Oxford University

“Oxford is a sublime place, which fills one with awe at the majesty of the architecture, the sense of cultured superiority which proclaims itself in even the stones that make the roads. A visitor could walk around for hours being impressed by the sheer grandiosity of the town and believe he has found a second Sparta. Then he could go and talk to the students and the other inhabitants and see how deluded he has been.”

~ William Hazlitt on Oxford

“In the University of Oxford, the greater part of the public professors have, for these many years, given up altogether even the pretence of teaching.”

~ Adam Smith on Oxford

Oxford University is the smug, overachieving, infuriatingly self-satisfied but nonetheless irreproachable older sister of every other University in the world. As the saying goes, age comes before beauty.

The university was founded shortly after the dawn of time as a joint venture between God and Oscar Wilde. Though thirty-nine colleges have been discovered to date, the university is generally viewed as Oxford's secondary asset when compared to the city's most internationally-recognised feature: the highest density of kebab vans in Britain.

Oxford attracts some of the most intellectually capable students in the world. Unfortunately, none of these students actually attend the university because they can foresee its impact on their social life. This acute lack of applications stimulated the formalisation of Oxford's twinning with Eton and Charter House, both institutions referring to the university simply as 'Seventh Form.' Notable alumni include every Prime Minister, President and vaguely successful public figure ever to have lived. And David Cameron.

Despite strong efforts in recent years to broaden the social background of Oxford's undergraduate intake (so that applicants from ALL public schools are judged fairly on their individual merits), the university's supposed elitism has garnered much criticism. Though it is technically still true that Oxford's constitution leaves it open only to 'upper class spoilt twats,' much PR progress was made during Thatcher's eleven-year regime when the replacement of most faculty heads with scouse coalminers proved that not all spoilt twats need be upper class. Furthermore, Oxford's colleges are populated by the Polish version of oompa-loompas, which are called "scouts" (notice, again, the similarity to "scouse").

The university's motto "Domimina Nustio Illlumea"(which, of course, is Latin for 'My wife is screwing the postman') seems an appropriate summation of Oxford's rich history of contributions to the arts and sciences. Whilst Oxford Brookes University is responsible for most 'Oxonian' scientific progress, their slimline 'Oxford University' spin-off has achieved a level of autonomous merit with the development of the Oxford loafer. Since the number of students graduating in philosophy, art, history and music far exceeds these subjects' employment opportunities (lecturing in philosophy, art, history or music), Cowley-based sweatshops provide valuable opportunities for alumni to try - and fail - to repay their student debt.

Historical timeline

• 512BC: Oxford University supposedly founded, when in fact it has already been going as long as anyone could remember at the time. Pharaoh Ptolemy II says he did it. Others disbelieve him.
• 511BC: Number of Japanese tourists officially overtakes number of students. Students start calling themselves members of Oxford in response.
• 363BC: A group of so-called academics, pissing themselves in terror after a friendly town and gown riot, run away and found the University of Cambridge.  
• 24AD: Christ Church founded by Christ.
• 1412: Visiting professor Nostradamus correctly predicts Oxford's position in the university ranking tables of 1413, inducing him to start a stellar career in currency speculation.
• 1555: Protestants are burned in Oxford.  Christ returns and builds 593 churches and chapels to teach Oxonians a lesson.  They are all still standing today.
• 1592: The Varsity Shop, which sells Oxford memorabilia, becomes the number one tourist attraction in the world, according to Borgia Magazine (a precursor to Forbes Magazine).
• 1863: The Oxford Union debating society is established.  It has not left the year 1863 since.
• 1874: Oscar Wilde enrolls at Oxford as an undergraduate.  He obtains a gentleman's third four years later.
• 1933: This House declares that no one in Oxfordshire was to fight for King and Country. It was intended as a 50th birthday present to Bennito Mussolini, though it was still 5...ish monthes away.
• 1949: The fancifully named Shanghai Jiao Tong University is established.  It is actually not a university at all, but a joint venture by the University of Bradford and Harvard to undermine Oxford's international standing.  So far, it has failed.
• 1962: Oxford ceases to admit undergraduates, as studies on Japanese tourists provide conclusive proof that actors in gowns are considered more authentic than real students. 
• 1973: Hey it's a prime number!
• 1982: Oxford enters the twentieth century.
• 1991: Chuck Norris does not apply to Oxford. Oxford applies to Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris rejects Oxford.
• 2012: Guardian places Cambridge first, Oxford second. Oxford students snort derisively.

The Wars of Oxbridge

University of Cambridge Lectures and Professors, fearful that Oxford would turn the University of Cambridge into a colony of Oxford, declared their independence and declared war upon the University of Oxford. It was at this point that Oxford and Cambridge mobilised their navies at unreasonable times in the morning and did battle on various rivers. Due to the tragically low level of competence of the crews, most of the damage inflicted in these battles was either self-inflicted or collateral.

There were also conflicts in various debating halls were brutal and intellectually challenging. The warfare was consigned primarily to the humanities and the sciences, nobody really cared about the arts. Oxford won the battle of the humanities but in a shock twist Cambridge actually won the sciences. 

Articles detailing the battle of Oxbridge as it is formally known were lost in the burning of the Great Library.

The Boat Race

The Varsity Boat Race serves as an annual opportunity for one of Oxford's many drinking societies to compete against a group of men considered by Cambridge University to be 'athletes.' Oxford has never lost.

Cambridge received a degree of criticism in 2006 after their rowers lured a pilot whale into the Thames. Though scientists have not yet devised a method of communicating with the Cambridge rowing team, it is believed that this was a scheme devised to offer some ill-defined form of competitive advantage. After being informed by veterinarians of Cambridge's likely plots, the whale felt it had no choice but to die.

The Bullingdon Club

The Bullingdon Club is an exclusive dining club at Oxford.  Membership is by invitation only, and is reserved for male undergraduates who can successfully identify a soup spoon.

