Saturday 4 February 2012

Black and White situation


The explorer David Hempleman-Adams has been on a radio travel program this morning, talking about one of many trips to Antarctica he has made, and as he talked, the first predicted flakes of snow fell from the sky and settled on the frozen streets of Bath outside.

D.H-A. lives in Box, just outside Bath, as does the other famous British explorer, John Blashford-Snell. What is it about Box which attracts explorers, and what is it about explorers that attract double-barreled names?

I have never met David H-A, but I am fairly good mates with his brother, who drinks at my local. I don't know what David is like as an explorer, but one thing I do know is that the Hempleman-Adams family is extremely good at producing stunningly beautiful daughters - his brother's 16 year old is jaw-droppingly pretty, as is his own 16 year old who he recently took on a trip to the Antarctic, making her the youngest person ever to have set foot on the continent. I think that her cousin went with her in the party, but I will ask her that next time she is with her dad in the pub.

When I lived in Box, John Blashford-Snell's daughter, Victoria, worked behind the bar of my then local, The Chequers - what is it about the beautiful daughters of famous explorers and pubs?

When asked about his hopes and fears for the frozen continent, D.H-A. expressed his deep and justified dread that some other country will lay claim to the vast resources of oil that are predicted to lie beneath the ice cap, with the inevitable consequences to the pristine environment.

As you probably know, the unwritten law which applies to Antarctica is that anything that is taken in there must be taken out again, and this applies to (not to put too fine a point on it) human waste. The presenter of this program (broadcast from Buckingham Palace!) chose the 16 year-old Amelia to ask the rhetorical question regarding poo to - from a panel of about four 50+ year-olds - which I thought was a somewhat cruel choice. I suppose we have to make allowances for the fact that he spent a year or two chained to a radiator in the Lebanon, though.

The imagery of an oil field disaster in the area is probably the most the most potentially 'iconic' of any other image of any other disaster possible. Never mind the fragile existence of bird life, etc.

Black on White.

Just think of it - Black on White. Could there ever be anything so shocking and irreversibly tragic as photos or video footage of square miles of thick, black crude spilling out over a virginally white landscape - a landscape which has remained pure and untouched for longer than any other on the planet?

Never mind if Blackpool is razed to the ground by an earthquake - keep on fracking. We can always build another tower.

8 comments:

  1. You are right Tom, it was be sickening. I hope and pray it never happens. Who decides who can drill for oil there?

    My brother has been there, but never told me about the poo thing.....next family dinner I'm asking.

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    1. I have a feeling that the military hero in the photo is an early claim by the Soviet Union, so it won't be them.

      Wait until pudding before you ask, Raz.

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  2. What's wrong with a 16 year old having to ask about poo? I thought young people talked about these things openly - it is only when we get older that we become a bit prissy (or a lot prissy in the case of some I know) about mentioning bodily functions.

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    1. Not ask - being asked in front of about 300 people and 1000000 on air. Apart from that, nothing.

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  3. Fracking is a problem here too. We've all recently been sending parcels of Frack-shit to Sarko, and as of today we have been successful... but who knows what Total et al have up their sleeves.

    Roedean does a two year course in Barmaidship. It's frightfully, frightfully, jolly.

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    1. I think that much of the Roedean course involves learning to ignore customers who have just walked in, and reluctantly serving the one nearest to you who is frantically waving as you try to have a conversation with your friend on a mobile.

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  4. It's awful the way we just can't leave alone Antarctica. They say young girls make fools of old men ... But oil seems to make fools of us all.

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    1. I am still waiting for a young girl to make a fool of me, Sarah. Perhaps if I was an oil tycoon, it would have happened many times by now.

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