Operation Pointing Dodo

"There is a plan. It is very secret. Much like the pointing dodo of yore it may only be discovered long after it's over. Operation Pointing Dodo is a go."

If only it were true. Aberystwyth is a genuine haven for more than half the year, with quiet beautiful beaches and hills, and then for the remaining warm weather months, it becomes much more of a tourist crucible. The remaining staff and postgraduate students burn in the heat of the tourists and undergraduates sitting exams, becoming coated in beach barbecue stench and wondering where it all went wrong. And of course nothing has gone wrong at all.

There's a false sense of ownership to being among the people who appreciate the environment in the off months, breathing in the air and thinking abstractly as the waves roll in and out, or the breeze flows across the hilltops, and in the natural human mode of arrogance it's incredibly frustrating when the people who only like it for its weather just stumble out blindly and clutter the place up. Oh, the fury, the horror, the lack of thinking space! Oh the pettiness in grumbling at other people having fun!

It would be nice if there could be an Operation Pointing Dodo, an organised rebellion that would see the stinky bonfires and barbecues blown away to the waters most deep. We could assemble in three teams: behind the mini-golf shed, atop Constitution Hill at the frisbee golf (please don't ask), and by the lighthouse. Armed with our trusty goggles and cheese sabres (again, it's a long story) we could strike a blow for the people who get displaced in the summer by the thoughtless visitors! And then, we would be lynched by the shopkeepers and hoteliers who depend on students and tourists for their livelihoods.

Oh, cheese sabres, you were so close... If only the level 3 Gouda Divining failure hadn't stopped that ambition for cheese magehood fully in its tracks. Perhaps next year, although it seems ever less likely. A cheese mage would be an ideal participant in Pointing Dodo.

Reverting back to the reasonable mode of thought, all those people out there are brilliantly exercising their rights of equality and liberty and pyromania. Roll on October! Bring on the storms! Grumble grumble mutter mutter sigh. All is as it should be.

O.


PS Yet another mini-conference next week. More cover blogs being prepared for Monday and Wednesday. Somehow.