"Are you aware," the driver shouted over his shoulder, "that there is an £80 soilage fee?" We snickered. Soilage is, after all, a very funny word.
"And I will charge," he continued ominously. Some of our number stopped eating. I, however, was halfway through a hastily-purchased ham-and-mustard-mayo-on-wholegrain and extremely loath to return it to its triangular case.
"Really?" I asked in my most pleading tones, weighing up the likelihood of a soiling incident involving a ham sandwich. "What if we absolutely guarantee that we will not soil?"
"Yes," continued Deborah. "What if the soilage is of a crumb-based nature and easily brush-offable?" Eventually, the driver's icy heart thawed and he agreed that, so long as any soilage was contained on our person, or brushed away immediately from the vinyl flooring, we might be allowed to continue our munching.
"£80 seems such an arbitrary amount," I remarked quietly to no-one as we continued on our way.
"Do you want to know why it's £80?" barked back the driver, who had hearing like a bat on kryptonite. He didn't wait for an answer. "The soilage fee used to be £20, but it was £80 on the streets. So it was actually more cost-effective to hail a cab and soil in there." You learn something new every day.
All too soon, we arrived at the stunning Queen's College, which dates back from the 15th century. The city and the college were as awesome and breathtaking as I remembered them, and once again I found it extraordinary that each year, thousands of little 18 year olds head off to Oxford and Cambridge, eagerly becoming part of this ancient and remarkable tradition of learning and pomp, while the rest of us either go somewhere a lot more like Real Life, or choose not to bother with further education at all. It doesn't suprise me at all that Oxbridge graduates are so often over-confident - I imagine I would be too if I'd passed the entrance exams and made it through the course. I couldn't have gone, of course: even if I'd have tried and succeeded to get in, I would have been miserable. There's no way I could have engaged intellectually to such vertiginous levels at that age, and I know people who were so terrified of wasting time while revising for their Oxford finals that they used to run to the loo to save valuable seconds. Not my idea of fun. Then again, perhaps it's not meant to be fun. Perhaps it's an in-at-the-deep-end experience from which you'll benefit for the rest of your life. That all requires a bit too much long-term thinking from a teenager though... Either way, there's no denying that they are simply incredible, unique places and I find them intriguing and compelling and fascinating while, simultaneously, feeling as though there is something a bit uncomfortable and weird about it all, so far from normality that it's almost alien - and not necessarily in a good way. But hey, I'm probably just jealous.
Anyway, enough with the seriousness. We went straight to the chapel, rehearsed, giggled a lot when the voice of one of the hidden sound guys unexpectedly asked "Can you hear me?" through an echoing PA system and Aiden said "God?", did some recording, went back to the incredible Lodge, had delicious food, drank a lot of lovely wine and then repaired to the Music Room, where there were books signed by Elizabeth R. and a fantastic baby grand and a harpsichord that's doubtless older than Cliff Richard - and suddenly it emerged that I am about the only member of the choir who isn't a professional pianist, as performer after performer emerged to regale us with Chopin and Oasis and Debussy and Celine Dion. It was all going wonderfully and then we were sent to bed. Clearly feeling rebellious, Astrid and I stayed up chatting until far too early in the morning and regretted it on Saturday morning when we were hit with the unpleasant force of an 8am start and a day's full-on singing, knackering at the best of times. Miraculously, the recording session went well and I headed back to London late afternoon, fell asleep on the sofa, woke up in the evening, watched and sang along to the Last Night of the Proms, tried and failed to avoid feeling patriotic and then went to sleep.Today I slept in far too late, read a book, worshipped at the altar of Rodney 'Yoga God' Yee for an hour and then went into the deserted City to meet Kate and go to see an obscure production of Hamlet for which I'd bought tickets on a whim a couple of weeks ago. I usually don't 'do' theatre any more these days, unless it's a) a musical, or b) at the National, or c) I really, really like one of the actors, or d) if it's Avenue Q. But this production has had rave reviews so, on this occasion, I made an exception. The troupe is called The Factory and the gimmick is, they perform anywhere and everywhere, never the same venue twice (our performance was in CASS Business School near Old Street) and they all rehearse the lines of several characters in the play and then switch around at unexpected moments during the performance. The audience were asked to bring props along and these were incorporated randomly into the scenes. I thought it might be fun - but it turns out my four rules of theatre-going were spot on. It was absolutely unbearable, winning the dubious honour of being the only play I've ever wanted to walk out of before it had even begun, as when we walked into the first scene's room, the cast were wandering around the audience doing the most unbearable warm-up exercises, sounding every bit like the pretentious, self-conscious luvvies they so clearly are. One man was doing elaborate Pilates moves on stage while others were doing rubber lipped exercises and saying 'Ya Ya YA Ya YA Ya' in top projection mode. I groaned and Kate rubbed her hands together eagerly.
The conceit of switching actors mid-soliloquy was distracting, entirely unnecessary, whacky for whacky's sake, and showed just how little the production team cared about the words - the meaning of so many speeches was utterly lost. This was an arrogant production, impossible to follow unless you know the play intimately, seemingly a self-indulgent ruse to allow a group of drama school toffs to show off their ability to switch between parts unexpectedly. Their memories for the lines were undeniably good and there were several talented actors - but on the whole, I found the experience awkward, cringe-inducingly self-conscious and painfully smug. Kate loved it though, as did the Evening Standard and almost every other reviewer, so go figure.Now I'm at home, drinking mint tea and about to head to bed. One final nugget: I've done a lot of research, Faithful, and the truth is this: Lenor is, by far, the best fabric softener I have ever sampled.
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