Santacon 2005

Here's me at Santacon which was held in London on Saturday 17th December!

Because I got asked this so many times during the day, I've prepared the following FAQ. Seems a good way to start off this blog entry:

The Santacon FAQ

• What is Santacon?
  Santacon is a convention for Santas. To be eligible to attend you must wear a full Santa suit. This is the only rule.
• Who are all these people?
  Buggered if I know. Never met any of them before in my life!
• How did you find out about this?
  On the internet. I stumbled across the whole Santacon concept when I was searching for information on "flash crowds". We certainly created our own flash crowd at Nelson's Column on Saturday. There is a website www.santacon.co.uk which contains links to additional photos that were taken on the day and on previous years, and a yahoo mailing list (uksantacon) which is where I found out about the specifics of the meeting point on Saturday. If you fancy joining in next year, here's the link to the group:
  
  
  Click to join uksantacon
  
• What organisation are you with?
  None. Santacon is not a work's Christmas Do. Apart from being a member of a mailing list to find out about this event there is no other organisational arrangement for the santas.
• Are you doing this for charity?
  No. This is just purely for fun.
• (And my favourite - from a german lady on a bike - "What are you demonstrating against"?
  Nothing. We were chanting as we were walking down the street but all we were chanting was "What do we want? - Christmas! When do we want it? - Now! That's hardly demonstrating is it?

The day started by meeting at the Shakespear's Head which is a Weatherspoon's Pub in Holborn at 12:00 noon. I arrived at the meeting point early (incognito with my Santa costume in a carrier bag) with the intention of eating something to line my stomach before the consumption of any alcohol. As I was ordering my food, the first two Santas arrived and had the same idea - Santa had a fried breakfast.

In the next hour or so the Santas trickled in individually or in small groups and this created bemused looks from the other patrons - they realised something was up - but couldn't quite figure out just what was going on. Eventually the sea of red grew and I figured it was now time to don my own santa suit. It was only a santa hat, santa jacket, skirt and a belt. The skirt didn't seem very substantial so I kept my black dress on underneath which later on resulted in me being called "Goth Santa". A big "Hi" to Ruth Santa with the camera whom I met in the ladies.

The sea of red grew even bigger. Soon the "normal" pub goers were much in the minority and to be honest there wasn't anywhere for them to sit or even stand even if they had wanted to brave the santa-infested pub. I got out my camera to take some pictures, but to my dismay found that the rechargable batteries were flat, BUM! but so many other people were taking pictures that there was going to be plenty posted on the net so I didn't worry too much. All the pics that I've posted on here are from other Santa's online photo albums.

The Santas left the Shakespear's head at approximately 1:15 and stopping traffic as they crossed the road headed off down the street to the Grand Lodge of the Freemasons. They wouldn't let us in the door!

We next walked down "Drury Lane" (there was no muffin man) and to the Skating Rink set up inside the grounds of Somerset House. Some of the Santa's vaulted over the barrier and did "Santa on Ice" impersonations before being escorted off the ice by the ice marshalls. Then approx a third of the santas (including me) did an impromptu conga around the rink and into the cafe until a spoil sport security guard close the door and refused to let any more into the cafe area.

After leaving the ice rink, and stopping of at a few pubs on the Strand the Santa procession headed towards Trafalgar Square and Nelson's Column (see picture at the top of this blog entry). It was a really surreal experience being a part of the santa-throng. People's reactions were strange, when they first spotted the first couple of santas they would stare at your strange costume as if you were nuts, then when they realised just how many Santas there were they would spontaneously emote, smiling, laughing or grabbing for the camera phones or digital cameras. The number of people we passed talking on their mobiles about the amazing Santa invasion was beyond count.

I arrived at Trafalgar Square towards the tail end of the Santas and was atonished to see so many already climbing up Nelson's column. The pedestal base was already a sea of red. I went and stood in front of the column like many of the other lady santa's were doing. I didn't want to climb up on the bottom plinth as this was as tall as my head. Thousands of people were taking pictures of the spectacle. I'm very surprised that none of those pictures made the news as we did have reporters following us around all day too.

