COBALT March 15

BLUE SKY THINKING

WRITING ART PHOTOGRAPHY COMMENT 4D CINEMA SIA - ELASTIC HEART COCKTAILS IN LEAM TURNER PRIZE 1

MAR 15

ISSUE 3 CONTENTS

Contributors 004 Editorial 005 4DX Cinema experience 006-008 “Nocturnal” 009 How To Annoy Your Wife 010-011

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“Suspension” 012-013 Crawlin’ - cocktail bar crawl 014-015 “11 months and 5 days” 016-17 Flash fictions 018-019

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Easter cupcakes recipe 020-021 Life, Deatjh, and What Comes 022-023 Next “Do Not Touch” 024-25

Cover image from pexels.com (CC0 license)

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Sia’s Elastic Heart 026-27

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Photography - ‘light’ 028-033

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The Wrong Side of Warm 034-035 Turner Prize 2014 036-037 “Us” and “Cities in Sunlight” 038-039 Cards On The Table 040-041 Football Manager review 042-044 These Heels 045 For The Journey 046-047

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Student bloggers 048-055 Flowers and Gold, Girls and 056-057 Stars “Water Cannot Drown” 058-059

All images reused with permission of owner or licensed for reuse

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CONTRIBUTORS

Ahlam Al-Abbasi • Tolu Alabi • Gemma Albin • Sofia Benincasa • Amy Brandis • Abi Browning • Monica Bv • Hannah Campling • Hannah Froggatt • Sam Fry • Katie Hall • Jamie Hardwick • Eleanor Hastings • Hebe Hewitt • Ellen Lavelle • Harry Puttock • Licy Rihardson • Jonella Vidal • Radu C Vlad • Zoe Wilkinson • Jonny Young

EDITORIAL T he other day, a Facebook notification popped up on

my phone. It said that Cobalt Magazine was celebrating its first birthday; we started in February 2014 and now it’s over a whole year later. I couldn’t have imagined when the magazine was founded just how far we would go in such a short time. We’ve taken on editors, designers, photographers, we’ve become a society, we’ve grown our base of contributors to over fifty, and all the while we’ve consistently produced a full magazine each and every term.

We have also just finished our executive elections for next year, and (not to sound too gushy) I was genuinely moved by the number of people who sent in manifestos, wanting to get more involved with our magazine. The future is bright for this little blue publication,

and I can’t wait to work with Hannah (secretary), Kristen (treasurer), Hebe (media and publicity), Katie (welfare), Abi (media and publicity), Sofia (social secretary), and Gemma (photographer) this coming year! Also, a big thank you to my fantastic editing team, as well as the current exec!

Iourssuewidest 3 has, in my opinion, variety of content

yet. We have the usual highcalibre creative writing, but this time we’ve also got accompanying artwork and a range of formats, from longer prose pieces to flash fiction and poetry. There’s also writing on the 2014 Turner Prize alongside a cocktail bar crawl in Leamington Spa, as well as music video and gaming reviews. In this issue, we also shine a spotlight on a handful of Warwick’s student bloggers; their amazing

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content ranges from food to fashion to gaming and movies. And it wouldn’t be Cobalt Magazine without a delicious recipe – this time, it’s Easter cupcakes!

As editor and president, it’s always amazing to have people approach the magazine with something new, but what has really impressed me with this issue is the number of contributors who are trying something new. We have reviewers trying their hand at creative writing – we have short story writers doing their own illustrations.

We also have a number of new contributors, sending in content for the first time, which is always fantastic!

So enjoy reading, enjoy the Easter break, and we’ll see you on the other side…

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Are we on the edge of a revolution in cinema?

A first hand review of the UK’s first 4DX cinema (‘2D 4DX Kingsman: The Secret Service’ 31st January. Cineworld, Milton Keynes).

Abi Browning

…Or are we just about to be bombarded with the next gimmick in a desperate attempt to reinvigorate the cinema industry after a decline in ticket sales? Unfortunately, after being in one of the first commercial seats for MK’s 4DX screening of Kingsman: The Secret Service, I am drawn towards the more pessimistic outlook on this new venture. I have been to one or two IMAX cinemas, often because my family panics about not being able to purchase tickets for premiere viewings of The Hobbit if they were to leave it another few weeks! I have my father’s impeccable organization skills to thank for my experience of a range of cinemas when we try out some of the crazes. This new wave of cinema-going fads promises to enhance viewing by surrounding cinema goers in the five senses: water, wind, movement, scent and light. Personally, I find 3D a distraction; the glasses are still not at a design level where they sit comfortably and don’t give me a headache during a perfectly good film. The screens at the IMAX in London are large and fancy, but is bigger always better?

That is what came to mind when I was sitting through the new ‘Colin Firth does the gentleman-spyspoof ’ film. Bigger seats, larger foot rests and, again, a huge screen billed as “bigger than a double decker bus” by the MK Citizen article. The ‘experience’ you pay extra for includes being hoisted up into a higher seat, rocked about in rows of four, pummeled in the back, smoked out, sprayed with water from the seat in front and blasted with jets of stale air from all angles. I would also

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like to mention the ‘scents’ which pretty much include: coffee (yes, coffee. And why?), some sweet candy smell, smoke, burning, gun powder, and a flowery meadow smell that reminded me of my Nan’s perfume. In short, the smells dispensed around the room are limited and sickening because they linger or, for some viewers, are even nonexistent.

So the ‘scent’ element of this 4DX cinema was rather hit and miss, but the ‘motion’ sense was certainly more hit for a 5’ 3’’ student! At seemingly random moments in action scenes, when characters in the film were in various transportation vehicles, I was being spouted with high pressure air blasts that shot past each of my ears, at my face and, more disconcertingly, behind the back of my knees. Now, I’m not easily freaked out, I love a jumpy horror film or a creepy psychological thriller and anyone who knows me will be aware of my love of rollercoasters too!

However, when I settle down to enjoy a film, even a tongue in cheek action movie about British spies and world domination, I want to be left alone to enjoy it. I like the challenge of filling in the sensory gaps with my imagination and, quite frankly, I think it shows the talent of the screenplay and directing if the film viewing experience is engaging and stimulating. The screening at MK’s Cineworld distracted more from this enjoyment and the invasive movement and ‘sensory stimulation’ really detracted from my love of going to the cinema. Like the practical issues related to 3D glasses or IMAX screens that are so big your eyes can’t actually take in all the immense picture at once,

the tacky reality of 4DX is a detriment to the experience.

It wasn’t all terrible though, in fact I managed to ignore the movement and random ‘lighting’ bursts at some points in the action. Yet, more often than not, I found myself thinking: “what position am I supposed to be experiencing here? Am I inside the helicopter that I am currently watching land? Am I supposed to be feeling the shaking of the taxi that the camera is showing as it pulls up on the street ten feet away?” These mental musings do not really add to the feeling of being inside the action, nor do they add to the joy that comes with immersing yourself inside the film which is why I choose to go to a classic cinema with dark lighting control and a good sized screen that is not on the other side of the coffee table in my lounge.

Like many innovations 4DX cinema has divided viewers. Some people think that it is great and really adds to an action film. Some critics have labeled it as another trend that has arisen from competing with online and home cinema or with the technological advancements of other countries (Korea had 4DX cinemas in 2009 and now they are being introduced to Britain at a higher ticket price than simple 3D or the old fashioned 2D).

Personally, I think it is a gimmick.

Like 3D, I think that it will decline in popularity over the next few years. Although I do enjoy a bit of drama and an adrenaline kick, I will leave the former to the creative powers of filming and the latter to trips to the theme park. I am more than happy to separate the two experiences as I don’t see this 4DX seating adding to my love of film.

I recommend people try out these new screens to see what they think, particularly with the great looking action films coming out this year and since there are many more 4DX screens being introduced to UK cinemas. However, after one viewing I will not be rushing back to have my five senses rudely ‘stimulated’ and jolted while I attempt to engage in a new release.

