#oneaday Day 232: Memories of Me: Lost love

Since I deliberately cut myself off early yesterday for fear of going on for ten thousand words, I thought I'd pick up where we left off.

I previously introduced you to my Halls of Residence, Hartley Grove, and my erstwhile flatmates: the perpetually absent Chloe, my neighbour-for-a-brief-period Beki, my longer-term neighbour Katie, psychology student Steph, Geography-student-who-didn't-really-care-about-Geography Sam, and scientist Chris. We talked a bit about how we'd often go down to Chamberlain Bar and remain encased in our own little bubble, too afraid to approach anyone that we hadn't been thrown together with — and absolutely, definitely not someone as intimidating as Breast Girl.

For those who have never been to university, your first week as a student is typically set aside for "Freshers' Week", which is an opportunity to get to know the campus and perhaps choose a club or two to join. We had a busy week; off the top of my head, we tried Karate-do Shotokai, ninjutsu and rifle shooting, and several of us decided to join the former for the longer term. (The rifle shooting was terrifying, but I enjoyed it. The ninjutsu trial session primarily consisted of people doing forward rolls for about an hour non-stop, which I found inexplicably amusing.)

Throughout Freshers' Week, it is sort of expected that you will spend a significant portion of your time inebriated and getting laid. I did one of those things. I had never been particularly into the idea of a one-night stand, so it is not something I did — not that I really had the confidence to pursue that sort of encounter, anyway, and as it happened, at the time I was already Quite Into someone specific who I've previously mentioned, but I will refrain from mentioning by name in this context to spare their (and my) blushes. I shall, instead, refer to them as Special Someone.

Being a socially awkward autistic person (albeit not being aware of the "autistic" bit at this point in my life) I was, of course, having great difficulty in actually declaring my feelings to this Special Someone in question, but I resolved to myself that I would tell her how I felt and ask her to the "Freshers' Ball" on the last day of Freshers' Week. Although described as a "ball", it was actually just another pissup where people tended to dress slightly nicer than the other pissups throughout the week, but it was still considered to be something of a special occasion, so I figured confessing in time for that would have some sort of special symbolism.

However, my plan did not go according to… err, plan. Special Someone ended up getting together with someone else, hereafter referred to as Other Bloke, and thus I recall embarrassingly vividly spending a fair bit of time sitting in the big window of our flat's kitchen, all dressed up nice, with the lights off, doing what can only be described as "brooding". Ostensibly I was being alone with my thoughts to process what had just happened and attempt to pick myself up a bit, but I was also secretly hoping that someone would come in and I could unload all my emotional baggage on them.

Someone did — Steph, as I recall — and I explained the situation. It transpired that everyone thought I was already together with Special Someone, as we had been spending a lot of time together, but no, it was not the case; now she was with Other Bloke, someone we knew from the flat downstairs from us, who had sort of "attached" himself to our group because he was one of the people who had ended up lumbered with a flat full of foreign students he didn't really know how to talk to. (Other Bloke ended up becoming a good friend and remains as such to this day, so again, I will refrain from naming him explicitly here, but he probably knows who he is, and anyone reading this who was There At The Time also knows who it is.)

Steph encouraged me to just sort of suck it up, these things happen, and I should probably just go and get pissed and shag a rando. She said it in a more empathetic, understanding way than that, but I got the idea. I agreed that I shouldn't let something I sort of did to myself stand in the way of enjoying what was, one week into our official time as students, the biggest social event in our calendar. So I tidied myself up a bit, downed a shot or two of vodka and set out for the Student Union. I don't remember anything else that happened that night, so it must have been all right. (I did not, to my knowledge, shag a rando.)

Within a day or two, news of my lost love had spread around the flat, and I was surprised to discover everyone rallying to my cause. Not to such a degree that they were going to split up Special Someone and Other Bloke, of course, because we were all much too nice people for that, but they helped me keep my mind off things, and we had a lot of fun expressing my frustration in a not exactly malicious way, but which was somewhat at the expense of the person everyone had decided had done me a great injustice.

Usually this involved us getting pretty drunk in the kitchen, then doing something that involved the window to his flat's kitchen, which was directly below us. The most memorable of these was when we attempted to write "DIE" in tomato ketchup on the window, discovering shortly afterwards that ketchup is not an ideal medium through which to express half-hearted death threats, particularly vertically and while battling against gravity. The attempt to pour jelly onto the gentle slope of the open window beneath us was, likewise, unsuccessful, but it did make an absolutely magnificent noise when it hit the pavement below; we were on the third floor, and that gives jelly a good amount of time to pick up speed and explode with an incredibly satisfying "splatter" noise when it impacts an immovable surface.

