I have started planning in advance for if or when I need a moustache.

The Evolution of Scroaming

The first humble scroam is difficult to define, and has caused divides between the scroam scholars (or to use the technical term, scrolars.) Was it the original river scroam, back in the balmy summer of '09, when bikes were ridden gleefully in the babbling brook of UEA. Reaching back further than that, we can see the building blocks of scroam, incorporating perhaps a mix of NAF Parkour days, when shitty food would be consumed, and cycle rides around the suburban landscape of sunny Norwich. In many people's opinion, the first 'true' scroame  was the original overnighter. A quick scout of Boggy Marsh, now a frequent scroamers' haunt, had revealed it as a perfect location, and soon a scoram that would go down in legend was born. 

This scroam defined what was to be. The speakers, now superseded by the 'Beefkers' played an important role, blasting out soulful scroam anthems like 'Firestarter' and 'Oblivionion.' Waitrose proved itself to provide excellent quality goods, such as bread, pies, burgers and fire for an excellent price. The scroam was a phenomenal success, with a whole dead tree being burned to fuel the industrial scroam-fires for over 10 hours. Some say that this scroam cannot be topped,and many feel it represents the golden pinnacle, after which future adventures will slide gloomily towards shitness.

Over time, scroams diversified. More introductions, like the 'Alcoscroam' 'Gameboy Scroam' and the ever popular 'Snoam' increased the range or outings to participate in. As more mighty areas are discovered, such as the UEA Crater, Caister ruins and Billy's back garden, the range of scroamers increases. Many miles were covered in vehicles, with many scroamers having to repair or replace their wheeled stallions after particularly vigorous escapades, with new two wheeled terrors being added to the fleet.

What does the future hold for scroaming? Many plans have been formulated and scenarios discussed among top ranking think tanks,with ever more ambitious projects being discussed and planned. Only time will tell what mighty quests will be had by our hardy (and handsome) adventurers.

The Snoam

I recall a time when snow covered the land, a time when the sky was grey and the trees were bare, a time when a small expedition of scroamers got so cold they found themselves shouting 'oh mercy!'...

...anyway,  a small group of us decided it would be a truly splendid idea to go sledging on the icy pavements of Norwich, with tweed jackets and scavenged gardening gloves as our only protection against the cold.

The day began at the home of young Max, where we gathered hastily, borrowing a couple of sledges which I assume for the sake of his dignity (sorry, Max) were relics of his childhood. Of course, chaps like us are indestructible, and we had no worries about committing ourselves to foolish stunts. Our first attempt at glory took place in the small park, not far from Max's house, where we took turns to slide down the icy slide on our sledges. This quickly became boring, and we tries to spice things up by factoring a ramp into the equation. The sledges were made of plastic, and the ramp was made of snow, so we nearly immediately fucked it to shit. I sustained serious bruising by trying to attempt the slide standing up. As did several of my companions.

A rumour began to brew among the ranks that there was a truly magnificent slide not too far away, so we moved on (taking turns to sit in the sledges while others pulled us along by bicycle). The journey was long, and, being so skeletally thin, I had to seek warmth by rubbing my hands in my armpits, which by the end of the day had felted my favourite woollen gloves to half their original size. No doubt I cried.

We stood, side by side, in awe of the snaking, heavy duty plastic slide- truly this was our destiny. Alas! the venue was swarming with fugly little bastards, simply begging to be vanquished. We pummelled them humiliatingly with clumped ice and rock-hard snow, and thwarted their various attempts to bruise our faces with their blatantly inferior snowballs or do our poor testicles a mischief using the available utensils.
Very much defeated, the rascals decided to join us, and help us to build an extraordinarily prodigious snowball, with the intention of rolling it down the slide or any of the associated slopes. This took us until dusk, which was a massive waste of time.
Then we actually got round to some serious sliding.

Having wasted the daylight hours, the majority of the 'snoamers' decided to make their way home. Max, Duck Boy and I fought on and rolled down to another park by the light of the moon. This final park was quite charming- to one side, the ruins of what must have once been a beautiful church, set into a rustic concrete plinth, and on the other, another slide and a pair of swings. Of course, we were bored of slides by this point, so we rode our sledges down the stairs. We did not interact with the church.


