All posts by charlesarmstrong

London, Wanderer

g h a n a

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[ 03:00 tuesday 10 october – fitzjohn’s terrace , hampstead , london ]

right . think that’s just about everything . i’ll be on a train from liverpool street station in five hours on my way to stansted airport . at the airport i’ll be meeting ann and jamie cotton to collect a digital video camera , a digital stills camera , a minidisc recorder and a few other bits . then off to ghana with klm on the 10:20 via amsterdam . ann is the founder and director of camfed , the development education charity for whom i am doing the project in tamale ( http://www.camfed.org.uk ) .

stansted , grey and cool in the anglian flatlands .

i shall land in accra , the ghanaian capital on the south-facing atlantic coast . there i hope i might be met by someone from rains , a local development organisation , and accompanied to tamale up in the northern region . a town of a couple of hundred thousand , the regional capital . there is electricity , sometimes . also some telephone wires .

on the 25th of October a new centre will open in tamale . i shall be setting up a computer network and giving training , helping a group of local people to document themselves and the opening of the centre , doing my best to support whatever talents i find in the community .

[ info

contact phone number : +233 71 23406
this is the rains office in tamale

for the time being any post could be sent to :

RAINS
PO Box 27er
Tamale
N/R
Ghana

but i really don’t know how reliable it’s likely to be

info ]

these three weeks have been bloody knackering , i’ll tell you !

i travelled non-stop from fabrizio , viola and kiriku’s appartment in milan to the sse’s conference in the oh-so-green countryside near chester , there to talk to students about email and group communication . a few days later i was at a seminar on venture philanthropy hosted by mkinsey’s and co-organised by sse . during the evening i spoke to some very interesting people .

then i managed to spend a weekend with mum and dad in gloucestershire , peaceful and refreshing amongst autumnal farmland . they were just returned from travels in france . i enjoyed riding my bike again , on the muddy roads . practicing bach preludes and fugues on my great-grandmother’s old broadwood . but also i had to unpack everything from italy and repack for africa . mum and dad have been very good about the fact that their home now houses the majority of my clothes , books and so on , but they know it will not be for long .

then to cambridge to catch up with alistair white and steven bartlett at fontal , an information management business in the st john’s innovation centre . on the way back i grabbed a moment to drop in on ray jobling , my tutor when i was an undergraduate and my study guide during the year in the isles of scilly . i wanted to ask his opinion on the possibility of getting access to libraries in cambridge and the appropriate etiquette for pestering people doing research in fields of interest .

then back to london for many discussions with james , craig , seb and others about setting up learning web , a joint venture between sse and circus . we worked through the development plan i wrote on stromboli – and wrote again in palermo and milan . assessed what resources would be needed , how they could be secured , how system development should be staffed , managed , structured .

in the meanwhile i have had to organise the replacement of the equipment i lost (apple powerbook g3 , extra battery , high speed scsi card , internal 250mb zip drive , decent mouse , memory upgrade , flash card adaptor for my snapshots , battery charger for my digital camera) , reinstalled all the software i use , sketched out a design for another powerbook case and faxed it down to ratbags sail loft in the isles of scilly (the case did not arrive in time for my departure so my smaller backpack will have to suffice unless the new one makes it to ghana somehow) .

i’ve had my jabs , purchased my malaria pills , a portable mosquito net , a map of ghana and a guide , a swiss army knife incorporating tools for dealing with computer equipment and other electronics (wire-stripper , range of screwdriver heads , pliers &c) (this was mum and dad’s birthday present to me – thanks !) .

i’ve set up homepages for an electronic debate with the sse millennium award winners in glasgow and salford and done my best to help things along .

i’ve made my first sketches of the circus constitution . after five years of trying to design a new species of decentralised organisation i hope to complete a full draft soon .

and this evening i signed an agreement with james smith of sse saying that i will live in london for the first six months of next year and focus almost exclusively on learning web . this was not at all what i was thinking of doing . i was looking forward to visiting sri lanka with my friend andrew , who was born there . it is a place which i know i shall find fascinating and andrew would be a delightful companion . but when james urged me to agree to spend six months here in london i didn’t put up much of a fight . i knew he was right . it is ironic that a venture concerned entirely with dispersed systems and their employment must be sparked off by a co-located team . i must brace myself for a spell in this climate , after a year spent largely beneath the sun in one part of the world or another . but

some more snapshots from italy , presented in the new navigation structure :

http://www.charlesarmstrong.net/snapshots/2000-08-18
http://www.charlesarmstrong.net/snapshots/2000-08-25

thanks mum and dad , jean and seb , craig and heidi , tom and mark , christian and bridget , for your hospitality .

