Location, Location, Location

“Where are you from? I mean, where were you born?” he asked.

“I was born in London,” I replied.

“Really?” Now at this point I thought I was going to get one of those ‘I never knew that you were a blooming southerner’ type responses. (The fact that I have resided in the Norf for most of my life appears not to outweigh my apparent negligence in having been born outside of God’s Own County.)

However I was wrong, because in fact my interrogator continued along a most unexpected tack. “I’m from near there.”

“Really? Where are you from then?”

“Warrington.”

“Er… but… Warrington’s not near London.”

“Yes it is. They are both about two hours from here.”

I was a little lost for words as he went on to explain where London and Warrington are; clearly there was no spatial confusion in his mind. There was however, rather a lot of confusion going on in my mind. This radical new notion of temporal proximity does have a certain logic, but my spatially-blinkered brain was refusing to accept it.

Despite the elegant simplicity of this new world view, I don’t think I’ll be adopting temporal location – not because I am a spatially-minded old stick-in-the-mud, but because I fear this way of thinking would enhance my own personal superpower to dangerously high levels. I am already famed far and wide for my ability to get lost. If I started measuring the world in times, you might never see me again…

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