US Election Guide
Eccentricity
Politics Pages 12&13
Pub prices
News Pages 4&5
See bite in the middle of paper
bathimpact The University of Bath Students’ Union Newspaper
Tuesday 6th November 2012
www.bathimpact.com
Caleb Wheeler-Robinson
Volume 14 Issue 4
In this week’s bathimpact Postgrad research Findings from a new survey finds rises in postgraduate tuition fees meaning there are significantly fewer people to do essential research in the UK. The way to overcome this problem may lie in the legislation surrounding funding. To find out more turn to page 6 of News
巴斯光年 bathimpact World section includes its first ever piece in Mandarin as Yuxin Fan shares with us her experiences of a cold winter in Bath. The hauntingly beautiful article delves into the rifts between our two distant cultures and how the miracle of snow can bring us all together. Read more in the World section on page 16
Halloween havoc Wednesday saw the mintyscore team head into Score to see the greatest exhibition of horror possible as a Halloween themed night hit campus. The team was astounded by the number of cats that poured into the Plug and Tub to celebrate the night.
SU President Chris Clements[l] and NUS Vice President (Welfare) Pete Mercer[r] answer questions during the SU hosted Question Time
See more from the night on bite page 15
#Demo: An underwhelming yes Rowan Emslie bathimpact Editor-in-Chief impact-editor@bath.ac.uk One hundred and eleven University of Bath students have voted for the Students’ Union to officially support the upcoming 21st November National Union of Students (NUS) demonstration in London. Seventy four students voted not to go on the demonstration while one student abstained. The total number
of voting students represents marginally more than 1 per cent of the student population at the University of Bath. This demonstration has been branded as ‘#Demo2012: Educate, Employ, Empower’ and, according to the NUS website, is in reaction to ‘the current government [which] has put the future of an entire generation at risk.’ Students’ Union President Chris
Clements made this statement, “Whether it is lack of a proper postgraduate loans system or the attack on international student visa’s, the action and, in some cases, inaction of politicians is having a negative effect on our education system.” On 27th October a panel debate on the #Demo2012 was held in the East Building. Bath MP Don Foster, Councillor Anthony Clarke and NUS Vice President for Welfare Pete Mercer
joined Chris Clements on the panel. Largely, the discussion concluded that Bath students’ involvement in #Demo2012 should be decided by Bath students themselves. The SU at the University of Bath will be providing a subsidised coach for any students wishing to attend. For more information on the Question Time and the NUS Demo turn to the full report on page 6.
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Tuesday 6th November 2012
bathimpact
Editorials
www.bathimpact.com
#Demo2012: #Sonotworthit D
irect action is a powerful tool for massed groups to show their displeasure with the powers that be. Concerted expressions of dissent are an important cornerstone of democracy and should be embraced, particularly when they are supported by many and are targeted precisely. The decision made to support the National Union of Students (NUS) #Demo2012 by students and the Students’ Union at this University, however, feels unsatisfactorily wooly. What is actually going to happen on 21st November? What are the NUS hoping to achieve? To whom is any displeasure aimed? The listed aims for this demonstration are, to put it mildly, fairly ambiguous. ‘Educate, Employ, Empower’ is, as a slogan, fine enough but it hardly sets a well-defined aim for the attendees. Back in
2010, there was an enormous demonstration attacking the then proposed rise in tuition fee levels for English and Northern Irish Universities. ‘Demolition 10.11.10’ was well attended – between thirty and fifty two thousand people – and made national headlines as well as constant news coverage even before vandalism at the Millbank building wrested attention away from the predominantly peaceful protests. Despite it not achieving a turn around on policy, the opinion of a huge chunk of the student population was very clearly expressed to the wider public as well as policymakers. In contrast, #Demo2012 tells the on looking public all too little. Student media groups at this University provided extensive coverage of the 2010 demonstrations. This newspaper’s reporters were kettled, interviewed officials and
normal protestors and took huge numbers of excellent photos. The coverage provided helped to drive home the point that students, en masse, categorically did not support the tuition fee hike. bathimpact fully intends to cover #Demo2012 but, other than to inform our readers from a student perspective the events of 21st November, articles and images that come from the day will struggle to have much force. It is the opinion of this newspaper that the students of Bath should have voted ‘no’ on whether or not to join the demonstration. The fact that the total voter turnout was so low – only one per cent of the student population – indicates that there is little appetite for engaging with this particular NUS enterprise. Perhaps more worrying is the large-scale misunderstanding of the vote itself. Many seemed to be under the impression that vot-
ing against the motion would either prohibit willing students from going, or prohibit those students from access to support in going. Putting this aside, attending an unclear and, frankly, rather pointless seeming demonstration undermines the potential power of such a collective protest. If the NUS is seen to be half-heartedly ‘rallying’ students to a non-cause, why would any policymaker take their opinions seriously? Demonstrating for the sake of it undermines those who do so. It is no way to influence policy and it gives the impression to the rest of the country that the NUS, and by extension all students, are simply tantrum filled children unable to do anything but sulk loudly. Despite a lukewarm ‘yes’ to #Demo2012, the event will only undermine students at this University.
1994 Group: Good riddance O
n 30th October the University of Bath pulled out of the 1994 Group, a leading university research group consisting of 15 educational institutes. The decision came after 18 years of collaboration with the group and was announced by the Vice Chancellor who claimed it ‘does not reflect the type of University we are, nor sit well with the future direction of the University’s strategy.’ The decision effectively leaves the university in group limbo although many expect for the university to apply for membership to the Russell Group, seen by many to be the premium group of higher educational institutions. When people look into universities and their reputation, one of the first places they look at are whether they are a member of the Russell
Group. The prestige that surrounds the Russell Group has some founding. The universities, which include Oxbridge, Durham and LSE, contain 78 per cent of the country’s top grade researchers and 19 of the 20 universities with the highest amount of research grants. On paper, it would appear that being a member of this group has obvious advantages. The 1994 Group, on the other hand, presents a less impressive picture with 57 per cent of the universities being in the 2nd and 3rd level of research universities. Perhaps, some would say, our removal from the 1994 Group is long overdue. Last year we were voted the Sunday Times University of the Year and we were ranked 3rd this year in the same league table. The question which we must ask, however, is whether
it really matters? If Oxford or Cambridge were to leave the Russell Group tomorrow, there is little doubt that either institution would lose any amount of its reputation as a result. An extreme case, perhaps, but the example of Bath and the 1994 Group is by no means any different. There is little doubt that if our withdrawal were to have any adverse effects on our success as an institution. The Vice Chancellor stated that we will continue ‘to deliver world class research and teaching’, a task which bathimpact argues is by no means unachievable outside of a specific research group. The general perception is that the Russell Group represents the elite, hence the status attached, whilst the 1994 Group embodies the secondary group of ‘developing’
institutions. However, if we compare the universities in each group to the numerous league tables there is little consistency. True, the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Durham are all in the Russell Group but so are the Universities of Glasgow and Liverpool. It is becoming increasingly clear that, although in the past the groups were a symbol of wealth and status, they are in fact becoming increasingly redundant. When the groups were created they were based solely on which were the wealthiest at the time, now that is not the case. Universities are increasingly being scrutinised by a list of other, far more important criteria. If the University of Bath chooses not to join another research group it would not affect us in any way whatsoever.
issues and I hope that we can move forward towards solutions where there have been problems.” Having a productive discussion around the issues is exactly what bathimpact always strives towards. Newspapers are public forums of debate, designed to tackle hardhitting issues as well as more general coverage of events. This newspaper does not expect that you will like everything published in its pages, but simply that you read and respond. The issues surrounding welcome drinks are largely in need of public debate - facilitating a forum for discussion massively
helps this to happen. However, before moving forward towards solutions where there have been problems, first there has to be admittance that there are problems. Bafflingly for the two bathimpact reporters who were present at the GM, no blame was accepted by any party. Sports clubs were adamant that the article was unfair. The only conclusion was that clubs needed more support in organising these events. The discussion was ended with the chair remarking “that one’s closed for now”. Our job at bathimpact is not to
flaunt personal opinions which is why, in our investigation, reporters attended five welcome drinks at random and published both the good and the bad from what was observed. We did, however, give you the facts about this practice in order that you can garner your own opinions. So the rest is now up to you, our readers, to not let such conversations fade out before a proper conclusion has been reached. bathimpact will watch with great interest over the next year to establish if a significant change actually comes about.
Sport GM: Welcome debate A
s you may or may not know, last issue this newspaper ran a report into ‘Welcome Drinks’. We went to five random sports clubs’ welcome drinks and wrote about exactly what happened. As a result of this piece an agenda item was added to the Sports General Meeting and the article was emailed to all sports club representatives. An open discussion was then chaired by SU President Chris Clements in order that the sports people could air their opinions. Afterwards Mr Clements said “it was good to have a productive discussion around the
Rowan Emslie Editor-in-Chief impact-editor@bath.ac.uk
Elliott Campbell Deputy Editor impact-deputy@bath.ac.uk
Thomas Gane bite Editor impact-bite@bath.ac.uk
Liv Hows News and Comment Editor impact-news@bath.ac.uk
Benjamin Butcher Features Editor impact-features@bath.ac.uk
Matthew Powell Sport Editor impact-sport@bath.ac.uk
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bathimpact Students’ Union University of Bath Bath BA2 7AY 01225 38 6151
The opinions expressed in bathimpact are not necessarily those of the bathimpact 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. bathimpact as a publication adheres to the Press Complaints Commission’s Code of Conduct. Please contact them for any information.
Tuesday 6th November 2012
bathimpact
News
www.bathimpact.com
expressimpact
“
Don Foster, at the Students’ Union hosted Question Time.
fortnight photo
“
There is a need to do things.
Don Foster laughs during Question Time in the East Building
fortnight in figures
$200 billion $6 billion Amount of US deficit earned back in 2012.
News Lite updates & events
Projected total spend on US elections in 2012.
Talking Points
• NUS Demo: the vote, the day and what it means for us • Our place in the NUS: the positives and negatives • US Elections Tune into Buzz on 1449AM URB for interviews and conversation on these topics. 6pm on Thursday
UPCOMING EVENT
LOCAL
UPCOMING EVENT
#Demo2012: Educate, Employ, Empower
Bath and North East Somerset Council have decided to block the creation of a new riverside market in Bath over a licensing dispute. The market would have been located between Pulteney and North Parade bridges. The council statement added that Bath Rugby had also not given the market permission to use the land that the club leases.
Trionium Bath Hilly Half
November 21st, London As a result of the recently held vote The University of Bath will be supporting the NUS in their demonstration against governmental cuts.
November 25th, Bath Organised on behalf of Rotary Club of Bath West, the Bath Hilly Half is a two lap half Marathon with a one thousand six hundred and fifty feet descent and ascent.
INTERNATIONAL
EDUCATION
UPCOMING EVENT
LOCAL
Voting for the 57th Presidential election opens on Tuesday 6th of November and the results will be out in the early hours of the morning of Wednesday 7th. For full coverage of the US Presidential elections turn to pages 12 and 13.
Over six thousand Scottish students have not yet had their applications for financial support processed by the Students’ Award Agency for Scotland (the equivalent of the Student Loan Company for England). Robin Parker, President for NUS Scotland said “Students who have not received support funding have every right to be upset.”
Children in Need
The University of Bath has left the 1994 group, its umbrella organisation. The claim is that the 1994 group no longer ‘represents the kind of university Bath wishes to be’, and also is no longer in line with the university’s future strategy. The group largely represents research-based universities, with the university’s sentiment being that it also delivers excellence in teaching.
November 16th, United Kingdom BBC Children in Need will be hosting thier annual telethon to raise money for helping disadvated children throughout the UK. The show will be on BBC1 from 7pm to 2am
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Tuesday 6th November 2012
Investigation
Are you getting the best deal?
W
e in bathimpact are amazed at how much the prices in pubs have soared over the last few years. Older students reading this will remember that £2.00 used to get you a pint in most places. As is demonstrated across this double page, that is now far from the case. You can, of course, simply chase deals to keep your alcohol budget as low as possible. If you find yourself seeking a break from the routine then you will often end up paying much more than you had intended. In order to ascertain just how bad the problem was, we picked twelve drinks and went to every pub in Bath to see how much those drinks cost. We had only two rules: 1. We would not compare two things that are not the same. If a pub did not serve jagerbombs but tried to serve us a shot of jagermeister and a can of red bull then it was discounted. Similarly some pubs did not sell soft drinks by the pint. We did not multiply up the prices. 2. We did not count any fleeting deals. If students were always given a discount then it counted but otherwise we wanted to know their standard price. The drinks deals part of our rules may seem unfair, however , there is a serious underlying point. Deals in Bath have stopped being helpful in pubs. If you go to the same club on the same day most weeks then you know what deals are on offer. With the pubs we went to, deals were irregular, sporadic and were built around prices that were hugely different from their normal prices. This meant that, upon ordering a drink, we had no idea how much we were paying. As can be seen from the high prices opposite, that is a problem. Unless students write down all the deals and the days that they are on at each pub in a calendar, they are not better off as a result of deals. What we found was astonishing and some of the prices were extortionate. We visited 30 pubs in the centre of
Bath and over these pages have ranked the five cheapest places to buy any given drink. We have also used the data from all 30 pubs to tell you the top five cheapest overall for these twelve drinks. The final results proved that too many pubs in Bath are taking advantage of students and their transitory nature to hike up prices far beyond reason. Charging £6.95 for a double spirit and mixer (Flan O’Briens) is unacceptable. Charging £3.45 for a soft drink (Pig & Fiddle) is similarly unacceptable and nobody charging those prices for non-alcoholic drinks can claim they are encouraging responsible drinking. Every pub should charge less than £2.00 for soft drinks. Always. It costs about 10p for them per pint. As students we are, almost exclusively, incredibly poor. We will tend to go to the cheapest places. bathimpact’s advice therefore is use these lists. Stick them on your wall and go to whichever place is cheapest. We, the students, will enforce competitive prices. Below are the list of the ten cheapest pubs and bars in Bath based on the twelve surveyeddrinks. Some locations might not quite make the top five for any particular drink but would score relatively strongly across all categories. This is the list, then, for the overall cheapest round you are likely to be able to find around town. Top Ten Cheapest Pubs & Bars in Bath 1. Weatherspoons 2. Lamb & Lion 3. The Plug 4. Parade Bar 5. The Metropolitan 6. Green Park Tavern 7. The Huntsman 8. The Cork 9. The Porter 10. The Royal Oak
bathimpact www.bathimpact.com
Alcoholic or non: Guinness
Wine 175ml
1 Lamb & Lion
£3.05
1 Spoons
£1.99
2 The Plug
£3.10
2 Lamb & Lion
£2.20
3 Spoons
£3.15
3 The Cork
£2.55
4 Met
£3.40
4 Belushis
£2.95
5 Parade
£3.50
5 Parade
£2.95
Strongbow
Bulmers
1 Spoons
£1.99
1 The Plug
£3.30
2 GPT
£3.00
2 The Met
£3.65
3 Lamb & Lion
£3.00
3 The Royal Oak £3.70
4 The Met
£3.15
4 Crystal Palace £3.80
5 Crystal Palace £3.35
Single mixer
5 Pig & Fiddle
£3.80
Double mixer
1 The Plug
£2.10
1 Parade
£3.30
2 Parade
£2.30
2 The Cork
£3.50
3 GPT
£2.50
3 GPT
£3.50
4 Lamb & Lion
£2.65
4 Spoons
£3.65
5 Spoons
£2.65
5 The Plug
£3.80
Tuesday 6th November 2012
bathimpact
Investigation
www.bathimpact.com
Is it economical? Corona 1 Spoons
Jägerbomb
£2.50
1 The Plug
£2.40
2 The Plug
£2.65
2 The Cork
£2.50
3 Lamb & Lion
£2.95
3 Lamb & Lion
£2.50
4 Parade
£2.95
4 Spoons
£2.50
5 Raven
£3.30
5 The Met
£2.59
Fosters 1 Lamb & Lion 2 GPT 3 The Met 4 Spoons
Carlsberg
£2.70
1 Spoons
£1.99
£3.00
2 The Plug
£2.50
£3.05
3 Lamb & Lion
£2.55
£3.05
4 The Met
£3.00
5 Huntsman
£3.20
5 Crystal Palace £3.15
VK Soft drink 1 Spoons
£1.66
1 The Plug
£1.10
£2.50
2 Vodka Revs
£1.60
3 Lamb & Lion
£2.55
3 Saracen’s Head £1.70
4 Hobgoblin
£3.25
4 Parade
£1.80
5 Belushis
£3.35
5 Lamb & Lion
£1.85
2 The Plug
Are you getting what you want?
S
tudents, on average tend to drink the drinks that are cheapest. It’s basically an economic fact. So in a University city like Bath you would expect most of the pubs to cater to what students want, and yet surprisingly few do. The Lamb and Lion was one place that seemed to know exactly what students wanted – having eleven out of twelve of bathimpact’s drink choices, whereas Parade performed fairly poorly by comparison having only seven out of twelve, concerning for a pub that has such a high amount of student traffic. These findings caused this paper to wonder if Parade simply doesn’t know what its target customers want. Seriously, how many students can honestly afford to drink bottles of Peroni? But it seemed that this was a problem far more widespread than Campus alone. A total of fourteen out of thirty pubs only had half or less of our drinks available drinks chosen because they were some of The Plug’s top sellers and were, therefore, likely to reflect the most popular drinks of the University of Bath student population. The point could be argued that perhaps some pubs simply just don’t cater for students, but when you consider that twenty-five per cent of Bath’s population are students you’d expect a greater number of establishments to be capitalising on this fact. Couple this with the fact that students spend more money on drinking than any other group, it becomes apparent that ignoring student desires is a huge economical faux pas for pretty much any pub in Bath. There will be exceptions of course: ale houses will most likely largely focus on ale and places like Revolution will largely be serving concerningly luminous vodka shots rather than a broad variety of drinks, but when pubs that don’t have a special focus ignore the large portion of the market that students make up it just seems a bit of a bad decision to bathimpact. During our investigation bathimpact also noticed that
very few pubs had an easily accessible drinks menu. Many places had cocktail lists or wine lists, but only Plug and The King of Wessex (Weatherpoons) had a full drinks menu that bathimpact reporters could pick up and sit down with. Now this may not seem like a big deal, but without a proper drinks list, unless you drink in an establishment regularly, prices have to be approximated to, and, as you can see, there can be some wild differences in the prices for some drinks throughout the various pubs in Bath. This can make an evening out less pleasant than it should be. No one wants to find out a drink costs more than they were expecting, particularly if it’s more than you can afford. Sending a drink back because you can’t actually pay for it is embarrassing enough, it’s even worse if you’re out with friends. This paper is keen to establish that this piece isn’t about helping students to drink more. Rather, students should be encouraged to be frugal when it comes to buying alcoholic or non-alcoholic drinks. Without a thorough examination of the options available, it is very difficult for students to be able to properly monitor the amount of money they spend on evenings out with friends - keeping tabs on how much you spend on such evenings is the first step to maintaining a moderate expenditure on drinks. During our research we were often met with suspicion when bar staff were asked for price lists - one server attempted to defer answering our questions until the next day when a manager would be around. Why would such questions be met with such trepidation? It’s an unnecessary situation for pubs to be placing people in; people go out to enjoy themselves and the apprehension of how much damage your double vodka and lemonade is going to do to your wallet is not enjoyable. The question this paper is asking is why pubs aren’t more open to displaying their prices? Surely they’re aware that if people are more comfortable drinking in their establishments, they’re more likely to continue drinking.
