Today I received a breathless letter to parents from the headmaster of my daughter’s school in England. You will all have read about NekNominate, a social media driven drinking trend, he gasps.
Well, yes, it apparently started in Australia as a Facebook drinking game where you video yourself swallowing vast amounts of strong drink or disgusting mixtures of drinks for the entertainment of your online friends. You then “neknominate” said friends – ie dare them – to drink something even more vile. If you sensibly decline, your charming pals “cyber-bully” you. This rapidly became a craze and has now been exported to the global capitals of binge boozing, Ireland and England. No surprises there.
Just like university
It all sounds faintly familiar and brings back memories of something called the Piers Gaveston, a boozing club made up of aristocratic Bright Young Things, who got "hogwhimpering" drunk. The Gavvy boys considered themselves elitely sophisticated and after their upper class hooligan antics appeared in the Sunday Times magazine, they acquired temporary notoriety. It was the equivalent of being splattered across Facebook back then. No one took much notice and they soon went off to run huge supermarkets and inherit their father's fortunes.
Another laddish club was the Prae Prandials. The PPs numbered fewer toffs and were men-only gatherings which started with swilling large amounts of alcohol before dinner, continued with much more during dinner – usually disgusting mixtures - and culminated with the members rampaging around Oxford afterwards. They got up to jolly japes like turning over Minis that were innocently parked in the Broad, tossing my record player and speakers out of a window into Holywell street - that dates me, doesn’t it – and on one occasion, taking refuge from the police in a college bathroom, where my scout Eve (scouts were cleaners employed to ensure students were seen alive once a day) found one straggler out cold in the tub next morning, in full evening dress. Not that it was recognizable as black tie, being liberally marinated in red wine, raspberry jam and confectioner’s aerosol cream. I took the suit to the dry cleaner’s and was indignant when the assistant held up the jacket, sniffed disapprovingly and announced to the packed shop: “Sketchley’s don’t do vomit.” Ironically, vomit was about the only thing it was not drenched in.
Same old drinking games
But I digress. In what way does NekNomination differ from a “sconce” – as those old student drinking dares were called? Granted the odd student did choke on their vomit and die, but once the Daily Mail had been suitably shocked for a few days, we all went back to mild over-indulging, puling caffeine-fuelled all-nighters to write our essays and sleeping all day to recover. It wasn’t usually life-threatening. More like a rite of passage.
