New Forest Chillout Day

The day after the ball it seemed like a rather good idea to do almost nothing...so off to the forest it was with a picnic. Tree climbing was the order of the day along with eating fruit at the top of them raining peel down on passers-by just like the Howler monkeys a la México!

On the way home we got as far as - would you believe it - The Avenue, before Laurie's wholehearted uncontrollable excitement for yoghurt took over as she took to covering herself in it...in probably the least provocative way I've ever seen!! Dodgy stains everywhere - nice one!! A great day to the forest though and a great break from the revision stress for Laurie I reckon. Oh and we saw some New Forest ponies which apparently aren't as cool as the ones on Exmoor. Well how could they be??! Oh and I'm pretty sure we stumbles across the campsite we went to when I was younger with the man who made all the balsa wood airplanes which was a random surprise!

Graduation Ball

Being fashionably late as ever, or was it just lazy, the four of us (Martin, Nicky, Laurie and I) made it to an all-new Persian restaurant in town before the graduation for, you guessed it - kebabs! Ah the sophistocated tastes of a student. It was actually a fantastic meal and as expected there was plenty enough meat but even enough veg for Martin to design himself a look-alike.

Upsettingly we did miss what was apparently the worlds worst Kung Fu demonstration ever due to our food indulgence. This wasn't as devastating as the fact that we missed the chocolate fountain. Well for Laurie it was most certainly the worst thing to happen on the planet that day, but I'm pretty sure the rest of us got over it a whole lot sooner; probably helped by the awesome set of the Fun Lovin' Criminals.

It was great to keep bumping into people I hadn't seen in ages, due mainly to work overload of the fourth year, but probably also a lack of organisation. Just as we were going in I grabbed Sarah and Ellie for a necessary Oldschool Connaught addition to the photo!

Being the true classy Divas we were we headed downstairs and tried our hand at the casino. Thankfully the one time there's no money involved is the one time I lose it very quickly!! Well, notwithstanding Emma's genious "put all our $25 winnings on red it can't go wrong" sceheme! But that's a long time ago and I'm not bitter, much. Not only did I lose all my chips but also allegedly the ball for the roulette wheel. Anyone not female would have actually blamed Sarah instead of me though!!

At some point in the evening we did manage to assemble the four most beautiful couples in the entire building into one small space for a great photo of which I've now got a nice A4 version to go with the rest of my room decoration photos.

So downstairs was the Jazz and casino room, so we also tried our hand at proper dancing, until the point where we had to admit we'd lost and head upstairs where we didn't look so silly!

Upstairs things only got better with Fun Lovin' Criminals knocking out some tunes. They definitely made for an awesome evening of entertainment and kept the crowd going with a complete mixture of styles which was great. The token Radio 1 DJs afterwards were a bit of a letdown. Not to worry I got my breast felt my a hot Irishman.

The end of the ball was great too - with me managing to stand around finding people I hadn't seen for ages to chat to for another hour after the place had closed. When I was 23, it was a very good year...!

Pikon the Necessary Evil

A year on from our most recent outing to Ikon, that oh so pikie of clubs, Martin and I decided that one final visit was a necessity. Privaledged as very few people in this world are, with the company of both Alice and Jayne (though at this point I still thought her actual name was Jayno thanks to Alice!), we headed as we had so many times before to Hotshots for warm-up bevvies. And then there it was again - that Britney Spears tune with the hob-diddy-hob-diddy rapping over the top!! What is it called?! No-one seems to know. Arrrgghh.


My need to know was quickly sidetracked by the Alice's Jayne dance - performed due to popular request. Now apparently it has been copied in a music video recently but who was it...

The music in Pikon had not changed a bit - still the same CD on random I reckon! It was a little worrying to see people from the Grad Ball which we were heading to the night after turning up at Ikon. A strange choice but then I guess some people have no class. Says us who ended up at Charcoal Grill again. But tonight we added something to Pikon which had never been done in third year - the sheesha nightcap. A lesson in making things pure, beautiful and only 10% naughty.

