Big Waves
So, here’s the trick, grab the detritus left over from the big bang, you know; loads and loads of the lightest element Hydrogen; and loads and loads less of the six times heavier element Helium and roll them up into a ball. Invoke Gravity. Retire to a safe distance. Let there be Light. Now, wait a bit…
Stars pop out all over the place, supernovas explode, and in the midst of all this maelstrom of activity, three Helium’s come together. He He He. The universes’ first laugh. Helium is made up from 2 protons, 2 electrons and 2 neutrons. When 3 Heliums come together in heat you get 1 Carbon which has 6 of each of the above. Therefore Carbon has the Number of the Beast, none other than you would expect from the basic building block of life. So, we wait a bit more…
Three planets from the star that will be named the Sun by a species of a particular arrangement of the Number of the Beast, we find a planet still hot on land and cooler in the oceans that the moon pulls round and back as it revolves around the earth. Over time the rocks are broken down to sand and clay by the tidal forces. Amino acids are deposited from the sea onto the clay and left there, cooked, washed, cooled, filtered, stirred, cooked, washed, cooled, filtered, stirred, cooked, washed, cooled, filtered, stirred.
This is the first organic chemistry laboratory. The beachhead of Life
The organic reactions in clay can be directed in particular ways due to restricted space, necessity being the mother of invention. On at least one beach, maybe more, the potter’s clay made the first replicator RNA or something like it which in turns gave us the mortal coil DNA, that loose reverse conjunction, the natural selection to join one sentence to another. Unzip the zipper D N A and off we go. Let there be Life!
Now, spin that planet round that star all the way to the year of our word 2005. In the middle of the North Sea, on a ferry from Newcastle to Gothenburg, a very particular half century old arrangement of the Number of the Beast is talking to a wolf. It’s Independence Day. July 4th Not, you may note, American Independence Day, no, that’s been crushed under the heel of the worst administration, coupled with the least educated people, in American history. But that’s by the by. This is my Independence Day. Now, about that wolf…
The wolf in question is a Norwegian schoolteacher with whom I’m talking and drinking. Tuborg is the drink: Danish. As I’m going to Sweden and Finland then that takes care of Scandinavia.
After that I’m off to St Petersburg, and Moscow, then fly to Berlin, train to Prague then fly back to Newcastle, but I’m getting ahead of myself, a habit, I might add. Maybe that comes from where I live. I live at tree top height and that changes your perspective a bit. Looking east for instance, might as well seeing as how I’m travelling in that direction, Blackburn’s over there, but I can’t see it, because it’s in a valley, but, I can see beyond it, and what’s beyond it appears closer than it really is, because I can’t see the intervening distance that’s in the valley I can’t see. See. Now, I tend to look at people this way. There’s an Ani Difranco song called As Is about taking someone as is and the lyrics at one point go like this: ‘when I look down, I miss all the good stuff, when I look up, I just trip over things…’ In other words she looks at him straight, and I guess that’s what I do. So if I don’t like what I see I look beyond. If I like, and reciprocation can be fun, I’m liable to keep such people in view. Actually, thinking about it, I guess I moved to this flat in order to get the same perspective in my eyes that I already had in my head. At this height of course you can look down without missing the good stuff and look up without tripping over things, which is something I can’t do at work, because safety, safety, safety, safety, safety, safety, safety, is paramount at work and they are particularly vociferous concerning slips and trips and falls. They are trying to outlaw accidents.
Ah, whither Serendipity? If I was to follow work rules to the letter at home, I would never get out of my bed in the morning, because it’s just too damned dangerous a world out there kiddo. Mind you, most people die in bed, at least before the Iraq war, in which case I wouldn’t go to bed in the first place because it’s just too damned risky! Standing, could fall over. Sitting, unable to get out of the way of the roof caving in. Maybe a balloon. Hindenburg. Helium filled, yes that’ll do. Phew! May I propose the Helium test? He He He. Everybody has to inhale Helium and utter threats in a Helium voice. Anyone who doesn’t laugh, kill them. These people are just too miserable to live. Problem solved. To do…
So, they’re trying to outlaw accidents, though not war, wonder who does the risk assessment for that? Anyway the misery quotient of species still too high and here am I in the middle of the North Sea, waves starting to build, July 4th, in the year of our word 2005, talking to a wolf. We’re talking about the Iraq war. Ulf, his name, which means wolf he tells me, can’t understand what the hell Blair is doing supporting Bush. This is something I get throughout the trip, no one seems to understand why Blair’s done this, and that, in the year of our word 2005, includes me. Roll the planet round the sun to 2006 then I do begin to work it out but that can wait. So, at the time I can’t explain to Ulf why Blair’s supporting too stupid to ride a bike Bush but what I can say is that the majority of the British people are against this war and that I think Blair should be thrown out. Ulf agrees. We both agree that they are both war criminals and that they’ll never win. On 9/11 we both agree that the way the towers came down looked like a demolition job, wonder where the hell the US air force was, and are more than a little doubtful concerning the finding of Mohammed Atta’s passport at ground zero, yeah, right. There are holes in the official story big enough to fly planes through, I say.
