So Gulliver, having set his heart on the rather unusual quest of finding The Last Bookshop in the World, sat down and thought about how he would best be able to achieve such a thing. First he thought about this task logically and then he thought about it illogically; Lewis Carroll would have been proud of him, Gulliver had no doubt about that, the scientific community on the other hand not so much so. Gulliver made copious amounts of notes on the subject and talked to both Alice and Old Father Time. According to the proprietor of The Pandemonium Emporium, if you wanted to find this mythical bookshop you first had to face various trials and challenges while finding clues along the way. After trials and tribulations, hopefully The Last Bookshop in the World would appear before you very eyes as if by magic. After which Gulliver looked at the few maps, charts and books he was able to find, drew the logical and illogical together and removed the cobble from his cobbled-together plans until eventually they had an order to them which he found most pleasing. Then after studiously going over the plans with a fine-tooth comb, which he’d picked up in a shop which sold fine-tooth combs, he was ready to embark on the adventure of a lifetime. Oh, and I nearly forgot, after all the studiousness and fine-tooth combing, Gulliver reached into his pocket, withdrew a shiny gold ducat, tossed it in the air and asked Alice to call it!
Well, even the best laid plans have one or two minor imperfections that needed ironing out. So Gulliver did just this by placing his plans on a ironing board and running a warm iron over them as if they were the Times newspaper. Gulliver had often seen manservants do this on period dramas on the television as if they were ironing a newly washed shirt, before presenting it on a silver tray to their masters at the breakfast table, the newspaper not the shirt! Then, and only then… did he toss the coin. It seemed in this world that for some strange reason Gulliver felt the need to take everything literally!
Alice called heads which meant they were heading south in their quest to find The Last Bookshop in the World. The coin landed face up revealing the smiling face of Queen Elizabeth I. If one had picked the coin up, and here the expression ‘on the other side of the coin’ springs to mind, and turned it over to the tails side of the coin, they would have seen a picture of Queen Victoria looking anything but amused at this sleight!
Now you may think tossing a coin to decide which direction you’re heading in is not exactly what you might call scientific, and you may well be right. However, in all quests and journeys you must factor luck into the equation, for without Lady Luck on your side you may as well pack up and go home. You see, according to Gulliver’s calculations, to find this mythical bookshop he either had to go east, west, north or south. Now as Gulliver was already in the west in old Devon, then he had two choices, well, that’s if you discount the east. Gulliver had discounted the east because he didn’t like spicy foods and as such there was little chance of him captaining a cutter and getting involved in the spice trade. So if the Last Bookshop in the World was in the east then the whole quest thing was off, end of story!
In The Great Shake Up of Time and Space, as Old Father Time referred to the time when the gods shook things up in this world, Devon was still where it had always been as, by all accounts, was the west, the east, the north and the south, well, after a fashion. After the shake up, several explorers had explored some of the New World, however, a lot was still to be explored.
The only thing that worried Gulliver slightly was that crosswords and puzzles had never been his forte, especially the ones in the Times newspaper. In fact, he hadn’t got a clue how to solve them! One of his father’s old jokes, so he needed all the help he could get. Some jokes improve with time like a fine wine and some jokes should remain in the wine cellar gathering dust, metaphorically speaking that is.
Gulliver asked Alice and Old Father Time if they wanted to come on his quest to find The Last Bookshop in the World. Alice said she’d love to as it was the school holidays and her wicked stepmother was sick of her getting underfoot, and that wasn’t a fairytale. Alice was also looking for a book and when Gulliver asked her what book it was she was looking for, she replied, ‘I’ll know what it’s called when I’ve found it!’ This to Gulliver sounded like his mother’s logic, or as his father often called it, female logic. This logic, his father said, really defied logic and was best not put under a microscope and certainly was best not argued against. To be fair, this logic was rarely found wanting, as Gulliver’s mother and grandmother often told him. Here Gulliver pictured putting the word ‘logic’ under a microscope, which after some twiddling of this scientific device, the word becomes clearer. You’re right, that wasn’t very scientific but then again it was better than being blinded by science! When he was a young child, Gulliver looked at the sun through an old telescope and was nearly blinded for his troubles, this taught him a valuable lesson which was that he should never look directly at the sun, especially through an optical device. Well, we all get blinded by the patently obvious at one time or another in our lives!
Old Father Time said he’d love to come on Gulliver’s quest as he had plenty of time on his hands now that he was retired. Old Mrs Time also wanted to do the spring cleaning and she was as equally as sick of Old Father Time getting underfoot as Alice’s wicked stepmother was of Alice getting underfoot. Actually, that’s another fairytale as Alice’s stepmother wasn’t at all wicked, although she did have a wicked sense of humour. Still, Alice was of a mind that you should try everything at least once in a lifetime and she’d never run away from home before so why not give it a try? What was the worst that could happen… How long have you got!? In truth, her stepmother and her father said this adventure would do wonders for her self-confidence and would make a woman out of her. So although her parents were a little reluctant to let her go, they agreed to do so, that and they trusted the Guardian of Time to take good care of her.
