22nd October 2007

The Back Page
Finally
Budget Meeting ‘07 to be settled with good, old-fashioned arm wrestle?
Boats are important!
No! We need that
money for paint!
Monday
22.10.07
Vol. 2 No. 3
TheBrick
The best in Robinson College newsletters
Robinson in crisis
Burglaries and scandal hit college.
Hole appears in Adams Road- TheBrick looks into it.
Sam Goff
Concerned citizen
The Last Word
Desperately filling back page space
On a final note, it would be morally amiss of The Brick not to make the freshers amongst
our readership aware of one of the great Robinson institutions. This man’s name is Jacob
Bard-Rosenberg. Everyone in college knows who he is. Find him on Facebook or something.
It is hard to sum up The Bard’s ‘appeal’. His brand of offensive Jewish Marxism
coupled with a complete lack of pesonal hygiene and the fact he wore the same mangy
fleece for a year meant that he could be hard to handle. He pretty much pissed off everyone
ever, culminating in being fined hundreds of pounds by college for organising a pool party
in the sick Warden’s back garden last May Week.
He never managed to impose a Socialist utopia onto the streets of Cambridge,
although he did once spray the Model UN with silly string, which is pretty revolutionary.
He will be missed. Kinda.
The Bard
Robinson is in a ‘state of emergency’ following a week of burglaries,
scandal and structural weakness.
No sooner had ex-policeman
Head Porter Colin Barnes abandoned his post for a family holiday
in Ibiza (we were surprised too) than
a series of laptop burglaries hit Adams Road. Questions of security
were immediately raised, with some
students wondering whether the college’s CCTV system wwould be able
to spot a thief with the foresight to
paint themselves a brickish red colour.
This was not the only problem
in a turbulent couple of days. In what
is now being described (possibly) by
commentators as ‘Sanitary TowelGate’, a scandal erupted surrounding
senstives issues of female hygiene and
what can only be described as College’s ‘flippant disregard’ towards its
non-male population. A heroic combination of Welfare, Women’s and
Catering & Ammenities Officers
fought back and secured bathroom
bins for affected students; although
some fear the damage has already
been done.
The sense of unease that these
events created amongst Binsonites
(one anonymous individual described the mood as “like being back
in ‘Nam”) was compounded by the
appearances of holes in walls surrounding our previously impenetrable bricky fortress. The Brick looked
into this but found only a cheap play
on words.
What’s more, a Brick survey revealed conclusive evidence that A and
B staircases are sinking into our idyllic gardens. “The wisdom of building a big heavy building on a marsh
when you have a miserly budget,”
commented my 4 yeaar old niece, “is
highly suspect”.
With rumours already circulating of which RCSA members have
their eyes on the Presidency prize,
the challenges facing whoever eventually wins have never been more
pressing (if you take this article seriously, which you definitely shouldn’t.
Apart from the burglary bit; that is
serious).
Robinson College- Paradise lost?
Facebook Page 2 | Gary Page 6 | Brickhouse Page 7
2 | TheBrick | Monday 22 October 2007
Monday 22 October 2007 | TheBrick |
The Culture Corner
Hooked on the ‘Book
Sam Goff
is writing this article
It might be seen as very cheap
to write an article purely about Facebook. The website has become so
popular that it’s already a quick source
of comedic inspiration for the lazy; I
went to a Footlights Smoker last year
and half the jokes were about photo
ptagging and profile stalking.
I don’t think it is cheap, though.
The fact is that Facebook has become
so popular that it has started to govern the lives of Cambridge students.
For instance, I never know it’s a
friend’s birthday without that little
reminder thing on my homepage.
And how else am I going to find out
that my friend at Girton has broken
up with her boyfriend? By talking to
her in person? Unlikely!
Another example is the new
phenomenom that is the Freshers’
College-Specific Facebook Group.
