On Wedding Discos; their effect on concentration

We've all been there: a slightly darkened (although not dark enough) village hall/hotel function room, glitterball throwing sparkly lights over the slightly uncomfortable crowd, the rather well-oiled father of the bride throwing shapes on the dance floor, all to the righteous sounds of the Jackson 5, ABBA and other, inoffensive, inter-generational grooves.

In fact, I'm there right now. Rather, I'm outside said wedding disco, trying to write my Phd in my institution's library in a race against time to meet the supervisor's impossible deadline ("of course I can turn it around in three days; in fact, make it two!"). Yet I'm losing that race, due to my institution's lucrative sideline in corporate hospitality/events. Every 20 seconds or so, I get a good blast of Take That delivered to my desk through the open doors of my institution's function room, peppered with whoops and shrieks from rather over-excited children and rather over-indulged bridesmaids.

Not that I'm against weddings or discos. Far from it. I'm just the kind of person who, unfortunately, requires total and extreme silence when they're working. I have been known, in the past, to throw 'looks' at my colleagues who do not adhere to similar policies on noise - I have no control over it, it's just something I have learned to live with. I actually require this level of pure peace and quiet else, for some reason, I end up writing what I hear. And right now I'm hearing Dolly Parton's '9-5'...which is ironic, as I'm going to admit defeat and quit work for the evening.

* p.s I should have mentioned that the Phd is in classics, and that the bride was wearing a truly awful green number, just to fulfil the classics/fashion requirement of this blog.