Another Post About Nothing

I'm now three quarters of the way through my time here.  Not much has happened here, save for a crapload of rain, so I'm essentially putting finger to keyboard for forms sake and so that Missus Walker doesn't shout at me.  The weeks are kind of begining to mush together in a big banananie blur.  Two Italian guys have joined us on the farm.  At the moment they are very clean and scrubbed looking.  It will be interesting to see what they look like after a few weeks.  Fitch, our resident Frenchman, went to Melbourne last week for the gand prix.  Amazingly he returned after a few days to work a further two weeks.  Encouragingly he seems taken with the place, so much so that he's changed his plans so that he returns there next week, rather than to Brisbane.

He will also be taking the caravan's xbox with him when he goes (He's quite fond of saying "I like X-box and weed", which - as mottos go - may not be very catchy, but is incredibly to the point accurate).  This doesn't bother me as, although I do play computer games occassionally, The  Further Adventures of Anonymous Man with a Gun has never really captured my imagination.  For Bob however this has given him a deadline to collect all available achievements or bonuses or something similar.  If he manages it in time Ronald McDonald will come to the caravan in person and give hime a free burger and a big sloppy kiss.  My fingers are crossed for him.

In the next week our Rosie and me dad should be landing in this hemisphere on holibobs.  Hopefully I should be able to meet up with them.  Also it was my brother Josh's birthday a little while back.  He used to be my little brother, but has elected to skip his twenties and go straight on to his thirties.  Happy birthday, old man.
Here is a picture of some shoes with Justin Bieber's face on them:

Love and Fishes

Dave Denton

50 Things I Now Know About Bananas

1)  Each banana tree only produces a single bunch of bananas that can weigh up to 120kg.
2) There are actually many different types of banana, such as Cavendish, Lady Finger and Jersey Royal.
3)  You can make wine from bananas, which sounds utterly disgusting.
4)  Despite what I was told as a teenager, smoking dried banana skins does precisely bot all in terms of getting you high.  You would get more of a buzz from licking an empty paracetamol bottle.
5)  There has never, ever, ever been an EU directive dictating how curved bananas should be, despite what The Sun says.
6)  "Banana" is Cockney rhyming slang for diarrhea:  banana = banana splits = raging shits
7)  Bananas were originally purple, but were selectively bred to acquire their yellow skin by Wilhelm von Rumpledink, Stadtholder of Freisland, who was a Norwich City fan.
8)   Bananas are invisible, but only when nobody is looking at them.
9)   If you take a banana and two apples, you can use it to make the shape of a smiley face.
10)  You can also use a banana and two apples to make the shape of other things - and if you thought of those first, shame on you.
11)  Banana skins, ironically, are a key ingredient in most adhesives..
12)  It is physically impossible to feel depressed when holding a banana.
13)  Most, but not all, bananas are bigger on the inside than the outside.
14)  The last person able to spell the word banana was Fred Tupple from Merthyr Tydfill, who died in 1985.
15)  If you are really, really quiet on a night, maybe - just maybe - you can hear the mournful singing of the bananas.
16)  The first banana came from Papua New Guinea.  This doesn't stop most modern bananas claiming they are Irish.
17)  In 2008 US citizens ate approximately 300 tons of frozen bananas.  By way of contrast, over the same period only 9 tons of bread products were consumed.
18)  Bananaman, the Dandy comic strip about a boy who turns into a superhero  when he eats a banana - is the best thing created by anyone ever.  This has been proven by science.
19)  A banana leaf makes a very serviceable umbrella, if you ever find yourself stuck in a field in Queensland, in the pissing down rain, wondering where your life went wrong.
20)  In an emergency, bank robbers have been known to use a banana in place of a gun.
21)  It is physically impossible to eat a banana in the dark.
22)  Numerous predators can be found living in a banana tree, such as the banana spider and the banana snake.  Most feared of all, however, is the banana shark.
23)  Luckily the banana shark is not particularly fast on land, averaging speeds of 0mph.  Therefore, if you survive its initial  lunge you can just poke it with a stick till it dies of shame.
24)  The first recorded incident of someone slipping on a banana skin was  a Barnaby Knowles in Jamica in 1791.  He hit his head and later died of his injuries
25)  The first European to see a banana was Captain Dominique Beaufrite, who immediately stuck a flag in it and claimed it for France.
26)  Former Soviet premier Nikkita Krushchev refused to believe in the existence of bananas until his death in 1971, believing the to be a "capitalist chimera"
27) Something involving Chuck Norris
28)  During prohibition in the US, bananas were also outlawed.  The fact that nobody set up illegal banana bootrunning operation tells us quite a lot about the human condition.
29)  It's perhaps not surprising to hear that actor Antonio Banderas is a fan of bananas, especially when you consider his name is an anagram of "Mmm! Tasty yellow fruit."
30) If you say the word "banana" into a mirror five times absoloutley nothing will happen to you.
31) Only a banana can kill another banana.
32)  The banana is the world's third most popular fruit, behind the kumquat and spanish nectarine.
33)  78% of men find the sight of a woman eating a banana to be deeply erotic.  This is because men are truly pathetic creatures.
34)  Bananas are referred to several times in the Bible, though only by the name "squishy longfruit".
35)  Making inane and pointless lists about bananas is one of the top ten signs that you have far too much time on your hands.
36)  Despite being curved, you cannot throw a banana like a boomerang.
37)  Nobody actually likes bananas, but we all pretend we do in an effort to fit in.
38)  An empty banana skin can be used in an emergency to make a little hat.
39)  The South Georgia penguin has a unique mating ritual, wherein the male will present the female with a freshly picked banana.  As there are no bananas in the South Georgia islands, the entire breed became extinct decades ago.
40) The average banana is the size of a family saloon car.  The ones you buy in the supermarket only seem smaller because you are looking at them from far away.
41)  Bananas are completely waterproof, which is fitting as if you squint and turn the lights down really low they look a tiny, tiny bit like a little submarine.
42)  All baby bananas hope one day to grow up to be a watermelon.
43)  Certain fish and chip shops in Britain will deep fat fry a banana for you if you ask nicely and really, really want heart disease.
44)  A ton of bananas weighs twice as much as a ton of pomegranates
45)  Of all the fruits in the world the banana is, by far, the most arrogant.
46) 30% of people, having read fact 30, will have immediately given it a go.
47) 89% of people, having read the above fact, will have scrolled back up to number 30 to check what it was again.
48)  The importation of bananas was made illegal by the Turkmenstani government in 1999.  Nobody in the outside world cared.
49)  Despite being used for racist prop comedy by British football hooligans, bananas themselves are pretty non judgemental.
50)  Except for Mexicans.  Bananas fucking hate Mexicans.

