‘The Master and the Margaritas’ sends a postcard from the frozen tundra of Scotland.
Before I start, I feel that I must disclose that I am not a member of this great college, nor Cambridge University as a whole. Unfortunately my overconfidence did not make up for my pitiful maths skills, forcing me to be banished up north to the new home of Oxbridge rejects, St Andrews. However, it has been a lifelong dream to write for this great publication, and fortunately society’s begrudging acceptance of nepotism is allowing me to do just that. Despite not being an active member of Trinity, I have spent substantial amounts of time within the college, and have heard an immeasurable amount of complaints about it. It seems that St Andrews and Trinity, despite the gap of a few hundred miles and 3 spaces in The Times university rankings, do have quite a few things in common.
Naturally, some things are quite different up here. It’s colder than the messages I get from friends from home, the tap water is not only drinkable, but a highly sought after export, and of course, the town is, as the Scots would say, ‘pure heaving’ with Americans. It’s not that I dislike them, they’re a wonderful people. They’re truly pioneers in so many fields: Red 40, the rise of fascism, country rap. What can’t they do? Unfortunately, the majority of Americans have not experienced the true British baptism of chugging half a bottle of glens in a field at age 15. This leaves them in a tricky spot when arriving at a Scottish university. The American spirit is unfortunately no match for the alcohol tolerance of most Brits. I pity their roommates (I don’t think they’ve realised you don’t have to do that in this country) who will spend their night positioning a bin next to the pillow and praying.
I’m being too harsh. I love a lot of American culture, truly. I always write essays to the Ethel Cain album Perverts, much to the dismay of my neighbours. I even saw Marty Supreme in cinemas twice, and I would posit that Ethel Cain and Timothee Chalamet are the two most culturally significant figures in American culture since Mark Twain. Unfortunately, I’m not too familiar with many other aspects of their culture, but I am always open to learning! I saw an Instagram slideshow berating me on the importance of cultural appreciation vs cultural appropriation. I immediately scrubbed all my posts featuring me in a cowboy hat and boots in a frenzy. To my American audience: please consider this my formal apology. I was uninformed; I truly had no idea of the significance of Bass Pro Shops to your culture. In the spirit of good faith, I would like to invite you all to my barbecue, to hopefully make you all feel a little more at home. It’s currently scheduled for the 3rd of December. But don’t worry! We will of course be screening the live stream of America’s first execution by firing squad since World War 2. Dressing on theme is encouraged!
However, given that St Andrews and Trinity College will have had many of the same applicants, we do attract a fairly similar audience. As a second-generation champagne socialist, I am outraged by the sheer number of privately educated students. Not really for any staunch political reason; mostly just because of minor annoyances and personal grievances. Most of which bear no real relation to their upper class standing; just noisy neighbours, challenging tutorial contributions, and cords so bright they hurt my eyes. You may have heard, we have had a few classism scandals at St Andrews as of late. Sadly I am in no real place to comment. I put real emphasis on the champagne of it all. It’s not all negative, though. Some of them are very friendly. One even offered me a cigarette, and, probably to make me feel more at ease given some of the recent news stories, told me that he did in fact think that Scottish girls were much cooler. He also proposed a good-natured debate, asking me my thoughts on English private school boys. I proceeded to tell him that I thought the gap between state and privately educated students is reinforcing privilege and keeping us entrenched in a harmful class divide. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s what he was getting at.
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