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In a what-happens-on-tour-stays-on-tour kinda way, it wouldn’t be appropriate to chronicle Andy’s stag do in too much detail in a public environment; not that it was remotely as debauched as such events can be, the groom-to-be made sure of that by locating the weekend in the scenic Lake District to make sure that he was as far from possible away from any dens of inequity.

The plan was to head up on the friday morning, indulge in a spot of Snowboarding en route in Manchester before arriving in our campsite just outside Keswick; from where the Saturday and Sunday would be spent Kayaking, Mountain Biking, Ghyll Scrambling and High Ropes.  Since I’ve not been on a bike for years, and it sounded like hard work, I opted out of the biking but did the rest.

So, Snowboarding first – with a number of the others in the crew I went for the ‘taster session’ since I’ve never been on a snowboard in my life – and it was great fun, I might consider checking out lessons at Tamworth so I can have a bash on the main slope eventually.  An hour is literally enough to literally get a taste and not much else, but it ‘tasted’ good!

Driving onward to the Lakes was delayed somewhat by probably my most chimpish moment of the weekend, in that upon loading some stuff into my boot ready for the off, I closed it only to realise too late the keys were inside.  I hadn’t realised my car would lock itself in this scenario, but that’s just what it did – leaving myself, Mike and John stranded.  Fortunately John’s AA membership covered us, and in less than an hour a chap was with us and had successfully broken into my car – he was a scouser, so I guess it’s a talent he was bound to have anyway!

So, playing catchup I got my foot down up the M6, only to encounter traffic – with my passengers in dire need of the toilet it was an interesting stop on the hard shoulder for John and an increasingly inebriated Mike to relieve themselves before we headed off again.  After the traffic cleared it was easy going, and I actually did an admirable job of catching up with the rest of the party as we arrived on the campsite ready to pitch our camp for the weekend.

Having decided my two-man tent was a bit pokey should I end up sharing, I’d cunningly procured a four-man tent from Argos for the princely sum of £22.50, which Andy kindly helped me assemble (“We won’t need the instructions!” he announced, before clearly requiring them..  in no time the camp was pitched, including Cos’s impressive 12-man beast of a tent (which became known as ‘The Turdis’ owing to the flatulence).  Aside from being pitched on a slight hill, it wasn’t too bad.  Andy, spotting an opportunity to get a bit more room, quickly claimed a place in my tent!

After that it was a brisk walk up the lane to the nearest pub/hotel, proudly wearing our ‘Forest legends’ t-shirts that Drei had organised.  Upon establishing that our venue of choice was prepared to accept a group of 14 or so lads, we duly got stuck in to some drinking; and some food.  It was all quite civilised (aside from Chris’s bowels) until some slightly-unpleasant-things happened to Mike when he was, erm, resting for a moment in the pub.  One of the barmen looked like Jim Bowen’s ‘special’ younger brother too, which was quite amusing.  For some reason Mike still doesn’t like him very much.

Upon getting back to the campsite after a lengthy walk down a pitch-black lane, there was time for a few more beers before sleep; in the morning we stocked up on food and grabbed breakfast in Keswick before heading to the activity place – we started with Kayaking which was ace fun, tricky at first but it was great to see the lake from being, well, on it!  As we’d split up, we didn’t have Andy to pick on, so Drei took a bit of punishment, including a number of near-sinkings… although Mike once again possibly ended up on the losing side after a number of exchanges with Chris!

The afternoon saw my ‘half’ of the group go mountain biking, so Rob and I went to get provisions for the rest of ’em as we were without activities for the afternoon; and having got back to the campsite duly broke out the camping chairs and a few beers to wait for the others to head back, both keen to not ‘do a Mike’, however!  Aside from Rich getting lost and needing directions, the group were back on time, and Drei manfully ensured they got showered and ready for a group of taxis ready to take us off to a rather nice hotel/pub for dinner.

At dinner we were ably waited upon by ‘Big Phil’, who – despite where we’d travelled there from – was the campest thing we’d seen all weekend.  They dealt gamely with us, despite the place being quite a quiet spot, but it became increasingly apparent that they wanted rid when they repeatedly offered us a taxi to get into Keswick, which we took and ended up getting rather drunk with a number of dubious shots making an appearance which causes the memory of the evening to get a little hazy; except that Paul, our kayaking instructor, joined us which made for entertainment, particularly on Sunday morning as he looked as rough as us!

