If you have not spoken to me over the past month - and with 6 billion people on the planet, that will be most of you - you will be unaware that I have decided to go to Australia. This is a bold move for a computer scientist, but before you start picturing me as a cross between Indiana Jones and Paul Hogan let me explain that this is a decision of opportunity. My mother and brother are heading off to Oz this summer, and offered to pay the airfare for me to go too. Being somewhat hesitant to spend 18 hours in a small metal box with these members of my immediate family, the sweetener of doing what I wanted out there was proffered. After asking several people what they thought I should do, and getting several responses along the lines of "Don't be a twat - embrace this opportunity," I duly accepted my mother's kind offer.

Thus I shall soon be exploring the land down under. Like most non-Aussies, I had very little idea what's actually there. I could tell you the names of some Australian cities and that the capital is Canberra (reputed to be immensely boring). As for tourist attractions, careful thought gave me four: the Sydney Opera House, Sydney Harbour Bridge, Ayer's Rock, and surfing. Beyond that, I was ignorant.

A little research soon showed me that Australia is a dangerous place. In fact, I am not convinced I'll make it out alive. The uninitiated here might presume that I'm talking about sweltering heat and psychopaths murdering backpackers, but I think it would be missing the point to focus on these. It would be like James Bond worrying about tetanus when the buzzsaw is about to bisect him. Given its habit of rising and setting on a regular basis, the sun can be anticipated and worked around. Likewise, everywhere has its lunatics and as long as you avoid places where they congregate - France, for example - you're going to be safe. No, it turns out that every plant and animal on that continent is out to get you.

You have the obvious examples, of course. The dangers of sharks and crocodiles are well-known, thanks to Hollywood and confectionery. Most people have a passing aquaintance with the kangaroo, which has a habit of bounding across roads and getting hit by cars much to the detriment of all concerned. You also have the wombat, a kind of armoured teddy bear with similar habits but the infuriating propensity to walk away unscathed from such collisions while your car gently smoulders and your insurance premiums skyrocket. There are snakes and spiders, too - given that the arachnid's diet is small insects, providing them with enough venom to drop a rhino seems a little OTT. Let me regale you with a couple of tales about lesser-known risks:

First up, we have a critter known as the box jellyfish. These live around the northern coastlines of Australia, and are transparent - as are their 130-foot long tentacles. If you get stung by one of these critters and are lucky, you will have a red mark where you were stung for the rest of your life. If you're unlucky, you die or go insane. One chap who got stung was screaming even while sedated and unconcious. It's safe to say that these bastards hurt.
Next we have the Gympie-Gympie tree. This has big, heart-shaped leaves with lots of tiny strands on them similar to fibreglass. If you brush against one of these leaves, they break off and get under your skin where they excrete a rather toxic substance. Standard hospital policy is to sedate victims for four days to get them over the worst of it, and it takes 6 months for the fibres to work their way out of the body. You can feel them for those 6 months too.

Please remember that this is a country where people voluntarily settle. People decide that a life of checking the toilet for dunny spiders before evacuating their bowels and shaking out shoes is for them. There are risks in Australia that no-one even knows about - it's such a vast, unexplored country that no-one really knows what's in there. It is liberally spattered with small, clandestine ways to cause you immense pain and probable death. I am likely to spend my trip with an unhealthy dose of paranoia and it's possible I will spend all 7 weeks wimpering in the airport waiting for a flight home.

There is, however, a surprising amount to do in Australia. From what I've read, it does seem a fascinating country. For a start, lots and lots of things about it are unexplained. No-one really knows where the Aborigines came from. They are 60,000 years old (3 times as old as other homo sapiens). Australia has always been an island, and has no indigenous apes from which the Aborigines could evolve. The implication is clear - 60,000 years ago there was a seafaring civilisation while the rest of us plebs were trying to figure out how to bang rocks together. There are 12 foot earthworms, trees 18 metres in diameter, and random evolutionary oddities like the platypus. And no-one has the foggiest idea just why somewhere as hostile as Australia would be teeming with such things. It's as if it were God's scrapbook.

