I MADE THE VOLCANO ERUPT!

My spooky magical powers have revealed themselves once again. My last post opened with a wee rant about how much I hate air travel; seven days later, Iceland's unpronouncable volcano - Eyjafjallajökull - erupts, shooting ash 11km into the air and forming a hazy cloud that has grounded air travel in Europe for the last five days (and counting). Whoops. Sorry about that, northern Europe.

With my next flight three weeks away at the time the volcano erupted, I was able to sit back and observe the chaos with a dispassionate eye. Predictably, Twitter went nuts. Some witty twitterer created an #ashtag hashtag which quickly caught on as users shared their Ash/cloud puns as well as info on the air restrictions coming into force. The recent dispute between Iceland and the UK over the need for the former to repay billions of pounds lost after Icesave (an Icelandic online savings provider) went bust inspired my favourite tweet of the first few days: @littlesapling wrote "Dear Iceland, we said 'send Cash', can't you read?" (Get it? They sent the UK ash not cash. Ok, shutup, I think it's funny.)

Apart from reading anecdotes from people all over Europe, Twitter was a forum for people to share some truly spectacular photos of the erupting volcano and oozing lava. My favourite Flickr set is this one.

Volcanoes are definitely my natural disaster of choice. What's not to love? (Leaving aside destruction and possible death.) I remember learning at a young age that when Krakatoa erupted in Indonesia in 1883, it was so violent that the sound of the explosions could be heard in Perth (3,500km away). That's a mighty, terrifying and awesome power. The fate of Pompeii when Vesuvius erupted likewise fascinated me. So I've been soaking up information on the Eyjafjallajökull eruption. The BBC has been at pains to explain why volcanic ash clouds are so dangerous to aircraft, but I still think the most enlightening way to learn more is to read the story of what happened to British Airways Flight 009 in 1982 (see Wikipedia).

It's now five days since the eruption, and the skies are still quiet and empty. It really is humbling to realise that despite all our technological advances, Nature still has the power to f*ck up our comfortable lives when she wants to assert her authority. As I walked past the Visit Britain tourist office on my way to work this morning, there must have been close to 200 people queued up around the block hoping to find a hotel or a bus ticket out of London.

I don't think anyone expected that aircraft would need to be grounded this long, and frankly it's started to get a bit boring. I have three friends due to fly back into the UK later this week, so I really hope the damn ash cloud disperses before then. It might be fine for John Cleese to pay £3,000 for a taxi from Oslo to Brussels (he really did!), but I can't see my mates catching cabs from Kathmandu and Hong Kong. So the airline industry is apparently hemorrhaging $200 million per day, but more importantly, one of my favourite Aussie bands is stuck in Brisbane and has had to postpone their UK tour. And they're splitting up so it's their last ever tour! And I can't make the new dates! Now that's a real tragedy. Damn ash cloud. Be off with you!!!


*Quick update* I just read that the volcano has started erupting again. Nooooo! My friends aren't back yet! And I'm meant to fly to Budapest in two weeks! Damn you, Eyjafjallajökull!



(For those wondering about the last instance when my spooky magical powers manifested, it was on 24 June 2009. I decided to unsubscribe from a mailing list called Michael Jackson Live. One day later MJ himself 'unsubscribed' from being alive.)