Wed 25.07.12:

Another hiatus. I hope you don’t see this as cheating. As I did in Wewak, Papua New Guinea, I will be returning to exactly the spot where I left off before continuing The Odyssey Expedition. This cruise ship in October that will go INDIA > MALDIVES > SEYCHELLES > MADAGASCAR is a damn good plan: the best plan, and the safest. The ships that the Somali pirates go after these days have a) no armed guards and b) a low freeboard. I don’t know if a cruise ship will have armed guards on board, but as for the freeboard (the distance from the sea to the deck), on most cruise ships you’re talking something like 40 metres. Try scaling THAT, Fatbeard!

In the meantime, yes, I’m going home. And although I’m going back for a serious reason, it already sounds like it’s going to be (as with everything I do) utterly epic. Already my top mate Lindsey (see: awesome) has sorted with a free ticket to see the Blur concert in Hyde Park that’ll end the London Olympics, then I’ve got two back-to-back weddings of Odyssey Heroes Dino and Hugh (Hugh can be seen here singing The Odyssey Blues) respectively before the Mathew Street Festival kicks off in Liverpool.

Come September, Stan of ‘Last Exit To Serbia’ fame and I will be heading down to the Isle of Wight in an old camper van for Bestival (THANKS STAN! YOU ROCK!!).

Then there’s yet another wedding a couple of weeks after that when Danny (if you’ve seen my TV show, he’s the one who says that ‘I’m a difficult man to love’ in the first episode) ties the knot with the lovely Penny.

While that’s going on, I’m hoping to DO SOME GODDAMN WORK to help pay for the last few months of travel at the end of the year, not to mention paying back everyone who helped me come home. And (with any luck) there’ll be something brilliant FINALLY happening on my YouTube channel around that time.

So that’s how I’ll be spending my sabbatical from The Odyssey Expedition. If any of you reading this are going to be in London, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle OR ANYWHERE IN THE UK between August 11 and September 25, or you’re going to Bestival, please get in touch and we’ll go grab a cheeky brew.

All the best,

G