Читать книгу The Further Adventures of An Idiot Abroad - Karl Pilkington - Страница 8

How much have you learned from watching TV? I learned that vinegar is a good stain remover. It’s something I picked up from watching Kim and Aggie off How Clean Is Your House?

A while ago, three British backpackers who got lost in a Malaysian jungle said they survived thanks to tips they picked up from watching the TV survival expert Ray Mears. They said they’d now watch every episode of Ray Mears in case the situation ever cropped up again! You’d think what they’d been through would have put them off the programme, as it would bring back bad memories of their near-death experience. It would be like Anne Frank watching Cash in the Attic.

The advice that saved the backpackers from being lost was that you should follow a watercourse downstream and that would lead you to the coastline. I’m just glad it was Ray Mears the backpackers had watched. If it had been Bruce Parry they’d still be lost but would now probably be off their tits after licking the back of a toxic toad. But this left me wondering if anyone had ever opted for the survival tactics offered up by Bear Grylls. Bear is a bit more extreme than Ray. If you said to Bear, ‘I’m so hungry I could eat a scabby horse,’ he would probably say, ‘Too late. I’ve eaten it all.’ In one show he was covered in blood and guts after stripping a camel. He then went on to explain that the carcass makes an excellent makeshift sleeping bag! I don’t want to come across all Goldilocks here, but how much sleep are you going to get inside a camel? It must be the worst animal to use as a bed. It’s got a hump on it, for a start. I have the feeling that if Bear missed the last bus home when in England he’d probably break into London Zoo and strangle a giraffe for a sleeping bag, then kill a couple of Koala bears while he’s at it to make a pair of slippers, rather than just get a cab. Anyway, if you ever find yourself in this situation, having killed a camel to sleep in, and your clothes are covered in bloodstains, try vinegar.

I’ve never been in a position where I’ve had to use proper survival techniques. My brother and his mates took over the house when me mam and dad were on holiday once. I came home from working nights to find some bloke and a woman in me bed, another pair of strangers in me mam and dad’s bed, and a couple on the sofa, so ended up sleeping in the car. That’s about as tough as it’s got for me, so this is why I picked a night on a desert island from the Bucket List. I thought it would test me a little, plus, of all the things on the Bucket List, I’d say this is the one most people would like to do. I was imagining the TV advert for the Bounty bar. For anyone who hasn’t seen the advert, it involved a woman on a really nice paradise-type beach. Nothing like the beaches we all spend our holidays on. There was no washed-up seaweed, plastic bottles or dead jellyfish, no donkeys leaving shit everywhere, or seagulls making a racket. It was just the perfect beach with light blue sea. A coconut drops from a palm tree and cracks open to leave a Bounty bar, which is a bar of coconut-filled chocolate. Now, by rights, I doubt the woman would have been up for eating chocolate on such a hot day. I think she’d have been more in the mood for a Magnum lolly, but putting that aside I reckon most people who have seen the advert would be imagining this same image as me if they were to pick this for their Bucket List.

Luke the director said I could take a few bits and pieces with me that might come in handy for my night on the island. I ended up packing a lighter, a roll of gaffa tape, a Stanley knife, a crossword/wordsearch book, some string, biscuits, toilet paper and a small shovel.

I would be staying on an island in Vanuatu, a place in the South Pacific. I’d never heard of the place. When I told people where I was going they hadn’t heard of it either. Suzanne bought me a globe when I started travelling so I could put little stickers on all the places I had been to, but this globe didn’t even include Vanuatu.

I was told that it wasn’t possible to get a direct flight to Vanuatu due to a massive ash cloud from a volcano in Chile that was causing problems, so we ended up flying to Sydney and then on to New Zealand where we stayed the night. I thought we’d be getting on another flight first thing, but that was not to be the case. I woke up to a voicemail from Stephen.

STEPHEN: Hello, Karl. I know you’re probably waking up in Queenstown and thinking what’s going on here. I tell you what, Ricky and I were talking, and we just thought it would be mad for you to go all the way to the desert island and not stop off in New Zealand to experience what probably is the ultimate Bucket List classic – the bungee jump. Now, before you start screaming and shouting going, ‘No, I’m not going to do it’, just think about it. We’ve got a couple of dudes – adrenaline guys, you know, they know all about it – and safety is their optimum concern. I know you’ll be reluctant, but I’m saying go with them, see what you think of it, don’t judge it straight away. It’s something that Ricky and I want to see, I know it’s something the viewers want to see, so, just go with an open mind, alright. Rip off the plaster, it’ll be over in seconds. And it will be painless and safe. Alright, so don’t let us down, mate. Enjoy it. Bye.

This really annoyed me. He was the furthest away he’d ever been from me and yet he had still managed to annoy me more than ever. I’d made it clear to them at the very beginning that this was exactly the thing I was not up for doing. I remember being sat in their office when they told me about the Bucket List idea and Stephen mentioned bungee jumping, and I said, ‘If that’s the sort of things you’ll be surprising me with, you’re wasting your time ’cos I’m not interested.’ If it’s over in seconds, what’s the point? I don’t like party poppers ’cos the amount of enjoyment versus the time it takes to clean them up is not worth it. Same with confetti.

Luke the director tried to reinforce what Stephen’s message had already said about it being safe and that the ‘dudes’ who would be taking me do it all the time and would help me beat my fears, which pissed me off even more as it’s not a fear that needs to be beaten. I’m happy that my brain doesn’t think it’s a good idea to jump off ledges that are high up. To me that means it’s doing its job, that’s the reaction it should have. I know my brain isn’t very interested in maths or politics, which annoys me at times, but that doesn’t put the rest of my body in any danger, so as far as I’m concerned it’s not a ‘fear’ that needs fighting. I’ve heard of koumpounophobia, which means your brain is scared of buttons. There was a woman on the news who had it so bad she couldn’t even sit and watch the kids’ TV programme Button Moon. It was like a horror movie to her, and she couldn’t turn the TV off, or over, because that would involve more buttons. Now, that’s a fear that needs beating.

I’m convinced the reason they don’t make James Bond movies anymore is because the stunts he used to do no longer impress us as people do that stuff on a wet Thursday afternoon in an office team building session. Even sweaty Pete from IT manages to get his fat arse into a jumpsuit so he can do a tandem jump with his head of department. I also blame medical advancement – would people still risk injuring themselves if they knew no doctor would be able to repair their broken arms and legs? If I worked at A&E I would put anyone who has an accident doing any of the above at the back of the queue and sort out people who have had a genuine accident first.

I was arguing with Luke about my reasons for not wanting to do it when a few car beeps stopped my flow. I looked outside where two young fellas in a camper van were shouting my name. I went out on to the balcony.

BLOKES: We got a call from your mates Ricky and Stephen, and they want us to look after you today, show you a few sights in the adventure capital of the world, Queenstown.

KARL: Yeah? Well, I’ve just been saying, I’m definitely not bungee jumping.

BLOKES: We know you’re not bungee jumping, but, hey, you’ll be alright, mate. Just head on out. Come on, we’ll show you around, mate. You’re in this beautiful place, so come on down, bro.

Their names were Sam and Kyle. They stood looking up at me from their graffiti-covered camper van. They seemed friendly enough, but if there’s one thing that doesn’t work with me, it’s people trying to force me to do something. The more they force, the more my brain fights against it. I’ve tried to teach my brain new things but then it just forgets them. Yet, I can remember postcodes of old addresses from years ago. My dad once bet me that by the time I got home I wouldn’t remember the number plate of a car in front of us. I can still remember it now. It was a maroon Ford Orion, registration D189 ONB. Why has my brain chosen to store that bit of information? What use is it? I can’t even remember my National Insurance number. My brain does what it wants.

SAM: I know you’re not that keen on bungee jumping, but we’ll tell you a little bit about it because it’s fantastic – you’ll love it!

KYLE: Safe as houses, mate. Nothing can go wrong.

SAM: Nothing can go wrong . . . most of the time.

KYLE: It’s an absolute rush, total adrenaline rush – you’ll love it.

