Yesterday the National Gallery of Australia installed a 2 metre replica of the Angel of the North, by British sculptor Anthony Gormley, in its sculpture garden. Gormley made five cast iron maquettes of his massive statue. This one, made of cast iron, was donated to the Gallery last year by James and Jacqui Erskine. The 1998 Angel of the North, 20 metres tall with wings 54 metres across, overlooks a motorway at Gateshead northern England and is seem by millions of people as they drive by.

Did the Gallery know that today is Michaelmas, the feast of Michael and all Angels? For centuries, artists have struggled to depict angels, spiritual beings known to us in many and mysterious ways.

Byzantine, c13th Icon with the Archangel Gabriel, tempera and gold on wood panel with raised borders, 105 x 75 cm, Monastery of Saint Catherine, Sinai.

Attractive advertisments tell us of Incredible India. I don't doubt it. To visit Goa or the Himalayan foothills or Kerala or an number other places would be "incredible" But not New Delhi, not during the rains and not for the Commonwealth Games.

The Australian Government's travel advisory for the Games tries very hard to say "don't go" without actually saying "don't go".

There is a high risk of terrorist attack in New Delhi. . . . In planning your activities, consider the kind of places known to be terrorist targets and the level of security provided. Possible targets include [just about anywhere a visitor might want to go is listed].

And in case you missed it . . .

Australians in New Delhi should be aware that the Commonwealth Games will be held in a security environment where there is a high risk of terrorism.

Of course you could be crushed:

On 21 September 2010, a footbridge under construction leading to the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi (the main Commonwealth Games venue) collapsed. A number of injuries resulted. There have been reports about deficiencies in construction in some Games projects, and Australians should be aware that building standards in India may not be comparable to those in Australia.

Or catch a horrible disease:

A number of mosquito-borne diseases are endemic in New Delhi . . . There is no vaccination or specific treatment available for dengue. Malaria is a risk throughout India, including New Delhi.

Or simply be delayed beyond endurance:

You should be aware that the Indian authorities are responsible for security arrangements for the Commonwealth Games. [Is one supposed to be reassured by this?] . . . All events associated with the Games, including the Baton Relay, are likely to cause delays and traffic disruptions as additional security measures will be implemented. You should expect large crowds at the Games and possible delays in accessing Games venues.

Or perhaps be killed on the roads:

Traffic conditions in India, including New Delhi, can be hazardous. Poorly maintained roads and congestion cause a large number of serious traffic accidents, though the authorities have upgraded New Delhi's road and public transport systems for the Games.

In May the Queen decided not to travel to India and is to send the Prince of Wales in her stead. Perhaps she knew something.

Its reported that at least 16 major structures built or renovated for the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, including several large sporting venues, have been found to be the subject of fraudulent safety certificates. Several flyovers that are expected to carry hundreds of thousands of cars a day are also on the list, as are large stretches of elevated road leading to the 60,000-seat Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. The Central Vigilance Commission, India's highest government watchdog, found months ago that safety certificates had been falsified to cover up shoddy work. Inferior concrete has been used instead of formulas approved for the Delhi climate. Anticorrosives used for steel reinforcements are substandard and electrical systems are potentially dangerous. The suspect work was carried out by the bodies responsible for the biggest Games projects, including the Delhi Development Authority, which built an athletes' village unfit for human habitation.

A New Delhi travel agent is offering well-heeled residents tour packages to escape the country for the duration of the Games. Only about 200,00 tickets to the Games have been sold of a targeted 1.7 million.

None of this makes India less than the vast, culturally rich and magnificent nation that it is. But it does show how foolish and improvident its government was to try showcase India with a wastefully overblown "bigger is better" event that ignores India's own abilities, appropriate technology and cultural strengths in favour of a boring and bloated 'international' model that has benefited no one except a corrupt few. In a nation where over 800 million people live on less than $2 a day, at least $4.6 billion has been essentially wasted on building and refurbishement, plus $2.7 billion more on a new airport terminal. I suppose that's only about $5 for every inhabitant of India. But I'd guess that most of them would prefer to have the $5.

