Family Guy

With apologies to our regular readers but after the hectic schedule that was keeping up with him and Gay George (Not Actually Gay) skiing the editorial team here at Bogun towers have been having a quiet few days enjoying mince pies etc.

This leaves us with two weekends to report on which unusually we have decided to fold into one report.

The weekend following his return from skiing was scheduled to be one of heavy drinking with his Uncle Dick and Lindsey (his lovely wife) descending along with his (i.e. our hero's not Uncle Dick's) sister and her family on his (i.e. our hero's not Uncle Dick's) mother's house. For the benefit of social services the heavy drinking was only scheduled for the adults.



Once the little people were safely tucked up in bed an evening of fine food, fine wine, not so fine wine and ribaldry followed. Enlivened (if that is the right word) with the use of Uncle Dick's comedy glasses. In the cold light of day it is difficult to discern how they found them as amusing as they did but we long gave up trying to understand his mind.



After such an evening astonishingly he was up early and in the car back to Bristol before noon. He was pretty weary that night though.

A pretty regulation week followed and he spent this weekend with the family again, this time at his sister's place, being entertained by his little nieces.




Meanwhile he has been claiming to be on his sick bed with manflu. A week of avoiding his Christmas shopping beckons.

Skiing Part 6

Having concluded their skiing adventures and enjoyed some limited but good early season fun they decided to go out for an enourmous one before getting their flight back.

A few beers in Jam bar, followed by beers, pool and fussball in the Angel, followed by more beers in Jam bar, followed by beers and shooting games and bowling in the bowling alley (he shot 28, if any of our readers are unaware of the scoring system then he has asked us to say that this is very good, intergrity requires us to record that it is abject bilge), followed by more beers in the Angel bar was mission accomplished.



The 0600 wake up call was a spot challenging for them as a resuly. The real treat was then finding that the side door of the mini-bus had froxen shut and so they had to clamber over the front seats to get in which with raging hangovers was fun. The fun quotient took a dramatic turn for the worse when they got the airport to discover their new best friends Sleazy Jet had delayed their flight by over 4 hours. He had a quick work with the girl on check-in and stressed his importance and they agreed to fly in a new plane for them to use and they managed to take off on time. Astonishing.

Skiing Part 5

Finally the snow has stopped and the sun has come out and they were up very early all excited like kids at Christmas ready to enjoy the slopes.

Quite selfishly everyone else in the Alps decided this would be a good idea too and descended on Tignes en masse to block the slopes and ruin their fun. Fortunatly the lift queues were enormous so they didn't suffer too badly on the slopes as they spent most of their time queuing.

The views were however fantastic.

Skiing Part 4

Tignes is just across the mountains from Val d'Isere (aka Val d'Sloane Square) and so quite cool (or at least it likes to think it is). Of course our hero has similar pretentions and so likes to dress up to cut the dash on the slopes. Sadly his sense of style rather lets him down.

Skiing Part 3

Having survived the blizzard yesterday they awoke to another day of rather "challenging" light conditions. It's fair to say that Gay George (Not Actually Gay) was not exactly looking forward to a long day on the slopes trying to ski using the force.



As things turned out Gay George (Not Actually Gay)'s worries were misplaced and our hero's optimism was located in a similar place and he duly carved a new valley in his right ski.



Excitingly this caused that ski to go roughly half the speed of the undamaged one so he just went round in circles all day.

Skiing Part 2

Despite their impressive efforts to lose their ski passes they still woke up this morning convinced that they could get up the slopes and impress the natives with their skills.

Having struggled to the top of the hill they set off down the rather challenging black run as a "gentle warm up" for the day. Suffice to say that our hero stacked it and did his best superman flying impression across the slopes before breaking his fall with his nose. Well we say nose but actually we mean his goggles and glasses which are now proper buggered.

Some people would have left it there in terms of ruining their goggles but of course our subject has an ability to take things too far that is very rare seen. He found himself in a toilet in mid-morning gently relieving himself slightly bemused that there was no sound of urine against porcelain, as he looked down he noticed the reason for the same being that he was urinating into the pair of goggles he was holding in his hand. Nice.

The snow gods clearly recognised a pair of disasters waiting to happen and were good enough to the pair of them to start hurling down a blizzard just after lunch leading to the mountain being shut.
Somehow Gay George (Not Actually Gay) ended up being forced to get the train down whilst our hero ended up having to ski down. Suffice to say that they both think they got down first.

Skiing Part 1

Despite Sleazy Jet's best efforts to ruin their holiday in the snow they have managed to head off up into the hills for a spot of skiing. We say a spot because they managed to enjoy a quick ski up at the top of the mountain before heading back down to the base station for luncheon and there finding that a) Gay George (Not Actually Gay) had lost his ski pass and b) our hero has managed to invalidate his by sweating all over his.





What an impressive start to a skiing holiday.

Sleazy Jet

Well we are glad to report that our hero has decided to head off on his travels again and has made his way to the French Alps with Gay George (Not Actually Gay).

They have made their way with everyone's favourite airline - Easy Jet - who have as usual outperformed themselves by managing to lose your correspondent's notepad and pencils much to the editorial team's amusement. Much less to the general amusement of our hero and Gay George (Not Actually Gay) they managed to lose their skis and snowboard as well.



Fortunately no harm done as they have arrived in resort to find no snow anyway.

Bond, James Bond

Due to popular demand (well his mother at least) the editorial team has persuaded your correspondent to regale our gentle readers with more tales of his weekend derring do. Gosh what fun.

Before turning to his weekend we should just tie up some loose ends from last week. On Wednesday he hooked up with the lovely Old Speckled for supper, now she has a new flat mate who is seriously lovely and faster than a rat up a drainpipe he had her number and managed to follow that up with lunch with the seriously lovely Carly on Thursday. A seriously good looker.

Friday night was back with the lovely Old Speckled who rustled up a fine feast for him despite being under the weather with a dose of the sniffles (and a does of the freshly singles having just dumped her fellow) which was much appreciated.

On Saturday he was planning to meet up with Rib Robs and Dafydd (and the lovely Polly and lovely Helen their irrespective wives) to slump in front of the rugger before heading to see the new Bond. By strange co-incidence the lovely Dennis had to be in Buckinghamshire as well (where Rib Robs lives) and so she came along for the ride before joining up with him again for the movie. His cuddly dragon Ieuan Quinnell also came along for the trip. As a good Welsh dragon he likes a good game of rugger as much as the next cuddly dragon.

The less said about the rugger the better (for the record Wales came a distant second to the All Blacks) save to record that he had quite a lot to drink and was frankly shambolic by the time Helen’s fine repast of Fish Pie was brought to the table but he somehow managed to stumble through supper without embarrassing himself too much. Although the sharing of stories between the lovely Dennis and the others did the job pretty well for him.

They had taken the very sensible decision to dress up for the Bond movie. Now if one is going to a showing on, say, opening night then one can see the sense of this but if one is going to the High Wycombe Odeon on a wet Saturday 10 days after opening night it is a somewhat less justifiable decision and as James, Q, Jaws, Pussy Galore, Onatop and random Bond girl (FN1) arrived they got some very strange looks from Hoi Polloi.

The girls reported themselves very pleased at the new Bond, although Dennis did seem a little too excited at the torture scene, but Rib Robs and our hero described it as utter bilge. He does however concede that as he was a bit battered and can’t actually remember much of it that may be a little harsh and so he is going to go and see it again and confirm his view.

A very late night followed and he eventually made it to bed at 0430. Imagine his joy at staying the night in a house full of early risers in those circumstances.

