When struggling for things to talk about, or indeed write about, any creative shortcoming can usually be quickly rectified by a nostalgic trip into something which happened in the near (or distant) past. Some people base their entire blogs on this, and, of course, the lucrative autobiography industry uses this approach as a fundamental basis for a bajillion books all called "Celebrity Name: My Story".
So I thought I'd start an occasional series based on bizarre incidents which have occurred throughout the course of my life that probably aren't that bizarre in reality, but certainly amuse me if no-one else. These will not be presented in anything even remotely approaching chronological order — they will simply turn up as I think of them and when I feel like it. Much like the inspiration for the vast majority of other entries in this increasingly-lengthy blog, in fact (for which I salute you if you've been reading since the beginning).
Preamble over, I shall begin. Are you sitting comfortably? Here we go.
At university (the University of Southampton, UK, to be precise, if you're picky about that sort of detail) I was a member of the university theatre group, which underwent a number of name changes during my time with them. Initially it was the "Blow Up Theatre Group" (I, to this day, don't know why), then simply "Theatre Group" and later "Rattlesnake! Theatre Group" (the reasoning for which I now, sadly, can't remember).
The point of this story is not the name of the theatre group, however, but rather the shenanigans which I and the other participants got up to.
At one point late in my university career, I got together with a friend with whom I was a member of the group and we decided that we were going to put on a production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. As was fashionable at the time, we decided to set it in the 1920s era. (I say "fashionable" — my sole basis for this assumption is that my secondary school also set its production of Twelfth Night, in which I played the role of Malvolio, in the 1920s) We were all set to begin rehearsals when my friend and co-director decided that now would be a really good time to go on a lengthy skiing trip. (She came from a family with money and was somewhat prone to flights of fancy.)
I wasn't sure what was going on until I got a gushing, apologetic email from her announcing that she didn't feel she could be responsible for the show and decided to leave me in the sole role as director. I, of course, had never directed a show before and had not a fucking clue how to lead a ragtag group of wannabe actors into producing a show. Fortunately, the remainder of the crew rallied behind me and helped out, and I was enormously grateful for their assistance — even if the stress of carrying out the project gave me both a spectacularly tramp-like beard and more than a few nosebleeds, somehow and inexplicably earning me the nickname "Beast Man" in the process.
The show went well. It ended up being somewhat farcical in its execution, but this, in fact, worked in its favour and helped make the typically obtuse Shakespearean humour somewhat more digestible to a modern audience. We were all pretty pleased with how the whole thing turned out, but by far the most memorable thing about the whole fiasco was the aftershow party.
I can't even remember whose house the aftershow party was at, just that it was quite an event. Several key events from that evening stick in my mind, however, starting with a member of the cast sitting in a wicker chair that he thought looked rather comfortable and then discovering that it was not, in fact, as pleasing to sit on as it looked. Said chair was consequently dubbed "The Chair of Eternal Disappointment" and became a focal point for the evening, helped in part by the amount of drink and weed which was in circulation throughout the course of the celebrations.
At some point after midnight, a small splinter group of partygoers decided that it was time to leave our generous hosts' house behind and go and seek adventure elsewhere. Thus followed one of those journeys across town which meandered so much you ended up completely lost, but somewhere cool.
In our case, we found ourselves on the banks of the river Itchen (I think) on a makeshift beach covered in gravel and some unpleasantly dirty-looking seaweed. There, we indulged in what all good luvvies should do at approximately 4am in the morning — improvisatory theatre. We laughed and giggled until the sun started to peek its head over the horizon, at which point things took something of a turn for the bizarre.
One of our number, who already had a particularly loud, bellowing voice, was somewhat intoxicated through a cocktail of various chemical substances coursing through the pleasure centres of his brain, and thus became even louder than usual. As such, we were unsurprised when he proudly announced that he was going to go for a wee in the river. He took off his shoes and socks and paddled into the water, then happily stood in profile to us, got his (clearly visible) cock out and started to piss into the Itchen. (It's nothing worse than the filthy river was usually full of.)
Following this display, which he was not at all abashed about, he decided that now would be a really good time to see what the dirty seaweed on the beach tasted like. Stomachs in throat, we watched him pick up a piece of the filthy, slimy crap from the floor and gleefully stuff it into his mouth.
What followed was the kind of facial expression you get from anyone who puts something they find distasteful into their mouth but doesn't quite want to spit it out. He chewed on it for an alarmingly long period of time before letting the mangled remains of the goopy crap spill forth from his mouth.
"Ugh," he cried. "It tastes like oil and poo!"
Despite the hilarity that statement caused, the fact that one of our number was reduced to eating seaweed tipped the rest of us off to the fact that it was probably time to head homewards. Of course, we had no fucking idea where we were, so again followed a meandering course through the back streets of the city until we eventually found ourselves on familiar territory and, bizarrely, craving Jaffa Cakes.
Unfortunately, the era of 24 hour shopping had not made a big impact on Southampton by this point, and so we found ourselves stranded outside a closed and shuttered newsagents' store begging to whatever gods we did (or didn't) believe in for them to let us in for Jaffa Cakes.
Unsurprisingly, the gods in question did not yield and the shutters remained firmly closed. This, it seemed, was the final straw — it was time, once and for all, to go home. We all went our separate ways — walking, naturally, using that bizarre amount of stamina that total intoxication gives you — and found ourselves back in our own houses, safe and sound, ready for bed just as the rest of the world was waking up.
The following day was, naturally, a complete writeoff. But I'm almost certain that if I spoke to anyone else who was there that night, they'd remember the events as clearly as I do. It was, to paraphrase one Mr Stinson, legendary.
