Nations: Mania: CapitalNations: Mania: Capital
The capital city of Mania is called Cxitie, (pronounced 'chee-tee-eh').
Cxitie is the world's most extraordinary city. It is home to an astonishing array of internationally known wonders and monuments, and on a more human scale combines a range of cultures, architectures and languages which no other city can rival.
You may be wondering, therefore, why you've never heard of it, and why - with head held high, and feet held higher - you were thrown out of Thomas Cook's after three hours of trying to book tickets to fly there.
The reason is simple. It is not called Cxitie outside Mania. Indeed, outside Mania, it doesn't have a name.
Cxitie is Esperanto for here. Cxitie, the capital city of Mania, is whichever city I happen to be in at the time. It is New York in 2001, Madrid in 1995, South Africa in 1998, Leningrad in 1980...
Does this mean that the capital 'keeps changing'? Well, yes and no. Einstein explained that we don't live in a three dimensional world which uniformly changes, but a four dimensional world, spread out through space and time. Well, during most of 1998, for instance, Cxitie was in Cape Town, and in the universe of space and time, the Cape Town of 1998 will 'always' be Cxitie.
Think about it this way, and you suddenly realise that even good old London hasn't stayed still: swirling about the earth's axis, and around the sun, and slowly around the rim of the milky way... The only difference is that while London remains in a constant position relative to the earth, Cxitie doesn't - but then, what makes the earth's frame of reference so privileged?
I am therefore delighted to present to you twelve randomly chosen images of the world's greatest city. In each case, the name is given in the Esperanto of Mania, and in English.
Cxitie (Cologne)Population: 975,907
Coordinates:: 50.57'N 6.58'E
Website: stadt-koeln.de
Notes: An wonderful cathedral, which you should admire for at least six or seven minutes before finding yourself a bar and discovering Cxitie's very own Kolsch beer.
Cxitie (Geneva)Population: 185,526
Coordinates:: 46.12'N 6.09'E
Website: www.ville-ge.ch
Notes: The people of Cxitie speak an average of 27 languages and consider learning another one to give a foreigner directions merely common courtesy.
Cxitie (Gateshead)Population: 191,151
Coordinates:: 54.54'N, 1.35'W
Website: www.gateshead.gov.uk
Notes: Home to the Angel of the North by Anthony Gormley, the most celebratory and uplifting sculpture I have ever seen.
Cxitie (Paris)Population: 2,144,700
Coordinates:: 48.52'N, 2.19'E
Website: www.v1.paris.fr/en/
Notes: Beautiful and fascinating, Cxitie briefly tasted freedom and the abolition of the state during the self-rule of the commune in 1871, and will truly flower when she does so again!
Cxitie (Madrid)Population: 3,155,359
Coordinates:: 40.43'N 3.69'W
Website: www.munimadrid.es
Notes: Cxitie was reborn after the death of the miserable bastard Francisco Franco and has both the most beautiful women and the most beautiful transvestites in the world. Don't ask me why.
Cxitie (New York)Population: 8,104,079
Coordinates:: 40.47'N 73.58'W
Website: www.nyc.gov
Notes: The people of Cxitie eat bagels, a form of bread denser than anything else in the universe except the core of a black hole, and are therefore clearly to be reckoned with.
Cxitie (Cape Town)Population: 3,300,000
Coordinates:: 33.55'S 18.27'E
Website: www.capetown.gov.za
Notes: Quite genuinely, the most wonderful place in the world to live providing you are not poor (though this is a huge step forward from the past when this was the most wonderful place in the world to live providing you were not black).
Cxitie (Leningrad)Population: 4,661,219
Coordinates:: 59.56'N 30.20'E
Website: www.spb.ru/eng
Notes: Very cold, very striking, and very much home to Nadia: whom I met there when I was 15 and still think about.
Cxitie (Seville)Population: 704,203
Coordinates:: 37.22'N 5.59'W
Website: www.andalucia.com/cities/sevilla.htm
Notes: The best and cheapest wine, seafood, and coffee in the world, concert quality guitar music played live in pubs, and that slice of heaven known as churros in hot chocolate, all in the same city.
Cxitie (London)Population: 7,529,381
Coordinates:: 51.30'N 0.8'W
Website: www.london.gov.uk
Notes: Samuel Johnson was right: when you're tired of Cxitie, you're tired of life.
Cxitie (Moscow)Population: 10,415,400
Coordinates:: 55.45'N 37.37'E
Website: www.moscow-life.com
Notes: The entire city runs on a single liquid which fuels the vehicles, strips the dirt of the roads, and stops everyone dying of thirst. It is called vodka, but bears no relation to the western product of the same name.
Cxitie (Amsterdam)Population: 742,951
Coordinates:: 52.22N 4.54'E
Website: www.iamsterdam.com
Notes: Cxitie is the most sane and tolerant city in the world, and its sprawling and wonderful red light zone, sex shows, and coffee shops selling cannabis have an air of wholesomeness about them which makes John-Boy Walton look like a gangster rapper.