A BREAK IN THE SUN...

As the usual Autumn gales descended on Cambridge, blowing a hoolie across the Fens, a dozen members of Cantabrigian RC managed to escape the misery last week, by jetting off to Lake Banyoles for a spot of sun, sangria and, oh, a little bit of rowing too.

Alas, the alcohol fuelled high jinks got a little out of hand on the final evening when Cantabs' illustrious Captain Mr Paul Haines and one Mr Jim "Could fart for England" Kirton challenged each other to an impromptu arm wrestling competition... and all would have been fine, except, our two powerhouses did not reckon upon the might of a cox from the Indian national squad, (that well-known major force in world rowing), who was also getting pissed, er, I mean training at the Spanish venue.

For reasons known only unto himself, said cox decided that it would be a good idea to add his own strength to this titanic struggle, wading in and pushing Mr Kirton's arm over - resulting in Mr Haines' arm crashing down beneath it with an almighty crack.

Before long (well after several miliseconds) Mr Haines was screaming in agony, and was sporting a massive bulge on his upper arm - no, not his bicep - rather a touch of imflamation where his humerus had been snapped completely in two....

The Indian cox is reported to have told El Capitano something along the lines of "stop your whinging, I didn't do anything to hurt you".

The whinging wounded Cantabs Captain was thus invalided back to Blighty in a temporary cast and on lots of painkillers, where he has been confined to Cambridge's Addenbrooke's Hospital for the last few days awaiting surgery later this week after initial attempts to reset his arm failed.

The slug wishes Paula speedy recovery, especially as it's a far from optimal time for the silly bugger to have gone and done this - what with the club Annual General Meeting and the launch of the club's involvement in Project Oarsome both happening this week....

JUST A WARNING

A member of the Sydney rowing club crew, has requested that the slug points out that they were not in fact charged with indecent exposure for getting their bits out on the Yarra.

Rather, they received a mere warning for their nekkidness, as, in the words of the WPC attending,

"no one has complained, so we're not charging you".

'ELLO 'ELLO 'ELLO

Sydney Rowing Club headed down to Melbourne a couple of weekends ago for a series of inter-club races with Mercantile Rowing Club (home of Tomkins, Ginn etc). After a successful weekend the Sydney lads decide to take advantage of the spring weather with a nekkid row down the course. However the local constabulary and a major kayak race soon put their fine weekend fun to an end....

First of all the crew ran over some poor bloke in a kayak. Ok, he was in the wrong spot navigation wise, but a smashed nose and an nasty gash across the cheek (a feathered blade, edge on) is pretty nasty.

Thinking perhaps that was the worst to come our intrepid lads were then all booked by the police for indecent exposure! Though the slug suspects that the school girl crews out training at the time may have begged to differ.

Apparently all of this excitiment was captured on video tape by one of the coaching staff, but on review the man with the camera was laughing so much that the camera shake has made the tape completely useless a la 'Blair Witch' . Shame...

Then the headmistress of one of the schools came by just to see how everyone was getting on...