The wealthiest, flashiest people I’ve ever met were at Mill Hill, where I went for secondary school – and I’ve never encountered anything like it since. I spent my teenage years going every day to this huge campus, in a peaceful, leafy, village-like suburb of north London, with expansive, beautiful grounds and Greco-Roman architecture. In 2026, it costs £10,000 a term – or £18k if you’re a full-time boarder.
It hasn’t got the old-school poshness of somewhere like Eton, with hundreds of years of generational wealth, and it isn’t especially academically selective – it ranked 43rd of London’s private schools in the 2025 A-Level results, and that’s a major improvement from when I was there in the early noughties. From my year, there was just one pupil who went to Oxbridge. And while the fees obviously cost a huge amount of money by any standards, it is not the most expensive school in the UK, or even in London.
No prime minister went to Mill Hill (20 went to Eton), but alumni include Nobel prize-winning biologist Francis Crick, Denis Thatcher, actor Harry Melling (Dudley in the Harry Potter films) and Evgeny Lebedev, the British-Russian media mogul and life peer in the UK House of Lords. His dad is Russian oligarch, and former KGB officer, Alexander Lebedev.
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The UK has one of the most stable electricity grids in the world.
But no country’s energy system is 100 per cent secure and large-scale blackouts, although rare, are possible.
Here’s how to prepare, and what could happen, if we do have a blackout.
The immediate effects
If the UK’s power went down tomorrow, these are the ways it is likely to impact you first.
- You’d get stuck in lifts, wherever you are in the lift shaft.
- Trains would be stopped as the signals depend on electricity.
- Traffic lights would stop working on the roads – leading to congestion or crashes.
- Contactless payments are likely to fail.
- Your Wi-Fi at home would stop working and communication becomes difficult.
- Fridges and freezers will turn off – unless you have a standalone generator – and food will spoil over time.
- Hospitals and water treatment works have their own backup generators so will keep going until their supply runs out.
How transport would be affected
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For EV owners that are already on the road, Professor Keith Bell, who works in electricity planning, recommends that those with an EV with reasonable charge use it as a generator, like your own store of electricity.
In the case of the power system going down, petrol isn’t a totally safe option as queues at petrol stations could be huge and places are likely to run out of fuel.
The longer term effects
The longer the power takes to return the worse things are likely to get. In 2021 Storm Arwen physically damaged power lines across the UK.
Without nuclear to take the strain, that exposure to gas is costing us dear (Photo: Catherine Falls Commercial/Getty)
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During the 1977 New York blackout, which lasted 25 hours, there was civil unrest, resulting in widespread looting and arson, although intense heatwaves are thought to have exacerbated the situation.
Things to buy now to prepare
The Russian state-owned Sputnik news agency took over the BBC’s radio frequency in Lebanon (Photo: Getty)
Battery radio
To get updates during a power cut – a car radio can be used, but in severe weather it might be safer to stay inside.
Bottled water
A minimum of 2.5-3 litres of drinking water per person per day is recommended.
Caption: Plastic bottle with clean water on a blue background.
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A Cuban rides his bike during a nation wide blackout in Havana on 21 March (Photo: Yamil Lage/AFP/Getty)
Wind-up torch
The Government recommends opting for torches over candles, for safety reasons.
How to prepare
A blackout is unlikely but we should make small changes.
- If possible, don’t let your petrol tank run down to almost empty. Keep it over half full so you’re never caught short.
- Always have a portable power bank, and spare batteries, to charge your phone and other essentials.
- As card machines could fail, keep some cash at home.
- To keep yourself distracted and entertained, keep board games and a pack of cards handy to play.
Eight easy ways to stop
your child spending summer glued to their devices
Not all screen time is bad
Using screens in a way that benefits your child’s development is key and balancing educational content and entertainment with offline activities ensures a well-rounded routine.
DR GUMMER
How to keep your kids off screens
Outdoor activities
For younger children, try scavenger hunts, garden games and nature walks. For older ones, hikes
and biking trips.
Create a schedule
Designated screen-free times helps children develop a routine that balances screen use with other activities.
Caption: Mid adult man with eyeglasses sitting on a comfortable sofa at home, thoughtfully writing notes in a small notebook while natural sunlight illuminates the room
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Family game nights
It’s an excellent way
to bond and develop critical thinking skills.
