here i am in the alps with leigh anne and clarence. we drove up from their home in geneva on monday morning coinciding with the first snow for several weeks. the boarding has been fantastic.

it’s more than six months since i published anything to “wanderer”, the longest gap since i started this open journal thirteen years ago in february 1999 (the word “blog” was coined later that year). it’s not that i’ve lacked interesting things to write about in the last six months. actually there have been so many interesting things i’ve barely had a moment to gather my thoughts.

forgive me if this despatch is rather long. there’s a lot to catch up on.

last autumn two projects simultaneously went big whilst an opportunity popped up for a third project that i couldn’t resist. as a result i spent the latter part of the year in a frenzy, working every hour of the day, spending weekends at my computer, switching manically back and forth between projects and trying desperately to hold everything together. one panicky night at the start of october i decided to sit down and list all the different things i was responsible for delivering before the end of the year. it took about an hour to write it all down.

the first project was the trampery, the shared workspace i founded in 2009. i’d been thinking about ways of organising multi-tenancy offices to speed up network development and trampoline had more office space than it needed. it seemed like an obvious step to open it up as a home for the interesting start-ups that were popping up in shoreditch at that time.

as a teenager i’d been fascinated with architecture and might have pursued it professionally had a friend’s father not told me “you start off wanting to change society then spend your days designing petrol stations and supermarkets .” notwithstanding this warning i retained a fascination with the way space shapes collaboration and culture. with successive offices i paid obsessive attention to layout, furnishing and decoration. unfortunately this drove my office managers mad since they couldn’t buy a mug or waste-paper basker without my approval. opening a shared workspace finally gave my obsession a practical outlet. as for the the name, the trampoline team chose “the trampery” by vote after it was suggested by craig mcmillan, my friend and co-founder in the company.

the trampery wasn’t an instant success by any means. for the first six months a succession of people drifted in and out without anyone staying more than a month or two. the space was often intimidatingly quiet, with every rustle and belch echoing around the room. i began to think i’d miscalculated and there was no demand for what we were offering. but just as i was about to give up some mysterious balance shifted and people started coming and staying. the community grew to ten people, fifteen, then twenty. in place of silence there was now a constant hum of energy and activity. we soon hit the maximum capacity of twenty-five with a vibrant community of people from technology start-ups, arts organisations and non-profits. meanwhile the trampery was gaining a reputation among east london’s cognoscenti as the coolest place to work
in the area.

by the end of 2010 the building was bursting and lots more companies wanted to join so i decided to spin off the trampery as a separate social enterprise and move it to a larger site. the very first place i looked at was a new building on bevenden street, just to the north of old street roundabout. it had been on the market for two days and i was the first person to look around. it was perfect and i quickly agreed terms with the owner. the whole thing seemed destined.

planning and fitting out the new building was one of the most enjoyable tasks i’ve ever performed. the site was just a concrete shell so i had a completely blank canvas. everything i’d ever observed about people’s habits for collaborating and socialising were distilled into the plans. the key to the final layout was pushing the kitchen to the front of the building creating a junction where residents could chat with each other over lunch, hold a quick meeting or bump into visitors. i wanted to avoid the sterile holding pen of a separate reception area and immediately drop guests into the thick of the action. having finalised the layout i spent dozens of hours scouring ebay and street markets for interesting antique furniture at knock-down prices. i bought a huge edwardian oval mahogany dining table from manchester, a job lot of 20 victorian dining chairs from somerset, a gilded louis xvi settee from shropshire, an art deco kitchen dresser from hertfordshire. week by week vans arrived to offload my purchases, each one more eccentric than the last.

the bevenden street site had twice the capacity of the original building, spread across two floors. but in four months every desk was gone. at the same time word was getting round about this peculiar workspace that looked more like a country house than an office. by the summer we had a steady trickle of people coming for tours, including journalists, investors, government officials and corporate bigwigs. we also had a variety of curious passers-by knocking at the door wanting to know if we were a furniture show-room, cafe or members club.

