Snakes and Ladders

This time we took our friend The City Worker up into the mountains. And instead of climbing rocks we were climbing iron ladders. Great big massive iron ladders, one of which was 50 metres in length.

These are the the kind of ladders which you don't tackle without any equipment for clipping in, for a fall from the ladder itself could be fatal, even not considering the fact that the adder is high up on a rock face.

We began the climb with a steep uphill walk with good views of Lake Garda:

The Nurse and I led the climbs, up ladders with hundreds of rungs which ascended up into the mist, seemingly never ending.

Climb four rungs, clip. Climb four rungs, clip. The guide book said it would take 30 mins to climb one of the ladders alone - and it was right!

The City Worker was the only non climber among us, and he did a pretty good job! He tried to change the subject every time I spoke about how much it would hurt if we fell, and he complained a lot  but to be honest he always complains a lot.

Here he is completing the daddy of all the ladders:

And leaning back on my harness I managed to get a little video of him looking up for the first time:

I have the Internet Again!

Finally, after having moved house around a month ago, and after having confirmed that BT are indeed the most dis-organised organisation on the planet - I have the internet at home!

After clearing out the links to dodgy sites which had accumulated in my comments section, the first thing I did was to upload my photographs for Team Bandicoot on the Hadrians Walk. Rather than bore you with them all, you can go to see them here on my Flickr page.

I thought I ought to post up the picture from the start of the walk (incidentally, only one of our party started in the sea, having been the only one who could be bothered to wade through the mud):

Bowness on Solway

Left to right: The Sergrant Major, The Tank, Me, Lucy, The Nurse, The City Worker, Katie, Will, Mike (who incidentally never looks at the camera), Alex, Mark (Buff creator), and the Artist (in distance).

I think probably my most favourite shot from the walk has to be this one, taken on the way into Houghton North Farm:

Fields of Gold (ish)

And here we are at the end, substantially more sweaty, and with a fair few more blisters:

Wallsend

Left to right: The Artist, The City Worker, Me, Mark, Alex, Will, Lucy, Katie, The Nurse, Mike, the Sergeant Major, the Tank (Front - DNF).

Thanks to everyone who took part, it was a great week and I think we may be able to turn it into a annual event. Particular thanks goes to our mobile Podiatrist who followed us the who breadth of the country - keeping the team going with foam padding, strapping and cans of Carlsberg.

Julia - Our Mobile Podiatrist

On Doing Shots with Super Mario

So this is the end result of a weeks worth of toil on my Panthro suit. It involved a lot of parcel tape, selotape, insulation tape, PVA and garden wire. All together I was pretty happy with it! 

Liono's efforts were a little less impressive I have to say. Especially given as he is supposed to be the leader of the group (I never could understand why that was).

It was an awesome night! 

Apart from getting accosted by a rather camp He-Man for quite some time, I spent a lot of the night talking to various members of the Motley Crue as well as Tom Cruise from Top Gun. The goblin king from Laberynth kept trying to pull my spikes off, but I am pleased to say that they held firm (that'll be the £1 poundland insulation tape then).

However alcohol is not so abundant on the planet Thundera, and after a while - us cats got a little tipsy and tired. In the absence of the Thundertank (I thought it best not to drink and drive), we got a taxi back home to the Thundercats Lair (well, actually it was my mums house - 

she had to put blue sheets on the bed so that my face paint didn't stain them).

Tigra, Liono and Panthro - just chillin'

How to Make Your Own Panthro Suit

When I was a child I was very much obsessed with a children's cartoon series called The Thundercats.

The Thundercats was basically based around a group of cat like humanoids who had been exiled from their home planet Thundara (I believe) and were on a lifelong quest to sell plastic figurines to small kids. Their leader was Liono (who looked a little bit like a lion unsurprisingly), but there was also Cheetarah, Tigra, and by far the coolest Thundercat of them all ... Panthro.

Panthro was the older, cool headed Thundercat who made stuff out of other stuff. He even made the Thundertank (which he drove), which was awesome. It ate rocks for christs sake (though my mate has a plastic one and that definately did not eat rocks)!

Panthro was my favourite by a country mile.

On Saturday we are going to a fancy dress party, my friend's 30th in Huddersfield. The theme is 80's but rather than going in shell suits, we opted to dress up as the Thundercats.

The Nurse will be Tigra, the city worker is going as Liono and I (being in possession of one of his natural traites - no hair) will go as 'Panthro the Deadly'. Incidentally I am not sure where he got that name as, if I recall correctly - no-one ever died in a Thundercats episode.

