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.