Steve The Hitch Hiker

Video!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 02:00:00 +0000

(Sorry to any readers in Germany, who can only view the video through a youtube proxy website due to stupid copyright reasons)

I would also like to thank the following sponsors: Linda Bowen (£25), Liz Speed (£10), Adeline Rush (£5), Vicky Saxby (£5), Deb Cahill (£5) and Wendy (£5) as well as my mother for collecting the funds from these lovely people.This extra cash has pushed my total to £610.37, but any last minute donations before the closing date on the 15th of June are more than welcome. Just click here.

Hitchhiker's Guide to LCD Hitch

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 07 May 2011 11:40:00 +0000

Along our travels through France, Spain and Morocco, there were several things we learned and felt were important enough to pass on to others about the LCD Hitch to Morocco. I wanted to provide helpful information in this post for any future hitchers to read and hopefully as a result will find the whole ordeal a lot less confusing than we did. Here are a number of important things to remember:

1) If there was one thing that frustrated us the most during the long periods of standing in a lay by, waiting for someone to stop for us; the gestures and expressions of the drivers that drove passed consistently confused us and it was only after many hours of seeing these signals and trying to interpret them that we think we eventually figured out what most of them mean.

The shrug: “I simply can’t be arsed to pick you up, I have no valid excuse and feel slightly guilty about not helping you. Perhaps also you are in a particularly crap place with nowhere suitable for me to pull over.”

The finger wag: “I would never pick you up because I wrongly believe that hitchhiking is illegal, or that you look like serial killing rapists.”

Pointing down: “I’m staying in this town or not travelling very far at all and due to my lack of concern for the environment, decided not to walk. Nevertheless I’m not going far enough to help you.”

Pointing in another direction: “I’m not going the way you want.”

Numbers (one or two fingers): “Assuming I’m not swearing at you, I mean to say that I can only fit this many hitchhikers in my car.”

Palm upward, pinching all four fingers against thumb: “I have a full car already.”

Smiling / Laughing: “I’ve never seen a hitchhiker before and find what you’re doing to be novel, but I still won’t pick you up.”

Look of traumatic disbelief: “I’m a miserable old bag that finds what you’re doing to be stupid and inappropriate. Young people out enjoying the world; honestly, they should be living a tedious life like I have done!”

Thumbs out: “I’m a dick taking the piss out of you and even if I did stop for you, which I absolutely won’t, you would be incapable of tolerating my company anyway.”

Complete ignorance: “I am most likely driving a BMW or similarly prestigious car and you are beneath me. I wouldn’t make eye contact or stop for you even to avoid running you over... well, maybe, but only because you would get blood on my bonnet and I’ve only just had it buffed with hot wax. You look like a poor person and mean less than nothing to me, just like speed limits and red traffic lights.”

2) When it is time for you to cross the English Channel or the Gibraltar Strait, remember: all of the staff aboard the ferry hate you. If you’re wearing your LCD Hitch T-shirt, they will be contemptuous of you the very second they lay eyes on you. Think about it. Every year, about a thousand of you cretins cross their path and far too many hitchers before you have asked for free tickets, tried to blag other free stuff, been unaware of proper procedures, asked for favours such as announcing over the PA that you need a lift from a passenger (like we did) and they are not cool with any of it and the excuse "But it's for charity!" just doesn't fly. They have a menial, easy job and they want to avoid making it any more taxing for themselves at all costs and won’t mind being incredibly derisive or rude to you.

3) You may have considered using internet cafés along your trip. What you probably won’t have considered is that in France, Spain and Morocco, they use a ridiculous alternative keyboard with the AZERTY layout instead of the QWERTY layout that you are used to. Basically, just assume that if you need to send a message to someone, it will take three times as long to type it, because you need to keep searching for a missing letter, or get confused about why the exclamation mark has a key all to itself, but the widely used full stop requires you to jab “shift” and “semicolon” together and the “@” symbol requires “shift”, “alt” and “0” all together, or some such shit.

4) Another horrible thing you may not be prepared for. In spite of the fact France is a wealthy, westernised, first world country; their toilet facilities are not. All three of the foreign countries you’ll be hitching through will require you to squat over a hole in the ground in a way that feels humiliating even though no one is watching. At least in France and Spain they have toilet paper. In Morocco, you need to either bring your own, or use your hand like the locals. Most hotels and hostels will still have the good ol’ westernised “throne toilets”, though. Another pointer in Morocco involves mandatory tipping of someone standing at the entrance to the loos. If you leave the toilet at a fast pace and don’t make eye contact with them, you’ll probably get away with not paying, but if they do corner you, only give to someone that actually looks like a cleaner, because I was convinced half of the “toilet attendants” I saw were probably just some guy that realised it was a good way to make money for nothing.


Nat and I enjoying some "free" mint tea.

5) Be wary of hospitality as you make the transition from Europe into Morocco. During your travels through France and Spain, you’ll most likely be offered a place to stay or a free meal every now and then, so once you get to Morocco, it’s easy to still expect to be able to trust people like this. However, things are different in Morocco. If someone invites you to their home, introduces you to their family, provide you with a slap up meal, they are probably trying to gain your trust so that they can con the crap out of you.

The most common scam you may encounter: If anyone implies that you’ll be shunned in certain parts of the country unless you are wearing traditional Moroccan clothing, you should be instantly sceptical. You can get away with wearing the same clothing you do in England, with perhaps the exception of a bikini, in all but the most rural, conservative areas. Even then, just wear longer, baggier clothing and you’ll be fine. If you do plan on buying some Moroccan clothes anyway, buy them from a shop, not these con artists who will try and charge huge amounts from you. Remember that even the highest quality Moroccan robes should cost you no more than 200 Dirham.

6) Lastly, when you get to Morocco, you may have left little time for yourself to enjoy the place. We saved some time and money by using night coaches to travel between the cities we wanted to see, instead of travelling during the day and paying to sleep in hostels. Just remember that none of the coaches have toilets on board, so be sure to go before you leave to avoid embarrassing situations. You should also bear in mind, the duration of the excursions that you may want to go on when you get to Marrakesh, particularly the trips into the desert, which usually are at least two full days due to the driving time to get you out there and back. Trips to see the waterfalls and valleys in the Atlas Mountains take one full day.

