roads of stone

211. The price of oil: 4 – a rising road ahead

Roads — Thu, 28 May 2009 02:11:50 +0000

As the world begins hesitantly to emerge from this downturn, when and how strongly the recovery will manifest itself is still unknown. There are huge uncertainties remaining.

So why should energy costs be rising again already? Last week’s post about the oil price shock of 2008 described a fall from a $147 peak last summer to $34 in February 2009.

In concluding, I noted that although a $60 oil price looks ‘low’ today, in relation to past prices, it’s still way above the average.

In fact, the oil price has only exceeded $60 for some 15 months across the whole of recorded history. What has happened to keep the oil price high?

The answer is simple, and depressing. What’s happened is that another year has gone by. Another year when we did almost nothing to transform our energy infrastructure. Another year of oil depletion, with no meaningful initiatives or much co-ordinated action to diversify supply.

The economic news has been dire for months. All around the world, we’ve driven less, manufactured less and made fewer flights.

Energy demand now stands around 2% lower than in 2008, but — and this is important — that only puts it back to 2006 levels.

Look at it another way. In the deepest recession we’ve seen for decades, we’re still using 98% as much oil as during the biggest of all the boom years in 2007.

Despite the bleak economic news last winter, when I looked outside the window there always were cars driving up and down the street. We kept our houses warm, and our factories running (well, most of them).

The truth is that even within an economic downturn, our energy resources continue to be used up, on a daily basis, and at almost the same rate. But what’s more worrying is that we’re now making even less effort to replace them.

Amidst plummeting energy prices, investment in renewables has fallen. Several large companies have withdrawn from new wind farm projects altogether.

Across the hydrocarbon industry, exploration has been hard hit, too. The number of active drilling rigs is down by a quarter. But for all the technological advances of recent years, you still can’t find hydrocarbons unless you drill.

It might seem surprising that an extractive industry with a 20-30 year production cycle should think on such a short-term basis. But the cash that global energy companies can invest across the year ahead largely depends on the amount of money they can pump out of the ground in the year before.

That’s why falling energy prices kill new investment. As profits fall and capital funding dries up, companies are forced to become more risk-averse.

Without exception, over the past five years the majors have quietly dropped their production growth targets — focusing instead on maximising returns from within their established production base.

The implications of that are easy to miss — but let’s state them clearly: amongst the likes of BP, ExxonMobil, Statoil, Total — none of these giant companies now expects to produce more oil tomorrow than they are pumping today.

Over the past decade, exploration for new reserves has increasingly been carried out by smaller independents. But offshore drilling is a capital-intensive business, and several of the more aggressive and innovative explorers have gone bust as their production earnings fell and credit facilities were withdrawn. Many others have struggled to raise new capital for exploration.

Exploration drilling is a risky business, and today’s chastened banks are unsurprisingly reluctant to lend on projects without a sure return, especially when oil looks ‘cheap’ today.

And so another year has seen us draining our existing hydrocarbon reserves, whilst exploring less and canning new alternative energy projects which could replace them. With declining demand, the focus on diversifying and renewing our energy supply has fallen with it.

For now, the world produces enough oil to meet its needs. But the headroom between supply and demand is not great — and so the oil price is rising once again.

How far will it rise? A straight repeat of this year’s rise could see $100 oil by the autumn. Although a modest correction below $60 seems more likely, the signs are that once economic activity begins to recover, then $100 oil really will be here again before too long.

If demand starts to rise again in 2010, the certainties of continued oilfield depletion and reduced investment mean that energy supply will still be limited. It’s within this timeframe that a return to $100 looks more likely.

Looking ahead five years from there, we might expect oil prices to hit $200, with $400 in sight within a decade. And after that, you can just keep on going.

Those figures won’t arrive tomorrow, and a steady rising trend looks unlikely.

As political and economic events unfold, there’ll be more troughs and peaks, driven by speculation and the ebb and flow of sentiment in parallel with the daily flow of news.

But the fundamentals will remain the same. We’re using up our oil, and making increasingly scant attempts to replace it.

That sounds depressing, yet there might be a flicker of hope as well. Perhaps the most hopeful news to emerge from the past year’s shocks is that rising energy costs have belatedly led consumers to start changing their behaviour, putting them far ahead of governments and industry who for now are doing very little.

Over the past year, new car sales have slowed dramatically. And behind the appalling UK figures lay one tiny hidden gem — that the average fuel consumption of new cars sold fell by 4.1% within the last year alone.

That compares with an annual decline of only 1.5% across the preceding decade. 2008 may have been the year when we finally made a gearshift towards greener vehicles.

One year of high energy prices has done more to focus consumer minds than the three decades of government initiatives which came before it. Consumer demand is finally forcing manufacturers to build more fuel-efficient cars.

