There is renewed talk of establishing a space centre in Australia and I am offering you the chance to contribute to its establishment. I kid you not!
“How can I assist in this endeavour?”, I hear the voices in my head ask, which I assume are yours and not the ones inquiring about the cost of a meat-axe. Well, to answer your questions:
- To provide support for the Aussie space program all you need do is help in the search for a tooth that I managed to lose recently and thereby contribute, albeit somewhat indirectly, to my endevour to be Earth’s first Martian! You read right: I have a dream to go to Mars!
- eBay has butcher’s meat-axes for just $28.00 (free postage & incl. GST). Check it out! (As always, no need to thank me, which appears to be the only advice that’s heeded by our readership, although, it’s not what you’d call a big sample of the world’s seven billion citizens).
You might be wondering what my missing tooth has to do with going to Mars, but take comfort, you wouldn’t be the only one and all is about to be revealed, so read on, intrepid reader, read on, and after you do, perhaps you should reconsider how you spend your spare time.
Anyhoo, not so long ago, Joerg (The Cyborg) and I went for a hoon (aka ride) on Stockton Beach, a thirty kilometre stretch of stunning white sand that backs onto a most range of undulating sand dunes. For you foreign and interstate types, it’s a bit more than a two hour drive north of Sydney, Australia.
As you might imagine, riding on a beach with towering dunes of soft sand, a lighter small-bore bike is probably the better choice. So, with this very much in mind, I rode my Beamer GSA (260 kg), while The Cyborg went with his KTM 690 (150 kg), which might have been the wiser choice. Jury’s still out.
It turns out that one needs to take a little care when hoonin’ over flowing dunes. To paraphrase a past US president who’s calibre shines brighter than a polished albino elephant’s scrote under the glare of a midday African sun, when compared to the current presidential primate, ‘You can undulate some of the dunes all of the time and all of the dunes some of the time, but, it’s pushing the envelope just an insy-winsy bit to undulate all of the dunes all of the time.’ I have to admit; The Abester knew his shit!
[Aside: A bit of poetic licence taken with with regards to the elephant scrote metaphor thingy. Elephants are, in fact, non-boreothian mammals, i.e their testicles are mounted inboard.]
By now, unless you’re one who has faith in orangutans with political aspirations, I’m sure you’ve already guessed the inevitable, and sure enough, I managed to launch myself off a non-undulating (dulating?) feature of one of Stockton’s “flowing” dunes. And, somewhat predictably, a moment later I was reintroduced to Mother Earth in a rather rude and abrupt fashion despite my investment in Yuri Geller’s Lessons in Levitation (available on DVD only), which I now suspect was probably not particularly “investy”.
And so it was, that with the aid of our warming planet I managed to lose a tooth, and as a bonus, deviate my septum a little further to the east! Probably not the best use of natural resources.
At this point, I feel compelled to express my feelings of bitter disappointment in Arai’s XD4. This not inexpensive full-faced helmet not only failed to prevent the loss of a prominent dental feature, but also a litre or so of blood, a few CCs of cerebral fluid, and a container ship’s load of dignity. The septal realignment is particularly upsetting as it’s resulted in the loss of my ability to stick to the lanes at my local pool.
But, to get back on topic: As I staggered from the crash site, a tad discombobulated, I heard the voices say, “Mars! Mars! Next launch, let’s go to Mars! Remember to pack the meat-axe.”
Inspiring as this was, the next day when I came closer to my senses, the enormity of it all struck me. As I once again awoke in hospital to the dulcet tones ofJoerg laughing himself sick and yet able to work his way through the entire contents of a Cadbury Milk Tray in under a minute, I told him there’s no way I’ll be going to Mars without a full set of my own organically grown pearly whites. I need to find that tooth before posing for the publicity shots. I’m a tad conflicted, though, because the Tooth Fairy’s offer to buy it does appeal, particularly given it’s COD.
As always my friends were very quick to come to the party when they heard of my big dream and tragic loss. After reluctantly resigning themselves to my over principled stance on vanity, they all embarked on a rather frantic and frenetic search for the missing incisor.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I love my friends!
This is where you can help with my aspirations and the nation’s infrastructure: If you happen to find yourself on Stockton Beach, would you be so good as to keep an eye out for my lost tooth as my friends are not having a lot of joy in their search. It’s likely to be situated somewhere in the vicinity of a small impact crater at the base of a particularly large duen with a rather precipitous drop-off.
Also, if you do happen to spot my tooth, would you also be good enough to dig a little deeper? There should be a BMW R1200GSA just below the surface. It’s a blue 2015 model, fitted out with the enduro kit, so it sould be easy to tell if it’s mine.
Anyway, I’ll finish up there and let you get on with your life. It IS the least I can do.
Cheers, Sir Alex (self-anointed).
