First published in March 2004, The Cheese Grater¹ is a magazine produced by the students of University College London (UCL) Union with the aims of providing plenty of humorous material while also exposing any misanthropic acts on the part of UCL, its Union along with the Sabbatical officers which run it, and many others. The magazine also makes a point of criticising Pi Magazine, UCL Union's mainstream publication, due to its failure both to take a critical view of university and union affairs and to spell words correctly. The Cheese Grater is thus quite similar in nature to Private Eye magazine, with the exceptions that the latter is in full colour, has staples and is sometimes exchanged for actual money. The magazine's name is a reference to Jeremy Bentham, a philosopher whose ideas helped shape UCL and whose preserved head is still kept in the UCL vaults.

Background

For around 60 years after the end of WWII, Pi was the only publication of the UCL Union, first starting out as a newspaper but then becoming a magazine. However, by the start of the 21st Century Pi had changed in terms of quality, content and values to the extent that René Lavanchy, at the time a first-year student, decided UCL needed a new student magazine. Having succeeded in affiliating the UCL Union Cheese Grater Magazine Society on 12 February, 2004, Lavanchy produced the first issue of the magazine with Nick Cowen, a friend of Lavanchy who had been persuaded to become the society's Treasurer. The first issue consisted of only eight photocopied pages, one of which was blank, but contained several satirical articles along with a plea for more contributions.

The following issue had to wait until the start of the next academic year, but consisted of 12 whole pages and contained The Cheese Grater's first 'special report'. The magazine went on to adopt a distinctive appearance and has now gained many contributors, with the Cheese Grater Magazine Society producing at least four eight to 12-page issues each academic year.

Content

The Cheese Grater generally contains contributions of three types, namely investigative, satirical and humorous, with issues also containing a handful of cartoons ranging from topical jokes and general humour to the down-right unusual. Unlike other student magazines, The Cheese Grater sometimes contains swear words and other offensive material, and is not designed to please everybody. While some pieces published in the magazine are deliberately semi-detached from reality, some of the parodies and satirical pieces are only slight hyperboles of characters who are already a little odder than life. Past targets of the magazine's satire have included a Pi journalist who continually wrote only about herself, with The Cheese Grater including a spoof column by her in a section devoted to satirising Pi Magazine. In the past, The Cheese Grater has also satirised both the London Student newspaper and UCL's own news offering, the imaginatively-titled UCL News.

Investigations

In terms of investigative articles, the magazine has tackled many issues, ranging from the errant acts of certain UCL Union Sabbatical officers to the behaviour of UCL itself. The magazine's first feature-length investigative article came when the London Student published an article complaining that retired UCL professor Ted Honderich had made anti-Semitic and pro-terrorist comments in a lecture given at UCL, leading Honderich to sue the London Student for libel. The Cheese Grater covered the incident in detail while deciding that the London Student was responsible for bad journalism and that Honderich had over-reacted. The magazine has since covered various other incidents, including a Sabbatical officer who was branded 'lazy and incompetent' and another who voted for himself twice and then resigned his post shortly thereafter.

Mr Chatterbox

Having first appeared in autumn, 2005, the mysterious Mr Chatterbox has been responsible for a series of feature spreads, entitled 'UCL plc', on UCL's various business schemes. The identity of Mr Chatterbox remains unknown, though it is possible that he is a single person as opposed to the many individuals who took turns at writing under that name in Evelyn Waugh's novel Vile Bodies.

Circulation

At the time of writing The Cheese Grater has a circulation of around 700 copies and is distributed to drop-boxes around UCL. The magazine is therefore only available to students, staff and passers-by, but the current issue and a series of back-issues are available from the magazine's website in PDF format.

Notable Successes

• In March 2005, the magazine managed to raise £1,800 for Comic Relief by getting Provost Malcolm Grant to shave off his moustache in front of the magazine's cameras.

• In 2006, the magazine won both 'Student Publication of the Year' at the UCL Union Arts Awards and 'Best Small Budget Publication' at the Guardian Student Media Awards.