This dinner also supported the benefit year of England hooker, Lee Mears and a host of players were in attendance in support of Lee. Lawrence Dallaglio, Ben kay, Martin Corry, Tom Palmer, Nick Easter were among the 30 odd players that attended the event.

The 5 girl strong Rock opera singers, Passionata opened the evening, comic Dominic Holland was in superb form and the night was rounded off by a stella performance from Heather Small.

The rest of the night was a blur and I am still in recovery mode!

Matt obviously has an addiction which he admittedly recognises and had being seeking help before failing the drugs test.

I am surprised by the quoted comment in the Mail today by Bath Rugby Club Chief executive, Bob Calleja - I quote " Clearly the timing is most unfortunate, particularly as we are focused on the big game on Sunday. Hopefully we are still focused." I wonder if his response would have been the same if that was his son that was addicted to a recreational drug?!

I am convinced that Matt has the strength of character to get through this problem and I wish him all the best.

Indigo bay is one of the resorts we are using, as a beach option, in between the 2nd and 3rd test matches during the forthcoming British & Irish Lions tour of South Africa 2009. Someone has to do the recce! Everything about the resort oozed luxury - the food was consistently superb, diving was awesome and service was impeccable. I am much more rotund but enjoyed every morsel and crayfish.

Glad to see that Martin Jonson has gone for stability in announcing the England squad fir the forthcoming 6 Nations Championships. This, at least, gives the squad a chance to grow and get to know eachother's game better, developing better team spirit and collective will. People forget that building teams takes time and to expect a turnaround in 4 games is a big ask.

Escape the crunch and join us on our forthcoming trips to Croke Park, Millennium Stadium and of course, Lions in South Africa!

See you all in 2009.

From the VU Team.

The night started with a champagne reception by the Roman Baths and it was just superb to see so many faces that have become firm friends over the years. Dining in the Pump Rooms is always a joy - what a fantastic piece of architecture.

As host of the evening, I had to do some digging on Lee. I discovered that we both have a rugby moment in common. That is changing our shorts in front of 80,000 spectators. For Lee, it was his most embarrassing rugby moment. All I  can say is that some us are more blessed than others!

The auction benefitted Lee's chosen charities, Willow Foundation, Wooden Spoon and PRA Benevolent Fund. Steve Jones of N4 Solutions donated 6 places in his box for the Gloucester v Bath Guinness premiership match which sold for an awesome £1800!

The evening was a huge success. Thanks to all that attended and donated prizes.

But as Johnson says he is in it for the long term and building towards the 2011 RWC. With this in mind it was perhaps a masterstroke looking at the recently announced RWC pool stage groups - England are grouped with Argentina and Scotland. This gives England the easiest qualifying route to the knockout stages.

Following the South Africa game, I flew out to Dubai on the Sunday for the Dubai 7s - we had a group at the 7s. I watched England's impressive quarter -final victory over the Fijians on Friday night before leaving for the airport and boarding a 3am flight for Heathrow. I couldn't miss the NZ game at Twickenham! Dubai Sevens is now a hugely successful and fun event and should definitely be on anyone's "must do list"

I arrived at Heathrow at 7am and went straight to Twickenham to prepare for the arrival of our guests. England showed plenty of fight but against the best team in the world, you have no hope in hell of winning if you collect 4 yellow cards - some harsh and some fair.

The weeeknd was rounded off partying the night away at the Irish Youth Foundation Ball where I was stitched up by auctionneer, Ian Robertson, squeezing an additional table of 10 from me at our Liions Tales dinner during the auction - both tables sold for £6000 and is for an excellent cause, my charitable deed for the day was done.

I got involved with the Atlas Mountain trek through my good friend and client, Nick Groom, who had asked me to arrange a Tag Rugby Tournament as part of his fundraising. The trek supported two excellent causes, Afrikids and Macmillan.

I arrive in Marrakech and we are driven to Imlil at the base of the Atlas Mountains. My expectation was checking into a hotel and grabbing a well deserved 10 hour sleep before trekking the next morning – wrong! I had read the itinerary of the other members who had arrived two days earlier than me due to VU running the Lee Mears dinner a day after the main party left the Uk for Marrakech.

The expression on my face on learning that we were immediately trekking for 6 hours, climbing 1300m was one to be savoured for an eternity. Andrew, the paramedic that was accompanying me on the trek laughed his head off on the realization that I expected a hotel bed. Champagne, tequila, white wine, red wine still displaced all evidence of blood in my system. The next 3 hours were the toughest thing I can ever remember encountering. I had never felt so much pain before. I hit the wall..thank God we had a mule with us! Thankfully the rest of the team didn’t react quickly enough to capture on my arrival at base camp on the back of a mule!

So far well over £130,000 has been raised for both charities and a big hand goes to Alistair Turner who masterminded the whole programme. His unrelenting energy through out campaign was awesome and the whole experience with the other trekkers was fantastic.

I assume the role of MC, welcome everyone and introduced the lovely ladies from RADA for their opening number. Just as the performance finished, the boys from the west entered the Nursery Pavilion. Relief all round from the VU team. Bath prop, David Flatman takes over as MC and runs a fabulously smooth and successful evening. Mark Regan was a star panellist recounting a story about horse racing enthusiast, Simon Shaw, being introduced to Richard Dunwoody in a Dublin nightclub following a game. Shawsy got on all fours and insisted the Richard rode him around the dance floor, Richard duly complied!

From Lord's to Chinawhite where we danced the night away like there was no tomorrow. At 4am I left Chinawhite, picked up my trekking gear from our hotel and on to Gatwick for a 6.30am flight to Marrakech to join the rest of the Afrikids Atlas mountains trekking group! more on that in a few days time.

It was fun seeing so many current and former players again and the banter flowed all evening.

Lee's next London event is the Nordoff Robbins Six Nations Dinner at the Royal Lancaster Hotel on 21st Jan 09. At this year's corresponding dinner, Simply Red brought the house down - who knows who our surprise guest act will be next Jan..be there to find out!

A snapshot of some of the boys attending include Lawrence Dallaglio, Jason Leonard, Danny Cipriani, Phil Vickery, Tom Palmer, Matt Perry, Mike Claasen, Butch James, Matt Stevens, James Haskell, Mark Regan and many more

Fundraising is supporting PRA Benevolent Fund, Wooden Spoon and Willow Foundation - a full lisdt is below and if you are keen to place a reserve on any items, send  me an email at victor.ubogu@vultd.co.uk 

if you are coming, see you tomorrow, if not, I'll fill you in on how the night went.

Four Farr 65s, with captains Mark Regan (Vantage Insurance Services), Eric Peters (Times New Media),  Dan Ward Smith (Gaymer Cider) and myself (Price Waterhouse Coopers) competed for the VU Sailing Trophy. Of course, there was a proper skipper onboard the yachts to show us the ropes.

My team, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, won the first race by a mile with Mark Regan's Vantage Insurance coming second. I thought I was doing Gaymer Cider a favour by giving them Dan Ward Smith. Dan, out with various injuries over the past 18 months, has obvioulsy been doing over time in the gym. He reminded me of what I looked like in my playing days - well toned with a 6 pack! He broke the grinder within a few minutes of the opening race! A warning to opposing teams this season, watch out when he breaks out from the base of the scrum.

In the second race, positions were reversed with Mark Regan's Vantage Insurance coming first and my yacht coming second. We decamped to Bar Ha Ha for prize giving. The overal winner was settled by a four man boat race. Luckily we had some serious gusslers on my team and we easily downed the cold bottles of bud well ahead of Mark's team.