First I must say that I fully agree with Dave. Gianni's posting to the list was (once again) fantastic.On Fri, 20 Jun 2003, Gianni Ferrari wrote:Some years ago there was a short discussion, on the Italian Sundial Mailing List, on the sundials at the Pole: I try to translate in English [ :-) ] my considerations at the time.I refer to the South Pole and, obviously, to the season in which the Sun is there visible. Gianni Ferrari :-)Wonderful! This was a beautiful treatment of the issues, advantages and disadvantages of dialling at the Poles. A nice reduction to very understandable terms, in the spirit of "Flatland"!
And second, I do not know you, but from time to time I happen to see in the list things that were on my
mind (or even on my notebook) some time before but didn't have the time or the ability to develop.
Far from being frustrated at this, I feel comforted because (lazy me!) I do not have to write it then
and because usually it is better explained by them than by me.
I talk about this because in these stifling heat days in Spain I had been thinking on a story I could
write for our bulletin ANALEMA. It was in an embrionary stage and I didn't feel I could write
it in English, but I leave here the idea in case somebody wanted to keep further with it.
The story begins like that:
"And there it was. In a solitary Norwegian cliff, not far from the crowded North Cape toursitc resort,
looking at the sea and waiting for somebody whose existence I seriously doubted one early morning
(or was it late evening?) of July.
[ ... ... .. ].
Then the man [I just met] said
--- So you came here to see the Midnight Sun?
--- More or less. In fact the weather was so hot in
Spain and the ticket not so expensive that I thought
'why not?'. Then somebody told me that this place
was much quieter than North Cape and...
He interrupted me to say,
--- Oh, yes, and the Sun is so wonderfully big here when
it bounces on the horizon...
--- Well, it's geat indeed, but not bigger. As a matter of
fact the Sun is a big smaller when it is close to the horizon,
it is just our eyes that cheat...
He didn't let me finish again and said,
--- My name is Lambert, Foster Lambert, and I
believe we had an appointment here. Please
follow me.
[... ... ... ]
When the plane was completely full with the provisions
and all kind of tools and materials he had been packing before,
he paid to the pilot and urged me to take my place on
such crowded plane and happily said 'And now, let's go back
home, my sweet North Pole home'
[... ... ... ]
Little by little, I become convinced of the plane wasn't going
to crash against the icy waters, or at least not immediately,
and then I began to think about the moment when he paid the
pilot and all the packs full of things we had around us. Finally
I told him,
--- Sorry about this personal question, but how do you earn
your living there in the North Pole, because all these things
cost money...
--- Oh, it's obvious my friend, it's obvious!. I make equatorial
and polar dials for all the world. Fully tested and genuine perfect
equatorial and polar dials made by Foster Lambert, Ltd. My
dials are expensive, I admit it, but they're the only ones that
can be properly called these names.
He told me about his artisane dials when we got into touch
through e-mail but I didn't believe him, because I didn't
believe either that he lived in the exact North Pole as he
claimed... but then, after six hours travelling northwards
on that bizarre plane I was beginning to believe that
everything he told me when was true and that I was about
to see the most strange dialling workshop in the world.
[.... ... ... ] "
Well, this is it more or less. Suggestions and comments are welcome.
Anselmo Perez Serrada
