University of Cambridge
- Whoops! You may have failed to get into Oxford University! Good for you...
Cambridge University is the second best of the two universities in the world (see University of Bradford). It was founded last year, and has been known for centuries as one of the most prestigious seats of learning in the non-existent world. The most monumental change to Cambridge University occurred when it closed down in 1983 - 25 years before it was first built - in order to focus on its new function as a tourist site for the Japanese. This function was designed by Stephen Hawking as an elaborate conspiracy. If you visit Cambridge and see any students - they are not real. They are in fact actors there to make the feel of the place look more authentic, much like the Mickey Mouse actors in Disneyland. It is estimated that were the university to distribute its wealth amongst every living organism in the universe, every organism would be considered rich and influential enough to be accepted to study there.
The biggest attraction in Cambridge is King's College Chapel (the college itself was demolished to make way for the new King's College Chapel Leisure Park and Shopping Arcade). After being shown round this historic building, visitors may visit the souvenir shop, where they can buy King's College Chapel icecream, towels, keyrings and of course King's College Chapel-shaped hats.
The Colleges[edit | edit source]
Like the other UK University, Cambridge consists of around 30 colleges, although this number fluctuates from day to day depending on the amount of LSD consumed. A college is essentially the fundamental building block upon which the University is composed; a college can never be considered a real university, much as in America. The official line is that "students use colleges as their primary focus of learning, skiving and various other activities". The widely accepted truth is that each college behaves as a separate tourist attraction, capable of charging entrance fees and selling trinkets. The collegiate system therefore increases the University's revenue thirtyfold.
Fitzwilliam College[edit | edit source]
Fitzwilliam College was founded in 1842 by Randy Fitz William, as a cunning plan to spy on New Hall College Harpies. However, the ingenuity of the plan was short lived as New Hall enforced a strict "Uggos only" admissions policy in 1843 based on appearance using a sliding scale. This policy is still in use today with regular updates, currently ranging from Anne Widdecombe (unconditional offer) to Hilary Clinton (instant rejection) - taken from the 2007 New Hall Prospectus.
The College is operated at a loss, propped up by Trinity College, who own the College and all its assets. A rumour, never confirmed by Trinity College Fellows, is that Fitzwilliam may be used as a refuge when "the Flood comes". This goes some way to explaining the regular deliveries of tinned goods, sandbags and doves. Particularly insightful Fitzwilliam undergraduates are heavily involved in rowing, in order to better serve their future Trinity overlords. The college is run by the evil overlord Bursar Sir Christopher Pratt, Bsc FCUK, MA, BASTARD, Phd.
Famous alumni: Peter Stringfellow, Michael Jackson, John Leslie, Paul Daniels, The Marquis de Sade, Fitzwilliam Darcy, Nick Drake
Robinson College[edit | edit source]
That castle from Super Mario Land
"Hinc laterculi rubra. Praecautus laterculus"- "Here there are red bricks. Watch out for that brick."
The oldest and wisest college in Cambridge, Robinson College was created in 1978 BC as a crude way to confuse and kill low-flying pigeons for Cambridge's cavemens' dinners. This was (and still is to this day) successful because it is made entirely out of blueish-purple bricks. In 66AD it was redecorated by God himself (at that time in the incarnation of Robert Webb) and a chapel was installed. Shortly afterwards it came into use by Cambridge University because they were too cheap to build another building. For most of the 20th Century, it was used as a multi-storey car park for St John's College servants. Since the early 1980s it has been a conference centre. It also has a sideline in higher education.
Robinson is perhaps best known for owning 90% of Trinity College ("Tit College"), half of Trinity Hall ("Tit Hall") and three quarters of the moon, however there is some debate over the latter as Dinosaur fossils have been found on the moon, indicating the Sapientosaur civilisation may have got there first.
It is also worth pointing out that the wildlife inside Robinson Gardens is completely different to that outside it. There are Yeti trees, centaurs and man-eating deer living peacefully there, alongside a small clan of elves, whose balls are cut off and used in the cafeteria to make meat balls. Some theorize that life originated in the grounds of Robinson College, and some even suggest that the first human evolved there too, citing stone tools found in the caves which one can reach using the network of passages under the college building. It is rumoured that Professor Dumbledore once took a stroll in the Robinson Gardens and got lost in a pseudo-cosmic pan-dimensional wormhole and ended up inside his own mind, where he lived out the rest of his days.
Robinson College is also home to the legendary humorous incident involving a penny in Stephen Hawking's glass of wine, which resulted in three fatalities.
Notable students[edit | edit source]
These include Northern Irish Matt, Cornish Dave and Jacob the Communist. The last of these is particularly well known for his hair which is just as extreme as his political views. There is also John of Cramlington, and Matthias of Vlotho. The buff girl off Blue Peter also attended, as did Nick Clegg.
King's College[edit | edit source]
King's College Chapel Leisure Retail Park, proprietor Limehouse Leisure Group PLC
"Where's the chapel?"- tourist #374B to disgruntled King's fresher There/ Look behind you/ Where is your frontal lobe?
Once regarded as the largest and most prestigious college, with a notorious reputation for housing left-leaning scholars and pundits, King's College was in fact privatized in 1982 by Margaret Thatcher following a disparaging Guardian article written by the then-Bursar, Dr. George Galloway. The entire college was bought by a property developer, who sold off all the original buildings (apart from the chapel). The buildings were then relocated, brick-by-brick, to buyers the world over.
The site was renamed the King's College Chapel Estate, upon which the Leisure Park was constructed. The chapel is still standing, and generates around 110% of the city's entire tourism income. Entrance to the chapel costs £40 per person, with a 10% discount to University staff and students. The revenue generated from this will soon allow for the demolition and replacement of the chapel by a new Giuseppe Arcimboldo commission, boasting de luxe maisonettes and a segment of Dame Judi Dench's summer palace. The college will then entirely relocate to Dubai (at present undergraduates are being housed in the University Library sub-basement).
It is not widely known that every tourist who passes through King's College is automatically enrolled as a student by the bots which patrol the college's grounds. This means that when they die, the bursar of King's can use their molars to fertilise the lawns.
A little known fact about this college is that it is named after both The Virgin Mary AND Santa Claus.
Famous alumni: King George III, King James II, King Lear, Nat King Cole, Elvis Presley, John Lennon.