This slightly creepy and definitely excessively keen institution means that
freshers already know each other and
everything about college before they
arrive, thus effectively getting rid of
the need for Freshers’ Week, or indeed any kind of genuine social interaction.
That’s not to say that Facebook
can’t be beneficial. Where else could
you find such a repository of hilarious drunken remarks as the ‘Favourite Quotes’ section? Here are some
Binson ‘classics’, collated for your
leisure:
“If I were a girl, I’d be all over
Yusef, and Christodoulos Christodoulou...and Hodge.”
(Matija Kecman)
“fuck the fucking fuckhead
bouncer fucking off.... fuckinghell...
[does the ‘fuck off’ dance] and fucking zane lowe as well... fucking shit
fucker... didn’t fucking notice him
come on... fucking shit... and the
fucking bouncer... he fucking threw
me out... fucker... and zane lowe was
fucking shit as well.... where the fuck
am I?”
(Carlianne White)
Getting all theatrical
“This year i have decided to be
straight”
(Simon Langmead)
“I’m nobody’s bum boy”
(Simon Bateman)
And so on and so on. The point
is that Facebook is here to stay and
despite its ability to utterly ruin
your social/love life, it is also dead
cool and there is nothing sexier than
a well-positioned webcam shot in
black and white to show how arty
and vulnerable you are to all the susceptible fresher girls.
A nerd. Probably loves Facebook
Obscure clubs go unnoticed
An anti-apology
College societies- does anyone care?
Sam Goff
Alternative Music Society
President
A Brick probe has found that
many Robinson based clubs and
sports teams are unknown to the majority of the student populace.
Robinson boasts a large range of
student groups but most are too obscure or boring to have any impact
on college life, according to the investigation.
For instance, did you know that
Cambridge drama ‘quite good’
Lis Wood
Brickhouse President gets excited
by the prospect of lots of plays
Drama in Cambridge has never
been more hectic – there are in excess of 20 shows on this term, full of
thesps not doing any work (mostly
English students I’m afraid). The
ADC has the usual Michaelmas delights, the Freshers’ shows looking
‘interesting’ and ‘challenging’ (as
they did last year) promise to be anything but conservative. Promise. Although if you’re interested in design
give ‘The Visit’ a visit as the set is going to be amazing, and will be well
worth going to gaze upon. Closer to
home, Brickhouse has two cultural
delights for you this term – THINK
PINK (for Breast Cancer not LBGT
awareness) a comedy revue featuring
some of the newest talents outside of
Robinson, compeered by Brandon
Green – in Pink. Hopefully. If I can
find a Pink suit in anything other
than a size small by Friday. Brickwriting creative duo Sam and James
will also be entertaining you there,
the only reason I’m not entertaining
you now. There’s a Bop afterwards not that a Bop really deservers a place
in this cultural corner – but it is for a
good cause. We also have the promised PANTO (very cultural) which is
already buzzing behind college bricks
(walls do have ears). Robinson Hood
may not yet have a script but it is sure
to be brilliant because how could anything that features past and present
members of the RCSA in green tight
tight tights be anything but. I’m actually really looking forward to this,
its going to be so much fun! Christmas spirit is the best part of Michaelmas drama, and yes I know it’s only
October, but apart from catching a
bit of Alcock Improv and maybe the
Devised thing in Week 7 (Everyday
Fairytales) Robinson Hood is the
only theatre I’ll be going to see this
term… Anyone want a date to the
Arts Picturehouse?
LIS ALSO OFFERED US HER EXPERT GUIDE TO CAMBRIDGE THEATRE THIS MICHAELMAS.
FEAST YOUR PEEPERS ON THIS!
Brick ‘too prude’
According to arch-eyebrowed Senior
Tutor Liz Guild, last Easter Term’s
edition of The Brick was ‘rather
tame’. We would like to apologise
for this slip in standards and assure
our readers that this was not intentional. Feel free to email us and we’ll
call you a twat.
