Great Bullshitters Of Our Age: Amorth the Ghostbuster

"Old exorcists never die. They just give up the ghost." I'd like to put that on a t-shirt and send it to Gabrielle Amorth - Roman Catholic priest and lifelong president of the International Association of Exorcists - but he'd never wear it. He prefers dresses like the rest of 'em.

I left Parma, full of prosciutto and pancetta and pasta and beef and chocolate mousse, courtesy of the wonderful Silvia (see the OU Platform's blog) and headed towards Modena. Modena is the home of just about every Italian sports car manufacturer, but surely it should be more famous for generating the world's most famous bullshitting Ghostbuster.

In his career Gabrielle Amorth claims to have performed 70,000 exorcisms, which works out at eight per day. It sounds to me like he's been on the spirits. Seventy thousand exorcisms might be feasible if you sit in an office all day and have the demons come to you, but I would have thought that, if you were really possessed - Linda Blair possessed - you probably wouldn't catch the bus, turn up at his place and ask to have Caspar removed. You'd be strapped to a bed vomitting pea soup. And so if he really did perform 70,000 exorcisms he must have worked his arse off. In fact, he must have worked like a man possessed. And surely that would have caused him some worrying moments of reflection.

So what's the secret to being a successful exorcist? According to Amorth, the key is to be "completely detached from monetary concerns, profoundly humble and treasure obscurity". As he obscurely wrote in his book on the subject. Just before doing the Sunday Telegraph interview. Or the one on telly with Anthony Head. That kind of obscurity.

I mentioned Linda Blair earlier. Amorth claims that his favourite movie is - can you guess? - yes, The Exorcist. Really? That's a bit like gardener Alan Titchmarsh choosing his favourite film as Day Of The Triffids. He claims that The Exorcist is very realistic, but that some of the effects have been exaggerated. What, you mean the rotating heads and stuff like that? He's just trying to make his job sound sexy. Besides the priest in that film ends up dead. When did that ever happen to Amorth? Silly sod.

In that film, Linda Blair famously screams the insult: "Your mother sucks cocks in hell." I've always found that to be more of a comfort than an insult. Given the range of agonising fates that could befall you in Hades - y'know, fish hooks in the eyes, lava on the gonads, spikes up the arse - I would only be too happy to opt for the Cock Sucking Department. In fact, I'd write a little note to that effect upon entry and hand it to Lucifer personally. Please don't think me sexually confused. I just don't like pain. And besides, I've got at least one Facebook friend who, based on her regular posts on the subject, would consider that punishment a very Heaven. (And no, it's not you. I'm safe. I'm pretty sure she doesn't read this.)

Anyway, I've digressed. I cycled around Modena looking for ghosts. Perhaps Amorth had been inspired as a lad by the sheer quantity of ghouls in his neighbourhood. The only ones I could find were in the photo collection at the base of Modena's lovely Ghirlandina Tower, a tribute to the young blokes killed fighting the Nazis.

Oh no. I've finished on a downer. What we need is someone to raise our spirits. Who you gonna call?

Eating Maggots in Monaco

I'm not proud of where I'm from, not Britain, the north of England nor Blackburn. It was purely an accident of birth and, having travelled a bit, I know there's nothing special about any of those places. But if someone has such pride, far be it from me to piss on his chips, or his frogs' legs, or his pizza, or whatever his national dish is. Please remember this - it's important for later.

I arrived on the outskirts of Monaco, which is only a kilometre or so from its centre. Monaco is tiny. I entered a tunnel and it was immediately obvious that this isn't an ordinary sort of place. Most countries build tunnels as a necessity, to bury through a pesky mountain that's in the way, and even then they keep them as small as possible to reduce costs . Not Monaco. Today's tunnel was merely a bypass, and a bypass that contained at least two roundabouts. Roundabouts in a tunnel? Mental. Anyway, the bypass did its job a bit too well. It spat me out the other side of the country making me miss it entirely. I heaved the bike around and found another way in.

