Image of the Week

Now, remember folks, just because this is the "image of the week", that doesn't mean there's going to be one every week. Just thought I'd point that out.



Okay, this isn't one of the "puzzle-worthy" photos I like to take while I'm on holidays (I have a strange need to try to take photos that would make good jigsaw puzzles), but it's kind of special to me.

This was #53 - the bike that was my sole companion for a week in Estonia. We had a fairly good relationship: it fell over a few times, usually under circumstances I didn't think warranted falling over, but at least it never did that while I was on it. It held up brilliantly throughout the tour (under admittedly cushy conditions, when you consider the grand spectrum of bike touring) and, all in all, I was most impressed by #53's performance. It confirmed my opinion about Merida bikes, and my next bike is definitely going to be a Merida. Or a Pinarello - but that's just because I think they're pretty.

Anyway, the bike is only part of the picture. Behind it you can see the northern coastline of Estonia. This was taken just outside of Kaberneeme, and for a few kilometres of coast there is this wonderful section of forest with little or no undergrowth. You can see all sorts of tracks through the trees, and get a decent glimpse of the ocean from the road. 'Twas a very pretty place to ride a bike, it must be said.

A thing of beauty...

On a bus trip between Pärnu and Tallinn, I found myself sitting next to a young Estonian woman who was busily crocheting a bag of some description.

I didn't know what she was crocheting originally but, in the time-honoured tradition of librarians, I asked her and was rewarded with an answer. From enquiring about her own käsitöö project, we went on to discuss the Estonian obsession with woolen crafts and ended up discussing various other aspects of the Estonian culture and landscape.

It was a very interesting conversation, and I'm sure it will provide fodder for a number of future posts.

Among the things discussed, we got around to talking about ugly apartment buildings. Now, I have previously mentioned the proliferation of ugly apartment buildings in Estonia, as well as my opinion that it was some sort of plot by the Soviets to crush the souls of the occupied peoples. Either that, or provide cheap accommodation. Either way, they're really ugly - and not in a good way.

I mentioned this to my crocheting companion, and she confirmed the "affordable housing" theory, and agreed that the buildings were unnecessarily horrible. There was no good purpose for making a building look that much like soulless slab of concrete, but the Soviets just didn't bother making things pretty.

In the course of the conversation, we came to the conclusion that this was their biggest mistake - they never improved anything. They never made a place better for having them there.

Now, it must be stressed that I'm talking about the Soviets, not the Russians. When you see the buildings created by the "old believers" and the Russians fleeing Soviet Russia, they're quite nice. Heck, their churches are absolutely amazing - I didn't see a single Russian Orthodox church that wasn't fabulous.

No, it's the Soviets who, for some reason, decided that the only way all citizens of the USSR could be equal was for them all to be equally miserable.

The Russians still like to think their "occupation" was something else - something nice. They didn't replace one undesirable regime with another one, they "liberated" these vulnerable countries from the Nazis. The countries they took under their wing were better off - being members of the Soviet Union was good for them, and they should be grateful...

Let's not go into the politics for why the Soviets didn't actually liberate the Estonians from anyone - let's instead look at the ugly apartment buildings:







(These aren't the worst apartment buildings I saw in Estonia, just the worst ones I could find on KV.EE when I was only going to spend less than five minutes looking.)

Now, seriously, who could possibly be grateful for having those things shoved into your previously nice, pretty town? And that's not all. While the Soviets were in town, they also burnt down the nice buildings and knocked over the statues and public works of art - then replaced them with new buildings and monuments that were... *ahem*... "functional" and "workmanlike", and were specifically designed to inspire people to remember they were all comrades under the Soviet government.

I'm sorry, Mr Stalin, but workmen are allowed to have some beauty in their lives as well - and things can be "functional" without being devoid of any pleasing qualities.

If the Soviets had only let people keep their own art and culture and create their own beautiful things, instead of pushing them all through the "miserable and ugly" Soviet cookie-cutter, they might have been tolerated quite happily. Instead, they moved into town and made things worse - not better.

That's (one of the reasons) why the occupied countries will probably never see the Soviets as a kind and benevolent people who were only trying to make the world a better place.

So, if anyone else out there is thinking of starting up a totalitarian regime and calling it a "benevolent" power, I have a piece of advice for you: make sure everything you do is beautiful in some way. People may take a lot longer to notice you're squeezing them dry if you aren't also crushing their souls.

Sugar!

I was listening to a short talk on the radio this morning concerning the evils of sugar. It was quite an interesting talk, filled with many "well, now that you mention it, it's kind of obvious" points. The talk was by David Gillespie, author of the book Sweet Poison

You can listen to it, or read the transcript, here. At least, for a little while. I don't know how long these episodes are available, but I have a feeling it's about four weeks.

