Do as mummy says - not as she does
There are some new kids on the block – and as neighbourhood protocol demands, new arrivals are welcomed with food; a fluffy bunt cake, if you’re gastronomically talented, or M&S mini-flapjacks if kitchens dissolve into flames the minute you enter them. And so, for the first week of term the veterans of Ye Olde York scurry around like harried mother hens to cook up the perfect little nuggets of bunt cake/flapjack equivalent with which to ease the Freshers into the trials (sorry, joys) of university life. And as they pass, wide-eyed and blinking, into the murky concrete-refracted light of campus, they face us with inquisitive expressions: what do we need to brave this ordeal? How shall we go forth? Instruct us o wise ones. Or at least, that’s how we would prefer to imagine the Fresher mindset.
About this time last year, I became conscious of a certain ‘Fresher Patronisation Syndrome’ pandemic that tends to sweep second and third years the instant they chance their first whiffs of fresh meat. A medical student could possibly concoct a more apt term, but English degrees bring with them a tendency towards poncey verbiage so it’s the best phrase I can offer for the continuous belittling and general mocking we revel in.
Patronising Freshers is an ingrained tendency, so inherent that occasionally it happens almost unconsciously. Pithy insults launched unawares – wondrous things, some might say. However, after mooching around the Nouse offices for far too much time whilst various Macs undergo yet another coronary, you start to notice things. Here at Nouse, we still lovingly refer to last year’s new additions as ‘The Freshers’ or in more tender moments, ‘The Nouselets’. Surely we will relinquish these brands come October 8, when they are officially all growed-up and living in damp infested student accommodation of their very own? Sorry kids, not a chance in hell.
With essays to scrawl, phone lines to set-up and TV licenses to pay, it’s undoubtedly the perfect time to while away the hours with some unhealthy introspection. So, do we mercilessly indulge ourselves simply because they’re younger, vulnerable to attack and a year shy of our bitterly sardonic wit? In part, or so we’d like to think. But since Freud never rested on his laurels and burrowed away until he arrived at those mother issues, so will I. Odd, is it not, how we refer to Freshers like inconvenient offspring? “Ah bless, they’re so dippy, but you can’t blame the young, especially when whatever brain formation they had achieved is probably now impeded with vodka”.
Language has this wonderful facility that allows it to frequently pun without any intent required whatsoever. The titles ascribed to Fresher ‘handlers’, for example. At Oxbridge they’re ‘Mums and Dads’; here we call them ‘STYCs’. As we assume these caretaker roles, we somehow also adopt the characteristics of their unfortunate titles. We become the grumbling Mums and Dads who inevitably become so irate with their charges they consider beating them with sticks.
The stereotype that we all inevitably morph into our parents is curiously strengthened by Fresher’s week. Like parents whose children, if anything, are painful reminders of their bygone days, for us, Freshers are walking, slurring memories of when we could while away weeks in a sozzled haze without having to know the location of the library. So naturally, we’re a smidgen resentful.
To temper the frustration, we enact the same, bizarre, “doing it for the kids” antics of our parents. Weeks of vein popping stress are dispensed of in a frenzied over-compensation orgy, to create the perfect Freshers week, sorry fortnight, for our little-ones. Why? Because ultimately, Fresher’s week is a cushy bubble for all university students: it allows Freshers to forget why they fetched up to university in the first place and aids our smug belief that we actually have “more important things to be getting on with, quite frankly”. It re-imbues us fossils with a sense of haughty purpose, so we can blithely play the vexed intellectuals to their degenerate hooligans.
Fresher-Patronisation is the necessary coping mechanism that re-establishes our degrees as meaningful and not just the fetters reining us in from having fun - like, I don’t know, Freshers for example. If we trample some egos or hurt some “feelings” along the way – so be it. And for all the Freshers out there poring over this while muttering ‘repugnant’, consider your reaction in a few weeks to siblings who phone you up with GCSE woes. GCSEs you say? Heaven above and all its cherubim - if only we could go back to those sweet, inconsequential days…
Sshh now. Here, suck on this
With internet a distant fantasy for the next month, I’ve had to find new ways to wake up over my morning coffee. In the good old days of summer, when that thing ‘modern technology’ existed for me, I pacified my pre-caffeine savagery by perusing the internet; nothing like some black coffee and mindless Facebooking to ease you into the day. These days, I’ve been lowering myself to the tiresome task of ‘reading’. I don’t ‘do’ real sentences before my standard three cups, so I’ve taken to scanning whatever comes through the mail box. And what jewels of crap they are. My current favourite, ‘Hull Road: Your Ward’ actually made me crack a smile – a feat indeed when facial twitches aren’t usually an option until Cup 2. The headline proudly declared: “SSHH! Silent Students, Happy Homes”. After I got over the linguistic dexterity of ‘SSHH!’, I read on.
Apparently SSHH is a campaign that facilitates a “good living environment” between York’s indigenous and students. How do they achieve such sweet harmony, you may ask? “The campaign achieves this in a number of ways. For example, lollies are purchased and given out at the end of events, as a novel way of ensuring students are quiet and return home responsibly”. The reaction to such tactics is tricky. Either, we profess outrage at being reduced to the lolly-jammed-in-the-mouth procedure appropriate for deranged toddlers. Or we could be thankful that it’s not a dalek this time. Lollies are comparatively pleasant. Don’t fret if this is all a bit baffling because “this year, SSHH plan to invest in some good quality banners, t-shirts and window stickers” as well. Ah, isn’t it lovely to be back?
