MM Magazine e-edition June/July 2019

Manchester Day: 10th birthday of festival brings colour to the streets

AMIR KHAN : ‘I WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT I LEARN FROM MY MISTAKES’

The rise and fall of the gig economy: “I don’t know if they can fix what they’ve done”

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Pro-Wrestling EVE: Wrestle Queendom II, Sonal Lad

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Rising up against the gig economy, Molly Millar

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Barry Purves and the Toad of Toad Hall, Adam Maidment

10 Poker star Jonathan Little offers advice on how to get started in the world of poker, Jacque Talbot

12 Porn and the battle for ownership of the #MeToo movement, Joe Hadden

14 Funeral wish lists and casket crafting: Welcome to Coffin Club, Ashleigh Grady

16 Amir Khan: King Khan's Saudi Arabian Odyssey, Will Jennings 18 Panache and pride: Manchester Day, John Varga

20 The antisemitic dilemma, Cecilia Mitchell

22 Fight against food wastage rages on, Henry DiStasio

24 Medicinal cannabis: the UK’s means of avoiding an opioid crisis? Philip K. Marzouk 26 Haunted Manchester, Lucy Milburn

28 From Rotterdam to Manchester, Georgina Coupe

Pro-Wrestling EVE: Wrestle Queendom II

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SONAL LAD

ONDON based female wrestling promotion Pro-Wrestling: EVE is set to make history this Sunday with their event Wrestle Queendom II in the historic York Hall in Bethnal Green.

Following their successful 2018 Wrestle Queendom, the Wrestle Queendom II card has some of the best female wrestlers from across the world in what’s set to be the largest women’s wrestling event to take place in Europe. Starting in Brighton on Friday, with a small event in London on Saturday before Wrestle Queendom II on Sunday, the promotion has made a weekend out of their shows.

Pro-Wrestling EVE was founded by Emily and Dann Read in 2010 who built the company in a time where change was needed in an industry. It was a time where, no matter how hard they worked, women weren’t being taken seriously at all and weren’t being given opportunities.

After having their daughter, Emily and Dann wanted to make a change in a soci-

ety. They didn’t want their daughter to think that, no matter how hard she works, because of her gender, she isn’t going to get the same opportunities as men. They wanted somewhere that children of all ages and genders could see real-life female superheroes.

Speaking to Emily and Dann, they explained where the inspiration for the Wrestle Queendom show came from and how it stemmed from similar beliefs that formed the company.

Emily said: “We are very much about two things in EVE. Number one, in order to actually enact change, you have to make bold moves and you really to make people take notice. Number two, the confidence and knowledge in our wrestlers, they are women wrestlers, but they are also some of the best wrestlers on the planet and so why shouldn’t they be running the best venues.

“Especially in terms of York Hall, it’s known for hosting men’s boxing. So it’s really a case of saying, we’ll go into the boys

club and we’ll show everyone we can put on the biggest women’s wrestling event in Europe in history.”

When asked what fans can expect from the show, Dann makes it clear that they are holding a show with some of the best wrestling in the world and doing it on a global scale.

He said: “We are bringing people from the states like Su Yung and Jordynne Grace in addition to people from Japan like those from Stardom and Kagetsu. When you factor those in with the best talent you have in Kay Lee Rae and Viper and Nina Samuels and the upcoming talent such as Roxxie and Night Shade, it really is a platform for showcasing the best in wrestling today and the best in wrestling tomorrow. This isn’t just a UK show - it really is the best wrestling in the world.

Looking at the card, it is impossible not to see what Dann is talking about. Combining so many different types of matches, wrestlers and styles, there is something for

everybody to enjoy whether you’re a diehard wrestling fan or not.

To start the show, Wrestle Queendom II has some amazing singles matches. Alongside a match between America’s Roxxi and the 23-year-old Japanese veteran Arisa Hoshiki, there is the STARDOM Presentation Match between the amazing Kagetsu and an unknown opponent.

As Dann emphasised, Pro: Wrestling EVE prides itself of bringing the best talent in the world and, with the amount of talent from Japan’s all-female promotion Stardom, it’s showing off two pioneering female promotions.

Alongside these matches, there are some untraditional matches which are more chaotic. In an ‘Anything Goes’ between Impact’s ‘Bloody Bride’ Su Yung and Irish Session Moth Martina could be brutal, it could be funny or it even a mixture of both. Then, the ‘Grudge Match’ between Jordynne Grace and Laura Di Matteo is another match where the possibilities are endless for what could happen.

The first of three title matches is for the tag team championships.

With four strong women across the match, there will be no shortage of action between the teams Medusa Complex (Mille McKenzie and Charli Evans) and WrestleFriends (Erin Angel and Jetta).

As part of a co-main event, Utami Hayashishita is out to retain her EVE International Championship against two opponents after winning the title in in Japan at the Stardom 8th Anniversary show. However, with two other opponents and being able to lose the title without being involved, she isn’t in for an easy fight. The versatile Jamie Hayter and former EVE champion Nina Samuels are going to be tough competition and show the world a range of styles and offence.

The second of the main events is for the EVE Championship where champion Kay Lee Ray defends her title against the challenger Viper. With two top stars in British wrestling and the added history between the two, the stakes in this match are even higher. Kay Lee Ray is out to cement her legacy in EVE in her first reign as champion. However, Viper will be out to get her first reign as EVE champion to add to her already huge list of accomplishments.

As a wrestling fan, it’s impossible not to look at this card and get very excited with the depth of the card and the variety of talent from across the world with different specialities. Through Wrestle Queendom II, Pro-Wrestling EVE are showing why women’s wrestling is at the top of its game and can hold its own in such a huge event after the success of

last year’s tournament.

Although last year’s Wrestle Queendom was a huge success, Pro-Wrestling EVE are not taking it for granted and feeling satisfied with the past. After the response from some wrestling fans was less than positive, believing that after one show they should be happy, it seems as if the promotion is only at the start of their journey to create change in the industry.

Emily explains how she didn’t want to settle for just one show and compared it to the brief WWE Wrestlemania moment this year that the company claimed to emphasise their ‘women’s revolution.’

Dann said: “For us, it’s not a journey that has one stop, it’s a long journey that we’re on and very hard. You’re up against people who say there isn’t a problem when there is. For us, what are we going to do next? How are we going to make this bigger? How are we going to make this different from a creative standpoint? It’s us doing our part in correcting the misjudgements of many. We were very happy with last year, but what we can’t do is keep focusing on what we have done. It’s a society thing.”

The company prides itself on putting on shows accessible to everyone, whether young, old, a wrestling fan or not. Rules are set in place before every show to allow everyone to enjoy the show, rules that are less about control but being a decent human being.

The main purpose of ProWrestling EVE is to create a positive and safe environment to entertain people and Wrestle Queendom II this Sunday is no exception.

When asked why people should attend Wrestle Queendom II, both Emily and Dann have very similar answers. If this doesn’t persuade you to watch it, then nothing will.

Dan said: “If you’re a wrestling fan, come and watch the best wrestling in the world. I wouldn’t say that if I didn’t genuinely think that. If you’ve never watched an EVE show before, put all your preconceptions of what you think women’s wrestling is, and come watch this wrestling show.”

Emily said: “Do you want to be wowed and entertained? Watch Wrestle Queendom II!” Pro-Wrestling EVE is a pioneer in women’s wrestling and the larger topic of equality within the wrestling business. Wrestle Queendom is another example of the promotion taking matters into their own hands and making a change in a pro-active way.

Wrestle Queendom II runs on Sunday 30th June at York Hall, Bethnal Green and tickets can be bought from Eventbrite and meet and greets can be bought from the EVE website.

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Barry Purves and the Toad of Toad Hall A relationship between an animator and a puppet, spanning far beyond Cos grove Hall and British animation history BEHIND THE SCENES: Barry Purves on set of Wind In The Willows. (Photo credit: Barry Purves/Cosgrove Hall Films).

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By Adam Maidment

or around forty-five years, Brian Cosgrove and Mark Hall, who together founded the Cosgrove Hall Films studio imprint, were behind some of the most loved children’s television shows including Danger Mouse, Bill & Ben, and Postman Pat. Following its closure in 2009, the studio needed a place to keep its archives of animation history. In 2017, that place went to Waterside Arts in Sale. The space now houses 2D hand drawn animations, scripts, and stop motion puppets that are part of childhood memories.

But, for almost thirty years, some particular puppets were missing from that archive.

A large group of puppets used for the main characters in 1983’s Wind In The Willows, and its subsequent 1984-87 television series, were presumed lost.

Earlier this year, it was revealed that 25 puppets, made out of cast resin with metal jointed skeletons, had been found – safely kept in storage. In April, they were put up for auction – estimated to be worth around £10,000.

Now, the puppets are back where they belong with the rest of Cosgrove Hall history at Waterside and will appear in a forthcoming exhibition at the end of the year.

The puppets were brought to life by a team of animators, who would meticulously move each puppet frame by frame. One of those animators was the Oscar and BAFTA nominated Barry Purves.

Alongside Wind In The Willows, Barry has worked on other children’s shows including Bob The Builder and Rupert Bear, as well as productions with directors Tim Burton and Peter Jackson.

We caught up with Barry to talk about his fondest memories working on the tale of Mr Toad and how much of an impact the film, alongside Cosgrove Hall, has had on the animation world in Hollywood today.

This year marks 35 years since the Wind In The Willows TV show first began airing. How special was the film and the show to your career?

It was six years of my life. Seeing the puppet again has brought back all sorts of emotions. It wasn’t exactly the start of my career, but it was right at the beginning.

THE GANG TOGETHER AGAIN The puppets from It wasn’t a job to work on something that the original productions will be part of a new exhibition. (Photo credit: Jason Lock/Cosgrove Hall Films). had such amazing production values for a children’s show. It was like the Downton Abbey of children’s television: we fussed over every knife, every plate, every detail of the costume, none of which you can go out and buy.

You can’t go out and buy a nine inch suit for Mr Toad, you had to be creative so that the set looked correct on screen.

I think what was joyous was Mark Hall and Brian Cosgrove – they cared about the atmosphere on the sets, they cared about the scripts, the way things were filmed, and they encouraged you to contribute. It was very much a team effort, it started with

Mark and Brian and a very good adaptation of the book.

It was a training ground for so many artists, everybody has gone on to do such wonderful things. I thank Mark and Brian for creating a good environment for us all.

What was the process like to film?

It was terrifying to film because we couldn’t tell what we were doing. There were no monitors to show us what we were filming.

When we were filming, we just had the sets, puppets, and a 16 millimeter Bolex camera. So, we were, in a sense, working blind in the way that Ray Harryhausen worked, you know.

If you moved a puppet, you moved him you couldn’t go back.

Were there any specific behaviours or attitudes that you had to display through the animation of Mr Toad?

