Editorial

felix navidad

Lef Apostolakis

28 Jul 2017 — 2 min read

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. The tube is packed, the streets are clogged, shopping is a nightmare, and you keep embarrassing yourself, blurting out family secrets at dinners, to people you barely know.

Meanwhile, there are all these fake gifts everywhere: stupid, empty, gift-wrapped boxes designed to lure you in and get your hopes up when you know that all you really deserve is a big ol’ lump of coal.

Empty gift wrapped boxes – isn’t it great how a seemingly harmless Christmas decoration can act so well as an analogy for the human condition, sending you tumbling into the abysmal depths of an existential crisis? Beautiful and shiny on the outside, sturdy-looking, deceptively full of promise even, but dark, bare and empty on the inside. Ah the joys of the holidays.

Speaking of shattered illusions, as you might have picked up on if you read any of the national papers, Imperial released a report that is the equivalent of taking an axe and hacking into all your beautifully gift-wrapped Christmas gifts and spilling out all their contents for everyone to see during a formal dinner at your parents house. During the American Psycho inspired mental breakdown, you hack into some great gifts, like that virtual reality headset you’ve been waiting all year for. You also hack into some expected presents such as socks, underwear and a pair of fuzzy bunny slippers. But then you also hack into all those empty gift-wrapped boxes, shattering the illusion of opulence and excess and embarrassing your family, though everyone already knew that half the gifts under the tree were just for show.

This is our last issue of term, and it’s stupidly thick again to keep you company over the winter break, or at the very least to keep you warm if you live in Evelyn Gardens and your heating fails you again.

Inside this super-spesh edition, you will find the best and worst of 2016. You will laugh and you will cry but predominantly you’ll probably just stare blankly at the pages wondering what is wrong with the paper, your life, and the world in general.

So from everyone here at felix, happy holidays and don’t forget to take a break. You’ve earned it. Unless you’re a fresher, in which case you haven’t earned nothin’ yet.

From Issue 1651

16th Dec 2016

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

Memememememememe

Chill. Happy thoughts. Breathe in, breathe out. This issue is about self-care, which ideally would have involved me taking a holiday and getting my tan on, maybe on a small, secluded beach in the Canary Islands. But obviously I can’t just leave you guys hanging. How are you

My head hurts

This is a very special editorial, a very special issue even. Partly because I started writing it after smacking my head on the cold, hard asphalt just past Kensington Gardens (I know it looks cool to have your flowy hair trailing behind you as you cycle, but don’t do

Summer lovin’

Summer is officially here. You can tell by the hoards of panting students waiting to get served at FiveSixEight. You can also tell because felix has succumbed to society’s pressures and has dropped to half its original weight in preparation for the beach. For real though yesterday was so

Feeeeeeeeeed meeeeeeee

This issue is quite clearly dedicated to food. Whether you eat it, throw it up, get high on it, or get down and dirty with it (hey, we don’t judge) food is a fundamental part of the human existence. We carefully selected this week to talk about food, because

Environment

Climate justice for a just world

In mainstream discussions on climate change, there is a tendency to focus on the environmental dimensions of the issue. Increasingly, however, there is greater recognition of the need to place equal emphasis on human impacts, notably in relation to under-recognised and vulnerable groups in society affected by social injustices

Sport

Who hears the cries during the celebration?

As the World Cup comes to an end, people from all around the world are celebrating this grand finale as a symbol of unity. It is supposed to be a joyful moment for everyone. Yet for some people, the happiness in the air conceals cries for help. Research from Lancaster

News

Imperial to downsize its security team

Imperial College is reducing the size of its Security and Community Safety (SCS) team to make financial savings. In emails sent to staff concerned by the changes in early June, the Director of Security and Community Safety said she identified a need to improve “value for money” and announced a