Well done guys, Cambridge is on top for another year.

By all means enjoy the inevitable warm feeling of knowing how great our alma mater is, but ask yourself: what does our latest accolade even mean? I’m not denying that Cambridge’s success is deserved – it produces some fantastic people and I’m assured that our time here sets us up for life – but can you really convert three years of supervisions, study and Cindies into a number and pit it against the rest of them?

I’m no statistician so I’ll leave you to analyse the nitty-gritty of their methods yourselves, but certain aspects of these league tables just don’t add up to me.

Firstly, graduate prospects: most of the league tables use figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency’s Destination of Leavers from Higher Education survey which notes employment figures six months after graduation. Immediately this discriminates against budding solicitors, barristers, doctors, vets and academics, all of whom will be in further study for at least a year before entering their chosen profession and so won’t contribute to a high score in this category.

Then there are the categories themselves: in the Guardian league table, three out of eight of them are essentially different manifestations of student satisfaction. This is problematic because the table is based on results from the National Student Survey which, let’s be honest, hardly anyone actually fills out. Therefore, I’m willing to bet that their sample size is rather small and not all too representative of the majority.

In addition, the disparities between the rankings of different tables show just how unreliable they are. Take Imperial, for example, which ranks fourth in the Complete University Guide and the Times but thirteenth and fourteenth respectively in the Guardian and the Sunday Times.

Stats aside, I don’t think we even need to be reminded that we’re the best. Oxbridge’s reputation is entrenched in British culture, and I know that I’ll have the same amount of affinity with this place and just as impressive a CV whether Cambridge ranks top, second behind Oxford, or anywhere else for that matter. The same goes for the guys at the Other Place, who are going to be in exactly the same fortunate position as us regardless of what happens year on year.

You might argue that the tables are a good way of recognising rapidly improving universities, and some other universities do indeed seem to revel in tiny increments year on year: I have it on good authority that there was a quasi-party in the LSE library when they overtook Oxford in the Complete University Guide last month. Surely that’s just a little bit petty? I think we’re much better off celebrating respective niches and the achievements that come with them rather than exposing blatant insecurity.

At the end of the day, we all have a rough idea of what the better and worse universities are, and that’s all you really need to know. Education is a subjective concept, so trying to plot the position of every university in the country with respect to the others is quite simply absurd. I fear that putting it plainly and unequivocally is only going to risk inferiority at the bottom, insecurity in the middle, and complacency at the top.

How will the average Cambridge student react to Eurovision this week?

For some, pure scorn. For others, a faint tremor of illicit excitement.

Someone asked online recently whether it could be screened at a college bar, with the inevitable ‘ironic’ disclaimer: “I have no personal interest in the event”. Yet 17 Likes within a few hours speak for itself: faint tremors, illicit excitement, everywhere.

A third type of Eurovision-person you won’t have come across: they start as a high-brow procrastinator, resisting the mid-morning Facebook tug, but succumbing to micro-peeks at news sites – not time-wasting, technically. One fine morning, they’re perusing the usual vaguely entertaining article, but then realise too late – there’s a sneaky, educative slant.

We learn Eurovision this year comes from Baku, Azerbaijan. In a peculiar incident in March, a brown package landed on the doormat of one of the country’s best investigative journalists, Khadija Ismayilova. Inside were sexual photos of her – taken by a hidden camera in her own bedroom. “Whore, behave. Or you will be defamed”, read the attached note. She announced she would not ‘behave’, and the photos duly spread online a week later.

What her new friends wanted is clear. For a long time she has been one of the few brave journalists reporting on corruption within the president’s family. Suffice to say it’s not appreciated by the powers that be. Azerbaijan may have produced last year’s Eurovision winner and the ‘Russian’ linesman of 1966 World Cup fame, but its government’s liberal democratic pretensions are a sick joke.

In the 2010 ‘elections’, the main opposition didn’t win a seat. Baku residents have been evicted from their homes without notice to ‘beautify’ it for the cameras this week. The constitution guarantees free speech, but the head of a TV station is behind bars as we speak for broadcasting a video of an abusive official. He has been denied the medicine he desperately needs, and made to walk naked along corridors by his jailers. Will he be watching Eurovision?

The woes of Europe hit us week in, week out, but our eastern neighbours are largely ignored. Eurovision presents an opportunity. Is it not crucial that its proud hosts receive the same harsh spotlight as Bahrain around its Grand Prix?

