Stanley Pt 2

Here’s some weird stuff that goes on out here. Above, you will see some shoes on sticks. They're out by the road on the way to Stanley and have a tradition behind them: if you leave one boot, it means you’re coming back. If you leave a pair, it means that you’re not. Let’s be serious: all that happened was some dude lost a shoe and, in order to make himself not look like a complete tool, he put it on a stick and made something up about coming back. Yeah, he’s coming back, TO FIND HIS OTHER SHOE.



This is a highlight of Stanley. It’s a large pole with directions to other places. That’s a great bit for the tourist board. “Come to our island and find out how to get to other places.” Fucking brilliant.



Look at some of the places: Tinsley, Abroath, Colwyn Bay. Even Lincoln is on there (the blue sign below Prestatyn). It does make me wonder why there was an international conflict over ownership of this place. Of course, there were several hundred who gave their lives defending British ownership of these islands. They recently celebrated “Liberation Day” here (14th June, 1982). It’s one of the few places where foreign military isn’t shunned by the local population.






I’ve overheard conversations of soldiers that talk about how shit this place is. If it’s bad now, imagine how empty and desolate it would have been nearly thirty years ago. When there was no internet or mobile phone or TV. Throughout the countryside, there are small stacks of rocks to mark where someone died. Clearly, their deaths were for a good cause but what did it feel like back then? What’s the difference in experience between Tommy Gun, a Corporal on duty in the Falklands during 1982 and his son out in Afghanistan today? Does it all blur into one when you’re running from gunfire? Or does the heavy media presence today mean that modern soldiers have a much better knowledge of a situation than guys who were dumped in the South Atlantic and told to shoot some Argentineans?



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Ash

Stanley, Pt. 1

As I sat in my hotel room watching an American TV channel, subtitled in Spanish, on a British colonised island, I thought: “How fucked up is this?”

There’s nothing here. I read a review in the local paper about how great an event it was to have two dudes playing guitars at a wine night. Go to Kind on a Tuesday night, then tell me how great it is. There’s no naturally grown goods here. The best produce is wool and goose meat. I tried goose meat. It sucked. It was a bit like beef only really bland. Granted, it was in a pâté but that’s spreadable meat. It’s in the same league as jam. When you’re up against jam, you’d better have flavour. It didn’t. However, the locally fished trout was the shit. There was lots of it and it was seared. I don’t know what “seared” is but it’s good. Try it.



I ate you.



The main point of this post is that Stanley (the capital of the Falkland Islands) is a weird mix of cultures in a very small place that, somehow, creates nothing.



This is a typical house in the town. It looks wooden but it’s actually metal. Nearly all the buildings are made of metal. I saw only a handful made of brick or wood. Apparently metal is stronger than wood or brick. I’d go along with that. The winds out here are pretty crazy, so the houses have to be strong. The trees are all bent in one direction because they’ve been blown that way. The use of metal for housing means there’s an abundance of colour about the place: yellow houses, blue houses, white houses with green roofs and brown houses with red doors. The next time I go into the town, I’ll try and take a picture from up on a hill to show it.



Each street looks like an American suburb mixed in with UK road signs and a sense of isolation often found in seaside towns. This sense of isolation is heightened by the fact that you’re only a few hundred miles from the Antarctic. I took this photo at sunset (around 4pm) on a Friday. Kids were coming home from school. Their final year is year 10 and, obviously, the curriculum isn’t comparable to back home. If they want to go further, they have to fly to the UK. However, it’s conceivable that most of these kids already have their lives set out for them. They’ll work the farm or the docks or take up after their parents business. It’s a closed off life that, from the outside, looks comfortable. They’ll never have to worry about what to do when they finish their degree and have to go into the real world because their world is so small. Outside of British Forces personnel, there are two thousand people on these islands. Take a look at your Facebook friends list. For those of you who have around 500 (or more) friends, that would be a quarter of the entire population of this country. Are you beginning to understand yet?

Don’t forget to join the Facebook group for updates @ here and spread the love for this blog.

Peace,

Ash xx

PENGUINS!

To say that seeing my first wild penguin was exciting would be an understatement. Instantly recognisable from a distance, he stood open-winged on the beach, sunning himself. Every so often there’d be a little waddle as he repositioned to get a better tan (do penguins get tans?). Yes, it seemed a little odd that he was solitary. Penguins are usually found in colonies and never break away. Being flightless birds, they’re easy targets for pretty much anything else. However, the biggest thing in my mind was “OMGZ! PENGUIN!”.



I crept closer and started snapping away. You’re supposed to keep a distance of 25 metres but you can’t resist the urge to keep going. It’s like a drug. A drug that’s decorated like a two-tone ska album and waddles. Eventually, he got spooked and did the world’s funniest run into the water. A quick dive under the waves and he was gone. Short but sweet. But wait…what’s this?



