I can’t believe my somewhat whiny Please could you help me this year? post. Sure, organising it did get a little hectic towards the end, but it is also brilliant for a number of reasons.
1. It gets me excited about the whole affair. It’s like 5 months of foreplay before 9 insane days of rally and Roskilde consummation. 5 months of foreplay, imagine that: two weeks on the ears, three days slipping off a bra strap, a 100 hours of caressing the right shoulder counter-clockwise whilst patting the head (the last one is just to show off). By the time I get to the start line I’ll be pawing the ground with nostrils flaring, really ready to go.
2. I get to entertain insane flights of fancy. At the moment I’m wondering whether its possible to get a boats prow on a car, last week I thought I might put a rocket on the top. Planning how we could get the torch of the flame of rock, in the manner of the Olympics, from Glastonbury to Roskilde, before taking it across the channel to light a fire at Burning Man, passes the time on a boring Tuesday morning commute.
3. At a more personal level, whenever I’m doing this, I usually end up writing about my Mum, who died of cancer when I was just a small snivelling child. (I was eleven, actually, so not that small, or snivelling, but I thought I’d tug the heartstrings a bit. I should have added some real Angela’s Ashes stuff, gone not for the heart tug, but the full on break ie. that was the week me Mam doyd of the cancer, and that was good, my dronken work shy Da’ beat me less that day and norm’ly two of my close relatives doyd a week, in the cold, damp. Limerick air. Enough) However, writing brings her back, in its own small way, and that’s one of the best feelings in the world.
Let the fun begin.
Right, Barcelona or Bust: The Kill Cancer Rally is starting to come together. After talking it up in pubs, clubs and to disinterested shrubs for two months or so, I’m doing something about it. For those of you haven’t heard the pitch, here it is :
“This September you can join a four day sponsored car rally from London to Barcelona.
All – and I mean all – the money raised will go to a collection of cancer charities because cancer killed my mother. This rally is my revenge.”
The cars have to cost less than a £100, fancy dress is encouraged and car customisation even more so. It’ll be a lot of fun and if everyone raises just £250 we’ll get one step closer to killing cancer.
However, nothing will happen unless you come along. So please, please come. But before you do tell your friends about it and force them to tell their friends about it. Write pithy articles in your syndicated newspaper columns and donate large prizes for the prize draw. And anyone wants to help then I’ll be very grateful.
I look forward to hearing from you guys and I thank you all in advance.
Thanks a lot
Sentient vehicles welcome
“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.
I’ve decided that I would like to raise money for cancer research. The reason? Because when I was blonde-haired, adorable and quite too cute to imagine my mother suddenly died of cancer. And ain’t that just enough to break your heart?
Well, it did for mine too. And now I want to get my own back by raising enough money to kill cancer. OK, it might not be possible to do it all in one go, but I think I’ve come up with a way to do my bit. Providing, that is, I can find some people to help out.
The plan is this : a four night trip, from Thursday night to Monday morning, from London to Barcelona. And I want as many of you as possible to come along, and for all of you to try to persuade friends, family and workmates to give some money for cancer research.
Only the most hard-hearted can say no when asked to help fight the most dangerous disease in Britain. The disease that creates widows and widowers, crying children and crying parents. If everyone raised £250 each then we’d be able to help. It might not find the cure for all cancer, but every pound raised will help.
It will buy another four weeks of health. It might mean the difference between spotting a cancer early or discovering a cancer too late. Hell, it might save someone you know.
Well, that’s the first post out of the way. It’s always a worrier that one, now I’ll use this blog to give updates on the route, the charity and everything else that this will entail. Oh, and did I mention I think we should have a lot of fun?
