Editor’s Note The New Year is famously a time for planning, forming resolutions as if somehow with the calendar’s rebooting we also get to turn over a new leaf. But let’s face it, casting way back to January 2012, how many resolutions have we successfully achieved? Or casting back a shorter while, to the beginning of 2013: how many have we already broken? Or even more revealingly, how many people – including myself – have given up on resolutions altogether? As I see it, plans and resolutions are a surefire path to failure. Nonetheless, when publishing a magazine, it seemed a little heedless to let it simply come together. So I abandoned my tried-and-tested philosophy with extensive plans to restructure Pembroke Street. News, features, opinions, creative writing. News subdivided into traditional newspaper categories: sport, culture, etc. But I soon realised that unless I wrote every article myself, my version of Pembroke Street didn’t exist. Other peoples’ imaginations do not naturally fall into a pre-formulated template. The organising boundaries dissolved in the submissions I received: a descriptive ‘feature’ about the upcoming Pembroke politics society became a more argumentative opinion piece’; a controversial ‘opinion piece’ pitch I received from an anonymous student ‘opinion’ that turned into a compellingly weird satirical fiction. If there’s one thing you can’t really plan, it’s imagination. The following pages are a wide-ranging, disordered, and (in my opinion) remarkable selection of this imaginative creativity at work in Pembroke.
Gabrielle Schwarz, JPC Publications Officer
CONTENTS REVIEW 4 food for thought: University Centre, Freya Rowland PAINTING 5 Fitzbillies, Tessa Peres OPINION 6 ‘most likely to be Prime Minister’: where did Pembroke’s politicians go? Abby Jitendra GUIDE 8 how-to: print in Pembroke, Joe Hazell FEATURE 10 Pembroke, place of poetry, Phoebe Power CURRENT AFFAIRS 12 Europe on ice: a continental’s approach, Maria Bergamasco STORY 14 the wishing well, Hannah Kaner SATIRE 17 a brief history of the Operosers,“Ernaldo Berkiss” ARTWORK 18 leaves/a mark, Matthew Clayton POEM 19 brandling sonnet 3, Harry Cochrane
Front cover image, Rupert Barton
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food for thought:
University Centre
Freya Rowland The University Centre is so near Pembroke, so let’s pay it a visit. Up you go, past the fancy Riverside Restaurant and the scary Main Dining Hall to the Grads Café. The view is amazing from up here, especially on a day like today when the rooftops and the riverbank are beautifully frosted. What to eat? For a coeliac like me, there isn’t a lot of choice, but their sticky toffee and salted caramel cake, paradise bars and lantern cake look amazing (put me out of my misery and tell me they’re actually terrible?). Let’s get a mocha and sink into one of those wonderfully comfy seats, over there, by the window. It’s way quieter up here than any of the chain cafes, but not because it’s empty; the room is scattered with people reading the paper, having an afternoon cup of tea, Skyping on their iPads. It’s got a lovely relaxed atmosphere, and I wish I could stay here for the rest of the afternoon. Unfortunately, my DoS meeting is calling me, so I’d better go, but shall we come back again next time? See you up there.
LOCATION Granta Place, Mill Lane (exit by Red Buildings and cross the road towards the river) WHAT WE ORDERED Ploughman’s salad & Mocha SOUND BITE Contrary to what its name might suggest, the University Centre is a really relaxing place to grab a coffee and serenely peer out over the river for a brief escape from the chaos of university life
Read more @ foodforthoughtcambridge.blogspot.com
NAME University Centre
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Fitzbillies Tessa Peres
(watercolour)
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‘most likely to be Prime Minister’: where did Pembroke’s politicians go?
