Two Penn’orth: Someone block the vomcano

Human beings don’t enjoy being sick. It’s in our DNA. It’s not meant to be fun – and presumably those of our ancestors who thought that it was vomited their way to a slow, painful death by starvation and malnutrition. If we really loved throwing up that much we’d give up on washing our hands and our food, and spend our time licking toilet seats and gargling sewage instead. But we don’t – I hope.

How, then, has it come to be that students of the University of Warwick – that is, intelligent, hard-working students at one of Britain’s top learning establishments – have come to embrace the cult of the alcohol-induced ‘chunder’? How have we reached the stage where some find it thoroughly entertaining to extract some voyeuristic thrill from seeing somebody who’s drunk more than they can manage suffer the consequences?

Any visitor to Planet Earth, were they to only visit circles at the Union, or a Warwick sports society ‘initiation’ ceremony, would leave with the impression that spewing one’s acid-soaked, half-digested dinner all over the floor, or perhaps into a bin, is not only socially desirable but pretty hilarious too. The Martians would be left in no doubt that this procedure is known universally as ‘banter’.

My beef with the whole ‘lads, lash, chunder’ phenomenon that seems to have permeated so many societies isn’t just that it’s disgusting; it’s that most of the time it constitutes sadistic second or third years deliberately forcing naïve, wide-eyed freshers not only to drink dangerous amounts of alcohol, but to utterly humiliate themselves in the process. Some of the tales that come from sports society initiations in particular leave the impression that these antics probably defy the Geneva Convention on Human Rights – let alone basic human decency.

No university of any standing whatsoever should want to accommodate the sort of creeps who get a kick out of watching some rabbit in the headlights slowly drinking themselves into paralytic oblivion. I propose that the SU crack down on these cretins once and for all.

I accept that it might be difficult for some to move on from the ‘drink ‘til you’re sick’ culture. Perhaps we could organise for them to go to A&E every now and then to get their fill of vomiting unfortunates. But zero tolerance surely has to be the ultimate aim.