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Around the World in Eighty Days +135 : November 15th

From: Harry Hayfield <harryhayfield~at~googlemail.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 19:18:11 -0000
To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~gilead.org.il>

BlankI woke up this morning and as I strided off to the train station, two
things dawned on me. Firstly, boy, was it cold (which was confirmed as I
passsed a thermometer that was registering +1.0°C, and secondly, I was a day
away from completing my journey. I know, I couldn't believe it either and so
as I settled down to my last journey by rail, I checked my progress on
Google Earth and wondered whether travelling around the world in 44 days was
all well and good, but have modern progresses made the journey meaningless.
When Phileas did it 135 years ago, we didn't know what existed in any great
detail in the middle of the South Pacific and yet these days thanks to
things like Google Earth, you can zoom into Apia (the capital of Samoa) and
if you are lucky find out how many dogs are disgracing themselves.

Still, I thought as the train entered the Channel Tunnel, it was Jules Verne
who wrote Around the World in Eighty Days as a means of generating interest
in the world around us and if he hadn't who knows what might not have
happpened. Would man have flown across the Atlantic? Would man have
cicrumnavgiated the globe in helicopters? Would man have even gone to the
moon (as told in "To the Moon and Back"), so despite the fact that I was
about to beat Fogg into a topped hat I was glad to have done so with the
full permission of the author.

But there was still one thing left to do as I arrived at St. Pancras Station
(the new home of the Eurostar service), after all it was in the book and
even though (as I stated on October 2nd) I'm not a member I had to do it. So
just 15 minutes ago (with my finger over the stopwatch in my pocket) I
climbed the steps of the Reform Club, bowed to the attendant and announced
"Here I am, gentlemen!", bowed again, pressed the stop button on my stop
watch and walked down the steps leaving the poor attendant scratching his
head.

As I walked away, I took the stop watch out of my pocket and looked at the
display

44 days

22 hours

30 minutes

45 seconds

to travel around the World and had beaten Mr. Fogg by at least 36 days (in
fact he won't even get to the halfway mark a week tomorrow!). Perhaps I
should return to London on December 22nd and welcome Mr. Fogg back eh?

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Received on Thu 15 Nov 2007 - 21:18:24 IST

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