Ray Mears and the Roundabout

Welcome back dear reader! I trust you are having a satisfying and rewarding week?

Yesterday I was spending a lazy morning perusing the channels on my lovely flat screen television. I've just installed it in the "snug" (over in the east wing). If anyone tells you that "these things will be out of date before you know", don't listen: I was recently visiting Kerry Katona, and her 20 illegitimate children, over in 2010_AD; she is still watching the same set she acquired last Christmas.

("It's all I have left of the Iceland money!" she sobbed into a futuristic, but filthy, rag. Then her new husband, a rather brutish lavatory attendant, appeared and began issuing some peculiar, garbled sounds from his mouth. I thanked Kerry for the (musty) Iceland Strawberry Gateau and skedaddled.)

But I digress, whilst viewing my lovely new television: who's broad, pudgy face popped in to view? Why none other than my old chum: survival expert Ray Mears. It was this pleasant surprise that formed the idea for this week's Poo Chat post.

How did Ray climb the slippery pole (to success)? What is his motivation? Where did it all start? The following is a short piece that the 15 year old Ray Mears produced for me in 1979. During the meeting I found him to be charming, determined and just a little wild-eyed. Enjoy.

Today I have set up my camp in the deep foliage of the Epson Rd Roundabout, just east of Guildford, Surrey.

A couple of days ago I had a bit of a falling out with my Dad. It was over my latest attempt to survive under the sofa, foraging for crumbs and any other sustenance I could find. Not a problem in itself, but, Dad's mates were over to watch the football. When one of them knocked over my water refinery (a cunning device that filtered condensation from the window, through a sofa cushion and into my favourite Worzel Gummidge mug) into the back of the television; "it all kicked off", and I'm not talking about the footy!

So, now I've finally been allowed out into the wild "for the good of the household". My roundabout camp consists of:

• A shelter, made from a woman's dress that I found hanging from the big tree in the middle of the roundabout. It's rather badly stained, but this acts as waterproofing and it is holding up pretty well.


• My toilet is a discarded Pringles packet with the bottom cut out. This acts as a spillway into the grid by the side of the road. Refinements are needed: firstly, it is rather difficult to aim solids. Secondly, there is very little bush cover on the grid side of the roundabout, so I am subjected to horn honking and rude shouting from passing cars. Just this morning I was moving my bowels when I was greeted with a loud "Oy! Mate! I can see your fucking arse hole!"
  Very unpleasant.

It's a modest camp I know, but we all have to start somewhere. I wish there was a television program that could instruct young adventurers, like myself, in the practice I think I will name… Hmmm, well I'm in a bush, so, Bush-craft. I tried cubs once, but it seemed to involve diving into the newspaper recycling to retrieve porno mags. I find self-teaching is much better; and there is still a lot of pornography to be found in these bushes (why do people wank in the car?), bonus!

Anyway, I think I'll head home tonight. It has been a great adventure – excluding the run in with the randy tramp last Wednesday (the bugger got my shorts off, but I managed to throw him onto the traffic). My biggest problem has been food; I've been living off kebab remnants and drinking the dew that collects on my dress/shelter. It's a real shame there is nothing to catch and eat. A waste of the knife and fork I've been whittling from the heels of a pair of abandoned lady's shoes. I guess I should fatten up in case this type of thing happens again.

Well I'm off now, Dad's just pulled up. Hope to talk to you again.

Ray.