If students want privacy, they should pick up their pants

Picture the poor Cambridge youth able to fathom general relativity but not how to stack plates in a dishwasher

Agroup of workers in Cambridge are now heroes to me. They are the housekeepers of Fitzwilliam College, a newish college of the university which, according to its website, “is a modern, welcoming community committed to developing the talents of all its 750 undergraduate and postgraduate students”.

Well, some of those brainboxes – and they are, after all, students – are, it seems, a scruffy bunch. So untidy are they that the housekeepers, with impeccable timing, have a habit of charging into rooms at 7am and, reported the university’s student newspaper, Varsity, “screaming at us to put plates away”.

Picture the poor, tousle-haired, gender-non-specific youth able to fathom general relativity but not how to pick their pants up off the floor or stack plates in a dishwasher.

This doesn’t go down too well with the housekeeping team, one of whom sent an email to the entire college community with attached photographs and a message that read: “an illustration of what housekeeping DO NOT want to see on their weekly visits”. The photographs showed bedrooms and kitchens in a shocking state.

Reacting, Aaron Lardi, the co-president of Fitzwilliam’s Junior Combination Room (its undergraduate student union), told Varsity that it was “unacceptable”. He was talking about the email, not the mess.

I sense an uprising in the offing – one to the soundtrack of that 1989 song by James, often used for sit-in protests, Sit Down.

“Those who feel the breath of sadness/Sit down next to me/Those who find they’re touched by madness/ Sit down next to me/Those who find themselves ridiculous/Sit down next to me.” Which is a prospect to cheer the soul of any angsty student.

Or a dirty protest – people demonstrating that you can’t be dirty.

I look forward to hearing that song play when the housekeeping heroes of Cambridge collect their gongs at this year’s Pride of Britain Awards.