As The Guardian's commentator, Simon Jenkins wrote,

the most obscene thing about last week's damnation of Delhi is the comparison with Beijing 2008. It persuades me that international sport is run by nostalgic revivalists of the mad chauvinism of 20th-century totalitarian states. An hour of glory justifies all. It was in this spirit that the International Olympic Committee encouraged the Chinese before 2008 to spend more than $US33 billion ($A34.5 billion) on flattering its members with an array of costly sepulchres, in return for China's admission to "the community of nations", to which the IOC claimed to control entry. . . . That the Commonwealth should be competing in this racket is sad.

Initial responsibility for this Delhi debacle rests on the Indian authorities, but only initially. In their desperation to rival the Olympics, the CGF rejected Canada's bid back in 2003 and went for India. It knew the risk it was taking. It knew the budget would expand to more than twice that of the previous Games in Melbourne in 2006. Anyone who knows Delhi could have told the CGF that, when it comes to corruption, Indian planners and contractors win all gold medals going. Every contract was likely to be dodgy, every corner cut, every utility inadequate. This was plain years ago. No conceivable priority requires Delhi's slum suburbs to be torn apart to provide a temporary playspace for high-living foreign athletes and their VIP retinues. The truth is that international sport has become so bloated by national pride and celebrity as to lose all sense of proportion. The Geneva centre on housing rights and evictions reckons sport to be one of the biggest displacers of humanity, perhaps second only to war. In two decades, some 2 million people have had to make way for Olympic stadiums and "villages". . . .

There is now what amounts to a cartel of architects, building contractors, security consultants and publicists practised at holding to ransom cities that find themselves hosting summit conferences and sports extravaganzas. They constitute what was recently described in the Times of India as a "lootfest". . . . Commonwealth officials must have better things to do than taxing Delhi's citizens to the tune of $US3 billion, knowing that the outcome will be their humiliation. They may take pleasure staging their parade in the land of the white elephant, but this is surely no way to honour this community of nations.

Last night, we saw Oz Opera's performance of Verdi's La Traviata at the Canberra Theatre. It was the very last of about 64 performances in a long tour of the show to remote, regional and suburban centres. The performance warmed up as it went along. It was almost as if the singers' voices were not fully prepared at the start. I knew the plot well beforehand and followed the story easily. But I barely understood half-a-dozen of the sung words despite them being apparently in English. The cavernous Canberra Theatre swallowed up this production, which was better suited to a smaller venue with more supportive acoustics. We were in the twelfth row, yet to me the singing lacked volume. The Australian's review of a performance of the production in Melbourne shows Canberra was not alone in this difficulty. "Rachel McDonald's direction became a bit obscure at times and despite the Clocktower Centre's excellent acoustic, the audience had ongoing difficulties understanding the text. This is a serious problem for a show that is essentially being staged for new audiences." Nonetheless, Annabelle Chaffey was very pleasant to hear and tuneful as Violetta and bass Benjamin Rasheed the best of all as a strong and clear Gaston. Directed by Simon Thew, the chamber orchestra of just eleven players—a quartet of strings, some woodwinds, two horns and a keyboard—played the imaginative orchestral reduction by Andrew Greene superbly and for their numbers made a robust sound. The set, an oval metal art nouveau gazebo, was a symbolic and literal cage. It had to be robust and simple to withstand much packing and unpacking on tour. Yet looking at essentially the same thing through the entire performance was tedious. As well each each character had just one costume which, for Alfredo, was worn in scenes spread over several months of story. A change of clothes would have been more convincing in the portrayal of a wealthy heir. It was a pleasant entertainment, but underwhelming. We enjoyed our evening and, yes, opera is expensive but, at $75 a ticket, we barely got our money's worth and were a little disappointed.