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nocturnal a poem by

Radu C Vlad

i cannot describe what i felt when i saw you. i will not try so please let this suffice. my heart did not leap out of my sorry chest my eyes did not cease their pain at the sight of you. i kept at my cigarette each puff a dagger down my throat and i acted like you were one of the sorry multitude. your aura transformed me into a caged jaguar. my emotions aggressive my lips raw i gnawed at your air as if it were meat. i did not digest your advent any more than your first word which i cannot remember. it didn't even matter. a landlocked mermaid spawn of streams of diet coke and vodka that's all there was to you. nocturnal presence you were not a dark muse you were not succour from heaven but i longed to see the green in your eyes. it reminded me of the sea. in a cemetery of ash-trays i am sexton and gate-keeper that's all there is to me. but i will not lie each time i think of you i grow a little warmer because in those seconds i am a cigarette you light with your own hand in transitory haste.

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HOW TO ANNOY YOUR WIFE by

Jonny Young

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O Y R E

“For God’s sake Jeremy, how many times do I have to tell you not to flush the cat?”

“Needed a wash” said Jeremy, affecting nonchalance, eyes fixed on his magazine, desperately avoiding his wife.

“You do know cats are capable of that themselves? When they lie in the middle of the floor at lunchtime and lick their own bollocks? That’s them washing.”

“Huh, I was always a bit jealous”. He leafed through the pages with his thumb, searching for something interesting. His brow furrowed as he reached the back cover.

“Why do we even have Total Carp in the first place? “ she grumbled as she snatched it from his hand.

“Fish are cool, and they sort of look like overstuffed sausages” he explained to no-one in particular. Then, changing tack, he looked up with glee; “I like sausages. What’s for tea tonight?”

“Not sausages” his wife shouted from the other room. Jeremy had been too enveloped in thoughts of carp and cooked pig to notice her leaving, despite recieving a solid clip round the ear as she passed.

“Aw, but I like sausages”. He searched around again for his deliberately pointless magazine. A terrified fishy look peeped out from the waste paper bin on the other side of the room.

“Fish aren’t paper”, he muttered to himself as he turned back to the table, “they can’t be recycled.” Quickly switching his attention to the flowery pattern on the tablecloth, bereft of any other options that might prevent him from talking to his wife.

He traced his finger along the stalks of one of the flowers until he reached the centre, where his eyes locked to the dark blue petals. He stared deeply into the tablecloth, somehow lost in thought over a circular inch of blue cotton. His wife peered round the doorframe; her beloved husband had managed to procrastinate in an empty room. She sighed, rubbed her forehead, and shouted for his attention.

Jeremy had barely managed to turn his head when she threw the cat. He caught a glimpse of the angry mass of dampness, flailing its legs as if it was hoping they would magically turn into wings and flap it to safety, but his brain was already too loaded with thoughts of flowers and blueness to do anything about it. A flash of petrified cat face imprinted itself on his eyeballs just before an enormous thud hit him square in the bridge of his nose, imprinting an actual petrified cat on his face and rocking him backwards off his chair. A furry, wet pillow attached itself to his head like an over aggressive scarf, legs whipping round past his ears and slapping into the back of his skull, where they stayed.

Jeremy heaved in a lungful of air through a horrible filter of wet cat and toilet water, before completing his involuntary journey to the ground with a thump and a splintering crash as the chair broke beneath the combined weight of feline and idiot. The cat seemed confused.

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“Mrow”.

“That’s what you get for being a moron and putting Percy in the toilet again!” came a muffled explanation. “Maybe you’ll learn that cats don’t really appreciate it”.

“Phwwrry, whhwt wvw thwt?” Jeremy struggled through his new facial attachment. “H cwnt rwwlly hewr yuw vwwy wwll”.

“Mrow?”.

“Nwt ywuu”.

“Mrow”.

That last one was smug.

Jeremy sighed, and rolled over in an attempt to right himself for a stern word with his wife, who had already fled the scene. This did nothing for the cats mood, now upside down with a giant face pressing down into its belly.

“Mrow!”.

The claws dug deeper into the back of his head.

The cat was not moving.

Jeremy pushed himself onto his knees and caught his breath, as delicious as it currently was. “Ww newwd to gwwv yuw lewss fwwd Mwswtr Flwwffy Fwwcker, whxcwse mwy Frwnch”.

“Mrow”.

“Plwse shwt wp”.

Jeremy was a touch cross at this point, due to the annoyed woman launching a sack of cat and water at his face from six feet away, since the carp and flowers had long since left his mind. He sighed again.

He reached up and tugged at a clump of fur in a vain attempt to shift the beast. Another meow, another millimetre of claw. He put both hands on the cats back and pushed upwards, as if pushing a cork out from the inside. Unfortunately corks don’t normally have claws.

They sank deeper into his skull.

“Annaw! Whwrw hwwv you gwwn!?” Jeremy shouted for his wife. “Annaw!?” No reply.

Slowly, he stood up. He felt the cat shift downwards slightly and subconsciously moved it back onto his forehead. If his wife wasn’t going to find him, he would have to find his wife.

“Awlrwght Pwrcy, lwts fwwnd mwy wyf!” he declared to his pet’s undercarriage.

“Mrow?”.

He took a step forward - and slammed straight into a wall.

“MROW! MROWMROWMROWMROW!”

“Aowhh!” he yelled, reeling from the impact of wall on cat on nose and the inevitable sinking claws. He tried again, a different angle.

Thud.

“MROW!”.

Thud.

“MROW!”.

Thud.

“MROWMROWMROW!”.

“FWWR GWWDS SWKE ANNAW!”

This might take a while.

SUSPENSION a poem by

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Zoe Wilkinson

“What are you waiting for?” The angel asks me.

I don’t know. The rest of my life.

“So why are you out here, looking down on the world like I do?”

Perspective. It’s in my nature, I guess.

“Take a deep breath, in, out, in, out, and just step away from the edge.”

And I laugh in this angel’s face at the ludicrous suggestion that I have any control or power to do so. I laugh at the idea that I could possibly work out why I am staring over the edge of the world at this current moment.

Hasn’t time stopped? Aren’t we held here forever whether we choose it or not?

And why would anyone think we can choose a single thing for ourselves?

If a child breathes their last in their adolescent bed at night, can you stop it? Can they? Stripped bare of choice, of power and of reason, I sit here now. After all, being sat in my car, at my desk, on the boundary of heaven and earth, I am always at someone else’s mercy.

Give me your hand, please.

I look into the angel’s eyes as my request registers and a soft hand reaches out to my own calloused palm. A bright spark ignites upon contact, and I grasp the screaming, burning fingers in mine, squeezing tighter until cinders dust the air. Eventually my hand holds the silence, blackened and alone, as I watch charred grey feathers float back down to earth.

I turn my face back up to the sunrise. And watch something bigger than me take hold of everything I know once again.

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CRAWLIN

Abi Browning

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W hen I go out to celebrate a friend’s birthday or to meet up with the crazed bunch of humans I’ve worked with,

there is nothing that can beat a laugh and a chat over some gorgeous, freshly made cocktails. The only problem being that cocktails can work out pretty expensive, and with a long list on the various menus of the numerous bars in Leamington, how is a girl to choose her drink?! From my little trips out and the merry skips back home, I have come to find my few favoured cocktail bars for both alcoholic and non-alcoholic concoctions and scrummy delights.

I have also managed to discover the overlapping Happy Hours and that it can pay off to have one or two drinks early, progress onto a light meal during the general ‘peakcocktail-time’, and then make your way back to the bar stools for round two of the 2-4-1s.

A personal favourite haunt for me and my friends is Turtle Bay, just off the parade (Regent’s Court). This bar serves great Caribbean-style drinks and yummy food too, and is such fun, especially if you grab a seat next to the 360 degree bar so that you can watch the highly skilled bartenders shaking up their mojitos and rum punches! The cocktail menu has a lovely range of fruity flavours to suit most tastes and it is very fun to work your way through the list! So far, my favourites include the Hummingbird (a creamy coconut and banana mixture that dangerously resembles an ice cold milkshake in a hurricane glass) or the Junkanoo (a beautiful combination of passion fruit and rum flavours served in my very favourite martinistyle glass). The Happy Hours at Turtle Bay in Leamington start fairly early (around 12pm) but if you get there around 5.30pm you can have a 2-4-1 cocktail before Happy Hour ends at 6.30pm and then return later for the 9:30pm – Close slot. As with most Happy Hour discounted cocktails, you need to order the same drink as your friend, or, not uncommon for our group, just get two each and share. As long as you order before 6.30pm you only pay half price for the - not very cheap - £6.85 cocktails. This definitely helps to make a cocktail night more affordable! After you’ve finished your early evening tipple it’s time to think about getting dinner. I do not recommend drinking (heavily or not) on an empty stomach, for I have never seen it turn out well! Turtle bay do some really mouth-watering dishes and the sweet potato chips are to die for with chilli dipping sauce!

