Wednesday, 4 April 2007
Monday, 2 April 2007
The Sevens' Deadly Sins
1. Envy
18,543 people gathered in Hong Kong stadium last weekend to watch fourteen fearsome fighting sportsmen in short shorts square off against each other on the rugby field. 2,832 in the infamous South Stand didn't pay any attention to the rugby. This is the story of why.
2. Greed
When you arrive at the stadium the overall feeling is one of anti-climax. Firstly, it's way too easy to get in past the burley, intimidating frame of a 5'2" schoolgirl.
Secondly, the stadium itself is tiny and lacks that level of noise that a bowl design creates, all because the shorter ends of the stand have such low seating. Everything is smaller - even the warm up area for the players was no wider than a very fat person. And yet, they seemed to be drilled to perfection using this limited space. The pitch seemed normal size but even that could have been an illusion or a clever David Copperfield-esque trick with mirrors. Now I think about it, the players did seem unusually small but that could be because I was sitting quite far back.
Finally, there were way too few hot dogs in the Credit Suisse private box. Will the CS Events Manager please sort that one out (or at least delegate it to some lowly derivatives structuring analyst).
3. Gluttony
Saturday was the day to be in the South Stand, the Mecca of drinking, debauchery and Mexican waves. A soaking concrete landfill of empty plastic cups and disused spectators, waiting to be recycled and revived, respectively. Paulie and I entered this arena at 5pm, having started queuing at 4.30pm. According to the noticeboard, the queuing time was expected to be 3-4hours - perhaps just another mirage of the mysterious South Stand. Waiting for us in the first row were Benjy, suave as ever, and Ken, the epitome of the party boy. I have never seen him sober.
4. Sloth
Paulie's Hour of Power (no intentional religious connotations) began not long after we were seated with our third jug of icily warm beer. The challenge: to drink 1 pint per game (20 minutes). By the third game, Paulie hadn't dropped a fluid ounce, but I was doomed to play for Canada, ready to let go of my bowels at any second. At some point hereafter, the men in short shorts left the field for the final time and we were swept into the mass exodus like leaves in a storm. Drunk leaves. Very drunk leaves. The Hour of Power was responsible for the ensuing Hours of Pain.
5. Lust
Back at the Robinson Fun House, I became intimately acquainted and deeply attached to Paulie's bathroom floor. For more than an hour it gave me support, sympathy and a lavatory to pour out my innards into. The combination of the Power and the Pot was too much to stomach. Recuperation came in the form of a pizza, gallons of aytch-too-oh and Love, Actually.
6. Wrath
I will never drink again.
Until Bali. A bad drinking experience always turns me off something connected with that night. In this case, it was Tortilla Nachos. In Bangkok, it was the taste of lime. In Bristol in 2000, it was peach cordial. Never, never, is it the alcohol itself.
se7en. Pride
So I finally get to tell the proud joke from Freddy Got Fingered. Here's the gist of it:
Father: [Father hands his son, Gord, keys to a new car] Gord, this car is more than a gift. It's... It's kind of an investment in you. It means I believe in my son. You be a good man.
Son: Father, I... I will be a good man.
Father: You make your daddy proud. You hear me?
Son: I'm gonna make you proud, Daddy. I'm gonna make you so proud.
Father: Make your daddy proud.
Son: You're gonna be so proud.
Father: Proud?
Son: Proud. [Son starts engine and yells at nearby pedestrian] Get the fuck outta the way!
18,543 people gathered in Hong Kong stadium last weekend to watch fourteen fearsome fighting sportsmen in short shorts square off against each other on the rugby field. 2,832 in the infamous South Stand didn't pay any attention to the rugby. This is the story of why.
2. Greed
When you arrive at the stadium the overall feeling is one of anti-climax. Firstly, it's way too easy to get in past the burley, intimidating frame of a 5'2" schoolgirl.
Secondly, the stadium itself is tiny and lacks that level of noise that a bowl design creates, all because the shorter ends of the stand have such low seating. Everything is smaller - even the warm up area for the players was no wider than a very fat person. And yet, they seemed to be drilled to perfection using this limited space. The pitch seemed normal size but even that could have been an illusion or a clever David Copperfield-esque trick with mirrors. Now I think about it, the players did seem unusually small but that could be because I was sitting quite far back.
Finally, there were way too few hot dogs in the Credit Suisse private box. Will the CS Events Manager please sort that one out (or at least delegate it to some lowly derivatives structuring analyst).
3. Gluttony
Saturday was the day to be in the South Stand, the Mecca of drinking, debauchery and Mexican waves. A soaking concrete landfill of empty plastic cups and disused spectators, waiting to be recycled and revived, respectively. Paulie and I entered this arena at 5pm, having started queuing at 4.30pm. According to the noticeboard, the queuing time was expected to be 3-4hours - perhaps just another mirage of the mysterious South Stand. Waiting for us in the first row were Benjy, suave as ever, and Ken, the epitome of the party boy. I have never seen him sober.
