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<h1><a href="index.html"><img src="folklore-icon.gif" alt=""
	align="bottom" width="31" height="33"></a>York Campus Folklore</h1>
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<a href="index.html">Folklore Index Page</a>
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<h2>Disclaimer</h2>

<blockquote>
<p>All web pages on kipper.york.ac.uk are unofficial
and are in no way endorsed by the University of York.
Opinions and information on the folklore pages is 
not provided by the University, but by the contributors and editors.</p>

<p>Extreme effort has been made to ensure that information on these pages
is correct and legal,  however no responsibility is accepted by the authors or
the University for death or injury or loss of any kind resulting directly
or indirectly from accesses to these pages.</p>

<p>All comments regarding these pages should be addressed to
<a href="mailto:www@kipper.york.ac.uk">www@kipper.york.ac.uk</a>
in the first instance.</p>
</blockquote>


<h2>Contents</h2>

<h3><a href="#key">Key to Listed Legends</a></h3>
<h3><a href="#buildings">Buildings</a></h3>
<ul>
	<li>	<b><a href="#genbuild">General</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#subuild">Student Union Building</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#centralhall">Central Hall</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#library">Library</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#chemwatertower">Chemistry Watertower</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#wateronhill">Water Tower on Hill</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#biolclock">Biology Clock Tower</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#newbio">New Biology Building</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#physicsbuild">Physics</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#compscibuild">Computer Science</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#jackdanials">Sir Jack Lyons</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#bleachfield">Bleachfield</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#km">Kings' Manor</a></b>
</ul>
<h3><a href="#landscape">Landscape Features</a></h3>
<ul>
	<li>	<b><a href="#lake">The Lake</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#bridges">The Bridges</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#siward">Siward's Howe</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#hesgard">Heslington Hall Gardens</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#sculp">Sculptures</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#covered">Covered and Uncovered Walkways</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#signs">Signs</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#uniroadunderpass">University Road Underpass</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#quiet">The Quiet Place</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#landmisc">Miscellaneous</a></b>
</ul>
<h3><a href="#depts">Departments and People</a></h3>
<ul>
	<li>	<b><a href="#teaching">General Teaching</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#physics">Physics</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#compsci">Computer Science</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#compserv">Computing Services</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#biology">Biology</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#electronics">Electronics</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#chemistry">Chemistry</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#english">English</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#maths">Maths</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#psyc">Psychology</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#history">History</a></b>
</ul>
<h3><a href="#colleges">Colleges Etc</a></h3>
<ul>
	<li>	<b><a href="#colgen">General</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#derwent">Derwent</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#langwith">Langwith</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#alcuin">Alcuin</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#c4">College 4</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#vanbrugh">Vanbrugh</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#goodricke">Goodricke</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#wentworth">Wentworth</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#james">James</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#halifax">Halifax</a></b>
</ul>
<h3><a href="#wildlife">Wildlife</a></h3>
<h3><a href="#students">Students</a></h3>
<ul>
	<li>	<b><a href="#su">Student Union</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#socs">Student Societies</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#media">Campus Media</a></b>
	<li>	<b><a href="#studmisc">Misc</a></b>
</ul>
<h3><a href="#porters">Porters</a></h3>
<h3><a href="#misc">Misc</a></h3>
<h3><a href="#links">Links to more York Folklore</a></h3>

<h2><a name="key">Key to Listed Legends</a></h2>

<p>Each item of campus folklore is placed into one of the following
categories:</p>

<dl compact>
<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	true, beyond reasonable doubt
<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	believed true, but not conclusively proven
<dt>	<b>F.</b>
<dd>	complete falsehood
<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	believed false, but not conclusively disproven
<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	unanswered and may be unanswerable
</dl>

<p>Folklore for which we have additional information have a ``<b>*</b>''
in addition to the category.</p>

<h2><a name="buildings">Buildings</a></h2>

<h3><a name="genbuild">General</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	The horrible grey buildings used to be a lovely white.  (And only
	started to go grey in the 70's.)

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The horrible grey buildings used to be a lovely grey.

<dt>	<b><a href="buildings.html">F. *</a></b>
<dd>	The concrete panels were designed with a life expectancy of
	30 years. (This was in 1963 or so).

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	The University holds a large stockpile of spare concrete panels
	just in case.  There are sufficient to build another block or so.

<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	In the sixties when the campus was planned, there was a lot of
	student political activity - occupying buildings and the like.
	The lack of large central facilities at York was meant to stop
	this happening, Rowntree's were keen that `their' University
	would be a quiet place.

</dl>

<h3><a name="subuild">Student Union Building</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The SU building was converted from a pair of
	squash courts.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Due to the inquoracy of UGMs, the SU building wasn't named for
	more than a year after completion. One of the proposed names for the
	SU building was "Clean Pancake Building". This was supposed to capture
	the mood of the students at the time (1994). Students were apathetic
	and without direction. "Clean Pancake" is meaningless and was part of
	a computer generated phrase. This meaningless captures the apathy of
	the students.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The SU building used to be called the
	``Vaseline Building'', named after the well-known
	petroleum jelly product.  This was voted through a UGM by members
	of the Athletics Union. The AU subsequently won
	&#163;6,000 from the makers of Vaseline,
	for ``most original advertising of the year''.
	(<b>T.</b> The following year, the AU won the same competition, run by Halifax,
	by floating a raft with a big `X' on it down the Ouse, on the day of the Halifax
	conversion into a bank.  One of the exec. even changed his name by deed poll
	from `Antony Gareth Elliott' to `Antony Halifax BUSA Elliott'.)

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Is now (1997) called the ``Daw Suu'' Building. Named after a
	Burmese pro-democracy activist.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	The SU building is also referred to as the ``Student
	Centre'', since it meant that the signs with abbreviations for
	Squash Court need not be changed.

</dl>

<h3><a name="centralhall">Central Hall</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	No dancing allowed.

<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	Will topple into lake anyway.

<dt>	<b>F.</b>
<dd>	Top bit is designed to lift up.

<dt>	<b>F.</b>
<dd>	It is in fact a flying saucer that cannot take off
	because it is stuck in all that duck shit.

<dt>	<b>F.</b>
<dd>	Last band to play were the <a href="b-rats.html">Boomtown Rats</a>.  	The audience jumping up
	and down caused structural damage.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	They did however damage the orchestra pit cover.

<dt>	<b><a href="b-rats.html">Tb. *</a></b>
<dd>	The Boomtown Rats was an
	all-seated gig and fire regulations for a seated gig then
	prevented dancing, which St. Bob was told.  He got
	people to dance, and the SU were sued by
	the University for allowing him to break the regulations. The SU
	then sued St. Bob.

<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	The acoustic tiles on the ceiling are on
	upside down and therefore absorb sound rather than reflecting it
	back in.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The acoustics were found to be so bad after the place was
	built, that a special active speaker system had to be designed
	and installed.  All the funny tubes hanging from the ceiling are
	microphones for the system.

<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	The active speaker system was so far ahead of its time,
	it is totally crap and is never used.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	When the projector was first used (by National Film Theatre), some
	of the roof beams blocked the screen.

</dl>

<h3><a name="library">Library</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Before the current building, the library was in Heslington Hall.

<dt>	<b>F.</b>
<dd>	Built without regard for weight of books.

<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	Sliding down the hill into the road - look out for the
	mystery markers in the pavement outside.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The cellar under the library used to be a rifle range.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Books for the Vanbrugh Rotten Book sale have been kept under the library.

<dt>	<b>F.</b>
<dd>	Plans for underground car park abandoned at
	some stage due to weight of books necessitating stronger
	foundations.  (<b>T.</b> It was found to cost less to build the library on
	the hillside.)

<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	The extension was built onto the back of the
	library to stop it falling down the hill.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	Two students were caught having sex in the microfilm room.
	(This story appeared in the campus press apparently, we'll
	try and track down more).

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Due to the acoustics of the library, even if you fart
	quietly, it can be heard clearly.
	
<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The library snack bar used to be inside the building.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The snack bar was closed by the then VC because staff and students
	were meeting there.  (This was during some student unrest).  There was 
	such a fuss they had to build a new one outside - you can see the paving 
	slabs continue from the outside to the inside.)
</dl>

<h3><a name="chemwatertower">Chemistry Water Tower</a> (aka the mushroom)</h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	Built without regard for weight of water.  Some
	evidence for this is in its shape - it looks like there should
	have been a tall cylinder added on top of the mushroom of the
	same diameter at the top bit.
	
<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Is slowly sinking into the ground.  (The pipe at the bottom has to be
	reattatched every few years.)

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Prof. Heavens has been to the top.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	A RAG stunt once involved breakfast on top.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The <a href="http://www.york.ac.uk/~socs3/">Caving Club</a> have been up
	there, and have some great pictures to prove it.

<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	Not built high enough, therefore providing insufficient pressure.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	It is believed that the architect designed this to
	symbolise the use of psychedelic mushrooms during the 60s.

<dt>	<b><a href="watertower.html">Tb. *</a></b>
<dd>	The mushroom can and does hold water and is
	actually used by the Dept as a primary source of water.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	When the mushroom was first floodlit York police were inundated
	with UFO sightings.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Standing underneath it can help cure a hangover.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Standing underneath and looking up reminds you of scenes from
	<i>Independence Day</i>.  (It helps if you're drunk.)

</dl>

<h3><a name="wateronhill">The Water Tower On The Hill</a></h3>
<p>(the thing that looks like a castle)</p>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>F.</b>
<dd>	This is the secret headquarters of the SU/Admin/KGB/etc.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The aerials on top of the water tower are
	believed to be mobile telephone antennae rather than
	anything suspicious.

<dt>	<b>F.</b>
<dd>	Holds one millions gallons of water.

<dt>	<b><a href="siwardtower.html">T. *</a></b>
<dd>	Used to hold one million gallons of water, now empty.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The auxiliary supply tank contains 10 million gallons
	and is actually beneath the all weather hockey pitch
	behind Alcuin.

<dt>	<b>F.</b>
<dd>	It is used to stabilise lake water level.

</dl>

<h3><a name="biolclock">Biology Clock Tower</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	It only has one face because that's all they could afford.

<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	It was a choice between a clock tower for
	Biology and a swimming pool for campus - the right
	choice was obvious.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	The Biology Clock Tower is in fact a chimney.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The Biology Clock Tower was designed to hold a water tank for the
	department. Somebody donated a clock. Then it was
	found they didn't need a water tower. But they still had to build it ...

</dl>

<h3><a name="newbio">The New Biology Building</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	Most energy-efficient building ever.

</dl>

<h3><a name="physicsbuild">Physics</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b><a href="buildings.html#physics">Tb. *</a></b>
<dd>	The Physics Building cost a million pounds to build.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	There used to be stepping stones beneath PX001, when the lake went
	right up to the side of the building.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Colin Johnson inadvertently walked off them while
	showing prospective undergraduates round.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The stepping stones were filled with land to improve
	access for the disabled, at the expense of many a potentially
	interesting bar-crawl.

