One Man and His Blog

OK, maybe that’s a bit extreme. Perhaps it should be "Stop the world, I want some time off".

It’s been another hectic week at work, and with the end of the financial year and all that entails, the next couple of weeks will probably be even busier. So I could do with a bit of a breather at the weekends, but that appears to be out of the question.

Tonight I’ve been doing yoof leader type of stuff, which has been great (and I will blog more about yoof-related matters soon, hopefully). Tomorrow Housemate #1 is moving out ahead of her wedding next weekend, and a new replacement housemate is moving in; meanwhile, my parents are coming up to visit for the day, which will be great – we’re hoping to go to the Botanical Gardens, all being well. And then on Sunday, a friend who I haven’t seen in three or four years is coming to Brum and staying overnight for an interview on Monday, so I’m going to meet up with her and catch up on old times. All good stuff, of course, but with the whole weekend more or less filled up, I can see myself going back to work on Monday feeling knackered.

Still, if I can get through that, Easter promises a four-day weekend, including wedding. Currently I have a lot to organise – like how to get there and back, and whether it will necessitate an overnight stay, and if so where – but I’m sure it will come together. Or, knowing me, that I’ll blag it at the last minute.

The fire may have burned long into the night, but it was decidedly chilly by about six in the morning – all the clothes on again, and I was soon back to sleep. Liz, our landlady, had kindly offered to make us bacon sandwiches for breakfast (like we hadn’t eaten enough pig the night before), and I woke up with about 20 minutes to spare before they were due to arrive. However, Liz obviously had other things to worry about indoors, so our sarnies didn’t appear until an hour later than planned – not that anyone complained (although some of the lads quite fancied Liz, so they were never likely to complain anyway). Then it was time to pack up. The two remaining joints of pork were wrapped up to be taken home, the roasting apparatus was dismantled, all our rubbish was cleared up, and we started packing down our tents. Jimmy and I managed to take ours down a lot quicker than it had gone up, although the tricky bit was actually getting the tent to fit into its bag. We got there in the end.

Meanwhile, Aaron’s Dad was providing some entertainment by trying to take his tent down. The tent itself was a natty little thing (probably a one-man, unless you and the second man are *very* close friends) which was designed to pretty much set itself up instantaneously when you took it out of its bag. It was called the "Two Second Tent", because you were supposed to be able to erect it in two seconds and put it away in two seconds. On Dad’s evidence, the putting away bit was trickier than expected. Every time he’d almost wrestled it into the bag, it would pop open again. He must have spent about ten minutes fiddling around with it; whether this would qualify him for a refund under the Trade Descriptions Act, I doubt very much. Still, at least he didn’t have Dean and Liz’s dog peeing on the tent while he was trying to take it down, unlike Big Big Bro (who wasn’t impressed – of course, the rest of us were highly amused, but then again we’d had a weekend with too much alcohol and not enough sleep).

Finally packed, those of us who hadn’t had to shoot off early had one final activity planned – a spot of fishing. A few of the guys were exerienced anglers, but most were new to it all, so on the way back from football the day before we’d called into a fishing shop for some expert advice on what equipment we’d need etc. When we arrived at our stretch of riverbank, the groundsman informed us we had completely the wrong hooks and bait for the season, and that we could get prosecuted if an official type came along and found us using them. We told him that this was what the fella in the fishing shop had said we needed, and he said that the fella in the fishing shop knew nothing and suggested this wasn’t the first time he’d heard of this particular chap giving duff information to newbies. So, instead of the job lot of maggots we’d bought, we had to get a gardening fork and start digging up the earth for some worms to use as bait instead.

Now, I must be honest, the more I think about it the more it seems that fishing is rather cruel. As well as a (hopefully) short term injury to any fish you catch, there’s the poor maggot or worm that finds itself skewered alive on a hook before being drowned and finally gobbled up by a passing fishy. However, Dad put it all into context when Housemate #2 raised a similar concern with him: "If you’ve ever eaten fish in your life, they’ll have gone through all this, and killed the fish on top of it." Fair point, that man.

I soon realised why I could never really get excited about fishing. It’s not the boredom factor; sometimes I think it would be quite nice to just sit on a quiet, tranquil riverbank watching the world go by. No, the problem for me is all the technical stuff. You need lots of different bits of equipment (rod, reel, hook, bait, weights etc), and when you arrive you have to set it all up. This bit seemed to take ages. I dare say with experience and practice it would become a lot quicker, but it all seems like a bit too much effort to me. Still, once everthing was up and running, we set about the main business of the afternoon, and Aaron quickly proved himself to be a jammy git; after his cousin had spent half an hour sitting around with no sign of a bite, Aaron walked to the exact same spot, cast out, and within five seconds was reeling in a perch which, while by no means massive, was impressive enough to warrant much excitement (and cursing from cousin).