Sunday morning saw Rich’s careful plan for the weekend come to fruition, he’d brought a microwave in his car much to the confusion of our fellow campers, it was so he could warm up a parmo he’d procured from a trip to Middlesbrough; a parmo is basically a heart-attack inducing delicacy found in the area, and one beloved of Andy and his university compadres (and indeed, myself from a visit to see him up in Boro on a couple of occasions!).  He didn’t actually eat it, which was wise, but the microwave provided an easy way to cook bacon for breakfast too!

Ghyll Scrambling was our first activity on the Sunday, and it was – frankly – fucking awesome.  Donning my throwaway Matalan trainers and tracksuit bottoms, numerous layers, a cagoule borrowed from the activity place, a floatation aid and finally my Forest Legend t-shirt, we walked up a fairly sizeable hill to the top of a Ghyll (which is basically a stream heading down a hill with numerous small waterfalls etc).  Upon being invited to get into the genital-disappearingly cold stream, we were soon almost acclimbatised to the temperature and ready to make our descent – in the stream!

It was quite pleasant at first, splashing our way down, sliding down rocks that had formed like waterslides, until we faced our first waterfall.  “Right lads,” said Aaron – our guide along with Paul – “just stand on the edge, hands behind your back, and let yourself fall!” he said, whilst doing that very thing, and dropping about 6 feet or so from the ledge onto the stream below.  Hmm.  That’s a pretty sphincter-twitching moment even for slight adrenaline junkies such as myself!  Naturally, we made Andy go first, and upon his successful plunge we followed suit!

The next such moment involved a 20 foot plunge into water, this involved us clambering up above a plunge pool before doing an ‘extreme chicken dipper’ (‘extreme’ meant to cross your arms infront of you and tuck your elbows in to prevent injury, ‘chicken dipper’ basically means landing with knees bent to take the pressure).  This one was hairy, Andy did it successfully, I relaxed my legs so much I landed on my arse, whilst Mike and John tried to headbutt the overhanging branch which wasn’t easy to avoid!

Once in the plunge pool we had to reach through a gap in the rocks underwater and be pulled through it by Aaron.  This wasn’t pleasant, it was a tight gap for a big lad like me – but having got through it was pretty pleasing; although Alex thought he’d give Aaron a scare by not grabbing his hand and causing a flurry of activity to ‘rescue’ him; turns out Alex can hold his breath pretty comfortably and wasn’t in any distress at all, unlike the rest of us!

The next challenge was the worst; on top of a shallow slope, we had to dive headfirst about 20 feet into a very very narrow part of the stream.  I was bricking it at this point, but having seen numerous others do it, I duly followed, and landed on a combination of my nose and somewhere I thought had fully retreated due to the cold temperature!  That smarted a bit!  It was a fantastic rush, though!  All that remained was a blatant fib about a ‘vortex’ that most of us fell for, before forming a human dam in order to send a big surge of water into Andy to take him to the end of the scramblable portion of the water.

Fantastic fun.  If you even get a chance to go Ghyll Scrambling/Gorge Scrambling or Canyoning – then do it!  It will scare the shit out of you, but you’ll feel great!  Tell you what too, not a hint of a hangover once we were in that cold water too!

The afternoon involved high ropes, a combination of rope-and-wood swings, climbing, bileting and tarzan-type swings.  The zip-wire landing was rough for me, landing arse first onto a step, then Mike bounced up three steps on his arse which made me feel a little less sorry for myself.  High cables, I wasn’t a fan – but felt very pleased when I’d done it, before a bit of punishment for Andy before playing the ‘making one person go up and down a tree’ game – which was a good laugh to end it with.

Sunday night was a barbecue.  Given the length of drive I had in the morning I laid off the drink, meaning I have fairly vivid (and frankly disturbing) images of the conversations that were flowing during a course of the evening whilst Alex manfully fed us with the help of three disposable barbecues.  As the night wore on we retreated into the big tent and carried on briefly, before sleepiness took over.  The morning was a case of clearing up, packing up and shipping out.  I’m glad I opted out of drinking, as I felt pretty good and was able to make it home in very good time, dropping off Mike in Long Bennington en route.

