Waiting for an Alibi or Rush to Judgement!

Now as someone in a sad middle aged malaise and accustomed to spending Saturday nights taxiing Teenage Triathlete and her boyfriend around the north east, the invite to Matt the Cash's 50th birthday party came as a welcome opportunity to get out more....and it didn't disappoint.

You may have noticed that I haven't swum down in Gateshead recently and therefore I hadn't a scooby who would be there, but there was a great turn out with all of the usual suspects.

Fairy Snow Baby, Synchro Dad, Proudie, Judo, Sumo, EMSC 3.0 (and Marion) Park Ranger, Helen Martin, Nick and Judith to name a laneful or two were all there to mark Matthew's half century (and in true Oscar acceptance speech style if I missed you out I apologise)

A great night, even if holding a conversation amidst the noise of the disco was a bit of a struggle, I think all of us are suffering from waining audible ability or simply old age and deafness and there was lots of "eh?" "what?" or  "sorry say that again?"

Now I remember when the timbre of white noise you suffered every weekend was a badge of honour and directly proportionate to the volume of the disco and the quantity of alcohol you'd consumed on a Friday night.

However the piece de resistance of the whole evening was a superhero transformation of the birthday boy; who went from being the rather ordinary accountant/masters treasurer "Matt the Cash" into mega rocker Matt the Thrash. His band (not sure what they're called) played a rocking set with highlights being covers of Thin Lizzy (yes Whisky in the Jar really was a hit in 1972!), Green day Proud Mary and Brown Sugar. I'm not sure if this tech stuff will work but here's a flavour of it featuring Matt (just call me Sting).

Critiquing the set at swimming this afternoon Proudy and I both thought the band were pretty "tight", which is an adjective you could probably use to describe my muscles as we ground our way through this session. EMSC 1.0's cunning plan was that the straight swims were steady and the repeats were progressive..... spookily another reminder of last night's performance.

400 free @ 6:45
3 x 133 @ 2:40
300 free @ 5:30
3 x 100 @ 2:00
200 free @ 3:40
3 x 66 @ 1:20
100 free @ 2:00
3 x 33 @ 40
3 x 66 @ 1:20
200 free
3 x 100 @ 2:00
300
100 swim down
3100 metres