Alternatively, head over to YO! Sushi for a really fun, slightly futuristic meal spent wrestling sushi plates off the conveyor belt. My personal recommendation is a cold Pimm’s or mojito with your selection of sushi because they are light and refreshing and not badly priced in this establishment. If you are not a sushi lover and prefer chicken and chips then turn right out of the bar and pop into Nando’s. I have never had a bad meal there and sharing platters are great fun! You can also often find discount codes online for Nando’s. These eateries are perfectly situated, and Las Iguanas is a fourth great place to eat! Why not share a starter of nachos with a strawberry daiquiri before a bean burger or salad? This corner of Leamington is great because you don’t have to walk very

far in the frostbitten winter air or sleety rain before you reach your next destination.

If you fancy trying some of the other bars on offer, the popular choices tend to be Kelsey’s and The Duke.

The latter is great for Jam Jar cocktails! For my best loved mojitos and gorgeous cosmos, Duke cocktails are £5 each or a pound cheaper at Happy Hour with 3 for £10 if you’re all drinking the same (6-8.30pm). The quick ones among you will see that The Duke’s Happy Hour fits perfectly into the Turtle Bay times! So slink along to peruse the menu of Jam Jar cocktails after nibbles in Regent’s Court or try the menu in this bar too (I’ve heard the popcorn is… interesting).

Close by is The Glasshouse (only round the corner on the left when coming out of The Duke), recommended especially for their great Piña Coladas; potentially the best I’ve ever had, if I don’t count The Hard Rock Café.

However, I’ve only ever been there when it has been utterly dead! Like The Duke, it is quite open plan and, although the sofas are cute shabby-chic and cosy-looking, it can be quite chilly in there. If you prefer a warm and atmospheric place, The Lounge is the place. I love it in there, with a cosy, brooding feel, dark wood décor and the cutest Bombay Sapphire bottles recycled into candle holders (I must make some of those – DIY project)! Do be aware that the drinks in The Lounge can be quite pricey so it’s a nice place for a glass and a chat but not if you’re looking for a rowdy group night out (maybe Kelsey’s is the place).

Another recommendation is the Clarendon with its great 3 hour Happy Hour from 5pm to 8pm where all the cocktails are £4 (otherwise £6). It is also the place to go if you like jar glasses, rum punches and GIN! The Clarendon has it’s Seven Deadly Gins that I have added to my university bucket list as a must try! The only downfall is the location if you are coming up from south Leamington.

The Clarendon is far north, on Clarendon Avenue (Clarendon Street side) and this is quite a walk if you are starting around Regent Street, Regent Court or Warwick Street where the other destinations I have mentioned are situated.

Cocktails are not the cheapest of beverages but they are great fun to try, especially if they are freshly made and beautifully presented! We are quite spoilt for choice in Leamington Spa, but beware, because not all Happy Hour cocktails are worth the price! Some places use cocktail mixes and synthetic flavourings that can be very disappointing. This disappointment is part of the reason why I decided to do a little selfless investigation in the guise of a lavish cocktail crawl! Never forget to try the delicious mocktails at these bars, especially with food.

They are like fresh fruit smoothies and often you don’t even miss the rum or gin if they are well made. And if you are feeling the pinch of the looming student overdraft, don’t underestimate the fun that can be found in creating your own cocktails! Buying bottles of mixers, syrups and spirits is quite pricey as a starting investment but if you split the costs between friends you can have a few nights of yummy cocktails for a fraction of the cost of going out on the town.

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11 months and 5 days Your poetry leaves a bad taste in my Mouth. I chew on the edge of your sonnet wanting much more than a couplet ending.

How do you expect my eyes to light up?

Next time, write my name onto a rocket and press your palms against the sides of it Let me show you what poetry can do And soon we’ll be an explosion with an Eternal taste of wonder on our tongues.

Let’s end it with a bang. Let’s kill it young.

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a poem by

Jonella Vidal

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The Cargo Cult

He felt so helpless without speech. He knew perhaps eighty of their words. House. Water. Fire. Give me.

Help me. Show me. But that was more than most from his island, and so he would have to be the one to ask.

The More-Mans had set up a port. Enormous ships unloaded their treasures onto the shore: talking boxes, moving pictures, humming caves that cleaned your clothes…

One of the strangers caught his eye. He signed tentatively, pointing at the gleaming cargo.

How. Get?

The missionary pointed to the cross on his neck

“God gives.”

He was confused. He pointed to the missionary.

God.

The man shook his head vigorously, and his yellow hair caught the wind.

“No. I am John Frum.”

Banana man

Banana Man flew across the city looking for banana-related crime. Was a fruit stall being robbed somewhere? Was anyone feeling deficient in potassium?

Finally, he saw a boy fleeing through a crowded marketplace, clutching a floral bag.

“Stop, thief!”

Thinking quickly, he peeled himself and threw his skin to the floor in front of the running boy.

“Looks like you slipped up when you chose to mess with Banana Man!”

But the boy hadn’t slipped. He stood staring at the naked superhero, along with the still and silent crowd.

Banana Man got five years for public indecency and drank himself to death after prison, and that’s why you’ve never heard of Banana Man.

Yellow

“I don’t think you have enough yellow.”

“Hmm?”

“You’ll run out before you get to do the sunrise.”

“To be honest, it’ll probably be dark when I finish.”

“Dark? But you’ve already cast the shadows.”

“Yeah. So I remember where they were.”

“You can’t miss the sunrise,”

“You know there’ll be another one tomorrow, right?”

“But it isn’t the same. It’ll be all wrong.”

“It’ll look fine. I’ve done this tons of times.”

“Everyone will criticise you.” “…”

“Sorry. I just love watching you paint. I’ll be quiet.” “…”

“I just don’t understand why you don’t want it to be perfect.”

“Nothing I do is perfect.”

“What’s the point then?”

“Pass the black.”

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Hannah Froggatt

FLASH FICTION

by

Licy Richardson

BATTER: 4 Large eggs Equal Sugar Equal Flour Equal Butter 2 tbsp of Vanilla Essence Cupcakes in their most simple and easy form. Weigh four large eggs, and mix with an equal amount of flour, sugar and butter (this makes a perfectly balanced victoria sponge). Create mixture in a food processor or by hand. Stir in vanilla essence.

Spoon into cupcake cases, bake in the oven for 25 minutes or until golden at 180 degrees.

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ICING: 250g of Butter 500g of Icing Sugar 2 tbsp of Vanilla Essence Lindt/Speckled Eggs

Cadbury Flake Using an electric whisk beat the butter at room temperature.

Sift just under 100g of icing sugar into the butter, then use the whisk to beat until smooth.

Repeat until all icing sugar is combined. Last stir in the vanilla essence. Pipe icing when cake is cool. Decorate with eggs and flake chocolate over.Display, and enjoy.

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Just know that I am sorry. For what I have done there can be no forgiveness, no redemption, no absolution. I have been corrupted, tainted by my actions for so long now, long enough that I have stopped being afraid of the consequences; they can’t be any worse than this hellish life that I am stuck in now.

The truth is that I will soon be dead, so before my freedom arrives, I will recount to you, oh faceless camera, the crimes I have committed in the name of science. Ha, not just science I fear. These crimes I have committed in my own name, for my own name. I never wanted to be forgotten and now that is my sole wish to disappear off the face of this world and take any evidence of my very existence with me. Any chance to take back what I have done, to change the past, I would leap at with both hands. But time cannot be rewritten, not one line.

I am doing this not to feel the briefest moment where the relief of confession may flood my consciousness but to aid the future in preventing the same mistake being made. Listen, for I will teach you something that many of you will already know but some of you will be stupid enough to discount. Let me be your proof of how wrong you would be to follow in my footsteps. I hope to inform all that watch this so that they will not incur the wrath of the natural order like I have. It would only torment you as it has tormented me.

See yourself as my judge and my jury, though time will have beaten you to being my executioner. Watch my descent into Hell and know that I am so, so very sorry.

Look at me. I am sure that you already know the contours of my expression well. Have you studied me? Will you study me? Please, please do not waste your life figuring me out. This fear, this sadness, this compassion. It was born from a heart of darkness and a mind of ambition. These belonged to me but I have since lost them. So you may look upon me all you like, I only ask for your trust and we will find this harrowing task much simpler.

