The party’s over for bad costume drama — and about time, too

It's not a traditional barometer, but I’m convinced you can measure social progress in fancy dress. This week a faction of students at the University of Kent started a costume drama with their student union, which wants to ban cowboy outfits in case they cause offence — the students claim the move is anti-freedom of expression. Other outfits already prohibited include Mexican, Native American, priest and Tory.

Certainly, there was far less sensitivity when I started university a decade ago this month (the passage of time is a meltdown for a separate column). Over three years, I was invited to parties (plural) with the theme “CEOs and corporate hoes”. Male students dressed as Gordon Gekkos, females played secretaries in skimpy clothes. As an adolescent feminist, this rankled; as an adolescent desperate to appear “up for a laugh” I went along with the misogynistic charade.

I also remember “rock stars and gold diggers” — the MTV version of “CEOs and corporate hoes” — being perfectly normal for a Wednesday evening out. Not that we were a crass minority — these themes were swapped around every campus in the country.

If you could look back at university without squirming, you weren’t doing it right. But I know the above themes wouldn’t fly at a party these days. That does not indicate the growth of new, draconian limits on freedom of expression — it shows that today casual misogyny is (rightly) outlawed. At the time, no one cared.

By contrast, today’s student party themes are raked over and regularly rescinded. Undeniably, cowboys are at the lesser end of offensiveness — in fact, the move suggests the union is tiptoeing around new mores, terrified of offending. But frankly, if a few lamer themes are casualties, it doesn’t mean democracy is collapsing — freedom of expression can’t be invoked as a licence for unpleasantness.

I feel Charlie’s pain over bike thieves

Poor Charlie Condell, the 18-year- old trying to become the youngest person to cycle around the world. He’s currently in northern Queensland, and might be staying there as someone’s nicked his bike.

“I know you can always get another one but that particular bike has brought me through a lot of amazing experiences,” said Condell.

I behaved with far less dignity when someone stole mine from outside a Sainsbury’s in north London, where I’d nipped in to buy hummus for a dinner party, scoring a full house on smug middle-class bingo in the process. Perhaps the thief wanted to teach me a lesson.

Who wants to be a princess anyway?

Speaking of troubling expressions of masculinity and femininity (see above), a new generation of Hollywood mothers are rejecting Disney’s passive heroines. Keira Knightley, mother of three-year-old Edie, told chat show Ellen DeGeneres that she forbids her daughter from watching certain Disney films. Cinderella, “because she waits around for a rich guy to rescue her. Little Mermaid [too] — do not give your voice up for a man.”

Meanwhile, Kristen Bell is discomfited by Snow White and consent. “Don’t you think it’s weird that the prince kisses Snow White without her permission?” she has asked her daughters. Frankly, my mother never had much cause to worry — I always preferred Disney films with animal protagonists to anything with a sparkly slipper or a prince. But I understand why Bell and Knightley are squirming.

Cartoons aren’t reality but tales of distressed damsels crescendoing to a marriage — victory! — feel like throwbacks: credit kids with some intelligence. Also, the songs in The Lion King are miles superior.

Some landlords are just petty despots

The Government plans to penalise landlords who let out sub-standard rooms. Good — though it merely nudges at the extent of the problem.

The worst landlord I had lacked any decency. One Thursday our loo’s flush went on the blink; when we asked him to send a handyman he left us in limbo for 48 hours before saying he could get one out the next Wednesday. In the meantime, he advised we use a bucket.

His other best hits included gaslighting us over a broken sink and yelling at me when I asked him to install the internet. The flat was fine but he was vile — perhaps they should be asked to sit a decency test?