Monday 14th December 2009 Volume 11 Issue 7 www.bathimpact.com
impact student
University of Bath student newspaper
Are students the bane of B&NES?
More than seven hundred students will receive their degrees across two days of winter graduation ceremonies to be held at the Assembly Rooms next week. Students from the Division for Lifelong Learning, the Schools of Health and Management and the Faculties of Engineering & Design, Science and Humanities & Social Sciences will receive their degrees, along with a number of honorary degrees being awarded. Ceremonies will take place at 10am, 12.30pm and 3pm on both days.
Bath chemists in global top 1%
The University’s Chemistry academics are in the top one per cent of all chemists worldwide, according to details of analysis released by the Department of Chemistry. Citation analysis of papers published over the past ten years reveals that a total of nine hundred and sixty one citations are required for researches to be included in the top echelon of worldwide chemists. Information released by the Department shows that ten of its staff fulfil these criteria, including head of the Organic Chemistry group, Prof Jonathan Williams.
Student Lifestyles: Are students detrimental to communities?
These past few weeks have seen the Bath Chronicle letters page contain strong attacks on the student community in Bath, with complaints ranging from our council tax exempt status to our perceived proclivities for noise and general disruption. One correspondence includes “For some people this means perhaps minor disturbances such as having to wait longer to queue in Sainsbury’s or a bigger queue for the bus”. Many students would be fairly hurt by the implied suggestion that we are somehow second class citizens over whom the non-student community has priority. Another letter states “Both
All go for winter grad ceremonies
universities have to take responsibility for developing more accommodation on campus to relieve the city of the problems created by multi-occupancy housing or they have to stop increasing their intake”. This overlooks the fact that University of Bath is unable, due to planning regulations, to expand its site to the size needed to accommodate over 10,000 students on campus. The most worrying aspect of these letters, however, is the general undercurrent of dislike and distrust of a group of people who for the most part are completely innocent of any wrongdoing. The assessment of these people, who we must hope
are not the majority of local people, seems to be based on activities committed by a small proportion of noisy young people; it therefore would be harsh to tarnish the reputation of an entire section of the community. The recent decision to stop picking up students from the Laura Place bus stop after 10 pm due to high noise levels in what is a residential area is an example that will only give more ammunition to the anti-student lobby. However, this decision was taken by the Students’ Union, responding to complaints from the residents of Laura Place, thus demonstrating the responsibility to the community
In impact this week...
which the SU feels it should have. The recent activity of University of Bath students, taking part in a litter pick in Oldfield Park, indicates that not all students have a detrimental effect on the community and perhaps some could even be considered valued members. According to a spokesman for Don Foster MP, Matt Hemsley, despite occasional complaints “the relationship between the whole student body and the local community has improved over the past five years”. Hemsley added “if there was one thing that students could do better, then it would be to keep late night partying to a minimum and respect their neighbours, especially in town”
Vote of thanks for Pro-VC Prof Jaimeson
Throughout his career, Professor Ian Jamieson has aided both the Students’ Union and the University in realising progress, development and change for the benefit of students, staff and the greater community. The Students’ Union would like to officially acknowledge Professor Jamieson for his invaluable support throughout the years. His significant contributions to the development of a strong and healthy relationship between the Students’ Union and the University will not be forgotten. On behalf of the University of Bath Students’ Union,
Bunny in the oven
Money in the oven
Money gone on clocks
Features
Opinion
Ents
Page 6
Page 9
Page 22
2
www.bathimpact.com/news
Monday 14th December 2009 IMPACT
News
student impact New ID rules come is brought to you by... into force for exams Editorial Team Editor Deputy Editor News Editor Comment Editor Features Editor Science Editor Ents Editor Deputy Ents Editor Sport Editor Deputy Sport Editor Online Editor Photo Editor Treasurer Chief Sub-Editor Special thanks
Tim Leigh editor@bathimpact.com Josie Cox Chris Wotton news@bathimpact.com Emma Simmons comment@bathimpact.com Sian Lewis features@bathimpact.com Steve Ramsey science@bathimpact.com Phil Bloomfield ents@bathimpact.com Alex Drake Sean Lightbown sport@bathimpact.com Sam Foxman David Kennaway online@bathimpact.com Peter Pratelli photo@bathimpact.com David Kennaway treasurer@bathimpact.com Katie Rocker Deborah Sönksen & Georgina Cotton
Contact Details Phone Fax Email
01225 38 6151 01225 44 4061 editor@bathimpact.com
Web Twitter
www.bathimpact.com @bathimpact
Address
impact Students’ Union University of Bath Bath BA2 7AY
If you want to write, design, take photos or otherwise contribute to impact get in touch with the Editor, pop into the office in Norwood House level 4, log onto our website (www.bathimpact.com) or come along to a contributors’ meeting every Tuesday 18:15 in 4E2.4.
Students’ Union VP Communications Ben Cole SUcommunications@bath.ac.uk 01225 386679
Advertising
for the duration of the test to allow invigilators to carry out a spot-check of all candidates. The Student Records & Examinations Office has sought to publicise the changes through the Students’ Union, and has also launched a poster campaign in department buildings around the campus. It is understood that as a temporary measure, other forms of identification will be accepted in the absence of a library card, though students will also be expected to
answer a series of questions at the end of an examination in order to verify their identity. The University has also revised its policy on the use of dictionaries in examinations, where English-only dictionaries will now be available for use by students in all sessions, except those testing the use of language. Students no longer need to apply in advance for use of a dictionary, as has been the case in the past. Let us know your thoughts at www.bathimpact.com
Meningitis scare shakes Bath Uni
Volunteers sought for the 2012 Paralympics camp in Bath
Chris Wotton News Editor news@bathimpact.com Students are being reminded to take library cards to all examinations from the upcoming assessment session, as new rules are introduced to crack down on instances of cheating. All students will now be expected to produce their library card at the start of each examination, and to leave the card on the corner of their desk
Chris Wotton News Editor news@bathimpact.com
Students are being asked to look out for symptoms, not all of which may show.
The University is once again seeking to draw attention to the symptoms of meningitis after a student was admitted to hospital suffering from the bacterial strain of the disease.
It is important to remain vigilant, whether you have been vaccinated or not.
Symptoms: severe headache high temperature or fever, vomiting a stiff neck paleness/blotchy skin drowsiness or lethargy joint pains cold hands and feet a rash of red or purple spots
According to a statement released on the University’s internet homepage, the student in question is ‘receiving treatment and recovering well’. The University stressed it had taken precautions in working with the Health Protection Agency and the Medical Centre to identify those at potentially increased risk of infection, including the student’s housemates. But it said in its statement that, as the student ‘had not had any tutorials or practical sessions last week’, it was not necessary to specifically alert any other students.
Bacteria that can result in meningitis is carried in the back of the throat of about one in ten people, but rarely causes illness. Close contact is generally needed to contract the disease, which is spread through secretions from the nose or throat. “Although you may have been vaccinated against the C strain of meningitis, the vaccine does not protect against other strains of the disease. So it is important to remain vigilant whether you have been vaccinated or not”, the University added. Tumbler test: If you have a suspicious rash, press a glass against the area. If it doesn’t fade, you may have meningitis Those worried about the symptoms of meningitis are encouraged to seek advice immediately from a doctor, or in an emergency to call 999.
Enquires Helen Freeman H.Freeman@bath.ac.uk 01225 386806
Information The opinions expressed in impact are not necessarily those of the impact editors nor of the University of Bath Students’ Union. Whilst every effort is made to ensure that the information contained in this publication is correct and accurate at the time of going to print, the publisher cannot accept any liability for information which is later altered or incorrect. impact as a publication adheres to the Press Complaints Commission’s Code of Conduct. Please contact them for any information. Printed by www.quotemeprint.com 0845 1300 667
CLOSE CONTACT: Risking meningitis, which spreads through mucus.
Chris Wotton News Editor news@bathimpact.com
Volunteers are being sought to help with the running of training camps for the British Paralympics Team taking place at the University. The University will host the team’s preparation camps in the build-up to the London 2012 Paralympic Games. Athletes, coaches and support staff will attend the first camp in January 2010. Volunteers will undertake a variety of roles, including meeting and greeting athletes at their accommodation, supporting athletes and their team managers during training, liasing between the team managers and the ParalymicsGB staff, and setting up sport-specific venues and medical rooms. Kate Pizzey, from the University’s Sports Development Events Team, said: “This is an exciting and unique opportunity to contribute to the British team’s success in 2012 and to work alongside our international athletes.” “Volunteers may work shift patterns over the five day period. All meals and drinks will be provided, along with a ParalympicsGB goody bag! During breaks, you will be able to access all venues to view the sports”, she added. Further camps are to be held in the August of 2010, 2011 and 2012; increasing in scale each time. Volunteering at the January camp will guarantee volunteer selection for any of these summer camps. Organisers say the skills gained during this ‘national, multi-sport event’ will also be transferable and attractive to employers. Those interested in volunteering should contact Kate Pizzey at k.pizzey@bath.ac.uk.
www.bathimpact.com/news
impact Monday 14th December 2009
News
Facebook campaign calls for additional campus bus shelter Chris Wotton News Editor editor@bathimpact.com An engineering student has launched a campaign to persuade the University to build a new bus shelter on campus. The campaign group, on social networking site Facebook, claims it is common knowledge that it rains ‘every single day’ on campus. It goes on to suggest that, while the current shelter is meant to be used by those waiting for both First’s and Wessex Connect’s buses, the current situation causes d if ficu lties w i t h t h e qu e u i ng system for the two different services.
3
members, among them Students’ Union President Daniel O’Toole. But one member, a Business Administration undergraduate in the School of Management, questioned the viability of the plans, suggesting the problem needed more action besides a new shelter. She added: “[It’s] such a good idea! Though I don’t know how it Other Facebook Campaigns: will extend far enough round that Support for troops in Iraq: area to make a tangible difference. 618,000 members People are usually queuing right The Anti-Daily Mail Coalition: up to the steps.” 17,000 members Does the campus need a Free Aung San Suu Kyi: new bus shelter? Would 53,000 members it make queuing easier for 1,000,000 United Against the BNP: you in the rain? Tell us on 721,000 members Twitter - follow @bathimpact
Josh Alexandre, the second year Aerospace Engineering with French undergraduate who created the group, says on its Facebook group: “I want to appeal to the University to at least build a temporary shelter, and for that, I need your help!” As impact went to print, the group had attracted 284
MISSING:Details of Casper’s disappearance are still emerging
Search goes on for missing Casper Flagg
QUEUING IN THE RAIN: The campus’ bus shelter now serves First and Wessex Connect’s routes.
Chris Wotton News Editor editor@bathimpact.com Fears are growing for missing former Bath Spa student Casper Flagg, who disappeared more than two weeks ago after a night out in Bath. Posters and a viral Facebook campaign have been used by friends and police in an attempt to track down the twenty-eight year old. He was initially thought to have left Moles at 2.30am on Monday 29 November, but CCTV has since traced him exiting the club at 4.06am. CCTV images recorded inside the Sainsbury’s Local store also show him trying
the door to the shop, where lights left on overnight may have led him to believe it was still open. Casper is thought to have walked towards his car, parked close to the river Avon at Green Street Mews, but according to the Facebook group he did not have his house keys, car keys or mobile phone with him, and had lost his debit card. Police efforts to search the river have been hampered by poor weather conditions. The Facebook group, set up by his friend, now has more than 25,000 members. Anyone with information is asked to urgently call the police on 0845 456 7000.
‘Get your kit off’ - all in the name of charity Hanna Wade News Contributor The University’s very own Nearly Naked charity calendar has been launched. Student-led fundraising group
Bath RAG and Student Community Action have teamed up with the Bath University Maths Society to put together a collection of sports clubs, societies and student groups – in the buff! Sports clubs including
kickboxing, judo, jujitsu and canoeing are just some of those involved with the project. Like other fundraising events run during the year, the calendar has been produced by student volunteers and was launched
during a special Flirt! club night in Elements. Proceeds from calendar sales will be divided between various SCA projects and the RAG General Appeal, which is distributed to various local and national
charities at the end of the year. Calendars are open sale now at six pounds each, from the Union Shop or online at www.bathrag. com/calendar. Those purchased online can be collected from the Rag Office on 1 East level 3.
14-18 December www.BathStudent.com/entertainments
Wed.16 Dec. Last SCORE of 2009
University of Bath Students’ Union
www.bathimpact.com/features
impact Monday 14th December 2009
Features
Au Revoir Paris Gina Reay Features Contributor I’m extremely sad to say that I am entering my final week in Paris. This week should be filled with cancelling electricity and internet contracts, conversing with my landlady over my deposit and trying to fit six months of shopping into one 22kg suitcase. However I’ve thrown the shoulds out of la fenêtre and instead soaked up all that wintertime Paris has to offer. This has involved the Christmas Market down the Champs-Elysées, mulled wine in a very chic hat and mittens combo and of course… the Office Christmas Party! Now I’ve heard the general rumours about this yearly event. The stereotype dictates that it is an occasion for the big bosses to provide an open bar to their hardworking colleagues and for hierarchy barriers to fall down as everyone does the Macarena together in harmony. To be honest, that prediction was pretty much spot on, minus the Macarena and add ‘L’adventurier’ by Indochine in there instead and you’ve hit the nail right on the head. The event was Brazilian themed and held in a huge beach-themed club with palm trees, pretend cliffs, swimming pools and fountains. There were Brazilian
Aquarius (21 January-19 February): In the wise words of Terry Venables, “If history repeats itself, I should think we can expect the same thing again.” Pisces (20 February-20 March): Your friends think you’re paranoid, and gossip about it. Tell them you know all about it. That’ll stop them. Aries (21 March-20 April): This week, every dog in the world will go temporarily deaf as Chris Rock is kicked in the balls while ingesting helium. Taurus (21 April-21 May): Don’t take this impersonally, but all humans are idiots. Gemini (22 May-21 June): Sympathy is one of your strengths, but was it really wise to help that elderly burglar by carrying your stuff to his car? And wasn’t it originally your car? And wasn’t his getaway driver originally your wife?
If you asked most people when the best time to come to Paris is they would probably say in s p r i n g time – it’s the standard answer. Just like everyone knows the worst time to go to Venice is in the summer, and the best time to go to Scotland is when you’re fed up of proper holidays and don’t want to leave the accommodation you’ve booked. However this is a myth. Christmas time is officially the best time to book your cheap flights to the city of romance and take in the sights. The past few weeks in Paris have been amazing! There’s an iceskating rink outside the town hall, a massive ‘wheel of excellence’ ferris wheel at Concorde and a Christmas market lining the Champs Elysées selling all those key Christmas gifts such as giant tartan teddy bears (soo French) and Eiffel tower shaped soap dishes (classy).
The great thing about the party was that you saw a much more human side to everyone. It was also an absolutely perfect way to say goodbye to the company and my colleagues, who I’ve become very attached to. My only complaint was, during the entire night, there was not one hint of Christmasness! No Christmas songs, hats… presents! I never thought I’d say it but I don’t half miss the commercialism of Christmas in Angleterre!
Madame Soufflé Greetings from the heavens my star children. I am Madame Soufflé and I will traverse the astral planes in order to guide you through the year. Fear not; for Madame Souffle will guide you through the darkest patches. Capricorn (22 December-20 January): Before you next go out, save the number of a 24-hour lawyer into your phone. Just in case...
Joyeux Noël
dancers, a surf board simulator, sombreros a n d . . . much to my regret... both a m o j i t o A N D tequila bar. A band played amazing music whilst the drinks flowed and we danced the night away in happiness to celebrate the end of the year. Initially I had wanted to cling onto at least a hint of professional etiquette but this was pretty much thrown out the window when one of the big bosses of the company grabbed me and proceeded to throw me about like we were contestants on Strictly Come Dancing!
Horoscope
So, getting in the spirit of things Abi, my Scottish housemate, and I decided to decorate the kitchen this week. The problem - which only struck us after we’d spent about an hour sellotaping things to our
Virgo (23 August-21 September): Have you noticed how horoscope statements are so vague they could apply to anybody? That’s such a Virgo thing to think. Libra (22 September-22 October): This week’s theme: Singing in the Rain. Next week’s: Dancing in the Dark. The week after: Filling out tax returns in the shower. Scorpio (23 October-21 November): Quiche is better than sex, especially on a triple letter score. Sagittarius (22 November-21 December): There’s a fine line between persistence and stalking; the details of which are in the small-print of your restraining order.
Rebecca Stagg Features Contributor
kitchen walls - was that our main decorations consisted of very cheap, shiny, coloured paper chains. Our kitchen looked like how you might imagine the Royle family’s kitchen might at Christmas time - tacky and ridiculous. The next morning when we walked into the kitchen the only thing that was decorated was the floor - with all the decorations we’d loving put up now under our feet. As our shower is in our kitchen (obviously) this meant they then got a bit wet and so we decided to call it a day and took them down (or rather picked them up). It felt like cancelling Christmas. However, now we have only two weeks left in Paris until the holidays start when we’ll all be going back to our respective homelands for the climax of the festive season. And although I spend most of my time moaning about France, having now spent pretty much three months living here I have to say it almost feels strange going back to England for Christmas.
Yes, I now have so little money left I have to make cheese sauce without the cheese and no, it wouldn’t be the same to spend Christmas without my family and friends around, but for me Christmas should be spent somewhere that feels like home and scary though it may be, I think I’m starting to feel at home in France. God help me.
The Chronicles of Siânia EPisode 3: Jingle Bells, Batman smells...
Cancer (22 June-22 July): This week the position of Pluto will bring you misfortune, especially if you’re orbiting Neptune at a radius of three billion km. Leo (23 July-22 August): It’s easy to get distracted by the little things in life; just ask Niels Bohr.
5
Sian Lewis Features Editor features@bathimpact.com This iS going to be all about Yuletide because 1. I’m desperate for inspiration since our printing deadline is in about 15 minutes, and 2. oh no, that’s the only reason. Unlike my rather more esteemed companions in the world of bitchy columns (that’s you, Charlie Brooker), I quite like Christmas. I like twinkly lights and carols. I like log fires and presents. I like getting roaring drunk and singing “Fairytale in New York”. I like feeding the cat bits of tinsel (hilarity ensues, trust me). I like eating so much I need to lie down and take some deep breaths after the turkey so I don’t pass out in a blissful gastric coma. What I don’t like is change - my insecurities clearly come massively to the surface around now as I
simply can’t hack it if anything’s different from the family traditions (that would be stockings, breakfast, presents, chocolate, presents, making brandy butter, lunch, country walk, film, chocolate, bed, and woe betide my mother if she attempts to rebel and do anything different) - Christmas has to be reliable and unchangeable, like the talking clock, or death. That doesn’t mean that some festive traditions clearly could and should die a slow and painful demise. Firstly, sexy santa outfits. I’m sorry, but you’re dressing like an old fat bearded man in order to please your randy beloved. Really? Really? Secondly, people I like (that’s you Steven Fry) poncing about in fake bookshops for a nice fat pay cheque from Marks and Spencers. I thought you were cool, Steven, you have let me down and are no longer my fantasy uncle. That’s pretty much the end of my list since I unashamedly love fake snow, chiahuahuas with reindeer horns, tinsel-vomiting shop fronts, egg-nog-ginger-sugar-mousse lattes and other disgusting Starbucks beverages, watching Free Willy on Christmas Day and just generally being a lovely shiny Xmas bundle
of joy and driving my housemates mental by singing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer until they want to brain me with a bottle of mulled wine. Yes, Christmas is commercial and most likely created by Coca-Cola in order to lull us into a twinkly sense of security so that we stop worrying about our unimportant lives, the dodgy economy and global warming and instead have a strange overwhelming desire for fizzy pop. Yes, it gets a bit irritating when you have to watch holiday Andrex adverts (we were discussing this recently - is it because toilet paper wants to feel special around this time of year too?) and endure the nightmare that is trying to buy a present for your dad. Yes, people like me can be annoying if you’re not a big fan of hyper merry-making people jingling in your personal space. But please, if you are not so keen on Christmas (that’s you, Editor in Chief Tim Leigh, I am publicly shaming you as The Grinch), please shut the f**k up and let us happy ones get on with having truffle eating competitions with our siblings - first one to bring them back up wins.