Aside from the fact that I'm going to die out there, I am looking forward to experiencing Australian life. I hear it's a very friendly country, and I plan to spend some five weeks backpacking around. The Australian attitude to Aborigines is somewhat odd, it seems - from what I've read they are basically ignored. Animals that would cause me to wet myself in fear are a fact of life over there. There are huge distances between places as well as a massive cultural diversity between different cities and states, and ever since the White Australia policy went away in the 70s the ethnic diversity has exploded too. As a teetotal vegan I expect to be regarded with some confusion - drinking seems integral to the antipodean culture, as well as a fondness for grilled meat. I'm hoping that the Aussies will see me as a mysterious foreign stranger, as opposed to yet another pasty-white Brit backpacker. Whether I am a sex symbol or a sex object (when I ask people for sex, they object) to the .au hotties remains to be seen.

In short, it should be rather interesting.

Before I begin, I want you all to know that I tried. I really tried. For months I have been trying to think up a better title for this as it's crucial to my point. However my grey matter has failed me; "alcoholic socialising" it is.

Thanks to a variety of campaigns we all know the dangers of social drinking. It's a dangerous trap that can lead people towards alcoholism without them realising they're walking that path. However, I feel that there's another problem lurking in the drinking culture. It's not as serious, but it is far more insidious and underhand. I have termed it "alcoholic socialising".

As any Daily Mail reader will tell you, there's a large drinking culture in this country. We Brits love to drink. There's pubs everywhere, and every town and city centre in the land is filled with inebriated souls stumbling around on a Friday and Saturday night, pissing on kebab vans. The humble pub acts as both the start and end of an evening - a meeting place and a post-event social space.

That's all well and good, but it's the start of a slippery slope. You might think it's just a social thing, and you can give it up any time. You like doing other things, and only visit pubs with friends, right? Here's the acid test: name one social thing you've done in the past two weeks that didn't involve alcohol.

It's quite tough, isn't it? That stuff gets everywhere. You might have gone out for a meal, but there would be wine and beer there too. You might have gone to the theatre, but there's an interval. And even though there's only 15 minutes to drink everyone rushes to the bar and insists on paying through the nose for a flimsy plastic cup full of beer or wine. Before you know it your entire social existence is going out to the pub with a few mates. There's not a lot to do in Camberley, and to be honest it's the kind of place that's likely to drive you onto the sauce. We've got hundreds of pubs though - not that it stops people queuing to get into the Wetherspoons on a Friday night. We Brits like to drink but we don't like to pay a lot for it.

Everything seems fine with this at first. All your friends are doing it, why shouldn't you? Well, it can be a teensy bit exclusionary. Your non-drinking friends - well, friend - probably come out less and less. There's only so many times you can watch your peers drink themselves into a stupor while you sit around nursing a lemonade and smoking passively.

So what's to be done? The first thing you have to do is admit you have a problem. After that it's easy. We have no 10-step plans here, nor do you have to give up those evenings of vomiting and kebabs that you love so much. Just call up your teetotal chums every now and again and suggest doing something with no alcohol and no pubs involved. There's more out there than you think, and they'll be able to cling on to the memory the next time they're forced to play "I have never" with a pint of water.

Looking back it seems as if it only took a second. It was as if something snapped inside of me - a bubble burst and its contents scattered, no longer constrained. In reality my discontent had been brewing for a long time, but standing in HMV and surveying the aisles brought it all to a head.

One of the best parts of earning money is spending it. I love music, and so I tend to buy a fair amount of CDs, but I have strong aversion to paying full-price for an album. I haunt the aisles of the sales, clutching my "£5 off when you spend £35!" voucher, casting a discriminating eye over the racks of CDs trying to find a selection of albums that I'm willing to pay £(x-35) for. On this particular occasion, though, the offerings were particularly poor. My mind wandered, mainly as a defence mechanism against the awful music they insist on pumping into chain record stores, and a question popped into my head.

"When was the last time you were in a record store, and there wasn't a sale on?" I couldn't remember. I wasn't sure it had even happened. Those red stickers proclaiming "£8.99" like it was a bargain seemed even less alluring. How can it be a special offer if it happens every other month, I pondered. The whole mindset came crashing down as I saw each prominent price label metamorphose into the words, "Buy me!"

