there personally seeing what you did. Get on a
23:10
Speaker 4: bus tour, go and see. Even if it looks like
23:12
Speaker 4: paths of sand, try and get your head around it,
23:15
Speaker 4: try and understand it and immerse.
23:17
Speaker 3: Yourself in it.
23:18
Speaker 4: So avoid this homogenization of the world. Give you one
23:24
Speaker 4: of the things that drew me towards because I live
23:28
Speaker 4: in Italy, in Piedmont. One of the things that drew
23:31
Speaker 4: me here originally was TV cookery shows. So we're going
23:36
Speaker 4: to we're going to take a slight detail here. You
23:38
Speaker 4: do music, I do food, okay, I and I came
23:43
Speaker 4: to live here because of the food, the weather, the ladies,
23:48
Speaker 4: it has to be said.
23:51
Speaker 3: And the wine.
23:53
Speaker 4: And I got that from watching people like the sainted
23:58
Speaker 4: Keith Floyd. Remember I don't know if you're familiar with
24:00
Speaker 4: Keith Floyd. To TV chef, interesting character, incredibly entertaining, and
24:09
Speaker 4: watching his shows of countries like Italy, like Spain drew
24:13
Speaker 4: me to come here. But that is exactly that, that
24:17
Speaker 4: is exploring another culture to enjoy that culture, and for
24:23
Speaker 4: various reasons, because the place I grew up in was
24:27
Speaker 4: never home to me. Here's an interesting thing. The Italians
24:30
Speaker 4: have two separate words for home. They have caza for house,
24:34
Speaker 4: and that sorry, turn it on its head. We have
24:38
Speaker 4: house and home in English. They're two separate things. The
24:41
Speaker 4: house is the structure, the home is where you're born,
24:44
Speaker 4: is where you grow up. For the Italians, it's all
24:47
Speaker 4: embodied in one word caza. And the place I grew
24:53
Speaker 4: up in house was never Yeah, house was never home.
24:56
Speaker 4: So I needed to find a home to live in,
25:01
Speaker 4: and that's why I came here. And now I discovered
25:03
Speaker 4: that in person through those TV shows. I wanted to
25:07
Speaker 4: come and experience another culture. And as I said, when
25:10
Speaker 4: I saw Florence, I fell in love with the country
25:12
Speaker 4: so much I thought.
25:12
Speaker 3: I want to live there, and I do. That's it.
25:16
Speaker 4: But this is personally experiencing the food, the wine, the art,
25:23
Speaker 4: the architecture. This is getting out there and getting your
25:26
Speaker 4: feet planted on the ground in a place and experiencing it.
25:30
Speaker 4: Whether it's Pasa sand or Renaissance paintings, makes no difference.
25:35
Speaker 4: And I'd say to the people watching this with regard
25:40
Speaker 4: to museums in the UK and America and anywhere in
25:44
Speaker 4: the world where you happen to be watching, yes, looking
25:48
Speaker 4: at works of art online, yep, that's great. The photography
25:50
Speaker 4: you can download from a lot of museums like the
25:52
Speaker 4: Met in New York is absolutely wonderful, but it is
25:55
Speaker 4: never a substitute for going and seeing the.
25:59
Speaker 3: Paint or the mob or the bronze.
26:03
Speaker 4: You have to go and see it in the flesh,
26:06
Speaker 4: if you like, and then you'll understand what it's about.
26:10
Speaker 4: Photography and digital photography will never ever capture the reality
26:14
Speaker 4: of it, the beauty of it, never, So you've got
26:16
Speaker 4: to get out there and see yourself.
26:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's certainly something to emphasize. My first visit to
26:22
Speaker 2: the UK was two thousand and eight and I was
26:25
Speaker 2: invented to attend and speak at a conference in Oxford.
26:29
Speaker 2: But my first time sort of across on the side
26:32
Speaker 2: of the pond was nineteen.
26:34
Speaker 1: Ninety three, when I finished high school.
