mccullochblog

A Week Less Ordinary

Now that the jetlag has slightly subsided, the head has stopped throbbing and the memories are slowly coming back to me through the haze of Bacardi-and-Coke that was Barcelona, I thought I'd share a few of the more savory highlights of my bachelor party and the week that was. Special thanks to Mario, Ron, Jeff, James, Matt, Nick and Poddy for not shaving my eyebrows, getting me a tattoo or otherwise disfiguring me permanently. Here we go then:

1. Eight stags stuck in an elevator. "I think I'll wait for the next one," says I (with Ron at my side). "No, come on!" says James, "It says 'Eight persons or 630 kg' on the wall." We go in. The elevator breaks down between floors. D'oh! We phone the hotel reception to say we are stuck in the elevator. They laugh. It gets hot. The 'expert' is summoned. The 'expert' finally half-opens the upper half-door after ten minutes. Seven very relieved chaps clamber out with the grace of a rhino ballet. Phew!

2. Football isn't always this exciting, Mario. We took in a soccer match: Real Betis versus Espanol of Barcelona in the Primera Liga. We saw four goals, three red cards, one absolutely outrageously-biased piece of refereeing, a penalty kick and some hooliganism. Mario was thoroughly impressed...if only the Bay Area still had a soccer team!

3. Beer for Breakfast. It's been a few years since I stayed out past 3am, I think. The fact that we all stayed out on the first night in Barcelona until 4am at some fabulously trendy nightclubs seemed like an achievement until we returned to the hotel at 7am the next night, just in time for breakfast!

4. Crying Game. Unsurprisingly, the bachelor party visited a gentlemen's establishment. Surprisingly some of the 'ladies' turned out to be 'gentlemen' too! One of our party hadn't noticed the 'extra' feature when he pointed out how attractive this muscular woman was! Needless to say he was ruthlessly teased about it for the next 48 hours.

5. Culture too! I know you won't believe this, but we actually managed to take in some terrific culture in the few hours of daylight we saw in Barcelona. I can highly recommend Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia and the Plaza Espana, if you like water fountains set to music. Otherwise, I'm still amazed that Poddy managed to gain us admission into one of Barcelona's most excellent restuarants. Well done for that and everything else!

6. And finally...Michael Caine! It's as if the world's celebrities are reading my blog. I was in a restuarant in Paris with my work colleagues (before flying to Barcelona) and there he was, being led to his table six feet from me. The boss pretended to be cool. I suspect she was as cool on the inside as Dushka was with Keanu Reeves. Foolishly, I didn't chase after him to get her his autograph.

So there you have it....back to California, and just in time for an earthquake - in Dover, of all places!

And the winner of the celebrity competition is...

Jill Williams! Yes, not only did Jill celebrate becoming a mum just a week ago, but now she can bask in the double glory added by posting the most popular (44% of the vote) "Ooh, there's a celebrity" story here on the mcblog. Well done Jill (and Al Pacino) and hard luck to Dushka, who amassed a creditable 33% share of all votes counted thanks to her pursuit of Keanu Reeves.

Okay..time to move on...to London, Paris and Barcelona! I just returned from all three cities from work, work and bachelor party respectively.

Obviously my absence was a boon for Emma who has been blogging furiously (thankfully not much about me missing her birthday) but she still seems pleased to have me home!

Otherwise, I'm frankly worn out and suffering from a little jetlag, so, for now, I'll simply share with you the photos of Paris I managed to take when I wasn't sitting in a hotel conference room! More to follow from Barcelona soon!

Follow that.

Well, I'm impressed. I think my previous post was the blogging equivalent of a bumper mailbag, jammed phone lines and some mild vehicular congestion all combined into one glorious collection of comments. So, how to follow that?

I think there is only one way: to determine the coolest celebrity near-miss offered up by all of you, my contributors. And what better way to decide that than to vote. So, yes, for possibly one question only, the poll returns!

Before you click, note my criteria for determining my shortlist:

(a) How likely is/was there to be a poster of this person in the average Tibetan home?

(b) If this person was a patient in my brother's clinic, would my mum recognize him/her when they arrived?

(c) Would I actually want to have my picture taken with this person?

And so...do your judging!