Scirocco 50LLR on Top Gear...at last!

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Well it was a well kept secret, but now it's official. The Scirocco 50LLR has at last been asked to appear on Top Gear. Show TV dates to be published soon :-)

( This is of course a dream...but you never know...perhaps one day! :-) )

Scirocco 2 Morocco make an appearance in April's Top Gear Magazine !

Hoorraaahhhh!......At last, after many failed attempts at getting a mention in a national motoring magazine we have succeeded :-).

My co-pilot Glen sent me a text on Friday night saying that he had been made aware of a picture of us and the Scirocco which has been published in the most recent edition (April) of the Top Gear Magazine.Apparently he had emailed them a few snaps some time back, and against all the odds they decided to publish one.

Ok, so it is only a small picture on page 12, but the fact is that we can now honestly tell people that we have appeared in Top Gear......it's nice to be able to tell them we have appeared ON Top Gear but hey, you never know,perhaps one day we might even manage that.....well after Misters Clarkson,Hammond and May grow tired of driving supercars and decide to turn their attention to much more interesting stuff :-)......this may be of course be a long way off in the future !

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Mission accomplished.Santa Claus delivered to Grotto as requested :-)

Well it was a bit of a rush the other day to say the least.Up at 07:30, dressed,washed,cleaned out rabbits (just 2 of them!),got ids up (always fun at the weekend...seem to be glued into their beds!). Checked car,loaded boxes of bits to sell for Leukaemia Research on my stall at the Christmas fair,then,after a VERY swift fried breakfast it was off on our way.

As is usual in situations when time is at a premium, my route was littered with the obligatory 38 tonners doing 40MPH,several tractors a la trailers doing about 20-25, and the occasional "Sunday Drivers" who, due to their belief that you can only enjoy a drive at under 50mph, will happily sit behind affore mentioned lorries/tractors for miles on end without seizing any oppertumity to overtake, no matter how safe it is!.

After finally working my way through the rolling road block that is the A17/A617, I arrived at my first port of call, Kings Mill Hospital, and there I had 2 jobs to do.The first job was to manufacture a number plate out of (this sounds like a blue peter project doesn't it ?) a piece of yellow card,a laminating sleeve,a black marker pen and some artistic licence !. After that was completed I then located an item that had been left at the Dept for me by Peter from the ITC Dept (Thanks Peter!).....mored of that later :-)

After getting back to the car i then discovered that my bubble machine had tipped over in the boot and had not only emptied its entire contents of soap suds into the carpet, but this had also now left me needing to locate some more mixture for use in the parade. I decided to detour to the local Tesco xtra store.

"We only sell bubble mixture in summer" the lady at Tesco's told me!......."Why" i asked, "don't people blow bubbles in winter?".We left the store and stopped only to top up the fuel tank which was reading a little low.

We arrived at Mansfield Woodhouse at approx 11:05, and immediately went to my parents house to give Scarlett a quick wash as during the trip over from Sleaford she had aquired an awfully dirty coat of filth.
My parents had already left to go to the house down the road that is the storage location for Santa's sleigh, and due to that fact i had no access to my dads pressure washer.....damn!.
Looking around the back yard I found a bucket of rainwater which i took, dropped in a small amount of car wash liquid (which i had in the boot luckily) and then performed the worlds quickest handwash !.

Once the car was presentable we drove the few hundred yards down to Snata's secret transport storage depot (a garage on Rose Lane...whoops...it's not secret anymore!), at which point we hitched up the sledge and after a quick systems check (lights!) we drove over to the carpark of the Greyhound pub our pick up point for Saint Nick.

Unfortunetly Santa was not present at this location when we arrived, but after sending off a scout (my dad) to locate said Mr Claus he arrived a few mins later in his civis and using his "Off duty" name of Bill!.

