The planet we inhabit is a sphere…of this we are assured by the evidence of the satellites that we send into space to take its picture. Globes are three-dimensional objects while maps are typically two dimensional. Transferring three-dimensional information to a two-dimensional flat surface requires a technique. The techniques most commonly adopted for our planet have had as their principal purpose the propagation of some nationalism or other. The latest of these is called Internationalism and being the biggest is both the most dangerous and the most deceptive.

This map is no exception but my nation is the circle of my friends and these typically live at the boundary between the water trails criss-crossing the North Atlantic Ocean and the land trails fanning out from the ports, harbours and estuaries where their forefathers rested their vessels and reprovisioned them for further exploration.

At certain places on our planet the three elements of earth, air and water can be found coming together and merging into one another. These places are not fixed but ebb and flow with the rhythms of the cosmos. Joined together on maps these land-falls appear as shore-lines.

The only map that accurately represents surface areas is Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion Map. Our map distorts like all the others. But in like manner to satellite cameras it distorts only to the extent that the eye delivers a distorted image when it gazes at a globe. And that means that the mind can deduce the three-dimensional shape with practice. This projection takes a point between Norway and Siberia...not the North Pole)...slices a great circle through Stockholm and then peels thirty degree segments from this northerly point.

Four water trails lead out of the North Atlantic Ocean to other places on the planet. 200 years ago there were just two. Then the Suez and Panama Canals were built to the great confusion of our modern day politicians whose ideologies were invented before the engineers set to work. The mountain pass at the top is narrow enough to allow the Siberian and Alaskan Electricity Grids to be connected. The pass at the other end of the lake is a couple of sailing days wide.

Whether you go by mountain pass or the man-made water trails cut through the mountain ridges sloping down into the Pacific and the Indian Oceans you can if you will make a journey by water of about 10 000 miles and arrive on the Great Australian Bight. This is where you will find the Eyre Peninsula…that is what the signs say. Contrary to popular belief you can get there from here...several ways. That's Spherical Geometry for you.