Opinion

Recently I’ve noticed a trend that seems to be growing amongst the students of this fine University, one which has affected me so much that I felt the need to let off a bit of steam. I am referring of course to the growing presence of posers with Macs in lessons. If you’re sneaking a read of impact in the lecture hall then take a sec to have a quick look around. Odds are that you’ll be able to see at least one person with their perfectly-formed white or silver machine with a glowing fruit on the back. Now, out of these people, how many of them are actually paying attention to what’s going on?

For many of those reading, clubbing and drinking probably form a core part of your social lives; you most likely celebrate significant events such as birthdays or the passing of exam periods with a night in town, use nights out to help new members of clubs or societies ease their way in, or just spend the afternoon drinking until you chunder everywhere in order to increase the general hilarity of your everyday life.

Last November when 7 ft Russian Boxer Nikolai Valuev was comprehensively beaten by David
Haye, it was all too clear that size is not everything, that giants can be conquered. In
fact this is what Britain had managed to show for half a millennium, ruling the world
first through naval prowess and then through victories in the two greatest wars ever
seen. And yet it was these two wars that seemed to spark the beginning of the end of
British imperial power. At its height, the British Empire encompassed a quarter of the

The Higher Education sector is currently in the eye of two great storms: one concerning the unsustainable current model of funding, and the other about the erosion of standards.
At the outset of the Lord Browne review, Steve Smith, University of Exeter's vice-chancellor and president of Universities UK, said that “our universities must receive sufficient funding to remain world class and any changes to the current fee regime must also take account of the implications for widening participation”.

Every student knows what it is to be hungry, either due to financial concerns, lectures scheduled at lunchtime, or pure laziness. Some of us are obsessed with “5-a-day”s or counting calories, others just want something quick, tasty, and (preferably) cheap. News agencies bombard us with information about the levels of obesity in children and adults and the health risks involved. But what do we really know about hunger worldwide?

Presenting yourself to others as something you are not, like assuming officialdom by donning a policeman's outfit, like a conman feigning legitimacy or a criminal pretending to be law abiding by pleading innocence, is clearly nothing else but deception and dishonesty.

With the next General Election looming and competition between the three main parties hotting up, it's time to put aside those books for a second, and give a thought to who you’re going to vote for.

For many a student the best method of dealing with this ailment of the 21st century, the quarter-life crisis, is to take a ‘year out’. One of the first steps for the modern student in deciding to do a year out/off is to seek a fallacious justification for doing so. Different excuses are floated to explain the motivation, none of which pertain to the clear truth that it's work avoidance and not an existential, soul-searching voyage to divine your true vocation.

After reading ‘Reflections on the modern male student’ in the 10th edition of Impact, I came away confused and slightly vexed. After an initial read, the writer appears to sympathise whole-heartedly with the apparent heterosexual female dilemma: where are all the nice guys? Must we be repeatedly shagged and left, bringing us ever closer to the seemingly inevitable gin-fuelled evenings spent alone surrounded by cats, the only creatures to ever give us the affection and loyalty we (apparently) so richly deserve from being born female?

Last week, as you’re no doubt already aware, the Queen officially dissolved Parliament in preparation for what promises to be the biggest election battle since Labour’s victory in 1997. The recent YouGov and IPSOS MORI polls place Labour around 5 points behind the Conservatives, meaning that Labour need to cling on to 24 seats to retain an absolute majority. On the other hand, for a Conservative majority, the opposition party need to gain a whopping 116 seats, otherwise the rarity of a hung parliament under the First Past the Post system will become a reality.