The Oxford Guide

(sorry, purely opinion piece follows)

As a townie, Freshers' week in Oxford is of some interest, not least because it happens twice - Oxford Brookes University and Oxford University start at different times.

Of particular note is the easy identification of freshers by both their gaudy clothing and tragic facial hair: one assumes that they're abusing their new-found freedom from home to become in-duh-viduals. That is until they know their contemporaries well enough to start taking the piss out of each other (empirical research suggests this takes 2 to 4 weeks), at which point they mostly start to conform again...