We had to act the characters out, which sounds like an odd way to think about it.

“It may not be bold to say that without Cosgrove Hall, you wouldn’t get these big films today.”

The animators were cast as particular characters and you animated that character and nobody else did. So, basically, your qualities came out in him.

There’s a sort of osmosis, after playing a character for six years, Mr Toad starts looking like you and you start looking like him, but that’s not a bad thing – there are worse characters.

It’s funny, animation is sort of like a mask that rather than hiding, reveals you. You can safely behave in a way that you can’t

behave ordinarily in animation. It’s like putting on a mask, it gives you licence to be outrageous or to be a diva. Toad was a drama queen and a diva, and we loved him for it.

What was it like seeing the puppet again after all these years?

He is so ingrained in my hand, there’s a muscle memory that will always be there.

This is the original puppet, and this is the real one we used. My thumb feels the buttons on his suit I felt thirty years ago.

That’s the joy of stop-motion, you can touch it.

Today it’s all about keyboards and things and, stop-motion still happens today, but there were real sets, no green screens. It was complete, and it was all about your hand. What you did ended up on screen.

Toad’s family motto is 'semper bufo', which means ‘toad forever’ or 'always a toad' and I think, yeah, that’s about right.

After six years of working with him, he’s part of me and I’d love to revisit him somehow in some shape or form.

He is an iconic character.

He is. He’s naughty and he always gets away with it. He has a passion and heaven help us when we don’t have a passion for things, wherever it’s the countryside, cars, or caravans.

He’s a multifaceted character, selfish perhaps, but his friends love him and he loves his friends. He’s just this bundle of energy and it was such fun to animate.

David Jason caught the voice perfectly.

He is such a gorgeous character, he’s a naughty boy that won’t grow up and he has such passion for everything he does.

I think that sort of thing echoes in my career and in my life now, about not wanting to waste time.

Why do you think the story has resonated with audiences for so long?

It’s a great story about friendship and It

TOAD FOREVER: Barry and Mr Toad during production in 1984. (Photo credit: Barry Purves/Cosgrove Hall Films).

has that melancholy feel in it that this may be the last summer. There’s a shadow of things changing.

It’s a very profound book, especially about the joy of the countryside. Go and sit by the river and enjoy a picnic, do look at the birds and butterflies while they’re still there, and have the passion of Toad.

What was it like working with such an esteemed cast of actors?

What a luxury to have giants of British acting like Michael Hordern, Ian Carmichael, David Jason, Beryl Reid, and Una Stubbs. To have that quality of voice, for the series as well, not just the film, was incredible.

“It’s remarkable to think that an old tobacco warehouse in Chorlton-Cum-Hardy would go on to influence Hollywood.”

You can’t underestimate the power of a good voice artist. David was directed to include the breaths and gasps perfectly.

Toad was vocally fussy and that was a joy to animate. To see a puppet suddenly breathe is magical. You see international animated films today where they just put a voice over a character, and they don’t always fit, but to see a puppet suddenly react to its environment or voice is exciting.

In terms of production, were the actors’ voices provided before animation or did you have to work blindly on that too?

Probably the worst job in animation is the person who does bar sheets. It can be done digitally now, but they had to listen to a physical tape and mark every single frame. It was so slow and if there was a conversation going on, you’d have to mark it with a chinagraph on the tape to indicate each letter as its pronounced.

The word ‘Ratty’ would be broken down into R-A-T-T-Y and take around 18 frames to say. It would then be copied down onto paper and the animators would use these sheets to indicate how long the word was.

How much footage were you able to record in a day?

Because we didn’t have video, I think our schedule for a day on Wind In The Willows was that each team had to produce twenty seconds, which is a lot. We couldn’t do that today because the lighting and technology takes longer to set up. It was a case of move the puppet, click, move the puppet, click.

When I work now, I sort of have half an hour for a second of film – that’s a good schedule to work to. I was on the team that made the Twirlywoos (2015 Cbeebies show) and that was very technical, we shot about eight seconds a day.

There was a lot of green screen, rigs, and technology. Again, that was a joyous shoot.

What can you tell us about the upcoming exhibition at Waterside Arts?

The puppets are joining the archives for all that’s left of Cosgrove Hall.

They’re hoping to freshen up the puppets as best as they can and have a big exhibition before the end of the year where people will be able to look at them closely.

There’s been more sophisticated puppets since, he looks a bit basic now as the whole craft of animation has developed, but it may not be bold to say that without Cosgrove Hall, you wouldn’t get these big films today.

How do you think the film and television series has had an impact on animation today?

There was nothing like it and it was in-

FRIENDS REUNITED: The Mr Toad and Badger puppets from the original productions. (Photo credit: Jason Lock/Cosgrove Hall Films).

fluential - we started something and I think it spread. A lot of the animators and artists involved went on to work on the big Tim Burton feature films and at Laika, who did Coraline and ParaNorman, and the puppets were made by Peter Saunders, who now makes puppets for Tim Burton and Wes Anderson.

It’s remarkable to think that an old tobacco warehouse in Chorlton-Cum-Hardy would go on to influence Hollywood.

What is your favourite part about being an animator?

What I love is when a script says ‘and Toad hears a car coming and gets excited’, I think, well, he can’t hear, he doesn’t have ears like human characters so you have to find a slightly different kind of body language. I think, well that’s why I enjoy being an animator, I love the challenge.

You do face challenges, but that’s what keeps you fresh. All in all, it’s been a fun career and I’m not ready to give up yet.

Cosgrove Hall: Frame

By Frame will run from 14 November to 28 December 2019 at Waterside Arts in Sale.

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RISING UP AGAINST THE GIG ECONOMY

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By MOLLY MILLAR

odern technology has made selling your labour as easy as liking a post on Facebook. It’s estimated that over a million people in the UK work in the gig economy - a term referring to the system wherein people use apps to provide a service, made notorious and normalised by behemoths such as Deliveroo and Uber.

Flexibility and the opportunity to be your own boss are touted as the main advantages of working in the gig economy. Unfortunately, these come intertwined with less desirable qualities: precarity, instability, and the difficulty of fighting for better working conditions.

Around 15,000 people in the UK work for Deliveroo - although not in the traditional sense, as they have selfemployed status, meaning riders do not receive sick or holiday pay that is the right of other employees. Workers may be able to choose their own hours but the power is still ultmately in the hands of the huge companies they work for, who many argue are using this legal loophole to take advantage of an often vulnerable

Paris, August 2017 workforce.

In May, a Deliveroo driver in London was beaten to death by bike thieves, and there have been 12 deaths of food couriers internationally for various companies in the past year. From Mexico City to St. Petersburg to London, workers for companies including Uber Eats and Deliveroo have died at work.

A statement from Finnish organisation Justice 4 Couriers said: “These are not merely traffic accidents, sudden illnesses or acts of violence, but work-related incidents, which are a result of the poor and piecemeal pay, which forces couriers to ride longer, faster and harder.

“They are a result of the lack of sick leave and insurances and the fact that couriers cannot afford to lose their means of work, for which they themselves pay.

“When a courier gets injured or killed at work, the companies do not have to take any responsibility. The courier pays for possible medical and repair expenses and loses their income from the time they are incapacitated, if they are lucky

enough not to lose their lives.”

While these deaths may be an extreme example of what can happen to riders, the vulnerabilities inherent in the conditions of couriers are worth exploring.

Daniel is a rider in Manchester who works around 30-40 hours a week for Deliveroo. Like many others, he joined because of the flexibility available, and appreciated the environmentally sustainable way of making a living.

However, in recent weeks, Deliveroo have changed the payment system so that he is now cycling up to 100 miles a day - double the 40-50 miles he previously covered - for around the same amount of money. In addition, the fees for all distances have been cut.

“There’s a lot of pluses to the job, but the way Deliveroo have treated us in the last few weeks is disgusting, really,” he told MM. Deliveroo’s framework does not guarantee its workers minimum wage.

Sometimes Daniel might have to make a round trip from Chorlton to the city centre for a single delivery, while the waiting

times at the restaurant increase the journey time: “You can get towards certainly 30-40 minutes up to an hour, for 5 or 6 pounds.”

Riders described to MM the lack of stable, reliable pay - their hours necessarily fluctuate with demand and can dip when people aren’t buying as many takeaways, such as during the summer months when flocks of students head home.

And even when money is coming in, a sizeable amount of it has to be spent on bike maintenance.

Without a fixed-term employment, Deliveroo riders not only sacrifice holiday pay, but Daniel described how if someone were to take a week off, they could come back and have no work waiting for them, as the app gives priority to those who have been working more.

“When you come back there’s a fair chance you won’t have any hours - they basically don’t explain how you can take a holiday without losing your hours.”

On top of this, couriers have to face safety concerns that naturally arise when your workplace is the streets. MM spoke to riders who cited the constant threat of muggings as a risk that comes with the job.

“It’s very tiring in terms of the distances if you’re cycling, and dangerous in terms of traffic and pollution - it’s not the world’s safest job,” said Daniel.

The risks that all cyclists unfortunately have to be wary of are enhanced for couriers because of the nature of their precarious work. Sam, a courier for Deliveroo and Uber Eats and the national organiser for IWW Couriers Network, said: “The pay incentivises us to travel as quickly as possible - to potentially compromise our own safety for the sake of earning a living.”

With all these issues surrounding the daily realities of riding, and the atomised nature of the job, these gig economy workers face new challenges in pushing for their rights. In 2018, Deliveroo workers lost a court battle for the right to unionise. However, by working alongside the Industrial Workers of the World and setting up networks in cities across the country, they have devised alternative means of cooperation.

An informal network of couriers communicating largely via Whatsapp chats plans actions and exchanges information. There are small systems of mutual aid being set up, such as in Leeds, where extra bikes and battery packs are available for those in need. And there are plans to further coordinate actions not just across the UK but internationally - fighting against the same problematic systems on a large scale in order to show solidarity and increase the

chance of progress.

On 4 October 2018, workers across the UK from McDonald’s, TGI Fridays, and Wetherspoons went on strike to demand better conditions and a £10 an hour wage, while fast food workers internationally also demonstrated.

Couriers from Deliveroo and Uber Eats coordinated with the strikers, with their demands including a minimum of £5 per delivery.

The synchronised action emphasising the fact that the struggles of gig economy workers are not inherent to one particular system. The long, ongoing fight for fair pay, an end to insecure work, and the right to a union is universal.

Strikes in Glasgow succeeded in a pay increase. But with Deliveroo continuing to drive down the riders’ pay across the country, further action seems likely. Yet even while workers nationwide figure out successful ways of coordinating, Deliveroo remain reluctant to recognise anything resembling a union of their workers, making a constructive dialogue between workers and the company near impossible.