So there we have it. Armed with this knowledge, your Hitch should be less frustrating than ours. I wish all future hitchers the absolute best of luck. Also I wanted to mention, thanks to the donations of £5 from Mr Isaac Ray and £32 from Baa, Sharda, Dilip and Aan of the Davé family, while I was off on my Hitch, I've now raised a tremendous £555.37 for Link Community Development. I'd like to thank you guys for your generosity. Anyone that would still like to donate to this very worthy cause can still click here to do so.

Tuesday 26th - The Final Day

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 15:55:00 +0000

I heard Aguet come in last night, so was unnerved to find she wasn't here when I woke up and she'd taken all of her stuff while we were asleep. Nat spent most of the morning convincing me to go off on the excursion and leave her to find the sisters, even though I was concerned that I wouldn't be back in time for my flight. I'd wanted to spend my last day with Aguet and Nat whom had spent the last week driving me crazy and keeping me sane, respectively. Nat may have been unhappy that Aguet and I were leaving today and she was staying and that I seemed less concerned than when I thought Aguet would be the last of us to leave, but I explained that Nat can take any rapist or murderer in a fight and she would be fine. I already miss her endless sarcasm and mean sense of humour.

I went on the excursion with Allegra and Katherine, two hitchers I'd met last night and some other random tourists, a French couple who kept to themselves and two elderly British women on holiday who were quite cool. On the three hour trip out, we had to listen to the driver's CDs. Moroccan music is not good music. The waterfall and valley was an awesome place! We toured around the area for a couple of hours and grew insanely jealous of people who got to stay in the camp site there. The girls went swimming in one of the pools for a while, I hid in the shade like the pale, soulless ginger that I am and we got plenty of photos of the falls and the monkeys inhabiting the area.

As we left, I was more and more concerned about the time. This was going to be a close one. I arrived back in town and power-walked to the hostel to collect my stuff, bumping into Nat on the way to my taxi. She'd just come from a rather awkward spa-treatment of some kind to say goodbye.

This is where the horrible begins. Firstly, I urge you to never ever ever book yourself a Ryanair flight, regardless of how cheap it seems, you will regret it. I would be incredibly happy for the airline to go bankrupt and for all of their useless staff to lose their jobs and die of the resulting starvation. I arrived at the airport and already know the drill; check your luggage and collect your boarding pass by showing your passport and booking reference at the correct desk. Only with Ryanair, you can print off your boarding pass at home and if you don't, they charge you €40 for the excruciating effort and tremendous resources it takes for them to do it for you. When deciding which of my luggage to check, I opted to take my tent on as hand luggage due to its more convenient shape and size, only to find that tents are considered to be deadly weapons aboard a plane. The idiot security guard kept telling me to go and check it, which it was now too late to do, but wouldn't let me leave it and seemed determined to make me miss my flight by only offering a single impossible option. Eventually, his boss told him he was a dick-head with all the common sense of a piece of belly-button fluff (at least that's what I hope was said, I don't speak the language) and permitted me the privilege of abandoning my expensive tent to the whim of some moron in an airport.

Livid with how my short time in the airport had gone, we then had to sprint across the runway, only just making the plane as they were closing the doors. On board the worst plane I've ever been on, I looked for things to steal that might even the score of the €40 they had earlier stolen from me, but the staff didn't have the wherewithal to stock up up on stuff for the passengers even to buy, running out of food and drinks as the trolley made it only half way down the isle. I sat for four hours, marvelling at the incompetence of the crew in their dealings with the other passengers, until the end of the flight when we were subjected to what I wasn't sure whether it was the most appalling, bumpiest landing of all time; or the mildest, smoothest aircraft crash of all time.

On the ground, we were taken aside by security, because as a black chick and an unwashed, unshaven, hoodie wearing guy that looked far too pale to be arriving from Africa, I imagine the woman thought she was in for a jackpot of a drug bust. I had to disappoint her by showing her my charity T-shirt. She didn't even bother searching us.

I hugged Aguet goodbye and sent her on her way to Cardiff. My coach to Manchester is in six hours, so I'll be spending the night in this bus stop.

Monday 25th - The Hitchhikers' Dinner

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 17:15:00 +0000

By now, I'd been trying to sleep unsuccessfully on night coaches for three days, so when we arrived at our hostel in Marrakesh at 6 AM, we checked in and slumped into our beds until about 11 AM. We then rendezvoused with Aguet's sister, Adau, who is also on the Hitch and explored the town for a few hours. Nat and I tired of browsing the shops quite quickly and parted with the two sisters to search for excursions into the desert that we could set up for ourselves. In one twenty-minute period we kept bumping into other hitchers, so we had the idea of exchanging phone numbers and inviting them and any hitchers they find over the course of the day to come for a big group meal in the town square at eight-thirty this evening.

Later, we texted around a meeting place and waited for people to show up. Forty-five minutes later, there were about twenty of us all sat at a restaurant, swapping stories. It turns out that most of them had to resort to cheating over Easter weekend, which was reassuring to find that it isn't just us that are crap. Another reassurance was that it wasn't only us to fall victim to the expensive caftan with hospitality scam in Tangier. After paying for the meal, we all went up to the rooftop of someone's hostel to continue chatting and planned going on an excursion to a waterfall in a valley of the Atlas Mountains, as many of us had arrived in Marrakesh too late to have time for the trek out into the desert that would take two full days.

As the night wound down, Aguet went to help her sister Adau move hostels and Nat and I went to bed.

Sunday 24th - A Tale of Two Cities

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 17:00:00 +0000

We sleepwalked out of the coach station at 5 AM onto the streets of Casablanca. It both smells and looks like a very poorly maintained public toilet. We'd heard there was only one thing worth seeing here, the mosque. After a while of walking, we arrived at dawn and marvelled at the gigantic, beautiful building. Maybe the city in which it is situated is kept looking like a hole in the ground simply so that this building would look even better by comparison. It is huge, inside and out and none of the photos I took do it justice at all.

A heavy downpour assaulted us from above, so we got a taxi back to the coach station and left for Fes. On the coach, I was awoken by Aguet trying to quietly steal my almost empty bottle of water, which she needed for reasons I wished had remained unspoken. As we got off of the coach, however, hilarity ensued when Nat and I saw Aguet struggling with an awkward change to her outfit that she was doing her best to prevent falling down. When we learned it was all because she had splashed herself during the aforementioned unspoken activity, we couldn't stop laughing for ten minutes.

