News

Of the places where I conducted research in preparation for my undergraduate thesis, the National Archives in London significantly surpasses the rest in terms of resources, efficiency, and organization. Here you can find documents relevant to military, family history, maritime, diplomatic, political and colonial queries. This hidden gem is surprisingly neglected by university students, as I discovered during those long summer days when I was often the youngest visitor in the reading rooms.

I came to love my routine. Every day, at the earliest hour, I would travel on the District Line to Richmond, a 40-minute ride from Central London. I would get off at the Kew Gardens station and walk for ten minutes past quaint suburban streets until I saw the former World War I hospital, surrounded by fountains and flowers. On the first floor, I would pass the Talks Room, where first-time visitors can attend an information session about navigating the building and conducting research. Near the cafeteria, the same locker took my backpack, while my laptop, digital camera and reader's ticket came with me upstairs to the Document Reading Room.

On Monday afternoon I returned home covered in mud, sunburnt, eye-droopingly tired, blistered and euphoric. I had just spent the best part of a week at Glastonbury festival, watching performances from some of the biggest names in music, exploring huge art installations and camping in the mud with friends.

Inevitably, all the talk before it started was about the weather and the conditions at the farm in Somerset where Glastonbury is held each year. It is clichéd but true that the British love talking about the weather, and no more so than at music festivals. As the 180,000 campers arrived on Wednesday and Thursday the site was covered in thick, sticky mud, making it difficult to walk anywhere. However, it wasn't long before people embraced the mud. I saw crowds gather at the slippiest parts to cheer whenever someone fell over, old wellington boots arranged in to ‘Welly Henge' (above), and people swimming/rolling in the deepest puddles.

Despite the best efforts of the weather though, the main focus of the weekend was of course the music. In three days I saw some of the most eclectic musical performers of pop, dubstep, folk, blues, house...the list is endless at Glastonbury. However, there were certainly some highlights.

Every week we bring you a round up of all the student news from the past week, as well as the trends hitting the web at the moment. This week's includes criticisms of university admissions and teacher strike action, a well as hand hackers and a great rush hour video from The Netherlands.

With Wimbledon taking place at the moment we thought what better way to describe what it is really like than to describe to you a typical day for a member of the crowd at Wimbledon. So sit back, and enjoy our light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek diary of a day at the famous tennis tournament:

8pm (the night before): Just settled down in to my place in the queue. It's raining a bit, but I brought a tent with me so I should be fine.

6am: The stewards woke everyone up and I've taken my tent down. Turns out it wasn't especially waterproof.

Thousands of revellers gathered at Stonehenge this morning to celebrate the longest day of the year. As part of an ancient tradition, 18,000 druids, hippies, pagans and tourists all travelled to the historic site to witness the sunrise at 4.43am that marked the official start of summer in the UK.

Called the summer solstice, the 21st June has been a sacred highlight in the Pagan calendar for thousands of years,