The Island Life

The Life Led Depends On How Big The Island

Or how small.  I don't think you can legally call Australia an island, for example.  A fair number of islands are too small to be able to sustain a population, lacking things like fresh water or arable land for crops or livestock.  This Sceptred Isle is quite large, so one never gets the feeling of being an islander unless visiting the seaside.  Or when visiting the Continent and the passports need to come out.  Art!

     Conrad read this novel many decades ago.  The only bit I recall is the giant cannon being mounted on Nantucket, the recoil from which would send the island crashing into New York.  This transition would probably affect property prices, too.  Art!

     There you go, an island, though not a large one.  14 miles by 3.  The name comes from the Wampanoag tribe and means 'Faraway Land' which it must feel like if you have to paddle there, as it's 30 miles off the Massachusetts coast.  Art!

     Readers of a certain age, like Conrad, will remember "Weekend World" using the Mountain track of the same name as an instrumental opening and closing theme, which in my opinion then and now, was the best part of the thing.  My parents got to choose the channels in those days.

     Right!  There will be a short pause as I go get a bottle of tonic water.  Hang on, pilgrims.

     Okay, for the rest of this Intro to make sense, we need a closer look at Nantucket.  Art!

     Wowsers.  That must have been some cannon, hmmmm?

     ANYWAY let us move onto the subject of coastal erosion.  I've mentioned this occasionally in the past, usually where it concerns our eastern shorelines.  It's a tragic tale for folk who lived perhaps a mile away from the shore, only for the cliffs to continually recede until their local council condemns the houses and either demolishes them or allows them to fall into the sea.  Art!

     This is Happisburgh village in Norfolk, where the sea is encroaching ever closer.  Give it a few months or a severe storm and that car park won't be accessible.  You can see the line of protective rocks placed to slow the erosion down, because you can't ever truly stop it.  Art!

Note rock barrier on the sands

     As I said, the island life.  You don't get this kind of problem in Helvetia or Austria, do you?

     You do, however - O my favourite word appears again! - get this kind of problem on Nantucket.  Conrad came across a time-lapse video of a property on the island that the owners bought in 1988, done by the "Nantucket Current" which seems to be their local rag.  Art!

     So, ten years after purchase.  The Carlins' (house owners interviewed for the article) property is limned in green.  Art!

     So, here we are five years down the line in a new century and - that beach is moving forward like the world's slowest tortoise.  Art!

     Another five years and those two beach-front properties are now on the beach itself, which is very handy if you don't want to travel to get sand between your toes.  You can now properly see the lines depicting the original shoreline, presumably from 1988.  Art!

     Three years later and both beach houses are now driftwood, with the beach still remorselessly advancing.  Art!

     Three years later and the Carlins' property is beginning to get nibbled.  Those properties to the south-east must be getting uneasy.  Art!

     Another four years and the Carlins can now travel all the way to the beach, now conveniently situated at the end of their garden.  Those properties to the south-east have now become a property, singular.  Art!

     Three more years and there are no properties to the south-east any longer.  Ooops.  You can probably see where this is going.  Art!

     Their property now seems to be 33% beach.  There is a close-up for 2024, which, if Art will stop sucking the innards out of that nuclear fuel rod -

     Their property now seems to be 66% beach.  This residence had been valued at $1.9 million, but they sold it for $200,000 and were happy to do so, as they reckon it won't last more than six months at the current rate of beach encroachment.  

     What Conrad would like confirmation of is how much land is being deposited on the shore opposite this one, as tends to happen with coastal erosion on islands?  One family gets their home demolished whilst another has to walk an extra twenty minutes to reach the beach?  How is this fair!  Art?

"Zeese islanders!  Zey are ze MAIN DASTARDS!"

     I dunno, some people, just not fans of island life.  I don't think Napoleon was over-fond of us.  There's another short dictator - which is a story for another day.

"The War Illustrated Edition 190"

This one has a cover date of October 1944, which is interesting, because by this time the MARKET GARDEN operation had gone horribly wrong, so it will be interesting how the editors play this one out.  Art!

 

     This is one of the reasons you're better off having the French on your side than against you.  This is a Sherman tank manned by the Free French, as witnessed by the French name painted down the flank.  It hails from the French 2nd Armoured Division, and is working under the legendary French general Leclerc.  Art!

     Leclerc adopted his name as a pseudonym, because otherwise the Teutons in control of his homeland would have attacked his family.  He had undergone a long period of warfare against the Vichy regime, so stalking around the suburbs of Paris, even if under fire, must have felt like an approbation.

     If you ever feel like getting your teeth removed whilst in France, make sure and slag off Lelerc!

Meanwhile - "City In The Sky"

Said city is now becoming rather more down-to-earth, in the most literal fashion possible, which has become the worst possible news for the alien saboteurs lurking in Australia.

Orskan threw up his stubby forearms in panic when he recognised the alarm.

     ‘Biological contamination!’ he hissed.  ‘That fershlugginer Nilkan has allowed a disease to escape!’

     Not panicking meant that the Doctor dragged his alien accomplice across the empty corridor and into the empty laboratory beyond.  He searched around before tilting his head back, pinching the brow of his nose, closing his eyes and exhaling sharply. 

     ‘The sphere isn’t supposed to land for another five minutes.  There’s been an accident.  We need to leave.’

     On cue, the base-ship’s lighting began to dim from it’s usual muddy quality to that of a subterranean swamp viewed through a lens smeared with vaseline.

     ‘That’s – that’s the emergency warning,’ babbled Orskan, causing the Doctor to realise that a slow metabolism was not necessarily bad, if the possessor came to the right conclusions.

     

Say Hello Wave Goodbye

Conrad hasa already told you about reading "The Big Sleep" as a work in progress, so be prepared for "Farewell My Lovely" as his next Raymond Chandler novel.  I may have read this already but am not sure, since this hard-boiled stuff blends into each other over time.  Given that the 'big sleep' is a metaphor for death, one can only wonder what 'farewell' means in South Canadian.  Art!

     One can only suspect that it's not about stamp-collecting or other namby-pamby notions.  Cast-iron manhole covers?

Finally -

Still haven't finished "Planet Terror" yet, which means allowing them to continue to faff around with the dodgy camera work, which gets annoying after 50 minutes or so.  As does telling a character to simply move out of socket-range of an incipient zombie wielding a circular saw.  Art!

     As if you'd stand there and allow Mister Obviously Diseased Zombie to pustulate all over yourself.  Yeah right.