Clockwork Motorboats

I’ve started watching YouTube videos of huge waves and roller coasters. Whether I choose waves or roller coasters depends upon my mood. Never trust the sea, or so they say, and watching huge swells rising up out of nowhere brings that phrase to the foreground of my thoughts. Not even on the biggest ships are you safe from massive waves, but despite my fears I would love to cross the Atlantic by ship.  In fact, to circumnavigate the world without flying is another ambition of mine, another fantasy that will be dashed on the rocks of reality. As always, time, practicalities and money will stand in the way. It’s all worked out in my head and I love the fact that such a huge journey would start on a suburban train service carrying people to their mundane jobs. I was going to add ‘in the city’ but I wouldn’t need to travel that far north, in fact, the idea would be to travel south initially and take a train from, of all places, East Croydon. I wonder how conspicuous I’d look, standing o...

The problem with the summer months is light. There’s so much of it. From around 0400hrs the light burns through the curtains and when I awake, I’m awake, and there’s no getting back to sleep. I remember being in Alaska in the late 90s during the summer months when there’s hardly any darkness and it’s light all day long. After a long flight from London via Minneapolis I remember sitting somewhere in the Anchorage Hilton, it might have been my room or a rooftop bar, or both, but it was gone 11pm and it was broad daylight. The hotel had black-out blinds and once they’re pulled down it might as well be December, that’s how dark it gets. They had black-out blinds when we reached Seattle too and I’m thinking back to that trip and how amazing it was. I remember whale watching and flying in a light aircraft to reach a more remote part of Alaska, the state the Alaskans call the 49th as they’re always referring to the ‘lower 48’. Because parts of Alaska are land-locked, light aircraft is the onl...