Autobiographical epic in Wordsworth's footsteps on b.b.c. Radio 4 available no on b.b.c. Sir. This is b.b.c. . Extra. It's 2 o'clock the mark of the void continues in a moment the Irish novelist Paul Murray's book set in the world of art finance and petty crime in post-crash Ireland then we'll tackle small big questions in a history of the infinite the cosmos is at $215.23 we return to the story of ash and Angele in m.k.s. Remand epic sets during the British Raj The fog of billions and the hour concludes as we take to the skies with Mark Van Hanukah the man who truly loves his job sky fairing a Jenny with a pilot is at 245. To Dublin now where down on his luck writer poor appears to be struggling with his novel about the financial world the banker Claude Martindale is doing his best to help and hopes to be the inspiration for the book's hero but is pulls interest in the bank of Torah been there a little more suspicious and it seems the mark and the void is read by Peter Serafin which. Thing to really. Think you can get them to. Be. When the writer arrives at the office next morning with him is a great hulking creature almost 7 foot tall with a sloping forehead and brawny 4 arms introduces him to me as Igor Stroom a poet professor of contemporary art and member of the celebrated Vladivostok circle is going to be helping me with some of the more conceptual stuff Paul explains for the rest of the day the 2 of them spend their time muttering and secluded corners was slinking around the office knocking on wards poking at ceiling tiles tracing with their fingers mysterious vectors from the floor up to the power supply the fact is that while the romantic image is of the writer working away in solitude it's often much more of a collaborative activity Paul tells me it's quite common to draft in a colleague to help out with elements you're less sure about I have heard about such practices in other art forms but I confess that I have not encountered it in literature before it's kind of a trade secret Paul says and what is Igor specialism places he's going to be concentrating on the location details so he was wondering whether he might be able to see some floor plans of the back floor plans I say surprised to help him with his descriptive passages at lunchtime Paul merely picks of his food and looks out the window you're not happy with the project I say my heart sinking there's nothin there Claude he says I knew it wouldn't work deep down I knew it there must be something we can do I say some way to salvage it I don't see what. He sighs put his head in his hands readers like to feel a connection with the characters they're reading about we need to give your character more agency we need to get him doing something like walk something dramatic everybody he says slowly even the guy with the most boring job in the world at some point finds himself in a situation where he has to make a choice a choice between good and bad that moment when the clock strikes 13 when everything else drops away that's where we need to put you he stroked his chin Ok how about rather than the every man just working in the back instead we have him rob the bank but already the every man is paid very well for work that is quite legal I say what if he wants some than his money can't buy How about he falls in love with with a waitress that girl there for instance she's sold 3 she's exotic she's a struggling artist a woman like that as soon as she appears the story's bumped up a couple again she's an artist well yet he points around the room at the various Similac or those Ahern's Ariadne or Keira Peters how do you know because I asked or see it's a good twist isn't it our lonely bored overpaid banker runs up against this beautiful post impoverished painter he goes on warming to his new theme he finds they have something or other in common doesn't matter what it is French philosophy say next thing he knows he's fallen head over heels in love with her. He's breaking out of his sterile world of Norm Bers experiencing feelings he hasn't had in years but how is he going to win her heart he looks at me waiting for a response I find I am gripped in spite of myself how by robbing the bank there must be easier ways to do it I say what about their shared interest in French philosopher Paul rolls his eyes heavily Jesus Claude Ok say he finds out a father is going to die unless he gets an extremely expensive operation so expensive even the banker doesn't have enough money to pay for it so he robs the bank the real question his voice lowers is how he does it he looks at me expectantly Where's the safe in this place well there is no save I say Paul stares at me for a long moment so where do you keep the money there is no money I say well kind of bank has no money a merchant or investment bank I say Paul goes very quiet right it was supposed but there are other ways for you to spice up the story I say hurriedly for example maybe there is a fire in transaction house and I am the bank of Torah bondo fire warden so I must make sure everyone escapes that's a good idea Paul agrees rising unsteadily to his feet a very good idea or we could keep the love story with the waitress and the French philosophy but leave out the robbery that's certainly worth looking at porn says in an awed voice. Tell your what. I'm going to take the rest of the afternoon off to think about