Asahi Boat House Bar
Right. Sorry to start this list off with a negative but WHAT THE FUCK IS THE ASAHI BAR? Along the towpath (the long muddy stretch next to the river) there are a load of expensive-ass bars and pubs and places that sell overpriced fish and chips. The majority of these change each year; HOWEVER there are a few that are well known and have become landmarks in their own right. The Barn Bar, for example, near to the start, is possibly the most excellent of these; however close on its heels is the Bud Bar, which is right at the end. A good walk down the towpath involves visiting the Bud Bar, purchasing a beer, drinking it slowly while walking down the course and then finishing it in time for arrival at the Barn Bar at which point you trip over a picnic table and slash up your leg. Which I of course didn't do... However NOW the Bud Bar has GONE and been replaced by this Asahi Bar shit. And it's all japanesey and stuff and I was just like WOAH when I saw it. And that wasn't a happy amazed "Woah" of impressedness or a Keanu Reeves style 'Woah' of 'My mind has just been blown'. It was more of an angry confused WOAH, like "WOAH. Woah. Woah. Stop one second here. Re-re wind it, flip it, reverse it. WHERE IS THE BARN BAR?" I mean essentially it was exactly the same, except with a different sign. BUT IT WAS THE PRINCIPLE. Because now when I say 'Let's go to the Bud Bar', people would be like 'The Bud Bar?... don't you mean THE ASAHI BOAT HOUSE BAR?' And man, that would get annoying.
I tell you I was confused and I very nearly didn't buy any beer from there at all.
Becca off Hollyoaks
BECCA OFF HOLLYOAKS WAS IN THE BARN BAR ON SATURDAY NIGHT:
Becca off Hollyoaks
I tell you it was jolly exciting. I was star struck at seeing a demi-ex-celebrity drinking alcohol. It was pretty surprising actually as the last I saw her she was dead in a bed, having been bare stabbed up. It really shattered the whole illusion of reality created by the production designers of the Hollyoaks crew and for a few minutes I was unable to process what I saw. Eventually though I plucked up the courage (read: drank some more centurions) and kind of rolled up. I chose my best chat up line.
'BECCA!' I cried smoothly. 'I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!'
She was impressed by my new tshirt, I could see, and so she turned on her seduction rays. "Uh, no."
"BUT YOU WERE STABBED, BECCA!!!!!"
"It was just a flesh wound," she shot back. Man Becca off Hollyoaks is clever. I was taken aback. I was going to ask her if the rumours of her forcing all of her friends to refer to her as "Becca off Hollyoaks" was true but then her boyfriend showed up. I steeled my eyes at him and we were going to have a fight but then instead someone took a photo of me and Becca off Hollyoaks together.
BUT THAT'S NOT IT FOR MINOR CELEBRITIES. While I was walking down the street, some guy who used to be on Big Brother apparently walked across the road. I mean, I didn't recognise him because I'm too busy having a life (writing blogs about seeing minor celebrities) but the drunk girl in front of me did.
"ALEX OFF BIG BROTHER!" she screamed. He turned around and waved. "LOSER!" she responded. He looked really sad. I tell you, I loll'd.
Centurion
Centurion is this drinking game that I was taught at Henners. It is like the most fun thing ever. Essentially it boils down to having 100 shots of beer, one a minute, for 100 minutes. Me and Joe decided to play it on the Saturday night so we bought lots of ice to make my crate of beer really ice cold and then we sat next to the campfire where they were cooking sausages (which was being lit using gin, by the way) and played. We also decided to make a different toast for every shot. I tell you about 30 shots in we were running out of people to toast. I can't remember the exact number we got to but it was about 65 before we ran out of beer/money and at that point we were like "TOAST TO THE BRIDGE!" Man drinking is fun.
Dog
One of the women walking down the towpath had this cute dog.
Entrepreneurship
Basically I have started my own tshirt company, selling stencilled tshirts to members of the public (read: suckers). I brought five tshirts to Henners with the intention of selling them. DID I SELL THEM. Yes I did. I also charged £8 a pop when they are - to be honest - not worth that. Tasty profit to Thomas. Tshirt to my many adoring fans. Everyone's a winner!
