They say great authors should always be capable of surprising you, and it was certainly a surprise to find one of my favourite authors, subject of a couple of thesis chapters and numerous blog posts, announcing her love of football in the Observer this weekend:

I watch for aesthetic reasons. Some are to do with real dramatic tension. There is a story, and the end is really unknown until it comes. I have worked out that I also watch as though I was watching a kinetic sculpture or abstract light show. The things I watch are all contained in quadrilaterals, concern the movement of round balls, and the shifting lines of force and energy made by the players' movements. The games I care about are snooker, tennis, and football. The rules of rugby have changed to make the movements more fluid and exciting for the TV viewer so sometimes I watch that too. But I cannot get interested in, say, motor racing or golf.

Watching Spain win Euro 2008 last night certainly had both the aesthetic and the dramatic in abundance. If England are the perennial whiners of world football, Spain are genuine underachievers, but this made it more remarkable that there was in them a certain confidence or self-belief, of a greater depth even than Germany, who were coming to this final whilst being technically an average team. There was a real sportsman's satisfaction in watching Spain set up their intricate triangles, but the fluidly "shifting lines of force" also provided a dramatic satisfaction: as they knotted and weaved the ball around German defenders, the final gave the same sense as the tying up of the loose ends of a Shakespearean sexual comedy. There would have been nothing more untidy, more unfitting, than a German win, neat and efficient though it would no doubt have been.

But in spite of the way in which yesterday's final gave me a sense of pleasure both as a fan and an aesthete, I fear I cannot help but feel snooty about A.S. Byatt's enjoyment of football. Writers should, certainly, enjoy cricket, with its slowly accumulating tension lending itself to a day spent reading (or writing) a novel in the sunshine of Lords. However, I simply cannot imagine A.S. Byatt, cultured and eloquent as she is, shouting at the television or applauding a dive that wins a last-minute penalty kick. Of course, I am entirely guilty of stereotyping, and reading Byatt's piece I am forced to recall a comparable passage from her novel, A Whistling Woman, in which Frederica (the character most analogous to Byatt herself) records her fascination with her first television, on which she watches "Tennis on green grass with white figures and the geometry of the court contained and constantly in movement in the geometry of the box."

As I am writing this immediately after watching Andy Murray beat Richard Gasquet in the fourth round of Wimbledon, I am more easily inclined to see how Byatt's love of tennis might reflect and inform her artistic interest. We have, of course, become used to "Henmania," with its temporary congregation believing that it is better to come close and lose nerve at the last, than to maintain a sense of self-belief throughout the match. Henman certainly evoked fear and pity, but they were not quite the right kind for the tragic hero they felt he was. The fear was more that we were deluding ourselves in maintaining the belief that he could reach a Wimbledon final; the pity was not for how far he had fallen, but for how far he had yet to climb to reach our annual expectations.

As Henman was ensconced in the commentary box, however, it became clearer how superficial Henmania had been. Certainly, Murray too looked to be down and out after losing the first two sets, before he began his comeback. However, there is in Murray a bloody fierceness that Henman lacked in his white costume, and it manifests itself in his ability to play brilliant tennis not just with the occasional volley, but with a sequence of five or six points that are breathtakingly audacious.

For all that Murray's tennis broke Gasquet's powerful returns, shattered his rhythm, and set the pace deliciously and relentlessly on his side, there was still a possibility of a fall lurking in the background - or, rather, later in the ticking clock. It was Henman's unconscious presence that took it from mere excitement to a total Aristotelian drama. For as the evening light began to draw in, in the back of everyone's mind was, surely, that match in 2001 against Ivanisavic, when Henman had come from a game down to win two sets through astonishing tennis, only for rain to push the game to the next day, at which point he capitulated.

Today, then, eyes flicked between the court and the umpire. Even if the players on the former were finding it hard to see visually, could the latter not see or feel the aesthetics of the event, the lines of force building and curving it towards a climax just as the curtain of night fell? Did he not realise that putting the game off until the next day, with a new crowd and fresh players' legs, would be equivalent to dropping the curtain mid-way through Lear's final speech? Luckily, the umpire (and Murray) held his nerve, and with what would have been the final game of the night the young Scot came through. Though I am sure she would have expressed it with exceptional acumen, A.S. Byatt will not have been the only one attuned to the drama of this Wimbledon act. In its greatest guises, as in the European cup final or Murray's fourth round win, the players alone must write the script.

