God, it’s happened. By the time you read this column in Nouse – my last for this newspaper, by the way – I will have my degree result. Yes, I have sweated my way to Langwith College, clutching my library card. I have jostled with other terrified third years, scanning the noticeboard for the right number. And there it was: my stamp of cringing mediocrity, bland approval, or even (I try to kid myself) soaring excellence.

Back in February, I wrote in the Daily Telegraph that my year group – the class of 2009 – was “generation crunch”. Shovelled into university by New Labour, and blighted by the recession, we face an oversubscribed and shrinking job market, all of us saddled with previously unheard of amounts of debt. We haven’t even reached our 22nd birthdays.

But how far away it all seemed, just five months ago! I wallowed in the comfort of my student loan. I continued to stare vapidly at dozens of applications for graduate schemes. I wrote and revised work ‘timetables’. Then, without much warning, the big day arrived. Now it’s all hitting home: the University of York is not Neverland. And I am not Peter Pan.

Last week, the King of Pop was killed by the very same revelation. That’s right: it suddenly dawned on Michael Jackson that he, too, was not Peter Pan. Aged 50, he finally looked in horror at the real world. Very tragically, it beat him hands down. You think I am joking?

Countless BBC interviews with his spoon-bending friends and former producers confirm only one thing about MJ. He thought he was one of J.M. Barrie’s Lost Boys. (OK fine, he probably only watched the Disney version, but you get my point.)

In a way, Michael Jackson’s Neverland ranch was like university – a childish getaway from reality. Of course, he took it to extremes. According to one 32 year-old visitor, the place “smelled like cinnamon rolls, vanilla and candy and sounded like children laughing.” It had its own zoo, complete with elephants, giraffes and a crocodile. It even had a ferris wheel and a kiddie’s roller-coaster. No wonder it reportedly cost four million dollars a year to run. And no wonder the exalted King of Pop had to sell his kingdom, when the Forbes rich list suddenly announced he was two hundred million in the red.

Michael Jackson spent as much, and then much more, than he earned – around 700 million dollars. His expansive entourage, an unknown number of cosmetic procedures, and his well documented shopaholism all contributed to his financial demise. In one telling example of petulant extravagance, he bought bronze statues of Peter Pan and the Lost Boys – for more than six million dollars.

“We will sit up, our eyes blurry. This is the real world. This is unbearable”

Eventually, though, lawyers informed MJ that he was almost bankrupt. The spending would have to stop, and he needed to pay back his loans. He tried everything. He attempted to record a new album, and failed. He even went to Japan – where his allegations of child abuse had been ignored by their socially conservative media – and asked Tokyo’s high fliers to pay thousands of dollars to spend an hour in a room with him. He mimed along to old songs of his, waving playfully at them.

They loved him, of course. But it didn’t work. He was still near bankruptcy. So earlier this year, Michael Jackson – idol, let’s face it, to our older siblings – admitted that a string of public performances would be the only way out of his financial dead end. Facing up to reality, he ambitiously announced that 50 London concerts were in store. Adoring fans bought the tickets and put images of “Wacko Jacko” out of their minds – the biggest selling pop artist in the history of the music industry was performing one last time, and they weren’t going to miss it.

A heart attack from stress, or maybe one too many doses of his prescription drugs – it doesn’t matter. What undoubtedly killed Michael Jackson was the stress of those upcoming performances. He realised he could no longer be a Lost Boy. He was an adult, a performer. And after years of denial, he couldn’t cope.

Those of us who are graduating are fortunate. We have only been in denial for three years or so. Yet sometime in July, we will collectively sit up in bed, our eyes blurry and our minds confused. This is the real world, we will think. This is unbearable. With any luck though, our young hearts will survive the shock. RIP Michael Jackson.

Unlike many of my bitter and disappointed peers, I never applied to Oxford or Cambridge. In fact, my teachers sensibly discouraged the idea. “Most decent universities turn students into scholars”, one told me, “but at Oxbridge you have to be a scholar when you arrive”.

I was no scholar. At my very unusual school (don’t ask), I was once asked to give a speech about Mozart, lasting fifteen minutes, to a room full of thirteen year-olds. A scholar would have floundered, but I cruised it. “What happened to Mozart’s corpse?”, I started. “And where, specifically, is his skull?”

Briefly putting modesty to one side, let me tell you that the room full of spotty adolescents sat up, and the ensuing talk was riveting. Sure, thanks to Wikipedia, I did mention Mozart’s forty odd symphonies and his twenty operas. However, as the supervising teacher informed me, I was demonstrating not scholarly learning, but the gifts of a budding journalist.

By choosing journalism over scholarship, I avoided the dreaded Oxbridge interview. We’ve all heard the stories. A young man walks into a don’s room; his interviewer looks witheringly at him over the top of his Daily Telegraph and says, “surprise me”. So the young man sets the don’s newspaper on fire, and is swiftly awarded a place in the college. Another one: a don stands opposite the door of his study and throws a rugby ball at his interviewees as they enter – if they catch it they’re in, but if they drop-kick it back to him they get a generous bursary.

Universities need more than rugger buggers and arsonists, and I draw only one conclusion from these stories: Oxbridge dons are egotistical maniacs. The professors there enjoy terrifying A-level students so much that the interviews become sadomasochistic – orgies of intellectual masturbation. “What’s the most interesting thing about a squirrel?”, they ask with a tweedy grin.

Luckily, we York students didn’t have to put up with this shit to get in here. But as I near the end of my degree, the prospect of job interviews in London is less than enticing. A friend a few years older than me had the worst interview of his life last week. About a year ago he was made redundant from a firm of headhunters (always the first to go in a recession) and has been working in a prep school in central London to keep himself afloat. Understandably, though, he has been trying to get back into the City and was recently interviewed at an investment bank.

“OK, so you’re teaching at a prep school”, the interviewer said ambiguously. “What have you achieved while you’ve been there?” My friend – let’s call him John – racked his brains, and came up with the one thing he had recently organised: the school’s five-a-side football competition. “I organised the whole thing myself”, he said, “and it involved all of the pupils.” Suddenly, the interviewer thumped the table and barked, “No! No! No! It didn’t involve all of the pupils did it? Because my son – Matthew – wasn’t picked for any of the fucking teams, was he?”

John thought his interviewer had looked familiar, but only just realised then – as his palms became sweatier – that this man was a parent at his school. To make matters worse, his interviewer’s son, one of the most unsporty children in the school, had point blank refused to play football, and had clearly lied to daddy about it. A sticky situation, I’m sure you will agree. Proud parents don’t often back down.

Third years will quickly find that job interviews are mini power trips for those on the other side of the desk. Because let’s face it, if you’ve been tasked with interviewing hundred of graduates, you’re probably not a very important person in the grand scheme of things. You can be as nasty as you like, and you will get away with it.

The only solution is to take the offensive. Carry a rugby ball in – and kick it at the interviewer before they get a chance to speak. If they ask about your career aims, tell them your greatest wish is to become their superior and to sack them in the most humiliating way possible. Oh, and just before you leave, set fire to a squirrel for good measure. Interviewers love surprises.

Admit it. When Susan Boyle strode onto the stage wearing that 1978 frock, you were booing too. She looked an absolute sight. Bushy eyebrows, messy grey hair, flabby biceps – she’d make Hagrid a good wife. So why the guilt, just because it turns out she can sing?

First, it was just Piers Morgan. “I would just like to apologise to Susan”, he wrote in a recent Mirror column. “It’s long overdue… it was an amazing performance.” Then the blonde one followed his lead, chirping, “It’s a very shallow thing to say, but obviously the minute she walked on, we and the audience completely judged her on her appearance.”

Finally the Guardian pitched in. Tanya Gold complained that we don’t judge Sir Alan Sugar for looking like “a burst bag of flour” or look down on Gordon Ramsay for having a face like “a dried-up riverbed”. If men are “allowed to be ugly and talented”, she wrote, then booing Susan Boyle was sexist and showed that, really, we are ugly and “Britain’s Got Malice”.

