Epigram #252

50 years of 007 - James Bond special page 27

Are sex strikes women’s best political weapon? page 9

Interview with Marina & The Diamonds page 23 Issue 252

Issue 252

Monday 8th October 2012 www.epigram.org.uk Bristol University’s Independent Student Newspaper

Bristol student found dead at recycling facility

Less than half of students satisfied with Union

A University of Bristol student has tragically died in ambiguous circumstances that may have resulted in him being crushed inside a bin lorry after a night out with a friend.

Garrett Elsey - a 22 year old from Sherwood Park, Canada - had enrolled to start his Masters in International Security in the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies and had been in the UK just one day when the incident happened.

Elsey’s body was found by workers at around 10.20am on Thursday 27th September at the New Earth Solutions centre - a recycling plant in Avonmouth. Police cordoned off communal bins in nine areas across Bristol whilst investigations were conducted into how his body could have ended up at the site.

It is now believed he was picked continued on page 3

Are boobs news?

The Page Three Debate

Page 11 Marek Allen

Student numbers increased by 600

University of Bristol’s Student Union - which is currently undergoing Page3 >> renovation work - has received one of the lowest satisfaction ratings in the UK. Jemma Buckley News Editor The results from the most recent National Student Survey (NSS) – released just before the start of term - show that only 45% of final year students are satisfied with the University of Bristol Students Union (UBU).

The survey – which has been taken by over 1.5m students since it launched in 2005 – is used to compile statistics relating to student satisfaction in eight areas: teaching, assessment and feedback, academic support, organisation and management, learning resources, personal development and overall satisfaction. This year the survey

also asked students to rate their satisfaction with their union or guild.

260 universities and further education colleges across the UK took part in the survey and student satisfaction with UBU ranked in the bottom five, with just 45% of students agreeing that they were ‘very satisfied’ or ‘mostly satisfied’

with their union. Oxford University’s Student Union came joint last in the survey with their neighbour Oxford Brookes.

‘We are dedicated to ensuring that the [UBU satisfaction] score improves over the next few years.

Unfortunately, students tend to focus on the building when they think of the Students’ Union and it

Whilst many top universities across the country have struggled to fill places on their courses this year, Epigram has learned that the University of Bristol has been successful in increasing student numbers by over 600, bringing the total number of places available to undergraduates to 4400.

The increase follows changes in regulatory arrangements, permitting universities to increase the number of places available for students achieving A-level grades of AAB or above.

According to figures reported

by The Telegraph, seven out of 24 institutions in the elite Russell Group

continued on page 3

Exclusive interview with Chairman of British Olympic Association

Page 32

Epigram

08.10.2012

News

Editor: Jemma Buckley

Deputy Editor: Zaki Dogliani

Deputy Editor: Josephine McConville

news@epigram.org.uk

zdogliani@epigram.org.uk

jmcconville@epigram.org.uk

Editorial team

Getting involved with Epigram

Editor

Style Deputy Editor

Pippa Shawley

Anisha Gupta

editor@epigram.org.uk

deputystyle@epigram.org.uk

Deputy Editors

Arts Editor

Patrick Baker

Rosemary Wagg

patrick@epigram.org.uk

arts@epigram.org.uk

Imogen Rowley

Deputy Arts Editor

imogen@epigram.org.uk

Rachel Schraer

e2 Editor

deputyarts@epigram.org.uk

Ant Adeane

Music Editor

e2@epigram.org.uk

Eliot Brammer

News Editor

music@epigram.org.uk

Jemma Buckley

Deputy Music Editor

news@epigram.org.uk

Phil Gwyn

Deputy News Editors

deputymusic@epigram. org.uk

Zaki Dogliani Josephine McConville deputynews@epigram.org.uk Features Editor Nahema Marchal features@epigram.org.uk Deputy Features Editor Helena Blackstone deputyfeatures@epigram.org.uk Comment Editor Joe Kavanagh comment@epigram.org.uk Deputy Comment Editor Nat Meyers deputycomment@epigram.co.uk Letters Editor Lucy De Greeff letters@epigram.org.uk Living Editor Imogen Hope Carter living@epigram.org.uk Deputy Living Josephine Franks Mona Tabbara Travel Editor Alicia Queiro travel@epigram.org.uk Travel Deputy Editor

Film & TV Editor Jasper Jolly filmandtv@epigram.org.uk Deputy Film & TV Editor Kate Samuelson deputyfilmandtv@epigram.org.uk Science Editor Mary Melville science@epigram.org.uk Deputy Science Editor Rajitha Ratnam deputyscience@epigram.org

There are multiple ways of getting involved in online journalism.

But Epigram is Bristol’s only enduring widespread form of print media; the prestige of the paper form lives on.

Much of how we interact with the student body is online. By joining the various facebook groups and following us on twitter, you can keep up to date with the latest and get involved that way.

So, how do you get involved? If you haven’t put yourself forward already, don’t feel The Epigram section editors like you’ve missed the boat. hold meetings for you every In fact, history shows that week. This is your chance to go as we go through the year, along, whatever you think of interest will tend to dwindle your ability or your journalistic - people seem to think that achievements to date, and get they are on the outside of an involved face to face. They value exclusive club; this is not the your time and will make sure case. We are open to anyone your dedication is rewarded. At at any time and appreciate these meetings, often in The people getting stuck in at White Bear pub in Kingsdown any stage in the year no or The Hill in Cotham, you matter how late you might can talk about what has been think it is to do so.

Meetings

David Stone

News:

Union 3rd Floor Foyer, 12.30pm, Oct 8th

Laura Lambert

Features:

White Bear, 1.10pm, Oct 9th

deputysport@epigram.org.uk

Comment: The Hill Pub, 1.30 pm, Oct 9th

Proof Readers Katy Barney

Science & The White Bear, 1.15pm, Oct Tech: 8th

Sian Edwards

Living:

The White Bear, 1.15pm, Oct 9th

Jessica Easton

Travel:

Refectory, 1.15pm, Oct 9th

Style:

The White Bear, 1.10pm, Oct 10th

Arts:

The White Bear, 6pm, Oct 8th The Hawthorns, 1pm, Oct 10th

Music:

The White Bear, 1.00pm, Oct 9th

Film & TV:

The White Bear, 1.30pm, Oct 9th

Sport:

The White Bear, 12.30pm, Oct 9th

sport@epigram.org.uk Deputy Sport Editor

Carinthia Pearson Epigram is the independent student newspaper of the University of Bristol. The views expressed in this publication are not those of the University or the Students’ Union.

The design, text and photographs are copyright of Epigram and its individual contributors and may not be reproduced without permission.

deputytravel@epigram.org.uk Style Editor style@epigram.org.uk

interesting you lately, what you would like to get written or just put yourself forward for something that your editor might suggest. Whether you are vicious polemicist or a neat photographer, whether you know the best buffet in Bristol or are a feisty fashionista, Epigram wants you.

Sport Editor

Alex Bradbrook

Lizi Woolgar

Since its modest launch in 1988, Epigram has come a long away.

With a team the size of the Red Army, an Internet site with the efficiency of a German car firm and content as compelling as Prince Harry’s private life, Epigram offers its readership more than ever before; it plays a significant role in student life.

Advertise with Epigram?

To enquire about advertising, please contact Leanne Melbourne - advertising@epigram.org.uk

Next year - 2013 – will be Epigram’s 25th year. We want as many people to get involved, so we can really celebrate this impressive milestone. We need you to ensure Epigram becomes an even stronger presence within the university.

Epigram provides students with a voice and a forum for debate at a time when University life is under scrutiny from all sides and changing fast. So, pick us up, have a read, get involved and help Epigram become the UK’s best student newspaper.

The Epigram editorial team

Epigram

08.10.2012

3

Canadian post-grad found dead at dump Continued from page 1 up by a lorry from the communal bins by apartment blocks in Jacob’s Wells Road, near the Triangle.

It is currently unknown how Elsey ended up in the bin which took him to the recycling plant.

The post-mortem results have yet to establish the cause of death and uncertainty remains as to whether Elsey was injured before being picked up by the lorry. A statement released

by Avon and Somerset Police confirmed they were carrying out ongoing investigations into the circumstances which led to Garrett’s death but said that at this stage it did not seem to be suspicious. ‘The investigation continues to piece together how

the body came to be in the bin and we are keeping an open mind at this stage,’ it stated.

Elsey’s body was identified by the passport he was carrying and the fingerprints he provided when entering the country.

He graduated from Carleton University, in Ottawa, with a

“

Elsey was described as a very intelligent young man who was athletic, friendly and outgoing

”

degree in History and Political Science and was looking forward to continuing his studies in the UK. In the weeks leading up to his departure he tweeted ‘booked for England!!! leaving Sept. 24. #excited’.

Elsey was described by family and friends as ‘a very intelligent young man’ who was athletic, friendly and outgoing.

Elsey’s uncle, Brent Elsey, told Canadian channel CTV News of the family’s desperation to understand the circumstances of his death. ‘There will be a need [for his parents] to have some degree of closure to understand what the final moments of their child’s life was,’ he said.

The University of Bristol released a statement that said it was ‘saddened’ to hear of Elsey’s death and that ‘The University offers its condolences to his family and friends and its thoughts are with them at this very sad time.’

On the Saturday after the tragedy, over 100 people attended a memorial in Ottawa held in honour of Elsey.

One of nine locations cordened off by police

CTV Edmonton

Josephine McConville Deputy News Editor

Comnunal bins on Jacob’s Wells Road

Garrett Elsey - a 22 year old Canadian post-graduate

Continued from page 1 is our main priority to show what we do beyond this,’ said Samantha Budd, Chief Executive of UBU. A press release issued by the Union explained that ‘The last three years have seen transformational change in the Union. The Students’ Union building is undergoing a £30 million refurbishment which will contribute towards improved scores in the National Student

Survey in the future’.

Meanwhile – despite overall satisfaction with courses being 1% above the national average at 86% - the University of Bristol failed to improve on any of last year’s academic satisfaction ratings.

Students’ ratings show that whilst teaching staff and their enthusiasm for their subjects at Bristol is very good, improvements need to be made to the quality of assessment

and feedback given to students.

Just 59% of students agreed that they had been given detailed feedback on their work and only 58% agreed that feedback had helped them to clarify things they did not understand.

‘All student feedback is taken very seriously and the NSS forms part of that. Should there be any areas where the feedback would suggest that we fall short of the very best standards, then we act upon this with rigour,’ David

Alder, Director of Marketing & Communications, told Epigram.

Overall satisfaction was highest in Dentistry (98%), Social Policy (98%), Computer Science (96%) and Zoology (96%). The lowest overall satisfaction ratings were recorded in French (70%), Archaeology (72%) and Aural and Oral Sciences (76%).

The full results of the survey are available to view online at unistats.direct.gov.uk.

Continued from page 1 were still advertising vacancies on more than 1000 courses with just days before the start of the academic year.

Thirty thousand fewer students have secured places on courses across the UK this summer compared with last year. Figures seen by Epigram show that applications to the University of Bristol dropped by 9.3% this academic year, a figure that is roughly in line with the national average.

Many claim that the drastic drop in applications this year is a reaction to the rise in tuition fees from £3290 a year to £9000.

Others point to a ‘demographic dip’ resulting in fewer 18 year olds competing for places.

For the first time in 20 years the amount of students receiving top A-level grades fell.

With less pupils achieving AAB grades than predicted – and the drop in applications overall – thousands of places across Britain’s universities have been left unfilled.

Angela Milln, Director of Student Recruitment, Access and Admissions, explained to Epigram that the University of Bristol’s reputation has helped increase student numbers, in a year in which many other universities struggled.

‘Managing intake numbers against targets has been particularly challenging this year because the deregulation of places for AAB+ students meant

“

Bristol has increased places by 600. There are now 4400 undergraduate places available.

”

universities are reporting.’

‘However, we have managed the situation very actively and, in a small number of cases, have moved places from one subject to another to ensure we were able to meet our overall aspirations for growth, without compromising on quality.’

Despite such promises, some students are still concerned about the impact that increasing student numbers will have on their departments.

Jessica Bancroft, a third year English student, told Epigram, ‘The disproportional intake of new Arts students will be detrimental to both the individuals studying the affected subjects, and to the perception of the subjects themselves.’

‘There are already limited spaces, and resources, in the Art and Social Sciences Library.

This will only worsen with more students and will inevitably hurt grades.’

Howard

Union not up to scratch, says new student survey

Harrison Carter News Reporter

that the historical models which usually inform the number of offers we make were no longer reliable.’

‘This, combined with a fall in the number of students achieving grades AAB+ at A-level is likely to be a key factor in the undershoots which some other

Photo: Chu

Source: National Student Survey

Infographics: Piktochart

Bristol takes on an extra 600 students

Epigram

08.10.2012

4

Queen guitarist fights for badger rights in Bristol Alex Bradbrook Senior News Reporter

observed in cattle. Last year, the disease cost the British farming industry £91 million and caused the slaughter of 26,000 cows.

The South West regional director of the National Farmers Union, Andrew Butler, said, ‘This policy is desperately needed to

Engineers take on Channel for charity Olivia Lace-Evans News Reporter

Alex Joss

The duo completed the swim in 16 hours and14 minutes.

plunge she had to be taught how to swim front crawl from scratch. ‘I remember how difficult it was initially to swim eight lengths in the pool. It’s really nice to know that all the hard work that both we and the coaches, Mike Shortman and Penny Porter, put in paid off,’ she told Epigram.

Both Rachel and Chris balanced the intensive training with their mechanical engineering degrees. They prepared themselves for all conditions by swimming in high winds, stormy weather and training at 5am to prepare for the tumultuous waters.

‘The weather on the day itself was great – it’s still physically exhausting, but mentally that made a big difference,’ Alex informed Epigram.

‘Beating the odds to make it, that was a pretty rewarding feeling. The support from our friends online has been overwhelming, so it felt great to be able to send the good news back home,’ he said.

According to the Channel Swimming Association only 13 other teams have achieved this feat and, according to the BBC, only around 10% of people who attempt to swim the Channel succeed.

Their funding was increased through auctioning off signed Arsenal, England Rugby, Great Britain Hocket and London Wasp shirts.

Killian Troy-Donovan News Reporter A new funding initiative has been announced by the University of Bristol, offering grants for events designed to engage students with their local community.

The scheme is part of ongoing attempts to encourage good relationships between students and their neighbours in the hope of reducing previous problems over noise levels and litter.

The Community Fund can grant up to £250 for residents to organise events such as street parties or welcome meals, with the focus primarily on areas with a high population of students.

Pru Lawrence-Archer, Head of Accommodation Services, praised the introduction of the initiative. She noted that ‘This sort of grass roots activity is the most successful way to promote community harmony. ’ The grant will also help groups which are already in place, such as the St John’s Road

Residents’ Association (SJRA), who last year ran an introduction night for new students ‘Over a curry, pud, and a pint’.

Mandy Boyd-McLaughlin from the SJRA told Epigram of the success of the event, after which both the police and recycling teams reported fewer complaints from residents.

In extreme cases the City Council Noise Officers have powers to issue Noise Abatement Notices, maximum fines of £5000 and confiscation of music equipment.

Louise Sweeney, a student who recently moved into the Redland area, has already experienced frustration from local residents.

‘It‘s difficult for students to balance being respectful and being students. We have already had complaints over music and being loud,’ she told Epigram.

She was however supportive of the scheme: ‘The majority of students do want to get along with their neighbours, and this sort of thing sounds great to develop an emotional attachment to the community.’

Bristol Drugs Project figures show rise in steroid users Joe Kavanagh Comment Editor The number of anabolic steroid users at a Bristol needle exchange has more than doubled in the last four years, according to new figures released by the Bristol Drugs Project (BDP).

The BDP aims to reduce the harm caused by drugs and alcohol and currently helps over 3000 individuals. It runs a confidential needle exchange to provide information and minimise the health risks for people who inject steroids and other drugs.

In the period 2008-9, 19% of those questioned at the exchange were recorded as using steroids. In the period 2011-12, this figure rose to about 44%.

Speaking to Epigram, Maggie Telfer, Executive Director of the BDP, attributed the rise of steroid users at the exchange to two factors. Firstly, at least one online supplier of steroids has recently stopped including needles in their deliveries, forcing users to find them elsewhere.

The second factor is the trend of younger people using steroids for aesthetic purposes. Ms Telfer said that some users see steroids as a ‘Shortcut to a more “beautiful” body’. She also noted that the increased use of steroids for this purpose is not limited to Bristol and there is a ‘national picture’ of steroid use.

Anabolic steroids were

Flickr: CelebMuscle

Two University of Bristol students successfully swam across the English Channel in just over 16 hours, raising almost £14,000 for a Bristol charity.

This summer - after two years of training - Alex Joss and Rachel Duncan swam in relay across the chilling waters between Dover and Calais, swapping at hourly intervals. Having left Dover at 4am, the pair arrived in Calais 16 hours and 14 minutes later;

four hours quicker than they had expected.

Although the narrowest part of the Channel is 21 miles, their final route covered 30 miles due to changing tides.

Their swim led to them raising £13,756 for Bosom Buddies, a completely volunteer-run charity that aids those battling breast cancer at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. Not only do they provide counselling for those affected but fund vital equipment needed in the Oncology Unit.

For Rachel, the task was a particular test as prior to the

tackle what is a terrible and damaging disease’ adding that it b r i n g s ‘Misery to the lives of many hard-working farmers’.

Flickr:p_c_w

Queen guitarist and animal rights campaigner Brian May led a rally of 200 people on College Green in September to raise awareness of the planned badger cull. The musicianturned-campaigner has been at the forefront of a drive to stop a new law permitting the culling of thousands of badgers.

The cull has been proposed as a way to reduce the spread of bovine tuberculosis in cows.

Speaking at the rally, May branded the cull a ‘Disgrace’, highlighting scientific evidence which argues that a cull will not have a long-lasting effect. He called for a more sustainable plan to be implemented ‘With a commitment to vaccination not cold-blooded killing’. In the proposed cull, up to 130,000 badgers could be killed because

in order to achieve a 16% fall in bovine tuberculosis, up to 70% of a local area’s badger population would have to be slaughtered.

During the family-friendly event, many people came dressed in badger costumes to show solidarity and also for a chance to win the ‘best dressed badger’ competition, held after the rally.

The high attendance at the event demonstrates the feeling of unease amongst the public at these highly controversial plans.

On an E-Petition set up by Brian May on the Direct.gov.uk website, some 97,000 members of the public have called for a halt to the planned cull; if this number reaches 100,000, a parliamentary debate will be triggered about the subject.

Despite the public opposition, farmers are in favour of a cull, believing that the elimination of a small amount of badgers will lead to a drop in the number of bovine TB cases

Uni cash for residents

first synthesised in 1930 for medicinal purposes.

They operate by mimicking the effect of testosterone in the body and by producing and maintaining certain physical characteristics, such as increased muscle and hair growth. For this reason they

The % of steroid users at the exchange has

more than doubled in the last 3 years

are popular among users who wish to gain muscle mass quickly.

Although some users appreciate these effects, there are significant health

risks associated with the use of steroids. These include increased blood pressure and risk of heart disease, liver damage and reduced sexual function. Psychological symptoms like aggression and irritability are also common.

Although steroids can be bought relatively easily online, the possession or sale of steroids carries tough prison sentences.

Importing or possessing the drugs with intent to supply can lead to a 14-year term.

The BDP has been working with the Students’ Union to introduce free weekly confidential information sessions for University of Bristol students. These will be held between 5.30pm and 8pm in the Student Union’s ‘Just Ask’ office.

Epigram

08.10.2012

5

Hiatt Baker a ‘building site’ this year Josephine McConville Deputy News Editor

The University of Bristol has fallen in the world University rankings

Diggers knocking down the Warden’s old house.

‘Flexible’ lunchtime disrupts societies Zaki Dogliani Deputy News Editor

From now on lunchtimes will be at

12-1pm or

1-2pm and is not sustainable. When we reviewed the national picture, we were one of the few Russell Group universities not to have already initiated a flexible lunch hour.’

‘If space is the defining factor, the university must start compensating student societies in other ways to counteract the low satisfaction scores,’ Griffiths responded.

The latest National Student Survey figures (see front page) show that only 45% of University of Bristol students are ‘mostly satisfied’ or ‘very satisfied’ with their union, which is in charge of extra-curricular activities.

There are concerns, however, that the construction work will be disruptive to this year’s students. William Miles, a third year History student who spent his first year in Hiatt Baker, spoke to Epigram about the impact this could have.

‘Nobody wants to live on a building site, it could be noisy and it won’t feel as welcoming.

It will ruin the little aesthetic quality that Hiatt Baker has’.

Miles added that despite the disruption, he doubted the building work would hinder the hall’s community feel. ‘Hiatt Baker has a great friendly vibe, it is all about the people and I think everyone will still have the same experience despite the building work,’ he explained.

‘In terms of the future I don’t get how there can be one hall where some people eat together but others don’t. How will that help students integrate?’

In addition to extra accommodation, there are plans to provide outdoor exercise equipment, build an extension to the bar and refurbish Hiatt Baker’s current library.

Bristol the latest city to introduce local currency Imogen Rowley Deputy Editor Bristol recently became the latest in a growing number of cities to introduce its own local currency – the Bristol Pound.

The scheme aims to stimulate independent businesses to keep trade within the region, drawing money away from large, multi-national companies and back into the South West, thus avoiding uncertainties surrounding national banking and keeping growth within the local economy.

While there has been interest from countries as far away as Russia and China, some Bristol residents have described the notes as ‘play money’, while others took to Twitter to express their concerns over the practicality of local tender.

Ciaran Munday, Director of the Bristol Pound, pointed out that the Pound also boasts green credentials. ‘If businesses [...] look for supplies that can be obtained locally, that’s going to reduce the environmental impact. You have a shorter supply chain, so less trucks driving around,’ he said.

