Tag Team 2017/2018

[slarty]

Tag Team Jarrow March GW11 2nd - 1701km
Despite have the lowest score of the week, Yani and Timmsy nailed their direction and gained a very impressive 59km out of a possible 61. They've lost their southernmost position but have consolidated their second place and seem set to push for the lead. They've moved on from the pig-headed rent boys and gingar milkmaids of Weinheim, and laid their Paul Young hats in Heilbronn - so yani's pig-head fascination carries on uninterrupted (at least for the dyslexic amongst us).

Let's see, Heilbronn:
Pop.: 123,000. First settled by Celts before some guy got nailed to a cross for mouthing off too much.
If you're Jewish, I'd scrub this place from your bucket list: 1298 - 143 jews killed, 1350 - attacked during outbreak of Bubonic plague (presumably for "taking all our diseases"), 1490 - evicted from city, 1803 - permitted to settle again, 1930s - "colossal synagogue went up in flames and its 350 members were subsequently all but extinguished" - rephrase, rephrase, rephrase.

Historic manual crane (probably meccano), "Pot market tower" , and yes, a fking train museum.
Good news is that they like their piss-ups throughout the year.
Bad news is it's twinned with Port Talbot and Stockport.
Worse news is that there's a list of public toilets on its website and one of them is in "Sausage roasting Silzer", with another in "Allee" ("24 hours a day, all year round"), and a third in "Wilma Wunder"
hmmm

Heilbronn Charity Appeal: 15 views - help this Fraulein buy a new bar of toffee to chew on

On his third circuit of Heilbronn, Yani began to
suspect the locals were taking the pish

It just so happened that Timmsy had eight bars of
McCowans Highland Toffee in desperate need of
pre-chewing, "For the sake of my teeth, Frauleins"

[Yorkshire Exile]

On his third circuit of Heilbronn, Yani began to
suspect the locals were taking the pish

Not as much as timmsy who sold him that car

[slarty]

Tag Team Jarrow March GW11 1st - 1697km
That just leaves those masters of disguise, Nuttie and Sweep, hanging on to first place by the hairs in a witch's pisspot (4km for the more pedantic among you). They only managed to use half their score to reduce the distance from Athens, but also reduced their remoteness from the optimum line by a good bit. They've called a halt at their third town running beginning with B, Bad Mergentheim.

Pop.: 23,000. First written mention in 1058AD, town status in 1340. A young Beethoven visited there in 1781 to play viola (sorta like russian roulette except a musket is aimed at your balls and you can protect your plums from any bullets with a stringed instrument and a bow). 1826 a shepherd discovered a boggin' spring with the highest Sodium Sulphate concentration in Europe, so the place was turned into a spa town for unwell sheep. Inventor of linotype was born there - died there as well after his wife saw what he'd done to the kitchen floor.
Not twinned with anything near Cambridgeshire.
No charity appeals for this place, but there is more multi-coloured totty
Lack of witch mentions again, but there was one in their Karneval. I'm sure if she exists Nuttie will find her.

Initially confounded by the lack of
witches, Sweep and Nuttie disguised
themselves as plainclothes traffic
wardens to get their voyeur's methadone

Nuttie found her! His joy as a witch's pisspot was
shortlived however. She'd nearly shat her broomstick
on the way home after a dodgy eye of newt curry

Rules

[slarty]

On his third circuit of Heilbronn, Yani began to
suspect the locals were taking the pish

Not as much as timmsy who sold him that car

Ah that explains the strange starter motor - the pig's got to rear up, then crash down and eject the driver before the engine will start

[Schlocky]

nice write up

[slarty]

It's a sad time for everyone connected with him, but if Feets thinks he's getting out of his responsibilities to his tag team partner by curling up his toes, he's made a gra...err...serious error. Our current high-scorer deserves full marks for lateral thinking in his damn fine effort at escaping contractual obligations, but will continue to aid/afflict Clammers in a Randall-and-Hopkirkesque partnership.

Feets, your spirit lives on - doubly bad luck pal

Tag Team Classic GW12
In a week which saw the first team break through that 146 point barrier, the top two teams both scored 118. So Crompton and Rinky hang on to their 32pt lead despite the former having the lowest score of the week, 43pts.

The Pigeon Bobbers remain second on 1214 and showed a much more even division of labour - both hit 59pts.

