25th of May, that's this Sunday, is Towel Day. This is in memory of the late and great Douglas Adams who gave us the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy. He also gave us Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, which is a complete hoot.

Anyway, towels feature very prominently in the Guide, so much so that a switched-on and streetwise individual is referred to as somebody who "knows where his towel is". So, Sunday, make sure you carry your towel. It's the way Douglas would have wanted it.

I am so looking forward to Saturday - this is the longest I've been off a bike since being injured. An I'll tell you what, you don't half miss it.

I've been eyeing up the Africa Twin. I don't know why, I just really like the look of them. It's not the kind of bike you'd use for enduro, but they really are lovely bikes. Can't buy another bike right now though, since every spare groat is going into the Dakar pot.

I remember one of the guys at BMW - "Big Al". Took on Dakar as a privateer back in 2005. As of summer 2007, he was still paying for it. It's a very expensive thing to be doing, and who knows what's going to happen now that oil passed $135 a barrel?

But, somehow, I just know. When you want something this much, this badly, then the universe works in mysterious ways.

For example, a guy in Germany fell down a lift shaft. The doors were open, and it was dark, and for some strange reason he poked his head into the shaft. Lost his footing and fell all the way down.

Now, normally, you'd think that this was a spot of bad luck. And, for him, it probably was.

However, a spot of good luck for him is that he'd have died if he hadn't landed on something soft at the bottom of the shaft. The "something soft" he landed on was an unconscious woman - who had fallen down the lift shaft the day before and had been lying there with internal bleeding.

Now, if he hadn't fallen down the shaft then she'd never have been found and she'd have died. If she hadn't broken his fall, then he'd have died. Watch them end up getting married or something when she regains consciousness. By the way, if you don't believe me, you can read the whole lift-shaft thing here.

Seriously though, the chances of that are astronomical. But the universe will bring about whatever it is that universes want to bring about. It'll bring about my Dakar. Dakar will return to Africa and, when it does, I'll be there. Anything can happen.

To mis-quote Janis Joplin:

"Oh Lord, won't you buy me, a Dakar entry?
Or send me a voucher, that gets me in for free?
Worked hard on my riding, through cowshit and trees,
Oh Lord, won't you buy me,
a Dakar entry?"

Apologies to Mercedes Benz and Miss Joplin.

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