The Grand Prix demonstrated the law that the more marginal the cultural or sporting event, the more enthusiastically people demand a boycott. Of course, a Eurovision boycott would deprive the excited of their relief. Besides, its organisers, the European Broadcasting Union, claim the event is “not political”.

However, in 2010 the EBU committed itself to promoting free speech in its member countries. PR, politics, hypocrisy or what? Why say it at all? Like the Azerbaijani government, it’s failing miserably to practise what it preaches. It must use the leverage it has to press them for greater freedom. Otherwise it risks conviction on a charge of pure hypocrisy.

So you, Cantabs simply seeking a break from the books, now blossom into our third type of Eurovision-person: fully aware of the broadcasters’ little local difficulty, but now complicit in the act of watching once harmless pap-pop.

And so the originally scornful (along with those whose hearts are racing) are now armed with the perfect excuses for a Eurovision opt-out: “I can’t watch the PR ploys of an oppressive regime” for the snob; “I can’t ignore an oppressive regime anywhere anytime” for the cheesier soul.

Surely the only real hope is that the Azerbaijan glittering on our screens will be recognised as a single side of the picture; that the darker sides of Europe will never be forgotten or assumed away amidst the ubiquitous rhetoric of liberal democracy.

The old adage goes that you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family.

The tricky group to place into this platitude is your flatmates – sometimes you have total control and other times you have none. Having lived in University accommodation and private accommodation in both Edinburgh and Cambridge, however, I get the feeling that Cambridge students, in the process of moaning about college-this and college-that, forget how well the college accommodation system can serve them.

Although I was lucky enough to live with an excellent bunch of guys during my first two years at Edinburgh, when we were scattered to the four winds in our third year I was forced to find new flatmates – a stressful process. One woman that moved in, who shall remain anonymous, eventually accused the other three of us of systematically stealing the berries out of her Special K Berry Mix. We could also examine the time I was immediately exonerated from the theft of cuppa-soup and hot chocolate mix on the basis that they were the diet versions.

After hastily hiding my deluxe berry panning equipment for fear of false accusations, I concluded she was slightly bonkers. I eventually jumped ship from that flat mid-lease as the accusations, all unfounded, escalated – which was a rather expensive business and unfortunate given I liked the other flatmates (who also jumped ship).

During my one year in college accommodation here there were undoubtedly frustrations, such as when my washing rack was placed outdoors in a torrential downpour as it was a ‘fire hazard’ or living next to a shower that squealed like a skewered cat when flow began.

However, it was refreshing not to have to deal with a great number of the administrative nightmares living in private accommodation could be a gateway to. After spending two hours on the phone and sending several proof-of-status letters, I finally received council tax exemption from Edinburgh City Council. However, rather than Mr James Ross, the exemption was put in the name of Mother James Fox. Short of dressing up in religious drag, I had to repeat the process all over again.

All the above could be true of Cambridge, but here commercial student accommodation is even scarcer (given that the University owns everything central) and, therefore, pricier than the already steep Edinburgh. Even in the case of Edinburgh’s first-year halls, though, Cambridge (on average, at least) can do far better.

Although I have eaten some dodgy Hall food in my time, I am yet to be served a ‘Wolfdog’ – a staple of the Pollock Halls menu in 2004. I found out the hard way that these were hotdogs injected with warm cream cheese that squirted into your mouth. Picture the image and no colourful analogies are needed. It was a month before I went near the (prepaid in rent) canteen again.

Having dealt with private accommodation over 5 years living in Edinburgh, the college setup here initially felt stifling. However, when you get into the full weight of the workload that Cambridge inevitably comes with, the last thing you want to be dealing with is convincing British Gas that their rep read the meter wrong and you don’t owe them over £21,000 on this month’s bill.

That’s why I’ll be moving back into college as I embark upon what is hopefully the home straight of my PhD. College accommodation varies wildly in location and quality within the college, let alone between different ones, but make the most of it while you can. Chances are that you’ll miss it once it’s gone.

They say you’re meant to leave Cambridge with either a first, a blue, or a husband. My lack of sporting prowess immediately rules out the blue and I can’t even find a boyfriend let alone someone who’s marriage material. So I was really banking on the first, if anything. But now it seems that this sliver of a dream is also doomed to fail.

