Cornwall, In transit, Wanderer

k i t e s u r f e r s

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[ 15:14 monday 29 may – hayle towans, cornwall ]

the tide has receded further than i’ve ever seen. these must be some of the biggest spring tides of the year. the departing waters have left the huge expanse of white sand imprinted with a mysterious caligraphy of wrinkles and undulations.

attracted by today’s clear skies, two feet of surf and a steady force five the kite surfers are out in force. i can count twenty of them darting around, leaping high into the air and floating gracefully back down. they’d be easier to count if they’d stayed still.

the wind’s a bit chilly so i’m sheltering amongst  rocks at the base of the cliff. how good to be back here in cornwall where i grew up. good also to spend these days with anna and adam, who are packing up their home in hayle ready to move next weekend.

[ 22:03 tuesday 30 may – great western railway, hayle to london ]

four hours into the six hour journey. the sun set shortly before bristol in a golden blaze.

i feel a tug of emotion every time i pass over brunel’s saltash bridge, the iconic frontier between devon and cornwall. the nature of the emotion depends on my direction.

: c :

Stromboli, Wanderer

n u b e

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[ 02:15 friday 5 may – stromboli ]

i’m wedged between rocks about eight hundred metres up the volcano, on my own.  scrambling up the scree on hands and knees a few minutes ago i was suddenly engulfed in thick cloud. visibility is down to three metres. the wind whips and tugs from unpredictable directions. from time to time there’s the roar of an eruption, above me to the left, and the cloud glows orange. it’s cold. the rocks glisten with moisture. i feel completely alone.

as i write, the clouds open above me and the vast mantle of stars is unveiled, but i know the cloud may close around me again at any moment.

i was planning to go to the summit tonight but this is the first time i’ve come up alone and the cloud is scaring me. even in clear conditions it’s easy to lose your way up here and find yourself on the edge of a precipice.

03:33 / the last hour has been hard work. after writing the previous entry i agonised about whether to carry on upwards or give in. finally i couldn’t resist being so close to the top and started scrambling upward again. sure enough the cloud closed around me five minutes later, punishing me for my arrogance. since then i’ve been painstakingly picking my way down the mountainside, straining to pick out the path (such as it is). several times i’ve erred and had to retrace my steps some distance. i never imagined i’d feel such gratitude for the occasional splashes of white paint left behind by consciencious guides.

the cloud extended about six hundred metres down the mountain and i only emerged a moment ago. looking with gratitude at the starry sky i was rewarded with the second-brightest meteorite i’ve ever seen, streaking across the mountain leaving a brilliant fizzing trail behind it. i made one hell of a wish.

04:40 / back home, relieved, tired.

Stromboli, Wanderer

e r u z i o n i

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[ 00:31 wednesday 3 may – punta u brunzu, stromboli ]

this is one of my favourite places in the world, though i don’t think i’ve ever written from here before. i’m sitting cross-legged on the corner of the helipad at punta u brunzu, a hundred metres above the sea at the northernmost tip of the island.

walking along the mule track to get here there’s a powerful sense of leaving the settlement behind, entering the wilder presence of the mountain. from here you see no houses, no lights. humanity feels far away.

all around me the bamboo rustles in the warm breeze. above me the inky sky is splashed with a million stars and a few wisps of cloud. behind me the sea stretches mysterious to the dark horizon. nesting gulls grumble on the cliff below. and dominating the scene, in front of me, rises the triangular silhouette of the volcano with its scar of bright fire on the right side of the apex.

it doesn’t matter how many times i sit here watching it, i still feel the same sense of incredulity and awe i felt the very first time. tonight it’s more active than i’ve ever seen it before. one crater is in continuous eruption, emitting a pulsing fan of lava. two of the other craters follow a more typical pattern, blasting out a jet of lava a hundred metres high every ten or fifteen minutes.

during the two years i lived on stromboli i came up here every week or so. when michael died i lit a catholic funerary candle here on the corner of the helipad and sat with it through the night. all my hopes and fears have been brought here over the years. my eyes have seen a thousand shooting stars. here everything is in proportion.

i watch as the final tip of the crescent moon sinks reddish beneath the horizon.

