I am going to Bridge 17 times this term

Suddenly, in a moment of Pauline inspiration, I thought, “wouldn’t it be fucking funny if I went to Bridge 17 times next term?”.

I am daunted by what lies ahead, as this is so much more than just a heroically valiant attempt to make it into the Guinness Book of World Records, although it is also that.

No, this is so much more than that. This is a personal voybridge of discovery, a veritable milvian odyssey. 

I’m interested to see how my relationship with The Bridge Bar & Club ends up. As it stands I’m indifferent, I’d say I’ve been about five to ten times in my four terms at Oxford. I’m not the sort to work myself up into a holier-than-thou, sanctimonious apoplexy at the pathetic inanity of it all whilst peeling my friends off the walls of Cellar. But nor have I ever strolled in, straightened my college rugby tie and given a throaty sigh of satisfaction at the sight of my kingdom.

When I outlined my plan to a friend of mine who happens to be a frequent and enthusiastic patron of The Bridge Bar & Club, he was deeply skeptical: “The thing about bridge, is that there are just so few variables.”

But that’s the very beauty of it. You make the variables – can I survive a whole night of conversation in the smoking area only using lyrics from Basshunter’s sophomore album “Bass Generation”? Maybe one night I put up a sign at a table in the smoking area that reads “I take on all newcomers” and just arm-wrestle people for spare change all evening.

Maybe one night I’m just so fucking sick of it all that I lock myself in a toilet and paint the vision that comes to me through the ammonia-haze. A mural of a benevolent Vice-Chancellor looking down upon his shitting subjects with a fond, and we’re not even talking like a creepy sort of Ed Miliband trying to look like the father of the nation but ending up looking like a doughy Willy Wonka fond – we’re talking sincere parental Carey Mulligan in 30 years fondness fond, gaze, a Vice-Chancellor who wants nothing more than a fairer world for his students to grow up in and a better education for one and all.

But this isn’t just about me, this is also about you, the people of The Bridge. This will be an anthropological study; surveys and censuses will be conducted; the clientele of Thursday Bridge, MNB and Pure Bridge (saturday) will be pitted against each other, most probably in pie chart format.

Minimum 35 minutes. 17 times. 8 weeks. Till next we meet.