Duckers & Diving: Shaken but not stirred
THIS week our diarist goes all Frankie Howerd to carry on up the Amazon and gets shaken but not stirred at the exploits of Agent 0070.
Birmingham’s very own ‘Indiana Jones’ arrives home today from his heroic journey up the Amazon.
David Bell, retired municipal correspondent of the Birmingham Mail, has been battling giant caiman, ravenous piranha fish, massive anaconda snakes and deadly tropical diseases.
Indeed Bell, dubbed ‘Agent 0070’, has in true Sean Connery style been attracting the elderly matrons looking for a cruise ship romance.
Talk of ‘comforting’ a florist – presumably called Rose – who had conveniently lost her baggage on route.
Placed strategically on the ‘lonely hearts’ table.
Second in the vessel’s bridge championships.
All the attributes for making rich widows and ‘ladies of a certain age’ go weak at the knees, indulge in a second sherry and faint in the second class lounge after dinner.
And, on a stop at the Amazonian city of Maneus, he has been living up to the all action James Bond image despite a molly-coddled tourist ‘encounter’ in the watery wilderness.
He reveals: “We trolled down the Rio Negra in tourist boats, got to a floating restaurant and then transferred into ten man canoes.
“We paddled through a Missouri-style swamp and came to a tree fringed bay. Absolute quiet, ordered the guide, it is feeding time for the spider monkeys. It was like a scene from Predator. We knew something was up there, but it didn’t want to be seen. Another tourist con.
“So we get back to the restaurant and a market, I stroll on a raised boardwalk into the rainforest and when I get back the boat had gone.
“Leap into a speedboat and catch it up after two miles. But I am absolutely drenched from all the spray. Do a Bond pensioner-style boat to boat transfer in the middle of the Negra and leak my way on board to a small ripple of applause. It was the most exciting thing to happen on the trip.”
Mind you, it hasn’t been the smoothest of journeys.
He has named the tub HMS Spew.
Ominous even at first stop Marcapa, in Brazil.
He reveals: “Couldn’t get to sleep for an hour. It even rolled me out of bed. Pass the sick bag, Alice!”
But food good. Feasting on steak instead of his usual diet of faggots and peas.
And actually the piranha haven’t even been that daunting.
He notes: “Must say these stuffed piranha are looking more and more appealing. They’ve even turned them into fridge magnets. I think every home should have one.”
On the other hand it does rain a lot in the Amazon – well rainforest is a bit of a clue.
He wails: “Sitting in an internet cafe in Maneus protected from the torrential rain tipping down outside. Wet.”
Could easily be his home town of Hartlepool.
Further updates possible once agent 0070 is debriefed by chum Elaina ‘Miss Moneypenny’ Cohen.
