And now a final report from somewhere close to a Victorian glacier ...

 

So the pond thought it was done for the year, but then a canny local, using barbed wire and a stocking, managed to hook the pond up to a Musk satellite, and though the signal was only two twerps and half a reptile loon strong, and faded in and out, the pond felt it should report on its location ... as travel blogs are wont to do ...

Somewhere on its way to Antarctica to check out the state of the Thwaites glacier, the pond passed this sign ...

That only took an hour to upload, and perhaps some Victorian will recognise it, but the pond only offers it as a sign of the surreal landscape it's passing through, a wilderness of weirdness. 

On its way south the pond passed a diary farm which seemed to have been named after the venerable Meade, and had a bovine feel to it ...

But that was long ago, and now the pond has woken to a frost and a chill and a dread sense that it has landed in a Stanley Kramer movie and is somewhere near the end of the world. 

Vague reports land from afar, as if the pond happened to be reading that Kafka story about the remote dwellers in the Middle Kingdom ...

The pond visited a beach, hoping to spot the odd Antarctic sea lion but there wasn't a single living creature visible, not even a solitary crab scuttling from an Eliot poem ...

When one local noticed the pond's computer and asked what was happening, mention of a blog produced a reminder of aye, old Jackson, he be bogged for twelve days last winter ...

Speaking of Stanley Kramer, the pond just wanted to register its disappointment at Jane Campion's Power of the Dog.

It's living proof that a good composer can't save a pretentious, inert film. Of course the critics love it, and mention it in despatches, with Oscars close, but the pond always remembers that Guess Who's Coming to Dinner was nominated as best picture, won best actress and best screenplay, and remains as hideous today as it was then ...

The pond isn't against Campion, having been a supporter from the days of Peel and Sweetie, and there's no shame in making a leaden clunker - the Coen brothers have made a few, and now who knows what Joel has managed with his version of Macbeth.

But alas this is supposed to be a travel blog rather than a film blog, and what is there to say about that, except that when stepping outside in the morning, the winds coming off the glaciers send the wind turbines churning and chill the pond to the bone.

So again season's best wishes, and what with the pond not having read a single reptile for going on a week, here's the real reason the pond got out of bed.

You see others are paying tribute to the immortal Rowe, still beavering away, and so must the pond ...

Well that only took an hour to upload, and so to the image, clean, and in its full glory, for those who keep a folder of Rowes handy, and while some might go the wrapping paper, then pond will go the full pineapple ...