Sam said: “There’s this question of getting into negotiations getting them to formally acknowledge us which they don’t like to do. Even when we’ve won concessions, like the pay going up in Glasgow, they’d never admit that it was because of us - that is an ongoing battle.”

With conditions in Manchester for riders currently so dire, the lack of communication between Deliveroo and its workers and the enormous distances he’s expected to cycle has proved the last straw for Daniel.

“I don’t know if they can fix what they’ve done, it’s too late - I’m looking for other work now.

“Even if they put the wages up like the old system, when you’re working with someone you need to have a bit of trust with what they’re doing.”

Despite the inherent problems of the conditions couriers deal with, they were eager to emphasise that, at its best, the gig economy works for them. For many, the work is largely enjoyable, while the fact that they don’t have to answer to a boss provides a form of liberation that many other jobs simply can’t provide.

“Presenting couriers as the victims of this situation is not something that the workers identify with,” said Sam. “People are often quite proud of their work - they go out and work hard and come home having earned 50 quid for 4 hours work.

“And that doesn't mean we don’t want security, it doesn’t mean we won’t fight and organise for more security - but the job market being what it is, we’re all victims.”

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Bristol, October 2018

Manchester, February 2019

Edinburgh, January 2018

Card star Jonathan Little offers advice on how to get started in the world of poker J

By Jacque Talbot

onathan Little has always been besotted with card games. It started as a teenager when he began competing in Magic of the Gathering during his teen years and it resulted in him dropping out of college to play poker full-time. So far today, he’s earned just under $7million in winnings.

His accolades include winning the World Poker Tour's Season VI Mirage Poker Showdown, the Season VII Foxwoods World Poker Finals and the WPT Season VI Player of the Year.

But to be that successful in the game, it doesn’t require you to be genius, he claims; just a slightly obsessive nature and the willingness to make some huge sacrifice.

Little says: “I would study for 14 hours a day every day.”

“I had no time off. I would take half a day off at Christmas to go hang out with my family. For three years straight I had no social life. I devoted my life to poker and if you ask the best players what they did, it will be something kind of similar.

"From the age of about 18 to 21, I would play all night and every day. I was at college at the time and had two jobs: one at the airport and one in the comic book store.

“I quit the one at the comic book store, and because I was working the graveyard shifts at the airport, I would use that time to study poker. I was making $10 an hour at the airport but $200 an hour online."

Poker is a peculiar game in which the rules are simple but the strategy has so much depth that renowned books on the subject published iin the 70s are now almost obsolete, the game developing to the point where it takes such a profoundly high level of thinking to get to Little's level.

To give you an idea, player and pioneer of strategy David Sklansky puts forward the theory which suggests that there are up to five levels of thinking for a poker player, the amateur players utilising only level one and maybe two.

Level five, the elite tier, means that in a hand you ask yourself: ‘What does my opponent think that I think he thinks I have?’

But you shouldn't be put off by the complexities of the top level.

Little says you don't have to devote your whole life to the game and be an amazing player to make some money; you can put in a couple of hours a day and still come away with a decent income.

"Put in the time and eventually you will get there,” Little says.

“You have to stop worrying about the money - that is irrelevant.

Your goal must be to play well. Then the money will follow.

“Go on a regular site and then play small buy-in games. That way, if you lose, it doesn't matter. You're just playing for the experience. “Soon you will play more tables and bigger tables and your

win rate will increase the over time.

“Remember your goal is to get good not to win. How do you know when you're good? When you start winning money, of course. It's all about trial and error but also studying a lot."

Little soon turned his original $50 to about $300,000 but concedes that he wasn't naturally talented at the game; instead it was his ruthlessness that got him far.

"I was not good at poker to start with,” the 34-year-old says.

“I was way too cautious. I would try and think how to not lose from a certain situation. Whereas with poker, you must ask yourself how you can win.

"When I first started playing it was in games that had a 50 cent buy-in - but that was just for fun. When I had something like

“Put in the time and you will eventually get there”

150,000 dollars I started to cash out 1,000 dollars a month. I'm an intense person. I will go hard if I am going to do something. I don't take it easy.”

The 34-year-old Little has authored 14 books on poker and has two more on the way. He is all about setting goals and achieving them. He's a self-confessed workaholic who runs a poker school and has an online blog which provides tips and suggestions, such as even how to pack your bag efficiently for a poker tournament and what to bring.

The Pensacola-born player puts great importance in organisation and discipline - a fundamental skill in being a successful poker play, . "Money management is key,” he says. You need to ensure that you don't lose all your money at one time. As you have a bigger bankroll the risk of going broke gets lower. But people will go on bad runs.

"In fact, many poker players lose everything; even some of the most technically sound ones.

You see it in the super high roller events nowadays. Some of the players have like 20% of all their money on the table.

“All they need to do lose four or five games and they're out.

Some are cool with that. They don't care. They know they're a talented player and can win it all back. There are other players who get lucky.

They win one tournament for 50 thousand dollars - but then they think they're good and start playing in big cash games. They're usually broke in a month."

Poker is no easy ride. It is, of course, not all skill based and sometimes you can play extremely well in a tournament and come away with a loss.

You're betting on probability which will, over time, work in your favour and you start winning money.

It is also a highly emotional game for some, especially when the cards don't go your way and you feel an injustice was done. A bad reaction to this is called steaming - or tilting.

It is when, after a bad run, emotions get the better of you and you start making rash decisions. It has destroyed careers.

"A lot of tilting happens when someone gets aces and they lose to a much weaker hand,” Little says.

“They feel an injustice was done. But that's poker. People go crazy, saying the game is rigged, or God hates them. But when you've played enough you get used to it. Your job is to make the best decision at that moment. You can't control how cards come.

"I wanted to model myself on the best players in the world. Players like Tony G Phil Hellmuth yes, they are great - but it's the ones who zone out, who control their emotions well who I strive to emulate.”

Little's attitude to poker is very similar to how he approaches life in general. It’s fair to say the two share similar traits: you will go on bad runs but ultimately, if you keep plugging away, the odds will soon work in your favour.

"You're not entitled to anything in life,” Little says.

“You just got to deal with it. If anything, you should be happy if you get a bad beat because that means you didn't do anything wrong.

"Whenever you have goals, you’ve got to ask yourself what you're actually doing to achieve it.

“Like I always wanted to learn another language but I only studied an hour a week from an app on my phone.

"And I didn't get anywhere with it, and of course, I didn't because I wasn't putting in the time. Essentially, I thought it would be neat to learn - but really it’s not a goal, because if it was I would have

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gone it and actually learned it. “But I can guarantee that if you spend 14 hours of your life - all day every day - playing and studying, you can be good at anything you want to."

I

By Joe Hadden

n 1997, a 13-year-old girl named Heaven opened up to social worker Tarana Burke about her mother’s boyfriend molesting her.

“I watched her put her mask back on and go back into the world like she was all alone and I couldn’t even bring myself to whisper…me too”, Burke, a black woman from the Bronx, New York, writes on her blog.

The blog is part of Just Be Inc, an organisation she founded in 2006, aimed at improving the welfare of disadvantaged black and brown women.

Burke harked back to her conversation with Heaven nine years prior, and adopted the words Me Too as a slogan for her new organisation.

Eleven years later Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein was seeing his reputation shattered by allegations of sexual misconduct. Upon recommendation from a friend, actress Alyssa Milano, she asked her followers to tweet ‘Me Too’ if they had ever been subject to sexual harassment or assault. MeToo quickly became #MeToo - a more apt appearance for today’s digital world. While intended to be a universal rallying call, the current revelations surrounding Weinstein and a handful of other Hollywood heavyweights gave the slogan a strong association with the sinister goings-on of Tinseltown. That

MeToo’s target demographic had gone from working class black and brown women in New York to budding actresses and socialites in Hollywood was a testament to the movement’s fluidity. MeToo had established itself as a malleable force, that can be shaped and interpreted for any context.

Ten miles north of Hollywood lies the spiritual home of Los Angeles’ second favourite industry: porn. The proximity of The San Fernando Valley (dubbed ‘Silicone Valley’, or less imaginatively, ‘San Pornando Valley’) to Hollywood is symbolic of the close relationship between the film industry and the adult film industry. Budding actors trying to ply their trade in the film industry often find themselves in porn as way to make ends meet. ‘Casting couch’, one of porn’s better known formats, sees aspiring porn actresses requested to perform sex acts on a producer in order to score a gig, a narrative eerily similar to the encounters detailed during the MeToo saga.

The relationship between porn and feminism is a long and complicated one, and the debate over how porn serves women is unique in its polarising nature: porn is either bad for the welfare of women, or good for the welfare of women. The feminist antiporn narrative says porn is degrading, objectifying and humiliating. The feminist pro-porn narrative says porn is liberating, empowering, and gives women agency. As a result, both sides of the aisle have found ways of utilising the MeToo movement

at the other side’s expense, and both side’s embrace of the movement has been slammed by the other side as cynical coopting.

Many anti-porn campaigners consider pornography to be another form of prostitution, albeit with a camera in the room. If you consider prostitution as simply sex in exchange for a monetary sum, it certainly fits the bill.

In Dignity: A Journal on Sexual Exploitation and Violence, psychologist and anti-pornography campaigner Melissa Farley asks “does this wonderfully expanding big-as-the-sky-sized basket of women's voices include women in prostitution? Is their "me

“

”

Anti-porn conservatives have been quick to co-opt #MeToo to try and attack the adult industry...

Alex Hawkins, Xhamster vice-chairman

too" welcomed? Is the prostitution of women in pornography included in #MeToo?

“Will we include prostituted women under the #MeToo umbrella as sisters who are both victims of male violence and survivors of it? Just like the rest

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of us.” Whatever you believe MeToo fundamentally means, what’s clear is as a slogan it’s being pinned to an ever increasing list of things. For people such as Farley, who has been campaigning against pornography long before Alyssa Milano pressed send on her now infamous tweet, it’s a convenient way of shoehorning her activism into the zeitgeist.

According to web-traffic analysis company Alexa, Xhamster.com ranks as the third most visited porn site in the world and 70th most visited website overall.

post reads.

Hawkins is quick to dismiss Farley’s application of #MeToo: “Anti-porn conservatives have been quick to co-opt #MeToo to try and attack the adult industry. Many conservatives believe that sex workers can not consent to the work they do, or refuse to believe that a woman would have sex on camera for any reason other than coercion. So they don't believe that consent exists.”

“Contrary to the media stereotypes about porn stars, the women in this industry are largely smart and ambitious businesswomen. They could do anything, but they have chosen this” says Hawkins. If he’s right, these smart and ambitious businesswomen have certainly picked the right hustle.

In a time where the gender pay gap is often heralded as the ultimate measure of gender equality, a study conducted by CNBC found that porn is “one industry where the balance of pay certainly leans toward women.” A report by the Independent says it’s "universally known” that women are paid a lot more than men.

