As Bear shared the experience with myself and sent more posts than a Frank Lampard goal portfolio, I thought I’d move the comments and make his very own post. -Synyster

Oh God, the Pikey from Peterborough (Cambridgeshire). I feel the need to elaborate on his Pikeyness.

Food:

First of all, his culinary ’skills’. Quite frankly, he had none. On the first night, myself and Graves cooked a Chinese dish which was led by Graves. On the second night, I took the lead on a spag bol.

On the third night, Pikey said he would cook. So after a Chinese and Italian, we are treated to good old English. So, steak and kidney pie with mash and peas? Fish and chips? No, sausage, mash, mushrooms and beans, in other words, easy to cook. To make it even easier, pikey used instant mash (just add water and milk). Still, he managed to fuck this all up; he burned the sausages, claiming that ‘you need to be careful with pork’. Careful yes, burned to a crisp, no! He managed to fuck up instant mash and so cooked us some very greasy, deep fried chips. Mushrooms were scarce and the beans were cold.

So cap this all off, he left the pan containing the ruined mash (watery potato soup) on the side for two weeks. When we discovered this, he insisted that I (!) should clean it up because I happened to be doing the washing up. It smelled like vomit by this point!

While on the subject of food, he was a complete and total fad. As a lover of food, this is frustrating but not infuriating. My own dear wife is not a fan of spicey food and I once had a close friend who hated vegatables but both are honest about there tastes. Pikey didn’t like pasta but claimed it ‘didn’t agree’ with him. What utter bullshit.

We spent a good two months cooking meals without letting Pikey near the kitchen to avoid his food. But we cooked healthy food; spag bol, hot pot, shepherds pie, chicken and rice and the like. When he quit paying up, we stopped cooking – or rather, out came the pasta and all the other things that ‘didn’t agree’ with him. He responded by eating the large supply of junk food (burgers, sausages, pies etc) that had been left as emergency reserve in the freezer since we moved in. In response to this depleneshment of the food that we (and not he!) had paid for, we proceeded to gorge ourselves of burgers and chips while he was out.

Seriously though, this guy ate nothing but crap.

Hygiene:

Graves simply does not do justice to how filthy this guy was (and probably still is unless he has melted in his own fumes).

Graves had brought his lack of hygiene to my attention before we even moved in together. Once in the house, we saw it up close. With Graves being a ‘night time bather’ and myself a ‘morning shower person’, we never got in each other’s way. Curious then that we never had to wait while he showered.. We actually put an upturned, shampoo bottle cap on the edge of the shower when not in use. If anyone else used it, it would fill up. We meant to see how long he went without a shower and even had a pool going. In the end, we didn’t need the cap. When he finally bathed, the inside of the bath was coated in filth and the aforementioned smelly towel was on the radiator. Honestly, my bath at my parents’ house looked better after bathing two dogs!

His room smelled of old sweat and I question how often he washed his clothes as there were virtually never any drying around the house. His claim to have had two ’steady girlfriends’ back home were refuted everytime you stood upwind from him. Any women would be repulsed unless they were either:
A: Blind, deaf and with no sense of smell
B: From Portsmouth

He smelled

INTEGRITY PART 1:

This post deals with Pikey’s integrity which is so long a story and in two discernable parts that it necessitates two postings.

Right! Integrity. In short, he had none! Pikey was dishonest in the extreme. To start at the beginning, Pikey and I arrived at our house a few days ahead of Graves.

On the second or third day, whilst walking to the shops, Pikey let slip that he had two hundred pounds to pay for some but not all of that term’s rent (which was paid by term to allow for student loans). but had not done so. I immediately told him to pay that money to the landlord and explain that the rest would be forthcoming once his loan was through and that he needed to sort out an overdraft with the bank and if possible, a job!

