An exciting weekend here at LowerFlat where our Elite Counter Terrorist Unit (aka Vince) managed to discover a suicide missionary in the oven attempting to burn himself to a cinder and take the entire flat with it.Thankfully, disaster was averted and we lived to tell the tale…

It’s been fairly quiet here at the LowerFlat recently. Namely because as we all know January is a skint month, it’s bloody cold, and for those students in the household it’s exam time. So quiet, the time you’d least expect anything to happen. Particularly if your name happens to be Rich and after an indcident before Christmas you wrote some rather rude words on Jim’s car for which he’d promised revenge…. Jim however had not forgotten these things, and decided to go and tinker with a screwdriver to get his own back…

A slightly late, but nevertheless well meant HAPPY NEW YEAR from all of us here at the LowerFlat who are still recovering from various festivities. We’ve got 6 months left here before it’s time to move on out and move on up, so we’ll have to see what we can fit in. There’s a few pictures added for the night out in Cardiff we had back in October, and there’s some more below of Wild West night at our Local and we’re sure there’ll be some more soon.

Over & Out!

Well… we did say we’d be going to a Western Theme Night at the Local… you can see the photos by clicking here

Yee-hah.

It’s been quiet around here again, so it’s about time we livened things up. A couple of weeks back long term friend of the LowerFlat, Alex ‘Gentlemen’ Wroe finished his 3 year stint of Education in the area, and celebrated by getting somewhat leathered. We’re not too sure he remembers the events of the evening - so good job we had a video camera to hand:

Firstly, he’s like to tell you that he’s ‘like Maverick’ and therefore Dangerous (we agree):

… and there’s no better way to finish off proceedings than a verse of God Save the Queen… introduced by Mr Hayford:

… and if you thought that was bad, just wait until this weekend when the local’s got it’s Wild West party going on. Vince is already looking at hats…

Well, it’s December 1st and what with Rich being a lazy ass student and Jim not being in the office today, we figured there’s only one thing to do… decorate the LowerFlat for Christmas, so, here it is in technicolour!

AND… just to keep you entertained, we’ve made ourselves another Advent Calendar, take a look - The LowerFlat.com 2006 Advent Calendar

Something bad’s happened. Well, actually, something bad for us but good for the people concerned… Ladies and Gents, Mark no longer lives here

On the plus side it is for a good reason - Mark and Anna are off travelling the world for the next 6 months. For them, it means a whole world (see what we did there) of new experiences, new friends and new countries to visit McDonald’s in. For us, it means we now have a spare room to dry our clothes, and also that we can tell you that in the last 4 games of Pool that Mark and Anna played… Mark got beaten every time

You can keep up with their travels at: http://getjealous.com/markandanna… and Mark/Anna, if you read this - where’s our postcards?! All the best guys

So, last night, November 5th, and in honour of such an occasion the Landlord of our local, Derek, decided that he would like to ‘blow shit up’ and ’show the rest of them they’re wimps’… and so, after clubbing together a few mates and a few quid, Derek managed to obtain the grand total of some 327 fireworks. Not content with this, the decision was to let them all off as quickly as possible. With 2 lads behind the wall, and Derek in front of it with hat, pint, cigarette and fireworks in hand. Fawcett Road was closed by the Police because of falling debris, and the neighbour wasn’t impressed when the sparks hit her washing… aside from that it was all a huge success, and just so you don’t miss out, there’s a video here of a couple of minutes of it… you’ll have to excuse the odd look down, Jim did need to give his pint some attention too!

Well, OK, if you haven’t figured, you’re supposed to read the title of this with a Welsh accent - because as we found out, when in Rome do what the Romans do, and when in Cardiff take an Umbrella.

A couple of weeks back Jim was due to go to Cardiff for his friend Kate’s 21st, well, actually, her second 21st. Not content with just celebrating her birthday once in the South of France over the summer, it seemed that she wanted yet another drinking session - and who were we to complain. Rich and Lucy let it slip they quite fancied visiting Cardiff for a night out and so after a couple of phone calls it was all arranged…

Saturday came and in the early hours of the morning Jim was to be found driving over the Severn Bridge rather fast, and also pondering why you have to pay to get in to Wales but it’s free to get out. Rich meanwhile was doing something involving a fish in Waitrose which meant he’d be pondering the same question when he drove over the bridge later on that evening.

Fast forward through all the unimportant odds and sods to around 8.30pm, when Rich and Lucy finally arrived in the epicentre of Welshness that is Cardiff where the rest of the gang were already on the merry way. First stop was 33 Windsor Place, a rather funky looking pub just down the road where we discovered a local cider that tasted pretty much like blue cheese and Jim had a Bloody Mary served in a vastly oversized glass. Time was marching on, and so did we (that’s Jim, Rich, Lucy, Alex, Alex, Steff, Kate, Rach, Rohan, Fi, Tash and Nerys for the record)… down to St Mary’s street and a club called ‘The Square’ where it can best be described as a huuuuuge venue for Cheesy music which got everyone (even Jim) strutting their stuff on the dance floor. Eventually though, time came to leave and after saying goodbyes we began the long wander home, where much to our surprise at 1am there was an actual Burger King open doing the post night out munchies - though, let’s face it, they’ve still got some way to go before they catch up with chips/cheese/beans from Charcoal Grill on Albert Road.

As the sun rose on Sunday, so did the general water level around Cardiff, it would be fair to say it was absolutely bucketing it down and some of the main roads were flooding. After being caught in all of this following our stroll through the City Centre we resorted to buying umbrellas before packing up the cars and enduring a 4 hour drive back to Portsmouth in some absolutely crap weather and passing out.

A big shout goes out to the Cardiff lot, we’ll be back, though if you could do something about the weather, that would be splendid

***See the photos by clicking here***

The LowerFlat went to Wales. It rained. A lot. We drank. A lot.
… and we’ll tell you about it all later after we’ve slept. A lot.