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| Family of friends, picking free apples on Saturday. |
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| A boat, named for my mother, Hilda. She would have been amused. |
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| A divine-looking building for sale adjacent to the Bonifaciusbrug. Next to the bust of Juan Luis Vives. |
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| Autumn begins along the Vest |
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| A flotilla of swans, disappearing at a pace beneath the Strooibrug at the end of Vervesdijk |
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| This strong reminder caught my eye on my health walk this morning. |
We Are No Longer The Country We Like To Think We Are.”
Michael Green, C.E.O. of the Social Progress Index.
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| Michael Green,l C.E.O. Social Progress Imperative |
The Social Progress Index, inspired by the research of Nobel-winning
economists, collects 50 metrics of well-being – nutrition, safety,
freedom, the environment, health, education and more, to measure
quality of life. The latest Index, just published, finds that out of
163 countries assessed world-wide, the United States, Brazil and
Hungary are the only ones in which people are worse off than when the
Index began in 2011. The declines in Brazil and Hungary were
smaller than America’s and the U.S. is declining both in absolute terms and relative to its wealthy world power peers.
Community cohesion.
Norway comes out top in this 2020 edition, followed by Denmark, Finland, Switzerland and New Zealand. South Sudan is bottom, with Chad, Central African Republic and Eritrea close by. Despite its immense wealth, military power and cultural influence, the U.S. ranks 28th, having slipped from 19th in 2011. Unbelievably, the U.S. now ranks behind significantly poorer countries including Estonia, Czech Republic, Cyprus and Greece. It, the U.S, is first in the world in the quality of its universities but No. 91 in access to quality basic education. The U.S. leads the world in medical technology but is at No. 97 in access to quality health care. The S.P.I. finds that Americans have health statistics similar to those of people in Chile, Jordan and Albania, while children in America get an education roughly on a par with what children receive in Uzbekistan and Mongolia. America ranks at 100 in discrimination against minorities.
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| Not 2020 but 2015 Already on the way down. Harvard Magazine. |
A majority of other advanced countries in the survey have lower homicide rates, lower traffic fatality rates, better sanitation and internet access. Michael Green, C.E.O. of the group that puts out the Social Progress Index, notes that the Coronavirus will affect health, longevity and education with the impact particularly large in the U.S. and Brazil. The equity and inclusiveness measured by the Index seem to help protect societies from the virus. “Societies that are inclusive, tolerant and better educated are better able to manage the pandemic,” says Green. Danny Blanchflower, a Dartmouth economist, has new research showing that the share of Americans reporting, in effect, that every day is a bad mental health day, has doubled over the past 25 years. “Rising distress and despair are largely American phenomenon not observed in other advanced countries.” Blanchflower says.
Research indicates that a majority of people across countries hit hardest by the Covid pandemic, want social progress rather than economic growth to be at the fore, not only as the crisis continues but also once it ends. Young people in particular prefer their countries choose social outcomes even after the pandemic is over. The decline of the United States over the last decade in this index – more than any country in the world, is a reminder that Americans face structural problems that pre-date Trump and that have festered under both parties. Trump is both a symptom of this larger malaise and also a cause of its acceleration.
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| Danny Blanchflower Dartmouth economist. |
This is a shortened version of an article by Nicholas Kristof in the Friday September 11th 2020 issue of the New York Times International Edition and he suggests, at the end, that first, Americans need to acknowledge that they are on the wrong track, and instead of proclaiming, “We’re No. 1” substitute, “We’re No. 28. And dropping!”
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| Social progress. |
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| Nicholas Kristof New York Times Contributor. |
Perhaps this should be entitled, In Praise of Walking! As I am not yet back swimming every day, I walk almost every day for an early hour, usually towards, then alongside, one or other of the canals. The glorious weather has simply gilded the lily. Hippocrates declared that walking is the “best medicine” and though so far not in need of medicine, I do find that walking gives me joy. Sights, sounds, smells; all combine to give a delicious freedom to think things through, to remember recent events and anticipate the day or the morrow. I can have a quiet dialogue with myself though, truly with lock-down, that is possible at most times of the day! It’s just that the walking early provides a glorious private theatre to enact the process. Somehow, this mundane activity in a far-from-mundane setting elevates the ordinary and adds hugely to my sense of contentment and well-being.
