Concrete - Issue 285

UEA’s Student Newspaper

Issue 285 • Free • Friday 20 September

Find us at Societies Fair on Tuesday or the Big Meet on Thursday! @Concrete_UEA /ConcreteNewspaper ConcreteUEA

Inside...

UEA to mark 50th Anniversary with festival celebrations

“Down It Fresher!”

How to stay tee-total at university Features P. 11

Sports Preview We take a look at what you can expect to see at Sports Fair and how to get involved Sport P. 23

Live In Norwich Our guide to the best live music venues in Norwich Music V. 4

Kathryn Fox News Reporter On the 28 September, UEA will welcome current staff, students, alumni and the local community to a day-long festival to mark its 50th Anniversary.

Proceedings will erupt with a fireworkvolcano, made by UEA researchers and academics, imitating Mount Merapi in Indonesia. The volcano will become active at 6:30pm on Waveney Mound. Not just a physical wonder, educational information about volcanos will be available throughout the day from Norfolk Firework Volcano Team.

Throughout the day there will be interactive activities intended to give insight to the University’s broad spectrum of academic

subjects. There will also be family-oriented activities at the Little Big Top, where puppet workshops and campus challenges are some events on offer.

For home-bred talent the Fringe Festival will be showcasing comedy and drama performed and scripted by UEA students and alumni.

Notable comedian Eddie Izzard, who was made an honourary graduate in 2003 will deliver his acclaimed show Stripped: Tout en Français.

Alongside him on the line-up is UEA alumnus and winner of the 2013 Foster’s Edinburgh Best Newcomer Award, John Kearns.

The climax of the event is the Big Top Party, held at 7pm between Norfolk and Suffolk Terraces. Performers will include legendary eighties funk band Kid Creole and the Coconuts and Fun Lovin’ Criminals frontman and BBC 6 Music Presenter DJ Huey Morgan.

There will be on-going events that will carry on past the festival. Exhibitions of East Anglian art at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts as well as a display of artwork by former UEA professor Howard Temperley at Norwich Cathedral will complement the celebrations. Other prominent events marking the University’s anniversary include a series of concerts by the university’s choirs and orchestras, and an exhibition at the Forum showcasing the university’s areas of excellence and its impact on local communities.

Vice-Chancellor Edward Acton describes the event as a way to say “thank you”, acknowledging that “without the vision and fierce commitment of our earliest supporters, golfers might still be marvelling at the undulations of the old course of which much of the university now stands.”

2

concrete.editor@uea.ac.uk

Editorial

Editor-in-chief | Sidonie ChafferMelly concrete.editor@uea.ac.uk Deputy Editor | Sophie Witts concrete.managingeditor@uea.ac.uk Online Editor | Billy Sexton Deputy Online Editor | Amelia

Marchington concrete.online@uea.ac.uk News | Andrew Ansell & Lara-Jayne Ellice concrete.news@uea.ac.uk Comment | Zoë Jones concrete.comment@uea.ac.uk Global | Ella Gilbert concrete.global@uea.ac.uk Features | Bridie Wilkinson concrete.features@uea.ac.uk Environment | Peter Sheehan concrete.environment@uea.ac.uk Science & Tech | Dominic Burchnall concrete.science@uea.ac.uk Travel | Niyonu Agana-Burke concrete.travel@uea.ac.uk Lifestyle | Lydia Clifton concrete.lifestyle@uea.ac.uk Sport | Charlie Savage & Will Medlock concrete.sport@hotmail.co.uk Copy Editors | Stephenie Naulls & Lucy Morris concretecopyeditors@gmail.com Chief Photographers | Jacob Roberts-Kendall & Will Cockram concrete.photography@uea.ac.uk Distribution Manager | Steph Gover

Issue 285

Editorial

20/09/13

Contributors

News | Emily Rivers, Michael Drummond, Alice Donnelly, Elizabeth Grant, Rob Drury, Andrew Ansell, Lara Ellice, Jayne Disley, David Birch, Sohpie Witts, Sidonie Chaffer-Melly Comment | Robbie Wishart, Zoe Jones, Matthew Finucane, Joel Taylor, Anna Walker, Nile Pennington, Elliot Wengler Global | Jonathan Stuart, Valerie Larsen, Olivia Davies Features | Joel Taylor, Emily Fedorowycz, Bridie Wilkinson Environment | Peter Sheehan, Chloe Moore Science & Tech | Dominic Burchnall, Julie Bishop, Ian Roberts Travel | Sophie Peters, Zoe Jones, Florrie Harris-Scott, Josie Smith Lifestyle | Lydia Clifton, Emma Gladwin, Holly Whitaker, Rebbecca Bemment Sport | James Newbold, George Tucker, Katherine Lucas, Sam Coyne, Callum Hansey, Charlie Savage Proofreaders | Lucy Morris, Madeleine Woodfield

Win! Win! Win! Tweet us a picture of your newly decorated room and win a free hot dog!

Keep an eye on Facebook and Twitter for a chance to win Fresher’s tickets!

The Editor’s Column The start of a new term always means there are welcomes in order. Firstly, welcome back to everyone returning to UEA. Hopefully you’ve had amazing summers and are ready to kick-start the year with a jam packed fresher’s week.

Secondly, a huge warm welcome to all those arriving on campus for the first time. It’s so much fun and there’s so much to see this week.

UEA’s 50th Anniversary Festival is taking place on campus at the end of Fresher’s Week, and to commemorate it we’ve got a retrospect looking back at the highlights of 50 amazing years of UEA. We’ve also got previews to the sports clubs and a guide to the

What do you do?

I am the Entertainments Promotions, Publicity & Design Assistant. Basically I am the one responsible for designing the posters, flyers, gig guides and social media material. I am also the Resident DJ for The A List on Saturdays.

How did you come to the job?

I studied Music at UEA and graduated in 2009, during my time as a student I was Ents staff, helping out with clubnights, cloakroom and DJing. Then in 2011 I applied for my current role and hey presto... I’m here.

Friend-seeking Fresher Dear Fresher, while the majority would suggest alcohol as the method of choice for breaking the ice, why not save time and invest in a simple doorstop? That way you’ll already be well acquainted with your flatmates even

Hayden

This week we talk to... Emil

Allard

What’s your favourite place/thing on campus?

Favourite place has got to be DJing on the stage in The Nick Rayns LCR in front of a packed out room. Such a buzz!

Students are great at partying and having that many appreciating what little old me is doing is amazing.

What do you think makes UEA so wonderful?

The campus creates a fantastic setting to make UEA wonderful, shops, club, bar, grass, lake, square, rabbits... what’s not to love?

What piece of advice would you give to a fresher?

Come to the Welcome Fair, grab bags full of free stuff! It will keep you going for months. Also, join societies, they are a great way of building skills, friends and opportunities. I was part of Livewire and Concrete in my student days and it really built me up for the “real world”.

before your first night out. Of course, a good old-fashioned game of ‘Never Have I Ever’ would yield maximum results.

It’s been real, it’s been cute, but it’s not been real cute,

Sidonie Chaffer-Melly Editor-in-Chief

Quick Questions

Hayden Helps...

Dear Hayden, I’ll be joining UEA as a fresher this year, but I’m really nervous about making friends, especially in halls. HELP!?

best live music venues in Norwich.

Make sure you sign up to Concrete at Societies Fair on Tuesay and sign up to the sections you’re interested in at The Big Meet on Thursday - we’ll be in the LCR at 1pm.

In the meantime, check out our website at concrete-online.co.uk and follow us on Twitter (@concrete_uea) to keep up to date with everything UEA. Have an amazing Fresher’s Week, you’ll never forget it.

Tweet of the Week “140 characters can do no justice to how excited I am for the @officiallcr. #UEA #Freshaaaaaaas”

Contact Us Union House University of East Anglia Norwich NR4 7TJ 01603 593 466 www.concrete-online.co.uk www.concblog.wordpress.com Editorial inquiries / complaints concrete.editor@uea.ac.uk concrete.venue@uea.ac.uk Got a story? concrete.news@uea.ac.uk

Concrete welcomes all letters and emails, so please don’t hesitate to get in touch. Letters should be addressed to the editor-in-chief, and include contact details. All emails should be sent to concrete.editor@uea.ac.uk. We will consider anonymous publication, and reserve the right to edit for length and clarity. Anonymous article submissions are permitted. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the newspaper. No part of this newspaper may be reproduced through any means without the express permission of the editor, Sidonie Chaffer-Melly. Published by UUEAS Concrete Society ©2013 Concrete BMc ISSN 1351-2773

News

20/09/13

Issue 285

concrete.news@uea.ac.uk

3

UEA shortlisted for prestigious awards Andrew Ansell News Editor The final shortlist for the Times Higher Education Awards includes the University of East Anglia in four categories, including University of the Year.

The institution chosen as the University of the Year will have demonstrated its exceptional performance in the past academic year. The University of East Anglia’s particularly bold, imaginative and innovative initiatives that have advanced the University’s reputation explain its nomination in this category.

Co-ordinated efforts between Professor Aedin Cassidy, of the University of East Anglia Norwich Medical School, and colleagues at the Harvard School of Public health in the area of nutrition research could see the University of East Anglia pick up another award, for International Collaboration of the Year. Judges will assess evidence of creative collaborations and imaginative communication of research results in making their decision.

Another joint work, this time between UEA’s School of Chemistry and Swedish Biomimetics 3000 has been shortlisted for the Outstanding Contribution to

Innovation and Technology award.

The institutions’ collaboration have produced a new platform technology for personalising medicine, named PersonaPep. The University’s fourth nomination stems from September 2012 when University of East Anglia introduced highland cows onto the outskirts of the campus as a sustainable way of managing the diverse flora and fauna of the fenland, flood plain and meadows that form parts of the University’s 300 acre estate. This has been recognised as by the award convenors as warranting a place in the final shortlist for an award in the

Outstanding Contribution to Sustainable Development category.

Vice-Chancellor Prof Edward Acton said: “I am delighted that yet again our institution has been recognised on the national stage as one of the best in the country in such a wide variety of categories. This is proving to be a most successful year for UEA and a wonderful way to celebrate our 50th anniversary.

“I hope our success continues at the awards ceremony in November and provides us with a springboard into the next half century.”

The raft of nominations for Times Higher Education Awards is recognition of

the University’s commitment to research excellence in addition to the University’s strength in depth. This comes after a successful summer for the University of East Anglia. Earlier in the year the University was ranked number one in the Times Higher Student Experience Survey and second among English mainstream universities in the 2013 National Student Survey. The summer further saw the University’s science department awarded extensive grants to carry out crucial research.

The winners of the 18 nominated categories will be announced at a ceremony in London on 28 November.

Bumblebees have UEA ecologists buzzing Lara Ellice News Editor Ecologists at the University of East Anglia have worked alongside the University of Bristol and the Institute of Zoology to conduct the largest ever study of bumblebee habitats.

The ecologists have used DNA technology and remote sensing to find out which landscapes will benefit the survival of bumblebees.

Despite bumblebees being difficult to study due to their nests being almost impossible to find, the team have obtained DNA from 2577 worker and 537 queen bees of five different species, and 2000 colonies.

Dr Matt Heard, of the CEH, said: “By using the secrets hidden within the DNA of bumblebees we can start to understand how queens and their colonies are using the landscape around them.”

The ecologists then used airborne remote sensing to create detailed images to estimate the location of more than 3000 bees, and see how far they travelled to find food.

It was discovered that the bumblebees

travel more a mile to find food, compared to other insects that travel around 500 metres.

Professor Andrew Bourke, a behavioural ecologist and evolutionary biologist from UEA’s school of Biological Sciences, commented on the research: “It’s very exciting to be part of a team bringing together ecologists, geneticists and modellers to tackle the threats to wild bees.

“We hope that, by providing detailed insights into how bumble bees move around landscapes, our results will lead to improved interventions for bees so that wildflowers and crops can continue to benefit from their essential pollination services.”

The results from the study will help farmers to ensure the countryside is well suited for the habitat a bee needs to thrive and pollinate, and whether conservation schemes, such as planting more flowers on farmland, are working, and whether shortening the distance to the bee’s food source will increase their chances of survival and reproduction.

The findings were presented at INTECOL in London, the world’s largest international ecology meeting.

4

concrete.news@uea.ac.uk

Issue 285

20/09/13

News

Toxic algae threatens Norfolk Broads Elizabeth Grant News reporter The presence of toxic algae in the Norfolk Broads seems to be getting worse, UEA researchers have discovered.

The increased growth has been attributed to climate change, with the problem set to worsen if the planet continues to get warmer. A study conducted by UEA scientists has been published in the Nature Climate Change Journal showing that water temperature impacts plankton ecosystems in oceans, and that this can affect the Norfolk Broads too.

