The first Academy

view from the Aeropagus, where ancient aristocrats ruled from and St Paul preached

Athens lives up to expectations, surpasses them elegantly. It is crowded and chaotic on the streets, but still and meditative on Aeropagus next to the Acropolis, or in the National gardens.

It is a city of 4 million, yet when I ask a teenager for directions he walks half a block with me to show me the exact place, just as if it were a village.

Of course the Acropolis, an imposing rock, an island against potential invaders, rises like a fist in the midst of the city and draws all attention to it. Whenever I catch a glimpse of it, it always lifts my spirits... an effect, I learn, that is quite universal.

On or around it, you can see and touch history... the theatre where the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Aristophanes were performed, the agora where Socrates questioned and Diogenes disgusted the public, the little temple to the god of healing erected when besieged Athens was struck with plague... I could write screeds. Great things happen everywhere, all the time, yet in Athens we have records of them... many records.

Even the underground stations here are museums. Got some free space...? bung up a replica of the Parthenon freize. Better yet, display the ruins we discovered when digging this place out. Sometimes you can't move in Athens for ruins.

I've heard at the Acropolis in September you can't move for tourists - well, just a month later, it is a spacious place except on Sunday (Sundays November-March are free). It's also very warm and comfortable outside, unseasonably so... climate change is definitely noticeable to Greeks. There are down sides to travelling in November though... most sites close their gates by three oclock, meaning I have to plan my days quite carefully in order to see all the old stuff I want to see.

Standing on glass above the ruins that surround the foundations of the new Acropolis museum

No closing hours on the sites of my own personal pilgrimages though: through hints in history books and talking to local shop owners I manage to find the ruins of Plato's Academy, in a park in a district near Larissa train station. Well outside the walls of the ancient city, I rest here for a while, as people walk their dogs and scooters buzz near me. Visiting these old schools is rewarding for me. For the first time I can imagine the students here in three dimensions: some skiving off from a lecture to drink wine, some enthralled, some with a crush on their teacher. Here, the intellectual history of our world is not a sterile thing, it lives and breathes and gets bored and excited just as we do.

Museumuferfest and Degenerate Art

At the start of September, Frankfurt celebrates it´s museums during the MuseumUferfest. By a twist of fate, I happened to be there two years in a row. People pack the banks of the Main, thronging around food stalls, bands. (I discovered one traditional sounding oompah band... but sadly they finished as I soon as I found them)

With my boss Stefan I drink traditional Apfelwein, wander through the museums (This year I learnt that you can pay 5 euro to see all the museums during the festival) see strange performance art, watch a tubby man in a tuxedo totally wig out to African drumming outside the Museum of World Culture. There was a theme this year of ´Turkey: where the west meets the east´, but everything only very loosely revolved around that.

In the Städel Museum we pay our obligatory respects to Goethe, the most famous former resident of Frankfurt, depicted lounging in Campagna by Tischbein. (See picture below)

(public domain)

More moving for me was learning that during the rise of the Third Reich, Hitler condemmed basically all modern art as ´decadent´and ´degenerate´, destroying and holding public mockings of works by everyone from Wassily Kandinsky to Oskar Kokoshca, to a favourite of mine, Franz Marc. The Städel´s modern works were not spared, and it´s present strong collection of German Expressionism is due to a careful reaquisitions.

Liegender Hund im Schnee - Franz Marc (public domain)

For the final fireworks over the Main, lights along the river are turned off, and the sound-clash of public music dies away. Fireworks explode, reflected on the river and the huge glass towers of this town, sychronised with the ululating song of a famous Turkish pop singer.

It´s a pity Frankfurt aint always like this!

Roma part 1

I walk the streets of Rome like a goggled eyed kid. This world is new to me. The marble steps worn smooth by ancient Roman feet, the names I know from textbooks carved everywhere: Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius, Constantine, Augustus... And then there's the renaissance Rome. And contemporary Rome.
To prevent my brain exploding, I plan to limit myself to focussing on the sights of Ancient Rome during my first day, and looking at Rennaisance stuff on the second.

Day1
The Pantheon is the most intact building from Ancient Rome. (If you have a good connection, try this great 'virtual tour')
It is also one of the more mysterious buildings. Even just three generations after it was built, the writer Cassius Dio could not state its original purpose.








Pretty soon it became a church, however and this helped it survive intact: it was left alone by the (christian) Goths and other invaders at the end of the Empire. It's been a church ever since and Raphael is buried there. I loved it's spacious dome, massive columns, (pictured) but most of all the awe it inspires.