6
www.bathimpact.com/features
Monday 14th December 2009 IMPACT
Features
FOOD FOR THOUGHT:
As any fans among you will remember from our last issue, Charlotte is a vegetarian. So, we have decided to annoy our more carnivorous readers by basing this issue on the joys of vegetarianism: in fact, this fortnight’s recipe is vegan!
The Veggie Issue
Demuth’s - Review It’s been a long time coming, but I finally made it to Demuth’s. Any excuses I may have for not having done it sooner really don’t fly, as I live less than a hop, skip and a jump away. As reviewing this vegetarian restaurant has been top of my agenda for a while, in visiting it, I feel I can tick off another thing on my “To Do” list and I can die happy. W i t h its decor homely and the staff friendly, the ambience is centred: serving to calm shattered nerves and quell spiralling emotions (caused, predominantly, by the enormous final year workload). The venue is extremely popular and I have been advised that Sunday morning tea is especially nice. Miss Gray and I were swiftly seated in the corner by a window and the general clientele appeared to cover almost every demographic, insinuating a non-judgemental attitude which immediately relaxed the atmosphere. I was reasonably hungry (read ravenous), due to missing breakfast (bad Charlotte) and thus felt fully entitled to a starter. I decided on a mozzarella crostini, which consisted of ciabatta with pesto, spinach, char-grilled courgettes and melting mozzarella,
topped with a tomato and onion compote. Kate and I both went for the mouth-watering Demuth’s salad, containing roasted autumnal vegetables including local smoky squash, puy lentils, tamari seeds and salsa verde dressing with sliced haloumi. The presentation was lovely, but in lieu of a sprig of herb, we were given an e n t i r e herb garden; the benefits of which were negligible. As I have apparently started judging places based on the water offered, it is important to note that we were given reasonably cool ice cubes (see what I did there?) in our water - which were arguably in the shape of breasts... We decided against a dessert as nothing jumped out and they were mostly figgy and generic. I think I went back and had ice cream anyway... It wasn’t too expensive, but unless you have a very forgiving bank card, I wouldn’t recommend daily visits (despite the obvious temptation!). All in all, a perfect venue for girly (and manly) chats, agony sessions, long and philosophical discussions about the meaning of life or just general catching up.
This soup will If, like me, the proximity to the end of term for you means exhaustion, poverty (the little remaining money should probably be used to buy presents), and general grumpiness about life, it’s definitely time to discuss cheap food. Having drunk quite a lot of my money over the last 10 weeks, I also like the idea of a last ditch attempt at health, particularly with the prospect of amazing festive food (not to mention more booze) looming. So, I have decided to wheel out one of my most reliable, easy and thrifty recipes – vegetable soup. Sweat the onion in the oil on a low heat for 5-10 minutes, until it is translucent. Chuck in the leek, carrots and garlic and continue to sweat until the leeks have reduced down and released their liquids: usually about 10-15 minutes. Keep an eye on it, though, as burning it at this point will only result in a bitter flavour, not to mention a much harder job when it comes to washing up! Add the stock cube and enough water to cover the vegetables, and give it a good stir. How much water you’ll need depends on what quantity of vegetables you have – I usually need about two thirds of a kettle full. Simmer for about another 10 minutes to help the flavours to develop, and to ensure the carrots are cooked. Finally, in go the beans and the peas. The flageolet beans give the soup an amazing silky texture: you may not
The secret diary of a
SEXAHOLIC Via Donna Jenkins and Anni Kasari’s naughty minds
As the Christmas season draws closer and we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel of endless library sessions, there are plenty of excuses to get tipsy on mulled wine and mingle with our friends before the holiday. Us Sexperts recommend taking advantage of these festivities and whatever you do, don’t forget the mistletoe - you never know who you’ll bump into! After all, this is the only time when you’re allowed to whisper “All I want for Christmas is you” into your own Hugh Grant’s ear... For some of us, Christmas shopping is more of a nightmare than a merry stroll around charming boutiques. Worry no longer little elves, the perfect presents are just a few clicks away and you don’t even have to put down your sherry and mince pie to bag them. Lovehoney.co.uk has some great little stocking fillers
and you won’t have to break the bank to afford them either. If you are stuck for ideas why not invest in sensual atmosphere with some scented candles, mood lighting and massage oils? These will provide entertainment long after Santa’s visit. The Sexperts prefer lovingly crafted homemade gifts - why don’t you try the personal approach too? Get your camera out and snap some sexy pictures to put together a naughty calendar for 2010. The best presents aren’t necessarily material: give a gift to remember and offer your partner a lap dance or a personal voucher for a full body massage from yours truly. Everyone would agree that Christmas is essentially about food and love so why not enjoy the two together? We are all used to having dessert after dinner but why not steam things up a little beforehand - just don’t forget to pre-heat the oven before you stick in the turkey!
The Sexperts’ Quote of the Day from urbandictionary. com: “Sex is like maths: you add the bed, subtract the clothes, divide the legs and pray you don’t multiply!”
have used them before, but trust me, they are delicious! Take off the heat and whizz up with a hand blender until it is nice and smooth. Serve with a nice chunk of crusty bread, a cheesy film and some good friends – then go to bed early in an attempt to clear those bags from under your eyes before your mother notices them. Another plus point of this soup is how long it keeps fresh for, as it’s vegan. But by a long time I mean days, not weeks – don’t think you can leave it in the fridge over Christmas! INGREDIENTS: •1 or 2 onions, chopped. •1 tbsp olive oil. •1 or 2 cloves of garlic, crushed. •1 leek, chopped; •1 tin flageolet beans in water. •1 carrot, peeled and chopped. •1 stock cube. •Some frozen peas.
Sexual Advice for Rabbits Secret Contributor Felix on small furry mammals
As a rabbit, you’ll be having a lot of sex. I mean, really, a lot. A quiet day for you will start with a furious shag, progressing through a series of rough screws until lunch, when you will eat some grass. Satiated, stomach-wise, you will return to your burrow and copulate, copiusly, until tiredness sets in and you make love for a while. You had breakfast and dinner somewhere in the middle of all that, but didn’t notice, because of course you were busy humping. But no matter how experienced, one can always learn more. One of the most often neglected parts of a doe’s body is the ears. These provide a rabbit with the finely-tuned sense you need to spot predators before they spot you, so you can use your powerful hind legs to sprint to the safety of your burrow. Also, they are deeply erotic. Try licking them lightly with your tongue, perhaps teasing her while she is blindfolded. Do not be tempted to nibble; you have large, sharp rodent teeth. If sex is starting to become vanilla, let your kinky side take the reigns for an evening. Many rabbits enjoy roleplay in the burrow. Why not dress as a farmer and have your partner invade the carrot patch? Be sure not to get carried away and shoot your partner then cook her for dinner. You are a herbivore! A well-
advertised aphrodisiac is chocolate. Though you are unable to digest this, similar sensuous pleasure can be had with berries and grass clippings. Cover your lover’s body, then graze upon her. Be careful, because you can’t digest berries either. But you can at least afford them, whereas rabbit currency has been widely rejected by chocolatiers since the onset of the recession. So what are you waiting for? Get out there and give that doe a fantastic buck!
SEXUAL ADVICE FOR RAMPANT RABBITS: Bzzzzzzzzbzzzzzzzz bzzzzzzzzzzzzbzzzzzzzzzz bzzzzbzzzz bzzzzzzzzzzbzzz zzzzzzbzzzzzzz zzzzzzz bzzzzzbzzzzzzbzzzzzbzzzz zbzzzzz. Bzzzzzz! Bzzzzzzbzzzzzzz zzzzbzzzzzzzzzbzzz zbzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzb zz zzzz zzzbzzzz zzzzbzzzz; bzzzzbzzzz zbzzzzzzz zzzbzz zzz, bz. SEXUAL ADVICE FOR RABBIS: A good rule of thumb is to read the Book of Job. Study the passage on intimacy carefully, being mindful of God’s instructions, then do the opposite.
SEXUAL ADVICE FOR PLAYBOY BUNNIES: Personally I was disappointed by most of you; congratulations Victoria for boring me the least. I’m afraid we’re just going to have to go through it all again until you get better. SEXUAL ADVICE FOR WELSH RAREBITS: You are perfect just the way you are.
www.bathimpact.com/features
impact Monday 14th December 2009
Telling it like it is Bath Model UN Deputy Editor Josie Cox interviews journalist Paul Lewis, who broke the story on the G20 death of Ian Tomlinson.
On the 1st of April this year, a British newspaper vendor in his late 40s died in the middle of London’s financial district after being sucked into the G20 riots on his way home from work. The initial post mortem indicated that Ian Tomlinson had suffered a heart attack and died of natural causes - an explanation widely accepted by press and public until a certain video turned up a week later. The footage, shot by an investment fund manager and obtained by the Guardian newspaper, showed Tomlinson, who was not a protester, being struck on the leg from behind by a police officer wielding a baton and being pushed to the ground by the same officer. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) began a criminal inquiry from which the police were removed. The Crown Prosecution Service is currently considering whether to prosecute the officer in question for manslaughter. Investigative journalist Paul Lewis was the man behind the story. Here he tells Josie Cox about his biggest scoop to date, how it has shaped his career, and the moral dilemmas of being a “merchant of misery.” Arguably the story of Ian Tomlinson was one of the biggest media scoops in Britain this year. At the same time, however, it was an incredibly tragic story. Did you ever feel a sense of guilt in the fact that you as a journalist got such positive acclaim from such a terrible event? Some critics do describe reporters as “merchants of misery” and believe that we trade our benefit with other people’s misfortune. Unfortunately it is true that lots of news tends to be bad news. On this occasion though, I don’t this the comparison carries. Tomlinson’s family – who are the real victims – are really glad that we did what we did. I also think that we pushed the story forward in a way that was really important for public interest. If the officer involved is put on trial, then that’s justice as well. So I do think that we have gained positive steps there for the family and for the public interest. Was the uncovering of the story an individual achievement or a team effort?
delegates triumph in Nottingham Can Tiryakioglu Features Contributor
Ultimately it’s always a team thing, because you have editors, sub-editors etc. On this occasion I even had someone who was editing the footage that was coming in. You’re always reliant on other people, and I think that in this case, more than anything else I was reliant on the people who were at the protests, people who had taken photos, seeing things as they happened and taking videos. If they hadn’t done what they did, then we wouldn’t be where we are today. Do you think that crowdsourced journalism is the best type of journalism? I think it’s one type of journalism. I don’t necessarily think that it’s the best. I think that it is definitely useful when you have crowds because it allows you to examine an incident or moment in history by speaking to lots of people who were there at the time. If it had been up to you alone, would you have broken the story sooner than you did? Probably not, no. It’s just too risky. Timing is always a bit of a tightrope: you want to let people know that you’re interested in the story and that you’re the best person to come to if they have something interesting to say, but you don’t want to show all of your cards too soon. There is definitely value in waiting until you have a watertight case. Do you think that an incident like this could jeopardise the relationship between you as a journalist and the police force - which you so often rely on for information and support in investigative reporting? Certainly. But such is life. The police are certainly not very happy with us and with me at the moment. But although writing something like this is going to piss them off, conversely if you break new ground and produce good journalism, they will respect that. They have to. Has this case inspired you to be more investigative in future and be more active in seeking stories? Yes it has. I think it has really inspired me. It’s certainly the biggest story of my career so far. It’s been a great learning curve and it shows that journalism is so much about instinct.
Bath University Model United Nations Society (BUMUN) has won five awards at the Nottingham MUN Conference of 2009 (NottsMUN 09), which was held between the 27th and 29th of November 2009. Model United Nations is a simulation of the real United Nations, and is an activity where students from all over the world attend international conferences to discuss some of the most pressing concerns of today’s world and work together to write ‘resolutions’ – documents that address the problems and try to bring solutions to them. Each student represents a different nation, effectively assuming the role of an ambassador to the United Nations, and participates in the discussion of a wide range of issues in different committees of the United Nations. These committees include the Disarmament and International Security, Human Rights Council, the Security Council, and many more. BUMUN was founded in September 2008, and NottsMUN 09 was the second external conference the society has ever participated in, and the first for this academic year. NottsMUN 09 hosted approximately 250 students from universities around the world, including the UK, Turkey, Germany, Nigeria, France, Nepal, Romania, and Slovakia. Bath University delegation to NottsMUN
09 included sixteen students from the society, representing five different nations: France, Brazil, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Namibia and United Arab Emirates. Although NottsMUN 09 was the first ever conference of twelve of the sixteen students from Bath, the delegation showed an exceptional performance throughout the conference. Five students from the Bath University delegation, including three complete beginners, won awards. Two delegates (Can Tiryakioglu and Benjamin Nunn) won the highest achievable award in the conference. Speaking of the Society’s performance in the conference, Can Tiryakioglu, the President of BUMUN, said: “This is a fantastic achievement for the society. In little over a year after its founding, BUMUN has increased the number of its members from 18 to 73, and has become a prominent player in the Model United Nations arena - the five awards won are a testament to this. The fact that three of the awards were won by complete beginners also highlight the high quality of the training provided by the society. BUMUN will continue to attend conferences around the world and will continue to represent Bath University in the best possible way. We are a very friendly society and welcome students studying all degrees and in all years.”
7
Features Herman Van Who? James Hemson Features Contributor
“Tintin and Mrs. Tiggy Winkle would command more respect on the world stage” a reader announced in the Telegraph letters page. This assessment might be a little unfair but the appointment of a Haiku writing Belgian Prime Minister, Herman Von Rompuy, and a virtual non-entity at home and abroad, Baroness Ashton, has left many disappointed. This criticism of Ashton and Von Rompuy has come not only from the British press, who claimed it an anti-climax after the ratification of the Lisbon treaty, and contended that the two leaders would hardly be stopping the traffic in Washington and Beijing, let alone Brussels. Yet there was also criticism from as far afield as the Obama administration, which in understated style claimed that “it’s rather less than we were hoping for”. The nomination and selection of Ashton and Rumpuy was characterised by a very European weakness for coalition politics and shady backroom meetings in which accord and stability trumps appointment on merit. British plans for a Blair leadership of the second kind, which were dumped for the next best thing, and France’s requests for a centre left woman, or else face parliamentary hostility, has arguably left the EU with a High Representative on Foreign Policy with very little, if any, foreign policy experience, and a less than conspicuous President. However for all the negative energy that has surrounded these appointments there needs to be time for a reflection on the good points. It can almost be guaranteed that their inconspicuous nature will prevent these two from overshadowing any summit, instead allowing a greater focus on the member states, and isn’t that what the EU is all about anyway? Both are also said to be gifted negotiators which will play for the need for consensus building in the EU, which in a time characterised by a greater multipolarity and the rise of the BRIC countries is necessary to keep the EU as a key player on the world stage, as a split EU will not win any medals in foreign matters. Bad press and consensus building aside, these appointments and the problems they have raised point to some fundamental questions that need to be answered within the EU and by European citizens. Where do we want the EU to go, and where do we see its place in the world? The time to answer these questions is now. Without a harmonious answer there will always be discord and disunity when another treaty or selection of this kind comes around again.
8
www.bathimpact.com/opinion
Monday 14th December 2009
Opinion
IMPACT
Town versus Gown
Following the news story on students and the wider Bath community, Sam Foxman argues that he can see the locals’ point of view whilst Belinda Badin defends the students. Sam Foxman Deputy Sports Editor Of course, people who aren’t students hate students. Quite a lot of people who are students aren’t massive fans of the ‘typical’ student. Some students drink. Quite a bit, I’m advised. And on weeknights. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be annoyed that your Thursday morning of sleeping - around half past two - is disrupted by a small army barrelling back through Oldfield Park following an evening of excess at whichever of several establishments they’ve visited. The people of Bath have every right to be annoyed. They’ve got noisy neighbours coming in at all hours who, because of their relatively short tenancy, are basically unaccountable. They see people walking, shoulders slumped, eyes barely open, clutching their heads and mainlining painkillers long after midday, to get onto a bus rammed full of similarly young, smug, indifferent people. And the argument that
students are good for the economy doesn’t cut any ice either. They may seem to be good for the economy, but really we’re supporting businesses which wouldn’t exist if we weren’t here to feed them. They see their town overrun with shops and bars catering to this injection of youths living off their student loans and grants. So far from being a boost to their economy, we are a perversion of it. Of course I’m wrong. Most students aren’t like this. Most students, and I’m sure that as a discerning reader of impact you can count yourself as part of this majority, are ok people who want to get a degree and maybe have a little fun along the way. But they’re good neighbours: mostly quiet, tidy, always putting the rubbish out on time, rarely getting so drunk that they can’t remember their name. Most students don’t make loud and unnecessary disturbances in residential areas at ungodly hours. Some students volunteer, or raise money for charity. They’re hard
workers. They’re members of clubs and societies. So why are buses no longer picking up from Laura Place? Why do people write letters to local newspapers complaining about local students? It doesn’t matter how good some of us are, or how ok the majority of us are. For as long as there are disturbances they will be blamed on the student population. We are the obvious ‘other’. The alien force which makes for such an easy scapegoat. No matter that more locals go out on the weekends, the presence of alcohol and youth implies that there are students. The hated minority are the public face of students. And that’s not because they are louder or inherently more visible - though they may be. It is simply because bad news registers much more than good news. Tiger Woods is a prime example, though there are many others. So students, as a group, will be hated. That’s not to criticise any institution or to suggest that institutions representing either ‘town’ or ‘gown’ can’t work together quite amicably. In all honesty it could not matter less how the two sets of people feel about each other as long as the relevant institutions do not think any less of the other for it. In reality this divide between the students and the town is a bit of a nonsense. For as long as we’re here in Bath we’re a part of its community. We’re a part of its economy. We’re not separate or worse or better. In fact, even using this ‘us’ and ‘them’ distinction patronises everyone. This stereotyping does no one any favours; so quite why I spent a whole article on it is beyond me.
Belinda Badin Opinion Contributor When I first arrived in Bath, I was unpleasantly surprised to discover that some locals consider students to be a plague. If I had to sum up their views I would have to say that we contribute to bigger queues in Sainsbury’s and at bus stops. We are too noisy and drunk at night and have house parties every day from dusk till dawn. We prevent people from parking in front of their own houses. Even worse, we have no interest in getting involved in our community and cause families to move out. Now let’s return to Planet Earth. People can’t account for antisocial behaviours in Bath by blaming students systematically. Yes, we can be noisy but so can most people after a couple of drinks. Students are not the only ones to go out and drink, especially on Wednesdays and weekends. All sensible workers do. It’s called “having fun” and “releasing pressure” and it has to be done at some point to prevent fits of hysterics. How many times have my friends and I been harassed by middle-aged non-students on weekends? How do our detractors know the people shouting out at bus stops at 2 a.m. are students? Have they checked their student IDs? Moreover, when students aren’t in town, tourists are. Tourists could be blamed as well. Indeed both groups are making queues bigger; but essentially they are contributing to the economy. Can you imagine life in Bath with neither tourists nor students? How many shops, supermarkets,
cinemas, theatres and pubs choose to rely on us to sacrifice our weekends for other employees to enjoy their family lives? How many people rely on tourism for their income? How many students have got a job in Bath? Students are injecting a lot of money into the economy and contributing to the economic life of Bath. Numerous students have been involved in volunteering projects including visiting the elderly, dressing up to raise money for charities, taking care of sensitive green areas, marshalling on Guy Fawkes’ Night and many other schemes, all of which contribute to community life. I think the locals who are criticising us are victims of their basic instincts. They’re just trying to mark their territory and they see the arrival of students as an assault. We therefore have to keep on proving them wrong by showing that we understand their views even though we don’t support them and by continuing to volunteer in the name of our community while defending our interests. We can’t let them remove all bus stops on the basis of hasty assumptions. Nevertheless, we must not get involved in any student/local divisions and we must discard any initiatives towards a form of segregation. We have to show the local people that we can easily cohabit. Britain is a free country and people tend to forget that. Though students are not perfect angels this doen’t justify local hostility. Someday our critics will realise that students are the future of the country. In the meantime, let’s focus on our studies, avoid antagonism and maintain communication.
