page 29 Snapshot Bristol
Big Deal interview page 47
page 45 The Walking Dead returns
The
Issue 267 Monday 11th November 2013 www.epigram.org.uk University of BristolIndependent Independent Student Newspaper University of Bristol Student Newspaper
Markéta Brabcová
UBU bans ‘Blurred Lines’ Tackling rape culture: Bristol joins other university unions across the UK in banning Robin Thicke’s #1 hit ‘Blurred Lines’ Sarah Newey News Reporter Robin Thicke’s ‘Blurred Lines’ and similar songs were banned from being played in Bristol’s Student’s Union, at the inaugural Student Council, held on Tuesday 29th October. The Council fully passed three out of the four motions proposed, which included tackling rape culture, supporting the lecturers strike, greater promotion of the ‘Just Ask Movement’ and a new quiet room in the student union. The first motion relating to rape culture at the university banned songs such as Blurred Lines from being played in the union, only allowing instrumental versions. The Union will also run more campaigns to debunk myths surrounding rape and disaffiliate
societies advocating rape apology. However, only three out the four resolves were passed. After a heated discussion, the clause suggesting rape apologists such as George Galloway should not be given a platform to speak at the union was rejected by 74 to 53 votes. Representatives felt that it preventing individuals from voicing their opinions and the discussion of ideas - no matter how controversial they are undermined the purpose of university. Alice Philips, who proposed the motion, said ‘The motion was so important because in our society there are some really worrying misconceptions about rape, for example 26% of people asked by Amnesty believed that if a woman was wearing revealing clothing she was partially or totally responsible for being raped.
‘Whilst rape culture is a wide societal problem it’s important that as a body of students we do whatever we can to combat it. The Union, mandated by students, can now take a strong stance on rape culture in our community’. The second motion, proposed by Taiba Bajar, asking the Union to engage in greater promotion of the Just Ask Movement, was far less controversial and easily passed. As a result, the union will encourage departments and use posters to advise students to contact the ‘Just Ask’ service because students are not aware of services offered by the union. The third motion, advocating that the Student Union should officially support the lecturers strike, was vigorously debated.
continued on page 3
Lindsey Russell: Living the dream University of Bristol graduate, Lindsey Russell, shattered the odds in July when she beat 20,000 applicants for the position of the 36th Blue Peter presenter – the first to be chosen by the public. Now over a month into the role Russell tells Epigram how she’s getting on.
Epigram
11.11.2013
News Editorial
Editor: Josephine Franks
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Inside Epigram Features 10 The new space race As India’s space exploration desires reach new heights, Features looks at how India’s poor are being left behind.
15 Putting political parties before people? Are American political parties are putting their own interests before those of the public?
Style 27 Looking your best for less
Style brings you the go-to guide to looking good for next to nothing
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Comment
Halloween has been and gone, bonfire night has fizzled out and the nights are drawing in – winter is well and truly upon us, but the summer frenzy surrounding Robin Thicke’s ‘Blurred Lines’ refuses to die. At the inaugural Student Council on October 29th, Bristol joined around 20 other university unions in banning the full song from its building, allowing only instrumental and parody versions. While many may sigh that Bristol lags behind and merely copy-cats its cousins, the timing of this decision is important in two respects. Firstly, because in waiting for Student Council, the decision to ban the song was representative of the beliefs of the student body, rather than merely of the elected officers, and was illustrative of the power of democracy in student politics. Secondly, and I believe more importantly, it shows that the debate surrounding rape culture is one that will not soon die. Anyone who’s been within sniffing distance of social media in the past few months will be aware of the controversial lyrics of Thicke’s hit – lines such as ‘I know you want it’ and ‘do it like it hurt’ that reinforce rape culture, or in other words, contribute to a culture in which rape is so normalised that it seems inevitable - a culture that the Union are actively trying to combat. Whatever grotesque sentiments Thicke’s lyrics may
express, I nevertheless feel that we have something to thank him for. Never before have I heard so many voices raised in such strident tones about eradicating rape culture in our university and in wider society. If nothing else, ‘Blurred Lines’ has turned up the volume on an important dialogue in our society. Hopefully upon hearing this dialogue, some of those who have unthinkingly bought the record will take a moment to listen properly, delve into the meaning of the lyrics and realise what they have been inanely bopping to. Perhaps then they will make the conscious decision not to sing along to it, not to dance to it in a club, not to implicitly support the ideas it puts out – and this is the most important decision of all. Josephine Franks
