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Last updated on May 20th, 2017 at 10:25 am

This fellow’s intention was to warm our hearts, and damn if he hasn’t succeeded:

A man who planned to walk from Bristol to India without any money has quit, after getting as far as Calais, France.

Bristol to Calais would only be about 200 miles.

Mark Boyle, 28, who set out four weeks ago with only T-shirts, a bandage and sandals, hoped to rely on the kindness of strangers for food and lodging.
But, because he could not speak French, people thought he was free-loading or an asylum seeker.

They were right about the freeloading. Read on to learn that Mr Boyle is a former organic food company boss who doesn’t believe in money and is scared by French people.

Posted by Tim B. on 02/29/2008 at 11:14 AM

He now plans to walk around the coast of Britain instead, learning French as he goes, so he can try again next year.
Let me guess. When he reaches Italy, he’ll retreat to France for a year whilst he learns Italian…
Posted by murph on 2008 02 29 at 11:24 AM • permalink

Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.
— William F. Buckley, Jr.
(ht to LGF)
Posted by oldirishpig on 2008 02 29 at 11:24 AM • permalink

He doesn’t believe in money but, of course, he doesn’t mind other people spending their money to feed him
Imbecile.
Posted by murph on 2008 02 29 at 11:26 AM • permalink

But, because he could not speak French, people thought he was free-loading or an asylum seeker.
Oh, snap!
Reality is not what idealistic Leftist dopes feel it is.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2008 02 29 at 11:27 AM • permalink

Mr Boyle is a former organic food company boss who doesn’t believe in money
Is anyone else reminded of Margo Kingston and Webdiary’s business plan (to take over MSM)? Boy that was such fun to watch.
Posted by wronwright on 2008 02 29 at 11:32 AM • permalink

Stupid bastard. Most though him so, when I posted this.
Next time Boyle, (or as the French citizenry probably spelled it Boil) take a plane.
I hear Air Hezbollah, is going to be running some cut rate, deals for summer travel.
Posted by El Cid on 2008 02 29 at 11:41 AM • permalink

…and is scared by French people.
Le boo!
Posted by ErnieG on 2008 02 29 at 11:42 AM • permalink

I don’t suppose the idea of, oh say, exchanging labor for goods/services ever occured to this genius.
I can just imagine what happened to that organic food company of which he was “boss”.
IMHO, this is what happens when you don’t pay attention in school.
Posted by Winger on 2008 02 29 at 11:47 AM • permalink

ErnieG
Le boo!
Yep. Goalie for the Montreal Canadians.
Posted by El Cid on 2008 02 29 at 12:05 PM • permalink

He’s afraid of the FWENCH??!!. Next thing you know the chess club and debate team members will be shaking him down for his lunch money.
Posted by JohnO on 2008 02 29 at 12:06 PM • permalink

Crossing the Channel on foot was the hard part.
Posted by Mystery Meat on 2008 02 29 at 12:07 PM • permalink

Sounds like another god damned stupid bastard who needs a slap upside his head. Accompanied by the words “Snap out of it!”
Posted by Latino on 2008 02 29 at 12:23 PM • permalink

He doesn’t believe in money, so he must have gotten his T-shirts and sandals out of a dumpster. Couldn’t he have fed himself the same way?
Posted by RebeccaH on 2008 02 29 at 12:23 PM • permalink

“Next thing you know the chess club and debate team members will be shaking him down for his lunch money.”
Next thing you know, Iran’s National Lawn Bowling Team will seize British Marines on the high seas, hold them for ransom, and make them appologize and cry “uncle”!
Oh, this already happened you say?
Posted by Harry Bergeron on 2008 02 29 at 12:25 PM • permalink

What did he get in return for his organic food, sandals and t-shirts?
Posted by Bishop on 2008 02 29 at 12:30 PM • permalink

Perhaps someone should tell him that many French people understand english but choose not to speak english out of shyness because exposing their limited abilities makes them feel insecure.
Others expect that you will learn french more quickly if they ignore you and/or act impatient. This tough love and concern for your continued education is sometimes be mistaken for rudeness.
“Ze man who begs, he is a, how you say, le douche”
Posted by Col. Milquetoast on 2008 02 29 at 12:54 PM • permalink

Re #11:
Nope, Mr. Ron Obvious (Neaps End) showed how it should be done, by leaping across the 26-mile English Channel, from Dover to Calais, getting a lift from the thermal off the coast, while carrying half a hundredweight of bricks from his sponsor.
Posted by Big Dan on 2008 02 29 at 12:56 PM • permalink