Fes was a great, traditional looking city, famous for its Medina, which consisted of a massive maze of stalls and shops peddling all kinds of wares. We also saw a large tannery, where all of the leather was produced and a textile mill with a loom, which reminded us of the film, 'Wanted'. Other than shopping, though, there really isn't much to do in this city either, so now we're off again on another night coach to Marrakesh, where there is hopefully a bed awaiting us.

Saturday 23rd - Karma

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 23:14:00 +0000

The ferry across the Strait was cool. We got a good view of the Rock of Gibraltar from the top deck and we met two more hitchers. At some point in the voyage, there must have been a barely audible announcement that we ignored, because just as our cheapened victory drew near, we weren't allowed off of the ferry since our passports hadn't been stamped during the journey across. We had to wait an hour and a half for the police officer to return to do twenty seconds of pointless bureaucracy, during which time we'd lost track of the other hitchers with whom we were planning to tag along.

Once we had arrived in Tangier, our luck seemingly changed when we bumped into a nice man who recognised our Hitch T-shirts and went on about how good a cause it is and invited us back to his home for dinner. Unable to subtly convince Aguet of how bad an idea it was as he led us into a rather sketchy looking housing estate, Nat and I prepared ourselves for a trap. Fortunately, a fight in an alley against muggers never came and we enjoyed some outstanding mint tea and lamb tagine. He'd spent a while showing us photos of other hitchers and travellers from all over, some keepsakes they had given him like white boards used as hitching signs and notes they had written and signed, thanking him.

We got onto talking about our plans and that we were heading to Casablanca to see the giant mosque. As politely as he could, he informed us that we would be treated like crap there, wearing western clothing, and would be much safer and more respected in more traditional, Moroccan robes. We had all been thinking of buying some as souvenirs for people back home and were a little shocked to hear they would cost us equivalent to £70. Fortunately, his wife knew someone that made them and could pick some up for us for half that price.

After dinner, his daughter came in to practice her henna tattoos on the girls. He kept us entertained with his impressions of various western celebrities and singing Arabic versions of western songs until the henna was finished. This was when the mood turned. Out of the blue, he tries to charge the girls £20 each for their henna, which we knew was a horrific rip off and made us edge toward the exit. After the goodbyes, we started to realise what had just happened. Back at the coach station, the girls tried out the robes we had bought and received nothing but laughter from the locals. We were informed they were men's clothing, but what's worse, with their weird pointy hoods, they also looked a lot like KKK outfits. I finally asked the guy behind the station desk how much he thought the robes were worth. Equivalent to £8. I think Aguet lost a lot of faith in humanity that night. I'm not sure Nat or I had much to begin with, so we weren't phased too hard.

Nat has come up with a way to save time and hostel money, by using night coaches between cities. Right now, we're on our way to Casablanca for the morning, though I'm not convinced of my ability to sleep on coaches after the one from Madrid.

Friday 22nd - The Crushing Defeat

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 22:48:00 +0000

Today we were greeted with terrible weather, but more importantly, when we walked back to the slip road to Madrid near the shopping complex, it was dead and the complex was closed. An unrealised omen of things to come. Back at the hotel, the girls went to pester people in the car park, while I guarded the bags. After only twenty minutes, they returned with two guys, an English and a Danish student on placement in Spain, having a weekend off. Jamie and Kien were more than happy to drive us all the way to Madrid for some petrol money, but waived that clause when they found out it was for charity.

We were over the moon to be in Madrid so early in the day, but even though we'd been dropped in a bad hitching place, found that nothing mattered any more. As we began the long walk across the city to somewhere we could find a lift, it became apparent that Easter, being the Pagan holiday of fertility and sex, had screwed us. Madrid, the capital of not a small country, was a ghost town. It was like the scene in '28 Days Later', where Cillian Murphey strolls across an empty London, searching for any sign of life. Any car we did see was full of families and people thought we were a joke for trying. When we realised why this was happening, we considered cheating without yet committing, but found that due to Easter, if we weren't on the south coast by tomorrow, we won't even be able to pay for a lift.

More walking and thinking, it hit me that if we didn't cheat, we'd be stranded in Madrid until at least Monday and my flight is on Tuesday. We discussed our options for a while, tired from the hours of crossing the city on foot, and gradually came to a horrid consensus. We group hugged and agreed: this is the end of our hitch.

At the coach station, we encountered more hitchers that came to the same decision, Rory and Sam. We all caught the same night bus to Algeciras where we'll catch a ferry in the morning.

Thursday 21st - North of Spain

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 07:48:00 +0000

Today was much like our first day in France. We managed to hitch only short haul rides, but quite a few that added up to a lot of covered ground, somewhere around 250 km. We began by trying to hitch from Vielha to Lleida, our first lift being from Roman, who was transporting his elderly father home to the next town about 40 km down the road. He placed us in a lay by, where we soon had an interesting argument with a police officer regarding the legitimacy of hitch-hiking in Spain. Fortunately, we carried with us a letter from one Bryony Hutt back at Hitch HQ that made her quickly shut up and pester someone else.

Our second lift was from two awesome hippies, Kaymy and Hannah, who made it clear that they weren't sleeping together, in spite of appearances. He spoke pretty good English and when not on holiday, works as a tour guide around the whole of Spain for coach-loads of tourists. This came in handy when pointing out things of note and interest throughout the most beautiful 50 km of our journey so far.

Another lay by in a village, we were waiting for a couple of hours for a lift, turning down a ride from two guys that wanted us to pay them €100 to be driven the rest of the way to Lleida! A taxi would have been cheaper. We were eventually saved by Pedro, an elderly workman with a van that smelt like meths and every surface was covered with some kind of white dust. Aguet took up her usual role of entertaining the driver, but every time she spoke, Pedro turned to look at her, pulling on the wheel and almost swerving into oncoming traffic each time. Nat and I became very aware that we didn't have seat belts, so Aguet thought it was a good idea to stop talking. He dropped us in a better direction than Lleida, at a service station on the way to Huesca, where Jesus picked us up, speaking impeccable English and toting an incredibly comfortable car. He took us the rest of the way to Huesca.

At the petrol station we were dropped off, I saw an opportunity to shed some of the vast amount of change I've accumulated by only paying with notes like an idiot. Nat and I bought some Calypsos, spent a few minutes counting out the amount in small coins, when the clerk pushed the change and follies back at us, saying something that implied he'd rather give away free stock than have to count the pile we had stacked.

