Solvitur Ambulando

I came across the Latin phrase "solvitur ambulando" - it is solved by walking - a couple of years ago, and as someone who has always taken pleasure and solace in walking this unsurprisingly had resonance for me. Then I forgot all about it, until this week.

I have often noticed how much better I feel when I am walking fairly long distances quite regularly. As a student in Newcastle I walked 10 miles most days: my flat was 2.5 miles from the university, so I walked there and back for lectures and then usually again to socialise in the evening. Most weekends a friend and I would go to the Coast or up to Hadrian's Wall, and walk then too. I had a succession of pairs of Dr Martens boots that clocked up several thousand miles each. I have never been fitter, nor more relaxed, before or since.

Back then I took it for granted: walking was a free mode of transport, and it was just something I did without really noticing. I only really noticed the magical powers of walking a few years later, when it played a big part in digging me out of an emotional trench. Since then I have had phases of walking every day, and phases when the habit has slipped, but I have absolutely no doubt that walking is pivotal to both my physical fitness and my mental wellbeing. I have noticed specific - and financially costable - benefits too: aside from saving on bus fares, I've noticed that a number of skeletal and nerve pains that normally put me on the physiotherapist's couch every few months almost vanish once I'm walking on average more than about 3 or 4 miles a day.

There is another huge advantage for me, which is that walking burns off the calories and toxins that characterise two of my other great loves, wine and cheese, both of which I consume to levels many people would think excessive.

Of course, not everyone can be expected to enjoy walking, but most people must have a comparable source of joy. There is quite a bit of news at the moment about Government trying to utilise an Index of Happiness. This is meeting with a mix of frustration from those who have long argued that happiness cannot be measured by economic indicators, and probably cannot - or should not - be quantified; and ridicule from those who think it all hippy nonsense. The latter group do have a point, though it pains me to say it, because of well-established correlations between relative income levels and key social indicators like access to health and education. In other words, the ability to pay for stuff is certainly a quality of life issue.

In any case, it seems pretty clear to me that "solvitur ambulando" could lead us to a pretty straightforward measure of happiness. Consider these two questions:

What is the thing in life you most enjoy doing?

What prevents you from doing this as much/often as you'd like?

Answering these questions wouldn't give a perfect measure of happiness, because having too much opportunity to do something you enjoy would tend to devalue it. Nevertheless, the more you think about them, the more useful these questions are. So long as you answer the questions honestly, they will reveal how you might wish to change your life to achieve greater happiness. For example, you might really enjoy making vault-loads of money, spending more time with your children, spending less time with your children, having casual affairs, getting drunk, writing poetry, raising money for charity, training for an Olympic gold medal, growing vegetables, foxhunting......The questions make no moral assumption about whether what gives you pleasure is wholesome or despicable, lucrative or frivolous. They can also get right to the heart of the barriers to your happiness, be they lack of time, lack of money, health problems, relationships, the postcode lottery or even, perhaps, the law.

Worth bearing in mind, before making a judgement about the legality of your preferred activity, that walking is not always legal (the Mass Trespass of 1926 being a notably unlawful stroll in the countryside), and much social progress has been made through protest, rebellion and direct action.

It is solved by walking.

AW.

Naked Ambition, or, “the future of sustainable access to airports”

I apologise in advance that this blog entry will probably give you more of an insight than you wished for into the inner workings of my brain....

We've all had those naked dreams: the ones where one minute you're minding your own business, doing normal things, and the next minute you discover you're naked, in public. You desperately attempt to avoid eye-contact with the disapproving throng, cover your embarrassment with a newspaper or, worse, a business card, and make a carefully timed dash for somewhere more secluded.

Quite how running as fast as possible would make a naked person stand out less in a crowd than if they sauntered will never be answered. Maybe the idea has infiltrated our subconscious from seeing streakers at sporting events, where speed is of the essence to maximise effect and postpone the inevitable rugby tackle from some burly, heavily-clad police.

Anyway, we've all had those dreams and I am no exception. Except that last night once such dream took an unexpected turn: rather than being ridiculed and mortified, I found, after a few minutes of the usual panic, that I became a cult figure, rather like those naked hikers that keep getting arrested. I still got some verbal abuse, but more often than not I just heard people saying, “Hey look, there's the naked guy”. Viewers of the unbearably popular TV series Friends will be relieved to hear that the word 'ugly' did not feature in these exclamations, but I won't take that personally either way.

Then came the really interesting and, I have to say, quite inspired part of the dream. I decided to use my new-found notoriety to do some good in the world - “put something back” as people often call it. I decided to set up a “pedestrian travel to airports” service, where passengers convene at convenient, city centre locations like bus stations or libraries, and are then escorted on foot to the local airport. By a naked man. Naturally, there was a small charge for this service, but think of all those car journeys to airports that could be saved, and all those tonnes of carbon emissions!