KARL: I don’t like it. I don’t need it. Honestly, I’m not messing. I don’t need adrenaline rushes.

SAM: Why is that?

KARL: Because I have enough stress in me life.

KYLE: This will ease all the stress out.

SAM: And that is the whole point. To take that shit out of your life.

KARL: No, it won’t ease it, it’ll make it worse.

SAM: It won’t.

KARL: It will! You know nothing about me. You’ve just turned up here telling me what I like. You don’t know. I don’t like that kind of danger.

I came in from the balcony. Luke told me that Sam, the taller of the two, was a doctor, which surprised me, but then I suppose doctors and surgeons do have to have a bit of a mad streak in them to do the jobs they do. Normal people wouldn’t be able to remove lungs from someone’s chest and remain calm.

Luke the director asked me to go along for the ride with Sam and Kyle and witness them do a jump. As we drove we talked about my concerns. They tried to sell it to me by saying that it would all be over in eight seconds, but that isn’t a good enough reason to do it. Eight seconds of joy isn’t worth having. It’s the same reason I don’t understand why people eat oysters. They’re only in the mouth for a second. Sam said I could discover who I really am by doing a bungee. I hope by now, aged 38, I know who I am. If I’m actually someone else what a waste all these years have been.

SAM: There is a point of madness to it, and that’s it, just embrace the madness, and admit there’s something wrong with me here.

KYLE: Embrace the idiot inside.

SAM: Yeah.

KYLE: Let the idiot out.

KARL: Maybe that’s it though, maybe my idiot is always out – it doesn’t need to do bungee.

KYLE: What you thinking, man?

KARL: Okay, I’m happy to stand on the edge ’cos I want to give myself the chance to do it if my brain wants to.

I agreed to go out onto the ledge to see if my brain got the urge to leap, but first I had to be weighed so that they knew the right sort of bungee cord to use, and I had to sign a waiver form. We made our way over to the bungee platform in a type of cable car that was suspended 134 metres above the Nevis river. The minute we stepped off the cable car, back it went to pick up more people – the idea being that by the time it gets back to the platform I would have jumped off and be ready for my return. Loud rock music was playing out of speakers, which I presume was to get you pumped up ready for the jump. I stood in the middle of the platform like a trapped fly in a spider’s web.

I was introduced to Phil, a pony-tailed instructor, who was in charge of safety. He had me sat on a chair in no time, strapped my ankles together and hooked me on to the massive bungee cord. At this point I still didn’t know if I wanted to do it or not. I’d stopped saying ‘definitely not’ and was willing to see what happened.

Phil explained the process. ‘So, we’re gonna put you in a set of ankle cuffs, go out to the edge, and you’ve just got to listen to us, OK? Nothing bad can happen once you leave that edge. You’re gonna get the best feeling you’ve ever had in your life. Guarantee it. So, the idea is you’re gonna do a nice big forward dive out, just like going into a swimming pool, OK? A belly flop. Can you do that? You’re gonna go down, you’ll enjoy a couple of bounces, and we’ll bring you back up.’

Phil said all this very calmly in the same tone that a negotiator would use to change the mind of someone who was thinking about committing suicide by jumping off a bridge, the difference being he was trying to get me to jump. He shuffled me to the edge with my ankles bound. I’m not afraid of heights – I was quite happy looking out at the mountains and taking in the fresh air – but it was the idea of leaping that I couldn’t get my head round. At this stage, I still wasn’t sure if I was going to do it or not. My heart was pounding and I was now aware of my heavy breathing. The platform shook as the cable car dropped off more people.

KARL: There’s a queue over there of people waiting to do this! I’ve been in New Zealand for under 24 hours, I’ve hardly seen any people, and the most people I’ve seen are queuing up to do a bungee.

SAM: That’s what people come to New Zealand for. Travel to the top of the world to jump off it, man. This is the point.

KYLE: I believe you can do this, bro.

KARL: Yeah, but don’t be saying that. Are you going to be disappointed if I don’t do this?

SAM: No, but we’ll be stoked if you do.

KYLE: Yeah, we’ll be over the moon if you do.

SAM: There’s only you, it’s not about anyone else. It’s not about who wants you to do this. You’re the only person that can make you jump off the edge. It’s just you and that space between fear and total excitement.

KARL: My brain is saying no.

SAM: Of course it is.

KARL: My stomach’s saying ‘don’t be stupid’.

SAM: Your entire being is saying ‘this isn’t making sense’.

KYLE: Yet there’s a little bit in there that’s saying do it.

KARL: No, I haven’t got that bit. I’m not hearing that.

KYLE: You’re out here now, aren’t you?

SAM: It’s that little element that wants to kill the tiger, that wants to ride the lightning . . .

PHIL: OK, you ready?

KARL: Errmm, hang on a minute. Errmm . . .

KYLE: COME ONNNN! YEAHHHH!

SAM: It’s proving to yourself that you can quieten that voice in your head that says don’t do it.

This is the part I don’t understand. Surely you should listen to the voice in your head. It’s when you stop listening to that voice that you get yourself into trouble. If I didn’t listen to it at this point, would it ever speak to me again? I wouldn’t if I was it.

The problem is, these days you have to listen to too many parts of your body. Sometimes I go with my gut feeling, some say go with what your heart says – it’s only a matter of time before my appendix will have an opinion. This is probably why there are so many helplines these days. No one knows who to bloody listen to!

My left leg started to shake uncontrollably like it was trying to walk away from the ledge.

KARL: Look, me left leg is moving and me right leg isn’t doing anything.

KYLE: That’s normal, man. Push down on your heel, that’ll stop it.

KARL: Yeah, but what’s it saying to me? Why is it getting involved?

KYLE: Your left leg is going ’cos the adrenaline is pumping and coursing through your veins right now.

KARL: Right. I’m getting the rush of adrenaline without stepping off, so why go further?

PHIL: When you leave that edge that’s when you get it, that’s when the endorphins kick in, that’s when you get the reward. So, what you’ve got to do is take a couple of deep breaths again. You can do this, work with me. We’re going to go to the edge, look up, you’ve had a look down, you know what it’s like down there. I want you to look up, I want you to find that mountain out there, the sunshine, focus on it. We give you the countdown, it’s gonna be three, two, one, short countdown. Go for it. Once you leave that edge, boom! that’s it, job done. You’re gonna be absolutely giggling, I promise you. Karl, stop thinking about it!

KARL: But I’ve got to think about it.

PHIL: Don’t think too much!

PHIL: Just let go, stop listening to that thing in your head.

KARL: No, because that’s what you should listen to in life.

PHIL: No, you shouldn’t, not always. You’ll never get anywhere if you listen to that all the time.

The mood started to change. The other bungee jumpers were getting impatient and shouting, as they were getting tired of waiting. I suppose they’d hyped themselves up to do it and now I was getting in the way and giving their inner voice more time to make them reconsider, which isn’t good when you’ve probably paid around £130 to do this. I asked them to shut up, as I couldn’t think straight with all the noise.

PHIL: Don’t think about it too much! You’re gonna go for it!

KARL: No.

PHIL: Yes, you are.

KARL: No.

PHIL: You have got it, mate.

KARL: No.

PHIL: It’s all yours. Look up, focus.

KARL: No.

PHIL: Just let it happen.

KARL: No.

PHIL: We’re gonna count you down.

KARL: No, stop pushing me.

PHIL: I want you to say yes! I’m holding on to the back of you . . .

KARL: No, no, I wanted me to say yes, I’m not saying yes, it’s everyone else saying yes.

PHIL: OK, well, say yes.

KARL: No!

SPECTATOR: Strap on a pair of balls and get out there!

KYLE: You’re being Welsh about it, aren’t you? Go on, get out there, mate!

SAM: Can I get you a tissue for that vagina?

KARL: Say what you want, it doesn’t bother me.

KYLE: Toughen up.