First Eight
Our First Eight showed up at Henley and raced a bit. They lost.
Girls
OH MY GOD THERE WERE SO MANY HOT GIRLS AT HENLEY. I think it was because they were all rich. Thus upper class. Thus they had better genes. But every few steps along the course I was like :-o, :-o, :-o hot hot hot hot. It was bloody annoying because I had decided that I was going to avoid females of the female persuasion for the whole of Henley (it turns out that every time I kiss a girl and then don't immediately enter in a sham relationship, Lucia SOMEHOW finds out and gets annoyed and I can't be doing with it). BUT still, you don't have to go into the sty to admire the pigs and so frankly I spent the entire week saying WOAH. And in this case it was a good woah. There were also NO fat girls at all, which was a bonus, as the path was pretty narrow and I don't think the many wheelchair users at the regatta would have appreciated a lardy.
Henley
Is the place where I was at.
Injury
For some reason I spent this entire Henley getting injured. I am literally COVERED in cuts, bruises, bite marks and scrapes. On the Thursday I was sat in a pub and was frankly kind of gone with the absinthe fairies. Close to hand were a kitchen knife and a fork a spoon and I decided to pretend that my leg was a tasty steak (I was hungry) and so I busily started sawing at my shin. The knife was ACTUALLY SHARP and like sliced open my leg. I squealed and dropped the fork. At that point my friend Joe arrived and saw me slicing open my leg with a knife and so now everyone thinks that I am a self-harmer. This image was not improved by the fact that on the FRIDAY night I needed a wee so I went into the forest, tripped over a branch and landed in a patch of brambles and got two HUGE cuts up my leg. Added to the bruises on my thigh from the time I stabbed myself with the spoon from the pub (made sense at the time) and the cut on my shin from the Saturday morning, in which I got out of my tent, bought some yoghurt from Waitrose, walked to the Barn Bar, sat on the picnic table, fell backwards off the picnic table and caught my shin on a sticky out bolt, I LOOK LIKE AN ABUSE VICTIM. Facebook should show pictures of ME to get donations for the RSPCC. I also have some scratches on my back, which I have literally no concept of. I can't even understand how those got there. Oh man.
Johnson (Boris)
BORIS JOHNSON IS THE MP OF HENLEY. I didn't actually come into contact with him at the regatta but Curry did and said that he got into some really beaten up car with a fat girl who may have been his daughter. So that's good. But the thing is, me and Boz both go to the same Oxford College. And by that logic, if we say that Henley is a timeless regatta in which everybody has an equal share of History, which means that technically, I am the future MP of Henley and thus I already practically own the regatta. Morally. It's just that time hasn't caught up yet. Yeah. With logic like that I still don't see why they didn't let me into the Steward's Enclosure. I mean I TRIED, I explained it in detail and drew a little diagram of timelines and stuff but did they listen? NO. Bloody fascists.
Kebab
I HAD MY FIRST KEBAB EVER ON THE SATURDAY NIGHT. It was pretty nice. Although this was after the centurion so I think that anything would have been nice. As a bonus feature, while walking along we found an empty Pimm's jug on the floor. Steal.
Local Celebrity
The local celebrity in this case is me. Basically on Saturday I was walking along in my board shorts, surreptitiously stealing food from the parents' picnic when suddenly I had a tap on my shoulder. I looked round to see Thomas William Kempner's mother, a woman with whom I have had literally no contact in my entire life, except to see her picking him up from rowing and cheering at the bank, and the occasional 'Your mum' joke. She said something like "Tom, I would like to say 'Nice board shorts', but I think that would mean that I have read your blog!".
I was literally like WTF. Turns out that like half of the rowing mothers are avid readers of this blog. This is a worrying development, right. MOTHERS READ THIS BLOG. And not just MY mother, but random boat club mothers. Actually that's pretty annoying. Why do the hot teenage sisters/nieces/aunts not read the blog and come up to mollycoddle me? I would appreciate some mollycoddlage from hot teenage sisters. But no. All I get is the mothers. Sigh. I suppose we must work with the hand that God deals us.
