Euro Shame

          Here we are again, travelling by train in Europe and still feeling foolish about Brexit. We started with the Eurostar service from London to Paris, which seems unnecessarily expensive, but I guess this might be just another consequence of ‘regaining our sovereignty’: someone has to pay for all the customs and border personnel that weren’t there in the good old days.

          Earlier this year, we rode trains to Greece with American friends, whose strategy for coping with the embarrassment of sharing nationality with Donald Trump comprised keeping their voices down and hoping to be taken for Canadian. We Brits have no similar ploy available to us: one look at our clothes and general demeanour is enough for the official at a Spanish platform barrier to address us in English, knowing not to waste their time otherwise. And from there, it’s a small step to imagining them silently deriding our rude and disrespectful exit from the union that could have made a serious difference to the dynamics of global power-play, had we been onside. That said, they might just be a supporter of one of the far-right parties ambitious for their own exit from the EU.

          But this is about my shame, not theirs. In Paris, we transferred to a TGV train bound for Barcelona and, for six hours or so, sat in a luxurious bubble of anonymity in comfortable, adjacent seats on the top deck, sipping wine as we watched the sun go down over the Camargue.

          Our stopover was for one night, so we had booked accommodation adjoining the station and walked seamlessly from the platform to the foyer of a space-age fantasy of an hotel. Our room, on the seventh floor, had a panoramic view and was fitted out with style, panache and careful regard to the needs and expectations of the contemporary urban traveller. (I imagine the same would have been said of many of the original railway hotels built at the end of the 19^th century.)

          Come the morning, we moved on to Valencia, where we spent a couple of days walking around the city – a scouting exercise that took in many of the ‘must-see’ sights, as well as the unremarkable bits in between. The Old City was where we stayed, quite near one of the two remaining one-thousand-year-old defensive gates and an Ecuadorian coffee shop, a reminder of Spain’s colonising past. Such features are commonplace in old Iberian cities, but Valencia has a couple of modern tricks up its sleeve.

          In the 1960s the flood-prone river Turia that ran through its centre was diverted elsewhere and its course converted into a public park that is supremely well located to provide a refuge for the apartment-bound population. In the 2000s the land at the mouth of the former river was devoted to the construction of a collection of striking contemporary buildings comprising the City of Arts and Sciences. The space age experience at Barca was a mere appetiser for this main course.

          Heading north next day, on a provincial train, we were back on planet Earth. A teenager across from us put his feet up on the seats and focussed his attention on his phone but the ticket lady, a small but fearsome-looking person came by and, without saying a word, casually swatted his knees. He caved without protest. Later, an older woman, a foreigner, had the temerity to put one of her feet up on a seat and, though she received a verbal warning, I did note that the ticket lady had serious backup if: she was accompanied by a burly young man in uniform equipped with an enormously long truncheon.

          I heard the BBC news this morning and there is much talk of Britain’s current leadership pining to re-join the EU. I can imagine a collective response of “you must be joking”, yet still, I hope.

 

 

 

 

 

Gobbledegook

          Of all the potential threats to humanity that AI presents, who would have imagined that autonomously creating its own language would be one of them? But there are signs* that this is happening, elevating the possibility of AI eluding the control of humans quite soon. Just one more thing to lose sleep over, eh?

          There is talk of slowing down the advance of computing power, but a cursory review of precedents shows just how unlikely it is that the genie of technology can be put back in its bottle. Those with vested interests will never willingly attempt it, while those few individuals who keep up a dogged resistance by refusing to adopt new formats or devices are swimming against a strong tide. I made the acquaintance of just such a person recently.

          We met at a social event and, since she works at the local boatyard and walks to and from work, we sometimes pass in the street. She told me that she was facing eviction from her flat because the managing agents would or could not cope with her refusal to have a mobile phone and bank online. She is not alone in taking this stance – I know a few other people who are similarly minded – but this person is employed as a bookkeeper and must surely be using a computer with software linked to the internet. I would ask her about that, but for the fact that she tends to rant and proselytise, one-way communication techniques that I have limited patience to endure, especially on the street.

          I get that she might object to the ways in which the internet intrudes into one’s personal life, but the real question I would like an answer to is this: where do people like her draw the line? At what point in their lives do they say, “That’s it! I adopted colour TV and email, but I’m not having any more mod cons!” The thing is, if you opt out, you are effectively condemned to live the rest of your life somewhere in the past. Not that the past is necessarily a bad place to be – some people were quite happy back then – but the future is where we’re all bound.

          Last week, I came across a scrap of history I wasn’t expecting. On a brief visit to North Devon, we wound up on the Taw estuary, between Barnstaple and Appledore, at Fremington Quay. Although I’m no stranger to the area, I had no idea of its industrial past. The quay, now defunct, was used for exporting clay and importing coal. There used to be a railway station and lines that connected this relatively obscure place to the rest of the country.

          The last ship docked there in 1964. The substantially built quay remains, as does the station, now a café, while the lines were ripped up about twenty-five years ago and replaced by a leisure path. Some say that reinstatement of a railway is under consideration. Meanwhile, walkers and cyclists make hay.