There was plenty of initial excitement for the Pound at its launch on September 19th at St Nicholas’ Market, with everything from salsa dancing lessons to frozen yoghurt

available for purchase with the new £1, £5, £10 and £20 notes.

At present, £125,000 worth of Bristol Pounds have been printed, featuring designs from local schoolchildren, graphic designers and competition winners that aim to capture Bristol’s rich artistic, industrial and cultural heritage.

It is currently the largest of all local currency schemes in operation, with over 300 businesses already signed up and organisers hoping for more.

Student hotspots such as The White Bear, Chandos Deli and The Burger Joint are all partaking,

A local resident shows off her Bristol Pounds.

but while a motion in support was passed at Student Council, University of Bristol Students’ Union (UBU) is yet to accept the currency in union buildings due to the 5% arrangement fee to convert Bristol Pounds into sterling, which could risk UBU’s financial stability.

Community Vice President of the Union Alice Peck told Epigram that ‘Senior management and trustees are considering whether a pilot scheme could fit within UBU’s charitable objectives and could be introduced in the New Year. This is something I am keen

to advocate to the board and membership and really hope to see success on.’

UBU’s caution is perhaps indicative of how long it may be before the currency takes off.

While there is a certain amount of buzz following the launch, the Pound is not technically a legal tender, with notes acting more like vouchers: businesses can choose whether to accept them or not. Mr Munday describes the scheme as ‘exciting’, but acknowledges that it may take a couple of years to develop and before its level of success can be judged.

Mark Simmons Photography

Bristol University has announced that the official lunch hour students enjoyed up to the end of 2011-12 has been abolished and replaced by a ‘flexible lunch hour’.

Before this academic year, students were guaranteed to be off lectures from 1pm until 2pm each week day. With the new ‘flexible lunch hour’, students will still be guaranteed an hour off for lunch but it could now be either from 12noon until 1pm or from 1pm until 2pm, with change dependent on a student’s timetable.

Various societies - who last year could count on all members or contributors having a free hour in common to hold meetings during lunchtimes have expressed disappointment with the decision.

‘As a 24/7 student media product, we rely heavily on our ability to meet over lunchtime, when everyone is free,’ Rob Griffiths, Burst radio’s Station Manager, explained in an open letter.

‘Having spoken to other societies about how this policy will affect them, I can see that the brilliantly committed students who keep this university a buzzing, vibrant and exciting place to be will now have to put in longer hours at evenings

and weekends to keep up their society’s communication levels and overall productivity.’

The university’s Director of Communications and Marketing, David Alder, told Epigram that ‘The reason for this change is to ensure we can make the best use of teaching space for students.

If one adds up the amount of unused space there would be for a whole hour across the university, this is considerable

The house of the Hiatt Baker Warden has been demolished to make way for the construction of extra student rooms as part of plans to help the university cope with increasing student numbers.

Already the largest hall of residence, the developments at Hiatt Baker Hall will accommodate an extra 323 students. The work is expected to be completed in time for the university’s 2014 intake.

Plans to build new accommodation were announced last year, following the university’s decision to increase its student intake by 20%. The original proposals outlined plans to build rooms for 460 students who would live alongside the existing hall.

The plans were met with concern from students at how the facilities could cope with such an increase but according to a Public Consultation Report, the new buildings will be selfcatered but integrated within

Hiatt Baker, which is currently a catered only hall.

Last year’s Hiatt Baker JCR President, Jonny Barton, fears that extra buildings would be detrimental to the sense of community and ‘Inhibit this part of the student experience,’ he told Epigram.

Gordon Trevett, Hiatt Baker Warden, has moved in to Badock Hall whilst the new warden’s house is under construction.

According to Trevett, only 323 student rooms are being built; a 30% reduction from the original proposals.

He remains determined to give all Hiatt Baker students the best possible experience, despite the increase in numbers, explaining that everyone ‘will be totally dedicated to giving all 768 residents one of the best years of their lives.’

According to Paul Charlton, President of University of Bristol’s Union – and a former Hiatt Baker JCR President – it was ‘Right for the university to create more buildings to house the extra students that form part of the university, and not third parties like Unite’.

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Epigram

08.10.2012

7

Under-30s not as giving, says study Edward Trotman News Reporter Charitable donations from younger generations are becoming increasingly scarce, a new study by the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), in partnership with academics from the University of Bristol, has found. The study shows that more than half of all donations

”

now come from over-60s, who are more than twice as likely to give to charity as the under-30s.

The report by Professor Sarah Smith of the university’s Economics Department has revealed that since 1980 the gap between charitable donations made by over-60s and under-30s has widened sharply, with the proportion of donations from the latter more than halving,

Jessica Wingrad Senior News Reporter The Socorro dove, one of the rarest birds in the world, has recently been bred at Bristol Zoo Gardens.

Keepers at the zoo were successful in hatching two Socorro dove chicks and although one of the chicks died early, the other is thriving. Since the Socorro dove is extinct in the wild – with no sightings outside of captivity since 1972 - this marks a huge success.

The Socorro dove was native to Socorro Island off the west coast of Mexico but today there are only around 100 purebred birds surviving in captivity.

Their extinction occurred because of rising numbers of feral cats preying on them, as well as overgrazing of sheep eliminating their natural forest habitat. Humans have also hunted them for food. It is only through breeding programmes in captivity that the complete extinction of the birds has been avoided.

‘Sadly these birds now only exist in captivity, so to have this

Bristol Zoo Gardens

“

Over-60s are more than twice as likely to give to charity as under-30s.

despite incomes rising in real terms over the same period.

Action needs to be taken now if we are to avoid what Professor Smith calls the ‘donation deficit’.

Such a situation would occur if younger generations were to fail to match the generosity of the inter-war and immediate postwar generations before they pass away.

John Low, Chief Executive of the CAF warns that a ‘donations deficit’ would ‘Severely hit the funding of charities and their ability to deliver vital services on which so many vulnerable people rely’.

When asked what can be done to tackle the nation’s newest giving crisis, Professor Smith told Epigram ‘I would emphasize the need for charities and policy-makers to recognize these underlying trends and think about ways to engage with younger generations’.

‘Other research I have done highlights that young people – students and those at school – are typically engaged a lot in volunteering, so there are other ways of giving,’ she added.

‘Extinct’ bird hatches in Bristol Zoo Gardens

An adult Socorro dove at Bristol Zoo Gardens

chick hatch and survive 40 years after they were last seen in the wild is a great achievement,’ Nigel Simpson, the Curator of Birds at Bristol Zoo Gardens, explained.

Two European turtle doves acted as foster birds to incubate the eggs as adult Socorro doves do not have a good record for

incubating their eggs.

‘The foster birds have done a fantastic job of raising this very important chick and we are thrilled to say that another pair of foster birds is now incubating another Socorro dove egg which we hope will hatch soon,’ explained Simpson.

The Socorro dove chick

can now be seen in an aviary at Bristol Zoo Gardens near the education centre and is reportedly doing well. It is hoped that this chick will be able to continue the captive breeding programme by pairing with other doves in zoos across the UK to prevent the species from dying out completely.

Law students help ‘innocent’ convict Alex Bradbrook Senior News Reporter

University of Bristol Press Office

Ryan Jendoubi and Mark Allen fought to clear the name of ‘Wullie’ Beck

Students and staff from the University of Bristol’s School of Law have had cause to celebrate recently after succeeding in their bid to win an appeal for a man widely believed to have been wrongfully convicted of armed robbery.

Postgraduate students Mark Allum and Ryan Jendoubi worked for over 2000 hours in addition to their studies to secure an appeal for William ‘Wullie’ Beck as part of the University of Bristol Innocent Project (UoBIP) in which a group of academics and students research and investigate wrongful convictions.

Beck, 50, was arrested for the armed robbery of a post van on 16th December 1981 in the town of Livingston, near Edinburgh. Despite insisting that he was 40 miles away in Glasgow on the day of the crime, Beck was convicted after two eyewitnesses identified him in an identity parade, even though other key eyewitnesses

failed to do so.

After serving his prison sentence Beck twice applied to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), in addition to lodging complaints about how the identity parade was carried out and the conduct of his legal representatives but he was unsuccessful in securing an appeal. Director of the

Mark Allum and Ryan Jendoubi worked for over

2000 hours to secure Beck’s appeal

UoBIP Dr Michael Naughton described the ruling as an ‘Important milestone in Mr Beck’s fight to clear his name’ and labelled the evidence used against Beck as ‘flimsy’. He also stated that Beck’s continued fight to get his conviction overturned was an indication to the UoBIP that there was more to the case than met the eye.

Dr Naughton highly praised

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the postgraduate students responsible for the victory, saying that Mark Allum and Ryan Jendoubi ‘deserve a big shout-out [for their] incredible commitment to the case. They deserve so much credit’.

In a statement posted on a justice forum website Beck also praised the students saying ‘I cannot thank [...] students Mark and Ryan enough for all their hard work, and for this I will be forever in their debt.’

‘I want to thank the Innocent Project at Bristol University whom without their help I have no doubt the SCCRC would not have referred my case.’

The UoBIP was set up in January 2005 by Dr Naughton and consists of 90 students supervised by academics, lawyers, forensic scientists and other experts, with all of the work done on an extracurricular and voluntary basis.

The UoBIP was the founding member of the Innocence Network UK, an organisation which has helped set up 34 similar projects across the UK.

Epigram

08.10.2012

Features

Editor: Editor: Tristan Martin Nahèma Marchal features@epigram.org.uk features@epigram.org.uk

Editor: Deputy Andrew White HelenaEditor: Blackstone deputyfeatures@epigram.org.uk deputyfeatures@epigram.org.uk

@epigramfeatures

The untold story of international sex trafficking Lydia Cacho uncovers the sex trade’s not-so-hidden links with politics, tourism, drugs, arms smuggling and money laundering.

Nahema Marchal Features Editor

‘We’re going to send you home in little pieces, you fucking bitch’. This is the message that Mexican journalist Lydia Cacho receives on her handheld radio on July 29th. One of many death threats … one too many.

This time, she decides to flee her country.

At a time when opinion blogs abound and many journalists read and write from the comfort of their sofas, one easily forgets that investigative journalism can be a very dangerous job, especially if you are a woman messing around with the daily business of high-ranking officials.

In her book, Demons of Eden, she exposed a child prostitution ring in Cancún overtly naming officials at the centre of the scandal - politicians and governors who she claimed protected paedophiles. It came as no surprise that following its publication in 2005, she was abducted by several police officers, tortured and asked to retract her accusations. But Cacho could not be silenced.

After a yearlong judicial battle, during which she refused to divulge any of her sources, she won the case for defamation against her.

This woman exudes strength and courage. Speaking at the Bristol Festival of Ideas, Lydia Cacho looks impassive, imperturbable even. But even so the hint of sarcasm in her voice and occasional glints of rage in her eyes say a lot about the horrors she has witnessed.

Her latest work - the result of a five year investigation in which she followed the trail of sex traffickers and their victims from Mexico to Cambodia, Japan to Iraq and more - uncovers the international network of men and women behind sexual exploitation.

Where a male reporter

would have blended in without looking suspicious, Cacho had to disguise herself and assume fake identities to go undercover in this hellish world. She dressed up as a nun in order to infiltrate the barrio of La Merced in Mexico - where children were being kept in motels - and as a pole dancer, to get in contact with clients and make friends with prostitutes.

Her book is aptly called Slavery Inc. Sex trafficking, she argues, has become a multinational corporation like any other.

“Cocaine, you sell it once. A little girl, you can sell her hundreds of times.”

‘Trafficking is often portrayed as a very secretive thing, all happening in the darkness of the night, with big fat Russian mobsters. It isn’t like that anymore,’ she tells her Bristol audience.

‘The Yakuza mafia in Japan, for example, operates like a welloiled machine. It is composed in majority of rich entrepreneurs with incredible political power.

They belong to the system and no one questions their activities. It’s all happening in broad daylight.’

Nowadays psychological control is more common than physical coercion, poverty and normalised violence being the invisible chains that fetter girls and predestine them to sexual slavery. They are not only told by their pimps and madams that they will become models, but are also deluged with gifts, thus creating a sense of ownership and debt. Victims of sexual abuses since a young age, they are led to believe that the assaults they endure are legitimate.

Nothing new, I hear you say. But what Cacho reminds us in this compelling book is that sex trafficking is now a global underground economy, impervious to recession. She estimates that slavery is worth $400m a year, which makes it a more profitable trade than drugs or arms smuggling for gang leaders.

‘The UN Agency for Organised Crime reported on the anniversary of the abolition of slavery in America… that organised crime rings have sold three times the amount

of slaves than when slavery was legal,’ she tells Edinburgh International Book Festival. ‘A little girl, unlike cocaine, can be sold hundreds of times.’

And like any other economy, it follows the laws of supply and demand: mobsters provide what clients worldwide are demanding.

‘When I questioned a client in Dominican Republic who was about to have sex with a fourteen-year-old girl, why he was doing it, he said, “Here, girls are obedient, they are submissive, they are sexy and they know who the man is.”’

‘Pornification’ of society, misogyny and the cultural glamorisation of prostitution - whether it is Geishas, Vietnam War pin-ups or manga schoolgirls - are all fuel for trafficking.

‘Society’s ongoing task’, Cacho writes, ‘Is to reinvent love and eroticism without violence’.

This evidences a need for greater reflection on masculinity

and on the new role men have to assume in a world in which women are defending their own rights. Reflecting on the situation in the UK, which is faced with the difficulty of determining whether sex workers have been ‘subjected to force’ - either psychologically or physically - the only way forward might be to follow the example of our Scandinavian neighbours and criminalise the purchase of sexual services.

Pop-Activism: A mixed blessing Why popularising complex world crises could detract from a focus on adequate solutions.

Helena Blackstone Deputy Features Editor

Because of this, most of the initial viewers were thirteen to seventeen-year-olds, familiar with and optimistic about the power of the twitter phenomenon. The artificial connection between the cause and the celebrities involved mirrored the familiar simulation of intimacy between celebrities

and their followers. It implied that if you keep up with Kim Kardashian, who keeps up with Kony, you become a useful part of the campaign.

But Kony has not been in Uganda for six years. The Lord’s Resistance Army currently operates in the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic

Photo: Flickr/Tim Freccia

If you were a celebrity, the constant media attention would give you enormous power. Surely, if you were able to command the masses and so direct your government’s dealings with people in need, it would be the right thing to do, wouldn’t it?

George Clooney has used his star status to throw public and therefore government attention onto the conflicts in Sudan. He has succeeded in mobilising an unprecedented effort concerning a war in a previously obscure region: United Nations peacekeepers were deployed and President Bashir was taken to court and charged with ten counts of war crime, including genocide. But how much has actually changed? Bashir is still in power and there is little point in peacekeepers if there is no peace to keep.

Celebrities command more media attention than politicians, so unless they provide the public with proper information, this can short-circuit the system of governance already in place;

galvanising public opinion against Bashir is destroying the delicate bargaining position with him that the American government have been working towards. Celebrity behaviour is such that they are unlikely to publicise a problem without also providing a crowd-pleasing quick fix. A leading voice in development studies, Dr Tina Wallace, confirms that when using a celebrity as publicity for a charity ‘the fundraising messages that this organisation has the answer can become dominant... and of course the can’t have all the answers’.

Experts say that solutions need to come from the ground up, addressing longstanding issues over land, water and grazing rights, and that borders need to be demarcated through dialogue, as these difficult conditions are what have produced such a leader as Bashir and could produce others to take his place.

Youtube video Kony 2012, watched by millions, implied that the more people know about an issue, the more likely it is that it will be solved. It is an attractive concept because it implies that you can help.

South Sudanese women celebrate the introduction of a vote which will decide whether North.and South Sudan are to separate.

of Congo and South Sudan, and is now thought to number no more than 300 fighters. The video used out of date footage from ten years ago, insinuating that the situation remains the same today and tugging on the heartstrings of the Western public. When Kony 2012 was shown to the villagers who had been affected by the atrocities – they had known nothing of the campaign, let alone Youtube - stones were thrown and many were too upset to watch. One woman is said to have made the comparison of selling Osama Bin Laden paraphernalia post 9/11 – which would be highly offensive to Americans. Instead of representing the real issues in northern Uganda, Jason Russell ended up belittling and commercialising their suffering.

‘Kony 2012’ is an example in which seriously misleading information was used, suggesting an over-simplified solution. Killing one man is unlikely to solve the complex problems that are creating such violence, conflict and misery in that part of Africa.

Large fundraising events have their problems too: Bob Geldof raised $140m through

Live Aid in 1985, and indeed the country became much richer.

However, only in the last 5 years or so have Ethiopia’s poverty and AIDS issues shown any sign of turning around. This money was unlikely to help without being combined with measures to reduce corruption and adjust government so that it aids those in poverty more efficiently.

Otherwise, money can end up in all the wrong pockets, and make little difference to those it was intended for.

Celebrities can be very good at tuning into sensitive topics and commanding empathy, which is something we should not want to lose entirely to an unsentimental, overly hesitant approach, or to say that all world crises are too complex to be contemplated by a supposedly unthinking public.

‘Kony 2012’ makes it seem as though highlighting a problem will equate to its solution; in fact we live in a world which doesn’t serve up easy answers. Clooney himself puts it wisely: ‘You think that the minute people know, then it’ll stop. Your assumption is that everyone just doesn’t know. The truth is, even when you know, it doesn’t stop.’

Epigram

08.10.2012

99

‘Crossed legs’ strikes: women’s best political weapon?

Jess Elliott Features Reporter Sex strikes - en masse female sexual abstinence - have historically been a peaceful but far from passive form of protest for women to engage in. The thought process does not require much clarification - men require women, at the most basic level of gender interaction, for sexual gratification and procreation. If these interactions are removed, men are forced to address the issues that have led to a sexual embargo within their relationship.

In the last decade ‘crossed legs’ protests have been used to denounce gang crime in Colombia, endemic conflict on a Philippines island, civil war in Liberia and presidential longevity in Togo. Sex strikes allow women to raise political issues and draw media attention to the issue which has impacted their lives. Though these women may take inspiration from Aristophanes’ play Lysistrata, sex strikes are a

Photo: Flickr/ Peter Davies

“A pragmatic approach can be the key to a successful sex strike”

very real and tangible method for women in the twenty first century to demand change.

Protests of recent years parallel those of the Athenian women who refused sex until the Peloponnesian war against Sparta was ended. Rather than s i m p l y operating at the

private and personal level of an individual household, the strikes can be highly coordinated and strategic. In the 2003 sex strike against their divided government, the women of Kenya offered to pay female prostitutes for any lost earnings if they joined the boycott.

This summer, the Let’s Save Togo collective called upon Togolese women to carry

out a week-long sex strike, in response to four decades of rule

by President Faure Gnassingbé’s family. This announcement was met with both global attention and criticism, based upon the assumption that Togolese men would not tolerate such behaviour. This is perhaps the greatest failing of the sex strike - how many women are realistically able to withhold sex from their partner, should

he not support the protest?

Women, in a bid to achieve their goal, refuse to engage sexually as an entirely peaceful yet provocative means of resistance. However, women on sex strike will often be without a choice, once within the confines of their own home. Additional pressure may be required to ensure the strike is respected, as with the women of the Philippines island of Mindanao.

On Mindanao fighting had existed between villages since the 1970s. In 2011 the women of Dado village declared a sex strike, as deliveries from their sewing cooperative were being prevented by the fighting. They ensured success by restricting the wages of the cooperative to those who participated. It took only weeks for the fighting to end, the road to reopen and the delivery of the sewing products to begin. Although the fighting still sporadically occurs, the women of Dado village effectively ended the conflict affecting their livelihood by controlling the social and economic conditions of the village - no sex or no wages. Men were compelled to support their partners through the restriction of both pleasure and money.

Isabelle Ameganvi, head of the Lets’s Save Togo women’s group, took inspiration from the Women Of Liberia Mass Action for Peace, who declared a sex strike in 2003 to exert

pressure on the peace process which ended fourteen years of civil war. However, not all sex strikes have such immediately tangible effects as that of Liberia or Mindanao. In October 1997, the partners of Colombian

“Compensation for any lost earnings were offered to prostitutes” left-wing guerrillas, drug traffickers, and paramilitaries were called upon by General Mañuel Bonnet, chief of the Military of Colombia, to declare a sex strike. The strike itself was supplementary to diplomatic efforts towards a ceasefire, which although achieved was short-lived. In this instance the sex strike remained effective only as long as sexual activity was prohibited, with a swift return to renewed conflict once over.

As the women of Liberia and Mindanao demonstrated, a pragmatic approach and economic pressure can be the key to a successful sex strike, just as the brief Colombian ceasefire showed how swiftly such action is forgotten.

Nevertheless, the sex strike remains a potent weapon in the armoury of women for their struggle against social and political injustice.

The ‘Pussy Riot vs Putin’ Enigma Photo: Wikipedia/ Igor Mukhin

2011. Their antigovernment songs are accompanied by loud and eccentric costumes complete with brightly coloured balaclavas.

In total three members were arrested, whilst the rest fled Russia fearing prosecution and the three were held without bail until the start of their trial in July, despite two having small children. On August 17th 2012, amidst a buzz of international outcry, they were convicted of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred and sentenced to two years in prison.

Amnesty International called the conviction ‘a bitter blow for the freedom of expression’ and Pussy Riot defended themselves, stating that their protest was a political statement meant to criticise Putin and only held in a church to attack the state’s increasingly cosy relationship with the Russian Orthodox Church. Prosecutors, however, accused the group of blasphemy due to the crude language used

Emma Diamond Features Reporter ‘Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma’, thus quoted Winston Churchill in October 1939, expressing his lack of understanding of Russia’s enigmatic ways. Is the Russia of today any less riddled with intrigue? The recent Pussy Riot case suggests not…

On 21st February 2012 five members of the Russian feminist punk collective, Pussy Riot, performed illegally on the altar of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow. Their performance lasted less than a

minute before the group was stopped by Church security officials. Yet, arrests were only made later, after the music video of their performance went viral. The video, entitled ‘Putin’s prayer - Mother of God chase Putin away!’ harshly criticised Vladimir Putin, the Russian Federation’s recently re-elected President. Interestingly, two members of the group were only arrested on March 3rd 2012, the day before Putin’s controversial re-election.

