What Would Turner Paint at 35,000 feet?

QMA have very generously paid for me to attend an EMu training course at KE Software's office near Oxford Road station.  So after just 3 weeks in Doha, I found myself on another Qatar Airways plane, this time destined for Manchester!   Putting pen to paper, I started jotting...

... It's shortly before 8am and we've just taken off.  From my seat I peer out of the window and have an excellent view looking to the West. 

As we ascend we rise above the clouds I recall being told that the painter, JMW Turner, would spend hours simply gazing up at the clouds, simply observing, watching.   So the question enters my mind: what would he have painted if he were to have gazed from besides and above the clouds?  What visual impressions would he have created - especially the light, shading, and colour?  Where would he have looked?  Up, down or across?  And what would he make of the different shapes, including the curvature of the Earth? 

Now at the cruising height, we're atop the fluffy white clouds, which at a distance are like remote islands floating in a now hazy sea whose waters show but traces of the land masses below.  Sometimes we are drawing close to them, moving besides them, and we see them rise up and across towards us, billowing fully in 3 dimensions, like celestial icebergs, a well-defined yet immaterial presence.   Reflecting clear sunlight, they radiate the luminosity of paper lanterns, but here the light is coming from many directions. 

The scene below becomes gradually clearer revealing at first a largely uniform mass of sand with indistinct features.  It's seemingly washed out by the summer heat, but looking more closely reveals a few roads criss-crossing the landscape, and then shades of colour, with reddish hues and assorted patterns from the shadows of the clouds.  And above the clouds we only see our movement relative to the clouds, we only detect their movements through their shadows drifting across the static land... and dwelling there with our eyes can be discerned a few geometric plots of human habitation in the midst of ... and soon more is revealed: many more settlements - the haze is reducing and now there are traces of green, faint at first, and then of stronger hue - irrigation circles. 

And now all obscured again by a soft hazy blanket.   Empty space ... infinite space ... the horizon merges white and blue.  Textures and shade, layered, uniform, ... Then suddenly like twin prongs, two straight lines converge.  What are they?  Roads?  Pipes? Canals? I don't know.  We're approaching the coast.  The hazy view below makes it seem hazier above until a network of lines appears and an orange patchwork... and strips of cultivated land - they look like fields!  There's less haze and more detail ... and these patterns stretch far and wide. And we can see finer details in this patchwork - denser patterns, settlements, many houses.  Then we cross an expanse of water, perhaps a lake or an estuary? 

Now bolder strips of green, even the specks are prominent.  A river!  It twists and turns, with cultivation hugging its curves, and trees and forests, but still surrounded by sand. More irrigation circles, some having concentric radial discs.  As we continue north and west the landscape thickens - sometimes with mountain ridges, sometimes with vegetation and cultivations... Across the Black Sea into Eastern Europe and more familiar patchwork of fields... 

Very soon we were crossing the North Sea and over East Anglia, starting our descent.

It was only my third visit to the Manchester area, the last one was also mainly work-related (a meeting about Personal Learning Environments).  Actually, on that occasion I stayed not at a hotel, but a meditation centre, and on this occasion although I did stay in a hotel (Ibis, Portland Street), I had some free time to join a ceremony at its current location in Stockport.   Meditation helps me not to have my head 'in the clouds'... :-)

Arrival in Doha

Several people remarked ahead of my departure from the UK - especially those living in Doha - that the end of June was a surprising time to come to Qatar.  They made it patently clear that it's rather hot and with the month of Ramadan starting just 3 weeks after I arrived, access to facilities would be more limited during daylight hours.  So suitably forewarned and feeling daunted, I duly prepared by bringing with me factor 50 sun cream, a certified wide-brimmed hat, and my first ever pair of prescription sun glasses.

Perhaps that's why there was no queue at the airport (Heathrow terminal 4), though I had already checked in online, so it was just a baggage drop.  Actually the plane seemed to have plenty of passengers, though as far as I could tell most of them were carrying on from Doha to various other destinations in Africa and Asia.  My prospective employers, the QMA, had booked the flight for me and at my suggestion chose a flight during the day - it as the 13.15 departure and it arrived a few minutes early in Doha at 21.45. 

According to my uncle, when he was living in Doha about twenty years ago there was just the one hotel and it's still a familiar landmark:


(photo shared by Viju Jose)

The pyramidal Doha Sheraton is now situated in what I'd like to call the foothills of the growing skyscraper mountain on the West Bay, buildings that would befit a huge city, perhaps a predictor of future growth (current population of Doha is less than 1 million according to some official statistics published in December 2011 by the Qatar Statistics Authority). Now there are dozens of hotels dotted around and I was booked to provisionally stay in one of them whilst my residency permit is being processed and then government accommodation will be allocated.

As a recent indication of the pace of growth, I purchased the latest 4th edition of the Explorer Guide to Living and Working in Qatar , which was out of stock in most places, but I somehow found one through Oxfam.  A new edition has appeared roughly each year since it was first published in 2006 with the next edition due in September this year.  It's a substantial tome, more in the style of a tourist guide; there are other books that are more revealing about the culture, such as Donna Marsh's The Middle East Unveiled: A cultural and practical guide for all Western business professionals   And, of course, there are many online sources of information of which qatarliving.com appears very popular and informative.

The flight in was along the Gulf, over the water right the way from Kuwait, and when arriving at Doha it was really simple - the plane banked and then descended to touch down moments later, arriving early at 9.45pm (local) [=GMT+03.00 hrs].  We taxied a little way until we were near the transits/departure terminal.  A few minutes later we disembarked, stepped onto the tarmac and made our way to a shuttle bus which was ferrying passengers to departures for transits, and then to arrivals.  My father had reminded me that this would actually be my second touch-down at Doha airport since I had previously been there in 1988 with my mother en route to Bangkok, when the plane stopped to pick up some more passengers before proceeding to Muscat.

The queue at immigration was moderately long, but arriving passengers were being checked pretty quickly.  It was a chance to observe the various nationalities and dress - staff at the entry point to the queue were wearing western-style uniforms and looked oriental, whilst those at and around the immigration desk were wearing [I think] thawb (Arab robe garment), ghutra (headdress) and black egal (headband) and I guess they were Qataris.  Those queueing (mainly men) were probably, like me, coming to work, but were largely from the Middle East and South Asia.  After collecting baggage, and emerging from Customs, I soon found the hotel booth and was met by a representative from the hotel. 

As a stranger I was naturally keen to strike up a bit of conversation with anyone I met so I asked the rep about his background and he related that he was from Colombo and had been in Doha a couple of years.   The driver to the hotel was from Bangladesh and had been in Doha for 4 years, so he was able to describe some of the landscape for me, now lit up at night; it was now about 10.30pm and there was a lot of traffic as this was a day off for most people with many locals liking to walk along the Corniche after sunset.  (He confirmed that the Sheraton was the hotel back in '92.)  And then arriving at the hotel, I was received by reception staff were from Ukraine and Belorus respectively; it seemed different roles or strata in the services were typically represented by particular nationalities.

I had finally reached my destination and soon felt very comfortable in the hotel.   After some unpacking it was time to collapse into bed and sleep ...!