Bullingdon Club Rooms, Christ Church College, Oxford

History

The club was founded by Christ Church student Ralph "Rollerball" Bullingdon in 1921.  Bullingdon, a flying ace in the nascent RAF during the Great War, lost all his limbs after being shot down by a zeppelin over the Isle of Sheppy in 1917.  Undeterred by this setback, he returned to civilian life and went up to Oxford in the autumn of 1920.  He had to be wheeled to lectures in a shopping trolley due to his injuries and grew frustrated at not being able to dine at high table.  He decided to create his own step-free access dining society.  He used his monthly allowance to purchase college rooms, a dartboard and a deep-fat frier.  The Bullingdon was born.

Rituals

Violent scatology has always played an important role in the life of the Bullingdon.  Members are keen to downplay its significance, but it is well documented, for example, that membership can only be ratified after the initiate submits himself to prolonged violation with a Queen Anne chair leg.

The Raucous Gaudy

Every year in May, the members hold their annual "Raucous Gaudy", a dinner to commemorate the birthday of their founding father.  It is held at an Oxfordshire restaurant of the president's choosing.  The meal is notorious in Oxford.  Tradition dictates that each diner must become catastrophically drunk before the pudding is served and verbally abuse the waiting staff at any given opportunity.  The day concludes with the members destroying the dining rooms.  Financial reparations are then made to the proprietor before mints are served and mini-cabs called. 

The 1989 event ended in controversy when a waiter was beaten to death by Bullingdon members.  Those in attendance that day (including several members of the current British government) have steadfastly refused to speak about the events that led to the man's slaying.  All that is certain is that the man's family were gifted a solid gold rocking horse by the Bullingdon by way of recompense, and shortly thereafter chose not to pursue a criminal prosecution in the courts.

The Colleges

Our Souls' College

“Yes. We've heard that joke before, thank you. It's older than you are.”

~ World-weary employees of Our Souls' College

Our Souls' is Oxford's only haunted college.  It is so haunted, in fact, that the university does not allow students to enter the college for security reasons.  Its motto is The place where professors go to die! because old professors who are too senile to write anything of any interest but who are still sentient enough to feel full of themselves are kept there on life-support machines by the university.

Stephen Hawking was infamously the Warden of Our Souls' after he died.  He was stripped of his wardenship by the fellows of the college after they judged that his public displays of drunkenness and his widely publicized sexual escapades (notably with sex symbol political scientist, Gillian Peele) "bring into ill-repute a college with an otherwise spotless reputation for academic excellence and amazing croquet results."

Brookes College

Is definitely a real college. Is well known to specialise in Thermodynamics. Recent discoveries include perpetual motion, controllable Nuclear Fusion reactions and a predictive model of the spread of sexually transmitted diseases on a Wednesday night at Fuzzy Ducks. Also home to the world's leading centre for the teaching of applied fluid mechanics.

Entry into Brookes college is notoriously challenging, with the vast amount of applicants having to resort to other colleges for their studies. Its location in the city is, as yet, unconfirmed. 

Teddy Hall

Originally a diner on High Street, Teddy Hall was sold to Queens shortly after it was founded since the diner owner got sick of the visitors getting piss drunk and smashing the furniture and the windows; a tradition that those in residence at Teddy Hall are keen to maintain.

The queens, being what they are, enforced a rule which allowed the Hall to exist only if they pretended to be an educational institution. That's why the people you find at the Hall will pretend to be studying for a degree, while in fact they are just there for the booze, sports, and loose women.

Brasenose College

Widely regarded as being a college at Oxford University, Brasenose is in fact the resting place of the Stargate.  (It is also the award-winner for Dumbest Name of an Oxonian College, according to the Oriel Sucks Committee.) It was found in 744 by Elias de Brasenose after he noticed that a large banana skin had attached itself to his shoe; needless to say he slipped over and the dent caused as his face hit the pavement laid the foundations for this glorious college. Brasenose found fame after being single-handedly blamed for warping Earl Haig's fragile, innocent peace-loving mind shortly world war one broke out. It was foreseen by Nostradamus that a similar effect will happen to David Cameron. Having invented the sports of rugby, rowing and dwarf-tossing yesterday evening in the space between Neighbours and Formal Hall, it has cultivated a reputation as an international centre of sporting expertise.

Brasenose is well known for its college chaplain who remembers the names, subjects studied and credit-card details of all pupils; it is believed he was the original keeper of the Stargate- which lies beneath Staircase 13, in the laundry room. The Stargate itself acts as a lodestone, attracting by occult forces thousands of Japanese tourists. The Principal of the College is currently a rather excited unicorn, who is involved in bizarre fresher hazing rituals and bedecked with tinsel at Christmas. The college is renowned for its rivalry with L. Ron Hubbard college due to the opposition of many prominent unicorns to scientology. It is due to this rivalry, that Brasenose College is forced to despise Lincoln College, because university regulations prohibit the hatred of one dissociative college identity and not the other.

Brasenose is also inexplicably infested by plastic owls. It is rumoured that the one atop the college chapel is, in fact, a camera strategically placed to ensure that no-one steps on the entirely deer-devoid Deer Quad except David Cameron or Michael Palin, . The deer quad, seemingly wrongly named, actually derives its title from a misspelling in a manuscript from 1204 when a really really really sentimental Viking undergraduate, known through the ages simply as "Sid", wrote an elegy about the "dear quad" on which he had his first sexual experience, albeit with himself. The misspelling which has lasted centuries has become a key attraction of Brasenose, used as an advantage in making Japanese tourists pay extra to see the invisible Bambi's.

Although home to many clubs and societies, the oldest (and arguably most prominent) in Brasenose is the Phoenix Commoners’ Room. Founded in 1067 by William the Conqueror, its original purpose was to encourage as many Frenchmen as possible to study in Oxford. Today, the Phoenix exists as a charitable foundation, committed to making the university as accessible as possible to the lower classes whilst ensuring that they are kept separate from the noblemen commoners. Funding was recently provided by the organisation for the building of two Pleb Pens, buildings that it is hoped will provide enough accommodation to house several hundred male and female oiks in squalid, but habitable conditions (lest they forget their place). The current president Alanne de Bowman, and the secretary is Lord Simba of the Pride.

