Wizard map marks "Empire Games”

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33447, 31 January 1974, Page 18

Wizard map marks "Empire Games”

Mystical robes folded neatly in a supermarket plastic bag, wand modestly carried at his side, Melbourne University’s wizard slipped into Christchurch, his way uncleared by henchmen in pith helmets and armbands, his ears unblessed by hysterical shouts of “Wizard save the Queen.” This is the time for work, not pomp. Fast approaching is 1.10 a.m. on December 4, 1974. At that moment Wizard lan Brackenbury Channell, Wizard of the World University Service, the only man whose living body can sometimes be seen on display as “a living work of art” in the National Gallery of Victoria, intends to vanish from Antipodes Island and materialise 42 minutes later in the English Channel. Wizard Channell, known in some circles as ‘“Mad Jack,” has arrived at the time of what he insists should be called “the Empire Games” to benefit mankind by revealing his New World Map. It is basically an inverted Mercator projection with New Zealand, at last, on the top. Wizard Channell describes the map as “a deliberate declaration of independence from the domination of Northern Hemisphere intellectuals, who control the mass media and mass education in the Southern Hemisphere through their stooges.”

He sees the map as a counter-attack against the evil powers of the northern space - lords, who have introduced a mass of new signs and standards—mainly metrication—to destrov the confidence of the British people throughout the world.

Each copy of the map carries a warning that it is entirely unsuitable for use in State schools, “as it is not educational in their sense of the word.” To resolve the confusion caused by one person’s

geographical “here” being many other people’s “there,” the wizard has designated a point on Antipodes Island to be known as “here.” It will be referred to as Wizard’s Mean Place (W.M.P.). The first man to master time, Wizard Channell has frozen time as well as space in his new map. He says that the time is now 10 past one on the fourth of December, 1974—until further notice. Appropriately for a man who stood as a constitutional

monarchist candidate in the 1972 Australian Federal Elections, the Wizard finds space in his cartographical explanations for a loyal reference to the Royal family, particularly dear to him because they admit to enjoying “the Goon Show.” He said he would not drop in and see the Royal family on the Britannia, preferring to wait until they eventually saw the wisdom of his view of the universe and came to seek him out.