One slight problem which was noted at this point was that "Mini Me" ,my son who was dressed as a raindeer with flashing nose, became slightly suspicious of the bloke who claimed to be Santa, so we sent him off with his sister to have a five minute walk around the shops on the high street and hey presto, when he arrived back,Bill had gone, but a rather convincing Santa was now sat in his sleigh!. Just as I was quietly congratulating myself as having pulled a master stroke of desception n convincing Mini me of the arrival of the "real" Santa, he looked at me as only a 6 year old can and said "It's OK dad, I know it's not the real Santa 'cos I saw the suit in his Morrisons plastic carrier bag.......damn, i had been rumbled !.
Not to lose this battle of whits I came out with a corker of a reply,"Actually Andy it IS the real Santa, but...well you know how Spider man and Super Man only dress in their "Super" clothes when in action? Well Santa is the same, he only gets his red gear on when on duty...otherwise people would be forever stopping him and putting in never ending requests for presents!.....
"Mmmmm....., i never thought of that dad........but don't worry, i won't tell anyone else that this is THE Santa....we'll keep it just between ourselves!". Sorted ! :-)

After dressing  myself up into a passable copy of the STIG from BBC top gear (this was what the package was that Peter had left for me at my Dept!) we started the engine.....and waited.

The parade came past the entrance to the Greyhound carpark, and we slid gracefully into the back of it,lights on,Stig at the wheel and Santa doing a fine job waving to the kids along the way.

10 mins later we arrived at Turner hall and parked up.Santa left the sleigh, i cahnged back into my civvies (after a struggle with the catch on the helmet!) and we then set up the charity table selling Chritmassy bits and bobs for Leukaemia Research (we made £60).

We arrived back home at 8pm after a smashing fish supper from the Chippy on Vale Road...very nice!, and that,as they say, was that...until next year perhaps :-)

So much happening,better do an update !

Ok, so where do I start ? I won't try to recall the exact dates that events occured, but will instead just try to include all relevant details that I think are worth mentioning...so here goes !....

The Car's refurbishment is now well under way at AW's Accident Repair Centre in Sleaford after a slight delay , and owner Andy Walsh will be documenting the progress of Scarlet from ugly duckling to Swan by photographing her over the next fortnight (Thanks Andy !).I will post more details of scarlets refurb when I get some pictures to accompany it.

The Trailer (or "half Roc" as we call it !) was progressed this week after Paul B took it on himself to try out his newly acquired compressor and saw on his old GT2 Scirocco, and after shedding a few drops of blood in the process (nothing serious...who needs to count to 10 on their fingers anyway !), he trailered the rear end of the car from Derby to Mansfield arriving at the premises of our metalwork experts (and greatly appreciated sponsors) ASMech (Mansfield) mid day Tuesday.It took 5 or six of us to get the bum of the Scirocco off of the trailer, but after a brief struggle we managed to get her unloaded and into the workshop were work started in earnest on it's transformation from scrap back end, to eye catching trailer.Many thanks to Richard Toon and his crew for this priceless help, it will make the whole process of getting the "rig"ready in time for the start of the VW show season a lot easier :-).

A big thanks you to Bob over in Nottighamshire who,after letting me have a towbar for the Scirocco for the huge sum of £3.00 ! then went on (after I yapped on for some time about our trip...sorry Bob !)to donate a pair of rear lights for the trailer (the old clusters had gone).Top Fella :-)

Lee, my trusty Graphics/Vinyl man has agreed to do the logo's for the trip again, and we may also be producing T-Shirts with the logo that we will be selling @ approx £10 each to raise even more funds for our charities.

Alistair from Waddington is going to produce a 1/18 Scale Die Cast model of the car and it's trailer (complete with log's), then pop it in a display case and we will have that with us at the shows.Eventually we will be holding a draw to win this unique prize.Thanks Alistair.

