The college score we valued most

In his new book LA screenwriter Mark Hayes recalls his school and college days in Cork, back in the days before he moved to Hollywood to hang out with the likes of Robbie Williams.

My main memory of going to UCC is not of the classes or the teachers or the friends, or playing soccer, or the five-for-one vodka and RedBull nights out at Gorbys, or the hot barmaid who worked at the Goat Broke Loose, or dropping out and going to Hong Kong, or that depressing year I spent in Germany on Erasmus.

Nay. My main memory of college is of sitting on a wall. Which is a tad odd, perhaps.

Why a wall? Why not? Any specific wall, was there one in a particular, was there a “The Wall”, I hear you say? Not really. There were a few. Some weren’t even walls. Some were curbs. Benches. Let’s just call them all walls though, because that’s what we called them at the time.

And what used you do on the wall? Well if you stopped asking questions I’d be able to tell you.

It all started with the wall outside the main restaurant. A meeting place for us all to gather around as clueless freshers. Nobody knowing where anyone was or where to meet up. Group texts of ‘Where are you?’ Group replies of ‘Not sure, main part?’ ‘Well I’m by a wall. I’ll wait here for you.’ ‘OK. I’ll keep an eye out for a wall.’

And so the wall became the focal point for everyone. There was the high wall by the restaurant overlooking the library where you’d a good perch to keep an eye out for people you knew. Then there was the wall right outside the restaurant where you could lean back and survey who might be around that’s hungry.

Pretty soon these became the hot spots for everyone. If you were on your own and waited at the wall long enough, people would just come over and find you. You were never alone for long when you were at one of the walls. New social hubs.

What was so good about the wall? First of all, it allowed you to check out the college’s body of work. As in see all the girls walking to and fro. Who’s hot? Who’s hotter? Who’s the hottest? That kind of thing. Main reason we liked the wall.

Soon enough sitting at the wall became like a version of Miss Universe, where we were the judges and every girl in college was an unwittingly contestant. She’s hot. Yeah. She is too. True. She’s not bad over there. Where? Twelve o’clock. Oh yeah, good call. What would you give her out of two? Huh? I’d give her one. Oh right. Wahey!

We were brutes. Fresh out of segregated school. Not used to being around the opposite sex. We quickly became pigs. Young horny awkward men-boys. At night we would go out gallivanting at the student clubs — Redz, Fast Eddies or Club FX — and try to pull the gems we’d see around college.

Next day we would reconvene at the wall. Recap the nights. Retell our failures and odd success. Return to rating every girl that walked by. Scale from 1-10. Nothing revolutionary. Kept it simple. Until ratings were called into dispute. Judges defending and opposing other judges’ judgment.

No way is she an eight! She is, look at her body. Yeah, but you’re trying to say she’s as hot as the eight that walked by earlier? Fair point. Well then maybe the girl earlier was an 8.2. No, she was an 8 alright. Yeah, fair enough. This girl’s a 7.8 so. Yeah, I’ll give you that. Lads, she’s a 7.8. Fair enough. Fair call. Good work.

Usually judges awarded the contestants somewhere between five and seven. It was the eights that peaked our interest though and thankfully there were enough around to keep us ticking over. On the odd occasion a nine would walk by. For such stringent judges, this was a high, high score so we were all highly impressed when it happened. Sat in hushed appreciation as the girl in question would walk by.

I’d like to say we rarely rated the unwitting contestants with low marks but then I’d be lying. Brutally honest at the wall. Varying tastes, likes and standards meant that most girls were found kind of attractive in some way though. So that was nice of us?

Only once did we ever agree on a girl being higher than a 9. She was a sight to behold, a vision of beauty. Something about her (good looks) had us all enthralled. Blonde, tanned, toned. Slim body, beautiful face, hot legs. Big smile, white teeth, flick of the hair. She had it all, whole shebang, pure beauty. 9.5 we used to call her, a name given as a crown to signify she was the cream of the crop. Rarely did another girl come close to her.

Why wasn’t she a 10, I hear you cry? Well, we adjudicated that being a 10 meant you were literally one of the best looking girls in the world. In fact, you needed more than just looks to be a 10. Unfortunately personality didn’t come into play here either.

Nay, to be a 10 you had to be absolutely beautiful and one of two things: 1. An A-list celebrity, or, 2. Royalty. Those were the two requirements necessary to push any potential nines or 9.5s into perfect figures of being a 10.

Alas, it never happened, no matter how much we willed Natalie Portman or the Princess of Monaco to walk by. I think if that ever happened the fact we had seen a 10 would’ve impressed us more than the fact either of them were in UCC.

Anyway, that’s my main memory of college. Sitting on a wall. Being judges in a beauty contest nobody but us cared about. I was told girls did the same in their own way, maybe from the grass areas spotted by the library. Or maybe they were smarter and studied and went to class. Hard to know.

Not too many downsides about the wall. Except when it got cold and you sat there too long. A few cases of hemorrhoids, I was told. So that wasn’t great.

Good times all the same. Some guys laid eyes on their future wife while sitting on that wall. This was also the place where I made friends for life who I still talk to everyday. Well, no, that’s a lie. Friendly with most of them, just drifted apart as you do. Maybe our wall bond wasn’t as strong as I thought.

Now that I think of it, what kind of idiots were we? Sitting around on a wall thinking this is what mattered in life? What a waste of time. Never once did we try and better ourselves. Ask each other about our life goals, our fears, our hopes and dreams. What we were feeling. Most importantly, why we felt a need to judge these innocent bystanders who were just trying to get on with their day and educate themselves.

You’d think one of us might have said “Lads, are we still doing this? Do we always have to comment and rate these poor girls? How would you like if you found out you were just a six? I’m sick of this. I’m doing something with my life.”

But no, none of us ever did. We were all chumps. To think of all classes I skipped just to sit on a wall, six years’ worth. And for what? So one day I could write this article? Great. Actually, that’s not too bad. Something to write about. Kind of like my new book, PreDumb: Before I Came to LA. A perfect light read. I’d give it a 10.