UNITED KINGDOM: Author and philosopher Alain de Botton becomes Heathrow Airport's first reader-in-residence

Record ID: 334834

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM: Author and philosopher Alain de Botton becomes Heathrow Airport's first reader-in-residence
  • Date: 26th September 2009
  • Summary: HEATHROW AIRPORT, LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (SEPTEMBER 25, 2009) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF HEATHROW TERMINAL 5 PLANE PASSING OVERHEAD INTERIOR OF TERMINAL WITH TANNOY ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT AIRPORT'S FIRST WRITER IN RESIDENCE, ALAIN DE BOTTON PASSENGERS IN TERMINAL WRITER ALAIN DE BOTTON IN CONTROL ROOM OF TERMINAL 5 READING EXTRACT FROM 'A WEEK AT THE AIRPORT' PASSENGERS IN TERMINAL WHILE EXTRACT CONTINUES SIGN FOR PASSPORT CHECK VARIOUS OF ALAIN DE BOTTON IN CONTROL ROOM READING EXTRACT (2 SHOTS) PASSENGERS IN TERMINAL ALAIN DE BOTTON READING PASSENGERS IN TERMINAL SUITCASES
  • Embargoed: 11th October 2009 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: United Kingdom
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment / Showbiz,Travel / Tourism
  • Reuters ID: LVADVW0L6F98G815B3F754NIVHT0
  • Story Text: Author and philosopher Alain de Botton introduces passengers at Heathrow to the results of the airport's first writer's residency.
    Passengers at Britain's biggest airport received an unusually literary announcement over the tannoy system on Friday (September 25), extracts of the latest work of author and philosopher Alain de Botton.
    The Swiss-born writer of a number of best-selling books on love, travel, architecture and literature shared extracts of 'A Week at the Airport' from the control room of Heathrow's Terminal 5.
    The book is the product of the time De Botton spent at the airport as 'writer-in-residence' over the summer, with access to all areas, in a publishing venture backed by Heathrow's owner, BAA.
    "If you were asked to take a Martian to visit a single place that neatly captures the themes running through our civilisation," De Botton read over the public address system, "..Then this is the place."
    Heathrow Terminal 5, designed by the architect Richard Rogers and costing over four billion pounds to construct, opened in 2008 as an exclusive hub for British Airways.
    "I really do feel coming back here, I managed to at least understand a big chunk of what goes on here," De Botton told Reuters.
    "Most of the time people come into the airport, they're heading for their gate, they're not really thinking about the space they're travelling through. Hopefully, the book gives a kind of tour of what's going on behind the scenes and how this place actually functions."
    De Botton, a self-confessed transport obsessive and author of 'The Art of Travel', constructed the book from observations and anecdotes provided by workers at the airport, which he called "a city of experts".
    "I think airports are quite frightening places, and one of the things people do when they're frightened, they just shut down, they just pretend they're not here. I think that's the wrong way to go. Actually open your eyes, look around you. Yes, it's a bit daunting, yes, it's strange. But it's also.. This is the centre of the modern world. This is where it's all happening, and that's something to appreciate and take notice of," said De Botton.
    To promote the book before its official launch on Monday (September 28), BAA distributed copies free to customers at a coffee bar in the arrivals hall.
    "Well, we just picked it up so yeah, I'll probably give it a quick read," said one passenger.
    "I take an interest in the building, and how it works," said a former engineer, when asked about the literary interest of the Terminal. "But really it's somewhere to go through and get through as quickly as you can."
    For De Botton, however, the chance to learn more about the inner workings of such a vast, complex and intricate operation - even under commercial patronage - proved unmissable.
    "In a world full of chaos and irregularity," he wrote in his 'Heathrow Diary', "The terminal seemed a worthy and intriguing refuge of elegance and logic."
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