I first came across English comedian Dave Gorman several years ago, when a friend gave me his book “Are You Dave Gorman?”
The tale of his tequila-inspired bet, and ensuing long-term adventure to win the bet really appealed to my sense of humour, and to my sense of adventure too. It reminded me a lot of some of the daft things my good friend Bruce and I had made bets about, and of the lengths either of us would go to in order to win the bet, although nothing ever quite on the scale of Dave’s quest for proof.
Bruce had his big moment of glory after trawling through several estate agents’ old files to find a picture of the house I had been trying to sell. Outside the front of the house, in the estate agent’s photo, the shape of the front of my previous car, a bright orange Opel Manta, was clearly visible. How could I possibly have thought it was pointed at the front?
Not long afterwards, after a couple of hours in the local reference library (this is long before the internet was available!), a thorough search turned up the origins of the phrase, “At the drop of a hat!” and I won my pound back!
The next time I came across Dave Gorman was early on in my 100goals trip. While in Spain, staying with Graham and his family in Valencia in order to go to the Tomatina Festival, Graham’s daughter Maria insisted that I should watch Dave’s DVD “Googlewhack Adventure”.
It is a brilliant tale of internet-inspired madness and travel, and is so much more random than the travels I had just set out on that it makes my haphazard adventures look like a well-organised military campaign!
His adventures also have the same “Hey, wait a minute, I’ve got a great idea…” feel about them that my current wanderings have for me, and I thoroughly enjoyed his telling of his adventure. I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in life’s random connections and co-incidences.
So I arrived in Vancouver just before Christmas, and had been invited by Denise to come and stay with her and her husband Duncan in their lovely house. On the evening I met them, I asked Denise a couple of questions that I tend to ask most of the people who offer to help me out. One of my first questions was, “What is it that has prompted to contact some random internet stranger, and offer to help them out?”
“Dave Gorman’s Googlewhack Adventure!” she answered immediately.
“Sorry?” I asked. It is not one of the usual answers that I get to this particular question!
Denise explained that she had recently read Dave’s Googlewhack book, and as a result had decided to allow more of life’s random adventures happen, and be more spontaneous. She had been following my blog for a while, and the downstairs studio that they rented out had just become vacant.
And so once again I found myself being very well looked after in a new city because of a fairly random set of connections and co-incidences. Thanks Dave, I probably wouldn’t have had such a great place to stay if it wasn’t for you!
And thanks again to Denise and Duncan, I have had a great time here in Vancouver, but once again it is time to move on. I am heading back south down the west coast towards San Francisco again, where I hope to find somewhere to store the RV for 6 months or so, until my return to the States in the summer.
I hope I don’t have as much trouble getting back into America as I did getting into Canada!
More on Dave Gorman here:-
DaveGorman.com