Surprise Kitty for Otters

For no particular reason. Seventeen seconds of hypercute, cominatchya.



(Apparently Al Davis will do this if plied with enough Bombardier.)

Otters events: December, January and February

What would Christmas be without Otter mayhem? That's right. Quite civilised. But who wants a civilised Christmas? Not us. We want to get off the hook.


Saturday 12 December - PAINTBALL

Right, first up in the calendar of pre- and post-Winterval fun we have the Chris Greenwood Memorial Paintball Battle atAtomic Paintball Horsley Paintball Cobham Horsley Road, Effingham, Surrey, KT11 3JY. Contact Ulrich von Lichtenstein von Lederhosen von Kleinsteuber for the full skinny. I think it's about £8, but since Uli left me off the email, I don't actually know. The meet is 1130 am at Chris's house.


Sunday 13 December - OTTERS CHRISTMAS AGM!!! (men's section)

It's the biggie - the third anniversary of when it all began. In a break with tradition, however, note that it is two Sundays before Christmas, NOT the Sunday before Christmas because I've promised not to clash with Jim and Di's leaving do.

All Otters required to meet at 42 Grove Road for a mulled something-or-other at 6pm sharp. The format is as per usual - warm-up beers at the Coach and Swan then the pub quiz at the Crown, followed by cocktails, nakedness and a one-armed press-up competition. Death or glory. Grrrrr.

(The ladies will presumably be indulging in spritzers and topless pillow fights at an alternative venue...)


January - Table Football World Cup

Still agreeing a date, but the venue is Chertsey Cricket Club and the format as follows: doubles, £5 entry, come themed as the nation of your choice. January is a piss-awful, brassic, cold, wet, miserable month, so why not brighten things up with an impromptu world class sporting event hosted in the cheapest place to drink in Chertsey? Why not indeed.


February - The Otters' Ergo Challenge

Date and venue TBC, but here's the format: 2000m timed sprint with best time winning, then beers somewhere afterwards. Depending on numbers, we may split the categories into light, welter and heavyweight with a row off for the grand champion. There will be a men's and a women's competition, so don't feel excluded. There will also be the grand prix spectacle of Al 'Big Gay Al' Davis versus Phil 'Phil the Pilot' Bachelor over 5000m, with the winner taking bragging rights for time immemorial.

(Pictured: A genuine Japanese seasonal greeting card. Not quite sure they've grasped the concept...)

Otterly amazing: The Big Personality Test

Apologies for things being a bit quiet recently, but I've been hobnobbing with B-listers and making the world a better place by launching stuff like this:

The Big Personality Test: bbc.co.uk/childofourtime

Would be great if you all could do it and post your results in the comments. For the record, I'm highly conscientious and not remotely neurotic, with a side-order of extroversion and openness, easy on the agreeableness. Would be lovely to build up a personality profile of the average Otter!

Otters Ergo challenge - feel the burn

"Cogito ergo sum," wrote Rene Descartes in one of his more winsome moments. And how right he was, although he would perhaps have struck more of a chord with the good burghers of Chertsey if he'd broadened his appeal and declared: "Cogito ergo Lutra lutra*" - I think, therefore I am an Otter.

Happily, after much thought, the thorny issue of the next Otter challenge has been solved by some of the finest minds Big Gay Al and Phil the Pilot had to offer. We're going to have a 10km Ergo challenge (a-ha - now you understand all the Latin bollocks at the beginning - forgive me, I haven't been well).

[You can skip this next bit if you just want to know what the hell the Ergo challenge is about and don't want all my pontificating before you get there]

For those of you wondering what an Ergo is, it's one of those fancy rowing machines with the fan on one end (see picture). It all started with Phil, perhaps rashly assuming that Al was a big lardy sparky with the aerobic capacity of a dormouse, challenging Al to some form of water-themed competitive challenge that didn't involve cabin boys and locked brigs. Al, being a seasoned matelot and therefore of the senior part of the Senior Service to the namby pamby Fleet Air Arm (late employers of the aforementioned Phil), looked his loafing winged nemesis square in the eye and recalled the immortal words of the late Humphrey Bogart: "Come on then you big girly wuss-wuss, let's make it interesting", which as anyone who knows Al even slightly can confirm, invariably involves enough booze to kill a horse, three jockeys and the stable cat. Phil rose to his full stature of quite-a-bit-shorter-than-Al and, artistically smoothing his eyebrows, suggested each party bring a bottle of champagne and race over 10km on the Ergo, winner-takes-all. Al, correctly assuming that Phil had the measure of the wrong man (namely one portlier, considerably more asthmatic and actually capable of feeling pain) gladly took up the gauntlet and went off to knock out Phil the Pelican's teeth. No sooner had news of the glamorous wager broken than every man-jack in the room wanted a slice of the action.

[Resume reading now]

Here's the format.

Time, date, location: TBC
Distance: 10km
Apparatus: Ergo Concept 2
Entry: Back yourself. If you think you're going to win, bring champagne. If not, bring something in keeping with your anticipated placing. All entry beverages must be alcoholic, minimum 7.5% volume. There will be a men's competition and a women's competition.