A fine meal at the Hit or Miss pub (where the food is somewhat hit and miss (ho bloody ho)) was had for lunch enlivened with a demonstration by Polly of the “Joey Deacon” school of working with young offenders before they meandered back to their pad in Brum. Yet another first class weekend.


FN1: Him, Rib Robs, Dafydd, Helen, Polly and Dennis

A poacher's goal

Another game of hockey to report on.

After the heroics of last week the team were quietly optimistic that they had turned the corner and might be heading towards better times. Their hopes were crushed on the rugged rocks of reality that was a game against Bristol Medics.

As again the goalie played brillantly but could not hope to keep out all the shots flying in at him and at half-time the score was a rather lop-sided 5 nil affair and our hero was looking rather forlorn and alone up front with BGB.

In an effort to get more into the game he dropped back in second half into the defence. His efforts appeared to assist...the opposition although he did manage to score a cracking goal...in his own net.

The team are greatly relieved that he can't make the next game as he is skiing.

Grapevine

With thanks to Grapevine (the magazine of the York Alumni Association) we publish the following extract:

"DAFYDD JONES (English and Related Literature, Langwith) and POLLY SILLS (Biology, Alcuin, 1996) We were married in a wonderfully musical and happy ceremony at St Matthew’s Church, Ealing, on 10 September, 2005. This followed a four year courtship born at Owen Williams’ (Mathematics, Alcuin, 1994) wedding in 2001. We have much to thank Owen for, as we first kissed back in 1993 when Owen was supposedly Polly’s date to an Alcuin Christmas dinner at York Racecourse. Ah, happy days!"

Journalistic integrity

Here at Bogun towers we are getting rather bored reporting on his drunken weekends. Frankly its not very interesting "he went out with X, he got battered, he disgraced himself, repeat" as a journalistic endeavour.

So this week we are not going to bother. Which might be considered a shame in light of the naughtiness that was Saturday night/Sunday morning (indeed Gay George (Not Actually Gay) was so bad he has had to send flowers to our hero's mother this morning to make amends) and the shenanigans that was Sunday lunch with his University chums in Vinopolis and lasted until very late but a rule is a rule so we shall not write further on the subject.

Rock of Ages

His firm has somehow been persuaded to put out a team for a charity tug of war tournament. Unsurprisingly he was first on the team-sheet at anchorman.

The team looked extremely strong on paper. Unfortunately about 60 stone worth of the team cried off before the tournament even started and so turned out to be somewhat less strong on the rope.

After a stuffing in their first two contests they managed to pick themselves off the floor and pull off a stunning victory in their last, and consolation, contest. At least some pride was restored. Not much mind.

Great, more hockey

Astute readers will have noticed a shortage of hockey reports over the last few weeks and no doubt will be filled with ennui at the prospect of another one; well worry no more for here is another one.

After a 4 week break the skipper had managed to recruit some well needed new blood to the side. This new blood had a worrying look of youth and pace about it. Now of course there is no substitute for gas and youth is its own quality and so why, you may ask, was this a worrying development? In terms of the team and hockey quality it was not and, in truth, it was only worrying for the old man of the piece who, having, let’s be honest, not impressed in goal last time round, was back to his usual position at centre forward and was therefore horrified at the prospect of having his pace (well lack thereof) shown up.

As the match kicked off it appeared that these worries were not to be realised as their midfield was horribly over-run and his replacement in goal was forced into some fantastic saves to keep them in it. Despite his valiant efforts they were quite rapidly trailing by 2.

Astonishingly the side started to gel after that and whilst it would be overly diplomatic to claim that they started to control the middle of the park it would be fair to record that they at least stopped being over-run and slowly started to develop some decent moves down the left wing.

These eventually led to a well snaffled goal. Not by the centre-forward of course.

The match really started to come to life after that with some first class hockey all round and whilst there was no more scores it was one of the best games this correspondent has watched in some time. We sense some green shoots of recovery. No doubt they will be treated to a healthy dose of weed-killer by this time next week.

A tale of three cities

On Friday night he sent the following e-mail "I am staying in Birmingham tonight for the first time on a Friday. Now I am really very shy and can't face going to the pub on my own so come and join me and make me feel at home. Anyway I will be in Bushwackers from 1731 come and make it a night to remember." (anyone spot the deliberate error)

Suffice to record that he then was persuaded to join a few of the troops for a drink in the office to welcome some new starters. His chin nearly hit the floor when the lovely Charlotte (a wonderfully pretty blonde from his University days) walked in. She starts working with him next week. He is somewhat nervous of the stories she can tell.

He then ended up with her, the lovely Dennis, the lovely Vorders and the lovely Naylah in the bar of Hotel du Vin. After several bottles of bubbly he went to settle up his tab. Unfortunately the young girl behind the bar and tried to use his card to settle someone else's bill and having cocked up his PIN 3 times locked up his card. He suffered a sense of humour failure. The finest quote we can print is "With respect young lady, blondie over there has ballsed up my card. I have no way of paying and so I'm not". Remarkably this worked and they let him off the bill.

A further few drinks followed back at the lovely Dennis's new flat.

Saturday was somewhat turgid as a result however he managed the energy to get out to his good friend Roger's leaving party (he's moving to Australia) where he got blathered on the usual cocktail of strong cider and sambuca ("the Usual").

Obviously a quiet Sunday was called for. It wasn't delivered as his very good friends Bill and Amy (from New York, passim)
were in the smoke to visit so he headed up to meet them. Several very expensive cocktails were polished off before he resorted to the Usual just in time to miss the last train home. A black cab performed the beer scooter role admirably.

A Wonderful Life

The poor boy has been suffering mightily this weekend with the pangs of regret at the end of his rugby career but has had plenty to take his mind of it. Saturday was spent moving the lovely Dennis into her new flat in Birmingham and Sunday has been a real treat.

He woke up first thing and headed for his usual early morning ablutions and was delighted to discover that the drains were blocked up and rapidly backing up. He was able to discern this from the stacks of shit bubbling up the toilet and the bath.

A quick dash to Wilkinsons to stock up on sink and drain cleaners and plungers and marigolds and other accoutrements of drain cleaning and he found himself up to his elbows in the u-bend with shit liberally spilling over the top of his marigolds.

He then woke the lovely Dennis up with his retching. Lucky girl.

Sadly for the potential humour of the situation those people from Dyno-Rod were out quick as a flash and sorted it out. Fortunately during the course of fixing it both the Dyno-Rod man and he got sprayed with a somewhat unpleasant mixture of toilet-paper, water and, well yes, shit.

Rugby Legend

Reproduced by the kind permission of Planet Rugby [FN1].

The world of rugby was literally rocked to its foundations [FN2] yesterday when news broke of the shock retirement from competitive rugby of Owen Williams.

Williams had performed at the highest [FN3] level for 25 seasons playing both codes, the last 10 of them in Bristol, and many rugby experts are confounded that he never achieved international recognition [FN4].

Williams began his career at scrum-half for his house before transferring from union to league whilst at University switching to hooker in the process but keeping his interest in union and captaining his College (Alcuin) throughout his time at York.

His captaincy inspired Alcuin to new heights of achievement and they broke Wentworth’s traditional hegemony over College rugby and won the Grand Slam 4 times out of 6.

His talents were not going unnoticed and he was invited to an international trial (league). Sadly due to injury he was unable to attend [FN5]. He broke his leg in the final year at university but fought his way back to full fitness.

After university he finally chose to concentrate on union, to the eternal detriment of league – some say his decision marked the start of league’s decline relative to union in this country [FN6].

Two successful seasons playing in York followed before he decided to head down South to pursue his rugby fortune in Bristol.

The last 10 years saw him plying his trade at hooker and prop as one of the stalwarts of Bristol rugby until he suffered a career threatening shoulder injury earlier this season. Unfortunately despite his best efforts he has not been able to recover and the debilitating effect of the injury has forced him to hang up his boots to the great relief of opponents across the land.

