My name is Art Robinson, I’m the editor of Nexus and I used to be an alcoholic. A lot of you reading this are probably alcoholics. I don’t mean alcoholics in the classical sense, where you’re 55 years old with a red, bumpy nose, beat on your wife and drive a school bus just so you can yell at children.

Alcohol. Love it, hate it or just plain imbibe it, if you live in Hamilton there is simply no way to miss the liquid goodness and it’s occasionally nasty consequences. It’s hard to miss the approximately 260 licensed premises scattered across our fair city. It’s also hard to miss the bars that dominate Victoria St, Knox St, Hood St and Alexandra St, the shattered glass on the footpath after the weekend, the splatters of puke and the taxi’s ferrying people of all ages to and from the CBD on Saturday nights.

This week’s issue features youth drinking quite heavily. We’re not judging you if you do or don’t drink, or if you drink too much or not quite enough. Hopefully we inform you enough for you to make your own, educated decisions, regardless of anyone’s personal problems regarding too much or too little booze.

The Pixies (actually 'Pixies' without the 'the', but I'll stick to the definitive article here for writing purposes) were always a rather idiosyncratic bunch of alt-rock legends, be it Black Francis' lyrical propensities for surrealist films and ufology, or their disdain for music videos (the clip for their 1990 single 'Velouria' (top 20 in NZ, fact fans!) consisting of a single slo-mo shot of the band clambering down a pile of rocks).

A Facebook “hate group” set up by a Hamilton student has lead to a war of words, both on and offline. Local student Kiriana Watson, originally from Whakatane, was denied from Hamilton student bar, Bar 101, on the 20th of February this year, with the bouncer citing her tattoos as the reason for her denied entry. Watson has a small pair of tattoos on her wrist, forming kitten’s paws. John Lawrenson, owner of Bar 101, said in a phone interview that the tattoo ban was supposed to be for ‘sleeve’ style tattoos. Lawrenson believes that sleeve tattoos are for the purpose of seeming tough.

A new proposal by Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce states that tertiary education providers will lose some funding if their students continue to have high failure and dropout rates. Also, those students who fail University will not be able to continue getting student loans. Mr Joyce announced in Wellington last Tuesday in his first speech as the Tertiary Education Minister that he had three short term goals – to tackle course completion rates; ensure qualifications were meaningful and ensure student support money was not wasted.

“History is always written wrong, and so always needs to be rewritten.” -George Santayana

What the heck are Endogenous Retroviruses? One of things that Charles Darwin didn't know when he formulated his Theory of Evolution was what genes were or how they worked. He figured out traits were passed onto offspring, and they weren't always the same, but he wasn't sure exactly why. This didn't stop his idea from functioning. We still don't know exactly how gravity works but nobody questions that things tend to fall if you drop them.

Starring Gerard Butler and Jamie Foxx. For all the praise heaped upon Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler for their performances in film, I really think they’re super ugly. Jamie Foxx has one of those faces that looks like it’s about to either sneeze or fight you. Gerard Butler, best known for his role as Leonidas, King of the Gays in 300, as gone on to be in one out of three movies that come out every month. Gamer, P.S. I Love You, The Ugly Truth, Rock N’ Rolla and even Nim’s Island all feature this punching bag of a man.