| AFTER VIIIs... |
Looks like trashing VIIIs is the fashionable thing to be seen to do these days, with the latest club to jump on the bandwagon being Mortlake and Anglian who had a bit of an unfortunate incident on Saturday morning...For it would appear that a scratch veteran's VIII coming downstream near the top of the tide, managed to quite convinvingly NOT miss one of the pillars of Kew railway bridge.
The slug can report that luckily the only damage to the crew was a mangled rigger.... as for the cox in charge of the illustrious vessel? Well sources suggest it was none other than the famous Stan Roots; father of Ian....
| OOPS... |
Oh dear... it seems that it's slapped wrists all round at London Rowing Club after the boys in blue succesfully managed to run an VIII and a quad aground on Wednesday night at low tide.The VIII - the only one at LRC that hadn't been trashed, came a cropper when the cox took it through the inside arch of Hammersmith Bridge, quite why, we'll never know though the slug can only assume it seemed a good idea at the time.
In response to this wanton trashing of boats,(the kind normally only seen on the Twickenham stretch of the river), LRC captain Ian "Whipper the seriously pissed off skipper" Watson as he's now known, has issued a blanket ban on after dark activities, including mornings, unless there's a launch with the crew and the tide is incoming on the slope, or outgoing on the top of the tide.
Seems a wholly sensible approach to us, but how many more innocent boats have to die before the rest of the Tideway follows suit...?
| HOW THE...? |
The leftovers from an altogether more spectacular trash by St George's college were visible for all to see by Kew bridge on Saturday morning, where the indigenous rower-eating triffids appeared to have been helping themselves to the contents of a passing crew yet again.Quite how some of the blades got 15 foot up into a tree the slug doesn't know, for all we know is that on first glance it appeared to be a sculling boat, it then started to look more like a double, but after counting the visible riggers... um there seemed to be five of them, so it wasn't a IV, it became apparent that what the slug was looking at used to be an VIII.
Now when an VIII rips in half at the middle section joint, you'd extect to see some damage to the faces , so when you don't, you've gotta ask the obvious question "did they really take an VIII out without tightening up the middle nuts..?? Is anyone REALLY THAT STUPID???". A worrying thought bearing in mind that someday these medical students might be operating on one of us...
If any of the unfortunates in the crew (we know they're still alive coz they were spotted swimming to the side) or one of the people seen removing blades from the tree later on that day, would care to comment, the slug would be very interested to hear how the hell they managed it.
| NOT BAD FOR A VET B |
Last weekend saw the UK coaching conference take place at Bath. Although I was unable to attend because of the TwRC dinner and going to France (safer for slugs than snails), there is one nice titbit we picked up which the readers of the slug might be interested to read.For we can report Jurgen took along with him this year's 2000m Ergo Test results from the GB Mens Squad and despite all the mutterings about his age and fixed seat racing, Redgrave was still the fastest on bowside in the GB Squad with a not too bad time of 5 min 50s, he was followed closely by both Ed Coode and Tim Foster with 5min 53s.
Seems there's life in the old dog yet......
| BABIES, BABIES EVERYWHERE... |
Happy (we hope) news from the Fens, as it seems that Paul the captain of Cantabs has got Sue, the ex-girlie captain up the duff. This is only the latest in a series of Cantabs club girlies in the family way.... the curse of the women's 1st boat #2 seat.....As if this wasn't bad enough (allowing babies to get in the way of rowing - well it does make getting one's hands down and away a tad difficult) , the slug can reveal that none of the women in the club who are preggers are married. What is the world coming to?
I feel a strong letter to The Times coming on.....
| FUNERAL PYRE?? |
The slug was wandering home (slightly inebriated) from the Vesta Beach party on Saturday night, when it decided to drop into Furnivall to see how the private party there was progressing.So, you can imagine our surprise when we were greeted by the specatcle ofsomebody disappearing into the men's changing room wearing only her bra and leaving behind a trail of burning newspaper?!!!.
After quickly extinguishing all the fires, resetting the smoke alarm and having a quick good look around, the only printable word that came to mind was "trashed".
And was there anyone from the club anywhere to be seen...?
no.
| LYCRA FETISH WEAR?? |
The Slug needed to contact the nice people at Powerhouse last week, and sent a quick e-mail off to owner and lycra magnate Garth Young... except, in a moment of lapsed concentration, the mail was sent to powerhouse.co.uk which is not Garth, because (of course) he's powerhouseclothing.co.uk...The error came to light when the un intended recipient asked who the slug was after, so we told him and apologised for disturbing him. He responsed thusly; "Thanks for that - they're one of the erroneous powerhouses I'd not been able to track down."
Curious word in the context, "erroneous". Especially seeing as how the page www.powerhouse.co.uk contains links to gay S&M sites ....
One of Vesta's ex-members (now to be seen loitering around Crabtree) found himself in a similar situation recently, as when trying to buy a vanity domain name he was sorely disappointed to find out that it had already gone...
Did I say Ex-member? Having seen www.stevekelso.com , the slug reckons that xxx-member might be more appropriate...
| NEW MAN IN TOWN |
Now that the relevant paperwork has been completed to the satisfaction of her Majesty's government, the boys in blue at LRC can officially anounce their long awaited new Chief Coach.The man in question, who has been in Putney on "holiday" for the last few weeks, is Mr Paul Reedy, Winner of an Olympic Silver in 1984 and several world Medals, Paul was previously to be found coaching at Melbourne University..
| DOCKLANDS SBH (Shows Backup Helps) |
Although faced with weather forecasts promising howling winds and torrential rain last weekend, the Docklands Small Boats Head (jontly organised by Poplar Blackwall and the Royal Albert Docks Trust) was a success - at least to the competitors who had been starved of racing due to the flood conditions elsewhere.This was despite the best efforts of the Poplar Men's Novice IV, who were keen to show the coach of the Men's Lightweight VIII, Simon McCarthy, that they were not intimidated by authority or coaching success. For after limping to the start, the Novices proceeded to ram the launch which held the afore-mentioned authority figure, and more importantly, the starting watch....
Much to their horrow, the watch promptly disappeared into the murky waters of the Dock, along with the crew number, ... though fortunately, there was an emergency back-up watch, so the day was saved.
Club members observing from the bank were most surprised to learn that club icon, Swampy, was not, in fact, in the crew...
| WATCH OUT THERE'S A CAMERA ABOUT |
As more rowing clubs get themselves sorted out with web cameras, it's interesting to see what different uses they're put to. Anyone logging onto the London RC web site, at the right time yesterday afternoon, would have found a couple of nice shots showing the monster tide happening on the Tideway. The slug even managed to catch these fleeting images for your enjoyment...
| MISTAKEN IDENTITY |
Click to enlargeThe slug had to do a double take yesterday when passing the local newsagent, when the front page of that illustrious tabloid, the sun caught its eye. Closer inspection showed that the article wasn't anything to do with a certain GB women's squad coach... but still, makes you think...
IV- WHEEL DRIVE It's nice to see athletes who appreciate their coaches, so the slug was impressed to hear of a generous gesture from Mssrs Redgrave, Pinsent, Foster and Cracknell, formally of the GB IV-, as it seems that they've bought Jurgen a BMW to say thank you...Steve and Matt got him tickets on Concorde after Atlanta so it's only right that they should go one step further this time, though the slug was amused to hear that Jurgen actually sent the car back... he's replaced it with a diesel model...