Time heals all wounds, as they say, and, as I have hopefully implied already, all of the above passed me by surprisingly quickly. I remained friends with both Special Someone and Other Bloke, and they remained in a relationship for a good few years after university, so there was clearly something good there for quite some time. They're no longer together and each have their own lives with their own special people now — as do I — so all's well that ends well, I guess.

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#oneaday Day 231: Memories of Me: First Days at University

A while back, I talked about how when I think back on what the happiest times of my life might have been, I am inexorably drawn to two specific and closely related periods: my time at sixth form, and my time at university. Having previously talked about the former, I'd like to talk a bit about the latter today.

As always, I have almost certainly written about this before, but I don't care. Let's face it, you're almost certainly not going back through the archives to read nearly three thousand posts just to see if I've previously said these things before, and I wouldn't expect you to. So just, y'know, indulge me, even if any of this sounds familiar.

As my time in sixth form came to a close, I was excited but also terrified to go to university. I was going to a university far away from everyone I had ever known, and I didn't know how or if I was going to be able to cope with that. My mind filled with all manner of irrational anxieties, often emphasising things that I really didn't need to think about — like if I should take the opportunity to rebrand myself with a cool nickname when introducing myself to people — but as the big day ticked ever closer, I started to feel a little more at ease about things.

I spent my first year at university, as do many people, in a Halls of Residence. For those who have never been to university, this is basically like an old people's home, but for students. You have your own room plus some communal areas; the exact facilities and how much you are "waited on" (if at all) varies quite a bit from halls to halls, even within the same university. The halls I was going into, known as Hartley Grove, were self-catered, because both my parents and I agreed that it would probably be a good idea to learn how to be self-sufficient in a reasonably safe environment, and they were a new build, meaning (I think) our year was the first to stay in them.

And they were nice! Our rooms were a decent size, and they were en-suite, meaning we each had our own shower and toilet, which was nice. There was enough room for what little stuff I had to my name at that point in my life, a nice desk with space for my computer and hi-fi, room to put a small television to play games consoles on and a relatively cavernous wardrobe to store clothes in. It didn't take long for my room to feel like "home".

I started university in a slightly strange way compared to some of my peers in that I went there a week early to attend a "pre-term" orchestral course with the university symphony orchestra. Over the course of a week, we learned how to play movements from two symphonies — the first movement of Beethoven's 7th and the last movement of Shostakovich's 5th, as I recall — with the intention of performing them both for an audience of our tearful parents at the end of said week.

Because this course was prior to the regular term starting, those of us in halls (which was most of us) weren't able to immediately move all our stuff in to our new homes for the next year, so we had to travel light and take up residence in what was probably the grottiest halls in all of Southampton: a crusty old tower block known as Stoneham which, although shit, we all came to regard with some fondness by the end of the week. (It has since been knocked down; I'm not entirely sure when, but I was a bit sad to learn it's no longer there.)

Basically what we'd do was spend the day in Stoneham's large dining hall area rehearsing, then clear out, have dinner and then be free to do whatever in the evening. Sometimes we'd hang out, sometimes we'd investigate the local nightlife that was easily accessible within walking distance (not much) or a bus ride away — though of course, very few of us knew Southampton well enough at this point to know where was worth going, and where would get you stabbed.

Initially, I found my worst fears coming true as I wasn't sure how to approach new people and make friends with them. But, to my credit, one of my proudest moments as a human being came when I finally plucked up the courage to talk to someone in the lift that was taking us up to our rooms. Her name was Cat, and she was kind enough to give me the time of day. I don't know if she recognised I was struggling, but she became a close friend surprisingly quickly, and I was extremely glad that I at least had someone I could "rely on" during that initial week.

Through Cat, I met several other people — she was a lot more affable than me, but most folks were happy to include me in conversations if I sort of tagged along — and they all became good friends, too. It helped that most of us were going to go on to study music at Southampton for the next three years — though I was doing a split English and Music degree — so we had something in common. But it was still interesting to note how different we all were from one another.

The pre-term course came and went; our performance of both symphony movements went really well, and I ended up having a great time. By the time the course was over, we were able to move into our "forever homes" (for the next year, anyway) — it was still a few days earlier than most, but it gave us a chance to get properly settled, and to minimise the number of trips our parents had to make with cars full of crap.

My flat in Hartley Grove had six rooms. I was the first to arrive by several days, as expected, so by the time my flatmates started arriving, I was already quite comfortable and settled — to such a degree that when one particular flatmate named Chloe came in for the first time, she was greeted by me cooking a bacon sandwich in my dressing gown. She confided to me later that she thought I was a mature student and not, in fact, an idiotic 18 year old whose entire cooking repertoire consisted of bacon sandwiches and toast.