Now that we were thoroughly bruised and absolutely knackered, we set off home. After travelling for a short while, we passed a police car, the window of which slowly rolled down, to reveal a gruff looking policeman. He politely commended us on our bike-sledge combo and gave us a friendly thumbs up.
On the final stretch, once Max had left us, Duck Boy and I witnessed a fox burying a mouse in the snow in somebodies front garden. I would like to think the fox knew the snow would melt, leaving a nasty surprise, but you can never be sure.


What a day

The Worst Dickburning I've Ever Attended

What could make for a more refined evening amongst friends than the gratuitous wastage of lighter fluid ("Jizz" in Scroamer vernacular) that is the humble dickburning?  I speak, as those not in the know about such matters will be relieved to learn, not of the burning of real, flesh and blood wood, but rather of the conflagration, combustion, cremation, incineration, scorching, searing, toasting, torching and reduction to ashes of the humble phallic symbol, drawn in the aforementioned fluid (and not, incidentally, in the fluid from which it takes its name, however uncanny the resemblence may be.) This is, i hasten to add, a ritual the pleasures of which are entirely non-sexual, and one which is not at all childish, moronic nor depraved; "I deny that absolutely, that was right out" as Python so elegantly puts it.

Having now dealt with such preamble as I deem necessary, the time has come, (as time, such as it is, seems always, inevetably, to do), to tell the sad, sad, tale of the worst dickburning I have ever attended. The lighter fluid was aquired from the capacious garage of a gentleman who shall remain anonymous - (for the purposes of the journal we shall dub him Mr. D. Boy.) The evening's entertainment was to be held in a large crater at the local university, and after having aquired the necessary vittles, we set off on our merry way, atop, as we so often were, our respective trusty steeds. Once there we busied ourselves with the customary procedures of the average scroam; the setting up of the fire scaffold, the tuning of the instruments, the marvelling at the obtained alchohols (as awe-inspiring as they were various), the girding of the loins and so on.

This done, the evening seemed to feel itself freed, freed to sparkle, and to shiver, and in its time honoured way to wear on, until we found ourselves in an eerie hour of twilight, an hour of ever decreasing visibilty.

With the little light afforded to us by the glowing embers of our soup preparation fire, we fumbled for our various accessories and equipments in the failing evening. It was in these such unnatural and ghostly conditions that the birth of the sport of dickburning was to take place - we, modern day Prometheuses that we were, were to bring about the creation of our very own Frankenstein's monster; to bring the gift of fire to the metaphorical ancient greek mortals here analagous of a wonky phallus crudely scribbled on the dusty ground with the use of a bottle of jizz (firelighting fluid) held between one's legs and squirted with much mirthful glee and abandon. Unlike Prometheus, our punishment was not to be chained to a mountain and gored daily by a monstrous eagle, but rather to live - or attempt to scrape together some semblence of a life - in the wake of and with the full burden of the guilt and horror of what we had wrought.

How we dragged our woebegotten forms home that night i will never know.