In November of 2017, Xhamster became the first porn website embrace the MeToo movement. “We have been very vocal about supporting #MeToo, in and out of the industry, in a way that I don't think many adult companies have. We've launched campaigns directly about consent, have pulled down videos that we suspected were uploaded without consent, and banned search terms like ‘rape’, ‘R. Kelly’ and ‘Iggy Azalea’” (the latter of whom had naked pictures stolen and distributed online) says Alex Hawkins, Xhamster’s vice-chairman.

The campaign referred to is the #UsToo campaign, an attempt to partially repurpose Xhamster as a forum for sex victims. Users can upload a video detailing their experiences, attaching the #UsToo hashtag, or a blank video with the story written in the description box below. “We’ll work to make this a safe space for people to share stories,” their blog

focus on one thing: agency. Are actresses independent agents, acting of their own free-will and desire? Or are they coerced, dependant, and at worst, raped?

The debate over what constitutes as coercion or free will isn’t going to be resolved any time soon, but what’s clear is that MeToo has found itself squarely in the middle.

CAMPAIGNER: Burke started using the MeToo strapline in 2006

Feminist criticism of porn is vast, and for years debates have raged on over everything from objectification to body image, but as far as MeToo is concerned, the language on both sides tends to

When Tarana Burke dreamt up MeToo in 1997, she probably never imagined that two diametrically opposed parties would be scrabbling over its ownership. Last year she told a TED conference that MeToo had become unrecognisable from the movement she created 22 years ago. It’s not hard to see why.

Funeral wish lists and casket crafting: Welcome to Coffin Club

THE TWO KATES: Founders Kate Tym and Kate Dyer (Photo credit: Coffin Club).

L

By Ashleigh Grady

et’s talk about death. It’s something that awaits every single person yet it’s still shrouded in taboo. This is something that Kate Tym and Kate Dyer are tackling head on with their Coffin Clubs.

“People seem to think that if you talk about death the inevitable is going to happen. It’s crazy,” said Dyer.

“It’s almost like doing your prenatal classes when you have a baby, you do your pre-death classes before you die,” Tym said.

The two Kates founded the first UK Coffin Club in Hastings in 2017 having seen the idea take off in New Zealand.

“We sort of jumped off the cliff and built the plane on the way down,” Tym admitted.

Coffin Club is a course that aims to educate attendees or ‘Coffin Clubbers’ on the choices available for their end of life celebrations. It encourages Clubbers to put together their funeral wish list, discuss all the options available and even personalise their own coffin.

“What we’ve discovered is how little people know about funerals and what you can and can’t do. That means that at the point of bereavement when you’re at your least able to ask questions and think creatively, you’re generally being channeled into having 20 minutes up the

crem with a Victorian gentleman leading a procession of nice limos,” said Tym. Each course runs for six weeks, with a three-hour session every week. The first hour of each class consists of an invited speaker delivering a talk.

“We’ve had the manager of our local crematorium, we’ve had a woman who did the funeral for her husband herself and didn’t involve a funeral director, including keeping his body at home. We have had end of life doulas who can talk about what they do, which is supporting people who are terminally ill and supporting their families.”Both Tym and Dyer first started working as marriage registrars, before training to work on funerals where they found everything very formulaic.

“I think it was born out of frustration really.

We were doing weddings and we then we realised that weddings are very seasonal, so we thought the obvious bedfellow to that is funerals.

“We just weren’t completely inspired by it and we turned to each other rather quickly and said, is this the kind of funeral you’d want or want for your loved ones? We both instantly said no.

“So then we had an idea, and because we were wedding celebrants we knew loads of lovely venues and we asked them

if they would hold a funeral and 100% of them said yes. So we skipped off to our funeral directors and we said we’ve got all of these great venues who would hold funerals, would you offer that option to families and they all said no,” Tym said.

At first this shocked the pair, but they soon realised that this answer was reflected among many funeral directors across the country.

“What they said was that nobody’s ever asked for it, and we thought well nobody’s asked for it because they don’t know that they can do it or that it’s an option. That’s when we thought we were going about it the wrong way round. We should tell people the options that are available to them and then they’ll be more likely to ask for it,” explained Tym. What came next was a period of organisation for the two Kates, who found a venue for their first Club and then went out onto the streets to search for people to come along.

“At first it was dreadful, people looked at us like we were completely mad,” said Tym.

“I think they thought we were from some sort of cult that was trying to convince people to worship death.”

“Yeah, they really did. But it showed how much things like this are needed because even the word coffin people couldn’t cope with, you could see them getting uncomfortable” Tym agreed.

The first Coffin Club in Hastings was attended by just four people, growing steadily at first to five for the next course, then to seven. By the fourth course, the

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attendance had shot up to 20.

After this success, people got in touch with the pair to ask how they could either attend a Club in their area or organise one themselves – something which has now happened in 10 different locations across the country.

The pair now run online masterclasses to teach people everything they need to know to set up their own Clubs. They cover everything from how to find a venue, how to find Clubbers and who to invite along as speakers. The women are keen to spread the Clubs as far and wide as possible to ensure that everyone knows the spectrum of options available and to start the conversation.

“We’re completely normal when it comes to talking about death, we’re not awkward about it,” said Tym, “I think if you’re dying, a lot of your experiences are people being very uncomfortable around you. Whereas, you come to Coffin Club and we just don’t treat you like you’re any different,” Tym

said.

“We tackle it head on. Everybody we’ve spoken to has said that it’s better when people say something, even if it’s the wrong thing, than when they say nothing at all,” Dyer agreed.

“We’ve had one lady say that she had the most brilliant conversation with her grandchildren about what’s going to happen to her after she’s died. She said she could never have had the conversation because she wouldn’t have known how to broach it. But because she mentioned going to Coffin Club, it’s all quite funny and it made the talk more accessible,” shared Tym. According to Tym, most of the people the pair come into contact with often start with the premise that the law states the need for a funeral director and that bodies are not allowed to be kept at home.

“There are hardly any laws around end of life at all in this country. It’s really unregulated so you can do pretty much whatever you like,” she explained.

So, what are the strangest options people have taken when choosing their end of life celebrations?

“Well it’s interesting because people say to us I bet you’ve seen some mad funerals. And the truth is, no we haven’t, because in this country we’re making tiny steps from the very conventional, traditional funerals that we all know.

“We’ve spoken to families where we ask them if they want the curtains open or closed and they’re completely blown away by the fact that you can leave the curtains open,” Tym said.

“One small change we’ve seen is the idea of having the service in a lovely converted barn rather than in a crematorium. It’s an instant change of atmosphere.

“We also have a few more sing-alongs now, where people realise that nobody’s going to want to sing a hymn because they aren’t religious but they still quite like the one thing that brings everyone together,” Dyer added.

Both women are also keen to challenge the notion of the traditional options being classed as respectful.

“I’m working with a family at the moment where the granddaughter is pushing for something slightly less conventional.

When she said she thinks that everyone should attend dressed in bright colours because her grandma loved bright colours, her parents could not cope and said it isn’t respectful and everybody should come in black. But why is this man dressed as a Victorian and everyone wearing black respectful?” Tym explained.

“It’s this perception of respect. It’s a tradition we’ve come to see as respectful and it’s getting people to realise that doing something in a different way is not necessarily disrespectful. In fact, it’s maybe more respectful because it’s actually honouring who that person was,” Dyer continued.

Coffin Club also incorporates a social element which is particularly important to the elderly Clubbers. Hastings Coffin Club has a once-a-month coffee meet-up for exClubbers, something urged to be replicated at the other Clubs around the

country.

“It’s also about costing your perfect send off as well, because funeral poverty is another big part of it,” said Dyer.

According to The Money Advice Service the average cost of a funeral in the United Kingdom is £3,757.

“Who has that money lying around, it doesn’t have to cost that much. Families do go into debt in order to pay for a loved one’s funeral,” said Tym. “And the flip side to that is that there are people who don’t have a problem with money, so it’s not about how much they spend, it’s about transparency. People want to know where their money has gone.

“You shop around for nearly every service, but you don’t necessarily shop around for a funeral director. It’s better to have made all these decisions ahead of time,” she continued.

As for the future of Coffin Club, the pair

“As our patron, Miriam Margolyes said, ‘Everyone who’s going to die should come to Coffin Club.’”

hopes it continues to grow.

“We want there to be a Coffin Club in every town in the UK and it not to be weird,” said Tym. “We almost want to put Coffin Club out of business. We want people to be so well educated about their end of life choices that they don’t need to come anymore because it’s just common knowledge.”

KING KHAN’S SAUDI ARABIAN ODYSSEY

By Will Jennings

It was in 522 BCE when the Quda’a tribe first settled in Jeddah.

In 522 BCE when this famous old city first established itself on the middleeastern map, initiating a tumultuous few centuries of history that saw it grow into Saudi Arabia’s most profitable commercial port.

Since then, Jeddah has endured a turbulent dynastic heritage, experiencing the tyrannical regimes of the Mamluks, the Ottomans, the Wahabis and the Sharifians. In 1813, it was rocked by a bloody battle part of the fierce OttomanSaudi War. In 1858, 21 Christian inhabitants were massacred by its predominantly-Muslim population.

Today, however, it has finally found political stability, representing one of the country’s most desirable cities and attracting thousands of tourists each year.

And Amir Khan is no stranger to this story. Indeed, Jeddah forms the principal gateway to Mecca and Medina, two of the holiest Muslim cities and ones visited annually by all those who embark on the Hajj - Islam’s spiritual pilgrimage.

“To be fighting in Jeddah, in the holy city in the holy country is so special,” Khan told MM. “It does definitely make it extra special as a Muslim and a British-Pakistani to be fighting there - normally the only time I go to Saudi Arabia is when I go to do my pilgrimage, but this time I’m going to be going there to fight.

“I can’t wait because I’ve never seen the other side of Saudi Arabia - I

normally know it as you go there for a pilgrimage and go straight back home, but this time it’s going to be different.

“I’m going to be training there, I’m going to be fighting there - 100% though I know I’ll be switched on and focussed because I want to put in a good performance.”

“Saudi Arabia is opening a new avenue for boxing and myself - to be fighting in the holy city in the holy country is so special”

On July 12, the Bolton banger will meet India’s Neeraj Goyat at Jeddah’s King Abdullah Sports City, a futuristic, multi-purpose venue constructed in 2012 to put Saudi Arabia on the sporting map.

Like most prizefighters, Khan has never fought outside either the UK or the United States throughout his welldecorated career. But, as his historic namesake Genghis did so triumphantly in his Asian campaigns in the 13th century, he is relishing the challenge.

“Saudi Arabia is opening a new avenue for both boxing and myself,” he explained.

