Narcissism!

Great news ladies and gents/geezerbirds. The Everest Test has been made into a computer game http://www.stickcricket.com/gameeveresttest.php. The bad news is I'm not in the starting XI, which I'm assured is not a reflection on the actual starting XI. I, however, as a stand up comedian love being the centre of attention and detest exclusion like my father detests there being no second helpings. So my solipsistic pride has taken a bit of a basting. I may try and pay someone to make a rival game called ChrisMartinstickcricket.com. A game where everyone is me: batsmen, bowlers, fielders...commentators, members of the crowd, the umpires, the streaker (who will obviously have to have an uncomfortably large sack). This game will probably not be quite as popular amongst those people who do not share my name or face. Perhaps Mr Coldplay and New Zealand cricket's Chris Martin will join in.



There you have it. I have come up with an award winning idea which is marketable to 3people in total.

me, me, me, me, me

Self indulgence over...for a few minutes

Send Off Party and Fitness reality check

It's been a while since I've written an entry as I have been either busy with gigs, busy with fitness, busy with sports coaching or just too tired to type away in my spare time. Arguably typing on a keyboard isn't the most operose of tasks, however, often you develop a mental block to doing such facile activities. For example, I haven't tried to write any new jokes in the last 5 days, even though it is a process that ultimately only involves me walking around my bedroom repeatedly saying funny swear words to myself in a disparate accents.

I, however, feel that the send off party has produced enough material for me to write about that you lovely readers will enjoy digesting with your eyes. It was a suitably smug and pompous affair in the best possible way. To me, extremely classy events such as this can encourage intolerably self important prigs to acts like helmets and generally be an irritant. However, these events also mean a plethera of extremely attractive and well to do females. I don't want to sound like a horny teenager but I have always believed the matra: write about what you know. Let's just say that I was doing the belt-trick for the majority of the evening. The place was full of chaps that I would normally detest but the event had such a convivial atmosphere that it meant that everyone was polite, pleasant and playfull.

I'm not going to bore you with every minute detail of the event but things that stick out in my memory are, my invitee Ian Gamble using a long white cusion as a pugil stick in a Gladiators type fashion; beers costing £6 a pop, which in the worst economic crisis for some time, seems more than reasonable. I'm of course being sarcastic, £6 a beer= !?*SF**%£!!! (which is Welsh for 'rubbish'); and the world's most narcassitic male toilet. It was made purely of mirrors, which I think is important as they were above knee height. I've always wanted to look at my warhammer from 8 different angles. Now I know that it should always be photgraphed on the left hand side as it's my good side.

Now to fitness matters. I completed my second half marathon in Bath the Sunday before the party in a slower time than my Great North run exploits. I did it in 1hr 51, 12 minutes slower than my 1hr 39 in Newcastle. Factors, which may explain my decrease in time despite generally feeling fitter include running abreast of BJ because it was more enjoyable although probably slowed me down, drinking a few pints the night before and having 2 urine stops during the race. So despite my knees aching the next day at work I was pretty happy with my efforts.

I'm writing this blog just over a week after the Bath Half and I feel more fatigued and dejected as it's the aftermarth of the staff versus 1XI football match. I haven't played an 11 aside match for 2 years and I had forgotten just how knackering it is. The heavy limbs and drained body are even weightier and more baron if you were part of the team that lost 4-1. I played so average and was not helped by the fact I was played on the right of midfield next to all the spectators including my under 16B team in the second half. This means every touch, dribble, falling over (yup that happened) and missed header I did was scrutinissed by the tumultous crowd. I got an extremely scaled down version of what it is like to be Emmanuel Eboue playing at the Emirates and it is bloody awful. I will from now on try my best to never tut or sigh a bad touch from a player as it's really mean. Hopefully on Base Camp there will be no crowd right next to me when I'm fielding otherwise I may have to sub myself off.

Also I hate losing so...

