07 June 2007
Traveling Music
Gentle Readers, Vic will be traveling today, further and longer than I would like. It will be one sealed tube after another, hurtling from tri-graph to tri-graph: IAD to LAX to SYD and eventually into CAN.
There, once arrived in the Antipodes, I am supposed to offer useful commentary on how a nation of twenty millions effectively controls immigration, looking north to a rising China of a billion people, next to an India of another billion, and with 347 million Indonesians just north and east.
It is a little breathtaking, the idea Britain once ruled most of this vast swath of earth. I hate to leave Mr. Libby's travails behind, and the immigration mess of our own, but perhaps we will be engaged in some other scandal by the time I return. When I am back in my bed again, another month will have passed, the summer will be half-way gone, and we will be sliding down toward darkness once more in the Northern Hemisphere. Going south, I must remember to pack for Winter on the weekend.
I used to have a mental reference point in the world. When writing a check to purchase something, mind elsewhere, I would sometimes be startled at what year I would write automatically on the date line. At one point, the default year was 1976, for reasons unknown, later it was 1988.
I have not had one of those moments of befuddlement in years, but it is not because I am better anchored in time; rather, it is because I have ceased to write to write checks. Now, when there is the rare occasion to draft one, it is such a laborious process that the numbers “2007” come almost completely without irony.
Talking to an old comrade the other day, I noted that my son is wandering in India somewhere this week, looking at the sights. I noted that it sounded far more exotic than it really was, and that there was a time not so long ago, that it would have been an adventure with spices and new smells, but run with the efficiency of Her Majesty's government.
The last time I was there, it was a little like coming back to a home I had visited in a dream. The first time I visited Australia's west coast, riding up through the gates at Freemantle, it was like visiting San Diego in 1952.
My friend joined the reverie, sliding back a few decades. He suggested that I arrange to meet my son half-way, in Singapore. Here are his words, not mine:
“Were it 1914...
I'm sure an armoured cruiser could be had to transport a personage such as yourself to Singapore. HMAS Sydney is bound for the Bay of Bengal, and a brief stop at Singapore could be arranged. Her captain is a gentleman of my acquaintance. I'll send him a telegram today.
As for Nick coming from Bombay, well, perhaps it would be better for him to travel by train, although I know it is bothersome to take the long route via Siam. You see there is another cruiser - a modern, 3500 ton light cruiser - in the Bay of Bengal: SMS Emden. She's already destroyed a Russian cruiser and a French destroyer. Sixteen steamers have been taken and sunk. Madras has been bombarded (the Burmah Company's oil tanks, no less!). Bad for business, that. And rather dangerous for the nonce to take to the sea in anything other than a big, fast cruiser like the Sydney.
Still, they say the German captain, von Muller, is also a gentleman. If your son wants to risk a sea voyage, and if his steamer is unlucky enough to be taken by the Emden, I'm sure Muller will treat young Nick with every courtesy.
Annoying, though, to have to depend on the courtesy of der Kaiserliche Kriegsmarine, don't you think? Too crisp and correct for my taste. All that clicking of heels...
As for myself, I have need to travel down to Cocos Island, where I own a fertilizer enterprise. I think I can sail down from my Ceylon office with little enough risk. Tedious, but there you have it. I'll be able to wire you from there, though - there's an Admiralty cable station on the island.
What a modern world we live in, to stay in touch so easily across such great distances?”
I'll be in touch via e-mail, I hope, and be able to cross the great distance with as much agility as our ancestors.
Copyright 2007 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com