Marius Pudzianovski has Polish Power, but Vic Parker has Pensioner Power
Posted by Jacko | Filed under ManChat
And not pensioner power as in a large voting contingent.
The Great Right Hope has become synonymous with sporting greatness. Sponsorship of the local darts team, the Albion Arras, ensured they powered through to win the league in their debut season, even though most of the players didn’t like the darts flights I gave them, they didn’t wear the t-shirts, and I didn’t turn up on the final night’s fixture because I had to buy them each a beer, it was sponsorship, nonetheless.
So, after that debacle, The Great Right Hope is proud to sponsor Vic Parker, a veteran powerlifter hailing from Rothley, Leicestershire. Admittedly, sponsorship only involved giving him a lift to a tournament in Birmingham, where I ate most of his packed lunch, but it’s sponsorship, of sorts.
Anyway,
Sunday 11th Feb saw Vic return to competitive powerlifting, after a thirteen year break. He competed in the West Midlands championships, which took place in Hatchford Brook Youth Centre in Solihull. Vic was lifting in the Masters IV class. I said that Vic was a veteran, and that he is. He turns 70 this year.
I met Vic for the first time about five years ago in Charnwood Leisure Centre (a gym in Loughborough). Yes, unfortunately, I need to regularly work on my hunkiness with the use of iron. Maniron to be precise (which is a word). I was performing the deadlift when an elderly gentleman, limped over and asked if he could join in. This wasn’t a problem, but what was interesting was that there was over three hundred pounds on the bar. Five reps later my jaw was on the floor. “Oh this is nothing,” he said when the groups of spectators failed to comment because they’d all been knocked for six. “I did 250 kilos once.”
Looks can be deceiving. Vic has been weightlifting for fifty years. He started off bodybuilding, inspired by the impressively chiselled Steve Reeves, but he soon realised he didn’t have the genetics for mounds of rippling muscle. At the time, Vic was part of the Charnwood Entertainers, a group of strongmen who performed at village fetes around Leicestershire. One of his feats of strength was breaking six inch nails with his bare hands. Vic realised he was blessed with natural strength, so decided to give powerlifting a try.
Powerlifting consists of three events, as demonstrated by Vic, himself:
1) The squat: A barbell is held on the shoulders, and the competitor must bend at the knees until their hips are below the tops of their knees before returning to the standing position.
2) The bench press: The competitor lies on their back holding a barbell above them. They lower the bar until it touches the chest, pause for a second before lifting it until the arms are straight.
3) The deadlift: A competitor lifts a barbell from the floor until they stand up straight, without pausing.
Vic performed his best lifts in his mid-forties where he reached a total of 550 kg (Squat: 192.5 Kg, Bench: 117.5 Kg, Deadlift: 240 Kg), and he only weighed 82.5 Kg. And if that wasn’t enough, he also ran the Leicester Marathon in three consecutive years around the time, too.
Vic competed in the British Championships when he was in his fifties, and continued to lift until he reached 60 when, during training, he managed to successfully rip the tendon attaching his quadriceps to the bone, clean off. Ouch. Still, the man got better and continued to train right up until he was 63 when he ripped the tendon off the other leg. Double ouch. Most people in their early sixties would’ve given up the ghost, but not Vic Parker. He came back, and that’s when I met him, outdoing men forty years his junior by the squat rack.
Not sure if you picked up on it, but I mentioned that when I first met Vic he limped over to our group. You see, at the time, he was suffering from a pain in his hip, not that it stopped him lifting. Over the next couple of years, Vic’s hip deteriorated and he was diagnosed with arthritis.
An operation was the only choice, but the type of operation was debatable. There was the usual hip replacement, which is the standard “tick-box” procedure carried out by the NHS, but there was also a newer procedure which was being perfored, a hip resurfacement. The resurfacement is a lot less intrusive, and this was Vic’s preference as he had his sights set at one day returning to compete in the British Masters.