...Yours angrily

Comedy Night update and Being a bit rubbish at batting

So on an events based update, I can confidently say the comedy night should be a success. I have about 6 comedians lined up to participate on March 9th including Jack Whitehall and Russell Howard off the television. How exciting?! There will also be other top notch mirth makers on, however, the general public are very fickle and only really get attracted by people from the little black box in their living rooms.

My cricket ability seems to have taken a nose dive on the batting front, whilst my bowling has improved. At Lords on Saturday I got 3 wickets and couldn't resist bellowing 'f- you' when I bowled out BJ. I obviously have a swearing disease as there were children in the adjacent net. It turns out one of them is 13 year old in one of my PE classes, which is hardly ideal as he probably noticed that somebody who is meant to be teaching him to be good at sport is clearly inept at cricket. On a slight digression, one kid in a class yesterday made me chuckle when he said to his classmate in a haughty manner, 'my sister can climb a lamppost...and she's only 8.' The things children boast about now really have changed. I'm pretty sure when I was 13 I was telling people that I had a table tennis table in my garden and left my sister's climbing skills well out of the equation.

I was also chatting to Wes as we were leaving the nets and he used a profanity on two occasions quite loudly next to some young children. I ironically enough told him to watch his potty mouth as it sets a bad example to the younger generation: how the tables have turned Mr Wesley? Put that in your dirty mouth and chew on it!

I had a minor scare on Sunday when I popped in to visit the woman who released me into the world: my mother. It turns out she has suffered from altitude sickness and so had my sister, to the extent that when my sis was supposed to go up this mountain in Asia she couldn't go all the way up. Fiddlesticks! If altitude sickness is hereditary I'm almost certainly screwed. Having said that, my Dad is fine with that sort of thing so hopefully my sister inherited the rubbish altitude genes and I will have my Dad's. I hope that doesn't mean I end up with my Dad's low metabolism in later life, I unlike him, do not want to be of a size where a standard issue set of scales does not in fact go up to my weight.

We will only know when we are up there if I can handle the altitude...watch this hopeful space

Going back in time to October 8th 2008- The launch party

Apologies to those of you confused the temporal yoyoing of this blog but I was very loose at updating it till a couple of months ago. Last time I went back into the more distant past was for the launch pub crawl at the end of May. Between then and the launch party my Everest based antics were put on the back burner as I was trying to be funny in Edinburgh, doing very little fitness and consuming excessive amounts of yeast and hops. This blog really should be called the fitness and boozing blog. It seems that almost every entry consists of these two elements, which may be tedious to most readers, however, It is quite simply the truth. I could lie and say that I did some sponsored midget juggling but alas this has yet to come into fruition; if anyone has the phone number for a juggling school and at least 3 tiny people then please do get in touch.

Back to the official launch party, which happened almost exactly 3 months ago. It involved drinking but unsurprisingly no fitness, there was not even any obligatory one armed press up competitions (this normally happens when teams of men get near each other in civilised social situations). I say it was civilised because it was a dress up event in the brilliantly posh South Kensington venue called The Collection, although, it's important to note that there were also computer games there. Those of you who could not make it will be pleased to know that it was8 schnitzels for a bottle of beer, which whether you're in an economic crisis or not is still utterly extortionate. Me and my pals managed to go for the very student-based option of down as many drinks as possible before the the free bar runs out. This worked and although there were only 200 people instead of 400 in attendance, it was a success.

The initial target of 400 people attending seemed realistic at first, however, at 30 banjos a ticket you can see why it's a bit of a stretch for most people. It also turns out that we have far less good friends than we think. Some of us on the expedition share friends but not only that, some girl once told me that there is a theory that someone clever has written where human beings only have 4 good friends. Admittedly, I need to research that more with some more details such as...a name of...a person before you can take that as factually accurate or noteworthy. Watch this space.

Money was raised and people had fun. That's the point of a launch party so there can't be too many complaints aside from the heart warming thought that each and every one of us may or may not have less than 5 real friends. Bye.