Of course, I immediately scanned back to previous posts to see if I had said anything incriminating. The most recent one was about death and illness and buying board shorts. Fairly serious topic. Ok. That's good. The mothers think I am a deep thinker and interested in eternal issues of mortality and death etc. Not bad. What was the post before that? Oh yeah, that was the one in which I talked about going onto internet chatrooms and pretending to be a girl in order to get perverts to try to have cybersex with me.
Shit.
Oh well, in retaliation for mothers reading my blog, I am going to fill it with disgusting semi-pornographic references to their sons' sex lives. That ought to make for some amusing after dinner reading.
Midgets
So I walked into the toilet and saw Tom Kempner having sex with a midget. ONLY KIDDING. Sorry, Mrs Kempner. No. But for some reason, this regatta was filled to the brim with little short people of all shapes and sizes (assuming that the 'all sizes' means 'small'). There was a little umpire fella on a bike and another little man walking along the towpath then another little chap walking along in a snazzy suit. When I saw him I was like "If we both rush him at the same time I reckon we could take him" to Curry in my ironic way. Actually thinking about it, this year at Henley will be remembered in my mind for being filled with midgets, cripples and weirdoes. Like there was this old woman who just went up and down the towpath in a wheelchair. There's this one bit that is quite a steep bridge so she got this tonk rower to push her up the incline squealing DON'T LET GO DON'T LET GO. And then when he got to the top she was like LET GO LET GO and she whizzed all the way down the path at like 20mph, bowling people out of the way. I have to say that at that point I was like 'Woah, lucky bitch' as I had been walking for ages and my feet hurted.
I think I saw more disabled people this year than I did black people. How funny and indicative.
Naughty
I am a mischievous little scamp, I am. Oh I am IRREPRESSIBLE with my infectious sense of fun. Don't try and pin me down, I am just a whirlwind of naughtiness and wit.
Basically on the Saturday night Curry and I unpegged Kempner's tent while he was asleep in it. AND IT WASN'T JUST HIM. Annawood his girlfriend was in there too. We all know my thoughts about Annawood so lets not get into that here. But I was pretty sure that they were asleep, and not doing anything else, but you know how these teenagers are nowadays, eh Mrs K? Frankly I wouldn't trust them.
But anyway as me and Curry like, wandered into the campsite after all the centurions and Pimm's and kebab and fun, one of us was like 'HEY LET'S UNPEG KEMPNER'S TENT WHILE HE'S ASLEEP!' and then the other was like 'YEAH LET'S DO IT!' and then we did like one of those jumping chest bumps that you see fat kids doing at preview screenings of action films. Of course, to achieve this naughtiness we needed to be crafty.
"Ok Curry," I whispered conspiratorially, "We need to be silent, silent like two NINJA SNAKES!" To show off what I meant by this, I attempted to vanish into the darkness and tripped over a guy rope. It was bloody embarrassing, I'll tell you that for free. Boy was my face red. But anyway we unpegged the tent. To be honest neither of us were sure of what the intention of this exercise was. We more or less expected it to just, like, stay unpegged and be fine. But instead THE ENTIRE THING COLLAPSED with like a sad pofffffff sound. Curry and I were like wtf and ran away. Unfortunately Kempy and his little Gestapo squad tracked me down like the dog I was. Kempy then unpegged MY tent yelling "IS THIS FUNNY TOM? IS IT? I'M LAUGHING. HA HA! IS THIS SO FUNNY NOW?"
Frankly I was in no state to be fighting back so I was just like "Aww maaaaaaan don't do THAT don't take it out on the tent, that is NOT NECESSART unpeg me instead. Oh now it fell over, that's a shame."
It was bloody exciting.
Old Blades
The name of some garden where all of the parents rock up and have a big picnic. Basically when that happens all of the rowers descend, eat all of the food and steal the Pimm's and then fuck off again. It rules. That is what happened this year. HOWEVER later on that night, at about eight, I was walking up the towpath towards the Barn Bar by myself (after the 50 centurions), like completely drunk as a skunk, and I saw that there were still some parents there, tidying up. Being the kind fellow I am I kind of clambered over the fence and helped with the tidying operation. Then apparently I said something sexist to a mother, stole a load of chocolates, and fled the scene. I then gave the chocolates to handsome women that I saw along the riverbank. NO WOMAN CAN HATE YOU WHEN YOU GIVE HER CHOCOLATE.