The blue-green algae could have a devastating effect on the Broads as it is

UEA researchers link broccoli with delayed onset of Osteoarthritis Flickr

Alice Donnelly News reporter Pioneering research led by the University of East Anglia has found a compound in broccoli that significantly slows the progress of osteoarthritis.

The researchers found that mice fed on a diet rich in the compound, sulforaphane, had less cartilage damage and osteoarthritis than mice that were not. Sulforaphane, also found in cabbage and Brussels sprouts, blocks the enzymes that cause joint destruction.

This research supplements previous findings, that the compound also has anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory properties.

The study was funded by the medical research charity Arthritis Research UK, The Dunhill Medical Trust, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council’s (BBSRC) and the Diet and Health Research Industry Club (DRINC). This support enabled researchers from the University of East Anglia’s schools of Biological Sciences, Pharmacy and Norwich Medical School, along with the University of Oxford, and Norfolk and Norwich University

Hospital to conduct their work.

Osteoarthritis, the most common form of arthritis, afflicts roughly one million people in the UK every year. The degenerative disease affects joints in the body and is responsible for countless hip and knee replacements. According to Arthritis Research UK it costs the NHS £5.2 billion every year.

The research comes at a crucial point as it is predicted that the number of patients seeking treatment for osteoarthritis will almost double in the next twenty years. Professor Ian Clark, the lead researcher in the experiment and professor of Musculoskeletal Biology at UEA commented “[osteoarthritis] will get worse in an increasingly aging and obese population such as ours.”

To investigate the effects on a human joint, researchers from the School of Biological Sciences and Norwich Medical School will conduct a small scale clinical trial involving Osteoarthritis patients due to have knee replacement surgery. If the results are positive, it is hoped funding could be secured for a large scale clinical trial to show the effect of broccoli on Osteoarthritis, joint function and pain itself.

“we are talking about a global phenomenon” capable of producing toxins known to kill wildlife, especially fish and livestock.

Lead researcher Dr Thomas Mock, said: “We are talking about a global phenomenon here and I’m afraid almost all ecosystems will be affected by this, especially marine ones.

“Marine algae, fresh water algae, algae which live in streams, all will be affected by temperature in very similar ways.

“If warming continues at the current

rate then it will affect the Broads as well, but it is very complex, it is not just a simple mechanism, it is a multi-layer change of ecosystem, so we can’t be sure what will happen in the next decade or several decades.

“But when the Broads warm up, all the algae in the Broads will be affected.”

But algae can also be used to make products that can be more effective than fossil resources. Because algae absorb water as they grow, they can be used to extract nutrients and harmful waste from streams.

On Monday 2 September a new microalgae growth facility supported by UEA and the University of Cambridge opened at the University of Cambridge Botanic Garden.

The facility is growing different algae species to determine exactly how algae can affect the carbon economy.

The opening accompanied the Algae Symposium being held at the Sainsbury Laboratory, where 120 members of the algae research community discussed the progress in algal technology.

Liliya Serazetdinova said: “We are looking forward to the new developments based on the collaboration between the University of East Anglia and the University of Cambridge leading towards setting up the new Algal Innovation Centre that will unlock the potential of algae for a knowledge-based bioeconomy in the UK.”

Ant-ibiotics Rob Drury News reporter Scientists at the John Innes Centre (JIC) in Norwich may be on course to discover new sources of antibiotics from a variety of insects.

The Giant Lime Green Stick Insect, South American Leafcutter Ant and Death’s Head Hawkmoth are being studied by teams at UEA and the JIC in order to further understand the manipulation of bacteria.

A large percentage of antibiotics currently in circulation are already formed from Soil Bacteria Actinomycetes, which have characteristics pertaining to bacteria and fungus.

Leafcutter Ants are known to take sections of leaves underground, where decay forms a fungus in the soil.

To protect this store the ants grow an antibiotic producing bacteria on themselves. The Giant Lime Green Stick Insect and Death’s Head Hawksmoth

feed on eucalyptus and potatoes respectively, and within the guts of these insects scientists have found bacteria resistant to antibiotics. From this, it can be concluded that the insects have been exposed to antibiotics found in the foodstuffs, which is proving to be of great interest to researchers.

The studies examining this behaviour featured on the BBC’s Inside Out programme on 2 September, where much of the work of the Norwich-based scientists was explored for its potential to improve the future of healthcare.

News

20/09/13

Issue 285

5

concrete.news@uea.ac.uk

Norwich MP supports controversial government Lobbying Bill In response to the Bill, many charities and other groups such as Labour List, Conservative Home and Lib Dem Voice have called on MPs to vote against it.

If passed, the Bill could curb campaigning by charities on political issues in the 12 months before a general election,

“If passed, the Bill could curb Emily Rivers News Reporter Simon Wright, MP for Norwich South, has again supported the government by voting in favour of the controversial Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill, referred to as the ‘Gagging Bill’ by opponents.

The Bill, which passed the committee stage on 11 September, sets out to regulate election campaign spending by those not registered as political parties or standing for election themselves. It also strengthens legal requirements placed on trade unions, meaning they will have an obligation to keep their list of members up to date.

campaigning

by

charities on political issues before a general election.” which critics have claimed effectively gags those who represent the most vulnerable and needy people in the country. Currently, third party groups such as charities can spend up to £988,800 during the 12 months running up to a general election on campaign material that could affect the outcome of the election,.The Lobbying Bill cuts this spending to £388,800, as well as broadening the term ‘spending’ to include staff and overheads. It also widens the definition of ‘election-related activity’ to include work that could affect the outcome

of an election, even if not done on purpose.

The government is in a hurry to get the bill to pass by May 2014 – the last 12 months before the general election – so the restrictions will be implemented in the run up to the 2015 election.

The Norwich South MP stated that he believes ‘It’s right to take action to ensure that political debate is not distorted by the influence of big money” but conceded that ‘we do however need amendments to the Bill to clarify that the normal campaigning activities of charities will not be affected, and I welcome the Government’s assurances that it will improve the Bill in this regard as it continues its passage through Parliament.’

Speaking on the Today programme, the Bill’s sponsor Andrew Lansley defended the legislation, citing that the government is ‘not setting out in any sense to constrain any charity or organisation who wants to campaign on policy issues.’ He went on to claim that the coalition is ‘the most transparent government we’ve ever seen.’

Concerns have been raised by the Electoral Commission. who cite “significant issues of workability’. The Bill appears to give the Electoral Commission discretion to interpret exactly what political campaigning

is, and even Conservative Home have said that campaigners will not know what activity is covered by the Bill.

The Lobbying Bill was approved in principle by the House of Commons in its Second Reading with a reduced majority of 309-247 – a majority that Simon Wright helped the government achieve – even though the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee said the Bill ‘must not become law in its present form.’

Want to write for Concrete News? Email Andrew and Lara at concrete. news@uea.ac.uk

Universities adapt to funding changes Michael Drummond News Reporter England’s universities are being forced to adapt in order to maintain high standards following the rise in tuition fees, a report from Universities UK says.

The £9,000 fees cap, introduced to make up for the 80% cut in public funding, has led to questions about how institutions spend their money.

“Since the introduction of tuition fees, people have quite rightly been asking questions about how universities are spending the income” said Nicola Dandridge, Chief Executive of Universities UK. “Our report aims to answer these questions”.

According the report, the 2006 increase allowed universities to “make significant investments in buildings and infrastructure”, something that continued after the 2012 increase. Universities have also sought to make other improvements; with Liverpool and Leeds among those enhancing their ‘careers-focused support’.

Along with UEA’s careers service these programs work to ensure students get the internships and work placements they need

to feel prepared for life outside campus.

However, many universities claimed that their improvements to the student experience were underway before the introduction of the higher fees. Indeed the fee income has been vital to fill the gap which would have been left by the cuts in public funding. Some have seen their income increased, for others it has fallen.

Almost all have been forced to increase the amount they charge in order to make up for the hefty budget cuts in force since 2012.

Despite the changes universities are implementing, a study by Which? and the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) found that one third of first years complained of ‘poor value for money’; The study, carried out earlier in 2013, found that 29% of first years did not feel they were getting value for money. This is compared to 16% of first years when the fees were at £1000 per year. UEA seems to be an exception, ranking first in the Times Higher Education Student Survey this year.

It will be sometime until the impact of the changes to higher education funding are fully understood, but already it is clear that adaption is the key to survival for English universities.

Nicalfc

6

concrete.news@uea.ac.uk

Issue 285

20/09/13

News

UEA’s low carbon couture hits the catwalk Jayne Disley News Reporter Students at UEA and Kingston University teamed up to curate an exclusive catwalk show on the eve of London Fashion Week.

The showcase, ‘Explosion’, featured wood based clothing made from low carbon materials such as cork, bamboo and living plants and was held at Queen Elizabeth Hall on London’s Southbank.

The project was based at UEA’s Adapt Low Carbon Group and supported by InCrops, who work with the creative industries and other sectors to develop concepts and prototypes based on sustainable materials . The aim was for young designers to think about the environmental impact of the fashion industry, and how it can reduce its carbon footprint in the future, while still creating

luxury wearable fashion.

Kingston University student Minka Lusse won London Mayor Boris Johnson’s Low Carbon Prize with her sawdust insulated jacket, which featured in the show. She said: ”I have always been interested in sustainability and the development of our environment.

My final product was a winter jacket, filled with wood shavings for insulation.

Finding a viable use for this common waste product allows the reduction of carbon emissions created during the manufacture of synthetic hollow fibers.

Wood shavings can also be used as a substitute for feathers and downs, which are often sourced unethically through plucking of live poultry.”

The young designers presented their environmentally friendly collection to the general public as well as industry experts and environmentalists.

Therollingrack

Postgraduate funding a ‘social Universit y NUS mobility timebomb’ marks celebrates s c i e n t i s t’s lobbying centenary victory David Birch News Reporter

Sophie Witts Deputy Editor

The University has celebrated the centenary of pioneering climate scientist Hubert Lamb, who founded UEA’s Climatic Research Unit.

Beginning on the 7 September, celebrations included talks examining Lamb’s work piecing together climate records for the Middle Ages from documents written at the time.

Climatic Research Unit (CRU) director Professor Phil Jones said: “Hubert Lamb did more than any other scientist of his generation to make the academic community aware of climate change and variability. He was the founding director of CRU back in 1972 – at a time when the study of climate change was still in its infancy.

“At that time very little was known about climate change. Hubert believed the world was gradually cooling - but building on his pioneering work we now know the opposite is true, and that between 1880 and now the world has warmed significantly.”

An exhibition of posters and archive material of Lamb’s work will be on public display at the Forum from 17 – 25 September.

Sidonie Chaffer-Melly Editor-in-Chief

The National Union of Students (NUS) is celebrating a victory over their lobbying campaign to extend free school meals to students in further education and sixth form colleges. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced that the government will extend the programme to all 16 – 18 year olds from a disadvantaged background, starting in September 2014. Free school meals were previously only available for eligible students at school sixth forms.

As part of the campaign, the NUS worked closely with City College Norwich’s students’ union which encouraged students to lobby their local MPs on the issue.

Joe Vinson, NUS Vice President (Further Education) said: “This welcome announcement marks the end of the historic bias towards sixth forms which left students in FE colleges unable to receive a free lunch.

“FE students and their carers are feeling the squeeze more than ever after the scrapping of the Education Maintenance Allowance and soaring living costs, and this new policy will help many students and their families across the country.”

The number of postgraduate students has increased by 42% in the last decade, yet the majority of students are from overseas or privately educated, the 1994 Group has announced.

In a report examining the state of postgraduate education, the Group found that Uk students accounted for just a quarter of the growth in the postgraduate population over the past

“Privately educated students are three times more likely to undertake postgraduate study” decade.

Whilst overall student numbers have increased, the perecentage recieving financial support has fallen, with the Research Council funding less than half the number of postgradute students it did a decade ago.

Figures for the 2011-2012 period showed that 149,560 British students took postgraduate courses.

Of these 94,115 (62%) were self-financing, 17,520 were funded by their employer or industry, and a mere 825 were Research Council-funded. The rest were

funded by means such as scholarships and awards.

Figures obtained in a report by The Sutton Trust indicate that privately educated students are three times more likely than their state counterparts to undertake postgraduate study.

15% of undergraduates and 17% of postgraduates are privately educated, meaning that privately educated students are 25% more likely to study for a masters degree. The government’s advisor on social mobility refers to this as a ‘Social Mobility Timebomb’.

The fact that postgraduate qualifications are becoming more important for career development is something to be noted.

Undergraduate students with tuition fees of £9000 will be graduating in 2015, and the impact that having this amount of debt will have on postgraduate study is uncertain. LSE has estimated that a master’s degree adds a 15% premium to a graduate’s earnings, and the skills they learn can benefit the economy.

A postgraduate degree can make a candidate stand out, and they are becoming increasingly important to employers, showing it has a “market value”, as well as an intellectual value.

