None for the road?

Emily-Rose Rolfe, Lifestyle Editor, has never touched a drop of alcohol. Well, that’s not true, but she is at least mostly dry for January.

Image credits: brosner

The topic of drinking at University is documented time and time again in student media. It barely needs to be said that the most frequently noted stereotype of students is our hedonistic drinking culture. Do we drink too much? Is it necessary to drink at University to have fun? What will everyone think about my relationship with alcohol? Frankly, it doesn’t matter whether you drink or don’t drink. It’s whether or not you are enjoying your time at university: plenty of people get lashed under the weight of expectation, whilst many drink for the pleasure of being intoxicated. It’s not for anyone else to make a judgement on how much you should be drinking: the only person who should be ordering the shots is you. I am merely writing to give an account of my experiences of being a sober student.

Sobriety is not what students are notorious for, our reputation is intrinsically linked to the amount of alcohol we consume on an almost daily basis and how many scrapes we get into because of this. Binging is what students gear themselves up for in the summer leading up to Freshers’ Week, and we stampede through all succeeding nights out terrified that we will never see a drop of alcohol again when the sun sets on our university days. Excessive consumption of booze is what almost every anecdote arises from and what every student signs up for when they press ‘send’ on their UCAS application. However, there are students who stay sober throughout their university days. This is not to say being sober is being teetotal, Jesus was sober whilst still enjoying a nice glass of wine.

In first year I was stone cold sober throughout: I can count on one hand the amount of alcoholic beverages I drank. Your instant assumption after reading that sentence is that I spent every night sitting in my room watching Friends, eating lots of McVities, and fulfilling every sweet-as-sugar girly stereotype in the book. Whilst I freely admit I did spend evenings enjoying the comforts of a cup of tea, I was not a prude, and neither were the friends around me who lived the same lifestyle. Just because you don’t drink when you go out, doesn’t mean you don’t have fun. Monday Mosaic was teeming with acquaintances and awkward encounters;  I didn’t notice Arena’s cheesy Tuesday stench; Timepiece was absolutely mental; Rococos was raving; and I immersed myself in the disco vibes of the Lemmy. Just because I didn’t drink doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy fresher.

In third year, I have started drinking. I don’t know what happened over summer, but all of a sudden I seem to have caught the craze. I had a better time when I didn’t drink. I bounced off everyone surrounding me rather than being incredibly selfish. I never annoyed people when I was sober, whereas now I have accounts of taking up too much space on the dancefloor and saying incredibly stupid things. I was there to have DDMCs (Drunk Deep Meaningful Chats) with as well as to energetically run around with. I remembered my nights, and other people’s. I spent less money when I drank water not wine. And, being narcissistic, it was nice to not be a member of the pack and to stand out from the crowd. It was a stimulus for engaging conversations, something to define you amidst the furor of fresher confusion and identity crises. Personally I prefer drinking a maximum of three drinks a night, it keeps a buzz without stinging the night to death, and it also keeps your dignity and your liver healthy.

Is there peer pressure to drink at university? Of course there is. But if you don’t want to drink at initiations AU societies won’t make you, they’ll give you nasty concoctions of ketchup, peanut butter, egg yolk, milk, and brown sauce, but as long as you aren’t a bad sport and refuse to down it they won’t penalise you. I know a few prominent members of AU clubs who don’t drink but are not seen as any less macho or more boring because of this difference in lifestyle. Most people simply ask ‘why don’t you drink?’ in the same tone of voice as ‘I didn’t realise that pigs flew’, and they respectfully listened to my response. You might be called a shlad in Arena when you ask for tap water, but if anyone was judging whether or not they were having more fun than me, it didn’t impact on my hype. It’s easier said than downed, but if your place within your friendship group is based on the frequency of your chunders then I would swiftly either put them in their place or find more interesting friends.

The primary reason for me not getting trashed is because I’m a Christian. Specifically looking at the topic of drinking, probably the most relevant characteristic of the Christian life is balance: on not living excessively in any area of life. It is following the life of Jesus, who as we all know from Sunday school enjoyed a glass of wine, without downing it. He didn’t abstain, but neither did he encourage intoxication. Christians at Exeter University, despite occasional typecasting, do not live as monks do. They enjoy sobriety whilst sitting in a pub, party with and without drinking, have a huge variety of friends and are active members of many societies on campus. Christianity is not about abstention, but equilibrium. It’s also not being judgemental: I don’t walk into a club and sneer at the amount of antics and affection. I wouldn’t rebuke someone for stumbling home, it may not be my way of life but neither is it my place to reprimand.

You may think you’re a better person when you’re inebriated, but I have never met someone who is better drunk than sober. Ever. I just find that drinking doesn’t improve you: it can result in feelings of regret, embarrassment and irritation that you’ve wasted the rest of the day, and guilt if you’ve drunkenly confronted a good friend about a non-problem. Past the point of no return I can’t understand most of what you’re saying or where you’re going. You’re still great, and I don’t really care, but you’re objectively better company over a coffee or a casual pint.

Despite our frequent moaning that we are all incredibly poor, lavish amounts of money are spent in bars and clubs across Exeter. Financially, drinking just doesn’t make logical sense: we live on a budget yet knock back pounds like they’re pennies. It is also bad for your body: there are seven calories per gram of wine, almost as much as pure fat. The health-freak mindset of gym bunny Exeter is completely at odds with the spoonfuls of indigestible sugar mindlessly devoured each night. Nonetheless, you are paying £3,000 / £9,000 for tuition fees, and we all applied to Exeter for the student experience; not just to join the Library Society. Any pounds that leave your purse or go on your hips on a night out will probably not be regretted by future you. It is still something to bear in mind though.

Choosing the sober student life isn’t inferior to boozy days and nights, and vice versa. University is about enjoying yourself to your full capacity, and finding what you’re made of before entering the scary realms of ‘the rest of your life’. Whether you choose Dry January or a liquid lunch, your pint glass is always half full at uni.

Emily-Rose Rolfe, Lifestyle Editor

Football: The Cash Cow

Image credits: domfell

Are we losing the love of the game? Is football becoming simply a business? Owen Keating, News Editor, discusses more…

Football is losing its soul. While an outsider may see a sport in rude health – with ever-increasing amounts of money being poured into the game through transfer fees, sponsorship deals, and ticket prices selling seats in huge stadia – those inside the game, especially those who support teams across the whole of the footballing pyramid, are seeing the other side of the extremely profitable coin. In 2014, football fans are not only regularly being priced out of watching their team in the flesh, but, increasingly, even from being able to watch their side without an expensive television subscription. The sport of the people is increasingly being taken away from them.

