An Open Letter To Skateboarding, Sealand & Mosherdrops

Last weekend saw the annual CaughtintheCrossfire.com Christmas get together hosted at the Bay66PlaystationXbox park and like most skateboarding events, I made the effort to drag myself along to drink tea on the side lines, hussle free product and scream obscenitites to all and sundry as they flew past.

Unfortunately there is something that has been bothering me for some time (and it's not a rash) and it has reached a point where I can't really ignore it anymore. Now I would be the first to admit that skateboarding is a pretty homo passtime as was ably demonstrated by the Congo Line Bum Off at Corby earlier in the year, but there is no need to make it any worse than it has to be. I am talking about skintight jeans. Someone, somewhere, probably for a laugh, suggested that it would be funny as all fuck to suggest to some impressionable spastic that skin tight jeans or manleggings as they have become make you look damn near irresistable to the opposite sex. Probably something to do with wanting to look like Donny Tourette or some other AIDS riddled junkie with a topman shirt and a wonky haircut. Evidently this is not the case. To my knowledge there is not a world wide shortage of denim so there really is no excuse to see the snug outline of someones hangdown when theyre skating. Or walking about the town for that matter. The only possible upshot of it, is that it gives me something else to shout obscenitities about from the sidelines whilst drinking my tea. This time, I was joined by Rodney Clarke who helped me compile the top 3 Fertility Threateners on show whilst also drinking tea and shouting from the sidelines.

The next few pictures should be avoided by anyone who doesnt want to see a pretty suspect array of lycra legwear... 

Honestly, I'm surprised they don't have to get the fire bridgade to cut them out of there...  It got so bad at one point that a pair of battylenders turned up all excited cause all the winkies on display through the hideously tight trousers had triggered their Gaydar... 

Rodney was on hand to help commiserate the fourth place contender who was devastated to learn he didnt get a podium finish. Look at his little face. Gutted. Still, looking on the brightside, at least he hasn't neutered himself by wearing little girls trousers. Better luck next time twinkle...

Let's all agree for 2010, plain shoes, jeans that dont display any of your reproductive organs, hats that cover your ears and I'll let you do your own things for shirts. You're welcome.

The Moshers turned up and shredded... 

and I saw Croydon's finest Dom Marley.

I met Dom a while ago when we were both contracted to go and spend a day on Sealand and write about it because Redbull have more money than sense and thought it would be a good idea to take skateboarding to a second world war seafort. Clearly, this is a pretty fucking stupid idea which is instantly obvious to anyone that isn't a total divvy. Thankfully, the PR department of Redbull is populated almost exclusively with divvies so were overjoyed to ship us out to watch a few skaters jump about on some shitty ramps and try not to fall 40ft into the North Sea. All went well until we started an argument with the German filmcrew who couldnt tell the difference between their collective arse and a hole in the floor and ended up pissing off the Redbull Marketing Machine by telling them we wanted to go home. When that didnt work we bribed a fisherman and Redbull felt so embarrassed they decided to buy us honorary titles making us Lord Marley and Lord Dickfingers of Sealand respectively and then promptly paid us a lot of money to write some bullshit about how great it all was. Unfortunately, I also wrote another less than positive article on it which aggravated matters somewhat, and left Redbull and Dickfingers Freelance Journalists on fairly sketchy ground, for all intents and purposes, shooting myself in the foot, buggering any chances I had of being shipped around to write bullshit for Redbull... You live and learn...

In other news my brand new gun licence turned up in the post so I am now a Police Certified Gun Carrier and as of tomorrow, I am off to have a look at getting myself a gun... the Olympics are only a few years away so I'm getting the practice in now. 

and it snowed

so I think we both know what happened next...

Happy Christmas and all that crap. Hope you get everything that you want. Im going to spend the festive period eating as much as is humanly possible in between shooting things and sitting down. Good times. Ill have a think about writing something better in the new year, I know that despite giving him some new shoes, TobyBrock is pretty bummed on the deteriorating quality of this here blog so I am going to do my utmost to make sure it's nothing short of bloody tops for 2010... 

