HUNGOVER WERE WE??

In August 1997, there was a course on Microsoft Exchange Server 5 which took place in Basingstoke, UK. Although the course was interesting and relevant to most of the people who attended, during the last two days, there was more interest in the tales of the events of the previous evening, and the students who were the main focus of the those events were definitely feeling very sorry for themselves. Surnames and EMAIL addresses of those concerned have been deliberately omitted to preserve anonymity. But they know who they were.....

During the class, an earlier version of this web page was created on the class's internal web site to illustrate hyperlinks within EMAIL messages. On the final day, it was agreed by all the parties concerned to upload a full report to a real web site. The major participants were asked on several occasions whether they really wanted to proceed with this course of action, and at no time did any of them show any reluctance to these facts being publicised. Exact details of some of the locations concerned have also been withheld in case the author, a previous resident of Basingstoke, wishes to return to any of them.

Table of Contents

• The Cast....
• The Locations
• Virtual Tennis
• Melissa and the Marital Row
• The Hampshire Constabulary Taxi Service
• Steve and the Pool Table
• Trevor and the Bottle of Wine
• Monty Python (featuring a word from John Cleese)
• Author's Links

The Cast

1. Loiuse (20 something)
2. Steve (older than Louise, and older than all the other participants)
3. Paul (30 and a bit)
4. Howard (30 and a bit)
5. Louise (again - her antics were such that she should be listed twice)

The Locations

1. Louise's Hotel
   Situated about 10 miles from Basingstoke. Not conveniently located if you wish to return to it at 4am after some of the events described which took place in Basingstoke itself.
2. Steve's Hotel
   Situated within walking distance of where the course was held, two miles from the centre of Basingstoke. Features tennis courts, swimming pool and other sporting facilities.
3. Howard's Hotel
   A hotel in the town centre of Basingstoke. Paul was staying in a guest house close to this hotel.
4. The Pub.
   A town centre pub, much frequented by the author when a resident of Basingstoke.

The Events....

