Blags in search of mythical free lunch
Thou shalt not blag
We are the nation’s intellectual élite. So why do we make up random crap all the time? Oxford students raise the art of the blag to a new level: from that medieval English tutorial to sneaking into other colleges’ formal halls. Did you really go to your tutor’s lecture on Anglo Saxon linguistic evolution? Of course not, therefore the blag is almost obligatory, really. Five minutes in, you are drowning in a sea of diphthongs and genitives.
You could admit you were still excessively drunk in a stranger’s room on Wednesday morning at ten o’clock, but instead you push through, determined to prove to your tutor that you “really enjoyed his lecture”. The academic blagging doesn’t end in tutorials, though. One of my sources, who wishes to remain anonymous, concocted an imaginary African tribe in his Approaches to History paper during his first year prelims. He ended up with a First in that paper.
Whence does this phenomenon spring? What well of insecurity are Oxford students plumbing as we speak as a rationale for furtive anti-social behavior? In an effort to come close to an answer, I decided to blag a bit myself. I must admit I am not particularly new to this diversion; in my first year at Oxford I blagged into a Union ball, wore fake glasses for a term despite my 20/20 vision, and sat English Mods. Legendary blags build on a sense of timing and experience.
With this in mind, a brief retrospective of my blagging history is essential in order to put the reader in a proper sense of mindset. As a naïve fresher in Michaelmas 2005, I was ripe for all that Oxford had to offer. Silly me. The concept of paying for the Union Ball seemed a bit too straightforward, so instead I put on a dress and rocked up around ten thirty. I assumed my most quivering face, and strode past the suited security.
Rule #1: Acting as if you have just caught your boyfriend pulling your sister ensures a successful blag 87 per cent of the time. Once inside the Union, it was almost too easy. Although I had no Union ball stamp on my hand, I vaguely recall that checking my coat and consuming copious amounts of alcohol seemed almost effortless. I have to admit my game seems to be flagging lately: missed opportunities for free booze, long silences in tutorials, and using my real name to introduce myself.
In an effort to tighten up my blag, I surveyed Oxford’s blagging opportunities with an eye towards pushing myself a bit. I’ve always longed to sneak into a room in the Randolph and order room service, and an article on blagging seemed like the perfect cloak for dishonest gluttony. My plan involved roaming the halls in the late morning during housekeeping and appealing to a maid once I “had misplaced my key”.
I strode into the lobby majestically, but was quickly foiled by the woman vacuuming the stairs. I foolishly turned into the nearest exit which turned out to be a dead end. “Wrong way!” she said enthusiastically, with a look of wary apprehension on her face. Standing there with no clue as to where the bloody rooms were in the hotel, I employed Blag Rule #2: The loo is a place of retreat.
I ducked into the toilet, and stood surveying myself in the mirror while generously slathering my hands with Molton Brown products. As I caught my distracted reflection, the question of whether or not this was what a modern day student journalist looked like popped into my head. I came across as some sad sorry hack that couldn’t pull her blag game together. I took a deep breath, and prepared to sally forth again.
I heard a mingling of voices in a room nearby and endeavored to crash a “Snack On” seminar that was occurring in the St John room. Confidently pushing the door open, I was met with a gathering of professionals nibbling on Galaxy products. In an effort to look unobtrusive, I helped myself to a cup of coffee and a giant Galaxy bar. At this point, most people were regarding me with suspicion in their eyes.
Was it because I had slipped the chocolate bar into my bag? I put my cup of coffee down, and nodded cheerfully in the direction of the door. Once I slipped out of the St John room, I met the housekeeper again, industriously vacuuming the bit of carpet outside the loo. It was clear that I was under surveillance. I decided to push through however, to explore the other wing of the hotel across the landing.
As I hit the dead end of the other hall, and noticed the maid peering at me skeptically from the other side of the landing, I decided to cut my losses JAMES COGLAN Blags her way around Oxford in search of the mythical free lunch Jenny Rigterink and head to the elevator. As I marched out of the lobby, I had to admit my free chocolate bar wasn’t exactly a legendary blag.
