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

Dartmoor Weekend 30Jan-1st Feb

As BJ, Kirt and I progressed smoothly down the tarmac gateway that is the M4 I knew that it was going to be a mirth filled weekend. Not just because of the company but because BJ handed me a piece of paper with the Bloomberg top 25 funniest names in the world: my personal favourites are Donna Bumgardener, David Moron and Dario Diklik. Incidentally I'm not swearing, I'm simply quoting people's names. If you consider these to be swear words then you are in fact deriding the innocent people who live with these names every day of their silly named lives.




We arrived in Dartmoor late Friday night despite the Sat Nav's best efforts to thwart us by sending us to a field. Just a field. Luckily we bumped into Kiwi and Glenn who were also lost but had the foresight to bring printed instructions of how to find the Dartmoor centre we were staying at. Without them we would have genuinely had to drive into a patch of vegetation and shout the names of our team mates and hope for the best.

The weekend was a real cliched male team bonding experience. It turns out that no matter whether you're 22 or 32 it is inevitable that somebody backside will try and show off in front of a room of other males and generally your audience will oblige by giggling like little school boys. We seemed to only talk about hackneyed male experiences, which I can't really divulge over the Internet as it would possibly lead to me being locked up or at least cautioned by the cyber police. Let's just say we joked about rambling and walking!

Between all of the churlish behaviour we managed to do some walking...actually walking. I managed to 'break mine boots in', which is the technical term for wearing some boots. It's a needly aggressive and euphemistic expression: I prefer to tell people that 'I popped their cherry'. We ambled around the moors and tors for most of Saturday, which must have been just under 20 miles.I would have loved to have taken in the picturesque Dartmoor scenery but for some meteorological reason which I don't fully comprehend, the land was caked in mist. The range of conversation during 8 hours of walking with different people is phenomenal: you go from one conversation to someone about their job to anopther one with someone else about the funniest name for a pornographic video. Eclectic, best describes the day; maybe smutty.

Sunday was also great fun as we split into 3 teams and got ruthlessly competitive like greyhounds chasing a stuffed rabbit around the baron moors of Devon. The challenges involved carrying 20kg fertilizer bags up a hill, carrying cooking equipment then making fried eggs up a hill, running up a hill dressed as a gorilla (I pulled the short straw on that) and carrying buckets of water from ages away...over a hill. The general theme was doing tiring stuff on hills. Having been comfortably in the lead after the first 3 challenges we choked like all British athletes and ended up tied with the other teams. I guess you could say the overall winner was team Hillary! You could then also say that I'm a cheesy man who needs somebody to dip some bread on my fondue like body to remove that stench of melted Jarlsberg.

No ranting this week. Just thought I would thank James Peterson for his organisation of the weekend, although he could have done something about the mist; at least we missed the snow storm, so well done for that. On that note, I think it's hilarious how in the current economic climate where 90% of the population are desperately grasping onto their jobs and trying their up most to save their pennies, that that same percentage of people looked out their windows and thought, 'I definitely can't go to work today because it's a bit snowy'. Special thanks go to London's bus drives for legitimizing everyones' excuses for bunking off. My faith is restored in humanity.

Peace, Love, Save the children

The Press Launch on Tuesday 27th February

Above are some snaps from the press launch...obviously; you wouldn't set up a cricket pitch in Trafalgar square and not invite a few people to watch. There were genuinely loads of people with cameras gathered so I think a big thank you has to go to our PR team Captive minds for getting me on London tonight (although you see me for about half a second). I didn't get to field or bat in this match but most people don't know that. I will be now telling everyone I smashed a 6 into Nelson's Column. It's like when somebody asked if I was playing cricket on the very top of Mount Everest; of course that's impossible and the girl who asked was obviously a little bit intellectually selective (that's a PC way of saying thick). I told her we were not doing this but in retrospect I should have said 'yes', because it sounds cooler and as a moron she wouldn't know that I was massively equivocating.

The PR was really useful, however, I'm now going to rant about PR and advertising. A lot of my friends work in this field and although it has its uses I really resent the whole industry. This fire of hatred has been reignited in me after a discussion with my friend Be about blogs. He loves advertising and always bangs on about the importance of blogs in the modern world. When I asked what he thought about mine he said it wasn't niche enough. I'm writing about playing cricket on Everest: seems pretty bloody specific to me. He meant that I digress and talk about different topics too much therefore it will never get a lot of people subscribing to it, which I would love to contest but then again I'm talking about PR and advertising in a cricket blog: I have been caught with my hand in the metaphorical cookie jar.

