As students flock back to town, new students starting at Reading University have been warned to beware of shady characters trading on their naïveté as the Freshers Fayre takes place in the Students' Union.

nuGay and nuLesbian Labour, Gay and Lesbian Tories Against the Whale and for the Bomb, the Far Too Damn Liberal If You Ask Me Democrats and the Greens will be fighting to prove to the new intake which one is the looniest party left in town. Already the Development and External Affairs Office has warned students to avoid the Lib Dems for holding an monthly 'Liberal Drinks' session which has been blamed on a spate of students knocking on doors over the past year.

The Highways Agency has also been preparing for the return of students by rushing through the last of the summer's road repair schemes before cone hunting season starts in Earnest, a small village to the south of the Whiteknights Campus.