How my shoes got ruined

Hello, children
I come bearing tales of a time long since passed- a better time, long before any of us were old enough to buy alcohol. On this specific occasion, we headed out of the city to somewhere we had never scroamed before. There were four of us, and we came bearing inflatable watercraft, with the intention of floating around our camp, and perhaps upstream. I knew that the water was not particularly attractive or pleasant and there was a potential for shards of glass on the river bed, so I brought along some old-but-nonetheless-intact converse to protect my feet. I failed to remember that there were big air holes in the sides, so they immediately filled with various silts. Though uncomfortable, these silts did little harm to my feet, so I decided to keep them on until we started a bonfire. We spent a long time messing around, playing musical instruments, and trying to push Duck Boy to the opposite bank before getting round to actually building a fire.
When we finally finished scavenging, the fire was crudely constructed from two kinds of wood- the huge logs left behind from other peoples abandoned bonfires, and the tiny twigs found underneath the surrounding trees. Somehow, the fire proved to be extraordinarily efficient, and I decided to dry my shoes for a bit before we started dinner.
While I was away from the camp for a short piss, apparently my shoes caught fire, and in the spur of the moment were thrown back into the river- at which point they became wet again.
I pushed my shoes close to the fire, but not so close they would burn again, and we started to cook the soup in my new, shiny mess tins. One of the mess tins fell off the fire, and much soup was lost, it was decided that we couldn't take any chances, and that we had to make the most of the remaining soup, so we fashioned spoons from bramley apple pie tins and sticks.
Once it was getting dark and all the food had been eaten, I placed my shoes back on the fire for a while, and they immediately caught fire again. I insisted that they couldn't get wet again and extinguished the flames by shaking the shoes aggressively. Alas, they were utterly fucked!
After a while, a police man arrived and politely asked us to clear up our crap and leave, which we did. He took down a couple of our names, and scolded Duck Boy for having a knife in a public place too. I kept my knife in my pocket.

The origin of Scroam

Scroaming is probably one of the hardest things I've ever had to explain, but I'll do my best to give you a good idea of what it entails.

In English, the word scroam comes from the word scramblé, (which developed in the 16th century as a combination of scamble and cramble) and the word röam, the origin of which is unknown. The word scroam first emerged in the late 18th century, and popularised by the Greek author, Baa Pericles Thunder, came to regular use in upper class society, and even the monarchy in the following decades. William IV, was famously heard to have said 'Woman, I'm off for a quick scroam, go to bed if I'm not back by midnight!'

Bramley Apple Pies are a vital part of scroam culture.

Most scroams occur adjacent to rivers and streams, both for aesthetic reasons and as a safety precaution, as the bonfires on which the food is prepared are volatile, due to the petroleum content. A minority of scroams are performed in built up towns or cities, and these are dubbed 'urban scroams'. Though urban scroams lack the charm of those away from civilisation, the same activities can usually be performed, to an extent.

Scroaming is treated as a way of life for the participants, and the rituals performed are often beyond the understanding of any third party. Often the meal of choice defines the personality of a scroam, and as all good scroamers know, foods like balsamic emeralds, or bramley apple pies are a vital part of scroam culture, equaled only by the relationship between mince pies and the holiday of christmas.

Balsamic Emeralds

Emerald Crystals, extracted from a loaf of bread.

Well, recently I've been researching balsamic emeralds, particularly in the food industry and was surprised to find that they are a naturally occurring mineral, which can be found in more than 80% of carbohydrates.

The meals which contain high levels of balsamic emeralds, also usually contain a below average amount of sugar and fat because the emeralds actively repel such substances.

Certain brands, in cooperation with the NHS have decreed to label the foods which contain balsamic emeralds, to give customers a better idea of which foods contain them, promoting a healthier lifestyle and strengthening our natural immune system.

It is as yet unclear as to what causes the build up of balsamic emeralds, and scientists are concerned that they may have some side effects, or harmful properties similar to those of the chemical known as acrylamide, which was also found to be present in many of the same carbohydrates. We all know that emeralds have a chemical structure of Be₃Al₂(SiO₃)6, _{but balsamic emeralds also contain traces of radon, which, though making them potentially radioactive, is found in such small quantities that it is essentially harmless.}

If you have any information on balsamic emeralds please leave a comment!

The most terrifying Scroame

Before reading this, it must be explained that we wrote this together at the exact same time, resulting in aggressive literary combat through which injuries were inevitably sustained.


Good afternoon, boys and girls.

I wish to tell you about an event which occurred on the noon of october '10

t'was a clear, autumn day on which the crimes unfolded.  They began with the discovery of a fine offer 2 garlic baggots for five score tuppeny bits. It quickly became apparent that the baggots were merely in sainsbury's, a fabled  clothier. instead we headed west, to waitrose, purveyor of rare herbs and prescribed medicines.  The troops were rounded up one by one and once the three musketeers had gathered they rode forth to duckbizzle's, the euphoric beats of young mr 'tom jenkinson' spurring them on.  The risk of a comma splice in the near future became apparent, and we dove for cover.  We then began to gather supplies.  