The 1994 Group will be publishing annexes showing ways to increase the availablilty of postgraduate funding, such as making government-backed student loans available to postgraduate students and working with industry to support master’s courses.

Comment

20/09/13

Issue 285

concrete.comment@uea.ac.uk

7

The US is not the world’s police force Nile Pennington Comment Writer The US has just failed to garner support for another jolly into the Middle East, and I find myself, quite oddly, praising Russian President and all-round action man, Vladimir Putin. Why, you might ask, would I praise such a man? The answer is quite simple. Putin has stood-up to the United States. He has done that which only a handful of small, radical states have dared to do in the recent past. In doing so, he just might have redressed the international balance of power.

Vladimir Putin is the new thorn in the side of Barack Obama and through this, the United States. Like so many of the men who have occupied the Kremlin in years gone by, Putin is determined to prevent unilateral action by the United States.

On first glance, it would be easy to dismiss Putin’s actions as entirely selfmotivated, valuing Russia’s interests over holding individuals to account for crimes against humanity. I do not seek to praise his motivations. If I knew them in any certain terms, I would more than likely find them to be utterly abhorrent and nothing more than criminal. Instead, I want to praise the ‘Putin effect’.

On the 11 September, Putin wrote

a letter. A simple thing in normal circumstances, but this letter was a little different. The recipient was not the leaders in Washington, or the diplomats at the United Nations. No, this was a letter to the people of the United States. In his

and “We are not protecting the Syrian government, but international law”, Putin circumvented international convention and went straight of the jugular of the American government. The war-tired US population needs little motivation to object

the rules of the UN. Putin has proven that the US is not special. It is not the exemption to the rule, however much it is convinced of the fact.

The old order of alliance-building and seeking international support has been turned on its head. It would be easy to dismiss this as a blip on the radar, but to think that way would be defeatist. We must see this as the setting in motion of the wheels of change: a rebirth for the United Nations and an empowerment of

“Alliance-building and international support has been turned on its head”

own words, free from the skew of modern journalism, Putin put forth his argument to the American people in simple and impassioned terms.

With jabs at the US government like “The United Nations’ founders understood that decisions affecting war and peace should happen only by consensus”

to yet more conflict in the Middle East, and Putin knows this.

His argument was striking and convincing. He stated that the US is not the police force of the world. Granted, it is an influential player, yet it remains subordinate to the United Nations and cannot pick and choose when to adhere to

its constituent members - however big or small.

For too long, the US has sat at the top of the table, issuing direction to the rest of the world. Rarely has a state been willing to stand up to the US and say ‘no’, or more precisely ‘nyeht’. Diplomacy has won.

The US is back peddling. In the David and Goliath-esque battle of international politics, David has come out on top. With a well-placed stone to the forehead, Vladimir Putin has defeated the international colossus that is, or just maybe was, the United States.

A vote for Labour is a vote for the Unions Elliot Wengler Comment Writer It is surely more of an issue that a vote for Labour is a vote for Ed Miliband, than the issue that David Cameron, or at least his strategists, is painting as the main issue:

that Labour are closely associated with the Unions.

To shorten a boring scandal to a basic level, Unite the Union was accused of signing its members to the Labour party to gain influence over the chosen candidate for the constituency of Falkirk.

Miliband was portrayed as weak and

although an inquiry did not find evidence of wrong-doing, what happened was suspicious enough to allow Cameron to go for it on saying that Labour belong to the unions and are bad and corrupt as a result and that Miliband is weak. Earlier this month, Miliband had a speech at the

“Alliance-building and international support has been turned on its head”

Flickr: Lady Buffalo

TUC conference, but it was felt that it was overhyped as Miliband did not specify major Union-Labour reform links and did not offer much to anyone on either side of the fence on the issue of the Trade-UnionLabour-Party-Relationship.

Cameron’s line in PMQs before the summer recess slammed Miliband as ‘too weak to lead the Labour Party, and too weak to lead the country’, and it is now his job to disprove this, so is a non-fight with the trade unions really the path to follow?

That line will stick. That is Cameron’s card for the election, to weaken Miliband if the economy gets around to a serious

recovery, and he played the card to the extreme with roughly twenty mentions of Len McCloughski in a session back in June.

As we enter conference season with less than two years until the next election, Cameron can now really play for political points on Labour’s trade union relationship. The concerning thing here is that if this succeeds, it means that Labour, or more accurately, Miliband, would have failed to make Cameron the villain on a richhelping-the-rich level. Surely Miliband can maintain Labour’s lead on the issue of trust in terms of political corruption over Cameron? It is surprising, and almost reinforcing to Cameron’s portrayal; that Miliband isn’t defending the link to the unions as some kind of representation of the working poor in a way that Cameron could not continue to prosecute him for.

Tax-dodging donors, elitist industrialist group leaders, murky media mogul friendships are the things that are surely more easily tarnished alongside the Tories over Labour. If both drown in these muddy waters, there is surely a path back in for the Liberal Democrats, or have UKIP already claimed that ground?

8

Comment War is a game the UK should no longer be playing concrete.comment@uea.ac.uk

Matthew Finucane Comment Writer In the wake of what George Galloway has called the “democratic revolt” against the government, it seems increasingly unlikely that Britain will participate in military strikes against Syria. Worth exploring, however, is why the government was so desperate to intervene, what were their stated motives, and what impact parliament’s decision might have on Britain’s status in the world.

It must be understood that Syria is an international war. Simplified, the West supports the rebels, Russia supports the regime, and both have essentially been fighting each other by means of arms exports and funding since the war began.

However, in light of a changing trend on the battlefield (the once-successful rebels are now losing) any reason for the

Issue 285

20/09/13

West to ramp up its involvement must be viewed cynically. The establishment of a ‘red line’ on the use of chemical weapons (a line which had been crossed many times already, as most sources agree) is such a reason, and forms the basis for Cameron’s incitement to war.

Evidence for Assad’s culpability in the attack is vague and hard to come by, and there too are counterclaims, backed by the regime, that blame the rebels for carrying out the attack in a desperate bid to draw the US in. However, the desire to punish a regime likely guilty of such atrocities does not justify the desperation to intervene witnessed in Britain, France, and the USA. As many have pointed out, similar atrocities have occurred elsewhere and met no sanction; there are other factors at play in Syria.

Fundamentally the United States would like to see Russia embarrassed.

They would like to prove, once again, that Russia is not its ancestral Superpower,

Online privacy becoming an increasing concern Joel Taylor Comment Writer

The internet has come a long way since Barlow declared it to be free from government interference in 1996.

Although many will be surprised to discover that eBay and Amazon were founded a year previously and the birth of Google was only two years away, there were then barely a tenth of the 2.5 billion people connected to the internet today.

Barlow’s declaration centred on the fact that the internet transcended national borders. If a website owner in the UK hosted a website on a server in Canada which allowed users in America to access content illegal in their state, who, if anyone, should be prosecuted, and how? But Barlow ignored one fatal fact – internet users did not really reside in cyberspace, but in brick and mortar houses well within reach of governments.

Privacy online has since come more into the public eye. In 2009 Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, has said that “if you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”

This attitude towards privacy from a company involved in large scale – and sometimes illegal – data collection and retention caused an outcry amongst internet communities.

Recently, Edward Snowden leaked

information suggesting that the United States’ National Security Agency and the UK’s GCHQ have cracked internet encryption and are able to access large collections of online communications collected either covertly or through legal demands to operators such as Google and Yahoo – the revealing of which caused mixed feelings, with 58% of Americans thinking a criminal case should be brought against Snowden.

Closer to home though, many young people have yet to realise the real-world consequences of their actions online. The privacy policies of Facbook and Google (the latter’s resulting in European data watchdogs opening legal cases against the search giant) are dodgy enough without considering the sheer volume of personal information, communications and even images people pour into them on an hourly basis. The internet brings freedom in the sense that it brings people closer to each other and makes the world a smaller place, but it comes at a sacrifice: nothing online is ever truly private, and nothing can ever be truly eradicated once uploaded. Like all other vices, social networking is best enjoyed responsibly and in moderation.

MatrixParents

the USSR, and that its capabilities are limited. This falls broadly under the matter of ‘credibility’, and is something for the US to be concerned about. The application of this concept to Britain, however, is either farcical, wilfully naïve, or both. It should not be surprising that the two permanent members of the UN Security Council least deserving of their permanency (Britain and France) have been those calling loudest for war.

Regardless of whether Britain intervenes, its ‘credibility’ would remain much the same as it was before: that of a middle power no longer worthy of great power status. UK involvement alongside the US would inevitably reflect this, and in this sense alone, Syrian intervention might evoke memories of the Cold War. War in Syria would have been a disaster for everyone involved, and is no longer a game the UK should be playing. Instead it appears that Britain will pioneer the only effort that sees

Syrians themselves centre-stage—in place of credibility or power balances— by donating an additional £52 million to help tackle the humanitarian crisis this war has spawned. For this, Britain should be commended, but lest it be forgotten that those most naïve in today’s government would sooner send missiles than medicine.

Why does Miley make us so uncomfortable?

Anna Walker Comment Writer Miley Cyrus’s new track Wrecking Ball hit YouTube this week to an audible sharpening of the Twitter pitchforks.

At the time of writing Miley’s video had almost 100 million views, following the record smashing 19.3 million it accumulated in its first 24 hours alone, and if the comments are anything to go by, most of the internet is watching purely to slate Miley as a Satanist propagator out to turn the world’s teenagers into sex crazed druggies.

The strangest thing about the immense Miley backlash is that, by music industry standards, she’s really doing nothing unusual – yes she appears nude, but her exposure is actually quite minimal; limited to arms, legs and a hint of cleavage. In fact, a quick glance through the video director Terry Richardson’s portfolio makes Miley’s new video seem almost chaste by way of comparison.

Women using their sexuality as a visual aid to their music is industry standard; Madonna, Rihanna, Katy Perry, the list is endless and yet the reaction to Wrecking Ball, and even more so to the now infamous VMA performance – twerking on Robin Thicke included – seems to see Miley as doing something unheard of.

Articles criticising the sexualised nature of Miley’s videos are keen to

refer to her as Billy Ray’s daughter, Hannah Montana, and a “child star”.

This eagerness to contrast the roots of a woman’s childhood with their public displays of sexuality is suspiciously absent for those performers we didn’t know as children.

Seeing Miley transform from Hannah Montana into a young woman in the public eye makes her sexualisation shocking because we know her history, her family, and what she looked like aged 12. It is so easy to miss the shock factor when it comes to the sexualisation of women in the rest of video culture when they exist to us only within the parameters of a single performance, or an adult career.

Perhaps our relationship to the music industry and the sexualisation within it would change if we knew as much about every female star or dancer out there.

It is surely unsurprising that Miley, who grew up surrounded by these images of successful female stars selling their music hand in hand with sexual fantasy, would think that a sexualised image is the key to being seen as an adult performer.

So before we hit that comment button perhaps it’s worth asking why watching Miley licking that hammer really feels so wrong – is it simply what we see, or is it the industry insistence on sexual imagery interweaving with the growth of a star we’ve watched her whole life?

Comment

20/09/13

Issue 285

9

concrete.comment@uea.ac.uk

Zero hour contracts: exploitation at its worst?

Robbie Wishart Comment Writer Zero hour contracts give every advantage possible to employers - the ability to have as many staff as they need when it is busy, and to send them home

as soon as it gets quiet. It is this flexibility in the labour market that is praised for the recent fall in unemployment.

However zero hour contracts destroy worker rights: no paid holiday, no sick leave, no notice as to the end of employment, to name but a few. So why do workers put up with it? Whilse

Flickr: The Eyes of New York

unemployment stands at 7.7%, a huge number of people are applying for a small number of jobs. Effectively this gives every right to employers to hire as many workers as they like and to fire them without even a need to (formally) do so.

This creates insecurity in households where all the income comes from zero hour contracts and without the ability to know what earnings will be from one week to the next. A lecturer from Bradford said “Many of my colleagues who are raising families have got into serious debt from working on zero hours contracts because they cannot be sure what they’ll get in each month.

Those who’ve avoided debt have done so by living with parents, drawing on savings, having redundancy pay from previous jobs to fall back on or because mortgage costs are currently low”. The unreliable cash flow can make it difficult for families - perhaps one of the reasons that payday loans have risen by 4200% since the financial crisis of 2007-08.

Another difficulty arises in the incentive to “make work pay”. Ian Duncan Smith, the welfare minister, has tried to eliminate the unemployment trap - i.e. out of work benefits pay more than work. However, his approach has been completely wrong. Cutting benefits

using the bedroom tax has caused significant damage and upset the lives of vulnerable people in our society. Atos’ attack on disability living allowance has put unfair expectations upon those who are unfit to work - and yet the real reason that unemployment is so high is because the demand is so low.