And so the sun sets on the career of yet another great stalwart of the game. When asked to comment Ieuan Evans said “Owen was one of the greatest players of the game not to be capped by Wales. Considering some of the right numptys that have pulled on the Welsh shirt over the last few years it is a travesty.” [FN7]

FN1 Not necessarily true.
FN2 ditto
FN3 ditto
FN4 ditto
FN5 ditto – he got pissed instead of going
FN6 well he would
FN7 It actually sounded more like “Who?”

The open road

When heading to a stag do in Liverpool it is always sensible to arrange your diary so that your working day ends somewhere approaching the North-West. Somewhere such as Maidstone is not the most sensible.

We wish we could record that his drive up to Liverpool was marked more by its duration then anything else and indeed a hugely tedious 7 hours in stop start traffic would ordinarily be due that description. Disturbingly as he made his way up the M6 his equilibrium was disturbed by a blonde in the car next to his coming up for air after, as the Daily Mail would describe it, having performed a lewd sex act on the driver.

This all had him ready to kill by the time he got to the rather odd hotel they were staying in (the Britannia Adelphi) which can best be described as being stuck in a Edwardian time-warp.

We should just record that the stag was Johnners a very solid old chum of his and he is marrying the lovely Mimi. Sadly he cannot make their wedding because he is off skiing with Gay George (Not Actually Gay).

Liverpool provided a solid first night out before the boys headed off for a day of paint-balling. The directions were less than good and he promptly got lost in the wilds of Merseyside…not a wise course of action.

The paint-balling itself was the usual display of testosterone fuelled charging around through mud and stagnant water and self-congratulatory debriefs. His head seemed to make an overly attractive target and for a worrying moment it appeared that he had dyed his hair ginger again. He meanwhile did not quite appreciate what a sight he was and he blithely wandered into Tesco’s afterwards (to pick up some biscuits) and promptly drew a great deal of attention from security.



Another night on the pop was planned and this time they kicked off by heading to Aphrodite’s - a “gentlemen’s club”. This was, to say the least, a very odd location. Upstairs it was a real old man’s pub full of retired old couples nursing a half of stout and a port and lemon whilst downstairs was a collection of ladies of extremely negotiable affection and, it must be recorded, a rather unusual range of skills. Charlotte in particular caught his attention mainly through the size of her décolletage.

Now the size was due to the surgeon’s art and whilst she gyrated for him all he could do was try and spot the scars, tragic.

With that nonsense out the way they hit a super-club. He did his usual trick of getting totally lost and confused in the enormous warehouse and losing the rest of the boys.

A somewhat less tedious drive back to Bristol (less then 3 hours this time) capped off an excellent weekend.

In the pink

Last Thursday saw his friend Tails’ birthday celebrations at The Vine Tree in Norton. This was planned to coincide with their charity night for the benefit of breast cancer charities. This of course required people to come in pink.

He of course forgot.

Tails did not and was resplendent in an enormous pink wig (sadly no photos have survived the night). The culmination of the fundraising was a charity raffle. He ended up winning some pink flowers.



After the evening he had to get up to Surrey (he was in court in Kent on Friday) to stay at his mother’s. Shamelessly he gave her the prize pretending it was some spontaneous gift. What a bad son he is, fortunately she will never find out. Unless she reads this of course.

The Greater Gunnersbury Open

Last year he competed in the Greater Gunnersbury Open. Technically he competed in several years of the tournament at once. The rather confusing report of the tournament is re-produced (with the kind permisson of Mr Sills-Jones) below

"Whilst the rest of the world looked on aghast at the tragic events in New York, the Greater Gunnersbury open took place in a time warp. With the alignment of the planets clearly out of kilter, the 2001 Greater Gunnersbury Open took place on 11 September 2005. I know a combination of lawyers and Americans is always likely to delay matters, but this was going a little far. The rules of this competition were also clearly drafted by lawyers and Americans (did Dubya have a hand in this?) as they made no sense to any vaguely normal, or British, person. A fine, sunny Sunday was taken up with a whirlwind of missed putts and expletives, Ben Hogan replaced Bin Laden as the topic of conversation.

"The winner of the 2001 event was Mr Robert Morgan (above right, ginger), playing in a threeball with Mr Dafydd Jones, winner in 2006 (naturally only a year later than Mr Morgan's victory), and Mr Owen 'Bogun' Williams. These twin towers to the eventual winner (in Mr Williams case, more of a squatter's residence than a tower) played some fine shots on the way, not least Mr Jones' excellent opening drive which nearly claimed a hole in one. The ability of Mr Williams to stand, let alone play golf, was a testament to stamina and powers of recuperation of this resilient competitor. Vertical drinking may be a concern in the pubs and restaurants of Ealing; vertical sleeping would appear a worrying development and undoubtedly played a part in Mr Williams' somewhat erratic round which left him some way out of contention.

"Mr Morgan played with an arrogance rarely seen in West London and wholly inappropriate given the date and number of missed greens in regulation. The competition was nip-and-tuck, and would surely have gone the way of one of our cousins from over the pond had it not been for a curtailment as Mr Jones had to catch a flight for his honeymoon. Professional journalism prohibits your correspondent from commenting about Mr Jones needing to play around, "Fore" play, sinking a long one, plenty of shouts of "Get in the Hole" and worrying about the stiffness of the shaft. The curtailment of the round due to the impending flight of Mr Jones (unaffected by the tragic events of 9/11) led to a scrambled last hole - a Texas Scramble replaced by a San Diego Scramble. The final holeshoot out was played to par by Mr Morgan and this proved sufficient for victory in the 2001 tournament. Dr Emmett Brown (Who?) allowed the competitors to rush four years forward and allow the presentation to take place a mere couple of hours before Mr & Mrs Jones departed for Heathrow."

Planes, trains and automobiles

This week promises to be a pretty full week of travelling round the country with trips to Birmingham, Sherston, Purley, Maidstone, Liverpool, Wakefield and Bradford scheduled.

With such an Odyssey before him he was keen to get a good start and things took a rather cheeky turn for the worse Monday morning when, as he motored up to Birmingham, the tyre on a van in front of him exploded battering his car with bits of rubber and slightly disarming him.



Having thrown that excitment at him the M5 clearly felt guilty and served up a Jaguar XJ220 for him to follow (well overtake actually) for the rest of the trip to Brum. The motorway was even more generous and threw up the same car for the trip back south that evening. Lucky boy.

Holby City

As mentioned this week had the potential to be a bit of a nursing experience. Fair to say it was.

Monday was just a series of hospital visits but at least to take his mind off it he got to play hockey that night. This week he got to play in goal.

Some first class defence (remiscent of the Red Sea under the influence of a coach named Moses) gave him plenty of opportunity to shine. He managed a few pretty smart saves and oone absolute screamer but still shipped 9.

The one we never mention managed to persuade them to let her come over and stay for few days to recover after sneaking out of hospital. Of course he felt obligated to let her have his bed so he spent the week sleeping on the sofa, blithering idiot.

So just to clarify he's spent the week comuting to Birmingham, nursing the girls and sleeping on the sofa. So he was right up for a good game of rugger this weekend and getting some of his frustrations out on some unsuspecting opponent. Unfortunately clearly ther spies were out and about and they cried off just as he was driving up to the ground whihc left him very frustrated which he dealt with through the consumption of copious quantities of Stowford Press Cider.

The Aberystwyth Falcon

The road to Aberystwyth (home of his lovely friends Polly and Dafydd) is a long and winding one and many of such winds can beset the path of the righteous man. So sending a rather smug text reading “Not sure what has happened to all the cars but there are none! Think I am going to be very early!” is brave, nay, foolhardy.

