Despatches from Derbyshire Ice Field (3)
0645 GMT 07/12/10 Successful expedition. Grytviken basking in balmy zero. Back on shelf at minus 14, well stocked with lamp oil, whalemeat, blubber, pickled cabbage and two bottles of aquavit!! Freezing fog. When we speak outside, the words stay in the air and hang around the tent. Voice message from Oates there last night. Unrepeatable, poor chap! Capt.RF (Keep Dancing) Scott RN. Read more »
Lost in Translation; the vanishing cultures of South East Asia.
In the more remote villages, they live in long houses, constructed of bamboo and rattan, cook on open wooden fires, squat on the dirt floor to eat from a low table and sleep on a low wooden platform. They wear traditional clothes, grow their own vegetables and hill rice, brew... Read more »
Traffic
‘Just follow me dad!’ Alex reached the end of the lane and then turned left into an relentless wall of oncoming traffic, easing his bike across the path of motos, tuktuks, cars and trucks which just turned a little to miss him without altering their steady 20 mph, until he... Read more »
Too tired to remember Easter.
Easter passed me by this year. It’s not because I’m an atheist. I think beliefs, faiths, meanings are essential to our well being, but very personal and for me not to be culturally regulated. I believe in love, metaphysics, forgiveness, wild places and regular exercise. No, it was because I... Read more »
A fine creation from a doomed insect.
It’s the finest, most delicate thread in the world and can be dyed and woven into smooth yet light clothes fit for an emperor let alone a modern man of distinction or a lady of style and discernment. This cloth is the bee’s knees, the cat’s pyjamas or, to more... Read more »
Sweetness from the top of the tree
The male is shaped like a fork with the central prong much longer; the three pronged like a knobbly green tuber, buy both can be used. When they look ready, the villagers prop their ladders against the tree, just a bamboo pole with rungs on each side, and climb up. ... Read more »
Jungle Bugs
From a distance, it looked like a rotten stick, covered in white lichen, such as you might see in Derbyshire, but no! The lichen was moving. I looked more closely. The stick was covered with hundreds of bright white insects, each one decorated with appendages resembling flower parts, tiny stamens, bifurcate... Read more »
They burn money here.
It is 7 o'clock in the evening just a few days after the new year; the year of the tiger. Any baby born this year will be strong and fierce, like the tiger. A man is squatting in the gutter tending a little bonfire. I make as if to take... Read more »
Mediobogdum; a rant!
By Jupiter, it’s grim here. Three months perched on a mountain at the edge of the empire with nothing to do, except watch the sheep and wait for those damned Brigantes to attack the fort again. Why? Why don’t we leave them to get on with it? We'll never beat... Read more »
People watching; their lives in their faces.
A troupe of black musicians with southern accents and joyful, toothy grins were waiting to board the flight to Stockholm. They wore earphones and were jigging, jerking, twitching, beating out syncopated rhythms on their knees, table and the arms of their seats. In the restaurant, a conclave of heavy metal... Read more »
