The Valentine’s Issue
We have your back this V Day! How to survive a long distance relationship E. Rragami on how to find love Your indispensible guide to flower meanings What subject does your perfect partner do? and... our Tinder profiles?
TR AVISTY There came to me suddenly in the night the most afflicting news that could have arrived. The first, to hear of the sickness of my mistress, whom I esteem more than all the world, and whose health I desire as I do my own, so that I would gladly bear half your illness to make you well. The second, from the fear that I have of being still longer harassed by my enemy. Absence, much longer, who has hitherto given me all possible uneasiness, and as far as I can judge is determined to spite me more because I pray God to rid me of this troublesome tormentor. The third, because the physician in whom I have most confidence, is absent at the very time when he might do me the greatest pleasure; for I should hope, by him and his means, to obtain one of my chief joys on earth — that is the care of my mistress — yet for want of him I send you my second, and hope that he will soon make you well. I shall then love him more than ever. I beseech you to be guided by his advice in your illness. In so doing I hope soon to see you again, which will be to me a greater comfort than all the precious jewels in the world. Written by that secretary, who is, and for ever will be, your loyal and most assui’ed Servant,
H.
AB
R.
Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn
TCSU and College
Meet the new TCSU Committee A Presidential themed CoTW Play TCSU Bingo Resisting the Accommodation Office A call for ballot transparency AND new President Toby gives his State of the College Address!
As always
Letter from the Editors What’s on in Cambridge Horoscopes Issue #2, Sunday 12 February 2017 floreat pica
TRAVISTY
2
Contents Kitty Pfeffer
2
Jovan Powar
2
Readers
3
Letters to the Editors
3
Caption Contest
Jovan Powar
Letter from the Editors cocktail of the week
The Presidential Pickme-up
opinion
Anonymous
4
Jovan Powar
5
Ballot Transparency
Toby Henley-Smith
5
State of the College
Travisty Writers
6
The New TCSU
Travisty Writers
7
TCSU Bingo
8
Tom Rychlik
Kitty Pfeffer
9
10
The Resistance
Committee
advertisement
Magpie and Chill infographic
Letter from the Editors Kitty and Jovan put down words early Sunday morning
H
ello again. Is it us you’re looking for? It’s 2am here in the writers’ room, so if you really are looking for us please bring caffeine. And thus our welcome to you in this edition may be short, and sweet. Nevertheless! We hope you enjoyed our first issue—this time Travisty would like to present you with something a little different. Inundated as we have been here in Trinity with social events of utmost importance, in this issue we have widened your choices of content to three unthinkable options. Each will cause untold misery and—sorry, Toby has just interrupted. Apparently he was elected to lead, not to read. Thankfully, going by this issue’s Presidential Address, he’s still happy to write for us. So, in part one you will find—fittingly—our summation of the recent TCSU elections, including brief bios of the new committee, and our suggested drink for the new world order. Secondly, you’ll find some handy information on the beloved Accomodation Office, and the transparency—or not—of the upcoming room ballot. Last—but not least—here at Travisty we’re celebrating Valentine’s Day, and sending you some handy tips with how to impress the object of your affections! May your weeks be filled with romance, and a side of Anita Hancock. Kitty Pfeffer and Jovan Powar
What subject does your perfect partner do? how-to
How to survive a long
distance relationship this Valentine’s Day
Toby Henley-Smith
10
what’s on in cambridge
Mina Frost, Kitty Pfeffer
11
Flower Meanings
Edison Rragami
11
How to find Love
Edith Franklin
12
horoscopes
Travisty Writers
12
one-liners
This week’s writers: Kitty, Jovan, Edith, “Anonymous Fiona” Toby, Tom, Mina, Edison
cocktail of the week the Presidential pick-me-up Travisty’s gift to our new TCSU President, a variation on bulletproof coffee packed with calories, caffeine, and alcohol
floreat pica
Ingredients
1 mug extra strong filter coffee 1 finger Irish whiskey 1 stick unsalted butter
Method
Blend coffee, whiskey, and butter until frothy Stir with a cucumber
Sunday 12 February 2017
Letters to the Editors
3
Caption Contest What’s President Toby doing?