My flat eventually filled to capacity. I was in room number A333. To one side of me at the end of the corridor was the aforementioned Chloe; my other neighbour was the frankly gorgeous Beki, who sadly dropped out partway through her first year. Our mutual friend Katie replaced her in short order; previously, she had lived in another flat with foreign students that weren't particularly sociable, so she was glad to be among friends at last.

Further down the corridor on my side was Chris, a science student who we initially assumed to be one of the most stereotypical science nerds imaginable, but who came to be a close friend and confidant to all of us. On the opposite side was Sam, who had, for some reason, been the subject of a newspaper article about him "not studying Geography due to any burning love for the subject", and who became one of my best friends during my time at university and beyond, and Steph, a psychology student who, again, formed an important part of our overall "group".

The majority of the time, it was me, Chris, Sam and Steph in the flat. Beki left after not very long, as previously noted, and Chloe was an absolute socialite, to such a degree that she barely slept in her own room and often brought strange and interesting men back to our flat. Our collective favourite of these was probably "Raf", a charming and pretty chilled out gent who, it occurs to me now, I really don't know anything else about.

We enjoyed socialising as a flat, particularly if said socialisation involved going to Chamberlain Bar, our nearest drinking establishment. Hartley Grove didn't have its own bar, but Chamberlain was attached to one of the other nearby halls, so it was open for all of us to make use of, and we did. Several of us even spent a few nights working there; we didn't get paid in anything other than beer tokens, but it was a good experience.

Chamberlain Bar was pretty shit, but it was ours. All of us from the flat had a certain degree of awkwardness to us, so we didn't really interact with people from outside our group much, and took to referring to other people by nicknames based on their most prominent characteristics. The one that sticks in my mind was a young lady known only to us as Breast Girl; a conventionally attractive and moderately well-endowed first year who seemed to hang out at Chamberlain Bar almost as much as us. We never exchanged a single word, though I believe Steph, at one point, learned what her actual name was.

Chamberlain Bar occasionally held special events. Two of these stick in my mind: firstly, a '70s night, where we all went around the local charity shops and party stores to find the most hideous clothing and wigs we could; and secondly, a "Hawaiian" night, where all they did was turn the heating up full, and where our flat were the only people who came in fancy dress.

Chamberlain Bar's specialism was shit cocktails. The two we spent the most time drinking were the Juicy Lucy (pint glass containing a shot of vodka, a shot of blue curacao, a double shot of Taboo, then topped up with equal parts lemonade and orange juice) and the Passion Wagon (a shot of Passoa topped up with a bottle of Reef, possibly the laziest cocktail ever invented). I don't know exactly where Juicy Lucy originated, but we got the impression it was a "Southampton" thing; notoriously shit but popular watering hole Clowns and its companion nightclub Jesters would serve them by the 4-pint jug for less than a tenner, making them a great way to get absolutely off your fucking face for not very much money.

So yeah. You can hopefully see how all this was a good time. I will hold that there for now, since I've rambled on for nearly 2,000 words and I haven't even started talking about my actual time at university yet, let alone some of the funnier happenings that transpired during just that first year.

I really miss those magical first few weeks, though, and would give anything to feel that way again. But with each passing day, they feel further and further away to an exponential degree. At least I'll always have the good memories of them.

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#oneaday Day 190: My most confusing relationship

I think sufficient years have probably elapsed since this was a thing that I can probably talk about it without repercussions. If, on the off-chance, the subject of today's post happens to read this… uh, sorry? But you really confused me foe a while, and I think I want to talk about that.

I am, to put it politely, not someone who has had a lot of luck with women over the years. It's probably more accurate to say that I was not someone who had a lot of luck with women over the years, given that I am happily married, but hopefully you get what I mean. There were not many notches on my bedpost before I settled down.

Probably my most confusing relationship began during my first year at university. I had joined the university Theatre Group, and, while I felt quite awkward around a lot of its members still, I had enjoyed being part of a production of "The Scottish Play", and my involvement with the group only grew after that first year.

It was around Christmas time in my first year at university. The Theatre Group had hosted a nice meal down at a restaurant on the Southampton waterfront that doesn't exist any more, and somehow — I genuinely cannot remember how — I had become engaged in conversation with a young woman I hadn't encountered prior to thar evening. I shall spare her real name for the sake of privacy, so let's call her X.