• During the third day of the course, Wednesday, it was suggested that all the participants and the instructor get together for a drink the following evening as this would be the night before the final day of the course.
• When the day's session ended, it was further suggested that the participants get together for a "quick drink" on that day as well. The venue chosen was Steve's hotel since it was close to where the course was being held.
• This was a quick drink for the instructor and those students who had to travel. For the others, this turned into a session lasted until the early hours of the following morning...
• At some time during that session, there was a game of virtual tennis in the tennis courts, between Louise and Steve, featuring virtual tennis balls and virtual tennis rackets. In spite of the whose proceedings being virtual, other hotel guests took steps to avoid the volleys.
• One volley was said to having lasted 20 minutes. Given the vague recollections by the people concerned, the reported duration of this volley could have been exaggerated.
• For the benefit of the barman, Louise and Paul pretended that they were married and had a row about Paul's alleged affair with a certain Melissa. Was this the five minute argument or the full half hour?
• By midnight, Steve had had enough. He was noticed retiring to his room, but then returning again on several occasions. Steve does not recollect any of this. By this time, Louise was calling him "Bea" and Steve was calling Louise "Alison". The reasons for this were never entirely made clear, especially to Steve and Louise.
• The remaining three - Louise, Howard and Paul were thrown out at around 2am. Literally. They were told to never come back.
• Howard orders a taxi for the three of them.
• While waiting for the Taxi, Louise wanders off across into the hotel grounds.
• The taxi arrives. Paul goes off in search of Louise and does not find her. When Paul returns to where the taxi was, it had gone.
• Howard continues the drinking session on his own at his hotel bar until around 3am.
• Paul walks back to his guest house. He vaguely remembers walking down the middle of the dual carriageway - this could be either the Basingstoke ring road or the eastern town centre link, or both.
• Louise, by way of falling into assorted gardens, bushes and other obstacles, makes her way to the A33 to start walking the 10 miles to her hotel. It was possibly raining as well, since heavy rain fell over most of the country that night.
• While walking up the A33, Louise flags down a police car. She tells them that she is lost and that her mobile phone has lost its charge so cannot call up a taxi. The police agree to take her to her hotel. On the way, the police have to attend an accident while Louise sleeps in the back of the police car.
• Louise has a couple of hours sleep and gets up for breakfast. She has a full breakfast, but ends up by only "renting" it. Since her car is still in Basingstoke, she has to take a taxi back to the course.
• Louise, Steve and Paul spend most of that day feeling sorry for themselves. Howard on the other hand, seems quite cheerful.
• The prototype version of this web site was created in the class. The main participants were invited to add further reminiscences, a task difficult in itself because not much was remembered. They spend a lot of time sending EMAIL to each other, some of which was captured:-
  • Louise: "I think we should all ask ourselves a serious question......... WHY ISN'T HOWARD HUNGOVER?????? He drank as much as the rest of us but is fine!!!!!!!! Not fair!"
  • Louise: "There's no dish to dirt"
• Howard remains fine until he tries to perk himself up with Louise's Pro Plus, and then feels much worse
• In spite of how the main participants of the night before were feeling, it was agreed that the final drink for Thursday night, as originally planned, should still go ahead.
• Steve, however, is very reluctant to participate and would have preferred to have a night in. However, by the end of the day, Louise persuades him to join the party on the basis that it would not go on for as long as it did the night before.
• This time, the participants would be Louise, Steve, Paul. Howard and the designated driver (who was in a completely different city the night before when the events previously described took place).
• It was agreed that the designated driver would pick Loiuse up from her hotel at around 8pm, and then pick up Steve from his hotel and then meet the others at Howard's hotel. At the end of the session, the designated driver would return Steve to his hotel and Louise to her hotel.
• The designated driver made it clear that the lifts for Louise and Steve would only be available in the period around the time pubs closed. If Louise and Steve wished to continue drinking after that time, they would have to find their own way back to their respective hotels. The designated driver was not staying in a hotel in Basingstoke, and commuted to Basingstoke from his home city every day.
• The designated driver was told by Louise and Steve to ensure that he took them home at the agreed time, on pain of death. Louise and Steve did not wish to appear on any update to the Hangover Web Site the following day.
• The designated driver picks up Louise and proceeds to Steve's hotel. At the hotel, Louise hides in the car and asks the designated driver to go and fetch Steve, for fear that she would be recognised from the previous night.
• The three of them meet Howard and Paul at Howard's hotel as planned.
• They have a couple of drinks there, and then proceed to the Pub.
• At the pub, Louise and Paul play on the Guinness Book or Records machine and do badly.
• The whole group attempts to play darts. Rules are made up as they went along.
• The darts game proceeds until after closing time. The bar staff become more and more insistent that they should leave and the darts game is ended when the darts are taken off the designated driver.
• Steve suggests that they should put up a tent on the premises so that they can become residents and continue drinking. The bar staff are not amused.
• Eventually, the party leave. They spend the next 20 minutes discussing where to go next.
• The designated driver reminds Louise and Steve of the agreement that they should all leave now, and that Louise and Steve had insisted on this before the evening's session commenced.
• Louise and Steve however are now beyond listening to reason and wish to continue drinking in spite of their best intentions of earlier.
• The designated driver, in spite of being in a no-win situation, accepts their decision and returns to his home city.
• The others return to Howard's Hotel and continue drinking with all the drinks going on Howard's bar bill.
• The party drink and play Pool. There is an argument about how to set up the table.
  Paul: "Nobody at all knows how to set up a Pool Table"
• Steve and Louise have a virtual battle with lasers. A 5 minute argument develops when Louise suggests that they are using light sabres. Steve however insists that they are using lasers.
• As the evening progresses, Steve starts falling over more and more, and also falls into the pool table. Howard orders a taxi for him and Steve returns to his hotel.
• Howard, after singing songs from Tommy, grows quieter and quieter and the session progresses as he thinks about those increasing digits on his bar bill.
• The session finishes during the early hours of the morning. Howard orders a taxi for Louise.
• While the taxi is being ordered, another hotel resident, a bulging muscle man Trevor, offers to give Louise a lift back to her hotel on the basis that he has not been drinking.
• Paul advises Louise to take the taxi because Trevor is not known for them.
• Louise to Trevor: "Oh What Big Biceps you have!"
  Louise elects to go with Trevor and the taxi is cancelled
• The drive to the hotel takes about an hour, because Louise in her condition, cannot remember the way. She is clutching a half drunk bottle of wine between her legs.
• They eventually arrive at the hotel. Louise remembers leaving Trevor's car and entering the hotel without thanking him.
• The following day, Louise reported that she woke up to find a full bottle of wine in her hotel room with absolutely no recollection of how it got there. Did Trevor come in?????
• When the previous night's events were discussed, Louise insisted that Paul persuaded her to go with Trevor rather than take a cab.
• So Trevor - if you are out there reading this, EMAIL me, and I'll pass it on your EMAIL address to Louise. But Louise said that she gave Trevor her phone number anyway........

During the course of the two evenings, there were renditions of the following Monty Python sketches:-

1. The Four Yorshiremen ("There were 150 o'us living in shoe box in middle o'road")
2. Political Peasants ("Watery tarts distributing swords is no basis for a system of government")
3. What have the Romans ever done for us? (Meeting of the People's Front of Judea)
4. Romanes Eunt Domus (Brian's graffiti on the wall)
5. The Camelot Song ("It's only a model!")
6. The Parrot Sketch ("This Parrot IS NO MORE!")
7. A word from John Cleese - click here.

For more information on Monty Python, look no further than consult this web site. No, the author of this web site was not one of those present, but had she been, no doubt she would have been featured as much as Louise..... But if you EMAIL her, she will tell you about the background music, which can hear with the words on the juke box in the Blue Parrot Bar, Euclid, Cleveland, Ohio.

So how much about Microsoft Exchange Server would you think Louise, Steve, Paul and Howard learned during that week?

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