After singing several carols on Nelson's Column the Santa's started to disperse the square, heading towards Picadilly Circus where we posed for more pictures and sung more carols on the steps of Eros.

We invaded the Virgin Megastore at Picadilly. The tall black security guard really didn't want to let us in, but 300+ Santas changed his mind and he just stood there in the door talking into his walkie talkie and shaking his head in disbelief as we filed in past him. The Santas went up the stairs and did a conga around the CD section (some asshole santas deliberately knocking CDs off the shelves). As we left Virgin, there was a police van parked outside and the police dogged our tales around London for the following several hours to ensure that there was no further trouble.

Next we headed up to Leicester Square and were delighted to find a small fairground therein. The santas went on all the rides, I rode the carousel. There was a flying swing ride, and that was very fun to watch with Super Santa flying around on a swing in the classic superman pose with his red cape billowing behind him.

From Leicester Square, pausing at the Hog's Head where the Santa's refueled on yet more alcohol - a lot of us stayed out on the pavement here as the pub wasn't big enough for all of us, there was quite a bit of horseplay outside the pub, I can remember a Michael Jackson santa moonwalking in front of a black cab in the street!

New Santas were joining us now as the original crew dimished from over-indulgence in alcohol. We approached Soho and walked along the market street. We came across an animatronic santa outside one of the shops, and all of the santas bowed down to him when he danced and then sung carols at him. The shop owner was in tears of laughter.

We left Soho and stopped at a nearby eatery that sold Pork BBQ Ribs, it sounded very tasty, and the management claimed that they could serve 300 people in less than an hour, I didn't believe this claim though because they only had 75 seats in their downstairs restaurant! So I skipped the ribs, and made a small detour around the corner into Oxford Street proper and visited the Macdonalds that was there. During the course of the day I'd forgotten that I was wearing the Santa suit, it had just become a normal part of my clothes, but that few minutes of exposure as a lone santa brought so many stares from the Oxford Street shoppers. In MacDonalds this old man approached me and said "you're dressed like Father Christmas", yeah! Duh!...... I didn't bother answering him, just thinking that he didn't realise there were another 300-400 of us just around the corner. Imagine the shock he'd get when he saw that lot!

After finding food, the Santas then proceeded to invade Oxford Street. Yes, on the last Saturday before Christmas you can imagine how busy it was, and there we were 400 Santas walking up the middle of the street. There were piles of horse crap in the road (from the police horses that were trying to marshall us up the street), everyone was walking past pointing out the "Rudolph Poo".

As we walked up the street, Yomas (the guy we were following around the town because he had the loud hailer that was keeping us all together), stopped at a bus stop. We all crowded around to see what he was staring at. On the floor were two abandoned Santa suits. "Man Down", he yelled into the hailer.

We then left the Oxford Street area and proceeded to get on Tubes to St Paul's Cathedral. Even the underground driver got into the spirit and came across the tannoy saying "I hear there's a good chance you might see Santa tonight!".

We left the tube system with some Santas running up the down escalators as we left the underground at St Pauls and assembled on the steps of St Pauls to sing yet more carols. I remember seeing a passed out Santa on the steps at this point.

From St Paul's we proceeded down over the Millenium Bridge (which I'd never seen before), to assemble outside the Tate Modern Art Gallery. It was quite a spectacle when I looked back over the bridge to see the hundreds of Santas proceeding over the bridge behind me, with the lit-up spectable of St Paul's Cathedral in the background behind them all.

There was a little riverside fete going on outside the Tate Modern, and a small stage with a team of chorists singing as we arrived over the bridge.