then in september the day arrived when i answered the phone and it was buckingham palace on the line asking if the duke of york could visit the trampery to meet some of the entrepreneurs working there. i took a deep breath. i’d never hosted a royal visit but i had a feeling some preparations would be involved. it was also clear the visit would have considerable symbolic weight since it would be the first time a member of the royal family had come into the east london technology community. i was thrilled the trampery had caught the attention of the duke’s team and told them we’d be honoured to welcome him.

for the next month the small team running the trampery worked like demons to get everything ready. we engaged a brilliant designer (david cuesta) to create a new logo in double-quick time, found a local catering business (“we made it for you”) to provide british-sourced trout and stilton sandwiches for tea, bought some giant steel tea-pots on ridley road market, had an aluminium plaque made for the duke to unveil, paced the floor with the duke’s team to choreograph his path through the building, went through the plans with his security detail, refined an agenda for a round-table discussion with the entrepreneurs, printed place cards, made arrangements with the media, selected a photographer to document the day, printed posters to put on the walls. five minutes before the duke’s arrival we were still rushing around getting everything ready. but when his bentley pulled into the mews outside outside everything was ready.

the duke was with us for an hour an a half. the discussion with entrepreneurs was considerably livelier than i’d predicted. the duke swiftly dispensed with small-talk and started asking pointed questions about the barriers that prevent technology start-ups from growing faster and what could be done to overcome them. he formed an easy rapport with the entrepreneurs and soon got them speaking without inhibition or stiffness. after the discussion i ushered him downstairs, stopping with the fuerte team so the duke could play with one of their augmented reality apps on an ipad. then we went through into the studio where the duke mingled with guests. i gave an address to welcome him, including an impromptu suggestion that he might consider turning one of buckingham palace’s bedrooms into a start-up incubator. then he made a speech, hailing the trampery as one of the most interesting things he’d seen in ten years supporting uk businesses. finally he unveiled the plaque we’d prepared.

initially i’d not been enthusiastic about having a plaque. the whole business of pulling a string to open a little curtain seemed rather trite. but the palace was keen to do it so i racked my brains for an approach more in keeping with the trampery’s spirit. the weekend before the visit i was trawling round spitalfields market when i spotted an offcut of purple suede which i thought would make an excellent curtain. after that i visited a craft market on brick lane and came upon a stall selling little people made from clothes pegs, with drawn-on faces and pipe-cleaner arms. i bought a peg in the form of a glamorous lady with flowing hair. i thought we could use this to fix the suede curtain on the plaque. to release it the duke would simply unclip the peg. it occurred to me the curtain would need something to hold it taut and ensure it fell away cleanly so i bought a couple of nine-inch nails from a hardware shop. my friend ben pickering, who’d just joined the trampery team, trimmed the suede to size and glued the nails at the bottom, then secured it to the plaque with the clothes peg.

to his credit the duke was completely unphased by our eccentric plaque unveiling and sailed through it without skipping a beat. at the end of his speech he turned round, grasped the clothes-peg lady and lifted her from the plaque. the purple suede curtain plummeted to the ground with a satisfying thud revealing the plaque beneath. then he turned straight round and pinned the clothes peg on the lapel pocket of my jacket. everyone was laughing, the duke included. it felt like a proper trampery ceremony.

there are some photos of the duke’s visit here.
and some general pictures of the trampery here.

the second project to take off was trampoline’s “tech city map”. back in 2008 i’d suggested analysing the networks linking technology businesses around shoreditch as a way to understand how the cluster was growing. however at that time nobody was interested and the idea didn’t go any further. then in november 2010 the new government announced its ”tech city” initiative to boost east london’s technology community and suddenly everyone wanted to understand the cluster and help it grow.

in february 2011 i was invited to join a group of entrepreneurs, industry leaders, investors and university heads meeting monthly at downing street to brew policy for the east london technology community. i was asked to outline an approach to map networks across the cluster. the suggestion i put forward involved analysing the data published to social networking platforms day by day from businesses in the east london ecosystem. using trampoline’s technology we’d be able to see which businesses were talking about each other, forwarding each other’s messages and following each other’s activity; giving us a detailed picture of networks spanning the community plus a barometer of changing patterns of influence and interest. nobody had ever tried to conduct a live analysis of an entire business community before but based on trampoline’s experience analysing corporate communication networks i was certain we’d get interesting results.

