Coo-ee!

Well what a rollercoaster of emotions it’s been in the News & Media hub over the last couple of weeks. I can safely say there’s never a dull moment in the office here in The Grange.

Excitement has been building for the lads playing in this weekend’s Carnegie Challenge Cup third round battle against Batley Bulldogs and I personally can’t wait to get on the sidelines to offer my support – cue taunts of ‘get yer hair cut’ and ‘all we want is a decent referee’!

One of my days last week went from the sublime to the ridiculous – I accompanied a colleague to interview the Melbourne Storm players who were training on campus, ahead of their victory over Leeds Rhinos in the Gillette World Cub Challenge (sniff sniff and sad face), and boy was that a treat! I got to share a room with a number of what I can only politely describe as being rather dishy, fit, Australian men; it certainly made my day when one of the players decided to get changed in front of my very innocent eyes!

From the morning delights to a somewhat different, but nonetheless enjoyable, afternoon. I headed down to Civic Quarter (or should that be City Campus?) to do some research into my next feature…on…ahem…self defence. Without going in to too much detail and spoiling my next rambling, the session was fab, fun, if somewhat tiring, but ended in a way that I wasn’t quite expecting; we were asked to put together a sequence of some of the moves that we had learnt over the two hour period, one of which included ‘poking the eyes’ of your attacker…and for this we naturally used a half-cut orange to demonstrate what poking your assailant in the eyes might actually feel like! Well at least I can say, despite all the blood, sweat and tears of the session, I came away smelling sweetly!

But where there have been some great highs there have also been lows. The mood in the office took a rather sombre turn when feathers were spotted between The Grange and Cavendish and sightings of our beloved visiting pet pigeon Palaquin became no more. News on the grapevine is that whilst holidaying with his wife in Rome, Mark Dorey may have been solely responsible for the alleged death of our feathered friend. We think that Palaquin may have become so distressed by the absence of our chief fancier in the field, that he may have suffered some kind of pigeon breakdown and ceased to be. However, these are merely unconfirmed reports with no solid evidence to back them up and there is still hope for the life of our pet.

As we expected Mark has been distraught by this possible news since his return: Composing himself he said: “I think Palaquin may have faked his own death in order to take a break of his own.” But whether he is keeping the faith or just in denial it’s hard to tell at this early stage.

Mark caught up with News & Media colleagues Linda Gilhespy and myself during an impromptu visit to Carnegie Sports reception to hear our thoughts on the matter...


05/03/2010 Search for Palaquin goes on

There are mixed views in the office as to whether Palaquin will return to our ledges, but my own view is that much like Arnie in the Terminator, he WILL be back, bigger, stronger, badder and better than ever!

Read more!