Well frankly, I don’t buy it. Until she sang, we were right to boo Susan Boyle. The ITV show, despite all its tabloid flaws, is a talent contest. Judging people who choose to showcase themselves on stage is what Piers, Simon, Amanda, you and me are supposed to do. Presented with an unkempt middle-aged woman, we reacted in the same way that we would if Sir Alan turned up on The Apprentice wearing an old suit and holey, worn shoes.

Let’s face it: appearances matter. You wouldn’t want your airline pilot to appear unshaven, or for your surgeon to have dirty fingernails – so why would you want an ugly stage-performer who wiggles her hips when asked her (47 year-old) age? You wouldn’t, of course, so you booed.

But then she sang. Now I’m no expert on Susan Boyle’s type of music – in fact, I loathe musicals. It was clear, though, that the judges were impressed, and that the audience loved her. She quickly became the underdog, an inspiration, and then, thanks to YouTube and Oprah Winfrey, the favourite to win the show. In doing this, she showed not that Britain was malicious or morally ugly, but simply that, on this occasion, we had got it wrong.

In fact, by far the worst reaction came from Simon Cowell a week after the show was broadcast. Susan Boyle had been spotted post-makeover, with plucked eyebrows, lipstick and some sort of trendy Burberry scarf. “Get yourself together”, the shiny-toothed celebrity snapped, adding that she should “come back as who you are, not who you want to be.”

What utter nonsense. If Susan Boyle wants to be the next Elaine Page, and if she wants to wear Burberry, I think Simon Cowell should let her. Because middle-aged woman who dress badly are usually very unhappy. Look, we’ve all seen What Not to Wear. The women who wear old clothes and don’t bother with makeup are usually the ones that – in floods of tears – admit that they have been wearing that shoulder-padded blazer since their husband left them in 1986. Or that their favourite woolly hat was a Christmas present from a recently deceased parent.

They’re traumatised, for one reason or another, and their image often seems to express that. Only when Trinny and Susannah sort them out is their confidence restored.

We should be impressed, then, by Susan Boyle’s strength of character. Not only has she proved her judges wrong; she’s also proved that they can’t contain or control her. Ironically, by booing her we have helped her to regain confidence in herself.

This applies on a more general level. Some Head-teachers are now afraid to hold competitive sports days, for fear of alienating the child who comes last in the egg-and-spoon race. They would rather have a non-competitive atmosphere in which there are no winners or losers.

Really, though, the ruthless nature of competition is as good for kids as it is for adults. It is only by being booed that we realise we need to get better – or we realise egg-and-spoon races aren’t our scene.

I had all this in mind, last weekend, when I followed the Roses tournament against Lancaster University. Though they undoubtedly tried their best, and in some sports were an admirable opposition, we convincingly thrashed them. And, just occasionally, we booed them. They’ll thank us for it one day.

I always knew there was something off about Gail Trimble. It was the jumpy hair swoosh, the chipmunky teeth and the nervous way she would look down – or slightly to the side – after saying a correct answer. Something didn’t add up. Now the truth has emerged, and it has proved my deepest suspicions to be true: Trimble is a cheating hag, who masterminded the biggest game show fraud in the history of University Challenge. What makes it worse, is that this soon-to-be Dr. Evil seems to have got away with it.

Sam Kay – Trimble’s spiky haired, overweight team-mate – is an accountant working with PriceWaterhouse­Coopers. He is not, despite his nefarious claim, “Sam Kay from Frimley in Surrey, studying chemistry”. Trimble will have known this – if you are clever enough to answer two-thirds of your team’s answers, you can probably manage the University Challenge rule book. So why has she not been vilified? Why has this good-for-nothing swindler not been sent down? Because, dear York students, she is studying at Oxford. And, if you study at Oxford, you are simply better than normal people. Or so you think.

James Delingpole is an Oxford graduate and the author of a funny novel called “Thinly disguised Autobiography”, in which he pretty much confesses to having shat himself while losing his virginity. But let’s not dwell on that. Last week he wrote a blog, in which he worried that the Trimble saga would give “class warriors, anti-intellectuals and Oxbridge rejects” reason to believe that “Oxford and Cambridge are really no better than the redbricks and former polytechnics”.

And that, really, is the problem. To people like Delingpole, anyone who didn’t go to Oxbridge might as well be a Sun-reading striking miner who burns books with more than three syllables in the title. Well here’s some news that might disappoint you, James. Not everyone wanted to go to Oxbridge.

Ok, fine. There are a few “rejects” at York – some who, would you believe it, desperately applied twice. There is even a crowd of class warriors, probably the same stinky lot that twattishly wander around campus banging on bin-lids and calling for Heslington Hall to be re-erected in hemp.

Yes, the University of York is lacking in – what is it, again? – “dreamy spires”, or quadrangles that are mown daily. And it’s true, Sebastian Flyte would probably look out of place, teddy-bear under arm, sitting in McQs. We don’t have a boat race or many former Prime Ministers among our alumni. Nevertheless the vast majority of students at York wanted to study here when they applied for a place, and would still rather be here than at Oxford or Cambridge. Why?

For starters, York is academically an extremely good university. I study English and Philosophy, two departments which consistently rank in the university league tables alongside – or frequently above – their corresponding departments at Oxbridge. But that’s not really the point. For students, how good a university is does not only depend solely on its academic merit – three years at York nurtures more than a sense of bookishness. We don’t have 17 essays a term so we actually get to have lives away from the library, and explore extracurricular activities and the sorts of careers that we might end up doing after university. It’s not anti-intellectual to say that a work overload can stifle the brightest minds.

It’s why York’s campus media – from Nouse to YSTV – is probably the best in the country. It’s also why entrepreneurs flourish here. Look at Twitterfall.com, for instance. It was created by a couple of second year computer scientists. They will probably sell it and make a fortune. At Oxbridge, they would have been stuck in the library.

Having free time, and having to deal with less stress, makes us a happier university population. Fewer York students commit suicide, and few of us end up dropping out. We are more balanced – not in a fluffy, lefty, way that James Delingpole would disapprove of – but in a way that shows in confidence and employability.

I know what Oxbridge students will be thinking. “You wish sunshine. Everybody knows that we are the elite.” Well you might be. But quieten down, and get back to the library. You’ve got to start revising for next year’s University Challenge. Remember? It’s that time each year, when you desperately try to prove that you really are the cleverest – come to think of it, I’m not even sure how you apply for the York team.

Mingled in the crowd of shoppers were even poorer Ethiopian Jews, searching the worthless bric-a-brac for a decent bargain. I approached one of them, an old man in his late sixties. What, I asked, was the greatest worry for him as a resident of Sderot? He responded through my Hebrew interpreter. “He says the roof of the synagogue needs repairing,” the interpreter said dryly. For a moment, I supposed that it had been hit by a Hamas rocket. But the old man shook his head and said, “When it rains the roof leaks”.

It struck me as odd that the main concern for this Sderot resident was not the fear of terrorist attack, but that his place of worship had fallen into disrepair. I walked further, and found a young mother with a little boy in a pushchair. We chatted, and I explained that I was British student. “I feel very sorry for the people of Gaza,” she told me, “families like mine are suffering”. During the bombing campaign she had moved out of Sderot to stay with a relative, but she recognised that for the people of Gaza there was nowhere to go. I asked her who she would be voting for. “Avigdor Lieberman, ”she responded emphatically. “I want my family to feel safe, and he is the only one who gives me confidence.”

The rise of Lieberman’s party, Yisrael Beiteinu, was the leading story of the elections. A former nightclub bouncer, Lieberman is an avowed right-winger whose election manifesto called for Arab Israelis to swear loyalty to the Jewish state. If the Arabs refused to declare their loyalty, they would be refused citizenship and consequently a right to vote in Israeli elections. This has caused him to be compared to Vladimir Putin and, by his more enthusiastic detractors, to Jean-Marie Le Pen the French ultra-nationalist.

Since my arrival in Israel three days earlier, I had been immersed in the complex world of Israeli politics. Back in York, two weeks previously, an email had arrived in my inbox from the Union of Jewish Students. Would I like to go on an all-expenses paid trip to Israel – “a young leaders post war special” – to witness the elections? I was immediately suspicious. Did the UJS know I wasn’t Jewish?

