Is it a hickey or a bruise?

I recently attended one of the debates organised by the SRC; the debate was titled, ‘This house would sell its scandals to The Sun’. As in any other debate, towards its end, the issue of what the definition of ‘scandal’ is was raised, and it is likely that all people present thought about this word in the context of St Andrews. In such a small agglomeration of people, it seems any small piece of gossip we hear gets blown into pretty great proportions—that we St Andreans consider ourselves to be somewhat self-important in no piece of last-minute news. 

Fresher’s Week offers us the perfect atmosphere for scandalous behaviour; the newly arrived youngsters are still unfamiliar with the idea that the shadow of your drunken mistakes will follow you for the rest of your academic career here. It is fun to watch them. Sometimes I feel like I need to take a long shower afterwards, but that is relatively unimportant, given the conversation topics these inexperienced beings provide us with.  

After three years of St Andrews I have learned to: identify someone who is on the verge of chundering in the bushes; what person who I thought was gay hooked up with a girl; nationality according to attire; and event attended on previous night according to level of hungover state.

Ah the Union, with its blue trash container, against which we once saw two people have sex in the open air...how many scandalous moments we have seen there. And that lamp post on Market Street, with which that very drunk girl made out some time ago. We have made up new games as well, like counting how many people step into which puddle of vom. Oh, and the clueless people dropping comments on their obliviousness towards the middle classes...

I really cannot complain, we get our amusement here for free—real quality entertainment. I just wonder where the scandal draws the line, or if that line will ever be reached. I asked myself this as I exited the Fresher's Fayre today, while in the background the legs of a pole dancer from the 'X-statica pole fitness' society contorted, en train of pulling a demonstration for the masses of people present. Let's just hope she didn't pull any muscles, too, while she was at it.