Was threatening to go and fetch some special guests, then Mark introduced me onto the stage, to forgivingly warm applause - I still had my jacket on and my bag over my shoulder as if I had just stepped off the train. We bantered for a bit (I had never met the face of Magners Pear Cider before and it was good to shake his surprisingly soft hand), and then he left me to do a foreshortened version of my Mitfords routine, which I had intended to do in the form of an audience vote, to find out the best Mitford. I enjoyed holding up the Mitford symbol cards and getting into my stride, but Mark came back on, three sisters in, and told me I had to finish, as After going off, high on the chance to be...

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Bike-packing is the two-wheeler’s version of backpacking, and 13 cyclists attempted to do just that recently from Trang to Ko Lanta island (both in southern Thailand) – on folding bikes. This, in fact, was the primary reason we were using folding bikes: not only were they smaller than regular bikes, they could be further “compressed” to a third of their original size, and we could then carry them as luggage onto trains, buses and... Folding bikes prove that they can handle a challenging, long-distance ride through muddy roads, lashing storms and dog attacks. Our journey began from KL Sentral train station, where the 13 of us folded our bikes and placed them in the corridor of our sleeper coach. But using Google Earth, T could find little short cuts and managed to cut the journey down to 106km. When he used the latter computer program, it showed a long route of 145km from Trang to Lanta. “I used Google Earth to do this,” explained T, the ride leader, who requested anonymity.

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