Cornwall The Proof!

I've just found this authentic picture. No wife can possibly doubt we went there now!

Does RSPB Ian really exist?

Lively discussion ensued last night when Simon W suggested that RSPB Ian might be a virtual alter ego for John. Could this be true? We need photographic evidence and to see the two of them together in the same room.

Photo here is proof that Ian and John co exist, although this was back in 2003 and things may have changed since. Does John need an alter ego? - me thinks his own is healthy enough! From loving wife N xxxx

The Good Old Days!!

I think methods of execution cropped up during last week's session. This is one of my favorite ways of remembering that however grotty life sometimes seem - it could be worse!

A nervous looking Long Billed Murrelet...

RSPB Ian has for some time struggled to get registered onto this blog, a technical hitch we will one day solve. Please click on the long-billed murrelet to read of yet another example of the flagrant abuse of our immigration laws that Ian spotted (intended) .
We have come to know and love the short billed murrelet, not as British as your blackbird or robin but a likeable incomer who gets his beak down and is happy to make a contribution. His long billed cousin though has obviously seen our well managed marshes, there's precious little Royal society or protection where he comes from, and thought I'll have a bit of that. He's come over here, a sea bird no less, and thinks he can free load off our rich wetlands when you can see from his bill that he belongs somewhere else. Even his name suggests that he will not come cheap to the bird charities he seeks to abuse. It's not just him though, he'll be the thin end of the beak, pretty soon there'll be flocks of them. Luckily people like Ian watch our shores for just such abuses and appear in their thousands to let these interlopers know they are being watched. A civilized country we do not shoot illegal immigrants (except in season) , but we can make it mighty uncomfortable for them, by standing in silent protest in our thousands these birds know we are onto them, we've marked their card and will not be picking up the bill however long (ok enough now....)

Tilting against windmills

At 20:35 16/11/2006, Roger wrote:
Webmeister Tim:
As a practising historian, I feel the factual record on our blog should be correct. I in fact drank 2 pints of IPA and the whisky (honest).....


Richard 17/11/2006 08:26

Roger, I am concerned that you are bringing in the invidious practice adopted by so many football players to the WNDC. Appealing to, and arguing with the Ref really is an unbritish practice that should be outlawed.
I think we should adopt the practice common in Rugby Union of awarding a ten meter penalty against the disputing side, and therefore Tim should add an extra pint and a vodka shot to your record as a penalty, any further disputes should be similarly punished with the award of a large brandy or a tequilla slammer!
Keep professionalism out of drinking !!

Tim Wrote :
Sent: Friday, November 17, 2006 9:06 AM
Subject: Re: blog drinks count

I'm with Richard on this one. Roger, I understand your sympathy for future historians using our blog in a Pepysian way to measure the behaviour of the 40 something wage slave of the early twenty first century. Your name in our roll of honour will give them hope that in the mire of vain false proclamation that is blogging, with our blog they are on safer ground. They will however be wrong. We are in a dog eat dog world of hit chasing popularity, we have to look to our audience, we need referrers. At the moment our only audience will be our friends and family but how can our loved ones ask others to look at our blog if we proclaim ourselves a drinking club that barely drinks. Think of the shame that will fall apon your sons when we achieve greater fame and they have to explain to their scoffing peers why their father only drank two beers.
Like with Pepys and Hogarth historians will have to read between the lines on our blog. I bet those two barely left their gentrified homes to write and paint their imagined fascinating lives, they may well have had more than two pints of an evening though. Taking up their baton I feel it is beholden of me to protect our image for future generations. Next week the Somerville sees the arrival of a few naked dancing ladies....there will be a new score card as well....

Roger 17/11/2006 09:54 :

I am consulting with my lawyers...


Roger 17/11/2006 10:07 :


Whilst I am consulting my lawyers, can I add that messrs G and H have a typically slipshod approach to the historical record. All this postmodern 'interpretation' bollcoks is one thing, but in the end we need facts, facts, facts, on which to base our historical interpretations. Marx said that 'all that's solid melts into the air', probably after a few pints, but he could still do a decent number on base and superstructure and the dialectical one-two. My problem is that the factual innacuracies on our blog are a creeping sign of Americanisation. Remember the great alcoholic Bush Jr. prototype, Joe McCarthy, who ran amock in early 50s America with his Republican buddies, and couldn't remember how many communists were in government - citing three different figures in one week. Also don't forget America's disrespect for facts means they were in at the start and won every war that was worth winning, and to make matters worse made the execrable 'Pearl Harbour'. Now I want our blog to be a little piece of radical England, where Americanisation and postmodernism are kept at bay, where Early Grey Tea, Cricket, West Ham and Old Labour can still find a home. And where FACTS matter........