Labels: A.S. Byatt, Andy Murray, Euro 2008 final, football, Literature, Miscellaneous, Wimbledon

The day starts off unpromisingly, as we are woken at six by that sound of rain. I always find rain peculiar when camping, in that whilst a disincentive to emerge from the tent, this also provides peculiar proof of the success of the pitch, that the tent is waterproof and providing a defiantly simple home against all weather. There is also the less ideal fact that going to the toilet or making the morning cup of tea means getting drenched. By about eleven, it has eased off, and we drive towards Bolton Abbey, parking at the Barden Bridgecar park, where there is no charge; otherwise, parking on the estate leaves you £5.50 out of pocket. In spite of our awareness that the monies will be well-spent on the heritage of the countryside, this seems against the spirit and the art of rambling in nature.

On the other hand, this is a rich safari along well-maintained paths, through rugged and ancient woodland, following the course of the river Wharfe. Within five minutes of setting off, we have spotted our first kingfisher, which taunts us by flickering continually out of sight each time we almost reach his current perch. He is the essence of energy, a vital spark of blue; it is appropriate that kingfishers are the best sign of a healthy river, as something for which motion is such an apparent imperative can only be sustained by easy supplies of food. As if to confirm this observation, a few minutes later a heron pumps sedately overhead.

At a certain point, we turn away from the river and zig-zag our way up the contours of the valley, following the waymarked red route. Whether the red is for the danger of the precipitous drop that accrues to our left, or for the increase in cardiac activity required to climb it, I am not sure. As we move deeper into the woodland, however, the rain's earlier activities seem to have awakened something primeval; the perpetual mist seems to suck smell from the wet leaves and decaying undergrowth, and ferns surround us with their young spiral spines ready to unfurl into leaf over the coming weeks.


If the vegetation seems jurassic, it is apt that our next encounter is with one of the dinosaurs' ancestors. Ahead of us on the path, a rock stirs and lurches into motion; a common toad, unmistakable with his rough and dimpled skin, struggles his way into deeper cover (though not before I have had a chance to record the moment with a picture).


As we continue, we step from the Jurassic to the medieval. There, on the trees, peculiar "green man" masks entice us along, their porcelain eyes leading us, like Hansel, to a house made of sweets.


Or, at least, the ice cream shop. Here we pause momentarily, and I capture ducks skidding their way to the water; seen frozen in time, their landings are peculiar, like elderly gentlemen easing themselves into their seats, legs slightly ahead, wings reaching back to clutch to the air, but nevertheless landing with something of a drop and a lurch.


Crossing over the river at this point, our enticements along the path are no longer green men, but strange, fallen trees, with bronze coins inexplicably embedded in their trunks. Like uncanny growths, or perverted wishing wells, we are not sure whether they are acts of sculpture or vandalism.


Certainly, I am more excited by the discovery of one wholly-natural parasitism: this glorious fungal growth projecting from one mossy bough, the radial fans beneath them made clearly visible from this angle.


A little climb further on, and we reach our target. Seen framed through the trees as below, the abbey is a romanticist's misty, dreamy imagination set in stone, rooks circling the tops, a river beneath the abbey, and all long, long ruined.

Labels: Bolton Abbey, Environment, Photography and Art

There being no Euro 2008 on telly Because I am dedicated student of culture, on Sunday night I went to a debate entitled "What is Art?" which was being run as part of my university's arts festival. The panel comprised a philosopher, two directors of modern art galleries, a theologian, and the director of Resonance FM.

I will not rehearse the debate here, which meandered largely around familiar grounds, but I just wanted to note the way in which the various definitions put forwards in relation to the question might be used to transgress the boundaries between science and art. I jotted down some of the epithets each contributor put forward in answer to the "What is Art?" issue; these included:

• Accident becoming intention: the artist is never quite sure of the destiny of his or her work from the outset, and there is always the sense of the haphazard about art which is then justified as such only after it has been produced
• Reproducing consciousness in others: the artwork acts as a vehicle for the imagination by which the viewer can occupy the perspective with which the artist views a particular aspect of the world
  
• Pleasure: art is that which generates a response that transcends (note the romanticism) or stands beyond further expression or deconstructive analysis
  
• Utility: art can have a public function, either memorialising events to be shared by the community, or by generating a sense of excitement about the potential of a region or city (something the Resonance FM representative completely overlooked when he derided the Angel of the North as worthless kitsch - hardly something that will go down well with the residents of the rejuvenated Newcastle Gateshead, a destination whose numerous cultural sites receive more visitors per capita than London)
• Vision: this one, not surprisingly, was contributed by the theologian, but is probably not too far removed from the ideals of pleasure and reproducing consciousness in others

