Postcards From the Veg: In Orbit

While I was in Devon buying surf-wear and eating pasties, Neil was having yet another adventure of his own. He's a brave one, and his murderous tendencies seem to have worn off for the time being. Which is good news for Astronuat Jip Tuckerer, who showed our very own intrepid traveller around space. Not all of it, obviously. Just the teeny bit of it above our planet.

I don't know how Neil is funding this adventure. I-Phone sales of The New Goodbye must be doing pretty well, huh?


Greetings vegemites!

Thank goodness I packed my NASA space pen! Or there would be no postcard from this location, that's for sure. I'm in space, orbiting the planet in the top secret, privately owned SpaceRace laboratory as they conduct fruit-related experiments to try to find answers to the world's many problems. Leading the way is astronaut and top fruitarian Jip Tuckerer, who explained why the SpaceRace lab maintains orbit over the Himalayas.

"When satellites' orbits degrade through malfunction, the same thing always happens; they end up caught in a constant pattern over one part of the Earth - the Himalayas. This effect, caused by stuff that is too complicated to explain to anyone without a degree in astrophysics, is known as the Himalayan Gravity Well. And we at SpaceRace have been looking into utilizing that effect to human advantage. But first we must truly understand it.

How did Newton begin to formulate the theory of gravity? He turned to the lowly apple. And if it's good enough for Newton then it's good enough for us. We have been throwing an apple a day into the Himalayan Gravity Well for the last two years and monitoring the results. Interestingly, the only solid result we have so far is the disproving of an old aphorism - since I myself have four PhDs it can definitely be said that an apple a day doesn't keep the doctor away! Ha ha ha."

Jip allowed me to release apple number 675 from the airlock. What an honour. Next time you think of the Himalayas, think of my little piece of fruit above it, and all the other little pieces of fruit - evidence of the effort that are constantly being made to unite the world in peace, harmony and understanding. Wow. Although how they will manage that remains to be seen, but let's not be picky right now.

And so, until next time, keep eating your five a day and give the sky a special wave.

Neilio.



I can't say I liked the sound of Jip Tuckerer much. Still, what a very interesting subject. Yeah.