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Dear Poirot,

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"The exchange of anything in kind is a fundamental joy. I think, for the most part, we've lost the human art of growing, forging, shaping and creating, and the satisfaction of "passing it on" without payment - yet intuiting the implicit promise of the gift returning in kind."

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Those truly are words of wisdom, Poirot. Though, I must confess I have, unfortunately, found myself obliged, all too often, during the never ending struggle for life here in Paris, to take heed of this philosophical principle as a constant warning that "there is no such thing as a free lunch"

Having failed to have done so on several occasions (being an inveterately slow learner) has had some extremely unpleasant consequences.

As for the impressionist painters, they too are very present in our Parisian environment as you can imagine. I always have Renoir in mind whenever I choose a florist, in my perpetual quest for the ideal bouquet of flowers for my wife's birthday. But never have I found anything in real life that resembles his masterpiece.

A glitter of fear invariably flickers across the eyes of the poor florists each time I dare formulate my request for a generous bouquet of gentle, pastel coloured flowers "à la Renoir".

And it is with a somewhat embarrassed look on both sides that I am usually forced to concede, on leaving the boutique, that the task was almost impossible to realise but that she (the florist) had, nevertheless, managed to compose something really quite beautiful and excuisitely original.

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Banjo Paterson,

When I first came upon the Impressionists, I was amazed and enchanted. I still feel an uncommon attraction when I look at an Impressionist painting.

Did you know that Renoir learned his craft of rendering the delicacy of women's faces (as only he can do) by painting china early on (or some such utilitarian apprenticeship).

My favourite is Monet (and I would love to see Giverny)http://giverny.org/monet/welcome.htm

Have you read Irving Stone's "Depths of Glory"?
It tells the story of Impressionism, following the life of Camille Pissarro.....it's very good for gleaning an understanding of the life and times of the movement.

I loved your description of you and the Parisian florists - would make a good short story - perhaps with a hidden message : )

Banjo Paterson,
semantics.
Economy, thrift etc. are good things, but our economic reality is based on no such thing.
I put inverted commas around "economic reality" to indicate its abstract quality. I should have also said "our" economic reality, Or "political economy". Obviously I wasn't referring to economy per se. Can't you see how capitalism structures your thinking? Not just yours, but virtually everyone's; the evidence against capitalism is damning and no one is denying it's culturally and environmentally rapacious and unsustainable, yet you go on defending it to the hilt, because you just can't comprehend the possibility of something different, a different way of life. But more to the point because you (I mean all those who defend it) don't like the implication that a condemnation of capitalism is a condemnation of each one of us and of everything we hold as sacred. It's personal. We are forced either to accept that our institutional lives are qualitatively impoverished at best, and bought too dearly, indeed are are morally indefensible, or to deny it and go on defending the indefensible.
Exactly the same phenomenon obtains apropos AGW; the evidence is absolutely clear and damning, yet the so-called denialists continue swearing black is white. Their denialism has nothing to do with healthy scepticism, but is based purely on a manic drive to justify all that which they grew up to believe was good and right and proper. They don't even compromise, they refuse to accept anything's amiss; 'tis all as God or evolution intended, they rationalise.
But I give up. Whatever.

I meant to say "the so-called sceptics" not "denialists". They flatter themselves with the appellation "sceptic", just as defenders of our devastating political economy flatter themselves that they're capable of thinking outside the square at all. They're just mouthing ideology, a spurious self-defence.

Even capitalism, as durable, flexible and adaptable as it has proven itself to be over the centuries, may have trouble wriggling out of this conundrum:

"The final fact is that the petroleum era has come to its end. Petroleum will continue to be available for many decades but always in lesser quantities and in the end it will become a luxury good. Our epoch of accelerated economic development based on inexpensive petroleum is already over. It is the sunset of petroleum. And if we are unable to recognize it, it could also very well be our own."

from The Twilight of Petroluem:

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-02-05/the-twilight-of-petroleum

If capitalism is a 'grow or die' system, and growth (in GDP terms) is no longer possible for reasons including declining supplies of affordable energy to maintain and run the infrastructure on which the system depends, then what is the future of capitalism? And for those of us living within its logic (or under its thumb, or whip...)?

We need (amongst other things) a different means to measure societal progress other than GDP, hence the intervention of Eisenstein and growing numbers of others, e.g. http://postgrowth.org/

Here's Charles Eisenstein speaking about the crumbling of the conventional mythologies (economics, Newtonian physics, established religions) and the emerging 'New Story of the World', supported by quantum physics:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjoxh4c2Dj0&feature=player_embedded

Amongst other things he highlights the importance of seemingly 'small acts' of kindness, caring and sharing.