A birdseye view

Where do you discover the soul of a city, or find that ineffable insight which reveals what Thomas Wolfe calls 'the secret heart of darkness'?  Not in the effusions of contemporary architects more eager for glittering prizes than the echoes of posterity, nor the relics of earlier cultural incarnations, selectively preserved to complement and burnish politicians' chosen contemporary narratives. Perhaps in the gritty functional spaces - railway stations, bus termini -  cathedrals to the belief 'I move, therefore I am'.  Maybe in the ragged outer edges where city gives way to suburb and the tendrils of ribbon development reach for the next town.
Of course there is no single answer. To know a city requires synthesising all of these different facets. The tourist haunts, the exploration of the fringes as Will Self has famously done for London, uncovering buried layers quiescent under the familiar or persisting in ghostly parallel, as Robert McFarlane recounts in The Old Ways.
My time in Florence was limited and further curtailed by unexpected illness so as usual I adopted a pick 'n' mix approach whose only virtue was a complete lack of expectation, a guaranteed foil to disappointment.
From the eminence of Piazza Michelangelo, infested with the trinket sellers that gravitate towards all tourist honeypots, Florence lies at your feet, as my host Leyla had foretold. High enough to provide a view yet close enough to identify landmarks, the piazza offers Google Earth zoomed to perfection. Cupped by the surrounding hills, the city's patchwork of burnt orange, yellow ochre and hot pink is an artisan quilt settled in the folds of the landscape and pinned to the valley by the Arno and its tributaries.  As the sun sets, the colours grow richer and the shadows tilt the picture into 3D. Purchased with the lives of the exploited and oppressed, like most World Heritage Sites, the creation of this gorgeous vista is less of a marvel than its preservation. In any country the appetites of rapacious developers for an extra storey here, some infill there, is rarely resistable especially when sugared by so-called planning gain. And yet here in Italy, a byword for corruption in Europe, no building in view from the piazza exceeds the height of the Renaissance palaces, and, from street level, no architectural dissonance is evident.
For a truly unglossed account of any city, pay attention during the tiresome transfer from airport to city centre. Arriving for the first time at Budapest, which formed with Vienna and Prague the nineteenth century cultural nexus of central Europe, on the way from the airport I was startled to be confronted by a disjunctive Tesco, sqatting amongst the dusty villas and a beachhead for the multinationals.
The bus journey to Pisa airport slices through Florence's layers. As we progress from the preserved centre through dreary suburbs to the outer penumbra, the familiar attributes of modern life assert themselves: a shopping mall, factories, even a Hilton hotel forlornly banished to the city's margin. And then, cresting a hill, in a self-parody of the Tuscan stereotype appear endless olive groves and vineyards. In another field, a crop more curious than triffids has established a colony. A thousand or more photovoltaic cells tip their faces to the sun, silently harvesting photons, more valuable than the olives or grapes they replaced and signalling the crushing ascendancy of technology over agriculture. When forty percent of arable land in the US is sacrificed to the insatiable demand for ethanol, forcing price increases in foodstuffs, even the use of land for renewable energy production seems liminal.
We reach Pisa. Standing tall, if not proud, in the skyline the famous leaning tower cannot be overlooked, in any sense. A treasonous thought teases me: maybe Florentines regard the result of Pisa's experiment with the skyscraper as an awful warning, and their moratorium on high rise and architectural innovation owes more to caution than conservation.

