Last weekend was our annual pilgrimage to Southampton for the Guymas 2007 extravaganza. I’m pleased to report that even at 30, Guy still appears as studly as ever, especially when viewed at a jaunty angle.

Glossing over the important theological significance of the festival to Guymas aficionados, I’ve compared this year to the previous events on record to try and figure out the trajectory of Guymas in the future.

Popular Guymas rituals this year:

• Black and white photography.
• Tequila consumption.
• The eating and stacking of pizza.
• The production of balloon animals.
• Enthusiastic gyratory movements that could, if one were very generous, be interpreted as dancing.
• Roast meat.
• Laughing at Guy’s family album (thanks Meg)

But for some reason, there wasn’t much:

• Arm punching.
• Karaoke.
• Curry.
• Dungeon.

Here’s some more photographic evidence and here’s to the next few hundred Guymases.

The Caterphiler and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence: at last the Caterphiler took the hookah out of its mouth, and addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice.

“Who are YOU?” said the Caterphiler.

Unfortunately that’s where the photo-diary stops - shortly after that last picture Sarah confiscated my camera because I couldn’t be trusted with it any more. Through my artful use of foreshadowing in the first picture you may be able to guess how the story ended.

Well, I’m late, but it’s safe to say Guymas 2006 was a huge success. Guymas is fast becoming my favourite religious event of the year.

Here comes the science:

• Words sung correctly in time with curry house karaoke version of happy birthday: 32%
• Words sung correctly in tune with curry house karaoke version of happy birthday: 2%
• Video recordings of happy birthday debacle: 1
• People thrown out of clubs by bouncers: 1
• Male reproductive organs doodled on foggy club window in front of said bouncer: 3
• People witnessed crying after eating chili peppers: 3
• Number of Phils: 1
• Blurry or underexposed pictures taken with my new camera: 46
• Visitors from Austria: 2

And comparing this year to last year Guymas historians will notice.

• 300% more people
• 100% less dungeon (boo)
• 8000% more balloons
• Guy’s studliness still at 100%

Check that last one for yourself.

As required by ritual, the weekend after New Year is time for the annual pilgrimmage down to Southampton to celebrate Guy’s birthday, give him a few odd presents and crawl through a few Southampton bars. Sarah drew a monkey on the window in Chambers and I triumphed at table football at The Alexandra pub. We ended up at The Dungeon - Southampton’s premier seedy metal dive. My neck still aches.

I found this amusing cigarette packet on the bar in The Dungeon - looks like one whole side of Spanish cig packets is required by law to display a Dear Deirdre style anti smoking photo-soap:

We wandered around town on Sunday and had a great carvery lunch in The Red Lion, a half timbered Tudor pub. The interior is absolutely fantastic - the multi-level bar area was used as a court by Henry V to try a number of traitors before he departed for Agincourt. After the trial heads of the executed traitors ended up spiked on the Bargate, which is where my other tourist snaps were taken. The Red Lion’s Tudor decor is still pretty much intact, some marks were docked for the football projection screen obscuring a suit of armour over the fireplace but were more than won back by great pub food and a charming pet parrot.