As mentioned in my last epistle, food on the New Planet plays a big part in every one's lives, so I'll continue on this delectable topic for now...
Once a traveller has mastered that great institution known as 'the pub', and fallen prey to the monstrous carvery with its soggy carrots, undercooked meat and runny gravy, one can explore the other delights that the New Planet has to offer. Seldom will a being leave a Sunday lunch at the pub with enough energy to do anything more than collapse on the couch with trousers (not pants because these are what one wears under clothes) undone and stare at the telly. Last (or first depending on how you look at things) Day of the Week dinner is a big thing on this planet and you can’t get more traditional than roast beef and potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, peas, sprouts, carrots and gravy, followed by the ubiquitous sticky toffee or banoffee pie pudding. Of course, there are still some brave enough to actually cook this meal 'from scratch' and serve it up from the comfort of their own homes. Even one such as myself, who grew up in the Southernmost Colony, was inducted into this ancestral right back on the old planet as old and new ways merged to create a new species of being, the Britbok. Obviously this was before discovering the delights of charring dead animal flesh on a open fire built inside half an oil drum, an activity that would not be well received by the ''ealf an' safety' dictators (or the 'No, you shall Never Have Any Fun Again or Use Common Sense to Prevent a Ridiculous Accident Police', as I like to call them) that reign supreme here.
Of course there are the usual speedy-cuisine outlets, the golden arches, the genial grey-haired man with his deep-fried, cholesterol raising fowl and assorted places that serve dead animal flesh skewered on a strip of metal, but let us not forget that famous New Planetarian institution, the faithful 'chippy', often creatively named (In Cod we Trust, Almighty Cod, The Frying Machine). Ah yes, white fishy flesh wrapped in a heart attack, I mean batter, and slices of deep-fried root vegetable wrapped in newspaper…actually in a polystyrene non-biodegradable container or soggy packet, smothered in salt and vinegar and loaded with fat. Yum.
There is a very odd tradition here that I have yet to make sense of, the fondness for what they call "mushy peas". This is not as exotic as it sounds. They are really squashed and battered peas with the same texture as green peanut butter and the same coarse, dry stick-to-the-top-of-my-mouth-making-me-feel-like-I’ll-never-be-able-to- talk-again properties as the brown stuff. Usually a large dollop is served up on top of the strips of root vegetable, turning them green and leaving little lime coloured rivulets of liquid for the cod or hake to wallow in. I’m sorry, but I can’t take them seriously.
Monday, 30 November 2009
Friday, 27 November 2009
Fed up...
For any calorie counting, sugar watching, fat-free-food-obsessed traveller, the New Planet is a land mine waiting to explode and cover the unsuspecting being in creme filled chocolate. Walking down the streets of any small town or village, the nostrils are assaulted with a variety of smells guaranteed to drive any moderately hungry person off their head. Sweet and salty, nutty and nasty, fruity and fantastic, there is something about the mixture of aromas that meander about narrow lanes that cannot quite be described. For someone coming from a Southernmost Colony where thousands teeter on the brink of starvation, there is an almost wanton array and selection of culinary delights on display at this stage of the planet's orbit around the sun.
The vast displays of cocoa-bean delights that appear at Yuletide served up in industrial strength sized boxes, are surely designed by some skinny sadist monster from the depths, as who can resist the shiny wrappings, the bows, the bangles and the spangles that beckon from every shelf as the festive season draws near? Not me, that's for sure. Boxes and bags and bow bedecked nut, nougat and caramel filled treats lurk and call very loudly to any cocoaholic brave enough to enter a shop at this time of year.
How will I survive the tempations; the dairy products so artistically arranged on small wooden pallettes, the skyscraper-sized displays of every kind of alcoholic beverage known to mankind (ten for the price of one as if every being is intent on getting so inebriated they fall head first into the trifle), the arrays of sauces and snacks, frozen mini-cupcakes, sausages rolled in pastry, skewered sea creatures dipped in bee nectar, immense fowls of every form stuffed within one another, and don't even get me started on the expectations of the undeveloped beings who appear to think that their parents' treasure is unending and that whatever their hearts desire will be bought, packed, wrapped, bedecked and be-bowed and placed beneath the yuletide bowers. How can beings resist the multipacks of powders and potions and paints that appear on the shelves of retail outlets at this time of year? Well, I'll tell you, they can't!
