Humbled...

Just when the memories of the last trip are beginning to fade and the last back-slaps have been made something happens to reawaken the hunger for adventure again and that happened to me on Sunday. Meeting an old mate down the pub I was then introduced to one of my own personal travelling heroes Alastair Humphreys. If you haven't heard of him he's the dude who set off on his bike and ended up spending four years cycling round the world. On his student loans.

Apart from incredible thrift (stock cubes and pasta - hmmmmm), courage and sheer downright determined bloody-mindedness what shines through in Alastair's two books about his incredible adventure is his humour, humanity and insight. I was rather humbled by the encounter. Not least as the mutual friend who introduced us had met Alastair whilst cycling to Johannesburg. From London. So you can see I was in intimidating company!

It puts things into perspective when you consider the enormous media attention given to television series like 'The Long Way Round', 'Long Way Down' and 'By any means' which are amazing TV. But, and this is not to belittle the achievements of the production teams involved (I mean, who am I to talk - my big claim is going round the world by public transport!) in comparison to the efforts of folk like Alastair they seem somehow...a bit easy. Ewan and Charlie tackled the infamous 'Road of Bones' in Siberia, on BMW motorbikes with a support crew, in summer. Alastair cycled it. In winter! Plus the lack of any degree of interesting observation from Mr Boorman in the absence of Mr MacGregor makes for somewhat cringe-worthy television. A nice enough bloke his observations during his trip were shall we say a little trite. he's the kind of guy who when in Nepal notes that 'it's quite mountainous here and there are a lot of Buddhists'!

Anyway, enough being mean about Charlie, Alastair and I are going to hook up for a beer and a chinwag at some point soon. But he's got to row the Channel first! The closest I get to adventure at the moment is cycling in heavy traffic on Brixton Hill. Still living the dream...

; )