In the end I decided to listen to the voice in my head and not do it. Sam and Kyle did though. They didn’t hang around as long as me and think about what they were about to do. They got hooked up and jumped without looking down and didn’t give time for their inner voice to get a word in. They came back up woooohing loudly, but nothing made me want to do it. In a way I was proud of the fact I said no. To this day, there is not one bit of me that wished I had done the bungee. I wonder how many people end up doing it under pressure from spectators standing by yelling at them the way they did with me. How many of them are brave enough to say no? How many of these people would do it for themselves if no one was watching? I’ve always been quite good at not doing things I didn’t want to do. When I was younger I had loads of mates who did daft things like sniff glue and gas but I always said no. I had a friend whose ambition it was to work in a cobblers just for the free smell of glue. The only time I took drugs was by accident at a pub quiz. There were loads of chocolate brownies on the tables. I wandered about from table to table eating them. When I left I hailed a taxi, but when he asked where I wanted to go I couldn’t remember. It turned out I’d been eating hash cakes. I had to sit on the pavement for ages before my address came back to me. But I can still remember the bloody reg plate of that maroon Ford Orion though.

Sam and Kyle said they knew I was never going to do the jump and had set up another activity. They took me to a golf course, but not for golf . . . No, that would be too boring for a person in this part of the world. They wanted me to experience zorbing. I’d never heard of it. They had a huge rubber ball sat in the rough, close to the fourteenth hole. They asked me to climb in. Kyle then started pouring in water from a big drum. I wasn’t expecting this, so I quickly zipped up the hole. They started to roll it. I was being thrown all over the place. It was like being in one of them balls you put in the washing machine that has softener in it. The water swished about drenching me. This must be what it feels like being a baby in the womb. It was hot in there, and the smell of warm rubber on top of being chucked around made me feel really sick. It’s not even as if it looks cool. Some people might do bungee jumping and sky diving ’cos they think it gives off a macho look, but zorbing doesn’t even give you that. It’s the sort of thing you wouldn’t brag about. I felt like a hamster in a wheel.

I was worried I was going to be sick, which could be dangerous while trapped in a moving ball, as I could end up choking. So, I yelled all the swear words I knew at the top of my voice. They eventually stopped it rolling. Kyle said I shouldn’t have closed the entrance as the more water that’s in the ball, the smoother the ride. That’s some information I may as well forget about, as I’m never going zorbing again. No one should go zorbing. I think the ball should be used for shifting furniture that’s too heavy to carry. Shove in a big telly and then roll it down the road.

Before they left, Kyle gave me a blow-up kiwi (the national bird) as a memento. I watched a programme on these birds ages ago and remembered that they mate for life. Some have been known to be together for 30 years, but I don’t know why they make such a big deal about it. I put it down to them all looking the same. I’m pretty sure if all men and all woman looked the same there wouldn’t be as many divorces. While I’m on kiwi facts, even though it has wings it’s a flightless bird and prefers to keep its feet on the ground like me. And it sleeps during the day, which was something I wished I could do as the jet lag was killing me by this point.

I called Ricky and told him I didn’t do the bungee and I wasn’t happy about being put in the situation. He made some chicken noises: £1.50 a minute and he’s doing chicken noises. But he said I had a chance to redeem myself because he’d arranged for me to go to another island where bungee was actually invented. He said the island was known as the happiest place in the world and to stop moaning.

We were up early the next day to catch a small private plane that would take us to another airport to catch another plane that would take us to the island of Pentecost in Vanuatu. A woman was scraping frost off the windscreen as we loaded up our kit into the small six-seater. It’s the first time I’ve ever had to ask the pilot if he could move his seat forward so I had room for my legs. We flew really low, so low that the woman co-pilot seemed to be using a normal road map. I’m surprised we didn’t stop at traffic lights we were flying that low.

I sat next to so many pilots in small planes during this trip that I reckon I’ve picked up the basics. I’m not a fan of flying so maybe it would be a good thing to do as it would help me understand how it all works and take away my anxieties. I worry on my flights that something will happen to the two pilots and no one else will be able to land the plane. If I learnt to fly, I could step in. I find it a bit odd how they have more subs on a bench in a football match in case of injury than they do on a plane carrying 300 passengers!

We got to Pentecost where I met John. He took me from the landing strip through the woods where I could hear whistling and singing, and through the trees until we came to a massive tower that looked like it was made of scaffolding poles. As I got closer I could see it was a structure of wooden poles all bound together with rope. It looked like a giant game of KerPlunk.

Men and women were dancing and singing while others were climbing up the side of the wooden frame. John explained that they were looking forward to seeing a white man do a land dive. As he explained why they do the land diving, men were jumping from various heights with nothing but vines wrapped round their ankles. Somehow, they measure the vines so that the land divers just brush the ground before being whipped back up by the vines.

The highest jumping platform was around 30 metres high. When one of the men jumped, the whole structure shook violently, as if it could come down at any moment. As each man landed another two blokes ran up and cut the vines free to clear them before the next man dived, like a kind of air traffic control.

As soon as the jumpers were released from the vines they ran back up the tower to have another go, like kids in the park playing on a slide. I imagine it would be difficult to refuse to do the jump if you lived here. It seemed to be such a tight community and might lead to being shunned. I think most people in life just want to fit in so follow suit rather than questioning things. It reminded me of the bungee jumping situation . . .

John said that if the divers brushed the land with the hair on their head, it blessed the land. ‘No chance of me doing that then,’ I thought. I’d have to plant my head in the earth like an ostrich for my hair to brush the land. He explained that the higher the jump, the more plentiful the harvest.

There were no St John’s Ambulance people on stand-by if things went tits up. Even in the professional set-up in New Zealand I had to sign a waiver to say if anything happened it wasn’t their responsibility, so I doubted if this village had any sort of cover. They didn’t even cover their bollocks, so Life Cover wasn’t going to be on offer.

The men wore a nambas, which is a small bit of material worn over the knob. The bollocks are left free. I didn’t see the point of the material. It didn’t really cover anything. It’s like when you wrap a bottle of wine for someone at Christmas. There’s no surprise there, and it was the same with the nambas – it wasn’t hiding anything.

But, as with everywhere else in the world, you’ll always get someone who wants to be different. There was a man who was walking around dressed in a right load of foliage. He was the Lady Gaga of the area. Maybe this was his way of getting out of doing the dive, by getting camouflaged up. The odd thing about the clothing was how the tradition had carried on and yet the odd villager had a mobile phone or wore a quality watch. The watch just didn’t look right. It was never designed to go with a knob sheath. If anything I’d probably wear the watch round the nambas as a belt to stop it falling off. Surely if they accepted mobile phones and watches they might as well wear underpants or a pair of trunks.

A young lad who looked about six years old did a jump from around 25 feet. Kids of his age in England are being told not to play conkers at school due to little injuries, and yet here’s little Billy diving to his imminent death just for the sake of growing some cabbages. This is what happens when people don’t have enough to do. No jobs, no paperwork or bills to pay, no washing of clothes, no sales calls to answer, or windows or cars to wash, so they turn to arsing about.

There was no way I was going to do it from the top. I told John it was too risky. I explained that I have a mortgage and other responsibilities that I wouldn’t be able to sort out with a broken neck. He told me: ‘Not a problem. It safe. Been doing for many years, no accidents. No worry.’ Yet one after another, men continued to hurl themselves off the tower like lemmings. These people need wings more than the kiwi bird.

Everything seemed to be going well until a man whose vines were too long went and planted his head in the ground. He lay on the ground shaking like a baby sparrow that had fallen out its nest with his eyes rolling about in the back of his head. The singing and dancing continued as two men went over and slapped his face. Eventually he came back round with a big smile on his face.

