Panarchy: Met’s attempt at breaking a pancake world record turned into a giant food fight

Everyone at Belfast Met worked so hard to break the world record. To give Belfast Met a sense of pride. And we all did our part and stood out in the freezing cold courtyard, ready to flip our pancakes. And we all collectively failed.

At the start, it all looked so promising.

Pans of action

We had pans at the ready, professional photographers and students stationed around the campus documenting the event. We were all starry-eyed young optimists, hoping to break a world record. We had one chance.

And we blew it.

But in all honesty, it was doomed from the start. I mean, what else can you expect when you give about a thousand students pans filled with pancakes and place them in a massive courtyard? I’ll tell you what you can expect. Not a simple food fight, but a chaotic food war. And as with any war, there were a few casualties.

ICT student, Jack said: “I was just talking to my mate about how crazy it was, and all of a sudden I felt a massive slap across my right cheek. A pancake hit me in the face and bounced into the pond beside.”

The casualties of war

And then there were the aggressors, the ones instigating the violence.

Media student Ciaran said: “I flung my pancake up, and whacked it like a hurley, and it just took off. To be honest, I don’t think we got the memo that we were meant to toss the pancakes.” The violence may have only lasted for 20 minutes, but in the battlefield, a minute felt like a lifetime.

There were those who didn’t participate in the madness. Caught up in the fray of war, they chose to toss their pancakes into the air, to send a beacon of hope to the other pacifists who remembered the true meaning of the event. Those brave souls with the courage to stay true to the cause, even if it meant being pelted by pancakes.

“It was flipping mental. The only reason I came down today was to break the world record.” In short, an attempt at breaking a world record and giving Belfast Met a great sense of pride, descended into total panarchy. “I can’t believe they actually thought we would break the record, I mean, we just ended up throwing them about like the total Belfast reprobates that we are.”