Statistics from Cambridge have shown that males are more likely to graduate with a first class degree compared to females. This is especially true of arts subjects, where girls make up a greater number of course students, yet boys are still more likely to reach the elusive top grades. In 2007 they introduced gender-based analysis on examination reports to try and figure out why such an irregularity exists. Unfortunately they’ve been unable to solve the mystery. I’m no Sherlock Holmes, but the answer, to me at least, seems to lie in the basic differences in the way the different sexes approach work.

Girls are much more likely to plan, to organise, to colour code, and to revise along the straight and narrow: we’ll play it safe, we’ll learn enough topics, we’ll make revision timetables (with scheduled fun). This is not true for all girls, but all I’m saying is that it’s not boys who get excited about a brand new pack of Crayola felt-tips. Boys, in contrast, are more often than not confident enough to chance it, to hope for the best: to do the least amount of work with maximum return. I don’t know many girls who would have the (metaphorical) balls to adopt this strategy.

Essentially, the Cambridge tripos system is still geared towards examining boys: your final degree classification, unlike in other universities, is not based on credits, but mainly on a few hours of exams in the Easter Term of third year. It’s a reminder that whilst Cambridge may be 800 years old, women have only been fully fledged students, on equal terms with men, since 1947: just 65 years ago.

Arguably, the exam system has not had time to catch up. This system does not favour the year-round worker, but rather the crammer; in the most general of senses girls tend to fall into the former category, and boys into the latter. First class weekly supervision essays are rendered almost meaningless when the bulk of your degree is decided in the exam room. To get a First, as far as I can tell, you have to come up with something original, unique and maybe even slightly weird. Whilst both girls and boys are equally capable of doing this, it appears that boys are more willing to succeed and adopt this bolder and more risky approach. Girls tend to be better at playing it safe.

And so what should be done? Should Cambridge totally re-orientate itself to focus on the female sex? No – there is no point merely reversing the bias. It would be easier if our degrees were based on a credit system, but the way exams work is part and parcel of why a Cambridge degree is so rigorous. Regardless of sex, everyone has to work hard. Girls are also working against the odds.

It now seems that by the time I actually find someone suitable, marriage will be a possibility for my fellow homos and me. Obama’s most recent announcement, coupled with our own government consultation, points to an increasing acceptance for gay marriage.

What a divisive idea that is. While I might occupy myself with the choice between a Maid of Honour and a Best Man, the reality is that there are a lot of people who really do not want to see same-sex couples saunter down the aisle. Not that such people would be invited, anyway.

I’m no stranger to the arguments against me when I mention the suddenly huge topic of gay marriage, having already challenged Archbishop Sentamu about his opposition earlier this year. Despite my letter and its reply, and the best efforts of certain individuals and groups, I am yet to see any substantial counter-argument against gay marriage. Procreation and raising children? Gay couples adopt all the time, while plenty of childless hetero couples get married. That marriage is a traditional, unchanging institution? Take your pick from the issues of divorce, inter-race, or Gretna Green marriages. Religious disagreements? Sorry, I must have missed our transition into a theocracy where civil marriages stopped being a thing.

Maybe I’m blinded by my vision of the perfect wedding cake, but having had a fairy-tale rite promised to me practically from birth, I fail to see how the problems of people I will never know should deny me my day. In fact, if I were to slip off and marry, I’m pretty sure their lives wouldn’t change in any way. At all.

But assuming that Mr Cameron maintains the UK’s status as the “best place to live as LGBT in Europe”; and continues to insist that the current consultation is about how to implement, not whether to implement such a welcome change, my speculation turns to something I overhear in Cambridge all too often: religious, and in particular College Chapel, marriages.

While Selwyn’s chapel is glorious, my rather cold and distant relationship with any formal religion means I’m not sure it would be right for my own big day. But the same is not true for everyone. Being gay and having a faith are not mutually exclusive, and this begs the question of just where the next set of battle lines will be drawn, of whether all my friends will be allowed to marry in the place they met and spent their most formative years. College chapel marriages are a solely heterosexual right, and an important part of an alumnus’s relationship with their college; a right denied to so many in this university.

Mr Obama has (finally) jumped on the pro-homo bandwagon, with his announcement in favour of equal rights, – make no mistake, that is what we’re discussing here – poignantly timed to follow North Carolina’s state constitutional ban on recognising same sex couples. The debates there mirror the debates here, and I can’t help but appeal to history to sort them out.

