'A Guide To Mess Sport at Dining In Nights'
Before Dinner - little opportunity for sporting activity. Time should be spent on 'preparing' the tables laid out in the Dining Room by sabotaging the furniture or re-arranging the seating plan. Alternatively, you can just have a few 'sharpners' to get in the mood ahead of everyone else.
During Dinner - sporting activities are frowned upon before the loyal toast. Confine your activity to eating & drinking, telling very non-PC jokes and lusting after the WAAFS - the latter activity will increase exponentially in proportion to the amount of alcohol consumed.
After the loyal toast - the fun can begin:
Potholing - crawling underneath the tables to either escape through the kitchen door or, more likely, to tie someone's shoelaces together. High risk of a swift kick in the ribs if discovered. Strong possibility your chair will be missing if you manage to return to your point of entry.
Table Shuffling - achieved by shuffling the table along whilst remaining seated. Head for the door if the speaker is retiring and has started to run through his service history.
Mortar Bombs - the weapon of choice. Use an old tin tube which once housed tennis balls. Squirt some lighter fluid into the tube, cover the top and give it a good shake, add the ammunition and heat the baseplate with a gas lighter for the desired effect. General direction of fire is up the legs of the seating plan, towards the centre.
Afterwards in the Ante Room/Bar:
High Cockalorum - 2 teams of about a dozen. One team, the supporting team, lines up crouched over at 90 degrees and each individual grabs hold of the person in front. Front man stands facing back down the team to provide impact prediction. The other team then take it in turn to charge up the room and leap onto the back of the supporting team. If all of the team can mount and remain mounted for 10 seconds, without the supporting team collapsing, the supporting team wins. Not a recommended sporting activity for 10 stone dripping wet girls blouses, as the prospect of a 17 stone alcohol fuelled monster, snorting like a crazed rhino as he charges up the room before landing on your back at 15 mph, is likely to result in catastrophic failure of the middle vertebra, broken limbs or worse. Popular during WW2 and the 1950's then banned. Only played underground these days by F3 crews - allegedly.
Tug-of-War - 2 teams any size. Usually fighting over an old broom handle. Little opportunity for dirty tricks, apart from the 2 front men who often 'accidentally' ram their foot between their opponents legs, causing severe crushing injuries to the parts. Only sport where WAAF teams occasionally participate, when it becomes an outstanding male spectator sport, particularly if full 'webbing' is being worn.
Jousting - 'mano-a-mano'. Sadly, with the withdrawal of RAF issue bicycles, this sport has almost entirely disappeared. Mount the bikes holding a mop as your lance, line up at opposite ends of the anteroom and go for it. Star performers often recommended using a short grip on the mop and wielding it as a club for maximum effect. Alternative strategies were the 'chicken', where you rode directly at your opponent, hurling the mob as a spear when the range closed, and then hoping you would suffer less injury than your opponent in the resulting head-on collision. Alternatively, using the 'Light Brigade' strategy, you could ignore your opponent entirely and direct your charge at someone who has recently incurred your wrath - historically Cavalry have always triumphed over unsupported infantry. Falling onto a bicycle can be dangerous - having a bicycle pedal extracted from the inner depths of your posterior can make your eyes water - somewhat. Privately owned, state-of-the-art, carbon fibre, 24 speed mountain bikes are not recommended as suitable mounts - unless they belong to someone else.
Mess Rugby - any size of team. Usually played with an old cushion, if played with an actual Rugby ball, advisable to consider slight deflation. Rules count for little as does the aim of scoring a try at one end of the room. Excellent opportunity to settle old scores without being identified in the general mayhem. Not recommended for unpopular senior officers. Touch kicks through the anteroom windows should be discouraged. Only jackets and shoes should be removed before play commences, thereby allowing opportunities for maximum destruction of remaining items of Mess Dress worn by unpopular staff. Excellent prospects for exchanging your old patent leather shoes for a new pair if retiring early 'hors de combat'.
Piano Demolition - teams of varying sizes, best played outdoors. Demolish a piano by any means in the minimum time. If played as a 'time-trial' between teams, excellent opportunities for pre-dinner preparation thereby ensuring a fast time. Destruction is usually followed by ritual immolation by fire. Fire jumping is also popular, but not recommended for those of a nervous disposition or visiting American F15 aircrew. It is advisable to actually own the piano before commencing this activity.