Call for entries to follow.

* The keener eyed among you will of course have noticed Descartes could not have been aware of Linnaen taxonomy and binomial nomenclature, having predeceased the publication of the Systema Naturae by 85 years. Interestingly, the European river otter didn't receive it's Latin designation until the mid-19th century, so Linnaeus wouldn't have known what it was either.

The Sean Parry Classic - first Otters stag a triumph of depravity

The Sean Parry Classic pub golf went off without a hitch on Saturday. All players finished the course, including the stag himself. Who exactly won and what the final scores were are lost in the mists of time, but we are reliably informed that a good time was had by all.

Flickr stream of the stag (or at least the beginning and end of it): http://www.flickr.com/photos/37893203@N08/sets/72157622240825255/detail/
Ben's Mobile Me gallery: http://gallery.me.com/bengilbey#100163
And the Google Map of the route, including course description, challenges and forfeits: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid=118059758419923264928.000472593f56a21d86d9a

Otters successfully defend Marlow in heroic final push - photo finish hands it to the Chertsey crew

The Chertsey Otters successfully defended their dragon boating title at the Oakley Court Regatta on Sunday by an improbable eight one-hundredths of a second from the Flying Dragons, in a final that was tighter than a very very fat man in a lady's wetsuit who is stuck in a plastic garden chair in the back of a Mini (and not a Clubman either) that's gridlocked on the M25 during a heatwave. The Great Danes, runners-up in 2008, came third.

The Even More Beautiful Otters, crewed mainly by first or second time dragon boaters, lost out on a semi-final place by less than a second, despite having a very natty uniform and a large contingent of Dutch people who are presumably well accustomed to being that close to the water and should therefore know exactly what to do about it. Nonetheless, it was a magnificent effort.



The Otters set a blistering pace in the heats, recording the fastest time of the day in race three and apparently provoking grumbles about 'semi-professionals spoiling the event for everyone else'. Semi-professional what, we never found out. And in any case, who needs a boatload of ringers when you have a crew of steely-eyed, misbegotten feckers the like of which we put on the water that day?

Not us. Staying true to the Otters' motto of 'just turn up and win', we took the semi-final by just over a dragon's nose-length, despite being rammed by one of the other crews, and fought off a spirited charge by our rivals in the final to take the tape by slightly less than the extra coat of varnish at the tip of the aforementioned megareptilian's appendage. Hurrah.

Well done to all who participated and many thanks to the cohort of Otters supporters (especially the minis!) who turned out to lend their very vocal support on the day. And last but not least, thanks also to Kayte who organised a hugely enjoyable day, thrashed that drum to within an inch of its life and made a very, very rash but very, very excellent promise in the huddle before the final race.

Same time next year? Three's the charm!

Link: Kate Smyth's Facebook Gallery
Link: Dragons Alive! website

GO THE OTTERS!!!

Chertsey Otters Crew: Kayte 'I'll Do Anything, For You Dear Anything' Cable, Max 'Bear Fighter' Woodward, Debbie 'Pocket Rocket' Hall, Mark 'Human Volcano' Hall, Karen 'Touche' Smith, Mark 'Silent Assassin' Smith, Al 'Big Gay' Davis, Richard 'Ballast' Cable, Sean 'Thrust and' Parry, Steve 'Big Gay Hairy Bear' Kearns, Rachel 'Dee 57 in tha Big Broother House' Geordielass, Ulrich 'Island Monkey' Kleinsteuber, Chris 'Full Monty' Greenwood.

EMB Otters Crew: Nicole 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' Ter Horst, Emma 'Tub Thumper' Willingale, Frans Sinterklaas, Nan Sinterklaas, Marco 'Isotonic Heineken' De Haan, Jane 'I can bench more than my brother' Cable, Philip 'She can bench me' Wardle, Richard, Stefan, Sian, Rachel, Toby, Clare, David and Tracy (sorry - ran out of steam on the monickers!).

Chertsey Ploughing Match - results just in!!!

As many of you will know, Patrick Martin bravely took the Otters into new fields of endeavour (quite literally) on Bank Holiday Monday by entering his hand-built tractor in the Novice class of the Chertsey Ploughing Match, held at Wey Manor Farm.

It's a trickier business than it looks and it's fair to say that the dryness of the tilth didn't help Tractor Pat pull a sweet furrow this year. (I have no idea what that means, but, yes, it probably is as dirty as it sounds.) Patrick did well, but struggled with his dismount and paid the price when it came to the judging (see picture). Despite an heroic first effort at the wheel, he lost out to competitors who were half his age but about 50 times more experienced.


"I knew I was in trouble when the judge came by and asked me when the shelling had stopped," said Patrick, who was ably aided and abetted by the improbably named Steve Spong (he of the Lightwater Spongs) who will take the helm at the tractor's next outing this weekend.

Patrick would like to thank the surprisingly large numbers of Otters who came out to cheer him on and who simultaneously discovered that, yes, ploughing matches really are as surreal as they sound.