Of the rest of us, only one guy (who’s done a fair bit of angling in the past) got a bite; he caught two perch, though neither was as big as the one Aaron had bagged. Somehow I only ended up fishing for about five minutes, and managed to get absolutely nothing in that time. At least I gave it a go, though. In fact, this weekend was full of things I don’t normally do because I don’t enjoy them that much (camping, fishing, eating large fatty mouthfuls of pork), but which had turned out to be better than I’d expected, even if they’re not necessarily things I’d volunteer to do in the future.

As the Manchester crew gradually drifted off for their long drive home, the numbers depleted and, finally, we all decided it was time to go and get some sleep, ready to go back to work in the morning. A good time was clearly had by all, but most importantly by Aaron, who had exerted himself so much during the weekend that he kept dropping off in the back of the car. In less than two weeks, he’ll be a happily married man, and it’ll be the end of an era. How so? I’ll tell you in a while…

So, having finally climbed into my sleeping bag at 3.30 on Saturday morning, I proceeded to lay there for what felt like an eternity. Then it turned really cold and I put all the clothes I’d been wearing in the day on over the top of my sleeping gear. Then I went to the loo, and when I came back I finally managed to fall asleep around 6am. Three hours later, I was awake again and feeling like crap. Thankfully I wasn’t the only one, though most of the others had more to do with the number of pints they’d knocked back the night before.

The day’s main activity was due to be a spot of five-a-side footy at a nearby sports centre, but before we could set off we needed to sort out the evening meal (veggies may wish to look away around now). Little Big Bro and Dad had been to the butcher before they left and had struck a rather good deal on a large pig, supposedly big enough to feed 120 people. It was rather surreal seeing them drag it out of the back of the minibus, particularly as its head and trotters had already been removed and the thing didn’t so much resemble a pig as a human torso (albeit one with many more nipples than the average human). There was also the apparatus required to roast the hog, so we were all sorted. Except, of course, we were about to go out for a few hours, and while we weren’t too concerned that the pig could be stolen, there was a chance that it might rain, so we needed to find somewhere to shelter Porky until we got back. The clue in the title should give you an idea where he ended up – in the very tent I’d been (not) sleeping in a few hours earlier.

And then, just as we were about to leave, someone came round from the front of the pub to tell us the local town crier was out (yes, as I said before, it’s actually a hamlet, but I’m sure his job description says "TOWN crier"). How old school was this?! Bizarrely, there was no one around to hear his "oyez!"s, so he was just shouting at the passing traffic, which made him look slightly odd. Never a dull moment, eh?

So to the football. We bagged a two hour session, and proceeded to play a mini-tournament, with Aaron, Big Big Bro, Little Big Bro and Dad as captains. It went to penalties, but eventually Aaron’s team triumphed. However, the most notable thing was how good many of the lads were on the pitch, quite remarkable given that a lot of them were sleep-deprived and hungover. While the other teams were playing and the rest of us were lurking outside watching through a perspex screen, it was notable how much of a yeast smell was coming through as the previous night’s booze seeped through the pores… mmm, lovely. (*heave*)

After quickly grabbing some lunch, it was back to the campsite for a bit of chilling out, and Jimmy and I put his tent up, realised we’d set it up wrongly (making exactly the same mistake we’d made when we put it up on our last camping expedition), and started again. By the time we were done, the hog was on the spit and the roasting had begun. Now we had to start it pretty early in order to eat at a relatively sensible time, and the plan was that we were going to watch the England game at another pub nearby and come back to a mountain of pork. Being a good bloke, Geoff volunteered to stay behind and keep an eye on the piggy (of course, as well as being a good bloke, the fact that he was Welsh and couldn’t care less about football may also have been contributing factors). So off we all trooped with Dean the landlord leading us to his mate’s pub up the road, safe in the knowledge there should be crackling awaiting us on our return.

After a match so dull that even the greatest football obsessive in the world would struggle to have anything to say about it, we returned to find a slight problem. (veggies look away again) Part of the pig had fallen off his skewer, and Geoff had had to rescue it from the flames and somehow reattach it. And did we thank him? Of course not; we accused him of nibbling on too many bits while it was cooking, thus causing it to fall off. Well, actually, we did thank him eventually, but only after the lads had descended on the hog like vultures. Forget carving, there were just hands ripping off lumps of flesh left, right and centre. Soon some semblance of decorum returned, and slices were put into rolls and devoured in a more sedate manner.

