hey After a year or so of looking, researching, scheming, cajoling, conniving, threatening, sweet-talking etc, I have finally managed to order my funky new camera. It's coming from the US and will cost between half and a third of what it woudl cost locally. It's the coolest thing ever. Anyone keen to pose nekkid for me? Drop me a comment... hehe subtlety. England lost to the host Portuguese last night in the European championships. 6-5. On penalties. 1-1 in normal time, 2-2 in extra time, 14 penalties. I am not a fan of penalty shootouts - it's like Goalkeeper Russian Roulette. But if the only other option was flipping a coin... well, I suppose that's the way it is. It was Hell Night at karate last night. This is a regular occurrence - the last Thursday of the month, every month except December. It basically entails a hardcore gym circuit - 20 stations - comprising aerobic, anaerobic and karate/combat aspects of training. At the start of last year, it was 1 minute per station and you go from 1-20, filling in your scores along the way. By April we were at 1.5 minutes/station, 2 minutes from August-November and 3 minutes in November itself. Ever tried doing pull-ups for 3 minutes, followed by a 10-second break and then running over a flight of stairs for 3 minutes, followed by a 10-second break and then doing press-ups for three minutes etc until you've done 20 different exercises? No? Try it - I dare you. Of course, for the full horrific effect, you first have to sprint around 3 football pitches and a cricket pitch (aka the Edgemead Sports Club fields) before you get your first station, and upon completing your 20th, its another sprint around the 3 football pitches only, with the murderous cricket pitch gleaming in green malevolence byond, knowing you're too fucked to even take up its challenge. The whole thing was put into perspective by one of our green belts who has strained ligaments in his knee and who had to watch the Hell night from the sick bay (see ScrambledHead on the right for details of the sick bay). He kept us all riled and pepped up and kept time with a stop-watch while we killed ourselves. When one of our juniors (only 16, poor kid) stopped for a breather during his press-ups, Andrew says "Come on, Chris, you can do it!" And Chris says "My arms hurt and my back is sore nnd I'm tired" So Andrew replies, loud and arrogant, "Yeah? Cry me a river, dick-face! Move it!" No sympathy for nobody from Andrew, who is all ratty because he just quit smoking after 12 years and is dying for a cigarette. Full circle misery, I suppose. This morning my monitor blew up. For no reason. It was on. Then it went off. That was it. No puff of smoke, no shattering glass, no silver sparks, no melting plastic, no loud explosions, no smell of burnt electricity or decomposing silicon circuitboards, no weird high-pitched squealy-buzzy noises, no fuck-all. Stupid Hollywood. Needless to say, following Hell Day (the marathon karate session of 6 days ago) and Hell Night last night, and me getting Die Moer in (see alongside, 5th from the top) with my cat, who kept me awake till 2:15 this morning, and 6 nihgts in a row of going to bed at 1am and waking before 6, I too am a little sore and tired, and my back also hurts a bit. But such is the way of things, yeah? Yeah, whatever. Cry me a river, dick-face. laters