Wrapping Manchester
Manchester City Council reports that each Christmas in the UK we use 83 square kilometres of wrapping paper. They also add that this is enough to gift-wrap Guernsey. I happen to know that Guernsey has an area of roughly 78 square kilometres. So, if we are provided with these 83 square kilometres of wrapping paper we would most certainly not be able to wrap the island of Guernsey. If you think about it, the surface area of Guernsey that is above the water, the reported 78 square kilometres must also be replicated under the water, giving a total of 156 square kilometres. The isle is also not 2D, so we have to factor in the height of the island. Unfortunately no-one seems to have bothered measuring this, so perhaps for my Summer holidays I shall go to Guernsey.
There is also the problem that you would suffocate the 65,228 people that live there, and if any did not asphyxiate then they would have a dramatic lack of vitamin D and plants would find it very difficult to photosynthesise. Aha, I hear you cry! We could use transparent wrapping paper. Well, I don’t think we have any transparent paper. Plus, transparent wrapping paper would be pointless and defeat the entire objective of wrapping the present in the first place.
Now, what sinister motive could the City Council of Manchester have for wrapping Guernsey up in wrapping paper, therefore killing the entire population and all plant life, along with filling the sea with little bits of paper that have sort of dissolved in the water. Manchester has a population density of 3,815 people per square kilometre. Invading Guernsey and placing it under a militant rule of Manchester City Council would reduce their population density to 2,402 people per square kilometre. This would move Manchester from being the 31st most densely populated area in England down to 72nd. Horifically this would place Hull in the ultimate spot of 42nd!
Well thats settled then. I’m going to have to go to Guernsey to get an accurate, scientific, dermatologically tested value for the amount of wrapping paper required to wrap Guernsey (including any overlap and folding, etc). Then I can present this to Manchester City Council and halt their plans for World domination. If they repeated this for all the land on this planet, they would fall to a population density of 2.961×10-3 people per square kilometre. Plus, they would lose their distinctive accent. Well, it would still exist, but it wouldn’t be distinctive.
Editor’s Note: I’m not entirely sure where I was going with this blog post, but at least I have avoided writing something too typically Christmassy.