Theatons Blog

Soiling my pants
In the last SA blog entry i spoke about the best restaurant, ‘la casa nostra’, well it is.. but don’t go overboard on the chilli !!
I made this mistake and the next day, was lying on the bed when i farted and it didn’t ‘feel’ right. I asked chloe to smell bcuz i thought i shit my pants, anyway she said i had jokingly.. i rushed to the toilet and sure enough, a small explosion of watery shit had just occured in my underwear.

and again..
I thought it was all over, but the next day me and chloe were on the beach, going for a walk, when i farted and again felt something come out. This time it was worse… i felt it dribbling down my leg inside my shorts. I told chloe i couldn’t go on because i’d just shat myself but she didn’t believe me. I ended up having to sit in the sea and let it rinse me clean.

Gateway
Gateway is a huge shopping centre / restraunt place with lots of apartments, cinema..etc We have eaten a lovely curry there at the Indian called Gateway to india and also tonight eaten at a greek restaurant called ‘Plaka‘.

Here’s a few photos..

Here’s a photo of Mom and Chloe walking through gateway to the restaurant.. purely to show that SA is not all 3rd world with mud huts (There actually corregated iron)

Some pictures of Chloe and I cuddling and being all lovey dovey.

More lovey with giggles and laughs

Me and Chloe eating from our ‘Vegge Platter’ at Plaka

What did we have to drink
The waiter was passionate about making cocktails and was actually quite good at it (instead of just thinking he is and being crap).
Gail had some kind of red champange with veuve cliquot.. (pic to follow) while chloe had a pina colada and i had my sobering fruit juice mix.

Gails red cocktail. .

More Gail in all her beauty

Chloe’s coconut pina colada.

Okay okay okay… one last picture of the love birds..

Recently here in the Hotel we’ve had a few moths in the room.
I don’t have a problem with moths, or any animals really, that is until they start flying round my face.
When i have the light on near the bed and with a book or laptop or night, they have a habbit of flying right into your face.

Anyway, today I managed to find the biggest, fattest moth in the room and take a few photos of him.. .as follows:

How would i describe him (for people searching for photos of this moth)..
He was photographed in South Africa, in Durban, he is brown with a big black and brown wings. Very common and with a big white bushy body and huge atenna.

Interesting moth info
The other day on radio 4 I was listening to ‘matrial world‘ (one of my fav radio 4 programs) and they were talking about solar pannels as collecting energy from the sun. So where do moths come in .. ? Well they were saying that efficience is currently only X% but using modern day materials to utilize the most modern technology, they can build a material that is basically like a moths eye, super super black, and its X% more effecive.. here is a link to some info i found about this:

• Radio 4 Material World about Moth Eyes as Solar Pannels
• Tree Hugger blog article on using moth eyes

Anywa.. more pics..

Last and final picture of this brute..

Yesterday and Today has really been about finding our feet over here, and settling in to our hardcore exercise reigeme.
I have put on lots of weight over the last few months (too much sitting and typing) as you can no doubt see from the pics below of my fat face. The boys in SA here are saying its a sign i’m doing well, but their wrong, its a sign i’m doing sweet f* all.

The last few days we’ve eaten night meals at a indian, which was very nice, and then tonighht had a huge big fat meal at my favroute SA restraunt ‘ La Casa Nostra ‘ - Always fully booked and very friendly / family atmosphere, they’ve now decided to take bookings as their just so constantly fully booked.

As usual, enough yap yap, i’ll let the photos do the talking..

Me and chloe eating breakfast..

Me and mommy at breakfast

Typical healthy breakfast constist of:

• Huge bowl of mixed fruit
• Croissants
• Natural fruit + nut yogurt

This morning chloe fancied a waffle with mayple syrup… Stodge gallore !

Me pulling faces playing with the camera

Our typical reigeme in the gym will go as follows:
‘Air’ machine as i call it, ‘cross trainer’ .. maybe others call it ? On level 15 for 15 mins. 200kal.
Stepper on level 11 for 10 mins - 120+ kals.
Circuit training on lots of different weight machines while running inbetween timed sessions.
Finish of with a 2,000m row avg 2:00/500m.

Here is me at the gym.. pre sweat and showing the gut !

We also went of to Zimbali today to check on the progress of the new house.
Here is chloe taking a photo of me taking a photo of her Audi A4 hire car in background.

The new house is looking nice and well finished. Here is shot from the front.

All the bedrooms and bathrooms are enormous.
Here is a picture of the largest shower i’ve ever seen in my life.

Me in the sports shop testing out the putters (no buying is taking place, too skint + i suck at golf !!)

More photos will come and most posts will follow.
In the book store i just picked up a book about a man getting stuck in a venesulian prision which sounds good. . . yes i know, spelling throughout my entire site is terrible but i’m too lazy to care.

Book review of ”Ronnie - The Autobiography of Ronnie O’Sullivan ” by Ronnie O’Sullivan.

Overview
This book is wrote by Ronnie and details his life from a young child, right through to about 2003 and the challanges and drama’s he has faced coming from parents with nothing, through to a snooker world champioin.

Read Duration
This book took me approx 3 days of mixed 1-2 hour sessions. Very easy read with big font, big line spacing, and short lines.

My Thoughts
I really enjoyed this book.
Being a passiontate fan of snooker, especially Ronnie, i really enjoyed reading this and getting to know more about one of the players i like to watch. The book provided me with a completly new light and understanding of Ronnie and the challanges he has faced growing up, combatting what seems to be, a constant state of serious depression.

