Obviously the location of a lot of the bars is probably not ideal. Derwent bar is right in among the rooms of the college, and it seems unlikely that the events which will benefit from the late night licensing will pass without annoying members of the college trying to get a bit of sleep before their nine fifteen the next day. And yes, you could claim that most of the people living in halls are freshers, and surely they’re probably just going to go to all the events that are being held by their own college. Except this really isn’t the case.

I knew plenty of third years who lived on campus, hoping that being that bit closer to the library would help with their studying – seemingly forgetting that being close to the library undoubtedly involved a trade off – being woken up every Wednesday at 3am post-Ziggys.

Not only that, but events held by one college don’t just disturb the residents of that college; in Langwith we had to note down the date of every Derwent event, knowing that we weren’t likely to get an awful lot of sleep on those days.

But of course, I lived in halls three years ago; back in the days when two o’clock was the latest anyone could ever contemplate drinking in a college bar. Late licensing has always had the possibility of aggravating people. It seems unlikely that an extra hour is going to cause new problems.

In fact, it seems unlikely that an extra hour is going to make all that much difference at all. It’s going to affect things so little; it’s almost not even news. In fact it seems to be appeasement, with the university hoping that if they give us this extra time drinking we might actually forget that there are so few bars for us to actually drink in.

Ah York, how I missed you. I’d managed to survive three whole months without accidentally treading on a duck (when you’re rushing to a nine fifteen lecture, this is almost as traumatic for you as it is for the poor duck) or being overcome by the urge to run up Clifford’s Tower after one to many Dusk cocktails, only to remember that actually I have zero ability to scale very steep slopes and giving up three seconds in. There were three months of my life that didn’t involve dodging cow poo and speeding bicycles as I wandered down Walmgate Stray or debating the relative merits of the Nags Head over Rumours. Instead I spent those three months trying to explain to friends from home that while York does sound a little odd that honestly it’s a very nice place indeed. (“I mean, yes, my Student Union president is a pirate, but surely that sort of thing happens all the time? No?”)

But then I remember that there are a massive number of you reading this to which the above references mean nothing. A great mass of people who have never had to use the phrase ‘duck rape’ in everyday conversation (or worse, had to witness it outside your bedroom window). People who have never had to take a ten minute detour round campus because every single bridge over the lake is closed. People who have never eaten an Efes takeaway!

I envy each and every one of you. Yes, being a fresher does have its many downsides, Goodricke’s kitchens being just one of them, but there’s nothing as great as discovering all those things that leave me, the world weary third-year, too jaded for words. I pass Milkshack without even batting an eyelid at the concept of a Jammie Dodger milkshake, even though sitting here; contemplating the possibility of a Jammie Dodger milkshake makes me smile just a little bit.

I don’t even notice the numerous street performers anymore, not even the one who looks like Frank Sinatra. The cobbled streets of York have not lost any of their beauty; I think I’ve just become a lot less adept at noticing it. Last year I could see the Minister while I was in the shower, which for some reason sort of spoiled its architectural beauty for me. Looking at beautiful buildings when you’re surrounded by mildew tends to do that to a person. But this shan’t be the case for you. For you all these things are new and sparkly and exciting. You ought to run around campus, marvelling at all its concrete glory, amazed at why anyone would ever decide to build Central Hall to look like that. You can digest the numerous urban legends of York. (Mini in the lake! Jimi Hendrix vomiting in Langwith!) You can get at least three hours of entertainment by asking everyone you live with you pronounce the word ‘bath’. It shall be immense! At least until week seven or so.

In short, I am not this grotesque slob whom it appears most people believe occupies every university in the country. I am just a regular human being, with normal eating, washing and (mostly) drinking habits. For this reason I found myself once again disappointed by the news that the government wish to limit student accommodation. “They think we’re all monsters,” I moaned into my cup of Earl Grey.

But contrary to popular belief, the government aren’t afraid that certain areas of cities will be overrun by wild students. The fear instead is one stereotype which we’re all guily of; we all go home fom time to time. They worry that student exodus the during holidays turns whole areas of university cities into ghost towns.

It is a legitimate point. I arrived in York a month before term started, and from the lack of friends about it would seem that the number of empty houses in the city of York between the months of July to October is pretty high. The government claims that this is just not acceptable, and certainly not when whole areas are left empty throughout the summer months. Apparently unoccupied houses just don’t look as pretty as occupied ones and empty houses can lead to an increase of petty crime and vandalism.

Yet it seems completely absurd to legislate in an attempt to sort out this problem, particularly in places like York which already have a very limited amount of student friendly areas. We’re spreading ourselves out as well as we can, but as most of us have no access to a mode of transport more advanced than a bicycle, there are very few places that make sense to live in. Vandalism may well increase in areas with unoccupied houses, but the vandals won’t suddenly forget their urge to destroy when they see that there are lights on in all the buildings.

Nor can you rely on aestheticism to strengthen your argument. ‘To let’ signs are a bit ugly, and if you haven’t trimmed the hedges for a while because you’ve not been living there for a few months your house might look a bit neglected, but can we really put ‘prettiness’ ahead of our right to live wherever we want to live? We need a roof over our heads. I mean, how else will we be able to watch Neighbours twice a day?

The facts are quite simple. Gas prices are rising. Oil prices are rising. As a result, the cost of heating accommodation blocks will increase. The university will have to pay for this increase somehow. As students we are perfectly aware of the fact that money does not, and never will, grow on trees. The money will have to come from somewhere. And in truth, it’s probably best like this. If heating prices are not properly taken into account when drawing up accommodation costs, then the money needed will have to come from some other part of the university. Do you really want your tuition fees to cover some fresher who left his heating on and his window open while he was out at Ziggy’s? Or the money earmarked for improvements in your department to be used to keep someone sitting in their bedroom in a vest in December? Yes, it’s a somewhat selfish view to take, but it also makes sense. Of course, the university’s decision to charge one flat rate for all accommodation is one that could be questioned at this point, as the person who wears an extra set of socks to bed to keep warm instead of turning their radiator on full blast is going to end up paying exactly the same as someone who keeps their heating on all through June.

While the financial world is imploding, it’s generally been accepted by all that this is going to be a period of increased living costs. And it’s going to affect everyone. Considerations like energy costs will have to be taken into account by all, and I know that next year, in my little house off campus, I’ll be paying more to heat my house. Yes, I’m an unemployed student living on a small weekly budget, but I can’t write a letter to British Gas asking if they wouldn’t mind not charging me so much for the gas that I’m using. That’s not really how life works. Iit seems that the only option we have available for us is to accept that living costs are going up for everyone, including the student.

Monday June 9th 2008 – Sex and the City

There has been much written on Sex and the City, more so now that it’s made its inevitable leap from the small screen to the big. But I almost feel as if this is completely justified. In this supposedly post-feminist world, Sex and the City seems to say an awful lot about the role of women in today’s society. And the role of men. And the role of shopping.

