I was speaking at a conference in Wales last night. I left the hotel just after nine this morning (there was something on the TV about 'an electrical fault' on the tube in London, but I didn't pay it much attention) and climbed in my car to drive home. Twenty minutes later, as I crossed the Severn Bridge in the fast lane of the M4 motorway, a silver hatchback (a VW Golf, according to the witnesses) slammed into the passenger door of my car, forcing me into the metal crash barrier in the middle of the road. I was travelling at 70mph.
There was a horrific grinding noise as the car slid along the barrier and I remember fighting to stop it spinning out into the fast-moving traffic on my left. BANG! Two airbags went off simultaneously – one in the steering wheel and one from above the passenger-side door. I remember smoke, the acrid smell of cordite, a burning sensation in my right arm (from the explosive charge that sets off the airbag), another BANG! and the steering going strangely light. After what seemed like a very long time indeed, the car ground to a halt (still in the fast lane of the motorway, still somehow pointing forwards) and I climbed out and dialled 999 on my mobile. A truck and a van had stopped on the hard shoulder and the silver hatchback had pulled in about 200 metres further down the road. I called the police and put the phone back in my pocket. It rang again seconds later. It was my mum. 'Are you ok?', she asked, sounding panicked. 'What? Er, yeah I'm fine. I'm not hurt at all. How the hell…?' 'I'm watching the news', she said, 'I'm so happy you're…' 'The car's destroyed, mum. It's a write off.' 'What? What do you mean? Where are you?' I explained. Mum started crying. And then, out of the corner of my eye (with a chilling sense of deja vu) I saw the silver car drive off, wheelspinning back into the traffic.
This, I thought to myself, must be one of the most realistic nightmares I've had in ages.
An hour later, at the recovery yard, I sat with a cup of tea in my hands, mesmerised by the dusty TV in the corner of the portakabin office. I never realised how much I loved London until I saw the red bus, blown apart. The kind of bus I catch all the time. I've been shaking all day.
— Filed under Miscellany
I picked up a hitchhiker as I was driving back from a speaking engagement in Loughborough today. I was pulling out of a busy service station onto the M1 when I saw him, standing in the rain. A rotund, middle-aged guy with short grey hair and chubby cheeks; it turned out he'd been waiting there in the rain for an hour and a half (there were cars passing him, trickling onto the sliproad, every few seconds). In fact, even as I pulled over to let him in, the driver behind beeped at me for daring to momentarily impede his progress.
He was soaked through (so much so that my windscreen started to steam up as we drove on) but his eyes sparkled with a zeal that seemed oddly lacking in the line of android-like reps (glazed eyes, shiny suits, Bluetooth headsets) I'd seen queueing in 'Cafe Ritazza' only moments before. He opened his soggy satchel, pulled out a half-eaten packet of Ginger Nut biscuits and offered me one. It took all of my willpower not to burst out crying. We never learnt each others names, but we exchanged an hour of rich, rich conversation (life, death, love, children, struggle, travel) and as I pulled over to drop him off at a small junction (I got beeped for that as well) I couldn't help thinking how tragic it is that, today, more people would see a bedraggled middle-aged hitchhiker as a potential maniac/murderer/psycopath/rapist than as a potential friend.
As grand a gesture as Making Poverty History is, it seems to me that we ought to start by looking out for each other a little more. Sooner or later, there's a time in everyone's life when we're standing alone in the rain with our thumb up.
— Filed under Inspiration
The defining moment of the Tour already? Lance Armstrong prepares to overtake his no.1 rival, Jan Ullrich, in today's prologue time trial.
— Filed under Aside
MSR's all-new XGK and Simmerlite expedition stoves.
— Filed under Aside
I was lucky enough to be invited to a charity fundraising dinner at The Harvard Club hosted by my good friend and long-suffering watch sponsor Mike Kobold. Sir Ranulph Fiennes spoke brilliantly about a handful of his expeditions after the dinner, and it was great to meet both Will Cross and Doug Stoup for the first time – it took all of ten seconds before we were swapping expedition stories and getting on like long-lost friends.
Elsewhere in New York, I'm being helped out massively by a few people I want to mention – the first is Andrew Rasiej, who is kindly putting me up in his stunning 14th-floor downtown apartment. Not content with founding Irving Plaza, the New York Nightlife Association and Mouse (a non-profit organisation that integrates technology into teaching and learning in urban public schools, and that currently serves nearly 90,000 students), Andrew is currently running for the post of Public Advocate of New York City (essentially one down from Mayor). Both Mike and Andrew are serious mentor material, and I'm hoping I can absorb some of their energy via osmosis in the brief time that I'm spending with them.
Lastly, I want to big up Gravity Fitness, who (as I mentioned below) are letting me train in their gym (three floors, 22,000kg of free weights – I feel like a kid in a toy shop). Thanks guys.
— Filed under Miscellany