It was a revolutionary moment, but instead of release & euphoria it invoked cynicism, disillusionment, and depression. It made me realise that advertising was everywhere, and it is unescapable in today's modern world. Television, magazines, newspapers, radio, and the internet are all plastered with adverts trying to convince you that they're offering you The Best Deals! and Limited Time Offers!. Leave the media alone and go for a walk, and you meet it on bus shelters, the insides and outsides of busses, trains, stations, shop windows, telephone booths, and so on. Drive out into the countryside, and you're still not impenetrable - SMS advertising is a small but growing activity.

And it is everywhere. Think of one thing you've done this week that didn't have advertising. Ice skating? Adverts around the rink. Gone to the cinema? Sit through 15 minutes of adverts and trailers before you get to the bit you wanted to see. Gone out drinking? There'll be drinks posters in there, or maybe even a video screen blaring out adverts at you. Nothing is sacred in the eyes of a marketer. Everything, everywhere, is an opportunity for an advert. People adjust and tune out the adverts, so they become bigger, more brash, and harder to ignore - until people stop responding to those, and the cycle repeats.

There are a few basic kinds of adverts:

1. Exclusitivity - an attempt at convincing you that you're getting something special that sets you apart from the crowd, or that their product is head-and-shoulders above the rest. See E&J Gallo's "Just a wine?" posters for the latter and most watch adverts for an example of the former. There's also a kind of inverse exclusitivity that invites you to be part of something - anything with the phrase "Welcome to our world" is one of these.
2. Sexiness - Again, there are two broad types at work. Either a "Buy me, I'll make you sexy!" - perfumes, bras, most makeups - or a "Buy me, I'm sexy!" - laptops, mobile phones, and so on. The former is always a bit of a con, as these products can help make someone sexy, but they're not enough in and of themselves. A hefty dose of self-confidence is far more enticing than the perfume you're wearing. If the Lynx effect actually existed I wouldn't be writing this article - I'd be lathering myself up under a sprinkler. For the latter, sometimes the product is sexy, but not always. The iPod, for instance, is a tasty bit of hardware, but consider the Renault Megane. Renault designed an awful rear end to the car, then ran a whole host of adverts revolving around buttocks featuring lots of clips of sexy arses. The adverts made the car sexy, not the other way around.
3. Appeal to lifestyle - Some adverts will try and convince you that their product will slot perfectly into your life. They're just what you need! The iPod advertising does this, to an extent, and mobile phones are frequent culprits.
4. Good vibes - Whether it's Ben & Jerry's telling you about their generous corporate policy or Charmin's cartoon bears, there's possibly no better way to get you to buy a product than by making you feel good for doing so. Whether it's supporting a good cause, or just through cute mascots, making people feel good will sell your product. The reality can be completely different, as it's all in the perception. As long as the consumer believes that the company's being socially responsible, it doesn't matter if they're destroying trees or making their goods in sweatshops.

The reason why all this brought me down was because all of it is completely, entirely empty. It's a desperate attempt to get you to spend your money by convincing you that what they're selling is just what you need to make you happy. Everything's about whipping up a frenzy of excitement to try and make people think that what they're buying is unique and special - take DVDs. You can't buy a film on DVD. You can buy special editions, collector's editions, special collector's editions, director's cuts, special director's cuts, and so on. Stick a bit of printed cardboard around it and call it a boxed edition. It's all a big lie - none of it will make you any happier, any more sophisticated, or sexier. It's just a way of washing every last aspect of individuality out of yourself as you start defining yourself according to how the companies define you. Those gap pants - do you really think that they're cool? Or is it how they were presented to you?

I spent four years of my life studying economics, so I'm versed in the theories of supply and demand. I know the theories behind why shops offer sales, but I don't believe them. They're a psychological trick to make people spend more money, and that's all. Present someone with the assurance that what they're buying is normally priced higher, and it's reduced for a limited time, and people will drop their reasoning and open their wallets. I'm as guilty of it as anyone, but I will be seduced by the promises of "Virgin's BIGGEST EVER sale!" no longer. Who measures these things, anyway? What makes it the biggest ever - floor space? Price? Money off? Amount sold? Are these CDs and DVDs ever going to go back up to full price? Is £1 off an album sold for £10.99 really a reduction worth shouting about?