these suggestions are yours see you tomorrow I say. But Paul does not come in tomorrow nor does he appear the next day maybe his news has deserted him you're going says I am his muse I point out I have not deserted him I am waiting for him right here yes it is perhaps the less familiar situation of the artist deserving his muse Yogen frowns then something happens that puts the book out of everyone's mind except mine and all stuff email arrives from Puerto blankly a new c.e.o. The email consists of 2 words think counter intuitive I read aloud Porter's memo coincides with a golden streak for the bank such as I have never experienced before Europe teeters ever closer to the brink of some unimaginable financial apocalypse whole streets in Greece but. But our share price lurches up and up again yet to me these successes seem somehow insubstantial without pulled everything has begun to slide out of focus you've tried calling him. Hundreds of times it is obvious what happened I snap he realized the novel wasn't going to work why wouldn't it work because what we do is empty meaningless no one in the world could find it interesting unless they were being paid. Diving into her back she pulls out for love of a clan look the publishers address is right here asterisk press Craughwell Road London they all know where he's the man who answers tells me that while asterisk press did indeed publish Paul's 1st novel he hasn't replied to any correspondence for several years there are 10 men listed in the Dublin telephone directory who have the same name as the writer a speak to a butcher an upholsterer a sound engineer a data miner and a retired Army captain who served with the United Nations in the Biafran War What about that number there. Points to an uncrossed name at the top of the list it's disconnected if this was a book where would the person you're looking for turn out to be it's always the place with a disconnected fun right she keeps prodding me until I looked the address up it turns out that 3 to 3 Super Bia is only 10 minutes walk from the center and so mostly to mollify her I agreed to pay to visit. I follow the tram tracks in the direction of the train station until I pass out of the Center after a while there are no cars no people just boarded up windows incoherent graffiti to try to so random it seems deliberate and then in the midst of this desolation I come upon a large glittering tower to say it appears out of place would be an understatement from one side of the building hangs an enormous hoarding urging super enter beauty . The lobby is full of silence and dust gaps have appeared in the Morrish tiling and the name plates of the metal letter boxes are empty the lift is not working so I mount the stairs in intermittent light outside apartment number 323 I lift my hand to knock and then I hear a voice you're pawned it it says That's right says another voice a woman's geezer's clits Yeah the man sounds very like por those tone is different from any I have heard him use well where's the morning what money the morning from my damn writing desk that's what money it's gone I bought food idiot I bought food so we don't starve I hear footsteps storming across the floor the door is flung open and Paul and I find ourselves looking at each other Oh Oh Oh Oh Claude I didn't expect to see you he says in a tone of strained jollity I was just in the neighborhood I say in a similar tone for a moment we stare at each other then realizing he has no choice Paul makes an ushering gesture won't you comment Claude this is my wife. Pulsars darling this is Claude the man who's been very kindly helping me out with my project these last few weeks charmed the woman says sullenly she has platinum blond hair and a simmering expression you did not come to work I say and so I started to worry that that I'm sorry. Something is watching me from under the table poor extricates a small boy with grubby knees How long have you been down there who's this I ask this is my song Remington Paul says. Who is fired Remington whispers to me confidentially I decide the best thing is to go but as I make my way out of the apartment something catches my eye on a stack of loose papers scattered over an approximately desk sized area of floor sits the read notebook I glance over my shoulder clips here is issuing a torrent of foreign words Paul is shouting that he will have her deported nobody pays any attention to me as I lift the notebook I go to the 1st page it is blank I turn to the next page it is blank then I come to a sequence of what seem to be measurements and diagrams that are ominously familiar a few pages later heading in capitals whose hour mark well what are you doing with that pole seizes the notebook the mark the patsy the mug the sucker LIGO go silent and swift as a shark the truth now surges into view there's no novel I say what are you talking about of course there's a novel and Igor he is not an experimental poet years past exterminator could see as. Pong a hand on my arm. Look it's true I needed something to tide us over but I've got something up my sleeve so big it will make all of us rich rich I shake him loose and open the door and walk through the darkness to the stairwell. There's no need to evolve Dorothy's whole cries after me as I began largess and. What. Will it. Peter Serafin if it was reading the mark in the void by Paul