What’s a hip resurfacement? Come, my friends, learn-
Unfortunately, because Vic was sixty-five, he was told that he was not eligible for the resurfacement operation as his bones would not be strong enough. He was told this by the NHS, and that was that. If he didn’t take the hip replacement, and, most-likely, end his lifting career, he’d have to seek private treatment. Vic did just that. In the end, he paid a considerable sum of money to have the resurfacement operation, and was told, on waking, that they had a hard job to do the operation due to the high density of his bones. It is such a shame that he had to pay for the op and couldn’t have it done on the NHS, after paying taxes for fifty years, working as a carpenter. The man made a staggeringly quick recovery, which probably shouldn’t have been a surprise, and was back in the gym within a couple of months, and shifting big numbers too.
So, to Sunday. Vic was entering the competition as he needed to qualify for the British Masters, which takes place in April. It was a great day, with some remarkably strong people lifting some remarkably big weights. It was painful to watch some of the Oxford University Powerlifting Team lift at the tournament. They were considerably younger than me, considerably stronger than me, considerably smarter than me, with futures considerably brighter than mine. I tried to run a couple over in my car when they left the building, but, alas, they were considerably quicker than me and my clapped out Escort, too. Just joking (well, only about the attempted GBH bit, the rest is true). They were a great bunch of lads, who did themselves and their university proud.
Back to Vic. Funnily enough, he was the only person competing in the over 70s class.
140 Kg squat. Easy.
Vic needed to lift a total (any total) in order to be eligible for the British Masters in April, but Vic, being Vic, didn’t go easy on himself. He racked up an impressive 410 Kg total (a North Midlands record) at the same bodyweight he lifted at thirteen years ago (82.5 Kg). Yep, if you thought the photos looked a bit old, it’s because Vic is wearing the same lifting suit as thirteen years ago, and I bet it’s a damnsight older than that. Incidentally we had to get him into the suit, which involved two strapping lads yanking him into it, which would have looked like some weird kind of pensioner abuse to the outsider.
Vic’s last lift of the day was his old favourite, the deadlift. He’s been having trouble with his hip, of late (the one without metal in it) and has been taking it easy in training. His first lift was a conservative 140 Kg, the second was 160 kg, before he announced “I’m going for a 180 Kg, but it’s gonna hurt.” Yeah, well lifting over 28 stone off the floor when you’re near 70 should do!
There’s 180 kg done and dusted, and yes, it did hurt. All going well, he’ll be all healed up and competing in the British Masters in April, and I’ll let you know how he gets on.
Vic is a shining example to everyone. This article is not simply about an old age pensioner performing remarkable feats of strengths, as that would not do the man justice. Besides, you can see from the pictures that he is in fantastic shape, and part of his longevity and strength are the product of great genetics. To me, what is truly inspirational is that this man has been training for fifty years, half a century. He has gone through three major operations on his joints in his sixties, and has gone on to compete at a high level. Nothing has stopped him. He has never made excuses and I don’t know anyone who has drive quite like him. Most people make excuses that they can’t exercise for 30 minutes, three times a week, because of what often comes down to nothing but laziness. If Vic’s story doesn’t inspire these people, then nothing will.
To finish, here are some videos of Vic’s lifts.
Squat:
Bench:
Deadlift:
If you have some supportive comments for Vic and his future endeavours, drop them below and I’ll let him know. He hasn’t got access to the internet as “I don’t do computers.”
Absolute legend.
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Tags: bench press, British, champioships, charnwood, Charnwood Entertainers, charnwood leisure centre, deadlift, hip replacement, hip resurfacement, leicestershire, Marius Pudzianovski, North Midlands, Oxford, Polish Power, powerlifting, rothley, squat, the price of ham, university, Vic Parker, west midlands
New Year, New Decade, New Jacko?