Writers’ meetings Every fortnight, our editors hold meetings for anyone who wants to write for Epigram. If you’d like to get involved, or simply want to find out more information, come along to any one of the following meetings or contact the relevant editor via their email address below. It’s never too late to get involved - we look forward to meeting you! Living
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News
Epigram
11.11.2013
33 Editor: Laura Webb news@epigram.org.uk
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Bristol graduate Lindsey Russell wins best job in the world Lottie Hutchinson News Reporter Continued from page 1
Lindsey with fellow Blue Peter presenters Barney and Radzi
Classes cancelled as university lecturers strike over pay dispute Issy May Bull News Reporter The 31st October saw University of Bristol (UoB) lecturers take part in a strike in a dispute over the pay rise of just one percent, disrupting student timetables. Almost 200 members of staff and students joined the picket lines outside Senate House on Tyndalls Avenue. Staff who chose to strike were under no obligation to tell the university they were going to strike, which confused some students who were not sure whether their timetable was going to be affected. Coined a ‘Strike for fair pay’ on the Unite website, Unite, The University and College Union (UCU), and UNISON cooperatively organised the action for higher education staff, impacting universities accross the UK. It has been reported that due to below inflation pay rises for higher education
staff, wages have fallen by about 13% on average between 2008 and now. Last year staff were offered just a 1% pay rise, well below the level of inflation which annually averaged out at 2.8%. In addition to this many staff actually work beyond their contracted hours: the UNISON website states that surveys show that 30% of higher education staff work over 50 hours a week. According to trade union Unite, in order to get and retain the best staff in British universities and remain in the top 100 world university league table, pay has to be kept competitive. It seems that these pay cuts have not been universal amongst all staff; senior
BBC Children’s and BBC Learning
Lindsey studied Drama and French at the University of Bristol, but juggled completing her finals with the challenges presented to her on Blue Peter - You Decide! This was a CBBC show which saw the Blue Peter presenter hopefuls put through their paces with challenges such as completing an assault course blindfolded, presenting on a rollercoaster and eating a deep fried cockroach! Russell began live shows on Blue Peter in September and she explained to Epigram that she has been instantly welcomed into the Blue Peter ‘family’: ‘The programme is a massive team effort and everyone really cares about doing the best job they can.’ Russell told Epigram that her favourite part of the show so far was when she was set the challenge to herd lots of ducks into a pen. ‘It was classic Blue Peter – random, funny, challenging and entertaining.’ When asked how she feels about being the first Blue Peter presenter chosen by the
public, Russell replied: ‘If I’ve had any wobbly moments where I’ve wondered if I can do the job, it has been so helpful to have that in the back of my mind. It’s such a confidence boost when you’re heading off to duck herd or are about to go live in studio presenting the world’s most iconic show!’ Russell’s advice for breaking into a career in media? ‘It’s about hard work, determination and believing in yourself…anyone wanting a career in this industry should never stop giving 100 per cent.’ In Russell’s opinion the show aims to inspire children to do ‘amazing things’: ‘It’s about sending a message to kids that they can get up from the sofa and have a go’. Russell was inspired as a child herself watching Blue Peter. ‘For me it was all about Konnie Huq, Konnie Huq, Konnie Huq!’. Konnie Huq appeared on Blue Peter for more than ten years, until 2007, and remains the longest running female presenter of Blue Peter. A month on, there’s no sign that Russell is taking anything for granted. ‘I still get a nervous buzz when I step into the studio and I think that makes it even more exciting. It’s such an adrenaline rush. I still can’t believe I’ve got the best job in the world.’
members such as chancellors and vicechancellors have been experiencing constant high pay over the last few difficult years. This has hit home with many across the country, spurring them to head to the picket line. Staff members taking action had assured students that they were not striking lightly, with the recent ‘erosion’ of pay leaving many feeling it was necessary to stand up. The unions spent many months prior to the strike negotiating with the UCEA (Universities and Colleges Employers Association) over the issues that have led to this action, but these negotiations did not find a viable solution.
