Success!

Evening, 29 Munychion, 1111BC:

Fantastic news, dear reader! We have successfully managed to blind the cyclops, under the brilliant leadership of Odysseus.

Old "round eye" returned to the cave earlier this evening. As soon as he had shut the door and milked his flock he brutally killed another two of our men. When he did this, a problem struck all of us - how on earth were we suppose to blind this behemoth when he has been killing us left, right and centre with no trouble at all?

Clearly, Odysseus had already taken this conundrum into account. After Polyphemus had finished his meal of human flesh, Odysseus offered him some of the wine that we had been fortunate enough to take into the cave with us. The uncivilised oaf had clearly never tasted this pleasure of civilised society before and was tipsy before long, despite his massive size.

The cyclops loosened up and said he would give Odysseus a gift if he would only tell him his name. Strange, I thought, gifts are usually offered to guests by civilised beings so there must be a catch here. Odysseus ingeniously said his name was 'nobody.' In return, the beast barbarically said his 'gift' to 'nobody' would be to eat him last of all. Charming.

Anyway, before too long the oaf fell asleep in a pool of his own vomit, which was induced after tasting the civilised pleasure of wine for the first time. Odysseus inspired us to take advantage of this opportunity and a group of us gathered together in coordination, picked up the giant stake we had fashioned over and smashed it into the brute's eye. Our teamwork was sublime, we drove the stake right into the middle of the eye and twisted deep into the back of the beast's retina.

Only a civilised group such as us led under the guile of a leader such as Odysseus could have performed such a task involving teamwork, strength, courage and a knowledge of building materials.

As soon as the task was complete, the oaf woke up in pain, screaming. Unfortunately, this drew the attention of his neighbours, who asked what was wrong with him. He told them that 'nobody's' treachery was the cause of his suffering, which drove his neighbours away (after they told him to shut up of course!). More civilised neighbours would have come to help right away. The beast, finally realising he had been outsmarted began to fling his arm around wildly, trying to kill us all in one below.

We dived away to the nearest group of rocks to hide from the beast. Odysseus told us to stay calm and that Polyphemus' flocks would help us escape in the morning.

We are certainly one step closer to escape, dear reader, but our troubles are not over yet.