© David Thompson 2012

Travelling to Florence

Mathematicians are irritated by the phrase 'the law of averages'. There is no such phenomenon, they chide loftily. I daresay the same criticism could be levelled at the law of unintended consequences but I'm a sturdy adherent. When my daughter announced that she would be abandoning the UK for Italy, at least temporarily, I wondered why. Other than smouldering latin males, food that's the envy of the world and a perfect climate I couldn't fathom the attraction. She replied simply that she had enjoyed her childhood Italian holidays. My main recollection of those idylls is constant squabbling between her and her younger brother, but maybe rose-coloured spectacles have eluded the mathematicians' hit list.
A three month internship in a European country is a gentle transition from the purposeful world of university to the inanity of working life and she adopted an admirable sang froid, taking a relaxing holiday with friends the week before she was due to leave as the hunt for accommodation appeared to be sorted. But it acquired a fresh urgency when it dawned on us that there might be something not altogether kosher about a request to send money to Nigeria as a deposit for an apartment in Florence. Thwarted of proper digs, she spent the first week in a hostel. Fortunately Google has not yet found a way to embed sounds into email as the shriek accompanying the message in which she announced that there were bedbugs at the hostel would have shattered glass.  Curiously she didn't regard cohabiting with local fauna as a worthwhile notch on the traveller's bedpost and hotfooted it to a friend's place which she eventually took over when he departed.
Working only four days a week enables me to stack my non-working days into mini-breaks with satisfying regularity so Florence became an obvious target for a long weekend. As an indifferent flier, rewarding the stress of flying with the promise of further torture through the allocation of airmiles has, to me, always epitomised the addition of insult to injury.  But when flying is unavoidable, replete with airmiles, I prefer what are laughably termed full service airlines to the larger indignities of the low cost carriers. So it was that I left work earlier than usual to catch a train earlier than necessary to take me to Gatwick. After a promising start, the train ground to a halt in a cutting, unwontedly, with the dreary towers of East Croydon still fresh in the memory. When an announcement was heard requesting the guard to contact the driver, collective grimaces were elicited from the passengers. Not going to be good news, opined someone, superfluously. There had been an accident at Gatwick station, we learned, and no trains could enter or leave the area. Eventually we crawled to Salfords where we were given the option of leaving the train.  My speculation on the possibility of a taxi was greeted with a hollow laugh from a regular commuter, comfortably ensconced in his usual corner and clearly in no hurry to return to domestic bliss. Horley did offer transport alternatives so when the driver grimly assured us that the train was proceeding no further 'any time soon' a couple of dozen hopefuls tugging wheelie bags exited the station to thin drizzle. ln the taxi office we were informed that no cars would be available for an hour. The only option appeared to be the local bus, due in 10 minutes. Impromptu acquaintances were made as people offered cash to those with only euros. By this time, my obsessionally early departure seemed niggardly and as the clock ticked towards the gate closing time, hope all but evaporated. I considered abandoning the journey and rebooking my flight for the next day. Before this plan could crystallise into action, the train guard appeared at the station entrance and announced that the train had clearance for Gatwick. We trooped back, avoiding the eyes of passengers who had wisely stayed on board throughout. More for form's sake than with any hope of catching the flight, I raced though the airport, arriving sweatily at the gate ten minutes after the departure time but with ten minutes in hand as the flight had been delayed.
The lucky conjunction of a late train and delayed flight was, I soon realised, a Pyrric victory as the consequent late arrival at Pisa would jeopardise my chances of making the last train to Florence, which even on the original timetable were slim. I'd taken the precaution of opting for hand luggage but even speeding through immigration in the gratifyingly empty airport I was five minutes adrift. Other dismayed passengers directed me towards the bus service, which, even with an hour's wait seemed a prudent alternative to an unplanned stopover in Pisa or a taxi to Florence. As I nestled in the corner of bus, it slowly gorged itself on more displaced train passengers. At five past eleven, the driver started the engine, evidently a signal to laggards that he would leave promptly. Precisely at quarter past, the due departure time, he commenced the process of examining tickets. Most passengers had bought tickets in advance, thereby securing a small discount, and these were printed on tissue-thin paper with barcodes which the driver dutifully scanned with a handheld device which then printed a ticket, indistinguishable, to my eye, from the one tendered. This was passed to the passenger while the original joined the bundle in his hand.  There were many family groups on board and they produced streamers, half a yard long, of tickets each with its own barcode, each requiring scanning. Juggling the scanner and a growing bouquet of paper, progress down the aisle was glacial as the scanner required frequent coaxing before it would clock the code and fizz out a replica ticket. Far from annoying tired passengers, this unedifying spectacle engendered a curious bonhomie; the driver smiling and shrugging at the vagaries of his machine and the passengers joshing conspiratorially as if the whole performance were an unexpected treat or comforting reassurance that they were safely home in Italy after the impositions of efficiency endured at their northern European holiday destinations. Not being party to the insights of this strange ritual, I became increasingly irritated as the minutes passed, conscious that, even assuming she had received my text explaining my switch from train to bus, my daughter would be waiting to meet me. Eventually the ticket god was propitiated and we rumbled out of the airport and through the velvet darkness towards Florence.

