Tuesday, November 25, 2008
N.E.R.D.S. Ramble No. 228.
Wednesday 19th November 2008.
Those Present – Froggy, Bronco, B.T., Matt, Lafayette, Sandyballs.
The Wetherspoons Ramble.
Most of us met chez Lafayette because Lavender Lodge was on the way to Brighton and Lafayette always had a full drinks cabinet. The NERDS had been expecting an early cheapo Christmas dinner to be taken at the famous Wetherspoons hostelry in the Marina, but sadly Froggy had logged on to Asian/Czech Au pair Babes Wearing Not Many Clothes instead of Wetherspoons . com and got all the information wrong. Christmas lunch did not start until 15 00hrs because, being a philanthropic organization, Wsp was committed to spend the morning feeding the destitute from the Congo who had bamboozled their way in via some lax port, so - no early fodder for the NERDS!
Never mind we could always turn up and eat monkey meat and spiders like The Unfortunates did, so everybody filled up on choccy biscuits and Irish Whiskey chez Lafayette and whiled away the time with the usual gossip. Froggy was bemoaning the fact that there didn’t seem to be any hot chix on the train any more until it was pointed out that at this time of day they were probably all in school. Somebody was wondering if they had enough walnuts to stuff up their turkey, and Matt was musing on collecting those little jam jars you get in posh hotels so that he could bottle his cut-up pubic hair and send it to his friends for Christmas (beats one of those round robin letters any day).
Disgusted at all this levity, Sandy balls threw us out into the street and told us we were here to ramble not to be smutty (now there’s a first!). So we all promptly got on the nearest bus and travelled to Rottingdean.
Now Rottingdean is a nice place full of cultured posh people, including the ex Chief Inspector of Immigration who still gets through a bottle of scotch a day such was the strain of the job (must have worked at Newhaven). The NERDS wandered round trying to look tidy ( good job Philby wasn’t with us) and came across The Plough near a duck pond - handy to fall into when you came out, and decided to have an aperitif. Inside we drank Harveys and had a competition between Lafayette and Sandyballs as to who had been Mutt and who had been Jeff in Dublin. It turned out (according to Matt) that Sb had been Mutt because of his hearing deficiency, and Lf had been Jeff because he was the intelligent one. Too intelligent to spend his holiday in Cork, at any rate.
We emerged from the pub blinking into the bright sunshine and managed to sidestep the duck pond. The weather was cheerful and mild so we set off up a crazy hill to an old windmill where we found some old bugger slumped in a corner wrapped round a bottle of Bells and blethering on about hot cross buns and the good old days. No, it wasn’t Philby but it was what Philby could have become with a little application and getting in to work on time. Oh, the chances we miss when Fate throws them our way!
Nearby there was a memorial stone listing all the good, local worthies who had died at sea. Lafayette was disappointed not to get a mention, but Sandy balls pointed out that just getting pissed on the Chartres a few times and having one or two (well, one) dodgy crossing didn’t actually qualify to get your name up in lights.
Los NIERDOS wandered down the other side of the hill and through St. Dunstans from the lofty paths of which we had a pleasant view of the shimmering sea and where nobody took a blind bit of notice at our presence. We had to put our best foot forward now as Bronco would be tapping his fingers on the bar of Wetherspoons being concerned by our tardiness and by his own vast appetite. And so we arrived, but no Bronco! Apparently he had stopped off at no fewer than six cafes en route to have a breakfast in each just in case they ran out of food at lunch. When he arrived we all sat and boiled in the sun together.
It must be said that the scoff at Wetherspoons wasn’t bad and good value too. Lafayette particularly liked the crunchy spiders especially imported from Goma. Bronco’s ankle wasn’t any better but at least he didn’t have horrific gout like Sandyballs. B.T. said if his next deal with Sealink went through successfully we could all have our own yachts parked in the marina and ramble between them to save time pouring drinks. Froggy hoovered up the remains of Bronco’s chicken tikka and then cleared everybody else’s plate (Don’t you get fed at home ?) and Matt said Sandyballs looked divine in his blue denim shirt. In short, we were all very mellow and it looked like it had been a successful ramble and lunch.
After a brief zoom round Asda for a camera case for Matt, and a brief stay in MacDonalds for an icecream again for Matt, the ramble broke up. Lafayette elected to travel home (free) on the bus after having ascended the sheer cliff face, while Los Otros dragged Bronco into the centre of Brighton for all sorts of naughty goings-on, many of which will probably be revealed in the next write-up if Lafayette gets high on mescalin again.
Thanks be to all who took part and contributed. Remember, next month is the Christmas do so start collecting those little jam pots and walnuts now!
Lafayette.
Wednesday 19th November 2008.
Those Present – Froggy, Bronco, B.T., Matt, Lafayette, Sandyballs.
The Wetherspoons Ramble.
Most of us met chez Lafayette because Lavender Lodge was on the way to Brighton and Lafayette always had a full drinks cabinet. The NERDS had been expecting an early cheapo Christmas dinner to be taken at the famous Wetherspoons hostelry in the Marina, but sadly Froggy had logged on to Asian/Czech Au pair Babes Wearing Not Many Clothes instead of Wetherspoons . com and got all the information wrong. Christmas lunch did not start until 15 00hrs because, being a philanthropic organization, Wsp was committed to spend the morning feeding the destitute from the Congo who had bamboozled their way in via some lax port, so - no early fodder for the NERDS!