OK, on to the last team above 1200 and time for a puzzle. What comes next in the following series?
27,23,...
That's right, 87! Our current holder of the record low score, Talcy, was only four points short of snatching the high-score title from Feets. This helped Schlocky and Talcy hit a record-breaking week high of 150pts and move up one place to third, just one point behind The Bobbers.

The team on the receiving end were Yani and Timmsy who now lie 42 points adrift of third on 1172. Their standing wasn't helped by hitting the lowest team total of the week, 107pts.

Devilsweep and Nuttie couldn't take advantage though, only managing seven points more than Yani/Timmsy to leave them on 1159.

In sixth place we have Clammers and Feets whose 111 point haul takes them to 1139, with Clammers recording her second-highest score of the season.

21 points further back we have Slarty and Viddleodge with a pretty woeful 108pt effort. Their total was only one point above the week's low and Slarty's miserable 44 had a similar margin over Crompton.

In eighth spot we have Avit and Pottster, the third team to hit 118 this week. This leaves them on 1104, just 14 behind Slarty/Vid.

Finally we have Mintman and Weeman whose 128 was the second highest score of the week. This was much aided by Mintman's 72, his best score since GW1. That's two weeks running Mintman has scored over 50 and three weeks without a twenty-something, so are the bad days finally over? Watch this space.

[slarty]

Tag Team Jarrow March GW12
Fair amount of change this week with two of the leading four screwing up badly and a few other teams getting their compasses working at last.

Spawny bastards of the week are Mintman and Weeman who had yours truly scurrying off to rewrite check the rules after it looked like they had travelled northeast with zero gain in distance to Athens. Fortunately for them the rules state, "... just as long as they end up closer to Athens than their starting position", so they got the next town down from 128km.

Weeman about to get lucky

[Yorkshire Exile]

Iimbering up for the gosh trip where he is sharing a room with the corduroy dandy

[slarty]

Tag Team Jarrow March GW12 9th - 1856km
Crompton and Rinky managed to gain a reasonable 89km from their 118 score, but it wasn't enough to allow them to hang on to eighth place. They've left Schloß Holte-Stukenbrock behind and headed for the mountains, eventually calling a halt at Osterode am Harz. Bit of a double blow that cos they can't even claim to have fked up my spreadsheet with the longest town name this week.

Pop.:22,000 but the good news is that it isn't twinned with anywhere in Cambridgeshire. No, no, no - this one is twinned with Scarborough so there are probably a few worried-looking brass monkeys strolling around and Crompton may need another booster shot at the anvil. Oh yeah, it's got a cave, a granary and for some reason, a prominent broom-riding witch on its website labelled "tourism" - I guess the roads are shite. Don't bother checking out Google Translate's "Girl action day in the house of youth", or you'll be as disappointed as I was.

Tottywise, take yer pick - it's either Hell's Belles or a slightly disturbing start to the zumba routine

Osterode's Andy Pandy Fan Club turn out
to welcome Crompton and Rinky

Crompton was not amused about Rinky's
first four strikes hitting the tweezers

[slarty]

Iimbering up for the gosh trip where he is sharing a room with the corduroy dandy

The first time I read that, it came across as "the corduroy daddy"

[weeman]

Love that pic of me

Can anyone make it small enough to be an avatar?

[slarty]

[slarty]

Tag Team Jarrow March GW12 8th - 1838km
So now we come to the spawny bastards of the week, Mintman and Weeman. Not only did they escape the zero gain because I forgot to put "unless you're Mintman and Weeman" into the rules, but the next town on the list saw them gain 127km out of a possible 128. They've thrown off the blindfolds, left Bruno and Friedrich's rusty armour behind, and made haste to Giessen.

And who can blame them? Pop.:78,000 with 24,000 students, presumably housed in Giessen's residential area of Rubber Island. Giessen is also famous for having two Loughborough videos, but fortunately there's also the town drunk and this mesmeric offering

Founded around a castle built in 1152, it missed out on the medieval fires, but was 75% destroyed in 1944 to make up for it. Twinned with Winchester. Röntgen's buried there, but I've saved the best for last - the mayor of Giessen is called Dietlind Grabe-Bolz and for a 60yo, it seems she's Giessen's answer to Helen Mirren.