I also have the opportunity to notice more details I have otherwise missed and to relish anew the normal sights of Bruges. This last week seems to have been dominated by swans; they have possibly been following me! Again and again, I seem to have walked past congregations of swans near bridges and below parapets, always busy dipping, stretching, swimming silently and with unseen effort, flapping occasionally, making majestic consort in smoothly-moving convoys. I got very excited two or three months ago when I saw a swan, sitting on what looked like a little pile of sticks, with another swan solicitously hovering. I decided that it must be a couple with one preparing to give birth. I observed, as I passed, over two days but on day three, they had gone, removed I suspected by an employee of the commune to a more distant place. Though behind a wire fence, they were probably too near to passing traffic.
I hadn’t thought until now of the word, Flaneur, but that is what I might be posturing as!! Flaneur is a French noun literally meaning stroller, lounger, saunterer, loafer. Wikipedia suggests that a flaneur is “an ambivalent figure of urban affluence and modernity, representing the ability to wander, detached from society with no other purpose than to be an acute observer of contemporary life.” This almost nails my daily activity but does not begin to suggest the joy I feel during the experience nor the main original reason for my activity which is to help me keep healthy.
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| Le Flaneur 1842 Paul Gavami. |
I aassociate the word, ‘flaneur’ with Paris and now know that it was a description of a literary type from 19th century France and carried a set of rich associations: the man of leisure; the idler; the urban explorer, the connoisseur of the street. Walter Benjamin, drawing on the poetry of Charles Baudelaire, first made this figure the object of scholarly interest in the 20th century as an archetype of urban, modern experience. A certain detachment was suggested as if the person was slightly set back from what they saw around them. Thus the flaneur has become a symbol for artists and writers. I rather fancy being a female flaneur but think I lack a certain artistic gravitas. Flaneurs just were or are; not in search of health and well-being at all. There to observe an often familiar urban scene and notice unfamiliar aspects, at a distance, and with exquisite judgement or, equally importantly, to be observed by others as a man of taste.
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| Swans resident in Carmersstraat |
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| And more along the Langerei. |
Murray suggests that the greatest single difference in the economy which was taking shape by 1300 was that instead of Brugeois or Flemish merchants journeying to their customers, their customers were journeying to them. Increasingly, economic success depended on attracting the largest possible number of foreign merchants from the widest diversity of places with the greatest variety of goods. The important economic magnet that Bruges became, meant that it was imperative for merchants to either live there or at least, have an intermittent presence there.
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| The Beurseplein showing Ter Beurse, the hostel belonging to the de Beurse family since 1276 |
What Murray refers to as " the commercial infrastructure" of Bruges, much of which came to be situated in the Beurse square on Vlaamingstraat and its environs along Zouterstraat, [now Academiestraat] towards St Jan's Bridge, [now Jan Van Eyckplein] comprised hostels, money exchanges, notaries, law courts. The Beurse square was dominated by the hostel, or commercial house, named after the Van de Beurse family; a hostel comprised a number of businesses and by definition occupied a substantial house of many rooms and several storeys, probably with capacious cellars for storage of goods, stables and a courtyard. The significance of a building signified importance of identity and was always a centre for trade. Thus hostels were quite separate from inns which served food, drink and offered lodging,and from other centres like taverns, cabarets, brothels and churches where merchants might also meet and do occasional business. These hostels were owned or rented by foreign merchants as residences for them and their households, and for business, or by wealthy members of the Bruges brokers' guilds. Murray gives examples of the former, such as the English wool merchant, William de la Pole, who rented large premises in Bruges to pursue the wool trade. From 1339-1340 he rented eight houses for sixty five weeks, to store and distribute 2,400 sacks of wool at a cost of less than one third of that in his native Hull.
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| Engraving showing part of the majestic new Oosterlingenhuis circa 1481. |
Somewhat later, a well-known Hanse merchant, Siverd Veckinchusen, owned a complex of houses in the Krom Genthof which, in 1442, became the site of the Oosterlingenhuis, the seat of the Hanse community of merchants within Bruges. Bruges was the only one of the Hanseatic cities [Cologne, Novgorod, Lubeck] which permitted ownership of property by foreigners. A little is known of the history of this building which came into being because of the frustration experienced by the merchants from the Hanseatic cities, in Bruges. In 1451 the disaffected group left Bruges to move to Utrecht. An important delegation from the city followed them and offered many favourable conditions for their return which included a palatial building for them, constructed and financed by the city of Bruges. They were persuaded, returned and the impressive hostel was built at the rear of the Spanish Loskaii where boats could moor and goods be unloaded and loaded. In 1478 the original, partly wooden, building was demolished and the new monumental Oosterlingenhuis was built under the leadership of Jan van den Poele and completed in 1481. It was sufficiently noteworthy to be included by the painter, Pieter Claeissens, in his 1560 painting dedicated to the Seven Wonders of Bruges.
