YUSU’s excitement over landing stars such as Katy B and The Pigeon Detectives to play at this year’s ‘Live and Loud’ event has taken over all media airwaves in York this summer.
Other universities are matching York’s excitement over Freshers’ Week, with the aptly named Exeposé of Exeter University releasing that Zane Lowe will be the headline act for their Freshers’ Ball. Taking the frontline, however, is the controversial debate surrounding the song Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke: Exeter students will be voting through the Democracy Committee whether to ban this song on Students’ Guild premises and in student media.
This also seems to be an ongoing issue around the country, as the Leeds University Student Union have gone as far as to ban the song from being played at all of its bars and clubs. York is seemingly alienated from this debate as YUSU have not yet received any complaints about this song being played on campus.
Indeed, controversy is heavy in the air of student press as The Cambridge Student reports on the comment made by former Archbishop of Canterbury and Master of Magdalene College Rowan Williams, saying that Christians claiming persecution in the West should just “grow up”. However, all has allegedly calmed down as he has now admitted to be simply commenting on the “sensationalised accounts” of persecuted Christians. Phew.
It’s not only the former Archbishop of Canterbury who is in deep water. The London Student revealed that Sir Malcolm Green, the provost at UCL, had a leaving party costing nearly £18,000. An ABBA tribute band played while the guests munched on 200 moustache shaped cookies, wearing t-shirts with the Provost’s face on them.
Meanwhile York Vision discovered earlier in the summer that we, as a university, are being left out of surveys; most notably, “The North is The Best Nightlife in the World”, or something to that effect. However, on closer inspection York hadn’t featured in this poll at all. Incidentally, this did not stop us winning University Challenge, and being dubbed ‘The Best Univesity in the North,’ or rising to 11th in the league tables. Oh well, You win some, you lose some.