Slow morning reflection and writing whilst the kids go to the markets.
I walk to meet the family past a giant church. In my mind cogs turn at my experience of church building construction and stakeholder engagement. It’s too simple to interpret this in terms of power, but assume administration of hospitals, schools and social work.
In the heat my daughter laments that Billionaires are destroying the planet. I ponder for a moment the benefits of our present regime including mobile phones, democratised global computing infrastructure, accelerated biotech and mRNA medicines , next gen clean energy and grid storage, commoditised space launches, and electric cars. I ponder further the equivalent benefits of the previous Gilded Age in the 1890s: cheap steel, transcontinental logistics, affordable energy, electrification and telecommunications, mass market retail and mail order distribution. “Don’t worry my dear, we’ve seen this before 100 years ago in the 1890s. History suggests your generation will vote in high taxation governments for your lifetime and they’ll wither away.”
For lunch I’m having a focaccia Joao E Clemente – King Jono VI The Clement. During a period when the Lisbon nobility left for Brazil, instead of executing the organisers, he forgave them and got them to come back. Salmon, cucumber, silvers of orange. Very refreshing.
A joyous dog simply insisted I say hello.
Walk to Castle, then to markets with Jo.
This is Júlio de Castilho (1840–1919) – a writer and historian who spent lots of time capturing the traditions and culture of “Old Lisbon”. I think he is part of the reason that “Old Lisbon” is so well preserved.
The Moorish Castle stands over Lisbon, partially a trophy in conquest over the high ground, but also a symbolic link to a past of craft and knowledge transfer between cultures. (More later.) I imagine siege works in 1147 starving out the Moorish remainers in the Castle, but an overall Moorish population not kicked out of the Iberan Penisula for another 250 years. The lesson I take from this is that even when times are tough or in conflict, you need to learn all you can.