Queens' College[edit | edit source]
"The Queen's College of Saint Margaret the Fetching and Saint Bernard the Dog Offa Beethoven"
"Flora Domino"- "The First Margarine"
Founded in 1933 by the suffragette movement in protest at the university's male bias in college nomenclature, this college officially accepts only extremely effeminate students, but will occasionally bend its rules to accept relatively butch male homosexuals as long as they pledge to write at least one operetta before the age of thirty (see alumnus Stephen Fry, below).
The college architecture incorporates a large pre-fabricated structure made of cardboard sheets and designed to be slotted together. This is known officially as Cripping's Court and colloquially as "the hideous abomination" because of its distinct violation of at least fifteen of the eight laws of aesthetics. It was initially constructed by a team of highly intelligent marmosets who wished to set up an office-supply warehouse in Dorking. When the project flopped, the college purchased Cripping's Court, shipped it to Cambridge and placed it in - or close to - its current location. In 1976, a team of engineering students disassembled the court while drunk, and were unable to reassemble it as intended. In order that they might have somewhere to sleep that night, they cobbled it together with bolts instead: this is why bolts are visible on the superstructure.
On the other hand, the famous mathematical bridge is supported not with bolts, as punt touts would have idiotic Chinese tourists believe, but with superfluous apostrophes. These are gathered from letters addressed to the college by those with poor grammar.
The college also incorporates some older buildings, shipped over from the collection of a Texan billionaire at great expense. Clister Court (named because of the pipes) houses the orangery and the tiddly-wink gaming room. Waldorf Salad Court, next to the large chapel-shaped swimming pool, was of course named in memory of Frank Jones, a man of no consequence at all, who liked salad.
The college is one of the few to offer tuition in etiquette, crochet and hardcore grapeseeding.
A little-known tradition is that the Dean of Queens' Chapel must pledge himself to perpetual celibacy. This, rather than his extreme rotundity, explains the bachelorhood of Rev'd Dr Jonathan Holmes, the current Dean. Past Deans have been forced to take extreme measures to comply with this unusual ordinance: Rev'd Dr Brian Hebblethwaite forced his wife to run off with the Director of Music at King's College, and Rev'd Dr Professor Canon John Polkinghorne (knight) is rumoured to have murdered his wife.
The college's patron is the Rt Hon Julian Clary, MP for Legoland Windsor. The Master is antique expert David Dickinson.
Famous alumni: Greta Garbo, Herman and all the Hermits, Attila the Nun, Dr Strangelove, Vice Admiral Idi Amin VC, DSO, PhD Esq, Stephen Fry, Martin Luther-Vandross, St Erasmus
Magdalene College[edit | edit source]
(Pronounced: shibofuklionbdwlkwgwwwirpaltry) Warning: contains nuts.
St. John's College[edit | edit source]
The College of St. John The Thespian and the blessed Quinn Mallory
"usus vestri laganum quod perussi is"- "Have your cake & eat it"
“I'd rather be at Oxford than St. John's!”
Wankerville was named in honour of "Saint" Jonathan Rhys-Davies, the actor responsible for playing Gimli the Dwarf in the Lord of the Rings and Professor Arturo in Sliders. St John's College was founded in 1999 as a modern attempt to recover the traditional architecture of Cambridge University. The use of grand arches, sweeping corridors and the magnificent "Bridge of Size" (so named because it's actually larger on the inside than the outside, (cf. Tardis) gives the place an air of austerity and above else, makes the tourists "Cream their kecks" - Oscar Wilde.
The actual design was based on the neoclassical building known as E1M3, designed by the id school of architecture. The texture and lighting effects have been considerably upgraded, and it is recommended that visitors to the college are equipped with a minimum of 32Mb of video memory.
Despite its magnificent exterior, the architecture still includes a large concrete structure known officially as Cripps Court, but colloquially as "the fuck-ugly megalith" due to its roach exterior, 8-bit palette and false floors. It is a little known fact that Cripps was initially designed for the entertainment of second- and third-year students living in New Court and that each staircase is broadcast on individual satellite channels to Japan where 'Cripps TV' is an extremely popular reality TV show. Undergraduates can very often be seen leaping from the open staircases and murdering each other with rail guns at night, as Japanese viewers lay huge bets on which student will be the next to die. Oh whoops. not anymore.
The structure known as 'New Court' was originally intended to be Hitler's wedding cake, but due to cancellation of the happy event, was left to turn stale and now houses the 'Adolf Memorial guest room', which is the finest suite in Cambridge.
The School of Pythagoras occupies a plot at the back of the college. It is nearly, but not quite, triangular.
For various reasons (ostensibly bacause "Johnians are ALL tossers"), the college is universally derided and reviled amongst the student bodies of the other Colleges, and indeed pretty much everybody in the universe who doesn't attend the college, who consider the college to be inferior in every way to all other colleges and indeed even to Oxford University, which is similarly detested by Cambridge students. However, suspicion was laid upon the validity of this claim by revered alumnus Gandalf 'the man' Greyhame, who pointed out that the detractors would "Never be at John's", and therefore "shall by no means pass" judgment upon it.
It is well known that St John's is controlled by the mysterious organisation styled C&C, the aim of which is to manufacture elaborate and gourmet poisons which it tests on undergraduates before supplying them to global dictators (cf. Winnie the Pooh). Little is known about C&C's chain of command, but it is suspected that its headquarters are in Dubai. They also employ online spies to protect their legal interests, known as 'Banter Killers'. St John's was rumoured to have 7 'Banter Killers' in it's employ as of 2006, all of whom were paid in swans.
Old Cambridge song: "I'd rather go to Oxford than St John's!" New Cambridge song: "I'd rather rape a pig than be at John's!"
Famous alumni: John Romero, Macaulay Culkin, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, St John the Baptist, John Carmack. p
Scumbag College[edit | edit source]
"Rie? innit!"- "Are you all right? Is is not it?!"
A college dedicated to accepting all forms of ruffians, rudeboys, chavs, bloody oykes & ASBOS, and takes entry only for Ponce Bashing, the study of verbally, mentally and physically abusing people with posh accents using makeshift weapons, including, but not limited to:
- Cricket bats, chairs and umbrellas.
- Saucepans, frying pans... and other assorted kitchen equipment.
