Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 27, No. 4. 1964.
Around The Campus
Around The Campus
There is one thing certain at any tournament; Vic will put on shabby performances in every field, and thus it came to pass that at Pahnerston North this Easter the ambassadors from Vic put on a show the peasants of the Manawatu will be a long time forgetting. I saw one game of basketball, in which we were completely overrun by Massey, and that was something, Basketball is a fiery game, with a ton of thudding femininity pounding around on asphalt, but I have a feeling the Vic girls had been to a party the night before.
According to Shot Boldt the whole Vic athletics team was on crutches and after a year on Weir food Osborne lacked stamina; I must admit though that he looked quite cute in his green tracksuit waving to his fan, Boldt. But of course Vic will not be remembered for their efforts in the official programme. It will be for other more strenuous, but less healthy pursuits that they will retain a place in the hearts of the young virgins of Palmerston North.
A contingent of noted Vic partygoers journeyed to Tournament but saw little of it. Billets were not arranged for them and so they crimped under the trees outside Massey College, whereupon they were asked to leave by the warden who was told that he had "no show, spider" and was then invited to bring his wife and booze down and join in. They were evicted from several pubs and one was very hurt when asked his age.
Obviously, I cannot go into this in too much detail, but I might ask: who strangled the cat at a parly? Who was pushed through a pub window? Who poured grog down the, saxophone at the Ball? Who did a; down-trou on the stage at the Ball? Who, in earthy Lawrentian terms tried to pick up stray mots in aptly named Broadway? Who fell from a moving car outside Massey College? Who had three meals in four days? Who invited a well-known young lady to reveal her most intimate secrets to the boys? Who missed out in the drinking horn from too much limbering up? Who put a collect call through to Tony Haas in Pahiatua, invited themselves to his party and then didn't turn up? Who thumbed a ride from a passing car and was then thrown out for swearing?
Perhaps as a final note I might ask whether there is any significance in the fact that five of the six men in the drinking team were ex-Weir?
I am being taken to task elsewhere in this journal by Bob Laking for alleged plagiarism. Now. Bob is a friend of mine, if at times a rather arrogant and noisy one and I should have thought he would have been delighted to see his efforts in this column. Like Lobachevsky I never plagiarise; I do research.
I seemed to have aroused the ire of many in the last issue. One nobleminded gentleman accused me of indecent suggestions. This I deny; any indecent suggestion lies perhaps in the mind of the reader, admit that I often make use of the double entendre but the humour if any is above the umbilical. Despite good resolutions, I seem to have fallen foul of Vic A once again, and I would like to make clear that the girl who flaked at our party was not the same one that treated us to a dance. One has straight black hair, whilst the other had great Bardot-like tresses.
I have been askedto give the etymology of "El Crud". The Concise Oxford Dictionary does not give the meaning, but Tom Wilson (who has just returned from the wilderness of Hawke's Bay) claims that its meaning is rather vulgar; this may indeed be so, but as far as I am concerned the name was evolved in 1962. John Carlyon used to come into my room at Weir and draw pictures of the Saint over my books. The film El Cid was round about that time and I retaliated by drawing little pictures of a man on horseback and signed "El Crud". When Geoff Palmer asked me to write a column we were rather at a loss for a nom de plume.
In fact we were not sure what form the column should take. Throughout the holidays I made grandiose plans, wrote out things in longhand and even checked the spelling and grammar. I read the Salient handout on how to write articles, but it was no use. I found it was best to just sit at a typewriter and bang, away. The name "El Crud", with its connotations of hangovers, unshaven Sundays, seemed to fit the image that was to be portrayed. Few people take the column seriously and I have a feeling that most of the pleasure people derive from it is from a feeling of superiority, it is sometimes unnerving to find out just who is reading it and also how difficult it is to keep your identity secret, because let's face it, mine is not the type of image one likes to portray to the University authorities.