In Sight of the Cathedral, Too

[faustus]

There are three night clubs in town, or rather outside town, in other words outside the walls. One is a converted warehouse, apparently has three floors/identities, and I had to be pretty drunk to have gone in there. One is on a couple of floors and has all the atmosphere of an iron lung. One is a lazer (sic) quest by day, hosts the only gay night in town, and is scheduled to be demolished to make way for flats (although the second club is clearly also part of this building). There is a winebar with a very late licence, which is within the walls, and a late bar connected to the only city-centre hotel of any size, which is paranoid about security. A plan to have a further club, also outside the walls, has caused the local rag to go into melt down.

There seems to be a division being made. The battle lines were drawn: residents vs students. Nowt like whipping up hysteria between town and gown. There are now three universities and various colleges, so students outnumber residents for the first time.

Excuse me - do they all commute in? Or are some of them also resident in the city? Given the size of the queues in Tesco, some of the money must be good for the local economy. And I'd lay odds that two of the universities are predominately taking their students from the county, and most of those from the town.

The other division - as placards around the newsagents made clear - is residents vs. revellers. If you live here you cannot revel, clearly. Even carousing would be frowned upon. All those non-students I see in the bars and clubs are clearly hallucinations.

The paper ran a poll, and I fear that's backfired on them. 77% are in favour of the new club; even if there are more students than this mythical category resident, it isn't 3/4 of the population. And I suspect most students were unaware of the poll.

Comments

[buffysquirrel.livejournal.com]

Not to mention all the language schools.