The bells are ringing out for Christmas Day
Forget ‘Jingle Bells’, ‘Last Christmas’ and ‘Santa Baby’; a Christmassy impact contributor tells us why he feels that the the Pogues’ ‘Fairytale of New York’ is the only festive song with true Christmas spirit Christmas songs are usually sickeningly naff creations and provide a moment of embarrassing excitement at best, but one stands out; one that’s totally different. So as on this frosty 1st December evening the Pogues play out Fairy Tale of New York I thought I’d share with you what makes this song so unique and special. It’s nothing to do with presents or Christmas trees or turkey dinners. It’s about people and love and the passage of time, and really that’s what this time of year should be about. In the 21st Century it’s no longer about Christ or wise men but nor should it be commercial. The Pogues got it spot on with this simultaneously heart breaking and stirring song. A young man is in a pub lyricising about hope, riding through life on luck and
chance alone and next to him is the old man who’s never going to see another Christmas, the man our young romantic will become. Then he gives a Christmas toast to his love declaring that in the future their dreams will come true. A female voice then joins him in a duet of the years that follow. Years where no riches arrive, where the surface is full of bitter resentment for missed chances yet underneath bubbles warm satisfaction as they remember shared moments of truth and beauty where the simple human capacity for joy rose above all else, uniting them. I can’t hear this song without a tear rolling down my cheek. It’s Irish lilt brings back all the memories of a year, and just like anyone I’ve made mistakes, I’ve
missed chances and I’ve let myself down, but my god I’ve done some things, and I’ve been some places and most importantly I’ve done it all with someone to share it with. The song ends with the line ‘Can’t make it all alone, I’ve built my dreams around you’. This year I don’t have to make it all alone but I want my last published lines of the year to be a plea for no-one to forget the people who are alone this Christmas. They had dreams too. Dreams like me and you. No-one should be alone, especially not at Christmas. If you can remind someone of the joy and love and beauty of life this Christmas then do it, even if it means welcoming a stranger into your home on Christmas day. I promise you it’ll be the best thing you’ve done all year.
impact
www.bathimpact.com/opinion
Monday 14th December 2009
9
Opinion
Classy Katie Price
Whether you love her, hate her, or love to hate her, you’ve got to give her some credit. Gina Danielle Reay Opinion Contributor
Katie Price A.K.A Jordan is undisputedly one of the most famous people in Britain. Not a week goes by without her trout pout and triple Z nunga-nungas gracing the front pages of tabloid newspapers and trash magazines. Starting out as a Page Three girl, she has now made millions from modelling, ‘writing’ books (I use this term very lightly), creating lines of cosmetics, clothes, underwear, horsey-type things and every other stupid object under the sun. She has been in the spotlight for years now and after her well publicised relationship and divorce with singer Pete Andre, her ‘career’ has gone from strength to strength. Now with a stint on I’m a Celebrity Get me Out of Here (more like ‘I was an extra on Hollyoaks/got my boobs out for the Sun/played a match for Cheltenham FC once/ wasn’t famous enough to get on Big Brother or Love Island so I’m
willing to eat kangaroo balls for money Get Me Out of Here’) for the second time, Jordan’s career has come into question yet again, from more opinionated journalists who are outraged by the fact she is getting paid a rumoured £350,000 or more to appear on the show which saw her canoodling with Mr Andre six years ago. Now, although just as cynical as the tabloid journalists writing the anti-Jordan opinion pieces, I have a slightly different opinion on the matter. We all know that she is a promiscuous chav, an attention-seeking sellout who uses her family to make money and is so full of plastic, botox and just general fakeness she makes Donatella Versace look au naturel. The point is, however, despite these points, we LOVE to follow her, we love the drama, we love the outright, upfront honesty of the way she chooses to live her life. The bottom line is that if a magazine chooses to put her on the cover, it will sell. And despite her annoyingness, she manages to
make millions from our inability to ignore her. Her entire life is like an episode of Big Brother. In this sense, I and all the other writers who are, particularly at the moment, writing comment pieces slagging her off are in effect, contributing to her career and her popularity. Isn’t it the pure controversy of her existence that we love? By no means am I calling her intelligent. People get on my wick when they say things like she’s an ‘intelligent business woman’ and ‘her honesty is admirable’. We all know she doesn’t do an awful lot when it comes to her ‘business empire’ and has admitted on several occasions to having a ghostwriter to scribe her novels, autobiographies, childrens’ literature and... wait for it... style manuals. You have to laugh at the things she comes out with. She admitted in a recent interview that she flies to Los Angeles every three months to have her hair extensions redone and botox reinserted, I don’t know why we’re all bloody worrying about
recycling and our carbon footprint when Jordan’s allowed to fly to America for the day to reinforce her mask of falseness. I could bitch about her all night long, but at the end of the day, she’s made millions out of the perviness of men and gossipability of women. She’s richer than any one of us, has a beautiful family and seems to be
relatively unscathed by the constant press coverage of her life. I ask you not to admire her ‘intelligence’ but her strength. I doubt there are many celebrities who could take their big plastic jugs to the Australian jungle (those things must be heavy, let’s face it!) and eat bugs, bathe in eels and try to understand a word that Ant and Dec say for a month.
Sociable South Africans
Apparently they’re all very polite but are a bit lacking when it comes to dress sense. Hazell Moore Opinion Contributor
After spending five weeks working in South Africa, it seems apparent to me that there are four social characteristics innate within the South Africans. It is almost uncanny how acute these attributes are among the inhabitants. The first is social networking. I hereby proclaim that I am a convert to the South Africans’ way! Faceto-face is the new Facebook. Social networking has headed a new vogue in South Africa. Everywhere you go, a South African will know at least someone, ranging from waitresses to politicians. Just this Saturday, I was sitting in an organic market (how middle class of me), sipping on my coffee and I was approached by this hippy-looking couple. They asked if they could sit at my table. Within two minutes we were talking about this and that, swapping email addresses, because apparently I’m a “vital contact” in South Africa. I gave him addresses and phone numbers to get his produce on the market. How had I become of such great importance in this alien country? Because everyone I met was so willing to give me their contacts as well. It was a tit-for-tat sort of network. If they gave me the contact of a diplomat, I would in turn give them a contact of equal worth. However, it was a depressing
feeling to think that I didn’t have any exciting contacts. The second characteristic is reconciliation. The South Africans go wild for it. They reconcile everyone possible. This September it was “Second Chance Month” within the prisons. Have you ever heard of such a crazy idea? Now, my first thought was cynical, as the prisons are probably full, etc. However, the general idea is to be able to reconcile the prisoners to create a more just, safe society. It sounds insane to me. And this
idea of forgiveness is all around, full of fuzzy heartwarming people wanting to know everyone from exoffenders to bank managers. It’s just depressing that this is a key policy when their strategy to combat AIDS is to eat an insane amount of beetroots. The third is politeness. I was working in a close-knit arts department office, and I could see people regarding me with an eye of contempt as I didn’t grace their thank-yous with the “pleasure” others do. South Africans are the
Snazzy shirt: Mandela shows everyone how it should be done.
most polite people I have ever met, to the extent that nothing gets resolved because no one wants to say anything in a fit of fury. They regard my business-like manner as rude. But people here will ring someone up to ask them a question about business, but will ask how their children are, and whether the school play was good, etc. A load of crap. And this is mainly to help satisfy their desire for social networking. It’s almost as if the British politeness colonised South Africa and multiplied like a hungry swine flu bacteria, mutating into such a form that is contagious to everyone that walks the streets here. Now I’m answering phone calls with a “how was your weekend?” and ending calls with “pleasure” like a true South African, to save face from the office gossip of how the Brit girl is stupidly rude. I don’t know when I began to care. And finally, the last of my rantings, the fourth social factor is bad dress sense. How snobbish of me, to bring my Western tastes over here. But it’s not even bad dress sense really, it’s just a lack of creativity. I am not talking about the poor. It is the high-class people in South Africa who wear the most boring clothes. I want to educate the masses on how you can look fashionable AND smart; it is possible amongst all this brown and black suiting. Screw my first mission for
humanitarian approaches amongst the impoverished, I’m on a new mission. The other day, I went to organise an art exhibition and this man (who’s a “professional” at hanging things up (how arduous!)), exclaims that I’m an art exhibition, if he’s ever seen one! I simply look down at myself, see the usual stripe/ floral/lace style and look back at him bewildered. I almost thought this old man was coming onto me. This is where globalisation has failed. Where are the H&Ms and Zaras? Why is it that McDonalds is the only disgustingly large corporation that swarms over the world, stinging the pockets of developing countries? I do not understand how a big fashion company fails to plague the world with good fashion; surely that’s a worthy cause of globalisation? Despite all these things, I loved my time in South Africa and learnt a lot whilst I was there. I can only hope that my outrageous behaviour, in fashion, in my business manner, and in my dislike of those mints you get in restaurants, had something of a positive influence in South Africa, and perhaps encouraged them to grow. Not necessarily by adopting “Western ways,” but just by not giving themselves heart attacks when someone hasn’t said “shame” at the right interval in a conversation. Despite this, thank you so much South Africa, it’s been a plee-sure.
10
www.bathimpact.com/science
Science
Climategate
Sam Foxman talks about it.
A few weeks ago, some people with too much time on their hands thought it would be fun to hack into the Uni of East Anglia’s servers, get 1000 emails and 2000 documents, and scour them for dirt. They found a few not particularly jaw-dropping admissions, along the lines of, ‘I once forgot my wife’s birthday’, ‘I had non-dolphin-friendly tuna for lunch’ and ‘I don’t think small children are cute’. These received blanket media coverage for no particularly good reason, and the ensuing scandal was dubbed ‘Climategate’. It has been fuel to the increasingly vocal minority who think that the science of climate change is nonsense. They choose not to mention that this is just one data source in the climate change debate and that the substance of these ‘scandalous’ emails does not suggest that any evidence has been falsified. The background to all of this is the attempt in Copenhagen to reach a comprehensive agreement on climate change. Politicians love climate
change. It gives tax rises and policy changes a virtuous hue which it’s difficult to challenge without being described as mental. In all honesty the whole climate change debate, such as it is, bores me beyond belief. The pejorative term ‘denier’ sums up more or less everything that is wrong with the way that this debate tends to be carried out. It’s not an inaccurate term. Most people who don’t believe that climate change is a real phenomenon are characterised by the same sort of scepticism that marks out the charming community of people who think that the events of the 11th September 2001 are part of an elaborate conspiracy by the militaryindustrial complex orchestrated by the CIA under the auspices of the Elders of Zion. On the other hand, we should not be so forgiving for climate change’s most robust non-scientific advocates. There are many people for whom climate change is an important issue but they don’t really know anything of the science. These people would
Professor Science For many years I’ve prayed in vain for Egypt and Libya to swap places; I’d like to know, does prayer usually work? Ask a religious person this, and they’ll probably quote you an example of somebody they know getting better after having been prayed for. However, this is like saying that my farting in 1972 caused the Swedenborgian Church to start ordaining women, because the two happened in close succession. To really know whether prayer works, we’d need a large-scale clinical trial; a controlled, double-blind, randomised experiment, in which one group of ill people are prayed for and another aren’t. It just so happens that quite a few have been done. A 1988 study by Byrd found surgery patients being prayed for had fewer complications. Harris (1999) found similar results. Aviles and friends (2001), though, found “prayer had no significant medical outcomes”. A 2005 study of coronary surgery patients agreed, finding no difference in recovery time or number of
WOODY ALLEN: “To you I’m an atheist, to God I’m the loyal opposition”.
complications between those prayed for and those not. The same year, the Lancet published a study with a nearidentical finding. To save us from confusion, the Cochrane group carried out a review of previous studies, and found that, “although some of the results of individual studies suggest a positive effect of intercessory prayer, the majority do not.” For atheists like me (“not only is there no God, but try getting a plumber on weekends”, as Woody Allen said), what’s surprising is not that the majority found no effect of prayer, but that two did. These findings can’t be dismissed as the result of experimental bias; it’s difficult to prejudice a doubleblind randomised study. It may be their methodology was flawed, though I can’t find anything grotesquely wrong with either trial. A more plausible explanation is that the results are a statistical fluke; as someone flipping a coin many times could expect a few strings of five heads in a row, similarly, if enough studies are conducted, some will show prayer has a positive effect. Because experiments with positive outcomes are more likely to be published than those showing a neutral result (this is called publication bias, and has been demonstrated in many things, even in studies of publication bias itself), it’s not surprising there’s the odd study showing prayer is effective, and this doesn’t greatly detract from the overall conclusion that you’d be better off praying to Joe Pesci, as George Carlin did, with great success; “For years I asked God to do something about my noisy neighbour with the barking dog; Joe Pesci straightened that cocksucker out with one visit.”
Monday 14th December 2009
be best described as climate change evangelists. There was an article in last week’s impact discussing the psychology of religion. It suggested that the reason that people believe is because where something appears to be greater than themselves there is comfort in carrying out broadly pointless rituals in an attempt to assuage this great power’s
Humans: Essentially ignorant, occasionally carry guns. How about alternative medicine? A lot of the success of alternative medicine can be attributed to the placebo effect and spontaneous recovery; I had a cold, so I stuffed an oven-glove with leaves and used it to slap a picture of Lord Byron; five days later I recovered, which clearly wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t done that, or if I’d used a picture of Mary Wollstonecraft instead. Though it often doesn’t seem worth bothering, scientists often study alternative medicine; these studies tend to end with phrases such as “[We find] no condition which responds convincingly better to [X] treatment than to placebo or other control interventions”, or “the evidence is insufficient to suggest that [X] is an effective treatment for any condition”, which is doctors’ polite way of saying ‘it’s about as therapeutic as sharing a bubble bath with Idi Amin’. If an alternative therapy is demonstrated to work it becomes
wrath. Consider that the next time you’re sorting your plastic from your glass. It is no surprise that Pascal’s Wager is so often quoted in the context of climate change. This is not to say that climate change is not a real phenomenon. And not to say that it is not anthropogenic. But our desire to believe that this is true and to accept the wise words of the scientists does not come from a place of virtue or of understanding but from one of ignorance and of fear. We want to believe that mankind can change the world. We’re hubristic beasts. Just as in religion, the creator formed everything, but made mankind special. In the same way we are at the centre of our own universe. Everything that happens finds cause in our actions. So we’re trapped between two psychologies. The conspiracy theorist who thinks that everyone else is a credulous sheep trapped in a cage of orthodoxy and the hubristic zealot who wants to change the world by always turning his TV off at the mains. Personally, as in more or less all things, on climate change I am an agnostic. I’ll gladly let well informed people make my decisions for me. And I’ll gladly stay out of any debate on the subject of climate change at all times. Except here, obviously. mainstream medicine. Thus, alternative medicine comprises all the things which are described as medicine, but are either unproven or ineffective. The one exception is Hopi Ear Candling, which is 100% effective for chronic cases of having too much money.
Perv of the week: David Truscott, who has a ‘sexual fetish for slurry’. He was this week jailed, after ‘breaching a restraining order banning him from a farm’. He ‘covered himself in the waste and was seen masturbating’. Previously he had entered a milking parlour, ‘stripped down to his pants and climbed into a huge vat of manure.’
Perv of the week 2: Californian Jonathon Tyrell who, allegedly, asked a teenage boy to sit in a bathtub and be filmed, claiming it was part of a scientific study. According to the local media, “Tyrell has filed an appeal... which includes an attempt to get back his aqua-fetish videotapes.”
Tarantino thriller award: the Guardian’s article, “The science and magic of breadmaking”. Tarantino thriller award 2: The Mail, for “Plumbers called to X Factor house... so who blocked the toilet?” Sense of perspective award: The BBC, who claimed that “Nicolas Cage’s arrival marked one of the high points of the history of Bath”. Hold the front page award: News of the Screws, for the scintillating scoop that two TV personalities are not friends: “We don’t go shopping or have dinner together.”
Moron of the week: Indonesian minister Tifatul Sembiring who blamed recent natural disasters on immoral TV, which, of course, is only popular across geographical fault lines.
Quote of the week: defending homeopathy before the Commons Science and Technology Committee, Robert Wilson said that it’s a large industry which has been around for hundreds of years. Quoth Phil Willis MP: “So is prostitution.” Heroes of the week: youths who put a sheep in a trolley and wheeled it into a supermarket. EAR CANDLING: an effective remedy, and definitely not a scam.
This week, Stefan Maier, from the Physics department.
Last week’s solution Congratulations to Serum
‘News’
Scientific discovery of the week: “Loneliness Can Be Contagious”.
Puzzle corner “The propagation of electromagnetic energy via coupled surface plasmon polariton modes in a metal–insulator–metal heterostructure is analyzed analytically for a core material exhibiting optical gain.” This is just a snippet of the fascinating page-turner ‘Gain-assisted propagation of electromagnetic energy in subwavelength surface plasmon polariton gap waveguides’.
IMPACT
Champling, who helpfully explained what Scott Thomas was trying to say: “Attempting to explain an event involves trying to explain why that event happened. To do this, one must know what the event was and why it happened. This is often difficult, particularly in cases when you don’t know what the event is and it hasn’t happened yet; in extreme cases you may be asked to explain the occurrence of events which only happened inside the mind of a goat that doesn’t exist. To complicate things, this goat is on acid and has a history of violence.”
Casanova of the week: John Bercow MP, for the line “If you’re free later maybe we could go back to your place and name your breasts.”
News round up: “Man on ‘chicken-licking’ charge”, “Teacher filmed stripping in front of class reprimanded”, “Twitter users can now tweet in Klingon”, “Tiger Woods ‘took sleeping pills to spice up sex with mistress’”, “Phone box has new life as library” , “Crisp lover changes name to Mr Monster Munch.”, “Gay ‘Prescott heir’ fails in hotel room sex challenge” “Library ban for ‘pungent body odour’ man”, “Groom stops wedding to update his twitter status”, “60-foot penis painted on roof”, “John Humphrys’ coffee spiked with Rosie Millard’s breast milk”, “Men prefer smell of bacon to babies”.
impact
www.bathimpact.com/Science
Monday 14th December 2009
Interview I had a bit of a Jim’ll Fix It moment this week: ‘dear Jim’, I asked our friendly neighbourhood Ents Editor, ‘can you fix it for me to have some actual science in the science section this week?’. He, wearing his standard tracksuit and bling, and puffing on his cigar, had a suggestion; how about interviewing a CERN physicist? I replied that would give me a Large Hadron, and he generously ignored the playground humour, and set up the interview. On meeting Roberto, I was somewhat surprised by his total dissimilarity to Professor Frink. Both in manner and appearance, he seemed like a perfectly normal guy; his only noticable quirk was that he actually enjoys his job, about which he spoke with great enthusiasm. I barely had to provoke him to talk, which was good as I was distracted and deeply disturbed by his uncanny resemblance to Javier Bardem. My uninspired opening gambit was to ask Roberto to explain his role: “I’m working at CMS, which is one of the two big detectors in the LHC. I’m an experimental physicist, so I’m the one that does the discovering, not the theory.” There’s a division of labour between experimenters and theoreticians: “If we see a new particle, and have no idea what it is; we’ll go to our friends the theoreticians and they’ll say it can be explained by string theory, or something else.”
impact talks to Roberto, a physicist at CERN.