Here is a shopping list;

-bread

-sweetroll

-beer

-medium sweet cider

-soup (with a hint of basil)

-bramley apple mush

-hob nobs

-half time orange and twix

-free water from that jug that inevitably ends up spilled over the table/floor/nearest groin

Mounting our graceful steeds, we went the wrong way. then changed our minds about the right way but found many a log. we were deeply disturbed by the ferocity of the log and ashamed by its magnitude.

Our next location was the little known meadow behind waitrose. the journey through the heavy shrubbetry was most arduous, almost claiming the life of our fondest hero, duck "flaming lord nelson" boy. This was only avoided because of our immense scroaming stamina, and masculine ankles. The location itself was marked by a feral turd, a multitude of deadly chunks, a fearsome beast to behold. As luck had it, we were surrounded by tremendous leaves, and towering bristles, we flicked the shit away with the bristles and squatted down on the leaves so as not to wet our arses.  we also doused the shit with leaf.

We sat down in a ring and used a swan to start our fire. Its delicate plumage was the ultimate tender tinder. We exerted a small amount of pressure on the swan, which rendered it unconsious while we removed the liver and balsamic emeralds.

Now that the fire was roaring, we were able to warm our chilled hands (and dry of the shit from the log), we were beginning to fear that they had fallen prey to frostbite and gout. We agressively munched on and roasted occaisionally the hobnobs, with a small preceeding side dish of cheesy trapesoids. we quaffed vast quantities of the foul smelling cider, and massaged our throats with the delightful ale.  The halloween themed sticker was casually combusted, in the name of our good friend amis. And a request for additional beverages made. The handsome Billy, and aged Benjamin strolled heartily through the waitrose carpark to the small barclays bank, opposite, from which they withdrew one thousand pence. With such riches, they purchased a bottle of refreshing white wine, a bag of peanuts and a hessian sack of large, heavy, chewy cookies. They returned with these products to a repulsive session of group urination, which was extremely embarassing.

Now reunited, we danced for many minutes and drank all the wine. Jamie refused peanuts.

A crack of thunder ripped through the skies and a mighty hurculean figure stepped out of the gloom. This figure was the majestic leader of the cult of waitrose, and he came bearing word of a complaint from the neighbours of waitrose. Such gods can not be argued with, lest battled so the scroamers withdrew from the conflict with haste. Obviously not before cheekily heading back for further (de)hydration.

We next turned our gaze to the south marston, realm of untold damp and moistness.

On the mighty trek up the hill, we became separated, but only briefly. At the top of this hill we span by ninety degrees and rolled down to the old railway. We knew now that we must hold our tongues, for fear of being discovered by residents of virtue. We rambled for a good many hours, some say weeks, and found ourselves at the edge of a main road, the sheer splendour of which sent duckboy into a sleepy swoon.  A period of confused waiting was endured, much urine was spilt and cider quaffed. We consequently decided we were lost and sought to retrace our steps.

After retracing our steps, we found ourselves at an entirely different but familiar location, which was greatly confusing.

The alcohol kicked in and we were reduced to crawling and insanity. Our minds stopped functioning properly, and we frequently damaged ourselves. We placed Jamie's mobile telephone phone atop a petrol cube and watched the two burn ferociously (Im afraid you were burning it intentionally, and at the marsh I remember very clearly, though there wasnt a fire, just a burning phone we must consult the scroam council for a second opinion. It is very true. I kicked the phone off the burning cube (ok) and you were furious because you really wanted to burn it). We waved cheerily to a few trains, but alas, no reply. Max and Duck boy admitted who they were in love with, and though their names are not mentioned here, a detailed pdf with such information can be found below.

We spoke of terrible things, and Billy played his uke briefly, but thought it inappropriate, so hurriedly put it away.

the end

or is it?

presumably