But I don't have a girlfriend...

Merry Christmas to y'all! If you're reading this on Monday (ie Christmas Day) you need to get out more! But Merry Christmas to everyone anyway!

Before we get onto this week's feature, I thought that I would take the time to answer some of your comments.

Robert said...
Hey ClarkeFace, Where is the pic of me and Drum Roll please....... Sean Lock!! Nice to know you had a good weekend at mine... Although, Call me a amateur, some 23yr olds like a cup of horlicks and and early night, plus what you have to remember is you dont live with Alice!!!

I say...
Put your glasses on! The picture of Sean Lock, and Scott, you and I is at the bottom! And I would like to point out that you don't have to live with... er... my cat!

Me Again ! said...
Andy, you really must see someone about your sense of humour. Now you have to explain the title so we know what you are talking about. By the way, you didn't mention the advent calendar this week, have you got to the date where you get a degree behind the window !!!!!

I say...
Robbed - because we went to ROB's flat. Gettit? And as you should know, I've got a degree behind every window so far. I am know degreed in English, Maths, Scienece, Spelling, Advanced Thermoquantum Nuclear Dynamical systems, Sport and Exercise Science, Maths (Doctorate), and 17 other thingys...

Ian Emery said...
I heard about a bunch of nutters terrorising parts of London over the weekend, thought there had just been a breakout at a secure hospital until I read your post....! Glad to hear you had a good weekend, as you'll see, thankfully the NTC disco continued in the traditional way without most of it's core members: http://the-mighty-oak.blogspot.com. Looking forward to hearing your "12 days". Don't think I'll see you beforehand, so have a great Xmas mate. Best Yuletide Wishes Abdulla and the Christmas Camels www.ntc.org.uk/sturdy (1st birthday coming up!)

I say...
Firstly, that wasn't us. That was Al-Qaeda. And several months ago now... Secondly, all I saw on your blog, was YOU wearing MY YMCA hat. You're a marked man. Lastly, you did see me before Crimbo, I saw you this afternoon. RASP!

RobbieFrancis83 said...
RobbieFrancis83 @ BEBO RobbieFrancis83 @ BEBO RobbieFrancis83 @ BEBO RobbieFrancis83 @ BEBO RobbieFrancis83 @ BEBO To see Andy look a PRAT!!!!

I say...
Pillock. Your Bebo didn't work when I looked (well it did, but only when I signed in as your friend). If anyone wants to know what Rob is on about, wait a few weeks, and I'll tell you all about it!

babii-gurl said...
andy hi glad you had a great weekend at robs, most houses nd tht are quite nice up in london it depends what part of london you are in.and wheres the advent calender this week? im lookinhg forward to the 12 days of christmas thing it gonna be good i hope, i aint gonna listen to no rubbish andy lol. naomi xx

I say...
You can get a CAPITAL letter by using the SHIFT button! Advent Calender is now all eaten, and you can see what fun I had with it all on my Bebo. I hope you all enjoyed my Calender as much as I did (although I would have to very much doubt it...)

Wasn't that great. Audience interaction, what a wonderful tool.

Just before we get onto what you are all waiting for, I need to tell you that my car had a sore throat this week. Well, the exhaust blew, and right underneath my seat. Driving my car around has been like listening to a combination of cars. This week Ernie has been three cars for the price of a half a car! At idle, my car sounded a bit like a 1960's Jaguar E Type, but as soon as I pull away, or start to accelerate, my car magically turned into... the Trotter's three-wheeled van! At times, it was also possible to hear an undertone late 80's Ford Transit 2.0 diesel. Lovely. My friend Stuart also suggested that there was a bit of B52 Bomber in there as well.

But rest easy this Christmas, for me and my Dad have fixed Ernie (well the Exhaust anyway). The two parts of the exhaust had come apart, as we had to jack the car up, and tighten the exhaust bracket up. Now my car just sounds like the starship Enterprise! The rear wheel bearings have gone, so as I get faster, this thudding sound gets faster and louder. Just like some fusion reactor. Marvelous. Service around the corner then...