- Vulvas
- Pliers, tables, televisions, sofas, pencils and curried sprouts.
- Large black dildos
- Mace Windu
They partucularly love to curry John's bloods, and form the main contingent of the Cripps Massive, the Ponce Bashing religious society.
As a result of the lack of focus on anything even vaguely academic, they dun crap in University Challenge once.
Pembroke College[edit | edit source]
Pembroke college, located on the periphery of the bARmUda Triangle, is renowned for its pantomimes, obsequiously laidback students, and for having been almost completely demolished in the year 2382 by a ballistic Vanessa Feltz during the war between Cambridge and Channel 5. It is not as yet known which side was responsible for said offensive; suffice to say that a trail of hair extensions leading towards St. John's indicates that friendly fire may have been involved.
In addition to fighting on behalf of the university, Pembroke College has historically waged many wars with the other colleges. Once upon a time, hostilities broke out between the fellows of Pembroke and nearby Peterhouse College, due to an incident involving an overfilled chamber pot, the Sultan of Brunei and 48 mislaid back-editions of Who's Who. The subsequent fighting resulted in a total victory on the part of Pembroke College, allowing the seizure of many of Peterhouse's holdings, including their chapel, cess-pit and Denmark, by the then Master of Pembroke College, Josef Stalin. In response to this, an addition was made to the University's Charter, ordering all food served within the grounds of the college to be laced with a mixture of opium, thalidomide and kittens to make the student body more docile. The cuisine therefore is widely renowned for being lip-smackingly good, despite being served in troughs.
The college is known for its gardens, which are populated with a wide variety of wild creatures, including voles, fat people, pandas and daleks. The majority of the bird population of the college are legless for an unknown reason - although many students maintain that it is "traditional", current evidence indicates this may be more due to the college bar being open all year round, unlike in other colleges, when these drinking holes are opened at her majesty's pleasure. The entire college ecosystem is dependent upon the prized privet hedges, which are well over 1 billion years old.
The current master of the college, James Bond spends his day supporting rowing (a neocon political advocacy group), liquidating students from Jesus and making speeches about the little assassination that wasn't (see Princess Diana).
Notable Spawn:
William Pitt the Younger, C-3PO, Walt Disney, Scooby Doo, Mr. Hanky, The Goodies, Beige, Tay Zonday, The Hulk and Lily Savage
St. Catharine's College[edit | edit source]
Collegium sive aula D. Catharinæ in Universitate Cantabrigiensi (literally, The College of Saint Catharine in Uncontrollable Catapults)
"Kittenhoeffer et Zork"- "Are you on crack?"
The college is perhaps most infamous for its charter, to which it must (by law) stick to, which provides free accommodation for all its students. Thus the college has faced constant financial problems, with the college relying on a steady intake of thieves in order to bring in an income to maintain it. In 2003 the Master of the College was arrested on suspicion of theft after hundreds of stolen bicycles (which he had tried to resell in Oxford) were found within the Master's Lodge. After appeal, the charges were dropped by a (famous) judge (Sir Philip Schofield) who was an old member of St Catherine's, with the college being permitted to sell the bicycles. In 1995, in a measure to reduce the general number of undergraduates in conjunction with an access scheme in HM Prisons across the United Kingdom, the college changed its name from "St CathErine's" to "St CathArine's". It was thought that, with the introduction of the internet, potential students would mis-spell the college's name, and thus be unable to locate any information about it on the internet. This proved a massive success, with the college becoming one of the richest colleges in Cambridge. In 2005 the college attempted to buy out debt-ridden King's College, allegedly in order to provide storage space for the growing mass of crowbars and bolt cutters that the college had bought.
Saint Catherine, the patron saint of cats, cougars and tiddlywinks, gave her name to this college when she founded it in 400AD by postal vote. Known affectionately as "K@7z" to its fans, the college boasts some of the oldest known examples of anti-personnel micro-trebuchets in modern civilization, which were last deployed them in 2002 when a number of naturists posing as the female drinking society attempted to instigate a riot on the front court lawn, with sexy results.
Famous alumni: Boris Johnson, Kevin Keegan, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Lion-O, Sir Philip Schofield, Gandalf the Grey, Captain Planet
Sidney Sussex College [Who the fuck?][edit | edit source]
"Quisnam fuck es Sidney Sussex?!"- "Who the fuck are Sidney Sussex?!"
"Nunc experiri aliud"- "Try something different today"
Sidney Sussex College [Who the fuck?] (also known as Sainsbury's' car park) was originally founded by the famous Lady Frances Sidney, the brothel owner. About five minutes after the university was founded serious problems arose due to a lack of female students and Sidney Sussex [Who the fuck?] (also known as Lady Francis' garden of Flagrant Delight) was founded to cater for the needs of the University as a whole. The most needy students had to be housed upon the premises, the University was however careful never to reveal that this in fact meant that all students were to a greater or lesser extent Sidneyites.
In later years it became necessary to distract the authorities from the college's true purpose. For this reason a pretense was made at practical alchemy. At least it was assumed to be a pretence! Certainly after many attempts the only published results showed that, by various arcane processes, it was possible to take a large amount of iron and a small amount of gold (as a catalyst) and proceed by the vigorous applications of gunpowder, prayers and according to received wisdom magpie feathers to achieve slightly less gold than you started with. At any rate in 1390 the college ceased its alchemical speculations. In the words of the then Master Nicholas Flamel:
“No we haven't made any progress, yes I know I've been trying for the past 160 years but I certainly haven't found the philosopher's stone. The constant explosions associated with our experiments have taken too heavy a toll on the college buildings we simply can't continue.”
During the following months the college bought and stockpiled large amounts of wine in its voluminous cellars. Nicholas Flamel has not been seen since he bought Trinity College with money that he claimed he won during the international freefall tiddlywinks championships and sold all the Trinity fellows into slavery in the deepest bowels of hell (Sidney [Who the fuck?] Kitchens to be precise).
Currently the college appears to run purely on the whim of a cat. This secretive feline goes only by the name Dr Pebbles. Very little is known about this cat, other than its predilection for kebabs and that it may or may not be purple.
- Famous Alumni
- Nicholas Flamel
- Oliver Cromwell
- Buzz Lightyear
- Cornelius Carrington
- Gordon Browsnake (the Extreme Archaeologist, you can't spell extreme without Gordon, think about it!)