          The riverbank near Fremington was co-opted by the Industrial Revolution. I don’t suppose the local peasantry saw that coming. For the hundred years of its life as a commercial quay, I don’t suppose the workers envisaged an end to that operation. For the current generation of leisure users, it must be difficult to imagine it becoming anything other than what it is. But we are all stuck in the middle of transition, whether we know and acknowledge it or not.

          Some of our lives may span only one era, but there is no end point, no stage at which humanity can say, “Here we are and here we stay”. Change will come at any time. What’s more, it can happen a lot more quickly these days. Perhaps it’s better to adopt and adapt, try to stay abreast of developments, including AI gobbledegook.

*Research from ‘Emergence’, a New York-based research lab.

 

   

Fiddle-Dee-Dee

          The young couple who own and operate the local vegan sourdough bakery are delightful: smiley, kindly, politically and environmentally engaged – we might find ourselves in the same social circle, were it not for the age gap and the fact that they get up at four o’clock in the morning.

          They always ask how I am and what I’m up to and they surprise me by remembering better than I do whatever I’ve previously said. This week, when one of them asked “How are you?” and I replied, “All right, I suppose”, they both looked concerned. So, I quickly added, “Considering the world is burning down around us.” They laughed nervously, relieved that I was not unwell.

          Of course, I understand that the question was a polite invitation to a conversation but, given that the world is demonstrably full of suffering and hate, I sometimes cannot bring myself to boast that my personal world is in good shape and I have no grumbles. Self-satisfaction isn’t a good look at the best of times.

          But life goes on regardless. Most of us are, in effect, fiddling while Rome burns. Incidentally, stringed, bowed instruments such as the fiddle were unknown until about a thousand years after the Emperor Nero was allegedly playing one instead of going responsibly about his duties. One can only conclude, therefore, that the metaphor is invalid and ought to be re-phrased, ‘fiddling about while…’ But, as the saying goes, ‘no one wants pedantry to get in the way of a good story’.

          Thus was I contemplating the futility of everything while driving along a back road in Somerset last week. We had earlier passed a sign that proclaimed CATS EYES REMOVED when I spied a less ambiguous one that simply said CIDER. It was hand-written and nailed to a tree, which may be just a clever form of advertising that promises but does not deliver authentically rural product, but which, nevertheless, always lures me in the hope I might find the real thing. In this case, I got lucky.

          We followed signs into a farmyard enclosed by ancient stone buildings and inhabited by two men leaning unconcernedly on a tractor. They didn’t acknowledge us, but a woman appeared, smiling and wiping her hands on her apron. She led me into what served as a cider shop and invited me to taste one or two of the half-dozen barrels along a wall. I didn’t need to. I could smell authenticity in the air and promptly bought two flagons of dry, still cider, one made from five apple varieties, the other a more selective blend of Bramley and Dabinett. The price was modest – as you would expect of a product that has minimal marketing and distribution costs loaded on to it.

          A drop of cider has the ability to numb one’s consciousness to the overall plight of the world, but that doesn’t mean that it’s gone away. For the next few days, the news was full of Artificial Intelligence agents. Some of the developers are warning of the potentially existential danger they pose to humanity, while Donald Trump poo-poos them and takes a characteristically materialist stance.

          The way I see it is that AI might well develop sufficient intelligence – allied with control of all our systems – to do any of three things. One outcome might be that it works out how to resolve geopolitical conflicts of interest and impose peace and harmony on all peoples of the planet. Another outcome might be that it effectively says, “Sod it! This species deserves extinction. Let ‘em have it!”

          The first option would be preferable, from an idealistic point of view but, if I were a betting man, my money would go on the second (though, come to think of it, post-extinction collection of my winnings would be unfeasible). Either way, we would reap what we have sown. What would be really disappointing is if AI chose the third option, a continuance of fiddling about while Rome burns.

 

Tiling Ticked Off

          The view from our living room is an active panorama: to the right, the grassy promontory of Mount Wise, at the base of which is a boatyard and the skeleton of a stone building with eight tall, slender arches founded below the tideline and, beyond that, a waterfront lido; to the left is a marina full of bobbing boats, beyond which is the Tamar estuary, highway to the Royal Naval docks at Devonport. It’s enough to entertain you even on the dullest of days.

          But, having become accustomed to the scene, last year I found my eye constantly being drawn instead to the foreground, i.e. the state of our outdoor terrace. It’s a good space but the previous owners had given it an ugly, badly executed makeover, covering it in porcelain tiles the colour of pale-yellow puke, with a rippled surface, glazed, so they were slippery when wet. Earlier this year, I determined to do something about it and, after making a start myself, found and contracted a tradesman to finish the job properly.

          Now that the terrace is professionally laid with non-slip tiles in a tasteful, pale shade of terracotta, my eye is still drawn to it, but for a different reason: I am mesmerised by the transformation. Just this morning, I watched with deep satisfaction as the rainwater ran towards the gutter and the residue soaked away into the semi-porous surface. I’ll be seeing a lot more of that now that the long, dry summer is coming to an end.

