One does not simply walk into Law pre-drinks. One does not simply turn up at seven when the local calls and everyone knows the undergraduates are the real guests of honour. One does however simply tear a hole in one's tights fifteen minutes before we leave and decide that feck it, it's not that sophisticated and if anyone's sober enough to notice after half an hour they shouldn't be a lawyer.
We are in the local The Eagle, where Watson and Crick discovered DNA, got pished to celebrate, woke up in each others arms, panicked, realised they had forgotten what they discovered, panicked even more alarmingly, found it written on Watson's arm and agreed never to speak of parts of that night ever again. Oh, and also where Her Majesty's RAF flyboys graffitied every bit of the back roof they could reach. Not like there was a World War going on or anything...
Anyway this source of historical lovliness and American tourist black hole is our local and it is where we be chillin' with some vino before a champagne reception. A champagne reception which is funded by the legal moneyed elite and where the damn stuff tastes fabulous for I am a poor student who pops open some Cava to celebrate on the odd occasion. And is absolutely fascinated with alliteration and half rhymes in sentence structure. English students had you noticed?
The plushly carpeted, dark wood panelled OCR is full of suits chattering away, many of them have "come up from" the City, some of them have come in from pastures far afield and some have just come out of retirement for the occasion. There is a lack of women, a startling lack, for the hubbub is mainly composed of baritones discussing what tomfoolery the High Court has engaged in now, what! But then we must consider that Corpus only permitted the admission of female undergraduates in 1983. There will not be any corresponding Old Gals Club for a while. Even the first graduands of 1986 are still ambling about in gainful employ and not near the retirement age.
On this note I must hold forth on the ...
...I'm sorry, I'm in Starbucks, there's a lady not so much as playing footsies as thighsies and handsies and tongue-sies with her significant other. I don't need to see this shit over my only caffeinated pleasure a week. This shall be dealt with...
....notion of fancy law dinners with venerable judges and the most noted legal practicioners of our day. Those of you who know me don't know me very well because I don't believe anybody would know that on entering my first NBLS dinner I was as nervous as a baby duckling in Open Season. I needn't have worried, because far from the snobbish Old Boy's Crowd I expected my fellow dinner guests couldn't have been a nicer bunch of people. Fiercely interested in undergraduates (in an avuncular, not a saucy way) and full of amazing legal war stories if you can lead them of the straight and narrow path of changes to aviation legislation. No one wants to hear about that. But they do want to hear that the guy who paid for the reception was chased by a shotgun wielding Finnish lunatic in the world's slowest car chase (and we were only going at 30 mph, doncherknow! Panic in slow motion!) and that the particularly dour solicitor to my left once had a client try and reverse a Mercedes over him while giggling like a fool. All over £20 of taxi expenses!
These stories are pure magic; and we listen to them in a beautiful hall lit by candles and there is a susurration which turns into a confabulation as very expensive wine flows. This year proved no different to those that went before as I sat beside some wonderful conversationalists, especially a notable judge right in front of me who filled me in on various tricks to make barristers scatter like naughty schoolchildren and was aghast at the his ignorance of the academic to his left;
"Do you know, I've sat next to this chap for two courses and I don't know his name! You know what I mean, it comes to something when you sit beside a chap for two courses and don't know his name!"
I agreed that Britain was indeed crumbling and how could anyone trust a chap who sat beside them for two courses and didn't mention their name? Then I went back to the lemon sorbet whose purpose is, I was assured by a solicitor at my first dinner, to cleanse the palate. I was not aware I had a palate, but I suppose something has to tell the difference between pan fried seabass on a bed of crushed sweet potatoe and spring onion and cheesy chips and coke from thon Van of Life.
Law dinners always end too soon, especially when you're staying at Churchill College with a dear friend and are mortally afraid of offending. I am proud to say that I have been and gods willing will be one of the last to leave/be forcibly removed from the OCR at the end of the night because as Asher Roth puts it "Thou shalt not quit the domicile before the last drop of alcohol has been consumed." You know...don't leave the house til the booze gone?
Booze gone, Panther Cabs shakily called "Hello? Yes, I'd like a taxi from Corpus to Churchill please. When? Now would be good but I can't leave til I find someone with a key to let me out yousee. Whas that? No don't you worry about that, just send a taxi. Name? Who? No, no, no, I'm not Who. It's not for Who! Who's on first! Sorry, Laurel and Hardy, just send a cab for Devlin and quickly. I need to find someone to let me out...." I head out into the night breathing in close air and the aroma of old, damp stone which, though it sounds silly, is rather comforting.
The next day goes by far too quickly. I have the Sunday lunch I've been waiting for; turkey, mash, caramelised parsnips, Yorkshire pudding and custard and pud to finish. There's no rushing art, we stay there for a good hour as I ruminate. I always ruminate better when I've had my tea.
I spend the rest of that lazy Sunday either in Starbucks or lounging in our College bar. It is a treat to meet people; I love the small college in a small university town. The centre is hardly akin a proper city when you know that on your way from any given place to any given place you'll see at least one friend, two acquaintances, that one person you always want to see and that one you avoid like the plague and your archenemy. Cambridge is funny that way.
Too soon, too soon it is time to leave. And I mean too bloody soon because to catch a flight at 8am I need to be in Stansted for at least half six and the only bloody train going is at 5.17am so I have to drag myself up, looking blearily at my alarm like Lurch ("You rang?") at 4.20 ay em to get my taxi at five. Now I know there's a five in the morning, but I'm used to greeting the dawn from the front not this backwards way. But there you are, while you were all snug in your beds dreaming dreams of the nonobligatoryness of Monday morning lectures I was standing at a Costa Coffe kiosk, myself and the vendor staring in amazement and horor at the young Yank, clean in on the red/dead eye from New York, asking at six in the morning "Do you have decaff?" I shall never ever understand those above the Mason Dixie line.
But as a cartoon character we all know and love but I fear to mention because of the might of Warner Bros said "That's all, folks" I left Blighty behind; leaving on a jet plane in the words of John Denver, not entirely sure if I'll be back again, for the back at UAM the slow approach of exams focuses the mind on credits and, at times, the impassibility of the test ahead of us (did you see what I did there?)
But, sin embargo, pourtant, dennoch and however we shall gaze hopelessly at that swinging rope-bridge over a lake of boiling lava when we come to it. For now I shall fall asleep against a portly businessman who doesn't seem to mind awfully and await the touchdown to warmer climes.
xo
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