Bath Impact Volume 11 Issue 2

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Monday 5th October 2009 Volume 11 Issue 2 www.bathimpact.com

impact student

‘Inconceivable’

University denies ‘privatisation’ of Learning Support will damage services to disabled students Chris Wotton News Editor news@bathimpact.com

THE UNIVERSITY has rejected suggestions that the privatisation of parts of Student Services will affect the quality of service received by disabled students.

A restructure of Student Services at the University has seen the consolidation of different teams into a new Student Services Centre, located adjacent to the 4W café. The aim is for the centre to act as an initial point of contact for students seeking advice relating to disabilities, funding, health and immigration.

Mark Ames, Head of Student Services, told impact that the restructure was intended to integrate the different elements of Student Services, make them more easily accessible and recognisable to students, and to improve communication between the different teams.

Nevertheless, some staff in the former Learning Support unit, now called Student Disability Advice, claim that their transfer to Dutch multinational corporation Randstad will result in a situation where a student’s disability ‘would be used for profit’.

As part of the restructure,

parts of the workload of Student Disability Advice have been outsourced to Randstad, an HR solutions agency based in Newbury, Berkshire. According to the University, the majority of this outsourcing is of casual notetakers whose fees are paid for by disabled students themselves, either from a government-funded Disabled Student Allowance or by other, personal, means.

Staff have voiced concern that the changes, which the U n i v e r s i t y h a s a d m i t te d will also leave two Learning Support Tutors on Randstad’s payroll, will undermine the ability of student advisors to offer impartial advice on service providers to disabled students requiring note-taking, tutoring and other services. In a letter to the Vice Chancellor, Professor Glynis Breakwell, one staff member went so far as to claim that, “In effect, Randstad feeds off the Disabled Student Allowance.

“It is only two members of staff at present but it is probably the beginning of change”, added the member of staff.

Ames dismissed this suggestion, insisting that advisors will remain employed by the University and will still be free to put students in touch with other service providers

‘AN IMPROVEMENT’: The new Student Services Centre, located adjacent to the 4west cafe. should they not want to engage Randstad. While conceding that “advisors obviously won’t have the same knowledge of another provider’s services”, he stressed that, unless and until students engaged their services, “Randstad will have no contact with students.

“Students using the service should notice no change as a result of the outsourcing arrangements,” he added. “In fact, as Randstad’s handling of the administrative side of things will free up our professional staff to spend more time with students, I would imagine that they will see an improvement.”

However, a member of staff in the former Learning Support unit told impact: “Randstad invoice Student Finance England for staff time, take some money off and give the rest back to the University, so there is a strong relationship with Randstad economically. They are not being

at all clear about anything.”

The staff member added: “The contracts [of employment, with Randstad] preclude the kind of service I would normally give.

My new contract never mentioned the student: a huge and telling omission which shows that this work is not about the student - it is about profit.”

Pro-Vice Chancellor Learning and Teaching Professor Ian Jamieson had previously said it was ‘inconceivable’ that the work of the Student Disability Advice service would be outsourced when it was ‘so important to our students’. Jamieson has insisted that the main goal of the change was to reduce the administrative burden of ‘acting as a recruitment agency’ for casual staff such as note-takers, which would ‘release resource to concentrate on core student support activities’. “They [students] will be told that they can use Randstad as a source of notetakers but the students can contact

any other company and make their private arrangements.”

Ames also sought to allay fears that the student body at large would suffer from the change as a result of withdrawal of casual positions from the Joblink service. He said students engaged on casual note-taker contracts with the University had been encouraged to ‘sign on’ with Randstad, and that Randstad would make use of student staff through the Joblink service, though not exclusively as has often been the case. “We find that having student staff works well, since they often have firsthand experience of the academic situations they work in.”

Do you support the University’s changes to Student Support? Send us your thoughts - follow us on Twitter - @bathimpact or come along to our meeting today at 6:15 pm in 1W 2.6

In impact this week...

New film too close for comfort?

Kickboxing, and more, on Parade...

Comment,

Sport,

page 10

Back page

Win signed Passion Pit album Ents competition, page 9

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News

National Minimum student impact is brought to you by...

News in Wage rises to £5.80 Brief

Editorial Team Editor News Editor Comment Editor Features Editors Science Editor Ents Editor Sport Editor Online Editor Photo Editor Treasurer Chief Sub-Editor

Tim Leigh editor@bathimpact.com Chris Wotton news@bathimpact.com Emma Simmons comment@bathimpact.com Josie Cox & Sian Lewis features@bathimpact.com Steve Ramsey science@bathimpact.com Phil Bloomfield ents@bathimpact.com Sean Lightbown sport@bathimpact.com David Kennaway online@bathimpact.com Peter Pratelli photo@bathimpact.com David Kennaway treasurer@bathimpact.com Katie Rocker

Contact Details Phone 01225 38 6151 Fax 01225 44 4061 Email editor@bathimpact.com Web www.bathimpact.com Twitter @bathimpact

Students easy targets

Chris Wotton News Editor news@bathimpact.com A SEVEN pence rise in the National Minimum Wage has brought the rate paid to adults to £5.80 per hour.

The increase, which comes a year after the minimum rate payable by employers rose by twenty-one pence, will also see the rate paid to eighteen to twenty-one year olds reach £4.83, a six pence increase.

The changes also see twenty-one year olds being paid the full adult rate for the first time. Previously, only those aged twenty-two and over had been paid the top rate wage.

New legislation has also been introduced banning employers from using tips left by customers to bring the rate paid to restaurant staff to the National Minimum Wage. Some restaurants had been exploiting a legal loophole allowing them to pay a rate lower than the minimum wage, topped up with tips.

At least one restaurant was found to have paid its staff a basic rate of zero, with tips to the

rate of the National Minimum Wage paid on top. The British Hospitality Association claims that the new rules, which mean restaurants have to pay salaries in full, will cost restaurants £130 million and cause the loss of as many as 5,000 jobs.

According to figures from Joblink, the Students’ Union’s campus-based recruitment service, students are employed in 1,312 casual positions on campus, 655 of which pay the National Minimum Wage. As a result of the rise, a student working sixteen hours a week will earn an additional forty pounds across the academic year, the equivalent of working an extra seven-hour shift.

However, in the curre nt economic climate, business leaders had called for the minimum wage to be frozen keeping costs for businesses low. According to the government, nearly a million people will benefit from the increase.

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VP Communications Ben Cole SUcommunications@bath.ac.uk 01225 386679

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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

STUDENTS CONTINUE to be one of the highest at-risk groups of crime, according to figures released by the Home Office which show that one in three students becomes a victim of criminal activity each year. Experts at the Master Locksmiths Association are calling on universities and private landlords to consider the risk of spare keys to student residences being left in the hands of previous occupants. The MLA claims copied keys and substandard locks could be putting over 400,000 students at risk of burglary and assault.

Statistics also show that 36% of students live in fear of crime, while the NUS warns students to be vigilant in locking up homes securely, since the main cause of burglary affecting students is walk-in theft.

410 bus service withdrawn

BUS OPERATOR First has withdrawn the route 410, which ran between Kingsway and the University. The route, which ended yesterday, served the area of Bath lying a mile south of Oldfield Park. First’s initial plans to partially replace it with route 11 have been shelved following discussions with the University ‘about the safe operation of buses within the University grounds’. The timetables of routes 18 and 418 have also been slightly amended following requests for additional services from Bath Spa University, and some journeys from Bath Spa, renumbered as route 419, will now travel via Lower Bristol Road to serve Bath Spa Halls of Residence instead of Windsor Bridge and Newbridge Road.

Course representative nominations open

ACADEMIC REP nominations are now open! It’s an ideal chance to help make changes that really affect students. Reps aid staff in improving degree programmes, and also attend Academic Council, helping MINIMUM WAGE: Bars and retail outlets on campus are among the to improve the student experience. To biggest employers of casual student workers. stand for election, nominate yourself at www.bathstudent.com by Friday. Voting takes place next week, and results are announced the week after that. Don’t forget - successful candidates will be rewarded with a free hoodie, and lunch is provided at all Academic Council meetings.

Oxford campaigns for scholarships

Chris Wotton News Editor news@bathimpact.com THE UNIVERSITY of Oxford’s incoming Vice Chancellor has campaigned for elite universities to offer valuable scholarships like those offered by Ivy League universities in the United States.

Andrew Hamilton said an American-style funding system would prevent prospective students from poorer backgrounds being put off higher education because of their financial background.

Despite Oxford’s already generous £10,550 undegrgraduate bursary, Hamilton said the system needed

improvement, and suggested that the new bursaries could be funded by wealthy alumni.

Hamilton, who took up his new position on 1st October, was named as the new VC in June 2008. While he refused to be drawn on Oxford’s position on tuition fees, his comments are likely to increase speculation that the UK’s highest ranking universities may seek to charge similar fees to those in the US, where fees can reach $50,000.

“As this debate unfolds we’ve got to reinforce that [Oxford’s current bursary] and quite frankly improve it”, he added.

Bid to cut number of sickies in South West

ACADEMICS IN the University’s School for Health are leading a project across the south west region to cut sickness by a quarter. The project, led by the Work, Health & Wellbeing Research Group at the University, will work with the University of the West of England, University of Exeter and employers including Royal Mail to improve wellbeing. Dr David Wainwright, from the School for Health, said: “sickness absence and work-related illness can seriously damage a company’s performance.”

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The Fashion Police Sian Lewis Co-Features Editor features@bathimpact.com A few tips for the coming seasons so you don’t offend people’s eyes. Thanks, kids.

Enough with floral floral 1. floral floral, girls. If we wanted to see someone vomit daisies, we’d go force-feed a gullible cow.

Please for the love of God 2. only wear jeggings (that’s stretchy legging-style jeans) if you have thighs like Bambi.

“Vintage style” clothes that 3. you really bought from Primark ain’t vintage. You can do the real deal from Vintage to Vogue, Jack and Danny’s, The Frock Exchange or your nearest charity shop.

Please PLEASE don’t 4. submit to the Jack Wills cloning machine sweeping the middleclass white-kid-at-uni persona.

The world doesn’t need more obnoxious rahs called Jasper and Fenella spending hours trying to look like they just got up and wearing tracksuits that cost them seventy quid.

Spending hundreds on a 5.

Longchamp bag made of canvas so you can look French is just insulting to the majority of us who

spend our loans on beer and beans.

Unless you are really French, in which case you can get away with it.

Don’t go to Coast, Jigsaw 6. or Topshop for your Snow Ball dress, girls, unless you want to spend the night hiding from the four other ladies wearing the same number.

