Thursday 1 January, BBC Radio 4

6.00-9.00am and 4.30-5.00pm

Join Jarvis Cocker as he hosts the first Today Programme of the year, 6.00-9.00am on January 1st. Later in the day voyager Quentin Cooper hosts a special The Material World Cape Farewell Show on New Yearrsquo;s Day, with a programme billed as a rsquo;science-meets-art-meets-a-fair-bit-of-music special from the cold but not quite as cold as they used to be waters off the west coast of Greenlandrsquo;, 4.30-5.00pm.

The Material World on BBC Radio 4 ›

Listen to Shlomorsquo;s new Podcast, recorded during the expedition. It features exclusive new material from Martha Wainwright, music from Feist, Jarvis Cocker and interviews with Marcus Brigstocke, Vanessa Carlton and Laurie Anderson.

Listen at: shlo.co.uk/podcast ›

Listen to Shlomo#8217;s new Podcast, recorded during the expedition. It features exclusive new material from Martha Wainwright, music from Feist, Jarvis Cocker and interviews with Marcus Brigstocke, Vanessa Carlton and Laurie Anderson.

Listen at: shlo.co.uk/podcast ›

ldquo;I feel like I could live in Uummannaq, it feels like a good town with good people in it.rdquo;

KT Tunstall, 1 Oct 2008

Join Arctic voyagers Shlomo, Lemn Sissay and Quentin Cooper for an evening of Arctic stories and performances at Southbank Centre, guided by local Uummannaq resident Ludvig Hammeken. The most northerly settlement we visited during the Disko Bay 2008 expedition was Uummannaq, hometown of our Inuit guide Ludvig and home to 1400 people and 3000 howling dogs will inspire Uummannaq evening at the Southbank Centre, January 2009.

Come share the Uummannaq love on Friday 9 January 2009

Join Arctic voyagers Shlomo, Lemn Sissay and Quentin Cooper for an evening of Arctic stories and performances at Southbank Centre, guided by local Uummannaq resident Ludvig Hammeken. Uummannaq is the most northerly settlement we visited during the expedition, home to our Inuit guide Ludvig, 1400 people and 3000 howling dogs. This unique place will inspire a day of school workshops and evening of film and performance at Londonrsquo;s Southbank Centre.

More about the Uummannaq Day event ›

Read blog posts from Uummannaq ›

Donrsquo;t miss this The Word magazine this month (Issue 70, December 2008) as Cape Farewell make the cover feature with ldquo;Jarvis in the Arctic - Ten musicians, one vanishing ice caprdquo; by Michèle Noach.

Visit the The Word online at www.wordmagazine.co.uk rsaquo;

Look out for ldquo;Jarvis in the Arctic - Ten musicians, one vanishing ice caprdquo; by Michèle Noach, The Word magazinersquo;s cover feature (Issue 70, December 2008).

Subscribe to the podcast for more clips.

Sunday 26 October 2008, 5.30-7.30pm, BBC Radio 6

Jarvis Cocker keeps Stephen Merchantrsquo;s seat warm on BBC Radio 6 as he plays a shed load of great lsquo;mood swingrsquo; tracks, plus Martha Wainwright performs live and David Buckland talks about Cape Farewell and the 2008 Disko Bay Expedition. The archive of this show is available on the BBC iPlayer until 2 November 2008.

Listen to the show on the BBC iPlayer until Sunday 2 Nov

If you missed it on Sunday yoursquo;ve still got a week left to listen to the programme on the BBC iPlayer. Follow the link to hear Jarvis, Martha and David until Sunday 2 November.

Listen to the show on BBC iPlayer rsaquo;

Intellectual climate input was achieved with a series of daily talks: two given by the onboard scientists, three by the two Inuit guides and Dr Ko de Korte, Sunand Prasad tackled contraction and convergence, Quentin Cooper gave a great talk on ‘Cape Farewell’, Joe Smith on Carbon Trading and market response, Ryuichi Sakamoto, KT Tunstall, Chris Wainwright and Francesca Galeazzi led a lively discussion on the artists response/creativity and a final talk led by Marcus Brigstocke and Joe Smith addressed just how important it is to feel ‘up’ and empowered by things climate rather than crawl into a hole of despair. These were focussed discussions but all this input led to an endless dialogue in small breakout sessions where we all talked one on one over dinner and wine [and Vodka]. Lively!

The route for the voyage constantly changed in response to weather, scientific programs and artist’s intentions – the Russian Captain was fantastic, with no challenge too difficult. He entered into our spirit of adventure and art achievement, and I am sure this was all very much a first for him. Our furthermost north was Nuugaatsraq 71.50 degrees north and in all we covered over 1000 nautical miles. The foot of the glacier Sermeg Avangnardieq was our wildest environment and my personal favourite.