“The country is so behind in boxing - I couldn’t believe it. But when I was sat with the top ministers and promoters in a meeting, they back boxing so much and they know how big the sport is and want to be 100% behind it.

“They don’t want to do just one show,

they want to do many shows, and we want to give them that commitment to show them how good it is.

“We could have taken this fight elsewhere and maybe made as much money and know that it would be 100% right, so it is a risk for us.

“It’s going to show both us and the world where Saudi Arabia is at in boxing on the biggest scale.”

The venue has not merely been chosen for sporting purposes, however.

Indeed, the fight is being optimistically branded by promoter Asif Vali as an attempt to assuage tensions between India and Pakistan, a conflict intensified most recently by the nations’ clashes over the disputed region of Kashmir.

Pakistani prime minister and former cricketer Imran Khan - who pertinently led his team to World Cup glory in 1992 will be in attendance at the fight, a diplomatic statement that is hoped may help relieve hostilities between his and Goyat’s home nation.

“The prime minister of Pakistan will be attending which is huge,” Khan added.

“It would be amazing if we can get the Prime Minister of England as well - I’m a British Pakistani and it’s great to have that backing from Pakistan.

“Saudi Arabia is huge and that was one day on my tick list - to fight in the middle-east.

“The World Super Series has been there and it’s been a good show, so I’m sure they can put on another fight.

“They are throwing a lot of money on to the table and at the end of the day we

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are prizefighters - for me I would be stupid to not take this opportunity.”

Khan was in bullish spirits at his boxing academy in Bolton, buoyantly engaging with all those present and showing no palpable sign of nerves or concern before his return to the ring next month.

The bout with Goyat is an important one for the 32 year-old. In April, he was knocked out by American fighter Terence Crawford in a hectic sixth round at Madison Square Garden, a result that came just a year after his remarkable 39 second triumph over Phil Lo Greco in Liverpool.

Prior to the Crawford bout, Khan had not lost a fight since May 2016, when he was toppled by the mercurial Mexican Canelo Alvarez in Nevada. His record currently stands at 33-5, an impressive albeit not outstanding one he will look to improve on as he reaches the twilight of his career.

“It’s been such a quick turnaround since the last fight and I just want to keep myself busy - I’m getting older now,” he said.

“I feel good both mentally and physically - I want to make sure that I maximise myself and learn from the mistakes I just made.

“That’s what me and Bones (his new trainer) are doing now - we’re working on things that will improve my style.

“Sometimes when you get a new coach things change - for this fight I thought it was great as Bones sees new things that other coaches don’t.

“I think it’s nice that I’ve got new faces and eyes on me for this fight.”

Khan spoke candidly about the importance of psychological fortitude in boxing, an attribute he has had to possess in abundance since his defeat in New York two months ago.

The result left many onlookers doubting the 2004 Olympic silver medalist’s future in the sport, with the clock rapidly ticking towards the conclusion of a career that started so brightly for a 17-year-old Khan in Athens all those years ago.

“When I lose fights, there’s always pressure because you think ‘have I still

got it in me?’” he explained.

“People start saying ‘you’re not what we thought you were going to be’ so that does affect you mentally.

“You have to be strong - you have to just allow all that criticism and use it as a motivation to prove people wrong.”

Back in Bolton for the first time in several months, Khan had surprisingly mixed feelings about his return to his home town.

The popular character is now a father to two girls, an experience he says has opened his eyes to the relative insignificance of boxing and has led to him ‘throwing every punch’ for Lamaisah, five, and Alayna, one.

However, Khan was honest about his lingering reluctance to spend too much time in the north-west, a decision deriving from the enhanced freedom he receives when training in the United States.

“It’s different being back in Bolton - I do still like America because I feel like I’m more at peace,” he said.

“It’s hard because you know your surroundings here - it’s your comfort zone, and I like being out of that comfort zone in that I don’t know anyone in America.

“I don’t know people around there and I’m just a normal guy - I like that kind of life.

“Here you know everyone, and sometimes it’s just nice to have that space as it brings the best out of you and actually makes me train harder.”

And what about Bolton as a potential venue? Khan, who is a loyal Bolton Wanderers fan and has not fought in his home town for over ten years, was open to the prospect of returning for a bout before his career comes to an end.

“Bolton’s always an option - I’d love to fight here,” he said.

“I was at the stadium the other day for Rod Stewart and it was full, and I was just thinking ‘wow, if I could fight here it would be like this’ - it does get really packed so that would be amazing.

“You never know - maybe the next fight could be in Bolton if the deal’s right.

“We’ve got a couple of people here from the Wanderers management team so you might want to ask them!”

Jeddah awaits first, however. If Khan can topple Goyat in the Middle East and inject some fresh momentum back into his career, talk of a tantalising deal with Manny Pacquiao will only intensify further. And Khan will not shy away from facing such a formidable opponent.

But next month’s fight concerns more than merely sport. The choice of venue represents not so much a boxingmotivated decision as it does a politico-economic one, an ambitious statement of intent that seeks to alleviate diplomatic hostilities and place Saudi Arabia in front of an expectant global audience.

Jeddah has a long and complex history. Now it is time for the city, and Khan, to deliver on the world stage.

Panache and pride

Manchester Day celebrates 10th birthday with festival of colour

T

By John Varga

he Manchester Day Parade celebrated its tenth anniversary last Sunday with another extravaganza of colour and fun.

Weeks of intense preparation culminated in an exuberant display of creativity, artistic talent and community spirit.

It was estimated that over 70,000 people watched the parade, with another 1,200 taking part in the actual procession, as the city celebrated all things Mancunian.

The event is commissioned by Manchester City Council and produced by Walk the Plank, one of the UK’s largest outdoor art companies, based in Salford, which has organised the previous nine parades.

Tom Warman, the marketing and communications director, described the parade as “a fantastic celebration of diversity in all its forms.”

He added: “It gives everybody an enor-

mous sense of pride and a great sense of identity. It gives people that platform to celebrate their cultures and to celebrate who they are.”

This community focused event brought together over 50 local community groups and around 60 artists from the North West in an epic exercise of creative collaboration.

For the past six weeks the artists worked around the clock to design and make the hundreds of props, puppets, costumes and floats that formed the centrepiece of the parade.

Uniquely, the parade artefacts are all handmade. As Tom Warman explained, the event is “very individually crafted, it’s bespoke and has a lot of spirit to it. The key thing is about the quality that we invest in artists and the creative work.

“One of the key things that has contributed to the parade’s success is the investment in artistic talent made possible by Arts Council England, which is clearly evi-

dent here in our Manchester Day WoW! Workshop.”

Emphasis is also placed on environmental sustainability. With that in mind everything is designed to be reusable for future occasions and the floats and structures are constructed so that they can be pushed, pedalled or cycled around the streets.

Each year there is a different theme. This year it was “Ten out of Ten”.

The theme is normally chosen by a committee made up of Candida Boyes, the parade’s artistic director, Liz Pugh, the Creative Producer at Walk the Plank and councillors from Manchester City Council.

Once the theme has been decided, it is shared with community groups who are invited to submit their ideas. When they have done this, Candida pairs up the groups with an artist most suited to help build their project.

Rose Miller is one such artist. Originally from Southampton, she moved to study in

Manchester, before volunteering five years ago to work on the parade. She is now a lead artist and helped three groups construct their designs.

The first project involved building a cardboard cityscape of Manchester for Venture Arts, an art organisation from Hulme, which works with learning disabled artists. Rose also made a Veracruz folk costume for a design commissioned by the Mexican Folklore Group. And finally, she helped a youth swimming group based in south Manchester build their float, which honoured the achievement of Sunny Lowry, the first English woman to swim the English channel and who came from Longsight.

The parade provides artists with a unique opportunity to meet many other artists and learn new skills and techniques.

It acts as a social and skills networking forum for these individual artists.

This is something that Rose really appreciates.

“It is a lot of fun, it is kind of a unique thing and a unique environment. I really enjoy being in the mass workshop, seeing other people’s ways of working.

It is one of the really nice things about doing this kind of work.

You are continuously able to learn and develop and you are always trying new things and getting excited by new processes.”

An interesting and striking composition was the one entered by the Bolton Home social housing organisation. They made a set of skittles, which had woven willow frames. The skittles were lettered with some of the social issues that their community faces , while the balls were lettered with some of the projects that Bolton Home do to help support their customers. Issues ranged from addiction, domestic violence to food poverty and poverty in general.

Simply Cycling from Wythenshawe went as a firework display. Sue Blaylock from the organisation explained: “We are going to have a big rotating Catherine Wheel, a puppet with sparklers and rockets on our bikes.”

She also elaborated on the significance of the parade for her group.

“Most of the people we are working with day in day out are people with learning disabilities who are sometimes excluded from mainstream activities, so this is a chance for us to showcase what we’re doing and for them to be involved in our citywide activity that just celebrates what’s going on in Manchester.”

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While most of the artists come from the North West, Walk the Plank run in partnership with Manchester City Council an Arts Council England programme, called Elevate, which allows them to recruit artists from outside the North West. Candida Boyes explained that they do this when they need artists with a specific set of skills that their own artists lack.

“We put a raft of ideas together to work with artists from outside our region to upskill our own artists.”

This often adds international colour and flavour to the festival. This year, international artists who participated on the parade included Vinicius Daumas from Brazil, who is a director of a social circus company called Circo Crescer e Viver in Rio de Janeiro; Yussef from Egypt, who works for the ElKosha puppet troupe that performs street theatre in Cairo and Skeeran from Kerala in southern India.

As the day fast approached, Candida Boyes reflected on just what the whole occasion means to her personally.

“It makes me cry. It makes me incredibly emotional. I am incredibly proud of it, I am incredibly proud of the people of Manchester for coming and joining in and sharing their ideas with us and when I look at all my artists, some of whom started working with us as students and are now leading sections, I get hideously over emotional and likely to burst into tears at any second.”

Pride in the event was also strongly felt by volunteers participating on the day.

Sparkle told MM:”Manchester Day is beautiful, it’s for the people, by the people and is an absolutely amazing feeling.”

The antisemitic dilemma

By Cecilia Mitchell

Antisemitism is currently at the forefront of many people’s minds.

CNN’s study into antisemitism in Europe last November revealed that a fifth of British people think that more than 20% of the world is Jewish - more than 100 times the real figure.

In January, a report by the Independent revealed that 5% of UK adults were Holocaust deniers, and a further 8% believed the scale of the genocide was exaggerated.

Last month, the Equalities and Human Rights Division launched a formal probe into antisemitism in the Labour Party, following years of speculation about the party’s entanglement in the issue.

It seems to have come as a shock to the general public - but how well do we actually know what casual day-to-day antisemitism looks like?