- Skeletor
- Zorro
- Sherlock Holmes
- Godber Evans
Where Is Gonville & Caius College?[edit | edit source]
A popular activity for students who are either apathetic, exhausted or Classicists, previous editions of the Cambridge version of Where's Wally? have situated Caius:
- Inside the vault of King's College Chapel
- In the outer suburbs of Cambridge, MA
- Inside storage room of the reeeeeeeeaaaaallllllly freeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaky Genetics lab (you know the one I mean)
- At the mouth of Ann Widdecombe's woo-woo
- Proximal to the entrance to St. John's, and, in a novel double whammy, the Gates Of Hell.
Keys college is also the only college in Cambridge to deny entry to the Welsh, miggets and rice cakes. This is in fact not surprising at all, as Caius (or Keys, or Gonville, I have no idea) simply takes pride in being different to everybody else, having a name that is literally unpronounceable and restricted to Latin pedants only. It also takes pride in having the least tourists every year for the reason stated above (that everyone mistakes it for a gift shop of King's, or Trinity, or even fucking Brasenose, which is in Oxford).
Caius is famous for housing Stephen Hawking, which is why it has to be discreet, because the fellows cannot risk raged academics and young obsessed girls all rushing into the college at once and trample all over their lovely lawns of pedantry. Caius does not have a huge lawn, and that's why the fellows have to take care to protect it from the trampling, crude, devastating feet of the tourists. F*** off, people!
More discreet is Prof. Hawking's office, which is on the ground floor. This is done so because when a fire breaks out Prof. Hawking can see how close he is to escape (and life), and also how utterly out of reach it is.
When, after two days of endless search, down to every last inch of the ground of Cambridge, I finally found Caius, I became suddenly aware of the fact that the saying "Once a Caian, always a Caian" is literally true as most academics there won't be able to find their way out. Ever. Again.
St. Edmund's College[edit | edit source]
"The Most Blessed College of St. Edmunds the Ill-Named and Malevolent"
"latin est pro penis caput capitis"- "Latin's for dickheads"
(Not to be confused with St John's)
Originally designed as low-cost accommodation for visiting tramps, St Bastard's college was adopted by the university to house its increasing number of hyper-intelligent students, particularly those capable of attaining impossibly brilliant examination results with little or no effort. Taking the name of the patron saint of hopeless causes, the intention was to concentrate the amount of sheer intelligence in as small a volume as possible in the hope of penetrating the fabric of spacetime and accessing higher dimensions.
This has, of yet, been unsuccessful due to the college's nearsighted failure to provide food, water, electricity or even contraceptives to its members, who invariably die out before their first round of examinations.
Jesus College[edit | edit source]
"The College Formerly Known as The Jesus and Mary Chain College, Then Went Under The Name of St Radegund's College for a bit But Now It's Just Plain Jesus College, Thanks"
"Immanuel diligo nos praeter vos"- "Jesus likes US better"
Founded on the Seventh Day. Named after Jesus, often regarded as the world's most famous carpenter. The full title of the college, as shown above, is only ever used on formal occasions, such as, for example, matriculation, graduation, examinations (especially when filling in the fiddly exam entry sheets, oh yes), formal breakfasts, weddings, when redeeming vouchers in the supermarket, and during the Lunar Eclipse. The college symbol consists of a large, black cock - a Tudor pun on the on the name of the founder and benefactor of the college, Mandingo.
Being quite far from the tourist trail, Jesus College has very few tourists so, as a cunning ruse, equips all genuine students with free Nikon cameras and baseball caps when they arrive and charges them £10 every time they pass through the college gates. All funds raised by this scheme have been put forward to project the words "Fuck St. Johns" onto the moon.
Also well known for having an exceptionally tasty collection of go stones, which are available for general consumption on open days.
Try this hilarious prank after you've opened your presents on Christmas Day. Call the college on 01223 339339 and say: 'Is that Jesus?' When they say yes, sing 'Happy birthday to you'.
Famous Alumni: Dick Cheney, Jesus Christ, Mark Thatcher, John o'Groats, Mohammed, Paul Hogan
H. Christ's College[edit | edit source]
"Look, buddy, we've got the whole Messiah thing going on too so take a slice of Christ with your Whoopass Sandwich!"
"Souvent me Souvient"- "Remember my mouse"
In an attempt to cash in on the Hot Nazareth Action experienced at Jesus College, the college formerly known unfashionably as Jupiter College changed its name to the remainder of the Christian Messiah's. Technically most students omit the ambiguous "H" from the title, although the more pretentious prefer to retain it when talking to prospective employers.
As with similarly aged colleges, the architecture includes a large concrete structure known officially as New Court, but colloquially as "the typewriter" due to its layered, keyboard-esque layout. The room corresponding to the comma key is alleged to be cursed. Allegedly designed to look like a steamship, in reality it is a perfect recreation of Rocinha, the impoverished favela in Rio De Janeiro.
Famous Alumni: Tony Blair, Darth Vader, Johnny Vegas, Oliver Reed, Sacha Baron Cohen (actually true)
Emmental College[edit | edit source]
"The Most Holy and Pungent College of Emmental, Gouda and Roquefort"
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"nos amo caseus"- "Beware of the ducks"
Founded by a wealthy French cheesemonger in 1555, Emmental (or `Mental as it is affectionately known) was intended to provide exclusive schooling to those who intended to enter the dairy industry. It was the first college to offer tuition in shepherding, bacon-snuffing and cowburning before the others caught on. Featuring a chapel designed by actor-cum-architect Sir Christopher Reeve and a bar designed by Oscar Wilde, the grounds and gardens are regarded as some of the most bountiful in Cambridge, with an estimated thirty silver groats in buried treasure.
Key to the college's success are the ducks, which inhabit the rooftops and trees of the college grounds. Able to decapitate a grown child with a single swoop, these birds of prey are the college symbols and include several rare breeds such as the barbed mallard, nefarious fireduck, doomwidgeon and samurai duck. One of the most commonly heard utterances in Elemental College is "DUCK" - failure to do so is the prime cause of fatality to tourists in Cambridge.
