Do the mayors intend to reforest the world?

Many people have speculated that the meeting of over a thousand mega-metropolis mayors has been stuck in a deathly stalemate between those who support London Mayor Joris Bohnson’s “Startling Solution,” and those who are bitterly opposed to it. Listed below are the most betted upon speculative solutions, as compiled by Bookmakers Mr Proctor and Sons.

1. Build a Giant Bicycle and Ride it to the Moon. Knowing Mayor Bohnson’s penchant for schemes involving bicycles, this remains the firm favourite.

2. Manufacture a series of floating islands that will stay on the surface of the Earth’s oceans even as sea levels continue to rise.

3. Reforest the world again using giant tree planting monolithic planting machines.

4. One child policy. Under this scheme, every woman would only be allowed to give birth to one child. Knowing Mayor Bohnson as we do, this is an outside bet at best - his various liasons have resulted in several babies - and would also fail to have any positive effect in time to stop the world from suffocating.

The memo, dated as recently as today, is scrawled in faded ink, and difficult to read due to the unconventional formation of many letters says that:

Finally! All (indecipherable) agreed except for (blotched stain - possibly tea). These are the problems we need to solve:

• No more trees converting carbon dioxide into oxygen
• Overpopulation - soon, there won’t be enough breathable air to go round
• Mega-metropolises roving around the world, devouring resources
• TOO MANY mega-metropolises still existing. Assimilation of smaller cities by larger cities did not occur as expected
• Environmental decay caused by Industrialisation
• Global warming
• Rising sea levels

When questioned about the memo, Mayor Joris Bohnson of London looked alarmed and patted his waistcoat pockets: “Well, ha-rumph, it was important to agree the problems. Otherwise, how can we solve them? Looking for, ah, looking for… Hang it all. Anyway, the moving metropolises are the key to it all. Can’t seem to find it. Strange. Could have sworn…”

Joris Bohnson, looking for a piece of paper?

When asked whether the Steampunk Convention has yet to discuss a solution to the problem, Mayor Bohnson raised a finger in the air. “Hah! What do you think we do in there all day? Drink tea and eat sandwiches? A solution has definitely been broached - by none other than yours truly, actually - and it’s a humdinger!”

When pressed for details, Mayor Bohnson beat a hasty retreat, but not before promising: “Bah-harumph! For all your speculative blatherings, none of you will predict what I have in mind!”

Earlier this year, Mayor Bohnson’s most recent initiative - the cheap hiring of “5000 public bikes” - was deemed a failure when none of them could be found.

From tomorrow, the mayors of every city of the world will direct their Metropolis navigators to plot routes to the blackened plain of stumps where once the Amazon Rainforest stood. There, with the Amazon River’s slurry sludging by, and the stink of noxious pollution ever-present to remind the mayors of the importance of their mission, they will remain locked away in seclusion until they agree a solution.

Site of the Extraordinary Convention

Responding to criticism that if it took this long just to agree a venue, they will never come up with a solution to the world’s population crisis, Paris Mayor Sicholas Narkozy said: “We didn’t just decide on a venue. Items for the agenda were also agreed.”

“And we had to agree on the sandwiches,” Joris Bhonson added.

At this, Mayor Narkozy nodded wearily. “Oui…agreeing the sandwiches took longer than you might expect…”

It is understood the mayors will have a range of sandwiches and other finger buffet food at all times during the convention.

“And if anyone tries to leave the convention before we’ve agreed a strategy to solve over-population, I’ll drag them back in myself!” promised Mosni Hobarek, Mayor of Cairo.

Oarak Bbama, Mayor of Washington DC, offered a more sober analysis of the difficulties facing the Metroplis Mayors: “It’s a great idea - but first we have to choose a venue,” he said with customary caution.

“Not to mention the sandwiches!” Joris Bhonson, Mayor of London uttered sotto-voice in the background.

The Steve McCurry Retrospective exhibition reminded me of when I went to Cambodia in 2005. We decided to have a best photograph competition at Ankhor Wat, and proceeded to take all sorts of cleverly angled and unusually lit images.  But this ones’s my favourite.

Best Photo Competition Cambodia 2005

Would London roll into battle in the Steampunk Metropolis World Cup on a series of enormous London Eyes?

I’m going to create a steampunk world cup for giant, moving metropolises (metropli?). But instead of playing football, the Steampunk Metropolis World Cup will involve titanic mobile cities battling to the death in county-sized arenas.

 Top seeds for the Steampunk Metropolis World Cup would have to be New York, London, Tokyo and Beijing.

Each qualifying country can only have one city representing it in each World Cup, thus ensuring the Steampunk Metropolis World Cup’s continuation in future years. If Tokyo chews up and spits out New York, the Americans can always come back in four years time riding the sprawling Los Angeles, or perhaps sashay into battle on San Francisco.

So, we already have our four favourites in New York, Tokyo, Beijing and London.

The second tier of contestants would include Paris (stalking forward on tripods shaped like the Eiffel Tower), Berlin, Seoul and Cairo (advancing on giant inverted pyramid legs).

I realise not including Mexico City or Rio De Janeiro in either the first or the second tier is controversial at this stage, but I think the South American cities’ time will come in future Steampunk Metropolis World Cups, when the developed nations have lost their own first or second cities.

Just one major question remains at this stage of the planning process. Which nation will have the honour of hosting the inaugural Steampunk Metropolis World Cup?

