No Fly Zone

In a future world without aeroplanes, children would gather at the feet of old men, and hear extraordinary tales of a mythic time when vast and complicated machines the size of several houses used to take to the skies and fly high over the Himalayas and the Tasman Sea. ... The wise elders would explain that inside the aircraft, passengers, who had only paid the price of a few books for the privilege, would impatiently and ungratefully shut their window blinds to the views, would sit in silence next to strangers while watching films about love and friendship - and would complain that the food in miniature plastic beakers before them was not quite as tasty as the sort they could prepare in their own kitchens.

A delightfully whimsical piece by philospher/author Alain de Botton, A World Without Planes, on the BBC website. Sometimes one does just want to turn the clock back to a time when things were simpler ...

Postscript :

And Carol Ann Duffy also sees a silver lining in an ash-cloud.

Heathrow Stories

Some lovers were parting. She must have been twenty, he a few years older. Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood was in her bag. They had oversize sunglasses and had come of age in the period between SARS and swine flu. They were dressed casually in combat trousers and T-shirts. It was the intensity of their kiss that first attracted my attention, but what had seemed like passion from afar was revealed at closer range to be unusual devastation. She was shaking with sorrowful disbelief, he was cradling her in his arms, stroking her short blonde hair, in which a hairclip in the shape of a tulip had been fastened. Repeatedly, they would look into each other’s eyes and then, as though thereby made newly aware of the catastrophe about to befall them, she would begin weeping once more. ... People were passing and evincing sympathy. It helped that the woman was extraordinarily beautiful. I missed her already.... We might have been ready to offer sympathy, but in actuality, there were stronger reasons to want to congratulate her for having such a powerful cause to feel sad. We should have envied her for having located someone without whom she so firmly felt she could not survive, to the gate let alone to a bare student bedroom in a suburb of Beijing. If she had been able to view her situation from a sufficient distance, she might have been able to consider it as the high point of her life.

Philosopher and author Alain de Botton has become the first ever writer in residence at Heathrow Airport, writing his new book (to be called A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary) live at Terminal 5, and incorporating passers-by into the story. It's an an appointment that Heathrow's management hope will create a positive buzz about the airport, and de Botton says :

That one of the largest organizations in the U.K. should take an interest in a book is almost quaint, like sponsoring a poet ... On behalf of my fellow beleaguered writers, it’s nice that writers seem to matter.

The book (an extract from which appears at the top of this post courtesy of The L.A.Times will be available at the end of September, and Heathrow will give away 10,000 copies to random passengers.

You can watch the BBC's report, with de Botton talking about the Heathrow assignment, on YouTube. Excursions to the airport are of course nothing new for the author, who has been taking groups of tourists there ...

Bibliotherarapy

Can literature sort out your life problems? A group of authors including Alain de Botton have set up a "cultural apothecary" to dispenses bibliotherapy to those who need it :

On offer at the School of Life: books; artwork; holidays; courses; food; sermons; and – most popular of all – "bibliotherapy". Split over ground floor and basement, the building offers a sanctuary where visitors can read, relax and think for themselves.

The bookshop also offers intriguing weekend trips :

De Botton, who six years ago published The Art of Travel, will take customers to Heathrow, where they can expect a guided tour of the new terminal, meet baggage staff and chat to plane spotters – all for £250. Another holiday will feature a tour of the "great tarmac institution" of the M1, promising meetings with "architects and historians, artists and truckers".

More on the shop's website and on the School of Life blog.