26:37
Speaker 2: I was dating someone from Denmark and as you can
26:40
Speaker 2: tell them, my surname Rasmus, and I have some Danish
26:43
Speaker 2: myself if you couldn't guess, so you know, it was
26:47
Speaker 2: funny because I was over here in Denmark and spent
26:50
Speaker 2: the summer in Denmark, and I really honestly didn't want
26:53
Speaker 2: to go back across the pond again because I just
26:56
Speaker 2: loved experiencing a place a culture that had much a
27:02
Speaker 2: much longer history than the one that I was born in,
27:05
Speaker 2: and really just didn't give up obviously until I moved
27:08
Speaker 2: over here permanently, which ended up being in Scotland back
27:11
Speaker 2: in twenty fifteen and haven't left since and have no intention.
27:14
Speaker 1: Of doing so.
27:16
Speaker 2: That first visit to Oxford, being in that sort of
27:20
Speaker 2: what to me felt like an intellectual have you weight
27:22
Speaker 2: setting coming over when then I was still a relatively
27:26
Speaker 2: young academic in two thousand and eight, being around what
27:31
Speaker 2: felt like hundreds of years of history of you know
27:34
Speaker 2: this was written here in the pubs and the whole scenery, really,
27:39
Speaker 2: maybe you want to come back. So I came back
27:41
Speaker 2: two years later to Cambridge, or maybe it was one
27:43
Speaker 2: year later, and then I was like, I have to
27:45
Speaker 2: find a way to move over there, because I just
27:47
Speaker 2: wanted to be in a place where there was it
27:50
Speaker 2: felt like there was such a historical foundation of having
27:54
Speaker 2: that long standing sense of place, of knowing people who
27:58
Speaker 2: know where their families came from whereas in America, nobody
28:01
Speaker 2: knows really in a lot of cases, a lot.
28:03
Speaker 1: Of people are a mix of everything.
28:06
Speaker 2: I was relatively lucky in the fact that my grandfather
28:08
Speaker 2: came over from Deadmark and so I can trace that
28:12
Speaker 2: back relatively easily.
28:14
Speaker 1: But not everyone even has that.
28:16
Speaker 2: So when it comes to a sense of home or
28:17
Speaker 2: a sense of place, our Americans, Americans are they identifying,
28:23
Speaker 2: if you want to get into that identity politics, identifying
28:25
Speaker 2: by the country where their ancestors came from in some
28:29
Speaker 2: cases as several people. But I really find that having
28:33
Speaker 2: this ability, even now living in the northeast of England,
28:36
Speaker 2: to be able to go to, you know, visit places
28:38
Speaker 2: that have been around for hundreds or thousands, maybe of years,
28:43
Speaker 2: and they can still be visited and still exist and
28:45
Speaker 2: still have an impact on you know, just everyday life.
28:50
Speaker 1: Just being around these things.
28:51
Speaker 2: They think that maybe it is something that people who
28:53
Speaker 2: don't come from America may may not realize. It's not
28:57
Speaker 2: normal for most of us to just you know, leave
28:59
Speaker 2: our house use in the morning and get in the
29:01
Speaker 2: car and passed by a castle and the way to.
29:02
Speaker 1: Work, it just do.
29:04
Speaker 2: It doesn't happen that way for everyone, and you think
29:06
Speaker 2: it's easy.
29:07
Speaker 1: It's easy to lose sight of that.
29:08
Speaker 4: And if if, if I, if I lean slightly to
29:13
Speaker 4: the right, I can see.
29:14
Speaker 3: One my window. Yeah.
29:21
Speaker 4: Well, now now you're you obviously come from literature, and
29:28
Speaker 4: here's an example of seeing literature ready in tooth and
29:35
Speaker 4: claw and really being face to face with history. You've
29:37
Speaker 4: talked about coming over to the side of the Atlantic
29:40
Speaker 4: and seeing history right in your face. I went to
29:44
Speaker 4: an exhibition in the Academia in Florence, which is the
29:48
Speaker 4: museum that houses Michelangelo's David, and it was about Dante
29:54
Speaker 4: and Dante was exiled from Florence and he was sentenced
30:01
Speaker 4: initially to death by burning as a heretic, and the
30:07
Speaker 4: book with that sentence of death in it was on display.
30:13
Speaker 4: It's called the Libre the Book of the Nail, because
30:16
Speaker 4: there is a nail embedded in the leather cover for
30:19
Speaker 4: some reason. So this is where you could get that
30:22
Speaker 4: close to the poet himself. You could actually see the
30:26
Speaker 4: pages of the book with his death sentence written out
30:29
Speaker 4: on them. Just so you know, this brings you face
30:33
Speaker 4: to face with him as a real person. Absolutely, you know,
30:37
Speaker 4: astonishing stuff.