The mysterious Higgs The LHC will accelerate particles to an energy level “close to that just after the Big Bang; at this energy it’ll create a particle which now isn’t simple to see, like the Higgs Boson”. Finding this would be brilliant, as “it’s the missing brick of the Standard Model, which is a theory which can explain most of the forces in nature, the weak, the strong, the electromagnetic...” “If we discover this particle, if we see a signal of it, we can say the Standard Model’s ok. The Higgs is important because it’s the particle which is giving the mass to the other particles. It’s quite strange; in the particles are quarks, and it’s because of the Higgs boson that these quarks have their mass.” However, the Standard Model only explains three of the four fundamental forces, it can’t account for gravity. Thus “we still have a problem, because physicists want to unify everything. We know how to unify the weak and electromagnetic force, and we can unify the strong force at some energy levels, but the gravitational force is still a problem, it can’t be put inside the Standard Model, and, if we want to have a GUT (Grand Unified Theory) we’ll have to go beyond the Standard Model.” The LHC, he hopes, might achieve this; “if we find something which is not justified by the Standard Model, it’s possible that a theory beyond the Standard Model exists, and it’s also possible that we will justify
Notes from the real world Deltoid Arpeggio mounts high horse. Both now in custody.
In my bid to make up something outlandish for this week’s article, I forgot one of the few real things that happened to me which wasn’t completely dull. Don’t worry, because in any case I’m going to exaggerate wildly. I was sharing a taxi back from the middle of nowhere (Huddersfield) with three professors. They were mainly chemists; one was a crocodile. “One of the interesting things the University is doing is these interdepartment projects,” says one of the mammals. “So I’m working with some humanities people next month.” “I hope you wash your hands” quips another. Smirks are exchanged. “You know, it works rather well. I can make a rather large contribution almost immediately.” “Do tell.” “They are very interested in things like agriculture and food production in Africa, but they’re clueless. We had a meeting to discuss our ideas and one of the things that came up was water supplies. They lamented: if only some kind of device could
be invented that could tell you how salty the water was.” The smirks are pulled out again. A deep rumbling emanates from the smiling crocodile. “What did you tell them - there is already, and it’s called a salinity monitor?” “No, no. I’m sitting on it. Or I’ll tell them: there is, it’s called a fish. If I put this trout in the water and it dies, the water is salty.” The chortling is now unrestrained.
something that’s a GUT; we’d have to see a particle that is not explained inside the Standard Model, some exotic particle.” However, he’s realistic that the chance of a complete solution is minimal: “all the theory behind the Standard Model can only be unified at energy levels which it’s impossible to reach. It’s impossible to build a machine so big that you can reach this kind of energy.” It’s not all about a GUT though, Roberto explains; he’s also “working on the study of the neutralino; it’s a light particle beyond the Standard Model which is important to justify all the dark matter in the universe. In the universe something like 80 percent of the matter is unaccounted for. We don’t know what it is and can’t see it. We count the number of stars and see it doesn’t add up. This isn’t justified by the Standard Model, but the LHC might discover something like the neutralino which accounts for it.” Progress guaranteed Even if nothing dramatic is discovered, he’s certain there’ll be progress when the machine is running at full power: “Hopefully we’ll start collecting data in 2010, and maybe see something exotic, perhaps the Higgs boson. If not, we’ll have to wait another year to collect more data. At least, though, if we don’t see anything this year we’ll be able to put an exclusion limit, saying it doesn’t exist in this particular band; we’ll The driver is forced to duck to avoid the saurian’s whipping tail. “You could put several fish around the area,” says a soon-tobe-unpopular physicist. “Then it’s a Poisson Distribution.” Groans abound and I am unceremoniously ejected from the cab. As I walked the remaining ten miles (metres) to the train station, it was impossible not to reflect on how scathing the professors were of humanities in general. This is a fairly prevalent view among scientific types: arts and humanities are less respectable than the sciences. I can guess at two less-than-noble reasons. There is an unspoken
CROCODILES: Actually quite friendly.
be able to reduce the phase space in which we need to look. This is important for physicists”, though, he acknowledges, it may not excite the public as much as the discovery of the Higgs would. Though the Collider’s had some setbacks, he’s perfectly confident that it’ll work as planned: “Last year there was a lot of media pressure, so our people decided to push the machine, probably too much, just to prove what it could do. It could happen to any machine though; you could buy a car and have a problem after two days. Now we understand the machine better and know exactly what we have to do, we don’t expect any problems.” I ask him if the Collider is safe, given the media’s fear it could create a black hole; it’s not something he
11
Science
loses sleep over: “Last year this guy claimed it was going to create a black hole. Actually it’s more probable that you would explode while shaving yourself... It’s not going to happen.” After the LHC, they’re planning another collider, this time linear rather than circular, to do more tests based on whatever the LHC discovers: “The LHC was made to discover particles. Once they’ve been discovered, we can build a machine tuned to the exact energy of the new particle, essentially a factory for these particles, to study their properties. You can do more fancy stuff with a linear collider.” This won’t happen for quite a few years, but, still, it’s an exciting time to be a physicist.
ROBERTO: more Bardem than Frink. understanding that not only is a science degree a greater intellectual achievement than, say, a classics degree, but that it is also more useful to society. History might not be bunk, but how many household items were invented by historians? There is also perhaps a sense of injustice. For example, business people are rewarded handsomely for what is menial work, compared
to degree-level chemistry. And there isn’t time to go into how science is mistreated by the press, which is largely the domain of humanities graduates (and rarely crocodiles). I can’t offer a resolution; I could tell scientists to be less arrogant and ask the rest of the world to be more respectful, but what would happen? They’d rightly tell me to stop being a condescending prick. Or, eat me.
Corrections In our 1959 Christmas edition we predicted that, by 2009, impact would be the world’s best-selling newspaper, and would be available in at least twenty countries. Our prediction was thrown slightly off by a sub-editor’s failure to ‘carry the one’; he has now been fired. Due to the same editor’s mistake, our article: “How to recover from a sprained ankle, and go on to write a bestselling history of concrete”, should not have contained the assertion that Neil Young is an unpopulated island in the Maldives; he’s actually a singer-songwriter. Our article ‘Dogs evolving into new type of cat’ had absolutely no factual basis. Sorry. It has come to our attention that Descartes did not die in a gun battle
with Bertrand Russell, as we implied in our article ‘Slugs nowadays crawl faster than they used to, because they’re stressed’. He survived the duel, and died of pneumonia years later. We apologise to his widow, who must have suffered considerable distress as a result of our error. In our last edition, an editorial mistake led to the phrase ‘dirty old man’ prefixing every reference to Terence Kealey except one. We apologise for the omission. Our rundown of ‘The top five songs to sing to your partner when she’s feeling down’ was meant to include ‘Always on my mind’ by Elvis Presley at number five, rather than Mutilated Anchovy’s questionable ballad ‘I Use a Severed Hand to Touch Myself at Night’.
12
www.bathimpact.com/science
Monday 14th December 2009
Science
IMPACT
The Priceless Penguin
Nicolas Williams discusses some exciting new software. Recently released, this edition promises to make computing more powerful and friendly than ever before. It contains a whole host of new features, as well as many refined old ones. The desktop interface can be customised, allowing greater productivity or simply more tools to satisfy the visual pedants. Switching between applications is easy, with a well-thought-out use of space. Live previews from the taskbar, quick searching of files and the Internet, and easy sharing of network resources take away (most of) the headache for the average user. With the latest in browser and email clients, a full suite of office applications, and support for the ever-time-wasting chat using Messenger and the like, this is certainly an installation worth having. Yet another Windows upgrade, you ask? More money needed just to get the latest software or fix old problems? Actually, the upgrade is free (legally!). As are all of the applications. You technically don’t even have to pay the cost of a disc. There is loads of documentation, and a community of supportive users ready to talk you
through pretty much any aspect of computing. No, not Windows. Linux. Linux has been around for decades. It has long been the operating system of choice for many server administrators, fiercely competing with Microsoft’s offerings. For years there have been desktop versions too. A few years back they were used only by geniuses,
LINUX: has a lot of devoted fans.
A Techie writes
Sydney Handjerker looks at Linux’s wares. Ubuntu (9.10) Not to be confused with the cola Mind-blowingly fast, especially booting from a USB. The doubletaskbar layout is confusing, however, and poor taste in themes and wallpapers also do the distribution no favours; the orangey-brown colour scheme is hardly enticing, despite the shiny graphical effects. Perhaps consider one of the many distributions based on Ubuntu that put a more userfriendly face on its speed, such as Mint. Linux Mint (8) Fresh, but familiar The “from freedom came elegance” slogan might be a bit pretentious but Mint certainly looks the part. The layout is similar to Windows - a new user will have little difficulty finding things - but groovy effects make it an operating system where mundane things like switching windows are a pleasure. More importantly, Mint “just works”. Without installing anything new, Mint is ready for most tasks and seems compatible with anything you can throw at it. Hard to fault. Scientific Linux (5.2) From CERN, to you Despite being produced by CERN and Fermilabs with the scientific community in mind, this distribution is one of the more user-friendly. As you might expect, it’s a no-frills experience; instead of good looks, the distribution is packed with as many powerful software packages as possible. And, it contains by far the biggest amount
of time-wasting desktop games of any the distributions here. Make of that what you will. Mandriva One Secretly chauvinistic name? Mandriva offer a variety of operating systems, at a range of prices. Mandriva One is the free version. I’m curious how many copies of the other versions they actually sell, given that One is so underwhelming. The layout is simple but unattractive and the performance nothing to crow about. Puppy Linux Rather well-heeled Puppy is designed to run from USB drives; it is small (about 100 MB in total) and impossibly fast. If you click something, it will load instantaneously. The tradeoff made for Puppy’s lightning reflexes is that there are no big guns like OpenOffice built-in; you’ll have to download them separately or stick to the stripped-down replacements. Ultimately, Puppy is more of a tool for administrators than for regular users, as evidenced by the fact that you are never more than two clicks away from serious system settings. OpenSUSE (11.2) People used to call my ex that OpenSUSE will delight people who enjoy desktop widgets and transparency effects, but the needlessly complicated main menu with its mouse-over-to-view pages - absolutely infuriating when your mouse isn’t on a good surface - will put others off.
but they’ve become increasingly more average-Joe-friendly over the last few years. I’ve run Linux as my exclusive operating system for the last couple of years, and am very glad I made the switch. Admittedly, I am one of those types that uses computers for more than mere word-processing or Internet browsing, but there are advantages even for those who don’t know or care if the only thing inside their computer is an intelligent squirrel. Or a penguin, perhaps (‘Tux’ (see photos) has long been the mascot for Linux operating systems). Perhaps the two most beginner-friendly systems are Ubuntu and Kubuntu. They are identical apart from the desktop (meaning the same applications can be installed on each but it all looks different), with Ubuntu offering Gnome and Kubuntu offering KDE by default. The user community is friendly, and even some manufacturers are now offering Linux instead of Windows for new computers. Many businesses, schools, and government organisations are also using Linux, probably prompted mainly by the fact that it’s free. Clever and useful inclusions like the Wallet and the Recently Used list will reward anyone who is patient enough to learn its ins-and-outs. Next to Puppy, OpenSUSE seems tortoise-like, though a quick go on Windows 7 will put things into perspective.
Tattoo: It’s a great O.S., but this is taking it a bit far... Many of you will have already used applications which are offered on Linux: Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice.org, to name a few. There are many more out there - welltested and easy to install. Indeed, applications are easier to install on Linux because, instead of having to download an application and then frequently update to the latest version, you can merely type in its name into an
application called a package manager and have it automatically downloaded and updated. So, before you spend yet more money upgrading Windows or other software – think! Try out a Linux Live CD, and if you like what you see, back-up and install. It is possible to run both Linux and Windows on the same computer. Spend your money on something worthwhile instead!
the pretty special effects. (This, by the way, is an easy way to get files off Windows computers that you’ve forgotten the password to.)
a USB, you can still give Linux a try by downloading virtualization software - Qemi is a very small and uncomplicated one - and running Linux within Windows. It may feel sluggish, but at least you can see what everything looks like.
Virtualise it For those without a spare CD or
How to try it A lot of effort has gone into making Linux easy (and free) to try out, without making any changes to your computer. Three simple ways to get started for Windows users are listed below, but the first two steps are always the same: choose which flavour you fancy, then download its iso file. After this, the next step is your choice: Burn a CD If you have a spare blank CD, this is the simplest way. Put the iso onto the disc - any good CD burning software will talk you through this - and then reboot the computer. New shapes and colours will amaze you. Put it on a USB If you have a large enough USB (1 or 2 GB ought to suffice; 4 GB is plenty) then making it so you can run Linux from it is pretty easy. You’ll need to clear it of files first, though there’s nothing to stop you copying them back on afterwards. Then various software is freely available to take you through the next steps; UNetBootin is a popular one and PenDriveLinux. com is filled with possibilities. All of the distributions I’ve reviewed worked with UNetBootin. Once the USB is made, reboot your computer and at the first loading screen hit the key that takes you into setup (usually F12). Tell it to boot from USB this time and enjoy
LINUX FOUNDER: “My name is Linus Torvalds and I am your god.”
Competition We have a copy of Linux Mint 8 to give away to the first person to answer this question incorrectly: What is Paris Hilton’s favourite paper size? a) A4 b) A3 c) A2 We at impact do not believe it is acceptable to know this, and so the prize will be given to the first
person so uninformed about Paris Hilton’s activities that they don’t know the answer. However, as people who know the answer will give the incorrect answer on purpose, whereas non-knowers, by guessing, have a one in three chance of accidentally getting the right answer, to ensure the winner is someone who doesn’t know, the prize will go to the first person to answer correctly. Entries to science@ bathimpact.com
14
www.bathimpact.com
Monday 14th December 2009
Sabbs’ Corner
IMPACT
Don’t rush into getting a house, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be... A reflection on housemate selection by VP Activities & Development Richard Butterfield.
I was delighted when one of my friends in first year said his dad was buying a house in Bath for him to live in for the next two years – this meant I could also get in on the action and claim my house before the massive rush of everyone going into the private sector. Once the house had been bought, up in Southdown, we all relaxed and chuckled at everyone else running around finding a house suitable for their needs and requirements. I wasn’t particularly close to the people I was going to be living with for the next year, and whilst I felt ok with having a house all sorted, my dad had advised me not to go with it – I ignored him and did so anyway. Only then did the problems begin… Having only met some of the guys a couple of months before, it was a big step to decide to live with them for the next year of my life. Well, after getting on well with everyone I lived with in Eastwood (woo!), I thought it could be done again. I’m sure many freshers this year are also thinking the same thing. I grew more and more apart from them during the rest of the year, and was beginning to have second thoughts about the house. I thought that I would go through with the move, as I had already committed myself to the house. My contract came through the post during the summer. I had this checked by AWARE, and they stated that it was an illegal contract. I informed my friend’s dad, but he ignored my comment, and told me just to sign it. After further consultation, I found out that if I did sign it, I would have the best position in a court of law should anything go that far, as it
was the landlord’s (my friend) fault should it be incorrect. And then after the summer of 2007, we all moved into the house… Living in town is completely different from living on campus (That might be the most obvious sentence ever written, but it’s true!). The luxury of being able to roll out of bed five minutes before a lecture and still make it for 9.15am, and then being able to roll back into bed an hour later was gone. Forgetting your packed lunch was also an annoying thing that happened on a near to daily basis. The start of the year was fine – we all got on well enough, and carried on with our own lives. ‘I could go the year like this’ I thought. Then my housemates became really lazy – they began to miss lectures, spend all night playing their beloved ‘World of Warcraft’, often shouting between rooms, keeping me awake all night. This had an effect on my performance at Uni, due to lack of sleep. The first few times I put up with it, but it got to a point where I couldn’t handle it any longer. As I used to be a member of barstaff in Plug, I sometimes came home at 3 or 4am, after a long night working at Flirt! or Score. I wanted to sleep straight away, but often couldn’t due to their too often ‘all-nighters’. The house began to be left in a mess. I seemed to be the only one who cared about how we lived. It was embarrassing to bring friends over, and I felt really bad when often they would begin to wash up as they had heard me complain about the house so often. As I was the only one who would go to University, I would often
come home to see the mess left from the night before – it was disgusting. Bottles of soft drinks, crisps (often trodden into the carpet), and food left on plates, often left to go mouldy as I refused to clean up after them. Christmas came, and it was a nice rest from the house. One of my housemates stayed over in the house during the Christmas holidays. When I returned to the house after the holidays, my dad dared to enter. I was embarrassed, as we discovered pizza boxes (no less than ten of them) scattered around the kitchen, some pizzas left on plates, with a new variety of topping called mould. My dad finally understood what I was going on about all the time – he finally saw what he refused to believe on the ‘phone. He left the house as quickly as he could, the smell of all the rooms intolerable. I tried pleading with my housemates, attempting to get them to clean up their ways (bad pun!). They agreed, and during the January exam season, things began to look up. This didn’t last long, and it soon became as it used to be. The all-nighters had another effect, this time financially. We all agreed at the start of the year to do our shopping together. As I was spending time at University, and all my housemates would stay at home pretty much
24/7 (they would only go outside for a cigarette or two), food was getting eaten, and not by me. I would often make food, only to find it eaten the next day after one of their all-nighters. I requested that, due to me not eating at home all day/night, I was able to buy my own food for my own consumption. They agreed to this and thought it was only fair. My food bills came down in price dramatically, and I wish this system was in place from the start of the year. I would have been much better off because of it! The washing machine broke soon after. After requesting the washing machine to be replaced (the responsibility of the landlord), I was told it would be done. I began to take my washing up to campus so I could wash it during lectures. This proved rather difficult, and also annoying. The washing machine wasn’t replaced for the rest of the year, even after I moved my things out on July 1st. I didn’t know how my housemates washed their clothes, and don’t really want to think about it… I began staying at my friends’ houses as often as I could. I couldn’t stand going home, and would often beg to stay somewhere else. I soon became a regular visitor at one of my friend’s houses (cheers Andrew!), staying in a sleeping bag on one of his single
Tales of an international student George Charonis VP Education SUeducation@bath.ac.uk I moved to the UK in 2006 from Greece, to attend university here at Bath. The first semester, and indeed first year, was a period of adjustment for me, and in semester one I was counting down the days to go home almost from the first day of lectures. I was not highly involved in the Students’ Union (SU) in my first year, apart from perhaps being a casual member of one or two societies. Upon starting my second year I was more familiar and adjusted to the environment and culture, including the food (believe it or not)! My involvement in the SU was greater during my second year, as I was treasurer of the Hellenic Society as well as Academic Rep in physics. Although I did not stay involved in
societies in my final year, I did re-run to be an Academic Rep, and started attending Academic Council which I found very useful and interesting, so decided to become a Faculty Rep, as well as run to be a student observer on Senate, the University’s highest academic decision-making body. Though my involvement in the SU was predominately through academic representation I found it very interesting and enjoyable, and one of the key factors that played a role in my decision to run for Sabb was the fact that I came to realise how highly student opinion is regarded by the University. I came to see that as students, we have a very powerful voice, one which cannot be ignored or dismissed, as we are the experts at being students. Before running for Sabb I continually got involved in activities related to academic representation. When reflecting upon my
involvement in the SU, especially in my final year, I do not regret my decision of getting highly involved in academic representation, and this is not just due to the fact that such experiences strengthened my campaign to be Vice President Education. Education and representation are at the heart of every Students’ Union, and academic representation is the reason why SUs came to exist. My experience so far as a Sabb has been fantastic; though demanding it is also interesting and enjoyable. I can confidently say that my openness and efforts to integrate with individuals from a variety of backgrounds have lead me to appreciate a mixture of ideas, concepts, and conventions in the UK, particularly that of a Students’ Union. Being an international student did not by any means discourage or hinder me from becoming a student
representative, and from running in a cross campus election to represent all students at the University and to ensure that changes are made to meet student needs. Though a number of factors contributed to my decision to run for Sabb, it was ultimately the fact that I came to appreciate the value of the SU and its ability to influence and direct the University’s decisions that affect our experience as students at Bath, and I would undoubtedly encourage anyone and everyone to consider a Sabb year!
beds. I got to know the rest of his housemates, and we agreed to live together for my third year. I finally could escape! After ‘escaping’ the house, I bumped into one of the housemates. I asked how was the house going, and tried to strike up a general conversation. I was informed the washing machine had still not been replaced (this was almost nine months after), and that the toilet had now started to play up. I was glad I had moved out of the house, especially after hearing this. I regretted agreeing to move in with these people so early on. I think I should have waited a little bit longer, either so I could get to know them a bit better (and discover that they were messy, loud, and lazy), or so I could find other people to live with instead. Many people in their second year do regret choosing who to live with so soon, and often fall out with their housemates soon after moving to a private sector house. Ensure that your contract is checked by AWARE, to check that it’s legal, and doesn’t have any clauses that can catch you out. Don’t rush into choosing your housemates or your house, especially as the exam season is so close. People you think that might be good to share a house with may become intolerable and the landlord may be difficult to work with. Don’t worry about it yet, wait until after the exams, and while other people may cause a buzz about it, the process can be stressful. Relax over Christmas, and relax after your exams. After all, it may be better to be sure of who and where you want to live with, rather than obtaining a dodgy house and sharing it with people you think you know, but may not know at all.