Pussy Riot has been flash performing provocative, politically charged songs in unauthorised places around Moscow since August

in the song. Considering Russia is a secular state, is blasphemy a convictable crime? Pussy Riot criticised Putin’s use of his relationship with the Church as a ‘dirty election weapon’, citing The Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia’s overt support of Putin in his re-election campaign; Putin was described as ‘a miracle from God’. Indeed as the group’s members were only arrested after their music video

went viral, it suggests that their crime wasn’t so much singing obscenely in a Russian church, but the world-wide spread of their criticism of Putin. This indicates that Pussy Riot’s crime was political and not blasphemous hooliganism.

This case brings into sharp relief the close control that Putin and the state have over Russia, through the police force, legal system and the Church, despite

Russia’s secularism. As we see this increasing shift backwards to pre-1990 Russian leadership tactics, it is evident that Russia is still a country riddled with mystery.

Churchill’s quote, although 78 years old, still has resonance today.

Pussy Riot Whut?

Founded in August 2011, Pussy Riot consists of twelve to fifteen well-educated women, mostly in their twenties. They have a signature look: bright balaclavas and tights, and surreal nicknames (including Terminator, Schumacher, Hat, Chowder), which they take turns using so as to blur their identities. They specialise in public performances of politically-titled songs.

• •

‘Pussy Riot’ on google.ru : 11,000 news hits ‘7 September earthquake China’ on google.ru: 22,300 hits

Levada Centre poll (the Russian equivalent of Ipsos Mori) showed that 29% of Russian people believed Pussy Riot were ‘hooligans’; only 6% sympathised with them, and only 17% believed the trial was unfair.

Anastasia Reynolds

Epigram

08.10.2012

10

Between a rock and a hard place: the Senkaku dispute Lucy Coombs Features Reporter

“A boy wrinkles his nose in disgust: ‘Agh Japan, terrible.

Horrible!’” landmasses, the main appeal of which is not natural resources, but pride.

There has been fervent historical dispute over the islets since the late 19th century, when they were claimed

by Japan as a result of the Sino-Japanese War 1894-95, much to China’s dismay. The aftermath of the Second World War saw the islands pass into

Photo: Flickr/ Os Ishmael

In a school in Changsha, south east China, a lesson in flag learning is taking place.

‘Argentina!’ the children shout at the blue, white and yellow flag. ‘Denmark’, calls out a shy boy who knows his stuff.

‘Agh Japan, terrible. Horrible’.

Nose wrinkling disgust is the unanimous reaction from a class of 10 and 11 year olds.

Though it was before even their parents’ time, they all know the story of the Raping of Nanjing and are carriers of a patriotic dislike of all things Japanese. Recent events in the South China Sea are doing further damage to already fragile relations. China, Taiwan and Japan all hold tenuous claims to the Senkaku Islands, which are essentially a collection of eight uninhabited

Anti-Japan protestors show their support for China’s claim to the Senkaku Islands at a march last September.

US administration until 1972, the point at which ownership becomes sketchier. Though the Chinese and Taiwanese governments declared tenure in the early 70s, the Senkaku Islands were officially owned by the Japanese Kurihara family, who rented them out to the Japanese government at substantial rates.

September’s events have propelled tensions into deeper water, though the islands have been a contentious issue for more than a century now.

The Japanese government provocatively nationalised control over the islands on 11th September by officially purchasing three of them from the Kurihara family. This has led to a furious reaction from the Chinese government and people; the riots and burning of Japanese goods on the streets of China epitomises the passion inspired by the islands.

In response to what China sees as an affront to its sovereignty, Chinese patrol ships were sent to assert their authority over the

seas on Friday 14th September.

Though the ships have now retreated, the tense dispute, which is ongoing, has abased Sino-Japanese relations further, to a point which ‘Threatens to damage the strong trading relationship’ asserts the BBC’s correspondent John Sudworth.

The prediction is already materialising: Panasonic has suspended the operations of some of its factories in China due to the targeting of the Japanese firm, while Honda, Mazda and Nissan have halted

production in the face of arson and boycotts.

Take a step back from the immediate clash and it is possible to see how the wider geopolitical situation is fuelling this dispute. With the Japanese elections in the not so distant future, the already unpopular Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda does not want to appear weak.

Unfortunately for Noda, this assertion of authority could end in calamity for his Democratic Party of Japan.

More to the point, November

of this year will see a dramatic political transition for the Chinese Communist Party.

The 18th National Party Congress means not only policy alterations, but crucially a shift in personnel on all levels of the party, including the retirement of Premier Wen Jiabao and General Secretary Hu Jintao.

China today is therefore going through delicate yet drastic readjustment which is influencing policy towards the Japanese threat. For example, there has been minimal effort to quell the riots, while at the same time papers have avoided reporting the violent events; the party is well aware of the power and peril of nationwide protest.

The world is looking intently at the situation in east Asia, all the while referring to the islands using their Japanese name, Sekaku, rather than the Chinese, Diaoyu. Despite America’s neutrality and call for ‘clear heads’, has the international media already made up its mind about who rightfully owns the islands?

Either way, it seems neither nation is willing to back down, while both are fearful of the looming possibility of armed conflict.

For more information about the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, visit: www.facebook.com/ groups/epigramfeatures

Is a dark Dawn rising over the birthplace of democracy?

James Nickerson Features Reporter

has been made clear is that when a country is pushed to the brink, devastating results ensue - this is not only the case in Greece, but in also in France.

Le Pen’s National Front has won 17.9% of the vote in the first round of the 2012 Presidential

Photo: Tom Forbes

official publication runs articles praising the Nazis and often places photographs of Hitler, Himmler, and Nazi gatherings on its front cover.

With youth unemployment at 55%, many disillusioned members of society have turned to Golden Dawn. Not only has the party used unemployment as a campaign tool, but it has also used propaganda tactics similar to those of the Nazi party, such as promising to clean up the violence on the streets - despite Golden Dawn being one cause of this. The failure of PASOK and the New Democratic Conservatives to deal with the downwardspiralling economic market has been utilised to the benefit of Golden Dawn and to the destruction of Greece.

Are we, therefore, on the brink of repeating the catastrophe of the 1930’s? Of course history cannot repeat itself exactly - unemployment, as well as disillusionment, was at a higher level in the Weimar Republic than it is today. However, what

Flickr: Konstantinos Tsakalidis

Greece has been a focal point for European and World news in the last two years.

If coverage has focused predominantly on Greece’s economic perils and their effects on the euro zone since 2010, a darker concern has now come to light: the rise of the extreme far right party, Golden Dawn.

Golden Dawn’s foundations were laid by Nikoloas Michalolikos in 1980. Political success, however, did not start to build momentum until 2010, when on the 7th November, 5.3% of the municipality of Athens voted for them. This gained Golden Dawn their first seat on the city council. In 2012 Golden Dawn started to see growth in the popular vote: in May they gained 21 seats in the Hellenic Parliament, with a slight reduction to 18 a few weeks later, equating to nearly 7% of the electorate. If this was not alarming enough, a recent

Telegraph Poll shows how Golden Dawn is on course to do even better.

Why is this alarming? It’s because of the nature of the party. With its black, red and white flag which centres a swastika-like emblem, it can only bring connotations of the Nazi party. Its highly racist, xenophobic and anti-immigration stance is paralleled by the threats it deals to government opposition.

Goebbels once wrote: ‘It will always remain one of democracy’s best jokes that it provided its deadly enemies with the means by which it was destroyed.’ Flourishing and differing opinions are inherent in democracy, but Greek democracy must not let itself be undermined by those who would use its values to destroy it.

Links to Nazi style fascism are not subtle. In 1987, an article in Golden Dawn Magazine titled Hitler for 1000 years ended with the mantra ‘HEIL HITLER’.

Moreover, Golden Dawn’s

Antifascist protest against the extreme-right Golden Dawn party.

Election, and in Hungary in which neo-fascist Jobbik stands as the third largest party in the country.

Golden Dawn reflects the worst consequences of the economic crisis and raises important questions for the

rebuild of the economic system.

More immediately, Greek society is in danger of falling into a trap similar to that of the Nazi rise to power, as George Santayana states, ‘Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it’.

Comment

Epigram

Editor: Joe Kavanagh

Deputy Editor: Nat Meyers

comment@epigram.org.uk

deputycomment@epigram.org.uk

08.10.2012

@epigramcomment

The Big Debate: Are Boobs News?

No Kate Samuelson

and outdated? Perhaps in 1970, when the inspiration for Page 3 first came to the group of men who ran News International, parading half-naked women so early on in the paper seemed like a great way to increase readership. 42 years down the line the position of women in society and the media has completely transformed – and I believe The Sun should too.

For all the thousands of children who find the newspaper on their kitchen tables each morning and harmlessly flick through it, what message does Page Three send to them? From a young age, The Sun-reading youth are absorbing this hypersexualisation of the female body and are presumably led in the direction of thinking that ogling at the female body is a perfectly acceptable thing

“

Page 3 is a dangerously misogynistic, bigoted and oldfashioned waste of space

“

The world seems to believe that boobs are public property.

From Rihanna-gate in 2009, to the recently published photos of Kate Middleton topless thanks to that creepy Closer photographer by the way - it feels like the media thinks that the public’s ability to have a look at someone else’s bosoms is an inalienable right; akin to freedom of speech and freedom of the press, freedom to see boobies is right up there.

But why is it socially acceptable to print pictures of breasts in ‘family newspapers’ yet completely deplorable and perhaps even illegal to publish equivalent photos of male genitalia? For some unfathomable reason, there seems to be an uncodified law deeming it socially acceptable to print pictures of naked boobs, yet willies would lead to a whopping great law suit for the publication. In the twenty-first century, where all women have had the vote for nearing 100 years and with the majority of university students being female, it feels very backward for such a colossal male-female divide to still exist.

This ‘family newspaper’ I have referred to is The Sun, a staple read of 7.6 million Brits each day and home of the infamous and daily Page Three, first started in 1970.

Consisting solely of one or more topless women - though the poses are a little more ‘girl next door’ than they are pornographic - Page Three is justified by editor Dominic Mohan as being a healthy celebration of ‘natural beauty’.

Healthy and natural, coming from the newspaper that ran a story last year called ‘How to spot fake boobs’ – I don’t think so.

It’s sad but true that The Sun is not only a national newspaper but also has the largest circulation of any daily newspaper in the UK. Why then is it acceptable for the third page of this publication to be devoted not only to a feature as far removed from national news as, say, the name of Paris Hilton’s newest pooch, but to consist of content that is so utterly sexist

to do; “hell, there are tits on the third page of a national newspaper, so looking at the boobies of girls I don’t know must be okay!”

For a country that is so developed economically and politically, with the successful Olympics having proved the UK’s capacity to adapt and modernise, it seems strange that social inequality and sexism as blatant as Page Three has been more or less undisputed until now. Lucy Holmes’ petition calling for Dominic Mohan to ‘drop the bare boobs from The Sun’ is long overdue, and I urge any man or woman who understands that breasts on Page 3 is not just a bit of tit, but a dangerously misogynistic, bigoted and oldfashioned waste of space, to sign it without delay.

Yes Rupert Hill

Backed into a chauvinistic alley, am I really about to argue for the merits of Page Three?

A booby trap in Epigram’s first edition of the year? Oh, grow up.

I have no embarrassment at taking this side of the debate for there is nothing lewd or indecent about refusing to take offence - or sign a petition - against pictures of topless models in newspapers. Lucy Mohan’s petition calls for an end to Page Three in The Sun and has gathered some support.

Her petition for the removal of the page is based on two main premises: 1. It’s not news. 2. We should stop conditioning the readership to view women as objects.

Sounds fair enough, I suppose - Page Three is hardly the most shrewd news reporting that this country has ever seen.

Importantly, it is also far from the most classless news that is printed in The Sun. In a paper that consists of gossip, rumour, hearsay and acerbic opinion, the lovely pair from Plymouth should not be the aspect that grates.

Let’s be honest, The Sun and Page Three are not directed to the educated middleclass demographic of Bristol University. I don’t buy The Sun and neither do I pretend to understand the mindset of those that do, but The Sun’s continual high demand demonstrates that where sexual politics is concerned, society is still in an age where bare knockers sell papers. Mohan’s claim that this petition is ‘a long overdue outcry’ is obviously far from the case as The Sun continues to be the most sold paper in the UK. The Sun was ahead of the times when the idea was first put in print and has led to similar images in other papers like Sunday Sport and Daily Star. Magazines like Loaded, Nuts and Zoo were created soon after, and prospered.

Mohan’s second contention revolves around the objectification of women.

If a man has ever watched pornography, he is guilty of having treated women as an object. Male claims to the contrary should be dismissed.

Liam Mullone, writing for The

Huffington Post, states that is not those who have ‘tacitly agreed to some extent of objectification’ that should be the concern - but those who have not: ‘some of the stuff on the internet seems a lot more emotionally taxing than just standing there in bikini briefs with big hair and your norks out.’ It’s hard to disagree with Mullone. here are quite clearly more concerning issues to deal with.

Can you make a case for banning Page Three? Well, of course you can. In a world free of sexual desire I’m sure the local builder would be tucking into an article on the importance of green energy rather than looking longingly at a pair of the finest knockers.

Alas, it is the latter which generally prevails. It seems the current preoccupation of the middle classes is to take offence for others, and this petition strikes me as one that fits into that mould. In a day and age where sex trafficking still exists, I wonder if the attention of the easily affronted might be better directed elsewhere.

I occasionally gave thought over the summer as to what would make Epigram’s readership grow over the coming year. I briefly entertained the merits of having a Bristol University Page Three to attract some attention from male and female alike. A ridiculous idea? Maybe. Although after international attention for a nude Bristol calendar only last year, worse places to enquire might be the Netball club...

“

In a world free of sexual desire the local builder would be tucking into an article on the importance of green energy, rather than looking longingly at a pair of the finest knockers

“

An activist named Lucy Anne Holmes has started a petition to end the tradition of topless women in the Sun’s Page Three. Does Page Three deserve to stay?

epigram.org.uk/comment

Epigram

08.10.2012

12 12

Language Learning: Better than cheesy chips

It seems that not a month passes without us hearing about the all-too-familiar subject of the declining state of language-learning in modern Britain. Department for Education figures show that year-on-year, fewer pupils are deciding to study modern languages at GCSE and Alevel, and as a result, language departments in universities across Britain are under the ever-growing threat of closure.

Just last year, the University of Bristol announced a series of controversial cuts to its own languages department, whilst a lack of demand recently caused the language department at UWE to be closed altogether.

As a result of this worrying

English, and China, where we would be able to communicate with less than one percent of the population. In a truly international era, in which we are increasingly reliant on global co-operation and trade, we would be naïve to think that our ignorance of foreign languages won’t put us at a severe disadvantage against our multilingual competitors.

But the benefits conferred by foreign languages go far beyond the realms of economic wellbeing; they can also be highly rewarding on a personal level. Learning a new language can open up doorways into entirely new cultures, providing access to a veritable treasure trove of previously unknown music, films, politics, history, religions and literature. Imagine how much less poignant the impassioned soliloquies of Shakespeare, the stirring lyrics of Bob Dylan, or even the witty retorts of Blackadder would appear if presented in clumsy translation, and then you’ll

understand the necessity of experiencing foreign geniuses in their own delicately chosen words.

This is especially true once you realise that foreign languages can effortlessly and elegantly express feelings and ideas which our own language simply cannot. Consider the Indonesian word ‘jayus’, defined as a joke so poorly told and so unfunny that one cannot help but laugh, or the Yaghan concept of ‘mamihlapinatapei’, which currently holds the Guinness world record for ‘most succinct word’, expressing a wordless, yet meaningful look shared by two people who both wish to initiate some form of contact, but are also both reluctant to start. These are universal ideas to which we can all relate, but due to the limits of our own language and our stubborn refusal to expand our minds and learn another, most of us will never be able to properly express.

And we still haven’t even touched on the joys and

advantages of visiting a foreign country and being able to communicate with the locals without having to resort to a crude mélange of shouting, pointing and something vaguely resembling a degrading game of charades, in which the star prize is having your order partially understood by the now uneasylooking waiter, and the price of failure is being angrily escorted from the restaurant and into a waiting padded ambulance, ready to whisk you away to a secure location containing all the other babbling and angrilygesticulating lunatics.

This may, of course, be an extreme example, but there are undoubtedly practical advantages of being au fait with the local lingo when abroad, from haggling down the price of a bottle of local wine in the marketplace to asking for and receiving directions in an unfamiliar city. Or it could simply be the opportunity to meet and chat with people from a completely different culture from your own, who are thus

able to offer views and opinions that are radically different to any that our cultural viewpoint could foster.

To those who take the time to learn them, foreign languages offer new opportunities and experiences like these every day, opportunities and experiences which the majority of British people will sadly never get the chance to enjoy. So like all the best things in life, such as music, literature, friendship and cheesy chips, learning a foreign language isn’t absolutely essential to our survival. But would I recommend it? Definitely.

“

The Indonesian word ‘jayus’ means a joke so poorly told that one cannot help but laugh

“

Tommy Robson

trend, we are rapidly becoming a nation of insular monoglots, increasingly dependent on the hard work and open-minded attitudes of our international neighbours in order to communicate beyond our own borders.

But is this really a problem?

Close behind Mandarin, English is the second most widelyused language in the world, with 85 percent of Europeans speaking it as their second language. English is the default language of international politics, globalised business, the worldwide media, and perhaps most crucially, the internet.

With so many people speaking our mother tongue, is there really any need for us to learn other languages?

The short answer is a resounding yes. Whilst it is true that a great many people speak English, the vast majority do not. This is especially true of many rapidly developing countries, such as India, where surprisingly only around eleven percent of the inhabitants speak

U.S. Elections 2012 DonkeyHotey

Gareth Reilly

aren’t put off by his insensitive degradation of nearly half the population.

But should the Romney campaign be vilified for using such tactics in this election?

From a strategic perspective, the answer is no. Every significant presidential election campaign, Democrat or Republican, invests hundreds of millions of dollars and most of its time into winning the votes of the middle 5-10% of the electorate. Hence why we hear so much about Florida, Ohio and the other eight battlefield states where the votes of independents decide which candidate wins their state’s Electoral College votes. It is generally assumed that those in the rest of the electorate decide their vote when they see the blue or red background behind each candidate’s name. So it shouldn’t come as any surprise that Romney isn’t trying to appeal to people who will never vote for him.

What’s shocking about the video is the language he used to describe nearly half of the nation he hopes to serve.

It makes quite a statement about his attitude to those who struggle, those of ‘lesser means’.

The staunch American Right despises Obama’s domestic policy for championing these people and agrees that they are incapable of taking care of their own lives.

As he explained on CBS’s 60 Minutes, Romney plans to pawn off responsibility of social welfare programmes, such as Medicare and Medicaid, to each individual state and, as a result, cut a third of federal spending.

Given that Republican voters want a balanced budget and a smaller government in Washington D.C., Romney is their man.

There is one significant flaw in his strategy. Many US states have deteriorating public services and are incapable of dealing with the responsibilities Romney plans to dump on their shoulders.

But considering that the foundation of the Republican ideology is against government accountability for such issues, this fault is seen as widely irrelevant by conservative America.

From such a perspective, the 47% are just a bunch of losers that shrugged all the opportunities every American is given.

To be perfectly honest, it was somewhat refreshing to see a candid Romney in the secret tape speaking specifics about his planned foreign and domestic policies if he were to take office. It was much more useful for getting to know him than, for example, the cliché-ridden snooze-fest that was his Republican National Convention acceptance speech, half of which consisted of trite criticism of Obama’s first term in office, while the other half was a sycophantic life-story in which he tried so desperately to prove he was someone the ordinary citizen could relate to.

We saw a very different Mitt Romney in the Mother Jones video, that of an unscrupulous businessman. We also saw members of the American corporate elite encouraging him to take pride in it, paying up to $50,000per-head in the process.

As it turns out, the consequence of the video wasn’t Romney handing over the election to Obama

as I had previously suspected.

Instead, it was the depressing reminder that although head and shoulders above previous Republican contenders in the primary election, Mitt Romney nevertheless represents a deluded party composed of ideological conservatives becoming more extreme in their sense of social irresponsibility, greed and apathy toward their fellow countrymen, while the rest of the nation progresses.

Gage Skidmore

He has hesitated for months to release tax records as if he’s had something to hide, made a hasty statement accusing Barack Obama of sympathising with Islamic militants, and has insulted America’s closest ally shortly before hosting the Olympic Games.

Such blunders would lead one to believe the campaign of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has spent less energy giving the American people reason to vote for him and focused more on coming across as an abject disaster. So in mid-September, when I read headlines reporting a leaked secret video of a private Romney fundraiser, I decided that I no longer needed to follow the United States presidential election as I had resigned to the fact that

Obama would undoubtedly be serving his second term in office.

But as I then watched the video released by investigative news organization Mother Jones and listened to Romney write-off 47% of Americans as a bunch of freeloaders, I suddenly realised that, despite putting himself in a precarious position with the crucial independent voters in those all-important swing states, Romney had in fact further secured his own conservative voter base.

This reaction to Romney’s seemingly scandalous statements is made evident in the polls. On the day before the tape was released, Romney was falling 3.1 points behind Obama’s 48.6% lead according to the Real Clear Politics average. A week later, Romney had unsurprisingly dipped in the polls but the fall was a miniscule 0.6 points. The consensus among US election pundits is that polls say very little about the winner this close to Election Day. However, what these results do reveal is that a huge number of Americans not only agree with Romney’s accusations but also

Gareth Reilly downplays the impact of Romney’s ‘47%’ video gaffe

Epigram

24.10.2011

Epigram

08.10.2012

14

13 13

Tax: let’s stop avoiding the issue

For anyone that has been watching this year’s Lib Dem conference or is still taking a vague interest in anything Nick Clegg says, you may have noticed that the party has taken quite an aggressive line on tax avoidance. Whether we see it as an uninspiring attempt to increase their dire poll ratings or as a much-needed measure which governments have so far failed to effectively take, I think we should be talking about it.