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Tuesday 6th November 2012
bathimpact
News
www.bathimpact.com
Question Time with Don Foster Ben Butcher & Helen Edworthy bathimpact Reporters n Friday 26th October, leaders from the local community and the student body came together to debate some of the most contentious issues facing young people, ranging from tuition fees to changes in housing policy. A crowd of around 50 students, as well as a few members of the local council, were present to listen to local Bath Liberal Democrat MP, Don Foster, Conservative councillor for Lansdown Anthony Clarke and Pete Mercer, National Union of Students (NUS) Vice President for Welfare. Joining them on the panel was Students’ Union Community Officer Hannah Wade, and Students’ Union President Chris Clements. The debate started with a half hour on local issues, focusing primarily on Article 4 Direction (A4D) and its potential effects on the local student population. Two minute opening speeches saw Mr Foster and Mr Clarke laud the positive contribution students bring to the town - in particular the cultural and economic benefits. However, they both quickly concluding that, although they are both starkly pro-student, the needs of the local community must also be taken into account, and as such A4D was the only viable option to serve both interests. Mr Foster, a long-time supporter of the controversial policy, stated that he only wanted to bring ‘fairness to everybody’. In a debate which generally lacked concrete facts, he explained that there was an oversaturation of students in the city with HMO’s representing 50 per
cent of the houses in some areas. He constantly reminded the audience that although some people backing the policy were supporting it for the wrong reasons, there is nothing inherently ‘anti-student’ about it. Both Mr Mercer and Ms Wade strongly rebutted that a lack of housing, scrambled bus routes and an increase in rent would not affect only students but also the ‘low paid workers’ Mr Foster had previously aimed to protect. Mr Foster’s weakest moment in his generally confident performance was over a question inquiring to A4D’s success in other regions. Mr Clarke and Mr Foster were left quarrelling over who should answer the question before Mr Foster claimed: ‘that it will not even affect anyone in this room’, implying that it would, in fact, affect others in the future. It was a lack of facts and evidence which severely disjointed Mr Foster’s argument as he regurgitated figures regarding a national £300m house building bonus and a £10bn loan guarantee. When asked how much of this Bath would receive, he replied ‘rather a hell of a lot’. It was their rebuttal to Mr Foster’s fairly shallow arguments that proved the strongest response of the evening. Mr Mercer, using his experience with student communities across the UK, claimed that the policy had either little or a negative effect, citing dereliction rife rising rent costs in the worst cases. Ms Wade finished off the first half of the debate by pointing out that ‘there is no such thing as a balanced community’ and questioned how much A4D was going to affect or change anything.
Madelaine Winn bathimpact Reporter he UK’s postgraduate system is failing to produce the number of highly skilled workers and academics that are required in a modern economy, according to a new report. The report, conducted by the Higher Education Commission with a cross-party group of MPs and representatives from business and academia, calls for reform of the postgraduate system in order to prevent long term problems. One of the fundamental problems, according to the report, is tuition fees. Firstly, UK students face high rates of tuition fees for postgraduate studies and face difficulties getting a loan. Secondly, universities try and attract international students for postgraduate study as they pay a higher fee
rate than UK students - thus the current system seems to neglect UK students. This comes with a risk of the UK becoming the ‘education outsourcing capital of the world’, in which the focus is on training international students, rather than creating home-grown academics. The report identifies the growth of overseas postgraduate students, which is up 200 per cent since 1999. In comparison, there was a rise of only 18 per cent for UK students over the same time frame. Within Europe, the only countries with a lower rate of students staying on for postgraduate study than the UK are Andorra and Kazakhstan. UK postgraduate students face high fee rates and an unwillingness from banks to offer loans, which makes postgraduate study less and less accessible for poorer
O
Don Foster (right) and Anthony Clarke (left) were both subjected to questions from the audience A ten minute break saw the debate move onto national issues, this time dominated by student fees. Mr Mercer talked about education as ‘inspiring and hoping for the better’ whilst simultaneously criticising the government’s stance on youth unemployment, higher education funding and the removal of Education Maintenance Allowance. He emphasised that the Government’s policies were removing the cost of education from the state, and that cutting the higher education budget by 80 per cent was a far cry from the ‘progressive model’. Mr Foster replied with a well-rehearsed response based on the Government’s commitment to
cutting the deficit whilst emphasising the Government’s efforts to provide education for lower income families The debate then reached its most delicate subject, that of trust in politics. Mr Foster stated that some things were ‘unacceptable’, but refused to apologise for voting for the tuition fee increase claiming that it would have caused an economic crisis if the coalition had broken over it. Mr Clements, having taken Ms Wade’s chair in the second half, was quick to point out that other disagreements had failed to break the coalition, and that faith could only be restored if they stopped attacking a core voting block on both a national and local level.
Mr Foster’s closing statement that ‘young people are not just the future, but the present’ could not have sounded less sincere having spent the last hour supporting issues which would push young people further into debt. The debate finished with Mr Mercer calling on students to join the #Demo2012 protest in November, which Mr Clements did not directly support, rather claiming that – unsure as to how effective it would be – it should be left up to the students to vote. After the debate was over, those who had been there came to the conclusion that neither side’s point of view had triumphed over the other.
or debt-averse students; the report found clear evidence that students are discouraged from postgraduate study because they don’t want to increase their level of debt. This is despite the growing importance of this level of study as, for many professions, postgraduate study is increasingly becoming the norm. Postgraduate study is thus a necessity rather than a luxury, yet many people are unable to access it. Therefore, postgraduate study is the newest barrier to social mobility; indeed, the report itself refers to a ‘social-mobility timebomb’. The Chair of the Higher Education Commission, Graham Spittle, argues that “if we don’t pay attention … this area of education will be closed to some people because of cost and accessibility”. Consequently, he claims that “we will probably not be able to grow
the indigenous talent we need to staff our universities, which, if you like, are the factories that groom the next generation. We are probably hindering ourselves from getting the strong technical leaders and entrepreneurs that society is going to need – that we’re all going to need – in the future.” The report proposes adopting a loan system for postgraduate students to improve social mobility, there are suggestions of different loan schemes, including one put forward by Tim Leunig. As an advisor to Michael Gove, the education secretary, Leunig may be able to help push the idea through parliament. In the long run, the report argues, the undergraduate and postgraduate funding processes should be integrated to create a more seamless sector. The report also argues that
there is a need to increase spending on further education in order to maintain competitiveness and keep up with India, China and South Korea who are proving to be an increasing threat. Spittle argues that “some of this will cost money, but the opportunity cost is unbelievable given that we want to become a skills-based economy. I think we have no choice but to pay attention to this area. It doesn’t all have to be funded out of the public purse, but we need to strategically make choices as a country about what we are doing here and not just let market forces take their effect.” Postgraduate education in the UK is a neglected sector and one in need of radical reform; what and how the problems highlighted in the report will be addressed is yet to be seen.
Fund our future: Postgrads ignored T
Tuesday 6th November 2012
bathimpact
Comment
www.bathimpact.com
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Hilary Aked bathimpact Writer s I was leaving campus a couple of weeks ago, I was shocked to see, emerging from a fancy dress party, more than one student who were ‘blacked up’. I spoke to one, who said he had gone to the party ‘as Usain Bolt’ - but while I’m sure he spent the evening striking the runner’s trademark pose, he’d not made any effort to imitate his height, instead choosing merely to don a sports shirt and shorts and daub black/brown paint of some kind on his skin. I asked if he didn’t think it was a bit offensive, to which he responded ‘I probably would if I was less drunk’, before back-tracking a little and suggesting that it had been his mate’s idea, dreamt up after several drinks. He also mentioned that a few other people had said to him that this practice was ‘a bit racist’ but he didn’t seem overly worried. I don’t wish to harangue anyone, or carelessly make accusations that this was a racist act deliberately intended to offend because I highly doubt that it was. But I do want to explain why I was shocked and angry or why I suspect I was not alone in seeing this behaviour as pretty offensive. I think it needs outlining, as I believe this sort of behaviour reflects a complete lack of understanding about diversity and illustrates widespread ignorance of the history of racism in this country; often people genuinely just don’t know or
pennstatelive
When fancy dress crosses the line A
Is body paint an essential part of your costime? Harmless fun or something which offends others?
views about what to do about it. Racism sadly isn’t just a thing of the past. Just five years ago, a student at University of Bath called Danny Lake, who just happened to be the youth leader of the BNP, nearly managed to give a platform to party leader Nick Griffin – someone who denies the Holocaust happened, who’s been convicted of inciting racial hatred to speak on our campus. Meanwhile, actress Emma Thompson criticised nearby Exeter University in 2009 after her adopted black son, Tindyebwa Agaba, experienced racism while a student there. And just this month the clothing chain Gap has caused a storm of social media controversy for producing a t-shirt emblazoned with the words ‘manifest destiny’, a term coined in the 19th century to sum up the idea that the descendants of white Europeans were the preordained and natural rulers of North America, at the expense of the indigenous population. Along with this, the President of the University of Birmingham Christian Union was very recently forced to resign after ‘blacking up’ for a fancy dress party and deeply offending many students. But it’s not against the law and it’s not a human right not to be offended. Some will say the ‘killjoy politically correct brigade’ should ‘just get over it’. But I think it’s important to discuss the cultural significance of this and encourage fellow students to think twice about even seemingly harmless choices like fancy dress.
understand why some people could be made to feel so uncomfortable by it. Until relatively recently - 1978 to be precise - the BBC screened a television programme called ‘The Black and White Minstrel Show’ that was considered light entertainment and was very popular, broadcasted during a Saturday night prime time slot. It featured white actors in ‘blackface’ who behaved as if they were stupid. It was not an uncommon idea, and for years the majority didn’t think of it as shocking. For our parents’ generation, this was both a hangover from, and a
bridge to, the only slightly more distant history of colonialism, which for centuries justified conquest, slavery and exploitation using racist narratives. This is the cultural, political and historical symbolism of the practice of blacking up; it is inextricably linked to negative stereotyping and derogatory representations of black people used to mock, patronise and present them as inferior. Even if it’s not intended in this way, it carries these connotations and risks being construed as such. Hanna Wade, the Community Officer in the SU,
points out that preventing these messages being sent out is ‘very important in maintaining a positive relationship, not only with all of our students and staff but also the local community’. She characterises it as indicative of a blasé attitude towards racism. The Afro-Caribbean Society’s Treasurer, Jasmine, echoes this view, saying she personally believes it’s wrong because it is perceived as ‘something to laugh about’. But importantly she also highlights the fact that it’s a controversial issue, and says that different ACS committee members hold different
of the assessment by the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) that the aid schemes for Afghanistan, in place since 2001, are not performing as they should. One of the main issues with the UK’s aid send to Afghanistan may be that the focus on economic growth is far too high up in the list of priorities – money can be given, but it’s been shown that the Afghan economy is unable to absorb capital at a fast enough rate for the amount of money invested in the country via the government to make much of a difference. There is also the years-old debate of whether development should even be centred around economic growth to such an extent to begin with – in some cases, mass amounts of aid and attempts at ‘modernisation’ (money given to countries so that they may develop according to a Western model) have negatively impacted a whole country’s economy, such as in Indonesia. The argument is usually slanted along the lines of concerns that an economy can be as robust and productive as targets want it to be, but without political stabil-
ity or even care of its population, the money means nothing. Take the example of China; a booming economy which has come a long way in the last twenty years due to mass production and cheap labour – but a notoriously bad track record with looking after its own people, having not made all that much progress in the area regarding individuals since 1989. What this example shows is that development cannot only be attempted on an economic level – and to DfID’s (and the UK’s aid budget’s) credit, they have not only been approaching development in Afghanistan on this single level. However, the vast majority of their budget is focused on the government, and DfID are not exactly clear on what they are giving to the government. Presumably, the budget has not been accurately thought out if the idea of creating a politically stable state in Afghanistan is now considered ‘impossible’. To DfID’s credit, they do have figures to back up their new approach for Afghanistan – since 2001 they have successfully increased the numbers of girls in school, have aided im-
UK delivers aid; is that enough to make serious developments? provements in children’s nutrition like women’s rights in Afghanistan and have been successful in helping at a base level, but rather just dealing out small businesses to aid the econo- with the consequences. my at a micro level. Even despite this, As for ‘impossible’, the DfID may however, the UK government, who have just realised that they have bitare the third biggest supplier of aid to ten off more than they can chew, and Afghanistan, have been criticised for have been pursuing an unrealistically not attacking the issues with things fast development model.
Helen Edworthy bathimpact Writer n Thursday 25th October, MPs announced that any attempt to make Afghanistan a ‘viable state’ is a ‘flawed ambition’. From both MPs and the Department for International Development (DfID), the general sentiment was that, due to both political instability and security risks, both within Afghanistan and in neighbouring Pakistan, the targets that DfID have set for Afghanistan by 2014 may in fact be too difficult, or ‘impossible’, to achieve. The three focus areas for aiding Afghanistan have been to improve security and stability, to stimulate economic growth, and to deliver basic services to people. What the announcement from DfID means is that rather than attempting to put more energy into the first two (the UK, the EU, and the US have put £19 billion worth of energy into Afghanistan) the focus will be on the deliverance of basic services to the country, such as health services (particularly for women). DfID’s decision comes as a result
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DFID
More work, less haste in Afghanistan
Tuesday 6th November 2012
bathimpact
Business
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Company shares will mean having to waive some work rights”
ing all companies, is mainly aimed at boosting enterprises and start-ups in a time when, the Chancellor said, “in this country we face something even greater than recovery from recession […], we face the shock of the future”. According to those in favour, workers will indeed be encouraged to share the
risk involved in starting a new business. The proposal will also be advantageous to employers thanks to its “potential to reduce the employment law burden” as Simon Walker, director general of the Institute of Directors said, echoing Mr Osborne words. Detractors, on the other hand, feel that the “shares for rights” scheme will have very little impact. The director general of the Confederation of British Industry, one of the UK’s leading independent employers’ organisation, called it “a niche idea” “not relevant to all businesses”. One of the arguments supporting this view is that, as a matter of fact, in comparison to the rest of the OECD, the UK has one of the least regulated labour markets. Intervening to further deregulate it would therefore result more in wasting time and resources than a tangible spur to growth. The debate is still open: is Mr Osborne’s plan really the best way to tackle the recession and finally get back into the path of growth?
Alltogetherfool
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he planning of the controversial “shares for rights” scheme was unveiled by the Chancellor during the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham. In his speech, Mr Osborne claimed that fast-growing firms in particular would benefit from the “employee-owner” plan, as they will finally be allowed to overcome “gold-plated employment rights”. Workers will be offered shares worth between £2,000 and £50,000 in the companies that they work for, in exchange for waiving some of their employment rights. These shares would be exempt from capital gains tax (CGT), the tax usually paid when selling an asset. The government’s esteem is that this will result in a £100m loss to the Treasury in CGT revenues by 2017-18, but with hundreds of thousands of employees getting involved in the new system. Vince Cable, the Lib Dem Business Secretary has seemingly agreed to the proposal, which is expected to be in Parliament this autumn and be implemented in April 2013. Companies will be able to decide whether or not to take advantage of the plan, but newstart ups would also have the option to make it compulsory for new recruits by making it part of contracts for new hires. For employees, however, accepting company shares will mean having to waive various employment rights including redundancy pay, rights to unfair dismissal, and rights to request time off for training and flexible hours. Moreover, women will have to give 16 weeks’ notice of return from maternity leave instead of 8, as it is now required.
The reaction of the unions was unsurprisingly an unimpressed one, with the TUC general secretary Brendan Barber declaring “We deplore any attack on maternity provision or protection against unfair dismissal, but […] few businesses will want to tie themselves up in the tangle of red tape necessary to trigger these exemptions”. The new plan, although includ-
George Osborne believes the shares will boost the economy
The cost of disaster Sophie Esslemont bathimpact Writer
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ver the last few days, United States found itself under the mercy of an unprecedented storm which reaped havoc on it’s East Coast. Hurricane Sandy thrashed the states of New York and New Jersey as well as others along the way piling up a bill of up to $40bn and killing almost 50 (at the time of print). Disasters are huge economic anomalies which devastate even the most advanced economies. Hurricane Sandy closed the New York Stock Exchange for more than one day, the first time due to weather since 1888. The 1995 Kobe Earthquake cost 2.5 per cent of the country’s GDP and crippled the regions ports accounting for 40 per cent of the nation’s exports. Australia’s
2009 Black Saturday bushfires has effectively ceased agriculture in Victoria State at a cost of A $4.4bn a year. Developed countries recover, naturally, as their economies rarely have just one string to their bow. They can also afford to have foresight. Although California is still waiting for the ‘Big
“
It is far cheaper to prevent than it is to clean-up”
One’, the state has spent an impressive amount on safety procedures, building reinforcement and relief to ensure that when, and if, it does hit, they will be ready. We don’t need to be told that this lack of resources in the developing world is the reason why when an
earthquake hit Christchurch, New Zealand in 2011, 185 souls were lost, but when one of similar magnitude and depth hit Haiti in 2010, the death toll was estimated around 350,000. There are few suggestions that can be realisitically made. No amount of preparation will avoid hits to the stock market, large infrastructure damage or inordiante death tolls. The developed countries of the world, generally speaking, are ready for the worst that will hit them. Whilst the media excessively covers images of New York City under water, we must not forget that disasters like this happen in our neighbours gardens all the time. We must stick to the mantra that it is far cheaper to prepare than it is to cleanup, so let’s spread the knowledge and help the developing world before they actually need it.
