People who reserve seats in the library deserve a special place in hell, just for them

I don’t think I’m asking for much: eight hours of sleep, a hearty cooked breakfast in the comfort of my own home, and then enough revision time at a spacious table with a plug socket to get me the first that £9,000 a year should guarantee.

This sounds doable. But for some reason, the latter of these things is made far more difficult to attain by the arsehole seat-reservers in the library.

I don’t know who you think you are, but I’m here to call you out on your bullshit.

Your backpack can’t revise on your behalf

You stroll into your favourite library, backpack bulging like a year seven on their first day of secondary school. You're ready to smash chapter sixteen, and then you see it: rows and rows of empty seats, all reserved by absentee dickheads who seem to think that they can study via a new form of backpack osmosis. Your Fjallraven Kanken might make you feel intelligent, but those textbooks aren’t going to open themselves.

I’m here, ready. I didn’t snooze my 07.30 alarm, I missed out on Naked Attraction so I’d be well-rested enough for a long day of revision, and I didn’t even forget my student ID this time. You’ve reserved a seat that could have been mine, and you’re not even here to use it.

Nor can your friends reserve on your behalf because they chose to wake up earlier

Even more irritating than those with the audacity to leave their bag in their stead while they nip to the cafe for a sandwich are the mates that do it for them. They take it in turns, one popping back with a takeaway coffee cup in tow, the other who will "only be five minutes".

It’s always the best tables, too. The long ones with plugs and USB ports, wheelie chairs and enough seclusion that you can munch on your snacks without fear of persecution. Your housemate having the motivation to queue for twenty minutes before the library even opens does not mean you should reap the rewards.

First year doesn’t even count!!

But is there anything more annoying than seeing a single baby-faced fresher surrounded by reserved seats that they’re keeping safe for their equally-fresh friends? And don't give the "yeah, but I’m doing a year abroad, and first year counts for that!!!" excuse, it's still not good enough.

Second and third years don't care if you’re jetting off for an “educational” year of going to festivals and taking pics on the beach in Australia. Some of us are trying (and failing) to graduate on time, with a good enough grade that we won’t be forced to move back to our hometown and waitress to pay the rent until we die. We all know you have a lovely, spacious desk in halls, so why don’t you fuck off back there and use it?

And then when their mates finally arrive, it’s basically a given that first years sit around talking about who that girl from the second floor pulled last night, as if the library is their personal common room.

Hence, the undeniable truth: it is fundamentally wrong for you to reserve a seat in the library, and if you’re one of the people that do, you need to take a long, hard look at yourself and start slumming it like the rest of us.