Thanks Daniel O’Toole SU President SUpresident@bath.ac.uk
Hi guys! I just wanted to thank those of you who turned up on Monday and contributed to our first ever Student Forum. Much to my delight, the feedback we received suggested that the format worked well, beginning with our report, then on to the Q&A session. Several topics were discussed; the current bus situation, Rainbow Woods’ muddy cycle path, diversifying demographics in elections, relations with the local community - to name but a few. After the Q&A session Harriet Hughes, Philip Bloomfield and Christopher Helliwell were all lucky winners in the free prize draw. I hope that those of you who attended now have a better idea of how we, as your representatives, dedicate our time to ensure your student experience at the University of Bath is the best it can possibly be.
16
www.bathimpact.com
Monday 14th December 2009 IMPACTimpact Monday 14th December 2009
www.bathimpact.com
17
Merry Christmas...
...from the impact team
18
www.bathimpact.com/Arts
Monday 14th December 2009
Arts Season’s Greetings
Anne Howell Arts Officer [Please sing in the style of “Twelve days of Christmas”]: “With ten days to Christmas my Arts Officer said to me: have a FESTIVE TIME! La la la….” Ten days till the advent calendar is finished, and no doubt we will all still have so much work to do! Alas, semester two is nearly upon us - with a fab selection of events, concerts and shows to enjoy after the exams; it’s all good! Just before Easter we have the highly anticipated and long awaited musical sensation FOOTLOOSE being performed by BUSMS at the arts lecture theatre. Having already held auditions and some great rehearsals, the show is looking good for Director Chloe Guariglia and the thirty strong cast members. 17th – 21st March 7.30pm in the Arts Lecture Theatre: add it to your diaries now! Gravity Vomit are busy organising their Upchuck on Saturday 27th February in the Founders Hall - it will be an awesome day of workshops and games followed by a professional performance in the evening; an event not to be missed! Check out www.bathupchuck.co.uk for more information. The annual Chaos University Recital is schedueld for Saturday 20th February and will be another evening of excellent
quality performances; the very finest that Bath has to offer. BUST are currently sorting auditions for after Christmas. They have two plays coming up in the new year: “And Then There Were None” by Agatha Christie and “You Never Can Tell” by George Bernard Shaw, both of which will be just as successful as Twelfth Night, so watch this space! Thank you also to all those who attended the General Meeting (GM). Keep checking BathStudent for room booking and publicity tips to help make the running of your society much easier. Remember, also, to get any of your Alumni Fund financial requests in to the activities office suactivities@bath. ac.uk by the 23rd December! At the GM, John Struthers, Director of ICIA, delivered a presentation on the plans for the new arts complex set to open September 2011. Make sure you check out the web pages on the ICIA and the Facebook Fan Page, and if you have any further questions then please e-mail John Struthers at J.C.Struthers@bath.ac.uk. Show in a Week DVDs are nearly ready for collection. The director’s commentary is being done at the end of the week. Considering the show was amazing, the DVD should be nothing less than spectacular. The making of Show in a Week will be edited soon too, so keep a look out for that - with the various interviews and rehearsals it was an epic week to remember! Closing the Arts events for this semester we had BUST Twelfth Night 9th-12th December and the Chaos Christmas Concert yesterday, both of which were huge successes! Well done to everyone involved! Have a great Christmas and New Year! See you all then for some more great Arts Events and fun! Ann xxx
Back in Action Alix Chadwell BTS Production Manager M an y of y o u w i l l b e a w a r e that it is a very busy time for the Arts, none more so than for Backstage, a group of volunteers with a technical interest in theatre and live music. As I write this, we have an action packed week coming up with a total of nine events, scaled all the way from events in Elements, two concerts and BUST’s ‘Twelfth Night’ to two of our largest events of the year, the Snow Ball and the BBC West Sports Awards. As such here is a bit of an overview of life in backstage during this hectic time. Having recently cleared our workshop of a group of maneating plants, it was soon filled by bits of Christmas tree as the construction of a hedge for Twelfth Night began. This is due to be
moving across to the Arts Lecture Theatre (ALT) this evening so that a delivery of eight scaffolding towers and lots of hire kit can take its place. Aside from this, rigging is taking place in both the ALT and University Hall. Last weekend meant the return of the BBC for the second year to the STV and, on Wednesday morning, we gained access to the Pavilion, rigged the hall for the Snow Ball on Wednesday and Thursday nights. The week finished with Twelfth Night and a concert from CH&OS. It’s not all work, though. We also joined BUSMS at the Theatre Royal Bath watching Beauty and the Beast, and we are starting this hectic time with our Christmas Meal followed by the 9am BBC now that’s dedication! It is hard work fitting this around lectures, coursework and training sessions, but we love it!
IMPACT
GV makes ball tossing an artform Ann Howell, Arts Officer, interviews Kate Aldridge (KA) and Owen Greenaway (OG) So, guys, what is Gravity Vomit, and why is it called this? KA: Gravity Vomit is the University’s Juggling & Circus Skills Society – gravity pulls us down, we throw up! OG: TRYING to explain where our name came from to a local Brownie group a few weeks ago was quite difficult! Had you both juggled and done circus-y things before coming to university? KA: I’d never done anything before, but I went along to a taster session in Freshers’ Week and it was really good fun. By Christmas I’d learnt to juggle four balls and three clubs, and just really enjoyed being part of the society. OG: I’d never juggled before coming to university. I had a cheap diabolo from a festival and so I went up to Gravity Vomit on Parade during my Freshers’ Week, hoping they would teach me some tricks.
Tell us about the cool juggling you do at night! KA: Well, we do pretty much everything you can think of: apart from juggling miscellaneous objects, we also do poi, diabolo, staff, devil stick, bar flair, hula hooping, balloon modelling, unicycling, slacklining and a lot more. OG: Every Wednesday evening from 7pm onwards our members play with our fire and glow equipment. We have fire torches, fire poi, fire staff, fire diabolo and fire devilsticks. We also have safe LED glow versions of everything. Regardless if you can juggle, pop down to the Amphitheatre and enjoy the show. You applied to the Arts Special Request Fund to help you purchase some equipment. What did this involve? How easy was it to apply? Was it helpful? KA: We applied to the Arts Special Request Fund to buy LED juggling equipment for night time juggling, because we didn’t have enough kit for all the members to use. I got a copy of the form from the Activities’ Office,
filled in how much money we needed and why, then handed it back in. It was very simple to do, and it’s made a big difference to the society.
What is this I hear about a record numbers of members? KA: This year we have doubled our membership to 100, mostly thanks to spending the entirety of Freshers’ Week out juggling on Parade.
Tell everyone about UpChuck. What is it? Where is it? When is it? KA: Bath UpChuck is the juggling and circus skills convention run by Gravity Vomit, and it will be held on Saturday 27th Feb 2010, from 11am to 10pm. During the day we shall have the whole Founders Hall, where we will run workshops and games, then have an evening show in the Arts Lecture Theatre by professional performers. It’ll be the biggest day of the year for GV – we have over 300 people coming along to it. Visit www.bathupchuck.co.uk for more information.
What do I have to do if I want to get involved? KA: You can sign up on BathStudent. com. If you want to see what’s it’s like before joining, come along to the Arts Barn from 2 - 4pm on Fridays or Sundays for regular juggling sessions, or pop down to the lake between 7 and 9 pm on a Wednesday. We have members who turn up to every session, who just come to fire juggling and some who turn up to socialise and take cool photos! How do I come to UpChuck? KA: Just turn up on Saturday 27th February at the Founders Hall! You don’t need to bring any equipment with you – you’ll be able to borrow it off other people. There will be workshops for complete beginners up to experts and, thanks to funding from the ICIA, professionals coming in to run workshops and perform in the evening.
impact
www.bathimpact.com
Monday 14th December 2009
19
Media
Zap Happy Christmas from URB and CTV Single of The Week: Karen O and The Kids – All Is Love
Yeah Yeahs is supported by a literal army of kids on this infectiously catchy acoustic track that will leave you singing L-O-V-E for days.
From the feature film Where the Wild Things Are, this heart warming tune is enough to pick even the most stressed-out, work-tormented final year up and put a Christmassy smile on their face. Even if it is only for the two minutes and forty seven seconds that it lasts. Karen O of the Yeah
Bombay Bicycle Club Hit Up URB!
Student Sudoku created by Katie Rocker
guessing. Enter digits from 1 to 9 into the blank spaces. Every row must contain one of each digit. So must every column, and every 3x3 square. Enjoy this one, or face my wrath.
Each Sudoku has a unique solution that can be reached logically without
Thursday the 17th sees rising Indie stars, Bombay Bicycle Club, joining URB and BUMPS to record a live session. With hits such as Dust on the Ground and Always
Like This, the session looks set to be a wicked one, so expect to hear a track or two, or three on 1449am URB in the new year! For more information or the chance to get involved with URB New and Unsigned Sessions in the future email urb-music@bath.ac.uk.
Featured Show: The New and Unsigned Show with Liam Matthews THURSDAYS 5-6pm URB New & Unsigned is dedicated to promoting new & unsigned artists from across the world. We do this by recording sessions, interviewing artists and giving as much airplay as possible. This one hour show is dedicated to bringing you fantastic new unsigned bands but also premier plays of the latest releases from your favourite superstars. If you want to keep your finger on the musical pulse, this is one show you should not miss!!
What we’re up to Next year we have lots of exciting things planned at CTV and we need to get people involved. We will be hitting hard into most of the following projects as soon as the post-Christmas exams are over. Please e-mail me at ja291@bath. ac.uk with a list of the projects that you are most interested in and which roles you would like to do. People and Politics - This is a Question Time-style show where different politically minded students will have the opportunity to discuss current affairs and local news. Co-ordinators, a host and researchers are needed for this show. Exploits - This is a six part sitcom based around two male protagonists and their criminal antics. Actors, prop development and set designers will be needed for this project.
Panel Show - This award winning format (viewable on Youtube) is similar to shows like Have I Got News For You and Never Mind The Buzzcocks. Writers, researchers, comedians and a presenter are required.
Sketch Show - We would like to create a sketch show featuring parodies of university life which could be filmed on campus and in town. For this we need original content, performers, sets and props. Feel free to send any sketch ideas in to me.
Cooking/Lifestyle Show - This would most probably be filmed in an on-campus house, featuring recipe, hygiene, decoration ideas etc. to help keep university living a pleasant experience. For this we would need a volunteer household and a degree of cooking expertise.
Win Windows 7
We have a copy of the Ultimate edition, RRP £230, for one lucky reader.
Rating: Very comfortable.
Microsoft’s new offering, Windows 7, has just been released, to much acclaim; reviewers alternately called it “a massive leap forward”, “Microsoft’s best yet” and “like Vista, but good”. This was reflected in sales; on amazon.com the software sold more copies in eight hours than its predecessor, Vista, sold in seventeen weeks. The Ultimate edition has a few features not found in the Home Premium or Professional editions. These include Aero Glass Remoting, BranchCache Distributed Cache, and Federated Search functions, all of which no dedicated student would be without. As Vista is essentially one of the most useless things ever created, sage users will want to upgrade immediately. As well as actually working, Windows 7 has a number of other features not found in Vista: A new and more logical taskbar, a quicker way of jumping to frequently used
files, and general improvements in style and functionality. Great as this is, it may be beyond the reach of most; It’s almost impossible to find even the basic Home Premium edition for less than £109, except through illegal and grossly immoral piracy, so this
is a chance to save a decent amount of money without the risk of being ritually abused by the legal system. To be in with a chance of winning, simply tell us who composed the 3.25 second long Windows 95 theme tune. Send your answer to editor@ bathimpact.com
GATES AND BALLMER: Is that a copy of windows 7 in your pocket...
impact
www.bathimpact.com/ents
Monday 14th December 2009
Entertainments
Ents In Brief
Ents Editor Philip Bloomfield gets all hot and sweaty in Bristol Lightning Bolt, That Fucking Tank The Fleece & Firkin, Bristol 4th December 2009 Have you ever stood behind a jet plane taking off, letting the screech of the engines scorch your eardrums? Thought not. After Lightning Bolt tonight, though, I feel like I can cross that one off my list. As ‘Colossus’ bursts into a fiery conclusion, feedback shrieking and wrapping itself around the pillars of The Fleece & Firkin tonight, there is a feeling that this might be the most punishing aural experience I’ve yet had: such is the intensity and ferocity of the sound made by these two slight musicians, who are playing guerrilla style on the floor. Thus, it’s with something approaching shellshock dominating my thoughts that I stagger out towards a train home, fumbling with my earplugs and forgetting my sweat and rain drenched shirt due to the enormous shit-eating grin that’s plastered over my face. Because honestly, nothing this year is likely to
beat that 70 odd minutes. It’s barely even worth me mentioning the rest of the set: a typically sweaty, bloody and bruising encounter. But first, we’ve got That Fucking Tank to piledrive a wrench into our ear canals. A good deal more subtle than their name might suggest, the Leeds two-piece are dogged by technical failure, but their technical take on rock music is rarely anything less than enthralling: the array of sound they create is nothing short of impressive, be it OXES style guitar twiddling or hi-hat disco beats. And if nothing else, they manage to keep the audience from shuffling backwards towards the sound desk where the headliners have set up their kit. The thrill of Lightning Bolt is hard to place: for half the set I’m wondering why they must play on the floor, so that I’m straining every muscle to catch a glimpse of one of Brian Chippendale battering his tom-heavy drumkit or Brian Gibson hefting his bass. But what could these days be described as a
The Good
The Bad
Brooklynite world music experimentalists Yeasayer are bringing their pyschedelic meanderings onto the road once more. The tour, which follows on from new single ‘Ambling Alp’ is in support of upcoming sophomore album Odd Blood, and includes a Bristol date on the 25th February.
Turner Prize Winner in actually quite good shocker: ‘graffiti’ artist Richard Wright has won the £40,000 annual prize. His wall sized gold leaf painting looks might impressive, we must concede.
Portishead: (Fair Trade) Coffee Table Music. Portishead have released a new single in collaboration with Amnesty International. Our Ents Editor’s favourite band (maybe) have made ‘Chase The Tear‘ available on 7digital, with all proceeds going to International Human Rights Day. The song itself follows on from 2008’s Third: wearing krautrock influences on it’s sleeve like some sped up Ennio Morricone track. Watch the video and download it from here: http://www. 7digital. com/portisheadamnesty
Wife vs Ninja: No need for a katana wedding. Bad film title of 2010 award: impact has learnt of upcoming ‘classic’ Wife vs Ninja. The premise involves a nerdy scientist being captured by a bloodthirsy ninja assassin intern. Awesome.
Brian CHippendale: Not a stripper or an antique wardrobe. pointless and irresponsible measure given the act’s burgeoning fanbase still has a relevance: it lends a sense of involvement and guarantees that each gig has an atmosphere and a sense of responsibility on behalf of the audience: there’s no idiotic fight-starting by the crowd, and only a solitary crowd-surfer bothers us tonight. The set tonight is a mix of material old and new: thus we get the afterburner singe of new album opener ‘Sound Guardians’ alongside
the pummelling riffage of ‘Assassins’, which nestles comfortably next to a frenetic version of ‘The Sublime Freak’. Ending the whole set in cataclysmic style with an extended ‘Dracula Mountain’, Chippendale hollering dementedly into his voice manipulator that remains clenched between his teeth throughout the set, it’s a wonderful document of just how brilliantly unhinged and deranged live music can still be. Ignore the end of decade naysayers: music’s far from dead.
Seems like George Lucas is running low on cash again: Adidas have commissioned a set of Star Wars sneakers. Surprisingly they’re not completely hideous, so more’s the shame that most of them will never leave their original packaging. Damn nerds.
Rivers Cuomo: Say It Ain’t So. RIP Jack Rose. The pysch folk guitarist may not be a household name, but his beautiful compositions have seen us through many a long dark teatime of the soul. Listen to some of his work here: http://www. arthurmag. c o m / 2 0 0 9 / 1 2 / 0 5 / remembering-jack-rose/
...The Ugly ‘Tis the season for tasteless cashins: The Flaming Lips have listed an item for sale on their website entitled “Silver Trembling Fetus Christmas Ornament”. Just what your tree needs.
I’d like to start this week’s content with a small, but important apology with regards to last issue’s Ents News: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly. impact and its writers do not wish in any way to condone or legitimise Roman Polanski’s actions. impact would like to apologise sincerely for any offence caused. That aside, we’ve been sweating to bring the very best to you as an extra special christmas gift: there’s a whole two pages on the trials and tribulations of The Noughties, I finally got to get down and dirty with one of my bands of the year, whilst Alex Drake takes the time to unwind with neo-soul innovator Mayor Hawthorne and Alec McLaurin sinks his teeth into Scotch rock phenomenon Biffy Clyro’s latest, before Josie Cox gets a bit of high culture at a delightful production of Disney’s Beauty and The Beast. A Merry Christmas from us all, am we’ll see you in the new year to have a look at the best of 2009, the best to come in 2010 and of course a whole host of culture to see through the exams...
Beak> Arnolfini, Bristol 20th December
Weezer have been forced to cancel their tour, in support of impact-slated album Raditude, after Rivers Cuomo was injured in a bus crash. The Buddy Holly aping frontman suffered three cracked ribs, but thankfully his wife and baby daughter, who were also on the bus, remained uninjured.
M il e y C yr U s : P a t r i c k McGuiness isn’t very photogenic. Comedian Patrick McGuiness has been roundly disparaged for the use of crude innuendo during his Royal Variety performance. We wouldn’t mind, but a few tame jokes about Peshwari balls and Paul O’Grady can’t live up to Russell Brand’s “I’m very respectful to the Queen: when I lick a stamp I do it with my eyes closed”. And even that pales in comparison to Miley Cyrus gyrating around a pole in leather hotpants.
21
Steve Albini: Punk rock Santa Claus. Famed producer and Shellac frontman Steve Albini has a few gripes with the Postal Service (no, not those wet bleepy indie kids). Every year, he and his wife sort through letters to Santa in the Chicago area and then deliver over $100,000 worth of gifts to the poorest, neediest families. Yet privacy laws have jeapordised the work, as the USPO is no longer allowed to share the details of those who send in their Letters To Santa and thus allow the poker-playing, noise-rock loving Samaritan to do his good work. Some bastard has already commissioned another Twilight film. It’s in post-production and is due out in June. Stephanie Meyer is running top of the list for pictures to pin to the impact dartboard (if we could afford a dartboard).
