Italian Job - Part 4

The devil does not wear Prada, she wears Mothercare and is called Phoebe. After the quiet time just surviving a lá Ray Mears they decided to head down to Florence to celebrate his mother’s birthday. Having made it there without too many scares, well only one wrong turn, they settled down at one of his favourite restaurants, Le Giostre, for lunch. Phoebe was a mischievous devil and she screamed the place down. Her little sister Evie got the bug and added to the general cacophony.

After a gentle, but not peaceful, stroll past the Duomo and the Palazzo Vecchio they crossed the Arno via the Ponte Vecchio (pausing at a jewellery store to but some things (including some lovely frog cuff-links which Dennis bought him (as he had forgotten to bring some))) and jumped in a taxi back to the cars and headed back to the villa.

A long and tiring but lovely day.

Italian Job - Part 3

His sister and mother decided to head down to the shops to stock up on supplies. Unfortunately their sense of direction is somewhat lacking. Things started poorly when they turned the wrong way down the dirt track leading from the villa. As he and Giuseppe (the man who does) ran frantically after them to stop them one of the tyres blew out.

With a quick hop and a skip that was changed and the girls sent on their way. They got lost.

Meanwhile back at the ranch he was laying fires ready for the second night of survival without gas. He appears to have got the knack of it and they now produce heat instead of smoke. Amazing.

Italian Job - Part 2

The second day started rather poorly as they discovered that the gas had run out just after they had finished showering. Cooking and heating was going to be a challenge without gas.

He of course saw no problems with this and set about doing his best hunter gatherer impression and returned from his sortie with eggs. Before laying a fire in the pizza oven and getting ready to cook in it. He found this quite a challenge which at one stage required him to climb in. He climbed out with most of his hair burnt off.

Nevertheless despite these travails they managed to roast a chicken and enjoy a feast.

Italian Job - Part 1

To celebrate his mother’s 60th birthday he and his sister have decided to take her and the rest of the family away for a week to a villa in Tuscany. The lovely Dennis is also tagging along.

Justin (his brother-in-law), Dennis and he decided to go for the sensible option and fly first thing Saturday morning. His sister, mother and three small nieces took the less sensible option and started driving first thing Friday morning.

The flying division passed swiftly through Stansted to Pisa airport before jumping in a Fiat Panda and driving up into the hills. The land division made rather less good time not helped by the Mont Blanc tunnel being shut to commemorate the fire there a couple of years back.

Eventually the land division turned up some 5 hours after the flying division who had thoughtfully got the shopping in (although Justin and he nearly came to blows, they are not best shopping buddies) and got the fires started.




As things were to turn out the fire lighting practice was to be well needed.
He also got the shopping ready which consisted of hacking the heads and feet off the chickens.
Very manly.

A small island

His plans to move to Brum move on apace. This week gone has seen the delivery of his new bed to the pad. It is enormous and slightly larger than a number of island nations. As the delivery driver noted "how many birds you planning on having in this thing?"

Meanwhile in Bristol he is, temporarily, back in one his old flats and was delighted to discover, on moving in, that the last tenant has broken the freezer and generally left the place in a not very good state. We suspect the return of his deposit maybe somewhat delayed.

So this weekend kicked off with some very tedious shopping for freezers, toilet seats and other bits and pieces before the rugby cheered him up no end. With the FEBs turned over at least Wales's season has not been a complete write off.

In a desperate attempt to appear somewhat less philistinish he went to see Nicholas Nickleby on Saturday night. Of course this was only because Becky was in it and the lovely Dennis was dragging him along. Quite good in parts he recorded although arse numbingly long.

On Sunday he decided to surprise his mother and went up to London to see her and the sister and family.
The mother did a passably good act at pretending she was glad to see him.

This week promises to be hectic as he gets the flat ready for letting out to his new tenants on Thursday whilst getting ready for his next holiday in Italy this Saturday.

Toilet humour

The weekend just past was, to say the least, a touch on the hectic side. He and the lovely Dennis came down to Bristol on Friday night as Dennis was moving all of her stuff out of her flat (and up to Brum) whilst he was moving, temporarily, into one of his flats on Queen Square.