I didn’t want to let everyone in the village down, and I knew Ricky and Stephen would moan at me if I didn’t get involved somehow, so I came up with an idea. I agreed to do the lowest possible land dive. I pointed to the lowest rung on the structure and asked everyone if jumping from there still counted as a land dive. They said it would. Two men prepared the vines for my dive. They definitely looked too long for the distance I was going to jump. They tied them around my ankles. I got up on the ledge to find it was a lot higher than I thought. Just as on the bungee platform in New Zealand where loud rock music blasted out of speakers, here the singing and whistling puts you in a kind of trance. I held onto the wooden frame with one arm and leaned as far forward as possible. Now I just had to let go. I remember having the same feeling when I was learning to swim as a kid, when you know you have to let go of the side of the pool and push away. This was like letting go of the edge of a pool, except there was no water. No one was shouting at me like the jump in New Zealand, no one was counting me down – I just had to wait until my inner voice said, ‘Release’. The thing Sam kept saying to me on the bungee in New Zealand was in my head: ‘Coach, pass me the ball, and I’ll make the play.’ With everyone wearing a nambas, now wasn’t the time to be asking for any ball to play with. I let go.

The vines they had attached to my legs were far too long. I face-planted the earth. Given the distance I’d jumped I’d have been better using shoelaces instead of vines, but the villagers loved it. The chanting and whistling got louder, and they lifted me in the air in celebration. I felt good, not from the dive, but because I felt they had appreciated my effort.

I called Ricky.

KARL: I did the land dive. I did it.

RICKY: Did you?

KARL: Yeah. I spoke to Stephen, and he was a bit down on me and that, and you were calling me a chicken, but I got there. I did the proper land dive.

RICKY: What, the thing with the vines?

KARL: Yeah. I was getting on with the locals, and they sort of . . . I dunno, I dunno how they did it ’cos when I got there and I first saw it I was like, ‘Not a chance!’

RICKY: Right.

KARL: I don’t know where it came from. I did it. Wasn’t an amazing feeling, but after it they were all throwing me about in the air. They were loving it. The people who were sorta pushing me the other day were annoying me. I don’t like being forced into things, whereas these people were a bit more, I dunno . . .

RICKY: Hold on! Did you do the real one or did you do the child’s version? Let’s get this straight because I’ve seen five-year-olds do it, and they just jump off and it’s only about ten feet. Which one did you do?

KARL: It was, it wasn’t the child’s one, but the thing is, you’ve got to remember that I . . .

RICKY: How high was it? How high was it?

KARL: (to director) Luke, how high was it?

LUKE: I think you’ve got to be honest with him.

KARL: Yeah, I know, so how high, how high?

LUKE: It was the one below the child’s one, about four foot, Karl.

KARL: It was about . . . about five foot.

RICKY: Five foot!?

KARL: Yeah, but . . .

RICKY: Sorry? Five foot! I’ve high-jumped higher than that.

KARL: No! Ricky, I think it was about five and a half foot. You jump and you land on the ground. It’s not a bungee. You hit the ground.

RICKY: How do you hit the ground?

KARL: With your head!

RICKY: You just jumped five foot. You didn’t even jump your own height basically!

KARL: Yeah, but I landed on my head! When you see it, you’ll understand. Apparently I’m the first white man to do a land dive. Now that’s a lot better than that other bungee jump. I’ve broken a record here!

RICKY: Right. So, you’re the first white person to land on their head? Is that what the record is? Do you want me to ask Guinness World Records UK if you’re the first white man to land on his head? Basically, you fell over and hit your head.

KARL: (Laughs)

RICKY: So, if I punch Stephen in the face and he falls over and hits his head, he’s broken the record ’cos he’s done it from two foot higher than you! You fucking . . . terrible! (Laughs) Right, since you’ve been so brave and so brilliant, you’ve won the night in a half-decent hotel so enjoy that. Well done! You’ve been through a lot of trauma here, boy.

We boarded another plane and made our way to the nice hotel that Ricky had promised. It was decent – a posh place that made the towels in the room into animals. I had two rabbits on my bed made with hand towels and a couple of swans by the bathroom sink made with flannels. I suppose it gives some purpose to a flannel – something I’ve never got into using. I also found a funny egg cup in the room. It had two little legs and had EGGS ON LEGS written on the front. I packed it in my bag as it cheered me up and I thought I might be needing something like that on my island, the way Tom Hanks had that football to talk to in Castaway.

After a good night’s sleep I got up and had a full English breakfast on the pier. As I ate my egg, sausage, beans and toast I watched loads of flying fish in the clear blue sea. It’s odd how evolution gave fish wings. I wonder if people continue to chuck themselves off ledges and big wooden frames if we eventually grow a pair.

But I couldn’t enjoy my little treat from Ricky and Stephen as much as I wanted to. I was worried about what they had planned for me next. It felt like being in a private hospital. It’s nice having your own room and good food, but the fact is you’re in hospital to have your legs off the next day so how can really you enjoy it?

A plane flew over really low and then landed in the sea and chucked out an anchor. It was a seaplane. The pilot introduced himself to me as Seaplane Paul. The plane was tiny, like a motorbike with wings. He said he was going to take me to see the many small islands that were dotted around to give me an idea of the sort of place where I might be spending my night.

We saw loads of islands. All different sizes. Like clumps of broccoli sprouting from the sea. Paul told me around 83 islands make up Vanuatu. I saw a few nice ones I’d have been happy to stay on. Nice white sand, clear blue water and bushes and trees for protection from the sun, just like the Bounty advert I mentioned earlier. He then took me to see a volcano. It was terrifying. I’d seen a lot of volcanoes when holidaying in Lanzarote, but they were all dead and just looked like giant ashtrays. This one was alive. I kept saying that it wasn’t safe as we flew through the steam clouds that were gushing out of the top. We had to do extra flights on the way here due to ash clouds from Chile and yet here we were flying through the smoke like contestants on Stars in their Eyes. I could see the red hot lava bubbling like beans do when you’ve had them on the stove for too long. We were being battered by the heat that was rising from it and being thrown all over the place. I wasn’t happy. Paul was getting too close for my liking. He seemed to be attracted to it like a bluebottle in a chippy flying too close to one of those FlyZap electrocutors. I wasn’t feeling great from the turbulence, but what made me feel worse was the smell from the volcano. It stunk. To me, the fact that nature has made this thing stink is a way of telling us that we shouldn’t be anywhere near it.

The smell of sulphur is similar to rotten eggs. It’s odd to think the middle of the earth smells of bad eggs.

We headed back and I quizzed him about Vanuatu being the happiest place in the world. Paul was from Australia and he told me he’d travelled a lot and he really thinks it is the happiest place he’s ever known. He told me that the locals use a greeting that is a type of laughing sound.

KARL: But if everybody’s doing that sound how do you know when they are really really happy?

PAUL: But they are really really happy.

KARL: No, they’re not. They can’t be – not all the time.

PAUL: Yes, they can.

KARL: So, you meet someone and go heeee and they go heeee, and then they say ‘What’s been going on?’ and you go ‘Oh, my gran’s just died’ and they’d go ‘Why are you so cheerful?’

PAUL: Ah, you would know if their grandma had died ’cos you’d see they would have a beard. If someone dies no one shaves.

KARL: For how long?

PAUL: Ah, I think it’s for how long they feel, maybe a couple of months either way.

KARL: So, ’cos I have a bit of a beard they’ll think someone close died?

PAUL: Yeah, and they’ll try and be even happier to you, so you may get a few more heeees just to stop you going into depression.

KARL: It’s worth keeping it then ’cos they’ll treat me better, won’t they?

I like the idea of growing a beard when someone’s died, as you wouldn’t really be in the mood for shaving after hearing the bad news. It’s also a way of showing respect without it costing anything. Death is a costly business at home. It’s another way of getting money out of us, and they try to make you feel you’re a better person if you spend more on the dead. My dad says it’s all bollocks and he wants to be stuck in a bin bag and I should let the council get rid of him. The trend at the moment seems to be buying a bench with a message engraved on it. They’re like the new gravestones. ‘Arthur used to like sitting here. Missed by wife Betty 1936–2012.’ I bet the councils can’t believe their luck how much they’re saving on not having to cough up for public benches.

It wasn’t long before I was at the airport again to get on another plane to fly and meet a tribe that worship Prince Philip as a god on the island of Tanna. Luke gave me a few photos of Prince Philip to pass onto them and a limited edition £5 coin that had been released to celebrate his recent ninetieth birthday. £5! That’s a lot of money for a coin you’re not going to spend. Why couldn’t it be a special 10p coin? It’s things like this that annoy me about Britain. It’s a right rip off. We don’t even have £5 coins in circulation. It’s things like this that would stop us ever making it into the Top 10 list of happiest places in the world.