The 10 days we spent onboard were so densely packed it is going to take time for the full impact to register and be manifest in arts works and science. The list;

• Geological survey in five different locations, each tract between 2 and 12 miles long.

• CTD measurements and sea ice sampling.

• New songs written by Robyn Hitchcock, KT Tunstall, Martha Wainwright, Vanessa Carlton and Feist. Shlomo collaborated on two of the songs and Feist and Shlomo collaborated to create a Cape Farewell choir.

• Recording by Ryuichi Sakamoto and he is working with the geologists on a greater sound work based on their electronic data. Jonathan Dove is inspired, as was Jarvis – hold that page.

• Francesca ‘performed’ her CO2 work and the bench project.

• Tracy constructed three series of ‘automated’ physical drawings and worked on a new book project.

• Sophie Calle completed an artwork in the Arctic

• Chris Wainwright completed a planned project and evolved and completed a totally new work.

• Luke set up a recording studio and made a great recording of Martha and friends. Also there is rumoured to be a sound-scape which he crafted!

• Sunand Prasad completed his Weather balloon project – no small feat!

• I projected video onto a glacier wall and re-filmed it. I also began a new work of 46 portraits, each to be accompanied by a chosen piece of text. I also ‘performed’ a very experimental work, which maybe has worked and added to my archive of imagery.

• Vicky Long recorded all for her radio program.

• Laurie Anderson read so beautifully her stories both live and to camera.

• Lemn Sissay performed a full-on work.

• Sam Collins filmed endlessly for proposed new artworks and collaborations.

• Rachel Holmes from Southbank provided the Artistic Director, Jude Kelly, with a new script of ‘Paradise Lost’, abridged by Greg Mosse. Jude directed onboard the 32 ‘scenes’ with our crew of players and Peter Gilbert managed to capture the whole work in a very dense Sunday morning of filming. It is Milton’s 400th anniversary this year and the whole work is to be performed later this year.

• All the writers, poets, musicians and creative artists and science teams wrote both for blogs and for their own private diaries.

The media teams worked tirelessly and with great sensitivity, leaving a place where privacy was needed. That said, Peter Gilbert, Adam and Zack collected over 70 hours of videoed material. This will, over the coming months, be added to and will form the movie/film. Matt Wainwright filmed on HDV and edited all the material for the web and also as a support to the artists. Again 30 hours of footage. Nathan photographed everything and is now editing his archive. Quentin Cooper recorded everything that moved and was dead for his ‘Material World BBC 4 program.

Kathy Barber and Hannah were awesome in editing all the blogs, collecting photographs and edited film and got all this material back to UK base via satellite. Over 4 hours of very cold broadcasting each day.

The notion of what is Cape Farewell has had to be expanded to accommodate the constant shifting speed of climate engagement, the call from the scientists, the sheer size of our group and the attack needed to achieve a cultural shift. 46 people have now returned to their complicated lives, the energy contained in the feverous on-board activity will form a powerful voice of climate challenge Not a bad rate of exchange to our relatively small carbon footprint which has already been accounted for in the Cape Farewell policy of buying photovoltaics.

This rigorous discussion and activity has firmed up my thoughts that two major shifts are needed if we are going to mediate the threat of climate change. Political will – about 2 trillion dollars have been spent on the Iraq war, it is not hard to imagine the results of committing this amount of money over the same time period to getting to grips with climate issues. We are already in a mess that should have begun to be addressed but requires sustained political will power. Cultural shift – it is the way we have evolved our lives that has caused this un-stainable activity. We each have accepted a whole raft of values and activities that are not written in stone. The way we have chosen to live is not a fact and there must be an alternative way to find an exciting way to live that does not leave this trail of atmospheric waste and potential cultural destruction. This demands a cultural shift that I do believe is the most effective way to reduce 80% of our carbon footprint and it has to be implemented and acted upon. It also offers the spectre that the next twenty years could ferment the greatest change yet seen to a global society. Climate will force this and it is how we react that will write the future text.

At any point of cultural shift you will always find artists working, it’s sort of our job description. It feels totally appropriate that artistic curiosity is thrown into the caldron and this expedition has been an awesome response. All the artists are struggling to find a voice that doesn’t preach, doesn’t illustrate and we don’t do social engineering. As artists, if we take on climate as a frontal charge, it never works. There always has to be some footwork that shifts the process to a parallel path, a deviant tangent that clears the territory, the terrain that makes the process personal. Finding this place, whether it be in song, painting or prose is always challenging and awkward. Every one on board is a writer in some way, the songwriters that then take embryonic ideas to their bands, writers and poets who are direct and architects who write buildings and as with all writing processes, they are not time dependent. An idea spurned here could take weeks or years to come into being, and that cannot be prescribed – maybe because I am also an artist floundering around, this then breeds trust in the others.