From: Tim Sent: 17 November 2006 12:37 :


Oh no. Your right. I've been caught, hypnotised by the bright lights of american hyperbole I've forgotten all that was important to me. I've been googlised and turned my back on the culture that made me a man. Do I care? What's done is done, I'm too far gone. I've lost my flat cap and cannot find my cravat and I'm not the only one. Mr F like a modern day Yukio Mishima is fighting a cultural rear guard battle and will one day be forced to see his progeny wearing Man U tops, playing baseball while he drinks a Dr Pepper sponsored by Labours' Us. Roger, come over to the other side and enjoy the one way trip to Armageddon.
I am of course only joking, I'll be there with you at the barricades, you've appealed to the one English thing in me that could not be turned, my eternal love of the hopeless underdog. Couldn't we just make it three? No sorry 2 pints it is then...


Andrew 17/11/2006 14:18 :


Like two Jean Valjean's, Tim & Roger man the cultural barricades against the onslaught of American culture though little do they know their actions are more akin to Don Quixote and Sancho Panza tilting against windmills, as rather than looking to our true cultural homeland, Europe, we ape and cravenly follow not only in politics, the north American hydra and all her tentacles such as MacDonalds, Gap clothes, Baywatch and Liberace .... we must burn our jeans and T shirts and return to Pease pudding, breeches, smocks and Chas & Dave .......
2 pints it must be if we are to remain true to our pure Roman / Anglo Saxon /Viking / Norman / Huguenot/ empire values !!

Muse

Saw Muse in Birmingham on Tuesday and they totally blew me away. I've seen some great bands over the years and this rated with the best. Total commitment, brilliant songs with massive riffs (reminiscent of Rage against the Machine), and beautiful ironic nods to guitar heroes, and icons like Freddie Mercury. I thought 'Absolution' was one of the best albums of the last few years, but this year's latest 'Black Holes and Revelations' if anything surpassed it. Best moment at the gig (if I have to pick) was the remarkable 'Invincible' with a backdrop video of people's struggles across the globe and several thousand bouncing fans in the main part of the NEC auditorium. 'Tonight we are invincible' indeed. I don't usually like the NEC, but Muse were so loud they filled it. A stellar band, audience and night out. True class.

WNDC Veteran comes out of hibernation...

WNDC watchers are still in debate as to the significance of last nights shock reappearance of Richard C after many months of self imposed hibernation. Many will have been surprised that he should throw himself into the cut and thrust of WNDC banter so early in his return to Leamington lad culture. Lesser men might have arranged a few quiet one to one drinks with former trusted drinking partners where a slip of the tongue or worse a drying up in mid sentence could politely be ignored with a sympathetic smile and patronising pat on the back. Typically Richard spurned this gentle introduction, setting the bar to that of his former glories starting right where he left off, the verbal cauldron that is the WNDC.

There are some who have in recent months challenged for the crown that made Richard the king of indescretion. Some of us have tried to match his candid self deprecation but realise ourselves as but chancing knaves when within minutes of joining our little round table he regaled us with his latest tales of woe. Having played my top trump "Naked gallery shocker" which had built, if a little laboriously, to it's climax the polite smiles of indulgence rapidly turned to unabashed hilarity as I was trumped by this latter day Holden Cauldfield's most recent faux pas. There is a rarely shown competitive flame that sometimes flickers within me but this was happily blown out as I realised our king was back. As I saw the bitter sweet smile of a man who is not sure if he is being laughed at or laughed with but just knows he loves to glow in the reflected laughter of others, I knew our king was back where he belongs, happy in the hours that are the WNDC.

"Goodnight Jim Bob" "Good night Mary Lou" - sorry thought I was writing the closing paragraph to a episode of the Waltons there for a minute....

n.b. Please note the extensive use of the "WNDC" under which I am trying to get us ranked higher in Google's search engine.

the last coup.

OK, the last word on the non-event of the Fijian coup. A suggestion for the book of the month (political sub-committee).

Doh!

Top Day

Well would you believe it. Firstly, a lovely late autumn day which (ignoring global warming) puts everyone in a good mood. Then down to Banbury for the early train to the greatest city in the world. Walk along the Thames, and then off to UptonPark for what turned out to be a remarkable afternoon. The Gooners are technically the best team in England, but West Ham beat them because they wanted it more and they played at 110%. Pendemonium when the goal went in, and a good feeling to take us into the winter. Danny Gabbidon, Hayden Mullins, Jonathan Spector and Bobby Z you are heroes....

Back home, a few cans of Pride and whisky chasers, brilliant documentary on the great man Weller on BBC2, followed by MOTD2, and would you believe it, Marlon scores again. Now that's a Top Day...............

Mr Foster...

Well what can you say. Mr Foster is obviously misunderstood at least that's what his mum says. The police don't agree and so felt little guilt when they gaffed him like a tuna. Official story is he was hit by a passing boat. He is now on hunger strike but given he is a pie-eating bloater, no one is going to get worried until some time next year. His only get well card has come from Benny Hin, whose name, when translated into Swahili, is an anagram of "Scum bag sheister who should be put up against the wall and shot".