Saturday was spent grabbing glimpses of the rugby whilst packing up Dennis's stuff. Horror of horrors the Italians beat the Welsh thanks to a damn FEB referee and his miserable cheating.

Saturday night was the lovely Jo's birthday party (Tails's wife) and he and the lovely Dennis decided to go. Now there was a fancy dress theme of the Best of British and he had intended to go wearing a Welsh rugby jersey but being an organised chap didn't get round to buying one so he was the only person there not in fantastic fancy dress. The highlight had to be Tails's toilet.



Dennis had given him only one instruction for the night, don't fall asleep. He let her down of course.

Sunday was a challenge with a load more packing to do and a raging hangover but somehow it all got done and the Dennis is now safely ensconced in Brum.

Taking candy from a baby

We know it is Friday and reporting on last weekend is somewhat out of date but, hey, we've been kicking back and chilling out here at Bogun towers so live with it.

Having decided after last week that a calm weekend was required he made his way down to see his family. Of course even the basics of getting there were convoluted with a diversion via Oxford necessary as the M25 was shut.

After Friday evening at his sister's he spent the Saturday doing absolutely nothing (save for fixing his mother's free view box, which he only did to avoid being dragged to Comet so she could buy a new TV). Sunday was however a bit more crazy with a trip back to his sister's to see the nieces. Phoebe was riven with chicken pox and performed admirably in her role as a terrible two with one of the best tantrums seen in these parts in a long time.

The lovely Dennis had entrusted him with 3 chocolate bunnies for the girls but, having discovered that Evie is too young for one, he polished one off. What a gent.

Property Mogul

The recovery from Churchy's stag has taken rather longer than one might have hoped but after just over a week in the recovery wilderness he got back to his old tricks this week. Tuesday night was supposed to be a quiet night in with his good friend the lovely Helen. That plan did not start very well when he decided to kick the night off with the thick end of half a gallon of cider before even getting to hers with the Jaberwocky.

Nothwithstanding this rather poor showing (and his late arrival - by an hour) the lovely Helen served up a splendid supper and pretended to not be too unimpressed with his failure to bring any wine. With the evening wrapped up he jumped in a taxi home but then decided he wanted more booze and ending up going to one of the most dangerous looking pubs in Bristol - The Little Grosvenor. Not only did he not get killed but the evening went from strength to strength and he managed to not get home until 0915 (and therefore pulling a quick half-day holiday).

Wednesday was the last day at work for his good friend Scabby and he managed to get out of bed around lunchtime to make it in for lunch with her looking particularly grim (him not her). Clearly her leaving do couldn't just be a lunch and that evening he sank a little over a gallon of cider whilst putting the world to rights with Ram Man.

Whilst all these shenanigans have been going on he has been trying to buy a new flat in Birmingham. As you all know he is a lazy sod and so rather than looking for a place he has been trying to buy the flat that the lovely Dennis rents. Having put in a generous offer on Monday he was somewhat put out when the seller wanted to show another prospective buyer round at the weekend. Now in normal circumstances he would have arranged to visit Dennis for the weekend and be his usual charming self when this buyer turned up and quickly put them off but unfortunately he had already got plans to see his family and so he had to leave Dennis in charge of the task. Dennis is sadly far too nice for the job but she knows this and so invited her friend Sarah round to stay Friday night. Sarah, bless her, got battered and spent the entire evening throwing her guts up all over the flat. Job done as it is now his. Mind the cleaning bills might be a bit cheeky.

Churchy's stag epilogue

Well we shall just leave it to Bill:-

http://howlongittakes.blogspot.com/2007/02/most-exciting-day-ever.html

Churchy's stag Part 4

By Monday numbers were thinning rapidly and the group was down to four, Jarman, Pieter, Churchy and our hero. A gentle brunch (at the place they had meant to goto the day before) followed by a quick trip downtown for a view of the World Trade Centre and general ramble through the financial district followed.

To call it cold would not begin to do it justice and so they dived into a Starbucks at the World Financial Centre to warm up. Their barrista had a rather odd name.



Suitably refreshed, and amused, they wandered up through Tribeca and back into the West Village where they stocked up on gifts for their loved ones from a first class chocolatier.