The Collosseo is spectacular but a bit sad... would we want people to revere our big tops, our cage-fighting arenas? I'm also reminded of the hands that built these monuments. The colloseum was built by Jewish slaves (or as the plaque inside euphemistically reads 'with booty from the Jewish uprising')

But listing the monuments I saw does't capture the experience I had walking these baking hot streets. Every Piazza (square) has an Obelisk, a statue, a column an arch or even a pyramid shaped tomb, all from Imperial days. So many, that guidebooks devoted to Rome must miss some out or risk being the size of an encyclopedia. Ancient debris - shattered statues and collapsed columns, litter the open spaces such as public gardens. Thomas from Bordeaux tells me that one can see a pile of broken amphoras in the (surprisingly picturesque) Tiber. I stumble upon Republic-era ruins that would be the pride of any other city purely by accident. Stray cats sleep there and are fed by a charity. Another attraction is Notte Bianca, a recent tradition. The idea is, basically, an all night party in the streets. Trains will run packed throughout all the night carrying revellers, including many familys, into the centre of Rome to wander from Piazza to Piazza, to be entertained by musicians, parades and acrobats. Highlights for me were dancing behind a batucada troupe along a street that runs through the ruins of the Roman Forum and learning "Bella Ciao" an anti-facist anthem-plus-love-song.

On leaning.

With the others heading back to their lives in the UK, I decide to be a tourist in Italy for another week or so, before making my way East to Bordeaux, to see friends and cut grapes. First stop is the nearby Pisa. The tower is cool. The other tourists are spectacular. At any one time, I can see at least three different individuals taking what one blogger calls the Obligatory-Dorky-Hold-up-The-Tower Photo.

Tourist information differs as to when the lean first happened. The 'Rough Guide' states that the lean was detected within a few years of the commencement of building, back in the twelth century, resulting in a long hiatus. The official plaque attributes the hiatus to 'unkwnown reasons' and implies the lean only began much later. Wikipedia agrees in part with the Rough Guide, stating that the lean was first noticed in 1178, when the tower was only five years old with three of a final eight levels completed. When building recommenced a century later after Pisa-Genoan wars a century later, the lean was (over)compensated for and the tower started leaning the direction it does today. Needless to say, if you are in Pisa, it's worth a look. The other buildings in Piazza dei Miracoli or "Square of Miracles" aren't too shabby either.



After an hour trying to hitchike out of a slightly grimy Pisa I give up and take the next train south to Rome. On the train I meet a young Roman student with an egyptian background and accent. Our conversation consists of him listing the English writers he likes. The romantics, the Modernists. He quotes Eliot's 'Hollow Men' for me. He doesn't like Bertrand Russell. Too analytical.

Lists have served me well for crossing the language barrier. One doesn't need translation, let alone grammar when listing proper names. He takes an interest in the little Pema Chodron book I carry and I teach him a simple meditation technique. It is a surreal experience, zooming accross the plains towards a city that was founded before humans got to Aotearoa, meditating with a new friend in an otherwise empty carriage.

It's after 2200 when we get to Rome and I half-hope my buddy will offer me a place to stay. Nope. On my own again.

Of hair and head-tilts

Yes, it’s been a while since my last entry. It’s not that I’ve been uninspired, in fact, I’ve been doing a lot of writing*. It’s just that I’ve been leading a rather pedestrian life, literally. My bike is in the garage here in Wirksworth and some days I don’t leave the house. Here in Wirksworth, an old town of 9000 in the limestone quarry part of the Midlands, the focus has really been family. With my Nana and Grandad (ninety-five and ninety-two) it’s flavoured by the numerous cups of tea, the stories of time spent in Malawi in 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, the bus trips to villages up the valley of the ‘mighty Derwent’. Helping them with some small challenges – opening fiddly juice containers and pesky email attachments - is a pleasure. Aunty Rosie and Uncle Graham are consistent with hugs and literature suggestions. Cousins Elliot and Alexander show me how to party – Wirksworth style. They have strange rules for pool here. And a wah-wah pedal! I also earn some pounds helping renovate houses for a local.

You may have heard of the flooding in nearby Yorkshire. Intense. Six people have died and there’s been around a billion pounds of damage. (Not nearly as bad as the floods in Pakistan, though) The rain definitely got to Derbyshire, but don’t fret, pet, we’re safe. Perched on a hill, it all drains away from Wirksworth.


