You Really Should Read This

^{DISCLAIMER: This article is part of the joke half of this issue. Please don't take it too seriously.}I think a proper retrospective on the 2007-2008 annum with The Strand can only begin with an epic simile. This experience has been about as important to my growth as a writer, team player, and human being as an alcohol-fuelled homeless teenager deep-fried in clarified leek butter is delicious.

To be frank, this has been an intolerable ordeal, and the product has been held together by tenuous strings of valour, manipulated by myself, the marionette of taste and good will. This place will crumble to its constituent molecules once I depart, mark my words.

This rag-tag student organization was in tatters when I first crossed the threshold to the office. Covered in dust and grime, its windows awash in Latin graffiti, I was aghast. In a bulbous rage I threw open the blinds, dragged the drugged-out corpses of unidentified students out into the hall (they apparently work on the "yearbook," whatever that is) and began a year-long cleansing.

My fellow staff members are a motley crew of pending drop-outs and sycophants. I don't want to point anyone out by name, but Joe Howell is a jackass. I had hoped that the removal of his dreadlocks would have also excised whatever parasitic entity was controlling his human form, but alas, that was not the case.

Typos and stylistic issues were rampant. Just to note, every apostrophe and semi-colon put to correct use that you, dear readers, witnessed were thanks to me, and not by our incredible choir of slack-jawed international relations undergraduates. Media credits had to be subtly changed so as not to over-indulge our single image contributor (Google), and the layout was abysmal enough to make Ron Johnson jump out of a helicopter onto another helicopter (my condolences to his family, and the ninety percent of the readers who did not get that incredibly obscure in-joke).

I am spent. I have pulled The Strand out of the gutter, and spit-shined it to a wonderful peach-melon finish. After acquiring my rightful compensation sum (the details of which I leave to the competent Mr. Janiero), I prance to greener pastures and put this God-given talent to use somewhere it may actually be valued.

Note to the new retinue of underfed peons: that thing in the fridge it probably still alive. Tighten the latch and Febreze the vicinity every three hours.