Category Archives: Postcards 2023

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Thinking of those under the heat in Europe

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The photograph above is of Naples, Italy with Vesuvius in the background, and the Tyrrhenian Sea not far away. We spent two years there, 2014 to 2016, and I remember how hot it did get, but it was not as hot as it is this year.

I grew up with heat in Africa, and experienced it again when working during the summers in the south of Spain, but it was not until we moved to the outskirts of Naples that I got a glimpse of the pressures of urban heat, especially for those living without air conditioning. Even though we never experienced the current extremes we still felt the intensified level of stress that heat in a city produces.

Down in the old heart of Naples, on hot evenings when the sun went down, people flooded out on to the streets, leaving their tightly connected appartments to head for the sea front. On lucky nights there would be a light breeze blowing in over the water like a blessing – an antidote to the heat trapped in the buildings along its edge. Sometimes, if we were there around midnight, we’d see families still up, enjoying time without the burning sun, some taking chairs out on to their balconies to spend the nights there.

I think of everyone now, and of Rome where there is no sea front, as they try to look after themselves, as well as catering for thousands of tourists.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

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The writers’ strike in America, and its expansion

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The Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild are on strike, telling us that their members are without sufficient income, and that they are deeply worried about the threat posed to their work by artificial intelligence.

‘Oh’, you might say and scroll on to the next thing, but it feels like a big ‘oh’ to me, an ‘o’ that comes from my s-o-ul.

I love stories and film, and those who create and deliver them – those who are seen, and those who are not. Together they produce the ultimate emotional takeaway for us to consume almost anywhere, at any time. They fill our worlds with the rest of the world, and way beyond its boundaries, making entertainment that is now so easy to access it’s almost impossible to understand how much work has gone into its making. Embedded in our lives, and loved by all of us, we take it for granted, but sadly its earnings don’t seem to be filtering down properly to its creators.

I hope a way can be found soon through this tangle. It doesn’t feel like a good time to be without the imaginations that help us see so much of what it means to be human.

Here’s a link that provides more information about the strike.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

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Hot enough in London today

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The sun was shining, the breeze was cool, and the rain dabbed here and there, but nothing too serious – the perfect day to stroll along the South Bank and then over Millennium Bridge to St Paul’s.

We looked in on the beautiful craft shops on the first floor of the Oxo Tower, and then wandered on past Tate Modern, and the schools out for end of term trips, their uniforms and chat filling the grass beneath the trees. Buskers took up the edges before the airy bridge over the river.

The Morph, dressed ‘in London’ above, was outside the Tourist Information Centre, one of a whole tribe, each dressed differently, who we came across dotted around the City. Their pedestals, and each has one, includes information on Whizz Kids, a charity for young wheelchair users. I’ve just looked them up and I see the Morph tribe are all part of Morph’s Epic Art Adventure.

After lunch near St Paul’s, loving the indoor cool, we only had time for a quick walk around the Smithfield area, looking in on the church of St Bartholomew the Great, then over the Barbican, past the Ironmongers’ Hall, and on, too fast, and too hot, to catch a train from Waterloo.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023