on your own in an empty house intensifies all the bad stuff. And it got worse when I looked it up on Wikipedia. There was all the boring stuff about the different scientific compounds it was made out of, but what really stuck with me was the bit where it read “DEATHS” and had things like: “The 18-year-old and some friends took the substance in combination with cannabis on Friday, December 12. An ambulance was soon called to Bandhagen after the girl went into convulsions and turned blue in the face.”
Imagine dying and being left there looking like an asphyxiated Smurf. What effect did the Wikipedia thing have on you?
Panic, regret, shame, fear. I chain-smoked. I don’t normally smoke. There was a mild fear of death, but the sadness was so intense it negated the fear.
What did you learn from your mephedrone experience?
I haven’t really touched drugs for months and months because I had a wee problem with a couple of things a few years ago. And I guess this seven-gram bender was a way of reminding myself about how grim the world of free booze, shitty uppers and bad people is. It’s one of the reasons I got addicted to drugs in the first place. I’m never going back there. That’s my excuse anyway. Can I go home now?
THE VICE GUIDE TO UNIVERSITY
BY ANDY CAPPER | ILLUSTRATION BY DANIEL DAVID FREEMAN
Published March 2010
ACADEMIC SUCCESS
Don’t worry so much. The most common mark is between 50 and 65 percent. Nobody gets As except weird brainiacs or Asian people. This looks great on graduation day but understand that they have endured years of overbearing parents, endless maths tests and “educational toys” for Christmas presents. For the men, when they get to 32, they spend thousands on rare Stars Wars figures because they never had them when they were young. The women? It usually manifests itself in a huge dildo collection, prostitution, madness, suicide, or becoming a sexually voracious, piss-drinking slattern. Good six-month-girlfriend material if you can handle the suicide attempts.
BED SHEETS
A lot of students, especially the boys, are little wimps struggling to understand life away from the comfort of mummy’s bosom. This is why they don’t wash their bed sheets for a whole year. They sleep on gallons of dried cum, piss, vomit, spilled beer and tiny particles of Original Doritos. This is how they get “freshers’ flu”. It’s because they can’t take care of themselves. They invented a thing called the internet a while ago and if you type in www.google.com and enter “healthy diet” you can probably stop all this happening. Also, don’t be scared of the laundrette. Just ask the immigrant lady how to work it. Or do a service wash. It’s more expensive but time-wise it’s a lot more economical.
COCAINE
University is probably the first place you’ll encounter cocaine, and unless you’ve got wealthy folks, shelling out £50 on a gram of chalk dust as and when will be beyond the reach of most, which means you’ll have to borrow off your friends until your next student loan payment and they will end up hating you. This isn’t much of a loss as coke is completely overrated anyway. The exception is at parties where really drunk people with jobs, who like hanging around you because it makes them feel “young again”, start racking up lines for you. In this case, you know what to do. Remember though, no bumps after 4:30 AM as 99 percent of the time nothing good is going to happen after that time in the morning.
DEBT
Hahahaha. This is why smart people never go to university. Even if you’re thriftier than an edgy trust fund graphic designer whose parents just died in a head-on car crash, you can expect to be in AT LEAST £30,000 worth of solid gold debt by the time you graduate. If you can get your parents to pay your rent you’ll still be about £20,000 in the red. Unless you’re a millionaire and can afford to have that debt hanging over you for about 40 years, ask yourself this question: is that three-year course in 3D digital design really worth the effort? What are you going to be qualified for? Being an intern at a computer games magazine while all your friends who fucked their exams up are making £45,000 a year selling mobile phones?
EGGS
As well as noodles and spaghetti, eggs are all that you’ll be eating for the next three years. You can’t make them in the microwave but you can throw them around your halls when you’re drunk (hilarious). These are the basis of the classic student dish: Spanish omelette. Boys who think they’re classy invite vite girls over to their house and give them £6 wine and a Spanish omelette when they want to impress them. Most of the time the girl is thinking: “He promised me a ‘chilled cordon bleu sesh’ and he’s serving me an omelette with potatoes in it.”
FRIENDS
As much as you want to be the moody outsider Ian Curtis guy, you’re going to need friends to get you through all this shit. If you’re shy, have a few drinks, then be loud and gregarious at as many parties as possible. Eventually something will fall in your lap. People will spread the word that you’re funny at parties and you’ll get invited back. Eventually you’ll have so many potential friends that you’ll have to go through the editing process.
GAYS
University is where a large majority of people experience their first dabblings in the exciting world of homosexuality. The best thing to do is to experiment as freely as possible, but be careful—don’t bow to peer pressure. The Gay and Lesbian Societies are huge in all the universities but that doesn’t mean they’re not annoying self-satisfied pricks who have swallowed so much mid-90s liberal dogma that having a conversation with them is like talking to an insane 90-year-old woman. It’s barely-remembered catchphrases and blank expressions the whole time.
They’re the ones self-righteously handing out sexual advice leaflets and free condoms while you’re waiting to get your lunch. Like anybody who’s old enough to go to university doesn’t know how to avoid sexual diseases and buy their own condoms anyway. And sorry, men who like dressing up in women’s clothes do not qualify as a social group. It’s a sexual foible. Should we have support groups, pamphlets and long public meetings about empowering people who buy underwear three sizes too small or people who like fat hairy Greek taxi drivers who ladle dollops of yoghurt on their gigantic hairy balls while they’re waiting to pick up a fare?
HALLS
More rules. Don’t eat other people’s yoghurts. Or any of their food. Conversely, if somebody steals your food from the fridge, don’t leave gay little outraged notes for them in the fridge. Track the fucker down and confront them directly. Poke them in the eyes and kick them in the crotch.
Also, don’t set the fire alarms off at two in the morning. What are you, 11 years old? Most importantly, don’t have sex with the people you live with unless you’re going to marry them. University is a chance to get laid as many times as possible with as many different people as possible. Leave commitment until your 30s.
INSANITY
Year
