Stressed students struggle to study due to salsa surprise

Many students were forced to pack up and find somewhere else to study due to high noise levels in the Forum today.

The disturbance was caused by music and dancing on a stage set up on the ground floor outside the Market Place.

In one of the loudest numbers, a sound system blared out Spanish music while two scantily-clad girls in red dresses danced Salsa. The performances, organised in celebration of Exeter Pride Week, got going around midday and lasted just over two hours.

Although normally a welcome sight and sound, the salsa dancers were generally disruptive rather than delightful

Richard Hasler, a third year who’d been sitting outside the library said: “I had to move because it was getting ridiculous. I have nothing against what they stand for, but at the end of the day, we need to be able to have somewhere to work.”

The noise was even audible within the library. A PhD student, who asked to be known as the ‘angry Glaswegian’ lodged a complaint at the library front desk.

He said: “If I can hear it in there, anyone having to sit outside because of how busy it is at the moment is stuffed. Call me Victor Meldrew, but I’m trying to do something really important for a project and I’ve never seen anything like this. How do you divide what goes on out there and what people need to do in there? You just can’t.”

The library staff were very sympathetic. One said: “We’ve been listening to it all day so we fully understand. Unfortunately the library and the Forum events are run by two different management teams, so we don’t have much of a say on what goes on out there.

“I think this is the only university I know where you have the library and the main area joint together and it is nice, but isn’t particularly suited to events like this.”

The library staff helped disgruntled students who weren’t enjoying the warbling in the only way they knew how: by providing complaints cards and offering up alternate places of study.

Shhhh, we’re trying to study