Blind tasting is a very strange activity. Contrary to what many people imagine, it has nothing to do with blindfolds. It involves tasting a wine without seeing the label and it can deliver shocking surprises. I tasted seven champagnes (香槟) blind with a group of professionals recently. There was a shock when they discovered the wine most of them preferred carried a label they regarded as their least favorite. That sort of result is especially common with champagne, the most image-driven rather than quality-driven wine of all. But it happens all the time when wine is tasted blind.

    Because I'm interested in how wines really taste instead of how I think they should, I taste wine blind as often as I can, especially when assessing similar young wines. But blind tasting when you know absolutely nothing about the wine in front of you is something completely different. The most difficult Master of Wine exams include three sessions during which you have a dozen glasses in front of you and nothing more helpful than a printed exam paper asking you to identify each wine as closely as possible, and assess its quality.

    Now that the MW is behind me, I taste wine completely blind only very rarely, and never in public. So my blind tastings these days are round the dinner table with good friends and once a year when I act as a judge, with Hugh Johnson, in the Oxford vs Cambridge wine-tasting competition. This is the most extraordinary match, always held before the Boat Race but taken just as seriously nowadays. This year's taste-off took place at the end of last month, as usual in the Oxford and Cambridge Club on Pall Mall in London.  

    In life, we will succeed and fail often for reasons that are entirely out of our control. For instance, we can be incredibly nice and love someone deeply, and they may not love us back. We can work harder than anyone else in the office and still not be promoted to management. We can eat healthy food, exercise and stay away from alcohol and cigarettes, and still get sick.

    The bottom line is that life is not fair.

    That is a tough pill to swallow for many of us. As a result, some people shut down after being hit by even one unfair blow from life. They can't handle the fact that our efforts don't always get the results that we expect. But if we let life's unfairness defeat us, we will never receive the beautiful blessings (幸事) that life has in store for us.

    For example, my first marriage ended in divorce. To me, it felt very unfair. I had worked hard to be a good wife and mother. However, no matter what I did, I could not make the relationship work.

    I could have been shut down by that experience. I could have decided that if one person didn't appreciate me as a wife, then no one would. I could have given up. But I knew that I wanted to be married. I knew that I wanted to experience traditional family life. So I didn't let one seemingly unfair experience stop me from believing that I could one day be happily married. And then one day, I met this kind, thoughtful, generous man with whom I now have a wonderful friendship and marriage. But that wouldn't have happened if I had decided to give up after one failed marriage.

    What I've learned over the years is that we can do all the things that deserve a good outcome, but get bad things in return instead.

    When we are faced with life's seeming unfairness, our faith needs to jump in. When life doesn't go according to plan, we have to let go of the outcome that we are looking forward to and keep trying, working hard and doing the right thing. Please don't be discouraged. Accept that life is neither fair nor straightforward. And by knowing that if we remain confident, we can drive our unfair experiences away and use them for our benefit.

Show Biz Summer 2019

Location: Rosewood Center for Family arts

Important Information:

● Tuition paid on the first day of class. No tuition refunds(退款).

● DCT reserves the right to cancel any class; refunds made for cancellation(取消).

● Please accompany student to the first day of class.

● Registration begins one-half hour before class time.

How To Register:

● Mail: fill out the form in this brochure.

● Be sure to list the class and group that you want & the dates.

    When a leafy plant is under attack, it doesn't sit quietly. Back in 1983, two scientists, Jack Schultz and Ian Baldwin, reported that young maple trees getting bitten by insects send out a particular smell that neighboring plants can get. These chemicals come from the injured parts of the plant and seem to be an alarm. What the plants pump through the air is a mixture of chemicals known as volatile organic compounds, VOCs for short.

    Scientists have found that all kinds of plants give out VOCs when being attacked. It's a plant's way of crying out. But is anyone listening? Apparently. Because we can watch the neighbors react.

    Some plants pump out smelly chemicals to keep insects away. But others do double duty. They pump out perfumes designed to attract different insects who are natural enemies to the attackers. Once they arrive, the tables are turned. The attacker who was lunching now becomes lunch.

    In study after study, it appears that these chemical conversations help the neighbors. The damage is usually more serious on the first plant, but the neighbors, relatively speaking, stay safer because they heard the alarm and knew what to do.

    Does this mean that plants talk to each other? Scientists don't know. Maybe the first plant just made a cry of pain or was sending a message to its own branches, and so, in effect, was talking to itself. Perhaps the neighbors just happened to "overhear" the cry. So information was exchanged, but it wasn't a true, intentional back and forth.

    Charles Darwin, over 150 years ago, imagined a world far busier, noisier and more intimate (亲密的) than the world we can see and hear. Our senses are weak. There's a whole lot going on.

    As the international demand for narrative(叙事的) film/TV content continues to increase with popular streaming services like Netflix and others the two questions then come: will the coming generations receive most of their entertainment through visual means rather than through the written word and will such an increase of narrative film/ TV reduce the importance of reading?

    Growing examples of this trend include the diminishment(减少) of fiction in the common core (核心的)curriculum, the ever－rising culture of computer games, the wave of streaming services of wide international reach, and movies filled with special effects made for children and teenagers. Nor must we ignore the economic dangers that lie ahead for the written word. The narrative film industry is a moneymaker that dwarfs(使相形见绌) the publishing industry.

    The other underlying question, of course, is "does it really matter if the written word bows to the world of film/TV?" From my point of view, any diminishment of fiction delivered by words is a loss for mankind.

    There is no greater human feature than the imagination. It lies at the very soul of the human species. It is the brain's most powerful engine. It is the essential muscle of life and like all muscles it must be exercised and strengthened.

    Writing and reading are the principal tools that inspire, create and empower our imagination. Anything that diminishes that power is the enemy of mankind.

    It should be known that I am not opposed to new media and technological advances. Instead, I have always felt it necessary to adapt to advancing technology. In fact, a number of my novels are in various stages of development for film, TV, and live stage productions. My hope is that the written word will only stand to be complemented(补充)by its visual counterparts(对应物), not pushed to the edge of extinction.

    Of course, there are those who will present arguments for the superiority of the moving image over the written word. Each has its place. My argument is for finding the right balance between it and the moving image.

    Some years ago, Michel-Andre found himself staring at the body of a dead whale on a beach in the Canary Islands. It was obvious that the animal had been struck violently by a ship——but why? Only later, after surveying the whales which lived in the area and measuring the increase of sound pollution from ships did it become clear that there was a link.

    The whales had become desensitised to the noise of approaching boats and were being struck by them, often seriously. "We never thought that this could be something that could kill," recalls (回忆) Andre, who is the director of the Laboratory of Applied Bioacoustics at the Technical University of Catalonia, Barcelona.

    Andre has spent 20 years developing an advanced system to better understand why incidents like this happen. His underwater microphones have exposed a world of deafening sound and animal communication never observed with such clarity(清晰) before.

    It was not an easy task. Sound waves don't travel through water in the uniform, predictable way they do through the air. Instead, the temperature, salinity (盐度) and, flow of water have great effects on their path.

    What can be done? One solution is to change shipping routes to courses where ships are statistically less likely to meet animals. It's also possible to slow ships down to 18km/h or less, which is less likely to seriously injure a whale.

    As for dealing with the root cause of the problem, the UN's International Maritime Organisation has already published guidelines on how to quieten ships, but it will be a while before the effects of such changes might be observed.

    "The ocean is not our world," comments Andre. But it is ours to look after. And thanks to his work, we can better understand the effects of subsea sound pollution.