Duncan Harley

Underneath the atlas - which I found yesterday upon the beach, I discovered a sodden Tom Stoppard script dating from 1977 or thereabouts. I have no idea how or even why it turned up on this distant shore. Signed by none other than Andre Previn it bears the inscription:  ‘To Tom and thank you for the lovely wirds. Hope you liked my wee tunes - your pal Andre xx.' The script of course is long and quite tortuous. In fact, it bears a date-stamp from another age and if truth be told there are lines which even Stoppard might now cringe at. But no matter, even BBC Garnet was eventually made to eat his own words. But back to 1977. The script concerns a Soviet dissident, Alexander Ivanov, who is imprisoned in a mental hospital from which he will not be released until he admits that his statements against the government were caused by a non-existent mental disorder. It’s the ultimate in denial and he shares a cell with a genuinely disturbed schizophrenic also called Ivano...

I am happy to report that Man March is much improved today. His mistreatment by those savages has left mental scars no doubt but his physical wounds were in fact minor. In fact, other than a fractured septum and some facial scratches he is generally fine and has even managed to exhibit what I can only take to be a smile. I must now attend to his broader education and, having begun to address his linguistic skills via a crash course in English as a foreign language, have also decided to educate him more widely with a view to developing his skills in critical thinking, analysis, clear writing, and some sustained but vital reflection on important philosophical problems, both contemporary and perennial, concerned with ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, language, logic, the natural and core social sciences, politics, aesthetics, and religion to name but a very few. To start with, I have set him a philosophical problem which few, if indeed any, European thinkers have been able...

The parrot has become something of a problem. I have now recognised that, alongside my grammatical failings regarding the fiendish flesh-eating heathens whom I misconstrued as cannonballs Molly has been – dare I say it, taking the piss!   I put my cannibal error down to both exhaustion and to long and crazily confusing over-complicated sentence structures replete with ungrammatical asides and convoluted syntax infused as often as not with unstructured paragraphs replete with made up spelling rules and excessive and unnecessary-instances of hyphenation.  On-land I had a challenging sub-editor who would, for a favour, correct my syntax and my often-unintended attacks on the English language. Here, on this god-forsaken island there is not even a copy of the Abridged Oxford English Dictionary with which to bolster my prose! But back to Molly. The parrot has what I can only describe as a somewhat offbeat sense of humour. Her suggestion that we name my injured heathen ...

Mixed joy indeed! I have not only found a supply of potable water, but have by some strangeness of fate stumbled upon a dreadful sight.  I had, since early dawn, been heading inland via a narrow and quite steep wild animal trail when, just as the sun reached its zenith, I detected a familiar sound. I was at once paralysed with the fear that this was just some ghastly resurgence of those lurid and unwelcome hallucinations of yesterday. But as I approached the source of the noise my fears seemed without solid foundation. Before me lay a thin but quite stunning waterfall. A splendid stream of foaming water lay before me  and I immediately threw off my goat-stained apparel (remember the goat from day four of this pandemic?) and rendering some exited version of The Lord is My Shepherd  plunged into the foaming pool which lay beneath the thundering waterfall. My spirits were entirely lifted. I drank my fill from the tumbling waters and bathed completely naked in the clear...

I t is as I suspected. Today is almost certainly not Friday and yesterday was not Thursday. In fact, it was all a lurid dream brought on no doubt by remnants of that fever from which I am now mainly recovered. Or at least I think I am. And now of course, my priorities have changed. I am intent on taking to the sea again and am determined to return to my native Largo come what may. Meantime personal survival must be my focus. Alongside my need for potable water I will need a supply of meat to provide sustenance while I plan my escape from this island. And I now realise that the shooting of the feral goat was at best a jerk reaction and I now regret not having tamed and fattened the angry beast before firing that fatal shot. The corpse was at best thin and stringy. The meat was tough and my scurvy made chewing difficult. In short, the goat was not up to expectations. But since all now done and dusted, I cannot now make amends for my miscalculation other than to vow that next time...