The thing is, after seeing the film I decided that I didn’t actually hate it Carrie and co cinematic debut. I knew exactly what I was going to expect. I knew that the gender politics would anger me. I knew the blatant commercialism would offend me. I knew that the film’s message, underneath all that crap about ‘female friendship and empowerment’, would ultimately be that women are defined by who they sleeping with and what they are wearing on their feet. And I think it did just that. Yes, it could be claimed that the film shows a world in which women are free to make their own choices about the men who they sleep with, but in short they still seem somewhat contrasted by these men. Even Samantha, the ‘man eater’, who we are to believe has sex like a man (as if all sexual acts can be so easily gendered), still seems to validate herself by the men she is sleeping with. Men find her sexually attractive, therefore she is. The film, to me, seemed to jump far too quickly to the conclusion that women ‘need’ men, although they’d had the forethought to dress it up so that it read as ‘women need love’. When Carrie ‘loses’ her man, she seems to completely lose herself, refusing even the female friendship which I was under the assumption was the whole crux of the plot. Either that or the message of the film is that women need Vera Wang dresses. In a way, I think I hated the commercialism more than I hated that particular brand of post-feminism that Sex and the City does so well. Problems seem to float away with the purchase of a designer handbag. Greed is good. Money solves problems. If you are having a bad day, you will have less of a bad day if you buy a nice dress. Yes, in this materialistic culture it is true that purchasing power does make people a little happier, but do new shoes really solve your problem? And interestingly enough, once again the power of pretty things seem to be a gendered thing. It is only women’s minds that are easily distracted by a necklace. Never are we shown Big buying a nice designer suit to make him feel a bit happier about himself.

Of course, Sex and the City did, to borrow a cliché, what it said on the tin. But did it leave me feeling empowered as a woman? No. Did it leave me emotionally drained? No. In fact, I felt that as a piece of cinema it completely lacked the emotional drive I wanted it to have. The tone was all wrong, and kitchen sink drama merged with melodramatic bullshit and teen gross-out humour seemed completely the wrong way to present the story that wanted to be told. Of course, my lack of emotional attachment to the characters was probably because I never cared about these women during the period in which the show was actually on. And maybe it was also because it was a big Hollywood production, and we all know that those tend to end nicely, more often than not with the big patriarchal hand of marriage.

Sex and the City wants to pretend that it exists in a world where women are empowered, and where the world is not intrinsically sexist. But we know that’s not the case at all. Mainly because it exists in a world in which products like Sex and the City exist, shameless marketed towards women. It makes no attempt to ask questions about feminism or women roles in society and instead upholds age old stereotypes. What makes matters far worse is that it denies that it is doing such. I’m fine with mindless fluff; I just don’t want it to pretend that it is playing a greater role in society. Sex and the City did nothing to change the face of feminism, in fact I believe its pseudo-empowerment hinders more than it helps.

Previous blog entries:

Forbidden forests and fanfiction
God save the BBC – the anarachy of kids TV

I was a rather precocious child and I’m sure that it meant I was quite a handful when I was small. Undoubtedly I asked questions that had slightly awkward answers, which is why my mother brought me, aged nine or so, a book all about how bodies worked. I don’t remember a great deal about it, except that it was illustrated and told me what a tampon was, so obviously it played a huge role in my development. But I remember one thing above all things, even more than the cringeworthy description of sex that was considered suitable for nine year old girls. And this was the description of beards as a ‘secondary sexual characteristic’. ‘Beards’ and ‘sexual’ really ought not to ever be used in the same sentence.

I will admit that I am not an expert on beards. For one, I’ve never had a beard. Not even a little one. So I can’t really make sweeping statements concerning the possession of beards. For all I know, it could be a very fulfilling experience.

But I spent most of last weekend staring at beards, so I feel I can make some statements about them. Mainly that I, for some reason, don’t really trust beards. It’s an issue which has haunted my entire life. I used to cry every time I saw my bearded uncle. It made Christmases rather difficult. Christmases were always a bit of a problem, actually. Beards, in case you hadn’t noticed, play a fairly large role in a major Christmastime tradition. Because I obviously come from a family that enjoys reliving painful childhood memories, I am frequently reminded of the many times I was presented to a jolly Father Christmas and instead of hopping on his knee and informing him what piece of plastic crap I wanted that year, I ran away in terror.

Thankfully that fear has somewhat dissolved over the year, or as a Philosophy student I would never be able to step into a lecture theatre. But I have been left with this strange relationship with beards. Yes, I distrust them slightly (who knows what exists under there. God forbid it’s a weak chin) but I also have this strange fascination with them. Maybe it is because there is this part of me that is hoping that underneath the beard they actually have a very complex tattoo, which they’ve decided to hide under a thick beard for years, until surprising us all after a quick shave. This part of me is the part known for completely fanciful and stupid ideas.

But I have as yet not properly come to terms with beards, not really. I know that making claims about any dislike I have for them is somewhat unsubstantiated, and may make me sound like some sort of massive beard-ist. Probably, it would appear that the problem is with me, and not with the beards at all. It’s not beards’ fault that I paid too much attention to a book I was given when I was little.

While I understand the attraction of festivals, I constantly find myself doing my very best to avoid attending them. There is only one reason for this, camping. As much as I try to embrace the idea of camping, I always find myself failing to do so, and certainly when I know I will be sharing a campsite with thousands of drunks who (as has happened to me previously) might just urinate on my tent.

This was why I was originally attracted to All Tomorrow’s Parties which takes place not in a field, but in Butlins. Yes, Butlins. The red coats had been replaced for the weekend by bearded men and more plaid than I have ever seen in my lifetime, not at all surprising for an event curated by post-rock heavies Explosions in the Sky. Post-rock is not a genre which seems to suggest itself most simply to a festival going experience, but the range of bands here was extreme and the talent exceptional. Where else would you find yourself forced to choose between Animal Collective and De La Soul?

ATP seems to have been designed with music at the forefront of all else. The sound quality was excellent and the bands were all at the top of their game. Musically, this was a delight for the senses. It helped that come four in the morning after dancing to Battles like an idiot, everyone could return back to their chalet and collapse into their very own bed. Of course the quality could play a role in its downfall; this wasn’t a group of musicians playing a collection of their hits that you’ve heard on the radio.

Moreover, post-rock drones are not always the easiest sort of songs to pick up on. More than once over the course of the weekend I found myself standing in front of a band whose music I have never heard of before, unable to distinguish as one song turned into the next. But this is far more likely a flaw in my appreciation for music than in the weekend itself, which allowed me to fall in love with live music all over again.

Yet surely there must be some demand for Hawkes, otherwise booking him to perform would not be a viable option. Maybe it’s for a similar reason that the Summer Ball this year will be graced by the presence of Björn Again, the world’s most famous Abba tribute group. But why? Why does it seem to be that once we become students our music taste suddenly changes? Student music is less about music, and more about some sort of odd comedy value that can be attached to it.

I’m not claiming that Hawkes doesn’t have genuine fans. I just find it hard to believe that any of these genuine fans exist in the York student body. People aren’t really listening to this music because they think it has any real musical worth. Even the genre that we’ve created for Hawkes and singers like him is rather derogatory. Ask anyone what genre of music they’ll be listening to in Ziggy’s and they’ll answer ‘cheese’. We live in a society in which the phrase ‘it’s so bad, it’s good’ is a completely legitimate reason to justify indulging in something as seemingly ‘bad’ as half an hour of Chesney Hawkes. I know numerous people whose music tastes are nothing like the pop-by-numbers of Hawkes, but who, given enough alcohol, will scream along to some Rick Astley. I know people who pride themselves on there ‘far cooler than you’ music collection, who will, given half the chance, suddenly be overcome by a urge to show off the fact that they know all the moves to Steps’ ‘5,6,7,8’. And I still don’t quite understand why.

There is part of me that almost feels bad for Hawkes. People will cheer when he comes on stage, and they will sing along. But he’s hardly living the life of the international pop star anymore. He’s stuck singing to a bunch of drunken students, who are only aware of one song in his entire back catalogue, and are interested only in this. You almost feel a little like we’re all laughing at him, instead of with him. We’re certainly not going to spend days afterwards talking about Hawkes artistic merit as a performer. I’m not saying that Hawkes has no artistic merit, but that it certainly wasn’t taken into account by the people organising Big D.

