VISION FOR THE FUTURE
LOOKING FORWARD TO ANOTHER LAP AROUND THE SUN, INFORMER HOPES HE’S NOT GETTING IN OVER HIS HEAD
Happy new year and I trust your 2019 has begun less confusingly than my 2018 ended. Case in point, Informer received a telescope for Christmas and I still can’t fathom why. I have no interest in exploring the stars, spying on my neighbours or emulating a 17th Century maritime explorer, but if you look through the wrong end Mrs Informer does seem much further away, so that’s a plus.
It may also be a metaphor for plenty happening in the world today. Seems to me we look at so much from the wrong end, with the inevitable result being blurred perspectives and deluded opinions. Fake news is the wrong end of a telescope. And with everything apparently so distant, perhaps that explains why we spend so much time shouting at each other.
Elsewhere things are going swimmingly and I mean that literally. Though hardly a natural in the pool, Informer has signed up for a fundraising challenge the proceeds of which will help sick kiddies in hospital.
The 2019 Starlight Super Swim is an initiative of the Starlight Children’s Foundation and will take place between January 26 and February 24 during which Informer will attempt to swim the English Channel, or at least the 32km Dover-to-Calais version as represented by 1280 laps of the 25m pool at my local natatorium.
I chose the English Channel because I’d heard it was quite heavily polluted and figured I might be able to walk most of the way. Wrong end of the telescope again, I’m afraid, probably because when it comes to swimming, I need all the help I can get. However, I’m pleased to say that, in these preparatory stages, your slimmer, trimmer Informer is one happy lapper.
Several kilograms and seven polyps ago, just the thought of swimming filled Informer with dread. Not only did I present a frightful figure in my Speedos — stretch a rubber band around a basketball and you have the idea — I was also as buoyant as a boulder and blessed with a style that was less a swimming stroke and more like having an actual stroke.
Furthermore, I took up two lanes and saw the black line at the bottom of the pool as an aquatic version of flatlining. Some laps I swear I could hear the long beep.
Accordingly, swimming 32km over the course of a month for charity may not seem the most obvious choice of activity for Informer, but I’ve been training hard and hopefully will be ready when the Super Swim begins on Australia Day, Invasion Day or whatever day we’ll be arguing over calling it this year.
When it arrives, I think I’ll just call it Saturday and go for a swim.
Time will tell if this watery endeavour is just another example of looking through the wrong end of a telescope. For as much as the pool wall is always just 25m away, with every lap I’m sure I can see the French coast.
Head to superswim.org.au/ michaeljacobson should you be so inspired as to donate to the cause.
The fact that all contributions will be gratefully received goes without saying, again literally, because by February 24 Informer will be so out of breath I doubt I’ll be able to speak until April.
“NOT ONLY DID I PRESENT A FRIGHTFUL FIGURE IN MY SPEEDOS, I WAS ALSO AS BUOYANT AS A BOULDER.”