We could see the east coast of Greenland, indifferent, majestic, and there they were - icebergs from above!! Aaaarrr!! We were suddenly all toddlers, looking down on the little minty sailboats being shoved out of the nest of the shore, forced to take off on voyages from which they would never return. Ever diminishing, ever more alone. Gliding off into the vastness. 

5 hours sailing down the gargantuan straight of Sondre Stromfjord, the light starts to get soaked up by the time. Like a waking dream. Milky green sea that looks alive. A beautifully perfected valley scraped out of the landscape as our guide, singing us out of its mouth. The weirdness. The spook. That half-light that makes you feel like the whites of your eyes are glowing. A low-lying cloud that turns a scottish landscape into a science fiction set. The boat is full and buzzing like a hive. The Belgian-Danish bar and restaurant manager Jan (Yan? Xian?!) has the best and weirdest burr on his rrsquo;s Irsquo;ve ever heard. Want to teach him the Ragged Rascal Ran toungue twister.



Saturday, September 27th, the sea has hills. Late.

Murky half light. It felt like a kid was playing with our boat using his whole arm, up and down, up and down, over the hills of the sea. I imagined we were in the downy neck of a huge eagle (to avoid associations with sea-related hurling, which worked thankfully); UP - the wings flap down, DOWN - the wings flap up. Valleys and lakes.

I dreamt of walking a path up to an old house where a family party was taking place, but there was a strange quiet and calm residing over it all. I read in a Jack White interview that he hates it when people use the word rsquo;strangersquo; when talking about their dreams. Yeah?! Well no luck Jackie baby, it was a well strange quiet!! That milky green scene last night was something else.

I feel like Irsquo;m starting to stop.



Sunday, September 28th, Qeqertassuak. Gurr-kurr-tiss-wack.

Bleak, sleet, cold; howling packs of half wolf hounds that have had their barks bred out of them. Black sand, with blue white icebergs as big as multi-storey car-parks, road bridges, office blocks. Their little relatives pecking at sand, littering the beach. Each of these unliftable baby lsquo;bergs look like something. A chicken. A swan. A turtle.

The dogs are everywhere, chained, wet, wild. I see a mother with two unchained puppies strangling herself to try and reach a huge hole another dog has dug himself, all the other dogs wailing and straining towards it. The dog in the centre has caught one of her puppies. I walk away feeling ill and deeply domesticated.

This is an exceptionally hard place to live, for people and for dogs. Thank god they have access to mad coloured paint; this little town looks like Tobermory/Balamory after Bungle and Zippy decided to buy timeshares. Clumps of multi-coloured houses perched on the perma-frost. Trying to imagine how the hell you survive winters of gruelling minus temperatures when the sun totally disappears for two and a half months. Christmas, as you can imagine, is a really big deal here.

Wednesday, October 1st, Uummannaq.

Finally I saw the ribbons in the sky, the northern lights. Slow and suggested, swaying velvet curtains in a drafty cosmos. We all played a gig in a bar tonight, I donrsquo;t know what happened but the great boot from outwith crushed my mojohellip;Floored by quiet endings, the rip of other roars, itrsquo;s not good when you reject yourself in a Greenlandic bar faced with the brilliance of Hitchcock, Cocker, Wainwright, Sakamoto and Feist. Not my night. My heart is twisted up like kidrsquo;s balloon and I imagine looks like a poodle.

But the amazement of this day ultimately overshadows self-indulgent confidence crashes. The snow, the mountain emerging into the whip-crack of the light, howl howl. Yellow on my face. The viking Rene who arrived 15 years ago and decided to stay and raise lost kids in a much needed childrens home. The music they played, that choir that bloody wrung me out singing their goodbye ode to the sun. The beautiful old woman in the red jacket. I am not what I think I am, I am not yet what I hope I am. I am a pond, a car-park. I feel like a car-park.

I feel like I could live in Uummannaq, it feels like a good town with good people in it. Song cominghellip;

Thursday, October 2nd, Perdlerfiup Sermia Glacier

Woke up with a belly-full of metaphorical tequila. Still feel the shape of the balloon-dog heart in there, but feel altogether better about that. I know itrsquo;s good to feel this.

Snap, snap, walking in a baltic alien landscape and still the grass grows through the snow, all that life that waits patiently beneath for endless sun. Dark red berries fresh under foot stain the powder like blood and trigger thoughts of the hunting that goes on here.

Blood on snow is a disturbing picture, and one that says much about our situation as humans on a planet straining to meet our needs and greeds. But the Greenlandic skill of using every last scrap of animal and knowing what to use it for is undoubtedly impressive.