A nasty habit of those associated with Brasenose is to pretend that the Radcliffe Camera is part of the architecture. This is a big fat lie, but it's better to just blame the photgraphers. Brasenose seems to forget the beauty of the architecture to be found in its rear end, namely the aesthetic banquet that is the car park, or staircases 16 and 17. Their smooth, concrete greyness, reaching into the sky like two giant fingers saluting to Lincoln, are of such archaic splendour and medieval charm, that they really ought to be the front cover of every Oxford prospectus. The unicorn principal is so proud of them that his excitement grows 2 millimetres every time he lays eyes on them, and he insists that his appeals for their immediate destruction by anonymous arson were merely the result of too much Brasenose port, which is grown on site on the untamed and exotic port-shrub located in the Chaplain's underground lair.

A young follower of Rah

Sodham College

Also known as the people's republic of Sodham, this college was actually founded by a group of refugees from the biblical town of similar name after God crushed their hometown with his wrath.  However, the college remained a hidden underground den of iniquity until the year of 1610 when an unwitting west-country farmer and puritan decided to build a college of his own upon the same spot.  The original sodhamites soon infiltrated this new establishment, and for many a year now it has revelled in its reputation as Oxford's most decadent and debauched educational establishment.

Sodham is also notable for its perfectly manicured front quad, on which midnight orgies are held, and its large and pleasant JCR.  It is also the only college where Rahs are outnumbered by the working classes and/or dirty commies. The students of Sodham long for nothing more than a backwards-walking amphibian named Axolotl, a plan set in motion by the alternative and cool Food and Amenities Officer Edwin Thomas, and for Stephen Fry to return to them.

Sodham has a reputation for its flirtation with Fascism since the 1970s. In 1975 the college voted to rename the JCR quad to the Benito Mussolini Quad, while in 1984, the JCR passed a motion to have "Nelson Mandela should stay where he is" played at the end of every college bop, a tradition which has continued even after Mandela's ascension to heaven in 1990.

Christ Church

Sir Theophrastus Rah

Christ Church was founded in 24AD by Jesus Christ himself, confirming that those feet did walk upon England's mountains green (if the hill up from the Isis counts as a mountain).  Unfortunately for Christ, it was quickly turned away from the righteous path by Sir Theophrastus Rah, founder of the High Church of Rah.  Rahism (See Also Ra), as it is usually known, is devoted to preventing the advancement of time, and clutches desperately to the snobbish, quaint ways of the past.  The greatest success of Rahism is of course the Oxford Union's time vortex, which keeps the Union permanently in the year 1863.

Christ Church was designed and built by a Mr Thomas Small, who for reasons best known to himself erected a giant depiction of his own phallus (complete with spires and turrets) over the entrance. Since most of the budget went on the tower, which on a clear day can be seen from France, first year students are housed in concrete eggboxes picked up cheap during the Soviet Union's closing down sale.

Harry Potter attended Christ Church, after graduating Hogwarts, as did Alice in Wonderland, who later became Dean. Allegations of an improper relationship between Lewis Carroll and the young Liddell children remain unsubstantiated, although since Janet Street-Porter recently spent some time in the college disguised as a student, such deviant behaviour can not be easily ruled out.

Christ Church's current Dean, The Very Reverend Sir Dr Rabbi Christopher Lewis, queen of the Nile, won his position in a game of Zip Zap Bong, defeating such rivals as Roger Bannister, Blackburn Rovers and Xzibit.  Lewis wears a helmet and stands perfectly still in the middle of a pond in Tom Quad.

The college has its own jester, employed for the use of the Dean. He can sometimes be seen in or around the pond, with no underpants on and wearing a balaclava. Just a balaclava. His exact identity is, as of yet, unknown.

The college is famous for having the largest and most pompous-looking quad in Oxford, for its Cathedral, and also for its Great Hall.  Christ Church charges tourists £154 to visit (a 5% discount is available for children, animals, and retirees), and currently makes over £45bn per week. Few visitors ever leave.

Alarmed at the recent appearance of a piece of modern art in the prestigious Great Hall, Christ Church physicists are currently working on a device that will allow them to freeze time, thus allowing their beloved college to remain forever in the quiet backwaters of the 17th Century.

St Catherine's College

Initially a Danish prison, 'Catz' was moved to Oxford after the prisoners protested about the utter lack of privacy in the 'Rabbit Hutch' style rooms, bleak concrete vistas, and the inability of the rooms to maintain a decent temperature. It was the intention of the British Government to use the building to house asylum seekers and Daily Mail readers in the 'We Can All Get Along Programme', but upon sailing up the River Cherwell the building was attacked and occupied by a number of drunken students from the Cowley Road, who proclaimed it an independent libertarian republic. They awoke the next morning, realising that a new college (distinct from New College that already existed) would be a much better idea. It was eventually so successful at attracting S&M junkies and Northerners to Oxford that further accommodation was needed, so the governing oligarchy decided that to maintain the feeling of the place, a new quad would be created, inspired by, and centered on, a car park.

Corpus Christi College

Infinitely superior to Corpus Christi College in Cambridge, as attested by everyone. Ever. 

Corpus Christi College, founded in 1963 by Elias de Corpus Christi and Cardinal Dick Vixen, is the only college in the university not physically located in Oxford.  It is in fact situated in Texas, on the Gulf Coast.  Its BA in Oil Refinery is very well regarded and is the current champion of university challenge.

Its notable alumni include Ich Bin Ein Berliner(a famous German sausage philosopher), Mick Ron Sick, (well known author of novels like "The Bill Gates" and "A Very-tedious Boy"), and Foxxy Cleopatra (illegitimate daughter of Cardinal Dick Vixen) 

Its corporate symbol is the Pelican. Princeton University later erected a statue of a pelican, even though no pelicans in fact, live in New Jersey, unlike Texas.

Some people have likened Corpus Christi to Switzerland, no I'm not a crackpot, think about it; Oriel=Italy, Christchurch=Germany, Merton=France, see, it does make sense now doesn't it. And it may have something to do with the giant gold reserves Corpus has... (That it doesn't tell anybody about).

