The Legendary Ricky... and Pranks (of course)

Hello Everyone!

So today I'm going to take a moment to remember our good friend Ricky. He brought out the inner madness in everyone. He made everyone smile at the mucky carpet, lust at the mouldy kitchen, love the bare brick walls and laugh at the one toilet shared between six people which blocked every week (and even overflowed at one point). Because despite the place being an absolute shithole, there was something so special and euphoric about it that made you think there was absolutely no place you'd rather be. With only one year left of Uni, I'm feeling all nostalgic and am going to reflect on a very happy time in my life... this being within the heart and soul of Richardson Road.

I know it was over a year ago now, but I'm sure I can't be the only one who looks back at those unforgettable Ricky moments without either giggling to myself at how crazy it was, or without my heart breaking a little because of it being no longer there. Don't get me wrong, Jesmond is amazing, and I'll touch on a few hilarious moments in my second year, but first I'm gonna tell you about some of my funniest times in Ricky... one of these being the 'BUCKET LIST Week'.

One evening in Block 15, we ventured into the forbidden land that was Flat A. Flat A was on the ground floor, and we'd heard that there was a trap door in every ground floor flat that led to tunnels interlinking all the different blocks in Ricky together. Recipe for carnage right?! Anyway, we found the trap door and slowly opened it. Looking down into the hatch, all I could see was dust and darkness. We all clambered down excitedly, like tiny kids at a ball pool for the first time. It was quite spacious down there, and kinda spooky. We found all sorts; a dusty old traffic cone, a box filled with hundreds of bottle caps, and a huge plastic bottle of a strange pink liquid (which we opened later and realised it smelt rotten). But rummaging further under the many old socks lurking about, Duncan discovered three sheets of tattered paper. We brought everything up to the light, and realised that these weren't just three tattered sheets of paper, but instead were a one hundred and sixty seven bullet point bucket list of things to do in your first year of uni.

So guess what happened next? Yep, all of Block 15 rose to the challenge of completing as many things on the bucket list as they could in a week. It was crazy! Everyone's main priority that week was the bucket list, it was all or nothing.

Here's the full list below:

All the nights in bucket list week seemed to blur into one week of mischief. We'd run round Ricky throwing stink bombs and eggs into the flats with open kitchen windows and ducking out of site in hysterics. I remember one night making condom water bombs and taking them all up on the roof of Ricky and throwing them at the poor people coming home after a night out at 3am. We were horrible! The boys were worse haha. Some of them moonied the security wardens, and one might have even pissed in flat E's letterbox... not mentioning any names.

One night we'd all gone to Cosmic and I just remember turning round and the whole block were getting with each other. It was like we were an incest family. I remember just necking a drink and going round Cosmic with a plastic cup, and giving kisses for money. My dignity was now a pile of loose change totalling £7 haha. What had the Bucket List done to me? Talk about feeling like a tame prostitute.

Everything was just popping off all week; people were getting naked in taxis, going out commando, eating plants, and skinny dipping in the lake in Leazes park. There was one night when Yemi brought a homeless man back to the block haha! I still can't get over the fact that me and my friend didn't shower for the whole week because of the bucket list. If that's not dedication then I don't know what is haha.

To this day we still have no idea who left the list, or how long ago it had been down there, all we know is that it's got something to do with a girl called Alice. But if they somehow ended up seeing this post then I hope they'd give us 110% for effort.

Now it would be silly of me to write a post about Ricky Road without talking about the ongoing hilarious, grim and naughty pranks. I remember coming back to Newcastle after a lovely weekend back home. I'd walked through the block door and ran up to flat C to find everyone really happy, if not TOO happy to see me... That's when I remembered that I hadn't locked my bedroom door. After asking what the hell they'd done, I quickly paced through flat D to my room, with both Reuben and Duncan giggling behind me. The image below is what my door looked like:

Yep. They'd covered my entire bedroom in newspaper. When I say entire bedroom, I mean EVERYTHING in my bedroom, from my bed and table to my Docs and chicken stapler. Apparently it had taken them a good eight hours to cover it all.