30:39
Speaker 2: I'm currently working on a review of a new Mozart
30:42
Speaker 2: recording of the Requiem and the Great Mass and C. Minor,
30:46
Speaker 2: which will appear in the next issue of the Column.
30:48
Speaker 2: And you know, just because I go down these rabbit holes,
30:51
Speaker 2: just because well they add to the content, but also
30:54
Speaker 2: just from my own interest to be able to find,
30:57
Speaker 2: you know, without being able to get over to the
30:59
Speaker 2: vienna myself, I was, you know, I was interesting to
31:02
Speaker 2: find original the original scans of Mozart's own writing of
31:08
Speaker 2: the scores and to see where, like in the case
31:10
Speaker 2: of the Requiem on the Great Mass and see Minor,
31:12
Speaker 2: they're both unfinished works that got finished by.
31:15
Speaker 1: Other people at a later date.
31:16
Speaker 2: And to see the original scans of when what Mozart
31:20
Speaker 2: wrote and where the unfinished parts were, maybe there were
31:23
Speaker 2: just a few lyrics for the choir or you know,
31:25
Speaker 2: unfinished notes in the different parts in the orchestra. To
31:29
Speaker 2: see that yourself, it's not the same as seeing it
31:31
Speaker 2: in a computer. But when you go, you know, when
31:33
Speaker 2: you are face to face with something like that and
31:35
Speaker 2: it's right in front of you, like Mozart or Dante
31:38
Speaker 2: or you know, whoever it was, that we what we
31:41
Speaker 2: learned about from our past is when it's right in
31:42
Speaker 2: front of you. There's there's no substitute for that kind
31:46
Speaker 2: of feeling. It's it's just you're right, it's right in
31:49
Speaker 2: your face.
31:49
Speaker 1: It's incredible.
31:50
Speaker 4: Well, the one of the best collections of arms and
31:53
Speaker 4: armor in the world is in Vienna, so I used
31:55
Speaker 4: to go there and work a fair bit. And the
31:58
Speaker 4: first time I went there because I had only just
32:03
Speaker 4: before watched the film Amadeus. Yeah, I know it's a film,
32:06
Speaker 4: it's fiction, I know it is, but that led me
32:11
Speaker 4: to Mozart's music. And that first time I went to Vienna,
32:15
Speaker 4: I went to the Figureo House, which is now a
32:18
Speaker 4: museum where he wrote The Marriage of Figuo, and to
32:20
Speaker 4: walk around the rooms on the same wooden floors that
32:24
Speaker 4: were there when he was there, again, face to face
32:27
Speaker 4: with history. Absolutely, you know, staring up right in the eye. Yeah, amazing.
32:32
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
32:33
Speaker 2: My background was in well my undergrad degree was in Spanish,
32:38
Speaker 2: so that, you know, we could go into how I
32:39
Speaker 2: got into where I am.
32:40
Speaker 1: But now it's a long story. But learning Spanish and.
32:44
Speaker 2: Reading things in the original Spanish language, you know, even
32:48
Speaker 2: in translation, if you were to read Boijs or you know,
32:51
Speaker 2: Makez or any of the know the Spanish, great Spanish
32:55
Speaker 2: authors and poets that we know from both the other
32:58
Speaker 2: side of the Pond as well as originally from Spain.
33:01
Speaker 2: There's no substitute from reading it the original language, because
33:04
Speaker 2: I think even in language, something gets lost in the translation.
33:07
Speaker 2: So we can talk about looking at a scan or
33:10
Speaker 2: a photo of a piece of you know, of sculpture
33:12
Speaker 2: or painting online, but I think it's the same with literature,
33:15
Speaker 2: that there is still a translation that happens between translating
33:19
Speaker 2: from Spanish to English. Just like your example of the
33:22
Speaker 2: words for home and Italian, it's the same that the
33:25
Speaker 2: same passion and the same fire that you get in
33:27
Speaker 2: the Romance language, it doesn't exist in the English language.