But it’s a tried and tested formula. A friend of mine once asked the DJ in Toffs why he felt the need to play the exact same playlist week in, week out. He told her it was because people danced to the songs that he played. People liked the songs that he played. Granted, it’s unlikely that any one would have picked to listen to those songs in a situation outside of the club, but right then at that moment, these were the songs that people wanted to hear. And he couldn’t really tell her why. Just like I’m still left scratching my head about Chesney Hawkes.

Regular readers to the one blog entry that I’ve written will be aware that I have far too much time on my hands. I will admit this to be true, because that’s less embarrassing than admitting that I actually watch children’s television in any serious way.

Obviously I only do it because I ought to be reading the complete works of Shakespeare and I just can’t really be bothered to do that right now. And I would like this piece of knowledge to serve as a disclaimer for this piece, in which I delve into the often hilarious and even more often rather terrifying world of Harry Potter fanfiction. Which I only know about because it’s not the essay that I ought to be writing right now.

Fanfiction, for all those of you who are completely new to this slightly questionable habit, is the practice of taking already established characters and worlds and placing them in new situations. Those who try to justify this as a legitimate form of creativity call it transformative work. Those with little idea of how the law works call it plagiarism.

I don’t really believe that it is either, but it is certainly a subculture that intrigues me. I am not writing this blog purely to point and laugh at the sci-fi geeks on the internet. Mainly because when I was thirteen years old I used to write Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfiction myself. It wasn’t really very good, and mainly seemed to involve characters who were a thinly veiled version of me strolling into town and generally being super cool and adored by everyone. This genre of self-insertion is rife within fanfiction. They’re called Mary Sues, for a reason that I know, but fear that telling you here would mean that I could never show my face in public (because, you know, it’s a Star Trek reference).

I’ve always seen Mary Sues as an interesting insight to why people write fanfiction. They scream of wish fulfilment. Why else would you write a story in which a new character, who shares more than a few traits with you, appears out of nowhere and is better than everyone else in the story, saves the day and probably ends up having sex with whichever character within the original text you personally feel the most attracted to. But this is not really the area of fanfiction that interests me the most. What is far more interesting, certainly in the example of Harry Potter, is the stories which deal with relationships between pre-existing characters of the original text.

You really do have to hand it to the fans, if they’re good at one thing it’s bringing subtext to the foreground. Or inventing a whole new subtext for themselves. If you take a quick look at the vast array of Harry Potter fanfiction floating around the internet, you’d be amazed how many people seem to be labouring under the impression that the line between love and hate is very thin indeed. So thin, in fact, that while it may have appeared to you that Harry Potter hated Draco Malfoy with every fibre of his body; in fact they were having frequent sex in the Potions room. And Harry just forgot to mention it. That said it’s very rare for the sex to come out of nowhere, as the writer will have probably prefaced the actual carnal act with a good ten thousand words of tension.

While some fanfiction may just be a few hundred words of a missing scene or a little bit of extra character development, a lot of work is put into these stories, and to see pieces of writing that are novel length is quite common indeed. Although often pages and pages of sexual tension are far less humorous than stories in which Hermione and Snape have sex in the Forbidden Forest for no other reason than ‘Alan Rickman’s hot’ and that being (most probably) a bookish female, like most of the people who write these things, the author identifies with Hermione the most. And yes, the ones with sex in them are always the most funny.

But what have I learnt from my trip into the world of Harry Potter fanfiction beside wish fulfilment and that a shocking amount of people really do seem to find Alan Rickman sexy? It’s that, ultimately, it’s quite fun really. Yes, it’s writing about other people’s characters doing slightly odd things to each other, but it’s also about people having fun with writing, subverting the original text to make it do what they want it to do. And I like that fact a lot.

There is this intense urge to mock those who take what they do so seriously that people write academic essays on the topic of their internet friends’ fanfiction, but still, who hasn’t pondered over a ‘what if’ while watching their favourite television show, or in this case, reading their favourite book? Yes, it might be slightly nerdy, and certainly not the thing that people would ever really admit to doing, but I have embraced Harry Potter fanfiction. Especially the bits with sex.

So if happen to be a bit bored this week, do a little bit of exploring. Harry Potter Fanfiction.com is a good place to start, and Schnoogle.com has a good selection of novel length fanfiction. If you’re looking for ‘naughty’ fanfiction then adult fanfiction.com has a good selection, although as with most fictional accounts of sex, most are appalling written. But if you’re only interested in mocking, I recommend Fanfiction.net. There you will find well over 345,000 pieces of Harry Potter fanfiction, most of which appear to be written by monkeys.

The general consensus appears to be that the recent UGM proved, once again, that democracy was alive and well at York. That once again the voice of the student was being heard, thanks to a voting turnout higher than any UGM in York memory. While we need not get into the reasons as to why the numbers voting were so much higher than the usual, because there’s enough to be said on the Fletcher-Hackwood affair to fill the entire comment section, what does interest me is how low a high voting turnout is at York.

Around about ten percent of the students voted in the UGM. Ten percent isn’t democracy. While the assumption seems to be that those too apathetic or hungover to make it to a computer to place their votes don’t deserve a say, I certainly don’t think that the results can be tenable when the numbers voting for them are so low. Take the most controversial motion; the vote of no confidence against Grace Fletcher-Hackwood, which was won by eight votes. Meaning that in total around about five percent of the student population believed that Fletcher-Hackwood ought to have been removed from her position. This is not to say that the decision was wrong, what it does mean is that ninety-five percent of the student population of York are not getting a say in what they want. I’m not saying that we force the silence majority into voting, but I do wish that the university as whole were willing to admit that there is a problem when it comes to claims of democracy within York.

Let’s put this into context a little bit. More people voted on the motion for York Students to graduate in the Minster than voted in November to decide if York Union ought to remain affiliated with the NUS. That’s right, 1855 people voted on the Minster motion, a motion which honestly will have no effect on where we graduate, as the Vice-Chancellor himself has stated that graduation will never take place in the Minster. While a mere 1389 voted on the issue of the NUS. That’s 466 more people voting towards a motion that really isn’t going to do a great deal to change anything than were voting for a motion that was probably going to change quite a lot indeed.

So why were people so impressed by the turnout for the UGM? Vanburgh chair Matt Oliver went as far to report it as “enormous” and Nouse’s own online coverage called the turnout “unprecedented”. But then again, the precedent for UGM turnout is that many motions can’t pass, because the votes don’t reach quoracy. You may be wondering exactly how low quoracy is in a university where you’d think there were a fair few politically minded people. Surely it has to be quite high for so many motions to not be able to meet it. But alas, no. In order for a motion to reach quoracy 2.25 percent of the student population need to vote on it. That’s about 350 students who need to spend approximately two minutes voting. And who frequently don’t.

It was obviously the controversial nature of certain motions that got people voting this time round, but the university shouldn’t have to wait until a sabbatical officer hits someone for a host of other motions to pass. Even motions which are considered contentious don’t always rally people to vote. Laura Payne’s divisive motion to allow men to attend women’s committee meetings had been proposed before. But you guessed it, not enough people voted for it to make quoracy the first time round.

But what can be done to improve voting turnout? Will this “unprecedented” turnout lead to improvements in the way democracy works within YUSU? I predict not. People voted this time round because the Fletcher-Hackwood debate was something that a lot of people felt very strongly about. It seems unlikely that any other UGM will have a similar voting turnout. But what can be done? Strangely enough I don’t think that there is that much that can be done to change things. The clichés of apathetic students seems, in this case at least, to be ridiculously true.

