There is one all encompassing problem with attending university. It’s more important than whether or not to bother to attend your seminars, or to add an attractive girl you’ve never spoken to on your course on facebook. It’s even more important than student 2-4-1 cocktails on a thursday.

Yes, I am talking about the gutbuster, the fuel for your woodburner, the daily grind’s midday ceasefire.

Lunch.

The options are endless. Well, of course they do tend to drop off a bit once you get down to the bottom of the barrel; farmfoods. However, everything between that and booking a banquet hall for one is a definite possibility.

Being a cheapskate, I prepare my own sandwiches the night before. I do this using bread, a filling, and then an assortment of delicious fridge-dwelling potpourri, such as salad, mayonnaise, gin… Just to spice things up a bit. I also include crisps in my lunch. 

note: I do not make crisps. How do they make crisps? How do they ridgecut stuff? Why do the ridgecut stuff? Who invented the Hula Hoop and why? What’s a hula hoop for? Why did the gimmick never wear off? Can you still buy monster munch? Are there any crisps where you still get supplied with a myocardial infarction (salt sachet)? Who the fuck eats quavers? 

There have, however, been occasions where I have purchased a pre made sandwich. I did this using money, a self service check out machine and a sandwich made out of the food equivalent of faeces by a bloke round the back of a Sainsburys. This, although stretching my budget, was a good decision, because I took the slightly more liberal and whimsical decision to purchase a Chicken Triple. For those not in the know, this entails three sandwiches all with some sort of chicken-ey thing in it and then god knows what else. They vary. The good part about this decision was that I eliminated the problem of choice. I saved time. A chicken triple is a uniquely edible time saving device.

It was during one of these bonkers escapades to find someone to make me a sandwich that I stumbled upon the rumour that some people went to restaurants for lunch. My parents don’t even do that. Why spread an already meagre budget so lavishly on a half chicken from nandos? Maybe as an occasional treat, once every five years or so, but not every week. It might be different for those Jack Wills clad autobots from rah-shire, maybe they can afford a nandos. Maybe daddy gives them a nandos allowance. Maybe they tugged on his leg screaming for peri peri chicken in a pitta and it was the single most convincing bit of acting seen in this country since people stopped going to theatres and just sat watching the ‘acting’ on eastenders instead.

Lunch is the divider. Lunch tells you all you need to know about someone. If they only eat cheese sandwiches, they’re probably boring. If they go for a houmous and vegetable pitta, they’re probably a psychopath (good kind). If they eat a slow cooked angus salt beef sandwich in a paper bag, they’re probably a psychopath (bad kind).

And if they’re eating a Nandos they’re definitely an arse.

I am often told of the stories of university turf wars. The first one that springs to mind is that of Sheffield, and Sheffield Hallam. There are many a tale of a poor defenceless Sheffield student being mauled to death by rampant evil Hallam students, waiting on the hill from the station, like a fat, poor, heroin addict is waiting for your dad’s guilt ridden, money filled hands. All that Sheffield student wanted to do was to return to their halls, but the Hallam students know where their prey walk, as well as your dad’s seedy intentions.

Each university seems to have a rival who are all absolute scum. Apparently. You can’t attend a university and not have a hatred of someone, even if it’s another department of your own university. Hatred is as much a part of university culture as almost attending a lecture, but deciding not to because you had to watch 50 episodes of come dine with me. Everyone’s been there, and they know it.

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Anonymous asked: how old are you? what are you doing in life? i feel as though i know nothing about you

Hello Mr/Miss/Mrs Anonymous. Not to say you’re of uncertain gender or marital denomination, just to try and cover the varieties of people that you could be. I could expand this with garçon, or Frau or Herbert, but I will cease.

My name is Rob and I am 20 now. It’s terrifying when it dawns, but once you leave your teens behind you find it’s just about exactly the same. For example, you don’t suddenly lose the ability to retain water in your bladder, and you don’t suddenly have the urge to marry everyone.

I am a beer guzzler, sometimes referred to as a ‘student’, living the life in London, and I am studying medicine. Yes I am that cool. I’m a doctor of the future. It’s terrifying, right? Me, saving lives… I think this is what spurs me on. Petrifying my friends with talk of genital abnormalities and surgical horror stories.

I also just mess about with garageband and drums and melodica and african thumb pianos and ukuleles when I can, which I tend to make time for. I guess music making is my biggest hobby.

What are you doing with your life oh androgynous silhouetted friend of mine?