The Year 2025

The year 2025 is a square number, since 2025 = 45 * 45. The adjacent years which are also squares are 1936 = 44 * 44 and 2116 = 46 * 46. There will be people who are alive for two of these three years, but nobody for all three (unless human lifespans increase dramatically for people born before 1937).

A Harshad number (aka a Niven number) is a number which is evenly divisible by the sum of its digits, eg, the number 24 is evenly divisible by 6, the sum of 2 + 4. The number 2025 is evenly divisible by 9 (the sum of 2 + 0 + 2 + 5), so it is a Harshad number. Likewise, the past three years are all evenly divisible by the sum of their respective digits: 2022, 2023 and 2024.

A sequence of four Harshad years in a row like this (2022, 2023, 2024, 2025) is quite rare. The last time this happened was a millenium ago, in the year 1014, and the next time it will happen will be in the year 3030, a millenium ahead of us.

I feel privileged to be alive at this particular time to witness this sequence!

The sequence of numbers which begin four Harshad numbers in a row are shown at the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences here.

Recent Reading 21

The latest in a sequence of lists of recently-read books, listed in reverse chronological order.

  • Kate Conger [2024]: Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter. Penguin.
  • Sarah Wynn-Williams [2025]: Careless People: A story of where I used to work. Power. Greed. Madness. Macmillan. This is a mostly riveting account of the author’s time working in a public policy role for Facebook/Meta. The company has denounced the many accusations of atrocious behaviours as out-of-date, which they don’t seem to have realized is not a rebuttal. Having myself worked with senior executives of major American companies, the allegations of US-centredness and gross ignorance of other countries and cultures, are all, sadly, very familiar.
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Characters in films

Luca Guadagnino, director of the movie “Queer” (quoted in The New York Times, 20 November 2024):

Every movie is a documentary about the actor playing the character.”

Poor writing from famous writers

I have long thought Australian author Thomas Keneally writes very badly, at least in his mother tongue. A stunning new example of his poor writing skills is the opening sentence – the opening sentence, mind! – of an invited letter that appears in the latest issue of the Australian long-form magazine, Quarterly Essay (Issue 96, November 2024, page 91). Keneally’s words:

What I like about Watson’s mind is his capacity to connect the mytho-poetic to the political, and he can do it without hearing from him, generally, any grunt of effort.”

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Animals

Animals

The lion died.
The moons over the forest faded.
The surface was flooded
with mournful tears.

Herons, rats, and hydras
gathered in the raspberry patch,
praying until morning,
chanting hymns.

By morning in the raspberry patch,
everything became unclear:
there’s no one to pray to,
no one to fear.

The elephant started waltzing.
Vermicelli – leeches
began indulging
in women and drunkenness.

With a ruler,
compass, and template,
a frightening scarecrow
was drawn by the lynx.

The animals, astonished,
terrified beyond measure,
fell to their knees
beside the scarecrow.

Everything in the raspberry batch
became clear to the fullest:
there is
someone to pray to,
there is
someone to fear.

Victor Sosnora (1936-2019)
From In Search of Entertainment (1960-1962)
(translated by and thanks to AD)

British-Abwehr relations in WW2

Did British forces help Finland in the Winter War against the USSR in 1940? If so, did they cross Nazi-occupied Europe to get to Finland? If they did that, did the German Abwehr facilitate their passage? If the Abwehr did help, how was this help requested and negotiated? Were there secret communications channels between the Abwehr and the British at that time? Some people think that there may have been such channels later in the war. At that time Germany and the USSR were allies (or at least, partners in a non-aggression pact), and Britain was at war with Germany (although not with the USSR, I think).

I am motivated to ask these questions by a sentence in Richard Bassett’s book about Admiral Wilhelm Canaris (then head of the Abwehr), “Hitler’s Spy Chief: The Wilhelm Canaris Mystery” (paperback edition, 2006). Bassett says:

in Finland where the British forces sent to help the Finns against the Soviets in 1940 were actually assisted in their passage by the Germans. German air & land forces were instructed not to interfere with the progress of these British forces.”

For this claim, Bassett cites Frederick Winterbotham, “The Nazi Connection”, p. 164 (London 1978). But Winterbotham’s book seems to have nothing about the Winter War. Finland is not even listed in the index.

Basset also cites Winterbotham for a claim that Luftwaffe General Milch visited the RAF in Britain before the war. However, none of the pages of Winterbotham’s book which mention Milch say this.

Perhaps relatedly, Kermit Roosevelt (son of Teddy) was in Britain at the start of WW II and organized a group of volunteers to go and help Finland. But, according to his Wikipedia page the war ended before this expedition could get underway.

Friends in our life

James Beaufort (Damian Hardung) in Maxton Hall – The World Between Us (Amazon Prime 2024, S1 Ep6):

It takes courage to think beyond the present, but sometimes it’s another person’s gaze that shines a new light on our future.”

The etiquette and responsibilities of concert audiences

Earlier this week, at a solo piano recital in the Wigmore Hall, London, a man near to where I was seated started complaining in the interval about how poor he thought the performer was. His statements were apparently unsolicited. The people seated either side of him disagreed with his view, and asked him to be more specific. This occurred as people were returning to their seats at the end of the interval, and he could be heard several rows away.

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Jesuit Poets

I am belatedly posting about a superb homily I heard given at a mass to celebrate the Fourth Centenary of the (then) English Province of the Society of Jesus, held in Farm Street Church, London on 21 January 2023. The mass was celebrated by Vincent Cardinal Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, and the sermon given by Fr Damian Howard SJ, Provincial of the British Province. The music at the mass included the world premiere of James MacMillan’s “Precious in the sight of the Lord” (with MacMillan in the congregation).

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TBC: RIP

In a recent post I mentioned that English has no good word for the process reverse to that of abstraction. Writing that reminded me of a long and fascinating conversation in about 2002 on this very issue with my former colleague, Trevor Bench-Capon, who sadly passed on this past week (on Monday 20 May 2024).

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