The Real Downunder
part 1
So, you have two options. You can either get a globe and a knitting needle,
real or virtual I don’t mind, or you can start digging. For the former
you get the needle and ram it through the globe perpendicular to the surface
where London is marked.
Yep, London.
This blog aint just Anglocentric, it’s Londo-centric....tired of London,
tired of life and all that jazz. Anyway, we digress, ramming the needle
through the globe is a lot harder than one expects, so it might be better
to try the second option.
So,
start digging.
Straight down.
And then straight down some more, passing Doug McClure and those dinosaurs
and eventually, by definition, you will reach the Antipodes.
And it aint anywhere near Australia.
Oz is not the Antipodes.
It’s not even close.
No, you’ll find yourself coming up in the glorious sunshine of the Antipodes
Islands ( fortuitous name, eh?). And where are these little islands?
Well, off the coast of EnZee, naturally.
Which is handy, as it legitimises this whole story. Or nearly. The story should
really be in these aptly named isles of anti-pole. But that would be just
too spot on. Too fine and dandy in a world that is so often neither.
It would also be a much shorter story, and we wouldn't want that, would we?</rhetorical>.
Anyway, if I can get at least some of the great British unwashed to realise
that Oz is not the real downunder then my life will have had at least some
purpose. That New Zealand isn’t strictly it either is but a trifle,
an insignificance in a life full of such inconsequencialities.
By now there will of course be some who are cursing my pedantry for you all
know that New Zealand is just of the coast of Oz anyway.
You know, like Engerland is just off the coast of Europe.
Hmm, maybe, that’s why man got to EnZee several thousand years after
reaching Oz. And not from Australia even then.
And why it takes three hours by jumbo jet.
So, more like England being off the coast of Greece. Which it is, if you flood
all the land in between....and now is not the time for ruminations on whether
flooding Belgium, France, Germany et al would be a good idea. I know the are
Europhobes out there who would relish such a concept. But not I, it’s
just to illustrate my second point.
Viz, New Zealand is a long way from Australia.
Now that’s all sorted we can begin…...