Velociworld

A QUEER CONVERGENCE

I was reading a Kathleen Parker editorial this morning, in which she was lamenting the tendency of designer baby parents to abort foetuses with minor birth defects, such as a clubbed foot. By example she mentioned Lord Byron, a clubfoot, who once swam the Hellespont (Dardenelles Strait) to prove his virility, and vigor.

I'd never known Byron had done that, and thought it an interesting morsel of information.

Then, as I was reading Patrick O'Brian's Treason's Harbour in the pool, I ran across a scene in which Jack Aubrey was talking to a Turkish dragoman, who claimed to have been present when Byron climbed, dripping, from the Hellespont. Now that is a hell of a coincidence. It also confirms my belief that I live a much more boring existence than most people.

Byron swimming the Hellespont is my harmonic convergence? What the fuck?