The McDonald’s Guide to Healthy Eating

The living quarters are split into two halves, four people in each half. In the centre there’s a washroom and showers. There’s a mini kitchen with a fridge, a kettle and a toaster. Above a counter someone has stuck up a promotional leaflet entitled The McDonald’s Guide to Healthy Eating.

Who are these band of merry men – for they are all indeed men, whether they are merry will depend on what time of day you encounter them. There’s Dave. There’s Ray. There’s John the Bastard (son of John the Bastard John). Mad Mark Fletcher.

There’s Navan, a quiet and unassuming Indian guy. He smiles a lot, but you rarely see him.

There was a student from Singapore living in the room opposite but he didn’t last out the first month. Now there’s Ian, a stocky guy from Southampton. One of the many engineering students.

High times and high jinks. A mess of cultures and personalities rattling along together. Then there’s Eunice, the saintly cleaner. Heaven knows what she makes of it all, but then she’s doubtless seen it all before.

It’s the weekend. Specifically, it’s the weekend of Tom’s party. Tom comes from Manchester. Not any of the famous parts, not any of the areas you would’ve ever heard of. He supports Man City, which in those days told you he was a local. Glory hunters supported Manchester United. No one supported City unless their place of birth compelled them to.

Tom didn’t live on campus. He lived in college accommodation across on the other side of town. He lived in a tower block, where students were assigned randomly, two to a room. The building had a bad rep. The area it was sited in had a bad rep. The lifts often broke down and students had to climb up eight or ten flights of stairs to get to their dorms. One student, it was said, had committed suicide in one of those inaccessible rooms.

This was the other side of life that those of us living on campus didn’t get to see.

I knew Tom from my tutorial group. We sat next to each other. We didn’t necessarily have much in common, but he was affable and more outgoing than me. He’d invited me to his party. His roommate was away for the weekend. He had friends from Manchester coming over to stay. I suppose it was a chance to see how the other half lived, although I would never have admitted to that out loud.

I’d tried to round up as many people as I could to come with me. I certainly didn’t want to go out there on my own. In the end it was only me and Dave and Mark Fletcher. We didn’t have a car, so we walked the whole way  – from one edge of the town to the other. Stopping in the local Co-op to buy cheap alcohol for the party. Lager. Beer. Maybe some cider. Mark had bought something potent and dark coloured that came in a large glass bottle. Later on we stopped at a random pub to get in a couple of pre party drinks. Best to be prepared.

It was winter time, so it was dark by the time we arrived. The area probably looked better that way, with shadows from the streetlights covering the worst of the decline. The lift worked that evening, so we were spared the long hike up several flights of stairs. I’d been in tower blocks before. This was no different. Tom’s room seemed spacious enough though, more solid than the flimsy cabin we’d been annexed to back on campus. But you could tell claustrophobia might suck you in at any moment. Life this high up came with its own set of problems.

The party began calmly enough. There were a couple of women, possibly from a neighbouring room, hanging out in the doorway. We added our tins to the general pile of booze that was accumulating by one of the beds. There were snacks and a steady throb from the music coming out of a shiny hi-fi unit. Tom’s friends arrived shortly after we did. There were four or five of them. It was hard to keep track. They were loud and lairy – scallies would’ve been the term back then. They were very Mancunian. The type destined to become unlikely pop stars in the mold of The Stone Roses or The Happy Mondays, or else... but the or else was probably something grim.

It didn’t take long for the alcohol to kick in. At some point the women had wisely departed. Dave and I were probably thinking we should’ve left with them. ('At the same time as' would be a better way to put it – we were neither the type to have randomly chatted up strangers). Mark on the other hand was having a great time. He was a larger than life character, both in stature and in personality. He was from Sheffield. Local rivalries had set in. I’m more northern than you – you get the idea. There was only one of him, but if it came to a fight I figured he had the physique to take on all comers.

I wish I had a better memory and could recall everything that happened that night. I knew I was out of my comfort zone, so I probably drank too much and tried to keep my head down. The evening peaked, somewhat inevitably, with a drinking game. Fuzzy Duck. Everyone was slumped on the floor or one of the beds by this point. The game was quick fire word play and turns would pass backwards and forwards dependent on whatever arcane rules were being enforced. Rhymes and rude words were the stock in trade of the game. Any verbal slip was a forfeit in which you had to take another drink.

Inevitably everyone was getting more drunk and the game was descending into chaos. Someone had broken a glass. The floor was sticky with spilt beer. Meanwhile Mark had decided to play the game to his own set of rules - either deliberately making mistakes or simply taking another drink each turn regardless of the outcome. At some point Dave had retreated to the back of the room and adopted the Swiss position. He was out of the game, now just a glassy-eyed neutral observer.

I guess we played on until all the alcohol had been drunk or everyone had passed out. One of the Mancunians had disappeared to the toilet and never returned. Mark had goaded several  of the guests, heated words had been exchanged, but miraculously the night had passed without any serious violence.

The long walk home was interrupted by a trip to the late night kebab shop. It was the one place in Stafford that served food up until 1am and therefore inevitably a popular hangout for students. We arrived just as they were about to close. Mark barged straight in and ordered two portions of chips for himself.

“I can’t serve you all,” the guy behind the counter told us. “There’s only enough chips left for two portions.”

“I only want two portions,” Mark replied calmly.

“What about your mates? I’ve got nothing else to serve them.”

“Not my problem, is it?”

The guy looked at the three of us and then shrugged his shoulders. It was obviously not worth the bother of arguing any further on our behalf. So that’s how we left it, trailing home through the town centre while Mark ate his way through two portions of chips.

It must’ve been close to 2am when we finally made it back. The next day – the same day now in fact – was Sunday and I didn’t get up until midday. Campus was often quiet at weekends. I thought of Tom having to clear up the wreckage of the party before his roommate returned. I thought about the unnamed student that had committed suicide in one of those high rise flats. Outside the wind probed at the flimsy foundations of our accommodation block, but somehow it didn’t bother me the way it usually did. I padded out to the kitchen for some water and marvelled once more at the audacity of the advertising firm that had dreamt up the notion of a guide to healthy eating for McDonald's.

After that I probably just went straight back to bed.