So here we are again, the legendary bi-annual birthday party of the one and only Lord Wahid Ali. The more loyal followers of my blog may remember that I have done a blog on said party before, hence it being entitled 'How to party like a millionaire mk.2' and the original is here should you desire a refresher. Anyway two years on and I had been invited back, same lord, same house but a whole new set of people going. Last time it was really just me and my family who I talked with but this year I brought my lovely girlfriend, Caroline brought Steve, Ross and Lois were there as well as Cormac, Nathan and a whole host of other lovely people.

The bus was set to leave Colliers Wood at 3 in the afternoon but due to Ross picking up his friend from the airport he was late and by public demand we waited for him and thus we didn't actually leave until about 4. So already an hour had been spent on a fairly uncomfortable old styley double decker bus. Me and Kalistra were sitting right at the front of the bus which turned out to be a bit of an error as all the other youngsters sat themselves at the back. It was my fault really as I wanted to pretend I was driving. To make matters worse, whilst on the bus I kept getting attacked by millions of little flies which although did little to bother me physically, I didn't like them climbing all over me.

But eventually after about two and a half hours we got down to the house at around 6.30 which was probably just about the right time as the food was just starting to be served and the violinists were playing in the background.

The first thing we did when we got there was go and find the chocolate fountain because that is just what you do. It was so worth it, especially after a week or so of dieting. Dipping various things in chocolate and then munching away, the profiteroles were especially nice but I also did dip a strawberry, a piece of pineapple and a marshmallow.

Then we headed back to get some real food. I started with a barbequed hot dog and then moved onto the slightly more extravagent foods such as cous cous and salad which was all unsurprisingly very nice but as you can imagine after all this I was pretty full and so of course the next thing we did was go straight to the fun fair rides.

This never fails to excite however many times you go, free fun fair rides with minimal queues. We started on the ferris wheel, moved onto the big jumbo bouncy slide, then the helter skelter and the dodgems. It was oh so much fun as you can see by my face. Not only that but we also had a go on the shooting range where I won Kalistra a cuddly giraffe and she won me a teddy. aptly named Tony Bear.

Those activities were all very similar to last party but there were a couple of areas that I dont remember having seen in previous years such as the activity tents or should I say wig-wams. There was face painting, balloon modelling and of course card making. Kalistra made me a beautiful card but unfortunately it did fall apart a bit. The third wig-wam was for the circus type stuff, filled with juggling balls, diabolos and all sorts and due to the party I think I have found that my talents do lie within circus activities. I have known i could juggle for a good few years now but I thought that was as far as my talents extended in that field but since saturday I have seen a whole new light. I can do plate spinning with little difficulty and dont get me started on the diabolo, I was amazing!

This though was not all as far as the new attractions, there was also the weird and wonderful ice cream van that 'sold' some of the weirdest flavoured ice creams and sorbets that you had ever heard of, Gin and Tonic sorbet, Pineapple and Chillie, Pea and Wasabi, and my personal favourite, hokey pokey ice-cream which was basically toffee and honeycombe which was literally heavenly. 

As always I did spot a few celebrities in amongst the party guests, the likes of Paul O'Grady, Ross Kemp, a man from GM:TV who I can't remember the name of, Eddie Izzard, an ABBA tribute band and my personal favourite, despite him being the celebrity of least credentials, the guitarist from Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man. I didn't attempt to get any photos as I thought it would be a bit mean as they were all there to have a bit of a relax, so I just stood back and admired their clebrity glow. The glow faded around Ross Kemp at the end, who showed a bit of the anger that he showed so often in the role which made him famous (Grant Mitchell, Eastenders) as he tried to help push a car that had become banked on a curb, telling the car behind to 'F*cking reverse', on a lighter note I very nearly got run over when the car eventually got itself free.

And so the night was coming to a close, there was a little bit of dancing at the end of the night but soon enough it was 1 o'clock in the morning and we all borded the bus before leaving for home at about half past the hour, another two and a half hour journey followed with small amounts of singing, not quite the choral outbirsts of two years ago but nevertheless fun a bit of dozing and then we were home at around 4 o'clock. We then swiftly went to bed, leaving the party in hope that we will be invited back for some more fun and frollicking in 2 years time.

