Lentissimo - what's in a name

Regular readers - well the especially eagle eyed ones, will have noticed that this column is now located at www.lentissimo.co.uk, my little piece of the internet.

So what's it all about? I wanted the name to reflect ideas about the pace of life and how best to cope with today's lifestyle. We recently paid a visit to friends who live in the New Forest National Park, and I was knocked out by the sheer tranquillity of Furzley Common, a forgotten and lightly trafficked region. The beauty of that essentially English landscape with its signature look honed by generations of wild and not so wild grazing animals was very easy on the eye and on the brain.

A short walk from atop the single hill vantage point took us amongst a smattering of trees. The total lack of intrusion of 21st century noise, which the road planners can count as a success story: the M27 being only a kilometre away, meant that the beating of a crow's wings whilst flying over the forest could be heard as plainly as Big Ben in the Palace of Westminster.

It was the sort of place where we felt that the best option for happening upon the natural fauna was to stand stock still and wait for it to emerge from its collective hidey hole and meet and greet us. So the idea of slow time was born, and not just any old time - very slowly indeed: lentissimo!