StoryMany years ago I was hitch-hiking back to Paris from the South of France after leaving the cottage of some friends in the Ardeche (about which the least said the better) This was in the middle of a lorry-driver's strike - the strikers were blocking all the autoroutes, which meant that long-distance traffic was pushed onto cross-country routes nationales. I had plenty of excitement - the previous day I was in a lorry which hit a car in a car-park by accident and the driver tried to flee the police - they caught up with us at the top of a pass in the mountains. Anyway, I slept in a barn and got up to start hitch-hiking. At that point I was a few miles North of a city called Le Puy - which has a famous black madonna on top of a rock in the middle of the city. I had very little food or money left and I had to get to Paris that day so that I could catch a bus back to England (I had the ticket). Paris was 600km away. So I really wanted a lift! After half an hour of hitch-hiking, someone stopped. I started laughing as I ran up to the car - I could tell it was one of those perfect lifts. It was hippy in a caftan in a rusting yellow 2CV. Immediately I got in he offered me food and a joint - friendly guy. But he asked me to not to speak to him - although he eventually explained. He had come from Provence, in the South, and he had been driving for 10 hours. During the 20 hours previously he had been preparing a demonstration he was going to give at a mathematics conference in Paris. And what was the subject of his presentation? Fractals you haven't been quite good enough yet, so that's all for now |
