A Love Letter To Fessdrews

Ah St Fessdrews. The media outlet par excellence. Fountain of knowledge, seat of reason, and paragon of balance. If only we at the Saint could hope to emulate these lofty virtues; instead we languish in the icy shadow of the colossi that are the ‘Fessdrews celebrities’. These saintly figures sacrifice their time, social lives, and quite possibly hygiene in order to supply us, the vulgar masses, with a steady stream of cutting-edge commentary on life in St Andrews. So today, Dear Readers, I enjoin you to lift ye hands unto the sky, and give thanks to our Lord and Savior The Zuckerberg for giving these wingless angels a voice in our lives. In many ways, my gratefulness knows no bounds: I’m as likely to fully encapsulate my love of these ‘Fessdrewers’ in the vulgar intones of the written English polysyllable, as I am to capture the North Sea in a pint glass. So, Dear Fessdrewers, I shall resort to adapting the words of another, lest my keyboard becomes as stained as yours (in my case with tears, I hasten to add). Thus, without further ado:

‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate,

as thee discuseth the relative pros and cons of fascism

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

as thine lips do wag against the evil Tory

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date

to contain thy anger with ‘the lefties’

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

as thine gaze regards the post of thine opponent

And often is his gold complexion triggered by thine wise and pensive words;

And every post by post the discourse declines,

By chance, or nature’s changing course, fucked;

But thy eternal wisdom shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that eternal spot on mine Facebook page,

Nor shall death stop thee posting in thy rage,

When in eternal spam to all thou write'st.

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this blessed page,

and this clearly gives saucy pleasures to thee.’

I feel that these lines of polished verse capture only the slightest iota of my affection for Fessdrews: for politics is but one string to her mighty bow, and a quiverful of additional wisdom straddles her mighty shoulders. Flitting amidst the graceful calls for the eradication of Tory scum, and sidling gently past the measured and nuanced approach taken to ‘anti-American hate crime’, one can find some true hidden gems. I’m talking about the important stuff now: the bit that saves lives. After all, how could our hallowed town survive without such relevant and topical advice as “If you aren’t being invited to nudist parties, you probably don’t know the people going to them & therefore people aren’t going to be comfortable with your being there. Please stop asking.” (#StFessdrews32404). By the power of Fessdrews magic, I’m now certain that the nudist community is a happier, safer, and more comfortable place. Just think how many of life’s smaller problems could be solved if the grace and care taken on St Fessdrews was replicated in real life: the kind of common courtesy encapsulated in "For men, sex is a need but love is a want ,you sound about as pleasant as a burning bag of dog poo” (#StFessdrews30574) really brings a smile to my face, and joy to my heart.

I think we should all take these beautiful words, and the lessons that come with them, and spread them unto the world. Think how much better our lives could be: I’m pretty sure we’d all be wittier, cleverer and more sexually attractive if we followed in their saintly footsteps: and we would almost certainly maintain our justly deserved lead over Oxbridge in the league tables. Because with absolute gold of the likes of “I had sex with Henry the Hoover” (#StFessdrews8735) out there, who could possibly doubt St Andrews’ status as a world leading cold-storage facility for wealthy Americans? I think I’ll draw to a close now: in my besotted state, I can hardly maintain a coherent train of thought. So once again, I pay tribute to those glorious praetorians of the student body, the Fessdrewers. Thank you. Thank you for your dedication to the page. Thank you for all the great advice. Thank you for sharing your faeces opinions at two in the morning. Thanks for versing us all in the ways of new-age goodthink. But most importantly, thank you for sitting faithfully at your laptops, ready to spaff out comments on every new post: no seriously, it’s probably the only thing keeping you in your bedroom, away from all of us normal people. And one glorious day, I hope you too will be able to turn off the laptop, unclench your fist, and get a life like the rest of us.

Image: Dawid Skolows, Unsplash