The moral of this story is clear: be careful what you wish for.
Within minutes of my posting a blog in which I mourned the lost days before global air travel and instant communications, a discreet little volcanic eruption was arranged and the first of my wishes was granted. Then Vodafone accidentally cut off my blackberry.
I'm now on a train, one of about 10 trains in fact, lasting around 17 hours in total, that should eventually get me home 4 days after I was meant to fly from Sweden to Paris.
And I have learnt that it isn't quite the romantic, relaxing picture I had thought it would be.
Imagine a world, I'd thought, where the time it took to cross countries was days rather than hours. How much slower our pace of life would be. How much more time we would have during travel for reflection, reading, writing, enjoying the landscape and having arty thoughts.
In reality I am standing for the 6th hour straight, hungry, hot, aggressively tired and without an arty thought in my head.
My wife texted me to suggest I wrote my blog during this useful free time on the train. I bet Prokofiev's wife wouldn't have texted him that. Anyway, he would have replied "I have a near complete sketch of the new 3rd symphony in my head now, the second subject of the last movement came to me fully formed as we passed through Siberia".
All I could manage was "I can't write coz I'm facing backwards and I'll probably be sick."
Still, there have been moments of good will among passengers. Lots of talk about volcanoes. A lady next to me offered me an extraordinarily revolting sweet which I didn't have the heart to spit out once I'd accepted it.
But all things said and done, I'm quite ready to rejoin the 21st century.
