The News

Good evening. I'm Ron Burgundy and here's whats happening in your world tonight. been happening with Will for the past six weeks.

Wednesday 20th June: Went to the barracks in Cardiff to go on the advance party for OTC summer camp. Due to a cockup and there still being a United States Army artillery unit in our accomodation, we didn't leave until...

Friday 22nd June: Arrived Knook Camp, Salisbury Plain. Unpacked kit ready for...

Saturday 23rd June: Summer Camp began. 1920's Gangster Social.

Sunday 24th June: Deployed 'into the field' in the evening. Everyone else by bus or army truck. Those being hardcore and doing Cambrian Patrol training/selection did it on foot, 12km in full gear, like real manly men. Wouldn't have been so bad if I didn't have the radio as well...

Monday 25th June: Lessons on military stuff, night navigation exercise.

Tuesday 26th June: More lessons, night patrol being ambushed and freezing in the light of far too many flares, etc etc. Also falling over Scott while re-orging and cutting my leg on the sights of his LSW. Oops.

Wednesday 27th June: More lessons. Saw paras drop onto the DZ a couple of hundred metres from our wood. Agreed to tell everyone else it was us in the photos we took. Departed for a new wood further away from the mockup village everyone else was living and learning how to fight in. Night time CTR (Close Target Reconnaissance) of the village. You drop a fireteam off in cover, then move in, leave a close support pair and recce with just the section commander and scout. I was in the close support, which was still pretty awesome, but the recce pair got into the HQ building (Bangalore Primary School) and sat in the room next door to the radio post listening to one of the staff brushing his teeth. Awesome. One of the other sections was ambushed just ahead of us on the way back and we counterattacked the ambushers. Later found out they pegged it for 2km still wearing all the fleeces, gloves, waterproofs etc they'd been lying waiting for us in. I'm sure that warmed the poor dears up wonderfully.

Thursday 28th June: Moved into the village. Watched demonstrations by various visiting units. Had annual photograph. Set up barriers and defences in Shrewton street. Prepared to defend it against the horde. Was found asleep on my feet standing next to my sleeping bag, still wearing webbing and holding my rifle, by the guy who was supposed to wake me for sentry duty.

Friday 29th June: The battle of Shrewton Street, where the few shall stand against the many and numbers count for nothing. No really, we were outnumbered at least 6-1 but had bottlenecked the street so well with wire that we were told to counterattack and die gloriously rather than let them take another hour to fight through it. Packed up and marched all the way back to camp. The disorganised main body (everyone else) took another two hours to get their act together and passed us in buses about 1km from the camp. Slackers. Had a BBQ in the evening. Ate a Basra Badger's weight in meat.

Saturday 30th June: Sports day, during which plenty of examples of the Cambrian shuffle (like limping, but with both legs) could be seen. In the evening was the formal dinner, at which I got excessively ratarsed, but at least wasn't the one who threw up all over the table and himself as the top table were just standing up to leave. That was my truly inspirational section commander.

Sunday 1st July: Was hungover.

Monday 2nd to Wednesday 4th July: Section Competition over 3 days. In the order we did them: Navigation; Stands (observation, casualty evacuation, command tasks including driving a Landrover blindfolded); March and Shoot. Cambrian sections, being the elite (and half the size of everyone else's) didn't count in the official rankings, but unofficially we came second of the three Cambrian sections, which beat the rest easily. We also had the fastest time in the march and shoot by nearly a minute (18:53 to 19:40 from 2 Section, 21+ from 1 Section and 23+ from the best of the main body). Our shooting was crap though.

Thursday 5th July: Corps visits: I went to the Royal Armoured Corps, played on a tank gunner arcade simulator with 5 other guys, had a curry buffet lunch and rode in a Challenger 2. Very civilised. Was stuck on guard duty while the band of the Royal Welsh beat the retreat (including a suite from Last of the Mohicans) at sunset, which was quite cool.

