Stag Night UK

Dave Thomas to lead Kilimanjaro Trek July 2009

Dave Thomas, Call of the Wild's Director of Outdoor Activities is off to Tanzania from 4th to the 15th July leading another trek up Kilimanjaro. This will be his 4th trip to Kili. This is Africa's highest mountain at 5,896m

The Rongai Route approaches Kilimanjaro from the north and retains a sense of untouched wilderness lost on the more popular trails. It has a relatively gentle gradient and shorter daily stages, compared to some of the other routes as it winds its way from the starting point just south of the Kenya-Tanzania border. It passes through farmland and forest, past Alpine moorland to the beautiful summit cone. There are magnificent views throughout, with possibilities for wildlife viewing, the exploration of lava tunnels and an extra day to aid acclimatisation as the trail climbs beneath the towering spires of Mawenzi. The final ascent is arduous and made in darkness, but the reward is a spectacular dawn view of the glaciers and ice cliffs of the summit and across the East African plains far below.

Visit our expeditions page for more details

Burning Calories with Outdoor Action On Stag Weekends

If you are piling on the calories this weekend on a stag do through  excessive drinking, eating of kebabs, burgers and other fast food then get some outdoor activities in to burn off some of that unwamted fat. here's an idea of how many calaories you'll burn off taking part in:-

Badminton - 306            Football - 476            Kayaking -340

Cricket - 340                Frisbee - 204            Swimming - 408

Cycling - 544                 Golf - 306                 Tennis - 476     

Fishing - 204                Jogging - 476            Walking -272

Wine

Large glass of medium strength dry white wine = 190 calories. Same as two and a half digestive biscuits.

Bottle of medium strength dry white wine = 570 calories. Same as chicken with cashew nuts and egg fried rice.

A bottle of average strength red wine = 644 calories. Same as 14 Jaffa cakes or McDonald’s cheeseburger and medium fries.

Half a bottle of average strength red wine = 313 calories. Same as a Snickers chocolate bar.

Beer & cider

One pint of strong lager = 330 calories. Same as a four ounce fillet steak.

One pint of average strength lager = 200 calories. Same as one packet of crisps.

One pint of premium lager = 250 calories. Same as a small chocolate bar.

One pint of cider = 200 calories. Same as one fried chicken drumstick.

Spirits

One shot (25ml) of vodka or gin = 55 calories. Same as a 25ml serving of single cream

Large Bailey’s (100ml) = 320 calories. Same as a Snickers Bar.

Let’s not forget that a lot of these drink to food conversions factor in only a single drink. Knowing that it’s not usually just the one that you have when you meet up with friends – we’re talking more like the equivalent of a multi-pack of chocolate bars or crisps in an evening.  

Snack attack

People snack while their drinking to tide them over until they get home. But add the calorie content of a pack of crisps and a beer together and you’re verging on 500 calories - a fifth of the 2500 recommended daily calorie intake for men, and a quarter of a woman’s. A couple of drinks down the line and a takeaway, and you’ve blown that recommended calorie intake out of the water.

For more information click here

Why Do Hangovers Happen?

Why Do Hangovers Happen?

There are a number of reasons but the main one is that we never learn our lesson. No matter how many times we get drunk and suffer for it the follwoing morning we just go on do it all over gain the enxt time.

Assorted Poisons

Pure ethanol is metabolically fairly clean. If you consider an alcoholic beverage to be water, ethanol, and a bunch of flavourings, then the identity of some of those flavourings is quite frightening. Red wines contain all sorts of interesting chemicals, leading to the complex flavourings typical of the breed, and although many of these impurities - such as arsenic - are poisonous, they are usually present in such minute quantities as to be relatively harmless. However, if the wine is concentrated by distillation, then as well as increasing the alcohol content, you are also concentrating the poisons. This is the reason that brandy, port and cheap red wine can give you the most monstrous hangovers, as well as gout in later life.

It is also for this reason that people are often advised not to 'mix their drinks'. Different styles of drink have different impurities, and some of them can react with one another in interesting ways. Some common aides memoire from English folklore are:-

• Don't mix the grape and the grain. Keep wine/port/brandy separate from beer/whisky.