An absolutely top weekend; and whilst I’m generally not a fan of camping, I did enjoy it – I think any more than three days and I’d start to get a bit grumpy… as it was, it was just about perfect, and of course, next weekend is the wedding itself, so we can look forward to a catchup very soon indeed!  Bring it on!

No sooner do I succumb and get an iPhone after they slashed £100 off the price, they announce the new version with 3G is being launched in a smidgen over a month for much cheaper than the one I have!

Buying any technology’s always a risk though, and ultimately I’m very happy with my iPhone anyway, so I shan’t worry about it too much… I did know the new version of the iPhone was fairly imminent, but hadn’t anticipated them releasing it at a lower price.  Ho hum!  It doesn’t do that much more than the existing system, aside from 3G internet, an ‘application store’ which presumably means you have to pay to add approved 3rd party applications, and a scientific calculator.

Ultimately, it’s not really worth having a tantrum about!

Shreddies are the latest flavour of the month for our cockatiels!  Since Lloyd was a bit poorly and I was basically just trying find stuff to make him eat, as he’d lost so much weight and was looking unlikely to recover…. so it started with rice, but we’ve also been working on other healthy snacks they can have too, having previous cut out any non-pellet based food for them.

But since the illness we’ve relented on this policy somewhat, although are very careful to check out the food we’re letting them have – particularly for salt content – so they’ve been having rice, sweetcorn, cereals, houmous (!), ryvita and leaves like spinach, rocket and watercress… and the benefit of them mostly eating pellets means that novelty factor of other foods gets them eating.  Cockatiels love nothing if not a novelty, they’re curious and nosey little birds.

Lloyd’s continuing to get better; his weight-gain has slowed a bit – and I think he may be getting bored of rice, but we’ve still got him eating plenty and he’s much more like his old self which is fantastic.  He clocked in at 96 grams today which was before any kind of major feeding – I’ve had him just over 100 grams after a troughing session, which is hopefully indicative that he’s been eating well during the day as previously his ‘pre-troughing’ weight seemed to be plateauing at 92-93 grams.

That said, 90-120 grams represents a healthy weight for a cockatiel, so he’s well into the comfort zone – but he was at the top end of the scale last time he was weighed in a fully healthy state at the vet (albeit on different scales to ours) so I’d be happier to see him up to something closer to that.  I have a few tricks up my sleeve to try to make that happen.

Having become a definite devotee of my iPhone I’ve ordered the bits and pieces I need to make it work with the car – so it will integrate with the inbuilt handsfree kit as well as provide music through the stereo.  I use my TomTom to play mp3 music but since I don’t generally need the satnav for familiar journeys, it will be good to be able to have properly portable digital music that I can then take with me to continue listening to via headphones.  So next week should be good as the bits and pieces arrive, frustratingly the disparate components have all come from different retailers so they’ll arrive in bits and pieces rather than in one all-encompassing package that will sort everything out!

.. but if they did, it would be the weekend I’ve just had!

• Derby confirmed as the worst ever Premier League team, as they can’t now catch the previous lowest points total of 15.
• Forest unthinkably achieve automatic promotion thanks to a win over Yeovil Town – of all people – and the wonderful side that is Cheltenham Town beating Doncaster. This of course puts us in the Championship, and most importantly, gives us a couple of games to look forward to finally after three years in the doldrums.
• My car passed its’ MOT without any problems at all!
• Les-dar were today relegated to the division Forest have spent the last three years desperately trying to escape – for the first time in their history! This has made me very happy.
• And most importantly, Lloyd has actually started putting on a bit of weight – still a way to go, but he’s looking much more like his old self, which is fantastic.

If you stretch the weekend back a bit then you could also factor in Liverpool getting knocked out of Europe too, which cheered me up no end. Could fortune be smiling upon Forest fans for the first time in, well, years?

When you consider that’s also a bank holiday weekend so there’s no work tomorrow, and it just gets better and better – it means I can stay up to watch ‘The Championship’ on ITV at 11:50 without knackering myself for work!

Despite being born in London (with a family tree including a father known as ‘Mad Jack’ and a grandfather known as ‘Foulweather Jack’ which is pretty ace), Lord George Gordon Byron is a historical figure clung on to by Nottinghamshire – despite him rarely spending any time in Newstead Abbey, a property he inherited in Nottingham, the local media would have you believe he wandered regularly around our fair county.

