Venice, sinking.

There are 50,000 tourists on an average day in Venice. 

No wonder it’s sinking under the weight of all those extra gelatos, pizzas and Aperol spritzers, carnival masks and murano glass. The 270,000 who actually live here must spend their days side stepping selfie congestion points (San Marco Square, Bridge of Sighs, Rialto Bridge), the crowds who roil through streets looking down at their smart phone maps desperately seeking their hotels, and the hawkers selling splat balls, fidget spinners and umbrellas when needed. Celebrities and their entourages add heft but I have no idea who any of them are (the Biennale and Venice Film Festival are in town).

Maintaining the necessary slow, steady pace required for the convivial sharing of a crowded warren can't be assisted by the sugar high everyone is on after an Italian breakfast. I thought our host, Alessandro, was just being a bachelor when he served a series of cakes and sweets, but that is apparently breakfast. On his part, he was curious as to why we kept saying we were going 'two doors down' for a coffee, which makes no sense in translation unless we were imagining sinking downwards for caffeine, into Dante's inferno perhaps.

In the day, the police try to keep a semblance of order on the canals in their regulation wetsuit uniforms, but in the backwaters there are still the local places and a quietness that settles in the evenings, creeping across bridges and disappearing into shadows of alleyways. 

(Venice, 08-09 August, 2017)

Uncommon humanity ...

The Sunday before Christmas and my local nail bar was heaving as the talons of the neighbourhood aimed for a final buff and polish before the festivities began.

Amid the fumes of acrylic glue, clouds of nail dust, and X Factor on the TV, hands were held, filed, massaged and painted by young Vietnamese some of whom, we now know, made it across the world into London in the back of a truck, just like the 39 who aren't here. All wanting a better life: a better health care system; a more comfortable income; somewhere their kids can have a better life.  

Recently returning from research in the south of France with British migrants and their responses to Brexit, I was struck again by the repeating themes, the same drivers: all wanting a better life; a better health care system; somewhere to have a more comfortable life on a small pension; somewhere where the kids can develop skills they need for a global future. But with their freedom of movement, no chance of ending up suffocating in the back of a lorry.

Common desires, uncommon humanity.

Short conversations ...

Andrew is looking every bit a jar head but is polite and sensitive, self-deprecating his intelligence. He left school and wasn't doing very much, so the army has given him a purpose. Laila asks him if he is scared. 'Oh yeah, of course'. We joke about occupational health and safety. He is in for life. Richard is under no illusions. The army is his way of paying back his tuition fees; four years to study history which he loved. He wants to teach in community college when he gets back. Ray just wants to say 'hello' and guess our nationalities. He was back from Afghanistan to train new recruits but hasn't been home yet.

USA infantry to and from Afghanistan (Honolulu, April 2011).

How to greet a turtle ...

Snorkelling off the black sands of Richardson's Beach, Big Island, among coral swirls, tang and wrasse, I was confronted with a snappy turtle trying to haul itself onto rocks to sun itself.

Now the proper way to greet a turtle is to raise a flipper in recognition as bus drivers do the world over on approach, and then gracefully ignore each other and swim away.

How not to greet a turtle is to do the following: hyperventilate into your snorkel, flap your flippers in panic, scare the bejeezus out of each other, surface at the same time, check each other out, decide simultaneously that each is ugly but harmless, and then gracefully swim away.

(Richardson's Beach, Hilo, Big Island, Hawaii, 2011)