Mari it was a bridge by Sarah Davis and produced by Kenny Thomson The story continues when despite Claude's devastating discovery he's still hopeful that pool could help him get closer to Ariadne that's a 2 Tamara. This seems b.b.c. Radio. Adrian Mole considers the way philosophers and scientists have looked at the universe throughout the ages from the writings of the Greek philosophers to the latest theories of cosmologists today's episode over history of the infinite is the cosmos. On a clear moonless night a faint patch can be seen in the constellation and draw meter This is the Andromeda nebula it's a galaxy of about 100000 1000000 stars it's the furthest object visible to the naked eye it's light traveling fast enough to circum not be gave the earth more than 7 times in one second takes 2000000 years to reach us yet by comparison with other galaxies it's a close neighbor. The distances are absolutely mind numbing Even so they're still only finite and that brings us to the central question of this program where if at all does the concept of infinity have application to physical reality for many of us nothing is more evoke a tip of the infinite than looking up at the night sky but how appropriate is this is the number of stars infinite space infinite is anything in nature infinite. Ever since the time of the ancient Greeks philosophers and scientists have pondered these questions in the 4th century b.c. Our kiters a friend of Plato advanced a very primitive and very natural argument that the universe is spatially infinite . If I am at the extremity of the heaven of the fixed stars and I stretch out my hand. It is absurd to suppose that I could not. And if I can what is outside must be either body or space. We may then in the same way get to the outside of that again and so on and if there is always a new place to which the stuff may be held out this clearly involves extension without limit. Startle writing a little later resisted our kiters his argument according to Aristotle although it's true that the universe can't be bounded by anything outside it nevertheless it's only spatially finite Now this is a very difficult idea for us to grasp but would better not dismiss it out of her and as we will see it's an idea that has become a staple of contemporary cosmology how then do we are betrayed between our kiters and Aristotle the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes writing in the 17th century didn't think that there was anything to arbitrate own neither the view that the universe is infinite nor the view that the universe is finite has any grounding in what we can observe so neither view has any meaning. When it is asked if the world is finite or infinite there is nothing in the mind corresponding to the term world many people still think in this way John Barrow professor of Mathematical Sciences at Cambridge University distinguishes between questions about the age and size of the entire universe which are at best matters of idle speculation at worst meaning less and genuinely scientific questions about what we can observe if you ask the question is the universe infinitely old Did it have a beginning the answer to. Is that well our little piece of the universe the visible part did have a beginning but whether the entire universe which may be infinite in extent had a beginning there is no reason why it short. So it's we've come to appreciate the fact that although the universe is potentially infinite in size we can only ever see a finite part of it and we've got to distinguish between our observable universe or the visible universe and the entire universe. And so when you hear someone saying Well I think the universe is infinite all version of earth is finite if they're talking about the entire universe this is a philosophical statement it can never be confirmed but suppose we confine attention to just that part of the universe on which empirical evidence can be brought to bear can't we legitimately ask whether this is infinite or finite even if neither alternative is directly observable. The great English scientist Isaac Newton certainly thought so he argued in the 17th century that the matter in the universe must be infinite on the grounds that if it were finite and if as he also thought matter beyond the solar system was stable then it couldn't maintain itself in gravitational Librium and so couldn't avoid collapsing into its center it seems to me that if all the matter in the universe were evenly scattered throughout all the heavens and the whole space throughout which this matter was scattered was finite the matter on the outside of the space would by its gravity tend towards all the matter on the inside and by consequence fall down into the middle of the whole space and there compose one great spherical mass Nevertheless the broad consensus today is that the matter in the universe is only finite and indeed that space itself is only finite albeit unbounded just as Aristotle thought this is the idea that I said earlier is very difficult for us to grasp how can space be both finite and unbounded Joe Dunkley professor of astrophysics at Oxford University gives one way of understanding this . One idea for what space could be like is something a bit like the surface of the earth itself because if you imagine you're an ant calling all around the surface of the earth or even a person