It turned out that the group was made up of seven student journalists and a Vice President of the Oxford University Student Union – we were the so-called “young leaders” and Israel wanted us to hear its case. It’s hardly surprising that Israel wants to improve its image. In January, a sustained bombing campaign in Gaza was met with condemnation from the international community and the worldwide media. UK students sympathetic to the Palestinian cause expressed their outrage in loud protests, particularly after the death toll in Gaza reportedly reached 1,300, including 500 women and children.

One of the first things I learned after arriving in Jerusalem was that most Israelis do not accept these figures as accurate. Although they were quoted by the United Nations and the Red Cross, many Israelis claim that the world has been outrageously duped by Palestinian propaganda.

On February 15, a 200 page report conducted by the Israeli Defence Force’s ‘Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration’ was published. It identified more than 1,200 Palestinian deaths and listed casualties by name. The report claimed that around 820 of the Palestinians killed were combatants, and that most been ‘incriminated’ as members of Hamas and other terrorist groups.

Regardless of these varying statistics most Israelis were in favour of the bombing campaign, which for the most part they refer to as “the war”. Despite its apparent one-sidedness (just 13 Israelis were killed), even our guide, a long-term supporter of a left-wing political party asked, “what should Israel have done after being hit by 6,000 Qassam rockets in eight years?”

For Israelis, security is not simply a political issue. It penetrates daily life, and compulsory military service starts at the age of 18. As a result of forced conscription, the lives of Israeli soldiers are considered priceless, almost sacred, as the kidnap of Gilad Shalit by Hamas in 2006 has shown.

Recently, talks mediated by Egyptian authorities have suggested that up to 1,000 Palestinian prisoners could be released by Israel in exchange for his safe return. Could this protectiveness have affected the death toll of civilians during the Gaza conflict?

That afternoon in Sderot we were introduced to Captain Ron Edelheit – an IDF spokesman who had agreed to meet with us. He arrived on a large motorbike, wearing a bandana and quickly earning the nickname “Buzz Lightyear” because of his loud American accent. He took us straight to a storage facility where the remains of Qassam rockets fired at Southern Israel were put on display, and told us that Hamas militants would use all available materials to build these rockets – including metal piping, fertiliser, and an inflammable substance specially distilled from a certain type of washing powder. The rockets looked rudimentary, to say the least, each with scrappily welded fins supposed to guide the rocket towards its civilian targets.

But I was more interested in how Captain Edelheit might justify the recent bombing campaign in Gaza, especially as his official position meant he would be able to shed light on the Israeli military mindset. Another student got there first, asking outright: “Would you call Israel’s response to the rockets fired by Hamas proportionate?” He avoided answering the question at first, saying loudly that Hamas were asking for 1,000 militants before they would release Galid Shalit. “Is that proportionate?” he asked, irritated.

The question of proportionality was pressed further, and Edelheit finally made an attempt to define Israel’s view of its actions in Gaza: “Proportion is that we will open fire to make sure the source of fire will not fire again. And we’ll do it fast – quick! – with the necessary force, to close that source of fire, in order not to have any casualties on our side.” His replies, although lacking in the diplomacy you might expect of a spokesman, showed that for the IDF, the ultimate objective of “the war” was to stop Hamas rockets being fired at Israel, no matter what the cost.

He did say, however, that to target civilians was “unacceptable”. So I asked him how the IDF dealt with situations involving militants in a civilian environment, perhaps one of the most complex moral dilemmas facing many Israeli soldiers. To him, the answer was simple – he interrupted, shouting over me with a few loud “whoahs” and said that he would answer my unfinished question with an analogy.

“A bank robber with a gun runs into a bank, and takes a person as a hostage. That person is definitely a hostage. A policeman comes in. He’s got a gun, the robber has got a gun and the policeman knows that in two seconds the robber will start shooting, so he takes out his gun and he tries to shoot the robber. The hostage gets killed. Who gets charged in the court case? The robber, right? With murder.”

Despite our protests that the analogy didn’t work – Hamas are, for starters, an elected government, and they certainly didn’t have anti-aircraft guns during the bombing campaign – it seemed that Captain Edelheit was going to continue wasting our time. As we walked back to the bus, I heard another student mutter, “what a cunt”.

Later on in the trip, we were fortunate enough to meet more reasonable Israeli politicians and journalists. There was a stronger case for Israel’s response to Hamas rockets than a weak bank robbery analogy, and one example came from the Editor of The Jerusalem Post, David Horovitz, who grew up in North London. It is important to remember, he said, that despite its military might, Israel is demographically and territorially tiny. Like many Israelis, he believes that Israel is increasingly under threat from a militantly Islamist Iran – and even suggests that because of Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon, Israel is essentially bordered on two sides by Iran, whose government support the terrorist wings of both organisations with training and military supplies.

Horovitz was openly critical of the media’s coverage of the war in Gaza: “There are terrible failures in the media, both in terms of covering Israel, and internalising the Islamist threat, and I think it’s surprising that a lot of British journalism – and consequently a lot of Britain – fails to realise the extent of the Islamist threat. It’s surprising because Britain has been attacked by extremists in the past.”

Analysing the Islamist mindset, he denies that foreign policy is a key factor, citing that particular argument as “foolish and short-sighted”. He argued: “A dominant theme in Islam is the radical idea that – as inhumane and as counterintuitive as it sounds – the finest thing one can do for one’s God, is to kill oneself with as many Jews, Christians and other non-believers as possible.” Given the evidence and the testimonies on hand – in particular Ed Hussein’s The Islamist – Horovitz claimed, “It’s not hard to understand the Islamist mindset, just more convenient not to. It is much easier not to believe that a sizeable population in Britain is becoming radicalised and could pose a threat. So you ignore it.”

Horovitz also claimed that the media’s outrage against – and the international condemnation of – Israel’s campaign in Gaza was indicative not only of the Free World’s unwillingness to recognise that a resort to force could be justified, but also of the Free World’s total failure to admit that Islamic extremism is a real danger – “When Israel acts against Islamic extremism it does so in a profoundly unsympathetic context. We are grappling with a mindset that is saying let’s kill and be killed for the reward in the next life.”

David Horovitz’s views sound right-wing to a British audience; in Israel, they are considered mainstream. The reasons for this are undeniably complex, but the second intifada – which saw Palestinian extremists target civilians in suicide bombings, mostly in Jerusalem – is a major factor.

We travelled to the separation barrier which divides Israel from parts of the West Bank. The concrete construction is eight metres high and controversial mostly for its position which, it is largely accepted, has some of the Palestinian territories inside Israel’s makeshift border. It was erected partly to stop suicide bombers from entering Israel, but critics call it “the apartheid wall” claiming that it forms a major part of the Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people. When we saw the wall, it was shut to all Palestinians, because of the upcoming elections – the Israeli authorities control all movement, allowing free passage to most Israelis. These same authorities were involved in two scheduled Palestinian speakers being unable to meet us.

Like the Gaza bombing campaign, the separation barrier is seen by most Israelis as a justified measure against violent extremism. But if there has really been a shift to the right in Israeli politics, what does the left think of it? Dr Gideon Rahat from Jerusalem’s Hebrew university gave us one answer. He rejects the nationalist politics of Avigdor Lieberman, saying that the right-winger is “a threat to Israeli society” for turning Arab Israelis against the Jewish state.

In reality, however, the right – in the form of a Bibi Netanyahu-led coalition – will be in power for the foreseeable future. On election night, I attended Bibi’s Likud Party celebrations and saw a confident, popular man promising to lead a strong, uncompromising government. Whether he can work with Barack Obama, or keep Avigdor Lieberman under control, remains to be seen. It is the fears and worries of the Israeli people that govern the peace process in the middle east. From the election results, and judging by the mood of the Israelis I was privileged to meet, that process is firmly on hold.

We’ve become complacent, you see. To us, the weather is harmless. My housemates will happily trudge through two feet of snow to stock up on Kettle Chips or skate over inch thick ice to attend a lecture. Not me though – it’s far too dangerous.