But even if we take on Ian Duncan Smith’s flawed viewpoint that people can’t be bothered to work because of the unemployment trap, then we should consider what would make work pay. A “living wage”, in which a working week of forty hours would cover all the bills required to live and the minimum wage is currently £1.26 lower than this.

Even more demoralising than poor pay is not being treated like another human being. The destruction of workers’ rights that has arisen from the rise of zero hour contracts has significantly deflated staff - and left them in a weaker position in terms of workers’ rights than many of their parents.

In rebalancing our economy this is a step backwards, not forwards – the government should focus on banning zero hour contracts, or find a way of re-introducing workers’ rights, so that employers can no longer abuse the employees who have nowhere else to go.

Warning: Estate Agents, immediately dangerous Zoe Jones Comment Editor It might seem a long while away yet, but by the end of this semester first years will undertake the difficult decision that is who to live with in their second year. Making the choice of whose faces you can stand the sight of for, preferably, the next two or more years is difficult, particularly as you only have a matter of months to sieve out the nose-pickers and the ones who grow civilisations in unwashed pans.

The following four hundred words or so endeavour to provide a fair warning and expose the difficulties you may face while student house-hunting if you decide to go through an agency, warts and all.

Estate Agency is a trade where regulation is exceptionally poor and what you might find, as a student, is that Estate Agents may take advantage of your inexperience in house-hunting. Unfortunately in our house, we learnt this the hard way. Your nose-picking housemate might be the least of your problems when it comes to excessive agency fees and studying page after page of tenancy agreement.

On finding a humble student abode that’s to your liking, complain if the agent that’s conducting the viewing isn’t on time. Don’t wait outside in the rain with mascara streaming down your face – ring the agency and be mad. You might find yourself having to pay that idiot a lot of money to “turn up on time”. Remember that the Letting Agent is paid to know, or at least have basic details on the house you’re viewing. If the only wisdom they can provide is “this is a room” then questions need to be asked. Things such as what the main energy supply in the house is useful to know when you begin to look for energy suppliers, or whether or not you’ll be provided with a hoover to maintain the condition of the property – so it doesn’t end up looking like a custardcream crumb kingdom. To be honest you’ll probably get a hoover; some of us just aren’t that lucky.

What can’t be stressed enough is ensuring that you know exactly how much you’re paying and what each of those fees cover. There’s nothing worse than finding out you’re expected to pay a lot more than you anticipated. Ensure you get receipts for every single payment as well. Remember

that you’re not guaranteed to get your deposit back, so be utterly pedantic when it comes to taking photos of every scratch, stain and skid-mark when you move in.

Confirm that you have all the valid safety documents for your house. If in the inventory it states that you have no smoke detector, gas safety certificate or CO detector, assume that there’s either been some kind of mistake or evacuate. Further

concern might be warranted, if you find a notice on your gas meter reading “WARNING: Immediately dangerous, do not use” – but it might turn out that Jim the gas-man just forgot to take off the safety notice. Silly Jim. This is a trade that is desperately in need of stronger legislation, so make sure you’re aware of your rights and question anything that doesn’t feel right.

Photo: Huffington Post

10

concrete.global@uea.ac.uk

Issue 285

20/09/13

Global

Unrest continues to disrupt the streets of Brazil Jonathan Stuart Global writer In May, local news stations aired scenes of violent clashes between Brazil’s heavily armoured police and a handful of peaceful demonstrators who opposed the Brazilian government’s planned twenty centavo (six pence) price rise in city bus fares to 3.10 Reais (ninety pence).

At first glance, six pence may not seem much, particularly in Brazil, which ranks in the top ten largest world economies and is seen as a growing global superpower; reinforced by the awarding of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics. However, for millions of urban Brazilians, many of whom live in impoverished conditions, six pence per journey may equate to around £10 per month, potentially affecting the nutritional, health and educational needs of those most disadvantaged.

The overzealous response from the

authorities to legal demonstration, which also saw numerous innocent passersby caught up in the melee, provoked widespread condemnation from the Brazilian people, who appeared to have simply had enough of, well, pretty much everything!

Cries of “VEM, VEM, VEM pra rua VEM!” (Come, Come, Come to the Streets, Come!) echoed across the country and, as if some collective consciousness had awoken the nation, millions of disgruntled Brazilians took to the streets in protest within most major urban hubs in just a matter of days.

The global media were soon to drive home the bus price hike as the underlining cause of the sudden uprising; however, this was merely the straw that had broken the Brazilian back. The revolts brought to the surface far deeper grievances.

Brasileiros feel the achievement of the ‘Order and Progress’, so broadly adorned on the flag, has been hampered a great

deal: corruption within the political and judicial systems, lack of universal healthcare and education, the price of petrol, gender inequality, inflation, gay rights, tax rates - and so on. One of the most prominently voiced gripes was the misuse of government finances, with Brazilians mystified over where the billions of dollars being spent to host the World Cup and Olympic Games is actually going, and whether it is the most effective use of the public purse given the problematic social situation.

As clashes between the Brazilian authorities and protesters intensified, images of disruption, violence and anarchy flashed upon Western websites and television screens. However, these clashes were often instigated by the police letting off gas bombs and spraying rubber bullets as they tried to disperse the mostly well-mannered crowds. The reop witnessed such scenes first-hand as I accompanied some Brazilian friends

to one of the largest demos in Rio. After being forced to retreat from tear gas, we sought refuge in a popular nightspot littered with bars and restaurants. As we sat, recounting the night’s events, the military police arrived, firing further gas bombs as they marched through the streets - much to the dismay of all those present, now forced behind the locked doors of the restaurants and bars.

Two months on and the protests are yet to cease, although their magnitude seems to be slowly dwindling. The Brazilian government has responded to the political angst with a number of new reforms, including an agreement to invest all royalties raised from its expanding oil exports towards healthcare and education.

However, trust in the Brazilian political system is far from widespread. Although next year’s World Cup may appear to be a form of ‘progress’ for Brazil, it is not yet known if the country will see ‘order’ restored.

Lost in translation Valerie Larsen Global writer The address: “From the UCN, half a block to the east.”

When asked, a person will close their eyes and count the number of bus stops after the Chavez roundabout; in this case, four. This building would be easy to find if, firstly, the bus made only scheduled stops; second if getting off a crowded bus in time required less skill (it is advisable to start moving towards the back doors at least three stops beforehand); and the third (but also the most crucial) part; if people asked for directions knew where UNC was, or where east is, or importantly that there are two schools with the same name.

Managua does not have conventional addresses. There are no such thing as street names. Instead, the inhabitants rely on famous buildings or roundabouts to describe a location. Therefore, all the roundabouts in Managua have something special to distinguish them. A building might be descibed as the “big white one” two blocks east of Jesus standing on top of the earth, or of the waves in bright colours, or of the tropical Christmas trees made out of lights, or even of the newest to the group; Hugo Chavez´s face flashing light from between huge yellow trees.

From this supposedly “famous” point, it is then necessary to walk a specified number of blocks towards the lake, east, west or north. To make this even more confusing, “up” is used to mean “east” and “down” to mean “west”. If a person

is feeling especially generous they will remember the colour of the gate. This system tends to force non-natives into getting a lot of involuntary exercise, as people are too polite to admit that they do not know where something is, and will send them in entirely the wrong direction.

One such “well-known” place might be “where there used to be a Chinese restaurant” - a useless landmark for a newcomer to the city.

So unless a person is a human compass, or has a superhuman knowledge of every corner of the 2.3 million-strong Managua, it would be far easier to take a taxi and waste less time in navigating.

Photo: Oliver Henriquez

Umoja: creating a better future in Tanzania Olivia Davies Global writer In Tanzania, many of the poorest families are unable to afford opportunities such as secondary school education that is taken for granted in the UK. Many young people have been left behind by the education sector and without the work of charities and NonGovernmental Organisations, students would likely still be wandering the streets with little chance of finding dignified and gainful employment.

Umoja is one such organization, focusing on youth development in Arusha, northern Tanzania, which was founded by two

UEA DEV graduates in 2008.

Primary school is taught in Kiswahili, the national language. In secondary school, all subjects are taught in English, though after primary school many students do not have sufficient English to succeed. In areas such as Arusha, good English is a requirement for almost all skilled and unskilled jobs, making it difficult to gain employment and earn a living without sufficient proficiency.

The charity provides a more holistic education and long-term care and support which its students would otherwise not receive. Students are given a foundation year of teaching at the centre, and lessons include english, maths, IT and key skills. Umoja, which means ‘unity’ in Swahili, aptly becomes

the family of many of its students, some of whom have come from very difficult backgrounds of poverty, and even abuse or abandonment. Healthcare (including HIV testing), counselling, nutritious food, and quality pastoral care are provided, as well as help in obtaining further education, vocational training and employment. Like all NGOs, the daily functioning faces challenges, particularly relating to funding. However, the inspirational work of charities like Umoja continue to change lives and push boundaries.

Want to write for Concrete Global? Get in touch! Write to: concrete.global@uea.ac.uk

Features

11 “Down it Fresher!”- staying teetotal at university 20/09/13

Issue 285

concrete.features@uea.ac.uk

Features writer Joel Taylor offers advice to students about how stay sober at University without being antisocial Over the years drinking has become synonymous with University life. Moving away from the family home is a massive upheaval, and for many it is their first taste of complete freedom.

Emerging blinking into the blinding sunlight of their newfound independence students, whilst complaining that they are already paying £9000 in fees and are thus so poor they live off noodles and tap water, seem to have a bottomless wallet (or, at least, no concept of what an overdraft really is) when it comes to the purchase of drinks on or before a night out. Seemingly unbelievable promotions, from free shots on entry to Pure’s infamous “8 drinks for £8”, are rife in Freshers week, handed out in the rain on campus by student “promoters” desperate to sign more people up to their guestlist. Bottles emptied of the gin or cheap rosé they once held pile up by the microwaves in residence kitchens where bin men refuse to collect them, or line windowsills as crude trophies of the students nursing hangovers within. Everybody wants to fit in with their newfound peers and the common perception is that alcohol is key to making friends.

Sadly, there is no denying that an alcohol-quaffing student with few fears of the dance floor is going to have an easier time when it comes to breaking the ice in social situations than their

teetotal counterpart. When the drinks are flowing and the cries of “down it, fresher!” ring out, “sorry, I don’t drink” seems a very feeble excuse indeed.

Although the Student Union has brought in measures forbidding socials solely concerning the consumption of alcohol so as not to exclude non-drinkers, beerpong and pub crawl socials are the norm.

It is hard to imagine many of the societies paying any attention to this rule.

The use of alcohol as a means of induction and bonding is rife through many societies. This is not just an issue in its capacity to exclude those who do not wish to drink large amounts of alcohol, it is an issue because of the behaviour it encourages and propagates. Students embarking upon their first few weeks at UEA should not be surprised to see large groups of sportsmen wearing only black bin bags running around campus. Only two years ago the men’s Rugby society was disbanded for a year following complaints of racist and sexist behaviour by players in public on nights out.

However, all is not lost for a fresher whose taste for refreshment stretches only so far as a virgin cocktail. The most important question to ask oneself – whether in regards to alcohol consumption or otherwise – is “who do I want to be friends with?”

The solution is to be yourself.

Although that is a wonderfully clichéd sentiment, it holds a value that cannot be underestimated. It goes without saying that one can never be happy surrounded by friends with whom have to keep up an act or persona just to stay liked. The people who you will get on best with – go to classes with, get takeaways of dubious edibility with and, ultimately,

“Anyone worth being friends with won’t care if you’re drunk or not” share a house with – will be drawn to you for reasons far removed from your lack of drinking.

Another simple realisation is that

anyone worth being friends with won’t care whether you’re drunk or not. As a student who on his last night before University drank fourteen vodka and cokes and hasn’t been truly able to stomach alcohol since, I have never once had any friends pass comment when I play ring of fire with a pint of Coke, or break into staggeringly embarrassing dancing in clubs unable to blame it on anything in my system. I have passed through University drinking no more than a single pint or a Coke at any time, without anyone I know so much as raising an eyebrow.

All that matters in Freshers Week is that everyone around you is in exactly the same position, alcohol or not. Be friendly, be brave, be sober, whatever.

Go on. Go and say hi to that person sitting alone next to you.

FOMO and how to live with it Features writer Emily Fedorowycz writes about the dreaded “Fear of Missing Out” and overcoming it.

Though many of us suffer from the seemingly life-threatening FOMO (the ‘Fear of Missing Out’), few know how to properly deal with this emotional disaster. While we are sat at home fingerdeep in cookie dough ice cream, trawling through a Facebook feed full of pictures of all our hometown friends at various uni parties having the absolute times of their lives, it is natural to want to be part of the fun.