Stool Dancing - one team, any number generally played in the bar. Link arms around a bar stool. Aim is to pull/push someone into the stool. Anyone who knocks over the stool is eliminated. Ideal competitor has arms like a prop forward and legs like an Olympic high jumper - an unlikely combination. Can drag on for ages and become boring for spectators. Good opportunity for young bloods to impress nubile young WAAFS with their manly strength, until they get smashed into an adjacent fruit machine whilst distracted.
Crud or Tags - teams of varying sizes around a snooker table. Two snooker balls, one red, one white. Rules vary. Basic aim is to sink your opponent's ball down one of the holes before he sinks yours. Charge around the table, grab your ball and try and smash it into your opponents, hopefully sending theirs down a hole. Generally, obstruction or blocking is allowed, although spectators should not be caught participating in this activity. Plenty of opportunities for damaged fingers and even more spectacular teeth and facial injuries when the balls gather momentum and ricochet off the table. Wearing an expensive designer watch when playing Crud is not recommended.
Wall Circumnavigation - solo activity, usually for exhibitionists. With the closure of so many old Officers Messes, most of the more historically challenging pitches are no longer accessible. Old picture rails make excellent handholds but rarely withstand much load. Mantelpieces make excellent temporary bivouacs. Boring spectator sport - contestants usually become 'targets of opportunity'.
Bottle Walking - any number can play. See how far you can 'walk' out on two bottles, with your feet behind a line, leave one bottle as far out as possible and hop back on the other. Advisable to use bottles of reasonable thickness as sudden failure can lead to substantial lacerations and loss of blood. Look for old blood stains on carpet for previous play area.
Moriarty - 1 v 1. Contestants are blindfolded and are armed with a rolled up newspaper in their right hand. They lie down on floor facing each other, clasping their opponents left hand. The aim is to take it in turns to batter your opponent with your newspaper after you have enquired as to their whereabouts. To guarantee victory, ensure you are armed with the entire Sunday Times, including supplements, and your opponent is issued with a copy of the RAF News.
Spinning - unlimited numbers of fools may play. Essentially a relay race where contestants sprint down the length of the room, drink some beer then spin around a broom, with their forehead against the end, before attempting to stagger back down the other end of the room and ''tag'' their team-mate. Amusing spectator sport, but inadvisable to stand too close to the arena, as contestants who have imbibed excessively may suffer from extreme disorientation, resulting in sudden inadvertent projectile vomiting.
Pyros - anyone can play. Not so much a sport, more of a habit. Most participants have lots of 'previous' for pyrotechnic offences and are generally found in the SH fleet. Skilled proponents of this activity wait until a group of 'blunties' have formed-up, and are eagerly discussing the latest station budget, before gently rolling a lit Thunderflash into the group. Considerable street-cred can be gained by first pretending to ignore the fizzing pyro, before casually flicking it away with your foot. Instant decision making is called for in these circumstances, making Blunties the preferred target. Delaying the decision to flick the pyro away can be hazardous to your health, particularly your toes. Pyro participants are advised to enquire in advance of opening their offensive when the carpets are scheduled to be replaced. Smoke canister's are not recommended for use in the bar immediately after a ladies guest night.
Demolition Derby - unlimited fun in a car. Decide on a suitable venue, ideally right in front of the Officers Mess, and agree a course around various flowerbeds and any other suitable local features. Start up and go. Last car still running at the end is the winner. Best to tart the car up to look like a mates without him realising. Not a good idea to invite local reporters to cover this event. Annual festival staged at Coningsby.
This catalogue of madness, juvenile violence and delinquency is describing the supposedly adult, supposedly well trained officers and gentlemen of the RAF. Other services may be better, may be worse. Probably better. Certainly less given to incapacitating each other- SAC's Crewdogs were big on poker and Avalon Hill wargames, apparently.
So- bearing in mind that Lucas did rip off quite a lot of the cinematography of the trench run from 633 Squadron- how much of this could you find a mirror for in the Galaxy Far, Far Away? Apart from having to rename High Cockalorum, for a start, there is the common factor that all parties are young, agressive, and have poor senses of self preservation- so how much horseplay does the Empire permit? Encourage, even?
Are the rebels much different? A lot of the supporting material has them dedicated to the cause of fighting for freedom to the point of being humourless fanatics, but the Rogue and Wraith squadron books- especially Wraith Squadron- go the other way, thankfully. Varies from sector to sector? Ackbar would certainly frown on such things, but he's not the entire Alliance.
I suspect the humourless, coldly formal Old Republic would court martial anyone caught even thinking loudly about any of the above, but there are always out of the way planets with traditions of their own. And, of course, there are all the adjustments to a high tech future to make- albeit one in which the human element seems to have changed the least.
Ideas?