Boys: the lumberjack 7. shirt and woolly jumper thing may be a bit overdone, but you’ll be so cuddly that females will like you anyway, so go ahead. Hats for the win. Keep your ears warm and everything else will fall into place.

Here are some new catwalk 8. trends from the Autumn/Winter 2009 shows that you may want to avoid. Dolce and Gabbana’s fishnet dress (pictured). All-over faded denim from Twenty8Twelve.

Nappy-style shorts. See-through plastic togs from DSquared2.

Visible naughty bits. That is all.

Remember, you could 9. always opt out of the whole crazy merry-go-round that is varying your clothing and favour the ‘Student Uniform’ look: old battered jeans and a University of Bath hoodie.

Go for the fleecy ones and it’ll be like wearing a duvet to lectures.

Mmm. 10. Finally, ladies, I know high heels are fashionable for nights out, but if we ALL boycotted them I wouldn’t feel inadequate or short in my flat shoes, and we’d all have a better time since we’d be able to dance without crippling ourselves. Deal? I’m game if you are.

We’ll quack you up

Tales from the Bath University lake’s Duck population.

THERE’S A hierarchy you need to know about. It goes like this: me, other ducks, everything else. There are subdivisions of everything else; you guys are slightly above fish, below herons, it’s like that.

So let me lay a few things out straight for you. I want you to learn now, so I don’t have to teach you later. Understand?

The grass by the lake? That’s duck land. Ours. Mine. I tolerate your presence only because of the crumbs you give me.

And don’t get me wrong, I appreciate your consideration.

Breaking it up into little bitesize chunks? That’s sweet.

But just, well, bread? Do you have any f**king idea how much protein I need? And you feed me bread? How the f**k am I going to get hench eating bread? Which, by the way, is important; I got to be strong so the seagulls don’t get cocky. They’re always on my turf like they think I’m just going to say, “Be my guest. Would you like to eat my food and have sex with my girl too?” Yeah, so how about mixing it up a little, and next time you’re out there throw me some red meat.

And another thing: don’t go getting cheeky with your bread throwing. I see what you’re doing.

You think I’m stupid? You drop the bread closer and closer to yourselves. What are you playing

at? Think I’m just going to saunter up and eat out of your hand like your little bitch-ass dogs and cats? No. Well maybe I’ve done that once or twice, when I was hungry. But did you notice how I nipped your skin a little with my beak? That shit was intentional. That’s a warning shot.

You best take that on board if you don’t want my beak marks on your behind. (I’m not joking around. It’s been done. There’s fools out there who don’t even remember how to sit comfortably.)

And by the way, stop your midnight lakeside copulation. It may be dark and you may be a different species,

but I recognise the motions of a couple in lust. It’s not cool. That’s my home.

You want me and my girl to fly up to your window and start pumping away? You want to wake up in the middle of the night and see my little ducky ‘o’ face? Because I sure don’t want to see yours. So take it back to your room, I don’t want that.

That’s all for now my arboreal cousins.

I don’t want to overload you with advice.

Keep it simple, am I right? Anyway, take that on board and play nice. You don’t want me to play nasty. Peace.

Duck communicated his articles to us via a telepathic link with our secret contributor, Felix.

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Features

Stylish Freshers Montage

Because everybody needs a montage and because there were some remarkably well-dressed ladies and gentlemen in the sea of drunk revellers.

Weird Wonderful Web Philip Bloomfield Ents Editor ents@bathimpact.com 1) (Un)Fortunately too late for Freshers’ Week, but the latest craze sweeping Colombia is what I can only describe as vodka soaked tampon suppositories. Uhhhh…. http://tinyurl. com/impact-vodka-tampon 2) Not one for the easily offended, but www.punternet. com offers the discerning gentleman peer reviews of uh, well, let’s just say that on the front of the site there’s a big sign saying “if the concept of exchanging money for sex offends you, you are advised not to proceed past this point.” Harriet Harman had a dig this week, which is praise enough for us.

3) Meat is not only a great dinner, it’s also fashionable headgear. If anyone wants to make me a Steak Stetson, please go ahead. I’d probably ask you to marry me right there and then. www.hatsofmeat.com 4) Tattoos are funny. Really funny. www.loltats.com Our personal favourite has to be the two mating unicorns. There’s nothing more ridiculous to get tattooed on you than mythical creatures going at it like George and Ethel next door.

5) I’m never flying again, ever. Although blogging is riskier than I thought as well… http://www.informationisbeautiful. net/visualizations/reduce-your-chances-of-dying-in-aplane-crash/ 6) Sometimes you really do wonder whether life is worth living anymore… http://www.chunklet.com/index.cfm?se ction=blogs&ID=560. And then you remember that Tommy Lee is not only a colossal doucherag, but also has Hepatitis C. I do believe in Karma, I do.

7) You can have free music without worrying! US radio stations WFMU and KEXP are among those offering free bootlegs, radio sessions and titbits on http://freemusicarchive.org/ and worry not, it’s all licensed under a creative commons license. Top tips included Wooden Shjips woozy live jams and a frenetic set by mental two piece Lightning Bolt.

Got random things you want to tell everyone about? Or think we are gobsmackingly wrong about various subjects? Please let us know!

Love Sian and Josie features@bathimpact.com

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Arts

Hello from an Arts officer HEY GUYS! I’m Ann and I’m your new Arts Officer! YAY I’m really excited about this up and coming year; the arts at Bath have never been better so this is the exciting moment to get involved! With several trophy-winning societies in our ranks, NOW is the time to find your artistic talent or develop it further by joining one of our seventeen fantastic arts societies! My job as Arts Officer is to chair the Arts Executive; a small but important committee of fellow artistic enthusiasts that oversee the running of all your societies and organise combined events such as Show in a Week at the end of October and the Arts Extravaganza in May. Construction for our fabulous new Arts Complex, due to open in 2011, kicks off after Easter so we will also be looking at alternative rehearsal and performance spaces during the build.

As your Arts Officer I am passionate about making the arts at Bath even better. If you

missed all the action at the Arts and M e d ia d ay t his weekend don’t worry - there are plenty of chances to catch all the societies once again at today’s Activities Fair in the Founders Sports Hall, 4-7pm. Bathstudent.com is also a great place to find out more as well as popping along to many of the rehearsals and classes! Have a great year!

Ann xxx

Go and see Edges AT THE end of the first week of term, the Bath University Student Musicals Society (BUSMS) showcase their first performance of the year, Edges.

This contemporary song cycle is a collection of short stories offering glimpses into different stages of the lives of four young adults asking questions about their identity, their relationships and their futures.

Written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (2007 Jonathan Larson Award Recipients) in their second year at the University of Michigan, Edges

DUSTIN HOFFMAN: May or may not be planning to attend Edges

“Overflowing with entertainment, talent and humor… hip, innovative.

Very contemporary, and cer tainly not traditional, its jazzy beats never bore, and the lyrics t o u ch a n d t i ck l e the listener” –The Miami Hurricane. explores the universal issues of love, commitment and expectation, whilst maintaining a sense of wit and charm. Directed by Marcus Johns, this production explores these themes with both honesty and humour, providing a unique opportunity to see this littleknown gem of a show here at the University of Bath.

The Bath University Student Musicals Society is a student run organisation open to anyone wanting to get involved in musical theatre. Workshops and social events are run throughout the year alongside rehearsals for the shows.

Previous performances by the society include Little Shop of Horrors, The Last Five Years, Godspell and City of Angels. If you’re interested in performing in the cast or band, directing or any other part of production, come and find us at the societies fair, or email Alice (Chair 2009/10) at amd27@bath.ac.uk.

All in the Timing

BATH UNIVERSITY Student Theatre (BUST) will be putting on their first performance of the year next weekend (Fri 16-Sun 18 Oct).

We thought it was an intriguing piece – featuring monkeys, axes in heads and all sorts of crazy things, so we sent our reporter along to interrogate the director, Martin Boniface.

What is the play and when is it?

The play is called All in the

see it?

There is definitely something for everyone, whether its monkeys typing in a cage or Trotsky trying to cope with the mountain climber’s axe sticking out of his head.

There’s also a special deal for Freshers so it’s a great opportunity for people to come along and see what the student theatre society Timing by the modern playwright get up to.

David Ives and it is a collection of five short comedy sketches.

They are all very different and explore themes including famous literature, politics, language and dating. We are performing it in the Arts Theatre on campus from the 16th to the 18th of October.

How long have you been rehearsing?

We have been rehearsing non-stop since the middle of September. The whole cast have dedicated a lot of time to making this play amazing so I’m sure we WOMAN SQUATTING: could this will put on a great show. be the least flattering photo we’ve ever Why should people come and printed?

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Student Media

Zap

What we’ve been doing FRESHERS’ WEEK has been a lively one at URB. Aside from the presence of our prowling reporters at all the major events, we’ve been running URB On The Parade keeping one and all entertained from 12-5, Monday to Friday, with the exception of Thursday when URB Unplugged showcased some of what Bath’s local bands have to

offer down at the amphitheatre.

A special Societies Challenge saw last year’s winners the Vegetarian Society face off against Bath’s very own University Challenge team, and our jam-packed presenting schedule means that Freshers’ Week 09 has shown much of the very best that 1449AM URB has to offer.

Don’t forget - URB doesn’t just do radio... we can also provide DJs, equipment and music for events!

Welcome from Campus TV! SO FRESHERS’ Week has come to a close and the whole University begins to settle into its mundane educating and examining routine.

But fear not, those fond memories of that first week in university will stay with you and if your memory should ever falter then Ctv will be there to help. For every night of Freshers’ Week, we were there

How To Listen:

Tune your radio to 1449AM or listen online at www.1449urb.co.uk

with our cameras recording your antics and shenanigans and you can find these videos on our website www.bathctv.com.

You can also find a plethora of other videos and footage of previous Freshers’ Weeks to compare how well your predecessors performed on camera.

The upcoming year also brings other old favourite events we like to film, the RAG fireworks, Show In A Week and the sabbatical elections. You name an event going on around campus and we shall [try our best to] be there capturing every glorious moment.

Our members also film their own projects whilst with us, whether it be a weekly news show, music video or independent film.

If you have an event you want filmed or if you want to get involved with the exciting world of Ctv then drop us a line at ctvmanager@bath.ac.uk or just pop in and see us on level four of Norwood House.

OLD SCHOOL: Our equipment is newer than this, honest

Join us!

If you’ve been so excited by our high journalistic standards and good personal hygiene that you’d like to get involved, come along to a meeting, and we’ll doubtless find something for you to do.

