This hasn’t been formated in the Aquarionics template, mainly because I’m 300 miles from it 🙂
Despite the lack of logos and everything, This page is part of Aquarionics, and therefore conforms to the rules of the rest of the site, ie, it’s writtan by and ©opyright Nicholas Avenell 2000 and forevermore. This event was done with the Sunderland Uni Sci-Fi Society and people within are part of that. This was a public service announcement, Thankyou.

13 May 2000. The Student Games

Bright was the sunlight as it streamed though my bedroom window at 7am, Silent was the alarm clock it fell on, and vexed was it’s owner upon waking two hours later in discovery of this fact. Upon dressing and adding caffeine to his system, many four letter words poured forth at the discovery that he had 45 minutes to walk across Sunderland to the Manor Quay to meet the rest of the SciFi Soc. team.

Forty five minutes later he got to the marina, having been redirected from Manor Quay and saying many nasty words to the memory of the flatmate that took the directions, he met the rest of the team.

Introductions, reintroductions, excuses and icecream were used as appropriate (depending on exactly what you want to do with the ice-cream, natch.) as we met the team we were to be against at every step of the way, the Fencing Club team who, it has to be mentioned, had matching team T-Shirts and everything.

The first step to our doom had been taken.

As we wandered across the field, a large green monstrosity blotted the horizon declaiming its name, and the location of our first event:

One: The Bungee Run

The Bungee Run was a large green inflatable thing with two runways, at the end of each was fastened a length of bungee rope and the other end was attached to, at the beginning, your humble corespondent. The aim was to run as far down the runway as you could and place a velcro beanbag to the non-functional velcro sidebar (non functional as in, it didn’t stick. Not at all) Setting the standard for the rest of the team, your humble corespondent threw his weight at the open end…

…then fell over, and was pulled back to the start again.

We lose.

President Jonny was the next to attempt the challenge, and was also the only person to win.

Ari, Jenn and Sheep also threw themselves down the course with reckless abandon, and it is a shame that the Fencing Club managed to throw themselves very slightly further.

All that practice with Lungeing, I expect.

Two: Jousting

You would expect that an event called Jousting would involve lances, horses, ladies bestowing their favor in the form of silk hankichiefs and men requiring a tin-opener to remove themselves from the steel wardrobe they are enclosed within.

Not, for example, sitting on a beam having a pillow fight. Or anything.

Match One was an internal for the other side. Being of a club whose typical membership is infamous for their rejection of modern values such as Sunlight, and instead worshippers of the ancient god Sloth, we had but five members of the six required. Despite pleading and cajoling the members whose contribution to the team was to sit at the sidelines, we were forced to hire a member of the other team for this event.

We still lost.

Match Two could become infamous for the catfight of the decade. Our own, our very own, Ari took the fight with an unnamed member of the fencing squad and threw the pillows with the full force of either enthusiasm or honed training.

And stayed there.

For Four minutes, each second felt by each member of the team, the ladies sat upon their pole, swinging the sacks of down at various parts of the others anatomy. Neither doing enough damage to knock the other from her perch. The draw was eventually announced.

The match between Nick and the fencer known as Rhino was epic. debespecaled, Your corespondant threw his weapon at the blurred form of his counterpart, realising at the last instant that his balance was not quite there. Fortunately he regained it before his opponent did, and the Rhino went crashing to the mat.

Similar duels were fought, but being against the fencing club, we lost.

See a pattern here?

Three: Tug Of War

One Rope, Three Cones, One Ribbon. If the Ribbon passes either of the outside cones you lose. The rules of Tug of War are traditional, but we couldn’t lose. After all, we had something the other team didn’t.

Bee’s masterful positioning of the team for maximum effect probably caused us to lose slower than we would have done otherwise.

But lose we still did.

Four: Velcro Olympics

Nothing could prepare us for this. This is the most evil, sadistic toruture device ever created since The Phantom Menace. It was an inflatable obstacle course lined with the felt-side of Velcro. We had to wander through it in suits made of the rough side of Velcro. It is a killer.

The course is a follows: It starts with a six foot wall which you have to heave yourself over with assistance from the management, which you jump off into a forest of foot-diameter inflatable poles, through a hoop and under a cargo-net. Over and under some horizontal poles and though three feet of Velcro-lined tunnel, then run round to the start of the course.

The first hurdle was the suits. There were six, small, medium and slightly above medium, so some people had difficulty getting the suits on. Then there is the Wall.

Words cannot describe the evil of that course. I did it twice, and both times I got stuck at the tunnel at the end. As I type (at eight in the evening, some 32 hours since it was over) my shoulders still ache. After we lost that (Nine-Two) we staggered into the beer tent.

Usually people stagger out of the tent, but anyway…

Five: Boat Race I

Five was the Boat Race, Alcohol version, again against the Fencing Team.

This was a special event for two reasons, one it was the first alcohol and the other…

It started with Ari at the front, Half a pint of LCL (Reputedly “Lose Control Lager”) was downed quicker than a fox down a burrow with half the royal family after it, Bee’s performance equally stunning and my own no less quick. Sheep followed on and the illustrious president Jonny downed his with time to spare, mainly because the other team was still on their third person.

WE WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yey! Wahoo! Three Cheers! We find something we are better at. Drinking!

This turnaround in our fortunes was quickly used to it’s fullest effect, Beating all other teams at the Basketball Shootout except two as we headed into the final event…

Seven: The Boat Race II

Row, Row, Row your boat
Gently down the Wear
Drunkenly, Drunkenly, Drunkenly, Drunkenly.
Nothing left to fear

The team went on with an agreement not to push anyone in the water (‘coz doing so would result in a) disqualification and b) the worst case of pebbledashing your loo has ever seen) into the Boat Race mark 2, the Rowing Bit. With our Helmsman Jon (Left and Right painted on the wrong hands) shouting “Row ya bastards” ever so often, and alternate cries of “Left” “Right” and “Large Yellow Pole!” How could we lose?

Eight: The Wooden Spoon

And so we decamped to the Bonded, where we collected our Wooden Spoon trophy with thanks. I remember alcohol, Karioke, More Alcohol, More Karioke, and then standing about half an hour in the Manor Quay (nightclub) before almost falling asleep at a table. Then I found a taxi and went home. One of my flatmates described my entrance as “You just fell into your room”. I awoke this morning with a hangover.

Dunno Why.