Weeman found out too late that
Mayor Grabe-Bolz was also a
master of disguise

Minty (map-reading hood) takes revenge
on the Mayor by changing all Giessen's
bus stop signs to English

[slarty]

Tag Team Jarrow March GW12 7th - 1811km
After a much-delayed start due to their Marcher Guidance counsellor calling in the Northeim Social Services, Clammers and Feets were able to resume their journey and bickering. But the delay cost them dearly and they dropped down a place after only being able to advance by 55km. However they've managed to retake their northernmost team title from The Bobbers after calling a halt at Stassfurt.

Pop,:27,000. Home to a very short wikipedia entry and the mandatory Railway Museum (whose wiki entry is fortunately even shorter), Stassfurt has one main claim to fame - even the wiki writer couldn't find anything nice to say about it. Given that the town's own events webpage features "subtle" culinary humour "with Florian Claus at the piano", and a lecture about Tea in Every Season, I suspect that the local police may be breaking up a few domestics between our rowing ramblers this week.

Clammers threatened reprisals if Feets insisted on
dressing up as a "PG Tips Bare-arsed Baboon" for the
Tea in Every Season Lecture...

...and sure enough, her Loose Leaf
Tea Chest get-up was to cause quite
a stir

[slarty]

Tag Team Jarrow March GW12 6th - 1767km
Taking advantage of that slip and rising one place were Slarty and Viddleodge who staggered off in a good direction for the second week running, gaining 103km from a possible 108. Leaving the magical mammaries of Dillenburg behind, the Lords of the Flies have sped southeast to the Bavarian town of Aschaffenburg after seeing it seriously misspelt in a tourist pamphlet.

Pop.:68,000. Roman legions were stationed there so Milton Keynes it isn't. Backed the losing side in Europe's biggest uprising prior to the French Revolution and its bad luck looks like its continuing to this day. Twinned with Perth (the real one) as punishment for its part in the Peasants' Revolt, heavily damaged during WWII and now a temporary home to The Scheissemeisters. Is there no end to the misery of Aschaffenburg?
Yep, it has a whisky festival (with the world's only intelligible guy in a kilt), belly-dancing chubber chavs and...and... and words fail me

Perhaps the school run wasn't the best place for Vid
to try his supersenokot chat-up lines on the local hausfraus

...meanwhile the Aschaffenburg Scheissefrau
Institute were limbering up to greet their guests

[slarty]

Tag Team Jarrow March GW12 5th - 1760km
In fifth place we find The Pigeon Bobbers, who have entered the former East Germany and are no doubt searching frantically for a panto cow outfit in order to re-enact their favourite scene from Top Secret. They've ended up in the city of Halle after travelling a very respectable 104km towards Athens.

Halle (Pop.:237,000) is yet another place in Germany which was built on salt mines, so are we in for the double whammy of Saltmine and Railroad museums? Nope, just the former. Handel was born there, but could only leave behind a museum dedicated to himself as trains hadn't yet been invented.

Swimmer Kornelia Ender was created at the local sports club during the seventies and her clitoris is now used as a bouncy castle at the Halle Funpark.

Other notable citizens include artist Moritz Goetze, composer Samuel Scheidt and skier Andreas Wänk (sans umlaut), so I guess Handel got off lightly.

Halle keeps throwing up Ms Berry and her namesakes therefore I'm afraid you're going to have to settle for another clothing charity appeal (35 views).

Kornelia Ender's clitoris had a varied career before
finding a permanent home at Halle's Funpark

aaaaand it's time to play Spot the Pigeon Bobbers!

[slarty]

Tag Team Jarrow March GW12 4th - 1732km
Consecutive weekly gains of 8km and 36km have seen Avit and Pottster slip down the field. This week they couldn't even reach those figures. A 5km gain leaves them closer to the chasing pack than to the leaders.

They travelled NNE NNNNE from near the French border and have ended up in that displaced piece of Cambridgeshire which led to the buggering and jailing of Talcy and Schlocky last week, Wertheim am Main. If it was last week's retaliatory measures which attracted them, then they're going to be sorely disappointed - two teams of apprentice hitmen from the Anti Cambridgeshire League have been despatched to deal with this week's miscreants.

Avit rushes to console his team mate after the
apprentice hitmen get their Flowerpot of Fear badge.

