NOTE FROM THE EDITORYour one-stop shop for shoddy, Tab-lite "journalism"... October 2015 Freshers' Edition

Welcome new people to what is probably quite an intimidating chapter in your lives, and welcome back everyone else. This is the newly revamped Br ick, the college newsletter , which has been on a rather long hiatus due to my continuing legacy of repeatedly ?forgetting? to publish it. But I finally put my nose to the gr indstone and churned out a few gr imly predictable freshers? week favour ites and hopefully some other stuff too. My pr imary aim was to produce a groundbreaking piece of or iginal newsletter mater ial, and to change the very conception of how you view newsletters, and I hope I?ve achieved that. I wish you all an incredible year , from the autumnal and Chr istmas formal fun, through to the unhealthy emotional dependency on your favour ite mug as exams star t to loom like a big haboob.

I thought I might try giving a piece of advice here, and I was torn between two. The first would to be stop and look around every once in a while. Everyone runs around so hectically in the shor t terms that sometimes you miss how great town can actually look, from the warm emollient glow of the street- lamps through the tower ing silhouettes dimly visible in the morning mist to the quiet dappling of auburn leaves on wet cobbles. The second is to try and give yourself a present of some sor t every day, be it a sumptuous desser t that you?d normally pass up, or an extra fifteen minutes of leisure before you star t working, although this piece is half advice and half a plug for the new ser ies of Twin Peaks.

Finally a big thank you to the members of the RCSA who nagged this into completion, our two guest contr ibutors and my ideas men Jack Sibley, Tom Baines, Keir Baldwin, Joe Brennan and Chr is Bar ton.

Matt James Hit and Run Shock!Says "I'm glad I did it"... cont Pg 15

Bate Rates - Alex Bate casts his cr itical and uncar ing eye over several cur rent crazes...

Can Red Br icks Kill?One brave sub-editor and a stray dog are on a quest to find out...

Editor - George Bar ton

Murden Unburdens: On Paninis, Freshers and a sultry past

A big haboob

THE BRICKREINCARNATED

In the beginning, there was an Edenic halcyon, a bucolic square of promised land untouched by the mammon clutches of Tr inity. And He said, ?Let there be an exciting, innovative and

exciting modern college with (surpr isingly) award-winning architecture.? And it was done, and He saw that it was good. But He was lost in the sprawling, labyr inthine maze of spiralling staircases and tower ing tur rets. ?Let there be a welcome desk staffed by fr iendly, welcoming, attentive and physically supreme members of the RCSA to help me settle in and perhaps provide several choices of free hot beverage.? And it was done, and he saw that it was good. ?Let there be spacious, well- furnished rooms with nor th-facing windows and lots of natural light and the highest toilet- to-undergrad ratio in all of Cambr idge.? And He received his key, and saw that it was good. But the pangs of hunger in His stomach grew, gr inding and gnawing at him as relentlessly as the mighty, immutable, eternal r iver Jordan Bin Brook carves its way through the arable pastures of Israel the Gardens, for it had been for ty minutes and for ty seconds since that Ginsters pasty on the M11 service station. So he said, ?Let there be a wide choice of nutr itious meals at affordable pr ices with both a vegetar ian and salad option.?

A CREATION PARABLE IN THE MODERN AGE

And it was done, and he saw that it was good. But there was more to be done. ?Let there be frequent, diverse and delightfully immersive theme nights, as well as a whippy machine with sauce and spr inkles.? And it was done. ?But wait?, He boomed, sonorously, ?Lo! is it possible to offer all of this in a verdant, pastoral setting, staffed by a professional and fr iendly team?!?? And it was possible, and it was good.

And as He left, His appetite finally sated, He found himself standing in front of a burning bush, mouth agape, for although the heavenly fire engulfed the bush, the flames licking and lapping at the hunched, huddled leaves, they remained unharmed by the scourge. And although the light from the divine provenance was almost too great to gaze upon, the flames emitted no heat. And in a slow, rasping, hoarse whisper , He discerned words, forms amongst the chaos. ?You must fr - free the

Isra-Israel-IsraelitSHSHSHSHSHSHSH? And suddenly a cacophonous cascading mass of thick white smoke overwhelmed the bush, for it had been a fire hazard, and had been swiftly and efficiently extinguished according to the College?s excellent fire policy.

COLLEGE NEWS

COLLEGE SPORTIt's been a successful beginning to the college spor t season.

