So, I’m back in London again – I use that term loosely because Greenwich is hardly London. Feels like it’s closer to fucking Paris after having to get out here.
Whatever, I’m drunk.
And for some reason firefox at this stupid internet cafe has caught super-Aids and refuses to open java script, so I have to type this into word instead of directly into blogspot - which also, subsequently, has caught super-AIDs & Giraffe flu because it’s formatting is fucked. That’s right blogspot, you heard me – you’re formatting is fucked. I try and post a video of Rhino the hamster tearing more ballsacks than Germaine Greer, and you can’t even expand the formatting to fit it.
(I told you I’d been drinking. People say I’m no fun when I’m sober - they just haven’t met me on Bundy)
Anywho where have I been, what have I been doing you may be asking? Actually, I doubt ANY of you are asking that cau.... oooooh I haven’t checked facebook! Be right back...
OK, cool I’m back. Where was I. Right, no one really reads this (although you’re all bound to spring out of the fucking woodwork now I’ve said that.... pfffft.
BUT HEY! I ENJOY WRITING IT SO SUCK MY SUGAR-COATED GINGER BALLS
Okay, the situation is this: I’ve just finished the Potential Royal Marine Commando course (the PRMC) where you basically get butt-fucked by big men with green berets for 4 days. It’s..... goddamit Silversun Pickups are playing in Vancouver like a month after I leave, I’m gonna go drown a puppy. Sorry – the PRMC is supposed to be a chance to see what training to become a royal marine is like, and for the training staff to assess you’re fitness and determination. Fitness is a big one – there’s a basic need for a high level of fitness obviously (at 32 weeks long it’s the longest and arguably the hardest infantry training course in the world), but more than that is a pig-headed determination to push on regardless of what they throw at you.
In a nutshell the first of the two testing days is to see if you’re fit enough, and the second day tests to see if you’ve got the balls to push through when the pain sets in. I blitzed through the first day, scoring consistently in the top 20 of 60 guys in everything they threw at us – 3 mile run, push ups, sit ups, chin ups, beep test, everything. Second day started off with jumping out of a 50 foot tower and using a short length of rope to slide down the main rope at a million mile an hour – fucking awesome. From there it was onto the obstacle course: charging over water traps, swinging on monkey bars and climbing 12 foot walls, ect.
Jesus I’m sobering up already – need to hurry and post this before more sweet, sweet alcamahol
As soon as we finished the obs course, it was time for the determination test – with wet boots, heavy jackets and pants, and rooted from the obs course it started. It began with push ups, sit ups and burpies. Then they started us running up and down hills. Then more pushies, sits and purpies, Then through the water under the monkey bars. Then more runs up the hills. Then more pushies/sits/burpies – you get the idea.
I was rooted, but I certainly wasn’t pissing and moaning like some of these pommie fucks – I’ve never heard a grown man cry for his mum before, it was genuinely embarrassing. If we’d gone on for a few hours, I might have understood but this was 20 mins into it. About 30 mins into the determination test, they decided we needed to pair up with people of equal size (being a pygmy I wound up with someone 6 inches taller and 10kg heavier), and drag them on our backs for a hundred meters. Once one got to the end, we swapped over and the other dragged them back. THAT was fucking tough work – you could feel the legs burning and couldn’t breathe. But the second drag was with the dragger walking backwards and their arms under the other’s armpits. Pure pain. It was halfway through that I asked myself if I really wanted to do this. When the answer came back that I wasn’t going to let these limey English fucks beat me after I’d traveled so far to to do this, I knew I had everything I needed to finish it off. We finished the drags and it was all over - we'd passed.
I’ve hiked the tallest free-standing mountain in the world and reached the summit in -56 degrees, climbing a 45 degree hill (you could reach out and touch the snow standing upright) with a foot of slippery snow under foot in a fucking blizzard. I’ve dived in pitch black water to nearly 90m, breathing mix gases that would kill you in an instant at the wrong depth. But until that second drag I’ve never questioned whether I
could do something before - whether it's all just too hard. It’s a hell of a feeling to be forced to ask that question, and come back not just with the answer of “Yes I can” but “Yes I fucking will do it, and I’m going to do it faster than the moaning bitch next to me”.
May have gotten a little angry with myself for thinking of quitting...
There wasn’t so much excitement as contentment when they handed me my pass certificate this morning – I knew I’d passed the moment I decided to drag that weak willed momma’s boy across the line the day before (he started saying he couldn’t do it at one point – I started screaming in his ear that if a ginger Oompa Loompa could drag him there, he could find some fucking balls to drag me back).
For some of the guys it was their second time around, having failed the PRMC previously and sent away for 9 months to train up. Some others got through but will never make it through the 32 weeks – totally the wrong attitude. But at this stage it’s just a test of whether you’re fit and determined enough, and they were.
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The Next Day
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Okay so yesterday was pretty wild.
The PRMC went half a day longer than I was expecting, so I had a mad dash from the train to the hostel in Exeter to pick up the rest of my gear, charged into the local recruiting office to tell them I'd passed and ask when could I start training, and try and make another train to London all within 30mins. Obviously missed the train, and had to buy another at an absurd price. Add to that my phone dying and being unable to let
Cian know what was going on, my hostel being in the distant colonial outpost of Greenwich, not knowing WHERE my hostel was once I was in Greenwich, and carrying more than my body weight in backpacks - the first celebratory drink was looking better every moment.
Finally got settled into the hostel, had a well earnt shower, had a Bundy and coke, and called Cian - to have the piker pike-out on mucho drinkys with me. In her defense though she had been "working" all day in an "office" and was "tired"; whereas I'd only been sleep deprived and tested to my absolute physical and mental limit for 4 days straight.
Little Miss Pike-Alot :
"Hmmmm, do I go out and drink with Red or do I stay at home like an old nanna?
Well I DO have alot of knitting to do"
So I started drinking in the bar below the hostel, and had some random Canadian chick drag me to where all the stragglers were drinking together. Cut a long story short: I got obscenely drunk with a guy from the old home town, chatted up this stunning American, but then somehow wound up passed out in the hostel's common area with no pants on - which is where the bar staff found me. And so far today I've had a late breakfast, went for a short walk that ended with me nearly throwing up said breakfast, and have been recovering and trying to type the last of this in the comfort of the common area's air con.
I fly to Vancouver on Tuesday for Boeta's last week there - he's pulling the pin after his plans went rather askew. Hopefully he'll go back when he's got some more money and things are more stable for him, but we're going to destroy Vancouver before he leaves. Going to tick a bunch of things off the 101 things list while we're there too, and hopefully leave all the women of that fine city emotionally scarred. It'll be freaking awesome.
NEWS JUST IN
Just got on Triple J back in the land of Oz, with the dreamy
Paul Verhoeven on the phones and the Yeti-like
Dave Callan in the studio, talking about my distinct lack of pants when the bar staff found me passed out in the common room last night. Also had them refer to me as "The Mighty Ginge" on air, rather than give my real name. Ended a little awkward though - I ran out of credit halfway through the call and got cut off.
My awesomeness, however, knows no bounds.
The new Mighty Ginge site has been created, tweeked and fondled over the last week, as well as a series of sub-domains for my side projects. Old time Ginge readers can expect a return to the original Mighty Ginge - no more "101 Things To Do Before You Die" updates, no more book updates, no more whining. All that shit is still going on, it just won't be making it onto the Mighty Ginge blog anymore. I'm running a seperate personal blog* for updates on what I'm doing, the 101 things, my book and other side projects. Unless it's fucking hilarious and hence Ginge-worthy, it's going elsewhere.