This week, Travisty received a couple of (unsolicited) emails from Trinitarians. Letters to the Editors are something we often enjoy in magazines, so we thought we’d publish them, and encourage anyone else with thoughts to write to us, about this issue or about anything else! We don’t know whether the correspondents wanted their names printed, so we’ve anonymised them this week. Dear Travisty, Your last issue was excellent. I’m so glad to see that this venerable magazine has finally been revived. Especially as it was just in time for my birthday. I enjoyed it so much, however, that after brunch I actually spent a total of nine days in hall afterwards reading and re-reading it. In the process, I’ve fallen behind on essay work, have developed bed-sores on my rear, and worst of all my girlfriend has left me because apparently we never see each other anymore. To which I say Floreat Pica, and long-live this noble magazine! Also please publish my Tinder bio in your next issue. I’m lonely now. — Anonymous Fresher Who Read Too Much
Dear Travisty, I played your “A day in the life of Donald J Trump” [Issue 1] and got “I love GYNA!” As a woman, I’d like to thank you for calling attention to LGBT History Month, though rather indirectly and only for women who read that bubble and who made the mental leap. Are you going to theme your February issue as an LGBT issue? I think it’d be a really good thing for college, with the fellows refusing to fly the rainbow flag. And it’d be way better than the obvious Valentine’s Day theme which usually drowns out LGBT issues for a week. I had an idea for how Trinitarians can show our support for LGBT History Month even if the fellows won’t change the flag. What about a LGBT breakfast? I saw the pictures from last year’s Women’s Breakfast and it seemed so fun, like it really brought the college together. I don’t know how this would translate to LGBT but something to think about?
Pictured, left to right: Jovan Powar (Travisty Editor), Toby Henley-Smith (TCSU President), Dante Gaviano (TCSU Vice-President) Taken at Magpie and Stump: New Year, New Meme Leave your captions below:
Other ideas for Travisty themes: Farewell to Daylight Savings Time (March), April Fool’s (April), Our Favourite Aeroplanes (May), Pentecost (June), Battle of the Boyne (July), Punting (August). —Anonymous Ideas Woman Reply from the Editors: ...oh shit. We really dropped the ball here, didn’t we.
floreat amor
TRAVISTY
4
opinion
The Resistance Fighting back against the Accommodation Office autocracy
The Power of Bitter Sass Have you ever heard of a protest movement that doesn’t have catchy slogans and sassy signage? Of course not – it’s not a true revolution if the words don’t bite to the bone. Take for instance the English Prayer Book Rebellion of 1549, which adopted the rallying cry of “Kill all the Gentlemen”. Simple, concise, catchy. Or the French, who in their revolutionary zeal conjured up the eternal, eloquent words: “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité”. And not to mention the kick-ass placards we saw just last month at Women’s Marches across the world. Everything from “Pussy Bites Back” to “Make Racists Afraid Again” – and so much more. So no pressure peeps, but the bar has been set pretty high. It’s time to sharpen your pencils, whip out your notepads, and unleash your blistering fury. How else will we be taken seriously?