I cycled around for a while looking for the casino as a nice location for my official photograph but I couldn't find it. I'd been here before, about twenty five years ago, and so I knew I wasn't missing much. I've never really understood why a casino is associated with wealth, exotic cocktails and sophistication while a betting shop is associated with poverty, alcoholism and tiny biros. At heart they're both the same, although admittedly it's hard to imagine James Bond in a bookie's. Monte Carlo's casino is just slot machines and spinning wheels. It's Blackpool's Golden Mile in an Armani suit.  

Bugger the casino. I found a lovely location for the photo, the new breakwater on the harbour.

It was also time for my Eat Something Silly I've Never Had Before challenge. Surveying all the opulence before me, the speedboats the size of houses, the million dollar apartments, the Pradas and Versaces, I reached into my bag, took out a packet of maggots and ate them.

Now, you might consider this to be cheating but I see it as a contingency plan. I assumed that there would be a few places on this trip, the ones I could cycle through in ten minutes, in which it would be difficult to find something I'd never eaten before. Enter Dean. Dean is a Nerja padel friend. That's someone I play padel with, rather than someone I go paddling with. There's an important difference. Dean gave me a packet of BBQ-flavoured maggots for just this type of occasion. They're deep fried - not live - I'm not a monster. And so I ate them, took my photograph and - job done - cycled out of Monaco to visit my cousin Vicky and her fella, Richard, who live just the other side.

Vicky used to work for Riviera Radio, the only English language radio station on the coast. She's freelance now but still arranged to interview me at the radio station in Monaco the next day so that details of my trip could be broadcast to thousands of uninterested, gin-soaked, retired Brits (apart from the four lovely ones who Facebook-befriended me and who never touch a drop of gin, probably). But as an upshot of that, a young and enthusiastic puppy dog of a bloke from Monaco's television station wanted to do an interview with me for the telly the next morning.

We met at the harbour again. With beard and straggly hair, I looked like one of Jesus's disciplines, framed by all the things that would have caused my boss to yak on about camels and eyes of needles. Then the puppy dog interviewed me. There was pride in his questions. He clearly loved where he was living. He was a servant of Monaco. The first few questions went alright. "And what do you do in each capital?" he asked. "Well, one thing I like to do is eat something I've never eaten before. In France I had an andouillette and in Switzerland I even ate a marmot," I replied. And then it came. "And what did you eat in Monaco?" he beamed, probably imagining my munching down caviar, or oysters, or a big bag of diamonds.

Oh dear.

Could I be honest? Had I really cycled ten thousand kilometres to arrive in his magnificent Monaco to eat a handful of maggots? Is there anything less associated with Monaco than maggots?

"I had barbajuan," I replied. Luckily, the day before, Vicky had sourced a Monegasque pastry, stuffed with bette, a special leaf, but, to all intents and purposes, spinach. The barbajuan was lovely but I've eaten pastry before, and I've eaten spinach before, but diplomacy states that sometimes it's simply better to lie about eating invertebrates. I didn't want to hurt him. Besides, maybe a non-maggot-loving billionaire watching this on the box would be intrigued by my ride and sponsor me a million pounds. Or pay squillions for the film rights. Yes, of course. That's exactly how you become a billionaire, giving away tons of money to an insect-eating tit.

It turns out I was right. No one and his cheque book got in touch.

If you're interested, I'm also carrying a black, shrink-wrapped Chinese egg that curiously has no sell-by date. Roll on San Marino. And food poisoning.

Madrid and Anal Measurements

The Madrid road system was designed in an unusual way. Someone with a nasal infection sneezed on to a piece of A3 and a committee said, "Yep, looks good. Let's build it!" There are thick, angry streaks of red, chunky strands of yellow dribble and thread-like splatters of white. They all come together to make a city that it is almost impossible to penetrate on a pushbike. Madrid is protected with a titanium hymen of motorways and dual carriageways.