On Saturday last week I received an Email from Kaz and Pete, some people up the road that I had met originally through "FreeCycle", an Internet recycling organisation that has groups around the UK.They had heard about the trip that was being planned (probably from me because I tell anyone.....well anyone who hangs around long enough to listen !) and had decided between them to help our efforts by donating a SatNav System to us....how good is that ?.
Now the reason that Kaz and Pete decided to help us is not just down to them being thoroughly nice people, but because both of them have lost siblings to Cancer.Kaz lost her sister to Leukaemia 3 years ago at the age of only 35, she had 5 children and did not even know she had the disease.
Pete lost his brother only six months ago to Myelodyplasia which,although not cancer,can develop into leukaemia. and the symptoms of which are often very similar to those caused by cancer.
In my experience of fundraising (which is only really about 9 months or so !) I have found that it is the ordinary people that I meet that are the most likely to help you out,sometimes because they know someone who has the disease, maybe they have an illness themselves,or perhaps sadly they have lost a loved one through cancer of some sort.These are the bread and butter of campaigns such as this on that myself and Glen are undertaking, they are proof if proof was needed, that out there in this big wide world of ours there are still good,generous people who care about more than just the material things in life, and have in some cases been touched by events that have resulted in perhaps the loss of someone very close and very dear to them.
You know during the preparations for this event I have sent out hundreds of emails,made dozens of phone calls,dropped in to many companies and spoken to many individuals about our challenge, often asking for help and support in our quest....and do you know one thing that I have learned in all of this ? It's not the big companies, the multinational corporations worth hundreds of millions of pounds, and are always telling us how much they care for our custom,for our well being and for our best interests that are the first to offer help,often I get no response to emails,letters and answerphone messages...not even a simple "NO"!
Its the small companies, the local companies, individuals and local groups that are the ones we should be proud of.
I want everyone who reads this blog to take a good look at the left hand column headed "S2M Sponsors", and also the list of private individuals that I will soon be posting, and I want you to give these people a "virtual" pat on the back !.Well done and thank you to all, for you,every one of you,are our inspiration.Andy and Glen.

P.S anyone who I have forgotten to mention in this "dispatch", please forgive me, but I am currently typing this in between nursing 2 poorly children and tidying my house !.Until next time,take care :-)

Old Vs New......the facts.

The number of people commenting on the reasons for our choice of vehicle that we have chosen to use for this challenge is growing,so I will now endevour to explain that there is indeed method behind our madness...honest !.

Just for a moment then would you take time to ponder this Jeremy Clarkson style question.....

In aerial combat which of these machines would win a dogfight, the cutting edge of technology Eurofighter (AKA the Typhoon) which we love loads, but for(an earth bound comparison) will put in the same league as...oh I don't know...erm....how about a Bugatti Veyron supercar. OR.....the world renowned icon of British aviation genius......the Supermarine Spitfire, which again for the purpose of comparison we will align with an older style of motor car...such as...erm.....how about a 1987 VW Scirocco Scala ?

Now of course many of the purists out there will immediately point out to me the fact that if i am drawing a comparison between an old (German)VW and an aeroplane, then surely it should be a Messerschmitt BF109 and not a Spitfire.......so to those of you who have indeed let these thoughts cross your minds let me just say one thing ..............."I don't care !"...ok, that was three words and a smattering of punctuation, but as Neil, the long haired hippy character from that wonderfull 80's comedy "The young ones" famously said..."Alright, so most metaphors don't bear close examination".........so there !....anyway......the evidence for the comparison now follows:

A) The Spitfire (Scirocco)has proved it's worth in real combat,being able to take immense punishment and still come back for more (Roc Around the Clock charity drive,24 hours,672 miles,35 hospitals).....The Eurofighter (AKA Veyron) has not.

B) The spitfire (Scirocco) was (in the nicest possible sense) simple, and due to that fact if the jockey (pilot) found himself stranded in the middle of a field having been "bagged" during some aerial combat sometime after lunch, but perilously close to tea, there was an outside chance that with a little basic mechanical knowledge (such a rudimentary bicycle repair) he would be able to fashion a repair to the stricken craft and arrive back to the airfield just as the main course was about to be served !...the Eurofighter (Veyron)would be emedded in the field and it's unfortunate pilot would not be home in time for lunch ever again...unless he had time to bang out (eject) , in which case his spine will have shrunk by several inches resulting in a short stay in the local hospital and a terrble ringing in his lug holes which are both classic symptoms of having been shot out of a moving aeroplane atop a seat shaped firework !....and he would be far to late to even catch an after dinner mint !