And onto this week's special feature! It's what you've all been waiting for...

A long time ago (about 2944 days ago), in a city far far away (unless you live in Brighton & Hove, in which case the city is very very close), lived a comedian, known only as 'Baldy', who ran a late night radio show (Sony Gold Award winner, beating Ricky Gervais amongst others) called Terry Garoghan's Last Bus to Whitehawk, began a Christmas tradition. In 2002, Terry was deemed too rude for Radio, so we pay tribute to Terry here, with (the longest intro ever, and)...

THE CATCOUK 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS... SPECIAL! (mp3)

Thanks to my brother for helping out. This was all done in one take as well. If you'd like to put this on loud speaker, and sing along with your family, around the Turkey roast, here are the words...

On the X day of Christmas, my girlfriend gave to me (although I don't have a girlfriend):

1st ...and a Ford Escort 1.4 GL
2nd ...2 scumbag students
3rd ...3 Cop Show videos
4th ...4 Marching Bands
5th ...5 Breakfast Radio Shows!
6th ...6 Nights out Drinking
7th ...7 Sainsbury's Trolleys
8th ...8 Courtesy Cars
9th ...9 Leaky Urinals
10th ...10 Broken Wrists
11th ...a Christmas Tree related Accident
12th ...CATCOUK.BLOGSPOT.COM

A Very Merry Christmas to you all from CATCOUK.

If you recieved a Christmas present this year, why not leave a comment and tell us all what you got.

If you didn't get a Christmas present this year, don't blame me. Sorry!

We were Robbed...

If there are any people out there that actually listen to what I say, then you may know that many posts ago, I said that I wouldn't be talking about football in this blog. So the title above is not related to any football match. It's not related to any sporting event in fact.

After a very, very, very dull week, my friend Scott and I were invited by our friend Rob (get the title?) to go and stay at his London penthouse for the weekend. Rob lives in an exclusive part of London called Penge with his girlfriend Alice. Alice had gone away for a week to visit her sister in Ireland, so 'while the cat's away - the mice will play'.

So, me and Scott loaded up the Mark IV, and Ernie took us up the A23 through Croydon, until we hit Penge. Mind you, we did take several... er... scenic detours! I'm sure there is a whole road missing somewhere up there. Anyways, we got to Rob's flat at 11.30pm. Rob lives on the top floor (where else would you find a penthouse?), and from his living room I could see my car (what better view could I ask for?).

Room with a view: I love my car, and it looks all shiny and nice - yes I cleaned it.

Okay, so by know you should have realised that I'm being sarcastic. Although I had visions of some grotty Souf London flat (think Nelson Mandela House [Only Fool and Horses]), Rob actually has a really nice place. Unusually for London, we only heard one siren over the whole stay at Rob's place, and as you can see from the photo above, my car left with the four wheels that we went with! To be honest, I'm very jealous.

Now, Rob can't drive, but for him that's not a problem - he get's driven everywhere! In his job, he often get's 'Chauffeur' driven to his meetings. Is he a CEO of a big London company? No of course not, but he is the boss' PA. So when he offered us a trip to Bromley, how could we resist. And of course we didn't drive. We took the number 227 bus! This is Rob's other mode of transport...

'Rob get's 'Chauffeur' driven everywhere: in this case, the Chauffeur was a London Transport Bus Driver...(Although I hope he wasn't as drunk as this photo was)

On Sunday, with Rob's unbelievably high pay, we walked to France! Below are some pictures that we took along the way. As it turns out, London is very close to France. We only had to take a 10 minute walk to see all these sights.

Le Tour Eiffel:That's how they say Eiffel Tower in France

Another racey picture: We even had time to see the Le Mans race track, but from quite a distance. Look at how small the car is...

The HEAD of state: No, I don't know either...

And when we got to the other side of France, guess what we found? Egypt!

The Sphinx: much small than I though it would be.

You're History!: Yes, this wonder of the world sure make you think - how did the Egyptians ever manage to build this?

Pyramid Company: Talking of the Pyramids, where are they?