Suddenly they found themselves in the late stages of "crack up" and struggling to carry on singing as about 30-40 santas were dancing right in front of them. Then we kind of hijacked the choir and made them sing our own carols. I think my favourite one was the "Twelve Days of Christmas", which went like this:

The Twelve Days of Christmas
(remembering to emphasise 5 double gins, as in 5 golden rings)
On the first day of Christmas my true love bought for me:A lager for 99p
On the second day of Christmas my true love bought for me:2 rum and cokesand a lager for 99p
...
On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love bought for me:

• 12 Tequila slammers
• 11 Hundred Pipers
• 10 Shots of Absinthe
• 9 Remy Martins
• 8 vodka tonics
• 7 Cheap dry sherries
• 6 Bacardi Breezers
• 5 double gins
• 4 Smirnoff Ice
• 3 real ales
• 2 rum and cokes
• and a lager for 99p!

Next we entered the Tate Modern and the Santas explored the ice-like art exhibit that was in the basement as well as sliding on the sloping floor. A few Santas climbed up the art, fell of it and broke some of it and at that point we were asked to leave. Yep, we trashed the Tate! lol

We went along the river bank to the Founders Arms and had a couple of drinks in there. Next we left and got back on the tube to a place called Olds Street where aparently there was a pub called The Foundry. Whilst we were waiting at the tube station a load of Santas sat on the tube platform - most were not capable of standing by then - sitting there singing the bawderised version of the Twelve Days of Christmas [above]. Some members of the public were taking photos of us and giving us looks of disgust probably thinking that if we'd drunk all that we were singing about, it would probably explain our condition.

When we got to the Foundry, I was one of the first in there as I was desperate for the toilet at that point, but it was already packed out with "normal" pub goers. The place looked a bit of a dive, so I left the rest of the Santas at this point in the evening and crossed the road to get what I thought was an amazingly cheap chinese takeout. £2.70 for a box of food, and I could pick what I wanted, they even had seaweed. I next hailed a cab and went back to my B&B. The next day after I sobered up I realised that that cheap chinese had actually cost me nearer to £20 when I included the cab fair back to the hotel, but it was probably safer than trying to find my way back to Paddington on the underground. I get lost on there when I'm sober!

All in all a great day was had by all!

I'd like to say hello to Ruth Santa, Green Faced Santa with Tentacles, Biker Santa, Santa Chris from Brighton, Glitter spreading Santa, Chuckie Santa and finally Barbary Santa!

What Kind of Alcoholic Beverage are you?

You're a Pint of Guinness!


What Type of Alcoholic Beverage Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Never would have guessed that one! In fact I've only drunken Guinness once, and that was on St Patrick's Day this year when I only downed the stuff to earn enough tokens to get a stupid Guinness hat. Which I've still got! lol

As far as stitching goes, I've completed about a quarter of the Mirabilia Cherub, done a few bushes on Paradise Island and today I did a couple of hours stitching on Carnivorous Cat while watching Lethal Weapon 1. I picked up the box set in Smiths today for £15.99, unbelievably cheap.

I actually had a little bit of a spending fest today, I also bought the box set of the Back to the Future films, (good old Marty Mcfly), Mission Impossible 1, Torque, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow starring Jude Law and White Guys - a comedy with Damon Waynes dressed up as a white woman cop with another fellow.

Last night I spent the entire evening working on a new blog layout for the New Year, here's a preview.

Stranded in the Scillies

I've just arrived back in the office from an overnighter in the Scilly Isles.

It's been a really fun, but eventful 36 hours, and best of all for the most part it was a work's outing, so it was FREE!

Our journey began yesterday morning at 8:15 with a lift to Lands End airport. The weather was very bad with drizzle, low laying cloud and fog, so the planned jaunt on the mini 8-seater Sky Bus was put on hold because of the weather. In the end we were shuttled back down into Penzance to catch the Scillonian Ferry.

The Scillionian has a very bad reputation, as a luxury cruise liner it certainly aint! In the end though, we didn't really have any choice it was the boat or no outing. Jason and Ray met us at the ferry port and we all boarded the ferry. The motion of the boat wasn't too bad. I thought it was quite funny trying to stay on my feet instead of staggering around like a drunkard. Actually the best place to stand (sitting down turned out to be worse) was right next to the bar so you could hang on to it. Hayley and the girls played cards and got progressively greener until Hayley ran to the loo and spent the majority of the rest of the voyage in there being sick. Linzi joined her too. Ray thought it was very funny to take the mickey out of their misery, until he too succumed and blew chunks too!