Love and Fishes

Dave Denton

Pogue Mahone

I'm currently writing this from a half empty caravan - total population me, Bob and a Canadian lad named Cameron..  The reason for this is that almost everybody else has gone down into Cairns to celebrate everybody's favourite snake botherer, Saint Patrick.  For some reason, up here in the tablelands the Irish are the most common foreign nationality you're likely to come across and people have been looking forward to this like prisoners serving a life sentence waiting for a conjugal visit. I've elected not to follow them for the following reasons.

1) I'm not Irish.
2) I distrust any holiday which dictates that I go get drunk (see also, new years eve) as the night almost always end up as a damp squib.
3) If I go down Cairns I don't think I'll return.
4) I'm boring.

They decided to mix things up at work this week and have had us tying bags to the bananas that are ripening on the trees.  Normally this is done atop a super duper woofinexing machine that you drives you along the rows and moves you up and down the trees.  However, as we are pommy, back packing scum, we were instead given a step ladder and a bin bag to protect us from the rain.  As far as jobs go it's alright and is at least a change to the normal scheduule.  It is also like doing a step aerobics class for eight hours.

Still getting used to my newly shaved bonce.  I went out in the sun for ten minutes last week and managed to burn my lily white, naked skull.  The latter part of the week has therefore consisted of me indulging in the surprisingly diverting past time of peeling dead skin off my head.  One of my eyes also went a fetching shade of pink as it wasn't producing enough tears.  This may be because (*he looks out over the horizon and his voice becomes choked with regrets and memories*) I have cried enough tears for two lifetimes, or may be because my last job on the farm involved me getting squirted in the eye with diesel a dozen time a day.

I would like to take this opportunity - with my flaky scalp, my gammy eye, my trousers held up with a bit of twine and my distinctive aroma of sweat and kerosene - to remind all the laydeez out there that I'm curently single.

Play your cards right and you could  be on this.

 Love and Fishes

Dave Denton

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

Apologies

Sorry about the lack of an update on Sunday.  I have been eaten by a snake.  A big one.  I will get back to you as soon as possible.