Last but by no means least, I would like to point out that wearing his new £1000 glasses, Rob is a spitting image for that bloke off of 8 out of 10 cats (Channel 4). No, not Jimmy Carr, or Dave Spikey, that other guy that occasionally appears on QI or Mock the Week (BBC2). His name aside, here is a picture of Rob and... the other guy.

Spitting Image: Here is a picture of Sean Lock and that other guy... oh yeah, Rob. Sean Lock on the left, and Rob, Scott and I on the right...

All of the photos aside, it was a great weekend, although my friends just don't have the stamina any more! For me, Shieks (club in Bognor) was on Thursday night, so I eventually got into bed at 2.30am. Friday was a 3am bedtime, after we drove to London and caught up with the gossip. Saturday night, we watched a couple of films on DVD (after I endured the final of the Eggs Factor, oh I mean X Factor - I really hate that program). So that was a 3.30am. Rob and Scott (after sleeping their way through most of Mission Impossible III) went out like lights, and didn't wake up until 11am the next morning. Bearing in mind that this was my third late night on the trot, those two must be getting old. I didn't fall asleep until 4am, but I was awake by 9am. What can I say, Scott and Rob are amateurs!

I've had a long drawn out week, and a busy weekend, and now I would like some sleep. Watch out for next week's Christmas edition, which will be available from Christmas Day (or Christmas Eve if you're up trying to catch Father Christmas). I have a special CATCOUK version of the Twelve Days of Christmas in the pipeline ready for your listening pleasure.

Happy Christmas if you don't read up until then!

If you live in London, and hate me, why not leave me a message and tell me to keep out of London under penality of food poisening (I forgot to mention the garlic bread from Rob's local Pizza place - good Pizza though).

If you live in London, love me, and want to start a relationship, why not leave a comment starting with your message with the word 'Antidisestablishmentarianism' and leave your vital statistics, post code, and house number.

[Technical Note:In case you are gullible enough to believe that gullible is the only word mentioned in the Oxford dictionary twice (once under the letter 'gee', and again under the letted 'ged'), France and Egypt photographed in this post are actually differenr parts of Crystal Palace park.]

No Sardine tin for me this time!

I do pick some bizarre post titles, and as you can see, this week is no different. This week, I thought I would do my post in a very day by day manner:

Monday: I was driving to Uni, when I started practicing a song I'm preparing for a later post. Clearly my car, Ernie doesn't like my singing. As we drove through Arundel, my ears suddenly picked up this tapping coming from the engine. When you drive a 20 year old car, any sudden noises are a worry. In fact, I worry sometimes when I fart in the car...

So I pulled over, to see if the tapping noise was just a leaf or a twig or something. Who was I kidding? When the tapping was as metal sounding as that, no twig was going to be responsible. With no break-down cover, and being stuck in Arundel (where everyshop is either an antiques shop, a Sandwich shop, or Pegglers) I was left with very few options. I was in no mood for Sandwich eating, and I was already driving an antique, so I saw no point in staying put.

Instead, I drove my car at the slowest speed I have ever gone in my car, and limped to our Garage in Bognor (W. Jones). After half an hour (which is an age for my driving), I threw my self on the mercy of the garage. They're very good, and I can't promote them enough. Jason (the guy in charge) told one of his guys to leave what he was doing straigh away, and have a listen to my car.

The bloke came out, and said that it sounded like a Hydraulic Tappet had gone. I asked the bloke if it was okay to drive to Chi and back, and he gave that sort of 'Probably not, but you could so it' look, and said 'You'll wanna get that booked in sooner rather than later'. I booked the car in for 9am the next morning, and went to Uni. I didn't risk driving all the way home, so I git Dad to pick me up...

I did get a cool Advent Chocolate though. See my Bebo for more...

Tuesday: Dropped the car off, and picked up the courtesy car. The garage did say that they want to stop doing loan cars, as the last one they loaned caught fire and blew up! Right...

Certainly this is no Sardine tin: my 'nice' courtesy car.