Anyway, the Prince Philip tribe . . . The story goes that the son of a mountain spirit travelled across seas to find a powerful woman to marry, and somehow the son turned out to be Prince Philip. He visited close to the island in the 1970s, which helped to back up their beliefs. I met two locals as I got off the plane who were holding a piece of wood with my name on it. One was called JJ who spoke some English. He introduced me to Albi who was described to me as the happiest man in the village, as well as being the greatest dancer. They were both stood there wearing next to nothing. Just a bit of plant on their heads and wicker on their knobs. I got in the back of a van with Albi as JJ had claimed the passenger seat on the inside.

Most places I visit I do try to learn a few words like ‘Hello’ and ‘Thank you’, but during this trip it was hard to keep up as they say Vanuatu has over 100 languages in use among the 230,000 population. I don’t know how a place can run like this. Surely a lot of people have to speak a certain language for it to qualify as one. If the Teletubbies moved here they’d have to add that language to their list, too. English is used a little, and so is French, with Bislama being the main national language. It was hard to understand when being spoken, but it was possible to work it out when written down. While driving to meet the rest of the villagers with Albi and JJ, I saw a sign that read SLO DENJA which meant SLOW DANGER. They write down words how they sound, which is good. It’s how it should be, really. I don’t know why we started using silent letters in the English language like using a ‘p’ to sound like an ‘f’ in the word ‘phonetic’ or an ‘x’ in ‘xylophone’. Why not ‘zilofone’? Our words have become so long and complicated we’ve had to come up with abbreviations to help us use words we don’t know how to spell. If I was in charge of the dictionary I would have a right clear-out of words. Words like ‘necrophilia’ I’d get rid of. If someone has that (attraction to dead bodies), I’d make them say, ‘I fancy dead bodies’. Then, at least when they tell people, they might realise how mental it sounds rather than it being hidden in a posh word. And then they’ll stop having the problem. The fact that it has its own word makes it seem more acceptable.

On the rest of the trip I spent most of my time looking at billboards and signs to work out what they were saying. It was like looking at those images that were popular in the 1980s where if you stared at them for long enough you’d see a monkey riding a unicorn. Some examples for you: ‘Mi wantem’ is ‘I would like’. ‘Mi wantem’ sounds like ‘Me want them’, which equals ‘I would like’. ‘Bitwin’ is ‘between’. ‘Bisnis’ is ‘business’. By now you’ve probably got the hang of it, so I don’t have to tell you what ‘Gud moning’ means. If you’re still struggling you’re a ‘dik ed’.

I gave Albi the photos of Prince Philip that Luke had cut from magazines and he was really really happy with them, so I gave him the coin as well. He was even more chuffed. Luke said I’d made a bit of an error giving Albi the coin, as I should have saved it for the main chief of the village. We didn’t have any more coins, so I wanted him to hide it, but this is the problem with wearing nothing but a wicker knob coverer – there’s nowhere for small change. I gestured that he should hold it tight in his hand and show no one.

Suzanne doesn’t allow me to gamble. Now and again I want to sign up to gambling sites online but she says, ‘No, once you’re signed up you’ll be gambling all the time and lose everything.’ She’s probably right. I used to like fruit machines when I was younger but I find they’ve all got a bit complicated now. It used to be three pears or three melons to win the jackpot but now there’s so many fancy fruits in the world they’ve had to add more reels to fruit machines so there’s less chance of winning. They seem to have loads more buttons and lights flashing than they used to have too. I had a go on one in a service station recently that flashed and made so much noise I may as well have just stayed in the car park and kicked a car to set off its alarm, I would have got the same result and saved myself 20p.

We got to the village after an hour’s drive. All eyes were on me as I got out the back of the van. They stared at me stony-faced and the only noise came from a pair of scrawny-looking dogs having it away and the flapping of a British flag they were flying high. I’ve never been a fan of flags. I don’t think they’re necessary anymore. When I see the British flag I don’t feel it’s important to me. Maybe before the invention of words they were handy to mark a territory, but now, what are they for? I see people waving them at sporting events, but most of the time I don’t know what country the flag is from. When Neil Armstrong put a flag on the moon what would it mean to someone from another planet who landed and saw it? When he stuck it into the moon’s surface it just stood there, like one of Suzanne’s mam’s towels when she’s forgotten to use softener, all hard and stiff. The only good thing about a flag is, you can wash them and then put them straight back out to use, and they can dry while doing their job. The only proper use of our flag is that if you fly the British flag upside down it is a distress signal, but then not many people know that, and what are the chances of having a flag on you when in a distressed moment?

I think the whole of the village was out to greet me, but then I suppose when you live in mud huts any excuse to get out is a good one. Albi was definitely the happiest man in the village, but was that just because he was five quid up? JJ led me to see the collection of photos of Prince Philip they had hung on a piece of string. Some were cut from magazines, some were postcards. Then I came across one of JJ and Albi wearing dinner jackets along with a few others, stood next to Prince Philip. I don’t like wearing suits as I always feel overdressed, but that saying has never been more apt for JJ and Albi. They looked really different in a suit. JJ said they went to meet him at Windsor. Normally, to get this close to Philip you’d have to take part in the Duke of Edinburgh Awards. A lad at school climbed some mountain in Scotland and got the award, but I don’t think he got to meet him. I thought I was getting involved in the DoE Awards when my school sent me to hand out biscuits at the local mental home, but it turned out I was just sent to help. To this day I don’t really know why I was sent there instead of being in school.

There’s a saying that you should never meet your idols. I tend to agree with it as when I was a kid I liked Gary Glitter, so good advice. But recently when I was in India I went out of my way to meet Ganga and Jamuna. They are conjoined twins. I never thought I would meet conjoined twins. They’re less common than a four-leaf clover even though now is probably the best time for them, what with all the two-for-one offers that are out there. In a world where everybody looks the same it was good to meet Ganga and Jumuna and I will never forget it.

I like the way they have a god who they can actually contact and get answers from. People have lots of different gods, but how many of them can say they’ve had a photo with them like some of these lot have? They believed in something that made them happy, so what does it matter? A lot of people would be keen to tell them it’s nonsense, but sometimes the truth doesn’t matter. I think we’re too keen to state the truth about everything. There was a programme on Channel 5 ages ago called The Truth about the Killer Squid as if its lies were that important.

JJ asked me to join everyone for food. As we sat on the ground I noticed everyone that faced me had beards, which I remember Seaplane Paul had said was the sign of a death. Suzanne tells me I look like a scruff when I don’t shave, but if I was walking about nude like this lot what’s the point in having a nice smooth face when my hairy arse and back would be on show for everyone to see? I asked who had died, and they said it was the supreme chief who had reached 111 years old. Maybe he was – it’s a healthy lifestyle – but when living like this I imagine it’s easy to get dates wrong. Every day would feel the same. Why do they need to know if it’s Thursday? They don’t have bins to put out or bills to pay by a certain date, they do what they need to do when it needs doing. Simple.

My mam only needs to know what day it was so she’d know which TV soap to watch, but since Coronation Street, EastEnders and Emmerdale seem to be on every night these days I don’t think she has a clue what day it is.

I’d be happy to do this, if someone took me there – although I don’t really see the point. What you wouldn’t catch me doing is living there. Imagine trying to arrange for a builder or a plumber to come round? It gives them the perfect excuse to mess you around.

JJ said, ‘And this is the son that is in place of the supreme chief. And his speech is: “I would like to take this opportunity to thank you and to tell you that we appreciate your presence here, and to tell you that it’s the first time in our history that we the black people and the white people sit together here to share food. In the past, our ancestors and our elders never ate together with the white people, and we want this unity and the peace.”’

