ONE CAREFUL LADY OWNER...

Two veterans from one of the Putney Embankment clubs, were recently chuffed with their purchase of a NINE-year-old double sculling boat, through well known and apparently reputable, second hand boat dealer on the Tideway.

Assured by the seller, that the boat had been cared for by a private owner and had recently been refurbished, they were happy to hand over quite a few of their hard earned pennies, content they had got a reasonable deal.

However, on receipt of the boat and after an opportunistic check with the refurbisher, it turned out that the boat was actually NINETEEN years old, and the "single careful owner" was in fact a coach based at a certain up-river red, black and white rowing club...

charming.

BOYS AND THEIR TOYS

Following the Upper Thames girlies roaring to a spectacular 5th place in the 1999 Chick's Eights head race, the gallant girlies spent the rest of last season scooping wins and medals at Ghent, Women's Henley, Nat Champs, Home Countries and the Commonwealths.

"But why list all these triumphs of the past?" I hear you cry.

Well, the girls are, quite simply, wondering just what they have to do, within the hallowed male portals of Upper Thames, to receive some recognition for their efforts.

For, it would appear that all their wins and medals, pale into insignificance when compared with the men's mighty triumphs over the same season and this is reflected in the club's best boat - now classified as "the men's 8+" - being made "unavailable" for the women to use in the forthcoming head, despite the event being two weeks BEFORE the men's HORR. As the girls have been told in so many words, that the boat is reserved for the men, who have earned it and deserve it .

...And the UTRC men's success of 1999... Knocked out of the Wyfronts on Thursday.

Sound familiar anyone?"

ALAS POOR BREWSTER...

The fresh-faced IC oarsman is looking a bit sheepish these days, after his second disciplinary from the powers that be at Imperial College. His latest drunken slip up occurring shortly before Christmas, while pelting eggs from the balcony of the newly refurbished Cherry Wood and Carpets Soft lighting and Piped Music, heated lockers in the changing rooms (to dry out kit)- state of the art Trusthouse Forte IC/QT boathouse.

It seems that one of his badly aimed missiles happened to hit a car sitting outside the club, leaving a small dent and a large mess.Unfortunately, the car in question had literally just been driven out of the showroom and for some reason, the owner was less than impressed. In fact so unimpressed that, not content with writing to IC , the council and his local MP to complain, it now appears that the national press have also been informed.

You also might be interested to know that when eggs hit cars (or even get lobbed through open sun roofs) slightly closer to Putney Bridge, the culprits are not so easily identified, as the car owners fail to realise that they are being fired on from the roof!

ho hum...

OUR PHIL..

Those of you who tuned into Blind date on Saturday, will have seen London Boy Mr Phil Vondra have a close escape, from being picked by possibly the worst dressed Australian that the Slug has ever seen (and that's saying something).

Phil's house was packed with supporters on Saturday night and after the show he was forced to wear some replica medals made from chocolate money and dragged to the pub. The 'medals' then proceeded to melt, which was just as well or the somewhat inebriated, Chris "but I'm in training for the Marathon" Leonard would probably have eaten them.

As if this humiliation wasn't bad enough, the next day young Phil was rowing out of Leander and had to face a load of stick from Television veterans Redgrave and Pinsent who mercilessly ripped the piss out of him.

As Phil wisely put it "they may have been on Question of Sport but I've got to start somewhere.."