I'm convinced that all of the sales are a con. The company's still turning a profit in all the sales - lower margins, shift more units. Revenue increases accordingly. Music and DVDs are price-elastic goods according to this reasoning, which is probably true. It's win-win, as far as the shops are concerned - you walk out smiling, thinking you've got a bargain, and the shareholders and directors giggle all the way to the bank.

In the Western world, we've all bought into the consumer culture in a big way. It's unavoidable, and it isn't necessarily a bad thing. The desire to go out and buy things has made life easier and cheaper. But by worshipping at the altar of consumerism we've lost sight of what really matters. Good food is no longer what is wholesome and tasty - it's what Jamie Oliver endorses. Good company is no longer what makes your dinner parties great - it's the wine that you serve. Your clothes are not what make you sharp - it's who they're made by. This pattern repeats forever in a swirling morass of brand loyalty and recognition. I say that yes, you should go out and buy clothes. Go and shop for food and make tasty meals. But buy these things because you like the way they look or the way they taste - not because it's got "FCUK" or "Sainsbury's Taste The Difference Range" written on it.

So what's the solution? There are many ways of attacking the problem, but most people won't have time for most of them. The easiest thing to do is to look at things with a far more critical eye. Don't get swept up in the sales culture - so what if there's £100 off? Would you pay £50 for the item you're considering? If the answer is no, then don't buy it. The other easiest thing to do is to complain when products and services don't live up to expectations. Writing a letter is the best way, as it takes time and effort (and thus demonstrates to the company that you were sufficiently annoyed by their failiure to live up to expectations for you to take that time and effort), but email is another effective way of registering your comments. Don't be offensive, or demand recompense. Just explain what happened to you, how it differed from your expectations, and what you're going to do about it - for example, you might say you will take your business elsewhere in future, or will not be buying their products again, or will be complaining to Trading Standards. Even if you just say that your confidence in their product is severely dented, then it should hopefully be enough to get them to sit up and take notice.

Other things you can do are varied. Depending on what it is, you could talk to trading standards or the industry ombudsman, complain to your MP, tell your friends, write to the Director of the company or the parent company, boycott their products, or anything else you can think of. But really it all comes down to not getting swept up in the hype, and evaluating things for what they are.

Over the summer, I was struck down by chickenpox. As a result, I had a large block of time in which my chief responsibilities were lying around and trying hard not to scratch a variety of very itchy sores. One of the things I produced in this process is the below - a Computer Scientist's Christmas Carol, to the tune of "The 12 days of Christmas". There's a list of items for those short on time or know the lyrics already.

In the first week of lent term my tutor said to me,
"Get to all your lectures early".

In the second week of leng term my tutor said to me,
"Comment your code and get to all your lectures early".

In the third week of lent term my tutor said to me,
"Use the rocks, comment your code, and get to all your lectures early".

In the fourth week of lent term my tutor said to me,
"Go to seminars, use the rocks, comment your code, and get to all your lectures early".

In the fifth week of lent term my tutor said to me,
"Don't pla-gar-ise... Go to seminars, use the rocks, comment your code, and get to all your lectures early".

In the sixth week of lent term my tutor said to me,
"Get a good night's sleep, don't pla-gar-ise... Go to seminars, use the rocks, comment your code, and get to all your lectures early".

In the seventh week of lent term my tutor said to me,
"Work in the reading week, get a good night's sleep, don't pla-gar-ise... Go to seminars, use the rocks, comment your code, and get to all your lectures early".

In the eighth week of lent term my tutor said to me,
"Learn to use raptor, work in the reading week, get a good night's sleep, don't pla-gar-ise... Go to seminars, use the rocks, comment your code, and get to all your lectures early".

In the ninth week of lent term my tutor said to me,
"Start coursework early, learn to use raptor, work in the reading week, get a good night's sleep, don't pla-gar-ise... Go to seminars, use the rocks, comment your code, and get to all your lectures early".

In the tenth week of lent term my tutor said to me,
"Read the course newsgroups, start coursework early, learn to use raptor, work in the reading week, get a good night's sleep, don't pla-gar-ise... Go to seminars, use the rocks, comment your code, and get to all your lectures early".

In the eleventh week of lent term my tutor said to me,
"Textbooks are in the library, read the course newsgroups, start coursework early, learn to use raptor, work in the reading week, get a good night's sleep, don't pla-gar-ise... Go to seminars, use the rocks, comment your code, and get to all your lectures early".