The chances are, if you’ve got an interesting family tree you already know about it. If you were somehow linked to Einstein that information would have been passed down through the family. If you go looking for things you’re more likely to find problems. It’s like having a check-up at the doctor’s or taking your car for a service – they’ll find problems that weren’t a problem before they started looking. Knowing my luck, I’d end up having to pay a gas and leccy bill for some old Pilkington who never paid it before they died.

I’d be interested if they could go really far back – right back – so they could show me a photo of an ape, jellyfish or slug and say ‘Karl, this is the earliest Pilkington we could trace. This is your great great-great-great-great-great-great-grandad.’

We ate some chicken, and I asked if anyone had any questions, expecting to be asked about what food I like or what hobbies I have, but they kept asking questions I didn’t understand or know the answers to about their prospects and future.

KARL: You don’t need to worry. Everything’s gonna be good, I’d say. Everything’s good.

JJ: (translates to rest of village) Thank you for the message you give us confirming us not to worry, everything will be OK. It is a time when our elders have to decide on what they will do, but we depend on you now that you have promised everything will be good.

KARL: I think it will be. I think it’ll be alright. Things change, but, I think, I think it’ll be alright. I’d carry on as you are.

I was guessing, but I do think they’ll be alright. We then danced to some chants to celebrate the good news. It started off with a type of conga before moving on to some foot stamping that caused dust to fill the air from the dry ground like a natural smoke-machine effect. The men danced as the women sat and watched, some with their faces decorated in splattered colours as if they’d been to a paintball event.

If Suzanne wanted to do this to her face I’d have an issue with it, as she’d make a right mess of the pillowcases when she went to bed, but here they don’t have pillowcases, so they don’t have to worry about stuff like that. All the bright colours must attract wasps though, which must be annoying.

Albi and JJ wanted to take me to see Grandmother, so we got back in the van and travelled quite a distance. We ended up staying over at another village for the night. I ended up sleeping in a treehouse, with a headache from hunger, as I didn’t bother waiting for tea after they showed me what they’d be serving up. It was fruit bat. It’s a bat, and adding the word ‘fruit’ to it doesn’t make it any more appetising. I don’t think I could count it as one of my five a day, either. I asked how long a bat takes to cook, a question I never thought I’d ask. I doubt Ask Jeeves or Google would even know the answer. I said I’d skip tea, as the smell of the dead bat didn’t grab me, and went to bed. You’d think they’d go to bed earlier, with them having no electricity, but it didn’t stop them singing and dancing well into the night to the same song over and over and over again. I kept waking up, but I couldn’t tell if I’d been asleep for hours or just a few minutes as the same song was being sung. It was like when Bryan Adams was number one with ‘(Everything I Do) I Do It For You’. You couldn’t escape it.

I was woken again when Albi and JJ came into the treehouse to sleep. The good thing is, they wear so little, there was no messing around getting undressed. They just got straight into bed. It felt like I’d just got off to sleep again when the next thing I knew Albi was waking me up to go and see Grandmother. It was 4 a.m.! Why so early? Are we helping her do a paper round or what? I felt sick from tiredness as I tried to get dressed in total darkness.

As we drove up a mountain I could hear explosions and see a red glow in the sky. JJ pointed and said, ‘Grandma.’ It was a volcano.

It didn’t really surprise me that they call a volcano ‘Grandma’. Remember, I was in a place where Prince Philip is god. As we got closer, the road we were driving on had steam coming through it. The volcano was acting like underfloor heating. The noise of the explosions got louder as we got closer. Funny how their grandma makes a lot of rumbling noises; it’s my auntie who is known for her explosions. She once broke wind for five minutes. She said it doesn’t happen anymore, but I just think her hearing isn’t what it used to be.

It was difficult to know if we were in any danger as Albi continued to smile. He seemed so relaxed with it. My car insurance costs a bomb just ’cos I have on-street parking. What would it cost me if I had one of these on my doorstep?

We made our way up a makeshift path with a handrail that had been battered and broken in places by smouldering rock spewed out from the volcano. I asked JJ about safety and which way to run if this thing started getting more active. JJ explained, ‘If you are running, you keep on talking or speaking to her (Grandma), telling her to be careful and to take care of you.’

This place has got enough languages without me having to learn to speak Volcano. I was worried about a lump of it landing on me as I can’t be doing with burns. I was always burning myself as a kid on kettles and hot plates. I don’t like frying an egg as I don’t like the way it spits out hot fat at me. This was like that but on a bigger scale. It was like one big dodgy firework that was unpredictable. The longer the silence, the bigger the explosion seemed to be. Standing on the edge, looking down into the churning red magma made my heart pound more than when I was on the edge of the bungee platform. It didn’t seem to bother JJ and Albi. The loud echoing booms didn’t even make them flinch.

Apparently Angel Falls was named after a US aviator called Jimmie Angel who was the first to fly over the falls in a plane. Even though it already had a local name, Kerepakupai Vená, he re-named it. I think the name Angel Falls works better to attract the tourists as it’s a lot easier to remember so it was a worthwhile change. I don’t know why they ever bothered changing the kitchen cleaner product name from Jif to Cif though.

I had an empty plastic bottle I’d been drinking from all morning that I wanted to chuck into the bubbling lava, but JJ said I wasn’t allowed. As far as I could see, this would be the only advantage of having one of these things on your doorstep. It would be great to get rid of old sideboards and mattresses by just tipping them in. Surely much better on the environment than landfill. If we had one of these in the UK they probably wouldn’t allow tipping either, but it would have nothing to do with upsetting Grandma, it would just be because they’d lose money, as it’s £25 a time for them to come and collect big pieces of rubbish. It would also be a good place to put dead bodies. A lot more efficient than burying, and each time you heard it exploding it would remind you of old family members who had passed away. Their ashes would eventually go back into the ground.

JJ said they don’t throw anything in out of respect for Grandma as she fertilises the ground with ash for good produce. Then he said we should move. The wind was changing direction, and there was more chance of the big hot rocks coming our way.

He wasn’t wrong either, as moments later, while making our way back down, we saw two huge big steaming rocks the size of cooler boxes land where we had been standing. We got back down to the van. Then Albi and JJ got out two bits of wood and asked me to go back up the side of the volcano with them.

JJ explained the plan, ‘Karl, you must struggle to survive in hot places like this, in the desert, and learn to enjoy yourself, so arse boarding is one of the things that can make you happy when you are in the desert.’

Arse boarding was something they used to do when they were younger. They’d sit on a type of homemade ski and then slide down the side of the ash-covered volcano as if it were snow. I thought JJ and Albi would be the last people up for this kind of activity wearing what they were wearing. I could feel the sharp glass-like ash getting into my shoes, through my socks and under my skin, so God knows how it would feel on their arses.

I tried it but I seemed to be too heavy to glide. So I tried using my feet to push a little bit but I ended up just looking like a dog wiping its itchy arse on grass.

Three middle-aged blokes arse-boarding on the side of a volcano: it was like a scene from Last of the Summer Wine. Albi was laughing to himself and loving every minute of it. All this did was back up my opinion that if people don’t have much to do, most will opt for arsing about. Literally.

This act of walking on fire has existed for thousands of years and is practised by cultures all across the world as a rite of passage into adulthood. I imagine most of the people who do this are like JJ and Albi who wander about all day barefoot which means their feet are tougher. When I got in the back of the van with Albi I noticed the skin on the bottom of his feet had hardened from having no protection from shoes. His toes were nice and straight though. I reckon Albi could walk on broken glass and not flinch. I tickled his feet when he wasn’t looking and he didn’t even notice. Another example of how modern living is making us a little bit weaker. My feet can’t even handle under-floor heating.

Thinking back, even though I was a bit worried on the edge of the volcano I’d say it was my favourite thing on this trip.

STEPHEN: Alright, Karl, by now you should have met quite a few of the happy islanders in Vanuatu, and I hope you’re starting to get a sense of what it really means to be an island dweller because it’s time to take it to another level, mate. One more plane ride to the remote island of Malakula where we’ve found you your very own Man Friday who’ll take you to your desert island and teach you all the survival skills you’ll need.