4. Sloth
Paulie's Hour of Power (no intentional religious connotations) began not long after we were seated with our third jug of icily warm beer. The challenge: to drink 1 pint per game (20 minutes). By the third game, Paulie hadn't dropped a fluid ounce, but I was doomed to play for Canada, ready to let go of my bowels at any second. At some point hereafter, the men in short shorts left the field for the final time and we were swept into the mass exodus like leaves in a storm. Drunk leaves. Very drunk leaves. The Hour of Power was responsible for the ensuing Hours of Pain.
5. Lust
Back at the Robinson Fun House, I became intimately acquainted and deeply attached to Paulie's bathroom floor. For more than an hour it gave me support, sympathy and a lavatory to pour out my innards into. The combination of the Power and the Pot was too much to stomach. Recuperation came in the form of a pizza, gallons of aytch-too-oh and Love, Actually.
6. Wrath
I will never drink again.
Until Bali. A bad drinking experience always turns me off something connected with that night. In this case, it was Tortilla Nachos. In Bangkok, it was the taste of lime. In Bristol in 2000, it was peach cordial. Never, never, is it the alcohol itself.
se7en. Pride
So I finally get to tell the proud joke from Freddy Got Fingered. Here's the gist of it:
Father: [Father hands his son, Gord, keys to a new car] Gord, this car is more than a gift. It's... It's kind of an investment in you. It means I believe in my son. You be a good man.
Son: Father, I... I will be a good man.
Father: You make your daddy proud. You hear me?
Son: I'm gonna make you proud, Daddy. I'm gonna make you so proud.
Father: Make your daddy proud.
Son: You're gonna be so proud.
Father: Proud?
Son: Proud. [Son starts engine and yells at nearby pedestrian] Get the fuck outta the way!
You're listening to KKGAXSQWARK FM...
Big shout out to all my listeners in Georgia, USA. If any of you guys are in Atlanta, you should take note of the following.
Sunrise at 07:24 in direction 84° East by north
Sunset at 19:59 in direction 277° West by north
Duration of day: 12 hours, 34 minutes (2 minutes, 5 seconds longer than yesterday)
Sun in south at 13:41 at altitude 61° above horizon
Civil twilight begins at 06:59, ends at 20:24
Nautical twilight begins at 06:30, ends at 20:54
Astronomical twilight begins at 06:00, ends at 21:24
Sunrise at 07:24 in direction 84° East by north
Sunset at 19:59 in direction 277° West by north
Duration of day: 12 hours, 34 minutes (2 minutes, 5 seconds longer than yesterday)
Sun in south at 13:41 at altitude 61° above horizon
Civil twilight begins at 06:59, ends at 20:24
Nautical twilight begins at 06:30, ends at 20:54
Astronomical twilight begins at 06:00, ends at 21:24
The adventures of a bleaching novice
I am now aware that I am to washing what George Bush is to foreign policy. Useless and destructive. I cannot so much as pick up a carton of bleach without draining some colourful article of clothing of its soul and reducing it to its pallid infancy. It's like like that scene at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where the villain drinks from the wrong chalice and is "aged to death" (this may not be the official term) in seconds. Only with cotton-polyster hybrids.
So far my current kill ratio is as follows:
FATALITIES:
1 pillow case
SEVERE WOUNDING:
1 pillow case
1 t-shirt (this occurred during a visit to Wellcome when a carton of bleach literally flew of the shelf and collided with said item of clothing)
WALKING WOUNDED:
1 bed sheet
1 duvet cover
Ironically, my efforts to turn a mud-stained pair of shorts white again have been totally unsuccessful. Life is so unfair.
So far my current kill ratio is as follows:
FATALITIES:
1 pillow case
SEVERE WOUNDING:
1 pillow case
1 t-shirt (this occurred during a visit to Wellcome when a carton of bleach literally flew of the shelf and collided with said item of clothing)
WALKING WOUNDED:
1 bed sheet
1 duvet cover
Ironically, my efforts to turn a mud-stained pair of shorts white again have been totally unsuccessful. Life is so unfair.
To start at the end
Now seems like a sensible place to start and then I will try to work backwards through the haze of the weekend. I have a feeling of intense dread in my stomach at everything I must finish at work before Tuesday. My only consolation is that, for the next 9 days, I have no reason to go home. Alicia desperately wants to read Lily's book about getting cholera and falling in love with people in the old days. It sounds disgusting. When I saw it on Lily's bathroom floor I assumed it was there in case the toilet paper ran out. Such is the folly of being a literary Phillistine. (Although how many people can say they have read all the Asterix comics?)
The prosection rests its case, m'lud.
The prosection rests its case, m'lud.
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