The rugby team has had two convincing wins from two games, 33-17 against Fitz and 31-5 against Homer ton, with last year 's captain Baines somewhat surpr isingly top tryscorer with 3 so far and the new intake looking really strong.

The Hockey team eked past Magdalene 4-3, the pr inciple reason for their continuing competitiveness being a very dodgy goalkeeping per formance by yours truly. A win remains a win, however , as the team look to return to the top of a tree at which they were perched not 4 seasons ago.

The football team scored a solid 8 without reply in their opening clash against Catz too.

And it you aren't playing any college spor t at all, please reconsider because it's just the most fantastic way of playing a wide var iety of spor ts with little to no commitment.

Looking around the brand new Crausaz Wordswor th Building building, a vistor will immediately notice that it is not intended for students. There is a giant auditor ium, large meeting rooms and a mingling room replete with a bar and cater ing facilities. The entire building is fitted with high spec technology and is gorgeous. It?s likely that it?ll be used almost exclusively for conferences. If this is true, it is a problem. The building was adver tised to students, fellows and donors as a building which will be ?mainly used for College and academic purposes?. If this is not true, college has lied to us and to the people who gave money to fund the

building.

College should str ive to ensure our exper ience in Cambr idge is the best it can be. Its investments should enr ich our exper ience. The appearance of this building means that even more conference guests

will be around college, r ight next to two student houses. This is likely to be disruptive and it is especially worrying as college has not consulted and cooperated with the student body to ease the fears of this problem. The first announcement about the building to the entire student body happened in June 2014.

The main argument for the building is that it will br ing extra conference revenue, allowing College to enr ich our exper ience using this money. We should note that in 2014 College made a £1.1 million net profit on student rents and mere £214k profit from conferences (check out more budget fun here: https://www.robinson.cam.ac.uk/assets/about/foi/2014%20Accounts%20for%20signing.pdf). We the students are its main source of income and we should demand that income from the building is guaranteed to come to us. BY ANON

HAS THE EXCITING, INNOVATIVE AND EXCITING DEVELOPMENT JUST TURNED SOUR, SCANDALOUS AND SOUR?

A PERSPECTIVE ON THE CRAUSAZ-WORDSWORTH

Etymology Weekly

1. Lewis ? Lewis

So named because the island played host to the camera crew and featured prominently in several exter ior shots of the TV show Lewis, the Morse sequel. As the island was at that time uninhabited and wasn?t known for anything else, it was named Lewis in homage to the show that put it on the map.

2. Korea ? Career

I know what you?re probably thinking, and fear not, I?m not going to fall into the glar ing trap of stereotyping an entire peninsula as office-bound, goal-or ientated workaholics. The first Europeans, upon making landfall near modern-day Inchon, observed the local villagers veer ing wildly round tight corners on car ts and also forgetting to indicate a lot. ?They?re really career ing all over the roads?, a lookout from one of the ships was heard to remark. Although the story is probably apocryphal, the name stuck.

3. Somalia ? Sommelier

A people known for their outstanding sense of smell, a unique, unr ivalled ability to match French vintages to different local specialities and an innate knowledge of the most expensive items on the wine list, French settlers good-humouredly nicknamed the local nomadic tr ibesmen ?somellians?.

A typical Somalian man

4. Wazir istan ? Wazzock

This derogatory term, meaning ?An idiot, or generally daft person?(©UrbanDictionary, 2014), popular ised by Craig Char les, came about or iginally when a Lancastr ian Regiment of Br itish Soldiers conducting engagements near the Pakistan border dur ing the Second Anglo-Afghan War in 1879 accidentally strayed into Pakistani Wazir istan, whereupon they soon encountered a local tr ibe. Having been put before the chief, he touched the Lieutenant- in-Charge upon the forehead and pronounced the word ?Wazzock?. Although this, in the now-extinct indigenous dialect, was believed to be an offer to sample the local goat cur ry, the word stuck. A Wazzock in action...

The other day, whilst intrepidly adventur ing into the darkest depths of Wikipedia, I was star tled to find myself looking at Sardinia. Now for years, I?ve always harboured a linger ing scepticism around Sardinia, linger ing much like the aromatically dubious fish which for me the island had always been associated with. Stemming from a traumatic formative exper ience at a Pizza Express ?Make your own Pizza? Par ty, I've since been unable to even smell them without nightmar ish Proustian flashbacks of blinding hor ror , acr id fumes and feeling quite thirsty.