Pimm's
Ah, Pimm's. Drink of Henley. I must have consumed about two bottles of the stuff on my own, probably because of my practise of mixing it in about a 40-60 ratio in pint glasses. I am now sick of it. But that's ok, I should be in the mood for Pimm's about this time next year!!! Yeah!!!!
Queen Mother Challenge Cup
This is an Open Men's category for Coxless Quads, which are sculling boats featuring four rowers, and no coxswain. Nobody cares about coxless quads. I don't think I watched a single quad race.
On the other hand, the Queen Mother Challenge Cup begins with a Q.
Rowing
The sport wot iz done at Henley. It is jolly exciting and I have lost count of the thrilling races I watched this year. Oh wait, I found count again. It was about 6.
Stewards
The special place where only la crème doo la crème of the rowing world can enter (read: those wearing a shirt or tie). Naturally I figured that nobody would want to go there so I rolled up wearing jeans and a bright green BARRY tshirt. Naturally in the first day everyone else IN BLOODY HENLEY was there for the racing. So I sat hunched by the river looking like quite the fool. I was literally like, the only man in the entire town not wearing eveningwear. I looked like hired help. I kind of wish I had some fat gloves and a spade so I could pretend to be digging a hole or whatever it is the working class does, and the rest of the posh totty would respect and fear me.
Tent
I STAYED IN A TENT. It was so good (except for the regrettable moment when it fell over due to THOMAS KEMPNER'S influence. Knobhead (Sorry Mrs K). I decided to pitch away from everyone else in case I scored (hah), and so that I could just run away and hide when I lost interest in speaking to other people. This worked PRETTY well. However unfortunately at about the same time as I arrived, these two girls in the pitch behind me also rolllled up. Now they were actually pretty hot so I was ding-dong. However THEY WERE LITERALLY THE MOST BORING BITCHES EVER. They both woke up at about, I dunno, 740am EVERY DAY and would just discuss absolutely NOTHING in loud piercing voices. Like, one morning they discussed the order in which they would pack their bags for TEN SOLID MINUTES. I was just not impressed so on the final night I whipped up a lynch mob and we burnt their tent to the ground: FACT.
Upper Thames Rowing Club
This is a club on the Henley course. It begins with U. It also has a really expensive fish and chips stand. BUT A FREE GIN AND TONIC ONE. So it evens out.
Violence
Henley is a violent place. However, the violence is of a 'Gentlemanly' slant. Even the pikeys are slightly sophisticated. Let me give you an example. I was walking back to the campsite by myself on the Friday evening. I was in a bit of a bad mood. Anyway as I crossed Henley bridge, this group of four or five 'pikeys' on the other side started yelling at me. It was rather obscene and I know that there are mothers reading this so I shall not repeat what was said (it was 'fuck'). Anyway I was in no mood for this, like I was in my bad-ass-mofo mode so I was just like LEAVE ME ALONE YOU INGRATES (in slightly coarser language). Naturally they were all like "wot? wot dyou say?" but I strolled off down the bridge without giving them a second thought or glance.
About a minute later I got a tap on the shoulder and I was presented with a load of pikeys surrounding me. They must have been so offended by my language that they stopped where they were going, climbed over two barriers, crossed the road and pushed past all the people on the bridge. The lead pikey was wearing gloves. He had some nice hair.
"Oi, why you swearing at us?" he enquired.
"Because you were swearing at ME," I responded.
"No we weren't."
What exactly do you say to that? It was a filthy lie and he knew it. Anyway what exactly else would they have been saying? "Wayhey!!! Did you see the racing today? Radley were bloody good weren't they!!!" NO THEY WOULDN'T.
So I was basically like "Yes you were."