Oxford spread itself out like a blanket of blagging opportunities before my eager eyes, however, and I decided to embark upon my alternate identity scheme. As I sauntered into Balliol College, I reviewed my plan of attack. I was assuming the identity of Daisy Brinker, a 3rd year classicist from Kent. I decided to go and chill in the JCR with my fellow mates at Balliol College. Once in the JCR, I tried to play it cool, picking up a paper and stretching out on the couch.
I was ready to do some serious blagging. After engaging in some hardcore eye sex with a fellow member of Balliol JCR, I decide to lean over to introduce myself during a gap in his group’s conversation. At this point, the three people I know at Balliol stream into the JCR from an auxiliary entrance. I bury myself in my paper, but as they give me quizzical looks, I decide that Daisy Brinker will need to debut in another college’s JCR.
As I have never met anyone from Jesus College, I decide that Daisy will heal the Oxonian/Sheepshagger divide. Once installed in the Jesus JCR, I smile enthusiastically at everyone who enters, but sadly this seems to deter people from sitting with me. In fact, the group of around 20 people that is initially sitting in the JCR disperse as soon as I start to lounge on the podlike chairs within the space of about three minutes.
Once I find myself sitting with the kitchen lady watching Murder She Wrote I decide to abandon Daisy Brinker. Apparently she is not particularly appealing to the youths of Oxford. Outside of Oxford, the blag tradition seems to scale even greater heights. Sarah Lederman, a student at the Chelsea School of Art shared one of her best blags with me. Lederman and her friends snuck into the Tate last year in an effort to blag their way into the Turner Prize assembly.
Sarah and company hid in the toilets for hours until a cleaner knocked on the door. When Sarah and her friends came out, a Turner Prize official asked the group if they wanted to go into the private party. Sarah then made a fatal error: “We’re happy waiting out here” sounded suspicious to the official, and the group was kindly asked to go fetch their Turner Prize badges. Rule #3: Always accept any invitation a figure of authority bestows upon you.
Lederman reckons, “If we had been dressed smarter, we would have got in.” This leads me to Rule #4: always dress the part when attempting to blag your way into parties and events. Matthew Richardson, a former undergraduate as St Peter’s College, appears to have participated in the ultimate academic blag: impersonating a professor.
Matthew claims it was a case of mistaken identity as he describes the experience as “a comedy of errors”; apparently he shares his name with a Professor at New York University. When asked to give a series of lectures on economics at the University of Beijing, Richardson, somehow ignoring the bizarre nature of the request, prepared for the lecture series with an A-Level textbook on the aeroplane.
Although Richardson insists that, “I did not misrepresent myself at all,” he also claims that, “Anyone can give a lecture on anything.” These two statements don’t exactly seem to work in conjunction if one is to believe there was no element of blagging involved in his Far Eastern holiday.
Richardson, who had prepared his series of lectures for middle-schoolers found himself unnerved by both the age and the formal attire of his audience: “I realised that something might be wrong when the students were in business suits at lunch.” Indeed, the students were expecting graduate level lectures on International Financial Markets.
Richardson decided to push through nine and a half hours of lectures however, but as his notes dwindled, he realized that he didn’t have the blag to back it up. This brings us to Rule #5: Always abandon ship, rather than come clean. He checked out of the hotel connected to the conference center, and spent his last night in a different hotel before heading home on his prearranged flight. One can only imagine where his pupils thought their mysterious lecturer had fled to.
On his return to Britain, Richardson discovered that he had the same name as a leading authority on the same subject, and the mystery was resolved. Why do we blag so much? Although it is not a purely Oxford phenomenon, there is clearly a case for our predilection for blagging fitting in with our general competitiveness: if we don’t recognize a word our tutor is using, we certainly are not going to admit it.
Similarly, if we haven’t been invited to the smart party of the week, we will just rock up anyhow, welcome or not, and give the birthday girl a big kiss on the cheek. The amusing element to all of this relentless blagging is that both parties in the situation generally know that one is completely taking the piss.
Yes, your tutor does realise that you have not read Troilus and Criseyde; your referring to Criseyde as a man in your essay seemed to indicate to him that you really hadn’t absorbed much of the text. In Oxford, we blag through our insecurities rather than addressing them. I can’t decide if this is funny, or simply sad; perhaps I should settle on the word “unique.”
16th Feb 2006