Rating
8/10 - Very easy going read, written in a very colloqual mannor. A must read for any Ronnie or snooker fan.

Hello Readers,

Chloe, Gail and Myself arrived in South Africa today. The first day of our 2.5 week stretch of what will hopefully be an exercise fuelled holiday interlaced with basking like stuffed fished on the warm sand with cold jelly fish invested water lapping our feet.

Timeline
Monday: 1pm - Leave house UK
Monday: 7pm - Plane leaves Heathrow for Johanasburg
Tuesday: 7:30am (SA Local time, 5:30 UK time) - Arrive in Joburg
Tuesday: 11:00am - Leave Joburg for durban airport ( 1 hour plane journey, had been delayed)
Tuesday: 12:00am - Arrive at durban airport
Tuesday: 1am - Arrive at hotel for the next days Click here to see Beverly Hills Hotel in Durban
Tuesday: 1am - 6pm - Sleep outside by pool

Anyway, enough yap yap, here’s the photos from the day..

Here is Mark (from Hotel) pushing the bags for us, Chloe in the middle and Gail on the right after arriving in durban.

Mark from Beverly Hills hotel picked us up in this 4.2 ltre range rover sport. In the glove box ready he had chilled flannels and drinks for us. Also worth noting he was a good safe driver.

Me loading up the car

The hotel is really nice.. here is the view from the room… full 180 degree view of sea, nice waves, rocks, sand, confy seats with brollys, pool.. wireless.. does it get any better than this..

Here’s a couple of room photos

Room photo #2

Book review of ” Cocky - The rise and fall of Curtis Warren - Britains biggest drug barron ” by Tony Barnes, Richard Elias and Peter Walsh.

Overview
…Where to begin with this book.
This is not so much a ’story’ or ‘book’ but more of an outlook of the drug scene wrote by police and customs offerices, specifically noting detail about Curtis Warren from Liverpool.

The book starts of with the opening chapters setting the Scene… The history behind the City of liver pool, the crimincals, violenece and how liverpool came to be the way it is portrayed in the book.

Next section is the book detailing Curtis’ childhood, growing up and background information as to who he is, and his character. This section also details lots of Cocky’s mates and how the drug scene was evolving and changing in liverpool and how Cock got in there and established himself as a prime dealer / supplier.

The book covers failed court cases, and then Cocky takes a run over to Holland to manage his empire from there, where phone taps are admissable as evidence in court. This is where the UK and Dutch authorities accumilate the evidence to convict Cocky.

The final chapter / section is obviously just detailign the court proceedings, how the trial went and what happens.

Read duration

I read this one spaced over 2 months of daily 10 min toilet sessions, followed by a few 1 hour sessions when i had time.

My Thoughts:
I feel like this book makes Cock out to be a nice caring guy who was just trying to run a business. The way the book is written it makes me feel like the author(s) don’t have any kind of grudge against Cocky.
I thought the liverpool history stuff was a bit drawn out, but then again I did learn somthing new I suppose and it helped set the scene.
The story is a good onee, and how much of it is true no one will ever know apart from Cocky.
Everything in this book has to be taken with a pinch of salt as its obviously not a Howard Marks Autobiography, but an account of one’s actions wrote by those people who were tryign to get him charged with everything under the sun.

Rating:
8/10 - Good and worth a read but it be nice to read somthing Cocky has contributed to himself aswell.

Book review of: The Operators by James Rennie

Overview:
The operators is a book detailing one mans journey through the armed forces to join the elite special ops unit operating in northern ireland called ‘14 intelligence company’.
The book spends probably 1/3 detailing how he got into the situation and, ie: growing up, and then his special forces selection process (Always a good read). the other 2/3 of the book is about his jobs / operations in northern ireland.

Read duration:
I will be completly honest here, This book is one of my favrouites, i’ve read it twice and can easily finish of in 2 - 3 days relaxed reading on holiday

My Thoughts:
This is one of my top books in the ‘SAS / Special Forces / Police’ books genre.
I absoloutely love this book. Everything about this book I found has been covered in the perfect amount of detail. Not too much so as to bore you, but enough to let your imagination take hold while following the story. This is a real page turner. Every page just makes you want to continue reading.

I mentally divide the book into 3 sections: Growing up, Selection / Training and finally Work in the Field.
Each one of these is covered brilliantly and if your at all interested in SAS, Police, Special Forces or anything like that, i highly recommend this book.

Rating:
10/10 - No suprises here then, absoloute top quality book, not too long, not too short, really excellent stuff. Highly recommended.

Book review of: Day by Day - by Carlo Lucarelli (Fiction)

Overview:
Set in italy, this is the story of a man who is a hitman / killer who is on the run and turns into a kidnap story towards the end.

Read duration:
Approx 2 days, totallig 10-14 hours - quite short

My Thoughts:
With it being only a short book, it was nice and quick to read. This is one of only a handful of pieces of fiction i’ve read as i’m not much of a fictional book kind of person.
The story started off dramatically and then went into really long winded elaborate descriptive writing about situations and scenes in the book which I thought was over the top. The story also seemed to take on a whole new shift.. sold to me as a story about an assain / hitman, and it started this way, it morphed into a book about a mans way of life, then a police hunt, then a kidnap story.

Rating:
4/10 - While I enjoyed the book, I have definatly read alot better and won’t be badgering any of my friends to pick this one up.

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