Support for gays marrying is on the rise, and unrest about the current lack of equality is clear, no matter which institution gets involved. Be it the legions of pro-gay marriage Church of England ministers, or the surprisingly defiant Cameron in the face of his rebelling backbenchers. In the states, the similarity to the fight for inter-racial marriage 45 years ago is uncanny, and a generation later its former illegality is inconceivable.

I can’t help but think, rather Whiggishly I admit, that in another few decades this whole debate will be looked upon with the exact same wonder attached to all major civil rights movements: how could people be so terribly, shamefully bigoted?

‘Cyber-bullying’ – remember that?

It’s a concept that everyone is familiar with, but if you’re anything like me, it now feels like a relic of secondary school, left to gather dust among GCSE textbooks. However, this seriously neglects the still powerful tool that the Internet places in a bully’s hands. With anonymity on your side, discrimination and harassment can take on a life of its own in cyberspace. But where should the line be drawn – when does harmless banter become a form of vicious victimisation?

Today has seen the closing Cambridge’s very own Library Whispers, a site that allowed those of us trapped among the stacks to post anonymous comments from libraries around the university. The site, opened for the second time at the beginning of this exam term, has had to been taken down as the result of it having “turned into a forum of hate” in the words of its founder, Oliver Rees. While witty banter and observations inspired by boredom often prevailed, the site was vulnerable, like all its cyber-colleagues, to the abuse of its users.

To give due credit, the site  worked hard to remove those comments that cross a line. For example, administrators were quick to take down the particularly provocative “Just spat on a working-class person – fucking jokes!!!!!”. But its ‘hands off’ policy has, in part, facilitated the airing of derogatory material which pushes at the bounds of bullying. While enjoying the live feed on Friday evening as I desperately put off delving into yet another book on early modern witchcraft, the ‘whispers’ clawed at my conscience: “I can hear you clicking at your fucking card game through my headphones you inconsiderate dyke.” “Crazy laughing bitch in the corner please desist.” Nor am I alone, with one user whispering: “Why is everyone being so mean to each other? I thought library whispers was meant to be fun?”

Those that created Library Whispers should be congratulated for the site, which has provided an all-too-needed release for library-induced frustration. Facebook, Twitter, et al. have been unashamedly abused in the same way by those either too immature or too naïve to realise the true impact of their words and actions. However, perhaps this singular example can provide a personalised window into the continued presence of cyber-bullying in a university environment.

Across the proverbial pond, March 2012 saw the sentencing of Dharun Ravi, the roommate of 18-year old Tyler Clementi. The former Rutgers student was convicted on all 15 counts with which he was charged, ranging from invasion of privacy to bias intimidation. Clementi threw himself of the George Washington bridge in September 2010 after Ravi streamed a live video of his roommate’s sexual encounter with another man, tweeting “I saw him making out with a dude. Yay.”  He now faces up to 10 years in prison and possible deportation to India.

As the line between private and public is blurred by the expansion of technology, we have all become increasingly vulnerable to the bullies of this world. I do not pretend to be qualified to dictate where the line can be drawn between harmless fun and potential cruelty, but perhaps a greater awareness that cyber-bullying is not simply a relic of secondary school might make it more recognizable when we encounter it either as a victim, a witness, or a perpetrator.

While I will always be amused by such posts as “Spent long enough in the library to start being attracted to the bust of John Taylor #stupidsexyjohntaylor”, I am tempted, perhaps for the first time ever, to side with someone sitting in the Central Science Library asking themselves “honestly who goes on this website to bitch about people”.

Library Whispers’ unfortunate fate is a vociferous warning of the current and all too extensive presence of bullying in universities. I applaud the website administrator’s decision to take down Library Whispers before someone got hurt.

The revolution is coming.

Or so we are told to believe by the most recent addition to the Cambridge chump contingent – the maddeningly incoherent Ian Bone. Bone, a man who in his blog seems obsessed with swans (some might say he’s quackers), has decided that the game is up for Cambridge; it’s chumps vs bumps. He’s coming on down – and he’s going to teach the Eto-, no sorry, Cambridge students a bloody good lesson. The shits.

Now if any of you were thinking of joining Mr Bone for his punishment procession, I wouldn’t worry about booking in advance; last time he marched he had almost as many people as there are brain cells in Sarah Palin’s thick skull. And please note: this is class war. No toffs, etc. Just in case you were thinking of joining in.