clare , i hope your foot is ok . sorry we didn’t overlap in italy , we’ll manage it next year for sure .

ash and inaki , it was terrific to see both of you again .

caroline , i tried to get hold of you at the ft . i don’t have the phone number for your new house .

well i’d better book a cab and get a little sleep . i have a feeling this is going to be a long day .

warm wishes to all of you , my friends old and new . it may be some time before i am able to get online again .

: cH

Italy, Wanderer

e x i t m i l a n o

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07:11 saturday 16 september – via solferino

packing my final things . out of the door in twenty minutes . walk to moscova underground . tube to stazione centrale . train to brescia . bus to the airport . plane to stansted . train to chester . taxi to trafford hall , where there is an sse conference at which i am due to participate in a seminar tomorrow morning .

this has been a terrific summer .

: cH

Italy, Wanderer

s t o r i a

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23:04 thursday 7 september – via solferino , milano

one of the too-numerous fears which hang over me is that by trying to do a million things i will render myself incapable of achieving anything .

there is this extraordinary drive in me which compels me ever to challenge new boundaries , not just one at a time but many at once . somehow it seems i must be a great musician , photographer , writer , social theorist , entrepreneur , philosopher , revolutionary , adventurer , all at the same time . it is absurd , i know , but i do not know how to stop it .

–

19:48 saturday 9 september – via solferino

it was perhaps predictable that the theft of those tools which enable my nomadic existence would trigger a period of lively introspection . readers should be grateful they have been spared more passages like the one above !

but i must tell the story . i arrived at palermo’s central station , where i met gabriele . he drove me to the family house around the coast at capaci . i had a shower , changed my clothes , then we made a plan . we would drive back into palermo , collect two of gabriele’s girlfriends from a tango club (they happened to be architecture students as well as dancers) , then i would be treated to an introductory tour of the ancient city .

it was i who proposed we should park the car and make the tour on foot . it was i who removed my small rucksag from inside the large one in full view of whomever’s eyes chanced to be observing the goings-on in piazza marina . i who slung the small bag on my back and left the large one in the boot of the car , beside the case containing my computer and its accessories , without a moment’s thought . the time was about quarter to two in the morning . people were still dining on the terrace of a restaurant in the piazza . the streets were otherwise empty .

for an hour and a half the four of us walked about , carola and lucia maintaining a torrential commentary on the history and stylistic characteristics of each building , each street . we stopped for gelati for half an hour . it was all delightful . then we returned to gabriele’s parked car .

i was walking slightly ahead of the others . arriving at the vehicle i noticed a small cardboard box on the front passenger seat where i had been sitting . i was puzzled but thought no more of it . the others arrived . i do not remember if the doors were locked or unlocked . the box was observed . it had been in the glove compartment . in a moment the thought was given breath : someone had been inside the car . but the car remained , we were lucky .

then i felt a chill . i asked in a quiet voice , a voice without emotion : could we have a look in the back , please . the penny dropped , i saw gabriele’s face freeze . the back was opened . every degree of the tailgate’s ascent remains fixed in my mind as the truth i knew already was confirmed indupitably . none of my belongings remained .

from my friends erupted declarations of horror but i was silent , motionless . ever since i started travelling with a computer this moment had been with me , a nascent possibility . the knowledge of consequences was pre-prepared , ready to flood through me , ready to shift my world a little on its axis .

i said : ok , can we go to the caribinieri please . then for half hour i did not utter another word . we ran to the nearest police station and gabriele launched into fevered discussion . then he realised that the keys to his family house in palermo had been taken and we had a new alarm to contend with . we ran back to the car , sped through the deserted streets to the house . it was undisturbed , but until the locks had been changed the threat persisted . i remained there , sitting with my thoughts , considering everything i had lost , whilst gabriele drove carola and lucia back to their houses . several of gabriele’s neighbours stayed there with me , but sensing my need to be alone they remained talking amongst themselves in the kitchen .