Beyond a certain point then, economics still has the power to change the world. But as the calendar unwinds — can our consumer attitudes change still further?

The answer is — they’ll really have to.

Because higher oil prices are coming soon. And after that, they’ll likely keep on rising, far along the road ahead.

: : : : : : : : : :

210. The price of oil: 3 – energy economics and the financial crisis

Roads — Tue, 19 May 2009 09:31:18 +0000

The highest ever oil prices.

The fastest and greatest fall in energy costs in economic history.

A lot has happened since early 2008 and my last essay on the oil price.

This article will explore events in the oil markets since then, and in the next I’ll take a look towards the future.

* * * * *

Early last year the oil price lay close to historic highs at almost $100 a barrel.

Supply was tight, I said, and getting tighter. Prices could fall to $60 later in the year if the credit crunch really bit. But long term, the trend was clearly upwards. And a world of $100, $200, $400 oil prices was not that far away.

Perhaps it’s rash to make predictions about the future. And according to Nassim Nicholas Taleb, it’s not clever to review the past if we insist on constructing linear narratives from chaotic and essentially random events.

That’s a healthy warning to historians, but for now let’s take the risk.

So what did happen next? The oil price kept on rising, all through spring 2008, and speculation drove it higher. It reached $147 in July, leading several analysts to say that $500 oil was coming.

Forgive me if that reminded me of 1998, when the oil price stood below $10 and The Economist looked out on a world awash with oil to predict prices of $5 just ahead. They never happened. Because sometimes when the analysts buy a trend, you know that the bubble (for that’s exactly what it was) is almost over.

The downturn was manageable, we thought then. Far East demand would suffice to keep the global economy turning. But it wasn’t, and it didn’t.

Once the trend was turned, a horrifying slide began as those long oil positions unwound. By early August, the oil price stood at $120, and the following month it fell through $100. After Lehman Brothers collapsed in mid-September, the oil price steadied for a while, but two weeks later the dizzying plunge renewed.

The scale of the pending economic meltdown was vast but as yet unknown. Amidst The End Of The Financial World As We Knew It, the shaky, scary $70 of mid-October looked like mere illusion as prices fell through $50 in November. On such a downward trend, who ever would buy oil futures?

No one. Traders shorted oil. Downward movement pushed the slide still further.

Falling consumer demand made an impact, too.

With gasoline prices bursting through $4 a gallon, Americans had driven 10 billion fewer miles last summer. And as the year progressed, declining consumer confidence offset the falling prices.

The result ? A new mindset amongst consumers — a reluctance to buy new cars and especially the larger gas guzzlers built by US manufacturers.

American car makers began to fall apart, reaching a collapse later in the autumn. More jobs were lost, across the industry. Consumer confidence fell still further. We bought less, around the world, and manufacturing production plummeted, leading to yet lower energy demand from consumers and industry alike.

The oil price fell further, and by year end US inventories stood completely full.

The US oil price (West Texas Intermediate) recorded a $10 discount then to European oil (Brent Crude), instead of its customary $2-3 premium. In mid-December, WTI fell to $34, and hit that level again just three months ago on February 15th 2009. All that time, Brent crude hovered around $40.

Looking back now, it seems that $40 was the floor. Once the slide was halted, with downward speculation unwound, there was only one way for the trend to reassert itself. Upwards. And that’s exactly what has happened since then.

Oil has climbed quietly to $58 today — almost 70% above its winter lows.

The rally still looks uncertain, and there’ll certainly be more shocks to come. But longer term, if we can think that way, a $40-60 range seems sustainable. And although a return to $147 looks some way off, modest gains are likely.

The oil price has seen a horrifying peak and slide as the economic crisis has played out. But that rollercoaster hides a simple truth. Cycle to cycle, the oil price floor stood at $10 in 1999, $20 in 2002, $30 in 2005, and $40 in 2008.

Through the past decade, the oil price has risen $10 around every three years and from trough to trough. That’s a doubling every five years, more or less. Today’s ‘low’ oil price remains higher than in nearly all of economic history.

So that’s the oil price past. Next week, I’ll assess the outlook going forwards.

: : : : : : : : : :

209. A dragon slain on Doomsday – Horsham 10 km

Roads — Tue, 12 May 2009 00:14:19 +0000

Dragons used to roam in St Leonard’s Forest, or so the local legend goes. Today it’s only runners, and me amongst them, burning with limbs afire in the 25th running of the Horsham 10 km.

We’re on my regular lunchtime route, or at least the tricky part of it, where the Lower Cretaceous clays of the lush Arun Valley rise eastwards towards the sandstone plateau of the forest.

We gather on Horsham Rugby Club’s playing fields in bright spring sunshine, and when the siren goes we head off dutifully around the touchline of the first team pitch.