Posted by Jacko | Filed under ManChat
Hey guys. Haven’t been on here for a while as I’ve been away visiting family over Christmas, and since then I’ve been putting the final touches to the second volume of The Great Right Hope series, A Fistful of Rubbers, which is now with Zetta Brown, the editor for LL-Publications. Finally, it’s done with, and now I have time for some more blogging and let me start by saying Happy New Year.
Yes, folks, a new year and a new year decade. In April, I will say goodbye to my twenties, too, and say hello to my…erm…thirties, yes, that’s the one.
Shit.
I don’t want to really talk about that. Nope, I don’t want to talk about the future, it only brings old age, boredom, kids playing on your lawn and a life-changing increases in the price of ham, and possibly global warming and shit.
So, let’s look backwards, and let’s take a look at the decade we said goodbye to, the noughties. What happened in the noughties? We (England) lost at a lot of sporting events; terrorism reached sickening heights; Usain Bolt ran really, really fast; and the first ever film about bumming cowboys was released. I ain’t really much cop at history, and I can’t be bothered with researching owt, either, as that isn’t my style. To be honest, I can’t be arsed to talk about the past, as that’s in the past, and the future is the only thing that matters, right?
What I will say, is that on a particular supernatural day in the noughties I experienced, for the first and only time, what can only be classed as divination. Unfortunately, my foretelling wasn’t the kind that would ever bag me a lot of money, or any, for that matter. It would not put me in a position where I could make a difference to the world. My vision came to me when two girls danced and sang (technically questionable) their way on to my television screen. Those Transylvanian girls were cheeky little things, indeed, and they were indeed, The Cheeky Girls.
The cheeky girls hit our screens in 2002 when they auditioned for Popstars The Rivals, and from that came the song, The Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum), and even though in 2004, it was voted the worst pop record of all time in a Channel 4, it still got to number two in the UK charts. Number, f***ing two, can you believe that? This country. This f**ing country. To summarise, they’re mum writes their songs; in 2006 they filed for bankruptcy; and in 2007 they had tit jobs.
I was convinced my 2002 prediction would come true, and everything was building up to its ultimate fulfilment. Even up to the end of December 2009, I was convinced that I couldn’t be wrong. I told the world, my friends and loved ones, as a 22 year-old kid, that it was a guaranteed dead cert that one of the cheeky girls would become a porn star by the end of the decade.
And they didn’t!
So the title of this post was “A New Year, A New Decade, A New Jacko?” So is there going to be a new Jacko? Well, probably not; not unless I win the lottery, or someone gives me a multi-million quid book deal, but one thing I will say, is that I predict, that by the end of this decade, by midnight, December 31st 2019, one of the Cheeky Girls will be in porno, somewhere on the internet.
Mark my words.
Tags: A Fistful of Rubbers, divination, England, getting old, global warming and shit, Happy New Year, LL-Publications, mark jackman, Nostradamus, Popstars, porn, sport, The Cheeky Girls, The Great Right Hope, the price of ham, The Rivals, thirties, twenties, UK Charts, Usain Bolt, Zetta Brown
Lookalikes! Porn Star, Ron Jeremy, and Supernanny, Jo Frost!
Posted by Jacko | Filed under Lookalikees, ManChat
This is a really short blog to tell you that I think that Ron Jeremy, famous, now fat and old, porn star, looks like Britain’s favourite TV Supernanny, Jo Frost. If you don’t believe me:
To quote the missus. “Seeeeee. I told you so.”
Anyone who doesn’t agree! BRING IT ON!
Jacko
p.s. Anyone got any good lookalikes that other people can’t see?
* * * *
This is a couple of weeks after I posted the original blog, but an artist mate of mine, Jeremy Lewis-Cope, has just sent me a pic proving the point. It’s bloody brilliant.
Can’t stop laughing at it!
Tags: 9.5 inches, great yarmouth, jeremy lewis cope, Jo Frost, lookalike, Loughborough, mark jackman, Ron Jeremy, Supernanny, York
If I Were A Rich Man
Posted by Jacko | Filed under ManChat
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
What a song, ey?