Find us every Monday: 6.15pm in 1w2.6. As you can see, we’re very friendly and not creepy at all

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5-18 October www.BathStudent.com/entertainments

Mon.5th October Downtown @ PoNaNa Launch Party 10pm - 2am Neon Rave Tues. 6th October Glamourpuss 9:30pm - 2am Elements Wed 7th October Score 9:30pm - 2am Thurs. 8th October Krafty Kuts 9pm - 2am Fri. 9th October flirt! Back to Skool 9:30pm - 3am Flirt! gets naughty Sat. 10th October Comeplay 9:30pm - 2am

live Sports

Club N ights

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Mon.5th October Aston Villa Vs Man. City 8pm (Premier League) Sat.10th October Ukraine Vs England Kick-off TBC (World Cup Qualifier) Wed. 14th October England Vs Belarus Kick-off TBC (World Cup Qualifier) Sat. 17th October Aston Villa Vs Chelsea (Premier League) 12:45 Sun. 18th October Blackburn Vs Burnley (Premier League) 1pm Bath Vs Stade Francais Paris (Heineken Cup) 3pm Wigan Vs Man. City (Premier League) 4:30pm

Sun 11th October Pub Quiz 7:30pm - 10:30pm Mon 12th October Downtown @ PoNaNa 10pm - 2am Wed 14th October Score 9:30pm - 2am Fri 16th October flirt! Pink Party 9:30pm - 3am Sat 17th October Comeplay 9:30pm - 2am

University of Bath Students’ Union

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Comment

What does the future hold for Burma?

Tim Leigh Editor in Chief Editor@bathimpact.com FIRST THINGS first, a couple of facts to set the scene: Burma gained independence from the Commonwealth in 1948, after eleven years of being a selfgoverning colony, and established a democratic government, complete with a bicameral parliament. In 1961, Burma provided the first non-western Secretary-General of the United Nations, in the form of U Thant, and it seemed as if the country was making a successful transition from colony to independent state.

Just one year later, however, General Ne Win instigated a military coup and the country has been in the grip of a military dictatorship ever since.

This dictatorship is currently headed by General Than Shwe, who officially changed the name of the state to the Union of Myanmar in 1989. It persists in ignoring the results of the only multi-party elections to have taken place since the coup in 1962, where Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party triumphed, and

instead takes the interesting tactic of keeping Kyi under house arrest or limited movement orders for eleven of the nineteen years since she returned to Burma in 1988. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, and has long been the symbol of both the powerlessness and hope of the repressed majority.

Although this situation is by no means new, the world’s media only turned their attention to Burma when, in autumn 2007, a sudden and massive increase in fuel prices forced the desperately impoverished Burmese into open civil disobedience against the junta, with the famous orange-clad monks at the centre of the marches, and suffering most from the brutal crackdown imposed by Than Shwe to restore control.

Burma again made the headlines when Cyclone Nargis devastated much of the southern part of the country in May 2008, resulting in over 140,000 deaths.

Despite offers of help from international aid agencies, the reclusive junta, safe in the capital city of Naypyidaw they created deep in the jungle, refused to allow widespread access to the affected areas.

What we have to ask ourselves is why the international community has so far either done very little, or very little that has been successful, to hurt what surely ranks as one of the most dictatorial regimes on the globe. There have been severe sanctions in place for some time; the EU has a full arms embargo in place, also banning the import of timber and precious stones. The US bans all Burmese imports.

Other countries, however, most notably China but also Russia, have less issue with selling arms, largely because they keenly desire access to the rich off-shore gas fields which are part of Burmese national territory.

This brings us to what is in many ways the crux of the matter, and it is by no means a new problem. How dedicated is the international community to upholding the democratic ideals that international organisations such as the U.N. so happily promulgate? Considering that China is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the answer would appear to be not as dedicated as they are to ensuring that the balance of power is maintained.

Features

La vie Parisienne

Gina Danielle Reay

DESPITE BEING in one of the most unbelievable cities in the world, I am slightly disappointed not to be in Bath enjoying Freshers’ Week 2009. My friends from home are starting back at their various universities and my sister is currently suffering from Freshers’ ‘flu after her first week of living the dream in Birmingham. I have to admit, it does feel slightly weird to be working rather than partying and it only hit me last week.

So how better to cheer myself up than by spending some of my hard-earned euros! That’s right, shopping has been the name of the game over the past few days. The thing about Paris is, everywhere you go you walk past beautiful girls resembling Kate Moss, Audrey Hepburn or Brigit Bardot. I’ve recently come to the conclusion

that this is pretty depressing unless you decide to challenge them and wear something equally as stylish!

Thanks to this theory my wardrobe has almost doubled since I’ve been here. I’ve purchased everything from designer fashion victim-ware (my new Longchamp bag, oh how I love it!), high street ‘could-havebought-it-in-England-but-boughtit-in-Paris-so-therefore-it’s-cooler’ items and not to mention the ‘I’ll-never-wear-it-but-who-caresit’s-five-euros’ tat from the famous vintage shops of Le Marais. Paris really is the centre of fashion and my friends and I have found ourselves unable to avoid it. My bank balance really wishes I would start though!

As well as diminishing my earnings I also spent the weekend basking in the cultural delights of Paris. I visited the exquisite Museé D’Orsay and saw some extremely famous impressionist paintings.

Not the most artistic of gals, it was nice to see some artwork that I knew a thing or two about having studied impressionism as part of a French culture module in my second year at Bath! I felt like a proper critic (although I probably looked like a complete goon when I said ‘Kat, come over here, it’s the one from ‘Mr Bean’’, in reference to ‘Whistler’s Mother’).

After already consuming much

more than our daily allowance of Parisian culture we decided to overdose, walking down the gorgeous Seine, taking a look round the Jardins de Luxembourg and window shopping at Louis Vuitton in St Germain des Prés. I couldn’t help but think, ‘wow, Paris is so... French’. However, just at that moment we walked round a corner to find a ‘British pub’; smiling to one another we took a seat, ordered two pints of cider and a packet of Walkers crisps. It was then that I realised… you can take the girls out of Bath but you can’t take Bath out of the girls!

Is this the sad truth we have arrived at, that due to increased economic interdependence and the increased threat from ever more sophisticated weaponry, human rights and the democratic values that are claimed to be so important are in fact of secondary importance?

Are we really willing to sacrifice some of the world’s population

to a lifetime of repression, so that we can continue to grow our economies and thus live our lives in the styles to which we have become accustomed? Or do we believe that the threat of nuclear annihilation is real enough that the international system must be kept in balance at whatever cost to our own humanity?

NON-GEOGRAPHERS: Burma is on the right

Ents Competition: Win a signed Passion Pit album

American lovelies and all-round nice guys Passion Pit are bringing their party popper filled live act to the UK this October. In celebration of their no doubt uplifting appearance live appearance at Bristol Anson Rooms on 30th October, we’re procured a signed copy (in deliciously happy gold ink) of their massively successful Manners for you to win. It really is as simple as answering the following question:

Passion Pit’s most successful single was called a) Sleepyhead b) OverheadKick c) Worship of the Godhead Answers on a postcard to the impact office, or preferably by email to ents@bathimpact.com. Carrier pigeons not accepted. The winner will be drawn on Monday 12th October at 6.30pm, so all answers must be received by 5pm on the day. Good luck!

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Comment

How come we don’t talk anymore?

Comment Editor Emma Simmons questions whether the recently released futuristic film The Surrogates really is so far removed from reality

AFTER BEING pointed in the direction of recently released film, The Surrogates, by our ever well informed Ents Editor I found myself rather intrigued by the plot summaries I came across.

The film is set in 2054, a new era in which each individual human being has a ‘surrogate’. Surrogates are essentially robotically controlled, better looking versions of the humans themselves.

People no longer interact on a personal level but via these surrogates which they control from the safety and comfort of their own homes.

People are safe at all times as they don’t feel the pain inflicted on their surrogates and so they ultimately live in a dream world free of crime and violence.

This utopia is destroyed when a murder takes place and FBI agent Tim Greer (Bruce Willis) is forced to step in and lead the investigation, initially via his surrogate, but from what I can gather he eventually has to venture out into the real world himself.

Sounds intriguing, don’t you agree? A world entirely different from our own of course; we are too interactive, we like socialising, we meet people, we fall in love, we could never live in a world where communication was so impersonal.

But that is exactly what struck me about this film summary, the fact that on a lesser scale the world created by Robert Venditti (the author of the comic book series from which the film was adapted) is almost unarguably comparable to the world we live in today.

Sure we don’t send out robots to go to lectures for us (although I wouldn’t mind doing so every now and then/always) and nor do we get a non-human counterpart to meet our friends while we sit at home cut off from the ‘dangers’ of the outside world, but I have to say that we do increasingly live our lives by proxy, myself included.

In 2009 it is already the case that people I have met briefly

(and would not say hello to if I passed them in the street) are my ‘Facebook friends’, there are people who I communicate with online whom I have never actually met and to say ‘I spoke to Joe yesterday’ doesn’t necessarily mean that you saw Joe or even spoke to him on the ‘phone but could mean all manner of things from ‘he wrote on my wall’ to ‘he texted me’.

The fact is that we no longer need to speak to our fellow human beings in person as we are increasingly being provided with less and less personal ways of interacting.

The official site for the film uses the phrase: ‘people are living their lives remotely from the safety of

their own homes’, and I am certain that we are increasingly becoming like this too. We sit at home alone in our living rooms with our laptops in front of us, MSNing and sending emails to various people, and we think to ourselves ‘Oooh I haven’t spoken to (insert name here) in ages’ but we don’t call them up and arrange a time to meet, as our parents may have done at our age, but instead we search for his/her Facebook profile and write ‘Hey, haven’t spoken to you in ages, how are things with you?’ and think to ourselves ‘bosh, job done’.

The dating scene is another area which is being affected by our lack of direct contact with one another. Gone are the days when

We need to clean up our act

Beth Squire from the University’s ‘People and Planet’ society tells us that our University, among others, is not pulling its weight in the mission to make UK universities more environmentally friendly.

BATH UNIVERSITY has been labelled one of the UK’s dirtier universities in the league table compiled by national student organisation People & Planet.

The University was awarded a Lower Second Class honours degree and ranked 57th out of 127 universities surveyed in the Green League, a People & Planet initiative w hich ranks 127 u niversities in terms of environmental performance, awarding ViceChancellors with a First, 2:1, 2:2, Third, or Fail.

Nationally, Nottingham Trent University topped the league, followed by the London School of Economics and Oxford Brookes University.

Despite picking up points for achieving Fairtrade status and having committed environmental management staff, our University has so far failed to significantly

reduce its very high levels of carbon emissions per head.

