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AWAY FROM HERE
Page 54
Page 55
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So bringing relief to the developing world is primarily about getting good publicity for the politicians. Who knew? Undeterred, Oliver Dixon packs his Lemsip and dried fruit and heads for Stuttgart.
Ms Loyola de Pal ado has a nice line in flattery. We are all,it would seem, "altogether splendid fellows", taking truckloads of aid to Afghanistan is an "altogether splendid idea", and as for TRACECA — oh, be still my beating heart.Things could not, according to the Spanish EU Commissioner for Energy andTransport, be much better, Hmmm. I'm not so sure. We've spent three days loading. I've been stung by a eurowasp — a fact that doesn't do a lot for my humour — and, just for good measure, we appear to have walked headlong into a photo-opportunity.
Which,naturellernent, has to take place at the heart of the EU— a place not best suited to trucks.And once we're through with this bit of spin, it's westward ho for Stuttgart and a repeat performance (if, that is, we can ever get out of this piazza, plaza, or whatever it is that the EU calls a square).
So I'm kind of stuck at present, and can see two possible courses of action. On the one hand I could, as a thrusting, up-to-the-minute commentator on all matters transport,tap Loyola on the shoulder and ask her where I might get my driver's card for the digital smart-card tachograph —" due, commissioner, in about ten months' time and no-one seems to know what's going on".
But that might spoil the lovefest; and experience teaches us all that, if you've got a good atmosphere, souring it is not the work of the true gentleman.
Courses of action
The other course of action is to take a look around and attempt to work out how this whole jaunt is going to work; I have a truck — a rather splendid Actros Megaspace — and a trailer filled with goodies for the Care Agency.
Third World justice being what it is. I also have a number of international driving licences hidden about the place.
Of cigarettes I have a sufficiency, enough fresh coffee to be going on with. Dried fruit? I could set up a corner shop.
My can of Chewing Gum remover— a handy device for dissuading potential villains — is within reach, and there is a freshly-pressed dinner jacket in the wardrobe.
Hopefully hidden from the view of any marauding mutawwa we should meet en-route is a catering-size flask of industrial strength Uruguayan Pisco — a truly multi-purpose refresher that not only cheers my spirits but can also be used to clean camera lenses.
The Tardis-like Megaspace swallows novels, CDs. a few maps and a first-aid kit fit for a hypochondriac.
The outside lockers are cheerfully keeping my boots, wet weather kit, a quartet of ratchet straps and a rather useful length of steel rope safe. Fresh from a particularly rigorous customs inspection is the pudlock (a length of scaffolding just sufficient to get action on the wheel brace in the case of a puncture). And I have a feeling that on this trip I'm going to get though boots at a rate that would make Imelda Marcos jealous.
Laptop? Check. Cameras? Check. Inverter? Check. Cables,cables and more cables?
Check. All packed. My passport is up-to-date, and complete with the necessary (and numerous) visas. Getting them was something of an isometric exercise, in that it is a strain and you don't get anywhere.
But! have a full set, or so it seems: the Turkmenistani visa could well be a menu for the Pizza Hut in Ashgabat for all! can tell. Might come in handy. actually.
Looks like we're about set then. I do need to check my CMR, as there is just the faintest suspicion running around my mind that I'm loaded with medical supplies. Granted, it would make a great dinner-party story if I became the first human in history to get banged up for smuggling drugs into Afghanistan, but I've heard enough tales about Kabul Central to give that a miss. Hell, I've even got a doctor's note for the sachets of Lemsip.
I also need to get my head around this Fleetboard thing. The man from Mercedes-Benz says that it will allow communication via SMS with the outside world.
I don't doubt this, but the more! look at it. the more it bleeps at me. It's probably just being helpful:maybe it's trying to tell me that! forgot to lock the front door on my way out of the house, or left the gas on.
So while Ms de Palacio pours flattery in my left ear, my mind is trying out variations on a paranoia-induced property crime theme.
Hold on, there seems to be some movement (or rather. lack of it), suggesting that we have now reached the end of this particular round of speeches and that the commissioner has,in fact.left the building.
The attendant constabulary appear to be looking at our vehicles as a potential funding exercise, so I guess Stuttgart isn't such a bad place to be heading for.
Start the engine, select a CD, let the truck choose a gear, and let's get gone. •