Schiphol Sprint

Back from a brief trip to Edinburgh for the book launch of last year's Lampedusa conference proceedings, superbly edited by Davide Messina. It was Luigino Zecchin's last event as director, a moving moment for us all (and perhaps even for him), and the Istituto di Cultura - his real achievement - was crowded with well-wishers.

Edinburgh was its usual stunning self: dramatic skyline, crisp air and a general air of opulence juxtaposed with misery. It felt strange to be there as a visitor. Luckily, nearly everybody I wanted to meet (barring a couple of EUL and College Admin people) was in, and it was good to renew acquaintances. The personal pleasure was tarnished, however, by a realisation that things have got very tough indeed for those still working in the university.

Tentacular and vast Schiphol airport, on the way back, was the scene of my greatest sporting triumph so far. There was quite a short interval between my incoming and outgoing flights. To cap it all, KLM had put a big aircraft on the Edinburgh run, and it was flying at maximum passenger capacity, with me in one of the seats near the tail. This meant nearly twenty minutes of my precious transfer time were spent trying to get out of the plane. Still, this gave me time to study the layout of the airport on a brochure, and plot the shortest route to my next gate.

Once out of the aircraft, I ran and ran, dodging other passengers and their deadly wheely suitcases like a rugby winger. Nearly there, I thought, with a good chance of catching my flight, but then, lo and behold, a security check and passport barrier, teeming with anxious passengers trying to get their flights and going mental in the forced wait. Welcome to non-Schengen journeys, the only way to travel!

By chance, I heard somebody shout - in English of the continental variety - "Schoort konnektion", at which he was allowed through the posh persons' channel, the kind Blair probably uses. Mustering up my best Eurenglisch, I repeated the magic formula, and was sent to the reserved passport booth, where there was now no policeman. More queue jumpers were now behind me, and we kicked up a row, till finally, taking his time in a very ostentatious way, a mustachioed border guard came up and decided that the two Greeks in front of me were clearly Alqaida operatives and needed grilling. Still, when he saw HM non-Schengen documents in my hand, he waved me through, so as better to concentrate on the sun-tanned. But then came the security check, with whole body scanner, the kind that photographs you naked...

However, my trials were almost at an end: after being manually checked for weapons, I was though; with only an endless corridor to go. Another thousand meters' sprint, and considerable sweat, later, I just made it to my plane. No flash photography, no applause, no medal, but one of the sporting achievements of all time.

Back from Belgistan

Back in Antibes after a longish series of childminding trips to Brussels. Not a city I knew much about before, but which has come to grow on me. It has a slightly tatty, eccentric charm, wonderfully idiosyncratic architecture, a goodly supply of museums and so on, but its main attraction is friendly, talkative people. Definitely a good place to grow up.

The only shock, from somebody now domiciled in the Alpes-Maritimes, is the general winter greyness. Mind you, walking past the Post Office in Antibes yesterday, under a cloudy sky, we heard somebody complain loudly that the weather here was "comme à Bruxelles".

Sudden Change

This stretch of the coast is subject to sudden changes in climate: a couple of days ago, we were sunning ourselves on the Gravette beach, beginning to think the spring had arrived. Certainly, the old sayings are true - when the Dodoche begins to bloom, it is the end of winter.

Today, however, we set off into town under a horribly cold downpour which turned to real snow as we got back.

Mimosa Miracle

Yesterday, the best of the daylight was spent up on the Tanneron massif, above Mandelieu la Napoule. It's a great place for walking, when the locals aren't hunting boar (see a previous blog). What was special yesterday was that the mimosa, which grows like giant weeds up there, was just coming into bloom, staining the hillsides with almost vulgar beauty.

Though I actually came to Antibes a year ago last New Year's Eve, somehow seeing the repeat performance of the mimosa miracle felt much more like the proper anniversary.

Saucissonnage

Last week we saw lots of police cars, loaded with heavily armed filth, heading in the direction of Juan les Pins. Neither of us knew what was up, so at the next choir practice I asked whether any of the local singers there could explain what had been going on.

A soprano, coincidentally a town council big shot, told me that though she couldn't explain what we had seen, she could explain a big shoot out the night before. "Where?", I asked. "La Badine", she replied, along with a tally of those wounded and those at death's door.