“Ze man who begs, he is a, how you say, le douche”
But “douche” is a French word, so you would have to say, “Ze man who begs, he is a, how you say, a shower”.
But hey, I failed French class and I don’t like snails, so take my words with a grain of salt.
Posted by Bishop on 2008 02 29 at 12:59 PM • permalink

Wait a minute – I thought only us pig-ignorant Americans were monolingual. This clown lives in England and doesn’t speak French? May I assume he’s fluent in German and Walloon?
Posted by Dave S. on 2008 02 29 at 01:04 PM • permalink

Perfect ending to a perfect story!
Posted by paco on 2008 02 29 at 01:20 PM • permalink

Thanks, Tim. I really needed a laugh today. What a perfect story.
Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2008 02 29 at 01:21 PM • permalink

He walked from Bristol to Calais?
Must be good at holding his breath, eh wat?
Posted by mojo on 2008 02 29 at 01:48 PM • permalink

Is this guy’s name Puce?
Posted by wronwright on 2008 02 29 at 01:56 PM • permalink

Uh-oh, wronwright
If you say “Puce” three times, does he appear?
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2008 02 29 at 01:58 PM • permalink

What, he couldn’t figure out how to dive into French dumpsters? From what I understand, that’s all cool when you’re living in ‘the free’.
http://kk.org/ct2/2008/02/freeconomy.php
Posted by Nova Scotia Mike on 2008 02 29 at 02:06 PM • permalink

“That really scared us and given that we now were pretty much out of food, hadn’t slept in days and were really cold, we had to reassess the whole situation.”
Er, how many days can it take to get from England to Calais? Tell it to the Dunkirk survivors.
And ‘really cold’? Pussy.
Posted by Retread on 2008 02 29 at 02:08 PM • permalink

“…not only did no one not speak the language, they had also seen us as just a bunch of freeloading backpackers, which is the complete opposite of what the pilgrimage is really about.”
Exactly. It’s about being a bunch of backpacking freeloaders, you silly geese!
Posted by Jim Treacher on 2008 02 29 at 02:20 PM • permalink

#14 “Next thing you know the chess club and debate team members will be shaking him down for his lunch money.”
That reminds me of something that happened when I was in high school. The chess club and the bridge club met in the parking lot after school to have it out, and the movie projector guys showed up and just kicked ass.
Posted by ErnieG on 2008 02 29 at 03:44 PM • permalink

…and so the “speak his name 3 times” meme us upheld. Sort of.
Posted by mojo on 2008 02 29 at 03:44 PM • permalink

I can’t understand why the French, those noble people of hospitality and good manners, didn’t help out this poor Anglo in need. It’s very very perplexing.
Posted by wronwright on 2008 02 29 at 03:45 PM • permalink

#24 spiny norman –
If you say “Puce” three times, does he appear?
Hell, I’m not going to push my luck and try it out. It took me weeks to get that Hidden Iman out of my cellar.
Treacher’s here, let him do it.
Posted by wronwright on 2008 02 29 at 03:47 PM • permalink

Mr Boyle is a former organic food company boss
and currently a fool.
Posted by kae on 2008 02 29 at 04:34 PM • permalink

Maybe next time he will first head north to the Norway Seed Vault.
Posted by yojimbo on 2008 02 29 at 04:49 PM • permalink

not only did no one not speak the language, they had also seen us as just a bunch of freeloading backpackers
If you can’t speaka da lingo, how the hell do you know what they thought of you?
Did they mime a bunch of freeloading hippy backpackers, or did mime die out with whatshisname?
Posted by mr creosote on 2008 02 29 at 05:30 PM • permalink

not only did no one not speak the language
Isn’t that a double negative? So they all must have spoken the language.
Posted by kae on 2008 02 29 at 05:40 PM • permalink

*Too inebriated to consume earlier posts*
F**k him, I met a nice french girl tonite who thinks persons of such ilk should be marched out and shot.
I’m VERY Alarmed that she could be Wron’s daughter…
VIVA LA FRANCE (dear God I’d never thought I’d say that…)
Posted by The_Wizard_of_WOZ on 2008 02 29 at 05:52 PM • permalink

Ciao for Now, got a plane to intercept.
NO thats not code for some VRWC inspired Plot. Though God knows Wron and P.A.C.O. shall make it so…
Posted by The_Wizard_of_WOZ on 2008 02 29 at 06:01 PM • permalink

