Be The Jam

Perhaps this post might better be called High Horse as I am on mine today. 

 
A battle sometimes decides everything; and sometimes the most trifling thing decides the fate of a battle.

Napoleon Bonaparte 

The overwhelming aim of the trip to the jungle and this website is to raise money for Rainforest Concern to support the work that they do in protecting the rainforest. There is another side to this site, an idea that is why this site is called Be The Jam. It's basically that mankind is destroying the world and the idea that "there is nothing I can do about it" or "it's someone else's problem to deal with" is wrong, the only people who can do something about the state of the world are us, the ordinary people, not the politicians or celebrities or boffins.

When you look at the size of the areas the vast tracks of land that they are protecting from destruction seem huge until you compare them to the areas of land under threat or already stripped bare. It would be easy to dismiss protection efforts as being just a drop in the ocean, an ultimately futile gesture. Surely though such an attitude would be pessimistic to the point of admitting defeat. The world might well seem to be full of big events controlled by powers unassailable by us the ordinary individuals but if you look a little closer you com to realise that life is just made up of lots of very small events that combine together to bring about a result. The Berlin Wall for example fell because the overwhelming desire of the people behind made keeping it up unsubstantial. This is not to say that various non Soviet political powers did no help to create an invironment in which the revolution could take place but ultimately it was down to the ordinary individual to decide that enough was enough, once enough individuals had decide this the tipping point was reached and the swell of public desire to be free was unstoppable. When it came down to it the Wall came due to ordinary people deciding to do something. Right now we are in a situation where our politicians are increasingly keen to set up a frame work  in which protection of the environment is assured, but once again it is down to individuals to act, to reverse the tide.

It all starts with the smallest of actions.

 At the risk of preaching to the converted take a look at this film when you have a spare ten minutes The Curse of the Carrier Bag

Towards the Tipping Point

 You may well have noticed the banner add at the top of this page, it is a link to the Live Earth site and contains information about an event called Save Our Selves (SOS) on the seventh of July, if you can't be bothered to read the site this is what it's about in their own words.

"SOS is designed to trigger a global movement to combat our climate crisis. It will reach people in every corner of the planet through television, film, radio, the Internet and Live Earth, a 24-hour concert on 7/7/07 across all 7 continents that will bring together more than 100 of the world’s top musical acts. Live Earth alone will engage an audience of more than 2 billion people through concert attendance and broadcasts. MSN has partnered with SOS to use its reach to make the Live Earth concerts available across the globe. The Live Earth audience, and the proceeds from the concerts, will create the foundation for a new, multi-year global effort to combat the climate crisis led by The Alliance for Climate Protection and its Chair, Vice President Al Gore. SOS was founded by Kevin Wall, who won an Emmy as Worldwide Executive Producer of Live 8."

Exciting stuff. 

Things are picking up speed, getting done, moving on. All the various threads of Mission Improbable that I have been working on over the last year have started coming together. It is all quite a relief, not that things are in anyway far enough along to be in any way remotely able to be considered as finalised but it's getting there. Trying to get this together has involved a huge mass of planning and ideas, many hours spent networking and emailing people and a lot more time just spent thinking about everything from whether it would be going against the environmental aims of the mission to seek sponsorship from airlines through to how much string I will need to take. Mostly I have been so swamped with ideas, plans and ongoing conversations that I have not been able to see the wood for the trees, it is quite a relief to discover that it's going to work. I'm not exactly sure how the whole thing will pan out just yet as there are still a large number of variables but I'm certainly a lot more confident about things than I was a month ago.

One of the developments that I can probably talk about at this stage is the fact that a friend of mine might well be coming along as well, not until July but it would be very good to have some company. Especially as Felix is a doctor, I quite like the idea of having a doctor about the place, especially one as bright as Felix (Oxford and Harvard both educated him). When I got back to the UK from Italy and heard about junior doctors being awarded posts via a system that was not much more complicated than pulling names out of a hat I was outraged, the very idea that the NHS was being forced to employ people on anything other that ability seemed completely outrageous. However, Felix is now without employment from July and is seemingly keen to come to the jungle. Best of all he has quite an interest in tropical diseases! Bargain. Now if only someone would sack Ray Mears.

Somewhere I'll be visiting  

Slowly but surely things are picking up pace, I detect positive movement towards actually getting to South America and living in it. There still remains a mind numbingly large amount on things to be done and my mind is pretty constantly racing from the moment I wake to the moment I go to bed. June the 20th seems only a moment away.

Today's main concerns are finding portable solar panels that will cope with 12 months use in up to 90% humidity and either a satellite phone or a satellite modem that will be able to cope in the same environment. I also need to acquire a decent head torch and a camera.

Developments

I have had an offer of fishing lessons.

I'm talking with a major media organisation about writing a weekly blog for one of their websites.

There are a few other things going on behind the scenes that will raise the profile of Mission Improbable and so increase the potential for raising money for Rainforest Concern. However, these things are all in the early stages of development so I don't want to talk about them here incase they fall through.

 

You know when you have mastered the art of silently walking through the woods at night when you stand on something the runs away. Fair made me jump out of my skin.

So there I was sitting by the fire making a cup of tea and listening to the afternoon play on Radio 4, day off work you see, and what manner of amazing creature happened to walk right past my camp as bold as you like as though he had not seen me? A human man is what! The only examples of those I have seen at home have been those ones that I have invited specifically for the purpose of visiting and have gone off to meet at a handy landmark and guided back home myself. I was most surprised to see another human. Deer, rabbit, badgers, door mice, owls, red kite and little flying creatures that bite me on the ankles are all regular visitors at Chez Monkey but not people. I was most surprised that this specimen had walked past as bold as you like without showing any fear.