They use it to tell us we can’t blue-tack posters on the wall, that we can’t leave guests in our rooms unattended, that we can’t put the bin out for two consecutive days, that we can’t keep our room during the vacation without bending backwards, forwards, and sideways. If we truly mean business, we must know the book. Lawyers of the college, this is where you finally come in handy. You must help us to pull the book apart and teach us to wield the clauses like weapons. Fight fire with fire. (Or we could just burn the book in Great Court. Your pick.) Subvert, Sabotage, Repeat When the Suffragettes fought (literally) for female enfranchisement in the late nineteenth century, their wellknown motto was “Deeds not Words”. I’m not suggesting that we start smashing windows, go on hunger strikes, or become martyrs, but there’s no denying that a little action could go a long way. With this in mind, I have conjured up a selection of subtly subversive acts especially for you, our budding resistance fighters. Now you probably know – or should know – where the Accommodation Office is located. What you might not realise is that it has a letter-box on its door. Naturally, this opens up a whole realm of “shit-posting” possibilities: angry Daily Mail style letters, petitions signed by thousands, a never-ending flood of printed memes. (Obviously, I would never suggest you post actual shit through the letterbox. Not actual human faeces. No matter how appealing that may sound, we’re not monkeys.) Then, as the resistance escalates, we will start adding non-authorised furniture to our rooms, en masse. We will bring down the dictatorship one illegal armchair at a time. If this fails, then there remains one final, though extreme option: we will simply stop believing in the Accommodation Office. Like any self-respecting tyrant, the Accommodation Office thrives on notoriety – on its name being known and whispered throughout the land. This means that if we don’t feed it with attention, it will die. But be warned, this strategy is only for the brave, for it requires extreme courage and unceasing dedication. Well, I never said this would be easy. Friends, Romans, countrymen, consider this your call to arms, your Communist Manifesto. We may very well lose comrades along the way, but we must remain steadfast if we are to topple the police state and secure our civil liberties. Let the Resistance Games begin.
Know Thy Rights It’s big, it’s heavy, it’s hard (to digest). It’s…The Book. You know the one, the twenty-three-page PDF/print-out you were handed in your first week. The one you probably never read. With sub-headings like ‘Water Hygiene’ and ‘Refuse Collection’, it’s not exactly a riveting bed-time tale. But it cannot be overlooked, for it is the source of their power, the very font of their tyranny.
In these treacherous times, the author wishes to remain anonymous. If the issues in this Opinion piece have affected you, please call the Accommodation Office by sticking your head out of your window and screaming “Anita!” until someone called Anita comes along. The recommendations in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the views of Travisty or its editors. Travisty takes no responsibility for acts insipired by this article, or shit posted.
“The people are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.” – Thomas Jefferson
F
ebruary 2017. A cold mist rolls over the Western world. Donald Trump has just become President of the United States of America. Geo-political relations are increasingly destabilised. Fact has been replaced by officially-sanctioned fiction. And civil liberties teeter on the edge of a sharp precipice. Now, I know what you’re thinking: “we’ve seen all of this before”. You are right my friend, we have. Here at Trinity College, in the hallowed streets of Cambridge, we have been living under the shadow of an ever-growing dictatorship for years – decades even. Its name: The Accommodation Office. Do not be fooled though, for it is not a benign bureaucracy as its title might suggest. Oh no, it is a centralised hub of all-encompassing control, its totalitarian tentacles stretching into every crevice of the college, strangling away at our lifeblood of liberty, of freedom, and of happiness. The Accommodation Office leaves nothing and no one untouched, beating us into submission with the infamous “Handbook” and spewing out bullets of passiveaggressive emails. Well, I say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. We have been demeaned, belittled, and financially exploited for too long. With waves of protest unfurling across North America and beyond, the time has come for us to launch our own #resistance. Let me show you how.
floreat pica
Sunday 12 February 2017
Ballot
Transparency A serious call for students to make themselves heard
A
cross the page from this article you will find an impassioned cry against the Accommodation Office. No member of college who has been here a significant time will deny that its outrage is somewhat justified; the Office is an institution disliked by students and fellows alike. But beyond complaints of obstructionism, unhelpfulness, and—according to accounts from past TCSU committees—incompetency, there are a few issues that students can truly act on to enact change in the way the Accommodation Office impacts the lives of students. All students past first year will be familiar with the room ballot, the mechanism by which we choose our rooms for the next year. A brief refresher: lists of names are released, ordered by the priority in which those students get a chance to pick from the set of available rooms. First come the Senior Scholars, then Junior Scholars, Third-years-to-be, Secondyears-to-be, and finally Fourth-years-to-be. The order of those names is apparently randomised. If you are low on the ballot, it is said that you will be higher on the ballot the next year. But in reality, is this the case?
