Colosseum Conundrums

"Unlike The Roman, I Seem To See The River Tiber Foaming With Much Insta"

Friend,

It’s not every day the opportunity presents itself for me to shoehorn in a reference to that 1968 speech by Enoch Powell. He passed away before the advent of the smartphone and its concomitant traits; had Mr Powell been alive today, one can only imagine his scorn for the social media world we live in. Or rather, that we pretend to live in.

“Pray tell”, I hear you ask. “By what tortuous route will you entertain me in the next five minutes involving social media, Enoch Powell and personal finance?”

Patience, friend, patience.

The Lovely Penelope (TLP) and I have just come back from a week’s jaunt to Venice and then Rome. TLP’s a Head Teacher; it’s May half-term; we travel: it’s kind of a legal obligation.

For those that haven’t been to Venice my advice is to go, and go yesterday. An amazing place. Small, and, thanks to endless little bridges, entirely walkable despite the canals. Splash out on a water taxi (speedboat) from the airport to the island and arrive in James Bond style. Do this and you can talk your other half out of suffering the gondola experience, which is expensive and, judging by the faces of those being gondaliered, miserable.

Combustion Engines

Being the brains of the operation, it took TLP to make me notice the quiet of Venice, tourists like us notwithstanding. We are so used to the racket of combustion engines that, when they are entirely removed from the scene, as they are in the 118 islands of Venice, it’s a wonderful shock. No cars. No lorries. No Deliveroo/Just Eat motorcycle maniacs with their perpetual “Learner” badges (we know they are not “learning” and never will and they know that we know. It’s all a charade and symptomatic of the wider malaise).

There aren’t even bikes. It’s pedestrian heaven. Bars and restaurants are evidently told to keep the music down. The quiet is everywhere.

Very much unlike Rome.

TLP and your author. Yes, I’m “punching” above my weight.

We travelled to Italy’s capital via train. In the UK, travelling the necessary 528 kilometres in such a fashion requires fortitude, optimism that it will all somehow pan out, and an ability to dissociate yourself from such niceties as fretting about arriving on time.

In Italy it was a somewhat different experience.

For €62 each, TLP and I sat in our own roomy four seat business-class carriage (the other two seats weren’t occupied) and spent the three hours plus journey mainly bopping along at well over 200 kph.

The train left on time. It arrived on time. It was spotless. TLP was gushing about the toilets and with good reason: a few days earlier, she and I had spent half a day at the A&E of the Western Eye Hospital (she’d managed to get a shard of nail varnish into her cornea. Don’t ask). Unhygienic and rammed, the kindest thing to say about the place is that it is a run down, miserable building with all the warmth of a morgue.

From there we got the Metropolitan line back to WD17. In Baker Street station, an art-deco delight built in a time when we still built things that mattered, all the men’s urinals bar one were overflowing and decorating the floor.

Compare and contrast with the Italian experience.

Lessons thus so far?

1. Go to Venice.

2. If you must go to Rome, go by train. It’s a blast.

3. Try not to get nail varnish in your eye.

4. Wear shoes you can easily wipe down.

Like The Roman

In contrast to Venice, Rome was a bit of a disappointment. First impressions count and as you emerge from the station into the expected chaos, the two words you don’t want to hear are “taxi strike”. And Uber was not working (from experience, it never works near Continental train stations).

And so we schlepped the 35 minutes to the hotel. It was warm. Very warm. The streets are mainly cobbled and mainly without pavements. The drivers drive fast and close. Rome has hills. Lugging luggage in such conditions…

Still, it gave me time to appreciate the graffiti, which is pretty much everywhere. I wonder if continental cities get their adored slabs of pre-fab already daubed with the stuff directly from the factory: it would save a lot of time and effort.

Suffice to say, little of the always-scant Lincoln sang froid was evident as we arrived at our Citizen-M hotel. An excellent place, as they always are, even if aspects of it are over-engineered. The automatic check in process requires a human being to guide you through the screens, which is self-defeating. Also, why do they need to know which country I was born in and where I reside now? They’ve got my passport. Isn’t that enough? I was about to identify as an Ethiopian living in The Hague before an embarrassed TLP led me back to the straight and narrow.

We did the sights. The Trevi fountain was rammed and is basically a large fountain. The Spanish Steps are a series of steps. Before we even got to the Colosseum, TLP and I weren’t talking: being taller than her, my natural walking speed is quicker. She asked me for once to walk with her, rather than in advance. So I did, for a few minutes. I was then castigated for deliberately walking too slowly and told to go off on my own.

As if by magic, an argument had been conjured out of thin air. It’s a gift.

We carried the mood into the Colosseum. Thinking that getting there at five minutes past nine in the morning is early enough to avoid the crowds? Think again. It was teeming with annoying tourists just like us.

If you like “Gladiator” and old ruins it’s a must-see. I’ve never watched it and have no interest in archeology so I wasn’t blown away. I know, grade-A philistine.

In The Moment

Once we’d navigated the inevitable queue and got inside it was quite the thing to observe the other human beings there. At a guess, I’d say 90% of them had their phones out, taking videos, photos and selfies. Lots and lots of selfies. If you squinted, it looked like people were deliberately taking selfies composed of themselves and people in the background doing likewise. An endless loop of selfie hell.

Resisting the urge to nick a selfie stick to batter my way through the crowds with, TLP and I tried to be present, to enjoy the moment. It was hard. To get to any viewing point you had to wait for the three rows of people in front of you to compose their photo, take it, look at it on their phones, and eventually bugger off.

Is this the way to experience a bucket list destination such as the Colosseum? In fact, is it being experienced at all? And what does all this have to do with personal finance anyway? Not much and yet everything.

As a financial planner, I encourage my clients to accrue sufficient money and wealth so they can live lives in accordance with their values and dreams, and to have “enough” in a typical three decade retirement to be able to experience things, to buy memories, without fear of later on running out of the stuff.

To be able to enjoy the here and now whilst simultaneously ferreting “enough” away for later on.

As ever, money is just an enabler.

The humanity I saw on display at the Colosseum was some kind of manic display, a paean to the Gods of Instagram and Snapchat and Tik-Bloody-Tok. If you’re accruing and then spending money just to bucket list your life on social media then you’re unhappy and in search of something. All the money in the world can’t help you.

What gives me the clinical right to make such a diagnosis? Nothing except my experience of human beings. As a financial planner, working in a world where money and emotions intersect in a swirling and sometimes savage vortex, being able to see the world through the other person's eyes is about as key a base requirement as their can be.

The world of the crowds in Rome was next level narcissism.

I appreciate it’s not an original thought to be wary of the impact of the mobile phone on our lives. And, in the round, they are great devices. To say I couldn’t live without mine is probably a stretch but it’s almost true.

But for the love of God, sometimes, put the phone down. Be present.

I took three photos in Rome. None involved the Colosseum. One is below. Because she’s beautiful and so is the Castel Sant’Angelo.

And the Tiber, thankfully, was not foaming with anything. Until the next time, friend!