walking around the surface of the there's no edge to that you can go off in any direction you like and you end up coming back to where you started you can walk or way around the surface of the earth and you return back home if you can cross the oceans. And so that that surface we would say of the earth is finite but unbounded it doesn't go on forever it's not infinite in size but there isn't an edge to it there isn't a beginning there is an end and it's possible that space itself that could also be like the surface of the earth so that you could go off in one direction out in space and eventually come back to where you started but if space were of to like the surface of the earth how would that money 1st itself actually when we think about it as physicists or mathematicians $1.00 of the ways we work out if something is curved is we actually can draw a triangle of it and we see what the angles add up to a normal triangle that you join a flat piece of paper the angles add up to about $180.00 degrees but if you draw try doing a triangle on an orange the angles that up to more maps and do we find that when we measure the angles in triangles those angles add up to something other than $180.00 degrees now it's possible and actually our current data set more in favor of it that space itself is not that space itself is more like a flat piece of paper if you drew a triangle in space it was without that add up to the new one at hundreds of degree it's worth mentioning that the child goes under investigation in a pretty bag they have to be otherwise any difference from $180.00 degrees jus to the Kevin space wouldn't show up so it wouldn't be good enough to investigate triangles that can fit on a sheet of a 4. They've got to be considerably bigger than that we're talking about billions of light years where a light year is the distance light can travel in a whole year like it's incredibly fast so when we're thinking about the behavior of space where it talking about things on a normal scales much bigger than the size of our solar system because we wouldn't be able to figure out things like is space infinite or finite when is it curved like an orange or flat like a piece of paper that we couldn't do that just from our solar system the current evidence seems to tell in favor of flat space they're not curved space even so who it's still possible that space is fine and indeed it's not only possible that space is finite it's possible that space is expanding over time and many cosmologists believe that that's precisely what it is doing this is in part because there's evidence that distant galaxies are moving away from us what form does this evidence take. Well it's a bit like the evidence should have had an ambulance was moving away from you if you could only hear the siren. The siren gets patron fainter of course but it also appears to have a lower and lower page this is in effect due to the way in which the movement of the ambulance affects the length of the sound waves emanating from it there's a similar effect in the case of the galaxy. What's more we can use the same evidence to extrapolate backwards. Just as we can conclude that the galaxies will get further and further apart in the future so 2 we can conclude that they were closer and closer together in the past right back to a point where absolutely everything was concentrated in one spot and a gigantic cosmic explosion gave rise to the universe as we know it today. A finite Liebig universe which began at a particular point in time and finally long ago this might be thought to be music to the as of most scientists for on the whole scientists like to evade the infinite as John Barrow explains in most areas of science and engineering if an infinity pops up in an equation or you predict that something is infinite the immediate reaction of the scientists is we've got to work harder we've got a bad model here we need to introduce more realism in our equations and so there was always a general feeling that when infinities pop up it's a song that your theory is incomplete it hasn't got the whole story included in the equations. In fact however that point fine not long ago when everything began doesn't abolish the infinite it reintroduces it if you trace the expansion of the universe backwards it always suggested that there was an apparent beginning at a finite time in the past and this became known as The Big Bang and if that was a real event in our past then there would be an infinite density an infinite temperature and in some. Pictures of the universe that we know that if the universe were not expanding fast enough today it might eventually be overwhelmed by the gravitational attraction of all its contents and its expansion would be reversed into contraction and there would be a big crunch of infinite density in the future. Move . Not to worry we shall all long since have departed by then on a more theoretical level however this is concerning for as we've noted scientists a troubled by that kind of infinity as John Barrow emphasizes Once you have an infinity you can't predict if you have an infinite density or an infinite physical quantity somewhere then on the other side of it anything can happen to the future so there's a breakdown of predictability. At the beginning of this series we saw that ancient Greek thinkers could neither fully make sense of the infinite