Christmas: escape from the bubble

### Charley-kai John

**I’m currently under investigation, in fact most students are, by the dreaded TV licensing authority who will send you a letter telling you the premises has not purchased a license and so is suspicious. After the whole floor in your halls receive the same letter you start to feel like you’re in a game of Cluedo. It was colonel Mustard in the common room illegally streaming _The Thick of It_. **

I don’t get to watch much live television at university and this combined with Warwick’s campus nature and location in a field full of rabbits and squirrels can make you feel detached from the big ole’ outside world. By the time it gets to the Christmas holidays a lot of people are eager to get back home and into the ‘real world’ but for me, reflecting back after two weeks of creature comforts I’ve realised that the ‘bubble’ of uni life has certain benefits.

Without quite realising it, the lack of live television has partly shielded me from the bombardment of Christmas related commercial adverts that occur around this time of year. Every celebrity has come out in festive spirit to try and flog their scent, which wouldn’t be as annoying if there weren’t hundreds of them for every Save the Children advert. After seeing emotionally harrowing images of starving children it would be nice not to see Britney Spears pop up marketing eau de trailer trash. If the model from the Bleu de Chanel advert tells me he’s ‘not going to be the person he’s expected to be anymore’, again, by wearing a brand perfume I might not be able to swallow the sick this time.

While we’re on the topic – I’ve had a brilliant idea for a new Olympic sport in time for Rio 2016, you have to walk through the perfume section of Boot’s while being gassed at regular intervals with testers and make it to the other side without passing out. It would also be nice to spend more than a few hours shopping without feeling like the Mayan’s were right after all and the world has really ended because you’re caught up in a stampede making it’s way to throw clothes around in Primark.

Even the news seems to be deteriorating, and when I say news I mean regional news. We need regional representation, it’s important, but last year I had to put up with the breaking news that seagulls were being killed by poisoned chips at a beach in Rhyl and this year it’s the earth shattering newsflash that Llanfairpwll FC or Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch FC (I think I just gave my regional station away with that one) has attracted attention from the South American media because it’s believed to have the longest name in club football – riveting stuff. If it’s not that then it’s the local weatherman showing us the isobars on a homemade tie he’s wearing that someone sent in rather than getting on with telling us that the forecast for the whole time you’re home is…rain. Then again, Newsnight are now doing pieces on ‘the onesie’ so I can’t complain too much.

If I keep venting I think I might just turn green, there are a lot of positives to being home this time of year. Everyone’s favourite haggard alcoholics _the Pogues_ are climbing back up the charts like it’s a bar and the last orders bell has just been sounded. If you have a Christmas work-do you can confront the elephant’s in the room from the previous December while trying not to throw up at the smell of Sambuca wafting round the club.

You can receive an Umbro tracksuit off a distant relative who believes your ideal festive present is a fake Rolex and is uncertain of your real age. It’s the only time it will ever be acceptable to get up and sing Someone Like You, blind drunk and crying, on the karaoke while thinking about the one who got away. Stuff yourself like a Christmas turkey and then slide into a post sprout stupor on the sofa.

Most importantly – remember on Christmas Eve to leave some Starbucks coffee out for Santa and Ferrero Roche for Rudolph because it’s an arduous journey from the apple store and otherwise you won’t get the thinnest, lightest, fastest iPhone ever in your stocking.

It’s nice to be at home but I’m looking forward to getting back to the bubble.