The Best New University Courses for 09/10

These days, everyone goes to university. People don’t start their first full-time job until they have enough letters after their name to earn a thousand points on a Scrabble board. But for every Business, Law or Philosophy and Psychology degree, there’s a useless one, like Surfing, Klingon or Applied Mathematics. And even more new degrees are being opened every year. I took a look at some of them, like a voyeur in an exhibitionist factory.

First off, Paris Hiltonology at Dundee University is an excellent degree. Obviously it leads to a BSc, being a highly scientific program. Classes include Canine Shrinkage: The Fundamentals, Vacuity 101 and BFF Selection. An extended Press Manipulation module lasts for two semesters, with the first being a general introduction and the second looking at detailed ways to promote your sex tape. Having read through the course materials, I can see this being a very worthwhile and interesting course. Many people believe that by 2020 the most common job in the developed world will be ‘Vacuous Celebrity’, so this qualification will be a boon to all interested. A warning, though: this will be a tough course to be accepted into. Anyone with a grade average of C or above is unlikely to be considered.

Both Oxford and Cambridge will this year begin offering an MA in Running Around in Circles. This is definitely going to be an advanced course, with both practical and theory elements. Of the two universities, I’d recommend Oxford’s programme over Cambridge’s, as the former has invested £27million in a new circle-running stadium and wind-tunnel.

The Online University of North America and Europe is offering a new course, entitled Making Money Using the Internet. There are no entrance qualifications needed, just send a cheque for $1200 to their PO number and you’ll be enrolled. I wish I could say more about this course, but I still haven’t received the materials yet, and I was accepted over six months ago. Sorry!

For those of you who are in full-time employment but who wish to expand your brainclout, there are also many exciting and interesting night courses available. I highly recommend the Toronto School of Continuing Studies’ Certificate in Wife Appreciation. From full-bodied to slightly fruity, this course will let you appreciate wives of all varieties. Course fees include samples of the wives and a book to make your own notes in. I really enjoyed this course, having had very little experience of wives in the past; from the first class to the last, I found myself learning more and more while having fun (and testing a lot of wives, too!).

Finally, MIT has a new course entitled Extreme Makeover: Home Edition Studies. With one class taught by Ty Pennington himself, this course covers such subjects as Being as Pathetic as Possible to Get on the Show, Shelves: How Many is Too Many?, Bullying a Neighbourhood into Working for Free and What to do When the Truck Breaks Down and Won’t Move Out of the Way of the New House in the Big Reveal. This is a terrible course with no redeeming features. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. And not just because they refused to decorate my apartment on the grounds that I’m “not tragic enough.”

Bloody students, with their long hair and their alcopops and their Jean Paul Satre and their low-cut jeans…in my day it were conscription or you’d work down t’ mines.

The Latest Phobias Reviewed!

The American Psychiatric Association has just released this season’s big new phobias, and I got my hands on some of them. I’m going to give them all a try, safe in the knowledge that when it comes to reviewing things, The Imaginary Reviewer fears nothing!

Sinojumpiphobia is the fear that everyone in China will simultaneously jump up and down on the spot, causing the world’s orbit to change. I tried this phobia before going out to town and it was pretty scary. Firstly, any kind of shaking made me think that the Chinese government had forced the country’s population to do skipping rope practise at once. A large truck drove by and I shat myself, quite literally. While I was in the underwear shop buying replacement pants I felt a nearby elevator drop and thought I was going to die. Sinojumpiphobia is one intense new fear, and gets a hefty eight on the Stephen King Scale.

Next on the list was Metallipickuphobia, or, the fear of being in a rock concert and the band stopping the set so they can tell you that your parents are waiting for you in the car outside. This is so named because the first people to get this fear were in a Metallica gig. I tested this fear during a normal working day, and I have to say, it’s not very effective; my life was pretty unaffected by this worry. However, when I applied the phobia before going to see Death By Dry Hump at the Toronto Autobahn, I needed to leave the building each time the band stopped playing to talk to the audience. The lead singer had just said ‘Hello Toronto!’ and I had to run out like Cinderella at midnight. Terrifying.