The problem is that Bone isn’t as much of a moron as he first comes across, no matter the fact he hasn’t been able to keep a political group together for more than a few months. He, along with an unusual bedfellow Michael Gove, is appalled at how private schoolboys dominate public life. He’s wrong in his assertion that Cambridge is Eton plus, and no one other than deluded idiots and Fiona Millar believe that.

But he’s not completely left field – Cambridge, major firms, the law, medicine and so on are still very private-schooly. Bone’s antics don’t help our access agenda; but in truth, Cambridge will take the kids with highest grades. It’s the fault of progressive governments who have consistently failed youngsters by refusing to rethink education, or understand the link between parental wealth and circumstances, and school success, meaning that the highest grades disproportionately come from private schools, and some schools still say ‘we don’t send kids like ours to the major universities’.

This is a guy fed up with the Westminster bubble, full of professional politicians who haven’t the first idea about life, having been groomed through party offices since conception. He quite rightly suggests that the left are either stupid (SWP) or shite (everyone else), and, like many of the disappointed anarchists and sociopaths, thinks violence is the only way forward. Which is where he loses respect.

This is the guy who published a calendar called ‘Hospitalised Coppers’, which does what it says on the tin. Like a lot on the left, he cannot wait to put the boot in to the ‘pigs’ – that bastard group of people who keep our streets safe and protect the public. Now don’t get me wrong, the police force is not a paragon of virtue, but HM Constabulary is made up of a large number of hardworking, working class people – the exact people he claims to represent.

The reality is that Bone is a failed anarchist, and a bit of an irrelevant twat. He might come to bumps and cause a nuisance, but not much more. But he does leave a few questions hanging in the air, even if we disagree with his answers; and maybe, rather than getting pissed off with him, we should find some of our own.

As a twenty-year old, the last thing I want right now is a baby.

I’m terrified of getting pregnant. However, sometimes I do find myself getting broody: seeing babies makes me happy.  I love watching One Born Every Minute and bawling my eyes out at the euphoric moment when the baby finally arrives. I know that I want children, and glibly assume that I will be able to have them.

But what if I can’t? What if I start trying for a baby and I find out my eggs are no good, that I’m infertile? I don’t know what I would do. So, I have immense sympathy for infertile couples that rely on egg donations to help them conceive. That said, (and I know this is hypocritical) I probably wouldn’t donate my own eggs; at least not at this age.

The company Altrui who run a “truly personal egg donation service” have recently been leafleting in some colleges’ pigeon holes. There’s something about this that I find vaguely sinister. I looked up their website, and for all its talk of helping women, and believing in “integrity, honesty, determination and kindness,” it struck me as a bit of a sales pitch. It could have been a site offering bespoke holidays, the way it promised an egg donation “exclusively for you”.

Egg donation – too early to even consider?

As a student, I can see the advantages of egg donating: it may be voluntary, but there is compensation worth up to £750 (as of April this year), meaning that you could probably make some decent money out of it. However, egg donating shouldn’t be about any financial incentive, which is why I’m sceptical about the company targeting students.

Here at Cambridge, there’s enough to worry about without the thought that my offspring is gallivanting around somewhere. Because, let’s be honest, it would be my offspring. The website uses quite a nice analogy of eggs as seeds: they may be a biological imprint of the flower, but it is only with a certain gardener and certain conditions that they will bloom into a flower. It’s a pleasant enough metaphor, but I don’t buy it: the child will have your genes, and no matter how much you privilege nurture over nature, you cannot escape the fact that if you’re a bluebell, your seed isn’t going to suddenly grow into a poppy.

There are a whole range of moral dilemmas and potential problems: what if you could pay a premium for the eggs of someone beautiful? What if the baby is born with a defect? Will they blame the egg donor? Will they love the baby just the same? Will they want to give him/her back?  What if the baby is conceived with both an egg donor and a sperm donor? Technically that child will then have four parents!

I’m not sure twenty-something students are ready to deal with these ramifications. I know I certainly wouldn’t be.

All of the cultures that have ever existed anywhere in the world have had three indulgences in common: music, sex, and drugs.

It was in this knowledge that I frowned at the ‘Caesarian Monday’ spread – the splurge of visceral hate spraying into our hearts and minds from the open mouths of the national press. Images of unconscious girls sprawled beneath cocksure schweffes displaying glittery thongs adorned every media outlet I could find. As with countless Caesarian Sundays before this year, our celebration of all-things-alcohol was deemed nationally noteworthy.

