Two dinners in two days. The first was paid for by Linklaters of whom I’m already a big fan. They took us out to Chez Gérard, the only quality restaurant I know that is famed for it’s signature dish of…steak and chips (or as they say “steak and frites” if you’re feeling pretentiously franglais). The food was extremely impressive with a great if somewhat insubstantial salmon starter, decent steak accompanied by an exceptional pepper sauce and a competant crème brûlée. The service, on the other hand, was shocking: the constant clang of dropped cutlery, the protracted pause between courses, the lethargic response resulting in chilly (if not quite cold) food, and the unapolagetic attitude to consistantly mixed up dishes (we were, to be fair to them, a large group). As such we were all cheerfully impressed when the partner waltzed in late, flatly refused to drink the same wine as us and patiently but condescendingly informed the slightly unhelpful waitress that it would be quite alright since he was paying.

By contrast the company was fine, consisting as it did of virtually every second year Downing lawyer and a handful of Cambridge-educated trainees. Of course we all know that the trainees are really recent graduates present purely as an excuse to take an early afternoon off work in some vague attempt to hark back to a romanticised memory of their student days. Nonetheless, at least their interesting to talk to. Chris I already knew through Anna, Sumit I had met at a previous Linklaters event, and the final trainee stumped me after chatting to her for nearly an hour when she asked, “Are you…Phoenix?”. Apparently my infamy is on the rise. More importantly I’m now beginning to wonder just how extensive a file these firms have on me already…

Tonight was dinner at Brown’s courtesy of Herbert Smith. The food was awesome: another smoked salmon starter (the only way to fly) followed by meaty lamb dish and stick toffee pudding to finish (thanks to Steph’s advice on things to avoid!). Service was better, albeit just as sluggish as last night. The red wine left a little to be desired (last night’s was somewhat lacking in flavour but incredibly easy to drink) but they bought us a round of drinks before the meal which gave us pretty much carte blanche to order whatever we liked which was unusually generous. Or perhaps rather foolishly trusting, depending on your point of view. It was filling, satisfying, but ultimately a little dull. The truth is the alleged cream of the Cambridge restauranting crop don’t feel nearly so special as they ought, and are going to have to act quickly to retain their title.

Unfortunately the late finish meant I had to miss the Ball launch party at Cindy’s. The Ball site has now been updated with several new sections including profiles for the committee. At any rate, I can’t stomach the excessive cheese of Cindy’s unless I’m pretty drunk and frankly I have too much work to be drunk right now. I’ll see you in a couple of days…

There is a reason for the recent eerie silence: I’ve been ill. Yes, I know it doesn’t happen that often but it is still a possibility and in this case it was very real. Throat turning to sandpaper, constricting painfully making swallowing a minute long ordeal, and brain struggling valiantly to beat its way out of my skull. The usual. That said, I’m pretty sure this is just the regular variety of flu rather than that of our feathered friends, so there’s that to be grateful for. It did still leave me hiding from the world in dark room for most of Monday. Since I don’t make a habit of getting ill and have already taken my Annual Painkillers, I didn’t really have much in the way of medication. Friends were great however and I soon found myself surrounded by a strange assortment of dubious Ukrainian drugs (thanks Irina) and Singaporean Strepsils (thanks Steph).

The more judgments I read, the more I start to think my cousin Caleb has the right idea with becoming a judge. As far as I can tell from our latest round of Denning wizardry, the process consists solely of coming up with the desired result and then finding some appropriately obscure literary reference to use as evidence that it’s correct. So roughly the same way I go about producing one of my more pretentious blog entries, really…

Regarding the mini-radio competition, which earned a much better response, the winner was Dave who suggested the firm “Ware, Faman, Death (pronounced D-ath) and Pestilante (a new Italian partner…)”, with Shamini coming in second.