How to keep your kids off screens
Creative hobbies
Getting creative, through drawing, painting or model construction, enhances cognitive skills and offers an alternative to screens.
Social interaction
Arrange playdates or group activities with friends, or for older kids try an overnight camping trip in the garden.
How to keep your kids off screens
Lead by example
Showing that you value offline time encourages your children to do the same.
Have a reward
Implement a reward system where screen time is earned through positive behaviour.
Open conversations
Discuss the importance of balancing screen time with your children so they understand the reasons behind the rules.
Can following a particular diet
help prevent or delay dementia?
Some studies suggest so.
These are the eight brain-boosting foods registered dietitian Fareeha Jay
recommends people consume as part of a weekly diet…
Foods that can cut dementia risk
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Eggs
They contain several nutrients thought to support brain health, including choline, vitamin B12 and iodine.
Coffee
Caffeine can reduce inflammation and
slow the degeneration
of brain cells.
Barista hand making cappuccino Coffee with espresso machine in cafe – stock photo. (Photo: Getty)
Cooking fruit and vegetables (Photor: GMVozd/Getty Images/E+)
Broccoli
It’s packed with antioxidants and high in vitamin K, which is essentially for healthy brain cells.
Fibre is overlooked in dementia prevention
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- To increase fibre intake, include wholegrains, nuts, seeds, lentils, and legumes.
- Fermented foods also support brain health by improving the gut microbiome.
LIFESTYLE
4 min read
Foods that can cut dementia risk
(Photo: Joff Lee/Getty Images)
Oily fish
Your brain uses Omega-3s to build brain and nerve cells – so a diet rich in them may slow age-related mental decline.
Walnuts
These improve heart health markers, which is linked to a lower risk of neurological disorders.
Health professionals are nuts about nuts – with good reason!
Supermarkets report increasing demand for blueberries (Photo: RHS/Guy Harrop)
Blueberries
They contain compounds which have been shown to improve blood flow to the brain, cognitive function, and memory.
The Mind diet
The diet aims to reduce dementia risk and the decline in brain health.
- It was created in 2015 by Dr Martha Clare Morris and colleagues at Rush University Medical Centre and the Harvard Chan School of Public Health.
- It encourages vegetables, berries, nuts, whole grains, olive oil, fish, beans, and poultry.
- These foods contain nutrients that promote good brain health by reducing oxidative stress and inflammation.
The Midlife MOT is open to all and covers three key areas: work, wealth and well-being (Photo: Westend61/Getty)
Feeling insecure at work
in your 50s? You’re not alone
The final decades of work
There’s this assumption about being put out to pasture… but now that we’re living and working longer, we have to challenge myths around ageing and remember that over-50s are a crucial part of the workforce…
LYNDSEY SIMPSON, AUTHOR OF AGE REBELLION AND FOUNDER OF 55/REDEFINED
The current situation
By 2030, almost half of all employees in the UK workforce will be over 50.
36%
Now one in three workers are over 50.
Yet more than a third of those between 50 and 69 believe that their age puts them at a disadvantage when they apply for jobs.
37%
The Age Without Limits study from 2024 shows that 37 per cent of workers between 51 to 70 felt badly treated in work because of their age.
The things to do, says Simpson
More and more people are using AI for counselling (Photo: Oscar Wong/Getty/Moment RF)
Keep learning new skills
We need the same level of career planning in
our fifties as our twenties. It’s possible to reinvent yourself again.
Embrace technology
It’s nonsense that older people can’t pick up how to use new tech.
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Think about money
Do you need a pay rise? Could you trade some of that money you earn, to work a bit less, and do more things you enjoy?
The things not to do
Become full-time childcare
Grandparenting on the horizon? If you don’t want to do childcare, have the conversation early – even before a child becomes pregnant – that you plan to continue working and love your job.
Caption: Indoor image of thoughtful puzzled senior woman with gray hair in glasses looking at paycheck holding head in hand, upset with high rent charge, sitting at kitchen table in front of laptop
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Grandparents and granddaughter gardening together – stock photo. (Photo: Getty)
Accept redundancy too quickly
It’s going to be so much harder to get back into work if you don’t have a plan before you take that leap.