: c :

In transit, Italy, Wanderer

t a r t a r u g a

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[ 16:33 thursday 28 april – eurostar 9363 to napoli ]

here we are forty-five minutes out of rome. the landscape grows craggier, more volcanic, whilst bamboo, olive and cactus gain prominence in the flora. thus the mezzogiorno, italy’s intoxicating south, announces its dominion. the rain which has followed us from milan eases and chinks of blue appear in the sky.

i spent last night with bobo and roberta in milan, the first time i’ve seen them in two years. they’re simultaneously finding success in the worlds of graffiti and fine art, with exhibitions around europe and some commercial commissions too. their new home is fantastic, a long narrow cellar divided into a series of spaces for living and working. every inch of the walls is covered with the warped faces and gnomic slogans that characterise their work.

bobo and i worked together ten years ago in the electric company, the chaotic media venture i formed when i came down from cambridge. i’ve always loved his style and admired his stubborness in persuing his own creative path. he’s been with roberta, a mini-volcano of ideas from the shadow of etna, for most of the time i’ve known him. it was a joy to catch up with them both.

earlier in the afternoon i met fabrizio and kiriku by the little lake in parco sempione. fabrizio suggested we should hunt for turtles. i was delighted to play along, assuming it was a make-believe game for kiriku’s benefit. my error was revealed a few minutes later when kiriku lunged at a rock and turned round proudly clutching a turtle; twenty-five centimetres long with scarlet stripes along the sides of its head. i couldn’t believe my eyes. fabrizio explained that a couple of pet turtles were released into the lake a few years ago and have established a thriving community. it all seemed very improbable, like finding orangutangs swinging from the trees in st james’ park.

kiriku was only a few months old when i first came to live in italy. now he’s a fearless six-year-old. indeed it’s almost three years since i last saw napoli, a city that fascinates and thrills me. i hope to meet pasquale for dinner then take the overnight ship to stromboli. this is a holiday weekend so the ship could be busy. if i can’t get a cabin i’ll have to sleep on the deck. a few years ago this prospect wouldn’t have bothered me in the least but now it provokes a mild sense of unease. living in london i see myself growing inflexible and domestic. the balance in my life needs to change.

: c :

Sandhurst, Wanderer

f o r m i k

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[ 20:05 friday 14 april – sandhurst, gloucestershire ]

here i am at mum and dad’s where i arrived last night. today we went walking in the malvern hills. soft air, trees bursting with bud, the sun warm against our faces. as i write mum’s in the kitchen preparing supper and dad’s taking advantage of the last moments of light to finish his labours in the garden.

last week i lost a friend, or rather several thousand of them, which was a sad experience. some months ago i acquired a magnificent bamboo tree for the office from plant-seller friends on brick lane. it’s fifteen feet tall and some of the stems are as thick as my arm. it looks just wonderful. shortly after the bamboo’s arrival we noticed a couple of ants crawling around the floor. a few days later a column turned up to harvest biscuit crumbs from jan’s table. it seemed we had some new residents and it didn’t take great deductive skills to link them with the enormous tub in which the bamboo was planted. since then the ants have been our constant companions in the office.

living on stromboli there were always ants around the house. in a way i came to appreciate their company. whether i was working, reading, cooking or whatever i’d be subliminally aware of where they were and what they were up to day by day. individually their behaviour is monotonous but collectively it’s incredibly varied. i remember one time on the terrace talking with gustl whilst a double column of ants tracked up and down a fig tree beside us. all at once the ants froze, every single one of them, and remained motionless as we watched in wonder. there had been no external trigger that we could discern but somehow the decision to stop moving had communicated itself instantaneously through the whole column. i rapped on the tree trunk but the ants remained completely still. then after several minutes they all tentatively wiggled their antennae and a few seconds later the entire column was back in motion.