surprisingly i slept deeply and without anxiety that night . when i awoke it was lunchtime . in the early morning gabriele had been called by the carabinieri to tell him that some clothes had been seen lying in the gutter near piaza marina . he had driven in and collected what he found . a shirt i bought in malaysia , another from madeira , a third particularly precious one which my grandfather bought in brazil , a fourth i had bought in a sale in milan just a few weeks earlier . also my shaving things , my towel . to me this was a small miracle . a handful of those things i had counted lost now returned to me .

i sense that i have learnt more than i could have imagined through the events of the past weeks but it is too early to attempt description . i daresay i shall reflect further on this in future paragraphs . my losses have been considerable and inconvenient but quickly i picked up the threads of my work again . in the end what i lost were just objects and i do not think we should care too much about objects . the financial implications are not comfortable for me but i shall survive . in retrospect i understand that this situation would have affected me far more severely had i been alone . it is to the company and the understanding of gabriele that i owe my easy forbearance . therefore i thank you , my friend , with all my heart .

by ship and by train i returned to milano last sunday/monday . my arrival happily coincided with my friend roberto protei , on his way back to london after a weekend with his family in arezzo , participating in an annual festival celebrating an ancient victory in the crusades . we spent an hour or so together , though i was like a sleep-walker after my long journey . he gave me a jar of fantastic sugo prepared by his mother which formed my supper with some gnocchi . then i slept .

there is just one week now before i return to britain , albeit briefly . tomorrow i depart for one last foray , to the island of giglio , with my friend hans ektvedt who arrived from london last night .

life goes on .

: cH

Italy, Wanderer

g a p s

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03:58 thursday 7 september – via solferino , milano

i lost a month’s worth of digital photos with my powerbook , including some i took whilst i was staying with my parents’ in sandhurst which i really liked . in fact i spent a few hours the evening before i left stromboli constructing the modules ready to publish . oh well .

there are some new pics at
http://www.charlesarmstrong.net/snapshots/2000-08-06 . finally my interface has reached a state i’m quite pleased with .

: cH

Sicilia, Wanderer

p e r d u t o

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19:08 saturday 2 september – palermo

it is a week and a half now since i decided the time had come to leave my friends on stromboli and take up gabriele’s invitation to visit palermo . having bid farewell to tommaso , britta , fabio and fabrizio in the preceding days i bought a ticket for the lunchtime hydrofoil and lugged my baggage one last time through the narrow streets beneath the blazing midday sun , accompanied by sasi .

off i sped , weaving between the neighbouring islands . but the crew omitted to mention , or i to glean , that for palermo i should change vessels at lipari . so it was i found myself docking some hours later at milazzo , an ugly industrial sprawl at the wrong end of sicilia . the crew was less than sympathetic to my situation but ill-humouredly established on my behalf that a train would be departing for palermo in quarter of an hour . a short ( and hilariously costly) taxi ride brought me to the station and i was back on route . oddly enough i arrived in palermo several hours earlier by this indirect route than i would have done by hydrofoil . i have since learned to recognise this as a characteristic example of sicilian logic .

my rerouted arrival set the tone for the days which have followed . one intense and unpredicted experience has followed another . most have been wonderful but a few have been quite terrible . my time now is limited as gabriele and i must be at his parents’ house for supper in twenty minutes so i shall be brief and write more later .

for now i shall report merely that within six hours of my arrival in palermo almost all my belongings , including my powerbook , had emphatically left my possession .

tomorrow night i depart for milano .

: cH

Stromboli, Wanderer

p a s s a g g i o

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10:22 sunday 20 august – fico grandi , isola di stromboli

it is almost a week now since i arrived on this extraordinary little island and picked my way through the narrow streets as the sun rose . the town is stretched out around the base of the volcano , with on circumferal street near the water and another higher up , connected by innumerable radial pathways zigzagging between the white-painted cuboid houses .