I considered the matter to be sorted and it did not come up again. Leaving that part of the story for a while we come to the other part of his money problems. We quickly settled into a patern of paying for things which involved myself paying for all bills (gas, phone and everything else, etc) with Grave paying for all food and then the money owed being settled that way. The first sign of tension was caused when I spent a good hour sorting through the food bill; it was divided so that the cost of communal items were split three way or twice if used only by two people or paid for in whole by one person if not used by anyone else. Pikey claimed that he would not eat many of the items on the shopping list and so the cost was carried by myself and Graves. When these items were cooked into meals, he ate them, despite having not paid for them. He couldn’t have complained about the food since (during the first two months), it was all cooked for him and he always declined to come to ASDA to shop and never gave any requests for food.

At the end of October, while Graves went home for a long weekend, Pikey asked if he could owe me the money from the shopping that he and I did (the ONLY time he came shopping in that whole year). I figured ‘what’s £15 between friends for a week or two?’ and told him ‘no problem’. Upon Graves’ return, Tony then owed more on the gas for which I had to pay. A big shop was done for which Graves received money from me but not Tony.

After about two weeks of not paying his way, Graves and I discussed this and expressed concern that he was building up a substantial debt with both of us. Also, neither of us had very much money and our bank balances were dwindling.

I enquired of Pikey when he would be paying us back, upon which he became defensive and said that we spent so much on shopping (remember, he NEVER came with us, always refusing to do so). Graves then confronted him and suggested that he and I do our shopping and Pikey did his own to which he immediately recoiled.

He came up a couple of days later and said that his parents would be coming to visit on the next weekend and we would get our money then. He even asked us about the football fixtures so that his parents could plan their drive accordingly. But the next Friday came and we asked Tony if his parents were still coming as he had not mentioned it since then whereon he suddenly proclaimed that they were now coming the weekend after. Forced to accept this, we decided to give him another week.

A week later, the same scenario was played out with Pikey informing us only when asked, on the Friday that his parent’s were not in fact coming up. This time, we asked if they were sending some money up for him to which he claimed he hadn’t even bothered to ask them to do so. Without a word, we both pointed to the phone which was met with a whine of disapproval. Getting Pikey to call his parents was a chore as it seemed they worked all the hours God sent, returned hom for ten minutes before heading out to the pub and not returning until bed time and hence they were unreachable. Clearly the concept of leaving message was as beyond him as was the use of a mobile phone for his parents.

Eventually, he claimed that his parents would in fact be sending some money up when his mother was paid on the Thursday of the following week. So, with no other option, we waited until the following Thursday, when Pikey, again, only after being pressed claimed that his mother’s payday had been changed to the following FRIDAY! Having had a job for nine years I can safely say that my payday has NEVER been changed and the closest it has come has been when I was paid by cheque when starting a new job!

By this point, the debt had mounted to nearly £100 each, which was considerable to us as students and we were became irritable, resulting in the burger binge detailed in my ‘food’ reply as well as turning off the radiator in his room so as not not to use gas that he hadn’t paid for. Our actions were justified, the following Friday.

Graves skipped lectures that day (I didn’t have any on Friday during that term) and were headed into town to pick up a desk lamp each. On our return at around 1600 we decided to do the weekly big shop at ASDA. I asked Pikey if he wanted to come along to which he said no. I then asked if he had any requests to whcih he also said no (as always). I then looked him in the eye and asked if he had called his parents to see if they had at last sent up the money.

”I called while you were out but they weren’t in”. I was taken aback at this unexpected but most welcome use of initiative by Pikey and simply told him to try again in a bit. However, Graves was not quite so naive and proceeded to check the last dialled number on the phone. Upon arrival at ASDA he confided in me that the last dialed number was his friend’s mobile which he rang the night before. Pikey was LYING.

Both enraged, we did the ASDA shop, picking up some red lightbulbs. On our return, we were seething, and having both of our bedrooms bathed in blood red light only enhanced our anger.

I confronted him and said that we were both getting really annoyed that he still owed us money. I proceeded to ask about a student loan or overdraft which I had asked him to set up literally 10 weeks earlier. He claimed that he simply had not had the time. I naturally challenged him on this stating that of course he had had the time. He then made a sneering remark that ”My course is a bit harder than your’s”. Somehow, if you do astro physics, you have no time to do anything else but strangely, he had plenty of time to bum around the house doing nothing. I told him to sort out his loan and overdraft on Monday and to call his parents and get the money.