In the twelfth week of lent term my tutor said to me,
"Talk to lecturers, textbooks are in the library, read the course newgroups, start coursework early, learn to use raptor, work in the reading week, get a good night's sleep, don't pla-gar-ise... Go to seminars, use the rocks, comment your code...
and get to all your lectures early!".

The List

12: Talk to lecturers
11: Textbooks are in the library
10: Read the course newsgroups
9: Start coursework early
8: Learn to use raptor
7: Work in the reading week
6: Get a good night's sleep
5: Don't pla-gar-ise...
4: Go to seminars
3: Use the rocks
2: Comment your code
1: Get to all your lectures early.

MyAge is a code snippet that calculates your age. I hadn't bothered posting it, as it's fairly trivial, but someone asked for it in an IRC channel last night so I thought it might be more useful to people than I realised.

It is a good thing for my employers, my degree, and my website that I have the standards of personal hygiene that I do. I find I solve a vast amount of problems in the shower. All of my algorithms go down the plughole clockwise, and most of my pieces of coursework hold a faint odour of shower gel.

Of course I jest, but I do find that a lot of my technical thinking is done during my morning ablutions. On reflection, this is hardly surprising - it's a block of time where I'm mostly acting on autopilot and have very little competing for my attention. It's the perfect time to figure out the intricacies of a bit of code, or let my mind churn over something I'm stuck on.

I'm not proud to admit this next bit, but here goes: I find my bathroom breaks during the day have a similar, although lesser, effect. Again, it's a couple of minutes in a hectic life where it is quiet, serene, and very little thought is involved. But whenever I wear my blue denim jeans my little islands of mental processing are destroyed, and my productivity falls away sharply. You see, these jeans have button-up flies.

Back in the 1800s I'm sure button-up flies were a fantastic invention. And it's entirely possible they are very fashionable today. In a way, they're quite sexy - grip the top of the trouser, pull the part with buttonholes away from my body, and the material parts like badly-hung wallpaper. Alas, I find myself peeing far more often than I find my pants being removed in a time-constrained frenzy of lust and so this fringe benefit is negated by the need to stand in front of a urinal, fiddling with my crotch in a suspicious fashion, for anything up to a minute after I've finished peeing.

One can deal with that, though. This is only part of the torment, though - as soon as I have unbuttoned my trousers (an effort in itself, if you just want to open an orifice in the trousers, not unfasten them entirely), my mind enters a tight loop of panic. "Oh no, I'm going to have to do them back up, and that's always a struggle," I find myself thinking. "What if someone comes in while I'm doing them up? What if someone comes in before I'm doing them up, starts peeing, and then I button it in the wrong buttonhole and have to spend time correcting it?". You get the idea. Any chance of thinking about something else - fluid dynamics, say - is obliterated.

I wouldn't mind so much if it weren't for the way that they're just so unnecessary. We live in a world of zip fasteners, and I think that as it was invented in 1851, it's high time we got with the programme and used them across all trousers. I'm not sure if the designers of this particular pair had a vehement dislike of paying royalties on the zip. Perhaps he thought that it was somewhat stylish, even though anyone paying enough attention to my crotch to notice is likely to need further convincing of my allure. Maybe he was embittered and twisted by years in the fashion industry, and vowed to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting consumers by this subtle act of sabotage. I doubt humanity will ever find the answer to this one.

The current UK Government scares me.

I wish I could say that I was exaggerating, but alas I can't. Simplifying, maybe, but certainly not exaggerating.

I'm a big proponent of democracy. Having seen processes at work, both on a small level (student politics) and on a larger level (national politics), I've come to appreciate them for what they should be. I'm not a fan of beaurocracy, but people tend to confuse the two. Democracy is representative; it's a way for everyone to have their say, and to have their opinion given equal weighting. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and the majority view goes. You can't please all of the people all of the time, but you can please most of them.

But recent events have caused me to lose my faith in the UK Government. As a rule, I'm quite apolitical. I don't get involved or follow national politics that closely and I'm not affiliated to any political party. I'm moderately well-informed about things, though, and every now and again I dip my toe in the waters of national politics.