Never mind we could always turn up and eat monkey meat and spiders like The Unfortunates did, so everybody filled up on choccy biscuits and Irish Whiskey chez Lafayette and whiled away the time with the usual gossip. Froggy was bemoaning the fact that there didn’t seem to be any hot chix on the train any more until it was pointed out that at this time of day they were probably all in school. Somebody was wondering if they had enough walnuts to stuff up their turkey, and Matt was musing on collecting those little jam jars you get in posh hotels so that he could bottle his cut-up pubic hair and send it to his friends for Christmas (beats one of those round robin letters any day).
Disgusted at all this levity, Sandy balls threw us out into the street and told us we were here to ramble not to be smutty (now there’s a first!). So we all promptly got on the nearest bus and travelled to Rottingdean.
Now Rottingdean is a nice place full of cultured posh people, including the ex Chief Inspector of Immigration who still gets through a bottle of scotch a day such was the strain of the job (must have worked at Newhaven). The NERDS wandered round trying to look tidy ( good job Philby wasn’t with us) and came across The Plough near a duck pond - handy to fall into when you came out, and decided to have an aperitif. Inside we drank Harveys and had a competition between Lafayette and Sandyballs as to who had been Mutt and who had been Jeff in Dublin. It turned out (according to Matt) that Sb had been Mutt because of his hearing deficiency, and Lf had been Jeff because he was the intelligent one. Too intelligent to spend his holiday in Cork, at any rate.
We emerged from the pub blinking into the bright sunshine and managed to sidestep the duck pond. The weather was cheerful and mild so we set off up a crazy hill to an old windmill where we found some old bugger slumped in a corner wrapped round a bottle of Bells and blethering on about hot cross buns and the good old days. No, it wasn’t Philby but it was what Philby could have become with a little application and getting in to work on time. Oh, the chances we miss when Fate throws them our way!
Nearby there was a memorial stone listing all the good, local worthies who had died at sea. Lafayette was disappointed not to get a mention, but Sandy balls pointed out that just getting pissed on the Chartres a few times and having one or two (well, one) dodgy crossing didn’t actually qualify to get your name up in lights.
Los NIERDOS wandered down the other side of the hill and through St. Dunstans from the lofty paths of which we had a pleasant view of the shimmering sea and where nobody took a blind bit of notice at our presence. We had to put our best foot forward now as Bronco would be tapping his fingers on the bar of Wetherspoons being concerned by our tardiness and by his own vast appetite. And so we arrived, but no Bronco! Apparently he had stopped off at no fewer than six cafes en route to have a breakfast in each just in case they ran out of food at lunch. When he arrived we all sat and boiled in the sun together.
It must be said that the scoff at Wetherspoons wasn’t bad and good value too. Lafayette particularly liked the crunchy spiders especially imported from Goma. Bronco’s ankle wasn’t any better but at least he didn’t have horrific gout like Sandyballs. B.T. said if his next deal with Sealink went through successfully we could all have our own yachts parked in the marina and ramble between them to save time pouring drinks. Froggy hoovered up the remains of Bronco’s chicken tikka and then cleared everybody else’s plate (Don’t you get fed at home ?) and Matt said Sandyballs looked divine in his blue denim shirt. In short, we were all very mellow and it looked like it had been a successful ramble and lunch.
After a brief zoom round Asda for a camera case for Matt, and a brief stay in MacDonalds for an icecream again for Matt, the ramble broke up. Lafayette elected to travel home (free) on the bus after having ascended the sheer cliff face, while Los Otros dragged Bronco into the centre of Brighton for all sorts of naughty goings-on, many of which will probably be revealed in the next write-up if Lafayette gets high on mescalin again.
Thanks be to all who took part and contributed. Remember, next month is the Christmas do so start collecting those little jam pots and walnuts now!
Lafayette.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
NERDS Ramble No 227. Wednesday 12th November 2008.
Those Present – Lafayette, Froggy, Matt, B.T., Bronco, Sandyballs.
The Poorly Toe Ramble.
Sandyballs had a poorly toe. Not only was it poorly, it looked gross. All the NERDS practically threw up when he whipped off his sock and waved the vile, poxy object in their faces. Whispers of his having picked up syphilis in an overseas brothel abounded; people began to edge away from him nervously, dogs howled mournfully and a cloud passed over the sun. How could we ramble under these circumstances? Fortunately everything returned to normal once he had put his sock back on, except that Froggy was spotted with a lump of cotton wool in his ear. “ I’ve got a poorly ear,” he said, but by this time we weren’t in the mood for attention seeking trivialities and set off through Lewes in the hope that nobody’s leg would fall off. We were going to meet up with Bronco in Ringmer and thought we’d better get there quick before he died of overdrinking in the bar of The Anchor or worse, died of something unrelated to drink!
After the sun had reappeared it wasn’t a bad day. This was to be the first of two rambles in November because nothing had happened in October and the NERDS were by now getting thirsty. First of all we had to negotiate the golf course so we knackered ourselves by climbing up golf course hill at the edge of Lewes and appeared on some putting green or other where Froggy wanted to leave everybody’s balls alone (!).