The things not to do
Rush into retirement
Senior bed woman problem pain headache home elderly mature pain bedroom upset unhappy female caucasian adult relationship retirement old difficulty ache head sick migraine hangover sleep – stock photo. (Photo: Getty)
Everybody thinks early retirement is the dream but the reality can be different. There can be loneliness, lack of purpose and a sense of invisibility.
LIFESTYLE
5 min read
By November, UK food prices will be 50 per cent higher than they were at the start of the cost-of-living crisis
With that in mind, food editor Sophie Morris shares how she saves money on her weekly shop
Easy ways to save on the weekly shop
Caption: NORTHWICH, ENGLAND – JULY 06: Whole chicken sit on display in a Tesco supermarket on July 06, 2022 in Northwich, England. The British Retail Consortium recently said food manufacturers and supermarkets are having to pass on some of the cost of soaring raw materials to consumers, leading to the price of basic goods throughout the UK rising at the fastest pace since September 2008. Fresh food prices increased by 6% in the year to June 2022 coupled with an increase in inflation, and fuel and energy prices to create a cost of living crisis. This is leading to millions of low-income households going without essentials items, falling behind on bills and taking on debt. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
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Avoid chicken breast
Boneless chicken thighs are all meat and a much tastier product.
Don’t plan everything
If you plan every meal all week, there’s no leeway for necessary last-minute changes of plan (or leftovers).
Man Cooking By Woman Chopping Carrots In Kitchen – stock photo. (Photo: Getty)
Governments are not all powerful when it comes to huge international forces like those increasing global food prices (Photo: Oscar Wong/Getty Images/Moment RF)
Shop alone
There are so many products that children want to fill the trolley with – all kinds of exciting eye candy. It’s cheaper to go alone.
Easy ways to save on the weekly shop
Consider a vegetable box delivery
Having a Riverford box delivery helps Morris avoid impulse buys and go to the shops
less – even though the box is pricey. “It is expensive, but of great quality and organic”.
Milk and potatoes prices are expected to increases sharply later this year, say supply chain experts (Photo: Kate Wieser/Getty)
Low carb, FODMAP diet food background with vegetables, fruits, smoked salmon, chicken fillet, greens, nuts, olives. Menu for healthy eating . – stock photo. (Photo: Getty)
Track your spending
It doesn’t need to be an elaborate spreadsheet but without some kind of metric, it’s impossible to spot where you
can or must make cutbacks.
Easy ways to save on the weekly shop
The supermarket loyalty schemes vary in their generosity (Photo: Paul Childs/Reuters)
Look for yellow stickers
You can save plenty
over a year by never buying branded products at full price.
Take stock
Do a quick cupboard stocktake. You might find you already have three jars of one thing.
Mid-Adult Couple Calculating Their Finances On The Laptop In The Kitchen – stock photo. (Photo: Getty)
“Soft restrictions” aren’t infallible; we can always make the effort to get a ladder and get the biscuit tin down from the highest shelf (Photo: Getty)
Avoid packaged snacks
Packing fruit, biscuits, and nuts etc into a Tupperware to take out is more cost effective than buying tiny packaged portions.
Easy ways to save on the weekly shop
Be wary of DIY treats
“Faking” a takeaway at home can sound like a cheaper option, but if it’s something you don’t usually cook – that needs new ingredients – it could work out pricier.
Whatever you buy, buy British if you can. That will help boost fishermen’s finances (Photo: Betty Laura Zapata/Getty)
Caption: A customer looks at packages of chilled chicken cuts in a part-empty refrigerated display unit at a Lidl supermarket store in Walthamstow, west London, on September 21, 2021. (Photo by Tolga Akmen / AFP) (Photo by TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images)
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Do you need it now?
Returning a few things to the shelves that you won’t need in the near future can save you a healthy amount.
Skip a shop
Every time you make do with what’s at home,
you save big.
Supermarkets will find ways of holding down the price of the basics, and try to make their money on the fancy lines (Photo: Roy James Shakespeare/Getty)
Easy ways to save on
the weekly shop
Try a week or a month of shopping local,
and you might be surprised at the results,
in terms of cost and other benefits like supporting local businesses, and
avoiding car journeys and traffic.
Defenders of the triple Lock point to the fact pensioners are often asset-rich and income-poor. (Photo: Getty)
- Go shopping when you’re not in a huge rush so you can make relaxed and informed decisions. Don’t expect to stick to your plan or make great choices when you’re in a hurry.
