SPIKE! SPIKE? SPIKE! SPIKE?

O.K. O.K. I know, I know.

There hasn't been a SPIKE for three years and you're just the littlest fresher, or the wee-est poor neglected second year, or even a stranger to these astonied shores, not certain what to make of this God-forsaken Night-School. So you couldn't possibly know what SPIKE is, not no-how, in fact contrary-wise.

Have you not seen? Have you not heard? What do you whisper in her shell pink ear hole? What does she talk about at 3 a.m.? What did you learn at your Mother's Knee or some such other low joint? Where were you when the facts of life were handed out —grubbily cyclo-styled on two sheets of foolscap? What are our modern schools coming to? Do 6A English teachers no longer proudly say that they first published in SPIKE?

Yes in SPIKE! Oh SPIKE that compendium of all things good! That feast of literary grandeur! That blossoming of precious buds! That granary of solid fact! That conjurer of wistful memories! Oh SPIKE have they forgot? Have they forgotten how, breasting the tide of ignorance and doubt, your dams, like unto those proud beasts upon whose backs do ride the harpy valkyries when they zoom forth to wreck on hapless man their woesome deeds, did soar above the common herd establishing by the gestation a goodly work, a lasting monument to the limitless aspirations of man and an example to us all, for emulation.

Enough!

THE SPIKE is so called for reasons no doubt clear to its founders but lost on me (if someone can help I would like to be able to remind people of it). It is published approximately bi-annually by the Students' Association and was once produced at Capping time with the naming of Graduands as its main function. With the rise of Cappicade it became a vehicle for literary endeavour, a historical record of club activities and also contained articles of general University interest.

This year I hope to publish not a detailed picture of all that has happened at Victoria over the last three years, but articles sampling the work that is being done. The Departmental Heads have been most helpful, but students are more elusive. If you are a Cultural Club official please sort out what you would like to write up, or report, or select for publication and get in touch with me about it. Dead-line November 18.