they might as well wear underpants or a pair of trunks.
A young lad who looked about six years old did a jump from around 25 feet. Kids of his age in England are being told not to play conkers at school due to little injuries, and yet here’s little Billy diving to his imminent death just for the sake of growing some cabbages. This is what happens when people don’t have enough to do. No jobs, no paperwork or bills to pay, no washing of clothes, no sales calls to answer, or windows or cars to wash, so they turn to arsing about.
There was no way I was going to do it from the top. I told John it was too risky. I explained that I have a mortgage and other responsibilities that I wouldn’t be able to sort out with a broken neck. He told me: ‘Not a problem. It safe. Been doing for many years, no accidents. No worry.’ Yet one after another, men continued to hurl themselves off the tower like lemmings. These people need wings more than the kiwi bird.
Everything seemed to be going well until a man whose vines were too long went and planted his head in the ground. He lay on the ground shaking like a baby sparrow that had fallen out its nest with his eyes rolling about in the back of his head. The singing and dancing continued as two men went over and slapped his face. Eventually he came back round with a big smile on his face.
I didn’t want to let everyone in the village down, and I knew Ricky and Stephen would moan at me if I didn’t get involved somehow, so I came up with an idea. I agreed to do the lowest possible land dive. I pointed to the lowest rung on the structure and asked everyone if jumping from there still counted as a land dive. They said it would. Two men prepared the vines for my dive. They definitely looked too long for the distance I was going to jump. They tied them around my ankles. I got up on the ledge to find it was a lot higher than I thought. Just as on the bungee platform in New Zealand where loud rock music blasted out of speakers, here the singing and whistling puts you in a kind of trance. I held onto the wooden frame with one arm and leaned as far forward as possible. Now I just had to let go. I remember having the same feeling when I was learning to swim as a kid, when you know you have to let go of the side of the pool and push away. This was like letting go of the edge of a pool, except there was no water. No one was shouting at me like the jump in New Zealand, no one was counting me down – I just had to wait until my inner voice said, ‘Release’. The thing Sam kept saying to me on the bungee in New Zealand was in my head: ‘Coach, pass me the ball, and I’ll make the play.’ With everyone wearing a nambas, now wasn’t the time to be asking for any ball to play with. I let go.
The vines they had attached to my legs were far too long. I face-planted the earth. Given the distance I’d jumped I’d have been better using shoelaces instead of vines, but the villagers loved it. The chanting and whistling got louder, and they lifted me in the air in celebration. I felt good, not from the dive, but because I felt they had appreciated my effort.
I called Ricky.
KARL: I did the land dive. I did it.
RICKY: Did you?
KARL: Yeah. I spoke to Stephen, and he was a bit down on me and that, and you were calling me a chicken, but I got there. I did the proper land dive.
RICKY: What, the thing with the vines?
KARL: Yeah. I was getting on with the locals, and they sort of . . . I dunno, I dunno how they did it ’cos when I got there and I first saw it I was like, ‘Not a chance!’
RICKY: Right.
KARL: I don’t know where it came from. I did it. Wasn’t an amazing feeling, but after it they were all throwing me about in the air. They were loving it. The people who were sorta pushing me the other day were annoying me. I don’t like being forced into things, whereas these people were a bit more, I dunno . . .
RICKY: Hold on! Did you do the real one or did you do the child’s version? Let’s get this straight because I’ve seen five-year-olds do it, and they just jump off and it’s only about ten feet. Which one did you do?
KARL: It was, it wasn’t the child’s one, but the thing is, you’ve got to remember that I . . .
RICKY: How high was it? How high was it?
KARL: (to director) Luke, how high was it?
LUKE: I think you’ve got to be honest with him.
KARL: Yeah, I know, so how high, how high?
LUKE: It was the one below the child’s one, about four foot, Karl.
KARL: It was about . . . about five foot.
RICKY: Five foot!?
KARL: Yeah, but . . .
RICKY: Sorry? Five foot! I’ve high-jumped higher than that.
KARL: No! Ricky, I think it was about five and a half foot. You jump and you land on the ground. It’s not a bungee. You hit the ground.
RICKY: How do you hit the ground?
KARL: With your head!
RICKY: You just jumped five foot. You didn’t even jump your own height basically!
KARL: Yeah, but I landed on my head! When you see it, you’ll understand. Apparently I’m the first white man to do a land dive. Now that’s a lot better than that other bungee jump. I’ve broken a record here!
RICKY: Right. So, you’re the first white person to land on their head? Is that what the record is? Do you want me to ask Guinness World Records UK if you’re the first white man to land on his head? Basically, you fell over and hit your head.
KARL: (Laughs)
RICKY: So, if I punch Stephen in the face and he falls over and hits his head, he’s broken the record ’cos he’s done it from two foot higher than you! You fucking . . . terrible! (Laughs) Right, since you’ve been so brave and so brilliant, you’ve won the night in a half-decent hotel so enjoy that. Well done! You’ve been through a lot of trauma here, boy.
We boarded another plane and made our way to the nice hotel that Ricky had promised. It was decent – a posh place that made the towels in the room into animals. I had two rabbits on my bed made with hand towels and a couple of swans by the bathroom sink made with flannels. I suppose it gives some purpose to a flannel – something I’ve never got into using. I also found a funny egg cup in the room. It had two little legs and had EGGS ON LEGS written on the front. I packed it in my bag as it cheered me up and I thought I might be needing something like that on my island, the way Tom Hanks had that football to talk to in Castaway.
After a good night’s sleep I got up and had a full English breakfast on the pier. As I ate my egg, sausage, beans and toast I watched loads of flying fish in the clear blue sea. It’s odd how evolution gave fish wings. I wonder if people continue to chuck themselves off ledges and big wooden frames if we eventually grow a pair.
But I couldn’t enjoy my little treat from Ricky and Stephen as much as I wanted to. I was worried about what they had planned for me next. It felt like being in a private hospital. It’s nice having your own room and good food, but the fact is you’re in hospital to have your legs off the next day so how can really you enjoy it?
A plane flew over really low and then landed in the sea and chucked out an anchor. It was a seaplane. The pilot introduced
