Waiting for dawn in San Diego. Landed last night and now feeling that funny slight dizziness when the input from your eyes to your body clock is a reset not a nudge. Or maybe it’s just the sense of the first vertiginous moments as I tumble into the five week #ChurchillFellow2019 journey.

In flight I got chatting to the cabin crew who had qualified as a group a few months ago and were on their first long haul trip together. The team leader had set them a competitive task to get them out of the coffee/tea/milk/sugar patter, which was to find the most interesting fact about a passenger. At that point in the flight my road trip was a contender.

As the conversation proceeded I found myself provoking them to say what they would look at if they could travel anywhere and stay awhile, rather than just a couple of days to decompress and then back on the inbound flight. It’s funny the momentary pause that occurs when someone really considers a transgressive possibility.

Team leader was an ex-policeman so we got into AI and racial profiling of suspects so I guess I can consider this my first research conversation.

Sun’s up finally. Day 1.