© David Thompson 2012

Dinner

The highlight of our sojourn in Tallinn was an excellent dinner at the prosaically named Fish and Wine restaurant. Tripadvisor made it clear that such was the popularity of the place, booking was a necessity and friends in high places wouldn't go amiss. We duly emailed a reservation request and after an anxious wait received a courteous acceptance. To our delight, on arrival we were shown to the best table with a view over the adjacent park. We'd requested an early booking so were not surprised to be the first diners and prepared smug expressions, appropriate to our prime position, with which to greet later guests. After an hour no one else turned up and we had the entire restaurant to ourselves all evening. The food was as good, or better, than promised by Tripadvisor so I can only attribute the poor turnout to the end of the season and the recession.
Exhausted by our wrangle with Tallinn's embryonic consumer culture, on the last night we decided to take dinner in the hotel.  The ambience of the hotel restaurant, where we'd breakfasted daily, would suffer in comparison with a 1950s Wimpy Bar so room service seemed preferable; while the food might be indifferent, at least the surroundings would be more condusive to relaxation. Most hotels promote their room service mercilessly, charging extortionately for wheeling a trolley along the corridor to your room. In this hotel, their first reaction when I called reception was to deny they offered room service at all. I pointed out that I had dialled the number given in the directory for room service and they grudgingly transferred me to the kitchen. Eventually with a show of great reluctance, a battered card was brought to our room. There is something primitively comforting about room service. Perhaps it conjures memories of being tended during illness as a child or maybe it's simply an enlargement of the treat that is breakfast in bed. Dining in the old railway Pullmans while trundling across England induces a similar sense of cosiness and semi-detachment as the countryside slides past the window. But so low were our expectations of a hotel rusty at the nicieties of customer service that when the food arrived with crisp white napery we were hugely delighted.
The rattling of ancient trams and the glowing PricewaterhouseCoopers sign on the mirror glazed building opposite provided a disjunctive backdrop to our dinner a deux, but encapsulated my impressions of Tallinn. A disoriented city whose confused and oppressed past leaves its citizens uncertain of their present status or future aspirations.

© David Thompson 2012

Jetlag

As you navigate your way through life's pitfalls and indiscretions - blandishments to lovers, excuses to employers, diktats to children - it's worth familiarising yourself with the results of some of the more arcane psychological experiments to buttress your stance.  These are better deployed without citation as it's frequently easy for the opposition to unearth evidence proving the converse.  
My favourite concerns circadian rhythms.  In the freewheeling time before the advent of ethics committees, volunteers were isolated in a dark cave with no external stimulus to monitor their sleep habits and determine their natural day length.  Despite having inhabited the planet for thousands of years, it seems that humans are still not fully adapted to a 24 hour day as most people were found to be attuned to a 26 hour cycle.  This explains why, left to my own devices, I prefer to go to bed later and later each night, with a corresponding slippage in getting up time. While this explanation might mollify the parents of indolent teenagers, I've never found it cuts the mustard with apoplectic bosses.  However it may contribute to explaining why travelling west across time zones, which increases apparent day length, is generally less stressful than going east.    
My own formula for dealing with jet lag is simple.  When travelling regularly to New York, I'd aim for a late morning departure, typically BA175, which would deposit me in Manhattan by mid-afternoon.  Having checked in to my hotel and showered, I'd take a walk of at least an hour in daylight. Sunlight and exercise, apart from being tonics in their own right, are apparently the secret to resetting the metabolic clock.   A stroll through Central Park, a steak at Smith and Wollensky's and holding out for bed until at least 9pm would guarantee a good night's sleep and an early start the next morning with no excuse to circumvent the gym before work.  
Provided one could feign working on the outbound flight, sleeping was encouraged on the way home, but less from sympathy than the expectation that the itch of guilt would propel returning travellers straight to the London office after a quick shower in the arrivals lounge  But however much BA tricked out the cabin to resemble a hotel bedroom, I only ever slept fitfully.  In the certain knowledge that once we'd left the eastern seaboard the captain was busy flirting with the most pliant flight attendant, I never wavered from the belief that unless someone was monitoring the creaks and quivers of the aircraft it would surely plunge into the Atlantic.