Friday 6th July: Had the final parade with promotions, awards etc. Found out I was chosen as best first year from Cardiff Company, although the guy from Aber got it overall along with a huge cup. A worrying lack of judgement from my superiors anyway! Packed up and prepared for the evening's entertainment: skits. Got pumped up on a lethal mixture of neat spirits in a massive vodka bottle being passed around while we skulked around the back of the mess in costume, before performing a special Cambrian version of the 300 in a uniform of helmets, webbing, bedsheet cloaks, flipflops and sock-stuffed boxers, wielding cardboard shields and broomstick handles. Fortunately I got to wear my black rowing techtop underneath, in order to double up as a Sergeant Major/black clad Immortal. The other skits, done by normal company divisions (Aber, Bangor, Cardiff and finally Swansea) were around 5 or 10 minutes. Ours was 13 in the one read through rehearsal and a staggering, cross dressing, bulge flaunting nigh on half hour in performance. Wasn't it lovely, boys and girls?!

Saturday 7th July: Coach back to Cardiff, Pizza Hut, Die Hard 4.0, slept in the barracks.

Sunday 8th to Friday 13th July: Adventure training in Pembrokeshire. Kitesurfing, walking, climbing, land yachting, clay pigeon shooting and kayaking. Also tried wakeboarding instead of kitesurfing when the wind was too light. I was crap, but had great fun steering the Gemini rib (an inflatable tube on each side of a flat board, with an engine on the back) while the instructor did a demonstration, on the basis that I'd "steered boats before". Yeah... canal boats and a dinghy in Scotland that goes about 10 knots (nautical miles per hour, a bit faster than mph). The Gemini does up to 46 knots. Schweeet.

Saturday 14th July: Got back at 1.30am, stayed up til about 5 emptying my camera onto my laptop, faffing on Facebook etc and went paintballing for Jim's birthday at too early o'clock. Will T claimed the credit for letting them know it was Jim's birthday, so he got the honourary 'best man' positition - joining Jim and a stag weekend pair in dresses, being told they were invulnerable and were out of the last game only when they couldn't take the pain anymore. Having admired their bruises and driven home we broke into my house for my swimming stuff by lifting Jim up to the open bathroom window. Chez Jim for swimming and more admiring of bruises, then I fell asleep while the others played Wii.

Sunday 15th to Friday 20th July: Mountain Leader Training in Snowdonia (while based on Anglesey). Walked up several mountains including Snowdon. Ended up spending Friday night at a random party in a house full of OTC people that we (myself and Gaz, also from Cardiff, also on the MLT course) saw from the pub in Bangor we were meeting his Pembrokeshire dalliance in on Tuesday night. Recipe for a good party: a giant space hopper, persuading a random girl to go buy sambuca from the offie up the road, shooting the empties with airguns in the alley behind the house, trying to handcuff people to the bannister, going out to a pound a pint (on a FRIDAY) dive, going back to a pub behind the house that someone's friend was meant to have closed up hours ago, falling asleep in a chair, going back to the house and climbing in the kitchen window in order to fall asleep on the sofa with a Finding Nemo turtle cushion for a pillow. Amazingly I managed to get up in the morning for...

Saturday 21st June to Thursday 26th July: Coillighillie. Got on the train at 8am, got off the bus that replaced the train to Strathcarron from Inverness due to rockfalls on the track at 8.30pm, having joined up with Tamsin who'd got a flight to Inverness. Bangor - Crewe - Glasgow - Perth - Inverness - (Achnasheen) - Strathcarron. Five changes of train plus a bonus one onto the bus at Achnasheen. Crazy. Did the Coillieghillie boat-rowing seal-spotting sandcastle-building hill-climbing Potter-reading thing. Returned on Thursday to make sure Sarah had time to prepare for flying out on holiday on the Saturday.

Friday 27th July: Went to Freeport and dragged Tamsin to Transformers.

Saturday 28th July: Packed Tamsin off home. Started reading Harry Potter again from the first book. Continued from where I started just before summer camp, conquering Europe on Medieval Total War (the original, of course).

Sunday 29th July: Went to The Simpsons Movie with Will.

Wednesday 1st August: Started on the great project: Clearing my room of lingering toys, school folders, old clothes, worn out shoes and assorted other mathoms.

Thursday 2nd August: Felt proud for using the word mathom.

And that's the news. You stay classy, San Diego. I'm Ron Burgundy.

Play Ball

More craziness. Someone who was "not European or American" - in other words, probably a Saudi prince - has bought an Airbus A380 for use as a PRIVATE JET. How awesome could that be? You could have a swimming pool in it!