Later, while Avit gets the Nasty Noodle Bowl of Nanking
treatment, in the background Pottster takes advantage
of the commotion to park the fudge

[slarty]

Tag Team Jarrow March GW12 3rd - 1679km
Next we come to last week's leaders, Devilsweep and Nuttie, who could only gain 18km from a possible 114. Our witchwatchers used most of their distance traveling south to the optimum line and have ended the week in Böblingen - make of that what you will.

Pop.:49,000. Founded 1253. If you're taking part in a peasants' revolt, avoid this place as you have a 20% chance of featuring in next year's Johannes Innes Compost. Something may be getting lost in translation, but Bøblingen only has two museums, The Farmer War Museum and, wait for it, "German butcher museum, in a half-timbered house (painted walls on the inside)".
Twinned with Glenrothes, so don't expect anyone to speak English.

After Nuttie suffered third degree burns on Monday
night, our duo were forced to change their disguise
strategy

Fortunately for Sweep and Nuttie (calomine lotion),
the Böblingen witches considered the backrest on their
new pisspot a design flaw

[slarty]

Tag Team Jarrow March GW12 2nd - 1646km
Thanks to the directional sense of the previous two teams, low-scoring Yani and Timmsy remain in second place despite losing half their possible distance traveling south. They've left the pig-powered pickup of Heilbronn behind and headed for the hills, to the city of Albstadt.

Pop.:44,000. First settlement mentioned 793AD, city founded 1975 so a bit of a slow burner. Speaking of which, five women and four men were burned at the stake from 1601 to 1605 during the Equal Opportunity Witch Trials. Earthquake-prone. Amongst others, it has a sewing machine museum and "Museum in the herb box" - Lady Rosemary has obviously fallen on hard times. Main claim to fame appears to be that Claus von Stauffenburg, of indoor firework fame, spent his wanking years there.

Upon hearing of our duo's approach, The
Albstadt Municipal Brothel hurriedly came
up with a targeted advertising campaign

...however there was much wringing of
hands when Yani's order was entrusted
to Frau Alzheimer

[Ianovich]

Thought that was Elvis Costello

[slarty]

Tag Team Jarrow March GW12 1st - 1595km
Talcy and Schlocky not only high-scored this week, but managed to travel 137km of their possible 150 in the right direction. The flukey bastards have obviously put the nightmare of being stuck in Luxembourg well behind them and moved up two places into the lead. They've came to a halt in the heart of Bavaria at a city called Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz.

Pop.: 39,000. First settled in the neolithic, the city wasn't noticed until 1135 when the local landowner investigated upstream as to why he couldn't get the smell of shit out of his stonewashed servants. Occupied by the Swedes twice after they found it smelled better than their dinners, and then Napoleon who found it smelled better than Josephine after some hot camembert fun, it wasn't until 1945 that the medieval city centre suffered its predictable fate. Yep, there's fk all in this place as well apart from the scabby ducks.

Schlocky wasn't amused when he found
his hotel room hadn't been cleaned after
the rohypnol convention guests departed

Later on that day, Talcy ensured this
week's hot date would go smoothly...
unfortunately he had reckoned without
pygmy interruptus

Rules

[slarty]

Thought that was Elvis Costello

accidents will happen

[timmsy]

Thought that was Elvis Costello

accidents will happen

you should write the book

I only just read the rules after weeks of wondering which of my teams was in this comp (shame I didn't read tortoise rules)

[tso]

what happened to last weekends games

[slarty]

Urgent playstation business
Will start it today

Not too familiar with TFF, but both the midweek and the coming weekend scores get added together in next Sunday night's TFF league tables as the weekly points, don't they?

[tso]

Urgent playstation business
Will start it today

Not too familiar with TFF, but both the midweek and the coming weekend scores get added together in next Sunday night's TFF league tables as the weekly points, don't they?

They do

[slarty]

Tag Team Classic GW13
Last weekend's results leave the leading three pairs in the 1300s, but the performances of the week came from two teams much further down the table.

Crompton and Rinky had their lead narrowed with a score which was only five points above the lowest of the week. Given their history, they're probably just teasing the teams below them while they indulge in yet more sweaty towel play. 77pts gives them a total of 1312pts, just 11 ahead of their nearest rivals.