Old Father Time said he was good at working out clues, as he often did the Times crossword while overseeing the clock at Greenwich to make sure it kept perfect time. Old Father Time was also looking for a book, although having already asked Alice what the book was that she was looking for, only to have the book shut on his hand, metaphorically speaking, Gulliver was more than a little reluctant to ask Old Father Time what the title of the book he was looking for was called.
Gulliver, being as curious as the next twelve-year-old boy going on thirty-five, however, did ask Old Father Time what book he was searching for. Old Father Time said the book was called Time: A User’s Guide, although he said he didn’t know the author’s name. Gulliver said perhaps he had written it but had forgotten as the passing of time does tend to have that effect on one’s mind. Old Father Time said he was sure he would have remembered if he’d written a book. Gulliver said not if he’d forgotten he wouldn’t, which was logical. There the conversation ended, which both Gulliver and Old Father Time agreed was probably for the best.
After Gulliver had chosen his companions for his epic journey, which of course included Beagle, who could sniff out a clue a mile away, or at least a bone, he then had to decide what form of transport would best suit him and his travelling companions’ needs. Once again science was thrown out the window and the shiny gold ducat emerged from his pocket and was tossed in the air with great gusto. This time Old Father Time called it and the coin came down tails side up, although by the look upon Queen Victoria’s face, she was no more amused by this than she had been of landing face down in the dirt. This meant they would take to the air in a hot air balloon. Old Mrs Time said this was appropriate as Old Father Time was full of hot air. Some marriages work perfectly well until the couple retire. Old Father Time said to Gulliver with a resigned shrug of his shoulders. If Old Father Time had called heads they would have started their journey on a sailing vessel upon the seas and then Lady Luck and Queen Elizabeth I would have been shining down on them. However, as the coin would have been face up Lady Luck and Queen Elizabeth I would in fact have been shining up at them, but why spoil a good or a bad story with such trifling little things like the facts. In truth, facts didn’t seem that important in this fairytale-like world! Old Father Time was no ancient mariner and suffered from seasickness so was rather relieved he’d lost the toss of the coin.
Alice said she wished there were such things as magic carpets but Old Father Time said he was rather glad there weren’t for with his balance he was sure to have fallen off!
Gulliver wondered what sort of books would be on the shelves of The Last Bookshop in the World; big books, small books, lavishly illustrated books with gold lettering on the spine, paperbacks, hardbacks, ones with no backs at all because the proprietor was wearing them! Gulliver just hoped this bookshop wasn’t a let down like the library Alice had taken him to, as the only books upon its shelves were invisible, like elves, now that’s what I call a fairy story! The proprietor probably looked like a cross between Stephen Fry and Charles Dickens and the floorspace was so large he would have to cycle around the shop on a penny-farthing holding a lantern on a stick in his hand. Well, as long as he was the polar opposite to the proprietor of The Pandemonium Emporium he didn’t care much, or much care for that matter.
Gulliver would love to find a copy of the rare book The Mariner’s Mirrour published in 1586, the title page of which was filled with globes and ships, with two sailors who looked not unlike Walter Raleigh and Francis Drake. However, although Francis Drake was one figure, the other was Anthony Ashley, another famous sailor of the day. The figures stood in regal pose like giants, not unlike Gulliver standing over the tiny Lilliputians in that book about travels. Drake was standing one side of a statue and Ashley the other with the title of the book written across the top of the statue. Underneath the statue was an inscription in calligraphy-style writing with each word ending in glorious flourishes with the heading – ‘Of Navigation’, and with the names of both Anthony Ashley and Sir Francis Drake on the title page. The page was scattered with a quadrant, astrolabe, sand-glass and cross-staff compasses and navigator’s dividers. It seemed the writer of this book, like Gulliver, was dyslexic as he had spelt mirror, mirrour; the truth was that was how they spelt mirror in the good olden days, or was that the good golden days!?
There was also another book Gulliver would have loved to get his hands upon called The World Encompassed, written in 1628 by an unknown author. Books by unknown writers were always fascinating to Gulliver as he wondered who the author actually was. Perhaps they were of royal blood, either that or they were a scoundrel who was blackmailing the publishers into publishing their own personal doctrines and beliefs. Perhaps the publishers had the last laugh when they pushed the unknown author into the printing press so his head was pressed like a grape in a vineyard! Yes, Gulliver did have ‘quite the imagination’ and would have been happy as a sand\ship’s boy living on either the imaginatively titled Imagination Street or the street just off of this street, Wonderland Gardens.
Gulliver wondered how many books on time, both fiction and non-fiction, he would find in this bookshop, especially as now time didn’t exist. Would books such as these be much in demand, or as time was no longer, would they be out of print, slipping into virtual obscurity? Surely books like The Time Machine and Hard Times would never be out of print, thought Gulliver wistfully, as they were timeless classics. And if ever a word fitted, then the word ‘timeless’ fitted this world like a cuckoo fitted a cuckoo clock.
