Time goes by. So Quickly.

Great. It took me 10 seconds to come up with the above title and now I have 'hung up' by Madonna in my head. Everything was going well until recently, and it feels like only a few weeks ago when everything was going swimmingly.

The last month has seen as a massive downturn in everything, basically in my life, but especially in my preparation for the trip. The company I work for (Ogre pty ltd) has completely and utterly shat itself in the wake of the doom and gloom. Not helping has been my so-far cruisy demeanour and performance this year. All this = I'm in a lot of trouble and have had to scupper any outside interests for a while, lest the axe of doom find thy cranium. As a result, I've only been to the gym 3 times since my last trim trail, which was 4 weeks ago.

I'm trying to paint out like this is everybody's fault but mine. But I've also managed to pull 3 all-nighters since then, and in-turn missing 3 trim trails. To make it up to the boys one afternoon, I turned up to the pub 5 hours after retiring to bed to meet the Everest boys to watch a game of social-networking witnessed by 15 rugby players form both Australia and England. There I had promised to buy beers for all Team Tenzing members up until Australia's first try. That didn't happen until the 65th minute. Luckily only Neil qualified for what I now see as a foolish promise. The beer purchasing was alright. Watching 80 minutes of rugby union was a ridiculous thing to put myself through and I never want to have to be punished like that again.

Since then we have had a couple of dropouts due to illness and work-commitments. Stepping up to the plate is a guy that I've played cricket with sporadically for the last 5 years, James Butler. Below is the email I constructed to introduce him to the team.

I have know James for 5 years now, and when he hasn't been serving suspensions
as part of a lengthy list of on-field misdemeanours, has been my cricket club captain. You'll soon notice we share a common love of regular swearing, quoting The Office, and mother jokes.
James bit my hand off for a chance to join Team Tenzing, and I'm sure will prove to be the absolutely ideal Tenzingite. James always shows unbridled enthusiasm for
anything he's involved in (and this has already transferred to The Everest Test), thrives in a team environment, has a great sense of humour, is generous with his time, and obviously captaining the 1st team at Harlow would show that he can commit to events outside of work. You would also assume that he has more than a fair cricket ability, however this is stifled somewhat by ridiculous shot selection and 'eccentric' running between the wickets. He has shown time and again that he is willing to donate his time to mentoring young players and even menial tasks such as general club admin, not lest of these fielding the endless questions as to why he continues to pick such a talentless, hungover grub as myself in the first team despite a distinct lack of wickets, runs, fielding ability, or friends

Other things to occur. Well, we are playing on THE F*CKING OVAL during the fifth F*CKING ASHES TEST (lunchbreak) next year. I swear when I see Charles B-N (who basically swangled this single-handedly) I am going to drop to my knees (fill in the rest yourself). And after we have played on The Oval, I am going to send the video and pictures to every single f*cking school teacher of mine who ever said 'why do you keep writing fantasy stories about you playing cricket against the English in front of a packed house, it's NEVER going to happen' - And I am going to include personal diatribes against every single one of them. Even Sister Annette is going to going to hear about it. Let's see what she has to say in her hilarious Irish accent then. I am then going to ask them to revisit every single piece of creative writing that I did and remark it, based upon me fulfilling that dream. And don't think you'll get off lightly either Miss Saraceno.

On top of that we will have bi-weekly net sessions at the indoor nets at The Oval. Think that sounds salubrious? Think again. Essentially it's a multipurpose gym marked out with plastic stumps with a couple of surly second-teamer's wearing the 20/20 kit looking upset that they never made the big time.

We have a massive event on Saturday that involves some Freeze's (click here for an example) where we intend to hold an lbw appeal pose for 3 minutes and record the reactions of passers-by. Somebody suggested a Flash Mob, but ever since the 'incident' where I mistook Flash Mob for meaning showing my genitals to an entire Mob, I have been banned by court order not to take part in one ever again. After that it's off to Lords for a meeting, followed by the hellishness of a bleep-test, and then a net session. I assume my legs will be wobblier than Steve Harmison's when he boards that plane this evening after the whole day is done.

Finally, it has been my role to organise the Christmas Cards. Without doubt, the gayest part of organising the trip fell to me. Unbelievable. So expect one of those if you're family, friend, foe, or somebody whom I think might have a compatible kidney.

