12 Hours in Jesters? Challenge Accepted

At 11.30AM on Saturday a group of our team huddled together outside Jesters nervously anticipating what awaited us. We had one aim: to complete the gold card challenge and retell our story of triumph to you all!

The challenge that awaited us was a 12 hour stint in Jesters, from 1:15pm – 1:15am with only two breaks, one for food, one for cash. Being the prepared bunch that we are though, we wanted a table and so decided to queue up early, in fact 2 hours early to avoid the frantic search of a free table.

Unfortunately, some people were not so lucky, and ended up sitting on the floor, although they still looked happy enough!

Jesters was surprisingly well decorated, with the bunting adding a hint of patriotism over the Jubilee weekend.

Competition started heating up on the Tab table, when the GameBoy’s were whipped out, and the Pokemon competitions started!

However, things really started to get serious on the Tab table when Cluedo came out at about 4PM. Would anyone be interested in a Portswood version or would that be a bit too realistic?

As you can tell from their smug grins, this lot probably had the best spot.

Battleships is way more interesting when you have to take a swig for every missed shot.

Some people even brought along Twister! (Though these chaps were mostly using the mat as a rug to protect them whatever you can catch from the floor).

After discovering that it was Reverend Green with the lead piping in the hall we thought we’d have a look around Jesters. The dancefloor looked as dead as Dr Black after Reverend Green had finished with him…

… So obviously this seemed like a good place for some of our team to chill out, drink some cider, read a book and play Pokemon on the GameBoy.

Nursing a Sobar hangover from the night before, it all got a bit too much for our News Editor who decided to take a nap on the empty dancefloor.

Some people were clearly getting desperate after having not pulled within the first few hours, so decided to openly tout themselves. We haven’t called the number but we thought we’d give them a helping hand in their quest of finding someone, so if you’re looking for love, why not give them a bell?

Maybe it was the guy who was “reading” a lad mag whilst drinking his cider? FYI: The sign on the wall reads ‘Arm Wrestles: £1 a go, £5 if you win’…wonder how many takers there were…

Entertainment came in the form of some brilliant live performers.

As the hunger from spending the majority of the day in the Palace of Dreams kicked in, Dominos’ business went through the roof and pizzas arrived left right and centre.

As the day progressed, the weather took a turn for the worse and Jesters had prepared in their own, low budget fashion.

Jesters isn’t just the Palace of Dreams for Southampton students it seems! These lads traveled from their universities in Exeter, Brighton and Northumbria to get their gold cards!

As the evening wore on The Tab ended up staving off boredom by getting the bevvies in; this incredible Pokemon drinking game and the old ring of fire made an appearance, with inevitable consequences…

Our poor friend got a bit abused… Well, the boredom had hit home by this point!

Finally, after 12 beautiful hours, we’d made it, albeit a little worse for wear!

Were you there? Did you make it through to claim your gold card? Let us know how you found it!