MM decided to run a survey that tested participants on their knowledge of antisemitic stereotypes, and conspiracy theorie.

The first category covered stereotypes about Jewish people, with participants asked to identify whether they had heard them before. The most well-

known of the 15 options was the idea that all Jewish people are greedy or rich, known by 93% of respondents.

It is one of only three known by 50% or more.

The next two most well known, at 70% and 50% respectively, are the ideas that Jewish people control the government, media, economy, and/ or world and that Jewish people are untrustworthy.

The most commonly known stereotypes paint a picture of Jewish people as untrustworthy and power-mad, particularly regarding money. The basis for these stereotypes date back to the Middle Ages - the Church at the time forbade

Christians from lending money while charging interest. As they were not Christian, Jewish people were not held under this ban. With Christianity as the largest religion in Central Europe at the time, and Judaism as the next largest religion afterwards (making them both large enough to be recognisable, but small enough that they could be easily targeted), Jewish people became associated with ‘greedy practices.’ This stereotype has lasted the ages ever since, simply thanks to an old Churchmade rule.

Of the other 12 stereotypes, seven were recognised by 25% or less of respondents. Interestingly, the four stereo-

types directly linked to Christianity are not equally well known - 64% of Christian respondents hadn’t heard any of them. In all cases, less than 20% of respondents who know of said stereotypes hold Christian beliefs. In stark contrast, only 30% of Jewish respondents hadn’t heard of these specific options.

The second segment of the survey dug a little deeper had respondents heard the following phrase or conspiracy theory, had they ever used it before, and were they aware that it was antisemitic (or if they were unaware of it, would they have been able to tell?)

Perhaps surprisingly, the most well known option from this section was not the concept of Holocaust deniers (63%), but instead the idea of lizard people at 79% - a difference of 16%. “Lizard people” is also the most commonly used option, at 36% - which is perhaps unsurprising to regular users of the internet.

The term has become a popular way of referring to someone who’s socially awkward, with many people unaware of its initial antisemitic roots this is represented in our results with 54% unaware that it was an antisemitic term.

“Lizard people” can easily be linked to the fabricated antisemitic text ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’. The text details a supposed plot by Jewish people to control the world, and has been debunked several times over.

Despite this, there are still a great number of people who praise it - including former footballer and sports broadcaster, David Icke. Icke is now a professional conspiracy theorist, whose most popular theory tells of an ‘inter-dimensional race of reptilian beings’ control the world. This combined with his endorsement of the aforementioned antisemitic text shows just one clear link between antisemitism and the concept of ‘lizard people’.

The least well known of these options - triple parentheses, at 59% - is more recent, and originates on the internet.

Called an ‘echo’, they were popularised by a white-supremacist, neo-fascist blog called The Right Stuff, and fascists use it as a flag by placing an echo around the names of Jewish people.

So exactly how does the general ignorance of antisemitism impact people? MM had the opportunity to interview a Jewish person who has encountered antisemitism frequently - they wish to remain anonymous for fear of their safety, so will be referred to as P. P has run a Tumblr blog for five years maximum, and uses it to post about their general interests - music, anime, but more and more frequently important current affairs issues. From the very start of that blog’s lifespan, P has received threatening messages.

“I would have to turn off the ask and submit inboxes in order avoid that. And then at some period of time, I was being... I wouldn't say stalked, but I had been repeatedly watched and threatened by a specific user, who I'm suspecting sent me antisemitic threats.

“They'd send death threats, suicide threats, telling me to kill myself and saying I deserve to die. And then a lot of the time, the threats would turn antisemitic for no reason at all except for the fact that I was Jewish. There was a whole thing back then where people would send Jewish users uncensored gore, just because they were Jewish. “[At that time], I would've been about 16. But the first hate messages, when I first got my blog, I would've been about 13 or 14.”

Naturally, receiving death threats for so long from such a young age was traumatic for P: “It's had a great detrimental effect on my mental health, especially in regards to my paranoia.

“I have noticed antisemitism is becoming more and more common and normalised and the way it correlates with the political climate is no coincidence or surprise. I think I experience it more online because, like other types of harassment, it's easier to hide behind a screen. The online antisemitism I've experienced is usually more violent and brutal as a result.”

When asked how gentile (non-Jewish) people can assist in combating antisemitism, he gave this advice: “Gentiles should educate themselves on how to spot antisemitic statements and dogwhistles and step in to shut such instances down

when possible. This goes for casual and overt antisemitism in daily conversations, and casual and overt antisemitism online, especially when disguised as jokes or memes.”

P also notes that the AntiDefamation League does great work to combat antisemitism, and is an amazing resource for anyone hoping to start trying to make a difference.

The Genocide Convention of 1948 was created in order to prevent events like the Holo-

caust ever happening again yet in spite of this a great percentage of society fails to recognise basic antisemitic dogwhistles, with education on the Holocaust being minimal in American education, and only taught in the UK if History is continued to GCSE level.

With so little compulsory education on the subject, and left-wing people expected to sit back in the face of discrimination as proof that they are ‘liberal’, maybe the resurgence of antisemitism shouldn’t come as such a

20

Fight against foo d wastage rages on

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By Henry DiStasio

ood waste is a long-standing issue that is affecting the world in ways that are overlooked and ignored.

Over the years food wastage has continued to increase and it is estimated that a third of all food worldwide is either thrown out or wasted.

Specifically, 1.6 billion tonnes of food are either lost or squandered. That’s around $1.2 trillion worth of food. And according to a study released by the Boston Consulting Group last year, that number is only going to grow.

The study predicts that by 2030 food waste per year will increase to 2.1 billion tonnes, increasing by a third and equalling 66 tons being thrown out per day.

BCG managing director Shalini Unnikrishnan told The Guardian last year that “the scale of the problem is one that will continue to grow while we're developing our solutions. As the population grows rapidly in certain industrialising parts of the world, like in Asia, consumption is growing very rapidly."

In terms of its impact, the amount of food wasted in the world could be enough to feed ‘every undernourished person on the planet’, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature.

Humanitarian issues aren’t the only factors that suffer from food wastage however, as it takes quite a toll on the environment as well.

A study back in 2011 revealed that if food wastage was a country, it alone would rank third in greenhouse gas emissions, lower only than China and the United States.

This is because when we waste food, we’re also wasting the energy it takes to grow, harvest, transport and package it.

Furthermore, foods that are sent to landfill site produce methane, contributing further to the globe’s already growing carbon footprint.

In the United States alone, food wastage equates to the greenhouse emissions of 37 million cars worth.

Let’s shift this focus to a more local level, by which I mean the UK. Food waste in Britain makes up 10% of the country’s carbon footprint.

Financially, we as a country waste around £20 billion worth of food wastage per year, with the average family individually wasting £810 worth per year.

This can be associated with more than 25 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, 85% of which arises in households and food manufacture.

We could talk about the impact food waste has on both the country and the environment all day, and we should. It is an important issue that evidently is being ignored.

Thankfully, there are organisations who have recognised this issue and taken it upon themselves to help battle the rapidly rising rate of food wastage.

One such organisation is the government-funded Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP). The charity’s goal is to work with companies and communities to create a circular economy that

attempts to reduce and recycle waste, hence limiting its contribution to Climate Change.

Created in 2000, it has spent nearly two decades monitoring the country’s food waste and coming up iwth solutions to tackle it.

Along with WRAP, there are other smaller charities that work at a more local, community level in their effort to tackle food wastage.

One such company is Food Cycle, who provides weekly meals for local communities using unwanted food donated to them from supermarkets “We provide three course community meals across the country using food that otherwise would be wasted,” said marketing and communications manager Camilla James.

“They’ll be served to guests in the local area, many of which are on a low income or are isolated and enjoy the chance to eat with other people.”

The produce supermarkets donate to Food Cycle ranges from aging vegetables to ‘ugly’ fruit, based on certain factors such as exceeding their best before date.

“Best before date is just an indicator of how long they think it will be at its absolute best quality,” said Ms. James.

“It’s a bit of a meaningless term really.

A lot of people get confused because they think the best before is the same as the use by date when they’re quite different things.

“It might also be a case that perhaps there’s some damaged packaging or it doesn’t look as aesthetically pleasing anymore so they can’t sell it and we can make good use of it.”

Another organisation tackling food waste is FareShare, a charity that collects food waste from supermarkets, similarly to Food Cycle, and distribute the food to other charities and organisation.

These organisations include hostels, women’s refuge centres, drug rehabilitation centres, lunch clubs for older people and children’s breakfast clubs.

According to their website, 8.4 million people in the UK, equivalent to the population of London, don’t get enough food to eat.

The amount of food that this country wastes should easily cover that number.

FareShare distributes the food they collect to 10,942 charities, saving the organisations a combined total of £33.7 million per year.

This food is then used to feed people in need, feeding nearly a million people in total each week.

22

Food Cycle in action

Credit: YouTube

Such charities are pioneering the future towards reducing food wastage in the United Kingdom, but what can we do about it?

There are several ways in which we individually can cut down the amount of food we waste. Instead of throwing away out of date vegetables you could consider making a soup or a stew out of them.

Basic, I know, but as discussed earlier, food past it’s sell-buy date or that’s not visually pleasing doesn’t necessary means it’s no good to eat.

Meat is a slightly different issue and there has been a recent public pressure to reduce our meat intake due to its farming industry’s high contribution of greenhouse gasses.

Buying less meat and making it last longer is another way in which we can reduce food wastage.

For example, I roast a chicken every week or two, shred off all the meat and use it periodically over the course of the next three of four days in other meals.

Granted this may not work as well for a family of four, but if you’re single or in a couple, it’s a great way of both reducing waste and saving money.

But what about the carcass? After all that would count towards food waste if thrown out.

Instead, I boil it all down to chicken broth which I can use to make soup!

Less than four pounds spent and I have my main protein sorted for five meals.

These are only examples of ways we, individually, can help reduce foo waste.

There are plenty of other out there and I’m not going to pretend that I do them all.

But it is an important matter that effects our planet’s environment, and even if you may think that such as small thing won’t have an impact, it will if everybody does their part.

Medicinal cannabis: the UK’s means of avoiding an opioid crisis?

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By Philip K. Marzouk

dicative of what happened in the US that has resulted in alarming overdose death rates due to opioid use. Meanwhile, only 29 deaths were logged by the Office for National Statistics in 2017 where “cannabis was mentioned on the death certificate”; none of these were from overdose or strongly attributed the death to cannabis use.

With these statistics coming out of the US, why is it that prescription of these dangerous drugs is becoming more commonplace in the UK? Why is it that even though cannabis has been legalised for medicinal use, it is still kept out of patient’s hands when its safety is irrefutable?

One of the physicians and academics at the forefront of trying to answer and change this is Professor Mike Barnes.

