Day 10: Spooks In Oxford

Let’s start today with a classic quote that was left out of the write up about last night’s robbery story. While the Swiss chap was having a go at our wacky-robber, trying to get him to own up, thief-boy decided that he was only being accused because “this is just some kind of payback for the war.”

“Hey, I’m from Switzerland... we weren’t even in the war”

Classic.

And now, on to Day 10...

In the morning, we went to the Oxford Museum. It seems Tony Robinson has become to history and archaeology as David Attenborough is to wildlife and nature – with the 15 minute looping video at the museum narrated by the great Baldrick himself. We also learned of the great feast of boxing day 1251 – which took 6 months to prepare and consisted of at least 68,500 loaves of bread, 170 boars and 25,000 gallons (151,000 modern day bottles) of wine.

Next there was a quick trip to the local Virgin Mobile shop for a replacement mobile phone. At the bargain price of £10. By the way, anyone who thinks that we may need to contact you in the next 2 weeks, feel free to email through your phone number so it can be added to the new phone :-)

Following a brief bludging/familiarising-with-phone/emailing session, it was off for a walk to investigate the possibility of hiring a boat and doing some rowing or punting down the canals. The walk took us past a length of canal, 2 boat hire places, a house that looked like a boat, a door that was not a door, a field of hay bales, Christ Church Cathedral/College, and a squirrel! What more could you ask for?

We also investigated the place we were to be meeting up with Tim that evening – just to make sure we knew where it was. All we found was a guy sitting in a booth at some kind of guard gate. But apparently, according to the guy, that was the right place. We just had to drop the name “Timothy Trudgian” before he would tell us about it. More name dropping to appear later today as well.

In the evening, it was off for another dose of The Spooky Men’s Chorale. This time we had the right date. We rocked up at “doors open” time, only to be greeted by a different group of people to whom we were expecting to be on the door! They didn’t know that we were “on the door”, and should be allowed to just waltz on in to the sold out show for free. So they told us to come back in half an hour and “see if there are some spots available”.

So we did. When they saw us come back, there were whisperings and pointings, and they came to investigate further... “Was it Stephen said you could get in?”... you bet it was!! The head honcho himself!!

Moments later, the Spook-meister was at the door:
“Yeah, let ‘em in!” he called, to the consternation of the other people who were also there waiting ‘to see if there were spots available’. To them it looked as if we had just appeared, joined the back of the line and been let in – of course even without our special treatment, we knew we had still had been there before them.

So we were in! Third Spooky Men event in 3 days, at a total cost of zero. Including one that was sold out! Clearly this even impressed The Men themselves, with several of them noting our re-appearance and having a quick chat, either at the interval, or on the way out at the end.

The performance tonight was at the Holywell Music Room (no relation) – said to be (by those that were there last night) the oldest performing arts venue in Europe. The acoustics were fabulous! The Spooky Men were made to sound even more Spooky and more wondrous than usual. Adding to the awesomeness was the multiple pieces of impromptu and/or unintentional comedy which left many of the Men unable to keep up their stone-faced character.

The standout among these was when someone up the back of the room made a quick blast into their tissue, blowing their nose, and with barely a pause, Stephen pulled out his pitch pipe, tuned it appropriately, and blew the same note as the nose had just moments before.

“That’s a G, for future reference.” He said, and at least 4 of the Spooky Men on stage behind him had to turn away in fits of laughter.

Despite all of this, surely the highlight of the night was when our own names were dropped. Towards the end of the show, our ol’ mate Stephen mentioned, among plugging their own merchandise, tour and website that “We have Owen and Xavier in the crowd tonight, who entered the Spookyclip Competition a while ago, which you can also find on the website”. Then he couldn’t find us, so there was no way of being discreet about our identities, as we had to raise our hands for him and everyone else to see us.

With the Spooky Men finished for the night (and for us for this trip), we headed down the road to the Holywell Manor to meet with Tim. There were drinks to be had and past times to reminisce about. I’m sure these things were done – but the writer of this paragraph wouldn’t know, as he called it a night very soon after arriving, looking to make up for the string of bad nights’ sleep, including last night’s 5am robbery-induced-bed-time.

Tomorrow is another day chillaxing in Oxford, before the big two days of the trip are upon us – The Wedding and The Cricket Match.