London's calling...

It was my friend Steve's stag do last weekend, and quite how he managed to convince another human being to marry him without any form of internet ordering or vast quantities of money changing hands is beyond me, but the stag do definitely could not be missed, even if it was in London. My other friend, Tom of blogging fame (he gets paid to write his blog, in actual sterling pounds!) who was also going to the stag do had very kindly offered to put me up at his house for the weekend, just leaving me to take care of the task of actually getting to London. As the ritualistic humiliation known as stag do was scheduled to commence on the afternoon of the Saturday we'd decided it would be wise to drive down on the Friday, and as Tom was working the day, I decided to go into work for the morning, drive down in the afternoon, and meet him in the evening. The only problem with this plan was that it meant hitting the notorious M25 slap bang in the middle of rush 'hour', which made my mates make a noise like a plumber assessing a leak upon hearing of my plan.

The M1 leg of the journey was remarkably uneventful, aside from my amazement at how many people don't understand the term 'Average Speed' - I'll try to give you dickheads a quick lesson in basic maths: It's a fucking average speed, basically calculated as distance travelled divided by time taken. If point A to point B is achieved faster than the assigned average as determined by the number in the big red circle, It's because you were speeding, no if's, and not but's. Ploughing through the 50 zone at 80mph then stamping on the brakes when you see the yellow cameras will achieve fuck all, enjoy your three points, a day rider will set you back the best part of a fiver. Whilst we're on the subject, although you will be relieved of £60 for doing 10 miles an hour over the speed limit, this is not in turn gifted to those that do 10 miles an hour under the limit as some sort of incentive or reward , that's not quite how the world works, so you may as well hurry the fuck up. Lesson over. Turning the corner onto the M25 was so clichéd it was almost funny, I was literally greeted by a wall of traffic, in which I proceeded to spend the next two hours of my life pumping the clutch pedal like a retard at a barn dance. I was quite amused at the rather optimistic variable speed limits along the various sections though, I was beginning to have fond memories of 40 miles per hour, and if the gear stick didn't have a little picture on it telling me where 3rd was I may have never found it again. It all became too much for one chap who I passed, casually mid piss against the central reservation for all to witness, who then had to begin jogging to catch his partner up. Unfortunately for him, traffic began to move a little faster at the moment his bladder could take no more, so it was a good mile or so before he managed to catch up with his partner, who was sat in the hard shoulder waiting for him. I'd have offered him a lift seen as he was jogging behind me the entire way, but then I'd have had to find some other way to amuse myself, plus I'm not that generous. I occupied myself for the remainder of the jam with traditional road trip games such as 'block the under taker', 'spot the wanker in the Pryus' [It's Pry-us, not Pree-us and don't even get me started as to what my beef is with the morons that actually believe the marketing guff in the brochure, because I'll start quoting Einstein at you, and it'll get messy] and my personal favourite 'carve up the Beamer'. This kept me entertained until the stroke of 7:00pm, where traffic seemed to simply evaporate and I could once again find 5th and take my trusty steed up to full speed - I say steed as a horse would have actually been better suited to the road surface which seemed to have been cobbled as a cheaper alternative to tarmac. Coming from my part of the world I'm quite familiar with cobbled streets, but I don’t usually tend to do 70mph down them! My head was nodding so violently I felt like the Churchill dog, on speed, at a rave.

 

"Insurance - Av iiitt!"

I did learn a couple of things in the eternity spent sat in traffic though;

• Londonites don't use their indicators to give me a clue that they are about to turn my stopping distance into a crumple zone, but only do so to request that I let them in. Request denied - although, coming from Bradford, this is actually an improvement to what I'm used to, where they majority of the population don’t even have a driving license or insurance so have no need to use the stalk on the left.
• Motorcyclists have the God given right to clip my wing mirror with their handlebars whilst squeezing through traffic, but interestingly, I have absolutely no right what so ever to offer to have a shit in their helmets.
• Starburst are not an appropriate driving sweet, unless you happen to like picking soggy bits of paper from between your teeth. I myself do not.

Eventually arriving at Toms I was rewarded with a couple of beers and an early night, after been introduced to his 6 week old son, George. George did not take my hand when offered it, which I thought was a bit rude really, so we silently agreed to disagree at that point. I believe his father took some taking to me when we first met actually. Must be one of these North / South divide things I hear about on the news...


