...is better than half a farthing'
Whoever thought Tommy Steele would be responsible for such wise words eh? Yet, there is much to admire in his 'gor blimey guv'nor' delivery of 'Half a Sixpence' for sometimes there is value and merit in things which may appear to be fairly worthless (you can tell I'm building up to an excuse, can't you).
Half a Sixpence is one of those songs that everybody knows the first line to and not much else. Even I, a total saddo when it comes to song lyrics, had to look up the second line of the song to see exactly what Half a Sixpence was better than - personally I'd have had a punt at ricketts, but I guess that's why I'm not a songwriter. It set me thinking of other songs which, by and large, no-one knows the words to. I came up with the following (NB if it's just me, please humour me):
1. Snow - 'Informer' ('Informer, you know scheboogie boogie gonna blame a licky boom boom down')
2. The Singing Nun - 'Dominique':
3. Any fast Red Hot Chilli Peppers song - they only have the two tunes; the fast one (think Give it Away) and the slow one (think Under the Bridge)
4. Hanson - 'Mmmbop' ('Mmmbop, oochie, coochie, cock, doowop')
5. Dexys Midnight Runners - 'Come on Eileen'. Does ANYONE know the second line to this song? I'm almost convinced that they couldn't be bothered to write one and just garbled any old nonsense to bridge the gap to the chorus (for a real example of this in action, I can thoroughly recommend 'Chacarron' by El Chombo).
Anyway, back to the point of the post, namely that I'm seeking some dispensation on three of my challenges...well, if I'm going try and fudge one, I might as well go for a job lot. Your understanding would be greatly appreciated. For reasons of brevity - not a word you'd ever associate with me - I'm going to make each case in separate posts or we'll be here all week. So today's please for mercy goes as follows:
Challenge 1 - Abseil down the Royal Liverpool Hospital (Michelle)
I feel a bit like a child asking for an extension on his homework after it was due in, for this challenge took place in October and I was nowhere near Liverpool, let alone dangling off the side of the Hospital. My reasons for this were threefold - I had to work that weekend, I'm trying to save money so decided that a trip to Liverpool wasn't cost effective and (most importantly) Michelle has already backed out.
You'd be well within your rights, to ask me to throw myself off another fairly large building in the near future, if you do, may I request that this involves some ropes and a safety harness, please. I am, however, asking for clemency on the grounds that a few weeks I went indoor climbing for the first time, which involved a degree of abseiling back down the wall.
I have to be totally honest - clambouring up a wall wasn't my choice of how to spend a Wednesday afternoon, but myself and a colleague were taken by one our our event partners by way of a team building activity. They had originally suggested touch rugby, but I was slightly worried that I'd get too competitive and put in a thundering tackle on one of the lovely young ladies who we work with . OK, so I was equally worried that some large chap would deck me too - pretty much my sole memories of playing rugby at school (I quickly learnt to play scrum half - put the ball in the scrum, get it out and get rid of it as quickly as possible, before running in the other direction!) Having put Touch Rugby to bed, we were asked for our ideas of what we should do instead. Sadly my suggestion of bingo and a gin tasting didn't go down too well, so instead we found ourselves at the world's largest indoor climbing arena.
I don't know why I'd always put off climbing. I'm quite good with heights and generally quite fit, however I guess, much like skiing, it's the fear of what can go wrong, for I have possibly the lowest pain threshold of anyone in the western world - yes, I am one of those people who says 'Ooooowww' before I've even been touched! As a result it's one of those activities that never remotely appealed - much like wearing colourful trousers, listening to John Lennon or getting anything waxed. Yet, there I was in a pair of ridiculously tight shoes staring up at a 30ft wall
...and I really enjoyed it! Granted I found 'belaying' (standing at the bottom, controlling the tension of the climber's rope so that they don't crash to the ground) a bit stressful - it's a helluva responsibility - but the climbing itself was fun and I was surprisingly good at it, for a chap with little legs! In fact, I took to it so well, that in a race to the top I hammered the main guy from our event partner (maybe not the best business decision I've ever taken). OK, so he was on a slightly harder wall, but in my head I was a contestant on Gladiators and had Nightshade on my tail. Once you've reached the top, the only way down is to abseil back to terra firma, something I found tremendously fun (I may even have said 'weeeeeeeeeee' all the way down).
So, I didn't abseil down the side of the Royal Liverpool Hospital, but I have abseiled. Will this do?
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