I fully admit it: I’m no Scott of the Antarctic. So when the temperature drops, I stay safely inside. Had I been on Scott’s fateful expedition, I would have been telling Captain Oates – of “I may be gone some time” fame – that the fur coat probably wasn’t necessary, and…er… could you give it to me, old chap?

To keep warm, I sometimes move from one end of the bed to the other wrapped, snail-like, in my duvet. But it was then that I saw the Chinese man leaving his house and walking into the heavy sleet. I felt compelled to act. He didn’t even have gloves on, so I opened my bedroom window: “Get inside! Don’t you know it’s a blizzard? What on earth are you doing out there?”

He looked at me bemused. But with a mixture of admiration at his bravery – and dismay at his foolhardiness – I had to let the Chinese man go on his way. You can only do so much.

By midday, things had calmed down a bit. The snow had stopped falling and there were several sets of footprints leading away from our front door and, more importantly, returning. I decided to venture outside, so put on four jumpers and a scarf, and made sure that two of my housemates were willing to accompany me – one to get help if anything happened.

We decided to roll a snowball. And I’m not talking the sort that might eventually make a snowman. I’m talking the sort that might cause a major traffic incident. This is what happened…

It started going nicely – fairly spherical, not too muddy. Something to be proud of. We started in the front garden and rolled it up and down, systemically collecting all the snow. Arty boy started on his own, with me as chief observer, but by the time the garden was finished the photo man and I had to lend a hand. The snow boulder reached our waists.

We decided that it was time to take it round to the back of the house. This meant taking it along the pavement and round into the cul de sac; a pleasant, community-type activity like they might do on a “snow day” in the US. But that’s not what the Sun reading white van driver thought. Nope. Nursing an enormous chip on his shoulder, he decided to honk his horn and give us two fingers. My red jumper was on top, and for some reason I was wearing a gillet, so I decided not respond. He probably had a point.

But it got me thinking. How did he know we were students? Well, we having fun in the middle of the day, with clearly nothing better to do. We looked middle class. And we looked too old to be making snowballs. I concluded that, if I was a Sun reading, working white van driver, I would be fairly miffed too.

We got over his horridness quickly though and manoeuvred round behind the house. Determined to make amends with the local community, we swept the snow from our neighbours’ cars and added it to the tons which was forming our boulder. We even made friends with the disgruntled Pakistani man by shovelling ice from his drive.

The snowball by this point had become too big. We fetched the crow bar and broke it into manageable chunks and transported it to the garden. What to do next? Perhaps, my arty friend suggested, we could make it into a renaissance style statue? What about a snowman, I asked? Nope, we had to do something different. He made a giant Satanic head. Seriously. It’s still there, standing over 6 feet tall in the garden. You might think it’s Scooby-doo, but it’s not. Honk and two fingers if you like the student Snow Devil.

Fine, you got me. I’m a southern fairy or, as I was once described by a colleague, “a toffee-nosed ponce from the home counties”. But let’s not get bogged down by class warfare or a most unpleasant regional accent competition. In 2009 there’s room for a new debate: city versus country. Over the Christmas break, I experienced both – and have conclusively decided which I prefer.

First, a glimpse of life in the country. It’s 4 am on boxing day and I am in bed wearing a hoodie and pyjamas and thick woollen socks. The house is about minus ten at this time of night and I am awake, for the fourth day in a row, because the cockerel is crowing outside my window.

Now cockerels, you are immediately thinking, are supposed to crow at dawn. Surely, at 4 am on Boxing Day, it was not yet dawn? Spot on. But this is no normal cockerel. It should be with the other chickens. Safely tucked up in their stinky little coop with lots of hay and places to sleep. But it’s not.

It’s roosting in the tree opposite my bedroom window. I consider putting on my coat and boots to go outside and find the fucker. What, you might ask, would I do if I caught it? Vegetarians please look away: I would most definitely kill it. A cockerel, you see, doesn’t lay eggs. So to me it has no purpose.

I’ve slept a bit more, got up, had breakfast, walked the dogs and the rest. It’s nearly getting dark and it’s time to feed the pigs. Yup, you’re right: in the countryside, days are divided into neat little animal-centred slots.

“The pigs need one and a half scoops of the nuts which are in the bin outside,” I am told. Right. “But watch out for the sheep – they’ll try to get through the gate as you go through.” Not too difficult – watch out for the sheep. I get my one and half scoopfuls – generous scoopfuls, I feel, for three medium-sized pigs – and march up the slope towards the pen. First, the gate.

Two white mountains bound towards me. They are skidding on the wet ground and can’t stop. Sheep are not clever, but they recognise a bucket with food in it. The fat sheep in front slams into me at waist height, at the same time stuffing it’s nose into the bucket. “No”, I shout, “fuck off”. I heave its solid neck – huge muscles covered in wool – out of the bucket. I firmly, but not so hard that you have to inform the RSPCA, tap the end of its nose. It prances off.

Eventually, I make it to the pig-pen. Lots of squeals and mud, a few electric shocks – their fault for getting too close to the wire – and I’m in filling the trough with nuts and getting trodden on. Pigs really are as greedy as you imagine. And you can see why Muslims think they’re unclean – forget cute, they look satanic.

“Hey Will”, someone calls, “can you make sure the chickens are in their coop?” This is really shit news, for two reasons. One: the chicken coop is inside the bit where the sheep are. Two: the chickens are outside the gate – I have to get them through it (no they can’t fly) without letting the sheep out.

I open the gate and pretend to cluck loudly as if I am the big mother bird. They run towards it and I’m hopeful they’ll get through. Bang. One of the sheep crashes passed me. Out of nowhere it has charged passed me and onto glorious freedom in the garden.

A week later, it’s 7am and I am sitting on the tube. I am wearing a pinstriped suit which is too small and holding a copy of Metro. This really is a shit paper, I think. Why don’t I ever bring a book or something better to read? I look around, everyone is sitting or standing in glum, recession-type silence. The tunnel whistles noisily. I think of home. Right now, someone in my family is probably wondering whether to go and find the cockerel. It’s good to be in London.

He pounced on the Daily Mail columnist, strafing him with well-chosen statistics. “In your novel To Hell in a Handcart”, he began, “which was accurately described as a 400 page recruiting pamphlet for the BNP, you described a single asylum seeker receiving £117 pounds a week. In reality they receive £33.” Raising his voice to the right-winger – who by now was sweating profusely – he accused him of propagating “anti-asylum seeker lies.”

I asked him whether it had been a planned ambush. He shook his head, saying that although the BNP are “obviously disgusting”, it’s journalists like Littlejohn that “pump out the sewage the these rats feed on.” But is Littlejohn really that evil? Hari answered adamantly: “I feel very sorry for Richard Littlejohn. He is mentally ill. He’s absolutely obsessed with homosexuality… I mean, he thinks about gay sex more than I do. He actually thinks gay people are going to come and try to convert him. He writes most of his Mail columns from a gated mansion in Florida. He hates this country and knows nothing about it.”

Johann Hari has made a name for himself as a firebrand left-wing columnist. He writes polemically for The Independent, the Huffington Post and Attitude, Britain’s best-selling gay magazine. He was born in Glasgow but was raised in North London by his father – a Swiss-German bus driver – and his mother, a Glaswegian social worker who specialises in working with victims of domestic violence (“battered wives”).

We meet up in the East End, near Brick Lane. Johann appears slightly dishevelled. He apologises, but tells me that he’s been looking after his nephew. “My family seem to think”, he laughs, “that I’m available to babysit because I work from home.”

We go into a hotel bar, and Johann asks me what I would like to drink. “A Coke please,” I say, still eager to impress – I’m sure he wrote a column about how much he likes Coke. Johann orders apple juice. Fuck. I suddenly remember that his column was about giving up Coke because of the evil practices of the Coca-cola company in Colombia. It’s too late, we sit down and begin.

One of Hari’s earliest political influences was George Orwell. Aged just 13, he had been dispatched by his father to Switzerland to live with his grandparents and learn German. A Londoner through and through, he was not looking forward to it, and took a stack of books. One of them was Down and Out in Paris and London, which, he said, “I must have read about 15 times while I was there”.