We arrived at midday. I think that was the thing that I hated most about the journey, not the journey itself, just the time wasted getting there. Nearly 3 hours to cruise 35 miles. Not for the first time, I really wished that I'd bought my stitching to do, but this was just supposed to be a quick jaunt on a plane followed by a pub crawl around St Mary's so I didn't think I'd have had the time to do any, so I didn't take it with me.

After leaving the port, we went to our respective B&Bs and dropped off our overnight bags, meeting back at a pub called the Bishop and Wolf for lunch. We then went on a mini pub crawl while the heavens opened up outside. When it cleared up we climbed up the top of Garrison Hill to join Phil and Bill who had hired a tennis court for the afternoon. My boss the twat decided to have a go at tennis and proceeded to play a volley all the time whilst talking on his mobile. He actually played better shots while he had it stuck to his ear than after he'd lowered it. Where's the sense in that?



Bored of Tennis, we played a game of Rounders up on the field at the top of the hill. Boys vs Girls. Of course the lads won in the end, but we did manage to draw the first game, which was a bit of a fluke. I didn't help out much in the second game, because I missed the first few rounds while squatting behind a fern having a wee. (Well we had all been drinking).

After Rounders the Girls had to buy the Boys a celebratory round and then the drinking recommenced. At least it wasn't me that was spilling the pints this time:



We were all a bit laggered by the time we sat down to our dinner at 8 in Dibble and Grub. I really enjoyed the food which was very tasty, but some of the lads complained about the lack of carbs, i.e. chips! Typical. Things started to go downhill afterthat. Phil and the twat started throwing Ice Cream around, people got a bit shirty about paying the bill so I left and went and stood outside. For one moment it looked like a fight was going to start kicking off. Ooops. My boss the twat then decided to go for a paddle, while I tried to follow Phil's example by riding a bike that was propped up against a wall outside the restaurant. I promptly fell straight off it again.

We went back to another pub, and things got a bit bleary after that, and about 10:30 I was about to pass out asleep so I went back to my B&B and zonked out. I kept my roommate awake with my snoring - apparently!

The party continued without me in the boss's B&B where they trashed the sitting room, leaving Phil passed out asleep on the floor between two half drunk four pint takeaway jugs of Cider and Lager. He wasn't even staying there! Linzi awoke Phil about 7:15 and made him go back to our B&B. He was there standing on the doorstep at 7:30 calling his roommate Bill to let him in because he didn't have a key.

Breakfast was very nice, and passed without incident, but even Bill couldn't finish his breakfast. We got a rip off skybus taxi (£3 per person) up to St Mary's Aerodrome and proceeded to wait for our flights home. But there wasn't any. The crap weather from yesterday continued, so we sat and waited for 2 hours for news of when we could return.

Eventually the Sky Bus put on an extra helicopter and we boarded this to go home, (but not all of us as there wasn't enough room). So I got to have a helicopter ride. Cool. Despite the weather it was a fun trip, just very loud.



So now, I'm sitting here at work, blogging, because I'm still hung over and can't really do a lot else. I do feel really guilty though because 5 of our party are still in St Mary's waiting for another helicopter back. We thought that they would be on the next 'copter following us. But not so. There is talk of them having to catch the 4:30 Scillonian Ferry back - I hope it doesn't come to that because two of them spewed on the way out there!

Daft in Dawlish

Last week one of my friends from Kent texted me to say that she was down in Devon on holiday. So the next day I jumped on the train to go up and meet her. Despite being the next county over it's still a three hour ride, but I don't mind so much as it gives me a bit of stitching time.

It was great to meet Sue again, she met me at the station and we went back to the camping ground where she was staying with her nephew and some other friends they'd made there.