That aside, he is obviously famous as a bit of a lothario, and given his tendencies to swing both ways he wasn’t always somebody who was tolerated in 18th and 19th century England – hence he spent a fair bit of time in Europe to avoid the kind of persecution that folks of his persuasions tended to attract, but anyway, I digress, but there is a reason beyond his tenuous link to Nottingham that I bring up the subject of Lord Byron.

Last week it transpired that Lloyd, the eldest of our cockatiels, was feeling under the weather – a trip to the vet revealed it was more than just that, and that he’d lost a great deal of weight, enough to make us fearful for his life. He was duly booked in to the vet again to undergo an xray and a blood test, of which the results were broadly inconclusive. Fortunately in the meantime I’ve managed to lure him into eating rice which has stemmed his weight loss, and indeed, he is showing early signs of regaining his weight and appears much healthier and more like his old self.

I’m cautiously optimistic he’s in ‘recovery mode’ – but it was very upsetting when I wasn’t sure if he’d come back from the vet since he was to undergo an anaesthetic in order to have his tests; you see I’m a soppy git when it comes to animals at the best of times, but to all intents and purposes Lloyd’s a child to me, it’s very difficult for non-animal people to fathom, and indeed non-bird people – you see, cockatiels are very affectionate and have real personalities, so the thought of losing him after only five years (they have a life expectancy of 15-20 years) was quite distressing.

It was during looking up the contact details for our vet (named after Lord Byron) that I came across this poem he wrote as an epitaph for his dog, Boatswain – a Newfoundland Hound actually imported from Canada, who died of rabies. (And people think my naming my bird Lloyd was weird!), and well, it resonated quite strongly given my circumstances at the time, so I thought I’d post it here. For those curious folk, Boatswain’s tomb is still present at the Abbey.

Near this Spot
are deposited the Remains of one
who possessed Beauty without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferosity,
and all the virtues of Man without his Vices.

This praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery
if inscribed over human Ashes,
is but a just tribute to the Memory of
BOATSWAIN, a DOG,
who was born in Newfoundland May 1803
and died at Newstead Nov. 18, 1808.

When some proud Son of Man returns to Earth,
Unknown by Glory, but upheld by Birth,
The sculptor’s art exhausts the pomp of woe,
And storied urns record who rests below.
When all is done, upon the Tomb is seen,
Not what he was, but what he should have been.
But the poor Dog, in life the firmest friend,
The first to welcome, foremost to defend,
Whose honest heart is still his Master’s own,
Who labors, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,
Unhonored falls, unnoticed all his worth,
Denied in heaven the Soul he held on earth
While man, vain insect! hopes to be forgiven,
And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven.

Oh man! thou feeble tenant of an hour,
Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power
Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust,
Degraded mass of animated dust!
Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,
Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit!
By nature vile, ennobled but by name,
Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.
Ye, who perchance behold this simple urn,
Pass on, it honors none you wish to mourn.
To mark a friend’s remains these stones arise;
I never knew but one, and here he lies.

Grand words indeed, and if you’ve ever seen Boatswain’s tomb then it’s a pretty grand monument too – one inspired by barely five years of a dog’s life; such is the impact the animal must have had on Byron. Whilst I can’t muster words like these, that would be a fair summary of how I would feel to lose Lloyd – so fingers crossed he’s on the mend!

One of the main reasons I really love working for my employers is it is entirely compatible with my deep-rooted feelings towards my home town, as despite being privately owned now Boots is still very much an institution and will be constantly associated with Nottingham.  Another is that it’s great that Boots does plenty of worthy things for charities, much of which goes unreported, however this post is about last year’s shenanigans to raise over £1m for Children in Need.

Part of this cash, around £16,000 to be precise, was raised by some ingenius people in our head office deciding to attempt to break a Guinness World Record; upon perusing potential records to tackle they fantastically opted to target the large ‘wobble board’ ensemble.  Those of you who know me well will know I love most things related to Rolf Harris, so upon hearing about it I couldn’t wait to sign up and, indeed, even agreed to help coordinate the attempt on the day.

