Well it's not a good idea, really. Getting so thoroughly out of your tree that you stop concentrating on reality for too long and the little pixies arrive, bearing special magical presents just for you, is not exactly conducive to an efficient combat experience.

I went out for a good old-fashioned boogie (I dislike the overuse of the term `rave` by these kiddies who just don't have any idea...) to the `M club` in Southampton. I even thought of a little pun for this place the the other week; because they display the name in the front of the building as `mclub` all in lowercase, now all you need to do is insert an `e` at the end, and it can technically read `McLube` if you look at it like that.

And considering it is actually a gay club then that does become slightly funny; but anyway....

I got wrecked, so very, very wrecked in fact that I comprehensively lost control of my limbs while dancing and my eyes were rolling all the way back into my head In the parlance of our times I was utterly, utterly munted, boshed etc. I'm sure the more widely experienced of you know exactly what I mean.

So the skirmish on Sunday wasn't easy, I had been up and chatting to people until just gone 10am on Saturday morning anyway so I was owed a full night's sleep from that, and I didn't actually pass out until about 12 hours later than that, in time for a normal night's sleep before a skirmish in fact.

But on waking I found it hard enough to get up and eat something, I hadn't done that for about 36 hours, and after dragging my sorry *albatross* into skirmish mode and getting collected (practically scraped up) by my mate and on our way I was almost passing out in the car!

McHectic.

But we got out there and - after a few brandy-laced coffees - we were good to go and ready to kick some *albatross*.

Unfortunately I was both paranoid and hypersensitive - not good when people are chucking 12-guage blank grenades at you - and although every tiny movement in my peripheral vision caused me to jerk my head around and focus intensely on it, anyone sitting still in even my immediate field of vision was practically invisible due to my lack of attention to fine detail!!

So I, especially, got hammered by Bravo; usually my team of choice but we fancied attacking Stag Camp instead of defending it for once, and it's nice to play on the same side as Stu who is always on Delta. My mate didn't do as well as he usually does either, probably due to the brandy in the coffee (although it was more like the coffee in the brandy after the amount I "accidentally" put in).

But it was the Christmas skirmish so none of it hardly mattered, and I was pleased to see a damn good turnout (at least 70 people stull, and it was minus 2 at the very least when we kicked off the game; minus 5 when I got up!) and a good few idiots with Santa hats and Dave was wearing a full-on tinsel get-up, bless him

The only grievance I have really is that after leaving our base (the Village) we - my mate and I - went straight to a vital point on the map and the key area to take if attacking Stag Camp from the West, an OP called, funnily enough, The OP.

We got there in double quick time and took it, defended it, had it all covered. Bloody Delta only start firing on us after clocking us in there and we had a lengthy firefight and we got hammered. Did a few cool maneouveres and made the right choices, but ended up with needless Blue-on-Blue deaths and a nasty fall on the way back which also has damaged my BRAND NEW G&G RK-104. Bit miffed about that, as it now dosn't feed properly, I broke 2 hicaps, it now shoots at least 4 feet too high, and the hopup doesn't seem to work, but hey!!

What can you do