We went back into town in the afternoon to get a bite of lunch, then ended up walking into this village fete full of charity stalls. Sue started looking through some clothes that were hanging up and found a huge bra. I immediately grabbed it off her and and tried it on over my clothes in full view of the fete. I next added a large pair of knickers! lol



All the people behind the stall were having a good old laugh, but this snooty old woman walked past shaking her head and tutting, so Sue said, "You've got to try before you buy, love!". ;-)

Sue bought the bra in the end. It was only 50p. When we got back to the campsite she snuck around the back of her cousin's caravan and stuck it on her washing line.



We then sat back for Alison to get her washing in! lol Alison did swear when she saw it, but then put it back on the line after trying it out for a hat.



Then it came down to the question of who's bra it really was - which resulted in everyone trying it on for a laugh. My favourite modeller was the welshman who put the bra on and then walked the entire length of the campsite and wore it in the gents.

What the?

This was the state of the backside of my formerly white jeans this morning.

How did they get like this? I have no idea.
I obviously fell down on the dirty nightclub dance floor and possibly sat in someone's beer?

Mazey's Eve Prize Collection

Well, here's my little collection of prizes from the fun fair that is down on the Promenade for Penzance's Mazey Day. Well.... apart from that chair leg... that came from a bar Called the Blue Snapper and well.... I was just sitting, chatting... and the next thing I know the chair has just collapsed and I'm sitting there pissing myself laughing on the floor in front of my boss and all of his friends! So I walked out of the bar and took the chair leg with me as a souvenier. I do these things when I'm drunk, it always seems like a good idea at the time!


Friday evening started off to be quite civilised with Hayley and me going for a meal in my bosses restaurant. He was supposed to be working there as a waiter - so we went there to give him grief and do the old "garcon, there's a fly in my soup" line. But the only "work" he did was to take our order, then got a pint for himself and sat down and joined us. After we'd eaten, his brother joined us and we started on a few cocktails and all intention of work just went out of his head! Even though the cheeky twat owns the place he still made us pay for our meals! Git!

We left the restaurant at about 9:30 and Hayley drove us up into town, the P brothers giving Hayley loads of grief about her bubble like 4x4. Hayley left us outside the Blue Snapper to drive back to Camborne and my boss introduces me to his mates as "my secretary who drinks pints"! Jees thanks mate! This was followed by the aforementioned collapsing chair incident.

We then went down Chappell Street to join the revellers outside the fair and the Navy Inn and watch the fireworks display. The Twat disappeared en route. When he turned up I asked him where he'd been and he said he'd been on the dodgems. But I walked through the fair (sober) the next day, and there was no dodgems to speak of.... was he so pissed that he was sitting on a kiddy ride believing it to be the dodgems? If only I'd got a pic of that! LOL

After the fireworks had finished we climbed over a wall to get into the back of the fair. Well the other's climbed - I sort of had to get a shove from my boss in the ass to be able to get completely over the wall, remember I'd had the quite a few cocktails and pints by this point!! Over the wall, we faced a row of portaloos "Andyloos" they were called and as this is my bosses name too - I said "well I've got to go have a pee in there, haven't I?" to his face as well. Ooops.

My boss, his brother and a mate of his then got really competitive playing games involving arrows, balls, and guns... I didn't play but I ended up with all the prizes that they won. Hence the picture above. The last prize that the twat won was one of those giant blow up hammers. He immediately used it to hit his brother with it as hard as he could and popped the bloody thing. I lost the P brothers when I went for a ride on the Carosel, and my last sight of any of them was my boss walking through the fair still carrying his deflated hammer, I called to him from the Carosel, but he didn't hear me and he was gone by the next pass, so I ended up going home on my own.

Yes, you can picture me, sitting on the Carosel riding around and around and up and down (being the only rider on the whole thing) at 12:30 am with a stupid green dinosaur hanging out of my bag because it was stuck on the zip and I was too pissed to unhook it. Embarrassment? I don't care - I had fun! - But just what do I now do with the bloody chair leg?

The Stitching Slump Continues....

So, we've just had another bank holiday weekend, and how much stitching did I do? Less than about an hours worth. This is terrible!