And let me not forget to mention the often garish multi-coloured strings of illuminations that twine and twirl and dangle around lamp posts and trees and garden fences, that drip off eaves and strangle mantles. Small, large and gigantic fronds of fir (or plastic) hang heavy with the weight of the glass baubles and bells and strings of silver or gold or green or pink, a veritable overdose of glitter and glow and yes, it does warm the cockles of one's heart (unless one is particularly cynical and annoyed at the disappearance of the TRUE meaning of this season). In the dark damp nights, amidst the twinkles and sparkles and festive cheer, a traveller from the Southernmost Colony longs for the bright sunshine of nature and family and friends, and experiences pangs unlike any that occur during the previous rotations of the moons.
Fortunately, this season does not last too long (although it certainly begins far too early) and once the geegaws and niknaks are packed away once more, life on the New Planet resumes once more, normal and natural...until the first cocoa-clad bunny comes hopping into view...
The vast displays of cocoa-bean delights that appear at Yuletide served up in industrial strength sized boxes, are surely designed by some skinny sadist monster from the depths, as who can resist the shiny wrappings, the bows, the bangles and the spangles that beckon from every shelf as the festive season draws near? Not me, that's for sure. Boxes and bags and bow bedecked nut, nougat and caramel filled treats lurk and call very loudly to any cocoaholic brave enough to enter a shop at this time of year.
How will I survive the tempations; the dairy products so artistically arranged on small wooden pallettes, the skyscraper-sized displays of every kind of alcoholic beverage known to mankind (ten for the price of one as if every being is intent on getting so inebriated they fall head first into the trifle), the arrays of sauces and snacks, frozen mini-cupcakes, sausages rolled in pastry, skewered sea creatures dipped in bee nectar, immense fowls of every form stuffed within one another, and don't even get me started on the expectations of the undeveloped beings who appear to think that their parents' treasure is unending and that whatever their hearts desire will be bought, packed, wrapped, bedecked and be-bowed and placed beneath the yuletide bowers. How can beings resist the multipacks of powders and potions and paints that appear on the shelves of retail outlets at this time of year? Well, I'll tell you, they can't!
And let me not forget to mention the often garish multi-coloured strings of illuminations that twine and twirl and dangle around lamp posts and trees and garden fences, that drip off eaves and strangle mantles. Small, large and gigantic fronds of fir (or plastic) hang heavy with the weight of the glass baubles and bells and strings of silver or gold or green or pink, a veritable overdose of glitter and glow and yes, it does warm the cockles of one's heart (unless one is particularly cynical and annoyed at the disappearance of the TRUE meaning of this season). In the dark damp nights, amidst the twinkles and sparkles and festive cheer, a traveller from the Southernmost Colony longs for the bright sunshine of nature and family and friends, and experiences pangs unlike any that occur during the previous rotations of the moons.
Fortunately, this season does not last too long (although it certainly begins far too early) and once the geegaws and niknaks are packed away once more, life on the New Planet resumes once more, normal and natural...until the first cocoa-clad bunny comes hopping into view...
Monday, 23 November 2009
Nasties and heroes
I have discovered to my dismay, that even on the New Planet, a place I thought to be safer and securer than the Southernmost Colony, there exist felons intent upon the destruction of my small content sphere. These dark creatures lurk in gloomy rooms, their many tentacled hands tapping furiously upon their keyboards, breath foul and reeking, bodies unwashed and crusted with dirt as they try to separate me from my ever dwindling treasure (or so I imagine).
I find myself filled with rage at these purpetrators of crime and wonder what misfiring synapses inside their small brains enables them to assume they can lay their grubby fingers on that which does not belong to them. Perhaps it is the anonymity of these felonious beings that makes me so irate.The unmitigated gall to think what's mine is theirs simply because they will it so. But, despite finding my limbs weak with fright and anger, I am delighted to discover that within mere hours of these dastardly devils attempting to plunder my wealth, they are being tracked through the cybersphere and will soon, no doubt, find themselves in shackles and, oh if it were only so, in the stocks where others like me could pelt them with rotten fruit and sodden clumps of mud! And I am eternally grateful to the heroes behind the scenes that are seeking out these felons...