<dt>	<b>F.</b>
<dd>	The sound system inside PX001 was upgraded for minimal cost by
	FilmSoc (as they then were) who went round York stealing car stereos.
	(YSC (as they now are) don't use them - they belong to admin).

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Many years ago when the roof of the Physics
	building was leaking, a number of
	contractors were contacted for quotes to fix it, and
	the cheapest was chosen.  They came and worked for a few days
	and all the leaks stopped.  Several months later,
	estates needed to do some work in the roofspace, and
	discovered lots of dustbins full of water, which the
	contractor had put under the holes in the roof, thus ``solving''
	the problem.

	<p>The final solution involved flooding the roof with tar, having
	first covered the rooms below in plastic sheeting to catch
	drips.  This did the trick, and left behind enough plastic to
	keep everyone happy for months.</p>
</dl>

<h3><a name="compscibuild">Computer Science Buildings</a></h3>

<b>The new one</b>
<dl compact>
<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	If you look closely at the weather mast,
	you will see some logic gates cut out of the bottom part.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The direction pointers also have Pi/2, Pi,
	3Pi/2 and 2Pi instead of W, S, E, N.
</dl>

<b>The even newer one</b>
<dl compact>
<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Only six car parking spaces for the whole building.

</dl>

<h3><a name="psycb">Psychology Buildings</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	The tower on new psychology building houses a
	sensory deprivation tank for experiments.

<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	The various flags which are flown from the
	top of the building are part of a psychology experiment to see
	how many people go and ask about them.

<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	There are a number of steel loops set into the outside walls of the
	building - these were supposed to be for chaining bikes to.  Due to
	a mix up with the plans, they are at head-height.

<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>    The steel rings are for attaching guy ropes to in
	the event of bad weather, since it has been calculated that
	strong winds could catch the roof and lift the entire building
	into the air.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	There is a pitch-and-putt course round the back.

<dt> <b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The pitch-and-putt course is no longer used due to damage to cars
	in the adjacent car park.

</dl>

<h3><a name="sport">Sports Centre</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	The glue used to fix the tiles to the walls in the
	sports centre showers was not waterproof with
	the unsurprising result that they fell off.

<dt>	<b><a href="buildings.html#sports">T. *</a></b>
<dd>	The original designs included a swimming pool and a
	grandstand.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The new Astroturf pitches were paid for by former
	student Greg Dyke, now a TV executive.  (He actually
	contributed &#163;250,000 towards the cost. Ed).

</dl>

<h3><a name="jackdanials">Sir Jack Lyons</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Sir Jack Lyons had his knighthood removed
	after the Guinness fraud inquiry - University
	declined to remove the building's knighthood on the grounds that
	he was still Sir Jack when he donated the money, and when it was
	built.

</dl>

<h3><a name="bleachfield">Bleachfield</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>F.</b>
<dd>	Bleachfield is so called because there used to be a
	bleach factory there.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Bleachfield is named after Bleachfield Farm, which
	previously stood on the Bleachfield -- Music Department
	site.  The area was so-called because linen bleaching
	took place on the site.  (University News Sheet, April
	1991, page 8).

</dl>

<h3><a name="km">Kings' Manor</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b><a href="km.html">T. *</a></b>
<dd>	There is an oak panelled phone box in Kings' Manor.

</dl>

<h2><a name="landscape">Landscape Features</a></h2>

<h3><a name="lake">The Lake</a></h3>
<p>(See also ``<a href="#wildlife">Wildlife</a>")</p>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	When it was built, it was the largest plastic lined lake in Europe.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	There was a fire in biology; water used to
	put it out drained into the lake along with lots of nasties.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Chemistry don't drain anything into it.  (And <b>Tb.</b> neither do
	any of the other departments.  (The water that is pumped into it
	by Physics is just rain-water.)

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	There was an outbreak of botulism in the mid to late 80s.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	It is used to drain the surrounding land - if it wasn't
	there the surrounding land would simply be a marsh.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	During a particularly cold spell one winter, the
	ice was sufficiently thick for a mini to
	be driven out onto it and over the fountain -- which
	wasn't working at the time.

<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	The ice was not as thick as expected - the
	mini fell through the ice and is still down there
	somewhere.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	During a fairly cold spell a few winters ago, someone
	put a college fridge out in the middle of the lake
	one evening and it was nowhere to be seen next morning.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The fountain used to be higher before it was cleaned and redesigned.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The fountain exists to oxygenate the lake water.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	The fountain moves around from time to time - it floats on a pontoon
	which is tethered by it's supply pipe.

<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	Only life in the lake is under-evolved eels and over-evolved fish.

<dt>	<b><a href="bales.html">T. *</a></b>
<dd>	Since 1994, after a summer when the lake turned very
	green, there have been several bales of hay floating around in
	the lake each year.  These were said to be intended to improve
	the quality of the lake water (but didn't seem to have much
	effect).

<dt>	<b><a href="lake.html">T. *</a></b>
<dd>	In 1993, Vision had an article about the
	state of the lake. One of the professors of Ecology said that
	in 60-70 years time, the lake would become a swamp.

<dt>	<b><a href="lake2.html">T. *</a></b>
<dd>	The lake has always been a source of complaints about the
	smell, as seen in a Nouse article nigh on thirty
	years ago.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	There is no plant life in the lake because
	of an over-ambitious project to poison the
	weeds in the lake during the 70s.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The top pond, next to Derwent dining room, is prone to bad algae
	growth. On some occassions, it has been known to flouresce slightly at
	night. It hasn't done this in a few years: last time was about 1991.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	There is a stream flowing into the lake. You can find it
	by looking in the vicinity of Heslington Church
	 (follow the path from Derwith car-park to the
	church).

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	There is also a stream flowing out of the lake, it goes behind
	the Sports Centre and under Heslington Lane.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	The fountain in the lake is said to add fresh water and
	oxygen into the lake water. Unfortunately, nobody has the sense
	to turn it off when it's windy.  Considering that a fortune must
	have been spent on building covered walkways just so students
	don't get wet when it's raining, someone could at least make
	sure that nobody gets soaked when the spray of the fountain is
	blown towards dry land or a bridge.

<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	The sub-aqua club were once asked by the
	admin to dive in and check the integrity of the plastic bag
	that the lake is, but hired an environmental health officer to
	check the water first, who pronounced that it would be dangerous
	to their health to swim in it.
	
<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The main reason for not allowing swimming in the    
	lake is that the original builders threw all their rubbish into it - hence     
	the bottom of the lake consists largely of broken pieces of glass.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	If you fall in the lake, you are advised to see a doctor immediately.
	(<b>T.</b> The same is true of the Ouse)

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	After the murder of an open university lecturer, police frogmen
	spent several days trying to find the murder weapon. In the end
	they took a knife from Vanbrugh kitchens,
	threw it into the lake, watched where it fell, and then tried to
	find that.  They couldn't, and given that they couldn't find
	something even when they knew where it was, they abandoned the
	search.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	The (original) knife was later found on top of a covered walkway
	anyway.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	There was once a raft moored permanently by
	Goodricke beach, in its latter years it held only a
	sign ``Keep Off''.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	It is believed that the raft could not float,
	and was supported only by duck shit.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	The wooden beams on it rotted away and became more and
	more hazardous; it was removed for this reason.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	The raft affair just off Goodricke Beach
	was reputedly sailed (post finals) halfway
	across the lake by several including brother of Dr
	Simon Eveson (maths), journey curtailed by collision
	with fountain mechanism.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The lake was contaminated in 1974 by a ``mock battle of Trafalgar''
	involving lots of soot, oil and paint bombs.  Large numbers of
	fish died, and the lake had to be dredged.  RAG paid the
	costs to the University.

</dl>

<h3><a name="bridges">Bridges</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The Goodricke-Wentworth bridge
	cannot be destroyed by students bouncing up and down on it.  The
	fact that it is still standing is testimony to that.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	You can tell who thinks this bridge will fall
	down by seeing them jump up and down on it.

<dt>	<b><a href="wentchall.html">T. *</a></b>
<dd>	The Goodricke-Wentworth bridge is the scene for the
	Wentworth Challenge, the general idea being to cross the
	bridge using only the girders underneath.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The <a href="http://www.york.ac.uk/~socs3/">Caving Club</a> also have
	a bridge challenge, which involves absailing off one or more of the road bridges
	in the middle of the night.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Underneath the Alcuin/Library bridge is the entrance to ``Library
	Fell'', now bricked up, that enabled access to the bowels of the library.
	It's believed that the survey for this is in the library.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	Curse on James Wentworth Bridge - not long after its
	construction a particularly superstitious member of the campus media
	was crossing the bridge from James to Wenty with some "lucky
	charms" which he felt had been bringing him only bad luck, he decided that
	to bring himself good luck he would get rid of them by chucking them into
	the lake, he and at least one other campus journo became convinced that
	these charms had caused the bridge itself to become cursed.

<dt>	<b>F.</b>
<dd>	The library bridge was designed to have a
	Students Union building on top of it, which is why it is so wide.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The rooms under the library bridge (now security, used to be URY and the
	scanner room) used to house the SU shop.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The bridge connecting the library with the spiral is
	crumbling.  Some people have seen bits falling off it.  In fact
	the concrete of the Library-Spiral bridge is showing signs of
	deformation and buckling due to the pressure of the Library
	sliding down the hill towards the lake.  After rain, water pours
	through hairline cracks caused by the buckling, down onto cars
	passing underneath (and people standing at the bus stop).

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	One of the concrete bridges on campus will have to be replaced
	soon.  (The development review of 1985 said `within 10 years'.
	This is because the concrete has been attacked by use of
	chlorides.  The cost was thought to be about &#163;250,000, so
	the library bridge is probably the most likely.)
</dl>

<h3><a name="siward">Siward's Howe</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	A burial mound for an ancient Earl of Northumbria.
	Just his head though.
	
<b>Tb.</b>Siward had a house on the howe.  (and <b>T.</b> he appears in
	<i>Hamlet</i>)

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	Used by a local coven as one of seven (it would be seven,
	wouldn't it) meeting sites at All Hallow's Eve.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	Siward's Howe was a textbook example of a terminal moraine before Alcuin,
	Chemistry and the JBM Library were built on it.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The hill (Heslington Hill?) is the highest point for miles around,
	and is used to celebrate the Summer Solstice.

</dl>

<h3><a name="hesgard">Heslington Hall Gardens</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The Yew trees used to be cut in the shapes of
	chess pieces.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The Yew clippings are currently being sold as
	ingredients for anti-cancer drugs research.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The Sunken area near to the lake used to be a mirror
	pond in the previous layout of the gardens, to reflect the gazebo.  

