Michael McMichael (so good they named him twice) rang me yesterday. "Have you thought about the Midnight Sun Rally?" he asked. "No," I said. "Nor have I thought about a Coopers enema, buying an electric car or your gout, which you keep insisting is man flu of the big toe."
The last time I rallied in Scandinavia was in 2013 and it didn't end well. Tom Connolly and I hired a couple of huskie teams, a Finnish national hero, Pasi Ikonen, as navigator and spent a week roaming around the Arctic Circle dodging low-flying number twos, having our nether regions stuck to outdoor toilet seats and trying to survive blizzards.
Mick has just returned from the Old Dart where, as you would expect, he was painting the official fully clothed portrait of Meg, Harry and baby Archie. What you might not know or expect is that, he is actually quite fluent in Swedish as a result of reading the labels on bottles of Absolut, Crystal Head and Avy.
Then I had a yak to Stig himself who is pumped for Midnattssolsrallyt. In my exclusive interview he said (in Swedish): "To be able to show my hometown during the Midnight Sun Rally with the castle in the city centre of Orebro for all participants and guests will of course be great fun."
Anyway, the question for your WART team is: Do we head to Sweden or do we concentrate our efforts on the Historic Leyburn Sprints where the sun sets at a reasonable time and the government doesn't own the Leyburn Hotel?