When Jesus was swaddled in the manger, thinking whatever a divinity would think having been expectorated in human form down some sort of insanely slow-moving painfully constricting water-slide, he was attended by kings from the east and shepherds from the west.
Luckily that was in the days before the Eastside/Westside beef had kicked in. Otherwise Melchior would have pulled his nine from his side and said “Any bitch with a sheep is gonna get wet. I’m frank-incensed by your disrespect, wool boy, now you ready to eat clip”.
He came from the East
“Yeah, well I think you look like the three wise queens with that funky get up. And anyway I’m the only star in the east bitch” and so on and so forth ad infinitum. Bitchus.
It transpired that, though the kings were high net-worth individuals, and the lowly shepherds came from a very different socio-economic background, with the consequence that the gifts they brought were very different in cost-price, this mattered little to Jesus. What mattered was that each had brought what they could.
That story has little relevance to raising money for Barcelona or Bust because everyone should raise £250 each.
Because if each car has four people in it. That’s £1000 a car minimum.
If 20 people come on the tour, we raise £5000.
If 10 cars come on tour we raise £10000.
You too can play the “how much we can raise game?” with the help of an Excel spreadsheet and a university degree. Clearly, there is no maximum. That would be stupid. But, and this is the point, but if everyone does raise £250, we can make a difference.
This weekend will be a dangerous recon mission scouting out prime targets for our payload of party people. That way, when the nuclear fun-bomb goes off it’ll blow up in the best bars in Barcelona.
That’s why a fact-finding trip will be essential. It is, therefore, in the interests of charity and, by extension, for my immortal soul that I travel to Sonar this weekend for three days of heavy reconnaissance.
I first went to Barcelona last summer after the Benicassim festival. It was love at first bite. Despite not being in the best state, I swiftly realised that the Catalan capital was a one off.
If you haven’t been there then book a weekend in late September to make a roadtrip to one of the most beautiful cities in Europe:
Walk through the gothic old town marvelling at the incredible poise of old Spanish men in their slacks, cardigans, flat caps and Camper shoes.
Eat fantastic tapas at the Cerveceria de Catalan, choosing quivering fresh fish to be grilled in front of your eyes, before washing down a Crema Catalan with a bouncy Rioja.
Fall in love with yourself as you reflect on a weekend that was dedicated to raising money, so that ordinary folks don’t have to spend most of their lives cursing black terror cells that hijack life.
This is where our four day odyssey will end. We’ll have covered many miles, raised a lot of money and know that cancer is a little closer to being killed.
“Oh, this is not going well. I must write harder. I must write harder. I must write harder. I must write harder. I must write harder. I must write harder.” puffed Thomas the Slack Engine as he contemplated how little had been added to his stupendous charity tour blog.
Amazing, Dylan Thomas the Tank Engine.
Well, that’ll change won’t it? Because now I get serious. I’m going to get this going because I want to be able to tell people about Barcelona or Bust and say “Why don’t you check out my blog? It’s got lots of wholesome information on where we’re going to go, which charity we’re raising money for and my mother, god rest her soul”.
She is the reason I’m doing this and she was amazing. Really heart-stoppingly astounding. But you only fully get it once you’re a bit older. When you grow up it’s tragic in an immediate way. You don’t know what to do. You cry at night but, like a sapling under a boulder, you grow around the pain.
It was at university that I first notice that the grief was changing shape. That’s when you get what mothers do. You see the phone calls that come in. The sheer choking love that they’ve got in them, which means they’ve got to know everything about their little bastard offspring. Oh then, then you go “Oh, I would love to have one of them. It would rule”.
It’s when you look at it in that different way, you see what a mother does. And I imagine how amazing it would be to have Gillian Shelley looking out for me. Achtung Schpitfire, Gottdamerung and golly gosh, it would be outrageous.
So let’s try to raise some money to make sure that other feckless 25 year olds don’t have to raise money to kill cancer, and can instead spend the time raising money for like something that totally like kicks ass. Like meals in pills and jetpacks.
We’ll have to kill cancer first. And we’re going to need money, lots of money.