As if exclusion from the sport as a whole wasn’t enough, some supporters are being excluded and marginalised from the running of clubs that have sustained local communities for decades. The genesis of this article came following the news that Hull City owner Assem Allam has threatened to quit the club, withdrawing his financial largesse if he isn’t allowed to break 109 years of tradition by changing the club’s name to Hull Tigers. The fact that this outburst came on the day that he broke the club’s transfer fee by signing Croatian striker Nikica Jelavic for a fee of over £6.5million is especially telling: Allam believes that his financial contribution effectively voids any right that the club’s loyal supporters feel they have over helping to shape the club’s future. Until 2008, Hull was the largest city in the UK to have never had a Premier League team, and it is worth remembering that the club faced relegation from the Football League and financial meltdown as recently as 2003. In light of this, it is admittedly impossible to disregard the impact that Allam’s contribution has had on the club since his tenure began in 2010.

However, I would argue that more importantly, there wouldn’t have been a club for Allam to buy without the loyalty and determination of the Hull City fans who have been so shunned by his recent antics. While this month the ‘City ‘Til I Die’ campaign was told by Allam that they should “go away”, and that “no-one is allowed to question [his] decisions”, they are a key part of the nucleus that kept the club alive. On a visit to Hull last year (as part of a thankfully fruitful 400-mile round trip to watch my own team), I was struck by the ferocity of the city’s support for the team. If support of this quality is let down by the Football Association, who have the final say on whether to ratify Assam’s desired name change, then the new Hull Tigers badge will become an extremely powerful symbol of the prioritisation of funds over fans in the modern game.

It would be naïve to suggest that this alienation is only present in lurid headlines about the uprooting of a city’s footballing history to exploit commercial markets; fans across the country are increasingly unable to afford admission to the game they love, especially at the higher levels of the sport.  A BBC survey about the price of football has shown that season tickets in the Premier League in 2013 cost four percent more than the year before, with the most expensive season ticket at Arsenal, one of the clubs in this season’s title race, charging between £985 and £1,955 for a seat this season. Chelsea and Tottenham’s most expensive season tickets also cost more than £1,000.

Despite the increase in season ticket prices, individual ticket prices on average fell by around five percent this season, although this came after the 2011/12 season, during which prices rose by eleven percent, four times more than inflation. This, along with concern about the increasing cost of following one’s team, gave rise to the Football Supporters Federation’s (FSF) launch of the “Twenty’s Plenty” campaign, which encouraged clubs to set ticket prices for visiting supporters at a maximum of £20. This, along with demonstrations at games, including Manchester City’s decision to boycott some of their allocation at a particularly expensive away game at Arsenal, has led to some clubs partnering with one another to ensure the mutual setting of cheaper away tickets for fixtures between the two sides involved. In addition, Stoke City have set a welcome trend by offering free coach travel to every away game this season.

However, such a statement seems futile against a monolithic, megalomaniac Premier League which consistently sacrifices supporter experience to the relentless need for profit margins. As the average age of those on the terraces increases, the young fans of the game are driven away, leading some lower league clubs to run advertising campaigns telling fans that “Football isn’t a TV show”. Given that the team that finished bottom of last season’s Premier League table earned more TV prize money than the team that won it the year before, and that some top teams, who hold enormous fan bases, see nearly half of all their matches televised on pay TV, some campaigns may have a hard time convincing.

Despite the intervention of provocative campaigns by the likes of Stand AMF, whose fierce defence of the game’s more traditional values is, despite being occasionally overreaching, a welcome tonic to the sugary sweet PR which normally accompanies initiatives which alienate the modern fan, the game faces a serious challenge in terms of overcoming its own hubris and doing more to engage the force that SHOULD be driving football’s ideological development: the ordinary men, women and children who sacrifice hours and petrol money to travel up and down the country for their team. When Saturday comes, service stations from Devon to Derby are filled with people dreaming of the potential rewards of their arduous journeys. We don’t deserve to be ignored. Our devotion to our game, to our cities, to our teams, will far outweigh the chequebook of any prospective investor you could care to mention: it’s our game, and we want it back.

Owen Keating, News Editor

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Image credits: domfell

Diagnosed with Depression

Depression and mental health are big issues needing more open discussion. Flora Carr investigates what happens when depression hits closer to home.

Image credits: Marco Raaphorst

A few weeks ago a message from an old best friend from primary school popped up on Facebook. “Fuck it coming home. I am.” I was bewildered. I began to question her further. I knew something was wrong; her inarticulate messages read as if she were mumbling through tears, her long pauses coming between sobs. To protect my friend’s identity I’m changing and withholding various details about her, but in our following conversation she said she’d been diagnosed with clinical depression.

Depression. Just one word and my world shifted slightly. Until that moment it had been a word associated with soap operas, or drunken, pitied family friends who seemed like caricatures in themselves. Never would I have associated it with my friend from school, where she’d been a prefect whom everybody loved. And yet there it was. Before I could even respond, things went from bad to worse. She began to express her ‘humiliation’ at her diagnosis, saying she’d just never thought she’d be ‘one of those people’ who’d get depression. Aside from her doctor, she’d only told me and one other friend; at that point she couldn’t yet face telling her family, saying how her mum would ‘freak’. I became even more worried when she told me that she’d lost two-and-a-half stone since going to university. Was this normal for people with depression? I felt hopelessly under-qualified. I said that I wished I could be there to give her a hug and chocolate; I immediately regretted it.  Would she think I assumed that just a hug and chocolate would make her ‘better’? Would she think I was belittling her condition? I was nervous that the slightest comment from me might make everything worse. But I was also annoyed; my loyalty towards her made it impossible for me to break my promise not to tell anyone else. And her family needed to know. They could assure her, better than I ever could, that the single word ‘depression’ wasn’t her new identity. From everything she told me it seemed that, for her, depression was an embarrassing label, not a condition. But of course, before I’d had time to think calmly, even I had fleetingly seen it that way: a label to neatly categorise the more embarrassing and hostile characters in a television drama.