How much does he identify with Orwell, I ask him, who wrote that a writer must be “vain, selfish and lazy”? He laughs, “I love Orwell but I am always nervous about people who claim Orwell as a mentor. I think it’s hubristic.” He continues: “There’s been a generational shift with Orwell. People in their fifties and sixties tend to revere the Orwell of Animal Farm and ‘1984’ – that tends to be what brought them to his work. But they touch me least because when I was born the Soviet Union was almost gone. Those novels were written to make important points which have since become obvious.”

Clarifying this, he adds that “being a left-winger after communism is a bit like being born into a family where you had a granddad who everyone says they loved. But when you learn about him it turns out that he beat the shit out of granny, murdered the other grandchildren and buried them under the patio. You think, what the hell was it that everyone saw in this nutter?”

He might not claim Orwell as a mentor, but Hari’s prose is fluent and – in argument – he’s convincing. Unlike it was in Orwell’s time, the world of newspaper journalism is less assured now. Given the choice between buying a newspaper or reading its content online for free, the reading public doesn’t shun gut instinct. Now the credit crunch is losing newspapers advertising revenue fast – as someone who is primarily a newspaper columnist, does Hari ever feel like he is on a sinking ship?

“You’re right”, he starts quickly, “being a print journalist in 2009 can sometimes feel like being a coal miner in 1976. But I believe people want to understand what is happening in the world and I think there will be some sort of mechanism for delivering that which will be financially viable.”

I ask him to elaborate, so he adds: “There are structural forces at work that an individual journalist will find very hard to deal with. But if you want more people to read a newspaper you’ve got to produce the best damn product you can. You’ve got to make sure your writing is accessible. I’m amazed at how much journalism is just unclear. Or is written in a cliquish way that is only interesting to a tiny number of people.” He begins to get more animated: “the whole way that we cover politics in this gossipy Westminster way is totally uninteresting to the vast majority of people. What you write has got to be comprehensible to the average reader – it’s got to matter to them.”

Johann begins to explain some of the issues that are affecting modern journalism and complains, “There’s very little that I can do to change those tectonic shifts. It’s a bit like becoming one of those monks who were paid to write out the bible, then the Guttenberg press comes out. Well, you can’t really do much. Improving your handwriting isn’t going to help.”

Sitting up, he moves on to the international press: “One of the reasons American newspapers are going bust is partly because of all these structural changes, but also because they are so fucking boring. If you compare them to British newspapers or French newspapers, they are just a lousy product – they are badly written, bland, horribly presented… and they have shit columnists.”

This comes as a surprise. Hari writes for The Independent, which is criticised by many journalists for similar reasons. It’s doing so badly – with huge losses and a flagging readership – that it recently was forced to mo­­ve into the same building as the Daily Mail, politically speaking its arch-enemy. Does the Indie really come close to his version of the ideal newspaper?

He replies confidently: “I think it’s one of the best. I’m really proud and privileged to work for it. There are people like Patrick Cockburn who I think is one of the most extraordinary journalists in the world. The paper is really is good to me – very few editors would let a writer go off for a month to Congo or Bangladesh to cover what seems to be an obscure, off-the-agenda story. I’m very lucky like that.”

Hari has covered a lot of obscure stories in his time: he won the Orwell Prize for pieces about a ‘pleasure’ cruise with American Republicans, multiculturalism and women, and another on France’s “secret war” in the Central African Republic. But as a part-time foreign correspondent, he also covers stories which are very much on the agenda. A week before the interview, when I rang him to confirm the meeting place, he told me there might be a problem. “It looks like I might be sent to Gaza,” he said, “you better ring back on Sunday to check I’m still in the country.” The Israeli army, however, wasn’t letting journalists into the war zone, so he was ordered to stay put.

His column recently declared that Israel was “self-harming”. Sensing an oncoming tirade, I ask him to explain. “What’s going on there is a tragedy for both sides,” he starts. “Primarily, it’s a tragedy for people in Gaza, because they are the ones who are being killed in huge numbers. But it’s condemning more Israeli civilians to die horribly as well.” He pauses, before adding: “Basically at the end of this there’s going to have to be a two state solution along the 1967 borders. Someday, somehow that has to happen.” Johann’s tone has become quietly emotional. But he remains focused, moving onto why this solution hasn’t taken place. One reason is the return of Palestinian refugees. He declares: “There’s polling that shows that the vast majority of refugees don’t want to turn to Israel proper. They want to return to a free, independent Palestine.”

Hari has visited Gaza before, and attempts to explain the difficulties of living there: “It’s hard for people to imagine. It’s this tiny little place with one and a half million people living in it who’ve never left. You stand on a tower block and you can see the borders of their world. You can see the Mediterranean Sea and the Israeli barbed wire. If you live in that situation, cut off from the world and blockaded, with 60% unemployment, real hunger kicking in and suddenly you start getting bombed…”

Moving back to the political, Hari says: “At the moment there is a majority on both sides for a two state solution. I don’t see how this bombing gets us closer to that. This is a lot of dead and injured people, a lot of people made angrier, more hateful, and it’s not going to stop the­ rockets. It may cause a brief cessation to the bombing of Ashkelon and Sderot, but the long-term solution has to be two states.”

When I bring up Hamas, Hari is quick to define his position: “Look. I hate Hamas. They are an Islamist fundamentalist organisation…But this conflict has crippled all the Palestinian moderates, emboldened the most extreme end of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. And if even we break Hamas completely, this idea that you’ll get a return to Fatah is ludicrous. You’ll actually end up with a complete implosion of Gaza and the rise of other, really crazy, Islamist groups. I’ve met representatives from those groups and they are not the people we want in control of Gaza.”

Shortly before the interview, Barack Obama – then president-elect – gave his first statement on the crisis in Gaza. Although stating his concern for the political situation, Obama claimed that until he was president he would not be able to speak out. I ask whether Johann thought the statement had been weak.

He replies: “I think Obama was right. There’s not a lot he can do until he is president. There is this convention that you only have one president at a time.” Hari has been a supporter of Obama from early one, and he is not one for criticising the first African-American president. But I’m interested to know how he thinks, as president, Obama will approach the problems in the middle east.

“We have to be depressingly realistic about Obama,” he says slowly. “It’s still ambiguous as to what he’ll to do about the Israel Palestine situation.” He continues, talking about “hawkish” Jewish lobbies in America who claim to speak for American Jews but actually don’t. “After African-Americans American Jews are the group who are most in favour of the two state solution.” He adds: “It’s actually these nutcase Christian evangelicals who are most pro this fanatical view of Israel.”

Hari is an outspoken critic of religion. One of his favourite writers was Christopher Hitchens, author of God is not Great and the critique of Mother Teresa’s practices, The Missionary Position. Hari’s publicly listed Facebook profile states: “Sometimes I chide Richard Dawkins for being too soft on religion”, so I ask him if he thinks some religions are less offensive than others.

He agrees: “Of course. Not everyone is Osama bin Laden. I don’t think all religious believers are evil – if you believe in an imaginary sphere, sometimes that imaginary sphere will tell you to do good things as well as bad things. And I don’t agree with some of the militant atheists who say that moderate religion is like a gateway drug and that actually it provides cover for extremism.” He adds, laughing: “I have lots of friends who are moderate religious believers and we can have civilised, intelligent arguments- they are not going to try to kill me.”

Like Hitchens, Hari despises Mother Teresa. They both accuse the ‘saint of Calcutta’ of being a religious fundamentalist who converted the dying to Catholicism. I ask him who he would rather send to hell – Mother Teresa or the King of Saudi Arabia? “The King of Saudi Arabia just here because if there is a hell Mother Teresa is already there…oh no, that’s too nasty. Er…the King of Saudi Arabia because although Mother Teresa was a disgusting fraud and a hypocrite she didn’t kill or torture people. The King of Saudi Arabia is in a whole other league.”

Johann clearly isn’t fond of monarchies. He has written a book, God Save the Queen?, about how the British should abandon the Royal Family. He claims that Prince Charles has been victim of child abuse and is a fierce critic of his badly informed science, calling him a “strikingly stupid man” who, every time he has been judged academically, “has been a disaster.”