Friday, October 3rd, Sermeq Avangnardleq Glacier 

Itrsquo;s cold, cold, cold. Tired eyes in a warm, grateful way. I saw different things today, alternative layers, other peoplersquo;s stories. I love it here and I donrsquo;t want to leave. Irsquo;ve said it already, but it is so dreamlike. Definite tones of Wes Andersonrsquo;s lsquo;The Life Aquaticrsquo;; if only we had 40 blue boiler suits and red woollen bobble hats. Riuchi Sakamoto and Jarvis Cocker playing ambient mood music in the bar, icebergs peering in through the port-holes. Friendly scientists dropping large flashing contraptions into the water in the dark to map the mountains below the surface. Coe, David (Steve Zissou)rsquo;s wonderful right hand man making heart-meltingly sincere announcements in his lovely Dutch accent about getting into the Zodiac boats to go and lsquo;explorrr the shorrrrsquo; and ending every time ldquo;hellip;hellip;That Ish Allrdquo;.

Marcus made me weep laughing this evening by re-enacting his presentation at an arts and crafts awards ceremony, the lsquo;Best Porcelain Hedgehogrsquo; category making me nearly wee.

Sunday, October 5th

Our last day. You know that Apple Mac screen saver with the cosmic tracer thing swirling around? About 10 of us were stood on deck late night and looked up at the same time that it escaped out of someonersquo;s laptop, gained gargantuan proprtions and launched itself out of the sky above our heads in neon green; spinning, speeding, an incredible Catherine Wheel firework that made us all scream. I stayed out there for an hour and a half in minus ten, making myself laugh as my frozen face was about 5 seconds behind any words I tried to say. The best light show in the world.

Stayed up in the bar pretending we didnrsquo;t have to leave at 5am, gabbing away to my rad new sister Vanessa Carlton and dancing to Bill Withers.

Grabbed a couple of hours sleep and woke up to my last bowl of porridge and rumours that Graham Treehugger was going to enjoy a morning dip in the sea/liquid nitrogen. We all ran out reminiscent of a fight at school, and there he was in his swimmers, barefoot and perched on the railings 15 feet above the water. We thought he was going to die. He didnrsquo;t die, he splashed around delighted, whooped, climbed up to the 4th level at 30 feet and jumped in again. The thermometer was reading -15 outside.

Now, I remember going in the ladies pond on Hampstead Heath one scorching weekend in late April and was instantly paralysed and unable to remember my name. Who was this man?! Impressive.

My lasting memory was the tide line back on land. In the virgin dawn light I saw that the only flotsam left by the sea on the beach was a thin line of ice; pure white, in the shape of a wave.

Ryuichi had told us when he played his recording of an underground glacial stream that it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. The sound of water that was frozen solid before human beings even existed, heard for the first time, unspoilt, no particles of plastic. Baby water. Old as the earth.

As we waited to board our plane, a Greenlandic choir sat at a table in the golden morning sun, absent-mindedly eating sandwiches and practising one of the same songs we had heard at the childrenrsquo;s home.

Beautiful, mournful, comforting, ancient, innocent.

Subscribe to the podcast for more clips.

An MPEG 4 version of this clip is also available to download.

An MPEG 4 version of this clip is also available to download.

An MPEG 4 version of this clip is also available to download.

Intellectual climate input was achieved with a series of daily talks: two given by the onboard scientists, three by the two Inuit guides and Dr Ko de Korte, Sunand Prasad tackled contraction and convergence, Quentin Cooper gave a great talk on ‘Cape Farewell’, Joe Smith on Carbon Trading and market response, Ryuichi Sakamoto, KT Tunstall, Chris Wainwright and Francesca Galeazzi led a lively discussion on the artists response/creativity and a final talk led by Marcus Brigstocke and Joe Smith addressed just how important it is to feel ‘up’ and empowered by things climate rather than crawl into a hole of despair. These were focussed discussions but all this input led to an endless dialogue in small breakout sessions where we all talked one on one over dinner and wine (and vodka). Lively!

The route for the voyage constantly changed in response to weather, scientific programs and artist’s intentions – the Russian Captain was fantastic, with no challenge too difficult. He entered into our spirit of adventure and art achievement, and I am sure this was all very much a first for him. Our furthermost north was Nuugaatsraq 71.50 degrees north and in all we covered over 1000 nautical miles. The foot of the glacier Sermeg Avangnardieq was our wildest environment and my personal favourite.

The 10 days we spent onboard were so densely packed it is going to take time for the full impact to register and be manifest in arts works and science. The list;

• Geological survey in five different locations, each tract between 2 and 12 miles long.

• CTD measurements and sea ice sampling.

• New songs written by Robyn Hitchcock, KT Tunstall, Martha Wainwright, Vanessa Carlton and Feist. Shlomo collaborated on two of the songs and Feist and Shlomo collaborated to create a Cape Farewell choir.

• Recording by Ryuichi Sakamoto and he is working with the geologists on a greater sound work based on their electronic data. Jonathan Dove is inspired, as was Jarvis – hold that page.

• Francesca ‘performed’ her CO2 work and the bench project.