Humans are social beings, and now that you are at university, with new people to meet and new experiences to be had, the pressure’s on to make the most of the opportunities. So when you see all these posts about house parties that are going on whilst you’re stuck in halls, you have FOMO. When some of your course mates start chatting on Monday morning about the weekend’s antics, like one of them snogging Stan in the LCR, or being up until 6am playing drunk extreme frisbee outside their flat, you have FOMO. Admit it, you’re getting

all worked up this very second that you didn’t get to snog Stan (or Stanetta) yourself. Or you’re currently regressing to that time when you had your very first FOMO moment. If you are one of the rare few who hasn’t struggled with this consuming demon, here are three tell-tale symptoms to help you identify a moment of FOMO.

“When you see posts about house parties whilst you’re stuck in halls, you have FOMO” Symptom #1: Obsessively uploading photos from every night out. Since how much fun you had relies on how wild and hilarious the pictures are, or how many of “your girls” you managed to squeeze into those duck-faced selfies in the toilet.

None of it qualifies until your Facebook

page has been notified.

Symptom #2: Not being able to say no. Everyone experiences this now and then, when you get coaxed into attending some event out of sheer social politeness when you would rather be doing something else. But when FOMO takes over, you no longer seem to have a choice at all. It doesn’t matter that you’ve been rushing about all day and the only thing you want to do is sit down with a cup of tea and watch TV. You simply must go.

Symptom #3: Thinking that the ‘grass is greener’. When you build something up so much that when it got round to it happening, it is never as good as you imagined. Parties are the best example of this, especially when drinking is concerned. We associate having amazing night with getting sloshed off our faces; the reality of it is that more alcohol usually means more people hanging twheir head over the toilet seat.

We can point a lot of the blame for

FOMO at social media. There is an enormous pressure to communicate with our friends and followers what we are getting up to. Our profile is a virtual summary of us, so for those that don’t know us intimately or friends from home that we haven’t seen in a while, what we post to their news feed is all they see of our lives (and vice versa). If everyone else is showing how much fun they’re having, why shouldn’t we? We want to be seen in the best light.

However, if we stopped caring so much and enjoyed the moment that we are so desperate to share online, we’d probably appreciate it more.

The key to overcoming FOMO is to know when you want to do something, and more importantly, to enjoy it! You shouldn’t do something for someone else, or to prove something about yourself, or do it because you’re scared of missing out. Do what makes you happy, and you won’t regret a moment of your uni life!

12

concrete.features@uea.ac.uk

Issue 285

Features

20/09/13

20/09/13

Issue 285

concrete.features@uea.ac.uk

Looking back: UEA’s 50th Anniversary The University of East Anglia is turning 50. Features Editor Bridie Wilkinson picks out some highlights from UEA’s celebrated history.

1963 The University of East Anglia opens.

116 students enrol for the first year, studying either Biology or English. The following year the Schools of European Studies, Social Studies, Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics all open.

1964 The first drama production staged at the university is Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, with the Drama Society’s first President being none other than Actor John Rhys Davies (Gimli from Lord of the Rings).

1965 UEA’s first official student newspaper, Mandate, is published.

Throughout the years other student publications have been Phoenix, Can Opener, Mustard Magazine and Kett.

Concrete made its first appearance 8 years later in 1973, and was re launched in 1992.

1967 The Ziggurats student residences, described by their designer Denys Lasdun as “a rocky outcrop on a slope” are finished, cementing their place as an iconic UEA landmark.

1968 The Library opens on campus, and UEA is graced with two Royal visits from Princess Margaret and The Queen.

1970 The first Creative Writing course in the UK is established at UEA by Malcom Bradbury and Angus Wilson. The course goes on to produce writers such as Kazuo Ishiguro, Ian McEwan and Rose Tremain.

1973 The Street and Union House open on campus, along with the Student Union Bar and the LCR. The first shops on campus include a SPAR supermarket and Bowes & Bowes bookshop.

2000 The Sportspark opens on the 1st September. The £17.6m building is opened

by Princess Anne (of course), bringing international facilities to Norwich, with an Olympic sized swimming pool, floodlit astro-pitches and the tallest climbing wall 1978 The Sainsbury Centre for Visual in Norfolk.

Arts opens. Designed by Norman Foster, it is home to the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury 2001 UEA alumnus, Sir Paul Nurse, is collection and the School of World Art awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine. He Studies and Museology. wins the prize together with Timothy Hunt and Leland Hartwell “for their discoveries 1989 Kazuo Ishiguro wins the Booker of key regulators of the cell cycle”.

Prize for Remains of the Day, becoming the first of three UEA graduates to receive 2002 UEA Medical School opens, with 110 the award. Ian McEwan won in 1998 with students enrolled. The School enjoys close Amsterdam and Anne Enwright in 2007 for collaborations with Norwich University The Gathering.

Hospital and world-class research centres.

A year later the School of Pharmacy opens, 1990 The University’s student radio and is now considered one of the top station Livewire is opened by Radio 1 DJ Pharmacy departments in the country. and UEA honorary graduate John Peel.

Helping to kick-star the career of current 2003 UEA’s original buildings, DJ Greg James, Livewire is now one of the University House, the Square, the Teaching longest running student radio stations in Wall and the Ziggurats gain Grade II listed the country. status. In the same year, The Zuckerman Institute opens, and is recognised as one 1993 Union of UEA Students takes over of the most energy efficient buildings in the management of The Waterfront, the the UK. Norwich venue that has hosted artists such as Radiohead, Nirvana and Amy Winehouse.

2007 INTO University of East Anglia takes in its first students. The £30m study 1994 The Royals can’t get enough of centre for international students has UEA- Queen Elizabeth opens the Queen’s its own five-storey, 140,000 square foot Building this year and the Prince of Wales centre comprising of lecture theatres, visits the School of Environmental Sciences. classrooms, IT and science laboratories

and 415 en-suite study bedrooms 2009 The School of International Development is awarded a Queen’s Anniversary Prize in recognition of its 40 years of sustained, highly respected responses to environmental change and poverty in the least developed countries.

2011 UEA wins a second Queen’s Anniversary Prize for its Creative Writing programme. Soon after in 2012 Norwich is given the status as England’s first UNESCO City of Literature, bolstering the city and university’s reputation as a literary hub.

2013 UEA Anniversary!

celebrates

its

50th

To commemorate UEA’s landmark year, the university is organising a 50th Anniversary Festival for students and the public.

Highlights include a Fringe Festival compiled entirely of UEA students and alumni, a zombie OUTBREAK! interdisciplinary panel discussion, the grand eruption of the Norfolk Firework Volcano, the Bo Nanafana Big Top Party and many more!

For more information visit the 50UEA website w w w. u e a . a c . u k / 5 0 y e a r s / f e s t i v a l weekend

13

14

concrete.environment@uea.ac.uk

Issue 285

20/09/13

Environment

Seals and robots help scientists study glacier The planned iStar programme is expected to take six years to complete, with £7.4m funding provided by the Natural Environment Research Council.

The British Antarctic Survey is leading the project which involves eleven universities, including several faculty members and PhD students from UEA. This November, during the Antarctic summer, the first group of scientists

Chloe Moore Envrionment Writer The Pine Island Glacier (PIG) on West Antarctica is melting at such a rate that it is contributing more ice to sea level rise than any other glacier in the world.

Last week it was announced that a new multi-million pound research programme will use robotic instruments, seals and satellites to gather more data about the glacier. The aim is to advance our understanding of how its melting rate will affect sea levels in the future.

At present, the PIG drains an area two-thirds the size of the UK, accounting for ten percent of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). The glacier is currently more than two kilometres thick, yet it is thinning by more than one meter a year and moving towards the ocean at a rate of up to four kilometres a year. This July a 720 sq km section of ice – around twice the size of the Isle of Wight – broke off.

At present the PIG contributes more to sea level rise than any other glacier.

The main process that appears to be driving the movement and thinning of the glacier is thought to be warming of the Southern Ocean. Strong currents are transporting these warmer waters underneath the PIG, which weakens the ice shelf and causes the ice beneath the glacier to crack and melt.

“The main process driving the melting of the glacier is thought to be the warming of the Southern Ocean”

Flikr: Fated Snowfox

will spend ten weeks travelling one thousand kilometres across the WAIS, using ground-based radar and seismic technologies to map the area beneath the PIG. Due to the remoteness of the region, inaccessible areas will be mapped using observations from satellites.

Following this, in January 2014, a research ship will spend thirty days in the Amundsen Bay region, allowing researchers to install and moor instruments. They will also deploy robotic devices, including seagliders and unmanned submarines. These will be positioned both in front of and

underneath the glacier and will collect data about the salinity, temperature and depth of the water, as well as the speed of the currents at different depths.

In the winter months at least fifteen seals will have sophisticated tracking devices and small sensors temporarily glued to their fur. When the seals dive beneath the Antarctic ice sheet, they will collect data to send back to the scientists via satellite technology every time they surface. The data will also be shared with biologists in order to further understand how the changing Antarctic conditions are affecting seal

“When the seals dive beneath the Antarctic ice sheet they will collect data to send back to the scientists” populations in the region.

The observations collected from the iStar project will enable scientists to enhance their understanding about how the PIG’s behaviour will change in the decades ahead. Consequently, this will allow the scientific community to learn more about how climate change is affecting this part of Antarctica, and to make more accurate predictions about the glacier’s contribution to global sea level rise in the future.

Lost in translation: climate fact or science fiction?

Peter Sheehan Environment Editor There is a puzzling mismatch at the heart of the debate around the science of climate change. Scientists are increasingly certain that the climate system is undergoing profound changes as a result of human activities, yet the public believes that this consensus is disintegrating. Figures from 2011 suggest that fewer than two thirds of people think that the climate science experts agree, despite the real figure being almost 100%. So why does this discrepancy exist?

A large part of the blame lies with the media. Much of what is published might be politely described as misguided. The oft-repeated claim that global warming stalled around 1998 is based on a common misreading of the long-term temperature trend. What climate deniers characterise as a series of plateaus is actually a steady, century-long increase.

What is more, printing erroneous nonevidence, as well as blatant fallacies, is

easy and quick. Debunking them with real evidence is time-consuming and tedious – and doesn’t make for as eyecatching a headline.

Another problem is that scientists, somewhat unhelpfully, have given a selection of common words slightly different meanings for when used in a scientific context. “Theory” is a pertinent example. While it is often used to imply that an idea may be unproven, the US National Academy of Sciences describes a scientific theory as “comprehensive explanation of some aspect of nature that is supported by a vast body of evidence”. It goes on to point out that the orbit of the Earth around the Sun is, technically, also a theory; and one would look rather silly for denying that. So protesting that climate change is “just a theory” is to complement its strength and rigour rather than to ridicule any inherent uncertainty.

Which brings us on to what is perhaps the most important point: uncertainty.

It is an intrinsic part of scientific measurements, and it is attached to any predictions about how climactic

changes may play out over the coming centuries and decades. It does not, by default, expunge all reliability from a given conclusion or prognosis. Rather, it provides a useful measure of the amount of confidence that scientists can have in their findings. Unfortunately, studies have shown that they public conflates it with ignorance, thus assuming that climate science is based on conjecture to a far greater degree than it actually is.

Furthermore, this assumption overlooks the fact that the central principles of climate change theory are, in fact, very robust.

Scientific communication with the public is a growing field. Al Gore made a splash with An Inconvenient Truth, but a broadside of bad publicity and misunderstandings has focused attention on some of the common misconceptions around climate science.

In order to combat this scientists need to present their findings to the public in a way that conveys both the key principles and, where necessary, the important caveats.

Flikr: Wylie Maercklein

Science & Tech

20/09/13

Issue 285

concrete.science@uea.ac.uk

The worlds strongest robot

Dominic Burchnall Science Editor Scientists from the National University of Singapore have designed a new type of artificial structure which emulates organic muscle.

Despite the ever increasing complexity of artificial intelligence programs, the movements of even the most advanced robots still tend to be jerky and stilted.

This is because almost all modern large scale robotics use hydraulic systems, which are slow to respond to the electrical systems and cannot easily support the stresses of movements similar to those human muscles undergo every day.

Now, after more than a year of development, the team led by Dr Adrian Koh have designed artificial muscle strands which can successfully replicate the movement of muscle tissue.

The polymer formulated by Dr Kohs’ team can stretch to up to ten times its original length without deforming or warping. This means the material has a theoretical strain displacement of one thousand per cent, or five hundred times the weight of the polymer strand. While this is the maximum calculated effort of the structure, the trials the team ran

showed that it could lift eighty times its own weight at its present configuration.

However, it is anticipated that as they refine the design, the control codes and the electrical impulses which activate the contractions, they will achieve greater magnitudes of strength.