Over and out until the new year...

A Christmas Shrub, Shooting, Lunchbreak and Torture...

And I'm back... Brock, you can piss off, this blog isn't dropping off, how very dare you. I'm pleased to report that after the last time we have reached the giddying heights of 14 vaguely interested fans. Well done people, I'm very proud of you all for finally recognising the merits of reading about the random shit that I have been getting up to and you should all be very happy that you have helped me become 15% betterer than Jesus... I couldn't have done it without you. Give yourselves a pat on the back and hang in there: you're awesome

As you will probably be aware, Christmas is creeping ever closer and that means that I have recently had to set aside a day to decorate Dickfingers HQ and by "set aside a day" I mean "start decorating in between checking the internet, drinking tea and playing xbox until Mrs Dickfingers gets the hump and finishes it herself." Mrs Dickfingers hates this time of year as it is also an excuse for me to move Hank into a more prominent position. 

This is Hank. 

Hank is my Christmas Owl. I bought him 2 years ago after seeing him whilst skulking around a Garden Centre looking at decorations. I thought he was amazing 2 years ago and I have not changed my mind in the time since. The same could be said for the lovely Mrs Dickfingers: she's been dead against him from the start and I was told in no uncertain terms that I was forbidden to buy him which with 2 years of hindsight, probably wasn't the best thing to say. Hank can be seen above in his Christmas hat. Obviously this is what he wears for the Christmas Season and you and everyone else would assume that he would be put away after the Christmas period has expired. However I am stubborn. Stubborn and stupid. And stubborn and stupid is a pretty fatal combination when trying to argue your case without sounding like a spoilt child, so much so, that I decided not to put him away until next Christmas. Instead I came up with a better, alternative idea: pop a little Summer hat on him and let him wear that for 11 months until Christmas rolls around again and he can take pride of place next to the other decorations. Suffice it to say, like so many of my additions to the interior decoration of Dickfingers HQ: Mrs Dickfingers hates it and I am forever left wondering, not only how I managed to keep a girlfriend as tolerant to my shit as she undoubtedly is but more surprisingly how I managed to convince her going out with me would be a good idea in the first place. If anyone knows why I feel the neverending urge to wind her up so much please let me know as I'd love to hear other theories... 

Fast forward to today when we found ourselves at the very same Garden Centre, looking at decorations when Mrs Dickfingers uttered the challenge "...and don't even think about buying another stupid bloody owl..." and before you know it, Dickfingers HQ welcomes Esteban, the Snow Owl and I am right back wondering why I must continually push my luck... 

I would like to say that this will be the last Owl addition to Headquarters but that really depends on whether or not I squabble with Mrs Dickfingers within range of a Garden Centre and decide to spend £2.49 that could jeopardise my relationship and living arrangements... Time will tell and you'll be the first to know.

I would like to take the time to say that this is not a one sided arrangement and I don't spend my time dictating to Mrs Dickfingers what is and isn't going to be happening in our lovely little flat. Take our Christmas tree for example... For the last few years we have had a fairly respectable fake tree that stood in the corner of the room and as far as I was concerned did the job perfectly. In a casual throwaway conversation the subject of this years Christmas Tree was raised and I quickly vetoed the idea of a real tree on the grounds of it being too much hassle to clear up afterwards having spent 6 months at my previous flat carefully removing pineneedles from the underside of my feet. Thinking this was the end of it (my first mistake) I gave the idea no further thought until I received a phonecall from Mrs Dickfingers telling me that she had got a new tree. A "real" one. 

Assuming the worst, I expected a shitting massive great thing with millions of pointy little spears just waiting to find their way into my naked feet. What I didnt expect, was Stumpy.

Now, noone wants to hear "size isnt everything" but when you have to put 3/4 of your decorations back in the loft because the tree isn't strong enough to support them, you really need to reevalulate but I'm pretty sure that Stephen Hawking's legs are stronger than our tree. Next year I have stipulated that if we are having a real one, and something tells me that we probably will, then we're getting a decent sized one. Although saying that Stumpy is still growing so there may be an update in a years time to let you know how far we've come... 

