Barnes. Pdf

Letter 2 
Darling - 
If you look in your photo album for our flat-smouldering party you'll see there's something missing. Don't worry - I've got 
it. It's the one where you've got your chipmunk face on. You've got a bit wet out here- terrible downpour couple of days ago - 
but you still don't mind being kissed last thing at night. You might get a bit crumpled from here on in as we've seen our last 
hotel for a bit. Now it's all Boy Scout stuff and bivouacs and tents. Hope I get the sleep I need. It's so hard to work on full glow 
when you've only had a couple of hours kip. Anyway we're well into the Jungle now. Lots of delays. Usual stuff - you arrange 
that on such-and-such a day you'll turn up with so many people and so much luggage and he'll transport you to the next place 
and when you turn up he pretends things have changed and you didn't say fifty but fifteen and anyway the price has gone up 
and so on and so bloody on until he gets the backhander he 
[p. 194]
wants. God, when things like that happen I just feel like shouting I Want To Work in a very loud voice. I did that one day 
when things got hairier than usual, went down to where some bandit was trying to rip us off and practically rubbed beards with 
him and shouted into his face I Want To Work For Christ's Sake Let Me Work, but Vic said that wasn't being helpful. 
Later. Matt was peeing in the river when one of the sparks came up and told him it wasn't a good idea. Apparently they've 
got this tiny fish which is attracted by the heat or whatever and can swim up your pee as you're peeing. Didn't sound likely at 
first but think of salmon I suppose. Then what it does is swim straight into your dick and once it gets there it sticks out a 
couple of spines sideways and just stays there. Ouch in spades, to say the least of it. The sparks says you can't get it out, it's 
like having an umbrella opened up in there, you have to have the whole doings chopped off in hospital. Matt didn't know 
whether to believe him but can you risk it? No one's peeing in the river at the moment, anyway. 
Later. We were puttering up river late in the afternoon and the sun was beginning to go down over these huge trees and a 
flight of big birds, herons or something, were taking off like pink seaplanes as someone said and the second assistant suddenly 

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J
ULIAN 
B
ARNES
: A History of the World in 10 ½
 
Chapters 
62
stood up and yelled out This is paradise, this is fucking paradise. Actually, feeling a bit depressed, love. Sorry to lay this on 
you, not fair I know as I'll probably be right as rain by the time you get this. Bloody Matt getting me down. What an ego. 
You'd think no-one else had ever made a film except him and you can see him coming on all good mates with the crew so 
they'll make things easier for him when he gets in front of camera, so he looks five years younger and I get the shiny nose. 
Vic’s not tough enough for this job, to be frank. You need one of those slave-driving old studio bosses if you ask me, not a 
sensitive graduate who went into movies because he liked the clouds in Antonioni and then turned himself into a nouvelle 
vague Deutscher all hot for Truthspiel. I ask you, forty of us slogging into the Jungle all because we bought his line about 
[p. 195] 
needing to work our way into the reality of a couple of deeply dead Jesuit priests. How this applies to the crew as well I don't 
know but I expect Vic's got some theory to cover it. Us going in on foot and then the equipment being airlifted in is about as 
arsy-versy as you can get. He won't even let us use the radio-telephone until after we've made the rendez-vous. The focus-
pulley's girlfriend is having a baby and he wanted to call headquarters in Caracas to see if there was any news but Vic said no. 
Bloody weather. Bloody hot all the time. Sweating like a pig, comme un porco. Still worrying about the script. Think I'll 
have to I do some rewrites on my part. No chance of getting any laundry done unless we meet some tribe of washerwomen 
waiting for custom outside one of those zinc shacks like we saw in that village in Provence do you remember? Bloody tin sign 
for Coca-Cola at a trading post this morning. I ask you, hundreds of miles from bloody anywhere and the Coke reps have been 
there before you and shat on the landscape. Or some chum of Matt's put it there to make him feel at home. Sorry about this. 
Love Charlie