Going back to the aforementioned red light bulbs, Pikey entered Graves’ room to see him perched atop his guitar amp as ‘Raining Blood’ by Slayer boomed out, arms folded and eyes closed. He got the message and did not speak to us again that night.

The following weekend was intense, with Pikey attempting a pleasantry on Saturday morning only to be blanked by the two of us. Sunday followed with neither of us speaking to him or even seeing him. He left his room only to cook his disgusting food and use the toilet with us avoiding him, so angered were we by his having lied to his about so important a matter.

Monday and Tuesday passed without any serious attempt to establish an overdraft or loan despite constant nagging. He claimed that you had to go through the Local Education Authority (LEA) for the loan (true) and that whenever he called he kept being fobbed off. With both Graves and I up to our necks in course work over those two days, Pikey escaped too much attention.

However on the Wednesday, after handing in my essay, I bumped into him while walking back to the guild. I asked about the loan which said he was sorting. When I asked about the overdraft, he claimed that they were queuing out onto the street outside Barclays. I checked Barclays and funnily enough there was no queue. He was LYING…AGAIN.

However, he had to go into a lecture and so I returned home and recanted all this to Graves. We were talking upstairs when we heard the front door go followed by foot steps and then his bedroom door opening and closing.

We walked downstairs and knocked on his door which was met with the reply of ‘LEA, LEA LEA’. We opened and confronted him.On rather I confronted him while stopping Graves from entering which was good as he the roles been reveresed, Graves would likely have punched Pikey senseless.

Pikey ended up crying profusely when challenged why he had done nothing. We explained that what had started out as a favour to a friend had become an annoyance by his dithering and now a serious problem by his doing nothing as well as a breach of trust by his lying repeatedly.

We literally frog marched him to the phone and told him to call his parents in front of us and ask for the money. He held back the tears and asked for them to pick him up that weekend as ‘…it was all course work for the last two weeks of term’ (never knew for sure, but positive that this was a lie) and could they bring up £200 for him.

We left things like that for the evening but after calming down on the Thursday, we both came to talk to him on the Friday (his parents were coming on Saturday). We said that we hated the fact that things had got so ugly and that we were prepared to move on and start afresh with him in the new term. We explained that we would be going to the pub to watch the Liverpool vs Maure game that Saturday when his parents arrived and that they should all come down, watch the match and have a drink with us. He said they probably would not but he thanked us for the offer. We then cooked a big meal which included him for the first time in three weeks to stop him living off his grease fest.

On the Saturday morning, we all hugged and said goodbye, Merry Christmas etc and strongly reiterated that next term, we would start again and try to forget all the bad things that had happened. And you know what, both Graves and I meant every word.

We returned home from the match to find five £20 notes laid out neatly on both of our desks and considered the matter to be closed. Term continued for two weeks and Graves and I said our goodbyes before returning in the new year when things certainly did start again…

INTEGRITY PART 2:

Taking up the story from where the first one ended, I feel compelled to add an epilogue to the first term.

After Pikey’s departure at the very beginning of December 2002, Graves and I stayed on until the end of term which was another two weeks. Far from the house seeming quiet or empty without Pikey, Graves and I got on much better without him. The house becmae more harmonious.

When we returned in January, we were all busy with exams. The exam period lasted until 17th January but, depending on your course, you could have them all bunched together or all spread out. As it happened, Graves had his first exam early, then another on the Friday of the first week and then a final one the following Tuesday. I had my first one on the Thursday of the first week and then one the Monday, Thursday and Friday of the second week (my last exam was the 17th) while Pikey had his on the Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of the FIRST week. This is important, as you will read about further on.