when the ants appeared in the office i suppose i felt a kind of nostalgia to have this familiar presence in my environment once more. previously the office ecosystem was inhabited only by plants and humans. the ants added a rich and unpredictable element to the mix that secretly delighted me. each day they would be doing something different. sometimes a week or two passed without any trace of them. anyone leaving food in their workspace was liable to find ants crawling all over their computer and up their arms. i’m sorry to say my associates didn’t always share my appreciation of their presence.

it all continued in a sort of strained harmony until last week when the ants made the unfortunate decision to swarm. they had obviously been building up their forces, really i had no idea they’d become so numerous. our neighbours’ offices were crawling with them. the walls of the kitchen were a seething mass. the atrium was criss-crossed with ant-motorways. i can’t say it was popular with the other tenants. the man from rentokil arrived to deal with the general situation and it was made clear to me that i should really do something about the bamboo.

thus, with a heavy heart, i found myself pouring five litres of a potent liquid pesticide into the bamboo tub last friday evening after everyone else had gone home. i will miss my six-legged friends.

by way of conclusion, we’ve just taken possession of a powerful new production server and needed to think of a suitable name for it. therefore, unbeknownst to our clients, some of our hosted systems will henceforth be running on a machine called “formik”. i hope this gives lots of little ant-souls cause to smile. their memory liveth.

: c :

London, Photography, USA, Wanderer

w i r e d

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[ 02:19 monday 3 april – shipton street, london ]

a week ago wired magazine published a splendid article on trampoline by quinn norton, which you can read here.

the fortnight since i got back from california has been pretty intense. a lot of people are interested in trampoline. i’ve been zipping around giving presentations to bizarrely divergent audiences, from pinstriped venture capitalists to t-shirted hackers to tweed-suited earls.

meanwhile i’ve uploaded some of my photos from finland and california.

: c :

USA, Wanderer

b o l i n a s

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[ 20:38 sunday 12 march – bolinas, california ]

traveling from san diego to san francisco last friday i felt a powerful urge to get away somewhere remote for a day or two. warren said he knew just the place. yesterday he and ann brought me here to bolinas. it’s exactly what i needed.

san francisco is less than twenty miles away down the coast, but it might as well be another planet. bolinas consists of fifteen hundred independent-minded people scattered around the tip of a peninsular; a lagoon on one side, the pacific on the other. the town centre boasts a bar, a general store, an organic co-op and a tiny museum. most of the buildings are wooden. many have hippy murals painted on their flanks.

i’m sitting now in my room in the “grand hotel”. in point of fact the hotel comprises two rooms above a bric-a-brac shop. the room itself is delightful, all sloping floors, odd nooks and crannies, mismatched antique furniture and mid-century prints. there’s a kitchen downstairs in much the same vein (an ancient stove with flues coming off in all directions), a freezing bathroom and an overgrown garden at the back. i adore it. the proprietor is a twinkle-eyed old fellow called vic who’s lived here thirty years.

this morning it was pouring with rain but i went out walking anyway. filaments of cloud curled mysteriously through the trees on the surrounding hillsides. the sea was like hammered pewter. on the beach i came across a raven sitting on a tree trunk, tearing at the remains of some animal. he let me creep up really close, just a few metres, and watch him as he dined. after a while he flapped away so i carried on walking and just continued with no hurry and no objective.

eventually the rain eased off and the sky got brighter. a bit later the sun came out so i took off my coat and shirt and lay down on the sand for a while. there was nobody around, just the trickle of rainwater draining off the cliffs, the chatter of sea birds and the rumble of surf on the reef. some time later the sky clouded over and it started feeling chilly so i turned round and made my way back again.

the vegetables here are phenomenal, especially the kale. all the farms round here are devoutly organic. apparently prince charles visited a couple of weeks ago to swap notes. the locals emphasise that he spent three days here and just one in san francisco.

there’s a kind of vibrant town democracy here i’ve never encountered before. a lot of people seem to care about the community enough to participate in regular committees and ballots. amongst other things they’ve managed to sustain a moratorium on new houses for thirty years, for which they had to win the supoort of the supreme court, and successfully opposed a state decision to spray pesticide over the area. these are big achievements amongst many more quotidian matters. this is probably the closest thing i’ve encountered to a greek city state and it’s made a big impression on me. i’ll be fascinated to learn more.

tomorrow morning at quarter past six i’ll get on a bus that will deposit me in marin an hour and a half later. being here in bolinas has refreshed my spirit and given me space to reflect on everything that happened in san diego. i’m ready to return to the fray.

