Well, let’s get the ‘tossers’ jokes aside right now… and state categorically the only one to toss a pancake was Rich…

On a more serious note (well, as serious as we can be) we better say thanks to Rich for being the man to instigate this year’s pancake proceedings. After an earlier attempt by Lucy at making the batter using guessing as a guide resulted in some rather amusing samples (as demonstrated by Ross), Rich took over and managed to make a slightly better job of things, and even proved he was quite good at flipping them!

After various attempts with lemon juice and Nutella melted in the microwave used as fillings, we can only say that the evening can be declared a success

… or Fawcett Road if we’re being precise! A few quick ones this evening as Paul ‘Mr’ Hayford was passing through, which in the end involved Jim, Rich, Lucy, Ross, Mr H and Matt down in the local enjoying a few beverages and games of pool… Rich continuing his losing streak (except for against Jim, but Jim only lost to make him feel better…). Anyway, a rather pleasant evening with the exception of some of DJ D-reck’s rather old school tunes…

There was originally a plan for Friday… only owing to a combination of things including Jim spending most of the evening in A&E (chauffeur duties, not as a patient mind you) the plan was moved to Saturday.

The current members of the LowerFlat decided to go for some beverages with a previous member of the LowerFlat… Ian ‘Gubbs’ Gubbins. Being punctual people, Jim and Rich arrived in Old Portsmouth a little early, and decided to try The Sallyport Inn for the first - and last time… at £3.35 for a Stella and Lime we somewhat felt they were taking the piss just a little - especially with a beer called ‘Hard Willie’. However, the pub was conveniently located near to Gubbs’ new residence which we also very conveniently invited ourselves to check out his swanky pad for the first time.

After checking out the leopard skin sofas and the lava lamps we moved on down to The Spice Island where the beverages of the alcoholic variety are a little cheaper, and after a few there and an incident involving salt and pepper in various beers (Rich started it) we felt it was only appropriate to introduce Gubbs to the local. We quickly obtained a taxi and headed East to the Royal Exchange which was packed out more than we ever thought, still, we managed a pint and a short before bribing The World’s Favourite Land Lady Pat ™ out of a few bottles of Tomato juice to make some Bloody Marys when we were home.

The short stumble home led us into the kitchen where we somehow managed to cook up Scampi with Chips/Cheese/Beans and also use the catapault to demonstrate to Gubbs the armoury available to the LowerFlat nowadays. All to soon though the almighty clock on the oven showed us the magical time of 24 O’clock and it was time for bed…. Sweet dreams.

Former member of the Lower Flat Gubbs has launched his own blog. God help. Ladies and Gentlemen, we give you… ‘The Life of Gubbs’

http://gubbs.blogsome.com

Not that this is anything we’d ever do, but it seems there’s a bit of an epidemic sweeping the halls at Durham University which the staff seem overtly keen to avoid… If you want to see the full sized version (of the notice that is) click on the picture below.

Ever heard of AQA (Any Question Answered) ? Well, pretty simple, text any question to 63336 (costs a quid) and they’ll answer. In the interests of experimentation, we asked:

Q: Who lives in the Lower Flat
A: ‘Jim and Rich are the two guys that live in the ‘Lower Flat’ of Chetwynd Towers in Portsmouth. They are students and like the odd beer’

How true.

Yes… we know… it’s been quiet on here recently and several people have taken the liberty of telling us this… which has only gone to inspire us to do something, problem being we don’t have time yet.

There was a bit of an impromptu evening the other day when Jim’s Dad and his wife (Mrs Dad) popped down for the afternoon/evening. We felt it only fair that they should find us in a location that was easy to get to, so we took the liberty of taking residence in the Old Customs House in Gunwharf Quays for a couple of beers before they arrived.

