Happy New Year Otters!

Update on events for early 2010

Early February - Table Football World Cup POSTPONED - will now be held as warm up to real 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. Jan/Feb are a piss-awful, brassic, cold, wet snowy, miserable months, 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 10,000m, with the winner taking bragging rights for time immemorial. Anyone else wants to get involved in this madness,let me know.

Sunday 25 April - The Inaugural Chertsey Beer Festival featuring the Otters Beer Challenge II - LAUNCHING SAT 6 FEBRUARY

Hosted at the Crown with professional beer judge(s) and (hopefully) some sponsorship from a brewery, we're aiming for a date around St George's Day (23 April), which means we'll have to get brewing sometime in Feb/March. More details v soon.

The plan this year is to throw it open to all-comers, converting our stunning 2009 beer challenge into Chertsey's very own annual beer festival and hootenanny. Format will be the 'fixed recipe' competition as per last year (new recipe though), plus a 'freestyle' category for those who want to go off-piste. We'll also be retaining the best label and best name comps. Stay tuned.

Otters AGM

If anyone can remember any of the resolutions, decisions or elected positions that were decided on at last night' AGM - indeed can remember anything about it - please comment below. Many thanks.

Latest from Otter Zen

Crikey.

Zen 14: Eleven beautiful, full-breasted maidens - it's Christmas in France!
Zen 12: "We must march, my darlings, we must bear the danger..."
Zen 11: Man calls cops on band that's 'not jazzy enough'
Zen 10: How people scam you - the six principles
Zen 9: Scoutmaster gets fingered

Latest from Otter Zen

Waste time. Go on.

• Zen 8: Incredible escapes from death
  
• Zen 6: The dangers of dirty women: cracking wartime propaganda posters
• Zen 5: The Devil's Mountains: Germany's trümmerberg thing
• Zen 3: Low pass - my favourite You Tube clip ever
• Zen 1: Geriatric Korean auto menace

Otterequality: Christmas is for the laydeez too

Just to clarify - in the face of much feminist agitating, including bra-burning, dungaree-wearing and listening to kd lang - there are TWO Otters events on Sunday 13 December. In no particular order they are:

1. The Men's AGM, starting 1800 on Grove Road and proceeding via Coach and Swan to Crown for pub quiz, where we will dazzle allcomers with a devastating display of intellect and power-drinking.

2. The Laydeez' AGM, also starting at 1800 on Grove Road. Contact Kayte for full details. If the laydeez feel brave enough to take the chaps on at brain stuff, then you know where to be and what time to be there.

Go the Otters (in a totally non-gender specific way of course). Solidarity sister.

Otter Zen: Coming in your ears

Quick one. Have just launched a sister blog to this one called Otter Zen. It's for all those things that y'all might be interested in, but isn't related to Otter events. It's a repository for random crap essentially, but hopefully enjoyable random crap.

Link: The Otter Zen blog

If you'd like to post something to the Otter Zen blog, you can either do it in the comments section or drop me a line via email and I'll chuck it up there. Same goes for this blog and any Otter-friendly events you'd like to promote/invite people to.

I've also added a blog roll to this one (bottom of right hand margin). A blog roll, for the uninitiated, is where you add links to your favourite blogs, so if you have one, or would like to recommend one, let me know and I'll add it. Candice.

AGM special rule - bring your Otter 'handle'

Email just sent (below) has me thinking:

Hi all - Due to popular request, I've changed the settings on the Otter blog so anyone can comment without all the faff of registering and logging in. If you're not logged in, you're anonymous, so you might want to adopt a 'handle' as per Smokey and the Bandit circa 1977. "Breaker breaker Mother Love, if you got y'all ears on Smokey's knockin at yer back door. You gotta put that hammer down, good buddy. It's the beer bust or a bear cage, come on."

I was only kidding then, but now I'm serious. The 'special rule' for this AGM (Sunday 13 Dec, 1800 kick off) is that all Otters must adopt a Smokey and the Bandit-style, shit-kickin', sum-bitchin' CB radio handle. Handles must be used from the first pub onwards. Fines for violations.

And just to remind you what an outstanding and seminal movie Smokey and the Bandit was, here's the original theatrical trailer, live and direct from You Tube (including history's dodgiest strapline: "It's not where you're going that counts, but who's in back of you.")

Link: CB Gazette's guide to CB radio slang
Link: Wikipedia guide to CB slang