As I say, I don't remember the exact circumstances of how we got talking, but I do remember that the evening concluded with me walking her back to her halls of residence, having a good snog and exchanging phone numbers. It was nice. Although in the intervening years, I have attempted to recall where her halls of residence were — they weren't one of the more "well known" ones in Southampton — and am not entirely sure they exist any more, or indeed if they ever did.

Regardless, I thought that was a pretty swell way to end an evening, and as such we made arrangements to see one another again. With Christmas coming up, I also bought her a small gift — in retrospect, probably too much too soon — which took the form of a small cuddly gorilla because, I believe, she had at some point indicated that such things were cute.

Not long after providing said gift, I was unceremoniously dumped via text, and I thought that was that. Except it wasn't. What it actually was I don't really know, aside from the fact that it really was jolly confusing for… probably three or four years in total.

We took a trip to London together and went to see an art film called Intimacy which had a lot of naked cocks in it, and we held hands throughout the film. She came to the house I was renting on several occasions, and we shared a fair few moments of intimacy, though something always felt a little awkward and off a out them — probably my fault for feeling disbelief that anyone would ever want to do such things with me. And we texted a lot.

I don't remember much of what we talked about, but we did text one another a lot. Initially, because I was quite confused about the nature of our relationship and not quite sure if I should push things, I wasn't quite sure how to act. But over time, I came to feel like I was enjoying these messages — if secretly dreading any time someone would ask "who've you been texting all evening?" and not really having a coherent answer.

There have been times over the years where I wonder what might have been there. There have been times where I have wondered if I missed a great opportunity. And there have been times when I think back on that whole situation and still have absolutely no idea what to make of it all.

So here's to you, X. Our time together may have confused the fuck out of me — and indirectly taught me that communicating clearly is probably the best basis for a solid relationship, even if it can be difficult at times — but I certainly think back on it fondly.

As the fat disgusting mess I am today, I think I'd probably be ashamed to show you what became of me, but 20 years ago? You certainly made life interesting for quite some time, to be sure.

2492: Fresh Meat

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Fresh Meat is a show by Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, of Peep Show fame. Across four seasons, it concerns the lives of a houseful of university students from their initial arrival at university through to the end of their final exams.

I remember watching the first few episodes of the first season and really enjoying it, but for one reason or another I never finished watching that season. More recently, however, I've been watching the complete run on Netflix and enjoying it a great deal; much like one's university life, it evolves and changes over the course of the three years/four seasons, but it manages to maintain enough coherence throughout to feel like a convincing serialised story rather than simply an episodic comedy-drama, which it could have easily turned into.

Part of the reason for its feeling of coherence is the fact that it managed to keep its core cast together for the entire run, and said cast is an excellent lineup. All of them are flawed to one degree or another, but none of them are so far beyond redemption as to become dislikeable. On the contrary, the show frequently demonstrates that behind prominent displays of bravado, there is often someone crying for help or struggling to express themselves.

One of the first characters we see in Fresh Meat is Greg McHugh's portrayal of Howard. His first appearance is wearing only a jumper, no trousers or underpants, and drying some dead poultry on a washing line across the kitchen using a hairdryer. It would have been easy for the show to keep Howard as a deranged character, only coming out for comedy relief or gross-out factor, but even within the first episode, we quickly see that he's been designed with a lot more thought behind him. Across the entire run, Howard actually becomes a character that it is easy to sympathise and empathise with, since in many regards he's the character who makes the biggest strides outside his comfort zone — particularly with regard to social situations and taking perceived "risks" like asking a girl he likes out — and who manages to pick himself up repeatedly after numerous setbacks.

Zawe Ashton's portrayal of Vod is also noteworthy, as Vod initially comes across as an arrogant, dislikeable young woman with an attitude problem. Her abrasive edge doesn't dull throughout the entire run of the series, keeping her as a formidable person that most people would probably find tough to get close to, but piece by piece, we start to understand the difficulties she's endured through her life and why she has ended up as the person she is. Most people probably won't end up liking Vod as such, but we certainly understand her pretty well and can sympathise with her by the series' end.

Kimberley Nixon's Josie subverts the "sensible girl" trope often found in series of this nature. While initially appearing to be the cast member who has it together the most among the group, Josie's character goes into a downward spiral early in the series, succumbing to a combination of alcoholism, stress and depression that sees her getting kicked off her dentistry course for drunkenly putting a drill through a woman's cheek, moving to Southampton, moving back to Manchester in the hope of a relationship with fellow cast member Kingsley, and from there seemingly repeatedly sabotaging her own potential for happiness. Outwardly, Josie is one of the most cheerful, optimistic-seeming characters, but as the show progresses, she becomes one of the most tragic figures in it.

