It's Friday evening in the centre of London's West End. Time for a training run in full gorilla costume, right? Five furry forumites reckoned so...
"When we've done this pic, let's put the suits on..." (l-r) Neil, Sloth, Zilla, Donna, Flavio
|
It's Friday evening in the centre of London's West End. A perfect time to train for the Great Gorilla Run? Five furry forumites reckoned so...
I arrived at about 7.30 to find a few normal but rather anxious looking
people standing outside our agreed meeting place, trying to look nonchalant
with bags full of fur at their sides. 15 minutes later much to the
amusement of the 40 or 50 or so people standing outside the pub there were
five scary looking gorillas (Godzilla, Donna Laskey, Neil Riddoch, Sloth and
Flavio) standing about waiting for a few errant members of the family.
8 o'clock came and went and with no sign of more primates turning up we set
out to do some running and collecting. A nice gentle jog down to the
marketplace told us two things - we were getting noticed, and we were going
to be hot gorillas.
So without further ado we began harrassing the public and to start the show
off we decided to do a sprint across the church end of covent garden. This
was where the Jazz band was playing (the Natalie Williams jazz quartet) on
stage in front of a few hundred people - not sure whether we stole their
applause, but we really couldn't be missed.
So the first 80 yard dash was finished with more collecting of cash, and
then a jogged circuit of the gardens. At this point we were joined by
another Gorilla - "Smithers" who had apparently fallen in love with his suit
and had been wearing it everywhere - clearly the gorilla lifestyle was
taking over.
So six hairballs did another pass in front of the band (who this time gave
us a gorilla warm up tune) and managed a bit of crazy dancing for the crowd.
I personally had to stop when the combination of funky chicken meets
Jamiraquoi doing the running man had me hyperventilating so much the mask
was being sucked onto my face. However Donna, complete with glowing pink
rabbit ears and a tutu over her gorilla suit, breakdancing in covent garden
is a sight you don't forget in a hurry.
At this point we decided to call it a day with a final lap of the gardens
including a gorilla piggy back courtesy of one of our forumite spectators,
de-suited and went for a few well-earned beers.
