Dec. 31st, 2009

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Oh, this wins so many awards.
A mountain walker suffered head and leg injuries when he decided to slide 150ft (45.7m) down an ice sheet in Snowdonia because it was "easier than walking". [BBC]

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Last night's already sobering documentary Tsunami: Caught on Camera, consisting of camcorder footage from and interviews with survivors of the 2004 disaster, was somehow rendered all the more upsetting by its jarring juxtaposition with wacky ads for Christmas sales, beer and Jimmy Carr's Big Fat Quiz of the Year. Apparently it was Headfuck Night on Channel 4.

One moment in particular transfixed me. A newly married couple, her American and him English, had fled into a back office in their hotel when the wave came crashing in behind them and they lost their footing. As the wife told it,
It started getting so loud that we had to scream to each other, and we were screaming, "I love you, I love you". I looked at Will and I said, "This is it, isn't it?" And just as the room erupted, he screamed, "No, this isn't it".
This is genuinely one of my favourite things I've ever heard. Even when life is flinging you around like a rag doll and crushing the last breath from you, resist its commands to submit. To be fair, the husband goes on to admit that, some 15 painful seconds underwater later, he realised that maybe this was the way he was going to die after all, but that's not the point—it's the attitude, and the realisation that you've no choice but to fight on up to, and including, the end.

Happy new year.

Did you know this? I didn't know this. (Picture untampered-with by me.)

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