Steve and I were friends at university.

We shared a taste in beer and music

And a healthy disinterest in Philosophy.

We casually lounged about in tutorials

Or meandered off to the lecture hall

Or sought some solace at the Union bar

Two dilettantes spending, unwisely,

Our much-vaunted, ill-gotten student grant.

Remember them?

We were “wasting hardworking taxpayer’s money,”

So my dad said.

It was great!

 

We had the leisure to consider questions

Of purely academic interest, in smoke-filled rooms.

Steve would lean back thinking deeply,

Or pretend to, whilst drawing on an Embassy,

Before releasing thought-filled plumes.

“A radiator is seventy per cent water.

I am seventy per cent water.

Am I a radiator?”  Absurd!  Preposterous!

It all appeared such a delicious

Waste of time!

 

Looking back, though, on reflection,

University was an oasis, a brief hiatus,

Before those terrible twins,

Those relentless juggernauts called

Work and Responsibility rumbled on through.