A load of old Balliol

Undergraduates at Balliol College, Oxford, have a reputation to keep up. The reputation is for cleverness combined with silliness. Now the Junior Common Room, or its committee at least, has come up with a cracking idea to ensure its silliness is indubitable. It banned the Christian Union from having a little stall at the Freshers’ Fair. The poor, trembling new intake were at “potential for harm” from “certain forms of neo-colonialism” perpetrated by the Christians. Yet if they looked out of the window the JCR officers would see a fine chapel provided with a paid chaplain and an organ scholar to play at daily services. Balliol College was founded as a penance by John de Balliol – who was also whipped – for having a row with the Bishop of Durham. The JCR row may not end so happily, but in the meantime it is impossible not to laugh.