Race 9 - Day 1
Crew Diary - Deja Vu All Over Again
10 March

First, let’s address the elephant in the room. OK, it’s not an elephant, it’s a cape. Well, it’s not actually a cape either, I just choose to wear it as one. It is of course a pennant, the green media pennant, the one I was delighted to win at the Leg 5 prize giving ceremony. Following up on a prize winning blog is a daunting task, and I’m fully aware that talking about my own media prize is hardly media prize worthy, nor particularly couth, but hey ho, I’m going to allow myself a tiny bit of latitude in the form of some navel gazing twaddle.

The latest prize giving ceremony was my favourite night of the year so far, and not just because of the aforementioned media win. Free flowing spirits are always a good start, putting a pool in the middle of a party is a big plus (unless it’s at Michael Barrymore’s house), but it is when the band start playing Queen MegaMix that you know you’ve struck the good times mother load.

So, one more loop of the Subic Bay roundabout we go. Soon enough we’ll be making our turn and heading for Seattle, but first here comes our Philippines encore and I’m sure all our supporters are on tenterhooks to see how everything pans out. Will the next pool party be as good as the last? Will I finally be served what I ordered in any of the fine Subic eateries? Will I return to writing something even vaguely readable? Only time will tell...

Parties aside, I am of course most excited to see if we can follow up on the success of the last race with yet another podium, or even top spot. Thus far, we have been consistently inconsistent, so much so that upon coming last in Race 6, I immediately said we should play our Joker on Race 7. Alas, we didn’t. My super forecasting abilities were sadly overlooked, despite me cracking the good Race, bad Race, good Race, bad Race code. I realise that’s not exactly Alan Turing levels of pattern spotting; it’s barely even Dan Brown. All I know is we’ll all be doing our best to break the cycle this time. So, in the immortal words of Ian and Mike (and my least favourite band of all time), Here We Go!