The issue of tax avoidance or tax evasion is really an issue of whether as citizens, taxpayers and future professionals, we care that people at the top echelons of society find increasingly audacious ways to avoid giving back to society. We can all remember the footage of Jimmy Carr shamefully retreating into his mansion or former Barclays CEO Bob Diamond withering

the public services that we enjoy suffer and more pressure is put on the welfare bill, perhaps putting more pressure on governments to reduce welfare payouts. Secondly - as mentioned - a separate set of rules comes to exist for this plutocracy, undermining the idea that we live in a modern and meritocratic society. The debate is fundamental to the idea of what constitutes good business and how we see our role in a globalising economy.

Maybe Clegg is on to something; only a sick society would allow individuals to get away with such blatant irresponsibility.

salary increase of around 30 per cent and an income inequality gap that we have not seen since the Second World War. It just makes you seriously consider whether the mantra that “we’re all in this together” is simply one of the biggest insults the British electorate has ever been fed.

For those of you considering engaging in some sort of tax avoidance scheme in the future,

here are some ideas. Why not put the money into an offshore fund somewhere in the Cayman Islands or Switzerland? If that’s not adventurous enough there’s always the option of starting up a company, channelling funds through it and avoiding paying tax altogether. Why not create a phantom business and constantly make an artificial loss?

It’s not just Barclays or

some wayward comedians.

It’s an entire establishment of businesses both at home and abroad. It’s Vodafone, It’s Microsoft, It’s major drug companies, drinks giants, banks and FTSE 250 firms.

The problem isn’t simply an economic one and it would be a shame if people couch it in those terms. The problem becomes social in two senses.

Firstly, a tax gap means that

“

the mantra that “we’re all in this together” is simply one of the biggest insults the British electorate has ever been fed.

“

Izzy Obeng

under George Osborne’s criticisms of ‘aggressive’ tax avoidance schemes. Clegg isn’t saying anything particularly revolutionary - politicians across the world from Barack Obama to Angela Merkel have been sounding alarms for years. The problem is that the issue has not received enough public attention. What this does is create the impression that there are one set of rules for them and one set of rules for us.

So, what exactly is tax evasion and why is it immoral?

Tax evasion is essentially when an individual or company knowingly avoids paying taxes by not declaring taxable income: in other words, it’s the illegal one. Tax avoidance is when a company uses legal loopholes in order to retain more of their income. So, what Barclays did was technically legal, as were the actions of Jimmy Carr.

The executives at the top of Britain’s major companies, banking bosses and the like have managed to scale through a global economic crisis and its aftermath largely unscathed.

Not only unscathed, but with a

Uncertain future for Higher Education

Sam FIshwick International students at the London Metropolitan University might have been forgiven for packing their bags already. Just over a month ago, the institution’s licence to teach and recruit students from outside the EU was revoked by the UK Border Agency, as the UKBA cited discrepancies in its visa checks as evidence that some of the university’s nonEU students were studying illegally in the UK. London Metropolitan is one of the top ten most popular universities in the UK for international students. Around 2000 students who have enrolled on, or are about to start, courses at the public university have been faced with an uncertain future, and with the choice of finding a place at another university or leaving the country. But a high court ruling made by Judge Mr Justice Irwin allowed 1000 international students to begin courses at the university

last Monday pending the outcome of the court case, granting temporary respite to the embattled institution.

These are dark days for higher education in the UK. As the government’s austerity measures continue to bite, universities have found it increasingly difficult to generate the necessary revenue to keep their doors open. London Metropolitan’s Vice Chancellor Malcolm Gillies’ dismay at the suspension of its ‘highly trusted sponsor’ status does not only reflect the university’s fear for the prospects of its international students, but also indicates a real concern for the future of the university itself.

The university has already been forced to make sweeping cutbacks recently, with 70% of the university’s courses cut in 2011, including the complete closure of humanities departments such as History and Philosophy. The delay in student admissions has already created a ‘growing £10m-plus hole’ in London Met’s budget, according to the university.

Financially, the loss of the university’s sponsor status is particularly significant, with no cap on tuition fees for non-EU students studying in the UK. Were the institution’s licence to recruit international students

not restored, Gillies has warned that the university would lose up to £30m in tuition fees, equivalent to almost a fifth of the university’s budget. Should the charges levelled by the UKBA prove true, it will not be just international students who face an uncertain future.

London Met’s recent woes are indicative of the growing schism between elite institutions and other universities in the UK. Whilst many universities have struggled to fill student quotas in the wake of rising tuition fees, AC Grayling’s £18000 p.a. New College of the Humanities welcomed a full complement of students this September. Michael Chessum, an organiser for the National Campaign against Fees and Cuts, suggests there is a more sinister influence behind the latest turn in the saga, accusing the government of exploiting the situation at London Met in order to further its own agenda. With the university announcing last month that it was seeking a large-scale privatisation deal, the allegation is that the government is engendering ‘the creation of a market – with private providers allowed to operate, and public universities allowed to go to

the wall if they cannot make ends meet.’ Chessum’s words could be easily dismissed as the ramblings of just another leftist banging the red drum, but he has a point. London Met is far from the only university to have failed to properly meet visa monitoring requirements, and yet no member of the Russell Group has been ‘gone after’ in quite the same manner. If the government are determined to underline their zero-tolerance stance on failed visa applications, it comes as little surprise that they have chosen an institution they can afford to hang out to dry for a scapegoat.

There is no evidence, of course, to suggest that

the UKBA’s accusations are unfounded. Mistakes have probably been made by the university in its visa monitoring, and corners have almost certainly been cut. Among other findings, the UKBA announced that more than a quarter of the 101 students sampled were studying at the university when they had no leave to remain in this country.

Students with no legal right to remain in the UK should, properly, face deportation, and few would argue with this eventuality should the UKBA win their case. It is the students with a legitimate claim to study in the UK who are the real victims. If London Met’s licence to teach and recruit

students from outside the EU is indeed repealed, these students will be left with just 60 days to find new placements or face deportation themselves.

To this end, the government has provided £2m to assist students affected, whilst a “task force” has been set up to help them find alternative courses.

Hopefully, they won’t have to.

The university’s recent victory was just the start of the legal process, and not the actual judicial review. The fat lady has been given her five minute warning, but one suspects the show is far from over.

Whatever the outcome of the legal proceedings, expect one mighty encore from the parties involved.

Epigram

08.10.2012

Science

Editor: Mary Melville

Deputy Editor: Rajitha Ratnam

science@epigram.org.uk

deputyscience@epigram.org.uk

@epigramscience

Looking back at the summer of science Harrison Carter dissects his top four stories of Summer 2012

2012 has been the year in which science has pushed the frontiers of what we believe is possible. Since Epigram last went to print in May there have been new discoveries, advancements and even controversies. According to the Mayans, the world should be ending pretty soon, but realistically, it is just the beginning of a new era of science.

Some discoveries have been significantly big on a physical scale, others have been significantly small. What’s certain is that each development has been uniquely important.

Here’s my top four in chronological order:

Th

Mars Rover Landing

Apple vs Samsung

Higgs Boson Found

At 06:14 on 6th August, the Curiosity Rover landed safely on the surface of Mars. It was tasked with investigating the role of water on the seemingly arid, copper-coloured, rocky surface. The car-sized rover is currently investigating whether Mars ever sustained life.

To relay data back to the Earth, Curiosity uses direct transmission and the transposition of information through three satellites orbiting the small planet’s surface. There are cameras galore, responsible for navigation, hazard avoidance and imaging, not to mention onboard laboratories equipped to sample minerals and to analyse hydrogen, ice and water. These complex instruments on the rover’s c h a s s i s will enable scientists to assess the planet’s habitability in preparation for human exploration, or perhaps even colonisation.

On the 24th of August, Apple’s patent infringement lawsuit against Samsung was upheld and Samsung was ordered to pay Apple $1bn. Although the specifics of this case are a modern development, Apple has had a history of taking other technology companies to court.

Some even suggest there’s no need for Apple to produce an iPhone 5, or any other new product. Instead, they could build a revenue stream from challenges made against other companies, in relation to abuse of their patents.

This of course is only speculation. While the case with Samsung is likely to continue, the implications for those with the Samsung phones are currently unknown.

Earlier in the summer, the science world was both relieved and elated to announce that the Higgs Boson particle was recorded. The Higgs Boson is an elementary particle that gives everything mass.

This discovery came with a degree of speculation.

Naturally, with any credible research, a period of reflection and critical analysis had to take place before the results were confirmed. On the 10th of September, that formal process was complete and the detection of the Higgs Boson was published in a peer-reviewed journal. While this marks its acceptance amongst the expert science world, further tests are taking place to see whether or not we are that bit closer to understanding the theory that outlines all fundamental particle interactions, the Standard Model of Physics.

Th

Hearing Transformed

The most recent bit of science news could be the most useful to those who have either lost or were born without the ability to hear. On the 12th of September, researchers at the University of Sheffield announced that they had successfully restored nerves in deaf gerbil’s ears that transmitted action potentials to the brain. These impulses mediated the group’s ability to hear. The scientists were able to isolate embryonic stem cells with replicative potential and undetermined specialised state. They then added a chemical mixture that initiated the process of differentiation into cells similar to spinal neurones. Injecting these stem cells into the gerbils’ ears improved their hearing range. If this technique was translated directly to humans, it would significantly improve the lives of those with hearing difficulties. ‘It would mean going from being so deaf that you wouldn’t be able to hear a lorry or truck in the street to the point where you would be able to hear a conversation,’ said Dr Marcelo Rivolta.

Is the new Fifa ‘13 the best of the lot?

Austen Southcott answers that burning question on every man’s mind Austen Southcott Technology Reporter

Flickr: EA SPORTS FIFA

It’s that special time of the year when the new edition of Fifa is welcomed into our homes. While there is no dramatic overhaul there has clearly been a lot of work and love put into this updated version.

Fifa ‘12 had a defending system which proved divisive. Mastery was achieved at a slow pace but thankfully tactical defending remains in a diluted version. You will need to track your opponent but the game helps you with the angle of the tackles, which are crunching as limbs collide viciously.

The most important new feature is the introduction of clever attackers. Players will make runs and fall back quickly if they are offside, rejoining the attack. This allows attacks to be very fast and mobile, rendering this the most satisfyingly creative Fifa yet. Quick free kicks and throw-ins also flow smoothly.

Another addition is the first touch aspect.

Players of average calibre receiving a pass from an awkward angle or height will no longer control it as if they spent years honing their skills at La

Masia. At first it is tiresome as even good players seem to spill the ball with ricocheting touches that seem like passes themselves. It is merely another art and when learned can be exploited for devastating turns.

This leads on to dribbling. The mechanism for dribbling is refined for smoother runs and control. Fifa allows people greater choice in their style of play; lightning counters, slow build ups of precision dribbling, and even those that favour aerial bombardments will be pleased.

Visually EA has implemented gimmicks which

“EA has implemented gimmicks which add to the atmosphere...this is still the closest simulation to a real game of football we have seen.” add to the atmosphere. Managers now take their positions on the touchline, subs perform warm ups, and coaches will even amble onto the pitch at extra time; all improving the visual realisation; improving the realism of this football simulation

has been the Holy Grail for Fifa.

But the makers still insist that goalies are as good on the ball as newborn deer and referees are still questionable. Despite this, this is still the closest simulation to a real game of football we have seen.

Rating: 9/10 Cheapest Price: £34.00 (Sainsbury’s) Game reviewed on Xbox 360

Epigram

08.10.2012

15

Playstation Vita

The ultimate portable gaming experience or an expensive and overrated piece of equipment?

Eilidh Cunningham Science Reporter

Ved Uttamchandani Science Reporter Launched in the UK on the 22nd of February earlier this year, the PS Vita is Sony’s latest edition in its long line of hand-held disappointments. Vita sales have been quite low since its launch.

But are these results due to the Vita’s potential faults or are they due to other factors, unrelated to the console itself ?

At first glance, the solid build befits its intended application; the sleek design makes the Vita some tempting eye candy.

Unlike its predecessor, the PSP, the PS Vita is nothing short of impressive. The quad-core ARM® Cortex™- A9 core and much awaited dual analogue sticks enhance the user experience beyond all expectations. The device has a set of seven sensors in all and sound is provided by standard stereo speakers.

With regards to revolutionary hardware, a rear-touch pad has seen the light of day, in order to provide gamers with a new input method for a more diverse user experience.

The Vita sports an array of physical buttons: a directional pad, an action pad, two dual analogue sticks, two shoulder buttons, a PS button, Start, Select, power, and volume controls.

The problem with these new memory cards is their price; ranging from £14.99 for a 4GB card to £79.99 for a 32GB card, it would seem that the prices are quite unaffordable.

The PS Vita runs a brand new OS which contrasts greatly with the XMB (Xross Media Bar) used on the PSP, PS3 and PSX DVR. It features a scrollable

Eilidh Cunningham reports on the danger behind tanning in the first of our weekly ‘The Science Behind’ columns.

interface with oddly laid out round icons that each represent an application or game. When an application is tapped on, the launch screen appears on an adjacent screen. Scrolling horizontally allows the user to browse between applications ready for launching. However, tapping on an application doesn’t launch it. You then need to click on Start – if launching – or Continue – if resuming.

Has Sony picked gimmicks over an intuitive interface? Quite possibly. On the flip side, the PS button allows returning to the main screen without quitting the application. This allows multitasking with some of the Vita’s core features. Anyone who has had experience with handheld consoles has probably been disappointed with the graphics. The Vita changes this: for the first time ever, a portable console is able to deliver a relatively high

standard of graphics.

If you’re looking for a bit of fun and don’t care about graphics and innovative control schemes, you probably don’t need a Vita. On the other hand, if you are looking for the ultimate portable gaming experience, you had better crack open the piggybank. After all, considering what you’re getting, the price is definitely reasonable, ranging

from £209.99 to £259.99, new.

The PS Vita is the portable gaming console of this generation. Sure, the memory cards are expensive and the games are not always cheap, but the gaming experience provided more than compensates for these minor blemishes on the Vita’s otherwise glowing countenance.

New titles for the Playstation Vita Back in June, a whole host of new games for the Vita were announced at this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo – these are being released this autumn, so look out for them in stores soon.

LittleBigPlanet – September 2012 Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified – November 2012 PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale – November 2012 Metal Gear Solid HD Collection – TBA 2012

Don’t miss this, Freshers!

Chaos (Physics) and the Computer Science Society.

There is also Matrix (maths),

who host joint bar crawls with other science societies. TUBES is the faculty of Engineering society and offers careers events, intramural sports and a spring ball. Look out for freshers’ socials hosted by these societies, which

are a great chance to meet other people on your course.

If you’re into gaming, COGS is the home of video gamers at Bristol. From Mario Party to Battlefield 3, there’s something for all, with a LAN every month

and regular pub socials.

Finally, for any budding writers, there’s a science magazine, Synapse, which covers general interest stories

and specific research carried out by the University. There is also a new online conservation magazine: Natural Planet.

Epigram is always looking for new writers, so if you’d like to cover the latest in cutting-edge

science and technology, get in touch with us by emailing scienceandtech@epigram. org.uk.

Let’s begin with the basics. There are three types of UV radiation; A, B and C. UVC doesn’t reach the earth’s surface so is of little relevance. UVA radiation is known as the ‘ageing radiation’ and although it does not cause burning, it is a carcinogenic that penetrates deep into the skin. This leads to premature skin ageing. UVB radiation or ‘burning radiation’ causes blood vessels near the skin’s surface to dilate, turning the skin lobster red.

So what actually causes the tan we all desire? The basis of the process is down to melanin. It is produced in the skin by cells called melanocytes and it protects the body by absorbing UV radiation. UVA leads to the darkening of melanin already present in the skin – this gives an immediate tan that will fade after a few hours. UVB leads to an increase in melanin production. This tan appears after 72 hours and lasts much longer, whilst also providing protection against further UV exposure. However, the suntan created by UVB requires direct DNA damage and the skin colour produced is nothing more than a sign of the skin’s attempt to protect itself.

“It is predicted that as many as one in six experience skin cancer in their lifetime.”

It is predicted that as many as one in six experience skin cancer in their lifetime. There are three main types of skin cancer that have been linked to sun exposure. Basal cell cancer leads to raised red spots forming on the most exposed parts of the body.

Squamous cell cancer causes hard surfaced lumps to form on the lips, ears or hands. Neither of these cancers are life-threatening and can easily be removed. The third type is melanoma, and although it is by far the most rare of the three cancers, it is also the most deadly due to how fast it spreads. The main thing to look out for with melanoma is a mole growing unusually before turning a blue-black colour.

However, sunscreens and sunblocks have been proven to prevent at least the first two forms of cancer described. Sunblock works by reflecting or scattering the light from the sun, stopping it from reaching the skin. The reflective particles used consist of either zinc oxide or titanium oxide. In earlier sunblocks these inorganic particles were far larger, giving the sunblock a white paint colour. Due to advances in nanotechnology, the oxide particles are now much smaller, meaning the sun block is now invisible on the skin. Sunscreens usually include sunblocks as part of their ingredients and also include organic molecules.

The organic molecules, like benzophenones and anthranilates, absorb the UV radiation and release the energy as heat. The result: less radiation reaches the deeper layers of your skin.

Flickr: Wisconsin Deparment

A guide to the science and technology societies from your new editors Mary Melville and Rajitha Ratnam There are plenty of societies related to science and technology here at Bristol.

We recommend joining your subject’s departmental society. They put on talks, socials and trips, as well as running mentoring schemes.

Departmental societies include BioSoc, Fusion (Chemistry),

The science behind... tanning

Remember though, no sunscreen totally blocks all UVA and UVB rays. The extent to which the sunscreen reduces UVA radiation is described using SPF – sun protection factor. It is calculated by comparing the time it takes to register sunburn on protected and unprotected skin. The skin also has a natural SPF determined by the amount and type of melanin you have. Celtic and fair-skinned redheads are most likely to burn; they have very little melanin, and what they do have provides minimal protection. If you fall into one of these categories, I hate to say it, but I advise you to stay well out of the sun.

Epigram

08.10.2012

Letters & Editorial

I went swimming yesterday in the Clifton High School pool and I was told that from the start of October I will no longer be able to use the pool as I don’t own a sports pass.

The only two passes available are the peak and off peak pass which are £250 and £150 respectively. I only use the pool facilities so this would not be cost effective.

I was pretty outraged to hear that there will no longer be a pay as you go system and anyone who doesn’t own a pass won’t be allowed into the pool facilities both at Clifton High School and the recently renovated Union Pool.

I feel this has not been clearly advertised or explained to the student body and when the new term starts there will be a lot more complaints.

At the 2012 AGM, two separate motions were passed relating to this. The first, “Motion to enhance Swimming Access at UBU” discusses reducing the high cost for pay as you go swimming of £3.50 and the need to increase accessibility to all students. The second, “Motion for a flexible sports pass” states the need for separate sports passes for students that only wish to use part of the sports facilities, e.g. the pool. It talks about how the high cost is isolating some students who wish to

get involved with sports but cannot afford to. I am really disappointed and upset that although both these motions were passed; neither has been followed up by the UBU. I have been told by a member of the UBU that it is the University’s Sports department that have not agreed to these proposals. After an email of

“What benefit do we get?” complaint to Simon Hinks the Sports Director of UoB Sports, Exercise and Health I was told “There is an explanation to the reasoning behind the change on the webpage. Again – mainly linked to a growth in student numbers and customer experience and benefits”.

What about us students who can’t afford a sports pass and only want to use the facilities once a week or occasionally – what benefit do we get? Are we just meant to get fat? The nearest council run pool is in Bedminster, there are no affordable alternatives for swimmers.

Here’s hoping this exclusivity will change when the rest of the students arrive after summer.

Something has to change.

Chloe Tingle 4th year Engineering Design

letters@epigram.org.uk

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letters@epigram. org.uk Annual church barbecue raises moral questions I arrived back in Bristol and headed into university, to be greeted by the amazing smell of a barbecue and a newlyrenovated Woodlands Church.

Having missed out on the entire concept of a ‘free barbecue” here last year, a couple of friends and I decided that this was an opportunity not to be missed, so hastily queued up for a burger. Everyone was ridiculously friendly and helpful which was really nice – it was a welcoming atmosphere and there seemed to be a lot of international students there who were happily making new acquaintances and enjoying themselves.

We soon noticed the large projector screens which were advertising Alpha courses and other events at the Church, which seemed fairly relevant and of course quite within the remit of a Church. I then became aware of several students who were engaged

in awkward conversation with members of the Church, clearly uncomfortable with being approached and spoken to about potentially personal religious views and circumstances. We all agreed that we would have felt the same way if we had been cornered too.

Without meaning to sound ungrateful, I felt somewhat unsure as to whether this approach should really be adopted. I appreciate that religion is a somewhat sensitive moral subject, and it’s great if people want to talk about it – but what about those who don’t? Some people at the barbecue clearly looked uncomfortable, unaware that they had turned up to an event with slightly hidden motives.

Should these have been made clearer at the outset?

Many Londoners seem to only have ‘heard’ of Birmingham and nod in vague understanding upon telling them that you originate from this ‘northern city’- their words, not mine!

Someone once told me that the Midlands are like a child in the adoption centre that neither the North or the South wants to claim responsibility for. Actually, it is an area in its own right. This may be news to some, but, the Midlands are labelled as such because of its position in the middle of the country.

I am obviously aware that London is the capital city, though Londoners should also be aware that there is life and culture throughout other cities in the UK. To many Londoners, the North, or whatever they class as north, is a place of desolation, arctic temperatures and a cultural wasteland.