On the evening of the Thursday of that first week, I came into the kitchen which had become a tip since our return on the Monday. I immediately started to wash up. Graves came downstairs and chatted for about two minutes before grabbing a dishcloth and proceeding to dry the dishes I had just washed. I stopped him and told him that he had an exam the next day and that he should be either revising or taking it easy. Graves, to his credit, insisted on helping which was very kind of him. We worked together over the next 30 minutes and started to get the kitchen looking in a good state again. At this point Pikey (who remember had no more exams and no lectures for almost a week and a half) looked in, smiled and asked if we were enjoying ourselves, with no offer of help. Considering that I had three exams to go, Graves had two (one of which was the next day), we both were a bit pissed off about this.

The next day, we did our big shop only this time, to avoid the problems of the last term, we only bought food for ourselves. Pikey did his own shopping. He was forgiven, but not forgotten.

However, Graves and I were determined to patch things up and really make a go of us being housemates. It was Pikey’s 21st birthday during the first week back and Graves was adament that we should so something to celebrate it. Being but poor students, we couldn’t afford much, so we bought him a spiderman glove (as detailed in the main blog) which he liked a little too much. We then went to ASDA again and bought all the ingredients for a roast dinner with all the trimmings, a few beers and all Pikey’s favourite bisquits and sweets. We cooked him a meal, sang happy birthday, took photos and cracked open the ale and talked for a few hours. I will admit, that throughout all of this, it just didn’t feel right with Pikey. It was as though the two weeks without him made both of us realise that he was the ‘third friend’. But we made a big effort, not just because it was his 21st but to show him that we could move on.

The following Wednesday, our washing machine broke which set off the next chapter with Pikey. I rang our landlords to explain that they needed to fix the washing machine and they asked which of the three housemates was calling. They asked if Pikey was there as he had paid no rent. I asked what they meant, expecting them to say that the rent due in January was now two weeks late. But instead, they said he had not paid one single penny of rent since the day we moved in (See the beginning of INTEGRITY PART 1).

I was in something of a state of shock and immediately went to Graves and recanted this to him. We were both worried, thinking that things were not alright after all.

Taking the bull by the horns, I headed downstairs to the kitchen where Pikey was making a sausage sandwich. I explained what the landlords had said and a look came over him which seemed to say: ‘Not this, not now’ instead of shock. I told him the thing he needed to do was ring the landlords and get all the facts, saying naively that it was probably a mistake. However, Pikey said he wanted to speak to his parents first, despite my again begging him to call the landlords. I also asked him again to sort out his loan and overdraft.

As I said before, this was the Wednesday of the second week and I had an exam on Thursday AND Friday, leaving me little time to worry about this. Pikey however, had two more days off – ample time to sort things out. However, he made no effort over these two days to call his parents, call the landlords, call the LEA and arrange a loan or visit the bank to arrange for an overdraft.

After my exams, I went to Pikey and told him that he had to call his parents and sort everything else out on the Monday. I got ill with a head cold. Not a nasty one and I freely admit that my not going to lectures for the first two days was mostly because everyone else had had two or three days off after exams at least whereas I had none. Nonetheless, I was at home for the Monday and Tuesday of that week and the Wednesday (when I really was quite ill).

Firstly, Pikey did indeed call his parents on the Sunday (so he claimed) but that he wasn’t sure if his parents had paid rent or not as ‘…my Dad was mumbling because he was hungover.’

On the Monday, Pikey returned home from a punishing 1100-1300 schedule of lectures followed by a visit to the pub with some course mates. He returned at around 1500 and I decided to be nice. I gave him about five minutes before going downstairs and chatted to him for a minute before turning to business and asking if he had called the LEA or been to the bank.

”No, I’m shattered”. Clearly, two hours of lectures was exhausting.

I told him he had to call the LEA within the next five minutes, no excuses. I then waited TEN minutes before shouting down the stairs for him to call them. He told me to ’shut up’ before making a phone call where they said they would send him some paperwork. I then told him that he had to go to the bank the next day.