my directions from fabrizio were simply ” find your way to the splash disco , we live underneath it ” . having spent perhaps quarter of an hour of rewarding but tiring random exploration i passed a house outside which half a dozen young people were sitting , looking a little dazed . i stopped and turned to them , provoking some rubbing of eyes , bemused peering and chuckles . scusi , dove il disco splash ? more laughter : you are a bit late now , it is closed . eventually i was offered some directions but they were no more than half coherent and it was a little while before i found the place up a steep winding path above the town , surrounded by tall cactus and oleander. i briefly greeted fabrizio then unfolded a rusting sun lounger beneath a vine on the terrace , covered myself with a blanket and dozed for a few hours with the flies nibbling at me .

by noon that day i was in an open boat with fabrizio and viola , three of fabrizio’s childhood friends from napoli , two more from sweden , baby kiriku in a wicker basket and an enormous great dane called guapa , pushing off from the jet-black beach beneath the town .

[ continuing 11:23 – latartana club ]

we crossed to strombelichio , the rock which rises perhaps a hundred feet , vertical and jagged , from the water to the north of stromboli . here we anchored and swam . the water around the island is the most astonishing colour , a blue so deep and clear one’s eyes are drawn to stare into it endlessly .

after a while here we proceeded to encircle stromboli , stopping at a beach from time to time for a swim or a picnic . we passed the volcano’s active flank , where smoking rocks tumble constantly down into the sea . we landed briefly at ginostra , the village on the opposite side of the island from the main town , whose inhabitants continue to survive , i believe , without electricity .

it was dusk when we returned to the town beach . milano seemed already a million miles distant . after some pasta , some beer and some jovial conversation i stretched out happily on my makeshift bed and …

… had one of the most horrible nights of my life . the moment i lay down a swarm of mosquitoes descended upon me . not the big , whining monsters of milano but tiny silent creatures . the first warning one has of their presence is a thorn-like jab on the skin , by which time it is too late to do anything . seconds later the insufferable itching begins . despite putting all my clothes back on and burying myself completely under my sheet i managed only an hour or so of sleep . the whole surface of my body was peppered by the morning . i could only half-open my eyes in consequence of bites on each eyelid .

i was in a state of shock after this existential horror , particularly coming after such an idyllic day . i was gripped by an antisocial temper which lifted only when i ate a couple of the odd-shaped flat peaches grown on the island , possessing a degree of perfection entirely beyond my descriptive power .

i spent two more nights on that bed , sleeping with a small mosquito net over my face my face and reluctantly setting a noxious tablet to burn during the night . then fabrizio’s researches bore fruit and a beautiful house was found , at the other end of town , close to the cleanest beach and in an area unbeset by mosquitoes . into here i moved with sasi , a sculptor from napoli . having slept like an angel for the last four nights it was time to leave this morning . once more i am uncertain where i shall find myself sleeping tonight but quite relaxed about it .

each day i spend a few hours working on my document for the sse , my project for this period , framed by swimming and walking and lounging . the words and the ideas come freely , it is scarcely any effort . i will stay for a few days more then take the hydrofoil to palermo . i spoke to gabriele yesterday , the fellow i met on the ship from napoli . he has invited me to stay for a few days .

: cH

In transit, Stromboli, Wanderer

n a v e

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05:05 monday 14 august – mv carpaccio

i’m sitting on the top deck with the stars bright above me , the wake disappearing in the darkness , a hot breeze caressing my face and arms . the last of the scarlet moon , close to full , slips beneath the horizon . i have slept for a couple of hours . within another half hour we shall be at stromboli .

the excitement which began to rise in me as we drew into rome is still growing . we drew into napoli punctually at half past eight . i leapt into a taxi and asked to be taken quickly to the quay for stromboli. the driver laughed and pointed out that final check-in was half an hour before sailing , ie half past eight . i shrugged and joined his laughter . he drove as only the the neapolitans can drive , dodging in and out of tram lanes , disregarding any notion that certain parts of the road were for use in one direction or another . as we pulled up at the quay he sprang from the car and into staccato conversation with an official . he gestured to me : it’s okay . i was so happy i allowed him to charge me what was clearly a ridiculous sum without caring in the least .

ah ! i can see the lights of stromboli twinkling on the horizon .

i approached the official and asked him if he spoke english . he replied that he spoke very good italian . eventually we reached an understanding that i should go aboard and we’d sort out a ticket once we were underway .

i spent the first part of the voyage speaking with a young neapolitan called gabriele who is off camping on salina . i showed him some of my pictures from st agnes . the mood on the ship is terrific , full of laughter and anticipation , a sense of escape . the complement consists largely of young people , who soon had their sleeping bags and lilos arrayed on every corner of deckspace . several people pulled out guitars and started singing . i managed to speak to mum in england before the mobile reception deteriorated .

the sky is becoming light now in the east .