It’s partially a question of publicity. Currently things are left in the hands of those proposing the motion, whose publicity of their motion is very likely to be biased. It’s true that if posters are plastered all across campus making ridiculous statements, that people might feel inclined to try and get their voice heard by voting. But is this really the way we want to go about it? This UGM was highly publicised, but not by YUSU. I don’t remember seeing a single poster with the YUSU logo urging me to vote. Nor do I remember the fanfare when the results were announced. At least when the results for the NUS affiliation were announced Anne-Marie Canning went and stood on Vanburgh paradise. What happened when the results of this UGM were announced? They announced it on the website. The very same website that ninety percent of the students at York didn’t log onto in the previous week to vote. Something there just doesn’t seem right does it?

YUSU need to take some action to improve voting turnout. They can’t just sit in their office and hope that Dan Taylor will publicise all their UGMs for them. Democracy needs people. And without people we’ll be stuck with a student union that can’t do very much at all. The voice of the students needs to be heard, even if it means that we have to inform the masses that they really ought to be shouting louder.

There are a few things in life which it seems very hard to make humorous. Take the tale of a quadriplegic woman contemplating suicide. Yet Brian Clark’s play Whose Life Is It Anyway? manages to do just that. The plight of Claire Harrison, a sculptor paralysed after a brutal car crash, is documented in a piece of theatre which manages to ask some potentially very awkward moral questions, while still remaining an entertaining piece of drama.

The drama barn’s normal black interior is a sea of white, amazingly transformed into Claire’s hospital room. Lying in a bed at the centre of the stage is Peki Brazier’s Claire. She remains still as we enter. She will stay this way for the entire production. While Carly Telford and Helen Fletcher’s production could easily be called an ensemble piece, Brazier’s turn as Claire stands out immediately. It’s not an easy role to play, that of an intelligent, witty woman, who the audience all emphasise with greatly come the end of the play, but whose death we could see would bring her great comfort. Brazier is supported by a large cast of drama barn veterans and new faces, all of whom perform competently. Cat Smith’s student nurse, the perfect foil to Claire’s cynicism stood out as a particular highlight, as did Dan Sofaer as Doctor Scott, a man torn between his personal feelings for Claire and his profession.

The play itself is hugely entertaining, with moments of comedy juxtaposed against human tragedy. There are a few moments in which the play seems to spread the moral message a little too thickly, such as when Leo Amiel’s jovial orderly suddenly wonders exactly how much money is being spent to keep Claire alive, or when Eimear Nolan as Claire’s solicitor reels off a list of ‘real life’ cases similar to that of Claire’s. Yet this aside, the play is certainly a worthy piece of theatre, which does manage to ask serious moral questions without preaching too much. And it is certainly a good way to spend a few hours this weekend.

Sunday 3rd February – God save the BBC – the anarchy of kids’ TV

Nostalgia’s found a comfortable home at university. Most likely because now, for the first time ever, we’re probably legitimately old enough to look wistfully back to days long gone, and remember how much we used to love our jelly shoes and pokemon cards. We are allowed to admit to the entire dance floor that yes, we do know all the dance moves to every Steps songs ever released, because kitsch is cool, and the nineties were obviously the best decade ever, so shut up if you think anything different.

Although I’m not really sure that nineties were that great at all. Yes, I remember enjoying those ten years ago great deal, but I’m probably not the best person to wax lyrically on the topic of the last decade of the century, because I was child for a most of it. My cultural reference points aren’t the war in Kosovo or the reunification of Germany. I can’t really remember Labour’s landslide victory in 1997. I remember John Major had glasses and that’s about it. Of course, I could probably name all the Blue Peter presenters. (I always liked Katy Hill the best.) That was the nineties for me; television programmes and bubblegum pop. I read Smash Hits magazine. I had a great time, yes, but that’s because I was very easy to entertain when I was nine years old. And I don’t think that this was because I was a particularly stupid child. I think it was simply because I was child. Moving images were enough to keep me occupied for a couple of hours. I’ll always remember one super exciting babysitting job I took when I was sixteen. It was a Saturday evening, and the two pre-pubescent boys I was supposed to be looking after were slumped in front of the television. They stayed like this for most of the evening, not even bothering to change the channel. They sat there watching Casualty. And then the Lottery. And finally a television show dedicated to the comedy of Victoria Wood. Now, I, aged sixteen, quite liked Victoria Wood, but I found it very hard to believe that a six year old thinks “I enjoy Victoria Wood’s powers of finding humour in the everyday and her skills at satirising the British class system.”

You’d think then, making television shows specifically designed for children would be easy. They’ll watch any old crap, especially if it makes reference to bodily fluids at some point. But I remember enjoying my diet of CBBC. It was very good indeed. The fact that any conversation about the nineties eventually ends up being a conversation about television surely proves this. Yes, it might have been because again, we were children, and all children seem to do anymore is watch television. But in part it must have been because these shows were just a bit amazing. Who wouldn’t want to watch an animated show about a group of animals led by a polar bear who lived on a floating island? Or a show in which a mild-mannered school girl turned into a giant hulking monster? Or even a show about a tone deaf choir? (Noah’s Island, Julia Jekyll and Harriet Hyde and Out of Tune respectively.) These were works of pure genius. I’m still waiting for the day they release Microsoap on DVD.

Compared to these gems, children’s television today seems rather less exciting. There’s no more Live and Kicking, no SMTV. In fact, ITV doesn’t even have after-school children’s scheduling anymore. In these days of multi-channel television, they don’t feel it is necessary for children’s television to be shown on their main channel. Which might be a good thing, as I’m still certain that all children’s television at the moment is a bit crap. I’m not pretending to be an expert on the topic, but I will announce (somewhat shamefacedly) that I’ve seen my fair share of the recent crop of children’s television. Some of it is very good indeed (Charlie and Lola is a favourite of mine, even though it is aimed at pre-school children.) It seems that once they get a bit older television flounders. Or at leas I was under the impression. That was until, on one fateful day, I turned to the CBBC channel. (In my defence, I had an essay to write, and anything is better than an essay; even poorly written children’s television.) I was greeted by a strange manchild and a cactus puppet. Poor CBBC; how the mighty have fallen. But wait … the manchild was explaining a new segment to his show, using a giant picture of the head of his own mother. He begins to ask the giant disembodied head questions, which he then replies to himself, in a high-pitched tone which I assume was his attempt to mimic his mother’s voice. We learnt her name, what her job was and her likes and dislikes. “Anything else you’d like to tell us?” the manchild asked. (The cactus stayed quiet during this piece, but I imagine he always gets a little uncomfortable when people bring up he issue of parentage.) “Yes,” he replied to himself, again using his odd ‘I’m pretending to be my own mother’ voice… “POO!!!”

What I had stumbled across was ‘Parents Say Poo’, a unique idea which requires the audience of the CBBC channel to send in a picture of their parent and some interesting facts about them. The manchild will then blow up this picture and proceed to embarrass said parent by making their head scream ‘POO’ on national television. This is obviously amazing. This is what children’s television should be about. Nobody wants to watch semi-educational programmes about living like evacuees. And if CBBC aren’t going to play repeats of Maid Marian and Her Merry Men then the least they can do is allow brilliant things like this sneak onto television. Long live anarchic children’s television! Now excuse me, I’m off to play the bogey game in the library.

Ever wondered what goes down in the Grotto? Lily Eastwood infiltrates the frantic high-tech world of international Elfing.

Some people spend their holidays in fulfilling and stimulating work experience placements. Others spend them not working at all under the canny guise of having too much revision to do. The rest of us are thrust into the cut-throat world of temporary employment. It’s not glamourous, it’s not usually fun, and one should be prepared to accept unsociable shifts with unsociable colleagues.

