Tonight, I watched a programme about dinosaurs in Patagonia...
The phone rang. I picked it up,
the sun said Hi, Rik, I thought I’d give you a ring.
I said I’m a man and don’t wear one.
No, that’s not what I mean. I just wanted to discuss something.
I have been hard at work but now I am bored; I mean,
burning Helium for a living is hardly inspiring
and the same as any other normal being,
I want a change, and therefore I am thinking of retiring.
I said, Come on, sun, you can’t do that,
the idea is absurd, ridiculous, really silly
for if you go off to a holiday home,
this planet will rapidly become unbearably chilly.
I know that you’ve worked for four thousand million years or so,
plus or minus a few millennia or two
but you’re really important to us here on Earth.
You should take some time and think things through.
He said. You’re a fine one to talk,
because you told me that you are fed up with teaching
I said there’s a major difference between you and me,
for with you the effects are much more far reaching
For a start if I go, there are very few people that are
going to be aware that I no longer teach;
but if you disappear, coastal resorts will close down,
and there will be no topless women on the beach.
Think of Bournemouth, Southsea, Hayling Island,
or the Solent and the Isle of Wight...
ah, he said, but the moon has it better,
for there are some who swim naked at night.
I explained that if I retired, as a teacher, I’d be forgotten
in a couple of weeks or two
but you are a rather a serious problem
with billions of people being pissed off with you.
But that’s not really that important,
compared to the ecological damage that you would cause,
and would give many people a new interpretation
of Summer’s Almost Gone, by The Doors.
Think of the people named after you,
there’s an American congressman called Stephen Solarez.
Conversely, very few people are called Pluto or Ganymede,
although I do know a girl called Stella Alvares.
You can think of Sonny Liston, and a husband of Cher,
Mike Tyson, and in Scandinavia, Andersons always appear
Japan’s the land of you know what,
and there are plenty of Sun’s in China and Korea.
But no sunlight means photosynthesis will stop,
plants won’t be able to make their own tea...
that’s hardly my fault, they had millions of years to
adapt to get their meal without me.
If you disappear, weather patterns will change,
an eternal ice age, with snow and rain and icy gales,
a cloudy misery; existence would be intolerable...
ah, you mean like most of the year in Wales?
In the jungle, savannah, temperate farmlands,
temperature decrease would bring wildlife untold harm;
rubbish, said the sun, they adapt, eg there’s a fox in the desert,
one on the tundra, and the soft ones hang round a farm.
But in the tropical rainforest of tigers, elephants,
hardwood trees, flora and fauna are intertwined tight;
yes, so what? When I’m around, they go to sleep,
they only come out hunting at night.
What about the flamingo, sparrow, lark, and hawk,
the toucan, roadrunner, eagle owl and vulture?
What about them? Grow thicker feathers, eat plenty of fish,
in short, adopt the Eskimo culture.
What about humans? No trees, flowers, many people
might argue that life wouldn’t have much worth;
it’s simple, said the sun. The Olympic stadium in Australia?
You build one the same, but it must cover the Earth.
That’s a daft idea. Why, if Kublai Khan years ago,
could build a dome in Xanadu, why,
with modern technology, can’t Japanese engineering,
on a bit larger scale, now do the same for you?
You can’t expect people to be locked in a building all their life,
they want to get out, want to feel free;
oh, yes? Most people spend 9 to 5 at work,
then don’t set a foot outside the house after tea.
There would be another problem if you retire,
because it would mean the end of the new fledged solar power...
huh, the Greens; they’d soon change their tune
if I were to charge them 300 million megawatts per hour.
I said you’ve got to hand it to them, they’re sincere,
you really can’t fault their pollution free vision;
hypocrites, they want to close down a uranium power plant,
but they want, free, my nuclear fission.
You forget I am working twenty four hours, through the year,
no one on Earth whose life isn’t easier;
think about it, when you lazy buggers in Europe are sleeping,
I‘m at work heating up Burma and Indonesia.
It’s getting me down, the long working hours,
I’m getting fed up with always being alone.
I want to get together with some nice woman star,
and of course, I’d like to have a sun of my own.
But for you on Earth, it’s really quite easy to meet a woman,
a bar or pub, or park, for instance;
but for me, in the centre of my solar system,
I have a major problem with distance.
Hey, Rik, there’s something I want to tell you, a secret,
but I trust you, I know you are very discreet;
there’s this female sun I’m interested in, my nearest neighbour,
I think. The problem is where on earth we could meet.
I screamed DON’T MEET ON EARTH, GO SOMEWHERE ELSE, GO TO DEEP SPACE, ANYWHERE, BUT HERE...
I didn’t quite mean it like that, I am well aware
that if we embraced close to you, barbeque time would be near.
Why don’t you go out and meet her...
on second thoughts that’s not the best thing to do
because that’s exactly the problem we’re trying
to sort out; instead, couldn’t you ask her to come over to you?
No way Rik, no way would that be acceptable to any star,
we follow the custom as the human race;
it’s fairly conservative galaxy, this one - others are
quite open - we marry in the woman’s place.
I remarked ‘The Sun' newspapers the world over
would be queuing up to buy your story.
You think they’d pay me? What sounds better?
‘Gotcha! Sun blows her away’, or ‘Sun engaged to Alpha Centauri’.
Anyway, I must get back, and I’m phoning long distance,
I don’t want the bill to be too large;
but with all your free energy, your calls must be cheap?
Um, Rik, I took the liberty of reversing the charge.
