The Ginger Panther

He's the five-time winner of Camberley's prestigious fastest ginger award, twice runner up in the Basingstoke ginger mini tennis league and widely acknowledged as one of the world's leading forces on ginger confectionary. They call him the ginger panther, he's fast.

Rumours of the g’panthers stair climb challenge effort spread around UCHL like wild fire, but really hot wild fire, and more wild. The scheduled ascent time was set for the holy ginger hour of 6.30pm, when all gingers are genetically encoded to unroll a life size poster of Boris Becker pheasant shooting and salute it with a smoked kipper.

The first spanner in the works came when lawyers dissected the small print of the ginger panther's insurance documentation, revealing that he wasn't ensured against sonic booms, and subsequently should he break the sound barrier in the stair well might have to foot the bill for levelling the hospital out of his own pocket, and his outfit notoriously has no pockets.

Concluding one hour of negotiations, the decision was made that the ginger panther would only ascend using 65% effort (the same amount of effort Boris Becker uses during a second serve), reducing, but not elimination the threat of a sonic boom.

When crunch time came, the ginger enigma chocked like a man who'd been told he was eating steak, but then got told it was liver mid-chew, like a sick joke. Not only forgetting to start timing his effort until floor five, the subsequent time, which did not take into account 30% of the challenge, was crap, and probably didn't merit the 4 minutes of floor based recovery while repeatedly chanting 'highest building in the world'.

The ginger panther declined to comment on his dismal effort, but his publicist said he may have been touched by a witch while ordering an omelette the day before.

The leader board remains unchanged.

Hustling Redemption

Famed for setting the absolute base level of the Stair Climb Challenge with a pathetically woeful 03:08:60, Mr. Voyce has finally found redemption. His initial time made him the target of widespread hatred as it largely degraded the human race, further fuelling the debate that stairs carry more consequence than all global religion/badminton based sports.

Leapfrogging to within lunging distance of pole position after a week of gruelling training in Cornwall, Mr Voyce can now rest easy in second place after scaling UCHL towers in 01:50:18, good.

More importantly (but not really, but kind of), Dan's taking on a triathlon around the mean streets of London at the start of August in the name of Leakemia research. Here's your chance to forgo this week's whoring session and back the big man. He's a bloody delicious chap & it's a fine cause.

Hit up www.justgiving.com/djvoyce for his sponsorship page (the link was being a bastard earlier, hopefully it works now). There's a sexual photo of me on there.

Stair Climb Challenge Leader Board 23/06/2009

1st Alex Hopson 01:42:00
2nd Dan Voyce 01:50:18**
3rd Dunc Skehens 01:55:70*

*Shower required after attempt
** Clad in performance enhancing fabric

The Glove Helmet.....Sort Of Didn't Work

As we try to secure a mainstream media deal for the rights to the stair climb challenge, innovation has been rife amongst competitors. Fronting the charge is web/events guru Hugo Lewis (his website www.hugoplanet.com is a must see), whose minimalist approach to web design and online media has been hailed the future of the internet (again, see hugoplanet.com).

In an attempt to record all 16 floors of stair mayhem in glorious motion pictures, Mr Lewis opted to don the newly developed concept helmet, The Glove.

Reverse engineered from the back to the front (which makes it proper fast) in floor 16's lab, The Glove may look like a conventional cycle helmet worn the wrong way around, with a Blackberry mobile phone lashed to the front via a medium size latex glove, however it's not.

Critics of this ground breaking technological advance have been silenced by the simply stunning footage it captured as man (Hugo) battled adversity (stairs). The future just happened.

Hugo Lewis currently sits in 3rd position with a time of 01:59:50. He estimates the down force The Glove Helmet gave him helped reduce his time by up to 7 minutes.

What's More Significant?

With this brief foray into the world of hard hitting journalism, we've discovered that the Volvo 340 is significantly more significant than the Dutch, more significant than Toad Fish's omnipresent presence in Neighbours and slightly more significant than the significance of the former 01:55:70 stair climb challenge record. I've driven two Volvo 340's in my time, they were both marvellous.

Stair Climb Challenge Fisted

Just two days after stairsman Duncan Skehens delivered a clumsy open handed slap to the previous stair climb record, the puckered up backdoor entrance to the UCHL's 16th floor has once again been sodomised.

In this instance it was stair aficionado Alex Hopson's hammer like fist that penetrated the furthest into the sub two minute barrier with a cataclysmic 01:42:00.