• Beer then wine, I feel fine. Wine then beer, I feel queer.

Dehydration

This is the most well-documented consequence of drinking. In addition to its intoxicating qualities, ethanol also has diuretic³qualities, so you end up expelling more liquid than you drink. It acts on the brain's pituitary gland and blocks production of a hormone called vasopressin, which usually directs the kidneys to reabsorb water that would otherwise end up in the bladder. Once this hormonal signal has been switched off, there is nothing to stop the bladder from filling up with all the water from the fluid that you drink. A supply of water is essential to the continuing functioning of the body, and when various organs find that their normal supply of water has been cut off, they steal it from anywhere they can, including the cells of the brain. Although the brain itself cannot feel pain, when it starts to shrink due to water loss, pain-sensitive filaments connecting the outside membranes to the inside of the skull become stretched, giving the symptoms of a headache.

Free Radical Build-up

In simple terms, the liver's job is to destroy poisons which are present in the body, and when you start drinking it sets to work on destroying the ethanol. However, this process generates destructively reactive chemicals called free radicals. These are usually mopped up by an enzyme called glutathione, but during a binge, reserves can run low, leaving the free radicals to run riot through the liver.

Loss of Salts

Frequent visits to the toilet not only result in the loss of water, but also of the important salts dissolved in it. Potassium and sodium ions in particular are essential for the optimal functioning of nerves and muscles. An imbalance outside a limited range can result in nausea, fatigue, and headaches.

Loss of Sugar

Alcohol attacks the body's store of glycogen, an important energy source kept in the liver, breaking it down to glucose which is then flushed out in the urine. Without this store of energy on call next morning, you are left feeling weak and wobbly.

Methanol

Methanol is a simpler cousin of ethanol, and is found as a contaminant in cheap red wines, whisky and fruit brandy. This is 'meths', the fuel alcohol that makes you blind if you drink too much of it. The liver attacks it as the poison it is, but one of the break-down products is formic acid, a particularly nasty chemical which ants use to spray at their attackers.

Visit this BBC site for more information

Top 10 Hangover Cures following Stag Weekends

Here are some ideas for hangover cures. This assumes that you have not gone down the road of prevention and you have woken up with the hangover from hell after your stag night! You should know better at your age!

Top 10 Hangover Cures

1. Fry-Up with Eggs

Alot of hangover cures involve a cooked  Fried Breakfast. Others swear by the efficacy of a downed raw egg in the morning. The reason that these are thought to work at all is probably that eggs also contain cysteine and so help to mop up free radicals. depends on the amount you've had to drink as you not be able to face that fried mushroom looking back at you from the plate!

2. Hair of the Dog

Now this was never my favourite. It involves drinking more alcohol. A Bloody Mary is often used - vodka and tomato juice. I just can't see how this would help in the slightest well only to make you ill!The reason it is supposed to work? When the liver breaks down alcohol, it deals with ethanol before methanol, which is the more toxic of the two components. By introducing more ethanol into your system, you actually delay the methanol processing. Bloody Marys are used because the spices slow things down even further.

The downside is that you are actually doing is delaying the onset of the hangover. It will happen just a bit later than normal.

3. Sleep

As simple as that. Get plenty of shut eye because you're not going to want to run a marathon the following day are you!

4. Alka-Seltzer/Aspirin/Resolve

Alka-Seltzer contains 130 milligrams of caffeine, which helps shrink the swollen blood vessels that cause your head to pound like a jackhammer. The caffeine also enhances the potency of the 1,000 mg of aspirin per dose. Paracetamol-based remedies are usually preferable as aspirin may further irritate the stomach and increase nausea and sickness.

5. Drink Water

Rehydration is very important. Ethanol , one of the main constituents of alcohol,  has diuretic qualities, so you end up expelling more liquid than you drink. A supply of water is essential to the continuing functioning of the body, and when various organs find that their normal supply of water has been cut off, they steal it from anywhere they can, including the brain.  When the brain starts to shrink due to water loss, pain-sensitive filaments connecting the outside membranes to the inside of the skull become stretched, giving the symptoms of a headache.

