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Day 1

They were all smashed when I met them on the platform at 05:30 am. Minnie, A-Rod, Dré and Darbs; the entire Wing Command. I, the sensible one, had been able to get a few hours kip. They instead got off the train the evening before, headed straight to a nightclub put their rucksacks and travel cases into the cloak room, stayed up all night and then rocked up at St Pancras. I realised then what kind of holiday this was to be.

The entire team slept most of the 6 hour TGV journey down to Nice. The only interruption was Minnie transferring his stomach contents to his jeans. The Brits were definitely abroad.

We checked into the Villa Saint Exupéry Beach hostel in the evening. Our first night was fairly restrained. We had some pizza and got our bearings by visiting a few pubs and bars. The vibe was Nice.

Day 2

The hostel’s infinite breakfast was a great way to set us up for the day ahead. Dré had spoken to one of the hostel workers about the best beach to visit. Villefranche was sandier than Nice and only 20 minutes stroll away. Worth a visit then…

An hour and a half march later we had begun to question Dré’s judgement as to what determined a 20 minute walk. “Yeah, I think the guy meant it was a 20 minute walk to the bus that would take us there…” Nice one Dré. When we did finally get to Villefrance, Dré was busting for a potty break. We duly waited while he went off for relief. When he returned, he was at a leisurely stroll, licking an ice cream. This did nothing to alleviate the annoyance of his 2 hour unguided walking tour. Nice one Dré. Never the less, we enjoyed the day down on the beach frollicking in the sea and definitely not perving on all the bikini clad girls. We decided to get the train back to Nice. It took 4 minutes. Nice one Dré.

Still, the evening beckoned. The hostel had an ample social area with sofas, chairs and tables. Johnny Foreigner was sat around watching Cool Runnings on the TV whilst a middle aged American gentlemen played jazz on the piano in the corner. Someone needed to get this party started. That someone was us. We installed ourselves on the central table. The hostel had a Happy Hour 6-7pm with 1 Euro cans of beer. Excellent. Pretty quickly the table was awash with our empties and soon to bes. We bust out the beer pong equipment and the SOL Top Trumps. The gravitational pull of plastic cups and ping pong balls is incredible. Extra chairs and tables were dragged in to accommodate all the Aussies, Swedes, Americans and other flavours all eager to get involved.

The drink flowed. Beer pong developed into flip cup. People who had only just met were now discussing tactics and moving experienced players to prime roles in the teams. Finally, just to underline our dedication to providing the fun, Minnie took to the piano and began hammering out Journey and Bon Jovi to the delight of all. (My requests for Hanson were less celebrated).

At some point the Austrians attempted a coup of the flip cup table. Before any plastic cups were annexed, Darbs and myself split off from Wing Command and made it into Nice town. Sadly though, I had forgotten to put Darbs down for his mid afternoon nap. Within moments the bar induced narcolepsy kicked in and I was left with an 11 stone door stop.

We headed home.

Day 3

We went to Nice beach and played with a ball. It was quite stoney.

Not wishing to deviate from an effective plan, that evening we hit the main table again. Dinner became beers, beers became individual beer pong, that became beer pong proper and before you knew it, we where in the middle of International Flip Cup once again. When we could no longer ignore the complaints about noise from the hostel management we moved the whole party down to the beach. A few members of Wing Command took the opportunity for a quick dip in the sea. Having completed my 50 lengths I attempted to return to my clothes to get dressed. At this point in my precarious ‘trying to get wet jeans back on’ position Darbs took me down and wet humped me into next Tuesday. No one helped me.

This excitement aroused Darbs’ senses and he got talking to a nice girl called Natalie.

Day 4

Somewhere between brushing teeth and turning our underpants inside out, we lost Darbs. We were concerned enough to leave the hostel, get the train to Cannes, play in the sea with our ball all day and drink beer.

On returning to the hostel we find Darbs. He has been ‘on a date’ all day with Natalie. I use quotations because in between having lunch and looking at a pretty waterfall she has threatened to kill him several times. I’m no Streetmate, but I didn’t take this as a sign of endearment.

That evening follows a familiar path. Only this time we push it even further, peaking with 11-a-side Sangria based flip cup. With staff getting increasingly tetchy about the noise and boisterousness it was time to get the whole show on the road again. We got the 20+ crew moving on and out and into Nice town.

