Future-Proofing

I was sitting at my customary table in the hotel across the road, sipping Sencha green tea. I had been challenged by the barista to try it instead of my usual cappuccino but, really, I was not being adventurous: I was procrastinating, indulging in displacement activity, avoiding getting to grips with some forward financial planning which prudence required yet indulgence abhorred. I had known for some time that there was work to be done on this project – research to be undertaken, decisions to be made, intentions to be implemented – but I was daunted by the detail and confounded by the complications. Mañana had become my mantra.

Reading the newspaper that morning, however, provided me with a call to action. The agglomeration of stories concerning the ills of our society seemed to be reaching a crescendo: prisoners committing suicide because of inhumane conditions in our jails; young men stabbing each other to death in our streets; the NHS crumbling under the weight of patients; the education system continuing to fail the poor. All of these problems – and more – ought to be addressed by tackling their causes rather than their symptoms. Yet national government is more inclined to focus on the 5-year election cycle than the long-term well-being of society and, in so doing, fails to implement policies that might minimise social ills in the future. Well, I thought, I had better get on with it, lest I become a burden on a state that has insufficiently provided for my future decrepitude. I drank up, went to my desk and fired up my computer.

Just when you need it most, however, technology can let you down. The computer insisted on a “critical update” and, since I was aware of the recent scare over hackable processors, I allowed it to do its thing. During the process, however, complications arose that I lacked the competence to resolve and which, for the ensuing 24 hours, tied me up in finding someone who could: all of which prevented me from making progress on my project. Meanwhile, my attention drifted and I began to indulge in activities that are of questionable priority. I had previously been seduced by the notion of getting a new cover for my phone, the kind that incorporates little pockets for credit cards and a place for the nifty little flat reading specs I had recently purchased. My logic went thus: instead of the usual exit check of four items – wallet, phone, specs and keys – I could reduce it to just two. “What?” said my partner, “So now you could lose your wallet and phone together?” She had a point and. In the event, once I had the whole combo assembled, the package became so unwieldy that I am now considering reverting to carrying the items separately.  

I attempted a “restart” on my planning project a few days later but did not get very far. My partner phoned to tell me that she was stuck in the suburbs with a flat tyre and no time to sort it out because of meetings. I admit that I was not reluctant to go and fix it: first, it gave me a valid excuse to put off the dreaded project; second, it gave me an opportunity to show off – I may not know much about hard drives but at least I do know how to change a wheel. Alas, half a day later, I returned home a humiliated man. The release bolts for the spare wheel had corroded so badly I could not shift them and was obliged to call out the roadside rescue service.

So now, with everything fixed, I am ready to set an example for government by getting started on some serious future-proofing. Just as soon as I have found the files, that is.

The Facts Of The Matter

Researchers have recently revealed some surprising statistics: the percentage of England’s total landmass that has been “concreted over” (or built on), is a mere 2.27%. When asked to guess the figure, however, most people imagine it to be closer to 50%. The reason for our collective misconception could be that 80% of us actually live in urban environments so we see a lot of concrete every day. Notwithstanding that, I have just been to Lincolnshire, a county renowned for its vast, flat expanses of sparsely populated farmland. My brother-in-law, who has lived there all his life, was driving us across this landscape when I decided to ask him the question: “What percentage of England’s landmass has been built on?” He thought for a moment before replying, “I would say, about 60%.” Perception, it seems, outflanks reality – a lesson we need to re-learn constantly.

Later, I left Lincolnshire by a very small train from a quite big village and, while waiting on the station’s windswept platform, concluded that rural trains are used only by people who either cannot or will not drive the long distances between amenities. My theory was soon validated by interaction with the two other passengers waiting. One of them, a young man I had previously encountered and know to be mentally disturbed, is not licensed to drive. The other, a young woman who smiled and said hello, explained to me that she was travelling by train because her car was broken. She also told me a lot of other stuff: her occupation, her qualifications, where she lives, her boyfriend’s details, where he lives, where she was going, what her hopes were for the future etc. (A new car was on her list). I had thought, at first, she wanted just to pass the time in polite conversation while waiting for the train but, by the time it arrived, I was more than ready to wish her bon voyage and seek a seat on my own. There I pondered whether she was a genuinely open and friendly person, an unfortunate patient on prescribed happiness medication, or a plain, old-fashion speed-freak.

At the next stop, she disembarked (to meet her mother, who was leaving work early so they could go shopping together...) and my thoughts were distracted by a newcomer to the carriage – a transvestite. I was a little surprised: I am used to seeing transvestites in the city but assume they are rarer on rural public transport. It would have been interesting to find out more about this person but, unfortunately, they reeked so badly of urine that the voluntary proximity which might have led to a conversation was out of the question. Instead, I opened the window and resorted to speculation until we reached the mainline station and I transferred to the London train.

In London, the 50% estimate seems very low – even allowing for the gardens and parks that compensate for the concrete. But I had little time for statistical evaluation: mine was a brief visit, though it did include a visit to Tate Britain to see Rachel Whiteread’s sculptures. I have long been intrigued by her work – solid castings of the spaces inside buildings and underneath objects such as chairs – though seeing so much of it in one place did break the spell. I liked more her project of placing castings of garden sheds in the great outdoors, where they seem to sit well in their ramshackle glory. I do have reservations about the one in the Mojave Desert, however. What if some desperate, lost wanderer should spy it from a distance and mistake it for shelter? The last thing they would want to see would be an art installation that confounds reality with perception.