nor simply ignore it 2 and a half 1000 years later we find ourselves in a similar position exploration of the cosmos invites us to reckon with the infinite at points where we're not sure what reckoning with the infinite even is. Whole a history of the infinite the cosmos was written and presented by Adrian Moore and produced by Philippa Goodrich it is a juniper production for b.b.c. Radio tomorrow in death and immortality Adrian ponders our own finite nature and asks whether we would really want to live forever if we could what if an apparent meteor shower was actually the invasion fleet of an alien race what if they were incubating in the ocean deep until they were ready to begin their war of attrition against the human race that's the scenario for the great Saif I authored John Wyndham's classic tale the crack in wakes on b.b.c. Radio 4 extra you can hear an adaptation by Val McDermott who retells this dramatic novel in light of contemporary fears of climate change to radio reporters are drawn into the story as it unfolds. Asteroids that disintegrate do not choose where they land so I Are you saying the 5 bulls are intelligent intelligent or program that academic really so the question is Where did they come from no no no the question is predicated on the fact that somewhere in the order of $3000.00 fireballs have gone down and nothing has come back up again how on earth can they survive if they're at the bottom of the ocean where the pressure is an unimaginable $750.00 kilos per square centimeter and what are they doing down there maybe they just disintegrated on let's hope so. Let us hope so starring Tamzin Greg Poole Higgins and Richard Harrington the crack and wakes in Radio 4 extras 7th to mention starting on Saturday night at 6 o'clock and midnight. This is b.b.c. Radio 4 x. . We return now to m.m. Kayser mantic historical novel The Fall pavilions set during the time of the British Raj The royal wedding party continues making its way across India to be ture where Angele is to be married to the Rana but as she and ash spend more time together they grow f a closer. Game of just one side. No thank you. No I don't like Jessamy got Julie Andrews always tired of the heat but truth is so didn't know she was like a brown monkey she tell you to shut up but I don't want think she's the beauty we promised you the concert done been joked around and that got a huge anymore where you have 5 weeks to recover and you look at your holiday and I can go in da suggested that a little exercise every day will help get your appetite back he's a good doctor we should take notice of his advice exactly right he got you back in the saddle in days. And I could go riding with the brights while their tents are being undergone drug with them but they were Saudis it's ridiculous that they were drowsy if you were going to ride with us again hoping we both have George Bush here that they're not doing more to study. And what would I tell them about it you could tell him I felt it would be much safer if we look like a party of young men rather than to read communities of current cut riding out with a meager escort I don't see the problem the problem was hard to see it was a subtle change in the way the women moved around and mingled with the men suddenly they became less visible and moved more freely without anyone noticing their presence or being aware of any improprieties and the violations of the codes under supervision to try to improve riding if not very patiently while engineer wandered off on their own to explore the. Place me. Myself. One day someone will hear you calling me that I have thought if you're right I should be more careful. He doesn't even know all the viewers or she's right mind you if you haven't heard the general run of people to you it's about to die it's a joke but the life is much it is so we go as far as the caves again no it's too late how was it that you wouldn't go to write so much better than she should she found the 1st time the size put on a horse and go to set John and he wouldn't let her carry on to the fish it's got a pretty face no one minded me writing and Joe he never listened to his mother I can imagine the race you to the edge of that village. As they shared their stories after all their yes apart they discovered how much they prized each other's company how much they shared each other sentiments and dreams how much they looked forward to being together but it was easier to talk about the past than the future. A future that was now just weeks ahead of them how many now northeast of j. Poor in the radical town or how long do we have. With going slowly as I did. For longing the agony of not. Delaying the final. Let's watch the sunset. Which reminds me of the time of the fog of billions. And never see those mountain peaks again. For you once this journey has and. This time Johnny spies were not just in the show because he crossed the Great Plains and then the desert but still feared touched by hot falling in love with a princess but. Was courting danger and of course old enemies locked in the camp it's so peaceful here. It is. Stones are still warm from the sun. What is that something troubling a little. To Remember sorry of course whenever he came to go good on the view that it's trying to balance his mother died back then didn't I think so . I remember feeling very sorry for him. Quite