319 - "Ours Is A Special World"

“I was contemplating the logo and slogan of `The Hospitality Industry`, the vaguely named corporation that apparently makes foil/paper wrappers for hamburgers, wondering just what `Special World` they were talking about,” writes `Abner Cadaver, hamburger eater`. “Then I realized the world depicted had only vague similarities to our own – the Hospitality Industry inhabits a `special world` of tectonics gone horribly, horribly awry.”

Indeed.

Florida and Cuba have merged to form one giant peninsula of the North American continent, jutting deep into an islandless Caribbean. Canada`s Far North only boasts one island – or none, if that is Greenland, split in two. The British Isles are presented as a single blob, while smaller dots in the North Atlantic mark out probably Iceland, and possibly Spitsbergen. Denmark and Italy have melted away from the European continent, and the Mediterranean is broadly connected to the Atlantic and Indian Oceans by Africa`s drifting south. Madagascar is counter-drifting north, towards India. Most of Asia is hidden from sight, the visible part of the mainland dominated by two huge lakes, the Black/Caspian Sea and a super-version of Lake Baikal.

Thanks to Abner Cadaver for sending in this map on a wrapper. Let`s hope this map was more off than his burger.