Then back into the pub for another jam-session-cum-gig, and this time with more of an audience. It seemed that word had got around the area that there were a rowdy-but-likeable bunch of fellas playing well into the night. What was even better, was that some other guys had turned up during the day to join us, including some really really REALLY good musicians. If anything, it was even more eclectic than the previous night; everyone from Van Morrison to Britney Spears, Michael Jackson to Jeff Buckley, and Andy Williams to Robbie Williams. There were a great many requests coming in from the punters, and for once none of them was "sod off". Rhona was persuaded to sing again, and once again reduced the pub to silence, and Housemate #2 was the hero of the evening thanks to his amazing solo rendition of Jonny B Goode on the keyboard. He’s so talented, I should probably hate him.

And to finish? Well, what could be more of a man thing to do than making fire? The trough over which the pig had roasted was filled with stray bits of wood, a log and a few oddments, and set on fire. Bizarrely, the fire had exactly the same effect that the hog had had as it turned on the spit a few hours earlier – in both cases, there wasn’t really anything happening, yet we all stood transfixed, staring at it for minutes on end. See, it’s official – men really are a bit sad. At 4am BST, I decided enough was enough and went to bed. And this time, when my head hit the pillow, that was it. Thank you Bidford, and goodnight.

[names changed due to privacy and that]

In two weeks’ time Housemate #1 is getting married to my good buddy Aaron. To celebrate this fact, Aaron had his stag weekend this weekend, attended by a large contingent of folks he knows from Brum and from growing up in Manchester. While there was none of the cliched "handcuffed naked to a traffic bollard" malarkey, there were enough bizarre and ridiculous moments to make it worth my while telling you about it all. So, here goes…

Since Aaron only lives two doors from me, it made sense for us to both get a lift together, so our mate Jimmy volunteered to drive us. He arrived chez Steve on Friday evening with his car already fairly packed – as well as all the usual stuff required for a weekend’s camping, he’d been asked to bring a guitar and amp (for reasons which will become apparent later). Fitting two other people and their stuff (including another guitar) into the car was going to be tricky. Eventually Aaron’s guitar was sacrificed (not in the Old Testament sense) and we headed off down the road. On the way Aaron got in touch with two other friends of ours, Frank and Geoff, who’d set off around the same time, and suggested we meet up somewhere on the way to grab some dinner (the journey itself was quite short, only 45 minutes or so, but most of us hadn’t eaten, so we thought it would be a good idea).

As we were passing through Alcester in Warwickshire, Geoff called to say that Frank had spotted a pub advertising that "Friday night is free chilli night"; this was quite an impressive spot, given that the writing was only on a small blackboard outside the pub, and that Frank was driving at the time. So we pulled over, walked back to the pub, met up with Frank and Geoff, and went inside to check that we weren’t imagining this seemingly too-good-to-be-true offer. It was all true – a free bowl of chilli con carne and rice when you bought a pint. Ten minutes later, the five of us and our pints were tucking into a small but appetising bowl of chilli, and admiring the rustic charm of what seemed to be a very country-style pub in a small town. Then the vibe was shattered as, in the adjoining room, a DJ started soundchecking for his drum and bass set later. The peace and tranquility was destroyed in an instant, although we did have a good chuckle at his mate who was soundchecking the mics by repeating the phrase "how now brown cow" in his plummiest old-school BBC announcer voice. Then he started MCing over the records, but still mostly just using the words "how now brown cow". It was possibly the most bizarre time I have ever spent in a pub.

After a quick trip to the cashpoint and a friendly greeting from a passing driver (I know most people wouldn’t class "w*nkers" as a friendly greeting, but I’ll take whatever’s on offer), we got back on the road and eventually reached our destination around 8:30. We were staying at a little campsite behind a pub in the small hamlet of Bidford, near Stratford-Upon-Avon (I just learned this weekend that, in order to achieve town status, a place must have a church; if it doesn’t, then it’s a hamlet. Educational, eh?). While the others got on with sticking their tents up, Jimmy and I, who had been planning to share Jimmy’s tent for the duration, weighed up our options and decided that heading into the pub and sitting by the fire was preferable to wandering about in the dark trying to force poles and pegs into the ground. So that’s what we did.