The trouble with golf courses is that they get in the way of ramblers’ routes, there are lots of nasty quicksandy bits into which you can sink and they contain a lot of prats who think they can whack white balls at NERDS. Tolerance levels between the two factions is always fairly low, so when we were greeted with “ I say, you there, yes you with the gangrenous foot, would you mind awfully not making our nice green die by dragging your foot over it.” you start to plot a hideous revenge ( like coming back at night and
fire-bombing the place). However, Mr Poorly foot guided us off enemy territory and we tried to head towards Ringmer.
It was obvious that Sandyballs had failed to reconnoitre this walk since we kept going round in circles and getting disorientated (a bit). Mercifully the weather remained sunny and we negotiated fields of sheep and sheep-shit to cruise into Ringmer where the Posh
(Monied) People live and where they all drink in The Anchor.
Fortunately Bronco was still there and only half drunk. “ Christ! What’s that hideous smell of rotting flesh ?” were his first words to Sandy balls. “ Oh , just a little something I picked up in a bawdy house in Macau,” was the macho reply. “ Better have a drink, then, “ concluded the ever practical Bronco, and limped off to get the booze in . “ Still suffering from that old cavalry wound to your ankle then?” said Matt sympathetically when he returned with the drinks.”No, actually, some bloody whore tripped me up in a brothel in Macau,” replied Bronco. Sandyballs remained guiltily silent.
The food wasn’t bad here, and while we ate Froggy told us about his new literary project entitled “The Loneliness of The RearEnd Surfer” (Don’t ask), while B.T. told us the last time he had paid for sex (apart from with sailors in his first job) was in Africa 45 years previously (monkeys? anacondors? Wildebeest?). Lafayette said that the women in Islamabad used to clamour around his back door for sex waving 100 rupee notes in his direction, but nobody believed him such was his reputation for exaggeration.
Sandyballs thought we should be heading back to the Metropolis so we all got our bus passes out (except Froggy and B.T. ha ha!) and got on a bus with thousands of screaming schoolkids from the local school. Most of the NERDS felt quite comfortable sitting next to nubile nymphets upstairs and holding their satchels for them, while Sandyballs (because of his poorly toe) sat downstairs and made some new friends with the wrinklies.
Eventually we arrived at the John Harvey Tavern where peace reigned for a short while until nobody could work out how to “manage “ the final whip (not even Lafayette with all his life skills) and where we decided to honour Philby in January with a Dead Dog Layby Ramble – something to do with La Fete des Morts both dogs and NERDS. The idea was to sit in the layby and drink red wine and remember the dog, and then to proceed to Philby’s grave nearby to show a bit of respect for a defunct NERD.
And so the ramble fizzled out. Thanks to Sandyballs for organization etc. and for letting us see his manky toe, and thanks to B.T. for returning Lafayette’s notes which he had absentmindedly left in the pub. Next week we all descend on Wetherspoons in Brighton for a cheap Christmas meal thanks to Froggy’s vigilance in scouring the internet for … erm other subjects.
See you all chez moi next week for biscuits – Bring your hipflasks!
Lafayette.
Those Present – Lafayette, Froggy, Matt, B.T., Bronco, Sandyballs.
The Poorly Toe Ramble.
Sandyballs had a poorly toe. Not only was it poorly, it looked gross. All the NERDS practically threw up when he whipped off his sock and waved the vile, poxy object in their faces. Whispers of his having picked up syphilis in an overseas brothel abounded; people began to edge away from him nervously, dogs howled mournfully and a cloud passed over the sun. How could we ramble under these circumstances? Fortunately everything returned to normal once he had put his sock back on, except that Froggy was spotted with a lump of cotton wool in his ear. “ I’ve got a poorly ear,” he said, but by this time we weren’t in the mood for attention seeking trivialities and set off through Lewes in the hope that nobody’s leg would fall off. We were going to meet up with Bronco in Ringmer and thought we’d better get there quick before he died of overdrinking in the bar of The Anchor or worse, died of something unrelated to drink!
After the sun had reappeared it wasn’t a bad day. This was to be the first of two rambles in November because nothing had happened in October and the NERDS were by now getting thirsty. First of all we had to negotiate the golf course so we knackered ourselves by climbing up golf course hill at the edge of Lewes and appeared on some putting green or other where Froggy wanted to leave everybody’s balls alone (!).
The trouble with golf courses is that they get in the way of ramblers’ routes, there are lots of nasty quicksandy bits into which you can sink and they contain a lot of prats who think they can whack white balls at NERDS. Tolerance levels between the two factions is always fairly low, so when we were greeted with “ I say, you there, yes you with the gangrenous foot, would you mind awfully not making our nice green die by dragging your foot over it.” you start to plot a hideous revenge ( like coming back at night and
fire-bombing the place). However, Mr Poorly foot guided us off enemy territory and we tried to head towards Ringmer.
It was obvious that Sandyballs had failed to reconnoitre this walk since we kept going round in circles and getting disorientated (a bit). Mercifully the weather remained sunny and we negotiated fields of sheep and sheep-shit to cruise into Ringmer where the Posh
(Monied) People live and where they all drink in The Anchor.