this time my proposal was received much more enthusiastically so i set out to raise funds for the project. over the next few months a consortium of powerful technology and media businesses came together around the project and finally the “tech city map” (as it had become known) had sufficient resources to get underway. by september development was in full swing and the first glimmers of data were looking exciting. we were on course to provide a completely new source of insight for researchers and entrepreneurs interested in the east london community.

then the day came when i answered the phone and it was downing street on the line asking if the prime minister could launch the project to mark tech city’s first anniversary. i took a deep breath. this would place the project in a completely different context from the geeky research tool i’d envisaged. it also risked politicising the data generated by the project which might prove uncomforatble. but i was thrilled by the opportunity as any entrepreneur would be and quickly agreed. as icing on the cake, the launch event would be hosted at the trampery.

for the next month everyone in the trampoline team worked like demons to get the map ready for launch. we added extra features, partnered with a graphic design agency (playgen) to create a vastly improved user interface, juggled priorities day by day to squeeze every iota of functionality from the remaining time. to everyone’s horror a fatal bug came to light the evening before launch. i went to bed late that night not knowing if there’d be anything to launch the next day or not. craig and daniel were up all night battling with it. but at 10am on the 10th of november when david cameron’s car pulled up in front of the trampery the problem was fixed and the map looked ravishing.

i was with the prime minister for an hour but i was so exhausted it passed in a blur. first there was a discussion upstairs in the yellow room for the prime minister and twenty corporate leaders. then i chaired a discussion in the studio with the prime minister and half a dozen east london entrepreneurs, during which he tried out the map. next the bbc’s technology correspondent rory cellan-jones interviewed mr cameron in the green room with the map projected on the wall behind him. then he greeted the partners who made the map possible. and with that he was whisked off to his next engagement.

everything went without a hitch. the bbc’s interview with the prime minister was broadcast on the main evening news. a separate interview with me went out on the london news. in the hours following the tech city map’s launch 10,000 people explored it on the web. thanks to craig’s impeccable engineering the system performed flawlessly. the political storm followed soon enough, in the form of a notably futile argument about the exact number of technology businesses in east london. it seemed best to keep out of it and let people make up their own mindes. a couple of journalists made slightly unpleasant personal attacks on me, portraying me as political stooge raking in taxpayers money whilst prancing around in peculiar clothes. not a word of it was true (except the part about the peculiar clothes) so i just ignored it and got on with my work.

you can see the tech city map here.
and some photos from the prime minister’s launch event [7]here.

2011 was an amazing year for me and i loved it. i was blessed with magnificent friends and collaborators in every area of my life. at the height of the whirlwind in september i also met a beautiful man called mattia and we’ve been together ever since. in the middle of it all i turned forty.

if you’re wondering about the “third project” i mentioned at the beginning, i hope to be able to talk about that very soon.

: c :

between working on my projects and partying i’ve rather neglected the cycle of processing and uploading photos and films. previously the backlog held fairly steady at three months but now it has swollen to a full year. in a couple of days i’ll be fleeing the frenzies of london and heading south to stromboli for a bit. the impending trip has shamed me into editing my film from last september’s visit to the island.

i already uploaded some pictures from the trip back in april.

: c :

i already posted some photos from the trip matteo and i made to cornwall last june. now here’s the film.

thanks again to anna and adam.

: c :

i’m dreadfully behind with my photographs so here’s a fat burst of fifty-one images from last summer in london. it starts with my final video chat with matteo before his arrival and predictably he turns up in a lot of them as we traverse the city and dress up to debauch ourselves at a variety of parties. there are pictures of my home, haggerston hall, in varying states of dishevelment. hampstead heath is there, the opening party of the london hackspace, arthur on his bike in camden, giuseppe on the roof of a warehouse in hackney wick, leigh anne’s leaving party. it was a rich, exuberant summer.

