Tab Rates vs. Tab Slates: Week Three

You still know the drill, but the drill works.

Cambridge Cambridge RAG Cindies GCSE Halifax HBOS Howard from Halifax Kings' Parade Phoebe Luckhurst Queens' RAG RAG Bling Date Sainsbury's SparkNotes Tab Rates vs. Tab Slates Tom Jones Twix VK

Tab Rates

Offensive monikers. So there I was, smoking a cigarette outside Sainsburys, still reeling from an encounter with one of the more ‘quirky’ of the Big Issue sellers (“Can I say something?…You’ve got really nice teeth. They're really rather fetching”). I was waiting for a friend who was by now at least twenty minutes late – stood up at Sainsbury’s, Rag Blind Date 2010 isn’t looking promising – when I heard the classic: “Hello dirtbag, how are you?” Expecting this to be what is colloquially termed, ‘banter,’ between two of my student cohorts, I turned to see two decidedly middle-aged women – neither ostensibly unclean or bag-like in any way – hugging. What was seemingly a somewhat offensive address was imbued with such affection it was clear that non-‘dirtbag’ was extremely pleased to see ‘dirtbag’. This made my week.

Cutting corners. “700-page book and a 2000-word essay by Tuesday, Dr [insert supervisor’s name/non-affectionate offensive moniker here]? Sounds about as much fun as vomiting in my Bag for Life, pouring this concoction of semi-masticated food and stomach acid over my head and then suffocating myself with said environmentally-friendly bag, my last moments spent gagging on the blended fumes of my own puke and that mozzarella ball that burst in the bag circa Michaelmas 2008.” Don’t stress. SparkNotes. Whoever said that SparkNotes went out with GCSE (and questions like, “Write about anything you want and you’ll get an 'A' because you, unlike many your age, can 1. spell 2. remember the name of the author and 3. string together a suitably coherent sentence”) is wrong. Speak to me on results day and I will testify as to whether laziness and hubris are an unbeatable – or an apocalyptic – combination.

Kings Parade. Is it just me, my woeful co-ordination and my size-7 feet, or is the paving on King’s Parade extremely uneven, nay, hazardous? (I’m not talking about the cobbled bit in the middle – that is obviously a lawsuit waiting to happen – but the pavement.) Anyone in the area on Monday 25th January at roughly 1pm – that’d be at least 70% of the university then – would have seen me trip and make a fantastically poorly-executed ‘recovery’.

RAG Blind Date. Given a sexual favour to your RAG rep yet? If you’re partaking voluntarily or otherwise in the annual cattle market, you’d better get on it/them. Otherwise, I’d start honing your ability to recognise rohypnol in a blind taste test (I think this might be impossible)/suppressing the gag reflex for when he/she/it turns up.

RAG Jailbreak. Our very own Lottie Unwin (she of Drama Queen fame) is taking one for Team Tab and doing Jailbreak. Varsity, TCS – it's game on. And we're pretty good at the game.

Tab Slates

The Guilt. Unlike the Fear, the Guilt doesn’t make you more productive, it just sits like Faustus’ Bad Angel/your mother on your shoulder while you imbibe that fourth glass of wine and needles you about that essay you really really should be doing instead.

College Bureaucracy. “No eating in Main Court.” But why? Chill out, mate. It was only a Twix, I don’t think I deserved the bollocking and subsequent confiscation of my confectionery.

Poor budgeting. Alright, I know I mention the dire state of my finances most Tab Rates vs. Tab Slates but could someone please tell me how on earth I managed to spend that much money in the first two weeks of term? Howard from Halifax is going to be giving me a bell very soon and this will not be so that he can sing a financial-themed version of Tom Jones’ ‘Sex Bomb’ at me.

That puddle on Queen’s Road on the other side of the road from the back gate of King’s that appears after heavy precipitation. That was a mouthful, but this is one hell of a puddle. I’ve been swimming in pools shallower than this. What you think is a rather masterful – if you do say so yourself – scaling of said expanse (Upper Fifth Long Jump Bronze medallist right there) ends ultimately in tears on the podium as you realise you dropped that book, y’know, the one you just took out of the faculty library after finally summoning up the courage to brave another encounter with the librarian,  into this lake. Move away (yes, into the path of that oncoming car). Your tears are increasing its depth.

VK mouth. The fuzz that encrusts your pearly whites (well, apparently I can claim to have, "rather fetching" teeth, so why not go the whole hog and dub them pearly whites?) when you wake-up, the-morning-after-the-Cindies-before. First things first, before the pint of water you should have drunk last night, before the paracetemol/aspirin/Valium you are about to shovel into your system – brush your teeth. Brush. Them. Now. Not just to avoid all of them falling out – you do know how much sugar is in a single VK, let alone how much sugar is in the number of VKs you need to drink in order to 'catch' VK mouth, right? – but more because even your bedder (who's probably encountered all manner of vile incidents in her time, from vomit in the loo to vomit in the cutlery drawer) will recoil in repulsion if you open your mouth.