Chris Bertram, Professor of Philosophy at UoB told Epigram ‘I am striking because living standards of people who are working in higher education have been eroded by inflation and the offers of pay rises are below inflation. Although I am a professor and am paid a lot I am going on strike mainly for lower paid workers, such as secretaries and cleaners, who have had their pay squeezed by energy prices and rent increases’
No ‘blurred lines’ at Bristol Students’ Union Sarah Newey News Reporter Continued from page 1 After questions regarding wages and what would be involved in supporting the strike, the motion was passed. Alessandra Berti, who proposed it, said ‘I am pleased that the motion passed, but the debate showed that there were quite a few misconceptions around what the working conditions of our staff actually are which I am keen to address in the future.’ The fourth motion, proposed by Meltem Coskun, suggesting there should be a quiet room in the Students’ Union, was easily passed. The sabbatical team also shared discussions that were being had with the university about the potential of introducing ‘enhanced offers’ to attract the most talented students to Bristol.
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The clause suggesting rape apologists should not be given a platform to speak at the Union was rejected by 74 to 53 votes
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The room agreed that although Bristol should strive to attract the best and brightest applicants, some incentives could prove ‘unfair and divisive’. The meeting was well attended with 157 voting members but took 50 minutes to get representatives seated. . Ollie Yorke, an Epigram representative, said he would ‘strongly encourage anyone and everyone to attend; it is definitely a good forum to discuss contentious issues and get involved in the democratic process’.
The Bridge welcomes university’s attempt to tackle rape culture Laura Webb News Editor
Flickr: Church of Punk
University of Bristol staff and students join the picket lines outside Senate House
Bristol University’s attempt to tackle rape culture is welcomed by The Bridge, a support centre for women, men, young people and children affected by rape or sexual assault. The Bridge supported Bristol’s bid to debunk myths around rape, highlighting the need to dispel stereotypical ideas about how victims behave. This has been brought to light by the new guidelines on child sexual abuse laid out by the Director of Public Prosecutions, which told prosecutors not to focus on whether victims made
good witnesses but on the credibility of their allegations. Previously, victims could be disbelieved if they had used drugs, alcohol or failed to remember the events of the incident consistently. ‘With the abuse of young people, we need to change our expectations of how people will behave. When they are in shock, people behave in unexpected ways. At The Bridge, there are no expectations of how victims will act. When they come to us, we believe and support them in every possible way,’ Louise Davey, a crisis worker at The Bridge told Epigram. If you experience or witness a case of sexual abuse, Davey recommends phoning the police or The Bridge. ‘If you are unsure about phoning the
police, you can speak to The Bridge first who can help you make an informed decision. We have a 24/7 phone service and crisis workers available day and night,’ Davey emphasised. The Bridge can take forensic samples without police involvement which can be kept for up to seven years if victims change their mind about opening the case. They can also give intelligence anonymously to the police, arrange sexual health screening, provide counselling and can write letters to university tutors on behalf of students who have experienced sexual assault. For more information call 0117 342 6999, email turntothebridge@uhbristol. nhs.uk or go to their website www.turntothebridge.org.
Epigram 11.11.2013
4
Students stage ‘die in’ at careers fair Marnie Langeroodi News Reporter
Marnie Langeroodi
Bristol University’s Bristol Left Society staged a ‘die in’ at the Engineering and I.T. careers fair on Wednesday 23rd October. In the Wills Memorial Building, the event was going ahead as planned for BAE Systems and other big players in the Arms Trade until a scream from the crowd at 1:20pm. Between 10 and 15 students then screamed and collapsed in the grand hall, where the fair was taking place. By playing the roles of victims in a military attack, and using fake blood to this end, the protesters reminded their fellow students that this is a real issue that destroys the lives of many. These students were from Bristol Left and working in conjunction with Bristol’s new Friend’s of Palestine Society. The aim was to deter Engineering students from seeking careers in companies complicit in the Arms Trade.
