Hello. My name is Art and I have the grand misfortune of being the Nexus editor for 2010. I assure you, it is a misfortune, because I have to find a way to juggle a dozen staff and volunteers in such a way that you get a magazine on Monday morning which is good. It’s not easy, because there’s way too many of you and way too many different ideas of what is good on top of that. A lot of you will be fine with pretty much anything we print, because you’re still young and carefree. Some of you, a vocal minority, will read Nexus only to find things to complain about and be offended by. So I will start 2010 with a blanket apology which hopefully covers the entire year and all of the contributors who make this magazine great.

We’ve got Christians and Muslims and other religious types who will be offended when I (or one of the Nexus team members) say things which you see to be blasphemous. We aren’t singling any of you out for mockery. Religion has been teased, poked and prodded by student magazines since the 1960s, when it was suddenly cool to call Christians losers and drink away your student allowance. Now, in a post-9/11 world, we’re suddenly afraid to mock Islam, even though it holds some of the same prophets in high regard as do the Christians. So, I’m sorry we sometimes tease Christians and I’m sorry we don’t tease Muslims. It’s not fair on either of you.

We’ve got feminists who will be offended if they perceive we’ve been taking a penis-centric view of the world or reviewing too many male authors in the book review section or whatever it is that pisses off feminists these days. A lot of bands are made up purely of men and a lot of the world’s leaders (and the universities leaders) are also men and we can’t change that. We aren’t going to ask women MPs questions if we can get better ones from male MPs and vice versa. So, I apologise on behalf of Nexus to all of the feminists who find us offensive. We’ll stop being publishing pictures of girls in short skirts in bars when girls in short skirts stop sending them in.

There will be exchange students who get bothered when we call their country stupid or say their language makes it sound like they’re being sick. You’ve come to one of the most peaceful, friendly places on Planet Earth and now you’re being accosted by student media who think your country should let the gays get married or stop executing the mentally retarded. Welcome to the real world. Students aren’t generally peaceful or friendly when it comes to fascists or money hungry dictators letting their countries rot from the inside, just so they can retire to Switzerland. So I am apologising to foreigners who come here and get a bit of a raw deal from university students who don’t like your country. We only have a problem with your country, not you. Unless you’re a cock.

Young students will complain that our magazine is too mature and mature students will complain that we use filthy language too much. I’m trying to limit the amount of filthy words the columnists use, but it’s very hard because they’re so fun to use in writing. If you think there’s too many swear words, then write in and call us up on it. We have several pages dedicated to your letters. The best one each week even gets a $20 book voucher for Bennett’s Bookstore (they also work at Whitcoulls I’m pretty sure) and surely THAT can’t offend you.

We are never going to please all of you all of the time. That’s not how it works. If we can have one part of the magazine that appeals to one ethnic/religious/social/political/gender group, then we have succeeded. If you want Nexus to do something and we aren’t doing it, it’s pretty much your responsibility to write to us and tell us what exactly it is we’re doing wrong. We are Nexus, we are your magazine and we are made (primarily) by students. If you want to sit on your hands complaining about how lame we are, we don’t give a shake of a shit on a stick. If you want to help us make your magazine better, you have our attention.