camrogers | (no subject)

Walking around Leicester listening to Tom Waits' Bone Machine.

I should find something worthwhile to do with what time I've got left here. Today it's watching Adrian Brody shoot aliens, then pints with

ed_dirt at the Ten Bells, then dinner with

valkyriekaren. Tomorrow I'll work something out.

Was kinda sad to leave the Camden hostel. Even the janitor and the cook know me now.

I'm so, so glad this happened. There's a reasonable chance I'll do something like this again next year, but probably not so expansive. Berlin for Eurovision, maybe see Paris properly with Rachel. Damien sounds like he'd like to see Iceland and I'd like to go back - preferably with a license. Thing is these are all places I've already been. Told myself I'd try for NY once a year just to keep myself serious and to prove to agent and publishers that I'm serious. Early days yet, things change, some things'll happen others wont. But if I do this I need to include at least one leg where I'm someplace I've never been. Civilised or otherwise it doesn't matter, as long as it's someplace new.

I need to watch more Attenborough.

fluffworld's got me thinking about South America, even if the scopalomine thing (aka "Devil's Breath") gives me the heebies.

There's also the tentative plan to take an icebreaker to the South Pole from Argentina. Might talk to my uncles about the whole 'working a mothership' thing. My brother spent six months straight on one of those things. Aside from almost being sucked overboard in the dead of night into shark-infested waters, or waiting six hours for a dinghy team to return from a run to the PNG shore to trade .22 rifles for half-a-year's worth of grass. I remember the story he told of the shy, rosy-cheeked English lass who signed on as the cook. By the time they made shore again she'd gained twenty pounds, was screwing everyone onboard, swore like a - well - sailor, had lost three teeth and gained at least two diseases.

For some reason this stuff never makes the cut on Pirates of the Carribbean.

Still, I like to be adaptable. Colin (my uncle) seems to have mostly kept himself unmarred by the rapid degradation of whatever crew he has at any given time, except for the whole thing with facial melanoma. Might pick his brains RE scoping out people and possibilities. And an icebreaker crew's away for less time, usually, and - I can only assume - has a slightly more educated and altruistic outlook if they're running supplies to research stations.

I wonder if Bruce's brother is still stationed at one...? Might ask Sian, she'd know.

OK, better go. Got's me a date with the star of The Pianist and some improbably large guns.