Joe Thomas' depiction of Kingsley initially appears almost identical to his portrayal of Simon in The Inbetweeners — mostly due to his trademark rather sardonic delivery — but over time Kingsley becomes a distinctive character in his own right. Whereas Simon was fairly aloof and detached from the idiocy of the rest of the group in The Inbetweeners, Kingsley becomes a character who consistently tries too hard and often finds himself coming a cropper as a result. His relationship with Josie is initially set up to be the "Ross and Rachel" of the show through its on-again, off-again nature, but in the latter seasons in particular it becomes clear that the two are simply not right for one another. Kingsley repeatedly puts across the impression that he desperately wants to "grow up" but isn't entirely sure how, with his attempts ranging from developing an interest in composing his own rather emo music to growing an ill-advised and rather pathetic soul patch. His desires are perhaps most explicitly demonstrated in the final season, when he gets together with an older woman and is initially ecstatic about the prospect, even when it becomes abundantly clear that she is not going to treat him well.

Charlotte Richie's portrayal of Oregon is one of the strongest performances in the show, ironically because of how understated a lot of her delivery is. Oregon, or Melissa as she's really called, desperately wants to appear cool and it's immediately apparent from the outset that she's attempted to "reinvent" herself for university life after a privileged upbringing. She has a habit of getting drawn into positions that initially seem like a good idea at the time, but which quickly turn sour. In the first season, this is exemplified through her relationship with her English tutor Professor Shales; in the final season, we see her mount a successful campaign to become Student Union president only to be lumbered with massive debt, impending legal action and the realisation that she's little more than a "ribbon cutter" for the people who actually have power. To her credit, Oregon always tries to fight her way out of these situations and is often successful in doing so; while the adversity she encounters throughout the series is usually of her own creation — perhaps deliberately so, given the life of privilege she grew up with — she doesn't ever buckle under the pressure, and usually comes out stronger and having learned something from her experiences. Of all the characters, she's probably the least overtly "tragic" in one way or another; in many ways, she becomes the most admirable after initially being one of the biggest fakers there is.

Finally, Jack Whitehall's depiction of J.P. largely consists of Jack Whitehall playing an exaggerated version of himself, but it really works, at least partly because J.P. is written as more than a one-dimensional "posho" laughing stock of a character. Over the course of the four seasons, we come to understand J.P. as a deeply confused, conflicted young man who doesn't understand how the world works — like Oregon, he grew up with a life of privilege, but unlike her, he initially makes no attempt to reinvent himself, instead preferring to try and solve his problems by throwing money at them. In an early episode, he learns the folly of this approach when he gets taken advantage of to a ridiculous degree by his former schoolmates, and from here his growth as a character begins. Each time he proclaims that he wants to have "a large one" or that he is desperate to be regarded as "a legend", it rings a little less true; inside, he's a man who sees his future looming ahead, but he can't see what lies beyond the veil at the end of his university life. That's a scary feeling, and not just limited to university students; J.P.'s struggle to understand how life as a whole works is something that a lot of us can relate to.

All in all, Fresh Meat is an excellent (if occasionally mildly unrealistic) look at student life in the early 21st century. It captures both the soaring highs — the excitement of meeting new people and striking up relationships that may last the rest of your life; the nights out that seem like the most enjoyable, fun times ever — and the crippling lows — mounting debt; loneliness; the uncertainty of your (and everyone else's) future — and in the process manages to depict a collection of flawed but interesting, likeable characters as they work through one of the most turbulent periods in their respective lives.

1148: On the Stage

I happened to be online earlier when a university friend of mine posted a Soundcloud clip of a comedy set he performed recently on Facebook. (That was a clumsy sentence. I apologise profusely. He posted the set on Facebook, he didn't perform it there.) I had a listen and found it immensely entertaining. Here it is:

At least, there it is if the embed code works correctly.

(EDIT: It did not. Here is a link to it instead.)

Anyway. Listening to Mr Millerick strutting his stuff and yell at British Gas on the stage got me thinking rather nostalgically about the reason I know him, and one of my favourite parts of university, which was my involvement with the university Theatre Group.

The Theatre Group was known at various junctures as Theatre Group, Blow Up and Rattlesnake! (with an exclamation mark) and I cannot for the life of me remember where the latter two names came from. I first joined it in my first year during that period of time when you feel like you should join some sort of club and meet people. I had enjoyed the two productions I'd been involved in at secondary school (The Wizard of Oz and Twelfth Night, if you're curious) and so I figured I'd try out for the university's luvvies society. One of my flatmates was also involved in the group, so I was glad to know there'd be at least one friendly face there.