Mind you: I've done other things, the "weekend" started on Thursday night with yet another date with some guy I've been chatting to on the internet since January. No attraction there [sadly] and he drove a red ford escort with a dodgy tail light.

Friday night was a little better, went for a meal with Hayley after work. Had a good time, a few drinks. Hit my head on a beam in a pub! Well I'm only 5' 3" so usually I don't have to watch out for these things so bonk! The ironic thing is that it's the second time I've hit this same beam. Fortunately it's well padded! lol!

Ended up in yet another pub where Hayley introduced me to one of the office's former clients and his ever so geeky brother. You thought I was bad in the geek states? Hayley left when her parents came to pick her up at 11, so I went clubbing with the former client and this strange (old) guy from Exeter who kept grabbing my ass. The geeky brother had gone home. What a shame - I don't supposed he'd ever been to a nightclub. Don't know what happened to the Exeter guy though, he kind of disappeared when we entered the nightclub. The other guy stayed with me all night in the club which was quite sweet, even waiting for me outside the ladies, so he didn't lose me on the way out. I remember having a drunken arguement with him in Bread Street after leaving the nightclub about whether he was in a fit state to walk me home after fluffing the sobriety test three times in a row! Nevertheless, I arrived home safely and was up again about 9:30 on Saturday.

Got myself up - and out and went for breakfast in the Weatherspoons to intake much coffee and try to head off the hung over feeling. From the Weatherspoons' I went to the First Choice travel agents in a last ditch stand to book a holiday. You know, it is so frustrating being in a travel agents' and knowing that with the resources of the internet I can do a much better (and cheaper) job of searching for a holiday, and I also have far more resources at hand. Do you know that they don't even have a true internet connection in there? Sheesh! In the end they found the sort of holiday I wanted, but about £200 over my budget but one of the holidays they found didn't even have a picture in the brochure. So I went home to do a little research and found out that all of the all inclusive holidays they had found in Majorca had gotten bad reviews, so I struck out again. Did a little more research (well Holiday surfing) before I had to stop to get ready to go out on another date with Mr X Client.

How did it go? Well as a date, it was ok, we had fun. But I seriously doubt that he's the one for me. I need a little more sophistication in a man. This guy is the traditional Cornish Yokel: which makes him very very sweet, but the sad thing is we have nothing in common to talk about. We went to the Isobar because he'd never ever been in there - how innocent is that? - and then he dropped me off home in a taxi.

Actually the highlight of the night after I started flagging at 12:30 am in the Isobar was standing in the taxi queue singing along to the tunes on my Ipod with a strange guy in his 40s..... very badly .... and very loudly.... at 1 AM singing.... Cliff Richard's "Summer Holiday". lol he probably appreciated it because he was an Emmet (what the Cornish call the Tourists). The bad singing continued all the way home in the taxi with Mr X Client, surprisingly, the driver did not throw us out. ;-)

So I'm home at 1:30 and wide awake and hunking for some intelligent male company... and Dr Daniel Jackson won out. I started watching some Stargate Episodes on DVD.

And then I was struck by a realisation.... My boss is Jack O Neil. The same irrelevant attitude .... the same reverance for authority..... the same twatisms. And the truth is that if they can actually be bothered to do something, then they can be completely brilliant, but most of the time they can't be bothered. They even have similar catchphrases Jack's is "for crying out loud", while the twat always says "it's all f****** bo*****".

Sunday morning I cycled to Marazion, singing along to my Ipod along the coastal causeway cyle path had an hour or so laying in my "grassy knoll" spot before it clouded over so I headed back to Penzance and lunch at my favourite pub. Lunch and two pints just about killed me off after the busy weekend I've had, so I was all fit to take a nap when I got home, but ended up watching Junior with Arnie on TV before I finally succombed to two hours sleep, before I woke up at 8:00 for a few hours of Dark Angel on DVD before I went to sleep properly at 11:30.

And Bank Holiday Monday? Well, I woke up, spent an hour or two holiday surfing, then took my laptop out into the garden (wireless networks are great here) surfing and sunbathing, who can beat that? and continued holiday surfin' until the battery started to die. I came in, had some lunch and continued on my pointless quest. Still can't find anything within my budget, at least not flying from Exeter. GRRR a whole day wasted. I feel cheated somehow..... and still no stitching done.

