An evening to remember

As today is the week's aniversary from an event that will go down in history for some of those involved, it seems now is the time to write about it here. I'm slightly reluctant to do this now, mainly because I'm not sure I'm up to the challenge of doing the story justice. Most of this little narrative will only be significant or interesting for those involved, or those who know the people and some of the politics involved as well.

To give some background, last Thursday was the night of our monthly "writers meal". Basically once a month the head of our year and lecturer, John Foster, arranges a monthly meal for us year 3 scripwriters, and the 2nd year of the MA scriptwriting course. The usual venue had been a Lebanese restaurant called Retro but this time we went to a chinese in town called The Fountain. Now, the turnout for these meals has generally been okay but not many people from our course usually turn up (that's because they're losers - well most of you but I'm not saying who. If you're reading this and don't go to the meals you're not a loser - but I'm only saying that in here to cover my back anyway, I don't know who reads this).

For some reason last Thursday's turnout was better than it had been for a while, and was an even bigger event because it had a special guest: Richard Berger.

Some of you right now would probably be going "and? so what?", while others will be going "Who is Richard Berger?"

To briefly explain the significance of this, Richard Berger is one of the lecturers at our university, and there are those among the female members of my course who have a crush on him. In terms of uni social events Richard's kind of a recluse and has made a point of generally not going out for social events with other lecturers from the uni, let alone with the students as well. So for him to be at the meal was kind of a big deal for some people.

Who knew that his presence would also be the catalyst for much of the conflict of that night.

For the most part, where I was sitting the meal went pretty much like the usual. Some drinks, food, chat, laughs and piss taking went on between myself and few of my friends. The first hiccup of the night came from my housemate Sophie - and you could say she was setting a prescendent for herself for the rest of the evening. We had only been there for about an hour when she noticed a woman with dark hair and glasses talking to my housemate Geoff. Sophie was sat next to me, and said not too discreetly "Why is it that girls who look like Geoff but far less attractive are always chatting him up?"

Sat opposite the pair of us was the woman's boyfriend Wayne, whom I actually had eye contact with at the time. I couldn't say anything except hit Sophie in the leg, although by that time it was far too late, the damage had probably been done. Yoli who was next to Wayne pulled a face and was doing that cutting motion across her neck that meant "CUT! STOP! NO MORE!", and I think Sophie understood what the score was at that point. In an effort to disguise the laugh that I could feel rising up from inside me I scanned around the table and saw my mate Grant, clowing around with the circular menu pretending it was a steering wheel, so I laughed at that. A big over the top laugh that was obviously far too enthusiasatic for something so juvenile.

Anyway the meal carried on as it was until I went outside for a fag and was joined not long after by Sophie, Richard Berger, and a woman called Sheila West. Sheila is a 3rd year script writer, but is repeating the final year after some personal problems last year. We never see her at lectures coz she doesn't really need to go. Now, before tonight had even happened their were some slight tensions between her and Sophie. I'm can't quite remember why, but let's just say they were not each others biggest fans.

By the conversation that went on between them outside the restaurant, and the fact that Richard doesn't even smoke, it seems something had happened upstairs. Although Sheila was assuring him that they were good friends, (?) I remember his remark being something to the effect of "well you were nearly ready to punch each other a minute ago"... This sounded interesting.

I was to later find out that some sort of row broke out when Sophie relayed a joke email she was tempted to send to Berger after he sent an email out to everyone on the course. It said something like "by now you should be writing the conclusion of your disserations, enjoy your Sunday". It got people scared so she was going to get him back by saying something like "at your age, by now you should have colon cancer and be on the road to death... enjoy your Sunday"

Sophie never sent the email but talked about it at the meal and it was this that got Sheila upset. She had some sort of bizarre argument with Richard about "not being offended, but she should have the right to be offended by it, and people shouldn't make jokes about cancer" - This is very much 2nd hand information and the people involved were a little confused about it, so I'm not totally sure. Whatever happened this set a strange tone for the remainder of the meal.

Later I was sat near the end of the table with Geoff and John Foster and someone else, maybe Richard. It looked like Sheila was about to leave but she couldn't find her phone and started saying over and over "My phones gone. Someones taken it. I don't know why someone would find it so funny to take my phone but its not funny". She was convinced that it had been taken and not just fallen on the floor somewhere, but what's more, she was trying to suggest it was someone there (guess who? - Luckily she was down the other end of the table at the time and knew nothing of it). Of course the phone did turn up and it was on the floor.

Shortly after that Sophie was back up our end of the table, and Richard came up to suggest we sort out the bill, and that he wants to leave. This prompts Sophie and Sheila to try and convince him not to go. The two of them were shouting to be heard over one another, particularly when the talk began to turn to other things, one of them being who knows Chris Langham (the comedian found with child porn on his computer) better. I'm not sure how it got to that stage, but at this time both of the girls were attacking and hounding Richard with words. The term my housemate Yoli would later come up with in decribing what they were doing was "talk rape".

As Geoff and I watched this talk assault we started feeling sorry for the Berger. So almost like what Dick and Dom do on the TV with that whole "Bogeys" game, Geoff and I started saying "Richard go!" "Go Richard!", louder and louder, in the hope he would get the hint and get out of there. Admitedly the volume at which the girls were shouting was increasing at an exponential rate and there was no hope of us matching them.

Anyway the conflict came to a dramatic close when suddenly Richard jokingly taunted Sophie to call Chris Langham and speak to him if she really knew him. She had his number and was too caught up in the moment to rationalize what she was doing; beating Sheila by proving to Richard that she knew Chris Langham better was all that was important. It was probably almost midnight when Sophie made the call, and he picked up, but put the phone down shortly after talking to her.

I could actually see the moment when Sophie realised what she was doing. When she realised that she had made a huge mistake. It appeared on her face the moment he answered the phone.

After, Sophie was pretty upset with herself and immediately starting writing a text to Chris Langham to apologize. Both me and Geoff tried to convince her to leave it alone but then she threw us a look that said not to mess with her and we shut up.

Meanwhile Sheila was now trying to call Chris Langham on her phone but was complaining that the number was busy and that Sophie was probably lying. I reminded her that the guy was an accused pedophile and probably thought it was a threatning call- his numbers busy because he's calling up the telephone company to have it changed.

10 mins later when the bill was settled everyone came outside and said their goodbyes. When most of them, including Sheila, had gone, Richard invited Sophie and the rest of us to the ibar opposite for a few drinks. The evening was finished off in nicely and in relative calm with a few drinks.