October 07, 2005

Horse 414 - Conquistador

7th October 1510,
The only information that the Sydney Morning Herald gives for it's historical column was that Spanish conquistador Balboa (the guy with the funny looking hat) found a tribe of cross-dressing males in Panama and executed them all on-spec in the name of the Queen and God. A Panamanian Transvestite colony? Wow.

Conquistador - now there's a profession that you don't hear much of these days. Conquistador. I mean it's right near the beginning of the career alphabet too. A - architect, artist. B - Binman, Baker. C - Conquistador! Why wasn't I offered that as a career option? How unfair.

There's programs in schools to help people leaving school decide what sort of careers they might like. Now as talented and fabulous as I am, they never once offered me that option. Know what they suggested that I do? Become a baggage handler at the airport. Now with all my flair and intelligence, you think that they could have come up with something better than that.

I would have liked to follow in the footsteps of James Cook, Chris Columbus, Cardinal Fang etc. Well I suppose they didn't really have footsteps did they, being on ship and all.
But I can see the other side of the coin as well. On 19th January 1514, the Queen had Balboa executed... so it's probably a good thing I didn't become a Conquistador.

But the name Conquistador is still pretty cool.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

what's a binman?