TCSU Committees have learned over the years, often from her mouth, that Anita Hancock (head of the Office) has a low opinion of fresher Officers. Indeed, past TCSU Officers tell Travisty that in her office she has had the Committee posted on her wall, with fresher Officers highlighted. Later that year, those same freshers found themselves—with no exception—at or extremely close to the bottom of the ballot. After crunching the numbers, the Committee became convinced that the probability of this happening by chance was astronomically small. At other colleges ballots are drawn publicly, to show that they are truly random and no bias or prejudice is involved in the process. Travisty has been informed that this practice is in fact mandated by CUSU regulations. But at Trinity, the ballot is drawn in private, with only assurances of fairness of an Accommodation Office often unwilling or cooperate—one that does not have students’ trust.
5
State
of the
College
Your new President, Toby Henley-Smith, makes his first address to the student body
F
ellows. Research students. My fellow Trinitarians. It’s been a great 12 months (apart from all the bad things that happened in the real world). My predecessor has had a landmark term of office. He’s run a TCSU that has delivered more fudge than any committee in history. We’ve successfully decommissioned the WPR and banished the scourge of alcohol from formals. And most importantly of all: the type of rice in hall is now labelled. But there are still so many more questions without answers. “How can I buy my promised Trinity-branded KeepCup?” “When are we going to dissafiliate from CUSU?”
“Why are you writing for Travisty and doing Magpie and Stump whilst failing your degree and your presidency?” “Who the fuck is Ryan Patel?”
These questions are, by their own nature, unanswerable. But rest assured, that doesn’t mean we aren’t trying.
I have so much faith in this new committee. In particular, I think the office of Male Welfare is about to see a huge improvement. And hopefully none of them are going to try and get with my girlfriend this time.
One of my core beliefs, and what I campaigned on, is that it’s very important that people come together and work as a team. TCSU+ is all about getting more Trinity Undergraduates involved in improving the college. Whether that’s by getting involved in college societies that put on events for the whole college, helping out with TCSU’s work every now and then, or volunteering in specific areas like Access or the Environment. We want to make everyone’s student experience better, and we want your help. I swear it’s not so that I can take credit for the work of others. See you all very soon at Magpie and Chill, or the next TCSU event! Vielen Dank,
Toby Henley Smith.
Disillusionment with the operation of college is rife within the student body, and no department is the target of ire on the level of the Accommodation Office. To make an actual change, we need a TCSU who will lobby and hold the college accountable. A good first step would be making the ballot process transparent. Perhaps complaints levied at the Office are unfounded and this will achieve no actual change. But it will begin to establish trust.
Space left blank out of respect
floreat amor
TRAVISTY
6
The New TCSU Committee Meet your new representatives! Travisty has compiled comprehensive profiles of all the new committee.
President
Toby
Not funny, just here to talk about rents. Oh wait, that was the other one.
Vice-President
Female Welfare Officer
Becky
Knows where the pool table is being kept. Contact her for further details in this time of prohibition.
Male Welfare Officer
Dante
Kieran
Currently traversing the second circle of hell.
Provides dental dams. Whatever they are. However you use them.
Treasurer
JoJo
SMAUG THE UNASSESSABLY WEALTHY
Overseas Welfare Officer
Ents
Now desires to be referred to by the acronym ‘OWO!’ Or failing that, ‘oh hey you again’.
Martin
Molly
Hopefully converting the WPR into a ball-pit.
Mental Health and Disabilities Officer
Ruth
Computing and Publicity
Is the only committee member who according to David Icke is not a reptilian, merely a collaborator.
Farzana
“Hello, World!”
Women’s Officer
Access
Rebecca
Seb
According to his Facebook is in a ‘boyzone tribute band’. So presumably widening access to all those born in the late 1980s.
Junior Steward
LGBT+ Officer
Robert
Hadi
Will inevitably try to ‘improve formal food and prices’. Will succeed at neither.
