Classic Rooha: The Subway Height Consumption Challenge Editorial (First published May 2005)

by Alex J Allen

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It's a lazy Tuesday afternoon in the small village I have come to call home, and some what curiously, I have discovered that my jeans feel a little tighter than usual. It could be because of the nature of fabric to shrink and alter slightly when it has been washed. It could be that a vengeful God has had my jeans tightened as some sort of bizarre punishment. However, the more likely explanation is that I and three other Rooha authors have just attempted to eat our own height in Subway. Yes, that's six feet of bread, filled with any number of different delicious fillings. Stupid? Oh, yes.

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Usually, drunken pub talk stays in the pub. Usually, when I say I'm going to buy an ice cream factory, the morning after I have come to my senses. Usually, things work out differently. Yet despite this, I found myself waking up at 8:04 on a Tuesday morning to attempt to most ridiculous challenge in the history of man. 8:04 is the standard time you really, really have to get out of bed and resist the temptation to hit the snooze button on the alarm clock again if you have any real ambition of catching the 8:25 bus. So the four contenders, Tom, Godfrey, Rich and I sat on the bus heading in to town looking like we'd had the heaviest night out in recent history the night before, and shouldn't have even contemplated setting foot outside this early (all true). However, undeterred, bleary eyed and actually fairly hungry we arrived in town and went to Subway. But wait, no crowds awaiting us upon our arrival? No press? No banners and streamers celebrating the commencement of our challenge? The whole place was practically deserted. Gorging ourselves with sandwiches wasn't proving to be quite the glamorous career I had anticipated. So, in low key, not to mention embarrassing fashion, we got the first round in; Three steak and cheese, one chicken teriyaki.

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Round One

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It's a very poorly kept secret that I like Subway, perhaps even love it. In fact, we all do, so the 'pace yourself' plan went well and truly out the window as soon as we got the first lot in. Looking around it was now apparent that we had a bit of an audience consisting mainly of the employed, the elderly and other members of the general public, who, based solely on appearance, looked like extras on home owner loan adverts. Receiving pitying looks from those tables was naturally a pretty low point in my life, but we soldiered on unperturbed, mistakenly thinking that a further five feet wasn't going to pose much of a challenge after all. Oh well, we live and learn, with or without a functioning liver.

Round Two

For round two, Rich and Tom decided that in the spirit of pacing themselves and eating as little as possible, they would order the heaviest sub available - The foot long meatball. Call it a tactical error of judgement, or perhaps just fucking stupid, Tom and Rich struggled their way through the second foot. Godfrey meanwhile, was having problems. The 6ft challenge was not proving to offer the glamour or celebrity he had hoped it would upon arriving, and he was finding his second chicken teryaki hard going (although to be honest, for the majority of the population, any amount is too much). I, meanwhile, was just biding my time, eating a second steak and cheese nice and slowly. Just like the tortoise and the hare, albeit slightly more nautious and with a greater sense of inner shame.

Round Three

The third foot saw the party hit the pain barrier, it also saw a calamity ensue with the bread. They'd run out of the good stuff, and all that remained were undesirable alternatives like 'cheese and herb'. I don't want to over step the mark and start telling a major corporation which bread to make, but a whole oven full of cheese and herb? Why? There's just not reason good enough for it, and even if there was I wouldn't want to hear it, I really just want some cold, poorly planned revenge. At two and a half feet I decided to get up and around the bus stop, which managed to produce the combined reaction of illness and refreshment. Godfrey followed suit and subsequently threw up in Subway's sink in front of the various home loan-esque diners. He certainly seemed to have combined all his subs in to one easily manageable load.

Despite his claims to the contrary afterwards, his dreams of completing a full six feet came to a sad and premature end at this point. Finally tally? A fairly piss poor 2.3 feet.

Round Four

It was now abundantly clear that we weren't going to eat six feet either. The prospect of having to buy my clothes from a catalogue called Garments for the Portly Gentleman due to my expanded waistline wasn't something I was looking forward to very much. What happened next was almost certainly a sign of the delusion that had taken me over. I was feeling as though I was about to have my vision, receive a dream from a guiding spirit before going back to my tribe to become a man. Instead, we ended up buying ham subs. Ham? What the hell were we thinking? Ham in Subway is a lot like that Double Decker bar that sits in the vending machine. You assume that somebody must eat them. You don't know who, and frankly, you don't care as long as you aren't involved. However, on this occasion I was persuaded that it would 'refreshing'. Fair enough. Of course, when I think of the word refreshing, I think of, say, a nice cold pint whilst sitting on the beach. Or a nice cold pint whilst relaxing in the garden. At no point in my personal definition however, is there a reference to processed pork products. Call me picky, but how many cubic pigs have you seen? You didn't need to have completed veterinary school to realise that this wasn't Babe that we were about to tuck in to.