We tire of the war criminals; Ulf tells me how wealthy Norway is because of sensible investment of the North Sea Oil money, as a Scot, this is particularly pertinent, or should that be impertinent? No, it’s not Ulf’s fault, nor Norway’s come to that, but given the way that ‘Scotland’s oil’ was used to pay for deliberate high unemployment by the Thatcher government, hmm, war to get re-elected, privatisation, Bush isn’t anything if not original. Anyway because of this everything’s expensive in Norway. He lives close to the Swedish border and those who do pop over the border because stuff’s cheaper in Sweden. Sweden’s not exactly cheap I say. Cheaper than Norway says Ulf. The Swedes go to Finland for cheaper stuff he adds. Oh yeah? Where do the Fins go then? Russia? Why don’t all the Norwegians move to Sweden, Swedes to Finland, and Fins to Russia. Then the Scots could move to Norway so England could call the entire island England which they’ve always done anyway. On second thoughts no, they’d ruin Edinburgh. Daresay wouldn’t be too easy getting the Fins to move to Russia. Another beer? Sure.
Rock and roll or what? The waves really were mounting now, had to weave my way to the bar, straight lines were totally out of the question, which is as it should be. No such thing as a straight line anyway. Not really. Gravity makes sure of that, Cheers.
Ulf tells me he has a gun, for shooting wolves. The wolves attack the sheep so the government give money for any wolves shot but they give more money for sheep savaged by wolves says this wolf in sheep’s clothing. I’ve an image of the tethered goat in Jurassic Park. A sheep in wolves clothing mayhap. All depends on your perspective perhaps?
The wolf teaches children. A fair tradition I do recall. Company of Wolves? What about Romulus and Remus? Weren’t they fostered by wolves? Or was it foxes? Can’t remember. Could look it up but I can’t be arsed. Hell, think am right anyway, if not, well not lying, just a mistake. Anyway, the Romulus story’s just a myth, so could be a mythtake, with a lisp. Why do we do that? Give a human foible a name that those with that particular foible can’t say. A lithper can’t dethcribe hith or her condition, hang on let’th change that to her and hith condition in the interetht of the fairer thex, lithp-like ath it were, fairneth and balanth in one fell blow. What about dyslexia? How the hell could a genuine Dyslexic read the word? Talk about adding insult to injury. I mean no one with a lisp or dyslexia would ever come up with those words because they couldn’t. Now, take Jonathon Ross, or wossie as he’s known. Jonathon knows his condition. So there is one thing I can guarantee. He never reviewed Requiem for a Dream directed by Darren Aronofsky. No way jose.
So he teaches kids, primary school. He tells me he loves the opening minds of children, those moments when understanding gleams in their eyes. That’s what keeps him going. Plus the fact that Norwegian wolves get far better paid than their counterparts back in the UK. We carry on with a magic mix of conversation, consternation and concern whilst nature shows its’ unconcern for us who sit enthralled, enticed, uncertain. A couple more beers later, and the wolf wants forty winks. I need food, so we agree to part and meet later in the top deck bar.
I lurch my way towards the restaurant; this ferry’s being tossed about the North Sea like a toy. What a swell party this is. We humans are so damned puny compared to nature, this is shock and awe, but I’m not worried, in fact I feel strangely energised by the storm. Mind you I have been thinking about this trip for some time and now that it’s actually started it’s no surprise that I’m a bit energised. I’ve learned one thing for sure, and that’s that I don’t get seasick. The waitress dances the first half of a figure of eight as she fetches my meal to my table then she completes the not too stable octet on her return to the kitchen. I ate. Eight in fact is my favourite number so I’m impressed by the motions of the waitress. This storm makes it easy to eat because stomach and food meet half way, a kind of maritime agreement perhaps, set up in the past, maybe to make sure that evolvers could eat in the bit in between the shore and the sea.