I think he saw that he wasn't going to win this battle with reasoning as I was clearly far more intelligent than him. DAMN IT I just realised - if I'd told them that I'm gonna go to Oxford they would probably have like, apologised, admitted their mistake and gone on their way, realising that I was their better. Stupid Thomas why didn't you think of saying that? Anyway, I didn't say anything more, and so he settled for the tried and tested "Mate, if you swear at me again I'm gonna BITE YOUR FUCKING FACE OFF."
For about three seconds I just stared blankly at him trying to work out this threat. I am not sure of the practical possibility of this. I mean Curry when coxing occasionally breaks out a "YOU TRY TO UNDERTAKE ME AND I'LL BITE YOUR FUCKING NOSE OFF, SUNSHINE" which is a more realistic threat. But my FACE? I mean the guy had a big mouth but surely not that big. Unless he was going to bite it off in lots of smaller bites, which could work, I guess.
I mean I was in such a bad mood that I felt like getting really beaten up anyway. So I very nearly just reached over and poked him really hard in the centre of the chest. Unfortunately I was not QUITE that drunk yet so instead I was like "Well if you don't swear at me, I won't swear at you, then nobody's face gets bitten off."
He thought about this proposal. He repeated the face-biting jibe.
One of his friends obviously saw that I was HARD and probably armed to the teeth with Hamlet quotations so was like "Hey Quentin, leave it mate" (I couldn't remember the actual name).
"Look, I'll cut out my swearing if you cut out your biting," I said. Quentin narrowed his mongoloid eyes at me. Then he was like "Ok safe" and we shook hands on it.
Let me repeat that.
WE SHOOK HANDS ON IT.
This is how sophisticated and gentlemanly Henley is. Even the pikeys conclude their drunken scuffles in the street with a firm handshake and a mutual understanding. It was brilliant.
Water
Water. Like the water I dropped my mobile telephone into on the Friday. Basically me and Curry had made ourselves a little picnic by the bank of hummus and bread and tortilla chips and chicken and a whole chorizo sausage (the chorizo was a bad investment). Anyway, when we were finished one of the midgets ran past. I was like 'That's exciting' so I LEAPT to my feet to get a better look. With a milquetoast little sliding sound that was almost disappointed, my phone tumbled out of my pocket. It fell to the bank, bounced OH SO SLOWLY, and then plopped into the water. I sadly watched the Nokia sign disappear into the depths.
"Oh, that is a shame," I said solemnly, then STRIPPED OFF and dived into the water to fetch it (read: reached in and found it almost immediately). It did not seem to be doing that well. The screen was all washy and throbbing and every time I dialled a number it gave a really weird gurgling noise. Although tbh I don't know if that really made a noticeable difference in the functionality of the phone - the Nokia N73 is a piece of SHIT. You get a text, press 'Read text', then you might as well go downstairs and make a cup of tea while the fricking thing loads properly. It frequently freezes up, randomly stops working and pressing 'Answer message' will usually force the camera to load up. NOTA BENE: NEVER BUY A NOKIA N73. I don't even know why I bothered going into the water to rescue the damn thing.
Water? Like the water I fell into on Saturday while walking to the Barn Bar (this was after my visit to Old Blades, before meeting Becca off Hollyoaks)? I was trying to be sneaky and avoid the slow moving people traffic so I attempted to leap balletically over a hillock. Didn't work and I fell into the water, next to an old lady. She looked at me inquisitively and I gave a cheeky wink as I climbed out with a fish in my ear and a frog on my shoe. The frog was smoking a cigarette and playing the guitar really well. It looked very nice, but slightly dim.
Xylophone
"The xylophone is a musical instrument in the percussion family which probably originated in Indonesia. It consists of wooden bars of various lengths that are struck by plastic, wooden, or rubber mallets. Each bar is tuned to a specific pitch of the musical scale. Xylophones are tuned to different scale systems depending on their origin, including pentatonic, heptatonic, diatonic, or chromatic." (Wikipedia)
Young people
Lots of young people about this year. Too young. No babies, though, which was a plus.
Zebra
No zebra to be seen this year. Which was a shame.
THAT WAS HENLEY. Now I have to find something else to fill my empty and pathetic life with. I KNOW. HEROIN.
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