If there’s anything worth sticking around past the official end of term for, then this might just be it. Sadly, the Ents team will be hunkered down in the library chewing through journal articles, but we’re very much looking forward to seeing Geoff Barrow’s latest sideshow from main act Portishead at ATP as we go to print. Expect tautly wound krautrock rhythms, whirs and chirrups alongside otherworldly howls and ethereal swoons.
Vampire Weekend Contra XL Recordings Release January 11th Vampire Weekend are the first of 2008s crop of indie upstarts to face second album syndrome. Whilst the resolutely well heeled band members have attracted criticism for their kidnapping of African music, but whether they’re a bunch of thieving hipsters or not, they can write some excellent tunes: the likes of ‘A-Punk’ and ‘Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa’ are guaranteed to get some heads nodding and toes tapping. Contra’s lead single ‘Cousins’ is every bit as energetic, and sets a joyful precedent for this most tropical sounding of January releases.
Where The Wild Things Are Dir. Spike Jonze Out Now Perhaps the most hyped film of the year, with a Karen O soundtrack and James Gandolfini of The Sopranos lending his gruff tones to one of the characters, Spike Jonze’s film adaptation of this most wonderfully surreal children’s book promises to be as odd as it is engaging.
22
www.bathimpact.com/ents
Monday 14th December 2009
Entertainments
IMPACT
Deputy Ents Editor Alex Drake takes a Ents Editor Philip Bloomfield gives us ten from the last ten. sideswipe at some very noughtie fads. Warning: this article may contain plaid. 1) Apple Everyone, including their secondremoved aunt, owns an iPod these days. Steve Jobs has reinvented Apple into the brand that oozes cool.
2) Facebook Two Harvard geeks created a site to get hot girls. The end result was a 350 million strong social network revolution. Not bad for a couple of drop-outs. 3) Napster The concept of free music downloads took off at the beginning of the decade and hasn’t looked back since. 4) Celebrity Obsession The fact that Brangelina will name their 13th child ‘Pineapple’ shouldn’t interest us, but it does.
7) Useless Childhood Fads We were all guilty of begging mum for the latest Yo-yo, Tamagotchi and Pokemon. Or was that just me? 8) YouTube Proudly helping students procrastinate since 2005. 9) Bling-Bling The concept of an ignorant rapper dropping hundreds of thousands on a piece of blinding jewellery still amuses me to this day. When will they learn?! 10) Google World Domination Remember when information was actually worth something? Now we just “Google it”.
5) Obscure Music Genres Nu-rave, trip-hop, doommetal, acid-house. Need I list more? Who gives a shit anyway?! 6) Feminisation of Male Fashion Tight jeans, cardigans, scarves and the colour pink! What happened to men being men?
Flava Flav: Has a massive clock.
At Impact HQ, we thought it’d be a disservice to let The Noughties pass without a bang. No doubt, they’re not as exciting as the Nineties, and it’s not a new milennium, but we’ve got plenty to look back on. However, if there’s any one thing we’d choose to sum up the decade, it’d be that gadget to the right...
Alec McLaurin gets all moody and confused investigating Emo. What is emo? Is it pasty kids with long fringes talking about their feelings? Is it the hordes of young girls with heavy eye liner and My Chemical Romance? Or is it a music genre of rock? Confused? I wouldn’t blame you. This decade has seen the commercialisation of what started as a small music genre in Washington D.C where few lyrics were actually used. The fact that it has developed into such an internationally recognisable trend is incredible. Now emo means something completely different to its original musical association, it has
become not only a style but a ‘state of mind,’ a way for millions of teenagers to deal with their insecurities, just like rap, grunge, chavs and anorexia. Musically it has been defined as anything from Folk (Bright Eyes), to Rock (Cursive, Get Up Kids) to pop-rock (My Chemical Romance, Fall Out boy), does that mean that any musical type with vaguely ‘emotional’ lyrics means its emo? Is Leona Lewis emo? It seems like the long arm of music commercialisation and styling found another gap in the market. What’s next?
ELMO: Our Entertainments Editor is either dyslexic or likes really bad puns.
1) Hip-Hop Even without Jay-Z as it’s favourite son, it’s hard not to see the noughties as the decade of hiphop. From the chart topping antics of The Neptunes, through the crossover genius of OutKast, to the underground experiments pressed by labels like Definitive Jux, the B-Boys and Girls have run riot. Empire State of Mind indeed. 2) The Return of the Plaid Shirt Call me a hipster if you like, but I for one welcome our not so new checkered overgarments.
3) TV Chefs We might have lost the first ever celebrity chef with the sad passing away of Keith Floyd earlier this year, but Nigella Lawson, Jamie Oliver, and of course Gordon fucking Ramsey have brought haute cuisine onto our CRTs like never before. 4) Don’t Look Back Anyone ever felt that the Noughties seem to be facing the wrong direction? Maybe it’s the fault of the internet, but it seems to be impossible to escape how ‘retro’ we’ve become: the word revival seems to precede every statement on fashion and art.
OutKast/Grayson perry: We really hope they’re friends. 5) Festivals And not just ones where you stand in a field drinking warm beer, getting drenched and straining to hear the headliner over the howling gales. From music, to art, to film, if it hasn’t got it’s own festival, it probably isn’t a real genre. 6) David Simon You’re probably asking ‘who?!’, but with The Wire and Generation Kill under his belt, this journalist has not so much taken over as actually conquered our screens. Big time. 7) Death of the Record Store When’s the last time you went to a lovingly stocked independently owned shop to buy a CD? I rest my case 8) The Turner Prize Ok, so it’s been weirding us out since 1984, but over the past decade we’ve
had a cross-dressing potter, a man dressed as a bear, a light turning on and off and a Minister of Culture flying off the hook, all over one little certificate.
9) Wes Anderson Proof that quality beats quantity: In The Darjeeling Limited, The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Acquatic, Anderson has produced some of the most touching and funny films of the decade.
10)ATP London promoters All Tomorrow’s Parties definitely throw the best ones. Their unashamedly retro taste can be excused as long as they continue to bring the plaid clad masses industrial sized doses of brilliant: Melvins, Mudhoney and Shellac can play for me every year until I die.
Time To Get
Hazell Moore’s Decade: Thank You For Not Smoking, you skinny jean wearing, wireless Wikipedia-surfing, E4-watching lefty gardeners. 1) Spotify ...is by far the most exciting thing that has happened this decade, let alone this year. Jack up your laptop to your CD player, instant, unlimited, FREE, music. Who cares about the adverts? “Jonathon from Spotify,” you have made my decade. 2) Wikipedia Launched in 2001, this has helped many presentations, essays and procrastination in the form of “Wikisurfing”. I don’t care what lecturers say about not using it. It speaks truth (most of the time). 3) The Smoking Ban I love the smoking ban and I don’t really fully appreciate it until I go abroad and I can’t get away from smelling like an ashtray. This is at least one thing the government has done right. 4) Wireless Internet How can this not be in your top 10 of the decade?! I don’t know how I lived without having internet in the garden/bed/bar. 5) In Rainbows by Radiohead
I can’t get enough of it. And the whole set up of “paying as much as you think its worth” gag appeals greatly to my socialist/student nature. 6) Constant Gardener This is an epic film that has shaped my life. Story of a British diplomat, Justin Quayle (played by Ralph Fiennes), whose activist wife has been murdered. Ralph Fiennes seeks to uncover the true nature of his wife’s death. The film is a mix of politics, conspiracy theories and a nice little love story to finish it off. Perfection. 7) Skinny Jeans I am dreading the day these go out of fashion, they just suit me too much . 8) Florence + the Machine I love everything with this band. I love the style of the lead singer, Florence Welch, from the quirky lyrics about the depressing artistic life of a man that designs coffins. I like the way you can mix it easily into dance music, and just the sheer creativity this band represents for me.
9) E4 I have wasted too much time sitting in front of the telly watching this channel, and have grown much accustomed with having E4 “marathons” with my flat mates for whole days. Reruns of Friends, Scrubs, Gilmore Girls and One Tree Hill, how could this fail not to attract you? 10) Conservatives ...staying out of power for over a decade- Amazing. Well done guys. Now let’s make sure we can make it another decade.
Boris Johnson: A hilarious blip on a blue-free decade.
impact
www.bathimpact.com/ents
Monday 14th December 2009
23
Entertainments
The decade that Indie broke, America awoke, and bands ran Laurence Whitaker attempts to bookend out of names. Alec McLaurin turns his eye to the noughties. the decade. dominance or the effects of George wubleyaa? You decide.
The Internet: Full of tits. 1) Make friends online Social network sites such as Myspace, Facebook and Twitter have revolutionised how we use the internet. Would you have heard of ‘facebook official’, ‘tweets’ and ‘tagged’ before this decade? 2) Indie-pendent Wearing skinny jeans, a lumberjack shirt and festival wristbands? Does the indie kid mean as much to this decade as the hippy does to the 60s? It has however produced great music like Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm, The Strokes Is this It, Interpol’s Turn On The Bright Lights and The Libertines The Libertines.
Miriam and Manu Chao got us all appreciating stuff that’s not strictly understandable
4) Technologic: Synths Electronic beats and machines that make your voice go funny have been the musicians’ tool of the decade. Think Postal Service, Daft Punk, Hot Chip and Justice.
7) Be my guitar hero The decade has produced some awesome guitar bands rocking our ears and video game screens, sometimes simultaneously
5) Is this real? Reality TV certainly took off in the noughties. But did we just witness its birth and premature death? Big Brother started in 2000 and is set to be axed after its last series in 2010.
8) Responsible World The environment and being more ‘responsible citizens’ has definitely hit a chord in the last ten years. Think wind farms, biofuels, microcredit and Live Aid Part 2.
6) Parlez-vous Anglais? Foreign language film and music has been a hit. Films like City of God, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Oldboy and Habla Con Ella and music from Sigur Ros, Amadou et
9) El Bandiño Bands have decided this decade that having a band name in Spanish makes them super, über cool and alternative. I.e. Desaparecidos, Los Campesinos, Yo la Tengo, Camera Obscura, Mariachi el Bronx… Good idea? Never heard of these bands? Maybe a bad idea then. 10) Adapt This Are we in desperate need of scriptwriters? This decade has seen the adaptations of countless of books, big hitters like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, but also excellent books such as The Kite Runner and Atonement.
3) Bye bye American Dream? Starting with 9/11 and finishing it with a crisis, with Katrina and a few wars in the middle, it hasn’t been the best decade for the USA. End of US
Noughtie!
Deputy Editor Josie Cox adds the necessary colour to our feature. The 1950s were about Blue Suede Shoes, the 1960s about Yellow Submarines and the 1970s about Brown Sugar. The 1980’s were about Red Balloons – 99 to be precise – and the 1990s (you guessed it) about Purple Rain. But the noughties? Irrespective of all the good tunes, the colour of the decade was green, green, green. The green culture has not only infiltrated politics, in the form of Global Green Gatherings, but also fashion (check out www.fashion-conscience.
Being Green: Easier than initially thought.
com ), art (www.greenart.com) and food (www.greenfoods.com) Terms such as “carbon footprint” and “ecological sustainability” have grown to become buzzwords of the decade, and “organic” no longer just describes a production standard, but a holistic way of living. Green cars, like Toyotas have never sold as well as they have over the past ten years. What next? Bigger, better, greener? Or has the green revolution been exhausted? Only time will tell.
Rise of the Idiots -Deputy Ents Editor Alex Drake discovers that to be hip in the noughties, you have to be a bit square. Stereotyping a hipster can be tough because they’re a group full of contradictions but a good place to start is with their clothing. A hipster’s couture is his most visible element that broadcasts their personality to the world. Not only are they aficionados of American Apparel but they enjoy juxtaposing strange pieces of untraditional and vintage clothing together. Skinny jeans are often worn with a genuine Italian leather jacket thrown on top of a retro tee with for good measure. To top matters off an unnecessary pair of un-prescribed glasses and a fixed gear bicycle generally add the icing to the cake. Another important element of
hipsterdom is their choice in music. Naturally all hipsters scoff at the mention of mainstream staples such as Coldplay. They’ve already listened to the top albums of 2010 and are currently analyzing the lyrics of an experimental folk duo intending to independently release a cassette in 2011. A band’s level of cool-ness is inherently correlated to their obscurity and if that fails they should deploy an unpronounceable or deliberately misspelled name. Hipsters are always one step ahead of the mainstream and like to remind us of this fact. The only thing they agree to conform to is non-conformity and that’s only because their mothers forced them to. So next time you need
1) The Road – Cormac McCarthy An evocative chilling vision of a cold and lifeless future for our world – haunting. 2) Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time – Mark Haddon A beautiful insight into the mind of an autistic boy as the simple events of life confound him 3) Three Cups of Tea – Greg Mortenson A true tale of the man who brought schools to the forgotten mountain villages of Pakistan. 4)Dark Star Safari from Cairo to Cape Town - Paul Theroux A vivid account of Theroux’s journey through Africa vividly capturing the vibrance of the continent as well as bringing a personal touch to its difficulties. 5) Life and Times of a Rock Star Fantasist – Simon Armitage A collection of recollections from the renowned poet, an insight into the normality of a writers life. 6) Wetlands – Charlotte Roche Erotic, perverted, honest; you decide.
7) Blood River – Tim Butcher Charts Butcher’s heroic recreation of Stanley’s first exploration across the lawless Congo, beautiful, captivating, tragic.
8)Black Swan Green – David Mitchell An ambitious study of adolescence, humorously accurate and impressively well written in the persona of a 13 year old boy poet. 9) The Time Waster Letters – Robin Cooper A bizarre and hilarious collection of letters with outlandish requests and outrageous suggestions. Pure comedy.
10)The Wind Singer – William Nicholson Read when I was nine, I simply recall the warmth of this book and the idealism of its message, a book that gave hope to a boy who grew up in a confused and often cruel decade.
Luke Walsh has got the up and coming stars of the decade in his eyes. 1)Amy Adams Boasts dazzling, comedic instincts that are among the best in the business. Must see: Junebug & Enchanted 2) Gael García Bernal A passionate performer who embodies the spirit of world cinema. Must see: The Motorcycle Diaries & Bad Education 3) James McAvoy A charismatic talent representing the best of the British new wave. Must see: Atonement & The Last King of Scotland 4) Ellen Page Set to be one of the biggest stars of the next decade. Must see: Juno & Hard Candy 5) Maggie Gyllenhaal The daring indie darling who remains terribly underappreciated. Must see: SherryBaby & Secretary
Jake Gyllenhaal: ...is a dish best served cold. 6) Jake Gyllenhaal A dedicated and diverse dynamo. Must see: Brokeback Mountain & Donnie Darko
7) Zooey Deschanel The oddball queen of quirk. Must see: All the Real Girls & (500) Days of Summer 8) Ryan Gosling Delivers natural performances with undeniably raw presence. Must see: Half Nelson & Lars and the Real Girl 9) Steve Carell A hilarious comedian, but often overlooked for his dramatic capabilities. Must see: Little Miss Sunshine & The 40 Year Old Virgin
Hipsters: Looking like Rick James on acid is definitely in. directions to the local farmer’s market just ask the type wearing buttoned up flannel and an unnecessarily large scarf. But then again, don’t expect him to reply because he’s definitely cooler than you.
Amy Adams: Thanks Luke. Just when we were getting over our embarassing Ellen Page crush
10) Anne Hathaway Successfully balances critical praise with strong commercial appeal. Must see: Rachel Getting Married & The Devil Wears Prada
24
www.bathimpact.com/ents
Monday 14th December 2009
Entertainments Singled Out
Play That Soulful Music White boy!
Deputy Ents Editor Alex Drake gets taken back to the Motown days as he listens to a masterclass in new-soul.
Fucked Up & Friends Do They Know It’s Christmas? Matador Records Out Now Why would a band called Fucked Up care about Christmas? With a lead singer named after a disgusting medical condition and a live act best described as a mix between a barfight and a hen party gone badly wrong, Christmas cheer isn’t exactly what you’d expect Pink Eyes and co. to provide. But as impact lovingly informed you a few issues back, the Canadian hardcore revivalists decided to sink the funds from their Polaris music prize into re-recording the Live Aid classic. What we actually get is a fairly straight but definitely rockin’ cover version that might just provide a little bit of Christmas for those stoically unfestive alternative music fans. Ok, so we’re a little bit disappointed that the GZA doesn’t live up to his billing and deliver a slick verse on the subject of famine, motherfuckers, though his spoken word intro makes us unbelievably happy. And maybe those guitars could use a little more grunt, but as a hoarse screaming of ‘Feeeeeed the world’ fades out, the only thing we’re feeling is joy. And as well we might, as our 79p has gone straight towards helping some rather good causes. Philip Bloomfield
MayEr Hawthorne: Armed with spectacles and prepared to croon. A Strange Arrangement Mayer Hawthorne Stones Throw Records Out Now If you were to stereotype the man least likely to bring back the swinging and soulful Motown music of the 60’s, he would probably look a lot like Mayer Hawthorne, a middle aged white guy from Michigan with a tendency to wear geeky spectacles and velvet suits. It just wouldn’t seem fitting that such an unorthodox singer would draw comparisons to the motown greats. But when Mayer opens his mouth it all becomes apparent as his beautiful crooning voice rolls back the years like few have done before. A Strange Arrangement is the debut album from the Detroit native who unsurprisingly counts Barry White, Isaac Hayes and Smokey Robinson amongst his influences. Not only is the album an excellent listen but Hawthorne also wrote every song,
Ents Contributor Luke Walsh turns back the clock for Snow Patrol’s selection of depressing classics.
Shout Out Louds Walls Merge Records Out Now I’ve always had a fascination with Scandinavia and its inherent coolness. The Shout Out Louds go a long way to back up this theory with a fresh taster of what their third album titled Work is going to sound like when released in February 2010. And going by ‘Walls,’ it’s going to be awesome! The Swedish indie-pop/ rock band has crafted a three minute pop ride that has all the distinct elements expected in a Shout Out Louds track. It’s simple, but with instrumental backing that blends well with their signature vocals and leaves us with a deliciously hummable tune. They may have been on a three year hiatus but the Swedes are back and don’t you know it. Alex Drake
arranged every beat and even played each and every instrument! The man is a truly multi-talented musician and no one was as surprised as his labelowner who had him employed as a producer-come-songwriter! He has a truly smooth and soulful voice that brings a lot of heartfelt sentiment to the fun 70’s throwbacks that he sings. ‘Your Easy Loving Ain’t Pleasing Nothing’ deserves a special mention for being one of the most uplifting songs released this year, whilst songs like ‘Shiny & New’ and ‘One Track Mind’ are equally great. His retro crooning has grabbed the world’s attention, and that of Mark Ronson, who sums up his music very well: “I don’t know what this is, old or new, but its fucking good!” Mayer Hawthorne may be the most unlikely candidate for the revival of old-school R&B/Soul but trust me; he’s doing exactly that. Crack on a bit of this man and you won’t believe your luck…
Up To Now Snow Patrol Interscope Records Out Now Snow Patrol’s first compilation album, Up to Now, refreshingly features a cherrypicked selection of rarities, live recordings and cover versions (including a surprising rendition of Beyoncé’s ‘Crazy in Love’ that doesn’t quite work), alongside their most well-known singles, such as the unavoidable ‘Chasing Cars’, with its beautifully simple melody. Fortunately for fans unfamiliar with
the band’s two albums preceding their 2003 breakout Final Straw, tracks from these little-known CDs are also included. The highlights are ‘Set the Fire to the Third Bar’, with Martha Wainwright’s emotional vocals contrasting interestingly with lead singer Gary Lightbody’s raw delivery, and a passionate live performance of ‘Run’. However, listening to the collection in its entirety reveals the band’s lack of creativity, and it sometimes becomes hard to distinguish between separate tracks, such is their similarity. Efforts for a more upbeat, rocky tone – where they attempt to move away from their sombre, understated (though admittedly successful) sound – are seen in ‘Take Back the City’, but elsewhere a distinct failure to significantly branch out in their style is evident and frustrating. They may not deserve their status as one of Britain’s bestselling bands, but they certainly are (for better or worse) one of our safest and most reliable.