Panthro the Deadly

My recipe for the perfect Panthero costume is as follows:

• 1 pair of tight blue leggings;
• 1 pair of blue speedos;
• Blue card;
• Red card;
• Black card;
• Silver card;
• Lots and lots of PVA glue;
• Part of the box that the TV came in (this is going to make shifting the TV next month when we move house that little bit more difficult);
• 1 pair blue football socks;
• 1 tight blue t-shirt;
• Lots of blue face paint; and
• 1 pair of nunchucks (available from any good weapons dealer)

Mix together for one mean looking Panthro!

I havent quite figured out whether this will work yet, but will keep you (the general internet) posted...

Oh, and also whilst researching all of this, I figured out that they are supposed to be releasing new Thundercats movie! Awesome!

On Being 18

The worst thing about being 18 is not that you're spotty and you sweat a lot and you constantly worry about what other people thing of you and whether you are cool. Its not that you are purely a product of your hormones and you can swing from dark moods to glorious happiness to anger in the space of minutes.

For me the worst thing about being 18 is not that you are naive and inexperienced in the ways of the world - and lets face it, a little stupid. the worst thing about being 18 is that you don't realise that you are naive, stupid and inexperienced.

In fact you think you are rather clever and that all of the lessons of thousands of years of civilisation don't apply to you. You have better, more clever ways of doing things that all of your predecessors.

I was reminded of this when I was 18 and I went on my first lads holiday with much the same group that I will be going on holiday with this year (incidentally 10 years later) - The Artist, The Nurse, The City Worker and the newly named Tank (who I am pleased to hear will shortly be moving back up north).

We went to Tenerife. To Playa de las Americas. To a place where I would never choose willingly to go again. It was a mess of horrible concrete hotels and cramped clubs with 2-4-1 deals on pints of vodka-redbull hawked outside. We had a good time.

I in particular had a good time until day two, when I was so perfectly reminded of how stupid I was in such an extreme way.

When we were messing around in the pool toward the end of the day (completely sober I might add) - the City Worker cleverly informed us to watch out when diving into the pool, as once his sister had dived into a pool of similar depth (also surrounded by no diving signs as ours was), and had knocked some of her teeth out. Yeah whatever.

That very same day, we were playing an interesting game which involved slam dunking some kind of inflatable ball into some kind of inflatable ring. The kind of game that will keep up you interest for only a short while. I decided to create an additional element to the game and try to actually dive through the hoop whilst holding the ball.

As any sensible soul will tell you - the first thing that happens when you dive into water holding a ball is that your hands will shoot up with said ball into the air. This happened to me.

What happened during this act was that after passing through the hoop I got a little too close to the bottom of the (1.5m) pool. At speed. So close in fact that I had to stop my descent through the use of the only appendage available to me (my arms being in the air and all). That appendage happened to be my face, or more precisely, my front teeth. I rose to the surface and swore loudly when running my tongue over my teeth and realising that the front ones had broken in half.

No pain. No blood. Just a good clean break. Needless to say I wasn't much of a hit with the ladies for the rest of the holiday.

I was also in quite a bit of pain as I was walking through the street a day or two later when some Spanish kid ran up to me, slapped me round the face and then ran off. A little unusual, but not normally a problem but for the fact that my lips caught on my jagged teeth and caused them to cut open. Coupled with recycled Tenerife water those cuts caused me the biggest, most painful set of mouth ulcers I have ever had.

Also I wasn't best pleased with the "I told you so!" from the City Worker.

Today I have been playing around with a scanner that somebody gave to me some time ago and have finally made it work, so over the next two weeks I hope to bring you some gems from the past.

Starting with this picture of some chavs in Tenerife in 1999 (dont worry, the dust is on my scanner, not your screen):


Left to right: The City Worker, The Tank, The Nurse, The Artist

How I Spent my New Year

11.56pm:

The Artist "I know, lets get shots in for everyone ready for New Year!"
Me: "Yeah great idea"
We go to the bar.

11:57pm

Me: "Can I have...how many of us are there? ... er six shots of sambuca"
The Artist: "No ... er... seven"
Me: "seven shots of sambuca please!"
The City Worker: "I don't like Sambuca"
Me: "OK. six shots of Sambuca and one shot of Tequila please." turns to friends "I hope you all have some money because I am not paying for all of this".
The Artist scrabbles around in his pockets.
The Artist: "I think I can pay for about three of them?"

11:58pm

Me (snatching up The Artist's money): "Can I pay by Card? Have I got time?"
...
Hands over card.
...
Waits.

11.59pm

Barmaid hands over chip and pin machine.
...
Me: "Oh you seem to have put the wrong amount in here. It says £1.40"
Barmaid takes back chip and pin machine.
...
Waits.

12.00am

Barmaid hands over card terminal.
...
I enter my pin. I hand back the terminal.

12.01am

I collect my drinks.
I return to my friends.

Oh. Its too late.

"Shots anyone?"