| SLIDING SEATS? |
Poor Mark Hawes had a nasty experience last weekend at the Kingston head, as the London boy was afflicted by every rower's worst nightmare while doing the head race with an upset stomach.Picture the scene (and those of you who are easily upset may want to move on quickly at this point)...
you're rating 35 mid race and suddenly you lose control of a important part of your anatomy... you suddenly wish that rather than wearing nothing under your all-in-one, you'd stopped off at Tesco's to stock up on Pampers.
As Mark himself put it... "at frontstops the last thing I was thinking about, was whether my blade was connecting at full pressure..."
When the crew finally got back to solid ground at Wallbrook, Hawsie was out of the boat, stripping off his kit and sprinting at speed towards the boathouse before one could say "Andrex Puppy".
This does put a new perspective on "rowing like sh*t" (enough - ED) however despite his traumatic experience the slug was impressed that Mr Hawes still managed to look on the positive side, reflecting.. "oh well, we still managed to beat the Lea, ha ha ha"
| REASONS TO STAY IN BED... |
The slug has been told a tale of woe concerning a member of the Imperial College 2nd VIII, who had a particularly bad day last Thursday, and as a result has earned himself the nickname "Kenny" - for reasons that will become apparent..The day started innocently enough when the boys in the IC 2nd VIII set off at 6:00 on a run to Barnes Bridge. At 0630 things took a turn for the worse, when Scottish Andy was run over by speeding car, narrowly missing other members of the crew. Now when I say run over I mean run over.. not just tapped, but the real McCoy; as he bounced off the bumper into the air and landed in a little crumpled heap. But do not worry, for the slug is glad to report that somehow he survived with only a few bruises.
The day moved on and soon it was 1800 and IC2 had an outing. Perhaps, made foolhardy by his earlier dice with death, Scottish Andy waves a big red flag at fate and declares that he is OK to row as it would take more than a car to put him out of action...
1830 and the crew are going under Hammersmith Bridge. Meanwhile, some darling children on the bridge think it would be rather jolly fun to throw rocks at boat... One rock goes "through" the boat. (i.e. these aren't pebbles) and um...One rock goes through Scottish Andy...
Blood everywhere, and poor Andy (aka Kenny) was rushed to hospital and got some nice stitches in his head... though for some reason no-one wanted to get in a vehicle with him.
Seems that some days you really are better off staying in bed...