I find myself filled with rage at these purpetrators of crime and wonder what misfiring synapses inside their small brains enables them to assume they can lay their grubby fingers on that which does not belong to them. Perhaps it is the anonymity of these felonious beings that makes me so irate.The unmitigated gall to think what's mine is theirs simply because they will it so. But, despite finding my limbs weak with fright and anger, I am delighted to discover that within mere hours of these dastardly devils attempting to plunder my wealth, they are being tracked through the cybersphere and will soon, no doubt, find themselves in shackles and, oh if it were only so, in the stocks where others like me could pelt them with rotten fruit and sodden clumps of mud! And I am eternally grateful to the heroes behind the scenes that are seeking out these felons...
Monday, 2 November 2009
Round and round I go...
And then we have that great invention called the roundabout, which the New Planet seems to have created deliberately to annoy travellers. Now, these are not to be confused with the pimples in the road that they have in the Southernmost Colony and call a traffic circle. They range in size from small circles with four roads converging, to massive, congested, five lane confluences with nine or ten roads converging like spaghetti throwing a tantrum. Woe betide if I don’t know which exit to take. I have ended up going round and round and round trying to find the correct exit, get into the right lane and avoid being squashed between other drivers who do know where they’re going and are not at all sympathetic towards lost foreigners.
The exits are not always that clearly sign posted and I have discovered after many a tearful journey, that it doesn’t help to only know the name of the town I am going to, but I also need to know the names of the nearest big town, and at least five or six villages en route. I also need to know in which direction I am headed. It’s all very well to be on what the New Planetarians call 'motorways', but if you're heading North instead of South, matters become even more confused. When you think you're heading for The Great Capitol City and end up at the Severnth Bridge leading into a nearby planetoid where they speak in sing song accents and eat leeks, a newly arrived traveller can end up feeling a right twit (well I certainly did).
I am only now beginning to make peace with the road systems, but at least I finally know how to find my way home if I get lost. I once found myself trapped in a jungle of winding alleyways and narrow, never previously before discovered lanes bordered by impenetrable hedges for three and a half hours because I just didn’t know which way to turn as nothing was familiar (and it was pouring with rain, which is does from time to time as I might have mentioned previously).
There is definitely something about coming from the Southern Colonies…not only does the water go the wrong way down the plug hole, but for the directionally challenged left feels like right, North feels like South and all directions make absolutely no sense at all. And a local cartograph is not necessarily helpful. You might find the building you're looking for on page 94, but how you actually get to page 94 is another story. Sitting in a layby as you flap through the pages of the cartograph like a demented butterfly, is no fun at all, especially when you decide to turn left at the crossroads and you should have turned right and are now headed in completely the wrong direction, something you only discover when you see the lights of a large metropolis ahead.
Being told in a serious voice to “Go straight down the Motorway, take the Portageway (which is not sign posted or I can’t see the sign because there is a large truck blocking it just at the crucial moment), then go round the roundabout past the post office on the left, then go straight after the sixth set of traffic lights and veer right at the mini roundabout, then go under the bridge and cross over the small lane but don’t take the first left fork, go past that fork and at the next left fork go straight and take the fifth left fork then keep right but bear left as you round the bend, which curves to the right just before you turn left as you pass the tall oak that was stuck by lightning in 1265, and if you carry on straight you can’t miss it. But if you’re leaving before the sixth moon rises above the horizon, I suggest you rather take minor route 416 and in that case go….” does not make it any easier.
And it's not only the road system that needs to be learned, there is also vocabulary, which can lead to confusion not to mention embarrassment. For instance, a robot is a mechanical thing that walks around making beeping noises intent on taking over the world. The thing that goes from red to amber to green, which I find at intersections, is called a traffic light and running over a sleeping policeman is not an incident of manslaughter after all, it’s only a speed bump.
Ah, the joys of traffic. The transportation routes are like overfilled sausages, stuffed to bursting with strange, well maintained craft beetling about. I notice at once that all of them have four wheels with the appropriate amount of tread. They are all on a mission and know exactly where they're going, unlike myself, who is still, despite these many years, devoid of any kind of navigational skill. But at least I can find my way home now, so that's comforting...