Grim Bruv

Just to cut out the suspense, I did in fact complete the 8 mile off road run. I did in in 1hr 15, which is quite respectable because I was placed 600 odd. Obviously that means nothing unless you know the amount of entrants. I think there were 2000 odd not 601; it is definitely important to know how many people are in each competition. I remember I once came 7th in an event, which on paper seems better than 600th, however, for the former race I was in fact in an 8 person contest. It is necessary to know these things unless of course you come first because that is always good (outside of the bedroom). Runner-up is generally pretty respectable unless you believe the mantra of the No Fear t-shirts: '2nd place is first loser'. On the other hand if you own a No Fear item let alone believe the slogan you are either a complete helmet or a dad who thinks he's cool. Just for the record you are not cool.

The Grim Challenge was surprisingly enjoyable. The waist high puddles we had to run through were especially enticing when we arrived because the rock hard ice on the surface had to be broken pre-race. This means that the water was scientifically freezing, I'm not just exaggerating for the purposes of your entertainment. I was reticent before the start to say the least as I was half asleep and running in mud and ice for 8 miles seemed like a pretty awful way to start the Sabbath.

I actually never felt aerobically exhausted during the race, which is a good sign for the expedition. I was also nattering to my mate Jimmy who I bumped into on the start line. I was dressed in a www.Everesttest.com t-shirt and leggings, which did nothing to help my shamefully miniature twiglets for legs whilst Jimmy was in a Mexican wrestling mask and a pink thong. I looked quite overdressed and sensible compared to the Ray Mysterio look-a-like. We overtook people who were blowing out of their proverbial arses whilst we casually had a really pleasant catch up.

A fun day had by one and all. Afterwards at pub lunch we had a really good chat about people who over use the 'reply to all' button on emails. To me it's very obvious that if someone emails a group of people saying "let me know if you can do this" you let HIM or HER know by emailing just HIM or HER. There is no need to email everyone else invited. I mean if you're officially invited to a wedding, do you find out everyone else on the guest list, photocopy your reply 50 times and post it all the other invitees?? No. Case closed.

Pub Crawl in Aid of Everest- 31st May 2008

After the initial team selection there was a pub crawl arranged to help celebrate the early stage of the trip being put in place. This is fantastically British. We are going to play cricket on a mountain to raise money for charity so naturally we all have to go and get hideously inebriated. I reckon even if we were raising money for 'AA', we would kick things off with a massive bender (apologies for the double meaning- if your visualising a huge bloke in a tight t-shirt waving a rainbow coloured hankie, you're very immature).

For the pub crawl we were all kitted out in cricket whites because we are an extremely professional outfit. There at one point was the suggestion that we took sport relief buckets out with us to cajole the general public into donating. I, however, think that a bloke with yak covered cricket whites, asking strangers for money in aid of a good cause might well be pushing the boundaries of public generosity towards charitable causes. You would be especially sceptical is you handed some sheckles to a man who one minute later starts downing a jug of lager whilst other men shout, 'down it you tool!'.

Obviously it was a great afternoon and no money was raised but it was a good way to meet other older team members who seemed to be on exactly the same wave length as me despite being a bit older. All the 6 year age gap between me and others meant is that there are some references to early 90s TV that they might not get. All of us, for example, appreciate how great a programme 'Saved by the Bell' was although none of them really have an opinion on the more recent 'City Guys', which as any 22 year old with access to the channel 'Trouble' as a youngster knows was a poor alternative to the Californian set children's sitcom.

Shabadoo joined later as he had been watching Wasps win the Premier League again and in doing so securing him a massive payout of £750 from some ridiculous accumulator bet he had done. He is genuinely the luckiest man in the world, I think he must have been blessed as a young bear. True fact about Joe: he has never dropped a piece of toast butter side down, I read it on Wikipedia so it must be factually accurate. By the time he arrive I was MC Hammered, groping some poor girl with the words 'I just love Penis' (it said a naughty version of this but i've been censored) written on my back and a drawing of a climactic penis next to it. Give a man a black pen, a white canvass and a few beers and there is one inevitable result- a doodled penis. By 11 I was so cut that me and Joe had to leave for the Casino. I didn't want to gamble; for some reason in my drunken mentality I decided that 'Golden Nugget Casino' was the most obviously place nearby to get some chicken wings.