A quick final pint in the White Horse before back to hotel and off. All in all a pretty first class few days.

It is fair to record that he was not at his best upon arrival at the office the next morning having caught the red eye back and gone straight there from Heathrow. He could at least have had a French shower.

Churchy's stag Part 3

Having gone hard at the ball on Saturday the boys were a little fragile Sunday morning and having spent like Kings the day before decided to head out of the hotel for some brunch.

Having wandered aimlessly through the mean, and freezing, streets eventually common sense and cold took hold and they staggered into a cheap and cheerful dinner on the Upper East Side (having walked past severaly more salubrious joints on the way).

Thus sustained they headed back onto the freezing streets with a view to going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. On the way they walked past the Frisk Museum and on the basis that it would be warm they dived in.

With that cultural edification tucked under their belts they headed up to the Met but once there only Major and Jarman decided to investigate whilst the rest (sans Nick whom by this stage was on his way to Philly) who decided to go for a walk through Central Park before stopping for some pastries.

Just for the record therefore on a stag do they went to an Art Gallery, for a walk in the park and to buy some pastries. Really letting their hair down.

Sadly Nigel had to leave them Sunday evening and so to see him on his way they congregated in the hotel bar for a few jars. A few too many as it transpired as Nigel promptly missed his flight back.

With Nigel gone they could move a little downmarket and headed down to McSorleys (one of our hero's old haunts) where his good friend Bill joined them.

Supper proved to be a bit of a challenge with Churchy being asked for ID and them having a row with a barman (resolved when they walked out without paying) before finally settling down for supper at a lovely little restaurant called Lavagne (with thanks to Bill for locating it). He of course promptly fell asleep at the table.

Churchy's stag Part 2

Having eaten like a hobbit the day before (breakfast at Heathrown, second breakfast on the 'plane, lunch on the 'plane, second lunch at the Spotted Pig and supper at the steakhouse) he awoke Saturday morning with his guts having simply given up and a large undigested mass of food stuck in his stomach. As it was clearly never going down he cleverly managed to get rid of it the other way. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, he pucked his guts up. Rock and Roll.

Clearly a light breakfast was the order of the day and so he duly ordered a kilo of foie gras stacked on a loaf of brioche. He recorded it as being, "the stupidest thing I have ever ordered by a country mile." We agree.

Having weighed themselves down they decided to go on a quick helicopter trip around the island. Imagine their faces when the ground-crew laughed at their suggestion that they could all go in one 'chopper'. "You are too fat" was the essential message.

Having forced two of their number onto another aircraft the five left, including our hero, were further humiliated as pilot after pilot refused to take them and lighter groups of passengers leapfrogged them in the cue. Eventually the skies above darkened and a heavy lift chopper hove into view to take them on their trip (after having dumped fuel to reduce its weight).

With the sound of laughter ringing in their ears they strolled back towards their hotel and up Broadway to Times Square. By this stage the tourism thing was wearing thin and so they jumped in a taxi to Brooklyn to visit the brewery there. They managed 40 minutes in the outer boroughs before being too frightened of the guns and natives and so braves the subway back to Manhattan.

Yet another steakhouse followed for supper (he managed to stay awake this time) before they decided to investigate the less seemly side of life. The Penthouse Executive Club was first on the agenda and was followed by The Fantasy Club. Nigel's cello playing was a rare treat.

Churchy's stag Part 1

After a night on the sauce with Gay George (Not Actually Gay) he was up at some unseemly hour to make the quick trip to Heathrow. In fact so quick that he was so engrossed playing with the new features on his swanky new 'phone that he had to be nudged awake by the driver on arrival.

With him, Glenn, Nigel and Martin (Churchy's allegedly more sensible older brother) all on the same flight the attendants must have been somewhat nervouse about having them alltogether and so upgraded Major to Club. Nigel being the man of the people that he is had already booked himself into Club. Glenn and our hero were therefore stuck out back.

To deal with the disappointment he kicked off the drinking early by ordering one of these
at a little before 0700. An aggresive start to the weekend.

