The 17th Biennale of Sydney, which I attended, had the title, The Beauty of distance: songs of survival in a precarious age, and with the benefit of hindsight, and working on the 'lyrical future of nostalgia,' I have been able to reflect on this idea. Distance is that other place, the place over there that we desire, the better place to be, I left Edinburgh thirty-odd years ago, yet others wish they lived there, I left London twenty-odd years ago and the same occurs, and I miss them both, but I feel the same about New York and Barcelona and Brisbane and Melbourne - oh and I had the most fabulous time in L.A. when I was writing films. The truth is I never sit still for long. But it got me thinking too about being in Newtongrange. For 84 years, my father has lived no more than 2 miles from where he was born and he is fine with that. He likes knowing every corner, every turn, where to pick the best brambles and when and that is okay too. The fact is, travel is in the mind. I travel to work with people I don't live near and cross continents to learn what they know and pass on what I know and then to develop what we can do to take knowledge forward - that's essentially the job I do as a modern academic. But with internet, Skype and the like its all changing. A bit like songwriting, really. In the old days we would travel from pub to club to places to sing and hear and now we can just post it all online, talk to each other over 10,000 miles, as I write this I am currently in discussion with Canberra, Au. So, I might now practice my online quirking, my quaint, eccentric whimsy and peculiarity of ideas, which is the academic equivalent of… well I don't have to spell it out, do I? Do I? I adore this song, irony and country music and the wonderful Lucinda Williams, 'how would broken find the bones':