Love and Fishes

Dave Denton

There's a Man Up On the Mountain. Why He's Up There, Fuck Knows

Why, hello there.  Long time no see.  I hope you've kept busy and many wonderful things have happened to you since I've last posted. You are looking very handsome/pretty and I must say, that is a smashing top you've got on.  Would I be correct in guessing that you've been working out?

I  myself, as reported last time, have spent the last month working on a banana farm.  I don't, or rather didn't, have access to a computer, which is the reason for the long silence.  Bob, who is something of a technophile, has a laptop, but broke the screen last December, effectively rendering it useless.  Eventually, after three weeks of increasing irritability he cracked and bought a monitor.  You can't really begrudge him the luxury, given that the existence we currently find ourselves living is not really to his taste.   Banana taming is monotonous, if not especially physically taxing.  Our work, such as it is, basically involves removing leaves from plants using a scythe, manually adding filters to the sprinkler system and injecting unwanted offshoots with diesel so that they die. The first few days here involved parts of me I didn't even know I had being all hurty.  This is to be expected, I suppose.  Even if all you were doing all day is wubbling, after eight hours or so you're wubbling muscles would be in agony.  Which I suppose serves you right. You filthy wubbler you.

Prior to my arrival here I was led to believe that I'd be living in a house.  This is true only if your definition of a house is so  liberal that it basically means "not a tent".  My accomodation consists of three dilapidated caravans parked next to each other, forming a courtyard over which a couple of sheets of corrugated metal have been welded.  I currently share these digs with eight other dudes, women being something of a rarity up here.  Everyone is canny enough, although there is a lad with a slightly fog hornish quality who can occasionally be hard work. Despite the insects and cane toads that infest the place it's not actually that bad.  Tammy, the lady whose propert the caravans sit on is friendly enough and will occasionally provide chicken wings and beer in exchange for help with various odd jobs.  It's nice to be surrounded by farm animals such as  horses, pigs, cows and goats (though there's less of these now the butcher va ns been round) as well as wild creatures such as wallabies and macaws whose feathers are so black, you'd swear you wear only seeing their silhouette. The surrrounding landscape isn't especially spectacular, but it can occassionally surprise you.  Groping back to bed after a piss I was startled by the night sky*.  I am, of course, aware that there are things called "stars" up there and that when they are visible in sufficient numbers the overall effect is generally agreed to be "pretty", but this was somethiong else.  There is next to no light pollution here and sky was as naked as a virgin on her wedding night.  Millions upon millions of points of light puncture the velvet black.  The different constellations are clearly visible as are the occasional flash of a shooting star.  It's jaw dropping.

It is, however, not for everybody.  The nearest town is a good four hour walk away and the isolation and lack of distraction can be maddening.  An Irish lad lasted here all of one night before announcing that he couldn't take it anymore and sneaking off before anybody asked him for money.  Bob, has not yet made an escape attempt, but certain subtle tells hint that he's not especially happy being stuck in the arse end of nowhere and is counting down the days till we leave.
 
You've basically got to make you're own entertainment.  Bob sanity is preserved by surfing the web and playing Xbox with Fitch, one of our fellow inmates.  Last night I watched as three grown men hunted down a cane toad, licked it and then  rubbed cigarette papers over its skin in the vain hope that they might get high off the poor thing's excretions.  The only thing this resulted in was one of the lads getting his hands covered in toad piss. As for myself, I've been reading an inordinate amount of books and a lot of doodling (FYI, if you're in anyway curious as to what it is I actually do when I'm sat with a sketchbook and pencil, my tongue stuck out the side of my mouth, /I uploaded a bunch of stuff at http://stitchskincomic.com/ during my brief return to the UK and set it away so that it should update once a week for the next year or so.  I make no apologies for the quality.  I am, more than anythinjg, a trier.)
I've also become slightly infamous for going off on long walks (like, seven hour long walks) and getting completely and utterly drenched in one of the sudden downpours that are common this time of year.
The seccond week I was here I walked to one of the local waterfalls.  Having achieved waterfall I scaled a nearby mountain (In truth it's nearer a hill, but we're already a hell of a way above sea level, so it counts).  From the peak I had a good view of the tablelands and the endless rolling hills of the great dividing range.  The climb down was slightly hairy, compounded by the face that it soon became apparent that the entire area was ridden with spiders.  I'm no arachnophobe, but these things freaked the hell out of me.  About three inches long with fat, poisonous looking and legs like witch's fingers.  Their webs stretched between two tree trunks, roughly level with my face.  As soon as I noticed one I noticed another, then anothert, then another, giving me the vaguely disquieting feeling that I was being surrounded.

