TheCheeseGrater The Other Student Magazine of University College London Union
Freshers’ Fayre Issue September 2008
!
THIS MONTH
Paedos vs hoodies
LONDON’S CALLING... Cripes! These aren’t the kind of fare cuts I had in mind...
Which one would you hug? p.2
Stabigami!
Recreate your favourite historical stabbings! p.2
A Guide to Your Union Machiavelli would be proud! p.3
Ye Olde Lundynn Town Boris’ pick of the Big Smoke. p.4
Student Cooking
Feed your family for 5p! p.4
...you a prick on the night bus. What you gonna do about it?
Grab a shank and get merking says Freshers’ 2005 veteran, Tenninch Blade. Attention Fresher! Check carefully. You may have just been stabbed. Early warnings of this are usually intense pain and some bleeding. Think nothing of it. This is LondON. This is how we ‘roll’. It’s called diversity. Think carefully about approaching the next ethnic minority you meet. They are more than likely to be armed. Fashion a temporary stab-proof vest out of unwanted Oxbridge prospectuses and keep walking through the Fayre. Deep breaths. Count to five. This is LondON. You now have a genuine multi-racial
experience to add to your CV. Mutter something youthful like ‘bad times’ or ‘tap that’. This is their patois. It is now yours. Tell them you know who Dizzee Ras-
“Sebastian Coe does it with his kids.” cal is. The city breathes new life into you. This is LondON. Knife crime is now at an all time high, so don’t get left behind. Join in! Sebastian Coe does it with his kids. Ask the fencing team for directions; it’s knife crime for the rich. Ask an OTC officer where
the best entry point for severing the oesophagus is on the body. No blade handy at present? Then simply follow the simple instructions inside this magazine, and hey presto…papercuts! Since 7/7 public transport has become increasingly unsafe. Keep Al-Qaeda at bay with a Kitchen Devil gaffer-taped to your inner calf. The bendy bus is your Colliseum, your Thunderdome. This is LondON. Remember, we ‘shank’ north of the river, and ‘merk’ down south. Forgetting this may cause some confusion. Brixton is an up and coming area for show-
ing off your new blade. It also has an excellent A&E department. Top-up your Oyster and find yourself a hotspot. With the Olympics on the horizon, what better way to get into shape than a light afternoon’s chase around a Hackney tower block fending off crack dealers? Boris does it with his wife. Knife crime etiquette is simple – stab or be stabbed. And machetes are definitely not cool. This is LondON. You and your city are now one. Exit the cloisters. Try not to get hurt.
2 TheCheeseGrater Freshers’ Fayre Issue September 2008
Forget sudoku. Throw out your marbles. There’s a new craze in the playground...
Kiddy Fiddlers On The Hoof!
Our nation’s paedophiles have become the latest victims of ‘Broken Britain’ as they are ruthlessly chased from the headlines by gangs of armed youths. Our men lose heart if we don’t get the coverage and start resorting to quick-fix jobs which, quite frankly, leave no one satisfied”.
Christopher Harpendens There was outrage today from the paedophile community, a result of the gradual side-lining of nonce-killer related articles in favour of those concerning knife crime. When I interviewed Richard Childsbottom of the National Paedophile Association, he stated that “frankly this state of affairs is a slap in the face to all paedophiles who risk life and limb in order to give the Sun sensational headlines such as ‘drill bit paedo caged’.” He continued: “It was disgraceful how the other week; the very same newspaper shunted a perfectly good child killer article to the top left hand corner of page 22. The man wasn’t just a rapist, he was an artist”.
Dungeons
“It’s like comparing Michelangelo with Banksy”,
Unibum
An artist. Not a sexbeast. said Hilary Cox of Barking, Essex, “Stabbing someone to death takes five minutes. Paedophiles work for several months, building dungeons, soundproofing vans, observing the school run. It’s a dying art but names like Ian Huntley will never be forgotten.
Paedophiles of all political complexions have presented a united front regarding the issue. Particularly keen to voice opinions were the underground Neo-Nazi paedophile group Nonce Storm, who claimed in a press release that “it’s those fucking knife throwing golliwogs, coming over here and taking our headlines;” and Dick Balls, the leader of the paedophile Trade Union Unibum who stated: “It’s the thin end of the wedge, if you know what I mean (nudge, nudge, wink, wink)” as we finished up, before asking me whether I had any children. I replied that I didn’t, and that I was sterile.