Bath has slipped down the table since last year when it was awarded a 2:1 and ranked 41st.

First published in 2007, People & Planet’s Green League brought sustainability to the forefront of Vice-Chancellors minds and this year’s table, published in Times Higher Education, shows many universities are now successfully pioneering environmental management.

The government’s Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) has recognised the absolutely pivotal role of the Green League as a driver of change in the university sector.

Like students, HEFCE is also now piling pressure on universities to lead the UK to a low carbon future announcing recently that universities should exceed

ambitious national targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

They suggest universities could cut emissions by 50% by 2010 against 1990 levels, and 100% by 2050.

These targets are much tougher than the government’s legally binding target of 34% by 2020.

Universities will be used as models for wider society’s transition into a low carbon future. The University of Bath needs to go greener faster to catch up.

we would meet someone we like and go out for dinner to get to know them better; now we exchange numbers and endure weeks of texting without getting down to business and arranging to meet up properly.

‘Oooh, did he text you?’ must be one of the most frequently used phrases by young women nowadays! How much can you really learn about one another from text messages anyway?

Couples find each other online and ultimately people can claim to have met the love of their life without ever actually having met them. If that isn’t living our lives remotely from the comfort of our own homes then I don’t know what is.

An extra little rant from a couple of members of the impact team...

ON A separate but related note, impact Editor Tim Leigh was ‘disgusted’ by the number of lights which he had to turn off whilst doing the rounds in Norwood today.

‘How hard is it to turn off a light?’ he exclaimed after returning to the impact office.

I have to agree with Tim here, as I do find it irritating when people leave lights on in unused rooms.

It takes so little time to do small things like turning lights and taps off and yet it just doesn’t get done.

Living in campus accommodation may decrease the incentive for individuals to be vigilant about turning lights off as the students occupying the rooms are not personally responsible for paying the bills.

However, I can vouch for the fact that when the time comes to move into a house next year and the first electricity bill drops through your letter box, and then proceeds to drain your bank account, you will soon start to be more particular about your house’s use of electricity.

MONDAY 5 OCTOBER 2009

Notes from the real world Deltoid Arpeggio

TODAY IS Liquid Nitrogen Day here in the labs of SciCo. The joyous occasion owes its incidence to the happy convergence of two facts. First, Dave the company pervert is working on cryogenic cooling for our scanners. Second, the plastic melons of Mel in HR are fighting an epic battle against thin white cotton. The upshot of this is that at this moment there are half a dozen canisters of lethally cool liquid nitrogen unattended on the desk in front of me.

For the uninitiated, liquid nitrogen is simply the very common atmospheric gas, but chilled or pressurised into a liquid state with a temperature far below zero. This means that soft objects like, for example, a flower or an oglingaddicted colleague’s sandwich, can be frozen solid by dipping them in it. They can then be shattered like glass against the hard surface of your choice.

Helpfully, liquid nitrogen evaporates quickly into harmless gas at room temperature, so no evidence of mischief remains except for the mysterious shards of bread on the floor. To clean these up you can slosh the stuff on the floor and let the dirt be carried away by a wave which will evaporate seconds later.

In fact, contact with skin makes it evaporate so fast that a layer of gas prevents a drop of the liquid ever making direct contact with your skin. In this way it is safe to handle tiny amounts of the stuff, although sticking your hand in would of course result in a unique and exciting amputation experience.

A bigger hazard however is

condensation of oxygen. Since liquid nitrogen is cooler than oxygen’s boiling point, droplets of oxygen may form. This is bad because oxygen is exceedingly flammable and a small explosion might rupture a nitrogen container which is already at high pressure. This can lead to a tragic impromptu impression of a metal porcupine, performed by your own burnt and broken face.

Stan, my fellow lab rat, is working on a helium ionisation chamber.

Helium doesn’t condense at liquid nitrogen temperatures, as its boiling point is much lower: around 4 Kelvin. However, liquid nitrogen’s 77K is enough to slow the helium atoms down. This in turn increases the density of the gas. The upshot of this is that if you chill a helium balloon with liquid nitrogen then it shrivels up and sinks to the ground, since it is now more dense than air.

If you leave it alone for a while, say stuffed under someone’s tediously arranged papers, it will gradually arise, like a beast from under the sea, shoving aside the paper as it puffs up to its true size. If, say, you used a condom rather than a balloon, artfully taken from a (very over-optimistic) colleague’s bag, it would then float majestically into the air like an obscene oily Zeppelin. In the breeze of the air con, our friendly flying phallus will bump playfully against Dave, who will doubtless try to swat away the benign bellend balloon in a penis-prompted panic. One hopes this will be of great amusement to Mel, who is coming in to ask why I just made an equipment request for “balloon-popping lasers, ASAP”.

The next five minutes will be interesting.

Profile: Paris Hilton WIDELY REGARDED as one of western civilizations great geniuses, Paris Hilton has left a lasting impression on the field of physics.

Born in Germany on March 14, 1879, Hilton had a troubled childhood; she was consistently bullied for being very rich and not knowing how to tie her shoelaces.

After finishing school, she took a job at a Swiss patent office; there she spent a lot of time thinking about theoretical issues which puzzled her deeply; such as which colours go with pink, and whether or not it is acceptable to wear a push-up bra at a funeral. These speculations led her to groundbreaking theories on the Photoelectric Effect, Brownian Motion, and Special Relativity. The latter was discovered during a now famous thought experiment; Hilton wondered whether, if she stumbled out of a party moving at the speed of light, paparazzi members would be able to take sufficient photos of her to fill the next day’s newspaper.

Following the rise of Hitler, she emigrated, describing Nazi Germany as ‘not her scene’, and settled permanently in America, where she spent a lot of time speaking out against war, religious intolerance, and pinstripe suits, which she described as ‘like, ewwww’.

Having solved most of the big problems in physics, she spent her later years searching for a ‘theory of everything’, while releasing a range of perfume and fashion accessories, and appearing in several Hollywood films, most notably box office bomb ‘the hottie and the theoretical physicist’.

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Science

Why is the news always bad? By Colin Jessop-Jessop ANYONE WHO pays any attention to the media will be familiar with stories such as “We’re all going to die” and “Aaaaaaargh!” But why is this? Well, it’s not that journalists are particularly paranoid; it’s a natural human tendency to pay more attention to bad than good things. Studies of the brain have showed that more electrical activity is generated by negative stimuli than positive; the bad is simply more exciting.

There is a good evolutionary reason for this; to survive, we need to pay greater attention to signals of danger than signals of safety. As Dan Gardner put it, “if your ancestor was picking berries on the savannah one afternoon 100,000 years ago, he could carry on if someone mentioned that a lion hadn’t been spotted for days.

But when someone said “I think I see a lion,” he had to drop the

berries and pay close attention if he wanted to survive, reproduce, and become your ancestor.

Bad news mattered more.”

In fact, it is not just news; the brain reacts more strongly to unpleasant things than pleasant ones, as found by a scientist who showed people emotive pictures, both positive and negative, and found the brain was more excited by the negative ones.

This means negative thoughts, feelings and memories are more powerful than positive ones; indeed, it is estimated that for a couple’s relationship to work they must experience five times as many good experiences as bad together, because of this bias.

Bad news sells better, as it grabs people’s attention. This is an example of journalists exploiting human instincts to sell papers, something I’d never dream of doing.

News

Perv of the week: Roman Polanski, who was arrested on charges of having sex with an underage girl.

MAJOR PERV: Roman (geddit?) in his younger days Most revolutionary discovery of the week: “Binge drinking can affect concentration and working memory in university students”.

As us at the impact office are all pretty hammered at the moment (Ed: joking!), none of us could wade through the whole report, but it seems drinking too much is bad for you. Scientists, thank you for illuminating the mysteries of the universe for us.

Second most revolutionary discovery of the week: tired doctors make more mistakes.

Neither I nor my surgically attatched second head are very surprised.

SCIENCE SAYS: if Fritzl gets you more worked up than Marilyn, your brain is functioning normally!

Special report: moobs MOOBS, OR ‘Gynaecomastia’ to give the technical, and less funny, name, are breasts for men. They can occur as a result of obesity, or during adolescence due to a hormone imbalance. As all Seinfeld fans know, moobs are one of the most hilarious medical conditions; sufferers should be offered a ‘Manzier’ to wear, which they should try on just before their estranged ex-wife walks through the door intending a reconciliation.

Moobs were named after the first man to exhibit the peculiar

symptom - August Ferdinand Möobius, whose famous striptease was often punctuated by laughter at his convex chest.

They are not to be confused with their female equivalent, ‘Woobs’, which are usually not considered pathological, unless a spare one grows on other parts of the body; cases have been known where a ‘Woob’ has appeared on the neck, buttock, hip, shoulder, perineum (don’t ask), the face , and, very rarely, the neighbour’s garage door.

Puzzle Corner This week Sarah White, from the School of Economics HERE’S THE always entertaining Sarah White, with an interpretation of the space-time continuum which could boggle the brain of any physicist. Think you can get to the bottom of this puzzle? Investigate the full article at http://tinyurl. com/sarahwhite. If you believe you’ve unlocked the mystery, write to science@bathimpact.com

Third most revolutionary discovery of the week: bloggers struggle to be interesting enough to make people read about their lives. Yes, scientists actually conducted a study into this, and published a paper, which, unsurprisingly, they struggled to make interesting.

Misuse of research funds of the week: scientists set fire to different types of plant to see what happened. They all burned.

Russel Crowe anger management award: a man angry at the service he received at Tesco rammed his Rolls-Royce through the store, leaving six women, one pregnant, needing medical attention.

What causes cancer this week: having AIDS. Yes, as if the disease wasn’t bad enough, it also puts you at higher risk of certain cancers, according to Texan researchers Reassess your life of the week: researchers have discovered why President Obama’s dog has curly hair. “We were part of a team that found three genes that control 90 percent of the seven coat types that characterize different breeds of purebred dogs,” said the researchers, who really need to get out more.

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The Myth of National Character Austen Tasseltine MANY PEOPLE were angered at the BNP’s success in the recent European elections. I, however, simply felt a little disappointed that more voters don’t read obscure papers from scientific journals. Why? Let me explain. The whole basis of such movements is the idea that people from different countries, and particularly those of different races, are in some significant way different, either in behaviour or genetic make-up, and this makes one group inferior to another. In the past forty years, a few underreported studies have found this view to be little less than a joke.

First of all, anyone who happened to be flicking through their copy of Evolutionary Biology 6 from 1972 would discover that genetic differences between races are relatively small; Richard Lewontin discovered that “eighty five percent of human genetic variation consists of the differences between one person and another within the same ethnic group, tribe, or nation”.

