Olly’s imagined conversation on the psychiatrist’s chair:

Somewhere along the birth canal, something went wrong – because I seemed to be born without the qualities to fulfil my passions. I had a inquisitve mind – as a young boy I wanted to learn about gravity – but didn’t have the required intelligence to work it out – so I jumped out of tree with a brick to see what would hit the ground first. 10 stitches in the head of a 6 year-old, should have been a strong enough warning, but instead, it created a monster.

The pursuit of the unknown grew into a passion for international travel, adventuring and expeditioning, a passion I sadly didn’t have the required skills to succeed in. Despite having travelled to nearly 100 countries now, my chronic weaknesses show no sign of abatting…I should qualify that…. Whenever I leave the safety of my house and I seem to get into trouble. I went on holiday recently to the rather protected shores of the Pembrokeshire coastline in Wales and within an hour of arrival found myself being rescued by the Coast Guard – having taken out a sea kayak (with limited, okay zero, experience), the weather and currents changed and I was being dragged out into the Atlantic towards an unplanned crossing to the Americas. Am I proud of it? Obviously not. Am I to blame for it? Often but not always. Travel is one of my great passions, I am unfortunately rubbish at it, but that doesn’t mean I wont continue to it. By a strange quirk of the rediculuous, my greatest weakness, and my most grotesque incompetence have now become my life, whilst my job on the other hand, is now to stay out of life threatening trouble. Let me explain…

Like countless others I was initially inspired by the wanton heroism, adventuring and penchant for bashing Nazis that was Dr. Indiana Jones… Sadly though I seemed to get off on the wrong foot and my travels and expeditions to date are more reminiscent of Aled Jones’ journeys – the chorister famous for his rendition of the animated film, The Snowman. My first major expedition is a case in point – generously endorsed by the Royal Geographical Society, we set out to investigate the Grass Silk Road that linked Genghis Khan’s capital at Karakorum with his grandson’s great capital, Yuan Shangdu (or Xanadu). Everything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong – we were held hostage by thugs, had horses stolen, ran out of food and water, ended up having to walk over 1250km across the Gobi desert, imprisoned etc etc. We were lucky to survive.

In trying to come up with some sort of justification, nye legitimacy to my failings, I returned to the source – the American anthropologist, Roy Chapman Andrews, who many believe is the real-life inspiration for Indiana Jones – strangely in his journals, I found what I was looking for – motivation for adventure and explanation for my approach: ‘adventures are a mark of incompetence … (where) success depends on the humdrum, knowing everything about the area, drawing on the experience of others, using the best equipment, planning meticulously, staying healthy’.

With renewed fortitude and belief, my travels, expeditions and misadventures continued and have now caused trouble in nearly 100 countries but seem to be linked by little except hopeless incompetence. Life on the road has included:

1. On the run (on horseback) from bandits on the Chinese-Tibetan borders.
2. Getting in a nasty resevoir dogs moment in a gun-market (except I was armed only with a small camera)
3. Being given the tour of the Vatican whilst impersonating a Catholic Priest. (Rome)
4. Trying to find ways to confuse 100s of imaginary cats (Whilst taking a shamanic cocktail of ayuhuasca and datura with the Machigenga tribe, Amazon, Peru – Took a month to regain 20-20 vision)
5. Getting lost on foot in the desert of Wadi Rumm. (Jordan: A difficult place to get lost! Took 3 days to find our way out.)
6. Being persued by the People’s Liberation Army across the Shangtu grasslands (China)
7. Being saved from drowning by the Fire Service having been refused emergency landing by armed police outside the Secret Service HQ (Thames, London)
8. Dancing dressed as the devil in a Nightclub called Hell (Shanghai)
9. Driving around Red Square in a limo borrowed off the FSB pretending to be James Bond. (Russia)
10. Time of Innocence: falling in love at first site (Chengdu, China)

I hope my failures and incompetence can become a beacon for all those who also are rubbish at the things they love – with luck and madness, you too can make a life out of it…