On the plus side it has enabled me to do some planning towards my next field break which is coming up in 10 days time. I have decided that 27 years is far too old to have never been Scuba diving therefore in an effort to rectify things I will be going to Palau Weh of the Northern tip of Sumatra to do just that, apparently it is stunning so I have high hopes. I also plan to have a couple of days in the jungle near Medan trying to find Orang Utans as well as climbing an active volcano if there's time. As you can imagine I'm quite looking forward to it. Certainly more so than any future England football campaign and all the associated bollocks which comes with it. Just awful all round. On the plus side the Stephen Gerrard rumours have cheered me up no end. Should be fun for the newspapers when the injunction lifts in 2 weeks...
Having said all that I did make one brief trip into the jungle to accompany another geologist round who had been asked to update the report he wrote 2 years ago on the area. This would have been fine if he hadn't; 1) Been a condescending arse to the locals and 2) Looked unmistakeably like Art Garfunkel. Therefore I decided to entertain myself in various ways to balance it all out, so whenever he was rude to one of the guys who help us I would balance it out by doing one of the following:
- Putting any insect who wandered past into his sleeping bag
- Accidentally soaking the socks he'd laid out for the next day with water. He told me this was down to the morning mist apparently. He never did explain why everything else was dry though.
- Handing out his private supply of biscuits then saying I hadn't seen them. I liked this one the best as it was a sort of instigated karma, especially because everyone knew where i'd got them from.
I also sang as many Simon and Garfunkel songs as I could remember. He did look at me a bit funnily when I sang Bright Eyes before every meal. Apparently it's one of my favourite songs...
I know this is all intensely childish but he was deserving of every second of it. It was either that or kill him and I'm guessing an Indonesian jail is unlikely to be a 5* resort (although I would be willing to bet that everyone would have agreed it was a n "accident")
Childish trips aside as I've been mostly in the office for the last few weeks animal sightings have been at a low ebb however I was impressed by this leaf impersonator who stayed with us for a couple of days. Pretty good effort I thought.
Apart from him and an infestation of black beetles there hasn't been much around. I do know that someone nearby has a pet monkey so if my wildlife drought continues I will have him in reserve.Now for everyone's favourite section - Beard watch:
Still looking horrific. To be honest i would shave it off but that does seem like it's going to be a real effort with only a razor and no shaving cream or running water.
Hope all's well with everyone,
Keg
p.s: Come on Andy, only Nadal and Djokovitch/Berdych to get past now...
WHAT A BEARD!
ReplyDeleteExcellent, dedicated work.
The Scuba diving will be amazing. I've done it a couple of times, but only in really shitty places, like a rather grusome part of Menorca. It's great being able to breath underwater. Just don't do what I did and take the respirator out of your mouth "to get a breath of clean air" when my throat became a bit dry. I got quite a shock.
Good antics on the tedious collegue. An excellent alternative to the geolgical hammer to the head technique, which would certainly post you into even less glamerous surroundings. Mind you, you could really focis on the beard then. It would be spectacular.
I like the leaf impersonator. Very cool. Please post more wildlife photography when you get it. Always been a big nature fan.
No particular updates from here. I've been working in Schools producing mock Radio shows with students and doing dragon's den style presentations with them. Only a week to go before Edinburgh rehearsals begin.
As for England, well. It's a disaster. If the Gerrard Rumours turn out to be true, (and some barrister that Al Hogarth knows is pretty sure they are...) then it looks like he got his wife's sister pregnant... You couldn't make it up could you?
What a bunch of spoilt, stupid tw**s. I really think that a team of Championship players would have got further in the competition than that lot. Roll on Norwich's next campaign. Surman's a good signing.
That's all for now. No great excitements, apart from an utter Jean moment yesterday. It was 'Jean' both in terms of negative and positive Jean. The Negative was that I was supposed to be teaching at the University of Grenwich. I turned up at 8.30 am. Early. Here's the problem. There are two Universities of Grenwich. One is in Grenwich. I went for this one. The other is in Gillingham. That's where the day was. Oh balls.
The positive Jean was the speed at which I ran to a train station and started boarding trains with no real knowledge of whether they were the right train or the wrong, and managing to end up in Gillingham only 10 minutes late. It all worked out. (There were 270 students and only 4 trainers, so this would have been a major F-up.)
Right. A Murray Djorkavic final please.
Bon Tuck.
Jean. x
Textbook Jean on requesting a Murray/Djokovitch final there...So many chances for Murray but he just couldn't take them. Utterly infuriating to watch.
ReplyDeleteNice work on going to the wrong Grenwich too, I would hope for nothing less.
As for the beard, well I'm not going to lie it's just an utterly hideous thing. I think at some point I'll man up and just leave an disgusting moustache instead. I have a feeling that might make me look immensely camp but seeing as everyone else is sporting one I'm sure I'll fit right in. Well as much as I can while standing at least a foot above everyone.
Why am I not surprised that you removed your respirator underwater? After all Jean logic dictates that if you hadn't been able to breathe normally underwater up to that point then surely that time you should've been able to. Utterly foolproof as ever. I'm really looking forward to it as apparently the place is stunning. If I can swim with sharks and see an Orang Utan in it's natural habitat then that's 2 big things ticked off my to do list. Of course if I get eaten by sharks then that might out a bit of a dampener on things. I'm very hopeful though that my 10% cotton, 90% spam swimming trunks will dissuade them.
Can't be arsed to say any more about England as they've annoyed me too much. Norwich is a brighter prospect but losing Rusty is a blow. Still not sure about our defence either and it would be nice to get a keeper sorted at some point.
Also can you email me your phone number? I think my connection might be quite good while I'm away so I could give skype a try.
Good luck with the Edinburgh rehearsals,
Keg