The Christmas season offers special working opportunities for your average student. Not only could you be heading up the Turkey Team at a Waitrose near you, but you could also spend some quality time with Santa down at the grotto. Only a few lucky people get to work with the big man himself. Many people think you have to be four feet tall with naturally pointy ears, but there are plenty of opportunities for us taller folk to get in on the festive action.

I was ahead of the curve already, having started my elfing career at the tender age of fifteen when I would receive £10 and a couple of free mince pies for extracting screaming toddlers from the arms of their mothers and dragging them into a darkened room to see a bearded man. Things have moved on since those days. Working in a certain London department store I made a very merry £100 per day. Easy money? Perhaps.

My job basically consisted of waving and jangling bells as the children entered, delivering a family to Santa, taking their picture and returning them to the shop. This is fairly standard elf fare, but a vast amount of technology lies behind it. In addition to ten pairs of sleigh bells and Santa tummies for the slender Santas, each elf and queue supervisor had an ear piece and mic, linking us to a central control desk. The airwaves were hummed with frantic and entertaining messages: “We’re going to need elves one, two and three for the next batch, I repeat elves one, two and three.” “Control, tell Santa number two that he can bloody well wait until his break to have a piss.” “Hold the kids in the cabins, hold the kids in the cabins! Santa on the shop floor! Don’t let them see another Santa, I repeat, no double-viewings!”

The constant banter in your left ear goes some way to break up the monotony of Nintendo DS requests. The Santas also did their best to spice things up occasionally. “I know!” said one, “Why don’t we sing a song?” The parents look less than impressed but the toddler grabbed my bells and bellowed along enthusiastically. “Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way!” It’s a heart-warming sight, four children, two parents, grandma, Santa, and Twinkle the Elf packed into a single non-air-conditioned cabin. “Everybody say cheese!”

The odd bit of casual racism and impromptu napping from the Santas perked things up a bit. I first picked up on the vibe when, following a black family coming through, the jolly bearded fellow nudged me and said: “It’s their adults who make all the problems in the world isn’t it? Their kids are just the same as ours, aren’t they?” And I nearly died when he told a Muslim family that it was great that they were “getting involved” and he thought that they looked “charming” in their “outfits”. Apparently he won’t be returning next year.

At least he didn’t let any of the children sit on his knee – that’s very much against the rules nowadays – and the falling asleep was an altogether less serious issue. When I led a family in to find Santa snoring I tried to make out that it was part of our little comedy routine, “Oh no! Look! Santa’s fallen asleep! Let’s wake him up!” Slightly perturbed parents were reassured as their children squealed with laughter and Santa spluttered to life with an instinctive “Ho, ho, ho!”

Of course, it’s not just the Santas causing havoc in the grotto. The customer can be somewhat demanding too. Messages come through from the control desk saying that little Talullah, Noah and Apple expect Santa to magically know their names, or magically know what all they want for Christmas. These kids have serious expectations. One flustered parent asked me to pretend I’d broken my arm, and apologise to her little darling for not being able to make a Nintendo DS on time.

Another surreal moment came when a mother stormed back from the photo collection desk demanding to know why her child looked fat in the picture. I didn’t really know what to say. “Its because your child, Mrs Billing-Smythe, is fat” didn’t strike me as an answer that would placate. It was also her little boy who kicked me and told me I couldn’t be an elf because I was a girl. I told him it wasn’t nice to kick, particularly since I didn’t get out of the North Pole much and he was spoiling my holiday.

Somewhere amidst the casual racism, the horrible children and the vast and gratuitous consumerism, there was something charming about the whole charade. If there was one thing that everyone was united in, it was preserving the illusion for the children. Not just for the spoilt and ungrateful children, but for the boy who asked for a pair of socks for his granddad and the girl who asked for an egg timer so she’d know how long to brush her teeth for. Despite nudges from their parents and their mutters of “ask for something normal”, it was at those moments that I felt I was really a part of the Christmas magic.

Most of the work you do over the holidays may not look that impressive on your CV, but holiday jobs are a rite of passage for students and a precious chance to get out of the campus bubble. As a hint for first years; if your parents resent your slovenly lifestyle, showing them that you can do a decent days work goes a long way, and you’re one step closer to convincing them that university is equipping you with a skills other than elaborate fancy dress or toastie making.­

As the tinsel-dust settles, Sarah Foster looks back on her New Year’s resolution to clean up her lifestyle, stop drinking, eat her greens and make an attempt at exercise.

Resolutions are a bad idea. In theory, I can understand the idea of improving yourself, reflecting back on past wrongs and striving to right them. But in practice they tend to do little more than make everyone a bit depressed. After all, no one really likes examining their own faults.

If anything is to blame, it’s the calendar. New Year just happens to take place after that most indulgent of times, the festive season. A time when you’re expected to eat more than your own weight in food in one sitting, and where a mug of mulled wine is a perfectly acceptable breakfast. It is a heavenly few days for most, but it is also inevitably followed by the painful realisation that you must pay for your hedonism.

It was this which led me to my New Year’s resolution. A friend casually asked what mine was going to be, and, chin-deep in guilt, I replied with the stock answer: that I was going to be a healthier person. I won’t abuse my liver, I said. I won’t eat a 500g bar of chocolate in one glorious sitting. I even promised to myself that I would do some form of exercise. In all honesty, I would have said anything to repent for the fact that I had probably eaten enough to feed a sizable village in the preceding week.

For the next few days I almost found myself enjoying my new way of life. I felt quite good about turning away dessert or suggesting that we walk the couple of miles to a friend’s house instead of driving. But then I re-entered the University bubble, and things rapidly began to go downhill.

My smugness increased tenfold. Contrary to my former beliefs, this new healthy living wasn’t making me that much nicer

It was only when I had stopped drinking that I realised exactly how much of my social life revolves around alcohol. I had hardly unpacked when I was invited out to the pub. Upon arriving to catch up with friends, I looked enviously at the bottle of red wine on the table. Would my new health regime allow for one glass? Two? A pub dinner? If I thought that was hard, it was nothing compared to the pain I felt when we ended up in Evil Eye, where I longingly eyed up the cocktail list. But alas, I was being very good this week, and so I looked further down the menu and discovered the amazing selection of fruit juice cocktails; one point to healthiness. I woke up on Tuesday morning feeling refreshed and energetic, so I decided to go for a run. Oh dear. It was wet. It was cold. The ground was muddy. And to make matters quite a lot worse, I had misjudged my ability to be a healthy person. I had assumed that I must be at least capable of running for longer than a couple of minutes. I was wrong, and wa soon forced to return home looking like a drowned rat. There was no way that feeling like this could ever be good for me, could it?

Then came Wednesday. Have you ever tried to order an orange juice in The Nags Head? I got a strange look from the barman, certain that I must want some vodka with it. But no, there would be no alcohol for me. So I sat in the corner, slurping my orange juice, and thinking about how much my body was enjoying all that fruity goodness. Only when a friend turned to me, and yelled – people seem to talk much louder when they’re drunk and you’re not – “We’re going to Ziggy’s now” that a little part of me died. Ziggy’s was not the place for a sober me. I attempted to dance, but found it much harder than I’m used to it being. In the end, I succumbed to my fate and told my friends that I was going home. They looked at me quizzically; surely I was going to stay until the end of the night like normal? They were going to go to Efes, like we always did. I sadly declined. A takeaway at three in the morning probably wasn’t allowed under my new fitness regime. I wandered out into the rain, feeling dejected and stupid, and damning my new found ability to have no fun ever.

