Team ‘Southend Or Bust’
Banarama Atacama - In the desert, you don’t remember your name
Seb was at the wheel, and really pushing the Estate Roamer to its limits. James had worked out how to get past the “bloody Commie bastards” (still using his fake gruff military accent), namely the AAU, whilst he was navigator on the previous stint, and they were now gaining serious time on them thanks to some short-cutting.
“See Martin, where’s the worry?” said James, sitting in the back and helping himself to some second breakfast. Naturally, being by far and away the most adept cook of the three, he’d managed to blag some local baked treats whilst back in La Paz.
“Mate you know what I’m like” Martin replied jokingly, sitting in the passenger’s seat. Of course though, while he sounded like he was joking, he was still worrying like no tomorrow.
“Ha” James replied, “even I’m surprised it’s got this far without much of a hitch”.
“It’s got us into a high end position” said Seb, fumbling his English once again.
“A what?” said Martin, confused.
“As in a good place. As in we’re in 5th at the moment I think?” said Seb.
“Oh I’m with you now” said Martin “Yeah, it’s doing wonders for us”.
Sure it was very, very far from comfortable, but out here on the rough and unforgiving landscape of the Atacama, the Estate Roamer was proving its worth, more as an off roader instead of a Chelsea Tractor, which was saying something.
If the boys wanted to win, however, they still had to close down the top three. But given how close together they were and how much time the Roamer was making up on each stage, they were determined to push it for everything they’d got.
“Right, time for desert music” James burst out all of a sudden, having been silently flicking through his iPhone for the last few minutes. Seb and Martin sighed.
“This playlist better be good okay, we’re not having another argument like we did with Springsteen and Lady GaGa like we did back on the Go West race” said Seb.
“Er, that’s The Boss to you” said James in his patronising tone. It was a common line from the Brit.
He tapped play, and the echoey metallic sounds of the The Cult’s A Flower In The Desert came across the last remnants of the Harmon Kardon sound system.
“Who is this?” questioned Seb.
“The Cult!” said James cheerily, quickly turning his voice to venomous satiricalness. “Martin ought to know”.
Martin turned around and stared back. “We’re not having this argument again, and certainly not here”.
Seb cracked up laughing. They’d made it almost 4 days together without the tetchy subject of James being jealous of Martin’s girlfriend coming up, but here at last the cards were on the table.
“Mate, this is ridiculous. Have you made this playlist just to spite me or something?” fired back Martin.
Seb continued laughing. He was pissing himself laughing because the gist argument had been going on ever since they all first went out on a night out together, where it was very evident that Seb was the best at pulling, causing Martin and James to spar over who was ‘second best’, something that, as was evident here, was yet to be resolved.
“Spite you? Hardly. I’m just making a point” James said, smarmily.
“About what?!” raged Martin, now properly twisting himself round the seat to face the other lad.
“About your stupid ‘ooh look at us we like indie music’ conversations you have with her” James said in a hugely sarcastic, childlike tone. “And all those stupid new band t-shirts you’ve started buying since you’ve been seeing her”
“Dude just because I love The 1975 does not mean we need to argue about what me and her talk about” - The 1975 point going back to another argument they’d had.
“Oh it’s love now, is it?” returned James. “God I didn’t realise you were such a sap, look what she’s done to you!”
“MATE” Martin shouted back, “we agreed that we were all gonna go out and wingman for you, I thought we settled this”. Seb continued to laugh his arse off.
“Why don’t you just admit the truth James” said Martin, returning the smarminess that often made James a right PITA.
“Excuse me?” James said back. Seb’s expression dropped, he couldn’t wait for the next line.
“Yeah, the truth” said Martin, bouying with confidence. “That you’re not really angry about me being in a relationship, you’re angry because she likes the same music as you secretly do”
“No, no, no” said James, shaking his head, though Martin kept talking over him,
“Because” said Martin, turning back to Seb briefly as the Spaniard negotiated some particular rough terrain, “mister ‘Ni**as in Paris is my jam’ is secretly a diehard fan of the The Xcerts, Blossoms AND Catfish” he said proudly.
“Mate, fuck off, no…” James tried to begin. The debacle was far from over, though given that Seb knew were he was going, at least he had plenty of entertainment for the journey.
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] “Wait… wasn´t it that TV show where everyone was driving mountain passes while drifting every single corner?”
]“Whatever… not a huge fan of it, but just let it run through to make the little kiddo happy…”
) to the equally special Last Stage show, to be interviewed by our 