Rejoining the Congregation

Given the success of the original Tour de Force, two of the original trio - S-Rob and CBJ - made a return visit to London's most celebrated religious venues, this time with; DJD, TheViking, Kylie, Minger and QuietBrother in tow. The pilgrimage was predominantly in order to indoctrinate DJD and convert him to a new order, and conversion was indeed the end result! To say that DJD took to The Church was akin to saying; a) a duck takes to water, b) Kurt Cobain took to self pity, or c) Michael Jackson takes to little children, but since we not about casting aspersionsl here, we'll retract all that, and just nod, with the knowledge that DJD was not unimpressed by his first impression of the great venue.

However, good impressions didn't start there....

S-Rob who'd been on a complete bender the night before called in at 2:54am to inform DJD that he would be attending mass, and although he couldn't distinguish DJD and CBJ apart, he managed to make the queue before 12pm!

The daily journey started as most ordinary Sundays do, cracking open the first Stella jumbo can on the bus at 9:45am, en-route to Golders Green, for the tube cross to Kentish Town via Camden. Funny thing about this commute is that until you hit Camden, you're the only freaks drinking, but from Camden onwards, the freaks aren't drinking, such is the beauty of Sundays in London, particularly those on long weekends.

If you've never been to The Church on a long weekend, my only sage advise is to get there early, and I mean an hour early, because the queue fills up faster a squat in India, and trust me on this, I have the experience to make such claims! So we're in line, and after a few errant calls, the whole squad has mustered in line, 7 eager zealots already half way towards spiritual enlightenment, or at least half way towards a virtual trainwreck, but surely that's part and parcel of any great adventure?!

When we made the run inside, it was the typical race to get to the front, and to gain a central advantage point, and with TheViking and his 6-8 frame leading the way, our position was never in doubt. Apparently 6 foot 8 is 'pretty tall', or so 53,842 people proceeded to utter. Now this leads me to a concept which is not new to any of us, and it's one that can get quite annoying after awhile. It's called 'stating the fkn obvious'! Now this phenomenon is not new to any of us, but it doesn't reduce how annoying it can be, and it should be up there with the likes of 'self defense' in the legal system.

"I am remorseful for stabbing him 29 times, but he was stating the fkn obvious and there was no other action I could take!"

Honestly, how many people have not been forced to act in response like this?

As much as I tried convincing TheViking to respond with some remarks like, "and you're overweight" or "I'm to height what you are to ugly", there was no joy from the big man. But it wasn't all one way traffic, truth be told, a screaming CBJ pushing his way through the crowd to the bar was overheard to be yelling, "GET OUT OF THE WAY, TALL GUY COMING THROUGH"! Moses would have been proud! Well, he'd have been proud if his mission was to part the crowd in The Church, not sure about that Red Sea bizzo.

Apart from height, there were a few other observations from The Church:-

• DJD is not shy with a digicam, particularly if the subjects are sub-20 and scantily clad,
• Chicks don't care about your looks if you're a well hung black guy dancing on stage,
• Chicks care if you snog someone else 3 feet from them if you're supposedly going there to see them,
• If you hear someone has a friend called 'Min' don't get any ideas that it's some how chick from a 'Wheel of Time' book, as it's probably short for 'Minger', and the best form of reference is www.mingers.com,
• CBJ can be harsh, yet fair.....

After the usual post-Church chants of 'take it off', many people headed their separate ways; some home, and everyone else - seemingly - to 'The Walkabout' in Shepherds Bush. Good times!

Shepherds Bush is a fair hike from Camden town, but when you've got a skinful, pretty much everything seems a good idea, even a 4-11 midget snogging a 6-8 in a crowded subway car. Three words: Awkward, but amusing! There's more than one way to Valhalla, apparently!

So we got to 'the bush', which although not necessarily as revealing as Pi Delta Pi's video frenzy in 'Revenge of the Nerds' still had some sights to be seen! As soon as the motley brigade got out of the tube station, it was like an army of drunken antipodean urinators had been let loose to sow their seed, and restaurant walls soon becoming living urinals. Hats off to DJD, breaking the 15 minute barrier! The guy goes longer than Aza can last without taking a slash! Kudos!

The Bush is pumping, there's seriously 212,000 Aussies in there! It's wall to wall bodies, kinda like, ummm, I'll refrain from this analogy! There's a lot of people in there! Move along, nothing to see here.

So after who knows how many extra beers, TheViking disappears to Finnish off the Sunday biz, and we're all left shaking our heads as to what transpired, particularly those with patchy memories! DJD apparently leaves a few hours later, leaving CBJ to run into random male nurses who he met in another life, and hang out with the ubiquitous Nick from Willesden.