The scrum has thinned out, and we ruck through a hedge to hit a pleasant, leafy stretch of lane beside St John’s Church. They say on dark, lonely nights the church is haunted, but for now the only cries come from two lone spectators in the graveyard.

It’s uphill here, and so I rein it back a bit. Try to breathe, and just relax as best I can.

I’ve found that works. Running too hard too early will kill your legs, I’ve found. Well, maybe not if you’re really a runner, but it kills mine.

My preparation for today? A little worse than nothing. Slowly around a 10km route of Lincolnshire hills last week, and a couple of lunchtime trots since then.

But yesterday I cycled 30 km of Surrey trails in training for the London to Brighton Bike Ride next month. That’s what I had to do, but now my legs remind me.

And so I let them cruise a bit. A minute’s plod brings us to the mighty Sun Oak, and a sandy bridleway for a gentle kilometre between the trees. I stop to take a picture, and pretend to take it easy. And perhaps I do, at least for now.

We find another lane, and follow it downhill. Past 2 km, and then past 3. Into a narrow valley, with rhododendrons pressing tight on every side. ‘What goes down, must come up,’ muses the lady runner by my side, and sure enough — a shortly steep and breathless climb arrives to test our lungs.

We keep going, through a housing estate and then down a fast descent to Doomsday Green.

It would be great to link this place to the Domesday Book, the census document compiled for William the Conqueror in 1086 which formed the basis of tax demands for centuries to follow.

Tempting because William landed in Sussex and defeated King Harold’s army in 1066 near Hastings, just an hour away from here. But although Horsham dates back to 947 AD, some 140 years before the Domesday Book was written, the town isn’t mentioned in it. And this hamlet isn’t either.

The fiscal ‘Domesday’ referred to was a day of reckoning, but I hope it won’t be one for me. Because from here, the course rises relentlessly towards the forest.

We climb along Hammerpond Road, and I ponder another intriguing name — describing the blacksmiths who used to work here. The Tilgate Stone which forms the ridge was mined for iron ore since the Romans’ day. The forest provided charcoal, and before the age of steam the headwaters of the River Arun were dammed to drive the bellows and hammers of the local forges.

It’s quiet today — this geologist is scarcely hammering up the hill. We pass the start and set out along a second loop. A two-loop course is good for fast times, I’ve heard. But maybe not this one with its ‘undulating’ (read: hilly) profile.

Eventually I reach the Sun Oak again, and walk ten steps to slug a drink. Then repeat the course, but with faster legs and much more rapid breathing.

Another ten minutes go by, and almost before I know it, I’m racing through Doomsday Green once more towards the doom of a final climb ahead. And from the 9 km marker, the road rises, exactly as it did before. I struggle, much the same, but louder.

Inside the final furlong, I save something for a last lap around the rugby field, but as we leave the road there’s just 100 m left to run. A last sprint takes me past four puzzled fellow-strugglers and then I’m in the funnel, and someone is handing me a mug. Not inappropriate, surely.

The time ? I didn’t check because it didn’t seem to matter. Something close to 54 minutes, perhaps. Not too fast, and not too slow.

It’s another race behind me, on local turf. A few hills survived, on a sunny day. Superb organisation within a friendly and warm event.

Ten kilometres of Sussex sandstones, ancient iron ore, and expiring hammers. Another landscape travelled and a distance run — and that’s the dragon slain today, for a happy mug like me.

: : : : : : : : : :

208. Radio Luxembourg

Roads — Sun, 03 May 2009 00:48:46 +0000

Play: Radio Luxembourg 208 Great Britain

208 — that was the number of radio, back then.

And as the spring daylight faded behind the bedroom curtains, the hour would finally come for the first hesitantly crackly sounds to arrive across a cooling atmosphere.

With a single earphone invisibly in place, and my tiny transistor hidden deep beneath the covers, I could be happily in bed at bedtime and yet secretly lie wide awake through an entire chart show still to come.

Nightfall was moving slowly northwestwards across another summer evening. And Planet Earth’s biggest commercial radio station was playing with 1.3 million watts of power, bringing rock music to my ear from half a continent away.

I didn’t know then that Radio Luxembourg had been broadcasting across Europe since the 1920s.

Fifty years on, Luxy was a pioneer of international commercial radio. The most powerful transmitter in the world pumped music every night from the heart of Europe into millions of teenagers’ bedrooms across the Channel.

Broadcasting on 208 metres medium wave, English language programming didn’t start until 7 pm European time (8 pm in the UK) because the radio waves could only reach their audience in the stiller atmosphere after dark.

Play: Top of the hour on Radio Luxembourg

Luxy claimed to be Britain’s only national commercial radio station, with devoted listeners from Kent to Caithness, yet living in the Midlands at a hundred and fifty miles from the coast and almost four hundred miles distant from Luxembourg, the signal suffered from atmospheric interference and would often fade in and out for seconds and sometimes minutes at a time.