Sure enough he then spent a very long hour stuck behind a serious of very slow tractors.

Sensibly his latest trips to the wilds of West Wales coincided with Polly’s birthday (decorum prevents us recording that this is her 32nd) and, in light of his state of tractor induced agitation, the glass of champagne waiting for him as he walked through the front door was most welcome.

A fine evening of wine, food and nostalgia followed before Polly launched into a tirade of abuse at the rather threadbare nature of his socks. So embarrassed was he at the venom of her abuse that he promptly threw them on the fire. Sadly they were so threadbare they barely made an impression.

With the socks duly sacrificed to Pyros Dafydd and he moved onto the blackberry whisky. Now your correspondent has always understood the idea of flavoured vodkas (to give the blasted stuff some sort of taste) but whisky seems to be a different matter.

He can report that a) blackberry whisky tastes of blackberries and is quite pleasant and b) it has psychotropic affects. With this stuff inside them they descended into a cornucopia of chuckles reminiscing about a weekend the two of them spent in Cardiff many years ago with Rib Robs (passim). Suffice to illustrate that weekend is to recall the afternoon spent watching the rugby whilst Rib Robs sat quietly holding the hand of a somewhat slow girl in the corner.

In all we trust our readers can discern a heavy night. Fortunately Polly was on hand in the morning with some porridge to aid their recovery before setting off for the real purpose of this trip.

Now Polly and Dafydd have been married a little over a year and have struggled to work out precisely how they wish to be known (in a surname sense) but finally came to agreement over the Summer and our hero agreed to help with the necessary documentary formalities. Polly and Dafydd being Polly and Dafydd could not just sign the papers but had to make the entire thing a performance and so decided that they wanted to celebrate their new names in a pantheistic ceremony at the top of a mountain.

Yes, you read correctly, they wanted to drag the poor lad to the top of a mountain just to sign a deed.

Somehow his heart and lungs managed to last the trip and when they arrived at the summit he produced with a great flourish the paperwork. Imagine how crestfallen he was when Polly pointed out that he had got their new name wrong. Amateur night.

Despite this demonstration of gross incompetence after some quick manuscript amendments the deeds were signed and the champagne was flowing. Suffice to record that the trip down full to the gun whales with booze was a lot more fun than the trip up.

Having returned to their cottage and a fine high tea of home-baked cake they were planning to head into Aberystwyth for some supper but, bluntly, they got battered too quickly to face the trip and ended up eating cowl and ice-cream. Now this might give the impression that Polly and Dafydd contributed to the ice-cream eating stakes but truth to tell he ate it all (and when we say all we mean 2 pots of the entire stuff).

Whilst tucking into this feast they also experimented with the blackberry whisky mixing it with champagne. We can record that it tastes very nice, sadly we can also report that it gets you seriously battered very very quickly.

He awoke in the morning with a raging hangover before diving into his car for the tediously long journey home from Aberystwyth. Now we say tediously long but thanks to his total disregard for the speed-limit laws he managed to get it done in a terrifying time before heading up to a solid afternoon of corporate hospitality at the rugger.

Bristol smashed the hell out of ‘Quins which was most enjoyable but somewhat less enjoyable was the call he received when he got home from the one we don’t mention’s father to let him know that the one we don’t mention was in hospital. Now it is pretty obvious what the one we don’t mention is up to; desperately trying to draw attention to herself and away from his other friend who is off to hospital tomorrow. It’s not big and it’s not clever.

Cider with Rosie

He's feeling very frustrated following the injury sustained last weekend playing rugger and, let's be honest, made worse playing hockey on Monday he was unable to play this weekend. This is the first time he has missed a game through a soft tissue injury (broken bones are an entirely different matter).

To get over it he headed up to town and in the afternoon and 80th birthday party, very rock and roll, before heading down to his mate Nigel's place in deepest darkest Sussex with TEM and Christine.

For reasons not entirely clear he decided he wanted an evening on the strong cider which caused great consternation to the bar staff who had some very strong stuff hidden in the cellar. Having donned suitable protective gear (masks, gloves and stone vessels) they were willing to serve him. Whilst this proteced their outsides the damage done to his insides is too horrific to contemplate.

To add to his internal woes Nigel insisted on some oysters and, of course, our hero ended up with a dodgy one. The damage done to Nigel's all new bathroom was shocking.

After all that fuss and games he spent Sunday with his nieces (who were in fine form dressing up as Catgirl and Kitten girl for a superhero themed party) before being summoned back to Bristol by the one we don't talk about to give her a lift to her car (which she had abandoned whilst pissed up the night before).

Jolly Hockey Sticks

After nearly a year off the drug that is hockey he succumbed to its temptations and turned out on Monday night. He claims that he plays in a professional league. A more honest description would be a league for professionals.

He scored a cracking goal, in the warm up, but was frankly pretty rubbish during the game which they lost 11-nil as they were hideously overrun by a very well oiled outfit. He was just well oiled having chucked down 3 pints before the match.

Not a great start to a new season.

An apologia

We are sorry to report our first real complaint about our attempts to bring you a light-hearted review of our subject's sad and meaningless life.

We reported that last Sunday he spent the day whilst "surrounded by chums". Now we perhaps should have reported that those chums were the lovely Becky and the equally lovely Dennis and possibly that the morning was spent with Becky before Dennis turned up later.

Our complainant is the lovely Becky who has taken great offence at being lumped in as a 'mere' chum and feels very let down at not being separately identified.

Now in the sense of humour failure stakes this is pretty good going. Now it would be quite wrong of us to take revenge on such complaining but on this occasion we can't face rising above it and so we have taken the entirely adult decision to never mention her again.

With this in mind we should report on last Sunday. After a quiet morning/early afternoon with the lovely Dennis he headed over to the lovely Helen's flat who wanted him round to share some Sunday lunch with her and, ahem, someone else.

A first class meal was duly served up before they headed out for a post-prandial walk. What a wonderful idea, well until it started chucking it down at least and they got soaked. A quick dash into Alibi followed.

Once the rain had calmed down they moved on to the Deco Lounge. On the way down there Helen was moaning about her shoes rubbing so he ended up giving her a piggy back most of the way there. Now this was upon reflection a little silly. Not half as silly as he felt when he walked into the bar and bumped into one of the partners at work who had seen him bounding down the road with her on his back.

Rib-robs a go go

Another week down and so another weekend to survive. The assault course of this one featuring obstacles (un-)imaginatively entitled "trying to get out of the office before 2100", "drinking with Jonny and Charlie", "rugger" and "drinking with Rib-Robs, Jonny (again), Dennis and chums".

Obstacle 1 was just about struggled over (by barely 30 minutes) as he tried to help Dennis get a heinously complicated document out. The important word in that statement is probably "tried".

Having got back to Bristol very late Jonny was very keen that he join him for some beers (nothing to do with that fact the Kay (the girl Jonny amusingly refers to as his former girlfriend (she is now his fiancee) was out of town). A few beers in the Ram followed where he was disturbed to run into Charlie. Now running into Charlie is always an alarming prospect but running into him twice in a day is just wrong (the first time was, oddly, in a sandwich bar in Birmingham).

Rugger did not go well. At the second scrum he buggered up his shoulder. He insisted on going on. At the next maul he buggered up an inter-costal muscle. He insisted on going on. Things just got worse and worse until in an act of mercy the skipper pulled him off. What a generous chap he is.

The drive home was not much fun punctuated by screams of pain.

