Day 351 - The day I nearly failed...

November 2012, not even a year into my quest and the whole thing nearly came completely unravelled. Now I'm not on one to assign blame but it was completely Matt and Hannah's fault!!

Look at this man:

This man is Matt Deeley and whilst be may look like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth I need to make it clear that in terms of this quest this man is the Master to my Doctor, the Myrka to my seabase, the Axon to my Bill Filer. He also happens to be my best friend. Life is confusing like that sometimes.

Thanks to Matt and Hannah I will never again be able to watch The Green Death episode 2 without breaking out into a cold sweat!

We had agreed to go and watch the latest James Bond film, Skyfall, which was due to start at 8 o'clock in Crewe. As Hannah was driving I headed over to Matt and Hannah's house in plenty of time to get to the cinema. Knowing that it was going to be a popular film and therefore may sell out quickly I arrived at such a time that we would have ample opportunity to get to the cinema and buy our tickets. Unfortunately this meant that I was unable to watch my full episode after work before I needed to nip out again but having only about 15 minutes left to watch I believed I would arrive home after the film with plenty of time to spare to finish if off before midnight rolled round.

Poor naive me! What I failed to take into account is that other people do not always have the same level of neurotic time keeping as myself and in the case of Matt Deeley, actually flout such rules, generally turning up anywhere between half an hour to an hour and half later than planned. As such when we eventually arrived at the cinema we were told that the 8 o'clock showing had now been fully booked but if we would like to wait around then we could book tickets for the 9 o'clock one. This was terrible! There would have been no way that the film would finish in time for me to get home and as Hannah had driven I didn't even have my car available to make a quick escape route.

I was sent into a quiet panic which over the next few minutes became more and more intense as I realised all avenues of escape were closed to me. If this had happend in my first week or even my first month then I would not have been nearly as worried but I was coming up to the anniversary of when this all started and so the thought of failing now was terrible! As Matt and Hannah milled around the few arcade machines sprinkled around the bowling alley where we had decided to wait, I was faced with my last chance. YouTube!

Fortunately as I had been listening to music on my way walking to Matt and Hannah's house I had my earphones with me and after some searching located the episode online. The only problem being that the version online was the omnibus version with all six episodes of The Green Death grouped together into one feature length story. Therefore I had no way of knowing where episode 2 actually ended! Luckily I had quite a good memory of this story and so I was able to recall the cliffhanger to episode 2 and knew that was where I should stop watching. It still didn't feel completely right as I usually feel like I have to watch to the very end of the closing credits in order to have successfully completed the episode and as this was an omnibus version then there were no end credits.

However, disaster had been averted and a very good lesson learnt. Never trust Matt and Hannah to be on time for anything!!! However I do need to give credit where it's due, they have kindly sponsored me in my challenge! Maybe some other close friends should take note of that...ahh who am I kidding, no one is reading this anyway to take the hint. But its worth a try...please sponsor me at www.justgiving.com/James-Nicholls2