There may be some shallow minded moron with only the best in their heart who looks upon this impoverished face and feels so much pity that they stand up and place themselves between me and universal condemnation. Let me make this clear. I do not need a saviour to protect my tattered reputation nor a redeemer to resurrect my shattered reputation. And I do not need a liberator to free my soul from damnation. Whatever is said about me is true. Whatever I say about myself here is true. I am a monster, I am a killer.

They did not die by their own hands. Let nobody tell you that. I pushed the button, I ended their lives.

Perhaps even the first to see this sees me as no more than old news. Just another professor with a failing experiment and no visible way of salvaging it. But that, my imaginary friends, is where you would find yourself to be wrong. It worked. It worked. Ha. It worked.

That was the worst part - knowing that I had been right and that I could change everything with my research. I began to see myself as so much more than just another human being. More than just a mockery of a man. That was foolish and rash. But I removed that veil of darkness, I pulled back the curtain. The things that I saw for the faintest second have never left me. I shut my eyes and they are there. Shall I tell you what I see?

Light. So much light. Blinding. Blinding like the sun. Like the sun is right in front of my eyes.

Scratching at my eyes. Plucking at the nerves and stealing the colour from my vision. It’s just blank. Nothing there but blankness. Stark, painful nothingness.

I have opened a window that I can no longer close. It has sucked all of the air from the room and now I am gasping for breath. The only choice left to me now is to open the window even further and risk falling out like so many others have done. I can’t stop thinking about them.

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LIFE, DEATH, AND WHAT COMES NEXT by

Jamie Hardwick

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DO NOT TOUCH a poem by

Jonella Vidal

‘Love is Freedom’ – Spray paint it across my wall.

This is news to me.

All I know is gag and rule.

Mood swings, personality shifts, lack of self-love, perhaps Refuse to swallow your blood, it’s poison With your hands tied behind your back all eyes explore you.

Meat slab on the cold, hard ground You used to tear me up.

But now, kneeling Heavy as torture Raw. I do not touch you do not touch.

Spit, curse, struggle… do none of these.

You do not want to leave me.

I do not want to fall into this dismal role, again A ticket for next week limp in my sweating hands But let’s be honest: Black is not my colour, And red was never yours.

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ilence for the first 30 seconds. A vast, distressed birdcage fills the screen. Two figures dressed to appear nude, who proceed to chase each other, perform acrobatics and spar like wild animals wearing flesh coloured skin tight clothing. It is bizarre, dumbfounding, beautiful and uncomfortable.

The music video for Sia’s “Elastic Heart” was released early this year, and immediately (to use Kim Kardashian’s neologism) ‘broke the internet’. At the time of writing, the video has reached over 120 million views, attracting the attention of a vast and varied audience, as well as and varied media attention: from Ellen DeGeneres to Rolling Stone.

The video exhibits the somewhat unexpected dance skills of Transformers star Shia LeBeouf, alongside a face those might recognise from Sia’s previous video for her single Chandelier: Maddie Ziegler, favourite from American reality show Dance Moms; and it is exactly this casting which is causing a stir.

The video has caused great controversy: with calls that the overly physicalized dance battle between 28 year old Shia and 12 year old Maddie, whilst both wear nude underwear appears paedophilic or abusive, battling retorts that art is art, dance is dance and that the meaning may be more complex than this.

However, I’m not writing to offer you my perspective on the video’s message or ultimate hidden meaning. I have an opinion, as I’m sure everyone does, but what crossed my mind while I scrawled through the bloodbath commencing in YouTube’s comment section was the question of ‘why?’. In the age of exponential technological and media advancement, where we are constantly stimulated from every direction possible, are developing shorter and shorter attention spans and companies are battling

for our attention in the thirty seconds before our fingers hop over the ‘Skip Ad’ button, do musicians have to be more than musicians to keep up? Do they have to cause controversy to catch attention, or make multi-faceted masterpieces of art to make headlines?

Controversy has always sold, but the past few years have seen all societal boundaries broken. It seems that all music videos are determined to shock us: from repeat offenders like Miley Cyrus, to singers who were traditionally tamer like Shakira, the fame of the music video surpasses the fame of the song itself.

But was the Sia video aiming for controversy? Does it matter? Is plain music enough anymore? The industry, like any other is becoming more and more competitive and creating nuanced pieces of shareable, provocative art allows artists to cause a stir.

I propose we see the brighter side. As the world gets less and less boundaries, it takes more and more to shock us, and the growth of musicians into multi-talented artists surely isn’t a bad thing. As consumers, we do have short attention spans, and if something is able to get our attention, it is more likely to keep it. The more we can actively engage with pieces of art, in as many forms as possible, the better. Sia’s video may have caused controversy, but art causes controversy, and she must be commended for the stir she’s caused. The ambiguity of her video has sparked the imaginations of her audience, and debate, while it can get a little bloody at times where the unrestrained battlefield of the internet is concerned, is still debate: the fuel for good and timeless art.

As music videos gain dimension on dimension, I just can’t wait for my laptop to start shooting glitter out of the speakers while Calvin Harris sings shirtless to me in 3D.

26

Gemm

SIA ELA HEA

ma Albin

A'S ASTIC ART 27 27

a girl’s look at

Light.

A short focus on light in my photography, here illuminating earth toned leaves and wood at an arboretum in England. The light brings the colours of nature to life in these images, and there is no doubt when the sun shines in England it brings us to life too.

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Licy Richardson 29

30

31

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previously...Mid-Late Thursday Morning (see Issue 2)

The Wrong Side of Warm by

A

Harry Puttock

“Awfully perverse.”

“I see.” Bill was not himself and Alfred was less than pleased. “You’re supposed to go to the park on a Sunday like this, it’s obligatory. You know, kites and such.”

“Kites?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t see any kites.” Bill was right.

“No…” Alfred stopped walking and scanned the vista for climate relative activities. “There’s a Frisbee?”

“Ah, yes.”

“Something airborne…” The connection was underwhelming, but still a connection, as haddock is not much of weapon, but…Walking commenced again; ideally strolling; literally, plodding. Alfred, trying to convince himself of the legitimacy of their endeavor took salvage in their fellow park visitors: “Nice to see people out.”

“Is it?” This was a blow. “It really is terribly hot.” The upgrade from a tad to terribly was not to be taken lightly. Hurdling the latter remark, Alfred continued:

“Certainly.” Nostalgia was next.

lfred, like most Brits, was endowed with a startling combination of stoicism and profound vulnerability to just about anything that could be identified as change.

The relatively temperate heat of the British summertime was proving too much for him.

In other parts of the world, people would perhaps be seen taking evasive maneuvers, investing in some sort of appropriate technology or even leaving altogether when the climate became displeasing; British stoicism, tame though it may be, had other ideas:

“Tad hot isn’t it?”, said Bill.

“Yes, rather.”

“Awfully perverse.”

“What?”

“Going to the park on a day like this: awfully perverse.”

“It’s the nicest day of the year, so far.”

“Precisely.”

“And a Sunday.”

“I suppose… Still, toying with the border.”

“The border of what?”

34

“You know what it is, the side of my-”, Bill continued discussing his testicles, but Alfred was a long way away. Struck by a scene over Bill’s left shoulder that induced Alfred into a focused day dream that was enough to convince Bill his testicles were being taken seriously. Over Bill’s left shoulder, Alfred perceived a balloon; no bigger than a bean bag one might see in the section of a library desperately trying to incense a generation to read via upholstery.

Attached to the balloon, by a series of strings, was a picnic basket. Unavoidably, peeking over the edge of the basket, was a mole. The mole moved slightly, here and there, taking in the scene as it floated from stage left to stage right, and eventually out of sight.

“… and so the doctor said the move to boxer shorts wasn’t optional.” “…”

“Alf?”

“Sorry, boxer shorts, yes. I see.”

“Yes.” Bill retraced his story, searching for anything that could have proved traumatic. “You alright?”

“What? Umm, yes. I think the heat may have gotten the better of me.”

“Terribly hot.”

“Yes… rather.”

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illustration by the author

“There’s a sense of childhood in a day like this, don’t you think? Blue skied summer days, cricket in the park.” Alfred was suppressing a self-inflicted cringe. “The smell of the grass, ice cream, days that lasted forever, you know?” He hadn’t convinced himself.