In other news, I am still in the process of getting my Shotgun Licence and have a meeting this week to convince the fine folk of the Bedfordshire Police that I am not a psycho and/or an irresponsible spastic. Obviously this pretty powerful blog, as awesome as it is, and the Dickfingers Collection of Fine Art (or has others have quite astutely dubbed it: a load of pictures with dicks on em...) will be hidden until the Police are well up the road but I think that providing I remember to put trousers on and not talk about how great that bit in Rambo is when he peels that guy with the minigun, there's very little that can go wrong... Hopefully...

I think I should end this post with some videos so please find below what could well be the best examples of getting mugged off. One shows how to do it yourself, the other is assisted. The first features Ben Cundall and the other victim is Dibble. Both of these are amazing for very different reasons but I am stoked on both of them so thought I would share them and urge you to hang out with either of these guys as you will not be disappointed. 

More Skateboarding >>

Thats it for today, I might change the format for the next update depending on your response: Post a comment on whatever topics you would like to feature on here and I will carry out an investigative type report and get back to you. Maybe. In all likelihood, I'll get bored and pretend this never happened... We'll see.  

Before I forget: if any of you work or have relatives that work for Apple, some lightfingered theiving nabbing bastard has stolen my Ipod touch... so... er... its Christmas and I'd like another one. I'll wait to hear back from you real soon so I can send you my delivery address. That'd be super. 

The Mini Ramp Championship, Product Placement and Lizard Drinks

Welcome to another thrilling update to what could well be the best thing on the internet. In the last week I have managed to gain three, thats 3, new disciples meaning that I am now only one behind Jesus. I should have pointed out when you signed up that you are going to be expected to stop whatever you are doing when I recruit number 12 and follow me around wherever I go documenting my every move and writing your own gospel to pass on my triumphant message. I haven't worked out what my message will be yet but we've got a bit of time to kill before lucky number 12 rocks up so I'll work something out then. As a vague idea it might be why we should shoot Janet Street-Porter but I'll iron out the kinks and get back to you soon...

In other news, my intrepid French correspondent (bonjour mademoiselle) has sent me an urgent email alerting me to recent discoveries in France. Apparently as I am already being lauded as pretty much the best thing ever after my insightful and sensitive expose on all things French here the plucky people of Caen have named a bar in my honour. I can only imagine how awesome it must be to drink in it. If I had to guess though, and as I can tell you're hanging on my every word, I will, I'll guess: very. Very rad. One day we will go there disciples and a thoroughly nice time will be had by all... I promise.

Keen-eyed readers out there, or indeed anyone with a fairly good boredom threshold, 5 minutes to spare and the ability to find the last post, will know that I promised skateboarding after a noticeable absence of it on here, and never one to intentionally disappoint I thought the best place to capture it would be in Skegness, home of the UKSA Annual Miniramp Championships. 

After getting lost on the way and ending up perilously close to recreating a scene out of Deliverance, Poosink, Dan Leech: Pro Skater and I finally found our way to Skegness' stinging park X-site. Here we were presented with Billboard. I am guessing that Bill here works for Monster. Either that or he has mild to moderate mental issues and went bat shit crazy at an energy drink gift shop. Either way, I think its safe to say that he is a total gaylord. Honestly. I ask you... I make no secret of the fact that I am down for whatever free stuff comes my way but a Monster Hat, shirt, two wristbands, a bandana and a picture perfect photo-op beside two stickers? Christ even I have standards... Add to that a fashion mullet, a tribal forearm tattoo, liberal use of the word "DOOOOD" throughout the day and running away from the ramp with a Monster Banner clutched round his neck like a cape and you have a recipe for a Battylender... 

There must have been something in the water as shortly after taking a photo of Billboard, a group of ratkids emerged to stand next to the fence of the park. As weird as that is in itself I could probably have let it go without mention if they didn't then spend the next 10 minutes pulling their trousers as far up as they'd go, tucking their trouser legs into their socks which were also pulled right up then opening their flies to have a look at each other's balls... 

