This can...er...Khan Only End Badly. Plus 1.

Of course, once you’ve managed to get yourself into an endeavour such as we have, you tend to discuss it a fair bit. Mostly because you need to, after all, driving to Mongolia isn’t quite like your average trip to the shops. 

This also leads to other people finding out about what you intend to do and in the circles we mix in, ie. drunken football ones, this usually means most of the chatter we encounter gleefully revolves about how horribly we’re going to be killed to death.

Still, not everyone feels this way. After another Saturday at football we make the most of the nice weather and park ourselves outside our local boozer. Here, another of our good mates Paul, starts asking more about the event and it appears he’s of the opinion that surely driving all that way can’t be that hard. Gareth & I set about straightening out his misconceptions, mostly by relaying stories of just how bad the roads are in places like Kazakhstan and Mongolia. In the end, we just tell him to watch the episodes of Ewan MacGregor's ‘Long Way Round’ shows for these countries to see what we mean.

However, this fails to put him off and later in the evening, no doubt shortly after his beer intake has finally removed any semblance of common sense from his being, he asks if we’re looking for another team member.

Chalmers, as he’s known to his friends, is probably perfect Mongol Rally material. Firstly, there’s his mechanical knowledge relating to automotive vehicles, or in this case, his almost total lack of it. Although to be fair to him he does at least know how to change a tyre, which makes him more use than Gareth with his geography degree.

As well as adding to the staggering lack of mechanical nous that we already possess, Paul has a shocking history with cars. In fact, come to mention it, I’ve also got a shocking history with Paul’s cars, having been present at the precise moment three of his last four motors expired.

Now we’d not considered a third person previously. Mainly as we simply didn’t think anyone else we knew would be that up for it. But after having a short think about his less than sober application to join our as yet un-named team, we welcome him aboard. And promptly introduce him to the initiation all new members of insert-name-of-team-here must suffer. Get the bloody drinks in.

Suffice to say Paul passes initiation and by the end of that evening, we’ve sent him on his way with a mission to go and check out Google maps thoroughly, just to see exactly what he’s just drunkenly got himself into.

With a team now fully assembled, thoughts naturally turn to what we should name ourselves. Again, we receive many suggestions from other close friends, mostly revolving around the use of words such as “stupid” and “twats”.

All are politely declined or for the more persistent ones, told where to stick it, depending on mood and level of inebriation and we set about trying to think of something ourselves. Something cheesy. And initially, after much head hurtingly hard thought the best we can come up with is “One Steppe Beyond”. Personally I quite like it, but neither Gareth or Paul are convinced despite my argument that it comes with a ready made team anthem thanks to the Madness track. Still, it's accepted as an “it’ll do for now” and makes its way onto the Adventurists site for our initial registration when Gareth takes care of our 600 quid entry fee.

Again though, as with many issues, it’s a night in the pub after football with our old mate beer that provides the breakthrough. Several friends are grilling us on exactly how we’ll deal with certain situations thrown at us. And of course, we’re failing miserably to provide any really adequate answers in every case. If this were some sort of assessment of our mental health, we’d already be on our way to the local institution without passing go and almost certainly without collecting two hundred pounds.

With the inquisition soon dissolving into mass laughter, I wipe a tear of mirth from my eye and go to take a much needed pull on my pint.

“Fucking hell, this can only end badly” I mutter.

Gareth looks at me and nods. “Hey, I like that!”

Really? It’s ok I s’pose. And it seems Paul doesn’t see anything wrong with it either. However I’m on a roll now……

“It’s good. But it needs a shit pun to really top it off” the old brain is really ticking now and powered by Youngs Bitter, it’s full steam ahead.

“Hmmmm. Can. That sounds a bit like…Khan! That’s it. This KHAN only end badly!”

Gareth screws his face up. And having explained it to him, which you have to do with quite a lot of things where he’s concerned, he still doesn’t seem that convinced.

The final word it seems though goes to another friend, Nick the Greek.

“It’s fucking shit.”

Despite this scathing critique and the lack of anything remotely resembling an alternative from my two team mates, we eventually all agree that we will indeed by partaking under the moniker ‘This Khan Only End Badly’.

Let’s just hope it doesn’t eh?

Right, so I guess a car would be useful about now??