Since I only see Tom about once a year, and since the stag do didn't kick off until 3:00pm, we'd said that if I sling my bike in the car and fetch it down with me, we'd get up early and go out for a ride, so that's exactly what we did. Up, dressed, quick bowl of cereal and out of the door for what was to be my first jaunt on a bike since last October.  Part way through we did the whole "you can have a go on mine if I can have a go of yours" swap, which left Tom describing my bike a being "a bit like a Rolls-Royce", which I think was more a reference to it's weight and bulk than build quality and luxury. My speedo wasn't working for most of it but Tom assures me we did 8.35 miles in around two hours, which wasn't bad considering this was pretty much all off road and up some fairly long and rough hills, and the fact we had to repair a massive puncture in my back tyre due to getting a bit lost in some pretty savage overgrowth. Overall it was an enjoyable and completely made up run out, although I was glad to see the home stretch as my quads and calves were burning a fair bit, but this is to be expected really as a result of sitting on my backside for the best part of a year. When we arrived back, Tom wheeled out his pride and joy to show off - Project Yolkie: The Fixie - a fancy pants pushbike to you and me, which he built himself. "Want a go?" well, it would have been rude not to really, but I was soiling myself a little bit, you see, Tom is more proud of this bike than he is of his first born son, and I was shitting myself more at the prospect of scratching it than I was at dropping George. Having Tom push me off like a child riding a bike without stabilisers for the first time must have looked quite funny to his neighbours, thinking about it now. I was pleased to hand it back unmarked, as I'm sure this would have resulted in the offer of temporary accommodation being revoked.

A quick shower and change of clothes and it was time to head over to Greenwich to meet up with the stag, which meant spending about an hour on various trains. London used to be 'home' to me for a little while, and as much as I have some fond memories of aspects and made a couple of good friends in my brief time there, I don't miss it, especially travelling around in any form other than on foot. Why people in the capital have never adopted the British tradition of actually queueing is beyond me, forcing me to have to do the exact same, but, when in Rome I guess. After an hour of overhearing a couple of girls hold a conversation that involved "like" used between every other word and all sentences ending in "or whatevor", plus witnessing not one but two lads wearing glasses with no lenses in them (must be a trend thing, because I don't get it) I was glad to get off, although listening to Tom singing "Abba's Waterloo" quietly to himself did tickle me for some reason.
Arriving ''fashionably'' late we walked into the stag do in full swing, and spotted the stag wearing a hat that said "half man / half badger" on it - I don't get it either, something to do with a childhood nickname or something. It became apparent that the stag had a list of thirty challenges / dares to carry out during the 'do, and just to make absolutely sure none were forgotten, the best man had printed a full list off for each of the guests, so I did the decent thing and assisted where ever possible in ensuring as many as possible could be ticked off. I arrived just in time for the start of challenge number 11 where he had to approach 5 strangers and ask them if a pair of underpants that he had "found" [purchased in advance for the occasion] belonged to them, resulting in some strange looks. The one challenge Steve (the stag, keep up) made the biggest fuss over was challenge number 3: doing a Tequila slammer. He was absolutely adamant that he was not doing this one as, apparently, the last time he did one he "nearly died" (his words, not mine) repeated at least eighty two times. The "last time" he was referring to was 1995, when he was 18, and had drank a skin full before attempting the 4 slammers, and "nearly died" was actually a bit of an exaggeration - he was tended to by those voluntary busybodies with fuck all better to do and absolutely zero medical qualifications, the St. Johns ambulance, as he threw up. Life threatening. A few sighs of despair from all and comments such as "worst stag do ever" soon took care of that, a tray of slammers was ordered, and Steve downed a shot of the stagnant cactus juice for the first time since his near death experience. It was nice to know Steve could be heavily influenced with a little peer pressure and the fear of being a disappointment to those that turned up for the event. This was knowledge was to be exploited as the night went on. After a while was time to leave Greenwich and head down river to Covent Garden via a boat, with another quick challenge thrown in - Challenge Number 8: Stand on Greenwich docks wearing a sailor hat holding a sign which says "For Rent". So, looking a little bit like our favourite 80's paedophile (no, not Timmy Mallet) Captain Birdseye, we waited for our vessel to arrive, attracting some strange looks from the local residents and tourists around, although this was probably more to do with the fact we were all wearing badger masks than the good Captain offering his services.

'Captain' Birdseye; fucking terrifying!

Once all aboard the ship, and taking Steve's impromptu toilet trip as an opportunity for childish shenanigans, we switched seats and hid from the stag, with the rest of the passengers on the boat seemingly in on the gag too. I don't believe it was my idea to hide so I don't feel remotely guilty at Steve's public embarrassment as he returned from the loo to find us gone and proceeded to stare at the seats we had previously occupied with a great deal of obvious confusion on his face and some comedy beard scratching (still wearing his Captains hat, may I add), as if he'd maybe imagined our existence, or we'd vanished into thin air. Although it does sound like something I would do... Anyway, we alerted him to our presence just as he was about to step off the boat a good few stops too early, to the unanimous laughter of many of the tourists aboard.

