By Charles Hue Williams

The Gatecrash 

There has been a lot of speculation from the group about entry to the cream awards tonight, hosted at Mother. Some thinking that we might need to deploy elaborate disguises and masterful deception in order to make it’s through those sacred doors. 

As we’re slowly coming to realise, when Marc suggests you do something, it isn’t actually a suggestion but instead the subtle delivery of a brief that he is expecting you to complete. A challenge to prove your worth as an SCA student. 

With such expectations laid out, the task seems simple enough, then again we have no idea what awaits us…This could be the Fort Knox of award ceremonies, ID required, metal detectors out and sniffer dogs at the ready! The only thing we can do is prepare for the worst, bring out the inner spy and compose the ultimate plan. 

There have been some strong suggestions so far, such as portraying yourself as hired in staff perhaps from the catering providers. This is a very risky manoeuvre however as it requires, knowledge of the respective uniform and the expectation that food is being served, let alone that staff is required to serve it. The next, an event photographer, again a strong suggestion from the group. No uniform is required and a cigarette break gives good cover for ‘re-entry’ but the option has two fundamental flaws. Firstly this is only accounting for casual security, presuming that the lack of a badge won’t provoke a database check. The second and perhaps more obvious is, how many photographers could Cream hire for an event such as this? My guess is that 40 could be a slight overestimation! 

Although the concept of uniform is counterproductive in the catering scenario, it could be used as a form of validation, replacing the necessity of ID. Perhaps a Deliveroo driver making a quick drop off, never to return from the building? This might insight a search party though and again, only allows access for the few…well more precisely one person. 

If we did want to continue with the uniform angle but compensate for numbers, something a little more adventurous might be required. We could take a leaf out of Danny Ocean’s book and put together a tactical team. A group of firefighters or police storming the building in an alert state. All that’s required to make this full-proof is an inside man and an easily accessible alarm, an EXCELLENT fancy dress shop, some large but non cumbersome duffle bags…and we’ll stroll right through. By the time the real heroes arrive we’ll have embedded ourselves deep in the chaos, outfits stashed away and mirrored panic displayed across our faces – ‘What’s going on…are we gonna die?’ 

In terms of reward however, the idea of instigating complete panic, impersonating a police officer and potentially evacuating a building full of people (during an awards ceremony) might be slight overkill, even if the end goal is…completing a brief! 

The other option is to obtain the schematics for 10 Redchurch, analyse the entry points, define the weak spots and exploit a hopeful naivety in Mothers security…obtaining these schematics however is more difficult than I had initially imagined. This full proof plan might have to settle for an inspired moment of improvisation instead. Lucky we all got some practice in yesterday!