</dl>

<h3><a name="sculp">Sculptures</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b><a href="may.html">T. *</a></b>
<dd>	The thing which used to be next to Central Hall, known
	as the crisp, cornflake etc. was really called
	``Mayflower 1''.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	A visiting rugby team redecorated it one night and it was removed
	soon afterwards
	Nick Jackson managed to take <a href="crisp.gif">this picture</a>
	of the cleanup job afterwards.  There was a
	<a href="crisp1.jpg">picture of both sides</a> in <i>Nouse</i>.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	After the admin removed the Mayflower, Aaardvark made a papier-mache
	<a href="http://www.xs4all.nl/~ellman/ae-a/aaardvark/photos/">replica</a>
	and which was put up between Central Hall and Langwith.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The Mayflower was once turned into a broken
	smiley face (ie. painted yellow, with one black eye
	somewhere).

<dt>	<b>F.</b>
<dd>	The thing in the middle of the spiral up to the
	library bridge
	is called the Avocado.  It is made with lead from the
	Minster's roof. (In fact, it is an untitled aluminium work.)

<dt>	<b><a href="algol.html">T.  *</a></b>
<dd>	The two balls outside Goodricke library represent the binary star Algol,
	the subject of the work of John Goodricke.  When new they
	were lit up, with one globe red and the other blue.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The sculpture out the back of Goodricke is made from
	bits of the last steam train in York.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Some years ago (c.1990) there was an exhibition of sculptures
	(by <a href="a_wright.html">Austin Wright</a>) in
	the area between the accommodation near the VC's
	house, the Lake, Derwent B block.
	These were tall, narrow
	sculptures with small (ca. foot square) bases -- an open
	invitation.  They were moved, knocked over, stacked up, and
	thrown in the lake over a period of time.  And rapidly
	removed as a result.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Suspiciously similar sculptures can now be seen in the
	courtyards at King's Manor.  These are the same sculptures,
	relocated to a safer haven.

<dt>	<b>F.</b>
<dd>	There were once plans to build a new cashpoint
	machine into the statue of the stone Buddha.  (Actually, there
	were plans, but only during an Aaardvark meeting.)

<dt>	<b><a href="buddah.html">Tb. *</a></b>
<dd>	It's not a statue of a stone Buddha; it's not
	even a stone statue of a real Buddha.  It's bronze.

<dt>	<b><a href="rose.html">T. *</a></b>
<dd>	A few years ago there was a plan put forward by an artist
	to put a huge metal rose in the middle of the lake.
	The thing was to be powered by sunlight, and would open and close
	during the day.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	<i>Family Group</i>, by Henry Moore was lent to the University
	by the artist.  It stood for many years on a plinth in front of
	Heslington Hall Yew Garden.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	An unknown (to us) 1970's artist once spent several days erecting
	sculptures made of scaffolding poles next to Alcuin - much to the disappointment
	of the students, who had thought he was going to paint the
	college windows.  The sculptures were called `A Frog' and `A Railway
	Station', but were subsequently combined into a single large tower by
	some students.  (Exit one irate artist with his poles, enter Private
	Eye, who report the incident.)

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	In 1970 there was a sculpture at Langwith, which was so ugly that
	someone tried to blow it up with a home-made explosive device.
	It was eventually removed in 1974.

</dl>

<h3><a name="covered">Covered and Uncovered Walkways</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	Although supposedly there so keep pedestrians dry in wet
	weather, the covered walkways main purpose is to provide
	easy-maintainable cable supports for the computing service
	wires.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	If you took all the covered walkways and joined
	them end to end, you could walk to the Minster under cover.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	In the vicinity of the water tower on the
	hill, there is a network of pathways. These seem to mysteriously
	disappear as soon as you are near a major campus pathway.
	Sometimes, they are used a a shortcut for when travelling from
	Alcuin to Town.  If you look from the top of the hill
	(on the Road) towards the forest in the direction of Alcuin, you
	can see one of them emerging and vanish as it gets nearer.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	Members of URY exposed themselves to dangerous amounts of asbestos
	when laying cabling along the covered walkways.

</dl>

<h3><a name="signs">Signs</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	There are ``Danger, thin ice'' signs on the lake between
	Vanbrugh and Biology, and next to
	Physics, all year round.  I
	suppose the term 'thin' means non-existent as well.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The newly-erected green signposts have letters that can
	easily be unstuck and re-arranged.  Students often take this as
	an opportunity to show off their vocabulary of swear words.  One
	sign had ``Routefinder'' changed to ``tour for nerds'',
	and one by NYS travel became ``rude often''; also seen were
	``Psychology'' -&gt; ``Psychologie'',
	``Campus Nursery'' -&gt; ``Campus Nurser''.
	Possible original
	mistakes on the signs were ``Goodrick'' and ``Vanburgh''.
	Apparently, Admin paid thousands of pounds for the signs.

</dl>

<h3><a name="uniroadunderpass">University Road Underpass</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	This was originally designed as an access to
	College 4.

<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	It was designed as a nuclear fall out bunker
	for admin, unfortunately it's not possible to run there
	in 4 minutes whilst carrying a brief case.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	There were once plans for a miniature railway around
	campus to carry students to and from lectures and colleges.
	This was built as the main underpass to get to the College 4,
	Alcuin, library side of campus.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	There is an Underpass ghost.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	People used to keep boats there - the ends were blocked up to make
	a garage.

<dt> <b>T.</b>
<dd>	The underpass is now used for it's intended purpose, with the installation
	of the cycle track to the newest Computer Science building.

</dl>
<h3><a name="quiet">The Quiet Place</a></h3>

<dl compact>
<dt>	<b><a href="quiet.html">T. *</a></b>
<dd>	There was/is a plan to build a circular enclosure between
	Langwith and Spring Lane Bridge, incorporating part of the
	lake and forming a Quite Place for private contemplation.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	It was never built because next to Langwith is not a very quiet
	place.
	
<dt> <b><a href="quiet.html">T. *</a></b>
<dd>	The gazebo is now to be converted into a Quiet Place.

</dl>

<h3><a name="landmisc">Miscellaneous</a></h3>

<dl compact>
<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The `crater' between Vanbrugh/Music/Biology dates from the original
	<a href="original_dev_plan.html">campus plan</a> as an open air auditorium. (And
	from time to time it is actually used as such).  It is sometimes known
	as the Vanbrugh/Music Bowl.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	During the Summer of 1995, all the grass died. This made Campus look
	completely different.

</dl>

<h2><a name="depts">Departments and People</a></h2>

<h3><a name="teaching">General Teaching</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	When the University was new, Oxford University proposed that they
	should run training courses for the academic staff here (implying that
	York needed help in the world of academia).  The then vice-chancellor of York
	replied enthusiastically, saying that York would of course train an equal
	number of Oxford staff ... and Oxford quietly dropped the idea.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	In 1992, there were plans to extend the teaching hours
	from 8:15 to 20:15; have no unified lunch-break; and have teaching hours on
	Saturday from 8:15 to 13:15. Later, the plans were changed to just
	have an extra teaching hour at the end of the day. Eventually, it
	was figured out that it wasn't necessary to extend teaching hours if
	more efficient timetabling was done.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	When the uni first began, the teaching hours were from 10:15 to 16:15.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Lectures on campus start at 15 minutes past the hour.  At first,
	lectures in town (in King's Manor) were at 45 minutes past the hour,
	with a bus between Exhibition Square and Heslington timed to get 
	people between the two sites.  (Before the University came, the
	Heslington bus service was two return journeys from Piccadilly
	on Saturdays only.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	In order to get a degree, you need an overall mark of 35% or above.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The record for the lowest mark of someone who'se got a degree is 35.2%

</dl>

<h3><a name="physics">Physics</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b><a href="diane.html">T. *</a></b>
<dd>	There used to be a statue on the lawn in front of Heslington
	Hall, called Diana the Huntress.  It was smashed during an
	incident following the Physics Department Christmas Dinner
	1965.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	During the annual Physics vs. Shepherds cricket match,
	Simon Fox was once tonked all over the place by the Shepherds
	No. 7 earning himself the nickname ``The Beast'' since he
	allegedly  went for three sixes in a single over. Documentary
	evidence shows that he only went for two but the name is still
	occasionally mentioned to this day.

<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	The Physical Wrecks (Physics
	departmental cricket team) needed a single off the
	last over for victory. And the Legendary
	Gareth Chisham with his magnificent
	forward defensive failed to get it.  I think it was
	after this game that Sean Healy refused to play for
	Gareth again.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Two runs were needed of that last over, and Gareth's mighty
	forward defence got one -- enough to claim a draw.  Sean
	apparently managed to drop three catches in the game, which
	might have had something to do with his lack of eagerness to
	play any more.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Three or four years ago there were a number of players
	who enjoyed a tab or two. Phil Holden used to quite
	regularly bowl with rollie in hand and Louis Purver once took a
	magnificent one handed catch at silly mid-wicket, one handed
	since he had his baccy in the other.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	A few years ago there two bowlers from Electronics who
	were <strong>very</strong> quick.  John Dittmer rarely went for
	more than 10, and any runs scored off him were invariably edges
	that went for four runs. During one particularly fiery spell he
	got a fine edge from the batsman. Phil Holden at first slip
	immediately jumped up to appeal for the easy catch that was
	there for the taking. Wazza Chisham at
	wicketkeeper, out
	of the corner of his eye sees Phil leap in the air and just so
	he doesn't feel left out decides to do the same -- before he
	catches the ball.  Wazza times his jump perfectly so that as his
	graceful leap is reaching its' zenith the ball makes extremely
	rapid contact with his ``box''.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Gareth Chisham figures very highly in cricket folklore.
	He's been affectionately known as ``Wazza'' since 1992
	when Pakistan last toured England with their excellent bowlers
	Waquar and Wasim. Since we all held Gareth
	in such high esteem we amalgamated their names to come up with ``Wazza''. It also
	had the added bonus of having lavatorial connotations.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Dave Weaver, age 23, was once asked for
	identification when buying a lottery ticket.

<dt>	<b><a href="sarg.html">Tb. *</a></b>
<dd>	The Physics department has
	a ``Scientific Anomalies Research Group''.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The Physics building once housed just the
	Department of Physics, before the fledgling department of
	Electronics went their own way.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	There was once a film partially made in the
	Physics building. It was made using the
	LEED equipment in PC/008 as a rack of ``high tech''
	equipment.  It was presumably cheaper than making a set.