Famous survivors: John Rhys-Davies, Robert the Bruce, Bruce the Robert, Posh Spice
Selwyn College[edit | edit source]
"ETHKETE EN TH NIETEI ANAPIZEZOE"- "If you can read this, you're doing a dos subject"
Like John's, 'Maaaaaaudlin' and Queens', Selwyn also plays host to a Cripps court. What is unusual about Selwyn's, however, is that every side faces the University Library. Although this defies the laws of Physics, it has been decreed that it should be so by Albert Speer, the fascist who, in an attempt to renounce his ways built the overtly communist UL, or Bibvenjenko as it is often called. Cripps court showers are also a clear violation of Heisenberg's uncertainty theorem as they are certain to work badly. A little known Sewlyn fact is that Picasso painted Cripps in his often uncelebrated 'brown' monochromatic period. Selwyn fellows were so impressed with the variety of shades on offer that he was recommissioned to paint the College bar.
Like Sidney Sussex, Selwyn also has its own Cat. It is a little known fact, however that Selwyn's cat is actually the college of St. Catz. This causes problems when the master, Professor Burt Bacherach, puts out a dish of milk in the morning, only to find it utterly rejected because 'it isn't from M&S'.
Selwyn is famous for almost constant service of chicken kiev and soup constructed from last night's formal leftovers. Selwyn College is also notoriously poor, mainly due to current students stealing formalware, a practice also indulged in by several of the college fellows.
Selwyn is also popular with arts students due to its close proximity to the Sidgwick Site. This close proximity results in an obesity epidemic amongst said students at the college, not helped by all available potato options being fried.
The only other notable feature of Selwyn College is that it is attended by Roy Dimsdale who has been in attendance for eighty nine years. Roy is most famous for discovering the 12 uses of Dragons' blood and for giving his name to the Yorkshire Dales. He is also credited with inventing self-aggrandisement.
Notable Alumni: Thomas Pollicis, Mouse 2 from the nursery rhyme Three Blind Mice and Manuel from Fawlty Towers, Gregory House
Trinity College[edit | edit source]
"The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity"
"illic est haud spoonus"- "There is no Spoon"
Founded in 2004 by a bunch of morons, in honour of the self-sacrificing character from the Matrix series of cinematographic classics, this college has a strong tradition in the less rigorous, more open and social subjects such as geography, psychology, masonic indifference and phrenology. Due to the massive bequest of its namesake, the college owns most of the common land in Britain and obtains most of its funds through the United Kingdom's Right To Slaughter Act 1877. Their boat club, 1st & 3rd, is well known for its pride in the snobbery of its predecessors, where the 1st boat club was for men from Eton, the 2nd for sons of vicars and the 3rd for the 'plebs'. And, of course, for the fact that the college's female rowers look like men.
Famous alumni: Isaac Newton, Olivia Newton-John, Jessica Fletcher, God, The Friendly Monster
Trinity Hall[edit | edit source]
"Tit tit tit tit tit tit titttztzzzzttzztztzzzzzz oooh er missus"
"illic est haud spoonus"- "There is a Spoon"
Not Trinity College, although housed in Trinity College's dining room. Trinity Hall is today made up of a group of colossal metal sculptures, by Jonathan Clarke. The interiors are hollow and house student rooms, which themselves house the city vagrants. There is also Wychfield site, which is believed to house more students than the Hall itself, despite having been a building site for over 300 years. The exact population of Wychfield is unknown, since the last sighting of a Wychfield student in the main Hall was in 2004.
Trinity Hall is built upon a network of caves which are the last resting place of the descendents of Dan Brown, who was rumoured to have started a family with Mary Magdelene. Architecturally, Trinity Hall sports a unique facade of scaffolding and plastic sheets. Recent development at the Wychfield site have been delayed in order to stay in keeping with this distinctive and historic style. Needless to say, the Hall is absolutely riddled with racists - not to mention some Jews - although the populous at large still consists predominantly of tits. These tits include small ones, large ones, and some as big as your head.
Trinity Hall is a wholly owned subsidiary of BAE Systems, a local purveyor of antique jam jars and nazi paraphernalia.
Famous alumni: Nobody, Everybody, James Bond, Tits, Patrick Moore, Rick Perry, The Holy Spirit
New Hell[edit | edit source]
"is locus est carcer"- "No, next right after the garage"
Originally founded in 1966 as a women-only college, this was named "New Hall" due to the lack of a major benefactor. Luckily Playboy founder Hugh Hefner saw the appeal of a single-sex college (or "mansion" as he now calls it) and contributed an undisclosed sum, earning him the access rights. A recent addition to Cambridge, tourists often mistake it as a planetarium, when in reality, the ‘Dome’ is New Hell’s best claim to original architecture.
A completely laidback college with their only form of aggression being a lazy sign on the front door saying “No Boys Allowed,” this all-girls college often has the said door contrarily wide open letting all types in. 2004 saw the entry of Gary Chester-Nash the Stabber who knocked on girls’ doors asking if he could plait their hair before the police got him, and banned him to that far off country of Cornwall. Often confused as the lesbian college (which is a different college entirely) there is usually a jam at the door with streams of girls waiting to get out, desperately seeking the male attention that they are deprived, as well as a much larger stream of men waiting to get in, in the belief that the girls who stayed in college are interested.
Owned by every other college in Cambridge, New Hell once had a debate on whether they should put the word ‘college’ after their name in order to fit in with the ethic of other Cambridge colleges. It was agreed that they certainly ought to, but due to immense apathy, instead of putting through the paperwork a collective verdict was taken to refer to it in inverted commas: i.e. New Hall ‘College’ complete with hooked finger action.
Famous alumni: Catherine ζ Jones, Richard Whiteley, Joan of Arc, The White Witch of Narnia
Homerton College, the balancing act[edit | edit source]
"Betterest thenest Girltonest"- "At least we're not Girlton"
Due to Girlton College's problem of being too heavy (due to obesity among the students) Homerton College was built to balance it out. This prevented Cambridge from tipping upside-down and swallowing the city whole.
Due to the fact Cambridge didn't need or want any more students a large number of Education courses were created so that the college became "useful" in its own sense. This lead to a large number of complaints about Mickey Mouse degrees around the country. Due to the fact the majority of Education students didn't make it to Cambridge on educational merit Homerton was an ideal place for them as they were easily kept isolated from the rest of the University as the college was on the outskirts of town. This also lead to students considered as freaks being sent to Homerton to keep them out of public eye.