Fortunately the final obstacle involved a number of anaesthetic alcoholic drinks. Rib-robs (just to explain he is a chum of his from University days married to the lovely Helen - although our hero did rather make a fool of himself with the line "take my advice Rob, never get married" to which Rib-robs replied "er, but I am", how our hero was supposed to remember this having only been an usher at the wedding we really don't know) and he kicked things off with a bar crawl via the Ram and the Fine Line to join up with the others in Hullaballoos for supper.

Unfortunately whilst eating the heavens opened rather limiting their options for further drinking to places within easy running distance. A quick one in Alter-ego surrounded by very young girls followed by some more in Park and finishing things up with some sharpeners back at Jonny's place.

After all this excitement by the time he got home around 0300 he was proper soaking.

Remarkably this morning he awoke with his shoulder entirely fixed. The marvelous rejuvenative powers of cider are not to be under-estimated.

Ahhh, Bisto

This week in Birmingham is beginning to take its toll on him. On the basis that if he stayed in the flat he was likely to inflict further injury to the lovely Dennis (passim) he decided to go out with his good chum Gravy.

One of the partners at work had dragged him out at lunch for a quick couple of pints (of Timothy Talyor's Landlord - King of Beers) and so the afternoon rather dragged and indeed he managed to fall asleep in front of the TV before heading out on the pop.

Further Landlord and then some cider followed on a fine evening out before he eventually staggered back to the flat promptly passing out without smashing anything. Remarkable.

Tigger is sniffing around this afternoon threatening another session. His liver is running up the white flag.

Marmite madness

Having recovered from the debacle that was the day after the night before he managed to descend into the world of true incompetence last night.

He managed to burn not one, not two, nor even three but four slices of toast before managing to work out the toaster in the flat thereby filling it with a thick smoke (and setting off the smoke alarms).

Clearly a flat full of smoke is not necessarily the safest place and it becomes even less so when you drop a jar of marmite on the kitchen floor scattering shards of glass all over the shop. The lovely Dennis was not very impressed when she found herself digging marmite smeared shards of glass out of her feet.

He is not very popular today.

The trouble with Tigger

As previously mentioned he and the lovely Dennis are working and staying in Birmingham this week. That is dangerous as it exposes him to the risk of having to go out on the pop with Tigger.

In light of the tender state of his liver he could not afford to take that risk. In true total lack of willpower style he managed precisely no time at all before succumbing to Tigger’s wicked blandishments and was in Hotel du Vin on the bubbly before Tigger could say “fancy a quick one after work?”

The quick one was a mild euphemism and suffice to say 6 bottles later they were in a shocking state.

By shocking state we mean asleep on a sofa in the bar.

As mentioned the lovely Dennis is also in Birmingham which was a blessed relief as he could never have made his way back to the flat they are staying in under his own steam. Mind you the return to the flat just led to puking so whether that was a good thing is up for debate.

Now when they first got to Brum in the morning he just dumped his car (full of all their stuff) under the office and, foolishly believing Tigger’s promises that it would just be a quick one, he hadn’t bothered to unload the car before hitting the bar. Due to the ridiculously harsh drink driving laws (I mean how can it not be safe to drive after the thick end of a case of bubbly and a quick snooze?) of this country he couldn’t get the car (and therefore their stuff) from the office to the flat so upon waking this morning his options as to what to wear were somewhat limited.

As it turned out this was a bit of a blessing in disguise because as everyone who knows him knows he takes ages to choose what to wear of a morning (are we shure about this? – ed) and he didn’t wake up until 0830. So only having what he was wearing the day before to wear gave him his only chance to get into the office on time (wearing the same clothes as yesterday, un-shaven, un-showered and un-teeth brushed (are we shure this is a word? – ed), gosh he knows how to impress).

He was not at his most productive during the morning but went back to the flat at lunch-time to
wash, change and nap. It would be nice to report that improved his productivity. Nice certainly, true no.

Rugger Bugger

At last he has returned to the field of play with a run out on Saturday. Shockingly (to him at least) he was dropped to the bench and only got to play a half. The opposition (Broad Plain) are reknowned for being a side of larger players and it is fair to say they were putting down quite a large front row.

Now he has of course lost the thick end of 2 stone since last time he played and if there is one attribute that any prop needs it is a certain amount of, how can we put this delicately, ballast. It would be quite wrong of us to suggest he is now ballastless but there is perhaps a ballast shortage for a tight-head prop.

To make up for his lack of ballast he had to resort to more unusual (read illegal) scrummaging techniques and remarkably the referee appeared to know what he was doing and kept on pinging him for his unusual (read illegal) technique.

It has to be said that it didn't help his cause that the weather was scorching, he had a bead on just standing on the touch-line.

Your correspondent's favourite moment of the match was a try scored by his side straight from a re-start kick. He moved all of 5 yards during the move.

After such exertions he threw down a few cheeky beers before stumbling home kebab in hand.

Sunday was a classic of the type, a lie in followed by a lazy day reading the papers whilst eating chocolate hob-nobs dunked in tea whilst surrounded by chums.

This week he is stationed in Birmingham all week, Gay George (Not Actually Gay) is in town on Wednesday which may turn into a big one. We shall of course keep you posted.

A Fine Figure of a Man

After a relatively quiet weekend he has resolved that the week should be somewhat less quiet. It kicked off on Monday night in Birmingham out on the pop with Gay George (Not Actually Gay) and the lovely Dennis.

Gay George (Not Actually Gay) and he kicked matters off with a quick bottle of wine each before Dennis turned up from work and so were in pretty shoddy order before the evening really got started. Matters did not get much better as the boys hurled the wine down whilst poor Dennis just tried to stop them from doing anything really bad.

She was aided in that task by our hero passing out at the dinner table. Notwithstanding this he managed to rouse himself sufficiently to join in the chorus of "Happy Birthday" on the table next door before plummetting back into the welcoming arms of Morpheus.

Now as we all know he is a fine figure of a man and never more so when slumped unconscious at a table dribbling (are we shure about this? - ed) and true to form one of the girls on the "Happy Birthday" table was so impressed with him that she tried to extract his room number from him. Fortunately for her he was so blotto he couldn't recall.

The original plan had been for this to be a quiet evening as Gay George (Not Actually Gay) had a presentation scheduled to deliver to his board at 1030 on Tuesday morning but fortunately that had been re-scheduled during the course of Monday to 1600.

With our hero awaking Tuesday morning in a shocking state it is impossible to adequately sum up his amusement when Gay George (Not Actually Gay) called to inform him that a) he was in a similarly poor state and b) he had just been told his presentation had been re-re-scheduled back to 1030. My how he laughed.

Somehow the pair survived the day before meeting up for a de-brief over some Mojitos post-work (and pre-drive home).

Today was enlivened by him snapping his glasses (again) before leaving the flat. As luck would have it he appears to have exactly the same prescription as Dennis so he is now wearing her spare glasses. They don't fit and aren't really very masculine so he looks a berk but at least he can see.

Some Bed action

He's learnt his lesson about trusting the train network to get him anywhere on time for a drink so last night he got a boat.

Some might say this is not the most efficient means of quick transport but when it has a bar and is loaded with a few chums he reports that it is not a bad means of getting to the destination (a pub in Hanham).

In fact so enamoured was he of the boat that he took it back to town as well.

His trip back was enlivened by a number of texts from the lovely Claire asking him to hurry up and come to Bed. The careful reader will note the capitalisation, we are sorry to report (for him, very happy for her) that Bed is a bar in Bristol.

He chucked a few beers down before moving on to the Ram (a great late night pub) for a few more until kicks out time.

He fell asleep on the sofa in front of the TV of course.

Today has been a very chilled out day in lying on the sofa in front of the TV or at least it was until Becky turned up and he got sent out to get some "nice things". An hour of trekking round various cafes later (and slipping over in a pile of mud, which really helped his mood) the girls were fed and watered.

