The Beginning... I have decided to give a full account of the Stag Weekend in the hope that everyone will love me for revealing everything that happened in Barcelona.  Well maybe not but I will definitely enjoy writing it.  Just a couple of things to note: My memory is unlikely to be 100% clear on everything so if you think I have omitted anything (particularly amusing things) please comment and let me know. Obviously in my drunken haze I may have imagined some things that didn’t happen – I’ll just put this down to artistic license* Photos will be arriving soon courtesy of Chris Mac  and Chris Wank on the Stag PhotoBlog Lets hear some nominations for various categories, for example: worst stag, least convincing attempt to drink brandy and other extremely open awards... *Please note artistic license may particularly effect those who have a history of refusing to comment on this weblogfficeffice" /> Thursday:  Myself, Chris Mac  and Chris Wank arrive in the centre of Barcelona via a low-budget sub-standard airline with no free drinks and a distinct lack of attractive air-hostesses.  Dave and Dan met us off the Bus in a state of what can only be described as extreme drunkenness – Chris Wank is in one way very wrong when says on his blog that “they could barely talk” and in another way spot on; they were incapable of talking but they were extremely capable of shouting at the bemused passers by all about the “ladies in white bikinis that went see through” they’d seen on the beach and also about the French girls they’d “met” in the very loosest sense of the word as apparently they’d only sat near them at a bar and then stalked them down Las Ramblas as they had steadily become more and more inebriated drinking Sangria throughout the afternoon. Dan and Dave took us back to our hostel where we found ourselves already having to apologise to our room-mates as Dan and Dave had “informed” them in the loud clear fashion of the British speaking to foreigners of our imminent arrival only to be informed that they were from Colchester.  We beat a hasty retreat from the hostel and went to BK for a quick burger, it was the slowest fast food ever and unsurprisingly Newman did his best to steal everyones food. After this we moved on to the bar in a square off Las Ramblas where Newman and Dave had been drinking the Sangria earlier in the evening and were keen to have more themselves and offer us some.  They were also seemed keen to mention the gay naked men they’d seen on the beach (again very loudly) who they thought would make excellent partners for Mr Lapish. Several jugs of Sangria later and we were all approaching a steady level of drunkenness, bizarrely Newman and Rose seemed to be getting slightly sober but this was probably due to them walking us in concentric circles to get to our hostel, thereby giving themselves a good long break from the Sangria. We arrived back at our hostel at 3am just in time to avoid the 3-7am curfew and having just had a nice round of free shots from the bar of Las Ramblas.  You might think that with a hard Stag Weekend in prospect this night would be enough but Chris Wank and I decided that we would go to the beach and come back to the hostel at 7am.  We set off without a clue where we were going and meandered drunkenly through the city asking random people the way to the beach.  We finally got there and came across some other random foreigners with whom we wandered down the entire length of the beach (this took several hours) to the Baha Beach Club.  Chris Wank was certain he could get us in if he “had a chat and told them that he was from Newcastle” where they also have a Baha Beach Club.  He was thwarted by the fact that it was now 5:30am and the club had closed. We then decided that perhaps we should return to our hostel via the Metro.  I did my best to get us as close as I could but I was sadly lacking the knowledge that there was a Metro stop approximately 50 meters from our hostel and we were left stranded in the centre of town with very little idea of where to go.  Fortunately we had been sober when Dan and Dave had finally managed to lead us to the hostel earlier – it also has to be pointed out that I had purposefully tried to mislead them in attempt to make everyone miss the curfew on our earlier return and had inadvertently lead them straight to the door.  This meant I was now somewhat familiar with the surroundings. We arrived at the hostel at 6:30am and waited for the curfew to end, what we didn’t realise at this point was that the curfew was not enforced – even after someone walked past us and let themselves in!  At 7:00am we went in and went to sleep.