I’ll have to think about the next few cities, but one thing’s for sure: every game will be a killer. After all, in the Steampunk Metropolis World cup, every match will hinge on a sudden death knock-out.

1. Peel Castle

Peel Castle

A friend recently called it the most tactile castle she’d ever visited. Because of all the open space inside, it’s brilliant for kids to run around. And then there’s all the ghost stories of the Moddey Dhoo (Black Dog) said to haunt the castle’s walls. One look at it will freeze your heart, killing you instantly…

2. Douglas Beach

My short story The Memory Room was based on my childhood memories of walking along Douglas Beach at low tide. An anecdote remembered by the narrator of The Mask Slips is set here as well. Lovely on a calm day (I’ve never known better sandcastle building sand - or a beach with more conveniently positioned pebbles to knock the sandcastles down again), and stunningly dramatic at high tide in storms, with waves lashing over the promenade at parked cars and hurling pebbles and sand at hotel windows on the opposite side of the road.

View from Onchan Park

3. The TT Races

How startlingly different the island became from the rest of the year! Hordes of bikers from all over the world descended on the island. The thrill of Mad Sunday, the excitement of trying not to get trapped inside the TT course before a race started and the fun of going with a group of mates to a good spot to watch the races (we generally plumped for Signpost Corner or Governor’s Bridge).

4. The Laxey Wheel

For me, it was more about the adventure of walking up to Laxey Wheel from the East, or down to it from the Western mountain road, down the valley and through the derelict miners’ buildings. It’s the largest wworking waterwheel in the world, and it looks great, all white washed and red painted.

5. The Fairy Bridge

Well, the stories of the Little People in general. We used to amuse ourselves by telling each other stories of the terrible vengeance the fairies would wreak on people who didn’t say, “Hello Fairies,” as they drove over the Fairy Bridge. The Headteacher of my primary school, Gordon Kniveton, wrote a book called The Manx Experience, and he used to tell us various Manx myths and legends. In general, the fairies were an impish lot, much given to wicked little pranks. But I can tell you this:

Once, a girl I never met or knew, and none of my friends ever met or knew, drove over the Fairy Bridge with her parents once, on the way to somewhere, and back over it again when she returned. Both times, she refused to say, “Hello Fairies.” Later that day, she went on a swing and broke both her legs - one for each time she failed to greet the fairies.

Enid Blyton worked a real goldmine of a formula with her different adventure/mystery series. They all have a multitude of likeable characters, one of whom nearly all children are bound to like. In the Adventurous Four series, I always liked Philip (or Tufty, as Jack calls him), for his ability to tame all animals, and sense of fun. But as an adult now I find myself sympathising more with Philip’s long suffering sister Dinah, who in turn is similar to George of the Famous Five. I never really took to George, but preferred her by any amount to the irritatingly superior Julian. The Secret Seven, the Barney Mysteries and the Faraway Tree series all have characters who are different enough that theeader is bound to empathise with one of them.

In my (longish) short story Life In Shadows, the main character theorises that the type of books we read as children influence us more than we realise as adults. I’m not sure about that in general, but I would argue  that it definitely affects how and what writers write.

Modern children’s writers still follow Enid Blyton’s formula. If Harry Potter isn’t completely to your liking, there’s always Ron Weasley or Hermione Granger. In any number of Steampunk/Fantasy/SciFi novels, there are main male and female characters. World Shaker by Richard Harland ( a great book, by the way) follows this routeas do the second and third books in Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy.

Tolkien had a series of different characters (and a good job too - 1000 pages of Sam and Frodo would have been 999 too many for me), and all the epic fantasy series of the 1970s and 80s had bands of companions.

I’m not saying for one minute that this trend for harnessing different characters originated with Enid Blyton, but I think she popularised it, and in doing so influenced many more writers.

Of course, Enid Blyton always had her security character. After all, you might not have liked any of the humans in the Famous Five, but I bet you loved Timmy the dog.

Saw this Gloria Jean’s coffee shop in Birmingham city centre the other day. If Steampunk characters in novels were to meet in coffee shops, I think they’d hang out here.

I’ve been to a few photography exhibitions before, but this is by far the best. If a photographer’s art lies in capturing a  moment, then Steve McCurry succeeds, time after time, moment after moment. His Afghan Girl is apparently his most famous portrait, featuring a young refugee with startling green eyes, but there are many other great images at the exhibition. One, of a young boy in Honduras is truly shocking: tears stream down his face as he points a pistol at his own temple. I found myself hoping the pistol was a toy.

Many of the photographs reminded me of my own travels: the stilt fishermen of Sri Lanka (I wrote a short story about them, entitled A Fair Deal), the Buddhist monks of Burma, the Geishas of Japan and the temples of Cambodia. Others made me yearn to travel again. Thanks to Steve McCurry, I’m now desperate to visit the Philippines.

The exhibition made me think about the different disciplines of writing and photography, particularly the photograph of the stilt fishermen. If a photograph captures a moment, what does a story capture? A series of moments? Hopes and dreams? A way of life?

In, well, in retrospect, the notion of comparing the disciplines is invalid. Photographers like Steve McCurry strive for the truth behind the image. Fiction writers take the truth and cover it up, in the same way an oyster covers up a foreign substance with nacre. Writers want to end up with pearls that still retain the element of truth. Steve McCurry doesn’t have to hope or dream for pearls among his photographs. He’s created loads already, and all of them seem to retain the truth of their situations.