THE MOON’S BACKSIDE AND RELATED MATTERS

We speak of the ‘world being turned upside down’ –

thinking perhaps of the earth’s richest,  most

powerful country freely electing as king

a felonious buffoon – but we should think

instead of the world turned back to front

so that, when the earth is spread out

flat as a map, it is not the Greenwich

Meridian at 0 degrees longitude

at its centre but its opposite twin

at 180 degrees, the Date Line.

Then to its left is the West: all of

Australasia, all of Asia,

Africa, Europe, most of Russia,

and a piece of Greenland – and right the East:

all of the Americas, most of Greenland,

and a very small piece of Russia.

So the centre of the world is not

threaded through London but through Fiji.

***

The rockets are soaring again. Like some

nineteenth century Great Game, China,

India and the US of A

are competing in exploration

and exploitation. People are dying

on earth unnecessarily – from

malaria, hunger, pollution, shrapnel,

blast, torture – and the rockets are soaring,

and obsequious hype fills the ether.

***

Meanwhile there are plans to rename parts

of the Moon’s posterior – no more

The Sea of Moscow or The Gagarin

Crater – and the plans for the lunar site

of the Acme University

of The Solar System are well advanced

now that the founders have approved the name.

After much informed and good natured debate

Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk  and Mark Zuckerberg

have agreed that that august institution

on the moon’s rear should be named after

a six letter combination of the

first two initials of their surnames

in descending order of personal wealth – thus

the Mubezu Campus.