Another plane, a long drive, a pick-up of a pig from a farm (a payment for the tribe teaching me survival skills), and a boat on quite a rough ocean later, I was in Malakula.

Since being back at home I’ve found out that Malakula was named by Captain James Cook. It comes from the French mal au cul which means ‘pain in the arse’ after Cook found it difficult to deal with cannibals, volcanoes and other annoying features. It’s good to know proper explorers sometimes share the feelings I have on my travels. I remember feeling a bit like Captain Cook at this point in the trip. The whole reason why I picked the night on a desert island was because I like peace and quiet and my own company. I hadn’t really had any time to myself since leaving England, and it was difficult to have a bit of ‘me’ time while being here as the people of Vanuatu never seem to spend time on their own.

I got off the boat, and there was the chief stood with a stick, feathers sprouting from his head, wearing a nambas with flip flops. Again, if they can buy flip flops, they can buy a pair of pants, surely. The chief’s nambas was not made of wicker like Albi’s and JJ’s. It was made of leaves and looked like a cross between some sort of Thai starter and a spec case. Clothes normally help you to guess the age of people, so I was struggling to guess the age of most people while in Vanuatu. I tried to see how low the men’s testicles hung as a guide. The lower they hang, the older the man. For women I used the same technique but with their breasts. By using this guide I’d say the chief was around 40.

As he led us up to where he lived the the rain came down. We walked and talked. He told me they speak the language of Ninde. He said everything begins with the letter ‘n’. It’s at times like this I wonder if they make things up to joke around with tourists like me. A palm tree he pointed to was called a Nimdimdip, we saw Naho, which is a fruit, and he pointed out a leaf that was called Nooholee. I said that playing I-Spy here would be tough as you’d be guessing all day. He agreed.

We then stopped at an area where he explained that people lay. At first I thought he meant to relax or to have it away with their partner, but then I saw a load of bones and realised he meant where dead bodies lay. I saw a skull and asked whose head it was. Quick as a flash, he said, ‘Nicola’, as if showing me a photograph. I would’ve understand it more if it had been the head of some ancient chief or something, but the name Nicola isn’t usually the name of a leader. Maybe having everything beginning with the letter ‘n’ makes it easy to remember things. I thought it would be odd to see the skull of someone I knew.

We got to the village. It was really nice. The gardens were like something in a royal park. The chief took me to a wooden hut where I would be staying the night. It was basic but would do the job of keeping me dry. They had also installed a wooden toilet over a pit, which I think was built especially for me as it looked unused. This was how they showed their wealth. It wasn’t about how much they had for themselves, it was more about how much they could give to others. He told me meat and kava would be served soon. I set out my sleeping bag on the floor, put up a mossy net while there was still light and hung up my socks and trousers to dry before joining everyone at the communal eating area.

All the men were sat around chatting. A few set about making some kava, a drink made from the kava plant roots. They ground the plant with some water from the stream. After an hour of bashing the root with a wooden pole they had created a washing-up bowl full of grey kava. They poured me some first, as I was the guest. It tasted like soap and made my tongue numb, which at least made it easier to drink the rest. My taste buds were off their tits.

Apparently 5 million people attend Oktoberfest every year. I like the odd beer but not with 5 million other people. Imagine the queue at the bar. I’m happy having a night out with maybe three others but soon as you’re having to push tables together and use a notepad and pen to make a note of what people want to drink – it’s too many. I’ve only done it once or twice but I didn’t enjoy it. The saying used to be ‘two’s company, three’s a crowd’. I wasn’t sure if I was on a night out or on some sort of protest march. I remember having to announce I was going home forty minutes before I wanted to go to allow time to say goodbye to everyone even though I hadn’t actually had time to say hello to them as there were so many bloody people. Never again.

No women were present. In all the time I was there I didn’t see the men and women mix. Nicola’s dead head was the closest I saw the chief get to a woman.

The chief was sat on a log chatting on his mobile phone, a sight I’d still not become accustomed to, even though each tribe I’d met since being here seemed to have them. It struck me as odd that a man who’s a chief, wears feathers and has skulls of friends in his garden has a pay-as-you-go mobile. He must get sales calls from people trying to sell him things he doesn’t even know exist.

I ate some meat that I’m sure was nice, but I couldn’t taste it ’cos of the kava. I went to bed.

I remember waking up and feeling impatient. I just wanted to be introduced to my Man Friday, get to my island and experience what I had come to experience. It was the same feeling you get the day after a wedding when you’ve stayed in the same hotel all the other guests have stayed in and you feel like you have to continue the celebrations over breakfast with strangers you’re never likely to meet again.

I had a wash in the freshwater stream, and then Luke told me that I had to go and meet the chief who would introduce me to his son. He was the man who would be teaching me the survival skills on my remote island. He then said the chief would be expecting me to wear the traditional dress of the nambas. I said, ‘Not a chance.’ It annoyed me that he expected me to wear one. I’d been keeping myself well covered and taking malaria tablets all week, and now he wanted me to walk about with only my knob covered? It didn’t make sense with all the mosquitoes around. I wanted to learn skills like Ray Mears and Bear Grylls, but this was turning more into How to Look Good Naked with Gok Wan.

Luke said it was a sign of respect, but I didn’t understand why getting my bollocks out would show respect. At home it would be classed as anti-social behaviour. I’d already shown respect by not upsetting anyone and taking them a pig. That’s a big gift to give someone, isn’t it? I think some top-up time for his mobile should have been enough. I went to see the chief.

CHIEF: We have to give your nambas to you.

KARL: I’m not too worried about that, don’t trouble yourself. I’m quite happy. You’ve made me welcome, I’ve stayed the night, you gave me kava, I had a really good night. You don’t have to give me any more. So, yeah, we can just . . . I just came to meet my friend who is going to help me to survive on the island.

LUKE: It’s traditional, Karl. If one becomes an honorary tribe member, it is an honour for the tribe if you don the nambas.

CHIEF: It is a tradition thing when we go fishing.

KARL: I think it’s more important to have a rod and bait when fishing. Fishing tackle is important. Not my tackle! I’m not going to pull off that look. What sort of rule is that? If I don’t wear a nambas they won’t teach me to fish!?

CHIEF’S SON: It is a kind of respect.

KARL: It’s just . . . (sighs) . . . wearing the nambas, a friend’s winding me up back at home. He is making me wear these nambas. I didn’t know that was going to happen, you see. It’s a bit of a surprise for me. I thought I was just coming here to have a look, observe with eyes and then go. Now everybody’s keen to get me in a nambas, and the longer this goes on, the more embarrassing it is.

CHIEF’S SON: You have to be in the nambas.

LUKE: It’s just for a short while. I think it would be the right thing to do.

CHIEF’S SON: After you put on nambas, then we have to do a dance here.

KARL: See! They’re adding a bit more now. Pop these on, then we’re going to have a dance. That’s when things pop out – when having a dance.

CHIEF’S SON: It is a short one.

KARL: What do you mean, it’s a short one?

CHIEF’S SON: Short dance.

KARL: Oh, short dance. It’s just, you see, this is normal for you, but for me, this will go on the TV, and me mum, me dad will be saying, ‘Oh, what’s Karl been up to?’ I’m dancing around with stuff on show. It’s different at home. People don’t dress like this, so it’s a bit of a bigger deal for me. To be, you know, having it all out there, moving around, then something falls out.

LUKE: It’s a taboo you’re messing with, something symbolic here, you know.

KARL: Yeah, well, they’re messing with my symbollocks. How can we move this on because this is getting more and more awkward as time goes on?

We were getting nowhere, so we came to a compromise. I would wear the type of nambas that the children wear, which was more of a grass skirt than a knob wrap. I don’t understand why they don’t all go for this option. It must be easier to go for a quick pee wearing the skirt than it is when wearing a nambas, where you have to learn the art of origami to wrap it back up again.

Two fellas measured me up like tailors on Savile Row. They made a type of band that tied round my waist and then attached big leaves to it. Once I was dressed, the chanting started. We danced around a tree. Then, I was told that John, who was the chief’s son, would be taking me over to the island where I would be staying.