Economics of... Slavery
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t has been roughly one-hundred and eighty years since Britain abolished slavery across a quarter of the world, paving the way for the very slow, but now unanimous, abolition of slavery in any form. Most countries banned the trade within fifty years of the British, many had already done so before the former Empire, but shockingly it was not until 1981 that Mauritania officially abolished the practice becoming the final one to do so on the planet. Economically, slavery makes human beings into a basic commodity much like oil, gold or tea. It’s a simple process: if I need my land farmed, I will buy you to do it for me. It’s a primitive concept, but although slavery is illegal, there are amazingly more slaves on the planet than there have been at any time in history; around 27m. The trade brings in a whopping $91.7bn a year making it easily the second largest illegal trade after drugs. Slavery, generally speaking, is reserved primarily for the purpose of agriculture, factory work and the sex industry and with so many slaves around it beggars belief that some of the world’s larger companies aren’t involved in the practice. Having tried my hardest to find out the price of a slave with companies such as Toys’R’Us, Microsoft, Victoria’s Secret and Urban Outfitters, I quickly realised the golden age of slavery when one simply entered the market and bought anyone they deemed suitable is dead and the majority of slaves are victims of scams and misfortune, most notably human trafficking and debt bondage. Debt bondage is a clever scheme to make a payable debt unaffordable. We see this in the case of Central Americans transported
across the border who, unable to pay their traffickers, are forced to work in one of the many maquiladoras along the frontier. They are paid so little that they are unable to keep up with the interest on their debt; a very sophisticated, modern day slavery tactic that bonds around 18.1m people internationally. Slavery is particularly popular in Africa. An estimated 20 per cent of Mauritania’s population are slaves and forced labour is prevalent over the war-torn continent. We can see this as being a symbol of any economically deprived region not because of its sociological backwardness, but because humans are, to be blunt, fairly useless commodities for the tasks they are used for. Eli Whitney’s cotton gin reduced greatly the number of slaves needed for cotton production in the Deep South of the USA and human beings became increasingly redundant in its production in the 1970’s with mechanical pickers and planters. One barrel of oil supplies as much work as twelve slaves can over a whole year and it’s not just food and water we need to work at our best, but emotional and intrinsic inputs as well. The economics of efficiency dictate that humans should only be used when machines cannot and in Africa there is certainly a lack of the latest combine harvesters and factory technology. I look at slavery the same way I do most things; if it works, it may have some merit. The problem is that it doesn’t. No prices would be affected by slavery’s elimination and moving those in slavery to the legal economy would only have benefits. Slavery is simply an issue of poverty and one that can be tackled. cogdogblog
Sharing your rights? Camilla Giusti bathimpact Writer
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Slavery: morally reprehensible and economically disastrous
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Tuesday 6th November 2012
bathimpact
Business
www.bathimpact.com
Can we do business with charity? Rihannon Fitzgerald looks at the business between the public and private
Oxfam
ing with businesses Mr Bull believes that many positive changes can be made and UNICEF to make a difference to the lives of children worldwide through modes of private-public partnerships. This view reflects a growing area of interest: the idea of businesses doing their bit to help improve society by joining up with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to fund projects. Welcome to the world of CSR – corporate social responsibility. Essentially a world where companies are concerned with how their work impacts wider society and thus they try to actively inte-
385.5m
Unilever
37.4bn
The profit margins (in £’s) between Unilever and Oxfam are huge, so is it possible that Unilever, with it’s £37.4bn profits, can help Oxfam
grate ways to make a difference in what they do. Business started long centuries before the dawn of history, but business as we now know it is new - new in its broadening scope, new in its social significance. Business has not learned how to handle these changes, nor does it recognise the magnitude of its responsibilities for the future of civilisation. Wallace B. Donham, Dean of Harvard Business School 1929 CSR is not a new concept, despite seeming to be the ‘in thing’ for companies to be doing right now. The words of Wallace B. Donham conveys the thinking over 80 years ago about the role of business in the greater landscape of society. 20 years ago, the Business for Social Responsibility organisation was set up in the US to help influence public policy and support the sustainability of businesses. And now it’s the charities that are looking to businesses to build partnerships. According to Civil Society, a leading charity watchdog, nearly half of London charities have partnered with the private sector over the last year. National charities are getting involved, too: Boots joined with Macmillan Cancer Support for 2011/12 as the pharmacy trained staff to help provide people
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usinesses produce. Charities help. Businesses make money. Charities need it. This is a pretty crude way of defining the differences between the private and public sector, but can the two come together and work in harmony? Can businesses be of benefit to others whilst making lots of money? In a lecture given at the University of Bath in October, the head of the UK branch of the United Nations children’s charity UNICEF, David Bull, talked about the growing impact and influence that the private sector has on society, both positively and negatively. By work-
Cooperation between the two sectors could prove beneficial with cancer more ways of receiving information and advice; the ice cream maker Haagen-Dazs has donated over $700,000 to honey bee research since 2008; and the international aid and development charity, Oxfam, works with the likes of Marks & Spencer, Nokia and KPMG on various initiatives. However, a question arises as to what do you do with companies that don’t have such a good reputation? Another of Oxfam’s partners is the multinational consumer goods company Unilever –a company that makes a lot of money but has also made a lot of bad press. Eleven years ago the company closed its mercury thermometer factory in India amid claims it was exposing workers and people in the area to highly toxic metals. The Building Young Futures partnership is
another contentious venture, this time between UNICEF and Barclays, another company whose reputation has taken a bit of a beating recently. Is it right for the good kids to be mixing with the naughty ones? Or should companies be given the chance to make amends? And to what extent are certain instances seen as minor misdemeanours or catastrophic mistakes? In the seemingly win-win world of CSR - where the charity gets the help it needs and the business gets some good publicity – the amount of good produced needs to outweigh everything else. To make a real difference, businesses need to really want to make a difference, not just have their image boosted as a result of getting involved. And ultimately the overall benefit needs to be for the outside world.
Inception: the economy of RPGs ers scope to generate real world profit as they can convert their Linden Dollars back into the currency of their choice as they please. Although most players use any profit made to pay for the subscription to the game, it is reported that some users make up to $5000 per month. Second Life has a GDP of around $600 million, exceeding that of about 20 countries, and added to the risk of users investing their own real-world money into the game, it is vital that the economy has some kind of control to prevent it from running into difficulties, as we have seen with so many economies around the world over the past 5 years or so. In 2007, the developers of Second Life, Linden Lab, announced a ban on in-world gambling. This was due to fears of a new US regulation on internet gambling that could have seriously affected Second Life, had they not made any changes. This ban led to a bank run, a term used to describe when a large number of customers
withdraw their money from a bank at the same time, and as a result, led to the collapse of one of the biggest banks in the game and the loss of $750,000 in real-life money for its players. In order to prevent any economic meltdowns within their game, CCP Gaming recently hired Eyjólfur Guðmundsson as the Lead Economist for Eve Online. Eyjólfur has a PhD in
Environment and Resource Economics under his belt and was previously the Dean of the Faculty of Business and Science at an Icelandic University. It could therefore be argued that he is overqualified to be playing around with online games, however, his advice and analysis of data and trends should be able to better ensure that the economy remains stable and that its
Jemimus
Alex Marshall bathimpact Writer Hyperinflation, raw materials crises and speculation on commodities aren’t the sort of things you would usually associate with online role playing games (RPGs). However, games such as Eve Online and Second Life have seen their online economies develop into something comparable to that of small countries. Eve Online sees players commanding a spaceship whilst traversing an enormous galaxy, trading raw materials, forming coalitions and banks and consequently creating massive, fluctuating markets. With over 400,000 players, it has a greater population than Iceland, the country in which the developer, CCP Gaming, is based. Second Life allows users to create a virtual avatar and quite literally, lead a second life. This game allows users to convert real-world money into Linden Dollars (L$) which in turn can be used to buy, sell, rent or trade land, goods and services. This therefore gives play-
A shuttle to the bank: some players earn $5000 a month!
users won’t lose any real-world money as a result of any financial disasters. This isn’t an entirely one way deal either. The economists are able to analyse trends and compare real life events with those seen in these vast online worlds. Studies have already found that the success of female avatars and the way that they are seen and treated in the economy loosely mirrors the actual situation in the real world. They are also using the enormous data samples they can collect to test theories and practises that would be incredibly difficult to test in the real world. This is giving economists interesting insights into real-world economic strategies that could be used in the future. With these economies growing and developing as rapidly as real-world economies and with new developments in the online gaming industry allowing their complexity to increase even further, the need for academic economists to control them is set to increase well into the future.
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Tuesday 6th November 2012
bathimpact
Politics
www.bathimpact.com
Decision Time Alexandra Egan International correspendent he American Presidential election between Democrat Barrack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney is coming to a close as on November 6th the nation will head to the polls to decide who will take office for the next four years. In Texas, a predominantly Republican State, the anti-Obama atmosphere flourishes at an ever-growing rate. On the backs of rickety old pick-up trucks, slogans such as ‘NOBAMA, I’m all outta’ change’ and ‘High gas prices? Thank a Democrat this November’, flash from every angle of the highway. Sitting round the television for the London 2012 Opening Ceremony, Texans stared in baffled astonishment as Danny Boyle lauded the NHS and cued the usual anti-Democrat rant about their socialist President. In Houston, Texas, Romney is a shoe-in for the state’s 38 electoral college votes. As ever, the “Red” contingency will supply the base for Romney’s campaign as the Deep South and American Midwest push for conservative values at a time they feel these have come under attack. As sure as they will vote Republican, Obama can count on the “Blue” states of the Pacific and NorthEast coast to secure his re-election. It is within the battleground states that the two Presidential candidates have invested the majority of their time and
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The race is far closer than we could have imagined a year ago”
money, desperate for the 270 votes. Within “purple states” such as Florida, Colorado and Pennsylvania the race is close enough that either candidate could win. The main concern for voters in such states and the primary attacking point from the Republicans is the slow pace of economic recovery, the slowest since the Second World War, accompanied by a 7.8% rate of unemployment. Democrats retort with the results of the latest quarterly growth figure of 2% and the falling of the unemployment rate. It is, perhaps, the most divisive race in modern history. For Romney, the campaign started as far back as 2008. His nomination as Presidential candidate for the Republican Party was secured over a gruelling primary campaign which saw the GOP push its candidates further and further to the right. He entered the primaries with far more money or support than his rivals, but by February 2012 three candidates stood out: Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. Santorum’s radical right-wing policies forced Romney to adopt an increasingly
conservative stance, far from the one he presumed as a moderate Governor in Massachusetts, and Santorum pickedoff with ease the vital southern states. By March, however, Romney had won enough Northern support to claim the ticket on June 26th. The transformation of Romney from a centre-right politician to a candidate pushing a socially radical and economically right-wing agenda would often be put under a spotlight and led many to criticize his willingness to flip-flop and mould to secure the vote. Obama, who had been free from the internal party split which burdened the GOP, began campaigning in September. Romney and Obama’s differing views on the likes of the economy and welfare have played the key talking points of the campaign, but social issues have also been more important than ever. Debates over abortion and gay rights have been damaging to Romney’s moderate image as he has been forced on several occasions to distance himself from radical sections of his party. Romney has also struggled to represent himself as a statesman as a gaffe-filled trip to Europe and Israel proved and his views on security have often been ridiculed as confused and inconsistent. The race between the candidate’s running mates was less focused upon than in 2008, as both sides chose fairly uncontroversial vice-presidential candidates. Obama stuck with Joe Biden as the elder politician who would guide, but not influence, the President. Romney, on the other hand, chose a running mate who, more than likely if in power, would have a key say in many economic decisions. Paul Ryan, a Representative for Wisconsin, proved to be a charismatic, educated, fiscally conservative choice that was able to add colour to Romney’s campaign, which was often criticized for being impersonal. The three televised debates in October paying a greater role than ever. The first debate resulted in an unexpected victory for the Republicans with 67% of registered voters saying that Romney came out on top after an abysmal performance from a distant Obama. However, Obama responded with a decisive win in the second and third Presidential debate as he delivered sound-bites mocking Romney’s personal wealth and foreign policy. The race is far closer than we could have imagined a year ago, but it all comes down to the economy. With two very different visions for America being fought for only one is able to triumph after a race which has proven to be one of the most exciting, most important and most divisive in modern history. As the most powerful country in the world’s Presidential election takes place, the implications of the results are all-important not only to the United States of America, but also to the rest of the globe.
365
2008
173
Ob The electoral college votes from 2008 gave Obama a decisive victory
Electoral College Comparison
235
2012
bathimpact predicts an Obama win for this year’s presidential election
Tuesday 6th November 2012
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Why it counts?
Nick Hill Media Officer su-media-officer@bath.ac.uk e should always ask the question “Why should I care?”. That is practically a rule for life. In the U.S. Presidential Election this provides quite a problematic answer. It’s not an election for a governing position here in the U.K so it is initially difficult to see more than one angle. The uncomfortable truth is that it matters a great deal who is elected. I would not go as far as Americans who insist on referring the their President as ‘The Leader of the Free World’ but certainly they hold great influence in two particular areas. 1. The Economy: So the economy is still pretty rubbish and that is a shame but it could be worse. It could be much worse and the U.S. President could be the person who drives it there. The Dollar is still the reserve currency for most of the world and when the Dow tanks the world markets tanks with it. With the Euro struggling the U.K is relatively speaking doing rather well through the economic turmoil of recent years and will probably pull through if circumstances remain the same. If however the U.S takes a serious turn for the worst I am less confident about the UK’s survival. This is not beyond the bounds of possibility as Congress have agreed to audit the Federal Reserve. This was a compromise as some wanted the Federal Reserve abolished and the GOP added “Returning to the gold standard” to their party platform in 2012. That’s the road to crazytown. Taken at a high speed. Also a bit of a turnaround as it was the
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bathimpact’s predicitions for the 2012 elections. The red states are Republican and the blue states represent the Democrats.
GOP who got rid of the gold standard in the first place. They did so without consulting the international community in 1971 and it brought about enormous problems. Right now no country in the world uses the gold standard but if the U.S. thinks that using it will protect them from other countries economic woes they should probably know that the largest gold reserves in the world are held by the European Union. 2. The military: The US has a military containing 1.5 million people. There’s a further 1.5 million in the reserves. This is quite a big number though not the biggest in the world by some way. The important thing about the US military is that the US are willing to send it basically anywhere and fund it to hilarious levels. The US spends more on defence than any other country in the world, an amount totalling more than the next 26 countries on the list combined. That means that when the bad guys of the world are finally called out on being all bad and stuff the Americans are usually the first to volunteer to send people in, Team America style. Except it’s usually 100,000 people, not the four or five in the film. Without the support of the U.S dictators might still be in place around the world. Notably on the other side, if the person in charge of that army has no experience and has a tendency towards offending other countries by accident then it is dangerous to every country in the world. Including the UK. So overall you can see, from just these two examples how incredibly important it is that the person running this country is good. And that’s why you should care.
bama’s America Romney’s America Obama may be less about ‘hope’ this time, but his campaign certainly seems to offer more for the ‘others’ of society which Romney continually disregards in his speeches on cuts, halting immigration and welfare. Obama realises the need to decrease the deficit and does not hide the fact that there will be painful budget cuts which will affect thousands. However, we mustn’t forget the fact that Obama has increased the size and role of the state since coming into power leading many to call him a Socialist and it is unlikely he will scale back many of his landmark welfare projects. Obama certainly has offered hope for minorities in the country to the great chagrin of the socially conservative and Christian Right. He has already abolished the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy which banned gays in the military and has come out in favour of gay marriage. His introduction of the “Dream Act” meant that children of immigrants could stay in the country, but he has
also deported more immigrants than any other presidency. His role on the economy has been controversial, and it is likely that some are growing impatient with his blaming all the USA’s woes on his predecessor. His administration has seen the decrease of unemployment but only at the cost of expensive bailouts (also approved by George W. Bush), but it is these welfare projects that create the largest divide between Romney and Obama. He proposes tax breaks for U.S. manufacturers who areproducing domestically or repatriating jobs from abroad, and tax penalties for U.S. companies outsourcing jobs. Obama may have seemingly lost momentum, but with a track record of successful foreign policy, some crowd-pleasing economic packages and progressive social measures has won him many friends. It has, inevitably, lost him a lot as well. If re-elected, it is likely that he will only increase the
“Believe in America”. This is the ambiguous slogan that Mitt Romney has chosen to lead his campaign on offering an image of a more united confederacy under the watch of a smaller, more efficient state. With the exception of defence, which he wants to increase to 4% of GDP, Romney plans to make drastic cuts on ‘entitlement’ programmes and welfare with aims for a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution. These moves, which will even see food stamps cut, will inevitably have a disproportionate effect on the poor in America or the “47 per cent” who Romney infamously claimed would never vote for him. Although Romney’s smaller state would see ‘values’ defined by the individual states, a Romney America would be starkly pro-life and anti-gay marriage, two issues which have had an abnormally large and divisive role throughout the campaign. Romney hopes to create a miserable environment for illegal immigrants so that
they will ‘self-deport’, but has openly stated he will increase the amount of legal immigration. It is, however, the economic situation which will be most adversely affected by a change in President. Criticism of his controversial background in Bain capital investment has led to distrust in his economic policies but he still leads Obama on the issue, even though they have often been muddled. Plans to open America up by lowering the cooperation tax, bureaucratic red tape along with the harsh cuts to welfare may make America more profitable, but it will inevitably have a greater effect on Americans. As a businessman Romney is an admirable figure, but it seems the case that the primaries steered him too far to the right. As a governor he balanced the budget, created a decent welfare system and pursued socially moderate policies, but the GOP is not looking for a moderate and so we shouldn’t expect one from a Romney administration.
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Tuesday 6th November 2012
bathimpact
World
www.bathimpact.com
巴斯光年 Tale of a winter in Bath bathimpact 作者
巴斯的冬天是寒冷潮 湿的。 推开屋门的时候，就 着昏暗暖光喷涌出氤 氲的水汽。冰凉的神 经末梢不规律地拍打 着睡意，在很多个 困倦却不能入梦的夜 晚，陪伴着我的是薄 薄墙面外传来的， 酒瓶碰撞，撕裂和嬉 笑，低音喇叭和心脏 轻微的共震，枕头里 棉花细碎的低语，木 质家具似乎还在拔 节生长的细微颤抖， 镜面里喧嚣的平行时 空，以及没人听得到 的，自己的叹息。 通往学校的道路两旁 是古老而陌生的巨大 建筑，它们倾倒向马 路，孤独又招摇。它
们在夜间张开血盆大 口，吞没岁月剥落的 速率。墙皮被长年的 阴雨泡到凸起，表面 笔直又弯曲。石缝里 生长了柔软的苔藓， 支棱出血红的野花。 城市的脉络弯曲迤 逦，每一个转角都有 不重复的风景。 后来某一天上学的路 上，冷雨变成了鹅毛 大雪。抬起头，冬日
早静止的天空像是湛 蓝的幕布，投映了教 堂的尖顶，钟楼的镂 空。多角形大片雪花 旋转着缓慢飘下，飘 过天幕，飘过高塔的 剪影，飘过蜂蜜色 伫立了几百年的维多 利亚式医院和工会， 降落在银发老人红色 毛呢外套的领子上， 停歇在金发碧眼孩童 通红的面颊上，消失
SamShort
范宇昕
在还松软透亮的积雪 中。它们飘进我的眼 睛里，我闭上眼睛等 待这冰冷的融化。 那便是我看过最美的 雪了。红色蓝色的巴 士穿梭在这个小小的 拥挤的城市清晰的脉 络里，车印在雪中留 下的蛛丝是这里生活 的痕迹。我委实已经 淡漠了巴斯亦晴亦雨 的美丽，但是这第一 场出其不意的雪，让 我的归属感大兵压境 般袭来。节日的气氛 早已像藤蔓覆盖了橱 窗。眯起眼睛来，金 黄色霓虹挂灯朦胧成 一片。覆盖着积雪的 蛋糕房和糖果店和圣 诞贺卡上画的一样， 就是多了烘培和糖浆 的热气和甜香。 伴随着Abbey传出的 钟声，伴随着音色悠
扬的竖琴，教堂圣歌 和圣诞颂歌飘在这个 小小城市的各个角落 里，像无形的丝带一 样缠绕着广场上伫立 的巨大圣诞树，点亮 横跨街道架起来的彩 灯。 我就要短暂地和这里 告别了。离开它的时 候它比与我次相见更 动人。有的时候我觉 得自己早已是这个城 市里的平凡的居民， 不再感慨于它温暖色 调的街道，河里雪白 的大只天鹅，颜色渐 变还未干燥的落叶。 但有的瞬间，我似乎 像个背包客，不经意 间发现它藏在地表之 下心灵之内的美，并 为之欣喜若狂。 它的阴霾，它的晴 朗，它近在咫尺，它 离我光年。
Μια Ελληνίδα στο κρύο βροχερό Bath: Μ
ε την ευκαιρία της εθνικής μας εορτής την Κυριακή (αν δεν έβλεπα ειδήσεις θα το είχα ξεχάσει εντελώς για να πω την αλήθεια), μου ήρθε ένα κύμα νοσταλγίας για την Ελλάδα. Σκέφτηκα το ήσυχο τραπεζάκι δίπλα στη θάλασσα, τον καλύτερο καφέ του κόσμου (a.k.a. freddo cappuccino μέτριο παρακαλώ) και φυσικά την ατελείωτη λιακάδα. Και όμως εγώ βρισκόμουν στο βροχερό Bath, αλλά σκέφτηκα την Ελληνική κοινότητα του πανεπιστημίου. Πώς βλέπουμε εμείς οι έλληνες τη ζωή σε αυτήν την πανέμορφη (αν οχι λίγο μελαγχολική) πόλη; Όπως όλα στη ζωή, υπάρχουν μειονεκτήματα και πλεονεκτήματα.. Μειονέκτημα 1.. Ο καιρός Πρώτο και σημαντικότερο. ‘Ωντας παιδιά του ήλιου και της ζέστης, η αλήθεια είναι οτι μας κακοπέφτει ο βροχερός και γκρίζος καιρός της Αγγλίας. Τι φοβερό κρύο είναι αυτό; Πέρυσι
ιδιαίτερα έμαθα δύο σημαντικά πράγματα. Πρώτον, το κρύο εδώ δεν έχει τελειωμό! Και δεύτερον, οτι μπορείς να φορέσεις όλες τις μπλούζες που έχεις αλλά και πάλι (δυστυχώς) θα κρυώνεις... Μειονέκτημα 2..Το φαγητό Οι Άγγλοι συχνά χρησιμοποιούνε στοιχεία της ελληνικής και μεσογειακής κουζίνας, αλλά όταν λέμε οτι μας λείπει το καλό φαγητό, ουσιαστικά εννοούμε οτι μας λείπει η ελληνίδα μάνα. Είναι κάπως πέριεργο γιατί η ελληνίδα μάνα όχι μόνο φτιάχνει τα πιο νόστιμα πιάτα (π.χ. μουσακά, γεμιστά, κ.λ.π) αλλά παράλληλα μας δίνει την εντύπωση οτι η κατσαρόλα δεν έχει πάτο! Εντάξει όμως, η ζωή εδώ έχει και τα καλά της... Πλεονέκτημα 1..Οι ουρές ΟΚ, οι ουρές (δηλαδή το περίφημο queuing) είναι αξιοθαύμαστες. Ποτέ μα ποτέ δεν πίστευα οτι θα δω κάτι τόσο πειθαρχειμένο και αυθόρμητο!!
