I read in most of the newspapers this week about a huge slab of ice that broke away from Greenland. And while I can understand its desire to leave Greenland, that is one serious block of ice.
This ice-block, apparently, is the size of no less than four Manhattans. Why Manhattans? How many people really know how big that is? I imagine almost nobody, even those actually living on Manhattan, knows how big that is. What’s wrong with units such as square metres (or square yards, for the unit-challenged)? Or even acres? Or how long it takes an un-laden swallow to fly across it?
When I were a lad, crisps were tuppence and you could drive a car when…
Oh wait, wrong when-I-were-a-lad anecdote. Start over.
When I were a lad we measured large things in units of football fields. I am informed that in the UK big things are measured by how many times Wales could be squeezed into them. This makes sense as everybody is born with an instinctive understanding of how big Wales is. You can see it now, can’t you?
Anyway, it’s safe to say that’s a big motherfucking slab of ice, Manhattan or no Manhattan. That and the horrible fires in Russia might be a hint about the world not being quite well in the whole hot-cold direction. That’s all I’m saying.