And yet my friend is far from alone. Every year, one in four will experience a mental health issue in the UK. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, in the aftermath of Christmas there is a spike in the number of people diagnosed with depression, and the number of suicide attempts. Perhaps ‘January Blues’ really is a real thing. For many of us, the idea of Christmas is placed on a pedestal. The songs that we listen to non-stop from 1 December (or, if you’re like me, mid-November) until Boxing Day constantly tell us that Christmas is the best time of the year. And for many, it is. Despite the annual disputes about whether or not we’ll be able to fit everything in the oven, it’s also a time of family, cheer, fantastic telly and, of course, embarrassing knit wear. But at the same time, the songs tell us that “next year all our troubles will be out of sight”; or, to quote Slade, “look to the future now / It’s only just begun”. They imply that washing down turkey with six glasses of mulled wine will also wash away all our problems. And of course that’s not the case. In the rush of hitting the sales (and tutting at how your present to your Mum is now 60 per cent cheaper), New Years Eve suddenly creeps up on you. Sausages-on-sticks are eaten, parties are attended, your dad tries to turn Jools Holland on, and you awkwardly kiss a stranger. And that’s that. As the clock strikes twelve the nation breathes out.

It’s the annual anti-climax. After New Year’s Eve there is little to hope for except a few more days of back-to-back films and left-over turkey sandwiches. After a solid month of looking eagerly forwards, January is a month of last year’s bills and back-to-work, back-to-school. For students, it’s even worse. As you slide into bed at the end of Boxing Day, surrounded by chocolate wrappers, you’re fully aware that the pile of revision you’ve neglected over the past few weeks can no longer be avoided. For many universities, including Exeter, exams start less than a week into January; barely giving you time to recover from the New Year hangover. Is it any wonder that this sudden shift from festive cheer to cold exam halls results in young adults such as my friend becoming not only rundown, but actually depressed?

In the hope that when I next spoke to my friend I would be able to give more constructive advice than ‘hugs and chocolate’, I decided to research clinical depression. However, trawling through pages of chatrooms and self-help guides on the internet, it’s surprising the number of people out there who view depression as something which only the weak are afflicted with. It struck a chord with me; my friend, in expressing her ‘humiliation’ at being diagnosed, seemed to suggest that somehow she had been rendered weaker, unworthy. Many view depression as something you can ‘shake off’ or ‘snap out of’. As highlighted by the recent trending video ‘The Mask You Live In’ by The Representation Project, guys are told to ‘man-up’, the implication being that having depression in some way emasculates them. For others, apparently all it takes is for your tell-it-like-it-is friend to advise you to ‘lighten up’ before taking you on a night out. Getting with someone in a club, getting drunk. Even hugs and chocolate… that’s all it takes, right? As it turns out, no.  Despite the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Royal College of General Practitioners conducting a joint five-year ‘Defeat Depression’ campaign to reduce prejudice and educate in the UK during the 90s, studies have shown that social stigma surrounding depression still exists; many have little idea about its causes or symptoms. Depression can be caused by a range of factors, from biological or social factors to drug and alcohol abuse. You can even get depression from seasonal shifts in the weather, which is called ‘Seasonal Affective Disorder’ (SAD). Let alone January Blues, you can potentially become clinically depressed every winter. The symptoms of depression also vary: insomnia, hallucinations, appetite loss and insecurity all feature.

Image credits: Daniel Ogren

With such a range of causes and symptoms, ranging from the mild to the extreme, it is little wonder that so many people are diagnosed with it every year. You’d be shocked at the number of celebrities with clinical depression: Halle Berry, Alec Baldwin, Woody Allen, Jon Bon Jovi, Alistair Campbell, Kirsten Dunst, Harrison Ford, Anne Hathaway, Alicia Keys, Eminem, David Walliams, J.K Rowling, Robin Williams and many others. Stephen Fry’s struggles with depression and bipolar disorder have brought some publicity to the condition, particularly in his 2006 documentary Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive, which won Fry an Emmy in 2007. As mental health issues are gradually, tentatively explored, with documentaries such as Fry’s shedding some light on the real facts, public conceptions will, hopefully, begin to shift. The fact that so many successful celebrities have battled with and won against depression surely suggests that the condition is not in any way, contrary to my friend’s opinion, a defining label or an inhibitor. And there is help out there. For immediate relief there are many help lines, such as the Samaritans. But treatment for depression can be a slow process; this term my friend will not only be on anti-depressants but she will begin seeing a counsellor, who will hopefully help her far more than I or any number of bumbling well-wishers could. But in trying to understand what she’s going though, I hope I can still help in my own small way.  Besides – I’ll still be there with the big hugs and chocolate anyway.

Flora Carr

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Resolving Resolutions

It’s January and we’re all back at university. So, asks Online Features Editor Meg Lawrence, how are those New Year’s Resolutions holding up?

Be honest; are you still on the wagon/diet/treadmill that you swore allegiance to as the clock struck midnight half a month ago?

We haven’t even escaped the dreary drizzle of January, and already it is safe to say that most people who announced their resolutions on New Year’s Eve have given up on them. Either that, or they are seriously considering it, moaning on an hourly basis about how they shouldn’t have put themselves through the torment of something so horrendous. We all consider resolutions, and many of us take the fateful vow at midnight on the last day of the year. But this is a crucial mistake.

Students are not programmed for resolutions, they don’t agree with the student lifestyle. Being healthy on a budget is almost impossible; when you can buy a ready meal for the same price as a packet of peppers, you’re more likely to do the former. Giving up alcohol is very difficult at University, those unmissable nights at the Lemmy are, somehow, more missable when you’re sober.

Yet, while there’s something irresistible about promising to deprive ourselves of something we crave, some students have taken the opportunity of a brand new year to change attitudes and embrace life.

19-year-old Marianne Tay is Social Secretary for Exeter University’s Athletics Club and her resolution is a principled one. ‘This year I want to rise up against the prejudice against ginger people,’ she announced.

Fighting the ginger prejudice?
Image credits: stecman

John Pawley, also 19, has a challenge designed to improve his life rather than fighting for others.‘My New Year’s resolution is to live life to the full, be more open to experiences and to have a healthier lifestyle.’

But English student, Alexia Thomaidis, 20, told Exeposé that waiting until December 31 to change your life was a big mistake. ‘If people really want to change something they don’t need to wait until the new year to do it. There is too much pressure to make New Year’s resolutions,’ she said.

It’s not just students who are unable to keep to resolutions- every year millions make them, yet almost eighty per cent of people fail to achieve them. And it’s not just the likes of you and me who’s making them.

Celebrities are the first to endorse resolutions, as if they needed better bodies, more money, or a more exciting career. When asked about her New Year’s resolution for 2014, Hilary Duff stated: ‘I want to read more books,’ whilst Elizabeth Banks said: ‘In 2014 I want to learn piano, reduce the amount of waste in my life, travel for fun, not work.’ Demi Lovato tweeted: ‘2014= health, fitness, strength and music.’ Unsurprisingly, Miley Cyrus contributed: ‘In 2014 I hope they start censoring dudes nipples #genderequality.’ All profound stuff there, then.