18.6.04 19:50 Permalink / 5 Comments / comment

Friday night and the Key Saga... Friday:  All the rest of the party (apart from one) arrived throughout the day but we started the day off having lost Mr Newman.  The Sun painfully pierced my eyes as I woke up in the Hostel.  We were all suffering from that disjointed waking feeling when have no comprehension of where you are or what has happened to you.  The reality slowly imposed itself but where was Newman.  Chris Mac - early riser par excellence – informed us that he hadn’t been there when he’d gone out to get himself some breakfast and there were no sheets on his bed.  At this point we became slightly worried.  We milled around a bit and then Chris Mac  spotted him through the window lying on the balcony on a lilo.  We also noticed at this point that his bed was wet.  It transpired that Newman had at some stage in the night (possibly before Chris and I returned – it is quite conceivable in our state we didn’t notice) thrown up all over himself and the floor next to his and Dave’s bed (bunk bed).  He woke up and, as he described it “wondered why there was a burger lying next to him” he then “peeled some bacon off his face” and probably started to put two and two together.  He then shovelled the vomit up with his hands, hand-washed his linen and tried to clean his mattress with water.  This is how we find him on the balcony lying on a lilo feeling slightly sorry for himself. Food is obviously a major concern once we manage to raise ourselves and we go to a café where we encounter the worst waitress ever.  She completely failed to bring me any food whatsoever despite me mumbling as inaudibly as I could what I wanted and pointing at the menu.  It appeared the only thing it was possible to order was croissants.  Nothing passed Newman’s lips however as he had to leave because he was still feeling slightly tender. We then went to see the impressive Gaudi Cathedral that isn’t finished and probably never will be.  For a full cultural report on Barcelona you probably will have to wait for Chris Mac as I didn’t even make it into the Cathedral.  I went back to the hostel to await the arrival of Nick (The Stag), Matt Edge (Best Man) plus assorted others.  I was also feeling the heat and lack of sleep and thought a power-nap was in order. After I’d had a short sleep and the new arrivals had got themselves together we milled about for a while (I’ve definitely missed some stuff out here) and then headed down to Las Ramblas for some Piella and Litre mugs of beer.  Dan was still suffering and was unable to drink his beer or eat his food but Jason and I didn’t mind.  There were some street performers, some ok and some awful, Nick got involved with some of them but you can wait for the pictures… We moved on to the same very nice bar we had found the night before and moved on to Sangria (again).  Everyone enjoyed plenty of the Sangria and Chris Wank being his impish self bought a rose and, using his ugly dwarf charm, lured over a couple of very attractive Swedish ladies for a photo with a rather bashful Nick. That evening it was Me, Chris Wank, Jason and Chris Mac who stayed out the latest.  Everyone went back before 3am believing in the curfew that we had by now decided didn’t really exist.  We stayed at the bar and enjoyed more Sangria.  As I was sat there I noticed that Jason had suddenly become very quiet, he then leant over and, unnoticed by anyone other than myself threw up next to our table, he than sat up and continued to drink Sangria – take note Newman and Court.  As we had been left with all the Sangria that hadn’t been drunk by our 12 strong party we had rather a lot between the 4 of us and it has to be admitted that we were flagging.  Our friendly barman came over and was berating us for not drinking enough.  He was obviously a little soft in the head, however, as when Chris Wank explained that he was from Newcastle he (the barman) started eulogising about the football club and the city in general.  We then left the club with multiple plastics each and were then accosted by the prostitutes that frequent Las Ramblas late in the evening.  With our hands full of Sangria we were at a disadvantage when it came to warding them off.  Chris Wank claimed to have been most upset when put her hands inside his pants and offered him a BJ.  But then Chris had earlier regaled anyone and everyone with the revelation that “I get my fair share of BJ’s from Rheanne” something Rheanne is no doubt pleased to hear.  It’s also worth noting that Matt seemed rather proud to have not been accosted by any prostitutes earlier in the evening when walking back.  When I pointed out that it was probably because he looked like a tramp, he wasn’t so pleased. We finished off the evening with Chris Wank buying some gay porn from a street vendor and then photographing various members of our party with the gay porn.  These pictures are dynamite, and are up for grabs!!!  fficeffice" /> Friday Continued:  Before we abandon Friday completely I did forget the Key Saga; this took place when Myself, Chris Mac, Jason and Chris Wank were trying to get into our hostel at approximately 5:30am.  