The Head of the Baptist

Tell you what, I'm still at it and I'm still here. Which reminds me of something that George E. Allen once said:

"People of mediocre ability sometimes achieve outstanding success simply because they don't know when to quit."

So, I'm still forging ahead and keeping on keeping on. But my, how the mighty have fallen.

First, have a look at the Midwest Results from Sunday. In particular, have a look at rider 155. 15 laps. Well done. But he still finished at the bottom of the pack. Somehow or other, he managed to get all his points docked.

Once upon a time, so we're told, there lived a guy called John. Used to baptise people in the River Jordan - which is the main reason why he became known as John The Baptist.

King Herod, on the throne at the time, married his brother's wife Herodias. John, being a bit of an outspoken individual, publicly condemned this marriage stuff like that. He may well have been right to do so, and certainly believed that he was, but he made a few enemies with that message - most of all Herodias, the King's new bride.

Herod had John put in prison - apparently to prevent an uprising - but did not have the heart or the will to kill him.

Herodias was still not happy. But she had a secret weapon. She had a sexy little minx of a daughter called Salome. One night, as Salome danced seductively for a drunken Herod, he was so taken with her dance that he promised her anything she wanted. Anything.

After consulting her mother, Salome said what it was she wanted: She wanted the head of the Baptist. She got what she wanted.

So it's entirely possible that John's death was down to not a lot more than revenge combined with a drunken promise because he had caused embarrassment to somebody.

A few years ago, I worked for a company who were in the gaming industry. Just so we know who we're talking about, let's call them "Gamble Unfair".

They were ruthless, absolutely ruthless. The culture of the company was gambling. Any gambler knows that there is no such thing as luck - there is only odds. There's no such thing as bad luck - things don't "just happen". Somebody is always responsible. There's no such thing as good luck - if you win, then it's because you cheated.

That same culture permeated the company at every level. Desks, occupied yesterday by happy and smiling Kevin, were today empty because somebody, somewhere, had decided that they didn't like Kevin. Kevin didn't work here anymore. Kevin was not to be spoken about. Kevin was an un-person.

I had a bunch of guys working for me. Hard-working, diligent and talented guys. Guys who worked 15-hour shifts 7 days a week because that's what it took. I went into bat for these guys, and their 100-hour weeks.

At the same time, I was trying to impress upon the powers that be that their dealines and demands were unmeetable. I was, in short, telling the Emperor that he had no clothes on.

One day, there was a really big hoo-hah because a very important project had missed it's launch date. The music played, the parcel of blame was passed round and round and nobody wanted to be the one holding it when the music stopped.

This may surprise you, but I wasn't wily enough. Well, actually, I was, but I just really didn't get involved in all of that nonsense. I've always believed that if you're taller than everyone else then it's because you're tall - it's not because you've cut everybody else's legs off to make them shorter by comparison.

So, a few days later, I was ushered into a room one day by my boss and my boss's boss. My boss had a brown envelope. I knew what was in it - I'd seen them before en route to Kevin and those like him. I was offered a choice between a nice sweet pay-me-to-dig-the-garden resignation deal, or be sacked and marched off site immediately. It was less than a week until Christmas Day. I had ten seconds to choose.

Somebody, somewhere, with a drunken promise in response to a seductive dance, had offered up the head of the upstart baptist and mine was duly served.

So, last night, I was talking out of the blue with a young lad who had worked for me at Gamble Unfair. For some reason, the guys who worked for me still talk fondly of me and - crucially - still talk to me. I am still talked about - even now. Still, as Oscar Wilde put it - "there is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about".

After I "resigned", they ran out of people to blame and fire, so the blaming and firing went up the chain. Everybody - up to and including the CTO - have been fired over the last year. And, guess what? Nothing has changed. The emperor still doesn't know that he's not wearing any clothes, but they've ran out of people to fire.