I found out today I got my first choice Mountain Leader course, so I'm now booked for a solid month of Army stuff from tomorrow, with the exception of the 14th of July, on which I fully expect to go paintballing for Jim's birthday. Get it sorted.

Oh, and Salman Rushdie? Should have got the knighthood BECAUSE Pakistan, Iran etc thought he shouldn't. I loved this quote:

"The British monarch lives under this illusion that Britain is still a 19th Century superpower and that bestowing titles is something still deemed important." #

1. The honours aren't chosen by the monarch, but mostly by the government.
2. If bestowing titles isn't important, why are you worrying about it?
3. We have nukes, you don't. This makes us a superpower and you not. Further evidence is demonstrated by us and our dear colonial comrades effectively conquering Iraq in six weeks.

Someone's a little bit insecure...

Hokay

Yesterday. Tori's birthday. Blog's birthday. Three years. Haven't blogged for about three weeks. But why?

I AM LE TIRED.

But seriously, my internet's buggered up in the house yet again, plus a certain factor has been distracting me. My bad.

So, in brief, but WITH pictures...

Head of the Taff 2007: Morning we raced in fours, afternoon in an eight. My seat came off after a few hundred metres of the 3.4km and I did the rest of the race sliding on my arse, with consequent huge oozing sores. Yummy.



The next weekend: OTC Royal Engineers Competition, Minley Barracks, Surrey. Endurance run with a stretcher made of a chunk of tank track (team pictured below, after the general group one), command task, bridge building and boat race. I ended up being 'RBS Six Nations Man of the Weekend' for being extra specially good. I ran myself sick, as did everyone. I was supposed to sit out the command task to be used as brawn for the more physical tasks, but I substituted in behind the judge's back on the command task because I'd figured out where they were going wrong. Towers of Hanoi with tractor tyres, elementary, doncha know. I apparently lobbed bits of steel bridge girder around like a loon, in the same testosterone fuelled neanderthal rage that saw me taking over the assault boat we were paddling and beasting everyone on from the back. I'd be an awesome rowing cox, if only I were 40 kilograms lighter. Oh, and I forgot to mention the Hawaiian party on Saturday night. Awesome stuff.

Before leaving Cardiff

After the endurance race

Hawaiian carnage

And finally, this weekend Cardiff Company played Exeter UOTC at football. They had their names embroidered on their team jackets. We had this...

Check out the goalie kit... Go Sweden!

The girls, plus 3 of our guys to make up the numbers including me in goal, won 4-1. We lost 2-1, which we thought wasn't bad really, then went to the OTC bar to watch England lose to Wales. Gutted.

Word.

Collide

The dawn is breaking
A light shining through
You're barely waking
And I'm tangled up in you

- Howie Day, Collide.

Stuck in my head since randomly looking at this group earlier today. I love those first four lines, which were beautifully apposite this morning.

Fitting with the title, rowing and OTC are colliding rather a lot at the moment... the last weekend probably removed all chance I had of breaking back into the 'decent' level crews, but am currently being aimed towards rowing with effectively the 3rd eight, consisting of 7 newbies and myself. Rather weird, being the most experienced and technically proficient member of the crew. Sadly I'm not the fastest as of the 5k we did on Saturday but I was only one place and 7 seconds off. With sufficient time in the gym turning my arse numb on the rowing machines I can probably break back at least by ergo time into the top 16, but at what cost? This coming weekend's race, just for starters, clashes with an OTC training weekend. Uhoh. As things stand I'm staying in Cardiff and rowing. I just have to hope that there isn't OTC the BUSA Regatta weekend as well.

Maggot Racing

A fun weekend with the OTC. Saturday's programme went thus: map reading - a fun ramble around the countryside; route planning - in which I was accused of being brainy like it's a disease for dividing 5kmph by 1.6km correctly; and range shooting, which was good apart from one random shoot which looked like I'd sneezed because it was about a foot out. Oops. Sunday was a 6 mile Combat Fitness Test - 4 miles an hour with a bit of weight and a rifle. Hard for short unfit girls, who get put at the front. Tall boys who got stuck at the back marched along grinning, enjoying the ridiculously sunny weather and whistling/humming/singing when the PTI was further up chivvying the short arses. Favourite was "The animals went in two by two, hurrah! hurrah!" which sadly we didn't know the words, but got about 10 or 15 people humming/tumpty tumming along to, with me whistling a bit of random descant. Blame Diehard with a Vengeance for that one.