We nearly didn't get in. Here is the conversation that occurred with the Golden Nugg staff.

"You're not allowed in wearing a track suit"

"technically mate, these are cricket whites"

"so?"

"they are much smarter than a track suit"

"OK...go in"

second guy behind the till leans in a makes the very valid point:

"some people might not appreciate whats written on your back"

"fair enough, I'll turn in inside out."

Somehow turning the penis ridden shirt inside out was enough to quell their concern and so I managed to get my chicken wings and be in bed by midnight.

Back to the beginning again...almost

I remember getting the call from Joe/Jewy/Jewbacker/Jewnipper berry/Jewson/Jewseph/ Shabadoo saying that me and him were selected for the expedition and BJ and Charlie were on the reserve list. There was a feeling of excitement, which was unfortunately tainted by the fact that two out of four of us were not initially part of the trip. The team members were chosen on an anonymous basis so there were no big favours for people; so apparently BJ's proximity to Claire Balding was not quite enough to get him in the initial party. I was, however, quietly confident that BJ and Charlie would get in because they were first 2 on the reserve list and the probability of 2 people dropping out of such a time consuming expedition was pretty high.

Despite the slight downside I was fucking over the moon that I would be a record breaker and at the very least be joined by my pal the Jewish Bear. I should probably explain who this mystical Hasidic character is. Joe is one of my best pals. I met him in 2005 in New Zealand when me and Charlie were following the British Lions team get anally shattered by the All Blacks. He liked rugby, he was funny, and he was studying English at Newcastle University later that year, which I was also doing therefore the rest is history.

One quick anecdote about Joe Williams (he does have a real name!) so you can get an idea about him. He is a very primitive human being he likes sport, eating and sleeping. I think his Great Great Great Great Grandad was in fact half man, half Grizzly Bear. Everyday for 2 years at university he made his dinner like this. Step 1: cook some chicken fillets and put them on a plate. Step 2: Open a can of sweetcorn and add it to plate. Step 3: Put some mayo on the plate. Done!

He is obsessed by my overweight swearing father. So much so that at my 21st birthday party at my house whilst my Dad was asleep he and my friend Anish got completely naked and hugged him: photos can be found on my facebook. This story doesn't illustrate much but it makes me laugh thinking about it. And in a way is poster for religious harmony. A middle class pompous white man being embraced by a Jew and an Indian- Unicef eat your heart out!

So now me and Joe waited to see if BJ and Charlie would get onto the expedition. Watch this space if you want to find out....most of you reading this are on the trip so the suspense for you will be slim to none.

Fitness and Cricket on course...sort of

I decided to join in on a bleep test at the school where I work, with the 4th form (13-14 yr olds). I've no idea why posh boys' school's don't just call them by the correct national school year names? Even upper 6th and lower 6th are called upper and lower '8th'- it's just plain annoying when you meet people who went to different schools. For example, if someone tells me they did something when they were in year 8, I never know how old they were, in my head I guess that they were...eight: which is confusing and disturbing if they are referring to when they last their V plates.

Anyway, so I did it and was comfortably chugging along determined to beat level 12.2, which I had achieved in July. Around level 11 it was me and one kid left, he looked extremely comfortable but I was confident he would drop off. At level 12 I was not comfortable whilst he looked like he could have been jogging and simultaneously composing a sonnet while being fed grapes. To sum up, he was comfortable. I started to realise I was not going to beat him and dropped out at 12.6, which although was an improvement was gutting because I'd been beaten by a child. Turns out I had in fact chosen to run in the class that contained the national pentathlete champion for that age group. Shit! I guess there shouldn't have been any shame in that but since I hate losing, shame on me. Pentathlete champ or no Pent. Champ- It's not like he's a real athlete because if he was he would have done the Decathlon, which is twice as manly- Daley Thompson can back me up on that.