As the evening progressed and everyone turned up and/or finished pitching their tents, we quickly filled up a little section of the cosy (i.e. small but welcoming) hostelry. And then, with Aaron’s big brothers having organised it all with the owners, we unpacked all our musical equipment and set about providing the evening’s entertainment. I should point out that most of my group of mates are quite musical, and Aaron and his family are particuarly talented, so there was no shortage of performers. Apart from a couple of numbers from Jimmy and a few arsing-about moments from the Manchester guys, however, it was nearly all down to Aaron on guitar and Little Big Bro on keyboard. A few people played bass, but most times when it was needed Big Big Bro was called on to complete the family band. Having brought my somewhat underused bongo drums, I found myself providing the percussion as and when it was needed. The choice of tunes was somewhat eclectic, but that made it all a bit more fun. I don’t know how many people have ever played bongos to Smells Like Teen Spirit, but I can be added to that list now.

However, the high point of the evening’s music had no input from any of us. Word came back to us that there was a lady in the pub named Rhona, and she was an amazing singer. After a bit of persuasion, she agreed to sing a traditional Irish song, and as soon as she started the entire pub fell silent. She was fantastic; a soft, beautiful, lilting, folkish voice which complimented the song perfectly. She got a standing ovation when she finished, quite rightly.

By the end of the night it had become clear that, while Aaron is a great musician, he’s incapable of remembering more than two or three lines of any given song. And also, that it’s a bad idea to ask if anyone has any requests, because you may find yourself performing songs you hate (naming no names, but his initials are James Blunt). Time just ran away with us, and finally, at 2:45 am, we had to pack it in when Dean the landlord warned us the neighbours would soon be complaining. So off we went into the night, where many tents were already up and a few more were being pitched by men whose earlier frantic alcohol consumption was now seeming less of a good idea. Rather than trying to put Jimmy’s tent up in the dark, we asked around to see if there was space anywhere overnight. We were in luck; Big Big Bro had brought a four-man tent which was currently only sleeping himself and Aaron, so we nabbed the other two berths and settled in. Of course, being in the same tent as the Stag himself is always potentially hazardous, and alcohol-related high jinx can quickly get out of control, and after the tent had been on the receiving end of several incoming footballs and some light-hearted kleptomania, I uttered my final words of the evening – "Oi, put my f*cking stuff back, you thieving b*stard!", to the aforementioned thief who couldn’t distinguish between Aaron’s things and anyone else’s, and settled myself in for a good night’s sleep. Sadly, instead I got insomnia… but I’ll come back to that later. That’s more than enough for one day.

Today is Mothering Sunday, as you probably already know. Our church decided to celebrate this by giving each woman in the congregation today a small potted plant. A nice touch, I thought. But after church, as we were discussing this, we started to wonder what (if anything) all the men will be given on Fathering Sunday (which I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone call it before, but I suppose if I’m not going to refer to today by the commercialised "M*****’s D*y" term then I can’t really talk about "F*****’s D*y" either). The main suggestion was a small tool kit or a screwdriver.

But seriously, flowers or plants are always a nice small gift for women, but what equivalent is there for men? If you’re going to visit a male friend and want to take him a little gift, what should you get? (I keep thinking beer, which of course won’t be to everyone’s taste, and almost certainly won’t be given out in church anytime soon…)

You know when God’s trying to tell you something, and you know what it is and you know it’s right, but you don’t really want to hear it and wish you could just carry on how you were instead of going through all this difficult stuff, even though you know in the end the difficult stuff will transform who you are for the better?

I’ll leave it at that for now.

The idea of doing a 24 hour prayer event sounds great – as long as you’re not planning to do all 24 hours. Then, it sounds like an endurance feat. For me, an hour of prayer sounds really good. So when our church announced they were having a 24 hour prayer session and needed people to sign up for hour slots – as many or as few as you wanted – I was quite keen to give up an hour for it. Of course, being me, I forgot to sign up. But thankfully, my friend D had the smart idea of signing our cell group up for a slot. Well done, D.

However, when he told us about it last week, I noticed two slight flaws in his otherwise amazing plan. Firstly, he’d put us down for a midnight slot. Not ideal after you’ve been at work all day, but at least I could still be in bed at a relatively sensible hour. Or, I could have been, if it weren’t for the fact that D had volunteered us for 3 hours. "Well, I thought, we’re all young, we’ve got that youthful stamina on our side", he’d explained, in the manner that only a 22-year-old who’s doing an MA and thus doesn’t really have any strict time he has to get up can explain it. "Huh, well, I’m an old fart and will probably flake out in the middle of it", I thought to myself. But it seemed like A Good Thing To Do, so on Friday night I had a quick nap for just under an hour, and then woke up at 11.30pm to go out and pray.