Abby Jitendra It might sound unconvincingly routine from someone who studies politics as a degree, but man, I really love politics. I mean, I don’t love boring things like MPs discussing the ‘pasty tax’ but I do care about interesting people saying and doing interesting things to do with how we think, feel and act. And, as I write this, I think: where better to care about these questions than university? Students throughout history are famed for being politically active. Even the least politically engaged will have voracious opinions about how we live, think, make sense of the world around us. During my time at Pembroke, I can’t recall many conversations which didn’t descend into a discussion of politics; values, meanings, power. Even Come Dine With Me isn’t exempt from the intellectual scrutiny of drunken arts students. These experiences taught me how much there is to learn and showed me how many people there were to learn from and with. The constant scurrying between bed, library and trough can make us forget the wealth of extra-curricular education going on outside Pembroke’s walls. But from policy forums at the Union, to big-name talks and ‘big question’ debates, the Cambridge community provides so many opportunities for students and faculty members to get together and discuss important issues. If you’re into something more handson, volunteering for Student Community Action lets students get involved with the outside world.
William Pitt the Younger: one particularly politically active Pembroke alumnus
7 There’s a lot going on in college as well; the Ivory Tower society organises talks with professors from a host of disciplines, and charities such as Pembroke Africa Society and Amnesty (of which I am college representative, sorry for the plug) allow students to get involved effecting practical and positive change around the world. The amazing Access team are active all year round, showing sixth formers that Cambridge isn’t the monstrously snobby institution they might think it is. But while other colleges such as Emma and Clare boast reputable politics societies, Pembroke lacks a formal platform for debate and discussion. And so a friend and I are in the early stages of creating such a society. We’ll be organising talks, informal forums and debates. If there’s a politician or academic you want to hear, let us know and we’ll see if we can get hold of them. For many of us, our time at Pembroke will be our final academic experience, and so we should attempt to make use of the vast number of resources available to us. Looking back over the past year, I lament all those talks and debates I missed because work (or dinner) was in the way. It might seem like extra-curricular education is too much mental effort, but these chances slip through our fingers and rarely return. In this intellectual community, where the act of learning is valued so highly, we should remember that learning often happens outside lecture halls and supervisions. And if we can’t represent and expand Pembroke’s fervour for opinion and discussion, it is an opportunity sorely missed.
SUPPLEMENTARY READING Student Community Action www.cambridgesca.org.uk/ Pemboke Africa Society www.pembroke-jp.co.uk/africa Pembroke Amnesty www.tinyurl.com/pemamnesty Ivory Tower http://www.srcf.ucam.org/ivorytower/
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how-to: print in Pembroke Joe Hazell Print to the library from a Mac (OS 10.8) Install PaperCut client application: 1. In Finder choose Connect to Server from the Go menu 2. Paste “smb://print.ds.cam.ac.uk/DSPrint” and connect as Guest 3. Copy the a4_generic_bw.ppd print driver from the mac folder onto the Desktop 4. Copy PCClient.app to your Applications directory and then run it. If prompted to install a Java runtime, follow the instructions on screen, then open PCClient.app again Configure a printer: 1. Open Print & Fax from System Preferences 2. Click on the Advanced icon 3. Set the type drop down to Windows printer via spoolerss 4. Paste “smb://guest@print.ds.cam.ac.uk/Pem_LIB_BW” into the URL box 5. Paste “Pem_LIB_BW” into the Name box 6. Click the Print Using drop down and pick Other. Navigate to the Desktop and select the “a4_generic_bw.ppd” print driver 7. Open Terminal from /Applications/Utilities/ 8. Paste the following into Terminal: lpadmin -p “ Pem_LIB_BW “ -o auth-info-required=none 9. Delete the print driver from the Desktop To Print: 1. Before printing it’s essential to have the PCClient application running. Locate PCClient, click it to run. 2. Open the document you wish to print, when you print you’ll be prompted for your Desktop Services credentials. If you share your computer with others I recommend selecting “Until I logout” in the drop down “Remember” box
Print to the library from Windows with Firefox
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You need Windows XP or later to run this. The example here is with Firefox, but the process is basically the same for any internet browser Download Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 (x86) runtime: 1. Start downloading from http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/confirmation.aspx?id=5638 For the next steps, you will be presented with a series of prompts. 2. Select “Save file” 3. Double click on “vcredist_x86.exe” 4. Select “Run” 5. Select “Yes” 6. Select “Yes” to complete installing Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 (x86) runtime components on your machine. Download DS-Print Utility: 1. Start downloading from http://www.ucs.cam.ac.uk/desktop-services/ds-print/ downloads/dsprint 2. Select “Save File” 3. Double click on “DS-Print.exe” 4. Select “Run” Using the DS-Print Utility: 1. The DS-Print utility will display a listing of all your local printers, and others in the system. There will be a tick against printers you already have installed, if any. Tick the Pem_LIB_BW printer (under the Pem directory) 2. “Select Make changes” When you action these changes the utility will first check to see if the PaperCut client is installed, and will install it in the background if not present. DS-Print utility then automatically installs/removes the selected printers. 3. Select “Yes” 4. If prompted select “Install driver” otherwise proceed. To Print: You will be prompted for your Desktop Services user ID and password by the PaperCut client. You can also select how long you want your credentials to be remembered for. I recommend “Until I Logout”.
