Lincoln invokes spirit of Abe as Brasenose declares war

Three days ago it was announced to startled Lincoln college JCR members that their rival, Brasenose, had unanimously passed a motion to ‘do battle’ with them.

“War at the best, is terrible, and this war of ours, in its magnitude and in its duration, is one of the most terrible”, Abraham Lincoln declared in 1864 as civil conflict was infecting the American nation.

It was hoped that civilization would never again witness such dreadful destruction, but it seems that history is set to repeat itself as a different Lincoln now faces a warfare crisis of its own.

In response Lincoln sprang immediately into action, showing them to possess a highly-efficient communications system and well-structured defence department that might make the nostrils-of-Brase wish they had not been quite so quick to bustle into battle.

An anonymous source, however, has expressed confidence in a Brasenose triumph; “Lincoln has fewer legs to stand on than Oscar Pistorius”.

“Any weapon goes”

Not so long ago St Hilda’s allied itself with St Catz against the forces of mighty Magdalen in a similar crusade. The string of recent war declarations has led to some notable recorded outbursts of college loyalty:

Hilda’s heroically pronounced that they would ‘fight [Magdalen] on the bridges, to fight them in the deer park, to fight them in the fields and in Sainsbury’s, to fight them in hall; we shall never surrender’.

In a similarly impassioned statement Ashley Fisher, War Minister for Lincoln, declared the lengths he would go to do defend the Lincolnians: “I will stand for your freedom until they remove my legs,” he asserted, “then I will beat them with my legs.”

Fisher’s famous last words may come back to haunt him if, as proposed, the outcome of the war ends up being decided by a rugby match between the two colleges.

Commander-in-chief for Brasenose James Blythe is feeling secure of his college’s position. He has been reflecting optimistically on the spoils of a Brasenose victory, the terms of which would include freedom of speech, freedom of the worship of Paul Gladwell, and freedom from the neighbourly presence of Lincoln.

Where will the inter-collegiate antagonism end? When will man’s desire for blood finally be satiated?

It has, not unjustly, been suggested in relation to these recent events that Oxford students have far too much free time on their hands.