Fiddler on the roof, “If I Were A Rich Man.” If I were a rich man, I’d be singing “Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum”, pretty much 24/7.
What I would not be singing is:
I’d fill my yard with chicks and turkeys and geese and ducks
For the town to see and hear.
(Insert)Squawking just as noisily as they can. (End Insert)
With each loud “cheep” “swaqwk” “honk” “quack”
Would land like a trumpet on the ear,
As if to say “Here lives a wealthy man.”
What?
The last thing I would be doing after winning the lottery is buying poultry. What a shit, shit verse. I don’t care if it is sung by a poor milkman in early 20th century Russia, there must have been something better he could have wished for such as a prostitute made out of solid gold, or even a prostitute holding a big bag of gold, or even a prostitute who knew where some gold was, or even a prostitute who wasn’t ridded with STIs, or even a prostitute who was riddled with STIs (Jacko says: “Rubber Up”).
But no. He wished for a loud bloody duck whilst singing “Here lives a wealthy man.” You’re not wealthy, you’re an idiot. What would his neighbours have thought? “Why didn’t he spend the money on prostitutes made of solid gold?”
I didn’t mean to get into that. What I want to talk about is how great it would be if I was rich. This came up, because I was browsing through the shopping website, Play looking at some film memorabilia saw this little piece.
Giger’s Alien.
I love Alien and Aliens, and I even like Alien 3 (won’t mention the fourth one). I’d love to have Giger’s Alien on my desk, but I couldn’t do that with the one above as it is life-sized! 7′8” it is, and a wallet busting £5799.99 to boot! Check it out: Alien I can’t see why anyone would buy this unless they were either really rich or really stupid. There’s a customer review which states “Would look good in any horror fans collection of memorabilia.” I should bloody hope so. For six grand I’d expect it to hunt down and destroy my enemies (of which there are many) and then seek out prostitutes made of solid gold and rid them of their STIs. If you weren’t minted you really would have to be stupid to buy it. I was hoping for a review which said. “After losing all my money in the Farepack Christmas Hamper Scheme, I decided to push the boat out this Christmas and invest in the “Lifesize Scale Alien Xenomorph Statue” to impress the kids. I am now selling my “Lifesize Scale Alien Xenomorph Statue” as my three loan sharks have the audacity to charge interest on the monies owed to them. Still, this would look good in any horror fans collection of memorabilia.”
Where was I? This blog is a bit like Ronnie Corbett’s stories when he sits on the chair, tells a long winded tale and then hits you with a terrible punchline and you yearn for Ronnie Barker to come back on.
“Sorry” was shit .
There’s no Ronnie Barker here, folks. Sorry, just more of me rambling about prostitutes made of gold.
I haven’t blogged in ages, actually, as I have been busy writing the sequel to The Great Right Hope. I’ve now finished the first draft of the second book of The Sid Tillsley Chronicles, ”A Fistful of Rubbers,” and that’s why my imagination is running riot. Back to reality. Being rich. Wouldn’t it be great. I was chatting to a friend today about what I’d do if I was truly rich. I mean rich, not all that “oh, I’m rich because of my loved ones,” bollocks. No, I mean prostitutes made of solid gold, rich.
If I were rich…
I’d hire Face (aka Dirk Benedict) from the A-Team to sit in my front room, and then when I had friends over, I’d pay a dude dressed as Cylon to walk through my front room so that Face could recreate his famous point at the start of the A-Team intro. I love that shit.
I’d buy Manchester United, sack Alex Ferguson and then put my old man in charge and watch the club implode. I remember being a young goal keeper and being told. “Don’t close the angle. it’s easier to dive forwards, than backwards, so stay on the back post and then the striker can only kick it in one place.” My football career didn’t last long. He doesn’t believe in any defensive walls for free kicks. Being Norfolk born and bred, I can’t imagine Evra would get a game, either.
I’d pay a man to watch all forty-two episodes of Sorry, back-to-back, non-stop, for a year just to see what happened to him.