Another 8% is between ethnic groups of the same race, and 7% between races. This means that “the genetic difference between, say, two randomly picked Swedes is about twelve times as large as the difference between the average of Swedes and the average of Apaches or Warlpiris”. As well as this, a 2005 study in ‘Nature’ using cross-country measurements of the ‘big five’ character traits - “neuroticism versus emotional stability, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness” - found little racial, national, or ethnic difference; views of national character, were “unfounded stereotypes”, or, as NN Taleb put it, “a total fiction”.

Despite these stark findings, people still cling to their racist views like suspicious looking cheese clings to the packet; there are a few reasons for this, which are worth exploring, as they tell us a lot about the human tendency to abuse logic when convenient. First, and most simply, there is a self serving bias to racism - the reader will have noticed that racists always seem to decide, wholly objectively of course, that it is their race or nation which is superior.

There can be other motives at work, though; often racism is used as a way of justifying inequality, as in the US during slavery, when influential figures like Abraham Lincoln made statements such as, “There is a physical difference between the white and black races, which I believe will forever forbid the

two races living together on terms of social and political equality”.

‘National identity’ is usually used to unite a country against an enemy to justify a war or other policy which would otherwise be unpopular. As Chomsky said, “jingoism, racism, fear, religious fundamentalism: these are the ways of appealing to people if you’re trying to organize a mass base of support for policies that are really intended to crush

ROY CHUBBY BROWN: Frustrated intellectual or just a major piece of shit? them.”

People don’t need to be encouraged, though, to develop a sense of ‘group identity; we have inherited from our ape ancestors the tendency to form groups to help find food, and for protection. Generally, these groups were vulnerable to the arrival of ‘outsiders’, as this meant competition for food, territory and resources, and could bring diseases to which the group had not been exposed. Thus our ancestors developed a wariness of people who were new or different, a trait which still influences people’s behaviour towards members of other ethnic groups, even though such emotions are no longer relevant.

Being part of a group gives people a sense of belonging and identity in a lonely and impersonal world. However, these feelings can become dangerously exaggerated and manifest themselves as hatred towards non-members - in one experiment, scouts on a camp were divided up arbitrarily into two groups (i.e. not by race or any other factor), which worked and played separately. Soon, the scouts developed a ‘group identity’ and were distrustful of, and violent towards, members of the other group, simply because of the strength of this ‘group instinct’.

Another reason we stereotype is that our brains are too small.

Robin Dunbar has found that our neocortex, the part of our brain which deals with social behaviour, is only big enough to deal with 150 people; if we live in larger societies, we have

Science

Professor Science HERR PROFESSOR- why is it we always see the same side of the Moon, even when we look at it through a telescope?

A.Vandalay, New York Some people believe it is a beautiful coincidence the moon rotates at the same rate it orbits us, only showing us the side on which the Clangers don’t live.

Unfortunately, this is mistaken it’s not coincidence, but the result of a natural process. The Moon did not always rotate in synch with its motion, but gravitational forces from the Earth caused the moon to become ‘phase locked’.

It works like this: the Moon and Earth exert gravitational forces on each other. The size of this force is determined by mass and distance.

This means that the side of the Moon closest to the Earth feels gravity more strongly; this effect is powerful enough to cause a ‘bulge’ towards the Earth of the side of the moon facing it. The Earth bulges in a similar way towards the Moon, and this is what causes the tides.

When the Moon was rotating faster than it does now, this ‘bulging’ effect slowed down the Moon’s rotation until they were moving in synch. Because the Moon isn’t made of jelly, it takes to categorize people into groups, and make assumptions about their behaviour and traits based on this; if not, we will overwork our brains trying to predict how they will behave. Thus, stereotypes free up processing power for other uses, such as tying one’s shoelaces while whistling the Knight Rider theme tune.

Everyone has their own favourite racial stereotypes: we’ve all heard that people from Timor Leste are not very good at assembling flat pack furniture; Guyanans sneeze too loud, and Eritreans can’t be trusted with carpet samples - the list goes on - and many of us believe these malicious rumours.

Once we have these ideas in our brains, the pesky organ looks for evidence which confirms it, and ignores or forgets evidence against it. So, if we believe Mauritians wear blue too often, we will notice when they do, but not notice when a Gabonian does.

Unfortunately, these stereotypes can be self fulfilling; when we

a while for the bulge to move in response to the rotation, so, when it was moving faster, the bulge was slightly ahead of where it should have been; this meant the Moon’s rotation was slowed down by gravity until it reached the critical point of rotating synchronously.

The reason this is the equilibrium point is that if it were any faster or slower, slight delay in the bulge’s movement would set up a small

gravitational force pulling it back toward an orbit in which the bulge doesn’t move at all. The Moon is having the same effect on the Earth; this is slowing down its motion, and it is thought that in about fifty billion years time, the Moon and Earth will be in complete synchronization, with the same side of the Moon always facing the same side of the Earth.

I for one can’t wait.

Bulge slightly too fast Gravity pulls bulge, opposing the moon’s rotation, which slows it down

are told, say, that Tuvaluans are unfriendly, somebody meeting one at a party is likely to be rude to them because of this expectation, and the Tuvaluan will be unfriendly back, fulfilling the expectation.

Expectations can also have an effect on the maligned group themselves. Our unfortunate Tuvaluan, knowing people will expect them to be unfriendly, may be nervous and uncomfortable when meeting people, which may be perceived as rudeness; this is a well known effect called ‘stereotype threat’.

Two more fallacies to cover: first the Narrative Fallacy, people’s tendency to look for explanations for everything. Our minds do not like the idea of coincidence, and try to stitch together events which occur together with explanations, in order to make sense of the world.

For example, somebody spotted that when a team from the old AFL won the superbowl, the next year stock prices took a tumble. Then, when the New England Patriots

ENOCH POWELL: while there are plenty of racists, Powell gets a mention because of his physical resemblance to a certain Austrian.

were expected to win, people feared for the stock market, having assumed the one was causing the other; the same faulty reasoning behind all superstitions.

Second, the availability error, which occurs when, looking for an explanation for something, a person picks the factor which comes most easily to mind; for example, when asked whether there are more words in English that end with –ing or whose second to last letter is ‘n’, many people erroneously pick the first option, as it is easier to think of ‘--ing’ words than ‘---n-’ words These combine to mean that whenever anybody sees unusual behaviour from a minority, they will look for a reason, find that the most obvious is skin colour, and attribute it to that; when seeing somebody of their race doing the same thing, they will ignore or not notice it.

Thus, people who witness somebody of another race doing something objectionable, like growing lilies next to geraniums, they are likely to draw unpleasant conclusions about that racial group’s horticultural skills.

Summing this up is easy: people are naturally racist because their brains don’t work properly; the human race is a confederacy of dunces.

Send the inevitable complaints to impact-science@bath.ac.uk - I always appreciate your comments; sometimes I even read them.

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Sabbs’ Corner A Welcome from Ben Cole, your VP Comms

HI MY name is Ben, welcome to the wonderful world of the University of Bath! I trust you all had a wonderful Freshers’ Week? Did you know it was all planned and run by students?

Here at Bath there is a plethora of thigns that you can get involved with as students. Take advantage of all the opportunities that are presented to you, the Students’ Union is here to provide you with ways of developing and nurturing your talent; getting involved with planning events is just one of the ways you can do that.

I would like to take a little time to introduce ‘the Sabbs’. Sabbs is short for Sabbatical Officers; we are normal students who have taken a year out of our studies to help run the Students’ Union. We are here to represent you on issues, help organise events and set up opportunities for your personal development. Your sabbatical officers for 2009/2010 are Daniel ‘Dot’ O’Toole, Ben Cole, George Charonis, Scarlett Seager, James Christmas and Richard Butterfield.

It is our job to find out what you guys want from us and as such we will be using any possible means of communicating with you. We have identified four areas that we want to talk to you about: food provision, sport on campus, transport and housing and community. We are also trying to improve our communication with the postgraduate community to find out how we can help support their student experience. In each edition of impact there will be a page dedicated to us and what we are doing; we will use this to provide updates on what we are

doing and inform you of events that are happening in the near future.

As well as our page in impact, we are each writing a blog every two weeks; these can be found by visiting our page via the ‘Your Union’ section on bathstudent.com. There will be regular polls on bathstudent and we will be out on Parade asking you questions as well as holding student forums. Whilst we appreciate that you don’t want us bugging you all the time, we need to find out what you want so that we can make the changes that you wish for.

If at any point you wish to get in touch with us, you can email sabbs@bath. ac.uk and we will respond as soon as we possibly can. You can also drop in

to any of our offices, always feel free to say hi when we are around. We were delivered our ‘sabb stash’ today, this is basically clothes with our names on, see related picture for an example. We decided to go with a bright colour for when we are out on parade talking to you, and the yellow turned out to be a lot brighter than expected. It will however serve its purpose, you will definitely be able to see us!

That is all for this week, I cannot say enough, please please please please please come and talk to us! We are all more than welcoming, mine and Dot’s office has a lovely sofa, come and sit and chat to us whenever you like!

For those of you that have asked, yes we get paid, no its not easy, yes it is worth it, and yes one hundred percent I would definitely recommend doing it to anyone that asked.

Keep off the grass Daniel O’Toole SU President SUPresident@bath.ac.uk Some of you will already be aware of the Bath Golf Club that’s situated along the northern boundary of the University, behind Eastwood and Westwood accommodation.

This club has been a friend of the University and the students here for many years, offering discounted membership to students. It also allows our golf club (sign up on BathStudent.com) to use it as their home course.

I wanted to make things clear from the start. The golf course is off limits, especially at night.

There have already been reported thefts of golf flags since students have arrived in University accommodation. On Tuesday 29th of September, ten flags were taken from the greens of the golf course. After an understandable complaint the following morning, security conducted a search in the area behind Eastwood and Westwood. In order to retain the good relationship we have with Bath Golf Club, the University has always taken incidents like this very seriously and last year found it necessary to implement ‘zero tolerance’ measures. Any

student caught trespassing, or in possession of a stolen item will be dealt with via the usual disciplinary procedures.

Incidents like this cost Bath Golf Club money; money they are looking to charge the University; thus money that could have been spent on enhancing your student experience.

Please, please, please, let’s make an effort to ensure this is the last time we hear of incidents taking money away from your opportunities and the experience of all students.

BEN COLE: You have no idea how fluorescent this jumper actually is until you see it in the flesh

Making fees the issue

Fired up about fees? George Charonis tells you how to do something about it THE PAST several months have seen a lot of discussion on the national debate surrounding tuition fees.