As I write (2004-04-08), last Wednesday the new Higher Education Bill passed its 3rd reading. This was the bill regarding the infamous top-up fees. I was in the Strangers' Gallery - the balcony just above the House of Commons - and got to watch the final debate and vote. And despite the protests, despite the opposition, despite the flaws and lack of consultation the bill passed. It was at this moment that I really lost faith. The constituents came out and lobbied the Government, and they went ahead anyway.

But let's play devil's advocate, and say that those protesting against top-up fees are just a bunch of smelly students. The other big issue recently was the war in Iraq. Something like 70% of people were against it, from all age groups and professions, and we went ahead and attacked anyway (please bear in mind it's possible to be anti-war and anti-Saddam before emailing me about this). And over the past few days compulsory ID cards have leapt to the fore as an issue. But not even as an issue - they're being described as an inevitability. With no studies to show whether or not it is a viable, cost-effective method of combatting terrorism, it seems a bit crazy to throw vast sums of money at it.

The scariest thing of all is that there's no real opposition. New Labour have pissed on the will of the people by going to war, broken promises that got them elected ("We will not introduce top-up fees and have legislated to prevent them" was a manifesto pledge), and now make moves to continue the march towards a police state. The Conservatives still haven't managed to organise themselves into a decent opposition, and people either see them as bigoted, prejudiced, or simply tainted from Thatcher, Major, et al. And nobody takes the Liberal Democrats seriously, despite them having quite a few policies that seem like a good idea to me. If the Lib Dems can't get a look in, then no-one else will either. With no viable alternatives to vote for and a lack of "No Suitable Candidate" on the ballot slips democracy falls apart as people stop voting on the basis of "Who's best?" and start voting on the basis of "Who's least worst?".

Put it all together, and it scares me. We're reaching a situation where there's no viable alternative to a government that ignores the electorate. The populace stand up and say "We don't want you to do this!" and the Government say "Lalalala, we're not listening, we're doing it anyway". People are running scared and handing over their freedoms whilst they're being sold an illusion of security and safety from the threat of terrorism. I just don't have the faith in the Government to be 100% benign, 100% honest, and 100% safe.

I spent one and a half years involved with the LGBT scene at University. I'm away on my year in industry at the moment, so can't be so involved, but I'd still consider myself an interested party. One of the things I experienced was the NUS LGB liberation campaign and so got a unique insight into the joys of autonomy.

The NUS has some odd ideas. It's a very strange organisation, due to the way it's evolved over the years. One of the things it gets off on is calling things "liberation campaigns". The other is this concept called autonomy. Certainly sounds like a good idea, doesn't it? You'd think an autonomous campaign is one that runs itself, with no outside intervention. In its own way, it is - you see, autonomy really means that only those who seek to be liberated can take part. In the case of the LGB campaign, this means that only those who self-define as LGB.

Let me lay my cards on the table: I am very comfortable with my sexuality. Unfortunately for the LGB campaign, I am straight. This means that I cannot attend NUS LGB conference, be involved with the liberation campaign, or attend training for LGB representatives. While autonomy seems like a good idea, I believe that it's deeply flawed. Here's why:

1. It's undemocractic.

   One of the central tenets to NUS is its democracy. Scratch the surface, however, and you soon find that it's just a veneer. Because I* am not LGB, I cannot stand for election as LGB officer, nor serve on its Executive Committee - the constitution forbids it. I take the view that it's up to the members to decide who represents them, not the rules of the organisation themself.

   Likewise with training and the conference. If the students of my Union elect me as their LGB officer, I wouldn't be able to go to conference. Even though I've been chosen democratically I would not be allowed to attend, and nor would I be welcome at the training.

   I am not sure why my sexuality is of any relevance at conference, either. If I'm attending, I'm acting as a representative of the students at my parent organisation. My own position should be irrelevant.

2. It's hypocritical.

   "We want to be accepted for who we are, and not discriminated against based on our sexuality! We want to be seen as equals because we are!"
   "Sounds great, I want to help out and be involved!"
   "Err... Sorry, you can't be involved. It's because of your sexuality. You're not gay enough."

   When one of your main campaign goals is to stop people being excluded based on their sexuality, I would have thought the last thing you should do is exclude people from your campaign based on their sexuality.