There is also a very useful by-product generated by the movement of these mechanical muscles; they can produce electricity. As the polymer fibres expand and contract, they can convert the mechanical energy of their movement into an electrical current. The power efficiency of the polymer is such that a generator constructed with ten kilograms of the material could produce the same energy output as a turbine a hundred times its weight. After less than a minute of preparatory charging, an android constructed with this technology could have sufficient energy output to be almost self-sustaining.

Within the next five years, Koh hopes that his team will be able to contruct a fully functional robotic arm powerful and dextrous enough to pick up and reposition objects within its reach, and even arm wrestle against human opponents. If this arm is as strong as the team hopes it will be, it will be able to win them too.

Spinning a new web Spider silk is well known for being incredibly strong, with ten times the tensile strength of steel wire and the ability to stretch up to four times its original length without damage. A strand a millimetre thick can lift a five kilogram mass, and it retains these properties even at minus forty degrees Celsius. Now, scientists in the national High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee have managed to increase these properties further by adding carbon nanotubes to the strands.

Carbon nanotubes are miniscule cylinders of carbon molecules, the same thickness as DNA, but many times stronger than steel, and with excellent conductive properties for electricity and heat. Between the two materials, the new mixture combines to one greater than the sum of its parts.

Taking the silk produced by the Golden Orb Web Spider (Nephila clavipes), which is the strongest known spider silk produced, the researchers found that the most effective method for covering the strands was to add a small quantity of water to a dry powder of carbon nanotubes, rubbed together between sheets of Teflon.

The resultant coating over the silk was al-

WorldNomads.com

Shutterstock

Smartphone Sized Satellites Ian Roberts Science writer

Julie Bishop Science writer

most perfectly uniform at around 100 nanometres thick, with Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) images showing that some nanotubes were even permeating into the silk itself. The nanotube coated silk was over triple the strength of the spider silk alone, and maintained its conductive properties even when stretched to twice its length.

The strength and flexibility of carbon nanotube spider silk (CNT SS) makes it of great interest to researchers in prosthetic development and in medical technology, for the production of artificial muscles or synthetic skin. There is a further property of CNT SS of novel use – the electrical conductivity changes based on humidity as well as physical strain. Using these properties, the team were able to develop a heart pulse sensor with the prototype strands they manufactured. By increasing the thickness of the carbon layering, the conductivity was preserved at the expense of reduced elasticity. As experimentation with different thicknesses and nanostructures continues, spiders may come to spin more than webs in times to come.

15

Miniaturised technology is nothing new. The average person carries a camera, a phone, a small computer, a games console, and a personal organiser with them at all times, often in the same appliance. Satellites the size of a smartphone have already been developed, and contain many similar functions, such as cameras, radio transmitters, and GPS positioning systems, though they probably don’t play Angry Birds.

With so many of the components already commonplace, designing these satellites was easy. And due to their negligible weight, they can hitchhike their way into our atmosphere on the launch of larger spacefaring rockets.

But due to this inexact delivery method, there was one very important piece of equipment they were missing; a way to steer themselves. Now, a collaboration of scientists from Michigan and Sydney Universities have developed micro rocket engines using a substance called ferrofluid.

The preliminary micro rocket design

used a hollow tube around a millimetre long, thinner than a human hair, which sprays an ionic liquid to produce thrust.

An area on the miniature satellites the size of a postage stamp would provide sufficient thrust to manoeuvre them into their orbitals. The problem is that these structures are fragile, easily destroyed, and are very hard to manufacture.

The team instead started experimenting with ferrofluids, which are tiny magnetic particles suspended in a solvent which alters physical volume according to magnetic fields.

By then applying an electrical current to the ferrofluid, the shape can be manipulated into micro rocket designs which then start emitting ions of their own accord.

As long as the magnet remains in place beneath the engines, they retain their shape and are nearly immune to damage (as the developers found out when they accidently applied overvoltage to the nanoneedles) and within minutes the ferrofluid had reformed. While not quite at the level of the terminator, these reforming liquid metal engines could be the next step of space propulsion.

16

concrete.travel@uea.ac.uk

Issue 285

Travel

20/09/13

Vichy, the second capital of France Florrie Harris-Scott Travel Writer Usually associated with its dark past as the capital of Nazi occupied France, there is far more to the modern city of Vichy than you might expect. Vichy sits in the Auvergne region in central France, which is not only one of France’s smallest regions, but one of the least populated in Europe. Vichy owes its quiet surroundings to its location beside the Allier River in part of the Massif Central; a breath taking chain of around 80 dormant volcanoes.

The town itself is a melange of art nouveau architecture, with many impressive churches and beautiful parks. The town is punctuated with a series of striking squares and a charming riverside promenade. No wonder, then, that Vichy is a popular destination even amongst the French, so much so that it has status as a “tourist city”, so Sunday trading is permitted – a rarity in France. With shops, bakeries, cafés and restaurants at every turn, it manages to

be a bustling, model French town.

The cost for its appealingly remote location is that Vichy isn’t particularly accessible. You’ll be travelling for around seven hours, whether you take a train from St. Pancras International via Paris, or a flight to Lyon and train thereafter. The latter option will set you back much less than the 200 EUR for flying.

Once you arrive in Vichy however, you’ll have no trouble travelling around with the immaculate and reliable French train system. Particularly good news for students is that a young person’s railcard costs 50 EUR and discounts most journeys by 60%.

From Vichy the best places to travel by train in under three hours are Paris and Lyon – the Lyon Festival of Lights in December is an absolute must – and nearby Clermont Ferrand and Moulinssur-Allier are both very beautiful with lots to do.

Vichy wouldn’t be French without its own specialities. Bleu d’Auvergne, Cantal and Saint Nectaire are the big three in local cheeses, all produced

by Auvergne cows. Le ‘Monde du Macaron’ is a must, with more flavours of macaroons than you could imagine.

Vichy is particularly famous for its Pastilles, made from mineral salts extracted from Vichy springs and

traditionally mint flavoured.

Being volcanic, Vichy is well-known for its many springs and spas. There are fountains in the town where you can ‘take the waters’ – only for the brave, they are an acquired taste!

The almost - Secret Garden Josie Smith Travel Writer Las Cataratas del Iguazú or Iguazú Falls have recently been named one of the “New Seven Wonders of Nature”

and it’s not hard to see why. After walking through a jungle bursting with exotic birds and animals on a walkway suspended high above the ground the first glimpse of the majestic waterfalls will surely take your breath away. As you continue on you’ll discover that the

panoramic views offered to visitors, thanks to the extensive network of paths are simply awe inspiring.

Despite the heavy footfall from tourists, it still seems wild and untamed, much as the first Europeans discovered it in 1541. If you can visit in the spring, you may find brightly coloured butterflies will cloud around you, adding to the magic of the falls.

Toucans fly past, and iguanas, coatis and monkeys are all almost close enough to touch; seemingly unfazed by the tourists trying to get a closer look.

The large number of visitors to the park can be a surprise at first if you were expecting a nature reserve of untouched jungle ready for exploration. Instead, there are restaurants, gift shops and information centres as one would see at any tourist attraction. There is even a train to take visitors from the park’s entrance to the falls. Canoe rides are offered to see the wildlife on a more peaceful part of the river, whilst other boats take visitors on a thrilling trip right underneath the falls, returning them to the shore soaking but excited to continue their adventure.

In fact, this influx of tourism has been a vital strategy to maintain this UNESCO World Heritage Site. Visitors create a huge income which is doing

wonders for the local economies on both the Argentinean and Brazilian sides of the falls. This is not only helping the local people but is also allowing for the preservation of the park and keeping its wildlife protected and preserved for future generations.

Prior to becoming a national park there was extensive deforestation and

“Toucans fly past, and iguanas, coatis and monkeys are all almost close enough to touch” the jungle around the falls was being depleted rapidly.

Now however, the park is now superbly maintained, and the accessibility of the falls means more people are able to enjoy and learn about the importance of conservation.

The tourism at Iguazú is a small price to pay for the preservation of such a stunning site. Thanks to the conservation work being done, Iguazú remains a spectacular testament to the majesty of nature, and one that everyone is able to experience and enjoy.

Travel

20/09/13

Issue 285

concrete.travel@uea.ac.uk

17

The last of the September sun Sophie Peters Travel Writer With the summer warmth gone and the start of another academic year, imminent, you’d be forgiven for letting your mind wander to warmer climates. September is the perfect time of year for students to enjoy the end of summer travel deals. For those seeking gentler temperatures than the baking heat of August, this time of year offers temperatures in the mid twenties.

Perfect weather for either relaxing on the beach in preparation for the next academic year, or enjoying the cultural sights.

Great destinations include Barcelona, a vibrant city with a fantastic atmosphere as well as one of Europe’s best drinking and dining scenes. Here you can have a city-break over the weekend and enjoy the seaside location, saturated with Spanish culture and fabled Gaudi architecture unlike that of no other in the world. The temperature in September averages a perfect 23°C, and right now you will find excellent end of summer deals on

flights and hotels. If, however, you feel like booking in advance and spending your reading week or perhaps winter break in a sunnier location, prices drop dramatically from November to March.

Another hot destination right now is the Italian heart of Florence. With an average temperature of 24°C this September it is the perfect place to kick back and enjoy an exquisite Italian espresso before the start of

term. With hundreds of different hotels and boutique B&B’s competing amongst quiet business, there are plenty of great options for the traveller on a budget. Perhaps a double room in a beautiful 16th century palazzo? Or you can get some friends together and five of you can stay for four nights in a luxurious B&B with private en-suite for a bargain at £93. Wherever you choose to stay, you wont be at a loss for things to do in Florence.

From the artistic works of Michelangelo, to the array of fashion boutiques, Florence knows a thing or too about aesthetics, and is the perfect stylish get away.

Often missed off the inter-rail trip is Lisbon. As Portugal’s capital it is full of rustic beauty. Flights for September are a bit on the pricey side but it’s well the worth the money. Lisbon is spread over steep hillsides, with breath-taking views of the city. All this overlooks the Rio Tejo, the longest river along the Iberian peninsular. A delightful and diverse capital it is less fussy than it’s European counterparts. Why not enjoy the stunning craftsmanship of the Gothic cathedrals and century old monasteries, or stroll down to the public baths to get really familiar with local culture. Lisbon offers some of the best European food and wine, without breaking the bank. In this ancient city you can still, or if you fancy a more peaceful evening, watch the sunset over the Rio Tejo from an old Moorish castle.

Whether you need to wind down before classes or fancy taking the freshers antics across the shores, there’s so much out there to do and see.

Five reasons to get out there and travel...

Zoe V. Jones Travel Writer Break routine No doubt you like balling socks as much as the next person, but there’s nothing like a break from the mundane routine of daily life to keep the everyday that little bit more exciting. Throwing your life into a suitcase and yourself into an adventure is a culturally stimulating way of enjoying life and seeing the world beyond your front garden.

Get inspired Sometimes all that’s needed to get the creative juices flowing is a change of scenery. That which may be boring to you about your own local area could well excite a tourist and vice versa. Even the most banal aspects of a foreign place will give you an insight into a different

culture. Which could be all you need to spark a little imagination. For example if you jet off to Lanzarote you’ll likely spot the thousands of small piles of rocks, and may wonder about them. These rock piles are hand-built stone cairns and though not particularly exotic to the locals, to your unknowing and foreign mind they are an insight into another way of life.

Ditch the diet The media make a business of reminding us annually of the social pressures associated with a beach holiday. Undoubtedly the idea of beach attire is all you need when you’re on the rowing machine. Travel can do so much more for your diet than forcing you to give up carbs, it can open your mind to new taste sensations, and culturally specific attitudes toward food.

Whether it be the long late dinners in France, or the obsession with Super

Sizing in America, there is an entire culinary world for you to experience.

Appreciate the familiar A lot of the time home is the last place you want to be, but nothing makes you appreciate your creature comforts like being away. Moving away to university can have a similar effect, you can quickly find yourself nostalgic for your Mum’s cooking or clean dishes. You’ll have an amazing time visiting new places, and you’ll come to learn the things you love the most about your “own back yard”.

Live a little There’s a well-known phrase that says: life isn’t measured by the number of breaths that you take, but the moments that take your breath away. Travelling is the best way to experience those awe-inspiring moments. The world has so much to offer and life is for living, so get out there and live it.

Want to write for Travel? Email concrete.travel@uea.ac.uk

18 Lifestyle Bringing creature comforts to university concrete.lifestyle@uea.ac.uk

Holly Whitaker Lifestyle writer So you are moving away from home, most likely for the first time, and this is probably the biggest leap of independence that you have ever taken. Leaving your effortless home life for first year halls is often the aspect of university that freshers’ worry about the most.

Home cooked meals and a daily washing and ironing service will soon be a distant memory and this may seem like a daunting prospect. Therefore, it is really important that you stay surrounded by your home comforts. Here are a few ways in which you can keep homesickness at bay and still embrace your new found freedom.