The highlight of the weekend though was Saturday night in the Officers Mess. Given that we were at a training camp this was a flatroofed single-step-up-from-a-portacabin but still, who cares when you have hobbit fighting (smallest people from each company trying to knock each other using only their legs, hands clasped behind backs, disqualified if they stop hopping) and maggot racing, in which I competed mostly because each team's three racers had to down a pint at the start and end of their lap. That was rule 1 of 3. Rule 2 was zips must be done up to the chin. Rule 3 was no biting.

This, by the way, is a maggot:



Having downed the required pint (which put me into an early lead, being the first off for Cardiff ) the course started with 3 sides of the main bar room around the chairs which penned in the spectators before going up the corridor to another conference room bit, crossing a line of armchairs on the way. Once in the conference room there was a line of normal chairs to be surmounted, a table to be ducked under, a pair of armchairs stacked on each other to be turned around at the end before a sprint back out of the room through a chicane of wall and table, down the corrider, back over the armchairs, back around the bar, jumping out of the maggot and downing the second pint.

Due to some nefarious business with the Swansea company people who were running the event I was held up at the jumping in stage trying to get my zip up and finally started hopping 3/4. At the armchairs in the corridor I caught up with the guy in second who was trying to wriggle over them. Adhering to the 3 rules I jumped onto him, knocking the chair over with him and rolling over him on the far side to jump up into second. Having pretty much smashed through the normal chairs and rolled under the table and sprinted back uninterrupted, diving headfirst over the armchairs and bounding around the bar right up behind the guy from Swansea in first I overtook him with the second pint. James, the Cardiff number two, then shot off and came home about 30 seconds ahead of the competition but Chris, number three, was so far ahead he was met in the corridor by the other three coming in the opposite direction and knocked back down by each in turn and despite a valiant effort (and my foot shooting out from the crowd to pin the back of the Bangor bag and drop the guy like a felled tree) finished a close second, being unable to drink fast enough due to crazy hiccups! A tragic occurence, to be sure.

Au Contraire, Blackadder!

I am returned from New Year's in London. Huzzah! Huzzah!

There was copious drunkeness and general frivolity. I got the best secret santa present by far, direct from a Cairo souk. There was meeting of random people from Felsted in Covent Garden, dressing up (literally) and stripping of a totally trashed Jimmy, much Mario Tennis and a plethora of pictures. I dragged Jim to the gym. I even cooked! How rare!

I also got a belated present from the OTC: £335... Huzzah!

Rhetoric and Roast Beef

Went on a little stomp around the hills near Caerphilly today, followed by pub lunch. The posse was somewhat reduced by a combination of food poisoning and girls who are divided over the singularly sexy entity that is Sam. Pub lunch afterwards. Twisted my ankle somewhat and was back home ice-packing and dosing up when I got a text message saying the ergo test due soon would be tomorrow night. Alas, yet another one I've got out of! Every cloud has a silver get-out-of-ergo-free card...

In other news, I'm published, having a little rant. Go me.

More Carnage

The one I'm patting on the head (to remind her she's short) is Hana. The occasion was OTC Centurion/Toga night on Tuesday. The floor was sheeted in case of spewage, but Hana made it to the loos... and, once her housemate and I had carried her that far, a bush halfway back to her house... and his lap in the taxi we got from there, because he was trying to avoid paying extra. It leaked through his sheet onto the floor anyway, so he still had to!

I then headed back to town, leaving him in charge, and collected some random balloons on the way. I apparently told everyone in Lloyds, once I found the OTC had progressed there, they should be jealous of my balloons and that's why I remember being chased around the bar by completely random women trying to pop them.

Last night was the Wales UOTC 30th Anniversary Dinner. It was held in the huge vaulted entrance hall of the Welsh National Mueseum (just across the road from the Union) and drinks beforehand were in the Impressionists gallery, surrounded by Monets and similar. The Royal Welsh regimental band weren't at the Wales vs Pacific Islands rugby because they and their CO were there too. The main band were sitting down at one end, as you might expect, but the pipes and drums marched in, played some opening stuff and marched out again. Very bizarre, but quite awesome.