The Turd Street Colleges

L. Ron Hubbard College

Jesus College, Muhammad College, and L. Ron Hubbard College are all conveniently located on quaint little Turd Street, also the site of 12 apparitions of the Virgin Mary and 47 abductions by aliens.  Jesus College was founded in 1555 by Jesus, when he returned and ensured that no point in Oxford was further than three feet from a church or chapel. Muhammad then published a famous open letter to Jesus, published notably in the Jazeera Gazette, in which he pointed out that two colleges was quite enough for one messiah.  Jesus then wrote a tightly-argued riposte in which he claimed that he could do whatever he wanted.  Muhammad pointed out that this made no sense, and founded Muhammad College in retaliation.

The redeeming factor for Jesus College, is PHYSICS HQ (a safe haven for the religion of nerdism and any art student). The kebab van known as Hassan's is the centre of Turd Street life.

L. Ron Hubbard College was previously known as Buddha College, and had been founded by the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa in 1776.  However, following Scientology's accession to the status of most influential religion in the world, it was felt that it deserved its own Oxford college.  L. Ron Hubbard College awards degrees not available in any other college of the university, including the BA in Xenu Studies, and the prestigious MPhil in Thetan Operation, an eight-year course, completion of which guarantees you a job in any of the 81000 McDonald's outlets worldwide. Recently, the college has come under fire from critics such as Dr Seuss BSc DPhil MB ChB DNA DOA ETC (coincidently a former student at one of the personalities) and a star-nosed mole named Gary, who say the college is developing a split-personality disorder. Both colleges refused to comment.

Hart Ford College's famous Bridge of Sighs

Hart Ford College

Founded by Silvio Berlusconi and Henry Ford in the 6th century, Hart Ford College (pronounced 'Hertford') is not only an award-winning college, like the rest of them, but is also an award winning recipient of ALF's firebombs.  It notably won the Most Friendly College Award, awarded by the Hart Ford College Award Panel.  It is also famous for winning the Best-Inaccurately-Named-Replica-of-an-Italian-Bridge Prize for 472 consecutive years, for its famous Bridge of Sighs.  In front of the Bridge of Sighs is an artificial habitat built by DPhil students researching the effect of Jammie Dodgers on Japanese tourists. Inside, it appears more utilitarian due to all the yellow safety paint. Dan Brown is a Physics Tutor there (this is actually true, really true. Wikipedia true!). Across the road from the Bodleian, it is small and pretty. The students haze each other perpetually with warm piss and greasy saliva at the beginning of each semester.  Perhaps this is why the campus's students were rated No.1 on the New York Times list of "World's Biggest Scumbag's". Hart Ford students also hold the record from the Guinness Book of Records for most blatant abuse of apostrophes. It has the largest population of Uzbekistanis outside of, surprise, Uzbekistan.  The campus is notorious for its variation of beer pong known as 'goat milk pong' and it has the largest animal/human STD rate in the world. Real power within the college rests with Simpkin, the 550-year-old 'College Cat'. Hart Ford students claim that the animal on their crest is a deer and get extremely annoyed when people point out that it is, in fact, a moose.

Kellogg College

Affectionately known as "The Breakfast College", Kellogg is renowned for its early morning fare, where members feast on lambs, and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals and fruit bats. Members are known as "Breakfastonians". The college caters to a large degree to part-time post-graduates, and as such is regularly overrun with Japanese tourists pretending to be Oxen for a week or two. Kellogg has a formal affiliation with Christ Church Boat Club, leading the club to be renamed Crunchy Nut, and many of Christ Church's more supple and sexier rowers are Breakfastonians. By ancient statute, Breakfastonians must dine in a separate hall from the Japanese poseurs attending continuing education classes sponsored by Kellogg, and often wear their gowns on non-academic occasions just to set themselves apart from the camera-toting rabble.

St Cross College

St Cross (STX) was founded in 1965 to accommodate the increasing number of cross-dressers (a.k.a crossers) among the oxford university staff and students, due to the advent of ‘the swinging 60s’. However, as crossers are a rare species among the Oxford population as well as being versatile targets for sexual outlet, many colleges were reluctant to release their own crossers. This resulted in the university’s decision that STX was only to take graduate crossers, the reason why STX remains one of the smallest colleges in the Oxford system. And this is despite the fact that the college has made very effort to recruit international crossers - currently about 70 percent of the junior members of the college come from abroad. At STX, the biological sex of a student is always the opposite of what is apparent. 

Due to identity struggles and time wasted on misunderstanding, most students at STX were not able to focus on their studies, and this accounted for the college’s lack of notable alumni, though the college boasts Boy George, David Williams and Matt Lucas among its honorary fellows. According to hearsay, Margaret Thatcher was invited to become the honorary Mastress of the College, but she turned down the offer because she could not bear to be associated with an unheard-of institution, at least not without some handsome fees, which the college couldn’t afford then, nor now.

Although the college occupies one of the most central locations among all Oxford colleges, it is rarely noticed by anybody at all. This is deliberate. Because the spirit of the college is exactly to be mis-recognised. Most people tend to think of the college as a stone wall along St Giles, with their attention usually attracted to the Oxfam near by or St John’s college across the road, which always flies their flag out of their inferiority complex against Balliol. The statement that STX is ‘central but free from pestering tourists’ is thus totally unfounded, because even the most weird of tourist does not fancy a stone wall in Oxford. 

The formal college grace is: May God cross us all. 

The informal college grace is: (quite honestly in this case) At least we are not Kellogg.

Lincoln College

One of the personalities of L. Ron Hubbard College, Lincoln College claims to have been founded by plankton who came from a thumb merchant's hat. A small college, Lincoln was originally crumpled, until it was fully straightened out by 1850 sturdy men. The College was the original writing place of Karl Marx's Das Capital - though it was published elsewhere after a duel with John Wesley.

