I visited Etna today. It is remarkable to see normal life continuing on the slopes of an active volcano. People go about their day to day lives, even though periodically a massive wall of lava descends towards their homes and threatens to destroy them. But of course tourists want to come and look at the active volcano, despite the danger of being hit by exploding fragments of molten rock and I am no different. I admire the perspicacity of the human race. Frightened of, but fascinated by death and destruction. Hooray for us.
It was quite a long drive to the mountain and I only made one or two life threatening mistakes on the way there, showing that living nowhere near a volcano can still be pretty hazardous. I was disappointed to find out, once there, that the cable car up to a mid-point of Etna was not working (I had been looking forward to that especially, and the cars looked small and precarious which would have been exciting). Instead a bus took us up the winding path through snow and volcanic ash and weird twisted shards of earth and rock. Though there were a few patches of scrubby grass lower down, it seemed that no life could survive on this monochrome mountainside, only snow and dark brown rock and black ash. It was as close to visiting another planet without having to be kidnapped by aliens or doing all that boring astronaut training. No-one had really explained why the cable car was out and when the bus arrived at the mid-way station I had expected to be taken nearer to the top by another bus, as had been promised in the ticket hall, but no bus was forthcoming. A man explained something grumpily in Italian to the people at the front, but I didn't hear what he said and wouldn't have been able to understand anyway (unless he was revealing his allergy to condoms), but soon realised that if I wanted to go any further then it would be on foot. A few hardy souls set out for the walk, but my guide book said the walk would take four hours and the last bus would be going down the slopes in less than three, so I just thought I would see how far I could get. The bleakness of the environment was even more apparent now I was out in the open. Strong winds (possibly why the cable car lay still) were whipping up the ash and flicking it into my face, walls of snow lined the path and some of the snow was covered in ash itself. I walked for about thirty minutes before the wind became too strong to really get much further and I realised that I would never get as far as the steaming craters in the distance in the proscribed time. I was slightly disappointed not to get up higher and had had dreams of jumping down into the bubbling lava and bathing in its invigorating liquid rock. It had been a long way to go just to have ash pelted against my face and eyes, but I was still pleased to have stood over 3000 metres up a volcano that had actual steam coming off it. If one had to die then I think being killed by a volcano would be a cool way to go, beats being killed in a Sicilian car crash because you're not sure if a road is one way or not. I thought of the people in Pompeii who must have choked on the hot volcanic ash that was now only stinging my face (I am aware that that was a different volcano). I did a good impression of how they must have died, mainly for my own amusement. Though they probably didn't say "Ow, my lungs!" or the latin equivalent, which was mainly what I did.
If you are ever being covered in volcanic ash though, so remember to form an amusing shape so that when future archaeologists fill the gap left by your organic material it will give them a laugh.
Come on, being killed by a volcano would be great. Certainly something to show off about in Heaven - oh you slipped on a bath mat did you? I was blown up by a volcano! Bad luck.
Even though I am a big fan of Pompeii and fascinated by volcanoes as a result, I never climbed Vesuvius on the occasions that I visited the ruins, so today was, I believe, the first active volcano I have stood on. Though being buffeted by the wind and ash was quite elemental enough for me - as I had the earth and wind, there was no need for fire.
Soon enough we were being driven back to greener climes, back to our humdrum, not living on a volcano, lives. I was a bit disappointed that I hadn't seen more or had the chance to be left hanging in a cable car smashed to bits by a piece of magma, but it was still awesome to be up amongst the snow and ash and wind.
I am staying very much connected to the outside world via the internet, as you can see from my continued blogging and I was pleased to see that some footage of my
infamous gig at the wam bam club has been put up on
YouTube (you can also see a slightly longer edit
with a bit more of my thoughts on the fact that he was a bus driver amongst other things, here. In a sense it's a shame for both parties that the whole thing is not up there, as I seem to get unreasonably cross very quickly, because you don't see the very start of the gig where the man takes objection to me having a go at the men filming the naked young women (though one of those men is responsible for the video and so clearly he at least did not take my light mocking too seriously). Someone in the comments who claims to have been there (possibly the woman amusingly shouting "No!" in the middle of what was already a self-mocking routine) says that I aggravated the situation and goaded the man, but this is not true. He was straight in there, taking objection to humorous comments, as he would later in rather spectacular fashion by claiming that my Murder on the Orient Express joke was disrespectful to teenagers who were being stabbed (rather than being upset that I had called for his murder and seemed to be getting a positive response from the crowd for such an idea). What I like about the video though is that it not only shows my exasperation, but also sometimes my anger shines through behind my laughter and you can see genuine hatred and also at points I do overstep the mark. I think I come out as the clear victor in a one-sided contest, but I don't think the whole thing reflects particularly brilliantly on me. And I think that's good. Because despite the suggestion in the longer version that the man might have been a plant, all of this stuff was genuinely interactive. I am pleased by my overall composure and the sharpness of some of the retorts. Though I think I flinch back a little when I see that he is coming for me and there is a little bit of arrogance behind my own bravado. But there was really no option but to try and address what was going on. The man was entirely disruptive right from the start and there is no way I could have ignored it (as another person suggests in the comments). I am glad the cameras were there to record it, because I think you get a genuine close up look at a volatile and unique piece of theatre. I only wish the cameraman had been there to record the woman's head being set on fire later in the week! I had quite an extraordinary run of gigs in the week before I came on holiday, which explains by exasperation at that seemingly fun gig turning so nasty so quickly. Hope you enjoyed watching it though and my written account the next day turned out tbe fairly accurate too.
