(no subject)

People who were asking me incredulously what motorised beerkeg racing was are advised to feast their gaze on this:



However, I should point out that this picture was gleaned from Google, and is in no way connected to the stag do I attended. As cornfedpig can attest (and pipistrellus knows all too well), this was a heroic two-day event, consisting of men together doing silly things like inflatable sumo wrestling, and drinking too much in stretch minibuses—in some cases even dancing—on Friday, and then a continuation of the party theme the next day with a large get-together for all the stag’s friends (women too, demolition-of-tradition fans).

This ended up with a small hardcore of us round at mine at two in the morning, in the absence of any decent venues in London where you can carouse and wassail at half past pigshit without being hemmed in by sweaty crowds and INSANELY LOUD MUSIC. (Also, if you’re in the kind of state I was in, it’s probably best to be confined with people who know you well—rather than being allowed to roam free doing things like slamming a twenty on the bar and saying to a barmaid, “Give us a bottle of champagne and a revolver. Let’s make a night of it.”) Eventually the best man and the stag staggered out to their taxi at about six.

I had hoped that both people renting the flat above me were away for the weekend. So much for happy coincidence. Not that he made his presence felt at the time, mind. I can only deduce that we kept him awake by the sheer amount of door-slamming, stamping around and dropping of heavy objects on the floor that’s going on. Earlier today I was all for knocking on his door and apologising profusely; it is, after all, incomparably shit to be kept awake by someone else’s party. However, the longer he flounces around in this manic huff and keeps cranking his TV volume, the less inclined I am to deliver the deserved abject apology, even if I just bump into him on the stairs. So far I can count the number of times I’ve had loud small-hours parties in my flat on the fingers of one stump, but if he bloody keeps this up…

Blue sky, blue sky.


At one point, we ended up at Club Frog in Charing Cross Road. This, in fact, was what persuaded us to get the hell out of Dodge and retire to my flat. So many barely legal, barely clothed young ladies, though. A girl who looks like Vanessa Paradis on Rohypnol taps me woozily on the shoulder.

“I really like this,” she says. I realise I’m still wearing my small flashing light down the back of my shirt. We were all given one when we arrived at the pub for the big party earlier. (“Look, this Chinese man came into the pub while I was setting up, he was selling all these flashing things, I was pissed,” said the best man. “What did you think was going to happen?”) Mine is green.

She starts lifting up my shirt to get a closer look at the light. “Take it,” I say, removing it from my neck before any of this gets too weird.

“Really?” she says, unable even to focus on the flashing green bulb in front of her. “I love you.” And she puts it round her neck as she weaves unsteadily away. Drugs, eh?

Styling moose

Your handy moose/elk ready reckoner:


1. What the US (and Canada) call a moose:


 
... the Norwegians (and Swedes, Danes, half of Finland etc) call an elk.
 
 
2. What the US (and Canada) call an elk:


 
... God knows what the Scandinavians call that.

Incidentally, the Latin name for the so-called “moose” is alces alces—from which the animal will surely have derived its TRUE name, “Elk”. It's not called moosus moosus, is it? Thus the Scandinavians win.