I think eight’s my favourite number because I’m a chemist. You see, apart from those two elements that started the whole thing off, Hydrogen and Helium, all other elements strive to have eight electrons in their outer shell. Indeed you might well say that almost all chemistry is governed by the seeking of the number Eight. So here’s how it works. Sodium, a metal, drop it into water it goes nuts, wouldn’t want to pop that in your mouth. Chlorine, a pale green gas, extremely poisonous, wouldn’t want to breathe that baby in. Sodium has one electron in its outer shell and could do with seven more. Chlorine has seven electrons in its outer shell and would like to have one more. So they share their electrons. Number eight achieved. Add a violent reactor in water to a pale green poisonous gas and you put it on your chips. Salt of the earth. The achievement of the number eight makes them happy little chemicals. We could call it, indeed I’m going to call it, chemical cooperation, because that’s exactly what it is. Cooperation, remember that word? Recall the concept? Is it still in the dictionary?
You’d think not, given the disappearance of that word for the last twenty odd years, but anyone who supports a team, works in a team, plays in a team, all know that a team requires cooperation within the team to compete with the opposing team. I mean, Sodium cooperates with Chlorine to assault your chips, but as an idea, cooperation simply disappeared under the interminable and repetitious assault of the word competition, often with very little regard to its semantic content or the fact that without very high degrees of cooperation in the first place there would be no competition.
So, having eaten and rested I’m back with the wolf and we’re cooperating in the grand task of getting pissed, proof of which will be the ability to walk in a completely unnatural straight line on this bucking ferry. Our dialogue gets into meandering mode, trying to keep some semblance of sense against the blandness of the singer in the bar, some Scandinavian, nice voiced, safe songs, clone, as I soon find out, that inhabit, it’s not quite haunt, these unconstrained vessels on the high seas. I mean, you can’t really have bland ghosts now can you, except on the TV maybe?
The wolf and I eventually part, say farewell, and wish each other good future happenings, the wolf particularly wishes me well for the rest of my trip, and I wish the wolf a speedy journey home. We part, I make my somewhat drunken, fairly straight as I recall, though memory may be suspect here, way back to my cabin. I somehow release myself from my clothing and then proceed to tie myself in knots in the bedding, not that I really gave a metaphorical toss at this point, sleep would take me through any turmoil now, and on the morrow I would wake on the seas. Still, in between countries, way outside of Britain now, sliding smoothly now towards Sweden.
After a rudimentary breakfast, love that word, not altogether sure quite what it means, but somehow I just know it fits, so it shall remain, where it is, whilst I will not, sliding inexorably to Sweden. I head for the deck, to take the weather full on, which wasn’t such a hardship now, the storms having passed overnight. The sea was quiet now, indeed the biggest waves were those created by the motion of the ship itself. Ship, maybe I should change that to shop, for it was as much the latter as the former, such are the craft on the seas these days. I gazed at the wake of the ship for a long time, there were no other people here, and I began to muse on the history of the west.
I imagined a ship setting off from Palestine, way back in the past, picking up goods and wares from Egypt and Greece, plying its way to Italy and then on to the straits of Gibraltar. The boat is propelled through the device of rowing, with lines of oars on either side, and up to this point everything goes forward in reasonably even strokes. Of course in what is surely a long view everything looks far smoother than it actually was, plus, this is, in fact, all in my imagination, so it is as smooth as I choose it to be. Still, it seems to me that up to this point, both sets of oars, pulled at first by mythology and religion, but then after much time and the emergence of humanism and from it, the sciences then the oars on the right, were taken up by the humanities, and on the left the scientific plying of the oars kept pace, and on we sailed, westward ho. In time though, the religious and the humanities began to squabble, the rowing, not to mention the rowing, became erratic on the right, whilst the sciences, now in full throated roar heaved on, result being that the ship of the west began to circle to the right, faster and faster, and if it was to continue on this way, the creation of a ship sucking whirlpool was imminent. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not blaming everything on the arguments on the humanities side, eh,...hang on, yes I am, you see the problem wasn’t just that they stopped rowing properly but on top of that they lost contact, communication, and most of all, given that the scientific endeavour was in fact, and still is, a product of the humanist drive, control. So the sciences, previously for humanity began to turn against its own creators. The old tale of Frankenstein eh? Ahh yes, a fine muse over the receding wake of the boat to Sweden, straight as you like, whilst I’m imagining a maelstrom sucking the ship of the west down into the unfathomable deeps.
