| aughintober, northern ireland

My new friend Chris - You've Changed...

ANYWAY! Worlds time again - and time for a bit more craic in Glasgow! For some, though the excitement was too much, William Milliar being SO excited, he decided to loose his car keys in the Car-park, and have us all search for half an hour, only to discover he'd left them hanging out of his already-open boot! So with disaster averted, off we went to take part in our first-ever World Championships in Grade 2!

The Annual Aughintober Quiz had a twist this year, with Ashley being the quiz-master, as opposed to Glenn, who had to fly in. After 9 rounds, 'Grim' [William, Kylie and Rachael] had placed third, and tied for first was Ra-Ra-What-About-Ye? [Mac and Michelle] and 'Irons Brew' [Rob & Serena]. After a very tight tie breaker round on Sport, Iron's Brew won the £26 by only one point!

Now, with the amount of injury's which have occurred in the band of late, Glenn was keen to limit any more which could adversely effect our Performance in the Qualifiers, so once we got to the hotel, myself and Kyle were all locked in a padded room, only allowed out to practice our instruments, or to go to the loo. This was an very good plan, that is until we discovered that this padded cell came with a fire exit. So we slipped out of our straight-jackets, into our goin-out shirts and went off to Jumpin Jacks for some lemonade and a boogie!

Friday at the worlds was spent how it traditionally is spent - Shopping and listening to bands! After that, practice and the annual Chinese and the China Buffett King, it was an early night for all, looking forward to the next day's performance!

Up early, it was a hearty breakfast for all, a few of us sneaked over to the green early to hear SOME of the bands already on the green, but at 10.30am it was down to business....qualifying. The tuning up was hard work, but the band was on a mission, and every member acted as such - cool and collected. When the band marched up to the line [and Jason just about remembered to fire his towel off his sporran-chain!] it was with chests out, proud to be playing with Aughintober. The Band struck-up to the best performance of the year - perfect start and good playing....enough to make aughintober the only Grade 2 band upgraded last year to make it the final - and once more the best result in Band History! It turned out that the band had qualified 2nd in our qualifying heat, not scraping through, but getting in with room to spare! So with congratulations to each other given, it was back to business for another tune-up! There was less pressure this time, because it was getting into the final which was our goal this year, but everybody still wanted to put in a good performance...and this we did - playing better than in the qualifying!

In results, the band came 8th overall - a brilliant achievement as the only thing left to do from the goals set out in out AGM was to achieve a top ten finish at a major!

In 'Other' News, the picture at the top of the page is of our new resident World Champion William Laffin, who won the worlds in style (aka an aughintober uniform!) with Upper Crossgare pipe band, who came off with 8 1's (x4 in Qualifying and x4 in the Finals!). A brilliant achievement, and we'd all like to congratulate them!

Saturday having been a long day, a few lemonades were taken, and we took our making tape to bed for an early night - there being a long trip home the next day!

Unfortunately, that's the end to the season! BUT we've had a blast, our first in Grade 2, so we'll see you all next year, ready for more fun and antics!