I’d pay a scientist (a real one) to invent and breed Ewoks, and then I’d test cosmetics on them as a punishment for ruining “Return of the Jedi.”
I’d shut every plastic and chrome bar in the country and reinvest in Great British pubs.
I’d remake Highlander 2.
I’d organise a Battle Royale, the likes of which, the world has never seen. I’d offer a billion pounds and a penis enlargement to the winner of this fight to the death, man versus man, epic bout of brutality, extravaganza. I’d send invites to Hulk Hogan, Crocodile Dundee, Steven Segal, Chuck Norris, Grant from Eastenders, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Mike Tyson, Dolph Lundgren, Carl Weathers and Gary Busey. And then, I’d send armed guards to collect Andy Murray, Jeremy Kyle and the prick down my gym who doesn’t put the weights back and then I’d let battle commence. I’d pay that bloke who shouts”LET’S GET READY TO RUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMMMMBBBBBBBBBBLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEEE” to come along and shout “LET’S GET READY TO RUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMMMMBBBBBBBBBBLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEEE” There isn’t a red-blooded man alive who wouldn’t want to watch that.
I’d remake “Fiddler on the Roof,” and make it real freaky with… you know!
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. I’m not a very materialistic person and for me to live the life of my dreams, I’d need billions and billions. Who cares about owning a Ferrari, when you can fuck up an Ewok, real bad. And, in conclusion, isn’t that what being rich is all about?
So, if you were infinitely rich, what would you do?
Tags: A fiddler on the roof, A Fistful of Rubbers, a-team, alien, alien 3, aliens, Battle Royale, billionaire, Carl Weathers, cosmetics, cylon, dirk benedict, ewoks, face, Farepack, Gary Busey, giger, Hulk Hogan, If I were a rich man, loaded, mark jackman, play, prostitutes, Return of the Jedi, rich, Ronnie Barker, Ronnie Corbett, solid gold prostitutes, Sorry, spacedocking, starbuck, Steven Segal, The Great Right Hope, The Sid Tillsley Chronicles, Van-damme
TRAINHOP
Posted by Jacko | Filed under ManChat, The Great British Pub
I’ve been asked a lot recently, “What is Trainhop?” and it is time for me to explain.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WELCOME TO TRAINHOP!
Trainhop is a very simple concept: Biannually, once in summer, once in winter, a group of men (only men!) turn up at a chosen station, on a chosen day, at 11A.M. They then travel on a random train to a distance no more than one hour away, with a tariff no greater than ten English Pounds. Whilst on the train the “Trainhoppers” or “Hoppers,” as they are known, enjoy a swift libation before embarking on a fourteen-hour killer bender in the chosen town, which usually ends up with 25 % of the group having a “dodgy pint” and, through no fault of their own, they vomit in public.
Trainhop is a magical event and there are a certain number of traditions that accompany the fun and frolics. Every Trainhop has a special drink. In summer this is a “Hoptail,” a light and fruity number designed to refresh the Hopper on a warm summer’s day. In winter, a “Winter Warmer” is the order of the day, designed to protect the Hopper against the cold winter air.
Unfortunately, no Trainhopper has ever attended bar-tender school, most have not attended school, for that matter. However, creativity is rife within the group and this often leads to something quite hideous, that usually curdles, and which led to the earliest Trainhop vomit, 11.45 A.M.
Above is this summer’s hoptail, “Stawberries and Cream,” a combination of Aldi imitation Balileys, 40% strawberry vodka, and a strawberry. It curdled and looked like a fish that had been tortured in a blender. It didn’t taste much better. The worst ever was “Alcoholic Cuppasoup.” That consisted of: hot water, two scoops of budget instant soup mix, one large slug of vodka and three croutons. Bad days, people.
The hop drink is always accompanied by train beers, and then it is tradition that we visit the first pub in the town. It’s only early, and sometimes Hoppers do not get the warmest of receptions.
