idée fixe

After spending a pleasant morning reading a chapter of Peter Davidson's The Idea of North, I know much more about the Aurora Borealis as seen from China and from the Mediterranean. I have an increased respect for the influence of Hergé's Tintin on the imagination of the North, and I should probably stock up on issues of Tinni when I next have the opportunity. I also know where Phillip Pullman is likely to have gotten the surname for the Texan æronaut character Lee Scoresby in his Northern Lights trilogy, and thanks to that William Scoresby (as quoted by Davidson), I understand finally what I saw from the stony beach of Seltjarnarnes when I looked across the sound towards Snæfellsnes and saw what seemed, impossibly, to be the great glacier standing like a tragic actor on cothurni and Arnestapi looming thousands of feet high.

Furthermore, I am thoroughly chilled, despite the local mild climate, and I have come in for a pot of tea.