That said, I did manage to feel rather smug come the next day. I woke up well before midday and decided to prepare for my seminar next week, so I headed over to the library. I had made pages of notes before I eventually got a text message from one of the friends I had been out with the night before. We had planned to meet up for tea (coffee was out of the question, far too much caffeine in that), but she had spent most of the morning vomiting up her takeaway and so would be unable to make it. My smugness increased tenfold, although it did now seem that, contrary to my former belief, this new healthy living wasn’t making me that much nicer.

But it was only four days into the term and I was already feeling the strain. Friday brought with it a house party, and I had barely been there five minutes before a glass of punch was offered to me. I tried to decline, but just couldn’t. With that glass of punch, my resolution went gurgling down the plughole. I probably ate a pizza, I don’t remember. I felt amazing. I had set my goal too high, denied myself far too many things. There’s self restraint, and then there’s self sacrifice. I didn’t want to become that girl who felt guilty after drinking full fat milk. I couldn’t appease the gods of health. I was a failure. But I was much a happier failure for having taken a few days off; I appreciated my failure more.

Another day, another reported incident of drink spiking. Of course, it’s highly likely that the number of times drink spiking actually takes place is far greater than reported. Not only because far too often accusations of drink spiking are simply put down to people forgetting how much they’ve actually drunk, but because drink spiking doesn’t have to involve a combination of rohypnol and a sinister motive. If you buy your mate a pint and slip a shot of vodka in it, that’s drink spiking. You’re not going to be locked up for this little misdemeanour, but that doesn’t make it okay. In fact, a majority of the drink spiking that does occur, including those with malicious intent behind them, are done simply through adding more alcohol to drinks.

If I were to come out and chastise all drinkers for their habits, I would be quite the hypocrite, but I still do believe that students as a group really do need to re-evaluate the relationship they have with alcohol. You may have read on the beer mats placed around campus bars that the facts and figures concerning University of York students and alcohol are not that shocking. At least they don’t appear to be. ‘4 in 5 students never let their drinking get in the way of the academic work’ is emblazoned on one. An acceptable figure, until you turn those numbers around. If four in five are tucked up in bed the night before their 9:15 seminar, that means that there are one in five, or a rather large 20% who are downing shots in Rumours, even though they’ve got a half finished essay waiting at home for them. And it’s due in tomorrow. Sure, everyone turns their back on their responsibilities once in a while, but even if you’re lucky enough to be an arts student with few contact hours and a first year that doesn’t count towards your overall marks, you still need to pass the year, or you might find yourself politely asked to leave your degree.

There is no denying that alcohol plays an integral part in student life. It probably shouldn’t, but for most of us, this is the first time in our lives when we’ve been in a position to go out every night and drink our body weight in vodka, and really, who wants to waste an opportunity like that? But not everyone wants to drink, nor does everyone want to spend tomorrow morning (and probably tomorrow afternoon) regretting the night before. If, when it’s your round, your friend asks for an orange juice, it’s probably for the best if you respect that decision. Yes, it’s no fun drinking on your own, but hilarious alcohol based games never really turn out as planned. Plus, if you’re going to add a little extra to the drink of a friend whose decided that they’re already drunk enough, you might be the one cleaning up after his body decides to reject all that alcohol. And they tend not to let people into Toffs if they’ve got vomit on their shoes.

Drinking in moderation is fine. Drinking a little too much can also be the start of a very good evening, and I’m in no position to pass judgement on excessive drinking by any individual. But what needs to change is the way people respond to other people’s drinking habits. Some people can drink more than others. Some people might be able to drink just as much as you, but might just choose not to. And do you know what? That ought to be perfectly fine. Let other people make their own decisions when it comes to their own alcohol consumption. No good can come of anything else.

A second year University of York Politics student has been selected as the Labour parliamentary candidate for the constituency of Skipton and Ripon.

Claire Hazelgrove, 19, originally from Northamptonshire, said she was “very surprised” after beating a much older opponent to secure the candidacy.

Hazelgrove faces an uphill fight in her constituency, as Skipton and Ripon is one of the few Conservative strongholds in the whole of Yorkshire and Humberside. In the 2005 General Election the Conservatives took more than 50% of the vote. Hazelgrove is optimistic about her chances, saying, “It is a Tory stronghold but I think we can make definite headway. If we get out there and talk to people in the community, we can make definite progress. I’ll be doing as much as I can because I want to get out there and talk to people”.

Hazelgrove has worked with Sally Keeble, Labour MP for Northampton North for the past two years, both within her constituency and in her parliamentary offices.

It was this involvement in local politics, says Hazlegrove, which culminated in her name being added to a ‘long-list’ for candidacy selection, from which she was picked by the local Labour party to be one of their five shortlisted candidates. When asked if she felt voters would take a 19 year old candidate seriously, she said: “I think they’ll probably be surprised at first but hopefully see eventually that I can bring a fresh face and fresh ideas to Parliament.”

Hazelgrove’s University career remains uncertain and she is planning to meet with Head of Politics Department, Dr. Matt Matravers, about her options. Hazelgrove is currently the head of the Politics Society.

On October 19, Hazelgrove attended a local party hustings, in which she was questioned by Labour party members living in the area. After answering questions on a range of topics, including the possibility of Turkey’s inclusion in the EU to nuclear power, Hazelgrove was selected as candidate by a majority of party members.

Hazelgrove said she believed she was chosen for her “enthusiasm, awareness of key issues and the fresh face and fresh ideas that I could bring to local politics.”

She is aware of her student connotations, saying she can “appeal to younger, perhaps more apathetic voters. The student and young people’s vote is often neglected but I aiming to get as many younger people involved in this campaign as possible.”

Hazelgrove said she was unworried about the prospect of being such a young member of parliament. When asked if she felt that parliamentarians would respect a 19 year old she said: “I think they will because a lot of MPs are saying that we need more young people and more women in politics.”

In recent weeks, Nouse reported that Former YUSU President James Alexander has been selected Labour candidate for the constituency of York Outer.

I recently visited my cousin who is getting married in December. His house was filled with pictures of dresses, flowers, cakes, ornate invitations and various other bits of paraphernalia. Saddled between a bunch of red roses and a pile of top hats was a thick hardback book titled How To Do Just About Anything. On opening it, I discovered that it contained illuminating entries such as ‘How To Boil An Egg’, and more emotive ones such as ‘How To Deal With A Break-Up’ and ‘How To Survive A Long-Distance Relationship’. The latter two were evidently not an issue for my cousin, who lives harmoniously with a fiancee who supplies perfectly-made cups of tea and evenly-buttered toast. They are, however, pertinent issues for freshers up and down the land.

The book rates the difficulty of each entry with little blue hammers; boiling an egg gets one, and the long-term relationship gets the maximum: five. As the book acknowledges, there is no way of avoiding the fact that long-term relationships are extremely tough. The most obvious cause of stress is not being around your loved one for long periods of time. You miss the daily routine, someone being nice to you for no reason, sex on tap and someone who understands your idiosyncrasies when – as happens during freshers week – you are surrounded by people who you have only just met. They don’t understand your crazy hair-do, your love for the Klaxons, your mannerisms, and so on. Most people I know who bravely undertook the long-distance relationship will nod sagely at the mention of the difficult first week, the nights spent pining after their darling, whilst everyone else on their corridor was out drinking themselves into oblivion. Having also come to university with a hometown sweetheart, I can identify.

The first term is the clincher for long-distancers. To establish a relationship where both your emotional and physical needs are sated in spite of your boy- or girlfriend being hundreds of miles away from you is tricky to the point of being almost impossible. Most people become a dribbling mess, espousing romance to anyone who will listen in order to justify to themselves, as much as to others, that it is really worth it. They tend to either nostalgically cling onto Danny-and-Sandy-style memories, or defer the heartache of missing someone by reassuring themselves that they’ll be together in the end, strolling hand-in-hand into a glorious sunset with their very own happy ending.