Played cricket today at indoor nets and was the first time I'd played properly in 10 years. I was not proper rubbish but I was by no means what one might describe as OK. I was RU-OK. Thanks to some pointers from the very talented Kiwi (I think he's from NZ- it's a sophisticated nickname), he actually showed me how I should stand etc when batting and bowling. It's mentally tiring, you actually have to concentrate all the time, which may sound ridiculous but I only just worked this out and have decided cricket players are no as rotund and lazy as I first thought. Just keeping your head in line with the ball is tricky!

We also did nets after another bleep test followed by 5-aside football. It was a good session and gives some insight into how tired we might be at Base Camp, when we have to bat and bowl at ludicrously high altitude.

Right I have to go as I'm pooped. Don't want to lose to another small child any time soon.

Claire Balding & BJ: Going back to the first talk and Everest application

I've decided to write a book about Everest Cricket- all of you are extremely lucky

This is not a nonsense idea that I have thought of after 10 pints, which I will never back up, I genuinely want to do this.

One of my colleagues asked if I was writing a book on the trip and I said, 'I'm too busy'. Which does seem reasonable as I have a day job and gig around the country in the evenings including Northampton- lucky me! (seriously never go there, it smells of regret). I, however, realised that I do in fact spend on average 1-2 hours a day checking and re-checking my emails, going on facebook, tidying out my balls, tidying out my balls over people on facebook and finally- drinking tea (my drug of choice, after the drug of LIFE!, which I'm already high on, only joking: only wankers say that). Therefore, If I minimise doing the above for 2 hours or even combine some of them whilst writing this blog I reckon I can be well on my way...obviously drinking tea and writing is far easier than playing with yourself whilst trying to punctuate correctly.

So the plan is to write a little something everyday in this blog by going back to the very beginnings of signing up to this trip, whilst sprinkling in bits of what's currently going on re: fundraising, fitness, anecdotes about Everest test. There will be a 6 month time shift for the first few weeks of this but as I only just thought writing a book was a good idea today, November 7Th, it will be a bit hap-hazard. I want to reiterate that I never decided to do this expedition just to write a book. The reasons I want to do this trip are these, in no particular order:

1. Raise lots of money for international and domestic causes, which need it
2. Break a world record and so make Kris Akabusi finally proud of me
3. Test myself, on a physical and mental level
4. Something to talk about at dinner parties and a great device to snaffle beatches (can I say that?!)


These blog entries will form the basis of the book and help me write a final copy before I forget everything. So now all of you (sing./plural) know whats going on relax your flaps and enjoy the ride. It's OK to laugh at the phrase 'relax your flaps', I will not tell anyone, If anyone hears you laughing and says 'what you laughing about?', just say 'exquisite political satire', however we both know it's the phrase 'relax your flaps'- If you don't appreciate the immaturity of it, I hope you appreciate how resonant the assonance of the wording is.

long story short, buckle up!

any feedback duly appreciated.

Started trying to get sponsorship for Sport Relief

Me and BJ (as in...) are going to get some pounds for Sport Relief this Sunday with the arrogntly titles Jarman-Martin invitational touch rugby tournament. There will be sweeties sandwiches and prizes. how exciting!

I did some fitness today and flt pretty good. I worked out if someone tells me to do fitness I will do it but I'm not very good at initiating the process. Similar to me with women. If a woman is telling me to get naked I'm pretty sure she fancies me whereas if I fancy them I normally just tell other people or throw stuff at them.

I hope now under 6 months awat from Everest I can pick up the fitness and the bitches by mentioning the whole expedition. Apprently the honeys love a record breaker as Kris Akabusi once told me.

you can sponsor me here:
www.mysportrelief.com/chrismeverest