I’ve been a cleaner for 30 years – these are the 10 products I swear by
Rebecca Jones has tried most cleaning products in her
decades-long career.
She shares the ones she can’t
live without.
The 10 best cleaning products
Best vacuum
Henry is a classic.
It has fantastic filters, sucks up pet hair quickly, and is great at cleaning up fine dust.
Best mop and bucket
The Vileda H2PrO set is light, manoeuvrable and keeps clean and dirty water separate.
A reader has asked whether or not she should sack her cleaner because she isn’t doing a good job anymore (Photo: stock image of a man cleaning a window via Getty Images)
Best glass cleaner
The HG Glass and
Mirror cleaner removes stains without leaving smudges or streaks.
The 10 best cleaning products
Best multipurpose cleaner
Method’s multi-surface cleaner is plant-based, cruelty-free, and works great on grease, sinks, sealed wood surfaces, hobs, bins and sealed laminated floors.
Deep cleaning glass door handles for Covid-19 disease prevention. alcohol,disinfectant spray on Wipes of Banister in home for safety,infection of Covid-19 virus,contamination, germs – stock photo. (Photo: Getty)
Best toilet brush
Unlike a regular toilet brush, nothing gets stuck in the bristles of Ibergrif M34152 Silicone brush. It also dries quickly, so
there’s less odour.
The 10 best cleaning products
Best mould remover
Jones uses the HG Mould Spray on walls, tiles, grout, windows and outdoor furniture.
(Photo: boonchai wedmakawand/Getty/Moment RF)
Best cloths
The Seep Eco Bamboo clothes have a streak-free finish and last.
Best carpet cleaner
Every home should have a bottle of Dr Beckmann’s stain remover, says Jones.
Caption: Dr Beckmann Power Brush Stain Remover
Image from https://www.dr-beckmann.co.uk/products/pre-wash-stain-devils/
The 10 best cleaning products
Best stain remover
The Mr Siga Multi-Functional Eraser Sponge acts like fine sandpaper to lift
dirt, stains, and scuffs using only water.
(Photo: Viktoriya Skorikova/Getty Images/Moment RF)
Best kept secret
Jones uses Bar Keepers Friend Cleanser to polish stainless-steel, scour sinks and clean her fridge and cookware.
Around 957,000 people aged 16 to 24 are classed as NEET ie. not in Education, Employment or Training
But as youth unemployment rises, not all companies
are looking to universities to find their new recruits. Meet the people who have benefitted.
Poorer graduates will be hit hardest by the changes, the National Union of Students says (Photo: Andrew Fox/Getty/Image Bank)
For young people unable to attend uni
My whole life was being a carer, so I was very lost…
From the age of around 10, Bruce Devlin took responsibility for everything at home – from administering his mother’s medication, to doing the shopping, cooking, cleaning and supporting his mother’s mental health.
He scraped through school, leaving with the lowest grades.
Now, aged 26, he has secured a job by pursuing an unconventional route.
The charities helping them
Bruce followed an unconventional route.
- Getting a foot in the door seemed impossible with his qualifications, lack of experience and connections.
- His Job Centre work coach put him in touch with Generation, a non-profit which partners with companies to identify roles which they are struggling to fill.
- He landed a place on Generation’s first IT support boot camp and benefited from CV and interview coaching.
- Bruce is now a level three senior quality engineer with 2i Testing, a company which tests other companies’ software.
The result
Getting a full-time salary and being a contributing member of society is an amazing achievement. Without this, I’d be just another person on jobseeker’s allowance, wasting any potential I had.
BRUCE DEVLIN, 26, GLASGOW
The apprenticeship route
Jessica Andrea Carvalho had an offer to start a media and marketing degree but she rejected it at the last minute to avoid huge debt and years of classroom learning.
Avoiding increasing
NEET numbers
Young woman at her first job interview with the owner of a coffee shop – stock photo. (Photo: Getty)
- Generation placed 700 people
like Bruce in jobs last year. - The number of placements has jumped 20 per cent from last year.
- 42 per cent of their learners come from the UK’s most deprived areas.
Big Read
10 min read
Plan 5 applies to students who began university courses on or after August 2023
(Photo: Abraham Gonzalez Fernandez/Getty Images/
Source: Moment RF)
What do employers think?
Creating more routes in is not just about opportunity – it helps bring in talent with different experiences.