Other than that the only distraction has been feeding Red's mother's cats (not at all convoluted). Oh and yes her fish as well. He seems to think that a good time saver would be to just let the cats get to the fish and re-stock before she gets back from her holiday but Claire has pooh poohed that idea.

Lemmings

This week has been quite a quiet one for our hero so far and so following prodding from our editor we managed to persuade him to do something for us to write about (some might say that staging your life for the purposes of a 'blog is a bit sad, not us obviously).

So he decided to head up to London to catch up with the lovely Alison a chum of very long standing. Of course this country is blessed with a transport system for the 19th century so there couldn't possibly be any problems with such a simple trip along the great Brunel's lines to London.

Obviously there could be. It is probably a little unfair to be critical of the railway system as the cause of the line closure at Ealing (therefore closing Paddington) was a voluntary fatality. It seems to becoming a bit of a trend though as this is the fourth time in 12 months he has been delayed in this way.

Having eventually made his way to Hammersmith he was hanging around out the front of the station when suddenly a very forward young woman came and pinched his bum. They were both very relieved that Alison had guessed correctly.

A splendid supper followed during which he regaled (bored? - ed) her with tales of his travels (remarkably it appears she is one of the very few people who do not read this!) as well as the other goings on in his life.

Sadly he had to get the last train home so the night could not descend into one of total drunken debauchery but he promises us that next time he visits Alison it will do so stay tuned.

We would like to report a totally uneventful train journey home. As we say we would like to...

Rubbing's racing

After a weekend of debauchery a quiet time was needed. Obviously needed but not to be had. He and BGB went go-karting.

A night of mano a mano, wheel to wheel action promptly followed and the testosterone flowed like wine. Finally with the chequered flag in sight he was black-flagged for (allegedly, he denies it) too much contact and flicking the ‘Vs’ at the other drivers who were getting in his way. When we say he denies it he genuinely does not remember it, the red mist had clearly descended.

Suffice to report that he was not a happy camper coming off the track, throwing his gloves at one of the marshals in disgust and proclaiming very loudly (to protect the innocent (and to keep the word count down by 50) the swearing has been omitted), “if they can’t drive they shouldn’t bloody well be out there, contact my arse, rubbing’s racing.”

He won’t be asked back.

After all this excitement he got back to the flat (via some power-sliding around the streets of Bristol) full of nervous energy (and testosterone) to discover the lovely Dennis and Becky chatting and eating chocolates. They took one look at his somewhat maniacal face and ran.

La Rocca, the final frontier

Gay George (Not Actually Gay) has been threatening to descend on Bristol for a night of anarchy for some time and this weekend he followed through on that terrifying threat.

Of course, in the usual way, he was late (75 minutes on this occasion so quite good for him). The drinking started at a gentle canter (don’t worry it worked up to a healthy gallop later) with a quiet beer in the Coronation before they met up with Dennis, Becky, Old Speckled, BGB and his +1 at the Clifton Sausage for an early supper (Tigger having jibbed out).

Now in Gay George (Not Actually Gay)’s mind the night went something like this:

Few beers over supper in Clifton Sausage…final drink in Embargo and home (for another 4 hours of drinking).

The ellipsis covers his memory gap. Fortunately, and remarkably, your correspondent has been able to piece together the blanks from conversations with our hero. For the record they involve:

Drinking in the Albion (enlivened by a very drunk Jon who insisted on our hero smoking a cigar (he is still suffering from nicotine poisoning)), Gay George (Not Actually Gay) falling arse over tit off a wall in Victoria Park, dancing in Comfi (and by golly did the two of them trip the Light Fantastic), drinking in The Square and being refused entry to La Rocca.

Now astute students of the Bristol nightlife will be bemused at this stage by the final entry, “surely that is impossible” they will be asking themselves and, up until Saturday night, your correspondent would have been compelled to agree with them but having seen it with his own eyes he can report that it is indeed possible to be refused entry to La Rocca. Remarkable.

Discretion forbids us from also recording that Becky and Dennis were smooching outside of Embargo nor revealing that all of the, male, patrons of the bar had their faces pressed to the window to get a better look. It would also be quite wrong to reveal that he has photos.

Devil Children

Children, don’t have them; is the only message to take away from our hero’s weekend.

Friday night he headed out with a whole host of people from work to celebrate his good friend, Sedgers, 20th anniversary with the firm. He then promptly forgot that he had agreed to go round the lovely Helen’s for supper. Fortunately she sent him a text to remind him and he managed to lie sufficiently well to convince her that he had not forgotten her. After a fine supper of lamb tagine they hit the bars of Clifton and cut quite the dash.

Obviously Saturday had the prospect of being a bit of a write off but fortunately the lovely Claire insisted that they do something and so they headed off to The Vine Tree in Norton were they bumped into his good chum Tails (passim) and his wife Jo. The Vine Tree is a fine country pub and we can record that it is well deserving of its recent awards from the Good Pub Guide; although he rather spoilt the effect by tucking into the dessert menu (and dessert wine) with rather too much gusto for his own good.

Despite being the size of a house and barely able to fit behind the wheel of his car after this over-fine repast he dropped the lovely Claire home and set off up to his mother’s in Surrey.

Despite the best efforts of some idiot who had spun his car and closed the motorway thanks to a healthy disrespect for the speed limit laws he managed to get up in a tolerably reasonable time and they enjoyed a first class curry from The Raj in Purley (now if they don’t give him a discount next time we will be very upset) (I thought we had agreed that journalistic integrity prevented such shameless advertising? – ed).

Now we get to the meaty bit. Sunday was a day with the family. His sister, brother (in law), nieces, uncle and aunt all descended on his mother’s. His middle niece (Phoebe) is a charming girl…er, well if the truth is she is not; she is a devil child. She felt the need to remind everyone of her charming powers by sticking her hands in her shitty nappy and plastering her faeces all over the walls, drawers, wardrobe and television in our hero’s old bedroom. Suffice to say he has struck her out of his will. Horrid child.

We would like to report that she made up for her excreta based fun by being a charming little girl for the rest of the day. Sadly we can’t. She managed to smear taramasalata and hummus all over the shop. His mother’s carpet will never be the same again.

Now usually he tends to want to hang around at his mother’s and get fed. Remarkably he didn’t feel so inclined this weekend. The shit and general detritus of Phoebe didn’t really appeal and so he headed back to sunny Bristol early doors.

Having got back to Bristol the lovely Dennis suggested that a nice bottle of red wine on a school night would be a good idea. He forgot to disagree. Around 0200 she asked if it was wrong to open a second bottle. Again he forgot to disagree. Around 0400 this morning they called it a night. Oh dear. Today was not a fun day at work.

Singing in the Rain

The last game of the season; after a wonderful summer with barely a drop of rain and more drought orders than the summer of ’76 clearly the gods could only deliver a balmy evening to round it off. Sadly your correspondent is an atheist and those accursed gods delivered miserable driving rain.

Inspired by the lovely weather and a sense of proper contrariness the squad, of course, rushed to make themselves available leaving the Chairman (Williams) with his only selection conundrum of the season. The best team of the season was the clear result.

Now far be it for your correspondent to criticise the Bar but as usual they couldn’t be trusted to turn up on time whilst the CW boys turned up nice and early for a change (if only they could manage this during the rest of the season) and so the barristers were put into bat.

Despite the driving rain and the gloomy conditions Dropper was not going to give any quarter and he opened the bowling with Burton and Ringer A who bowled with aggression and no small amount of precision. Ringer A was helped bowling up the hill with some wicked bounce out of the wet pitch and the Chairman was soon diving all over the place trying to stop the ball with his usual level of success (i.e. not much).

