My life has been punctuated by surprisingly interesting and pleasurable diversions recently, from Andi Osho's preview show (if you go to Edinburgh, GO SEE IT!! GO! GO!) to watching the Mighty Yorkshire thrash an uninspiring Middlesex, to hearing from 3 old friends. My visit to York University, however, cannot be squeezed into this category.

For those of you fortunate enough not to have been, York University is one of those esteemed institutions founded at just the wrong time. Whilst the likes of Durham and Oxbridge can boast dreaming spires, Manchester and Bristol Victorian grandeur and newer establishments dazzle with an abundance of chrome and glass and futuristic magnificence to rival the Jetsons, York exhibits a level of archictectural prowess of which communist Bucharest would have been proud. That is to say, it's made of concrete.

Not nice concrete, either, if such a thing exists. The University's own "Brief History" can only bring itself to describe it as "low-rise, prefabricated buildings around a man-made lake", which is true if a giant tin bath full of water surrounded by generous quantities of duck shit constitutes a "lake". Perhaps this gloomy picture can be brightened slightly by knowing that the Boomtown Rats have played there, and apparently students are occasionally ticked off for hunting the rabbits, though they were probably just trying to ease the monotony of being stuck for three years in a marshy, concrete jungle which makes Dagenham look picturesque.

Oh, and there was pubic hair in my shower. Quite a lot of it and, crucially, it belonged to someone else - presumably the previous occupant of my room at Alciun College. Sorry, I was going to try and inflict that image on you a little more gently, but frankly I can't think of a tactful way to put it. My "accommodation", for which we queued for over an hour because there were 600 of us and two women on the desk who seemed to want to have a nice chat with us all, was also notably devoid of lavatory paper and a waste bin. As for being "en suite", well, it was one of those student all-in-one shower rooms, by which I mean it's perfectly OK to have a shower provided you don't mind having to perch on the edge of the toilet while you're doing it - which is probably prefarable to wading around in the puddle you're creating on the floor while trying to dodge the pubes that are now floating in it. There was a somewhat superfluous shower curtain which had seen better days, but as my mate said "I was worried if I used it I'd end up laminated between it and the wall."

This is not the worst of it, though. You would think, wouldn't you, that one of the few perks of staying in student accommodation is that at least you can guarantee there'll be a cheap bar somewhere within spitting distance. Right?

Well, I don't know. There were certainly SIGNS for various bars. We even found one of them, but it was shut - students in York clearly make a run for it at the earliest possible opportunity, and apart from the rabbits basking in the drizzle knowing they won't get shot at til September, the ducks and geese merily defecating on all the walkways and the occasional stray bishop attending the General Synod (which was going on at the same time) the campus is entirely devoid of life in the summer, and, consequently, it is also devoid of beer. It was also starting to feel like an episode of The Prisoner: one sign pointing towards a bar looked promising, so we followed it; a while later, we saw another sign, pointing left, and licking our lips in anticipation, we followed that, too. There were no more signs for a while, until we saw one pointing down a hill. We were practically running at this point... and came upon a dead end. We retraced our steps and went back to the sign. Sure enough, it pointed down the hill. On the other side of the very same sign, an arrow pointed back the way we came. I stand by the fact this mysterious bar doesn't exist. If anyone has ever found it, let me know. My only consolation was that the food was fabulous. For a start, they had proper gravy - none of that "jus" rubbish Warwick served up at its far slicker conference operation the year before.

I survived, though, thanks to the Huby arm of my lovely family who took pity on me and drove me into Heslington for a couple of pints of Black Sheep. Thanks Fiona - I owe you one.