To further rectify the situation, here
is a lovely joke:
‘How do you crucify a spastic? With
a swastika’.
Kisses.
7
we had a Chess Club? A Croquet
Team? An Economics Society? Now
that you do know, do you care?
Experts have suggested that the
proliferation of pointless clubs is due
to students’ need to feel ‘involved’ in
college life and a desire to be President of something. But since only the
RCSA and the most jockish of sports
teams (football and that) can afford
real stash, most won’t even have a
Deloitte-sponsered hoody as memorabilia of their halycon days as CheeseSoc Treasurer. Boo hoo.
THINK PINK - why on earth wouldn’t you go to this? Do you like breast cancer or something?
NINETEEN EIGHTY FOUR - show all your friends how edgy you are with this easy to follow dystopia-for-dummies adaption at the ADC.
THE VISIT - Robinson’s very own Nat Ferris is designing this so it’s gonna look really nice! Apparently.
EVERYDAY FAIRYTALES - devised. Therefore either brilliant or shit.
A DOLL’S HOUSE - bleak European miserablism about how life is hard and stuff. There’s a launch
party at Kambar with free cakes (!)
ROBINSON HOOD - Motty in tights (theoretically).
(finally, a cheeky plug from those Brickhouse types)
Fancy penning a scene in ROBINSON HOOD ‘Binson’s very own pantomime?
No experience necessary, really none at all, and all
styles welcome from the lyrical to satirical. This is
your chance to get involved in the show of the term,
and why not give it a go - whether you’re used to
writing films, songs, essays or none of the above.
After all, it will be Xmas (at least in Cambridge...)
If your interested then get in touch at eaw46@cam.
ac.uk.
6 | TheBrick | Monday 22 October 2007
Monday 22 October 2007 | TheBrick |
TheBrick Media
TheBrick Investigates
Huq You.
No one likes us,
we don’t care
Our fingers on the pulse of the wider world
James Coleman
Loves Asian girls
Everyone loves trivia
Blue Peter star and former Binsonite Konnie Huq has sensationally snubbed
the Brick in an unprecedented display of media snobbery.
Huq, who read Economics at Robinson before being snapped up by the
BBC, was asked to feature in this edition of in The Brick in recognition of
the major role which Robinson, and in a way every one of us, has had in her
meteoric rise to global fame and recognition. What we said:
Hello! My name is Sam Goff and I’m co-editor of The Brick, an independent publication
which is responsible for printing the news for Robinson College, Cambridge; the very
same Robinson College (Cambridge) which you went to! We are having a bit of a slow
news term at the moment, so we were wondering if we could conduct a short interview
with you, which should hopefully fill up about ¾ of a page. We love Blue Peter!
The callous reply:
Thank you for getting in touch with Blue
Peter.
This auto response is just to let you
know that we’ve received your email or
competition entry.
If your email was just to keep in touch,
then thank you. It’s always good to hear
from you.
Huq: incommunicado
For obvious reasons The Brick was shocked to receive such a reply, and
surely this will only further recent speculation that ‘Hollywood Huq’ has
been corrupted by her fame and champagne lifestyle.
We considered attempting to contact fellow Binson graduate Robert Webb,
however those PC/Mac adverts put us right off.
Everyone loves this bundle of porterly love, who is always willing to dispense
his home-spun philosophies on all kinds of quandaries. Here we collate the
best of this cuddly old bear so that younger generations may learn from him
in turn.
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James Coleman
Loves bricks
Robinson isn’t the best college in Cambridge. This long suspected fact was recently confirmed in a Varsity survey
asking which college other than their own students would like to be at, with Kings(?) scooping the top prize. What
has really shocked Binsonite spectators, however, has been our brick-built-bastion’s failure to break into the top ten.
Based on the evidence perhaps we should be worried. Just glance over the list of other things which have failed to
make recent top tens (below), and the reality of Robinson being grouped with such filth sinks in.