With lives that seem idyllic to many, celebrities who announce that things aren’t quite right in their star-studded lives can make us feel a bit bitter. However, not all celebrities have made resolutions that succeed in making us feel even worse about ourselves. Glee’s Jane Lynch, for example, announced: ‘I am not going to start a diet.’ Good for you, Jane.

In keeping with this trend, many people I know have decided not to conform to the dreaded ritual of making resolutions that they’re bound to break, and so have instead decided to make a resolution not to make a resolution.

New Year’s resolutions start off as positive affirmations of lifestyle improvements but almost always end up as misery-making, doomed-to-failure challenges that make the dreariest month of the year even drearier. No one ever says: ‘This year I’m going to continue being as amazing and fantastic as I always am.’ Instead, we pile guilt on about overeating at Christmas, and vow to get thinner, fitter, happier and more productive. It would be fine if resolutions actually worked, but instead we seem to just point out parts about ourselves that we don’t like.

Image credits: HealthGauge

The University of Scranton’s Journal of Clinical Psychology has recently published statistics on the top New Year’s Resolutions of 2014. The number one resolution? You guessed it, to lose weight. No wonder we are all drowning in body confidence issues, when will we stop chiseling away at ourselves?

Dieting companies thrive in January. You can’t step into a supermarket or shop without facing countless rows of diet pills, exercise equipment and weird foods made out of grass and seeds. I can’t count the number of emails I’ve received in the last two weeks inviting me to attend fitness camps and buy toning belts and cleansing juices. We are being constantly extorted for our insecurities, and that is the simple reason why we should make a stand against New Year’s resolutions.

Throw that diet book out the window, grab a glass of wine, and vow to make changes in your life when you feel necessary, not when tradition makes you feel like you should.

And, if you’re one of the few who is still managing to keep their New Year’s resolution, here’s a word of advice: Take the smug look off your face. That person sat just across from you cramming chocolate into their mouth while guzzling wine and throwing their trainers out the window is feeling miserable.

Meg Lawrence, Online Features Editor

Bad Santa

With Yuletide almost upon us, Exeposé Features sent resident funnyman and Music Editor, Josh ‘Man Baking’ Gray to meet the visionary director of the whole Christmas project. While Josh is no newcomer to Christmas, the man he meets is a veteran of countless winter holidays, and, as Josh finds out, it might be beginning to take its toll. Prepare to meet… Bad Santa

When I was told I would be joining Saint Nicholas for an exclusive interview I was ecstatic. After all, who hasn’t dreamt about meeting the figure that used to slither down the chimney once a year to creep into your room to stuff your stockings full of tasty treats? Without the annual visit of Old Chubby and his sack of fun, Christmas would consist of naught but ugly relatives and forced conversation, and so I jumped at the chance to thank him in person for saving me from the joys of family reunion and for providing me with that copy of Zoo Tycoon that has kept me entertained ever since.

We arrange to meet at the King Billy at his request. The question “why would Saint Nick, patron of joy, want to meet in such a hive of scum and villainy?” never crossed my mind, so full of foolish boyish enthusiasm was I; and so, surrounded by a sea of glaring EDL-dropouts, I sat down to interview international superstar and sometime-member of rap collective D12: Father Christmas. On this occasion he eschewed his standard red and white winter overalls, opting instead for shades, brown slacks and a Tupac t-shirt drawn tightly over his vast gut. “I ain’t taking questions on ‘Elf and Safety’” he grunts before I have a chance to speak, referring to his ongoing court case with the workers’ rights union. I assure him I intended no such thing, only for him to lean forward until his face is just inches from mine. I smell the unmistakeable Christmas stench of brandy and pies on his breath and it slowly dawns on me that this man is drunker than I am.

Image Credits: Channel 4

“Are you religious, boy?” he growls with a voice blacker than the most charred Christmas pudding in history. I insist that I am not, and he retreats back somewhat. But, despite his dark glasses, I can tell his eyes are boring into my soul. “Never had any truck with faith of any kind,” he wheezes, pulling a large red handkerchief from his grubby pocket and coughing black phlegm into it, “hokey religion’s no match for a cool mil in your bank account. Pure, hard free market capitalism is the only religion worth a damn”. Somewhat shocked by this, I ask how he can make money off a holiday based around generosity and love. “S’easy” he guffaws, “sponsorship and merchandise! Every Coca-Cola advert that tells you it’s Christmas time, that’s $3 million American dollars transferred to an offshore bank account in Lapland. Every shopping centre I visit, I charge £100 per child’s dream come true. Every Santa-shaped chocolate you buy is paying for my holiday house in Tuscany. I’ve got a good system going”.

I attempt to bring the subject round to the good cheer of Yuletide, but Father Christmas is having none of it. “I fucking hate Christmas”, he roars, “Fucking kids with their letters as long as your arm, asking for the latest Rizzle Kicks book or whatever. Get a job you bunch of hippies!” He laments the contractual obligations of Christmas Eve, but admits that most of the heavy lifting is now done by imported labour, “I don’t like the labourers, but they’re ready to work for a damn sight less than those money-grabbing elves”. He begins the laborious process of constructing the biggest, dirtiest rollup I’ve ever seen as our conversation moves to the controversial topic of toy manufacturing. “We’ve outsourced most of the actual toy construction for tax reasons”, he admits as he sprinkles some leaves of what looks suspiciously like crushed mistletoe into his open -ly like crushed mistletoe into his open fag before rolling it up and licking the side with a tongue as yellow as a patch of snow that a passing cat has pissed on. A brief altercation with the barman ensues when he tries to light up inside, but eventually Santa concedes and heads outside screaming “Nothing but coal for your kids this Christmas!” along with some imaginatively festive swearwords, many of which seem to involve involuntary reindeer copulation.