So imagine my surpr ise when I find out that is actually der ived from Sardus, an old Libyan Sailor , who must have been pretty ?character ized by bitter or scornful der ision; mocking; cynical; sneer ing? (thanks Online Dictionary) because he?s also the root of the word ?sardonic? (meaning ?character ized by bitter or scornful der ision; mocking; cynical; sneer ing?, for those with lesser powers of observation), a trait I suppose I admire. So, in a similar vein, here are 4 other interesting place etymologies...

*Shudder*...

Basil: Don't hate j ust cos you were late to this rap battle

I 'm a heavyweight so let me state that don't hate You're so bate and your not my mate, j ust don't hate

Basil: But you were late, don't hate, you've handed me this battle on a plate

Mark the date, the day of my spate, you're now irate

so don't hate, don't hate, don't hate.. Bruuuuuuuvvvvv

MC Sickle Cell: I 'm gonna rap some lines with lyrical guise Man you better get wise or a man in disguise

will soon reprise and reveal your lies

We're in a brick city, and it's a bit shitty

but I 've writ this ditty, I 'll show I 'm witty

When I wore drag I was pretty

You want mean I 'm gritty

I 'm the flyest of guys, you j ust looking at flies

because you're gay

Not that there's anything wring with being gay

I mean I might try it one day

but I don't think I 'm into guys, this isn't lies

and I 'm not homophobic or nothing but I don't want to guy a good stuffin, for me its licking muffin

Basil

v s

MC Sic k l e Cel l

A rare transcript of Basil 's original bar rap battle. Now a highly sought-after collector's item, this was believed to have been scribbled down by someone actually present at the historic event.

By Guest Contributor Tom Baines

THE AUTHORS

Coda

The mist scents the desensitised, As the fog of discontent creeps

The soft splash of red velvet on plush, wine-sodden carpet, And I can no longer wait or deceive.

The time is coming. Closer. Nearer. Disparate feelings emerge from a ravenous sea, Crashing yet sailing. Laughing yet - but I can't.

Sinking, drowning, fighting the ever growing current.

The soothing, risible efforts, hauling the tattered skins of lions, I have slain

Why? If I only knew why...... And I can feel the raindrops falling gently through my thinning hair. (like

tears)

My constitution croaks slowly, rasping at its last. My very being fading away. Do I Even have Meaning?

A burst of passion. Vanity and futility are bed-mates, trapped in the seemingly inexorable peaks.

My bareness uncovered and uncouth. Corrupted in dismay.

Poetry Corner

This week?s poem comes from three of Robinson?s br ightest young Wordswor th-in-waitings, George Bar ton, Tom Baines and Jack Sibley, and tackles the difficult subject of diffident desire and dissolute decay in a disconsolate, despondent wor ld. Oh look at me, I?m star ting all over again?

An Interesting Fact

This poem was wr itten on what I recall was a par ticular ly dull first-year afternoon, as we lay, languidly, in the cafe, smoking countless opium-tinted cigarettes, while a skein of geese glided smoothly over the dappled ashen sky and the occasional gust of wind rustled the reddish-brown leaves and induced a shiver in those foolhardy travellers without a greatcoat. The idea was to each compose an individual line independent of the one above it, but with the sentiment of the or iginal line still fresh in our memory, examining the themes of chain reactions and collective exper ience.

Stop on by for the quiet discussion, stay for the pastel colours

Obituar ieswith

G. Reaper

(ie not m e)

- Tom Baines died from complications relating to a Taser injury after he refused to leave the children?s T-shir t section of Next. All our hear ts go out to his family and fr iends.

- Samuel David Carr?s life came to an unfor tunate end in the Br itish Political History Section of the Robinson College Library, at 3 AM, due to a ruptur ing of the bladder . Tragically, the ambulance was delayed due to recent NHS cutbacks. Before passing away in peace Samuel wrote on the wall in blood, ?we inher ited this mess?.

- Rohan Giblin left this wor ld after succumbing to a flesh wound sustained upon collision with the hull of a commercial fishing vessel, off the coast of Western Australia. Our thoughts are with his family at this difficult time.

- Keir Baldwin?s rotting naked corpse was found tied front-first to his bed, approximately seven months after his untimely, myster ious, demise. When asked why he hadn?t discovered the body ear lier , his roommate Michael Teal, claimed that he hadn?t recognised any discontinuities. Initial investigations into the cause of death suggest severe rectal bleeding. Famed playwr ight Thomas Folley has been taken in for questioning.