Inside was a different matter. These two heros were seen standing next to blog favourite Smedatron, truly repping UK Skateboarding. Im just thankful that I didn't wear my Bowling For Soup Hoody and the longest jean shorts in history as I don't quite think I could have made it work as much as these badmen... You bet they look nonchalant, I bet they spent the morning smashing supermodels and hoovering up lines of prang the size of poodles legs contemplating the world's greatest mosher drop... Gangsters...

Ever so slightly less gangster, but not much, we have Dan Leech: Pro Skater, making his blog debut. Easily in the top five flame haired skaters in the country, don't let his slightly portly appearance deceive you, Leech is able to shred pretty much anything put in front of him, used to have an agoraphobic cat and can grow a very powerful red beard which is a pretty good recommendation in my eyes. 

He also owns what could be the rankest thing I have ever seen in a bottle. I have no idea where this came from, it has Chinese writing on it but I'm pretty sure that he's never been to China so God only knows. It is some obscure alcoholic concoction with two dead lizards floating around in it and it doesnt bear thinking about how dog rough it would taste. Apparently All Terrain Trev has stated that he'll eat one of the lizards for £20. I will keep you posted as I hear more, I dont know if I really want that sort of thing lowering the tone of my otherwise stellar blog...

Leech took time out of his busy schedule of looking a bit portly to take a stinging photo of me doing my best trick. I then went outside to the plaza and performed a crowdpleasing street demo with the Sidewalk Forum's TomDay. Minds were blown...

Some dude from Scotland called T-Bag came down and shredded. I honestly couldn't tell you why he's called T-Bag but I'm going to guess that it's because he likes putting his balls in things. That may not be true but I'll run with that until I hear otherwise. Here he is ollieing into the ramp from the extension with my badly timed photography to forever document it. 

Greg Nowik stormed into first place with a whole host of rarely seen stunts. I managed to get a slightly better picture of one of them.

I had a ropey smooth sausage... 

...and Billboard came out of the woodwork long enough to try and storm the product toss, presumably to get something to compliment his entire Monster outfit. If there is a better advertisment than Billboard here, not to drink that arsehole rotting poison than then I have yet to see it... Reports indicate that he was seen outside shaking like a shitting dog and whimpering to himself pouring a can of Monster into his own pocket and humming Busted songs. I just made that up actually but look at him, its definitely possible...

Cheers to Mr Shitknees Powley and Nick & Toby from X-site for sorting it out. I'm pretty sure that Toby told me his missus loves this blog, as well she should, so hello Mrs Toby, glad you like it. If that guy wasn't Toby then thank you Mrs Other Bloke, I'm stoked this thing is gathering followers. 

Thats it for this time, as I am in the process of applying for my Shotgun Licence (oh yes) expect the next update to take a considerably more agricultural slant. I've even got a shooting coat. 

Make sure you leave comments as well, its been ages since anyone has commented on here, I want to know that I'm not talking to myself...

The Dickfingers Wildlife Programme

First of all, apologies for not staying on top of the blog. I know it must have been difficult wondering what random selfindulgent crap I would be rambling on about on here but you'll be pleased to know that I am almost back to full speed after a nearfatal bout of ManFlu so the crap rambling can return to normal. It was touch and go for a bit but after a good 10 days living in a dressing gown and shuffling from room to room I managed to reintegrate back into the outside world and restarted blogging. You're welcome.

As you will all no doubt be aware, this is an animal friendly blog as showcased by my captivating pictures of postmortem critters, but that is not to say that I can't appreciate the living creatures that are knocking about providing an almost limitless supply of cute furry things to peel and eat. Those delicious little bastards really are bloody tops so in appreciation of all the wild things, this post is dedicated to various photos of random animals taken with my own fair hands.