Environmental and Domestic
Mia
Will be hosting this year’s Women’s Elevenses in a bid to be just slightly more controversial than last year.
Is in Slytherin. This is all you need to know. Possibly the subject of future fanfiction by James.
BME Officer
Zahra
Has recently been silenced by Trump. This bio to be redacted from the issue.
Once poked a mole in the elbow.
floreat pica
A little game to play throughout the term of the current TCSU Committee
TCSU Bingo
TRAVISTY
10
how-to
How to Survive a Long Distance Relationship This Valentine’s Day I’m not sad or anything
O
riginally, I had planned to write a column about ‘where to take your loved one this Valentine’s Day’. It would have been filled with romance. Envision Midsummer House, love in a punt, roses in a punt, champagne in a punt, all the aforementioned falling into the river, making love among the duckweed and the drowned remains of Midsummer House, and all those other sentimental frolicking things. (Which you pretend to hate in the name of state-led commercialism but actually you sit alone in your room sometimes and wonder why no-one’s ever wanted you enough to buy some cheap tat and thrust it lovingly it into your pigeonhole.) But then my boyfriend—aforementioned subject of love in the duckweed— decided to spend Valentine’s day making his way on a trans-earth flight to Australia. His name is Tom if your upsidedown friends and relatives happen to see him there. Remind them that we hold accountability in high regard at the paper. I have, however, chosen not to take this epic migration of the boyfriend kind personally. Even if he is going to literally the furthest place he could get to from me. I have chosen not to think about the fact that while I’m sitting alone at home with my two cats and one snake, he’ll no doubt be making eyes at a particularly sluggish koala. We’ll make up for the distance when I see him again in a few weeks, and next year on Valentine’s I’m going to hum Jerusalem to him loudly and pointedly while we have sex. In light of this abandonment inconvenience, I have compiled a list of helpful tips from Cosmo for all of us in a similar position this V-Day. Switch the Date!
There’s not just one V-Day this year, you know. Try out one of the others! I’m choosing Victory in Europe for a dirty weekend, and Victory in Japan for some quiet reflection. Arrange a Skype Dinner Date
And then try to forget that you are in actual fact, for yet another night, eating dinner alone in front of a screen. Mail Hand-Written Letters
Treat this one like the ‘comment box’ in hall, and post them a selection of anonymous complaints. For added spice, get Anita Hancock to write them. Mail a Care Package of Their Favourite Things
Don’t go for the ‘raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens approach’, Julie Andrews got there first, and if it’s really long-distance you’d just be sending a horrifying box of decaying organic matter. Instead,
think about what their favourite things really are. A Tripos paper maybe. Or considering their location, some space. ‘Be the First Person They Hear in the Morning and the Last One They Hear at Night’
So this one may rank with my favourite Cosmopolitan sex tip, which was to ‘create a natural “bulls-eye” effect’ by drawing “an attention grabbing circle around your nipples using rhinestones and body glue for a special night in”. Special. Yes. Special. (I also glue large and helpful arrows to other areas, just in case he misses those too.) The only way in which the above tip is hugely practicable is if you’re actually re-enacting Room—in which case you probably don’t need tips about your long-distance relationship. Surprise him/her with flowers
See our helpful article on the next page for more useful tips!
What’s
this week
on in
Cambridge
A brief roundup Dr Stephen John: Why scientists should not be sincere, honest, open or transparent Tuesday 14th February, 18:00, Winstanley
There’s a reason that so many TCSU Presidents are scientists. Maybe the accomodation office too. Magpie and Stump
Green Formal and Planet Earth Viewing Thursday 16th February, 20:00
You can’t beet this great pear of events. A seasonal simmering of sustainable sumptuous snacks, followed by four hours of fantastic filmmaking. Tickets (via upaychili) close at 8pm on Monday 13th. Magpie and Stump
Magpie and Chill
Saturday 18th February, 21:30
Come for the Magpie, stay for the Chill. Prove to yourself that the “has a good sense of humour” on your blind date form has some truth to it. Because if you wrote that it’s very likely you don’t. Especially given you clearly wrote your own form.
floreat pica
Sunday 12 February 2017
11
Flower Meanings What it means when they give you those Roses: I’ve chosen to display my love with something that will wilt and die within the week, or within 10 days if I’ve splashed out on M&S. Touching. Red Roses: clearly, it’s true love! Get ready for a romantic evening, a candlelit dinner, and a lifetime of happiness with your significant other. Or maybe your date is just colour blind. Roses with a little shiny something concealed inside: RUN.