Paula Cunnington, the chief talent officer for Publicis Groupe UK, a network of marketing agencies that has hired 79 apprentices, says curiosity and real-world experience are far better indicators of future success.
Up to 75 per cent of us in the UK are not drinking enough water.
The human body can survive for a time without food, but it cannot survive for long without water.
Here are the signs you need more fluids, according to a GP.
How much we should drink
Water is the most vital component for life.
6-8
NHS guidelines advise we should be drinking six to eight glasses of fluid per day.
This does vary depending on our activity levels, the weather, and if we are ill.
80%
An estimated 50-80 per cent of our bodies and brains being made up of water.
It allows us to deliver nutrients to cells in our blood, lubricates our joints, regulates our temperature and much more.
How to stay hydrated
What to drink
Not all fluids are the same – water takes top spot, as it hydrates without sugars or calories, but lower-fat milks, sugar-free drinks or moderate amounts of tea and coffee can all count towards fluid intake.
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A reader bemoans that his children spend money on fancy coffees and holidays with friends, never having a penny left each month
(Photo: Getty/Gorica Poturak)
What to avoid
Limit smoothies and fruit juices to 150ml per day because the sugar causes dental decay.
Signs you’re not drinking enough
1. Our brains
The pain from migraines is sometimes described as feeling like you’ve had an axe blow to the head (Photo: Getty)
When dehydrated, we can display an exaggerated response to pain and experience headaches. Concentration, attention, reaction times and short-term memory can also all be negatively impacted.
LIFESTYLE
6 min read
Signs you’re not drinking enough
2. Our bodies
Another common sign of dehydration is constipation. Our skin can look duller, be less bouncy to the touch and be less elastic.
Tired Asian businesswoman working on a laptop computer in the office – stock photo. (Photo: Getty)
(Photo: Ekaterina Demidova/Getty).
3. Our psychology
Research has shown that even mild dehydration can lead us to feel more moody, stressed and irritable. We can also feel more tired than usual, with less energy and motivation.
Yet, it has recently been in the spotlight because of Zac Brettler. He was a pupil at the school, but died, at the age of 19, after jumping from a fifth-floor balcony into the Thames in 2019. After his death, his parents, a financier and a journalist, discovered Zac had been spending time with the wealthy, Russian crowd at school and had himself pretended to be the son of an oligarch. His mysterious, tragic story is told in the book, London Falling, by journalist Patrick Radden Keefe which has become a bestseller since its publication in April.
“Zac Brettler’s parents thought that they could pinpoint the moment he’d started to change,” he writes. It was at 16, when he began boarding at Mill Hill School, having attended since the age of 11. His classmates there were “the cosseted offspring of plutocrats from Russia, Kazakhstan and China”, the children of oligarchs, who wore expensive clothes and partied at flashy hotels. Radden Keefe notes that these wealthy children sometimes ordered Ubers from their boarding house to class, instead of walking eight minutes in the cold. Spending time with these super-rich international kids was a new experience for Zac, and “exposure to them had an effect”. Something about this immense wealth sparked Zac to begin pretending he was just as rich as them, telling lies about his life.
Reading the book, I immediately recognised some of my peers at Mill Hill, and the environment in which I spent my teenage years. I was there on a music bursary, but my parents were still paying the majority of the fees, which at the time were around £4,000 a term. There was no precedent of private education in my family. We lived in a three-bedroom house with a loft conversion, which my parents bought in the early 90s in a nice, but ordinary street. We went to France on holiday, and had a Ford Mondeo. However, my mother’s advancing career meant private school became an option for me.
Even as a teenager, I could tell that most of the wealth at Mill Hill wasn’t “old money”, where people spoke like the Queen and went shooting at their country houses. The richest kids at Mill Hill School were the sons and daughters of business moguls, tech entrepreneurs, property tycoons, and entertainers. One of the reasons I ended up there was because it was academically relaxed, and I was already a highly strung pre-teen, who didn’t need any extra pressure. The art and music were meant to be good, and we had a family friend there who was having a good time. It had a nice atmosphere, too.