I’ve been doing the rounds at various law firms’ events although unlike last year I’m actually looking for work at the end of the day, rather than just luxuriating in the free food and booze. We’re also looking to wrangle sponsorship for the next issue of The Globalist (with it’s rapidly approaching release this Monday). Baker & McKenzie proved particularly helpful in that regard, so we’ll see what happens there. Linklaters put together a fantastic presentation with a video that showed a trainee’s perspective and was genuinely funny in parts. Freshfields had an informal and friendly chat over drinks after hiring the top tier of Bar B. After bumping into Steph and Yvonne we decided that we needed desert so went along to The Union’s Ben & Jerry’s night for free ice cream. The other two were members but I had to talk my way in, and I can’t think of any more appropriate place to test out one’s verbal persuasiveness than the uni’s hub of debating and public speaking. Needless to say, it worked. Phish Food all round. The firms’ food has been of a consistently high quality, but I’m waiting for the inevitable round of dinners for Downing because we’re spoilt. Err, special. I meant special.

After the underwhelming response to the last competition (the result being J earned himself a swanky new PS2 ethernet card and Adam is now the proud owner of Worms 4) maybe this one will interest more people. Courtesy of Linklaters we have two cool mini-radios with a keyring clip to give away, complete with headphones (although it uses a jack that any standard pair will fit). To be in with a chance of winning, I want you to name a law firm. That’s it. Be as original and amusing (insulting?) as possible and remember if you’re one of the only people to enter, you’re virtually guaranteed to win! Email entries to competition[at]meewella.com. Good luck!

The start of a new term is always hectic, but this has been something else. I quickly settled into my new room in M staircase which proved to be much larger than the box I was expecting. In fact, being a more intelligent shape, it actually feels more spacious than my old one, though I’m still bitter about losing such a perfect view. Friends in houses on Lensfield have been popping over regularly, so it’s never too quiet, and I know a lot of the third years around me anyway. It’s a good bunch of people and an excellent kitchen — two ovens, two grills and eight hobs, so much cooking mayhem will ensue, no doubt. The only downside is the tropical sauna that is my bathroom, since the hot water pipes for upstairs run through it, and the shower which resembles being spat on repeatedly. All in all though, I very much landed on my feet given that I was so low in the rooms ballot.

Meanwhile the freshers have been filling Downing for the last few days, partying hard and generally proving to be a fairly energetic bunch. I’ve met both my kids now, and Family Night yesterday was a pretty riotous affair. Since only Narinder could make it (Anton was unavailable as it was Jewish New Year) Charlotte and I hooked up with Lyds and Ravi’s family and were also joined by Dave and Angie’s (along with Annabel as Dave’s mistress). We ate at Ereina’s, a fantastic little restaurant that looks decidedly odd at first glance, and it’s headache-inducing menu serves food of virtually every style imaginable. Run by a Greek family, unsuprisingly the Greek dishes are probably the best on offer. We then headed on to Club Twenty Two (which used to be Life – Cambridge clubs have a strange habit of constantly rebranding themselves while the old names stick; we still refer to one as Cindy’s despite the fact it has never been called that during our time here!) to finish off the evening.

Today, amidst sorting out Ball website issues (after a panicked phone call from Rav yesterday saying, “we’ve been handing out flyers with the address on so we need the website up…now!”) and Globalist logitics, I had to meet all of my supervisors in a weird mystery tour of Cambridge, and suddenly I discovered how much of Cambridge I still didn’t know as I trekked from Downing to Magdalene to Downing to the Lauterpacht Centre to Downing to Fitzwilliam and back to Downing. The mayhem felt much like the freshers’ pub crawl but without the alcoholic incentive. This year’s shaping up to be a lot tougher. I think Hoppo described last year well when said, “You certainly didn’t disgrace yourself but you didn’t exactly excel yourself either. Go for the first this year?” He and Virgo still seem remarkably confident in my capabilities and I suppose I should trust their experience since they’ve been doing this for several decades…