33:31
Speaker 2: And so I think by going back and forth you
33:33
Speaker 2: also learn you lose some of that. So I'm not
33:36
Speaker 2: saying everyone should go learn Spanish. But again it's that
33:40
Speaker 2: idea of getting as close as you can to the original,
33:43
Speaker 2: the original intent of the creator that sometimes we as listeners,
33:49
Speaker 2: as audience, we have to do some work ourselves to
33:52
Speaker 2: get the most from that. And I would even actually
33:55
Speaker 2: extend that to UK column audience members going back to
33:59
Speaker 2: the column, and you know, I've heard Brian say this
34:01
Speaker 2: as well, is that you know, we can provide you
34:04
Speaker 2: with the information, we can tell you what's going on
34:06
Speaker 2: in the world, but ultimately, as a news organization, it's
34:11
Speaker 2: the job of the audience to do what they're what
34:14
Speaker 2: they want to do with that, and that that whether
34:17
Speaker 2: that means getting out and going to a museum or
34:20
Speaker 2: you know, participating in activism or whatever it is, that
34:22
Speaker 2: whatever cause it is that you want to take on
34:25
Speaker 2: and whatever you want to do, that that that is
34:27
Speaker 2: up to you as a UK column member. That we
34:30
Speaker 2: can't do that for anyone. So you know, I think
34:34
Speaker 2: that that that needs to be part of what happens
34:37
Speaker 2: here as well in the column and when it comes
34:40
Speaker 2: to even interacting with culture, but also what are we doing?
34:44
Speaker 1: What are what is?
34:45
Speaker 2: What part are we taking in the world, what what
34:47
Speaker 2: action are we taking. We love it that you listen
34:50
Speaker 2: to us three times a week and watch the podcast
34:51
Speaker 2: and buy the magazine, but ultimately that is up to
34:55
Speaker 2: individuals to do something with that.
34:58
Speaker 4: So yeah, well, I'm I'm hoping there's two things here. Firstly,
35:03
Speaker 4: with regard to the original language people who buy my books,
35:08
Speaker 4: I do this, particularly in the book about the Battle
35:10
Speaker 4: of San Romano or the Three Paintings. I use Italian
35:15
Speaker 4: a lot, and I explained it. So as you go
35:18
Speaker 4: through a book like that, you begin to understand the
35:21
Speaker 4: words yourself. This is the idea is to get people
35:24
Speaker 4: to embrace the culture as they go through the book.
35:30
Speaker 4: One example I use is people's nicknames. They're called a
35:33
Speaker 4: It's called a sopranoma here, an overname. People get nicknames
35:39
Speaker 4: based on their appearance, on what their families or fathers
35:42
Speaker 4: have done, what they do, where they come from, all
35:46
Speaker 4: sorts of things. A good example of that is when
35:49
Speaker 4: I was back in Britain, because I used to talk
35:52
Speaker 4: about Italy so much, people in the local pub in
35:55
Speaker 4: Suffolk used to call me the Italian. Now now i'm
36:00
Speaker 4: here in Italy, I'm the Englishman. So you see, I
36:04
Speaker 4: have my own form of sopranomi. But this is what
36:09
Speaker 4: we're going to do in these shows. We're going to
36:13
Speaker 4: take you, the audience with us and bring you into
36:17
Speaker 4: this amazing culture, take you a long way back in time,
36:20
Speaker 4: sometimes thousands of years back in time. And the idea
36:24
Speaker 4: is to enthuse you to carry that on, to pick
36:28
Speaker 4: up that button and run with it and go and
36:31
Speaker 4: find out more for yourself, do more research for yourself,
36:34
Speaker 4: come over here, come to other countries in Europe and
36:37
Speaker 4: actually experience the culture for yourself and learn and grow
36:41
Speaker 4: from it, and then hopefully do something without yourselves, even
36:46
Speaker 4: if it's only enjoy reading about these things or watching
36:51
Speaker 4: the shows, but just to take something positive from them
36:54
Speaker 4: and just take it forward, go with it.
36:57
Speaker 3: That's what we want to do.
36:58
Speaker 2: That's you know, I wish you had been around a
37:00
Speaker 2: little bit more, well at all, in twenty twenty, because
37:03
Speaker 2: that was one of one of my escapes when I
37:05
Speaker 2: couldn't when I couldn't leave the house, was watching travel
37:09
Speaker 2: channels on YouTube. And you know, especially because I've visited
37:14
Speaker 2: several countries in my lifetime and hope to visit more obviously,
37:18
Speaker 2: but one of the things when I when I wasn't
37:20
Speaker 2: supposed to leave the houses, that I would do is
37:22
Speaker 2: watch some of these travel videos or read books of
37:24
Speaker 2: probably places I still wouldn't even visit even now that
37:27
Speaker 2: I'm allowed to do so, because that was just my
37:32
Speaker 2: escape in my case, where you know places that you know.
