Memories can be a funny thing can't they, for example I remember the smallest details from a night out that I had over twenty years ago but ask me what I had for dinner yesterday and I hate to admit I struggle to remember. With everything that's gone in my life this year I've been on what I've dubbed my 'reconnection tour'. I've reconnected with so many people from my past, Emma, Rhi, Dave, Kev, Sott, Nayf, Ash, the list goes on and in the new year I've got more lined up. I'm a different person to what I was all those years ago, I've got older, I no longer feel the need to steal every bus stop poster that I come across, I don't feel the need to get drunk every day ending in a 'Y', I still quote movies and TV shows with alarming regularity and it's still a dream that I perform a swanton bomb onto Edge in front of a live WWE crowd, maybe I haven't grown up quite as much as I thought.....
...so here are three memories that have popped up in my head this week that occurred when I lived in halls at Bute Street, mainly thanks to the whatsapp chat between the old Hibbert Street Posse, the only excuse I can give to some of these is we were young and bored.....and drunk most of the time. I would also love to take this time to thank god that social media wasn't a thing back then, with some of the things we did I don't think any firm would ever employ any of us, and our families would possibly disown us or pretend that we never existed in the first place.
Memory number one - The Giant Pigeon. Now picture the scene, it's 3am on a cold midweek morning and your sat around passing the time away and all of a sudden you come up with an idea, what would happen if you were suddenly turned into a giant pigeon. That majestic bird with the beautiful cooing noise. No sooner had that idea been formed than Kev was running around outside pretending that he was said bird. Cooing to his hearts content as he ran up and down the overpass that ran alongside the halls of residence, flapping his wings and giving his all to channel his inner pigeon. It was at this time that Dave decided his was going to capture him and proceeded to run up and down after his prey. As you can imagine this made quite the noise and woke up the landlord of the local pub, the George, who told them to shut the fuck up immediately. This didn't work the first time and it was only when violence was threatened did Kev come back to his coop and settle down in his nest for the night. Rumour has it that Dave is still out there trying to capture him.
Memory number two - The Taliban water fighters. Now in this day and age this one isn't very PC of us. I don't think it was back then either if I'm being completely honest. Now living in halls with literally hundreds of bored students meant a lot mischief went on. Water fights were a very common occurrence and lots of money come student loan days were invested in supersoakers and other water gun related items. Now personally I had a little bit of an ongoing scuffle with flat e in the flats around the corner from us stemming from them waterbombing me as I was heading out one time, and I never missed the opportunity to get back at them, but it was mostly a free for all. Teams were formed and broken up on a fight by fight basis and loyalty could be purchased with a drink or two at liquid on a Monday. Now before I go any further I have to point out two things. One, this was 2001 / 2002 now we don't have to be a history student to know what big world event happened that year. Two we had an unhealthy obsession with Osama Bin Laden or as we referred to him as Binny. Now with those two point made, we sort of decided it would be a fun idea to become a parody of the forces of evil and become the Taliban water fighter. We'd run around with tea towels on our heads and doing that strange war cry that they do, it did evolve with us wearing bed sheets at one point but they were deemed unsuitable for water fighting. Very un-PC but at the time very very funny.
Memory number three - The secret santa gift. Now being poor university student who would rather spend their limited funds on a round of shots than something silly like gifts, we decided to do that ancient tradition of secret santa. Now after being paired with Big Dave I had to find the perfect gift. It had to be funny, it had to be memorable it had to be the most amazing secret santa gift ever......so what did I get him? A vibrator. A 6" bright neon pink vibrator. Now this in itself was funny but what happened afterwards become the stuff of legend. We had a couple in our group of friends, Matt and Becky, now these two were lets say adventurous and often became rather loving in front of everyone. As a complete tangent the two of them singing the Manic Street Preachers 'You stole the sun from my heart' was also a top tier memory of the two of them. So after our christmas meal was consumed and we were all sitting back moaning about eating to much and laughing at each others gifts, for those wondering I received a miniature bottle of JD and a bondage calendar. Matt and Becky decided to acquire the vibrator and also Kev's leather jacket and a curly wurly. They disappeared into one of the bathrooms in the flat and emerged a little while later with Becky wearing nothing but the leather jacket, missing the curly wurly and telling everyone that the vibrator had been christened. Looking back now I have no idea where the vibrator ended up after that night.....I think it's probably better that I don't know.
So there are a few memories, maybe I'll write more, maybe I won't. One thing is for sure I will never, ever dress up as a a member of the Taliban again.
Add comment
Comments