Some general rigging and sub fixing ensued as Godfrey decided that he wasn't done and wanted to be let back in to the challenge. That misguided decision was rewarded with a surprise double meat / extra chili sauce combo in his next sub. We struggled on for a while, but eventually faltered and surrendered. Various Subway employees found the failure quite amusing, the joke, of course, was on them, they hadn't seen their sink yet. So, the final length tally: Godfrey 2.3 feet, Rich and I 3.4 feet with Tom out in the lead with 3.9 feet. So, Tom was the victor, although as we attempted to walk back in to Cambridge town centre afterwards it became abundantly clear that there were no real winners at all from this experiment. Feeling as ill as I ever had done, with only the consolation of 21 Subway Saver Stamps as a reward for our endeavours, we went to the pub. Naturally, it will be some time before I am ready to redeem my Subway stamps, or more to the point, am capable of walking there at all.

Classic Rooha: The Human Curling Editorial (First published June 2005)

by Alex J Allen

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I was sitting at a checkout, eight minutes in to a nine hour shift working at a local supermarket. With only my brain for company, I had by this point realised that I was actually quite boring. A woman staggered towards me trying to carry three four-pint containers of milk. Exactly what reason anyone could give for purchasing that much milk was beyond me, and I just don't tend to ask anymore after a recent experience where a man attempted to buy 75 washing up brushes so that he could 'build a dinosaur'. Excellent. The inevitable happened, the woman dropped one of the containers. This I could legislate for, but she then tried to catch the falling container with the hands that were already holding the other two which was just fucking stupid. There were no twelve pints of milk on the floor, and apparently, this was my fault. Another member of staff suggested that I 'call a cleaner'. It's this type of situation where you can really feel the training kicking in. The best part of an entire cow seemed to have exploded everywhere, it was calcium enriched carnage.

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The conclusion I took from that episode is that stupid people come to supermarkets, and over the course of my employment at one I have learnt never to be surprised at the general stupidity of those people. I was, therefore, happy to receive that same level of indifference when the rest of the Rooha team and I went in search of five big bottles of washing up liquid and plenty of plastic sheeting that clearly wasn't going to be used for washing up or decorating. Far from it, we had a much better use for those items in mind. We were going to invent a new sport, well, more accurately we were planning on making a very boring sport interesting. Yes, Rooha brings you uninterrupted coverage of human curling for the next three pages.

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I've never been a particularly big advocate of the weather as a television programme. It seems to be fundamentally based upon guess work, perhaps with different varieties of weather being drawn at random from Lancelot the National Lottery machine, which, let's be honest, can't have much use during weekdays other than sitting idle in Philip Schofield's garage. It is then presented as accurate, factual information, with only a balding man with a comedy tie to save its credibility. A complete horror show.

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Had I been a more fervent supporter of the weather, I might well have noticed that it was going to be windy on Thursday, April 28th. So windy in fact, that when we attempted to construct our human curling runway, the plastic sheeting inflated like a small zeppelin balloon. Still not enough to make our guest contestant Rich, who was hanging on to the sheeting, gain any serious altitude, but more than enough to make the whole assembly part of the experiment more difficult than we would have liked.

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Fortunately, Tom had some lumber in his barn (not a euphemism), and the human curling experiment was temporarily salvaged from the elements. Of course we had bigger problems going on, because as it turned out, the small gardening trolley we had been piling heavy lengths of wood on to wasn't coping too well with the excessively heavy load. When I use the term 'not coping too well', what I in fact mean to say, is that the steering had become practically non existent. Attempting to pull an unsteerable gardening trolley loaded with heavy lengths of wood up a steep incline next to a lake proved to be as much fun as real curling.

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It was now abundantly clear that this was not going to be the close and accurate representation of curling that we had originally hoped for. For one thing, we had no brooms. We also had no target as such to aim ourselves at, not to mention the fact that it was becoming cold and slightly overcast. There was also an underlying realisation and apprehension amongst the Rooha team that if at some point during the near future rain was on the cards, then this field was going to be filled with a lot of soap. I did, however, have a scarf tied round my round, Tom was donning a red motorcycling helmet, and I thought that went a long way towards balancing the scales of credibility.

