The intrigue will be finished. That delicate fulcrum on which fate balances will crumble around your sperm-filled sock. So why are so many of you doing it?

So, it was a toss-up: the possibility of a fateful assignation between a cosh and my head, or firing up the engine at 10pm, bending the rules and driving an hour to Greece.

Romania fizzles out after Craiova. Faced with a choice of routes to reach Bulgaria – drive over the new Calafat bridge or take an open-decked ferry from Bechet to Oryahov – I chose the latter. It sounded jollier; in half a shake of a duck’s tail, I veered south rather than southwest. ‘DKV card?’ I

  Where did we get to on the Slayer Tour? Oh yes, Deva in Romania. In my road atlas – which excludes Romania in any detail, as if to say ‘Don’t bother unless essential’ – I’ve now written “Dreadful but no police” for that stretch we did down from Oradea last time. The reason for

‘I can’t sail the Pearl single-handed, you know,’ I continued sotto voce. ‘I’m commandeering you and that bodice till dawn.’ Crumbs, what a pervert – even more perverted, perhaps,

Get your map out for a minute. Or open Google Maps if you haven’t got one. The latter might be preferable, actually, given that a) you’re already online and b) Tokaj, Hungary is minuscule, barely even a village. If you can face it, put some Slayer on the stereo, too. Well, my old wrinkled testicle,

‘Problem?’ asked the Hungarian promoter. I’d rolled in to Hegyalja Festival in Tokaj – near the Ukrainian border – and things looked iffy. A hundred yards away lay the stage, but, coo, what a hundred yards. Muddy? There could have been a tour bus from last year buried in that bog. ‘Well, as a vague