Back in Priego de Cordoba a few days earlier, I spoke to the world's friendliest tourist information bloke. When he realised I was English he almost burst. I thought he was going to open with a song. Foreign visitors must be a rarity around these parts. After dealing with Priego business, I asked him if he had a map of a bike-friendly route into Madrid. "It's difficult," he said, "it's all motorways." Yes, I know. That's why I need a map. "Maybe you can use the ship tracks." Eh? My bike's never been much good in water. "They're what the farmers used to use." Now I was really confused. When it dawned on me what he actually meant, I was even more worried. Not ship tracks, but sheep tracks. Would my only way into the city really be the way that the sheep get in and out? Do sheep really get in and out? I mean, what would they go there for? There hasn't been a decent sheep movie in years, not since Madonna's 80s ovine porn, Crazy For Ewe.

Luckily, a few days later, I found a map and so, using it and the directions offered by ViaMichelin.com, I set out to capture the capital. Unfortunately, the initial route suggested by ViaMichelin wasn't on my map but I thought I'd give it a go. This was the first track.

It looks to me oddly like Kenya. Pushing a heavily laden bike with thinnish tyres through three inches of sand isn't much fun. I doubt UniCycle54 Africa will be happening any time soon. Desert wasn't one of the obstacles I'd envisaged on my way to Madrid. Once through the Sahara, I got lost in little villages, incoherent in industrial estates, hazy in horrible identikit housing projects and mystified in massive business parks. But finally, without ever having to sneak illegally on to a motorway, I turned up at a hostal in Fuenlabrada, a suburb of Madrid about twenty-five kilometres from the centre. Stage One had been, eventually, a success.

City suburbs aren't the most exciting of places and so I thought I'd google Fuenlabrada to see if it is threw up anything interesting. I did. The first thing was that, almost twenty-eight years ago to the day, Chelsa's rubbish striker Ferdinand Torres was born here. Even better, last summer, another Torres - Father Andres Garcia Torres - was removed from his priestly role here for allegedly engaging in homosexual behaviour. The fun element to this story is that he actually offered to have the width of his anus measured to prove that no one had been up there. Is that scientific? Anyway, if the priest's claims were true, it looked like neither Torres had recently scored.

Although not entirely free of the motorway force field, the next day's Stage Two involved an early morning leap from suburb to suburb, inching ever closer to the centre of Madrid. To begin with, everything went well. Too well. I was basically heading north and compasses are great for that kind of navigating. But then my compass started acting bizarrely. I'd turn a corner and it would suddenly point south. So I'd turn around 180 degrees and it still pointed south. Impossible! I cycled in circles for a bit until I'd completely lost my sense of direction before admitting that I was buggered. Now I had no idea which way lay the centre of Madrid. All I was sure of was that it was fifteen kilometres away. And for all I knew it could be fifteen kilometres upwards.

And then I saw, like a motorised Buddha, a fat man in a car. I cycled up to his sagely window. He called upon the wisdom of ages and prophecised that if I turned left and then left again, I would be on the Road To Madrid. And He was right, and I finally reached Nirvana.

* * *

I won't bore you with the details of how I eventually escaped Madrid. I got very lucky. The highlight was when I wandered accidentally into a secret government base. Well, I say accidentally. I saw the Prohibited signs but thought it was the right way. It wasn't. It was a centre for phytogenetics, which basically involves stitching pigs' heads on to the bodies of human infants. Probably.

I bet you thought I was going to tell you how cool Madrid was and the wonderful things I did there. They really were wonderful. But now I've run out of room.

Note to self: In future, perhaps less stuff about anal measurements.

Let's Talk Crap...I mean Crop Circles

Hello people. This is my first post from the road in 2012 and I'm in Priego de Cordoba.

What could possibly have happened to me in this year's trip to inspire me to write something so soon? Well, if I'm being honest it happened just before I set off but I think it's a tale worth telling. Y'see, I met a nutter, a genuine, bona fide, McVitie's fruity cake-flavoured loon. If he's reading this, then I'm very sorry. Very sorry you're such a McVitie's fruity cake-flavoured loon.