Miami Vice for some reason this
War And Peace The
film failed to make the 10 ten highest
grossing fims last year. Probably because it was shit. And Colin Farrell is in
it. And he is shit.
BBC’s Big Read didn’t rate it;
neither do we. Too long.
Middlesbrough (the city) ac-
cording to location location location
this is the worst place to like in the UK.
‘Smog, crime, binge drinking’. Don’t
shoot the messenger.
U2 for some reason po faced c**t
Bono and his twatty band of leprechauns didn’t make it into Rolling
Stone’s top 10 artists of all time. Probably too busy saving Africa. Because
they’re all having such a laugh out
there now. Idiot.
The worldy wisdom of Gary Swann
t
3
Middlesbrough
FC
this team failed to make the
Premirership top 10 last year,
which isn’t surprising. Two
words: Jeremy Aliadieire. They
make me sick.
So what is so bad about Robinson? What have we done wrong? One observant individual from Jesus College noted
‘there are a lot of bricks’. Yes, genius, there are a lot of bricks, but is this a problem? One glance at the story of the
Three Little Pigs will quickly reveal the wisdom in brick as a building material, and surely it is no coincidence that
there have been NO wolf attacks within the walls of Robinson in its 30(ish) year history.
James Howat enjoys a bit of
Gary before bed
Of course things could be worse. The Varsity survey also named and shamed
the colleges with no votes, which included nearby Newnham and the dour
grey prison that is Churchill. Well of course we’re better than those colleges,
but is that enough? Probably yes.
News In Brief
Page 5
Konnie Huq
Page 6
4 | TheBrick | Monday 22 October 2007
Monday 22 October 2007 | TheBrick |
Comment & Opinion
Dean Machine
Sam Goff
Keen for the Dean
Sex, drugs, violence and pool parties. Towards the end of last year
Robinson was looking less like a
Cambridge college and more like a
Bangkok brothel (with pool parties).
Something had to be done, and the
big wigs have brought in just the
woman for the job. As of Michelmas
term 07 Robinson College now has a
Dean, to instil fear and discipline in
equal measure, and root out the bad
eggs in this academic omelette.
But what do we know of this Dean?
The Brick, as ever a beacon for the
edification of Binsonites, took it
upon itself to investigate.
We left no stone unturned,
bothering a variety of sources, from
the top brass (Guild and that) down
to the postman who delivers the mail
to Robinson. The Dean’s name is Dr.
Melinda Duer. She loves Chemistry.
She self defines as ‘principally concerned with nuclear magnetic resonance in the solid state’. But don’t
worry- she’s still got plenty of time for
discipline. Those who have already
met her could only mutter incoherently about the ordeal, although the
Ents Officer in question is more often than not in such a state.
How this new development
in the policing of college will affect
our lives is not yet certain. For instance, will Colin Barnes now get all
jealous about this new disciplinary
force? Probably.
Leading Article Gay Watch
The future of Robinson?
Tough week for Access duo
Sam Goff
State school and proud
It was a torrid week for the Robinson
Access team, Anna ‘suspension’ Brydges and ‘juicy’ Lucy Clements, as
gross inebriation, vomiting and urination thratened their entire operation.
Brydges’ misfortune was
entirely self-inflicted. After having
groped both of your beloved Brick
Editors and pursued them at speed
around the nearby stairwells, Brydges
proceeded to overindulge in a most
un-ladylike fashion and had to be forcibly removed from the Dress As A
Staircase (or something) bop following some stomach pyrotechnics of the
most disgusting variety. She was carried home, still muttering something
about ‘loving Matija Kecman’ and is
said to be ‘remorseless’.