I spent a few minutes trying to figure out who the chap who had just walked past might be and what he was up to but as much as I racked my brain I couldn't come up with an answer. Not to worry, he came back and said hello and knew who I was, we had a bit of a chat about woodlands and the like. A bit of a common interest as he runs a wildlife management company and in that capacity he happened to have a rabbit he had just shot in the back of his pick up.

"would you like a rabbit"

Would I? I had just been sat by the fire feeling slightly disapointed that all I had to eat was potatoes and butter. Now I had a rabbit as well. Not that I knew how to skin the thing, I was unusually squeamish, I'm used to preparing meat, what with currently being a chef and all that but it doesn't normally come looking fluffy and kind of cute. Squeamish didn't last long, and soon enough dinner was roasting away over the white embers of the fire. Good practice for jungle life.

Other stuff

Met a guy from Brazil today, he is going to put me in contact with someone over there, apparently it should be easy for me to find work if / when I run out of money.

The radio 4 interview is coming up in the next couple of weeks, they are going to pay me £50 which is going straight into the "get to the jungle" fund. It's a small start but it is a start nevertheless.

Today I started fundraising in earnest, there is nothing like a deadline however arbitrary to get me working.

 

Oh and it snowed, I liked that.

 

I also discovered that my camp was set out like it was last year for a reason, I only found this out by setting things out differently, the way things are at the moment I can't sit by the fire and shelter from the elements at the same time. I can sit by the fire and sunbathe but it is more snowing that sunny at the moment, besides if it is sunny you don't need to sit by a fire. What I can do if the weather is nasty is sit in my newly constructed shelter that is rather uncomfortable to be in and admire the fact that the wind is blowing the smoke directly at me and I could not have situated the fire in relation to the shelter any worse if I had tried. Well done me.

I seem to be adapting back to living in the woods quite easily, having got used to sleeping on the floor again I am actually really liiing  be back and it is giving me renewed energy to get my act together and get to the Jungle. Having access to the internet again is helping as it means I am able to network and hassle people and so make the thing more of a reality.

 

I have set an arbitrary date to leave of June the 20th, it is extremely unlikely that I will have all that I need by then, what I don't have will just make life more interesting I guess. I have a couple of ideas on fundraising, one of which being to save all the money I would spend on rent over the next three months and use that to buy innoculations and a plane ticket. I did some rough sums last night and the  Mission Improbable kitty currently contains the dizzying sum of minus one hundred pounds. I do have a rucksack, generously provided by Berghaus, the promise of a jungle hammock and a jungle proof lap top.

 

There is quite a long list of things that I need but I have to consider the fact that whatever I take I will need to carry so for the moment at least I am trying to keep the list of things fairly short.

I need:

• to get to the jungle
• innoculations and a years worth of anti malaria drugs
• to learn how to fish
• insurance
• jungle proof solar pannels
• a stalite modem / satalite phone (jungle proof)
• money to live off
• a new fire steel.
• visas and other bits of paperwork allowing me to stroll around South America

 

To get to the jungle I'm going to start investigating the possibility of working my passage accross the alantic on a yatch. The other idea is to maybe fly to North America and then make the way south by land, that would involve going through Columbia, which could be interesting. I'm not sure if Columbia is the kind of place one wants to be discovered living off the land and carrying militarty grade communications equipment.

 

Last night I thought it would be fun, for old times sake and all that, to spend the night back out in the woods, in the very place I lived for most of last year. I was wrong, about it being fun, It was cold, the ground was hard, I ache all over, there was no running water, it was not that fun at all. I think I just convinced myself I was enjoying it when I was doing it before. Mind you it was nice to wake up to the sunrise and to hear the owls, and the red kite but it would have been nicer to have been in a proper bed and for there to have been a kettle but there you go. I did find myself questioning whether I really do want to spend another year living outdoors, I don't, not really. But there you go, it's to late now so I best just get it over and done with.

 

 

The good thing about being back in Bligty, well one of the many good things, is the access to news coverage. Somewhere on the way to foreign the arial broke off my shortwave radio so I had no access to the BBC, newspapers, tended to be days out of date, irregular and off the type that is more interested in Britney Spears hair cut than actual news. I have been catching up on things over the past few days; cash for peerages? You couldn't make that up. Oxford on Sea, did you read about that? Apparently if global warming isn't brought into check Oxford could end up as a sea side city! I'm in Oxford at the moment, it is a lovely sunny day and I must admit a walk along the sea shore would be quite nice right now but I would much rather go to the sea than have it come to me. Apparently if all goes wrong the Mediterranean is going to become uninhabitable and most of the human race will be forced to eek out an existence hunting and gathering about the polar regions. It strikes me then that the need for stupid ventures such as "living in the jungle for a year to raise money to protect the rainforest from destruction" has become even more pressing. Both from a global and personal perspective, from a global perspective every little helps and so we should all do whatever we can; from a personal perspective if things are going to go horribly wrong getting a head start on the whole living off the land thing might well be a good idea. I could spend a year in the Amazon learning how to live off the land before swinging north, via Sweden to pick up some Totty to drag back to my cave. Sounds good.

 

Hooray I'm but a spittoon away from being one of them survivalist nutters.

The end is neigh.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Water polo ponies are better adapted to the threat of rising sea levels than your regular horse.

Well much to my surprise I find myself back in the good old U of K, it took six days to get back to Oxford which is possibly a little longer than necessary but I did manage to stop for lunch on the Grand Canal, coffee in Geneva and a couple of beers in the Palace of Westminster along the way. All in all a much more eventful trip than just jumping on a plane. Mind you all I was trying to do was find an airport so perhaps taking six days was a little excessive.

Anyway, back now so time to get amongst the planning and fundraising for the next trip. Currently I am looking for some kind of gainful employment, frightful business.