August!
My last blog was a couple of weeks ago and hence I’ve fallen foul of my promise to blog ‘at least every Monday’. In truth I’ve been lazier than that as despite the last post being on 14 August we’re only really up to date as of 8 August. With a fun-packed couple of weeks ahead it’s only polite to bring this up to date!
The first, and comfortably most exciting, thing that happened was the Fantasy League Auction. For those unawares it’s the night when we pick out Fantasy Football team for the season but instead of everyone filling out a team sheet full of Ronaldos and JTs we have a budget and the fifteen of us go to the pub and bid for the players we want. This leaves us with completely unique teams made up of 225 players from every team in the Premier League – therefore every match played has meaning and the season is soooo much more interesting. The only downside is that should you make a few rash decision on auction night you will have a thoroughly miserable nine months ahead – I’m truly speaking from experience here having finished bottom in our league last season. My team’s not so bad this year and with a few shrewd buys during the season I could be there or thereabouts. If you are at all interested in following our fortunes, our league table can be found here. I’ve also popped a link in the links panel on the left. If I start doing badly I’ll remove it.
The weekend saw the return to one of my favourite places on God’s green Earth – Crazy Wendy’s. We had a large gathering with myself, Pezza, Stuoobs, Cazzie, Easty, The Reeces, the Varrettos and Wor Phil & Jayne (who were down for the Newcastle game – the rest of the North East followed the day after). The place is actually called the Thai E-Sarn and it’s a Thai restaurant in posh, leafy West Didsbury. The decor’s shabby, the food’s crap, the wine is barely drinkable and yet it’s rammed every weekend without fail. In order to get a table you need to book a week in advance and give a £5 per head deposit. The reason is that at 10.00pm they clear away the plates, make sure you’ve plenty of booze and then Wendy comes out.
Wendy isn’t a Thai ladyboy. She’s the ‘Shirley Bassey Dressing Elvis Singer’. Within ten minutes the whole place is up on the chairs and grabbing the microphone to help Wendy along. It’s a phenomenal place but the hangover the next day is a bit tough.
The Crazy Wendy night was a very special night as Tim & Ollie were formally welcomed as members of BOTT. Well done to both of you, you will be great additions to the team.
The Saturday was spent in and around Manchester with The Men of the family trying to find a bar that we could watch the Sunderland v Scousers game that wouldn’t mind letting Deano in. Unfortunately the bars were having none of it, something to do with requests from the police, so we headed back to our flat via the Gin Shop. Later in the evening we planned to ditch the oldies in the hotel and the middle generation of the family would get up to some mischief in Manchester. Unfortunately the Manchester weather kyboshed that idea and the girls didn’t want to leave the hotel.
This turned out to be the best news ever. We were at the bar and could hear music, dancing and joyful clinking of glasses from beyond the double doors. A quick peek was enough to see that it was a wedding. Jackpot!
So, there we were, partying at “Garry & Donna’s” wedding (I love balloons with names on). We must have looked a little out of place as we were the only ones there not in suits but we held our heads high and did what we do at weddings:
Rule #6 – Do not sit in the corner and sulk. It draws attention in a negative way. Draw attention to yourself, but on your own terms.
Rule #7 – Blend in by standing out.
Rule #8 – Be the life of the party.
Rule #9 – Whatever it takes to get in, get in.
Rule #10 – Invitations are for pussies.
Rule #14 – You’re a distant relative of a dead cousin.
Rule #15 – Fight the urge to tell the truth.
We also made sure the DJ was on our wavelenght and stopped playing usual wedding shite like ABBA and Bucks Fizz. Bon Jovi & Whigfield are much better at filling dancefloors these days.
The bride looked so confused when I congratulated her – she had no idea who I was but that’s the beauty of weddings; you can always pass yourself off as the Groom’s guest should the bride not know you and vice-versa (Rule #92). My only slip up was signing the guest book,
“Garry & Donna, you’re the best. Love Andy & Pezza xxx”
After I wrote in it I could see that I was the first to do so. Oops.
We left that wedding when a fight broke out. We had arranged a circle for the couple to have the final dance of the evening and some nonce started break dancing in the middle. As the scuffles started we got out of there and back to the original bar where we found another bride! We got chatting and told her she looked much fitter than Donna and she invited us all to the reception room for their wedding! Two weddings in one night!
It was then Sunday. Matchday. We struggled through breakfast and got to Old Trafford, we were in the posh bit which was top drawer as usual. Wilf McGuinnes was on form and Pezza & Cazzie were wetting themselves over Mark Cueto who was United’s guest for the day.
The match was ok but our performance was ropey. We played pretty poor but a few stunning saves from Shay Given made sure the match ended 1-1. I received some consolation in that I backed Fletcher to score the last goal at 14-1. From there we had a couple of beers down the Queer Village, a Chinese and then it was time for bed after a quality 5-star weekend.
And so that takes us to the bank holiday weekend. Bingo Dalowsky & I treated ourselves to a couple of gigs this weekend. First stop was Leeds Festival.
We used to come here every year for the whole weekend (Thurs – Mon) in our Uni days as we were lucky enough to get some of the best jobs on the site. None of this ‘sitting for 10 hours by a fence’ lark for us. No. We worked for Welfare & Lost Property which was basically a 4 hour doss with intermittent festival enjoying. We got this through Paul’s bro who is a teacher and therefore got the whole summer off, he and his fellow teachers (the ‘Crewe Union of New Teachers – or C.U.N.T. for short) would do Leeds & V during the summer. It really was the easy life, we would check the line ups, put in our request for when we do not want to work each day and then enjoy the festival with secure car parking, private camping, showers, free food and (best of all) backstage passes. They were tremendous years.
These days we just totter along for the day if there’s a band on we like and this year saw the return of Rage Against The Machine to our shores after an exile of a few years. They headlined the main stage and I can honestly say in my years of festival/gig going I have never seen anything like it. The whole crowd was bouncing, they even had to stop halfwa
y through Bombtrack as it was getting a bit too hairy up the front. Paul & I eventually found our way to front-centre and it was a definite contender for gig of the year.
Rage: no need for gimmicks, just pure rock.
The next day we got up and took Max Dalowsky for a couple of walks and caught up with Pregnant Joanna before the final instalment of the weekend, REM at Lancs cricket ground. REM never, ever let you down and it was a perfect set to finish the weekend off. Pics from the inaugural ‘Dudes Festival’ are here.
So that’s about it. Lots and lots more to come. This Friday is Duncan’s stag do, I’ll do my best to draft the blog for that on Saturday when I’m on the plane to Florida! Yep, our two weeks in the Sunshine State are here although Hurricanes Gustav & Hanna threaten to spoil the party.
Provided my phone doesn’t die I’ll be doing N95 blogs, similar in style to the ‘America’ post I did before the three Cali blogs, so just because there’s no fancy pics or annoying slide shows doesn’t mean I’m being lazy.
xxx