Clearly the general soporific affect was passed onto the pilot who reported that "we hope to land around lunchtime" which demonstrated a rather high level of imprecision. Particularly as the in-flight entertainment system could be tuned to show a map with distances and time to arrival. Glenn was somewhat bemused that they did not have this facility in the cockpit.

On arrival at JFK, after a gentle snooze, imagine his surprise when there was snow on the ground and a rather wintry wind in the air. Imagine his friends amusement at his lack of warm clothes.



A gentle start was of course called for so met up with the others (Churchy, Pieter and Nick) and they hit the Spotted Pig in the West Village for a quick half gallon of "Pig" (a rather aggresively alcoholic pint) before sinking another couple at the White Horse (passim) before an early supper at a steakhouse. He of course just fell asleep at the table in the usual way.

Churchy's stag prologue

His American chums are already getting excited about his arrival:- http://howlongittakes.blogspot.com/2007/02/bolton-1-arsenal-3-aet.html

Rugby Legend Part 2

Last Friday the rugby fans for Bristol were all of a quiver all day as the got ready for the benefit dinner of the millenium for a stalwart of the local game whose last season this has been.

We are of course talking about Mark Regan and not our hero.

He found himself on a table to avid rugby fans and another washed up rugby player apparently now making a new career for himself as a dancer. We had not heard of Matt Dawson before, we wonder if our readers had.

As ever with two retired rugby players they competed throughout the evening with their respective tales of rugby glory. Despite his most valiant efforts in the scheme of things the World Cup winner probably won out.

We were hoping to be able to report that at least things had been a bit more competitive on the dance floor but our hero got so legless on red wine he had to leave before the dancing started. Impressive stuff.

This weekend is Churchy's stag in New York so we do hope to be able to report on some excitment next week. Stay tuned.

Broken wagon

Some good news at last. The past week has seem him leap off the wagon and smash it into smithereens with a handy axe. Only the invigorating power of strong cider could provide him with the strength to achieve this act of wanton destruction.

A brief skip through events would look like this:-

Monday

Bumped into Tigger and Danny whilst leaving the office and ended up joining them and the lovey Dennis for half a gallon of cider before quaffing red wine at a curry house.

Tuesday

The lovely Dennis's birthday. Mojitos, Bloody Marys and Cosmopolitans in Hotel du Vin with a whole host of people from work.

Wednesday

Gay George (Not Actually Gay) arrives for a couple of nights. The night is kicked off with a Mojito in HdV before 7 bottles of red wine are polished off.

Thursday

He cooks for Gay George (Not Actually) Gay and the lovely Dennis. Somehow he manages something vaguely palatable. 3 bottles of wine and a bottle of port is the quite light level of damage.

Saturday

He heads to London and hits the nightlife hard with his chum Aqua Ben. We are not sure if it was the Hookah or the £36 shot of whisky that puts him over the edge but he ends up sending 31 texts to one of his work colleagues (the lovely Abbie). Stalker.

Wainwright

Well the wagon that was supposed to keep him going through January has proven to be a very rickety beast from which he has fallen on a couple of occasions and had to make running repairs with just a few pints of strong cider to sustain him.

Despite this the month has as we feared been very quiet and has yet to produce anything worth your correspondent’s effort.

This past week has seem him crack however on 3 occasions and so we are optimistic that the wagon may be approaching a state too broken to be repaired. His good friend Big Gay Ben enjoyed his last day at work with him on Thursday and this provoked a beer at lunch along, it must be recorded, with a very fine pie from The Old Duke pub, never has a spit and sawdust place impressed him so with its food.

Having cracked at lunch he could hardly avoid a beer in the evening to, again, mark BGB’s departure but depressingly he kept himself to 3 pints before heading home.

Clearly his good friend Jaberwocky is a friend of this column and he sought to further tempt him off the wagon on Friday night with a curry (along with the lovely Boggy, one of the Angels and his good friend Metro). Sadly even the previously infallible temptations of Kingfisher on tap failed to work their magic and just 3 of the bad boys passed his lips before he and Jaberwocky retired to the Coronation for a last orders pint, one has to worry how that place will survive once the smoking ban comes into force.