The first production I was involved in was Macbeth. The Matrix hadn't long come out, so this marked the beginning of that phase when it was seemingly obligatory for everyone doing Shakespeare to do something Matrix-inspired, particularly if you were a student theatre group. By all accounts our production was pretty spectacular (and massively over budget) — it was a hugely enjoyable experience, though to be honest I didn't feel I got to know that many people that well at the time. The fun of being on stage was enough to make up for that, though.

Over my time at university, I was involved in several other productions, including a double-bill of French play L'Epreuve (A Test of Character) by Marivaux and Black Comedy by Peter Shaffer; Turgenev's tragic love story A Month in the Country (which we took to the Edinburgh Fringe to modest success); Alan Ayckbourn's Round and Round the Garden from The Norman Conquests (which we also took to the Edinburgh Fringe to more noticeable success — turns out punters are more interested in relatable, gentle comedy in proper theatres rather than tragic Russian love stories performed in botanical gardens several miles away from the main Festival area); and doubtless some others that have slipped my mind along the way. As time passed, I got to know a lot of the Theatre Group peeps well, and they became close friends.

One of my favourite things that the group did, though, was our Monday night improvisation sessions, where we all showed up, played some theatre games that we normally used for "warmups" in rehearsals for shows, then went out and got really drunk. Although these sessions weren't particularly structured, everyone got involved (even shy, retiring wallflowers like myself) and everyone was immensely supportive of each other's efforts. So successful were these events that they eventually spawned a semi-regular event in the Theatre Group's calendar — Count Rompula's Showcase. It had a more grand title which I've sadly forgotten, but Count Rompula was certainly involved in there somewhere.

Count Rompula brought us a variety of memorable performances, including one known as The Web of Dan. The Web of Dan started as a running joke among the group at Edinburgh, if I recall correctly, in which we figured it would be amusing if we did some sort of experimental theatre that was just Dan (obviously) trapped in a web and saying vaguely profound things. Count Rompula helped make this a reality, and it was glorious — though I do have to wonder what those people who showed up and had no idea what the big in-joke was thought.

Of all the aspects of university, Theatre Group is the thing I miss the most. One day I might actually succeed in getting these people back together for some sort of entertaining improvisation session (or, more likely, a drinking session) but in the meantime, I have very fond memories that I believe will stay with me for many years.

#oneaday Day 917: Select an Ability to Learn

I like learning stuff. It's a fun process to start from "nothing" and gradually equip yourself with Knowledge. I've done it a number of times over the years, though I will admit that I've not taken any of these things really far enough to, say, get a qualification. But I do have a working knowledge of HTML, CSS and several specific software applications that I didn't know before, all thanks to my ability to self-study.

The trouble with self-study, though, is that it requires time — time that you don't always have — or time that you might not have the inclination to spend "working" when there are nicer things you could be doing.

It's when I think about this sort of thing that I wonder what it would be like to go back to university. I'm pretty sure there are a lot of people I know who look back very fondly on their university days, but that — assuming they went at 18-19 — the actual "studying" part of things isn't the main reason for the rose-tinted spectacles. I know it's certainly not true in my case — while it was a lot of fun to, say, get up on stage in a nice concert hall and perform music, or sit in a small room and argue semantics with a group of fellow English students, the things I remember most fondly are the extracurricular and social activities I did. Theatre Group and their various productions. Trips to the Edinburgh Fringe. Drinking in Chamberlain Bar. That time my friend Plummer came down and we got wasted on the Union's £1 triple vodka and oranges then consumed roughly a pound of cheese between us at about three in the morning. That time a shopping trolley showed up in our flat so we mounted a huge clandestine operation to get rid of it without being identified.

Now I'm a little older, I can't help but think that going back and, you know, doing it "properly" might be fun. That said, the possibility of shenanigans is also appealing. Andie and I were discussing this the other day — university is one of the only times in your life when you have pretty much all of your friends together in one place, making it an absolute snap to arrange impromptu social events. Nowadays, I don't see my friends anywhere near as often as I like, and it's sad. But I digress.

Yes. Doing it "properly" might actually be fun. Picking a topic, studying it, doing assignments, getting graded, improving. Learning something. Coming away from the experience with both practical experience of applying subject knowledge and an actual qualification to prove you've done it. Sounds pretty good to me. If I had the opportunity, I'd study something practical that I know very little about — probably something computer-related, since I've always been IT literate and willing to tinker about, but my actual specific technical knowledge of things like, say, programming is rather limited.