And those nearest rivals are no longer The Pigeon Bobbers. Schlocky and Talcy easily outperformed the two teams above them for the second week running and were rewarded for their efforts with second place. A score of 99pts (third highest of the week), leaves them on 1312pts.

The Pigeon Bobbers 86pt haul was just enough to reach 1300. They're pretty safe from falling again next week, but won't want too many more mediocre performances like that or they'll be fed to the grannies in the front row.

In fourth place are Yani and Timmsy who narrowed the gap to third to 36pts. Their 92pts sees them end the week on 1264.

Another team not making any progress were Devilsweep and Nuttie whose 80pts leave them 25 adrift of fourth place.

In sixth spot we have one of the surprise performances of the week. Avit and Pottster top-scored for the first time this season and saw off all challengers with a mighty 114pts. This was enough to see them rise two places in the rankings, ending the week on 1218.

Clammers and Feets were only seven points short of hanging on to sixth place, but their week's low-score of 72pts leaves them on 1211.

Slarty and Viddleodge were the other team to lose out to Avit and Pottster. Their 76pts leaves them perilously close to last on 1194.

In ninth place we have the only other pair to reach three figures for the week, Mintman and Weeman. Their total of 107pts means they now have a chance of finally getting out of the position that they've been in for most of the season - tantric wrestling, ye cannae whack it. They're now just 10 points adrift of eighth spot.

Special mention goes to Mintman, but not for the usual reason. Mintman had the highest individual score of the week, 67pts. The days of bookies refusing to take bets on a score of twenty-something seem like ancient history now.

[slarty]

Tag Team Jarrow March GW13
An Avit/Pottster of a week with not much movement on the ground. The scores being at the lower end of the scale didn't help, but a few teams could also have done with GPS in their flat caps. This wayward wandering was the main reason for the five position changes.

Despite the low distance gains, one team did manage to leave Germany.
I don't think I'm giving too much away by revealing that means all the more scheisse for slarty and vid.

Crompton and Rinky prepare to do a Steve McQueen
...and then try to escape Germany on a motorbike

[slarty]

Tag Team Jarrow March GW13 9th - 1803km
Crompton and Rinky gained a reasonable 53km out of a possible 77, but it wasn't enough to overtake their nearest rivals. They've headed mainly south to the former East German town of Mühlhausen.

Pop.:34,000. Situated right in the centre of Germany, Mühlhausen was first mentioned in 967AD. It escaped destruction during the middle ages and WWII so was more than due a bit of bad luck.

Theologian Thomas Müntzer was executed in front of the town during the peasants revolt, but he'd have been happy to know that the GDR authorities renamed the town after him in 1975 and a bit less happy when it reverted to Mühlhausen on reunification.

Johann Sebastian Bach was a church organist there, but couldn't have been paid well. Too ugly to be a rent boy, he sold his soul and composed a cantata for the inauguration of the new council in 1708.

The town still has a Bach week together with a plum blossom festival and a fountain festival. Riveting stuff eh?

Crompton's unusual act stunned the crowd at the
Mühlhausen Plum Blossom Festival

[slarty]

Tag Team Jarrow March GW13 8th - 1773km
Fleeing the clutches of Mayor Grabe-Bolz we find Mintman and Weeman. They've fled southwards for a gain of 65km out of a possible 107 and ended up in the town visited by Avit and Pottster a fortnight ago, Bensheim.

That's the home of the tongue stud checks, Vintners Festival, Onion Cake à la woman from Bensheim and, since a fortnight ago, 342 emergency response plumbers. Nothing much left to be said about the place apart from Mintman being caught strutting his funky stuff.

Bensheim Vintners Festival: Where the
wine barrels are better potty-trained
than certain visitors

[slarty]

Tag Team Jarrow March GW13 7th - 1757km
Next up we have a team who clearly like being in Germany. Instead of heading SE to the Czech border, The Pigeon Bobbers headed SW for a gain of only 3km and a loss of two places. Whether it was Kornelia's clit, being buggered by Franz the bull or just their normal map-reading, no one knows, but they certainly didn't want to advance further into the former Soviet Bloc. They've called a halt at Erfurt, capital and largest city in Thuringia.

Pop.:210,000. First mentioned 742AD, but a settlement since the neolithic period, archaeologists have unearthed the graves of an six early Shergars dating from the sixth or seventh centuries.