Of course now that Cambridge is closed tourists often overlook Homerton not knowing about it's dark mysterious past and so it currently serves as Cambridge's landfill site. The one thing Homerton is renown for is the invention of the truffle shuffle.
Alumni: Nick Hancock, Jackie Chan, Ronald Mcdonald, Jackie Chan, The fat kid out of the goonies, Shortie the Jap out of Temple of Doom, Jackie Chan.
Girlton College, nr. Egbaston, Birmingham[edit | edit source]
"girlton est sic"- "no translation"
"We are Girton / We are Girton / No-one likes us / We don't care. / We are Girton / Super Girton / No-one like us / We don't care."
Pope John Paul II
Girton College was the first women's college in the universe, however due to an error in navigation it was mistakenly built nowhere near Cambridge. This may be the origin of the famous Cambridge quip 'women are from Venus.' At this time Cambridge practised a strict tradition only allowing entry to intelligent homosexuals, a policy that changed in 1892 with the 'outreach scheme for less able homosexuals'.
Many people in Cambridge believe that Girton is one of the smallest colleges, in fact this is just a result of perspective. Students who study at Girton typically fly in to Cambridge from East Midlands Airport.
All students must take a rigorous Highway Code and cycling exam before matriculating; any found to have scored more than ten per cent are ceremonially beaten to death with a tyre pump and consumed by the Mistress at Formal Hall.
Girton College, despite being founded in the year 666, was only discovered by a non-Girton undergraduate, Bob Marley, in 1973. Despite being informed by a pirate that 'Arrr, that way has only fields and the end of the Earth,' Marley persisted in his quest beyond the farthest outskirts of Cambridge in what was believed by many as an attempt to go 'far out, man.' His noble journey was not fruitless, as young Bob, a promising student of horticulture and taxonomy, was able to identify and classify a new species, Studentis girtonis. Although it is barely visible to the human eye, Marley took detailed measurements on that first sighting and logged the species as, 'characterised by a half-book half-human appearance, a pygmy-like stature and being excellent Rizla material.' Although denied a Nobel prize due to allegations of drug abuse, Marley has continued to fund research from his own pocket: a £2,000 fee is offered to anyone able to provide evidence of a sighting of any species in the Girtonis family. Since 1973, only four such fees have been handed out (as of 2007). This may be because Girton itself is a myth, or perhaps because students seeing a genuine Girtonis sp. specimen often disregard it as a bad hangover.
After the disappearance of Elvis Presley (See alumni, King's college), Girton College was extensively searched along with the other three of the four corners of the globe (the other corners believed by Cambridge scholars to be The Grafton Centre, Cambridge Railway Station and the Cavendish Laboratory). It was believed, correctly, that only in a place so remote could Elvis be kept hidden for so long without detection: those with good memories will recall that Elvis was discovered busking near The Grafton Centre in 2001. This is, of course, the only interesting thing to ever happen at the centre, voted The Dullest Place in the South-East 14 of the 16 years that the competition has been running.
The college recently bitch-slapped the headlines after senior management made the momentous decision to close the library during exam week, a move it believed would help stem the increasing tendency of students to highlight lecture notes to notorious and sometimes painful excess. Of course this tactic was fully supported by the student body, and certainly completely eradicated any highlighter use in the 'college', thus allowing undergraduates to focus on the real reason are there - to get so pulverized on meth they forget who their children are.
The Undisputed ruler of Girton "The Mistress" has recently morphed into a much younger, leather-clad, Naughty-Nurse style specimen. It is thought that The Mistress preys on Freshers during formals, upon the sounding of the gong, and is widely believed to be implicated in the multiple disappearances of "Mysterious Tom", the most fabled specimen of Girtonis sp. Recent newspaper reports that there is a secret dungeon below The Mistress's Set have been rigorously denied by the leather-clad College Council.
Famous Alumni: Humostafa (Inventor of Humus), Superted, Sujo Akoni (comedian), Kate Bush, Trinny and Suzanna, Richard (smelly) Cole, Boudica, Delia Smith and Tony Blair's love child, Marge Simpson, The woman who wrote the Doctor Who theme - Ron Grainer (this is actually true)
Downing College[edit | edit source]
"Quaerere Verrruuummmm"- "odd engine"
Downing Conference Center is a small, badly run, badly designed and overly obnoxious college which is bordering on bankruptcy. Fortunately the powers-that-be have discovered a clever way to rescue the fast sinking hell-hole. The Bursar is responsible for inventing new and ingenious ways of fining students for carrying out seemingly innocuous things. The undergraduates claimed discrimination when members of the college were fined for wearing blue socks, on the basis that blue socks were detrimental to the environment. The Cambridge University Student Union stepped in and negotiated on the behalf of the undergraduates, finally achieving a deal after 1000 hours of intense dueling. Now the rules state that blue socks may be worn between 10.00am and 10.01am on the third Tuesday of every year, unless that year ends with the digits 0-8, or begins with the digit 2.
Downing students are known for their quiet nature, a necessary skill learnt soon after matriculation in order to avoid being mugged by the resident squirrels and supersonic hedgehogs. Stories involving the militant 'Anti-Squirrel Alliance' group of students usually end in the mass murder of said students, and a several thousand year siege, in which the surviving students survive by eating the crumbling buildings.
Accommodation at Downing is often in short supply, current students typically sub-letting their rooms to a varying degree. One second year student this year reported that, to meet both extortionate rent demands and their own insatiable sexual appetite, four other students, along with 15 migrant Chinese workers, were happily lodged in various areas of their room, with a whole family coexisting peacefully with an ASNAC inside a single pair of Doc Martens.
Downing is famous for its excellence in Law, indeed many students have gone on to experience the justice system first hand, with over 99% of alumni in jail for fraud. This figure is slowly improving, and the college Master has been heard commenting that within the next 10 years 100% of alumni will be either in jail or dead.
Famous alumni: Jeffery Archer, Robin Hood, Shrek, Johnny Vegas, Nick Griffin, Hitler Matthew Sinclair-Thomson, Nick "WOODO!" Woods, Yo Momma, Swarley, Swarles, Swar-(wait for it)-ley, Swarhili, Bob Swarley-mon, Swar-lay, Swarles Barkley, Swarlos.
