The International Men of Mystery

Dumball - Day one - Must be Munich? Er actually No!

Well here we are at the end of day one. It didn't start too well as we learnt that Germany had decided not to let us cross their borders. As we were supposed to be staying in Munich tonight that seemed to be a problem. The route was re-planned to avoid Germany and we headed south towards Luxembourg. We started out as nicely organised 'Squadrons' of six cars but very quickly got split into 2 groups of 3 cars when half of the squadron left the motorway and half didn't. After about 4 hundred miles we arrived at Mulhouse in France. The hotel is really great seeing as they only had a few hours notice of our arrival. They opened their restaurant to us and really made us feel welcome so if you're ever looking for a hotel in Illzach, Mulhouse look up the Kyriad, we can definitely recommend it.

During the day there were a number of casualties. The Coffin dodgers hearse shuffled off it's mortal coil and was abandoned in a lay-by somewhere. The Mystery machine was first to get a puncture after only a couple of miles from the start and the Muppets car, which was painted with emulsion paint, unfortunately, got wet! (See below). Apart from that it looks like everybody made it. The next stage to Zagreb should be really difficult from here and I don't think anybody is really looking forward to it. Have a look in your atlas to see what I mean.

Bye for now and remember to tell your friends about the site. More tomorrow.

The International Men of Mystery.           (Sponsor us now)

Dumball - Tomorrow ! - The IMOM have arrived in Brussels.

Hi everybody. The International men of Mystery have arrived in Brussels. The trip from UK to Brussels went well although the Air Conditioning failed on the car before we even left the UK - not a problem at the moment but as we travel south we'll see. The ferries were running just about on time so we arrived here at around 9:15 local time (8:15 UK). We obviously made straight for the bar to sample the local brew. We haven't seen any of the other Dumballers yet although the passport control at Dover told us they had seen some pass through earlier so they're here somewhere.

The International Men of Mystery.           (Sponsor us now)

Dumball - minus 1 day - here we go, here we go, here we...

Well apparently the talking is over and now it's time to get out there and do something. We are hoping that the Ferry is running tomorrow and that we will be able to get to Brussels for the start on Saturday. It's not looking too good at the moment but let's face it we need to be optimistic - starting now.

Sponsorship has gone from £2,800 to a massive £3,500 in just 6 days! A really big thank you to everybody that has sponsored us. Please remember to tell your friends, family, colleagues, drinking partners, grannies, neighbours, milkman, postman, doctor, dentist, people you meet in the street, and,  well I guess you get the idea. Thanks again for all the support and remember it all goes directly to Leukaemia Research.

While we are away there are a couple of things to look/listen out for. The Eagle radio has interviewed Dr Evil (aka Paul) and will be broadcasting it on Saturday morning between 7 and 1 (sorry but they weren't very specific but do try to listen in). The second is an article in the Herald newspaper with some photos of the Shaguar and us. Not sure when they will publish it but keep an eye out.

Keep checking the site. With a bit of luck the next update will be from Brussels.

The International Men of Mystery.           (Sponsor us now)

Dumball - minus 7 days - Well on our way.

Since our last update a lot has been happening. The Shaguar has gained teeth and claws with a lovely 'Pussy' on the bonnet (thanks to Pitstop). Sponsorship has passed the half way point and now stands at over £2800 so another really big thank you to everybody. Thanks to the folks at the Passfield Club for their support, we now have the means to update the blog as we go (special thanks to Shaun in Menorca). We will be posting daily updates here once the Rally starts.

Check out some of the other Dumball teams at the Dumball Rally Justgiving event site

So all that is left is to pack the car full of everything, fill it with enough fuel and get the sun-tan lotion ready. Then we're off.

Please tell everybody you know about our site, we still need to raise loads more money for Leukaemia Research. Thanks for your continuing support.

The International Men of Mystery.           (Sponsor us now)

Dumball - minus 18 days - Quarter of the way there!

Only 18 days to go and still loads of sponsorship needed. Thanks to all of the wonderful people who have sponsored us so far, we have raised a quarter of our target amount.

Now it's time to get serious. We will be driving the car around to as many places as possible trying to get more people to sponsor us. We will be emailing more people begging for help and generally making a nuisance of ourselves wherever and whenever we can.

Why not go straight to our Justgiving page and sponsor us now. You know it makes sense! After all. if we can dress up like this and be seen in public we're sure you can spare a few pounds for an excellent cause.

The preparations for the Dumball Rally are going really well and lots of the teams are raising plenty of money for charity. Everybody is getting really excited knowing that we will soon be meeting in Brussels to start the journey.

Please keep visiting our blog and tell all of your friends and families about it.

Thanks for your continuing support.

The International Men of Mystery.

Dumball - minus 20 days - Above and beyond.

Last week the staff from the RBS offices in Alton took the time to raise some money for our charity. They all got into the spirit of the day and managed to raise almost £400 for Leukaemia Research by washing cars and having a sponsored dress down day. We would like to say a really big thank you to everybody that took part and to all those who donated their money. A special thanks to Rebecca for helping to organise things and to Luke who agreed to have his hair and beard shaved off to raise even more money.

Thanks again to everybody at RBS Alton.

The International Men of Mystery.

Dumball - minus 27 days - The Shaguar is born.

With 4 weeks to go we have got "Lil" back from her "beautification". A real big thank you to all the guys and girls at Hawes Signs who worked so hard to get her ready for us. As you will see from the photos below she is transformed. Please pay special attention to the Shaguar rebranding exercise done on the back of the car!

Please Please Please use the Donate button to sponsor us.

The International Men of Mystery.

Well our car, nicknamed by Graham as ‘Fag Ash Lil’ due to the high levels of nicotine ingrained in every crevice, has now gone off for her transformation from Ugly Duckling to Beautiful Swan. She made the epic journey from Passfield to Milton Keynes effortlessly and this certainly bodes well for the trip. Graham conveniently felt a trip to the US was in order to avoid the risk of being called out to a breakdown!

Lil (as we like to call her) is being sponsored by ECCE International, who have kindly agreed to transform her with the Union Jack, target etc. We’re hoping to have her back in the next week and will post some photos as soon as we can.

Here's a couple of "before" pictures (Nice isn't it!).

Keep visiting us for more updates

Paul and The International Men of Mystery

The blog is live!

Hi everybody and welcome the the International Men of Mystery Dumball Blog.

First - A big thank you to Tim, Russ and Sammie for getting us up and running with this.

What a brilliant job they have done. "Groovy Baby" Thanks.

Plans for the rally are going well. We have a Toyota Camry (SHAGUAR) which we bought for just £350. It's done over 140,000 miles but seems to be a good runner and we have no doubts that it will get us there. It has a 3 litre petrol engine so if anybody has a fuel tanker heading that way let us know. Next job for the car is to get it painted with a Union Jack. We also have some sponsors that have volunteered to put their names on the car (must be mad!) so after painting we will be applying their logo stickers. Once the car is painted and stickerised we will be taking it to various places to show it off and hopefully get loads more sponsorship.

Please remember to visit the Justgiving site and sponsor us. All of your money will go directly to Leukaemia Research and is not used to fund our trip in any way.  Thanks for your support.

The International Men of Mystery.