Because we are not always sure how far we are going to travel on the train, we usually have a surplus of beers which looks like a hamper for tramps, hence: “The Tramper.” We then find our first warrior of the road and give them tins and tins of warm cheap beer and any remaining trainhop drink. The alcoholic cuppasoup saved lives.
Noticed the hunk in the tweed? Yes, course you did. That’s me. Notice the little Tweed number, I’m wearing? Yes, course you did. The last Trainhop was Trainhop 10, and that is a very special number. There is a ranking system in Trainhop, and after a Hopper’s third Hop, they earn their sergeant stripes and are entitled to vote on Hop business, and are also rewarded with a medallion. On the tenth, a Hopper is knighted and loses all say in Hop business, thus allowing new blood to come through the ranks, and take the Hop to the next level. Myself and Lee Mallard earned blazers for our service. Lee had a snazzy little red number, whilst I got the tweed, which looked shit, so I am going to get a new one. True story.
So, in a witty nutshell, that’s Trainhop, and we drink until we get the last train back home, drink on the train, and then drink when we get home. For the tenth, and with my retirement from official business, we had something a little special and organised some ad hoc team games, captained by Lee and myself. It is quite surreal to watch a “Shoe Duel” at 12.30 in the afternoon.
Wheel barrow races to pubs are more conventional, but fun, nonetheless.
Something that never helps with the vomiting is team-eating events. I haven’t got a picture of the ice-cream eating contest that took place in Nuneaton market place, that actually drew a crowd, but I watched a man eat a two quid ice-cream in 41.3 seconds. That has to be some sort of record after eight pints of lager.
We even had a “Hunk-Off” where each team had ten pounds to dress their chosen hunk, and then ladies picked their favourite superstud. See the red-hot Nuneaton sluts at the bottom of the picture? They liked the stud with the beard. Who wouldn’t?
That said, in 10 hops, which roughly equates to 1800 man-hours, no-one has ever pulled a girl, or obtained a number. With that many red-blooded sex-stallions, ten pints into a session, it is really difficult to fathom out why. Frigid women is the only answer.
Trainhops are pretty crazy, but they do provide good boosters to local pubs, as we try to frequent good old-fashioned locals, and fifty pints sold in an hour really do bump up the pub’s profits. OK, sometimes things get a little out of hand, and there are always a few casualties, and a few pub toilets devastated, but that’s par for the course.
Trainhops builds relationships, man-time, cameraderie, beer-tolerance, and body mass indicies. It is a time to forget the woes of the world and explore new places, meet new people, experience different cultures (Stoke-on-Trent), taste different ales and throw up a little. I’m passing on the baton, but I believe that the spirit of trainhop will be around as long as there are trains, or until boozing and drunks are banned from them (possibly from a Trainhop related incident). I would love to see Trainhops starting from other towns, so that mass trainhops can take place on the same day.
If you are reading this, and you would like to get involved in the franchise, drop me a mail and I’ll put you on to the new organiser. If you fancy starting your own Trainhop, drop us a line, too. You can’t lose, because when all is said and done, and when all shoes have been thrown, it’s just an all-dayer. But what an all-dayer!
I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who has ever made an event. I’d also like to thank Wellingborough, Newark and Lincoln, Chesterfield, Stamford, Birmingham, Kettering, Stoke, Melton Mowbray, Uttoxeter and Nuneaton for their hospitality.
The road goes ever on and on, and now I can only watch as Trainhop 11 wakes to a new world, with a new organiser.
THE KING IS DEAD!
LONG LIVE THE MAGGOT!
Feel free to add to any Trainhop stories to the bottom of the comments.
Tags: Birmingham, Caravan of Love, Chesterfield, hoptail, Kettering, Lincoln, Loughborough, Melton Mowbray, minge, Newark, Nuneaton, Real ale, Stamford, Stoke-On-Trent, Trainhop, Uttoxeter, vomit, Wellingborough, winter warmer