Δεν υπάρχουν γραμμές, κορδέλες, αστυνομικοί ή ταμπέλες που να καθοδηγούν την διαδικασία. Απλά περιμένοντας το λεωφορείο στις 7 το βράδυ μες το κρύο και την βροχή, όλοι (μα όλοι!) κάθονται ήσυχα-ήσυχα στην ουρά που και να φτάσει μέχρι το Library δεν πτοεί κανέναν. Απίστευτο και όμως αληθινό. Πλεονεκτημα 2.. We’re famous! Κατά κάποιο περίεργο τρόπο, όταν βρίσκομαι στο εξωτερικό η ελληνίδα μέσα μου ξυπνά. Ακούω ελληνική μουσική, ψάχνω ελληνικά προιόντα κ.λ.π. Για παράδειγμα, μεθαύριο πρόκειται να μάθω να χορεύω συρτάκι. Παρόλο που σε όλες τις εκδηλώσεις στην Ελλάδα ήμουν με πείσμα καθισμένη, νιώθωντας πολύ ευρωπαία για ελληνικούς χορούς, τώρα εγώ θα μάθω συρτάκι (καλά δεν υπόσχομαι και τίποτα αλλά η προσπάθεια μετράει…) Και τώρα ένα ανάμεικτο πλεονέκτημα/μειονέκτημα..
BruceH
Ilianna Kotini μοιράζεται τις σκέψεις της για την ζωή στην Αγγλία...
Μα πως να μην σου λείπει ο ήλιος;;
Tuesday 6th November 2012
bathimpact
15
World
www.bathimpact.com
European luxury on a shoestring
bathimpact’s Vishala Ramswami takes our luxury theme and looks at the rise of affordable ‘boutique hostels’ throughout Europe
F
or a long time, luxury travel on a shoestring seemed unattainable; an egalitarian fantasy that was never to be. But in today’s post-recession world, anything is possible, including lavish lodgings and gourmet meals that are compatible with student budgets. One of the most important trends in affordable luxury travel is the advent of the boutique hostel. If the phrase ‘Boutique Hostel’ sounds oxymoronic to you, then you probably aren’t acquainted with this proud new breed of designer hostels, which offer all manner of luxurious frills for pleasantly low prices. There is even a ‘Hoscar’ ceremony conducted by the Hostel World website, which distributes awards to outstanding hostels and describes itself as ‘the biggest trade event in the budget travel calendar’. So what exactly does a Hoscar certified hostel offer? Well, the multiple-Hoscar-winning Living Lounge Hostel in Lisbon (beds from £15/ night) offers rooms decorated by local artists, a cocktail bar, free city tours and three course wine-paired Por-
tuguese dinners for a mere £7. Meanwhile, the PLUS Hostel in Florence (beds from £18/ night) offers a winter sauna and indoor pool, whilst the Rooms Deluxe Hostel in Valencia (beds from £13/ night) offers themed rooms such as the Enchanted Forest and Moroccan Riad. It goes without saying that amenities such as free Wifi and a central location are a given at these boutique hostels. But it’s not just chic accommodation that has become inex-
“
They offer all manner of luxurious frills for low prices”
pensive; the culinary world is also being democratized. In London, supper clubs have proved to be tremendously popular; as a result, the gourmand-on-a-budget is spoilt for reasonably-priced choices. With talented cooks and adventurous chefs inviting patrons to their houses for meals served in an intimate, unceremonious environment, it is now possible to partake of sophisticated,
multi-course meals for the price of a single entrée at a fine-dining establishment. For instance, £20 can get you a candlelit, three-course Brazilian meal at Clandestino’s, a ‘secret supper club’ that is reminiscent of the underground, formerly forbidden private restaurants of communist Cuba. And for £15, you can feast on whimsical dishes such as trio of soup in shot glasses, and miniature fingers of Welsh rarebit at The Shed, a supper club which charges just enough to cover the cost of its ingredients. Even Paris, that most famously epicurean capital, has begun to embrace a more accessible gourmet culture, thanks to the intervention of American chefs. Artisanal food trucks, manned by qualified chefs who use fine ingredients and meticulous methods of preparation, are all the rage right now. In June this year, The New York Times reported that the idea of gourmet meals eaten in an informal atmosphere has captivated young Parisians, causing food trucks to be become sell-out successes. Here, it is possible to sample dishes like Beef
Tartare Benedict Canapés (from the cult favourite Le Camion Que Fume Truck) at street food prices. In conclusion, if you have been laboring under the misapprehen-
sion that student travel needs to be characterized by the shabby and the Spartan, abandon the idea and plunge into this brave, new world of cut-price hedonism.
Gone are the days of packed, grubby hostels for travellers
Italy: a country of style and substance T
his famously boot shaped country has unleashed the creativity and innovative ideas of Dolce & Gabbana, Prada, Miu Miu, Versace and MaxMara to name but a few. Fashionista geniuses, to say the least, but I question why is it then that the Italian women are far beyond considered an inspiration but pivotal muses? “Religion is the opium of the world”. You would think that being a Catholic nation, Italians would spend most Sundays at church, however clothing has become just as sacred for this stylish country. Rather than a priest and best church dress, as soon as June hits, it all comes down to D&G’s finest. Beaches are transformed into high fashion catwalks with strutting parades of cloned, goddess-like sculptures. This is also an opportunity to commemorate Italian women, for there is only one bikini style in Italy: forget tankinis or swimsuits, it is all about the miniscule triangular
piece of cloth that is tied around your hips with merely string. Being such a skill, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that either scotch tape is used or it is an extra-curricular taught in primary.
This can also be noted come autumn. This is when Italian women look ahead to a vital ritual with trepidation. This nation, even with deserted beaches or a slight chill in the air, looks
Pascal
Scarlett Clark Publicity and Distribution Officer impact-publicity@bath.ac.uk
Enter into a world of style, brought to you by the Italian people
forward to the laborious task of transforming the wardrobe from summer to winter. Although, like most, I tend to use the same summer dresses followed by throwing money on latest accessories to match the weather, the Italians think differently. Why turf out your wardrobe when you can simply adapt? The arrival of fall in Britain may provoke an equal amount of conversation, yet these couture worshipers with the mention of “cambio di stagione” go through the process of airing clothes and polishing boots. Even the smallest of villages has a cobbler on hand for as little at €6. I realised this summer that nine months living away from Italy has had a dramatic effect. Before my move, conversations with the majority of my Italian straight male friends would follow the topic of fashion. Last year, Alessandro followed a strict uniform; dark jeans, Pumas, a tight fitting crisp white shirt and black ray-bans. This year, Alessandro pulled me aside, ordered me to sit down to ask me “a worrying question”. His
look had apparently changed, I looked him up and down intently knowing full well he was studying my murmuring, anticipating my reaction. From what I could tell he looked the same; dark jeans, Pumas, a tight fitting crisp white shirt minus the ray-bans. I was severely told off for not noticing his new grey scarf tied perfectly around his neck. The men too,
“
Why turf out your wardrobe when you can simply adapt”
perhaps more than the women, consider clothing a high priority, most definitely putting me to shame. Updating wardrobes is a hobby for the Italian population; supposedly they are renowned for their effortless manner to look chic. Christians follow the mantra “what would Jesus do?”. Now, entering shops, I cannot deny that I now ask myself the question “what would an Italian do”?
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Tuesday 6th November 2012
bathimpact
Science&Technology
www.bathimpact.com
Professor Science: up, up and away! Our renowned scientist explores the possibilities of us taking flight So all in all probably not an especially safe way to travel up in the air. So for all your fireworks aerial needs, let us think of a less explosive way to travel. Firstly balloons. I have seen so many TV shows (I did invent television after all) in which a character takes a handful of balloons and floats away (including a film in which someone does this with a house. I think. I may have just been high). What is the actual chance that this would work and how many balloons would you need? Helium has a lower density than air. Therefore if you confine it at similar pressures to the atmosphere with, say, a small rubber sack then the balloon will be lifted away from gravity due to the same principles that allow gigantic bits of metal to float on water. Per litre helium weighs about 1 gram less than air. An average balloon is about 30 centimetres across and therefore (4/3 π r3) contains approximately 14 litres and weighs (masses – get off my back about this!) around 1 gram. We therefore get 13 grams of lift per balloon. Meaning we need nearly five and a half thousand balloons to get our androgynous she-male European off the grounds. In one balloon that would be a sphere 40 metres
across. Or in Felix’s case one super funky really tall weird balloon! There is one other option. Birds. There are many large birds in the world – pelicans, albatrosses, condors and eagles to name but four. But we want the bird capable of lifting the most weight in order to make it easier on ourselves. Albatrosses as a family are mainly good at flying long distances on minimum effort rather than lifting things. Therefore, by means of deduction, I feel that the Andean condor is the bird most suited the task of lifted this gargantuan European. There are cases of eagles lifting tens of pounds and it is generally considered that the Andean condor could lift more than those fools if it really wanted to but it just doesn’t have the capability – lack of talons ya’ see. The condor could conceivably lift anywhere up to about 10 kilos (nearly it’s own weight!) so all you’d need is a small menagerie of condors and a cleverly engineered harness and you’re away! So in conclusion the condor wins. But make sure you don’t just capture them (they’re protected conservationally) but buy them for breeding programs and I’m fairly sure it’ll all be gravy! Happy flying everyone.
Darius Gilani
I
don’t know about you but here at the Professor Science Secret Underground Lair of Doom whenever I watch fireworks I don’t wonder how they’re made (metal salts and explosions), I wonder how many rockets I would need to tie into a bundle in order to achieve lift! The average European’s mass is 70kg giving them a weight of 700 Newtons. Let us assume we are using a lovely looking “black powder” rocket. The fuel is made of potassium nitrate, charcoal and sulphur. I can estimate that nice big exploding rockets have around 140 grams of boom that they can lift up in the air. Therefore in order to lift the average European one would need to take the large amount of explosive powder off the top of all of your rockets and then tie a grand total of five hundred ½ inch diameter black powder rockets to the feet of the weird he-she you’re trying to launch. They would then get launched 50 to 100 metres in the air depending on rocket design and possibly how much lift is lost by having quite so many rockets tied together in the same place. And then you would come down. The answer to whether or not this is good for your health is in last issue.
The many moral minefields of meat S
go into the emotive reasoning for why I think this is, but to prevent a backlash of epic mealtime proportions, I shall strip it back to the facts. I’m not even going to include the PETA cruelty and “oh but look how cute it is” facts, which did play a part in my personal decision to renounce my absolute favourite foods, but don’t have as much place in an article about the environment as the ones that follow. On paper, it appears we have more than enough land to live on. Unfortunately, as our climate is changing and becoming ever more unpredictable, these arable areas are under threat, mostly (as mentioned in a previous article) in developing countries whose economies rely strongly on agricultural exports. It has been predicted that across the whole of Africa, the combined losses of arable land may be as much as 18 per cent of the current total. Simultaneously, the growing demands of the increasingly obese developed world have been causing a change in the use of this land. World meat production has quadrupled over the last 50 years, which
means either a reassignment of land previously used for crops, or the destruction of habitats for the expansion of farmland. The US imports over 200,000,000 lbs. of beef from Central America every year, the obvious financial benefits of which has led to two thirds of these countries’ rainforests being cleared for livestock costing our planet between 9,000 to 50,000 species per year. A research team at the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Japan carried out
a study to see how the energy cost and environmental impact of meat production measured up to that of things traditionally considered to be bad for the environment, such as driving a car and leaving a light on. They worked out that to produce 2.2 lbs. of beef, the equivalent of nine quarter-pounder burgers, 169 megajoules of energy was required. You would have to leave a 100-watt bulb on for 20 days to use this kind of energy. They also worked out an estimate of the level of greenhouse MeneerZjeron
Holly Narey Environmental Corresependent o, why are you a vegetarian?” We vegetarians have a reputation of being preachy and condescending, missionaries for all the earth’s darling creatures, and yes, I have met people who throw their dietary requirements into conversation with a gleeful look, and when the desired question comes up, meet it with the same relish with which they would regard a chickpea and lentil burger. Most of us, however, cringe at the question, as equally as often are there the vegetarians who love to brag about their life choices, there are the meat-eaters that ask the question with hackles raised and eyes glaring, daring you to pull out the moral superiority card, daring you to tell them that they’re a bad person. I generally just mumble something incoherent into my quorn and try to change the subject. The real reason is very simple however; like Superman, the X-Men and Tom Cawte before me, I want to save the world. That’s right, being vegetarian could really be our salvation. I could
Delicious meal or killing machine? Beef is energy intensive
gasses released by producing this much meat. Every time you and three friends sit down to eat an average size steak each, you may as well be driving a car at 50 miles an hour for 155 miles, because both producing that meat and the road trip you could take to get it produce around 80.25 lbs. of CO2. And these fact don’t include transportation or energy usage of farm technology. Here is a crash-course in unfairness: Over 780 million people in the world do not have access to a clean water source, and over 925 million people in the world are currently going hungry. Livestock consists of, unsurprisingly, animals. Animals need water to survive. Water is essential for agriculture, and half of the world’s crops go towards feeding livestock. Each animal consumes vast amounts of crops and water to grow and fatten, ultimately producing a far smaller amount of food than was pumped in to create it. On average 21 kg of meat can be produced per hectare. In that same hectare, depending on the climate, over 3,500 kg of cereals could be grown. Phew. Done.
Tuesday 6th November 2012
bathimpact
17
Science&Technology
www.bathimpact.com
Is there life on Mars? Spotlight on... Tycho Brahe W T
Curiosity aims to further our understanding of Mars someone at NASA has a sense of humour. It has been relaying information ever since. The rover is set to remain on mars for 2 years and NASA have basically said not to get too excited; they’ll be taking their time with investigations. NASA’s curiosity rovers have 4 main goals. Goals 2 and 3, to characterise climate and
geology on Mars, seem to already be well underway. After completing a series of mobility tests taking several days the rover began its first drive on August 29th. The destination is called ‘Glenelg’ where 3 types of terrain combine giving curiosity plenty to be getting on with. This journey was supposed to take up to 2 months, so it should be arriving any day now.
However, here are a few interesting developments on the journey so far such as a mineral believed to be similar to one found in Scotland. Bringing us round to goal 1; determine whether life ever arose on mars. The latest buzz seems to be from the discovery of methane on the planet, although it is possible that methane can have a geological origin there is also possibility that the gas is biotic; i.e. from living organisms. It is potentially just a residue from long extinct microbes or could be the much more exciting prospect of current, living martian organisms: life on Mars. So far this is all guess work, theories devised by minds (and robots) much more advanced than us. But given that the project isn’t even a 10th of the way through it’s already showing pretty promising results that ultimately will lead to much more exciting things in our lifetime. Bringing us much closer to the most extraordinary of the 4 goals, the final one; to prepare for human exploration.
ogy, engineering and physics, team up with an experienced sea crew to gather data about just what goes on at the sea bed. It’s far from the easy task that is sounds! With a fashionable photo of the bright orange suit required for arctic conditions, Blondel tells a great deal of hilarious anecdotes about his adventures in pursuing scientific data. Stories flowed throughout, from imaginative techniques of catching sleep in stormy nights without braining yourself on a hard surface (strapping yourself down to your mattress and curse when you end up on your face) to saving your drunk chef from shark infested waters when he stumbles overboard with the trash, help to illustrate the co-ordinated effort to obtain data. As the surprised patrons of The Raven soon discover, lecturers delving into their subject is one of the best ways to learn about science
after undergraduate life. Not only are we lucky enough to hear about real world Physics and current research, we get unique insights into being part of such an environment. From deep sea volcanoes, tsunami risks and whale activity we also get experiences such as calculating the frequency of rough waves using how many times your head hits the boat as you are tossed from side to side. The lecture drew to a close with Blondel discussing his hopes of returning to the Artic as well as some other previously explored sites in the next few years. We wish him the best of luck for this and hope he will tell us all about it! If you would like to attend future lectures, keep an eye on the Bath Cosmos and PhySoc Facebook pages for the next events. The next lecture is due on the 6th November so don’t miss out!
“
[There is] an exciting prospect of current, living martians.”
Great sea adventures Kat Agg & Kerri Harrington bathimpact Writers t’s a quiet Tuesday evening at The Raven. Couples are cuddling up in cosy corners and friends are relaxing over pints. They are blissfully unaware of the surprise Physics lecture that is about to descend on them. At 7pm physicists and their friends pile into the pub to hear the wild adventures of Dr Philippe Blondel. In his lecture, Blondel shares his exploration of the waters that make up 70 per cent of our big blue planet. It’s frontier research: we know more about Venus which is millions of kilometres away than we do about the very bottom of the ocean. Much of our ocean is so deep that it is almost impossible to access. Instead, a variety of methods must be used to probe the sea bed, such as sonar. A myriad of scientists from many backgrounds, including ecol-
I
here are many scientists who have etched themselves into the annals of time. Some for all the good they did, and others for all the bad. But there were a select few who will be remembered not for their work, but for the rich and colourful tapestry that was their lives. Tycho Brahe is most certainly one of the latter. Brahe was a famous Danish Astronomer and Noblemen from the 16th century and, like all good Noblemen, he was a bit eccentric. For example, during his university years he got into an argument with a fellow student over who was the better mathematician, and rather than just agreeing to disagree the two boys decided there was only one logical solution; to have a duel. Tycho subsequently lost the better part of his nose to a rather sharp rapier and had to spend the rest of his life wearing metal prosthetic ones to plug the hole in his face. The actual outcome of the duel is unclear, many historians speculate Tycho lost the duel, some that he won. The truth? Nobody nose (I’m not even sorry for that). Tycho was also a pet person, having both a pet elk and dwarf that he would use to entertain guests at the many extravagant parties he would throw. Jepp (the dwarf) would spend his time
telling people’s futures as Tycho was adamant he was a clairvoyant (and as we’ve already learned he is not someone you should argue with) whilst the Elk trotted around eating and drinking like one of the guests. I’ll leave it up to your imagination which one was his favourite. Sadly for the Elk, the party lifestyle was too much and led to its (literal) downfall when it became so drunk it tripped down some stairs breaking it’s leg in the process. The elk never recovered from the ordeal. Leaves me wondering why Jepp didn’t see that one coming, everyone else probably could. The Dane’s own death also came about as the result of a party, sat at a banquet he refused to get up to relieve himself during it’s entirety because he had decided it might be perceived as rudeness. His obstinateness led to a urinal infection that shortly killed him (Jepp suspiciously also failed to predict this too), but not before he composed his the epigraph for his gravestone - “Lived like a sage, died like a fool”. Well, he was half right I guess. It just goes to show that you can still be batshit crazy and massively contribute to astronomy. Mind you, I suspect being batshit crazy is probably a prerequisite for being a Scientist. TrondheimBrykiv
hen approaching the subject of the mars curiosity rover, I’m not embarrassed to say I didn’t know a lot about it. With over 1,290,710 twitter followers (and counting) it’s fair to say that the existence of the curiosity rover is common knowledge. But for those of you who, like me, have accepted its existence, but still find the mars rover most curious, then please read on. Let’s get back to basics, the mars curiosity rover is pretty much a robot sent to mars by NASA. It’s car sized, weighing around 900kg. According to NASA the main purpose of the mission is to determine “could Mars have once harboured life?” It does this by analysing soil samples. Up until this point it was all sounding quite exciting, soil comes across as a bit of an anti-climax by anyone’s standards. The rover has multiple tactics for doing so but this is by far the coolest; it has 17 cameras which are used to identify targets, said targets are then obliterated with a laser to investigate their chemistry. It is in fact the fourth rover to be put on Mars by NASA, but it’s apparently much more advanced “dwarfing all previous projects”. Kind of like comparing the iPhone to a Nokia 3310 I suppose. Now we’ve established how it works, what is it actually doing? Well it successfully landed at 06:32 BST on the 6th of August 2012 over two months ago. The general spirit of the landing was summed up quite nicely in its twitter feed “I’m safely on the surface of Mars. GALE CRATER I AM IN YOU!!!” proving that at least
NASA
Elena Ramsamy bathimpact Writer
Mad man: “Lived like a sage, died like a fool”
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New IDEIAS Student diplomacy Roy William Cobby Avaria MUN Social Secretary
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ne of the basic skills everybody learns at Uni (apart from what we are supposed to be learning at lectures) is, believe it or not, diplomacy. Drunken housemates stealing our food, lazy members of our presentation groups who never show up in time, aggresive bouncers who will not let us get in our favourite club night. These situations require a bit of patience, persuasion and creativity; in short, diplomacy. Now, if I say ‘Model United Nations’ you will probably think about a number of increasingly boring words: politics, debate, public speaking, research and in a way, MUN does involve all of this. But it is much more.
