DUCK EGG ATTACK LEITH, ISLE OF MAN

<your background>
2.Q Tell me about the first time you can remember being thrilled.
2.A Christmas 1974. Santa came to visit school and gave me a pack of ‘colour-it-in’ biplanes. The thrill was opening the gift at home. I remember the smell, the sellotape and the cheap poor-coverage felt tips in colours that had nothing to do with camouflage.

3.Q What's been your most frightening thrill ever?
3.A Getting knocked off my bike by a car in Kingston

4.Q What's the smallest or slightest thing to have thrilled you?
4.A telling the pettiest of quick witted jokes

5.Q Tell me why you're not a sensible person.
5.A I didn’t buy a house when prices were low. I don’t brush my teeth in the mornings. I eat sausages even though I know they are full of the most evil bits of meat. I don’t regularly check the brakes on my bicycle. I agree to do things that are awkward or impossible at the time I am agreeing to do them. I’m easily led.

6.Q What were you doing the last time you were really bored?
6.A Watching a lifestyle/homes program on Channel 4

7.Q What's the most uninhibited thing you've ever done?
7.A &*^$%c:

8.Q What things have you considered doing for thrill, but were too concerned about the risks?
8.A Riding my bicycle off the pier wall in port erin. Ringing directory enquiries and being abusive. Kissing a friends mother.

9.Q I always dreamt about being a paramedic, driving an ambulance and saving lives; what about you?
9.A No. The blood would be too much and I’m a bad driver. I dream of lying sideways in a wet clay-heavy field in the rain. I’m positioned near the gate where the mud is at its most pliable and churned up. I’m just lying there with a muddy face and when the evening draws in I’m instantly back home with a hot fresh scone.

<your thrill>
To answer these next 14 questions, you should think about a particular time you were thrilled.

10.Q Describe this thrill in a nutshell, in one sentence. (there's time to expand later)
10.A An early morning duck egg attack on celebrating students

THE SETTING...
11.Q Where and when did it take place?
11.A About 2am – Some time in June 1988. At the halls of residence complex at the University of Bath

12.Q Tell me a bit about yourself around this time.
12.A A first year student at Bath University. Enjoying a period of friendship with some naughty, but harmless, boys.

PREPARATION...
13.Q How did the moment arise? Was it planned?
13.A It was planned in the moment. The circumstances that led to the thrill were created by chance.

YOUR FEELINGS...
14.Q List the sequence of events leading up to your thrill, and how you felt at each stage. The smallest detail could be important (this is your chance to expand).
14.A It was in the middle of the exams for us first year students so a good nights sleep was a must. This was proving impossible with the raucous noise from the house next door which was occupied by a group of third year students in the throws of celebration. Myself with Tim and Dan, the other thrill seekers, found ourselves in the kitchen discussing what to do. We decided that simply asking the noisy graduates to quiten it down a bit would be met with short shrift. It was at this time that the duck attack plan was hatched (sorry!).

Earlier in the summer a Mallard had decided to make her nest in the bushes outside of the kitchen window. She seemed happy there on her clutch, but after a couple of weeks decided to leave. No doubt too stressed by our daily disturbances to see how she was doing. We put the eggs to good use with our protest salvo through the open window into the room where the party was taking place.

The “what the..?” sounds, a few “urgghhs” and a delicious bum note from a jolly guitar signalled that the mission was a success.

15.Q At the exact moment of thrill, how did your mind and body feel?
15.A The thrill as a whole event consisted of a number of discreet thrills within the Thrill. Though general feelings were of giddiness and accelerated heartbeat. Not being able to talk without laughing.

The thrill of having the idea – naughtiness and cleverness

The thrill of deciding it was an idea that would be carried through

The thrill of throwing the eggs and causing a disturbance. Freeing. Sharing. There was a rightness to it. An excitement that the difference between getting away with it and being spotted was a couple of seconds at best

The thrill of lying in bed waiting for revenge to be reeked.- Enjoying having done something naughty and stupid and got away with it

16.Q What thoughts were going through your mind?
16.A I can’t really remember the thoughts. Just images of the event. The facts of the event and how I was feeling

17.Q What did you do immediately afterwards?
17.A I suppose central to the experience was creating the disturbance. So if I take that as the apex, then afterwards I lay in bed listening intently to the gathering of angry graduates pumping themselves up for revenge. After several hours of slowing to a point of relaxation I went to sleep.

OTHER PEOPLE...
18.Q How were other people important to your thrill?
18.A The more I think about it the more people have a link and an importance within the depth and nuances of the thrill. In a sort of six degrees of seperation way many forces and people have conspired with the cosmos to give the thrill its particular flavour.

To name a few. My mother who brought me up so well and proper. The housing services manager who ruled the residences with an iron rod. Margaret our house cleaner who was so excited about the duck. Ian the electrical engineering undergraduate who enjoyed any opportunity to snitch on bad Tim, Dan and Andy. Without all of their links the thrill would have less of an edge.

But of those who had a more direct role in the incident itself. Dan and Tim were important as the sparks to the experience and as fellows with who to enjoy the moment. The man with the guitar was critical in providing the perfect score to capture the mood of the thrill. The chess players gave an added dimension, a sort of after-thrill to the main event and ensured that for the rest of my time at the university, each time I saw them in a bar or in a corridor, the flame of this thrill kept burning, albeit only as a pilot light.

19.Q What do you imagine other people were thinking throughout your thrilling episode?
19.A I reckon Tim and Dan were thinking as I was. Knowing Dan, perhaps with a little more malicious glee than I was

The graduates I imagine were feeling violated (like Catherine Zeta Jones) and thinking that they had done nothing to deserve it.

The midnight chess players were no doubt feeling very confused. Innocent pawns in the whole affair

20.Q Some people probably don't understand how such a thing can thrill you; could you explain it to them?
20.A Oh yes. I could talk about it for hours.

EQUIPMENT...
21.Q Why were certain objects or equipment important to your thrill?
21.A In this instance the eggs were very important as they were, we imagined containing half formed chicks, and therefore far more impactful than normal eggs or buckets of water may have been. Important because they added to the sense of wrong-doing, and stoked the fire of the perceived revenge attack.

The guitar – The guitar produced a final painful chord almost as soon as we heard the first egg crack open. It played no more. This signalled the success of our actions. In turning the energy of the party on its head. It was no longer about getting them to shut up a much as pissing them off for disturbing us.

REPEAT PERFORMANCE...
22.Q If you've done something like this before, how does the last time compare to the first time you did it?
22.A Only done this once

23.Q If you did it again, what things could be added or changed to make it even better?
23.A More eggs or bigger eggs. Perhaps being chased around a bit by the angry mob before making it back to my room undiscovered. More people at the party to be disturbed. A more beautiful guitar sound. A bigger duvet to hide under.

FINALLY...
Is there anything you want to add?
no 

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