As we had decided at this point that the curfew wasn’t enforced we didn’t expect this to be a problem.  Unfortunately when Chris Mac tried the door he couldn’t get the key to work.  Chris Wank then confronted the problem and pointed out that there appeared to be a key in the lock – obviously the curfew was enforced after all!  I then attempted to rouse our good buddies Adam and Dan (the only 2 people whose phones were on in the hostel) and get them to come and open the door from the inside.  After a few rings on Adams phone - joy! He answered the phone – only to hang up an instant later and turn off his phone – you BASTARD.  I can only assume he did such a thing because he was engaged in buggery with a child prostitute he had picked up named Fernando. Dan was the next phone victim (although how he slept through little Fernando’s cries is a mystery) it did not seem that there was any hope – I was trying to climb the front of the hostel to get up on to the balcony without being observed by passing vehicles and everyone else had fallen asleep on the step.  But Dan was to be our golden haired saviour and finally awoke after 16 calls had been made to his phone and let us in to take pictures of people with gay porn. You might think the story ends there - not quite.  The next morning we awake to find Chris Mac  looking for his house (in Cambridge) key in his bag.  He then finds it in the pocket of the shorts that he had been wearing the night before.  The reality of what must have happened starts to dawn on those of us who weren’t convinced there was a key in the door.  The new scenario becomes rather more convincing when we look at a hostel key and discover that it is hollow.  Chris Mac and Chris Wank both suck for their parts in this debacle and it should be pointed out that Chris Wank stuck to his key-in-the-lock story for some time after the pertinent pieces of evidence had been revealed.  Chris tried to unlock the hostel with his house key!

18.6.04 19:49 Permalink / 2 Comments / comment

The Beach... Saturday:  Was beach day.  After much dawdling, many hung-over noises, a quick coffee and croissant (or the like) and James deciding he was going to have a little sleep having been slightly ill the night before.  Dan and Dave lead the way as they’d obviously been rather taken with the beach on their visit on Friday and it didn’t disappoint.  Lots of attractive ladies wearing very little and a few naked gay men thrown in for Lapish’s pleasure.  We did some swimming in the, surprisingly cold, Mediterranean – Matt more than most.  We then met a garrulous and drunk Spaniard on the beach who was busy telling how rubbish Barcelona was (whilst we looked on at all the semi-clad women on the beach a brief walk from the city centre!).  He then introduced us to his slightly bemused lady friend (topless) who was dragged round our whole party and made to give us all a friendly hello kiss.  He also asked everyone which football team they supported and we were all suitably amused when he hadn’t heard of Nicks beloved Pompey. Whilst our Spanish friend was with us we had all been somewhat distracted by an extremely distracted by a very attractive pair of Swedish ladies in our vicinity – there had also been some quite extensive discussion as to whether or not the better endowed of the pair had achieved her current figure with or without the assistance of surgery.  You can imagine the effect this particular female had when she got up and proceeded to walk down to the sea.  There were a lot of men – not just from our party - whose heads followed in a smooth arc her progress down the beach to the sea where she waded in until the water just reached up to the bottom of her white, potentially see-through (as mentioned by Newman and Rose on Thursday), bikini and then walked out and back again. It was strange to note that when some, presumably, Swedish men came to meet these women that certain members of our party (Newman & Rose) acted as if they were, at the very least, ruining some plan that they had to actually go and introduce themselves to these women and who knows – maybe even have a conversation!  This was unlikely to be successful as they’d just been blatantly perving at them for the last 2 hours or so, but if it was their plan they should have really seen it through and provided team Nick with some quality entertainment. We then went to get some, slightly delayed, lunch.  Chris Mac  and Dave had gone to find some water but had somehow got delayed and when Dave finally turned up there was no sign of Chris.  As I pointed out to Dave this was bound to be his fault as far as Chris Mac  was concerned so he went to find him but to no avail.  We decided to go and have lunch without Chris when Dave got back on the grounds that Chris was a big boy and could probably disentangle himself from the gay volleyball team he had no doubt hooked up with.  Sure enough a rather disgruntled Chris Mac  arrived just as we were ordering asking why Dave had abandoned him to his fate.  We all ignored their petty squabbling and settled down for beer and Tapas.  