Bring photographs Photographs are undeniably the best way to help you feel at home in your new accommodation. They are a cheap and easy way to feel like you are surrounded by your friends, and colourful photo frames also help to brighten up and personalise a generic dull university room. Most

Issue 285

20/09/13

university rooms have a pin board, which is ideal as it means you don’t have to mark the walls with blue tack. As well as all this, photographs are great conversation starters for you and your new flat mates, so it is well worth bringing along some photos.

Accessorise your room A great way to make your university room feel more homely is by accessorising.

Lamps and fairy lights immediately give your room a cosy, warm ambience.

Another great means of making your new

bedroom feel familiar is by bringing along your own bed sheets and pillows; this will make you feel settled and guarantee that you will have a great first night’s sleep.

Collect recipes from home One of the biggest changes about moving away to university is the fact that you will have to cook for yourself every day, whether you can be bothered to or not.

Even if you love cooking, after a while it always becomes a chore as it involves taking time out of your day when you would probably rather be nursing your

Flickr: Simon_sees

hangover or meeting friends in the LCR. By bringing along a few recipes from home that are simple to make and minimal effort, you will save yourself the hassle of deciding what to cook and it is certain to remind you of home. Failing that, get a takeaway.

Install Skype Skype is a university must-have, and a lifesaver. It is the next best thing to seeing your family and friends in real life. Whenever you are feeling down, just make a Skype date and you will feel better in no time.

Lastly, don’t bring too much In your first few weeks of university, you will be bombarded with freebies from the Fresher’s Fair (mostly Dominos, Frisbees and posters) that will, without a doubt, junk up your room. Within days, your space will become personalised to you with all the bits and pieces you will collect along the way, so ensure that you do not bring too much from home. As important as it is to take home comforts to university with you, make sure that you leave space for all your new belongings.

Will Freshers’ Week live up to the expectation?

Rebecca Bemment Lifestyle writer Having achieved the grades you need to get into university, you’re now preparing for three years of hard work, partying, and meeting as many people as you possibly can in one week. Freshers’ Week can be both a bewildering as well as an exciting experience. For many as the pressure to make the most of the jam packed seven days and nights can be difficult. However, pacing yourself can be vital in helping you to enjoy the week as much as possible.

Keeping healthy, such as steering clear of the notorious ‘freshers flu’, will help you feel more on top of things. This means eating healthily and attempting to get at least some sleep!

Similarly, the pressure to drink because ‘everyone else is’ can often be a hard thing to say no to when you’re desperately trying to make new friends. But knowing your own limits is vital to ensure that you aren’t the one drunk flatmate who ends up needing the help of the rest of the flat to get home.

And remembering that Freshers Week is just as much about the more academic side of things as it is about socialising is important. Using the week to explore the university grounds and what the campus has to offer will help you no end when it comes to starting your course. Attending your welcome lectures is a great way to get

on board with what is expected of you and gives you the chance to meet the people you may be sharing seminars and lectures with for the next three years.

The expectation of meeting new people can be a daunting task for many people starting university, but knowing you can’t be friends with everyone and sticking with the people you feel instinctively comfortable with is likely to make you feel more at ease too. Introducing yourself, keeping your door open, and just being generally friendly can make all the difference in starting these

potentially lifelong friendships.

And for those of you who feel isolated, confused, or lost during what doesn’t always turn out to be the ‘best week of your life’, the university provides a wide range of student services to help guide students in bridging the gap between home and university life. The Dean of Students Office provides financial advice, help for international students, and guidance in coping with life in residences as well as many other opportunities for students to make the most of their time at university. Furthermore,

there are counselling services, a careers centre, and a nightline that are all provided for those who at times may feel they need a little extra support at university.

During Freshers’ Week you will meet many people (probably in the LCR smoking area!), many you will never see again, and many will become your closest friends.

It is a time to be adventurous, hang out with new people, become familiar with your new surroundings and tutors, and ultimately, a time to enjoy your independence!

Flickr: Jiva

Lifestyle 19 Where to find vegetarian heaven in Norwich 20/09/13

Issue 285

concrete.lifestyle@uea.ac.uk

Emma Gladwin Lifestyle writer For a quick snack or early dinner you must make it a priority to head to Moorish down the Lanes. Based around making delicious falafel (a veggies best friend) even more delightful you get a pitta bread packed full of fresh healthy salad that makes every taste bud tingle in happiness. The small cafe is perfect for a social veggie lunch and is surprisingly filling and home to friendly staff who throw your pitta together freshly in front of you. True vegetarian heaven, or a nice change if you usually eat meat – there’s a good chance you’ll be swayed to falafel for good.

To cater for meat eaters and veggies at the same time and have a proper sit down meal, definitely try Thai On The River, a Thai restaurant on a non-moving boat based near Riverside. The best way to enjoy eating here is to go for the set menu

Photo Flickr: Nik Morris

option, suitable for your carnivorous and herbivorous friends. Although requiring a minimum of two people for this, the spring rolls are to die for and you’ll be fighting over them for sure!

The number one spot for anyone and everyone in Norwich has to be The Waffle House. Trot over to St. Giles

Street and take in all the ‘House has to offer. Highly recommended is the cheese sauce and mushroom savoury waffle and for dessert, the famous chocolate mousse (waffle optional). Lots and lots of meat free deliciousness for those of you feeling super sweet and in need of some sugar.

This place will please everyone, Freshers,

you have been alerted.

For self-catering options, Rainbow offers the most choice and everything on offer is at least vegetarian, with vegan and other dietary preferences and requirements available too. The restaurant Pulse had been upstairs but recently closed (famous for its Bumbleberry juice), so keep an eye out for re-opening news and make sure you’re first in line for a taste.

More locally, Campus Kitchen has been known to offer veggie burgers midweek that during a long revision session in the library, are a welcome break! The Hive and other campus outlets offer veggie baguettes for those lunchtimes you completely forgot to pack your own food!

So, just because you’re a student veggie, or just simply and lover of vegetables, doesn’t mean you have to succumb to the lure of the 2-4-1 pepperoni pizzas and give up your vegetarian desires, there’s definitely plenty available for you all over campus and the city.

Make yourself a Fresher’s food fiesta Lydia Clifton Lifestyle editor So your parents have left you in your university room lonely, and probably hungry. You’ll find yourself heading in the direction of the kitchen for salvation, in hope of finding new mates and something that hopefully isn’t baked beans. Sharing meals is a great way to get to know new flatmates whilst saving money at the same time. And you need something quick and easy so you can focus on the eating part! The perfect option for sharing is a taste of Mexican, and Discovery have a selection of Mexican food tasters in your uni accommodation packages, to keep you going through those first crazy days at uni. Their range has got you covered from the mild taste of the garlic and herb soured cream, to the heat of sweet and hot red jalapenos, tried and tested by student Rebecca Chapman who quickly called them ‘her favourite part of the fajita’.

Sitting deliciously between the mild and the hot hot hot, is the green jalapeno relish easily ready in a bottle to squeeze on fresh chicken or peppers. Discovery worry about the flavours, the spice and the ease, and all you need to worry about is a couple of fresh ingredients and impressing a lot of people with your student cooking skills.

It will be easy to draw people into the kitchen to help chop and sprinkle seasoning, and the fresh elements to your meal quickly fry up ready to be constructed into fajitas.

One of the beauties of the products is that, with all of the sauces and jalapenos already prepared, everyone can opt in and out of

different tastes to make their meal their own and it’s quickly a conversation starter with that flatmate you still can’t quite remember the name of yet. Sharing food gets you places!

A quick look at their website reveals more easy recipes using the same range of easy to use products in a variety of flavours, so you won’t get sick of fajitas. Not that that would ever really happen anyway... You can include as much meat as you like, or keep it cheap and vegetarian with peppers, onions and cheese. Cheese is definitely a magic ingredient to accompany the spices and textures in the tried and tested fajitas, accompanying the soured cream in balancing out the heat. The more daring students, or those just keen to impress, just toss on a larger handful of hot and sweet jalapenos and save any leftover in the jar for something to quickly add to other student meals to add some heat.

So, we’ve got the food and the soonto-be-friends-forever, but we don’t have the student party yet. Grab yourself some more wraps, a few tortilla chips and a few sombreros and throw a complete Mexican themed flat party without much preparation at all.

Essentially, all this simple and completely delicious Discovery Mexican food is not only going to make you very satisfied, but a lot of other people too.

Or if sharing food is out of the picture for you, you’ll have to hide any leftovers for tomorrow right at the back of the fridge with a very clear label that it’s yours, DO NOT EAT! As another student Dan says, ‘It’s so much better than what I normally have!’.

Flickr: Michael Hanscom

20

concrete.lifestyle@uea.ac.uk

Issue 285

20/09/13

Lifestyle

5-a-day Veggie Stew Lydia Clifton Lifestyle editor This freezer friendly dish will get you your five-a-day in one sitting and is full of vitamins and low in fat. Delicious and spicy, it’s another good dish for sharing as well as portioning and saving for quick microwave meals when you don’t have much time. It’s easy to add extra vegetables, or minced beef if you fancy a dish with more substance.

Ingredients • 1 tin of chopped tomatoes • 1 tin of kidney beans • 1 large onion • Handful of lentils • Punnet of mushrooms • 2 handfuls of spinach • 2 peppers • Chilli powder • Basil • 2 cloves of garlic • Pitta bread or rice

• Side salad to serve Method 1. Finely chop the onion, peppers and mushrooms and fry in a large frying pan with oil and garlic until the garlic is golden brown 2. Turn down the heat and then add the tins of tomatoes and kidney beans and let simmer on a medium heat with the chilli powder, basil and salt and pepper to taste 3. Once these are heated, add the lentils and cover the pan to let simmer on a

low heat for 20-30 minutes until the lentils are cooked into the dish and are soft 4. Finally, stir in as much spinach as preferred until wilted 5. Serve by itself, or with pitta or rice and with any extra vegetables or salad for even more goodness Delicious with soured cream.

To reheat from frozen, cook for between 8-10 minutes in the microwave

Flickr: Jon Pinder

Moroccan Tagine Lydia Clifton Lifestyle editor Who said you need some clay pots and sweetened meats to enjoy a hearty tagine?

Popular meats such as chicken and lamb can be easily substituted for some colourful fruit and veges such as carrots, butter nut squash, apricots etc as well as making an extremely healthy alternative. It’s easy to prepare and left on the hob until everyone is back from the library, and a few extra guests should not be a problem either.

Serving rice on the side, or alternatively, a big batch of cous cous with sprinkled raisons/sultanas definitely helps to spread the meal between the tribe.

Prep 25mins Cook 1 hr, 40 mins Serves 6 Ingredients For the chermoula paste • 2 red onions, chopped • 3 garlic cloves • Small knob fresh root ginger, peeled • 100ml/3½ fl oz lemon juice (about 3 lemons) • 100ml/3½ fl oz olive oil • 1 tbsp each honey, cumin, paprika, turmeric

• • •

1 tsp hot chilli powder Handful coriander, chopped Salt and pepper to taste

For the tagine 1 tbsp olive oil 3 carrots, cut into chunks 3 large parsnips, cut into chunks 3 red onions, cut into chunks 2 large potatoes, cut into chunks 4 leeks, ends trimmed and cut into chunks 12 dried prunes, dates or figs 2 sprigs mint, leaves only, finely chopped Method 1. Prepare and cook the tagine ingredients in a large casserole suitable dish on the hob with oil, until light brown 2. To make the chermoula paste, combine all ingredients in a blender until thick 3. Put the chermoula paste in with the main tagine bowl, as well as the dried fruits and mint leaves 4. Cover the dish with water (about 400ml) and place a lid on the pan and cook in the oven for 45mins 5. Keep warm on a lowly heated hob and serve with rice or cous cous as suggested If you fancy adding meat to the dish, lamb works particularly well.

Flickr: msdama

22

concrete.sport@hotmail.co.uk

Issue 285

CANARY CORNER

Editor’s Column Charlie Savage Sports Editor Andy Murray’s period of dominance over men’s tennis ended this month, as old demons threaten to scupper his ascent to the top of the rankings. When Novak Djokovic slammed the final shot into the net at Centre Court last July, it was great to see so many revel in one individual’s realisation of a dream.

Andy Murray had ended the 77year long wait for a British man to win Wimbledon, following up his US Open victory ten months previously and Olympic triumph before that.

Murray was the golden boy of British, if not world, tennis. After any great victory, however, every sports man or woman is faced with a difficult truth – the only way is down. It is an arduous task maintaining such high standards of physical and mental performance and Murray discovered this in his quarterfinal at Flushing Meadows against Stanislav Wawrinka.

The Swiss looked the hungrier and more determined player, as the desire to succeed didn’t seem to burn as forcefully within Murray as it had done at SW19.

The temper that most thought had been eradicated from Murray’s game resurfaced, and two rackets felt the consequences of the Scotsman’s frustrations. There was no way back after that as Wawrinka cruised to victory.