After he calms down, I try to ask him what his favourite thing about the Christmas season is. This seems to cheer him up, “The women”, he leers, “especially where the beginning of advent also marks the start of bikini season. A couple of them and a few bottles of French Hennessy Cognac to keep me company in my sleigh is all I really want for Christmas”. I hastily change the subject to his plans for Christmas future, a move that, in hindsight, wasn’t wise. “What you’ve got to understand, boy, is that Christmas isn’t a holiday, it’s an industry, a business. The most perfect business model in the world! Me and the board of supermarkets met last week to discuss how we can minimise costs and maximise income, and we had some ruddy brilliant ideas flying about”. I listen in open-mouthed astonishment as the Jolly Fat Man outlines his plans for Christmas monopoly, which include a drive to begin advertising “just after New Year, so those bollocking furniture stores stop stealing the money we could be taking off the unsuspecting public”; the introduction of a ‘Santa Prime’ service which would require anxious parents to pay a healthy subsidy to receive their children’s gifts on the morning of the 25th rather than 3-5 working days after (an initiative that Father Christmas insists will “encourage those tight-arsed working classes to pry their wallets open and start doing a little giving”); and a plan to expand into the burgeoning Middle Eastern market by replacing his long-serving reindeer with a caravan of camels.

Now thoroughly disillusioned with the whole idea of Christmas spirit, I choke back the tears of sad disappointment welling in my eyes to ask Father Christmas about his numerous side-projects, which include his now defunct symphonic metal outfit Sleigher (“we’ll be back with a new album as soon as Rudolph’s out of rehab”), his reality TV show Ho Ho Ho: Girls Gone Wild (“there’ll be a new series once this women’s rights fad fades away”) and his series of workout videos Chimney Slim (“I’ll bring out a new one when some fitties start buying it, I can’t abide signing DVDs for fat chicks”). I am unable to ask Father Christmas about his most recent foray into the world of acting in the now inevitably postponed Michael Bay blockbuster Santa vs. Killer Robots From Space. In this film which Father Christmas was due to star alongside Miley Cyrus and Morgan Freeman, as apparently “shit got too real”.

Sensing that he desperately wants the subject changed, I ask Father Christmas what he’s got planned for the post-festive season. “A bit of this and that,” he replies “I do a lot of work in the under developed African countries”. Amazed, I ask which charities he works with, “Charities?” he throws back his head and roars with laughter, “Ho ho ho! You wouldn’t catch me dead wasting time with those bloody charities. I was talking about my diamond business!” Disheartened once more, I resign myself to the misery every person gets when their childhood hero turn out to be very different in person. Santa goes on to list his numerous business contacts, who seem to range from Russian oligarchs to the Easter Bunny, “Me and EB go waaay back, we met at one of Stalin’s shindigs back in the day. Now there is a cat who knows how to plan a party”.

I leave the interview still feeling shell-shocked from the meeting I have just had. Was it all a bad dream? Would I wake up tomorrow refreshed in a bright colourful world where Father Christmas embodies the hopes and desires of all the world’s children? While considering the merits of memory suppression I feel the light patter of snow on my shoulders. I tear myself from my inner musings to look around, and what a sight meets me. The streets are white and glistening, a children’s choir sings by John Lewis and a jolly robin lands on the wall by my hand. As I reach out my hand to my feathery friend, I suddenly hear a roar like a tortured beast behind me and spin around… but there’s nothing there. “Up here boy”, sounds the familiar booming voice, and I look up to see Father Christmas. The roar is emanating from his hovering motorbike, a grotesque machine that looks like it’s been constructed out of a dead reindeer’s carcass (I later realise this must have been why it could fly). “I couldn’t let you leave without an early Christmas treat”, he guffaws as he throws a parcel down into my waiting arms. Flushed with childlike joy I open the parcel, thinking that maybe I had been wrong about this jolly man. Inside the wrapping paper I find… an advent calendar full of reindeer droppings. “Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas”, guffaws Saint Nick, and with that final parting cry he puts his foot down and he and his skeleton-bike shoot into the night, leaving behind him a cloud of black smoke that covers the previously pearl-white tableau. The smog cleared to reveal a group of crying carollers, a dead grey robin and a tattered fallen banner bearing the legend ‘Christmas is coming’.

 Josh Gray, Music Editor

Grape Expectations

Image credits: vitalsine

Flora Carr’s parents are the Jedi Masters of alcohol. But her housemates are little more than  rookies (or possibly Wookies). The dilemma presented to her: the bolt or the bouquet? Disarrono or decanter? The chunder or the Chardonnay?

In Freshers’ Week, you find yourself answering the same questions over and over. After a while, you find the answers come almost as an automatic reflex. “So what’s your name?” Flora. “What’re you studying?” English. “You in catered?” Yeah, I love the puddings. “What do your parents do?” They’re both wine tasters.

It’s around this point that people do a double-take.  “You’re serious? That is so… cool. That is such a cool job. It’s like being a chocolate taster, only for grownups.”

For a while I attempt to explain that wine tasting isn’t just getting drunk all day, before launching into a brief account of my parents’ separate careers. Usually, however, the talk then shifts towards whether or not I’m supplied with alcohol regularly, and it’s at this point that I remember that in the mind of the average student, the concept of ‘alcohol’ is quickly replaced with the word ‘DRUNK’. Usually in big, multi-coloured letters. I would know. Because I’m a student too. And apart from the usual challenges of getting lost on campus and spending a month’s worth of student loan on a single Cheesey Tuesday, a further challenge I’m currently facing is how to reconcile the ‘Student-Flora’ idea of alcohol with the way I have been taught to treat alcohol all my life.

As a teenager I found myself in the midst of the ‘down-it’ culture. The familiar chant of ‘We like to drink with —’ became the background music of my years at secondary school. At house parties, whatever was tucked at the back of the cupboards – be it whiskey, beer, rum –  was emptied into single containers and downed as quickly as possible. No-one wanted to be left sober and joyless in the corner – it became a competition to see who could drink the fastest, get drunk the soonest, stay drunk the longest. I loved it. Like any young teenager I was swept away by the heady, seductive appeal of losing myself in a haze of almost hysterical happiness, a world where you could do anything you wanted, say whatever you wanted, dance however you wanted, and blame it the next day on the tequila. It’s a culture that unsurprisingly is still going strong a few years later; between 2012-2013 an estimated 6,500 people under the age of 18 were admitted to A&E. Drinking is part of the young teenage culture, a means of experimentation whilst also standing as a yardstick for popularity and ‘coolness’.

