Off you go then!

Greg and Nora left today back to Guatamala

During the course of her stay Nora's classy rating went from 3000000 Burgess Units to 1210171 Burgess Units. That's a loss of about 100000 Burgess Units a day.

That's the equivalent of belching loudly whilst flashing a stranger every day!

During her stay, Nora queried the integrity of the predictive Nora Classy Counter, claiming that to be accurate it should actually go up at some point ... good one! I'm going to miss that wacky sense of humour!

Here we are again, happy as can be ...

It's a familiar feeling.

It's important to find a scapegoat - of course.

Personally, I blame all the scabby morons who turn on Beckham at times like this, as if Beckham didn't dedicate his life to being the best footballer he can be, and didn't play to the best of his ability on the day - which is better than the combined footballing ability of all those who criticise - but in fact did deliberately throw the game and did miss the penalty on purpose and didn't pass the ball as well as we know he can to because he hates England and is evil and deserves our wrath.

Yes, I blame all those tedious pricks for not getting off their collective arses and becoming better than Beckham so they could do better and lead the team to European cup victory.

Fortunately the wife and I are Italian, and we got over it DAYS ago!

.... and there's no line here.

The 11th annual Gregfest took place this weekend. Unlike Gregfests of yore, there was no music played at all as Greg's guitar was in Guatemala, and I didn't bring mine because I thought he had his.

There was a brief accapella version of "best breasts", but it was shit. Even worse than usual. That is truly a new level of badness.

It rained a bit.

Steve got very drunk and almost fell over laughing when we made Greg bark like a dog for 10p. As soon as I work out how to do streaming media, there shall be a link to it here.

The fire looked nice.

Ben made a funny face (see photo).

.. as you can see, the fun never stops in my rock-and-roll lifestyle.

It's .. a baby!!

Tristan Edmond Charles Redwood was born yesterday: 17th June 2004 in time to hear the footie results! He was very pleased to hear that we beat the Swiss, and would have no doubt wished the team luck against Croatia if he wasn't so sleepy. He'd had a tiring day or something.

He weighs 7 pounds something. Really don't know.

Oh, and I've probably spelt Tristan wrong. Who knows? I'll ask him next time I see him.

Elvis Lives!

As we are all aware, Greg disappears for months at a time.

He claims to spend much time in Guatemala, but there have been numerous sightings leading me to believe either a) he leads a bizarre double-life, or b) He's ashamed of working at a car-hire centre in Tintagel.

b), then.

Greg: do not be ashamed of working at a car-hire centre in Tintagel. There's plenty of other stuff in your life you should be ashamed of!

Then, the following mail dropped in my box .. my mailbox:

Regarding Greg's whereabouts.

http://www.warrenzevon.com/news/

http://www.wireimage.com/GalleryListing.asp?navtyp=gls====50613&evntI=629

He is posing as Warren Zevon's son.

Anon.

The resemblance is striking, and stirs me ponder on the striking similarities between Greg and Elvis:

1. Unsubstantiated reports of sightings in mundane places.


2. Big fat belly size.

Uncanny, uh-huh?

A call to arms.

A gauntlet has been slapped across my rugged and manly face.

Yes! It's The 1st South Coast Softball Meet aka the, where the PO's take on the SO's in a winner takes f-all battle of the finest! (and the Southampton lot).

I've been in deep and intensive training for 32 years for this competition, and I'm feeling toned and ready for action (after a coffee and maybe a donut).

News of this formidable event has yet to reach BSUK but no doubt when the sheer array of talent that is the PO team has flexed their collective muscles, people will start to take notice!

The teams are impressive. Currently, for the PO's:

• Dan. Captain and raw talent. Enormously endowed in a Softball sense.


• Claire. Married to the raw talent. Raw talent by association.

.. and for the SO's

• Sean. Captain. Opposition to raw talent.


• That's it.
  

OK .. that's not impressive.

Come on people, this is a call to arms: your postcode needs you!

Contact your city representative now to avoid disappointment;

More news as, when and if it happens.

Classy update!

Claire has just reminded me:

Last night we tried to explain the full significance of England vs France and the effect it will have on most English people this Sunday.

To put it into American context, Greg suggested the Superbowl. This had little effect on Nora so we asked what sporting events she might have an interest in ...

"I don't know ... wine-tasting?"

Less than classy!

Nora loses 7 Burgess Units, leaving her with a total of 2999993 Burgess Units.

A meeting of minds

Nora's visiting.

She's classy. If you could count classy in units .. let's call them Burgess Units .. then she would have many Burgess Units (BU).

OK. Let's call today Day 1, and let's award Nora has 3 million BU. She's classy. She's here for 2 weeks. Just how many BU could she lose in 2 weeks?! None I say, NONE!

Anyway, I have no Nora classy photo to share at this time.

In the meantime, here's Greg showing Molly the dangers of using too much anti-wrinkle cream.

A delightful evening on the common

One of the D-Day events occuring on the Saturday was "Euro-Rock"; yes, rock bands from different European countries united by their ability to hurt ears.

No, we didn't fancy it either, but we went anyway.

We camped out on the common nearby with a couple of drinks so we could impartially observe the aural carnage, and also witness the climax of the show: an "impressive" fireworks display.

Apparently "impressive" is Euro-speak for "absolutely shit".

I've seen more impressive glow-in-the-dark stickers.

And no-one was sick. I can guarantee you that.

You can't give booze t'baby

Nice picnic.

Not enough beer.

Some little fecker drank it all!

Bus Update!

We can't do it :-(

The thought of selling Pete is just too depressing to face so we've decided not to sell her and live off baked potatos for the rest of the year.

She. So. Beautiful.

Apologies to all those that have expressed interest.

D-Day

Went to see the D-Day flotilla leave from Portsmouth to Normandy. Impressive and humbling.

Learnt that the French may have suffered up to 20,000 civilian casulties on D-Day from Allied bombing. Never considered this before.

Saw documentary which detailed a letter found in the ruins of a bombed French house by a dead body; the guy was trapped after bombs hit and knew he would die. In his letter he said that he was happy knowing that this was all part of the Allied invasion, and that soon France would be free again.

Definately not going to make any French jokes for at least a couple of weeks!

Greggles!

Greg is back all the way from Fareham for a few weeks. He claims to have living in Antigua, Guatemala on and off for the last few years or so, but I have had my doubts.

There have been sightings.

I definately I saw him working in a car-hire centre in Tintagel, for example. And there's that elusive bald yam-faced waiter at Rosie's that I have never been able to get a really good look at.

However, his deception is more elaborate than even I imagined. A google search for "Greg Macklin Guatemala" found this and that.

This fits his unlikely story.

Can it be true?

Can he have been telling .. you know .. the truth?!

Southend: Land of the Midnight Sun

Kindly invited by Helen and Michael to Southend for the airshow, which is put on every year especially for them.

Gravity must be different in Southend, as some planes did strange things that made no sense. Scotty may say "you canne change the laws of Physics" but to him I say "RAM IT! I know what I saw you faux-Scot buffoon! Are you calling me a liar, PAL?! You're too large to know the first thing about aerodynamics."

See more tubes of flying metal, a community of beach huts, and the mysterious Southend midnight sun, here.