3. It's counterproductive.

   By excluding a broad swathe of the population, you're throwing away a large proportion of the thoughts, skills, and sheer manpower available to you. I am not sure why my skills as an organiser, web designer, campaigner, or placard-waver are less useful because I happen to be straight. The involvement of non-LGB people would help the campaign - "This is not just an issue that concerns LGB people," and so on.

4. It's exclusionary.

   I thought that student politics was all about getting involved, doing what you can to change the world for the better (I'm a naïve optimist, I know). By acting as a closed shop, people who want to get involved and change things are being tripped at the first hurdle.

5. It's offensive.

   The main argument employed by those for autonomy is that because I'm not LGB, I haven't got the required perspective to be a part of the movement. I would disagree. While I can appreciate that I probably would not be the best "leader" of the movement the idea that my opinions are completely invalid is very offensive. Homophobia affects us all. It affects the society we live in, I've seen my friends come across it, and I've encountered it when people leap to conclusions about me. Furthermore, I don't believe that you need to have direct experience of something to hold a valid opinion about it. I am not a citizen of the US, but I hold an opinion about their politics. I am not a woman, but I would campaign and support the battle for equality of the sexes. I will not be affected by top-up fees myself, but I have protested against them and lobbied against them. My opinion is not rendered invalid and my skills made irrelevant simply because I am not directly affected. The weighting given to my opinions and skills might be reduced, but it does not invalidate them.

6. It encourages heterophobia.

   Heterophobia is a weird thing that sounds very theoretical, but it's out there. Through a variety of mistakes, I have been on an NUS training event. It was a closed (ie. LGB people only) event, but the person in charge of organising it didn't realise that when they invited me. It was a real culture shock to be dropped into such hostile waters.

   The University of Kent's LGBT Society is open to anyone, regardless of sexuality. This seems like A Good Thing™ to me. Turns out a lot of LGB societies don't have this in their constitutions, though. A lot of societies exclude non-LGB(T) people from attending, as I found out:

   "So, do you have any straight members of your [LGB] society?"
   "Oh, no no no no no. We don't allow it. I would be most uncomfortable to have any straight people attending our meetings."

   I listened to this, and in the back of my mind there's a voice saying, "Shit, I'm a committee member. They would lynch me if they knew."

   "Does your Union have an equal opportunities policy?"
   "Of course. We take it very seriously."
   "And yet you exclude people from your society based on their sexuality?"
   "Err... Well, when you put it like that..."

   Point is, heterophobia is just as bad as homophobia. Encourage a heterophobic mindset, and you do your movement harm. All that happens is that it becomes its own little insular group, seperate from the rest of society - the exact opposite of what it's trying to achieve.

7. It's not necessary.

   The other main argument used by those in favour of autonomy is that if the LGB campaign was open to non-LGB students, then they would instantly be deluged with bigots and homophobes denouncing them. Or - horror of horrors - the bigots could take over the movement!

   Well, it just wouldn't happen. For a start, the delegates would have to be elected by the students at the University. Even if the homophobic candidate managed to get elected, (s)he is just one person, and would most likely be voted out at the next election once their true agenda became known. For homophobes and fascists to take over the campaign, they would have to be elected in hundreds of universities across the country simultaneously. And if that looked like it would happen, you can bet that every students' union across the country would mobilise to raise awareness and campaign against it, and balance would be restored. If anything, such a move would work in the favour of the campaign - it's these little shake-ups that motivate fresh people to get involved and take a stand.

So, in summary, I am very much against the autonomy of the NUS LGB campaign. I believe it's doing more harm than good and is in need of a radical rethink. However, as the Buddhists might say, change must come from within. So by default nothing will happen, and given the sheer lumbering inertia of NUS beaurocracy it wouldn't happen for years. Convenient, that, isn't it?

So you want to cook me a meal, for some reason or another. I'm sure you have your reasons. Anyway, to try and ease this difficult time for you, I thought I'd do a page of help.

1. Do not panic

   I'm not that difficult, really. You won't have to learn anything new. Well, maybe you might have to learn a little bit more about where your food comes from, and what's in it, but that's about it.

2. Don't forget the staples

   There's loads of stuff you can already cook that's vegan. Baked potatoes and beans. Salads. Pasta (not egg pasta, obviously). Vegetable curry. Vegetable chilli. Chips. Beans on toast. If your ultimate goal is to stop me dying of starvation, rather than providing my tastebuds with a lapdance, then you've got nothing to worry about.

