It’s part pure-self-indulgence, and part diary… as since I started drinking less my memory’s started getting worse… and I thought it was supposed to be the other way round!
Below is a list of what I achieved/enjoyed/did during the year of 2010, which has gone down as One Of The Best Years Of My Life(TM). Most of you will have been involved to some degree, some of you will have followed my adventures, and some of you have come here wondering who the hell I am, and those that know me will wonder just how the hell I managed it all! Well, join the club.
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JANUARY
The year started with snow and Gareth “Big Perm” Brown stayed snowed-in at mine for a couple of days. It was also (my youngest son) Bam’s first real snowfall that he could go out
If you can't drop your trousers in front of a strange, hungover German, who can you drop them in front of?
and play in. Work and schools are closed as are most roads.
Started my radio career with Vectis Radio – an online radio station based here on the Isle of Wight – as Bully’s assistant during his afternoon show.
Brighton Tattoo Convention was also our destination at the end of the month where I got a shark tattoo on my thigh by Mark Halbstark – a tattoo which ends up in Skin Deep magazine later that year!
The Wild Bunch hit The Folly for Richie’s birthday.
MARCH
For my birthday my sister Kay and her husband-to-be, Steve, got me 8 weeks of salsa dancing in revenge for the Des O’Connor tickets I gave her for her birthday the previous year. I take my partner-in-crime – Simon Cope – with me as punishment for him laughing about it. I won’t digress exactly what happened… as all these “birthday presents
Me, Ollie, Perm and Copey.
spiralling out of control” are for a future blog… or book!
My birthday is also shared by Amy Bailey! Who then ups and leaves me to go to Australia… this trend continues through the year as Gareth Brown also goes to the same country and Chris ‘Anal’ Ettritch and Caroline Uncle also head out to the far east.
The Ryde Taxis 16 seater bus I drive got on TV on South Today! I volunteered to sit in it while they filmed… they said no. Face for radio, anyone?
I’m also the bus driver for local band The Dead Perrys for their photo shoot. It ends up in true rock and roll style as we ruin places, pubs and rock out til 4am…
APRIL
I start my own show at Vectis Radio, playing soul and funk. The first show I’m nervous as hell, but soon into my element and start playing tracks that have sampled old songs, so hip hop becomes prevalent. The show morphs and later in the year I move to Tuesday nights
The WIld Bunch
and get free reign and host special shows covering the Wu Tang, the Beastie Boys, DJ Shadow and Cypress Hill. Thanks Macca!
The Wild Bunch hit the Windmill in Bembridge.
I see Mat Carrington for the first time this year after promising us both I’d make more of an effort to get over to see him in Wimbourne. I do well on that promise through the rest of the year.
I join Twitter. It takes me a good month or so to get into it but it is very rewarding and has allowed to me speak to many other writers, sports fans, stars, etc. By the end of the year I will have struck up a friendship with Dan Gold, and spoke to DJ Mistajam, page 3 girl Rosie Jones, porn star Rachael Williams, UK hip-hoppers Foreign Beggars, Brighton stars Rizzle Kicks, and writer Rebecca Woodhead! An honourable mention goes to Marni Mann, a writer awaiting publication who I will be talking to throughout my own process of trying to become a published author. *note to self: ask Marni if I can be the first to interview her once published!* (also, Marni’s blog is on this page under the ‘blogroll’ section)
MAY
The garden outside the flats Copey and I live in gets a big renovation! The grass and wild bushes are cut and a fence is put up by Lee Daniel… thus allowing us to have some big, crazy barbeque’s that run throughout the summer. Strangely, once the grass is cut, I find a
You can't actually see the pain we were in.
pair of Jamaican pants.
I win £400 as Norwich win League One.
The Wild Bunch hit the Folly. Again.
Copey and I Walked The Fucking Wight. All 26 miles of it for charity. It wasn’t my choice but Bully asked us live on air on Vectis Radio, so how could we refuse? My feet hurt afterwards. A lot. Almost as much as I hurt Isle of Wight Radio when I got to the finish line and they asked who I was walking for. I was wearing a Vectis Radio t-shirt and I proclaimed it live on their show!
Went to Wembley with Bully, Frank and his son Danny to watch England play Hungary in a friendly before the Shit World Cup. It wouldn’t be my last visit to Wembley this year.
We roll up at the Bournemouth Tattoo Convention. I don’t have any work done but I do get to meet Dan Gold of London Ink fame!
JUNE
The Wild Bunch hit The Sloop.
Got my picture taken with Kate Moss after driving her back from the Isle of Wight Festival, along with her rocker boyfriend, Jamie Hince – who was a lovely fellow!
But Kate wasn’t a patch on the Bunch’s own H-Bomb – Ms Haley Owen. We rocked up at On The Rocks in Yarmouth for her birthday.
We host a barbeque to end all barbeques for an England World Cup game. It’s still talked about in pubs and clubs across the island. Apparently. Also, it isn’t a patch on the
She was a little starstruck at first.
monster BBQ we hosted the month before, in which we had more people than the pub across the road! Inman also supplies much mirth with his bionic leg…
The Wild Bunch hit Portsmouth for Copey’s birthday. (I do realise that some of you have no idea who the Wild Bunch are, but they are a close group of my friends and will feature in a blog coming soon!)
My bus and I ferried passengers backwards and forwards to a church and reception in nearby St Helens for one of Jimmy Choo’s designers.
The Bunch hit the Alamo for Emily’s birthday.
I start up an email-writing-humour-filled friendship with Mr Jason Tabrys; truly my partner-in-crime. One of us will end up famous. The other will be riding the others coat-tails… but as long as there are big houses and bitches involved, I don’t care who does it.
