Trip

Just back from a lightning visit to Edinburgh to take part in a really stimulating conference on Lampedusa's Gattopardo at Fifty, organised with great panache by my erstwhile colleague Davide Messina and ably aided and abetted by Chris Taylor from the NLS, with the usual unstinting support of the director of the Istituto italiano di cultura per la Scozia, Luigino Zecchin.

Lampedusa's adopted son, the model for Tancredi in the book, was taking part (Luigino had pulled some strings, I suspect). Sometimes these literary guardians are a pain in the arse, living off reheated memories dished out for the umpteenth time, but Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi is quite a different animal, having been a top rank opera director as well as an academic. He was on sparkling form, and quite without pomp, a really nice person to talk to.

It was quite moving to see the manuscript of the book at the NLS, written, as far as I could see, in biro on school notebook style paper. To know also that it was written in a race against time, by someone whose motivation came late, made it even more special. Gioacchino had also brought along a small medallion portrait of the figure in Lampedusa's family who had been the model for the prince. The book is like one long, amplified, sublime ecphrasis of this otherwise banal portrait.

On the way back from Edinburgh, on an Easyjet flight, who should meekly ask whether I minded him sitting next to me but Stelios H., the founder of Easyjet. Utterly man in the street, a good, sharp conversationalist, and obviously very bright. His relations with the crew of the aeroplane were extremely cordial, and they seemed genuinely pleased to see him. The only ostentation, probably not deliberate, was his very anonymous looking bag, the kind you get as freebies in conferences. This battered example had written on it, though, World Economic Forum.