The Kill Cancer Death Rally

When I bought El Presidente I felt slighty guilty throughout the “Just two lady owners…really reliable…shame I have to let it go…really love it” spiel. Kiwi Jo seemed really attached to the car. Proud that it ran so well and eager to show me gibberish sheets, that were in fact the MOT and past service checks : “Look it had a yada yada changed in January”.

My sheep bothering seller was delighted her car would raise money for charity, but genuinely upset that the poor thing would be crushed. Jo, worry no longer. The car is too cool to be destroyed. I don’t know how I’m going to get it back, but I will because it is a car transformed remember it used to look like this, before having an awesome turretite style thing attached to it like this.

The turretette was genuinely beautiful, but a swan has become a bird of paradise.

I) You can’t quite see the wanna-turret, but it is still a production Rover with wood on the top. Let’s get some paint involved.

II) Meet Chillax Max. He’s got long legs, tight white jeans, dodgy pencil moustache and is chillaxed to the max.

III) The left side is covered in awesome bubble letters and a freaky cyber cctv camera. “What does it mean?” you ask. It means it looks fucking cool.

IV) The rear. What you’ll be looking at on the autoroutes of France, if you travel in a low performance tractor.

V) “Ola Commandante”. Yes, El Presidente can talk and it says “Thank you my painter friends”.

Available on Ebay soon.

In Peter Seller’s The Party he plays a maladroit Indian actor who is accidentally invited to a Hollywood party. There is no connection between this film and the Masked Fete that happened on Friday except that it is a good excuse to put in this clip.

The film ends with the stuffy mansion being overrun by the free spirited youth who get their ’60s dance moves on, fill the house with foam and bring a painted elephant into the pool - I’ve even found a way of linking The Party and the Masked Fete - because in many ways colorectal cancer is the elephant in the room (did you see what I did there?).

The disease has the second highest incidence of any cancer, causing 13% of all deaths, and yet it doesn’t get bigged up at all. That’s why Cancer Research UK are such a great organisation. They don’t specialise in one trendy cuddly bodypart. What they do is give support where its needed, whether it’s for bums, bowels, balls or boobs.

Thanks to everyone who turned up to the Masked Fete we raised about £1500 (after my fat handling fee) so that reckless rectal passageways are better protected if they get cancered. Even bigger thanks go out to Jonathan (if you liked the venue he’ll rent it to you), James the boozeman, the DJs, Alex and Simone, Louisa and Chopper, who were on the door, and everyone else. 

You’re the best.

A second video of Birchy, the anglegrind god, working over the roof of El Presidente is now up on YouTube – here. This clip shows him putting slits into the roof to wedge in the turret.

Though I should stop calling it that, as it in no way resembles a turret.

The party was a massive success except for one thing. I don’t have a camera, therefore I’ve no photos. Please send them if you’ve got some, as I’d like to know what happened.

Thanks.

I think it’s going to be OK. The party will be alright. I had been cruising along on a wave of “Everything’s sorted out” to be suddenly hit by a really bad case of the ohshitohshitohshits.

Now, however, I have time to write a quick post and I’ve even recorded the address of the bar on my answerphone message. Check me out.

I’ll take advantage of this pre-storm quiet to thank Johnathan and James, from the Leonard St. Galleries, a different James, for sorting out all the booze, and Stormhoek for providing us with some extra vino.

All of you guys rock as you’ve made this possible.

Let’s party.

Everyone knows how important a name is. Calling your son Sue can make him tough enough to survive in the world of Johnny Cash. And when Paul Newman turns over his poker hand, after winning all the prison’s money, to show a hand with not even a pair, uttering “Sometimes nothing can be a pretty cool hand”, he becomes Cool Hand Luke.

Bearing this in mind I had put off giving a name to the mighty Rover 216 until last night, when it became El Presidente. The moment you put a turret on a car then you’re almost obliged to christen it thus.

The only reason it has turret is due to the fantastic efforts of Alex and Birchy. I was going to tackle this on my own thinking : how hard can it be to attach a turret to the roof of a car? Fucking difficult, as it turns out. 

At the weekend I’d been to B&Q, which already made me feel pretty manly. I bought bolts. I felt I was ready but as luck would have it George, my fellow rallier, couldn’t come, so I got some help in.

I knew they meant business when they both had toolboxes (toolboxes!). Birchy even said he was disappointed he couldn’t find his anglegrinder. I’d seen this tool on films and knew it made sparks.

Bizarrely, however, my Dad does have an angle grinder and boy did we grind. Annoyingly I can’t post them straight on to the site but to get an idea go here and video here.

I now have a car with a turret.

The good news just keeps rolling in. And that’s good because I had a bit of an “oh my God, nothing’s going right, those kids in Darfur don’t know the meaning of tough” week. So here it is:

I found a car for just £150. The beast is a Rover 216 and the woman I pur-chaysed it from was somewhat startled I couldn’t drive it away due to my lack of driving license. That’s on top of the news that the party is go! And I spoke to D*Face and he’ll get the painting all sorted out.

More importantly the rally numbers are shaping up nicely. We’ve got six cars ready to roll with another three maybes. That’s the Deathmachine (my car), the Animal mobile (Mikey, Anita, Lil, Abi)…..and shit, guests have just come. Must make like a pebble and dash.

I leave you with crazy Jesuses/Jesi, funky rhizomabilia and vampire make-up lessons.

From now on this blog switches from recruitment promoter, to raising cash money for Tom Shelley. And I’ve set myself a big target. I’m not going to go for £250, I’m not going for £500, nor even £1000. I’ve set myself the minimum target of £3000 (give here).

And, as my exceptionally canny boss says, targets are signposts not destinations.

Why should we give money to Cancer Research UK?

Because last year cancer, the little bastard, killed 153 397 people. That’s 1 out of every 4 deaths in the UK that Charlie Cancer gets involved in. And he’s mysoginist, half of all deaths in women under 65 are caused by cancer, but only one in three men. (That might be due to our propensity for booze, fags and doners).

If you’ve been a long time reader of this blog (thank you my audience of two), you think I’m going to get emotional and wang on about my Mum, the amazing Gillian Shelley, now. Don’t you? Guess what, I’ve got a different flavour of emotional blackmail up my sleeve. (If you’ve missed info her, check her out (no, not like that), here, here and here).

Instead, I’ll pull down the curtain to reveal The Kill Cancer Death Rally’s top “I survived cancer”, No. 1 Cancer Dude. Ladies and gentleman of the blogosphere give an astonished round of applause for the lovely, the beautiful, the efferfescent and ever ready Clemmie Malpas.

Out of the pink Clemmie got struck with cancer in her neck. Minding her own business in Kenya her body betrayed her, producing black death cells of death. Rushed back to England she was subjected to chemo and is now in the clear.

She’ll be coming on the route as a testament to the hard work of all the researchers, doctors and carers that depend on Cancer Research UK.

Please sponsor me so that we have more happy cancer stories – www.justgiving.com/tomshelley. Give generously please.