Despite being well informed that Dexter the dog was doing the navigation for their journey down, they managed to find us in time for drinks - in their case a coffee and a scotch (at 4pm? What good taste) - the only confusion was that the coffee had to be ordered from a different bar to the Scotch, made only even more strange by the fact the same woman walked through from the booze bar to the coffee bar to serve us. How strange.

The fun part of the proceedings came with a visit to Char Bar in Port Solent… it’s a somewhat groovy restaurant where a large proportion of your food comes out uncooked - but never fear, there’s a BBQ in the middle of the table for you to cook (or burn) it on to your delight. It’s all rather good fun. really…

And yes… we’ll get around do doing some more stuff soon. Honest.

Well, its been a while since we got drunk. Infact, just over a week. Admittedly the LowerFlat’s exploits in Petersfield are, at the moment, unrecorded, namely because we couldn’t quite remember exactly what happened, and then endured a matching set of 2 day hangovers. Ouch.

However, since Petersfield had been to celebrate the end of Rich’s exams, it only seemed fair that since Jim, Ross and Mark all had their final (and infact only) exam that a few beers were had in celebration. We were joined on the occasion by Paul ‘Mr’ Hayford, who for those of you who where paying attention joined us and Jean-Pierre the Polar bear on our visit to Calais back in December.

Jim met Mr H off the train shortly after the end of the exam for a couple of pints in Gunwharf and then moved on to Tequila Vodka Redbull in Tiger Tiger before Phil K joined for an inpromptu trip over to the Isle Of Wight. Only, we discovered on arrival that there wouldn’t be a ferry back for at least an hour, so got straight back on the boat. Thank goodness for cans of Fosters.

The intrepid travellers met the rest of the group at Apsley House where Mark was a little worse for wear making some rather amusing demands of Lucy having just Seven-Balled her at Pool. Meanwhile as the Cider began to flow, it seemed that Gubbs and Rich were going to settle the LowerFlat Pool Challenge following on from last time’s 1-1 draw. Before we can continue though, we have to include a message from Gubbs for Legal Reasons:

Just remember, when you put this on the website to point out that I beat Rich… which means he lost.

Which should make it blatantly obvious by now that Gubbs was infact victorious in what had previously been called the ‘deciding game’… which seems to have also resulted in the rules being changed to include more games.

Before too long, Mark and Gubbs left Apsley House to join Ross and a few others at Tange whilst the rest of us finished our drinks and returned home… which for Phil just happened to be London… Jim and Paul arrived home a little later having gone walkabout down the seafront to find Mark in the kitchen in a somewhat inebriated state and attempting to consume small chunks of cheese. After convinving Mark that calling his girlfriend at 1am was not the best of ideas he conceded to go to sleep.

Not that anyone got much sleep. Ross rolled in around 3am with Gobble and a still un-named 3rd man, and proceeded to spend most of the next 3 hours treating the rest of the house (and no doubt the neighbours) to a selection of music… and try and Jim, Rich and Mark could, there was no shutting him up. Revenge was served a little later when Ross awoke on the sofa (with no cushions), on enquiring why he wasn’t in bed the answer was quite simple…

“I think there are two men in my bed…”

… another night out for the residents of Chetwynd Road then…

Well, on Wednesday 2nd Feb, we went to Petersfield. We got drunk. Very drunk. There’s not much point in watching a full account of all this - we quite simply don’t remember… so, heres a few choice cuts…

• 5 pints…
• Followed by 3 bottles of Wine in our first visit to the Folly Wine bar
• The Wine Bar’s rather strange toilet arrangement
• “Lads, I love you”
• Jim forcing Phil to stop the car to attempt to steal a Road Sign which wouldn’t fit in the front
• Rich running back to try and get this sign in the back of the car
• Boarding the train home, having nobbled the rest of our bottle of wine and 2 glasses with Jim announcing to other passengers, ‘Yes, we’re drunk’
• 5 pints and 3 bottles of Wine exiting Jim’s system, being photographed by Ross
• The ensuing drunken brawl between Jim and Ross
• The 2 day hangovers