ISSUE 17 ARCHIVE - ROB'S WORLD

Rob Hunt

There is no opposite of evil. I’m fairly sure I’ve mentioned this before, however I’m not clever enough to remember everything I’ve ever said. I can’t, for instance, be expected to recall in the heat of drunken argument every spurious claim I’ve made in the heat of previous drunken argument, although it transpires this is a fairly rudimentary task for girlfriends.

In any case, you people need to be told everything twice and the last time I mentioned it, you probably fell into the same trap you’ve just fallen into again, leaping into the air and exclaiming “Ha! Yon dullard speaketh ill! Good is clearly the opposite of evil!”. Leaving me no option other than to remind you that good is the opposite of bad. Thus the forces of darkness are stacked against us from the outset. For every 6 Music there is a Radio 1 and a Heart FM. For every BBC, a Fox News and a Daily Mail. For every Quattro a split-fin.

Fortunately, if we adhere rigidly to the following universally acknowledged principles of righteousness, we cannot fail to be good divers.

FREEDOM

As divers, we are used to the freedom of moving easily in three dimensions and it is imperative that we uphold these principles at all costs. The freedom to ride turtles, dump plastic bags, beer cans and crude oil into the ocean, and smash up bits of coral with fire extinguishers, is a right. The right that stops us from being communists.

DEMOCRACY

All divers are created equal. Don’t let instructors and divemasters abuse their political power. If we want to dive an 80 metre wreck on our open water course, then we must use our vote. It is our democratic right to voice our own opinions on decompression profiles and oxygen toxicity, regardless of what these so-called “dive tables” do or don’t say. It is a right that separates us from the animals.

NATURE

As with vegetarianism, it’s clearly not natural for humans to call flippers “fins”, goggles “masks”, and breathy-bits “regulators”. It is a form of oppression designed to turn us against our own nature when we are forced to even think these words when exercising our own nature by breathing compressed air underwater. Vegetarians don’t eat meat because they’re wrong.

PROGRESS

If we’re not moving forwards, we’re moving backwards. When we look at the wonderful example of the northern ice cap melting in order to open the way for oil and resource exploitation, we can see that mother nature is only too willing to lend us a hand in our endeavours, but she will only meet us half way. Were it not for our steadfast resolve in using these resources in a way that promoted the melting of ice caps in the first place, these opportunities would never have been granted us. Using this example in the oceans, we can see it’s the endangered species that get all the attention, so we need to move forward and make more species endangered.

PROTECTION

The only good dive is a safe dive. It is for this reason that the only good shark is a dead shark and the only good wreck is one with all openings welded shut, all overhangs ripped off and all external features blasted clear with dynamite in case they have any sharp bits on them. Also, the only good dive bag is one that’s safely detonated by customs officials at the airport in case it’s got something dangerous like a knife in it.

BEAUTY

Without order, there can be no beauty. This is the fundamental lesson we are taught by jigsaws. We need to clean our oceans in order to truly appreciate their beauty. Only when we are truly free from the clutter of algae, fish, coral polyps, and other things that move and grow in an untidy way, will we be truly free to progress and appreciate true beauty. In the form of concrete blocks or something.

SUSTAINABILITY

Without a dive industry there can be no diving. In these difficult economic times, the only way to ensure the sustainability of the dive industry is by dramatically increasing the number of cheap flights, airports and runways, and by creating infrastructure in developing countries to increase access to remote areas of natural beauty. And by building large, cheap multi-storey hotels on these areas of beauty. And keeping costs down by funnelling tourist waste directly onto what remains of the house reef after you’ve finished throwing the used bags of concrete left over from the construction process onto it.

FUN

Above all, diving is fun, and if you’re not euphoric every moment that you’re around divers and dive gear then you’re doing it wrong and need to be beaten. Keep a vigilant eye out for anyone else you may be diving with that doesn’t look euphoric and beat them until they are.

Do all that and nothing else but all that and you will go to heaven. Heaven exemplifies all the above qualities, thus you are sure to have fun there (or be beaten).