Now, here's a bit of a problem. This website was only originally supposed to be about the second year and so was dubbed 'The House of Bamboo' after the song (you know). Well, due to the high demand from the voices in Al's head to incorporate first and third years, a rename was in order. But! How could that be done? It would be like renaming Jif to Cif or something.

With that out of the way, let's get down to business of reminiscing. The first year of University was a strange time to say the least. Unrestrained by parents, loaded with free (sort of) money and blessed with little responsibility, many of us went crazy in that first term. Apart from Al, who tried to make some sort of effort to work. He soon put paid to that I can tell thee.

Still in the first term, we all discovered what York had to offer in terms of nightlife. In other words, we found out that it had 365 pubs, of which approximately 362 were off-limits to student bastards, and also three city centre nightclubs. Criminy. So, this was our life - Toffs on a Tuesday, Ziggy's on a Wednesday and Gallery on a Thursday. Only 89 weeks to go!

What about life in Wentworth College, then? Taking into account that many of us lived back on campus in third year in quite different accomodation, Wentworth emerges triumphant. 'But the walls were breeze blocks and the kitchens didn't have proper ovens', you cry. 'But at least it wasn't some security carded-up shite where you can't meet anyone outside your house,' the collective retort. Of course, at the time, it wasn't the best place to live on campus in terms of facilities but at least we all got to meet loads of people. After all, if it wasn't for Wentworth, there would be no Ladz. Oh OK, it was crap. Have a look at Wenty Scum for a better feel for the people of the place. Snark!

The best thing about first year was the inexpensive stuff. In the first and second terms, Toffs and Gallery did bottles of VK for 50p each! You could get five Sunday dinners from The Charles pub for a tenner! Pizza Hut did 50% off all pizzas if you collected them! Scamazon was also in its infancy yet to grow into the fully-fledged industry it became by the end of the year.

Ultimately, order of a sort came out of chaos, and seven of us managed to find a house to live in during the second year. That's not to say it was plain-sailing as the Wenty Wiles section will testify.

So, second year. What did it have in store? How special could it be - some crappy old house that was a twenty minute walk from campus. And it smelled funny...