Fuck off. That’s, like, well loads.

They are Gentoo penguins and identifiable by their smaller size and lack of colour (compared to King and Rockhoppers). They’re also awesome.

These pictures were all shot on a beach near my house. Apparently, it’s privately owned and you have to get a key to use it. Preservation of the habitat is key for wildlife. The Falklands are home to dozens of bird species. Yes, there’s penguins but there’s also birds like this:



The Southern Caracara comes from nearby South America and is a beautiful bird of prey. Though slightly smaller than some of the eagles on the island, it makes up for it with a much cooler looking colour scene.



This is a turkey vulture. It’s big and ugly. It was also on my garden fence looking at me. Like other vultures, it’s a carrion bird: it eats only dead stuff. What the Caracara kills, it eats the leftovers. Nature at work. Don’t you love it?

Expect to see much more of these birds over the coming months. There are also dolphins off the island at the moment, but not many. It’s winter until around September and they’re more likely to return in the summertime, along with whales.

Next post will be about the town of Stanley.

Don't forget to join the Facebook group and invite people!

Peace

xx

End of week one...

Good aftermorning. It's just about half past twelve (midday) here and a fun run has been cancelled due to the wind. Funny thing about the wind here is that there are horizontal cyclones. Regular cyclones, as we all know, are like mini hurricanes that just push stuff up in the air ("Twister", 1996. Bill Paxton et al. These cyclones, apparently, move horizontal and push stuff back. Personally, I'd have let the fun run go on just for shits and giggles.

Actually, the joke will be on me cause next weekend I'm doing a really silly thing. I'll show you when it's done.



This is my room. It's not much but it does the job. Yeah, I got a HD tv in my room. Sucks to be you. See that desk? I got that today from some old office or something. It was pretty skanky so I gave it a wipe over. They looked like this:



Eurgh. I also have some curtains on my tiny little window. They look like this:



There's no mirror in my room. In fact, there's only one mirror in the house. None of the lamps had shades on them before we came. Who the fuck designed this place?

Last night I did something for the first time: babysitting. You may mock but I got paid £20 to sit around on my ass watching football. I don't even LIKE football. There are men who would kill to get paid to watch football and I turned over to Big Brother just to spite them. Side note - Sunshine will be the first to go.

It's pretty rad to get my music collection back. Rocking "Smash" by Offspring right now. All I've listened to since I got here is million selling pop punk. Sum 41, Offspring, Green Day, Less Than Jake. Wait til winter REALLY hits and then it'll be non-stop Radiohead.

Alright G's and G-ettes. I'll wrap this one up. I'm heading off camp later to the town of Stanley. Apparently there's no street lights there and they have funny accents. Of course I'll take the camera along. (NB: I'm doing a photography course next week so the pics should get way more interesting).

Last thing: before I left I got rid of some stuff. The kind of stuff that takes too long to sell. This is where it was left:



It was gone within the hour.

Peace xx

The first post

I've arrived! It's now day four and I'm getting settled in. This first post will be a catch up of this first week. We'll jump straight in and go chronologically.

Sunday 6th June

I had a four hour journey to the airport and then took off around midnight. The flight was split in two. Eight hours, a stop off to refuel and then another nine to the Falklands. In flight entertainment was pretty gash. Alice in Wonderland and Dear John. Short reviews.

Alice in Wonderland - ok up until the bit where Johhny Depp did Quirky British Accent #687879. Fell asleep and woke up as the pretty air hostess served me breakfast.

Dear John - saw a scene where some girl was crying. I assume it was a happy film.

After eight hours I arrived here:






This is Ascension Island. That big hill? That's Green Mountain apparently. There's crabs up there that are land crabs. They're big, yellow and walk sideways. Snip snip. At eight in the morning it was 23 degrees. That's their winter.



This is my house. It's a fucking shed. See that Range Rover? It's getting blown about in the wind. You're told to keep sleeping bags in your car in case you get caught in a storm. Yeah, really.

There's turkey vultures in my back garden. Weird geese in my front. Penguins on the coast. An island of birds, yet no women. Marvellous.



Here's something artsy. We were driving around and I saw the sunset in the wing mirror. If I was an owl I'd have turned my head round to take a photo. But I'm not. So I cheated. Looks nice though innit?



World's most depressing park. I think the park in the nuclear bomb scene in Terminator 2 was happier. We've got winds that can knock cars over but sure, let your child roam free near dangerous metal structures!

I'll wrap this up now. I'm watching This Morning and I've noted two things: Holly Willoughby is hawwwwwt and Phillip Scholefield is ace. I move several thousand miles and still end up watching the same shit on TV.

Peace out, eh?