大象传媒

For those about to rock, we salute you (32)

• Tom Fordyce
• 2 Oct 07, 11:55 AM

Marseille, Tuesday morning - 鈥淥h, what an atmosphere!鈥� Ben chirped this morning. 鈥淚 love a party with a happy atmosphere!鈥�

I sighed. No man likes to be woken up by a semi-naked rugby fan from , particularly when he鈥檚 dancing around singing lines from his favourite songs - but for once Dirsy had a point.

After four weeks of phoney wars and soggy squibs, the party feels like it鈥檚 truly about to start.

Gone are the dank industrial estates of , the soulless campsites of Gradignac and the lonely nights staring silently at the faux-wood walls of the battered Bloggernaut

In their place, the cloudless skies of , a cheeky parking-spot within kicking distance of the sea and fans of so many different nationalities that we feel like starry-eyed extras in a Benetton advert.

What plans do you have for this weekend? A night in watching back-to-back episodes of Two Pints of Lager, a trip to the council dump to get rid of your old sofa and a heavy, heavy heart on Sunday night as you contemplate the start of another dismal week of work?

It makes me almost weep to type such words.

What if, instead, you were to load a hip-flask and spare pair of y-fronts into your washbag, wave goodbye to the miserable streets of Blighty and get yourself down to the south of France for the biggest rugby weekender of the century?

Fanciful? Perhaps. Impossible? No way.

If you鈥檙e worried about tickets, don鈥檛 be. At every game we鈥檝e been to so far, you can鈥檛 move for touts 鈥� and if you wait until the national anthems are being played, you can pick up a smashing seat for less than the price of a taxi ride back home.

Accommodation? Marseille鈥檚 massive. There鈥檚 a special car-park 15 minutes walk from the Stade Velodrome for campervans (head for La Plage and P2), hotels as far as the eye can see and night-time temperatures of 18 degrees if you want to sling your sleeping-bag on the beach.

Transport? If the flights are extravagant and overbooked, the can get you here from Paris in two and half hours. If you want to split the cost of a car-trip, chuck some chat at this blog and see who bites.

Hey 鈥� if you promise to clean Le Bloggernaut from top to bottom, both inside and out, Ben and I may even be able to find room for an extra passenger or two in our mobile guest house.

Your chances will probably be boosted if you鈥檙e called Sylvie or Crystalle and have a penchant for unwashed men in vests with cheese in their stubble, but like the , we鈥檙e ruling no-one out at the moment.

What we will almost certainly be looking for are participants to take part in a special international edition of our RWC 2007 game .

Regular readers will recall that the rules of Ubogu are simple: repeat the word 鈥淯bogu鈥� as many times as you can in a single breath.

It gives me great pleasure to announce that I set a new British, world and all-comers鈥� record in the event last night 鈥� a staggering 52.

Given that Ben鈥檚 best is a paltry nine, you can probably guess which one of us smokes 20 fags a day and which one likes swimming underwater.

I can also confirm that, while there was a following wind, it was well within the legal limit of two metres per second, and also probably the result of the dried fruit I had on my muesli that morning.

Tom Fordyce is a 大象传媒 Sport journalist travelling around France in a camper van with Ben Dirs.

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