A lot of scaffolding!

Carlisle Station is currently undergoing a huge roof replacement project. To replace the glazed roof, established in 1847, on a listed station building, whilst minimising the disruption to rail passengers, is obviously very tricky. I arrived at the station this morning and it was quite different from what it had been – scaffolding everywhere.
 
I travelled to Newcastle today for three lectures and travelled back feeling a little brain-shocked. It’s a good thing the return journey was a slow one, stopping at every station, as it was a nice relaxing ride after a full-on day.
 
This morning we read some Byron and then we looked at a Chekhov short story.  In the afternoon we had a lecture about Gulliver’s Travels.
 

So I thought, when looking at the schedule, I know about Gulliver’s Travels, I must have read it at some time. It’s about Lilliput and then some big people and isn’t it a satire about the politics of the time - now when was it written?
 
Turns out I knew very little about it after all and what I did know was probably from a children’s edition, films, pictures etc. I couldn’t find a copy of the book in the house and had to come to the conclusion that I had actually never read it.
 
So, I got a copy and had two days to read it. And wow! Was ever a book a revelation. I was enthralled by it. Yes, all the things I thought I knew were there, but so very much more. The lecture was brilliant. Our tutor showed us how the book was far more than just a political satire on the politics of the time, but a whole dismantling of the human condition. Basically – if we think we are so much better than animals because we can think rationally, why do we do such ridiculous things.  An example: At one point Gulliver tries to describe to a king, with great pride, an invention that by lighting some powder rammed into a tube this could drive a ball of iron or lead to explode in such a way that it could destroy whole sections of an army, sink ships and kill thousands of men. The king looked at him in horror and said – now why would I want to do that awful thing? Why indeed!
 
Our tutor said you have to be brave to read Gulliver’s Travels; it’s a sobering experience. It most certainly is. If anyone feels inclined to be brave, make sure you are reading the unabridged version. You will not look at our society in the same way again. You may be inclined, like Gulliver, to want to be a horse!