Captain Space Monkey.

Congratulations to me.  I have been in this caravan with eight hairy men and their feet for six weeks now and I have yet to break down in tears, run away under the cover of darkness or scream, cover myself in mayonaise and assault somebody with a broom.  I have perfected the art of zoning out - my mind detaching itself from the withered husk of my body and floating away to different places, times and dimensions.  If anybody talks to me, I smile vacantly - a line of drool drip, drip dripping down my unshaven chin. Bob maintains his sanity though a combination of internet, X box, low level grumbling and almost obsesively counting down the hours/day/minutes till we can say tatty bye to our employer.

Despite my fradulent posting last week - I've yet to be eaten by a snake or some other nasty.  This is more of an achievement than it sounds as the slithery little buggers are quite prevalent up here.  There was a brief kerfuffle when one got into the caravan last week.  It wasn't a taipan or brown - which are both, as far as I understand it, lethal - but if it had bitten any of us it would certainly have ended with a very protracted and unpleasant hospital visit.  In the end we drove it out with boiling water and one of the guys cut off it's head - which perhaps sounds harsh, but the one piece of advice you will recieve from everybody up here is that you don't want to piss around with these buggers.  There was alsoanother snake based incident when  a brown snake had a go at me out in the field after I had the temerity to drop a leaf on its head.  I let out a girly squeak and did a sortt of awkward dance around it.  Thankfully it didn't press the issue and slithered on its way, probably muttering to itself in parsel tongue or whatever.  It occurs to me that, given my somewhat blundering nature and not entirely baseless reputation for bad luck, that with a long enough timeline it is almost certain that I am going to be bitten by something truly nasty.  If that happens I want to make it known here and now that I wish to be buried at sea.


I moan, but there are a few advantages to my current situation.  I've certainly lost a fair bit of weight  (approximately one and a half stone since I first left - and I was hardly a porker to begin with).  It also gives me the opportunity to do things I wouldn't normally when in society, either due to time constraints or fear of the cruel, judgemental glares of society.  I'm currently reading Catch 22 and this morning - in a move partly the result of practicallity and partly the result of enui - I shaved my head.  For pretty much my entire adult life I've worn my hair quite long, think of the bassist in a mid levek indie rock band and you'll get the general idea, so this is quite a departure for me.

Me, all sexy and that.

I'm still getting used to it.  And not just the way it looks, but the way it feels.  Seriously.  How do bald people wear hats.  It just feels wierd.  That said, I've definitely had worse hair cuts in my time.  I was also surprised to find that the new, aerodynamic me looks a bit like my brother Josh, so maybe I'm not the milkman's son after all. 

So there you go.  Come do agricultural work in the Atherton Tablelands.  You'll be so bored you'll shave you head.
  
Before I go, had a dream the other week.  In it I was showing a girl Durham so she could make an appointment on time.  I didn't know the girl, but as I showed her round it became apparent that she was not only attractive, but incredibly clever, howlingly funny and that I was somewhat besotted with her.  I only mention this for two reasons. Number one - this is the first dream I've had since November that hasn't been deeply unpleasant and upsetting, so it hopefully marks some sort of return to a degree of psychic wellness.  Number two - I distinctly remember a song playing in the dream, which has now been lodged in my head for over a week now.  I'm now going to inflict it on you.

Love and Fishes

Dave Denton