Wonder if the Mr Boyle realises the language difficulties are likely to worsen as he walks east. Italian, Slovenian, Croatian, Serbian (and now the letters start to look different), Macedonian, Greek, Turkish (letters familiar again, mum), Kurdish (umm), Farsi (are they letters?), Dari, Pashto, Urdu, Hindi.
Posted by Contrail on 2008 02 29 at 06:03 PM • permalink

Big mistake, walking to India. If he had put a begging bowl around his neck, dressed like Ghandi, and crawled, he would have had plenty of sympathy from all the multicultis until, say, Turkey.. Slow though.
Posted by Barrie on 2008 02 29 at 06:07 PM • permalink

…we now were pretty much out of food, hadn’t slept in days and were really cold…
Fair dinkum, Boyle of the Continent reads like this century’s Robert Falcon Scott.
Posted by lotocoti on 2008 02 29 at 06:34 PM • permalink

#19 Dave S…..think you’ll find Walloon is French
Posted by Rod C on 2008 02 29 at 06:44 PM • permalink

This is the best larf I’ve had all week, Tim.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 02 29 at 06:58 PM • permalink

A few more stories like this, and I might lose faith in the common sense of my fellow man.
Posted by Harry Bergeron on 2008 02 29 at 09:39 PM • permalink

#36 WOW –
I’m VERY Alarmed that she could be Wron’s daughter…
WOW, I realize you’re Australian and, therefore, might not know better. So I’m going to explain it to you. Right now I have your coordinates entered into the orbital space cannon. If you so much as instant message my dear Esmerelda, I will fire off a photon charge so big, you and your city of domicile shall be reduced to subatomic particles. Got it?
And the same goes for the rest of you. Especially paco’s son.
Posted by wronwright on 2008 02 29 at 10:45 PM • permalink

We can only pray that this…um…person shares a belief in the left’s other current myth of overpopulation and refuses to reproduce. That should increase the intelligence of the next generation by a small, but measureable, amount.
Posted by Michael Lonie on 2008 02 29 at 11:29 PM • permalink

In reality the Frogs probably chased him aroundwith a plate of foi grois.
Posted by brian_smaller on 2008 02 29 at 11:56 PM • permalink

#44 Wronwright.
Will there be a “Kaboom”? There is supposed to be an earth-shattering “Kaboom”.
I’ll be listening.
=^D
Posted by kae on 2008 03 01 at 12:16 AM • permalink

44 – wronwright: Wiz’s home city is MY home city, too.
I would not take kindly to being reduced to particles subatomic or otherwise.
Back off. Unless you want to know the devastation of a pre-emptive strike, delivered by my flying killer wombats.
Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2008 03 01 at 12:19 AM • permalink

Back on topic: how did this twit miss the bus when the human shields were going to Iraq?
Posted by SwinishCapitalist on 2008 03 01 at 12:21 AM • permalink

To land in France requires much planning.
He should have read Longest Day.
Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 03 01 at 12:33 AM • permalink

It just boggles me that anyone is afraid of the French. France could be taken over with no weapons but dull spoons by the losers in my high school who got pantsed every day.
Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2008 03 01 at 01:34 AM • permalink

I wonder if he’s a former organic food company boss because he tried to run the company exclusively on t-shirts, bandages and sandals, too.
“Damn it, there has to be some kind of endeavour where that works!”
Posted by PW on 2008 03 01 at 03:50 AM • permalink

Mark Boyle, 28, who set out four weeks ago with only T-shirts, a bandage and sandals
And no pants? No wonder the French wouldn’t talk to him.
Posted by Dr Alice on 2008 03 01 at 12:39 PM • permalink

Dave S…..think you’ll find Walloon is French
What can I say… I’m an American.
And my, that petard was ‘splodey.
Posted by Dave S. on 2008 03 01 at 01:55 PM • permalink

#53 Hilarious Alice. It conjures all sorts of images. Books brought up over faces, honeymoon fingers hitting the electric window buttons, children looking back over their shoulders, near accidents, old women winking, young women winking, husbands laughing. But no one giving him any money.
Posted by mehaul on 2008 03 01 at 06:56 PM • permalink

#13 good point, RebeccaH.
Actually I’m surprised he didn’t make it. There are worldwide clubs/movements of dumpster divers, freecyclists, squatters associations and all sorts of people who believe and actively pursue the Living Without Money lifestyle.
Some of them are prats, of course, but most of them just like to save landfill and don’t believe in waste.
You still need a bit of money, of course, but it’s actually very impressive how many things people can find for free, swap etc.
I’m surprised that he did not tap into these circles.
Posted by carpefraise on 2008 03 02 at 12:01 AM • permalink