FECKIN' IRISH ROVERS

I'm a Londoner these days - I own an Oyster Card and am unbearably rude to people who get in my way. I like my lattes and my tube trains and my fastpaced urban grind. However, two glasses of sparkling water and a bag of Tayto cheese n' onion was enough to get me agreeing to be a reserve driver for my old mate Maso on a trip of 10,000 miles (+/- a couple of K) to Ulaan Baatar. I've heard it's nice in August.

Then he called me up and said that I was actually, really, truly going to have to dust off my licence and start filling in my visa forms. Sweet Mother o' Jesus, I'm going to Mongolia. By car. A car with an engine of less than one litre. A free car. This car. With a bloke who's owned 32 cars in his 13 years of driving and another bloke who I don't know and who doesn't drive. There are no support vehicles. Sometimes there's no road. This is it - I've joined the Feckin' Irish Rovers.

I take comfort in the fact that I'm no quitter. Having run a half marathon with a broken leg (1hr 56mins 37 seconds, thankyouverymuch) and having been 'completely incapacitated' by cryptosporidiosis in the Libyan desert I reckon I have endurance pretty well covered. Plus I was in the Brownies.

My parents said they can't stop me - I'm 31.

We leave Hyde Park on 21st July 2007. More details, info, ranting, panic and the suchlike will be posted here, or on our main site once it's up and going. You can donate over there, on the right.

p.s. Eco-worriers, fear not - 4 trees will cover the carbon offsetting.