Unfortunately, it's pretty unlikely to happen any time soon. Going to university is very expensive, and I don't see myself surviving on the relative pittance that is the student loan any more.

That said, I do have a work-from-home job with flexible hours and good pay.

Hmmm.

Hmmm.

No. No, I can't do that. Not just to satisfy some sort of whim or early-30s crisis or whatever it is that's going through my mind right now.

What I can do, though, is take some steps to learn something new on my own time. Self-study. Perhaps signing up for some sort of evening class. I'd like to do it, certainly, it's just a case of finding — or perhaps making — the time.

Now, what to learn…?

#oneaday Day 611: That Happened: "...Oil and Poo"

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.

#oneaday Day 105: Newbie

It's an incontrovertible and irritating fact that the more means you have to enjoy new and exciting things, the less time you'll have to do them in. As you get older, the days seem to get shorter—or at least fuller—and the weeks seem to fly by. Before you know it, you're dead.

Well, okay, that's an exaggeration. But it's certainly true once you, say, get out of university and start work. I remember the first couple of weeks at university. It was a whirlwind of new shit. Not literally, that would be disgusting. But a bunch of us decided that if there was ever a time to try out some new things, the first few weeks of university was it.

So we did. Shortly after arriving and introducing ourselves to each other (memorably, most of my flatmates' first experience of me was witnessing me cooking a bacon sandwich whilst wearing a lop-sided dressing gown, as I'd been there a few days prior to them) we decided that we'd go along to the various taster sessions that the university clubs offered. Most of them would likely be things we wouldn't want to continue with, we decided, but we might as well give them a go.

So it was that several of us found ourselves lying on the dirty floor of what was basically a big shed clutching large rifles and feeling extremely nervous about what the nice man had said about making sure you don't accidentally shoot it at the floor because it will probably kill you. But then we got into the whole "shooting holes in bits of paper" thing and it all became a lot more interesting. Sure, none of us went back after that, but the fact I can say I've fired an actual real rifle is pretty cool.

And so it was that we found ourselves attending a ninjutsu class, learning the best way to deal with a knife-clutching attacker who is attempting to bum you or just kill you from behind. (Stick your bum out to knock him back, grab his arm, twist it in a smooth but convoluted manner, whip the knife up his arm, shaving all his skin off and causing considerable pain, pull him down to the ground, bash his elbow on the floor to break it in a manner which is difficult to heal and finally kick him in the face. Possibly. I forget.) One of us went back and learned quite a lot about various ways to ninj other people to death. (What? "Ninj" is absolutely the verb to describe what ninjas do. They ninj people. You ninj. I ninj. They ninj. He/she/it ninjes. No? Shut up.) The rest of us didn't.

That didn't stop us trying out the other Ninjutsu club, where most of the session felt like Ninjas' Playtime, as the entire class did forward roll after forward roll back and forth up and down a padded room. It was fun, but unlikely to kill anyone.

And so it was we found ourselves trying out the fencing club and discovering that people who have been fencing for a long time not only are much better than complete beginners, but they're awfully smug about it. And epees somehow aren't quite as satisfying as big, proper, actual swords. But then they'd probably be a bit more fatal. Unless everyone got to wear armour, and then you'd kind of be going into Knight Club territory, rather than fencing.

We continued this pattern for a while. Some of us stuck with the Karate-do-Shotokai club for a while, others (including myself) drifted off. Now, as most of us are pushing 30, you have to wonder if we'll ever have the opportunity to get involved in such a diverse array of new things ever again.

Day 453

#oneaday, Day 31: Looking Back Through a Lens

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.

This was in the days before digital cameras were particularly widespread, of course, so these were actual photos on actual paper. I took a lot of photos, but there was still no way it'd be possible to take as many as you can with today's cameras. That meant that each captured memory had to be just so, and there was no going back to try again; you caught it, or you missed it. Simple as that.

Of course, nowadays, it's much easier to capture and keep a memory, assuming you don't do something ridiculous to your computer like take it into the bath with you. But that doesn't mean photos lose any of their impact, or the memories contained therein. I'll bet I can take a random selection of photos from my iPhoto library and be able to explain each and every one of them.

In fact, let's do just that. I'll give you ten, just so we're not here all night. Hold on, I'll be right back.

So without further ado, here we go.

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.

As for the mobile phone and the text on it: the mobile phone was mine at the time (Nokia REPRESENT), "sonicfunkstars" was the name of the fake band I made music under (using Sony's ACID Music software and approximately 24 CDs of samples, most of which I probably never used) and "txtr's thumb" was the name of my second album. Interestingly (not really), "sonicfunkstars" is still my Xbox LIVE ID, and it's one of the only places on the Internet where I'm not "angryjedi" or some variant thereof. The other is YouTube.

