War Of The Roses, Kung Fu & Porno...

Yet another skateboarding related update and by "skateboarding related" I mean, taking photos of all of the shit that happens at skateboarding events except the actual act of skateboarding itself, which I think you'll find is actually way better anyway.

Last weekend saw the War Of The Roses, the annual Yorkshire vs Lancashire shindig that has been running for the last 5 years. It started out as an idea Silent Will had to get a load of skaters from Yorkshire & Lancashire together in a park in each county and having a skate jam for money but unfortunately the idea caught on so other folk from the rest of the country started to make the trip too. Unfortunately for me, I do not live in either Yorkshire or Lancashire. I live at the other end of the country, the southern bit, where shandies flow freely and men aren't frowned at for wearing coats when it snows, so getting to Yorkshire and Lancashire is a right fucking ballache... 

After deliberating and waiting in vain for someone else to offer to drive me up there so I could have a quiet 3 hour catnap in the passenger seat, I picked up Cockleg, who since his last blog appearance has ventured out into the big bad world of university. While he is there wasting my hard earned tax money, he enjoys getting into fights and getting stabbed with house keys and is doing his level best to burn through his student load as quickly as he can by spending as much money as humanly possible on Stripclub Specials, Jeremy Clarkson outfits and experimental treatments to stop his legs looking like pornstar cocks in the hope that I'll stop calling him Cockleg. Poor Cockleg. 

Nantwich's premier Nicholas Cage impersonator, Grosa also made the effort, as did Brighton's preeminent hairy freestyler, Mr Darren Nolan, who gave me a Heel Toe Magic hat in a transparent attempt to bribe me into driving him up there... Fortunately, keen eyed readers will notice I fucking love hats so it worked. Bribery is awesome. Plus he kind of looks how you would think the Ultimate Warrior would look if he was only 15 and didn't bosch a load of steroids and hoover up a load of coke, so I didn't want to wind him up incase he went mental and tried to suplex me or something... In case any of you don't believe me I have photographic proof just to strengthen my claim...

Uncanny. I decided to get all the skateboarding in the weekend out of the way in one fell swoop so had a game of skate in the carpark with Ronny and Cundall. There was footage of it but Rich aka Voodoo of t'forum decided that it was far too shit gnarly so deleted it off the face of the internets. Which is probably for the best... Rest assured I was throwing down some preeeetty tidy maneuvers

Ron looked excited and Cundall just looked confused. 

This dude wandered down from Newcastle with some kneepads, writstguards and a home made tshirt to stand next to Powley and throw the horns. Powley really does love Mosher Drops, but then again, who doesn't?

This is Porno Paul. Here he is, inexplicably reading some kind of Mother & Baby Magazine. God only knows how that could ever end up in a skatepark but it definitely was and Porno was loving it. I can't work out what was more disturbing: the weird naked baby centrefold lying back on a bed of lego or how funny Porno found it... 

It was only a matter of time until it went a step too far... 

After we had finished defacing Parenting Magazines with some borderline content and improvised glory holes, Porno and I decided to play our game. It doesn't have a name although I am angling for "The PornoDickfingers Stroking Game" and the rules are very very simple. When someone walks past you, whoevers turn it is, has to stroke them (strength of contact is variable although anything that veers towards heavy petting might draw attention). Once you have successfully stroked your target, it is your opponents turn and they have to stroke the next person, regardless of who they are. This repeats until one player gives up and decides not to stroke the next person. The winner is the person that doesn't bottle it at the last minute. Think of it like Chicken but with people that don't know they're playing. Its best played in crowds. If it takes off we can have a championship. I'll keep you all posted although I should warn you that Porno does have a real aptitude for this game which coupled with a pathological desire to touch people is pretty awe inspiring to behold...

Action Shot

Sooner or later though unless you have a conveyor belt of new targets, you will run out of people to touch and sure enough, we did, so had no option but to turn back to the Premier Travel Lodge Tavern to ditch our gear and wash our balls (individually, its not a team sport) before heading out the afterparty, which is pretty much the main reason that people go to these things anyway... The only problem is, that as soon as you put a number of unattended skaters in a hotel room hundreds of miles away from home, its only a matter of time before they start bouncing off the ceiling like a kid giddy on lemonade...

Sure enough, Cockleg didn't fail to deliver, and precisely 15 seconds after unlocking the door and turning the telly on, proceeded to jump up and down on the bed at a breakneck pace and kick out like a retarded caucasian Bruce Lee in a ropey wolfshirt...

When the appeal of beating off fighting off a hoarde of imaginary angry baddies had faded, Cockleg, Grosa and The Ultimate Nolan proceeded to make an assault obstacle course in the bedroom before we all went downstairs and had burgers for our tea... 