A few days before I left Nerja I was sat in my favourite internet café, DB'S. I might have mentioned DB'S before. DB'S isn't actually an internet cafe. It's a pub with WiFi, the best kind of internet café there is. The first noteworthy thing about DB'S is that DB stands for Dog's Bollocks. It's classy like that. The second thing is that, from a linguistic point of view, I don't really understand the apostrophe capital-S after DB. That makes it Dog's Bollocks'S, and that's not really English. Still, the people that work and drink there are lovely and, via a possibly illegal satellite system, they show Blackburn Rovers on a regular basis and that's good enough for me. I like Dog's Bollocks'S. And, given what's happened so far on this trip, one day I will probably also eat them.

In DB'S, on the Monday before I left, there appeared a man in a straw hat. He told me he was a writer, a writer of books and screenplays. Cool, I said, what have you written? Oh, I've had nothing published. Now, while I admire the will to write and the desire to be 'a writer', I reckon - and call me picky if you like - that to be a writer you need to have written something that is out there, that people might have paid to read or that someone somewhere might have paid you to publish. I'm not a writer, as you've probably guessed. I used to be a technical writer - I wrote software manuals for five years - which isn't really writing, and I sort of claim to be a comedy writer only because I was once paid £50 for a rude song I wrote about Prince Harry that was performed by NewsRevue, a London-based satirical comedy show. But I'm not a writer writer because no one pays me for this shite. I think you need to be paid before you can claim a title. After all, if I stick a turnip in an eggcupful of water I'm not a florist.

Anyway, in addition to our initial meeting on Monday I bumped into him again on Tuesday (as he desperately explained why he hadn't paid his bill at DB'S on Monday) and then again in DB'S on Wednesday. It was only then that the full joy of his nutterdom became apparent. He talked about crop circles. Oh yes he did. He chewed my ear off and, out of politeness and the opportunity to talk to someone from another planet, I abandoned all plans to access my email.

Before he got to the full fruit of his loopiness he mentioned how he'd written letters to the Queen and how she'd passed them to "the relevant authorities for processing" (i.e., the bin), and how he'd scared politicians with his No Fear approach to letter writing (despite admitting to never getting a reply). Mmm.

Best of all though was his crop circle stuff. I said I thought that a couple of blokes in Wiltshire had admitted to doing them all. No, well, yes, no, that wasn't the point. How was it possible, he asked with intrigue in his voice, that no one had ever witnessed them making the circles? Mmm, because it's dark. Ah, but how could I explain how such intricate patterns could be made in such darkness?

He had a solution. He offered that, yes, humans did make the crop circles - c'mon, he wasn't one of those UFO crop circle-making mentalists! - but that it had only been possible for them to get away with making the circles because "special powers" had been bestowed upon them. Eh? How? Why? Possibly because of - he got vague here - magnetic fields or ley lines...or, or, or homeopathy or tarot cards or, I dunno, beetroot or something...or any one of those other 'spiritual' words that can usually be substituted by 'woo woo' in the gameshow that is otherwise known as Wankety Wank. Anyway, as no one has ever been caught making crop circles (despite what Google tells me), in his view, the best possible explanation is that the circle makers  - prepare yourself for this one! - "become invisible". Beautiful!

I asked him if perhaps a more reasonable explanation might not be that the crop circle-makers had bought a couple of pairs of night-vision goggles off Ebay. After all, if you had the power to become invisible, would you really toss around in a wheat field at midnight up to your knees in cowpats? No, surely you'd be sneaking into women's changing rooms, or dripping Domestos into the open mouth of a sleeping David Cameron, or something productive like that. No, he said, there was "absolutely no evidence" that the crop circle-makers used night-vision googles. Mmm, suddenly evidence was important, missing as it had been from the rest of his tale. It was at this point that I left DB'S, slightly annoyed that I hadn't actually managed to check my email, but immensely happy that conversations like this were still legal.

Unfortunately, because of the nature of the internet café and/or for reasons of faulty memory (OK, it was the beer!), I've omitted a lot of his delusional pap. It was powerful stuff. I'd like to assure any of you lot out there that if you've kindly agreed to meet me on this year's trip I won't be exposing your foibles like this. If you've been gorgeous enough to offer to have a coffee with me, then no matter how bonkers you are it will remain our little secret. I don't want to scare anybody away. But if, while I try to download my email, a random space cadet approaches me in the pub and spouts bollocks at me - dog's or otherwise - then I think he's fair game.

