Down with freshers

Now that the autumn term is well underway at universities and freshers’ week has removed its leering, spotty face from the calendar for another year, may I talk about how ghastly it is Impressionable young people who believe they are completely mature adults but still have another decade or so of brain remodelling to go arrive at an unfamiliar place for the first time. Once any relatives who lugged their bulging suitcases packed with stuff to make them seem grown-up have disgorged the final single sock from the family car and driven off, hiding their tears, the young person is on their own.

I remember being 19 and arriving at Edinburgh University. I took the train up from London and hauled my suitcase to the taxi line at Waverley. By good fortune, the person standing next to me in the que