a letter from him today. They're kept in a kind I'm sorry it all is well at the guard course it was that her my mother is in excellent health and desires the saw him to have a care for his own. And to take special precautions against snakes centipedes and scorpions. The latter being very prevalent in the wilds of project Bhutan he's warning you against be too how he got on nicknamed him Big 2 g. The scorpion remember and Kristan for it Ibid. The fact he carefully shook. The head he was right slowly got leverage done to the Drudge comedy's faces a shoebox eyes Bozza Davy glowed when he glanced at and Julie and yet the daughter was getting closer by the hour it was when he was alone at night that the impossibility of his situation most dominant did him. I'm going for a walk. Probably a long one should I go. Absolutely no you need your rest. I can look after myself it's past midnight so I don't. Think clearly at night do you want you like. In the middle of a desert cool because I don't think there are dark or it's lying in wait for me out . A lot he is good enough to stop. His heart was troubled and he wandered outside other than he intended. He decided the twinkling lights of the camp would be his Beacon and when it sounds had faded behind him he sat down on a polished storm and let the darkness bring clarity. He loved her. He did he loved he didn't want to live without her. She loved him she did. Dead they follow their hearts would they die if they tried they would they go why could they go if they stayed in India they would be ostracized by British and Indians alike and endangered if dad a believer prize those was that any country in the world they'd be accepted he could not think of one and even if there was it would be a life of exile of banishment would that be fair to ha. He headed back to the camp through the darkness despondent and Gallus for his own safety. The steel band on his walking stick deflected the 1st shot the 2nd made it clear he himself was the quality he lay stock still playing dead until his approaching a doctor was near enough. His assailant found his face but he was strong before to back with silent fierce determination Oh yes. Oh find your young god. Who did you go there because of a basket I was much it's a grace. It's my fault I didn't read you I'm so sorry. I was careless so it was like night took 2 shots. Oakley he missed and knocked him down got huffy his waistcoat has got. To find out whose it is scrape as possible. But this is who saw up to keep. Out I was tired stopped and sentries due to someone must. This bit of waistcoat then do you recognize it. In this camp it is fine but it could be long. No one must know about this attack till the red coat come right it. Is too much work to do. I bring. Now. It looks worse than it is I'll be back in the saddle by this evening rest for a day at least say a special prayer for the camp tonight it's worrying to have 2 crises so close together what's happened I've had nothing George got very. I'm sorry to say that Goldman thinks someone may have tried to poison him but. He said his food being tested and look he found a box of sweetmeats in his tent and ate them all he called very sick. Says the vomiting saved his life nothing original and son. To no trap did you tell Jody about the hacking suspicions no do you think we should warn him or vigilance around to might be the kindest way I could be unduely would be a good question to tell we should talk to her. Try to arrange for the 2 who to be alone for a while when you go writing. To come on all that catch us up. That is don't tell me looks like it. You've been avoiding me a show. I've been on well I know you have I said keep that to make inquiry tell me what's the matter I don't have time to waste on idle chat. I'm sorry. What I mean is. I'm worried. I think there have been 2 attempts on Jyoti's life. Let's say you saw the loose subtle we think it was deliberate. And now someone has tried to poison him with sweet bits. Like knowledge like loyalty why didn't you tell me earlier I would have been more vigilant you can be that now. If someone is trying to kill him who do you think it is honestly. I think it's his brother none too. Who else would benefit you trust sadly just handful of people. Of course then might die and perhaps from Jesus' body so I'll talk to you to get to I would be content to shoot she won't believe us and she's going to peace there are. We better get back on the stern. Good God I take your hat I'm Julie stop at last she run your place. I must get back Go with as far as you to. Be careful until you don't follow. Him coming. Until then. Well you also may all generate. Funds are they. Still. The coots. The right. He probably. Thought you were too. But I put it forward to a pitch or a crevice or a well and then I thought of slake said. Oh hi lo. Ha i lot. Never meant to stop. I did. It. At home time ago. He left me and. I've loved you all my life the show always from the pic you as a brother why. Not now. I. Want to as a lover. I want to. Hold me. Let me know before it's too late for us. In the next chapter it's the last leg of the wedding journey and ash faces another battle the fog of billions continues tomorrow I had 230. This season. Idea for an extra. Mark Van Hanukkah's celebration of flights now and as a long distance pilot for one of the world's major airlines