Voy en España Just a quickie before I set off to Spain to give the end of term lowdown. What an end of term it was, with a mammouth, party-crazed, non-stop, I NEED SOME SLEEP NOW PLEASE, well, party-fest. I guess it kicked off on the Thursday with a last-minute invite to a, no, the Peterhouse house party with a Parisien theme. On went the stripey top and dodgy scarf, out came the gunk and the comb for some sleazy suave, slicked back hair, and out into the freezing cold of the Cambridge streets we strode, not without the obligatory pause at King's bar to be social of course.

On arrival at the party, one could sense immediately this was going to be spectacular: the Parisien theme really had taken a hold of the house, with the obliging inhabitants' rooms decked out with individual naunces. Edith Piaf here, red light district there. And what a diverse crowd of Cantabrigians: every character you could possibly think of was there. And bumping into friends from other universities too was a little unexpected.

Anyway, this all ended at somewhere around three to four of the ante meridian hours, with bed still not reached til gone five. I set my alarm to get up in time for a meeting the next, well, that morning— at 10am. Ouch.

This meeting was met and executed, even with such little slumber having been achieved, which I thought was rather good considering it the end of term along with its associated fatigue. Lunch with Mareike soon followed, a rather scrumptious (you'll see why this adjective was chosen oh-so-very shortly) Norman-esque pork dish, with apples and cider. It turned out to be quite strong cider (8.2%), but very nice, so I polished off the remains of the bottle and headed back to my room to pack. Being slightly drunk, the packing was not highly efficient, somewhere around the level of Drax power station after it's just been fired up (engineer geekery getting in there).

The drunkeness didn't wear off in the hour between lunch and late-afternoon drinks-and-nibbles with my Director of Studies and his lovely wife (also a supervisor), despite drinking about three pints of water, so I did my best to mask the brewery smell, and went along a little tipsy to the gathering. And that was a royal laugh too— my DoS thoughtfully realised that two crates of wine between about a dozen of us engineers would be a good idea. With some not drinking, this turned out to be a little over a bottle each. Thank goodness for the nibbles present, but by now, the hefty booze intake and the saturation of my arteries with the fat content of an entire bag of Horseradish and Sour Cream Kettle Chips was beginning to worry me slightly. I don't think I imagined Mrs DoS embracing and kissing us all, it's too odd an idea to be a figment of my imagination I'm sure.

So, yes, squiffy and back in my room, I have two hours to prepare a costume for the King's end of term event, Mary Had A Little Mingle. The Pied Piper seemed a sensible option: fashion a feather for my hat out of some bright pink tissue-paper, wear a belt halfway up my waist, and my overcoat as a cape. Oh, and, of course, the pipe itself— a creation of rolled-up paper and a felt-tip pen.

To the Mingle I went, and mingle I did. A wonderful evening, and even the hardcore drum'n'bass room wasn't bad either. It all sounded the same most of the night (is it ever supposed to have variation?), but doing some spaz dancing to it felt gooood. (Can I use that term, 'spaz dancing'? It sounds good. It's staying.) Shame there weren't no broken beats to be found, though.

Post-mingle, a Gardies portion of chips later, and stumbling through the backstreets of Cambridge camera in hand, being pretentious taking "arty" night photographs (I will upload some of the evidence here next week), the real world is a far distant place. My liver's beginning to groan audibly by this point, and I realise that Cripps is the best place for me to be, preferably asleep. I make it back somewhere approaching 4am, again setting the alarm clock for a 10am meeting: the parents' arrival to scoop their son off home.

A mentalist 48 hours. Gotta love it. And now we've skipped the rest of Saturday to arrive at the first hour of Sunday, with a plane to catch some hours later. Setting the alarm for 6am, I bid you all farewell for another week. Stay tuned kids.

EDIT: Mingle pictures here Posted: 19-03-06 00:40 :: Permalink: http://ben.corale.co.uk/archive/v1/222.html

Comments Use the form at the bottom to post your comments. Here is the feedback:

Richard writes Is it just me, or did everyone else automaticaly edit the l out of 'mingle'?
I was thinking 'that's rather vulgar for Ben!' Commented: 19-03-06 13:48

Wolfie writes I don't read the words as I don't understand them. I just like to see the pictures. Of which there were none. Which was not a little disappointing. Commented: 19-03-06 16:29

mareike writes When i got the "mary had a litle mingle" flyer in my pigeon hole I also edited out the "l". I was distraught until I realised I hadn't read it properly. Commented: 21-03-06 10:26

The blog author writes Tsk tsk. You're all so dirty minded. I go away for a week, and the most interesting emai I receive in the 112 new messages is about dirty mindedness. I weep.

Not really, of course, but 112? Jeeesus.

What? No. Yes.

Maybe. Commented: 26-03-06 22:26

Richard writes Serve you right for typing words that sound like minge on the internet. Commented: 27-03-06 00:17

Wolfie writes 112?

You're just showing off how popular you are. No-one is impressed by this. A little envious, perhaps, but not impressed. Commented: 27-03-06 01:20

Wolfie writes And there are still no pictures. Don't make me use my imagination. None of us wants that. Commented: 27-03-06 01:20

The blog author writes Actually, the 112 did turn out to be mostly spam, and the rest mostly email conversations between other people I'd been CCed on.

And the pictures will go up soon! I have important things to be doing though. Exam term is almost here :S Commented: 27-03-06 10:22

andy VIKING fordham writes considering mary was a small girl i rather suspect she did have a little minge, so it goes without saying doesnt it? Commented: 28-03-06 08:32

Richard writes Not necessarily. Some girls, no matter of their size, have vaginas like the insides of watermelons. Commented: 31-03-06 00:21