–

i turn round from my writing and gasp . rising hazy from the sea is the steep cone of stromboli , with even a menacing glow of orange peeping from its crater . i don’t know what i expected , but this … it’s beyond belief . fofo’s urgings come into perspective .

the light strenghtens quite quickly . i can see white houses clustered around the base now .

wow ! a cry goes up and i look round again to see a burst of lava burst from the top of the volcano . it is time to stop writing i think , too much to look at !

: cH

Broken photo links, In transit, Italy, Wanderer

v i a g g i o

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16:10 sunday 13 august – eurostar , milano to napoli

a month to fill in …

my intention had been to return to britain for just a week , principally to gather with warren langley , craig and henry to discuss the next steps for trampoline and to start organising the sse learning web project with james smith . james had phoned me in milan a few days earlier to let me know that the school’s bid for core funding to cover its development for the next three years had been successful so we could start putting some of our plans into action . this is enormously exciting for me but it also brings new responsibilities . circus must evolve into a more formal structure than has been necessary hitherto .

when my work in london was done i decided not to return to milano immediately , but to head down to mum and dad’s house in gloucestershire and bite the bullet of scanning my slides from last year in the islands . ten days later i had 1050 of them digitised , cropped , resized and catalogued . this represents about half of the slides i took . the experience was a kind of purgatory , both for me and for mum who had to put up with my steadily declining temper . i really hope i never have to do anything like this again .

but the satisfaction of having the archive here on my powerbook is considerable . the process has also given me a clear sense of the raw material i have to work with , should i attempt any kind of publication or exhibition . it was , of course , a strongly nostalgic experience retracing my footsteps through the period , moment by moment . as i reached the final week i felt again the heaviness of each frame , remembering my sense that i was looking at things for the last time , paying my final tributes to places and objects i loved . my heart was in my throat once again .

during those ten days my relationship with sandhurst , my parents’ village , changed somehow . i explored the bank of the river severn on my bike , discovered favourite places to which i returned day after day . likewise the local hill with its views to the malverns on one side and the cotswolds on the other . experiences i overlooked when i lived there as a child . we take so much for granted . it has taken me this long to appreciate the beauty of the area and particularly of the garden mum and dad have created over the last dozen years . for a few days this became my office and i could not have wished for a more idyllic environment in which to pursue my unwelcome labours .

finally it was done and i was free to return to italy . i flew from stansted to brescia with ryan air . bizarrely the ticket cost even less than my previous charter horror but the service ran like clockwork and after an hour’s train journey i was back in fofo’s appartment on via solferino . to my delight my arrival coincided with a brief visit on business by my friend christian , so we had time for a fleeting coffee before he returned to london .

and in milano i have remained , buried in my work for the sse and the scillonia digital workshop . my only escape has been a day with a friend on the shores of lago di como … until today .

fofo and his family have been holidaying on the tiny island of stromboli , just north of sicilia , since my return to milano . finally , a few days ago , my resistance to his urging that i should join them collapsed . for one thing milano has almost completely shut down . over the last week swathes of shops have put up sheets in their windows and announced their closure until september . now that my favourite grocer , fruiterer , fishmonger and bakery have joined the stampede , life is scarcely worth living . on another note , this is a good opportunity to spend a week of retreat preparing the development plan and specifications for the sse learning web . and , of course , i am only too happy to be travelling to a small island once again .

so here i am , just leaving firenze , almost halfway through the six and a half journey to napoli . i had no difficulty deciding to travel by train rather than flying . this is a wonderful introduction to the changing landscapes and architectures of italy . what a trip !

from napoli i will board a ship for the six hour voyage to stromboli , where i shall arrive at five tomorrow morning just as it is getting light . what a way to arrive !