Burton whipped out an opener with a snorter fended to gully (where the catch was well taken by Wright) before Ringer B (Taylor M) was brought on at first change. The Chairman had clearly worked out that he has lost at least a yard of pace and decided to stand up to him. This was to prove to be a very sensible choice as he picked up a stumping much to Ringer B’s chagrin.
Ringer B was not on particularly sporting mood when the 13 year old came into bat and cleaned him up first ball.

The skipper tried a couple of overs but with a very wet ball he just bowled some rank beamers.
Meanwhile Chiffers and Earl were making an absolute dog’s dinner of trying to make catches on the boundary. Chiffers’ chance was at least somewhat challenging (it came down with snow on it) whilst Earl just made an absolute dog’s dinner of his very simple chance.

Webb was brought on very late in the day on a hat-trick. He made the rather odd choice of bowling a rank long hop at one of their most culture batsman. A ploy of some genius astonishingly as he promptly put it down Ringer A’s throat for a well thought out hat-trick, congratulations.

Earl and the Chairman combined nicely for a wicket (well the Chairman made a dog’s ear of the catch but held on) and Earl decided not to bother with his help and bowled another.
In one of the more sporting moments of the year the skipper decided to bring back Burton at the death who bowled a brilliant over just missing the outside edge 5 times.

Having restricted them to 66 for 6 off their 15 overs it was apparent that it was CW’s match to throw away. The tried and trusted Webb/Williams opening combo was trusted again and Webb did his best to make a game of it by playing round a straight ‘un from the 13 year old. The Chairman decided to get aggressive and smashed two lovely square cuts whilst trying to avoid laughing at Ringer B’s antics at umpire. Meanwhile Earl as usual gave it some long handle and quickly retired bringing Wright to the middle.

With the crowd baying for the Chairman’s wicket (or at least to ensure he didn’t hit the winning runs (an honour he has singularly failed to achieve in 10 season’s for the firm)) he did the decent thing and let Wright take the honour and win the game with 6 overs to spare.

Whilst not a close match it was played in a fantastic spirit and was enjoyed by all, as evidenced by the drinking afterwards into the early hours. The discussions re the intricacies of dogging were particularly illuminating for your correspondent.

Man of the Match? A difficult decision, Earl was clearly in the running as was Ringer B but in the end the heart won out and Webb got the nod for completing his hat-trick and trying to make a game of it (by getting out cheaply).

Batting

Webb Bwld. Edwards Jnr. 2
Williams Not Out 21
Earl Not Out 27
Wright Not Out 6
Extras (8W, 4NB, 3B) 15

Total 70 for 1

Ringer A, Welch, Burton, Holt, Chiffers, Ringer B, Thomas did not bat

Bowling

Burton 3-0-10-1
Ringer A 2-0-8-0
Ringer B 2-0-10-2
Welch 2-0-17-0
Thomas 2-0-11-0
Webb 2-1-6-1
Earl 2-0-8-2

Fight Club

We are glad to report yet another first class weekend in the life of our hero.

Matters started off somewhat slowly, not helped by the bomb-hoax in the centre of Bristol on Friday night; apparently a bank robber thought it would be ideal cover for a job to plant a fake bomb. Now in your correspondent's experience there tends to be quite a heavy police reaction to bomb scares so as a plan this one seems to be a little lacking in genius. It has to be said that a criminal with half a brain could be quite dangerous.



With matters starting slowly Saturday night was planned as a quiet one. It started as a quiet one as the lovely Dennis and he headed down to The Tobacco Factory for a quiet beer or two. Well strange to report it was just a quiet beer or two. It was the bottles of wine and champagne when they got home that killed him off getting to bed at 0600 is never great for a hangover...or rather it is.

Sunday by definition therefore had to be a day of rest, hmmm that sounds like a good idea can't believe no-one has had it before, but after an afternoon in the bed and several doses of pain-killers he was well enough to head over to Tails and Jo's place in Sherston for a night of amateur unlicensed boxing.

Now that might sound like Tails and he were planning on scrapping but in fact the event was somewhat more organised in a bard in the wilds of the west just outside Cirencester. He reports that the quality of the boxing was markedly poorer than his fine performance in the ring with Buck in Koh Phi Phi (passim) and, so it would seem, to prove the point he and Tails ended up having a scrap, the crowd loved it. His jaw less so.



After a hard scrap the testosterone was flowing somewhat and the two of them decided to pick on some poor innocent lad falsely accused of being "a bit nasty" to Sophie. How he talked himself out of his problems is not entirely clear.

Now after all this excitement the boys were a bit hungry and as luck would have it there was a BBQ at this event. Tails decided that buying a burger was totally unecessary when one could just dip your hand into the big pot of cheese and scoop it down one's Gregory.

The staff had other ideas and so a quick early retreat was quickly beaten in high disgrace.



It's not entirely clear how they managed to last as long as they did.

At some stage during this Rockyesque evening his very good chum Gay Boy (aka Ben) called him with a spare ticket for the 20:20 the next day. Now having been practising his Darrel Hair and Inzaman chants all week he obviously snapped it up. It would be wrong of us to record the chaotic disorganisation that descended on their plans but the telephone call our hero received whilst in the taxi to let him know that his ticket had been given to a pregnant woman was a bit of a shocker.

It is fair to record that England were rubbish and got stuffed.

Theatre of Dreams

He managed to get his grubby paws on a pair of tickets to the Champions League match at the shiny new Emirates Stadium last night with thanks to his good chum Chappers.



He records the stadium to be first class, the team somewhat less so at the moment and the Dynamo Zagreb fans absolutely insane (clearly ex-Croatian paramilitary psychos to a man).

All in all a quality jolly to the capital.

For our non-footballing readers the Emirates Stadium is the home of

Controversy at the cricket

The usual difficulties attended the Chairman's efforts in getting a side out, until that is he decided to bully paralegals into playing. They seem surprisingly amenable to turning out for the side, presumably they think that cricket prowess might get them a training contract.

As usual, of course, Gilder let the firm down by dropping out on the day of the match. Fortunately his backsliding was foreseen (doesn't really take a soothsayer to foresee that) and so a full side was still cobbled together.

In light of the time of year it was felt that an earlyish start was necessary and so it was agreed to get to the ground in time for a 1745 kick-off. Of course the council had other ideas and decided to ruin the roads near the ground with some timely road-works so by the time everyone had hacked through the traffic it was well past 1815 and a shortened game was agreed.

Again as usual the CW mob were the last to turn up and so it was agreed that they would bat first.

Williams opened the batting as usual but without Webb (who was late) and so Ringer A stood in.

It's fair to record that their opening bowlers had a bit about them and had the two of them hopping around before Williams top-edged a delivery into his head which then ballooned up to the 'keeper. The head injury may have contributed to the later events (stay tuned but if you thought the events at the Oval were controversial then prepare to be appalled).

Ringer A got a peach but Earl and Webb steadied the ship with some fine hitting. A glorious square cut from Webb will live in the memory for some time as will the enormous 6 over cow corner from Earl which smashed into one of the opposition's Mercedes.

Webb as usual failed to push on and fell to a top edge whilst Thomas fell in similar circumstances. Earl retired and Welch, on debut, carved his first ball for CW for a lovely 4. He then set about the bowling with some relish. Ringer B played round a straight one and Holt just buckled down for the long run.

Welch retired and Wright struck some lusty blows at the end to get the score up to 107 for 5.

Webb and Ringer B opened the bowling. Webb got a wicket in his first and second overs (one a catch from Holt showing he still hasn't lost it) whilst Ringer B got 2 in 2 balls in his second (one a glorious stumping) leaving them reeling.

