Forces of oppression

We played football in the 7-a-side contest, a forty-minute mud-bath in torrential rain that we lost 3-4 after being 2-0 up inside eight minutes. I didn’t play but stood solemnly on the side-line getting soaked. Everyone was really sickened off by the defeat, especially Guy and Barry who sat in the dressing room silently staring into space after the game. It’s surprising how seriously everyone is taking this competition and it’s dominated conversation for days.

After the match, Guy, Barry, and I went up to the Rousseau common room to watch the Cup Winner’s Cup Final between Aberdeen and Real Madrid on the colour TV. Real looked pretty flash in the first half but after the break and into extra-time Aberdeen were the better side and scored the winner eight minutes from the end of extra time. A great cheer went up from the crowded room as the ball sailed into the Real net.

We went up to Biko’s for a drink afterwards and ran into Lindsey and Roy, the former laughy & red-faced. I sat for a while with Barry, Guy and co., my back to the loving couple, but I couldn’t keep ‘em off my mind so, pleading poverty, I went back to Wollstonecraft, feeling slightly scorched inside. I’ve forced myself to crush this thing about Lindsey. It’s utterly pointless.

I sit now writing this with most people out, either at bars on campus or in Watermouth. Gareth is with Stu in his room. I feel that at last I can pick up the threads of my work once more. Today I read Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage which I really enjoyed, perhaps more than most of any of the books we have read so far.

I’m now nearly £30 overdrawn and it’s going to be a struggle ending the term on an even keel. My next installment of cash from Mum and Dad should come in about a week’s time. My poor financial state is purely a result of my own drunken stupidity, and as I reckoned it all up I cursed my mindlessness. I’ve gone easy on the booze since I got back from London as I’m afraid my liver may pack up in protest if I continue downing whisky in the same amounts as at the weekend.

The Pop Group rages in muddy anger against the silence of Wollstonecraft. I have another Stephen Crane story to read tomorrow. I borrowed a tape player and listened to the Kerouac tape I bought in London, JK's deep mellow rounded Carl Sagan-esque tones spoken above a tinkling blues piano . . . It isn’t very good and has finally killed dead any lasting tendencies I might have in that direction.

Barry’s friend Doug has been “beaten up by fascists,” and his friend Phil has yet to return to Watermouth, after having been found last term by friends over at the College in a bad way, one time sitting with his legs dangling over a window-ledge, another time messing about with a revolver. He always did seem like an intense sort of bloke, but I really liked him and I’m sorry to hear about him.