Though one cannot deny the ever apparent chill in the air, I think it is fair to argue that there are vibrant cities awash with culture, opportunities and stimulation. Many southerners admit to never having visited the north, or ever having the desire

Robert Foote 2nd year Mathematics

Flickr:Duncan~

Swimming facilities fail to deliver

Editor: Lucy de Greeff

Tweets of the fortnight @UBU News Hello Postgrads! Be welcomed face-to-face at our reception on 12 Oct at the MShed Museum: http://www.ubu.org.uk/ents/event/547/ UBU News, University of Bristol Students’ Union

@UoBGeogsoc Congratulations to an unnamed fresh who overdid the voddy, fell off the ping pong table and chundered. #dontjudgeme #jenny University of Bristol Geography Society

The university swimming pool is due to reopen on October 29th

Lucy de Greeff

@UoBproblems I actually don’t know what people’s problems with Hiatt Baker were. It wasn’t anything a few sticks of dynamite couldn’t fix.

Bristol Uni Problems

Follow us: @EpigramPaper

to, believing it to be grey, boring and made up of mining villages and fish and chip shops.

Perhaps the accent of the Midlands has some part to play in explaining the prejudice that it receives at times. For example, a 2008 study asked people to grade the intelligence of a person based on their accent and the Brummie accent was ranked as the least intelligent accent. In fact, it was considered worse than silence.

Such statistics exemplify the stereotype associated with Birmingham and surrounding areas. People may link the accent with a slow-witted clumsy Brummie, but let us not forget that it is not the only regional accent with negative connotations.

The Essex intonation denotes visions of fake tan and false eyelashes, as seen in The Only Way is Essex.

However, without going round and round as if I were lost on spaghetti junction, I return to my main gripe which is the incorrect labelling of the Midlands. We actively refer to ourselves as being a ‘Midlander’ rather than a ‘Northerner’ or a ‘Southerner’ and therefore are genuinely baffled when northern banter is aimed our way. Yet I think there is an unwritten and unspoken resentment from non-London towns towards the capital and the excessive centralisation of government and political activity that occurs there. It is often felt that the North is ignored, whilst the South is catered for in excess.

Though it is encouraging to see these two-way prejudices being gradually broken down as parliament expands its horizons to reach Birmingham by holding its commission on banking standards there this September.

I moan in order to enlighten those of you who take your views from Game of Thrones by considering the country split into a North/South divide, the former being grey, bare and full of wild animals and the latter characterised as sophisticated and the centre of the action.

Please remember there is land that lies between the two. You are to be forgiven for your sins though, as even Tennyson wrote ‘that bright and fierce and fickle is the South / and dark and true and tender is the North’.

Tennyson was clearly not aware of the North/Midland/South divide.

Olivia Ward

Epigram

10.10.2011

Letters & Editorial

Epigram

14.05.2012

13 Editor: Emma Corfield letters@epigram.org.uk

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CULTURE

Gig of the Fortnight

Play of the Fortnight Wild Oats Bristol Old Vic Until 20th October From £10

The Perks of Being a Wallflower Out now

WHY? The Fleece 11th October, £14 www.thefleece.co.uk

www.bristololdvic.org.uk

WHY? bring their indie/hiphop sound to Bristol this month.

Turn to page 24 for an interview with their front man.

Aaron Conway

Mark Douet

John O’Keefe’s 1791 comedy, Wild Oats, follows the life of Jack Rover, a Shakespeareloving thespian who finds it far easier to play others than to play himself.

Film of the Fortnight

Stephen Chbosky’s novel is given the Hollywood treatment in this coming-ofage film. The Perks of Being a Wallflower sees Emma Watson leave the enchanted walls of Hogwarts behind for the world of first dates, mix tapes and American boys.

Epigram

08.10.2012

Arts

Editor: Rosemary Wagg

Deputy Editor: Rachel Schraer

arts@epigram.org.uk

deputyarts@epigram.org.uk

@EpigramArts

The Resurrection of Ophelia The image of John Everett Millais’ Ophelia serenely slipping under the surface of the Hogsmill river, and the accompanying story of Elizabeth Siddall catching a cold in the bath tub, is etched into British art historical lore.

Our foreign correspondent Anastasia Reynolds finds out what’s hot to trotsky in Eastern Siberia

The picture is currently making an appearance in Tate Britain’s Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian AvantGarde exhibition, and is at the centre of debates around the resuscitation of Siddall’s reputation as an artist instead of a muse. Disquiet surrounding the marginalization of Siddall’s work is coupled with the fact that, in the most famous image of her, she is entirely passive and literally drowning in the viewer’s gaze.

However, Millais’ Ophelia, when it was exhibited in 1852, was in fact viewed as subversive next to more traditional depictions of the Shakespearean character. By showing her actually drowning – an action which takes place off stage – Millais was allowing Ophelia to be far more active in terms of gender norms than other artists had previously.

Some 20th century critics have read hints of sexual ecstasy present in her gently parted lips. If we decide that this is suicide and not an accidental death, then expressions of ecstasy at the point at which she is alone and determining her own destiny suggest that the Ophelia we see lying before us is far more complex than straightforward and passive readings would imply.

Whether or not the Millais work can, in fact, be read as transgressive is up for debate. However, two 21st century references to the character – one in Lars Von Trier’s 2011 film Melancholia and the other in a photo shoot in the September 2012 edition of Vogue UK – have contributed to reviving a more defiant and dynamic version of Ophelia.

In Lars Von Trier’s film, the main character Justine, played by Kirsten Dunst, is twice represented as having explicit links to both Ophelia and, specifically, to Millais’ painting of her. wThe most obvious parallel is present in the photography used for the film’s publicity poster and DVD

Russia Revealed

cover. Dunst, resplendent in her wedding dress floats on the surface of lily pad-studded water, her eyes looking defiantly towards the viewer and her lips a thin line of determination.

Similarly, during the film she is seen sitting naked by the water in the blue moonlight, her surprisingly muscular female body looking like it grew out of the plant life around it. The overly intense hues, especially the luminescent greens, and Dunst’s white skin are all borrowed from the Pre-Raphaelite work, and Ophelia/Justine appears

“Von Trier pays homage to this most famous representation of Ophelia” to be revelling in the moonlight and solitude.

Finally, a brief shot of a coffee table art book actually showing Millais’s painting is present during a scene in the library, leaving no doubt Von Trier pays homage to this most famous representation of Ophelia.

In Von Trier’s film, the parallels between Justine and Ophelia seem to reveal that it is the people with an overdeveloped sense of melancholia who will remain functioning in times of desperation, better conditioned to survive than their cheery counterparts. The director – a man who has suffered from depression himself – here suggests, slightly irreverently, that when the shit hits the fan it will be the ‘crazy’ people who survive. This reimagined conception of Ophelia is a far cry

from the typical meek Victorian heroine Siddall potentially represents.

In a similar vein, the Vogue photo shoot featured model Lara Stone in a selection of shots making reference to both Millais’ artwork and Arthur Hughes’s rendering of the same subject. In a perfect example of pro-Capitalist feminism the caption accompanying the opening picture reads: ‘Any modern-day Ophelia would find it hard to resist…Dolce & Gabbana’s colourful needlepoint bodice.’

In this instance it appears Ophelia is too busy shopping to think about the Prince of Denmark – although whether you agree with the replacement of ‘men’ with ‘clothes’ as the number one female preoccupation is another question. Stone’s positioning in the shoot is pertinent; instead of lying half submerged, she lies supine across a branch. No intention of drowning and with a gaze to rival Manet’s Olympia, any suggestions of dejection or fragility are absent. This Ophelia looks like she is having fun and, from her seat above the water, it will be those who try to reach her that run the risk of submerging.

Since her birth in 1604, Ophelia has been a vessel for myriad personality traits and different viewers’ fantasies of femininity. What these latest two metamorphoses imply is that – crazy, bereaved, lovelorn and fragile, but still alive in our cultural consciousness – Ophelia might just be all right after all.

Rosemary Wagg

A Book in the Life of...

Alexis Butt, an Assistant Director at the Royal West of England Academy, names Jung Chang’s Wild Swans as the book which has

made the greatest impression on her.

Wild Swans by Jung Chang—the story of three generations of one Chinese family and their struggle through social, economic and environmental problems across a century—is the book which has had the most profound effect on me. The book poignantly details Chang’s own story, growing up and living through the Cultural Revolution. On reading it, I was shocked to realise that most of the Revolution’s reforms had only stopped fifteen years previously.

My discovery of such a contemporary period of modern history, of which I hadn’t even been aware, encouraged me take a more defined interest in foreign affairs. Indeed, the book was so interesting that I wanted to live and breathe its culture. I was so greatly inspired to understand the gritty determination of a population who have gone through this huge period political change, and yet seemed to retain such a sense of innocence, that I actually moved to China for two years. Wild Swans was an awakening for me, to the fact that--- through chaos and confusion—humanity can still shine through even the most unthinkable of events.

The town whose doorstep I am currently darkening (Irkutsk, in eastern Siberia) boasts countless cinemas, a clutch of museums, and at least five theatres to my certain knowledge. It is also the home of one of Russia’s best-known writers, Valentin Rasputin, and is brimming with exotic architecture. However, this is all just background—proof that the Arts, with a capital A, are flourishing out here in the wops. I am not, in fact, going to talk about any of them, but about a more traditional, more provincial, homelier form of culture: the August horse festival.

It’s exactly what it sounds like: a festival to celebrate horses, plus – like all - ahem cultural events – an excuse to let your hair down. Accordingly, there were horse-related events and definitely people-orientated events. It kicked off with a parade of horses, led by girls in fruit-and-flowers wreaths; after that, we - the unruly masses - were permitted to surge forward to feed and pet the horses, and tie coloured ribbons in their manes. I didn’t quite catch the point of that, but it was good fun. Then the horses vanished off to a darkened room to recover and the people-focused events got underway. There was a secret ballot in which you voted for your favourite horse, based on the extensive knowledge of their character gleaned from feeding them sugar lumps; children were distracted with the ‘Draw A Horse’ and ‘Make a Wreath’ competitions. Grown-ups, however, were both directed to the beer and pastry tent and encouraged to join in with the traditional entertainment.

The latter turned out to be a troupe of traditional musicians, all togged up in traditional dress – think long skirts and headscarves for the ladies, big blousy shirts and velvet pantaloons for the chaps – singing mournful folk songs to the accompaniment of a balalaika, an accordion, and something that looked suspiciously like two halves of a coconut. And then there was dancing.

Traditional, of course. This meant lots of hand-holding, running round in circles and - eek - being picked up by strangers, as well as bouncing up and down whilst trying to preserve the structural integrity of my knees…

Then: more horses. The favourite horse was brought out and decorated with more ribbons and an enormous wreath before being fed a huge basket of carrots, presumably to distract it from the fact that the traditional singers were persuading everyone to dance round it in a circle. I’m not sure horses like balalaikas.

As a final hurrah, the stable doors were flung open and all the horses, led by the winner of the popularity contest, galloped at full tilt across the field to freedom - well, the next field, which was empty of unruly masses anyway. The clatter of hooves was augmented by the plinkety-thrummm of the balalaika and the wistful strains of the accordion, along with a folk song all about horses on the open taiga. Or something.

Epigram

08.10.2012

21

Unlocking the enigma of Tim Key Comedian Tim Key, Edinburgh Comedy Awards Winner 2009 and surreal bardic wizard talks to Rachel Schraer about comedy, serfs and his new show, Masterslut Definitely, you get more fired up watching your contemporaries. I’m good friends with Mark Watson, and when you see his ambition and sheer output - I want to nick a bit of that passion and work ethic.

Hi Tim, thanks for talking to me...You’re usually described as a poet/comedian. Could you put a percentage on it?

Hold on, let me get the Casio out. You do your calculations too... I’ve got 35% poet, 75% comedian, what’ve you got?

Do you have a work routine for writing new material?

Notepads. And public transport, cafés, pubs.

Oh really? I was veering the other way.

You used to do topical poems on Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe, do you have any topical poems about current happenings, say about Kate Middleton’s nipples for example?

Well I’ve been doing a lot of stuff that hasn’t involved poetry lately- a radio documentary about Nikolai Gogol, no poetry there. Not much comedy either I suppose. Bollocks maybe you’re right.

Doing Newswipe was great, but I did the topical poems because I was asked to- it was a challenge. I haven’t written any since. I can talk about Kate Middleton’s nipples amongst my friends, as more of an interest. I don’t need to write about them.

Other than that, how would you describe yourself?

I don’t know really, I’m just a guy.

You’re doing yourself down a bit...

You’re known for reading your poems off the back of pornographic playing cards- why do they make such a good poem vehicle do you think?

Oh, OK, slightly more than a guy.

I’m very excited for Masterslut to come to Bristol- can you tell me a bit more about the show?

Masterslut is me and 65% - actually a bit less - probably 55% poems. About 15% talking, 10% film, 5% recipe, 5% clambering. And 5% bath.

I’ve heard tell of the bath. Can you reveal what it’s about, or is it a mystery bath?

It’s very strictly a mystery bath. Put it this way- it’s hot and bubbly and it stands loyally next to me on stage. I realise that I’m a very fortunate man to have a show and a bath.

You took the show to Edinburgh this year I believe, how was that?

It was good; we wanted to see how the show would translate to such a big venue. I tend to return from Edinburgh a shell of a man though- I walk around London with a bowed head, trying to adjust to my post-Edinburgh life.

You’ve been quoted as saying that you’re inspired by the Russian greats - do you think Aaron Taylor-Johnson might be the new rising star of comedy to watch out for?

I haven’t actually seen the new Anna Karenina film. I’ve only just read the book- poor Levin. That poor poor man.

He had to do his harvesting didn’t he.

And have his opinions about serfs.

When I’m trying out new material, I’m very disorganisedI can never find things in my notepads, I’m all over the place. They’re the right size.

Have you ever considered printing them on anything else?

All the time, I consider it all the time. I did stick them on the back of business cards for a while.

Yes- I share a lot of those really.

What’s your best piece of advice for life?

Who doesn’t. What are some of your other inspirations?

Pearls of wisdom tend to be a bit clichéd, but I happen to agree with this one: it’s an unexpected job I’ve got but you have to think, ‘If not me, who?’ That’s stuck with meanything is possible.

It’s difficult to say- I know what I like but it’s hard to say exactly what impact they’ve had. I like exactly what you’d expect really, what anyone with any taste should like- Les Dawson, Fry & Laurie, Chris Morris, Armando Iannucci...

Has it been different watching comedians perform now you’re in the game yourself?

And finally...what’s next for Tim Key? After the tour, I’ll be shooting a short film in Lapland. A Christmassy film- it’s going to be quite edgy.

Austentatious Adaptations I was one of the lucky people who managed to cram into the tiny room that played host to Austentatious this year, a free, improvised show at Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival. We watched as the cast randomly selected a ‘Jane Austen novel’ - yes, those quotation marks do indicate that the novels were, for use of a better word, fictitious - from a collection of titles and then proceeded to perform the chosen story. Improvisation is a practice which rarely fails to produce hilarious results and yet the biggest laughs of the hour came, not from the inevitable pitfalls that come hand in hand with improv, but from the announcement of the chosen title: 50 Shades of Mr Darcy.

We watched as Mr Darcy, Hertfordshire’s ‘most famous interior designer’ was merged with the infamous Christian Grey, and handcuffs were most certainly involved. For a play that was essentially made up on the spot, its carnal crudeness captivated the audience.

This made me wonder; would there have been such a great turnout and reception to Austentatious if it had been a onehour improvised performance of a real Jane Austen novel? Did the theatre group know that they’d need to sexualise the story to make it more accessible and entertaining for the audience? This is a trend that can be seen beyond Austentatious; the newly launched Clandestine Classics collection has been created by an adult fiction publishing company who have decided to give literary classics an ‘erotic makeover’, believing there to be a strong market for the racy remakes of nineteenth-century novels including those by Jane Austen.

Guardian columnist Claire Siemaszkiewicz has celebrated this launch with the view that adding erotica to the classic novels would widen their readership, particularly among younger generations. The inclusion of graphic descriptions of sex in the novels would exemplify, for her, the far more accepting and liberated modern world; what was once deemed unacceptable, may now be ‘uncensored’. Perhaps I am in the minority here, and perhaps this is partially - or solely - because I am an English student who spends my spare time reading said classics, but I strongly disagree with this move to ‘sex up’ the old-fashioned. I can appreciate why erotic fiction like 50 Shades of Grey has been so popular – hell, I read it on the beach this summer, just like everyone else – but I think it’s unfair to tangle Mr Darcy, Mr Rochester and Heathcliff into the Christian Grey web of spanking, S&M and sex toys. These nineteenth-century romantic heroes are as understated and intriguing as Grey wishes, but fails, to be—his ‘abusive childhood’ a hardly implicit cause of his complex emotional issues.

To insert explicit sex into the classics has the potential to ruin what are, in many ways, the true origins of erotic fiction. It would re-define the heroes of the tales and attract a younger readership, but only for the wrong reasons. As the old saying goes, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’, and in this case, altering such significant texts could destroy the very thing that makes them so timeless and enthralling.

Kate Samuelson

Epigram

08.10.2012

22

World Series: This Summer in Arts Carpet Remnant World: Edinburgh

Romeo and Juliet: Austria

The name of Stewart Lee’s Edinburgh show is supposed to represent the utter disillusionment and futility of going on as a middle-aged stand-up in the age of Twitter and instant gratification, the comic imagination now barren and fruitless. But that’s not really how the show played out. You see, Stew is a difficult figure to, well, figure out; for anyone unfamiliar with his style, it could perhaps best be described as ‘Deconstructionist’. The show —―his first ever at the prestigious, and mainstream, Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh’s elegant New Town—was a jumble of theatrical misdirection and paradox. It began with a simple conceit: that Lee has lost all contact with the real world, and now inhabits the strange mental landscape of sterile intercity motorways and of Scooby-doo reruns. In search of new ideas, he leaves the comfort of his home, but discovers only a string of retail outlets and commercial warehouses. The conceit is crucial to the show’s structure, but even as he lays these foundations, Stewart Lee deconstructs the ideas in front of the audience and takes apart the basics of his own routine. For this reason, it’s difficult to get a handle on him; does he really mean it when he claims the audience—made up of fans, friends of fans, and speculative punters—is terrible tonight? It’s difficult to tell, although it did seem that the audience that night actually was failing to follow the jokes and had to be led by the hand, metaphorically speaking, in order for the elaborately laid call backs to work. And clever call backs they were; by the end, Lee had won over the somewhat ambivalent audience. So, despite supposedly having no ideas, Stew managed to conjure up a routine. Complicated stuff, for someone apparently out of ideas.

Josh Adcock

Vienna is one of the most culturally rich cities in the world, and this summer I was fortunate enough to see a performance of Romeo Und Julia put on by its State Ballet. Spending an evening in Vienna’s grand, opulent Staatsoper Theatre was a particularly special experience, as it is renowned as one of the most famous opera houses in the world. The company performed John Kranko’s version of Sergei Prokofiev’s ballet, and I was there on the opening night with my 8€ restricted view ticket.

Sitting at the back of a box, my view would have been restricted indeed had I not stood up and peered over the heads of those in front of me, but considering the top seats cost a whopping 130€, I was not one to complain. Romeo and Juliet is arguably Shakespeare’s most famous play, but even a viewer with no prior knowledge of the story would have been able to follow it, so clearly was it conveyed at every moment of the performance.

The two lead dancers portrayed Romeo and Juliet with heart-wrenching grace and believability. As they jetéd around the stage, their movements appeared effortless - and as someone who has done ballet since the age of two, I know full well the effort they require! A large and extremely talented orchestra supported the dancers spectacularly; the curtain call was unlike anything I’ve ever seen and every second of the long applause they received was well deserved by both ballerinas and orchestra alike.

Rachel Hosie

Damien Hirst: London This summer, the Tate Modern ran a retrospective of Damien Hirst—the largest exhibition of the artist’s work in the UK to date. Whether or not you consider him to have true artistic integrity, his phenomenal commercial success is indisputable and so the show really was a must see. It was something to have an opinion about, whether you went to be inspired, to criticise, or out of pure intrigue. The exhibition showcased all of his most important works, ranging from the stunningly beautiful butterfly series to the bizarre formaldehyde pickled shark. Whether one likes Hirst or not, he certainly manages to provoke discussion, and the retrospective was noteworthy on this basis alone.

Arabella Noortman

Mojito festvial: Italy

Lord Krishna’s Birthday: India

For most students in the UK, a good night out consists of endless drinking, blaring dubstep and a packed nightclub. So imagine my surprise this summer when a Mojito festival in an obscure town in Italy—an event unlike anything I’d ever experienced at home—turned out to be the best night I’d had all year.

A local folk band had assembled themselves in the middle of a field and their music seemed to hypnotise the crowd: young and old, everyone in sight seemed to be in a rhythm-induced trance. To my horror and admiration, an elderly grandmother, who I had previously thought immobile, suddenly leapt out of her seat and vigorously started clapping her frail, bony hands. At first, being typically English and reserved, I cowered in the corner, far too embarrassed to throw some shapes of my own. But the atmosphere was too vibrant and energetic; perhaps it was the lethal concoction in my cup, the long haired guitar player whipping his hair back and forth, or the outrageous dancing Italians around me, but before I knew it, I too was flapping my limbs about like a baby bird failing to fly.

Rosanna Hansford

The road is puddled pink, the rabble of men a swaying human pyramid, clambering onto one another’s shoulders. Another bucket of pink dye comes darting through the rain and splashes over it all. The crowd shrieks, speakers pump out a fresh stream of Hindi techno and everyone begins to dance. The pyramid mounts higher and reaches the clay pot, adorned in flowers, strung up metres above the road. A young boy reaches up and, steadying his balance, brings the pot smashing down onto his head. As the pyramid collapses, yoghurt pours from the pot along with the flowers. Cheers ring through the long high street of Panchgani, a village in the green, monsoony hills of Maharashtra. It is August 10th, Lord Krishna’s birthday, an event celebrated all over India. The dahi handi tradition that involves trying to break open a pot of yoghurt tied well out of reach comes from the popular childhood narratives about the Hindu God, in which he steals curd or butter from villagers. The festival, a joyous occasion, perfectly represents India’s beautiful and extravagant culture that never fails to relish a celebration.

