The Lair

The Chilean who sat next to me for the best part of two years returned for the penultimate time. Due to space constraints, JV had already been booted from his place … but the desk opposite fell vacant at the right time and he eased there, preparing for his viva.

The four hour examination actually represented the culmination of half a decade’s work. If there were nervous jitters and stress, I really couldn’t blame him for it; he had his first born in the UK while he was working towards the degree, and the entire whirlwind of the dot com boom and bust passed him by while he was in the university. I also gathered that it was becoming increasingly difficult to justify the biannual trips halfway across the planet to add the finishing touches to this thesis.

To no one’s surprise, he passed.

Perhaps to the deteriment of whatever liver function survived my wild undergraduate days, we actually picked The Vic, one of the last bastions in York that serve scrumpy, as the pub to celebrate the award. Also somewhat unfortunately, the Vic had stopped serving food, so we had to nip out in the freezing cold and smuggle in fried chicken under our coats. As can be imagined, this exercise was not the most effective, so we abandoned it after the first run.

In retrospect, drinking a pint of scrumpy (a pint of the local ale in the case of my companion on this hunting expedition) inside 5 minutes probably explained the fiasco with the grease… Anyway, those are mere details, best skated over swiftly.

Quaffing that many pints in one sitting isn’t really the best of habits to get into – but at least I can say I had a great excuse this time around.