6. Exercise

Probably the last thing you would think of with that head pounding away. However  aerobic exercise helps spur oxygen flow throughout the body, which can in turn result in the faster breakdown of toxins.

7.  Berocca

Sold in Australia specifically as a vitamin supplement, but widely recognised as a hangover cure, these small tubes contain all the chemicals that are lost and destroyed in a drinking session, in the correct proportions. In its native land, Berocca is often handed out free to delegates every morning at week-long conferences. Many Australians would not consider going on a binge without a supply of Berocca to hand.

8.  Sports Drinks

In theory these are a great idea, for they are supposed to replace all the salts and sugars that are sweated out. The problem is they are usually fizzy, and probably the last thing you need while suffering a hangover is a bellyful of bloating gas. However, if you don't mind, or if you can find a flat one, it's definitely worth doing.

9. N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC)

An amino acid supplement sold in health food stores, this is extremely good at mopping up the free radicals that have built up in the liver. NAC works because it is rich in cysteine, another amino acid that is used by the body in the manufacture of free radical-eliminating glutathione.

10. Hot Showers

Another way of relieving a headache is to sit in a really hot and get the full force of it on the back of your neck. This is worthwhile because headaches are often caused by constricted blood vessels and tense neck muscles. A massage under a hot shower relaxes the tension.

If you have had a heavy drinking session, hangover or not, doctors advise that you allow 48 hours to pass before you drink any more alcohol, in order to give your body tissues time to recover. Sometimes, of course, a hangover makes that advice easier to follow.

 

Top 10 Tips on How to Organise a Stag Weekend

Here are some top tips on how to arrange a memorable stag weekend

1. Confirm date of wedding

Sounds obvious but unfortunately many best men get this wrong and don't leave themselves enough time to arrange things properly. You'd be amazed how many hens we get phoning up arranging the stag party for their other half who had left things to late.

2. Confirm rough dates for the stag night

It is recommended that the stag night should be no closer than two weeks before the wedding although this is flexible. Any later and things can start to go wrong - like the groom doesn't make it to the wedding. As he is your responsibility (best man) do you really want to face the bride (more to the point the brides father who is most likely paying for the whole shooting match!) and explain what has happened? Setting rough dates with the Groom will also make it easier in narrowing down the numbers for the event.

It is extremely unusual for everyone you invite to be able to make the stag night. The most important person it has to be convenient for is the Groom so the dates have to suit him.

3. Who to invite

The Groom obviously, his friends from home, school, college, work and family. It is becoming more common for invites to be issued to the Groom's father and , wait for it, the Bride's father - you'll have to ask the Groom about that one! Don't get too large. Don't forget you're going to have to organise this lot. The bigger the group the more difficult it is to manage. You'll have to collect the money etc. We've all been there and had that one person who is slow to pay.

Also you have a number of different groups eg. school friends, college then they may split into their respective groups and not mix as much as the Groom would like. So keep the group size manageable. The Groom is the best person to ask as he knows them all.

One important tip is to get the e-mail addresses of all those invited. This is by far and away the easiest way to co-ordinate everyone. Finally we all know one or two, how do we say, difficult people, especially when drinking! It would be prudent  not invite those people if you feel they won't get on with the group or locals. You want this to be remembered for the right reasons not the wrong ones.

4. What to do?

Again depends on the Groom. It is becoming more popular to go away for a weekend and try some unusual adventure activities. The budget of the group, and the amount of time off work and spent away from partners/families etc will dictate how far you travel.

5. Where to Go? Local, UK Stag Weekend or European Tour?

Is it going to be 3 weeks in Barbados or a night in the local boozer? For more bachelor party ideas take a look at our other stag related web pages. You want to make the stag doa s inclusive as possibel so nobody is left out. You need to agree the guest list with the GRoom.. If you do choose to go to a European City such as Prague then you will have to expect that not evryone will be able  to make due to financial constraints and time constraints

 6. Arrange Yourself or Use a Company

Depends on you and what you intend to do. However it is always advisable to use a company to arrange everything for you, especially for bigger groups. This is far less trouble than doing it yourself and can be more cost effective. You should also bear in mind that many places such as pubs, bars, clubs and restaurants no longer accept stag groups - Dublin and Tenby being prime examples of placing where stag groups are becoming less welcome.

