Ashen, stranded and well grounded in spanish art

Well i'm back. - see last post from 13th april. 4 days later than planned i did manage to get a flight out. Otherwise plan B was a 27 hour coach journey to London, overnight there, train to Holyhead, ferry to Dun Laoghaire.

These volcanic events are impressive and in a way it's comforting how nature can dominate commerce when it feels like it - and ultimately have worldwide consequences.

The Toba eruption 72000 years ago almost wiped out the entire world population of the time. Without the eruption at Tambora, Shelly would never have written Frankenstein, nor Turner painted his best sunsets, The irish immigrants would not have left New England for California, apparently. Without Laki (1783) we might never have had the French Revolution - all to do with harvest failures. With Krakatoa scientists discovered how air currents move in the high altitudes. And so on and so forth.

The above courtesy of a Guardian article last thursday which i read on the plane 1 day there will be an eruption that could wipe out the human race" Now that's real invconvenience. And i presume without Krakatoa we would never have had South Pacific, the musical.

Packing up last thursday i felt like a convict getting an early release. But despite the sense of frustration i can't admit to it all being bad. I now know my Velazquezs from my Zurbarans, my Carlist wars from the Peninsular ones, my PPs from the PSOEs. Oh and the food wasn't bad

What all this hast to do with dit library i'm not sure. We don't even offer vulcanology as a major. However while at madrid-barajas airport i did bump into Andy O Gorman the recently retired head of the Bar Management department at DIT who had also been stranded in Madrid after returning from a trip to Chile where he had been on the judging panel for an international sommelier competition.