• Tracy constructed three series of ‘automated’ physical drawings and worked on a new book project.

• Michèle Noach found the Papaver Radicatum, Arctic poppies for her artwork with the Eden Project

• Sophie Calle completed an artwork in the Arctic

• Chris Wainwright completed a planned project and evolved and completed a totally new work.

• Luke set up a recording studio and made a great recording of Martha and friends. Also there is rumoured to be a sound-scape which he crafted!

• Sunand Prasad completed his Weather balloon project – no small feat!

• I projected video onto a glacier wall and re-filmed it. I also began a new work of 46 portraits, each to be accompanied by a chosen piece of text. I also ‘performed’ a very experimental work, which maybe has worked and added to my archive of imagery.

• Vicky Long recorded all for her radio program.

• Laurie Anderson read so beautifully her stories both live and to camera.

• Lemn Sissay performed a full-on work.

• Sam Collins filmed endlessly for proposed new artworks and collaborations.

• Rachel Holmes from Southbank provided the Artistic Director, Jude Kelly, with a new script of ‘Paradise Lost’, abridged by Greg Mosse. Jude directed onboard the 32 ‘scenes’ with our crew of players and Peter Gilbert managed to capture the whole work in a very dense Sunday morning of filming. It is Milton’s 400th anniversary this year and the whole work is to be performed later this year.

• All the writers, poets, musicians and creative artists and science teams wrote both for blogs and for their own private diaries.

The media teams worked tirelessly and with great sensitivity, leaving a place where privacy was needed. That said, Peter Gilbert, Adam and Zack collected over 70 hours of videoed material. This will, over the coming months, be added to and will form the movie/film. Matt Wainwright filmed on HDV and edited all the material for the web and also as a support to the artists. Again 30 hours of footage. Nathan photographed everything and is now editing his archive. Quentin Cooper recorded everything that moved and was dead for his ‘Material World BBC 4 program.

Kathy Barber and Hannah were awesome in editing all the blogs, collecting photographs and edited film and got all this material back to UK base via satellite. Over 4 hours of very cold broadcasting each day.

The notion of what is Cape Farewell has had to be expanded to accommodate the constant shifting speed of climate engagement, the call from the scientists, the sheer size of our group and the attack needed to achieve a cultural shift. 46 people have now returned to their complicated lives, the energy contained in the feverous on-board activity will form a powerful voice of climate challenge Not a bad rate of exchange to our relatively small carbon footprint which has already been accounted for in the Cape Farewell policy of buying photovoltaics.

This rigorous discussion and activity has firmed up my thoughts that two major shifts are needed if we are going to mediate the threat of climate change. Political will – about 2 trillion dollars have been spent on the Iraq war, it is not hard to imagine the results of committing this amount of money over the same time period to getting to grips with climate issues. We are already in a mess that should have begun to be addressed but requires sustained political will power. Cultural shift – it is the way we have evolved our lives that has caused this unsustainable activity. We each have accepted a whole raft of values and activities that are not written in stone. The way we have chosen to live is not a fact and there must be an alternative way to find an exciting way to live that does not leave this trail of atmospheric waste and potential cultural destruction. This demands a cultural shift that I do believe is the most effective way to reduce 80% of our carbon footprint and it has to be implemented and acted upon. It also offers the spectre that the next twenty years could ferment the greatest change yet seen to a global society. Climate will force this and it is how we react that will write the future text.

At any point of cultural shift you will always find artists working, it’s sort of our job description. It feels totally appropriate that artistic curiosity is thrown into the cauldron and this expedition has been an awesome response. All the artists are struggling to find a voice that doesn’t preach, doesn’t illustrate and we don’t do social engineering. As artists, if we take on climate as a frontal charge, it never works. There always has to be some footwork that shifts the process to a parallel path, a deviant tangent that clears the territory, the terrain that makes the process personal. Finding this place, whether it be in song, painting or prose is always challenging and awkward. Every one on board is a writer in some way, the songwriters that then take embryonic ideas to their bands, writers and poets who are direct and architects who write buildings and as with all writing processes, they are not time dependent. An idea spurned here could take weeks or years to come into being, and that cannot be prescribed – maybe because I am also an artist floundering around, this then breeds trust in the others.