Children in Need day at Boots is generally a bit of a ‘tools down and raise cash’ kinda day – and for the day our team had opted for fancy dress.  Thanks to my colleague Katie and her very generous friend Dean, I was able to borrow a Chewbacca costume for the day – somewhat to the surprise of the other guys orchestrating the Wobble Board attempt!  It was a really really fun day – and raised plenty of cash for a fantastic cause.

Anyway, I digress.  Over the last couple of days Boots received word that the chaps at the Guinness Book of Records have confirmed our record-breaking attempt was a success and sent a certificate to say so – they have yet to update their website with the information, and we wait with excitement to see if we make it into the book – but for now, I rather amusingly featured on the picture Boots used to announce the confirmation on their corporate intranet – dressed as Chewbacca, stood next to the Chief Executive of Boots!

A nice reminder of a day well-spent!

I’ve never really succumbed to the charms of Apple, which is unusual having at least slight geekish tendencies – I know a number of my friends are very much converts – but whilst the aesthetics of Apple’s stuff has always appealed to me, compatibility issues and – if I’m honest – fear of the unfamiliar has always kept me faithful with PCs. And that’s not really changed.

Despite often pondering it, even the ubiquitous iPod didn’t lure me into the ranks of an owner of an Apple product – whilst there are cheaper mp3 players on the market, the simplicity and aesthetics were big appeals and I must admit I’ve almost succumbed a number of times on that front. It wasn’t until I encountered an iPhone that I became absolutely determined I was going to own one – and now I do.

Now, many of the iPhone’s features would have put me off a while back – they’re rigidly uncustomisable without them being hacked, and whilst they array of tasks they perform is awesome – they are often limited, for example, Bluetooth is crippled to only work as a means to transmit calls to a device – not transfer files etc, it’s only available on the o2 network in the UK, the camera software has little or not functionality… in the past I wouldn’t have been happy with this.

But now, to be honest, I was tempted by both the form and the function. A phone of course is the primary function, and the ability to send text messages – but the lure of having some music on the go (I’m not a big music-on-the-go listener, but I do like to on occasion), and more importantly ‘proper’ internet access when I’m out and about was big selling point for me – and I’ve not been disappointed at all. Little things like the ‘pinch to zoom’ type stuff, the finger-dragging to scroll etc were all icing on the cake.

It’s true that I’ve had to install the hateful iTunes on my computer in order to control its content, but it’s been worth the palaver now I’ve got a selection of stuff I’m happy with on there, all with cover artwork to maximise the impact of the awesome coverflow view (I’m so easily impressed!!). The other bonus is that I can actually get a mobile signal at work now, which I couldn’t before on the Orange network.

Credit to Orange, they made it incredibly easy for me to cancel their contract – allowing me to “buy out” the remaining time for an amount significantly lower than it would have been had I been held to it, and my number should be transferred over to the iPhone in a couple of days, a week after activating it, which isn’t bad at all. I guess that’s basic customer service but that’s not something you can always take for granted these days!

So I can’t see myself rushing out to buy a Powerbook or anything, but my first experience of owning an Apple product has been a very pleasing one!

I discovered recently I could very well find myself an awarding winning amateur radio journalist! Well, sort of. Dave mentioned it to me, but I’d half forgotten what with being ill, and then had the strange surprise of hearing myself on the radio alarm clock as I was waking up this morning – which, since I’ve not done any work with BBC Radio Nottingham for a while was a bit of a surprise.

Basically, Radio Nottingham have been nominated for a Sony award – the radio equivalent of the Oscars (so they say!) – and in being nominated, the award organisers picked 30 features provided by BBC Radio Nottingham during the qualification period for the awards. And one of the two sports features they picked was an audio diary I recorded when Forest ‘played’ Chelsea last year in the FA Cup – at which time I was quite regularly doing fan bulletins for the radio.

You can listen to the audio diary in full by using the link below – I’m quite chuffed about it, it was good fun and it’s a shame they’ve since decided not to utilise my pathetic addiction to Nottingham Forest to continue recording my largely boring thoughts about the not-so-mighty Reds! That said, I bombarded the poor sods at Radio Nottingham with audio clips throughout the day, so massive credit should also go to the poor bugger who had to edit it into something sensible! (I think the aptly named Tim Forrest can take credit for that).

There was also a photo gallery setup on the BBC website for the Chelsea vs. Forest match – which you can visit by clicking here. I miss being a media whore!