Looking back at my 15-year-old self, remembering how a house party wasn’t a party until someone was locked in the bathroom throwing up WKD, I can’t be judgemental. How can I be? My entire social group held the exact same views at the time. However, there’s a difference between a 15-year-old whose only worries included the faint threat of GCSEs and where to hide empty beer cans and a 19-year-old thinking about finding a house – a REAL house – with bills and rent and cleaning rotas. And yet I feel nothing has changed. I still drink to excess. My new friends drink to excess. There are even charts on certain floors in my accommodation that award points for each person’s number of ‘chunders’. A survey conducted by MoneySupermarket.com in 2012 showed that, during Fresher’s Weeks across the country, an average of 14 shots would be consumed per student, 1,258,881 pints would be drunk by male freshers and 7,133,659 single spirit measures would be drunk by female freshers. I have friends who staggered home after sports initiations, hair threaded with beads of sweat, traces of vomit around their mouths, mumbling to themselves. Ironically their nappies were usually the only part of their appearance still intact. Even after Freshers’ Week this culture of excess remains; friends who decide last-minute to go out down half a bottle of vodka to ‘catch-up’, whilst I’m regularly sent Snapchats of the inside of A&Es across the country, the tag line being ‘Not where I expected to be on a Monday night’.

I can forgive 15-year-old Flora for neglecting her upbringing. After all, isn’t that what those early teenage years are all about? Rejecting everything your parents ever tried to tell you? Going through (with relish) the checklist of exactly what they told you not to do? But Student-Flora should-theoretically- know better. She has come to realise that yes, she should have listened more closely when her mother told her how to warm milk for hot chocolate (in a microwave, not a kettle). She has accepted that there are things her parents know more about. Like budgeting. And the correct footwear for the ever-rainy Exeter. And, again, budgeting. So why can’t she – I – also remember what my parents taught me about how to treat alcohol?

My parents are both Masters of Wine. This makes them Jedis of the wine-tasting world. There are only 303 in the world, whilst my parents are – last time I checked – one of only three sets of married Masters of Wine. The ‘MW’, as my parents refer to it, is a qualification, requiring the entrant to take a bunch of written exams as well as the expected wine-tasting and food and wine matching. In all honesty, there’s probably even more to it, but at home wine is so often a topic of conversation that you learn to tune it out very quickly. In fact, the only interesting thing that ever came out of their jobs was the time my mother came to my school to give a talk during one of those ‘Parent Career’ days. She gave volunteers Jelly Babies whilst they were blindfolded and asked them to identify the flavour. This, she said, is the basics of wine-tasting. But once the sweets were gone I soon lost interest again.

However, I do remember the repetition of a single word: savour. “Savour that, Flora. Savour the flavour –  what does it remind you of?” At first I would usually respond to this question with a made-up response, the more ridiculous and pretentious the better.

“Tarmac. It tastes like tarmac on a spring day. With a solid grounding of- wait for it- mahogany. Yes, mahogany. It’s that autumnal smell that gives it away.”

But as I grew older, I began to appreciate the easy access to quality wines. I would be given a glass of Chardonnay in exchange for a pause, a slowly taken sip, a comment or two on how sharp it was, whether or not I liked it. Liking an alcoholic drink or not doesn’t even matter for most students. If it’s alcoholic, who cares? You drink. You get drunk.

So how can I even begin to reconcile these two contradictory outlooks, my two contradictory selves? How can I pause to appreciate a drink whilst trying to bolt it in ten seconds? Slowly however, I am trying to find a middle ground. As the honeymoon period of Term One wears off, friends are less intent on getting me and themselves paralytic. After a weekend trip home, I arrived at Exeter St David’s armed with a bottle bag filled with Prosecco my mother had got from work for free. At first during pre-drinks I would pour some into a mug to mask the contents, nervous of being branded an alcohol snob. However, after giving a friend a sip, the word has spread about the beauty of my mother’s wine, and I now feel able to wander into the common room with a bottle of white wine tucked neatly under my arm. Although I’m sure there will still be nights to come where Student-Flora will take over and leave me with the hangover to prove it, I’m giving her – and me – a rest. Just give me a moment to savour it.

Flora Carr

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Nelson Mandela: Man of the People

Image credits: BK

Nelson Mandela, former President of the Republic of South Africa, died on the evening of Thursday 5 December. Here, Hannah Butler assesses his impact across the world. 

As news of Nelson Mandela’s death filtered through the population on the evening of Thursday 5 December, scores of South Africans flooded to Johannesburg and Soweto. Amongst the grief, a sense of celebration mingled, prompting reporters to note that even in death Mandela lifted the people’s spirits.

Crowds sang apartheid-era songs and danced before his former Soweto home. In London, tributes were soon being laid on Mandela’s statue in Parliament Square, and in Washington, US President Barack Obama made a solemn appearance at the White House to express the profound influence Mandela had had on his own political life, stating, “He no longer belongs to us – he belongs to the ages”, a sentiment which resonates with the sense of immortality and irreversible influence associated with Nelson Mandela, the South African revolutionary who came to be known as the ‘father of the nation’ and ‘the founding father of democracy’.

Becoming South Africa’s first democratically elected president in 1994, as well as the country’s first black president, Mandela had already done much to assume his place in the history books not only in South Africa but worldwide. Sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964 for sabotage which attempted to overthrow the country’s apartheid government, Mandela remained that government’s prisoner for 27 years, released from the gates of Victor Verster Prison in 1990.

However, the force of Mandela’s impact on the world stems perhaps less from his imprisonment itself that from his immovable resolve and dedication to a cause he felt unbelievably important, to himself and the world around him. In an interview from Robben Island in 1973, Mandela dedicated his lack of pessimism to his never-failing belief in his ideas, iterating that, “I know that my cause will triumph.” This resolve reflected a man certain of his beliefs and their potential to improve the lives of countless people. It also, on the other hand, demonstrated a remarkable trust in the inherent goodness of a world which had until this point treated Mandela with harsh injustice.

Mandela’s belief in the ability of good to overcome hatred and segregation reflected his recognition of a need to look forwards rather than backwards, working towards something better rather than remaining bitter about the past and prolonging hostilities. After his release from imprisonment, he did not shun the country and government which had enforced this on him, instead opening negotiations with President F. W. de Clark, and launching into official talks to end white minority rule. This again displayed Mandela’s extraordinary ability to concentrate not on personal hardships and resentment but focus his attentions on the abolishment of apartheid, thus working to achieve the same goal he iterated in 1963: ‘a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities’. This famous and now immortalised ‘Speech from the Dock’ proved to represent unshakeable resolve and determination. To stand by principles despite the harsh judgement of those in power and the official conclusion that he was wrong to hold these beliefs demonstrates Mandela’s incredible commitment to the establishment of democracy and freedom.

Upon his election as President, Mandela’s formation of a multicultural democracy proved his ability to bring ideas into action he deemed beneficial for the South African people. Announcing ‘courageous people do not fear forgiving, for the sake of peace’, Mandela advocated forgiveness and reconciliation, qualities he exhibited to a remarkable degree, which proved a remarkable selflessness and ability to suppress feelings of resentment and retaliation for the good of a nation.

