Iain Cameron's Diary
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2003-02-26 - 9:06 a.m.

Yesterday was really cold � especially in the evening. After about a quarter of a hour my face began to hurt. I have scaled up on the thickness of my sweater today. We have been watching a fair amount of news television � its not all as terrifying as the worst examples. There are some very assertive people on talking sense. Gore Vidal was one such. There was someone else pointing out the stupidity of the move to boycott French goods here � explaining that in the South there was major investment by BMW and Mercedes-Benz. Were the employees here meant to go on strike to show that they were good Americans. There was also some good stuff about the Bush administration paying the price for its diplomatic ineptness last Summer. The fact that the US is having to bribe Jordan, Turkey and Egypt has rather shocked a lot of Americans it seems. Tony Blair is seen from here as being in deep trouble.

Anyway yesterday we went to the United Nations. It was James idea and he was really knocked out with it � especially the tour guide who was a Danish international diplomat who was in her mid 20s. You get to see the main assembly rooms � there are four. Besides the General and the Security Council, there is one devoted to economics and development which we don�t hear much about and another one which was devoted to post-colonial issues and is now pretty much in suspension. There is some very powerful stuff on arms spending and land mines � and indeed on the phenomenon of war today. Most wars are now civil and most casualties are non-combatants suffering from wounds caused by small-arms. The kind of basic facts that aren�t as well known as they should be.

James said of the Security Council space that he was astonished to think that that was where the Prime Minister's fate might be decided.

In the bookshop I got a short but informative book on AIDS and the 15-24 age group. Most new infections are people in this age group � so to turn the epidemic around these are people that you have to reach. A child in Southern Africa is estimated to have a 60% chance of getting infected with HIV sometime during his or her life as things stand. There is a typology of AIDS situation � type 1 is Southern Africa; type 2 is India where the infection has broken out of urban centres of sex-workers and drug users and in some places but not others is in the general population. The third type is what is happening in Russia and Eastern Europe � more about that another day.

I also got a book written in New York in 1938 about number symbolism � why ten has been regarded as so important for example. I can see this having a lot of musical uses.

We walked up the East Side to the cable car which goes across to Roosevelt Island just past the 59th Street Bridge. Few ways of spending 3 dollars are more fun. Then we piled into Bloomingdales � Vita said that as a textiles student it would be important research.

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