International Kings of Sport

International Kings of Sport

Well I’ve been meaning to post some pics and video of my brother stag do for a while and never got round to it.. Well better late than never!

Deciding what to do ‘as the main event’ for Giles’ stag do was a pretty simple decision as it was a continuation of a theme that’s been ongoing for the past 16 years. Me and Giles had a tradition of trying to drink our age in pints on each others birthdays. To prove that we had done it and quite frankly to help ourselves keep count, we would take a notebook to keep a tally of drinks. Usually it was only me and Giles that believed in the purity of starting at 11am when pubs open. So after we’d exhausted topics of conversation, we’d start filling up the notebook with not only the pints we’d drunk but also the scores of all random games we’d be playing from pub to pub. Influenced by a television programme of the same name, these bi-annual competitions of drinking stamina and pub game prowess become known as International Kings of Sport.

I’d always wanted to do something more like the original TV show, which itself was based on a surrealist concept from the 1960’s called the Flux-Olympiad, it followed the same format as the normal Olympics, with one small difference – the events were just plain stupid. Well no point explaining any further because I can just show you, first up is the..

Long Jump (head first)

International Superman Dive

Rules are pretty much the same as the normal long jump, but instead of measuring from your back foot, you measure from your furthest outstretched hand.. you know the superman dive! Shanks topped the charts on this one with an almighty jump of 5 metres 75 cms, although there was some controversy involving a double movement, but we let him off.

Photo by John, check out his photography portfolio – Cloverleaf Images »

Here’s the video:

100m Sprint (around a 10m circular track..)

100m Sprint (around a 10m circular track..)

In retrospect I’m not sure this was the best choice of event, running round and round in circles with a belly full of beer isn’t that good for your guts.. and the contents of my guts were all over the beach soon afterwards..

Here’s the video:

Photo Finish (the 3 metre sprint)

Photo Finish (the 3 metre sprint)

I actually think this should be an Olympic event, it’s really exciting because it’s always so close you can only tell who’s won by examining the photo finish afterwards. No video for this one I’m afriad the 5D was taking the bursts of photos.

Tennis Whack (with a cricket bat)

Tennis Whack (with a cricket bat)

Simple rules, who can whack a tennis ball up in the air for the longest. We also played who can chuck a tennis ball the furthest, but to be honest the footage wasn’t that thrilling. The two greenies dominated this event, with big greeny just pipping his brother by 4 hundredths of a second.

Here’s the video:

Who was the King?

Who was the King? Hedgy!

Hedgy! – long live the king of sports! I’d like to point out that I came a very respectable joint second with Greeny :)

Well I could go on but I think this post is already quite long enough. If you we’re wondering where you have to go to find such fantastic weather, beautiful (and empty) beaches, the answer is North Wales! Harlech to be precise.

The hangover is over

R.I.P - Keith Floyd

Dear Gastronaughts, extremely sad to hear the legendary Keith Floyd passed away on Monday, September 14 2009. I watched his cookery shows religously as kid, collected all his cook books to this day. If you’re not from the UK and don’t know who he is, Spitting Image’s 1987 parody should give you a good idea ;)

It’s no surprise really that he would die before his time, but he will be sorely missed.

Keith Floyd

He should be known for what he did best cooking & boozing so check out this clip of Mussels Mariniere, I think Me and Nicky will be cooking it in honor tonight.

I’ll leave you with a recipe from his hangover book – “probably the most famous moring-after reviver of all time”

The Prairie Oyster

1 measure of cognac
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon Angostura Bitters
Pinch of cayenne
The yolk of 1 free-range egg

Mix together all the ingredients, apart from the cayenne and egg yolk, in a whiskey glass. Add a small pinch of cayenne and drop in the egg yolk. Drink in one without breaking the yolk.

Barrel Photo via: Dion Farrell.

Booze News – Beerosaurs!

Michael Crichton’s fictional tale Jurassic Park saw scientists bringing back dinosaurs from the dead by extracting dino blood from a mosquito preserved in a blob of amber. Seems like fact is catching up with fiction, they’re not building a funfair though, oh no, a brewery instead! Good lads :)

Apparently they’ve extracted a 45 million year old yeast from the belly of a bee trapped in a blob of amber. So after a long rest the yeast can finally get down to what it was born to do – turn sugar into CO2 & booze.

There’s a bit more of a backstory to it than that, Wired have got the lowdown on the prehistoric beer.

Apparently it’s due to be released in the Autumn, but there’s currently not much on their Fossil Fuels website.

Click on the dino pic to grab a desktop picture.

Drinking Jumpers

Beer / Drinking Jumpers

When my brother was out for an all day session (usually our birthdays) he used to wear his “Drinking Jumper” a bizarre comfort blanket that would increase drinking capacity and protect him from vomiting all over it. To be honest I can’t say that it didn’t work, he’s the heaviest and most civilised drinker I know. He wore a tattered old Marks & Sparks affair, But this 70’s collection are proper drinking jumpers!

Take note booze related branding dudes out there – If you make us some god awful jumpers just in time for Christmas, I promise you, we will buy them by the truck load! I’ll even help you design them myself, come on these need a come back ;)

Via: Art Brut(e) | Also almost worthy of a post on it’s own – tache rape-shave reference.

The World That Booze Built

The World That Booze Built

Here’s an entertaining and interesting article – In Vino, Civitas by James Bridle, author of Cooking with Booze. James’s idea is that we drank ourselves into civilisation, that the cultivation of grains was driven not by hunger but by thirst.

“Beer, as well as spirits, allowed us to crowd together into cities where the water was foul and undrinkable, and it allowed us set off on long sea voyages of exploration and conquest. These two opportunities – urbanisation and exploration, have fuelled all major human activity since the renaissance.”

I love his little diagrams, the one above cracks me up.

Booze News

Illustartion - bunch of red grapes

Well news to me – I’ve never drank any wine from Georgia (that I know of), but  it’s in fact the cradle of the wine industry, they first started cultivating wild grapes 7,000 years ago! They grow an incredible 500 diffenerent varieties of endemic grape. I think I’ve only heard of about 10… 

As I’m sure you’re aware, Russia & Georgia aren’t very good friends at the moment. Russia used to consume 70% of Georgia’s wine production, but now they’ve banned it from being imported… Their loss is our gain I reckon, must be shit loads of it knocking about, a quick sniff around the internets reveals a few people have started importing and selling it to the UK, such as – Turton Wines & Evingtons – let’s give it a go!

The locals also make a more potent liquor called Chacha (pron. Charchar), a clear distillation of grapes similar to Grappa. Nearly everyone makes their own Chacha which is consumed in great quantities :)

More info from the Georgian Wine & Vine Portal, a Goergian wine blog, Georgia and it’s wine heritage.

I was put on to the Georgian booze scene by my mate John who’s off over there shortly to help the UN out with a bit of translating, check out his blog for updates as he travels about (not live yet).