Uncle A: Surviving Freshers’ Week

Hi A,

Long story short, I’ve never been clubbing. I read in article in the Daily Mail (somewhere between an article about how the nation’s favourite ex-beloved, John Cleese, is a hideously objectionable racist and how the nation’s favourite, John Cleese, has lost all his money to a hideously objectionable bitch who’s stuffing her stupid face with cake while he lies alone in his freezing caravan somewhere near Skegness with only his memories for warmth) that the only thing students do is get really drunk, have illicit sex with each other in public, and piss on each other whilst hard-working families are trying have nice picnics. I’m not really sure I’m ready to make the step up from head girl at Catholic girls’ school to bawdy, WKD-swilling ladette, but I would like to fit in and give this old dancing thing a whack. Help!

Socially unsure but not exactly awkward regards,

Diane

Hey Diane,

Dancing is one of the most natural things in the world, and it’s one of the oldest forms of enjoyment, which is why you look like such a massive tit if you can’t do it. The primary Darwin-defined evolutionary purpose of dancing/clubbing is to get laid. If you’re not going clubbing for this purpose, you’re either in a relationship, or lying to yourself. But anyway, so you’re not going in blind, I’ve prepared a little timetable of a typical night at Cindies:

9pm: You start pre-drinking in someone’s room. This involves making people drink things they don’t want to because they’ve done some embarrassing things in the past.

10pm: Cindies opens and, for a brief, blissful, but fleeting time, plays music that might be acceptable in any other club on earth, where you can dance to the rhythm of it rather than be forced to dance to the lyrics interpretatively like a sardine in a briny tin.

10.30pm: People start to actually turn up to Cindies, just when the hits of NOW 25! are being blasted out.

11pm: The queue is bustling with booze, babes and banter.

12am: People who have been on swaps start coupling off or trying to couple off to the better-known tracks from Steps’ seminal album Step One. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they talked or met on the swap – such is the magic of Cindies. You needn’t be concerned with how you are dancing – no one can focus on anything solid anyway. You probably look awesome. No one can really move, so it’s not as if people are going to be rating the dance moves you can do using only your head and neck particularly harshly.

12.30am: Most of the fit guys and girls have gone, so the horny and the desperate come out to play to the night’s second playing of Don’t Stop Believin’ and Mr Brightside. Time to go to the bar to weather the storm.

1am: Everyone who’s going to get any tonight is either getting some in your personal space or gone. There’s a bit more space on the dance floor as large numbers of people have left to have rubbish, drunken sex or cry themselves to sleep, and Cindies approaches the number of people that its European fire safety limit actually allows it to have. Time to express yourself more freely – take the chance to use your arms as you dance and funky chicken to your heart’s content (don’t actually funky chicken – it is an absurd dance).

2am-ish: Cindies shuts, and the last remaining hardcore clubbers leave for Gardies, or, if they have any sense, The Trailer of Life. Note that if you go to Homerton or Girton you might want to save the money for the long taxi ride home, however tempting a greasy box of chips and a pitta full of “meat” might seem.

Hope that helps,

A

For more Freshers’ Week advice from Uncle A, head down to your plodge and pick up a paper copy of The Tab NOW.