Australie is, of course, reknowned for the number of nasty little beasties floating around.  I've seen numerous snakes since I've got here.  The other week I nearly stood on a long tailed brown bastard snake (may not be it's actual name) that I've been reliably informed would have killed me if it had got it into its tiny reptile brain to bite me.  I was lucky there, but we haven't completely managed to avoid being a food source.  The second day on the job Bob got bitten on the face by some unidentified crkitter which caused his bottom lip to swell up to twice it's usual size.  Yesterday it was my turn.  I was happily lost in the open mouthed trance I habitually go into while working when it suddenly felt as if someone had opened up my wrist with a razor blade. I yelped like a puppy that has had its tail stepped on.   Looking down I saw a puncture wound, round which the flesh was turning puffy and yellow.  There are certain thoughts that swirl through your head when you realise that you've been bitten or stung by something while in a locale that is famous for the incredibly venomous nature of its indigenous fauna - none of them happy.  In the end it transpired that I'd gotten got by nothing more harmful than a paper wasp, whose sting is incredibly painful but - providing you don't go into anaphylaptic shock - but non lethal.

Look on it.  This, Ladies and Gentlemen, is what a out and out fucker looks like.

In order to prevent full blown cabin fever, every two weeks a trip is organised to a bar at either Atherton or Mareeba the only two places in the area with more than a dozen residents.  We therefore put on our best togs and headed into Atherton.  To be honest, it was pretty much what you'd expect from a small club night in a tiny country town.  Not much worth reporting happened, save for the fact that we bumped into Korbi - who has had to temporarily leave the lovely Poppy in order to earn some scratch - and Bob nearly got into a fight with some arsehole who decided that his tone was condescending (Apparently this guy is one of those wankers who tries to start a fight with someone every time he gets a drink in him.  Here's hoping his next shit's a hedgehog.)

Now that I have access to a computer I'll try and get back to the weekly updates.  Not sure what I'll actually write about as there's not a lot of stuff worth reporting going on up here.  Expect lots of filler where I regale you with my Babylon 5/Only Fools and Horses slash fic and let you know eactly why it is cows look forward to getting milked.

Oh and many happy returns to Missus Walker, who is again celebrating her twenty first birthday.  My present to you is the Withnail and I  reference in the post title and a picture of a kitten.

Love and Fishes

Dave Denton.


*If you got the Philip Larkin reference there, congratulations, you get a gold star and a free smacked bottom!

In Which I Cheat Death Yet Again

I have recently developed a routine of slouching listlessly around, hungry, bored and deeply worried, aimlessly wandering to a random location, sighing deeply and then wandering somewhere else.  The work I do for my accommodation doesn't provide much distraction either.  This morning I was asked to paint a room which I couldn't get into, using a pot of paint that didn't exist.  I would like to say this is unusual, but it really isn't.

However my self pity fuelled moping was rudely interupted by news that me and Bob now have work.  Come Sunday, we hop onto a bus bound for somewhere called Mareeba where we shall tend the curved yellow fruit that the aboriginal inhabitants of this land refer to as a "banana".  We have been repeatedly told that this is the dirtiest and hardest of all the various harvesting jobs, so hurray - I guess.  There was also the initial worry that we'd have to hump the bunches around (average weight: 90kg.  Bob's weight in his shoes and socks: 70kg), but apparently the fruit isn't yet ripe so we'll primarily be tying and tethering and whatever other things one does to bananas.  Sing them to sleep perhaps?  I confidently predict I will be profoundly sick of banana's on a level I can't currently comprehend three months from now.

But it is work.  More important yet, it is paid work.  This is a relief.  I currently spend about half my waking hours fantasising about the food I will buy once I have money in my bank account, once I've indulged in the unbelievably decadent luxuries of doing my laundry and getting a haircut.

Korbi won't be coming with us.  He has fallen in love with a girl from the hostel called Poppy.  The German method of courtship appears to be pester a girl and keep trying to put the lips on her until she gives up and lets you.  This went on till about six in the morning, at a volume that made it impossible for anyone else in the room to get any sleep.  

In other news, yesterday was Australia day.  Congratulations Australia.  Of all the countries I've been to, you are, without doubt, the Australiest.