Stripping to Bikinis for Controversial Student Newspaper

They go together hand in hand - students and pubs. But Cambridge dons will be having a blue fit after this undergraduate draped herself across a bar in a revealing bikini for a controversial student newspaper.


The girl, who goes under the name Brittany and is studying social and political sciences at Homerton College, is the latest to pose for online students' magazine The Tab.


Previous models have been pictured in a punt and wearing boxing gloves, provoking criticism that the photographs demean women.


But Britanny, who had her photoshoot done at The Maypole, a popular student haunt, defended her decision, saying it showed beauty and brains could be found in the same package.


'Cambridge used to have this preconception that you can't be both smart and beautiful but the Tab's kind of smashing that,' she said.


'It's not like I'm naked, it's just a bit of fun. I was worried that I'd be really nervous but it was actually really casual. No pressure.'


In an interview that was filmed and posted online, Brittany reveals she had briefly considered her father's reaction - but this hadn't dampened her enthusiasm.


She says she chose a pub because she wanted to appear in a traditional English setting and used a hot chocolate instead of alcohol to build up some Dutch

courage.


'I considered beer but I thought at 11 in the morning I would probably barf,' she added.


Readers have posted appreciative comments, with one who identifies himself as Will saying: 'Shotgun a bar stool at the Maypole. Glad the Tab has kept its

sense of humour.'


Another fan, called James, wrote: 'The Maypole barman never looked so good.'


The Tab was launched in May last year to 'shake up' traditional student journalism at the university in the year it celebrated its 800th anniversary.


Its so-called Tab Totty has included a blonde student, Becky Adams, standing in a punt wearing a pink bikini and high heels, a brunette English graduate from Downing College called Heidi dressed in a kickboxer outfit, and 'size 12 stunner' Emmalina Thompsell, from Gonville and Caius, who was pictured in a bikini on her college lawn.


Courting controversy has helped it pass the one million online hits mark, compared to a print run of 20,000 for each edition of traditional student newspapers Varsity and The Cambridge Student.


Cambridge Student Union women's officer Natalie Szarek has called for the editorial team to remove the photos, saying: 'Tab Totty plays into the idea of  women as sexual objects.'


But co-founder George Marangos-Gilks, 22, a third-year politics student from Downing College, said yesterday:


'The purpose of The Tab was to get away from the patronising and dull style of other student papers. We want to give students what they want. The university declined to comment.

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