Meanwhile, Clements was
herself an innocent victim; of the rudest of awakenings. Following a drunken quarrel with hunky boyfriend John
Manning, she fell asleep in the safety
of her room and thought nothing
more of it. However, she woke in the
small hours and knew straight away
that something was amiss. Manning
was in mid-flow; the reprobate had
decided to force home his point by
unleashing a yellow stream all over her
bedroom floor and clothes. The piss
artist seemed unaware that what he
was doing could be viewed as morally
reprehensible; Clements disagreed.
Do these sordid events say
something about the state of Access in
Cambridge? Is the cause so hopeless
that Access Officers give up all hope
and lead depraved lives of scandal?
5
Something needs to be done.
These are the people responsible for
defending us against a horde of suitwearing, cane-twirling Eton nonces.
I, for one, am afraid.
Some kind of monster
Welcome to the first Brick of the
new year, and the last with Matija
and Sam as editors. Thank you for
having us. Comments/queries/complaints/adoration on a postcard.
By now freshers have presumably settled down into ‘Cambridge
life’ (whatever that is). This idea of
a Cantabridgian lifestyle can be a
dangerous one. It is true that we
work harder than most (as freshers
are starting to realise for themselves),
and that if you look for it you can
find a level of idiosyncratic semi-decadence that would be out of place almost anywhere else. This is all harmless, but there is also a disturbingly
prevalent ‘cult of Cambridge’ that
actively relishes in formal swaps and
Cindies, which is just plain sad. Why
do people need to cling to an ‘only
in Cambridge’ mentality? Are you really that proud of all your pennying
and drunken conversations about
morality and postmodernism stolen
straight from Wikipedia? Just accept
the fact that Cambridge is NOT cool
and you might end up having a good
time without having to try so hard.
Here is an excellent quote I
found on Facebook which I think
concludes this column rather well (so
I don’t have to think of something
witty myself ); ‘any time anyone says
the words “Only in Cambridge”, they
really mean “Gosh. Look how intelligent and great we all are- and yet
we sometimes still involve ourselves
in the menial activities of the working man! How bizarre. Bravo!”’.
Lots of love,
Sam & Matt.
The Brick is produced in Robinson
College and is an independent student publication.mk527@cam.ac.uk,
sg466@cam.ac.uk
Your LGBT rep
Tom Reekie
Pretty useless
It’s my birthday and I’m watching Spiderman 3 right now, so I apologise in advance for the poor quality
and coherence of this article. As chief
gay it is my job to mother everyone
and fret about like a big chicken.
So I thought it might be a good
time to let the freshers know what
they’re in for, and remind the rest of
us what we have to look forward to.
Three weeks into Michaelmas,
you may be getting to know a little more about your fellow freshers
apart from their name, what they
study and where they are from.
And whether they’re gay. As scintillating as those early conversations
were, they are soon to be replaced
with equally interesting discussions
on just how much work studying at
Cambridge involves. The sad irony
is that this is the most fun you’ll
have here. Unless you come to one
of my super fun gay surgeries. lol.
On to Lent term, where you’ll
have made some friends and finally got used to your weekly work/
play ratio. Everything seems rosy
and entirely manageable until...
Easter. Exams. You’ll witness
the beautiful phenomenon that occurs only when you put 400 people
(who all have tremendous ego about
their academic performance, even if
they pretend they don’t) in an isolated environment made of brick
and create a quiet period to foster an
atmosphere of intense productivity.
People will give up sleep, showering,
and public appearance, as they drive
each other to study as much as is humanly possible without exploding.
But don’t worry about that now.
Let’s hope for some Ally MacBeal marathons and a roller disco before then xx
And, yes, I’m spending my
birthday watching Spiderman 3.
News In Brief
Snippets of newsy goodness.
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again open 24 hours. Hooray. Brandon won’t have to go home in the holidays
anymore.
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The ‘Robinson Ravers’ (because everyone loves alliteration) have apparently
gained access to the roof somewhere along Herschel Court and are indulging
their love for glowsticks and naff dancing to the full. No one from this shadowy organisation was available for comment, perhaps unsurprisingly.
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dead in Portugal.