Tom Davenport’s Strictly Speaking

Ladies Drinking Society Annual Dinner chastised as ‘complete catastrophe.’

The Downing Ladies Drinking Society is coming under heavy criticism in the wake of their Annual Dinner last night. Reviews have been universally damning after not one of the 38 guests at the prestigious event threw up or collapsed all evening. “This is desperately embarrassing and completely unprecedented,” commented one disappointed would-be reveller. “We usually have at least two hospitalisations before 11pm, but when I left at 3am, not a single person was in a coma.”

The executives of the drinking society are concerned that they may lose their 4* status with the University’s official and independent Drinking Society Rating Commission. Such a downgrading by the CDSRC would place them in the second swapping division with the likes of Trinity III and Newnham V. “This would be crippling. I would probably be forced to leave,” commented Clara Rentaglass, a senior member of the society. Maria Gammon, a new recruit to the drinking squad, added, “I was literally expecting a drug-fuelled mass orgy and all I got was a really nice dinner. What the f**k?”

This social calamity comes despite stringent measures imposed by the Society’s President, Henrietta Hoot. “I was determined to avoid this and so I enforced drinking fines throughout the evening. I take the reputation of this society very seriously and I have failed,” she lamented.  Amid calls for her to resign, the disgraced Hoot has resigned. She has also degraded to Oxford on account of her shame.

Shagwell Opera Society performs revolutionary work by Britain

A new opera written by Britain has been premiered by Cambridge University’s Shagwell Opera Society. The two nights-only spectacle was broadcast live on BBC2 and enjoyed by over 20 million viewers, keen to celebrate their individual contributions to the phenomenon. Named after the famous Austin Powers’ character Felicity Shagwell, the opera society has been producing cutting edge opera since 1894. This 7-hour epic was no exception. Entitled ‘A Knight’s Dream,’ and intended as a prequel to the 2001 big screen classic ‘A Knight’s Tale,’ the performance boasted a 140-strong cast and a set.

But the defining feature of this work was that it was written by every single registered British citizen. Each of Britain’s 60 million people was given one bar to write in December 2009. These bars were then compiled at random to produce a seamless gesamtkunstwerk. Critics have suggested that it was this unique approach that should be held responsible for the somewhat disjointed nature of many of the arias. Director Frank Furnace responded robustly to this criticism, claiming that it was “not” justified. Co-director Slim Led-Berry lent her weight to this assertion, commenting “I lend my weight to this criticism.”

Britain has been widely acclaimed for this, her inaugural work. The high quality of some of the bars bodes well for a promising career in this area.