In his 30-year career, Prof Barnes has held posts with the Royal College of Physicians, the World Federation for NeuroRehabilitation and The University of Newcastle, but most recently his work has focused on ensuring medicinal cannabis

becomes a widely offered treatment as chief medical officer for European Cannabis Holdings and director of education at the Academy of Medical Cannabis.

In May of 2016, Prof Barnes co-wrote and presented a report as part of an All Parliamentary Group on Drug Policy Reform, a report that was critical in the government’s decision to finally make cannabis legal to prescribe in 2018.

He’s since most famously been involved in securing a medicinal cannabis licence for Alfie Dingley, the seven-year-old epileptic boy who had to fight for access to life changing medicinal cannabis treatments.

Though Dingley’s gone from having 150 seizures a month to zero on account of these medications, Prof Barnes sees getting cannabis to epilepsy sufferers as only part of the battle; a major fight is taking place to try to and get cannabis to patients who are otherwise being made to take killer opioid drugs with alarming regularity.

This is particularly true for chronic pain sufferers who are kept on a continuous

here are 58,282 names inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington: the name of every American G.I. that died during the entire 19-year span of the Vietnam War. Yet, in one year, this number of American deaths was greatly outdone. What was the cause? Not war, or guns, but drug overdose.

In 2017, 70,287 deaths were attributed by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention to drug overdoses with the vast majority being attributed to opioids.

Of the 49,000 opioid deaths, many are attributed to legal prescription drugs.

Co-codamol. Oxycodone. Tramadol.

Naproxen. Fentanyl. In the UK you may only have a passing knowledge of these drugs if you or someone in your life hasn’t had a chronic pain issue.

Their prescription in the UK is becoming more common and this fact is concerning many doctors and academics, particularly when medicinal cannabis is proving to be safer and more effective at treating conditions where opioids are traditionally prescribed.

Medical practice in the UK has seen a significant and continual increase in the prescription of opioids over the last twenty years. Researchers for the British Journal of Pain, Clinical Pharmacist and the British Journal of General Practice found that the prescription of tramadol has increased tenfold since 1994. Co-codamol prescriptions have almost doubled since 2001.

The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) published a report in June 2019 that analysed the rates of use of opioids in 25 of its 35 member countries.

They found that opioid prescriptions and use in the UK is increasing at a faster rate than 22 of the other analysed countries.

The only places where opioid use was expanding faster are Israel and Slovakia.

Speaking to the BBC, lead OECD researcher Christian Herrera described this The 8,000m² Vietnam Veterans Memorial would need an extra 1,655m² added to make space for all the expansion in use as a “warning sign” inAmericans who died from drug overdose in 2017. (Photo credit: Gabriel Bell)

stream of high doses of Oxycodone and Fentanyl patches.

At time of writing, patients struggling to get access through the NHS but want cannabinoid treatments have very few options; there are three private clinics set up by Prof Barnes in Manchester, London and Birmingham.

The first clinic of the three was opened in Manchester in March 2019 but solely focuses on treatment of chronic pain.

Birmingham’s focuses on neurological disorders whilst Lon-

don’s provides alternative cannabis treatments for pain, neurology and psychiatric disorders.

If you can’t get access, or more importantly afford the treatments on offer at these private clinics, you’ll have to remain on whatever NHS treatments are available and these are likely to be opioids.

I asked him what factors kept the NHS in this dangerous descent towards a US style opioid crisis, especially when government legislation provides the

Professor Mike Barnes (third from right) presenting the report on cannabis at 10 Downing Street in May 2016 (Photo credit: United Patients Alliance)

space for cannabis treatments to be readily available.

“The main over-riding problem is doctor education,” said Prof Barnes. “The other main negative is the guidelines from the Royal College of Physicians and the British Paediatric Neurology Association which are unnecessarily restrictive.”

He discussed steps being taken by the Medical Cannabis Clinicians Society who have produced their own guidelines that give a more accurate picture of medicinal cannabis’ uses.

They chart conditions where cannabis was found to have “conclusive and substantial”, “moderate” or “limited” evidence as a useful treatment.

Among the conditions in the “conclusive or substantial” category are spasticity, pain and chemotherapy-related nausea and vomiting: conditions treated regularly with opioids both stateside and here in the UK. According to Prof Barnes, much of this comes down to convenience and an archaic view of what constitutes evidence. In October of this year the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) will be publish-

in slightly different ways.”

Describing cannabis as a “trial and error” medicine in which patients will be given cannabinoids with different properties based on what works, Prof Barnes sees this as a crucial point as to why his colleagues find the prospect of its use so disquieting: it necessitates a complete shift in how they view pharmaceutical medicine.

Even with the known dangers associated with opioids, it is easier to keep prescribing these single molecule medicines than to prescribe complex and differing strains of cannabis.

Prof Barnes said: “You often have to try two, three, four strains before you get the right result for that individual.

Many doctors feel that cannabis is cannabis and if you try it and it doesn’t work, that’s it. This is not the case. It’s a personalised medicine.”

According to Prof Barnes, 25% of opioid deaths can be avoided by prescribing cannabis. In America, that saves over 12,000 people a year.

In some cases, people can entirely replace the use of opioids with cannabinoid treatments.

ing updated guidance for physicians.

This could be a landmark moment in which guidance leaps forward with legislation to stem the tide of opioids in support of cannabis treatments. Unfortunately, this is unlikely. “[NICE] need to broaden their view of evidence. It’s a different situation from most drugs. Most drugs that you don’t know much about, it’s just one single molecule which you can compare to a placebo but you don’t with cannabis,” said Prof Barnes.

“Cannabis has been around for centuries and we therefore know an awful lot about its side-effect profile and its safety. It’s not a typical pharmaceutical medicine; it’s a plant, a family of medicines. You’ve got a highly complicated plant with thousands of different strains and subtleties all of which have slightly different properties that affect people

For others, the use of cannabinoids can greatly reduce the amount of opioids they have to take and dramatically reduce the risk of overdose.

In the UK, we have the information and knowledge to avoid the public health epidemic we are currently on course for. NICE are presented with a clear opportunity in October to take steps to apply the work of Prof Barnes and others that may be critical in avoiding a British opioid crisis that apes that of America.

Will NICE take the steps to avoid the impending crisis?

To quote Prof Barnes: “I’m not holding my breath for the guidelines to make a blind bit of difference.”

“I’m not holding my breath for the guidelines to make a blind bit of difference.”

24

HAUNTED CITY

By Lucy Milburn

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“The devil’s darkness” hangs over Manchester, according to John Ruskin.

hopes for Manchester’s Gothic reputation when he arrived at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2013. espite his abhorrence for 19th “One of my ambitions was to make century industrial Manchester with its Manchester a Gothic mecca – a hub of smog and social injustice, it was here thinking around the Gothic and its cultural that the visionary thinker had his most importance that would be of interest not just lasting impact. This summer, the city will to academics but to the general public,” celebrate the 200th birthday of the artist, Aldana Reyes, Reader in English Literature writer and social reformer who paved the and Film at MMU, said. way for its Gothic tradition.

“When we started digging a little deeper, With both neo-Gothic buildings such as we uncovered a wealth of writers who had the John Rylands Library and the classical set their horror and weird fiction in architecture of Manchester Cathedral, the Manchester.”

Gothic mood still permeates the city. From “There's something about the horrors of the cotton trade to the cholera Manchester itself which epidemic, Manchester’s history is a bleak one. There is certainly an appetite for its seems oddly suited to dark past with plenty of ghost tours, horror.” research and events celebrating the city’s underbelly.

The go-to place for all things Gothic is Aldana Reyes is a founder of the HAUNT Manchester – an online platform Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies – the documenting the ‘dark histories and spooky largest gathering of scholars in the world secrets’ of the city. In June 2018, the site working on the Gothic, brought together by launched as a subsection of Visit Dr Linnie Blake in 2013. In 2018, the 14th Manchester to connect both the public with International Gothic Association Conference the alternative side of the city. From nightlife was held in Manchester, emphasising the to walking tours, the blog is driven by city’s Gothic credentials. However, the main research from the Manchester Centre for event on the Centre’s calendar is their Gothic Studies, Encountering Corpses and annual Gothic Manchester Festival, which the Manchester Centre for Public History & celebrates its seventh year this October.

“The festival was designed to combine our Heritage. research with the tourist, creative and “By engaging with the themes of the entertainment industries,” Aldana Reyes Gothic, and particularly the idea of ‘haunting,’ we can enrich our understanding said.

The team have hosted everything from of 'modern' Manchester, its people, and its nightime tours of Manchester Art Gallery to history,” Emily Oldfield, Editor of HAUNT a queer Gothic-themed vogue ball.

Manchester, said.

“We hope that we are helping people Inspired by cities such as Whitby, a top Gothic destination thanks to Bram Stoker’s reacquaint themselves with the city they live Dracula, Dr Xavier Aldana Reyes had high in and changing their conceptions about the

relevance of the Gothic in contemporary times,” Aldana Reyes said.

“Our work has been consolidated by HAUNT – even the briefest browse of this magnificent platform reveals how far the tentacles of the Gothic reach out.”

From the grotesque to the fantastically weird, Manchester has plenty of urban legends. It was in Chetham’s Library that John Dee, an occultist and advisor to Queen Elizabeth I, purportedly summoned the devil. There is even a telltale burn mark on a table in the Audit Room, supposedly left by Satan’s hoof.

“The consideration of ‘haunted’ and ‘spooky’ content isn’t necessarily to see if ghosts are real – that’s a whole other issue – but the interest lies in the fascinating stories and perceptions of place they create,” Oldfield said. hile the Gothic side of Manchester isn’t all about things that go bump in the night, the city has its fair share of supernatural sites.

Dating back to the 15th century, Ordsall Hall is home to some of Manchester’s most popular ghosts. The Salford manor is reportedly haunted by the ‘The White Lady,’ said to be the spirit of Lady Margaret Radclyffe, who died in 1599 following the death of her beloved brother. The Grade I listed building has embraced its supernatural status – it runs frequent ghost tours and has a ‘ghost cam’ for the public to spy on resident spirits.

Haunted Happenings have been ghost hunting at Ordsall Hall for nearly 12 years, enabling paranormal enthusiasts to carry out experiments and vigils.

“Nearly everyone who has spent the night has picked up on the ghostly activity – particularly in the kitchen, attic and Great

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Inside our fascination with Manchester’s Gothic past Hall,” Hazel Ford, Managing Director at Haunted Happenings, said.

“Figures have been seen on the stairs – one person actually saw a fully armoured soldier standing there prior to its refurbishment. The attic has given us more than a few frights when we’ve heard disembodied footsteps on many occasions.”

Similar spooky happenings have been reported at Smithills Hall in Bolton. The charity Friends of Smithills Hall offer a tour of the historic venue, complete with ghost stories collected over the years.