<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	Mat Hill in teaching labs used to be a roadie for Dire Straits.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Mat Hill used to be a roadie for The Stranglers.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Two physics technicians run one of the popular York
	ghost walks.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Alex Coon (ex-undergrad) rode his bike along
	the entire length of the ~1ft wide raised plank seat at the edge
	of the lake by the physics building. A huge round of applause
	was given by the assembled crowd, including many UCCA
	(as it was then) candidates.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Alex Coon also climbed up the outside of the
	physics building during his first year (1990-91) with a friend.
	They did have a safety rope.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Physics porter goes to
	investigate what sounded like a break-in in the Ladies toilets
	one night.  Instead of burglars, she found two students having
	sex.  Rather than making a fuss they were left to continue.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	One of the Electronics Workshop technicians once tried to work
	out if a circuit was live by putting a screwdriver across two contacts.
	The circuit was indeed live, but not for very long, as there was a large
	spark which blew the fuses for an entire wing of the building.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Ex-Head of Department and wife are driving through
	Osbaldwick and spot a porch which is ideal for
	their requirements.  They return later with camera so as to have
	a picture to show the builders.  Police turn up later
	and raid their house assuming they were ``casing the joint''.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	Group of lecturers fixing up cottage in countryside.
	Ex-Head of Department is asked to put lock on toilet door.
	Lock put on the outside.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Student copies paper from Phys. Rev. B. for 3rd year project report.
	Steals particular volume from JBM Library in hope of covering tracks.
	Gets 0% for project.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Same student hands in copy of a published paper for 3rd year essay paper.
	Is one of the references given in the question.
	Gets 0% for paper.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Same student fails degree.  Turns up at ceremony anyway in cap and gown
	and with parents.  Presumably didn't have the nerve to tell them.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	First and third year physics exams taking place on same day; first year
	does third year paper in error.  (Hadn't been to any lectures so
	didn't know what should have been on the paper) Leaves after half
	hour or so.  Got 2%.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Jim Matthew was appointed Head of Department in
	October 1987, for five years.  Eight years later he was still in
	the position, nobody else having been found willing to take on
	the workload.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Back in the 50s Prof Heavens did some early work on lasers. He was
	told of a paper published by a Russian that he had to read, and finally
	obtained a copy in Russian, and found someone to translate. When he got
	it back he realised that it was in fact simply a Russian translation of
	a paper he had written, complete with his name at the top.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	A senior member of the physics department appeared on the Radio 4
	science quiz programme ``The Litmus Test'', after getting protons
	and positrons mixed up in an answer, the question master asked
	``are you sure you're a physicist''.  A friend listening to the radio
	at home almost fell of his ladder due to his laughter.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Even `Ede and Ravenscroft' (est. 1693), gown providers to the
	University, couldn't supply a DPhil hat large enough for Robert
	J Bunting's head.
</dl>

<h3><a name="compsci">Computer Science</a></h3>

<p><strong>See also the <a href="compsci.html">CompSci Folklore Page</a></strong></p>

<dl compact>
<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	The Computer Science Department won a prize at the
	robot Olympics in 1990 with a robot that
	alleged it was under neural network and computer control,
	but in fact had only basic
	collision detection plus some random wiggles programmed in. The
	random wiggles just happened to take it round the obstacle
	course by pure chance. In the same Olympics a 100 year automata
	from the local museum won the archery contest.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	A computer science head of department once nearly lost
	his head when, just seconds after having his picture taken next
	to a large Winchester cabinet, something inside broke, the disk
	slipped loose from its housing, sliced through its cabinet and
	buried itself in the adjacent wall.

<dt> 	<b><a href="computation.html">T. *</a></b>
<dd>	One of the two original buildings was built just to house the
	first computer.  When it was delivered, the makers
	took the fuses away until the bill was paid.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>    Apparently in the late 70's/early 80's, in the infancy of the
	internet a certain group of computer scientists managed to
	order a rocket launcher via the net.  Apparently from
	Columbia.  Allegedly the only way they found out was when the
	invoice arrived at the comp sci block.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	When compsci got their new HLH Orion computers in '88, there was
	a couple of serious bugs in the system. The first meant that terminals
	would `die' when you logged out, and couldn't be used to log back in;
	vuft would fill up with turned-over keyboards indicating the
	dead terminal. forsyth produced a staff-owned setuid root
	program called clearline that mucked around in the kernel to
	clear up this problem. The suns had passwordless login called
	``console'' that had staff privs, so it was possible to set up a
	sgid-staff shell purely for running clearline and making things
	usable again.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The other, <strong>much</strong> more interesting bug was that at random,
	processes would flip into root. this lead to numerous people with files
	they couldn't write to, etc., and, after one user noticed her prompt had
	changed to a funny # character, a long battle between numerous students
	to hide root hacks that they could reinvoke, but that other students
	couldn't.  Forsyth found this out, and cleaned up almost all the hacks.
	one remained in until the orions were dumped. it didn't fire until most
	of the students responsible had left.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	A ``.paranoia virus'' was put into /lib/crt0.o, the file
	that gets linked into every compiled C program, and is the code that
	actually calls main().  it wasn't a virus actually - more of a trojan.

	<p>It checked the current process id (using a direct system call trap, to
	avoid invoking any other library functions); if (pid % 256) == 42 then it
	would create a file in the current directory called ``.paranoia'' with
	no contents and no permissions to do anything on it.  The character codes
	for the string ``.paranoia'' were hidden in a series of adds and shifts
	in the code adding to the difficulty of the detection.

	<p>This meant that from the moment it was installed, newly compiled
	programs occasionally hatched a .paranoia file... including for example
	``glide'', the functional language interpreter provided by the department,
	and eventually most of the compilers.

	<p>The trojan even managed to propagate from Orion2 to Orion1.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The way into the student machines in those days was quite
	elegant. After popping root on the Orion, one student made
	/etc/rc.local writable on <b>one</b> of the disc-less student sun
	workstations. So, if anything needed ``doing'', the extra commands
	were written into that file, which runs as root on bootup, and a
	command inserted to copy the original version of the file back
	over it -- hence, nobody ever logged in as root.

	<p>Since there was no change to the content of any of the system
	files, only a one-bit change in the permissions on one file,
	this remained in place for ages and ages -- a very thorough
	check of the boot partition on the Suns eventually revealed what
	had happened

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The 1992 intake of Compsci
	undergraduates were affectionately known by one of the lecturers as ``The
	biggest bunch of tossers they've ever been''.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	To commemorate this, the students in question
	produced a ``2nd year 1993-1994 exam results mug''. The front of the mug
	says ``University of York   2nd Year Computer
	Science 1993/4''. The bit opposite the handle has a trophy with the old
	``University of York'' logo on it. The back says the following: ``The worst
	year group in the history of computing''.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	For most of 1986/7 the more net-minded students used to read
	Usenet by (ab)using a guest account on one of the staff Vaxes.
	The username was guest, the password was (unsurprisingly)
	visitor....  At least one student was a member of the Clayton
	E. Cramer For President campaign. (CEC was one of the best of
	the early flamers)

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The 1987/8 intake was almost on a par with the 1992/3 one -- including the
	two students who basically lost Computer Science students email
	and news access for some time -- largely due to huge bounces.
	During this period, CS undergrads used a number of sly means to
	keep a net presence -- for some reason the Sun workstations
	still had mail and news, and many CS students became active
	``computer reps'' for societies and used CompServ facilities....
	SOCSnnn accounts were something of a hotbed of illicit compsci
	networking.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	In 1993, the compsci newsgroups were dominated by discussions on
	wasting system resources. These discussions wasted a lot of system
	resources.

<dt>	<b>F.</b>
<dd>	Tony Fisher used to be a member of ZZ Top.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	In 1994, a lecturer set an exam question the Teaching Quality Assessment
	inspectors declared to be `tasteless'. The lecturer decided
	to keep the question in the exam anyway.  The question was
	about a theme park called something like `Oop North'. You can buy lard
	in the souvenir shops. The idea was to categorise everything into a
	relational database.

<dt>	<b>Great Moments in Computer Science Lectures:</b>
<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	A fly lands on the surface of a slide-projector and is projected to
	the screen. The lecturer says something about there being a bug in
	the program.
<dd>	Andrei Ellman once entered a computer science
	lecture mid-lecture and gave the lecturer a slice of toast. (However,
	Andrei had discussed this with the lecturer beforehand.)
<dd>	In 1994, head of Computer
	Science department gives a talk to tell students to turn up on time,
	since Teaching Quality inspectors are in.  Several students walk in as
	he finishes.
<dd>	Teaching is rated `outstanding' in 1994.  One lecturer
	is called on his portable phone mid-lecture to be told he had been
	rated outstanding. Another, using hand-puppets to liven up the
	lecture makes the puppets say ``yes, the TQA inspectors were nasty''. That
	night, the lecturers head off to the Charles for a pissup.
<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	A lecturer once caught someone asleep in one of the front rows of
	that lecture. He hit them on the head with his pointer.
<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	A lecturer came to the lecture to find two slide
	projectors. He went wild and attacked one (or both) of them.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	One lecturer deleted MSDOS.SYS and IO.SYS from his new PC ``to save
	space'', with the expected lack of functionality. How he managed
	to unhide them and remove the read-only bit from them is
	debatable, given that he lacked the DOS knowledge to appreciate
	that they were important files...

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Another senior computer scientist left his first PC, a 386/DX33, running at
	8MHz for about a year, as he wasn't sure whether pressing the
	TURBO button would dangerously overclock the processor 

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Computer Science was the first department to have local
	newsgroups. This was before CompServ discovered Usenet News. This is why
	the york.cs.* groups were originally called york.*. The electronics
	dept. also had a newsfeed back then, but they didn't seem to have local
	newsgroups.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The newsgroup york.student (now york.cs.student) was originally
	created in 1991/1992 to help relieve york.second of it's `drivel'. The
	group york.test was also used as a regular `drivel' group.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Back in the days when V/058 was full of terminals,
	a bottle of Newcastle Brown was
	spilled into the keyboard of one.  It no longer worked.
	In order to hide the evidence, those present carried out the
	following tasks: Swapping the physical location of a goodly number
	of the terminals so that any mapping from serial no. to tty line
	was N&ampV.  Swapping keyboards around so the keyboards no longer
	matched the vdus (same reason).  Breaking root (not difficult
	on an HLH Orion 1/05) to wipe out wtmp and all other system
	accounting logs so nobody could see who was logged in at the time.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Quote from Chris Reece when the computers in VUFT were down:
	``Oh dear, the computers have stopped working...  Looks like I'll have to get a life.''

<dt>	<b>T</b>
<dd>	The Compsci department, as of 1992 have offered a course called
	ITBML (Short for Information Technology, Business Managment, and
	Language). Because
	``Information Technology, Business Managment, and Language'' and
	``Eye tee bee em el'' are both a bit of a mouthful, ``Itbummel'' is used
	instead.

</dl>

<h3><a name="compserv">Computing Services</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b><a href="internic.html">T. *</a></b>
<dd>	The domain name authorities overwrote the University's
	DNS details with those of York Regional Police, Ontario,
	causing much difficulty.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	Prince Manifold - The one-time, unlikely-sounding
	chief technician of CompServ,  was sacked along with a fellow
	technician after an incident involving a fight outside
	Heslington Hall (For a picture of Prince when he joined
	the Service, see the October 1990 Keynotes magazine).