The good news is that we’ve solved that whole pesky climate change fiasco. It turns out it was the sun. It’s heat from the sun that is causing global warming. The sunshine did it. It’s not surprising, I mean when you look at the sun you have admit it does look hot doesn’t it. In scientific terms what’s happened is that the sun has sent a lot of heat energy down to earth for many hundreds of thousands of years making what scientists refer to as ‘sunny days’ (forgive the jargon but it’s important to be accurate I think). Now plants and little creatures have absorbed these ‘sunny days’ and then, sadly but with some degree of inevitability, died with the ‘sunny day’, literally trapped within them, then they have sunk down into the earth in the form of ‘sunny day’ rich fossil fuels. These ‘sunny days’ have later been released as people have needed the ‘sunny day’ energy in the fuel in order to power all the stuff we like - hair dryers, Toyota Land Cruisers, Nintendo Wii’s, fridges, life support machines, jet boats, angle poise lamps, vibrators, DVD players, aeroplanes and whirlybirds, air-conditioning units to cool the effects of a ‘sunny day’, mobile phones, electric toothbrushes, motorised carving knifes, remote controlled cars, actual cars, car museums, Top Gear, cars and machines which can exactly replicate the browning effect of a ‘sunny day’.



I like a ‘sunny day’ as much as the next man, but it strikes me that if we force several ‘sunny days’ into one 24-hour period things are going to get… well warmer. We can’t control the actual sun – bad news, but we can easily and without too much discomfort control the amount of stored ‘sunny day’ energy we choose to release, good news. Obviously there are some people for whom it will be agony, but they are mostly old and stubborn and ridiculous and in any case they’ve had their turn, wrecked it, whinged, bellowed and accused, so now it’s up to us. Step aside you flat earth twats.

This morning we re-enacted a revised version of Milton’s Paradise Lost (he’d have been 400 this year had he lived… tragic). I was Satan. Make of that what you will. It’s a fun part and I greatly enjoyed doing it, especially tempting Eve (KT Tunstall) into eating the fruit of the forbidden tree. She’s a pushover – no wonder all humanity is bound to suffer for all eternity, banished from paradise forever if the likes Tunstall are left in charge. “Here Mrs, d’you fancy a bite of forbidden fruit?” “Yeah go on then, what’s the worst that could happen…”

Her Adam (Robyn Hitchcock) was inspired and I realised that in so many ways Adam and Eve were the Tom and Barbara (The Good Life) of the Old Testament. This observation was greatly aided by KT’s impression of Felicity Kendall.

Tonight, our last night on board, Shlomo will host a beatbox competition in which most of the passengers seem to be taking part in teams of 2. I’m with Hannah Bird, who will be making actual bird noises as I beatbox over the top. I hope we win. I like winning.

As supper wound down last night Laurie Anderson read some stories she has written. They seemed all to be based on her own meandering experiences, though I don’t care if they weren’t. You could have heard a pin drop as she was variously hilarious, sad, insightful, bright, acute, sincere, flippant and above all of these beautiful. She radiates a calm happiness and with eyes twinkling and full of amused wickedness she held us all, just for half an hour in the palm of her hand and it felt good.

Similarly Ryuichi Sakamoto played one of his compositions on the piano and the hush that gripped the room as everyone realised how much gentle, passionate control he has of his craft was incredibly uplifting. I’ve learned a fair bit about climate change since I’ve been here and exchanged some fascinating and empowering ideas and inevitably talked in alarming terms about how far we have to come but I’d be lying if I said we have not been truly spoilt by many of the people aboard who have given freely of their talent with grace and generosity. Put bluntly I like hanging out with my musical heroes.

A spontaneous and raucous disco (DJ’d by Shlomo and myself) erupted on Friday night and made the ships lounge throb and pulsate with many a floor filler until 2.30 in the morning when new visions of the Northern Lights streaking their mysterious way from the stars to somewhere just beyond the horizon meant the play list had to give way to Nick Drake singing ‘Northern Sky’ as we slid, shuffled and shivered on to the deck for one last look at what is obviously nothing less than the gateway to a parallel universe. I thought I saw Lyra and Pan at one point, but I was quite tired. The bioluminescent plankton had obviously heard the massive party classics Shlomo and I had been spinning as they were dancing with full vigour in wet psychedelic explosions of light behind the boat. The disco was excellent; I ached the next day from dancing and was floppy and useless all day, like I had no bones. Throwing shapes to various funk, soul and hip hop classics on a boat which is constantly lunging to one side or the other is as much fun as I’ve had in a while. In the right light of course it looks as if all the dancers have somehow come together in an organic act of spontaneous choreographed revelry. It’s only the fact that fewer than half are left standing that gives the game away to be honest.

In a moment I am hosting a session, which I have called ‘How to stay positive despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary’. I’m quite nervous, there are some clever people on this boat and I don’t wish to insult anyone. On top of which anyone who is familiar with my work or has shared accommodation with me for any length of time will know that of all adjectives to describe me – positive would not make the list. Hairy, grumpy, troubled, funny, cantankerous, pompous, opinionated, mouthy, malodorous, speccy and sarcastic would all be there but positive would rank down at the bottom end alongside perky and shy (and you should hear what people who don’t like me have to say about me!).

