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Here is Summer poems drawings stories photographs T-Rex going home ferret wheels Cancun Thomas De Quincey’s London prostitutes David Shrigley ice cream Paul Smith’s fried egg unseen Cambridge Minsk men Sark scrambles tangerines Blogotheque accordions on roofs cellos on punts Scroobius Pip Peggy Sue and the Pirates’ search for whiskey Jens Lekman pilots Grobs Titanic incest fucking in Californian accents Auntie Amy mix tape a minha menina 1 Oh dear. I went to one May Ball. Was it in Trinity (I was in Peterhouse)? I remember: my girlfriend coming from London and staying (illegally) in my digs opposite the Fitzwilliam Museum; not enough drink, not enough dope (we called it pot); undergraduates behaving as if they were adults from an earlier gen- eration; undergraduates puking on the grass at dawn (not me); Georgie Flame and the Blue Flames; twisting; feeling obliged to stay much longer at the ball than we wanted because the tickets had been so exorbitantly expensive; dur- ing May Week feeling that I should be having the time of my life but wasn’t. I entirely wasted my time at Cambridge, I was on the King’s May Ball commit- did badly in my exams (missed one alto- tee for 1968. We had booked some tre- gether), scraped a degree and have felt mendous groups, including the up and vaguely uneasy ever since at the expense coming Tyrannosaurus Rex (they’d had of spirit in a waste of shame... their rst small hit the month before and Richard Eyre didn’t become T-Rex until 1970.) Some idiot on the committee also booked a bouncer who was charged with making sure the acts did their full contract and no funny business. So when Marc Bolan and the rest turned up he started bossing them around, telling them exactly when they would appear, exactly how long In the late 70s and early 80s what I re- they would stay, and generally throwing member most was how it was a badge of his weight around. So they got back in honour to blag your way – with as little the car and drove straight back to Lon- payment as possible – into as many May don. Balls as you could (there was one bloke Simon Hoggart in Trinity who somehow managed to get into all of them, wearing just jeans and t-shirt, by charming his way through se- curity). The trouble was, once you’d suc- ceeded in committing this puny act of insurrection against the bow-tied struc- tures of privilege, as likely as not you’d see what you’d always assumed was a cutting edge punk act – Elvis Costello, the UK Subs, Iggy Pop – selling out in every way imaginable in front of a crowd of baying debs and hooray henrys. And if you made it to dawn, it was invariably raining... Martin Rowson Adventure Story by Patrick Kingsley Ahoy there: you’re aboard the Titanic. It’s sinking! What to do? page 3 Rearrange the deckchairs. 2 page 9 Jump into a passing lifeboat. The 2008 Peterhouse May Ball was always going to be a remarkable experience. From the moment the in the Murderer’s Masquerade, altruistic college authorities announced drum of revelry. A drum, it seemed, and I watched. I watched racist Mor- they were raising the budget from which I too, with my moderate 2:1 was ris-dancing thumping the ground to ‘twelve pounds’ to ‘a gazillion squid’, the not permitted to beat. For I was led, the right of me, and duelling fellows university was abuzz with questions – ‘Is by a gure in a blood-red mask with bleeding wine and snuff to the left of gazillion a real number?’ ‘Where are deep- owing blond hair and a man’s me, as the choir sang Hallelujah from they going to nd so many squid?’ – and gait, through the revellers, the First- the inside of an over-sized oyster shell, rumours ew from college to college – ‘I snatchers, to await my fate. ‘Where are and we ran and ran and kept a-running heard the many-armed god Ganesh is you taking me?’ It was a fair question all night, going nowhere, while our going to greet guests at the gates!’ ‘I’ve which received a mumbled response blind assailant assailed us and screamed, heard the prophet Mohammed is head- from a high-pitched voice: ‘…Ferris “Run, my pretties, run!”, ululating like a lining the World Tent!’ ‘I’ve heard eve- Wheel… Blind Man’s Bluff…’ was all I pagan priestess, and my bow tie gradu- ryone gets their own leper to keep!’ All could make out. But I soon discovered ally loosened. these things turned out to be true. my mistake, for awaiting me was not Five in the morning and it was time But it was a night of mixed experi- the pleasure trip of a Ferris Wheel, but for the survivor’s photograph. This year ences. Entertainment – indeed, sur- a giant ferret wheel, in which I was to those who survived were few; fewer vival! – was an hierarchical affair, and run, with countless others, a grotesque even than usual. Corpses lay strewn few were lucky enough to experience power-generator, powering the ball. around the Deer Park, picked over by the ball’s heady delights; there was vil- ‘No,’ I said, ‘uh, no no no no no.’ Again, vultures, crawled over by lizards, and lainy abroad. Signs of the sin to come I thought it was a fair comment, but I human traf ckers hunted around for began when guests received an email was forced onto the wheel by a naked those with any trace of life left in them. instructing them to produce a full aca- gentleman bearing a whip and dark But the hardcore were still drinking, demic record for inspection. Not sus- shades, giving me no option but to run stumbling around the bloodshed, kick- pecting anything would come of it, my and run and keep a-running all night, ing at still-twitching bodies with girlish date for the evening – a poor, beautiful going nowhere, as the blind man in the laughter, as the sun rose over the im- girl who is much missed – freely admit- buff lashed and thrashed at all those possible scene of carnage and af iction, ted to having obtained a 2:2 in her rst poor, forgotten souls whose academic piercing its dim smoke with her gold- year. Her nal high 2:1 clearly counted records weren’t up to scratch. en rays, gilding the pain. As I left the for nothing, as on her arrival the many- From my position on the ferret wheel ball, a sadder and wiser man, there was armed god Ganesh gave a subtle nod I could see much, and I watched in min- only room in my head for one looped and a red-bespattered masked gure led gled awe and terror as this ball, this hell, thought, rolling through my brain over her into a darkened side room with the unfolded in front of me. I watched as and over again: ‘If only the Peterhouse legend ‘Bursar’ inscribed on the door. I fair-haired young boys tarred and feath- May Ball had never been allowed to have not seen her since. ered the starving and pinned-tails-on- happen.’ I still hear the screams at night. the-naked-and-wretched in the Arian I still hear the screams at night. The screams, however, were all but Fairground, while cantering capitalists drowned out by the low-reverberating coupled with pirouetting paedophiles Halford St Giles Adventure Story (starts on page 2) This turns out to be a shrewd move. The new arrangement redistributes weight evenly throughout the ship and the capsize is averted. Boring. Back to page 2. 3 On the fifth day, we stopped in Cancun. The choir sang at the could be anything. Or maybe it wasn’t a bad trip; maybe he was just rippingly Flamingo Resort in the morning (and drunk. He had a knack for that too. I wanted to look out the door when got free brunch for it); in the afternoon I heard a thud like a sack of potatoes we did some madrigals poolside at the banging your shin on a desk. thrown to the ground, but Andrew Golden Parnassus. We got an okay Andrew’s face had gotten shaggier as didn’t seem to notice. Tense jawed, he dinner out of that. Now, in our free the tour went on. Unreliable running just stared out to the sea as the waves hours, just me and Andrew sitting in water at most of our stops and grow- pulled down to low tide. his room that evening, at the two-star ing lethargy pressing on everyone from Then he poured a couple fingers Grand Royal Lagoon, we could hear a heat so thick you could chew it, the more rum into his cup and quickly the chunking bellows of Steve’s body likes of which most of the choir mem- downed them. I watched him, his in the toilet next door alternate puking bers had never known before, made throat contracting with the gulps. He up and shitting out what little he had these niceties of grooming fly out the crumpled the cup and turned to see me left in him. Food poisoning had been window. Little blonde wisps were form- staring at him. ‘Look, I think I need lingering with Steve almost since the ing around his chin and corners of a nap, Alex,’ he mumbled suddenly.

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