Lozza's Poole Hut

Lozza, what a ledge, has a shack upon the beach! So come the 12th June, G and I trundled down to Poole with him to see about a swim, a spot of frisbie, a smidging of sea canoeing and some cucamber sandwhiches free from the nuisance of sand. How very civilized.

Annoyingly the weather didn't come with the shack so we had to just lump it and get cold on the sea canoe. It didn't matter though it was an awesome bit of fun and a great way to work off some excess energy! Out to the buoy and back then try and catch a few waves; eventually ending up underneath the boat was about how it went. Pretty great all in all!

A fair bit of sleeping also took place from all accounts - I think we'd all missed quite a lot lately with the party and other affairs! The reclining chairs...its all about the recliners.

57's Last House Party!

The 10th June saw the boys of 57 hosting their last ever house party. Well in all honesty it was more like an all-day event. Kicking the day off quite literally was the first England game of the World Cup at 2pm. The second half of this game though was unbearably boring, but it did give us the chance to construct a BBQ in the meantime so we were ready to roll as soon as we hit the shops for the meat.

Morrissons had big plans for us this day. All the burgers had disappeared from the shelves, but we had cravings for burgers which sausages alone could never fill. Not disheartened though out came the burger factory...a pound of mince between every two people, a whole load of breadcrumbs, onions, pepper and eggs later and the perfect burger mix was born. Chris admittedly did have a large part to play in the forming of our distinctly unique culinary mastery of the BBQ, but hey its all about the teamwork!

So the afternoon was spent cooking copious amounts of food, whilst sipping very slowly on light summery drinks interspersed with water so as not to peak too soon! Ah the craic was good!!! Ash and I made a successful attempt at blowing up the paddling pool followed by a much less successful attempt at filling it. 1cm of water is hardly a paddle...more of a puddle.

Not to worry though we had Roman strippers didn't we Lucas?! Well cheating Roman strippers actually who wore more than just a loin cloth. Naturally we were all distinctly unimpressed!

Being the last house party it was time for the last (and first I think) photo of all the boys together. Organised by our resident professional photographer Graham and his adept understudy Jen, we displayed ourselves infront of our legendary house. After Laurie's constant digs about the picture I took of our family with a church somewhat dominating the photo, it was hilarious to see that the end result of Graham's work was particularly similar! Marvel at the intricate gablework.

The evening was a chilled out affair with Si dashing out of site to watch the football and Martin and Nicky dashing out of sight to, well, make sure that their actions were well and truly out of everyone's sight and minds. When commenting on how fresh Nicky smells one should expect the answer "we weren't doing anything". Guilty conscience.

As it drew dark I had the genious plan of creating a festival atmposhere by turning next-door's and our driveways into a candlelit mecca. The total chillout zone ruled.

Later in the night it clearly became necessary for Jo and I to see who could do the best Lozza lip. This could have well been a tiebreak, but I'm certainly working on it for the rematch!

The rest of the night was nice and chilled and well er nice. Wandering and talking and then a bit of dancing and that's about it. One awesome all day event had by all!

Cube TNT and Drink and Sheesha Driving

The 8th June saw us running along (literally as we were very late) to the Cube for Thursday Night Trading...fluctuating stock-market drink prices stylie. Was a great and nicely chilled evening. Having said that though the DJ did drop a few real tunes in for good measure like Pendulum's Slam...that really got the "crowd" going. A lost term as I reckon there were about 60 people in there in total!

Too used to being up far too late I got home about 1.30am and decided it'd be a great idea to start on a bit of Need for Speed Most Wanted! G, Barney and Mo joined a wee bit after and then the real testing began...is it safe to drink, Shesha and drive?! Only if you're Irish or pseudo Welsh. Give it to Barney and Mo and the Sheesha lands on the floor, the coal on Barneys arm and the hot ash all over Mo's new shorts. And thrown in for free we got to watch a bit more of the lounge carpet smoulder.

VIDEO WHEN I UPLOAD IT!!

Martial Arts Kick Arse!

Once again proving that Martial Arts kick arse...firstly a 12 year old sorts out a would-be 15 stone mugger with a side-step and a punch directly to the face! And also a wee, slightly unbelievable video where a schoolgirl picks up and drops a man who tries to steal her bag!