Circa 2006
Here in Europe the oversupply of turnips, after twenty years of agricultural incentives offered by the European Union for growing them, has reached epic proportions.
It is not literally a mountain of course. That would be impractical, as the temperature at the summit would be far lower than is feasable for the storage of such produce. Besides, the streams created by rainfall would destroy much of the food, particularly if there are otters.
The excess turnips are in fact kept in huge holes in the ground at strategically selected locations in The Netherlands, a country renowned for it’s unrelenting hostility to mountains of all kinds, and therefore a nation of experts on concealed underground storage.
The Dutch have a wonderful obsession with keeping things flat. They of course invented many of the low-roofed, aerodynamically shaped sports cars which we see in our shopping centre car parks today. Car parks which themselves were completely level until a few years ago, when lack of space finally compelled them to reluctantly allow the building of multi storey car parks.
Even these are placed under the ground if at all possible, and ceiling height is kept to a minimum, as is floor height.
Here in Ireland it’s a whole different story.
Not only is Dublin now flagged by an eponymous mountain range to the west, the city itself is being populated with vast eight and nine story skyscrapers, much to the chagrin of environmentalists who know that such monstrosities only serve to force clouds higher into the sky, right into the flightpath of the average jumbo jet, thereby increasing the likelihood that such aircraft will have to waste extra precious fuel in revving up their vast engines and forcing their way through a domineering Cirrocumulus.
I’ve always wondered why the air industry doesn’t take a leaf out of the Navy’s book, and rather than wasting money on huge airports, instead land on flying aircraft carriers. Passengers could then be shuttled to the ground in helicopters, in much the same way that they are often bussed from the plane to the terminal at traditional airports.
Another obvious alternative is underground travel.
Britain and France have made a brave attempt at it by drilling a railway tunnel under the sea to connect their countries. But due to the curvature of the earth, a horizontal tunnel can only go a few hundred miles straight before it comes out again.
What we need are tunnels that go straight down, or decline at steep angles, until they come out at some other part of the world. We could then travel by an extremely efficient cable car which would simply fall to it’s destination, then fall back again.
Why DaVinci didn’t think of this when he was doodling plans for a flying machine, I have no idea. Perhaps it’s because he worked with paintbrushes and not apples, and therefore did not have many incidences of anything falling on his head during his work, thus inspiring him to consider the possibilities of harnessing gravity.
We really do need more gravity in this world. People are too damn giddy and obsessed with enjoying themselves. A little levitas is sadly lacking, and as far as I’m concerned it all started with bungee jumping.
The organisers of this so-called sport have managed to use clever marketing and branding to con the participants into thinking that they are “jumping”, thereby instilling them with the mistaken belief that they are contributing to the amount of kinetic energy in the atmosphere in an environmentally friendly hobby.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
A bungee “jump” is ninety nine percent “fall”, two percent “jump”, one percent “getting rescued”.
Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. If they try, put at least one finger in each of your ears and, if necessary, pretend that you’ve got a learning disability. Taking care of course not to do it in a way that portrays a stereotypical image of those who are genuinely afflicted with such a condition.
Anyway, let’s finish off with a poem, shall we.
A cat or a puppy – oh what a choice
One brings you walkies, the other kills mice
If only the breeders could open their eyes
And come up with some sort of a compromise