The only photo of me that's made it to Facebook thus far is this one, of me having issues with my bowtie in the barracks loos beforehand. Classy.

Remembrance

The Kohima Epitaph:

When you go home, tell them of us and say,
For their tomorrow, we gave our today

- John Maxwell Edmonds (1875-1958)

Thought to have been inspired by the Simonides of Ceos (556-468 BC) who wrote the epitaph for memorial to the Battle of Thermopylae:

Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by
That here, faithful to their laws, we lie

Bingo Partay

Got another day's pay for rifle cleaning today: I was there for about 2 hours. £35. I love the OTC. Afterwards I joined a little party going to Sam's to play on his Megadrive. Awesome bachelor pad, PS2, up to the minute stuff, but he just wants to play Golden Axe. Worryingly, Golden Axe was released the same year as my sister.

Ami was also in attendance at the small gathering and bullied me into going to Bingo with her. Bingo. At the age of (presumably) 18. Along with Kat and Warren we were the youngest players in the room by at least 20 years and had severe issues with wanting to shout "BOLLOCKS" in the deathly calm of the bingo hall (and with Warren's constant swearing at his inability to keep up with the numbers, when surrounded by OAPs), but it was surreally entertaining. Just to reinforce her eccentricity, when we went across the road to Tescos afterwards Ami bought pickled eggs, which she started eating on the way home. Bizarre.

Halloween, OTC Style

Quote of the moment:
"You're a big silly! The bears don't get you if you step on the cracks! The bears will help you home, but the snakes will bite your ankles!"

- Welcome to the weird world of Scary Mary. Thanks to my platoon commander deciding he wanted to go against the flow and supplying me with false information, I ended up spending the last hour or so of last night in a club with just him, Mary and Amy, mostly trying to catch up with the mad woman after she ran off somewhere. Highly entertaining though.


Me, most of Scary Mary, Sam and Roz's head. Gaz and Amy are on the left here.

The pick of the spoils of the night was a black vest which Amy got free from the DJ box in Lloyds but I managed to end up with, after Gaz wore it for a while. Girls size, obviously, but nonetheless I promised to wear it to next week's training under my combat shirt.

Other freebies from the Lloyds DJ: bottle opener, vampire teeth, handful of pumpkin shaped lollies. Inidentals picked up in Lloyds and lost along the way: the handle of a plastic scythe, which thanks to my skeleton suit became my pimp/Baron Samedi cane, combined with a random witch's hat set at a pimp angle, and a black tail, which Sam took to whip people with. The bouncer on the club door randomly gave Mary a set of huge foam keys, which she stuck on me as a bangle and thus made it home. I spent most of the time in the club with her witches hat and broomstick stuck through my Donnie Darko hoodie (tied around my waist), having extracted the hat from her stuffing it down my trousers. She acquired a balloon from a random and tied that to my necklace, but got worried he might want it back and took it off after a while (and after he'd gone). Finally, another random beer soaked witches hat off a bollard on the way home. Classy. A masterclass in pillage.

Distinct lack of the accompanying Viking pastime though, before Jim gets excited. Also having got into a taxi with a couple of other OTC guys coming back from where everyone else was, I got out first and left Mary to go home wearing my hoodie. A win on aggregrate though.

Damaged Goods

Quote of the moment:
"I'M SPARTACUS!"

Birthday outing on Monday night: I lost half an eyebrow and gained a large amount of ketchup, mayonnaise and assorted other condiments, which were interesting to wash out of my ears in the morning. Photos have yet to be posted on Facebook, for which I'm half grateful and half disappointed. What can you expect from 10 pints before going out? Bloody Duncs mate, bloody Duncs.

The damage can be seen in this photo from Tuesday's OTC Dare Night. Yes, that is a handbag and yes, I do love stealing Facebook photos.


In other news: Nato claim 48 dead militants, locals claim at least 60 dead civilians. Same bodies, it's just that they were carrying rifles when they died.

OCdt Shorty

Quote of the moment:
In the brief moment Skoo was not playing WoW this week we wrote the
following little film about The Toilet Guy. We were also going to try
and do a podcast but Skoo was back playing WoW by the time I was free.

I HATE YOU WoW.

DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE!

Here's the toon:
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/toilet+guy/

Haha. The insidious effects of WOW affect everyone.

