Roast

Slow Walkers

We’re living in such torrid times that it’s easy to find a topic to get frustrated about. However, one problem that has existed since the dawn of time needs a solution. You know what I’m talking about: it’s slow walkers.

We’ve all been there, pottering down the high street, in the shopping centre or wandering into university, only to get stuck behind the slowest walker on the planet. However, if you’ll forgive a slightly more controversial opinion, slow walkers as individuals don’t really bother me. It’s the ones who congregate in a massive group and take up the entire path, walking in a line and chuckling at your growing frustration at not being able to get past.

Although perhaps not at the top of the priority list, this is a call for walking lanes to be introduced. One for fast walkers, the other for slow, to prevent me from silently venting and giving the annoyed eyes at these slowcoaches.

Rebecca Johnson

Toast

A Universal Agreement

Mental health has been a huge issue in the UK for the last 10 years with more and more people beginning to accept the mind as an area which can also be greatly affected.

Now even universities seem to have taken into account the rising problem, with each student having a mentor and a list of people they can contact if they ever feel they need to.  Not only has the support team doubled but lectures and seminars have also become less harrowing for the young mind. In years previous students were expected to speak up in lectures, sharing their work and their ideas, whereas today, while students are still encouraged to share their work, there is no pressure, meaning that those more anxious students are not triggered, while more confident students are still able to share their opinion.

It would appear mental health campaigning is making a difference: it’s now time for global warming campaigning to become successful as well!

Iona Lowe

Soapbox

The Palaver of Picking Apart Politics

The era of British politics that succeeded the Second World War was seen as an age of consensus. Today, we are living through that era’s diametric opposite, entirely unable to tolerate different points of view.

If you ask people who disagree with them, you will be told a Conservative is devoid of all compassion and decency, whereas a Labour voter is stupid, emotional and quick to be “triggered”, or whatever the buzzword is this week. There are valid criticisms for all ideologies, and in only talking to those we agree with – and generalising the views of those we don’t –  we lose all sight of what those criticisms are.

Obviously, part of that intellectual incision is recognising that if an ideology involves the spouting of hatred, such as Nazism, it deserves neither respect nor attention, but this doesn’t detract from the fact that the lack of empathy seen in today’s political discourse makes us worse debaters and worse people.

Joe Molander

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Last modified: 27th October 2019