UK COLLEGES: Top 10...

1) Elicit sympathy from your friends and relatives by wrapping yourself in a shawl and crying that you have no choice but to go "across the water".

2) Discover the joys of living in digs with an 83-year-old lady from Birmingham who lays out your clothes every morning and calls you Fluffy, the name of the her dead Pekinese lap dog

3) Alternatively, live with your fellow students, name-label individual Coco Pops, and lie on the couch watching the previously unattainable Channel 5

4) Keep your clothing budget to a minimum with the help of H&M, the UK's premier discount clothing outlet

5) Become more popular by offering your Irish friends a free place to stay when they come to visit

6) Diminish your chances of having to ask "Do you want to go large?" in your future career

7) Have fun with your local shopkeeper/lounge girl/postman/charity worker by whipping out your student card at every opportunity and asking them for the leprechaun discount

8) Learn big words and new accents

9) Tell people you can Riverdance and they will believe you

10) Annoy your parents who have slaved over a hot railroad track to get you an education by responding to their "How's Newcastle?" questions with a pitying look and then, "You can never understand, you never had to emigrate…"