Sooner or later, no matter what it is, you have to stop blaming everybody and everything else and take a good long look in the mirror. It's only when you do this, and are prepared to see the bad as well as the good, that you start to turn things around.

I took my own look in the mirror. I went through the normal shittiness that comes with having been rejected in this way. Sat down to eat my Christmas dinner as an unemployed person - for the first time ever. I told myself that something was just around the corner.

Strangely enough, something was just around the corner - my birthday - in a few weeks. On my birthday in January 2007, I opened my present from The Missus - the "Race to Dakar" book. I've never looked back.

I suppose, when you see how badly I ride sometimes, you'd argue that I don't look forwards either. I know, I know.

Anyway, that whole episode changed my life. I'd like to think, gauging by some of the fantastic people I've encountered and am proud to call "friends", that it has changed it for the better.

I'm taking a lot of incoming just now from the world around me - various things. I am absolutely bulletproof.

In the Vietnam War, Buddhist monks would walk down the street of Saigon in their orange robes. They'd sit down, cross-legged, on the road. They'd meditate for a bit. Then they'd pour a jerry can of petrol over their head, and set fire to themselves. They'd sit there, cross-legged and meditating, whilst they burned to death.

That's sort of how I feel right now. The outside world can come and go and do what it likes, but I am untouchable. I have this tremendous optimism that everything is going to be much better than all right, and that what's going on just now is just the final hump to push over in order to get there.

I find, as I feel like this, I seem to be attracting a lot of good things and a lot of good karma. Maybe I'm not attracting them at all, maybe I'm just seeing them whereas I'd normally ignore them.

Martin called tonight to talk about various things but, most importantly, to tell me about James at Enduro Africa.

James, one of the Enduro Africa organisers, was killed in a motorcycle accident on Monday. A road accident. That's two people in as many weeks. I don't ride road motorcycles anymore - would you believe that I am too scared?

Hold on a minute. I regularly fall off my bike into cowshit and mud and ditches, and I'm too scared to take a bike on the road? Yes, I am. See how badly I injured myself when I came off at 30mph in the Moroccan desert. What if I came off at 90mph on tarmac? How bad would it be then?

Martin and I kind of kicked the tyres on this. There but for the grace of God go I. So, what do you do? Do you think "oh no, life is precious and fragile and I must wrap myself in cotton wool and not do anything risky?". That's certainly one approach.

Or do you think "Oh no, life is precious and fragile and I must make every single minute of it count"? When you die, is that it? Is there any refund for unused credit? Not even if I kept the receipt? Or do you get a chance to hook up with those you knew, and piss yourselves laughing at some of the silly and outrageous things you did?

Anyway, I have a confession to make. I am having a bit of a love-affair my my ex. Sorry, I know that this will come as a shock to you. I left my ex some time back - we had our differences - but I have become strangely attracted to her recently, especially when I saw her sister photographed in a glossy magazine. My thoughts have been taken up with how good she felt, her slim frame and her sexy figure. Sigh.

I am, obviously, talking about this month's review of the BMW 450x enduro in Trail Bike Magazine. BMW have basically torn up the rulebook on offroad bike design. The fuel tank, for instance, is under the seat - a trick they learned from AJP. At 120kg, she is no heavier than a Yamaha 250. She has Marzocchi forks, just like the little AJP. She has 50 horse power, more than a comparable KTM. Higher ground clearance than any enduro bike in the world.

And all that business with the catalytic converter and superheated exhaust that you didn't want burning into your leg on an enduro? Forget it. Swap the stock exhaust for a standard one that they give you, and job done. No 3rd-degree burns.

Light enough to pick up. Fast enough to cope with long liasons. Suspension to cope with the toughtest terrain - she came second at Erzberg this year. And she's a BMW.

Cancellation of the Dakar. Inaugural Transorientale. BMW's first foray into proper enduro bikes, and they build a lightweight masterpiece work of German-engineered art.

Am I the only one who sees the magic of the universe at work here?

Oh my God - what do you say to Martin?

Hmm.