: c :

USA, Wanderer

e t e c h

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[ 17:00 thursday 9 march – fir & india, san diego, usa ]

nine metal mesh chairs are strewn around a concrete fountain topped with a mosaic globe. this is the centre of san diego’s “little italy”. pastel coloured wooden boutiques with self-consciously italian names rise up fir street to my left. dark clouds mass ominously overhead. soon it will rain. the bay is flat and leaden to my right. i feel monochrome myself, hollow with anti-climax.

i arrived here on sunday to give a presentation at the o’reilly emerging technology conference. this meant a lot to me, really a lot. it’s the world’s most important forum for upcoming technologies and we were given a forty minute slot in the main hall. my session took place yesterday afternoon. it’s the first time i’ve talked about my project in the isles of scilly and explained how trampoline grew out of it. i’ve been preparing for weeks. last saturday i was more nervous than i can ever remember feeling.

well, the presentation couldn’t have gone better. all day today people have been coming up to me with questions and friendly comments, even people who didn’t hear the talk. yesterday evening i felt a wild euphoria but this afternoon as the final sessions wrapped up and delegates started drifting away my spirits grew flat and heavy.

by nature i think i’m a good communicator but i’m very shy. the prospect of standing up in front of people terrifies me, as did musical performances in earlier days. once i’m started it’s fine. the apprehension is always the bad part.

other than my stupid nerves the conference has been a wonderful experience. i’ve met so many thinkers and technologists whom i admire and trampoline has taken a step onto a much larger stage. there’s a lot of emotion tangled up in me. i feel like it wouldn’t take much to make me cry. i suppose this is the state one would call “over-wrought”.

i’ll be back in balance tomorrow.

: c :

Finland, Wanderer

f e a r

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[ 19:15 wednesday 22 february – levi, finland ]

i’m with my family in lapland for a week’s skiing  to celebrate mum’s sixtieth birthday. the sun peeps above the horizon for seven hours each day, bathing the snow-clad expanse of forest and lake in golden light. on monday the temperature hit twenty-six below zero, cold enough to freeze my eyelashes together.

i’m learning to snowboard, which i never thought i’d do. from birth i had a defect in my knees that periodically caused excrutiating pain. i was a pallid and bookish child. sports like skiing were out of the question and i retreated from sports i might have tried. when i was eighteen i had an operation that fixed my knees. but it took a long time to stop thinking of myself as a cripple. little by little my physical confidence grew and i began to enjoy my corporeal capacities as well as the cerebral ones. i thought it might be too late to start skiing but when mum chose to celebrate her birthday this way i wanted to try.

i’ve been throwing myself into it with all guns blazing. each day i accomplish something that seemed impossible the day before. i’m learning in a group of teenagers which sets a brisk pace.

my progress suffered a jolt this afternoon when i took a hard fall and got myself concussed. standing at the foot of the piste it slowly dawned on me that i had no idea how i got there or, more problematically, where i lived. the row of houses and restaurants seemed vaguely familiar but i couldn’t pin down anything specific. my heart was pounding. a boy tapped me on the arm and handed me my goggles. i saw my instructor and hailed him. he said something and it jogged my memory, returning my chalet’s location to mind. i thanked him and gratefully made my way home.

it was a strange experience, a reminder how fragile our perceived realities are. i was quite frightened and felt anxious about the prospect of snowboarding again. but after sitting quietly for an hour and drinking several cups of tea i pulled my skiing clothes on again and went straight back to the piste. i knew if i didn’t get back out immediately i might never overcome my nerves. i took the lift up and boarded down three times without incident. that’s all i needed to get my confidence back.

i think you either confront your fears directly or you become a slave to them.