Calais, France. Right. Experimental blog update attempt numero uno. From the back of a Fiat Punto, sitting under a teetering mountain of backpacks, food bags and camp jockey-style red peaked hard hats.
I'm really confused already. It's raining, I think it's still Saturday, and we're in France. I am alone. Jeff and Steve have run into a garage to find a map, while I'm here in the car doing useful stuff like telling people in England on Monday that this is what's happening in Calais on Saturday, when they really couldn't give a shit.
Every now and then I look up and see a stupid-looking car covered in Mongol Rally stickers come crawling past, struggling under the weight of spare wheels, fuel cans and novelty inflatables. Two minutes later it comes past again in the opposite direction, looking equally ridiculous and just that little more lost.
So what's been going on? We went up to Goodwood last night to camp, ready for today's Festival Of Slow launch at the racetrack. Team excitement was at a low: we were all battered from the ballache of packing and repacking the Punto in torrential rain the day before - fuelled by way too much coffee, liberal use of swearing, and the smothering of naked torsos in meat and bread.
Conclusion: it's hard. But we did it, answering all those cynical fools who dared suggest we'd never pack a drum kit and two guitars into a 1.2-litre Punto that's already brimming with two months' worth of Johnson's Baby Wipes.
I should point out that our modifications to the back of the Punto have exposed the bass bin in the boot, which means that whenever someone puts the iPod on, as Steve has just done, the poor sod in the back ends up with a head that booms like it's been jammed up into Brian Blessed's anus, just at the moment he lets fly with a particularly roaring guff.
Last night we took shots for the obligatory beard-growing competition, which Jeff is going to lose.
The good news is that Jeff and Steve are now back in the car, and we're rolling along to the Black and White Menstrual Show's Deep Fried Monkey. The Punto really is driving like a dream. Albeit one of those dreams where you're playing football and you've got really heavy legs which mean you can't run.
Back to the launch party camping: we were impressed when we arrived at the site to find that one team, all the way from New Jersey, had already destroyed the front of their car in a collision with an innocent motorist - on the turning into the campsite. Other highlights were the fire engine totally covered in red fur, a fully kitted out Swedish ambulance and a Fiat Punto with a potter's wheel on the roof for live ceramic demos. I also announced my fondness for an 18-year-old dude who's driving a Corsa and hasn't even brought a sleeping bag. What a brilliant dick.
Then we got drunk, doing our best to tame the 36-pint keg of Tribute ale that St Austell Brewery donated to us. We made friends. Many idiots. Many many idiots. Also much testosterone, which is a bit weird.
Today everyone piled into Goodwood and it was ace. There were loads of cars, each with a different take on how to make the trip funny; tons of folk wandering around taking picture; and an enthralling demonstration of Mongolian wrestling. The sport more than makes up for its lack of American wrestling pizzazz by insisting that each grappler dons tiny pants and a novelty cardigan, and that they celebrate a win by spreading their arms out wide and revolving really slowly.
My drum kit sat set up in front of the Punto unplayed because we couldn't get our pathetic little heads around the concept of making noise in public. Best sort that out.
Finally it was time for the off - we did a parade lap of the circuit, waving out the window to the folks, and shot off to the sounds of the Raconteurs.
Soon enough we were driving into the Channel Tunnel for the first time. This is probably small-fry as experiences go, especially considering we're about to drive half way round the world. Still, we're loving this - not least how similar it all is to 2001: A Space Odyssey (never mind that we've gone eight years beyond that and have evolved only as far as a Fiat Punto, albeit driven onto a train).
Now we're in Calais and Jeff is driving us through the rain.
Looks like we've found a guerrilla camping spot for our first night - I'm impressed with Steve's swift decision-making. No fucking about - just pull off the main road, down a lane, there's a field. That'll do, stick the tent up. It soon gets dark, and we sit in the tent eating our RAF ration-pack tuna tikka and rice. And farting. Men alone in the badlands... Of Calais.
Now it's time to slip into our bad-ass RAF sleeping bags and get some much-needed kip. Tomorrow it's Dortmund, where we shall hook up with our German mates and hopefully do our first bit of busking.
But first I look forward to being woken up in the morning with the ash from a French farmer's lividly-smoked cigarette dropping onto my nose, and the barrel of his shotgun jabbing at my nuts.
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