All of these examples seem fairly mainstream in aesthetic debates, although naturally no one example is capable of containing the full range of what might be, or what has been, considered as art (or, with equal applicability, literature or music). And the one thing missing from the list was ideology: art is whatever a particular culture defines as such because it suits the norms or incarnates the values that the culture wants to perpetuate. Clearly such a view is not one that curators of publically funded galleries can subscribe to. But enough Marxism; I want to focus really on the way in which each argument survives the translation across the disciplinary divide, into the sphere of scientific activity.

If accident becoming intention defines an artwork, does this not also describe Alexander Fleming's petri dishes, left unintentionally on a windowsill but leading to the understood phenomena of antibiotics? If art is the reproduction of consciousness in others, might this not also be the effect of scientific writing, the conventions of which should allow any other scientist to step into the shoes of his predecessor and see the world - albeit within an emotionally neutral framework - as if through his eyes when he conducted the original experiment? Certain scientific writing, such as The Origin of Species, has a clear aesthetic quality, able to generate pleasure in its reader through rhetorical means; but I suspect that the moment when the most dispassionate paper generates new knowledge is not unlike the moment in literature or art when you recognise what you had always known to be true in the world, but never quite so succinctly or elegantly expressed. The ideals of vision and utility pretty much speak for themselves.

I suspect that the most viewed images (artwork?) of the last couple of weeks were not paintings or photographs in a gallery in London, but those astonishing shots captured by the Phoenix lander on Mars, some 35 million miles away. What is so remarkable is the self-consciousness of the shots: here is little Earthbound me, looking at an image taken by a man-made machine, which is looking at itself (or at least its leg), on another world. The pictures are a medium for the mind, vicariously transporting me imaginatively so that I can feel what it must be like to fly (there's transcendence again) beyond Earthly limits, to plant my foot on another world. I am not sure that cognitively, my response to these images is far removed from that which I might have standing before a Picasso. Science might in and of itself possess aesthetic qualities, as a recently-published book entitled The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments implies.

On the other hand, bringing art and science into uncanny proximity encourages me also to note a contrast that might provide my own epithet to use in response to the question "What is Art?" With apologies to Heidegger, I would suggest there is between art and science a general difference between being and becoming.

As I have suggested above, science has many of the same agendas as art, though the methods and tones in which the enterprise is couched seem superficially different. However, the test of success for the process of science is a test of ends, of being; the test of a successful piece of art is one of bringing that art into being, of means floating independently of specific ends. There is no such thing as art, but art describes the process of creating the artefacts which might be given such a name.

The ideal scientific experiment will be replicable numerous times, with no unexpected deviation from the predictions of the model or formula. The model or formula may initially be revealed by accidents like Fleming's mould, but once that process has become known science aims to remove any possibility of the accident happening again; the test of scientific knowlege is its predictive quality: that the same conditions will produce the same state in comparable situations.

Art, however, is a process rather than an end, the becoming about of that entity that might (or might not) be named art once the process is complete. One of the panelists (the one for whom art was defined by its pleasure-giving capacity) noted that he played the accordion very badly, but that he enjoyed the experience of making music, even if his listeners found his results unbearable. Musical notation might be said to be like scientific writing, in the sense that it is a formal recording system that enables anyone able to read the system to reproduce the original product. Except, of course, the whole point of musicality is that there is no such direct correspondance. The accordion player may not be able to reproduce the notes with perfect fidelity, but this does not necessarily mean that the process of reproduction is - for him - unmusical; it is a process of becoming, of discovering a connection between the self and the music that is not definitively posited or founded in the score. One might make a similar point about literary language, in which the creative word floats freely of their author (even if, contra Barthes, the author is not quite dead), such that freshly creative interpretations of the same material are possible, even encouraged.

For the scientist, however, the failure to reach the anticipated end when he conducts an experiment signifies either a failure in the hypothesis, or in the methodology he is repeating, or that conditions not present in that original moment have had an unanticipated effect; such "errors" can, of course, turn out to be very purposive in leading science down new paths. However, the fact that if the second experiment fails to produce the same state of being as the first this must lead to further experiments means that the reproduction is not self-contained, containing within itself its end or purpose.