Violets: Roses are red, I’m a Blue, let me tell you about rowing forever and ever and ever Forget-me-nots: Hint hint, nudge nudge. He’s clearly more into this than you are. Agapanthus: He picked the fanciest-sounding flowers in the shop. 10/10 effort. Venus Fly Traps: Venus is the goddess of love. If love slowly digests you as it holds you captive within its jaws. Which it does. Golden rods: Although he prefers to call them by their latin name, Solidago, the message is clear. You’re in for some fun tonight. A display of dried grass: Personality might not be his strongest asset. I hope for you he’s attractive. Tulips: His mum’s favourite flowers - you remind him of her. Thistles: He never really left his emo phase. You don’t get it, these reflect his dark, prickly soul. Gay feathers: Very elegant, very refined, they will look absolutely fa-bu-lous in your kitchen. Yes, he chose the tone to match the wallpaper. Broccoli: He just picked whatever was on offer at Sainsbury’s. Baby’s breath: What does a baby’s breath smell like anyway? Something to think about in the bath, perhaps. Sunflowers: WOULD YOU LIKE TO CONVERT YOUR GOLD INTO CASH?
Daisies: I have no ulterior motives. None whatsoever.
Tulips: I’ve been watching you. At night. Every night. Right now.
Fir branch: My love is everlasting, yet oddly seasonally inappropriate. Twig: I mistakenly believe I am a wizard. WINGARDIUM LEVIOSA. Flour: I grossly misconstrued this article.
How
edison rragami
to find Love on Valentine’s
B
eep beep. It’s the alarm. Or is it your precious time? Another day, another poignant vacancy of physical intimacy, leaving your interior cold and barren, an indomitable ice that separates you from the rest of humanity. You are on the outskirts of human experience, somewhere between dead and emotionally distant. BUT ITS VALENTINES DAY SO LETS GET YOU SOME LOVE One
Sit alone in your room and devise some sort of outer persona to convince people that you are someone you are not. Place a mat on the floor and sit on it cross legged while gradually working your way emotionally into a new person, all the while preferably humming. Only open your eyes again when you truly feel like a different person. Now you can leave that wretched spiritually wrecked inner self in the cupboard until you are sufficiently close to your new partner to begin to reveal your profound personality flaws. Two
Get used to dancing in clubs. I’ve gone through this before so I won’t labour the point, but you really have to find a way to be super confident in public situations, or at the least your artificial self has to be the kind of person who loves being around other people. You have to be the life of the party. You have to marshal your friends as social capital, and if they’re real friends they’ll let you rehearse jokes with them so when your VALENTINES.CRUSH walks past you truly become the life of the party. “Who’s that person who is so unbelievably hilarious and self aware? I am now attracted to their strong intuition for social situations and feel they would be a suitable mate for me.” Works every time. Three
Whenever you talk to them be sure to use lots of swear words so they think you’re rough. A delicacy in this pristine place. Four
We are in the 21st century, so be sure to really clean up your social media presence. Remember this is all about maximising social capital, so you’re going to have to have a Rembrandt painting with the caption “Bae” for your cover photo, and a picture of you in a shell suit at a club as your PP. Alternately, you can have a picture of you as a child. Quaint. Six
Be sure to have lots of stories all of which give a glimpse into your delicate soul. Well timed shows of vulnerability is a killer. For example, suppose you have managed to secure a date and are in a restaurant. You’ve ordered some soup: YOU: “Oh,…”
DATE: “Whats wrong?”
