Be The Jam

It's been raining, I have been away from the comfort of the ditch and out and about in the rain. I had been planning to write about all the fun and games that I have been having trying to stay dry without a bivi bag in a two day down pour, falling in a river didn't help my general state of dampness. I was also going to warn of the terrible dangers of not having a torch, suffice to say from now on I won't be keeping my toothpaste in my first aid kit where it can be confused for less pleasant tasting things. Now I'm not really in the mood to write about such things as I have a very important decision to make and I have less than 20 hours in which to make it.

I randomly have a flight to Brazil, whilst I'm planning to spend my time in the North of South America I still had it listed down as one of my assets for Mission Improbable, the problem is that I might be about to loose it.

Apparently the flight has to be taken within 1 year of being booked, that means if I am to use it I have to fly out by 16th of February.

Currently the flight is booked for Sunday morning, if I am to change the flight I have to do so tomorrow, looking at the available dates changing the booking would cost between £150 and £250.

That means tonight I have to decide if Mission Improbable could conceivably be ready to go by February the 16th or whether I should kiss goodbye to the flight, it cost £750.

If it is possible to get Mission Improbable ready to go by February it would not be possible to do so from Italy, where I'm supposed to be for the next five months as I would have to be in the UK to get all my jabs, undergo training, and all the other stuff that needs to be organised before leaving.

So far a few companies have pledged bits of kit/training to support the mission and all this has been gratefully received, but the most valuable asset is the flight. It would be quite a massive set back to loose it but it kind of looks inevitable, annoyingly I can't even sell the thing as the name on the ticket is non-transferable. If you know any one out there called Hugh Sawyer could you ask them if they want to buy a flight to Brazil?

I'm also in the process of making another very tough decision that also impacts on how Mission Improbable will work. It's one of those things that I want to keep secret until such time as I decide whether or not to go down that route, what I can say though that it makes the decision whether to take the flight in February really rather mind bogglingly complicated. I don't think I'll be getting much sleep tonight, too much thinking to be done.

Drat.

I think I shall end on a more cheerful note, cheerful is good.

The thing that is really needed to make this whole venture to work is publicity. The more people that know about this the more money will, hopefully, be raised through sponsorship for Rainforest Concern. The more people visit this site the easier it becomes to get more travel writing for the travel guide. The more travel writing and visitors to the site there are the easier it will become to sell advertising space and thus raise money to pay for things like flights. So it is god news indeed that the BBC came out to interview me the other day and there will be an article about the jungle trip on the BBC news online site quite soon, rumour is that Monday is the day. Not only this, oh no, but This Is A Knife, a weekly podcast beaming out of the Channel 4 website, are coming out to film next week. So, things have taken a bit of a step forward recently as well as taking a bit of a step back.

BBC News online

This Is A Kinfe

Yet more good news!

As I have mentioned previously Think Host have agreed to host this website for free, not only is having free stuff a good thing in and of itself but I was especially pleased about this as Think Host are powered by solar and wind energy so once this thing actually gets to the jungle it will be powered completely by sun and wind power. The only problem I had with that was that I'm far too much of a ludite to be able to figure out how to use their technology, now though that problem is solved. A very old friend of mine by the name of Jer knows all about computers and is forever pressing buttons on things and making stuff happen, he has agreed to do the technical support for Be The Jam so pretty soon this site will be benefiting from free and sustainably powered hosting.

That is all