Lincoln has somewhere in the region of 3.27 penguins. Mathematicians working on this first reckoned there to be pi amount, but they were later proven wrong by Dr Paul Dennis, who asked for more. This lead to one of the colleges darkest hours, when after initially being refused an increase in both penguin size and penguin density twelve third year students pulled each others legs off in an act of rebellion so that, "they too may waddle like their penguin brothers". After several weeks of bloody stump waddling and several deaths the rector finally agreed and penguin density within certain parts of the college was increased. However, size was not, and this is a sore point to this day. As are the stumpy, stumpy legs of the students who survived. The said penguins work in hall as catering staff on special occasions.

Lincoln's first and last Rector, Dame Judi Dench, frequently rallies the masses from her balcony. Whilst knitting. Their first and last rectum, however, only appears once a year, in a festival linked with Brasenose College which involves the spewing of hot pennies onto local children.

Lineker College

Set up as part of a marketing campain for a short-lived range of Walkers organic vegan wheatgrass flavoured crisps. The dining hall preserves the founding ethos by serving only Fairtrade quinoa and algae harvested from the college's outdoor swimming pool. And chips, of course. Lineker is perhaps best known for an annual orgy known as Sexy Fun Suck, which constitutes the matriculation ceremony for Oxford graduate students.

Linacre College

Quoted from Linacre archives by Sir Oscar Wilde himself: "Oxford colleges were very exclusive, with members often accompanied by an entourage of servants and butlers. We founded Linacre in order to allow those who do not possess such wealth to be able to experience what Oxford has to offer."

Back when Linacre was originally a brothel, clients paid for services in cups of coffee, or pieces of vegetable. Thus vegetarianism was born. Having no money to buy meat, the residents of Linacre launched the "green society", a club designated to improve Linacre's image and detract from the poor health, protein deficiency, and general cabbage smell that afflicted its malnourished inhabitants.

Mur D'lin College

Henrietta the star-nosed mole

Pronounced "Syzygy", Magdalen is only spelt the way it is to trick American tourists. Magdalene (pronounced "icky icky icky fetang zoot") college, Cambridge is known to be a parody of its Oxford namesake, where the most intelligent kleptomaniacs of the UK are housed.  Founded in 395 by Elias de Magdalen (prounounced "Neuston"), Magdalen (pronounced "Arguably lemonade Apostasy Fremington") College is one of Oxford's more picturesque colleges.  It was Oscar Wilde's college during his time as an undergraduate, although it was well known that he would have preferred to be at St Hilda's College.  Magdalen (pronounced "Hump it before it humps you") is probably Oxford's second largest Rah College.  It also boasts a zoo, featuring deer, elephants, zebras, giraffes, llamas, angler fish, hippogriffs and two gingers.  The star attraction of the zoo is Henrietta the star-nosed mole.  Whenever they feel like it, students or faculty at Magdalen (pronounced "Cashier Number 6, please") may kill an animal from the zoo and eat it too.

Mansfield College

Mansfield College is the smallest and most transportable of the Oxford colleges. This is because when it was first built it was intended to be mobile, with hydraulic legs that would allow it to walk about town and move to Cambridge were Oxford ever to be over taken in the league tables. This failed due to the generally impractical nature of the plan, and the obvious impossibility of Cambridge overtaking Oxford in the league tables, but the college had already invested significant funds in the legs, which are currently buried under ground. The college has a proud history, being the place where the mineral Australia was first discovered in the late eightieth century. This discovery had to be made retrospectively as the college was not founded until 2112. Its most famous alumnus is General Von Trot, who assassinated Hitler in 1944 bringing World War Two to a negotiated end and resulting in the bringing forward of Mansfield bar's closing time by two hours on Friday and Saturday evenings. All Mansfield students end up as priests or assassins.

In its prospectus the college proudly assets that many people compare it to East Timor, as both are small, poor, and were extensively bombed by Indonesia during the early 1990s.

The Queens' College

Queens' was established in 1066 for the education of Queens from the North. This tradition is continued today, although some of the Queens are now men. The college owns several annexes where it hides its Queens. The most beautiful annex is the Florey Building which is, according to reports from the student press, actually an alien space ship which transports the student Queens to their Queendoms in the North when necessary. Many other rumours concern The Queens' College but nobody knows what the rumours are because of the insular nature of this establishment. A heavily put-about rumour is that the apostrophe in Queens' College appears thus: "Queen's". This is a falsehood, as is obvious from the college's heavy population of queens. The college chooses to suffocate its postgraduate members in St. Aldate's House, an establishment where everything wrong with 70s architecture went to die.

St John's College

   There was a young man of St John's    Who wanted to bugger the swans,    But the loyal hall-porter    Said, "Pray take my daughter!    Them birds are reserved for the dons"

Prime Minister Blair's (or socialist terrorist's) old school.  Or was it Brasenose or Balliol?  Anyway who gives a toss.

Satan's College

Until recently covered in heavy snowfall due to its location within the Arctic Circle (aka anywhere north of St Giles), due to global warming it has been revealed and as a result has had to be subject to financial realities. The college is looking to rebrand itself as a conference centre, akin to Downing College in that other place. Next to that other other place. By Budgens. Formerly the last all-male college in Oxford (until 303 BC), but admitted Oscar Wilde 'on a whim'.

Sold to the Devil by St John's - they've regretted it ever since. The Devil subsequently erected three walls around the College: Wolfson, Rayne, and Gatehouse, to ensure that the most beautiful buildings in Oxford in its interior were forever hidden from the world. Unfortunately some people started to live in these walls when the various Bevington Road and Woodstock Road houses began to collapse. Those Above The Bar will eventually do the same once they figure out how to leave the place.

While many have commented that this was an evil thing for the Devil to do, he is in fact misunderstood, and simply wanted to avoid bedazzling those from Christ Church with the splendour of the interior of the college, which covers 400 acres and is, in fact, the largest college in Oxford. Most die after seeing the beauty of the Ruth Deech Building and Heartland House (which was explored for gold by Americans in the 14th century, and as a result contains only orange juice, an empty common room, and a few copies of 'Who's Who' in the (highly secret) Upper North Room from 2047), unless they have been inducted as members into one of the various drinking societies, been mentioned in The Beaver, or can remember more codes than there are digits of Pi. While indeed students are not allowed to leave the college until they are 42, this is simply to fit into the hell theme to attract Japanese tourists. 