But the car they gave me was in NO danger of that. This was the third courtesy car that I've had, and possibly the nicest. Nice in the way you might call an Aston Martin pleasant. Top of the range 2 litre Ford Focus. It went like shi... very fast. Walnut Dash (alright it was plastic, but it looked nice). Leather trim. And, unlike the last loan car I was given, this was no sardine tin! Michael, I know that you're jealous.

Yeah that's right, it's a Ghia: and I only stalled it three times in the seven hours I had it...

Check out that Walnut dash: Well plastic Walnut dash. Yes it did flex a bit, but it was good to look at.

But no time, to play with the courtesy car, I had an exam to sit. And again, possibly the nicest exam I have ever taken. Paul Tyler, you'd best look away now, because we all know much you think my course is easy. Well the exam was 2.5 hours long on Adventure Environments, and the questions weren't exactly easy. But the exam was open book (so you can read books, listen to MP3's and the like), and because of the subject, for some questions we had to get up and loom at a map, or play with a model.

Now, if that wasn't cushy enough, about half an hour in, they wheeled a trolley in. We were allowed to go to the trolley and get free tea, coffee, fruit juice, and JAFFA CAKES!!! What an exam!!

But what of my car? Last time the garage had my car, they had it for a week. With the courtesy car being as nice as it was, I was quite prepared for the same to happen again (or maybe even hoping...). But just seven hours after dropping my car off, I picked my car up. Ernie has a slight oil leak, and was just completely out of oil. Damn.

Wednesday: A nice long lie in, and then I did alot of revision in preperation for Thursday's Psychology exam. It was a brilliant day just to relax a little. Over the last few months, I havn't really stopped, so this made a nice change. Unfortunatly, I still had to go to Sainsbury's. Yip and indeed ee...

Thursday: After writing over 40 Christmas cards (and I'm still only half way there), I had to go and make sure my friends at Uni got them. And whilst I was at Uni, I thought I'd take a Psychology exam as well. None of us knew what the exam was going to be like. We were all particularly worried about the video analysis part... But of my attempt I can only say this: it was an exam well blagged...

Friday: I took Mum to do some Chritsmas shopping. That's right, I had time to do something other than Uni. It's all over!!! No more assignments. No more exams. No more lectures. For this year anyway. Of course this is th way of things to come.

Saturday/ Sunday: Nothing.

That's right, for the first time since May, I actually had a weekend with nothing on. At all. Not a sausage. Oh, I'm starting to sound like an Advert for Dyson. Well anyway, you get my point. I have been at home ALL weekend. No Uni, no NTC, no Lions, no nothing. I even took the time to wash my car. Again, probably for the first time since May...

Lastly, this week's Christmas gift to you all, is the long awaited video of my Karioke that we were all promised back in September. That's right, this week you can go to my Bebo, and watch a video of me singing Angels by Robbie Williams. Watch out for my subtle air guitar motion in the video...

Also, don't forget to watch out for my advent chocolate suprises. Yesterday, I got a Tardis. No chocolate though, so I do feel a little cheated. And the Tardis isn't even big enough for me to get in, so I can travel back in time, and buy another calendar! Although I have heard that it's much bigger on the inside than the outside...

An apple a day...: It may keep the doctor away, but I have his Tardis! Guess the doctor's smaller than I thought.

Have a good week y'all. See you back here at the same time next week!

If you think that my exams are too cushy, why not leave a comment, and tell me to get a real job, and stop dodging the taxes.

If you think that it's about time I had a weekend off, why not leave me a comment, and tell me that I should stop doing everything, and just stay at home the whole time slowly becomming a vegitable.

Yippee! It's essay time!

Contrary to recent comments, us Adventure Education students do occasionally have to put our Kayaks in the shed, hang up our climbing boots, and put the mountain bikes in for a service. And when this apocolyptic bi-annual event happens, another strange sighting can be made:

All the Adventure Ed students gathered in the Library!!!

