Caragh Thuring

You know, otherwise it's just shut like the book, you know.

Yeah.

But I am very interested in Hamilton.

And there's a wonderful book actually called Campe Flegre.

which is illustrated by Pietro Fabris.

There's a lovely copy, you know, an actual copy of the real thing in the John Soane Museum.

And I've looked at that and it's all Hamilton's discoveries and, you know, minerals and volcanoes erupting.

And Susan Sontag's book has one of those on the cover, actually.

Totally.

And these powerful things.

I mean, the one in Iceland, you can go with a sort of window cleaning, whatever those things are that, you know, lower people up and down on buildings into the crater, which is very unusual to be able to go because usually those are plugged.

So it felt like I was in a film set of Planet of the Apes or something because you're...

in this slightly lit and I've got a few sort of spotlights dotted around and you could actually go down and never come back, you know, because the ventricles are going off the edge.

And I remember walking to one corner and you're only allowed to be down there for 45 minutes.

And I thought I could actually just keep going and, you know, maybe end up never coming back, you know, but it was, it was such a magical atmosphere that you're in this sort of chamber that is actually usually not accessible.

Yes, it did actually, yeah.

And I also saw something on a ceiling somewhere that had something in this fire.

I can't remember exactly what it was, but the combination of those two things where you're looking up and you can just see the opening of the cone is quite formidable, really.

It's impossible, that painting, because you're teetering and you're falling into something, but you're actually looking up at it at the same time.

I don't actually because I used to listen to music and then if I liked the music, I thought the painting was brilliant, you know, or exciting or something.