IMPACT
Neill-ing before the altar of pop
Ents Contributor Alex McLaurin hears Biffy sell out to a more radio friendly sound. Only Revolutions Biffy Clyro Beggars Banquet Records Out Now Walking up to Elements a couple of weeks ago, I couldn’t help but notice the full-size poster advertising Biffy Clyro’s latest album, which shows just how far the band has come. Through extensive touring and continued critical acclaim, they have taken the hard road to fame and success, and deserve every minute of it. That said, a lot of people will be quite angry with the new record. Biffy’s first three albums (Blackened Sky, Vertigo of Bliss and Infinity Land) gathered a strong, if not fanatical fan base of ‘mon the Biff’-screaming teenagers. But their major label debut Puzzle and new work Only Revolutions has led the band to a wider audience with a more radio-friendly sound, whilst potentially ostracising their most die-hard of fans. Their latest single ‘The Captain’ is a great example of this, with its Pirates-of-the Caribbeanesque video and woow-ohhh-oh-oh chorus. Whilst it has got them airtime on Radio One, its nods towards throwaway pop rock has made a lot of people cringe. That’s precisely the point with the new album: it’s intended to be nothing more than a perfectly good pop rock record. Think Foo Fighters at their least grunty and most melodic.
“Only Revolutions has led the band to a wider audience with a more radio friendly sound”
BIFFY CLYRO: Restrained?
Songs like ‘Bubbles’, ‘Cloud of Stink’, ‘Booooom, Blast and ruin’ could all be singles. Biffy’s characteristically poor lyrics are often exposed (“I’ve never had a lover who’s my sister or brother before” from ‘Born on a Horse’), but Simon Neill’s vocal power tends to override any such concerns. But it’s not all all snap, crackle and pop: songs like ‘The Golden Rule’ and ‘Shock Shock’ retaining some of the trio’s initial raw rock power from previous records. Yet overall, you can’t help but wonder what the album would sound like without Garth Richardson’s overblown, radio friendly production. By opening their music to a wider audience, Biffy have certainly become more successful, but has this taken away what makes them unique, what made them so important in the first place to hundreds of fans? I certainly think so.
Hazell Moore gives The Saturdays a chance to prove that they’re more than just pretty
Wordshaker The Saturdays Fascination Records Out Now Remember S Club Juniors? What on earth happened to them? Well one went off to do television presenting, and two of them are now starring in The Saturdays. For me that’s a bad start already, but I’m being prejudiced. Objectively they’re just one of those typical girl bands. All very good looking, and with nothing original. This album is full of the same girl leading most of the songs, and the others providing ‘valid’ echoes in the background. Don’t get me wrong, they can sing well, but they’re no Susan Boyle.
And when you’re spending £10 on a new album you want something that has at least 1) a little bit of depth, or 2) makes you want to dance. That’s why this album does nothing for me. The lyrics are shallow- “You used to be so laid back/You always kept it so cool (cool, cool, cool)/ I loved you ‘cos of that.” That hardly reeks of a solid philosophy of life. But there are no surprises there. I feel uninspired and, quite frankly bored, when I listen to this album. All of the songs roll into one, and as much as I wish I could differentiate between them, I don’t really care, as I just patiently await the end so I can put something more worthwhile on.
impact
www.bathimpact.com/ents
Monday 14th December 2009
Deputy Editor Josie Cox is beholden to a night of Beauty at The Theatre Royal.
Entertainments
Run Rabbit Run
Laurence Whitaker talks high concept, low budget film as he looks at the latest surrealist Britpack treat.
The Bunny and The Bull Dir Paul King Out Now
Beauty and the Beast: Belle of the Ball. If I had to put a price tag on that warm fuzzy feeling inside, it would be £19. 50. That’s how much a ticket for the performance of Beauty and the Beast at Bath’s Royal Theatre set me back. £2 for a drink in the break and £1. 50 for the chocolate bar from the petrol station on the way home, and you’ve had a perfect pre-Christmas evening suitable to tell your granny about over mince pies and mulled wine. Currently on a nationwide tour, this version of the 1740s-written French fairytale is the biggest show ever to be seen in Bath’s city-centre stage in terms of set, costumes and sheer cast numbers. Although Ben Harlow didn’t portray Gaston as the burly hunk I remembered him to be from my childhood days, his metrosexual traits and pantomime-ish thigh-slaps easily made him the star of the show. Ashley Oliver -- despite taking two or three songs to warm up her voice -- wowed the audience both visually and acoustically as Belle. Those familiar with the 1991 Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale directed version will be pleased to know that Oliver is a dead ringer for Walt Disney’s Belle, even sporting the same dresses and hairstyles as her cartoon counterpart. From ‘Be Our Guest’ to ‘Human Again’, the orchestra and cast –
including a singing teapot, a selflighting candle and a wardrobe that bursts forth with operatic arias when you open her drawers -- pulled out all the stops to deliver a jaw-dropping show. Strobe lights, an imaginative set and perfectly choreographed dance routines made it a fast-paced performance capable of transporting the audience far, far away from rainy Bath. And even the handsome hero who I failed to find in evil Gaston was not absent altogether: Shaun Dalton who played a towering Beast with a goosebump-inducing voice will certainly be the reason why some young girls grow up with wrong expectations of how polite and charming men are. Fluctuating between being terrifying and hilarious, Dalton consistently captured the attention of the predominantly pre-pubescent audience, not seldomly scaring the living daylights out of the little tyke chewing his mother’s sleeve next to me. His final transformation into the object of every female member of the audience’s desire provided the fulcrum of a perfect happy ending to a show bursting with energy, aesthetically beautiful and simply a great night out.
War and Peace. And then more war. Joshua is one of the most horrific and triumphal of the Bible’s books. Joshua is commanded to lead the Israelites into the land of Canaan and exterminate all of the people living there before they arrive. This is one of the less attractive of the Bible’s episodes so far. Up to this point genocide has been exclusively carried out by God himself, and now we see his chosen people exhorted to the act. On initial assessment this might seem morally dubious at best, but as we will remember from the Book of Deuteronomy these people are wicked and so there’s no harm in killing them all. Besides, going back even further to Genesis, this land was promised to Abraham and so these people are usurping the birthright of God’s chosen people. No wonder they’re in trouble. A great alliance of local kings is conceived to drive out the invading Israelites, but their army is defeated and the kings themselves are publicly humiliated and killed. So all’s well that ends well. I’m not sure whether anyone else
will have read the celebrated Icelandic saga ‘Njáls Saga’, but it’s the closest literary form to the great book of Judges. Sequentially the blood-feuds established in earlier books of the Bible are put to rest by a succession of heroes. There’s a moral imperative here which doesn’t assert itself so forcefully in the Icelandic tale of blood feuds and familial honour, but the adversarial structure and sense of ceaseless conflict is not dissimilar. As the Israelites fall from God’s favour because they indulge in heathen practices they are variously subjected to oppression from a foreign power. Arak, Moab, Hazor, Midian, Amalek, Ammonites and Philistines all are defeated by this succession of warrior-prophets. Two of these are particularly celebrated. Gideon leads 300 men against men of the East before Leonidas has even been born - and Gideon wins. Gideon has a significant edge on Leonidas. God loves Gideon and guarantees him a win as long as he does what he’s told. So he takes an army of 22,000, turns it into an
25
Quirky, independent and hectic; this gem is high-concept-low budget at its best. The story of neurotic Stephen is told through a myriad of mixed media with cartoons, collages and stop frame sequences all getting a look in. Springing forth from the mind of Mighty Boosh director Paul King it seems largely to take inspiration from the more original scenes in Boosh, especially with the appearance of being purposely filmed on sets made from cardboard boxes. The story seems a little predictable, being split between Stephen’s neurotic life in a King’s Cross flat, which he hasn’t left for a year, interspersed randomly with clips of the trip around Europe that caused his agoraphobia to
take hold. This allows for a comedic exploration of some of the odder attractions in Europe, including the spoon and the shoe museum. Inventive at all times, the film is no escapist blockbuster but more an arthouse experience. Testing the audience’s willingness to leave the realms of the normal and go forth into a strange, yet beautiful imagined world that mingles commonplace themes with surreal places and events. People hoping to get a dose of Fielding will be disappointed by his short and less than brilliant cameo appearance as a matador. It does however give him the chance to wear pink, glitzy jackets and present a hint of lunacy. Not so much a film as a piece of art. See it, experience it, give in to it and you’ll be surprised at how enjoyable you find it.
Do Stay In Cast-Offs C4 Thursday, 23.10
Cast Offs is the new drama from the creators of Shameless and Skins. This black comedy/drama tells the story, through a faux reality TV show, of six disabled characters that are set the challenge to reach self sufficiency on a remote British Island. This new series does well in daring to address the politically correct nature of British society by ridiculing stereotypes, but also by making characters unsympathetic towards each disability. It’s almost reduced to a type of playground bullying between the characters, which is sometimes shocking to see. But this is essentially why I like the programme - because it’s daring, sort of avant-garde and very different from everything else on television at the moment. However, it is slow to start off, and I reckon they could shorten down the programme from an hour to a half an hour slot. If the humour doesn’t appeal to you, I would say it’s definitely worth a couple of watches, just for the way it addresses the nature of how we talk about those that are differently able. Hazell Moore
CAst-OFFs: Call the PC Police, there’s been an incident.
Sam Foxman’s Bible: This week, a ladleful of deceit, a spoonful of treachery and a lot of conflict.
The Season BBC 2 Saturday 12:25
ARmy of 300: No, not that three hundred strong army. army of 10,000 and then into an money and taking his own life to army of 300. Presumably the 22,000 destroy the enemy of his people this would have been easily defeated, tale of self-sacrifice, love and human such is the power of God. There frailty is one of the most charming early is a consistently republican theme depictions in the Bible. In Samson we throughout. Gideon declines the offer find a hero more human than any that from the Israelites that he be their king. have preceded him and we see the He does, however, take many wives beginning of the Bible’s turn to greater, and have seventy children, so being more human narrative. The tale of Samson, one of the most enduring loved by God has an upside. Samson is the tragic tale here. in the Bible, is just a taste of what is Betrayed by the woman he loves for to come.
As the popularity of reality television keeps soaring, producers are matching demand with a fresh dosage of new shows. BBC2 has decided to catch on by airing a new series focused on a group of gap year seasonnaires living it up in the party capital of the alps – Val D’Isere. Having managed to find time out of their Jack Wills jobs the dozen public school kids balance work and play in a world bossed by gossip. Every character is amazingly involved in a love triangle depending on how promiscuous they’re feeling that week. We follow the love stories of the bitchy boys and girls but ultimately come to the conclusion that this has taken reality TV to a new level of shitness. With that being said I’ve watched every one of the seven episodes so far and I will take of my metaphorical hat off to anyone strong enough to resist its pull. Alex Drake
26
www.bathimpact.com
Monday 14th December 2009
International
IMPACT
Calling all international students
Hao Chen, Chair of ISA, is seeking your help to represent! Dear International Students, have you noticed the logo of ISA this year? In this issue, I am going to talk about its role within the Students’ Union and how we can better represent you. I will also talk about the fantastic opportunities that you simply cannot miss! First of all, I hope all of you enjoying your time here as international students! It was really amazing to have met most of you during Freshers’ Week, in Society Fair or Chinese Students Talk, and if you didn’t manage to have a chat with the executives who were elected by you and represent you, you should mark down the dates below in your diary. On those dates are the events we will have for semester two. So if you still do not know ISA, here it is: The International Student Association (ISA) is a group created to support and represent the views of International Students. If you are coming to Bath from the EU or overseas, you will automatically become a member of the ISA. International Students make up 25% of the student population at the University of Bath, and as such it is extremely important that you have a clear channel for making your voices heard. In this way, the Student Union will be able to respond to your individual and collective needs. This may even lead to representing YOUR views to the university. Meeting you What have we done this semester? We kicked off with the stall in Societies Fair and it was great that so many of you showed great interest in participating in organizing the events and signed your name down which is a good start! Remember, you are automatically
a member of ISA and you are really the person who is important, while the committee is here to help you in making the collective needs to be heard. Following the Societies Fair the Chair was invited to give a presentation on “ISA and the opportunities available for international students” to the Chinese students and Hong
The Team: Wafi, Hao, Ada and Helena, ISA Committee Executives Kong students which I have to say, was a great turn out compared with other events this year, thank you all! Earlier in November, we successfully had our postgraduate representative elected hence we will consistently have postgraduate-Taught students’ voices in decision shaping process. Speaking of that, please forgive us for sending repeating emails as the only intention was to make sure every postgraduate is fairly informed of the opportunity. Representation In terms of representing on behalf of you, we proposed the first ever ISA Assembly Meeting on 18th November and the basic idea is providing an effective forum for all the international students to exchange ideas as well as sharing your own problems. The second ISA Assembly Meeting will take place in February, please come with your friends to have some free snacks! Meanwhile, at the Mayor’s annual civic reception this year, it was my highest
pleasure delivering a speech on behalf of ISA expressing our gratitude to all of you. It was lovely to meet so many other international students from other universities as well and I am sure those of you who were present had a good time! Meet the Mayor! Still, in February, would you prefer to have a light lunch with the Mayor of Bath (Councillor Colin Barrett) with your experience as international students? Sure, the ISA committee has been working hard to invite the Mayor to our university next February to spend time with you all! Awards There are also brilliant opportunities only for International Students; SHINE Awards organized by British Council aims to encourage those of you who have outstanding extracurricular activities similar to our Bath Award but SHINE is only open to International Students with the national winner prize-2000 pounds! Matthew Morton, studying for a Dphil in Social Intervention and Organisational Behaviour at Oxford University, was named as the 2009 Shine International Student of the Year. Matthew learnt he was the winner at a fantastic award ceremony in London presented by Moira Stuart and Nihal Arthanyake, in which all 12 finalists received recognition and praise for their exceptional achievements. Since coming to the UK from the USA, Matthew has helped found an organisation called Youth Development Project - or YDP, that provides assistance and encouragement to young people, in an area of multiple-deprivation just outside Oxford. As well as volunteering for this group on an ongoing basis, Matthew has also set-up a youth leadership
forum, between Albanian and British youth- leaders, through which both parties can share their knowledge and experiences. He was selected by the European Commission, as a consultant for a senior-level workgroup; delivered the keynote speech at the 2008 National Student Leadership Forum - held at the Scottish Parliament; and he still finds time to run for Oxford University’s Cross-Country Club! Commenting on the awards Matthew said, “For me Shine seemed like a great opportunity to bring attention to the youth projects that I work with, I thought that however far I progressed, it could only have a good outcome for those groups. I’ve enjoyed connecting with the other finalists, all of them are astounding and it’s been great to hear about their many achievements.” The information will be updated on our ISA webpage soon and check it out! Also if you are Chinese then maybe the Big Ben Award is something you really should look into! They are looking for Ten Outstanding Chinese Young Persons in the UK who have made contributions to society though different ways, one of the last year winner Daniel is to be admired for his work in promoting business relations between the UK and China. His academic achievements are also impressive. I’d love to encourage all the international students to enter for these two awards! Xmas Break Opportunities Additionally, for those of you who stay in Bath for Christmas, why not do something meaningful on behalf of UN World Food Programme? In coordination with the great Bath Model UN Society, we are recruiting enthusiastic students to join the project of WFP Fundraising both
during Christmas and the new semester, tell me that you definitely want to be there!!
Last words Finally, on behalf of the ISA committee 2009-2010, I wish that we have talked to most of you personally and helped you on a variety of issues during the past 3 months. I would also like to take up this opportunity in order to thank all of you. Since the first day of being elected as executives, we have been consistently humbled by the incredible qualities from you; Intelligence, Compassion, loyalty, athleticism and the list goes on, but most of all, it brings us joy to know that we can call you our friends, we learn from you all everyday, thank you very much for that. We are looking forward to hearing from you at any time; please please please contact us if you have any thoughts on providing better welfare to international students and feedback from previous events. I am also expecting those who will stay in Bath for Christmas to join the meaningful WFP Fundraising Team of Bath!
Mr Mayor: Shall we do lunch?
Looking for cheap New Year’s Eve fun? Andreea Alecsandru AEGEE PR Officer Still don’t have any plans for the New Year’s Eve? So why not spend it with a cool group of students from other European countries? The recently affiliated and active society AEGEE (Association des Etats Généraux des Etudiants de l’Europe / European Students’ Forum) can bring you all this fun if you decide to join us. What is AEGEE all about? AEGEE is a non-governmental, politically independent and non-profit organization with over 15.000 members, active in more than 240 university cities in 43 European countries. Students can come and work freely in AEGEE. You can lead, write and hold projects, or you can attend various meetings, conferences or trainings in Europe to develop your skills. The chair
of AEGEE Bath, Flavia Rusu, says that “AEGEE will bring you all the fun that you are looking for while getting involved in amazing projects”. Basically, after you join the society in Bath, you will be able to take part in all the European events that other AEGEE groups are organising. The winter events c a n b e f o u n d o n t h e AE G EE
website (www.aegee.org). You can choose from: skiing in Slovenia (150 euros for eight days of winter fun with accommodation and two meals included), have a sunny winter in Palermo (100 euros for four days) or many other amazingly cheap and fun events. Find out more about AEGEE Bath on Facebook and join us on BathStudent.com. Have a great winter with AEGEE!
28
www.bathimpact.com/sport
Monday 14th December 2009
Sport
IMPACT
The year in floorball Matt Sellars guides you through the season so far for the Bath Blaze. After a winning but unsatisfactory start to the season, being awarded default wins in their opening two fixtures, Bath Blaze 1 visited Gloucester for potentially the most important tournament of the league season. The opposition in the first game of the day was the Warwick University 1st team, last year’s South West League champions (Ed: really?), who had opened their league account with a 6-1 victory over Bath 2nds at the previous tournament. In a cagey start to the game, no team made real inroads as the defences were dominant, and the deadlock was not broken until the dying minutes of the first period, when an optimistic Warwick crossshot rebounded between the goalkeeper, a Bath defender and a Warwick attacker, before crawling over the line. Another bobbling ball undid Bath at the start of the second period, when an initial tackle broke to give a shooting
opportunity, catching the defence off-guard. Bath regrouped and started to exert more pressure on the Warwick goal, and were soon rewarded when a combination of Joe Duncan and Simon Povey volleyed home a half-blocked shot at the Warwick end, the goal eventually being awarded to Simon. Further pressure followed, with Bath having a goal disallowed when the Warwick keeper inexplicably dropped a harmless high ball, but Jani Osterlund was adjudged guilty of high-sticking in putting the ball in. A freak bounce in midfield gave Warwick a third goal against the run of play, as the ball bounced between two players, leaving the Warwick centre with a clear shot and took the game into the third period with Warwick leading 3-1 despite creating very little themselves. Bath, believing their inability to score couldn’t last all game, pushed hard for goals
on the ball: Jon Soderberg is a blur of action during a match.
throughout the last period, and penned Warwick back for almost the full 20 minutes. Sustained pressure lead to a number of free hits just inside the Warwick half, the first of which defender Jani was able to convert to make the score 3-2, and then again for 3-3, and remarkably for a 3rd time to complete his hat-trick and take Bath into the lead with six minutes to go. For the first time in the game Warwick were forced to chase the game, but the Bath defence held firm to guide the team home to a 4-3 victory, and lead them into their next game with confidence. This was against a new entry to the league, Nottingham University, who shocked most people in the sport when, in their first game of the season, they ran the national champions London Vikings ragged, racking up a 7-1 victory and putting themselves firmly in the title mix this year. Centre’s Jon Soderberg and Tapani Saarinen were charged with neutralising the threat from their Nottingham counterpart, and forcing the play to the suspected weaker players in the opposition. This policy worked perfectly, with the combined effort of the centres stifling Nottingham’s goal threat, and the defenders ensuring goalkeeper Matt Sellars had an unexpectedly quiet game, barely having to make a save. At the other end, Bath were able to fashion more chances than against Warwick earlier, and as such picked up a steady stream of goals, with Jon (3), Tapani (2), Jani, Simon (2) and Henri Montin getting goals. Bath won
MIne!: A Bath floorball player challenges for the ball. each of the 3 periods 3-0, with some great passing goals in there as part of a really impressive team performance. A few missed chances at the end prevented Bath reaching double figures, but the clean sheet meant captain Chris Harrison had plenty of positives from both ends of the rink. The 3rd team also played in the tournament, having won their first two games of the season, including a friendly win over Division One side Dragons, so hopes were high for the matches against Warwick 2nds and Nottingham 2nds. The Bath side was made primarily of new players who were playing in their first season, and the lack of experience unfortunately showed as they were unable to utilise their possession to create chances in either game. Conceding twice against Warwick early on dented their chances, and despite pushing hard throughout the first period, they were unable to overcome this. A goal from Dan Goord in the second period halved the deficit before a further breakaway goal left the final
score at 3-1 to Warwick. It was a similar story against Nottingham, where neither side had sufficient experience to create chances and the game finished in a 2-2 draw with goals from Pete Warne and David Corcoran. Bath 1sts sit top of Division One with the 2nd team in fourth, while the 3rd team are third in Division Two. Next weekend sees the 2nd team take on Nottingham and Dragons, with a chance to move to 3rd in the table. The following week is an allBath clash as the 1st team take on the 2nds, and both teams play their return fixture with Warwick 1st team. At the same time the 3rd team face Warwick 2nds and Imperial College. Matches are regularly played in the STV, so anyone who is interested in seeing or playing the sport can take the opportunity to see it first hand. Likewise, anyone who wants to know more about the sport can email the club at susafloorball@ lists.bath.ac.uk or turn up and try it out at a training session (especially goalkeepers!).