John said we had to get some leaves. This time, it wasn’t for clothing but for shelter. He got out his machete and hacked down some big leaves the size of surf boards and we carried them to two little boats we would be using to get over to the island. The weather was chronic. The rain was heavy, and there was a cold wind. Luke pointed out the island. It didn’t look as big as any of the ones I had flown over in the seaplane with Paul. It looked like a tiny muffin, but I thought it might be big, maybe it’s just far away. Luke said it was called Ten Sticks island. During WWII the American military used the island for target practice.

It took about twenty minutes to get across the choppy sea as the current was dragging the boat out into the ocean. One or two of the big leaves blew away but I wasn’t going to start trying to retrieve them. I was proper pissed off now. Everything I had been through and this was the pay-off! This was nowhere near what I’d pictured when I picked this trip off the Bucket List. It was nothing like the Bounty advert.

I got to the island to find it was just as small as it had looked. I suppose the fact that the US military used it for target practice should have been a clue. I’d seen roundabouts bigger than this. It didn’t even have sand. Sharp rocks and broken shells covered the ground. There was no point in me showing my disappointment in moaning. John was struggling to understand me, and by the look on his face he wasn’t very happy either.

I found quite a good spot to make the shelter. It was a little bit protected from the howling cold wind that was whipping in off the sea. John had started to build a frame for our shelter, and I used my anger energy to shift some big boulders that would help to keep it in place.

Building my own home has never been an ambition of mine. Me and Suzanne fall out when we have to work together on picking a shade of carpet, so there’s no way we’d still be together if we took this on. I watch the TV show Grand Designs quite a lot. It’s a programme where you see a couple go through the whole house-building process from the design on paper right through to moving in. It begins with a happy couple who are excited and full of positive thoughts and eager to get the project going, and then you witness them age over a year as they end up having to live in a caravan as the project runs well behind schedule. The wife, who at the outset is full of smiles, wearing lots of make-up and hair freshly done for TV, ages overnight as you see her sat with her kids eating Pot Noodles wearing a hard hat as the builders bring more bad news that the ship carrying the special environmentally-friendly tiles they wanted from Sweden, rather than the normal ones from the local Topps Tiles, has sunk and has now delayed the project a further three months. Music from Coldplay is used as we see the wife crying because she hasn’t been able to have a bath for four months and Kevin the presenter telling us the build has now gone 35% over budget. The budget always goes over. I don’t think they ever take into account the money spent on tea bags whenever builders are around. They can get through a box in three days.

John was cutting up leaves to use as a type of natural rope to tie the frame together, but it was taking too long for my liking. I got out my bits and pieces that I’d brought from home. My big ball of string and roll of gaffa tape really speeded the job up. At this point, Luke the director and the cameraman disappeared off in their boat. I thought they’d just gone to film from a distance or something, but they’d gone right out of sight. I got the Stanley knife out of my bag and found the egg cup that had made me smile in the posh hotel. It didn’t make me smile today. A part of me wanted knock it on the head, but my inner voice – the one that wasn’t keen on me doing the bungee at the start of the trip – was telling me I’d got this far, so I may as well follow it through. I listened to my inner voice a lot, as John wasn’t saying much and it was the only company I had.

I visited the most haunted house in Britain a few years ago but I didn’t see anything. The bloke who owned the gaff said that there was a ghost that gets in his bed at night and rubs his legs. That never happened on Scooby Doo, did it? The thing that is weird with ghost sightings is that people always describe seeing them float down a corridor wearing Victorian clothing. Why do they never see a ghost wearing a tracksuit and trainers? And no one ever reports seeing a black or Asian ghost, do they?

While he was doing the last few touches to the roof, I walked round the whole island to find wood to burn on a fire. It only took about a fifteen-minute slow walk to get round it, but in this time I came to realise the island shouldn’t be called Ten Sticks, as I could only find half that amount to burn on the fire. I tried to get them burning with the lighter I had brought from home, but it didn’t work due to the amount of rain that had got into my bag. John ended up using his skills and rubbed his special sticks together to get the fire going inside the shelter. I sat and ate my buscuits with John. There was something about the fire that put me more at ease. John seemed happier now, too. I think all men have some attraction to fire. Let’s face it, you don’t get many women arsonists, do you? Maybe it’s something inside that goes way back to cavemen times.

I think this is like Guy Fawkes Night. I remember using this night when I was a kid as a way of getting rid of a pair of shoes that I didn’t like. They were really hard leather with edges round the ankle so sharp that they could slice cheese. Me and my mates managed to get a lady mannequin from the back of a woman’s clothes shop called Jasmine’s that had closed down. The plan was to dress it using our own clothes, go door to door for a penny for the guy and then remove the clothes before setting fire to her, except I saw this as a chance to get rid of the shoes once and for all. We put the nude mannequin that was wearing nothing but an old man’s cap and my shoes on the bonfire. The next morning on the way to school I stopped off at the fire to see if it was still burning and there was the mannequin, slightly charred, still wearing my shoes. They looked totally undamaged. I was about as successful as Guy Fawkes blowing up Parliament.

John didn’t rest for long. He was up with his bow and arrow aiming at fish for food. He made a few attempts but had no joy. He came running over and gestured that I go with him. He pointed to my boat. I thought he’d also had enough and wanted to go back to the mainland. I got in my boat and followed him. It turned out that he’d spotted two coconuts floating by and needed help dragging them in. He reacted quickly to avoid missing the chance of food. It reminded me of the way I used to rush putting my trainers on when I was a kid and I heard the tune from the ice-cream van.

John was right to react quickly and get the coconuts, as there was nothing else on this island that I could eat. I suppose this is how he lives. There’s no shop or home deliveries round here, which is no doubt why they stay in groups. They help each other to survive. At home having friends isn’t the same as here. People are obsessed with how many friends they have on Facebook or followers on Twitter, but none of them are there to actually help.

I was sat by the fire trying to dry my trainers when Luke and his team came back. They had all eaten and seemed fairly upbeat, which can be quite annoying when you’re fed up. John produced something from his bag for me to eat, which he said would get me through the night. It was taro, a potato-like thing. I found it hard to be grateful at the same time as being so disappointed. I think even Ainsley Harriott on Ready, Steady, Cook would struggle to make something decent out of a taro and a coconut. John then told me he was going home.

Luke handed me a gift from Ricky, to rub more salt into the wound. It was a football with a face drawn on it like the one Tom Hanks had for company in Castaway.

Charles Darwin visited this place in 1835 on his travels round South America and it helped him come up with his idea of how we evolved from apes after studying all the animals and plants on the islands. It still puzzles me. I don’t like thinking about the evolving process as it hurts my brain. The way nature worked out we needed eyes and made it happen is too much for me. I do wonder though if we’d be more advanced now if we didn’t have eyes as they’re too happy watching telly which means the mind isn’t being used to think about important things in life. Evidence of this is how I have to close my eyes when trying to work something out. I reckon HD TV might stop our eyes improving any further and now cars have sensors to keep an eye out for things which means we don’t have to use them as much. I think we’ve stopped evolving now and we’ll start devolving. We’ll end up as blobs in jars with a mobile phone and a TV remote.

I put the taro on to cook and tried doing some of my crosswords by torchlight, but my brain wasn’t working as well as it normally does. I enjoy working on these at home, but it just wasn’t the same in these conditions. I struggled to answer the question ‘American version of prawn (6)’. I tried the taro. It was pretty tasteless and burnt.

Just as I was thinking of having an early night to get this experience over and done with, I heard the sound of a boat engine and saw someone pointing a flashlight at us. Luke went off to see what they wanted. He then came back with a couple of slices of steak he had sorted out for us earlier. He thought it was only fair, as the day had been a total wash-out. I used the shovel I had brought to cook them on. At the time it tasted like the best steak I’d ever eaten.

I was finally dry, warm and full. That’s all I need to keep me happy. I knew I was happy ’cos my brain even worked out the answer to the crossword question. It was ‘shrimp’.