I was walking and chatting to a nice Swedish fellow, appropriately named James the Viking. Dr, Minnie and Darbs were walking with another group about 20 yards ahead. The reason being within that group was Natalie, the girl Darbs had dabbled with the previous night. He was determined to force home the advantage. I explained this to The Viking and he immediately apologised to me, apparently having cracked onto Natalie earlier, possibly infringing on Darbs territory. I explain there was no need to apologise. Darbs is a weapon at the very best of times, and this was not one of his finest hours. He was pursuing in spite of her gentle rebuffing and she was therefore ‘fair game’.

However, I explained to James, this was Wing Command. Our job was to guide the heavy bomber to the target, distracting and confusing the enemy where possible. The heavy bomber had a considerable load to drop. The load had been backing up for a couple of months and I did not envy the final target, whoever they may be. When the damn did finally break civilians were likely to drown in the furious torrent. In my opinion Darbs should’ve been carpet bombing as many targets as possible. But instead he had focused on one, fairly low value target who was now getting dive bombed by anyone and everyone in a 5 metre radius. But, loyal to the last, Wing Command made its play.

From our holding position behind the main group I commentated to James as the manouvre progressed. “You see that strange guy who’s talking to Natalie right now. Well, that’s Darb’s main competition. Minnie is now going to remove him from the equation leaving the path open for Darbs”. As I spoke Minnie dove in with Operation Distraction. Natalie was getting harrassed by a strange art student type from Stoke. Minnie slotted himself in next to art student and fired off a savlo. (He recounted the conversation to me later).

Minnie: “So we are you from then?”
Art student: “Stoke on Trent.”
Minnie: “No way! My Gran is from Stoke on Trent!”
Art student: “Oh.”
Minnie: “Which part of Stoke?”
Art student: “Tunstall.”
Minnie: “No Way! Which road do you live on?”
Art student: “Roundwell Street.”
Minnie: “NO WAY! That’s the road my Gran lives on! Do you know her?!”

Minnie’s Gran routine had provided a valuable window, allowing Darbs to once again take up position as the number one harrasser. I could tell James The Viking was impressed as I explained to him what he had just witnessed. I maintained an air of nonchalance, like this was the kind of stunt we pulled every night.

The night continued to a club and then back to the Old Town where my negotiations with the local underground movement gained our motley ensemble entrance to a club. I started losing members of Wing Command as the pressure of 5 nights took its toll. Darbs lost Natalie to the advances of a U.S. push and started using the word ‘cunt’ a lot. Darbs and I hit the bottle and I felt a little subdued realising our French bender was drawing to a close. I eventually lost Darbs when he accidentally face planted the tiled floor (ouch!) and was carried home by a couple of American guys.

I ended up walking back to the hostel with James the Viking and his friend Anton du Beke. After relieving himself, Anton expressed his thanks at getting the crew into the club and generally for the conduct of Wing Command. It was over, but I was happy. The team had put in an excellent turn, building bridges and uniting nations in an understated but concerted manner. Particular merit went to Minnie who was awarded the Victoria Cross of Wingmanship for selfless actions in the face of the enemy.

Our adventure didn’t quite end there as we went on to spend 5 nights in Aix-en-Provence celebrating the Anglo-French union of a successful compadre to a delightful fille française. But I wouldn’t want to sully that with the drunken ravings of Wing Command. Suffice to say, now that the group has had the Stag Do to end all dos and the wedding to end all those, it’s now not worth doing either. Or if someone does, they’re going to have to pull something VERY SPECIAL out of the bag…

With two of the SOL members AWOL or otherwise financially challenged I had a lack of resource in the wingman department. SOL is an international enterprise, so I put in a call to the London field office. The previous year we had inserted an asset deep undercover in London posing as a mild mannered office worker for a major metropolitan infrastructure firm. His motive was, of course, ulterior. Thanks to a ‘rubulation’ technique he had personally pioneered, all of his finger prints had been effectively removed (unfortunately it had left him with the permanent inability to open new Tesco bags). This meant he was the perfect man for night raid missions; untraceable. He could get in, do what he had to do, and get out, before anyone could raise the alarm. Or worse, get his telephone number.

However, his recent field reports had become a concern. Simply put, he was not getting the results we were expecting. We could’ve pulled the plug, terminated the mission. But SOL looks after their assets. We organised a 5 night training mission. Destination: Copenhagen.