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With our runway eventually set up, and looking as best as could be expected in such circumstances, we thought we might as well get on with it. Fairly predictably, nobody seemed too desperate to go first. Eventually, realising that with the human curling there would be no editorial, and that with only two previous issues there was little chance of fooling anyone by regurgitating an old one, I unenthusiastically volunteered.

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Short of finding an unmarked syringe, an upturned rusty shopping trolley or remnants of a Happy Meal, I'd compare the experience closely to using an outdoor inner city swimming pool. Think phrases like unpleasant, cold, wet, poorly maintained and urine drenched (too far?) and you'll come a long way towards understanding just how much fun human curling was. Admittedly, my mood changed dramatically when the poor bastard hurtling down the human curling runway of death wasn't me, but there can be no overlooking the worthlessness of the whole activity. There were various techniques for sliding down the runway, contestants could choose either a body board, a sofa bed mattress, or to slide down on no raft at all. Each method over the course of the afternoon proved to be equally painful and useless.

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Perhaps it was the fact that there was no real way of winning, and even if there had been, all the 'winner' could expect to receive for their endeavours was a Mask of Zorro style gash down their leg. Perhaps it was also that as time continued to take its toll on the runway, a ratio began to shift dramatically. The ratio being that of soft, bubble laden slippery plastic to the comparative discomfort of the dirt floor beneath it. A few more token slides ensued just to make it seem as if there had been some validity to the whole project, and to make it seem worth carrying so much wood so far, but eventually common sense prevailed. Who won? Who cares? As with previous editorials, there were no real winners, just a common sense of shame and self loathing from each of the participants involved.

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Yet as I pulled myself up from my pool of soapy water, amidst those feelings of shame and self loathing I sensed a more sinister edge to the whole affair. It was freezing cold, and I was going to have to walk the short journey back to my house as all the local kids were coming out of the secondary school. Oh, and did I mention that I was covered in soap, water, and more soap? This was a small glitch in the planning stage of the editorial. Having been one of those kids not so may years ago, I was all too aware that they could be vindictive little bastards, who knew the levels of abuse I could be letting myself in for? As events transpired, there was only one comment, 'ha ha, you're soapy'. Cut me deep.

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In the end, what we must ask is whether our 'human curling' was better than the traditional version. The answer is unquestionably yes, a conclusion which really says more about the shitness (at this point a red squiggle appears under 'shitness', informing me that it isn't a real word. You don't own me Microsoft Word, I'll write what I please!) of the traditional game, rather than the comparative qualities of our slap dash remake. But don't let this editorial brainwash you in to form an opinion of a sport on the basis of one article, even if that sport does involve sweeping stones with a broom.

Classic Rooha: The Subways Interview (First published May 2005)

by Tom Clarke

There is currently a real buzz about The Subways. Tipped for a great year, they are already snowballing their way around the country, impressing audiences left right and centre. We arrived at the APU academy at around 5:45PM, to the sound of their tour manager telling us that 'you've got 10 minutes, lads'. Luckily, the band themselves were nowhere near as organised and were happy to sit and chat to us, they even gave us a couple of beers from their rider.

Rooha: So, this is the 23rd date of an impressively long tour, any interesting stories from it so far? Any great gigs you've played?

Billy: I think the most interesting think is, like, the shock. Most people have been nicely surprised when we've done the slower stuff, and fitted them in to our more 'punk' songs. That's been really nice. You know, getting wasted and doing it for art. We're in a position to do so. When you're off tour it does put things in a different perspective.

Charlotte: We've had some really great crowds, too, some fantastic crowds.

Rooha: Would you say this is one of the best tours you've done?

Charlotte: It's only our second headline tour, but yeah, I'd say so.

Billy: We've done spurts of dates with some relatively big bands. It's the second headline tour, like Charlotte said, it's building up nice and slowly which is really comforting. I'm so glad it hasn't lapsed at all, and at the same time we haven't over exploded, that would be a bit disconcerting. I feel like we're earning our place by doing it this way. Paying our dues, if you like.

Rooha: So what do you say to critics who write you off as just another garage band?

Charlotte: I think you've just got to wait and listen to the album. There's only really one song that we chose to release, '1AM', and that might not even go on the album.