Fortunately Bronco was still there and only half drunk. “ Christ! What’s that hideous smell of rotting flesh ?” were his first words to Sandy balls. “ Oh , just a little something I picked up in a bawdy house in Macau,” was the macho reply. “ Better have a drink, then, “ concluded the ever practical Bronco, and limped off to get the booze in . “ Still suffering from that old cavalry wound to your ankle then?” said Matt sympathetically when he returned with the drinks.”No, actually, some bloody whore tripped me up in a brothel in Macau,” replied Bronco. Sandyballs remained guiltily silent.
The food wasn’t bad here, and while we ate Froggy told us about his new literary project entitled “The Loneliness of The RearEnd Surfer” (Don’t ask), while B.T. told us the last time he had paid for sex (apart from with sailors in his first job) was in Africa 45 years previously (monkeys? anacondors? Wildebeest?). Lafayette said that the women in Islamabad used to clamour around his back door for sex waving 100 rupee notes in his direction, but nobody believed him such was his reputation for exaggeration.
Sandyballs thought we should be heading back to the Metropolis so we all got our bus passes out (except Froggy and B.T. ha ha!) and got on a bus with thousands of screaming schoolkids from the local school. Most of the NERDS felt quite comfortable sitting next to nubile nymphets upstairs and holding their satchels for them, while Sandyballs (because of his poorly toe) sat downstairs and made some new friends with the wrinklies.
Eventually we arrived at the John Harvey Tavern where peace reigned for a short while until nobody could work out how to “manage “ the final whip (not even Lafayette with all his life skills) and where we decided to honour Philby in January with a Dead Dog Layby Ramble – something to do with La Fete des Morts both dogs and NERDS. The idea was to sit in the layby and drink red wine and remember the dog, and then to proceed to Philby’s grave nearby to show a bit of respect for a defunct NERD.
And so the ramble fizzled out. Thanks to Sandyballs for organization etc. and for letting us see his manky toe, and thanks to B.T. for returning Lafayette’s notes which he had absentmindedly left in the pub. Next week we all descend on Wetherspoons in Brighton for a cheap Christmas meal thanks to Froggy’s vigilance in scouring the internet for … erm other subjects.
See you all chez moi next week for biscuits – Bring your hipflasks!
Lafayette.
Monday, October 06, 2008
The WASH-OUT RAMBLE
THE N.E.R.D.S. RAMBLE No.226 - The Wash-out Ramble.
Tuesday 30th September 2008.
Those Present - Matt, Froggy, B.T., Bronco, Sandyballs and Lafayette.
Remember “ The Darts in Lewes” ramble last month when bad weather prevented the NERDS from getting any form of wholesome exercise? Well this month was no better. Froggy had originally arranged for us to go around Arlington Reservoir and eat at Pete’s Pub (The Yew Tree) at Arlington, but Fate inflicted shitty weather on us and decided that we were going to spend all day drinking yet again.
It was rainy and windy and it was decided to meet at Seaford station. Dead easy you might think - buy a ticket, get on the train, don’t drink until you get off at the right stop (for obvious reasons) and then meet up together and plan what to do next.
Ho, ho, ho! Why is nothing simple? First off you’d got three lots of NERDS coming from three different directions, and to complicate matters a little bit five cows decided to walk across the railway line between Lewes and Newhaven and tried to commit suicide in a spectacularly train fucking-up way.
God, the utter chaos! The cows were on their mobile phones to each other trying to get off the track, some of the NERDS were on separate stationary buses dying of thirst, it was still pissing down with rain and clearly the ramble was out of the window. Luckily, by dint of snatching the phones off the cows and communicating with each other, we all met up in The Wellington to talk about our terrible experiences. Lafayette said he hadn’t come across such a mess since he’d tried to sail over to Dieppe one stormy day in 1990 - Did I ever tell you about that? And Froggy said he hadn’t been so depressed since his book had been rejected for publication for the twenty-ninth time ( Did he ever tell you about that?)
And so we drank and began to accuse each other of lots of nasty, vicious things . Matt said he’d seen Froggy hobknobbing with Nobby and how dare he when Nobby hadn’t bought Matt an icecream two years ago. Lafayette remarked that B.T. was getting a little worn as his catamite and he was thinking of getting a new one, this time from a girl’s school. B.T. threatened Lafayette with a costly divorce. Sandyballs said he’d recently gone to Lourdes on Philby’s advice to get his ear done, but he’d wasted all his money and was still deaf. Consequently he was thinking of deleting Philby’s number from the memory on his mobile…..
Lafayette, peeved at the thought of having to pay B.T. for not having sex with him, threatened to kill Bronco’s horse and roast him on a massive barbecue. The nice friendly atmospheres of previous rambles seemed to be being undermined.
Luckily, just then we transferred to The Plough and B.T. remembered it was Jewish New Year and got up to buy everyone a round of drinks. Good humour was restored all round; we ordered lunch and began to take bets on how big a steak Bronco was going to buy. We weren’t disappointed either as Bronco got himself an Elephant burger with extra chips and then wondered why he’d got tusks sticking up out of his sesame bun. Meanwhile Matt was fantasising about how sexy Sandyballs was looking in denim and how he reminded him of Paul Newman when he was shagging Robert Redford in that film about cowboys. (Brokeback Mountain, wasn’t it ?)