It does get easier. It helps if you can establish a routine of phone calls, and get stuck in with your new friends instead of wallowing in misery. Remember: whatever anyone tells you, taking yourself like a lamb to the slaughter into Ziggys is not essential to the university experience.
Of course, surviving the long-term relationship is different for every Harry and Sally. I heartily congratulate and respect anyone who can survive three years or so of university with their hometown sweetheart. I also truly sympathise with anyone whose relationship dissolves. My friends who have split up with their significant others have done so for myriad reasons, from: ‘I want to notch that bedpost with nubile first years,’ to ‘we’ve just grown apart,’ to those three glorious words: “I was drunk!”

There is no easy answer to whether one should attempt the long-distance relationship. University life acts as a catalyst for change; either strengthening your pre-existing relationship or breaking it, and enabling you to concentrate on a new and exciting chapter in your life. Either way, in my cousin’s book, ‘How To Climb Mount Everest’ also gets five hammers on the difficulty rating. So congratulate yourself, now you can probably climb a very big mountain.

There’s fun to be had on the freshers dating scene – just be careful who you wake up with, warns Sarah Foster

Arriving at university footloose and fancy free, I was certain that my experience would be a whirlwind of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. Of course, I was mainly basing this assumption on Animal House. As it was, I was somewhat less than impressed with the reality.

While my Freshers’ Week naturally involved copious amounts of alcohol, even that was not enough to prevent the realisation that the most convenient dating pool available to me, the boys in my block, really wasn’t likely to offer up the goods.

Despite my friends and I deciding that none of the people we lived with possessed any potential as life partners, many of us were still tempted by alcohol and a somewhat morbid curiosity. One problem: whilst half-hearted, half-conscious hook-ups are part of any decent university experience, the thrill of a one night stand is greatly reduced when you have to share a bathroom with your fling for the rest of the year.

If indulging in activity that you think you might regret in the morning, it is best to try and do it with someone that you will never, ever see again. For one thing, the rest of your housemates probably won’t know who they are either, so you won’t be forced to sit through squawks of ‘YOU KISSED WHO?!?’. If you are regretting a saliva swap, it really is the last thing that you want in the morning – and certainly not when you’re also nursing a hangover from hell.

Of course, regrettable hook-ups are sort of what Freshers’ Week, if not the whole of the first term, is for. I know that almost all the people who I now do my very best to avoid on campus are all casualties of that fateful first term; that period when you realise that not only are you living on your own for the first time, but you are also living with members of the opposite sex. And yes, there is also the amount of alcohol consumed to take into account.

Not all romances need end up as shameful inebriated memory blurs, however. While most of my first year at York was spent lamenting the apparent lack of attractive men in the whole of the North Yorkshire region, it must also be noted that these complaints were punctuated with dalliances with not entirely unattractive boys. You are unlikely to find the love of your life in Ziggy’s – although there are those odd couples who seem perfect for each other. Instead, from personal experience, I would suggest two places which, to me, were a beacon of joy in the desolate ocean of fresher dating.

Firstly, look at the other people on your course. There is nothing more romantic than late-night study sessions in the library, and there is a mine of possible conversation topics, starting with your new lecturers. Unfortunately, if you happen to be, as I was, a female English student, or a male Computer Scientist, than the gender ratio is not really in your favour (although if you happen to be one of the few boys studying a subject with a high percentage of females, or vice-versa, you might suddenly find yourself in high demand).

My second tip would be societies. They exist to enable like-minded people to meet up and bond over things, which, with a little work, can be taken to a whole new level, if you know what I mean.

There are also those unions I would recommend staying away from. Block incest is one thing, but if you’re going to throw randy STYCs into the equation, things are bound to get complicated. I would recommend that you do not go there. Sleeping with people who have volunteered to act as older siblings to you brings up an odd ethical question, and there are plenty of STYCs whose only aim is to ‘check out the new talent’. Freshers beware: you have been warned.

Once upon a time, whilst still living at home, I received a letter bearing the official stamp of the University of York. Full of excitement – these letters had yet to become inextricably linked with more work, or demands for money – I ripped it open, scanning for some juicy details on my impending university career. What I found instead was my very first reading list, which due to my questionable choice to study English Literature was lengthy. But these were the books that I needed to buy, and so I did. My bill from Amazon came in at a hundred pounds; I could hardly comprehend how much I would be spending on books, especially if I would be greeted with something of this length every term.

As it was, the first reading list dwarfed any others that I have since been given, most likely due to the number of general texts found on it. In amongst these were books by Judith Woolf and Mary Luckhurst, both of which at the time appeared to be no different from the others on the list, and so were dutifully purchased with all the rest. Naturally, I hoped that both would be helpful for my course, after parting with so much money for them.

It was only when I arrived at York that I realised that in the case of the two aforementioned texts, whilst undoubtedly being well written and thoroughly researched, there may have been another motive for their inclusion on a list circulated to around three hundred undergraduates, all eager to begin university equipped with the essentials for their course. Both Woolf and Luckhust just happen to be lecturers in the English department.

The very people who set the reading list are reaping royalties when hundreds of people purchase the books To make matters just a little bit worse, as of yet I have needed neither book for my course. It seems unfair to single out the English department, as this is a practice which takes place in many others. The core set text for the first Politics module, which all undergraduates studying the subject must take, is written by Adrian Leftwich, a lecturer at York. There are scores of other examples, most notably in humanities, in which lecturers set their own books as the main text for all students.

It’s a practice which at times can be justified. Some of the best academics in the country teach at York, and these people are the leading figures in their subjects. It seems understandable to set your own text for a course if the general consensus is that it is the best book on the subject.
But what seems unforgivable is to ask students to buy books that they may not need at all. Recently I heard of a student who was asked to buy an anthology, even though she already owned all the texts featured in it that she would be required to study. But her tutor seemed adamant that she would need all the texts together in an anthology.

And who was the editor of this indispensable tome? Her tutor, of course.

So why exactly does Nouse find itself repeating the same stories ad nauseam? Why is there yet another piece about the ethical implications of T-shirts or security on campus? Is it purely because, in a campus the size of York, we are left with nothing to report on, so instead of publishing 44 pages of lovely pictures of ducks, we chose to recycle age-old stories? While it’s possible to accuse student media of being excessively repetitive, it would appear there is a reason behind this. Stories reappear for the simple reason that they remain relevant. Why exactly is this so?

It would appear the student body as a whole is overcome by a lack of ability to stand up and instigate changes. When informed that Viking Raid T-shirts were produced by Fruit of the Loom, a company well-known for unethical working conditions, most people did little more than shrug. This isn’t because people actively supported exploitation. It instead highlights a general feeling of society’s selfish apathy – if it doesn’t actively harm you, should you really go out of your way to change things? Who cares if some workers in China are being exploited? If it means your bar crawl ticket costs a few pounds less than it would if YUSU used more ethically sourced clothing, all is good in the world. Of course, not everyone was happy with this decision. In the weeks running up to the Viking Raid, posters started showing up all over campus, informing students what they really already ought to know.

And yet tickets for Viking Raid still sold. It appeared that people weren’t willing to let their SU know they were unhappy with use of unethical brands by the most effective way, simply boycotting the event. Though organised by RAG, all the money raised for worthy causes was surely sullied somewhat by the fact that they were also helping bankroll a company whose clothing is produced in sweatshops. Not only that, but the use of Fruit of the Loom clothing grates against the Union Code which demands that YUSU “will purchase, where practical, from suppliers graded highly by the NUSSL Environment and Ethics Committee”.