Let’s hear it for the girl
Sean Lightbown chats to Megan Partridge: student at Bath, and qualified football referee.
“Do you experience much sexism when refereeing football?” It’s déjà vu for Megan Partridge. A reserved sigh speaks volumes; this is a question she must be asked time and time again. “There is some,” she acknowledges. “It’s mainly people saying stuff like ‘Oh, get back in the kitchen.’ But with people like Mike Newell...” A glance down and shake of the head is all I need to be aware of her contempt for the attitudes of people like Newell, who caused uproar with his comments about assistant referee Amy Rayner (“She shouldn’t be here. I know that sounds sexist, but I am sexist.”). Newell has since
apologised, yet the frustration Megan shows at the thought that such ideas endure is palpable. For someone with six years experience, you can’t blame her. A keen footballer in her youth, Megan became a qualified official aged sixteen, and began officiating Southampton youth team and Sunday league games in her native Hampshire. Since arriving at Bath to study Politics with Economics, she has taken charge of matches in the University’s departmental championships, as well as in other intramural competitions. In short, she has more experience and knowledge of the game than the misogyny of some will accept.
We’re talking in the cosy surroundings of the campus café, a stark contrast to the muddy pitches where Megan plies her trade. Recently, she oversaw an intense match in which she awarded two penalties. Both decisions were met with angry protests. “I don’t mind the hostility. Here, the abuse is quite eloquent anyway,” she jokes. “I prefer to explain myself to players, instead of waving them away like some. At least then players can understand why I made the decision.” It is this approach, and not just her gender, that has helped her gain respect. “Female refs do
have a positive effect in the sense that players seem more respectful, and in some cases apologise after they have a rant. Sometimes though, I’ve had to physically restrain players when they lose control - it’s all about maintaining authority on the pitch.” Her bubbly nature belies this assertiveness. Yet as we talk, it’s apparent that she is more than willing to speak her mind. Be it regarding spectators (“parents are the worst for abusing officials”) or pundits (“half the time, they don’t know what they’re talking about”), Megan is adept at highlighting the flaws that undermine football. Thankfully, Megan is no longer a
novelty. “With more girls playing, it’s getting better. The key is getting them officiating whilst they’re young.” This is evident in Hampshire, which had only a handful of female officials when she started in 2001; the figure is now well into double digits. So, does she have any plans to officiate in higher leagues? “I used to when I was younger, and at the end of the day I do really enjoy it,” she says, coyly. “We’ll see how it goes.” With today’s professional referees constantly under fire, a refreshing character like Megan may be what football needs.
30
www.bathimpact.com/sport
Monday 14th December 2009
Sport
IMPACT
Bath Boat Club blaze the trail Rowers keen to keep the winning habit in successful start to season. Jonathan McCree-Grey Sport Contributor It has been medals galore for Bath University Boat Club with victory after victory in what has been a busy first few weeks of the winter rowing season. With the first semester already drawing to a close, the men’s and women’s crews have been battling hard to win a massive total of 18 gold, 14 silver and eight bronze medals from numerous events up and down the country.
BUCS Small Boats Head and GB Rowing trials started the season in Boston, Lincolnshire with Bath sending up crews to both race and trial. Charlotte Lang and Nikki Godbold made the long trip worthwhile by taking the bronze in the women’s coxless pair. Closer to home was Bristol University Head, held on the River Avon. This was the first event in which the eights had a chance to show what they were made of. This they did exceedingly well with the senior men coming third
in the 1st division and two other men’s VIIIs finishing 1st and 3rd in division 3. The club’s novice crews also had a successful day with the novice men’s boat of Max Taylor, Joe Mummery, Tom Symons, Dave Vandenborn, Matt East, Alex Livingston, George Slade, Jimmy Bichard and Cox Iain Fifer taking second place in their first ever race. The senior women also did well with the eights of Gabby Rodriguez, Ailsa Buck, Charlotte Lang, Jemma Cropper, Sara Black, Caroline
ROW, ROW, ROW your BOAT: The Boat Club are looking to continue their great start next semester.
BUCS Results Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Badminton M1
6-2
Bristol
Badminton M2
7-1
Cardiff
Badminton W1
5-3
UWIC
Basketball M1
68-62
and Gabrie lla Rodrig ue z t he bronze in IM1. The girls’ success continued with the crew of Jemma Cropper, Ellie Zajicek, Ailsa Buck and Gabby Rodriguez with Cox Laura Pyatt finishing first in the women’s fours closely followed by Sara Black, Sam Street, Caroline Woollett and Nicola Lydall coxed by Sarah Mccathie. The men’s scullers did not disappoint either with Will Stride, Nick McMullan, Rob Good and Rob McDougall all taking home medals in the men’s open single sculls, also joining forces in a quad to set the fastest time of the event. Hopes are high in the club to make next semester even more successful, with everyone aiming to push themselves to the limit at the big events coming up in the next few months, with the squads all following a strict training regime headed by their dedicated captains both in the gym and on the water. They are expecting top results for BUCS Head, 8s Head of the River and WeHORR with the aim to reach Henley Royal Regatta and the National Championships in the summer, where all the year’s hard work will pay off.
“1000 days ‘til London? I’m not thinking about 2012!”
Josie Cox catches up with Bath paralympian Ben Rushgrove.
Gloucestershire
Fencing M1
48-135
Cardiff
Football M1
3-2
Cardiff
Football W1
0-10
Football W2
3-1
Bournemouth
Golf 1
w/o
UWIC
UWIC
Hockey M1
2-0
Oxford
Hockey M4
0-3
Bristol
Hockey W1
2-0
Oxford
Hockey W2
2-1
UWE
Hockey W3
2-3
Bristol
Hockey W4
0-5
Plymouth
Lacrosse M1
Woollett, Sam Street, Ellie Zajicek and Cox Laura Pyatt finishing second in division 1 and Ailsa Buck, Sam Street, Nicola Lydall, Harriet Reeves, Jodie Williams, Charley Mason, Caroline Woollett, Sara Black and Cox Laura Pyatt coming 2nd in Division 3. The medals continued to roll in at Wycliffe Small Boats Head with Bath completely dominated the competition. The men’s elite coxless four of Phil Gray, Ali Gregory, Jon McCree-Grey and Sean Bathe-Taylor set the bar high in the first event of the day by completing the course in the fastest time for a four. Matt Hopkins, Rich Howell, Jo Bunting, Paddy Allan and cox Hannah Gavin claimed the first gold in the IM3 4+ category with Chris Weller-Jones, Graham Davis, Jack Cadman, Oli Towndrow and cox Sophie Ellis following close behind. Jon McCree-Grey, Graham Davis, Oliver Horncastle, Tom Sanderson and Hannah Gavin joining them on the podium with a gold in IM1 4+. Our scullers did equally well with Nicky Godbold taking a silver medal in Womens IM3, Charlotte Lang the bronze in the Novice sculls
4-1
Cardiff
Netball 1
66-17
Cardiff
Netball 2
36-32
Southampton
Netball 3
Lost
Marjons
Netball 5
26-10
Marjons
Rugby M2
w/o
Rugby M4
13-8
Solent
Rugby W1
27-0
Aberystwyth
Squash W2
0-4
Southampton
Southampton
Table Tennis M1
12-5
Table Tennis M2
8-9
Southampton
Brighton
Table Tennis W1
0-5
Southampton
Tennis M1
10-0
Bournemouth
Tennis M2
6-4
UWIC
Tennis W1
2-8
Bournemouth
“For me it’s always: the sooner the better,” Ben Rushgrove replied to my email. Whether that applies to crossing the finish line or having time to meet me, he seems to know what he’s talking about. A few days later we meet over a hot chocolate in the café of the University of Bath’s £30 million sports complex. Below us are the state of the art tracks and studios where the smiley sports science graduate sweats it out six times a week. The 21-year old has cerebral palsy and competes in T36 disability events. After setting new personal and national records in 2006, he broke the 200m world record for his classification in 2007, and came home from the 2008 Beijing Paralympics with a silver medal despite having broken his foot twice just weeks earlier. “It’s still impossible to express how incredible Beijing was,” Ben gushes, but when asked about London 2012, which kicks off in just under 1,000 days, he instantly snaps back to reality. “I’m not thinking about 2012,” he smiles coyly, repeating the same thing he’s told so many other journalists including a BBC camera team just
last week: “Of course it’s in the back of my mind - a bit like a distant birthday I’m looking forward to but my current priority is qualifying for the 2011 World Championships in New Zealand.” Born in Bath, Ben went to college in Hampshire, where he was scouted by his teacher at the tender age of 14. From then on athletics grew to become the most important thing in his life. “Of course there’s a world outside of sports; I’m just not part of it.” He chirps with a glint in his eye. I can’t tell whether he’s joking. By the age of 19, Ben had realised that running was no longer “just for fun”, but a serious career path he was in the course of pursuing. His vow to make everything in life competitive has been a propelling force behind his drive to win, ever since first setting foot in the starting blocks. But Ben maintains that he’s not a bad loser: “I’ve won so much that it’s good to lose occasionally. It keeps me on the ground.” Before Ben dashes off I ask him about idols. Preparing my pen to jot down the names of Usain Bolt and Maurice Green, I’m somewhat surprised when he says that he’s “more in awe of the Nelson
Mandelas of this world.” He goes on to rave about the architects and constructions workers of Beijing’s Bird’s nest Stadium. “Think of the hard labour these guys did to create something this magnificent,” he challenges me. “I owe it to guys like these to make the most of my talent, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” Clear words persuading me that if 2012 were a competition of determinations, Rushgrove would certainly have at least one gold medal already. Now let’s keep our fingers crossed that he bags one for the race too.
RUSHGROVE: Determined.
impact
www.bathimpact.com/sport
Monday 14th December 2009
31
Sport
Bath swimmers qualify for BUCS finals Dave Williams Sport Contributor
Bath’s Student swimming squad travelled recently to the BUCS Team Championship Southern Qualifiers in Hertfordshire. Our two teams were set to battle it out with eight others in a bid to reach the Division 2 finals in Sheffield in March. Confidence was high due to an influx of former TeamBath swimmers and talented freshers, but gaining a top four place against the likes of Bristol, London and Cambridge would not be easy. Last year the team won the overall Division 3 title, so following that act was bound to be difficult! The competition started well, with the 1st team coming in second in both of the opening medley relays and the 2nd team winning the men’s medley relay. The strong start from the 1st team kept
them firmly in the driving seat for the first half of the gala, with wins from Katie Speller and Paul Sutherland in the 100m Individual Medley and the 100m Breaststroke certainly helping. The 2nd team had their fair share of impressive results in the early stages as well, putting them in with a strong chance of qualification. The 100m Backstroke gave both teams the maximum 10 points in a bizarre twist that saw Matt O’ Brien (the 1sts) and Xander Beaton (the 2nds) swim the exact same time of 57.70, a Guernsey Commonwealth Games qualifying time for Xander. The halfway points totals placed Bath 1st team in first place and the 2nds in fourth, with Cambridge and London lying between them and Portsmouth placed only 5 points behind, the 2nds were going have to dig in to hold on to that precious final qualifying spot. Game on...
Unfortunately for coach Ben McIvor, the remaining twelve races weren’t as plain sailing as the first. Cambridge rallied to take top spot from the 1sts and the 2nds found themselves under more pressure from Portsmouth and now Bristol in sixth. The trip
Debora Sönksen Sport Contributor
BUCS Results Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Badminton M1
8-0
Oxford
Badminton M2
8-0
Exeter
Badminton W1
8-0
Cambridge
Basketball M1
85-61
UNFAIR: The three-armed fresher had a clear advantage in this bout. Hefin Jones, also a first year, has taken his interest in the sport to another level and has helped out with refereeing after a long rule-learning process, and also has hopes of becoming the 2009 Freshers’ Foil winner. The latter stages of the competition are to be held shortly, when the winner will be named. For those out there whose curiosity was excited, there are always more opportunities next semester to hold a foil and feel like a musketeer. Trust me, it’s thrilling.
Southampton
Fencing M1
126-
Fencing W1
87-134
Football M1
0-1
Brighton
Football M2
0-2
Bournemouth
Football M3
2-0
Gloucestershire
Football W1
1-1
Brighton
Football W2
1-2
Gloucestershire
Hockey M1
5-0
Bristol
Hockey M2
3-2
Bath 3rds
Hockey M3
2-3
Bath 2nds
Hockey M4
1-10
Plymouth Cardiff
UWIC
Hockey M5
1-2
Bath Spa
Hockey W1
2-7
Bristol
Hockey W2
3-2
Marjons
Hockey W3
1-1
Cardiff
Hockey W4
3-0
Southampton
Hockey W5
1-0
Bath Spa
Lacrosse W1
abstract sport for most people in the world, but really it is a rush of concrete adrenaline, as well as a psychological challenge. You will not be chasing a ball around, but, instead, predicting your opponent’s every move. In order to be successful, you must be well trained in the art of bluffing and knowing where your opponent is likely to hit you, as well as how you shall block his foil and strike him surreptitiously and rapidly. One could call fencing both a mental and physical battle, albeit a very entertaining one too.
by the 1sts. The women’s teams finished strongly and took vital points by finishing 2nd and 3rd in their relays. The final points totals placed both teams comfortably in the qualifying spots in 2nd and 4th. Roll on Sheffield!
Next stop, Yorkshire: Bath’s qualification means they will compete at the BUCS Championships in March.
Freshers fight like D’Artagnan On the 3rd of December the Sports Hall was the chosen venue for a nearly mythical event – the 2009 Freshers’ Foil. As the name might already hint at, this was a Fencing competition for all first years involved in lunging, parrying and disengaging - in other words, using their foil to poke their opponent to shame and score points. For two hours, competitors had the opportunity to fence everyone else in the room. They were ranked on their percentage of matches won, and finally on their net point scores. For the audience, it was exhilarating to notice players’ perseverance, and I was particularly impressed with how fast and fearlessly the players made their decisions. Nonetheless, Isaac Taylor, Maths fresher, described the experience as “general good fun”, after having won most of his matches the previous week. For those out there who are fencing illiterates, the sport consists of two players dressed in protective clothing holding weapons (note: please do not refer to foils, épées or sabres as ‘swords’!) and scoring points by hitting their opponent on specific target areas. Each hit is a point, and in the case of the Freshers’ Foil, procedure onto the next stage relied on scoring five points against each opponent. Fencing seems to be a rather
to the finals in Sheffield rested on the men’s and women’s freestyle relays which were worth valuable double points. The strength of the team spirit was shown by the fantastic relay swimming that followed, with the Men’s 2nds winning again, closely followed
3-14
Cambridge
Netball 1
38-39
Bristol
Netball 2
62-29
Cardiff
Netball 4
49-14
Bath 5ths
Netball 5
14-49
Bath 4ths
Rugby M1
13-20
Exeter
Rugby M2
37-13
Southampton
Rugby M3
39-13
Bath Spa
Squash M1
1-4
UWIC
Squash M2
3-2
Bristol
Squash W2
0-4
Bristol
5-12
Cardiff
Table Tennis M2 Table Tennis W1
5-0
Cardiff
Tennis M1
0-10
London Met
Tennis M2
10-0
Bournemouth
Tennis W1
0-10
London Met
Tennis W2
3-7
UWIC
sport impact
Success for swimmers Page 31
Blazing row(ers) Page 30
Hockey girls rediscover that winning feeling WOMEN’S 1STS HOCKEY BATH UNIVERSITY
2
OXFORD UNIVERSITY
0
Jo Slade Sports Contributor AFTER A run of three disappointing results, Bath University 1st team were in desperate need of three points and a confidence boost as they lined up to face Oxford. The away result was a 3-1 victory to Bath, so they knew this was a game they could and should win. A tentative first half saw Bath keeping the ball for long periods at a time and playing some good hockey. There were few open goal scoring opportunities for either side but there were some great runs from Dani Cordial who looked most likely to score. The work rate from the whole forward line of Kaziow, Cremin, Mitchell and Cordial was exceptional and gave the Oxford defenders a hard time. The Bath defence barely had to break out a sweat as they coolly switched the ball around the back and there were some fantastic balls up the line from the two half backs Kat Klohe and Laura Cummer. Score: 0-0 at half time. The second half was a similar story. Bath continued to pass the ball round fluently and looked much more dangerous going forward with the midfield looking ever more dangerous. Jess Dickman and Zoe ‘Wolverine’ Shipperley in the midfield
provided good protection for the defence, putting in many tackles and interceptions but whenever Oxford broke past the midfield, the extremely experienced centre back partnership (with a combined age of 62) of Rachel Jacko and Fleur Horner were there to snub any danger. Finally, after 55 minutes of pressure, Bath made the break through. Good interplay between Tash Dykes, Jess Cremin and Cordial allowed Cordial to drive at the Oxford ‘D’ and timed her cross perfectly, beating the last defender, to Jo Brown who pounced on the cross and slotted home across the ‘keeper. An unnecessary amount of celebration later, she finally got back behind the half way line to being the defence of the lead. Bath momentarily switched off and Oxford would have pulled a goal back if it wasn’t for Harriet Stratton, who pulled out a fantastic save in a one-on-one situation to let Bath off the hook. After a small nervous phase Bath started to attack Oxford again as the game all of a sudden opened up. After a couple of more superb saves from Stratten in goal, Bath looked equally as dangerous in the Oxford ‘D’. Again work rate was fantastic all across the field and some skillful work by Jess Cremin saw Pip Mitchell free on goal to slot the ball home. A much deserved second goal, after a solid performance from the whole team and with four minutes left on the clock - the three points were in the bag.
FENCING WANTS YOU!: Hefin Jones (pictured) was one of the many first years who took part in the ‘Freshers’ Foil’ in early December. For all the thrills and spills, see the report on page 31 (Photo: Matt Sykes).
The year in floorball page 29