Just then Matt’s dreams were shattered when he counted up how many scampi he had been served. Only seven? How could this be? Needs a recount, GET THE MANAGER IMMEDIATELY, DON’T YOU KNOW WHO I AM? Some poor girly was despatched to pacify his rants - no avail, Matt was not satisfied with a rational explanation nor even a grovelling apology. In desperation the girly offered to show him her tits but Matt wanted to be the centre of attention and demanded a free dessert or else he would get really cross. We’d all seen this schizophrenic behaviour before when someone had got shit all over his newly hoovered carpet so hastened to advise the girly to bring him a giant sized strawberry pavlova with salad cream tout de suite.
Order was sort of restored. Froggy finished off Bronco’s crappy steak and ordered a froggy bag for his leftovers. He soothed Matt’s ruffled feathers by relating how he had met this big Nigerian on line who had promised to publish his second autobiography -”All Shagged Out at Thirty” as long as he paid him a small administration fee of $10,000 direct to Lagos.
Sandyballs suggested that Froggy might have more success if he went to Lourdes and threw his manuscript at a few statues of Our Lady. Time for a change of pub so we went back to The Welly.
A nice game of darts - good robust, physical exercise for all the NERDS, none of this namby pamby walking rubbish. B.T. had forgotten to bring his darts so had bought a posh brass set in the catamite shop (special offer to those who split little boys). So we played the usual game - Dinky Ports against Real Ports. Sandyballs and Froggy were good, devious even, maintaining that brass darts gave an unfair advantage against Froggy’s nickel tungsten jobs but B.T. got the high scores and Lafayette doubled out. Sandyballs threw his darts on the floor in a strop and wouldn’t play any more after having been beaten twice in a row. No miracles today then!
Thereafter everyone scowled at each other and buggered off home. We are going to have to pick a day with fine weather next time otherwise we might risk getting on each others’ nerves. Sandyballs reckons Wednesdays are OK but Lafayette does his shipwreck training on those days just in case he gets hit by a second tsunami while crossing the Channel. Matt can’t make Fridays because he‘s usually having a new lavatory installed then, and Bronco can’t make Saturdays because he’s usually up at Cartiers buying watches. What are we to do? I know, arrange two rambles for October and hope there won’t be any cows on the line next time.
Mille Baisers, Lafayette.
Tuesday 30th September 2008.
Those Present - Matt, Froggy, B.T., Bronco, Sandyballs and Lafayette.
Remember “ The Darts in Lewes” ramble last month when bad weather prevented the NERDS from getting any form of wholesome exercise? Well this month was no better. Froggy had originally arranged for us to go around Arlington Reservoir and eat at Pete’s Pub (The Yew Tree) at Arlington, but Fate inflicted shitty weather on us and decided that we were going to spend all day drinking yet again.
It was rainy and windy and it was decided to meet at Seaford station. Dead easy you might think - buy a ticket, get on the train, don’t drink until you get off at the right stop (for obvious reasons) and then meet up together and plan what to do next.
Ho, ho, ho! Why is nothing simple? First off you’d got three lots of NERDS coming from three different directions, and to complicate matters a little bit five cows decided to walk across the railway line between Lewes and Newhaven and tried to commit suicide in a spectacularly train fucking-up way.
God, the utter chaos! The cows were on their mobile phones to each other trying to get off the track, some of the NERDS were on separate stationary buses dying of thirst, it was still pissing down with rain and clearly the ramble was out of the window. Luckily, by dint of snatching the phones off the cows and communicating with each other, we all met up in The Wellington to talk about our terrible experiences. Lafayette said he hadn’t come across such a mess since he’d tried to sail over to Dieppe one stormy day in 1990 - Did I ever tell you about that? And Froggy said he hadn’t been so depressed since his book had been rejected for publication for the twenty-ninth time ( Did he ever tell you about that?)
And so we drank and began to accuse each other of lots of nasty, vicious things . Matt said he’d seen Froggy hobknobbing with Nobby and how dare he when Nobby hadn’t bought Matt an icecream two years ago. Lafayette remarked that B.T. was getting a little worn as his catamite and he was thinking of getting a new one, this time from a girl’s school. B.T. threatened Lafayette with a costly divorce. Sandyballs said he’d recently gone to Lourdes on Philby’s advice to get his ear done, but he’d wasted all his money and was still deaf. Consequently he was thinking of deleting Philby’s number from the memory on his mobile…..
Lafayette, peeved at the thought of having to pay B.T. for not having sex with him, threatened to kill Bronco’s horse and roast him on a massive barbecue. The nice friendly atmospheres of previous rambles seemed to be being undermined.
Luckily, just then we transferred to The Plough and B.T. remembered it was Jewish New Year and got up to buy everyone a round of drinks. Good humour was restored all round; we ordered lunch and began to take bets on how big a steak Bronco was going to buy. We weren’t disappointed either as Bronco got himself an Elephant burger with extra chips and then wondered why he’d got tusks sticking up out of his sesame bun. Meanwhile Matt was fantasising about how sexy Sandyballs was looking in denim and how he reminded him of Paul Newman when he was shagging Robert Redford in that film about cowboys. (Brokeback Mountain, wasn’t it ?)
