Plymouth. Wow. It would appear that when the second wave of Homo sapiens wandered out of Africa and started to replace neanderthal man in Northwest Europe, they stopped at Exeter services for a coffee and then decided it was getting late and that living in a world without an Ikea wasn't worth the pain of maneuvering through A38 traffic. Over the next 60,000 years the neanderthals realised that illustrious cave art and culture was just a distraction from the real purpose in life of promoting pastry-based coronary heart disease and molesting your cousins. You don't need a time machine to watch Morlocks in action, you need directions to Devonport.
Shop assistants in B&Q stare at you in disbelief as you describe the wonderment of a flat surface called a 'shelf' which you wish to place in your 'bathroom' in order to imbue your shampoo with gravity defiance. People from service industries happily agree that they will be round on Tuesday to fix your problem, only to realise once they have put the phone down that they have no concept of time or calendars. Bat wings are then presumably thrown into a seething froth in order to ascertain how Tuesday fits in with the moon-gobbling dragon. Even if they do figure it out, it's not like they can tell you. The magic voice box that imparted the instruction is now silent and dusty.
You know you've reached the absolute arse-end of civilisation and then got lost down a dark alley when the local news refers to Taunton as 'The Far East'. They even import news from London on occasion to show just how scary the faraway world is and to convince you that you're better off staying at home where at least you can guarantee that it'll rain on most days and that sooner or later one of the six jobs the city has to offer might be up for grabs. Road atlases bought in Devon have 'M5' crossed out and 'River Styx' written in blood.
This house which caused us so much stress to acquire hasn't diminished its ability to frustrate. Walls are collapsing, damp is proving troublesome, boilers are threatening to explode. We appear to be uniquely positioned. Over the road, the woman has clearly never uttered the phrase "not tonight love, I have a headache" as a plague of demented spawn spill through the ever-open front door. Each morning begins with the chorus of our neighbours doing their utmost to examine the contents of their lungs by projecting them onto the concrete floor. I saw a boy put litter in a bin the other day. I nearly hugged him. I think it's fair to say that once the course is complete and I have a chance of earning any money at all which could be used for a mortgage we shall be relocating towards the East. Towards Civilisation. Towards the Light.
As for the course, well at least that is ok. Seems things have been simplified somewhat since my last degree, with virtually the entire first year being assessed through multiple choice, but there's been plenty of content to keep me endlessly busy (hence the somewhat sparse blogging..). Being 32 and surrounded by 18 year olds has proved less problematic than originally thought, mainly because many of my colleagues are thoroughly nice people. My tutor is a cross between Charles Darwin and Santa and is proving to be a most inspirational figure. Which is nice as it cancels out some of the sheer bloody ineptitude of other parts of the University (the IT department makes EDS look like they have the abilities of that kid in Heroes). This summer should see me helping out on deep-sea and tropical coral projects and getting hands on experience of genetics and bioinformatics as well as making contacts with people involved in ocean acidification research and no-take zones. So in terms of saving the oceans, it's all going to plan. If I can just earn some money in the mean time we'll be golden. I might even introduce the local plumbers and builders to watches. It'll be like when C3PO met the Ewoks.
2 comments:
Not yet met you Ben, but that was a bloody funny read! So true! Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for re-introducing the soul back into my body after a frustrating day at work! Big hello to Liz! From Lydia :o)
Hi man, sorry to hear your encounters with the locals are less than stimulating.
Fantastic read as usual, if you do ever manage to save the oceans then please follow it up by writing a book. Once Pratchett goes space crazy :( I'll need you to remind me that the whole world isn't full of sycophantic assholes.
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