“Ice cream?” Relief.

“Yes! There’s a van around here somewhere: my treat.” The day was gathering more promise. “Two 99s, please.”

“That’s three sixty.” Bill was horrified.

“There you go, cheers.”

“Ahh.” The ice cream combined with the sound of a cricket ball and a light breeze that began to convince him of what he had not believed from his own mouth minutes previously. Alfred enjoyed a moment of eclipse, where the immediate lined up with appealing allusions and satisfying nostalgia: this is what it’s about. But it was a moment.

“Taking the piss.”

“What?”

“A 99 should be 99p.” Alfred’s face contorted to the look of difficult multiplication.

“I-I…I don’t know if that’s strictly why they’re called 99s Bill.”

“Well why are they called that then?”

It was difficult multiplication.

“I … I can’t say that I know.” Offbalancing Alfred was enough to settle Bill.

“Mmm, that did hit the spot though.”

“Yes.”

“I tell you what.”

“What?”

“The heat certainly does effect my orbs.”

“I see.”

“Does it not you?”

“I suppose it must.”

C ontemporary Art. You might think of

an unmade bed or a diamond encrusted skull.

You might avert your gaze in search for more solid aesthetics in oil paintings.

But, one particular prize manages to celebrate the experimental through the framework of romanticist oil painter, William Turner.

Turner’s works were recognised early in his life, and during the 19th century he was known for his daring and eccentric character.

This is evident in his later works which are often said to be reaching towards abstract art, a century before the movement became prolific. I have noted that the naming of this contemporary art prize after such an artist has been met with much disapproval; however those who object seem

to ignore the fact that Turner’s work created a lot of controversy in his day too!

Between September 30th and January 5th, the Turner Prize 2014 was exhibited at Tate Britain gallery. The Turner Prize was created in 1984 to recognise and celebrate new artists in the contemporary art scene in Britain. The nominees must be under fifty years old, and have produced an outstanding presentation of their work in the twelve

36

months before the nomin 2014s shortlisted artists w Campbell, Ciara Phillips, Richards, and Tris Vonna

I’m going to pres of the work of the winner Campbell, as his win has much controversy betwee art critics and even the ju

Duncan Campbe work “It for Others” was and created as a response film by Alain Resnais and Marker, exploring the sig of displaying African arte museums of the Western

Art embodies sig even within the physical which it is created, so tak of this space surely ruptu meaning in some way. Ca work creates a space to d histories of artefacts, such tribal masks, but also an seemingly random things photographic representat IRA member, ketchup bo contemporary dance.

Filmography is n art form which particular my interest, however Cam manages to introduce new in an accessible manner, footage with an influentia enabling seamless watchi piece. The flow also adds

nations. were Duncan , James a-Michell. sent my view r, Duncan provoked en the likes of ury chairman. ell’s winning inspired by e to a 1953 d Chris gnificance efacts in n world. gnificance space in king it out ures its ampbell’s discover the h as African array of other s, including tions of an ottles, and

not usually an rly attracts mpbell’s style w concepts matching al narrative, ing of the s to the

TURNER PRIZE '14

Jonella Vidal

mysterious nature of this display and causes audiences to keep watching, even if only in an attempt to figure out what it’s all supposed to mean. Because the concepts Campbell grapples with are presented in such an ambiguous manner, he managed to challenge the structure of documentary and create something original without misleading viewers, allowing them to take what they want from the film.

His mash-up of subjects forces viewers into a liminal state, not ready for the next section of the film, but providing a semi-conscious link between each one. That link has been interpreted differently by many people, but I am drawn towards Campbell’s focus on the omissions and gaps caused purposely within forms of media, politics and the arts, which present the past in a certain way. I see it as a running social commentary on how representation shapes not only a view of history, but what history is in itself. If only one view of what has happened exists, then who’s to say that it didn’t actually happen differently?

Campbell’s exploration is not invasive into different cultures or histories, but does create a feeling where the viewer feels invaded by the films. This is further represented in the highlighted irony of admiring art which was not created for aesthetic value; while doing this, attention is drawn to the eerily feeling one gets of being watched by artefacts like African masks.

The visual arts enable viewers to experience the concepts in a more subconscious way.

There is no need to create a conscious perspective in order to analysis what is being shown.

The significance lies in the immediate response, so the creation of art which has the ability to trigger exploration responses of such concepts is definitely challenging. If Duncan Campbell managed to create this response in more people than just myself then his win of the 2014 Turner Prize seems much more justified.

Campbell’s win will inspire new conceptual arts to influence their way into the mainstream and this can only be an exciting prospect for the future of creativity.

37

poetry by

Jamie Hardwick

Us never once were we in names so insane so envious in noises insincere overrun in rooms as our music nears, waxes as a new moon in summer wanes. our science announces one sense in vain one serious icon reserves measures mere our memoirs in coins as we soar severe as we occur vivacious in our rain as nurses on wine examine our view, we saw aces cross over our memories. as zone on zone in mirrors race us mice, we vow ever in success on manes new. as cures in our insecure reveries, we run on concussion never in vice.

38

CITIES IN SUNLIGHT Summer churns a riotous heat that animals beat with their sharpened clawed hands and dirt burnt feet to a crescendo.

We go and judge with a lion’s mane and prowl the broken streets of shut-up shops and ‘to let’ signs that flake and collect on the cobbled roads often travelled by the knowledge of rotten buildings.

A sultry rain renews the day the lights go out and lonely night settled in with a humid jungle heat Strife dawns from embers drawn from an effort of your glistening stars as entices dark’s raw embrace against the roaring cloistered bells that happy trapped in daily trysts do ache and smile Stuffed dogs have no place they have nothing to contribute the natural materials of thought fall through their fake paws The tepid heat of days gone bye leaves stretch-marks and scratch-marks on our pregnant hope bleeding on crashed windows sheltering in fuel-free crumpled cars pretending to be welcoming When half-bright times live the animalistic nightmare us lonely penguins stuck in the mud keeping our little eggs safe as us bark bark; no excuse. suffocating in silence.

33 39

M

y pager pierces painfully through each muffled layer of sleep. Yesterday’s clothes. Yesterday’s stubble. Yesterday’s hangover.

Anonymous faces glance past with the secure curiosity of those in a better position than me; upright, for a start. A violent roll out the door finds me retching distastefully in the street. London downtown’s no place to wake in a car.

I should go to work. No time to freshen up, but if the cliché fits... for once the ‘underpaid detective’ stereotype is playing to my advantage.

The murder scene is (as convention dictates) an alley out back of ‘Cable Nightclub’ – 33 Bermondsey Street Tunnel. I find it falteringly, the journey there perpetuated with interludes of too bright sunlight and further loss of my stomach acid. What happened last night? Fortunately the hacks haven’t scented it yet, so the yellow tape is kept discrete.

I need coffee.

As though following a formula distilled through meticulous hours of pop-culture study, the model of a mad scientist approaches me – a file is pushed into my reluctant hands.

“It’s the usual story, sir. Death by cerebral haemorrhaging from several blunt trauma to the back of the he-” “Coffee.”

“P-pardon me sir?” I tend to have a stutter-inducing effect on people.

“I need coffee.”

“Oh…yessir, certainly sir. There’s a machine in the newsagent’s just across the str-.”

Wonder if there’s any money left. Curious fingers delve into my pockets. They return promptly with a report of the inventory: £2.56, 3 cigarettes, 1 crackling sweet wrapper. Dirt; it joins that already under my fingernails. A crumpled business card falls too slowly to the floor, flutters at the edge of my consciousness.

I pick it up, stare until the neon writing starts to hurt my eyes. Blink. Move on.

Back in the alley, taking slow sips of the elixir of my existence, deathliness retreats. The old scar which swipes across my upper lip is softly burnt; the pain is good, it means I’m still awake.

Fresh eyes begin to comprehend the scene. Hypothetical means play out in reverse from their cold end.

“Check out the club,” I command the general vicinity.

“Find out if the washing-up’s been done.” A dull silhouette scurries back out into the foggy light as I approach the body.

Flustered Manager arrives.

“No sir. ---. No, no statement has been issued yet. ---.

Just try to stay away from the press. ---. Yes. Well we’re going to need to see CCTV anyway. ---. A few hours? ---. Well if that’s the quickest you can do… ---. No, nothing else for now. Thank you.”