So on the Tuesday, Pikey returned. Again, I gave him a couple of minutes to take off his shoes and sort himself out before questioning him. I came half way down the stairs, while he came out of his bedroom door, looking fine. I asked him how things went at the bank. In an instant, his face changed and he ran towards me, taking the stairs two at a time. I put my hands up in self defence, fearing that he was going to swing for me. Instead, he rushed past me, up the rest of the stairs, into the bathroom, dropped to his knees and proceeded to wretch over the toilet. I say wretch, NOT vomit. There was DEFINATELY no actual throwing up. He then stood up, with his eyes narrowed, clutching his stomach and said in a now strained voice: ‘No I haven’t been to the bank because I feel really ill’. Now please consider the facts:

1: Judging by the times, he had WALKED home. Not the actions of a sick man
2: If he was that ill, why not use the toilets in the Uni?
3: He was fine when came in and this sudden bout of nausea only began when I questioned him.
4: He wasn’t actually sick
5: The narrow eyes, strained voice and and clutching of stomach are classic ’sickie’ signs.

Nonetheless, I let him get away with this, foolishly. The next day, Pikey came home and said he hadn’t been to the bank because he thought someone needed to be at home for when people came to fix the washing machine. When I reminded him that I was sick and hence would be at home, he just shrugged his shoulders. By this point, Pikey had called his now sober father who confirmed that he had not in fact paid the rent. Pikey again said he had £200 that he could put towards the rent while the overdraft and loan were sorted. I made him ring the landlords and promise to pay this £200 the next day.

On the Thursday, I was better and went into lectures and so could not supervise Pikey. In the evening, I asked if he had been down to the landlords that day. An didn’t even look at me as an he answered ‘Shit I forgot’ in a quick and dismissive way.

On the Friday (24th January), I had lectures in the morning but not the afternoon. I returned home and there Pikey, playing on Graves’ Playstation 2, abusing Graves’ hospitality. I knew that Graves hated this and felt angry that Pikey did not have the decency to give Graves his space. And the it clicked. I asked Pikey if he had paid the landlords the £200 and he said no. Since it was 1500, I suggested he went then and there. Without a word, he got up, went downstairs, put on his hat, coat and shoes and left. I looked out the window and saw him turn right towards Wavertree High Street and landlords, rather than left towrds Smithdown Road and the Uni as he would normally go.

It was a 30 – 35 minute walk to the landlords and the same back, so when we heard a key in the lock at 1620, this seemed right. I hurried to the top of the stairs and saw Pikey, with a big grin on his face, proclaim innanely: ”Do you know how many cash machines there are between here and the landlords?” I knew he was lying and drying asked how many cash machines there were. ”None, and by the time I’d found one that wasn’t staked out by scallies, the landlord’s had shut”. Throughout the whole episode with Pikey, I had been naive and willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. But this time I went straight to my room, rang the landlords and enquired as their opening hours which was 9-5. They were still open and would’ve been when Pikey went in that direction.

I told all this to Graves and we drove down to the landlords which was very clearly open. We were furious but did our weekly shop and agreed to give him one final chance on Monday.

On the Sunday night, I appraoched Pikey and asked when his lectures were (I knew, but I was taking no chances). He said that they were from 11-13. So I told him that the landlords opened at 0900. He could get there for 9 or even 1000, pay the money and that would still give him a full hour to get to lectures, 30-40 minutes away.

Monday morning came and I heard Pikey moving downstairs at 10:00 and leave the house at 10:15. At 10:30, the landlords rang and asked if Pikey was there as they still hadn’t received his money. Graves and I decided to give him until the end of the day.

He returned hom at 14:30 and when we knocked on his door, he seemed to be half asleep. I chatted for a couple of minutes and explained that we would be popping out to ASDA (a lie) and asked if he wanted anything to which he said no. I then looked him in the eye and said very sternly: ”Did you pay that rent this morning”. He just nodded weakly, as though he couldn’t even bring himself to say the word ‘no’.

I told Graves and we drove to the landlords to do one of two things: Sign for another year, or explain that we simply could not do anything more with Pikey. We went in, asked whether he had paid rent and they confirmed that he had not. We told them that he was lying to us and we simply couldn’t help him any further.

We then drove back and confronted Pikey. I asked him what time he paid the rent he said ‘09:30′ to which I replied that the landlords rang me at 10:30 asking where he was. He broke down in tears and said he never realised Uni was this expensive (still no loan or overdraft) and that he was going to take a year out before doing his third year. We explained that regardless of that, he had to pay his rent. We drove him to the landlords and watched him hand over £200 in cash.