Mark has flown thousands of passengers around the globe but none as special as the one he carries today sky fairing a journey with a pilot is read by William hype. I've . I'm in the cockpit of an airliner at Heathrow that's about to depart to Budapest I've been an airline pilot for about a year flying Air Bus jets like this one to cities across Europe yet this flight feels as important as any in my life as momentous as my 1st flight in a light aircraft as a teenager my 1st solo flight in the skies of Arizona or my 1st flight on an airliner because my dad he is on board or at least he will be soon the captain and I are on a tour of multiple flights over several days each of which will end in the evening of a different city we've been taking turns flying each leg this is my leg Of course it must be said the captain when I told him that my dad would be on board the cargo doors are closed the pushback crew is below the plane ready to roll nearly all the passengers are on board but I haven't seen my dad yet I have a sudden awareness that unlike every other occasion in my life that he or I have waited for the other Tonight there is no question of waiting. It's December not long before Christmas my dad has been in England for about a week he will stay longer in Budapest than I will then he'll head to Belgium to Flanders to visit his siblings and their families suddenly I see him he's one of the last passengers to step on to the aircraft and is speaking to one of the crew in the galley the cabin attendant brings him to the cockpit and I introduce him to the captain who smiles as my dad takes my picture in front of the controls I explain a few of the buttons and systems to my dad show him the digital map of our route though now a naturalized American he is proud I think that I've started my career on a European airliner we hear the muffled cut thump of the main cabin door closing a starter gun familiar to waiting airline pilots everywhere I reach for my headset a little embarrassed that I have to ask my dad to leave the cockpit and go to his seat I close and bolts the cockpit door I call the controllers to ask for departure clearance I speak to the push back crew below the plane and acting my side of a formal conversation that specified word for word in our manuals breaks released I say Are we clear to start engines I ask as we begin to move backwards clear to start number 2 responds the voice from below the cockpit quiet as air flow is diverse a doorway to the engines a silence that gives way to an accelerating hum the left hand column of my hand written log book records this moment departure from Heathrow 1944. We taxi out accelerate and lift away from London climbing over the southeast of England passing Dover and the channel tunnels along approach roads and vast rail yards tunnels of all things are easy to see at night a bow k. Of light paths fans out from a point as the narrowly confined journeys spread in their newfound freedom on the land we cross the Channel minutes later we cross the far coast and I realize suddenly that I am flying my dad over his homeland on this clear winter night we pass our stand then Bruges where he studied next is Ghent on the left then it's my dad's small hometown set among the lights of Flanders Belgium for all its light is gone in a matter of minutes soon where over southern Germany then we pass near Lintz Vienna Bratislava following the Danube across the illuminated tapestry of Europe we descend towards Budapest the glittering patterns of lights the lamp posts of the returning world are no longer only ahead of us we are among them they are streaming directly under the nose by some grand luck some pleasing and memorable coincidence of error and family the landing is one of the smoothest I've ever made we taxied to the gate read the shutdown checklist I complete the entry in my log book arrival in Budapest 2202 Dad on board whether as a pilot or a passenger I much prefer to fly at night. There is a delicacy that's the opposite of the solar glare we must shield ourselves against with sunglasses and a labrat falling says of sunshades night flights are often smoother too without the sun to raise heat and turbulence from the earth's surface the sense that in taking flight we leave behind the small concerns and low ceilings of daily life is markedly stronger at night in the high night to our many phenomena we cannot see so clearly if we see them at all when the sun is up there are nameless ships of cloud that seem to sail best under a bright moon there are vast globes of lightning flash bulb being out from deep within the gray matter of distant equitorial thunderstorms while on the windowpanes St Elmo's Fire a kind of static flickers like proof rocks nerves and patterns on a screen in the sky at high altitude the coming of darkness is almost always pristine nearly every sunset I have seen in the sky would make me stop in my tracks if I saw it from the surface of the earth night on the ground is experienced as time night time we call it in the sky the intrigues of darkness appear more sensible if we imagine night as a space a geography of shadow that we can race towards or flee from at speeds fast enough to accelerate the turning of the day or 2 all but hold the hands of a clock in place that many latitudes darkness need never come to a westbound airplane for as long as it can fly I