Bedminster

It was the second outing of the season for the OBRFCFRCC and a second time in a row that the location was south of the river. However, the venue chosen for the pre drinks was the rather charming Rope Walk, a pub that would not be out of place in  BS8 resulting in a happy Morgs.

There was one late drop out, Snudden having sent a message an hour before meet time that he was in Exeter, no more details.

Talk turned to Runkle’s wedding, which was apparently a particularly boozy one with The Runkles budgeting at a punchy 3x bottles of wine per guest. When asked who was the drunkest OB at the wedding it came as no surprise that by unanimous vote it was Hamblett.

Mention of Hamblett, the only person so far to have been kicked out of curry club, talk then turned to how close to the line Cap’n Joe Willacy was to being ejected from the club. Mainly due to him abusing his membership by using the group to raise availability for Saturday games and talking far too much about Rugby and not Curry. There was discussion on establishing a front row union who’s role it was to ensure that no OBRFCFRCC member played more than 30 minutes per game.

After a few beverages we made our way across the “new up and coming” East Street to Ganesha for curry time.

Arriving at Ganesha we were greeted by Adley and Mike Dean. Adley was wearing a rather appropriately coloured Ralph Lauren polo shirt that was immediately the envy of all attendees and had brought a bag full of booze with him, just in case it was a BYO. It wasn’t.

We immediately ordered 2x poppadoms and assorted chutneys for the group, standard.

Poppadoms arrived along with a rare appearance from Whiteman, straight from Kettlebells, who then ordered a slimming meat platter, naan (no rice) and a diet coke, what an athlete. Chutneys were perhaps a bit on the stingy side, mint yoghurt had a nice cucumber zing, rest was pretty standard.

When ordering there was a minor panic when no naan breads could be found on the menu, however just as Morgs was about to flip the table and storm out, keen eyed Marshy spotted them in the aptly named “Colours of Wheat” section of the menu. Everyone was happy again, apart from Whiteman who had spent the past 48 hours trying to fix computers turning off and on again and Morgs who was very concerned by the height of the light fixture in the bathroom.

Mains arrived promptly and after a minor mix up where Giddings started helping himself to Mike Dean’s rice everyone had what they ordered plus a few extra “Colours of Wheat” that had appeared from somewhere.

Personally I had a rather delicious curry that consisted of Lamb chops in a lamb curry, so double lamb! We all found out Adley was a Korma man but he was quick to defend himself saying he had tried a Phall before but was not particularly convincing. Mike Dean had a mysterious green concoction that he described as a Saag Koala, but was unsure if this meant it contained actual Koala.

Talk of Koala meat brought the discussion round to what mysterious meats everyone had tried with Morgs stating quite ominously that he would definitely try human if it was offered to him. Then it was decided that from the group Mike Dean would probably be the most succulent with Fison being the fewer delicious.

OBRFCFRCC stash was discussed, possibly hats or bibs. Waistcoats were then suggested, followed by turban and toga so we could arrive to curry houses in “full get-up”. This was greeted by nervous laughter and shortly afterwards the bill arrived along with a group shot with the owner/chef.

Aperitifs arrived with the bill and were sadly a bit disappointing, fox mints and a lemon flavoured wet wipe. Not an After Eight in sight.

Post curry it was decided to head next door to the White Hart, but not before losing a member with Marshy quickly leaving quoting he would be too scared to wear his OB’s Gillet to that particular pub, conveniently located opposite Asda and McDonalds.

The rest of us piled in and was delighted to discover that pints in the White Hart did not exceed £2 (£2.20 for a fancy beer, like Carlsberg). PC Giddings and Whiteman were left pretty miffed that their “soft” drink round was the same price as the real pints round.

They love snooker in the White Hart, with it being shown on every screen in the pub and it was a big surprise to find Murphy the snooker player was a Mike Dean doppelgänger. This sparked conversation into what were other member’s doppelgänger with Morgs being Nick Frost from Sean of the Dead, Whiteman as Wreck-it-Ralph, Giddings as some Dr Who villain (I assume a hair challenged one) and Slammy as a generic aryan German.

Conversation then turned to what sports everyone was best whilst at school with only Whiteman saying Rugby. Runkle declared that he was a brilliant bowls player having spent his youth playing indoors at his Grandad’s (presumably massive) house. Fison was next stating he was brilliant at hockey having made it into his school’s 5th team. Slammy then said stool ball, that was met with blank stares from everyone not believing it was a genuine sport and required a google search to prove it wasn’t something his teachers had just made up. Giddings is a cricket man, Morgs loves a bit of Badminton, Mike Dean has won competitions in Fencing and Adley misunderstanding what everyone was talking about said he would be amazing a Modern Pentathlon. Having had the topic properly explained he revealed that he used to represent Yorkshire in breast stroke.

Whiteman then managed to get a mysterious brown stain on his trousers from the table and rather hopefully decided it was lip gloss left on the table. Because every girl loves to have brown lips. It was then joked that a visit to the White Hart would be £6 a round, £60 in house of fraser for new chinos.

With the locals giving us a few sideways glances it was decided it was time to call it a night and head on home. Whiteman had bravely stuck his car in the 2 hour max limit car park across the road and it is currently unknown if he managed to avoid a ticket…