After that things just drifted along. This second, continued breach of trust had created a rift. As Graves put it, he was now like a lodger in our house. When we couldn’t find a third student to move in as Pikey’s replacement, we went down to explain to him that we would be looking for a house for just the two of us. He tried to say how it was all his fault in a very matter of fact way but he had missed the point. We were no longer blaming him as such, we were talking to him like he was a number rather than a person. We had a duty to tell him he was no longer welcome with us and were very business like.

Pikey then ran out of money, having never arranged a loan or overdraft or even trying to. He barely ate and stopped going to lectures in early March. He claimed that it was all course work which was so obviously a lie but we simply didn’t care any more. Nonethless, he built up a debt with us from not paying anything towards bills which came to about £80 each.

Pikey went home at Easter and this time we were there when his parents arrived. He went home early again and we said our goodbyes but the whole thing was so different to Christmas. Fooled once, shame on him, fooled twice, shame on us. We didn’t mean our goodbyes, we were glad to be rid of him and his lying.

I was the first to return after Easter before exams started and got back to an empty house. I rang Graves who was coming up the next day. I cleared away the mail (mostly) junk but in there was a letter addressed to Pikey. Through the window I could see a note ‘Ref: Alderson Road’ where we lived. I knew straight away what this was – it was the solicitor’s letter, threatening Pikey with legal action for non payment of rent. I did not open it as it was now past 17:00 and so too late to do anything about it that day, and figured that Pikey would be up the following day anyway.

The following afternoon came and still no sign of Pikey. I went out to the library and came back to a house still empty. Figuring that this was a serious letter, I opened it and sure enough, it threatened Pikey with legal action unless he paid with seven days. Graves arrived and after helping him unpack his things I told him about the letter. It was now past 17:00 on the second day and I said we had to call Pikey’s house and ask where he was. I rang while Graves was on the other line, listening in. I asked when he was coming back and he explained that he wasn’t as he was going to take a year out before completing his degree. I told him about the letter and he explained that they had had a copy sent to his home as well. I said ”’Ah…well…uuhhh…keep in touch”, put the phone down and then Graves and I ran out into the corridor, hugged and jumped up and down cheering. We cracked open a beer each in celebration, delighted to be rid of him for good.

There is an epilogue to this story. As he was not due to return, we used his now empty room as a hang out and football room. We also had a nose through what few things he had left which included a bank statement. There was one entry that made me angry again: January 24th, cash withdrawal, Barclays bank, Liverpool Uni, £200, 15:50. That was the day I sent Pikey to the landlords and even watched which way he went. Given the locations of the cash machine he visited, our house and the landlords, he would’ve had to have doubled back on himself very quickly, gone to the cash machine, withdrew the money and headed hom without going anywhere near the landlords.

We never did find out what happened to him over his rent, but I imagine it involved a CCJ. All I can say is that he had two friends who forgave him the first time and tried to help him through the second while he lied repeatedly. Tough!

SOCIAL SKILLS and HOUSE WORK:

As with hygiene, culinary skills and integrity, he didn’t really have any or do any.

Our friendship with formed through association (he lived next door to Graves in halls) and a mutual like of computer games.

In that first year, it became clear that he had a problem with boundaries and personal space. Once invited into Graves’ room (nicely equipped with TV and playstation) he would not leave until chucked out. He never seemed to take the hint that someone might enjoy company for two, three, four or even five hours and on occasion more. But spending a full six hours in someone’s room EVERY night was pushing it.

This continued into the second year when we lived together and manifested itself most clearly when his TV broke. Starved of his one source of entertainment, Pikey would impose himself upon someone’s room and not leave. It was made worse when either Graves or I was away.