I have to stay polite until we’re done with him. Taxing work.

40

CARDS O THE TABL

b

H

ON LE

by

Hebe Hewitt

My minion returns – the washing-up was left piled up in the panic. Good.

“Well I’ve got some real exciting work for you now mate – crack out that new date-rape test... ---. Yeah ‘NARK’ something, that’s the one.” He’s just glad I’m no longer demanding caffeine fixes. “Test every glass.”

Settling against the grimy wall for the wait, I flick through the hastily assembled file, starved of attention under my arm for the past half an hour: Time of death approximately 2AM. DNA of attacker impossible to distinguish due to abnormal amount of bodily contact in club environment. Hand shaped bruises found on shoulders – presumably where the assailant smashed her into the cold brick wall time and time and time again. Big hands. A man’s hands. Who’d have thought it’d be a guy?

Shocking.

The thumping sneaks quietly back into my skull. A handbag was found with the victim containing a little money, mobile phone, half eaten bag of Mint Imperials, perfume, and other… girl stuff. Blood samples taken for analysis. The body will follow suit soon. Body suit… Body bag? Lame pun.

Better go supervise my lemmings.

Wandering into the club, I stumble upon a scene of not inconsiderable excitement. A glass has turned blue! Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Rohypnol. Symptoms include paranoia, lowered inhibitions, drowsiness, amnesia, blackouts, hallucinations - the whole shebang.

The suspect glass is escorted out for closer examination.

It’ll be back before the blood tests.

On the bar is a stack of cards. Neon writing hurts my eyes.

My phone rings. Flustered words:

“Dude, oh God it’s so good to hear your voice.” I haven’t yet spoken. “Are you ok? Man I’m so sorry. Last night…

Seriously, it was just meant to be a joke - we just wanted to help you lighten up a bit. The guy said it was harmless, seriously we never meant no harm, and even then we only put a little bit in your drink… Just to help you lighten up. Dude-” I cut it off. It rings again. I turn it off, and place it carefully on the polished surface beside the business cards. I make sure they are all perfectly in line.

The model of a mad scientist approaches. A lip print has been found on the blue stained glass, a picture printed out and pushed into my reluctant hands.

An old scar swipes across the upper lip.

The paper crackles - crackles like a sweet wrapper taken from a half eaten bag of Mint Imperials. Taken by big hands. A man’s hands. Hands which will shortly leave bruised shoulders of a crumpled body on the floor. It slowly flutters to the floor.

Curious fingers delve into my pockets and place a crumpled business card atop the others. The neon writing hurts my eyes.

And at last, all the cards are on the table.

41

Jonny Young

FOOTBALL MANAGER game review

M

enus. Hundreds upon hundreds of menus, spiralling out from each other like Russian Doll spreadsheets. Even the statistics you get around to using have menus. That’s all Football Manager is: menus, statistics, and mildly confused frustration.

This is football for stockbrokers with a habit.

As someone who has never particularly enjoyed strategy or management games, going blind into an online Football Manager game was as daunting as organising a schizophrenic serial killer’s noticeboard. After skipping the tutorials that were so boring I felt myself visibly age after just one line of text, I inevitably found myself facing of a wall of information set out like Rain Man’s receipt collection. This was more like HSBCs filing cabinet than it was football.

It didn’t really help that the options were irritatingly opaque. For example there’s no ‘Settings’ menu, but instead a bafflingly labelled ‘Preferences’ menu, buried inside other menus, with sub menus of its own. Either the developers were actively laughing at new players, like they’re

42

blindfolded cats in a maze made of lino, or they see the world purely through the medium of Microsoft Excel and no longer recognise rational thought.

The plan was to have each of us, four fairly capable humans with varying amounts of Football Manager experience, manage a different Championship team. We would see who could become the most successful before we all inevitably got bored and went to do something else. I selected my team at random, which turned out to be a bad choice given that the others actually had solid reasons for choosing theirs. I just knew Blackburn had a good striker and went from there, completely ignoring the defence, whose best player turned out to be an angry sociopathic Scotsman. He got sent off three minutes into the first game I played; this became a theme.

Having made this incredibly well informed choice, I tried to find something familiar to cling to in this barely legible gibberish, written in a language that would make sense to Alan Hansen and nobody else. At this point, the only menu that made sense to my addled brain was ‘Transfers’, so I tried my luck with that.

Unfortunately, the muppets running my club had given me tuppence and a stick of gum to spend on new players, whereas everyone else had roughly half the national income of Japan.

I made do with what I had, scrabbling for loan players like a hobo looking for milk bottle tops in the gutter, pleading with agents to let their fading pensioner join my team for a weekend

- just in case the other pensioners fell over too much and disintegrated like a breadstick in the washing machine.

Before one match started I was told by the constant Steam chat I should try to work out what was going on in the ‘Tactics’ menu. Here you edit formation, line-ups, substitutes, and the general instructions you give your team whenever they play. Obviously there are ridiculous levels of complexity to this as well, like contrasting instructions that would only confuse your players - to play both wide and narrow at the same time - and multiple, subtly different roles a player can assume within the same position.

Again, the negatives of any of these options aren’t exactly explicit; when I set an instruction to ‘Hassle Opponents’, I assumed it would mean an appropriate defensive or midfield player would close down the opposition and prevent passes with a modicum of intelligence.

What I discovered was that almost all of my players would charge at the guy with the ball like it was the Battle of Rorke’s Drift, leaving a gaping chasm for the other team to pass into and completely bypass my cavalry of overpaid morons.

You have to experiment and find out what is actually useful rather than it being given to you. This sounds like good game design but it really isn’t. It’s the equivalent of being given a choice of seventeen identical looking sticks, and then getting a thwack on the head and a branch up the arse because you chose the wrong one.

Good luck getting it right on your first attempt, and your arse might not appreciate you giving it

43

another shot.

After making a couple of distinctly average signings and creating a new formation, suitably dubbed ‘The Penis’ (make up your own reasons), I suited up and went into battle. And I lost, because my setup was crap. After waiting half an hour for the others to fiddle their menus some more, I tried again. And lost, because I scored a fluke own-goal despite dominating every statistic the game could throw at me.

This is where the addictive, social-lifethreatening part of Football Manager comes in; nothing you do actually matters. Not in any tangible, definite way. Since you’re not actively controlling what happens on the pitch, essentially all you’re doing is making your own odds more favourable - a random number generator where you can nudge the machine a few times if it’s fucked you over a cliff recently. No matter what you do, nothing is ever certain, and so the game never becomes truly satisfying. Yes that’s football, but football’s not perfect anyway.

Since it’s essentially a strategy game with random elements, there’s always this horrible ‘one more go’ factor, where you want to try your formation again and hope your fullback doesn’t head-butt himself and start humping the post whilst defending a corner. It’s a case of proving yourself against a bunch of sceptical numbers, hidden behind shitty 3D visuals with physics from a particularly glitchy ‘Asteroids’ clone. It’s like ‘The Matrix’ if it was set in Upton Park.

Eventually, more and more of the ridiculous user interface began to make sense.

I found out I could train individual players in an attempt to improve their stats. Match reports allowed me to prepare better for the next game, alerting me to the areas of the pitch where the

opposition was weakest. Scouting allowed me to try to pick up promising young players on the cheap, although as my budget was managed by a sparrow on LSD, this was essentially impossible.

Almost anything you could want to do in football exists in Football Manager, unless you want to actually kick the fucking ball.

Slowly all of these options started to come together into something more cohesive; my team was well drilled and my defenders had stopped leaking goals like a colander in the Atlantic. Towards the end of the season I even began to move up the league with a catastrophically unpredictable run of form for all concerned, culminating in a final day race for automatic promotion. With only goal difference separating me from a fellow human, I won a close game against 7th place while he was dismantled by an already-relegated 23rd. As usual, pissing off your friends is rather entertaining.

Football Manager is hard. Newcomers won’t understand why so much of what they try doesn’t work, and an average knowledge of football is required at the very least to get to the meat of it (what the hell is the difference between an Enganche and a Trequartista?). It’s similar to the ‘Candy Crush’ mentality, creating an illusion of skill where success in fact boils down to luck of the draw. It’s like being graded on Blackjack.

