Is the Robbo turning into a club?

Ever been on the third floor and felt like you’re in Cosmic Ballroom?


That time of year has come: the memories (or lack of) from freshers’ week are waning and people have started to do what is actually expected of them at university. Work. For many, the return to uni in the first semester was a return to friends and a chance to go out, get drunk and miss uni. Then the exam season blew in, devastating the lives of students across Newcastle – and now comes the dissertation panic. The impending dread forced the focus of attention away from nocturnal activities. That’s right, your social life is centred around the library.

So is Club Trobinson a new thing? Here are the ways you never realised that the library is more similar to a club than you thought – simply with harsher lighting and a sub-standard sound system.

1. Show your ID at the door.

Don’t forget it. Tragedy shall ensue: be it in the form of having to get a cab home from town or having to SPEND £3 to get into the library to work. The horror.

2. Bouncers.

If you don’t think the library staff are as scary as the guys in leather gloves, you’ve obviously never left your student card at home. That’s right, the library has bouncers.

3. Stamps.

I know you don’t technically receive a stamp upon entry to the library, but your presence there is evident from the look of sheer dissertation-time misery on your face. Arguably harder to wash off than that annoying black ink.

Or red ink

4. Paying for entry.

Although you may not feel like you’re paying entry to the library, I’m pretty sure the £9,000 a year just about covers it. That’s 1,800 club entries (with guest list, although I know that’s pretty hard to come by in Newcastle). You’d have to be going to around 5 clubs a day to rack up that sum – including Christmas Day.

5. Bagging a prime space.

Whether it’s your vigilant course friend or some BNOC promoter, you can’t deny it – it’s good to know people. Your course friend will be in the library at 7am, claiming your computer with a water bottle and allowing you that precious 9am ‘lie in’. Your promo pal can similarly reserve you a table, albeit with a slightly more exciting litre of vodka.

You’ve nailed it

PRIME SPOT

Or you might drink so much you fall asleep in a booth

6. Location of choice.

The clubs and ‘nights’ you choose to attend can say a lot about you, but it’s not just your evening whereabouts that can define what kind of kid you are .  The Robinson is probably the equivalent of Tiger Tiger on a Wednesday or Club Trop. Club Trobinson is super fun and sociable, but it’s not earning you any mystery points – no bindis there. But the discerning characters you would find chilling in the downstairs sofa area of World Headquarters wouldn’t be caught dead in the Robinson – at least not on the 3rd floor computers. It’s more likely that you’ll find them somewhere obscure like the Nereid PC Cluster.

‘Is this a long loan book?’

7. Music.

The Robinson may not be repping the latest Void Sound System, but one look around and you quickly realise that headphones are a mandatory piece of survival equipment. The only difference that everyone is listening to music that they have chosen. Not being tortured by Ke$ha and Pitbull is probably the sole upside of library life.

Wow the 3rd floor’s ramo

8. The smoking area.

The smoking ban has actually given relief to people who want a break from being sweatily gyrated against/getting baffled by assignments. Cue all the coolest cats in town to filter away from the crowded computer clusters or d-floor.

Everyone needs a revising/dancing break

Smoke away those dissertation deadlines

9. Caffeine-based beverages.

Needing a break from your boogying or books? Head to the bar or cafe to have a jäger bomb or coffee, with someone else whose brain has also been damaged by dangerous levels of drinking or thinking. Both events are likely to involve caffeine, however the library filter coffee is unlikely to be preceded by ‘CHEERS’ and subsequent downing. Instead, a conversation of misery and self-pity will ensue before making excuses about your computer logging off and sloping back.

VERY AWAKE

Another day another coffee

Bevs – essential for lasting all night

10. Other stimulants.

A craze that originated out of Oxbridge: drugs are no longer confined to the grimy realms of World Headquarters or Cosmic Ballroom. The time has come that people await their dealers in order to hit the books. Ritalin, Modafinil and other Attention Deficit Disorder drugs (which are class-C when not prescribed) are rife around exam and dissertation time.

Poppin’ in the lib

11. All day, every day.

Although you may think you’re hardcore, first pumping at the front of Cosmic until the bouncers kick you out at 5am, spare a thought for the 24 hour library. Why is it necessary for a library to be open ALL DAY? I don’t know (ask Michael Taylor, apparently he does).

You can do it soldier

12. Gold rush.

It’s 2:45am and a wave of fear spreads across the faces of freshers on the dance floor. They haven’t found a companion to hold them as they drunkenly drift off to sleep. The same can be seen in the Robinson at half 5. Whispers of ‘you hungry?’, ‘are you bored?’ can be heard as people desperately try to avoid the long, cold walk home alone.

You will panic and leave

We can all breathe a sigh of relief now that the exam period has finished, and the days of the library-induced hangovers are over.