37:37
Speaker 1: Things like Papa New Guinea, for example.
37:39
Speaker 2: There was a book of a woman that I read
37:41
Speaker 2: about where she was actually going out not just into
37:45
Speaker 2: sort of the what's the name of the largest city
37:48
Speaker 2: in Papua New Guinea, but it's kind of into the
37:51
Speaker 2: wilderness and all of the things that can kill you
37:54
Speaker 2: and all of the tribal people that could that wontbably.
37:57
Speaker 1: Want to kill you.
37:58
Speaker 2: And you know, she was out there as a white
38:01
Speaker 2: woman herself, just going out and facing all of it
38:05
Speaker 2: and completely, in my opinion, had absolutely no fear in
38:08
Speaker 2: doing any of it. And so those are the things
38:12
Speaker 2: where you know, even if they're not something that I
38:15
Speaker 2: can do myself, people who might be have health problems,
38:18
Speaker 2: might be older, might be bound to family obligations, can't
38:21
Speaker 2: go anywhere. Even these things that we can bring to
38:24
Speaker 2: you on UK column and elsewhere is still a way
38:29
Speaker 2: for you to at least have that sort of mental
38:32
Speaker 2: escape that even if you are not able to go out,
38:35
Speaker 2: what we hope we can do with your series and
38:38
Speaker 2: anything else that we do culturally is something that can
38:41
Speaker 2: still take you to another place. Even if it's in
38:43
Speaker 2: your mind and that's all you can do, it's still
38:47
Speaker 2: relieves you of that heavy burden that we can get
38:51
Speaker 2: just dealing with the stress of everyday life. You know,
38:54
Speaker 2: whatever is going on for any of us. And I
38:56
Speaker 2: think that's something that art does so well for people.
39:00
Speaker 4: Yeah, traveling, traveling vicariously through the UK column is something
39:04
Speaker 4: you want to encourage, just to comment on that. When
39:13
Speaker 4: I still lived in the UK, I used to go
39:15
Speaker 4: to the National Gallery in London, the Saints be let
39:18
Speaker 4: me say that again, the Sainsbury Wing where all the
39:22
Speaker 4: Italian artists, the Italian Renaissance Medieval art. And it was
39:26
Speaker 4: like taking a bath into shower if you like. It
39:30
Speaker 4: just felt refreshed when I'd done it, and then just
39:35
Speaker 4: back out into the you might say the real world
39:37
Speaker 4: again afterwards.
39:38
Speaker 3: But it was lovely just to be able to do
39:40
Speaker 3: that for half an hour.
39:41
Speaker 4: For an hour I used to go and if you like,
39:44
Speaker 4: make friends with a new painting. Every time I went in.
39:46
Speaker 4: I made a point of going into a gallery I
39:48
Speaker 4: hadn't seen before, try and find a painting I hadn't
39:51
Speaker 4: seen before and get to know it.
39:53
Speaker 3: So this was a.
39:54
Speaker 4: Conscious effort to always learn something new, pick up something new.
40:00
Speaker 4: And it's all the the Italians have ale of the
40:03
Speaker 4: expression I say, Toto barodo everything makes soup. The idea
40:08
Speaker 4: is everything is another ingredient which you can add, which
40:11
Speaker 4: enriches the experience. So that's what we're gonna do. We're
40:14
Speaker 4: gonna present the UK color audience with a nice barodo.
40:19
Speaker 1: If I can talk a little bit about my summer experience.
40:22
Speaker 2: As you know, I was away for two weeks in
40:25
Speaker 2: July this year.
40:27
Speaker 1: My first time abroad in a very long time.
40:30
Speaker 2: I went to Lanzeroti and the Canary Islands for two
40:33
Speaker 2: weeks and I really wanted to make sure that I
40:36
Speaker 2: saw as much of the island as possible. Luckily with
40:40
Speaker 2: my knowledge of Spanish, so I was able to maybe
40:42
Speaker 2: do a little bit more that then I would have otherwise.