Surely he sees eye to eye with Prince Charles on global warming? “He is personally one of the worst polluters in Britain”, Hari shoots. “His reasons for being opposed to global warming are gibberish. Global warming it not a spiritual crisis. It’s a problem because we’ve got too many greenhouse gases in the atmosphere…The things Prince Charles says about global warming are used to discredit the rest of us who are genuinely worried about it.”

There’s time for one more question. Is global warming the biggest crisis facing the world in 2009? “Yes. People think this is a long-term problem. It’s not. I’m worried about myself and people who are alive now. This is imminent: if the planet warms by two degrees we’ve lost Bangladesh. We are quickly heading towards the point of no return.”

Johann Hari has proved two things: his intelligence, and his ability to form polemical positions on any subject. We stand, and he asks me if I am stressed about exams. We walk outside. “God it’s like the arctic”, he says, shivering. “I’ll walk you to the tube.”

“Outline a situation in which you have, by your leadership of a team, overcome a difficult obstacle.” That’s right, leadership. We secretly know that you are chubby middle-class third year student with no experience of the real world, but we want to see how well you can blag this. What’s it going to be then, eh? A gap year anecdote? Oh come on. Maybe a story about how, as a school prefect, you solved a difficult situation involving a common room spat? Grow up, you blatant mediocrity. Into to the bin with your withered excuse for a CV, you haven’t got a chance – your predicted 2:1, even those three A*s at GCSE, just don’t cut it.

It’s Week 7 of the first term of my third year, and I’m applying for jobs. Life isn’t over when you start opening the Milkround and Graduate Jobs emails which, maggot-like, have infested your inbox since the freshers’ fair, but you know it’s the beginning of the end. Before long, it’ll be the 9-5 grind, the tiny flat in north London – wondering why, each morning, you end up reading Metro. Oh, and you’ll only be allowed to get drunk at the weekends.

But how do you get there? Well there are, I’ve discovered, three distinct types of job. 1: The job of your dreams (well paid and well interesting). 2: The sensible job (well paid and well dull). 3: The left-field pov job (well interesting but you’ll be well poor). There could be a fourth type, well poor and well dull, but it’s better not to think about it. Reality hurts, especially if you a Waterstone’s bookseller with an Ph. D.

Now I’m not one for Brookerish pessimism – in fact, it bores me intensely – but there is one more crucial point to be made: your preferences bear no relation to the preferences of other third years. So, for example, while being a management consultant might be a number 2 type on your list, it might be a number 1 on someone else’s. Yes, you heard it. Somewhere, probably in a polluted, stinky corner of north-east England, there is a spotty girl called Belinda who wants more than anything to be a management consultant. And this works, too, for type 3. Some people seem to want left-field pov jobs; to splash about in wellies as an archaeological researcher digging up bog-buried skeletons, or to work for a city council as chief traffic light executive. They will have more drive than you, and probably less ego – to them, you see, money doesn’t matter.

But to most of us, money does matter, so the upshot of all of this is classic third-year angst. In second year, you saw it in the library. Now you’re experiencing it. There’s not a huge amount more work, but you realise that you care. Suddenly you need that 2:1 more than ever, seminars give you performance anxiety, and key texts becomes your second, very cold, home.

Worse still, on a Saturday afternoon you’ll find yourself trying to figure out a real-life situation in which you have led a team a overcome a difficult situation. What do these people even want? Difficult to tell, really, when you don’t know what a management consultant does. Eventually, the intense boredom of the application got the better of me – I started to lose concentration, to daydream and to reassess my angsty third-year situation.

First, it became apparent that English and Philosophy was a very silly choice of degree. Three years after the decision was made, it turns out that economists and management types will do well after all. But me? In English, I’ve spent almost three years attending a weekly book-club to hear emotional and girly responses to third-rate set texts. Ok, I’ve often appreciated the genius of writers – Shakespeare, for instance – but rarely have I formed any valid or noteworthy critical opinion. In Philosophy, the opposite takes place: far from examining the beauty or cleverness of the philosophical argument, we assume to role of the argument’s challenger and attempt to prove its inadequacy. Discuss the weaker points of Kant’s coperincan revolution? Ok fine. Then, just to make sure George Eliot doesn’t get cocky, I’ll re-write Middlemarch.

Nevertheless, after a pensive period of Lama-like meditation, I realised that third year wasn’t actually that angsty after all. Life for third years, I thought, is good. And the worst thing is, most of us won’t realise it until it’s over. We have a very manageable amount of work, and we have a lot of time to sleep and eat. While the world’s financial strcutures crumble, shops and restaurants, pubs, bars and clubs cut prices, we still have a solid income with good old student. We, more than any other group in society, are reaping the capitalism’s fat rewards.

Students seem to enjoy telling others how much we’ve worked. Or that we’ve pulled yet another all-nighter. But, really, university life is slow and it’s fun.

By all accounts, great men seem to have ‘a dream’. Not-so-great men have many, so two of mine are: to learn the Italian language, and to develop a love for football.

Both remain on my ‘to do’ list, but always below other, more urgent, jobs – like ringing my incompetent landlord to tell him that the washing machine isn’t going to fix itself, arsehole.

Lunching at Il Paradiso del Cibo, then, was a humbling experience: here were stubbly Italian men shouting and gesticulating to each other in their native language and watching football, all the while serving decent food and taking the piss out of their oblivious English custom. I wanted to join them – to slick back my hair, open a beer, and watch Juventus play while complaining loudly that women in York were all fatter than those at home. Sadly, I remained ignorant, out of touch and frustrated. It was Euro-soap without subtitles.

The restaurant is small and cheap-looking, but that’s OK because the food is cheap, too. A fairly large pizza or pasta dish costs only £5, while starters – mostly salads – are around £3.50. It quickly became apparent that something was missing from the menu – alcohol. With regards to this, I can only say codes of omertà come into play.

Most of the staff, it turns out, are from Sardinia. So they weren’t speaking much Italian after all, but well done for guessing, Sardinian. They’re a patriotic bunch: a Sardinian flag (four moors’ heads divided by a red cross) and their football team’s strip adorn the ceiling.

I had the Verde Rossa to start; rocket leaves and balsamic vinegar, shavings of parmesan, tomato and pepper. James had the Caprese salad with lots of mozzarella. It was all good and very unpretentious, which seemed appropriate, given the price. The two peaks of unpretence – which is, I know, not a real word – were when our clandestine drink was bought to us in small plastic beakers, and when the waiter took away the sugar, smiling: “Youwa don’ta need thata with your salad, eh?” (This, by the way, is the sort of borderline racism one is reduced to, without a firm grasp of Italian.)

We both went for pizzas. They were the sort you might find in the back streets of an Italian city – a bit of a soggy base but with decent toppings, and lots of parmesan. Mine was the ‘Pizza Italia’ with huge slices of very salty Parma ham. James went for something less adventurous with olives and anchovies – I can’t remember what it was, as I was pretending to be involved with the football on telly.

The whole meal in total came to £21.90. I wouldn’t recommend taking a pretty girl to El Paradiso, or booking it for a 75 year-old’s birthday party (the next door table), but if you’re on the way out of town and want a quick, easy lunch, go for it. It’s better than a takeaway…

Here’s a Sardinian parable: a fisherman goes out in the morning, gets his catch, and returns to the beach with what he needs to eat for the day. He drinks and smokes all afternoon. An American sees him and asks, “Why don’t you fish in the afternoon? You’ll be able to sell some and get rich”. The Sardinian fisherman replies, “Why bother? I’m happy, not hungry and never tired.” To avoid being too tired, the staff at Il Paradiso del Cibo close up on Sundays.

1 large onion
1 garlic clove
1 aubergine
200g of yellow split peas
turmeric
Cinnamon
4 Chicken breasts or lamb

So its President isn’t exactly kosher. And yes, buried in the Zagros mountains there is probably a warhead warehouse nearing completion. But Iran does some things well: like Khoresht-e-Gheimeh. No matter how hard you try, you will never be able to pronounce that word, even if you buy a teach yourself Farsi CD. So give up now, stop trying to be raffishly ethnic, and call it Persian split pea stew.

