Posted by Tom Ford at 3:30PM on Tuesday 23 January, 2007 8 Comments
I love my job, don't get me wrong. Most of the time it's exactly as good as you imagine - as long as you're borderline anally retentive about cars. For me it's perfect, because I'm not actually all that borderline.
But this week I've had one of the most frustrating, what-really-can-go-wrong-next weeks that makes me want to stay at home and eat a packet of chocolate Hob-Nobs all in one go.
It sounded great on paper: cover the Monte Carlo rally following Ford and Marcus Gronholm. No worries. OK, so I had to do it on my own, but I've had to do plenty of stuff solo and truth be told, I didn't really think about it much.
Until my press documents went awol. No problem, I thought, I'm an accomplished blagger and was wearing a jacket covered in sponsor logos (it always helps - that and an 'I'm supposed to be here' attitude). The flight over from Birmingham at 9pm was fine, as was picking up my hire car from Lyon airport. But from here on in, it all fell apart.
Valence, where the Monte is now based, was full to the brim with rally people. So no hotels were available close to the event. Ford had booked me into the only available hotel in the area, in Lyon. Yes, it was a way away from the rally, but they'd booked me satnav for the car.
Trouble is, the satnav was a portable system, and it didn't work. The woman behind the Hertz counter was so pretty I couldn't speak, so couldn't go back inside. This was about 11.15pm. Eventually I realised that the satnav wasn't broken; the cigarette lighter power point in the Meriva I'd hired was. So I wired it (badly) to the power point in the rear using a spare bit of aerial wire. Off I went. It was 11.45pm.
Somewhere down the motorway the satnav stopped working, although I actually didn't notice for about 20 minutes, missing my exit junction. Everything was shut, no map. I got into Lyon and searched in a most random fashion, popping into bars and Tabacs trying to get directions from drunk Frenchmen.
God, this is starting to sound like a rant. And yet it gets much, much worse (I haven't even told you about the robbery yet - or the naked Frenchman). But is anybody actually reading this? Does anyone care?
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You can't end the story like that!
Yes! I'm bloody reading it! You can't leave it there!
I'm reading...and terribly intrigued about the naked frenchman
OK - but if this turns into the world's longest blog post, don't blame me for your crossed eyes.
So... I eventually found my hotel - in the dodgiest part of town I have ever, ever seen. The rats were fat, possibly because they had been eating all the dead crackheads that were zombiefying the streets.
Parking three streets away, in a space half-an-inch bigger than the car, I dragged my multifarious heavy bags into my lice dormitory hotel and checked in with a man who looked to be 4/5ths wart. Honestly, he was one giant carbuncle. Off to my room.
The key refused to work, so Wartman had to let me into the room. The bed was unmade. That's funny, I thought, the bed's unmade and the walls are so thin I can hear next door's shower running. As I entered the bathroom, the man in the shower started shouting. As you would if you saw me popping into your ablutions.
Trying to get out as fast as possible, I had to grab my bags from inside the room first. As I tried an emergency decamp, Monsieur exploded from the shower room blocking my path to the door, presumably thinking I was trying to rob him. Too traumatised to think properly, I barged past wet Frenchman shouting apologies as I went.
Reception again. Much explaining in pigeon Franglais and Wart-Boy didn't even apologise. Eventually they gave me a broom cupboard to sleep in. It was 1.30am.
At 4.30am it was back up and out, because I was an hour and three-quarters from Valance. With no map. I grabbed all my bags, not trusting hotel security, and trotted some way over to the car. Eventually found said car (I was tired) and saw that the locks had been smashed out by remarkably heavy-handed robbers. Fabulous.
Luckily I'd left nothing in it, but still - no secure place to leave the bags. Then I got lost going to Valence (satnav teasing me all the way, but never actually working) and with nothing open, ended up stopping at a truck stop to ask directions.
Ended up - and I still have no idea how - in a French trucker's cab poring over maps. He had his jim-jams on, but was still wearing a knitted hat. That's going down as the image of the trip, I thought, just before becoming convinced they were going to find my body naked in a ditch.
His night-time Convoy hat-wearing had freaked me out, but I eventually ascertained that I was on the right road and bailed at speed in case he decided he liked the cut of my jib. I made it to Valence an hour or so later. Surely nothing else could go wrong? Anyone care to place bets at this point?
Well, the rest of the rally was fine, apart from getting regularly thrown out of the manufacturer's areas for not having a pass.
Next day and I had to get up ludicrously early and go rally-stalking. Fine. Then later - about 8.30pm - trek back to Lyon ready for a flight back at 10am the next morning. I couldn't leave the car in Lyon with no locks, so thought I'd go straight to the airport and hole up in a hotel there for the night. Er, big mistake - I should have learned.
At the eighth hotel, I wanted to cry. 'Complet' was the answer from all of them. I'd run out of petrol, the satnav didn't work, I'd had eight hours sleep in the past 48, eyes were brimming.
So I pulled over in an industrial estate and slept in the Meriva by the airport, covered by my muddy rally jacket. It was minus four degrees and with no fuel, I couldn't keep the car running for long.
Not bad enough for you?
Sometime around 3am, a black TT pulled up and tried the doors. I was so shocked that I jumped up and crashed out of the car shouting - smashing a dent into both the TT and the Meriva's door as I did so. French thieves nearly died, and shot off at speed, away from the blind madman in the mini-MPV. Didn't sleep much after that.
When I go to the rental car place at 6.30am it took hours of explaining - well, an hour, but it felt like longer. I'm still awaiting the bill. To add insult to injury, they hadn't got me logged on to my return flight, but by this time I was just emotionally blank, I had nothing left.
When the lady said, 'I'm sorry Mr Ford, we don't appear to have you on this flight', all I could reply with was, 'Of course you haven't. That would be silly of me to assume you had.' I eventually got on the flight, but if the plane had crashed, I wouldn't have been that surprised.
After 24 hours at home, I'm now back in Nice after driving the new Kia cee'd for you (read my drives blog). I'm hoping it all goes a bit better getting home, but after last week, nothing can get to me.
You'll read all about the rally in the next issue of Top Gear - I just wanted to let you all know the story behind the story in case you think I sound a little stressed.
Look like being a motoring journalist has its ups and downs...
Sounds like a typical trip to France.
It's nice to know even dream-jobs have crap days as well. Keep up the good work, Tom.
Get this people: Tom and I live in the same area. We're mates. We go out drinking and talk rubbish about cars.
Tom went to the Monte, I went to the Monte, we've both posted blogs on this website about the Monte - but neither of us knew the other was going. How crap are we?
Oh, and Tom? Sorry mate, I had spare beds at each of my three lovely hotels.
Still, that would've meant missing out on the naked Frenchmen/car thieves etc...