Billy: It's like everything, you know, if you look at some of the best bands, they've defined their sound over a number of albums or a number of singles, and it's almost kind of lazy pigeon-holing someone after their first single. We started off on the tour playing eight songs in a set, we're doing fifteen now, and as each date had come on we've become more confident with the new songs, with the acoustic and more epic stuff. I suppose that comes from playing such a big thing straight off as we did with Glastonbury. It's case of going back and starting again with the toilet venues, and working towards an album. I just look forward to the album coming out and people being shocked.

Rooha: You're called The Subways, do you guys actually eat Subway?

Billy: Now and again, yeah.

Charlotte: But I'm allergic to bread! So I'm a bit limited in my choices, I can get a salad from there.

Rooha: Hmm, well I think we all know that's not a real sub. That's like getting a cold sub full of fish or something...

Billy: I really used to hate it, but yeah, it's really nice.

(The band seem impressed, shocked, saddened and disgusted all at once when we tell them about the Subway challenge editorial)

Rooha: OK, so imagine that it's a year from now, where do you see The Subways?

Charlotte: Probably working on the second album and touring a lot. We've already written the songs for the second album, so it's just going to be a case of recording it.

Billy: Yeah, just playing our hearts out, earning our bread.

Rooha: Or salad in Charlotte's case?

(Laughter)

Charlotte: We like recording, and we like gigging. I think it's a good thing that we get to do both.

Billy: We binge, don't we? When we're playing live we're like, "for God's sake, I don't want to go back in to the studio ever again!" And then when you're in the studio you think, "fuck it! I don't want to play live ever again!" When you're forced to do both, it makes everything a lot easier.

Rooha: Is Welwyn Garden City as boring as it sounds?

Billy: Yeah, which is why people WGS either become parents, drug addicts or form a band. I just felt compelled to make music to get out of there. Me and Josh (Billy's brother, and the band's drummer) have been moving around for all of our lives, and we stayed in Austrailia for a while so we'd like to move out there I suppose. But making music just felt right, I never really fit in with the social fabric. Making music for a living, whilst maintaining a shit job! It's cool.

Rooha: We read somewhere that you had your laptop stolen, and it had the only copy of your album on it?

Charlotte: Yeah, this is Josh's replacement (points to impressvely large laptop sitting on the table in the van). It's a pain in the arse, but fortunately we managed to get it back.

Rooha: How does it feel when you've been gigging and touring for what must seem like forever, only to appear as 'a new band' in the eyes of the media and the public?

Billy: That's a good feeling. As long as we're a new band this year, and then next year we're just simply a band.

Charlotte: The difference between the last tour and this tour is that we've kind of moved up a venue in every town, and that's what we hope to do, build it up to as far as we can get.

Billy: What we don't want is to be the band, or the sound, of 2005. We don't want to be a flash in the pan. Every year has a 'best new band', and I just want to be another band next to everyone else and build a real sense of community. We have people crossing the country just to get a chance to see us play live. Six hour train journey from one side of the country to another just for us, it's incredible.

Rooha: Sounds expensive!

Charlotte: And they're only students, too!

Rooha: So it sounds as thought you're striving to become a one album band, then?

Charlotte: Absolutely, we don't want the first album to be blown out of all proportion so that the next album could never follow it.

Billy: Because the next one is better, actually...

(Billy rumages around his bag, are we about to get a rare copy of the aforementioned second album? Do we have an exclusive on our hands? No. Billy finally pulls out two notebooks.)

...It's all written in these books. The third album is at home (laughs)!

Rooha: So when is the greatest hits coming out?

Billy: Before the second and third (laughs). We're concentrating on developing our sound, so our second album could almost be a thread to the next album. But, you know, that next album itself fluctuates and develops.

Rooha: Hmm, it's all sounding a bit prog-rock for its own good!

Billy: Aargh no! Oh my God (laughs)! No, it's not Pink Floyds or Mars Volta, it just develops. We're not totally and utterly complicated, but we don't need to be to say what we want to say. There will obviously come a time when we use electronic beats and pedals. It's our willingness to flip moods, from chilled to totally energising ourselves on stage to chilling in the van with you guys. It's the most human thing we can do.

Rooha: OK, and finally if you could only have three words to define your band, what would they be?

Charlotte: That's really hard!

Rooha: Well that was three words right there!

Charlotte: (laughs) yeah, 'it's really hard!'

Billy: 'Pure human music? (muses) That sounds like an album name!

Rooha: It sounds like one of those horrible compilation albums parents buy!