There were lots of British pupils from ethnically diverse backgrounds whose family had made just enough cash to send them there, and some children on financial aid too. But, there were also a huge number of international students, and more specifically the children of oligarchs and plutocrats. Mill Hill is well situated near some of the rich enclaves in north London like The Bishops Avenue near Highgate, otherwise known as “Billionaires Row”. That, plus the hefty fees, leafy grounds, grand buildings, impressive facilities and boarding facilities, all helped make it attractive to rich, international families. It probably helped, too, that the school wasn’t very selective, meaning that it was accessible to a wider range of academic ability.
I experienced there the kind of wealth I’d never known existed in real life. I remember driving up to a classmate’s house, and commenting on how huge it was, only to be told that this was, in fact, where the staff lived. The actual house was an enormous, gated, pillared mansion in which we’d spent many nights getting lost. I went to houses with indoor and outdoor swimming pools, second homes on golf resorts in Spain and Florida which were bigger even than these first homes. Mothers – and step-mothers – with breast implants and Gucci sunglasses with chests filled with hundreds more pairs of designer shades, each with their own tiny pillowed drawer.
Life at Mill Hill was full of silk tea bags, huge four-wheel drives, monster trucks, and sleek, curved Bugattis and Lamborghinis. 17-year-olds with sports cars. Some parents would leave the country for weeks on end, and leaving piles of cash behind for their kids. It was presumably intended for food, or taxis, but quite a lot of it was spent on drugs.
Plenty of teenagers at all sorts of schools take drugs, of course, but what I saw is really a cautionary tale for parents who believe that paying for education means your kids will remain pure, and protected. By 16, I’d seen plenty of kids in “k-holes” from taking ketamine, and kids in my year did cocaine in the school car park. I watched some of them order drugs to their parents’ homes like it was a Domino’s pizza, a car with darkened windows pulling up outside the house half an hour later. When, in our A-Level year, we had a PSHRE lesson about budgeting at university, my classmate put up his hand and said: “Well, I’m not going to need any of that am I?”
I had a mixed time at Mill Hill. I had a few amazing teachers, who really supported me. There was real warmth, and I got access to great facilities, and I made a group of friends for life. No, they’re not the children of oligarchs, not even close, which we as adults have joked is a shame, as it would be quite nice to have access to a holiday home or two.
For all the good moments, though, I always felt like the school somehow wasn’t quite for me. The excess of it all, and the mindset that accompanied it, was out of my comfort zone, and that feeling never went away. Some oligarchs’ children were under instruction to be discreet about their wealth. There were normal, fun house parties where we’d get tipsy on alco-pops and dance to Destiny’s Child. But we also spent some chaotic, hedonistic nights, or entire weekends, at other people’s houses. What underpinned the wildness was, I’m pretty sure, the access to a huge house, loads of cash, drugs, serious booze (not just alcopops) and the lack of parental oversight.
One Saturday night, a boy in my class hired a private table at a Mayfair night club and we partied there, while he ordered bottles of Dom Perignon. Around us, older men plied beautiful, young women – perhaps girls – with drinks. By 11.30pm, my classmate had passed out from too much of one substance or another, eyes rolling in the back of his head in a way that still haunts me to this day, and ended up being taken off in an ambulance, sirens blaring.
I am grateful for the advantages I had by going to the school, and have some wonderful memories of it. But I also have some which are alarming, depressing, and bleak. As it turns out, just because a family has pots of money, it doesn’t mean that the child is having a great childhood. There were social services involved in cases at my primary state school, but they also showed up to Mill Hill, too.
It is also important to say that this was over 20 years ago. As I understand it, Mill Hill’s grades have improved, and the new head teacher has raised general standards and has zero tolerance for drug taking. When approached for comment, Mill Hill School said: “We don’t recognise the characterisation of the school contained in the book or the proposed article, which relate to events from 20 years ago. Mill Hill School serves a diverse community of pupils from a wide range of backgrounds, including many bursary pupils, and standards of pastoral care are very high. Our thoughts remain with the family of our former pupil, whose death at such a young age was a profound tragedy.”
What’s for certain, though, is that London’s oligarch population has only grown since my school days. Dubbed Moscow-on-Thames, the city I have grown up in has become an even more welcoming haven for a class of the super-rich who want to keep their money hidden. I probably only saw the tip of the iceberg of the wealth and power that exists, but it stayed with me. When I got to my university in the Midlands, I remember thinking, as my new friends got giggly on cheap student union beers and a couple of puffs of a joint – wow, this is so quaint. And honestly? It was a relief.