It was just before exams and I was so annoyed, but at the same time it was just too funny. I ended up quite liking my newly decorated shelves, walls and door, and kept them covered in newspaper over exam period, but I sadly had to take it all down soon after as the cleaners said it was too much of a fire hazard.

I remember one night when my flatmate Will was out, we fully emptied his room and hid everything all over the block, and then covered the floor in biscuits. His face when he got back was hilarious hahahaha!

Block 15 seemed to have an obsession with mattress hiding. Will's mattress once ended up in a tree outside, then he brought it back in. Then Yemi's mattress ended up in the tree, and then got taken away by the Ricky police (doofas). Sammy's mattress ended up in the next door flat as someone had smuggled it through the fire door by the shower. Egging was also a huge thing. I remember you'd just be sat having a random conversation in flat B (probably about something pointless), then suddenly BANG and an egg splatters all over the window and the war begins. The lads even plotted against all the Leazes lot when egging the lifts and windows in Castle Leazes.

There were little pranks, like the time I left my Facebook logged in in flat C, and someone added hundreds of people with the name Muhammad. One year later and I still get random Muhammad's accepting my friend request...

Another time I hid my friends' dildo and made a treasure hunt for her to search all over the block for it haha, it ended up in a cereal box in Flat A.

Arguably, things started to go a wee bit too far when one particular person sh*t in an envelope AND a kebab box... but I won't go into that.

Whilst we are on the topic of pranks, I can't not tell you about what happened to me earlier this year in Jesmond...

So a few months back, a few of the girls pranked Jack (for a large number of reasons I won't go into), and so we poured mouldy eggy milk on his mattress (well I poured it, but it was not just my idea...). As you can imagine, he was fuming, and thought it was too far (debatable), and he said he was going to get me back.

I felt like I was living on edge for the next few months and had to sleep with one eye open. Every time I saw Jack he kept saying how good his prank was going to be. I kept asking for clues and got nothing, I was so paranoid.

Then one night, we were all pre-drinking at the boys house and getting ready to have a skanky night at Mandidextrous, and Jack comes over to me with a big brown envelope. On the front of the envelope is the name 'Gordon-vaughn Squiddlebops' with my address written on it.

I was so confused, everyone started laughing. I opened the envelope, and inside was a list of official documents stating that my name had officially been changed to Gordon-vaughn Squiddlebops. GORDON-VAUGHN SQUIDDLEBOPS. I thought it was all a joke, it had to be! He said he'd paid £15 and that it was all true, so I googled the Deed Poll website and it seemed very legitimate. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry!

The next few days, people stopped calling me Alex or Lexy and instead started calling me Gordon or Squiddlebops. I still didn't wanna believe it was true, but everyone was telling me that it was actually legit. A few weeks past and I still hadn't changed my name back; I was skint and well in my overdraft, I didn't want to spend £15 changing my name back unless I absolutely had to. Plus, I'd heard that you were only allowed to change your official name like twice in your life. However, I was panicking a little, and knew I was going skiing in a few weeks and was worried that I wouldn't be allowed to pass the border!!

Over Easter, I did in fact manage to get through the border, despite my name being changed, which was a relief. When I was back home, my friend Aimee had told everyone at work about my name change and they were all laughing at me, and were even gonna change my name on the rota hahahahaha!

About 2 weeks after Easter, it came to applying for my last year of student finance, and you had to answer whether you'd changed your name through Deed Poll. Now definitely seemed like the time to change it. As I started inserting all my details on the Deed Poll website, Duncan looked at me and grinned cheekily. My phone started ringing with the name 'Jack Walsh' flashing on the phone screen. I picked up the phone to hear Jack's voice. 'Alex I didn't change your name'.

I couldn't believe it. He didn't just prank me, but convinced everyone it was true, over the space of about three months. What a dickhead haha. Well-played to him though.

If it wasn't for Ricky bringing us all together, none of this would have happened. This picture of Block 15 (minus a few mains) was taken in Ricky, with a classy background of Frosty Jack's labels (which the doofas made us take down as it was apparently a 'fire hazard').

You'll always be in my heart Ricky, you legend.

Thanks for corrupting me.

... and thank you to whoever has read this post, I hope it's made you giggle!

Do you have any funny stories from Uni?

Lots of love,

Alex

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