Yum. After lunch we moved down to the other section of the beach to play some volleyball and generally get covered in sand.  There was also the joyful sight of the gay beach area.  Despite this we indulged ourselves in (the worst) game of volleyball ever.  The quality was atrocious even allowing for the tricky wind and underweight ball.  Matt decided to name his side team handsome although team lobster may have been more appropriate at this stage and I don’t think they were fooling any of the gay men in the surrounding area who were less than disinterested.  After this a futile effort was made by Me, Dan and Chris Wank to disrobe Nick in the gay area of the beach and leave him there to fend for himself, we were unfortunately thwarted by a distinct lack of assistance from anyone else in the party.  I can’t believe, retrospectively, that you don’t see this would have been amusing – you all suck. So enough of the beach, tired, hot and thirsty we head back to the hostel via the harbour – much discussion about which yacht or motor cruiser would suit us best – on the Metro.  It seems the whole of Barcelona goes to the beach on weekends and are with us on the Metro (more ogling of women – it’s hard to lose the habit once you’ve been on the beach).  At the hostel we have the first games of Euro2004 in prospect and a nice shower.  I haven’t mentioned the showers at the hostel yet – the most inconsistent temperature ever and you had to keep pressing the button to make it work about every 3 seconds.  Chris Mac also kept whinging about me borrowing his shower gel. Anyway, I had a little lie down before the Portugal game and everyone else went out.  The next thing I know Chris Mac  arrives back from the supermarket with food and drink for everyone else who have, I inform him, gone to find themselves a pub to watch the football in.  Chris Mac is, once again, disgruntled but it’s back of the net for me as I get to drink all the drink and eat the food they decided to leave behind whilst watching the Portuguese lose to those plucky Greeks at the hostel.  After the game we head off to Las Ramblas with rest of the party who have left their pub.  It is now Dave’s turn to be disgruntled (top word) as he was very happy where they were, in front of a big screen.  He is even more disgruntled when we finally manage to find somewhere on Las Ramblas that is showing the football.  It is an Irish bar and is rammed.  There is the consolation of the mini goals in the urinals with tiny footballs suspended in the middle for you to aim at.  Another feature of the toilets was the toilet that was literally right next to the urinals without any partition or separation whatsoever.  If you had to take a crap you would cheerfully waving at everyone as their splash-back washed over you – mmm nice!

18.6.04 19:44 Permalink / 2 Comments / comment

The strip club and the rest of Saturday night... With the football over we were relieved to leave the hot and sweaty pub and go in search of food.  We found an adequate Chinese on Las Ramblas, although in fairness we did go for the very cheap set menu.  It was here that Nick suffered his greatest embarrassment of the weekend and it was entirely self-inflicted.  After 4 beers on the “big night” of his stag weekend Nick managed to throw up.  Questions were asked as to whether anyone had spiked his drink but we all knew that if we did he would probably throw up so sad to say nobody had, although in retrospect we might as well have.  He did manage to carry on going but not in genuine manly fashion (see Jason on Friday). After Chinese we headed down toward the harbour and a nice bar overlooking the tall ships.  Here we met a hen party of likely ladies with whom we engaged in some cross stag hen activities.  Their bride to be and maid of honour were photographed with our stag and best man and Chris Mac was the lucky man who got a kiss from the maid of honour on the slightly spurious basis that he was the tallest man in the room – We were outside and I’m not convinced he was the tallest man at our table.  We also met another gravel voiced stag who delighted us with some ManU football chants until he was dragged away by his mates – his earnest shushing for the slowly building “Who the fuck are Man United” will live long in the memory. And now the moment you have all been waiting for the Strip Club and Chris Wanks immaculate performance.  Before we went in to the Strip Club Matt tried to discover from a girl giving out flyers if there was anywhere he could find indie music.  He was on to a loser here as negotiations had already begun with the strip club and the only support he was going to find in our party for going to a dance club wasn’t going to be to an indie club, not that he got beyond European techno anyway.  In to the club and we all got free beer and sat down in the vacant front row.  There were no girls in evidence but it looked suitably dingy and the stage in front of us looked promising.  Then Michael Jackson’s “Bad” kicked in and the lights started moving as the curtains pulled back to reveal a scantily clad young lady wearing a Michael Jackson style hat.  