There are many more layers of illusion between skill and luck than in ‘Candy Crush’ however, and at least Football Manager doesn’t make you pay to keep playing - it’s not that evil. Still, it’s football on a roulette wheel, an endless bag of cookies being guarded by Two-Face dressed as a linesman. It’s not exactly fair, but then neither is heroin.

44

These Heels

by

Ahlam Al-Abbasi

The night shudders as the solitary shoe heel hits the glowing sidewalk.

Ddum.

Ddum.

Ddum.

Ddum.

Ddum.

Ddum.

The cold crystallises in a series of amorous footsteps, oddly crossed like a cat tip-toeing along the very fine edge of a barbed wire wall. In this concrete sea of darkness, these heels imprint fine arched doorways onto the pavement’s glittering surface. The streetlights desperately try to penetrate the depths of these doorways, which are domestically placed three of four inches away from the epicentre, a singular dot, of cruel beautiful intention.

Domestic. And the love. Domestic and the vanity. Domestic and the soft tread of carpet on the stairs as you drape yourself silkily across the banister in the empty dark. Then playing to the tune of an inferno in the fireplace before a double sofa, lined, and embellished with the slight figure of book and glass and faint red lipstick mark on the rim of a crystal. Crystal, crystalline, the soft carpet under the satin slipper heels. The pavement drumming beneath harsher nails.

Ddum.

Ddum.

Ddum.

Ddum.

Ddum.

Ddum.

Why cat-like and not woman-like? I see ghosting through the orange haze and disappearing into the dark periphery a heel. I shudder. I look again. And I shudder. The typical words; dainty, slight, arched, small, dazzling, gorgeous…they abandon me. It is not constrained but beyond constraint. Articulation is possible but through a series of images; the pavement, the solid rubber sole, raised and determined, prophetically and royally walking a barren earth. No, no such thing, but an earth determined to push back with a force that meets between the pavement and that rubber sole. Or those two soles, souls. The heel, never forget the heel. A tower of opposition, a high rise among a sea of gum and specks and leaves and dirt. A high rise that grants, god like, no subjugation to the earth that has worn the human sole within, weathered and tired as it is. No pedicure can cure. Where the hard skin gathers and forces itself to the command of a new master that can win against the hardships of pavement, sole and shoe. I can see the bridge with its underlying darkness. For a sole it can be an Everest or a hill, a Kilimanjaro or the plains along which runs a river of sighs, bound to the front door of a large white wooden house with one allencompassing fence, a crucial lawn and a polite cough.

Ddum. Ddum. Ddum. Ddum. Ddum.

Ddum.

The fur coat brushes briskly against the stockinged calf, breaking the train line but smoothing the way for a scene in the dark through which our protagonist walks. Lace ups, we can see, stopping just underneath that crucial bump that creates the border between foot and leg. A faint starlight pattern pierced into the leather. Proud, but not ostentatious. A firm foot. Who said handshakes where the be all? And the placement of one in front of the other, avoiding cracks, avoiding splits, incorporating an understanding of the current environment into a steady stream of hard notes that- no, they don’t beat, but they knock. If we were dramatic, we would say on the gates of this urban hell. The pavement doesn’t buckle. Just as the wooden door would not buckle, but the heel is heard, and a comprehension of the very nature of late night walking is reached.

Ddum.

Ddum.

Ddum.

Ddum.

Ddum. Ddum.

Through the streetlight, through the spotlight. Beyond said stars and galaxies and earths, those heels walk in the quiet urban night where the cars can be heard on the distant highways and the whistling snores of the domestic slip beneath the consciousness to create a terrifying lullaby that I love.

Those lace ups walk on beyond the light into the good, good night.

45

S

he does not like the way he says her father’s name. She has heard her father’s name spoken in many different ways, in different accents, by different people.

Her mother sometimes smiles when she says it, but just as frequently she shouts it from one end of the house, allowing it to echo off every wall and door in the building until finally it reaches her father, hunched up with a book somewhere. Normally her grandmother purses her lips when she says it, her distaste outlined in the vivid red rouge she uses to colour her mouth, as if her harsh words and complaints are somehow more sophisticated if her lips are painted scarlet. She has heard her headteacher say her father’s name, though he always pronounces their surname wrong. But the way that this man says it, as he stands on the threshold of their home, his words seeping in through the open doorway with the cool draught, seems to fill the air with iron.

Her father pulls his dressing-gown tighter across his body. They were all in bed before the man knocked, where they should be now. Instead, they’re all clustered in the hallway, her father in front, her mother clinging to his side, her brothers and sisters clogging up the hallway. She’s standing at the very back, closest to the kitchen, and she can’t quite see the man whose knock woke up the whole house. She can hear him though. She can hear him tell her father that he has to come with him. He has to come with him or the whole family will come with him. Mum and all seven of her siblings. If Father doesn’t go with the man now, they all will go and they won’t all come back.

She can also hear her mother crying. Her shoulders are shaking but her head is held high. She had been clinging on to her father’s arm but she has now let go. Her arm hangs uselessly next to her. Father looks at her and then quickly looks away. He nods at the man in the doorway and bends to put on his shoes.

His feet are bare, she realises. He has not got enough time to go upstairs to put on socks. He’s still wearing his pyjamas. He’ll get cold. He always gets grumpy when he’s cold. He also gets grumpy when he’s hungry. He won’t be able to think straight if he’s grumpy.

The sister standing next to her is crying but she is not. “Crying is a waste of time,” she remembers her grandmother telling her once. “Time is much better spent doing something useful.”

The door of the kitchen is directly to her left. She pushes it open. A loaf of bread is sitting on the table. It has been left uncovered, probably by one of her brothers, and so, when she squeezes it, it feels a little stale. She cuts two slices, the bread knife sawing easily through the crust. They have a little cheese left, she knows, as she stole some earlier. The pantry is considerably sparser than it was a few years ago, with a larger percentage of cans than there used to be. The metal twinkles in the moonlight.

She cuts some cheese and places it on the unbuttered bread. She wraps the sandwich in a clean tea towel and pushes back into the hallway. Her sister is still crying, now into the shoulder of her eldest brother, whose cheeks are also wet. She pushes through the weeping bodies to the bottom of the staircase, where her father is lacing up his boots.

Her mother has her hands over her face. The man is leaning lazily in the doorway, his suit covered by a black leather coat. As he stares down at her, she sees that his teeth are yellow.

Her father looks up at her, his trembling fingers momentarily pausing as he struggles with the laces on his boots. She holds out the sandwich.

“For the journey,” she says.

46

by

Ellen

n Lavelle

FOR THE JOURNEY 47

BLO Student bloggers at Warwick.

F e a t u r i n g Lydia Rose Smith Jonny Young Emma Axelsson

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lydiarosexo.blogspot.co.uk FASHION, BEAUTY & LIFESTYLE FROM LYDIA ROSE SMITH What inspires your content, day to day?

I base my content around my every day life. When you write a blog, you almost develop a blogging third eye where everything and anything could be made into a blog post. I blog about everything I do, from vegan restaurants in London, what I wore, to the lipstick I’ve been loving lately.

How do you juggle your blog, university, and other commitments?

In second year I was juggling a lot of writing placements at various different online websites. My blog was really suffering from it, so after a few

months of juggling things I decided to quit them all and just focus on my course and my blog. It’s the best decision I ever made. As an aspiring writer I think writing a blog is the best thing you can do, it’s a way of turning a hobby into an online porftolio and I’ve made so many industry connections along the way.

What are your favourite blogs?

At the moment I love Zoe London, a blue haired alternative blogger from London for her lifestyle posts and honest written pieces.

Style bloggers who inspire me are Queen of Jetlags and That Pommie Girl. For beauty I love Vivianna Does Makeup and Lily Pebbles.

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What’s next for your blog?

I’m going to be branching out into health soon – I’m really passionate about the plantbased lifestyle so I’m going to be sharing my healthy eating tips! Something I’ve noticed is that there’s a real demand for helpful content in the blogosphere so I’m going to be doing more DIYs, tips and tricks etc.

Any advice for anyone wanting to blog?

Work on your photography, be original and bring something new to the table.

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rubbishopinion.wordpress.com GAMING, REVIEWS & GENERAL CYNICISM FROM JONNY YOUNG Snarky mode engaged.

What inspires your content, day to day?