I decide to walk to the bow of the ship and as I do I can see that the cloud cover is beginning to break up, the light is getting stronger and I judge that in a fairly short time a fine day is going to break out before we get to Sweden. Which means, of course, all tales of Frankenstein’s fade, and as the clouds begin to crack and multiple patches of blue peek through, and as the morning people start to swarm the deck, slow awakening smiles, nods, sporadic half hellos, all bring back, well actually forward, seeing as I was heading for the bow, humanity, its foibles, its petty thoughts and dreams, all shoved aside for a host of quiet cracks, investigations, reasons, wishes, wants and hopes near reach.
Boats are like that, transient things they help bring out transient thinking in people which if not always quite the best are very seldom anywhere near the worst kind of thinking that people are prone to. I fall into a conversation with an Irishman, they always have the crack don’t they, oh sometimes you can’t be bothered with them, there’s a great bonhomie with them, but you know, though you never say it, it’s not really true, but it’s just one of the uncountable things we just let go. Hell, it’s a social lubricant kind of half admitted lie, but today I’m feeling bright, as the sun finally breaks all the way through, there’s no need for shade yet, none at all. So we talk...turns out he, along with some friends are going over to Stockholm the same time as I am and after a few preambles re itinerary he offers me a lift, I defer acceptance of this generous offer due to the fact that I’d already booked and paid for the train. So, itineraries exchanged, offers offered and then declined, we settle down to the kind of meandering crack that boats seem to be ideal for. We talk marine stuff, land stuff, air stuff, food stuff eventually comes round too, too soon and we part.
After lunch I go on deck again somewhere on the side of the boat, and sit down at a table near where I’d met the wolf the previous night. An Englishman joins me and complains about being seasick all night, getting into serious competition with the girlfriend in the chucking up stakes, or was it steaks, never did find out, or enquire for that matter but we did fall into a quiet chat re Sweden, Gothenburg and places therein, he had been before, so I fed gratefully on the information given. We chatted then on general terms, brief mention of the damned stupid war, and I told him about stuff I suspected about 9/11, about the ridiculous verticality with which those towers came down. It was almost, I said that the vertical system that America had become had become so intense in those towers and in what those towers represented, that somehow even in their demise, they simply could not break out of the vertical straits they’d so long been locked into. It wasn’t I added a natural fall of anything, nothing natural at all.
The first islands off Sweden began to appear, boats began to appear too in slowly increasing numbers as we sailed nearer to Gothenburg. My companion went off to fetch his girlfriend and get some food now that his stomach was settled, we cracked a joke or two and then he went. Gothenburg appeared in the distance and I went to get my stuff together from the cabin and found I’d lost some money, cash, sterling in fact, that a Russian engineer at work had said I should take to Russia when I get there. Russia of course was over a week away yet, but it was still a real pain to be losing money at this stage of the trip, bummer. Bad omen and stuff, still what do you do? Got to just shake yourself and carry on, got to an official bit and told them that I’d lost some cash and well, that was it.
There was a bus to take us from the ferry into Gothenburg and I’m on this bus when my phone rings. What? Who the hell is phoning me in Gothenburg? It was the ferry company, they’d found my money, and I could hardly hear anything so i asked if they could re-phone me in ten minutes when I was off the bus. When they re rang they told me how I could pick the lost cash up and I thanked them and told them I would get it a little later once I’d booked into my hotel. Good news, but how the hell did they get my phone number, my mobile? I’d given my home number on the initial application on line, had I given my works number too? Yes I had, that must be it! They must have phoned England from Sweden, got through to work and got my mobile number and then rung me here. Thing is the time they rang was around 7 pm, and if I hadn’t worked shifts they would never have got through to anyone, it was only the fact that I worked shifts that meant my number was available in the first place! Brilliant, sun was shining, and tings were looking fine. Yes I work shifts but I don’t do nights, I do early shifts and late shifts but I don’t do nights. Others do.
...to be continued...
Jim Barrass