Elvis Presley's Legacy

Recently, I stayed a couple of nights at an hotel where, at the breakfast buffet, I opted for a childhood favourite that I had not indulged in for some time – hard-boiled eggs. Unfortunately, I discovered I had lost the knack of peeling them (insofar as a brittle, rigid skin can be peeled) and small fragments of shell subsequently turned up in my tea, on my toast and up my sleeve. Later, I thought to look up egg-peeling techniques using my phone and, although the results were enlightening, they were also impractical for a hotel dining room, as they involved either adding something to the water during the boiling or plunging the cooked eggs in cold water and shaking them about. Nevertheless, I am delighted that folksy household tips such as these are now accessible universally and that I no longer need my ancient copy of Mrs Beeton, which I don’t always have handy.

Bearing in mind this acquired dependence on the phone and knowing that my ageing Windows device – which even Microsoft has now forsaken – is no longer up to the job, this week I bought an Android-powered replacement. Of course, I had anticipated that the migration from one system to another might be bothersome so I did some elementary research beforehand. “No problem,” was the invariable answer from those I canvassed and, for the most part, that turned out to be true, though familiarising myself with the new system has taken a little time. (Software can be intuitive but it depends on your starting point: if you have ever questioned why older people stare so fixedly at their screens, the reason could be bafflement.) Still, as they say, “no pain, no gain” and, to be fair to Android, the system seems to work well, except for one problem – migrating a particular Microsoft Oultook account, which has necessitated my reading a lot of difficult-to follow ‘knowledge-base’ articles and, eventually, contacting Microsoft help-lines.

I have to say that I feel sorry for people on the other end of help-lines: a lot of their time must be spent dealing not so much with customers’ technical issues as with their ignorance and frustration, as I can attest. They certainly deserve respect for maintaining their civility, though not all of them have the degree of patience required for the job. One exchange I experienced turned sour when the operator clearly implied that I should simply follow her instructions, stop asking awkward questions and – especially – stop making helpful suggestions. The fact that I had spent hours discussing the issue with her colleagues and had been elevated to this third level of technical assistance did not, in her view, entitle me to have an opinion on either the cause or the resolution of the problem. I felt quite relieved – and a little smug – when she gave up and passed me on to a fourth-level expert who quickly pinned it down. He admitted, apologetically, that the two systems are not fully compatible and that the problem is, therefore, insoluble. Now, I thought, I can get some sleep.

Or at least I could have done, but for the fact that, outside in the street, someone was whistling a tune. It was familiar but the words and title eluded me until the third chorus, when I realised it was Elvis Presley’s Wooden Heart. From my window, I could see the perpetrator, a man of about 60, standing on the street corner. His whistling was of professional standard but he was not busking – he had no collection bowl – and appeared to be just passing the time. He began another tune that, again, was familiar but elusive. I reached for my new phone to see if it had an app that recognises whistled tunes but I was too slow: he began to wander nonchalantly away from my view and out of earshot, leaving me fretting about the allure of artificial intelligence and the fading memory of that melody.

Euro-lingering

Yesterday morning we had coffee at a local café on the edge of the small harbour at Syracuse. The turquoise, mirror-calm Med sparkled in the warm, winter sunshine and hypnotised us into lingering for longer than usual – to the point, in fact, where lingering became malingering (a habit that one can observe in a certain sector of the local male population). By the time we finally left, I was feeling so dozy that I forgot to pay. When, later in the day, I realised this and returned to settle the account, a different barista – one who spoke no English – was on duty and, in order to explain myself, I had to look up the verb “I forgot”: it translates as ho dimenticato, which sounds uncomfortably like an admission of dementia.

This instance of the shared roots of language (in this case, Latin) illustrates just one of the things that make me feel at home in Europe and frustrated by the Brexiteers’ determination to distance us from it: our cultures are more homogenous and our histories more intertwined than many a Little Englander would care to admit. That which appears to them ‘foreign’ is merely a variation of an over-arching theme – and Sicily is a good place to get a sense of this. Linguistic similarities apart, the sense of shared history is evident in many of its buildings. The Cathedral of Syracuse, for example, incorporates the original Doric columns of the Greek temple that preceded it. They look familiar, which is not surprising since Greek classical architecture was widely imitated in Britain and elsewhere. These particular columns, however, are 2500 year-old originals that have served Pagans, Christians, Moslems, Byzantines, and then Christians again. They are visible proof that Sicilians were not always Italian – any more than Britons were always British. They are also a reminder that the incumbent Roman Catholic Church is a relative newcomer to the worshiping business.

Syracuse around 400 BC was not only Greek but also just as prosperous as Athens and, by way of demonstration, the authorities built a huge theatre. It was hewn out of a rocky hillside, had a seating capacity of 16,000, is known to have staged the last tragedies of Aeschylus and is still in use as a setting for theatrical productions today. However, stage drama is not to everyone’s taste and, when the Romans took over the place 600 years later, they made alterations to the performance area so as to accommodate their more plebeian entertainments i.e. gladiatorial events.  As it turned out, that was a good move: re-purposing is a practical and economic use of resources that saved it – and many other historic edifices – from obliteration.

The centres of Sicily’s old towns are stuffed with historically interesting houses and palazzi that are barely standing, but the economics of rescue are difficult to resolve and they may all fall down eventually. Elsewhere, however, buildings of another sort are being re-purposed. In Catania, a 20^th century sulphur factory has been converted to house workspaces and several small-scale museums, one of which, the Museum of the Cinema, I went to visit. I would like to report that the museum is a rip-roaring success, that it is stuffed with valuable memorabilia and that the interactive displays are ingenious, engaging and all in working order; but, unfortunately, I cannot. Which is not to say it is devoid of interest or charm: the old publicity posters are nostalgic and the period room-sets – especially Don Corleone’s study – are eerily evocative. More importantly, however, the project is an imaginative attempt to preserve the region’s heritage that, without support from the EU, would not have happened. Every region’s past deserves recognition for its contribution to present European culture: and that’s one thing I won’t forget.