22/01/2024 We need an In-sewer-ants polly-sea

Firstly, kudos to those of you who recognized the Discworld reference. For those of you who didn’t, LSpace Wiki has the following entry: https://wiki.lspace.org/Inn-Sewer-Ants

(I so hope that this sends you down a Terry Pratchett rabbit hole. You deserve it, and you’re welcome).

“Inn-Sewer-Ants: the translation of an Agatean concept brought to Ankh-Morpork by Twoflower. The idea was that a financial institution, upon payment of a yearly "premium", would guarantee reimbursement of loss of property due to fire or other disaster. This must have worked well in the Aurient, but Morporkians soon found the opportunity to reap windfall profits of thousands of percent irresistible. The ensuing chain of events included the Great Fire of Ankh-Morpork, the formation of the Firefighters’ Guild, and Charcoal Wednesday.”

If the above tickles your fancy, google “reflected-sound-of-underground-spirits” and/or “Dunmanifestin”. (Actually, that’s too good not to share: “Dunmanifestin” is the sacred gated community where resides the disfunctional pantheon of the Discworld Gods). But, I digress…

There is an IRL connection to the Sci-Fi/Fantasy theme and supertrip, bear with me.

This week, we went to AMA and got our supertrip travel insurance. We’d looked online and it wasn’t pretty. Our trip is 129 days, which inevitably implies a surcharge. We pass through the US (twice). We go hiking, with occasional scrambling, on a route on which 90% of those who drop out do so due to injury. Then there’s the remote road trip.

The AMA seemed like a brainwave (we have a low bar for inspiration). They did in fact offer the best deal with good cover, including inter-province repatriation, which hadn’t even occurred to us. We were also told that the base policy costs ought to be tax-deductible (an obscure, but potentially valuable, fact I hope you already knew. We didn’t.)

It was also a delightfully memorable experience. The effective and friendly woman who served us, didn’t give us her name – and, somehow, we forgot to ask. So, this is a sub-optimal shout-out to a great service provider. As she tapped her way through our forms, and prompted by the figurines at her station, we enjoyed an animated discussion about “the classics” (Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who) and swapped trivia. She paused to roll up her sleeve and show us the fine light sabre tattoo on her right forearm. She described, but did not show us, given the restrictions of the situational logistics, her ankle tattoos (the Tardis and a Dalek). We shared that there is a replica Tardis on the Earl’s Court road, just in front of what was our local tube station in London. We agreed that Tom Baker is simply the best Doctor (ok, for those of us over 45), and that David Tennant is the modern-day champion, with an honourable mention to Matt Smith, over whom she clearly fangirls, as is her right. Although, the sight of him with a man-bun on a dragon has apparently cooled her ardour somewhat...

Who knew insurance could be fun?