Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Everything has its proper place

I came across a travel book on Spain that was classed in 919.604.

According to that number, Spain is located in the Pacific Ocean, near Australia and New Zealand.

It put me in mind of a scene from Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell where Strange is helping the British army in the Napoleonic War. They are about to be surrounded by the enemy, so the general cries out to Strange to do something, anything. Strange casts a spell that physically moves the land the British army is on to some place in America, where they wait a little while before Strange casts a spell to move them back.

I reclassed the book to its proper place, 914.604, and had this brief, amusing image, of Spain being wrested from the Pacific and planted back in its proper place.

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