Round Ireland with a fridge, again

In summer 1997, British comedian Tony Hawks stood on the side of a road near Dublin — with a fridge. A few weeks earlier, in a pub in Brighton, he had jokingly said that if there was one country in the world where a person could go hitchhiking with a fridge, it was Ireland. A friend immediately bet £100 that it couldn't be done.

It took Hawks four weeks to travel from Dublin to Galway, to Donegal to Cork and back to Dublin with his fridge, but it was worth it. His surreal travel book, Round Ireland with a Fridge, has sold 900,000 copies. Now, it is being made into a film with Hawks himself in the lead role.

"We're trying to make it a nice, gentle film, coming at a time when everything and everybody is [in a mood of] doom and gloom," the 49-year-old author told the Sunday Tribune. The Round Ireland with a Fridge "road movie" will be in cinemas in time for Christmas, Hawks says.