It's this criticism of his that irks me about the media industry. Why can't I write a blog about what I want and digress and talk nonsense about social situations and things I notice? Apparently because it's not what people want to read and will not get me anywhere. That is exactly what is wrong with the world of the media, and this is a word which I think encapsulates it in one, manipulative. It's a world that is concerned with how everything you do, whether it's a blog, the way you dress or the angle at which you scratch your right buttock, can help project an image to others. I'm obviously aware that as a stand up comedian it appears that pandering to other people is something which I'm paid to do. I, however, say stuff that I think is funny and hopefully other people do, which means I have fun and enjoy myself. Therefore, why do people always worry about every minute detail in their life and how it will reflect upon them? Instead, do something because it's enjoyable and don't worry whether you have catchy angle. This may not be profound but I'm just sick to death of listening to people talk phony nonsense about unimportant crap using buzz words such as, 'niche', 'demographic', 'social trend' and phrases like, 'an idea I fully believe in'.

Now just to clarify I'm not a hippie or anything like that but if I want to digress and talk about pointless stuff, so what? It's enjoyable and is for my own pleasure not to appease some random bloke called Marcus, who dresses trendy and is totally in touch with the new socio-economic trends of 2009.

rant over.

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.

Festive Thoughts

It's now officially the time of year where no one does anything apart from eat and argue with their families. The week before New Year's Eve is a temporal no man's land and I'm in the middle of it. It can't be all bad because now I can write more blogs.


I thought I would make this a general catch up about what's happened in the last couple of weeks rather than going back to June 2008. Although, it is this time of year when people reflect on the year just gone and generally say, 'It's been a rubbish year, let's hope next year is better'. This is either because British people are always negative and cynical or every year is in fact pants. Someone you know always dies and something global and crap happens, this year it was the credit crunch. My prediction for next year is that a great great great Uncle will die of old age and a global herpes epidemic will have hit Britain.

Fitness has undoubtedly declined slightly as I have been eating ridiculous amounts of tuck and imbibing grog everyday for the last week, which has taken a toll on me especially as I have reduced my alcohol intake over the last few weeks. Although, as many of my pals who have real jobs have time off at the moment, we have played a few games of 5-aside football courtesy of the sports hall I have free access to.

As a team we have chosen to change one of the charities from Sport Relief to The Lord Taverners, who are a cricket charity aimed at helping disabled children feel more integrated in society with their sporting programmes. It may not be such a Hollywood charity as Sport Relief but they have been much more keen on our project and want to work with us. I know charities have many things to organise and sort but if you are not going to get behind a project like this then that seems, in my humble opinion, to be foolish. Anyway on a positive note I'm about a 3rd of the way to my personal fundraising target and let's hope the project keeps building momentum.

Kirt and Curry are currently in Nepal sorting out some logistical stuff, so my thoughts are with them: That makes them sound dead, they aren't. Just to clarify they are alive and well and are probably drinking Nepalese beer whilst having women of the night push their services upon them.


in a bit

General Training and Fundraising

In about 3 days I'm taking part in the Grim Challenge. This is something I only have a vague knowledge of. From what I can gather it consists of 8miles of running in off road army terrain including big puddles/ rivers, which is pretty handy because luckily on December the 7Th it should be really warm so a quick dip will be really refreshing. I am of course being sarcastic, it's going to be fat and shit!

I have no idea how I will fair fitness wise. I've started using the cross trainer. Despite previously hating any mechanical indoor aerobic machine I've been favouring the Cross trainer as it's indoors and warm, which is really good preparation for what is essentially an outdoor expedition.

I have also been doing some serious weight session with the people at the school I work at. I don't really like lifting weights as it is the most cliched male thing to do. The good thing about it is the 30 minutes afterwards where you genuinely feel like the Incredible Hulk. Sometimes I go out starting fights on people because of all the adrenalin and the 0.1mm larger pecs I have sculpted. I think I can beat up a bear but in reality I can barely take down a Chinese door mouse.

I also have severely cut down on drinking so now after about 3 pints I'm an absolute shambles. After 5 I want to fight people, which never happens. I worked out that the worst scenario would be if I have 5 pints whilst doing the bench press; I would start trying to smash everyone up and fail miserably.

Last thought for the day why do people make waistcoats for their pet dogs? Utterly pointless.

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.

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.