Lydia Greenaway

Music

Epigram

Editor: Eliot Brammer

Deputy Editor: Phil Gwyn

music@epigram.org.uk

deputymusic@epigram.org.uk

08.10.2012

@epigrammusic

Sugary Sweet With A Pinch Of Salt Marina Diamandis explains to Pippa Shawley how she’s challenging the accepted stereotypes of pop music.

In a sea of pop stars stripped down to their bra and knickers, Marina Diamandis stands out, decked in ribbons and prom dresses, a bubblegum brunette living out her teenage fantasies in the twilight years of her twenties. ‘I’m going to be 27 soon,’ says Diamandis, ‘so this is an excuse to be ultra-girly, until I have to really grow up’. It’s not surprising that the singer is trying to hold on to her youth; her teenage years were spent trying to get 10 A* at GCSE to please her father (in the end, she was awarded 5A* and 5A), before embarking on four different university courses in the space of four years.

‘I went to a different one each year, got the student loan, and waitressed and lived off that while I became a better songwriter and started to produce my own stuff. I went to uni mainly just to appease my mum and dad and make them not worry, and not feel totally weird and out of the system.’

Since giving up on university aspirations for good, Diamandis has used her work discipline to claw her way into the music industry, and has at last reached a level of recognition that she is

happy with - her second album, Electra Heart, going straight to number one in the UK charts.

‘I feel like I’m playing catch up all the fucking time! In fact it’s only this year that I feel like I don’t have to do it anymore. It’s so stressful because you never enjoy yourself if you’re always playing catch up; you’re always looking ahead, never living in the present.’ It’s hard to avoid comparing Diamandis to other pop stars, and it’s something she does regularly herself. ‘I think “oh how old was she when she made it?” but it doesn’t really matter in the end because some people make it at 27.’ Though Britney Spears, Diamandis’s pop hero, burst onto the scene aged 16, Diamandis is just as likely to look at Katy Perry, who reached international fame at 26, and slightly less obvious idols, such as Shirley Manson who joined Garbage aged 29. ‘I don’t think it’s something you can really control,’ rules Diamandis, ‘it’s

either your time or it isn’t, and you’ve either worked hard enough for it, or you haven’t.’

Diamandis is an intriguing character, torn between wanting to be a Hollywood icon and a respected musician.

‘On the first album I felt really bitter that I was writing on my own, and that most pop girls don’t do that, but then at the same time, I didn’t want to go and write with other people, so you can’t really have it both ways’. This quandary led her to creating the character of Electra Heart for her second a l b u m .

Whereas Diamandis’s debut, The F a m i l y Jewels, is a fairly simple display of her songwriting a b i l i ty, Electra Heart has allowed her to develop her music to sound more stereotypically poppy, which contrasts with some of the darker lyrics on the record. Electra Heart has also enabled her live shows to become more elaborate. After

“It’s either your time or it isn’t, and you’ve either worked hard enough for it, or you haven’t.”

supporting Katy Perry and Coldplay on their arena tours, Diamandis was impressed by the flamboyance of their shows, and plans to bring this to her own tour. The Lonely Hearts Club tour, which rolls into Bristol on October 13th, will see Diamandis’s Electra Heart alterego come to life. ‘It’s set in a teen girl’s bedroom slash sleazy motel, and the theme is sort of wedding meets homecoming,’ she giggles. She anticipates that this will be the perfect outing for her fans, who often turn up to gigs in prom dresses.

The whole thing sounds so saccharine, it makes your teeth hurt just thinking about it, but it’s intended that you take it in with a pinch of salt. ‘This image is so sweet, it had to be a joke,’ laughs Diamandis.

In a world where rake-thin, half-naked air-brushed women are often heralded as demigoddesses, Marina Diamandis represents a refreshing change to the status quo. Her Electra Heart persona allows her to have all the fun of dressing up as a quintessential starlet, while being able to laugh at herself. The change from the Marina from Abergavenny to

peroxide blonde Electra Heart might suggest that Diamandis was beginning to buckle under peer pressure, but she disagrees: ‘I don’t think that there’s a pressure to use your sexuality to sell songs. If no one was sexual, or if no one pushed the boundaries or posed naked, then I think that would be a bad thing as well, because it would become a total taboo.’ While she supports singers like Rihanna, who she believes is ‘just a really sexual person’, she doesn’t believe it is a pre-requisite for all female singers to take off their clothes, ‘I think we’ve kind of done that in pop and I think that we’re now at a stage where you don’t really need to do that.’ This stance doesn’t seem to be holding Diamandis back - she’s already planning her third album, but is keeping quiet about what it will sound like, saying only, ‘I think every album I do is going to be quite different from the last, sonically speaking’.

Speaking to Diamandis, you get the sense that she has worked hard to get where she is today, and is enjoying every minute of it. Her transformation to becoming a teen idol is nearing

completion, with an appearance on the cover of her favourite magazine in the pipeline, as well as the occasional pinchyourself moments. ‘I’ve met Elton John a few times, and I went to his house. And then last year I met the Queen.’ Who was better? ‘Of the two queens?’

Diamandis laughs again, ‘I’d say Elton was more entertaining’.

Marina & The Diamonds perform at Bristol’s O2 Academy on 13th October.

Electra Heart is out now on 679/Atlantic.

Epigram

08.10.2012

24

Yoni Wolf: ‘What is it about me?’

Rishi Modha speaks to the WHY? frontman about the blurred lines between fiction and reality.

Depression, disease and illness are explored at unnerving length by Yoni Wolf, the creative force behind Cincinnati alternative hip-hop outfit WHY?, on Mumps, etc., their fourth full-length release. This record marks a new lease of life for Wolf, as opposed to wallowing in morbid reflection, is returning to rap. This folows a measured sombre excursion to humourless gallows on Eskimo Snow.

Revelling in what is clearly his element, Yoni could assume a mantle far greater than ‘minor star’ effortlessly twisting fact and fiction to produce eminently quotable lines that form his sardonic yet sincere confessional narratives.

Wolf explains that the use of embellishment and creative licence is central to accurately conveying the sentiment of the songs, ‘It’s based more on my emotional life than anything else. You might be painting a portrait of the Duke of whateverthe-fuck but you might decide to change his shirt colour from red to green, because it makes the background better, or you

might decide to change the background to suit the colour of his outfit.’

‘Sometimes I’ll get into a character, which is part of myself. Like on ‘Shag Carpet’, that’s definitely a part of myself.’

Wolf ’s characters expose the darker facets of himself, utlising fictional personas to give unforced straight-faced deliveries of painfully brutal yet revealing lyrics. On Alopecia, Wolf illustrated the lows by recounting ‘jerking off in an art museum john till my dick hurts’, whereas on ‘Strawberries’ - featured on Mumps, etc. - he is rejunevated, embracing the inherent risk inseparable from living freely, rapping that ‘I don’t wear rubbers and I don’t wear suncreeen / I want to heat my hide, not hide under something’.

There’s a comic darkness bound up in Wolf ’s wit, and he explains that crafting lyrics that seamlessly combine wordplay and phrasing while retaining the intended meaning and feel are the most satisfying. ‘I really like that line from ‘Shag Carpet’, when I thought of it I was like

“yes!”: “teen night, over at the roller rink / Rehearsing slow lewd winks, nude, at the men’s room sink, y’all”. The way the alliteration and rhyming go, and the meaning - it explains who that guy is without having to describe him. My sense of humour tends to be dark and twisted sometimes, but that’s what it is. My favourite lines are the ones that make me want to laugh and cry at the same time.’

The level of honesty in Yoni’s lyrics reaches refreshing levels, to the extent that his use of fictional personas candidly reveals the multiple elements of darkness and vulnerability his unified persona, without him even beginning to feel a shred of self-consciousness. ‘That’s just what an artist is. That’s what an artist does for society; releases tender moments and sort of strips down things to a real form or exposes things. I think if you’re not being honest on even an emotional level, then you’re doing everyone a disservice. You might as well be selling sports socks instead of albums.’

Perhaps sheer openness combined with a talent for phrasing and communication is what makes WHY? appeal to a wide demographic, and Wolf notes that their live audience is progressively ‘getting younger and younger’. But what is it precisely about frank insights into the life and mind of Yoni Wolf that attracts such a young and dedicated following? ‘I was asking myself that yesterday at my therapist’s office. What is it about me? I mean, there are things about myself that I feel are probably young and/ or immature. I don’t know, maybe since I’m older and more seasoned than them, yet of the same generation. Maybe I’ve thought of some things to say that they haven’t thought of yet, but can relate to.’

WHY? perform live at the Fleece on 11th October.

Mumps, etc. is out on City Slang on 8th October.

“My favourite lines are the ones that make me want to laugh and cry at the same time.”

DIIV into the deep end James Clark sits down to chat krautrock, New York, and star signs with Brooklynite newcomers DIIV. The previous night they played a packed out in-store at Rough Trade, before rushing off to another gig in east London. Tonight they line up a series of interviews before heading off for another gig. They may well be the ‘hardest working band in Brooklyn’, as drummer Colby Hewitt jokes, whose krautrock rhythms elevate DIIV beyond the dream-pop haze. Since their conception just over a year ago they have been gigging incessantly: ‘literally five days a week and as many as three times a day’. All the while they have been garnering buzz and their critically acclaimed debut album, Oshin, has all the energy of a young band full of confidence.

Zachary Cole Smith, the band’s main songwriter, put the krautrock idea to journalists in the first place, describing their sound as ‘a synthesis of the rhythms of krautrock and the energy of punk but with shoegaze textures and stuff’. Perhaps illustrative of the band’s sound is the recurring use of water imagery in the titles: ‘Doused’, ‘Oshin’, ‘Druun’ (think phonetically), as guitars swirl and waves of submerged vocals rise and crash. Bassist Devin Ruben Perez explains that aquatic signs of Western astrology link the members of the band; when approached by Smith to join the band, he explains, ‘I had to find out his astrological sign, otherwise I didn’t want anything to do with it. I found out he’s a Scorpio and I’m a Cancer and that’s really compatible so I was into it. Then we kept it to only water signs.’

Perhaps more important in their coming together was the desire to become what Smith calls ‘a New York band of a certain size’. The band credit Brooklyn as a nurturing community for young bands, but bemoan the lack of groups of the size that could comfortably play a house party. This inspired their intensive approach to gigging, because with ‘industry fuckers all over New York, you work

hard and get noticed.’

To write the album, Smith holed up in a New York studio, a period he paints as one of the decadent artistic lifestyle, with no bathroom, kitchen or sink. The self-imposed confinement led to midnight frenzies of song-writing, with only his music gear and recording equipment in the single-room apartment. With the writing process he suggests that the reverb-heavy sound of the band was ‘The starting point. The sound is where everything came from. It was a sound or maybe a concept at first and then it just became songs.’

Smith is also the guitarist for Beach Fossils and I ask him whether

it’s satisfying to be playing his own songs.

‘More than playing Beach Fossils songs? Well yeah I just didn’t really... Yeah I’m not going to say that. I just like playing my own songs.

It just seemed like a lot of work and never really seemed possible so I kind of put it off for a while.’ He treads carefully, not wanting to accidentally offend the fellow members of a band he is still technically part of; whether he can continue his commitment to Beach Fossils while also taking DIIV to where he wants them to be is as yet unclear.

Their ambition for more shows and records is undoubted. For the next record Smith promises a very different way of writing and the rest of the band are quick to agree that it will be more co-operative. He talks of a more experimental sound and a ‘less cohesive’ EP in the future. He cites album highlight ‘Doused’ as an outlier, being ‘much more out there and that’s the way we’re heading. Right now we are in our in element in a smaller room’, he says, but on an upcoming tour on which they will be supporting The Vaccines he concedes that they will be playing bigger rooms and ‘we want to grow into that’. As a closing statement Hewitt adds that they ‘want to go straight to the top’. He says it with a smile on his face and tongue tucked neatly in cheek, but with a relentless approach to gigging and a sound big enough to fill any venue, DIIV are an exciting prospect.

Oshin is out now on Captured Tracks.

Epigram

Epigram

10.10.2011

08.10.2012

24

25

Reviews New Music #1

ALL OUR FAVOURITE STORIES

UNTIL THE QUIET COMES DELICACIES Flying Lotus Simian Mobile Disco Warp November 2010 1st October29 2012 Delicatessen

Dog Is Dead Atlantic 8th October 2012 Syron

Flying Lotus is a natural outsider. And yet since making his debut in 2006 with the extraterrestrial 1983, LA’s Steven Ellison has established himself as one of electronic music and instrumental hip-hop’s most reliable and distinctive figures, a staple of Warp’s roster since 2007 and one of the most bankable live bookings. He’s also one of the more diverse characters around, with jazz history running in his blood from great-aunt Alice Coltrane, and an early career producing bumper music for Cartoon Network’s late night programme schedule; two disparate influences that both seep into his music at varying intervals.

Until The Quiet Comes isn’t much of a departure from his instantly recognisable sound, and the beats retain a crunchy trippiness accompanied by a seemingly infinite sonic palette. The excitement of Ellison’s music has often come from its unpredictabilty, its experimentalism; but that can become tiring (if not migraine-inducing) across the length of an LP, with each track shooting off in a different direction. Sometimes, his albums seemed barely capable of harnessing the excess of talent being poured into them.

For reviews of this new album, promo copies were sent out as one 46 minute track and through listening to it, it becomes clear how, more so than any of his prior releases, the record really works as one sequence:ambient periods build to bangers and the bangers unravel back into soundscapes more serene and emotive than ever before, songs often overlapping and enhancing one another.

Guest vocalists Thom Yorke and Laura Darlington once again prove a perfect fit with Flylo’s textures, as does new collaborator Erykah Badu on lead track See Thru To U; they fade in then out without stealing the spotlight but maintaining the momentum of what is a tremendous burst of creative energy. The lasting impression here is not so much the big tunes, as on Los Angeles, but the focus of it all, the way it pulls together to create an immersive listening experience.

Accompanied by an enigmatic short film, it makes for his most coherent and resonant artistic statement to date, and one of the most impressive to come out of electronic music this year.

Eliot Brammer

Nottingham’s indie pop debutants Dog Is Dead are not exactly bad, just so bland and uninspiring that it’s tempting to dislike them just for being average. Not a single idea of any particular interest is put forward within these forty mediocre minutes of the sort of polite guitar music that David Cameron might set as his ringtone in a misguided attempt to appear edgy. The trouble, though, is that Dog Is Dead lack any edge, and they instead trudge shamelessly through the back catalogues of any number of successful indie outfits of the last ten years: The Strokes, Bombay Bicycle Club, Two Door Cinema Club - each have their idiosyncracies and restraint stripped in favour of a safe, slick and calculated sound. The cutesy ‘Glockenspiel Song’ is almost a redeeming feature; an efficient indie pop tune which throws up more and more overblown melodies until it all becomes so melodramatic that it feels lacking in any real emotion.

They will hopefully take some direction from dark album closer ‘Any Movement’, which jettisons the spritely guitars which litter this album in favour of the sparsity of a bare rumbling bassline - and by cutting things back, they at last manage to carry some emotional depth. Fingers crossed they try less hard next time.

Phil Gwyn

BABEL Mumford & Sons Island 24th September 2012

Mumford & Sons’ Babel (not to be confused with the 2006 Brad Pitt film) is the followup to their chart-topping debut Sigh No More, met with such delirious fanfare in 2009. The so-called difficult second album is one of a band’s greatest tests: can they still create great music without adversity and against heightened expectations, and will it ever be as good as the first? In relation to Mumford & Sons, the answer to both of these questions is a resounding no.

The album travels from Babel to Holland Road - indicative of the ‘west London folk scene’ they are sometimes attributed to being part of - but unfortunately loses us on the way.

Despite the reference to the Book of Genesis’ Tower of Babel and the grandiose beginnings of title and first track ‘Babel’, the album builds to nothing. In fact, the prevailing direction of Babel is not a rising from initial success but in fact a lowering of quality, emotion and honesty. But rather than crashing tremendously, the songs just fall a little f lat. It is still a pleasant sounding

SOME OTHER TIME Lapalux Brainfeeder 8th October 2012

record, and one that will no doubt enjoy some popularity and widespread radio airplay due to their reputation and catchy singles. The banjo and mandolin and all the rest are still there and their enticing melodies will probably still awaken in you a bizarre desire to jig around the room as if at an Irish barn dance, but that is all. The band has said that on this album they have ‘perfected’ their original sound and perhaps that is true; but in doing so they have unfortunately removed the raw emotion and frantic energy that was so endearing.

Like the result of the Babel tower itself which, as the story goes, ended in a confusing multitude of languages, Babel’s effect is one of no real communication with its audience. I have no doubt that their live efforts to promote it will be enjoyable for their legion of adorers, but this album is certainly a sophomore slump that hopefully they - like humanity - will evolve past.

Sorcha Berry-Varley

Lapalux returns with his second Brainfeeder release Some Other Time, delivering more of his eclectic breed of chopped and changed hiphop. ‘Quartz’ enters benignly, with a steady yet subtle music box line resting above a drawn low-end of layers and distant vocals. Stumbling beats and clean truncated samples - Lapalux’s forte - are stamped on a cluttered ‘Jaw Jackin’’, and built upon an intricate free-fall tempo he makes look appear effortless.

‘Forgetting and Learning Again’ brings a new sound laced with a soulful jazz tone and vocals uttered by Kerry Leatham, a voice reminiscent of Py on Lapalux’s celebrated ‘Moments’. The track builds to a melee of flittering cosmic synths, only to fade again into darker marching textures and the ominous synth stabs of ‘Strangling You With The Cord’.

Fifth and final track ‘Close Call / Chop Cuts’ is ushered in by minimal lo-fi tape loops before spluttering into life with an array of calculated sonic cameos and a bold screwed hip-hop beat. Despite the intricacy and depth of Lapalux’s sound, the music remains unfussed and is delivered with ease and a reflective late night ambience.

His is a manner which appears unique among a plethora of ill-informed modern compositions with shop-bought samples.

AG Cligman-Howe

Most 19-year-olds spend their time fumbling through awkward sexual encounters and missing lectures; but at this young age Daisy ‘Syron’ Russell has already established herself as an almost guaranteed future popstar, having picked up plaudits from The xx to The Guardian. Emphatic debut single ‘Breaking’ showcases everything that’s worth getting excited about her; the surprisingly interesting future garage production underneath bold and soulful vocals, all executed with an effortless attitude. Anyone that enjoyed the crossover hits of Jessie Ware and Katy B will find Syron to be a natural successor. soundcloud.com/syronoffical Crushed Beaks Over the past year, London duo Crushed Beaks have been ruffling the feathers of the hippest music outlets by veering from the intense shoegaze fog of ‘Close Ups’ to the lazily struck slacker chords of most recent single ‘Breakdown’.

By toning down the abrasive noise, they have allowed the melodies which were always there to shine through. They’re still doing everything with their own single-minded ferocity, though, as if physically doing their best to break their gear.

Luckily, they didn’t, the results of which you can hear when they release the ‘Breakdown’ seven inch on November 5th on the newly minted ASL Records.

soundcloud.com/crushed-beaks Dan Bodan After James Blake gently ripped up the musical landscape with his tender, dubstepinfused atmospherics, it seemed we were headed for a deluge of intimate electronic crossover artists. Although that never materialised, now Berlin native Dan Bodan has arrived with a similarly original and introspective sound that recalls the RnB stylings of ‘How To Dress Well’ while sounding entirely its own by way of stark imagery - ‘If you want to teach me French philosophy, I’ll sleep with you’ - and an evocative voice that wanders over his minimalist production.

It should be enough of an assurance of the quality of his debut single ‘DP’ that DFA Records invested their cash and released it in North America, but if not then plug in the soundcloud details below and expose yourself to his devastatingly honest confessions laid over affecting and subtly escalating beats.

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Film & TV 50 Years of 007

1953

Ron Base

Ian Fleming writes the first James Bond novel, Casino Royale. Each copy costs 10s, 6d.

1962 Dr No is released, starring

former bodybuilder Sean

Connery (below right).

1963 From Russia With Love takes

over $78 million worldwide.

1964 Honor Blackman rockets to

fame as Bond girl Pussy Ga-

roger-moore.com

Editor: Jasper Jolly

Deputy Editor: Kate Samuelson

filmandtv@epigram.org.uk

deputyfilmandtv@epigram.org.uk

MGM / Eon

Fifty years ago, on the 5th October 1962, Dr No was released, starring Sean Connery.

Since that day, a James Bond film has been in production continually, with the exception of six years, and the franchise has become the most successful in history , allowing for inflation.

Nobody could have anticipated that the films would have been released at the rate of almost one every two years for the next half a century.

Yet what a strange icon Bond now seems. The objections which could be levelled at the character are legion. For a start, Ian Fleming imagined a ruthless killer who will do anything for Queen and country – qualities that might have seemed necessary at the height of the Cold War, but now seem outdated and even reprehensible.

Then there is the attitude towards women: Bond happily has his way with a woman in every film. Some die, some are exploited, but there seems to be very little questioning - with some honourable exceptions - of what causes this serial philandering and whether this is a problem. Is this what being British is – murder with a stiff upper lip? Do we really want to entrust the Queen to James Bond?

Maybe it is a bit unfair to

accuse a fictional entertainment character of various ideological crimes. However, it has to be said that some of the films are just not very good. The early i n s ta l l m e n t s are great – Dr No, and Goldfinger, for instance, genuinely provided something that had never been seen before. Their mixture of intrigue and fantasy is exciting, the pull of a world of martinis and secret gadgets is enticing, and there is just enough reality for them to ride the line between suspense of disbelief and confusion.