Of course, in the tradition of dreams, once the slightly unreal situation has been set up, the dreamer becomes an impartial observer, rather than a participant. So picture, if you will, the following scene. A sizeable group of sizeable American tourists has gathered at King's Cross station in London, ready to try out the new “Streakerbus” service that has started up between there and London Stansted Airport, from where they hope to fly to the next destination on their European tour. The service was recommended by Conde Naste as a 'uniquely, quintessentially English ideas that is right up-to-date in its attitude to environmental responsibility, yet steeped in a thousand years of travel history'. The tourists are mildly perplexed to find that their guide is stark naked, but after four days in London, little surprises them any more except the price of a bagel.

As the journey progresses, of course, they find that it is an epic adventure with a surprise at every turn. London Stansted turns out, inexplicably, to be nowhere near London, England, and after six days they're still walking. Since they turned off Holloway Road they haven't seen another coffee shop, nor even a fish and chip shop, so they're feeling quite disorientated. The small, plastic wheels on their large suitcases proved not to be up to the journey, and the convoy has now been joined by a small army of Big Issue vendors and out-of-work civil servants, recruited from outside Stoke Newington Job Centre, who are now acting as sherpas, carrying the suitcases on trolleys fashioned from stolen bicycles. When the main roads become too dangerous for such a modern-day caravan, the group takes to some long-distance footpaths along the valley of the River Lee, much of which is quite marshy, and some of the suitcases, plus one particularly cumbersome tourist, have to be abandoned for the greater good.

All the while, their pasty-fleshed guide marches along cheerily, pausing occasionally to extract a pebble from between his toes.

Eventually, after being thrown out of a youth hostel in Bishop's Stortford for being unfeasibly dirty and smelly, the now bedraggled, but substantially lighter, party of American tourists arrives at Stansted Airport. They are five days late for their flight, one person is missing, their sartorial elegance leaves much to be desired, they are totally disorientated (or, their own words, disoriented) and so desperate for caffeine that they might cause an international incident at any moment. In fact, they have all this in common with the rest of the passengers at check-in (apart from the Saudi-Arabians, who are immaculate, but rarely seen at Stansted) though they have brought with them a tale of an experience they'll never forget, but which no-one else will believe.

No wonder it was recommended by Conde Naste.

AW.

The Devil travels by bus

It was one of the few occasions when I wished I was a Tweeter.

I was on the bus, and we passed the front of Primark, where two police cars were positioned like beached whales on the pavement, their lights flashing, right against the shop's entrance doors. Two girls of about 19 were sitting immediately behind me and one said to the other, in a thick, Sheffield brogue, "Eh up, someone's bought summat again." The mixture of spontaneous wit and social commentary prompted me to text details of this event to my wife, and then to another friend. My wife's phone was switched off. The friend, however, replied quickly: "Bus?!!! That's the devil's mode of transport!"

"But the devil has the best tunes," I replied, reminding him of Lucifer's fabled good taste. I also hear that the devil wears Prada, which only goes to confirm that he hasn't shared a bus with me for some time.

As I mulled over this brief event, it occurred to me how splendid, and funny, it would be if the public service bus really was the devil's favoured mode of travel. A bus's average speed is about 7mph (11kph) so Satan's progress around the world would be pretty pitiful, certainly compared to that of Santa Claus - although this would at least give him plenty of time to weave his evil web around shopping-weary city folk. So one might argue that Old Nick was not hell-bent on efficiency. On the other hand, his reputation for suave moves and musical discernment might lend a much-needed air of coolness and style to a maligned means of movement. "As seen in Hell". "Devil-Endorsed". "Black Magic Bus". The advertising slogans would come thick and fast, a bit like buses about 30 minutes after the rush hour has subsided.

This same bus trip was also a revelation for me on another front. Finally, after at least two years of being vaguely aware of the facility, I registered that the bus stop I was waiting at was inviting me to send its identification number in a text message, whereby I could get real time bus times. So I did. Initially I was confused by a list of 5 buses all bearing the same destination and shown as being "1 minute, 1 minute, 1 minute, 1 minute and 17 minutes away", respectively. However, when four buses arrived in convoy I realised the uncanny accuracy of the text service, and swore to use it regularly. Once I know how long it takes me to walk to a given bus stop, and I have stored the bus stop's ID number in my phone, I need never miss a bus again. So long as my phone has a signal, which it often doesn't.

Actually, my nearest bus stop is directly underneath a mobile phone mast, and next-door to a funeral parlour. So maybe the devil has also sussed how not to miss his bus.

I did once travel by bus through a housing estate in a New Town in Scotland, which I believe is where the term 'Godforesaken' was originally coined, and there were a number of people using that bus whose vitality was in some doubt. There is also the Greyhound bus in the excellent film Ghostworld, which may or may not be providing a shuttle service between this life and another. So maybe there is some mileage in this Devil-bus theory.

In any case, I'm a big fan of integrated transport. Wherever you're heading, missed connections are a pergatory best-avoided. As is the P&O Hull-Rotterdam ferry, but that's another story....

AW.