3. Use the net, Luke

   MrFalafel's posts on alt.food.vegan are legendary in terms of being fantastic recipes. There's also loads on the internet.

4. I'm not picky

   I'm not a picky eater, and if you've gone to the effort of cooking it for me I'm going to eat it and I'm going to enjoy it.

I'm fast reaching the conclusion that I'm just not cut out for student life. Not from an academic point of view - I'm fine with that. It's the time away from lectures and seminars that I find tricky. It's odd, because in some ways I'm a stereotypical student - affinity for cheap stuff, listener to the Smiths, play the guitar, odd dietary habits, and so on. Yet in other ways, I'm massively different. I don't drink or do drugs, my dietary habits put me in the minority, my musical tastes are eclectic, and so on.

It all comes down to having a very hazy sense of identity. Most people's friends are people who have similar qualities to themselves - similar tastes, similar interests, similar views, and so on. Most of my friends aren't like that. Of course I don't want to be surrounded by clones of myself, but I would like to know more people whose idea of a good night out is not getting wrecked and making it home with all the limbs they set out with. Yes, there's nothing stopping me sitting in a pub and not drinking, but it becomes very boring very quickly.

Returning to the point of identity, it's all a case of relativity. Your sense of self is related to that of others. You can only be good if others are bad; you can only be generous if others are niggardly. When explaining why you like your friends, you'll probably list ways in which they're similar to you, or to the person you want to be. Let me be explicit: I think all of my friends are wonderful. That's why I'm friends with them. But I think they'd agree that they are very different from myself.

Some people make this similarity thing very easy for themselves by identifying with a subculture. Most of these offer obvious visual clues that someone is just like you, or you are just like them: Goths, Emos, Punks, and so on. All have a distinct visual style that results in an instant comaraderie. Other subcultures are less visual (geeks, artists, writers) but all offer a similar pool of people who you know are going to be pretty similar to yourself.

Here's the kicker: I don't class myself in any of these categories. I'm vaguely hippyish in general, but wait - there's the no drugs thing. I'm getting increasingly cynical, but I like life too much to be goth. I'm into IT but find a lot of the geeky thing irritating. So finding people who "get" me is hard, and that's what it all boils down to - lonliness and isolation.

Returning to the topic of student life, what is there to do for a student like myself? Pubbing and clubbing holds little attraction. London, with its wealth of galleries, exhibitions, live music, and bookstores is too far away to visit regularly on a student budget. Sitting on IRC, coding, or other computer-related stuff just isn't enjoyable when you're either learning about the damn things all year or working in front of a monitor for 8 hours daily. Books are good but antisocial. Canterbury doesn't even have any late-night coffee houses, which might offer a way out.

A lot of this sense of isolation and lonliness would be mitigated if I had some eventual goal, some purpose to strive towards. "It's OK, I'm here as a step towards achieving X." would be a great way to avoid these nagging feelings, but of course I have yet to find an eventual goal or a purpose to my life. I've shied away from the "The purpose in life is to be happy" school of thought because it's pathetically vague. Happiness is a byproduct of doing something; it's finding the something that's the tricky bit.

The point of this article isn't to bitch and moan, or to serve as a self-indulgent rant. I'm trying to get this stuff clear in my own head, as a way of finding a solution. I talk a lot about friends, and having a few more friends like me would probably help, but it's not a solution in itself. Really I need to find some direction, some goal. Recently I've been thinking about forgetting the whole computer gig, and focus on living a rock and roll lifestyle. Drink, drugs, guitar, sex, everything. I would live it up and be a bad example to others. The ultimate goal would be to die in a pool of my own vomit surrounded by unconcious groupies. Attractive as this gloriously hedonistic plan is, I don't think I can bring myself to travel down a road so self-destructive.

As I mentioned before, I don't have a solution to the problem of this fuzzy feeling of discontent. Finding the key to a satisfied mind is tricky, and I have no idea where to look. For now I'm going to keep trying to stay happy in my own company, and spending time with my friends, as a lot of this blends into the background when I'm with them. It would be nice, though, if it were not such a temporary fix.