But the freshness, vigour and novelty gradually faded, and the franchise hit some pretty awful lows.

Everybody has their pet hates, but a flabby Roger Moore p h o n i n g in a limp performance at the

Kate Samuelson reports on what to expect from the latest installment on 26th October which critics argued were lost in Quantum of Solace, will be especially important considering the remarkable 50 year anniversary Skyfall’s release date is roughly marking.

Judging from the posters - which focus primarily on the classic image of Bond in a tux with a gun, accompanied by large 007 lettering - it feels like the new film is trying its best to restore the notable Bond characteristics that are best known and loved. Studio EON will be hoping that Skyfall will live up to financial and aesthetic expectations, and that Bond’s 50th anniversary will be celebrated in style.

situations, and the impressive set-pieces became an exercise in money wasting.

After Die Another Day it was difficult to see where the franchise would go, how it could regain the energy that had marked out the earliest efforts. James Bond was saved by the unlikeliest of heroes: Matt Damon. After the Bourne Identity in 2002, the idea of a smirking hero blithely saving the world became obviously obsolete, and so the franchise went back to the very start again, to Casino Royale, the first book, to give it a shot in the arm. Daniel Craig’s Bond (inset) was tough, powerful, while also keeping some of the class and wit that had stagnated in the middle-aged films. Crucially, it also became more aware of the character, and his flaws, and gave a reason for his distrust of women - beyond the way they kept dying. Dimensions were added to a character that had been eroded by years of cliché.

In fact, the franchise has never been in ruder health. The name still conjures all of the associations that have been its selling point throughout the fifty years on, but does not let them overwhelm it. The bond remains as strong as ever.

Film this fortnight Love wildlife? The Wildscreen Film Festival is back from 13-27th October, running a range of nature-based films from around the world including The Bear Family & Me and The Green Universe (right). Watershed: free

Watershed

by Judi Dench, for the seventh time) will be seriously challenged as M’s past comes back to haunt her. Marking a movement away from Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, Skyfall is a stand-alone story, not involving Quantum, the shady organisation that led the stories behind the last two films.

Further dissimilarities to expect may come from Skyfall’s new director, Sam Mendes, of American Beauty and Jarhead fame. It is the first time Mendes has directed a Bond and his characteristic style may be at odds with Quantum of Solace director Marc Forster’s more artistic technique.

Restoring the ‘classic elements’ of James Bond,

tender age of 58 in A View to a Kill sticks out. There is nothing wrong with the idea of an aging secret agent – think Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – but the character needs to mature, to be at least slightly believable.

Another personal low is Die Another Day, despite the efforts of Pierce Brosnan, a good Bond who did well with the terrible storyline.

These efforts were merely wan imitations of the earlier films, with all the life sucked out and replaced by, well, not very much at all.

The pithy one-liners started to miss the target, Roger Moore’s raised eyebrows were given a more prominent role than ever before as Bond l i m p l y punned his way out of various sticky

Film Lecture: Je t’aime, je t’aime - Mark Bould, UWE film expert, introduces Alain Resnais’ 1968 meditation on suicide, time, and memory. Find out what The Terminator has to do with H.G. Wells. Arnolfini: £6/£4 concs, 6.30pm, 18th Oct

The Cube

the last Bond installment, Quantum of Solace, easily surpassing its $580,090,727 worldwide gross and status as the second-highest-earning Bond film of all time.

But what can we except from Skyfall? Along with the classic Bond-film traits of having a well known singer perform the title sequence (hello Adele), lines like ‘shaken not stirred’, the inclusion of sexy cars, a bit of awkward product placement (‘no, Omega’ anyone?) and an array of gorgeous ‘female fatale’ Bond girls (this time played by Naomie Harris and Berenice Marlohe), Skyfall marks a change in tradition.

Uniquely, the relationship between Bond and M (played

@epigramfilm

Jasper Jolly looks back at 50 years of one of Britain’s most powerful universal exports

Skyfall aims to shoot high It is no coincidence that the eagerly anticipated Skyfall, the 23rd film of the James Bond franchise, is being released just over a month after the success of the Olympics. Great Britain’s most famous spy is back after a four year wait and the timing couldn’t be better. British patriotism is higher than ever and the whole world has read, watched and discussed London all summer – including tuning in to the Opening Ceremony to see an unbelievable skit involving Daniel Craig as Bond and yes, Queen Elizabeth herself. This, and the fact that the release of Skyfall marks the franchise’s 50th anniversary, means it is no surprise that the new film is predicted to exceed

08.10.2012

The name’s Bond, James Bond

IGN.com

lore.

1967 You Only Live Twice transports

Bond to Japan, the screenplay

written by Roald Dahl.

1969 On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

introduces a new Bond: George

Lazenby. He doesn’t do another.

1971 Diamonds Are Forever stars Sean Johann Oomen

Connery again, Shirley Bassey

performs the title song.

1973 The filming of Roger Moore’s first Bond film, Live and Let Die, is postponed after

Moore (below) is diagnosed with kidney stones.

1977 The Spy Who Loved Me is nominated for three Academy

Awards.

1979 Bond reaches space in Moonraker.

1981 For Your Eyes Only is a huge

financial success.

1983 To everyone’s sur prise, Moore

returns as Bond in Octopussy.

1987 The Living Daylights introduces

Timothy Dalton.

1995 GoldenEye stars Pierce Brosnan

(right).

1997 Tomorrow Never Dies opens on

the same day as Titanic - an error.

2002 Halle Berry plays a Bond girl in Die Another Day. 2006 Casino Royale stars current Bond, Daniel Craig.

Epigram

Robert Mugabe... What Happened?

The documentary shortlisted for the BAFTA Best Newcomer Award shows how a tyrant is formed. Simon Bright, the director exiled from Zimbabwe, will be there to answer questions after the screening.

The Cube: £5/£4 concs, 8.00pm, 15th Oct

Freshers! Find your exclusive guide to Bristol cinema at epigram.org.uk

Epigram

08.10.2012

28

Allen’s love letter to Rome falls short

Rachel Schraer on Woody Allen’s latest enjoyable, but shallow evocation of life and sex in yet another European capital To Rome With Love was a film that loved a concept. An undeniably charming and easy watch, it was thin on plot and light on structure.

Following Midnight in Paris and Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Woody Allen’s latest aria to a city centres around Rome, albeit a postcard Rome straight out of a family-run Italian restaurant somewhere around Balham the kind with dripping candle wax-encrusted wine bottles and Volare playing on repeat.

‘‘

This was a cheap one-liner dragged out to feature length

SonyPicures Classics

’’

This isn’t the first time that Allen has played with weaving multiple separate strands, plotlines and lives into his films but, unlike with Vicky Cristina, the four narratives enfolded into To Rome With Love were entirely discrete. Disparate and seemingly arbitrary, the quartet of narrative arcs was yoked together only by the vaguest

of themes as each makes a bullet point-ish comment on love, marriage, faithfulness and celebrity. The disconnected scraps of story line, without any satisfying convergence, lent it a strong sense of a hastily finished draft.

The most developed plot in its own right saw Sally and Jack (Greta Gerwig and Jesse Eisenberg), a young American couple living in Rome, welcome Sally’s actress friend, footloose seductress and pseudointellectual ‘con-artist’ Monica (Ellen Page) into their home.

Left alone to chaperone her around the city whilst Sally studies, Jack begins to succumb to Monica’s charms.

Their growing chemistry is overseen by a prescient figure of conscience and voice of warning (Alec Baldwin) who appears to be Jack from the future, admonishing him for his poor judgement from the sidelines. Despite the plotline’s conceptual quirks, it retained a degree of emotional resonance and identification.

At the other end of the spectrum, however, Leopoldo,

an average Giuseppe office worker, wakes up one day to find himself hounded by paparazzi, followed by reporters asking what he had eaten for breakfast

and fawned over by beautiful women. Bemused, Leopoldo yearns for his normal life back until, one day, the tides of fortune turn and he is returned

to his old ‘nobody’ status.

At this point he realises it is better to be famous for nothing that to receive no recognition at all. As far as comments on celebrity go, this was a cheap one-liner dragged out to feature length and the initial laughs that the surreal set-up won quickly wore thin.

In between these two poles were a classic farce - a provincial newlywed who ends up taking a call girl to a snooty gathering of the family firm when his young bride gets lost in the streets of Rome, and finally, the plotline Woody Allen himself takes a star turn in.

Whilst this, like the Leopoldo plotline, was somewhat a case of a quick-fire punch line run wild, Allen’s own charm and witty performance carried it through. Allen’s character, Jerry, a retired opera director, becomes determined that his daughter’s future father-in-law Giancarlo is ‘the next big thing’, after overhearing him singing in the shower while visiting his daughter and her new fiancé’s family. When it becomes clear that Giancarlo’s talent is strictly

confined to the shower, Jerry directs an opera around him in which he remains in the shower throughout his performance.

This surreal visual punch line sits at odds with an otherwise realistic feature-length narrative, and yet with Allen’s presence, coupled with the hilariously acerbic Phyllis (Judy Davis), the viewer can’t help but be won over to the bizarre setup.

Woody Allen certainly hasn’t returned to his previous form, and I was left with the feeling that there was something missing from To Rome With Love - something that didn’t quite hold together - but I can’t deny that I enjoyed it. I’m sure it set the teeth of many a film snob grinding, but nevertheless it was aesthetically appealing, perfectly cast and most of all, what it lacked in depth and cohesion, it more than made up for in entertainment value.

TO ROME WITH LOVE

Released 14th September DVD release due in mid-October

Pitt’s Softly is not hard enough Savages is cruel but clichéd

Edward Carden is unimpressed by this slick but empty drug tale

This generic gangster flick is director Andrew Dominik’s third outing in 12 years. His previous two, Chopper and The Assassination of Jesse James, were well received amongst critics and audiences alike, and thus with another long hiatus, the hype was allowed to build. The plot, based on the novel Cogan’s Trade, revolves around an amateur poker heist and subsequent game of cat and mouse to determine the scoundrels responsible.

Brad Pitt stars as the enforcer, the man brought in to get things done, with the other big names amongst the cast including Scoot McNairy, Ben Mendelsohn, Ray Liotta, James Gandolfini and Vince Curatola.

With the latter three having starred in either Goodfellas or The Sopranos, there is a hint of predictability in the casting.

Savages tells the story of a small and placid Californian cannabis business, which is forced to go to war with a large and violent Mexican drugs cartel. Through this narrative, director Oliver Stone (Platoon, JFK, Wall Street) investigates friendship, ethics and self-exploration... and other clichés.

Chon (Taylor Kitsch, right), a Navy-SEAL veteran, smuggled the world’s best marijuana seeds from Afghanistan, using them to grow a lucrative business with pal Ben (Aaron Johnson), a dreadlocked Harvard graduate and professional nice guy, and shared girlfriend O (Blake Lively).

Their acting is unremarkable, their relationship unrealistic.

‘They’re the good guys!’ Stone shouts through a series of cringe-worthy shots of Ben building African villages, and of the massive reduction in violence - Chon threatens women with shotguns only when he has to. Then an unpleasant bunch of Mexicans want in on the enterprise using Chon and Ben’s expertise. A failed deal leads to O’s kidnap, and a twisting struggle ensues.

Savages is beautifully shot.

Sepia, black-and-white and over-exposure couple well with an intelligently designed soundtrack. Stone captures moods and feelings with consummate ease.

Some

Once the heist occurs, the situations transpire as routine.

Contacts are met. Guns are fired. However, this is not to take away from the manner in which they are done. The action sequences are sparse but indulgent, whether elegant and grandiose or solemnly gritty.

When dialogue is exchanged, making up the vast majority of the running time, the film loses its edge. The exchanges are prolonged, with the natter needlessly lengthening scenes, even if it does add to the realism. This is especially true of James Galdolfini’s underused character. As a result, the movie’s pace is all over the place.

With scenes and sound bites from the 2008 presidential campaign cropping up at random intervals, a political undercurrent runs throughout the movie. However the

attempted social observations are fleeting and unclear, serving no purpose in furthering the plot. Couple this with obvious and irritating, albeit occasional, pieces of nifty camera work, and you get the sense that the director is aspiring for something more, but falling short.

The film redeems itself with typically good performances from its cast. Brad Pitt plays, well, Brad Pitt. Cool, charismatic and confident. James Galdolfini’s and Ray Liotta’s characters are reminiscent of Tony Soprano and Henry Hill respectively, but with slight nuances. There are also perfectly timed spells of dark humour which help alleviate the conversations from the mundane.

With good performances and set pieces, Killing Them Softly is sure to be nominated for its fair share of awards - already having competed for the Palme d’Or and even nab a few, but there is nothing particularly engaging or gripping to separate this film from the others like it.

The expectations surrounding this selective director are not fulfilled in any meaningful way.

KILLING THEM SOFTLY IndieWire

Released 21st September In cinemas throughout Bristol

Digital Spy

Joel Corry is mildly disappointed by Killing Them Softly

performances are good; Benicio del Toro is utterly convincing as the psychopathic, moustachioed enforcer; John Travolta is comfortable as a corrupt cop, spending most of his time eating; Salma Hayek does well as the cartel boss.

The plot has some neat twists and flashes of intelligence. The action sequences are decent, the violence is ferocious.

But from the start, cheese oozes from Savages as if from one of Travolta’s numerous burgers, for example when the men ‘help the world’ by building wells and developing renewable energy - or, to one underboss, ‘that shit’. The central narrative is atrocious, as is some of the dialogue (‘You don’t change the world... the world changes you!’). There are a lot of clichés: all the ones about legalising

drugs are indulged. And the cartel boss is a woman! She has vulnerabilities and feelings!

How shocking yet insightful!

The storyline is inexplicable at points; do US special forces vets really hang about So Cal beaches with joints and rifles?

And I challenge you not to groan at the woeful twist.

It feels at times as if Savages is trying too hard, like Stone is trying to re-make Scarface with greater wisdom. The whole thing is a bit absurd and there are too many flaws. But it is nonetheless enjoyable and worth seeing if you have a spare couple of hours.

SAVAGES Released 21st September In cinemas throughout Bristol

Epigram

08.10.2012

29 29

Revenge is a dish best served repeatedly Sorcha Berry-Varley argues that the Hamptons-set drama is on a level with other more critically acclaimed crime series lead actress’ surname VanCamp.

It is however certainly addictive and suspenseful so that when you begin watching, look to clear your schedule for at least a couple of days.

VanCamp, who is confusingly also called Emily, has come far since her performance as the sweet Amy Abbott in Everwood, and brief stints in slightly average apocalyse/horror films Carriers and The Ring 2.

She certainly does the cleverly written role of Amanda Clarke

(inspired by the title character of The Count of Monte Cristo) justice and shows just enough stoicism to be easily compared to recent Hunger Games’ Katja, or personal favourite, Joss Whedon’s Buffy, but with just enough emotion to be perhaps more relatable than those characters. Madeline Stowe (who actually appeared in the 1990 Kevin Costner film Revenge) has got more credit for her role as Hamptons matriarch Victoria Grayson, being nominated for a Golden Globe for the role. The acting is generally good - Gabriel Mann as Amanda’s s i d e k i c k Nolan Ross is hilarious, although A s h l e y Madekwe

(Ashley Davenport) lets the team down with her bizarre (although real) British accent.

The show’s music (often a neglected area of television), is perhaps a matter of personal taste, but arguably brilliant and certainly on trend. Indeed the

‘‘

It is as cool and captivating as a Scandinavian crime drama

’’

episodes feature songs from the likes of Kurt Vile, Warpaint and Alabama Shakes - recurrent acts on the British festival scene this summer.

A beautiful refrain from Agnes Obel’s ‘Avenue’ haunts the season, and indeed a line from the song ‘right rode away long ago’ seem to fit Amanda’s focus on the ‘wrong’ but inescapable path of revenge.

Under the main concept of revenge, all episodes are also described by abstract nouns - for example, stand-out episode five, ‘Guilt’. For a while, there seems to be a target of revenge for each episode but of course this cannot be maintained. There

are, however, different ‘baddies’ in each, with the overall season’s ‘boss’ in game-speak perhaps being the aforementioned Victoria Grayson.

The story arc of the first season is brilliant - from the beginning you are given a glimpse of a culmination of events but of course everything is not what it seems. As the plot unfolds, there are many twists; the second series promises a lot more. It will inevitably become more and more ridiculous.

However this is fitting with the premise; it is about a massive conspiracy. Hopefully Revenge will continue to execute these plot turns smoothly and gracefully yet not take itself too seriously.

But like problems for similar ‘concept’ shows, just how long can it take Amanda to avenge her father’s death?

Unfortunately for her, I hope it will take several seasons yet.

REVENGE

Season 1 of Revenge is now available on 4OD. Series 2 aired in America on 30th September, so will potentially be on our screens by 2013.

ABC

couple, Victoria and Conrad Grayson. ‘Emily’ is not as innocent as her flawless white dresses would suggest. As revenge is best served, she is as ice cold as the champagne at the Graysons’ infamous parties.

Indeed, as deceiving as Emily herself, the show may appear on the surface to be a typical ‘girl’ show but actually it is as cool and captivating as some of the Scandavian crime drama (for example, the award-winning The Killing) that has become so popular lately, and filled with humour too.

Despite the initial similarities, this is more Housewives meets Alias (also ABC, a creation of J. J. Abrams, featuring Jennifer Garner as a super-sleuth), with a lot more of the latter. Reviews have been favourable but filled with backhanded compliments: ABC Entertainment President Paul Lee called the show ‘sexy’ and ‘sticky’ and said that ‘you just want more of it’. The New York Times’ Alessandra Stanley said that it had ‘just enough campy suspense to be enjoyable’.

I would suggest to Lee that ‘slick’ is the word he is looking for and that perhaps Stanley is simply getting confused with

ABC

Desperate Housewives has finally come to an end after eight long seasons. But where will you get your fix of backstabbing neighbours, gossip that can ruin not only a Facebook but social status, and - for the first DH season at least - an omnipresent dead person?

Its replacement for the ABC Sunday 9.00pm timeslot - or E4 for us Freeviewers - is where - but you will also find a lot more.

Revenge could indeed be seen as a similar show to its precedent - especially being set in the Hamptons - the seaside resort for New Yorkers - where much of The Real Housewives of New York City was filmed. Anyone who’s anyone ‘summers’ here and indeed this is where heroine Amanda Clarke (Emily VanCamp, inset right) used to live with her dad. That is until he was wrongly accused of terrorism and sent to jail, his daughter left to live in foster homes and finally, ‘juvey’.

Now all grown up, Amanda is posing as rich philanthropic socialite Emily Thorne and looking to wreak revenge on everyone who was involved in putting her father away, primarily the Hamptons power

Thick and very fast TV PICKS 8th-21st Oct Cass Horowitz comments on the new series of The Thick of It

THE THICK OF IT BBC Two, Saturdays at 9.45pm Catch up on BBC iPlayer online

Great British Bake-Off – the surprisingly successful cookery show has taken the country by storm. Offers all the baking drama you need.

8.00pm, Tuesdays, BBC Two

Fresh Meat – former Bristol student Charlotte Ritchie (left) stars as wannabe gap-year tragedy Oregon in the comedy aimed firmly at students. It starts its second series for another round of (only slightly older) Inbetweeners-style embarrassment.

10.00pm, Tuesday 9th October, Channel 4

Downton Abbey – Maggie Smith was another British victor at the Emmys. Julian Fellowes’ period drama continues in its third series.

9.00pm, Sundays, ITV Red Dwarf X – the cult sci-fi comedy returns to the channel named after one its characters. Find out if the reboot was worth it.

9.00pm, Thursday 4th October, Dave Hunted – a new eight-part spy drama with all of the tension and suspense you would expect from the writer of The X-Files.

9.00pm, Thursday 4th October, BBC One Homeland – fresh from their triumphs in the Best Drama, Best Actor (Damian Lewis, right), and Best Actress categories at last month’s Emmy Awards, the critically acclaimed drama returns for its second series.

9.00pm, Sunday 7th October, Channel 4 Strictly Come Dancing – the hit ballroom dancing show renews its ratings battle with a struggling X Factor (which recently announced a new product placement deal with Samsung – interesting times for the future of the format).

9.00pm, Friday 5th October, BBC One The Plane Crash – satisfy every traveller’s inner ghoul as a plane is, well, crashed.

Watch the carnage unfold.

9.00pm, Thursday 11th October, Channel 4

spoilertv.co.uk

BBC

and office hours can’t be too far from the truth.

In episode two there are familiar faces in surprising roles. Nicola Murray is now the painfully awkward and constantly threatened Leader of the Opposition, so no parallels to real life there. She is joined by a quieter but equally deviant Tucker (inset), whilst Oli (Chris Addison), as usual, flaps from one scene to the next basically

doing nothing.

Unlike the first episode I found myself laughing loudly throughout - don’t watch this on a train like I did.

Where Murray differs from her counter-parts is that she is instantly likeable, even if she fails at virtually every task given to her.

Meanwhile all the best comedy lines are reserved for Peter Capaldi (Tucker) with Oli managing to be as smarmy as ever. Nicola’s new assistant seems a fairly bland addition but also provides some normality in an otherwise manic series.

Of course I will be watching the rest of the show, but I fear that the humour may have become too observational with fewer laugh-out-loud lines and characters. This may result in pushing away those who are put off by the ‘political’ side of the show. I certainly hope this isn’t the case, as The Thick of It is all about brilliant comedy, not politics.

RapidMoviez

for Malcolm Tucker’s endlessly vituperous one-liners and every time Adam Kenyon (Ben Willbond) came on the screen I wanted to vomit.

That said, the chemistry between the coalition partners is pitched perfectly and scenes of ministers fighting over cars

BBC

For political nerds around the country it’s been 33 long months but finally it’s back.

Having had success in America with Veep, Armando Iannucci has revived this depressingly realistic political satire and all our favourite characters have returned, all as incompetent as ever.

