Does anyone else think it would be great to travel back in time?
However, I’m not so keen on being able to move into the future. When you think about it, this is happening to us all the time anyway, without any conscious effort.
There’s also more danger involved in going forwards, into that great unknown; when I time travel, I’d like to know I’ll get back to the present safely. Though of course if you tinker with the past, it’s possible you might return to today to find you are a big green blob.
There’s been so many books written, and television programmes screened, using time travel as the premise. But I’m still hopeful one day I will add something time-travelley, but with an original twist, to the literary genre.
What I don’t understand is we have an incredible university just down the road from central Dunedin and there’s still no time machine on the market. You’d think with all this amazing technology these days that by now some clever University of Otago person (possibly a mathematician or big-bang expert) might have invented one and be looking at its commercial development.
As far as I know, nobody has even bothered to put in an application to the Marsden Fund for money to support this kind of project — although I understand there are some who are working on proving time travel is impossible. That’s a bit negative, don’t you think? Take a look at these photographs from my colleague David Loughrey and you will see it is indeed possible to journey through time.
Anyway over the weekend I had a good think about what I would most like to go back and see. I restricted my aspirations to Dunedin and came up with two moments in history.
Firstly, I’d love to land in Dunedin the day before the start of the massive July 1939 snowfall. I want to see the clouds and watch as the snow starts, knowing what a major event it is going to be. My second request is to be able to stand in the Octagon and watch the Star Fountain play. I’ve heard so much about it, and seen the photos, and it piques my interest. Maybe we could bring it back as part of the Dunedin City Council’s $854million, 10-year plan?
If you could go back in time, what would you want to see?
Appropriate names
I’ve had quite a few people write in telling me about the Otago coroner who lived in East Taieri whose name was Dr De’Ath.
Tom Landreth, of Cromwell, also remembers a butcher named Turnbull.
"Into beef?" he asks.
Clever Trump game
Only one of you so far has been brave enough to have a go at the challenge laid down by Terry Thomas, of Glenleith, last week. This was to somehow translate PLANK into TRUMP, using the words THICK and SHORT, in as few moves as possible, changing only one letter at a time.
Good for you, Toni Crompton of North Taieri. This looks pretty admirable to me:SHORT-shore-store-stork-stark-stank-stink-slink-blink-blank-PLANKPLANK-prank-prang-prong-prone-prune-prude-pride-price-prick-trick-THICKTHICK-think-twink-twine-swine-swipe-tripe-trips-trims-trams-tramp-TRUMP.