The 4 year anniversary of "that night"

Cast your mind way back to February 13th 2002. It was the week before our mocks started and half term. My parents and brother had gone away for the week to give me plenty of quiet time to study for the mocks. Now don't get me wrong, I did get plenty enough study done that week. However I thought it only right that I have a little get together at mine to celebrate the first time having the house totally to myself for a week. The gathering consisted of myself, Ali, Wigs, Danny, Nik, Fi and Shoz. Wig being on antibiotics at the time managed to stay sober for the entire night but had the benefit of being able to completely dedicate his time to filming the show! Between the alochol that night and the time passed since, my memory has become corrupt and I can't quite remember all the sordid details. However it did involve sitting around and playing a game that involved forfeits. It wasn't long before the girls were down to their bras and knickers with the lads just in their boxers. Wigs, despite being sober, was strangely naked. Another forfeit consisted of Wigs using his teeth to protect a banana from STIs. Again slightly disturbing given his level of drunkeness - or lack thereof. Fi somehow ended up having a penis drawn on each cheek. The first, drawn by Ali was miniscule. The other, by Danny, was a 6 inch sausage! This, unfortunately for Ali, earned him the embarrassing reputation of having a small member, a reputation that would haunt him at every subsequent visit to the pub for years to come. There are several other good memories from that night which I won't share here for various reasons. Mainly because this blog entry is not about that night but about the 4 year anniversary of that night.

When we first heard Shoz was visiting from London for 2 nights and one of them was the 13th of February we couldn't believe our luck at the opportunity for an anniversary celebration. We began by drinking a few of the old reliable 6 for €7 in Fi's before heading into town to meet the others in Dakota. Unfortunately the atmosphere was close to nil there and so we moved on swiftly to Flannery's of Camden St. This was much better and the craic was mighty and Alard was doing his Gordon Darcy impersonation again. Upstairs with a booth we felt the need to dance on the seats to certain patriotic songs such as Crazy World by Aslan and Saints and Sinners by Paddy Casey. The bouncers were not amused and we got off the seats pretty sharpish. So we continued dancing on the floor. As we were leaving the place, Col in his usual drunken thievery mode managed to swipe a feathery scarf and an umbrella! When confronted he claimed he found them but chances are he found them on a seat beside a group of people who owned them! He was wearing the scarf but the umbrella was cleverly concealed in his sleeve. He kept insisting that his arm was made out of umbrella and wanted people to touch it. He then went off into the night singing about how he was the motherfucking shit with his tinsil. It was then onto the Berkley Court hotel where Shoz was staying. There we were 7 drunk students all piling into the residence bar of this 5 star hotel and demanding guinness and other assorted alcoholic beverages. Despite our well formed arguments we were not allowed to play the piano. At this stage Ali was suffering and so myself and Fi decided to put him to bed. We bid Shoz farewell and took a taxi back to Fi's. Ali went straight to bed and Fi and I were up for drinking a while longer in her kitchen. Fi told me she was going to the toilet and to wait for her in the kitchen and she would be back in a few minutes. I was quite content to sit there revelling in my own toughts when I soon realised that 30 minutes had passed. Where the fuck was Fi?!! Thinking she had gone to bed without telling me I went upstairs to check. Alard was fast asleep in the spare room but no sign of Fi in her room. I went back downstairs and noticed a rectangular glow of light around the downstairs toilet door. Ah. She ws still in there. I waited another 10 minutes before giving up and going to bed myself. Unfortunately Fi's memory was in no state to fill me in on what actually happened to her in the morning but my theory is she fell asleep on the toilet. And as she woke up in her bed still wearing her jacket God knows what actually happened! The next day was spent recovering and watching the previous night's recorded epsiode of Lost. (It was deadly!) Farewell Shoz. See you again in another 4 years!

Now away with ye...

Hot boy!!!