Peter House's College[edit | edit source]
"ephebus, uterefelix"- "young man, there's no need to feel down"
The college was founded in 1066 in recognition of the efforts of Sir Peter House in the creation of House Music, which he had presented to King Lemuel XIV on a silver platter earlier that year, to the King's great enjoyment. Sadly much of Sir Peter's work was lost in a bizarre gardening accident and his contributions are only now being rediscovered.
There has been a tendency in recent years to omit the word "College" from the college's full title in informal conversation. This is, however, deeply frowned upon and punishable by death. Occasionally the punishment of death has been waived if the offending party is a good looking young male, whereby the Fellows of the college each take it in turn to spank them and each other in one of their annual orgies.
1997 saw the largest college uprising in Cambridge history in response to changes introduced by the new Master of Peter House's. The annual college Hunting trip was cancelled in order to fund a week-long orgy for the Fellows. The students reacted by slaughtering the entire deer population of the Deer Park in protest. This ignited a large scale violent battle with the college staff, who were eventually joined by those Fellows who recovered soonest. In the course of the skirmish, one side of Gisbourne Court was entirely levelled, as the students launched a ceaseless volley of stones at the upright Fellows, and any tourists who got in the way (particularly Korean tourists, because they can be quite annoying). The disaster attracted a high level of media attention, and an investment was made towards the construction of the Stone Memorial building which looks out over the Deer Park as a sober chastisement to students. The remaining money was used for the construction of Fen Court, near the historic site of conflict. The college have been unable to restore deer to the Deer Park, and have renamed 'Peter's Terraced House', 'Peter's Hotel' in an effort to raise more funds. This endeavour has not met with much success, as its reputation has been tainted by rumours of ghosts, particularly during the now-reinstated Annual Hunt, which would otherwise attract the most custom.
Peter House's is where one will find Tom Probert, should one want to. No one has yet.
Famous alumni: Gloria Gaynor, Anne of Green Gaybles, the biker out of Village People, Henry Jackson
Churchill College[edit | edit source]
"The College at Churchill College"
"Felix Qui Potuit Regum Cocnoscere Causas"- "You're lucky if you know what's going on."
“You said it was brown and square but… shit!”
Churchill College was founded in March by Steve Ballmer as a memorial to his dead cat, Sir Winston Churchill, whom he accidentally Fucking Kill™ed. The college’s monument Fucking Kill™s anyone in the college engaged in kitten huffing.
Less well known is the Brothel at Churchill College, generously funded by noted Scientologist Francis Crick in disgust at the fact that the College had originally been planned without one. It is also the only college which is stupid enough to fund a society called C.R.A.P.
Being thoroughly uninteresting, the college raises little tourist income. It has attempted to fund itself through conference guests, however this has been unsuccessful and the college has had to resort to beating up smaller colleges and stealing their lunch money.
Famous alumni: Sonic the Hedgehog, Charlotte Church, Reginald Hill
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge[edit | edit source]
"This college exemplifies both the apotheosis and the gotterdammerung of the Gothic style", Brian Sewell, darling of Corpus Christi College
The College[edit | edit source]
Corpus Christi College, pronounced 'zebedee', is a college of the University of Life, Cambridge campus.
Insignia et Traditiones[edit | edit source]
The College crest is a Mythical Pelican, since this was the beast in the flappy gullet of which Our Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven. Corpus Chirsti is the last Cambridge college to uphold the proud tradition of non-admittance for women, blackamoors and papists.
Foundation[edit | edit source]
The college was found by three monk-rapists returning from 'a session' who brought it to Cambridge and helped it to settle in. Three years later it had become the most notorious 'brothel of intellectuaml thought' and had attracted such great minds as Isaac Newton. Sadly Newton's heart was set on Trinity and so shortly afterwards his body retrieved his mind and thus his intellect was lost to Corpus. Jesus attended the founders' day celebrations in 2000 and two thousand birthday candles almost cost the college its priceless Parker collection, consisting of all but three of the Wisden cricket almanacs and a rare signed second edition of Pam Ayres' 'Some of Me Poetry'.
College Legacy[edit | edit source]
Many great phrases and quips were coined at Corpus, 'yes' being among the most famous. "yes" (Christopher Marlowe, alumnus)
Perhaps, though, the most lasting legacy of the college is that which is left in the heart of each student. This refers of course to the infamously rich banquets served each evening in the world-famous Cholester-hall, built to honour His Wertherness The Original Lord Cholester-Flockhart. Each student is required by College statutes to fully consume a mythical pelican at each banquet, a task difficult not only due to the well-documented size of such birds but also to the fact that they don't exist, and that there is consequently only one supplier in Britain. An unusual college tradition, called the running of the undergraduates, was practised until 1994, in which freshers were released into the court who were then chased down by Royal marine cadets and gored as part of a 'cleansing' ceremony developed by the thirteenth century college master Lord Brockler, Earl of Sandwich, whose descendant would be famed for his incidental invention of the Pop Tart. Lord Brockler insisted that the physically weak be weened out as they weren't his type: I will not buggere that, clever though he be, I do nat like them fat, nor want to brayke me knee (Lord Brockler)
Trivia[edit | edit source]
- The popular misconception that Corpus is in fact the cadaver of our Lord, Jesus Christ, was dispelled once and for all in 2002 when it was pointed out that Jesus had attended the Founders' ceremony two years earlier.
- Twelve years ago tragedy befell the college when a group of seven undergraduates was murdered by a library window, by a library window.
- Corpus has a proud rowing tradition and has, in the past two years, won three games of rowing.
- God declined to take up mastership of the college citing his infinite life expectancy as 'unfair to future candidates'.
- Corpus's long-held paranormal past was given further credibility when a 17th century ghost gave a lengthy interview to Martin Basheer. The ghost was the unfortunate Francis Prong, the victim of an over-zealous, but traditional, buggerie pranke.
Shameful Progeny[edit | edit source]
- Frodo Baggins - One-time dwarven lover of J.R.R.Tookeen.
- The Seven Dwarves
- Tom Cruise
- Antz
- Napoleon
- 103 Dalmations
- Farmer Giles
- Johnathan "Greggs" Zemlik
Charles Darwin College[edit | edit source]
"Ubi? Putavi, ut erat carpark"
Charles Darwin College was founded by Charles Darwin at the height of the Cold War for use as a multi-storey car park and bomb shelter for fellows of Trinity, St John's, and Gonville and Caius College.
