Lest we forget
The Cambridge American Cemetery on a dull December day. It contains 3,809 headstones, with the remains of 3,812 servicemen, including airmen who died over Europe and sailors from North Atlantic convoys. The long wall on the right records the names of 5,127 missing servicemen, most of whom died in the Battle of the Atlantic and in the strategic air bombardment of northwest Europe. One of the names is that of the band-leader Glenn Miller.
Wikipedia says:
In 1943, the University of Cambridge gave 30.5 acres of land on the north slope of Madingley Hill to the American military forces for use as a temporary cemetery during World War II. After the war, the American Battle Monuments Commission chose Cambridge as the site for America’s permanent World War II cemetery and war memorial in the United Kingdom. America’s war dead from three temporary cemeteries in the British Isles were consolidated in the Cambridge cemetery during an extensive cemetery construction project, and simultaneously the United States government repatriated about 58% of the existing war dead at the request of their surviving family members. Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial was dedicated on 16 July 1956.
It’s a beautifully maintained but sobering place, and worth a visit if you’re ever in Cambridge.
Quote of the Day
“Neither the sun nor death can be looked at with a steady eye.”
- La Rochefoucauld
Musical alternative to the morning’s radio news
Randy Newman | Sail Away
Long Read of the Day
Maggie Smith remembered by David Hare
Lovely tribute to a great actress by a great playwright.
At the turn of the century, I wrote a play, The Breath of Life, in which Maggie appeared opposite Judi Dench. One night at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, Hillary Clinton came with Madeleine Albright. They were both seated on time, but Bill Clinton and Chelsea, delayed by traffic, joined them in the middle of first act. Next day, I was eager to find out what the Clintons had been like. Judi had received them in her dressing room and been swept away by their charm. When I went to ask Maggie what she thought of them, she said she had refused to meet them. “Do you think I’m going to shake hands with anyone who’s late for your play?”
Maggie’s exact phrasing has stayed with me, because it was the use of the word “your” that pierced my heart. It is one thing to reject the opportunity to meet the most famous people in the world, but to do so from unforced loyalty to a playwright tells you everything you need to know about Maggie’s character…
Do read it.
AI as the Miss Moneypenny of the 21st century
Yesterday’s Observer column:
If 2024 was the year of large language models (LLMs), then 2025 looks like the year of AI “agents”. These are quasi-intelligent systems that harness LLMs to go beyond their usual tricks of generating plausible text or responding to prompts. The idea is that an agent can be given a high-level – possibly even vague – goal and break it down into a series of actionable steps. Once it “understands” the goal, it can devise a plan to achieve it, much as a human would.
OpenAI’s chief financial officer, Sarah Friar, recently explained it thus to the Financial Times: “It could be a researcher, a helpful assistant for everyday people, working moms like me. In 2025, we will see the first very successful agents deployed that help people in their day to day.” Or it’s like having a digital assistant “that doesn’t just respond to your instructions but is able to learn, adapt, and perhaps most importantly, take meaningful actions to solve problems on your behalf”. In other words, Miss Moneypenny on steroids…
Books, etc.
The Cult of Jordan Peterson
From a nicely acerbic Economist review of Peterson’s latest 560-page doorstop, We Who Wrestle with God.
On November 18th a crowd gathered for the first night of his book tour in a village near New York City. It felt more like a concert. There was merch (Peterson posters and mugs) and a guitar warm-up act. When he came on stage, in a three-piece linen suit, the crowd — by no means all young or male -—whooped. The subject for this evening’s sermon, he told the congregation of fans, was sacrifice.
An entire Peterson industry has flourished for those willing to sacrifice their money: there is a Jordan Peterson newsletter (“Mondays of Meaning”), a “Peterson Academy” ($500 a year gets you lectures on manly things by people with beards) and a “self-authoring programme”. People who spend time writing about themselves, it promises, “become happier, less anxious and depressed”. Who knew? Certainly not Ernest Hemingway or Virginia Woolf—or, apparently, Jordan Peterson. As he reached the climax of the evening’s talk, his voice cracked. He is famous for weeping in speeches: YouTube offers a video compilation of “Jordan Peterson crying”.
Mr Peterson’s new book is as old-fashioned as his appearance. It reads as if it “could have been written in the 1950s”, says a publisher. Or, indeed, the 1850s…
Lovely.
My commonplace booklet
Patrick Collison, the Irish co-founder of Stripe, is that rare bird, a Tech billionaire and a keen reader. This year he’s read Jane Eyre, Middlemarch, To The Lighthouse, Bleak House, Portrait of a Lady, Anna Karenina, Life and Fate, Heart of Darkness, Madame Bovary, and The Magic Mountain. His reflections are here.
Linkblog
Something I noticed, while drinking from the Internet firehose.
- English Wikipedia’s most popular articles of 2024 Link
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