So I lashed in to town first thing in the morning with the idea of obtaining optimal viewing spaceage for the match. It was as I sat down right in front of the biggest screen in the Woolshed with a pint of guinness at 11.45 am that it occurred to me I might have a problem. Nonetheless the pint was creamy and the Australian rugby league match that was on was highly entertaining. As was to be expected both Claire and Fi were late and the first group to turn up was Fi and Rachel. Rachel unexpected, yet highly welcome, proved to be quite the rugby watching buddy as we will later see. Although I'd had no breakfast and was currently underway with my 2nd pint, we decided to defer the ordering of food till a later point. Just then Claire and Lisa arrived and our little group began expanding. The pre-match banter was immense and 15 mins before it started we ordered chicken wings. Alas the portion was quite large and the food quite antisocial. I spent the first 10-15 mins of the match shouting and cheering for Ireland through a mouthful of chicken and spicy BBQ sauce. By this stage the pub was packed and we had quite a group going on including Emsy, Karine, Joanne, Clare, Byron, Colin, Ronan and a few of Claire's friends. Unfortunately the match wasn't quite shaping up to be the match we expected it to be. We were making sloppy mistakes and the French were punishing us for it. At one stage Geordan Murphy got the ball. Rachel beside me screamed "Go on Geordo!!!" Just as she said that he passed the ball right into the hands of a French player who went on to score. We were gutted! At half time all seemed lost and we were getting ready for another afternoon of drinking our sorrows away. This continues for the first half of the second half until we suddenly got a try! Despite the French already having 4 tries under their belt we celebrated this try immensly. 13 minutes or so later we had 4 tries under our belt with 10 minutes to go! This match was turning out to be the most stressful 80 minutes of my life. I dreaded to think what would happen if we got a 5th try in and came within 5 points of the French. Nobody dared to admit it but we actually had a chance of turning this game around! Unfortuantely it wasn't to be and the game ended in a French victory. But we can take confidence from the way in which we bravely fought back and for those last 20 minutes the French were completely shook up. Their defence was in tatters. If only that had happened 20 minutes earlier... Oh well. We still have a chance to win the championship and if we can play like the 2nd half of the France match in future matches we should have a considerable chance.

After the game, most people decided against hanging around for the Italy V England match. Having lost to the French the last thing we wanted to do was watch the English win! Those of us who did stay, however, were treated to a valiant battle from the Italians who only trailed by a point at half time. Disappointingly they couldn't keep it up for the full 80 minutes and around 3/4 through the game the English took control and banged home a good victory. At this stage though we didn't care and were well on our way to a good evening. Amongst the people still left were me, Fi, Claire, Lisa and Fi's cousin + mates. Claire and Lisa had met some "Hot Boys" downstairs and were back and forth between us and them. Maybe I hadn't been paying attention becuase of the rugby but it was now fairly clear to me that Lisa wasn't drunk. She was obliterated! Sorry Lis but there's no other word! Beside me there was a French guy sitting down and as he went to the toilet he asked Lisa to mind his seat for him. I grimaced and wondered whether the seat would still be there when he got back. Sure enough by the time the guy got back Lisa had pawned the chair away! Later on that evening I was at the bar when Lisa came up enthusing wildly about the Hot Boy she had met downstairs. At first she was making full sentences but soon resorted to just screaming in my ear "HOT BOY HOT BOY!!!" Just then the barlady asked us for our orders and all Lisa could manage was to order a Hot Boy! At first the barlady looked bewildered and then thought Lisa was asking for a cocktail. She swiftly produced the cocktail menu and asked Lisa to indicate which cocktail she wanted. Lisa just pointed to any old random cocktail and kept shouting "HOT BOY! HOT BOY!" At this point I made my apologies to the barlady and led Lisa away from the bar. Then Lisa went to the jacks and I decided to order her a pint of water. When I went back to the bar, before I could order anything the barlady told me I was not allowed order alcohol for my "little friend" as she was too drunk! :-/ We hung around for a bit of the banter with Fi's cousin and his mates before grabbing a taxi back to their place in Drumcondra.