You will notice that I'm posting this now, a good couple of days since leaving Nerja. That's because I'm a massive coward and he will never find me or know where I am.

Hello people. This is the first post from the road in 2012 and I'm in Priego de Cordoba. Oh shit, it's time to move on...

Bleedin' Bike Shops and Bleedin' Noses

I'm all packed up and ready to leave on Friday. Albania, Kosovo and Turkey here I come!

This week I took my bike in for a service. I knew that there were certain things that needed replacing: The seat was falling apart, the handlebar grips were held together with masking tape and I suspected that I needed a new chain. When I went back to the shop to pick the bike up, the shop assistant chuckled and told me that, for only €30 more, she could have sold me a brand new bike. How I laughed! As it turned out, the cassette needed replacing, along with the only half-working gear levers that had fallen apart last year and one of those big cog things that I really should know the name of was badly worn. Still, it could have been worse. I think.

Anyway, now I'm sorted, if over €200 closer to starvation. I will set off, for one day only, with Boz, the friend who accompanied me into Nerja on the final morning of 2011's ride and who was then partially responsible for my not having any memories of the following twenty-four hours. Unfortunately Boz has recently suffered a strange medical complaint that involved his nose bleeding profusely and then never actually stopping. Apparently he lost a bucketload of blood, had to go to hospital, have horrible plastic pipes inserted up his nose and then had the whole lot held in place using a comedy, snout-like bandage. The last time I saw him, despite the bandage, the bleeding hadn't entirely stopped. He looked like a badly beaten Porky Pig. So it remains to be seen whether Boz can actually come along on Day One or, more precisely, Day One-Six-Two. I hope he can. He could carry some of my stuff.

Last year's ride began with a flat but still knackering leg into Blackburn. Admittedly, it didn't help that I was as fat as Jabba the Pizza Hut. This year, although I'm in better shape, the first day is going to be even tougher. Although Friday will only see me do around seventy kilometres to Alhama de Granada, I have to climb from sea level to about one thousand metres up and over the Zafarraya Pass with thirty kilos of luggage on the bike. This is after doing no cycling whatsoever for the last six months. I can think of better ways to start a twelve thousand kilometre trip, but if I want to head straight for Madrid via Toledo - and I do - then there aren't really any other options. Pain it is then. At least I have the consolation that Boz will have to suffer along with me. Especially if I can secretly strap all my gear to his bike when he's not looking. I just hope it doesn't make his nose explode again. I'd hate to have that on my conscience. Or on my sponsor's nice, white cycling top.

I'm looking forward to the ride but I'll be sad to leave Nerja behind, even if only temporarily. I've made loads of new friends, had a few walks in the mountains, been introduced to the joys of padel (a walled tennis-like game), been swimming in the sea, done countless tapas runs and managed almost no studying whatsoever. So thanks to everyone in Nerja and to one very special person in Competa for making these last two months so utterly fantastic.

Now it's time to say goodbye to Nerja and to hit the road, and the books, again. I'll be back again in November. Until then there's the small matter of twenty countries to cycle through. I wonder if I can convince Boz and his over-burdened bike to follow me all the way there...

Hannibal Lecter's Kitchen Nightmares

I have to apologise. My original plan to write about the places I'm going to visit this year fell by the wayside. The problem is Spain. I'm back here and suddenly I find myself with a social life. And since it won't be long before I'm spending weeks sleeping alone in a field I thought it better to capitalise on the kind offers of liver abuse that have come my way. Thank you, Team Nerja.

And since a lot of alcohol has been absorbed over these last few weeks, it's only appropriate that I talk bollocks. My hunt for testicles proved more difficult than I imagined. Nerja seems to lack a proper local butcher and the supermarkets don't carry...erm...'speciality' cuts of meat. I learned that the word I needed to ask for was criadillas. I've also learned not to approach the supermarket butchers' counter and ask Tiene criadillas? (Do you have testicles?) In one, the bloke looked positively crestfallen. In the other, she really wasn't amused. Yes, Vende criadillias? (Do you sell testicles?) is probably the better way. You still get funny looks though.