One of the greatest aspects of animal watching is that magical moment when you know they're going to start fucking each other. This is brilliant for many reasons, not least the fact that if it happens on a nature programme you know that some poor gimp has had to sit still in a hot miserable hide to wait for hours for these bloody animals to come out, only for them to start buggering each other. This amuses me no end as it means that there is someone somewhere out there who could possibly be hating their job nearly as much as me, while I imagine their crestfallen little animal-watching faces when they realise that they are nothing more than pervy voyeurs to a pair of randy gay Meerkats.

If you're lucky enough to go to an animal park and encounter gay animals it's even better as there is usually a really uncomfortable moment when the keeper in the enclosure is faced with the moral dilemma: answer the question that the group of 7 year olds have just asked and explain exactly what those little rascals are up to and why it won't make a baby or furiously kick an Otter to stop it bumming another Otter. 

Fortunately, when I went to animal park I was lucky and fast enough to reveal that Otters really are dirty little things, bumming all over the place. They love it. 

Monkeys, usually renowned for their mucky behaviour pulling on themselves and what not were disappointingly less animated in their bumming and despite my enthusiastic encouragements to get on with it, appeared not to know what to do. Stupid straight monkeys. 

For a second I thought that this solitary little guy was going to start polishing his little monkey helmet out of boredom but apparently the monkeys at Woburn are kept far too busy pulling the wingmirrors from cars to waste their time jerking it, so unfortunately the best picture I could get was him sitting on the floor: not wanking. Useless. This was a pretty good case to remove all their entertainment if you ask me: if I've paid £18 to look at bunch of animals you best believe one of them should be wanking. Robbed. 

Carrying on through Woburn we found the Lions. I say "found" them like they were a miraculous discovery and noone expected them to be there. What I mean is: "we followed all the cars through the big gates with Lions on the front and bang, there they were, right where they were meant to be" which, thinking about it, is a pretty good thing when dealing with Lions.

For a second it looked like we were in luck and there was going to be a full scale King Of The Jungle Bum massacre...

but it turns out the Mummy-Lion was having none of it and delivering a swift clip round the earhole so the Daddy-Lion had to limp off with half a nasty. 

Mrs Dickfingers decided that she wanted to feature a bit more in the bloggings so decided to up the ante and allowed a photo of both of her hands to appear. In this case stroking a Lemur. The Lemur looks surprised but apparently thats just how they look and according to the Lemurlady who looks after them, he was quite liking it. 

When he saw me hand the camera over and stride to him with purpose he took on a look hinting at mild to moderate terror and looked like he was going to bolt at the first opportunity but hung about long enough for me to have a quick go.  

It appears Lemurs have a philosophy similar to dogs: if they can't eat it or fuck it they will either piss on it or ignore it. You've got to appreciate the sentiment, and personally that's a viewpoint I can get behind... 

Then he buggered off up a tree. He didn't have a wank either but on the plus side I did get to feed him which is a close second to seeing an animal throttle it. 

Penguins hardly ever wank. They do try to suck themselves off though. 

Wolves are generally pretty badass and any creature with their own fleece gets a lot of respect on here. 

This is just a mouse that I managed to rescue with a coffee mug and a dustpan from under a cupboard after a cat was after it. David Attenborough would have let it die and filmed it to preserve the equilibrium but bugger that, it would have made a right mess on the floor so I saved him. Which, if you think about it, and I have, is conclusive proof that I do more for animals than Attenborough. 

I still don't have a job that I like so if any of you out there feel like offering me something better than what I'm doing at the moment that would be super. In the meantime I guess I'll have to face the crippling horror of another fucking day working for someone who genuinely is a spaz beyond description. I promise when I leave I will do a proper run down of the shite I've had to put up with there possibly with Artists Impressions. Don't hang about... There's got to be something out there that I can do for a living: I can make a stinging cup of tea, I can take loosely artistic photos of animals bumming each other and I don't really want to have to wear a tie for the following 40 years I have until I can retire. 

Let me know yeah?

Next time: skateboarding, its been a while, so probably skateboarding. Yeah, definitely Skateboarding. 

