One of my most loved items in the world are Fayoum Portraits. They range from in poor shape and fragmenting to could have been painted last week. What are they? They are a result of a remarkable fusion of cultures, Egyptian, Greek and Roman and date from the late classical (200 BC) to later Roman (350AD) They are mainly small (lifesize) and are painting on wood panels with a paint that combines wax with pigment giving the sort of texual depth not seen until oil paints. They are this size because they were placed over the real person face and then the mummy wrappings wrapt around them so they looked as though a live person head was emerging from the wrappings (this must have incredibly startling for archeologists entering tombs) . Work calls

Infinite regressions and international travel.

on airline travel

 The phenomenon I am about to describe is not to be found on short haul flights; Europeans experience a mere mental shift in their sense of their biological age, which may explain their ill considered behaviour after they reach their destination in Ibiza or Benidorm etc. No, to really experience the travel regression syndrome one has be an Australian or New Zealander on a 24 hour flight somewhere. 

The syndrome progresses as follows: 

Shortly after boarding the plane the traveller regresses into the teenage state, typified by a desire to block out any other humans by donning headphones immediately and by mastering all available technology. Attention spans seem to be small and  channel surfing and media hopping occupy the bulk of first few hours. The next stage, about 4 hours into the flight, is the child state, now tech is beginning to pall, but a strong sense of adventure emerges with a desire to make friends with strangers, here is where passengers  want to run about and get under foot, narrowly missing being run over by the weary nannies (cabin crew). Excitement is present and passengers actually find the constant mini treats on offer novel and rewarding. However  10 to 14 hours in and the pleasure is dimming, the traveller through exhaustion is moving into the toddler stage. Simple tasks become too difficult to  accomplish, technology which previously was enjoyable now becomes incomprehensible and the entertainment plot lines  filled as they are with adult constructs are increasing difficult to grasp, communication becomes challenging, a strong level of fractiousness emerges.  Resentment  from being constrained in your little seat and fed bite sized pieces of food and small bowls of  gloop starts to build; this the point where tantrums could erupt. Parents will recognise  the overtired state, where although exhausted sleep is hard to achieve. The sense of oppression from the surrounding mass of large bodies can grow. Travellers grow now increasing infantile, constantly uncomfortable but powerless to make any changes that improve this,  a numb misery takes over.  A dropped handkerchief is irretrievable and everything necessary for comfort seems unobtainable or out of reach, the desire to scream is present but generally suppressed. 20 hours in and with 2 missed sleeps, standing up causes dizziness and disorientation, crying seems the only option but the dim sense that this is not appropriate prevents this. Time seems no longer to have any structure, day and night have no meaning any more. Passivity is increasing and short periods of torpor are interspersed with longer periods of deep silent suffering; the edges between these states are blurring and, reality and the nightmare state can become confused.  24  hours and the infant state is shifting to the foetal.   Foetuses dream in utero but this opens the question, what do they dream about? Past life experiences or is it like long haul travelling,where awake merges into sleep seamlessly, here essentially dreams are more of the same. A study into travel and sleep deprivation could be insightful in studying this . Still in this foetal helpless state, hapless passengers are suddenly forced through the aperture into an alien world, full of large purposeful adults talking but  not making any sense. Worse yet is the expectation that the traveller also has to be purposeful and take control of valuable possessions, fill out forms and find vital documents in a strange new environment . So when  you see those white faced shell shocked  strangers clustered around customs and more frighteningly in transit lounges, be compassionate, gentle, and know their befuddled brains are in an enormous catchup mode .

Solving life’s mysteries 1 at a time. Number 1. Where do all the socks go?

Where do all the socks go?

Socks were always prone being mislaid, Archaeologists dig up Roman socks that were chucked out in bedding straw and sending socks off to the laundry was always fraught with danger, which might explain why some young men have a reluctance to wash their socks: they fear sock loss.  However in the 20^th century the invention of the centrifugal motion on washing machine and tumble dryers created a new hazard: the arcane widdershins and clockwise rotations on these devices cause small fractures in time/space continuum and open micro wormholes. The sock, due to its sympathetic shape was, more than any other clothing item, likely to be sucked into these mini-wormholes. This much is common knowledge, but I hear you asking where do all the socks finish up? Well the other end empties onto a planet Sugob in an alternate universe, here is where socks go on to fulfil their greater destiny. On this planet there is only one sentient species, the Skcos. All Skcos were of the same age, hatching out of their pseudo egg capsules at the same time at the beginning of the long Sugob spring. Hurrah I hear the children say, but it was really not ideal; Skcos had no accumulated wisdom, no transfer of culture and no mentors. Why? Because of the strange life cycle of the Skcos; you see Skcos are creatures without digits or limbs, imagine something that looks a flexible rubbery flying saucer crossed with a limbless octopus and, can form a number of shapes from cylinder to purse shape and you have a rough idea of a Skcos. Skcos are quite mobile and clever but have almost no material culture, the nearest thing a Skcos had to a home was a favourite rock, where it might leave a few favourite things, pretty pebbles or a leaf. Of course we all know people like this but for the Skcos this was a serious drawback, for at the beginning of the long Sugob winter, the drop in temperature triggered the relentless Skcos breeding cycle. Basically the well fed Skcos would lay around 4 egg capsules then sit wrapped around them patient as a daddy penguin, unable to feed, gradually growing weaker and weaker, the days growing colder and colder locked in a brutal race against time to successfully reproduce. All adult Skcos died immediately  before their young hatched (no harrays thank you). Now many of you may think that all childbirth is a form of evolutionary death, however you are merely waxing metaphysical unlike the very real Skcos problem. Skcoses only art-form was declaiming poetry that had a mono-thematic focus on reproduction and inevitable death with literal rather than figurative allusions to the change of the seasons. But the advent  of the socks changed the very basis of Skcos life. The first Skcos  to encounter them merely thought them a decorative additive to the otherwise dull terrain, and dragged them off to their favourite rock, as décor features. Stripey football socks and pretty girl’s colourful  knee-hi’s were hotly contested items. It is unknown which Skcos took the dramatic step of climbing into a sock to lay its capsules but it was revolutionary! Skcos found that, particularly with judicious multi-layering, that for the first time they were able to leave the sock nest to forage, safe in the knowledge that their eggs were maintained at an appropriate ambient temperature! That spring for the first time multi generations of Skcos survived. Whole new themes opened up in Skcos poetry, i.e. the problems of first time parenting and divine mysteries regarding the origin of socks. Skcos Society really began.  So when you mourn the loss of a favourite sock know that it has gone a better place!

Footnote:  Disclaimer : the long term effects of the increased numbers of  Skcos on Sugob is unknown and unfortunately sock habitation, may like so many other wonderful advances, have a long-term problematic effect on the survival of this species.