8 April 2002
Quick, quick, slow, and even slower
I was a bit nervous about driving in Italy, but the main problem turned out to be getting in the car.
Our travel agent assured us that Hertz would only need to see our invoice in order to spring into action and supply us with a pristine, all-singing, all-dancing little vehicle.
This was not quite accurate. At Pisa airport Hertz gazed blankly at the invoice in the nothing-to-do-with-us way that Italians have turned into an art-form and then passed us on to Avis – which, being number two, tries harder.
But they too gave us the blank routine, then suggested we ring our travel agent in Norwich and ask them to fax over confirmation.
This is not the sort of thing you want to get involved with on arriving in Italy for the first time, but needs must... A mere two hours and fewer than six calls later, we had our car and were trundling hopefully along the red road to Firenze.
Italians have only two speeds – very fast and very slow. Of these “very fast” was by far the easier to cope with, because it implied a degree of alertness that most Norfolk drivers have declined to even contemplate. It may be nerve-tingling, but at least you feel you are in the presence of people who have some idea what they are doing.
Not many drivers in Italy take the “very slow” option, but those that do are merely reflecting general pedestrian behaviour. You will never see a pedestrian hurrying to cross the road in Italy, or indeed hurrying anywhere, because it might crease their clothes.
This spreads into a general timelessness – or is it self-absorption? Queuing for tickets to the stunning cathedral in Pisa, we reached the very front of a long and rambling line when the one cashier decided it was time for a changeover. She counted all her money, filled in a form, and not long afterwards, really, another cashier took her place. She counted the money in turn and filled in a form, and only then, about 10 minutes later, could the queue get going again.
Oddly, I had been contemplating this kind of behaviour before leaving our shores, because I had noticed a lack of urgency making disturbing inroads into our own normally brisk and efficient country.
Two weeks before Christmas some men appeared at the top of our road and started building some steps. This was excellent, I thought: by Christmas we would surely have steps and a new pathway.
Then the men disappeared. By Christmas, little had been accomplished. Other men put in fleeting appearances, building bits of paths, then melted into the background. The embryonic steps and pathway had barriers erected, presumably in case we completed them in a fit of desperation.
Not long before Easter they were finished. Just in time, too, because Norfolk Wildlife Trust, presumably in a spirit of open access to the countryside, had acquired a nearby building in Thorpe Road and closed an alleyway next to it that had been used by local residents for decades as a short cut. I expect there was something nesting in it.
Scheme to give Norfolk what it's missing
Except for the weather, there is no real need for anyone to go abroad for a holiday. Norfolk has everything. Well, almost everything – except possibly a mountain range.
And reader Richard Meek has a plan to put that right.
His idea, which I have to agree is “stunning in its elegant simplicity”, is to organise a job creation scheme based in Diss that would use unemployed labour to dig a cave system on the county border – and use the earth removed to throw up a mountain range between Norfolk and Suffolk.
The advantages of this are obvious. Among the less obvious ones, Mr Meek suggests, are skiing in winter at Val Diss’ere, Hoxne on the Piste and a pot-holing centre at South Lopham. The latter, he suggests shrewdly, could be linked to the Hingham wormhole, but I feel this may be a trifle optimistic. Hingham is unpredictable enough on the surface, without digging bits out of it.
Mr Meek suggests that a lottery bid could be put together, but I notice that most successful lottery bids have something outlandish about them. Perhaps Counties of Culture would be more appropriate.
Truth comes a bad second
Frightening old world, isn’t it? You finally get someone to admit that using a mobile phone is one of the most dangerous things you can do in a car – or lorry. In fact, a survey shows it’s even more dangerous than being slightly over the drink-drive limit.
And what happens? A campaign to stop people using mobile phones? No, a complaint that people will now think being slightly over the drink-drive limit isn’t so bad.
Never mind the truth: the message is everything. A motto, sadly, for 21st century Britain.
Campaign to save gardeners
The Keep Gardening Special Campaign is hopeful that its campaign to keep garden centres open for 24 hours – or longer – every Easter Sunday will succeed.
“No one has anything else to do that day,” said spokesman Adam (Digger) Pitt.
“It is the biggest festival of the gardening year, and devotees must be free to worship as and when they will.
“This year some people could not get served when they wanted, and this was soul-destroying, not to say sacrilegious.
“Also we could have made lots of money.”
Garden Gnomes Anonymous is setting up a centre to counsel the thousands cold-heartedly prevented from buying plants, rocks and garden furniture.
Turbulence keeps penguins on the ground
![[Cartoon] Ostrich flying in plane](/articles/images/020408Ostrich.jpg)
As we were flying over the Alps, my wife – who is braver than me in just about every other respect – was alarmed by some prolonged turbulence.
Turbulence, in case you have not experienced it, has roughly the same effect as humps in the road, and is just about as useful. Because of it, my wife does not like flying at all, except in Cessnas.
But it does make me wonder about penguins.
If huge flying machines are rocked about by turbulence, birds must suffer similarly. This surely explains why some birds that would obviously be badly affected by turbulence are in fact flightless. The ostrich, for instance, or the emu.
These birds have tried it, and they don’t like it. They prefer to keep their feet on the ground. And the simple reason that penguins don’t fly is the huge amount of turbulence over the Antarctic – an area similar to the Alps in many respects.
I have since noticed that several other birds that can fly are in fact reluctant to do so. London pigeons, Ditchingham chickens and the Wymondham duck spring to mind. Norfolk expert Henry (Fred) “Shrimp” Houseago, 103, claims that the Pondhenge goose is a further example. He may well be right.