So every year my sports club holds a dinner in memory of one
of its members who died of terminal cancer.
It’s a great event but there is some discussion as to whether it is the
best way to honour a man’s memory. Personally I quite like the thought of a hundred
or so members of the same elite sports group I was part of getting mortal in my
name. The way we alumni talk about it you’d think it was the social event of
the year and you’d be right… because it is.
Even my parents say if I died they’d want something similar. The amount
of planning they’ve done for this eventuality is quite alarming but I’m sure
they’re just being prepared…
Anyways it was that time of year and so we roadtripped up to
Newcastle, ready for war. I had my best
glad rags, my dancing shoes and enough money in the account to cause some
serious financial damage. I even had my team
blazer on which is a 100% wool creation that weighs a metric tonne, is the warmest
garment in creation and pure white. So I
basically resembled a kid who was dressing up in his dad’s clothes. Which we
all know (laydeez) is exactly the look that causes maximum heart ache.
The night kicked off with a few quiet warm up drinks in a
bar in Newcastle where we strolled in looking dashing, sophisticated and
completely out of kilter with the local geordies. It was a bit like that scene
in Constantine when Keanu Reeves
walks into hell, although he had the foresight not to look like a pretentious
twat in a white blazer. Still, onwards and upwards.
The event itself was held in the same location as last year,
a Quayside Hotel. This came as a surprise to the Alumni as the manager of the
hotel had vociferously explained after last year’s brussel sprout related
incidents, that we were never ever ever going back there ever. Think Taylor Swift but burly, angry, Geordie
and nowhere near as into Harry Styles.
Still, he must have looked at their yearly revenue and realised there
was no way he could shift that amount of Jagermeister again without us and so
bitten the bullet. Supply and demand I
suppose.
We then broke the cardinal rule of all ultra cool parties by
arriving on time. I had horrible flashbacks to when I was 12 and my dad took me
to my first party and I insisted on being early despite his protestations.
Worst.Moment.Ever. It was just me and the hosts mother and I’d brought a bag
for whatever reason and I wouldn’t let her take it and put it in the cloakroom
so I basically acted like a cross between Rain Man and Bilbo Baggins.. It hurts
just thinking about it.
An elite sports party is genuinely one of the most
aesthetically competitive events ever.
If you’re a recent alumni this is not good news. It would be comparable
to turning up to a Victoria Secrets fashion show just after Christmas. You’re
basically surrounded by various boys and girls at the peak of physical fitness
all of whom are extremely attractive or the older generation who have gone to
seed but are super successful and wealthy. You’re in the middle like an
adolescent teen with the beginnings of a gut and no interesting stories to tell
unless you count that time you watched all of Secret Diaries of a Call Girl whilst looking for a job. I wish I'd worn a name badge saying 'Below Average' at this point.
We (that’s me and the rest of the AlumLads from my year) had
been sat on the same table (dangerous) right in the far corner of the room
(extremely sensible). The only way we
could be further from the important people were if we’d been sent to Sunderland
which was a master stroke of organisational diplomacy from the two girls
running the event.
The wine was flowing fast and all was well. We’d destroyed
both the courses and the speech was an excellent blend of emotion and anecdote
from one of the older alumni who had competed at the same time as the man we
were honouring.
Having paid our respects things then accelerated from
glorious to positively rowdy. I’d spent
most of my budget getting overexcited with wine rounds (bottles not glasses)
and was at the bar when a fight broke out behind me. One of my old mates had
charged bar wards to get his round in (failure to do so is a criminal offence)
when he was intercepted by some randomer from Loughborough. The Loughborough lad asked my friend “who the
forking hell are you” to which my friend politely responded “now who the fudging
hell are you!?”.. At this point those name badges were looking more and more
sensible. Despite this there seemed to
be an obvious way out of this dilemma - with one introducing himself to the
other and politely going about their business. Sadly neither of the parties
chose this route and promptly engaged in a few rounds of ‘how’s your father’.
Now even if you don’t know what the fight is about, who’s
fighting, or why, it’s your moral duty to wade in and dispense swift justice
with a couple of haymakers cos that’s what ladz do. For those of you who don’t know me (probs all
three of my readers) I am the least physically intimidating person in the
world. I’m built like a hamster (I even
have ginger whiskers). Nevertheless, honour was at stake so, despite being mid-way
through paying for a round, in I waded before thankfully being rescued by some large
peacekeepers.
Emerging from the fray I was slightly disappointed to see
the barman waiting patiently for my pin code to complete my card transaction.
Cracking. Still, more wine for the boys..
Raffle time came which is always the highlight of my
evening. Raffles are great, like
seriously, what is better than a good old fashioned tombola? You burn money
buying strips of tickets and stand a tiny chance of winning a prize which you
never wanted in the first place and whose value often doesn’t exceed the price
you’ve paid for the tickets. It’s incredible economics. Plus the girl selling
the tickets had really nice legs and so every time she offered ‘£5 a strip’ the
whole table went wild.
By this time the girl I had my foxy eye on was sat next to
me (God only knows how, I probably intercepted her on the way to the bar and
put her in a headlock) and she’d opened conversation with the line ‘I’ve
cleaned my teeth’. Don’t ask, she’s from the North West that’s probably an
essential question up there. The only
way I could think to match up to this was on the dance floor where I’m in my
element. Our sport is one which requires
skill, dexterity, flexibility and poise. We’re like rhythmic gymnasts on
roids. Yet, for some reason, when we hit
the dance floor we resemble a shoal of coy carp which have just been snared by
a deep sea trawler - Flappy, uncoordinated and in a mild state of panic.