Oh Well

Oh Well.... The Angel Hotel in Helston has a well in it's bar. No kidding. Seriously. Here's a couple of pics I took of it.

Don't quite know who this lady was, apart from meeting her in the queue for the toilet in the Fitzsimmons arms, where she was, as Sean so charmingly used to put it "busting for a slash". She was very drunk and said "I shouldn't laugh because my tooth falls out" .... and well..... she laughed! lol

And now on to the best? part of the day..... the Beer Garden's of Helston "The Laaaaaaaaaady in Reeeeeed"! Oh Dear. It's going to take more than one pint before I joined in with this cat chorus.

Bad fashion sense? Velvet jogging bottoms under a summer dress??? PLEASE!

Bagpuss Goes Nightclubbing

Yes, this is the bag I wore in the nightclub. One way to get attention. Everyone kept tweaking and squeezing him.

Lots of people love this bag. When I put it on the counter to get my purse out of him to pay for things in shops he's usually admired. I got him on Ebay!

Camborne's Trevithick Day

Still feeling a bit hung over from the night before, I got the bus at lunchtime to Camborne for Trevithick Day. I was amazed how busy it was, it seemed like all of Cornwall was out in the streets with a street festival stalls and fast food vendors.

I decided to go and sit in Wimpy's and have some food before I started drinking again. Wimpy's was really busy, it took them about 15 minutes before they even got around to taking my order. Then the food arrived (burger and chips) which I scoffed down and had finished and they still hadn't delivered my drink order. I went up to the counter, gave them the money for the burger and chips and told them to forget the drink. I mean, how long does it take you to pour a cup of coke out, no matter how busy they are!!!

There was a parade of steam engines through the streets of Camborne. I did see most of these as they went past as I was in the nearest pub. Yep drinking again!!! I met up with Hayley from work and also bumped into my boss again. He was able to shed some light on the sore arm.... it was bruised by the girl who yanked me up! We had a good laugh and I got to meet quite few of Hayley's friends. So we stayed in Camborne till about 8 and then got some friends to drive us to St Ives.

We started going around the pubs there, until we reached a bar on the seafront called "The Hub". There's this huge bartender in there he must be getting on for 7'. It has to be seen to be believed. Hayley quailed at this point and decided to get a taxi home. So I stayed out with Hayley's friend Caroline, and we went to the Isobar. As we got there early, we didn't have to pay the £5 on the door price to get in either, we'll have to remember that one for the future!

Anyway, there was me on Saturday night, dancing with Bagpuss on my back. Yes, I have a bagpuss bag. Everyone kept tweaking him! lol I ended up losing Caroline and danced with some guy from Bath who liked bagpuss. He bought me a couple of drinks and then I told him I was going to the loo and left and got a taxi home. I guess he'll always remember me now as the bagpuss-heartbreaker! lol ;-)

Steam Engine pics borrowed from: http://www.trevithick-day.org.uk/

Bill's Leaving Do

On Friday we left the office and went for a few drinks for Bill's Leaving Do.

We went for a few drinks, then a meal, then another few drinks. I was quite bad (drunk) by about 9 or 10 o clock. All the others played pool, while I danced to the jukebox by myself (embarrassing or what?). Then we went to The Barn. The dance floor was a virtual ice rink of spilled drinks and I kept slipping over and falling on my ass. Then I nearly went to sleep in the corner while my colleages played fuseball (remember the football table that Joey and Chandler had in Friends?). This girl came over and yanked me up and said "get up cause the bouncers will throw you out". Then I regained my "second wind" so to speak and carried on dancing. In the end I ended up outside stealing my boss's chips! We got a taxi home and I was nearly asleep between my boss and Bill (the guy who was leaving). Then they were trying to wake me up by shouting "where do you live?", but I made it home safely and slept it off on Saturday morning.

