Sock Supper

Hooray! Hurrah! Get in! Back of the net!

The Michaelmas half officially ended yesterday and although I didn’t quite celebrate it with the banal exclamations above I am nevertheless in a fantastic mood! As I type right now I have a mince pie sitting beside me waiting to be devoured, Christmas songs blasting out from my speakers and the smell of a delicious dinner wafting up from downstairs. Life is pretty good!

I can't deny that the trials results I got back yesterday have increased my festive joy. Despite all the distractions from revision that I talked about last week I was chuffed to receive a decent trials card, up there with my best performances. Now I can enjoy even more my two favourite Christmas activities - seeing how little money I can spend on my family's presents and pointing out to them all the unrealistic bits in Home Alone. ‘Tis the season to be jolly, as they say!

I've actually been in full festivespirit since last week, when my house had our Christmas dinner. Although every year it falls during the exam period, it is always one of the highlights of the term and goes by the name of Sock Supper. Why this is the case I do not know, but thankfully actual socks, smelly or clean, have no role in the proceedings.

Sock Supper is a foodie's dream with everything you could wish for – turkey, roast potatoes, gravy, sausage and bacon, cranberry sauce, veg, Christmas pud and brandy butter. Then you have the usual accessories thrown in too - crackers, silly jokes, paper hats and a glass of wine or two.The mood is buoyant and for an hour or two at least trials becomes a distant memory. 

As well as celebrating Christmas, Sock Supper also focuses on the B blockers who will be departing the following June. They all sit on high table, along with a beak of their choice, and throughout the night they receive preferential treatment, like receiving their food first, while us plebs look on and think ‘one day I'll be up there’.

After all have gorged to satisfaction it is the time for speeches. The first one up is the house master, who might thank the guests for coming, gives a resumé of the year so far and tell a funny story or two. Then someone else might say a few words, the deputy house master for example, before the floor is vacated for the highlight of the evening –  speech of the house captain.

Regular readers will know that I have made no attempt to conceal my ambitions for the house captaincy. There are many reasons for this – the prestige of the position, the fancy waistcoat, the best room in the house, the adulation from naïve F blockers etc, but the main motivation above all for me has to be making the speech at Sock Supper.

This is because the typical speech is not what you'd imagine – a polite appreciation of all gathered - but is instead a merciless ribbing of all the other B blockers at the table. There are few limits to what can be said, and as a result I cannot think of another opportunity I might have to stand up and tear to shreds in front of everyone there the reputations of the people I’ve lived with for the last four and a bit years. 

Of course, most speeches are quite good-natured, teasing rather than humiliating, but the superiority one must feel by making it is enormous. Every embarrassing thing that anyone has said or done can now be brought to the attention of the house, if they weren't aware of it already.

It goes without saying that if I do end up as house captain Runty is going to get it in the neck. I’ve already drafted sections of my speech in my head and he takes up a fair chunk of it. It will open with something like this:

‘Good evening ladies, gentlemen, and in the case of one of us here (pointing at Runty) a disease-ridden rodent!’

Then I will give a brief summary of the rest of my peers quickly before returning for the killer blow. There are several approaches I could take to this:

-          Reel off all of the skeletons in Runty’s cupboards.

-          Be incredibly condescending towards him e.g. ‘Runty surprised all of us this summer when he actually passed some of his GCSEs.

-          Fabricate large portions of the speech, for instance: ‘Recently, Runty has taken to entering Eton Wick, looking for casual hook-ups with foreign men.’ 

 Along with the house captain’s speech, another key element of Sock Supper is the alcohol. When I say this I don’t mean the licit consumption of alcohol, since everyone gets a glass or two of wine during the evening, but rather the very illicit drinking of booze that continues after the festivities.

Generally this is the reserve of the B blockers, who with more wine in their systems than the rest of us are eager to carry on the party. You might think that the looming presence of trials or Oxbridge interviews would dissuade them doing this, never mind the punishments that result from being caught. But for some reason it’s kind of a tradition in every house and most adhere to it quite strictly. 

It's impossible that the school doesn’t know about this going on, since every year boys in one house or another are caught doing it. If they really cared about it then house masters would definitely be patrolling the corridors into the early hours. Some joyless ones do actually do this (naming no names), but a laissez-faire is more commonly adopted. It’s one of those situations in which if people make themselves conspicuous i.e. by being rowdy or vomiting everywhere then they will dealt with be dealt with severely, but otherwise most house masters will not go out of their way to catch offenders.

This year my house was particularly calm, the result of a rather sensible B block. The same couldn’t be said for what happened when I was in E block however, when the older boys got battered on a cocktail of vodka and more vodka. I don’t think anyone got busted, but I do remember being caught up in it as I left my room for a midnight pee. 

There in the corridor in front of me was the biggest of all the B blockers staggering clumsily towards me. He was a prop in one of the rugby teams which meant he must have drunk an enormous amount, and upon seeing me he called out my name. I thought he wanted help in getting back to his room so I moved towards him, but immediately it when I was engulfed in an enormous bear hug.

He stank of alcohol and began slurring into my ear ‘I love you Eton Boy’ and other such quips. ‘Thanks’ I muttered whilst trying to extricate myself, failing miserably. Then to make matters worse, he stopped walking and we stood there in the corridor, locked in this awkward embrace.

I didn't know what to do and two minutes passed before anything changed, which was when the B blocker began, very quietly to snore into my shoulder. I couldn't believe he was asleep, and I panicked as all his weight began to transfer itself onto my body. My legs shook under his limp body and my arms were searing with pain. It was only a matter of time before I could no longer resist, and like a giant mortally wounded in a movie, we tilted very slowly to one side and then, with a loud noise, crashed to the ground.

Fortunately I remained in one pain, and the B blocker’s arms had also come away in the fall. Despite the collision the boy was still lying there asleep, snoring away with his cracker hat on and salvia dripping from  his mouth.

I didn't stick around to find out how long he was there for, but as I went back into my room I thought to myself that if I, in three years time, ended up like he was, then it would definitely have been a great Sock Supper.