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As a student
I’ve found that I’ve become so immersed in student life,
and going out to exclusively student nights I’ve forgotten
what it’s like not to be a student.
Article by Anon, Platform
It came as quite a shock to me recently, when I started working
behind the bar in a city centre pub (the name shall remain unmentioned)
to find just how different the real world can be.
At night-time
in the week, from Monday through till Thursday, Nottingham is studentville.
If it wasn’t for us the city centre would be deserted, the
clubs and pubs fall over themselves to try and get a piece of the
of the student pound. Cheap drinks, NUS discounts, happy hours,
they’re all out there to lure us in.
And yet come
Friday night, when the weekend arrives Nottingham becomes the property
of the ‘locals’ and woe betide any soap dodging upstarts
who think otherwise.
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| Pitcher
& Piano, Nottingham |
I’m not
saying that us students are perfect, of course when we get drunk
we do nick the odd traffic cone or have the occasional shopping
trolley race outside ASDA (come on it’s tradition), but anyone
who has worked in any city centre pub or club on a Saturday night
will agree with me that it’s a complete nightmare.
Suddenly the
club that you danced drunken and carefree in amongst friends on
Wednesday night has become over-run by fifteen year old slappers,
the lager swilling Ben Sherman brigade, and forty year old hen parties.
I swear to God that if one more middle-aged hag in a tiny black
mini skirt, the type that most girls stopped wearing when they were
15, comes up to me to me at the bar and slurs that she wants ‘sex
on the beach’ before winking at me and laughing her head off
like she’s just cracked the most original and hilarious joke
of all time then I might just go off the rails in a Robert de Niro
‘Taxi Driver’ style, "ARE YOU TALKIN’ TO ME?"
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| Bar in
the Palais, Nottingham |
Of course there
are places of respite, if you want to go clubbing, then places like
‘the Bomb’ or ‘Lost Weekend’ are attitude free
zones and there’s also Hockley, where you find the trendier
element.
But if you want to hear fat, drunken, thirty year old men, with
their checked shirts tucked into their ASDA George trousers, singing
‘I Love You Baby’ for three hours solid, then take your
pick ‘cause the choice is endless.
Okay, so maybe
I’m over generalising and being a little bit harsh. After all,
it could always be worse. At least we don’t have ‘student
bashing’ (if you can’t use your imagination, this is just
as it sounds, basically involving ‘locals’ patrolling
the streets and beating up students).
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| Yates Wine
Bar, Nottingham |
A friend of
mine at Hull University claims that this was a regular practice
until recently, but now it’s stopped. Not because they’ve
stopped hating students, they just think that now there are others
who deserve it more. So they go ‘asylum seeker bashing’
instead.
At the end of
the day I’m not an unreasonable man, I’m just a bloke
close to the edge having a rant. I’ve not got anything against
99% of those people born and bred in the fine city of Nottingham.
It’s just the 1% that get on my tits, the ones who demand a
new pint because the head’s two millimetres too big or that
call me expletives because I won’t serve them, even though
we called time 20 minutes ago and last but by no means least on
a completely unrelated topic the ones who keep breaking into my
bloody car.
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