Positivity has become increasingly important for me since Cape Farewell last year. From when I finally stopped the three-week carnival of vomit and disembarked the Noorderlicht – October 2007 until well into the beginning of 2008 I was deeply, worryingly depressed. I had an itch that I was trying to scratch and no matter how loud I shouted, or how many shows I performed, interviews I did, things I wrote, people I spoke to, or personal changes I enacted I could not satisfy the itch. I had accidentally let the threat posed by climate change become something I was trying to solve alone and unrealistically fast. I cannot do it alone. No one of us is capable of saving or destroying the planet and thoughts that lead us to believe we can are as accurate as Fox News and as much use as a chocolate teapot. They are worthless delusions of grandeur on a scale with the ones that so trouble the annoying gitwizard David Blaine. That is not to say that we are not responsible or that we should not care, but letting yourself get depressed is worthless. It doesn’t help the cause either, how can you convince anyone of the pleasures the greener life can afford us if you sound like Morrissey having just stubbed his toe on his way back from burying a favourite pet in the rain, near Hull on a Tuesday in February? You can’t, and so positivity is the theme.

Now I must track down and then pack my things and head back to reality. For anyone who has followed this blog or any others on the Cape Farewell web site - thank you. The Arctic’s still really cold, warmer than before but still really bloody cold. Oh and we saw some Wales this afternoon – life’s good and every positive action is worthwhile.

The scientists want to measure the salinity and temperate at various points in the fjord, which data will help track advancing climate change. I join them in a zodiac with Quentin Cooper who is making a BBC Radio 4 documentary about the expedition. The readings appear to be anomalous but might be explained by the cycle of calvings, which reduces salinity because glacier melt-water is fresh. While Dr Simon Boxall and Emily xx of the National Oceanography Centre are taking readings as near the glacier as they judge to be prudent, we hear a loud crack and the work is quickly completed. But there is no calving.

Read on at The Architectrsquo;s Journal website.

Friday, September 26th

Plane landing at Kangerlussuaq

We could see the east coast of Greenland, indifferent, majestic, and there they were #8211; icebergs from above!! Aaaarrr!! We were suddenly all toddlers, looking down on the little minty sailboats being shoved out of the nest of the shore, forced to take off on voyages from which they would never return. Ever diminishing, ever more alone. Gliding off into the vastness.

5 hours sailing down the gargantuan straight of Sondre Stromfjord, the light starts to get soaked up by the time. Like a waking dream. Milky green sea that looks alive. A beautifully perfected valley scraped out of the landscape as our guide, singing us out of its mouth. The weirdness. The spook. That half-light that makes you feel like the whites of your eyes are glowing. A low-lying cloud that turns a scottish landscape into a science fiction set. The boat is full and buzzing like a hive. The Belgian-Danish bar and restaurant manager Jan (Yan? Xian?!) has the best and weirdest burr on his r#8217;s I#8217;ve ever heard. Want to teach him the Ragged Rascal Ran tongue twister.

Saturday, September 27th

The sea has hills. Late

Murky half light. It felt like a kid was playing with our boat using his whole arm, up and down, up and down, over the hills of the sea. I imagined we were in the downy neck of a huge eagle (to avoid associations with sea-related hurling, which worked thankfully); UP #8211; the wings flap down, DOWN #8211; the wings flap up. Valleys and lakes.

I dreamt of walking a path up to an old house where a family party was taking place, but there was a strange quiet and calm residing over it all. I read in a Jack White interview that he hates it when people use the word #8217;strange#8217; when talking about their dreams. Yeah?! Well no luck Jackie baby, it was a well strange quiet!! That milky green scene last night was something else.

I feel like I#8217;m starting to stop.

Sunday, September 28th

Qeqertassuak. Gurr-kurr-tiss-wack

Bleak, sleet, cold; howling packs of half wolf hounds that have had their barks bred out of them. Black sand, with blue white icebergs as big as multi-storey car-parks, road bridges, office blocks. Their little relatives pecking at sand, littering the beach. Each of these unliftable baby #8216;bergs look like something. A chicken. A swan. A turtle.

The dogs are everywhere, chained, wet, wild. I see a mother with two unchained puppies strangling herself to try and reach a huge hole another dog has dug himself, all the other dogs wailing and straining towards it. The dog in the centre has caught one of her puppies. I walk away feeling ill and deeply domesticated.

This is an exceptionally hard place to live, for people and for dogs. Thank god they have access to mad coloured paint; this little town looks like Tobermory/Balamory after Bungle and Zippy decided to buy time-shares. Clumps of multi-coloured houses perched on the permafrost. Trying to imagine how the hell you survive winters of gruelling minus temperatures when the sun totally disappears for two and a half months. Christmas, as you can imagine, is a really big deal here.