Contains the largest wine cellar in Oxford. Unfortunately, due to its bicentennial formal halls and its insistence on only giving two millilitres per glass, current projections estimate it will not be consumed until the end of the universe, or the Second Coming, whichever is sooner. Until then, a travelator has been installed to Park End, at least until the nightclub can be dragged closer.

New College

The abode of notorious born again Christian Rev. Richard Dawkins. Always having to be the newest college means that New College doesn't actually exist. Tutors schedule tutorials there when they can't be bothered to teach their student. Confused freshers can often be seen wandering about Oxford looking for the mythical location. OW-Sue!, the students union, is primarily elected by students living there, imaginary students obviously being the most interested in the largely imaginary location. 

In a parallel dimension (accessible through pressing the 'tab' key on your computer keyboard), it is considered a universal irony that "NEW" College be founded in 1379. 

Immense popularity as a tourist attraction was gained when Dr Spooner invented spoonerisms at New College (Cue Knowledge!) circa 1885. More recently New College has gained popularity through the film "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire". New College was extensively used in the filming of one (important) scene where one kid got turned into a ferret under a tree for some reason.

New College also owns most green bean farms in the country, to all of its students' greatest satisfaction. Main courses without them are a rare sight, but are usually compensated by the incorporation of green beans into the meal's dessert course, with varying degrees of success.

Old College

This is actually a mirror image of New College which exists in a parallel universe (one which is near Oxford). The two colleges were created at roughly the same time when a member of the Bananas in Pajamas cast a Voodoo spell upon a drunken angel who subsequently farted on Oxford (yet again, by sheer chance). This is called Old College because it was formed 1.67 x 10^-12 seconds before New College.

Somerville College

The college was once an all female college. Some claim that this has changed, but this view has been widely discredited.

Former college of Margaret Thatcher; a giant iron monument in her honour was posthumously pulled down in the great mining strikes following the breakup of the Backstreet Boys, and is now a pointless vegetable patch. The chapel adjoining it was tainted by her aura, hence why the only people to go in there are cultists and the CU.

Its BA(SITH) is very highly regarded. Before becoming the Pope, Darth Sidious was formerly Professor of the Dark side of the Force here. The library is renowned for having dedicated huge sums of money to relevant Jedi textbooks.

An entire upper gallery is also dedicated to pornography, selected weekly by the JCR. 

It also has the dubious honour of hosting the world's first all-concrete student accommodation block. This is genuinely true, and is the reason why Vaughan can't be pulled down. The college is currently waiting for it to fall down on its own. The official line is that the lives of its inhabitants are a worthwhile sacrifice to get rid of the monstrosity.

The college is also well known for its pictures of crusty old women called Edith. Contrary to popular belief, these are not pictures of past principals, but are in fact impressionistic renditions of the average fresher after their first bop.

St. Jew's College

St. Jew's College (affectionately known as St. Hugh's college by students) was founded by St. Jew of Gondwanaland in 2005. St. Jew was renowned for his pet swan and for having six heads, each of which symbolised a particular aspect of reality and which enabled him to perv at the all-female student bodies of the college. Situated near the North Pole, the students of the college (known as 'Jewsies', or by people at other colleges, 'wankers') have their degrees awarded by Santa Claus. Notable alumni include Aung San Suu Kyi, Roy Castle and the Planet Mars. The current JCR president is the first ever president elected to have chlorophyll instead of blood.

Pemis Broke College

“I think I did that once, when I was in bed with with this lovely young nepalese fellow... oh Pemis Broke, I thought you said... That's not my sense of humour”

~ Oscar Wilde on Pemis Broke College Extra Curricular Activity

Pemis Broke (commonly known simply as Broke) was founded in the year dot by Mr. Broke, of 27 Grenfield Way, Huddersfield (57). It is the only Oxford College to have been founded by a plain Mr. and as such reserves the right to be the poorest, least inhabitable Pile of Stone in the City of Leaning Spires. Broke are wholly owned by Christ Church - Mr. Broke having left The college to Jesus in his will: this caused quite a bit of confusion, as Jesus College still (God knows why) claims the rights to it. Broke is often confused with Brookes, which is not in fact a college but a place for foreigners to go so they can say they have an "Oxford Education". In time gone by there was much friendly competition with The Kingdom of Oriel - culminating in such neighbourly acts as dropping tortoises off towers ... and the like.

Oreo College

Where Hertford college is considered the Venice of Oxford, Oreo is considered the Manchester. While Hertford built a replica of the Bridge of Sighs to mirror its multiple intellectual achievements over the course of centuries, Oreo built a tunnel to, um, link the two parts of the college with each other. Despite being named after a yankee cookie, Oreo is considered the fittest college in Oxford for its traditional practice of early morning fire drills to get the students going as timely as possible. Due to the poor quality of food served, Oreo is a favorite with visiting Americans and Scousers.

St Peter's Collage

It is a little known fact that St Peter was an amateur artist whose preferred medium was the collage. Shortly before his death he completed his greatest work, a collage of poor Northerners made from pictures cut out of mining handbooks. It has been on display in Oxford ever since. It is well known for being completely unknown, and for winning 'most tasty vomit produced by students' for several years in a row during the 1990s. The opening of La Baguette on New Inn Hall Street just opposite put an end to this, however.

St Bernadette's Hall

St Bernadette's is a demi-college run and owned by gun-toting monks who must possess at least three kills to their record. The Hall is named after St Bernadette of Oxford, an Anglo-Norman nun who is the patron saint of the sexually confused and frustrated. St Bernadette’s has a sordid male dining society known as The Dragon Club, far worse than the better known Bullingon Club also at Oxford. The Dragons can often be seen patrolling the streets of Oxford by night in tight shorts and Primark leather jackets, brandishing cheap cans of cider, and seeking sexual satisfaction. St Bernadette’s admitted only men until very recently (adding to its sexual confusion and frustration). It is a well-known fact that you cannot discern the sexual orientation of a male Bernadettite by mere appearance. This is because most of them have no idea what their sexual orientation is. The Hall has a specialty in "Filthy Studies." American researchers believe that this derives from an academic term, 'Phil/The' (Philosophy and Theology), but nowadays it is believed that this refers to the sordid sexual activities carried out by the Hall’s Dragons. Its most famous alumni include the tree now growing at the end of St Giles, an owl taken hostage in Los Angeles, the Roman Catholic Church, Paul Daniels, and Malta.