Tuning to the station was a delicately frustrating operation which required endless patience and almost constant readjustment.

And yet, still we listened to Luxembourg, as British youth had already done for many years before.

There had been no dedicated pop music stations within the UK until a series of pirate commercial radio ships began broadcasting throughout the day from offshore waters in the early sixties.

Remarkably they fell respectfully silent in the evening and early morning hours, leaving the airwaves and commercial revenues clear for 208.

Play: Radio Luxembourg — The rhythm of nightlife in Great Britain

The wide popularity of the pirate radio stations hastened the government’s determination to shut them down, but soon after the closure of Radio Caroline came the launch in 1967 of BBC Radio 1, which blasted a non-stop volley of pop across the country all day long. Throughout the time when I was at school.

But for some unfathomable reason, Radio 1’s evening schedule always featured much more esoteric music, most of which I had never heard of. For a young teenager following the mainstream charts, it was time for Radio Luxembourg. They had all the best DJs, anyway, and better chart shows, too.

Only on Sunday night would my sister and I revert to Radio 1 for the “official” UK chart. With my first primitive cassette recorder at the ready, we waited patiently to press ‘record’ as the chart counted down towards the songs we liked to hear.

The microphone was set up optimistically on the living room floor to reel our favourite song onto a new C-60. But those recordings were always hopeless, limited by the technology and inevitably interrupted by domestic life.

We’d wait two hours for a new Number 1 to play, before the phone or doorbell would somehow insist on ringing half way through.

And then the dog would likely bark as well — which made for interesting playback later on.

Listening to Radio Luxembourg fulfilled different dreams entirely. With static and commercials to contend with, there was no hope of a good recording (and remember, I was supposed to be asleep, anyway).

But the station’s playlist was tight enough that we still heard all our favourite records through as many illicit listening hours as we could stay awake to hear.

The station stayed with me as I grew. As soon as I could drive, Luxy found its way onto the radio in the car. Often I’d listen late at night as I drove back from parties or a girlfriend’s house.

Later on, at university, I spent more evenings listening to the juke box in the beer cellar and to my record player when I made it home again.

But I must have listened to Radio Luxembourg whilst studying late at night as well, since I can still remember all the jingles even now.

Play: Radio Luxembourg — Station of the Eighties

The Station of the Eighties seemed unassailable then, but the revolution in music radio that Luxy had spun would soon play its final tracks towards a close.

Advertising revenues fell steadily as competition from television and local radio grew and by the time I returned from a few years abroad in the early nineties, 208’s fuzzy signal had shuffled off the atmosphere for good.

Exciting new FM commercial broadcasters such as London’s Capital Radio and a new AM station offshore Ireland, Atlantic 252, proved fatal competition.

A doomed foray into satellite broadcasting followed for Luxy, but eventually failed to find a new niche beyond the dial.

The Luxembourg group still lives on today as the Pan-European television broadcaster RTL, which quietly owns Britain’s Channel 5 TV.

And these days the radio legend is back. A new Radio Luxembourg is broadcasting online with a classic rock playlist, for anyone nostalgic enough to try an early bedtime.

Yet really I’ll never need to, since Luxembourg’s beam extended far beyond one station.

Almost anyone who was ever anyone in radio learned their trade with Luxy — Jimmy Saville, Tony Blackburn, ‘Kid’ Jensen and Alan Freeman… And Chris Moyles and Neil Fox are still on air today.

In that way, the legacy of Radio Luxembourg still lives on across the airwaves, and not only through the memories of another era in music. Luxy defined everything about the way that music and the charts are presented, and provided so many of the voices that still present them, too.

And now I’ll leave Luxy legend Bob Stewart to sign off from the heart of Europe, in his own inimitable and transatlantically continental style:

We sincerely hope you’ve enjoyed the music you’ve heard…
… And a good night and good morning, wherever you may be.

Play: Radio Luxembourg — Nightly shutdown by Bob Stewart

: : : : : : : : : :

Radio Luxembourg links:
The Story of Radio Luxembourg
The unofficial 208 picture gallery
The world’s most famous radio station
Radio Luxembourg jingles of the 1980s
Radio Luxembourg online today
Radio Luxembourg – Your Station of the Stars

207. Running back on track — the train on Stratford’s Greenway

Roads — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 19:35:50 +0000

A sunny April morning, and the view across the River Avon from the cantilever bridge is fresh with scents of spring.

The Greenway lies cool and long before me — a mile of empty old railway track to bring me back to town. Except — it isn’t empty.

Far ahead, where only a dog walker, another runner or a mountain bike should be, I could swear I saw a train. And yet, this railway line closed 33 years ago.

I keep running, and disbelieving, but finally it’s true.

Up ahead, there’s a new piece of shiny track, carrying two old railway carriages where no carriages have stood for three decades or more.