Video Blogs, Hedgehogs and The Dickfingers Diet

Welcome to another Boring selfindulgent update to what is still not being called the greatest blog ever. You bastards. We need to raise the profile of this a little bit, if any of you want to make badges or wear tshirts then jump around at the back of Outside Broadcast news reports Im willing to set up a pretty generous PhotoIncentive... I'll wait to hear from you... and before I forget, if you're one of the lovely people that I forwarded this blog to instead of a CV then: Hello, employ me, I'm ever so good and I don't like my job anymore. Go on, let me work for you, it'll be great... I promise. (Big Kiss x)

In an attempt to jumpstart my aforementioned healthy eating drive, and in a bid to reduce the amount of calories that I intake, I have developed the Dickfingers Diet. It's set to revolutionise the way that people eat and is fundamentally very simple. All you need to do is take what ever you would normally eat, and instead of putting it on a plate and gobbling it up until you get bingo wings and cry cause noone loves you, youve suddenly got asthma and you can't find a boyfriend. Oh no, you simply put it in a mug. Mugs are smaller than plates therefore, ergo, concurrently: less food. Here you can see the wondorous sight of Mug Shepherds Pie, containing half the Pie and therefore half the calories of Plate Shepherds Pie...  Maths: helping fight Obesity since about 15 minutes ago...

To celebrate my new found dieting techinique I sat on the floor and baked cakes. This definitely didnt have anything to do with Mrs Dickfingers breaking the blender and food mixer leaving me with the option to throw out about £8 worth of half congealed cake parts or to have a crack at salvaging the whole bloody thing myself. If nothing else it goes to show that I really will stop at nothing to avoid wasting money. Or in this case, sugar, flour eggs and butter. Which were paid for with money so it kind of makes sense. Piss off, this isnt the place for logic...  

I went to Hertford the other day and thought that I would include a picture of my favourite newagents. This shop never fails to make me smile and my only regret is that they dont have a bigger sign... Mrs Dickfingers was away up the road, mortified that I would stop on a corner, whip out my cameraphone, eagerly snap away at a shop  front to ensure I got a good enough photo of a Gay newsagent (you're welcome...)

If it helps, she wasn't any keener on me stopping to photograph what I think used to be a hedgehog either, although to be fair I think she was more concerned with me standing in the middle of the road hovering over the squashedhog...

The conclusion of this wonderful update is something special: the first videoblog update. Not bad considering I've been doing this for about 5 months now... Procrastion is a wonderful thing. I think. 

The following 87 seconds of awesome was filmed in about 30 minutes by My Mate Adam on his lovely sparkly HD fish eye camera type thing and I spent the following 4 hours dicking about trying to get my head around editing software. Unbelievably, the following is the best that I could get it. After many revisions I ditched various different songs ranging from Smack My Bitch Up to Boys Boys Boys, Copacabana to Its Raining Men and decided that it was probably going to look better without Pink Comic Sans titles... 

Behold: the first of maybe many video updates meaning that you can hear my maniacal giggling and pisstaking as opposed to just reading it you lucky little things... 

 

Next Time: Have I Got A New Job? Pigeon Shooting and Whatever Other Shite I Can Think To Write About...

Ps: Employ Me... Thanksinadvance x

The Derbydos Homosexual Skateboarding Display Team & Vernon Kay

When the phone rings and Toby "The Brock" Batchelor asks "Are you busy at the end of September? Do you want to MC at a game of skate?" saying "Yeah go on then" will probably have ramifications. Especially if you completely forget that youre meant to be doing it. 

Somehow, the people at Hooked Extreme Blog managed to get a corner of the Westfield centre in Derby (a 200 mile round trip from Dickfingers HQ) to host an invite only Game of Skate at their NUS Lock In type affair, which is presumably a glorified way to milk the student loans out of a bunch of tax dodging floppy hat wearing arsewipes. They had originally asked Toby to shout things over a megaphone but he wasnt really into the idea, hence recruiting me and after careful consideration I decided that at the very least it would make this blog more interesting that me sitting in my front room in my pants playing Xbox so ducked out of work early and began the drive to Derby. 

