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In This Issue

• Lessons of a Dancer’s Life
• Fast Times at Our Lady of Mercy Elementary
• Gulati Talks Soccer, Economics, and His Evil Alter Ego Zubil Dubabi
• Bleeding Candy Sweethearts
• 79 Ways To Fix Your Iraq
• 10-Year-Old Reviews IMDb’s Top Ten Movies of All Time
• A Good London Drinker Thinks How to Drink Hers
• Tales of the Inexpressible: Kinematics
• Cupid as a Young Teen
• Unadvised, Advising the Unadvisable
• Tales of the Inexpressible: Bless Your Heart
• On the Web, No One Knows You’re a Scientist
• Go Ask Alice!
• The Big News from the Big Town: Hollywood!
• The BWOG
• Bored at Butler
• THEY Watch

As a transfer student from LDN (that's London, England, not London, Canada) a few things were immediately noteworthy when I first laid eyes on Columbia.

First was the student population, which was pretty much faceless, swaddled as you all are under layers of puffy clothing. I was befuddled by your Michelin Man-chic attire, but the reason for it was soon clear: it's bloody freezing.  Once I had ascertained that there were real people beneath the mounds of goose down moving up and down the sidewalks, I set about trying to befriend them. Another problem then suddenly came to the fore: no one had a fucking clue what I was chatting*. It wasn't that I was using London slang, but rather that my accent continually confused people. By way of intimating that they hadn't understood a word, they would remark benignly, "I love your accent... it's Australian? Oh, Breeteesh!" This was typically followed by an astoundingly accurate rendering of a Breeteesh accent, often peppered with delightfully current phrases such as, "What ho, old bean? Had tea with the Queen lately?" With appropriately British restraint, I'd smile politely and grit my teeth, for I understand that the Blair-Bush "special relationship" has made Old Blighty the equivalent of a rather irritating, yippy dog to the Americans-a useless, weak little bitch that has taken to cowering behind your legs.

That was not the most significant revelation, though. Far and away the most striking feature of you people, your lives, and this institution is your attitudes toward drinking. Before you start berating me with words like "binge drinking," "pub culture," and "teenage pregnancy" (Britain has the highest figures of teen pregnancy in Europe, which is surprising given that we don't have fraternities or rap music), let me be clear: we Brits know how to drink. You Americans don't.

One could argue that the reason for this is indubitably linked to our respective legal drinking ages: 18 (read: 16) in my country, 21 (read: 21, or some bloody good fake ID) in yours. You might also argue that at 18, or 16 with a low-cut top, people are too young to drink responsibly, that they will get into trouble, and that they really should be in their 11th grade chemistry class and not behind the bike sheds with a can of Stella. This is simply not true. Drinking makes you grow up, and fast. If anything is to blame for the bleary, ruddy, bald nature of British men, it's the fact that they've been having a shot of bourbon in their milk since they were old enough to wear pants. Therefore, the more you drink, the older you look, the less you need a fake ID, and, starting round the cycle again, the more you drink.  Such is life as a youth.

And that, really, is the salient point. Drinking is a lifestyle choice in Britain, much in the way you choose here to support the Yankees, or the Red Socks, or whatever your ridiculous teams are called. We pour our hearts, souls, and coppers into drinking, and so we know what's good shit and what's bad, and how to tell Jägermeister from Port, or French cider from White Lightning. Only the other night, I was invited to a dorm party, to which I brought my own Gordon's Gin, a bottle of Schweppes tonic, and two limes. One girl there hadn't ever had gin, a shocking revelation to someone who's been drinking it from teacups whilst playing croquet on the lawn at Buckingham Palace since she was yea high (I am currently holding my left hand, with fingers outstretched, parallel to and quite near the floor). How can you think that you are educated, privileged, or wealthy when at 19 years old, the best you can manage is a boast to your friends that you've forged an alliance with that dude who works at the bodega, and can thus buy your sick-packs without that highly questionable Michigan driver's license?  How can you consider yourself a connoisseur, simply for having a beer pong game permanently set up in your room? These amateurish attempts at understanding alcohol and the value therein are, quite frankly, rubbish.

Indeed, this is the crucial difference between your definition of drinking and mine. For American college students, I have discerned that the act of imbibing alcohol is nearly always accompanied by plastic cups, ice, chugging, and exclamations of delight (e.g. "Whooo!," "Fuck yeah!"). Whilst there are, of course, occasions where any number of these formalities might be appropriate, I don't think that any of them take place in a cocktail or wine bar. One recent weekend, I was at a party where I was offered red box wine that had been chilled in the fridge. Stunned, I drank it. It was cold, but not as icy as my once-hopeful heart, now dead inside from such experiences. Red wine on its own: acceptable. Box wine: borderline. Chilled, red box wine? A monstrosity.

And here lies the rub. It's all about the combination and the variety. Back in the old country, we have a summer drink called pimms which we drink at pimms o'clock (i.e. all the damn time). But in the cold season, this drink becomes winter pimms, with hot apple juice and cinnamon as an addition. This is a pub drink, not a bar drink, and one would never try to make it at home, unless one is studying for A-level exams and needs a little something-something to help Virgil pack a punch. Similarly go the conventions for cocktails and mixers, to be drunk mainly in bars and only using quality spirits. Unlike you guys, we English haven't developed a liking for the tangy, industrial aftertaste of Costco's own-brand vodka.

So in conclusion, kids, if you want to look cool and be grown-up and accelerate the aging process, learn how to drink properly. That means cocktails (hopefully ones without asinine names like "fuzzy nipple," "screaming orgasm," etc.), quality spirits (Bacardi 150 doesn't count), and an appreciation for the fact that different occasions require different beverages, served in different ways. Is it really reasonable to want beer from a keg at 3 p.m.?  Wouldn't a Bloody Mary be a better choice than Carling at 10 a.m.? We Brits have a reputation for being drunk, lairy, and loutish all the time, and that's mostly because we are. So call us sots or oafs, or even boors.  But don't say we don't know what we're doing.