C)Fuel....As we are all so painfully aware this is in rather short supply, and having to carry lots of the stuff has a relative effect on your aeroplanes performance.Let me explain:

The Spitfire carried 85-90 gallons of liquid gold and had a range of approx 1135 miles

The Eurofighter has a fuel capacity of 880 Gallons of Avtur and a range of 750-800 miles

Result ? Well you would not get any were near as far with a full tank of GoGo juice in a Typhoon as you would in a Spitfire which would be still turning cartwheels whilst the Typhoon heads for the nearest service station.............although the upside to this of course is that the Typhoon pilot would earn a shed load of points on his Tesco club card and be able to keep his Sqn mates in biscuits for many years :-).

I suppose the key point that I am trying to make in this rant is pretty straight forward really.............newer is not always better, and that, in a nutshell is why we are taking a 21 year old Volkswagen Scirocco and not a Bugatti Veyron.......well that and the fact that no one would let us get our hands on one, never mind drive it to Africa !

Is it me or is it getting hot in here ?

I had a taste of what to expect when we go to Morocco in September this week after i managed to not only break off, but then loose the heater control lever !.As luck would have it the lever is not so much broken as detatched, and so once i manage to find the ruddy thing (it's gone missing...looked everywhere and nowt !) i will be able to turn the heater off...because at the mo it's like driving a sauna to work once the engine is warmed up :-).

On a slightly cooler note Leukaemia Research have managed to get details and web links on their site, so hopefully the traffic (it's net slang for viewers !) to this blog will increase a little.

Can I please ask people who read these blogs to make a comment on them if possible ? I don't really care if they are good,bad or indifferent...just let me know that you are out there...please !.

Changing tack (yet again!) I took Scarlet to the Sleaford branch of AW body repairs this morning and had a chat with Mike down there.He took some piccies and we had a good old chat as to the merits...and pitfalls of attempting to drive a 21 year old car with no air conditioning,sunroof or opening rear windows to North Africa, but agreed on one major point and that it is all for a good cause, and (to paraphrase)as John F Kennedy,the then president of the USA said about the NASA Apollo space programme “We choose to go...not because [driving to Morocco] easy, but because [driving to Morocco] is hard, because that goal will serve to measure and organize the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win......and possibly pick up a few duty free's on the way !”.......oh,and to raise lots of money for the charities that we are helping !

One more thing.If by any miracle/act of God/total breakdown of reality I win the Euro Lottery this evening (£95 Million !) please take this post as notice that i intend to keep just a measly £5 Mill, and donate the rest to friends,family and Charity.......I don't care if i do regret saying that, cos i will have £5 million reasons to be happy anyway :-).Don't forget to leave your comments !.

Scirocco...now with build in swimming pool !

I noticed recently that the floor of the car appeared to be...erm...rather moist !.Have made a few enquiries and come to the conclusion that it is being caused by the windscreen seal leaking.....somewhere !.I suppose that with it being a 21 year old car (well it will be on the 31st March) i should expect these sort of "glitches".
It was about this time that i started to read my latest Jezza Clarkson book titled "I Know You Got Soul".I have read most of his others,"On Cars","The World According to" and "Motorworld", and apart from the blasphamy in one of these where he refers to the Roc as "A Ford Scirocco" ! i find his babblings quite entertaining.
Anyway...getting back to my latest read, in which Jeremy makes quite a poingniant and true statement relating to the significance of faults in machines.......such as my leaky window... In the introductionj to the book he says...
"But some machines do have soul.Sometimes,as is the case with Concorde and the AK47,it's because they possess that most of human qualities,a flaw".
Maybe then it's no accident that the Scirocco model was given the type number "53" when it was first being developed....what's significant about 53 i hear you ask !, to which I will refer you to the worlds most famous Volkswagen...Herbie...remember the bonnet number ? And you know what fun and games the drivers of that particular car had don't we :-).

Wouldn't it be nice to get on Top Gear ?