Yesterday James and I attended the funeral of Ann Williams. Ann was a librarian and a member of my team in the public service for about six years in the 1990s. We met again when James and I joined St Philip's, where she and her husband Baden have been members. With James, Ann was part of the team that looks after our Pandora's@O'Connor used-clothing shop.

Ann's family spoke of her love of life, literature and family, and of the web of letter and calls she wove caringly to keep her family connected to her and each other. This verse, a love poem by the author of Charlotte's Web, was in the order of service.

A spider's web (a natural history)

The spider, dropping down from twig,
Unfolds a plan of her devising,
A thin premeditated rig
To use in rising.

And all that journey down through space,
In cool descent and loyal hearted,
She spins a ladder to the place
From where she started.

Thus I, gone forth as spiders do
In spider's web a truth discerning,
Attach one silken thread to you
For my returning.

E.B. White (1929)

"He rebukèd the Red Sea, and the waters drièd up" (Ps. 106.9). So we sang a couple of weeks ago.

A new computer modeling study by researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University of Colorado shows how the movement of wind as described in the book of Exodus could have parted the waters.

"The simulations match fairly closely with the account in Exodus," says Carl Drews of NCAR, the lead author. "The parting of the waters can be understood through fluid dynamics. The wind moves the water in a way that's in accordance with physical laws, creating a safe passage with water on two sides and then abruptly allowing the water to rush back in." The study is part of a larger research project by Drews into the impacts of winds on water depths, including the extent to which Pacific Ocean typhoons can drive storm surges.

The Exodus account describes Moses and the fleeing Israelites trapped between the Pharaoh's advancing chariots and a body of water that has been variously translated as the Red Sea or the Sea of Reeds. In a divine miracle, the account continues, a mighty east wind blows all night, splitting the waters and leaving a passage of dry land with walls of water on both sides. The Israelites are able to flee to the other shore. But when the Pharaoh's army attempts to pursue them in the morning, the waters rush back and drown the soldiers.

The researchers found that a wind of 63 miles an hour, lasting for 12 hours, would have pushed back waters estimated to be six feet deep. This would have exposed mud flats for four hours, creating a dry passage about 2 to 2.5 miles long and 3 miles wide. The water would be pushed back into both the lake and the channel of the river, creating barriers of water on both sides of newly exposed mud flats. As soon as the winds stopped, the waters would come rushing back, much like a tidal bore. Anyone still on the mud flats would be at risk of drowning.

"People have always been fascinated by this Exodus story, wondering if it comes from historical facts," Drews says. "What this study shows is that the description of the waters parting indeed has a basis in physical laws."

But who made the wind blow just when the children of Israel needed it?

The Guardian (23 Sep 10) editorialises "In praise of . . . Moses". "Why replace a miracle that has captured Christian, Muslim and Rastafarian imaginations," it asks, "with a tale of fluid dynamics?"

In his novel reworking the gospel, Philip Pullman had the good grace to emblazon the back with the words, in block capitals, "THIS IS A STORY." In that spirit, the unravelling of biblical mysteries through the device of two twins, Christ and Jesus, provides food for thought for atheists and thinking believers alike. The US National Centre for Atmospheric Research and the University of Colorado have not shown the same tact in breaking Moses's spell. Perhaps they were trying to help out the law-giver of the Jews when they devised wizardly models to prove that a 63mph wind could have combined with local topography to allow him to part the Red Sea. But why replace a miracle that has captured Christian, Muslim and Rastafarian imaginations with a tale of fluid dynamics? If the aim is to put the whole Moses tale on a scientific footing, it is a doomed enterprise—unless, that is, you can also explain manna from heaven, plagues summoned to order, and instant messaging with the Almighty himself. He was brutal with the golden calf worshippers, and we may take it as read he would take a hard line with the intellectual imperialism of those who pray at the altar of scientific reductionism. Having beaten the odds to survive in the first Moses basket, he spent the next 120 years (of course, people lived much longer in those days) being righteously ruthless with foes and with friends who went awry. Would-be buddies who picked every nit in his many and marvellous stories could expect very tough treatment indeed.

