h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The Koan, Newport, Isle of Wight, UK - A87990475
Author: Bluebottle - U43530

Written to support this month's Create theme.

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Well done - highlights the tragic issues alongside the comic aspects... "Islanders prefer the idea of healing through having a fully-equipped hospital." indeed...

Liliane Lijn's website seems to be offline at the moment Is it her that wrote about herself in the third person, or has the website been set up by a third party?

It will be great when your photo of it can adorn the Entry, as it is not the easiest thing to visualise! I checked online and found http://www.axisweb.org/p/lilianelijn/workset/13247-land-sea-light-koan/ - sounds like she was somewhat disappointed with it as well...

Would the £35,000 have bought you the four bedroomed semi on the Isle of Wight, or somewhere else?

I like the concluding paragraph - I see there are quite a few Koans around, but if any of them could be said to be 'The Koan' it would be this one

Good news - her website is up at the moment. That quote was her quoting a press release for an exhibition of her work that has since been postponed due to COVID. I've found the exhibition's website and it uses that quote too here: http://www.ordet.org/projects/liliane-lijnn Be warned the website pulses.

I dare say that you could have bought a 4-bed house for £35,000 in a lot of places UK-wide back in 1997, probably not Sandbanks in Poole, though. I know a 4-bed house could have been bought for that then because my granddad died in 1997 and that's how much his house was subsequently sold for. House prices are lower on the Island than the south of England.

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How bizarre - I still can't get into her website in this browser - I'll try another one... Nope, not working in that one, either That pulsing website is weird, too... Style over substance, it seems...

Ah, I guessed you had a personal connection to that particular number, but I wondered if it was the Isle of Wight or somewhere up North... On Rightmove I found a few examples of &#163;55,000 buying a 3-bed semi on the Island in 1997 but there is a lot of variation in different places, yes.

It is shocking that the Island is a 'hospital desert' - not the same as Rutland, indeed... As the proverbial crow flies, the nearest hospitals might be the same distance away, but flying is not a helpful option, as you say...

Rutland is larger than the Isle of Wight the population is only c40,000 not c140,000 and it is possible to drive to surrounding counties without booking in advance - even in the middle of the night.

Were those £164k houses out by Bembridge or Seaview by any chance?

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Yes indeed - much lower population density and much easier to get to the nearest neigbour county... Did you hear that QI learned that the Isle of Wight is larger than Rutland for parts of the year? (Not that the extra land is of any use to the population, as it is underwater for the other parts of the year, so it is rather by-the-by!)

Sorry I don't know what's happened to my browser - pound signs are either showing up as Lira or not at all - the 55k houses were in Newport. The footnote is clear, though - that amount of money would have made a big difference to the hospital, and introducing non-functional art at such a time was insensitive, to say the least...

The Island does have a good number of submerged sandbanks that are briefly exposed at the lowest tides of the year, however as the Island is also the part of Europe with the greatest degree of coastal erosion the Island has shrunk ever-so slightly since that episode of QI was first aired while Rutland has remained the same size, so it won't be true for ever.

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Thanks for writing this Entry. This makes me so angry!

I'll just add a link to a not-entirely-unrelated news story here for now: http://onthewight.com/65-per-cent-of-isle-of-wight-patients-turn-down-privately-provided-mainland-operations/

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Very difficult...

I’m still puzzled about why I can’t see Liliane Lijn’s website - I tried another browser today and that didn’t like it either...

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