I’m not very hard. In fact, the most destruction I’ve ever caused with my fists was when I tried to knead bread in Year 8 Home Ec.
Nowadays, most Year 8s have completed a community order before they’ve baked a loaf of bread.
And the budding ASBO generation are just one reason to be uneasy when you walk home late at night. If you’re lucky, they’ll just lob a brick at you and call you a pussy ’ole for trying to duck out the way.
But more likely, these kids will give you a good kicking and wind up cleaning their own graffiti off their grandma’s windows as part of a Super-ASBO. I’m joking, of course. Most 14-year-olds would probably just shoot you.
Luckily for girls who’ve strawpedoed themselves into an alcopop stupor at the Union, the Safety Bus is still there to help dodge the bullets.
But for blokes like me bereft of buff bravado, that eerie stroll up to Broomhill remains after Union Council rejected a proposal to open the bus to all.
Despite dwindling numbers, it’s just about right that only women should be allowed on. The last thing a lass needs after a barny with her boyfriend is a cauliflower-eared front-rower fresh from ROAR telling her she’s ‘well fit’. Or maybe it is – who knows?
A vote at council is scarcely enough to stop the boys jumping on anyway.
Any lads who can’t be arsed walking home could follow the example set by Union Councillors Nigel Tu and Ellis Tite. Both brazenly admitted to charming a free ride from the Safety Bus.
Fortunately for Tu and Tite, the Union are finally looking at the feasibility of a second minibus to spare them the sweet-talk.
And that’s encouraging.After all, vulnerable men are even more marginalized than vulnerable women. Forget the elephant in the room. The issue of male rape is more the elephant in the shoe box.
But it does happen; and we shouldn’t dismiss men who, for whatever reason, feel threatened or intimidated on a night out.
The Union should quickly seek to offer all students a safe journey home.