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i remember: the isle of wight.

all epics have their basis in the small things in life. well our trip to the isle of wight was indeed a small thing, that in the eyes of the paticipants now matches homer's iliad for breath, scope and adventure.

one of our friends, bluey, had moved into his new house on the isle of wight. we had been invited over to celebrate this fantastic achievement. there were four of us: monty, yorkie, he who can't be named (more commonly known as joel)and me.

(now i have to pause here and admit to another aspect about epics: there is a chance that this story will include strands from several adventures, but they all happened in a house owned by bluey and they all occurred on the isle of wight, but as with epic and myth the truth should never stand in the way of a good story. or in this case a bad story).

this would be one of the last times that i would see monty, but to his credit he provided us with material that has kept us going for years and years.
his first impressions of the isle of wight were prophetic and accurate and destined to endear him to bluey who was about to make his life there: "it's a shithole" was the mont's immortal words.
and to be fair little i saw that weekend would make me want to spend too much time there.

bluey is one of the few friends i still have from school. he is an amazing man. very intelligent but able to be very silly at the same time a cross between stephen hawkings and spike milligan - but with none of their problems. he is one of the most decent people i have ever known.
we were all there to support him in his new adventure.

we were all going to be bunking in the same room. but that was not a problem. we were mates. this was a boys weekend out.

the weekend started off right when monty saw bluey had some weights, so there he was in his neat cap sleeved t-shirt pumping iron. his cute cherubic (almost hobbit) face scrunched in effort. the rest of us just laughing.
then there was marco. he was a mate of bluey's from college. he was now making a fortune in the concert lighting business. sadly we got no tales of rock star debauchery, but we did hear about the latest bulbs that were being used and the kit car he was building. proving that it isn't just everyone who can live the rock and roll lifestyle to the fullest. so lets raise a toast to jimi and keith for doing it right.
true marco scored some cred points when he joined in the victimisation of yorkie. i have no idea why we picked on yorkie as much as we did, but we did. if yorkie had been born into a titled family he would be seen as a national treasure. as it is he is one of the true eccentrics i know. he can go from being serious to surreal in a heartbeat and not know it. he has held down super responsible jobs but seems incapable of ordering a coffee in a coffee shop. his humour is juvenile in that he delights in the jokes that have kids giggling like drains. he is in a word: odd.
this particular weekend we decided that the one thing we need to do was to tie phil up. so we did. he did struggle, but there were 6 of us. we left him at the top of the stairs like a trussed chicken, crying out for his mum.

yorkie got his own back on us all later on when he kept annoying bluey's girlfriend's dog. this meant the dog kept barking and it meant we all kept getting horrid looks from the gf.
the gf was giving up teaching for accountancy, yorkie was an accountant. so he managed to annoy her hy pointing out her exams and course was for accounting divs. she took umbrage at me because i defended sociology against maths and accountancy.

because most of the people who were at the party were the isle of wight contingent it had to be said that we didn't fit. he who can't be named (or joel) was an arty type designer, i was a humanities student, monty was on the pull (more on this later). only yorkie as an accountant could fit in (but he does have an ability to fit in everywhere).
we knew monty was on the pull because of the effort he had put in to get ready including his speedo style red pants - whcih elcited a cry of "they are so tight" from all us, echoing monty's description of every band he liked.
we had to suffer his aftershave and his manly perfume, all of which made the room we were in smell like a knocking shop.
he was mightly upset when none of the ladies of the isle matched his standards (or said yes), so the only people who got to see the pants were those of us in that room. it is a sight that has scarred some of us for life.

the party was so so, but then i am not a party person (bet you never guessed that).

the trying to sleep was a nightmare as yokie and monty bitched at each other (yorkie winning the verbal battles), while he who can't be named (or joel) didn't so much as join in, but kept baiting them. sleep was fitful that night.
i am sure bluey's girlfriend was less that impressed with us.

still it was a nice house.

the isle of wight is due for another visit sometime soon.