Ode to the Well-Travelled

Time for a quote (a long one) by Will Self:

On psychogeography ...

'... people take it in different ways. There's a kind of wacky, sort of spaced-out take on it where people take a map of Florence and negotiate their way around Toronto with it, or they throw dice to tell them where to go, or there are other psychogeographies like our mutual friend, Nick, well he wouldn't even style himself that, he calls it 'deep topography', who are really just kind of interested in taking one place and understanding it completely. And then there's kind of my take on it which is very much bound up with these airport walks I do, which is a kind of satirical take on it. I'm kind of taking the piss out of international travel. You know, I'm sort of saying, 'What a weird world it is where we jet all over the world' ... you know, someone can be amazingly well-travelled but actually know bugger all about where they are or where they've been. You know they've jetted into Beijing, they couldn't point out North, they don't know where to get their pants washed. You know, they don't speak the language. They kind of aren't really anywhere. They're in their own heads. So distorting is international jet travelling in that way, so the way I earth it is to walk from my house to the airport and walk it the other end.'