The Hall's motto is taken from the Rule of St Bernadette: Ausculta, O filii, aut tundemini! which means “Listen to me, O children, or else you will be slapped!"

Greyfriars PPH

Towering over Oxford like a collosus, the mighty Greyfriars covers an area of 500 square Metric kilo-hectares, and was founded in the Olden Days by Catholic Jesus before he turned Protestant And Bad and went on to posthumously found Jesus's's College. It holds sixty of the most succulent, plump, Godly, and cock-loving undergraduates in the university, and a contingent of minks who are known to offer the most competitive 'by-the-hour' rates in Oxford. 

It also boasts the only building in Oxford to be constructed to look like it was built by William the Conqueror. Rumour has it that this occurred after the minks discovered that Christ Church had pinched all the bricks from their buildings under the cover of darkness, and so decided to spite them by re-building thirty-seven miles away in Milton Keynes.

Paul Merton College

Located in a slightly different dimension in Oxford, Paul Merton College lays claim to be the oldest Oxford college, founded in 123AD by bicycle maker Sir Walter Raleigh de Merton, of Solihull, England. Hislop lays claim to being the only college to not have a library, as well as severe punishments for any students who achieve firsts in any exams.

Many famous Paulians have been very successful in getting themselves killed by terrorists; the late Airy Neave MP being the only example. Due to the continued lack of success in college rowing, Merton is again top of the Norrington Table, a big solid oak table upon which great feasts of poor-quality college wine and ever-shrinking portions of "meat" are served.

Paul also hosts the world-renowned "Time Ceremony" where college members (or anyone, for that matter) walk backwards through time whilst drinking Port. This comemorates the infamous day when Stephen Hawking discovered time-travel in Paul Merton's own Yellows' Quadrangle, and is one of the more rational and therefore "normal" ceremonies held within an Oxford college.

Dame Jessica Rabbit rules the college with an Iron Fist, which she won during a round of fisticuffs with the Principal of the "other college"; namely Corpus Christi.

The Rose Lane part of the college is the only part of Oxford to actually exist in the twelfth dimension (The Rubix Cube dimension).

Hislop's most famous citizen is Mystery Stephen, a bright, out-going and extremely popular Physicist. Interviewed, he said: "I am known in all the boroughs."

Paul Merton is made of pink glitter. Its principal contribution to Brutish Cultural History is the Jazz Butcher Conspiracy.

Frodo Baggins has nothing at all to do with Hislop College although he once went to a place called Mordor which also has nothing to do with this article.

Many people say that fun dies at Merton, infact it does not, it simply looks at Merton, drops its jaw, and runs to Corpus Christi.

St Hilda's College

"Where the odds are good, but the goods are odd."

A college situated miles outside the city, in the mythical and unmapped area known as Cowley Road (Here-be-Dragons).  Founded in 1898, in Oscar Wilde’s absence, by Miss Theodora Beale, a famous (somewhat lost) headmistress from Cheltenham.  The college only accepts large bovine creatures, known as Hildabeests (not to be confused with Oxen).  Their sporting prowess and degree results reflect this selection policy. They recently voted by a large minority to admit men as well, probably at the instigation of Oscar Wilde.   A scurrilous rumour has circulated Oxford since 1899 that all Hildabeests are furiously Lesbicious.  This is totally true. Even so, St. Hilda's is often referred to as the Virgin Megastore by everyone else in Oxford, for obvious reasons. The Hildabeest are often mistaken for men, or demon cattle, and live solely on the blood of men they club to death with hockey sticks. A famous Hildabeest in popular culture was Honoria Glossop in Jeeves and Wooster. Goths who look out of place due to their hotness, such as Annabel Lee, from Edgar Allen Poe's poem, often move to Hertford college, or throw themselves into the sea to avoid the lesbian rape.

Lady Tracy Hall

Lady Tracy Hall lies outside Oxford's 500-mile cut-off point

Although technically not part of the university as it lies outside of the 500 mile cut-off point, this college was founded in 1995 by the CEO of New Look. Before that it was the local shoe factory. The college is notable in its affections towards various aquatic birds, particularly ducks. This is largely due to the fact that the current principal is one herself, called Tracey. Other members of her family will usually visit in summer months, spending the rest of the year in Botswana, making shoes.  It is rumored that lady Tracey Hall interviews consist of a short stiletto making examination, followed by a duck seduction session (usually conducted on Front Quad). Marks are awarded for how much the principal enjoyed your advances, and how far you actually 'got' with her (Independently adjudicated by the college chaplain, who is Cilla Black, at the time of writing).  Notable Alumni include: Emily Howard (DPhil, Transgender Studies 1995), all of the Spice Girls (DPhil, Experimental Twatology 1995), Mr Motivator (MSc Morning Television Studies 1995) and Donald Duck (did not complete his degree due to molestation charges, brought forward by all aforementioned Alumni) Construction of 'Lady Tracey Hall International Airport' is due to begin in the summer of 2007, fortunately requiring the demolition of 'The Peoples Republic of Keble PLC'. The intention is to provide flights to and from the UK biannually. It is hoped that this, coupled with a proposed jet propulsion programme will improve attendance at university lectures.

Bertie Worcester College

Pronounced Wooster, this college is better known as Wooster Sauce, HP Sauce and “The Saucy Music place”. This College is mainly famous for, you know, this and that, and is reputed to have a better treble choir than Christ Church, as it steals all the best from their Chorister School. Unlike the other Colleges, the Quad is a big dip in the ground, regularly filled up with HP Sauce, it serves as a huge communal swimming pool instead of the lake. Paying student fees to this college lets you collect Nectar card points.