Amimikaphobia is a very new fear, but isn’t entirely uncommon. It is the fear of being befriended by high-pitched ‘singer’ Mika. I had this phobia to a small extent already, but when I tested it, my entire life became dedicated to finding out where Mika was and what he was doing, so that I could make plans to avoid him, should he be nearby. My mind was full of the ‘fun things’ Mika would want to do when he and I somehow became friends; watching films on my sofa, making hotdogs, going to parties. I would shudder as I considered the hatred my friends would show me for bringing Mika to parties with me, not listening to my claims that he wouldn’t say no. My fear became so bad that I spent the rest of the week hiding in a hole. This is one of the most potent and effective phobias I have ever tested, even scarier than OneNightinParisPhobia, the fear of discovering Paris Hilton made a sex tape with you while you were drunk and it's now available all over the internet.

Reviewophobia was a very harrowing phobia to test. As one could gather from the name, it is a fear of reviews, and as my life revolves around them, I was incredibly distressed during this time. Each time I saw or thought of reviews, I was terrified, and this made it very hard to exist in my home, where I am constantly surrounded by reviews. For instance, the first review I ever wrote (for Treasure Island Dizzy on the ZX Spectrum) is framed on the wall in my living room. I destroyed this memento in a panicked moment, meaning I have since had to frame a copy of my second ever review (of Mayfair, June 1991 issue). Over dinner one night, my wife asked me what I thought of the meal, and just as I was about to critically analyse the stewed dumplings my fear kicked in and I spent the rest of the evening under the dining room table. A very effective fear.

For more information about these phobias, please send an email to the American Psychological Association. For more information about colon cancer, see a doctor. For more information about the Imaginary Review, see our website at www.imaginary-review.blogspot.com.

Celebrity Fragrance Update

The big craze among celebrities these days is the release of a perfume with their name on it. Sarah Jessica Parker has released ‘Horseface’ while Christina Aguilera spent hours in a lab making her eponymous fragrance. There are many fictional characters who have their own perfumes, too, including Miss Piggy, Jade Goody and Paris Hilton. The Imaginary Review decided to have a sniff and see what the new additions to this list are like.

Alan Cumming released ‘Cumming: The Fragrance’ last year, and has spent all his time since then trying to follow it up with another. Now, he has finally finished his work, and the result is 'Cumming: On Your Neck'. The perfume smells a little wheaty, with a saltiness and bitterness to it that brings to mind memories of my teenage years. It isn't the most pleasant smell I've encountered, but not the worst, either.

The second fragrance that we tried was 'Lockhart', from a fictional character, Tifa Lockhart from the video game Final Fantasy 7. This scent is both playful and sincere, with a heavy emphasis on crude oil and bone marrow. Tifa herself has commented that she had a large hand in the creation process, and that the smell was designed to resemble the smells that she remembers from inside the womb. One problem that I noted with Lockhart was that the scent attracts weasels, and when wearing it I could not escape from the onset of small mammals. Otherwise, this perfume made me feel special, like a beautiful woman, which is nice because I am an ugly, ugly man.

Ad for Tifa Lockhart's new Fragrance, 'Lockhart'

Finally, dancing singers The Pussycat Dolls have released their own set of fragrances which come in a box set of six bottles, one for each member of the band. To be honest, when I first tested the scents I thought there had been a mistake, as only one bottle contained perfume; the other were all full of water. But when I contacted the distribution company, they confirmed that this was intentional. It seems that only one of the Pussycat Dolls' fragrances actually does anything, much like the band themselves. The smell is quite nice, but as soon as I had stopped smelling it, I couldn't remember anything about it. My notes say that it had elements of cinnamon and angst, but I have no recollection of it.