The National Union of Students has identified its higher education funding campaign as the priority campaign for 2009/10. In line with what students at Bath identified as a key issue to them last year and in line with the NUS, the Students’ Union here at Bath has set its own higher education funding campaign as the main campaign this year.

The NUS will be running ten ‘Town Takeovers’ in large, swing-seat cities across the country, with the nearest one taking place in Bristol. These events seek to engage local communities as well as current students in the

MONDAY 5TH OCTOBER 2009

debate on fees, through a series of events including a demonstration and publicity stunt as well as a town hall debate. The Bristol Town Takeover will be held on the 22nd and 23rd of October, and BUSU hopes to have a high level of involvement. The demonstration and media stunt will be held on Thursday 22nd October, followed by a panel debate. BUSU will be providing coach transportation to Bristol free of charge, and any students interested in participating in the demonstration/media stunt are invited to join us. For more information or to reserve your seat on the coach please e-mail sabbs@bath.ac.uk.

Some students believe that campaigning against increased fees

is futile as they will not be heard; however, this is not the case. The current system saw huge controversy and debate, and the Higher Education Act 2004 was passed in the House of Commons at a second reading by a majority of only five votes. The Hutton Inquiry into the Iraq War, criticising the Government, was due to be published the following day. For this reason, it is possible that Members of Parliament were pressurised into voting for the Act. Tony Blair later admitted that had the Act been defeated, and with the Hutton Inquiry being published the following day, he would have resigned.

Students have the ability to influence national decisions and policies, but we need all of you to get the message out there, so GET INVOLVED! Join our Facebook Group – Tuition Fees: Have your say!

Do something amazing - get a damn good rep!

ACADEMIC REPRESENTATION is the original reason that Students’ Unions were set up.

It is the key principle behind what we do and we want you to be involved. If there are issues related to your course, you can get them resolved. If you aren’t happy with the facilities and resources available to you, then you can have your voice heard!

This is done through academic reps, who act as go-betweens for

staff and students, and speak up when issues arise.

Elections start next week with the nominations this week. Each course has a representative for each year. Anyone is eligible to stand for election and once elected you not only get to represent your peers but you get a free hoodie, what more could you want?

For more information visit www. bathstudent.com/academic.

MONDAY 5TH OCTOBER 2009

Here’s looking at you, kid.

SO, YOUR hangover might just have subsided by the time you read this, and you’re looking worriedly at a bank balance dented by one too many double Jagermeisters topped off with tequila. And you might even be starting to think that you’ll actually have to spend more time at the library than in the bar this year… Yes, post-Freshers’ gloom has probably descended, which is why this week, we’re looking at any option cheaper than a round of mojitos. Maybe it’s better if you stay in with a soft cuddly film, or a nice comfortingly circular CD, or maybe you’d rather curl up cosily with a book? Whatever you pansies choose, they’re all reviewed, previewed, rated and slated in our final backwards-looking issue. After that, as a father once said, when rung from some prostitute-infested dive at 5am, “You’re on your own, son”.

For your eyes only, we enlisted the help of top Ents scribe and general worthless hack Raoul Duke. It took some doing, but we coaxed him out of his lair with a fistful of bourbon and grapefruit and managed to make him meet his deadline to provide you with his inimitable guide to what there is to see and do in Bath and Bristol, and the first installment is the brunt of this week’s special features.

And of course there’s a host of content: new albums by Raekwon and Vivian Girls, while Features

IMPACT

Entertainment

Moving pictures, stationary words

Film Correspondent Dave Binder and Ents Editor Phil Bloomfield reel in the year’s film, and clip it into bitesize chunks for easily digestible

CHEF RAEKWON: Cookin’ up a storm Editor Sian Lewis was onhand to catch Coldplay with Jay–Z and Girls Aloud. And before you fall asleep under the inexorable avalanche of content, there’s another postcard from Gina Reay at Rock En Seine.

Philip Bloomfield is still Entertainments Editor. Unlucky, peons.

MUSIC TO MY EARS We found 69 year old Ethel outside the bus stop in town. And just had to subject her to some really harsh noiserock.

The Jesus Lizard - Puss Phil Says: “Probably the most enjoyable angry song ever written” Ethel Says: “Are the headphones broken?!”

PUBLIC ENEMIES: Trilby cocked and ready This year has seen no shortage of blockbusters bursting off the screen - January brought us Danny Boyle’s multi-oscar winning epic Slumdog Millionaire, an enjoyable carnival of sight and sound but somewhat lacking in much of the deeper meaning ascribed to it by critics.

Star Trek was our most pleasant surprise, proving that sci-fi still has legs and that casting Simon Pegg as Scotty was an inspired choice, and although we could see why Valkyrie was so roundly condemned it didn’t stop us revelling in it. The taut thriller proved that anyone can look like a badass with an eyepatch on, even Tom Cruise.

Tom Hanks returns in the second of Dan Brown’s book to film adaptations, Angels and Demons.

Despite being slightly more enjoyable than The Da Vinci Code, Angels and

Demons still feels like an average concoction of drama/thriller and suspense, albeit dressed up in long gowns and inexplicable riddles.

Mickey Rourke and depth may not at first glance go hand in hand, but The Wrestler proved otherwise. The Wrestler is a gripping, enjoyable and realistic watch, dealing with themes such as fame, rejections and love in an altogether ‘stripped back’ and original way. Good stuff.

Clint Eastwood was on fine form with Gran Torino, as both director and main character of a story about the clashing of generations and cultures.

Nope, this isn’t a citizenship class, this is gritty, finely acted and thoughtprovoking stuff. It would have been easy to ‘squeeze the cheese’ here, and Gran Torino, although whiffy at times, avoids this and is all the better for it.

Passengers was an unknown quantity for us: due to clashes with other films, promotion was almost non-existent for this film. Still, this is a decent view, in a slightly weird Sixth Sense, back to front sort of way. Not one for those who are afraid of flying!

Pelham 123 above average hostage themed picture based on a 1974 novel adaption of the same name; propped up by a stylish plot and very credible Denzel Washington performance.

It could have done without so many

The Southwest is decadent and depraved Special Correspondent Raoul Duke gives you lucky readers an insight into what’s hot and what’s not in Bristol and Bath FIRST OF all, I want to make abundantly clear that this article is written under duress. Philip Bloomfield is a vile, evil slave driver, with the rotting heart of an expiring hyena and the foulmouth of an Irishman in the depths of the very worst kind of racism and inebriation. He emits a foul stench of fear from every orifice and denies his writers the very basic human privileges that are enshrined in this country’s numerous laws. I’d call him the Devil incarnate, were it not for the fact that I play poker once a week with the Devil, whom Our Dear Editor makes look like Mother Theresa. So this one’s for you, Phil, you asshole.

Having retired as a Doctor of Journalism some years ago, I have descended on the West Country in the same manner as a drunk futilely searching for an open bar at 4am, seeking solace and comfort. It has proved the most comforting of blankets, and it is without regret that I share a few tricks as to how to get the best from the rotund mistress.

Music Bath isn’t exactly spoilt for choice, but M o l e s would be considered a goldmine whichever city it was in. Scruffy, weathered and ruggedly handsome, their clubnights and gigs are a welcome escape from watered down double

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MOLES CLUB: Does not contain actual moles vodkas and the relentless pound of trance that passes for music. I’m not sure where to put Komedia, given that it’s the veritable easy lady of Bath, putting on any kind of art, theatre and culture that sniffs around its ankles. That of course doesn’t mean that it’s not a quality institution of the highest calibre.

Bristol is handsomely upholstered with a host of eager to please venues. There’s an Academy sponsored by brainrotting mobile phones, and of course the infamous maritime pleasures of the Thekla ‘gigboat’. Many an afternoon I’ve spent sipping a gin sling on it’s poop deck, silently cursing the braindead who gurn about how novel it is to be on a boat. The Cooler and The Fleece are similar sized music venues, the latter with a well-stocked public bar. For this wretched new music that addles your brain and leaves you sterile, I head to The Croft or the recently

THE HATCHET: May contain actual hatchet wielders rebuilt Colston Hall, while I get my weird kicks from whatever the converted church at The Trinity Centre puts on. This is merely scratching the surface: there’s a host of bars filled with freaks and dropouts who claim direct lineage to Elvis or Hendrix which warrant exploration, both in the centre and the suburbs.

Drinking Not strictly an entertainments subject, but most modern culture is so rotten at heart that I need a stiff drink or ten to stomach it.

In Bath, Porter Bar is attached to Moles and full of hipsters and vintage wearers. Their Friday hip-hop cellar is worth descending into the murk for. Back To Mine is a coquettish bar and club with a roulette wheel, while Opa serves expensive brilliant cocktails that make my head spin and my

stomach lurch, reminding me of my hellish time in Las Vegas with my drug addled attorney. And of course there’s Komedia which has even provided a student night, ‘Kitsch’, for all you wastrels eating into my tax dollars like a plague of locusts.

In Bristol, there’s more choice.

The Hatchet is the city’s oldest pub, and a haven for metalheads and assorted retrogrades and renegades, in front of the Academy.

Mr Wolf’s is a haven for ridiculous hipsters and a jolt of brand new music, just down the road from Start The Bus, a surprisingly pleasant bar and indie disco.

But my personal pick is a tip-off I received from a couple of local noisemakers. Their infernal racket is akin to the very worst speeches Nixon ever gave, but their taste in drinking holes is exemplary.

Located just off the main square, Renato’s has, by way of some hellish pact with the higher, darker powers, combined pizzeria with wine bar with pub. I usually spend my time at the bar dazedly gazing at the signed pictures of various former visitors – from Brian May to Nick Cave at his most heroin raged to that f**king tosser playwright Harold Pinter.

Raoul Duke returns next week for a second installment. Providing he’s not drunk.

‘OTT’ Hollywood explosions and theatrics, though.

Public Enemies was perhaps surprise package of the year: we always knew Michael Mann had it in him to shoot a great film, but his scripting and casting has always left something to be desired. Not so this time round, with a smouldering Jonny Depp as bank robber and gangster John Dillinger, and sweary chisel faced man of the moment Christian Bale as his federal pursuer. Energetic and exciting whilst simultaneously beautifully and cleverly shot, this would have been our pick of the year… … had it not been for this British film.

In The Loop is quite simply some of the finest comedy we’ve produced in years. A tale of Whitehall political spin, based on edgy series In The Thick Of It, it nearly split us in half with laughter. Not only did it provide one of the characters of the year in obscenity riddled Scotsman Malcolm Tucker, but also one of the scenes of the year, with The Sopranos James Gandolfini calculating the human cost of a war in a nursery, using a child’s talking computer. Maybe it’s just our year working in Westminster, but we honestly thought this was one of the most inspired films we’d seen in aeons.

