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Oxford Students In Bridge Jump

Posted: Mon May 02, 2005 8:19 am
by andsum
It is good to see that our country will be safe in the hands of these Oxford wasters.

30 injured and didn't they realise when the first one was injured it was time to stop. I'm sure daddy will pay their private hospital bills.


Oxford Students in Bridge Jump Horror

A Bridge Too Far


More than 50 students at elite Oxford University have injured themselves jumping from a bridge in a boozy prank.

It is traditional for undergraduates to leap from Magdalen Bridge into the River Cherwell on May Day after all-night drinking.

And many of "the brightest and the best" ignored police warnings about low water levels to leap 25ft into just 3ft of water - resulting in spinal injuries, fractured legs, broken ankles and cracked ribs.

A dry spell had prompted the biggest ever campaign by the police to dissuade the students from making the dangerous leap, but 100 of them did it anyway.

One teenager suffered a serious back injury when another landed on top of him, and a girl lay screaming in pain on the riverbank after hurting herself.

At least 10 of the revellers were taken to hospital, with another 40 being treated at the scene for minor injuries such as sprained ankles and cuts.

The warm weather and the fact that May Day fell on a Sunday bought much larger crowds than usual, with one estimate putting the number of people around the bridge at 8,500. Last year only 12 people made the leap.

A student who watched the chaos unfold said: "A lot of people were coming out of the river groaning, holding their ribs or legs.

"One man hurt his ankle very badly and was white and shaking. Another said 'I can't walk, I can't walk'."



The above was taken from AOL.

Re: Oxford Students In Bridge Jump

Posted: Mon May 02, 2005 8:39 am
by Peter
Like a lot of high achieving students, they've spent so much of their lives becoming book smart, they have no streetwiseness about them. So while they can recite Pi to xx decimal places and count to million in prime numbers, explain Fermats theorem and the special theory, they cannot explain the offside rule, or know what to do when the wallet inspector calls.

Re: Oxford Students In Bridge Jump

Posted: Mon May 02, 2005 8:56 am
by The Last Word
.....because Oxford tradition is of such importance it can bend the laws of physics, eh?

Stupid bastards. I hope those watching had a good laugh.


Re: Oxford Students In Bridge Jump

Posted: Mon May 02, 2005 10:28 am
by Ace
Stupid fucking oiks!!
At least when I have gone into fountains.........memorably when England beat German 5-1, I didn't jump in from a 25ft bridge


Re: Oxford Students In Bridge Jump

Posted: Mon May 02, 2005 4:00 pm
by mart
Why is it assumed that because they are at Oxford (or Cambridge) they are the "brightest and best"?

Mart

Re: Oxford Students In Bridge Jump

Posted: Mon May 02, 2005 8:28 pm
by diplodocus
that's generally because they get an open offer during interview time (winter) then do fuck all for the exams (summer) end up with two e's but still get in. Usually they get an open offer due to high grade projections and a good interview, yes there will be exceptions (one of us etc) but rare


Re: Oxford Students In Bridge Jump

Posted: Tue May 03, 2005 5:31 am
by chatterji
This is total bollocks. I went to Cambridge on a scholarship in the days when kids from council estates, like me, could still go for free. Since the 1980s you've needed to satisfy the minimum entry requirement which, depending on your subject, is usually three 'As' at 'A' level. You may additionally also have to sit a College exam or, in my day, a scholarship exam. Every potential candidate is also interviewed face-to-face. Contrary to media bullshit and public perception, it's a pretty fair system. If you're good enough, and perform on the day, you go. It's that simple.

The kids in the article jumped because they're young. If you can't jump drunkenly off a bridge when you're eighteen there's something wrong with the world. A broken ankle? Excellent. Good souvenir of a night well spent and a story to tell in the pub in future.

Easy to paint Oxbridge as a toffs' palace. The reality is slightly different. Until Blair anyone could go on academic merit, because money, although tight, wasn't the obstacle it will now become thanks to top-up fees. All of my close mates from College went to inner-city comps, like me. All of us, like me, were first generation university-goers. We all still feel grateful that we got off the estates and into futures with prospects. My best mates from childhood stayed there. One's a drooling idiot from an OD, and the other's currently inside for GBH. Cambridge got me out of all that and gave me options my parents could never have imagined. It cost me nothing, other than having to listen to people constantly whining about how elitest Oxbridge is, how thick its students actually are, and how they could have gone there but chose not to apply.

Rather than knocking one of the few centres of world-class excellence this country still has, why not knock a government that wants to deny equality of opportunity to Oxbridge and other 'elite' universities? Good to see that the tall poppy sydrome still thrives in Blighty.


Re: Oxford Students In Bridge Jump

Posted: Tue May 03, 2005 6:36 am
by staceyowenfan
its true... my cousin who incidentally is a nice bloke was pushed (oops wrong word considering their bridge related antics) into applying because he was from a priveliged background. due to the fact that he was he got an offer of two "e's" (the grades not the dance drug ;).Surely the hooray henry antics of the mindless prats throwing themselves into two inches of water from such a height disproves the myth that these morons are the elite intelligensia of modern youth.... gimmee dizee rascal or the kings of leon anyday over those silver spoon fed idiots.
Feels odd getting political on an adult forum even if its the o/t section... mind as paul weller says you cant seperate politics from anything i spose.
rant over (again ;))