Carole finally picked us up and took us to a huge shopping complex just off the motorway near Zaragoza, where we tried in vain to hitch somewhere more convenient in the failing light. With nowhere around to camp, surrounded by motorway, I felt we had no choice but to check into a nearby hotel. It looked far too luxury for our own good, but turned out to cost about the same as the toilet we stayed in Toulouse. Except this time, we were greeted with perks such as WiFi and a bidet, the latter of which, I'm almost afraid to try and use.

So far we've had nineteen lifts (not including the ride with the officers) and are well on our way into the heart of Spain.

Wednasday 20th - Pyrenees, Spain's Crumple Zones

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 22:41:00 +0000

When we awoke, our wonderfully hippie hosts made us some breakfast and tea, before driving us out to "the best place to hitch to Spain". We were there for two hours with no luck for any destination. After walking for a while, we were picked up and taken to the next town. Still no luck for Spain, so we hitch-hiked slightly closer. Stranded, we were genuinely considering walking through the mountain range that separated us from our destination. After a while of walking, Aguet fell behind and found some Spanish hearse drivers that put us on the right road. It's odd being squashed in the back of a large hearse, knowing a corpse usually sits there.

By now, though, I was really starting to lose hope of reaching Spain tonight. Hitching in a mountain range was certainly made better by the outstanding scenery, but the sun was setting and we had only managed a couple of pigeon-step lifts. Just as I was eyeing up a nice bit of scenery to ruin with our tents, we finally got a lift heading to a small town just inside of the Spanish boarder, Vielha. We jumped out of the car, thanked our driver, Mark and his passenger, Roland and marched to the nearest field, just in time to put our tents up as the stars were beginning to show.

Now that we've finally made it to our next country, I'm feeling far more positive than only a couple of hours ago. I was starting to think we would never get out of France.

Tuesday 19th - The Inescapable City

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 22:21:00 +0000

Before arriving in France, I was warned by people that the northerners are as rude and unhelpful as londoners, whereas the southerners are far more laid back and cooperative. Bollocks. Upon leaving our hotel, we were forced to walk for miles to the various junctions of the orbital motorway, testing each one for an age to see if anyone was heading in put direction. It didn't matter what our sign read or where we were, the people of Toulouse just wouldn't help us. Except for Jean, who at least gave us a ride to the motorway toll station. After this, we realised exactly how unhelpful people were. Every single person passing us were heading through where we needed to go, but none cared until brothers, Gail and Yuan picked us up. They took us to their awesome organic farm where they demonstrated amazing hospitality. Gail's girlfriend, Estelle, cooked us dinner, Gail gave us a tour and Yuan spent the whole time hitting on Aguet, while Nat and I amused ourselves. These guys have travelled the world, especially Yuan who does humanitarian and eco-activism work in the Amazon. We had a really chilled out evening and rolled out our sleeping bags in their spare room.

Monday 18th - Full Swing

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 22:03:00 +0000

Once again, we were very lucky in getting a lift within half an hour of our start to the day. Marion, a student on her way to an exam she was worried about, unfortunately dropped us off at an unimaginably quiet turnpike. After two hours of no luck, stranded, we decided to walk down the motorway to the next junction, convinced there was no chance a police car could possibly pass us during the three hours the trek was predicted to take.

A police car ride and an €11 fine later and we were at a service station. Believe it or not, it wasn't even close to being the most expensive taxi fare I've ever had. Marie was next to pick us up. She is a cosmetics sales woman, who had a very long drive ahead of her, scoffing at our lack of ambition when asking to go to Bordeaux, she took us all the way to Toulouse. We were desperate to keep her entertained for the whole four hours, but she didn't speak a word of English, so it was exhausting. Aguet has really helped with the hitch-hiking, knowing a little more French than Nat and me, plus her ability to just keep trying really keeps the drivers happy.

In Toulouse, we were dropped into the town centre by Mahmoud, who showed us where all the cheap hotels are and which streets have too many prostitutes to safely walk down. At one point, Nat and I thought we had lost Aguet and began genuinely considering calling the police when we couldn't reach her on her phone and she wasn't where she said she was going when we searched for her. After about an hour, she sauntered back to the rendezvous point, where we should have met her after 15 minutes, with a McDonald's in hand.

We've explored a bit and plan on doing so more in the morning before we head south into Spain. We know even less Spanish than French, so that should be interesting. For now, though, bed.

Sunday 17th - The First Day

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 20:03:00 +0000

Aguet and I collected Nat from Fareham, where she'd found a driveway courtesy of my Grandmother in which to park her car for the duration, in the dead of night last night. She was pretty spaced from her busy day and long drive that she almost left her sleeping bag and half her clothes in her car. We set off back to my mother's place for a nice, healthy, five hours of restless sleep before being required to get up and go to catch our ferry. Once there, I was almost arrested for trying to declare a kind of pen knife, allegedly illegal in the UK (available from all good camping and tackle shops for the low price of £10). We boarded the ferry, said farewell to Britain and said hello to a horrid retail manager, eager to show her hatred of all LCD hitchers, of whom she'd obviously seen too many this month.

Once in France, we discovered that no lorries were permitted on the roads on Sundays, so long haul lifts were less likely. Never the less, we've managed to cover good ground, hitching five rides today. The first, Vincent, didn't understand at all what we were doing and dropped us where he thought we wanted to go, the train station in Caen. The second, Emmanuel, was a man whose wife saw us and dragged him out of his house to take us to the nearest helpful motorway. Phillipe, the third lift, took us most of the way to Rennes on his way home, before we were picked up at the service station by the legendary Yvon. He was our longest lift, taking us well out of his way and knowing no English, he found our attempts at French hilarious. We felt we had to buy him dinner at the service station he dropped us on the way to Nantes, but he only accepted a coffee. Our final lift of the day, another Phillipe, drove us from the station to Nantes, where we are now. We've set up a campsite in a scenic dog walking area, ignorant of whether or not we're allowed. It all begins again tomorrow.

On another note; Aguet, Nat and I are getting on well, but I'm far too tired to continue writing.