By contrast, for the accordian player, the fact that he fails to reproduce the notes with the fidelity intended by the composer is essentially irrelevant to his or her personal enjoyment and investment in the process (or becoming) of reaching that end (or being); he or she may want to reproduce the notes more accurately in the future, but the process itself will remain satisfying because it is one of new creation personal to him. Indeed, if the player reaches professional standard, the test of his ability will not be whether he can reproduce the musical consciousness of the composer by translating the score through the medium of the instrument, but the degree to which he or she is also mediating, that is to say, translating and interpreting the music in a newly productive deviation from the original intention.

So what implication does this contrast between being and becoming of science and art have on the question "What is Art?" Essentially, I think, it is to signify that the question what is art can not be grounded in any intrinsic quality of the artefact; nor can it be left ungrounded by talking romantically about metaphysical pleasure that cannot be referred to the mind of the creator or receiver; nor is the idea of utility particularly workable, given that econometrics cannot predict the social value of Guernica as opposed to the latest Damien Hurst installation.

Rather than a top-down approach to the question, by which the art is produced and we then must try to categorise it, the contrast between being and becoming operates in a bottom-up direction: art is whatever is produced with a sense of artistry, or art is the process of generating the thing that has the potential to be named "art." Though a tautology - or hermeneutic circle - it is a feasible definition because it refocuses attention not on the receivers of art but on the producers. The links that bind a viewer to art (or whatever is classified as "art") are potentially unrelated to any quality inherent in the artefact, perhaps intruding through ideology or preconceptions of what good art must do; on my model, there is a very definite connection between the artist and the production (art does not just spring from thin air), and any response to "What is Art?" must attend to the materialities (whether the cognitive processes in the mind of the artist, the nature of the medium being worked) that relate the artist to his creation, not those that flicker between a creation and a viewer.

Additionally, in spite of my contrast between science and art, this does not exclude the former from the potential of the latter: the child's process of discovering that a prism can split light into the rainbow may be treated as the artistic one of the child becoming conscious of a world otherwise hidden; likewise the process of the scientist discovery when something does not happen as expected might also be classed as art under my definition, no matter what the formal properties of the final result. If Fleming's experience of the growth of mould catalysed, for him, a comparable sense of personal growth, the process was artistic, regardless of the aesthetic qualities inherent (or not) in the green goo at the end of that becoming. On the other hand, not all science may be experienced with this cognitive way in the person conducting the experiment, whereas all art, or all science that is art, must be.

Labels: Photography and Art, Science and Culture, What Is Art

Anyone who has a hobby or interest involving technology has to have a pinnacle product, the example that is simply the best that it can possibly be so that once you own one, you can only ever look down upon the rest of your field. If you are a motoring enthusiast, for example, then it is pretty hard to beat a Rolls Royce Phantom or a Bugatti Veyron. Or if you are into home audio it is probably the Kharma range of hand crafted speakers. For photographers, there is only really one flag at the top, and it bears the name Hasselblad.

But even if you are a professional, the whole point about these products is that you cannot simply buy one. It is not just the cost, but the exclusivity: when there are only 300 Veyrons in the world, you cannot just pop down to your local showroom and slap a cheque on the table. Further, these things matter not so much for what they are, but for what they represent about your psychological investment in your hobby, and there is a sense in which owning one without being able fully to appreciate it devalues both your field and the product itself. So there is no point in using a Kharma speaker if you do not have ears attuned and trained to the nuances of the sound in produces. And even if I had the £15, 000 or so to buy the latest Hasselblad H3DII, it would be hard to enjoy using it. I would always be conscious that with my limited photography skills and repertoire of techniques, it would be equivalent to me owning a Veyron but only ever driving it at 30 miles per hour. Great engineering deserves great and appreciative users.

So for most of us ordinary folk who are neither lottery winners, nor experts in our field, we have to lower our ideals to a more realistic level. It may not be possible to own a Kharma speaker, but if you put a Bang and Olufsen in your living room, you will notice the quality immediately, and people will still draw a breath when they see that you have one. You may not get on the waiting list for a Bugatti Veyron, but buy a Ferrari Maranello and you will still turn heads in the street.