Just then Matt’s dreams were shattered when he counted up how many scampi he had been served. Only seven? How could this be? Needs a recount, GET THE MANAGER IMMEDIATELY, DON’T YOU KNOW WHO I AM? Some poor girly was despatched to pacify his rants - no avail, Matt was not satisfied with a rational explanation nor even a grovelling apology. In desperation the girly offered to show him her tits but Matt wanted to be the centre of attention and demanded a free dessert or else he would get really cross. We’d all seen this schizophrenic behaviour before when someone had got shit all over his newly hoovered carpet so hastened to advise the girly to bring him a giant sized strawberry pavlova with salad cream tout de suite.
Order was sort of restored. Froggy finished off Bronco’s crappy steak and ordered a froggy bag for his leftovers. He soothed Matt’s ruffled feathers by relating how he had met this big Nigerian on line who had promised to publish his second autobiography -”All Shagged Out at Thirty” as long as he paid him a small administration fee of $10,000 direct to Lagos.
Sandyballs suggested that Froggy might have more success if he went to Lourdes and threw his manuscript at a few statues of Our Lady. Time for a change of pub so we went back to The Welly.
A nice game of darts - good robust, physical exercise for all the NERDS, none of this namby pamby walking rubbish. B.T. had forgotten to bring his darts so had bought a posh brass set in the catamite shop (special offer to those who split little boys). So we played the usual game - Dinky Ports against Real Ports. Sandyballs and Froggy were good, devious even, maintaining that brass darts gave an unfair advantage against Froggy’s nickel tungsten jobs but B.T. got the high scores and Lafayette doubled out. Sandyballs threw his darts on the floor in a strop and wouldn’t play any more after having been beaten twice in a row. No miracles today then!
Thereafter everyone scowled at each other and buggered off home. We are going to have to pick a day with fine weather next time otherwise we might risk getting on each others’ nerves. Sandyballs reckons Wednesdays are OK but Lafayette does his shipwreck training on those days just in case he gets hit by a second tsunami while crossing the Channel. Matt can’t make Fridays because he‘s usually having a new lavatory installed then, and Bronco can’t make Saturdays because he’s usually up at Cartiers buying watches. What are we to do? I know, arrange two rambles for October and hope there won’t be any cows on the line next time.
Mille Baisers, Lafayette.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
At Last the "Double" write-up
THE N.E.R.D.S. Rambles 226 & 227.
No.226 Thursday 31st July 2008.
Those present - Froggy, Bronco, Sandyballs, Matt, Lafayette
The Morpheus Ramble.
Those endowed with a Classical education, and who may have read Ovid, will know that the deity who presided over this month’s ramble is the god of
forgetfulness. Lafayette had lost his contemporaneous notes, alas, and so had to rely on his failing memory. What is more, when he ‘fessed up to this peccadillo he found that the rest of the Nerds had memories just as crap as his and so nobody really knows exactly what happened.
Although the she-devil alcohol may have warped our collective memories a bit, Sandyballs remembers taking us to Cooden Beach on the train. Shirley wasn’t there this time, more’s the pity, since she gets quite articulate when drink is thrust upon her, and she may well have been able to tell us what we got up to,
(or not, depending on what we may have done).
Most of us remember that the weather was dull and that we walked over a lot of fields arriving finally at The Star at Cooden Beach. The food and drink were very good involving a buffet lunch and four different sorts of meat. We walked back along the stony beach which made for difficult locomotion (Lafayette remembers remarking about this to Bronco) and we all had an icecream. Then we had a few drinks in the pouring rain in a pub near the station and came home.
So you see, a bloody boring ramble really, and one hardly worth writing about even if Lafayette’s notes had been discovered. If only Shirley had been there things might have been so different…
Now this next ramble on the other hand.
Publishers Note.
It is really sad when the one tasked in recording the annals looses his marbles. As you may see from the photographs there was another member of this group who actually ambled on this promenade and recorded the findings in celluloid. Perhaps of ghosts of ramblers past are f***ing up the “Ramrod”.
Ramble No. 227 - Thursday 4th Sept. 2008
Those Present - Lafayette, Sandyballs, B.T., Froggy, Bronco.
The Darts In Lewes Ramble.
Well we had hardly rubbed the sleep from our eyes when the telephones of the Nerds began to jingle off the walls. Outside the weather had decided not to shine on the righteous and the rain was falling in stair rods. ( Who writes this shit, anyway?) Sandyballs was concerned that the Nerds would all drown if he took us on his proposed route and Lafayette agreed. One fatality per year in the Nerds is more than enough, we didn’t want to commit mass suicide. So…. a bit of darts practice was mooted and the boys were all told to bring their weapons.
Froggy met Lafayette on the train. It could have been a fairly banal journey apart from the fact that they were squeezed in among about 1500 female teenage students all in very short skirts, casual decollete white blouses and all madly texting each other so that they did not see the slavering, lust ridden expressions on these Nerds’ faces, nor did they realise the awful effect they were having on the nether regions of these upright citizens. Imagine my surprise (as the saying goes) when all of a flash Froggy and Lafayette suddenly found themselves in Lewes as though time had accelerated and they had both been in Moslem heaven.
