The Sultan's Seal, en route to Istanbul

I was on a business trip to Istanbul recently. All I had time for was the airport, hotel, and conference center - annoying when visiting one of the world’s most fascinating cities. Fortunately, my hotel was Absolut Istanbul, on the grounds of the old Dolmabache Palace, overlooking the Bosphorus. Plus, I got another shot of Istanbullu from my in-flight reading. The Sultan's Seal, by an American anthropologist called Jenny White, successfully transported me to the Ottoman capital circa 1887.

I entered a world where the Ottoman sultan was very much in charge, but the glories of empire could no longer be taken for granted. The campfires of the Russian army were visible from Istanbul rooftops, as the Czar’s troops chipped away at the empire’s former Balkan heartland. The British resident was a big figure in Istanbul, since it was the British guarantee of protection that kept the Russians at bay. The resident’s sweet, pretty and idealistic daughter believes, in all sincerity, that the Ottoman empire becoming a British protectorate would be good for all concerned, as had been amply demonstrated in India and Africa.

At this time, the province of Syria, which included all of modern Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, and parts of modern Iraq, was an integral part of the Ottoman empire. Mecca and Medina were also a part of Ottoman Arabia, a natural part of the domain of the Sunni Caliph.

The term Turk referred to the unsophisticated peasants of Anatolia. The genteel upper classes of Istanbul were Ottomans, not Turks. Idealistic, romantic sons of this genteel class met in Parisian coffee houses and debated whether reform could restore the empire’s glory, or if revolution was necessary, and if talk of revolution constituted heresy since the Ottoman sultan was also the Caliph. The Jews of Istanbul's Galata ghetto, loyal subjects of the Caliph for over four hundred years since Catholic Queen Isabella kicked them out of Spain after the reconquista, were fighting to keep the liberal Ottoman Caliph in power.

This was a world where village boys, or even grown men, would never have seen a woman's face outside the immediate family. In genteel society, men and women would see and greet each other, but would converse in gender-segregated groups. Eunuchs from the Sultan's harem were a powerful and respected cadre in this Istanbul, where casual homosexual encounters at the hamam were unremarkable, but where full male nudity was shocking and strictly taboo.

In this world, a girl from a poor family could be sold to richer relatives to work in their home as a servant and companion. This girl would be educated and married in an honourable way, as a family member, but would sleep on the floor in separate quarters and eat her meals after the host family, as a servant. I was a little shocked at how easily I got the ambiguity and duplicity of that relationship.

Notionally, this book is a murder mystery, but the plot is too byzantine for a whodunit. By the time I got to the denouement in which the hero rescues the heroine from terrible danger, I had entirely lost track of which baddie wanted to bump which heroine off, and for what reason. I didn't mind.

I enjoyed the book for transporting me to a fully-realized world, one which is both familiar and strange, not for the cleverness of the detective's investigative work. I have a hunch that Jenny White wrote the book in much the same spirit. The whodunit never was anything more than a vehicle in which to package Jenny White's encyclopaedic knowledge of Ottoman society and politics. Regardless, it injected some local flavour into what might have been a sterile business trip, and illustrated a favourite old perverse-theory: that the point of tourism is to work up the enthusiasm to read the guidebook.

Cyborgs Creating Self

I just listened to a podcast by Amber Case, an anthropologist who studies how people use digital technology. She said something that really resonated with me:

What I'm really worried about is that people aren't taking time for mental reflection any more, and they aren't slowing down and stopping... And really, when you have no external input, that is the time when there is creation of self, when you can do long term planning, when you can figure out who you really are.

And once you figure out who you really are, you can present yourself in a legitimate way, instead of just dealing with everything as it comes in: oh, I have to do this, I have to do this, I have to do this...I am really worried today that kids are not going to have this downtime. They have this instantaneous button clicking culture, and that everything comes to them...

I'll say the important part again, to make the words mine: when you have no external input, that is the time when there is creation of self.

I value downtime, and the sense for who I really am that that gives me. I'd assumed that is because of my INTJ personality type, but maybe it is a more universal need. Most spiritual practice, or long distance running, or hip contemporary spa experiences seem to be about creating quiet spaces where self can be created.

I don't share Amber Case's worry that kids brought up with smart phones and facebook will lose their sense of self, any more than kids brought up with twenty four hour television, or in crowded joint-family homes, lost their sense of self. If the psyche needs quiet time, it will generally find a way to get that quiet time, in whatever context.

Also, this is excellent time management advice. Responding to email as it streams in all day long is exhausting. I try to keep specific blocks of calendar time for email, and to not respond at other times, even though my Blackberry makes it possible.

The Trouble With Being Swanny

Swanny’s Ashes video diaries are coming thick and fast now. Episode 7 came out on Jan 2, a mere 4 days after the Christmas special episode on Dec 29.

Interesting, then, that Swanny did not bring out an Ashes video diary for a sixteen day period between Dec 13 and Dec 29. Swanny did not do an episode after the Perth test, when England got walloped. He went straight from celebrating the Adelaide win with videos of England fans doing the sprinkler dance, to celebrating the Melbourne win with the England team doing the sprinkler dance on the hallowed MCG turf, to the eternal delight of the Barmy Army.

Swanny knows that jokey banter is great on a winning team. Jokes sour very quickly in a team that rarely wins. That equation, between joking and winning, cost him ten years of his career.

Graeme Swann was first called up for England duty as a gifted twenty year old, in 1999, when England were officially the worst team in the test world. Nasser Hussain and Duncan Fletcher were tasked with giving that rabble, who had made a habit of losing, some grit and backbone. They had no time for a self-confessed “obnoxious loud-mouth”, who missed the team’s tour bus because he overslept. Swanny was dropped after bowling five overs in an ODI. Ashley Giles was their spinner of choice.

When Swanny finally made his test debut as a seasoned thirty year old, in Madras in Dec 08, England were a competitive team. Now, they had discipline, they had spunk. They needed inspiration and effervescence, which Swanny brought to the party. Critically, they won often enough to have self-belief. Their boats floated high enough in the water for Swanny’s juvenile jokes (about Alistair Cook’s resemblance to Woody from Toy Story, or Steve Finn’s bad haircut, or Tim Bresnan stealing all the chocolate bars) to raise a laugh rather than to grate. The same personality which made Swanny a non-option ten years ago now makes him the talismanic spirit of a winning team.

Is he a better bowler now than in 1999? Yes, of course. But I suspect he always was a better bowler than Ashley Giles, Shaun Udal, Jamie Dalrymple, Michael Yardy or even Monty Panesar, all of whom played for England. That feels unfair. But in my judgement, there are very few players who are so much better than the next best alternative that it is worth disrupting a team's spirit or ethos for that extra ability. Maybe I'd consider fitting in Brian Lara, KP or Shoaib Akthar...very rare.

Regardless, Swanny leading the England team in doing the sprinkler dance on the MCG has to be one of the great moments in cricket's history, precisely because it is so silly. It reminds us that cricket, like life itself, is just a game.