Oops, I Do Apologise

Boy, it sure is windy today. I saw Mrs Jones from the charity shop being blown down the high street at more than 100 mph, before smashing into the window of Marks & Spencer; having said that, she may have been ram-raiding again. I know how partial she is to pre-wrapped sandwiches, and cat food’s pretty pricey these days.

Wind is an unusual phenomanemone; it starts at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean as just a few bubbles, and through the relentless action of gravity and space-style radiation waves it slowly builds up to an enormous bubble the size of Luxemburg. By the time it reaches the surface, it is ready to explode, and as soon as it emerges, it does – causing wind to blow in all directions, including up. Sometimes one explodes just under the surface, which was the inspiration for the blockbuster Hollywood film ‘The Abyss’, directed by Rhona Cameron.

It humbles me to think of these powerful natural forces, over which we have no control. Take volcanoes, for example. If a volcano erupted on Lewisham High Street, it would cover an area the size of 10,000 football pitches with ash and soot. I’ve only ever managed to cover one football pitch with ash and soot (well, almost – I had to stop when the police arrived), so I have to take my hat off to nature.

Volcanoes form because of what scientists call ‘technotronic plates’ moving about under the Earth’s crust. Many of these plates are hidden under the oceans, and it wasn’t until ‘Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea’ was first broadcast in 1833 that anybody spotted one. Before that, everybody thought that volcanoes were just giant rock fondues. In Scandinavia, this myth persists, leading to hundreds of needless deaths every year.

On a holiday to Lanzarote, my wife and I were given a guided tour of a volcano. As you’d imagine, it was pretty hot near the hole where the lava comes out, and when I got back to the hotel and looked in the bathroom mirror I realised I had no eyebrows. “But you’ve never had any eyebrows” exclaimed by wife, and it’s probably just as well because they could have caught fire on top of that volcano, and in the dry heat that fire would have quickly spread across my entire body; and we hadn’t thought to bring any buckets of sand – or even any wet wipes.