From BER (Flughafen Berlin) to Spandau: S9 all the way. I couldn’t find the Berlin Express line. This is slower but there’s enough to do and see: read, revise, see Berlin go by. There’s the Bundestag, the distinctive tiled interior of Hackerscher Markt station. The Hauptbahnhof looks imposing but its glass roof is fragile. The panes are individually cut to fit into the curved roof. When panes break it’s difficult to replace them and wood is used instead. A man sat down next to me. He wore Jeans, he was young. He started looking at me and smiling and I noticed he was building up to something. Then he suddenly asked me about how I was using the camera on my iPad to broadcast myself. I told him I was only watching a recorded classroom video on Chinese Grammar, not broadcasting myself. He seemed disappointed and moved away. Later a girl ran down the carriage and started throwing herself around the pole in the middle of the carriage. I couldn’t understand what the girl was …

Luberon is still in the Rhone, though it could be Provence. A border town. All the reds contain Syrah and some Grenache and perhaps Mourvèdre and Cinsaut. “If you attack Persia, you will destroy a great empire.” The art of giving predictions that will hold true: Croesus attacked, believing this prediction to be in his favour and lost the empire he had built. It’s the 365522 today. The puddles had already formed on the platform, puddles of people accumulated where the doors are known to open. A group of regulars form a private puddle. Sure you can join it, but you’ll never be first on. One of them will have a better spot and they work together, letting each other in. It’s crowded today, no seats except on one of the 4 seat islands with 2 facing 2. None of the other three are wearing suits. Diagonally opposite: a woolly hat drawn down to the tip of his nose, all dressed in black, his head against a cushion propped against the window. His beard is …

Thoughts from the train (Class 365, mostly). Genetics; variations on a theme; phenotype and genotype; the collective and the individual unconscious. We moderns want definiteness, clarity, precision from the world around us, but our lives are all muddled. More and more technology is available to provide clarity, but the human operator is overwhelmed. The technical capability is much more than we need to solve our simple problems. The more technology becomes available, the more focused we must be. Analogue technologies require an investment in time. They settle into your life as you adapt. It’s an organic growth. Paul Auster writes his novels by hand, types them out on a typewriter and then hands the copy on for digitization. Life does not open up with a swipe of the finger. Analogize you digital tools. You must not digitize your life. When something is easy, it’s a potential distraction. Nothing is valuable without engagement, agency, intention. A good watercolourist has faith: the mess of colour and water over penciled lines will develop and become whole. He sees …