For instance, I started scribbling something about a history & natural history voyage around the Caribbean (™®© and all that - go get your own idea), checking out wrecks and looking for treasure while examining how the sealife adapts and then absorbs man's stuff into its own, building reefs and hiding menacingly in old portholes (and it's always a moray eel looking menacing in old portholes - why is that?). It would have to be done on a sailboat. This sort of expedition requires a respect for the past and elegance that a motorised gin-palace is incapable of - it would have to be a classic schooner fitted out with all sorts of kit that goes 'beep' and a camera on the hull. Money is no object because I don't have any.
The more I scribbled, the more lemsip I drank, the less interested I became in natural history and the more interested I became in finding huge amounts of Spanish gold and retiring somewhere sat on a great big pile of dubloons. A modern day Jack Sparrow and Han Solo type, but with better hygiene and no laser guns. My fever ran high at this point and Gabriel García Márquez did nothing to reground me in reality. Buccaneers in flip-flops, my crew and I would strike fear in the hearts of our enemies (few) and bring smiles to the faces of our friends (many). We would haul ropes dramatically and squint meaningfully at the sun-drenched horizon. Women would swoon as we stepped ashore. I would crown myself king of some small jewel of an island conveniently situated in international waters and take out an advertisement in the International Herald Tribune for a suitable queen to accompany me on my next set of adventures.
Then I passed out and slept for some time. I drove my folks to Portsmouth and made it back in one piece. I looked over my notes and sighed, scribbling down some more realistic adventures before starting some real work on my book. Web procrastination got the better of me for a time and I discovered Piel Island in Cumbria. Well, I didn't discover it - it's been discovered for ages - but I found out they're looking for a new king. It turns out that the landlord of the Ship Inn on Piel gets the title of King of Piel Island. That. Is. So. Cool. That there're castle ruins on the island is a bonus. Sadly, reality rears its ugly head and the Register points out the shortcomings:
"potential landlords should be warned that it has no mains 'leccy or phone line, is accessible by ferry only on summer weekends, and if you want to get out of the place in a hurry you'll have to wait until the tide goes out and make a dash for it across the exposed sands. On a tractor or similar, naturally."Nevertheless, ideas have taken seed, the book will be finished and adventures will begin.
But first, a bit more lemsip I think. And some sleep.
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