Having spent countless hours pondering about things we can do to improve our exposure within the community of the W3, i came to the conclusion that in order to gain more attention, you need to gain more profile, and to gain more of a profile you need to get on TV !.
The last time i tried anything like this (Roc Around the Clock) i found that once you get into local papers and local radio it sets in motion something that i refer to as a "snowball effect", in other words once the first steps have been taken, you've appeared (or been heard on !) local radio,or seen in the press, you seem to gain a lot more interest in your project !...that's why we need to get onto BBC Top Gear, because that would be the metaphorical "springboard" that would give us the exposure that we need, and thus more funds would be raised for our selected charities :-).
If anyone knows James May,Richard Hammond or Jeremy Clarkson...put us a good word in !

Scirocco 2 Morocco 2008 ...why ?

Why do you do it?

This is a question that I have been asked numerous times, and the answer I suppose is quite simple…because I can!

Even though I have been diagnosed with Chronic Leukaemia so far it is not giving me too many (if any) problems except for the regular blood tests that I have to have in my “watch and wait” regime. And I suppose this is what drives me (excuse the terrible pun!) to do what I can in the way of raising money for cancer charities.
I always told people that in my case I am fortunate to have a relatively slow developing form of the cancer, so I have been given a chance, I suppose you could call it a gift of being able to help not only my self, but also to help other sufferers, some with types a lot more aggressive that mine, and for whom time is not on their side.

Until my diagnosis in 2006 my idea of donating or raising money for charity was probably much the same as anyone else’s….a few quid in a box, a couple of raffle tickets now and then, and perhaps sponsoring someone to do…well something all in the name of a good cause, of course now I have what you would term “a vested interest” in raising money for Leukaemia charities….funny how things seem more interesting and important when they effect you!

You know it really breaks my heart when I see events such as Children in need and comic relief becoming no more than an excuse for “Stars” to peddle and plug their new records and DVD’s. Next time you watch one of these televised extravaganzas just note how long the camera and the presenter spend talking to “ordinary” people who have raised sometimes a few hundred, but often several thousand pounds for a good cause, only to be cut off mid sentence so the “action” can switch back to yet another celebrity who’s main concern seems to be milking as much publicity out of supporting (aren’t they honoured!) a charity. My question is…would they be so enthusiastic to do the gig if it was not televised and they couldn’t mime. Sorry, sing their latest pop offering?The sad reality of the matter is that if all the celebs put a hand deeply into their metaphorical pocket and donated say 5% of their annual earnings, the charity would probably hit their target figure without the need for a show, then they could then dedicate a programme to the mere mortals who carry out charity work time upon time again, without publicity, without drama and without any gain for themselves.

Scirocco 2 Morocco 2008

Wednesday 12th December 2008

Not a lot to report really. I had an email from a journalist at the Sleaford Standard newspaper on Monday asking if he could do a story covering our planned trip. I explained that at the mo we don’t really have anything sorted except for some small details such as the justgiving pages (we now have 2).The car is still resplendent in the logo for the Roc Around the Clock adventure, so no point in getting any snaps of her yet and the trailer is still very much in it’s concept stage, nothing more than a “virtual” image exists….I mean we haven’t brought the car back from Derby yet, never mind actually started chopping and cropping! (Or is that “cut and shut”?).
On Tuesday I gave Gary a hand setting up his S2M page, and we decided to call it “Scirocco2Morocco-Air” to set it apart from the page I have started that is tailored to raise money for Leukaemia Research. Glen will hopefully get his page sorted some time this week and he will have the suffix “-Mac” to identify it as being there to raise money for the Macmillan Cancer Support group.

I heard a lady on BBC Radio Nottingham talking to John Holmes this evening. It appears that she is raising money for a cancer charity group in Nottingham, and she hopes to raise 3 million quid eventually through a wide range of events. Coffee mornings, sponsored walks, fashion shows etc, I remember thinking to myself “maybe we are under valuing our event. Maybe we should set our targets a lot higher than the £1500 we have posted on our respective pages….not sure what we should do, will have a think !.

Must sort out getting the donor car sometime in the near future before Paul changes his mind J.