I generally write about stuff I like, which might be a surprise; I started on Bleach because it was a prime target for ripping into and just kept with the anime theme. Anime is so intrinsically ridiculous there’s always something to say, so there’s a wider range for stupid similes than in say Friends. My ranty style is a combination of premeditated negativity in everything I come across and a bunch of comedians like Eddie Izzard, Yahtzee Croshaw, Dara OBriain etc, who specialise in finding the stupid in everything.

Being overly critical is more entertaining than endless praise.

How do you juggle your blog, university, and other commitments?

(Juggling - clowns?) - the blog has fallen down my priority list this term unfortunately, so I’ve not done much with it. I watch two or three episodes of a show in a night and when I’m done it takes two days or so to write and finalise an edit, but work has taken over the viewing time. It’s mostly a hobby at the moment, but it’s nice when people read and like your stuff.

What are your favourite blogs?

I don’t read any blogs really, just watch youtube series like retsupurae, read columns on gaming sites and listen to stupid podcasts like regular features.

So almost everything but blogs.

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What’s next for your blog?

I’m halfway through Trigun at the moment, and I watched Akira a few weeks ago, but the latter takes at least four degrees in Philosophy from the University of Bullshit to fully understand. I might need to watch it again.

Any advice for anyone wanting to blog?

If you have a topic you like and a style you think people will like, go for it. It doesn’t cost anything and just doing it consistently gives decent writing experience. Just make sure it’s not pure words. Pictures and captions are my favourite part.

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HOLYCRABNESS.COM RECIPES AND FOOD PHOTOGRAPHY FROM EMMA AXELSSON What inspires your content, day to day?

I get inspiration from pretty much everywhere; the internet, such as Tumblr, YouTube cooking videos (like Sorted Food), the Buzzfeed food category, random links and searches when something catches my eye; the other spectrum of online magazine archives such as Food52, Bon Appetit, and Jamie Oliver; cookbooks, since my parents and I combined have a crazy number of them so they’re everywhere in our house; and even dishes I eat in restaurants, or the pictures of food people post on Instagram. I store my absolute favourites in my

internet folders, but basically, for every 50 recipes I save in that folder, I get the time to make about three of them!

How do you juggle your blog, university, and other commitments?

For the most part, I make use of Wordpress and Tumblr’s feature of queueing posts, scheduled to be posted at certain times of the day, or certain days of the week.

This is mainly because at university, I don’t have the time I would like to commit to making new recipes, nor do I have all the equipment or ingredients that I would

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have at home, and so pretty much as soon as any holiday comes up and I’m at home, I’m baking and cooking like crazy so that it’s not much of an issue when I’m at university, bar maybe a little editing and hunting for new inspiration. It does mean holidays are a little hectic trying to squeeze in as many recipes as possible, but it makes up for it when I have a whole backlog of possible posts.

What are your favourite blogs?

There are so many, but to name a few, there’s

Half-Baked Harvest, who’s photography and food styling I absolutely adore, and her recipes have always been a hit when I’ve tested them out. Then there’s Raspberricupcakes, who makes the most amazing baked goods and though I’m not much of a skilled baker, it’s always fun to see what new, creative recipe she’d made.

Recently, I’m obsessed with I Am A Food Blog, who, like the rest of them, has great photos and pretty lowkey recipes that doesn’t skimp on the flavour or creativity.

What’s next for your blog?

Well, first of all, it’s coming up to the Easter holidays, so way more new posts all of a sudden, and I’m off to Hawaii until the end of March, so I intend to eat (and thus document) my way through the local foods…My focus for when I get back is to get through my ‘recipe bucket list’ that I posted a few months ago and still haven’t even made a start on!

Any advice for anyone wanting to blog?

It’s often said, but you definitely need something you’re passionate about, particularly because, unless you hit a particular missing spot in a market, it’s likely you won’t have followers, comments and legions of adoring fans from the get go and that can be a bit disheartening, unless you really love what you’re blogging about. It’s taken me more than two years to get where I am, and I’m still such an unknown little fish in the big sea of food blogging, never mind blogging in general. But, if you’re serious about it, I cannot recommend social media enough, particularly Instagram if you’re the kind of blog with pretty pictures, in order to get your name out there.

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FLOWERS AND GOLD, GIRLS AND STARS Harry Puttock

illustration by the author

by

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T

he Girl of young man is of girls; and y image of that etched onto an

I heard it told me wh way, thr Th an ma wood like fir procession intoxicated by the air, I foun Guests lined t for some it wa and laughing study; Rabbit corridors; Ca talking seriou that were pop perched, spea

“There don’t y-”

“I kno

“An id

“ Yes a

“I alwa up and-”

“One c

“Exact Appear anima say, I’m not su number of us although we w something… canine: dog o either be mon either.

Guests slow and my

f your Dreams… that’s the phrase every told, it begins long before he has dreamed yet, for as long as he can remember the girl has been whispered through him and ny conceivable image of his future.

d a siren sing to swing in the distance and here to go, it took me from the gravel walkrough gardens and towards the lights. he house couldn’t contain its contents nd they oozed down its marble stairways, asked guests, smoke and the aromas of d and dark liquor. Champagne corks flew reworks to roars from the animal faced n. Following the siren swing, already y the impressions of smoke and alcohol in nd my way inside through the creatures. the hallways, some at work, some at play, as hard to tell which. A Fox ran screaming from a howling Wolf into an adjacent ts and Hares drank and stumbled through ats and Dogs formed prestigious groups, usly and laughingly in turn, about things pular to treat as such, as either; and Birds aking over each other: e’s something so liberating about masks

ow exactly how you-” denti-” abso-” ays feel most like a person when dressed

can’t truly be dressed up without a mas-” tly, I couldn’t-…” al: feel human: act the former? I must ure I understood. There were a large s that did not have an adopted character, were all masked, I suppose we’d adopted I’d begun to wish I’d come as something or wolf. In truth, great men seemed to nsters or myths: I was desperate to be

s became sparse, the air grew heavy and eyes matched the tempo, I could no longer

hear the hunt or the birds, but still the song, no louder than I’d heard it the first time. Indulgently I continued to slow, closed my eyes and filled my lungs with this air, this house, that let me feel full to my outline.

Shoulders, chest and jaw, I took the shape of man. The room fit like a glove, the reason I’d been walking, the reason I walk; I’d found the music. Light hung in the air, dancing between dancers, filling the space between bodies, casting perspective and defining our edges.

I felt the music, the lights, the drink on my skin, and the atmosphere shifted around my body like candle smoke in the wind. On the other side of the room, through the dancers, was a portrait watching the band, glowing and spot-lit. Eve, Helen and Zelda, every angle that made up her image fit perfectly into the frame that had been hanging longingly in my mind: she was the form of woman.

“You like the band?”, I asked. She turned to look at me, putting the base of her cigarette holder to her mouth, and said nothing. “Say, what’s your name?”, I tried again. Gently, she let out a stream of Jasmine scented smoke that overwhelmed my senses. Now that’s a smell. After a moment, I questioned her for a final time: “Would you care to get a drink?”, she smiled the only smile I can imagine, and began to walk. I followed her swaying shape to a set of French windows, grabbing a bottle and glasses on our way. I poured out our glasses and drank in the scene, she knew how to hold a glass, heck, she seemed to know how to do everything.

I saw myself, both of us, in third person and felt a sense of completion that was alien to me. This was the vision of myself I’d always had, always been moving towards, and here I was living that image of myself with a living image.

“I hope you don’t find this forward, Miss, but you’re very beautiful”, she smiled that smile again. I put down my glass and moved towards her, I found myself looking at her again and once more the air grew heavy and slow. Not daring to blink my hands rose to untie the back of her mask, and once more I took the shape of man. The knot slipped loose, her mask fell into my hands and her dress, glass and cigarette hit the floor.

The air was full of jasmine smoke. I looked, but try as I may, I couldn’t see the outline of my bride. I can still smell the jasmine.

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WATER CANNOT DROWN Swollen paper cut on my middle finger.

My pen pushing into it as I write to you But you Are still my biggest wound.

I don’t know how much longer I can nurse you Salt intake is too high and it stings We are the ocean.

Covered with a London Grammar song.

‘I know it’s frightening’ The wind hurling through the vent is not my last hope And I haven’t had dinner yet.

a poem by

Jonella Vidal

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COBALT

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ISSUE 3 12TH MARCH 2015 WARWICK UNIVERSITY