A bit of lateral thinking for today's TITC. Another dull wet miserable day put an end to the
few (lame) ideas I had of shooting mechanically propelled vehicles (sorry I was in court all day
and have slipped into the jargon) so it was back to the drawing board. I needed
something quick and easy and was considering looking for old bus/train/boat tickets
from holidays abroad but even that seemed too much like hard work.
And then I remembered how books transport us to another world. Authors can weave
a magic carpet of words on which we let our imaginations travel. In the case of
travel writers like Paul Theroux we can accompany them on journeys to far flung
places that we will most likely never visit. Theroux well observed warts and all narratives
about the countries he visits and the people he meets is almost as good as actually being there.
In fact, his descriptions of sharing his accommodation with rats and travelling on grossly
overcrowded trains has often made me glad that I was just an armchair traveller.