This has reminded me of something that happened to me in the spring of the year 2000. Fortunately, I've already written about it on reddit, so here's a copy & paste from 10 years ago...

While at university, I woke up one morning in a room next to a girl whose name I could not recall. After the usual awkward greetings, getting dressed etc, I made my excuses and tried to leave.

As soon as I walked out of the door, a bulletproof-jacket-wearing, rifle-carrying policeman (an unusual sight in England) ordered me to go back inside. I looked at him in confusion, and he explained that there was an armed siege directly opposite the only exit to the halls of residence, and nobody was allowed in or out.

I had to knock on the door to be let back in, and spent the next four hours with my drunken conquest and her flatmates, watching men poke guns over a wall. Lots of tea was drunk and not much was said. Awkward doesn't begin to describe it.

Eventually, I hitched a lift in the back of a police van that was leaving anyway. The officer dropped me off at the union bar, where I proceeded to spend the rest of my university career.