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Pembroke, place of poetry Phoebe Power A lot of people claim not to like poetry. They prefer novels, or music, or ipads. Poetry can be difficult. It can seem irrelevant. A lot of it is poorly crafted. But it’s surprising how much status poetry suddenly takes on when it’s an important occasion. At times in people’s lives when it really matters – at weddings and funerals, for example – poems have a starring role. And when the UK’s Poetry Society posted online the lines from Tennyson’s poem Ulysses spoken by Judi Dench in the Bond film, Skyfall, their website received a record number of hits. When people are introduced to the right poetry, they love it. The best poets communicate not only to scholars of English, but to everyone. As a student at Pembroke you’ve already got a poetry passport. Pembroke must have produced more great poets than any other college. Edmund Spenser, author of the epic Renaissance poem The Faerie Queene smiles down at us from his portrait in the hall. Ted Hughes’ animal poems glint through stained glass in the library’s Yamada Room (and Pembroke has also recently acquired a gigantic plaster cast of a pike, relating to Hughes’ love of fishing). Ever wondered about the ‘Thomas Gray’ room or ‘Christopher Smart’ room? Famous eighteenth-century poets. Even more writers were included in a book published in 1998 called ‘Pembroke Poets’, including Mark Wormald! I was initially dismayed at the long list of male names in this book, until I remembered that Pembroke only admitted women in 1984. But two years ago Annie Katchinska graduated from college, a fantastic female poet whose first pamphlet was published by Faber in 2010. Pembroke poetry past and present. Our Poetry Society is thriving, with more members on its list than ever before. Pemsoc is currently the biggest student-run poetry group in Cambridge. It’s open to everyone in the university, but its centre is here. There’s stuff going on that all members of Pembroke can enjoy: we’ve recently held two open-mic nights, which is a great opportunity to watch and listen to poetry in performance. Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy’s project ‘Thresholds’, taking place this Lent, will involve ten top poets in residence at Cambridge’s museums and galleries, and Pemsoc will be taking part in a collaborative workshop with Daljit Nagra, the wonderful poet stationed just next door in the Arch. & Anth. museum. Meanwhile, watch out for ‘The Writer’s Block’, a project headed by 2nd year Hannah Kaner, which will see a selection of new writing by students blown up into huge posters you can’t miss.