Traffic Cones

From an episode of Red Dwarf -The Last Day:

KRYTEN: Is it just me, or is that cockroach shuffling too loudly?
RIMMER: Kryten, it's called a hangover. Don't panic.
LISTER: On a mining ship, 3 million years into deep space, can someone explain to me where the smeg I got this traffic cone?
CAT: Hey, it's not a good night unless you get a traffic cone.

Well, I must have had a good night - because I came home from the nightclub at 2:00 am carrying two!

lol

The Dark One...

Nope - we're not talking Episode III here - we're talking of a pint and a
half of some very dark Cornish beer that I drank last night. It was about
7% which is quite strong. My friends thought it was strange going to a Beer
Festival and drinking wine - but I was ok and not getting too silly until
I'd drank that dark stuff - which was the colour of Guinness.

I started getting silly when I noticed one of my friend's new companions was
wearing his american football mock cardigan inside out - I kept whispering
to people about it. In the end I challenged him about it - but it turned
out it wasn't inside out at all - it was meant to be that way!! Fashion
victim or what?

When we left the pub I went to go skipping along the street and then skipped
straight out of my new shoe - leaving it behind. Of course I collapsed in a
heap in fits of giggles over this. Then one of my friends decided to go for
a swing around a lamp post. I tried to imitate him, but didn't even get to
the lamp post - I found the edge of the curb first and went straight down on
my face.

Now I have another skinned (and bruised) knee!

St Patrick's Day

Yeah! My (sorely won) hat:
[Maybe it's sacreledge to take a picture of it stuck on my egyptian lady statue's head, I think she's supposed to be Cleopatra - did Cleopatra ever go out on pub crawls? She probably never got up to my antics anyway.]

Many of the pubs in Penzance were doing a promotion on Guinness today, including the Weatherspoons. So that's where me and my friends met up. I started off the night with an Irish Stew, and then started with the real juice.

You had to drink 5 pints before you got a hat and 4 badges. We were pooling our tokens by the time we left the Weatherspoons we had two hats and loads of tokens, because the Weatherspoons had run out of them.

We cleared out The Star pub too of Hats and then went down to the Crown. You should have seen the look on people's faces when we all walked in wearing those ridiculous hats - they had them behind the bar too, but no one was wearing them in there!

In the end we ended up in The Longboat Hotel doing Kareoke with Hats:

Apologies for the bad picture quality, but this is from a movie file taken on one of our friends' phones. I didn't think it had sound at first.... but unfortunately this morning I discovered differently.... [shudder]

After leaving the Longboat the last few of us went night clubbing..... I can remember one of my friends falling over twice, and I was spinning around (a 'la Kylie Minogue?) like a 10 year old on the poles on the dancefloor! lol

I didn't get home till three.... and ouch! the headache the next day.

Damn that Guinness !

Public Service Announcements

This was Jayne Hall on the return bus doing another one of her "Public Service Announcement" speeches to keep us all in line..... unfortunately after a bottle of wine I think it was Jayne who needed to keep herself in line, inflicting us to a drunken rendition of Old MacDonald's Farm. That was a very unusual farm, I've never heard of a farmer who farms Sea Bass, Lobsters, Lamb and lollypops before!

Fame!

Went out last night, had a really good night in St Ives. My friend Hayley is still sleeping it off as I write this - she still for the life of her doesn't know why she smoked that cigar!

Went to a nightclub after a pub crawl of St Ives, and there on the dance floor was a 70+ yr old pensioner raving it up! I watched him for quite a bit of the evening, he'd have a couple of dances, sit down - have a rest - and then he'd be up for a rave to a few more songs. I think he left the night club at about 12:30, but you've got to admire him for his stamina. A raving pensioner: How cool is that?

By 1:30 there was me trying to jump up and do the splits in mid-air to the tune of Fame! Quite a few people fell about laughing watching me do that - but by that point in the evening I was past caring how silly I looked. ;-)

A New Breed of Jaffa

Only fans of stargate SG-1 will appreciate this.

Here's Keith - Jaffa to the great god Vodka VK Blue!