: c :

last july matteo and i spent four idyllic days with anna and adam in cornwall. we drove down from london late in the afternoon and arrived in the early hours of the morning. i took my first swim of the year on gwithian towans while matteo cartwheeled on its infinite expanse of flat smooth sand. we walked out along the springy turf to the tip of gurnard’s head to watch the sunset. we had a barbecue supper at godrevy point with the stars and waves for company. we explored a fast-flowing stream near treen as it tumbled down the cliffside.

cornwall showed us its most serene face. we were blessed.

: c :

a few minutes ago i embraced matteo, salvo and my other friends on stromboli then hauled my bags up the gangplank to the hydrofoil and gave a final salute as it pulled away from the quay. today the volcano is sombre with a dense white mass of cloud swirling around the top. every fifteen or twenty minutes a black stain appears in the cloud as an eruption blasts its lava, ash and gases into the air. the weather has been restless the last few days with the wind veering from south to west to north to south to west again and the sea switching rapidly between calm and crashing waves.

i arrived the day before easter with some slight trepidation. what would it be like to be with matteo again so soon after we broke up? would we want to see each other? would the pleasure of being on the island be impaired? within hours of arriving my anxiety had evaporated. matteo and i spent time together each day. sometimes alone, sometimes with friends and family. there was never any awkwardness or rancour. we talked with the same honesty as before. i think we recognised this was remarkable for two people who have just separated and perhaps thought even more highly of each other for it.

matteo’s family were amazingly welcoming to me. they invited me to easter lunch at their house, second only to the christmas meal. there were twenty people at table including three aunts and two uncles who’d come over from puglia, matteo’s brother and two sisters, his older sister’s husband and their two children. the meal was exquisite and continued without pause for four hours. knowing i didn’t eat meat matteo’s mother and aunts had been kind enough to prepare several dishes specially for me. the high point was roasted totani (pink-fleshed deep sea squid) stuffed with ricotta, mint and walnuts. sublime.

for the first time in all my years on stromboli i followed the island’s easter procession before lunch. this is a ritualised portrayal of mary’s reunion with the resurrected christ and a symbolic linking of the island’s two churches. at midday on easter sunday a statue of christ departs from the church of san vincenzo in scari on the shoulders of four men whilst a statue of the virgin leaves the church of san bartolo in piscita. each statue is preceded by banners, bells and chanting with a crowd of islanders following behind. with careful coordination the statues meet each other mid-way between the two churches. as they close the final gap each statue bows several times to the other. at the climactic moment when they come together mary’s tightly-closed robes are unbound to release doves or swallows which fly away having been secreted inside. after this the two statues proceed together to san bartolo where they are placed on pedestals and the priest ends the ceremony with a short address. it was a beautiful piece of theatre, much lighter than the hysterical mortifications of the easter spectacles i witnessed at trapani and marsala. photographs and film will follow.

irene did add a somewhat macabre edge to the story, explaining that the island’s children are pressed into service to stalk the island with nets and clubs the day before easter to catch the birds for hiding under mary’s robe. apparently the young hunters are prone to be a little over-enthusiastic in their efforts resulting in a proportion of the fowl being despatched to the great aviary in the sky before they can participate in the procession.

a couple of days after easter i spent the whole night on spiaggia lunga with salvo, renzo, luca and arianna. we were graced by one of the most spectacular meteorites i’ve ever seen. it arced across the sky in a shallow diagonal right the way to the horizon leaving a thick trail of sparkling light in its wake. we were left whooping in wide-eyed amazement. towards dawn i became completely absorbed watching as the colours of sea, sky and vegetation changed hue minute by minute. then as the sun rose dozens of swallows started to swoop in a circuit around us flying just a few centimetres above the surface of the sea. at the same time thousands to tiny white moths, just one or two millimetres across, appeared around us in a layer a metre above the black sand. none of us had ever seen anything like it before. i felt lucky; more than lucky.

