Who needs sleep anyway?

So, I got back from singing the Mikado at about eleven o clock at night, having drunk about half a bottle of red wine. This is how I spend my Wednesday evenings - my big scary tute is done for the week, so what else is there to do but eat, drink and sing Gilbert and Sullivan? I was sitting in the room of Amy, one of my G and S buddies and we were chatting about musicals and she decided to force me to sit through Evita. I've never seen Evita before because I have a violent aversion to 1) Madonna and 2) Eva Peron - My aunt-by-marriage's dad was imprisoned for chucking a molotov cocktail at her and ended up in prison with Che Guevarra which I can't spell and is totally beside the point, but hey.
So there we were about three scenes from the end - and it wasn't as bad as I was expecting, I'm going to have to go back and watch the last couple of scenes at some point, I think - when the fire bell goes off. It's about one in the morning by this point. Grab coat down stairs out of building - our formal gathering point seems to be in the middle of Oxford High Street in the way of all the traffic. From there you can see straight into halls, as the building is a massive sixties monstrosity and has huge ugly glass windows. We stood and watched people evacuating. It was like something out of a cartoon, they had to go along the glass corridor in one direction and then they dissapeared to go down the stairs and then you could see them going along the next corridor down in the other direction. Classicist James was semi-unconscious and being carried by two buddies, so we thought that maybe something exciting had actually happened, but he turned out just to be drunk. The Dean of Waynflete - which is the poncy name for the guy in charge of halls, he's a sixth year medic student - was running around in nothing but his boxers trying to work out what the hell was going on.
And we stood. And it was cold. And I was fully dressed and had shoes and a coat, so pity those poor people who'd been dragged out of bed and were wearing nothing but a dressing gown.
It turned out to be cigerrettes too near a smoke alarm in a room on the third floor.
So back we all traipsed. It was about two o clock by this point. Unfortunately
a) I live on the groundfloor corridor, which means we have the firedoor in our corridor. When this is opened, it sets of a different alarm which keeps going for an hour and a half after the main alarm's been switched off. You can hear this alarm three floors away with all the doors inbetween shut - in our corridor, it's unbearable.
b) I'd left my bag, and my doorkeys, in Amy's room. She'd managed to misplace her doorkeys.
So. Locked out. Fire alarm still making horrible noises. Hopes of getting to bed any time in the near future receeding into oblivion.
I ended up sitting on the floor of Historian James' room drinking tea and talking politics and football - two of my favourite topics (there are many MANY Jameses in my college - around fourteen in a year of about a hundred and fifty people. Unlike the Johnnys who have picked up tags - Dubious Johnny, Braindead Johnny and Wolverine, amongst others - the Jameses tend to be indentified by subject.). It was actually really good fun. So much so that even when Amy delivered my bag and keys at about two thirty and even when the alarm switched itself off at about three o clock, I sat there and kept chatting....
I really do like James. I think he writes poetry. He's a sweetheart.
It's now four in the morning. James has a nine o clock lecture tomorrow. My only one is at two in the afternoon. Which is very nice and I feel exceedingly smug about.
But it's still four in the morning. And I really ought to go to bed....