Anyway, the gist of the argument is that we started getting fat after we started eating gobs of mass-produced sugar and other products containing fructose. Once upon a time, these things were fairly rare and we only ate about a kilo of fructose a year. Now, sugar and fruit-based substances (a major source of fructose) are everywhere, and we consume about a kilo of fructose roughly every ten days.

This is a problem, because our bodies aren't designed to process fructose effectively, so they: a) forget to mention you've had enough to eat and should stop feeling hungry now, and b) turn that fructose into fat straight away, for want of something better to do with it.

He points out that "big sugar" is as dangerous a force as "big tobacco", and we should be seriously considering the amount of sugar/fructose we put in our mouths.

One of the points he raises is that the whole "eat less fat, exercise more" mantra that nutritionists have been sprouting and the governments have been supporting for the last couple of decades won't help us much if we keep replacing the fat in our diets with sugar. Something along the lines of:

Milk isn't as bad for us as we think, and fruit juice is much worse than we realise.

This isn't the first time I've heard this, but like a lot of things in life you have to hear it a couple of times before the message starts to really sink in. Plus, Gillespie's a lawyer, so he knows how to sound convincing.

It fits in with my theory that convenience is killing us. I've often expressed this theory by stating, in an appropriately blasé manner, that the Industrial Revolution was a bad idea. Most people either humour me or ignore me (the story of my life, really), but I'm kind of serious about it.

Everything we've done to make life more "convenient" has encouraged us to get fat and lazy... Except that we're not designed to be fat and lazy and we don't cope with it very well. We tend to develop things like heart disease and cancer.

Even (and I know this sounds strange) being overworked and stressed is a direct result of being fat and lazy. The time and space we used to fill with the actions required for day-to-day living is now vacant, but we feel we should be doing something, so we invent more stuff to do, and then new ways to do that in less time, so that we need to invent more stuff to do... It's a vicious cycle. Rest assured I'll whinge about this again at a later date.

Anyway, this is relevant to the sugar thing because we've stopped feeding ourselves. Instead of growing our own food and preparing our own meals, we've outsourced that to other people. They make it possible for us to eat more sugar and fructose than we could possibly have managed back in the days when we were feeding ourselves. In fact, they make in impossible to avoid such things.

So, how do we fix this? How do we avoid fructose when we practically breathe the stuff?

Short of going back to growing our own food and making our own meals, I don't know. And, let's face it, we've managed to construct lives where we just don't have time and space for the actions required for day-to-day living anymore.

I'd like to get my hands on some of the recipes people used before mass-produced sugar came on the market. I have to admit, the one thing I kept thinking about while listening to Gillespie's argument was a bit, shall we say, "practical":

Without sugar, how do you make cake?

Excuse me, sir...

I'm having a "sir" day again today.

Every now and then (usually just as I'm starting to feel good about myself), someone calls me "sir", and every scrap of self-esteem I have just goes flying out the window.

Yes, I know it's my own fault. I can't dress the way I dress and expect people to get it right every time. If I only wore more "girly" clothes, did something better with my hair, wore make up and moved with smaller, more delicate actions I would be more readily recognised as a woman.

I just... you know... I suck at looking like a girl. I always have. I'm too tall, too broad-shouldered, too flat-chested. My jaw is too square, my feet are too large, my arms are too long and my hands are too big. The nice "girly" clothes only look good on the nice "girly" figures - and I just don't have one of those.

At the back of my mind, I've always worried that, if I tried to wear more "girly" clothes, I'd probably just look ridiculous at best. At worst, I'd probably look like a drag queen. I have no natural grace and beauty, and trying to wear pretty, delicate clothes would just highlight my flaws - and I know it.

And, dammit! I just can't bring myself to wear clothes that are uncomfortable, impractical and flimsy just because they're more gender appropriate. The feminist in me combines with the base functionalist in me and refuses to wear second-rate, substandard clothes just because, as a woman, I'm not entitled to wear clothes that are designed for comfort, movement and durability. You know women's clothes are just designed to keep us out of the way, right?

So, yes, I tend to wear men's shoes because my feet are big and wide and women's shoes are uncomfortably narrow. And, yes, I tend to wear men's T-Shirts because fitted T-shirts feel awkward and constricting on someone with broad shoulders. And, yes, I tend to wear men's jackets because the sleeves are actually long enough to cover my long arms and the pockets are better. So much better. The pockets they put in women's clothes suck.

