Will you send a dinghy, please?

I lost my house, I lost my job and they say bad things come in threes, so this week I have had my third dose of bad juju. As I wound my way merrily down the Job Centre last Wodan's Day I got a text off Ali asking if I was free for the next few weeks to go out to the Isle of Man to help supervise Liverpool University's field school there. He was down with a bad leg and wouldn't be able to complete his duty. I was in desperate need for work and enjoy field schools anyway, so I said yes, I would.

Then, the enormity of this undertaking struck me. I have lain awake every night since, feverish and gibbering, thinking of the horror that will face me on Man. You see, I have visited this blight struck isle once before. It was back as an undergraduate in 1999 that the entire year was taken on a four day field trip. It was under the guise of a learning experience, visiting the island's archaeological features, such as St Kevin's Stump and listening in vain as someone's presentation was drowned out by the howling gales. In reality it was mostly thirty odd students on a booze sodden rampage across the island. In the hotel we were not allowed to eat the regular guest's salad and had to make do with student salad, which was the regular salad left over from the day before. At breakfast we were served by waitresses with weeping sores on their arms and in the evening were entertained by 'Rita Rocks Gently'.

The luxurious Hotels of the Isle of Man

The highlight of the trip was upsetting Denny Egan with Douglas Peel, the dead jellyfish I found on Peel harbour beach. I had bagged Douglas to take him back to the hotel. my plan was to bring him back to life in a Frankenstein style experiment involving a bath full of water and a plugged in radio alarm clock. Unfortunately, Douglas was ejected by one of my fellow bus passengers and now resides in a shallow roadside grave somewhere on the interior of Man.

Awww, weren't we all so young then?

YES OF COURSE WE FUCKING WERE, IT'S THIRTEEN FUCKING YEARS AGO!!!

So what do we know about Man? I did a bit of research on the internetz and found this documentary:



What else do I know? I know that the inhabitants, Manners, have three legs and short tails and they all think they're Vikings. Each year, the Pagan tradition of Tynwald Day is celebrated. Here is another documentary I found about it:



I am going to be camping for the entire six weeks I am there, so lets hope that the weather remains as good as it has done so far this summer or this will be the scene on the campsite:



So if I survive the weather and the Manners trying to offer me up to their Crop Gods on Tynwald Day it should be a good trip.