Robin Ince – The School for Gifted Spectacular Children 25th October Komedia Darwin’s providing a very good excuse for a very many good things to go on, and Robin Ince’s show at the Komedia is another one of them. The comedian brings his dark, edgy and deeply cerebral science act back on the road to Bath with some very special guests. One to get a hold of fast, as this will sell out like holy wine at mass.

Richard Dawkins 3rd November The Guildhall The evolutionary biologist comes to Bath for a special talk. Tickets might be £20, but entrance includes a copy of his new tome. Expect a charismatic and intriguing discussion accessible to general interested parties rather than just biology nerds.

Away We Go Dir. Sam Mendes Out Now (Little Theatre Cinema) We’re actually very excited about this one. Sam Mendes returns following the brilliantly jarring Revolutionary Road with another tale of suburban dreams. A pregnant Maggie Gyllenhaal and John Krasinski embark on a roadtrip of discovery around the United States attempting to decide which State to raise their yet to be born child in. By all accounts a beautifully filmed and well-scripted film which easily stands up to Mendes’ previous dark side of suburbia works.

IMPACT 16

Entertainment

Vividly Yours

Everything Goes Wrong Vivian Girls In The Red Out Now

NAMING YOUR second album Everything Goes Wrong is a little pessimistic, especially so if you’re Vivian Girls, the Brooklynite threepiece leading the lo-fi charge to catch the zeitgeist.

Having set the blogosphere (ugh) on fire with their debut, self titled album, it’s taken the female trio just over a year to return with another slab of bedroom garage punk spattered with Ronettes choruses.

The emphasis is very much on the old adage of if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Those squalling guitars are once again softly submerged in a Phil Spector-esque wall of sound, overlaid with those softly sighed harmonies, treading the line between confused youth and brattish romanticism.

“Can’t Get Over You” is The Strokes re-written by girls, stuttering drumrolls soundtracking Cassie Ramone’s doe-eyed tale of a fingernail-biting, pavement-gazing indie girl: “Boy I shouldn’t give you one more chance / But my heart just stopped when you asked me to dance.” It’s a perfect example of Vivian Girls craft: they’re a bunch of girls who spent a little too long listening to The Ramones and Wipers and now write heartfelt songs about boys, teenage romance and loss.

Yet they manage to do so in such a beguiling manner, that you can forgive them for stealing the obvious hooks: ‘Tension’ opens with a straight lifting of the ‘Be My Baby’ drum hook before melding riot girl howl and doo wop harmonies in a way you hadn’t thought possible.

The band have gone for something

GIVEN THAT the first edition of Only Built 4 Cuban Linx was rightly revered as one of the all time great hip-hop records, alongside other WuTang collective creations such as 36 Chambers and GZA’s Liquid Swords, expectations for Raekwon’s follow up have been high. And for once, the hype is nearly completely justified.

Clocking in at a rather bloated looking seventy seven minutes and twenty four tracks merely disguises that almost all of OB4CLII is gold plated.

The J-Dilla (the man’s almost as successful from beyond the grave as Notorious BIG and Tupac these days) produced ‘House of Flying Daggers’ opens the album proper like a roundhouse to the face; a mean statement of intent that marches forward on frantic strings. The lyrics are typical Wu-Tang fodder, at once flowing and scatterbrained, the four MCs tag teaming about drug dealing, gang warfare and rap potency.

The lyrical topics covered are varied as you might expect given the length: Rae might lace his lyrics with bragging

Coldplay?

Hot Stuff.

Features Editor Sian Lewis overcomes dead

cats and music snobs to be left toasty by a warm performance from Chris Martin’s wet blanket gang...

Coldplay, Jay-Z, Girls Aloud and White Lies Wembley Stadium 18th September

VIVIAN GIRLS: Polaroid Perfect

A luscious mix of garage punk and Ronettes harmonies by doe-eyed indie girls who spent too long listening to The Ramones. darker this time round, and the longer songs do tend to be the albums standout tracks: even if ‘The End’ does steal the hook from a previous ‘Girls track (‘Tell The World’) it’s one of the best tracks on the album.

Similarly, ‘When I’m Gone’ draws on dark themes: ‘Will you sit around and miss me when I’m gone?’ intones Ramone as though she already knows the negative answer to be given.

The thing about Everything Goes Wrong is that absolutely nothing does: it’s a rough gem cut through with poppy hooks and punk snarl, but as easy to hum as those melodies are, they’re just as easily forgotten: there’s only so many ways to write a 3 minute punk song after all. But when the component pieces are this good, that’s a minor quibble. ‘Everything Goes Wrong’ is a perfect slice of indie rock - enjoyable, raucous, deeply catchy and above all great fun. It’s not going to blow any minds, but it won’t disappoint many either.

Philip Bloomfield, Ents Editor

Raek-One and Only

Only Built For Cuban Linx II Raekwon Ice H20 Out Now

MONDAY 5TH OCTOBER 2009

stories of stick-ups, murders and drug deals (‘Surgical Gloves,’ ‘Sonny’s Missing’) but he’s a storyteller with enough nous to divert from his theme once in a while. As such ‘Gihad’ opens with the Chef railing against vintage clothing and half moon specs, before Ghostface Killah adds some hilarious rasping filth about screwing around with his buddy’s girlfriend who “take a dick like a ribeye steak”. The highlight is maybe ‘Cold Outside’ which hits with a lethal dose of pathos, borrowing a broken mariachi trumpet hook and a warm soul vocal to match it’s mournful paean to hood life: “Real life stories is made/And candles got blazed for little young soldiers/shot by them strays”.

But that lyrical versatility is only half the story and the production on OB4CLII is what takes the record to the next level. The high standards are all the more impressive given the vast array of contributors behind the desk.

Raekwon’s own work, a thundering string section riff on ‘Canal St’ more than holds its own against the RZA’s eerily synth laden ‘Black Mozart’ or Dr. Dre’s steel drum powered ‘Catalina’. And of course, J-Dilla’s urgent and paranoid ’10 Bricks’ is right

BEFORE YOU say average middleclass white girl reviewing a gig in which four posh boys from Essex who like to sing about feelings perform their wordy, samey songs to make people cry... okay that’s exactly what this review of Coldplay’s Viva La Vida gig at Wembley is. Well, I don’t care.

Having first endured the mockery of our friends, who think they like proper music, and then sitting through a pretty weird mix of support acts - the vaguely interesting White Lies, the dismally bad Girls Aloud and the secretly enjoyable Jay-Z (or Jay Zed as I thought his name was until very recently) - Mat, Mark and myself were pretty worked up for Coldplay, and the 100,000 strong crowd was buzzing.

Chris Martin received a huge roar of love and emotion when he rocked into view, and he looked pretty awesome in military get up, at least from what I could see of the stage, which was the occasional glimpse. I’m 5’7 and let me tell you, stages should be higher, it’s a bloody disgrace. Mark at 6’4 had no problems. Anyway, back to the music. Starting straight in with ‘Violet Hill’, the two hour set floated through the band’s biggest hits with occasional stops for piano pieces and Simon Pegg playing the harmonica.

The crowd was made up of a weird mix of rah kids, drunk men, families and students, and we all know we ought to be slightly embarrassed to have paid over £50 to be there to see on the money once again.

Maybe it’s crude to reference The Wire, but in the advent of the show’s success it’s hard not to pin Raekwon’s album to the same star: OB4CLII at times feels like a musical companion piece – that same heavy dose of ‘hood life, pathos, girls, guns and dope.

But what really makes OB4CLII so special is the sheer quantity of quality material on display. Over those twenty four tracks, there’s not a single cut that feels superfluous. In a world where hip-hop has either become bloated or radio friendly, that’s a serious selling point. OB4CLII is quite simply one of the best rap records released this decade: literate, funny, dark, evocative and meaningful all at once.

Dante Smith, Ents ‘Hood Correspondent

ROCK EN SEINE: ...and London rolls

the band my housemate Matt oh-socleverly christened Coldshite playing what Comment Editor Emma calls ‘slit your wrists music’. Thanks for your input, guys.

From a fabulously constructed set, huge custard-coloured balloons were tossed into the crowd for ‘Yellow’, and the dream-like atmosphere was further highlighted by multicoloured fireworks exploding during the finale and beautiful video sequences displayed on the main screen. But the moment that made the gig was the truly stunning effects during ‘Love in Japan’ - millions of multicoloured butterflies exploded into the sky and rained down on the crowd, before our collective body heat (nice) made them rise up again and hover over the stadium.

I don’t care if you proper music fans still aren’t convinced, it was a lovely gig and took me straight back to being 16, thinking Coldplay were cool and playing ‘Fix You’ again and again when I had angsty moments because my cat died.

CHRIS MARTIN: Sappy

Rock En Seine St Cloud, Paris 30th August 2009 AS I do with many of my weekends now I’m a working girl (no innuendos please), I’d planned a weekend of sweet F.A. when a friend mentioned Rock en Seine, a Parisian festival running the same weekend as Leeds and Reading. We weren’t lucky enough to have a bank holiday here but I was still game and hit Fnac for a ticket for Sunday daytime. Although not as wild as Leeds festival, my usual haunt, it was a bloody good afternoon and evening with a chilled out atmosphere, perfect weather and an incredible line up.

Set in the outskirts of Paris, we arrived by bus just in time to see the legendary (ahem) Macy Gray singing the famous ‘I try to say goodbye and I choke… try to walk away and I stumble’ and that manly ‘too many cigarettes’ voice we all loved back in the day. First off we made our way into the growing crowd and saw, for the first time in my experienced giggoing career, the delights of American band MGMT. ‘Hello Paris!!!!!!!’ they shouted (they were already better than Britney in my eyes!) before playing an incredible set whilst the sun set all around us. Never before have I

The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassuss Dir. Terry Gillliam 16 Oct 2009 A new Terry Gilliam film is always greeted with rapture at impact, but the fact that this was Heath Ledger’s swansong performance makes it all the more interesting. As ever with Gilliam, the plot is twisted and hallucinogenic, following the head of a travelling theatre company and his ‘imaginarium’. Starring model Lily Cole, and with Johnny Depp drafted in to fill in for some of Ledger’s scenes, this has ‘film of the year’ written all over it.

Surrogates Dir:Johnathon Mostow Out Now Finally!