For this dish, you need to plan ahead. Split peas may cook faster than unsplit peas, but they are still hard, crunchy and dry. So before you cook them, leave them in warm water for three hours to soften.

Once that three hours is over – and let’s face it, you’ve just watched Friends, then Scrubs, then Friends again on E4 + 1 – the real cooking begins. Fry the onion over a moderate heat until it turns golden brown (like an Autumn leaf), then add the garlic. Garlic, Goodfellas tells us, is best chopped up extra thin using a razor blade – so do it. Then add the meat. If you are Persian you’ll go for lamb, but chicken’s fine too.

Season this with cinnamon, turmeric and (freshly ground) salt and pepper. Stir and turn the heat up a bit. When the meat is sealed, add the chopped tomatoes (not “with added herbs”), the drained split peas and the tomato puree. Mix in two cupfuls of water and let it simmer with the lid on.

While this happens, for a few minutes soften the chunks of lightly salted aubergine in a pan. When they are a bit mulchy and brown put them in the stew. It will need to cook for another half an hour with the lid on. Keep stirring and add boiled water if you think it needs it.

Rice. If you can master this, then President Ahmadinejad salutes you. Add basmati – not really Iranian, but it’ll do – to boiling water. After five minutes take the half-cooked rice and drain it. Now, put it back on an extremely low heat with the lid on to steam it until it’s well fluffy. Now, serve it up with a smile to Barack Obama and watch him squirm.

Racism is heinously offensive. Racist ‘jokes’, therefore, are base. Yet at a National Union of Students (NUS) training seminar held on York’s campus over the summer, a “Bring Back Slavery” poster was held up by an NUS officer.

It is reassuring to know that the officer was not from York. (It was in fact Craig Cox from the University of Nottingham.) But it is not at all reassuring to hear our YUSU President’s response to the situation, quoted in the national press. He said: “The student involved was frankly poking people to see if he could get a response which worked – but I don’t think there was any malice intended.”

Come again? Someone has displayed a blatantly racist slogan on our campus, and the official response from Tom Scott is lame talk about ‘poking’ fun and no ‘malice intended’.
Sadly, though, it gets worse. In the same training seminar, one union officer is said to have warned that in a university environment, a higher number of black students would “increase gun and knife crime so require more security.” Again, after an NUS Black Students group complaint, we have Tom Scott’s less than comprehensive answer. “There is a lot of political correctness in the union.”

Scott is the representative of the student body at York. So, the question we should ask is this: has he effectively represented our opinions to the national media? Surely not. We are not a racist university. We are not even the sort of university which disdains ‘political correctness’. And we need a President who can effectively communicate that to the outside world and, significantly, to prospective students.

Black prospective students should apply to York in the knowledge that there is no place for racists on campus. YUSU must work to increase diversity and ensure that no students feel prejudiced. Importantly, it should do this publicly. That we are a progressive, tolerant university should be no secret to anyone.

Tom Scott is not a racist. Indeed, by all accounts he is a thoroughly nice person. But he should forget “PC” and concentrate his efforts on something entirely different: PR.

But the opening night of A Clockwork Orange shocked more that it meant to. Alex Forsyth, playing the lead role of Alex, was hospitalised after the suicide-attempt scene went wrong. He had enthusiastically head-butted a wall and the audience were led early from the theatre, some members confused as to whether this was all part of the act.

Happily though, Forsyth recovered in time for the next day’s sold-out performance.

A Clockwork Orange is best known as Stanley Kubrick’s film classic, although it was first Anthony Burgess’s 1962 novel. The stage version was also written by Burgess to “pre-empt other perversions with an authoritative rendering of my own” – after the film was banned in Britain, it naturally gathered a cult, amateur following.

Quickly, this performance was apparently far from amateur. Led in through the back entrance of the York Studio Theatre, the audience were warned about the violent content by Wright – just in case we had missed the posters outside.

A knock on the door, and we walked in to cries of “What’s it going to be then, eh?” – a question which I’m sure the audience were asking themselves as they were manhandled into their seats. The breaking up of audience groups lent a tone of menace to the gloomy room, smiles soon wiped off faces by the droogish ensemble.

Belt Up succeeded throughout the play with their spectacular dance-like fights, the first of which lasted – full cast on-stage – for around 6 minutes. Mark McDaid and Forsyth pushed themselves to convincing ultra-violence, but most impressive was when the whole ensemble fought on the packed stage, ducking and weaving to somehow avoid collision.

The cast clambered around the audience for the entire performance, causing embarrassment as they sniffed hair, stole glasses and even caused one poor spectator to vomit out of revulsion (one suspects this was a triumph!).

Disconcertingly, the play came to two abrupt stops for intervals. The cast approached the audience out of character, asking if we had their hats, gloves or a mirror so they could redo their face-paint. It was effective, I thought, though some thought it indulgent.

Forsyth was exceptionally convincing as Alex. It might be considered ambitious to compare him to Malcolm McDowell, but even that comparison is favourable. He brought a feigned naivety to the role emphasising, perhaps more than McDowell, Alex’s age – only fifteen.
His confidently middle-class nadsat was as convincing as McDowell’s northern version and a wonderfully corrupt grin as the Chaplain (Geoff Gedroyc) read his biblical notes was a joy to watch.

A minor criticism overall would be the costumes, which could have been more adventurous. The face-paint was effective, but the black gym-suits didn’t seem to live up to Burgess’s psychedelic fashion, even if they did make the fight scenes easier.

Ultimately, however, this production was a success. It shocked and stirred the audience but did not distract them from Burgess’s tale, which is ultimately about free-will. In perhaps the most disturbing scene, Dr Brodsky (Will Poskett) played with the audience’s arms, as if they were levers on his machine. The surreal Ludoviko film played out as Beethoven’s Ninth roared and Alex wept and gagged at the back of the stage. The rest of the cast mingled in the audience, retching themselves. We were violently immersed in A Clockwork Orange. And it worked.

They never tire, do they? Every Saturday some hooligan will put washing-up liquid into the fountain on Parliament Street. It’s an outrage.
But the spectacle is enjoyable. Find a seat and watch mothers squeal as their toddlers plunge into the froth, or amuse yourself as chunks of the stuff are whipped up by the breeze and flung into shoppers’ faces.

There are two ideally placed cafés for this activity: Pret a Manger and O’Briens sandwich bar. Dilemma! In a competition for postmodernity, Pret wins hands down. Here’s their franchise policy: “Franchising – sorry we don’t. Please don’t call us and ask for a franchise because we don’t; we really don’t. We don’t franchise. The fact is, we don’t like to franchise, so we don’t.” Right. Got it. But here is O’Briens: “Is O’Briens first class? Is O’Briens right for me? These are just some questions…” Blah blah, get a grip.

But I decided to go Oirish. I ordered a Shambo with bacon, brie and cranberry. A shambo, I found out, is toasted bread in the shape of a shamrock with herbs – rosemary, I think – baked into the top. It worked well. With a packet of crisps and a superb iced mango drink it was about £6 – not bad at all.

So I might go back next week. And I’ll take some washing up liquid in case the hooligans let me down.

Method:

My granny is a little bit bonkers. Not in the same way as her husband – who thinks he is a Captain in the navy again – but bonkers nonetheless. While he parades around the house shutting the curtains at midday and ordering the dog to stand up straight, she (aged 80) plays tennis and makes delicious wedding cakes.

But she is ‘country’ through and through. Last year I was driving along following her car. Suddenly, she hit a pheasant. It wasn’t quite dead, but wandered vaguely around the road looking dishevelled. Without hesitating, Granny stopped and climbed out of the car. Walking over to the bird, she took off her shoe and hit it, once, on the head. Now it was properly dead. She picked it up, walked over to her car, opened the boot and lobbed the pheasant in. She later fed it to the dog – claiming that road kill is often “remarkably fresh”. Honestly, it’s amazing I’m this normal.

