Patrick Leigh-Pemberton:sub-honour sympathy

The constant refrain appears to be “I have [2/6/8/10],000 words to do by yesterday, and I am definitely going insane.” To which the correct response, according to library etiquette, is “I know, I have [their figure+1],000 words to do by last week and the walls of my mind just caved in”. Now, I am in a similar sort of position, but thankfully for me, this similar sort of position is one that will only count towards my own academic integrity, because I am in second year, and as I am constantly told, it doesn’t count. Besides pointing out that being constantly told that two years of your life don’t count can be quite hurtful (to sensitive souls like me. I write poetry with flowers and stuff in it), and can make you feel worthless (all the flowers died in a deep never thawing winter), I think it is a touch much to assume that it shouldn’t matter, or that I shouldn’t get any sympathy.

The reason that I have decided to take this rather heterodox view on life is that this weekend I went to visit another university town, which was nice. Now this place, known enigmatically as Canchester, was an incredibly fun place to visit. Everyone lived in the nicest of houses which they had treated with complete disdain because they actually pay cheap, student-friendly rent – unlike in St Andrews where the majority of us live in shoe boxes, which we treat with the utmost respect because we have to get a bail out from Germany every time our landlord rings us. And when it came to partying, my eyes were opened wide by the whole new approach I discovered there. The party, as these sorts of things often do, started in a house (nothing new here, I hear you cry) at about eleven. Then things got going, and before you knew it there were people in their hundreds crammed into every available space; a bopping and a hopping, a rockin’ and a rollin’, and generally having a very nice time.

And then, at about 3, the police turned up. Now I, addled as my wits were, had the sense to see that the game was up, grabbed my coat, and made as if to leave. Everyone looked at me as if I had lost my mind. I didn’t understand it. I could hear the police officer telling the tenants that they could hear the bass from two streets away. This had to be the end of the party. But no, they just walked away again, out into the night, to do some real policing. As if they had come in merely to tell us how great the sound system was. I do not think I can explain to you how confused I was by the whole affair. You see, we partied until the break of dawn, as Mr. Paul once suggested, and the next night, we did it all again.

I was really beginning to settle in and although I didn’t have a beanie hat or puffy jacket, they are only a visit to topman away. But then it dawned on me that I still hadn’t seen a book. I made enquiries. It turns out that nobody at Canchester ever really has to do much. I do not mean to denigrate the quality of their education for I was assured that the lectures there are fantastic, but the number of essays, was , like their music, minimal. And this is why I think that sub-honours students should get some sympathy from you guys at the top of the foodchain. We may not have as much pressure as you guys, or as high a wordcount, but we have a damnsight more than many of our friends and to be brutally honest, you are the only ones who understand that. (See the sensitive side, say it in a weepy voice and you will have grasped the whole point).