Shot Alive

(With complete instructions for how to get from Here to There and back again) (new)

In flickr there is a really fun group that I really shouldn't tell the world about in case too many tourists come. Promise not to tell before you go on!

It is called Vogon Poetry Appreciation Club.

Unlike many groups in flickr that try to bolster photo popularity, this one exists for the poor photos that got overlooked. To qualify the photo has to have been looked at less than 25 times in a month. Once it is viewed over 25 times is is unceremoniously booted from the group as no longer qualifying. I have tried really hard, but cannot get a picture to stay in Vogon Poetry. Of course the whole idea comes from Douglas Adams books, and Vogon Poetry is really shockingly bad. You can probably work the rest out on your own.

To understand more about this try the first and only issue of Vogon Poetry group pictures every published.

To see the contents of the magazine.

Anyway, I wandered all over the place and have just arrived somewhere where I was intending to get...

A recent photo was posted to the group "Gate to nowhere" by Eva the Weaver. She added: …except that when the path is flooded the alternative is to struggle through here.

Here's another gate to nowhere. I'm not making a set for just two.

The various wits of the group (yes, I am one) added funny comments ... you need to visit the picture to see these. By the time I returned, the discussion had taken a twist from why you needed alternative paths to get to nowhere, and was now about finding nowhere and elsewhere through google maps!

I had to be quick or I would miss out! I searched to see if I could find somewhere with google maps and to my surprise it was just out our window! I already knew that the book Erewhon was about NZ and that there is a place here called that. "Erewhon" is the name of a book by Samuel Butler and is more or less "Nowhere" spelled backwards.

New Zealand fared better in Butler's book than in recent comments by John Cleese, but NZ had its revenge. See my recent blog post Balmy and Palmy becomes Mount Cleese.

Breaking News ...

Note added later... Eva the Weaver has found that you can get map directions to get from "Here" to "There". The really odd thing is that they are both in France!

Map showing the route from Here to There.