          The August Bank Holiday was a watershed – literally. Our residents’ annual BBQ, held in the communal garden with a combination of doggedness and borrowed gazebos, was at the same time a celebration of summer and an acknowledgement of its demise. The singer we hired was unfazed by the gusty conditions – a true professional – and finished her set, by request, with a Dolly Parton tribute.

          More signs of autumn came with the return of my Other Half from a brief stay in the countryside – a bagful of windfall apples and a wasp sting on a fingertip that was swelling ominously. It was Sunday afternoon before she decided to seek direct medical advice and, with the following day being a holiday, the only resources available outside of A&E were via telephone. Although no emergency was declared, the swelling expanded to the point where it triggered acute anxiety in the patient, testing my limits as a nurse and, incidentally, obliging me to deal with the peeling, coring and stewing of the apples.

          After a couple of days, the swelling receded – as was predicted – and I grabbed some time for R&R. I sauntered into town and had coffee at a smart new Kurdish café, where you can get simit (a saucer-sized ring of sesame-seed-encrusted bread) to dunk – or not – and pretend to be abroad for a while.

          Suitably fortified, I then went to the Box, Plymouth’s prize-winning* museum/gallery/archive, to put some sunshine back into life by soaking up the colourful paintings of Gillian Ayres. Although the place was thronging with families filling the last few days before school with indoor activities, the painting galleries had only a few, solitary visitors and I was able to bask in the colours and contemplate the life artistic.

          I finished off by browsing the books in the local history room, where I like to pick up obscure facts with which to impress visitors to our patch. Flicking through a book of photos, a page fell open at a view I recognised. It was as if taken from our terrace, but in 1898, long before our building existed. Plainly visible were the eight stone arches, capped by a roof and with small boats and sailors busy all around. The caption read “The Admiral’s Boathouse”.

          The Admiral’s residence still sits atop Mount Wise, though it has been converted to apartments. Could his redundant boathouse one day be recommissioned and used by one of the several rowing clubs around here? I could do with a bit more activity to distract me from gazing at the tiling.

*The Art Fund ‘Museum of the Year’ 2026.

Friends and Neighbours

          It’s official: the second most friendly place to live in England* is the district of South Hams in South Devon. The criteria employed in determining the rankings may certainly be questioned, but there’s no denying that the area is visually attractive, with its five estuary valleys and a coastline of cliffs, bays and beaches. I spent some time there last week and didn’t see one ugly feature.

          I was there because my Other Half had undertaken a walk along the section of the South West Coast Path that fringes South Hams, a three-day route that has four ferry crossings and one carefully timed pedestrian fording. My part was to turn up in the campervan at the end of each day to provide dinner and accommodation, meaning my days were free for tootling around the picturesque fishing ports and the hinterland of hamlets formed through centuries of small-scale agriculture.

          As a tourist passing through, the opportunities to interact with locals are limited, so any attempt on my part to gauge the validity of the “friendly” accolade is really just guesswork, though that doesn’t stop me trying.

          For instance, there may be physical features inherent to the landscape that promote a sense of community – such as the predominance of single-track roads lined with tall, impenetrable hedges and provided with occasional passing places. Progress along these roads is necessarily slow and, when you do meet an oncoming vehicle, there is an interaction with the other driver – an exchange of glances, a flashing of lights and a raising of hands in recognition that one or other of you has made an accommodation for the passing.

          Then again, how can you identify a ‘local’? The whole area is so popular with holidaymakers, retirees and second-home owners that the criteria must have become compromised over the years.

          If it’s any help, there is a distinctly different feel to the town of Salcombe from that of Kingsbridge, which is further up the same estuary. The once modest fishing port of Salcombe is now one of Britain’s most expensive ‘property hotspots’. My afternoon there revealed a town centre devoted entirely to up-market holidaymaking, with an emphasis on yachting and water sports. It must be a dreary place in the winter.

          Kingsbridge, by contrast, has a healthy high street with a mix of everyday shops, a fish-smokery, a smattering of chic boutiques and a few decent charity shops. My time there was more profitably spent, not least in exploring the historic church and civic buildings at the top of the town.

          Perhaps friendliness is too difficult to pin down as a measurable asset when it comes to choosing a place to live. There is a widespread belief that the people of England’s northern towns are friendlier than those in the south – well, it’s widespread amongst northerners, at least – and when I moved from London to Manchester (long ago), I experienced the phenomenon, for sure. But does that feeling of community derive from the “we’re all in the same boat” phenomenon? In this case, northerners sticking together in the face of the snooty derision of uninformed but wealthier southerners?

          So, to the number one spot, the friendliest place to live. It turns out to be the Scilly Isles. I haven’t been there – for the following reasons: it’s not easy to access; housing and accommodation are limited; the cost of living is higher than on the mainland and, according to northern folklore, the further south you go, the less friendly are the locals – although now that I’ve moved south myself, it’s probably time to reassess my prejudice in that respect.

          Could it be that the Scillies top the poll because they are isolated and relatively untroubled by the turmoils of the wider world? If so, the same applies to South Hams, which is an oasis of calm, far from big-city strife and chaos and with a strong sense of community that is readily fostered by its seclusion. Friendly but somewhat disconnected?

*Link to report summary