Ensure that whoever you use arrange everything for you - be sure you know what you are paying for and what is excluded. Is it full board or are evening meals extra, what about lunch? Do you have to drive everywhere yourself or are transfers provided? Do you really want to be looking for an activity venue with a convoy of 10 cars and you navigating? Certainly stag organisers are looking for budget stag weekends that offer value for money this year.

If you are wary of using a company then ask the company for testimonials or if you contact past customers.
It's your head on the block so make sure the groom has a memorable time (well maybe being memorable is asking too much) !

7. During the stag night

Jokes and embarrassing the Groom are traditional but remember don't go too far. You are the one who will have to explain to the Bride why her beloved hasn't got any body hair! You know the Groom best and will know where to draw the line - do you?

A good way to get everyone involved quickly to have t-shirts printed with photos or nick names of everyone. This breaks the ice and gets everyone talking. The other one which is very popular (those of you who have sampled Swansea will vouch for this) fancy dress - a must not only for the Groom but also the group.
There is also the usual dilemma of stripper or no stripper. Again you know the Groom. Don't be pressured by the group - it's not their stag night 

8. Keep a Kitty

Keep a kitty. It is far easier with a big group than going in rounds as someone will be missed out or miss their round - especially as the night draws on. Gather the money early on and replenish when needed. So those who wish to drop out later on in the night can.

9. Can You Get Back to the Hotel?

Make sure you can get back to your accommodation at the end of the night! Take the address or phone number with you. You'd be amazed how many blokes forget or don't know where they are staying. This is especially true if they travel in someone else's car. Many companies will arrange the transport for you as a matter of course. Also ensure that accommodation is available that is stag group friendly. More and more are becoming reluctant to take stag groups which agaian it is adviasable to think about using an expert stag weekend company. You'll have a good idea about the sort of stag night experience to expect from their website.

10. Look After the Groom

Finally and most important of all LOOK AFTER THE GROOM HE IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. You may have to lie for the rest of his life, which could be short if his prospective wife found out about some of the things that traditionally go on.

Brits Sun bathe and drink more

A new survey by TripAdvisor®, the world’s most popular and largest travel community, has revealed snapshots of 24 hours in the average summer holidays of British, French, German, Italian and Spanish travellers. Whilst Britons clock up more time sunbathing and drinking in bars than their European counterparts, they also spend the least amount of time pursuing cultural activities.

 

The survey of 2,852 travellers reveals the length of time that each nationality spends on an array of popular pastimes over the course of an average day of their holiday, including active pursuits, dancing and dining. (For full breakdown of results, see Notes to Editors).

Tanning Time: Britons Soak Up Most Rays

Despite prominent sun-safety campaigns, British travellers lead the charge when it comes to sunbathing on holiday, spending an average of two hours and 53 minutes per day catching rays. The Spanish are the most restrained, averaging one hour and 58 minutes of tanning time. 

Propping Up the Bar: Britons Clock Up Most Drinking Time

British travellers are the most adept at propping up the bar on holiday, spending an average of one hour and 38 minutes per day enjoying the local brew. Meanwhile, Italians are the most conservative when it comes to alcohol, spending 49 minutes per day in bars.

Cultural Pursuits: Britons Bring Up the Rear

Visiting museums and taking in the local architecture is less of a priority to Britons than other nationalities. Despite spending an average of two hours and 17 minutes per day on such pursuits, Britons bring up the cultural rear, whilst Spanish travellers claim the official ‘culture vulture’ mantle, spending three hours and 28 minutes a day indulging in high-brow activities.

 

In 2003 £300m being Spent on Stag and Hen Nights

People in Britain are spending about £300m a year on stag and hen nights, according to research.

It suggests celebrations are becoming more lavish and lasting longer, with one in 10 costing £500 per participant.