Calm Before the Storm

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 21:03:00 +0000

I’ve made it to Hampshire, albeit later than expected. Megabus has never been the choice mode of transport for people that need to stick to a tight schedule. It would definitely have been quicker to hitchhike down to meet Aguet and Nat, if only the LCD rules didn’t explicitly forbid hitching on your own. My mother was here to greet me with the obligatory amount of love and then I slumped straight into bed for the night. My brother and Sej paid me a visit today, taking one last look at the endangered species. We rarely get together as a family anymore, so we also went to see my grandmother. Thanks to my mother and grandmother’s concern for my well being, my wallet now bulges with a hundred euros, which should last me the whole trip through France and Spain… which is nice.

This afternoon I headed over to the train station to pick up Aguet, who has been pretty cool and is getting on incredibly well with my family. It was a bit of a mad dash to get an extra tent before the camping shop closed once I’d texted and found that we would all three be sharing my two man tent, otherwise. I’m looking forward to meeting Nat when I collect her later this evening. Tomorrow could well be one of the strangest days of my life. We’re due to get up at 5 AM tomorrow morning to catch our ferry to Caen. After that, who knows?

I’ll be attempting to update this blog as much as possible while I’m travelling (hopefully daily, except fate normally hates me). I’ve added a new page to this website for those that want to keep track of me. A map with my current location, as well as any photos I manage to upload can be found by following the link at the top of the side bar, or alternatively by clicking here. Aguet, Nat and I can also be followed on the Official Hitch Tracking System TM. Lastly, remember to subscribe and donate any spare bank balances you may have.

£500!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 00:16:00 +0000

Woo! I’ve hit my target! This was courtesy of my reasonably okay-ish brother, Mark and all around awesome person, Sej. Fortunately, though, since they’re engaged, Sej’s awesomeness bleeds over to my brother too, I guess. They donated the hearty sum of £64.78 to raise my collected funds to an even £500, but the round number didn’t last for long. As you may recall, way back during the Bronze Age, Steph and I ventured to Manchester to take part in a street collection. Well I finally found out that my share of the fundraising came to £18.37, bringing the total up to £518.37, just in case you’re terrible at maths. With all things considered, I’ve raised my target to £650, which I hope to achieve before the deadline on June the 15th.

I’ve only a week to go, now. On Friday, I’ll be heading south ready to rendezvous with Aguet and Nat next weekend. I feel that no amount of preparing will dismiss this sense of being so unprepared. I’m still a little anxious at the thought of trying to pull over random strangers and requesting they drive me somewhere for free. I still remember the shock when I picked up my first hitchhiker, who just opened my car door while I was stopped at traffic lights and asked if I could give him a lift across town to the train station. I was so surprised and confused at the strangeness of the situation, that I would have given him the car keys had he asked. Although hilarious, finding videos like this one on Youtube may not be the best medicine.

Charlie has made good progress in the last week. His group is now in the south of Spain staying with a relative of one of his group, before they make the final leap into Morocco. His group can be followed here. Admittedly, I really should have posted this link last week. I’ll post again before I set off to remind everyone, but here is the link that you can use to follow me on the map once I’ve set off. If you wish, you can still sponsor me and subscribe to posts, which I will attempt to continue updating during my hitch, daily or whenever I’m at a service station with internet.

Charlie Sets Off

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 00:34:00 +0000

Busy couple of weeks with Uni stuff, but all the same, Charlie and I went out on a collection run around the pubs of Preston. “You won’t get much” I claimed, “It’s been months since the last student loans were dished out. Unless we somehow accept credit cards, then your collection is doomed!” That night I helped Charlie raise £118.69, which shows what I know and as you may recall, is slightly higher than the figure that Steph and I raised several weeks before, back when the students were rich. JEALOUS MUCH? Anyway, I opted not to take a cut, as Charlie is incredibly behind with his fundraising, considering he’s a first year, meaning he has no exams and an overabundance of free time that he currently uses to ensure his daily ration of twelve hours sleep. Again. Not jealous.

I did want to make special mention of the following noteworthy legend. As you may recall from when Steph and I went on our pub collection, my heart imploded and I needed to be rushed to the "Lame Pansy" ward of the Royal Preston Hospital to be slapped over and over until I was a stiff-upper-lip-wielding man again. It was all due to Lee, the outdoor dwelling gent who was amazing enough to insist on donating all of his money to the cause. He was just as generous with me and Charlie. This time, determined not to lose him, Charlie ran back home and grabbed a blanket for him, while I went and bought him and some of his friends dinner. If you ever happen to be walking down Friargate in Preston and pass this guy as he sits and plays his flute, I beg you to buy him a meal. He deserves his own Wikipedia page.

Just don't pet the dog unless you love a good mauling

In other news Charlie sets off on his Hitch today with his partners from Leeds, so wish them luck. Unbelievably, they are planning to hitch not just to Morocco, but all the way back again. I now have two new partners, which is incredibly relieving. Aguet at Cardiff University, who is a fellow film obsessive and Nat in Plymouth, who has promised to bring cake, so they’re both awesome in my book. None of us will meet until the day we set off, so I’m expecting it to be surreal.

I received an online donation of £25 from an “anonymous” donor, who doesn’t want their name broadcast, whose name may or may not be an anagram of “A Banged Bean”. Thanks to your amazing donation, my total sponsorship raised is now £435.22, rapidly approaching my £500 target. If you wish to help me get there, please click here. If you’d like to stay in the loop, please jab the ol’ mouse here.

Health and Safety Briefing

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 14:43:00 +0000

Last week, Charlie and I rocked down to Manchester to attend one of the all important safety briefings. I knew I had to drag Charlie with me, as he would have slept through and missed all the briefings, otherwise. The whole thing was mostly to appease LCD’s insurance company, which means it was an obligatory legal formality that was completely unnecessary red tape. We were kinda hoping we would all head to the pub afterwards, but the briefing pretty much wiped us all out. Look! Check out how bored everyone was especially Deme and Harriet, who blatantly didn’t want to be as patronising as the insurance company mandated them to be.

It could have been worse. Rebecca Black could have been playing over the PA.

I’ve still not found myself any Steph replacements, so if anyone is heading off around the 16^th, feel free to join me. You can also help out by clicking here or keep abreast of the situation by clicking here.

The Aftermath

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 14:19:00 +0000

Ah, sweet professionalism. If only Charlie and I had some. After the gig we put on at The Ship Inn, who wouldn’t want us to organise future events for them?...Other than anyone without a mental disorder, obviously; and to be fair, even most that do would have better common sense.

