Ulaan Bulance

It never used to be this hard to raise a bit of money for charity and have an adventure into the bargain.

Turns out we can't take a car on the rally either. Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? The vision I've had in my mind over the years is a dusty veteran car careering over the desert. But apparently, dem's the rules for the particular rally we're signed up to - all to do with import duty at the border and a vareity of other Mongolian rules apparently. So, we're limited to one of about 3 different types of vehicle, none of which have enough seats for the team. It's not going well. I'm now on the waiting list for the "rival" rally, which has a higher entrance fee but lets - nay, insists - that you take a car with a 1.2L engine or smaller.

We still really want to do something to raise money for charity and figure the only thing we can take which would have room for us all is an ambulance. It appears that this is the vehicle of choice for the charity anyway and most of the website is trying to persuade us that it's 'a good thing'. Typically though, even that has conditions attached - it has to have done less than 65,000 miles. How many ambulances have done that few? We assume if we find one it will be ok to take, and we assume we'll be able to drive it, and we have to assume that in the event of us getting a puncture or dumping it in a ditch, it won't be a complete impossibility to get it fixed...! It does seem that perhaps we're being taken for a bit of a ride and in my lower, more cynical moments it seems like the Mongolian government are taking advantage of our good nature - I can't afford to drive a car less than 10 years old / 90,000 miles on the clock in the UK, never mind buy one with the intention of just giving it away to someone. We've flirted with the option of buying a Toyota Hilux or something and doing a round trip to Mongolia and back (thus avoiding the customs tax for importing into the country), but then it's just a huge road trip and none of us could ask for sponsorship without feeling a bit guilty.

So, err, anyone know an ambulance salesman with no space left on his driveway?

the most spontaneously arranged plans....

no sooner had we decided on a general theme for our fund-raising than those cheeky scamps in the Mongolian government have apparently scuppered our library-driving exploits. It would appear that the only cars that are import tax-exempt are those which are no older than 9 years old, with no more than a meagre 65,000 miles on the clock.

This bumps the price we'd have to pay up by a few grand, and makes it unlikely anyone will see fit to donate a vehicle for us. The rules for 'working vehicles' aren't necessarily as strict in terms of age, but have all sorts of other pre-conditions such as 'there can't be any seats in the back'. So either we try and find the cash for a car that would instantly be probably in the top 50% of vehicles on the road in Britain, or we try and squeeze our threesome into the cab of a Ford Transit or similar for 10,000km.

Needless to say, enthusiasm has taken a bit of a bashing in the last 24 hours. I remain positive and confident we'll find a way round it - a new set of emotions for me - but not entirely sure what that will be.

Buzzin & searchin

There's something about that first hit of red wine in the evening... Instant warm fuzzy loveliness in a glass..

Currently scouring the net for a rally vehicle in my Banrock Station bubble, dinner having been deferred so as not to "ruin the effect of the booze". You can't buy class like that, you have to mature into it.

Our initial gung-ho enthusiasm for pimping a mobile library to take to Mongolia has been tempered by inconvenient truths such as the utter impracticality of trying to take it along roads lacking in tarmac, the fact that some of them weigh about 7 tonnes and have the clearance of a hovercraft (try bungee roping that out of a ditch) and, perhaps most crucially, J's driving licence inexplicably only qualifies her to drive a car or vehicle up to 3.5 tonnes in weight. Not so Lucy and me, for our veteran pre-'97 driving experience means that we can drive any of the following: an electric scooter, a car, a truck under 7.5t, a minibus, a car & trailer, a 7.5t truck & trailer or a minibus & trailer. Not to mention a tractor, ride on lawnmower, tracked vehicle or road roller. None of which are necessarily more practical than a common-or-garden Land Rover, but it does somewhat limit our scope for something that's going to capture sponsors' imagination.

Latest thoughts are that a modified vehicle that could take wheelchairs would be useful out in the sticks; the only stumbling block being that they are bloody expensive - disabled people must be loaded, as the cheapest adapted MPVs we can find are around £15K. Would need to be a pretty feckin generous company to donate that. And it would mean we'd have to rethink our name. Harumph.

Ulaan Book Tour

How good is that name? Ulaan Book Tour? Ulaan Baatar? Geddit?

After our first meeting with the rally guys on Saturday, we were encouraged to start getting our message out to people asap. All well and good, except that we hadn't even got a team name at that point.

Lucy teaches English as a foreign language (or whatever it's referred to these days) and a large number of her students of late have hailed from Central Asia, Kazakhstan in particular. The planned purpose of our trip, besides allowing us to see the most fascinating parts of the world (in my opinion anyway), will be to try and help out a teaching charity in Mongolia with things such as English textbooks and other materials - whatever they need and we can get really.

Lucy has proven herself to be the brains of the operation so far (proving that her Marketing Masters isn't going to waste) and came up with the team name on Monday, incorporating our destination, cargo and, well, fact that we're doing kind of a tour to get there.

Our graphic designer mate Andy has magnanimously agreed to design our team logo and potentially a micro-site 'pro bono', so hopefully our home page on the official charity website and general web presence will shortly start to take shape. You can check out the current home page here, although admittedly it's still in the very early stages....

Ulaan Book Tour -  Mongolia Charity Rally 2010

Just for good measure, the justgiving site is also up and running - our goal is to raise £1500 for the rally charity to cover qualification for the event; we'll also be looking to raise some funds to cover basic expenses if possible and will no doubt come up with another, more personal charity as well. In the meantime, the Go Help fundraising site for the team is here: Ulaan Book Tour - Go Help Justgiving site.