Ten Zingers Please

I almost let this slide but after my loyal following of Sean Moran asked me when the next update would be, I decided that I couldn't let me loyal fan down.
Quite a bit has happened in the last few weeks. The Official Site has gone live, and I don't think I'm alone when I say that it has made me moist. There is loads of good info on there in regards to the altitude, the people taking part, some awesome photo's of the pitch and the trekking route, the risks, the event (obviously), the legacy, and most important of all... the charity. Funnily enough, the organisers Kirt (the short one) and Wes (the not short one) forgot to invite me to the official photo session outside London Town Hall. At the time I was sure it was an innocent oversite, but combined with Haydn's inability to include my emails on team correspondance, I'm starting to wonder if there is a conspiracy against me. This all came to a head when, during a recent meeting where I was controversially overlooked as team fuhrer, I kicked my chair over, told them all to go and get f*cked, stole some of the donated money before running off swearing to never contact them again. Unfortunately I am niether quick nor strong of mind, and they caught me within metres of setting off and convinced me to stay on within seconds.

Apart from that Dean Jones-like reaction from myself, Saturday was an excellent day which featured the first full-expedition meeting for a long time, involving the naming of a couple of sponsors (Qatar Airways and Gray-Nicholls) along with some very exicting prospects which I'm sure Kirt would definitely not like me talking about just yet. The captains were announced, with fitness freak PC Gareth Plod backing up Haydn (whose blog I highly recommend) as Tenzing's Hierachy. Against us will be a team headed by Jules, who is supporting none other than my old beardo mate Glen, who doubtlessly earned his position, and definitely doesn't have to worry about having the complete puss rupped out his kiwi accent every time he talks.

Following this, the first square-off between Tenzing and Hillary took place. Kirt is keen to hammer home that the match on the mountain WILL be a competitive one and not just a jolly. Words that were obviously still ringing in Haydn's ears as he made us do 10 back-to-back 20 metre sprints as way of a warm-up. It was at this precise moment that I really wished I hadn't chosen 4am as a bedtime. Although, the stinging in my chest, cramps in my calves, and inability to breathe at least gave me a tester of what I'm up for at 5000m+

The game itself was a bigger fizzer than the third Matrix film. In short, we treated them like a plump christmas turkey and gave them a good old fashioned stuffing. Glen's favourite short film is called 'Bogwash', and in this case, we were definitely Rocco and he was the eager yet naive asian girl who wasn't really sure what she had taken on. After G-Plod and I opened the attack, they were 5/18 after 6 overs and the game was as good as dead. One of the wickets included my old-teammate Glen, whom I kindly informed on the way in that I was going to kill him with the next delivery... even though he was the non-striker. Unfortunately my next sledge got misunderstood and Kirt thought I was being polite when I asked if he was sure he didn't want to bat with a helmet against Blinky - Kirt politely declined and Haydn banished me to the boundary as pennance. Maybe next time I'll just stick with puerile questioning of players sexuality and repeated swearing.

I was certain that we would see Blinky completely lose it after he was called for a wide whilst walking back to his mark, but the need to impress his new captain saw him contain that unrequited anger that he normally shows whilst playing for me that usually results in a post-match apology to opposition players and thier mothers/umpires/spectators/passers-by/the archbishop of canterbury/women in general.

The game turned into a whitewash, with Hillary giving us a fright before we knocked off their total of 95 with only 10 wickets spare. I contributed a solid 0 off 0 deliveries after several retirements. This was as good as I could hope for after turbo-drinking 3 cups of Pimms safe in the knowledge that I wouldn't be going in at 6 before I was told with about 30 seconds spare that I was going in at 6.

Not only on the field was it a whitewash, but I must say we defeated Hillary in the after-match function too. We had them covered in every department from skirt-chasing, through to alcohol consumption and even fashions. If Hillary are going to compete on April 21, I'm afraid they'll require a Cleveland Indians style recovery.

Not all went swimmingly for myself. After the exertions of Saturday, I woke up on Sunday with my back feeling like it had been trampled on and a sore shoulder. Although that may have had more to do with passing out across 2 bean bags and the floorboards at Blinky and Glen's place.

You Is Well Fit

... the most dominant response I seem to get when mentioning this to people is... you? Everest??? do you mean... the mountain? In fact, my mate Justin has stated that I'll need a Yak and 3 Sherpa's just to walk up the stairs at Kathmandu airport. Then again, some say he just has a serious case of short-man syndrome who should watch his words lest Mugabe's henchman get an anonymous tip as to his current whereabouts.

