Saturday, April 7, 2007

Karting & Karaoke - 5th April 2007

It was an exciting Thursday this week as not only is it karaoke night but 21 of us also took a trip to the local Fast Lane Karting track for a works organised race night.
We met up at the track at around 18:30, which was a bit of a push causing some late arrivals, and after filling in a 'if-I-drive-to-fast-and-get-killed-then-I-won't-sue' form we were shown to the changing rooms where we could choose our driving suit. The choices of colour were from red, green, blue and yellow. I'm not sure how these related to size but as luck had it the first red suit I tried on seemed to fit ok and after selecting a nifty black helmet I was good to go. After a standard procedure presentation video (left: sitting in the initiation room- Where's Shaunio :p) we were taken onto the track where we then had a couple of practice laps each to get used to the karts before finally racing. The race was to be held over 100 minutes and we were split into seven teams of three. We'd already decided our team of Rob, Andy and myself as we are in the same team at work and our pit stop strategy was to be 2 outings each of around 18 minutes. We felt this would be better than just going a full 33 minutes each and I'm glad we took this approach.



Rob started the first stint for us, followed by Andy and then myself which then rotated the same order for the second outings. Having not driven these things before I was a little apprehensive and on my first outing found myself being overtaken left, right and center for the first 4 or 5 laps. Having had enough of being shown the blue flag (i.e. get out of the way you slow git!) I put my foot down a bit and whilst this didn't entirely stop the queue to get past me, it did enough to ensure that I dropped no places inbetween drivers although we have may have lost a few laps on the leaders. We held a fairly comfortable third for the entire session but maybe we could have won it if Rob had employed his 'let's get all the other teams to pit in by stealing their boards and holding them out whilst no ones looking' trick (photo right)!!! :) Still, third's not bad and it was a great and exilarating experience and with a bit of luck, one that should be repeated later on in the year. Not sure what activity is next on the list. I'd like to go paint-balling as it's something I've always wanted to do but I've also heard mentions of arial zip-lining so who knows...

Following on our racing antics, a few of us headed on back to the hotel for the karaoke and a few beers. It was later than normal when I arrived (only by about half an hour) and Andy had started earlier than normal as it was very busy with it being the Easter weekend and so I missed the first 5 or 6 songs. Fortunately Scott had noted down the songs I'd missed and he carried on keeping track of them throughout the rest of the night which is very much appreciated, ta :) Unfortunately, I've now not been able to keep up my run of at least one new song every week. I was going to do Boss Drum by The Shamen but with a combination of being late, the pub being packed and promising that I'd sing Jeans On for the wife and The Circus for Tina, those two songs were all I got to do :( Scott kept his run going though with Bowies Life On Mars, theme tune to the current BBC1 drama of the same name (he's in a coma :p ) which I was impressed with, and Baby Fratelli by you know who which rocked again.
No night out with the guys and girls from work would be complete without Sue or Steve (or in this case both of them) getting up to do a song and this night didn't disapoint either with them singing The Commitments - Mustang Sally. YouTube video, as promised ;), below includes guest appearances from Captain Jack :p


This weeks list of songs bought to you courtesy of Scott goes like this:
  • Scott & Andy: The Beatles - Day Tripper
  • Others: St.Etienne - He's On The Phone
  • Others: Roy Orbison - You Got It
  • Others: Placebo - Nancy Boy
  • Others: Weather Girls - It's Raining Men
  • Others: Matt Willis - Don't Let It Go To Waste
  • Others: Christina Aguilera - Hurt
  • Others: The Corrs - Breathless
  • Others: Robbie Williams - Something Beautiful
  • Others: Gabrielle - When A Woman
  • Tina & Hayley: The Eurythmics - Sweet Dreams
  • Others: Arctic Monkeys - I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor
  • Shaun: Keith Urban - Jeans On
  • Others: Irish Traditional - Wild Rover
  • Others: Fleetwood Mac - Little Lies
  • Scott: The Fratellis - Baby Fratelli
  • Others: Sixpence None The Richer - Kiss Me
  • Others: Roy Orbison - I Drove All Night
  • Others: The Killers - Read My Mind
  • Others: Gloria Gaynor - I Will Survive
  • Others: The Killers - Bones
  • Others: Marti Webb - Take That Look Of Your Face
  • Others: Afroman - Because I Got High
  • Shaun: Erasure - The Circus
  • Others: Tom Jones - I'll Never Fall In Love Again
  • Others: The Commitments - Mustang Sally
  • Others: Arctic Monkeys - When The Sun Goes Down
  • Tina & Lisa: Sara Evans - Suds In The Bucket
  • Scott: David Bowie - Life On Mars
  • Others: Queen & David Bowie - Under Pressure
  • Others: Aerosmith - I Don't Want To Miss A Thing
  • Tina & Hayley: Foundations - Buttercup
Thanks again to Scott for noting all these down this week,let me know if I've got any of the artists wrong where there are multiple versions of the same song! Stats are now updated as usual (if you don't see the latest version, dated 8th April, press Ctrl+F5 on your browser to get the latest page. Shouldn't cache but Firefox seems to be ignoring the content expiry tags).

Until next week....

4 comments:

Tina said...

Sorry Shaunio,

But Buttercup was sung by myself, Hayley & Kayla & many thanks for doing a fantastic job of The Circus for me.

I will apologies now if I offended anybody on Thursday ;-)

Shaun said...

Ah, will correct it. I was slightly pissed myself at that point so failed to notice it was you singing :o

Captain Jack said...

Well I think this week just about proves how low we are all willing to stoop to entertain ourselves on a Thursday. How Tina can think she offended us with her belching and farting is beyond me after witnessing my first guest appearence on You Tube! It was a pleasure to note all the songs down for you this week mate, just a shame we didn't get to do more! Until next time.

Tina said...

I think you will find I did not pass any wind through my rear end thank you very much!! If I had I would have been rather embarressed myself. (I wasn't that drunk) ;-)