Image credits: South Africa The Good News

At this early stage it is not possible to fully comprehend what Mandela’s death means for South Africa. Ultimately, his death marks the loss of a man whose extraordinary resolve shaped the country as it is today, and proved capable of overcoming oppression and punishment to end the oppression of countless others. Yet, as Mandela himself stated: “What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead”. The significance of Mandela’s death will therefore manifest itself in his legacy, which is now the task of the current government to uphold, ensuring South Africa’s efforts to end oppression and poverty continue to be recognised as vital priorities.

Current President of South Africa Jacob Zuma’s claim that “Our people have lost a father” reflects a need for the country to now continue its work to abolish oppression, without the guiding force of this monumental and irreplaceable figure. David Cameron’s statement that “Nelson Mandela was not just a hero of our time, but a hero of all time” nevertheless represents a belief that Mandela’s influence will remain long after his death, with the ideals he fought to establish continuing to be upheld.

Nelson Mandela may no longer be a physical presence guiding ideas and practices, yet his legacy will almost certainly live on in the ideals and beliefs of the South Africans and members of other nationalities worldwide who gathered on Thursday night to pay tribute to and celebrate the life of this remarkable man.

Hannah Butler

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Five Things You Could've Bought Yourself For Christmas If You Hadn't Done A Degree

So, degrees these days are worth around £40,000. We know you won’t have to pay that back all in one go, but sooner or later we will have to start paying for it. These are just some of the things you could eventually buy yourself for Christmas if you hadn’t done a degree.

1. A House and Shop

Image Credits: Bradleys Estate Agents

For £35,000, this house and pet shop could be yours. Situated in Topsham, it has two large double bedrooms, an adequately sized kitchen and living room, and you could run your very own pet shop!

2. A Car

Image Credits: Mercedes Benz

You can buy a Mercedes Benz A-class for as little as £20,000, so you may as well have two for the price your degree will cost.

3. Kate Middleton’s Engagement Ring

Image Credits: Huffington Post/ PA

Prince Charles spent £28,000 on Diana’s engagement ring, which has since been passed to Kate Middleton. It may be worth a lot more now, but still, you could’ve swapped two years of 9ams and exams for that iconic ring.

4.  A Luxury 5* Stay on a Private Island For You, Your Family and Friends 

Image Credits: Carters News Agency

Image Credits: Carters News Agency

Okay, so it’s only for one night, but you will have an island all to yourself and your family and friends, with 5* luxury facilities and the most perfect surroundings. It’s basically like Lost meets The Ritz.

5. Duncan Bannatyne- 8 Day’s Hire

Image Credits: Paul Grover

At £5,000 a day hire, Duncan Bannantyne could be yours for a whole eight days. Think of what you could do in that time… who needs University to start a business, when you have your own personal dragon obeying your every command.

 

Okay, so realistically, a degree is worth a lot more in life value than a one night stay on an exotic island, but it’s always nice to dream about what could have been. What would you buy yourself for £40,000?

[poll id=”77″]

Meg Lawrence, Online Features Editor

Read more about whether your degree is really worth the money here.

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Cairo Kindness

Image credits: Prince Fluffy Kareem

When it comes to Cairo, the eyes of the world are usually drawn to the ongoing struggle between the military and the Muslim Brotherhood in the aftermath of last year’s Arab Spring revolutions. But, as Danielle McIntosh examines, too often there is an unseen side to such conflicts, and animals can be victims just as much as humans.

With the amount of international coverage that Cairo has attracted recently, a growing organisation that aims to heal Cairo’s horses, donkeys and camels and educate their owners might just give you a new perspective on the people of this divided city.

The organisation is called ‘Prince Fluffy Kareem’, or PFK for short, named after a cheeky grey stallion they rescued in June 2011. Kareem was found in an emaciated, dehydrated state, suffering from equine malaria and with sores all over his body. The transformation that took place under the care of PFK is quite unbelievable and Kareem is now happy, healthy, and living in luxury – relative to most of the animals in Cairo.

The story of Kareem is not an isolated one. In fact, almost all the horses, donkeys, and camels in Cairo live their entire lives in an undernourished state. This is in part due to the poor quality of life of people living in Cairo, but alongside this is the lack of education about proper animal care in Egypt.

Egypt’s economy relies heavily on tourism. Unfortunately, with the revolution which took place between January and February 2011 and the military toppling of President Mohammad Morsi this summer, tourism has completely collapsed. Egypt’s people live in poverty, there is rioting and fear of further unrest, the education and health systems are incredibly poor, a huge percentage of women are circumcised, and some families are so poor they have to sell their daughters’ virginity to rich Saudi Arabians. People have been looting the pyramids, Egypt’s biggest tourist attractions, out of utter desperation, even though they know the implications this will have for future generations. Marte, a founder of PFK writes on the organisations Facebook page: “This is not the Western world. When you are born poor here, you have minimal, minimal chances of raising your living standards… [This is] a society where children dig in trash for a living, we cannot expect people to have awareness for animal rights; the people don’t even have basic human rights.”

Image credits: Prince Fluffy Kareem

Marte, who was born and lived in Norway, now dedicates each day to helping Egyptian animals and their owners to have healthier, easier lives. She and Sherif, a vet, run the PFK stables together with the help of a handful of other skilled and dedicated people from around the globe. Even after three years of living in Egypt, Marte is still overwhelmed by what she sees on a daily basis. In one of her updates on the PFK Facebook page, she tells us about a mother who gave birth to a daughter who was paralysed from the waist down, saying: “They have no money for a wheelchair, and there is no special school she can go to. So her life consists of dragging herself around on her arms on the concrete floor, in the dust with the family’s hens”.

Life for the animals isn’t very different. Before the political unrest, the majority of Egyptians living in the pyramid district of Cairo earned a living from taking tourists around the Giza Pyramids on their horses and camels. Using animals to earn money is the only resort that many people living in the city have, but with no tourists, there are very few who can care for themselves and their families, let alone their animals.

As a result of this decline in care, working animals in Cairo; horses, donkeys and camels commonly suffer from malnutrition, starvation, equine malaria, pressure sores (some larger than a human hand) caused by ill-fitting tack (saddles and bridles, etc.), and other lesions caused from falls, overcrowding with other animals, or mistreatment.

