Useless

Sometimes I feel useless and when I do, I try to think of things that are more hopeless than I am to make myself feel better.

For example, a Tyrannosaurus Rex is a fearsome creature that was King of the Dinosaurs but this terrifying giant lizard with huge claws and ferocious teeth had a major design flaw – tiny arms.

When I feel useless, I just imagine this horrific creature trying to make a bed.

In fact, it’s worse than that. With those tiny little arms, the Tyrannosaurus Rex would be quite limited if the species had thrived, gained intelligence and managed to fit in with society.

Sorry to bring the subject matter down to the toilet again, but a T Rex on the toilet would have a problem trying to reach the loo roll, wouldn’t he?

How crossing a river? I don’t know whether a T Rex could swim but if he had to use a boat, he would have a big problem with the oars.

What about fashion? How would he mange to put on a hat? Or a pair of trousers?

And what if he wanted to keep fit by doing push ups? Those tiny arms would be a massive hindrance, don’t you think?

In fact, something as simple as drinking a glass of water would prove a little too much for this terrible lizard.

Okay – so I’m picking on a long extinct reptile, but you get my drift, I hope.

I certainly wouldn’t want to meet the one that would be offended by what I have just written.

I think I’m safe though because even if a T Rex could read, he would struggle to find my blog on the internet because he wouldn’t be able to type on the keyboard -  even if he were far more intelligent than I am.

Nor would he be able to use a smartphone because it would be so far from his head that he wouldn’t be able to use it.

I think I’m safe.

I no longer feel useless.

I just hope I never meet one.

A Journey Through Time And Space

I was watching a repeat of Dr Who the other day and I suddenly had a thought:

What I would do if the famous Timelord materialized in my house, popped out of his TARDIS and said:

“Dave, I will take on ten trips anywhere you want and anywhen. Where do you want to go?”

For those readers who do not know, travellers in the TARDIS have the ability to communicate with those whom they visit because it has a translation circuit that allows them to understand aliens etc.

I would need that.

Here’s where I would ask the Doctor to take me:

The Mesazoic Era

The first place I would visit is Earth in the period between 230 and 65 million years ago, known as the Mesazoic Era. As a kid I was fascinated by dinosaurs and I would want to see those legendary and enormous “terrible lizards” that roamed the planet. Top of the list would be Tyrannosaurus Rex, followed by the other popular creatures – any massive creature in fact. I would also push my luck and ask the Doctor to show me what really wiped them all out.

Jerusalem, between 30 AD and 33 AD

I was baptised a Roman Catholic and was indoctrinated, effectively from birth, via a Catholic school and church until, at around the age of fifteen when I started to rebel. As I’ve grown older, I’ve always been intrigued about the man called Jesus whose teachings I had to learn during that time. My first port of call therefore would be to Jerusalem and the surrounding area in an attempt to find the man himself and work out for myself whether he was just a prophet or whether he was indeed the Son of God.

Rome, 117 AD

I visited Rome in 2012 to celebrate my fiftieth birthday. I have always been fascinated by ancient Roman life and the entire mythos surrounding the Roman Empire, which reached its greatest extent in 117 AD. I learned Latin at school and I often wondered why it was compulsory. I guess it helped me to understand other languages but since it’s been dead for countless years (apart from in the minds of scientists) and it might be nice to hear the language spoken – assuming the Romans actually conversed in Latin that is. I would love just to spend a day wondering around the city, embracing the culture – and trying to avoid being arrested and throw to the lions.

I’d also be a little cheeky and ask him to pop back to 79AD Pompeii, just before Mount Vesuvius erupted. Having walked through the streets of the city a few years ago, I would love to see how the two compare.

England, 1543

Of all the kings and queens of England, the one that fascinates me most is the tyrannical Henry VIII, arguably the most infamous king in our history. He died in 1548 as an enormous bloated caricature of the man depicted in paintings. In 1543, he had just married his last wife, Catherine Parr, and she persuaded him to resolve his issues with his daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, both of whom are almost as infamous as their own father.