following matteo’s request the island’s priest (don luciano da rico) very kindly gave me permission to play the organ in the church of san vincenzo which i’ve never done before. as we ascended the spiral steps to the dust-covered balcony i didn’t have great expectations of the ancient, rarely-played instrument. underneath the stops was a handwritten maintainer’s note dated 1917. the panting and wheezing emitted when i turned on the pump suggested this might have been the the date of its last service. the air pressure was irregular, one stop produced a sound like a car’s starter motor, several didn’t work at all and those that did work were erratic and outrageously out of tune. but despite this i completely fell in love with the instrument. the principals were chaffy and sweet. the quints were piquant and angular. the acoustic was thick but still intimate. best of all the unpredictable air pressure gave rise to a tremelo effect which sounded uncannily like a human flautist and changed with different combinations of keys. over three days i recorded several hours of improvisation. matteo joined in for some of it.

on my way to the island sergio mentioned that telecom italia was offering a cheap deal for data so i called them to active it. predictably, nothing happened. after several persistent calls to their support centre matteo managed to get it working. but the moment it was running i realised i had no wish to be connected to the internet and the cat’s cradle of services that interlace my urban routine. so i turned it off.

: c :

here are fifty-four pictures from september’s trip to stromboli. catching up with old friends, getting to know matteo’s family, the birthday party he organised for me, long idyllic days beside the sea, the tempest which held us captive on the island on the final day. it was a very happy time (though not without its little stresses).

in four days i shall arrive on stromboli once again. i think matteo and i are slightly apprehensive about seeing each other for the first time in a month and a half, but mainly we’re excited. this will be like meeting for the first time. something new and different.

: c :

Click to view slideshow.

as suddenly, as unexpectedly, as beautifully as it began; my relationship with matteo is over.

three weeks ago today we rose before dawn to catch a bus to london bridge station and then a train to gatwick airport. matteo checked in his luggage. we sat together and watched each other over cups of coffee in an airport cafe, echoing the day of his arrival. then it was time for me to turn around and commence my journey back to london, leaving matteo to catch a flight for naples and stromboli.

i’d imagined a million ways our relationship would end; always with cataclysmic arguments, infidelities or betrayals. but there was nothing like that. we carried on caring about each other, creating music together, holding each other close. a day simply arrived when it was time for us to finish.

the first sign was returning to london after giving a talk in cornwall to find matteo in a state of feverish agitation. all that evening he clung to me, talking continuously, unable to focus. i held him tightly, spoke soothing words, ran my hand through his hair and tried to understand what was going on in his mind. three days later we booked the ticket for him to return to stromboli.

our final week together was extraordinary. every moment glowed. we recorded songs together almost every night and spent hours talking. we held a leaving party for the friends who had made our time together in london so happy.

on the journey back from the airport i felt like an automaton. opening the front door and coming into the empty house i broke down and cried for the first and last time. after that there was no sadness. this was partly because in my heart it didn’t feel like anything had changed. but it was also because i’d tried from the start to appreciate each day together as if it was our last, to immerse myself in the relationship without clinging to it.

despite its brevity this has been one of the richest, most intense and most joyful relationships of my life. for the first time i came close to being the person i aspired to be for my partner. when we started off together my friends were concerned i would end up getting hurt. but of all my relationships this is the one that has hurt me the least and given me the most joy.

despite the gulf in our age and experiences we were perfect partners in crime. we shared a love of putting on a show, bringing friends together, disrupting our environments, bucking convention and creating beautiful things in every sphere we touched. we were always honest with each other. we always listened to each other. we were always faithful to each other.

from the first moment i found matteo beautiful. he inspired me to be something better than i was.

i’m proud of us both for seizing the improbable opportunity that fate presented and following it without fear where it would lead.

thank you matteo, thank you for everything.

: c :

it’s ten months to the day since matteo and i met on stromboli. to mark the occasion here’s a film of the very first days we spent together.

: c :

last march i spent a few sublime spring days in cornwall. the sky was clear, the air soft and filled with birdsong, the hedgerows bursting with fresh shoots and blossom. i made a small pilgrimage to madron well near penzance where i’d been just once before, more than a decade ago. one feels a sense of magic there. it’s easy to understand why so many people have considered it blessed through the centuries. here’s the film i shot.

: c :