This year, there have been eight incidents of motorists being rescued from the sea near Holy Island. But it just seems completely impossible that this can happen. Here are seven reasons why.
- This isn’t possible.
1. There’s A Bloody Great Sign. As you approach the causeway to Holy Island, there’s a sign. It tells you not to drive across to the island when water approaches the causeway. It’s a big, yellow sign, and it’s big and yellow because big, yellow things are highly visible. Can you see the sun? Yes? That’s because it’s a big, yellow thing. Just like the sign that tells you not to drive into the sea.
- Can you see this?
2. It’s Called Holy Island. What’s in a name? Well, in this case, there’s a hint as to the nature of the place to which these people were headed. There’s the word Holy, which means tread carefully, and the word Island, which is a declaration that this is a place that is cut off from the mainland somehow; most likely by water. If I were going to an island, I’d expect water. And, hopefully, an ice cream.
3. You Have To Drive Along A Causeway. A causeway is a raised road that crosses marshy ground or water. Now I understand that not everyone knows this and, indeed, there was a time in my life that I didn’t know what a causeway was. And then, when I was seven, that all changed and I learned that word. Now, given that you have to be at least seventeen to drive a car is this possible? Are there people over the age of seventeen in this country that are unfamiliar with the either the word island or the word causeway? There can’t be.
4. Another Sign. Perhaps I’m wrong when I assume that these inadvertent submariners were approaching Holy Island. Perhaps these hapless buffoons were leaving it. But maybe I’m being harsh and these people were just a tiny bit muddled and forgetful. But no, they can’t be, because there are more signs; signs to warn those people that are about to drive across the causeway for a second time. Big, yellow signs and different signs too. Signs that tell you to consult a tide table if you’re in any doubt as to whether you should attempt to drive across the sea.
5. Tide Table. But telling people to consult a tide table isn’t overly helpful, is it? After all, who keeps a tide table in their glove-box? And, come to think of it, who keeps gloves in their glove-box? Why isn’t is known as the half a pocket pack of tissues and the charger for a phone-box?* Anyway it’s conceivable that people won’t have a tide table on them so perhaps, once again, I’m judging them too harshly. But…
…oh look, there it is. That wasn’t too hard to find after all. Are these foundering fuckwits an early indication that humans are reverting to apes?
6. Boats. Britain is an Island. And, because of our glorious seafaring history, it will be apparent to anyone with even a modicum of an education or cognitive function that, to cross the sea, you need a boat. Did Nelson fight the battle of Trafalgar on a horse? Was Hitler able to drive his panzers across the sea in 1941? Did Sir Francis Drake sally forth to dispatch the armada at the wheel of a Nissan Micra? No. This is because you can’t drive in the sea. That is a widely known and commonly accepted truth.
7. Other Nations. I’m assuming that these shipwrecked simpletons are British though. But there are other nationalities that have done this too. Because in the latest incident in which motorists had to be rescued from the sea by a lifeboat near Holy Island (and who wouldn’t want to be a fly on the wall for that conversation?) they weren’t British at all. And I suppose that it’s quite conceivable that if you were from a landlocked nation and weren’t familiar with the English language that it would be possible for you to inadvertently get caught out on the causeway. So which landlocked non-English-speaking land with no absolutely no history of seafaring did these people come from? Australia.
It’s not possible that people are driving into the sea, but they are. How? Why? Answers on a postcard please.
*That’s a charger for a phone, not a charger for a phone-box.