I try to compensate for it by choosing styles that are as close to unisex as possible and colours that could be feminine, but that doesn't seem to make a difference. I also wear women's pants, but as I tend to go for the sensible styles, no one seems to notice. Same with the women's shirts I wear to work - too practical and "functional" to fully counteract the fact that I'm big and ugly and I look like a man.

Actually, I have to confess - I don't always wear women's pants. I tend to wear men's cycling shorts when I'm on the bike because they have better pockets.

Hell, I'm even growing my hair long so that, when people make snap judgements based on stereotypical visual cues, folks "mistake" me for a woman because I've got long hair, instead of mistaking me for a man because I'm wearing a comfortable T-shirt.

It doesn't seem to be helping, though. Just when I'm feeling good about myself and comfortable in my own skin - even while I'm riding high on a compliment that I look good after loosing weight, someone says "excuse me, sir", and everything comes crashing down. It's even worse when they do it while I actually am wearing women's clothes.

Yeah, I know the fact that I don't look like a girl means I can get away with things other girls can't (like riding a bike solo through another country), and there are times that I feel my androgynous appearance gives me a greater sense of personal security, but still...

I'm probably going to cop more of it tonight. I'm going out, but I'm staying at a friend's place and the only clothes I have to wear are unisex in nature. *Sigh*

The problem with cars

There's something that's been playing on my mind for a while. I can't shake the feeling that we're all slightly doomed, and the horseless carriage has something to do with it.

Let me put something to you - a scenario, if you wish:

You're driving (in a car) down a long stretch of road. You're tired and hungry and you could really do with a bite to eat and a cup of coffee. You really should think about finding a place to stay for the night, too.

You see a sign by the side of the road telling you the next town is ten kilometres away. Just a few hundred meters passed that sign, you see a guesthouse. The sign says it offers food, coffee and accommodation. It looks like it could be a perfectly comfortable, serviceable place to stay. It probably has decent coffee for all you know. But...

The next town is 10klm away. You know it's probably going to take you less than ten minutes to get to that town, because you're driving in a car. Do you stop at this place, spend your money on at least a cup of coffee, and thus provide income to the people who are trying to make a living there... Or, do you say "well, it's only ten minutes to the next place, I can wait," and drive straight past?

If you're anything like most people I know, you won't see the point in stopping at some out of the way place when there is the promise of a town so soon on the horizon. It's just ten minutes, right? Why stop? Besides, there's a town up ahead. A civilised, settled place with a choice of shops and accommodation. Why would anyone stay here if they could stay in an actual town?

So, my guess is, you'll probably drive past this place and keep going. You won't stay in their guesthouse. You probably won't even buy their coffee.

If everyone does that, how long can the place survive? Will it still be there for the few errant travellers who might need to take a break at that point? The people travelling by bicycle, for whom 10klm takes a lot longer than ten minutes? The people of dubious continence who might not be able to hold on that long? The small handful of "locals" who live on farming properties and regard this as their nearest coffee shop, even though it's almost 10klm from where they live/work?

Having spent a week travelling by bicycle, I can tell you that when you feel tired and hungry you stop at the nearest place. This location will serve me food and let me sit on an actual chair, therefore I will stop here and not push through for another 10klm just because there is a town up the road. BUT, put a motorised vehicle in the equation, and suddenly your priorities change, and these little places along the way cease to be serious considerations.

I remember, while driving between Charters Towers and Richmond, passing a pub in one of the little places along the way (Pentland? Balfe's Creek? I can't recall), which had a sign out the front pleading: "Drop in and have a feed before we both starve". Of course, I was in a motor vehicle, and didn't intend to stop for anything except a toilet break until I reached the next town...

These "little places along the way" used to be important stops for railways (when trains were slower), or coaches (when there were horses involved), or bicycles (when cycle touring took off before the widespread take-up of the motor vehicle) or - yes - even motor vehicles.

Back in the day, when fuel consumption wasn't so good and the ride wasn't so smooth, you'd want to stop at the little stops instead of pushing through to the next town.

Now, things are so much more "improved", aren't they?

Ah, I don't know. It just seems to me that every time we make an improvement to transport by car, something dies. A service station, a series of shops, a railway line, a town... We just don't want to stop, we want to keep going, and that means someone can't afford to stay "on the way" any more.

Not that we care. We don't even see all of the closed shops along the old highway, because we're so busy driving along the new, improved highway. We don't see all of the places where services stations used to be because our improved fuel economy means we don't have to look for them. And we don't see all the little places to stay along the way, which are slowly going away, because our cars are so comfortable and it's so much easier to just keep going to the next town...

The problem with cars (well, one of the problems with them) is that they change our grasp, which changes how far we try to reach. That's catching up with us (and going to keep catching up with us) in ways we don't even notice.