Spending a weekend in markedly different surroundings to the place where you spend most of the rest of your week is an eminently worthwhile experience, particularly if you spend most of your week chained to a desk — whether that's in a working-from-home sort of situation or the daily grind at an office. Over the last few weeks (and probably months) I've been fortunate enough to be able to spend some time away from the environment I spend the working week in, and it's a healthy, positive experience.
The above comic isn't actually that far from the truth. (I remembered the code from Another World but had to look up the Ultima Underworld II spell. I at least remembered that "ylem" was one of the runes, however.) All this leads me to the conclusion that our brains are clearly wired up all wrong, and we need some sort of GMail Labs-style multiple inbox feature in order to appropriately prioritise the things that enter our brain and the things that we can safely delete when there's something very important to remember, such as girlfriends' birthdays. (November 19. I sacrificed the cheat code for Sonic 2 to make way for this information.)
I love photos. In one of my many houses at university, I had a whole corridor whose walls were papered with photographs I'd taken throughout the course of the previous year. It may well have looked a bit serial killer-ish, but I liked it (until I took them all down shortly before moving out and discovered the wall behind was actually damp and mouldy—thanks a lot, scumbag landlord) and it provided a nice visual record of what had gone on.
Would you look at that? We went and got a nice one to begin with. This is the wedding day (obviously) of my friends Rob and Rachel. Instead of confetti, they had bubbles. It was awesome, and we all ate a lot of food and got quite drunk. Fact: Rob and Rachel were one of the first couples I knew who got together at university and are still going strong today. I salute you, you lovely pair.
Aha. There are actually two separate stories behind this one. The guy in white makeup is, I believe, a chap called James Gaynor, who was starring alongside me in a production of Marivaux's L'Epreuve, also known as A Test of Character. He was playing a character called Frontin, I was playing a character called Lucidor. Lucidor was in love with a girl called Angelique, who was played by a most lovely lady named Sarah, but there was a long and complicated plot involving Frontin pretending to court her on Lucidor's behalf and it all got a bit French.
Ah yes. I can tell you exactly what is going on here. This is during my second year at university. The location is my friend Chris' bedroom. Under the desk is Sam, who is drunk, and spent most of the night seeing what tiny spaces he could contort himself into.
One of whom was the rather magnificent Beki, seen pictured here with Sam, again. This photo was taken on our hall of residence bar's "70s Night", a night where only the six of us from Flat A33, Hartley Grove Halls, Southampton, made the effort to dress up. Sam is wearing a woman's shirt.
Whizz forward to last year, and we have a picture of a game of Scotland Yard in progress, one of the very few games I'm aware of that provide you with a hat as part of its components. Pictured is Tom. Not pictured is Sam. And me. Obviously.
This Post-It space invader adorned the front wall of Ruffian Games' studios in Dundee. Obviously a little light relief after getting Crackdown 2 out the door.
Back in time to the first year at university again, we see here the midst of Operation Shopping Trolley, our attempts to stealthily remove the shopping trolley that had inexplicably appeared in our flat overnight. "Inexplicably" as in for once it wasn't one of us who had brought it up. Notice the cunning ninja disguises Sam and I have adopted.
This is Dungeonquest, one of either the best or worst games ever created depending on your outlook. It's a game where you have an approximately 23% chance of survival (they tell you this in the instruction booklet), and is almost completely determined by blind luck. Combat is resolved almost literally by rock-paper-scissors… except here it's slash-mighty blow-leap aside. I was astonished to discover that they have actually remade this monstrosity. I was also quite tempted to pick up a copy, but that would be a very silly idea.
To this date, this is still the most literary piece of graffiti I've ever seen, found on the back of the cubicle door in the gents' toilets in The Hobbit pub, Southampton. The whole door was something to behold; there were full-on conversations and slagging matches going on between various wall-writers, an excerpt of which you can see here. Theatre Studies was repeatedly accused of gayness. A bit rich coming from people hanging out in gents' toilets.
And why don't we end with this one, then? This offensive masterpiece was produced by the cast of Southampton "Rattlesnake!" Theatre Group's production of Alan Ayckbourn's Round and Round The Garden whilst finishing off rehearsals prior to taking the show to the Edinburgh Fringe. We'd all gone a little bit stir crazy by then, and so we took to lite-vandalising the whiteboards in the lecture theatre where we'd been rehearsing. ("Lite" because you could just rub it off. But we did leave it there for the lecturer to discover in the morning.)
I'm of the firm belief that you should never apologise for something you've written, particularly during something like a #oneaday challenge, because it comes from the heart. It comes from within you, reflects what you're actually feeling or thinking about and is, basically, something that shows who you are and what you're thinking. That sort of makes sense.
Something that someone told me recently (yay for specifics) has stuck with me. That something was the phrase "you don't stop knowing someone when you're not with them any more". Those perhaps weren't the exact words, but the sentiment stands. And it's true, whatever the context of you not being with that person any more is. It doesn't have to be a romantic thing. It could simply be a friendship thing.
I love gadgets. Anyone who knows me in "real life" will not be surprised by this revelation. But I'm always impressed by quite how much we can do with various little portable implements these days. And even not quite so recently, too.
Music provides an emotional connection to memories. It can trigger memories, feelings and responses. Many people associate certain pieces of music with particular times in their lives. And, depending on your interests, these pieces of music can be from a variety of sources. They could be movie soundtracks. Pieces of music you've played yourself. The music that was playing when something awesome or terrible happened.
It's weird, the things you remember over time. Perhaps it's just me. But I've found over time that I have a fantastic memory for completely pointless crap and yet I can quite easily forget the things I need to buy from the shop in the space between stepping out of the house and reaching said shop.