So, with Testicle Supreme off the menu I had to become more inventive. A couple of weeks back, I had crabs. Sorry, I mean I ate whole baby crabs - shell 'n' all - and they were surprisingly tasty. Then I had a strange, green whelk-like thing that wasn't bad. But the showpiece meal in the Spanish round of my Eat Something Awful Challenge was pigs' brains.

I was initially surprised how small the pigs' brains were, but perhaps they were only special constables. There's something macabre about eating a brain - it's difficult not to feel like a zombie - but the secret was apparently in the preparation. So, for anyone who wants to try this at home, here's my guide to cooking up the ultimate brain food:

1. Take a fresh brain or two. Always ask permission first.

2. Don't eat it raw. That would be stupid.

3. Boil for ten minutes. Look at that lovely, grey scum on top. That's the pigs' hopes and dreams, that is.

4. Remove from the water. Cor, doesn't that look yummy?

5. Chop brains and sauté them in butter and garlic, just like you might do with real food.

6. Serve. Apologise.

7. Trick girlfriend into trying it first. Chuckle to yourself.

8. Face up to the inevitable and take a deep breath.

9. Make desperate attempt not to be sick.

10. Be sick.

Verdict: The brains in Spain fall mostly down the drain. Next week, toddler's eyeballs!

Welcome to Unicycle50 2012...oh, and some stuff about testicles

It's 2012, a brand new year, and one in which we're all supposedly going to die - yeaaah! - on the 21st December to be precise. I might leave the Christmas shopping until late this year, y'know, just in case.

Welcome back to the UniCycle50 blog, you lovely people! I've been hibernating since the middle of last September, doing things that hibernating creatures do, like writing astronomy reports, taking maths exams and knocking out 20,000 word philosophy dissertations. Hey, I know how to live.

But now I've awoken from my winter slumber and I'm preparing for a brand new year, packed to the brim with 12,000 kilometres of glorious cycling, through nineteen countries to stick my flag into another eighteen captivating capital cities. And I get to embarrass myself in another eight or nine languages, like some sort of international gibbering tit.

Physically, 2012 will be the toughest year of this massive ride. All the countries are in the south of Europe - I'm particularly looking forward to cycling across Turkey in July - and they are all mountainous. There'll be no cool air, sissy-boy pootlings across the pancakelands of the Netherlands and northern Germany this year. No, it's going to be hot 'n' hilly, just like Katie Price but, y'know, hot. Yes, this year is going to be so macho I'll probably grow an extra testicle. It would be nice to finally have two.

And speaking of testicles, this year's menu of international culinary delights looks as appetizing as 2011's. We have grilled intestines in Turkey, sea urchins in Italy and a stewed dormouse in Slovenia. But first I'm kicking off with my Spanish meal. I didn't have it last year. I was going to go for tinned partridge - I've never eaten a partridge before, tinned or otherwise - but then I had a better idea. When I lived in Spain, I seem to remember the supermarket Eroski in Velez Malaga selling bulls' bollocks. They sound yummy, don't they? Does anyone have any recipes? I'm not sure how I want to prepare them yet, but for some reason I think I'll be avoiding creamy sauces. My Dad claims that sweetbreads are delicious. I'm not sure how he's such an expert on the taste of male genitalia. That said, he was in the Navy.

So in this run-up to my start date - towards the end of March - I thought I would write about the quirks and oddities of some of the countries I'll be seeing this year, and you'll be seeing too if you 'like' the UniCycle50 page on Facebook. Once through Spain and the south of France, 2012 will get me to Monaco, Italy, San Marino, the Vatican, Malta, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia, Croatia and Slovenia. There must be something worth writing about from that lot but, since this is me we're talking about, don't get your hopes up.

But for now I'll leave you in peace - unless of course you're reading this in Afghanistan - and wish you a joyous 2012. Now that it's nearly the end of January and all those resolutions have finally been ditched, have a large drink on me. And to maintain the theme of this message, in 2012 I hope you all have a ball!