Lastly, when checking my mail yesterday, I found a package containing a PS2 ethernet card along with a copy of Worms 4: Mayhem. Very nice, but not exactly useful since I don’t have a PS2. It looks as though it was sent to me by Codemasters, the developers, so I can only assume it was part of some promotional competition I entered a long while back (probably trying to win the console). Either that or they want me to review it. Unfortunately without the requisite machine all I can tell you is that the disc is very shiny. If you think all this should be yours instead, let me know why in the comments and I’ll see what I can do…

Friday’s birthday do went well. It was a decent medium-sized gathering despite the many people who were inconveniently away. TomTom (thanks for helping with so many lifts), Lyds and Annabel made it and even Rav braved the treacherous trip into terrorist-infested London. Sammy C came down from Birmingham too, where he’s now living, and Zaki brought his cousin all the way over from Ireland (okay, so he was here visiting anyway). And it was great to meet up with everyone else who I haven’t seen for far too long.

I’ve started work experience at Dechert, a City law firm, in a department that specialises in Intellectual Property, meaning that they deal with a lot of techie stuff. You know how much I love corrupting clichés and destroying expectations, so naturally other people made me cups of tea and I was briefing lawyers before a meeting instead of the other way round (they were trying to get an account with a company that deals in the world of MMOGs so I knew more about the industry than they and they asked me to make them a cribsheet to sound good – and yes, we got the job). Strangely I have not yet been asked to sign any NDA, but nevertheless I shall not be discussing cases in anything more than general terms. There was also some work to do with retrieving domain names, so the pains of the Downing Ball issues could be put to some use.

The next day mostly consisted of more mundane contract proofreading (but imagine the enjoyment you get from pointing out my errors, and then extrapolate for a fully qualified lawyer). It would appear that it’s just not a real contract until it hits 90 pages, although this matter has been ongoing for almost a year and is closing this Friday (in New York, but they declined to ask me along). Amongst the employees is a trainee who went to Lucy Cavendish at Cambridge, so we spent a while reminiscing about Virgo (she was at the infamous knicker-throwing lecture), the Hopkinses and Downing gravel.

By the way, Graham, I notice you still haven’t signed like we discussed…

This year’s Jesus Ball, Xanadu, was simply spectacular. Generally considered the best of the second level Balls, Trinity, John’s (£20,000 fireworks) and Magdalene (which enforced a strict white tie dress code) being a little rich for my blood this year! As such, Jesus tends to attract a lot of the first years as a great induction to the world of Cambridge May Balls.

This year was no exception as they prepared everything within easy reach so that there was always something new to enjoy, from donuts to dodgems and cocktails to origami, by stepping around the next corner or into the next courtyard. Unlike Downing, the college separated into areas that can be decorated and lit wonderfully for an event such as this. Much as I was impressed by Downing’s efforts in March, I think this clarified just how much work we have to improve things for next year.

Before the Ball was the LawSoc Garden Party which Roger and Chris came along to, now back in town for May week. I spent a while lounging with the first years, drinking champagne, sipping Pimms, eating canapes, strawberries and cream and listening to some average a capella and a decent string quartet. Nick swanned around looking Presidential and I eventually settled down with the some second year lawyers and went off to dinner with them afterwards. Meanwhile, Matt was getting rather more inebriated on Viney’s pub crawl (which I had decided would be a bad pre-Ball idea, so he was rather wasted before we left.

I went down with the K bunch and Cara who was visiting Dave, so it was nice to see her fully done up too. Once we arrived I ended up splitting off fairly swiftly, not being a huge fan of all the company, and determined to enjoy myself as much as possible for the £85 ticket! After a quick photo with everyone I headed over to the main tent, drawn in by a female-fronted emo act called Bodixa whose haunting tones filled the night air. It’s one of the few new female voices that I’ve found really captivating recently (I’m openly a bit of a Nazi when it comes to female vocalists, in that for me they’ll never have the power of a broken male voice or the purity of an unbroken one, so definitely need something special).