The Keith Richards connection is unclear. However the spot where he landed on his head left an impression that looks a little like Mary Magdalene's left breast and has now become a place of pillgrimage fans of Dan Brown and litterary proles.

The coup, nearly forgot about that, seems to have dissolved into typical Fijian lack of enthusiasm for hard work. This is probably a good enough reason to have a beer or two. So as the famous 19th Century, Slovenian poet, Valentin Vodnik, once said in his highly acclaimed work, VRŠAC :

"Pod velikim tukaj Bogom
breztelesen bit želim,
čistga hlipa sred med krogom
menim, da že v néb' živim"

FD

Wednesday Night Drinking Club: Vanity Publishing

Wednesday Night Drinking Club: Vanity Publishing

I'd like to know more about the visitor from Lickey End!

Vanity Publishing

Since we moved our world of nonscense from the joys of e-mail to the hard scrutiny of blog we have been able to analyse who has been visiting us. 150 visitors is a good start. I have been advised that we would be more popular with certain people if we opened up our comments to all comers. So prepare for the onslaught ....
Check out our Brazilian referer??? robavril

#--------------------------------------------------------
# Profile Name: wndc.blogspot.com
# Report Name: Executive Overview
# Date Range: 10/1/2006 - 11/3/2006
#--------------------------------------------------------
#--------------------------------------------------------
# Visits and Pageviews
#--------------------------------------------------------
Date Range	Visits	Pageviews
Oct-06	122	241
Nov-06	28	64
#--------------------------------------------------------
# Visits by New and Returning
#--------------------------------------------------------
Visitor Types	Visits
Returning Visitor	115
New Visitor	35
#--------------------------------------------------------
# Geo Map Overlay
#--------------------------------------------------------
Country/Region/City	Visits
Coventry|524167|-15500	14
Walsgrave On Sowe|524167|-14333	13
Sandridge|517667|-3000	12
Bedworth|524667|-14667	12
Worcester|522000|-22000	10
Slough|515000|-5833	7
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Leamington|523000|-15333	4
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Lisbon|387167|-91333	1
Mexico|194342|-991386	1
Trotton|509833|-8000	1
Throckmorton|521500|-20333	1
Richmond|514500|-2833	1
Stoke Mandeville|517833|-7833	1
Droitwich|522667|-21500	1
Wasing|513667|-11667	1
Gloucester|518333|-22500	1
Badsworth|536167|-13000	1
Royal Leamington Spa|523000|-15333	1
Maidenhead|515167|-7000	1
Sutton Coldfield|525667|-18167	1
Mitcham|514000|-1667	1
Addlestone|513667|-4834	1
Tetsworth|517000|-10000	1
Dulwich|514500|-833	1
Bradley|522333|-20168	1
Egham|514167|-5667	1
Lickey End|523667|-20500	1
#--------------------------------------------------------
# Visits by Source
#--------------------------------------------------------
Sources	Visits
google.co.uk	67
(direct)	33
blogger.com	23
imissstarbucks.blogspot.com	19
robavril.blogspot.com	1

Fiji Coup - from our man on the ground.

Not sure how much of fiji news has made it to Europe, but just in case, here is a summary.
The Army have said the government must resign by tomorrow. Government, not surprisingly have declined.
Info from some insiders in the barracks say that the army is planning something. The commander, who is the chief trouble maker, returns to Fiji on Friday or possibly early next week.
PM went on national radio yesterday with a "State of the Nation' speach. Actually quite a good one. Basically there is an impasse and so much has been said, it is hard to see how their egos will allow either side to back down now.
Obviously regional governments, Aussies, Kiwis, US etc have said they support the government and have asked the army commander to fuck off and shut up... well not exactly in those words.
So, there may be a millitary coup in the next few days.
Being Fiji it will probably be a rather small affair if it happens at all. No real risk to civillians but the effect on the economy would be catastrophic.
So say a little prayer for some common sense and keep an eye on Asia Pacific news feeds!

Well, I am off to the West tomorrow. That means the tourist, hot and dry side. Also the area where the Fijians have no interest in the government or army - based on tribal divisions. In fact they have called this week for a seperate state for the West of Viti Levu. Not a very practical suggestion but shows that much of the political decisions are still very influenced by traditional bonds.

Will update on other things next week when we see what exciting things they think of to do over the weekend.

(received by email to the WNDC editor)

Book club Coup

Following an meeting of the WNDC NEC recently, it was proposed that 'The Human Touch' be elevated to the lofty heights curently occupied by 'The Celestine Prophecy' i.e :left in the wilderness.
Further more a majority of drinking members agreed we might try.
'Arthur and George'