I'm really not sure what to put here.
It seems a bit strange writing an end of term report three weeks before Le Mans. I could do the usual "we set off on friday in a bouyant frame of mind..." stuff but if I wrote a contemporaneous commentary it wouldn't take long before those who weren't there became bemused by the complete lack of logic in the subsequent carryings-on. Nor am I sure why I've written such a long commentary tonight when I should be in bed sleeping, but I had such a great time i think it's important to write these things down and trap them in cyber space for ever so that on days you're feeling a bit blue you can look back and remember the fun you had.
Most importantly we need to record the monsterous quantity of alcohol consumed. Last night Rex and myself calculated we got through over two hundred pints of beer, six bottles of vodka, a bottle of JD plus lashings of wine, cider and literally countless Jaegermeister and RedBull shots.
What an utter wasteof money and brain cells, but nonetheless, I'd like to say a big thank you to The Drink for making all this possible.
I'd like also to say we didn't see any cars, just like at Le Mans, but in fact we did. The curcuit, campsite and it's surrounding were achingly beautiful, a lesson to the ACO in how to organise an endurance race. And no floodlights out on track during the night. The pink "Dunkin' Donuts Holden rocked and it was great to see a Ford GT doing it's stuff too.
But mainly our weekend was all about a bunch of absolutely fantastic if somewhat drunken people, who I'm very priviledged to call my friends, being vile to each other. Characters one and all, you were all brilliant in your own unique and individual ways.
Firstly I want to mention contribution of the lovely Melans. I never knew it could be so much fun going on a boys trip with girls! Naughty Hayley has a very sharp mind and very little gets by her, including the vodka bottle. Esther always reminds me of Meryl Streep for some reason, she has that same graceful presence and inner spirit as Meryl, only with dried sick in her hair. Poor Kelly, a new Melan, didn't know what had hit her to start with, but she was a real chatterbox until she lost her voice on day two, either that or something had gone badly wrong with her brain, it was hard to tell which. Last but not least, there's the gorgeous Rowena who started this whole ball rolling in the first place. Weena's one of life's brightest stars. Look at any photo of her and you'll see just the sparkliest smile's on her face, her sense of fun is so infectious, you can't help having loads of giggles with her around the place. If only she'd stop twisting men's nipples - really really hard mind- she'd be perfect!
Steve Pyro Brown is possibly the cheekiest man I know, he could appear from the woods at any moment grinning and carrying something else unusual to throw on the fire. We never knew what it might be next, a wooden rocking horse maybe or perhaps a turquoise leather chesterfield sofa with matching pouffe, I wonder if those folk have realised their greenhouse is missing yet?
Rex is comic genius too, his acid wit and capacity for mind-altering drink knows no bounds. Doris was, well, Doris and we all know what that means; lovely basically. How someone can drink so much and yet somehow keep us just the right side of the law is an art in itself. Thanks for the saturday chilli D!
Brad I have to say was a complete star, it was his stag weekend and whilst it's possible to say he got an easy ride you need to remember everything is relative. Suffice to say, Steve Brown found a huge sheet of PVC and ten metres of foam-backed carpet. Spreading the carpet on the floor and the PVC on top, we smeared Brad's massive torso in I Can't Believe It's Not Butter and invented a new sport called German Butter Wrestling, the PVC soon got very slippery. Enough said...
The Stig - AKA Richard J Cutler - gave us a masterclass in aggressive motorway driving, even seasoned motorway hacks like me we're surprised with the veracity of the progress we made. So thanks for driving Rick, that car's amazing, five up and all the gear and then returning 43.8mpg at an average speed of 148 mph.
Last but not least is Steve Zarse who needless to say, was the complete c**t. If you've never seen a half-naked man failing to leap over a bonfire then I do recommend it. As can be seen from the above photo it was a thing of immense grace. Imagine a World Champion diver taking a run up at a springboard and you'll have a flavour of the thing. Word soon got round the campsite and people put down their packing-up to come and watch, I think there were several hundred of them, standing in silent anticipation of the great moment. He came pounding in, launching himself sky high and hurtling above the fire in one fabulous leap, as can be seen, racing up and through the terrible flames. It was beautiful man.
I'm not sure what happened, whether he realised he possibly wasn't going to completely make it or maybe it had dawned on him that his velocity seemed to be suddenly and catastrophically falling away, but just after the halfway point - and I could be imagining this - his face seemed to be indicating that he was having second thoughts about the whole endeavour. At this point his arms started flailing around like aeroplane propellers in a vain attempt to regain some altitude. It didn't work, clearly, so he changed tack and took on the demeanour of a long jumper hurling his feet forward like Bob Beaman in the Mexico Olympics. Regretably none of these tactics worked desperately well.
He landed on top of the bonfire, crashing through a burning wardrobe, one leg instantly becoming wedged in the white hot drum of a spin-dryer Steve Brown had found, the other leg trapped in the molten and twisted steel frame of one of those really complicated plastic picnic tables that nobody can ever put up and which collapse as soon as you sit on them. I can only imagine that from Seve's point of view it must have been like being in a Bessemer Converter. If you can imagine a cross between the sound of a monkey with a habenero chilli wedged up it's jap's eye and the terrified shrieking of an escaped pig in an abbatoir, then you're halfway there. The flailing arms started again and to my mind he looked like somebody having a terrible dream who'd became all tangled up in the bed clothes. Fortunately we all poured beer and weeweed on him as his charred remain were dragged out of the inferno, his legs looked like pork crackling.
Then we came home.