“People have been living on the site since Anglo Saxon times and the people (and the buildings) have left their marks – both emotional or physical,” David Williams, Chairman of Friends of Smithills Hall, said.

“Guests see strange things, feel unexpected sensations and smell odours that shouldn't be present. Many have photographs with orbs or movement which logically shouldn't be there.”

It’s not just the architecture that has a spooky history – several of Manchester’s public parks are built on forgotten burial grounds. Victoria station was built on a mass paupers' grave for victims of the cholera epidemic. All Saints Park, near Oxford Road, was a former Victorian Cemetery with an estimated 16,000 bodies underneath the surface. ngel Meadow and St Michael’s Flags, a park near the Green Quarter, is another hidden-history favourite from the HAUNT Manchester team.

“The park is on the site of what was one of the worst 19th century slums in the country, a time when the city was recognised for industrial output – yet many workers lived in deep poverty,” Oldfield said. “Friedrich Engels actually referred to this area as ‘Hell upon Earth’ and there are estimated to be thousands of bodies still lying under the ground.”

The city is also home to Grimmfest, one of the UK’s leading festivals of horror & cult film. Beginning as a one-off Halloween screening of local film SPLINTERED, the showcase snowballed into a five-day horror event which is now in its eleventh year, thanks to Manchester’s hunger for film of the non-mainstream variety.

“We always joke that we started a film festival by mistake,” Steve Balshaw, Film

A

Programmer at Grimmfest, said. “One night, we found ourselves speaking at a media event and, after one drink too many, announced that we were setting up a horror and genre film festival.”

“The big change we have seen during the years of running Grimmfest is that horror has become far more acceptable than it was when we started out,” Balshaw said.

“We make sense of the world through stories – and the darker the times, the darker the stories we are drawn to tell.”

“There's also something about Manchester itself which seems oddly suited to horror – some underlying threat of violence and danger lurking just below the surface of things.”

Simeon Halligan, Grimmfest Director, shot his horror feature film HABIT in Manchester’s Northern Quarter. Based on a novel of the same name by local author Stephen McGeagh, HABIT takes viewers on a disturbing journey into a dark subculture thriving in “neon drenched

dystopian Manchester.”

“HABIT reflects the Manchester I grew up in – it is one I recognise from the late 80s and 90s,” Halligan said. “The seedy northern quarter back-street locations used in the film are the last vestiges of what that part of Manchester used to look and feel like before it became a trendy hang out.

“The film takes an aspect of Manchester (the seedy underbelly) and imagines how extreme you could push that idea – could there be a subculture of human flesh eaters running the bars, clubs, and brothels of Manchester?

“For me, HABIT is a horror-infused love letter to a side of Manchester that is quickly disappearing.”

FROM ROTTERDAM TO MANCHESTER TRANSGENDER ACTOR DISCUSSES THE NEED FOR LGBT EDUCATION IN SCHOOLS AND BECOMING A VICTIM OF HATE CRIME

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By GEORGINA COUPE

he critically acclaimed play 'Rotterdam' returned to Manchester Opera House this month after two of the main cast were targeted in a homophobic hate crime in Southampton, which caused two previous showings to be cancelled.

Lucy Jane Parkinson and Rebecca Banatvala, star in Jon Brittain's Olivier Award-winning production and are a couple both on stage and off.

They were left shaken and shocked after stones were thrown at them, and verbally abused by occupants of a passing car believed to be a group of young men.

Lucy said the couple were close to the Nuffield Southampton Theatres (NST) and had been sharing a kiss and a hug when Lucy was hit in the eye and temple by objects thrown from the car and was knocked to the ground.

Lucy said: "I'm just pleased that it was me that was struck and not Rebecca, as any partner would feel.

"Rebecca was left feeling concerned and worried obviously, but we are both just glad that my injuries weren't more serious."

NST was forced to cancel two performances of the play when the actors were left too distressed after the attack to be able to perform.

The incident was reported to police although so far no one has been arrested.

Lucy was happy to be back on the stage in Manchester and feels the Northern city is more accepting and supportive of the LGBT community than anywhere else in the country.

Lucy grew up in Yorkshire and studied Contemporary Theatre and Performance at Manchester Metropolitan University, before going on to London to complete an MA in Contemporary Performance Making at the Brunel School of Arts.

Lucy describes the play as being very important in high-

for many years and living in Rotterdam with her girlfriend Alice and her brother.

Alice, played by Rebecca Banatvala, is about to tell her parents that she is a lesbian and has a girlfriend when Fiona drops the bombshell that 'she' has always identified as 'he' and wants to start living as a

Lucy Jane Parkinson. Courtesy of Max Zedah.

lighting the issues faced by those in the LGBT community and identifies as trans non-binary and prefers not to be referred to as either he or she, but they.

The decision by the show’s creator to cast trans and non-binary performers like Lucy brings a depth and realism to the production that would be difficult to replicate without.

Lucy plays a character called Fiona who has been openly gay

man called Adrian.

The rollercoaster of raw emotion envelops the audience from start to finish as both Alice and Adrian come to terms with the repercussions of what this decision means for them both as a couple and individuals.

Their story is told with humour and compassion but it is clear that the performance is much more than just a performance for the actors.

Many of the conversations

taking place on the stage are based on real life situations that the actors and writers have experienced themselves. The performance offers an insight and an education to a non-binary way of life that has never before been seen in the UK. Lucy described their own journey as a “difficult and a very lonely time because years ago there wasn't the language for people like me to be recognised and accepted under these terms.”

The show reflects much of the conflict and angst Lucy went through as a teenager, who describes their own teenage years as “a tough time” and describes coming to terms with “my own queerness” was a difficult period.

Lucy performed as a drag king in London and through performing “as a bloke” they said they were able to see how it really felt and whether this was something they would want to experience permanently.

Lucy explained the time spent performing, as a man was instrumental to them in the journey to become comfortable in their own skin. It was a time that allowed them to grow as a person and to develop an understanding of themselves and who they wanted to be.

Lucy said: “I began to realise that objectifying women was not cool, I became comfortable around men and I also realised that I didn’t need to make that permanent decision about my own body.”

“Performing as a man allowed me to dig into my own identity and I realised that mine was more of a pendulum identity. I don’t have the need to transition.”

Lucy’s character Adrian decides that he does want to tran-

I don’t care if you want to look like a giraffe, sition and the play discusses and explores as long as you’re happy." the impact such a decision means for his Although the play tells a serious story, the friends and family.

Adrian’s announcement causes Alice to question whether she is still a lesbian if her partner becomes a man.

The character’s portrayal of the trauma and angst is incredibly moving and by speaking to Lucy, it is clear that the rollercoaster of emotion that the characters go through on stage is reflective of what the couple and indeed thousands of other people have been through themselves.

Coming out to Lucy's own parents was more of an explosion than a planned conversation and Lucy explains that it took Bethan Cullinane and Lucy Jane Parkinson. Courtesy of Helen Maybanks them a few years for them to really understand and accept her sexual- script is chocked full of caustic wit entertaining the audience and providing much ity and coming to terms with it. It took a long time but fifteen years later they could- needed light relief as the tragic n't be more supportive and Lucy feels fortu- tale unfolds.

The casting of Stella Taylor as nate to be able to use her experience to Lelani, Alice's 21 year-old colportray a character like Adrian. leagues adds authentic Dutch Lucy was about thirteen years old and humour and glamour to the had been performance and allows Alice grounded for the to reinforce her belief that it is summer at her women she is attracted to. home in Yorkshire Paul Heath plays Adrian's when she decided Justice without cis-gender brother Josh and to sneak out of education fails Alice’s ex-boyfriend and supthe house to meet people ports the couple through their up with a girljourney. Exceptionally funny, friend. They were he frequently flips the mood spotted by a relaand provides a vehicle for tive who told Lucy’s parents what she had seen but had- Adrian to illustrate how difficult n’t actually realised it was another girl Lucy life has been for him, growing up in a body that has never felt was kissing at the bus stop. ‘right’.

When the argument erupted at home Lucy describes how much efLucy’s parents demanded to know who the fort and energy goes into each performboy was and were devastated when Lucy ance by the entire cast and they shouted that they had a girlfriend not a considered themselves extremely fortunate boyfriend. to be able to have a few days off to enjoy Lucy’s mother was shocked and upset and shouted: “What do you want to be one Manchester before the play moved onto Oxford. of them for?!”

After the events in Southampton, Lucy was looking forward to taking their girlfriend Rebecca Banatvala to the bars of Canal Street. They have been a couple for 11 months and love performing together as Alice and Adrian but don’t have the arguments or issues to deal with that their Elijah Harris and Lucy J Parkinson. Courtesy of Helen Maybank characters have.

Lucy said: “After a show we all just have Lucy said that it was a relief for the truth to sit down and try to wash the emotion off to have come out and as a teenager she had become sick of feeling “gross” or “bad.” us. We have a drink, talk about the highs and lows of the evening.”

A few years down the line Lucy said that Being back ‘up North” also meant that the conversation with their mother was very Lucy’s family were able to come to watch different. the play.

Lucy said: "When I told my mother that I They said: "My mum and sister came to was considering top surgery she just said; "

“

”

the performance last night and my mum cried. She said how brilliant the play was and how proud she was.”

“And as well as having my family come along, it's also just lovely being at the Opera House. I'm so touched by the flurry of good will and love we've had.

"We've had so many nice messages and cards. I love being in Manchester and we definitely get the most support here."

The attack in Southampton was the first time that Lucy has been physically assaulted because of their sexuality and it came shortly after a young lesbian couple were attacked on a bus in London by a group of teenage boys and left covered in blood.

Lucy believes that a lack of education surrounding sexuality and gender identity is to blame for the rise in homophobic and transphobic behaviour that is particularly prevalent amongst teenage males.

Lucy said: "I think that there's a lot of work that needs to be done by schools and teachers and parents to educate youngsters today.

“There's a real problem with aggression and a toxic masculine culture with youths that is perpetuated by ignorance.

"They need to be educated so that they know that they don't need to be violent and angry to be an alpha male, there are other characteristics that can be developed."

Lucy was keen to emphasise to the police who were investigating that they would very much like to be able to speak to those responsible and help to educate them about their lifestyle.

Lucy said: "There's no point in them just being prosecuted for what happened. Justice without education just fails people.

"What I'd like to do is sit down and have a conversation with them. I'd like to see if we could reach some sort of common ground.”

Lucy believes that the events, which took place in Southampton and London, simply reinforce the need for plays like ‘Rotterdam,’ sentiments echoed by the NST Theatre who released a statement that said: "We are doing all we can to support the team and thank our audiences and colleagues for their support.

"We are devastated that this kind of behaviour is still so prevalent, a fact which reinforces the importance of this play's message.”