Don’t Be Ashamed Of Caesarian Sunday

All of the cultures that have ever existed anywhere in the world have had three indulgences in common: music, sex, and drugs.

It was in this knowledge that I frowned at the ‘Caesarian Monday’ spread – the splurge of visceral hate spraying into our hearts and minds from the open mouths of the national press. Images of unconscious girls sprawled beneath cocksure schweffes displaying glittery thongs adorned every media outlet I could find. As with countless Caesarian Sundays before this year, our celebration of all-things-alcohol was deemed nationally noteworthy.

Pierre Novellie of Footlights fame officially makes Caesarian Monday ‘a thing’

There are plenty of easy jealousy-fuelled aspersions for the media to cast over these photos: “It’s inappropriate to get so mother-fucking drunk in a public place in the daytime!”, or “I was trying to take my children to the playground but three Wyverns were vomiting in the sandpit!”, or, my personal and rather stunning favourite, “If they have so much money to spend on alcohol, they can’t complain about rising tuition fees!”.

These in turn have easy, rational, and dull responses to fling back: “By and large we weren’t breaking the law!”, or “Weren’t you all young once?!”, or the ever so irrefutable “We work hard all year round, we should be allowed one day to let off steam!” While these retorts approach semi-validity, they seem contrary and reactionary and don’t defend our levels of debauchery very well.

More importantly, I don’t work hard. Ever.

Caesarian Sunday is so much more than one day to let off steam. Like punts, bicycles, twisting spires, and repressed homosexuality, it is to me quintessentially Cantabrigian. The day is a parade of our effective but unique oligarchical social structure: from the very loftiest of the drinking society big-dicks to the wettest of wet-behind-the-ears freshers, every stratum of our hedonistic hierarchy was in attendance on Jesus Green, slaying it as best they could.

Where Suicide Sunday is all about the big garden parties, all about being one of a seething thirsty mass chopping all before it, all about smearing everything in jelly and lube, cackling, and running all the way to Cherry Hinton, Caesarian Sunday is of a different ilk. It celebrates individuality. Whether it was singing on top of Castle Mound at the crack of dawn, running silly initiations, or just fighting amongst ourselves, there was a wonderful range of diverse and merry activities going on on Sunday.

It’s always going to happen: we scoff at the paparazzi, they scoff at us. Passing out, peeling off and drinking port out of condoms is one of hundreds of scandals the Daily Mail will print this week, and the furore will die down in minutes. Whereas quotes like “The Wyverns drinking society has a reputation for heavy drinking and hard partying” will keep me jolly for months.

With Suicide Sunday just around the corner, this fictional construct for one will feel proud to step back for a moment and watch as the action unfolds.