And, for we photographers, if the Hasselblad is a niche product there is one legendary brand of cameras that most of us do lust after. This is the camera beloved of the Magnum photographer and its founder, Henri Cartier-Bresson, the camera used to document the human world over the last half century, most notably today used by the great Sebastiao Salgado. This is, of course, the Leica.
There is an air of mystique surrounding the Leica. With its quirky, 1950s looks, it seems to refuse the advance of technology, implying instead that someone back then discovered the alchemical secret of the ideal camera, and hence the Leica has no need to be incessantly developed and upgraded like a Nikon or Canon. As a rangefinder, the Leica has no mirror, and its shutter instead produces a legendary whisper, barely interrupting what Bresson termed the "decisive moment" when the photo is captured. And, unlike a professional SLR, the Leica is small, unobtrusive and subtle, which is why Bresson found it ideal for his candid photography.

Whilst for under £100 you can today pick up a used Nikon F4 body, among the best 35mm SLRs ever produced, a Leica M4 body, often viewed as the best of Leica's legendary M series cameras, will set you back £1000. It is a price tag just exceptional enough to retain its air of exclusivity, but tantalisingly within reach to make it a realistic dream.

So it is with great sadness that I read that the Leica brand has not withstood the transition to digital. Michael Kamber is a top photojournalist, who used a Leica M8 - the first digital incarnation of the M series - in his recent assignment in Iraq. This was the sort of assignment to make any photojournalist reach almost automatically for a Leica. War reporting demands a camera able to take reliable shots almost instantaneously, to be unobtrusive in socially sensitive situations, and to be rugged enough to withstand harsh environmental conditions. In spite of the admirable record of the 35mm Leicas over the past half century, however, the latest digital Leica appears to have failed in all three respects, according to Kamber's report: the camera at times failed to start; its memory card slot is difficult to access, making it hard to swap cards when a soldier is threatening to search the photographer; non-recessed or flimsy buttons kept switching as the bumped against his flak jacket; it had severe issues with exposure and white balance; it performed poorly in low light.

Although damning, the review appeared quite objective, as the sample photographs (and their comparisons with a Canon 1D) showed evident deficits. I am not sure quite how to describe my response to the article. If I say it was as if a religious believer had stopped believing in God, that probably overstresses my sensibility, but there was certainly a sense that the reliable star towards which I was unconsciously aiming my photographic learning curve had suddenly become unstable, veering uncertainly. Although usually one buys a better camera to facilitate one's photography, the inverse was true for the Leica: I knew that when my photography became good enough, I could justify owning one. Of course, the Leica M4 has not suddenly become a bad camera just because its latest variant appears deficient. That, I guess, remains the gold standard (to the Hasellblad's platinum). But it is a gold now tarnished; or, perhaps a better metaphor, it is as if the bloodline of the great cameras, and their great users, has become bastardised.

Labels: Leica, Photography and Art

The cynic in me would argue that it is not coincidental that kerbside plastic and cardboard recycling was finally implemented in the constituency in which I live just two weeks before the local council elections. But the environmentalist in me thinks "so what," if it has a beneficial effect on the waste problem.

Over the three years we have been living the our present house, we three (girlfriend, housemate and I) have tried hard to limit our waste. The most significant step is having a compost heap, but we also rigorously washed bottles and cans for kerbside collection, and hoarded cardboard for recycling at the tip whenever we happened to be passing (for the latter is self-defeating if you are going to make a special 10 mile round trip).

We prided ourselves on the fact that our weekly waste amounted to about one large pedal bin sack a week; we also bemoaned the fact that of that waste, possibly three quarters was comprised of recyclable plastic, such as milk cartons. (Yes, ideally we would get our milk in glass bottles, but rather than the milkman we choose to get ours from the local organic farm in plastic ones - sourcing locally in plastic bottles is probably better than sourcing milk that could have come from any distance, even if its container is environmentally better.) This stacks up with the average statistics: nationally, plastic makes up 11% of household waste, and of this 40% is plastic bottles. Unfortunately for us, though, our local council did not offer any recycling of plastics, even at the central waste disposal sites.

So when plastic kerbside recycling arrived, we were pretty pleased. And, lo and behold, our throwaway waste was cut dramatically, probably averaging a little more than one plastic carrier bag per week (though we obviously try not to use these when shopping, its better to reuse the ones that are pressed upon you than it is to buy new bin liners).

However, the environmental sceptic in me wonders whether our pride ought to be deflated a little. Consulting my recycling bible, I discover that there are seven types of recyclable plastics:

1. PET (Polythylene Teraphthalate - try saying that with your mouth full!). A strong plastic designed for containing high-pressure liquids; used for bottled soft drinks, cooking oil bottles, oven ready trays.
2. HDPE (Hi Density Polyethylene). Used for plastic milk bottles and washing up liquid.
3. PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride). A hard plastic, used for plastic pipes, outdoor furniture, bottled water and shrink wrap.
4. LDPE (Low Density Polethylene). A softer plastic used for carrier bags and bin liners.
5. PP (Polyproylene). Used for bottle caps and margarine tubs.
6. PS (Polystyrene). Used for foam trays, protective packaging, vending cups.
7. Other.