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Before 1992, CompScis weren't allowed accounts on
	the Computing service VAXes.  This was because compserv were worried
	that computer scientists would do nasty things and crash the system.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	The reason they finally let CompScis on was because
	the additional effort to check if someone was
	a CompSci or not before creating an account was too much extra work.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The SGIs in Derwent have had their speakers removed. This was due
	to people playing sampled sounds at full volume while other people were
	trying to work.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	An undergraduate at York used to host the homepage of a certain
	sexual fetish on his Tower account - until his supervisor found out.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	There is a newsgroup called alt.alumni.york-university, but CompServ don't
	carry it.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	One of the main routers (a csrvbru) once caught fire (or at least, fried
	a network card) leading the networking on campus somewhat lacking.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	demon.co.uk once (1997) banned York connections to their news
	server due to `alleged' misuse by -bat. 

</dl>

<h3><a name="biology">Biology</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	A council waste disposal van caught fire after people
	in biology dumped some stuff in a waste skip for
	disposal which contained two chemicals which caught
	fire when they mixed.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Every time it's open day, the biology department take pictures. When
	they're developed, they display them, and invite people to add captions to them.

</dl>

<h3><a name="electronics">Electronics</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	Some undergrads of the Electronics Department
	were once sent down for hacking into to the computers of the
	Royal Observatory and deleting some irreplaceable data
	gathered from a radio telescope.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Rob Sloan (electronics departmental photographer) once won a
	``Snowscene photography competition'' with his photograph
	of ``Ducks by Spring Lane Bridge''.  The physics departmental
	photographer, Alan Gebbie might have been annoyed to come
	second, but the students who came joint third might be more
	surprised to find themselves competing with professionals.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	In 1992, an electronics lecturer organises a
	revision class for a small exam. Lecturer is disappointed with low turnout
	(about 4), and to express this disappointment, gives the same questions
	in the exam as in the revision class.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	When the RAG hitsquad 'hit'
	an electronics lecturer during a lecture, he went mental and attacked
	the hit-squad with a slide-projector.

</dl>

<h3><a name="chemistry">Chemistry</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b><a href="murder.html">T. *</a></b>
<dd>	Chemistry lecturer poisons wife.

<dt>	<b><a href="morefire.html#chem">T. *</a></b>
<dd>	There was once (1980) a large-ish fire in the
	Chemistry Department.

<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	The fire started when a polymerisation reaction went to
	completion unexpectedly rapidly in the middle of the night.
	(<b>Tb.</b> Was caused by an electrical fault in a calculator power
	supply.)

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	The Fire Brigade, faced with large cupboards
	full of smouldering and potentially nasty chemicals with the
	labels burned off, simply hauled the lot off in to a big heap in
	the playing fields behind the Dept (now the
	Science Park) and sprayed water on them from a cautious
	distance until they stopped fizzing.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	A large part of A-block was destroyed.  Afterwards,
	experimental work was restricted to the other three blocks.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	When experiments with thiols (chemicals akin
	to those used to scent natural gas) were being conducted in the
	Department, the Gas Board were swamped with calls from
	Heslington and Badger Hill residents about
	gas escapes.

</dl>

<h3><a name="english">English</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	It is the ``done thing'' in English Department Board of
	Studies meetings that when discussing a particular student, any
	member of the department who has been having a relationship with
	that student should leave ``for a cup of coffee''.  Apparently,
	three members of staff once got up to leave when a particular
	student was being discussed.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	All the alcoholics in English have died out.

</dl>

<h3><a name="maths">Maths</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	One lecturer tried to liven up an explanation of oscillations
	by drawing an analogy with what the water does when you `bounce
	up and down in the bath'.  He then demonstrated the exact action
	he had in mind at the front of the lecture theatre.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The same lecturer managed to offend most of his students when
	comparing the cross-product with the use of a screwdriver, and the
	statement `women don't use screwdrivers, but I can't think of
	a cooking analogy'.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The following exchange once took place during a lecture given by
	Tony Sudbery.<p>
	AS:	OK, does everyone understand this so far?<br>
	<i>silence</i><br>
	AS:	Does anyone <strong>not</strong> understand it?<br>
	<i>silence</i><br>
	AS:	Is anybody actually here?<br>
	<i>silence</i><br>
	AS:	OK, let's narrow this down.  Who's on Saturn?<br>
	<i>Nick Jackson puts his hand up</i><br>
	AS:	Apart from you.<br>

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	One of the maths lecturers, lecturing to a maths group in
	a biology lab (the maths department is always scraping around for
	places to give lectures), managed to demolish a skeleton of a horse
	at the front of the lab.

</dl>

<h3><a name="psyc">Psychology</a></h3>

<dl compact>
<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	Psychology used to be housed in Wentworth, so they could observe
	people on the Goodricke-Wentworth bridge.
	(See <a href="#bridges">bridges</a>.)

</dl>

<h3><a name="history">History</a></h3>

<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The Cambridge
	University Press published a rough draft of a senior lecturers book
	instead of the
	finished version.  Unsurprisingly the critics panned it and it has failed
	to appear on any reading lists anywhere, least of all his own.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	There was a fire in Vanbrugh in around 1993, on the
	History department corridor. Rumour had it that a lecturer was the
	target of a grudge-bearing undergrad, who stuffed burning paper under
	the door late one night.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	At least one interview with a prospective undergraduate was
	conducted entirely in Latin (the student in question was doing a
	Latin A-level).

</dl>

<h2><a name="colleges">Colleges Etc</a></h2>

<h3><a name="colgen">General</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b><a href="colleges.html">Tb. *</a></b>
<dd>	From the original 1962 development plan, (with some interpretation, but it's
	pretty clear), the correct order of the Colleges is
	<ol>
	<li>	Derwent
	<li>	Langwith
	<li>	Alcuin
	<li>	College 4 (Not built)
	<li>	Vanbrugh
	<li>	Goodricke
	<li>	Wentworth
	<li>	College 8 (James)
	</ol>

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	The choice of college assigned to individual students by
	the admin is in fact a psychological experiment to try to create
	a different personality for each college by finding out what
	sort of person each student is before assigning them a college.
	For instance Derwent has a relatively high proportion of
	students who went to a public school.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	The CU plant a Christian in every corridor.  (The CU claim they don't,
	and you'd need a lot of admin cooperation to do so.)

<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	The fire alarms are telepathic and are designed to go
	off on a cold day when you are thinking ``This would be a
	terrible time to have a fire alarm.''

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Every time there is a false alarm in a college, the Fire Brigade
	charges the University several hundred pounds call-out charge.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Many of the room keys in colleges will open more than one bedroom.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Female students are not generally given ground floor bedrooms for
	security reasons.  (and to encourage the blokes on the ground
	floor to get out a bit).

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Security was tightened up following the murder on campus in 1992.
	Peep-holes and chains were put on the doors of all college rooms,
	locks put on most outside doors.  Unfortunately, most of the chains
	were badly installed, and the door could be opened even with the chain on.
	The chains were later moved, but the original fixing points can still
	be seen on most doors.  (The main use for the chains is to keep
	cleaners out.)

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	College identity isn't as strong as it used to be.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The record for number of glasses of wine drunk at a Provost's party is 16
	(at Vanbrugh).

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Allocation of rooms in college is deliberately engineered to mix people
	of different subjects.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	When first opened, the colleges were sex-segregated by corridor.

</dl>

<h3><a name="derwent">Derwent</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Derwent is named after the former local authority, Derwent
	District Council of the East Riding of Yorkshire County Council.
	No doubt this was named after the nearby river Derwent.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	A couple of chaps on the way back from the village late
	one evening (in 1988/9) claimed to have seen a lion cub
	somewhere between the church and Derwent College.  You can
	imagine the response this got from Derwent Porters, who
	suspected imbibition as the cause.  It was later uncovered,
	however, that an escaped lion cub was indeed in the area
	(whether this was simply by further sightings by night patrol or
	by some other means we know not), and the animal was I believe
	rounded up and caught.  The story was carried in a copy of
	Vision at the time, if anyone wants to check the
	archives.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	If you find a new way of crashing Derwent Barbecue, then
	they let you stay.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Certain anonymous RAs in the Electronics department
	spent an entire afternoon forging tickets to the barbecue, with
	the aid of about 20 grand's worth of computer equipment and
	software.  Test subject gained admission.

<dt>	<b><a href="balloon.html">T. *</a></b>
<dd>	Another successful method of entry to the barbecue was via
	a hot air balloon.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Also, people have used scuba gear to get in for free.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	On a Friday night In 1994, the tires of the car belonging to a friend
	of the Provost were slashed. The enraged provost suspected it was
	someone from ground floor D block (GFD), who had a reputation for
	trouble.  At 8:30 the next morning, he woke up the entire corridor and threatened
	to throw people out of their rooms if nobody owned up.  Following several
	more incidents over the next 10 days, the police caught a local youth in the act.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	Looking at the walls from across Derwent Balcony (above the Derwent
	well area), you can see painted on the wall alternative designs for Campus.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	There is a Derwent Challenge (<i>cf</i> the <a href="wentchall.html">
	Wentworth Challenge</a>) - to   
	walk on the very smalll ledge above the open flood drain at the         
	between Derwent D-Block and the bicycle shed.                       
</dl>

<h3><a name="langwith">Langwith</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Langwith college is named after Langwith common,
	an area of land near the university; and the deserted village which
	stands there.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	There were for some time three infamous
	barmaids in Langwith, operating as a gang,
	known as the three Ethels (in fact only two were
	actually called Ethel, the third was sort of
	honourary.  She was called Sylvia and is still a
	cleaner in Langwith).  They were such terrors as could teach any
	present bar ladies a thing or two, both at serving (``get in
	line'', ``queue up properly'', ``ask nicely'', ``where's your
	glass, I just gave you one not more than 20 minutes ago, no you
	can't have a clean one'' etc.etc.etc, all the oldies have their
	favourite stories) and at drinking up time (standing on stools
	and banging trays next to your head to get you to leave).  This
	was endured with only the occasional bout of ill humour by the
	student populace for some years, until one (or several) of them
	was very rude to a conference guest (we think they poured a
	pitcher of water over him), and they were mysteriously retired
	off.  (There was also the theory that the till receipts
	didn't balance). If you are interested, there's a picture of one Ethel in
	action with a soda syphon in the April '84 <i>Nouse</i>.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	During the summer of 1996, Langwith D block was completely gutted
	and refurbished.  This was due to an uncontrollable cockroach
	infestation.

<dt>	<b><a href="vagrant.html">T. *</a></b>
<dd>	For a time, there was a tramp living in a bathroom in C block,
	but he was chased away by a cleaner.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The Langwith pool table (which used to stand where the lift to the
	library is) ended up in the lake in 1994, the culprits were never
	caught.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Once (1994) when a window was smashed in the
	main corridor of Langwith, the provost punished the entire
	college by banning all JCRC events. It turned out the
	guilty student was from Wentworth.
	
<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The narrow bridge over the wier next to D block used to be 
	stepping stones rather than a solid path.  There were also underwater
	lights installed at this point.