A piece of railway history — a museum display, surely? But there’s something more afoot.

Inside the second carriage I see tables, and spoons and old-fashioned sugar pots. There are ramps leading up inside. And on the doorstep, there’s a youngish bloke standing, watching, and smiling broadly.

I take my courage in both hands, and walk up to introduce myself. It’s good to see interest in this railway line, I offer. Let’s hope it opens up again, some day.

And that’s how I hear the story. This is no museum at all — these carriages are home to a cycle hire business and a brand new cafe, housed inside.

I can remember now, hiring bikes one time from an old railway carriage in Brockenhurst — the perfect place to start a cycle exploration of the New Forest.

Here — beside The Greenway — with its views across the Racecourse, the floodplain and towards the Cotswold Hills beyond, yet just a mile from Stratford-upon-Avon — this is the ideal starting point for any cyclist keen to discover Shakespeare Country.

What a fitting reflection of this site, combining practicality with a nod to history and just the smidgeon of some hope that the line might one day yet reopen.

Vic shares that view, and it’s no small undertaking that he’s taken on.

Finding two railway carriages to buy, and hiring a pair of 70-tonne trucks to haul them here — you can’t exactly tow them behind a Mini down the motorway.

Laying hardcore for the lorries. Buying rails and sleepers and ballast to build a stretch of railway track where the carriages can stand.

That takes planning, and organisation, and money.

We talk about the future. Vic tells me that today will be busy, with a meeting at the racecourse. I venture that next Sunday afternoon will be busy too, since the Shakespeare Marathon will be running down The Greenway.

And once I raise that subject, Vic stops talking about his business. He wants to talk about the running.

Vic ran in London last year, and the year before as well. Each time he ran in Stratford one week later (and if one marathon is hard, then back-to-back is murder — and I know because I tried it once). Yet Vic’s disappointed as the 2009 races fall on the same day.

I almost say that with a 9.30am start in London, a 1pm gun here, and a hundred miles of fast driving between, it might just still work … but finally I keep stumm. As a Stratford man, that’s his race, and nothing should come before it.

Vic’s aiming to beat his 3:01 PB, to earn him an automatic qualification for London next year. But actually, he says, I’m training for a big triathlon in July. And for the triathlon I’m doing, a marathon is only training.

It’s then I realise — that’s no triathlon — that’s an Iron Man.

The morning is lazing into a perfect warm and sunny Sunday. A pair of runners appears along The Greenway. They pause, and wave, and Vic waves back.

Not too far today, he calls. Just eight miles. Or maybe ten.

More marathoners, training for next week, with legs as fresh and fit as they’ll ever be. And I can remember exactly that feeling.

Another group appears. Another smile from Vic. The same advice. The trainer, passing out good advice from on board the train.

And with that, I know it’s time to go. If I stay here, I’ll be searching out a place for Stratford next week, even with no training. Because once run, the marathon can call you back at the unlikeliest moments.

I turn off the river bank and run home through town today. Beside Holy Trinity Church, and the Black Swan — the pub you might know as the famous Dirty Duck.

Past the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, taking shape at last out of its rebuilding. Across the Bancroft Gardens, still desolate after their recent savage remodelling.

As I cross the Avon for the final time, I reflect that Stratford looks different today, and yet it’s still the town I know and love so well. I didn’t expect to find a train astride The Greenway — but I’m very glad I did.

The world we think we know looks just a little different each time we set out running.

And even in historic Stratford-upon-Avon, history can turn up on unexpected tracks.

: : : : : : : : : :

206. The price of oil: 2 – a tragedy in the North Sea

Roads — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 18:08:59 +0000

I was going to write another article about the oil price today, but I’ll postpone that for now. Sixteen people died in a North Sea helicopter crash on Wednesday.

Their Super Puma helicopter had flown 150 miles from the BP Miller Platform towards Aberdeen, but came down just 13 miles from the coast at Peterhead.

Eight bodies were recovered from the scene. Another eight may never be found.

The North Sea is at its coldest in spring, and it’s one of the most hostile environments on Earth. Helicopter passengers all wear immersion suits, and receive extensive survival training, but the window of survival in the water is very short.

Eye witness reports described the helicopter ‘falling like a stone’ — and in the case of an engine or transmission failure, that’s what happens when you’re flying without wings.

It’s a hazardous commute. In February, 18 offshore workers were miraculously rescued when their Super Puma came down in flat calm conditions just 500 metres from another platform, 125 miles east of Aberdeen.

But it’s rare to be that lucky. Seven offshore workers died en route from an Irish Sea gas platform just after Christmas in 2006. Eleven workers died when a helicopter rotor blade failed in 2002, and another 13 workers perished in a North Sea helicopter crash the year before.

The death toll since offshore flights began is now well over 100.

