Party at Oxford Central

This weekend was Jennie’s birthday party in Oxford, to which I managed to get down for on the Saturday. Justine and Sophie (one of Jennie’s friends) met me at the station and we went round Oxford town centre, including two museums and the Oxfam Book Fair, which was interesting, before heading off to Jennie’s house.

The party had a theme of “evil bastards”, but on arrival I was unfortunate enough to be the only person without a costume. In my defence I only knew I was going to the party the day before, but Justine and Lindsay (one of Jennie’s housemates) had the bright idea of making me put my jacket and gloves on and painting a black moustache on my lip. This slowly evolved over the night to become some sort of ceremony whereby if you turned up without a costume you were forced to have a comedy moustache or eyebrows painted on you.

Other random moments include some drunk guy called Dave coming over to Justine and I when we were sitting on the sofa and asking if we were a couple. I don’t know how he came up with that idea but he seemed rather shocked by the rather vociferous replies of “no, we’re bloody well not!” that followed. Undeterred, he continued to babble something about horoscopes and how ours were in line or something. I’ve had some weird experiences at parties and pubs in the past but having someone dressed up as the Grim Reaper attempting to say why I should get together with one of my good friends has to be up there near the top when it comes to surrealism.

When it came to alcohol, I had a fairly poor night. I bought a four pack of Worthingtons, but Jennie managed to knock one of my glasses over and Cez accidentally hit another one just after I’d refilled it. My final can was acquired* by someone I didn’t know and who managed to not really enjoy the beer because he tried drinking straight from the can instead of pouring it into a glass. I wasn’t too fussed though (except about the final can being “wasted”), as getting drunk in a room consisting almost entirely of complete strangers isn’t something I really like doing.

It took a while to get people moving towards the end, even after Jennie and her flatmates had all retired to bed. In the end we managed to kick everyone who wasn’t staying overnight out of the house by 4:15am, although it took some rather unsubtle comments along the lines of “get lost, we want to go to bed!” before the last guy left. Unfortunately I ended up waking up about five hours later to see, through blurry eyes, the rather strange sight of Jennie stomping past in boots and then rolling over the other side to see David asleep there. I couldn’t get back to sleep once I was up though so I ended up sitting in a chair reading a book until everyone else decided it was an appropriate hour to rise. All in all though it was a good party; Jennie seemed pleased with the card and the poetry inside, and the present (organic chocolates) and it was great to see David and Cez again.

In the evening after travelling back on the train Justine and I met up with Gareth and went to the Comedy Store to see Unbroadcastable Radio, which is basically a bunch of sketches performed by local comedians as if they were on radio, although some of the sketches wouldn’t have worked if you hadn’t been there to see them. Most of them weren’t “falling off your chair” on the hilarity scale but there was one in particular at the end that involved Davros, creator of the Daleks, trying to survive as a single parent before finding out that he was owed £49 million in back payments for unclaimed Child Benefits. The sketch was funny enough as-is, but seeing as all three of us had seen the episode of Doctor Who that was being sent up it was all the funnier and I think we must have got some strange looks given how much we were laughing.

Warped

Not an awful lot happened this week. I somehow managed to give Jon permission* to “be evil” to Lizzy’s cousin Jenny (don’t ask!), which started a run of people trying to poke/tickle each other – during which I managed to twist my spine in a way I never though possible. I had also foolishy brought my third year project book with me because I’d been working in the library beforehand (yes. Computer Science students can use antiquatted devices such as books) and Jenny managed to get revenge by spraying the inside cover with perfume, though I retrieved the book before lipstick could also be applied (goodness knows how I would have explained that away at my seminar).

Birthday

I vaguely mentioned this on my LiveJournal, but as of last Thursday I’m now twenty one (or nine, depending on whether you’re on UA or not). I don’t feel any different, although I can now stand as a candidate in the local and general elections, but don’t expect to see me as your councillor or MP anytime soon. As for presents, they mostly consisted of envelopes with cheques inside. At the moment there isn’t really anything I want that can be bought as a present – everything is either intangible (e.g. happiness) or unaffordable (my own house and office), so money is probably the best option.

Anyway, there’s lots of other stuff happening this week and my diary is full of crazy schedules keeping me busy all the time so I’d best stop there and get back to slaving away at all the work on my desk.