Aside from her pheasant road rage, though, Granny makes a great kedgeree. This dish harks back to British India. It’s basically flaked fish, rice, eggs and butter with a little bit of spice. The Victorians had it for breakfast because the Anglo-Indians liked to eat freshly caught fish – but with the advent of the fridge, I prefer it later on in the day. It could hardly be healthier if it tried and it tastes wonderful. You’ll see.
Make the curry sauce first. Start with the butter, garlic and onion in a small saucepan and cook till everything is soft. Add the curry powder and the fish stock next (a good cube will do). Bring it to the boil and allow it all to reduce by half. Then add the cream and simmer for 20 mins. While this is doing, cook the smoked haddock and hard boil the eggs (for ten minutes). Get someone else to cook the rice in salted water (after they’ve rinsed it in cold water, obviously) as you are clearly quite busy.

When all is done stir the ingredients gently together and there’s your kedgeree. It should be quite salty and fairly dry. Like someone with a good wit.

The University is boss. YUSU, regardless of Matt Burton’s entrepreneurial fantasies, is not. Langwith bar – yes, the saga continues – may not be open for Freshers Week after the University withdrew its support for the October start date. Surprised? I thought not.

There are reasons, of course. Many parts of campus – including the Langwith walkway – are being renovated this summer. The project to redevelop the bar is not seen as ‘high priority’. The bar’s new opening date will be in January 2009 because, as the email sent to Burton revealed, the Directors of Facilities, Management and Estates are under a lot of pressure.

What makes a project a high priority? At university, students should come first. But we have learnt that York will often look to the long-term, ignoring those who currently study here. To our detriment, high priorities for Heslington Hall are therefore future students and potential financial gain.

So, it’s time for demonstrations. Let’s chain ourselves to fences and occupy Heslington Hall. Let’s make things happen, and look to our 1970s forbears for examples. The university is the oppressor and we are the oppressed. Come the revolution!

Or, we could be shrewd and play to the University’s weaknesses. YUSU, we know, has no decision-making power – if the University won’t redevelop the bar over the summer, the student body can only apply diplomatic pressure. But that shouldn’t stop effective campaigning. Reputation, reputation, reputation – it’s all that matters. The University of York is a brand and we, the students, are its ambassadors.

The most effective way to place pressure on the University is for the students to prove that we – not they – own the York brand. In other words, we don’t just make a big fuss, we actively assert our right to a voice, a voice to be listened to.

Oliver Lester, Derwent College Chair, posted a brilliant video on YouTube that showed the substandard kitchens and accommodation in blocks E and F of his college. If you Googled ‘Derwent’, high up the list of search results would be his well-constructed documentary. The University, red-faced as well as surprised, quickly sorted things out. The mould in the bathrooms disappeared and plans were made for kitchen renovation this summer.

The motion to mandate an active YUSU campaign for an October opening will undoubtedly be passed. It will also lead to student protests – Burton thinks if the Vice-Chancellor realises ‘we care about this’ things will change.

But to achieve this we need an active web-based campaign. Protests on campus are all very well but the Vice-Chancellor must realise that by letting York students down he is putting the university’s reputation in jeopardy. Who’s boss now?

Students received the email last week which purported to be from the ‘York.ac.uk Team’. It asked each user to provide personal details in order for their ‘account to be verified’. The information requested included the students’ University Webmail username and their password.

The University’s Information Officer Joanne Casey sent an email to all University departments outlining appropriate courses of action. She said: “The Computing Service will never ask for a user’s password (or other sensitive information) via email, and neither should any other reputable organisation.”

Phishing is normally associated with fraudulent and criminal attempts to acquire sensitive information, including bank details. It is not yet known who was behind the emails or if they could face prosecution. In certain circumstances phishing perpetrators can be prosecuted under the 2005 Fraud Bill.

Casey instructed: “Do not respond to a request to send your password via email. The message should simply be deleted.”
One second year Computer Scientist commented to Nouse: “It’s very odd that they are trying to get hold of our Webmail details.” He added: “That isn’t exactly priceless information.”

Tuesday June 10th 2008

A post for those of you studying economics.

For just a minute, stop your Macro revision and consider the possible career paths which lie ahead of you.

Here’s some help. David Rubenstein co-founded the Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest private equity firms – it has more then $80 billion under management.

According to him, there are ten (very American) reasons why you should head for a career in private equity. Hat-tip to the FT’s John Gapper for passing this list on:

1. There is no educational requirement – anyone can get into the business, no barrier to entry.

2. You don’t have to keep time sheets or fill out insurance reimbursement forms.

3. Lack of clear skills or a high IQ is not a handicap – it may be a plus.

4. You get to hire lawyers and economists, the people who were smarter than you in college.

5. Your ability to make charitable contributions will get you invited to much higher class parties
(and get your children into higher class colleges).

6. Someone pays you 20 per cent (if not 25 per cent or more) of the profits on their money.

7. You will have every reason not to forget to negotiate a pre-nuptual agreement.

8. Private equity and hedge fund professionals live to 90 – no reported heart attacks.

9. There is no random steroid testing.

10. You can afford better grade assisted living arrangements.

Previous blog entries:

It’s been a good year for Andrew Serotta
The beginning of a difficult time for BA?

Ingredients:

2 pomegranates
1 lime
1-1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 cups heavy cream

Method:

Someone please administer copious amounts of Ritalin to Gordon Ramsay. I’ve just watched ten minutes of the F word (which is “Fuck” by the way) and I feel sick. There is not a single camera shot which lasts more than 3 or 4 seconds, and Gordon constantly pops up like a crack-addict jack-in-the-box to shout garbled cooking instructions at me, his traumatised viewer. I had to channel-zap just to find the M&S advert to help calm me down.

But, never fear, summer isn’t about angst-ridden nights in with Gordon. It’s not even about the M&S lady (even if she does seem to want you to have sex with a pudding). Summer is about getting outside, thinking you’re too cool for the sun to burn you, barbeques and The Beach Boys.

Most of all, it’s about ice cream. Don’t believe Sex and the City – ice cream is not only for the recently dumped. It’s happy food and, as I found out, very easy to make.

Before I start, I would like to admit something: this recipe is stolen almost in its entirety from Nigella Lawson. To avoid being sued, I’m going to change it a little bit and add, for good measure, that she’s much more pleasant to watch than ram-it-in-your-face Ramsay.

So, take two pomegranates and a lime, and squeeze their juices into a bowl. Swirl it anti-clockwise for 17 seconds. Then repeat, this time clockwise. Add one and a half cups of powdered sugar and whisk to dissolve. Add two cups of heavy cream (not to be confused with double cream) and whisk until Everestine peaks form in the pale pink mixture. Put it all in a lidded plastic tub and lob it in the freezer for at least 4 hours (or overnight). That is all.

Nigella would like you to have saved the pomegranate seeds for sprinkling. But you didn’t read ahead, so they are safely in the bin. Chop up a banana, and chuck on other stuff that crunches – like roasted nuts.

Lastly, find a video camera and a guitar and make your own M & S advert. This isn’t just Nigella’s pomegranate ice cream. It’s – insert name – ice cream. Convinced that you are sex in-an-apron, you will enjoy your homemade ice cream all the more.

Have you ever stared in obsessive pseudo-worship at the Minster while on LSD? No, me neither. But, would you believe it, a small Facebook group is dedicated to doing just that.

It has only two members (so the thrills of Gothic architecutre haven’t penetrated all of our campus’s drug dens) but it sounds interesting, doesn’t it? Doors of Perception type stuff. Worry not, though. There might be another, LSD-free way to enjoy the glories of the West end.
Reeds Cafe is close enough to the Minster to enjoy it, and far enough from it, in the morning, to be out of its shadow. There are quite a few tables on the pavement too, allowing you to take it all in while sitting in the sunshine.

If it’s raining, go somewhere else. The inside is grotty and unclean, and although it’s an attempt at a “tea-room”, it’s a poor one – more Little Chef than Betty’s.

I had difficulty with the service. It’s either grumpy and Yorkshire, or smiley and Bulgaria – either way they don’t seem to be on the ball. I opted for a Brie and Bacon panino (panini is plural, didn’t you know) and a fizzy, yes fizzy, orange. The panino was OK – it came quickly and with salad and Doritos, but could have used some chutney. The orange wasn’t fizzy so I hurled it back at them and flipped over my table, shouting loudly.

LSD, anyone?