Amongst the millions of passenger movements from shore to platform and from rig to rig over the 40 year history of the North Sea, the fatality rate is mercifully low. But it doesn’t feel that way in Aberdeen today.

We need to find alternatives to hydrocarbons for a whole range of uses. We need to make much better use of the hydrocarbons we have, and stop squandering them uselessly in idle engines, inefficient cars and poorly insulated houses and wastefully lit office buildings.

We’re making slow progress in the right direction, but no magic replacements are going to be in place for some years to come.

Until then, there’ll continue to be a human price to pay for the oil and gas we use. In these days when big corporations are facing intense public criticism, sometimes it’s easy to forget where our fuel comes from, and all that’s involved. We fill up, we turn the key, and we drive off without another thought.

But finding petroleum, producing, transporting and refining it is a hugely complex and dangerous undertaking. Extracting hydrocarbons from the North Sea requires billions of dollars of investment in offshore infrastructure. Working offshore is not for the faint-hearted.

Given the technology, effort and expertise required, and even after heavy taxation, the cost of fuel remains remarkably low.

A pint of organic milk at Tesco’s supermarket costs 53p this week — 93p a litre. And a litre of petrol at Tesco’s filling station ? Just 92.9p a litre today.

That’s worth thinking about, next time a helicopter ditches into the North Sea.

: : : : : : : : : :

205. Take back the city – Snow Patrol live at London’s O2 Arena

Roads — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 03:07:10 +0000

I love this city tonight
I love this city always

It bears its teeth like a light
And spits me out after days
Snow Patrol — October 2008

A Northern Irish band playing London — on the night before St Patrick’s Day. It really has been been quite a week.

In Snow Patrol’s home town of Belfast, as in Omagh all those years ago, an outbreak of mindless violence has lent passion to the public desire for peace. Shootings carried out by dissident republicans of the ‘Real IRA’ and designed to break the peace process have proved to have the opposite effect.

In Washington, Michelle Obama dyed the White House fountains green and President Obama met with Martin McGuinness.

Each event was unthinkable a decade ago, but with the IRA disbanded and Sinn Fein committed to achieving peace through democratic means, the branding of the gunmen as traitors by McGuinness has closed one full circle of the Irish peace process.

It’s been a long hard road to come this far, both for Ireland and for Snow Patrol. The band was formed in 1994 — the year my elder daughter was born and only twelve months after a massive IRA car bomb destroyed the office blocks of South Quay, just a mile away across the river here in London.

That was another world and another mindset, before the Good Friday Agreement brought all sides together and Omagh failed to split them. In the years since then, London’s eastern fringes have grown and thrived.

Here in Greenwich, the birthplace of universal time, a new millennium was marked beneath this vaulting tented roof.

Dubbed a monstrous white elephant then, the elegant Millennium Dome has been transformed into a remarkable 20,000 seat arena for the greatest acts in the world today. In 2012, the O2 will host the Olympic basketball and gymnastics.

After a birth into critical obscurity, it might be said that Snow Patrol spent their first decade across the Millennium fading further still from view. It wasn’t until 2003 and release of their third album, Final Straw, that things began to change.

With festival appearances in Glasgow and Glastonbury, a showing at Live8 in 2005 and a spell as U2’s support band on tour, gradually they grew a following.

Finally (almost ironically for an indie band) it was the featuring of the mesmeric Chasing Cars on primetime TV series Grey’s Anatomy which dragged them blinking towards the limelight.

A string of successful singles followed through 2006 from the slick and polished Eyes Open, and with a new album out last autumn, Snow Patrol hit the road this spring with the glow of confidence and A Hundred Million Suns behind them.

And so here we are in Greenwich, as chatty lead man Gary Lightbody would say. This might be Europe’s largest and most spectacular indoor concert hall, but there’s an immediacy to the show this evening which reflects the band’s Irish warmth and their humility in getting here.

I’ll sing it, and you can sing it back to me invites Lightbody as the audience provide the backing track to Shut Your Eyes. And so we do for this song, with its greatest ever guitar riff of the 2000s, and through many more to follow.

The new material is tried and tested well, beginning with a flawless vocal opening to If there’s a rocket… continuing atmospherically and optimistically across The Golden Floor, then bursting through Crack the Shutters to an energetic cut of Take Back the City.

With a swelling sheaf of songs to fill the largest venues, the band have the measure of this metropolis tonight. In sum, the setlist weaves a rich tonal combination, the darker shades of ballad and early bash through Run, Chocolate and Spitting Games shadowing the punch of their shiny spiritual successors Hands Open and Chasing Cars and the emotional depth of You Could Be Happy.

Surely we are, as the show finds a stirring close on Open Your Eyes, a vision played across the screenplay of an early morning journey through the sunlit streets of Paris — the arrival in another great city just one more step on a lifetime’s path of slow-burning aspirations and inevitably accepted disappointments.