40:45
Speaker 2: But you know, just getting on some day tours and
40:47
Speaker 2: saw the volcanoes and learned a lot about the history
40:50
Speaker 2: of the islands is sort of what happened before the volcanoes,
40:54
Speaker 2: which I don't know how much you know about the
40:55
Speaker 2: geography of Lanceroti, but it was, you know, it's a
40:58
Speaker 2: volcanic island and the volcano basically destroyed and everything a.
41:03
Speaker 1: Few hundred years ago, and there's there.
41:05
Speaker 2: I bought a book about what island life was like there.
41:09
Speaker 2: And when you think about how remote the Canary Islands are,
41:13
Speaker 2: you know, it's only I think it's seventy eight miles
41:16
Speaker 2: from the coast of the African continent from where we
41:20
Speaker 2: were in Rasa and Lanserati. But thinking about how what
41:25
Speaker 2: was life like then, even before they had, you know,
41:29
Speaker 2: the ability to get on and I was Newcastle to
41:32
Speaker 2: Ersifa in four and a half hours, right, that wasn't
41:34
Speaker 2: the case in sixteen hundred.
41:38
Speaker 1: So how did people survive in that climate? You know,
41:42
Speaker 1: very hot at.
41:42
Speaker 2: The equator, no resources, no access to anything. And the
41:48
Speaker 2: book that I found, which was mentioned in one of
41:50
Speaker 2: the museums that I visited, was a first hand account
41:54
Speaker 2: from a religious figure, a minister who was there at
41:58
Speaker 2: the I guess a priest, whatever was was there at
42:01
Speaker 2: the time, and he documented what happened with the volcano
42:05
Speaker 2: and what happened to his the people that were in
42:08
Speaker 2: his religious community, and what happened from there. And so
42:14
Speaker 2: when you when you think about what life must have
42:16
Speaker 2: been like back then when they brought it, before they
42:18
Speaker 2: had camels, before they had all of the things that
42:20
Speaker 2: made life a little bit more less remote despite the
42:24
Speaker 2: remoteness of the tiny island, just just going back into
42:28
Speaker 2: that into time during during my holiday, I mean I
42:30
Speaker 2: did have my days on the beach, with the pool,
42:32
Speaker 2: with the drink. It did that too. But also, let's
42:35
Speaker 2: let's give this a little bit of substance. Let's let's
42:37
Speaker 2: learn a bit as well, you know, because I think
42:39
Speaker 2: you if you just stay in the resort the whole time, yeah,
42:42
Speaker 2: you get you get a terrible sunburned and you drink
42:45
Speaker 2: too much, which is fine. You know that there's a
42:47
Speaker 2: place for that, but there's also a place where you know,
42:50
Speaker 2: what could I learn here? This is a completely different culture.
42:52
Speaker 2: I may never have this chance again. So it really
42:55
Speaker 2: is all about I think, how we how we approach
42:58
Speaker 2: those times when we can be least of our daily
43:01
Speaker 2: duties and and and just go experience somewhere else. And
43:04
Speaker 2: it always changes you as a person, you know, you
43:06
Speaker 2: incorporate those experiences. Having lived in several countries in my life,
43:10
Speaker 2: even before I arrived here, and several states within America
43:14
Speaker 2: and in Canada, and time in Australia and everywhere I've been,
43:18
Speaker 2: I certainly am not the same person that I would
43:21
Speaker 2: have been if I'd stayed in the same place my
43:23
Speaker 2: whole life. And it's given me a unique life, but
43:27
Speaker 2: it certainly has taught me a lot, and I think
43:30
Speaker 2: has led me to be able to do the journalism
43:32
Speaker 2: and the editing work that I do for the column. Now.
43:35
Speaker 3: Mm hmmm.
43:37
Speaker 4: It's incidentally a slighter side here for volcanologists. As as
43:42
Speaker 4: we're recording this, ETNA is kicking off down in the
43:45
Speaker 4: south here, big, big time. Catania Airport has been closed
43:49
Speaker 4: for a while, been continual activity for seven days, which
43:53
Speaker 4: is quite quite quite high. So let's let's come come
43:59
Speaker 4: and see Come and see Italy while it's still here.