I spent much of the evening with a slightly drunken Engineer Sarah, another Downingite (there were a huge crowd of us there), who was great fun and improved my night immeasurably. I haven’t spent much time around her when she’s drunk before, but she managed to insult swathes of people often entirely unintentionally. At times she’d be trying to compliment someone and inadvertantly insult everyone else present. Fortunately I generally managed to drag her off before she was hit. However, the result is that I’m in several of her photos (which I don’t yet have) and not that many of K’s (which I do). I also bumped into Adam, who is at Jesus, several times during the evening and chatted about some of the finer points of the Ball. As the sun rose once more, I recoupled with the K crowd as the music switched to cheese and the survivors photo loomed.

The rest of the week has been a quieter run of various garden parties (the JCR’s being particularly good – well done Gubby!) and, at Irina’s behest as a birthday gathering, a waterfight on the Paddock on Thursday afternoon. She, Ravi and I headed into earlier in the day to acquire suitably large, phallic water pistols which is actually harder than it sounds in Cambridge. We were eventually successful and proceeded to both soak and get thoroughly soaked. Although the bucket eventually became Ravi’s weapon of choice, I managed to outrun him twice while desparate shooting behind me. Meanwhile Ali took Viney’s backpack fuelled behemoth of a water gun and reigned merry hell for as long as she could…but ultimately ended up in the same state as the rest of us.

I am significantly de-stressed since the last time I wrote. On Wednesday evening was the Cranworth Annual Dinner which attracts virtually every Downing lawyer, as well as several from the City too. The food was decent although not outstanding, but the champagne, wine and port flowed liberally due to the usual list of sponsers as long as the menu, so the revelry continued into the night. I discovered that one of my regular readers is none other than my Director of Studies, an interesting revelation that was met with stern admonishment for not having signed the guestbook. Speaking of which, despite clear instruction, very few of you have signed it since the last one was lost (the new one is on our servers and fully maintained by me to prevent that happening again). So if you’re reading now, whoever you are, go and sign.

Post-Cranworth I headed over to J and spent a convoluted night that began in James’ room and spread across town as Radeel, Ian, Philly James (he’s a philosopher, he’s also a James, hence the name), his friend Katie and I sought out food, ending up in Catz (the college) where Ian dropped off for a while. Having roused him we trekked back to Downing with some difficulty when ninety degree corners proved to be a little too much for Ian. We headed out onto the Paddock to watch the sun come up until about six when we headed back inside.

Having got to bed around 8am, it then transpired at 10 that most of K wanted to go into London for the day. So, on 2 hours sleep, I headed off with them for a fairly non-descript day of shopping and dining in London, eventually returning to Downing around 1am. The steak I consumed along with a large slice of chocolate fudge cake at Garfunkel’s in Leicester Square has to be one of the most satisfying meals I can remember recently.

The following day was Philly James’ birthday, so I ended up spending much of the day with J people once again. The night was less adventurous, or at least less mobile, than the previous one. We gathered on one corner of the Paddock which was dominated by the Whitby garden party (at which I hear Cat was voted the new secretary). The medics all seemed to be having a fun time as we popped open several bottles of wine and beer. The party did not move as the medics wound down and disappeared. I briefly headed off to the bar at Irina’s behest, and the girl has bought me the most hideous present I can remember receiving. It’s a bright pink bulbous nose-shaped glasses stand. Positively horrific, as she well knew would be my reaction. It’s so thoughtful that she knows I have to have it sitting on my bedside table. Evil, evil girl. She also bought tinned white crab meat in brine having explained that she intended to get me something I’d never eaten before. As presents go, that was unique. Almost me-ish!

Returning to the circle on the paddock, now replete with incense sticks and glowbands, other James’ friends from home in Guildford arrived and I ended up chatting to Elliot for much of the evening. Glowbands found their way in a bottle of Malibu that glowed suspiciously as two ex-barmen attempted to perform tricks (apparently you can’t teach a new barman old tricks). Another set were wrapped around the inside of a frisbee creating a very cool UFO.

Saturday was the first totally empty day on my calendar and it was fantastic to lounge around with Beccy and some others all afternoon. Hanging with the J crowd has been really chilled and a nice change of pace which is exactly what I needed.