So, second years, this week we're halfway through our university degrees. And how far we have come! We are now masters in hastily fabricating summaries of unread texts. We have transformed the grovelling excuse e-mail into an art form. Our shirking skills have been sharpened to point-blank precision. Yes, with age comes responsibility, and with responsibility comes a word count of zero. This is probably all we've learnt this term. But all is not lost. Deadlines are malleable. There's still time to waste. Dawdlers and dalliers, unite and take comfort in: The Fantasy Dinner Party Plan.

We first bonded over ritualistic steak-massaging sessions in Adam's first-year kitchen, and now that we live together, gastronomical essay-evasion has become a way of life. No more student dorm with oft-pilfered fridge and an ever more bio diverse sink-full of washing up, but a beautiful oven and four whole hobs for all our baking and singeing needs. The more extravagant the meal, the more effectively work is avoided. So, at the beginning of second year, we decided to throw a dinner party: what better way to while away those precious remaining hours than languishing in gluttony? Plans can be drafted and re-drafted; guest lists drawn up; seasonal menus compiled; test-runs prepared and consumed.

But alas, two terms in and this event has never actually materialized.  Postponing our tasty dish of procrastination has become mind-bogglingly meta. Our greatest culinary achievement thus far has been an unfortunately anatomical moules marnières, which, apart from the magnificent time-wasting potential of scrubbing several kilos of ruggedly bearded mussel (not for the first time, we can tell you), did some serious damage to our hosting aspirations. We even got a little overexcited after watching a re-run of Heston Blumenthal's Christmas feast and narrowly avoided incineration while testing our scanty facilities to the limits.

Yet this is all about to change. Ellie and Adam are planning a dinner party, and this time it's really going to happen: an extravaganza more outrageous than even Coleridge’s opium-clouded unconscious could conjure. The guest list has been drawn up. The invitations sent. The menu perfected to within an inch of its exotic little life. Forget John’s May Ball, this is where the party’s at. And only two days to do it? Sounds fine to me. And that essay? It can wait! Who needs a degree when you have a career as socialite/party planner/bon viveur par excellence to look forward to? (Pretentiously placed French words mandatory).

Adam has been placed in charge of decorations. Ellie in charge of food. A perfect synthesis of taste and taste. What could go wrong? Silks! Incense! Belly dancers writhing to a snake charmer’s bulbous flute! After much excited noun-shouting, we retire to our separate quarters - the early night a smugly self-justifiable recourse for any seasoned procrastinator.

It is 12pm on the day of the feast. We both oversleep. Adam's going to head down to Mill Road for saris and spices in a flash - well, as soon as he's caught up on Season IV of The Tudors - oh, perhaps a bit of ermine would be nice for the dais? Actually, what is ermine? Or a dais for that matter? Just a quick glance at Wikipedia to find out...

Ellie, meanwhile, begins to collate recipes. Oh really? Jamie Oliver has a blog (http://www.jamieoliver.com/diary) now? Let me just skim through that for inspiration...

5pm. The day draws on. Adam has spent the last four hours meandering around an Internet encyclopaedia to an article listing all sixteen thousand varieties of jellybeans. It’s Sunday night; the shops are about to close, and not a piece of velvet in sight. What to do? Blame Ellie!

Too late. She's burrowed down for an early-afternoon snooze filled with herby hallucinations of ever-more outrageous seasoning combinations.

8pm. The failure of the feast is imminent. The doors are locked in a desperate attempt to bar all visitors and we consider promulgating rumours of our emigration. We skulk to our rooms in shame while the baked beans simmer mournfully on the hob. Nothing to do but admit our failure:  Procrastination has had her wicked way once again.

We are beginning to accept, now, that the dinner will never happen because a) it would bankrupt us and b) it would probably be illegal. Yet we can scrape a little comfort from this charred pan of postponement: at least this way we have an endless source of procrastinatory planning pleasure at our disposal.