Obviously, if you love politics, you will love MUN: just imagine becoming the US, Iran or China for a day. Nevertheless, our society is composed of people from very different backgrounds. You do not need to know the difference between peacekeeping, and peace enforcing, to enjoy a good debate. The fact is that MUN is what you make of it: a competition, a personal challenge, a way of learning about the world; a mere distraction. It can be a casual pursuit; though it is true that our most dedicated members end up having simply amazing experiences, especially attending the MUN conferences. We also organise a yearly charity event on behalf of the World Food Programme. Everyone taking part
Development means more than just throwing money at people
will be able to tell you about their incredible experiences: bake sales, fashion shows, belly dancing… we love doing different stuff all the time. This year our event is a classy black tie event where you can indulge in fine wine and internatonal cheeses. The event is on the 22nd November, so make sure you buy your tickets well in advance. Personally, I would say that the greatest thing about MUN is the feeling that you belong to something bigger than just a student society. With an organisation such as the United Nations as our inspiration, it is no wonder that we try to be as ambitious and adventurous as possible. And, additionally, we are like any other society on campus: friendly, fun and welcoming.
The Model United Nations holds many mock conferences throughout the year.
Mapping out India Sarah Scourfield bathimpact Contributor
W
ant to win a signed rugby ball, a free haircut or free shakeaway vouchers… plus much more? Then come along to our table outside the library on 19th November. We are a group of BBA third years currently doing our action
project. As a random allocated group of students, we must come up with a fund raising activity to help benefit the community in some way. The activity we have chosen is a raffle style game where you are invited to spend £1-£2 on a ‘window’ on our advent-calendar-style poster, which will be in the shape of a SarahScourfield
DFID
A new academic year brings many new challenges. Regardless of individual concerns, we will all develop in some way- in our subjects, in our sports, in our societies and within ourselves. Yet there is development in a wider context. It’s bigger than our community, it’s bigger than this country… in fact it is global. “Global Development”. It’s one of those phrases that send people into a frenzy and has sparked international debate for decades. Is it moral? Is it wasting resources? Is it the duty of the Government? Is it culturally appropriate? Is it a con? Whatever question springs to mind it is the passion of individuals that sustain this debate, from the scorn of Dambisa Moyo to the ‘big push’ of Jeffrey Sachs and Gordon Brown alike. There are countless reasons why people get involved with development. Inequality is one of the main causes of poverty and powerlessness; morally this can pull some strings. Development in terms of equity can be the result of people working together fairly, honestly and with a sense of community to improve the life chances of everyone. Not just the ‘suits around the table’ but the grass roots relationship held between the Ethiopian coffee growers, the small Bolivian co-operatives and subsistence farmers and fisherman that can be supported. Development can be about giving a voice to the voiceless. Beyond the moral agenda there is a wealth of financial motives to be involved with the development discussion. With the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China) encompassing over 25
per cent of the world’s land coverage, 40 per cent of the world’s population and hold a combined GDP of over $40 billion there is an undeniable power shift East and South. Finally with population growth being at 77 million people per annum in developing countries, and the ever growing reality of finite resources, debates surrounding Malthus’ suggestion that the bottom billion should be left to die for lack of resources is back on the agenda. Does the morality of human compassion overrule this pragmatic reasoning? Development in the wider context merges the global dimension with the individual. Cultures around the world teach different principles, different beliefs. Understanding these differences, appreciating the world around us on all its different levels comes through talking with each other, and individual development then must include an appreciation of the global world. We are surrounded by riches simply through the diversity of the student body, only by talking can we benefit from these perspectives and truly develop. IDEIA is a forum of all of these ideas. A place of discussion where anything is discussed, any issue, idea worth sharing is brought to the table. An open place, an outlet for challenging opinions and views, where the broad meaning of development is truly explored. And of course this addresses a global context, simply because we live in a globalised world and it has a lot to teach. If you want to join IDEIA, visit www.bathstudent.com to learn more about upcoming events. Membership is £4.
BUMUN
Chae Mlewa IDEIA Chair
The BBA group aims to raise money to help India
map of India. Behind each ‘window’ will be hidden prizes, where you can win big. Why is the poster shaped like India? Because the charity we are raising money for is ‘Future Hope,’. This charity helps street children in India by offering them a home, education and medical care. Your money goes a long way: • £30 will feed a child for a month • £80 will provide everything for a child: a school, a home, food etc. for a month • £120 will provide lunch and tiffin for 144 day scholars for a week. The charity is especially close to one group member’s heart. He has been out to India twice to see the children and would love to go again to see how your money has benefitted them, so please give generously.
Tuesday 6th November 2012
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Wednesday Sport with Tia Skinner A
sharp, skilled and efficient performance that is always expected to be seen from the talented squad they didn’t fail to impress the small crowd that came to watch them in the Sports Training Village. With accurate shooting and strength in mid court winning vital interceptions, the final result reflected the high efforts of the team, winning 72-36. Although captain and England player Mia Ritchie was not present on court today, she commented on her team’s performance, saying “We all thought that we were disappointed with two quarters of the performance, but the other half was really good. There were moments of brilliance and things
is still confident and determined for them to go for gold, and believes 100 per cent that they can do it like they did last year. She said “yes we have got new players but I think every team has every year, and those new players that we have, have a wealth of experience.” GA Kate McGinley also commented on her team’s performance. “Two games in three days is tough! I think we went into the game a little bit complacent today, compared to the Brunel game, but once we settled I think the brilliance came out. Obviously not quite consistent at the moment but I think that will take time as it’s a new season but we will definitely get there!” Tia Skinner
lthough the BUCS season is well and truly on its way, this week saw the Netball 1st team host their first home match of the season against Kent University’s 1st team. It has been a busy week for the reigning National Champions, playing their first match of the season on Monday away against Brunel and producing a high standard squad with missing players who are currently away with the International squad. With a convincing win on Monday against one of their hardest rivals in the division, Bath were set to further impress their opponents Kent, who are new into the Premier league this year. With a
University of Bath Netball Women’s 1st in action against University of Kent Netball Women’s 1st
Selected BUCS Results
Bath Men’s Badminton 1st
Bath Women’s Basketball 1st Bath Men’s Football 1st Bath Women’s Football 1st Bath Men’s Hockey 1st Bath Women’s Lacrosse 1st Plymouth Men’s Lacrosse 1st Bristol Men’s Rugby Union 1st Bath Women’s Squash 1st Imperial Men’s Table Tennis 1st
8-0 48-59 3-3 1-5 0-0 4-19 4-21 25-20 3-1 16-1
Bristol Men’s Badminton 1st
Cardiff Women’s Basketball 1st Brighton Men’s Football 1st Hertfordshire Women’s Football 1st Cardiff Met Men’s Hockey 1st Cambridge Women’s 1st Bath Men’s Lacrosse 1st Bath Men’s Rugby Union 1st Cardiff Women’s Squash 1st Bath Men’s Table Tennis 1st
Tia Skinner
The SA Sports Reporter gives an outline of the action from Wednesday coming through that we had pracUniversity of Bath Netball Women’s 1st 72 University of Bath Basketball Men’s 1st 74 ticed but also things that we have to improve on a lot in training.” University of Kent Netball Women’s 1st 36 London Southbank Basketball Men’s 1st 62 With a new team this year Ritchie
University of Bath Basketball Men’s 1st during their match fter securing their first win the game. in their Premier league Not only did the hosts excel in history last week the Bas- their offense, but their defence ketball Men’s 1st team were hop- also held strong, winning their ing they could make their record rebounds and moving the ball 2-2 with a victory against Lon- through court with speed and don South Bank University this skill. However, in the latter half of week and start a winning streak the game LSB upped their tempo that would hopefully set them in bringing Bath’s lead down to just the top 3 of the league. With the 8 points. With the pressure on, the squad high in numbers and hopes home side changed from a zone high after last week’s performance defence to man to man marking, it was set to be a great game in the which was enough to keep their Founders’ Hall. competition at bay and see them The initial stages of the game excel even further. Despite 2 free got off to an intense start with throws given to LSB in the final each team trying to break the score minutes of the game, Bath secured line and the ball being constantly their second win of the season turned over from rebounds, as with a strong and skilled performneither team managed to sink the ance. Player Tom Janicot was very ball in the net. But it was pleased with the 74-62 Bath that earned win and how his the first two team executpoints with ed plays at a skilfully the high executed standard j u m p of the s h o t P r e t h a t mier got the divib a l l sion. rolling H e and put s a i d them in “there front, a are a lead which few arthey maineas we have tained for the to work on, rest of the half. which we will Despite London South definitely work on for Bank’s best efforts to keep up our game next week against with the home side, they fell be- Brunel. We are hoping to get a hind as Bath’s number 8 Marc Ro- spot in the top 3 and build on our vira made two fantastic 3 pointers two wins now. For this game we that helped to further increase the kept on doing what went well and lead going into the second half of that worked out well in the end!”
A
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Women’s hockey 2s team fall short O
n Wednesday 24th October, our 3rd week of competition the Hockey club went out in force on home soil, hosting 5 of the 15 games to be played on campus. With three of the games against our well known rivals Exeter it was set to be an interesting afternoon with plenty of sticks clashing from both sides! The Women’s 2nd team were hoping to get their first win of the season after drawing last week with Cardiff Met, yet they were to face a wounded but very determined Exeter side who had incurred a heavy defeat against Cardiff University in their previous fixture. The initial stages of the game saw Exeter bounce back from their previous loss, with a high intensity and great pressure on the Team Bath defence. At every opportunity the
visitors closed down on the ball to gain ground towards the goal, making it very clear to the home side that they were not in for an easy afternoon. But despite the surge in attack Bath’s defence held up strong and equally matched their opponents with strength in tackles and skill in moving around Exeter players to clear any danger. Each side was eager to be the first to break the score line and it wasn’t long until Exeter found the gap they had been looking for in their opponents defence. A ball from the left was firmly passed to the centre of the shooting circle, to an Exeter player waiting at the foot of the goal. With a slight bounce it was pushed around the goal keeper to set the score at 1-0. With the away side a little more relaxed after taking the advantage Bath raised the tempo and began to move into Ex-
The University of Bath Women’s hockey 2s in action against the University of Exeter Women’s 2s eter’s half. With some encouraging circle. Although there was no goal played. play from the blue and gold side Bath was rewarded their first short Howse said “I thought the game Exeter had to keep on their guard corner of the game, however again was good, I think we’ve improved to maintain the lead going into the they were denied their scoring op- a lot but we still have a lot more second half. portunity by an Exeter side that to work on as a team, to work on The second half saw much of had the win firmly in their sights. in training; make our intensity in the same as the first, with pos- With the final minutes counting training higher, but we still have session interchanging between down Bath were searching for the the rest of the league to go. I think each side and the tempo still high. important equaliser that would get we have a solid mid-table position Again Exeter’s attack played a them at least one point, but Exeter at the moment.” pivotal role in ensuring their side held firm until the final whistle, With a tough fixture awaiting kept the lead, winning two con- keeping the final result at 1-0. them next week away against Carsecutive short corners that asked Captain Robynne Smith and diff University 1st team the girls Bath’s goal keeper to make crucial defender Jess Howse gave their said that they are looking to keep saves. In reply the hosts powered thoughts on the performance, re- up a high intensity and work on forward opening up a great oppor- flecting that it could have been a being committed in every minute tunity with a fantastic ball from draw but a 1-0 defeat was a fair of the game to hopefully get them the right wing into the shooting result representing how the team their first win.
Whether or not you want to grow your own moustache, you can still contribute to Movember by putting some money into the Movember collection tin that you can find at the Team Bath recep-
tion in the Sports Training Village throughout the month of November. To find out more information on Movember go to uk.movember. com
Tia Skinner
Tia Skinner SA Sports Reporter
Movember at the STV City of Bath Sport News Matthew Powell impactsport Editor impact-sport@bath.ac.uk
M
oustaches galore are expected to be arriving at the Sports Training Village here at the University of Bath during Movember. The Movember campaign is being backed by Team Bath to support the event that attempts to improve the image of men’s health. During November each year thousands of men let moustaches sprout on their face, both in the UK and around the world. The aim of the month is to raise vital funds and awareness for men’s health, with a particular focus on prostate cancer and testicular cancer. This year, Team Bath will waive the joining fee for any new members joining the Team Bath Gym in November. New members will be encouraged to donate at least some of the £25 they’ll save to Movember. Several members of Team Bath staff will also be growing moustaches of their own in November. It is hoped that at the end of the month the most impressive moustache will be shaved off in the gym.
Members of Bath RAG jump on the Movember bandwagon
This past fortnight has seen some positive results for the teams in Bath, with Bath Rugby beating Exeter 23-15 and Bath City FC marking a solid 3-1 win over AFC Hornchurch. At the Recreation Ground last weekend Bath Rugby survived a remarkable second-half turnaround to claim the points against Exeter. Early tries from Ben Williams and Kyle Eastmond gave the home team a first-half lead. However, Exeter showed all their character to fight their way back after the break, and Bath were on the ropes until Stephen Donald opened up a 23-15 lead in the last two minutes of play. If you want to see Bath Rugby in action, make sure you buy tickets (on Parade) for the LV Cup game against Newport Gwent on the 10th November at 2.15pm Elsewhere Bath City beat AFC Hornchurch by three goals to one at a cold and bright Mayday Trust Park this afternoon to record their first back to back
wins since the opening week of the 2012-13 campaign. It took just 19 minutes for City to open the scoring, with Chris Allen curling a low shot past Woolley into the corner of the net. Newly promoted side, the Urchins who had shown very little up to that stage of the game, within had equalised. With Gray beating Glyn Garner via the post. Despite this blow City continued to dominate, Sean Canham flicking a free-kick against the post moments later and on 34 minutes another set-piece dropped to Joe Burnell six yards out to net his first goal for the club. The second half failed to live up to the first as City struggled to reproduce their performance and the visitors looked bereft of any real attacking threat. To catch Bath City FC in action head down to the Mayday Trust Park on Saturday 1st December to see them in their next home game against Eastbourne Borough.
Tuesday 6th November 2012
bathimpact www.bathimpact.com
Bouncing really is good fun M
ost sports have their innuendos. Take any ball sport. They are full of balls. Big balls, round balls, oval balls, soft balls, hard balls. You ‘slap’ balls in hockey, you are told to ‘stroke’ balls when kicking to achieve the best contact and don’t get me started on juggling. However, none of these compare to the wonderful double entendre that come from trampolining. Now, you have to have many a screw loose not to know that trampolining involves bouncing up and down. This action can be construed in many different ways. It can describe the way children play on a bouncy castle. It is a perfect way to chronicle travel on a space-hopper. You can use it to interpret your joy. You may also use it to describe a rough sex session. You may think this crude, but the people who came up with the idea of calling the bouncy surface the ‘bed’, really were asking for it. Anyway, enough about guys and girls bouncing up and down on beds. This is a serious article. The Trampolining Club here at Bath is fantastic. After coming third and fourth for the women’s and men’s finals for BUCS respectively, they have some real talent. I am obviously no expert on trampolining as you could tell if you looked at me, but I can be pretty sure
that some of the routines were superb and an absolute spectacle to watch. Jumping repetitively five meters in the air is no mean feat, but doing it whilst spinning round with your ankles in your ears is a completely different story. It is truly a magnificent experience. But the main thing I noticed about the club was how chilled out it was. As there are only five trampolines and forty members, the bouncers have a lot of time to relax and talk. The number of times that I have been playing a sport and just wanted to have a break for a couple of min-
utes have entered the hundreds. Of course this is not to say that nothing happens. When you are on the bed, bouncing, your concentration levels go through the roof. One wrong move and you can say goodbye to having all you limbs intact. However I find this balance to be ideal. You have a great social time, but then you also have the intensity of any other sport, just five meters in the air and upside down. A good few p e o p l e there had been bouncing since they were small, but others were only at their second
session. Why did they join up? Because it looked fun. I can confirm that, it does look fun. Why were they still there? Because it is fun. Trampolining is a hugely social sport, allowing you to make new friends in the flashes of flashes, whilst at the same time improving your skills on a bed. This is not to mention too the multiple competitions that the club hosts and the tour to Ireland. So if you want to have some fun on a bed, learn some more innuendos or just meet new people, then why not try trampolining? It’s a great sport and a great spectacle. Elliott Campbell
Ben Cochrane impactsport Reporter
The University of Bath Trampolining Club bounce on their trampolines on Sports Day
Is Formula One really a sport? Simon Rushton impactsport Reporter
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Steve Olive Photography
ince writing several articles on Formula One in impactsport, certain members of media have questioned whether Formula One is a sport at all, so I plan to use this space below to prove them and any other doubters out there wrong.
We shall start with the basics. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a sport as “an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others.” I shall now use these points to qualify why Formula One is a sport. The main argument that people use is that the driver doesn’t do
Jenson Button driving for McLaren during a Grand Prix
any work and it’s all down to the car. This is not true at all. Firstly, the drivers are subjected to large G-forces on their heads and necks, often in excess of 3, multiple times a lap for on average an hour and a half. To cope with this the drivers have to physically train and eat a correct diet to help minimise their weight. Some of the races also happen in tropical heat conditions, take Bahrain for example. This wouldn’t be as much of a problem if the drivers could wear in shorts and t-shirts, however as they are dressed in a race suit with a fire proof under layer this doesn’t cool the body easily and they have to sit in these race overalls with only a very small amount of drink, thus quickly leading to dehydration. It is therefore clear that Formula One is an activity that involves considerable physical exertion. Secondly, there are hardly any sports in which there is no effect of the equipment be it football or rugby with the boots. Racket sports and golf are a prime example where the equipment does matter and also is essential to the success of the contestant. Of course there are exceptions where this is not the
case but then we see this in Formula One where the fastest car doesn’t always win. There is no question that the car is important, and there are certain cars that will never win a race; this is due to the resources that the team has, showing that Formula One is a team sport. Sadly it’s the case that the more money teams have the better the car is, but Formula One isn’t alone in this. Look at the meteoric rises of Chelsea and Manchester City after their respective cash injections. This season however we have seen one of the richest teams, Mercedes, underperforming and their cars are often beaten by far poorer teams. It’s not only the drivers who have to train physically and extensively on the simulators, to make sure they hit every apex time and time again. The mechanics have to train as pit stops are becoming more and more important, with 4 tyre changes needed in less than 3 seconds to remain competitive. This qualifies as practicing a skill. I hope after reading this everybody’s doubts about the pedigree of Formula One as a sport have been quashed.