(Exclusive: I found the title track from said album. It used to irritate the fuck out of anyone with a Nokia phone. You'll see why.)

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.

Lying on the floor is Steph, who is reading a book—possibly Bridget Jones' Diary. In the background is her erstwhile boyfriend Brett, my most enduring memory of whom is when he burst in the front door of Steph's house, furious that "someone's drawn knobs all over my car". Someone had indeed drawn knobs in the snow that was all over his car, and Sam and I naturally knew absolutely nothing about it.

But that was not the occasion in this photo. No. This was simply a social gathering at Chris' house—Sam, Steph and I were all flatmates in the first year, so we often took the opportunity to hang out together. We'd "lost" a couple of flatmates along the way to other social groups, but we'd stuck together for a lot of the time.

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.)

Look closely and you'll see a selection of details; Pac-Man re-imagined to become Sonic the Hedgehog eating shit, some stickpeople having a threesome, some anagrams, a victim's eye view of the Ku Klux Klan looking down on someone they've just thrown down a well, an out-of-context stage direction from the play made to sound dirty just by the simple addition of "just the way I like it" and my excellent drawing of the entire cast of the show, except me, because while I was quite happy to draw all the others I didn't feel confident drawing myself. Also, BUTTOCKS.

There you go. Proof that I have an incredible memory for silly crap. And proof that even if you've forgotten me, I probably haven't forgotten you.

#oneaday, Day 281: Call Me "Beast Man"

Nicknames are curious things, and there are relatively few opportunities in one's life to either acquire them or get rid of them. Many of them are set in place at school and then promptly lost. Those who move away and go to university then have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to introduce themselves as "I'm Pete, but you can call me 'Bulldog'" or something similar. The only other times you get to do this are when you start a new job, or move to a new area. And even then, coming up with a nickname for yourself always seems somewhat… well, douchey.

The best nicknames emerge organically; they just happen. And then, good or bad, you're stuck with it amongst one group of people for a very long time.

I have three nicknames. One of these ("Angry Jedi") was self-chosen—well, technically, it was a joint effort between me and the buddy I was teacher training with at the time. We were called "Angry Jedi" collectively, as our preferred method of stress relief after a tough day at the chalkface was to compose bizarre sample-based music, and of course we needed a name under which to "release" these tracks. We fell out of touch, and I've been using "Angry Jedi" or variants around the Internet ever since. Except on Xbox LIVE, where some asshole got there first.

"Angry Jedi" was actually the latest nickname I acquired, however. I have two earlier ones which still get rolled out occasionally when I'm with a specific group of people.

The first of these—"Helmu"—came about when I went to the Edinburgh Festival with the Southampton University Theatre Group in 2000. We were taking Turgenev's tragic love story "A Month In The Country" up to the Festival Fringe and performing it in the open air in Edinburgh's botanical gardens. The play went well but was something of a commercial flop—well, you try convincing people that sitting outside in the cold Scottish weather to watch a "tragic Russian love story" is what they want to do, when there's a lot of comedy on in the warm with bars nearby—but the nickname "Helmu" was nothing to do with the play itself. No, instead it was to do with one of our evening's activities. Someone had had the foresight to bring a PlayStation with them (the original PSX, oh yes indeed) including a copy of Track & Field. I elected to play as Germany, and as everybody knows, the most amusing name in the Deutsche Grosse Kindernamebuch is Helmut. So I chose to call my character "Helmut". Unfortunately there weren't enough letters, so my player was known as "Helmu". This name then stuck for the next ten years.

The second name was also the work of the Southampton University Theatre Group. "Beast Man". Yes, I have the dubious honour of being occasionally referred to as a character from He-Man. The reason for my being dubbed "Beast Man" was due to my role co-directing a production of Twelfth Night for the group. At least, I was originally co-directing it with my friend Krissie. However, one day I got an email from Krissie saying that she was off snowboarding and would I mind awfully directing the whole play?

I had never directed a play before. The experience caused a not-inconsiderable amount of stress, which manifested itself as forgetting to shave and occasionally bleeding copiously from the nose. Both of these things were seen as somewhat Beastly, as my unshaven visage bore something of a resemblance to this gentleman here, albeit somewhat less ginger.

This nickname also stuck for the next ten years. Although I can't say it isn't strangely satisfying to be greeted by ex-members of the Theatre Group as "Ah! Beast!"

So how about you lot? Some of you out there have usernames that obviously mean something to you. C'mon, share some stories. OH GO ON. I'll give you cake*.

Tag: university