It seems just a minute too long to wait before the band return to play their 16-minute experimental epic The Lightning Strike to the accompaniment of animated swirling stars and planets. Interesting and evocative — certainly. Fitting encore material — probably not.

But by now we’ll forgive Snow Patrol even their own paler Pink Floyd moment, and after an age our patience is eventually rewarded with a final flourish through You’re All I Have — an absolute ripper, this one — it’s the best song of the night.

As we file out of the concert, the dome’s white hot roof and yellow struts glow hopefully upwards into the new millennium which they were built to grace. This arena has finally discovered the vision and the dream it was really built for.

Across the nightfall, Canary Wharf’s high towers stand lit up across the Thames. Since they were built, London has thrived and survived two terrorist onslaughts before a full-blown financial crisis. Now she faces an uncertain future ahead.

Only yesterday, it seems, I brought two small infants to see the Dome. Yet beside me now stand two teenagers at their first rock concert. Our evening here with Snow Patrol has been fourteen good years and more in making.

Progress finds its time, in time — and as with a good pint of Guinness on St Patrick’s Day, then so tonight with Snow Patrol in London — it’s really true that good things come to those who wait.

: : : : : : : : : :

204. Sand, storm and shingle – from Rye to the sea

Roads — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:06:49 +0000

“All this area was once under the sea, you know” — old famous greeting, familiar to any geologist.

Dawn on the levels. Running across a grey, cool morning, stepping slow behind the heels of winter. And today, for once, that quote is really true.

A plan formed deep in the forests of night. To run from Rye to meet the sea.

I trot out from the hotel and head up the cobbled street. Beside the half-timbered merchants’ houses on Church Square, past The Flushing Inn and the old sweet shop, through Landgate’s arch and down to The Strand.

And that’s where the uncertainty begins. A channel lies in front of me, and the flat far horizon ahead. But which way should I run? Does the river flow east or west to the coast?

The mist is lifting around me, but at this early hour it still floats thick in my mind. I stand on the bridge and watch the tidal flow. No clues.

Finally I see it. With masts taller than the span, the ships can sail only one way. And across the river, a footpath forges over the fields, so I follow towards Camber Sands and the sea.

* * * * *

Perhaps my confusion isn’t so surprising. Because the sea lies far out of sight, and this river once flowed the other way.

For a thousand years, there’s been a harbour here at Rye.

One of two Antient Towns linked to the five famous Cinque Ports, for centuries Rye (originally Atter Ie — or On the Island) was a bustling port at a safe anchorage beside the River Rother.

Trade with France and Flanders brought wealth through the Middle Ages, with pirate raids and fear of invasion, too. The town was often attacked by the French, and strong walls and guns were put in place to protect the port.

But gradually, the coastline changed. The river mouth at Romney to the east was blocked. To the south, the old town of Winchelsea (Gwent Chesel Ie — Shingle Marsh Island) was washed away by a storm in 1287, and rebuilt much further inland.

By Tudor times, Rye’s river flowed southwards to the sea. Trade continued to grow, but silting of the channel caused endless problems. Finally a new harbour was built a mile south of town.

Over time, the marshes were enclosed by dykes and drainage ditches, and as the ‘innings’ grew, crops and farms appeared. Eventually the new harbour was a mile from the sea.

* * * * *

Under a lightening sky now, my footsteps have joined a cycle path and a road. The river disappears behind a wall of sand dunes to my right and the path veers left of three flags and a field. Faintly I recognise Rye Golf Club — a classic links where the student golfer inside me played once, a long time ago.

The fairways run parallel to the dunes, and I do the same. I ask a runner plodding the other way how much further to Camber. Ten minutes more.

I’m late for breakfast now, but it seems near enough. A pair of par fours hack by before Camber arrives. A line of cottages first, then a park.

Finally a path for the dunes, through buckthorn and marram and threaded straight for the sky.

Two steps up, and half a step down — that’s how it goes across the sand. Suddenly I’m at the top, and a wide view of the coast shouts out with its secret.

Rye Harbour’s channel cuts a geological dividing line right through this coast.

To the west lies the shingle of Winchelsea Beach — chert and quartzite pebbles from the chalk and sandstone cliffs of Sussex. East and in front lies nothing but sand, eroded from the Weald Basin and brought here by the river. In the last 350 years, waves and the wind have built a new beach and these high sandhills above.

I turn around and bound down the dunes. Then I kick heels and set course across the levels for Rye.

Three miles of marsh bring me back to the island. Sand, storms and shingle falling further behind me.

Geology and sedimentology have made history here, but now breakfast falls much more firmly in mind.