© David Thompson 2012

Shopping

Despite my obsessional study of the weather forecast before venturing to post a letter, let alone visit another country, I can somehow never really believe that the weather elsewhere is much different from what I'm currently experiencing. So leaving London in balmy autumn weather I arrived ill-equipped for the brisk northern chill of Tallinn. The first evening, we dutifully explored the Old Town, admiring the architecture with chattering teeth. The waiters in the rip-off restaurant  recommended by the hotel (always a mistake) looked bemused when we asked to sit indoors and thoughtfully left the doors open in case we found it stuffy.
Next morning it drizzled and ironically, having left the largest mall in western Europe behind in London, we resorted to shopping.  Unlike the gleaming ziggurats which masquerade as malls in the US, the crumbling edifice close to our hotel had all the decrepit charm of a 1980s shopping centre in Basingstoke. Nevertheless, within an hour we had bought a wrist watch and a pair of trousers. The latter were bright red and wearing them made me feel like one of those people who buy hereditary titles on eBay. Our final quarry was some makeup for Sally who normally eschews the stuff but somehow felt she couldn't manage without it for a long weekend in Tallinn. The shop was empty and a single assistant regarded us balefully from behind the counter. Her mask-like face evidenced her commitment to her profession. Not content with the concept of foundation, like a celebrity architect striving to engineer an iconic building, she had started at the sub-basement and worked her way through the storeys, finally reaching the penthouse of blusher. In attempting to showcase the entire stock on her own face she had produced the garish effect beloved of face painters at country fairs which delight seven year old children but horrify their parents. I looked at her again and despite her camouflage I was sure I could detect signs of life, or maybe her skin was simply twitching in allergic response to the cocktail of potions assaulting it. Sally was inveigled by this robot into buying a brush to apply the foundation she selected. Costing over 20 euros, to my ignorant eye it looked indistinguishable from the sorts of brush you pick up in packets of three for a fiver at the local DIY shed.
By the following morning, the the handle and the bristles of the make up brush had parted company.  I forebore to suggest that this wouldn't have happened with a B&Q product. As it was our last day, we thought it simplest to return the brush before our final round of sightseeing. The shop was deserted and we explained the problem to the same assistant, who must have got up several hours before us to refurnish her face. She regarded the remnants of the brush gravely and then opined that it had got wet.  Sally replied sweetly that its washability had been promoted as a key selling point the day before. Woodenly the mannequin stated that she couldn't offer a refund. That was fine, a replacement was what we wanted, Sally explained, eyeing the shelf-full of brushes. That too was impossible as she couldn't offer exchanges without consent from her manager who was not available. We protested that since the item was clearly faulty surely there could be no argument about its replacement. She was undaunted by this reasoning. Impressed by her unflappable intransigence in the teeth of incontrovertible logic, it didn't seem worth invoking consumer protection laws. Something in her manner suggested that reference to a higher authority, such as the mayor or an EU commissioner, might prove necessary if we were to push the matter. I wondered silently what the word for jobsworth was in Estonian while she added that even if her manager agreed to the exchange there would be a lot of paper work involved which generally took two or three days to complete. Eventually when we explained that we were leaving Tallinn imminently she agreed to try to fast track the procedure and suggested that we should return in the afternoon.
At six o'clock we reentered the shop. It was empty as usual, and the thought crossed my mind that the whole enterprise was a front for money laundering, or that some of the vials contained substances more valuable than scent. On the counter, the impassive assistant had laid out three identical brushes. For a moment, it looked as though, in a crass and unnecessarily generous gesture, she was going to offer us all three as compensation for our disgruntlement. Instead it transpired that she had in mind a re-enactment of the scene from The Merchant of Venice where Bassanio has to choose a casket.  Sally solemnly examined the first brush and pronounced it acceptable but the assistant insisted that she should try the others, as though Sally had progressed seamlessly from tiresome customer to head of quality control. She obliged, making great play of testing each thoroughly and finally making a difficult choice. After some further deliberation concerning which receipts we were entitled to retain, we were allowed to leave.
Increasingly I derive pleasure from returning to London. Few other cities offer such rich variety and the costs, to wallet and health (London consistently fails the EU air quality targets) seem to me entirely proportionate. An area of notable improvement is in public transport and I was reflecting on this as I walked to Sally's from the 21 bus stop the week after our sojourn in Tallinn. Noticing some jars on her dressing table, I enquired after the make up brush. "Oh, I haven't used it, I don't normally bother with brushes," she murmured.

© David Thompson 2012