Charles Darwin college has a fierce academic reputation and is sufficiently elite that it only hosts graduate students in the Schools Of Car Park Attendance and Professional Valetting. Since its inception the college has grown to encompass a three square metre patch of grass, two pike, a bed of dandelions and an abandoned Ford Escort. Following the failed alien invasion of July 4th 1996, a crashed spaceship was also annexed to the college following its destruction by Jeff Goldblum and Bill Pullman. This downed craft now stands as a testament to mankind's will to survive as well as sheltering the Bursar's car from falling students. The college is erroneously famed for having the best student bar in Cambridge. This was in fact a lie circulated to get unsuspecting students through the entrance, upon which they cannot leave without paying the full £25 flat rate for a day's parking. The college colours are fluorescent neon yellow and pink: fellows are entitled to wear orange and steel toed boots.
Alumni[edit | edit source]
Darwin's most famous alumna, Jane Goodyear, currently works in the car park next to the Maypole and is suing the owner for the right to wear her ceremonial hi-vis jacket whilst operating the ticket barrier.
Luton Airport[edit | edit source]
"Easyjet Stock Exchange"
"Ad avionom per aspera"
Luton Airport is one of the ancient colleges of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1903 by Queen Victoria, it bears the distinction of being the only College in Oxford or Cambridge with cheap direct flights to Geisenheim and Berlin (Germany). The College recently celebrated 100 years of commitment to teaching and research, carried out on the site of its original foundation in the heart of mediaeval Cambridge.
Famous alumni: Theodore "Roosevelt" Adorno, Else Heidegger, Helmut Kohl, K. J. Wussow
Claire College[edit | edit source]
"splendior vitro"- "I would die for Claire and Country"
Founded nearly 10 years ago, Claire college, sometimes spelt Clare, or Clair, or Clayre (no-one really cares), and affectionately called Éclair college, is more of a party college than anything, and is hence looked down upon by all other colleges at the university. The Fellow's Garden is famous for the hashis grove and the coke orchard of course. Female applicants will be automatically be rejected, unless one of their forenames, or their surname is one of Claire/Clare/Clair/Clayre/Clarie/Clara/John.
Claire college is particularly famous for their old farting rituals. Tourists dare not to walk the corridors of accommodation. Indeed most freshers stay outdoors for the first few days before they become accustomed to the stench.
The Claire library, the Phoebus-Lemon Library is more than just a sanctuary for the socially retarded and gooners of the college. There is a secret underground tunneling system beneath and around the library, extended along the Queen's Road, right up to St John's. But only Claire students can access it. Within this tunnel network are nightclubs, poker clubs and strib clubs. Not only that, but these tunnels provide Claire students with secret access to all other college's cellars, some of which are profoundly large.
University Departments[edit | edit source]
Physics[edit | edit source]
The Physics department is known in Cambridge as the Cavendish, or the Cav. The architecture is the most superb example of mid-2nd-Elizabethan modernism in the Cambridge area. The food is not to be missed, the restaurant known as the "Cav Canteen" has 7 Michelin Stars.
Rowing[edit | edit source]
The Rowing Department is much better than the one in Oxford. It primarily awards BAs, MPhils, and even PhDs in Land Economy, but it also offers BAs in History, and also Management Studies at the Judge Judy Business School.
Astronomy[edit | edit source]
There are three astronomy departments in Cambridge. One of these is run by Stephen Hawking, another is a subdepartment of the Cav, and the third, is the IoA. Researchers at the IoA are free to spend most of their time drinking coffee, since work is mainly done by a team of slaves kept in the Hoyle Dungeon. The three departments occasionally have joint seminars, which all too frequently break down into open warfare, where too many attempt to camp at the rocketlauncher spawn point in St. John's causing mass-lag. The IoA is planning to build a Kavli Institute, which is believed to be a plan to develop dark matter based weapons to annihilate the other two astronomy departments.
Drinking[edit | edit source]
The Drinking department, also referred to as the Archaeology department, is in fact a collection of a large number of research institutes, known locally as 'pubs', which collectively offer a degree in the consumption of alcoholic beverages. This is the most popular Tripos subject in Cambridge. The exams consist of punting and drinking simultaneously. If any students have not fallen into the river after three hours, they are given firsts.
Law[edit | edit source]
The so-called law faculty building is actually property of the astrophysics department, and is only being borrowed by the lawyers. It is a prototype spaceship designed with pioneering technology in the areas of being cold in winter, being hot in summer, and resonating the noise of overseas students making out on the top floor. As soon as Stephen Hawking finishes dictating (through tiny eyebrow movements) his design for the booster rockets, the lawyers and their twelve trillion books will be evicted and the building will be launched on the first manned trip to Pluto (which, as any Cambridge student will tell you, was a planet when they were growing up).
English[edit | edit source]
One could read a number of things into the recent addition of a cube of salmon paste (or "English Faculty") to the Sidgwick site, but perhaps the least obscure is explored at length in last year's top undergraduate dissertation "The role of psychoanalytical post-Freudian deconstructionalism in defining the gender roles of freshwater fish in the post-it notes and marginalia of the overwrought literary conceptualist philosophy, 1592-356BC. Also concerning The Moomins." The English Faculty also has a coffee machine which serves soup.
Philosophy[edit | edit source]
The Philosophy Faculty is located inside the Cambridge Waffle House, which serves up fresh philosophical drivel with a drizzle of cream and juicy strawberries each day to wide-eyed-polo-neck-wearing-spotty-teenagers-who-think-marx-was-a-cool-dude.
History[edit | edit source]
The History building, controversial for being built upside down, was designed by complete bastard James Sterling.
Clinical Medicine[edit | edit source]
Pathologists think of evil ways to torture and kill students before they are talked to death in a mysterious dungeon beneath Addenbrooke's Hospital. No, but really.
Divinity[edit | edit source]
Part of the University's ongoing efforts to convert the souls of the damned into saline solution. Its subsidiaries include Hell, Trinity Hall and a horse to glue factory in Glasgow. Absolutely-flipping-mental.
See also[edit | edit source]