A film which casts Bruce Willis with actual hair on his head! Everyone’s favourite wife-beating vest-wearing bloodstained and battered hardman stars in this Minority Reportesque science fiction thriller as an investigator looking into the first murder in 20 years since people started living their lives vicariously through ‘surrogate’ clones sent out to do their bidding. However good it is, I doubt Bruce is ever going to better crashing a car into a helicopter or surfing a fighter jet.

Passion Pit Bristol Ansom Rooms 30th October Passion Pit are two rather austere boys from America, who make the kind of pop music that makes pretty girls blush and swoon: think Death Cab For Cutie filtered through bubbly electro pop. They’re now touring their debut album Manners (check out our competition to win yourself a signed copy), which is chock full of hooks and crooks and the kind of assorted loveliness normally only found in shops that exclusively stock fluffy animals.

seen a mainstream indie band play live like this. The songs sounded as flawless as the CD yet brilliantly raw at the same time! ‘Kids’, ‘Electric Feel’, ‘Piece of What’, ‘Time to Pretend’… all of them provoked euphoria over the crowd of Parisians and tourists alike.

I sang ‘duh duh duh duh, duh dee duh duh duhhhhhhhh duhhh’ all the way home on the metro; such memorable, beautifully written songs, with the electronic edge giving them a huge je ne sais quoi!

We made our way to another stage, choosing Klaxons over the headliners Prodigy (Phil, don’t hate me for that).

Of what I can remember this was another momentous performance, I was overwhelmed with the mélange of the brilliant vocals, flawless synthetic instrumentship and bright, flashing lights illuminating the crowd. We jumped up and down, span round and round, waved our hands - ‘Magick’ reminding me of that hilarious Skins episode where Effie jumps Cook on the table in the nurse’s office, crazy times. In a way, life in Paris is like an episode of Skins… quintessentially unpredictable, you never know what’s round the corner.

Gina Reay, Foreign Correspondent

MONDAY 5TH OCTOBER 2009

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Sport

The interview: Vice President for Sport

James Christmas talks about the old, the new and what’s going on with sport at the University this year.

WHAT HAS happened over the summer? Has anything changed, such as new clubs or systems?

Last year Boxing and Handball became our two newest clubs, and that brought our quota up to 49, which is our limit in terms of funding and facilities, so there are no new clubs. On the intramural front we have changed the ‘House’ system. It wasn’t really working - a lot of people were put off by thinking they had to form teams with people in their own house. We’ve scrapped that so it is now just groups of friends, so anyone can play together. We’ve also changed the Sports Association t-shirts to the University’s sporting colours. We started a bit of a sports campaign last year, because the sports department came under quite a heavy review by the University, which financially has meant we have had to make quite a few cuts. At one point it looked like sport was slipping off the University’s agenda and the campaign is to try and get it back on there. One of the big things is facility space, particularly outside pitches. For example clubs like Football, other than the first team, can’t even train on grass - they have to train on the Astroturf. The same goes with rugby - for some of the female rugby players last year, the first time they played on a rugby pitch was for their first match, which is obviously not ideal. Obviously we cannot expand

the Campus so we’re looking into synthetic pitches. Astroturf 2 needs to be replaced and will be next summer.

We’re also looking into getting a multipurpose 3G pitch with floodlights, which the University is looking into external funding for and can be played on all day. In a meeting next week I am proposing a short-term solution which is dedicating two of our pitches as training pitches. These are particularly aimed at the football and rugby club for training, and also the IntraDepartmental Football Cup (IDFC), as a lot of the captains complained that they cannot actually train.

Are there any big aims this year in terms of your work?

Yes. The SU have an engagement strategy to identify four or five topics which are key to students, based on research. Once identified, we can then find out what the problems are and try and make a difference. This year, sport is on the agenda, so we’ll be running an engagement strategy on it. Every topic is split into two groups of people: club members who are active in sports clubs, and regular students who use the facilities with their friends. For example, it is about finding out how important our sporting success is to people, or whether the facilities are available to use. For clubs, it is a similar thing - “Do you have appropriate facilities? Are they

available? Are they available at the appropriate time?”. Everyone tends to look at Bath and just say it has great facilities, but if you actually look below the surface, with the amount of clubs we have, some of the facilities are starting to decline. I asked students in the Freshers’ Facebook group about the importance of sport in their decision to come here, which we have so far got 200 responses from. Of that, around 65% said that sport was either ‘important’ or ‘very important’ to them. Hopefully in the near future we will conduct interviews with a range of students on camera, and get their opinions on sport here.

Is it a tough trying to find a balance between elite sports and more grass-roots, recreational ones?

A little bit. The Sports Department’s policy is that the pitches can only be played on twice a week. What we found across most sports is that they are under quite a lot of pressure to make money and in the last few years they have changed from kind of a student service to a situation where students are part of it, but money has to be made. We think that is the wrong attitude. They want to keep the pitches pristine, partly for any elite teams, but also to make money from hiring out which we don’t particularly agree with, because the primary thing for us is the

student. A lot of people say that “You have the best grass pitches in the South West”, but it isn’t much use if you don’t get to play on them.

Have there been any other obstacles to overcome in your year and a bit as VP Sport?

In the summer we go through the facilities here and in the STV, and allocate all the clubs’ facilities. This is always really hard to do because there are so many, and everyone always wants more every year. I guess it is the change in attitude, moving away from the students and into the mindset of “we are here to make money.” It’s quite tricky, because obviously the staff in the sports department earn their wages, and the department has to make money to keep running - and as a result, sometimes when you want more space for your clubs it can be tricky to get it.

The majority of the SU’s income comes from a block grant by the university. For the past five years, this grant has increased by 7 per cent, whereas wages alone have increased by more than that. Therefore in reality, and when you factor in inflation,

the actual grant has gone down.

Effectively, we’re getting squeezed more and more each year to try and run the same services and clubs, but with less money.

W hat w oul d you say t o encourage freshers, or any student for that matter, to join sports clubs?

Our clubs do a really good job of providing for our students, and the majority of people are, I believe, happy with it. It’s a great way to make friends, as are all our student groups, who enjoy the same things as you, and then obviously you have the exercise benefits of sport. All our clubs are also subsidised, so it is probably the cheapest time in your life to try different sports.

Snowsports review Bath student and graduate of previous season aim for Vancouver 2010 Jennie McConnell Contributor

BATH 1ST Ski Team, Girls Ski Team and Snowboard Team all competed in the Western League of the Kings Dry Ski Slope competition last year, and qualified for the National Finals 2009, which took place near London on 2nd May. Having won their division in the Western League, the Girl’s Team put in a good performance in the finals and finished the day in second place.

In addition to having a successful se ason on the dry slope, the University was also represented well on snow at the British Universities Snowsports Council (BUSC) competition, a BUCS recognised competition. Camille Wallen and Hans Christian Bull finished 20th and 16th respectively

DRY SLOPE: Thomas Saunders.

Sean Lightbown Sport Editor sport@bathimpact.com

ON THE PISTE: Anna Ross. in the slalom.

This was a great season for a club that has only been competing for a few years. It was also the first year the club has run a race training trip to the Alps, in order to get the most out of our existing racers while training up newcomers for the coming years.

In light of these recent successes it is hoped that the competitive side of the club will become more popular, attracting newcomers to the sport. This semester the club hopes to build on last season’s performances, training up more skiers and snowboarders to compete on snow as well as on dry slope, and winning more shiny cups.

A UNIVERSITY of Bath graduate and a post-grad student are among the British Bob Skeleton contigent hoping to qualify for the Vancouver Winter Olympics next February.

24-year-old David Swift, who graduated with a Sports Science degree three years ago, is part of GB’s World Class Development Squad, and was British Bob Skeleton champion last year. Sarah Sydney, also 24, is currently studying a PhD in Mechanical Engineering.

Qualification for the Olympics is dependent on the ranking of GB as a whole, with only the top nations being able to qualify the maximum quota of six athletes from the Games.

HOPEFULS: Swift and Sydney.

TAKE OFF: Anthony Sawyer at the start-track on the university campus.

This ranking is determined by the performance of the British athletes over the forthcoming season. The places are allocated according to the positions on The Federation Internationale de Bobsleigh et de Tobogganing (FIBT) ranking list after the St Moritz World Cup competition in January.

Both Swift and Sydney converted to Bob Skeleton from other sporting disciplines. Swift was in the athletics sprint team in his final year at university when he turned to the Bob track, and Sydney was a promising triple jumper in Australia, before first trying her hand at Bob Skeleton in 2007.

Britain is unique in the Bob Skeleton world as being the only top nation not to have a full track on home soil.

Sydney thinks that this has in fact benefited the British athletes.

“It is good in the sense that we don’t have a home track to get comfortable on,” she said. “Other countries get used to their own tracks and find it harder to adjust when they go to meets on different ones. We train on tracks around the world, so when we go to meets it’s easier to adjust.”

Bath-based athletes have had a lot of success at previous Olympics in Bob Skeleton. Alex Coomber earned a bronze in the women’s Bob Skeleton at the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Four years later, Shelley Rudman won a silver medal in the same event at the Turin Winter Olympics.

sport impact

Interview with your VP sport. p19

Sports Day on Parade

THE LAST day in September was the first time this year the sports clubs showed the freshers and returning students what they do. As well as volleyball (main photo) there were many other clubs out on the parade and surrounding area - some taking it more seriously than others. I’m still not quite sure what a sumo wrestler, Bugs Bunny or Scooby Doo have to do with Snowsports, but it provided two cool photos. Enjoy.

American Football Archery Association Football & Futsal Athletics Badminton Basketball Boxing Canoe Club Cricket Fencing Floorball Gliding Golf Gymnastics Handball Hockey Jitsu Judo Karate Kickboxing Kite & Windsurf Lacrosse Latin & Ballroom Dancing Lifesaving Motorsports Cycling Mountaineering Netball Pool, Snooker & Darts Riding & Polo Rowing Rugby Sailing Shooting Skydiving Snowsports Squash Sub Aqua Surf Swimming Table Tennis Tai Chi Tennis Trampoline Triathlon Ultimate Frisbee Volleyball Wakeboard Water Polo

SEEN A sport you fancy giving a go? Two? Three or more, you sickeningly active youngling? Or maybe you just want to have a nosey around while some people do cool stuff?

If so, pop down to the Sports Fair on Tuesday 6th October, in the Founders Hall between 4pm and 7pm. Representives from all the clubs will be available and you can ask them questions and chitchat about the sport. You can also pick up your Sports Association card and t-shirt, provided you bring along the e-mail receipt you should have received upon joining the SA. There will also be demonstrations by certain clubs, so pop along for the spectacle. Just don’t turn your back on those jitsu kids...