Today he is heading up to Birmingham for a quiet celebration tonight of the lovely Dennis’s birthday (which is next Tuesday). He is carless and so has entrusted himself to the rail network. Of course due to engineering works he had to go via Newport to get to Gloucester and then get a coach the rest of the way. 4 hours door to door does not compare well with the one hour he can do it in his old car. THe miracles of public transport.

Teetotal

We have recently had little to report on and so have not reported on it. This is all due to some nonsensical idea on his part to not drink for a while. He piled on a few pounds over December and is so vain that he cannot deal with it so is ruining all our fun by not drinking for a while and providing no material for your correspondent. How selfish can you get?

We are working on him to crack but he even went out with his chums Chris and the lovely Jennie on Friday night to the pub and did not drink so we may have to take some time to wear him down. At worst he will crack in time for Churchy's stag in mid-February but hopefully we can get him before then. Stay tuned.

Cut and Shut

Well we are delighted to report that he survived the butchery of the surgeons.



He, of course, greatly amused the nursing staff with his constant wise-cracks, we are sure they have never heard "pardon me, what was that?" in response to "so do you have any hearing problems?".

So exasperated were they that they persuaded the surgeon to bump him up the list so they could get rid of him that night. Following surgery he was cracking the gags in recovery and unsurprisingly they he was in and out very sharpish.

This morning after a fine night's sleep he is kicking back and chilling out watching the cricket and cooking pigeons.

Festive Fun

We at Bogun towers have been enjoying our festive break but have been deluged with pestering messages wondering where our missives have gone so here goes with a general update. We believe we have his Office party, Christmas day and New Year's Eve to report on.

Office Party

As is traditional for these annual events in the build up to them the HR department become increasingly nervous about his likely conduct as usual sending him rather unsubtle e-mails and articles about the perils of sexual harassment claims.

They of course had nothing to worry about. He just arrived late, drank the place dry, refused to participate in the space hopper fun and had to be carried home by the lovely Dennis, poor girl. His memory of the event was entirely vague and so he still went round the next day apologising to all the pretty girls on general principles that he must have done something wrong.

Christmas Day

A family affair with his mother, sister, brother-in-law and three small nieces.



He was of course hugely smug when the middle niece produced the best reaction of the day upon opening her gift from him. It's tragic really. For the record the gift was a stool with lumpy on it created by his lovely friend Jo.

The smugness did not end there as with the thick end of a bottle of brandy inside him he proceeded to smash his family at Trivial Pursuits. Trivial does rather sum up his kicks nowadays.

Christmas to New Year

A rather quiet one this year although he did meet up with the lovely Janina, from diving, and catch up with her. She rather bravely has decided to go for the world record for deepest female descent. Readers of ages past will recall his sterling work on the support boat of another water based effort (see Chapter 54 - http://thebogun.blogspot.com/2006_03_01_thebogun_archive.html) and Janina was literally underwelmed at his offer to go out and support her.

New Year's Eve

The lovely Dennis had agreed, after much badgering, to hosting a party at her funky new Birmingham flat and his chums Rob and Helen and Dafydd and Polly and Dennis's friends Amy and Matt all agreed to come.

Now neither the lovely Dennis or he are very good at portion control and so the pre-party shopping trip was a bit of a joke truth be told. The standard exchanage being, Dennis "are you sure that's enough", him, "no idea, chuck another couple in". As a result the bill took 5 minutes to print out and is longer than he is.

The next couple of days were spent carrying all this stuff from the car to the flat and trying to find somewhere to store it.

A fantastic party was had by all with plenty of food and booze (less than 1/3rd got eaten and drunk however) consumed. The party was themed (the theme being Latin Fever) and some fine costumes were on display.



(we apologise for the quality of the pictures, the photographer had been at the sherry).

To top matters off at midnight they enjoyed some fantastic fireworks (with thanks to Birmingham City Council) before roughly destroying a poor Pinata donkey. Very few of the sweets were consumed however as Dafydd and Polly's dog rather got amongst them and shed.

2007

Well what can we expect this New Year to bring, more excitement and derring do or just a descent into drudgery and grind? Who knows but you'll read it all here first.

Rather by co-incidence both your correspondent and your hero are going into hospital tomorrow to undergo surgery so if there is no post by Thursday one or other of them has died on the table.

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.