Last night I found myself in Chigwell. Extraordinary enough, I think you'll agree, but even more

[Berni]

extraordinary was that I was at a place/thing called 'Top Golf'.

This was essentially a golf driving range, but with food and booze which could be brought to your bay. There was also some semblance of a game involved. However, the golf aspect was essentially secondary to the drinking. Indeed, the place had bouncers. First time I've ever seen a driving range with bouncers, but there you are.

Has anyone else come across this phenomenon? It was really very odd. Quite fun, though. Mind you, almost anything is if there's sufficient booze.

http://topgolf.com/chigwell/

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

[PSRB]

http://www.thegreenmanchester.com/

[Classic Jorge]

and by "somewhere like chigwell" I mean a fresh hell faithfully recreated on earth.

[Remi Garde]

But at no point did I feel safe. Golf clubs and drunk guys are not the greatest of combinations.

[Monty91]

[Berni]

'Grilled Beef Top Dog', which did momentarily make me wonder if something hadn't gone horribly awry with my life. :-( Even by the standards of British hot dogs it was alarmingly bad.

[PSRB]

although a mate is the bar manager....or at least he used to be but not spoken in a while

[Classic Jorge]

If for nothing else than it's a relative of tennis.

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

cf 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger', and so on.

[Berni]

It was very, very Essex. Isn't it odd that somewhere so geographically close can feel quite so alien? :-/

It also made me wonder about the wisdom of combining a lot of young, drunk Essex types with the easy availability of golf clubs.

[Mc Gooner]

[Monty91]

in that it requires skill, technique and dexterity.

I hated Bounce though. Full of ****s.

[Berni]

an asylum, really. :-

I kept thinking about your stoicism and cheerfulness in the face of the darts tournament thingy and that gave me the strength to carry on.

[PSRB]

:-)

[Classic Jorge]

That's about my golf pun limits, just in case anybody thought I had a fairway to go.

Essex has always felt totally alien to me, even when half of my family lived there. Mind you, the rest of the home counties do too.

[Guns 'n' Roses]

[PSRB]

[Monty91]

has now been largely discredited by the medical community and is no longer the recommended method of dislodging food from a person's windpipe?

Also, in recent years he started claiming that he could cure Aids by giving people malaria :-(

[Guns 'n' Roses]

[PSRB]

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

I was like Attenborough, down amongst the unwashed masses, observing them in their natural habitat. Is it the diet of ready meals that makes them so pasty and puffy, or something genetic? The females are invariably bloated and patchy. :shudder:

[Classic Jorge]

I grew up in Rowan's in Finsbury Park and, when I wasnt clicking arcade machines and selling off the credits at a discount, I developed a decent wrist for the game.

Table tennis is a game for the socially deficient and orientals imo.

[Monty91]

with point-scoring? Nah.

[Classic Jorge]

[Berni]

So how does one best remove food from someone's windpipe?

[Guns 'n' Roses]

[Classic Jorge]

[Berni]

course.

Bowling has always seemed ridiculously easy to me, I have to say. Maybe I'm just a prodigy at something I don't care about, though. There's an interesting thought: imagine if one were a world class genius at something you thought was rubbish?

[Ashberto]

[Monty91]

http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47a3da07b3127ccef2a10c90b68700000030O08AbNHLlm4buA e3nwg/cC/f%3D0/ls%3D00008783994620130426105658141.JPG/ps%3D50/r%3D0/rx%3D550/ry%3D400/

[Classic Jorge]

[Monty91]

[Monty91]

[Guns 'n' Roses]

you're entitled to ruin our thread. "Rough" J.

Geddit?

[Classic Jorge]

I mean, I suppose they've got to do something with the place now Mike Reid has died.

[Classic Jorge]

better?

[Berni]

[PSRB]

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

Christ. Jimmy Jones...

No, this darts place was somewhere in Surrey... Frimley Green. I can't remember what it was called. But it was like 1973 again.

[Guns 'n' Roses]

[Monty91]

"In Spring 2006, the American Red Cross "downgraded" the use of the Heimlich maneuver, essentially returning to the pre-1986 guidelines. For conscious victims, the new guidelines (nicknamed "the five and five"), recommend applying five backblows."

[Red N White Army]

[PSRB]

an inflatable sheep about

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

when I asked if he was there for the whole tournament he replied, 'I hope so, I'm trying to win it.'

[Berni]

[PSRB]

this year. The wife is quite insistent that we go

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

I was awfully, awfully drunk :-(

[Berni]

even bother supplying cutlery or napkins. I felt like a zoo animal. :-(

[Monty91]

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

It beggars the imagination.

[Berni]

want to use my sleeve to wipe mustard off my face. And when I say 'mustard', we're not talking Grey Poupon here.

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

The thing to do with this experience is bury it, bury it deep in your subconscious. Never, ever speak of it again.

[Berni]

The fact is, I'm probably going to be spending quite a lot of time in that neck of the woods. I need to embrace it. http://www.awimb.com/images/smiley_icons/ohwell.gif

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

'having a good cry' to 'let it all out'. Now is the time to set the jaw and face tribulations with firmness of purpose and a closed mouth. And mind.

[Berni]

[Sir Charlie of Nicholas]

Take gin for the shaking.