Thee Jubilee Hogge-Roaste

Episode 2: Sunday

(in which our intrepid heroes burn 100kg of coal, roast a hog, eat it, get drunk and pass out.)

The sun dawns on a clear, bright day, one of those days that reminds you that 'not a cloud in the sky' isn't just a metaphor. As the tendrils of the dawn creep across the sleeping landscape, they fall on two prone figures. One lies beneath a bar, his air mattress having long since deflated, the cold stone digging into his shoulders as the warmth of the morning sun slaps him gently around the face and shouts 'wake up you drunken bastard.' His companion sleeps in a chair, fully clothed, the only signs of sleeping being his measured breathing and the fact he hasn't shouted at anybody for at least an hour. Although our intrepid heroes would gladly retire somewhere dark with a bottle of something potent and a large quantity of cigarettes, there is work to be done. Soon, the starving masses will be clamouring for hog, and cooking something the size of your ex-girlfriend is no trivial feat.

And so, with a little swearing, much rousing of companions and a large pot of coffee, we get a fire going, and it's time to get the hog out of the fridge. Then there's the obligatory last-minute butchering. You see, to get a hog to lie flat across the grill, you've got to saw through the pelvic bone. For some reason, many people find this unsettling. Fortunately for these people, I have a healthy attitude to eating meat, and I'm quite happy staring dinner in the eye before taking a saw to it's nether regions. If anything, it helps one work up an appetite. Does tend to get blood and hog-gore all over one's tools, though...

After the sawing, there's the basting. Take honey, cider and salt, and just kind of liberally smear them everywhere. Start off with the hog on its back, and fill the body cavity with honey and cider. You'll know it's enough when it starts leaking out of the hogs' mouth and nostrils. Again, some people find this unsettling but we mostly think it's rather cute. Once the innards are well and truly sozzled, flip the hog over and give it a cider back-rub... if you close your eyes at this point, you can almost imagine you're massaging a dead human. Kinda freaky. Finally, crowbar the f*cker's mouth open, jam an apple between it's teeth, pop on the hat and shades (very important), get a round of photographs, REMOVE hat and shades, and start a-roasting.

There now follows about six hours of interminable waiting. Generally, the best way to deal with the waiting is to drink beer. Large quantities of beer. So much beer, in fact, that you start using it as furniture. Judging from the sheer mind-buggering quantities of Stella Artois we consumed over the course of the weekend, I'm considering applying for some sort of corporate sponsorship - or even just a small endorsement contract. You'll know when the hog's ready, because you should be able to drop a good-sized (ie. about two feet long) knife through it's back. The meat should cleave neatly, almost crumble, and people should smell the meat and start circling like drunken vultures. And the best part is, once you've served the first round of hog, you sling the happy piggy back on the fire and cook the rest of him - the bits buried deep inside the rump and shoulder, where only the bravest carnivores dare to venture.

The Glasses Of HappyLand

By filtering the visible light and shifting everything towards the warmer end of the spectrum, where the human eye is most sensitive, these glasses can magically transport the wearer to happy-land, where the beer goblin comes from. On Monday, when it was markedly less sunny and even rained at one point, Don became inseparable from the happy glasses and became violent if we tried to take them away.

I include this picture purely for the irony value. Read the T-shirt.

Of course, it's inevitable that as beer and hog get consumed, the cameras become less and less likely to be pointing at the really interesting things that are going on, and we're forced to resort to something called 'memory' to try and work out what was going on. While the later part of the evening is hazy to say the least, I do vividly recall at one point sitting by the fire with Dave, picking hunks of juicy hog-flesh off the cooling carcass, when I noticed that the head appeared to be missing. A few moments later... no, it's not missing, it's upside-down and we're eating Hog Face. Rather nice though.

I think there were about ten of us around the fire that night... Jesus, for reasons best known to himself, slept wedged sideways in a camping sofa and breathed embers for most of the night. Don realised that the people in my bed were probably smaller than him, and sure enough the small people suddenly weren't in the bed any more. Gordon slept in a chair, and in the morning Kate went out for cigarettes and chocolate milk - a service for which we, the attending faithful, will be grateful in eternam.

The full photographic record without commentary is available here