Anyway, enough of this porn. L. and F. met the others outside the station all except Bronco who was not answering his phone and seemed to be incommunicado. Finally he turned up wearing immaculate suede boots, a smart jacket and sporting a stylish umbrella to qualify for Best Dressed Nerd of the Year award. B.T. , our newly promoted Nerds photographer, had a field day recording this piece of sartorial elegance - especially the umbrella. Bronco said he didn’t want to get his suede boots wet and we all told him not to be such a fairy otherwise we’d go over to his house and confiscate his horse and eat him (the horse).
Sandyballs mooted a mini ramble around the ruined priory but luckily it started to rain at that instant so we had to turn about and head for the nearest drinking hole. This turned out to be the King’s Head which did not seem to be very open -even at gone half past eleven in the morning. There was a postman outside with what looked like a parcel to deliver, so we hung about thinking to dash inside once the door was opened , however, sadly, the postie decided he’d got the wrong address and moved on.
Fortunately The Swan at Southover was open so we all piled into the well proportioned games room and got stuck into throwing darts at each other.
The more we drank, the better we played. Lafayette and B.T. (The Real Ports) against Froggy and Sandyballs (The Dinky Ports). The results see-sawed back and forth with The Real Ports winning most of the games where some mental agility was called for (like adding up a score and taking it away from what you got last time), and The Dinky Ports who managed one good shot to win at cricket. Meanwhile Bronco was in dispute with the very helpful barman over the lack of black rats in his cider, but the barman said they didn’t make the cider out of black rats any more because folks were getting peed off with the results.
Since The Swan had a suspect kitchen (too many rats) we decided to proceed to The Brewers for lunch where Sandyballs had family connections. This became
very obvious when the landlady, Cathy, upon seeing Sandyballs come crashing over the doorstep, went and brought out her love-child, Elena, held her up in his face and said “You’re late with this month’s maintenance again !” Sandyballs told her to chalk it up on his account once again since he had the promise of a lucrative short posting to Brussels due to the sad demise of the previous incumbent and where you got free red wine and were paid in euros.
We had an excellent lunch in the Brewers - Froggy was so taken with the food that he even had a second meal while he pondered the compelling question of
“ What exactly is a Quasamite?” and where once again the Proper Ports trounced the Dinky Ports at darts. On the way out we saw Cathy’s Dad, Jasper, sat on the steps outside the back door. He collared Sandyballs and said “ You see moy daughter all roit and I ’ll put you forward for a position in the masons, but spurn ’er and I’ll put the word round an’ yorl never get another point uv Harveys in Lewes agin.” Sandyballs thought a rapid escape abroad again might be to his advantage.
But first it was decided to visit an old friend of Sandyballs in the Crown Hotel down the road. Yes, the Ugly Barmaid was still there, and even uglier if that was possible. Froggy thought he had found the answer to his compelling question at last - a Quasamite is whatever turns you on - until Lafayette gently reminded him of all the untapped nymphet crumpet that was due to come out of the Tertiary College in the next few hours.
And so we rolled down to the John Harvey where Bronco suddenly realised he’d left the whip back at the Crown. Oh no! The Ugly Barmaid was probably spending it on a costly face-lift to lure yet more innocent young men in to her exotic boudoir where she would fill them full of drink and do wicked, horrible things to them. Apart from wanting to rid themselves of this vile vision, the Nerds wanted another drink so Bronco and Froggy were despatched to rescue our money and to save the Lewes youth from certain perdition. Luckily the wip was still intact and the day was saved.
This had certainly been a “ramble” with a difference. Just the right amount of walking and we had renewed aquaintance with a number of interesting characters. Well, you can’t do a lot outdoors when it’s pissing down with rain, can you? Lets hope the weather is kinder for our second ramble at the end of September.
Los Nierdos para siempre!
Lafayette.
No.226 Thursday 31st July 2008.
Those present - Froggy, Bronco, Sandyballs, Matt, Lafayette
The Morpheus Ramble.
Those endowed with a Classical education, and who may have read Ovid, will know that the deity who presided over this month’s ramble is the god of
forgetfulness. Lafayette had lost his contemporaneous notes, alas, and so had to rely on his failing memory. What is more, when he ‘fessed up to this peccadillo he found that the rest of the Nerds had memories just as crap as his and so nobody really knows exactly what happened.
Although the she-devil alcohol may have warped our collective memories a bit, Sandyballs remembers taking us to Cooden Beach on the train. Shirley wasn’t there this time, more’s the pity, since she gets quite articulate when drink is thrust upon her, and she may well have been able to tell us what we got up to,
(or not, depending on what we may have done).
Most of us remember that the weather was dull and that we walked over a lot of fields arriving finally at The Star at Cooden Beach. The food and drink were very good involving a buffet lunch and four different sorts of meat. We walked back along the stony beach which made for difficult locomotion (Lafayette remembers remarking about this to Bronco) and we all had an icecream. Then we had a few drinks in the pouring rain in a pub near the station and came home.
So you see, a bloody boring ramble really, and one hardly worth writing about even if Lafayette’s notes had been discovered. If only Shirley had been there things might have been so different…
Now this next ramble on the other hand.
Publishers Note.
