Tab Rates vs. Tab Slates

Tab Rates

Fantastic Mr Fox. Winning over reviewers across the country, this animated version of Roald Dahl's book features the dulcet tones of Mr Clooney. Even his voice makes you melt.

Elvis. He's back in the headlines: a lock of his hair is to be auctioned in Wiltshire later later this month. That's a fetish waiting to happen.

Hermes denial. Instead of reading all those emails from all those societies you don't care about, or all those reading lists you should have read, just don't log-in. Problem solved. For a few days.

Layers. College-heating is stingy to the point of hypothermia. Layer it up: finally, a use for all the socks and nondescript jumpers your mother insisted on buying you, at a cost to your budget for clothes you'd actually want to wear in social situations.

The Basics Diet. Mozzarella balls for 47p? Cereal for 40p? Enough said. Just don’t look at the ingredients. Being told there’s more ‘thickening agent’ than actual pig in your ham slices is, admittedly, off-putting.

Tab Slates

Bike crime. I'm still sore about my stolen seat (who steals a bike seat? Honestly, now) and friends have reported nicked lights and baskets. Not funny.

The Tourist Invasion. It's been wetter and colder than the grim North and yet they're still flocking in their hundreds making a simple trip to King’s News of a Saturday a military operation involving tuck-and-rolls and the employment of the college-scarf-as-tripwire tactic.

The Halloween and Bonfire Night comedown. There we were, wallowing in Week Five Blues when all of a sudden two ready-made holidays (sort of) appeared like fairy godmothers to take us to the bop. But it all came too fast! Two excuses to abandon your essay in one week! We were spoilt. And now it's back to our humdrum pumpkin-and-sparkler-free existence.

Jedward. Big Dave (Cameron) has told press those of the gravity-defying 'dos are his favourites this year. Stick to the EU constitution please, Dave: these kids' careers are doomed to end up in the bargain bin at Lidl as it is. Don't catalyse the fall.

The Lecture Guilt. You were so good at it in the first week. There you were, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and gazing at your lecturer with the rapt attention you usually reserve for Hollyoaks (blink and you'll miss the scraps of clothing covering the modesties of the female cast). You now haven't been to one in weeks.