Yes, all 30 second year Adventure Education students panicked this week, upon realising that we actually have to hand some assignments in next week. Motivation is a clear issue when completing assignments (Clarke, 2006) as looking for research, and compiling endless references is enough to make you grab two pencils, and jab your eyeballs out (Clarke and Emery, 2005)! As you can see, I just can't help but put those references in...

As I said, it's difficult to get motivated, especially when you are writing 1750 word essays on Risk Assesments. In fact, I started one essay on Monday, and it took until Thursday to complete the 1000 words!!! So as you can imagine, it's been a bit of a slow week. I've barely seen anyone all week, and those I have seen have been buried alive under a mountain of research books.

But this week's post is saved by the events of Friday. Does anybody know what Friday was? That's right kids, 1st of December!!!! And as everyone out there knows, that can mean only one thing. Yep - chocolate ADVENT CALENDAS!!!! So from now until... oh... lets say Christmas day, I'll be adding a photo of my Advent chocolate to a new photo album on my Bebo (catcouk.bebo.com). The first of our Christmas features here at CATCOUK (first of many), so that you can enjoy my chocolates as much as me. Well, you'll know what I've started my day with. As well as a bowl ogf coco-pops...

Fig 1. Doctor Who's advanced quantum mechanics advent calenda for those with degrees.

This year's Advent calenda is Bon Bon's DOCTOR WHO calendar (bought from J Sainsbury's Supermarkets Ltd). I would have to rate the chocolates at 7 out of 10. Okay, not as good as Cadbury's, but no where near as bad as Hershey's. The overall rating for the calenda is upped by the fact that is says you get goodies to play with (havn't got one yet though). But the rating is lowered by the fact that you have to have a degree in Advanced Quantum Mechanics to get the chocolate out! It's buried deep in the plastic holder... So, overall (after additions and reductions) let's say...

DOCTOR WHO SCORES.... (drum roll please)

6.1784964056 out of 10

Enough said!

Lastly, I need to set some of you straight. Many of you think that on the weekends all I do, is wear funny clothes, and hit a drum in a Marching Band. In fact, I actually wear women's clothes, and hang around in bars. No, I don't. I'll admit I have been doing alot with the band of late. This Saturday, we joined one of our sister ships (TS Sturdy) to lead the Chichester Candle procession to count down to the big switch on of the Chichester Christmas lights. My side drum had lights in and everything...

But I'm not banding EVERY weekend. Readers of my blog will know that last weekend I tried to give all my cadets pneumonia by having an afternoon of activities in the cold freezing rain. This weekend, as well as battling with padestrians to march up Chichester high street, I also attended my Mum's confirmation at Church. I'm sure it was very good, but as I was asleep for the hour and a half it lasted, I'm not entirely sure. Dad poked me every now and again to get an 'Amen' out of me...

Another successful blog well blogged I feel. Just enough time left to announce that January replacements have been selected. After literally THREE applications, it was a difficult decision to make, but my good friends Ian Emery and Michael Gates will be taking the CATCOUK helm, and keeping you entertained for the two weeks that I'm away for.

Thanks for reading again this week, lets see what little Christmas related suprise I have for you all next week. Just a quick reminder to you all, that as of Monday you have/ had just 19 shoplifting days until Christmas. Get misappropriating those Christmas presents today! (this is not encouragement to start steeling from shops. Don't steel kids, it's not cool)

If you hate Christmas, and would rather I stopped talking about it, why not leave a message saying how much you hate me, and the Little Donkey song (no Graham, I havn't forgotten).

If you like Christmas and think that I should start appearing in Karioke bars everywhere singing yule tide tunes, and spreading my words of joy... Deck the halls with bells of holly, fa la la la la, la la la larrrrrrrrr!

Thank you, I'm here all week.

References

Clarke, A. J. F. (2006). An interesting study into the theory and application of absolute bordom in the motivation of adventure eductaion students in 1750 word essays on risk assesments. The Journal of interesting studies into theories and applications of interesting topics, 2(3) 88-69.

Clarke, A., and Emery, I. (2005). How to commit suicide using basic office tools: a behavioural approach. Ireland: Gobshite Press Inc.