Yet up we stepped to throw some daggers. One of the guys had really upped the anti and
torn his trousers from crotch to toe so he now resembled a weird stripper
cowboy, like a mash up of Brokeback
Moutain and Magic Mike. I’m not
quite sure what he was going to achieve with this look but hey, to each his
own. I was waiting for the right moment
to cause some heartbreaks. I was
thinking maybe Nicki Minaj or the Grease Mega mix, you know high class
stuff. Sadly the DJ was about as cool as
the fires of hades and declined my repeated requests for One Direction. All he played were Christmas songs and not
even the good ones. I’m pretty sure Cliff Richard was played at which point
everyone hightailed out the door into the wilds of Newcastle for some propa
tunez.
Like an Arab to Mecca I gravitated to Boom which is a 90s
bar in Newcastle which is undeniably the finest establishment in the Northern
Hemisphere. It has a multi-coloured glowing dance floor, plays more Ricky
Martin than is probably legal and has enough cougars and hen parties to keep
you entertained for hours. No one else
had followed me but, quite frankly, I couldn’t care less. I was in paradise. I
even found some dwarves (they were possibly midgets) to dance with. I felt cultured, classy and above all tall. I swung back another treble and suffered my
first real blackout of the night.
I regained consciousness about an hour later in a pit called
Bambu, which is by far our favourite night club. It’s our favourite because
everyone else thinks it’s rubbish. It once had a beach party whereby they
dressed their bar staff in bikinis and dumped half a tonne of sand on the
floor. There was a theory in first year that they gave out free VKs. This was
true as long as you stuck to the theory of ordering a VK and then just walking
off without paying for it. No one knows how it makes any money and no one
really cares. It’s where dreams are made.
I staggered in looking around for my crew. I decided to make my presence felt amongst
its clientele so I swan dived down from the top of the stairs and promptly
clotheslined an unsuspecting Geordie lass at the bottom. Which went down like a lead balloon. In my mind it was like that scene from Dirty Dancing, the Time of Your Life
bit? Except with the genders reversed and a whole lot less successful. I think
the girl was actually spitting at me at one point. I peered myopically up at
some friends of mine who were trying to pretend they didn’t know me. Briliant. I
lay there for a while, pretending to be dead because that’s what they do in
times of trouble in Jurassic Park, before
deciding I’d better help this poor girl. Instead of responding kindly to my
gallant apology and the promise to buy her enough Ice VKs to sink the Navy she
tried to claw my eyes out, so I bee lined for the bar (defs what I needed at
that point).
By the time I next regained my composure two of my friends
were getting together and looked like a pair of eels mating, three were re-enacting
Step Up 19: The Drunken Dancers on the floor and everyone else had shot
off. Hazily, I’d remembered that I’d promised one
of my best mates that we’d see how many Chicken McNuggets we could get for £60
so I thought I’d meet him there and we’d go for it. But TO MY HORROR I saw fox girl leaving with
another male. This could not be permitted. Never mind that she had very little
idea who I was! Ignore the fact that the guy in question was a very nice man
and the fact that she was perfectly entitled to go home with whoever she wanted
was IRRELEVANT! I needed someone to spoon goddamit! SO, I must act in a totally
cool, calm and collected way to make sure she was aware of EXACTLY what she was
missing out on..
Now I am not known for being cool, calm and collected. If I had
to describe myself in three words I like to go for ‘mad, bad and dangerous’… I
think perhaps more aptly this could be changed to ‘short, thick and a bit of a…’well
you get the idea. Adhering to this
mantra I hurtled out the bar ran up to them and then tried to blank them. Just
fyi, for those tempted to copy these actions, it’s nigh on impossible to run up
to someone and blank them. Usually running up to someone conveys some intent.
Like running up and shouting ‘fire’ or so on.
So they were a little confused and politely enquired if I was ok.
The small man inside my head who was still sober and who had
been clinging on whilst the much larger part of my psyche thundered around was
screaming at me to act cool. “BE SENSIBLE” it was shouting, “CHICKS DIG
CONFIDENCE AND ALOOFNESS”
Wisely ignoring the voice of reason, I promptly threw a
temper tantrum. I was a mixture twixt Dudley Dursley and Verucca Salt, or for
those not in the literary know, a complete arse.
The man inside my head shrugged and quickly hung himself to
absolve any blame. I jumped into the taxi with these two people and then tried
to blank them again. IN A TAXI? HOW THE FRUITING HELL CAN YOU BLANK SOMEONE IN
A TAXI!?!? YOU’RE SITTING THREE ABREAST!? It would be like trying to blank
someone in a ski gondola. IMPOSSIBLE.
I then needed to change things up and so alternated between
blanking them and ranting at them. These poor people didn’t know where to look,
or what to say. The taxi driver was loving it, or possibly just driving us via
Glasgow to up his fare. Eventually we arrived back to my residence and the
couple were looking forward to ejecting me with or without a contribution to
the fare, but such was my vitriol that, eventually, the poor girl gave up and
agreed to come inside just to shut me up.
The guy was left with a burning sense of injustice, a
vibrantly excited taxi driver whose charge was now in double figures, and no
kebab. He had a raw deal there and would now plotting revenge had I not sent
him a begging email with the promise of financial and emotional recompense.
No sooner had I stopped throwing all my toys out the pram
when two more of my friends arrived back in a wild sense of excitement before
they realised I was re arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic when It came to
sharking. After the worst night’s sleep since that time I drank 12 cups of tea
in a day, we were ejected out the hotel and on the road home.
Still.... It could have been worse. i could have ended up like this champion
SAME TIME NEXT YEAR!!!
Any advice on how to behave in public or score with women would be appreciated...