I met Dave at Stansted for a mission debrief over a burger and a pint. He has a certain inimitable style when it comes to telling tales but for the sake of this, he indicated he had been harrying the Spanish. Unfortunately the Spanish in question had returned to Spain and intelligence was unsure as to whether she would be coming back. Without wishing to get too graphic, Dave’s options seemed to have dried up. We pondered Sophie Ellis Bextor’s improbably ginger children then found our SleazyJet flight to Denmark.

Our forward reconnaissance unit, Sherriff Davies, had flown out a few days prior to establish contact with the local fixers and arrange our Forward Operating Base. He had set us up in the Danhostel, a self awarded ‘5-star hostel’ and potentially target rich environment. We got ourselves established, requisitioned some transport and set about infiltrating the local populace. Once settled in, the Sherriff and I began to apply the training regime. To break Dave down we carefully applied pints of beer at regulated intervals. To build him back up we fed him burgers, lots of burgers. Each day was finished at 5am with Burger King’s aptly named ‘Night Meal 3’ consisting of a Whopper, cheeseburger, large fries and drink. For others wishing to follow the regime, it can be seen in further depth here:

Due to the stresses of his original training, Dave suffers from nightclub induced narcolepsy. Ordinarily this just provides many hours of entertaining coat buckaroo but I needed him awake for the training to work. We had our top men reconfigure the regime to account for this, cunningly building in a second period of monitored sleep late afternoon. This did the trick.

With the program well underway, we were able to explore the city. Copenhagen is well worth a visit simply to experience some of their excellent language. Here are some examples we particularly enjoyed:

One alarming feature of Copenhagen is the sheer quantity of TBJs everywhere we looked. Concealed TBJs, sneaky peaky TBJs, balls out TBJs, bike mounted TBJs; TBJs of every flavour. Perhaps as a result of this we noted an astonishing number of MILFs; fully fledged MILFs, sprog drop imminent MILFs, double pram MILFs. Honestly, it’s amazing.

The training seemed to be having the desired affect. Dave was as excitable as I’ve ever seen him. We put this to the test by taking him to Copenhagen’s many and varied drinking establishments. It was at one such area – the Meatpacking District – I was mooching about waiting for Dave and the others when a girl walked past me and said “At skjorte er den forkert kulør blÃ¥!”

I shrugged and pulled a confused face, but she came back over.

“Your shirt,” she said “it’s the wrong colour blue.”

It was my Captain Awesome T-shirt, so I knew there was nothing wrong with it.

“Err, thanks” I said.

“No, that blue is from last season, it’s out of fashion. Why did you come to Copenhagen?”

“Well, one of my friends used to live out here, so he’s been showing us around and I’ve got a friend with me, who should really be around here-”

She stopped me.

“No, why are you here?”

I tried again. “Well it’s just a sort of holiday, so we’ve been going out and stuff-”

“No.” She moved slightly closer to me, her chest millimetres from mine, “why are you here…?”

“I… oh”

I knew exactly what to do. I ran away to my bicycle, found Dave, the others and we went to find another bar. Phew!

Copenhagen is a party hard kind of a place, well worth a go. Dave’s mojo had been reinstated and had also enjoyed the supersizing benefits of his 15 burgers. Don’t go for the weather, but go for a good time and an eyeful of TBJs.

Oh, go on then…

Marriage. Terrifying. I can’t decide what to have on my sandwich, let alone someone that you have to spend the next 7 years with. (I usually choose tuna). But some people are ready. Ready to move out. Ready to buy shoes with laces. Ready for commitment. Ready to grow up. These things were not on my mind when I ordered a couple of bespoke T-shirts from the Internet…

~

The Stag Do of Truth had already been going 5 nights by the time our group of 7 arrived. It brought the group up to a beer hungry 16, with an ultimate number of 19 people. Epic. The hungover/semi-toasted state that Stag and Best Man met us in pretty much set the precedent for the remainder of the Stag Do. We were quickly brought up to speed; where to get beer, which was your bed, what International Rules we were playing to and who was on what score. There were some incredible tales of bed manoeuvres (in the literal house moving sense of the word) but nothing that can be aired here.