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Powell’s Peeves Under budget I think not! Recently it has been reported that the Olympics came in under-budget. £377 million pounds under budget. I’m not sure if you’ve ever held £377 million (even in £50 notes) but I can tell you it weighs more than your mother! From the esteemed institution that is The Mail Online: “The overall cost of the Games is forecast at £8.921billion from a budget of £9.298bn.” That is an overall saving of four hundredths of a percent. So that really isn’t that much in the grand scheme of things. But Mr. Powell, I hear you shout, it’s still a huge saving right? Originally we gave a bid for the Olympics to be hosted in London with a budget of £2.4 billion, not an insubstantial sum, which had the potential to make a large dent in London’s annual earnings as hundreds of millions of the budget was coming only from taxes on London residents. This was raised in 2007 by the then Labour government to a budget of £9.35 billion. However, this sum was supposed to have a £2.7 billion contingency: i.e. a sum that was not assigned but was budgeted in case it was needed. It was. All but £0.3 billion was used. This means that £2.4 billion were unaccountably needed by the time that the Olympics finished. More than a quarter of the entire project was an unforeseen expense. I literally cannot wrap my limited human consciousness around how much money 2.4 billion pounds is! And not one penny of it was originally budgeted. It just got spent I guess. Tens of millions here, hundreds of millions there. Millions. Adding, over the course of the Olympics, to a total of £2.4 billion. Billion. 2.4 billion. I cannot reiterate enough, therefore, that no money was “saved” from the budget. Just that the extra over-estimated budget was not entirely reached. So yes, let us all give Lord Coe a lovely collective sloppy kiss for scrimping and saving and managing to claw £377 million back from the “budget” but let us remember, they went £7 billion over-budget in the first place. That is literally the definition of not saving money.
impactsport bathimpact photographers
Tuesday 6th November 2012
Ben Cochrane on trampolining Trampolining, Page 23
Inside impactsport Powell’s Peaves impactsport Editor Matthew Powell, tells us of the ‘incredible’ money-saving at the London 2012 Olympic Games as they came in £377 million pounds under budget.
Page 23 has the full story
Listen to the URB Sport Show If you are reading impactsport and like what you read then tune in to 1449 AM URB every Tuesday at 6pm to catch the latest sporting news, both University and national.
(Above and below) University of Bath Kickboxing in action during Sports Day on Parade at the end of Freshers’ Week 2012
Kickboxing: an awesome sport
Ben Cochrane impactsport Reporter decided that I had run out of ideas for novel sports articles and so was left to the more traditional ones about actual sport. I wanted to choose a more obscure sport, a sport that perhaps had not had the same amount of coverage as other sports. So I chose kickboxing. Why? The name mixes an already bad-ass sport with an even more bad-ass action. This turned out to be a good decision; Kickboxing is an awesome sport. For people who don’t really know, kickboxing is a martial art that utilises kicking and punching to beat the crap out of your opponent. In effect, it does exactly what it says on the metaphorical Ronseal Tin; it’s a form of boxing that involves kicking. It mixes strength, flexibility, speed, fitness, timing and the pain threshold of concrete. I went along to one of the sessions thinking that there would be twenty odd fighters, mostly male, standing around hitting each other. There were people hitting each other, but it was three hundred of them and there were probably
I
more girls than boys. It turns out that kickboxing is the second biggest sports club at University after Snowsports. But kickboxing is much cooler. I suppose you could beat someone up with a ski pole, or ram a snowboard down someone’s throat, but it doesn’t compare to doing it with a fist, knee or foot. Plus it doesn’t require snow. And you can slap people. Legally. It also appears that kickboxing is one of the most successful sports clubs at the university, winning over 300 hundred medals last year. More recently, 19 fighters from the club received 35 out of a possible 38 medals at a National competition in Swindon. The location varies. More impressively, five of the fighters came back with two or more gold medals. Now
that is pretty good. So as, you’ve been reading this you are probably thinking one of many different things. You may be angry with me for wasting your time. You may work for Ronseal and therefore be thinking of ways to sue me. You may be thinking I have no fucking clue about kickboxing. But you may also be thinking: “Oh, this sounds aggressive, I don’t want to do it, I may get hurt.” In which case read on. The club have a great philosophy that you do what y o u want. If you w a n t to fight, you can. If you just want to do the fitness, you can. If you just want to sit on the sidelines with a notepad and interrupt sweaty, muscular, adrenalinefulled fighters during a fight to
ask them why they got into kickboxing, you can. Kickboxing is one of the most popular ways to get fit in Britain. It is an intense physical workout that gets you fitter and thinner quicker than Usain Bolt doing the 100m in a Eurofighter with extra engines and you also get to release stress by hitting things. That bit was obvious to me even before I went. But when there, I noticed that people were laughing left, right and centre; it really is one big happy family. You almost don’t realise you are working out during it because you are having so much fun. You can say this about many sports, but the sheer number of people there made it so much more evident. And don’t worry if you’re a girl and worried that you may have to fight a boy. The girls beat the shit out of the boys. It’s fantastic to watch. I really do urge you just to go and try. I promise you won’t get kicked in the head. Unless you want to be. In which case seek help. It is a fantastic sport and an even better way to keep fit. Plus you learn how to defend yourself against perverts or murderers.
Wednesday sport with Tia Skinner The SA Sport Reporter talks us through some of the teams in action from the University of Bath on Wednesday 31st October. Check out the full results of the day (all information correct at time of printing). Turn to page 21 to see how our teams got on
Is Formula One really a sport? bathimpact reporter Simon Rushton tries to put to bed the claims from certain doubters that Formula One and motorsports aren’t really sports. Check out page 23
Get involved
If you are interested in sport and want to contribute, then contact the bathimpact Sport Editor Matthew Powell (impact-sport@bath.ac.uk) to find out more details about how you can get involved. We’re always on the lookout for for writers, photographers, people to lay up, or just all round sports buffs in general to help out. So, if you have a story you want to share, don’t be afraid to get in touch!
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Tuesday 6th November 2012
bite www.bathimpact.com
bite Editorial: The Eccentric T
he world is a pretty odd place. It’s full of things that don’t make sense in the slightest when you think about it, capitalism, honey badgers, Kiwi Fruit (the fuck are the hairs on that shit, I mean really?) and Justin Bieber. When I first saw a picture of him I thought there had been some horrific event involving a mad scientist, hair gel, and a haunted abortion. The reality was actually far worse. Generally I think the rather eccentric nature of the world is a good thing. For example Quentin Tarantino is one of my favourite directors (for a bite guide to cult classics see page 11) and has created, or been involved in, many of my favourite films ever, but even I would say he’s probably not all there. Then in music the weird is often celebrated as genius (although recently that’s kind of turned to shit, for clarification read Alex Philpotts’ wonderful words on the opposite page) and a fair few of my favourite musicians are a bit bat shit. Serj Tankian and Darran Malakian of System of a Down are far from the most sane people around, but they created the best metal band of the 2ooo’s and SOAD wouldn’t have been half as good if they hadn’t been as weird. It’s what separated them from the cess pit that was most generic nu metal at the time and the scene really needs something fresh now to drag it from this horrible place that bands like Bring Me The Horizon and Parkway Drive have put it. I feel like I’m getting off topic
A nibble of bite
so I’ll move on before this becomes a rant about shit music, I do enough of that here already. The point is that a lot of the time you have to be considered a bit eccentric, or completely insane at times, to push boundaries (see Nathan Hill’s article on page 10 on the fine line between genius and insanity). We should never ignore something simply because it seems alien to us. Disregarding the dangerous path such thinking can place society on, you will end up missing out on most of the best experiences in life. Festivaling from the outside seems like a ridiculous thing. If you asked somebody if they wanted to spend a lot of money to sit in a small, broken tent in an extremely muddy field that smells of vomit and regret, most likely missing the bands they want to see either because they clash, they’re too hungover and/or throwing up blood or their friends want to go and see the awful band on the main stage instead, they would probably reply in the negative. But when you’re there you don’t give a fuck. You just love being in a little world outside of society in which you can do whatever you want and not be judged by normal people in warm houses. Weird is good. Weird makes normal a little bit more horrible, if only by offering the promise that you don’t always have to do normal. There’s an alternative. If you want to go and do odd things in tents in random parts of the world then you can. When normal becomes too
much of a horrific grind you can put on a weird hat and a poncho and set off into the distance. My fantasies aside, this issue attempts to embrace the eccentric and provide you with the regular lovely stuff for your brains to consume. Modern Times looks particularly gorgeous on Page 4 and The Guide has an interview with Punk legend Chuck Ragan on Page 5. Lifestyle has your fortnightly dose of sex, agony aunts and lonely hearts on Page 7 and embraces the weirdest food and knitted goods that the internet has to offer on page 14. Fashion focuses on the best of the eccentric accessories on page 13 and shares the space with a new beauty feature. Apparently acne is related to certain organs in your body? Did anyone else know that was a thing? Finally we have a very flash and shiny new logo for mintyscore; the Hallowe’en special and Puzzles and Horoscopes finish off this lovely little issue. Guess that’s my spiel done. Read things, try and learn (not all at once, you’ll hurt your brain), and be eccentric. Ciao. To get involved in bite head over to our facebook group at www.facebook.com/bathimpactbite Or email me at impact-bite@bath.ac.uk
Have you ever noticed...
Blog of the week:
That the world is a pretty bat shit crazy place when it comes down to it. bite has and we’ve decided to point out a few instances of it for you all on pages 8 and 9. Things like how Scientology is considered okay, how awesome Azonto is and why we put our bodies through the hell that is binge drinking. Go put it in your brain.
https://twitter.com/KimKierkegaard The philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard mashed with the tweets and observations of Kim Kardashian. In Lehman’s terms, fucking hilarious.
If you do one thing this week...
Things to...
Go to see The Revival Tour with Chuck Ragan (to see an interview with him turn to page 5) in Thekla. Punk musicc given a folky, acoustic twist, definitely worth the trip to Bristol.
Watch: Breaking Bad. It’s fucking epic. The writing is sublime, the shots are wonderful and Bryan Cranston plays what is probably the best character on TV. Read: Kafka. The man was a genius and one of the most influential writers of the 20th Century. Try The Great Wall Of China and Metamorphosis, they’re only small don’t worry. Listen: Dizzee Rascal. Go back to your roots and the proper early grimey stuff. It’s good for you.
This counts as mitigating circumstances right? Best quotes from our heads
Cult Classics
“I don’t remember fighting Godzilla but that is probably what I would have done” - Bender
Find out what the bite team recommends in our list of actual cult classics and things that aren’t really cult anymore but are still awesome on page 11.
New Release:
“Bitch real G’s move in silence like lasagna” - Lil Wayne “I am on a drug. It’s called Charlie Sheen. It’s not available. If you try it once, you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body” - Charlie Sheen New series just started on BBC 2; it’s very funny
Tuesday 6th November 2012
bite
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www.bathimpact.com
Look at me! Look! I’m doing things! Alfred Hermida
written by Alex Philpotts
Although there’s a positive in that if you’re too busy wondering why the costumes don’t make sense then you’re too preoccupied to notice that the words don’t either
T
here’s a lot more to insanity than the wild-eyed and aggressive Jack Nicholson/Sarah Palin variety. You’ve got your Buzz Lightyear syndrome - that little niggle in the back of the brain when you’re standing at the edge of a bridge telling you that if you jump, maybe you’ll fly. Then there’s the abject stupidity that urges you to prod a hot plate the waiter just told you not to touch, and made millions of people pay actual, real money to vote for Jedward. The average human brain is littered with odd little quirks and wrinkles that evolution never really bothered to iron out. Obviously some of us are more special than others, and thankfully very few individuals are blessed with the gene that convinced David Blaine that shitting in a glass box for forty days was magic. But there’s still madness aplenty in the average Joe. If you want examples, look no further than the entertainment industry. Around the globe, billions of dollars are pumped into the synthetic voices of those like Nicki Minaj and Lady Gaga - people who, out in the real world, might be branded freaks for dressing exclusively in bubblegum-pink jumpsuits and bacon ballgowns, but somehow become cultural icons when paraded in front of television cameras. On the other side of the magic mirror, you’ve got the overblown reality talent shows, where maniacal music producers use the Hollywood dream to make the lower classes dance and sing like sparkly camp jesters. After even a few hours of Saturday night entertainment, you’ll begin to wonder where the producers found so many sorry souls in the first place. The answer, of course, is the obvious one. They’re fucking everywhere. Our bizarre little eccentricities are so deeply integrated into our beings that they’ve become fundamental to our lifestyles. Every individual reading this will have at some point suddenly realised they were walking in the wrong direction, and – in a magnificent ruse – checked their phone before turning around
so onlookers think they had somebody waiting for them. You clever little bastard, you. Here, have a sticker. Many of you will still adjust your walking pace to avoid stepping on the cracks in the pavement, and all of us, for no discernible reason whatsoever, chew the insides of our own mouths. Bottom line – people are weird, and like back street abortions and that one cousin we all try to keep a secret, we just don’t like to talk about it. Or at least, that used to be the case. With the recent trend of peculiar hipster fashion, and the desperately strange antics of Gaga and her peers, what used to be eccentric has become an inexplicable norm. Gone are the days when breaking social expectations was as easy as a jaunty hat or a skull-topped cane. In fact, just recently outside my home I encountered a large, wobbly fellow dressed entirely in chainmail and wielding a broadsword in one hand and a Sainsbury’s shopping bag full of iced buns in the other. A few years back, that might have been considered unusual, even disturbing, but on this occasion I simply recognised him as the LARP enthusiast he presumably was and continued on my way. If you don’t know what “LARP” means, it stands for Live Action Role Playing, and is hopefully the reason there is a Minotaur on my bus every Tuesday morning. In that kind of scenario, I’m perfectly content with society’s open-minded approach to the more adventurous sides of the human imagination, but when it becomes a gateway to allowing pretentious hipster posing, I’m not such a fan. Genuinely – to those out there who are guilty of this – how is it that when matching cheap black sunglasses to your knitted Christmas jumper and chinos, you don’t at any point thump yourself square in the nose for being such an unbelievable tool? How do you not look in the mirror and become filled with some deep sense of sadness that thousands of years of civilisation has brought us to The Only Way Is Essex, Dappy and You. Please,
look at yourself; you look like the blind love child of Ron Weasley and Screech from Saved by the Bell. Thankfully, fashion comes and goes, but yet more baffling is our tragic persistence to look on some of the far older and far less offensive aspects of many people’s lives as bizarre or even unnatural. One of the biggest controversies that continually divides opinion is the topic of gay marriage. Gay relationships are hardly a recent revelation; they’ve been around as long as heterosexual relationships and have become widely more accepted over the last few decades. In spite of this, many look on the idea of gay matrimony with distaste, an argument that generally breaks down into: “It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve”. By the way if you ever say these words in a serious sense take a hot poker and shove it up your arse then use scaldingly hot KFC fat that’s been peeled from Nick Griffin’s stomach to seal the wound. Cheers. It’s not so much an actual argument as a lazy rhyme, like if You Me at Six wrote scripture, and it flies in the face of the open-minded attitudes we take across most of our culture. Employers’ perspectives on tattoos strikes a similarly harsh discord; with getting inked still severely diminishing your job prospects despite a fifth of British adults now having tattoos. Apparently something on your skin severely hampers how your brain works in such a way that it means anything you’ve achieved beforehand becomes instantly wiped from your memory, rendering you an idiotic slob. Go figure. So it seems we’re at an odd impasse where there are areas of actual creativity and eccentricity, whilst we still celebrate those who think it’s directly related to how many garish colours you can wear at once. Still, we’ve got anthropomorphic ninja cats on YouTube, acrobatic Japanese lunatics on Takeshi’s Castle and whatever a Skrillex is, so at least there’s hope on the horizon. Just someone make Lady Gaga fuck off soon please.
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Tuesday 6th November 2012
bite
Modern Notes: The End Of Time
L
written by Rowan Emslie
et me take you to a very unusual concert. There is no roof for the quartet of performers or the several hundred on lookers to protect themselves from the rain lashing down. Many of the audience are notably emaciated, frail and underdressed but if you look a little longer you notice several larger, uniformed men sitting amongst the others. All of them came to watch the inaugural performance of ‘Quatuor pour la fins du temps’ - Quartet for the End of Time. It is January 15th, 1941 and we are in a German prisoner-of-war camp, Stalag VIII-A, near the Polish-German border. Olivier Messiaen, a 32 year old French prisoner, walks onstage to huge applause. He brings with him three other professional musicians who, by chance, were interred along with him. When he discovered the clarinetist, cellist and violinist would all be joining him in Stalag VIII-A he began to compose a series of trios for them, later adding in piano parts which he would perform himself. The instruments they used were old and damaged aside from hasty repairs by the musicians themselves - the cello, for example, had only three strings. Despite the challenging mood, tonality and incredibly complex arrays of separate time signatures employed in the eight song set, Messiaen reported that this performance was perhaps the greatest of his illustrious career, claiming “never was I listened to with such rapt attention and comprehension.” Messiaen went on to live until 1992, a hero of the avant-garde and teacher to some of the most famous composers of the last fifty years. The Quartet remains, for me, his most enduring piece of work not just for its technical brilliance and musical daring but because of the mood that it evokes. Many of the melodies were based on transcriptions of bird song that Messiaen could hear from his dormitory; the free flow and lyrical sophistication of these melodies takes you on flights away from whatever room you might be hearing it in. Parts of this work are absolutely heartbreaking. Slow and dissonant, they are indescribably appropriate for that bleak first performance and for the chaotic world at war in general. Before 1942, the allies had very few victories in the face of a crushing onslaught from Naziism. France, Messiaen’s home, had fallen almost overnight with its culture and politics seemingly destroyed as radical prejudice began to exert its influence over Vichy. Recognizing misery, even transposing misery into music, isn’t why this piece is so important. It is startlingly original in compositional terms and paved the way for almost every composer that came after. He incorporated gypsy style violin work, demanded more breadth and clarity of a clarinetist than ever before and completely re-imagined how time signatures can be employed by composers. Even as he wrote about the end of the world and the horror of Nazi occupation, Messiaen was putting up enormous pointers for future growth. There are other figures in this story. Karl-Albert Brüll, a music loving guard at Stalag VIII-A gave Messiaen both the materials - pencils, paper, an eraser - and the necessary lobbying for the piece to be written, rehearsed and performed despite obvious reticence from other figures in authority - it is worth noting that the clarinetist was Jewish. This music seemed to sit away from those conflicts. Yes, it spoke of the end of the world but not because of some human conflict, rather these lines from the Book of Revelations which were included in the preface of the score, “...the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, and swore by him that liveth for ever and ever... that there should be time no longer.” This was a celestial battle. It was something that both prisoners and guards needed to hear. Most touching of all was that it managed to unite them both in one mass, one audience, in the very depths of the war. Alex Ross, the New Yorker’s music critic, described the piece as ‘the most ethereally beautiful music of the twentieth century’ and ethereal it most certainly is. It still sounds incredibly modern and challenging while retaining all the emotional clout of high Wagnerian opera. It is a peculiar and telling mix that echoes that first audience: prison guards and prisoners-of-war sat side by side, waiting to be transported to another world, their setting and the music in front of them both perfect and horrible all at once.
SPDP
www.bathimpact.com
The Guide
Tuesday 6th November 2012
Guus Krool
www.bathimpact.com
bite meets...
5
Nicole Kilbert
bite
Chuck Ragan What was the original idea behind the Revival Tour? The original idea was to simply bring something different to the table in terms of a live show that harnessed the old energy and styles of collaboration of old-time folk showcases. Are you surprised at how successful it’s been?