OTC weekend 1 was fun. I got put in charge of my section, which was joyous, especially trying to lead them back to our lines in the dark holding hands in a very butch and military way. We managed to have 5 girls and 5 guys split into hetero pairs, randomly, which worked fine apart from one pair bickering like a married couple and in another the girl making the guy her bitch while she put on "tactical" green eyeliner.

Oh yeah. I'm 21. Go me.

Dead Rabbits

Quote of the moment:


Reminded me of last weekend. Was lunching in the delightful training camp cafeteria and discussing who would actually join the army. Turned out that out of four people (two guys, two girls) only I would. They then wondered how soldiers could actually shoot people and seemed amazed when I said I'd do it without hesitating. How would I know? Well, I assumed on the basis of A) I've shot small cute fluffy things (with fleas, mind) which are much more appealing than blokes in combats/robes and turbans, and B) I have no ethical objection that could stay my hand. If it were a purely genetic issue, obviously natural selection would have weeded out those who couldn't before now, but with the enviromental effect I think a lot of it is down to instinct and the male instinct is to dominate, to fight for the alpha position.

Apparently I'm slightly prehistoric. Proud of it too :p

Der Panther

Quote of the moment:
Sein Blick ist vom Vorübergehen der Stäbe
so müd geworden, daß er nichts mehr hält.
Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe
und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt.

Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte,
der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht,
ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte,
in der betäubt ein großer Wille steht.

Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille
sich lautlos auf -. Dann geht ein Bild hinein,
geht durch der Glieder angespannter Stille -
und hört im Herzen auf zu sein.

- Der Panther, von Rainer Maria Rilke. Poetry quoting one-upmanship it is. Once upon a time I could reel that off like The Jabberwock, but sadly German doesn't stick in the mind so well.

Further Facebook robbery produced another type of panther...


But some people are definitely not panthers. A guy who eats a whole chicken in one meal, weighs 18 stone and doesn't think he's fat? Is he a professional rugby player? Methinks not...

In other news, I am a mouthy git. While walking home I made an excessively loud comment about some guy slumped crosslegged in the middle of the high street and he got up and pursued us... he got in two punches to my face and got even angrier because I was just amused by him. My views on Welsh inferiority complexes were similarly unappreciated by the rest of the audience... Only because the guys were worried about their Welsh female neighbours taking offence. How chivalrous.

Initiation

Quote of the moment:


Induction was baby themed. Baby bib, big white "Hello Mummy!" pants masquerading as a nappy, alcoholic kids party games, vodka laced baby food, baby milk that was vodka with a dash of milk, muchos fun had by all, even me when I wasn't coughing. Went to Shipwrecked. Have bruises on my sides from piggybacking people all the way, purely because I wanted to at the time. Acted in an immensely sober fashion. Poledanced. All still dressed as a baby.

Officer Cadet Poyntz

Quote of the moment:
"Sometimes you have to tease
And sometimes you have to say please
And sometimes you have to say hey,
I'm gonna..."

- A suprisingly tuneful back-of-the-bus choir, trying to wake up the girls sitting just in front of them with some beautifully performed Tenacious D.

Hurrah for crusty old bowtie wearing Medical Officers. There were 4 GPs roped in to do the OTC medicals and one of them read his outdated booklet (last revised 2003) and failed me, but I got bumped up to seeing the army MO and he made me list sports etc since the op, made me touch my toes, blustered for a while about the incompetence of civilian doctors and then tore up my old form and wrote out a new one saying I was fine.

That was the most exciting thing that happened all weekend, with the possible exception of Cardiff Company destroying everyone else (Swansea, Bangor and Aberystwyth) at Saturday night's boatrace and leg wrestling. No, I hadn't heard of leg wrestling before either. The basic idea is to lie on the floor like you're top-to-toeing in a bed and on the countdown "1, 2, Cock-a-hoop" (bizarre indeed) lift up the inside legs and try and force the other person's down to the floor (flipping them over backwards in the process). We had 2 players from each company and I lost only to the other Cardiff guy, who happened to be a 6'6 18-odd stone second row known as "The Unit" for his ability to down vodka by the half pint. He does have the mild advantage of being from somewhere in the former eastern bloc and probably having been drinking vodka since his age could be counted on his fingers though.