</dl>

<h3><a name="alcuin">Alcuin</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Alcuin is named after the 8th century scholar Alcuin of
	York, who was trained in York, and later went on to be an
	eminent scholar in the court of Charlemagne at
	Aachen.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	In Alcuin courtyard (outside in the quad),
	you can see some evidence that the courtyard was larger before
	the expansion of Alcuin JCR (the giveaway is some steps that
	seem to lead into the wall).

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The Sisters of Mercy made their live debut in
	Alcuin dining room, on February 16th 1981.
	Their first ever gig kicks off with a twisted cover of
	Leonard Cohen's ``Teachers''.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	Alcuin dining hall closed because superior
	quality of food made everywhere else look bad, and it was
	cheaper/simpler to close it than to raise standards elsewhere.

<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	The beds in the student blocks are so narrow
	because the college was built with money from the Quakers

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Alcuin's position on the hill gives Alcuin a strong
	identity and makes it's inhabitants snobbish (Alcuin bar faces the rest of
	Campus). Hence: ``Colleges with altitude. Colleges with attitude. Alcuin''.
	It's also the only college with the dining room on the 1st floor.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Alcuin's first Provost was Dr.
	Bernice Hamilton, originally appointed by Lord James (allegedly on
	Edinburgh Waverley Railway Station) to be Dean of Women Students. Hence
	for some time Alcuin was known as the Bernice Oberland.

<dt>	<b><a href="alcuinbar.html">T. *</a></b>

<dd>	Alcuin bar has only recently been converted into an American
	Theme Bar.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Alcuin bar does cocktails sometimes, but runs out of ice within
	the first few minutes.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Alcuin was/is the only college with a yearbook.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	A- and B-blocks were flooded one night in spring 1989.
        Bathplugs were put in and taps left on in the
        time-honoured manner. (Don't try this at home (or university)
        kids, it tends to bugger up the fire alarms).
	There was a concert in the dining hall that night - it is thought
	that people were trying to create a diversion so they could get in.

</dl>

<h3><a name="c4">College 4</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	This would have been located on the blank space west of
	the library (See wooden map in Hes. Hall). The newest
	Computer Science building has now been built near this site.

<dt>	<b>F.</b>
<dd>	Was going to be named ``Sterne College''
	(<b>T.</b>  The initial `S' had been reserved for the Heslington
	Stables.)

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Was going to be called Alcuin College, when College 4 wasn't
	built they gave the name to College 3.

</dl>

<h3><a name="vanbrugh">Vanbrugh</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Vanbrugh is named after Sir John Vanbrugh who, in
	1699, designed Castle Howard -- the largest house in Yorkshire.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	The windows in the dining hall had to be replaced a few
	years ago because the glass was being eaten by the lake water
	from the fountain.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The large expanse of concrete between Vanbrugh and
	Central Hall is called Vanbrugh Paradise.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	X-block was going to be called D-block, until
	they realised it would be abbreviated to V/D block.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Vanbrugh dining room used to be the only dining room you
	were not allowed to take food into (there used to
	be a sign saying ``Please do not bring any food into the dining
	room'' -- it has been removed since).

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	Some people from V/A, V/B, V/C blocks believe V/X block
	is haunted. It is known as ``The Dreaded X block''.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	When a fire alarm in (the detached) Vanbrugh X block went off, it
	triggered the fire alarms in the rest of Vanbrugh (and vice
	versa). So for example, when someone sneezed in V/X block, they
	warned the rest of Vanbrugh too just in case the sneeze triggers
	off a chain-reaction taking out the rest of Vanbrugh. You can
	tell the difference between an alarm in your block and a block
	that is detached from you by the difference in beeps. The first
	is continuous beeps, and the latter is intermittent beeps.  The
	Vanbrugh fire alarms are no longer linked in this way.

<dt>	<b><a href="fire.html#1988">T. *</a></b>
<dd>	In 1988 when there was a <em>Real
	Fire</em>(TM), the fire brigade had trouble trying to persuade
	the spods in vuft from leaving their computers.

<dt>	<b><a href="fire.html#1994">T. *</a></b>
<dd>	The 1994 fire was started by a faulty stereo in a
	students room, at about 4 in the morning.  When he tried to wake up
	the rest of his corridor, they each shouted ``**** off, I'm asleep''
	(This was related to BBC Radio York, anyone get it on tape?).

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	In 1991-1992, the railings on Vanbrugh Bar didn't completely shut off the bar,
	and it was possible to put an arm through a gap and pull yourself a
	pint (presumably, the gap may have been wider than a pint glass, or a
	hosepipe was used). After the place was cleaned up at midnight, a small
	number of students would sneak back in and give themselves free drinks
	until 6am. This was before the railings were re-built.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Once when a
	student quit his course and left his room in Vanbrugh a few weeks early,
	he decided that the room should be turned into a free-for-all party-zone
	by leaving the door open permanently. The door was promptly closed by
	the next-door-neighbour who was concerned about getting sleep.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	It was once said that when asked for directions, if you point to
	Vanbrugh, you're usually right.

</dl>

<h3><a name="goodricke">Goodricke</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Goodricke college is named after the 
	astronomer John Goodricke who discovered the binary system Algol.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The rough-looking stretch of concrete next to the lake, between the
	bar and the common room, is called Goodricke Beach.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Until the summer 1989 (or was it 1988?) revamp, Goodricke bar
	contained the `famous' Goodricke Table. This was a
	wooden table with various college graffiti, famous
	names and so on, which resided at the lakeward end of the bar
	area (which was not as large as it is now). In 1989, in revenge
	for events unknown, a party of students from another college
	kidnapped said table and it went out of circulation for a while.
	It was rediscovered some weeks later on the top floor of
	Alcuin A-Block.  This discovery may have been in some
	way related to the flooding of Alcuin (see <a href="#alcuin">above</a>)

<dd>	Another version is that The Goodricke Table was nicked to ``save'' it
	during the impending revamping of the bar (the old bar was a
	much more dingy and messy place; much better, too). anyway, it
	was hidden on top of the block to keep it safe, but after all
	that time, it was found to have warped considerably, It was
	generally accepted that they should have just chopped the
	legs off it, and nailed it to the wall.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Goodricke dukebox hasn't moved since it was installed many years
	ago - all modifications to the building have been carried out
	around it.  (Many of the singles in it have also been there since
	it was built)

<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	The University has mortgaged Goodricke C block, since,
	should they default on the loan the building society wouldn't
	bother to repossess it.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Person or persons unknown once dragged two KwikSave trollies
	to the third floor of one of the Goodricke blocks, and
	chained them together to extract the two pound coins from the
	locks.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	One of Goodricke's (or is that Wentworth's)
	accommodation blocks was supposed to be temporary. It was built during the
	70s, and was supposed to be taken down in the 70s. It's still there today.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The 8-jetted fountain in the Goodricke water-court (outside G022) was
	installed at the end of August, 1996.  It replaced a previous
	installation which had a series of mushroom shaped water features, but
	which had in recent months become merely a perching place for tired
	moorhens.

<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	The new water jets were purchased at huge cost from a little-renowned
	water sculpture artist.

</dl>

<h3><a name="wentworth">Wentworth</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>F.</b>
<dd>	Wentworth college is named after the penitentiary
	in the quality Australian drama series
	``Prisoner cell-block H''.

<dt>	<b><a href="colleges.html#wentworth">T. *</a></b>
<dd>	Wentworth college is named after Thomas Wentworth, sometime
	Sheriff of Yorkshire.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Used to be considered the college at the other end of
	the universe until some philistine built the
	Wentworth-James bridge, and making
	Wentworth into that place you pass through on the way from the
	sports-centre / James college to Town.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The bar used to be tiny, but very friendly, since no-one much went
	there from outside Wentworth.  This contributed to the Wentworth
	atmosphere of independence.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	After the infamous OU murder the
	entirety of <i>that</i> corridor was redecorated, so <i>that</i> room
	wouldn't stand out.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The lake used to go right up to B Block, and it had
	a set of stepping stones round it, quite a challenge in the
	dark after the bar had closed.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	They were filled in in
	summer 1996 because the water was washing away the foundations.
	
<dt> <b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	They were filled in in summer 1996 because access for window
	cleaning etc. wasn't too great.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	The walls in C Block are not plastered, because if they were, the
	thickness of the plaster would make the rooms/corridors too small for
	human habitation/fire regulations.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	When the
	Biology plant laboratory was being built, several residents of Wentworth
	C block complained about the building work and demanded compensation.  (Also
	I think people in Goodricke opposite.)

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	That tube that connects Wentworth C block to the main building is
	a fire exit and only to be used in an emergency.

<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	The tube is made entirely from plastic.

</dl>

<h3><a name="james">James</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	James college is named after the modern popular beat combo James.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	James college is named after Lord James, who
	was the founding vice-chancellor of the university.

<dt>	<b>F.</b>
<dd>	The modern popular beat combo James is named after Lord James, its founding bass guitarist.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	James (and Alcuin E block) have showers and toilets inside some rooms.
	In fact, the inhabitants are so
	obsessed with showers that there are no covered walkways
	connecting them with the campus-wide walkway network,
	so the residents can have another shower when it's raining.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	James college was wired for computer serial lines when
	it was built.  Due to a dispute over payment, the contractors
	doing the work put all the wires in, but then took all the
	labels off.  It took the guys from Computing Services 6 months
	to work out which wire went where.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	Paving stones on grassy area in courtyard of D, E and F
	blocks originally intended to be ``human sundial''
	whereby bored student stands on central stone and shadow points
	to appropriate time.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	In 1995, there was a petition to name College 8 after Paul Spencer.

</dl>

<h3><a name="halifax">Halifax</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The first builder went bust just after starting work.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Not finished on time, students got stuck out in PRS until Christmas.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	When first opened, the plumbing was a bit suspect - there were
	reports of exploding toilets.
</dl>

<h2><a name="wildlife">Wildlife</a></h2>

<dl compact>
<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	As part of the preparation for Degree Day each year,
	the ducks and geese are rounded up and taken to the south
	end of the lake out of the way.  But some of them get away
	(even the little ducklings).

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	There is a duck cull during Christmas (done during Christmas so
	there's no student protest.)

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	During the day, the main animals on campus are ducks, geese, etc. At
	night, there's lots of rabbits, and some bats.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The following have all been caught in the lake (1987-9): eels;
	rainbow trout; carp (common, wild and hybrids); bream; perch;
	gudgeon; tench; chub; roach; rudd.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	A couple of anglers were refused
	licenses to fish the lake so they took their revenge
	by releasing pike into the lake.  The pike did OK,
	growing very big and eating all the other fish, and maybe even
	the odd duck.  All the licensed anglers were
	complaining that they were catching no fish, and pike had been
	spotted. So the authorities poisoned the lake to kill
	the pike, and the story went that a dead pike over 5 feet long
	was found.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The pike was nicknamed `George' and has been known to
	attack students in boats on the lake.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	George the pike is dead.
	
<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	The lake grows mutant fish due to
	radioactive waste being flushed into it by one of the science
	departments (take your pick from Biology, Chemistry or Physics).