The trouble with having too much time on your hands was your mind has plenty of time to go walk about. The mind is like a bookshop or a library, it needs order otherwise it’s complete pandemonium!
Gulliver surmised that The Last Bookshop in the World would probably look nothing special from the outside, while inside it would be so magical books would literally be flying off the shelves like in Harry Potter. Gulliver had built it up in his mind so much that it would be like a cross between Buckingham Palace, the Vatican Library and Aladdin’s cave. No doubt reality would tear his mind palace down like a pack of cards when he eventually found it, if he ever found it!
That was the trouble with mythical places like Atlantis, El Dorado and The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, they were notoriously difficult to find no matter how good your charts, maps, compasses, sextants, astrolabes and satellite navigational systems were. Most, if not all these places were best kept in the imagination, they weren’t meant to be found for as soon as they were the story was dead in the water, or at least Atlantis would have been if it was ever discovered!
Gulliver had heard of a library full of golden books which was apparently hidden in a cave beneath a river in South America in Ecuador, but like the Lost City of Atlantis and El Dorado, the city of gold, it was probably nothing more than a Hans Christian Andersen-like fairytale. And Gulliver did like reading the imaginative Hans Christian Andersen stories, both his fairytales and his travelogues, that man could spin tales like Rumplestiltskin, could spin hay into gold. Hans Christian could make words dance, sing to his pied-piper’s tune as they jumped right off the page as if by magic and did a jig of delight right in front of your very eyes, which in truth, being dyslexic could be a little troublesome at times.
A few days later, Gulliver, Beagle, Old Father Time and Alice were clambering into a hot air balloon in a field a few miles outside Brixham, wondering if they were going on an adventure of a lifetime or the exact opposite. The panels of the balloon, which had been stitched together so skilfully (hopefully!), now filled with hot air as the onlookers stood in wonderment at this glorious sight. The balloon was blue and gold in colour and was woven in golden thread reminding Gulliver of the Rumplestiltskin story. The balloon also reminded him of the book The Golden Hind Airship, a book his grandfather had given him for his tenth birthday, although he couldn’t recall the author’s name. Gulliver knew just enough about the history of balloon flight to know that the first balloon flight took place in 1783 in France, although he couldn’t recall who had made the flight, however, he did recall that it had been the Montgolfier brothers who had built this marvellous contraption.
Old Father Time, being the ex-Guardian of Time, still had connections in this world so he’d called on one of them literally, banging on the door of the owner of one of the hot air balloons at some ungodly hour. Old Father Time told Gulliver the owner wasn’t best pleased, or worse pleased for that matter!
‘Now remember, the higher you want to go the more sandbags you have to throw overboard, but just remember they’re heavy, and if they land on somebody’s head they are liable to knock them spark out!’ the balloon owner laughed like he had just told the funniest joke ever, which went down like a lead balloon with Gulliver.
‘And what if we want to come down?’ said Gulliver quizzically as he helped Beagle into the basket.
‘Want to come down? Want to come down? You haven’t even been up yet and already you want to come down? What, don’t you have a head for heights, boy!?’ said the man bellowing in Gulliver’s ear. ‘Only pulling your chain, boy, and that’s what you’ll have to do, pull the chain attached to the gas tanks, this will stop the flow of hot air and you’ll come down. Mind you, you might find it harder stopping the flow of hot air that emanates from my good friend’s mouth, he’s always gassing,’ the owner of the hot air balloon said, looking over towards Old Father Time as he was telling Alice about the record-sized turnips he’d recently grown in his vegetable patch. These turnips, according to Old Father Time, had taken no time at all to grow, literally no time at all, he said with a smile on his face.
As the man told Gulliver this, he imagined the balloon falling from the sky like a stone before Old Father Time blew into the balloon, sending it in an upwardly direction. Unfortunately, he could also see the balloon filling Old Father Time with gas until he blew up to the size of a balloon made in the shape of an elephant, like he’d once seen a man do at a friend’s birthday party. After which, Old Father Time would float off into the sky before hitting his head on the roof of the ship’s bottle. Or worse, he would burst like a balloon which had been pricked with a needle. Neither scenario was a particular comforting one for him or Old Father Time, so he promised himself it would never appear on his radar ever again, or at least not until they were back on terra firma.
Gulliver smiled, trying to put the vision of Old Father Time bursting like a balloon out of his head. He then shook the hand of the man who owned the balloon, who wished him good luck before he walked off into the distance. But just before the man disappeared completely, he turned around and shouted in his best town crier’s voice ‘Oh, and try not to hit the roof of the world or you might puncture my balloon. If I lose any passengers my insurance premium will go sky high!’ and then the man disappeared like a rabbit in a magician’s hat.
Gulliver climbed into the balloon using the small stepladder provided, having first placed Beagle in the basket. After which he did his knight in shining armour\Walter Raleigh routine by gallantly helping Alice into the balloon as she too climbed into the basket. Then Old Father Time untethered the balloon from its mooring, climbed the small stepladder, and the Four Musketeers were ready to embark on their adventure of several lifetimes.