It's fresher's Week for may universities here in the UK. That's when all the new kids start. I was attending a course at Chichester University yesterday and the campus was full to the brim with new arrivals; here where I live right smack bang next to Bournemouth University, the picture is much the same. 

Older kids in yellow t-shirts showing gangs of fresh blood around the campus and the local area. Gangly boys on push-bikes stopping to look at maps, already slotting neatly into the stereotype of the 'man who will NEVER ask directions'. Young women in cars, stopping to ask direction - "Where's the nearest supermarket? We have to buy a microwave!"

Elderly hatch-back cars stuffed to the eye-balls with duvets and cardboard boxes full of Stella Artois and new stationery drive around and around the local area until the point where I have seen the same car go past me three times and I am considering waving to the occupants. Rather swankier 4WD 'unnecessary' cars, also stuffed to the eye-balls with everything a teenager away from the family home for the first time since Guide Camp could possibly need (and it all has to fit in a room 6 feet by 8 feet, did you know that?)

These kids are fitter, stronger, faster and perhaps better looking now than they will ever be. They have more free time and more opportunities for social contact (sex!) than at any other time in their life.

And they haven't got the least idea of ANY of this.