- David Hoare finally lost his battle with rabies, contracted on his mother?s bir thday, after he consumed the family?s pr ized wine reserve, snogged a rabid stray dog, and drank its ur ine. Requiescat in Pace.

Puzzle Corner

The Fabulous Fresher Wordsearch!!!

The words to find are:

Happiness

Fr iend

Relaxed

Free Afternoon

Lazy Lie- in

Fun

FresherMart ? The essential purchases you probably

can?t do without

Vomit bin ? this freshers' week must-have. This cleverly eco-centric design is not only designed to catch 96% of that nasty stain-causing post-party vomit, it will actually recycle it and convert it into original conversation-starters. £999.99

Personality Stone ? give your room some instant personality with the limited edition Personality Stone? . Wonder as visitors to your room gaze at the monolith?s towering, faceless visage! Bask in the warm glow of attention and conversation as your peers excitedly ask you about the imposing yet lustrous polished basalt face of the Personality Stone? ! Made from the famous Icelandic basalt of Naïfskoll, only £9.99. Only 5 available. Delivery considerably extra.

Kw ik -f it guide t o dining out

Much like Michael Keaton?s Beetlejuice was famously the ?ghost with the most, baby?, when it comes to fish and chips boasts, it's Coast with the most.

Awkward intros aside though, they do an excellent deal of fish and chips plus a can of dr ink in a seasick subaqueous student special for a mere £5, the true significance of which will be revealed when you stagger back from seeing their regular pr ice list.

If you like your food to be finger - lickin? good and deal exclusively in herbs and spices in multiples of 11, then for you the chips are down (Rose Crescent in McDonalds). In a nar row locus of shops you could fancifully term the ?fast food hub? of town you?ll find pr icey but perennial favour ite Gardies (The Gardenia) and cheap and tasty but somewhat anodyne McDonalds, which, incidentally, always ends up giving me the strange sensation that it?s someone else?s food in my stomach rather than my own.

For the bargain gourmet option, you could always Eat Fresh at Subway.

The somewhat character less Trailer of Life, which also has the unique advantage of being mobile, sits nearby. I?ve heard they do a very good cheesy chips, but I?ve always viewed it with a quiet, linger ing suspicion after rumours that it changed from its former name, which scholars believe has been lost forever in the annals of time immemor ial, to the cur rent one to cash in on a then-contemporary trend to refer to it and its sister van as the vans of Life and Death, respectively.

And, purely because it happens to sit in the middle of all of these, the West Cornish Pasty Company, replete with shanty-singing sea-legged salty dog captain surveying out to the hor izon from his perch on the crow?s nest, watching for the distant foreign gusts that he once surged across the seven seas on, or reminiscing quietly about some of his favour ite pasties.

NB: I've recently been informed this closed

6 months ago. But I've wr itten it, so I'll be damned if it's not going in anyway.

If you're hungry, if no-one else can help, and if you can find it, you can go to the Baked Potato van. They once made me one with peking duck and pickle, and if that?s not wor th £1.50, I don?t know what is anymore.

on t he Dow n-Low is What you should hate this week...

Heey Guys,

As many of you may know, we recently had a fantastic campaign to get better , healthier and tastier food for the café and, I?m glad to say, it has worked! We now have a br illiant range of beneficial and delicious paninis, yoghur ts, sushi and of course yoghur t-coated ginger for those blissful breaks in between the tough studying we all get up to in the library. Sadly though, there is so much more that needs to be done to make college a fr iendlier and more inclusive place for everyone! So if you could please all email college with requests for the following, it would be so great as the more of us who do, the more likely they are to change the cur rent status quo:

Gluten-free Paninis

It would be so great if everyone could really campaign hard for this. Nutr itionists have shown that gluten makes you sluggish, tired and less efficient at working dur ing those long sessions in the library! So don?t worry if you?re not allergic to gluten, as it?s still a super tasty and delicious treat that everyone can enjoy healthily! Especially when you?re taking a break from a long session in the library!