11 Buildings, people, brunch, gardens, flowers – Pembroke is an undeniably lovely college that we’re lucky to share. The point of poetry is not to be clever or obscure. The point is that it’s lovely. A line from a poem by 1st year Charlotte Chorley sums up how poetry can make us feel… our ‘moth-wing care / expiring in the air’. Whether you’re a writer, a reader, an enthusiast, or mildly interested, join in – to be added to the mailing list, email pemsoc@cusu.cam.ac.uk
HALL OF FAME
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Europe on ice:
a continental’s approach Maria Bergamasco Long before YOLO, the Romans had Carpe Diem: the beauty of living in the moment, unperturbed by tomorrow’s worries. It seems that little has changed. As the Eurozone ‘celebrates’ its eleventh birthday this January, the only certainty about its currency is that its fate is as uncertain as ever. Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain - the PIGS - have not fared well under it. Too much debt, too little economic growth, as unemployment soars, capital skedaddles, and taxes either throttle or fall through, and as ever-dithering, ever-bickering politicians fail to satisfy the demoralized people and fill the holes resulting from their fiscal tinkering. The market has finally registered that the money is Gone With the Wind, and sees the satanized Euro as singlehandedly causing this crisis; that it was foolish to expect balanced economic growth from the imposition of a single currency upon a bundle of countries so structurally different. Yet what could encourage investment, trade, and economic growth better than the low interest rate-stable exchange rate combo the Euro came with? It cheapened the cost of capital, offering to enhance the Eurozone’s productivity and competitiveness in countless ways: better infrastructure and higher education, to name a few. In the face of emerging countries growing at high rates, Germany accomplished its goal. It is now the Eurozone’s economic benchmark. Unfortunately, the rest of the Eurozone’s overloaded, aging demographic became increasingly desensitized to the economic wreck with which it was encumbering its descendants, lulled by the illusion (propounded by one-too-many Machiavellian politician) that there would be no side-effects to continually borrowing to immediately consume. As the European Central Bank bought up its own government debt by incestuously printing money to the brink of a Euro-wide bank failure, and the Eurozone continued to lived well-above its means, the age-old cradle of democracy witnessed its brainchild’s self-destruction. So much for Carpe Diem.
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Europe made so much of the present moment it forgot what it means to dream. It forgot that progress is an end in itself, but one that never ends; the closer the finish line, the further it shifts. And now its disheartened youth must keep its dreams from being stifled by a burden it did not subscribe to; it must fight against the notion that its dreams are not worth dreaming, and learn the beauty of risk. The beauty of conquering fear, of risking it all even though the outcome is far from certain - knowing that it’s your only chance, and if you don’t try you’ll never know and regret it forever. Perhaps it all lies in rejecting the petrifying idea that potential determines everything. To heck with potential - mediocrity is not just a paper grade, it’s the realization that at the end of the day you’ve still got everything left in you to gamble. Potential determines everything, but potential itself is determined by what you make of it. So with this new year, Carpe Diem: make the most out of every moment to fulfill your dreams.
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the wishing well Hannah Kaner The penny dropped. They’d told the little one to throw it down the well that granted wishes and count how long it took to fall. Wait for the surprised ‘blop’ sound as it hits the bottom of the throat. Ben had thrown one in as an example. It spun for a moment in the flat light before it surprised the swallowing water. ‘Not sure how the Queen feels about people trying to chuck her down wells and drown her for wishes,’ Ben muttered, getting bored before he’d counted to three and marching back to the house. He looked back at his sister, stomach on the wall as she leaned over it to watch the darkness where the coin had been. ‘Aren’t you throwing anything in?’ ‘Supposed to be a transaction,’ the little one told him. That’s what the owner had said. Pennies only get pennies. ‘Have to give it something the same as what’s given back.’ Ben was gone. He was always bored. Bored to pieces because of the stupid mist. It hung close and damp. The garden seemed to like it, using it to cover its wildness like the veil of a bride. Ugly garden with long weedy grass. The flower beds had given up to the winter, shrivelled into black stalks and a few straggles of thyme that the damn rabbits ate. The little one looked at the darkness, then turned on her doll, clutched in hand with scratched face and clothes that had belonged to other objects of affection. Old now. Rotting. ‘I want a new one,’ she told the well’s throat and threw it in. Then panic. She heard it splash. Not with surprise this time. Not the little ‘blop’. It sounded like glee. It gushed. ‘No, wait!’
