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The endless parties to attend! The endless dress codes to adhere to! THE PRESENTS TO BUY!
This is where is gets really difficult. After two or three years at this fancy-dress mad university, you’ve probably got outfits to meet every requirement from magical creatures to 999 theme, and you’ve probably got enough dresses/shirts to wear in rotation to smarter parties. But what to buy people as a gift?
It’s a 21st! You want it to be meaningful, or unusual. When people ask your friend, “So, did you get any nice birthday presents?” you want them to answer: “Yes!” and for your present to number among the gifts they count among their favourites.
Perhaps you’re teaming up with some friend to get a joint gift, or perhaps you’re going it along. Ever concerned for our readers’ best interests, The Yorker would like to provide you with some inspiration, on interesting and unique gifts to give your good friends when they hit vingt-et-un.
A space-hopper.
Their parents will probably give them something that they can keep for the rest of their life, but you can give them something that will be fun here and now! They’ll look back on this day when they’re old and grey (wearing the cufflinks/necklace their parents gave them) with happy memories of bouncing up and down the length of the garden. Plus, exciting as 21sts are, it’s nice to do something that makes you feel like a child again on a big milestone birthday.
In this same vein...
A slinky.
“A spring, a spring, a marvelous thing, Everyone knows it's Slinky”
A paddling pool.
Surely a summer birthday party in the garden with lots of Pimms can only be improved by a paddling pool?
A water pistol.
Ditto.
For those more sophisticated friends, or at least, for those who are excited about turning 21 and being an adult, rather than bewailing their ending youth...
A bottle of something yummy.
There are an increasing number of shops opening up in town where one can buy weird and wonderful bottles of yummy somethings. There’s one on Low Petergate and another on High Ousegate, which are full of glass flagons of chocolate, toffee, and almond vodkas; mango, basil, and pistachio oils; orange, raspberry and pear vinegars. You get the picture: oils, vinegars, and booze in every flavour under the sun.
Maybe not all your friends would appreciate a bottle of vinegar for their birthday (although the raspberry vinegar they sell is amazing and you should try it anyway). But you can choose whatever sort of bottle you like in these shops... old fashioned ginger-beer style bottles with stoppers that you can pop on and off... bottles that come in pairs and which fit together like yin and yang... tall thin elegant bottles... little round casks... bottles in the form of muscular male torsos... bottles shaped like cellos.
Imagine being given a strapping torso full of chocolate vodka, a cello full of Limoncello, a yin-yang with basil oil in one half, and balsamic vinegar in the other? A very nice birthday present.
A Food Hamper.
All those delis in town, all those obscure pâtés you’ve yet to try – wild boar, lobster, venison – all those different varieties of tea and biscuits in Betty’s, all those crazy flavoured wines and beers in The Bottle. A 21st birthday is the prefect excuse to buy all these decadences, and hopefully your friend will invite you round for a luxury cuppa/cold brew to sample the goods.
Sparkling Red Wine.
Champagne is always a winner, or even a bottle of the increasingly trendy, and equally bubbly Italian alternative: Prosecco. But you’ve probably already thought of this. Red sparkling wine, however, is a little harder to come by but worth hunting down. Google it.
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