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With a single dessert and just two glasses of wine our bill was kept in check - but the effort of doing so was not much fun
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Friends reunited in clubland
By Charlotte Melville, London Lite 20.11.07
Student union: The Big Uni Reunion takes ex-students back to their tax-dodging days
Good times: Charlotte Melville, left, finds The Big Uni Reunion gives old university pals a chance to party - at student prices
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Fresh out of university, I am still making the transition from tax-dodging layabout to respectable, earning member of the public. It's not easy. For a start, "free money" has stopped appearing in my bank account three times a year and has been replaced by a letter (received this morning) politely asking me how I'm going to pay it all back. Seems it wasn't so free after all.
On top of this, now I'm living in London, I'm paying through the nose for everything: travel, rent, breathing, which leaves very little cash for the finer things in life. More specifically, a decent social life. Things were a lot easier when a night of double vodka-Red Bulls, top DJs and a taxi home in Nottingham (my alma mater) cost less than a kebab from the van outside Funky Buddha.
For anyone finding themselves in a similar post-university predicament, and in desperate need of a bit of nostalgia, I have found an answer in The Big Uni Reunion. It's the chance to hook up again with the uni mates you worried about losing touch with at a night celebrating the glories of student life, without paying London prices for the privilege. Like Facebook and Friends Reunited rolled into one, and made into a real-time party.
After a hugely successful Reunion this time last year, it was Nottingham's turn again last Saturday, and its graduates from across the years descended on the Coronet in Elephant & Castle, a renovated 19th-century theatre, now a club. With my friend Cesca leading the way, we handed over our tickets (£12) at the door and contemplated the suitably studenty venue's entrance hall.
By a stroke of genius, we'd managed to time our arrival with that of DJ Jack Smedley, resident maestro at Infectious in Nottingham, at the decks. A DJ we always made a concerted effort to see at university, Smedley provided a typically flawless and inspired funky electro set.
True to form, the Nottingham girls were proudly gyrating in micro dresses and hotpants on the dancefloor, while the boys either ogled openly or were already too far gone to notice (tequila shots, £1).
The idea came from fellow Nottingham graduate (although from slightly before my time) Jonathan English. He tried to entice his mates back up north for a get-together, but his efforts were generally unsuccessful.
So Jonathan and friends started bringing the reunions to their mates, rather than the other way round. Three years on, their brainchild has blossomed from a booze-up among friends to around 15 regular events a year, each one dedicated to a specific university.
They've held recent parties for graduates of Loughborough, Bristol, Birmingham, Durham, Reading and Liverpool, and will be staging more soon for Bath, Cardiff, Leeds, Newcastle, Warwick, Edinburgh and York.
As we settled into vodka-Red Bull number two, I felt a tap on the shoulder. It was my mate Nick, who I'd been desperate to talk to since I'd seen him on ITV1's Streetmate on a date with a gorgeous redhead. We were discussing how hard life must be for him now he's a celebrity, when Cesca shrieked "Oh my God, CHRISSY!" - her old housemate had turned up unannounced.
Over-excited by our Smedley blast from the past, Cesca and I went to see if the rumours of "free massages" in the VIP lounge were true. We got what we'd been promised and more: the Moroccan-themed haven decked out with silk wall hangings, enormous cushions, a life-size model camel, and even a David Hasselhoff impersonator.
After a few more hours of intensive ass-shaking, Cesca and I said goodbye to our reunited mates, and with shouts of "Facebook me!" ringing in our ears, we skipped out of the Nottingham time warp to find a cab. It occurred to us the journey home was probably going to cost more than our night out.
For information on the next reunion, see thebigunireunion.com