A Touch of Class
The Cheese Grater presents an exclusive extract from “Unicycle: Surviving the Ups and Downs of Student Life”, fresh from the quivering quill of hotly tipped young author Claude McNab. (History, 2008)
S
INCE YOU’RE at UCL, statistically speaking, you’re probably white and middle class (unless you study science). As such you’ll find it easy to interact socially with most of the people you meet. However, you may be scandalized to discover that many of the people who work in the university, and even some of the ones who study here, are not like you. Nervous? Hold your horses (possibly literally)! You really have nothing to worry
about as talking to your social inferiors is easy with my handy guide to twenty-first century class warfare. The golden rule is to relax, just like your Father used to when he talked to the plumber. Remember the class system cuts both ways, so the commoner before you is just as scared of you as you are of his pitbull. You will find these encounters to be much less daunting if you simply ‘learn the lingo’, as it were. Taking just a few moments to commit some new vocabulary to memory can do wonders. “Mate” for example, is nothing less than the secret handshake of the working class. It lets them know you’re one of them. Use it to prefix and suffix
every sentence, if not word, and you’ll soon be gabbing away like a regular diamond geezer in the rough and tumble. Indeed, a little bit of study will always improve one’s efforts to conduct oneself in a manner fitting to one’s station. After all, it’s called a class system for a reason! So make sure you understand the subtle gradations of status that make you, and them, what you are. Cogito ergo scum. Finally, for goodness sake keep it bloody simple. Foreigners are an endless headache and hard to place within the English social strata. If in doubt, ignore them until they betray evidence of their true lineage. As they say, the yacht will out! Continued sporadically...
Contributors: Scary Boots, Sam Steddy, Claude McNab, Christina Ravinet, Gareth Spencer, Jenni Hulse, Alex McKenna.
TheCheeseGrater Freshers’ Fayre Issue September 2008 3
UCLU “England’s oldest student union!” Based on Keynes’ political sandwich model as dictated from his deathbed 1946 Also Leeds University Union constitution, circa 1973*
Oh and the part-tim e
exec...
Shitloads of Pointless Committees
*For a somewhat less comprehensive guide to the democratic structure of your Union, see www.uclunion.org
4 TheCheeseGrater Freshers’ Fayre Issue September 2008
Like what you see? Know any good jokes? Think this is shit? The Cheese Grater is UCL’s only editorially independent student
publication. We love what we do and apparently so do others since we’ve won the UCL Union Student Publication of the Year for the last three years. If you’re interested in satire, cartoons or hard hitting investigative journalism come to our Freshers’ meeting!
Tuesday 30th September, 6pm Room 216, Foster Court Opposite the DMS Watson Science Library
HEATH LEDGER HALLS S H O R E D T I C H “Perfect for giving weight to your delusions of living in a multi-fucking-cultural Utopia.” - Designed in constant consultation with Alexis Petridis. - Guaranteed quota of ethnic minorities.
Rent only £155 p/week!*
Don’t know where that is? Meet at 5.45pm on Gordon Street, outside the Bloomsbury Theatre.
GENERIC PASTA AND SAUCE ◊
1l water 500g pasta 1 jar pasta sauce Boil kettle (of water). Add pasta to kettle and simmer for 15 mins by turning kettle on and off. Drain when al dente! Add sauce to kettle and swill. Voila! Or va fanculo! As those greasy Italians would say. Next week: Sunday roast in a toastie maker
Free curtains with every room!
*Plus a weekly £44 ‘East London Proximity Fee’ for simulating a knife crime or tramp rape in the street outside to ensure the continued veracity of your gritty London reality. Rooms available NOW! Building due for completion in 2013.
UCL Union Cheese Grater Magazine Society www.cheesegratermagazine.uclu.org Student Publication of the Year - UCL Union Arts Awards 2006, 2007, 2008 President and Editor: Jenni Hulse Treasurer: Alex McKenna E-mail : cheese_grater_magazine_society@ucl.ac.uk Humour Desk: ascheesegrater@gmail.com UCL Union Cheese Grater Magazine Society, UCL Union, 25 Gordon Street, London WC1H 0AY The views expressed herein are not necessarily those of UCL Union or the editor.