E...

Only one more friend from Uni really warrants an individual entry.  A saxaphone-playing Dane who took forthrightness to a whole new level.

Oh the Danes and their directness.  As we shall see, I have extensive experience in this area.  And she, I think, was the first.  An ability to say what she thinks and to cause unbelievable degrees of upset and offense and to not be able to take, in the moment, responsibility for one's actions.  All because there's nothing wrong with "getting it out there" and saying what you think.  Oh the Danes.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  She introduced herself to me in the Music class that I was taking as a 'subsid'.  She said that we were doing the same class combinations.  I hadn't noticed.  And guys noticed E.  The scandinavian blond with, I am told, perfect breasts.

We fell asleep in that class, together, alot.  We studied for it, together.   Well, I did.  She wanted to chat, gossip and tell me the latest news of her and her lank-haired boyfriend (the announcement of who's existence put paid to my asking her out - a pre-planned strategy that fell on its face for a variety of reasons, at all stages, including that one).  We got told off in that class for all of the above.  That was embarrassing.

She became one of the 'gang' but kept a discrete distance - she notably didn't fancy R and he didn't fancy her.  She had terrible teeth.  But I don't think that was anything to do with it.  She became very close friends with U - something that continues to this day.

She was very into jazz - something that I resurrected my own interest in thanks to her - she didn't cause it, per se. She played a mean "Starsky and Hutch" - something she did to great roars of approval in the 'ballroom' of the Student Union for a 'Ball' - the inverted commas are due to the fact that those definitions are somewhat exaggeratations.

And towards the end of the first year she turned to me, in a class, and said that she'd heard me say that I was planning on travelling to Indonesia after University, to hear gamalan music played first hand.  I was planning on going with J - emulating his free, grass-smoking spirit in a way that I wasn't quite sure I could fulfil.  She said that she would like to come too.  Would that be OK?   My first instinct was surprise at the presumption, the directness and, even, the imposition.  I, of course, said "yes".  She, of course, held me to that promise, two years later.