It all started with hope. We had spent the day before preparing and hoped that what we had done would be adequate. After borrowing the sound equipment and drum kit from the university, we discovered that there were no drum cymbals. Charlie then phoned around all of his music contacts looking for anyone willing to lend some and after a couple of hours, found someone... in the next city over, Blackpool. Off we popped and a few hours later we were back, complete with a set of shiny drum cymbals. That weren’t shiny. And looked older than I do. Covered with rust. Okay, it turned out that the guy had to fish them out of his damp, rickety garden shed, where they had been kept for the last few years and again, we really hoped they would be okay.

You can smell the tetanus

Once we got rolling on the day, all of the hoping paid off. Sat watching what I was beginning to assume was going to be a disaster, my grief was suddenly interrupted by a random guy asking if I was the organiser and if he could play. Once Charlie and I had finished high-fiving like the cool kids that we genuinely believe we are, we set him up with a set of a few songs, after which the night almost turned open-mike. A gig that, by all rights, should have been appalling ended up being pretty cool and we had more acts than we knew what to do with.

After hearing a recording of his own voice for the first time, Moke spent the night thinking he sounded terrible, but was probably the best singer there.

We wandered around the bar every now and then with our Hitch bucket, enlisting the help of new friend Alice Mack, whose name reminded me of a show I watched as a kid, “Alex Mack”, to help us with her feminine touch to charm more money out of people. We had raised £104.41 by the end of the night, £25 of which was donated by the Ship Inn probably out of sympathy for how worried we were throughout the night. £52.20 was the share I walked away with.

The Curiosity Shop only wanted to please the ladies

Marvellously, I have also received two online donations this week! £10 from the awesome Nicola Tyrell, who I really don’t see often enough; and another £10 from a wonderful friend that wishes to remain anonymous, who I recently learnt would have been the perfect Hitch partner if only I had told her before the registration deadline that I needed one. C'est la vie. This makes the total amount you’ve helped me raise £410.22. Still no news on the money raised all those weeks ago in the streets of Manchester as LCD HQ are far too busy right now for me to want to pester them and the Hitch Reps won’t reply to my emails. I’m starting to think I’ll never find out, but I’ve got a safety briefing with them tomorrow, so I’ll have to do the old rugby tackle and “stop hitting yourself” until they tell me (or I would if I wasn’t such a wuss).

Funnyman, Lewis Costello struggling to cope with the crap we kept leaving on stage. A cunning man would have faked a fall and sued us.

Anywho, thanks to all of the acts (Moke, The Curiosity Shop, The Pretty Thunder, Lewis Costello and random open mike people) that helped to make the night a lot of fun, with special thanks to The Ship Inn for putting up with us. It’s also worth mentioning that Charlie has just started an interesting blog documenting his quest to complete a list of truly stupid and crazy things over the next year, which you can check out by clicking here. If you are interested in staying up to date with my Hitch, please click here, and if you wish to help with the fundraising, please click here.

Balls

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 03:47:00 +0000

Bad times, guys; I am once more without a partner. The news that Steph no-longer wants to go at all was broken to me via an out-of-the-blue text message and threw a spanner into my best laid plans. Of course I immediately tried to talk her out of quitting, but her mind is pretty made up thanks to her chronically worrying parents that fear for the safety of their young daughter for some reason, I think she got cold feet and the two-day-long peaceful protests in Morocco earlier this week, that were reported in the news as if they were going to be the start of a months long civil war, were the last straw. Raise your hand if you think the nation of Morocco should sue the media for libel, since they knew damned well that what they were reporting was bullshit that could damage Morocco’s tourism trade? Anyway, naturally when Steph refused to be convinced, I had no choice but to throttle her.

Her taunting, grinning face still haunts me at night... Usually on nights when we play drinking games

So, now that I’ve established myself as a completely non-violent, reasonable person, who wants to be my new partner?! I’m looking to leave from somewhere in the region of Manchester preferably on the 16th or 17th of April and my flight back to England is booked for the 26th of April. Email me if you’re in need of an extra group member. If you haven’t booked your flight back yet, Steph might be able to get her ticket transferred to your name. As for partners, I hear that hitching groups with more than one guy are far less likely to be picked up, so it’s girls or pairs of girls that still need a male partner only, I’m afraid.

The gig on Saturday is rapidly approaching, and being that arty types are largely unpredictable, Mobius Loop have pulled out. Fortunately, Charlie has already organised an even better band, that totally play instruments and everything, to replace them for you. The lineup now consists of The Pretty Thunder, The Curiosity Shop and Moke ‘n’ Libby with Comedian Lewis Costello presenting the night, which should be sweet. As for other fundraising efforts, still no news yet on the street collection last Wednesday, but all the same, a special thanks to Mancunians around their city centre on the Wednesday before last, Harriet Beaverstock and her Hitch reps for organising the whole thing. Flaunting their wonderful city in front of someone forced to live in Preston was mildly cruel, though. For future cash gathering, as you may have discerned from my comment exchange with fellow Hitcher, Simon after my last post; I’m now planning to make and sell pancakes on the Central Lancashire campus, complete with a selection of toppings on Shrove Tuesday, which is coming up on the 8th of March. Everybody loves pancakes... you know, except vegans... so I’m mentioning this quite early to give anyone having difficulty with their fundraising a chance to steal the idea and plan their own sale. If you do, it would be cool for you to give me some recognition; mention me on your own website if you have one, write a link to this website on your forehead while you sell your pancakes, scream my name the next time you’re with your lover, whatever’s good for you.

As usual, click here to stay updated, any donations of any size can be made by clicking here, and if you live near Preston, don’t forget to show up today (Saturday 26th) at the Ship Inn at about 7:30 this evening for awesome music, hilarious comedy and intoxicating booze.

Street Collection

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 20:06:00 +0000

If the ailing airline carriers can afford to fly me between airports for 13 pence per kilometre, even though it takes far more staff, security, fuel, maintenance and general effort in the airports and in the air aboard the plane itself, than to run... say a train and the stations it would stop at along the way, why is it that train companies think they have any right to charge me in the region of 25 pence per kilometre to use their grimy service? These were exactly my thoughts when I decided not to pay for my train to Manchester Piccadilly on Wednesday.

