Filed under: 2007
Who buys a car that blows up after being driven for half an hour? Tom, that’s who. Pete from the AA laughed as the engine overheated in neutral, the bumper seemed to be stuck on with airfix and the fog lights weren’t even wired in. He’d have cried if he could have seen the engine, but the bonnet was stuck.
Our great idea for getting to Calais, now that the car was out, was to get a lift from Billingsgate fish market in Canary ‘Oh my God it’s a long way’ Wharf. Unfortunately all the French trucks left before we arrived. Fortunately, Pearse got to see a handgun transaction taking place which made his night.
This leaves me wondering how to go south. What do you think we should do? Or, bearing in mind the Big Lebowski car theme, should that be ‘What would the Dude do?’.
I’ve been asked to dedicate the rally to my friend Pippa’s father, Peter, who died of cancer just a few month’s back. She’s in Australia so unfortunately I didn’t get the text with the news that her father had carked it. Meantime, I see her new photo on Facebook and write to tell her “Your new profile photo makes you look depressed”.
Response : “My Dad died yesterday”.
So this rally goes out to you, Mr. Druce. I’ve asked Pippa to send a photo so that we can have you riding on our dashboard for a final journey, after your final journey. If you’re anything like Pippa (and by the way, well done on growing her – she’s great) you’ll be good company.
I’ll also co-dedicate the rally to Julia Luard, my friend Dave’s mother. Apparently she was very serene when she went, convinced that she was off to a ‘tea party in the sky’. Whenever I went to their farm in Somerset she’d be smiling and was the kindest person you could imagine.
My heart really goes out to both of you OK, enough of the platitudes.
Your parents died.
It will be a bit shit forever.
But you’ll have them forever in amazing bittersweet memories. Get used to crying with a smile on your face because, in those moments, Peter and Julia live on.
——————————–
I’m open to sponsorship at www.justgiving.com/tomshelleyrallier.
I’m buying the Volvo. Despite worrying that it might cause a fracture in my psychic walls, I totally fell in love with the car. It’s a 14 year old beast with 180 000 miles on the clock. More shire horse than thoroughbred, this blue bad boy looks as though it would keep on going ’till Christ returns.
Today, I pick it up.
There are plenty more cars on GumTree if you do want to come.
Argh, this rally has bundled me up and run away with me. 10 days to go and I am only just buying my car. This is exactly the sort of slackness that I have castigated others for. In future I will not try to finish big ass six month projects three days before I go on the rally. I definitely will not compound this by trying my hand at being a standup comedian, four weeks before I finish a big ass work project.
On the bright side of life, I wrote a post on Project Red Stripe – the thing that I was working on for The Economist – that got on the front page of TechMeme (Techmeme is the geek version of The Times, all of you who didn’t think the iPhone changed the world) and I have found out that I can go on stage and make *some* people laugh. However, I haven’t been able to give the rally the love, care and attention in needs. As I like to think that I can chew more than others can bite off this hurts. Nonetheless, we head to Bavaria in 10 days.
For that we’ll need a car. I’ve got two options on the go at the moment.
Option 1 : The Citroenski – being sold by Remus the Pole who also has quite a large stash of Stella in the back of his car. It is a bit small for five days, I’d say.
Option 2 : A Volvo 440 – buying this 7 seater beast might bring on some sort of Freudian crisis because it is the car my father had. I’m worried that some time after buying this I’ll wake up in a large black armour exoskeleton. My breath will rasp like a phone pest with a sore throat, and I’ll be wearing a long black cape : “You’ve come over to Dark Side, Tom. You are your father”. Cue some sort of internal Oedipan light sabre battle. Though you can put down all the seats and sleep in the car. Maybe the risk of becoming my old man isn’t so bad – bring on the pink cords.
If anyone else is keen on one of these cars and decides to come on the rally at the last minute please tell me.
Now is the time to return to London, and a semblance of normality. But you will have done an amazing thing and raised a shedload of cash for Cancer Research UK. Well done you.
What are you waiting for? Book a ticket at Easyjet.