Sure, it seems like nothing terribly tragic or important but, mark my words, we're doomed. Not in emanate danger of being eaten by an enormous mutant star goat, or anything like that, but doomed none-the-less.

Celebrated in Stone and Street

I think this is one of the things I loved most about Estonia:



Yep, that's a sculpture of a sculptor. I found this gem nestled in a park in Tallinn - just outside of Kadriorg Palace - on my last morning in the country. It was one of the last things I saw before flying out of Estonia, and I found it strangely appropriate. You see, by the time I found this sculpture, I actually recognised its subject (in name, at least)... from other sculptures.

Quite often, in my rambles, I would come across a monument or sculpture that was originally created by an Estonian sculptor, before being destroyed by the Soviets and rebuilt after Estonia reclaimed its independence, and quite a few times the original "author" was none other than Jaan Koort. Heck, my accommodation when I first got to Estonia was right next to his deer sculpture in Tallin's Old Town.

The thing is, there are stacks of statues and sculptures in Estonia. They're all over the place. Walk through any given park in any given town and you're bound to come across a monument of some sort. Most of them are statues of people who contributed to Estonia's scientific knowledge, literary heritage or culture.

Like these two:




That guy at the top, Ferdinand Veiki, was a puppeteer (the founder of a puppet theater). Raymond Valgre was a composer of "pop" music. You would never get sculptures of people like that in Australia. We just don't think of our cultural history that way.

Did you carry the sick and wounded through battle fields on the back of a donkey? Well, then we'll give you a statue. Were you a monarch nominally in charge of the country? Then I suppose you should also get a statue. Were you some public figure who could afford to donate important things to the city? Okay, you can have a statue, too. You were really good at cricket? Well, of course you can have a statue! You discovered a breakthrough in the genetic coding of sea sponges that could potentially save thousands of lives? That's really nice, but no statue, sorry. You were what? The founder of the most influential theater company in Australian history? Pffft! No statue for you.

Not so Estonia. They happily and willingly celebrate every citizen who contributed, well, anything. Scientists, poets, playwrights, newspaper editors, athletes... sculptors.

Then there are the "big guns". Like this guy:



Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald - the son of a shoemaker who wrote a poem and went on to have a street named after him in almost every second town in Estonia. I saw about three or four statues dedicated to him during my two weeks in that "Great Little Country", and his name just kept popping up on maps all over the place - along with the names of Lydia Koidula (I saw her statue in Pärnu), Johann Köler (Viljandi), Carl Robert Jackobson (I'm pretty sure he was in Viljandi, too), August Weizenberg (I didn't actually see his statue, but I saw some of the statues he "authored")...

Who were these people? Writers, artists and scholars, mostly. Sure, they were also political activists, in one way or another, but it was their cultural output that earnt them the streets and statues. Their works became vitally important to the Estonian people during the cultural revolution/National Awakening. When the country needed to say "Look, this is us, this is ours, we have a vibrant culture all of our own", these writers and artists gave them works to hold up, like a mirror, to their budding nation to see a reflection that wasn't German, Swedish or Russian - it was Estonian.

When you think about, that's something worth celebrating in stone and street.

Having grown up in Australia, where we're only proud of Australian things if they involve a ball or a battle of some description, it was strangely refreshing to see a country so thoroughly in love with it's own culture and the people who contributed towards it. Maybe, one day, when Australia grows up and has it's own "National Awakening", we'll have statues of Ray Lawler and streets named after Oodgeroo Noonuccal.

Hey, a girl can dream, can't she?

Enough Already!

Okay, I have to admit ('tis no secret, anyway), that I find Euro-English highly amusing. Although I can't stand it when native speakers produce muddled sentences as a result of not paying attention (you can tell, trust me), I love reading the kinds of crazy constructions Europeans come up with when they try to translate their own stuff. I don't read as many Asian websites, but I'm sure they are equally amusing.

I'm also quite taken with the vocabulary they often use in their translations - they have a tendency to use a wider and more interesting set of words than we usually encounter. It's like they play with our language more adventurously than we do.

However, something must be said about Estonian English. The word "already"... it shouldn't be used quite so much.

The, shall we say, ebullient use of the word "already" is clearly an insite into the normal Estonian sentence structure, but it is used a tad more sparingly in English. Most of the time it is implied or understood within the context of the other words in the sentence.

While I was in Estonia, I started to feel a little pestered by the word. It was completely superfluous about 80% of the time, and quite often it was in a slightly odd place.

Estonians, look carefully at English language texts written by native English speakers. How often do they use the word "already"? That's a good indication of how often you should use it.