It should also be pointed out that Chris Wank couldn’t contain himself at this stage and was making hands in the air dancing motions as the sexy women before us started to do her thing on the assortment of poles that were on the stage.  A short while later the women proceeded down the steps of the stage to our row of seats.  Adam was very conspicuously making a point of looking away, I was unfortunately at the wrong end of the row, Nick just shook his head in a bemused fashion and Chris Wank was more than enthusiastic when encouraged to join her on stage. Her first move when getting Chris on stage was to procure a belt from Jason as Chris wasn’t wearing one.  This should probably have concerned Chris slightly more than it did!  She then stripped Chris of his shirt and started to dance for him.  Chris, for some reason, felt the need to lick his finger and rub his nipple’s “seductively” toward an all male audience.  She then sat him down on a chair and attempted to pull off his shoes but Chris is obviously not one to have his shoes pulled off by random women and had to undo them himself.  Chris was then tied to the frame of the poles with his hands above his head using the belt and the stripper removed her top and put it over his ears in the amusing fashion of men using bras as headphones.  She then danced some more as Chris looked on (being belted to a pole he had little choice in the matter) she also found it necessary to remove his trousers (having given the belt a good yank, to make sure Chris wouldn’t escape, extracting a wince from Chris).  It was then that she tired of dancing and decided that riding Chris around the stage was far more to her taste.  She undid the belt put it round his neck and sat astride him as Chris (obviously hating it) carried her around.  She then proceeded to strap Chris up again and remove his pants entirely in front of the whole club.  Chris then got to pull down her “pants” with his teeth, a detail I don’t think Rheanne has been made aware of.  I was slightly traumatised by seeing Chris completely naked on stage but I’m fairly sure it ended shortly afterwards. A procession of similarly athletic and exhibitionist young ladies followed with their own variations on this theme, picking out various men from other groups around the club to embarrass on stage.  The final lady that we stayed for did in fact manage to lure my drunken self in to accepting the invitation to join her on the stage after a brief lap dance – Who can resist a whispered “you like to dance with me” whilst between the firm thighs of a semi-naked woman? – But fortunately she had run out of time and I was spared a stripping.  I feel safe in the knowledge that I would have given a good account of myself nevertheless! When we left the club the bulk of the group had become separated from Myself, Chris Mac  and Chris Wank due to Matt trying to start a fight over a racist remark made by another random stag do refugee.  We felt somewhat deserted and went and sat by the harbour.  The excitement of the strippers had been a bit much for an old man like me so Chris & Chris made some phone calls and arranged to substitute Matt for me as I wanted to go to bed and they went for a swim and watched the sun come.  In my defence I would like to point out that I still didn’t get in to the hostel until 6am – much later than the majority of our party.

18.6.04 19:42 Permalink / 5 Comments / comment

Filipino Boys and catching the Plane... Sunday:  Arrived and most of the party left it was left to the hardcore of Me, Chris Wank and Chris Mac with Matt, thrown in as the late addition to the squad, to keep things going.  Everyone apart from Matt went to the Gaudi Park (again Chris Mac  is your man for a full cultural report, this is not even it’s proper name).  Matt decided to have a day of quiet reflection to work out: (1) why he hadn’t helped us to leave Nick naked on the beach (2) if he really dresses like a tramp, and (3) why he had adopted “The Scuttle” which is clearly tainted by having its origins with a certain Mr Newman. The Gaudi Park was most interesting and we spent the entire afternoon wandering around it and enjoying the fantastic views of the city from the top of the park which is situated on a hill.  A view we also enjoyed from the top of the park was that of the clouds sweeping across Barcelona as a storm broke across the city and out to sea.  We were slightly concerned that we might get wet and sure enough, just as we were leaving the park, the heavens opened.  Chris Wank thought uncharacteristically swiftly and incisively and decided to take off his T-shirt and tie it up in a plastic bag, a move Chris Mac  and I hastily copied.  We then had to stop in a souvenir shop whilst Chris Wank reverted to type and spent 10 minutes deciding between 2 stained glass bowls that were for all intents and purposes exactly the same.  We then moved on toward the Metro station in the pouring rain.  Water was flooding the streets and there was a distinct smell of sewage at certain points.  