Then the head injury started to take over. He proceeded to get right up their noses by whipping the bails off every delivery and then having a row with them about the definition of a no ball. Things got somewhat less than friendly between batsman and 'keeper and some choice words were exchanged. So bad was the blood that a clear run out appeal had to be withdrawn to settle the tension.

Meanwhile a game of cricket was passing by. Thomas and Ringer A bowled quite tidily; Thomas got a wicket. Earl, Wright and Welch got a bit of a carting but as the skipper had Webb to bring back on (in the pitch black) the match was in the balance.

With 35 needed off the last 4 overs and only 6 off the last over it was a good tight match. Webb bowled a great final over and with Earl and Williams combining for a tidy run out Webb finished the game with 2 wickets with the last 2 balls winning the game by 1 run.

As the team wandered off Williams muttered to the skipper that he couldn't see why the appeal had been withdrawn; the skipper pointed out that RBS are (were?) one of the firm's biggest clients. Williams observed, "well they don't instruct my department", very collegiate.

Fortunately a round of handshakes all round and the situation was defused with somewhat greater aplomb than the mess at the Oval.

Batting

Ringer A Bwld. Golding 3
Williams Ct. Bailey Malkin 0
Earl Not Out 26
Webb Ct. Mithcard 11
Thomas Ct. Watts Tregale 4
Welch Not Out 25
Ringer B Bwld. Tregale 3
Holt Not Out 8
Wright Not Out 17
Extras (7 W, 2 NB, 1 B, 1 LB) 11
Total 107 for 5
Did not bat Simmons, Beaumont

Bowling
O M R W
Webb 4 0 23 4
Ringer B 2 0 12 2
Thomas 3 0 10 1
Ringer A 2 0 6 0
Earl 2 0 14 0
Welch 2 0 22 0
Wright 1 0 11 0

Fairy Godfather

His sister seems to think that on the basis that he could be bothered to come and see Evie relatively quickly after her birth (when in fact he has just learnt his lesson after getting in a world of trouble for failing to come and see the last one quickly enough) that he must be specially keen on her and therefore ideal godfather material. Clearly she hasn't been reading any of this.

On the basis that he is allowed to mumble at appropriate moments in the service he has agreed. The poor girl is going to grow up very confused.

In preparation for the role he has started stuffing cotton wool in his mouth and chopping the heads off horses.



Meanwhile he finally broke his "no drinking in Bristol rule". On Tuesday night he decided to get battered with the lovely Dennis and Becky. Suffice to record he did (and so did they). He eventually staggered to bed at 0430.



He was not an overly happy camper when Dennis woke him up at 0840 to remind him that he needed to get to work.

Having promised never to break his "no drinking in Bristol rule" again he disappeared off to Swansea on Thursday night to catch up with his very lovely friend Helen and after a splendid evening (on the soda water) he decided to try and get back to Bristol in under an hour. He would have made it had it not been for those pesky roadworks (and the torrential rain).

Apparently there was a fantastic thunderstorm that night in Bristol. Indeed it seemed to be the sole topic of conversation around the watercooler on Friday (a sad lot these Bristolians). He couldn't participate as he somehow managed to sleep through it.

Last night was a "Big Brother" eviction night party at Helen and Becky's place. As he was not the most avid watcher of the programme he spent most of the evening saying, "so who is that" etc. We are sure that didn't irritate them at all.

Dennis was not there as she has gone to the V festival this weekend. She has taken his car to get there and woke him up this morning to find out what his registration number. Obviously this piqued his interest she sated it by confirming that she had lost his car in the giant car-park. Genius.

The miracles of birth

Now his sister has been pregnant recently and was supposed to drop ages ago but clearly decided she wanted him to spend a fortune on calls from Egypt to keep in touch and so delierately refused to deliver before he went.

Now the truth of the matter is that unfortunately for her first two deliveries she ended up having to have emergency caesareans and she was jolly keen to have a natural home birth this time round. How very new age.

Having put the pressure on herself to perform this time with time passing away the quacks booked her in for another cut and shut on the Monday after he was due back from Egypt.

Fortunately this time round she got it right and she dropped at home whilst he was under the water providing his third niece Evie (to go with the lovely Thea and Phoebe).

In usual time honoured fashion mother and daughter are doing well.

In out of the mouths of babes news his mother observed this morning that it was the first birth she had attended.

Egypt - The Aftermath

After his sterling performance doing his bit for the image of Britain abroad he was a bit gopping saturday morning. Dennis had a bit of a cob on with him as well. As he muttered "god, i feel horrid" all she could manage was "good". Nice sympathy.

At 1334 reception rang asking him if he planned to check out (check out time being 1200) and perhaps he could come and pay. Having done so (and paid to extend his stay in the room) he snuck back to bed eventually getting up at 1730 still feeling pretty rancid.

This turned out to be just in time to discover that their flight had been delayed by 4 hours. What a treat.

Notwithstanding this serious inconvenience he says this was a truely fantastic holiday all down (as usual) to the wonderful people he spent it with so with thanks to them all.

Egypt Day 6 - The unacceptable face of Bad Boy British Tourism (again)

One of the dives planned for the day was a deep dive and, to help demonstrate the effects of nitrogen narcosis, the plan was to complete a timed task on the surface and on the bottom to demonstrate the impairment.

Of course what this meant was that everyone had to do the task and so he got into his usual competitive mood. He was unbearably smug (as usual) when he swept the floor with the competition.

After a long day of diving and thoroughly knackered he decided the sensible thing was to head off for a quick ride on a feisty Arabian horse. Despite her best efforts to throw the buffoon he somehow hung on over some very challenging terrain (well the beach). It is fair to record that the was a bit more of a handful than dozer.



And so with 7 dives under his belt and a certainty that he can now make it on the oil rigs that brings this chapter to an end.

Or rather it would have if the biggest night out did not have to follow.

Our readers' sensitive disposistions prevent us recording the full extent of the horror that followed but the following list may give a flavour:-

Strawpedoing several beers
Shots of Sambuca

Licking the Sambuca tray dry

Abusing Rachel

Dancing on a spinning chair
Falling off same

Passing out in the street

Pissing in the shrubbery

Swimming fully clothed


Dennis has asked us to make clear that throughout this she was a model of discretion and good behaviour. If you'll believe that you'll believe anything.



Pictures (have) follow(ed) soon. Stay tuned.

Egypt Day 5 - Deeper and Darker

Now that he is well established as a diver of reknown some more challenging diving was the order of the day and after a couple of dives during daylight a quick night-dive was clearly the only option.

He reports that night diving is somewhat more eery - very much more James Cameron - than the normal kind but also top fun. The Lion fish (deadly) were very impressive by moon and torch light.



Possibly the highlight of the dive was when he spotted a bright occasionally flashing light. Convinced it must be some fantastic sea beasty he set off in hot pursuit. It was of course the marker light on the bottom of the ladder from their boat. Idiot.

Egypt Day 4 - The Abyss

Having made his way through the ever-so challenging part of the course in the pool and classroom at last he was able to get out into the open ocean and really get down to some proper diving.

After a boat ride of great duration (5 minutes) they weighed anchor and got ready to dive. After the usual briefing guff from Janina he was all ready to go and despite her boast that she would be first in the water he sacrificed safety for a quick entry to make sure he got the jump on her.

A perilous descent into the deep followed and the group were quickly confronted by two leviathans :-

A giant moray eel

and a giant clown fish

Clearly the group were terrified at these apparitions from the deep and so in the usual way he set about taking charge and took point from then on.



Clearly with such inspired leadership the group couldn't help but make it to the surface safely.

In Dennis news she is shockinly sunburnt.