At Least You’ll Never Live In Halls Again:
Eight Gut-Wrenching Months Of Misery
Halls Diary
September 19th – Move from my flat in the valleys just outside Cardiff into Daisy Bank Halls. Living in a four-person flat with Ludicrous Chav called Louise, Indie Wanker Stick Insect called Mark and emotionally damaged young man called Andrew.
September 21st – Mark keeps me awake for the second night in a row by playing Interpol until 4 in the morning. Ludicrous Chav occasionally serenades us with Oxide & Neutrino, Andrew is never seen or heard except for the gentle noise of his plaintive weeping as I walk past his door. This never stops for as long as I’m there.
September 23rd – Sizeable tower of beer cans begins to appear in the kitchen. Slowly realize that I am living in a hellish cliche of 90s studentdom, that is less a flat and more my personal vision of the seventh circle of hell.
September 24th – Sick of flatmates. Mark’s mates kick the can tower over in the night then celebrate with some Interpol. It is not rebuilt for a number of days.
October 15th – Develop a superhuman sense of hearing that allows me to gauge whether or not the kitchen is occupied. In the ~7 months that follow, I am caught by the others less than a dozen times, reducing awkward small talk to a minimum.
November 11th – Andrew puts a Christmas card under my door at 4am. There is a kiss under his name inside. I begin locking my door at night.
December 12th – “We’re all going for a drink before we all go home for Christmas – well, except Andrew. You coming John?” “No.” The can tower is once again demolished.
January 4th – Move back to halls. Mark announces he is moving out in a few months to live in a 16-person hornet’s nest in Fallowfield, and there is much rejoicing. I take my rightful turn at demolishing his beloved can tower.
February 10th – Mark informs me that he intends to sell the can tower to a scrap metal dealer. Because scrap metal dealers pay megabucks for grotty unwashed Fosters cans from stupid student pricks. Eat shit, Mark.
February 24th – Andrew deletes Mark from Facebook.
February 26th – We are all interviewed by police – Stick Insect told Ludicrous Chav that his house needs a microwave, and jokingly remarked he may steal the one that Andrew brought. Andrew immediately dialed 999. At four in the morning. About a burglary that may happen a month into the future.
March 20th – Mark moves out. As a parting gift, he tells us we can keep the cans he has accumulated (to him, worth a fortune in scrap metal, to us, a cumbersome pile of rubbish that we now have to dispose of). Never felt such a strong desire to snap a human being over my knee like a twig.
March 25th – Move back to Wales for Easter; never been more happy to live with my parents.
May 1st – Move back for exams. Ludicrous Chav has put up a poster in the kitchen, featuring the words “Sing as if nobody’s listening, love as if you’ve never been hurt, dance as if nobody’s watching, live as if heaven is here on earth”. So aggravated by the sickly sweet sentiment and stuttered meter that I was compelled to ruin it; wrote “Hot Horse Cocks” on the back in foot high letters. Not sure what it even means.
May 20th – Louise invites twenty of her disgusting chavvy mates to live in our flat for what seems like forever. It is impossible to make pasta without tripping over a fat cankle covered in neon leggings or a coked-up chav who’s thrown up on his Fred Perrys.
May 25th – Contemplate burning the flat down. At this point I am beyond caring whether I personally escape the immolation – all they would find in the kitchen would be a few charred corpses, neon leggings and shell suits melted to burnt flesh, and a set of frantic scratches and broken fingernails at the bottom of a locked door.
May 31st – Decide against murdering everybody and simply move out instead, kicking the can tower to rubble as I went.
John Tucker
