It was several nights before Christmas and all through the house, nothing was stirring apart from me, in the kitchen, with piles and piles of meat. I was creating an edible homage to one of the greatest spectacles of all time, a sacra-licious nativity scene was a diorama depicting the birth of our savory saviour. […]

Playing this sequel feels like you’ve made a decision to date the prettier sister, but over dinner realised that she is brain-numbingly stupid

All the characters, or ‘real people’ as the titles like to emphasise, have annoying sides to them.

An estimated 5,000 students from Manchester’s universities and colleges marched through the city centre last week. Lecturers, parents, and local politicians joined students in bringing Oxford Road to a standstill.

Thomas is an award winning script writer for both television and stage.

Student Direct: Mancunion, as The Mancunion was known last year, was awarded runner-up in the Guardian Student Media Awards. The River, a Kingston University publication, took first place.

In a back room at Manchester’s Cornerhouse, a small audience was joined by a panel of three authors who have all won awards in the field of horror fiction.

Police charged unarmed, peaceful protesters on horseback and used “heavy-handed” tactics to disrupt protests on Oxford Road last week.

Combined studies will no longer be offered as a degree option by the University of Manchester. The course will be phased out, allowing this year’s new undergraduates to complete their final year, but no candidates will be admitted in 2011/12.The course allowed students to study in two separate and otherwise unrelated academic areas. The first year of the course featured a mandatory volunteering project, where students raised money and awareness for charities in Manchester both nationally and internationally.Students were not informed about the possibility of the course being withdrawn until the decision was finalised. In the final weeks of the last academic year, students were shown around the potential location for a new combined studies common room, and encouraged to give their feedback.In July, new and returning students were sent a letter informing them that “following a review of the programme by the Faculty of Humanities[…] Combined Studies will admit its final cohort of first year students in 2010.google

A University of Manchester academic was charged with assaulting a police officer last week. The arrest was made during the third national day of action against the planned cuts to higher education and the proposed rise in tuition fees.

An ethical dilemma: Two people take an exam. They are of near equal intelligence and good at their subject. One studies for six hours a day before their exam and gets a 2:1. The other student takes a pill for concentration and revises for 10 hours a day. They get a first. The question is: is it cheating? Does the person with a pill for concentration have an unfair advantage?

High-profile figures, including Noam Chomsky and Billy Bragg, have sent messages of support to the students occupying a University of Manchester building.

A 20-year-old female student was attacked in Withington last week as she made her way home from a night out. Police are warning students to take extra care when walking home alone.

The Mancunion speaks to Ed Miliband ahead of his Labour Leadership victory as he gives a Q&A session at University Place.

“I want my images to show them not as victims, but survivors.”

Demonstrators from Manchester were among the first to break into Tory headquarters in London last week, as up to 50,000 marched on Embankment to protest education cuts and a rise in tuition fees.

Tom Hurndall, a Manchester Metropolitan University student, was shot and killed by an Israeli sniper in April 2003. Hurndall was a photographer, and a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), an organisation that use non-violent protest against the Israeli military in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Voting is underway to determine whether future Union policy should be decided by an online voting system.

Two very different poets introduced Magma to the Manchester Literature Festival, giving the audience an extraordinary display of the talent and skill, which lines the pages of the ever-growing poetry magazine. Jacqueline Saphra challenged the limit of her listeners’ squeamish boundaries with a (thankfully, brief) glance at her own conception, while Alan Buckley somehow managed […]

“I am who I am because of everyone” was the tag phrase of the old advertising campaign of a certain mobile phone company, and a tag phrase that also I took personal disagreement with, despite it being a very arguable, if pretentious, slogan.