The night of 1000 Coupes

If you’re ever organising an event, might I suggest the masks idea. Initially it’s the hilarity of having 20 of your mates’ grinning face ever so slightly larger than life. But then when you hit town, everyone wants to get involved. We had guys and girls of every nationality clamouring for some serious face action. We had our Night at the Roxbury. Enjoy Disco Stu’s excellent video:

Pirate night

Seventeen pirates and a man sized parrot charging around a theme park in Benidorm. ARRR ME HEARTIES!! It was hilarious. The Spanish visitors to the park thought we were part of the entertainment. They were pushing their terrified 4 year olds in front of us to get a photo for the family album.

Benidorm proper was everything you imagine it to be. A foul mouthed comedian tribute act, Sticky Vicky, karaoke, hen dos, Riding the Bull, chips, gravy and an angry man that wanted to take on a parrot and 17 pirates. Was he mental? We had swords.

Final night

The evening was balmy with a pleasant breeze, Stu’s Ibiza warmup mix was providing the atmosphere, the whole Stag crew were spread across the roof terrace plus a sprinkling of Aussie guys, Polish people, 2 Kiwi girls and the Portuguese girls. It was a good place to be.

Joanna the Polish girl sat next to me and eyed my T-shirt curiously. “What is that word mean? On your T-shirt?”

“Oh, err, it’s a small village outside Manchester, we really like going there.”

“Okay” she said with raised eyebrow.

Mazpot sat down on my other side and leant over, “Did you just tell that girl that ‘clunge’ was a small village outside Manchester?”

I nodded. I know, I’m going to hell.

There were 3 Portuguese girls staying at our hostel. What with there being 19 of us guys, I hadn’t really spoke to them, but it had been mentioned that on our final night they’d be making some kind of special Portuguese drink. This sounded like something I would like, so I got involved.

There was a group of us with the girls. They had concocted their special Portuguese drink; a mixture of beer, wine and sugar, and had doled it out. It was a down in one jobby, but only after they had performed a song based drinking salutation.

I chugged mine down. It was, as you can imagine, foul.

“Mmm, that’s really good!” I said. I wanted to keep them on side.

“I don’t think you like, it needs more sugar” said Sara, the smiliest of the girls.

Stu and I got talking to them and challenged them to a game of Beer Pong. Not that I encourage excessive drinking, but Stu and I figured we would trounce them. After all they were girls and we were boys. It’s basic physics.

Twenty minutes later I stood swaying, holding the ping pong ball between thumb and forefinger struggling to focus on the cups at the far end of the table. Partly because there were 3 hot Portuguese girls standing behind the cups, but mostly because we’d had to neck 5 of our cups to only 1 of theirs. “What’s going on? This is pathetic! We’re supposed to be getting them drunk!”

I threw the ball. It missed.

Having been demolished at Beer Pong, Stu and I regrouped with the girls. “What are you doing tonight?” asked Sara.
“I think everyone’s sort of staying on the roof terrace, having a few drinks here.” I said.
“Oh”
I detected disappointment in her voice. I needed to rectify this poste haste. “Why? Do, err, you guys want to go … out? Because, yeah we could totally go out, I mean it’s Sunday so I don’t know if it would be busy but yeah we could find a bar or some bars but that sounds like a really good idea, but” I looked at Stu and myself  “we’re wearing shorts so we’ll just need to get changed, but stay here, because we’ll be right back, does that sound like a plan?”

The girls thought it did sound like a plan.

“Ok,” I pointed at the floor “stay here, we’ll be right back.”

Stu and I walked nonchalantly across the terrace to the top of the stairs. As we rounded the corner we broke into a clattering run, flip flops slapping down the stairs, giggling like school girls. We skidded to our door, fumbled the key and piled in. The room was a flash of jeans, shirts and deodrant as we threw on some slightly cleaner gear.”Quick, before someone steals our Portuguese!” We flew back up the stairs.

We arrived panting back at the girls. “You were 8 minutes” said Sara. Eight minutes? Guess we had spent too much time giggling.

It was only fair I let the rest of the group know our plans. “Guys!” I said “We’rejustgoingtogotoHavannahswiththegirls butifyouwanttocomethenyoucanmeetusdownthere!”

Three Portuguese girls, Stu, Dave and me (still giggling) walked off through Alicante to a bar. They were, in a word, delightful.

Conclusion

It was a great night. But it had been an epic do. Kudos to Best Man for organisation. After I got back people kept asking if we’d given The Stag a good send off, which I thought was an odd turn of phrase. The guy is not going anywhere. But he is embarking on a new adventure. As for me, I think I’ll stick to tuna sandwiches.

Oh, and I also spoke to a friendly German girl.