Before I go on, I should mention this is the fourth series of The Thick of It and if you’ve never watched it before then you should really start the journey at series one.

The first episode of this series, focuses on the new coalitionled DOSAC. Overall it left me slightly worried. Armando has more then enough material to draw on from the current government and yet, where in previous series we laughed at innocent incompetence, the new DOSAC coalition ministers and staff - excluding Terri and Glenn of course - just annoyed me.

Maybe there is a problem in that, whereas before, the show pre-empted scandals like expenses, now it must think outside the box to create new levels of political mal-practise.

The ever-trendy PR guru Stewart Pearson (Vincent Franklin) is no replacement

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into its own in autumn though, when the museum’s arboretum becomes a riot of colour, while the woodland trails and tepee make even the most mature of students break into a spontaneous game of Cowboys and Indians.

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How do you like them apples?

Pick up a penguin

Apple-lovers from across the city will congregate at Windmill Hill City Farm later this month to celebrate the glorious apple. Relive your childhood by taking part in apple bobbing and watching Punch and Judy shows. If that doesn’t float your boat, perhaps barbecue laden with sausages from the farm’s own pigs or the local cider stand will encourage you to cross the river to Bedminster.

Budding wildlife experts can observe a range of animals featured in the BBC’s Frozen Planet series as Bristol sees the UK premiere of the Frozen Planet Augmented Reality installation, which is part of the Wildscreen Festival which runs from the 14th to 19th of October. The installation, which toured the US to promote the TV series, allows visitors to get up close and personal with fascinating creatures from some of the planet’s most extreme environments. March with the penguins or hunt with the polar bears from the comfort of Queen’s Road.

Sunday 21st October, 12-7pm Windmill Hill City Farm, Bedminster £3.50 www.windmillhillcityfarm.org.uk

16th -20th October, 10am-7pm Bristol Museum and Gallery, Queen’s Road Free www.bristol.gov.uk/museums/

Pippa S hawley

Mei Lau

Open Tuesday-Sunday from 12-5pm until the 28th October Admission £8 (£7 concessions) www.americanmuseum.org

Epigram

08.10.2012

31

Cyclists sweep the board in BUCS Finals Michael Elkington Cycling Club Vice Captain

Michael Elkington

The University of Bristol Cycling Club took home a sweepstake of medals at last season BUCS Cross Country Mountain Bike Championships with a record four podium appearances. Duncan Birtwistle and club captain Jack Rae took home silver medals in the Sport and Championship races respectively and lead Bristol to win team gold in both categories. This success was all the more sweeter for the men’s team as it marks the first time UoBCC have medalled in any of the men’s cross country events in club history.

Held at Birchall Golf Course near Sheffield, this year’s event was the first to be separated from the downhill mountain bike race due to a controversial shake-up in BUCS administration. Instead of the trademark mountain bike weekend which is celebrated as much for its spectator antics as it is for the racing, the cross country and downhill events were split to ease the task of organising.

The course navigated around the eighteen hole golf course with several long grassy climbs and a downhill section twisting through woodland which featured plenty of jumps, fast

quickly formed a gap on the main field, along with the GT sponsored athlete Jono Pybus from Loughbrough and James Ashby from Nottingham.

Ashby was dropped after the first lap and, during the second, Jack lost the leading rider due to a problem with his saddle.

Nevertheless he maintained time on third and finished a safe second. Jared rode into 13th after the first lap and spent the race slowly reeling riders in, finishing in 7th. Eric and Mike also put in solid performances placing 19th and 22nd in a field of 80 riders. This was enough to land Bristol with the men’s team cup, cementing UoBCC’s overriding BUCS dominance and rewarding the team’s dedicated training throughout the year.

Championship team (from left to right): Mike Elkington, Jack Rae, Jared Linden and Eric Ekstein

corners and tree roots to catch you out. The poor weather preceding the event made the track heavily waterlogged, with sections in the woods being so thick with mud that people were dismounting and running.

Despite the conditions, the weather on the day was perfect with moderate temperature and

bright sunshine.

The BUCS cross country mountain bike involves two races; Championships, which is confined to the top four riders from each university, and Sport, which is shorter and open to everyone. In the Sport, Duncan Clark had a great start chasing in second place

until he suffered a mechanical fault, which cost him a top ten placing. Nevertheless Duncan Birtwistle, Johnny Sneller and James Worrall put in a sterling ride to cross the finish line in 2nd, 4th and 9th respectively, achieving the fastest combined time to win the team event.

Duncan Clark and Mat Mew

were not far behind, and Mike Diamond competed on a bike with only one gear, and showed a few rather better equipped riders how it should be done!

A team of Jack Rae, Jared linden, Eric Ekstein and Mike Elkington were entered for the Championship event. Jack got off to a strong start and had

Euro 2012: On tour with Hodgson’s Barmy Army Sport Editor David Stone gives a light hearted account of his time spent following England away You wouldn’t necessarily think that Rupert Brooke’s immortal parameter ‘that there’s some corner of a foreign field that is forever England’ would apply to a game of football. However it was this very line that came to me as I stood in the corner of Kiev’s Olympic Stadium along with a few thousand diehard England supporters, surrounded by vastly larger numbers of Swedish and Ukrainian fans.

By all accounts I shouldn’t be here. The British media has done its upmost to put a downer on

Euro 2012, you can only imagine my disappointment when I left the shiny, brand new Kiev airport and wasn’t confronted by hundreds of racist hooligans offering me expensive hotel rooms. Instead a swathe of friendly volunteers who, in their limited command of the English language, directed us to a bus stop which would take us into town. I’ve travelled my fair share of the world, but Ukraine is the first country I’ve been to in which the bus driver refused to take fare, on account of my 100 Hryvnian note being

England fans. though limited in number, certainly made their presence felt in Ukraine

too large, and instead let us travel free. Discussions of how to pronounce the name of this currency are yet unresolved.

After a few days in the capital, a wonderful Eastern European city yet to be affected by budget airlines and stag parties, it was time for the overnight train to Donetsk. The rumour flying round that the new trains were the wrong size for the tracks proved to be false, again a bad mark for British journalism and it’s scaremongering tactics.

First Great Western could take a leaf out of the Ukrainian’s

book on how to run a train line. Everything was on time, well organised and cheap, the long journey time and lots of alcohol helping to foster plenty of banter and humour flying up the carriages amongst the various nationalities travelling.

There’s a reason why in the guide book Kiev has 50 pages, and Donetsk 4. Thus there is no wonder why the vast majority of the travelling supporters had little reason to venture outside the Golden Lion pub, save for a trip across the main square to a McDonalds. What Lenin, a large statue of who loomed over proceedings, what have thought is anyone’s guess.

Things were no better in the hostel. I was right to be sceptical of the promise of ‘a party of a lifetime’ when confronted by a Soviet-style university residential block, organised by a wide-eyed South African named Matt whose inability to talk to the babushkas running the place only added to the fun.

Back to the Golden Lion it was.

Soon it was kick off, and so after managing to avoid most of the locals intent on taking photos with us, an Emirates-

stadium style behemoth approached us. The Dombass Arena was one of the most impressive stadia I’ve seen and was a clear example of why it’s correct for the local billionaire to build a football ground rather than say, fix the crumbling roads.

“ ”

England performances at Euro 2012 have been thoroughly documented but I will say that I don’t ever remember Fabio Capello or Steve McLaren’s name ever being chanted by the England supporters. May the reign of Roy Hodgson live on.

Leaving Donetsk the next day, one made the classic mistake of going into the brand new train terminal, only to realise that inside it wasn’t, and will never be, finished. Instead the trains left from the old one next door.

A few days were then spent in Kharkiv watching the

Netherland’s colourful and boisterous support off the pitch being unable to affect their team’s poor performance on it. Soon enough it was time for a return to the capital for a showdown with Sweden.

Kiev really is a city where ‘East meets West’; in this case it was the bustling Euro 2012 fan zone on the main street.

Just down the road, beyond the speakers blaring out Euro pop and bars doing a busy trade selling Carlsberg, were bent over old ladies selling produce from their farms surrounded by towering grey tower blocks, all too present in cities which were part of the former USSR. The match itself was one of the most enjoyable I’ve been to, the oft-maligned England brass band keeping a merry rendition of ‘Roy Hodgson’s Barmy Army’ going for most of the match.

A 3-2 win for England with the winner scored by a skilful Danny Welbeck backwards flick of the heel. The sight of every member of the travelling support, of all ages and sizes, up on their chairs attempting to copy this is one which I shan’t be forgetting soon.

Epigram

30.04.2012

34

Epigram’s Olympic Exclusive: ‘I hope t Outgoing BOA Chairman Lord Moynihan talks drugs, Team Epigram had the privilege of speaking to British Olympic Association Chairman Lord Moynihan for the second time this year to discuss his thoughts on the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The British Olympic Association (BOA) is the organisation in charge of athlete performance in the Olympic Games. Lord Moynihan has been at the helm of the organisation for 7 years, during which time he has increased the medal tally of Great Britain, whilst also helping nurture young British talents who will provide the foundation for British sport in the future.

very focused on a few, what I term, “Formula One sports”, mainly the sitting down sports of rowing, sailing, cycling and canoeing. We needed to broaden the medal potential of the Team for London and we need to further broaden it for Rio. So, more medals from more sports should be the focus of TeamGB at every Games moving forward.

which will very much focus on why we were unable to build on the times posted in qualifying.

Like the athletes, were you surprised by the level of turnout at venues, the torch relays, and the athlete’s parade? What do you think stimulated this mass enthusiasm?

I was delighted that from the

“ More medals from more sports should be the focus of TeamGB at

Firstly, you must be incredibly proud of the performance of Team GB at the London 2012 Olympics.

Everyone seems to attribute their success to the home crowd but what has the BOA specifically done to bring about this surge in medalwinning performances?

The first and most important basis for the success of TeamGB was the strong lottery funding given to all 26 Olympic sports over the past 4 years. Financial support does not guarantee success but it enabled BOA to provide the comprehensive support structure which athletes need to be the best in the world. The BOA works with the governing bodies, the coaches and with UK Sport (the government agency) to ensure that every athlete receives gold-medal support. The sole objective of BOA is not medals, but to ensure that every athlete is capable of delivering their personal best during the Games.

And if the very talented athletes who constitute TeamGB focus on personal bests, the medals will look after themselves.

”

Getty Images

In Beijing, Great Britain won medals across 13 sports, whereas in London 2012 Team GB won medals across 19 sports. Can we hope to further widen our breadth of excellence in time for Rio 2016?

I think it is important that we do. In Beijing we were

genuinely global. Competition for each and every medal is intense, and it is the most universal of all the sports. Mo Farah’s golds and the overall performance of the athletics team were exceptional, and we should congratulate them.

Swimming was disappointing in terms of the results. We had a strong swimming team, and if you look at the times

Were you disappointed by the performances of Team GB in athletics and swimming or was it simply that other countries had improved more in the last 4 years?

Let’s take one by one. I was pleased by the performances in athletics; we exceeded our expectations when it came to gold medals, in a sport which is

they produced in qualification earlier this year, those same times in the very same pool would have delivered a series of medals at the Olympic Games.

What was clear is that a number of performances did not move on from selection times, and actually fell back. We will review all sports but in swimming a full analysis is being undertaken

moment the torch relay started, the enthusiasm of the British public across the entire United Kingdom was extraordinary.

That excitement and support generated by a superbly organised torch relay then went up a gear again during both the Olympic and Paralympic Games. There is absolutely no doubt that a number of silvers

became golds because of the wall of support from the crowd, which athletes channelled into stunning performances. There was a real sense of national pride, enthusiasm, understanding of sport, support for the athletes and confidence in the country, all of which were inspirational and I will never forget.

Has the feedback to the BOA from Team GB athletes, whether seasoned Olympians or Olympic debutants, medal-winners or not, been unanimous in affirming that this was the best Olympics ever?

I think I can safely say yes. I have been obviously very close to the athletes, and was only very recently with some of the Scottish athletes in Glasgow for their street parade. Wherever they came from in the United Kingdom they had an amazing experience, and so many of them delivered personal bests that there has been unanimous support for the work the lottery has provided for them, the work that their coaches and the governing bodies have provided for them and ultimately at the Olympic Games the work that the BOA invested in them.

In January you spoke about your concerns regarding transport and security. From the public’s perspective neither seemed to cause any major problems, what was the key factor in helping this side of the Games run so smoothly?

In transport we were seeking to encourage those that weren’t involved in the Games to stay out of London. I wasn’t over-optimistic that people would change their working patterns, and I felt there was real potential for transport delays and overcrowding in London. I am delighted that I was wrong and that there were no significant transport delays and overall public transport delivered. The Jubilee Line, which was key to the success of the Games, deserves a gold medal for running on time and without a hitch!

Security was always a

concern, and can best be viewed on two levels. Firstly there are national security threats, which were always anticipated to be minimal and fortunately did not materialise. I think that is a credit to the security forces and to the global public awareness that we would be taking very strong measures to deter any threats to the smooth running of the Games. On the second level there was a challenge; G4S faced difficulty in delivering the numbers for venue security and the armed forces stepped in. However, it was a chance for the armed forces to recognise what phenomenal public support there is for the work that they do, and what was a significant problem of venue security became one of the great moments of the Games with the armed forces being credited, as they rightly should be, for doing a fantastic job.

Everyone was grateful to them for undertaking a great job in difficult circumstances, many of them giving up their holidays as a result.

“

”

Were you able to attend any of the action? If so, what was your personal highlight of each Games and did you have a favourite venue?

My working day was 20 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the duration of the Games.

My job was to ensure that the athletes were getting maximum support from all the services which the BOA provides them during the Games. That said, it was important to see as many of the athletes compete as possible, and wherever possible I managed to get round to the venues to support TeamGB and to make sure we were delivering the services that we had undertaken to support the athletes. As for my favourite

Peter Hall

Epigram

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33

they were as clean as they looked’ Team GB and his future to Laura Lambert

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Many people think that a large portion of the credit for the Olympics and Paralympics should go to the volunteers, armed forces and police, would you agree?

Yes, they were critically important to the success of the Games.

My experience at the seven Summer Games I’ve been to over the past 30 years, in addition to many Youth Olympic Festivals, Youth Olympic Games and Winter Olympic Games, is that the key factor that distinguishes a great Games from a good Games is the support offered by the volunteers. The volunteers in London were friendly, helpful,

well –informed, and entered into the extraordinary atmosphere of what was one of the great summers of our history, with the same enthusiasm as the armed forces, the police and the Team. In my experience they are not looking for a reward, they had their reward by being part of an event they will never forget. However, I think the greatest reward they can take with them is hearing the athletes who are up there with gold medals around their necks saying “if it wasn’t for the work of the volunteers I wouldn’t be here”. I often heard that from our 29 gold medallists and that to me, also as a volunteer over the past 7 years as I have done this unpaid, is more than enough credit.

At the Sydney Olympics in 2000 Australia came 4th in the medal table with 58 medals, in Athens they maintained 4th position with 49 medals, in Beijing they dropped to 6th with 46 medals but in London they finished down in 10th with just 35 medals. How will the BOA avoid this trend of decline in performance that typically occurs after home games? Presumably this will this be helped by UK Sport announcing that they will continue to fund all sports until 2016?

Consistent funding over the quadrennium (the next four years) is the first part of the answer. The second part is to focus more and more on performance and make sure that in many sports we retain our position as the world leader in the performance support we give to our athletes. Success in sport is all about performance and that must be the priority of the BOA moving forward.

In January you spoke to me about your determination to rid drug cheats from the world of Olympic sport.

Did the comprehensive and stringent drug-testing at London 2012 result in it being one of the cleanest Games in your memory? Are you confident that no drug cheats have slipped through the net?

Certainly the testing at the Games demonstrated that the athletes tested were overwhelmingly clean. However, I have always said that you have to be a “dopey doper” to get caught at the Games. The performance-enhancing drugs people take are taken well before the Games and they are out of their systems as quickly as possible. And I personally

Photos: Peter Hall

venue and favourite event, the venues were overall magnificent.

We looked for inspirational settings for some of the venues, including Wimbledon, Eton Dorney and the Olympic Park and some were iconic, such as Greenwich for the equestrian events. So it is difficult to say which my favourite is as I don’t think I have one, they were all different and they did live up to expectations.

I think that the personal moment I enjoyed most was the final of the diving in which we had a young diver, Chris Mears, participating. He didn’t win a medal, but for me it was the highlight of the Games because three years ago I took a young British team of Olympic hopefuls to the Australian Youth Olympic Festival, where Chris, who was a young diver on the team, was taken ill and in a matter of hours declined from fitness to the collapse of his organs. We didn’t know what was wrong but he was in intensive care in hospital with what we thought was an extreme form of meningitis, and he was given very little time to survive. We called his parents over, but they were the other side of the world, and I sat by his bed in intensive care praying he would make it through the night. Fortunately he did survive and recovered well, and to see him 3 years on, not only on the team but with his parents watching him dive in the finals, and support him in that event was something I will never forget.

Lord Moynihan attributes the hugely successful London Games to the home crowd, volunteers and inspirational venues.

believe that the challenge of drugs in sport remains a major challenge going forward and I think that we are entering a world where genetic doping is a real threat and where a range of performance-enhancing chemicals and processes are very difficult to detect. So I hope they were as clean as they looked!

very tough testing regimes in countries like the UK whilst there are many countries in the world where hardly any testing takes place, if at all. So, there is a huge amount to be done on doping control globally and I am concerned that if there aren’t far-reaching reforms in WADA we will fall behind in this area.

Why do you think it is that Missy Franklin, the 17 year old American swimmer, wins 5 medals and is not questioned, whereas Yi Shiwen, the 16 year old Chinese swimmer, is immediately accused of drug cheating by the Americans?

There appears to be a culture of suspicion in the world of sport targeted at certain countries and individuals that display spurts of improvement close to major championships, will this be the case as long as the stance on doping worldwide is not as strong as it could be?

I stood out at a press conference to defend the Chinese athlete. She had been tested regularly and she was clean. The fight against doping is about education, it’s about research, it’s about global testing, it’s about a level playing field for testing across all countries, not about having

We understand that you have recently stood down from your role as Chairman of BOA. How do you hope your successor will ensure that the sporting legacy promised by the London 2012 Games is truly fulfilled and a generation is inspired?

I stood down at the end of the Games, and the election for my successor will take place in early November. 7 years at the helm of BOA was a fantastic honour, and it will be for my successors to answer that question. My personal view is that it is of equal importance to the Games themselves that the inspiration we experienced is translated into participation.

And that means a fundamental review of school sports, playing fields and opportunities for closer links between clubs, schools and governing bodies.

Overall a policy is needed which raises the bar of opportunity for

young people, the length and breadth of the United Kingdom, able-bodied and disabled. I will campaign for that, but ultimately the BOA needs to drive the sports legacy agenda forward.

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What do you think about the candidates who have put themselves forward to take on the Chairmanship of BOA? Seb Coe did a brilliant job running LOCOG and delivering a memorable Olympic and Paralympic Games, he was a great athlete and an outstanding sports administrator. Richard Leman is President of Great Britain Hockey, also has a gold medal around his neck (from Seoul) and has brought professionalism and expertise to whatever job he has taken on in sport. So both are great candidates but it is a matter for the members of the NOC as to who they elect, and I am not taking a position on that.

Will you remain in the sporting industry in any capacity? Will you continue in your Chairmanship of British Ski and Snowboard in the run-up to Sochi 2014?

No I am standing down to return to the business sector, in particular the energy world, where I have spent most of my life. So it is time to hand on the baton to successors, both in British Ski and Snowboard and the British Olympic Association. I have loved the past seven years but you should always seek to ensure that in good corporate governance you refresh organisations, by bringing new people in so that they can take it to a new level.

I have had a fantastic time, with Beijing and now London, I enjoyed rebuilding British wSki and Snowboard, which was in administration when we took over shortly before the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games, and I will now move on. One thing is for sure, I will continue to campaign for a lasting sports legacy from these Games in the House of Lords, and wherever I can, because I am passionate about sports and the importance of providing young talented people with the opportunity to be the best they can be.

Epigram

08.10.2012

Sport

Editor: David Stone

Deputy Editor: Laura Lambert

sport@epigram.org.uk

deputysport@epigram.org.uk

@epigramsport

Bristol stars shine at Olympic Games Our very own athletes win five medals in Bristol triumph

Patrick Baker Sports Reporter The 2012 Olympic games represented not simply a special year for British sport, but for Bristol University too.

A highly impressive number of five British athletes that medalled at the Games went

to or are currently attending Bristol. Georgie Twigg, 20, a Law student who lived in Wills Hall and played hockey for the University first team, won a bronze medal in the Womens’ Hockey, overcoming New Zealand 3-1 in their last game.

Iain Percy, a gold medal winner at Sydney and Beijing, got his name on the medal

table too with a fine silver in the Men’s Star Sailing. Percy, an Economics student at Bristol from 1995 to 1998, has put his facts and figures to one side in a highly decorated sailing career. In addition, Hannah Mills, who is a current student at Bristol, put her Engineering course on hold, a decision that was thoroughly justified by her

silver medal, in the Women’s 470 Sailing class. Back on land, Laura Bechtolsheimer won a gold and bronze medal for Britain in horse riding: the Women’s dressage. Laura graduated from Bristol in 2007, achieving a BSc in Philosophy and Politics. Even more recently, Lawrence Clark, 22, who graduated with a 2:1 in Theology last year, achieved

a remarkable 4th place in the Men’s 110m Hurdles with a time of 13.39 seconds. Indeed, Bristol has proven that it is not only a place of academic achievement; it has a lot to offer Britain in the sporting arena, something for which the Univeristy is perhaps a little underrated. As Gordon Trevett, the High Performance Manager and Director of Rowing

made the case: ‘Bristol doesn’t get recognised as a university which produces top sports people but we’re clearly doing the right things to support our athletes during their time here.’

Long may it continue.

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