Whereas Murray had previously hunted top seeds on the tour, he has now become the hunted. If he wants to be grouped in the upper-echelons of tennis greats he must be able to deal with this form of pressure.

To be a match for the likes of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic over a career, not just over seven matches in a Grand Slam, he still needs to tame his mental defects as much as his court play.

If he can master that then expect Murray to be collecting many more of tennis’ highest accolades. If not, he could be in danger of reverting back to being ‘the nearly man’.

To receive constant updates from the Concrete Sport team, follow us on Twitter: @ConcreteSport

Sport

20/09/13

Norwich City have enjoyed a solid start to the season, but have failed to ditch the defensive tactics that saw former Canaries favourite Grant Holt depart over the summer.

The man once linked with an England call-up opted to take the drop down to the Championship, joining Wigan Athletic for just £2.5 million in one of the shock moves of the summer. Although Holt confirmed Norwich were moving in a “new direction”, manager Chris Hughton expressed his disappointment at the forward’s decision, but has done well to replace him with a number of high profile signings that have shone in the early part of the season.

Record signing Ricky van Wolfswinkel has particularly impressed since his £8.5 million switch from Sporting Lisbon, while Galatasaray loanee Johan Elmander has already scored his first goals for the club.

The one disappointment with regards to transfers for the Norwich faithful is

By Katherine Lucas

that new signing Gary Hooper is yet to make an appearance. The former Celtic front-man sustained heavy bruising to his shin in a pre-season friendly against Panathinaikos.

Hooper was perhaps the most hotly anticipated newly arrival, having scored a phenomenal 63 goals in 95 appearances for Celtic and proved himself in the Champions League. The former Scunthorpe man is the most likefor-like replacement for Holt, but faces stiff competition to cement a place in the Canaries’ starting line-up.

However, one man who seems destined for Premier League glory is youngster Nathan Redmond, who scored the winner in Norwich’s 1-0 victory over Southampton. Redmond, signed from financially crippled Birmingham City, put in a positive performance against the Saints and highlighted why Norwich were keen to fight off a number of competitors for his signature.

The early season has yielded some

promising signs for City; the end-to-end 2-2 draw with Everton on the opening day saw the team come from behind to earn an impressive point. However, Hughton still seems timid in his tactics going forward.

While the Canaries’ new arrivals have showed promise, a 1-0 defeat against a newly promoted Hull side showed that there is still much work to be done tactically.

The club’s former number nine may have been replaced, but it is evident that his departing words will continue to ring around Carrow Road loud and clear.

ONES TO WATCH...

(H) Chelsea - Sunday 6th Oct (A) Arsenal - Saturday 19th Oct (A) Man City - Saturday 2nd Nov (H) West Ham - Saturday 9th Nov

Red Bull move poses challenges for Ricciardo James Newbold Sports Correspondant

Once it became clear that Mark Webber would not be continuing his seven-year stretch at Red Bull Racing, it was always likely that his fellow countryman Daniel Ricciardo would be called upon to fill the breach alongside triple champion Sebastian Vettel.

Ricciardo is well known to the powersthat-be at Red Bull, having been supported

by the Austrian energy drink company from the start of his journey on the European single-seater ladder. The 24-yearold rewarded their faith in him by winning the 2008 Formula Renault 2.0 WEC title and the British Formula 3 championship at his first attempt in 2009, before running veteran Mikhail Aleshin close in at second in the 2010 Formula Renault 3.5 series.

Support from Red Bull is no guarantee of a Formula 1 berth in itself; New Zealand’s Brendon Hartley, now one of the quickest drivers in sports car racing, tested extensively for the team for two years before being dropped at the final hurdle.

However, Red Bull’s chief talent-spotter Helmut Marko saw enough in Ricciardo to hand him his Formula 1 debut in mid-2011.

A deal was struck with HRT to partner him with Vitantonio Liuzzi, himself a former Red Bull man. Having seen off the Italian, and effectively ending his F1 career, Red Bull gave the nod to Ricciardo to join Toro Rosso, where he has proven himself to be a reliable and blisteringly quick driver with the added bonus of having a good rapport with his engineers.

Since 2012, the Australian has comprehensively out qualified his Toro Rosso team-mate Jean-Eric Vergne, peaking with a remarkable sixth in Bahrain last year, and managed consistent points finishes that flattered the car. In a supreme performance that won him many fans, he beat none other than Michael Schumacher

to 10th in Japan with a superb defensive drive on older tyres.

Becoming the first man since Vettel to be promoted from Red Bull’s junior team shows how highly team boss Christian Horner rates Ricciardo, especially when one considers that the mooted alternatives included former champion Kimi Raikkonen and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.

Of course, with the plum drive, an Adrian Newey-designed car brings intense scrutiny. The Australian won’t be afforded much time to bed into his new team and will have to engage in a whole new level of intra-team politics; an art Vettel has mastered over recent seasons, with the infamous Multi-21 in Malaysia this year only the most recent storm the German has weathered.

However, at only 24, Ricciardo will improve and there is evidence in abundance to suggest that Red Bull have indeed made the right choice.

STILL TO COME...

Singapore - 22 SEPTEMBER Korea - 6 OCTOBER Japan - 13 OCTOBER India - 27 OCTOBER Abu Dhabi - 3 NOVEMBER USA - 17 NOVEMBER Brazil - 24 NOVEMBER

Sport

20/09/13

Issue 285

concrete.sport@hotmail.co.uk

23

Joining a sports club? Here’s what’s on offer...

LACROSSE by George Tucker When asked by my brother for university advice, my reply was simple: join a sports club. You will find that university is all about meeting new people and having fun with them, and there really is no better way of doing this than partaking in a sport. Any might do, but why not try one that you’ve never done before, or even heard of?

Lacrosse is that sport played with sticks that look like fishing nets. The men’s game is full contact, but can require considerable speed and agility. The women’s game is mostly noncontact, although equally fast paced. We are a social club, so we welcome people of all abilities; don’t worry if you’re a

complete beginner, most of us had never played before uni. Roll-on roll-off subs means that you’re guaranteed to get a game from the very beginning.

However, the most important part, and the reason I suspect you’ll be glad in future years that you joined a sports club, is the socials.

You simply cannot beat the fun. of a sports social followed by a hangover b u s t i n g gossip session (‘training’) the next morning.

So come on, get involved.

We train at Colney Lane on Saturdays at 11am, Wednesdays at 1pm (meeting half an hour before, outside the LCR) and at the Sportspark on Thursdays from 5-7pm.

CRICKET by Callum Hansey With teams representing the university in the BUCS championships both indoors and outdoors, UEA CC play a large role in university sport.

Indoor cricket, a six-a-side form of the game, is played throughout the winter with one side entered into BUCS. Meanwhile, full eleven-a-side fixtures take place outdoors during April and

May. The Sportspark at UEA is an ideal venue not only for indoor matches, but also indoor training. With two training sessions every week – Mondays from 4.20pm-6.00pm and Fridays from 2.20pm-4.20pm – there are opportunities to come along and further your skills.

The club has two qualified coaches in Norfolk County Cricket Club pair Chris Brown and Luke Caswell on hand at a number of sessions per term. They will run structured sessions or observe general net practice, offering coaching throughout.

Outdoor matches and net sessions are held from April (weather permitting) at the UEA’s main sports field, Colney Lane.

Players of all abilities are welcome, from those who have played at county representative level to those who may have never picked up a bat or ball. We are a friendly club with a dedicated committee that look forward to welcoming any new members.

Sports Fair takes place on Wednesday 25 September 2013, from 11am to 4pm, in the UEA Sportspark.

At the Sports Fair, all students have the opportunity to sign up to a range of sports clubs, including American Football, Badminton, Netball, Rugby and many more.

All sports club members must have Sports Association Membership, which can be purchased from the Union of UEA Students website and collected from the box office.

HOCKEY by Sam Coyne Hockey at UEA is without doubt one of the most widely played sports on campus and ought to be on the radar for every student this coming year. Blending a packed and diverse social calendar with plenty of matches and training, it is a club that truly offers something for everyone.

Each Saturday during the first and second semester, four men’s and three ladies’ teams compete in the East Leagues, and this season it is widely anticipated that the club will have great success in this competition.

Furthermore, with two men’s sides and a ladies’ team competing in the BUCS leagues most Wednesdays, it is hoped that UEA Hockey can build on the successes of last season within this format too.

Training takes place on the Sportspark astro-turf every Monday and Friday.

The ladies’ club trains from 6-8pm on Monday evenings and 7-9pm Fridays, while the men’s club trains from 8:3010pm Mondays and 5-7pm on Fridays.

Both clubs made strong additions to their coaching staff last season and offer some of the highest quality coaching in the region.

Off the pitch, the club’s social scene is thriving. Weekly club socials on campus become a feature of a member’s week, while annual events such as the blacktie dinners are the highlights of the season.

Hockey at UEA is a great club to join because it caters for all abilities, with a number of beginners becoming captains. The social calendar is set to give members a year to remember, while on the pitch the season ahead promises plenty of triumphs.

FOOTBALL by Charlie Savage With three separate teams competing in both local and BUCS leagues, the UEA men’s football club accommodates for a wide range of abilities.

On the field, the group are coming off the back of one of their most successful seasons ever – winning three leagues and two cups in a trophy-laden year.

Yet it is the off-field successes of the side which makes Club President Jon Bacon most proud to be a member. He commented: “The achievements on the pitch can only come from the hard work that exists off it. Everyone at the club goes to great lengths to establish a team spirit that thrives throughout all three squads.”

One way this happens is through frequent socials, from Defenders vs Attackers to UEAFC’s very own twist on ‘The Krypton Factor’. There are an enormous variety of socials to get involved in throughout the year.

The society also offers the chance to go on tour as a team. Last year the club went to Rimini, Italy, and there are already talks of jetting off to another exotic location this season to flaunt UEA’s footballing talent on other shores.

Training is every Monday from 5-7pm at the Sportspark primarily on the 3G surface, but use is also made of the running track for fitness-based sessions.

All three sides play in their respective Norfolk leagues on Saturdays, with the 1’s

and 2’s representing the University in their BUCS leagues on Wednesday afternoons.

The football club is an integral part of UEA and offers the chance for students to build bonds with fellow players that will last a lifetime.

Get your UEAFC ball rolling by going to the first trial on the 27 September at Colney Lane.

@concretesport

Concrete Sport UEA

SPORT

Issue 285 20 September 2013 UEA Sport Preview

Page 23

Wembley expects as underwhelming England edge closer to Brazil 2014 Charlie Savage Sports Editor England are in pole position to qualify for the World Cup 2014 after picking up four points from their qualifying games against Moldova and Ukraine, despite producing far from convincing displays.

Greg Dyke, newly-appointed chairman of the FA, said before the games that England success at next summer’s World Cup was ‘unrealistic’, and the players on show offered nothing to suggest this was not an accurate assessment of the squad’s ability.

Neither performance will strike fear into the hearts of potential opponents nor fill even the most optimistic of fans with hopes of world domination next summer.

England now have two home games against Montenegro and Poland to play in order to secure a place in Brazil.

Realistically, only a comprehensive victory would have sufficed against a Moldovan side ranked well outside the world one-hundred, but England acquitted themselves professionally and

never looked troubled from the moment Steven Gerrard put them into the lead with twelve minutes played.

There were outstanding performances from Danny Welbeck, who scored twice, and Rickie Lambert, who assisted two goals before scoring himself - but the class of the opposition left much to be desired.

The one dampener from the night was Welbeck’s booking – picked up after the Slovakian referee neglected to apply any of his common sense –ruling him out of the more crucial fixture against Ukraine four days later.

With a draw suiting both sides the performance in Kiev was unadventurous and never gained momentum.

The conservative approach Hodgson applied to the match was perhaps forced upon him, with several key attacking players ruled out through injury and suspension.

Frank Lampard could have marked his one-hundredth international appearance with a winner right at the death, but in truth this would have only served to cover up the flaws that may prove damaging in future games.

Defensively England were sound, but despite keeping two clean sheets Joe Hart did not appear the imposing influence he was twelve months ago.

His club form is deteriorating at an alarming rate and this is now seeping through to the international arena.

His poor decision-making almost cost England, as Ukraine should have been awarded a penalty early on.

Despite their blemishes England completed what they set out to do, and now their destiny lies in their own hands. Qualification is not assured yet though – anything but.

Worryingly, they could only manage a draw against both Poland and Montenegro in their previous encounters in the group, and the side may need to get maximum points from their final fixtures to ensure top spot.

With a fully fit squad and a packed Wembley crowd England should have the tactical nous and experience to see off both teams but, on the evidence of these two performances, they will need a lot more to be serious contenders heading to Brazil in nine months time.

Formula One

Page 22 Canary Corner

Page 22