Happy Christmas

Although everyone will be busy enjoying the festive season rather than reading this, here's wishing you a very merry holiday season full of booze and food.

And may santa bring you lots of exciting stuff and all that business.

As for me, well soon I'm off to the Kidd's for Christmas, then I fly out to Melbourne on Boxing Day. I'll be at the cricket on days 3 and 4 of the test so look out for me and Si in the 100,000 strong crowd.

On the 30th I fly to Sydney to spend New Years with my old uni mate, little fighter - Chris Larkin and his missus.

Then it's off up to Brisbane to spend a boozy weekend with Rich (who lives there now) and Dunc who'll be stopping off on his Bouff World Tour.

My adventures don't end there though, I head back to Sydney to meet my mum who is over in this part of the world for 3 weeks. So I'll be taking her, and myself, on a tour of NZs best sites.

I should be able to update fairly regularly I hope so watch this space for plenty of boozy pics.

I'll leave you with the thought that there's always someone worse off than yourself. For example, the people who will be taking advantage of this sign I saw in the window of KFC...

 

BIRTHDAY BOY

It's none stop - another bunch of birthday best wishes to dish out.

Happy 31st birthday to Si. He's a dude I've known since first year of university and in the subsequent 11 years I don't think there's one picture that sums us up better than this one...

 

 

The weekend...

I tried to make it a quiet one, I really did. But as I was lying on the sofa on Friday evening, letting my dinner digest and watching the cricket I got a call from Miller to say I was to be picked up in about 10 minutes.

We went to the Northern Steamship to meet a friend of his, Tara, for her birthday celebrations. We ended up not spending much time with her crowd, preferring to drink in front of the TV watching Monty and Harmison put the aussies to the sword.

From there we went back to Miller's for his flatmates birthday party. This was a bit quiet so we went off in to town. I was a spent force by about 1am and ducked off home. Poor show really.

On Saturday Jo helped me put up the dartboard in my room, which is looking fantastic. Then in the evening it was her sister's birthday meal in Takapuna. We went to Ghengis Khan's - a Mongolian bbq buffet restaurant. What a great place - you grab a bowl, fill it with whatever raw meat you like, add some veges, sauces and oils then pass it to the chef who cooks it on a hot plate. When it's done you pile the plate high with noodles/rice/chips/garlic bread and tuck in. Quality.

Actually, replace those /s with &s to get a more accurate description of my plate.

We then came back to the city and went to a couple of bars in the viaduct where Jo was the latest pupil in my school of dance. She's one of my most successful pupils to date too. I will stick Mike's example of how not to do it on youtube so check my videos on there soon.

Yesterday was spent watching the cricket. Pretty fascinating test this one, and it threatened to go all the way until those 2 late wickets yesterday.

Final thought number 1: I watched Teenwolf yesterday for the first time in about 20 years. I was excited to see it was on but it turns out that was misplaced excitement. That film is rubbish. RUBBISH.

Final thought number 2: Happy birthday to Si. Pictures to follow later when I find some suitably humiliating ones on my laptop.

End of a long hard (6 game) season...

Sadly the bowls season ended last night. Jacks Hit were lying in 5th place, just outside the money, with one game to go. We were up against one of the two undefeated teams and the two teams we could catch both had games against teams with losing records. It didn't look good.

Me and Casey got there early to get some practice in and bagsed the scabby old pink bowls that had served us so well in week 1. Turns out this was a good move as our opposition got off to a slow start and we were 4-0 up after 2 ends. They were no mugs though and even had their own personal bowls (losers). They edged the next few ends to go 6-4 up.

Then came the defining moment of the whole game...Miller who had been bowling awfully till this point stepped up to send down the final bowl of the end. We were 3 shots down and going 9-4 behind with about 15 minutes left would have been game over. Miller rolled one up to within inches to take the point.

We were inspired and nicked another couple at the next end with the help of the tape measure. So with a few minutes left we were 7-6 ahead.

The final end, very tense, Eden leading off put one very close which held the shot until the last couple of bowls. With the clock ticking down, us one ahead and knowing that if the buzzer went we'd finish this end and that'd be it, Miller stood over his final shot. He held steady, and steady, and steady, and steady, and the buzzer went, and he held steady, and steady and finally bowled it. It was nowhere near but that didn't matter - they had one bowl left to win it...The guy steps up and fires a drive down. They had the next 2 shots after ours so if he cleared our bowl they'd win. He missed it by a matter of millimetres and we won.

