Blancmange

[Baroque Mongoose]

This one's for Philidor. I didn't really want to divert the vibrato thread with it. Before I start the story, I would just like to mention that everyone mentioned in it was strictly teetotal at the time, with the possible exception of the porter, whose drinking habits we knew not of. This is important. I don't want anyone going away with the idea that we were a bunch of mad drunken students. We were of the generation which could do the insanity perfectly well without alcoholic assistance.

When I was at university, two of my best friends were called Sian and Robin, and these two were also friends with each other. Sian discovered that Robin was about to have a birthday, and originally she wanted to make him a birthday cake. She lived in a university hall of residence and I was in self-catering accommodation, so she asked if she could come over so that we could make and decorate the cake together. Unfortunately there was some reason - probably the unreliability of the oven - why this wouldn't fly, so we put our heads together and eventually came up with the idea of a Birthday Blancmange. I was to go out and acquire suitable blancmange mix in a variety of colours, we'd make the blancmange in Sian's room, then I would come back in the morning when it had set and help her to decorate it. Sian had found some little sugar flowers for the purpose.

We had great fun making up different colours of blancmange and pouring them into a large Tupperware container to make a spectacular layered creation, and then I went back to my digs to sleep the sleep of the only just. In the morning I returned to Sian's room, only to find the empty Tupperware container and no sign of the blancmange.

It is at this point, perhaps, that I need to stop to describe Sian. She was one of those very small ladies with absolute, unshakeable confidence. She'd worked as a bouncer in a Liverpool nightclub. She just used to walk up to troublemakers and politely request them to leave in her impeccable RP accent, and they would go away. I'm quite sure the reason this worked was that there was not the faintest shadow of doubt in her mind that they would do as she said. Hence, in the narrative which is about to follow, you need to feel really sorry for the porter.

As anyone would, I asked what had happened to the blancmange. "Ah," replied Sian calmly. "I'm afraid there was a bit of an accident."

It transpired that what had happened was that Sian had got a little impatient the previous night and unmoulded the blancmange too early, before it had set properly. She had at least had the forethought to do it over the washbasin, which meant that three pints of multi-layered blancmange went slopping over the sides of the plate and down the drain. Sian then went to bed, reasoning that I still had some blancmange left so we could always make another one, and overnight... you can see this coming, can't you?... the blancmange set solid in the outlet pipe.

So, first thing in the morning, our heroine discovered that she couldn't use the washbasin, and she did what any student would do in the circumstances. She called a porter. The porter duly arrived with his plunger, and of course he thought it would be hair in the pipe, because that was what it nearly always was. He set to work, with Sian watching and no doubt giving suitable encouragement. After a while he frowned and said, "This isn't hair, is it?"

"No," replied Sian, quite unfazed.

"Er... what is it, exactly?"

"Blancmange," said Sian, as though this were the most natural thing in the world.

"Blancmange?"

I don't know whether or not Sian beamed at him seraphically at this point, but I'll just bet she did. "Blancmange," she confirmed.

Somehow, the porter couldn't quite bring himself to make any further enquiries.

Anyway, to prevent a long story from becoming even longer, I took the plastic container and the sugar flowers back to my digs, made and decorated the blancmange at my end to prevent any repetition of the unfortunate incident, and brought it back to Sian's in the evening in time for the little impromptu party for which purpose she had invited Robin round.

And, do you know what? He ate the lot. All three pints of it.

[Philidor]

[Baroque Mongoose]

*bows* Why, thank you!