: : : : : : : : : :

203. Dream beneath a desert sky – Pechina Canyon, Almería, Spain

Roads — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 14:01:46 +0000

Los Baños de Sierra Alhamilla stands grey and forlorn beneath palm trees in a February mizzle. It’s Hotel California, on a rainier day.

There’s a faded, nonchalant elegance here in this mountain spa. On the main street, a goofily smiling old bloke sits outside the baths, trousers rolled up and feet dangling in the hot stream. We smile and wave, because frankly, we’re more mad than him.

The unforgiving Andalucían desert stretches far and wide below us. Scattered plantations, yucca, palm trees. Grey gravel, scrub and miles and miles of waste, magnificent in their desolation. Far in the distance beneath low-hanging cloud lies the city of Almería and the steely Mediterranean Sea beyond.

In the 1960s, the lonely lands behind these hills formed the film backdrop to the spaghetti westerns we all loved so well. Four decades on and for a few dollars more, a different kind of redskin is threatening this environment. Huge and vast and empty it might be, yet the satellite images of this area already show that the Andalucían wilderness is not as infinite as once it seemed.

Our bus journey here revealed the encroaching reaches of the tomato farms — beige bleak plastic oblongs marching relentlessly towards the barren hills. Europe’s salad bowls are gnawing hungrily at this empty landscape.

Down below the spa, a rough grey trail snakes past sparse and scrubby fields and faded fincas, and into the open desert.

The spa and civilisation fall swiftly behind our footsteps, and as we descend, the wide horizon falls around us. Plants and birds and rocks and things, as far as the eye can see.

The path twists round the curves of a dry river bed, and I hop stiffly across the banks of gravel. The silence grows louder now, broken only by the rasp of breathing and the crunch of running shoes atop gravel.

A low ridge leads us onto a wide and muddy plateau, where we lope between sparse patches of soft green grass and ankle-ripping scrub. Fifty metres flat, and then a half metre drop.

Fifty metres more, and then the same again — and belatedly I realise these once were fields carved out of the scree. What could they grow here? Who grew it?

Despoblación — the abandonment of rural areas — is evident all over Spain. I’ve seen empty fields and broken ancient homesteads strewn beside lonely roads right across this country — and yet nowhere ever felt half as abandoned as this.

Up ahead a line of palm trees bissects the sky, and beneath them a broken fence marks out the property of some rich and absent landlord. A retreat for a weekend recluse, despoiling his own patch of desert.

My legs are tiring now. This morning’s gentle loosener along the promenade seems like another lifetime, and yesterday’s city half marathon has suddenly finished just a minute or two ago. I stop to breathe and catch the empty mountains to take them home with me.

The path drains deep into the canyon, the gravel swimming wide between steep banks cut into scrub. Huge washing machine-sized boulders are strewn across the streambed — the river is dry today but the storm torrents must truly rip through here in violent flood.

The barranco crunches on and on. A cold sweat is dripping down my back as the runner ahead drifts further away from me, my conviction that I’ll catch him fading faster with every boulder hopped.

Then suddenly it’s over. We round a corner and the track turns into road beside a ditch. There are houses. Orchards. Under the main road, a crane swings idle above an abandoned development site.

The country dreams of Almerían commuters and foreign holidaymakers may return here in another season, but for now Spain’s property recession has frozen the future into half-poured concrete and the bark of a security guard’s dog.

The village of Pechina emerges from the orange groves. White houses lie huddled close to reflect a pitiless summer sun, lining streets left empty in the winter afternoon.

The silence is broken only by a few kids playing football, and the footsteps of a man who ran down a canyon.

The town hall stands within the village square, ornate and proud beneath low desert sky. There’s a feel of Latin America here — this could be Patagonia, Bolivia, or even Mexico, and yet we’re just a few hours from the costas.

Andalucía’s interior seemed vast and immutable when first I saw it ten years ago. But between here and Murcia, and within just that short time, tomato tents and irrigation pipes are spreading ever further into empty space.

This is a different kind of Spain — an empty, barren wilderness. Untamed — it’s not productive, yet its rugged beauty is unique in Europe. As I limp to find the village bar, I ask — what’s important? Primaeval wilderness or trade and jobs? Will it be tourists or tomatoes which one day will destroy this desert?

And the truth is — I hope I never know.

: : : : : : : : : :

202. A snowy sunset on St Martha’s Hill

Roads — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 01:10:13 +0000

The snow was half a metre thick in Guildford when I returned from Spain last week.

That’s the most snow we’ve had in England for twenty years or more, and easily the thickest fall I can remember anywhere outside the Alps.

Cold weather saw the white stuff last into the weekend, and it seemed the perfect time for a blast across the hills.

Here’s a short film I took on Saturday, soon after sunset. My favourite time of day for running, and there’s nothing quite like running in the snow.

As I write, our snowman is now shrinking sadly in the rain. But we’ll remember last week for a much longer time to come.

: : : : : : : : : :