Listen to the guide on 1449AM URB on Mondays at six for more information on local events
Music
Twin Atlantic, Tuesday 6th November at O2 Academy, Bristol. Tickets: £15.00 One of the best young rock bands to come out of the UK for years, Twin Atlantic round off a summer of festival appearances in support of debut album Free with their biggest tour to date. Their live shows are full of energy. Crashing guitars, Scottish accents and electric cellos, plus lead vocalist Sam McTrusty is the most beautiful man in the world. Not to be missed. Grandmaster Flash, Wednesday 14th November at Moles, Bath. Tickets: £13.20 This guy was the first hip hop artist to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the inventor of the Cross Fader (with parts he found in a Bronx junkyard) and one of the original pioneers of hip hop as a genre. This is an incredibly rare club gig and if you like hip hop / music / have any form of common sense you will be here. The Revival Tour, Monday 19th November at Thekla, Bristol. Tickets: £14 This is the 3rd year that Hot Water Music lead singer Chuck Ragan (see our interview with him on the right) has brought his revival tour to the UK and it continues to draw large crowds. Featuring acoustic performances of some of the best punk and alternative musicians (previous participants include Brian Fallon, Frank Turner and Tim Mclrath) it’s a fantastic way to hear songs in a far more intimate environment.
Comedy
Greg Davies: The Back Of My Mother’s Head, Sunday 11th November at Colston Hall, Bristol. Tickets: £22.50 Most people probably recognise him as the pyscotic head of Sixth Form on The Inbetweeners, but Greg Davies is also a staple of many panel shows and is a talented stand up comedian. In his first full tour he promises to address every single issue important to the human race. But he lies - it won’t address any. Still., it’ll be funny so come along if you can. Robin Ince: Happiness Through Science, Thursday 15th November at The Hen and Chicken, Bristol. Tickets: £12 Most famous for his work with Ricky Gervais and as a member of The Infinite Monkey Cage with Brian Cox, Robin Ince is one of the sharpest comics working today. He has become known as a science populariser and asks you to join him in a world of Schroedinger cats, multiverses and evolutionary conundrums like how to be happy and rational at the same time. Stewart Francis: Outstanding In His Field, Friday 16th November at Colston Hall, Bristol. Tickets: £18.50 The Canadian king of one liners and frequent guest on panel shows and Live At The Apollo, Stewart Francis returns to the live circuit after a successful Edinburgh fringe. You know what to expect in terms of style, but the delivery and content is exceptional. Definitely not to be missed.
It’s been a long road and my family and I as well as many friends have made a lot of sacrifices to have the tour survive as long as it has. It’s a highly expensive tour to run and coordinate and is always tough doing so but it’s something that we believe in and are willing to get our hands dirty for. There’s still a massive amount of people out there within the folk and americana communities of music who have yet to see one of these evenings. To me if there’s still people to reach and share this music and this ethic of sharing music then there’s still work to be done. To answer your question, I’m not surprised at where the tour is at at the moment because we’ve all worked very hard to get it here. After all, I measure the success of the tour by whether it simply survives the long haul and the test of time which I believe it’s well on its way of doing. One year at a time. Why do you think there seems to be so many ex-punks such as yourself and Dave Hause moving into acoustic/folk? It’s been going on a lot longer than a lot of people are aware of. Some of us were playing acoustic folk music before we ever found ourselves in the bands that some people know us from. There’s always been paralles between the two genres. At least where I came from. If you could get one artist on the Revival Tour who would it be? That list is always long and growing to no end. Craig Finn, Sara Watkins, Steve Earle just to name a few but the list literally is endless and changes constantly. What’s it been like being back with Hot Water Music and what brought you back together? My back hurts more now but I bring that upon myself! In all seriousness, it’s been great. We made a solid record with some solid people and must say that it’s the best record that we’ve even put together before in all of our years in that band. You just got off what a sensational tour with HWM, The Gaslight Anthem and Rise Against, how would you rate that experience? The Rise camp & Gaslight camp as in all of the band, crew, workers, etc. were everything and more that any fan or listener would hope for them to be. Humble, considerate and hospitable. That tour did rock and was one hell of a package but we knew it would be great going into it since we’re all friends and have mutual respect for one another. I was honoured to be apart of it and it was one of HWM’s better runs in the history of that band.
Tuesday 6th November 2012
bite
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Miss Lucy and Madam Edie
www.bathimpact.com
Our agony aunts return from their discussions of cats, knitting and whether length, width or enthusiasm is more important to answer your deepest, darkest and most personal problems in a totally non judgmental way... okay maybe they judge a bit, but at least they eventually stop laughing long enough to reply. To send in your problems, email them at impact-bite@bath.ac.uk Dear Lucy and Edie,
Dear Lucy and Edie,
I think I might be Beyonce-style Crazy in Love. But I also might just be crazy. What’s the difference? Lots of love, Ross Being crazy in love and being crazy involve pretty much the same things, so it’s hard to tell. However, being crazy is far less vomit-inducing for members of the public, so maybe try and stick to that one. People who are crazy in love scream their lover’s name in the street and from rooftops because they are so full of joy and love that they just can’t help themselves: this is hideous and not romantic in any way. People who are crazy scream people’s names because they want to stab them/ have just decided to name their invisible friend/ genuinely think Michael Jackson is stood next to them. This is tragic but amusing. People who are crazy in love get tattoos of their loved one’s name. Which is lame when they break up three months later and need to find someone new called ‘Lisa Janette Popadopolis’ that they can bear to spend time with. People who are crazy get random names tattooed on them because they are schizophrenic or just really like the name Michael Jackson. Lucy and Edie
Dear Lucy and Edie,
Whenever I’m about to have sex with a girl, I get really nervous and rarely manage to follow through. On the odd occasion I do have sex, things don’t quite work out. I’m getting bored of my five minutes of fame and want to make it last longer... Any tips? Please? Tom Tom. There are many ways to make yourself feel more at ease before or during sex. Try fun things first, like pretending your penis is a lightsabre. This could really get you in the mood and it’s a good way of letting the girl know that you’re a top-notch guy with a good knowledge of films and amazing flexibility. Or try humming the ‘Jaws’ theme tune just before you have sex. This might scare her away slightly, as that film has sinister connotations, but she’ll probably just think you’re being cute and funny. Or, for a bit of freestyle audience participation, pause halfway through nailing her and yell ‘FREEEEEEEZE. EVERYBODY CLAP YOUR HANDS’. It’s provocative. It gets the people going. Good luck young Padawan, Lucy and Edie
The Original Self Help Guide Richard North
written by bite’s Sex Columnist
I’ve been with my boyfriend for two years now and, much as I love him, the sex is getting boring. How can I spice things up? Thanks, Jess Hey Jess. It’s funny you should ask that. Actually, no it’s not. It’s lame. There are so many obvious ways to spice things up in the bedroom/ kitchen/ public toilet. Given that it’s Hallowe’en, why not try this fail-proof tip: put a tissue in your vagina, leave it hanging out slightly and make spooky ghosts sounds. Or you could try reading erotic literature to each other in bed. Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself’ really gets guys in the mood: ‘his palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy’. You see where I’m going with this? And don’t be worried about pushing yourself in new ways physically too. While you’re on top, continually spin your head around in a 360 degree circle whilst screaming ‘the Anti-Christ has awoken’. This should work. If not, at least it’ll make for a hilarious story. Lucy and Edie
Lonely Hearts Oral Practice Male languages student seeks orally extrovert Spaniard for lingual exercises Mi casa, tu casa. I don’t mind FA Disciplinary waiting to happen Footballer seeks married woman, preferably of a team mate or family member, for discreet affair. Must be: willing to accept money for abortions, abide by super injuctions and not use big words The back of my limo outside a strip bar
In dry spells it doesn’t really matter how you experience your hysterical paroxysm
T
oday, sexual practice of masturbation is considered to be an entirely normal part of growing up and learning about your body. It is practiced by most people and considered a necessity in order to avoid owning a pair of testicles the size of tennis balls. As late as the seventeenth century, in Europe, masturbation was commonly even employed by nannies to put their young male charges to sleep and the karma sutra explains in detail the best way to masturbate. However, despite depictions that may even date back to prehistoric times and early ancestors of humans, such as primates, displaying similar behavior (source: monkey rapes frog, YouTube. Viewers beware.) . Around the 18th century this behavior was considered morally, socially and medically detrimental, and was described by physicians as damaging to both physical and mental health. Dutch theologian Dr Balthazar Bekker distributed a pamphlet in London in 1716 with the dramatic title of “Onania [masturbation], or the heinous sin of self-pollution and its frightful consequences”. It contained dire spiritual and physical warnings for those who indulged in such behavior causing effects including, but not limited to, “insanity, pimples on the face, attacks of rage, idiocy and finally suicide.” The pamphlet included letters and testimonials from young men “ill and dy-
ing” from the effects of compulsive masturbation, followed by an valuable remedy available from a local shop to cure such ill effects. “Onania” was such a huge success it went on to be published in over 60 editions, being translated into multiple languages. It wasn’t until the 19th and 20th century that these types of theories, typical for the era, were disproved. In the 19th century, female hysteria was a once-common medical diagnosis in women, for which women would undergo a course of treatment involving a “pelvic massage” by the doctor until the patient experienced “hysterical paroxysm” – aka an orgasm. A physician in 1859 once claimed that a quarter of all women suffered from hysteria, cataloguing seventy-five pages of possible symptoms of the disease and describing the list as ‘incomplete’. Most believed that the stresses and strains associated with modern life caused the prevalence of hysteria, leading to a solution of the invention of massage devices, or what we would describe today as being very early vibrators. As times moved on, hysteria was considered a “catch-all” diagnosis with so many possible symptoms and is (sadly) no longer recognized as a physical/mental disorder. On the other hand, vibrators and dildos remain for anyone who fancies a bit of home remedy!
2002 Skater boy seeks ballet dancer, can I make it anymore obvious? Meet at a punk rock show obviously Totally not a dance film Woodland Court ballet dancer seeks Eastwood break dancer to step in when my partner suffers an injury. Society won’t like it but we’ll win, show them that two worlds can collide and everyone will learn an important lesson about not judging people. Must be willing to do up to 3 sequels A school gymnasium or some shit like that Intimate examinations needed Male Biology student seeks specimen female for continued study Down in the lab, late one night Suit Up! Suited man seeks young girl with daddy issues. Must like laser tag, scotch and being awesome Meet at Mclarens
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Tuesday 6th November 2012
Faith
bite www.bathimpact.com
And the mighty Flying Spaghetti Monster said ‘thou shalt not believe in false Monsters’. The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM), or ‘Pastafarianism’, is wonderfully batshit; the ‘belief’ is that people are looked over and were created by a deity resembling spaghetti and meatballs, and to be close to the FSM is to be ‘touched by his noodley appendage’. Beliefs include the idea that global warming is directly proportionate to the number of pirates in the world; fewer pirates means more global warming. Obviously, the whole thing is a joke – the creator of the religion started the whole business as a reaction to the teaching of creationist beliefs as an alternative to the Big Bang Theory in American schools, but that doesn’t stop the guy wanting to build a giant pirate ship to spread Pastafarian beliefs. So Pastafarianism is definitely batshit, but at least it’s harmless.
kyz
Scientology
nomeacurdo
Pastafarian
written by Helen Edworthy
Described on its website as being ‘not just questions, but answers’, Scientology is the bad side of a batshit religion. Firstly, there’s the fact that it seems to be based on a cosmic horror story by HP Lovecraft -- aliens set up camp on a hill thousands of years ago and their technology gets taken by man? Pretty similar to ‘aliens drop people off in a volcano and explode hydrogen bombs’. Which is pretty clever of them, considering the hydrogen bomb wasn’t created until 1954. Plus, there’s the ‘Lisa Clause’ and the fact that Scientologists have to sign consent forms when joining which say they will allow Scientology to hold them in isolation with no familial contact and put them through sinister practices such as ‘The Purification Rundown’. On top of that, a fair few have been killed under suspicious circumstances in the middle of the night after disputes with the church. Maybe just keep the Tom Cruise imitations to Top Gun costumes.
Politics
President of Venezuela since 1999, this guy is absolutely box-office. He’s a man who takes every opportunity to slag off the USA and capitalism in general, on the recent successful landing of the Mars Curiosity Rover he offered his hypothesis that life on Mars was wiped out purely by capitalism. He has been known to maintain certain aspects of his government via Twitter, boasting a respectable 3.6 million followers. His 3 millionth follower, a 19 year old peasant girl from Venezuela, was given her own house as a personal gift from Chavez. In all seriousness he has done some great work in reforming Venezuela; since he took power poverty has been reduced from 55% to 28%. Another of his policies also ensures that all TV stations must give 25 per cent of their airtime to not-for-profit community groups.
motti82
Nick Griffin
¡Que comunismo!
Hugo Chavez
written by Robert Page
I am a fresher (hurt me) and haven’t been writing for bite long and as such have so far avoided swearing in an article, but now the time has come and I could have not have saved my swearing debut for a better victim. Nick Griffin is the leader of the BNP and he is a cunt, a massive one. Leading the BNP since 1999, his achievements include holocaust denial, claiming global warming is a hoax and generally inciting racial hatred wherever he goes. His recently hit headlines for tweeting the address of a homosexual couple who won a court case against a discriminating B&B owner and called for a “British Justice” team to gather outside. Luckily BNP support has drastically fallen in the last few years so hopefully this slimy, awful man will completely fade from public life.
Tuesday 6th November 2012
bite www.bathimpact.com
11
University
Alcohol is a pretty weird thing when you think about it. Imagine a colour and a flavour and it probably exists, it’s like the internet and porn. It’s generally accepted as a response to almost anything. Celebrating? Drink. Sad? Drink. Bored? Drink. Staying up late to watch the election? Drink. It’s hard to think of something else that transcends as many different borders as alcohol, although again I feel porn is fighting hard to keep up here. Still in many ways (the XL kind aside) it does make sense. There’s not many things nicer than a nice bottle of wine and a good album. A crisp pint on a hot day by the beach is enough to bring most people to hysterical paroxysm. Then of course there’s a note pad, a pen, a nice few glasses of absinthe and subsequently a few little green fairies that tell you what to write. It’s basically how Eastern/Central European literature works, so it’s only fair we thank alcohol for that.
Motivated Models
More Alcohol
Alcohol
Umbria Lovers
written by Thomas Gane and Rachel Sparrow
Imagine attempting to explain the concept of ‘drinking’ to someone only recently introduced to Western culture: “You spend an extortionate amount of money on drinks that don’t taste particularly nice, make a fool out of yourself in front of your peers, make the occasional dash to the toilet for a ‘TC’ (tactical chunder), then wake up the next day feeling like death warmed up, no recollection of the night before, and having drunk your way deep into the dark depths of your overdraft.” Insanity can be defined as ‘extreme folly or unreasonableness.’ Well, if the shoe fits. Our feelings of woe and self pity when buried in our duvets, eau de Carlsberg lingering in the air, were even foreseen in Biblical proverbs, with King Solomon reminding us that ‘in the end it bites like a snake, and poisons like a viper.’ Wise words Solomon, kindly return to your throne and allow me to convince myself that I’ll never drink again, in peace.
Countries
There are very few countries or nationalities I don’t instinctively hate and one of those is Ghana. I have only met one Ghanaian in my life and initially his jolly, fun-loving exterior tired me, but if he was a microcosm of his nationality then he has unfortunately found in me that hidden emotion some would call affection. I have never been to the country, cared about its politics or dared to indulge in its culture, but I base this passion for Ghana on one thing; dance. Being the awkward, narcissistic human being I am, I have never accepted that I find dancing immensely difficult, but having been taught the wonders of azonto, I accept that this may well be the greatest nation on Earth. ‘So watch me do my azonto, azonto, azonto’ and for fucks sake, get your azonto on.
mariopiperni
Bad Country
Ghana
erjkprunczýk
written by Ben Butcher
So many countries do weird stuff. The Greeks smash plates, the Russians train bears to ride unicycles and we tolerate John Terry, but their exuberance is microscopic in comparison to that of North Korea and their crazy as shit leaders. Recently deceased Kim Jong-Il was the a man who, having been born under a ‘double rainbow’, once scored 18 holes in one during a golf match and whose birth was marked by a new star in the sky. When famine hit his country, his genius answer was to invest in rat farms and when the evil West claimed there was a housing problem in the country he built a fake town, a fake fucking town, near the border to trick them. In his life he never shat, coached a World Cup team and kidnapped a famous film director. I guess if your going to starve your country to death and threaten the free world, you might as well make them love you for it..
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Tuesday 6th November 2012
bite’s Cult Classics
bite
www.bathimpact.com
“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men.” Probably the most mainstream of all cult films, but Tarantino’s masterpiece is perhaps the most quotable film of all time. From the second Tim Roth stands on the diner table to, well, the climax in the very same diner, we are served the finest study of human interaction ever. Those involved easily give the performances of their lives as they shoot, dance and, well, perform intensely real dialogue to an insanely cool soundtrack. My personal favourite line: “Ah man, I just shot Marvin in the face”. If you haven’t seen this film, get in your black suit and tie and watch it.
Anyone who’s seen Afro Samurai never really forgets that they’ve seen Afro Samurai. It stars Samuel L. Jackson as a companion to the silent bat shit ninja Afro Samurai trying to avenge his father’s death at the hands of a God in a futuristic Feudal Japan with a sound track done by Wu Tang’s RZA. What part of that is not epic? It was actually rather successful in America and its sequel (Resurrection) won an Emmy, but it generally remains unknown over here except to Anime enthusiasts. It’s one of things everyone should watch at least once just for the experience, I can’t guarantee you’ll enjoy it, but you’ll definitely remember it.
This is quite possibly the best emo / math rock album that has ever been written. The interwoven guitar lines are wonderfully constructed and the soft tone is wonderful. The drumming is exceptional and the lyrics are introspective, mellow and used fleetingly. American Football only released one album (the self titled LP) and it was magnificent and they didn’t even tour it, so they are clearly a cult classic by their own making. The members went on to form the relatively successful bands Cap ‘n Jazz and Owen, but this stand out album remains a beautiful secret to a relatively small community who spend most of their time on music blogs searching for a gem like this. In this case that time was well spent.
Oh, Namco – you do have some crazy ideas. The Katamari Damancy series are a set of games where you play as a tiny little green guy named ‘The Prince’ (or one of his oddly-shaped cousins, such as ‘Ichigo’ the strawberry), rolling a big multicoloured ball. Oh, and stuff sticks to the ball... actually, everything sticks to the ball. Things like origami cranes, stop signs, children. (Children stick to your sticky ball…make of that what you will). Then, you fling the whole big mess into space. With children and cats stuck to it. Or, if you manage to get to the end of the game; you fling the whole world into the sun. It’s one big, amusingly-scored, blindingly rainbow-coloured acid trip.
I shouldn’t really be telling you this because the first rule of Fight Club is…….. You already know it don’t you? That’s because everyone has seen Fight Club, everyone has watched it once and gone WTF? at the end and watched it again and realised it’s not as good the second time. Cult is all about a select group of people bonding through their collective love of stuff no one else has heard of. We all know the rules of Fight Club so it’s not cult. However it is still more than a little bit epic. Coincidentally, I heard the martial arts teams are having a soap sale this week and are taking lipo-suction donations so get involved with that.
You won’t have heard of WU LYF and that’s the way they want it. A Manchester band whose 2011 album “Go Tell Fire To The Mountain” was one of the best of the year. Prior to its release they did no interviews and no one had even seen any of their faces. Every time they had a Wikipedia article created for them, they deleted it. You’re not a fan of WU LYF, you join their cult. Their dreamy rhythms and screeching vocals make their live shows an almost religious experience, that’s if you can even get tickets for one; advertising is not exactly their strong point. Check these guys out, just don’t talk to anyone about it, or they might delete you too.
The second the talking lips appear on the screen, you know you are in for an insane film experience. Transsexuals, muscle-toned Frankensteins and general campness may explain its popularity with the LGBT community, but the ridiculously catchy songs have helped this film become a cult classic. I honestly can’t listen to ‘Sweet Transvestite’ without tucking my penis between my legs. I once rewrote the lyrics to ‘Dammit, Janet’ for a girlfriend. She had never seen the film so it didn’t go well, but being able to transfer my weirdness into song couldn’t have happened without this film. On Hallowe’en this year, thousands will have gathered in theatres across the world to throw toast, toilet paper and rice at the screen.
