Journal

I have been thinking, rethinking. Hard. Long. As deep as I can go.

Indeed, a close colleague even suggested last year that I consult a psychiatrist, urgently. Why? Well, from long and close observation, she had concluded that I was deeply disturbed.

Willing to try anything once, I duly trotted off to London’s Harley Street to tap into the wisdom of a psychiatrist who, at least from the online menu, looked sympathetic. And after several sessions, I was forced to admit that my friend was right — but not, I think, in the sense that she originally intended.

Like any human being, I am shot through with psychological flaws. Way more than I care to admit. But the more I trawled these murky waters, the more I concluded that my agitated state of mind also reflected deeper “disturbances in the field,” in the world into which I was born.

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Thrilled to see this acknowledgement of Hania’s work in Screen Daily:

Vainglorious, I know, to put myself alongside such mega-names in science, but all of the major science tests and thinkers spotlighted last night on BBC2 in Andrew Marr’s programme Life and Death on the continuing influence of Charles Darwin have had a major influence on me and the way I think.

They included Rachel Carson, whose books Silent Spring and The Sea Around Us had a huge impact on me back in the 1960s, Charles Elton (who had a big impact on my long-time colleague and friend, Max Nicholson), James Lovelock (ditto, as the author of the Gaia Hypothesis/Theory) and Norman Myers (with whom I worked on the Gaia Atlas of Planet Management back in 1985-6).

A case, last night, of key parts of one’s life and learning flashing past before one’s eyes.

Last morning in Giardini Naxos, waiting for the trip out the airport. Walked to the town museum, which is a bit patchy, but was intrigued to learn of the slipways archaeologists have found that were used to repair triremes. Would love to have found out more.

The best book I have read on that era of shipbuilding and warfare is John R. Hale’s Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy and the Birth of Democracy.

After Etna, back to Taormina, for a visit to the Greek theatre and then on the verandah of the Hotel Villa Schuler – where we had a glorious farewell evening enjoying their Etna-grown house wine. Toasting Taormina and other wonders across this extraordinary island. Would love to come back here. Huge thanks to Rosaria.