This evening our Dutch hosts received us regally (literally) in the former Winter Palace in Lange Voorhout where the much-loved Queen Mother Emma lived and which now houses a permanent exhibition of the work of M.C. Escher. This is the only complete exhibition of all phases of Escher’s life and includes all of his best known work as well as many other illustrations of his developing interests and techniques. (I have illustrated this post with a picture I took of one of Escher’s cahiers.) The exhibition made me realise how strangely ignorant I was about somebody whose iconic images are quite so well known. Early on, Escher became fascinated with the geometry of Moorish tiles in the Alhambra and toyed with impossible combinations of differing perspectives (notably of Italian and Corsican landscapes). Optical illusions were, in a sense, the more basic emanations of Escher’s intuitive and visual mathematical skills (he had no formal training) that maybe achieved their highest expressions in his tessellations and treatments of infinity. ‘I try to show,’ said Escher, ‘that we live in a beautiful and orderly world, not in formless chaos.’

We have had a rich afternoon’s discussions. Our guest speaker, Professor Hans Boutellier, treated us to a fascinating and thought-provoking analysis of what he has termed the ‘improvisation society’. Boutellier’s recent book on the theme (alas, not yet available in translation) is meant in part, he explained, to try and understand the rise of populism. I cannot do justice to his lecture here but I’ll attempt a brief summary of his analysis. Three main developments – internationalisation, individualisation and informatisation – have had two consequences – the disappearance of solid social structures and the rise of institutional complexity, leading to a world characterised by complexity without direction. This impression of chaos creates frustration with politicians and professionals, feelings of insecurity and frustration and desires for certainty and stability, for moral direction and social order. Hence the attractiveness of the populist answers which are a) ‘safe new world’ and b) ‘the heartland’ (which Boutellier memorably described as ‘a place where things are still as they never were’. He believes that the rise of the network society is an important part of the potential response to populism. As he put it, ‘networks are not a source of complexity but a way of dealing with it.’ Fascinating stuff.

To The Hague today, to the headquarters of the Dutch Social and Economic Council (SER), for the annual meeting of the Presidents and Secretaries General of the economic and social councils and similar institutions in the member states. The twin themes of our discussions over the next two days will be; ‘engaging younger generations: the future of ESCs.’ By their very nature, our consultative, advisory bodies are constantly reflecting on how they can optimise their roles. Our Dutch hosts have consciously juxtaposed this constant reflective and renewal process with the very specific challenge of intergenerational solidarity. The network of councils (a heterogeneous collection of institutions) is deliberately loose and informal and at its best when discussing such common challenges and experiences – particularly in the context of such a timely theme.

This evening I attended an event to celebrate the European Centre for Public Affairs’ twenty-fifth anniversary but also to recognise the achievements of its outgoing and founding Executive Director, Tom Spencer, and to welcome his successor, Caroline De Cock. Tom has recently finished writing a history of the ECPA which will, I am sure, deal with far more than the organisation itself. A former much-respected member of the European Parliament, Tom has over the years treated his friends and colleagues to incisive and witty briefings about European and world developments and I very much hope these will continue.

This afternoon the Committee hosted an extraordinary meeting bringing together the members of two of its specialised sections (SOC and ECO) and of its steering committee on the Europe 2020 strategy to consider the theme of overcoming the crisis: towards a policy programme for sustainable recovery. As government crises raged in Greece and Italy and the eurozone’s problems spooked the markets, it could have been argued that facing up to those challenges overshadowed all other priorities. But the message I took away from those parts of the meeting that I was able to attend was that even if we are currently sailing through a storm we should not lose sight of our port of destination nor of the route we wish to take to get there. In other words, the Europe 2020 strategy, with its emphasis on sustainable growth, highly educated workforces and the maintenance of social solidarity remains entirely pertinent. The reinforcement of economic governance may be a necessity, but it is not an end in itself.

At midday I sat in on a lunch organised by a number of British members to welcome four representatives of the UK voluntary sector, drawn from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and ranging from a young volunteer to an older one (77 years old!). This is the year of volunteering, an initiative that the Committee has strongly supported, and the civil servant who has been heading up the Commission’s activities, John Macdonald, was also a guest at the table. Each of the four recounted their experiences and the way they had come to be volunteers. Before dashing away to my next meeting I told them that it was no coincidence that the EESC was so supportive. From my perspective the Committee’s members are also volunteers. They don’t get EU salaries and spend most of their time with their organisations back in the member states.