Writer and director David Lynch could fill this entire page by himself. His output is focused on the seedy underbelly of America, the American Dream gone wrong. In Twin Peaks he focuses on a terrible crime, the murder of a young woman, in small town America. The investigation of who killed her and why exposes more and more secrets about the seemingly middle-of-the-road townsfolk. It’s beautifully filmed, each episode is the quality of a feature length film. In fact, many people think this series, back in the early 90s, changed television forever, forcing producers to truly commit to quality in the short format. So you can thank this gem for The Sopranos, Mad Men and Breaking Bad as well.
The masterpiece of revered director Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Ponyo), Princess Mononoke is one of the most beloved offerings from animation house Studio Ghibli. Princess Mononoke is the story of a doomed prince, a forest-dwelling girl raised by spirits, an aristocratic iron lord, and a conniving little corrupt monk. Also, there’s a big deer spirit who gets really pissed off if you try to mess around with the forest. Basically, this film is beautiful, involving violence (limb amputation by arrow, anyone?), and set in a gigantic world, the scale of which only adds to the sense of how destructive the war depicted in it will be. Also, there are talking wolves.
Tuesday 6th November 2012
bite
11
Fifty Years Of Service
www.bathimpact.com
written by Ron Morrow
B
ond is back and acting far slicker than either of his other two most recent outings. By heading back to his roots Sam Mendes has managed to keep Bond both classic and culturally relevant. Far from a close to a trilogy and much more like a clean slate and a fresh beginning; Skyfall brings Daniel Craig’s incarnation of 007 into modern times and returns him to greatness. Having thankfully forgotten all about any unfinished business from Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, Skyfall jumps straight into the action and plot, chasing bad guys and a stolen hard drive across the rooftops of Istanbul. The culmination of which being Bond’s “Death”, allowing the country to go to pot in his absence before his valiant return. Joined by M (Judi Dench), Mallory (Ralph Fiennes) and fellow agent Eve (Naomie Harris), it’s time to take down a real villain for once. Javier Bardem plays a fantastic Mr Silva who remains very reminiscent of Heath Ledger’s Joker (though thankfully the Nolan inspirations largely stop there as this is a whole lot more upbeat than the Dark Knight). Essential to Bond’s return to sane films is the inclusion of Ben Whishaw as Q and the gadgets he presents. Being only recently post-pubescent and a whizz on the computers he acts as a complete contrast to 007 and MI6’s dated ways of operating. While some may be disappointed at the lack of any really sci-fi gadgets being included, classicists will still be able to appreciate the references to gadgets of yesteryear. The real treat though is Mr Silva, who presents a bad guy worthy of the Agency’s top agent. He’s smart, just creepy enough to make your skin crawl and he trades some excellent quips with our hero. Combined with some of the back and forth between the other characters it provides the kind of light hearted banter sorely lacking from the last two films. While it’s good to see Bond finally playing as part of a team again and not just throwing an extended temper tantrum, it doesn’t stop some people from making ridiculous choices in the name of plot progression. The location of the conclusion, while admittedly being epic, is entirely arbitrary yet heavily pressed as essential. Throughout the film supposedly intelligent people make rookie errors and something important one moment is seemingly irrelevant the next. Take note though as this is both a good film on its own and a good Bond film to boot. It has all the action, the locations, the cars and the one liners to show that 007 is back on form and can still captivate and entertain an audience of all ages and types. Despite 50 years of service, Bond doesn’t look set to retire any time soon.
It’s a Fine Line written by Nathan Hill
E
xcessive peculiarity, social awkwardness, and a unique way of thinking are some of the many characteristics that insanity and genius can share. As such, can you always distinguish between the two? And do we allow geniuses excesses for which mere mortals would be frowned
Oscar Wilde: “ Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught” A motto to live by.
upon? Take the poet Lord Byron, for example. He was an immense lover of animals and, having been told that his dog would not be allowed to stay with him in his university accommodation at Cambridge, he decided to bring a bear with him instead, which he would apparently ‘parade the streets’ with. When the university questioned him about this, he highlighted the fact that the rules expressly prohibited dogs but made no mention of bears. Certainly walking around Cambridge with a bear was bizarre behaviour, but I can’t help but think that his genius (and considerable wealth) made him appear slightly less deranged and a bit more of a foppish eccentric. This proclivity for spectacle fuelled his notoriety, and he even described in a letter how he would drink from a human skull at parties, one of the many reasons for the most famous description of him as ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’. Moreover, can someone previously considered insane (or at least perverse) now be considered a genius? Was Oscar Wilde insane to write The Picture of Dorian Gray, a novel with sustained homoerotic undertones, in a time when, as Wilde later found to his cost, homosexuality was illegal? Or, conversely, was he one of the most reasoned, forward-thinking and prodigious minds of his generation? Clearly it was the latter – he was (literally) an enormous genius. And a self-proclaimed one at that; a famous tale regarding Wilde is that upon disembarking a boat in America, he told the customs officials ‘I have nothing to declare but my genius’. If you don’t consider these characters to be at all insane, for which I wouldn’t blame you, perhaps Erik Satie’s behaviour suggests that one can be both a genius and a bit of a nutter. Listen to his Gnossienne No. 1 and you should recognise it immediately. A French composer, he wrote a piano piece called Vexations which he intended to be played 840 times in succession (which would keep you occupied for around 20 hours). Even more disturbingly, he kept a filing cabinet of invisible buildings which he occasionally advertised for sale in the local papers. This isn’t all he kept in his apartment, apparently it also housed his collection of over 100 umbrellas and two pianos which were placed, naturally, on top of one another. But again, rather than make him look like a complete lunatic, this all seems to reinforce his image as an avant-garde pianist. To conclude in pathetic style, it is often not clear whether someone is a genius or simply insane, and the two tendencies probably exist to varying degrees in everyone! What is clear, however, is that the quirks and eccentricities of the people I’ve mentioned in this article enrich their owners’ lives and remind us that even geniuses are humans with idiosyncrasies – they often have rich, if unusual, personalities that imbue their works.
bite
Fashion Frugality, Thrift and Fabulous Accessories Tuesday 6th November 2012
13
www.bathimpact.com
It’s A Pug’s Life Eclectic Eccentric £15
Body With Baroque Embellishment ASOS £38
Chunky Cross Signet Ring ASOS £6
Gogo Philip Horn Link Necklace ASOS £8
Jeffrey Campbell Black Lita Studded Boots Urban Outfitters £150
written by Sophia Guilfoyle
Y
ou now have your Classic Style check list as well as knowing where to shop for vintage fashion in Bath! Next comes the most important part: ACCESSORISING. The great thing about accessories is that they are a relatively cheap way of transforming an outfit that may have be thrown to the back of your wardrobe, or a playful way to jazz up your favourite top. A little eccentricity goes a long way so look for quirky one off pieces that you can make a statement with (and gain many compliments!). I have picked out a few quirky accessories that I absolutely love! The Fluoro Cambridge Satchel is a classic bag gone crazy. It’s such a great accessory – perfect as a day bag and its fluorescent colours are sure to spice up any outfit. Disappointingly, the original comes at a staggering £115, however, do not despair – you can get knock off versions for under £40 – ah, the beauty of ebay. Whilst on the subject of ‘knock-offs’ (we are students after all), Jeffrey Campbell’s Black Lita Studded Boots are to die for, and every girl needs a pair of statement heels, right? Whilst you will have to pay £150 for the JC label, I’ve found a little online shop selling affordable shoes in the same style; Linzishoes.com is quite simply a god-send. If you want to update your wardrobe add a little flair with ASOS’ new Baroque trend. ASOS have created a style based on Dolce and Gabana’s Rococo-inspired prints, the look is centered around opulence and decadence so go for lavish materials. In fact the advice given on ASOS is “more is more”, which is great news for us shopaholics. I picked this ASOS Body with Baroque Embellishment which gives you a taste for
the baroque-esque style. This body is elegant and a little unconventional, a fabulous way to add a little eccentricity to your wardrobe. Now to jewellery, the ultimate accessory. There are so many ways you can play around with your jewellery to adapt your style. I have a few staple pieces that I wear day-in day-out that I would feel lost without. However, jewellery is a great way to experiment with different looks because you can experiment without committing to a single look. And of course a statement piece will make even the most boring outfit eye catching. I think chunky items are great; rings, necklaces – the lot. From Eclectic Eccentricity I found this pug necklace which is just adorable, it is such a wacky and unusual piece and although it’s probably not to everyone’s taste, who cares? Finally, an up-and-coming belt manufacturer Ben Hayward has recently emerged with his unisex Bengobelt collection. Found online these belts are bright and playful and are hand woven in Guatemala. If that isn’t good enough, each belt is unique as no two have the same pattern, plus they start at a mere £20! All of these featured items are very playful and a little eccentric, have fun when accessorising your wardrobe and allow yourself to be creative. Definitely don’t stay within the lines of conventional fashion – where’s the fun in that?
Bright Belt Bengobelts £20
The Fluoro Cambridge Satchel Company £115
Beauty: What Your Acne Says About You
written by Pei Kei Kan
Pei Kei Kan
Y
our skin is a reflection of your health. Did you know your face is divided into different zones and each zone represents a different internal organ? By understanding this, you can get a picture of your general health. But it’s also important to note that getting spots on your face isn’t just about what goes on inside your body, it’s to do with the products you are using and your personal hygiene as well. Ok let’s start from the top, your forehead is split into two sections, left and right. When you get acne in this area, it usually means your body is having a bit of trouble digesting the food you eat. You can help your body’s digesting process along by drinking more water to flush out the toxins and eating more fruits and vegetables. Next up, the area in between your eyebrows indicates a disfunction in your liver. So if your skin here tends to get quite red or is prone to spots I recommend cutting down on alcohol and greasy food. You can also get acne in this area if you are lactose intolerant, so you might want to cut your dairy intake. Acne around the eyes and ears are related to your kidneys. So drink plenty of water. Avoid caffeine, alcohol and fizzy drinks. Spots on your nose are connected to your heart but your nose is also prone to pores so check they aren’t clogged. You can address this by checking you are using the right products for your skin type and that the products are not out of date.
So where are your face’s problem areas?
Breakouts around your cheeks are to do with your lungs, this normally happens when people suffer from allergies or asthma and when people smoke. Even living in places where the air around you is not so clean makes you more likely to break out in this area. If you get spots on the sides of your chin, this indicates hormone imbalance. For girls, this normally happens during your period or just before. However your lifestyle also plays a big role in this, for example not getting enough sleep or not doing enough exercise can also cause acne here. Acne on the tip of your chin is connected to your stomach, which is also to do with your digestion as well. A way of preventing spots here is to maintain a healthy diet. Spots on your neck area suggests you are ill. It’s a sign that your body is fighting bacteria. Therefore there won’t be much else you can do except for drinking plenty of water. Remember even dirty hats, mobiles phones and other items that you regularly use can cause breakouts on your face, so it’s a good idea to keep a good level of personal hygiene. For more advice, please visit http://peikeikan.blogspot. co.uk
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Tuesday 6th November 2012
bite
Lifestyle can be eccentric too
www.bathimpact.com
2. Spaghetti and meatball cake. Make a cake of whichever flavour is your favourite, cover it in icing squeezed to look like spaghetti, then cover Ferrero Rocher ‘meatballs’ in raspberry sauce to completely blow the minds of your dinner guests.
3. Swedish Sandwich Cake. That was sweet food made to look like a main course; and this is the reverse. It’s made out of layers of bread; the frosting is smoked salmon and herring mousse.
1. Kidneys Biologists out there – next time you need to study an item of anatomy, why not knit it? As mentioned on US television’s Jeopardy. This is a must-have for anyone with renal failure – why not while away the hours on the dialysis machine with this project?
Robert Dumas
2. Magic Mushrooms. Interested in becoming a drugs producer? This is one for all you Pharmacy/ Coach Ed students out there. Varieties range from Bell Mushrooms to the classic Super Mario variety. A great Christmas present for your favourite addict/grandparent.
Skates and Stitches
Kathryn Ivy
5. Bacon Roses. Yes boys you heard me right. Bacon made into flowers. The basic idea is that you roll the bacon up into a flower shape when it’s cooked, but it can be taken a whole lot further…
2. Traffic Cones. Didn’t manage to score a BANES traffic cone on your last night out? Fear ye not, for you can still mark the biohazard that is your flatmate’s undone washing up with these little fluorescently coloured beauties.
Dvortygirl
Knitting sandwich
Not to restrict all the fun to kitchen dwellers, here’s the top five knitted or crocheted items of extreme eccentricity for all the needle enthusiasts (not that kind, although I suppose long gloves hide tram lines) out there. We know you’re out there, you have to come outside sometimes to buy yarn.
4. Mac and cheese meat-loaf. With Bacon. Oh yes. It’s a meatloaf, sliced in half horizontally, then sandwiched back together with macaroni cheese. Then the whole kit and caboodle is wrapped in bacon. God bless America.
Fiber Friend
1. Muller Corner XL. Do you love Muller Corners? Do you really? Do you clean out Fresh whenever they’re on special offer? Then this might be the make for you. It involves shaping plastic and a metric fucktonne of yoghurt, but it’s worth it in the end. So worth it.
Smosh
Panini Happy
Jordan Fallow
T
he internet is a wonderful invention. You can use it to oggle cats, laugh at people falling down stairs, or… do the other thing, if you get my drift (I doubt Tim Berners-Lee forsaw that). One thing I love about the internet is the amount of crazy things people have done with food mostly in America, go figure.
Pedeco
written by Lily Morris
4. Willie Warmer. Cold winter nights stretch out ahead of us – this is the perfect solution for when you’ve sprained both wrists already and your meat and two veg are in danger of frostbite. Why not declare your team colours with a blue and yellow striped number?
5. Flying Spaghetti Monster. Everyone loves Pastafarians and their friendly noodly deity, don’t they? This yarn based idol is incredibly adorable, perfect for when you have neither friends nor pasta in the cupboard. He will extend his noodly appendage of love towards us all.
Tuesday 6th November 2012
bite
15
www.bathimpact.com
Issue 4
Tuesday 6th November 2012
facebook.com/mintyfresh
Best Dressed
To the hundreds of half arsed Jokers we saw. THERE’S MORE THAN ONE BATMAN VILLAIN!
Monumental Tits of The Night
Oh great. Zombies Hallowe’en score, an interesting experience. I don’t think I’ve been forcibly exposed to that much exposed flesh or felt as in need of a shower since the time John Terry offered me a lift home. Still, at least I can now say that I’ve seen a Goblin in a waistcoat try to start a fight with a Banana and a zombie smurf make out with a cat. Also quite a few Jimmy Savilles, definitely too soon guys. Anyway, on with the show. There were some top notch costumes walking around, such as said Goblin, a very committed Austin Powers and a backstreet abortionist (complete with coat hanger, tiny bloody handprints and pram that later proved useful for pushing an unconscious friend home) and a few other overly keen people who had clearly spent a little bit too much money on their costume. The vast majority however were cat, zombie, zombie cat, zombie sailor, zombie chav, zombie nurse, zombie nun, zombie why the fuck do you think adding zombie to something makes it any more interesting? Did you think,
1449am URB 1449URB.co.uk
“Oh I’m going to be a smurf, but that’s a little bit dull. I know I’ll cover myself in cheap paint and destroy a perfectly good tshirt. That’ll make me amazing and original not a douchebag with cheap face paint/ketchup all over my face”, or was it the other way round? It’s people like you that make me hope the Mayans were right. Still, even amongst the mass douchebaggery there was a scene of heartfelt love as mintyfresh witnessed a Princess and Basketball player share an intimate moment on the dance floor. Holding each other closely, chatting and stealing the occasional kiss, it brought an odd humanity to proceedings. After about a minute however we noticed his hand was up her skirt and that kind of ruined the moment, but it was nice while it lasted. Finally, in a similar way to a monkey realising he can play with his penis, the kids learnt a new game this week. Throwing pints across the dance floor at each other. Brilliant. Have a fucking sticker.
CTV
youtube.com/bathctv
Wooo, go you. You did a topical edgy thing that isn’t offensive in the slightest. Yayyyy. Ahahaha fuck off.
Quote of the Night
“I really want to dance with this drunk guy who’s covered in cheap make up and fake blood”
- Nobody
bathimpact
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16
Tuesday 6th November 2012
Puzzle Corner
Across 3. Protagonist of J.D. Salinger’s famous book (6-9) 4. Psychological disorder characterised by a love of one’s self; based on a Greek myth (10) 7. Crazy Roman Emperor who made his horse a Consul and collected cobwebs (8) 8. Famously mad 18th century British King; (4-6) 11. Prominent Spanish surrealist painter who’s eccentric behaviour often drew more attention than his work (8-4) 16. Mad wife of Scot Fitzgerald; also a well known video game heroine (5) 19. Painter who suffered from frequent bouts of mental illness and cut his own ear off (7-4-4) 21. One of the more memorable crazy characters in Alice in Wonderland (3-3-9) 22. A recurrent urge to steal, typically without regard for need or profit (11) 23. A long-term mental disorder, involving a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behaviour (13) 24. Delusion about one’s own power or importance (11)
Down 1. Abnormal anxiety about one’s health (12) 2. Coke addicted ex-star of ‘Two and a half men’; He has tiger blood (7-5) 3. A psychological disorder which converts psychological stress into physical symptoms (8) 5. An obsessive desire to set fire to things (9) 6. Mentally imbalanced ‘The Passion of the Christ’ director (3-6) 9. Brilliant British writer and poet who was described as “mad, bad and dangerous to know” (4-5) 10. Famous eccentric who was the inspiration for the film ‘The Aviator’ (6-6) 12. Truly deranged French Aristocrat who was well known for his erotic works; Sadism is derived from his name. (7-2-4) 13. Author of ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ (3-5) 14. Transylvanian ruler who was the inspiration for Dracula (4-3-7) 15. Brilliant scientist who suffered from hallucinations (6-5) 17. A mental condition characterised by delusions of persecution (8) 18. An abnormal fear of open or public places (11) 20. Crazy Russian who thought that Sinning was the path to salvation; was also exceptionally difficult to kill (8)
Horosco
bite
www.bathimpact.com
pes
Scorpio
October 23 - November 21
Sagittarius
Stuff happens then we die.
November 22 - December 21
Paint a picture of Justin Bieber being gently fiddled by Chris Moyles while he scoffs KFC bucket, then watch it dry for an hour. This is basically what your company is like. Make it not be like this. Cheers.
Capricorn
December 22 - January 20
Go fuck a duck. Not literally, ducks are awesome, they’re the best of all the fowl, they’re adorable. But you suck. That’s the point here.
Aquarius January 21 - February 19
Bad things happen to everyone, so be a douche and then at least when they do it feels like there’s some justice in the world and I don’t tear my eyes out.
Pisces
February 20 - March 20
It could be worse, you could be Khloe Kardashian’s vibrator.
Aries
March 21 - April 20 Don’t have kids. For ours and their sake.
Taurus
April 21 - May 20
Hold a demo about nothing then ask people what it should be about because you’re an idiot... NUS horoscope sorry.
Gemini May 21 - June 20
Your face annoys me. Anne Hathaway’s face is nicer, get it tattooed on yours. Even if it comes out wrong, knowing your face hurts makes it annoy me less than it did.
Cancer
Easy
June 21 - July 21
Despite being banned for being a racist, John Terry made £900 while I was writing these and about £200 more as you read it and no one chopped his dick off either. How fucking depressing is that?
Hard
Leo
July 22 - August 22 YOLO
Virgo
August 23 - September 22
Libra
Hollister stores are too dark and it could cause an accident. Firebombs are a quick and easy way to add light to a polyester infested hole so douchebags don’t trip on overpriced shit.
September 23 - October 22 Darius G. www.gonescribbling.tumblr.com
Just stop.