Owners simply do not have the knowledge or means to prevent illnesses like these happening. Some of the images and stories on the PFK Facebook page are very hard hitting, and it is very easy to judge the people of Cairo according to the standards of animal care we take for granted in the UK. However with the situation in Egypt being so extreme, and cultural norms entirely different to our own, these people do not need punishment, but rather help, understanding, and education.

This is why the work of PFK is so important. With their success over the years, PFK now owns a significant plot of land, nicknamed ‘Fluffylandshire’, where the animals can enjoy free food, water, space, shade, sand and company. Flocks of local horse owners come to take part in the regular clinics that PFK provide, receiving free medical treatment for their animals and advice on how to care for them. Not only do the PFK team treat any horse, donkey or camel that arrives at their gates, they also foster and adopt those who are really in need, providing care of a standard that not many others can provide in such troubled times. As both space and (more surprisingly) sand are a luxury in Cairo, with most owners only be able to provide a small enclosed concrete yard, some animals even come for a special and well deserved PFK ‘holiday’, where they rest until they’re ready to go back to work. Fluffylandshire is truly a place of kindness, understanding (for both animals and their owners), and healing.

PFK also organises projects which aim to provide information on animal welfare directly to local people. During ‘The Fluffy Feet Farrier Project’ Australian vet Dr. Jude Mulholland visited to teach local farriers about common equine foot problems and how to treat them. Likewise, ‘The Fluffy Tooth Fairy Project’ helps pass on information about treating common equine dental issues. Projects like these are incredibly important in Cairo, because without them, incorrect or inefficient methods of treatment will be used again and again, often to no avail.

Of course, looking after a large number of sick animals in a desperate city is expensive. PFK is only able to stay afloat with the help of donations and the hard work of its dedicated international staff. In the past two years the organisation has moved from having supporters in their hundreds, to 60,000 likes on Facebook. Their daily updates, along with thousands of fascinating photographs of their work and the animals they provide for can be found on their Facebook page, and are very informative and entertaining. So if you ever need a break from studying… or reading about Exeter’s Horniest Student, visit http://www.facebook.com/princefluffykareem for a glimpse into a different world and the hope that it brings for Egypt’s animals.

Danielle McIntosh

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Tom Daley Has a Boyfriend, Who Cares?

Online Features Editor Meg Lawrence explains why knowing Tom Daley’s sexuality shouldn’t be a big issue.

On Monday, Olympic diver Tom Daley released a video via his Twitter account, saying that he had a boyfriend. It was a brave, public thing to do which has sparked media attention across the country. But in this day and age, it’s wrong that anyone should feel the need to make a video stating they are in a gay relationship; straight celebrities don’t announce their new relationships, but those who are gay or bisexual feel that they have almost a duty to ‘come out’. If society was truly accepting of homosexual relationships, Tom Daley wouldn’t have felt the need to dedicate a video explaining his.

Image credit: Jim Thurston

In the five and a half minute video, Tom says: ‘People are going to make a big deal of this. Is it a big deal? I don’t think is. But I wanted to say something and I feel like now I’m ready and I wanted to do it.’ It’s not a big deal, and although Daley was very open about his relationship, the fact that he felt he had to tell the world, to explain himself, shows that we are not as open about gay and bisexual relationships as we should be.

Owen Jones, British author, columnist and commentator wrote an article for The Independent in 2012, in which he argued that those who are gay or bisexual shouldn’t feel the need to ‘come out.’ He said that: ‘The very fact that coming out- whether you’re a TV anchor, pop star, teacher or train driver- remains such an event shows how far the struggle for equality has to go.’

He went on to say that: ‘We will have achieved total equality when “coming out” is completely abolished as a process. Being gay will not be seen as a separate, defining identity. The frequent social segregation of LGBT and straight people will be ended.’

Tom Daley’s honesty and pride will hopefully help to eradicate the homophobia that many people in society still convey. Daley said in his video that: ‘Come spring this year, my life changed massively when I met someone and it made me feel so happy, so safe and everything just feels great. And that someone is a guy – and it did take me by surprise a little bit.’ The more open people are about their sexuality, the more accepting others should be of it. Still, it’s abhorrent that anyone has anything negative to say on the subject.

Tom Daley twitter abuse
Image Credits: Storify

Tom Daley twitter abuse
Image Credits: Storify

Whilst many people have been supportive of Daley since he announced that he was bisexual, there are of course those on Twitter and other public domains voicing homophobic views, with one girl even saying: ‘I can’t believe Tom Daley is gay I’m not a fan of his anymore! he’s (sic) going to hell it’s Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve.’

It is also appalling that Daley felt obliged to confirm in the video that his dad would have approved of his sexuality, stating that: ‘People will say, “What would your dad have said?” But he always said, “As long as you’re happy, I’m happy.” And I’ve never been happier.’ Daley’s sexual preference isn’t for anyone to question or discuss.

Already, Daley’s video, entitled Tom Daley: Something I want to Say… has had over 1,780,000 views (as of 8.30pm 02/12/13) on YouTube. Only one of his other 102 videos on YouTube has more views than this, which may be because it involves Team GB dancing to LMFAO’s Sexy And I Know It.

Why has the video gained so much attention? Being gay or bisexual is not a new, unheard of idea. In a survey conducted by the Office of National Statistics in 2011, it was revealed that approximately 545,000 adults identified themselves as Gay or Lesbian. Furthermore, 220,000 adults identified themselves as Bisexual. Although it’s in human nature to be nosy, to gossip, I hope that people’s interest in Daley spans further than this, that he will have had an impact on those who had been homophobic before, and that they will realise it is not unnatural to be gay or bisexual.

Image Credits: The Guardian

Statistics also show that the younger people are, the more likely they are to state they are gay or bisexual. 2.7 per cent of people between the ages of sixteen and twenty-four have openly stated that they were gay or bisexual in the UK, compared to 0.5 percent of over sixty-fives.

Clearly, society is becoming more open when it comes to homosexuality. The more it is talked about and integrated into every day life, the less prejudice will surround it.

However, as Owen Jones said, sexual inequality and prejudice will exist until the day that people like Tom Daley feel they have to announce their sexual orientation to the world, and to justify it.

Tom Daley is an Olympic diver. He hopes to win the Gold medal in Rio in 2016. He was a mentor on Splash! on ITV, and in interviews seems like a genuinely nice guy. This is all I need to know about him, knowing that he is bisexual doesn’t change any of these facts. The sooner society accepts that being gay and bisexual is just as ‘normal’ as being straight, the better life will be for everyone.

Watch Tom Daley’s video here.

Meg Lawrence, Online Features Editor

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