LITMIR.BIZ

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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.

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