You might remember him from former features such as Bag-on-the-Head:
Or maybe Speedos: The Final Frontier
Well, Mark's latest role is to become King of the Hill.
This hill in particular
In less than 3 months, Mark is going to be cycling the Etape du Tour in the Pyrenees. This includes the Tourmalet, which Lance Armstrong once described as a 'monster'.
The Etape is the toughest stage of the Tour de France open to non professional cyclists. For those not familiar with this particular stretch of the race, think 180km cycling, half of which is uphill with around 4100 metres of climbs. Or roughly 13 times the height of the Eiffel Tower if that's how you like to measure stuff.
(N.B this not Mark)
Around 8000 cyclists will start the race. In 2007, only 4000 of them managed to finish. Thankfully, there is a sweeper bus that follows you round the course at 17kmph so you don't get left on the side of the mountain. If the bus overtakes you however, you're outta the race.
Mark and 12 of his friends are undertaking the greatest challenge of their collective legs' lives to raise money for an excellent charity.
Until a few months ago, none of them had a racing bike between them and apart from the odd Sunday jaunt or commuting to work, none of them had done any real cycling either.
They did their first race last weekend and managed to finish without anyone crying.
According to their training schedule, April is all about practicing cornering, riding 100 miles in one day and eating a banana whilst slipstreaming
We'll keep you updated on his progress each month until the big day.
We all know what it's like to wake up in the middle of the night, needing the loo, not wanting to leave your warm bed and head downstairs to a cold bathroom.
So imagine there are no lights, it's -14°C and instead of quickly nipping down the stairs, you have a 20 minute trek along a rocky track ahead to your toilet - which happens to be a riverbank.
Oh and that same riverbank feeds into the river where you get all your drinking water, wash your clothes and so on.
Well, for Doris and hundreds of other families in the high Andes of Peru, that's how it is.
Practical Action are introducing 300 'eco loos' to families living at 5000m (about 4 times as high as Ben Nevis). These dry toilets are ideal in an area where water is scarce.
Helen from Practical Action has just got back from visiting Peru and has been blogging about the eco loos here.
As well as improving sanitation conditions and not polluting drinking water supplies, these new loos mean that the waste produced can be used to fertilise crops.
Earth Hour started in 2007 in Sydney, Australia when 2.2 million homes and businesses turned their lights off for one hour to make their stand against climate change. It is now a global event, in 2009 hundreds of millions of people took part with over 4000 cities in 88 countries officially switched off to pledge their support for the planet.
Earth Hour 2010 is this saturday at 8.30pm (local time) and is asking that people across the world stand up, take responsibility, get involved and lead the way towards a sustainable future by turning off the lights (and anything else non-essential) for 1 hour. Not only a great way to help the planet and raise awareness but also the perfect opportunity for a candlelit cuddle, a trip to Dans Le Noir in London or getting an early night if the kids woke you up early that morning.
Oh and don't forget that daylight saving time starts on Sunday, so put the clock forward before you go to bed (or at least before you turn out the lights - otherwise it can be tricky).
We spied this chap in a spot of bother at a posh London eatery recently and couldn't resist taking a pic.
If you have any idea how this curious situation came about, please let us know. Were you in the restaurant at the time? Have you been in contact with this literate langoustine since?
We just want to know he's ok.
Most informative answer wins a case of smoothies for helping solve the, er, case.
The second rule of Cake Club is you must drink tea.
And the third rule of Cake Club is that occasionally you have to bake a cake.
Otherwise it would be simply known as Take Club.
Each month, a theme is picked, cakes are baked along that theme and votes are cast for the overall favourite. It's similar to Cheese Club but with tea and doillies.
This month's theme was Spring.
Robin made a carrot cake (complete with pureed pineapple and freshly grated carrot garnish)
Jeanette's lemon and basil cupcakes were a triumph, despite them getting a bashing from rude commuters on the way to work.
Cake bouncers were Lucy and Ruvan, who kept a watchful eye before judging/cake eating commenced
When there's that much quality cake on the table, you need some heavies in tow to keep sponging fingers in check.
Cake Baker of the Day however was Beth, who surpassed herself by making a splendid simnel cake from scratch.
She even cycled to the market specially to pick up some festive decorations