If you’re not sure about it yet then : Look into my thighs, look into my thighs. You are feeling sleepy. Look into my flies, stare into my flies, you are now asleep.
Come come come come come come come come. Come. C-O-M-E. Come.
::click fingers::
So you’re coming?
On Friday we’ll be cruising down the lovely Rhine Valley. There are many reasons why the Rhine valley is a wonderful place mostly because it has been the site of many battles between the Germans and the French. That’s like brussel sprouts vs badly cooked liver – the rest of humanity is a winner. Here we can find wine, swimming opportunities and good food. If anyone can tell me a nice town to terrorise stay in, I’m sure fruitful cultural interchanges will occur.
The destination for this day is slightly hazy but I’m sure we’ll find somewhere to go. This stop will be in between Calais and The Black Forest. When we’re going there we’ll have to go through Pas de Calais. Anyone with even the most limited French knows that Pas de Calais sounds as though it means No Calais. This has always struck me as odd. As though the biggest selling point of northern France was that it isn’t Calais.
This might be true.
The Pas de Calais site extorts you to visit the coast With its ever changing skies and bracing wind. Lucky I have a degree in semiotics to realise that means it is windy and can rain at any minute. We’re best leaving this place.
Did my less than amusing riff about Pas de Calais distract you from the fact that I have little to no idea what is happening this day? No. It didn’t because you are clever. And I’m not just flattering you. You’re too smart to fall for that.
Filed under: 2007
OK, rally time is well and truly nigh. I am going to have to get into major kick ass mode to get it all good. Things I need to do:
Finally lay down the route
Try to find out how many people are going
Divide that number by three because people are in fact flaky
Then multiply by two because at the last minute people will come
So it’s pretty clear. Let’s get going.
I can start by giving some more information about how to get out of Bavaria on August 6th. Annoyingly all this organising takes me away from a full elucidation of Fling Theory.
The reason that once a year I organise an idiotic road trip was that when I was 10 my mother died of cancer. I was only just 10. My birthday just one day before. Guess what present she gave me for it? The Game of Life. I have only just now, this second, realised the gob-stopping irony of that.
I’ve never opened the box but have, instead, made it into a shrine – no, of course I haven’t done that. Maybe now I’m all growed up I’d try to preserve a deathbed gift in some reasonable state, not then. I played the game a lot. It involved spinning a wheel, and driving round a track in a car, I think. The games I played with my sisters were always I tiny bit weird as I’d left the rules in the Royal Marsden Hospital terminally-ill-of-shitting-cancer ward.
I literally lost the rules to The Game of Life in the hospital where my mother died.
Were irony meters to work like geiger counters, then one near me would be clicking like a loquacious pod of Zulu dolphins. I had never thought of it like that. Wow, I’m going to love acting all mysterious and broken with a line like “I lost the rules to the game of life when my mother died”.
Anyway, back to my mother and my present, because I can see her now on the bed giving it to me. She was so frail her hands could barely move and she couldn’t really talk any more. But she, and it would have been her because my dear Dad is birthday allergic, remembered to get something for me. That I’m related to this amazing woman is a source of confusion to most who know both her and me. I’ve got tears in my eyes thinking about her.
I hope that shows why I want to raise shitloads of money for Cancer Research UK. The best way to do that? Moronic trans-continental rally.
Filed under: 2007
Argh, this is so annoying. I’ve been looking at places to go and I really can’t decidel. Driving to the South of France in August would be, most probably, shite. Though the south west might provide more interest. Then we could drive down the west coast of France, then end up in San Sebastien (more Michelin stars per head than any other town in the world).
Alternatively we could head to the Baltic, as in the original plan, for a slightly different experience.
The tough thing is that having decided to go to Roskilde, the subsequent forced change has knocked me off whack somewhat. It reminds of losing my hat. You see, I misplaced a very fine hat that I adored. I tried to find one just like it, but couldn’t. This lead to not inconsiderable dissatisfaction.
However, one day I just decided to take the plunge and bought a trilby, instead of the fedora that I had before. Imagine my surprise when I found that I loved it just as much as my previous number.
The moral is this : just get on an chose another fucking route, and it will still be amazing.