Don't worry about making a note of the websites just now - I'll remind you about them from "time to time".

The worst kept secret...

way back in August, I vaguely alluded to some exciting news that may or may not be happening at some point in the future. Predictably, such a tease got the internet whirring into speculative overdrive. That, and the fact I've already told my only three regular readers (Lee, I'm assuming Helen told you), means that the big announcement is not going to come as a total surprise.

But, announce it I shall - it is now "official" insomuch as I finally cleared it with work that I'd be able to do it, thus removing the last obstacle besides my own incompetence from scuppering it before it really got started.

At the risk of confusing matters, STTR shall henceforth become See That Tattie Drive, as the blog becomes a testament to my fundraising and planning efforts for the trip of a lifetime.

On July 10 next year, my best mate Lucy, my girlfriend J and I shall pile into our as-yet-unchosen vehicle in London town and set off roughly due east.

Destination - Mongolia, via Europe, the Silk Road and a bit of Russia. My travel dream since about 2001 is within touching distance - all we need to do is get to the starting line of the Mongolia Charity Rally.

Glory be! A project to blog about! Prepare for a return to interesting posts! And regular, incessant pleas for cash! The only thing planned so far is the Reading half marathon - the whole point of doing it since signing up was to milk you all for sponsorship, I just couldn't tell you until I'd cleared it with work. I'm such a scamp.

Go us! Mongolia! Rrrrrarrrr!!!

want an iPhone

I like my current Sony Ericsson K800i, and it does everything I need it to - y'know, making phone calls, sending texts and the like - but recently people have started to mock it. I'm hurt. I only bought the bloody thing 18 months ago, although admittedly the model's about 3 years old now which makes it positively geriatric in mobile phone terms.

I worry though. All those apps, all that mobile internetedness. What will become of me? I already get slapped round the head with a dirty look when I'm sitting in the pub - somehow it's deemed 'unacceptable' and 'rude' to be checking Facebook or Twitter whilst out for the night with your girlfriend. I'm not sure I'll ever communicate verbally with anyone ever again if I have something like an iPhone - somewhat ironic.

All being well my application will be laughed out of the building by O2's credit department and normal patchy and intermittent service will be resumed. Surely a man who is on Provident Financial's regular junk mail database (£500 cash loan for 227% APR, delivered to your door by a 'friendly local representative'. It's unclear whether this is the same 'friendly local representative' who reappears monthly at the same door to take your cash repayment)

word

Kind of feel I've been neglecting the old blogging recently - as witty as my tweets are they are surely no substitute for the real thing.

So...err....you well? Umm, what you been up to? Me? Oh, you know, this and that. Working mainly.


must start running again, actually. Was gonna start tonight - the Reading half marathon is only 4 months away - but got back to the hood and wouldn't you just know it, it was bloody raining. What are the odds in mid-November? Definitely will recommence my jogging routine tomorrow, as long as it's not too cold.

Bonfire night rocked

out in the country with only a bonfire, some rural types and gallons of hot homemade cider for company. Oh, and the Mangled Wurzels. Yup, a Wurzels tribute band, who rocked the cow shed like it had never been rocked before.

Flat-iversary draws to a close

Raised a small glass of beer to the special day and spent the evening on the internet while 'er also-indoors yakked away in Polish to her friends over a bottle of plonk. Just the way we would have wanted it.

Off tomorrow to Pizza Express! Gawd bless ya, Voucher Codes

What is the 3rd anniversary anyway? Apparently for those folk who are married it's Leather. Maybe I'll buy her some chaps or something. Or a nice leather satchel. That's pretty much all that's made of leather that I can think of. A lovely purse perhaps. A belt? "Happy anniversary darling, here's a belt". Yeah, that has a good ring to it.

Sorry ladies - as should be apparent, I'm taken.

Prob won't be back online til after the weekend and the firework / barn dance / wurzel / cider-fest. See you then. I'll try and get a picture of the belt.

Remember remember

the first week of November... This time last year, etc...

As you will notice from perusal of some of my other posts I'm prone to more than a little nostalgia at the best of times, so I'm veritably hyper-ventilating this week as not one but two significant milestones pass....

This time last year, I was bedding down for my last night of being munched by bugs in my old house share, prior to moving in with J to our first place. Hard to believe we've been in our wee shoebox for a full 12 months, and even harder to believe there have not been any major disagreements in that time - I'm far from the least irritating of characters and have a deserved reputation for being a grumpy bastard before 10am. But here we are, and here we will stay for the foreseeable future - we flirted with the idea of finding a bigger place during the summer but we're comfy here and too lazy to move again.

Possibly more important is the second important - that of the 3 years that have passed since I left my international jet-setting playboy lifestyle behind and met my current flatmate. 3 years. Unbelievable. Once again the girl's inestimable pateince knows no bounds, and to show my gratitude I am currently scrabbling around for a 2-for-1 meal deal for Wednesday night. Some things never change.

Our first date was at the Battersea Park Guy Fawkes celebrations - a genius idea from yours truly in that I'll always remember the date, and you can't beat fireworks to fuel a bit of romance. This year will see us back down Brockwell Park in Sarf London for the 3rd year in a row. Then it's off to my sister's in 'the country' for her annual shindig; highlight this year - a 'Wurzels tribute act' at the barn dance after the fireworks. The mind boggles.Ooh arr.