Entertainment For Lively Minds
Word Staff Danger Special
Apropos of absolutely nothing, we thought that Word readers might enjoy these photos of Word staff doing what it is they do during their time off: facing great danger.
Our first photo shows editor Mark Ellen off the coast of Nassau, twenty metres beneath the surface of the Caribbean, sharing space with some extremely flesh-eating reef sharks. That he feels able to clown around for the camera at such a moment is obviously testament to the man's enormous bravery.*
Next up, we have The Word's advertising manager Juliet Cromwell enjoying herself in The Caymen Islands last week. What may not be immediately apparent from this photo is that a) she's dancing, b) that's not a soft drink, c) it's 6am, and d) yes, they're stingrays.
Finally, this is Web Fraser relishing the recent havoc wreaked in Cambodia by Typhoon Ketsana. You'd never suspect from the daft grin on his face and the relaxed pose that he was evacuated to the airport the following morning on the back of a motorbike.
If anyone has photos of themselves facing great danger, please post them in the comments.
* or stupidity. We're not sure.
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you do realise...
the sight of a "WordGirl" in a bikini can only result in frustration and several divorces in the Crouch End vicinity?
Nassau, The Caymen Islands, Cambodia?
Jesus, how much are you guys paying yourselves? Its a long weekend in Rhyl for me next year. If I'm lucky.
Three jobs, no children
That's how I do it. Meanwhile Mark's trip to Nassau wasn't a holiday, and Juliet was staying with friends. Otherwise, we'd all be joining you in Rhyl.
Marks trip
You don't mean that Mark was actually doing an article on music business sharks!
Still working the counter
at Record and Tape Exchange then?
Perish the thought
That would be a very large NO.
Don't do it, Martin
I've been working in Rhyl for the past week. I think a whole weekend maybe too much.
Oh come on!
What about Rhyl Sun Centre? (Is it still there or has it slid into the sea?)
Rhyl Sun Centre
I was working in the theatre, which is pretty much the same building. It looked permamently closed for most of the week. Then, on Saturday, people appeared, livening up the atmosphere somewhat. To be fair, Rhyl was ok when the sun was out. But there were a couple of very grey days when it just looked like the whole town had been evacuated for fear of SAD oriented mass suicide.
"In the seaside town, they forgot to bomb..."
"come, come nuclear bomb"
Thought that'd cheer you up....
Went out with girl from Lowestoft 20 years ago. You couldn't go there in February without the company of a Samaritan and a healthy supply of Seroxat
These people* are demonstrably dangerous.
It's a wonder the thing ever gets published.
* Except Mark Ellen of course, who, it's obvious to anyone less gullible than a Dawn French character, is really on the pier at Rhyl on a wet Sunday teatime, sticking his head through the head sized hole in one of those 'comical' photo thingamajigs.
I think there's a photo of me on the FPO's camera...
... in a wig, purple crushed velvet shirt, white flares and white platform shoes. Dancing. The things you do on holiday.
I really want to know if someone sees the top photo...
and says "Great picture of David Hepworth with the sharks."
Yeah man!
This photograph was taken in The Yemen Republic in November 1998. I'm the one on the right doing a bad cowboy impression.
A few minutes later my companion and I entered one of the nearby tumbledown buildings. It turned out to be a weapons store - home to a miniature arsenal of Kalashnikovs. We sat down among crates full of hand grenades and ammunition and haggled long and hard with one of the villagers over two bottles of bootleg whiskey, a large bundle of qat (a natural amphetamine), and another slightly smaller bundle of a class B narcotic.
It was my second day in the country. I loved that place.
Ooh
Have I got the thread for you, young man.
Seconds before my gonads made my eyes bulge
That's me on the right.
Youngstown, Ohio
Visiting friends in Boston, I went along with them to the Emissions from the Monolith festival, held in the bar pictured, the Nyabinghi. A doom metal sort of thing, which really isn't what I listen to. At all. It was all good fun though.
As to danger, apparently Youngstown had been voted the 9th most dangerous city in the US at the time. I didn't notice it, maybe because the convenience/gun shop next door had closed down, although that didn't stop a bit of jovial gunfire on the last night. There was a tornado warning too. Happy days.
I stayed in Youngstown once.
En route from Toledo to Pittsburgh. My friends were horrified when they found out. Biggest Mafia town in the east by all accounts. And not all that friendly to outsiders. They were nice to me.. I suppose daft English blokes from Pompey aren't considered a threat.
Hong Kong
In fact, the opening of HK Disneyland in 2005. Mr & Mrs Beany come face-to-face with a rampaging great ape, called Terk. Luckily Tarzan was able to come to my rescue.
Crossing the road in Hanoi
Forget your shark bothering, gun running a nd tombstoning - this is a real extreme sport.
It's easy enough once you realise that what you thought were immutable laws of velocity, tajectory and vectoring don't apply here. The best tactic is to lurch suddenly into the traffic and fix your eyes on some distant point on the other side, then start breathing again when you get there.
Crucially, you MUST NOT HESITATE or all those laws will instantly reapply themselves, and you'll find yourself at the epicentre of a blast wave of chaos, radiating out in all directions, which will result ina roadside fruitstand being destroyed by a tuk-tuk four blocks south.
Note the joke zebra crossing markings.
That's me on the right.
Hanoi
That's a good call in the danger stakes, but try Tehran. It's the same, but with cars.
I'll see your Tehran and raise you...
a Lahore. I've never been to Tehran but I'd be surprised if it was worse than Lahore. The thing that amazed me was the number of men cycling along on these deathways. *shudder*
You want dangerous drivers
you got to go to Sicily, especially the moutain roads to the east around Palermo. Immacutely quiffed young Italians, 3 a peice on a moped, death defying quatrocientos and crazed truck drivers. And you can´t pull over as the roads are lined with prickly pear cactii ( cactusses ? )
For some reason, I am hugely disappointed...
That you don't have some form of superhero costume on, Captain.
Israel
Lived in Israel for a bit which was actually probably safer than London now I think about it. But we liked to up the danger stakes by driving around close to the Syrian and Lebanese borders. We once visited a kibbutz on the Lebanese border where we could see yellow hezbollah flags and hear distant gunfire. Our Israeli guide assured us there was a guy employed to constantly let off a gun within earshot (on the lebanese side) as a psychological "weapon".
We left
Fraser, Fraser...
...weren't you afraid your toes would be nibbled by strange slimy puddle-dwelling invertebrates?
He was in Cambodia...
not Westminster.
The Garden Ring, Moscow
Eight lanes of ex-communist vehicular lunacy.
Was driven along and across part of it in a decrepit yellow Lada taxi while on holiday there. (yes, Moscow. Holiday. Same sentence.)
All of which look just like the car in that episode of Father Ted mentioned in the Andrew Harrison-hosted podcast.
The driver maintained the most stoic calm while I almost lost by borscht in the back, zinging along between the slower moving buses.
Nice one Cyrillic, I thought.
hardly Captain danger
this is me balancing on a beam by the sea - you can't see the 10ft drop above some rocks behind, though