Cockleg was stoked that he would get a chance to wear his Jeremy Clarkson costume of chinos and a sensible shirt and confused a group of young lads who mistakenly thought that he was their dad come early to pick them up... Look how sensible he looks. Grosa was too busy concentrating on squinting at the bottom of his glass on the off chance that it might refill itself to pose for this picture but he was later heard to say how sensible Matt looked and expressed his surprise that such a nice looking young man would spend £130 on Special Dances at Legs Akimbo Lapdancing in Skegness...

The Clarkson outfit soon paid off when Su Pollard took her geggs off long enough to try and woo him... 

Its not immediately clear what is happening here but the guy that looks like he is french kissing his own hand is a Silvergult, which to anyone frequenting the Sidewalk Forum should be explanation enough, who spent a good 5 minutes doing a deeply erotic and pretty sensual dance entirely on his own much to the disgust of the weird trendy birds that were already in the bar trying to ignore the 50 odd skaters that descended like a sweaty plaid covered plague... 

Some other shit happened, Smedley gave it 150% on the dancefloor as usual and did a few righteous headspins before the almost entirely white population of the skateboarding afterparty entourage forgot that we weren't born in South Central LA or Queens and started bobbing around at the very slightest hint of HippyHop... We're so urban and that... I didn't take any more photos because I was busy drinking. It was tops. 

The following morning we discovered that it had snowed a good 6 inches overnight and Powley thought that it would be the best time to unveil his pretty incredible sleeping bag suit which has spurned me into action and I am now in the process of trying to blag one for myself. If by some remote chance anyone from www.Lippiselkbag.com is reading this then get in touch. I'll promote the shit out of it for you, I promise. 

We (and by "we" I mean "I") drove to Blackpool, hung out with Big Woody who runs Rampcity and ate chilliburgers which are a pretty efficient way of purging almost every liquid from your body at the same time. 

Thats about it, I saw some other people, some other people saw me, some guys jumped around on skateboards and then everyone had to go home. I spent a long long time driving and spent the following day laying about in either the bath or in bed. It was pretty triumphant. 

More updates coming soon, I saw Delores the prodigal dove return and case out the nest so there may well be some Satellite Dove updates in the pipelines... I'll keep you posted.

Megaramps, Clay Shooting and Backroom Additions...

Right, I've stayed true to my word, more or less, and have actually ventured out of the flat long enough to try and compose an interesting day out that you might want to read about from the comforts of wherever you might be... 

After getting myself armed, you'd be surprised how many people ask to go and shoot things, so partly because it's fun as shit and partly because I'm a totally awesome kind of guy, I agreed to take a selection of folk including Toby, My Mate Adam and Dan Cates, pro skater and pisstaker extraordinairre, to go shoot at things. Unfortunately, trying to organise skaters at the best of times is about as much fun as herding cats, and as I was trying to organise a hung over rabble from as far afield as Derby & Harrow it slowly dawned on me that the day was unlikely to run like a swiss fucking watch. 

To his eternal credit, Cates defied all expectations and actually turned up, so our fun day out in the country shooting things could begin, like all good things, with a nice cup of tea. 

After the essentials were handled, we set about shooting things, in Cates' case with some minor concerns for his own personal safety. To be fair these concerns were probably unfounded as he managed to go almost all day without shooting anything at all, although it generally helps if you look in the same direction that you are pointing the gun in if you want to actually hit something... 

At the very least he managed to deftly avoid the look that I unfortunately stumbled into which I would say falls neatly into the Countryside-Care-In-The-Community-Case-Study category

but at the very least I managed to look and shoot in the same direction at the same time which is definitely the first step to actually hitting something.

Cates was so stoked on his countryside day out and nearly shooting a load of clays that he gave me a board which is now hanging, surprisingly, in the back room, due in no small part to the fact that it has the words "Dickfingers" "Asshole" and a small boy bending over on it...

In other news, I found a decoy to stop the keyweilding little shits that roam around my village scratching the buggery out of cars. That'll show the pubeless tracksuit wearing cunts... 

I was also delighted to have discovered the Dickfingers Mega Transfer Gap. 

I've still got to iron a couple of kinks out with the transition but I'm thinking 2010 is going to be the year of the homemade outdoor megaramps...  You heard it here first. 

Right, as fascinating as this has been, all mildly narcissistic selfimportant things must come to an end and I've run out of pictures. I did spend the other night letting off £40 worth of fireworks in My Mate Adam's garden but didn't have the foresight to take my camera but rest assured it was pretty aweinspiring...

I'm still open to suggestions for what to include in the next update, partly because I think it will be nice to get some audience participation although mainly it's because it saves me thinking of something. Matt Mofuggacockleg has frequently promised to send through some interesting topics for debate but apparently thinks that stealing his flatmates multipack bags of Freddo's and complaining about things far and wide on the Sidewalk Forum is far more important than entertaining you. 

Something else might happen soon so there's always the chance that I'll go to it and take photos... If you comment it will probably convince me that there are people actually reading this bloody thing and it might spur me on to write something half decent. Don't hold your breath though...