Day 8 Rest Day - MC Shark appears for Boom's Birthday, Steamy Mountains, Bocco, and Self-Doubt

Yet again I was awoken by the Hoover Dam being opened in my intestines and I scuttled off to the makeshift bog in the very early light. I did take a moment to think of Jules and Vics who were in the room next to the toilet, both of whom were probably awoken by what they thought was the sound of gunfire followed by a tap being opened up to maximum capacity, followed by some panting and maybe even the occasional swear.

After 2 hours of dozing I strolled back for one of several encores, and didn't think anything of the 20 or so people gathered outside looking in at me as I gave them an acknowledgement wave with the hand holding the bogroll, pausing only to mumble 'have a guess what I'm about to do', before swinging the door shut. Upon assuming the squat position, I heard a loud cheer from outside. Before I had the chance to think that this was all a bit odd, the crowd launched into a rendition of happy birthday and it clicked that Kinsey, everybody's favourite aggressive chicken farmer, was celebrating his birthday. To commemorate this, the guides had baked him a cake and presented it to him as breakfast.

This sugar hit helped on the long acclimatisation walk. We were going 600 metres straight up, with everybody under strict instructions to take it very slowly. I took the opportunity to have my first non-childish chat with Dave Kirtley, either side of descending 50 metres or so to find a nice covered area to deposit some of Kinsey's birthday cake. This prompted a couple of singalongs, one was the obvious 'Ring of Fire' followed by what i thought was a stroke of puerile genius, by rewording 'Six Months in a Leaky boat' to something along the lines of 'I've just spent six days with a leaky arse' - It had in fact only been 4 days, however I granted myself some poetic license. Later on, Paola would remark that I was 'steaming up the mountain' in reference to the brisk walking pace I was setting. The look on her face when I responded with 'Steamed up in the mountain in more ways than one' was that of a girl who looked disappointingly resigned to the fact that she had chosen to spend 14 days in close proximity to 40-odd males.

Once atop the cold and windy proximes of the 4900metre hill-summit, Butler and I grew more confident with asking DK about what his brother went through after being banned for throwing. For those unfamiliar with cricket, being called for throwing (instead of bowling) is one of the most controversial and soul-destroying things that can happen to any sportsman, particularly on the world stage. There's a cheating stigma attached that never disappears and many people never recover. We were stunned at the remedial action needed. Dave said muscle memory has been calculated at doing something 2500 times, hence James stood at the bowling crease with a big bag of balls and practiced a remodelled bowling action 3000 times. This then progressed to taking the final delivery stride and bowling a further 3000 times, and so on and so on. I've always been pretty quick to judge pro sportsmen, and this story has made me reassess my willingness to throw barbs at people from the outer of the SCG in future.

For approximately an hour we hung around at 4900metres, taking photos, chatting and making Vicks Nicholson promise favours in exchange for a mars bar. I felt alright at that altitude but was worried what running around on a cricket pitch would do to my lungs. Thankfully we had another 3 days to build-up the red blood cells before game-day.

On the walk down I got involved in some banter with Bil and Prem. They constantly referred to me as 'Bocco'. I've had a few definitions to this. At first, the boys embarrassingly said it meant 'strong' - finding this unlikely, I quizzed them further. The real meaning ended up being somewhere between unmarried and gay. They couldn't understand how a man of 28 was not married. Prem then seized on this and started quizzing me about London. He eventually asked me about the ladies in London. After my answer he then clarified his question. 'No, no, how about the red light ladies, y'know...' - He was then shocked to hear that I couldn't give him a rundown of the quality/availability/price lists of callgirls throughout London. I think this was the moment that 'Unmarried' turned into 'Gay'.

After the previous nights lack of appetite, I happily managed to scoff down lunch and also a whole clove of garlic. Nick Walker had suggested swallowing an entire clove like a pill, as apparently that binds your stomach. I had an interesting time talking pigeon English to the teahouse owner trying to describe what I wanted, and then trying to describe what it was for.

Later that night we gathered for one of the highlights of the tour. A comedy night had been arranged to commemorate Kimbo's birthday. Our resident stand-up comedian Chris Martin compared the evening and kicked-off proceedings - along with G-Man - with an ode Milky Tea, the beverage that we each consumed at least 6-10 cups of per day. The night required everybody to get up and tell a joke. The jokes told ranged from Riotous (Mark Waters), Hilarious (George Powell), Confused (James Markby), Ordinary (JC), and Tasteless (myself).

The highlights of the night include Chris' crack about 'wiping your arse' with the religious shroud placed around Kimbo's neck, The Sharland Brothers massively under-rated acappella rendition of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' with rewritten lyrics, but the highlight of the night and possibly the entire trip was the emergence of MC Shark and Base Camp 1 into the cut-throat world of hip-hop. Jules and Milo provided beats whilst Joe 'Mountain Jew' Williams spat out some sick rhymes. Check the video out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3aV2zaZI48 This was yet another night that I could've taken or left prior to the event, but turned out to be a storming evening.

Souring the day somewhat was the amount of downtime we had, or more to the point, what the downtime did to my mental state. It was the first time that our attentions really started turning towards the game. People started chatting about what it was going to be like and, more to the point, who was going to play. I began to think about the different characters within the 15 of us in Tenzing and who were the likely starters. Obviously captain, vice-captain, and Wes were certainties. Blinky, due to his tireless work on the website, was going to be another definite. That left 11 of us to go into 7 spots. I began agonising over whether I had contributed enough in the lead-up to the trip. Kinsey and Mike had hosted days at their houses, Dave Christie had organised and managed huge discounts and orders for kit, JC had nailed down the flights from Qatar. I had organised the stickcricket game, pulling in over 3million hits, but had worried whether this had been lost along the way or whether it would be considered as a nice extra, rather than an actual contribution. Adding into this mix is a torturous record as a youngster in just missing out on sports teams. I had to watch from the sidelines whilst my rugby league team played in 2 grand finals, one because the coach decided I wasn't good enough to ruin his and his son's chances of under 12 premiership glory, and another due to emergency surgery a fortnight beforehand. I was constantly missing out on school cricket teams, generally being told on the day that I wasn't required after travelling hundreds of miles, during a run into the semi-finals of a state-wide knockout comp. It's funny how memories as old and as seemingly irrelevant as those come back when you're grappling with self-doubt, twisting your mind into thinking that there's a curse and getting you into a bad frame of mind. This negative outlook, of course, was exacerbated by the stomach illness and the lack of sleep, but you don't realise that at the time whilst an overly-active imagination spirals out of control.