I figure that at this stage in his life, he would be most willing to chat to me about his life and what drove him to do the things he did. And it would also give me the opportunity to chat to the two future queens too.

A bunker in Berlin, April 1945

I’m a bit perturbed because although I hate the vitriolic preaching of extremists of any kind, I have a deep and disturbing fascination with them. I do not like them at all – in fact I would go as far as to say I hate them – but I am deeply fascinated by the way their mind works and, in the case of somebody like Adolf Hitler, how he managed to use his charisma to build an army of extremist fanatics, invade most of Europe and start a world war.

I would like to witness his last weeks before the end to see if I could get an insight into his despicable human being. More importantly, I’d like to find out whether he really did die or whether he was, as some conspiracy theorists suggest, managed to escape to Brazil or even to the moon (yes there really are some people who believe that).

A grassy knoll and a warehouse in Dallas, November 1963

I don’t really care about American politics but the apparent mystery surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy has intrigued me, particularly since reading a fictional account of the assassination written by Stephen King, called 11/22/63 (why do American’s show the date the wrong way round?). I would therefore like to just double check who was responsible for the death of JFK. Was it Lee Harvey Oswald or was it an unknown assailant on a grassy knoll? Or maybe even a spaceman or time traveller?

Roswell, July 1948

Travelling in the TARDIS with the Doctor would be proof enough that aliens do exist. However, the one episode in history that has spawned numerous conspiracy theories about extraterrestrials was the crash of an object in Roswell, New Mexico. I would just like to see for myself what actually crashed there and what the RAAF actually did with the wreckage and its occupants. Mind you, in truth I would be travelling around in a spaceship with an alien, so that’s a bit of a paradox in itself.

Space (generally ...)

I would ask the Doctor to take me on a voyage around the universe, starting with a slow orbit of Earth itself, a quick tour of all the astronomical bodies in our own solar system before embarking on a journey to any other planets, galactic highlights he saw fit to show me. I would draw the line at stopping on any planet, spaceship or other location likely to plunge me into a life or death situation that only the Doctor could resolve.

Future Technology

One of the main things that irks me about my life is the fact that it is far too short. We only have a limited amount of time alive and, being a massive technophile, I want to see how humanity progresses and the sophisticated gadgetry and technology that we as a species invent and the future. In my own lifetime, the pace of technology has raced ahead incredibly quickly and I imagine that over the next 500 years or so, it will explode – though having used that word, I hope that we don’t invent anything else that can destroy ourselves.

A Library in the Future, say in the year 5000

This would be my final visit and I would implore the Doctor to leave me here for about two years so that I could read up on history and see what happened between now and then. I would be particularly interested to see how future generations thought of those of us (i.e. you and me) and how they interpreted historical events that happened around our time.

I’d also see if I could find any traces of myself and this blog (though thinking about it, that might be a bad idea).

I would then steal a suitable history book and use it in 2015 for my own nefarious and selfish purposes.

I’m sure that the Doctor would stop me from doing that though.

And finally …

To be perfectly honest, I would really like Dr Who to teach me how to use the TARDIS myself and allow me to fly around and appear wherever I wanted to. I think it would be a perilous journey if he were to be the person to decide where we travel to, simply because he seems to be a magnet for destruction, alien invasions and galactic events that threaten our very survival.

He’s a bit of a Jonah to be fair.

The one final thing I would try to do, which would of course be very dangerous, would be to pop back to my own timeline and visit my younger self with a winning lottery ticket. Actually, that would cause a paradox and cause time to collapse in on itself and destroy the entire universe, something the Doctor is keen to avoid. With that in mind I would simply pop forward to next weekend and note down the winning lottery numbers.

I don’t think that would break the universe, do you?

Anyway, enough of that and over to you dear reader.

Where would you go, given the opportunity to travel anywhere in space or time?