Not trying to be annoying...

Thanks so much to everyone who's sponsored my mum for her trek so far - Imogen, Gav, Louise, Julie-anne, Jennie and Colin.

I know a few others mentioned they might chuck a few bob her way and I've realised I didn't really say when she's going etc... She's off on July the 7th, just over 5 weeks away, so I think she needs to know how much she's raised before then. She's training hard at the mo, and so was I at the weekend, as I was dragged down a mountain, across a valley, up the other side, along the top, back down, back up again and back along the top again in a 9km hike round a local forest park. Given that me ma is doing 3 times that each day, I don't envy her one wee bit. if I'm that desperate to see lions and giraffes I'll go to the zoo.

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Over-emotional pretentious text message of the weekend

the award goes to me, I believe, for this nugget of drunken articulation....

"I'm enveloped in a sea of belfast accents... Used to hate it, now it feels like a comfy pair of ear muffs. Maybe it's a reaction to London".

Apologies, Jennie, for cluttering up your inbox with such drivel.

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What will we call our company?

Imagine being "Mr Porn". Quality.

For anyone who's interested....

I thought I'd put my photos of my trip home with J online... I say my photos, what I mean is "the photos deemed acceptable by J", which seems to include any of me looking like a twat and exclude any of her unless you can't actually make her out from the one pixel high spot in the middle of the picture.

Anyway, they do a reasonable amount of justice to my wee neck of the woods, and somewhat scarily by the time I'd got to viewing the album after uploading, someone had already viewed the one of me making a gimp face at the camera.... the world is full of freaks, people...

Northern Ireland photos

I feel properly pished off the back of 3 pints

I think I must be getting old. Back in the day (as I remember it) I could have 6 pints of Stella and still be up fresh as a daisy the next morning to right the world's wrongs...

It could be the fact I know I have to get up at 4.45 in the morning to get my flight back to the motherland, and am already panicking because everything has to work perfectly to make my flight. If I get the half 5 tube I should be at Stansted for around 6.40, giving me a whole 15 minutes leeway before my flight closes. Bah. Life shouldn't be this stressful.

Welcome to Trafalgar Park

Wales photos are Flickred up

Unfortunately I forgot to give them a set name and I can't work out to add them to the group, so this link will have to do....

http://www.flickr.com/photos/44222788@N00/

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I'm pure knack'd

It's been fair hectic this month and no mistake. Back in the NI for my friend Peter's wedding on the 5th, then J arrived on the 6th, mum's birthday on the 7th, the Glens and the Giants Causeway on the 8th, back to London on the 9th, off to Wales for Jennie's birthday on the 11th, back on the 14th, then the Heineken Cup final at Twickenham last Sunday. Me head's pure spinning.

It's been a very enjoyable if slightly exhausting month in tattie-land, and I am currently trying to upload some photos. I'll link stuff up and provide witty and erudite commentary tomorrow perhaps, as i have a bit of time to kill before heading off to Stansted (again) to fly to Northern Ireland (again) for my mate Nikki's 30th. I am the ultimate party jet-setter. All I want is a nice lie in.

Liverpool lost. Oh well

The more important thing is I lost £170. I say lost, what i mean is "didn't win", which is almost the same, as I had a fiver on Milan to win 3-0 at 33-1. Seemed like good odds up until the 85th minute.

Feck me it's hot

not "warm" or "pleasant", but Hot.

I'm all for global warming, but can they not at least get a bit of consistency?

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Crowd a stonners....

Oh where to start with this beautiful memory of Messrs Zimmer, Davidson and Browning from way back in 1998.... The World Cup in France was a mere two days old and we were looking forward to the excitement of "honours" classes next year. At least, those of us who had managed to complete our first two years at university were.... Apparently Andy Cole was still quite good and playing for Man Utd at this point, according to the somewhat tatty newspaper poster stuck to the wall. I think it compliments the rancid curtains and "rejected by the binmen" sofa quite nicely though.

Yes, this was our flat in Ruthven Street where we spent a full year breathing a mixture of fag smoke and chip fat from Psycho Paul's fry ups, watching Wide Neil spit flem into a (never emptied) Irn Bru bottle, and dancing on the breakfast counter to "Hawaii Five O", whilst waiting for Mr Miah the landlord to turn up and fix whatever was broken with "GripperRod" (kind of a poor man's duct tape). I remember at this party Wide/Dutch Neil threw Pissed Kate out for no apparent reason and I pulled Emma Lawson, much to the chagrine of Chris "Poor Performance".

Some fashion points of note from the photo:-
1) The fetching Lacoste polo shirt on Coco
2) The earring on Euan, combined with no grade skinhead and white polo shirt to complete the "king of neds" look
3) where to start with Neil?! Can't decide which is worse, the Bart Simpson haircut or the Kickers sweatshirt/shirt combo

God we were cool.

Old pic of the day....

Ahh.... Hogmanay 2000... a distinct chill in the air as we walked to the Old Fruitmarket (aka knee deep slush). Saw in the new year standing bollock freezing in the queue for the club. Lovely. You would not know from this photo that merely 2 days later I was phoning NHS direct and persuading Gav to take me to Casualty (leaving as soon as we realised it was a minimum 5 hour wait for a doctor) as I lost feeling in my legs and couldn't stand up without falling over again. Of course, I completely blame the cold weather and not the debauchery of the evening in question.

Have been getting all retro

They don't make theme tunes like this anymore

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I think that two cats are shagging outside my bedroom window

Either that or there's a banshee on the loose.