Over the past week we’ve managed to view the trilogy of Bourne films (The Bourne Identity (2002), The Bourne Supremacy (2004) and The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)), a cracking good adventure series. The films, loosely based on Robert Ludlum’s novels (with the same titles), follow the adventures of a brainwashed CIA trained assassin whose original personality (and ethics), as they reassert themselves, turn him into a poacher-turned-gamekeeper. A few years back, two management theorists produced a learned paper about the effect of assassinations on institutions and war. Their study seemed to indicate that, in their words, ‘successful removal of autocrats produce(s) sustained moves towards democracy.’ By coincidence, the original personality and ethics of the Jason Bourne character in the trilogy first reassert themselves as he is about to assassinate an autocrat (retired). Ever since I found myself out on a Scottish hillside accompanying a stag hunt I have wondered why they go to all the bother of frogsuits and disguises. Frederick Forsyth got it right. I’ll never forget the sight of a stag jerking and collapsing and his companions looking on in puzzlement before then panicking and dashing away; the bullet had reached the stag long before the sound of the shot. A quick look on wiki confirmed that today’s high velocity sniper rifles can have an effective range of up to two kilometres…

Earlier this week, on 31 October, the United Nations calculated that the 7 billionth human being was born. There has been a spate of learned articles and opinion pieces about what this means for us all, with many references to Thomas Malthus and concerns expressed about the earth’s capacity to house and feed us all. Nevertheless, most commentators are agreed that within the next fifteen years or so we’ll pass the 8 billion mark and will still be discussing whether it’s a good thing or not. A special Financial Times supplement on New Demographics even took the projection to 26.8 billion by 2100. Tucked away in the analysis, though, was a worrying projection much closer to home: ‘Projections suggest that to maintain a stable dependency ratio – the relative size of the working and non-working populations – Europe will have to admit a potentially destabilising 1.3 bn migrants by 2050. The political and social backlash of such widespread immigration could be severe.’ This is almost the stuff of science fiction. Whether you call a billion a thousand million or a million million, the current population of Turkey is (just to give a measure of comparison) 78 million. Where on earth are Europeans going to find 1.3 bn migrants, and where on earth will they go?

Today I finished Cormac McCarthy’s The Crossing, the second in his ‘Border Trilogy’, the first being All the Pretty Horses. I almost gave up on this book a third of the way through. This was because I didn’t realise I was only a third of the way through (I am reading the trilogy in one volume). What I had taken for a lengthy, heavily religious, closing exegesis of an epilogue was in fact simply the closing reflections on the first of three journeys sixteen year-old protagonist Billy Parham takes from New Mexico to Mexico. Each of his quixotic missions fails. In the meantime, he comes of age but the grown man ends this bleak, melancholic, meditative, philosophical and, perhaps above all, biblical story weeping in the middle of a road, as alone as he has been throughout his adventures. The crossing is not just between civilisation and savagery, new and old, youth and adulthood, innocence and wisdom, man and animal, belief and desperation, but also between faith and fatalism. The Parham we leave at the end of this book is a sort of bleak cross between Job and Sisyphus. I wonder what McCarthy will do to the poor soul in Cities of the Plain. The Crossing is not as tightly written as it might have been. But even when McCarthy is not at his very best he is still very good.

About twenty years ago I bought a small brochure published by the Société Royale Belge de Géographie entitled ‘Itinérarires des mégalithes en Wallonie’. To my shame and frustration I have yet to follow the itinerary, though I have often planned to do it. This holiday break was no different; I was determined to follow the itinerary and then things got in the way. But this morning, as a consolation, I inadvertently stumbled across a wonderful menhir. I had got up before dawn, intent on a good long run through the Belgian Famennes, and there I saw the stone, after about six kilometres, in a back garden, hidden behind parked cars. Who knows its age? 5,000 or 4,000 B.C., maybe, or perhaps more recent, but still clearly ancient. In any case, I always feel humbled in the presence of such inscrutable proof of our longevity. This one has the classic shape of most menhirs, being thin from one angle and broad from another. It also has a clear animal form. (The shape coincidentally echoes that of the Star Wars AT-AT Walkers.) Its irregular shape would surely have made it difficult to manhandle and yet men did this and now it is and has been for a very long time (a hint of Cormac McCarthy creeping in there).