Steph and I rendezvoused with Harriet and a dozen other Hitchers headquartered in a BHS café in Manchester city centre complete with Hitch T-shirts and flyers. We picked up our collection buckets and wandered into the unfamiliar street to look for a place that wasn’t already occupied by a charity worker, whom I imagined, were all equipped with weapons for just such a competition. I always feel incredibly rude when I find myself being dismissive of people asking me for money in the high street. I never really realised just how much the general public hate being asked for a trace amount of altruism. Between having to listen to people offended at the concept of a charity that works for foreigners, the angry ranting of the ignorant that seem to think that the economic problems of this country are even remotely comparable to those of a third world country, and the racist that said he always helps out his own people back in Africa, before derisively accusing me of being somehow personally responsible for the slave trade that occurred almost two centuries before my birth; there were quite a few great people I got to meet around the town.

Surprisingly, we met quite a few Hitchers from previous years that stopped for a chat, they wouldn’t let me convince them to do the Hitch again, but it was really cool talking to someone who had been in my shoes. Steph really built up her confidence, speaking to all of these complete strangers for a few hours, and we had some fun walking around looking for people who look generous. We came up with the mnemonic: “If he’s wearing a tie, he’d rather you die.” because business men were the worst. They try their absolute hardest not to acknowledge your existence even when you’re running alongside them shouting the name on the corporate ID card hanging around their neck.

Again, I’ve been incredibly absent minded and it didn’t occur to me to take any photos of the whole thing, so I’m going to have to find a way to remind myself in future. I also have no idea how much we raised. The reps are counting it up and sending it off and will let me know soon, so if you want to find out, you should probably click here to subscribe. Hitch registration is now closed, but any help raising funds is still more than welcome.

So Lazy

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 18:46:00 +0000

I haven't gotten around to doing any fundraising this week, which wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact I haven't done anything else either. Only sixty-four days left until Steph and I venture out into a world that the news would have us believe is full of serial killers that would love nothing better than to harvest our organs and sell them to MacDonald’s. Hitch 2011 will hopefully prove all those reputable newspapers and the Daily Mail wrong by providing me with examples of people who are “not evil”; and I would count every lift I get that doesn’t try to rape me as one of those “good” people that you never hear about. I haven’t seen Steph at all, this week and I’m starting to miss her crazy drunken cackle. As we’ve only got about two months before we set off, I’m starting to think she and I should really start planning a bit more, especially after someone asked us if we wanted to visit the Atlas Mountains and I said “yes”, which caused Steph to give me a look that implied she would be the one to kill me on this trip. A get together to discuss what we’ll do with any free time in Morocco is in order.

One thing I have thought about. I’ve discovered a website called “Stuff Your Rucksack” which has needy schools and the like registered with them worldwide so that if you are ever passing through a country, you can check if there are any little things you can do to help. There’s only one place registered in Morocco, which is an orphanage/school which apparently needs stationary, games and sports equipment, so I think we’ll try to make the effort to pay them a visit with some pens and footballs. If any other Hitchers would like to do the same, I’m sure they would be extremely grateful.

You can't go to a third-world country and not visit an orphanage.

I’m pretty sure we have everything finalised for the Ship Inn Hitch gig. Our posters and flyers (courtesy of Print and Design Services, Central Lancashire’s own University print shop in Chandler Building, who offered an amazing rate in return for me promoting them a bit, even though they already have the lowest prices and this kind of advertising always makes me need to shower, but for these guys, anything) are done, all the bands are finalised, and Charlie and I now have a comedian to present the night, so it should be hilarious as well as too loud for my old bones.

I’m told that Monday the 14th February is the last chance to register to Hitch 2011, this time. Though I’m starting to think they’ll just keep extending the deadline every week ad-infinitum. However there is no deadline to register for updates from me or to become a sponsor.

Lots to Say (in limerick to express happiness)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 15:40:00 +0000

I’ve been far too busy this week
fundraising events of which to speak
I stood up in a crowd
raised eighty-eight pound
which is pretty much life at its peak.

As the lecture drew itself to a close
and Dr Chris Atherton finished her prose
I went down to the front
and began with a grunt
told the audience what I propose.

After several seconds of blinking
the crowd cried “have you been drinking?
Unless you guys fly
you’re likely to die
what the bloody hell were you thinking?”

But sway them I did with my speech
as they left they gave handfuls of change each
“Good luck!” they each said
pat me on my head
imagining my corpse would wash up on a beach.

The next day I was at Steph’s place preparing
made bracelets from elastic and ball-bearings
we’d also bought lolly-pops
to stuff into patrons’ chops
as reward for donations they gave if unsparing.

Our spirits were particularly high
we’d found pub landlords happy to comply
but as we headed out
realised no-one was about
and sponsorship seemed hard to come by.

Irrespective of this customer shortfall
we visited eight bars in all
it rained and was cold
the bucket was heavy with gold
we made over one-hundred quid this pub-crawl.

On our way home we were shocked
at the generosity of the hard-knocked
an old toothless gent
sitting on the pavement
gave us all of his change, my heart rocked.

Crap! I forgot to get a picture for my website again. Quick, hold all this stuff for a second and pose!

Special thanks to Dr Chris Atherton and all the students in PS2500 for helping me raise £88.50 on Tuesday. Also thanks go out to Preston’s The Adelphi, The Bitter Suite, The Dog and Partridge, The Guild, The Lamb and Packet, The Mad Ferret, Source Bar and Roper Hall and all of their patrons and also the amazing itinerant gentleman on Friargate for their generous donations on Wednesday helping Steph and I raise £114.96 between us, £57.48 each. My tutor, Dr Nikola Bridges also deserves a mention for her fantastic sponsorship of £10 online, thank-you very much. This brings my total up to £338.02.

Due to last-minute popular demand, LCD has kept the registration for Hitch open for an extra while. This Monday the 14th of February is the new closing date, so get in there while you still can for the best thing you’ll have done with your life. Keep yourself updated by clicking here, and don’t forget to sponsor me here. Thanks.

Not much to say

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 18:57:00 +0000

I haven't done a great deal towards Hitch recently as I've been focusing more on my assignments and chores, which is kind of a new thing for me. That being said, I still managed to receive a generous sponsorship of £10 from Dan Hooper, friend, film set dogsbody and titan among men. It’s a good thing too, because if I hadn’t, then I’d have nothing to write about and this post would be lost to my bitching about Orange, my mobile phone provider. Seeing as their company is set up throughout France, Spain and Morocco, I asked if they could waive the roaming fees for the trip, as it’s for a good cause. I’d continue, but then I’d have to flagrantly overuse a number of naughty words.


