FT263

The effects of the volcanic events of mid-April were felt beneath the Earth’s surface, even over 1,000 miles off. Audible relish tinged the voices of London Underground announcers, momentarily liberated from routine. No “person under a train” this time, no “signal failure”, nor even the ubiquitous “adverse weather conditions”, but “a cloud of volcanic ash from Iceland”.

Above ground, too, announcements abounded. The airwaves hummed with the catastrophe’s keywords – “Cloud!” “Ash!” “Ice!” – all repeated earnestly to mask the fact that the origin of it all was unutterable, a ghastly edifice of Nordic sounds bearing little phonetic relation to the 17 letters that constituted them.