Wednesday, October 1st

Uummannaq

Finally I saw the ribbons in the sky, the northern lights. Slow and suggested, swaying velvet curtains in a drafty cosmos. We all played a gig in a bar tonight, I don#8217;t know what happened but the great boot from outwith crushed my mojo#8230;Floored by quiet endings, the rip of other roars, it#8217;s not good when you reject yourself in a Greenlandic bar faced with the brilliance of Hitchcock, Cocker, Wainwright, Sakamoto, Carlton and Feist. Not my night. My heart is twisted up like kid#8217;s balloon and I imagine looks like a poodle.

But the amazement of this day ultimately overshadows self-indulgent confidence crashes. The snow, the mountain emerging into the whip-crack of the light, howl howl. Yellow on my face. The viking Rene who arrived 15 years ago and decided to stay and raise lost kids in a much needed children#8217;s home. The music they played, that choir that bloody wrung me out singing their goodbye ode to the sun. The beautiful old woman in the red jacket. I am not what I think I am, I am not yet what I hope I am. I am a pond, a car-park. I feel like a car-park.

I feel like I could live in Uummannaq, it feels like a good town with good people in it. Song coming#8230;

Thursday, October 2nd

Perdlerfiup Sermia Glacier

Woke up with a belly-full of metaphorical tequila. Still feel the shape of the balloon-dog heart in there, but feel altogether better about that. I know it#8217;s good to feel this.

Snap, snap, walking in a Baltic alien landscape and still the grass grows through the snow, all that life that waits patiently beneath for endless sun. Dark red berries fresh under foot stain the powder like blood and trigger thoughts of the hunting that goes on here.

Blood on snow is a disturbing picture, and one that says much about our situation as humans on a planet straining to meet our needs and greeds. But the Greenlandic skill of using every last scrap of animal and knowing what to use it for is undoubtedly impressive.

Friday, October 3rd

Sermeq Avangnardleq Glacier

It#8217;s cold, cold, cold. Tired eyes in a warm, grateful way. I saw different things today, alternative layers, other people#8217;s stories. I love it here and I don#8217;t want to leave. I#8217;ve said it already, but it is so dreamlike. Definite tones of Wes Anderson#8217;s #8216;The Life Aquatic#8217;; if only we had 40 blue boiler suits and red woollen bobble hats. Ryuichi Sakamoto and Jarvis Cocker playing ambient mood music in the bar, icebergs peering in through the port-holes. Friendly scientists dropping large flashing contraptions into the water in the dark to map the mountains below the surface. Ko, David (Steve Zissou)#8217;s wonderful right hand man making heart-meltingly sincere announcements in his lovely Dutch accent about getting into the Zodiac boats to go and #8216;explorrr the shorrr#8217; and ending every time #8220;#8230;#8230;That Ish All#8221;.

Marcus made me weep laughing this evening by re-enacting his presentation at an arts and crafts awards ceremony, the #8216;Best Porcelain Hedgehog#8217; category making me nearly wee.

Sunday, October 5th

Our last day

You know that Apple Mac screen saver with the cosmic tracer thing swirling around? About 10 of us were stood on deck late night and looked up at the same time that it escaped out of someone#8217;s laptop, gained gargantuan proportions and launched itself out of the sky above our heads in neon green; spinning, speeding, an incredible Catherine Wheel firework that made us all scream. I stayed out there for an hour and a half in minus ten, making myself laugh as my frozen face was about 5 seconds behind any words I tried to say. The best light show in the world.

Stayed up in the bar pretending we didn#8217;t have to leave at 5am, gabbing away to my rad new sister Vanessa Carlton and dancing to Bill Withers.

Grabbed a couple of hours sleep and woke up to my last bowl of porridge and rumours that Graham Treehugger was going to enjoy a morning dip in the sea/liquid nitrogen. We all ran out reminiscent of a fight at school, and there he was in his swimmers, barefoot and perched on the railings 15 feet above the water. We thought he was going to die. He didn#8217;t die, he splashed around delighted, whooped, climbed up to the 4th level at 30 feet and jumped in again. The thermometer was reading -15 outside.

Now, I remember going in the ladies pond on Hampstead Heath one scorching weekend in late April and was instantly paralysed and unable to remember my name. Who was this man?! Impressive.

My lasting memory was the tide line back on land. In the virgin dawn light I saw that the only flotsam left by the sea on the beach was a thin line of ice; pure white, in the shape of a wave.

Ryuichi had told us when he played his recording of an underground glacial stream that it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. The sound of water that was frozen solid before human beings even existed, heard for the first time, unspoilt, no particles of plastic. Baby water. Old as the earth.

As we waited to board our plane, a Greenlandic choir sat at a table in the golden morning sun, absent-mindedly eating sandwiches and practising one of the same songs we had heard at the children#8217;s home.

Beautiful, mournful, comforting, ancient, innocent.

EDITORS NOTE

Sorry for the repetition, but we liked KT#8217;s blog so much we kept it whole here, and also split it up into individual postings. We#8217;re sure you#8217;ll understand#8230;