POSTCARD FROM THE HEBRIDES

by Brackets Digital

A round of Park Theatre applause, please, for succeeding in getting this blog entry to you today.

I write this not from the familiar environs of Finsbury Park, but overlooking the sea to Goat Island from my current antler-bedecked lodgings in the former manager's abode at the Isle of Jura Distillery, in the Inner Hebrides.  This is a place described approvingly by George Orwell as 'extremely unget-at-able' - and communications haven't improved a great deal since his day.  It's a shock, for a dogged Steve Jobs disciple like me, to be in a place with only a Bakelite telephone to rely on: no TV, no mobile reception, no internet. 

A couple of times this week I've walked a mile along the beach to the Jura Service Point, where there is free wi-fi for precisely three hours a day, five days a week.  The lady who looks after the three PCs at the Service Point is chirpy and welcoming - as is the norm on Jura - but the internet connection is so creaky and uncooperative that I soon give up.

Being here, what I realise is how the habit of being 'always on' affects the rhythm of your life.  It punctuates your time, breaking everything up into discontinuous fragments.  Here, time flows astonishingly smoothly - and for a writer, this is a wondrous thing.

That said, I couldn't live here.  There are lessons to be imported home with the whisky in my suitcase, but I am way too dependent on the buzz of the theatre world to exile myself long-term.  Tomorrow I begin the long journey home - by car, ferry and plane - to Twitter, Facebook, texting and the unashamedly urban yet cosy bosom of the Park Theatre family.

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