With most people arriving and baying for food (no names mentioned Simon) I had a call from 'late boy' Antony to say he would be arriving at 9pm. At 7.30pm the crowd weren't happy at the prospect of such a late meal but they seemed placated somewhat when I suggested getting the first pub in on the way. So it was we left piles of sleeping gear in my front room and followed my house-mate Lenka to Cafe bar bar (sadly the only sheep related incident of the weekend). With the whip done the beers were in and during the initial catching up it dawned on Lenka that she had found herself on a stag night and being the only woman there had no-one to talk shoes with: she left soon after. Fending off suggestions of eating without him I was glad to take a call from Antony and collected him from home, leaving Andy in the capable hands of the rest of the crew. Returning I was a little disappointed to see Andy with all his body hair left intact but there was plenty of time to go.

We headed for a Thai restaurant, via a bank for much needed cash. The bank was either being renovated extensively or robbed by a bunch of builders, Jon made some effort to find out but was left wondering what high speed language they spoke after a few rapid fire sentences were exchanged. Puzzled we pushed onto the restaurant and were promptly led downstairs, out of sight of other customers, into the basement. Andy settled at the head of the table and looked slightly alarmed to find a chain with open padlock hanging on the door behind him and reacted first to avoid any 'lock the stags trousers to the chair' type jokes by locking the padlock. Suitably fed, ensuring that Andy had the extra hot option of course, we went back to a bar.

In the bar, after a little beer, we narrowly missed getting Andy's honest opinion of Sarah's map reading on video which was a little disappointing as it was very harsh, but judging by the nodding heads around the table most people were empathising strongly. Getting a little more boisterous it wasn't long before Tequila was trying to make us happy, what entertained us for longer (lets face it Tequila is no sipping drink) was the liquorish flavored bong. After the bar man reassured us that only legal substances had been used, which we had assumed for that price, we started a game of 'who can blow the best ring'. Jon won this race by a scout mile or two, with no one else getting close, although it did give us some interesting photos... During all this it was noted that three lasses sat close by seemed to be taking an interest in our antics and the first stag challenge of the weekend was quickly born. Andy drank a bit to sharpen his rusty silver tongue and slided over to investigate. He was soon coming back to to commiserate, it would seem that the rust has built up a bit more over the years than he thought. In an effort to show the stag up a bit I strolled over to show him how it should be done. Soon I was chatting away and to all appearances making good progress, even getting the bong over to share with the lovely ladies. Eventually the lasses had to leave and I returned to the fold truthfully stating that I had a number. What I didn't share with them, until now, is that I knew one of the lasses from rowing so already had her number and had just spent the last half hour not making much progress, but in fact catching up since our last race. Lesson: never trust the best man on a stag weekend ;-).

The walk home had taken us past some unsecured road signs and a traffic cone, at which point student instincts were unleashed and the traffic cone was left firmly wedged onto a bike seat further up the road. My house mate tells me that we arrived home at exactly 2.17am, which in turn tells me that we weren't too quiet on the way in. Not deterred by the late hour and previous 'make me happy' drinks Jon whipped out the half-yard glass. After some initial resistance Andy took up the challenge and was soon going dramatically slowly in what can only be called a half-yard marathon. I've seen people die of thirst quicker (not strictly true but you get the idea). After an age, and two attempts at filming it which ended in out of memory errors, Andy was finished and it only remained for Jon to show him how it should have been done before we retired for the night, much to the relief of my house mates.