typically i am relying to a daft extent on fortune . i have no accommodation booked on stromboli and this is the peek week of the year , so i am likely to find myself sleeping beneath a tree . also i have no booking for the ferry . and i will have a mere thirty minutes between this train’s scheduled arrival and the ferry’s departure . not really a comfortable margin . who knows how it will all work out .

my absorption in various projects has resulted in a greater backlog of personal correspondence than i have ever accumulated before . it weighs heavy on me . when i return to milano i shall dedicate an hour each day to its reduction . if anyone were to draw the conclusion that their missives were unvalued they would be sorely mistaken . i regret my carelessness .

oh , there’s another batch of photos at
http://www.charlesarmstrong.net/snapshots/2000-07-01 . another experimental interface , i’m afraid … this time you only have to * point * at the thumbnails to download the large image ! i’ve already thought of some improvements for the next cluster … when i get round to it .

: cH

In transit, Italy, Wanderer

m i l a n o u n o

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20:55 saturday 1 july – brisa di mare , rapallo

bobo , roberta and i caught a train from milan just after midday , heading south and west towards the coast . the journey was somewhat less luxurious than that from stresa to milano i made a week ago . the rolling stock showed its age , lacked air conditioning and was packed full . we stood in the corridor all the way to genova , watching the surroundings change from urban milan to rich farmland to steep basaltic mountains . at genova we changed to a train which took us the short distance down the coast to rapello , clinging to the mountains around a sweeping bay . here we were met by bobo’s father , enrico , who drove us up to this house , his retreat perched at the top of a hill overlooking the town and harbour , surrounded by terraces of old olive and fig trees .

i sit here on the terrace now with the fountain gurgling and sounds of people in the town below drifting up on the still dusk air . today is the start of a three-day festival in the town . earlier we watched barges being towed into the bay , loaded with fireworks which will be set off later on . i’ve been investigating the rows of yachts in the harbour with the binoculars my parents gave me for for my birthday last year .

the past week has been wonderful .

—

14:20 saturday 8 july – aeroporto malpensa

oh no , it’s happening again . i left the apartment on via solferino soon after midday , took the metro from moscova to cadorna , and from there got the express train to malpensa . my flight to london was due to depart from here at 19:35 . the reason for my uncharacteristically early arrival : a careless misreading of the ticket when i checked it last night . a fortuitous error as it transpires .

i spoke to one of the check-in clerks , who looked puzzled , made a couple of phone calls and told me my flight would in fact be departing from bergamo . which , ironically , was where my doomed inbound flight was intended to land .

so now i’m on a bus ( which has just set off ) taking me back to milano stazione centrale , from where i’ll set out for bergamo .

i phoned the company in britain from whom i bought my ticket ( thomson ) but after half an hour of uninterrupted soft rock i felt sick and hung up . phrases for a letter they’ll be receiving from me begin to assemble themselves in my head …

18:22 – aeroporta orio al serio , bergamo

standing in a queue with a couple of hundred people , slowly being processed through two check-in desks . i notice that the inbound flight is now being predicted to land half an hour late .

i’ve got my powerbook set up on the handle of the luggage trolley . just the right height to type standing up ! i’ll take a photo .

22:50 – connex train , gatwick airport to victoria station

the half hour delay wasn’t augmented and i reached blighty without incident . everything seems grey , cold and shabby . but then it always does . i think it’s a fine thing to be british . but i find it hard to muster much affection or respect for contemporary british society .

: cH

Italy, Wanderer

a v e

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16:39 saturday 24 june – restaurant ” est est est ” , gatwick airport
south terminal

damn . i’ve succeeded in booking myself onto today’s flight of doom .
i spoke to a few agents on tuesday and purchased a dirt-cheap seat on a plane operated by one of the myriad charter firms of which nobody’s ever , ever , ever heard .

but as i sit here waiting for my voucher-subsidised pizza , my 15:45 departure receding into the distance ( latest estimate – 19:00 ) , it somehow seems less of a consumer triumph .

the desk where one might expect to find an unctious company rep remains resolutely unattended , a phone cursorily left in front with a number to call . the number , though , has been amended by hand and rendered unintelligible . a shifting coterie of nervous-looking package fodder huddles around it , left rootless by this unforseen gap in the stream of commands by which they secretly prefer their holidays to be organised . nobody is telling them what to do now . even the muttered complaints sound hesitant , half-hearted .

we ( suddenly a community , our uncertain fates fused in this hermetic city , our common submission to the invisible ” them ” who hurl aircraft between continents ) have been issued with ” light refreshment vouchers ” . my experience suggests this is a bad sign . it happened far too quickly . something must be seriously wrong with the plane and the i won’t be surprised if the19:00 prediction slips back further . i dislike the way that airlines routinely lie to their customers , announcing an iterative procession of further delays rather than squaring up right away with the true prognosis . it is as if they wish to toy with us , manipulating our hope and despair on the ground just as they manipulate our sleeping and waking in the air .