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The large fish in the lake have been seen to eat
	ducklings.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	At the north side of Spring Lane Bridge, there's a bird
	identification panel.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Some of the campus waterfowl are not native to the UK.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Back when the lake was built, some ducks and geese were
	actually imported onto the lake. Nobody anticipated the population
	explosion.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	There's one duck with a red and yellow head who's
	more aggressive than the others. He was nicknamed ``Beer Monster'' by
	students.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	A duck has actually been known to collide with a student whilst
	the duck was flying. (What the student was doing is not recorded.)

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	``Feeding ducklings bread kills them''. The bread
	expands when wet, causing the duckling's stomach to explode. (This
	message was in
	<a href="http://www.york.ac.uk/student/su/dinfo">Daily Info</a>
	for nearly every day in the summer term of 1993).

</dl>

<h2><a name="students">Students</a></h2>

<h3><a name="su">Student Union</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	A Winnie the Pooh soft toy once got elected to DPS
	over a SWSS candidate. He was rapidly no confidenced though, and now   
	cannot stand for another sabbatical post.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The SU president in 1985-86
	(Russell George) only stood as a joke and didn't intend
	to get elected.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	During the late 60s, early 70s, a dog stood for SU presidency.  (Did it win?)

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The Ideal UGM would have all 5000 or so students attend, but there's
	no venue on campus large enough for that many students.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Every time
	there's a referendum for a student council, it's held in the summer term
	(this happened in 1994 and 1995). People complain that too many people
	have gone home during the summer term to vote.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Tony Palmer, when campaigning for Deputy President
	was photographed kissing a baby.  He also campaigned dressed as
	a mad cow; and together with Ben Drake turned a YSTV interview
	into an attack on media budgets.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	-bat once stood for SU prez as an Independent candidate. His
	posters consisted of the lenses of his mirrorshades and a mass of
	hair, and nothing else. Everyone knew who it was.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The SU used to have offices in Goodricke, on the corridor now
	used by YSTV and Maths.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Students have been campaigning for an SU building/venue
	since the time the uni was built. In 1994, after a debate attended by only
	18 of 5000 students and a referendum, it was decided to convert Goodricke
	Squash courts into an SU building.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Not many people know that there was a Union Building before this.
	Admittedly it was a tent, but it stayed up for a day, and was
	generously provided by the student society Aaardvark.

<dt>	<b><a href="postbox.html">T. *</a></b>
<dd>	York used to hold the record for the greatest number of people to
	stand on a postbox.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Goodricke JCR used to make T-shirts with the college motto:
	``Goodricke Gorillas - where the Balls are'' in reference to the
	<a href="algol.html">sculpture of algol.</a>

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	An inflatable sex doll and a Hoover have been elected onto Goodricke JCR
	at some time.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Sometime in the 70s some
	pranksters faked a nomination for EVP, and since it was 
	the only nomination for the post, this unperson ("David Jones") was           
	elected unopposed.  The first GM convened and he didn't      
	show up, so he was no-confidenced and another election          
	was held.  The story made the tabloids.

</dl>

<h3><a name="socs">Student Societies</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The police once turned up at
	Langwith porters with a warrant for the arrest of the
	chairman of the gun club and the AU president, having noticed
	that the gun clubs gun license was years out of date.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>    A group from Aaardvark (called the Elasticated
	Gentlemen) were the last people to perform at the York
	Arts Centre before it closed down, on 12th August
	1995.  The audience numbered 35.

<dt>	<b><a href="porn.html">T.*</a></b>
<dd>	The web pages of the Conservative and Unionist Association
	were hacked into late one night
	and all the pictures changed to pornographic images.
	The hacker then emailed a press release to the news agencies.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	At one point (in about 1988) there was a society called the York
	Student Feudalists, who proposed a complete reworking of the
	constitution of the SU. It modelled itself on feudal
	arrangements, and had, as one of its requirements, that the
	elected student governing body had to parade through campus
	encouraging all to come participate in the meeting. When the
	actual meeting came for YSF's changes to be approved, they were
	voted down, but the turnout for the meeting was amazing. this
	was, YSF's originator claimed, the entire point - to get people
	to come along to the meetings and take part.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The winning act in the 1993 RAG Lack of Talent contest was to
	drink a pint of lake-water and
	throw up. As an encore, this act included mixing live maggots with the
	lake water. However, the contest was so close that it was decided by
	two people having a swimming race across the lake naked.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	A previous act for the RAG lack of
	talent contest (in 1992?) included someone defecating on stage in time
	to eating a Mars-Bar.  After this contest, some
	provost insisted that the acts should be done in better taste.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Every year, RAG try to get into the Guinness book of
	records. In 1991, they made the longest human caterpillar. In 1992,
	they unsuccessfully tried to break the record for the longest flight
	made by a paper aeroplane.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	There was once (January 1992 - October(?) 1995) a society
	on Campus called ``Aaardvark'' that used to cater to the needs
	of the sillier members of Campus by bringing them together and
	organising all kinds of Shenanigans, producing Magazines and TV
	programs, and generally bringing a smile to people's faces.
	Some of their pranks included dressing up in labcoats
	while offering to polish people's socks, having a dry-land
	swimming-race on Porter's trolleys, distributing spoofs of the
	<a href="http://www.york.ac.uk/student/su/dinfo">"Daily
	Info"</a> called <a
	href="http://www.xs4all.nl/~ellman/ae-a/aaardvark/things/#DISINFO">
	``Daily Dis-info''</a>, and sabotaging the 1995 Open day by putting up
	strange notices (Anyone remember "Campus Goose Services"?). The
	Aaardvark web pages live on in exile,
	<a href="http://www.xs4all.nl/~ellman/ae-a/aaardvark/">in
	somewhat original</a> and
	<a href="http://www.ismatec.demon.co.uk/aaardvark/">somewhat
	different</a> forms.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The reason Aaardvark starts with 3 'A's is because at the time it was       
	founded, there was already a society (anarchist society) called "Aardvark".

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	When Aaardvark placed a notice on Campus saying
	``Please do not throw stones at this notice'', someone wrote a letter
	to the Guardian newspaper asking ``Is it true that somewhere in North
	Yorkshire, there is a notice that says `Please do not throw stones at
	this notice'?''. Since then, there have been several replies prompting
	the original letter to get printed over and over again. The letter
	even appears in a compilation book of letters to the Guardian.
	(There exists/existed a picture of this on the web. Somewhere)

<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	These letters to the Guardian are part of the Aaardvark shenanigan.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	RaveSoc (AKA Disco Biskit) used to
	organise raves on Campus in '91-92. They had to be banned because they
	were attracting too many teenagers, and drugs were being sold at these
	raves.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	``disco [biscuit|biskit]'' is a synonym for Ecstasy (E).

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	In 1982, the anarchy society flour-bombed an exec-meeting.  (Such
	societies no longer appear in the SU handbook)

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The debating society re-appeared in
	1992 after it had disappeared for ``reasons legendary in the
	SU corridor'' (quote from 1992 SU handbook).  It seems they
	put posters up around campus advocating the eating of babies
	(or something) and caused a riot. The posters were just intended
	to catch peoples attention and get them along to the debate.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	In 1987, there was a Campus
	wide dating agency called ``Fix-it'', but it wasn't a success.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	There used to be a sad case of a student who was totally out of touch
	with reality, spent all her time at university MUDding on the computers,
	going beserk in the terminal rooms (usually the Derwent SGI room)
	and screaming her head off at the furniture.  People often found
	it amusing to log her off and watch her go mental.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Until the early 90s there was a Computer Society on campus.
	Although not as popular as it had been in the late 70s this still ran
	trips, social events and the odd talk up to about 1990. It is fair to
	say that the society moved from being something the CS department liked
	to something it rather preferred to ignore. It was best known for
	drunkenness, and for ``Tabloid Teletype'', a fairly scurrilous magazine
	mixing local satire, net humour and similar. This was originally
	lineprinter output, though Pete Fenelon took it to laser-printed format
	(plain ASCII text) in '87 and to typeset format in '89. Some of the
	later issues (1990-1) were A5, had proper card covers and rather
	handsome, but by that time there were less and less original articles!

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	W.E.S. (Women's Engineers Soc) has more men than women. (It certainly did once upon
	a time.)

</dl>

<h3><a name="media">Campus Media</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b><a href="nouse.html">Fb. *</a></b>
<dd>	The long running campus newspaper ``Nouse'' was
	so called by its first editor as a pun on the words ``No use''.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	In 1992, there were plans to merge Vision and Nouse, since the
	SU didn't fancy paying for two newspapers and controlling neither.
	There has been some merging as a result of SU budget cuts, but
	both newspapers still claim editorial independence.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	URY was the first licensed independent radio station in the UK.
	(See the <a href="http://ury.york.ac.uk/">URY Homepage</a>
	more information.)

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	URY was set up with help from John Peel, who DJ'ed the first show
	in June 1968.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	URY can be picked up in Algeria, but not in Langwith.  Several
	people have written in from Scandanavia, Dubai etc, having listened
	to the station.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	First URY transmitter was ex-Royal Navy Submarine equipment,
	which is why it had such impressive range.  (This transmitter
	was certainly used in tests beforehand.)

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Even parts of campus very near URY can't pick it up nowadays.
	Some people are bothered by this.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	URY is not actually broadcast in the conventional sense, but is
	cabled around campus.  To pick it up properly, you have to be in
	one of the buildings which has been fitted with an induction loop
	around the top, which carries the signal. (The same principle is
	used to transmit to hearing aids in public rooms.)  The loop
	directs the signal down into the building, and also up to the
	ionosphere, from where it bounces down to other countries.
	Goodricke A and B blocks are different - the signal cable is connected
	to the metal structure of the building!)

<dt>	<b>F.</b>
<dd>	URY have been planning to move to FM since 1992, but have been
	consistently refused a licence by the authorities.  (The main
	sticking point is the huge cost demanded by said authorities
	for said licence).

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	URY once (May 1987) mistakenly broadcast that the Minster
	was on fire. Some students got a taxi to go and watch, but found it was merely a
	factory yard nearby that was burning.  They returned to campus, and demanded
	that URY pay their taxi fares.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	YSTV was the first licensed independent TV station in the UK.

<dt>	<b><a href="ystv.html">T. *</a></b>
<dd>	YSTV held world record for longest program directed by a single person.

<dt>	<b>T.</a></b>
<dd>	YSTV missed the death of General de Gaulle
	through not listening in to Radio 2 through the morning he died.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The University News Sheet, forerunner to the current
	Magazine, was conceived as a stop-gap but continued (against
	the wishes of all it's editors) for more than 200 issues.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	In 1992, someone was selling a spoof of Vision called Blinkered
	Vision. This resulted in someone from the SU threatening to sue.
	(Question: Is there any more folklore on Blinkered Vision?)