Pierre Novellie of Footlights fame officially makes Caesarian Monday ‘a thing’

There are plenty of easy jealousy-fuelled aspersions for the media to cast over these photos: “It’s inappropriate to get so mother-fucking drunk in a public place in the daytime!”, or “I was trying to take my children to the playground but three Wyverns were vomiting in the sandpit!”, or, my personal and rather stunning favourite, “If they have so much money to spend on alcohol, they can’t complain about rising tuition fees!”.

These in turn have easy, rational, and dull responses to fling back: “By and large we weren’t breaking the law!”, or “Weren’t you all young once?!”, or the ever so irrefutable “We work hard all year round, we should be allowed one day to let off steam!” While these retorts approach semi-validity, they seem contrary and reactionary and don’t defend our levels of debauchery very well.

More importantly, I don’t work hard. Ever.

Caesarian Sunday is so much more than one day to let off steam. Like punts, bicycles, twisting spires, and repressed homosexuality, it is to me quintessentially Cantabrigian. The day is a parade of our effective but unique oligarchical social structure: from the very loftiest of the drinking society big-dicks to the wettest of wet-behind-the-ears freshers, every stratum of our hedonistic hierarchy was in attendance on Jesus Green, slaying it as best they could.

Where Suicide Sunday is all about the big garden parties, all about being one of a seething thirsty mass chopping all before it, all about smearing everything in jelly and lube, cackling, and running all the way to Cherry Hinton, Caesarian Sunday is of a different ilk. It celebrates individuality. Whether it was singing on top of Castle Mound at the crack of dawn, running silly initiations, or just fighting amongst ourselves, there was a wonderful range of diverse and merry activities going on on Sunday.

It’s always going to happen: we scoff at the paparazzi, they scoff at us. Passing out, peeling off and drinking port out of condoms is one of hundreds of scandals the Daily Mail will print this week, and the furore will die down in minutes. Whereas quotes like “The Wyverns drinking society has a reputation for heavy drinking and hard partying” will keep me jolly for months.

With Suicide Sunday just around the corner, this fictional construct for one will feel proud to step back for a moment and watch as the action unfolds.

Recently Mary Beard was criticised for being ugly. Her response? It was actually because she’s so clever. Did nobody else think that was a bit arrogant?

Before expanding on this I should just set a couple of things straight – Gill’s attack on Beard and her appearance was not only unjustifiable and rude, but also pretty boring. That’s before we even get onto Samantha Brick, the Daily Mail journalist who, having gained nationwide notoriety for complaining that she is adversely judged on her appearance, weighed in to do just the same to Beard.

However, despite my natural aversion to Gill’s sentiments, I thought Beard got her response completely wrong. Her article ran under the headline: “Too ugly for TV? No, I’m too brainy for men who fear clever women”. This entirely misses the point.

Beard was criticised because she did not live up to the standard of ‘beauty’ which our society expects of its TV presenters. So far, so offensive. But what she failed to grasp is that this is not an issue confined to sex.

I could fill this article’s word count twice over with examples of men who have been mocked because they don’t satisfy the same celebrity aesthetics of which Beard has fallen short. Adrian Chiles, Antony Worrall Thompson and many others could make the same complaints. People even make films about it.

This entire attitude is wrong. I need hardly say that people ought to be judged on their merit in the field they work in rather than their physical appearance. Clearly some fields require a certain aesthetic but Beard was not auditioning for a part as a Bond girl. She was presenting a documentary on ancient Rome, an area in which she is pre-eminently expert.

The example of Gill’s treatment of Claire Balding (he dubbed her a “dyke on a bike”) has been dredged up in support of Beard’s outburst, but surely this was an equally disturbing instance of homophobia, not sexism?

It is an argument often levelled against the feminism movement that every issue is manipulated into an argument over sexual politics. While not wanting to make such a bold statement as that myself, I don’t think Beard, as a confirmed and competent feminist herself, has done anything to dispel that stereotype.

How should she have responded? Either with the dignified silence that Gill’s blatant and imbecilic shit-stirring deserved, or by saying something like the following: “I may not fulfil your shallow idea of beauty, but I don’t care. I am an academic and consequently want to be judged as such, rather than against society’s vapid idea of celebrity beauty”. And she should have left it at that.

But once it got embroiled in sexual politics, her response became: “It’s just because I’m cleverer than you”. And that’s an answer straight from the playground, not the professor’s office.