For a 61-year-old, you do swear a lot, don’t you Felix?

This coming Thursday will be an important day for students all across the country. Parliament will vote on controversial proposals to raise the cap on tuition fees to £9,000. For the Editors of this newspaper the day is also important for another, albeit more light-hearted, reason. It will be 61 years to the day since the first issue of Felix was published. It is Felix's birthday.

The paper is now almost completely unrecognisable, in terms of its design and production, to that first issue. Throughout the decades the various students who have had the privilege of editing the paper have taken bold decisions with regard to its appearance. In fact the only connection, superficially speaking, that the paper has to that first issue is the logo. The same Cat that smiled out at students on Friday the 9th of December 1949, now smiles out at students in 2010.

However, despite the changes in appearance, the character and ethos of the paper have remained consistent. The aims and objectives laid out by the first Editor of the paper, E.M. Hughes, are still the aims and objectives that the team hold in 2010. "To comment upon the affairs of the College whilst they are still topical", he wrote in that first Editorial; that is certainly still our aim. "Any contribution will be welcome", he declared; that is still the guiding ethos of this paper. "The success or failure of this paper depends principally upon you, our readers", he noted; the current Editors of the paper still firmly believe this to be true.

We have been especially fortunate this year in the number of talented students that have given up their valuable free time to contribute to the paper; time that they perhaps should have used to complete lab reports or catch up on lectures . At a university where proficiency with equations and lab reports is valued more highly than the ability to write, the fact that almost 200 students have already chosen to get involved with the student publication speaks volumes for the range of talents at this university.

But although we take pride in the achievements made so far, we are ever aware of where we have failed to meet the high standards set by our predecessors. And because of that we are always open to criticism and new contributors. E. M. Hughes really hit the nail on the head when he said that this paper relies upon you, the reader. Without you, this paper would be nothing.