It really didn’t seem a huge surprise when it was announced the Roses merchandise was sourced from Fruit of the Loom. They’d managed to get away with it once before, why not try again?

Had people responded with more than a whimper it would become clear to YUSU that exploitative clothing was not want students wanted. Had they sold no tickets for Viking Raid, it would become obvious that maybe they ought to think a bit more carefully about the choice of companies. But they didn’t.

Once again, we ran a story about Fruit of the Loom, to the general dismay of detractors. “Oh,” they muttered as they picked up their copy of Nouse in Vanbrugh. “Another story about Fruit of the Loom? How original.” But what they don’t realise is that only they are in a position to make sure we never again write about Fruit of the Loom. They could run for the editorial team and then fill the paper with nice pictures of ducks, or, much more simply, they could not sit mutely by as YUSU?continues to support unethical companies.

Nouse needs to keep repeating itself, because people are very unwilling to work toward change. Stories remain significant for months on end because student action on campus is nearly invisible. YUSU continues to ignore the voice of the student because the student just can’t be bothered to yell loud enough.

Early that morning, in the window of Topshop’s flagship Oxford Street store, a billboard counted down the exact number of seconds until the doors opened at 7am. If the national press were correct, however, fans had been camped out for days; drawn by the possibility of seeing their fashion heroine, but also terrified that the key piece of the collection, the item they were already building their summer wardrobe around, might be snapped up before they even got a chance to step into their local branch.

Fans had camped out for days, terrified that the item they were already building their summer wardrobe around might sell out

Surely a similar sight could be expected down by Coppergate, York being the fashion conscious city that it is? Apparently not; there was no possibility of being in the presence of Kate Moss to lure students out of their beds at the frankly laughable hour of seven in the morning, after all. But wasn’t the clothing range we had been reading about for months enough on its own merit to attract the fashion fans? Didn’t women in York want the chance to be one of the first people in the country to own that little white dress?

After much searching, I managed to track down Alice and Sophie, two first years at the University who were there at Coppergate’s front line on ‘K Day’. The scene they describe is not that of the riots which we were lead to believe would plague Topshop retail outlets all over the country. Alice frowns when I ask her how many people were actually there on that cold Tuesday morning. “Thirty? Forty?” she guesses.

Eventually it is decided that there were probably about 45 people there. Of course, Topshop were prepared for a mob, so even though 45 people could easily be lost in the immense space that is York’s Topshop, security were very strict when they eventually came to open the doors; no more than 15 shoppers were allowed in at a time. This was just one of the many lists of rules that came free with the clothes. Shoppers were also not allowed to purchase more than five items of clothing, nor were they allowed to buy multiple items in different sizes. All of this to ensure that those nasty eBay sellers didn’t make a profit when it became impossible to get your hands on that denim waistcoat in the store. Such rules of purchase, however, didn’t seem to bother either Alice or Sophie, who were both quick to inform me how unimpressed they were by the range.

A vest from Topshop’s ordinary range will set you back about £6. One with Kate’s name on the label is double that price

Both girls claimed to be very much underwhelmed by what they were greeted with, saying that it was overpriced. It would seem that there is evidence to back up their accusation. A plain coloured vest from Topshop’s ordinary range will set you back a rather respectable £6 (or thereabouts). A remarkably similar vest, which happens to have Kate Moss’s name sewn on the label, is double that price at £12. With this in mind – and the fact that much of the range would only look good on a Moss size six – it is no surprise that Alice and Sophie were not instantly enamoured with the clothes. Neither purchased any items, even though they had crawled out of bed at around six in the morning. According to the two of them, very few people actually brought any clothes at all.

So even these self-proclaimed “fans of Kate Moss” were unhappy with the range. But what of those evil eBay sellers, the people who Topshop were so wary of? Surely they must have had more success in selling the clothes?

Well, not really; e Bay works best when you want to sell something that no one else has. Had every single item branded Kate Moss sold in half an hour, sellers on eBay would be having a field day. But the Topshop in York receive daily deliveries of tiny, tiny hot pants and glittery waistcoats. If you can actually buy these things in store than why bother with eBay? Especially when you take into account that someone is currently trying to sell a £12 vest for a starting bid of £17. Of course, there are still people scrambling for a piece of Moss online. But even the now sold-out £60 dress that Kate wore on the cover of Vogue isn’t causing internet hysteria. It’s currently possible to buy it for £84.99, which isn’t the huge mark-up that Topshop had probably presumed.

People who want to look like Kate Moss also want to convey her individuality

The Kate Moss range was in no way a disaster. A sale assistant at Topshop informs me that they probably sell an item from the range every half an hour or so. But they had been expecting the collection to be a lot more popular in the city, especially amongst students. It really would appear that students don’t like the range; I keep meeting people who adore Topshop and claim that Kate Moss is their fashion idol, but who were very much disappointed by the whole thing. The collection was “uninspired” or “looked cheap”. Designs were “copies of things that Kate Moss wears” or “just not flattering”.

It was the statement that the collection was awful because it was “instantly recognisable” that interested me the most. Kate Moss seems like the most obvious person in the world to ask to design a fashion range; she is probably one of the biggest fashion icons in the world. But while Moss may help invent trends, there is still something about Kate Moss’s look which is very individual. Those people who want to look like Kate Moss also want to convey this individuality. To be a fashion icon you have to be willing to break some boundaries. And Kate Moss’s range in Topshop does not do this. Instead of dressing like Kate Moss, you instead find yourself dressing up as Kate Moss. And the worse thing of it all is that every piece in the collection has had so much press, that every single person who sees you knows that this is what you are doing.

First Group, proprietors of the Ftr bus service, have denied carrying out a “student witch-hunt” after six University of York students were served with court orders.

The students were ordered to appear before York Magistrates Court after failing to pay £50 fines issued for alleged fare-evasion. However, a number of the students have denied the accusations.

Terri Wallis, 22, a student at the University of York, claims she offered the conductor a five-pound note and was told that change was not available, but was assured that the ordinary fare could be sent through the post, as she was able to pay, and not, therefore, a “fare-dodger”. Days later, Wallis received a £50 fine from First. A summons followed after she refused to pay the fine, and she was then ordered to pay £100 in addition to the original fine to cover court costs.

Wallis said: “I spoke to an inspector who would not accept my £5 note, and he then proceeded to take my name and address, which I believed was so that head office could contact me and I could send a cheque for the £1.50 intended fare”.

Speaking about the court summons, she said: “I was quite frightened at the prospect of going to court. I have never been to court before. I felt quite intimidated and was made to feel like a criminal.” She went on to express her feelings on First, saying: “The company has treated its customers despicably”.

Richard Eames, First’s Managing Director for the York area, said the court orders were not part of a “witch-hunt” against students and that “not everyone appreciates” the system of fines, but that it is a necessary part of First’s business.

Eames added that court orders are sent to only those who First believes are “deliberately avoiding payment”. When pressed to reveal if he was accusing Wallis of lying, Eames refused to comment.

These cases come in the wake of ongoing problems First is facing with the ticketing machines onboard their Ftr buses. Eames acknowledged that the machines were “neither robust nor adequate” for the York route and were “being replaced”. This comes at a time when the Ftr ‘10 Journey’ tickets and similar passes have reverted back to a manually validated system, rather than one using electronic barcodes.

Penalties totalling £1500 were handed out to 11 people on Wednesday May 16 in York Magistrates Court, including a student from Wentworth College, Nickolaos MyKoniatis. First has been particularly stringent in its dealings with fare-dodgers, raising the initial £25 fine to £50 after just a few months in service.