44:04
Speaker 2: Let me check the prices on the planes right now
44:07
Speaker 2: yet their week off.
44:11
Speaker 4: Talking about a travel as you were, and how people
44:14
Speaker 4: managed a long term ago, Remember, people did travel in
44:18
Speaker 4: the Middle Ages. Pilgrims walked thousands of miles. You know,
44:21
Speaker 4: we have one of the main pilgrim rops comes through
44:25
Speaker 4: here not far from where i'm the Via Franchigina came
44:28
Speaker 4: down heading towards Rome. And people did travel huge distances
44:33
Speaker 4: on foot. And of course the merchant class regularly traveled
44:38
Speaker 4: long distances, so people did get around even thousands of
44:42
Speaker 4: years ago.
44:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was something I had to read in well,
44:45
Speaker 2: in high school, I had to read the Canterbury Tales,
44:46
Speaker 2: so I started learning that version of English just to
44:50
Speaker 2: kind of be able to read them in the original language,
44:53
Speaker 2: which well, I was sort of a very advanced literature
44:56
Speaker 2: class in high school, but our teacher forced us to
45:00
Speaker 2: learn a little bit of that original version of English
45:02
Speaker 2: as well as Beowulf and Old English, and again even
45:05
Speaker 2: though they are earlier forms of English, so there's still
45:08
Speaker 2: you're still learning, you know, more of that original feeling,
45:12
Speaker 2: that original intent that you know everything that we when
45:16
Speaker 2: we when we account a body of literature or a
45:18
Speaker 2: body of art, work of art, obviously our own experiences
45:22
Speaker 2: are going to be put into how we interpret that
45:24
Speaker 2: that piece of work, but also you can I think
45:28
Speaker 2: get closer to maybe what that original intent was of
45:31
Speaker 2: the creator by going back into that original language. As
45:35
Speaker 2: we were saying earlier, just about running out of time here. Unfortunately,
45:39
Speaker 2: this has gone very quickly. This has been great.
45:42
Speaker 1: I did I did have a question in.
45:43
Speaker 2: The back of my mind that I wanted to ask you,
45:46
Speaker 2: because you said you're in Italy and you love food
45:48
Speaker 2: as I do. I knew an Italian woman once who
45:54
Speaker 2: also loved food, and I one time she told me
45:58
Speaker 2: that there is actually no such thing as what the
46:01
Speaker 2: British called spaghetti bolonaise is that true or false.
46:05
Speaker 3: It's absolutely true.
46:07
Speaker 4: It's it's pasta a la rugu, that's and it's uh,
46:13
Speaker 4: it's noodles, flat noodles, egg noodles eaten with a meat sauce.
46:19
Speaker 4: So no, they don't eat it with spaghetti. And no,
46:22
Speaker 4: it's not Bolan, it doesn't exist.
46:25
Speaker 3: It's a pure invention.
46:29
Speaker 2: Okay, that's what I was. That's what she told me.
46:30
Speaker 2: The other thing that I learned from this woman was
46:34
Speaker 2: and I think I would have to get this imported
46:36
Speaker 2: or maybe you can arrange to hook some up for me.
46:39
Speaker 2: It was this stuff called pocket coffee, which is it's
46:42
Speaker 2: like espresso syrup on the inside, so it's got a
46:45
Speaker 2: good head of caffeine and chocolate on the outside. And
46:50
Speaker 2: I don't know if you've ever heard of this before,
46:52
Speaker 2: but I highly recommend it because she used to. She
46:54
Speaker 2: used to hook me up with them back when when
46:57
Speaker 2: I knew her.
46:58
Speaker 1: It's called pocket coffee.
47:00
Speaker 3: I don't know the name. We'll have to look.
47:03
Speaker 4: Piedmont is very heavily chocolateized part of Italy and it's
47:13
Speaker 4: where it's where Ferreo far or see. It's where the
47:16
Speaker 4: Ferrero family come from. And there's a type of drink
47:20
Speaker 4: called bicharan, which is coffee which you drink through chocolate
47:26
Speaker 4: and whipped cream.
47:27
Speaker 1: Which said that sounds amazingly.
47:30
Speaker 3: Exactly, and just quickly, I know we're running out of time.