Most stretch into a weekend of eating drinking and clubbing, with some men opting for a whole week of partying before their big day.

The study - for which 600 people were questioned - was commissioned by Teletext Holidays. I wonder if that figure has increased since 2003? I would definitely say yes it has.

Lap dancing

The research suggests nearly half of grooms-to-be enjoy a weekend away with their friends, with one in 20 men taking a whole week away. It also indicates that men spend twice as much as women on their pre-wedding celebrations.

Eating and drinking are still the most popular activities with many coughing up £250 for the privilege and one in 10 spending £500 each.

London, Blackpool and Edinburgh are the most popular destinations.

Other popular places for painting the town red  for stag weekends include Swansea, Brighton, Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester.

The survey suggested that one in five stag parties end up at a strip or lap dancing club, while others involve tying the intended to a lamp post.

Marc Bell, director of marketing at Teletext, said: "Those of us who have been on stag or hen dos recently will have found that they are becoming more of a mini-holiday than a night out."

Stag Night Pub Crawls - The Famous Mumbles Mile

One of Wales' best known pub crawls is shrinking as many of its watering holes are closing down.

The Mumbles Mile, near Swansea, was famous for its concentration of seafront bars, but only seven remain write the BBC

Others are boarded up or have become restaurants and there are now plans to turn one of the largest, The Famous Bear, which shut last year, into flats.

Some locals have welcomed the change, saying the village has now become more of a family resort.

Until recently, the Mumbles Mile consisted of about a dozen pubs stretching along the seafront from the White Rose in the village square to The Pilot on the approach to Mumbles pier. It was and still is a very popular destination for stag do's.

MUMBLES MILE - PUBS STILL OPEN The White Rose The Nag's Head The Village Inn The William Hancock The Antelope Mumbles Rugby Club Salt Bar at the George

A typical Mumbles Mile would see visitors having a drink in every pub en route, before ending the evening in one of the resort's now-closed nightclubs.

Jobs for the Best Man

It is allways an honour to be asked but quite terrifying when the realisation hits you that you have a responsible job to do to ensure your best mates day is the best ever – no pressure! The best man is usually chief attendant of the groom at the wedding. This job is typically given to the groom’s best friend, brother, close family or the friend.

Although difficult to generalise there are common wedding duties the best man has to perform. These can include some or all of the list below:

• Stag weekend and stag night arranging
• Taking the bridegroom to the wedding
• Involvement in the wedding planning although realistically this is usually done by the bride
• Supervision of ushers on the big day.
• Carrying the rings to the wedding which are to be handed to the groom during the service
• Delivering a witty, funny wedding speech containing lots of anecdotes about the groom which are suitably embarrassing.
• A toast at the wedding reception
• Decorating the bridegroom’s vehicle with streaming ribbons, toilet paper, clanking cans and worse. This tradition isn’t as prevalent as it used to be given the couple more often than not now stay for the duration of the reception and leave for honeymoon on the following day(s)
• Support for the groom with nerves
• Dance with the head bridesmaid
• Help the photographer coordinate photographs particularly with large wedding parties

Piece of cake really. Good luck to one and all.

Top 5 Stag Activities

We are half way through the year and these are top 5 stag activities as chosen by you the stag groups:-

1. Canyoning

Still the number 1 activity by far with our stag do's. It's not hard to see why when you've experienced it for yourself - canyoning involves walking behind waterfalls, toboggoning down shoots, jumping off waterfalls. Not your normal run of the mill activity.

2. Quad Biking

This is no ramble around a farm. These are 250cc quad bikes built for off-roading. This activity is memorable as well because of our staff - the famous Griff. What a character and one you'll remember for a long time.

3. Coasteering

Coasteering is a combination of sea level traversing and cliff jumping on the stunning Gower peninsula in South Wales. Always a favourite due to the spectacular location.

4. Climbing

We have some great climbing venues which provide something for everyone.

5. Surfing

Always popular with thos stag groups who fancy themsleves as surfing dudes. Again the Gower is used due to its excellent surfing beaches.