Exeter College

Exeter College is actually more commonly known as the 'Fool's College' because upon applying to Oxford, (particularly on Open College applications), the clearly brilliant and genuinely talented students are weeded out and told they've made it into Exeter College, this is however a ruse as there is no such college. Instead on arrival for Fresher's Week, the new students are ignored and left confused until finally being redirected to Exeter to study at the College of Exeter, an establishment renowned for it's prestigious courses in Shoe Tying, Grass Clipping and other mundane day-to-day tasks that everyone agrees only the mentally impaired require help with. This policy is to ensure the brightest young minds in the world are really getting to grips with the basics before they apply their stunning intellects to solving the world food shortage and such forth.

Keble (ceeble)

Doesn't Exist.  Well, actually it does, but its absurdly patterned brickwork means it is often mistaken for a cable-knit jumper. Keble is replete with people who didn't actually apply there, and spend their whole time convincing each other that it was a good thing, and not a remote cause for bitterness. Ed Balls still has the chip on his shoulder.

Everybody can see from looking at Keble that in fact, it was designed in Minecraft.

Sugar Frosties College

SFC is Oxford's youngest constituent college.  It was founded in 2008 with financial assistance from Sir Cameron MacIntosh.  Technically speaking, SFC is a parasite college as it has no college buildings of its own.  It must survive by living undetected inside a host college.  The academic staff of the college along with any students it might have attracted along the way (to date none) gain access to other Oxford colleges by posing as Japanese tourists.  Once inside, they hide in croquet boxes and wait until nightfall when they emerge and scatter.  Over the following days, the invading college apes the behaviour of the host in order to avoid detection.  When the academics are happy that they have inveigled their way into the life of the host college, they begin offering clandestine tutorials to the student body using mime and semaphore.

The Undemocratic Workers' Republic Of Ruskin College

Ruskin College was named back in the good old days after John Ruskin (the inventor of the 'Rusk' baby biscuit). Ruskin is a socialist college for the working classes that was allowed to become a affiliate college (but not a constituent college) of the University for a joke. Like most socialist workers' states Ruskin is now run by a dictator. She is called Audrey (the Incinerator) Mullender and holds a PHD in archive burning. Courses offered exclusively at Ruskin include: 'Why Neoliberalism Is Shit', 'Why Capitalism Is Shit', and 'Why Karl Marx Is God'.

Grumpleton College

Formed from the merger of two colleges (Green College, known for its study of medicine and Temple College, known for its lack of any merits whatsoever), Grumpleton College is located dangerously close to Satan's College. For this reason, the college is protected by high walls and has an observatory, to look for signs of demonic invasion. This isn't very successful and Satan's College's students regularly invade Grumpleton bops and show them all up by having much more fun. Grumpleton only accepts graduate students, as the first master of the college refused to acknowledge the existence of anyone without a degree.

Wolfson College

Originally founded in Norway by Fenrir, the college was banished by Odin after Fenrir bit off the god Tyr's hand following a drunken argument over a hat. The students of the college successfully petitioned to join the university in 1252 CE, mainly because they brought live wolves with them to their admission meeting that frightened off (or ate) everyone who didn't want to admit them.

Before being admitted to the college, all Wolfson students must kidnap a member of St John's during Freshers' week. Teamwork is encouraged, leading to the entirety of St John's college Freshers' intake being kidnapped in 1857 in a daring scheme involving Hassan's and a lot of duck tape. The kidnapped students are returned to St John's at the end of freshers' week and being kidnapped actually carries some cache among St John's students, as they get to stay in a college that could afford to feed them.

Trivia

• Oxford is superior in most ways to Cambridge, save academics.
• Some people not fortunate or good enough to have attended this institution carry a large chip on their shoulders: see above.
• People entering from Canada should be wary of peculiar initiations towards Canadians, which occasionally results in private "sessions" with famous dot-com celebrities, such as Bill Gates, Fred Sorkin, and Dr. Michael Cowpland.
• It is traditional for Oxford students visiting Cambridge to steal it.
• Due to a spate of traffic-cone related mishaps, the streetlights in Oxford are now suspended from geostationary satellites.
• Due to ancient by-laws, Oxford can only ever legally exist in two dimensions. Of course, this arcane law was never traditionally enforced. However, the over-zealous Chief Superintendent Harry 'Snapper' Organs of Oxfordshire CID recently decided to put it into effect, much to the chagrin of Mordalinnnn (pronounced Chiswick) bridge jumpers, who were banned from performing their historic duty as this involved both moving across and jumping down the bridge, an act in clear contravention of Snapper's bylaw.
• In 2001, the number of Japanese tourists in Oxford outnumbered the number of Japanese people in Japan for the first time. As of January 2011, an estimated 76.8% of all ethnic Japanese are touring Oxford at any given time.
• Despite its spelling, Magdalen college is prounced "Jedi"
• Full fusc is medieval armour and must be worn with a carnation. Wearing full fusc to an examination results in an automatic first, for avoiding being arrested on the way there.
• Oxford feels a bit like velvet.
• One time, a bear got into Oriel college and remained there for 28 years.
• Oxford offers degrees in sciences as opposed to "general studies" as is offered in Cambridge. Master's degrees are awarded in every science except biology, after the first head of the biology department had an affair with the Vice-Chancellor's wife.
• The daylight in Oxford is incorrectly installed.
• The colleges own several kebab vans around the city, which form the University's second largest income stream. The first is the international arms trade.
• Brasenose College is named as such because the Porters are required to wear brass nose-rings according to an edict issued by the Porters of Christ Church. (the Porters of Christ Church, are the Preffereti of the Anglican Church i.e. very powerful)
• Cycling with bike lights is forbidden within one mile of Carfax. This is because the latin motto Dominus illuminatio mea implies literally that God lights my way.
• Oxford is the third most absorbent university in Western Europe.

See also

• Education
• Luton
• L. Ron Hubbard
• Oxford
• Philosophy, Politics and Economics
• Oxford Animal Lab