Katie > Recent Status Updates

‘Report says that frequently one man was trying to capture another under the impression that he was a penguin’

Got me 😂

‘Life was a bright thing to him, and it is something to think that death must have come quickly in the grip of that icy sea.‘

Vince’s death and the near loss of that sledging party on the precipice is terrifying

Ascending in a balloon in Antarctica is just a wild idea

‘So there rest the remains of the only human being who has found burial on this great southern continent, and above his body still stands, in touching memorial, a plain wooden cross.’

That’s the most insane bit of foreshadowing 😬

Isle of Wight represent! (The Discovery sailed from Cowes)

Scott referring to the regions of the Antarctic as ‘the Wendell quadrant’ etc is giving sci fi, I love it 😂

The whole vibe of this book is:

Well, that went well as could be expected, didn’t it?

Oh it gets me every time. It’s so haunting.

These journals were not edited by Scott (but by later publishers who all had their own agenda) but it’s hard not to see a hand of Fate editing them, leading to this horrific conclusion. A Fate that, in some ways, could be predicted but also…could not.

‘Indefatigable little Bowers’ gets me every time

Bowers and the Christmas tree 🥲

Every now and then, in the midst of matter of fact diary entries, you get a banger of a description:

‘The long mild twilight which like a silver clasp unites today with yesterday; when morning and evening sit together hand in hand beneath the starless sky of midnight.’

Scott’s kind of placid narrative is occasionally broken by quotes he wrote into his diaries as ephemera so every now and then, you get *sledge diary, comments on ice, science* then something like *it is fitting to die for your country*, and it’s like a ghost foreshadowing it all.

Scott calling every man ‘a treasure’ 🫡🥹🙏

Every time a new diary entry starts, Scott is like ‘oh it’s a DISASTER!’ then ‘oh okay we fixed it.’ Then ‘oh I’m so depressed with it all’. Then back to ‘It’s okay again’. He’s such a diva, I love him.

Love the way the first mention of Birdie Bowers was ‘Bowers is sorting all our supplies’. ‘Bowers is sorting our supplies again’. ‘Bowers is doing a good job with our inventory again’. We stan an organised short king 🫡

Captain Scott, they could never make me hate you