It's like they want me to symbolically wipe my arse with my network provider.

Next week, I have a lot more going on. I plunged myself into a bit of anxiety by agreeing to give a Hitch presentation in front of my biggest audience ever, about four-hundred people. As for Steph, she’s planning on getting up in front of one of her own lectures. She’s a tad worried, but I think she’ll do brilliantly. We’re also going out together on Wednesday to collect in a local shopping centre, assuming the management get back to me on time. Otherwise, it’ll be harassing drunk people in pubs for us.

Total raised for me is now £182.04 which you can add to by clicking here and if you would like to keep up to date, you can click here to do so. Lastly, don't forget that the closing date if you want to do the Hitch is this Tuesday, the 1st of February, so as a toilet cubicle graffiti artist once wrote: "for a good time, call 020 7704 8212".

Shit just got real

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 18:40:00 +0000

Even though Steph and I will be leaving in about twelve weeks time, it suddenly felt a whole lot closer as we sat down to book the tickets for the flight home. Now I can't stop thinking about the fact we'll soon be hitch-hiking about 2000km (or about 1300 miles if your an old person or American) and the simple act of booking the flights kind of woke us up to the fact it really is happening and made us a little anxious. We took forever searching for reasonably priced travel, until eventually found that the best way to do it was to just search for really vague criteria and looked for flights from ANYWHERE in Morocco to ANYWHERE in Britain and we'd just fill in the gaps in the journey with coach rides. I'm starting to wonder how far our money saving ideas will go. We're already planning on camping by the side of the motorway during the nights for the whole journey. This all seems so easy; I'm beginning to wonder what homeless people are complaining about, an insincere inflammatory remark which I can get away with making so long as they don't have internet access.

Anyway, we ended up finding the cheapest flight on skyscanner.net, the website LCD suggested in the first place, but a suggestion we stubbornly failed to heed until last. It's a Ryanair flight that ended up being between Marrakesh and Bristol for about £60 each (£100 including tax and stuff) followed by a Megabus trip from Bristol to Manchester for a tenner each, a massive difference when compared to going from Marrakesh directly to Manchester for around twice that amount. We even considered heading back to Gibraltar and getting a series of trains home, until the website snorted at us "a mode of transport that uses significantly less fuel and fewer staff? For this far less convenient mode of transport we will graciously charge you well over three times the price of your flight." Surely only people deathly terrified of flying would ever agree to that!

It's good stuff. No Battle of the Blands here.

The gig at the Ship Inn is almost all sorted. Only a month until that all happens. Charlie designed the cool poster you see before you, which we will be plastering around the campus and Preston in the next few weeks. So come, drink, listen to good music and in the meantime, you can click the following links to subscribe to these posts and also to sponsor me.

Also, don’t forget that if you are interested taking part in Hitch 2011 yourself, in doing something life affirming and impossibly awesome that also helps other people live better lives too, something that scientists refer to as “freaking bitchin’”, then you only have until the 1st of February only nine days from now, to register!

Student Loan Week!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 17:46:00 +0000

Not for me of course because poor luck stalks me in the streets. Everyone else, however, should now be rich, or at least should be in slightly less overwhelming debt, so fundraising shall begin again shortly. Before you drink it away, or spend it on useless “books” and “knowledge”, why not celebrate your new found wealth by giving generously like my flatmate, Mike Goodwin? Mr Goodwin has sponsored £10, which I appreciate very much, bringing my total up to £172.04. In other fundraising news, the charity gig that myself and Charlie Craven are organising has had a slight setback. Namely, my associate inadvertently booked all of the bands for the wrong month. Fortunately when we went to talk to the guys at the venue, they were more than happy to change their calendar. The gig will be held on Saturday 26th of February at The Ship Inn. Bands will include Mobius Loop, Lupa Tom and Katie Ryan; and although entry is free, we will be wandering around with one of those classy plastic charity buckets, harassing people to part with their hard earned cash, unearned government grants, ill gotten money from grifting, we’re not picky.

After an email from LCD, I’ve been reading through their online Hitch resources, namely the guidelines like the advice for women. Steph is not much of a baggy trousers sort of girl, but I really don’t think she’ll get away with wearing... well this... in a predominantly Muslim country. Also, the guide politely mentions that western women are seen as the sluts of the world by other countries, I hope she doesn’t feel too objectified while she’s there. As for scams that run in Morocco, my huge trust issues ensure that I wouldn’t even trust a Buddhist monk with borrowing fifty pence for a cup of tea, so I think we’ll be fine on that front. My biggest concern is going to be the language barrier when hitching in France and Spain, as I’ve tried learning French on a few occasions for months at a time and been completely unsuccessful. Seriously! What is the deal with inanimate objects being arbitrarily assigned masculine or feminine gender? So I’ll be once more trying to brush up on some phrases and hoping that many of our lifts parler anglais.

Courtesy of lloydjonesalloneword.blogspot.com/

To sign off, since I have no image to include in this post, friend and Illustrator, Lloyd Jones has agreed to supply me with a smattering of his artwork because, well, it’s awesome.
Please sponsor me and subscribe.

Happy New Year!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 19:26:00 +0000

I am sorry about the lack of posts over the last few weeks. I've been busy with the holidays and with any luck, you've been having too much fun to notice I was gone. My new year's resolution is to go a whole year without curing cancer, and to think up a far more reasonable resolution for next year. I'll be heading back to Preston in a few days, which is good news for everyone in the North-West (Shut up! It is!), and to everyone here in the South... Wait, why are you opening that bottle of champagne?

For those too drunk to remember the turn of midnight in London Courtesy of amusingplanet.com

In spite of Xmas being the least sensible time of the year to ask people for money, my Mother, Carol Frances will live forever in legend for sponsoring me with £50, bringing me to the total of £162.04 and putting me ahead of Steph's £140 once more. In your face, partner! (I don't know how much anyone else has raised, so I have no one else to whom I can be a competitive arse) My Mum has also agreed to take a pledge sheet to work and try to gain me some support from the wonderful people she works with at Winchester Hospital.

I hope everyone has a great New Year. If your resolution was to donate more money to charity, then you're in luck! You can just click on the Virgin link in the sidebar :)