</dl>

<h3><a name="studmisc">Misc</a></h3>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	When there was a single dashed line down University
	Road, a pair of scissors was painted in the middle one night by
	inhabitants of Alcuin A block (the
	``Alcuin Separatist Movement''), namely
	James Proctor, Doug Winter, Tim Hughes, Emma Rusby, Alison Boorman,
	and a couple of others.  We have a <a href="scis.jpg">photograph</a>
	of the scissors taken by Mike Cohler, and
	<a href="scissors2.gif">another</a> taken by Nick Jackson.   The University
	News Sheet (July 1992) puts the date as 8 June, and carries yet another
	photo.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	A Chinese student living in Vanbrugh X-Block was thrown
	out of the University for eating the ducks.  The cleaners found
	the feet in his bin.  (Possibly in 1992, there was something in
	Vanbrugh JCR publicity about it.)

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	You can get kicked out of university for killing a duck,
	but not for killing another student (you can return after the
	end of your prison sentence).

<dt>	<b><a href="alumni.html">Tb. *</a></b>
<dd>	Harry Enfield used to be a student at York
	(Derwent, Politics).  He did not complete his course.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Several York students have become MPs, and the Prime
	minister of Portugal was here, studying Economics
	for a DPhil in the seventies.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The daughter of Nelson Mandela applied to
	York to do womens studies.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	There was an unfortunate undergraduate with the name of
	Ewan Kerr.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The car crashed opposite Alcuin bank: It seems that
	-pete. was prescribed some kind of medication by the
	Medical Centre, but not informed that it wasn't a good idea to drive
	under the influence of it.  This coincided with -pete.'s attempt
	to break his personal record for driving from home to the
	office.  At some point along University Road, he
	kind of missed
	the turning and ended up halfway up the bank on the Langwith
	side of the road (just under the bridge that you can't fall
	off).  He's reputed to have said ``No, keep the stopwatch
	running'' as he reversed back down the bank.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	Someone once drove a mini into the ground floor of the library.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	The record for the `pint in every bar' barcrawl
	challenge is 18 minutes.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	A student noted for his fast driving once gave his girlfriend a
	lift from Vanbrugh to Wentworth.  He lost control on the corner
	near Biology car park, and wiped out one of the University's
	`No Speeding' signs.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	A group of students stole the temporary traffic lights from some
	roadworks near campus one night.  Security found the lights, set up and
	fully functioning, at the end of Goodricke bridge.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	A student once got a bike in the post.  It is not known if
	the porters tried to get it in his pigeon hole.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The species of moth <i>Hippotion hateleyi</i>, from the
	South Pacific island of Pitcairn, is named after ex-York
	student Jonathan Hateley, who discovered it.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The University are introducing Mondex cards from October 1996,
	as part of a plan to phase out cash on campus.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The largest number of students in a single room is thought to be
	22. (3rd floor Alcuin D-block, 1989, during a FreakSoc `social'.  A
	photo exists showing 18 of the 22.)

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	The largest number of students to sleep in a single room (Vanbrugh A
	block average sized room) is 10 (plus or minus a few).

<dt>	<b><a href="occupation.html">T. *</a></b>
<dd>	York is a fairly quiet University in terms of student politics, but
	there have been a number of strikes and occupations by students in
	the past.  Heslington Hall was occupied twice in the late 60's,
	and Central Hall in 1993.  There was also an unsuccessful
	attempt to picket examinations in 1975.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	A student once explained to a lecturer that he was late to the
	seminar because he had been away ``helping to start the
	revolution''.  (This was in the early 70's, when you could
	presumably get away with such things.)

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	At the start of the term, the Pinball machines have
	a greater probability of giving a free match. This is to hook the freshers
	and anyone else coming back for the start of the term.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Once, a woman who had slept around a lot ran
	for Wentworth JCRC chair. Another candidate for JCRC chair was a bicycle
	seat. When asking questions, all candidates have to answer. One of the
	questions asked was ``How many times have you been ridden?''

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	As a RAG stunt, Wentworth once tried to declare independance from the
	UK.  As a result of this, some time later (1994?), all inhabitants of Wentworth were sent letters telling them to
	apply for passports.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Cleaners cannot be shocked by anything that students get up to,
	and in fact hate conference guests far more.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	Somewhere in the remote
	Yorkshire countryside, there used to be a pub that was open all hours for
	`travellers'. Several SUs, including YUSU used to organise minibus trips
	to this pub.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	On Valentines day 1993, someone put up a
	college bedsheet outside Vanbrugh library in the Quad that read ``Sophie,
	be my Valentine''.  (However, destroying college bedding is frowned upon,
	even in the pursuit of true love.)  That evening, Vanbrugh JCRC showed
	``Terminator 2''

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	-bat's beard originates from a bet between himself and Pete
	Fenelon in '86 over who could keep a beard the longest without
	shaving it off.  -bat won.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Some students ``accidentally'' created a local newsgroup
	<tt><a href="news:alt.york.kitchen-possy">alt.york.kitchen-possy</a></tt>
	in May '97.  (It was supposed to be -posse, but they couldn't spell.)
	The original version was a mailing list set up as a means of gossip
	amongst the inhabitants of Goodricke B-Block first floor (Eastern End)
	during the academic year 1994-95.
	Fiona Wright, the student who originally set it up, kept
	trying to remove her name from the e-mail headers, but other people kept
	putting her back on again.
	(The newsgroup now seems to have been discontinued.)

<dt>	<b><a href="hacker.html">T. *</a></b>
<dd>	Unknown hacker breaks into Tower one bank holiday, undergraduate
	logs on as root and kicks him off.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	The green Physicist:  Someone once went to a Freaksoc meeting dressed as a
	troll, and dyed themselves green as part of the effect.  To do this they
	filled a bath with water, added green dye and got in.  Needless to say they
	didn't do it in their own corridor (or even their own college), and some
	Vanbrugh residents found their tub had been dyed permenantly green.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The most common name amongst York students is `Chris'.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The most popular conversation topic amongst York Students is that of
	different English accents, closely followed by ``What A-levels did you do''.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Six students did a sponsored streak in Feb 1979 to raise money for RAG.
	Starting at King's Square, they made it down the Shambles and into a
	getaway car but were then arrested by police.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	There is a cocktail called lake water: coke and orange juice,
	preferably old-style university syrupy coke and the oj concentrate
	stuff.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	In the 70s there were a lot of cheaply made
	soft-core movies around. One of the main writers was a student
	at York. Well known around campus, he was filmed in the JBM
	library for a documentary about the films.  He explained that he didn't write
	the sex scenes, he just left gaps in the script that the director
	filled in with the appropriate activity.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	When CompServ got a new and more powerful computer (a DEC 10)
	in 1976, it's users mostly played Star Trek on it.

</dl>

<h2><a name="porters">Porters</a></h2>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	At some point, there was a picket line at Goodricke with a nude
	picket.  The porter was quoted as saying ``If I had one like that I
	wouldn't stand around naked'', to which the stripper replied
	``I get paid &#163;100 for 10 minutes work''.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	There was a legendary Derwent Porter "Charlie" and his identical twin   
	brother, who worked for Securicor. During the 70s.
</dl>

<h2><a name="misc">Misc</a></h2>
<dl compact>

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	There is a ``NatWest'' logo engraved into the side of
	the Music building (the side facing the car-park).

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The Deramore Arms public house (Heslington) had
	(pre summer 1996) pizza on the menu but none has ever been seen in
	the pub.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	The Charles XII public house (Heslington) has the second
	highest turnover of any pub in Yorkshire (first being Leeds SU Bar).

<dt>	<b><a href="bands.html">T. *</a></b>
<dd>	Jimi Hendrix played the University.

<dt>	<b><a href="bands.html">T. *</a></b>
<dd>	Marianne Faithful played a summer ball at King's Manor.

<dt>	<b><a href="bands.html">T. *</a></b>
<dd>	Genesis and Pink Floyd also played in one of the
	colleges (not the same night).

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Jimmy White and Dennis Taylor once played (snooker in) Central Hall.

<dt>	<b><a href="brookside.html">T. *</a></b>
<dd>	Episode of Brookside spin-off series filmed on campus.

<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	Some of ``A very peculiar practice'' was filmed on campus.

<dt>	<b>U.</b>
<dd>	A film is to be made set on the Campus at York, with
	Kenneth Branagh producing and maybe directing.
	Apparently a couple of students with poncy names sleep with lots of women,
	drink coffee in Derwent Cafeteria (sic) and steal a several million pound
	painting from Heslington Hall. Its called `Big Soft Lads' and was
	embarrassingly written by an ex-student.

<dt>	<b>Fb.</b>
<dd>	There is an underground high speed shuttle
	link between the Universities of York, Cambridge and
	``Another University'' (which we can't state for reasons of the
	Official Secrets Act''.

<dt>	<b><a href="bicester.html">T. *</a></b>
<dd>	The nice old gentleman from the Retreat who may have tried to sell or
	give you a variety of abstract paintings (usually swirly pastel
	affairs) or in extreme cases pottery (amorphous unfired clay) really
	is the third Baron Bicester.

<dt>	<b>Tb.</b>
<dd>	Blackwell's Bookshop used to have a cat
	(although residents of Alcuin used to claim it as theirs).  It
	was always known as the `Bookshop Cat' (or `Alcuin Cat') and in
	fact had no name. (<i>University Magazine</i> Dec 1994)

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Blackwell's Bookshop used to be Godfrey's Bookshop.  (Until 1997 there
	was still a direction sign on the front of the JBM library.)

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Much of the University's electricity is generated by a 46-litre
	Caterpillar engine in the boiler house, running on natural gas.  The
	plant produces 979 kW of electricity, and 1200 kW of heat.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	One of the original heating boilers, after 30 years of use, was sold
	to a coconut fibre processing plant in Pakistan.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	A staff member with a flat in King's Manor received an enormous council
	tax demand in 1997 - apparently s/he was assessed for the whole building.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Lectures start at fifteen past the hour due to historical accident:
	the first buses through campus arrived at five past, and ten
	minutes were allowed to get to the lecture.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Every so often, there is a smell that covers the whole of
	campus. Is smells of decaying organic matter. The smell is not
	the result of letting incontinent waterfowl loose on Campus,
	but is instead from a nearby sugar factory (probably 10 miles
	to the north). Whenever Campus is downwind of the sugar factory,
	it smells.

<dt>	<b>T.</b>
<dd>	Someone eating some sort of fish in Langwith dining room once found a
	fishing hook in their fish.

</dl>

<h2><a name="links">Links to more York Folklore</a></h2>

<p>(There should be more than this - send 'em in!)</p>

<blockquote>
<img src="/icons/bluedot.gif" alt="*">
<a href="http://www.xs4all.nl/~ellman/ae-a/things/yearbook.html">Account
of a famous Vanbrugh bed-stealing episode.</a><br>
<img src="/icons/bluedot.gif" alt="*">
<a href="http://www.xs4all.nl/~ellman/ae-a/aaardvark/things/guide_to_pork.html">Student's
Guide to the University of Pork</a><br>
</blockquote>

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