If I torque my arm far enough, I can break my forearm bones.

Like bending a two-by-four held in a table vise, I can just bow my entire goddamn arm until it snaps in two!

Holy Christ, Aron, that’s it, that’s it. THAT’S FUCKING IT!

There is no hesitation. I barely realize what I’m about to do. I unclip from the anchor webbing, crouching until my buttocks are almost touching the stones on the canyon floor. I put my left hand under the boulder and push hard, harder, HARDER! to put a maximum downward force on my radius bone. As I slowly bend my arm down to the left, a POW! reverberates like a muted cap-gun shot.

The above is from an extract of Aron Ralston’s book Between a Rock and a Hard Place, the story on which 127 Hours is based. It’s such a great story, and so simple, so real. It captivates me, both the film and reading about it. I’m also reading my second book on the 1996 Everest ‘disaster’, the first by Jon Krakauer called Into Thin Air, and The Climb by Anatoli Boukreev, a Russian guide with the ill-fated Mountain Madness team. What is it about these on-edge stories that I like? The simplicity, the stripping away of the trappings of modern life and post-modern concerns to the basics of survival. The fact that they have all chosen to be there takes away the tiresome necessity for sympathy even. Man and nature.

…

Cleared up a lot at work, in the two days before the weekend. A two-day work week – I can live with that. This evening, watched the Relocation guy doing a programme in Australia. I’ve always thought New Zealand would be preferable if I were to move anywhere. Australia seems a little… bland.

OK, back to Everest.

BTW, has facebook been down today? The couple of times I have tried it has frozen on loading…