Last November, I did a fair impression of somebody who was in shape. If you were to view a time-lapse since then though you would swear somebody has taken a bike-pump to cheeks and stomach. The only physical activity I've partaken in of late is the occasional 4 over allocation in a game of Twenty20 cricket where the hardest I run is during the hilarious 20 stutter-steps I take before bowling after getting the yips in my run-up earlier in the year.

So I'm about as fit as Rick Waller (left) and have endeavoured to take on arguably the hardest trek in the world. It's probably not the worst decision ever made - Craig McLachlan doing stand-up takes that title - but it's one that has raised a few eyebrows, particularly with my mother. Then again, anything that involves any of her boys out of her direct sight generally meets with her disapproval. The initial application asked for a 'moderate' level of fitness. However our fitness advisor is a former British Marine and I've already spent a Tuesday evening undertaking a bleep test. Greg Ritchie would be disgusted with all this if anybody was willing to give him the time of day, let alone ask his opinion on anything nowadays.

I've taken advice from a friend of mine Pia, who trekked to Base Camp a few years ago with her Dad (Australia's answer to Sir Ranulph Fiennes), and she claims that smokers and people who are overweight are more likely to make the trek as they are used to the pressure on their lungs. So in summary, my Curry-Diet is simply a dedicated regime of creamy sauce, oil, salt, and fried onions in order to make it to the top. Alls I need to do now is prevent myself from spluttering like a 13 year old behind the bike sheds at school every time I take a drag and I'll be crowned alongside Ian Thorpe as one of Australia's greatest athletes.

Pia has claimed that she didn't train allot prior to the expedition and that she was given the equivalent of Nepalese Speed to get her through, however she has a habit of massively understating any achievement so I'm not sure what to believe. One thing is for sure, if you're my mother reading this, I definitely won't be touching any drugs.

There Ain't No Mountain High Enough....

... that will stop me from getting out to poor shot selection and have my bowling (allegedly)spanked around more than Max Mosely in a strange (alleged) Nazi-Themed orgy.

Anyway, let's get the introductions out of the way, my name is Nick, I'm a 27-year-old ex-pat Aussie living in London, and I have been accepted to partake in The Everest Test. For those that don't know, of which there are plenty, I've managed to stumble across a pretty amazing expedition involving trekking to Base Camp of Mt Everest, playing a game of cricket at Gorak Shep, hopefully getting my name in a book sponsored by a beer company, and come back down rich and famous and ready to be photographed with an angry look on my face in-between Abi Titmus and Rebecca Loos. I assume the fame will arise since the game itself, if completed, will officially be the highest game of sport ever played. I don't want to go on about life changing experiences etc as that all seems obvious... and maybe even a little cliché. For all the info you need on the who, why, where, what, and when of the trip, it can currently be found at http://www.atestabovetherest.com/

If you can't be bothered with that, you should know that this isn't just for personal gratification/a chance to bore the hell out of everyone who isn't there with self-righteous personal anecdotes... A fundraising goal of £250,000 (£Shitloads in the old scale) has been set, which will be split between Comic Relief (The UK equivalent of Red Nose Day in Oz), and The Himalayan Trust

Each participant has been set a minimum goal of £1500 (please take into account the unfavourable exchange rate whilst donating). Once the official donation method is decided, I'll be sure to pass it on. There are several fundraising initiatives that are in the pipeline before the trek kicks-off during April 2009, with the jewel in the crown taking the shape of a sports auction and gala dinner in Feb/March next year.

There are some obvious logistical requirements to undertake a trip such as this, with the main question marks hanging over my fitness and ability to commit to a long-term goal. The fact that I was 20 minutes late to the first meeting and struggled to walk up a set of stairs sounded some fairly ominous warnings... And the result from my first-ever bleep test further enhanced those fears. Adding to that was the fact that Wes seemed to take an almost sadistic delight in keeping his handicam trained on me throughout the entire ordeal. Whilst not completely embarrassing myself, 9-6 is not a result to be entirely proud of and needs some work. On the commitment front, I have already proved myself a valuable team member during the boat-races on our first pub crawl (clad entirely in cricket whites), so maybe things are on the up.

So there is a hell of a lot to achieve between now and 'go-time', which you will be kept up to date with diligently over the next 9 months. As you'll find out, there is no subject I love talking about more than myself.

Tooves