More Protozoan Food

We did a really great job with the veggie paninis guys, and it was really really great to see everyone suppor t those of us who choose not to eat meat, while getting a much better selection anyways. Sadly, there are quite a few people who have come to me and said that despite the increased choice of vegetar ian panini, there is still sadly a really small choice for protozoan food in the café. For those of you who haven?t heard of it, Protozoan food is food which comes from the protozoan kingdom of the taxonomic tree, and is a super great alternative to the hegemonies of the animal, plant and fungus kingdoms that have so long monopolised the food market. So don?t be scared to email college today, it makes a super tasty and really light snack. Plus, nutr itionists have been publishing papers for years about the benefits of ingesting malar ia and sleeping sickness orally as a really great way of combating lethargy, which is a real problem for some people, and means that working is even tougher and they have to take even more well-earned study breaks.

Pigeon holes

I was just taking a break from the library the other day to go and check my pigeon-hole and maybe anonymously send myself another fr iendship haiku when I noticed for the first time how awful and backwards and just kind of uncool the pigeon hole system is. It?s so needlessly divisive, and it engenders inherent differences between people around college. I just think it?ll be so cool and groovy if we all just had one big pigeon hole, where everything could go, and where it wouldn?t be so binary and prescr iptive as to the name of your parents or legally representative guardian or whatever society dictated your natally-assigned signpost-prefix should be.

Do you ever wonder at how it all came to this, and bemoan the cynical, soulless shadow of a person you see star ing blankly back through unblinking, uncar ing eyes at you from the mir ror? Do you occasionally catch a glimpse of an old, worn childhood toy, a forgotten relic of a time when you remembered how to be happy, and silently weep for a time when it wasn?t going to be like this, and when the chasm between your dreams and expectations and those of everyone else wasn?t creaking shut at such an inevitable, inexorable rate in the face of your own tragic indifference?

While the answer to these is obviously yes, it serves to prove a point. Camus wrote that to accept our place in the modern wor ld, ?One must believe that Sisyphus was happy?.

But we at the Br ick think that we might have found a solution, the spark your own Sisyphean existence desperately needs?

Robinson College's Top ToiletsNothing sums up the monotonous malaise of modern life more than being monogamously marr ied to one lavatoire. So here are some alternatives:

5. Star ting off our list today is the bop-room toilets. While they rarely see student action outside Fr iday nights, and as I?m sure the Bin Brook cycle shed faithful know, on many a last minute pitstop on the dash to a lecture, they do seem to be the repository of choice for our fine staff populace. Somewhat out of the way, they offer a more secluded environment away from the hubbub that often pervades your oasis of calm nearer the crux of the cour tyard. That being said, it often feels as though a cer tain chill descends when I?m there, a haughty, ster ile feel, almost as though you?re a visitor rather than a guest.

4. The Computer Room Toilets This toilet is a tr icky customer . Unfor tunately wrenched from his mother?s bosom at the Armitage Shanks Showroom and deposited high in the swir ling tur rets of college, he?s gradually receded from college life to become nothing more than a sullen, secluded alcove on your r ight as you pant, punctually, towards the teaching rooms. That said, I can sympathise with this toilet, and even respect it. While not being outwardly welcoming and hospitable, a grudging bond of respect has formed between this toilet and anyone who?s ever spent an extended per iod of time in the computer room. I can?t imagine Atlas was welcoming either?

3. Dining Hall Toilets Located at the end of a labyr inthine passageway, this toilet gains as many marks for staying culturally relevant as it loses for sheer distance from its intended users. You can marvel at several of college?s fine Matisse pr ints, and linger a while at the str iking watercolours that dot the route. That said, you can never really form a bond with this toilet. Like the cool fr iend who sometimes drops by at your par ty, you can like it, but never love it.

2. Linnett Room

Ideally nestled between the Linnett Room and the Chapel, offers an unspoilt moment of solitude amidst the hustle and bustle of college life. The hand-dryer is also ter r ifically power ful. Unfor tunately, he can be a bit bor ing in his bland quietness. Nothing to dislike at all, but none of those sparks that make relationships so exciting.

1. Under the Library

Topping our list are the library toilets. When I first ventured down, in a stupor following an entirely self- inflicted 3am library session, my initial reaction to the menacing hum of the air -con, the sharp shadows sprawled over the tiles and the clockwork dr ipping sound of what I hope was water , my initial reaction was that ?I could die here tonight.? But now, almost two years later , I?m saying the same thing but with a different meaning. Unassuming, humble and polite, he?s aware he?s in a niche but will never exploit that, with his unfailing tidiness and relaxed atmosphere a paragon to all.