Part of my concern about falling asleep in the middle was because I’d been fearing that the whole set-up was going to be quite "sit-quietly-in-a-circle", which with hindsight was always fairly unlikely with our church. Instead, there were stations set up around the room for specific areas of prayer – for the world, for the city, and for ourselves and others. The best part of it, however, was having so many folks there from one of our sister churches. That congregation is almost entirely made up of (mostly French-speaking) Africans living in the city, and they hold all-night prayer sessions about once a month, so this was nothing new to them. But their enthusiasm was infectious. Even if the African worship style isn’t to your particular tastes, you can’t deny that it’s lively – and at half two in the morning, that’s just what you need. I’d heard some of the songs before when we’d had shared services with them, but there was one that was new to me which was absolutely fantastic. It simply involved them singing, "Jesus is the winner man" and then repeating "the winner man, the winner man, the winner man" over and over. Then for the next verse – yep, you guessed it – "Satan is the loser man… the loser man, the loser man, the loser man". There you have it – the gospel in two lines. And it was quite fun to be calling Satan a loser, too.

Anyway, with all our prayer and worship stuff, everything kind of flowed into the next bit, and 3.00 came and went, and my friends who I was relying on for a lift home asked if I minded if we stayed a bit longer, and – much to my shock – I said no, I wouldn’t mind at all. So we stayed and prayed and danced and sang and finally, when they called a brief break at nearly 4.30, we left them to it. I hadn’t expected to be able to pray for three minutes, never mind three hours… but it’s funny what God can do when you just allow Him to get on and do it.

What were you up to on Saturday night? Quiet night in? Wild night out? Or an utterly surreal and childish night at some mates’? I went for the latter.

So there we were, virtually all of my cell group plus my new housemate, round at our leaders’, having fajitas for dinner, and making polite and civilised conversation and generally behaving like the sensible grown-up twenty- and thirty-somethings we pretend to be. But then several large bars of chocolate were introduced into the proceedings, the idea being we pick which one(s) we wanted to eat. Instead, at someone’s random suggestion, we proceeded to play that staple of youth groups everywhere, The Chocolate Game (you know the one – knife, fork, hat, gloves, scarf, dice, chocolate etc). It’s amazing how competitive people can get – and interesting how the two biggest cheaters were married to each other…

Next, somehow, a bizarre party piece was started up, in which you had to take a long pole (in this case with a paint roller on the end) and proceed to step over it, bring it over your head, place it between your legs and step through the gap in it, thus pretty much turning your body inside out, all without changing your grip. It sounds complex, and for the less flexible types like me it was, but it provided plenty of entertainment. There was also appropriate accompanying music chosen from Queen’s Greatest Hits (We Are The Champions for those who succeeded, Another One Bites The Dust for those who failed, and Flash for those who displayed a bit too much builder’s bum cleavage as they floundered around. On my attempt I was greeted by the sound of Fat Bottomed Girls, which I wasn’t entirely impressed by, but that’s another story).

And then, just when we thought it couldn’t get any more surreal, it did. You know that game where you spin round in circles while looking up at the end of a broom, and then have to run to a designated point and back without falling over or veering way off course? Well, at about 10 at night we decided we’d give the neighbours a treat and pop outside for a quick game. Of course, it was utterly ridiculous, but it was also extremely funny. On my first go I managed to fall over while trying to stop myself at the tree which was our destination, and second time around my friend D and I achieved a dead heat, despite both falling over on the way and having had to negotiate a hill which no one else had attempted.

And how do you top that? Well, first up some of the assembled throng decided to learn the Oompa Loompa dance from the Charlie & The Chocolate Factory DVD, and proceeded to perform it for the, erm, "enjoyment" of the rest of us. And then, there was only one possible way to finish the evening in a more surreal way than it had been conducted up until now, so we watched an episode of Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em. Don’t ask me why, it just seemed like the appropriate thing to do.

Yes, it was utterly puerile and quite preposterous, and yes, I’m sure when we have cell this week we’ll all try to act mature and sensible. But sometimes, you have to let your inner eight-year-old out to play, and ours had a lovely time on Saturday. And as my outer twenty-eight-year-old went back to work today, he couldn’t help wishing he could be falling over a tree or wrestling with a paint roller instead.

…can you guess where I’m going today from that clue? Yes, that’s right, Belfast.

Only joking, I’m off to London to meet some crazy folks (include at least a few Wiblog types) for a night on the town. I just have a lot to do first, though. So forgive me for not stopping here longer, but once Saturday’s over I should have a bit more time to regale you with entertaining anecdotes about my adventures, or failing that, just churn out the usual cobblers trying to make my life sound more exciting than it really is.

As they say in Spain, adios me amoebas!