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My blogs although not entirely frequent at the moment aren't non-existent which is probably of little importance to anyone because no one knows that I do them anymore so the chances of this being read by any one of the 7 billion-ish people in the world I would suggest is pretty unlikely. Nevertheless I shall be writing this and any future blogs for my own personal benefit.

So dieting. Since going to university I have put on a ridiculous amount of weight, not that I ever used to be the sort of person who weighed themselves, but it was so obvious that I had put on weight by the sheer size of my face. I shall again refer to this picture.

 It shows a horrible transformation to the youthful, spritely, healthy looking young man I was going into uni into the sick fat blob that I had become. Luckily that I didn't remain at that weight for all that long but I was still a lot bigger than I once had been. Now I have wanted to lose weight for a long time as I never thought I was thing, even in teh days before uni. I never though really had the motivation to do anything about it but this summer there is a difference. My lovely girlfriend Kali has hinted that I should lose weight. You would think that this may offend me but she does it in such a nice way that I couldn't resist her charms. She pointed out that my Body Mass Index (BMI) was at 29 which is only one point away from that of an obese man of my height. I accept being overweight but obesity scares me. Not from a mere vanity standing but from health. My family has a long running history of high blood pressure and also diabetes and I don't really want to end up like so many in my family taking pills or injections every day to avoid death. I want to live a nice healthy life. And if my body becomes a slightly nicer shape in the process this cannot be a bad thing. 

So on Saturday 19th July 2008 I started my diet. I have been weighing myself in Kilograms as it is easier to convert into statistics such as the BMI. Anyway, I weighed myself on Saturday and I was a hefty 106.9 KG, which as I said is just one point away from obese. My first aim is to get to around 95 KG which would see me be on the edge of Normal and overweight and my slightly longer term goal is to reach a weight of 90 KG which should put me at a nice healthy weight for my stature. 3 days in and I have already lost a whopping 1.2KG which I was very proud of and it is keeping me motivated to carry on the way I'm going.

Subsequently this has meant a few things to my diet. As of today I have decided to take a temporary leave from my alcohol drinking as it is both very expensive and also contains many calories. Not to mention my liver could probably use a bit of a rest. This coupled with a healthy eating schedule, no snacking and at least 1 hours worth of exercise a day should see my weight fall off me in no time.. fingers crossed.

Have fun people in blog land

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I'm a little bored right now and rather doing anything constructive like looking for a job which would help me combat my boredom as then I would have the money to actually do something. But hey, here I am writing this.

Ok so I shall start where I left off in the last blog - That KOKO visit turned out to be quite an influencial one in the end as it was pretty much the start of my current relationship with my girlfriend Kali. It may have not been any official start to the relationship but it was pretty much the day that I realised what an awesome girl she was and thus we moved on from being the 'just friends' to a little more than that and here I am nearly 6 months down the line and we are still together. I mean obviously there has been the odd rough patch not helped by her parents (anyone who knows of Asian parents will probably understand the problems) and the problem of during term times her living over 200 miles away from me but there you go, these are the things you do for love. Yes I did say that, love. Ant D has turned into a mushy ball of fuzzyness.

I have managed to visit Durham no less than twice in the last term but it is an expensive business. Even by coach which takes about 3 years to get there we are talking over £50 return from essex.

Anyways, obviously that is the biggest event in my recent life. Let me see if I can make a quick list of other things I have done since that day at KOKO:

New Years in Essex
Up To Newcastle for a bit
got girlfriend 'officially'
uni yr2 term2
went to brighton with the lads
turned 20
Kano gig @ uni
had easter holidays
Akala Gig
uni yr2 term3
finished exams
Middlesbrough Music Festival

and here we are. Obviously there was a lot of drinking and such amongst that as well but they are the main points that I can remember off the top of my head. Now I am back for summer and I have no money - I am currently in the middle of re-vamping the fruit leagues football kits and thinking I might make people in football manager, things are that bad.

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