As a poor student, I’m always on the lookout for ways of making cheap alcohol more appealing to the palate. With a house party approaching, and wallets thin as usual, my housemates and myself decided to experiment with Tesco Value Vodka and Skittles. The recipe (as one would imagine) is ridiculously simple – you stick a load of Skittles into the vodka, let them dissolve, and then drink it.

To get the best flavour, we found that there were enough of each colour Skittles in 5 large bags. To begin with, simply separate the Skittles into the different colours (trying not to eat too many!), and drop them into a bottle of vodka (we used the 90cl Tesco Value). Shake vigorously, and then leave overnight to dissolve – the result should look something like this:

Filtering the sediment from the bottom of the bottle is a rather tedious process – made much easier if you have spare bottles and funnels lying around the house. I have it on good authority that a folded piece of kitchen paper makes a good filter, however we splashed out and a used a mixture of coffee filters, and proper chemical filters ‘acquired’ from the university chemistry labs.

The filtering process took us several hours, since each funnel would only hold a small amount of the mixture at a time. It’s important not to rush this stage, as getting sediment into the final drink does not look particularly attractive! That said – the end product will never be completely clear, however it is worth filtering 2 or 3 times until the worst has been removed.

Your Skittles vodka is ready to consume! Be warned – it is very easy to drink this stuff neat without tasting the vodka. Enjoy at your own peril, or mix with lemonade to save on the hangover.

This article, headlining on the Daily Mail tomorrow I believe, has particularly annoyed me this evening.

From my experience, this kind of event happens pretty much every night on university campuses up and down the country without making headline news – just because this happened to be an official gathering of Scout Network members makes it wrong? Everyone at the event had to be over 18, all licensing laws were adhered to, no-one started smashing up a kebab shop afterwards. The only damage caused was a few dead brain cells!

I don’t have a particularly strong view on posting such photos on Facebook – but I presume they were posted with some privacy, which the Daily Mail has now breached by publishing them in a national newspaper. Those people did not ask to have their photo plastered on Facebook, nor was permission sought (a grey area), but using these as published material attributing the source to ‘Facebook’ is very very dodgy practice.

A comment from a parent cited in the article also pissed me off

The father of one of the revellers said: ‘It’s really let their image down so badly, the fact there’s a seedy side to scouting. I can’t believe HQ didn’t put a stop to this whole sorry mess.’

I think that is put into perspective by one of the comments left on the article

Looks like a great party. I never knew Scouts were so "with it!" Where can I join?

18-25 year olds don’t necessarily want to spend every night “gathering round the campfire and singing Ging Gang Goolie” – Scout Network wouldn’t exist if that’s all we did! That said though – the Mail didn’t notice the photos published on the MAD UK website of people – wait for it – gathering around the campfire and singing Ging Gang Goolie!! Do your research!

The best comment so far sums up my argument completely…

They are young people enjoying themselves. What is wrong with that?

I await a response from Gilwell with bated breath – I hope they don’t cower down under media pressure, and instead defend what Scouting is all about – letting us “take acceptable risks and think for themselves” (Official Scout Association description)

Spent a good 4 hours in the pub at lunch today, and I’m probably going back very soon! Do they do "Frequent Drinker" cards?!

Anyway, I’m getting A-level results in about 2 weeks, and flying out to Hungary the day after, which is absolutely guaranteed to be one giant piss-up. Woop

Besides that, I’m filling the days and nights with various expeditions involving alcohol and fire (nothing illegal, just hilarious!) Various Scout camps and other stuff scattered through summer as well, and a week in Windermere working on my D of E at the end of summer. Never mentioned the other hike on this blog, will have to post about that some time soon

Anyway… the evening’s young, the weathers warm, and the beers are cold. Ciao!

That concoction wasn’t for eating, by the way… it was for Explorers to stick their heads into, in order to retrieve Midget Gems sunk at the bottom. Seemed like a brilliant plan for an activity, until people started throwing the mixture around!

Anyway, hopefully some of the wee explorers got an idea at what crazy stuff we get up to in Network, and will want to join. If not – we got to make some stupid mixtures, and then had an excuse to go to the pub! Sorted!

I don’t think much will change overnight magically, apart from my transition from sober to drunk!

The above was written at about 6.30pm yesterday, the following is when I get back in, 6 hours later.

Yeah. Definitely no change. Underage doesn’t seem to stop the pub trips!

Had exams for a long looooong time back, but they’re finally over I had my last exam on Tuesday afternoon, and then went out drinking. Well, not straight away.

Myself, Dom and Taylor had been told in no uncertain terms that we had to go to Cheshire show, but we couldn’t get on the coach due to everyone else leaving whilst our exam was on. Problem. Me driving to Cheshire show (fast) after the exam – solution!

It all started well, plugged the GPS in and off we went. Passing through Didsbury (I think), Dom spots an off licence.