(Picture: www.desktop4ipad.com)

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The research is published published online in Drews C, Han W, 2010 Dynamics of Wind Setdown at Suez and the Eastern Nile Delta. PLoS ONE 5(8): e12481. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0012481. This is the abstract:

Wind setdown is the drop in water level caused by wind stress acting on the surface of a body of water for an extended period of time. As the wind blows, water recedes from the upwind shore and exposes terrain that was formerly underwater. Previous researchers have suggested wind setdown as a possible hydrodynamic explanation for Moses crossing the Red Sea, as described in Exodus 14.

This study analyzes the hydrodynamic mechanism proposed by earlier studies, focusing on the time needed to reach a steady-state solution. In addition, the authors investigate a site in the eastern Nile delta, where the ancient Pelusiac branch of the Nile once flowed into a coastal lagoon then known as the Lake of Tanis. We conduct a satellite and modeling survey to analyze this location, using geological evidence of the ancient bathymetry and a historical description of a strong wind event in 1882. A suite of model experiments are performed to demonstrate a new hydrodynamic mechanism that can cause an angular body of water to divide under wind stress, and to test the behavior of our study location and reconstructed topography.

Under a uniform 28 m/s easterly wind forcing in the reconstructed model basin, the ocean model produces an area of exposed mud flats where the river mouth opens into the lake. This land bridge is 3-4 km long and 5 km wide, and it remains open for 4 hours. Model results indicate that navigation in shallow-water harbors can be significantly curtailed by wind setdown when strong winds blow offshore.

It was a privilege to be part of the performance by Igitur Nos of Handel's Israel in Egypt yesterday (12 Sep 10) at All Saint's Church in Ainslie. The choir and very fine orchestra were conducted by Matthew Stuckings, who kindly allowed me to take part as a bass chorister. The music is wonderful. The audience liked it.

This fine photograph is by Michael Piotrowicz.

The Australian's editorial yesterday (9 Sep 10) finds it hoist on its own very dangerous petard.

Julia Gillard has shown us that she can do process. Now the Prime Minister must show us she can do policy. The challenge for the new minority government scrambled together in Canberra this week will be to move beyond appeasement of the Greens and independents and prosecute the reform agenda Australia needs.

Fair enough, as far as it goes. But neither the Greens nor independents seek appeasement. They also seek action on a substantial reform agenda—an agenda that, thankfully, differs from that of the The Australian.

Yet it is not obvious to us that the Gillard government has a vision for our future. Nor is it clear what the Prime Minister herself stands for. Three years of Labor has evinced no coherent policy framework, no synthesis of economic and social goals, no narrative for the nation. This is the first challenge for Ms Gillard as she seeks to prove her legitimacy and earn a mandate from her skin-of-the teeth retention of the prime ministership. She must define her government in a way that she failed to do during the election campaign and in a way her predecessor Kevin Rudd was unable to do during his term in office.

But then the Oz does a dummy spit.

Greens leader Bob Brown has accused The Australian of trying to wreck the alliance between the Greens and Labor. We wear Senator Brown's criticism with pride. We believe he and his Green colleagues are hypocrites; that they are bad for the nation; and that they should be destroyed at the ballot box. The Greens voted against Mr Rudd's emissions trading scheme because they wanted a tougher regime, then used the lack of action on climate change to damage Labor at the election. Their flakey economics should have no place in the national debate. We are particularly tired of Greens senator Christine Milne arguing that "green jobs need a real green economy to grow in". What on earth can she mean?

That The Australian does not know what Senator Milne means displays shallowness and ignorance that should not be part of a national newspaper.

It is astonishing that a paper that once aspired to be a national journal of record declares in advance a permanent "hypocritical" bias.