Following the signs to the Metro we were slightly confused by the extremely variable quality of Spanish reckoning of distance; the signs seemed to teasingly tell us it was a mere 1000m to the Metro walk us a good 400m down the road and then tell us there was only another 900m to go.  Some one in the tourist dept. having a laugh I suspect. Our next task having got back to the hostel was to find a suitable venue to watch the football.  Matt’s hopes of a Spanish café were thwarted by them all being shut, so we were left to go to the English bar with the big screen that Dave had been so reluctant to leave the previous day.  We managed to get better than average seats at the bar for the Switzerland vs. Croatia game and had some food off the “Euro2004 Menu”.  The proprietor of the establishment is clearly a man after my own heart and there was no veggie option so Matt had to have a cheese toastie but Chris Mac and I tucked into steak and ale pie.  After this dire game of football, later dubbed by the independent as “the worst European Championship game ever” I found myself a much better distraction and chatted up a nice german lady named Maren who was obviously quite a keen football fan as she had come to the overwhelmingly English pub that we were in to watch the England vs. France game.  Nothing needs to be said about that game other than “keeper at fault”.  Unfortunately Maren had to leave as she had to work the next morning and I had to make do with my boring friends again! Once we’d left the pub we made for a slightly more exclusive establish where they served expensive beer in tall glasses and had pictures of Bill Clinton on the wall.  Chris Mac retired for the evening at some stage and Myself, Chris Wank and Matt discussed the complexities of modern living and the conflicting priorities we have to deal with.  When we were sent on our way as the bar was closing we had the presence of mind to ask where else might be open.  The waiter pointed us in the direction of what was, in my opinion, the best bar we visited all weekend. This new bar played rock music and had table football and darts, the rock music was also a little more interesting than your usual rock anthems CD, the highlight being an obscure King Crimson track that I don’t even remember.  The table football was where we made some new friends a couple of Filipino guys whose names I may have remembered at the time but was in no state to retain.  They absolutely destroyed us at the table football.  This was partly due to the fact that the table was concave and was entirely unlike any we had played on before (they were also much better than us).  Then on to darts where we did a better job but they were still the eventual victors.  As this bar then prepared to close its doors on us our new found friends suggested that we go to a club.  Matt was slightly hesitant but Chris and I overrode his doubts and we all hopped in a taxi to find an underground club right on the square off Las Ramblas where we had been drinking Sangria earlier in the weekend.  Our Filipino friends proved their worth and walked us straight past the bouncers and as we walked into the dingy depths there was a very cool feel to the place.  A back lit bar and bare rock walls contributed to a very “just like the movies” feel.  There were lots of women to shake your arse with and a good time was had by all (things are definitely hazy at this stage).  When this club shut we got a taxi again and as we drove back to the hostel I felt the sweat and queasiness that signalled bad things for Jo.  Fortunately I made it to the hostel toilet and was sick - for the first time of the weekend – and knew nothing more until I was woken by a distinctly agitated Chris Mac approximately 1 hour later… Monday:  I blearily open my eyes… someone is saying something about a bus… didn’t I just go to bed… yes I’m sure it was dark very recently… I was sick… Why is there sun? “GET UP” Things are coming faster now, I’m in the hostel, that’s Chris Mac, I think he wants me to get out of bed, I don’t want to get out of bed, my body won’t let me.  I roll over onto my bag which is by my bed and Chris pulls me up.  I am now standing.  Fortunately I’m dressed already, how clever of me.  Chris Mac manhandles us and cajoles us to the bus stop where we somehow contrive to catch the bus despite the misdirection of the bus authorities who are most unhelpful and seem to send us to the wrong place several times.  I have very little comprehension of what is actually going on.  When we finally get on the bus I ask Chris why my T – shirt is so wet, he has poured a bottle of water over me in attempt to wake me up.  Chris Wank and Matt received the same treatment. At the airport Chris Wank somehow has the energy to run and punch Matt as he is lying down on the seats.  Unfortunately he was mistaken and the man he punched wasn’t Matt at all!  Idiot, he manages to plead his way out of any retaliation.  Matt bids farewell and waits for Katie at the airport with a drive into Barcelona to look forward to as he has left his glasses at the hostel.  The journey back is otherwise uneventful and the exhaustion is total when we arrive home after a great weekend.

18.6.04 19:30 Permalink / 8 Comments / comment