Thursday, October 19, 2006

Living by myself in the tropics, with very little to do has given me a lot of time to reflect. This is not always a good thing.

Those of you working in Proximity London in 2004/05 will no doubt remember the Jon Briggs "eat a whole chicken" challenge. The idea is to eat a whole roast chicken within a certain time, or if two people are competing, then do it the fastest. To many people, myself included, this seemed like a very doable challenge. Afterall who doesn't like eating chicken. The problem with undertaking such a task is that when eating that much protein you find yourself becoming very full very quickly. It also becomes very dry and hard to digest.

Nonetheless I took on the challenge one lunch time. I made great progress and although it wasn't in the required time frame I did manage to eat the whole chicken. Huge accolades followed as I instantly became the hero of the hour. But it was short lived. My hero status turned to villian as it was revealed that I had hidden some un-eaten portions of chicken under some paper in my office cubicle's rubbish bin.

Despite the overwhelming evidence of guilt I protested my innocence. I stated, and actual believed at the time, that the chicken in the bin was unedible portions of bone and other such carrion.

However after much soul searching I can now reveal that not only was I lying to my co-workers and other potential chicken eating competitors, more seriously than that I was lying to myself. The thought of havin the prestigous title of being "the man who ate a whole chicken one lunch time" was too great, so I cheated. Instead of being admired as the guy who gave it a good shot and ate 8/10ths of a chicken instead became the "chicken eating cheater".

I can only hope that I haven't, in your minds, sullied the sport Competitive Eating and hope that I can still one day join the ranks of Arnold Chapman and Coondog O'Karma founding members of the Association of Independent Competitive Eaters (AICE).

In addition to self reflection I have continued to teach English to Japanese and Koreans, continued going to the gym and have done a bit of tourist stuff.


My first big venture out of the house was to Kuranda via the Skyrail. I then returned on the scenic railway. It's a very pleasant trip over once glorious rainforest that has been destroyed by Cyclone Larry.




More Recently I ventured to the Atherton Tablelands. There are some very nice waterfalls and a pretty lake who's scenery has also been largely destroyed by Larry.

Apart from Local travel I've booked in for another trip of a lifetime. This time to Africa. Kumuka had a special 99 pound offer. I'm going on the Southern Explorer tour. On the surface it seemed like a great deal, but it didn't include, flights, accomodation, insurance, malaria tablets, money to live etc. So far my 99 pound offer has cost me 1,000 pounds and I still need to get to London.

That's right all the flights to Africa need to leave the UK so you poor sods in London will have to put up with me again. I'll be there around late August 2007 so there's plenty of time to prepare yourselves.

It should work out well. I'll be able to tie the trip in to my tour of the socceroos games in the Asian Cup in July.

The internet business has been going well. I've now branched out into the T-shirt selling business. Some of you at the ABS may remember my saying Harsh but fair. At the time I said I should put it on a hat or something. Well finally about 10 years later I have.

I also have T-shirts that have standard Aussie sayings, a lot of the jokes from my stand up, some Japanese movie stuff, good old toilet humour and more. The name of the shop is Chickenhouse Apparel and the web address is http://www.cafepress.com/chickenhouse if you could send the link to 1,000 of your closest personal friends it would be much appreciated.