—

the pizza has come and gone . a modish confection of roasted vegetables ( scarcely cooked ) on a tomato base ( unseasoned ) with rocket and shaved parmesan . the environment is pleasant though . light wood , modern chairs and white walls . quite unexpected in an airport which aspires more than anything to resemble a shopping mall . indeed one of the syntheticically cheerful voices which springs from the ubiquitous speakers every now and then celebrates the ” south terminal shopping experience ” where ” tax-free prices ” are available to passengers ” for all destinations ” . it is as if the various retailers have collectively willed themselves into a parallel universe in which intra- european duty free was never abolished . presumably they hope to take a few passengers with them .

the last time i flew from gatwick was in december 1998 , on my way to australia . on that occasion my flight departed six hours late . or was it twelve ? or twenty-four ? time somehow changes its substance in these places . incongruously i am reminded of lapland and perpetual daytime . but that experience is one of freedom as opposed to this confined purgatory .

i am glad to have the company of my powerbook , my backlog of correspondence , my scribbling book , the reading i was meant to do for michael young , books by george soros and plato . enough to tide me over , i think . however long i must remain here in limbo .

—

18:04

latest prediction – 20:30 . apparently a replacement aircraft was flown in … and found to be defective . aircraft number three is being sent down from luton . or perhaps they’re constructing it out of the remaining pieces of aircraft numbers one and two ?

—

20:05

about quarter of an hour ago we were all shunted off on the crummy monorail thing to the deserted north terminal . the screens indicated that our flight was now boarding … except that there was no plane at the indicated gate .

an aircraft has now rolled up , with ” european ” painted rather generically down its side . somebody with limited english made an announcement . it sounded like they were informing us we’d be landing at verona rather than bergamo , but surely that can’t be right …
surely … ?

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11:06 sunday 25 june – express train , stresa to milano

verona it was . by the time my flight entered italian airspace last night bergamo airport was closed . milano’s two airports were too busy to accept additional traffic . so verona it was . we landed around midnight . i explored various options for getting to milano and the party i knew was underway . but it was hopeless .

my night’s accommodation came courtesy of a couple of fortuitously non- showing packageers . their room in a rather grand hotel had already been paid for so i blagged it . what i didn’t altogether grasp was that their hotel room was in stresa , three hours’ drive away on the shore of lake maggiore . i arrived there at half three this morning , feeling slightly jaded .

waking up this morning to the lake , the moutains , the cool air and the hot sun soon put paid to that though . what a gorgeous and unexpected place to spend my first morning in italy . my room had a big terrace surrounded by camelia blossom . i could have asked for nothing more .

now i am on my way to milano on the alpine express , destined beyond that for geneva and venice . it’s a beautifully designed modern train . my ticket cost 18600 lira , about six sterling . a similar service in britain would cost three times as much .

the drive from verona to stresa was a good introduction to northern italy . the road was lined with factories , each with its impeccably designed logo . i don’t get the impression this society is ashamed of old-fashioned heavy industry in the way that britain is . there’s obviously a bit of a fad for high intensity light projectors at the moment , used as a promotional device . i noticed about a dozen of them along the route , tracking their silent beams across the bellies of low clouds .

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21:15 – fabrizio’s appartment , via solferino , milano

it’s taken a couple of hours to set up but i’ve finally got a free dial-up account working properly . i’ve been phoning bobo every ten minutes or so to get off-the-cuff translation of crucial bits of registration forms i couldn’t work out . he’s working on a painting at his apartment round the corner .

it’s been a fabulous day . brilliant to be with bobo . feeling excited about italy in general . but i’m tired and expect to sleep well tonight . down to work tomorrow .

: cH