Though hindered with a £16.50 Gaucho burger and £7.10 of Haagen Dazs cream based produce in his stomach, apocalypse Hopson convincingly dismissed the previous record while Mr Skehens was forced to look on in wretched disgust.

Though taking on no specific training for the exercise, Mr Hopson is the only (male) athlete to have completed the challenge with shaved legs, an aggressive and sexual look that proved to be devastating.

Stair Climb Challenge Leader Board 19/06/2009

1st Alex Hopson 01:42:00
2nd Duncan Skehens 01:55:70*
3rd Hugo Lewis 01:59:50

*shower required after attempt.

The Half Lazy

The Half Lazy: A sophisticated gentlemen's non-alcoholic beverage that brings you as close to climax as you can get, without actually being anywhere near.

Conceived in the Charlotte Street Blues Bar through a shock collision of lifestyle and flavour, the half lazy is a benchmark in refined mixology. Having been likened to sex on the beach, only with completely different ingredients, and providing a similar level of enjoyment to a mid range super market jam, few words do this zenith of libation justice.

Ingredients:

2 parts fresh orange juice
1 part lemonade
splash blackcurrant cordial
edge (unquantifiable, arbitrary measure of 'edge' normally between 50-70 degrees depending on a incomprehensible number of variables including atmospheric pressure and variations in the FTSE index).

To be delivered no more than exactly halfway to climax, order yours today.

Broken People

Announcement to all fixed increment altitude jockeys. The Stair Climb Challenge should not be attempted following the consumption of large amounts of Indian cuisine (or other stuff you can eat). Though rumoured to be performance enhancing, no amount of technical outerwear could save the plight of Mr Thomas (right) and less technically clad but equally fetching, Miss Kendal (left), whose Indian experience left them languishing in the realms of mediocrity as they deposited themselves like metaphorical vomit onto the hallowed proving ground of the 16th floor.

WARNING: Stairs should be enjoyed as part of a balanced diet.

Stair Climb Challenge Record Smashed Up Proper Bad.

This is not a drill.
On the eve of the 16th of June, there's a minute chance that history books might have become significantly more useless following his titanic feat of man-endurance. Overshadowing key historical events like McDonald's release of the hat trick cheeseburger during Italia '90, it's been predicted that this seminal moment in Stair Climbing history may eclipse the release of the Reebok step in 1992.

The man was Duncan Skehens, and his time was an eloquent 01:55:70. Our team have been busy attempting to use the Time Distance Speed triangle to calculate his ground speed, but the steps are the wrong shape. The only solid comparison available to us suggests a velocity similar to that of Ultra Vox's smash hit 'Vienna' when played on vinyl.

Duncan 'Tour De Force' Skehens is also credited with completing his conquest without the aid of his signature uni-tard and Chris Boardman cycle helmet, which he religiously trains with at Bracknell's state of the art virtual reality stair climbing facility.

Stair Climb Challenge Leader Board:

1st Duncan Skehens 01:55:70*
2nd Matt Ollier 02:14:00*
3rd Andrew Pool 02:17:00*

*Shower required after attempt.

Super Extra Frickin Darts League

Things have heated up to within touching distance of Luke warm in the Super Extra Frickin’ Darts League. It saddens me to announce that my unbeaten run (which i was hoping people would respect and not actually try to beat) has come to an end. Granted i was defending it with a score of 47 out of a possible 180, which is technically classed as 'bad '.

This week’s special promotion is a free blood glucose test for the weekly high score. Bingo will vouch that despite having to pierce your finger and provide a blood sample, it's more than worth it for the meaningless and totally arbitrary number you're presented at the end. Vive la magnetic darts.

Current Stair Climb Challenge Top Three:

The stair climb challenge is one of the most revered feats of human endurance on the Tottenham Court Road. This no-holds-barred full contact race from the ground to the sixteenth floor of University Collage Hospital has been likened to a running race, jogging for around 3 minutes and intense rotational sunbathing on a slightly overcast British day. The current leader board is as follows.

1st: Bingo - 02:14:00*
2nd Spanner - 02:17:00*
3rd Loz - 02:59:00

* Shower required after attempt.

NB: For those interested in taking part in the Stair Climb Challenge please note there is a strictly enforced "No cheating unless you absolutely have to" ruling currently in place. Timings are taken in minutes and seconds but there's a proposed switch to Kilograms and grams next week.

