‘I read two people had permanent spinal injuries doing that last year,’ said Karen disapprovingly. She was sitting on one of Omar’s chairs with a massive cup of hot chocolate. Omar had noticed with some irritation that she now limited her visits to when ‘Jimmy’ was in residence. He wished she wouldn’t come; she was getting more and more territorial about Jim, so much so that Omar felt a bit like a gooseberry in his own college room.

‘Bollocks - how would you get a spinal injury by jumping into water?’ scoffed Jim, who had spread out a map of Oxford on Omar’s coffee table, and was scribbling over it with thick, coloured marker pens.

‘The water’s not very deep at some points under the bridge,’ explained Omar, wondering why he was bothering to back up Karen. ‘I think you have to jump from the middle, or not at all.’

’Well, if you say so, mate,’ said Jim non-commitally.

‘Typical, you always listen to Omar over me,’ pouted Karen flirtatiously. Jim grinned cheekily at her, before pouting back at her, causing her to giggle delightedly. Omar almost had to hide a sigh; Karen’s single-minded pursuit of Jim was beginning to pay off. They were edging closer and closer to becoming a couple, and there was nothing he could do about it; Jim was far too lazy to avoid being pursued for too long, and far too vain not to enjoy the attention. Omar knew that it shouldn’t really bother him - they were both his friends. It was just that Jim was his best friend, and he didn’t really want to share him, that was all. To distract himself from the disturbing niggles of jealousy, Omar asked Jim how he was getting on with his party-planning.

‘It’s all worked out, mate. These flag pins are us three,’ Jim started poking them into the map where the college was.

‘You’re poking holes in my coffee table,’ muttered Omar in exasperation.

‘Mate, I poke where, when and whom I want,’ retorted Jim. ‘So, we’re here in the college at the start of the night, and we go to the bar for the first party of the night and get tanked up.’ He picked up the flag pins and began dancing them along the thick red line he had marked up earlier. ‘We then head over to Balliol, to pick up Giles and Lydia from their bar, have a few drinks there just to be polite, and then Giles drives us all over to the big bash in the Parks.’

’Isn’t Giles drinking, then?’ Karen asked

‘God, you and your bloody health and safety obsessions. No, he’s not drinking,’ Jim said tersely.

‘Antibiotics,’ Omar clarified kindly for Karen. ‘So we’re going to stay out in the Parks all night? What if it rains?’