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Feet scrabbling over the rocks of the throat and she stared into the dark. ‘Give it back!’ Reached out to the darkness through the grey light of the mist, and touched it. Screaming, little one fell straight down the throat to the watery end. The glee was closer now; it shivered up the stone walls along with her screaming and the bubbles. Doll forgotten. Only her own howls and the gurgle of cool water that kept her afloat. She couldn’t see. The blackness was more suffocating than anything else, fingering at her eyes It wanted to get into her throat. At least she could spit the water out. All she wanted was the circle of light, now itself a grey penny at the top of the shaft. The well shivered with the sharp glugging excitement of the little body and the shrill voice slipping up the throat. ‘Get me out!’ she shrieked like a banshee and kicked the water downwards like she wanted to kick the darkness. Then there was metal beneath her feet. The rung of a ladder, mostly forgotten. The top bars were rusted off, but now as the light adjusted she could almost see the others, staples buried in the earth and stone. No more screaming. She clung onto the rungs as she tried to get her breath back and could only hear that, echoed longingly back to her, longing for breath. Give me a voice and I’ll grant your wishes. At first it sounded like her own gasps, twisted as it span around the throat that led to the belly of the earth. Give me a mouth and I’ll be yours forever. Wind in a tube, whispering amongst the damp and slime of the walls. The whisper of voices calling after a little copper penny lost in the dark. The wishing well was wishing. A transaction, little love. Give me yourself and you won’t be swallowed like wishes. You won’t rot in the dark like penny bits. ‘Not yet.’ Little one didn’t know what she was saying. She climbed up, up out of the gloom into the misted brightness above her. Heads were appearing there, too
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distant and dark to look like anything but dolls even though she could hear them calling. Little one’s face was too wet to cry now. She stopped. ‘Later. Not yet.’ --The garden wasn’t as wild. Nor the dead flowers so ragged as they had been. Herbs now were set out in patches, and the thyme had been replaced by failing catnip that the frost killed off slowly. The well was still there, a mouthless throat swallowing pennies and whispers into a black stomach. It was a smart upwards column, like the spine of some silent thing standing straight against the sky. A yellow dried leaf sat fondled in her lap, too wet to crack yet with her fingers, because the melted frost had soaked it through. It was bright in the sunlight, and red veins ran through it like blood. A soft sunset. The same caressing hand touched the crumbling stones of the wishing well, thinking on its ‘forever’. It sat, silent still, and waiting. ‘Not yet,’ she said. She tossed in the leaf and it spun for a moment in the light, looking almost like a penny. It took a little longer for the dark to swallow. The older one watched it spin and counted for the soft touch on the water. It would float like she did, then rot. The doll would have sunk, but again, it would have rotted like wishes. She smiled as she counted and wished for spring.
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a brief history of the Operosers
“Ernaldo Berkiss”
The story of their founding may be shrouded in the mists of time, but what it means to be an Operoser is immutable. Their name is believed to have originated from the Latin operosus - ‘industrious’ - the defining quality of an Operoser. Their sober motto – per studio ad magnificentiae – reflects their shared experiences in pursuit of academic elegance, which bind them into a veritable brotherhood. The Operosers prize fine conversation as the window to fine thoughts: only the most eloquent oollege members are invited to join. Initiation requires a presentation to a symposium on a point of acute academic interest, while fielding destabilising questions from current members. Successful initiates receive a formal marker of their membership: an Operoser pen. This they must use to record their initiation for posterity. The maroon and gold of this prized possession can be seen glinting from the pocket of every proud Operoser; certainly the finest work ever produced by Pembroke students was written with an Operoser pen. Though academic to the core, the Operosers also operate at the centre of college social life. In addition to their celebrated college bar symposiums, the Operosers delightfully conclude the year with their renownedly classy - and generously notfor-profit - May Week garden party. They pride themselves on their anarcho-democratic affiliation, fraternising without appeal to hierarchy or tradition. Their progressivism has frequently placed them at the fore of the college’s modernisation, most significantly and successfully with their tireless campaign for women to be admitted to Pembroke. They renew celebrations of this advancement annually by inviting the most intellectually intriguing first-year girls to dine with them. With all that the Operosers contribute to college life, it is fanciful to imagine Pembroke without them.
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leaves/a mark Matthew Clayton
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brandling sonnet 3
Harry Cochrane
You dressed as Aragorn for muck-up day. The broken blade restored on Amazon For a price only ‘last of ’s could justify; The White Tree emblazoned By your own dwarfish hand; the wig’s frozen Channel scored down your skull: all proof Of rightful kingship. And you were our chosen King as we marched on the Black Gate to life. And here we return, your throat and liver Threshing acres, the cull of the crop Such stuff as dreams are made on. Reiver, Your resurrection and your life is hops And barley coupling in the unshallow Drinking horn you’re busy making hollow.
To get involved in the next issue, email gs442@cam.ac.uk