Will McAdam

Forget the UL for a quickie. WILL MCADAM assures you it’s all about late-night rendezvous in the bog roll aisle.

Sainsbury's toilet roll UL

One thing I really feel we’ve not collectively talked about enough this term is Sainsbury’s; or, more precisely, its extended opening hours. Or, if we’re really getting into the minutiae of it all, the new opportunities that have quite simply haemorrhaged from those glorious extra two hours of shopping. Thank Thatcher for consumerism!

It used to be that your best bet of getting a nameless (but sartorially pleasing) quickie was in the UL. Let’s just refresh our memories (because we’ve all done it). We’ve all pretended to have a book to collect from the Reading Room so we can stroll confidently towards the West Room, stop, turn, and get a full panoramic of that nobly vaulted room, before picking our fittie and sitting right opposite the lucky fucka; then we show a bit of nip (shaved or otherwise) in that gap between the desk and the lamp that conveniently prevents eye contact; and then finally, casually leaving a classmark glibly in their eye line, you sneak off to await their hungry chops on South Front 6. That blissful moment disturbed by nothing but the sporadic strains of "PANINI" drifting melodiously from the lips of the catering staff in the tea room.

Well, not anymore. This ain’t the sixties guys. The UL’s obsolete opening hours (including, might I add, the most annoying fact that it shuts on a Sunday) have rendered it redundant for casual sex or spontaneous erotic poetry readings (we must, of course, remember that not everyone is a sex kinda guy). The new place for a quickie is – yep, you guessed it – Sainsbury’s.

Implausible, I know. But bear with me. We’re all aware that during the day it’s full of the jobless and oldies, and that by 7pm it’s full of knobheads desperate for wine. But by the glorious hour of 10pm, things are starting to calm down. The post-formal slags have been and gone for their peach Archers and bargin-bucket condoms, and the self-service tills are warming up to save the company vital employment costs (once more, thanking you Thatcher). And yet, somehow, you find yourself lacking some 2-4-1 tangerines, or a one pound pot of olives; and it’s just you, the store, and Sue the night manager.

And yet, as you venture down that aisle that has the really shitty selection of facewashes and drugs, not to mention an inordinate amount of bog roll (someone really should tell them that we get that provided for free, and are therefore not going to buy it), you feel a sudden frisson. All around you is a sudden hush. The Charmin Ultra seems to tower in over you, creating a bower of bliss(fully soft asses après-wipe). You turn, and that Blue you always fancied a go on is right behind you. Did he think I was a straggling post-formal slag and follow me on purpose, you ponder, or did he just forget that he doesn’t need to buy bog roll for himself? And let’s be honest, it’s probably the latter, since it hardly takes brains to get Blues to this Uni, but that’s by the by. He brushes against your new merino wool jumper.

"Fuck!" he coos, "that’s almost as soft as my ass will be after wiping it with Charmin". (Although presumably no amount of Charmin will be able to salvage your ass once that hunk o’ junk has finished with it). And the rest, as they say in that particular department, is history; although not for Sue the night manager, who has to clear the whole sticky mess up.

So just bear this in mind in future. I may well flash my nip to you in the Reading Room, so what? So passé is what that is. Try Sainsbury’s, around half ten. I’ll see you by the Charmin.