"OOOH! STOP! I’ll be 2 minutes"

And out he jumps, returning with what can only be described as a bucket of beer, and a six pack of cheap lager. Right, off we go.

Going along towards the M56 (not the quickest way, but the satnav told us to!), and we end up at a junction.

"Erm… M56 north or south?"

At this point, satnav battery dies, Dom is mid way through drinking from the bucket, and Taylor doesn’t have a clue what is going on. So I foolishly go North, bad choice.

I’ll omit the next part, due to large amounts of swearing etc etc.

We end up on the M56, 4 junctions north, but heading south. Gooooood! By this point, we have another 45 mins left to get there, and the queues are horrific. Ah well… more beers to be drunk by everyone but me.

Anyway, end on on the A556 going towards the show ground. The A556/M6 junction is a HUGE roundabout, and the show entrance was on the wrong side of a dual carriageway, on the same road as we entered the roundabout. So we queued right the way round. But first time – I missed the turning. So we went ALLLLL the way around again, after some rather dodgy manoeuvres including pulling a U-turn across 4 lanes of dual carriageway. Less said about that the better.

Right – so we’re now approaching the showground. By this time is is 4.25 – 5 mins until we’re PLAYING – actually ON STAGE! They’ve also reversed the traffic cordons, so we were pulling up behind police cars, asking nicely to be let round. 4.28 – we reach the site.

No clue where to park, so Dom & Taylor bail out half way across the site, I keep my head down. I have no idea how I came to be driving across the actual site, it’s usually locked down for all vehicles. I was pushing people aside with my bumper!!! Ended up ditching the car next to a toilet, and running before anyone found me.

We made it, just. To be honest, there wasn’t much point. I was shaking too much to play, Dom was hammered, and Taylor was half-way hammered as well. Ah well!

Getting back was a whole other story… for some other time!

Got a lift there in style (with Daves dad, same as for year 11 prom) and then Rick tried to emulate the prom some more by jumping into a bush… video’s will be up later!

Food was crap considering what we paid (£37, for a slab of chicken!), and the DJ wasn’t up to much at all!

Started calling in drinks from all kinds of people, got 2 free shots and at least 3 free cider’s from various people, including Mr Hughes – you legend! I really couldn’t afford much at £3.75 a pint! £3 for shots as well… more than twice the price you’ll pay around Poynton!

Anyway, got in at about 2am, after trying to put my key into a wall. Doors are hard to work after a night drinking! Bit worse for wear this morning, but nothing a bit of revision won’t fix! 19 days, 1 hour, 7 mins until I’m done with exams Woop!

It’s a weird feeling, knowing that I’ll never have to go back to there for lessons, but I’ve waited long enough for this day to come!

We spent the day leaving our mark around the school (not graffiti, just some well placed pranks!), but I shall not post photo’s for fear of incriminating myself What fun!

Celebrated with a nice weekend chillaxing with mates, and a trip out to Kings on Friday night, where it turned out that most of our year (past and present) had as well!

Only regret – not getting one of the PHS leavers hoodies, I’d never been told about them I’ll have to see if I can get one made up!

Monday brought a Music Tech day, with people from Huddersfield Uni coming in to talk to us about their course basically. Then some practical workshops, which were a bit useful, but not very! Could have spent the day better by doing my coursework. Which brings me on to…

Tuesday. Tech coursework. Managed to get Task 5 pretty much complete, but I bet that Slim MT will butcher it tomorrow! Did some more work on my Task 1 (multitrack), trying to get vocals to sound good. Don’t think that’ll happen! Came home and did some Maths work, what fun!

Wednesday (Tomorrow/Today). Tech coursework. Hopefully will get Task 1 and 3 complete, and then work on 4. Fingers crossed I may finish the coursework part of the course! Probably some Maths/Computing when I get back.

Thursday. Driving lesson + maybe cinema in the afternoon (if I can afford it!). Need to try and get a hair cut as well!

Friday. All day Computing/Maths/Physics.

Saturday. Some sort of Network workshop. No idea what it is, but its region-organised – so probably a load of bollocks. Hopefully will end up in a pub though!

Sunday. Cheshire Hike base with McNetwork. Going to be a fun day – that’ll definitely end up in a pub!

Monday. In school for Computing probably.

And then its back to school

Goodbye holiday!

Not a lot of work, just a hell of a lot of lasagne. Lots of lasagne. 3 trays of it to be precise… we’ve been eating it for dinner and tea the past 3 days!

Was a fun weekend (besides the food ), watching a few films, drinking. The usual!

Think the downfall of the weekend for me was fruit cocktails. Found a Margarita maker in Netto for £7 (basically a blender made out plastic) and then preceded to put fruit and booze into it. I thought it would be healthy – not deadly! Lesson learned.

Anyway, sleep time.