The exits are not always that clearly sign posted and I have discovered after many a tearful journey, that it doesn’t help to only know the name of the town I am going to, but I also need to know the names of the nearest big town, and at least five or six villages en route. I also need to know in which direction I am headed. It’s all very well to be on what the New Planetarians call 'motorways', but if you're heading North instead of South, matters become even more confused. When you think you're heading for The Great Capitol City and end up at the Severnth Bridge leading into a nearby planetoid where they speak in sing song accents and eat leeks, a newly arrived traveller can end up feeling a right twit (well I certainly did).
I am only now beginning to make peace with the road systems, but at least I finally know how to find my way home if I get lost. I once found myself trapped in a jungle of winding alleyways and narrow, never previously before discovered lanes bordered by impenetrable hedges for three and a half hours because I just didn’t know which way to turn as nothing was familiar (and it was pouring with rain, which is does from time to time as I might have mentioned previously).
There is definitely something about coming from the Southern Colonies…not only does the water go the wrong way down the plug hole, but for the directionally challenged left feels like right, North feels like South and all directions make absolutely no sense at all. And a local cartograph is not necessarily helpful. You might find the building you're looking for on page 94, but how you actually get to page 94 is another story. Sitting in a layby as you flap through the pages of the cartograph like a demented butterfly, is no fun at all, especially when you decide to turn left at the crossroads and you should have turned right and are now headed in completely the wrong direction, something you only discover when you see the lights of a large metropolis ahead.
Being told in a serious voice to “Go straight down the Motorway, take the Portageway (which is not sign posted or I can’t see the sign because there is a large truck blocking it just at the crucial moment), then go round the roundabout past the post office on the left, then go straight after the sixth set of traffic lights and veer right at the mini roundabout, then go under the bridge and cross over the small lane but don’t take the first left fork, go past that fork and at the next left fork go straight and take the fifth left fork then keep right but bear left as you round the bend, which curves to the right just before you turn left as you pass the tall oak that was stuck by lightning in 1265, and if you carry on straight you can’t miss it. But if you’re leaving before the sixth moon rises above the horizon, I suggest you rather take minor route 416 and in that case go….” does not make it any easier.
And it's not only the road system that needs to be learned, there is also vocabulary, which can lead to confusion not to mention embarrassment. For instance, a robot is a mechanical thing that walks around making beeping noises intent on taking over the world. The thing that goes from red to amber to green, which I find at intersections, is called a traffic light and running over a sleeping policeman is not an incident of manslaughter after all, it’s only a speed bump.
Ah, the joys of traffic. The transportation routes are like overfilled sausages, stuffed to bursting with strange, well maintained craft beetling about. I notice at once that all of them have four wheels with the appropriate amount of tread. They are all on a mission and know exactly where they're going, unlike myself, who is still, despite these many years, devoid of any kind of navigational skill. But at least I can find my way home now, so that's comforting...
Saturday, 31 October 2009
Highways and byways
So what’s it actually like living on this little planet? These are my observations over the past rotations of the moon, and I hope they will if not inspire, at least encourage and give a bit of hope to those battling to find a place they can call home.
Living in one city is pretty much like living in any other city anywhere in the world. On the New Planet though, there’s a whole lot less place to park my craft. Luckily for me, I get to move to a rural area and heartily recommend this to anyone contemplating the move. Okay, I won’t get paid as much as I was in The Great Capital City, but it’s cheaper to live in a small market town or village and there’s something to be said for waking up to the lowing of cattle and the stench….I mean aroma... of animals, instead of hooting taxis and traffic that continues all through the night.
Hordes of travellers from diverse planets, most speaking an unintelligable tongue,rush about the tiny planet and this traffic continues to make me catch my breath. Even after these many rotations of the moon, I still find myself in awe at the chaos that can ensure from something as simple as one traveller applying the brakes to his craft, without warning, causing the river behind him to slow down, then stop, thus creating one immense parking space on one of the byways.
This Planet truly is a green and pleasant land; gorgeous stone cottages and tiny winding lanes bordered by hedges, tulips blooming on every verge, roundabout and roadside in the spring and the long hot evenings in the summer (although there are some Natives who declare that summer has been ghastly this year). Now, quaint though these winding lanes are, they are no fun to drive down in the pitch dark. I almost have a heart attack one afternoon when a many-wheeled vehicle wider than his half of the road, side swipes me and takes my mirror with him.