47:35
Speaker 4: But this is the other thing to remind people of
47:37
Speaker 4: is Italy is a very young country. It's only existed
47:40
Speaker 4: for about one hundred and sixty years. So you have
47:44
Speaker 4: to remember that these were all city state, individual countries
47:48
Speaker 4: up until then, and that's why they had their own
47:52
Speaker 4: languages dialects. Modern Italian comes from Tuscan. It was born
47:56
Speaker 4: with Dante. And you know here, for example, lots of
48:00
Speaker 4: people speak dialect. If I'm walking around the town here,
48:02
Speaker 4: I hear people speaking dialect which contains a lot of French.
48:05
Speaker 4: You go up into the mountains, then it's another dialect again.
48:10
Speaker 4: And so just remember you get different dishes. I mean,
48:14
Speaker 4: the food of this area is nothing like the food
48:16
Speaker 4: of Tuscany, is nothing like the food of Naples or
48:19
Speaker 4: of Sicily.
48:20
Speaker 3: It's all different. So just just remember that that.
48:25
Speaker 4: In the same way that spaghetti Boligners doesn't exist. You
48:28
Speaker 4: could also say Italian cooking doesn't exist. Italian regional cooking,
48:33
Speaker 4: yes it does, but there is no Italian kitchen, as
48:37
Speaker 4: it were.
48:38
Speaker 2: I had a student once who used to supply me
48:41
Speaker 2: with well, she told me about it, and then I
48:42
Speaker 2: found it at Tesco. I think was the mante Porciano
48:46
Speaker 2: red wine, which I.
48:47
Speaker 1: Think, Oh yes, it's my favorite wine. I think, just beautiful,
48:51
Speaker 1: beautiful wine. So is there anything else?
48:54
Speaker 2: I know we've covered quite a bit, been a great discussion,
48:57
Speaker 2: but I always give my guess the aption to share
49:00
Speaker 2: anything else with the audience that we didn't have.
49:02
Speaker 1: A chance to cover already.
49:04
Speaker 4: Okay, well, the first thing is to repeat that come
49:08
Speaker 4: along with us on the journey we're going to make
49:10
Speaker 4: back into the past. Come and experience the wonderful art
49:14
Speaker 4: of the Renaissance, the Middle Ages, and even going back
49:16
Speaker 4: into the engine world, and then forward into the Baroque,
49:19
Speaker 4: starting with Florence, and then we'll we'll move out from there.
49:23
Speaker 4: If people want to know more about what I do,
49:26
Speaker 4: they can come to my website, which is Chris Dobson
49:29
Speaker 4: all one word Chris Dobson dot it for Italy, So
49:34
Speaker 4: Chris Dobson dot it and you'll find more about me
49:37
Speaker 4: there and about my publications. And I think you're going
49:40
Speaker 4: to put in the show notes should we say some
49:43
Speaker 4: links to some more some deeper background information about how
49:48
Speaker 4: I came to the column.
49:50
Speaker 2: As it were, I will do, yes, Yes, we'll put
49:52
Speaker 2: all those as well as the link to your website
49:54
Speaker 2: and the show notes, and I would just say and
49:57
Speaker 2: do it. I have, I have been able to have
49:59
Speaker 2: an advanced look at your book, and I really highly
50:03
Speaker 2: recommend it. I haven't finished it yet, but it is
50:05
Speaker 2: so far fascinating read with of course beautiful images of
50:08
Speaker 2: all of the things that you'll be showing us. But
50:12
Speaker 2: thank you again for your time today, Chris. I'm really
50:15
Speaker 2: looking forward to the series, and I do hope that
50:17
Speaker 2: you'll be showing us some food along with some beautiful
50:19
Speaker 2: art as you take.
50:21
Speaker 4: Oh yes, and some wine.
50:24
Speaker 2: Absolutely fabulous. Well, thank you again and again if you
50:31
Speaker 2: can buy issue three of the Column, which will be
50:33
Speaker 2: coming out in September of twenty six, is your first
50:37
Speaker 2: piece for us, will be as a future article and
50:40
Speaker 2: that magazine, and we'll put the other links to other
50:42
Speaker 2: things in the show notes. So thank you again for
50:45
Speaker 2: your time, Chris. I'm looking forward to so much more
50:47
Speaker 2: from you. I really appreciate it.
50:49
Speaker 4: Okay, pleasure, Thanks Anne, thank you, thank you,