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I've wasted another evening

messing about on Facebook. Before anyone gets all high and mighty, I know it's for people 10 years younger than me ("lol") but it's all Helen's fault for inviting me to sign up. Now I spend lonely hours, trawling for names of half-remembered aquaintances... Obviously either I have a bad memory or everyone else has far better things to do with their time. Bizarrely my work has its own group. I think that I might avoid contact, rather than rocking up and going "hey kids! I'm that grumpy old bloke that never talks to you! Wanna be my virtual friend?". Would probably get me arrested or something.

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My bank's taken £1300 of my money

in charges over the last 4 years. Bloody daylight robbery I tells ya. Fair enough, around £700 of that is in interest on my overdraft, but the rest is for bounced direct debits and the like. The cheek! If I can get my arse in gear am going to try and claim it back - only problem is if they give me back the charges they might then expect me to pay back the money I owe them.

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I'm getting too old for this....

After a fantastic holiday, firstly in Northern Ireland and then in Wales, I managed to take it too far on Sunday and obviously broke myself slightly. The result, encouraged by a bumpy trip out of Canaervon in the back of Murray's (mum's) Mini, was possibly the most scenic chunder ever seen, down the side of a valley in the middle of Snowdonia.

The resultant shakes, sleeplessness, feelings of queasiness and knackeredness has further convinced me that the time is right to take a break from my passion and stop drinking for a while. This is a problem on several levels, not least that there is always a reason to have a drink in London, as well as the fact that I really enjoying going for a "quiet one" with J whenever we have some time off. But even health matters aside, I just can't afford to keep drinking. So the question is, when do I stop?

At the moment the most likely month to try is June, given that I have full weekends between now and then. Ideally I'd like to start on the 18th of the month - it being pay day - just so I can see how much better off financially I might be if I controlled my boozing. But then of course, the smoking ban comes into effect in England on July 1st - can I really bring myself to deny the experience of the end of an era? Like I say - there's always an excuse.

Another tenner for Ma tattie!

Julie-Anne - thanks! Further proof that Northern Irish people are the most generous of all the nations and simultaneously discrediting the notion that Ballymena folk are tight with their cash.  You'll see from my swanky new counter thingy on the left hand side that we're 87% of the way to the target. A mere £460 to go in fact....

So come on! Be like Julie-Anne and experience the warm fuzzy glow for yourself. As an added bonus all donations come with the added extra of being able to refer to yourself as "Irish" for the next 3 St Patrick's Days, without incurring the wrath of my country folk.

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And the money starts rolling in....

Big thanks to Gav, Imogen and Louise who have already sponsored my mum for her trek.... It means a lot guys - thank you.

Imogen - I am more than aware that I now owe you two blog posts in your honour (although I don't know if a mere two would do you justice)

Louise - you're a star - was absolutely fantastic to see you again last weekend - will be sure to put the pic of you demurely sipping champagne through a straw on the blog.

Gav - what can I say. Legend. Perhaps you could write an article for the New York Times about Annie's expedition?

Anyone else who's thinking of sponsoring, please bear in mind that you need enough money in your bank account to cover the donation. That way you won't end up like me, having to go into work tomorrow to explain whay the tenner cheque you wrote for sponsorship bounced when presented to the bank. Embarrassing? Um. Yes.

Sponsor my mum!

My mum is off in a mere two months to the depths of Kenya to trek 26 km a day across Hell's Gate national park. I don't know about you but that sounds a bit nasty. She'll also be sleeping beneath the stars, and for a woman that blows up like a water bomb at the merest mention of the word "mosquito", that takes some doing....

She's raised a hell of a lot of money so far, but needs a little bit more (well, £500) to reach her target. Go on, it's for a great cause (the Ulster Cancer foundation) and it's definitely worth a couple of pints worth of your hard earned cash....

The donation site's at http://www.justgiving.com/anneedgar

Please help make this the trip of a lifetime and raise lots of cash for a good cause.

Not all national cliches are true...

....but then again, some are. Spotted this plaque at a local beauty spot whilst back in the NI.

It's all gone quiet said Rhubarb....

This is my last post for at least a week I'm afraid, possibly longer.... Off to the motherland tomorrow evening until next Wednesday, introducing J to the delights of Norn Irish hospitality and my mother in particular. Really looking forward to it - not least so i don't have to go to bloody work for 10 days. The weather should be good, got my mate's wedding on Saturday, J arrives Sunday, maw's birthday on Monday, the beach/Giant's Causeway on Tuesday and then back to London town on Wednesday. After that it's all systems go towards Wales for Jennie's 30th. Gotta love being an inter-British jetsetter.

So have a lovely weekend, will fill you in on everything when I return....

May Day already

I can't believe it's bloody May already.... What the hell's going on? It completely passed me by, so imagine my surprise when I went to leave work at lunch time and found my way blocked by the normally friendly doormen and the doors locked. After a minute or two (literally) it sank in that the friendly looking banner-waving types wandering past outside were at the fore of the annual workers march. Despite the fact I'm not exactly what you'd call a fully paid up member of the David Cameron fan club, or - need I say it - a city fat cat, I felt like capitalist scum standing there, staring out through the floor to ceiling windows from my monument to the unfair distribution of wealth.

Of course, to make matters worse, when I eventually got out onto the street, I decided to wander up the Strand to watch the pretty parade, completely forgetting I was dressed in a business suit (is that a pin-stripe I see?) and looking for all the world like a money-grabbing, country-crushing Gordon Gecko wannabe.

I was considering picking up a bin and launching it at McDonalds across the road to show solidarity, but worried that my lack of throwing ability might cause me to hit the Spar next door instead, thus robbing me (albeit temporarily) of my morning Sausage and Egg Sizzler. Get there about 10.20am, they've been on the shelf since 6.20 and are reduced from £1.69 to 80p. Now that's socialism. Even the Communists (below) must see that it's a bargain.