When Graves went away for a long weekend in late February, he left the Playstation 2 in my room. He explained to me that he was doing this for two reasons: Firstly so that I would have something to do as Pikey was getting more and more irritating and secondly because otherwise he would spend the ENTIRE weekend in Graves’ bedroom playing on the Playstation. After helping Graves to load up the car, I announced to Pikey that I needed a shower and he IMMEDIATELY asked if he could use the Playstation while I showered. I told him no as I would return to the room naked and hence would not want him there. He kept asking all weekend to come on there and when he did, sure enough I had to chuck him out to get my room back.

I also have to make note of his bedroom decorations which were really sad. Any bloke in his early 20s had a few girlie posters up and Graves and I were no exception. But we also had posters from our favourite bands and movies, football posters and general funny stuff. Pikey simply cut pictures of semi-naked women out of magazines and stuck them to his wall. Any women seeing that would probably feel threatened and creeped out.

By far the biggest problem with Pikey was his attitude towards pranks and boys being boys. During the first term, Graves played a prank on me involving a bucket of water over the door which caught me. Pikey was quite prepared to laugh himself silly at my expenses which was fine, but he soon showed that he could not take it himself.

One night when our friend Putter came around to celebrate my birthday. Despite this being after the second betrayal by Pikey, we nonetheless included him in a slap up dinner and invited him to join in the fun afterwards. Being a Muslim, Putter did not drink, and being poor, neither did Graves and I. We started playing on the playstation until 21:00 when Pikey went to bed (on a Saturday night of all nights!). The three of us then carried on playing various games and generally mucking about well into the wee hours. Then, feeling silly, we attempted to get Putter with the bucket of water over the door trick which failed. Graves then tried the bucket of water on a chair up against the bathroom door while I was in it which also failed when I heard what he was up to. With these two pranks resulting in nothing more than a very wet bathroom floor, we decided at 05:00 to set up another bucket over the lounge door to catch Pikey in the morning. His reaction was quite angry and very hypocritical considering hos hilarious he found it when tried on others.

A couple of weeks later, we tried another prank on another visit from Putter where Pikey retired at 21:00 and painted teasing remarks about Cambridge Utd, Buffy and the like in carpet foam on the floor. Again, he didn’t find it funny despite laughing the slew of other pranks we pulled on each other over those few weeks.

By the end, we decided to just pull pranks on him as he had hurt us so badly, lied to us, betrayed us and forced us to prepare to live in a house that was rough, small and generally crap compared with the nice house we found with the three of us.

Our most fiendish prank never came off; when he left for Easter, we turned all of his posters upside down in a moment of sillyness inspired by the Twits by Roald Dahl. We stopped short of supergluing his bed and desk to the ceiling only because it wouldn’t work. We would’ve tried if we thought it at all possible. But as he never came back, he never saw the hilarity.

Moving on to housework, things started to go wrong early on. As we ate together, we simply took it in turns to wash up. Pikey set the tone by leaving dirty dishes for a whole day whereon we simply said he had to wash up the next night’s dishes as well. He then refused to wash them until I scraped my plate clean of rice. Cheeky fish!

However, I freely admit to starting out as the messy housemate; dumping shoes, coat and bag, as well as newspapers in the lounge. This resulted in a row after we all went to the Halloween Party of a friend of mine. I awoke the next morning with a thumping headache (due in no small part to the large amount of vodka I had drank) to hear Graves and Pikey complaining about how other people had nice living rooms whilst our’s was a dumping ground for my stuff. I realised I needed to get in gear and whilst they were both out at lectures (I had none that day thankfully) I cleaned the house from top to bottom (except their rooms) just as my way of saying sorry and resolved to do more to keep the communal areas of the house tidy.

Over the next few months, I took on virtually all the cleaning of dishes, with Graves tidying the house and Pikey doing nothing.

In the second term, after exams had finished, I was determined not to let the house slip and so for a month, I picked up all dirty dishes from everyone’s room and washed them. But once I let this slip for a couple of days, the house duly became in a right state again. So, on a Saturday night, I rolled up my sleaves and started work on the kitchen. Graves joined me and just as he done during exams, proceeded to help me. Again I stopped him and suggested that we divide our efforts with me taking the kitchen and lounge and Graves doing the corridor, landing and bathroom.