We had an anxious wait for the results which almost slowed the wolfing of free burgers. It turned out that the 2 teams above us had both lost and we got 3rd place. I went up to receive the applause and the envelope stuffed with $120 in cash. We had a choice - buy 80 vodkas or pay our subs for the next tournament in Feb. I'm not sure why we chose the sensible option.

One other thing - mum, I'm sorry for the foul language in the previous post, but it was a direct quote...and you were there. Hopefully this will save me from a clip round the lughole in a few weeks. And all you pottymouths out there, don't think this is now open house to spew forth your verbal filth.

One final thing...good work there Monty my son...

Dirty 30...

Mr Andrew Creegan turns 30 today.

 

 

As he's the first one of us to reach this landmark I think it deserves a bit of recognition and a couple of pictures of course.

Having known him for over 18 years, 13 of which have been alcohol influenced, I have countless funny memories.

Let me share 3 of my favourites, in no particular order:

1. There had to be a backyard cricket memory and I'll resist the obvious story that people who weren't there may find funny and stick with one that is the epitomy of "you had to be there". While housesitting Pete's brother's place we were playing cricket in the field out back. Creegan, unflappable as always at the crease, played a rock solid forward defensive shot. To a Heyes bouncer. He didn't flinch one bit as he steered it perfectly to fine leg with a glancing header. The nonchelant look he gave me and Pete in the field was hilarious and had us in stitches for hours.

2. This one is slightly more universal for those who know Creegans 'butter wouldn't melt' ways with parents. Again it was me, Pete and Creegan sat around my parents kitchen table, waiting for my sister to get the car out and give us a lift to town. We'd been drinking cans of Holsten Pills we got on the cheap from Rhythym 'n' Booze. Turns out they were so cheap because they were about 3 months out of date. They seemed to affect Heyes the most, something which didn't escape the attention of my mum...

My mum: "Are you going to be alright Peter?"
Heyes: *barely lifts head off table*
Creegan: "It's ok Mrs Gartside, I'll look after him" *polishes halo*
Heyes (to Creegan): "What do you think I am? Some sort of fucking gibbon?"

Heyesie immediately buried his head in his hands aware of what he'd just said, and I soon followed suit, trying to control fits of laughter. Swearing doesn't happen much in my house see. I'm not sure what my Mum's reaction was, but Andy soon chipped in, looking utterly horrified...

Creegan: "Peter, there's no need for that sort of language."

3. For number 3 I could have chosen him smashing a kiwi fruit on Breeny's head or our rolling around the college road union floor after 7 blastaways, but I'll stick with his best ever metaphor hybrid... to "splash the boat out". Absolute quality.

Happy birthday mate...

 

 

Oh, and one more thing, congratulations to Andy and his lovely girlfriend Sharon, who announced their engagement a while ago. I coulnd't imagine a better couple (yep, even better matched than Groome and Heyesie)...

 

 

The wedding is at the end of 2007 so I'll be back in the UK for that, see you all then...

Birthday greetings

Apologies to the million people who've had recent birthdays that I haven't acknowledged.

Boz, you're one of them. Many happy returns mate.

Stupid valentines babies.

PS Lunt, you don't qualify, you're in December...I just clean forgot yours. Oops.

Latics world...

First of all, thanks Denners for your advice on finding out how to watch the Oldham cup game last week. Turns out I didn't need it as, despite not being on the Sky guide, it was shown live on ESPN. So I managed to watch Latics live for the first time since I left home.

I thought we played pretty well, but it was apparently not one of our best performances by a long stretch. Still, we won comfortably and now play Wolves away in round 3. Which, irrelevantly, is where I saw my first Latics away game... Ian 'the mullet' Marshall scoring a hat-trick in the 3-1 win.

This brings me nicely onto a shameless plug. Oldham are selling tickets for a mere 2 quid for the next 2 home games - Brighton on December 16th and Northampton on December 23rd.

For those who live in the North West, from what I have heard about how we're playing, I'd recommend getting along to have a peak. Shez, clutching his manager of the month award, has us playing proper football, scouts are flocking to see our young stars such as Neal Eardley, Chris Taylor and Chris Porter and we're winning too (only a point of automatic promotion...table)

Tickets are going fast so anyone interested in having a break from the armchair viewing of Premiership gayball for a couple of hours contact the club on 08712 26 22 35.