Most of the New Planet's roads are only wide enough for one craft and if I happen to meet a sluggish farm-making craft, much reversing to find a wider spot occurs. Again, not fun in the dark. Also, if it happens to have rained (which as already established it does fairly regularly) the roads get flooded and I come across a long tailback of craft all trying to turn around and reverse to avoid another craft that is stuck in the water or the mud, of which there is a plentiful supply. This, is not an easy task and unless there is a convenient farm entrance nearby turning is virtually impossible.
So coming unsuspectingly round a bend I encounter a queue of surprisingly calm drivers (unless you’re from the Southernmost Colony in which case you are irate at the delay) I reverse slowly into the nearest convenient farm entrance or dent in a hedge, turn and try to find an alternative route to my destination. You can imagine the joy of driving down these tiny lanes when it has snowed and the road is icy. Many a merry motorist has ended up in a hedge or in a field full of cows, having skidded on a frozen puddle or black ice.
Picture the road to your nearest large metropolis in peak hour in the midst of a taxi blockade…this would be an average day on one of the New Planet's Motorways. Yes, I kid I not, this is a TINY island and EVERYONE has a craft of some kind and drives it (not always as politely as one would suspect) on the motorway. Peak hour is a nightmare and best avoided if at all possible. A traveller can spend 3 hours doing a ten minute journey. AND, wherever I go they are digging up the road. There are road works everywhere. I have never seen so many little orange cones in my life. Someone somewhere is getting very very rich. So, I in my infinite wisdom prefer the simple roads, floods, muds, tractors and all.
Living in one city is pretty much like living in any other city anywhere in the world. On the New Planet though, there’s a whole lot less place to park my craft. Luckily for me, I get to move to a rural area and heartily recommend this to anyone contemplating the move. Okay, I won’t get paid as much as I was in The Great Capital City, but it’s cheaper to live in a small market town or village and there’s something to be said for waking up to the lowing of cattle and the stench….I mean aroma... of animals, instead of hooting taxis and traffic that continues all through the night.
Hordes of travellers from diverse planets, most speaking an unintelligable tongue,rush about the tiny planet and this traffic continues to make me catch my breath. Even after these many rotations of the moon, I still find myself in awe at the chaos that can ensure from something as simple as one traveller applying the brakes to his craft, without warning, causing the river behind him to slow down, then stop, thus creating one immense parking space on one of the byways.
This Planet truly is a green and pleasant land; gorgeous stone cottages and tiny winding lanes bordered by hedges, tulips blooming on every verge, roundabout and roadside in the spring and the long hot evenings in the summer (although there are some Natives who declare that summer has been ghastly this year). Now, quaint though these winding lanes are, they are no fun to drive down in the pitch dark. I almost have a heart attack one afternoon when a many-wheeled vehicle wider than his half of the road, side swipes me and takes my mirror with him.
Most of the New Planet's roads are only wide enough for one craft and if I happen to meet a sluggish farm-making craft, much reversing to find a wider spot occurs. Again, not fun in the dark. Also, if it happens to have rained (which as already established it does fairly regularly) the roads get flooded and I come across a long tailback of craft all trying to turn around and reverse to avoid another craft that is stuck in the water or the mud, of which there is a plentiful supply. This, is not an easy task and unless there is a convenient farm entrance nearby turning is virtually impossible.
So coming unsuspectingly round a bend I encounter a queue of surprisingly calm drivers (unless you’re from the Southernmost Colony in which case you are irate at the delay) I reverse slowly into the nearest convenient farm entrance or dent in a hedge, turn and try to find an alternative route to my destination. You can imagine the joy of driving down these tiny lanes when it has snowed and the road is icy. Many a merry motorist has ended up in a hedge or in a field full of cows, having skidded on a frozen puddle or black ice.
Picture the road to your nearest large metropolis in peak hour in the midst of a taxi blockade…this would be an average day on one of the New Planet's Motorways. Yes, I kid I not, this is a TINY island and EVERYONE has a craft of some kind and drives it (not always as politely as one would suspect) on the motorway. Peak hour is a nightmare and best avoided if at all possible. A traveller can spend 3 hours doing a ten minute journey. AND, wherever I go they are digging up the road. There are road works everywhere. I have never seen so many little orange cones in my life. Someone somewhere is getting very very rich. So, I in my infinite wisdom prefer the simple roads, floods, muds, tractors and all.