We cleaned for about 90 minutes before Pikey came along and started picking things up off the floor in the lounge whereon I told him to clean the spare room. The spare room was hardly ever used and took virtually no effort to clean.

Another hour or so later, both Graves and Pikey, having finished their areas moved on to clean their bedrooms whilst I continued in the kitchen. I felt a little annoyed that I was still doing a communal area while the other did their rooms but any annoyance with Graves quickly vanished when I inspected his work. He had literally swept all dirt off the floor and the stairs and areas around them were sparkling like my Grandma’s house. The bathroom was spotless and even the toilet was clean enough to eat your dinner from. Likewise, my own work was good with a spotless kitchen and every dish washed, dried and put away and the lounge looked fantastic. However, Pikey’s ‘efforts’ consisted of…well I’m not quite sure actually. The spare room was the smallest and least used room in the house and still looked untidy. I couldn’t see what he had done with it. To make this worse, we all gathered in the lounge and I said: ”So, every room in the house is now clean?” to which Pikey replied, sneeringly: ”Yeah, except your room”. The cheeky fish had started 90 minutes after us and done a poor job on a small and easy to tidy room.

That was the last time Pikey touched a mop, cloth, towel or brush in anger for two whole months and the first time he had done so for two months.

Then in early April, I went away for a long weekend, leaving Graves and Pikey alone for the first time. Aside from using my computer and TV while I was away without asking me, Pikey did something else that annoyed me…A LOT. I had a taxi booked to take me to the coach station that morning at 08:00. I was just getting my bags together to take downstairs when I looked at my bedroom floor and saw plates and bowls from yesterday’s lunch and dinner as well as the breakfast I had just eaten. Figuring it was unfair to leave them there and have the guys searching for several items of crockery, I took them and several items that Graves had left outside his room, downstairs and placed them in a neat pile on the dining room table. I didn’t have time to wash them and figured that if Graves was unhappy he could make Pikey do some housework for once and if Pikey was unhappy then he could just do some housework for once.

When I returned on the Monday, I was unhappy to find my room messed up by Pikey using it uninvited. When he returned home from lectures, I thought I would give him five minutes before having a go at him. I went downstairs, and – determined to be nice before shotuing at him – asked how his weekend was. His answer? ”Fine. Thanks for leaving the washing up for us!”

I exploded at him. I told him he had some nerve to have a go at me when he never did any housework at all. He feebly said I should have left a note. Presumably that note should have read ‘Wash my dishes for once you smelly fish’. He got defensive and kept saying how ‘we’ meaning how he and Graves were upset. I rang Graves and asked him if he was annoyed by this to which he replied that he was not and had simply made Pikey do the work and recognised that I did more than my share and Pikey did nothing.

Pikey had spent the weekend trying to curry favour with Graves whilst trying to drive a wedge between us. This resulted in Graves attacking him with a chair and me simply dismissing him.

The ultimate conclusion to all of this though is this:

I do not hate Pikey or wish to avenge myself upon him. He made Graves and I closer through adversity and we are still close friends to this day. But most of all, his life is punishment enough.

At the start of that infamous year together, he and I travelled up together from Peterborough as it was not far Stansted Airport. I stayed with his family over night which made me realise a couple of things. Firstly, he was the first in his family to go to University. Secondly, he had no friends back home. I had suspected this simply because we never saw photos of friends, heard names of any of them or stories about specific people whereas Graves and I had our rooms plastered with photos and could talk for our about old and current friends. When I stayed with him, I met the family, but no friends.

He came to Uninversity and had a chance to have the education that no one in his family had had previously and instead left with only one year completed and no chance of coming back. He left with bad debts hanging over him and probably a nasty CCJ which will ruin his future.

But most of all, he had two good friends who have remained close and would do anything to help him out. They were the only two friends he had and had ever had by the sounds of it. Those two friends forgave him when he betrayed them and even tried to help him when he did it again. Those two friends celebrated when he left and now never want to see him again.

I do not know what has happened to him and nor do I really care. He had the world at his feet and threw it all away, he threw away good friends and was left alone. That was his crime and it is also his punishment.