Jamie Ross: Ignore the KK

 As a Scottish man, I refuse to tolerate three things: Tories, direct sunlight and vegetables. In St Andrews, it is perfectly easy to avoid direct sunlight. As for vegetables, I […]


 As a Scottish man, I refuse to tolerate three things: Tories, direct sunlight and vegetables.

In St Andrews, it is perfectly easy to avoid direct sunlight. As for vegetables, I can simply turn right before the fresh produce aisle in Tesco until I reach the uterine sanctuary of my Pringles cocoon. Tories, however, are less simple to avoid.

This has never been truer than of this week, the week in which the Kate Kennedy Club splintered into two factions with one being microscopically less unbearable than the other. This has been followed by a massive array of opinions spouted in emails, videos and on various websites by the kind of people who always boast about procrastinating in their Facebook statuses.

In the past, I have tried to treat the Kate Kennedy Club like I would if I found an unusual lump on a testicle: annoying and worrying, yes, but hopefully, if I just ignore it, it will go away. However, on this special occasion, I will confront them head-on to try to convince you that they do not deserve your attention. The Kate Kennedy Club, that is. Not my testicles. Not this week.

Here, in my now tediously formulaic layout, are my top five reasons to ignore the Kate Kennedy Club and the Kate Kennedy Fellowship:

1. Their Members: For the benefit of any of you outside St Andrews, the Kate Kennedy Club is basically Bullingdon Lite: a port-swilling, pheasant-gobbling collection of young men who guffaw their way around town in mustard-coloured trousers sporting big flapping haircuts like Susan Boyle’s. As an ill-bred street urchin I am yet to meet one of them personally, but I feel that I have spent enough time in St Andrews to confidently say that, if a young man chooses to wear trousers which aren’t either blue or black, he is almost certainly a giant arsehole. Why worry about a social club full of men who you would only spend time with if you had the misfortune of being born their conjoined twin? Ignore them.

2. Their Events: The Kate Kennedy Club is responsible for a procession and two balls (not my testicles – not this week). There are several reasons to ignore these events. Firstly, the formality of them flies in the face of my firm belief that no undergraduate student should ever wear a cummerbund. Secondly, they are unashamedly ‘for charity’ in the same way that bands perform at televised concerts ‘for charity’ and not, in any way, in a desperate scrabble for popularity. Thirdly, if you really feel that you have to put on a suit and be made to feel inferior, you can do so for free simply by attending a family wedding. Ignore them.

3. Their ‘Press Conference’: Think of all the reasons that someone might stage a 2am press conference: nuclear attack, assassination of the Prime Minister, first alien contact and so on. Finished? Right, now pity the irreparably deranged mindset of a group of men deciding to do exactly this in order to announce an alteration in the rules of a university society. Apparently they didn’t even do it as a joke. For their own sake, ignore them. I’m looking at you, Bubble TV.

4. The Principal’s Email: During all the ballyhoo, our Principal Louise Richardson sent us all a sycophantic email praising the “courage” of the splinter group. Taken out of context, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the Kate Kennedy Fellowship had won women the vote rather than waited for a century to allow them to join a silly group of prats. Until the day comes when those who didn’t join a sexist group in the first place are similarly commended, or the day that the dead walk the Earth – whichever comes first – ignore them. Ignore them!

5. The probable reaction to this column: I imagine that the flying monkeys employed by the Kate Kennedy Club will swoop upon me not long after this column is published and I will be found dead in a ditch with cummerbund marks around my neck. In the likely event of this happening, I want to provide a pre-emptive rebuttal to the defences of the Kate Kennedy Club that I expect will appear under this column as I obliviously decompose.

“Fuck you! It’s for charity you witless hellface!” – If the Kate Kennedy Club/Fellowship didn’t exist, charity events could and would be organised by people who aren’t fundamentally unbearable.

“Sexist? Men can’t join the Lumsden Club, you snide little bum-gobbler!” – Literally no man on Earth wants to join or even be in the same room as the Lumsden Club.

“We made this sacrifice for you: why aren’t you joining the Fellowship, you piss-eyed fuckpedal?” – A rose by any other name would smell as pheasanty.

“Were you hoping that “ignore them” would become your equivalent of “Yes we can”? Because it hasn’t worked, you miserable puddle of arse water!” – I won’t pretend that I’m not disappointed by the tepid reaction it has received.

“You said you weren’t going to write about your testicles, but it looked like complete bollocks to me you towering cliff-face of whelk shit!” – That is a very amusing criticism, I wish I had thought of that.

“You’re just a fucking bitter cockspanner and you’re fucking jealous because you’re nothing!” – Stop embarrassing me in front of my university friends, Mum.