Sunday 29 November 2009

The master of disguise !!

"I aint gettin' on no plane you crazy fool!"

It was some friends' joint 40th birthday party, and it was an 80s fancy dress theme. Last time I went to one of these I decided I would go as BA Baracus (Mr T), but Mrs Noel vetoed it and I went as Karate Kid. But instead of looking like the Karate Kid, I looked like a man wearing a woman's dressing gown, perhaps because it was.

So this time I put my foot down, after asking Mrs Noel if this was OK, and got a Mr T dressing-up kit off tinterweb. This was good fun, although it took a while to cover all the bits of skin with brown face paint. Once at the party, it took me a while to realise that some people weren't just being off with me, and that the reason they weren't saying hello was that they didn't recognise me. At least I hope that was the reason. As you can see, my physique is more Peewee Herman than Mr T - I was hoping this would add to the humour.

The best custume of the night was Matt's (aka Snow White), who turned up dressed as a 6ft wide section of the Berlin wall, complete with barbed wire on the top. This was great but it was a bit tricky on the dance floor!

Then on Sunday, Mrs Noel did Famous Grouse. She ran this race last year, 4 months before her 40th birthday. If she had already been 40 at the time, she would have won a bottle of whisky. This was therefore the race that made us both realise Mrs Noel had real potential.


Despite staying up until 1:30 the night before (watching some drunken buffoon try to maintain conversations while starting every sentence with "I pity the fool..."), Mrs Noel managed to finish 5th lady and 1st FV40. So I'm now sipping some of the excellent Pinot Grigio that was the prize.


Famous Grouse is quite a low key race, and is not in the FRA year book. However, it's well worth doing and there's very nice soup and stew in the pub afterwards. It's the last Sunday in November again next year - so add it to your diary.