am flying from London to southern Africa. We are crossing the east to west coastline of West Africa and the airports of Accra Kota new and Lagos rolls steadily on to our computer screens we sail out over the darkness of the Gulf of Guinea in the cockpit the equator isn't even marked on our screens to know when we cross it we often joke about enacting the impractical test of watching our water goes down the drain in a sink or more scientifically we can click through several pages on a computer screen to call up a readout of our current latitude and longitude the last numbers of these readings are always turning I watch for the moment when the green digits of latitude reach 0 and give way to the rise of their Southern mirror when the n. Turns to s. As the countdown from the North Pole turns to account up to the south I then call the controller position equator I say over the static that often Mars transmissions in this part of the world Roger Roger replies the controller good flight Good night I try to imagine this moment in the old days of the ocean liners when crossing the equator the 1st of our grand marks on the sphere was still understood as momentous how on deck sparkling glasses would be raised one winter night before I became a pilot I sat in a window seat on the left side of the plane for a flight from Chicago to Boston about halfway through the flight I looked out of the window and saw what could only be the northern lights I checked with a member of the cabin crew who was watching from the window in the forward door. My 1st thought was that the display resembled nothing so much as a screen saver soon though the snowy earth began to resemble an older world a deep stage rather than a screen surrounded by layers of the curtains of shimmering blue green light changing and turning only just perceptibly I had seen pictures of the northern lights before that night but the pictures miss so much when they miss the motion the slow transformations in shape and brightness were like those of milk poured into a glass of iced coffee or die landing in water auroras usually appear when passengers are trying to sleep so we do not generally announce them not every passenger would thank us for waking them up. 'd following my father's death a year and a half after our flight together to Budapest the world I saw from airplanes particularly the world Izod night changed like many people who lose a parent especially at a relatively young age I felt that something about the finite nature of life had suddenly come into focus the patterns we perceive from above of country lanes and suburban cul de sacs see the freeways the vast pages of car parks is necessarily disconnected from any individual life we see instead the collective infrastructure of all our individual lives the luminous netting that stands for us but is not us. If in a moment everyone vanished from a city at night for some time it would look much the same astronauts have reported that Belgium is easy to spot on photographs of the Earth at night the country is a continuous splash of white light as bright as any city one of Europe's most densely populated countries Belgium also has one of the world's best lit road networks as I see it so often when flying from London Belgium appears 1st as a flat sea of Illuminations beyond the shadow we can torture of the channel a land as densely webbed and light fractured as a cracked sheet of safety glass Belgium's immediate neighbors survive with less profit road lighting policies This means that on a clear night the sin us and oft ignored borders of Belgium are apparent to an aerial observer the land grows darker beyond their line I look for the lights of the French city of live and then let my I cross ne over the front here of light this is how I spot my father's home town from an airplane how I found it the night he was sitting in the front of the cabin not 3 metres away from the locked cockpit of the airplane I was flying the sight of my father's homeland marked out in light was dear to me for a long time after he died so much of someone who is where they are from in the months after he died when I climbed out from London and saw Belgium turning towards me on the night i Planet I thought of what lights a pilot in 1931 the year he was born would have seen from where I was in the sky and about my aunts and uncles and many cousins their ordinary evenings passing in the lights ahead of the climbing airplane. Belgium lay before me as the light of memory on the darkness of the past and the borders of these thoughts were so clear almost as if in the nights after a parent dies everyone's ancestral lands briefly glowed brightly. William Hope was reading sky fairing a journey with a pilot by Mark found Hanukkah it was produced by Joe Waters and is a waters company production for b.b.c. Radio the story continues tomorrow at 245. This is this is this is. An extra. It's 3 o'clock. Alexandra de Mas novel about betrayal wrongful imprisonment and revenge the Count of Monte Cristo continues in a moment starring inventively James. In analogous comedy here on for extra with Season Kalman and guests who go manic on lists of all kinds in Lisztomania and then Tim Pinkett Smith stars as the struggling writer would house whose main aspirations are sadly not matched by literary talent.

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