Initiation tomorrow night. I spent most of today in bed alternatively sweating, shivering and coughing up lakes of green, with occasional red streaks. Mmmm... healthy.

Indiana Jones and the Medical on Saturday

Quote of the moment:
"You'd better leave before I accidentally call you fat."

- A drunk but well meaning Will manages to cause offence anyway. Funny that.

My elven eyes saw yesterday that my new room-next-door housemate, known to me, Jambo and James from last year as Van Helsing when we saw him in supper, actually deserves a more apt designation. As it was pissing down he was wearing his long Gestapo coat with his big Gestapo boots and his wide Gestapo hat, and looked just like this guy...



Awesome huh? I'm living next to the baddie from Raiders. He has the face, the round glasses and everything. He'd just need to trim the classic Games Workshop ponytail (he's still into his Warhammer). What a dude.

Talking of Raiders, Karen Allen as Marion is awesomely fit. Just thought you should know.

In other news, medical allowing I'm in the OTC. Had a bit of a mental first social on Tuesday, downed some strange custard cocktail, had a tug-of-war with a bit of wood (chain of three people on each team, holding the one in front and the front one holds the wood) which was a recipe for blisters when, instead of the normal few seconds of struggle, my round at the front lasted about 3 minutes of hardcore struggle until I got pulled over backwards by my team, flailed my feet in the air and kicked the other guy in the hand. We got the wood but were disqualified for bringing the game into disrepute. My bad.

Leaving on a coach tonight to go to Sennybridge training camp for induction weekend, involving lots of queueing, lots of kit issue, a fitness test and a medical. Hopefully I can convince the doctor that the form issued (last revised August 05) is out of date because ACL repairs are now fine. I had a letter from the Army Medical Board about it and everything. If only the letter hadn't disappeared into the strata of crap on last year's floor...

Recently I've Been (Hopelessly Reaching...)

Quote of the moment:
"You're never too old to assault a bouncy castle"

Scotland, part the first.

Schotlande, part deux.

Much fun was had by all, apart from when Vicky and I had huge power struggles due to her inability to admit she is completely incompetent at everything outdoors and should obey my instructions to the letter. So... maybe half the time!?

A Paintballing Oops.

Paintballing was aces. As Will T said, "If I do what Will says, I don't get shot". Wise words. I went a little power mad in the end, when I was leading my 6 strong sweepline from tree to tree with coordinate covering fire. Army geek and proud. The other team didn't score a single point all day and I even got a little "Player of the Day" plaque. Highlight of my life to date. That is except, of course, for my Royal Engineers familiarisation visit...

Running (10.2 on the bleep test, a mere bagatelle)
Swimming test at 6.30am
Rigid raiders (Royal Marine assault boats) jumping patrol craft wakes
Awesome complex drunken mess games in the Junior Officers dungeon
Naked bar (when the only light is in the drinks fridge and you're too drunk to see anyway, it seems like a good plan)
Naked arm wrestling (more fun than it sounds, the bar was in the way to keep it safe)
Bridge building
Command tasks (ooooh... fun :D)
Driving a truck the size of a house
Demolitions: blowing up a sandbag each with plastic explosive
Raft race: build it, paddle it around an island, strip it. We had the only raft that stayed intact (of 3) and 2 rowers calling 10 stroke pushes, and we overtook the leaders halfway around the island but ending up losing because we went around it the wrong way. Technicalities, honestly!

All in all, knackering and awesome. I'm now in Cardiff, staying in the S9 hotel until I can go into my own house on Wednesday. Went to bed at 4 after too much Total War, up at 7 to pack all my stuff to leave out for delivery next weekend via the family gathering in Chepstow, 7 hours door to door from South Lodge (Essex) to S9 due to a fire by the traintrack near Slough. I'm off to sing myself to sleep. Mcfly, naturally.

News in Briefs

Quote of the moment:
Q: Which planet is most easily visible with the naked eye?
A: Earth

Ah, the joys of 1988 edition Trivial Pursuit.

Scotland was awesome, many pictures up soon, paintball was even better, got power crazy and started co-ordinating section attacks on the pitiful green team who failed to win a single point all day, stacked it while blinded by Jim, skinned both knees, Royal Engineers visit tomorrow, swim test and PT test will cane, kthnx bye.