What’s it like living here, in the midst of England’s countryside? You guessed it, it’s quaint. Quaint little “pooubs” quaint old shop-keepers who call everyone “duck”. Quaint houses from the local stone, strewn higgledy piggledy around the hills. And people probably think I’m quaint. Having conversations with people I pass myself off as normal; it’s the small interactions with strangers that I fumble my way through. I still haven’t completely weaned myself off the very kiwi eyebrow-lift, chin-tilt greeting and I pay the price in blank stares. And when people say “y’right?” over here, it’s a warm greeting, as Mel tried to teach me, not an anxious probe. And sometimes, like when I make jokes to strangers at the tennis court, I think maybe I’m just being too friendly, even for Wirksworth.

Even the monumental and historic buildings are quaint. I visit Cromford, a village famous for being the 1771 site of Lancashire entrepreneur Richard Arkwright’s deployment of mechanised cotton-spinning and the factory system. Some call it the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. Most of the ”mills” (really factory buildings) still stand, large they may be, but (see photo) still pink and cute. Not like the working conditions. Surplus labour from the dying lead industry was exploited, and children crouched under the water-powered spinning machines to clean or “scavenge” any debris. If you weren’t bang on time for your twelve-hour shift, you couldn’t work any of the day. Those who know about my punctuality can envisage my potential cotton spinning pay-check. Other factories were even harsher, apparently


It really is a strange place to be spinning cotton. Several thousand miles from your nearest cotton field, it was only intense secrecy about industrial practices (and the protective measures of the British government) that meant the industrial revolution happened here, rather than closer to the cotton itself.

Arkwright had one of his mills destroyed early on by anti-mechanisation rioters (hooray!) and promptly developed a militia and a cannon to guard this one. Oh, yeah, I was talking about quaint. Get this. Arkwright picked the relatively remote Cromford for his project for several reasons – but how was this foreign guy familiar with the place? He was a wig maker, and travelled to large gatherings to gather the human hair for his wigs. The story is that nearby Wirksworth had a good deal of country fairs, and thus a good supply of hair. Arkwright came for the hair, but he stayed for the prime factory location!

*If anyone is keen on reading my new Roald Dahl-(think Tales of the Unexpected, not BFG)-esque short story, let me know, and I’ll swing you an email copy.

Large things in large town

My days in London settle into a vague pattern. Mornings are leisurely, evenings are social, afternoons I usually bus into the city, and experience the first traffic jams of my life. I go with vague errands (buying a phone/tent/harmonica, unrewarding illegitimate busking) but mostly my time in central London is spent walking around and staring at old things: surprisingly low stone builidings; commerative statues and arches of all descriptions; plaques, portraits and palaces. I’m equally attracted and repulsed by the monuments. A giant statue of Achilles made with cannon won in the battle of Waterloo? Bellicose jingoism. More difficult for me is the oft-present glorification of the era of British imperialism.

The injustices of British relations with other ethnicities are still sorely relevant for many. A man waves an Ulster flag among the massive Union Jacks along the Mall. Later I meet a pan-African crowd outside the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. An impromptu protest has sprung up in the aftermath of activist Toyin Agbetu being released without charge after his pronouncements during the Abolition 200 (ending of slavery) service in Westminster Abbey back in March. Agbetu was arrested while declaiming what he has called the commemoration’s “myopic eurocentrism”. For the interested, here's a news piece on the March event.
The protest today involves a lot of drumming and pretty soon the National Gallery closes their main doors. Sympathetic and curiousI asked one of the protestors why they chose this spot. The protest started at the police station, and ended here partly by chance. My guy thought it was as appropriate a place as any. He gestures around Trafalgar Square. “Slaves built all of this” he says. I talk with him a bit, explain the phrase "kia kaha", (he hears kia kara), then move off to book my tickets for the Globe theatre.

Namvula encourages me to go to the British Museum – to “see all the stuff we stole” I do. The wizened and strangely shiny mummified Egyptian is very memorable. But it is looking at the exhibit of Viking doohickies that something hits me. The complexity of this island’s history. I present a list, familiar to most of you, but important nonetheless:

Invaders/colonisers of Great Britain
????? (Neolithic stuff)
Romans
Anglo-saxons
Vikings
Normans

Then a few centuries later, the mongrel inhabitants of this damp flat island spread an Empire to the antipodes. Bizarre. That’s what I think of when I see Nelson’s column.

Next time I write I will have tales of cycling through the Midlands.