Report (for Boz)

Boz - you wanted a match report? I'm slightly less inclined to do it when we lose. But here goes...

Before the match started we were 3rd in the table, with the top 4 receiving prizes. So it was an important game. Their lead steps up to send down the first bowl of the game and he lands it within a foot of the jack. Oh dear. Making up for my absolute shocker last week I step up and send a backhand down that clips the jack and nestles nicely between it and their bowl. Game on. Next bowl from their guy hits mine and the jack, knocking the jack away and right next to their two. Bugger.

This pretty much set the tone for the game, whenever we got a couple close and looked like winning the end they nipped in and got one closer. We didn't bowl too badly, they just bowled a bit better. Neither team had a big end (snigger), the odd points were scored here and there and it finished 10-4 to them.

Other events from that night... I was greedy and had 4 hot dogs. Also, we played darts and I tried out a new action.

I've done away with the pencil grip...

as it didn't bring me quite as much joy as it does Phil 'The Power' Taylor.

I have now changed to the 4-finger barrel grip with little pinky pointing up and away. I believe it's officially known as the Dale Winton tea drinking grip...



This is apparantly a grip favoured by the 'Prince of Style', Rod Harrington. How apt.

I now have a reasonably consistent throwing action for the first time in my life and won a game too. Now I just need to work on that beer gut.

Ok, maybe I don't.

Good day or bad day?

I can't quite decide. On one hand yesterday saw England embarrassingly throw away the 2nd test. But on the other it ended with winning a $200 bar tab.

I'm not going to harp on about the cricket because no one reading this really cares, but the worst thing is that there is now the distinct possibility of the series being dead by the time I get to Melbourne for the 4th test. I was expecting 4 days of drunken revellry with the barmy army and a couple of days in the MCG watching England fight for the ashes. Suppose 1 out of 2 aint bad.

On to the good part of the day. Si, Leanne, myself and Jo went to the Kingslander quiz. It all started so well - I got to use the "Quiz Team Aguilera" team name and we got 10/10 in round one. Then, in the final round we got 9/10 however, in between we scored 4/10 in every other round and finished about 5th bottom.

BUT, after the final round they have a jackpot round. 3 bonus questions for $50 and if no one gets them it rolls over. It was up to $200 this week and here are the questions:

1. Which northern hemisphere capital city is heated by underground volcanic springs?

2. In which year was Lindy Chamberlain officially pardoned?

3. How old was Kurt cobain when he committed suicide?

We knew 1 and 3 but 2 was a bit of a guesstimate. We got all 3 right, as did one other team. So on to the tie breaker...

How many teams have competed in the English Premiership since it started?

Our guess was only 1 away from the correct answer so we walked off with the prize. Oh so sweet.

I'll put the answers up in a couple of days when Boz, Lunt, and Alice have had their customary (poor) attempts.

EDIT: One of the questions in the quiz involved showing this video clip. You won't be surprised to hear that it reduced me to a shaking, red-faced teary mess...

Delhi-cious

I had the best curry I'd ever had at the weekend... at a place called Sitar, just up the road.

There's no real reason for this post but I thought that I'd give them a bit of publicity. If you're reading fellas feel free to throw a few freebies my way...

The beef saagwala (sorry about the inevitable bad spelling) was incredible - the meat was fantastically lean, the heat just spot on and they even threw in a few free poppadums.

I couldn't fault it whatsoever and the total bill came to about 60 dollars (20 quid). Not bad for a couple of curries, sundries and drinks. Service was spot on too - to say it was Saturday night we only had to wait 10 minutes for our food.

My mouth is watering. I'm going to check and see if they do takeaway...

Weekend fun...

It'd been a while since me and Rob went out and got ratted so on Friday night that is what we did.

Nothing fancy, a few beers and a few vodkas before heading off to town to meet up with Miller, Casey and a few of Miller's work cronies. We ended up in Lenin, again, where Rob saw a famous person. I didn't recognise her at all.

Me, Casey, Rob and Miller. We're drunk...

 

Rob meets NZ pop sensation Aaradhna...

 

 

Even more bowling...

Steven Spielberg watch out...

More bowling...

Casey in full flow...

The real reason we bowl...

I'll put together a little montage of the video clips I have at some point soon...