Back in Drumcondra we drank and munched on pizza. Was fairly mellow here which was quite a change from the lively atmosphere of the Woolshed. After an hour or two of chilling out we decided to head back to town and called for another taxi. It was eventually decided that The Mezz be our destination. Unfortunately it was after midnight and it had been a long day. A 12+ hour stint was taking its toll and Fi was complaining of a severe headache. Myself and Fi left her cousin and friends in the mezz and shared a taxi home but not before a juicy lamb kebab courtesy of Ananya in Temple Bar. Once home I indulged in a few more beers with my folks while watching Cream's reunion concert on TV. Soon enough I was in bed and on my way to slumberland.

Now away with ye...

Proper Bo'

A quick blog entry due to the fact that the last one was almost a month ago. Lack of entries is largely down to my ongoing abstinance of alcohol between the days of Sunday and Thursday. Unfortuantely the invisible random troll that follows me round throwing my life into a topsy turvy world of randomness needs alcohol to function. Having said that, my life has progressed somewhat and this entry will be a quick update on the goings on of Grum.

I may as well start with the most recent memory as it is still fresh in my head. Last night saw the coming of the long awaited second series of Lost. After a long day at college I cycled to Fi's where we cycled on together to Emsy's. Here we met Alard, Wig and Dan and were in high spirits at the anticipation of what lay ahead. We sat around getting more and more giddy before retiring to the tv room at 9 for a double episode of beauty. Alas our hopes were too high as the first episode was a catch-up episode. This might prove useful for some but since most of us finished watching the first season only 24 hours earlier this catch up episode was unnecessary. However it only made us more hungry for the actual epsidoe that followed straight after. While brilliant in every possible way, it was far too short and a whole week is far too long to wait for the next episode. Discussion followed as did much popcorn courtesy of Danny's popcorn making machine. Around the midnight mark I cycled home sounding my abnoxious horn.

Saturday was a pretty good day too. I awoke that morning with high hopes for arguably the best Irish rugby team in decades. It was the opening match of the 6 nations championship 2006 between Ireland and Italy at Lansdowne Rd. Thanks to Claire's powers of persuasion over her Daddy she managed to box us off with a pair of seats in the upper east stand. We met outside Mary Macs at midday for a few pints and then strolled down to the stadium just making the kick off at 1.30. Disaster. An abismal performance from Ireland who should not have won. The Italians fought well and closed us down at every opportunity. A wrongfully awarded try to Tommy Bowe made even more sickening. Still a win is a win and Ireland are still on track for the grandslam. After the match, myself and Claire headed to Kitty O'Shea's to watch the England V Wales match at Twikenham with Fi & family. I was hoping for a good result here from our Celtic Brethern especially as I had a €1 bet riding on England to win the wooden spoon. Alas it was not to be and England completely thrashed Wales. The day was not turning out as planned. The last glimmer of hope for the day to turn good lay in the first Present Arms gig in over a quarter of a year. The gig was at a 21st somewhere on the Northside in a GAA club. I arrived there, we soundchecked, listened to the support band who were very good for a change and had a few pints. By the time we got on stage we were gagging for it. We played well I thought but the crowd didn't care. They didn't want to know who we were. There was no atmosphere and more importantly no dancing. After 2 hours of hell we were bored and dying to quit and get drunk. And quit and get drunk we did. Somehow I managed to call in the services of Taxi Dave to bring me home at the end of the night. The last thing I remember as I was leaving the GAA club was a bloody brawl in the carpark. I've seen a couple of fisticuff fights in my life but this was an all out bloodbath. The 2 guys were kicking the absolute shit out of each other surrounded by a large crowd. I got into my taxi and the driver called the cops. My next memory is not a pleasant one and I shall refrain from sharing it in this forum. I was suffering on Sunday and somehow managed to get through a whole practice with The Fez down in Steveo's place in Gorey. I'm never drinking again!

Now away with ye...