Thursday, 29 October 2009
A new tribe
The day finally dawns when I stop referring to the Southernmost Galaxy as home and this is when the real settling in has begun. After a specified period of time I take myself and my nearest and dearest off to an official ritual where I am inducted into a brand new tribe, am asked to swear an oath of allegiance to this new tribe and its ruler and a few days later receive in the post a sparkling new Cross Galaxy Nomad Permit. This puce coloured one will allow me considerably more freedom in moving around the galaxy than my previous one.
I have taken much advantage of this liberty, exploring new planets as often as possible and each time am thrilled to pass through the Portation Gateways with barely a hiccup as I flash the maroon book at sleepy men manning the entry points to these planets. I even smile smugly as those that still hold the Green Mamba Permit wait in endless lines, fidgeting anxiously in case they are refused entry and sent back to the Southernmost Colony in disgrace. And even though this once happened to me (another entire epistle entirely) I still breath a sigh of relief at being able to do so much travelling with so little trauma.
I stop feeling like an alien and begin to call myself an immigrant! It’s certainly an adventure and it takes a very long time before I adjust, some people never do, but that’s why they invented spacecraft.
I have taken much advantage of this liberty, exploring new planets as often as possible and each time am thrilled to pass through the Portation Gateways with barely a hiccup as I flash the maroon book at sleepy men manning the entry points to these planets. I even smile smugly as those that still hold the Green Mamba Permit wait in endless lines, fidgeting anxiously in case they are refused entry and sent back to the Southernmost Colony in disgrace. And even though this once happened to me (another entire epistle entirely) I still breath a sigh of relief at being able to do so much travelling with so little trauma.
I stop feeling like an alien and begin to call myself an immigrant! It’s certainly an adventure and it takes a very long time before I adjust, some people never do, but that’s why they invented spacecraft.
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
The sun will come out...
To my relief (and amazement after a long dark period), one day the clouds lift, I realise the sun does shine and I start to adjust, which is the longest phase. I find myself adapting every day and yet few days go by without my thinking or saying something about how it was “back in the colony on the Southernmost tip of the galaxy”.
I begin to look and feel like a New Planetarian, I dress the way they do, (although I draw a line at pink velour tracksuits, enormous silver hoop earrings and a belly button ring) I start to use colloquialisms, innit? At first I am unlucky enough (in my opinion) to be stuck in The Great Capital City but I master the supersonic underground transportation pod, start calling it the “Tube”, and begin to hate it like a true Native. I learn how to make polite conversation with strangers by instantly talking about the weather, I learn to queue...at the bus stop, at the supermarket, at the doctor’s surgery, on a hospital waiting list, outside a stadium in the pouring rain en route to a footy match or musical gig. And I do it without complaining (much).
I look the part, I’ve got the jargon down pat, I’ve mastered the system and yet as soon as I open my mouth I identify myself as an alien from another planet. I wonder if anyone ever truly feels part of their new planet, when their accent (unless an alien has the ability to change it like a certain blonde Amazon across the waters does) will always give them away.
I begin to look and feel like a New Planetarian, I dress the way they do, (although I draw a line at pink velour tracksuits, enormous silver hoop earrings and a belly button ring) I start to use colloquialisms, innit? At first I am unlucky enough (in my opinion) to be stuck in The Great Capital City but I master the supersonic underground transportation pod, start calling it the “Tube”, and begin to hate it like a true Native. I learn how to make polite conversation with strangers by instantly talking about the weather, I learn to queue...at the bus stop, at the supermarket, at the doctor’s surgery, on a hospital waiting list, outside a stadium in the pouring rain en route to a footy match or musical gig. And I do it without complaining (much).
I look the part, I’ve got the jargon down pat, I’ve mastered the system and yet as soon as I open my mouth I identify myself as an alien from another planet. I wonder if anyone ever truly feels part of their new planet, when their accent (unless an alien has the ability to change it like a certain blonde Amazon across the waters does) will always give them away.
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