JULY
I finally take over the gold mondeo I’ve been driving sporadically over the last couple of years. I’ve no real intention of driving it as I need to give my dad some more work as the markets he’s been grafting for years don’t seem to be a viable long term prospect. Plus it’s warmer in the car. Only downside is he’ll probably meet some of my idiot mates… but at least the car is now mine after a long, drawn-out process of trying to buy it. And blowing an engine in it. Twice.
Bam, Jo and I go to the Isle of Wight Zoo which is always good fun. Her brother – Darren (of the NFL blog fame) – works there and feeds the goats with Bam while I look after the monkey. *ahem*
Tommy Harding manages to coax me out of beach football retirement to play a game for
What the fuck were we thinking?
him along with some of my old team as he’s short of players. We lose. I don’t even make it onto the pitch after realising how unfit I am walking to the pitch.
The Ryde Taxis weekly golf tournament starts. Copey and I are very similar in scores throughout the next few weeks. The sessions also allow Frank Allen the following observation:
“Jody’s golf swing is perfect – he actually looks like a pro… until he hits the ball.”
The Wild Bunch hit Weatherspoons. Hard.
Had a five minute chat all about Bam with Hawksbee and Jacobs on their brilliant TalkSport afternoon show. I have intentions for TalkSport but all will be revealed at a later date…
I take Bam to the Thomas Day Out at Havenstreet Steam Railway, a day we always both enjoy. It’s also probably Bam’s favourite place on the island and we’ll be back again a couple of times during the year.
And in July I started blogging.
AUGUST
Take Bam to Space Island and catch up with some old friends in the form of Skeete, Lucy
and Lee Richards and all their kids. Lee takes a photo of Bam which gets reproduced many times by myself and ends up as a Christmas present to my mum. Lee definitely needs to get more involved in photography. And he also qualifies for a blog on his own… not just through his photography but because every time he asks me to come out for a quiet drink, things go veeeeeeeeeeeeery awry.
Went to Brixton Academy with Lindon Plumley and saw the Wu-Tang Clan! Blogged.
Bam and I go to the Chale Show to confront my fear of flying by going up in the helicopter tours they do every year….
…this year they’re not doing them.
It’s my old friend and boss Andy Younies’ 40th birthday at the Oakfield Club House… a truly colourful event!
Andy's 40th
Saw Mat Carrington BA Hons III again!
Gabbi Wickes and her dad, Kev, come down for a week and we end up on a good night out.
Back to Havenstreet with Bam, this time for the Steam Fayre.
The island is besieged during it’s always-brilliant Scooter Rally, and Frank Allen and I are convinced to go down to the King Lud pub wearing our football shirts as we were informed THAT everyone would be doing the same that night. Frank and I are the only ones with football shirts on.
The last barbeque of the year is – as always – a big event, and this time we even have the debut of local island band The Hay Stack Rats!
SEPTEMBER
It’s off to Thorpe Park we go on a day out with Copey, Jo, The Guv’nor (Andy) and others.
I worry Bam will be scared of the rides… but he soon puts me straight on that one. We also see Louie Spence, Duncan James, and Tamzin Outhwaite there. As you do.
The Wild Bunch hit Appley Manor for some joint birthdays. It ends up in my garden at 2am doing headstands.
OCTOBER
Most of this month is taken up with Jo and I going on holiday to Canada. I’ve already blogged the hell out of it so go read them.
The Wild Bunch hit Ryde Tandoori.
I hang around with him for his intelligence and humour. Since he sold the car I haven't been over to see him, however.
Saw Mr Carrington again.
Bump into old friends Joz and Jodie on a random night out in Spoons. It’s messy, but fun. Some of the Bunch are in attendance.
Remember the salsa dancing Kay and Steve got me? Well, I make them read The Worst Poem In The World(TM) at the Quay Arts Centre in front of the Island Poetry Society. Again, one day this will be a blog or a book. Or read out at my funeral.
Darren and I go to Wembley for the Annual International NFL Game. Again, blogged.
NOVEMBER
Andy, Bam, myself and loads more kids go to Splashdown in Poole.
Bam.
The island suffers some heavy floods. Bam and I go play in them!
The Ryde Taxi drivers have a Jolly Boys Outing to France and Belgium.
DECEMBER
Snow falls heavy right at the start of the month.
I take Bam, Cameron and Chloe to the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth, and a quick trip round Gunwharf.
I manage to get a part as a zombie in The Zombie Diaries 2: World of the Dead thanks to old family friend Liam Kealy! The film is released this coming July (2011) and I will put up the blog about my day of being dead up then.
A man of natural beauty.
The Wild Bunch have their annual Christmas dinner… this time at the Beijing Palace. Nothing like a good old traditional chicken korma for Christmas…
Chris ‘Anal’ Ettritch and I take out Jo’s car with Bam in the snow… and rag the shit out of it. Must admit, it’s a gem in the snow, that little Fiesta!
This is quickly followed by Anal and Caroline’s leaving do, as they are off around the world for four months
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So, that’s my year in summary. Again, self-indulgent and a good way for me to look back in years to come and remember just exactly what the hell I was doing, but it’s fun nonetheless, and it should be a good read if you’re one of my friends or if you simply want to know about me!
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve still got a bloody book to write!
Jody Neil Ruth 
“One of us will end up famous. The other will be riding the others coat-tails… but as long as there are big houses and bitches involved, I don’t care who does it.”
And that quote is the best thing I’ll read this week. Well done, dude, well done.
Roy