The day after choir practice, I headed for the public library and began looking through Nice Matin. Sure enough, there had been a serious fusillade between cops and robbers only about two hundred metres from where we used to live, on a really peaceful street where nothing ever happens.

A score of anti-gang police heavies had staked out a couple of cars parked suspiciously, and when the occupants got wind of being observed, they drove at the police road block, knocking two policemen over and injuring them. The numerous remaining colleagues amongst the BRI stormtroopers did not like this at all, and opened up with everything they had. The speeding car was comprehensively creamed, along with its four occupants, who are now in intensive care.

Details about the chappies seriously ballasted with police lead are still meagre, but apparently it was a gang of 'traveling folk' (the official euphemism here for gypsies from Eastern Europe) who specialised in saucissonnage. Luckily I was in the public library when I read this, for I was able to ascertain that far from being something to do with salami manufacture, this saucissonnage was a criminal technique consisting of forcibly entering rich people's homes and torturing the occupants until they revealed where their money and valuables were. Apart from guns, the riddled car contained handcuffs and a plentiful supply of that wonderful DIY resource, duct tape, which would make fantastic gags, but would be very painful at the moment of being removed. The gang had apparently carried out over a dozen raids of this kind in the département, which is why the police were there in such numbers. Glad I wasn't walking there at the time.

Come li stornei

At sunrise every morning during this cold spell, there is an insistent cheeping sound from the street. I hadn't paid it any attention, thinking that it was the odd bird gorging itself drunkenly on the semi-ripe (never ripening), partially fermenting dates of the palm trees.

A closer look yesterday morning revealed, however, that the noisy avian chorus came from the plane trees next to the curtain wall of the town, right outside our window. It was the sound of hundreds of starlings warming up before setting off in whirling, dense clouds, to their daily gleaning of food.

Sometimes it takes a banal occurrence to fully appreciate a poetic reference. Take Dante's description of the run of the mill 'peccator carnali' in Inferno V:

E come li stornei ne portan l’ali
nel freddo tempo, a schiera larga e piena,
cosi' quel fiato li spiriti mali

di qua, di la', di giu', di su' li mena

The contrast with the 'historical' lovers, described as cranes, and the 'literary' lovers, described as a pair of turtle doves, seemed obvious enough. What had never hit me before was the concreteness of Dante's description of the starlings, in their cloud-like, changing flight.

Those inhabiting southern climes may have read this as self-evident, but for one from the Boreal regions, it was a revelation, an ornithologically realist simile.

Nadolig a Nôs Calan

Back from Blighty after a spot of grandchild duty in London. Even the stories of epic nappy-fillers didn't stop the BH from being a teeny-weeny bit jealous of the time I had 'having a shot'. I have to admit that being around with a child at that age, when development is so fast and gratifying, is a real joy.

Here Xmas was had without me, but with the other son to the rescue (including to share in the culinary delights: no mean contribution) it was not as lonely as it could have been. My Xmas involved walking from Hampstead Heath to Kennington and back, as there was no public transport. Actually, walking across an almost carless city, greeted periodically by folk wishing you a Merry Christmas, is a good way of getting in form for, and recovering from, excessively good food.

Here, New Year's Eve was signalled as usual, at Midnight, with the sounding of the hooters and sirens of the big yachts in the harbour. It gave the BH a peculiar satisfaction to hear the tinny excuses for foghorns on some of the really sumptuous, mastodontic vessels, as if the vicious meanness, which had given rise to the mega-fortunes in the first place, had survived the instinct for opulent display and competitive garishness lavished on the yachts, and had surfaced in a detail, a cost-cutting, cheese-paring worry over the expense of safety equipment.

This morning, after overnight thunderstorms, the sea was really rough, with spray coming over the ramparts, despite the complete absence of wind. The onshore wind of the storm had brought in huge quantities of driftwood, flotsam and especially Posidonia seaweed, rendering the waters close to the shore black and tarry, as if in the aftermath of an oil spillage. Perfect weather, then, for a bit of daft dooking. A band of hardy swimmers, ranging from ten year olds to great grand-dads, braved the waters, or rather sludge, assisted by a crowd of well-wishers, a local politician, and a complete team from the French Red Cross. The best performance came from the great grand-dad, who didn't seem keen to get out of the water, and could be observed, swimming in an exaggeratedly slow-motion crawl, far out to sea, on his own.