It is really sad when the one tasked in recording the annals looses his marbles. As you may see from the photographs there was another member of this group who actually ambled on this promenade and recorded the findings in celluloid. Perhaps of ghosts of ramblers past are f***ing up the “Ramrod”.
Ramble No. 227 - Thursday 4th Sept. 2008
Those Present - Lafayette, Sandyballs, B.T., Froggy, Bronco.
The Darts In Lewes Ramble.
Well we had hardly rubbed the sleep from our eyes when the telephones of the Nerds began to jingle off the walls. Outside the weather had decided not to shine on the righteous and the rain was falling in stair rods. ( Who writes this shit, anyway?) Sandyballs was concerned that the Nerds would all drown if he took us on his proposed route and Lafayette agreed. One fatality per year in the Nerds is more than enough, we didn’t want to commit mass suicide. So…. a bit of darts practice was mooted and the boys were all told to bring their weapons.
Froggy met Lafayette on the train. It could have been a fairly banal journey apart from the fact that they were squeezed in among about 1500 female teenage students all in very short skirts, casual decollete white blouses and all madly texting each other so that they did not see the slavering, lust ridden expressions on these Nerds’ faces, nor did they realise the awful effect they were having on the nether regions of these upright citizens. Imagine my surprise (as the saying goes) when all of a flash Froggy and Lafayette suddenly found themselves in Lewes as though time had accelerated and they had both been in Moslem heaven.
Anyway, enough of this porn. L. and F. met the others outside the station all except Bronco who was not answering his phone and seemed to be incommunicado. Finally he turned up wearing immaculate suede boots, a smart jacket and sporting a stylish umbrella to qualify for Best Dressed Nerd of the Year award. B.T. , our newly promoted Nerds photographer, had a field day recording this piece of sartorial elegance - especially the umbrella. Bronco said he didn’t want to get his suede boots wet and we all told him not to be such a fairy otherwise we’d go over to his house and confiscate his horse and eat him (the horse).
Sandyballs mooted a mini ramble around the ruined priory but luckily it started to rain at that instant so we had to turn about and head for the nearest drinking hole. This turned out to be the King’s Head which did not seem to be very open -even at gone half past eleven in the morning. There was a postman outside with what looked like a parcel to deliver, so we hung about thinking to dash inside once the door was opened , however, sadly, the postie decided he’d got the wrong address and moved on.
Fortunately The Swan at Southover was open so we all piled into the well proportioned games room and got stuck into throwing darts at each other.
The more we drank, the better we played. Lafayette and B.T. (The Real Ports) against Froggy and Sandyballs (The Dinky Ports). The results see-sawed back and forth with The Real Ports winning most of the games where some mental agility was called for (like adding up a score and taking it away from what you got last time), and The Dinky Ports who managed one good shot to win at cricket. Meanwhile Bronco was in dispute with the very helpful barman over the lack of black rats in his cider, but the barman said they didn’t make the cider out of black rats any more because folks were getting peed off with the results.
Since The Swan had a suspect kitchen (too many rats) we decided to proceed to The Brewers for lunch where Sandyballs had family connections. This became
very obvious when the landlady, Cathy, upon seeing Sandyballs come crashing over the doorstep, went and brought out her love-child, Elena, held her up in his face and said “You’re late with this month’s maintenance again !” Sandyballs told her to chalk it up on his account once again since he had the promise of a lucrative short posting to Brussels due to the sad demise of the previous incumbent and where you got free red wine and were paid in euros.
We had an excellent lunch in the Brewers - Froggy was so taken with the food that he even had a second meal while he pondered the compelling question of
“ What exactly is a Quasamite?” and where once again the Proper Ports trounced the Dinky Ports at darts. On the way out we saw Cathy’s Dad, Jasper, sat on the steps outside the back door. He collared Sandyballs and said “ You see moy daughter all roit and I ’ll put you forward for a position in the masons, but spurn ’er and I’ll put the word round an’ yorl never get another point uv Harveys in Lewes agin.” Sandyballs thought a rapid escape abroad again might be to his advantage.
But first it was decided to visit an old friend of Sandyballs in the Crown Hotel down the road. Yes, the Ugly Barmaid was still there, and even uglier if that was possible. Froggy thought he had found the answer to his compelling question at last - a Quasamite is whatever turns you on - until Lafayette gently reminded him of all the untapped nymphet crumpet that was due to come out of the Tertiary College in the next few hours.
And so we rolled down to the John Harvey where Bronco suddenly realised he’d left the whip back at the Crown. Oh no! The Ugly Barmaid was probably spending it on a costly face-lift to lure yet more innocent young men in to her exotic boudoir where she would fill them full of drink and do wicked, horrible things to them. Apart from wanting to rid themselves of this vile vision, the Nerds wanted another drink so Bronco and Froggy were despatched to rescue our money and to save the Lewes youth from certain perdition. Luckily the wip was still intact and the day was saved.
This had certainly been a “ramble” with a difference. Just the right amount of walking and we had renewed aquaintance with a number of interesting characters. Well, you can’t do a lot outdoors when it’s pissing down with rain, can you? Lets hope the weather is kinder for our second ramble at the end of September.
Los Nierdos para siempre!
Lafayette.
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