Craig "150% man" Smedley was there and was a good 15 years older than any other competitor. I love Smedley. Here we are with Toby, and me in my stinging Fourstar Cardigan (thanks to Crossfire and Revival Distribution *shameless plug*)

Fraser Doughty was also there competing and incidently he is not my son, despite what he might tell you to the contrary. Merry fuck only knows what he is wearing in this picture. I think it was a dare. Or maybe a joke that I'm too southern to understand. Either way he was holding it down in what could only be described as a wizarding shepherd's coat... Strange lad...

This was the set up for the whole deal: a rectangular patch of sticky laminate floor outside JD Sports and Marks & Spencer. Fuck you, The Berrics... 

Everyone knows that the best things in skateboarding are held in shopping centres with swarms of workshy fashion wankers dancing about to horrendous dance music playing 10 ft away...

Here I am being presented with my "loudspeaker." People that have met me will probably testify that I am more than likely the last person you should ever entrust a megaphone to. Fortunately for the student population of Derby and surrounding areas, the megaphone I was handed is the smallest I have ever seen. The megaphone that was in my car was bigger and louder but even that would have been drowned out by DJ Shit-taste blasting out "phat beatz" which sounded like the Pacman tune. Just as well really as I got bored talking about skateboarding and started taking the piss out of Fraser's Goat-herding jumper and Tom Balls fertility threatening trousers.

Despite the fact that no bugger could hear us, we decided that we werent going to let that stand in the way of carrying things off with a vague air of professionalism. We picked the names out of my flatcap. Can't get more professional than that...

We played "Rock Paper Scissors" although more than once there was some mild to moderate confusion and we had to start again. Here we can see Tom Ball listening carefully as I mumble my way through the explanation of a game known by almost every under 5 the world over.

Smedley took his shirt off and threw some maneuvers in a vest. He started landing tricks and throwing gangsigns as well. I love Smedley. 

As amusing as it is shouting obscenities at passing students and hollering at Skaters through a £5 Argos Megaphone, and believe me, it is amusing, there came a time when we had to have a rest. By rest I mean that we went freeloading as apparently there were shops giving away Apple Lanyards. Now, I should take the time to say that, If its free, I need it, so off we went in search of things to pile into my swagbag. Unfortunely there was bugger all to be had, so I made do with signing up to win things by grabbing a load of Quality Street wrappers inside a Hairdryer fuelled Shower Cubicle. 

Pre Grab: 

Mid Grab:

Post Grab: I didnt win but at least it breaks up the skating pictures for you... (You're welcome)

Unfortunately I couldnt stay in the cool refreshing shower cubicle and had to get back out again to shout at folk. I've got no idea why Toby is bending over here. Probably all the excitement. 

Look how satisfied he looks in this one. It must have been the bending over. 

More skating happened. People did tricks, other people didnt do them and eventually it came down to Craig Smedley and Jacob Bettison. Smed didnt make it after a series of close calls and Jacob won. Smedley didnt want his prize as it was a board over 7.5inches wide so I bought him a pint and a bowl of nuts and went home with it instead (the board, not Smedley)

There was a shortlived best trick comp for a Pink Element Board (oooooook) which Ballbag won with a half cab lateflip... I then signed it to potentially increase the value. Maybe.  

... and as if that wasn't enough, I even signed the Hooked Extreme Tshirt joining such luminaries as Lee Blackwell and Ben "As Much Use As Anne Franks Drumkit" Cundall. Ive arrived.

Vernon Kay was meant to show up to do a DJ set, however we finished at about 9 and were told that he wasnt going to get there before 11 and I'll be buggered if I was waiting around for two hours to see some lanky northern goit off the telly so buggered off to the pub to listen to Smedley talk about debt collectors and tricktip videos. Good times

All photos were taken by Mrs Brock who got a Press Pass especially and I'll post a video of the above shenanigans if I get a link. 

Next time: Something else. Can't wait can you? I thought not.