YOU: “No its nothing… please. Let us enjoy this meal in each others company” DATE: “No say it! I want to be there for you…” YOU: *Look up with determined sad face*
YOU: …I’ve never had the watery food before… DATE: You are a strong, strong person. I hope this helped.
floreat amor
TRAVISTY one liners
Horoscopes
Our Tinder Profiles
Disquietedith The poet W. H. Auden once said “Will time say nothing but I told you so? / If I could tell you I would let you know.” Well I, marble hearted fiend that I am, do know. And I will gladly tell you so.
Aries
I’m getting mixed messages from the stars about you. Nothing to worry about! Trust me!
Taurus
Things are looking up. But don’t take my word for it—I have, after all, been craning my neck peering up at the night sky, tracking the movements of the stars for this blasted column and thus to me all things appear high and mighty and pregnant with meaning. Night in and night out. It takes its toll. Anyway, if your fate is written in the stars, then gullible is written on the ceiling of great hall.
Gemini Cancer
Don’t ever let someone tell you, you can’t do something. Not even me. You got a dream, you got to protect it. People can’t do something themselves, they want to tell you you can’t do it. You want something, go get it. Period. Everyone and their dog is out to get you. Yes, even the dogs. They can smell it on you: deceit. For too long you have terrorised this college with your preposterous premonitions. Your chickens are coming home to roost.
Weekly hot takes from Travisty’s writers
— This week: our Tinder profiles (or what would be on them) —
Kate Pfeffer
Cats. I’m only interested in cats.
Jovan Powar
Fonts. I’m only interested in fonts.
Edison Rragami
The editors have decided it would be irresponsible to portay Edison as a suitable romantic partner, at least until he stops writing like that.
James Riseley
Leo
Before the chicken and indeed even the egg, there was you. Irritating the cosmic order. The stars want a word with you. I told them you were busy making friends and striving academically, but we all know that’s a lie, don’t we?
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because he was afraid of emotional intimacy.
Virgo
Don’t let the bastards get you down! Especially not that one. Yes, him.
Libra
I was heartened to learn that your prospects are taking a turn for the worse. There might be some justice in the world after all.
I can solve a Rubik’s cube in under 10 seconds using only my tongue
Scorpio
Pass go. Collect £200. Send said £200 to the pigeonhole of E. Franklin. Don’t ask questions.
Sagittarius
Donate to the college. (I didn’t want to write this one but former Master Martin Rees, astronomer extraordinaire, told me to. (Yes we talk. We all share the same night sky). Seems he wants to buy the copyright to the Girls Aloud discography and it’s going to cost the college a pretty penny. Who am I to judge? Or you for that matter, so pay up!)
Capricorn
Ripeness is all. And as the saying goes, when life gives you ripe lemons have a party and make gin and tonics and invite all your friends. You will have a nice time and it will cheer you up.
Aquarius
You will find love where you least expect it… brunch. (N.B: That was not referring to the ‘whereabouts’ of love, I was just thinking about brunch. It happens to me sometimes, and since this is a sort of stream-of-consciousness experimental piece i thought ‘why not?’ As for the whereabouts of love, I don’t want to ruin it for you. But take a waterproof, that’s just prudent advice in any case. You don’t have to be a professional soothsayer to know that.)
Pisces
Buy a lava lamp. I just think they are neat. Also useful for calming you down. Not that you will need to be calmed down. From what? Who said that? Stop fretting. But do buy a lava lamp, just-in-case.
floreat amor
Toby Henley-Smith
meow
Tom Rychlik Edith Franklin
I am not what I am xoxo
Think you can do better?
WRITE FOR TRAVISTY Submissions are always welcome! Find the Travisty Writers group on Facebook, get in contact with any of the writers, or email an editor at jsp50@cam.ac.uk We hold writers’ groups to discuss ideas every week in the JCR, where we provide samples of the current Cocktail of the Week. Get involved.