In 1914 the company Topf & Sons began the manufacture of crematoria in Erfurt and you can probably guess when their business peaked.

Famous residents include Martin Luther and the man whose music heralds the ruination of many a life, Johann Pachelbel.

Many museums, but not railway or salt mine related. If it's tedium you're after, there's a museum dedicated to the history of electric engines.

Strong winds at the Halle Funpark
last week may provide a clue as to
The Bobbers choice of direction

[slarty]

Tag Team Jarrow March GW13 6th - 1749km
First to benefit from The Bobbers' distraction were Clammers and Feets. Barred from every tea lecture in Germany, our warring wanderers managed to find a pretty good direction this week, gaining 62km out of a possible 72. They've headed mainly southeast to the former East German town of Merseburg (spot the perv), but still remain our most northerly pair.

Pop.:34,000. In 1002AD Merseburg was the site of a failed assassination attempt on someone with even less sense of direction than our marchers, future King of Poland (once he found it), Boleslaw the First. No mention of fires, only that it suffered severely during the peasants revolt, the Thirty Years War and 23 air raids during WWII. Sometimes nothing beats a home fire.

The Merseburg incantations were discovered in 1841 and are two pagan spells, one to rescue warriors caught in battle and the other to heal a horse's sprained foot.

After last week's dishabillement Clammers and Feets may have misunderstood what Merseburg Organ Days are all about or, even worse, intend taking part in the Annual Puppet Festival.

No rail museum for this place, instead it has a Museum of Chemistry which has been rebuilt 35 times since it was founded in 1995.

Clammers was none too impressed by
Feets' misuse of the strings at the
Merseburg Puppet Festival...

...a point she was to drive home later

[slarty]

Tag Team Jarrow March GW13 5th - 1738km
The directional luck Slarty and Viddleodge have had for the past two weeks finally ran out, but not so much that they didn't benefit from The Pigeon Bobbers' demise. They headed northeast and could only gain 29km from a possible 76 landing them in Bad Kissengen.

Just like Bensheim, Bad Kissengen is another town which was visited by one of the leading group in GW10. Nuttie and the Cock-stonker found not a lot there to write home about so we'll assume nothing much has changed in this spa town, apart from the water being a bit cleaner, and move on.

Viddelodge summoning at the
Temple of Superscheisse

Meanwhile slarty had gotten lost and was not amused
to find the Wassermaidens were only licensed to tap
the frilly pink kidney

[slarty]

Tag Team Jarrow March GW13 4th - 1668km
Two extremely bad weeks have seen Devilsweep and Nuttie slip from first to fourth. After last week's 18km gain from heading south, they've only gone and headed SSW this week for 11km out of a possible 80. They've also abandoned towns beginning with "B" after four consecutive weeks and settled for the city of Villingen-Schwenningen on the eastern edge of the black forest.

Pop.:85,000. Formed in 1972 by the merger of two towns whose names you can probably hazard a guess at, Villingen-Schwenningen is home to museums about clocks, planes and a monastery. No salt mine museums, but it has stocked up on 2,500 tons of the stuff for winter so I guess the locals survive on fish and chips while the roads are blocked.
Most famous resident was probably Robert Prosinecki who was born there.
Couple of crappy webcams, one for each Villengen Schwenningen

Sweep prepares to place Nuttie (still covered in
calomine lotion) for an easy peek this week as he
had distracted their weak-bladdered witch with
the old, "Oh look! Is that Superscheisse?" line

[slarty]

Tag Team Jarrow March GW13 3rd - 1667km
Their first top-score of the season sees Avit and Pottster leapfrog back up to third spot. Their 65km from a possible 114 may not be particularly great, but it's more than their combined total for the past three weeks. They've travelled South to end up on the line of shortest distance at the city of Esslingen, 14km SE of Stuttgart.

Pop.:91,000. First settled in the neolithic, but not mentioned until 777AD, it became a city in 1229. Economy was based around its bridge over the Neckar which allowed people to pay a toll rather than drown. Suffered little damage throughout its history, despite losing half its population during the Thirty Years War, mostly on conscription days. Esslingen is another German city twinned with that slut of Wales, Port Talbot.

Avit was quite put off at the local brothel
when he discovered that Esslingen women
had more arse hair than Italians