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| Today's remains of this historic building. Genthof, 4. |
I live in Woensdagmarkt off which lies Oosterlingenplein and Krom Genthof. A rather regal flag adorning a handsome building at Krom Genthof 4, clearly the remains of a much larger building, caught my eye recently and I noticed it had the name Oosterlingenhuis displayed. It wasn't until I saw the same name in Murray's book that I suddenly becane alert to the historical possibilities, always almost a given in Bruges. I feel quite thrilled to have stumbled upon a little of its long narrative and am reminded of the dazzling historical continuity of this extraordinary little city.
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| Mediaeval merchants, weighing barrels. |
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| Seven Wonders of Bruges Pieter Claeissens 1560 Included was the Oosterlingenhuis. |
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| Ruins of some of the monastic buildings in Bury St. Edmunds |
As touched upon in my previous blog, I was over in Suffolk briefly for my sister’s 80th birthday celebrations and stayed with my daughter who currently lives in Bury St Edmunds. I was en famille from Thursday to Sunday morning and for the first time had the time to explore more than the conveniently close shopping centre. Continuing my Bruggean early morning walks regime, I explored the wonderful Abbey gardens and the adjoining old cemetery and discovered more superb vistas and ancient stones than I had dreamed possible. In fact, the same fascination with beauty, history, locality, which has always gripped me with Brugge, elicited the same reactions with Bury. I hope not to have to leave Brugge till the Final Curtain, but if I did have to return to the U.K., provided the mind remained open, I would now choose Bury for its gripping historical continuity and its beautiful old stones and walkways. It is an historical and aesthetic gem.
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| Elizabeth Frink's statue of the boy king, Edmund. He came to the throne of East Anglia in 855 A.D. and was murdered by the Danes for his faith in 869. |
St Edmunds Abbey, home to the remains of the martyred King Edward from 903 A.D., was one of the largest and richest Benedictine monasteries in England, established in 1020, attracting a constant procession of pilgrims and receiving Royal grants and concessions over the centuries. At the time of the Norman Conquest, Bury was the fourth Abbey in wealth and political importance in the country. I had not known that it was at Bury, in 1214, that King John’s discontented earls and barons had gathered in the Abbey, to discuss their grievances against him and committed themselves as a group to force their King to grant them a number of liberties. The following year, the sovereign met the rebels at Runnymede and sealed the Magna Carta. An extraordinary and hugely definitive act in the development of democracy in England.
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| The Great Seal of King John for the Magna Carta 1215. |
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| A judicious mix of the ecclesiastical and the arboreal! |
The family party for Heather’s 80th was great; it was
small as my sister is at high risk,
Corona-wise, but it was so
delightful to enjoy time in a chiefly family group of different ages,
in a lovely home and an especially gorgeous garden if that is the
right word. My niece and her husband were able to buy two plots of
the farmer’s field behind/beyond their existing garden and lawn
some time ago, to provide a huge grassed area which now boasts
extensive accommodation for geese and fowls; fruit and vegetable
cages plus more.
Although I have thoroughly enjoyed lock-down since March 13th, nonetheless, to return home on August 2, in a car, [a rare occurrence] with my son and younger daughter who then stayed for most of the following week, was great and has been a total treat for me though must admit that around ten or eleven days with other people was unsurprisingly tiring, cumulatively. My lovely Ger
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| Enjoying oysters in De Mangerie |
The three of us did manage one little outing to Oostende for lunch at a fish restaurant, discovered in February. De Mangerie at 10 Albert Eenste Promenade can boast wonderful food at pretty reasonable prices with just the most superlative service imaginable. We loved it and my daughter enjoyed her longed-for wander along the beach with a soupcon of paddling in the warm sea. I made a brief effort to try the sand but it was far too deep and made walking in it, much too effort-ful so I quickly retreated to walk along the promenade with my kind son! But it was a pitch-perfect day; sun not too hot; clouds bobbing overhead in a sapphire sky; long beach with not too many people, it being a Tuesday. Altogether gorgeous for what may have been at least my third special meal to celebrate my birthday!! However, one never needs to justify over-enthusiasm in one’s eighties!!
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| Host Axel dressed for birthday congratulations! |
