You learn something new everyday.It is 10am in the morning and already I have learned loads. The WIFI on ICE602 Basel – Dortmund high speed train is not switched on, the Kasabian album I purposely loaded onto my i-pod for the trip doesn't work and that Scipio and Hannibal actually met each other and had a discussion before they readied their respective armies for battle, just before the fall of Carthage.
Random knowledge and, unless you are reading this before getting on the 602 from Basel expecting to do some work or quietly going about your business in Carthage in 146BC, is most probably useless knowledge.
In 2006 during the World Cup I learned that someone from the Ivory Coast is called Ivorian and last Thursday I learned that people who study volcanoes are called Volcanologist. The first time I heard this on the news I looked up expecting to see a man with a bird of prey on his arm. Of course the Icelandic volcano debris which has caused so much chaos over Europe is the reason these people are having their day in the sun. Unfortunately Vulcanology I would imagine is a very particular career. Not one I would assume young/cool people aspire to and that is the reason we have been subjected to the disturbing images of beardy men & women on prime time news talking to us in squeaky voices about the infinately unpronouncable Eyjafjallajoekull glacier in Iceland.
How the hell did a glacier end up with a name like that by the way? Is there any sort of sane naming convention up there? My bet is there is none and no-one actually named this Glacier. Someone rested his/her arm on the keyboard and the output somehow made it onto the Glacier Naming Form (GNF) in the same screwed up way an out of office in Welsh made it onto a road sign. Another theory could be that it didnt have a name until it started erupting last week and then the Icelanders, still pissed from the banking meltdown last year, decided to make life very, very, difficult for our news reporters.
No problem for our beardy types though. I reckon somewhere in the world there is a good looking, Geoff Goldblum type. In his slightly eccentric way he has been running around for the past month trying to warn the great & the good about this eruption. He tried time and again to warn the world’s leaders about the impending doom but they were too busy with minor political matters to listen. Only now they are turning to him for advice but it is too late, he is too busy dodging lava flows with his cutesy children in Iceland and doing live reports exclusively for Fox News.
This is why we are left with Mr Turbot, leading Volcanologist from Hull Polytechnic to grace our SKY, BBC and ITV screens. He is a busy man, even the birds who were nesting on his face have migrated to a nearby Tsunami expert in the hope of some peace and quiet
Imagine a world where only birds were the masters of the sky.
A world where we take our time to get from A-B. A trip from Southern Europe to, say, the UK would take a day or two. A visit to the USA would be a week and Australasia would be a couple of weeks. The food on our plate would be locally grown and sourced. The great shipyards of the world would once again churn out floating leviathans and all our electronics would be manufactured from either the country it is sold in or very nearby. Most evenings would be spent with the family around the dinner table telling stories. Family values would return and crime would decrease. The art of reading would once again become important, the ozone would be intact and white rhinos would once again be safe to gore things at will.
The skies would be peaceful, birds would sing and bees would buzz and the pace of life would slow down.
There are at least a couple of problems with this Utopia:
No problem for our beardy types though. I reckon somewhere in the world there is a good looking, Geoff Goldblum type. In his slightly eccentric way he has been running around for the past month trying to warn the great & the good about this eruption. He tried time and again to warn the world’s leaders about the impending doom but they were too busy with minor political matters to listen. Only now they are turning to him for advice but it is too late, he is too busy dodging lava flows with his cutesy children in Iceland and doing live reports exclusively for Fox News.
This is why we are left with Mr Turbot, leading Volcanologist from Hull Polytechnic to grace our SKY, BBC and ITV screens. He is a busy man, even the birds who were nesting on his face have migrated to a nearby Tsunami expert in the hope of some peace and quiet
Imagine a world where only birds were the masters of the sky.
A world where we take our time to get from A-B. A trip from Southern Europe to, say, the UK would take a day or two. A visit to the USA would be a week and Australasia would be a couple of weeks. The food on our plate would be locally grown and sourced. The great shipyards of the world would once again churn out floating leviathans and all our electronics would be manufactured from either the country it is sold in or very nearby. Most evenings would be spent with the family around the dinner table telling stories. Family values would return and crime would decrease. The art of reading would once again become important, the ozone would be intact and white rhinos would once again be safe to gore things at will.
The skies would be peaceful, birds would sing and bees would buzz and the pace of life would slow down.
There are at least a couple of problems with this Utopia:
1. I just made it up
2. Have you ever used a TV made in the UK? If you have you will be like me and want your i-pods designed in California and made in China and want to eat fresh lettuce/papaya/something exotic in January.
So Mr Turbot, you have had your 15mins of fame and a very interesting “what if” exercise it has been too. Yes we now realize how powerful nature is and how easily it can bring us into check. Now that that has been agreed can you please pop up to Iceland, earn your money and do whatever it is you do to shut the fucking thing up.
Whilst you are at it please set the timer for 200years until the next occurrence please. This should give us enough time to invent an instant transportation machine and allow us to blow raspberries in Mother Nature’s direction again next time she decides to have a go.
So Mr Turbot, you have had your 15mins of fame and a very interesting “what if” exercise it has been too. Yes we now realize how powerful nature is and how easily it can bring us into check. Now that that has been agreed can you please pop up to Iceland, earn your money and do whatever it is you do to shut the fucking thing up.
Whilst you are at it please set the timer for 200years until the next occurrence please. This should give us enough time to invent an instant transportation machine and allow us to blow raspberries in Mother Nature’s direction again next time she decides to have a go.
Thank you.
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