Matriculash – A Fresher’s Day

As we wait to be photographed, the front quad resonates with the hum of rigorous intellectual discussion – ‘the fundamental weaknesses of Proust’s argument’, ‘the essence of Fermat’s Last Theorem’, and ‘who banged whom in Bridge toilets’.

And then Daddy said…

When the last-minute phone-screen preening subsides, the camera captures it all – broad smiles, crisp academic dress, the dreams of hundreds of throbbing minds suspended for that second in a collective inhalation of pride – this is what everyone has been waiting for.

But the sullen tolling of the chapel bell is a reminder that, as the mortarboards fall to the ground, so too will everything transfixed in this photograph. All this will disintegrate, swept up in one debaucherous sambuca tsunami, and leave not a brain-cell behind.

A fresher

Shortly after the ceremony, I stop a cyclist in sub-fusc making a particularly wobbly journey back to Oriel at 2pm. He turns out to be none other than Mark ‘12-beers’ Giza, a particularly perceptive 1^st year Law student, who feels as though ‘a…a wedding… shuddenly became…like… a funeral…’

I casually ask him what the legal drinking limit is for a cyclist, but it is unclear whether he refuses, or is unable to respond.

As he clacks precariously over the cobbles, I meet another fresher, too distraught to offer his name. ‘I…I jusht…I jusht wanted to have a quiet drink’, he says.

Between the sexes, an abyss of sexual tension, a chasm of peril that only the bravest of knights, the boldest of maidens, can surmount.

I talk to Eliza Lee, one such courageous damsel. ‘It’s not a big deal actually, and it’s quite revealing how you’re making it into one. Piss off will you.’

Camera nightclub as seen in the morning

As the sun sets, the dreaming spires are rudely awakened by the squawk of gurls. Yes, in their droves, the ladyfolk of Oxford, still with traces of their neat black ribbons and unspoilt blouses, are mustering.

And, bellowing like clogged machinery from another quarter, the lads, Lynxed and radiating in such an aerosol maelstrom it’s a wonder they don’t ignite.

Really, our hilarious attire is the only different between us and Leeds or Manchester.

A Lynx

Encouraged, I try my luck with another champion of the chase, George Driscoll.

‘Mate, mate, it’s been going well actually.  You know that girl Eliza? The one who keeps playing hard to get but keeps staring at me [Eliza is most certainly glaring, not staring at him].

Yeah well she’s got her eye on me mate. She keeps staring at me so I know she’s really into me.’

As rosy-fingered dawn peeps down at the scattered mortarboards, puddles of vomit and other debris left in the wake of Matriculash, that mother of all tidal waves,  I leave George to enjoy the fruits of his success.

Want to write stories, take photos or make videos for the Tab? We’d love to get you involved, email [email protected].