The postie came to the door yesterday, had to ring the bell because he had a package.

When we opened the door, he saw the crap dog. She looks like Lassie but, believe me, she is completely useless. The postman was amazed at her. How pretty she looked, how placid and gentle and loving and friendly she was.

He went on to tell us that she is the most vicious dog on his round. Apparently, if fingers go through the letterbox then she attacks them the way Jaws took chunks out of swimmers.

He explained that the worst part of it was that she was so quiet - a stealth puppy. He said that she sits behind the door all silent and lurking, like a German submarine. Soon as the fingers go through, it's "Fire One!" and dive at the fingers.

We were absolutely rolling about the floor. Anybody who has ever met this dog would do the same. My ageing friend used to give me a hard time for referring to her as the "crap dog". Now, when he comes over, he tickles her ears and coos gently to her about how crap and useless she is.

So, we're going to get her a periscope for christmas, and one of those submarine sonar things that goes PING!.

The Missus and I were looking at the Tuareg Rally last night. It's basically half a Dakar - 7 days in Morocco. We were wondering if it might be a good shakeout for a rally-prepared PR3. Doesn't leave a lot of time to get the bike organised - road book, GPS, fuel tanks, toolkit etc but it's still a few months away yet.

Maybe we could get this guy to help out with the mechanics - he seems to have a knack at doing clever things with engines:



There's a lot of off-the-shelf bits that can be used for the cockpit (roadbook, GPS etc) from Touratech. The mandatory toolkit, first aid kit and 4 litres of water - we'll probably have to make a custom box for those but, again, not difficult.

It's only two weeks to the day until the start line of the 2008 Dakar. I sent an email to all of the guys we were in Morocco with and I wished the Dakar guys luck:

• Gary Ennis (number 233)
  
• Phil Noone (number 232)
  
• Duncan Tweedy (number 203)
  
• Ewan Buchan (number 224)
  
• Neil Buchan (number 225)
  
• Iain Shankie (number 168)
  
• John Whiteford (number 198)
  
• Calum McKenzie (number 170)
  

I got a reply from Duncan in the small hors of the morning, assuring me that he'll be out there "doing it for Britain". and then it struck me. That's most of the British entrants for 2008 we were out playing with in Morocco. My claim to fame is that I borrowed John Whiteford's helmet to go on the back of Zippy's bike to play in the dunes with a smashed collarbone. Five Scotsmen, an Englishman and two Irishmen - there's a joke in there somewhere.

The Scottish guys are going to be the first Scottish guys to make it to Dakar. Looks like I'll have to be content with being second then.

But now is the time to be looking at next years calendar and planning the events that are meaningful waypoints on the road to Dakar. There's no point in (say) competing in 15-minute Motocross events - it's longer rallies I need to be doing - such as the Tuareg.

Speaking of calendars, here's something you probably didn't know. We use a calendar called the Gregorian Calendar - 12 months in a year and all that - introduced to the world in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII.

Why did we need a calendar? Why was it not acceptable for people to just kind of work things out using the moon and the seasons? Why did the Catholic Church go to all the trouble of enforcing the use of a particular way of knowing what day it is?

It's the biggest dogma in the world - what date it is. Nobody can prove it, or disprove it, but everybody accepts it without question.

So, the simple reason why we needed a calendar was so that everybody knew when to pay their taxes. Everybody knew when bills fell due. Nothing more complicated than that.

And speaking of bills falling due, I got my renewal notice for my bike insurance, which falls due on 14 January. I read the small print. I always read the small print. There's a slight change in the policy. Whereas before I had a "garaging excess" (an amount of money I'd have to forfeit if the bike got nicked when she wasn't in a garage) I now have an "exclusion of liability clause".

This basically means that if the bike gets nicked and she's not in the garage, then the insurance company don't pay out a penny. Given my tendency to not garage the bike, perhaps I should either change this tendency or, possibly, look for a different insurer.

No word from the engineer yet either - I'm still waiting on the formal examination of Rosie and what needs done there.

Perhaps it was posted through the door and the stealth puppy submarine ate it. Or, possibly, the posties aren't delivering mail to the house because of our secret weapon.

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