These are denoted by the little symbol impressed or printed on to the item.

The problem is, unlike glass or cans there is no way of automatically separating different types of plastics, whilst individual items might contain two or more types of plastic. This makes recycling at best time and labour expensive, and at worst means that separating and recycling the individual components demands more energy than their initial production. Finally, even if recycling of plastic were more feasible, the whole appeal of plastic is that it is cheap to produce from the outset, so recycling may be self-defeating if the market becomes over-saturated with supply.

Although on balance it remains a good thing that recycling of plastics is available to every household, the case of plastics ultimately reinforces the validity of that mantra: reduce, reuse, recycle. Recycling should be seen as the last step, a salve for the symptoms rather than the cure for the condition of the over-consuming Western world. The best thing to do is to cut down packaging from the outset, by buying food products with little or no packaging - does it really make a difference to the quality of those bananas or apples if they are shrink wrapped? I suspect not. Secondly - and still at the imaginary supermarket - if you do buy loose items but put them in those small plastic food bags, try to re-use these for your sandwiches or food storage; rinse them through, and substitute them for your usual clingfilm or tin foil. Only after the bag is falling apart should you think about placing it in the green bin.

Wrap reported in 2008 that compared to the previous year, "The weight of plastic bottles being collected for recycling in the UK has increased by 68% with 92% of local authorities offering collection facilities." This is a good thing. But it will be a drop in the ocean if the use of plastics continues to increase at the point of origin. Between 1995 and 2002, for example, my book informs me that sales of plastic drink bottles almost doubled, whilst recycling proportionately fell.

Labels: Environment, plastic, recycling

For those of you who are anal about creating Valid HTML, embedding widgets that use Flash can be a pain, as the third-party creations do not necessarily pay attention to W3C guidelines. Although widgets can add functionality and a fresh feel to your pages, sadly they are sometimes not well-coded. This is the case for the Goodreads widget which appears in the left sidebar. Given the literary nature of this site, its quite nice for readers to know where my literary tastes of the moment are heading. However, the widget does not validate, because it uses the <embed> attribute, which has been deprecated since HTML 1.0.

Happily, without too much effort, and reference to one website, I have been able to rework the Goodreads widget to ensure that the pages on which it appears validate correctly, replacing <embed> with <object>.

The old version appears on the Goodreads website like this:

<div style="margin:0px;">
<embed width="190" height="300" src="http://www.goodreads.com/images/widget/widget2.swf" quality="high" wmode="transparent" flashvars="id=222222&shelf=read&title=Ishmael's bookshelf: read&sort=date_added&order=d&params=amazon,associateid,dest_site,amazon">
</embed>
</div>
<div style="margin:0px;">
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/987180" target="_blank"> <img alt="Widget_logo" border="0" height="32" src="http://www.goodreads.com/images/widget/widget_logo.gif" title="my goodreads profile" width="190" /></a>
</div>

Where "id=222222" will be replaced by your own unique reference number, and "associateid" by your Amazon Associate's identification, allowing you to cash in on any click throughs to Amazon via the widget. The following alternative seems to work fine, although for a reason I don't understand it eliminates the pleasant bevelled margins (something I can live without).

<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://www.goodreads.com/images/widget/widget2.swf" width="190" height="300">
<param name="movie" value="http://www.goodreads.com/images/widget/widget2.swf" />
<param name="quality" value="high" />
<param name="FlashVars" value="id=222222&shelf=read&title=Recently Read&sort=date_read&order=d&params=amazon,associateid,dest_site,amazon" />
</object>

<div style="margin: 0px;">
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/987180" target="_blank"><img alt="Widget_logo" src="http://www.goodreads.com/images/widget/widget_logo.gif" title="my goodreads profile" width="190" border="0" height="32" /></a>
</div>

Substitute your own id number and Associates ID (if applicable), and hey presto, clean and valid HTML and a snazzy widget. To compensate for the margin problem, you can replace <div style="margin: 0px;"> with <div style="margin: 2px;">, or whatever margin you prefer.

Labels: Computers and the Internet, embed, flash, object, valid HTML