The order of the remaining events of the evening are a little hazy in my mind after this point, although I do remember a few more challenges been carried out a various points of the night, including buttocks being signed, a bellydance being performed, and a riverdance being.. well, danced, again all encouraged with "worst. stag do. ever" been used as encouragement. Well, that and alcohol. We all went for a curry at some point, and been sat at the end of the table I quietly entertained myself with what I can only describe as the opportunistic bullying of someone I'd outed as a complete cunt earlier in the evening.

Anyone who knows me knows I have never read "How To Win Friends and Influence People" as is obvious by my ability to alienate just about anyone, you see I'm a little bit too sincere for my own good really, and coupled with the fact that I seem to just attract absolute wankers, this makes for some 'interesting' social situations. I'd spotted this particular smug faced, expensive shoe wearing tit earlier in the day, and knew instantly we'd clash (or at least, his chubby dial would clash with the sole of my cheap boot) if we were left alone to shoot the shit for too long, so figured it would be best for all concerned if I just avoided him all together, which meant at times just walking off or turning to face the other way as he was mid statement at me. Eventually he corned me and came out with the feared statement of "How do you know Steve then". No, I don't mean question, and I didn't miss out a question mark from the end, this was not a question from him, just an opening statement to which my responses was of no interest, is simply served as an opportunity to speak once it was his turn again. I didn't bother justifying my acquaintance with the stag, instead once I'd realised there was indeed no way out of this situation, I skipped straight to providing him his opportunity to talk about himself for a bit. "Well back when I was on Grange Hill I got Steve the job working for my mum...". Excuse me? "I used to be on Grange Hill". Right, and quite what that had to do with how he knew the stag is somewhat questionable, if I cared, which I of course didn't, but for some reason he felt the need to inform me. Thankfully, Steve heard this and came over to unintentionally provide sufficient distraction for me to escape, and informed me he was actually an extra on Grange Hill for all of nine episodes. Extra. This was priceless.

For the remainder of the night, every time this pompous mummy's boy whose name I don't believe I was ever informed of / successfully paid no attention to interrupted my conversation with someone else or blurted out some irrelevant statement of the drunken variety over the top of me, I'd take the opportunity to throw some form of pisstakery in his face, which rather surprisingly seemed to be at the approval of his "friends". I can't remember now exactly what I said to him that he took particular exception to, although he did corner me later on in another bar with what I believe was intended in his head at least to be a threat thought out in advance but fucked up severely on delivery, to which I informed him how pleased I was to meet him and how I was looking forward to telling my mates back up North I'd been talking to an actual celebrity because all I'd ever met before was amateur actors with overly pushy parents that once did an advert to be aired on the shopping channel at 4:00am as a child and still put this on their CV's. He seemed to disappear all together after this conversation, which I probably should feel a little bit guilty about, being the stags mate and everything, but in my defence, he should have never approached me, as I'm not exactly renowned for my people skills. Not that he was to know this of course, but for anyone with an ounce of social awareness it is about a obvious as I can make it without hanging a sign from around my neck with some form of pre prepared statement on it. I'd like to point out that I'm never rude to people for no reason however, just people who have either given me or I've found an excuse to be rude to. So most people then.

Eventually it was time for the off, as it was quite late, I have no idea what time the last trains are but the prospect of missing it and paying for a cab was not an option, Tom was tired due to interrupted sleep á la George, I was knackered from the mornings bike ride and was struggling to stand up for too long, and to be fair, none of us are 21 any more, so homewards bound at a respectable hour it was.

The following morning it was time to load up the car, say goodbye to George, and head Northwards fuelled with a cup of fancy coffee and one of the best full English breakfasts I've had in a long time courtesy of Tom, after (despite my protests to the contrary) the best stag do I've been on yet. Or like, whatevor.

PS: I understand I may have possibly offended some people with some of the points made above, so I'll issue this statement; if you are a BMW driver, a motorcyclist, a Pryus driving moron, a lenseless spectacle wearing trendy kid, a Londonite, a St. Johns ambulance loser volunteer, Captain Birdseye, or a fat dough faced "actor" and feel I am either wrong or completely out of order in any of my statements, please feel free to debate your point in the comments box below, which I'll strongly contest as being complete bollocks, or if you have a point I can't contest, I'll delete. What? You want democracy, fuck off to China... oh, hang on...