The Spearmint Rhino Wank-Clinic Debacle

In a nut shell, this is how this utterly maverick mission unfolded.

1) 21.00: Go for a nice Japanese meal.
2) 21.45 Leave restaurant and walk past a Gentlemen’s club.
3) 21.55 Enter club and get informed we have the incorrect footwear but are able to ‘hire’ the required shoes from reception. Cue the quote, “a couple of size nines yeah” to chimp working reception. A surreal mist descends on proceedings.
4) 22.00 Make crap and unnecessary small talk to a Romanian lap dancer while drinking J2O.
5) 22.05 Realise that Voycee has rounded up a harem of the five hottest chicks in the establishment with the simple command, ‘that’s my friend (me), show him a good time’.
6) 22.10 Face takes a beating from 10 individual breasts and my brain struggles to process any of the ensuing 4 minutes of dreamlike naked pleasure. I give up fighting wood at approx. 1 minute 35.
7) 22.13 A triple decker muff pyramid is constructed in front of me. Brain momentarily appreciates the foundation work before focusing solely on the homage to ancient Egypt.
8) 22.20 Depart Gentlemen’s club.
9) 22.30 Arrive at hospital smelling of midnight sin and covered in glitter.
10) 23.00 Lack energy to purge genitals.
11) 12.10 Let instinct prevail in shower the following morning, unaware of latter fixture.
12) 12.15 Get summoned to wank clinic to deliver sperm sample as chemotherapy precaution, slot booked for 12.30pm.
13) 12.25: Spank bank fails to render any images of sufficient arousal, resort to maximum RPM thrash technique to complete task.
14) 12.30 Desperately milk shaft to try and bulk up the content of mediocre sample, limited success.
15) 12.35 Reflect on the last shambolic evening/morning before sheepishly handing over meagre sample while trying to tilt it at a favourable angle to produce an illusion of increased content.
16) 12.40 Illusion technique failed, hung out in PC world for 10 minutes before questioning what I was doing.

Anaesthetic VS. A Nice Old Women

Though not widely regarded as a point of debate, it would appear that Surrey’s Frimley Park Hospital haven’t decided which of these two options would best suit their patients.

On the one hand, anaesthetic’s properties generally involve reducing pain, while a nice old woman has no pain limiting traits, but can stroke the area being operated on.

During my last visit to said hospital I had to have a core of bone marrow removed from my hip. In this particular instance, perhaps as part of a cost cutting exercise (I’m not sure of the cost differentials between anaesthetic and 1 unit of old women), I was allocated the woman over regular pain relief.

My personal insight into this raging debate suggests that having your bones drilled while feeling all sensation (including the soothing stoking hand of an old woman) is actually quite painful. I’d image it’s on a par with some of the more left-field torture techniques out there. Luckily in addition to the soothing stroking hand of the old woman I was told I could also implement the popular pain relieving technique of deep breathing.

I feel I gave the old woman technique my best shot but on reflection, and this may sound bizarre, next time I have chunks of bone extracted from my back while conscious, I’m going to side with anaesthetic. The debate rages on…

The Leukaemia Shit-Fan Metaphor

The Leukaemia shit-fan metaphor is a little known but acclaimed means of simplifying a (Leukaemia based) scenario to such an extent that all traits contributing to the reality of the situation are stripped to make an abstract, confusing and often highly misleading simplification of the initial pretext. This scenario is rarely used in a medical context.

TLSFM in its simplest form:

Leukaemia is the metaphorical shit in this scenario. Shit, other than within some elite (but bizarrely broadening) Internet niches, is widely regarded as bad. Fans on the other hand are the good, and in this allegory represent the human body. However when you suspend shit above a moving fan, fans are not good. This is the crux of the TLSFM.

The challenge of battling Leukaemia involves both slowing the movement of the fan, and the supply of shit suspended above the fan, continually feeding it. If the shit comes into contact with the fan, shit lands on the walls and on other shit, which is in itself, is shit.

At present the most effective means of limiting the fall-out of a shit-fan collision is via chemotherapy, which is in effect like burning the whole building (containing shit, fan & all other shit) down. This leaves a smouldering wreck of a structure with no fan / shit, meaning the building can be reconstructed minus the shit, but including the glorious spinning fan.

In my current shit-fan metaphor, both shit and fan have been doused in metaphorical petrol and ignited. Fingers crossed the shit burns.