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Around the World in Eighty Days : Once a pipe dream, now a pipe dream

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Harry Hayfield

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Oct 3, 2024, 8:12:12 AM10/3/24
to Jules Verne Forum
In 1872 when Verne wrote "Around the Wold in Eighty Days", it was written as a celebration of modern travel, how ships, trains and where suitable, the occasional elephant, had made the world smaller.

What a shame then that 152 years later, geopolitics has made the world bigger again.

The current turmoil in the Middle East rules out any safe passage through the Red Sea via the Suez canal, the Russian miltary invasion (sorry, special operation) in Ukraine means that if you are from any country who has imposed sanctions you cannot enter the country (so that rules out the Trans Siberian railway) and whilst you can travel by cargo ship, London to Fremantle, Australia is 34 - 42 days, Fremantle to Sydney is 3 days , Sydney to London via the Panama Canal is 36 - 45 days, grand total 73 days to 90 days, mid point of 82 days.

For someone like me who grew up with the likes of Willy Fog to find out that the modern world has now made a journey of literary note, makes me feel the same way as I watched the handover of Hong Kong in 1997, and the Brexit referendum of 2016.

The world has changed, and not necessarily for the better
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