Such companies include AgustaWestland, a subsidiary of Finmeccanica, Thales and, of course, BAE systems. Friends of Palestine, in particular, targeted these companies because of their collaboration with the Israeli Defense Force. They stated, ‘We don’t want the following companies to profit from the humanitarian crisis that the Palestinians are currently experiencing.’ Bristol Left also set up a stall at the fair, distributing ‘alternative information’ in a peaceful protest. The students involved complied with the demands of security officers who escorted them out of the building and threatened to call police. Luckily all protesters were able to prove that they were students on student property. Onlookers taking pictures were made to delete them and the protesters were banned from the building. The students sought to bring attention to some of the ethical issues surrounding such Students protesting against arms took part in a ‘die in’ at the Engineering and I.T. careers fair companies.
Union course New study area rep election flop in Senate House Theo Clay News Reporter
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30% of all the undergraduate course representative positions had no candidate standing
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When asked to account for the low turnout, UBU President Rob Griffiths told Epigram: ‘We don’t really have a culture of students believing what they say will really make a change, so students might not see the value of the position.’ ‘However, where we are today, even though when compared to other universities is not overwhelming, is vastly
Sarah Newey News Reporter The University is providing even more study spaces for students; a new study centre opened at Senate House on 4th November. There will be 156 work spaces, including drop-in computer stations, two printers and photocopiers and, of course, the ever important wi-fi. The centre is due to fit all needs, providing silent, quiet and social study spaces for group study sessions in order to accommodate varying needs. During November the study rooms will be open between
9am and 5pm, although this is due to be extended once external renovations have been completed. Access to the facility is via a path on the corner of Woodland Road and Tyndall Avenue , and like the Arts and Social Sciences Library, a University of Bristol UCard is required for entry. The ASS library is infamously busy and it can be very difficult to find a place to work, especially in exam seasons. The new study centre will be a welcome addition to the existing study spaces in the University precinct, arguably reducing the strain on such facilities. The project aims to illuminate the ocean’s past
Flickr: ecstaticist
The union’s introduction of a university-wide Course Rep scheme has struggled for candidates to fill all positions, despite an extensive publicity campaign. For the first time ever the Union attempted to introduce a course representative scheme for every school in the University, with the aim of standardising student representation; however, no candidates stood for 30% of all the undergraduate course representative positions and 55% of postgraduate positions. Many of those standing did so unopposed and with little in the way of a manifesto. In addition to this, voter turnout was low with 2120 undergraduates voting and 432 postgraduates, excluding medical, dentistry and law societies.
better than this time last year. We now have a structure that sits across the whole university to fix common issues. We never had this before. By and large the elections were a massive success.’ Lee Marshall of SPAIS stated that ‘The level of response is merely a reflection of broader social trends, not anything specifically to do with Bristol students… it’s not all doom and gloom though - we will end up with a decent number of reps.’ However, there may be a simpler reason to account for this lack of interest. Despite a substantial publicity campaign by the Union, many students had little knowledge of the election. ‘I didn’t even consider standing’ Danielle Standish, second year Politics and Economics, told Epigram, ‘I wasn’t even aware it was going on to be honest.’ Unsurprisingly, those faculties with well-established communication links between students and staff, such as Engineering, had some of the highest levels of participation with several candidates for each place. Those without, such as Modern Languages, had the least. First year voter turnout and candidate participation was by far the highest out of any year. ‘I expect to see the numbers improve next year and the year after as achievements of the scheme are demonstrated to students and enthusiasm grows’ claimed Griffiths, though only time will tell if the scheme is to be vindicated or not.
Novel pursuit of deep sea knowledge Ryan Maguire News Reporter A research group led by Dr. Laura Robinson of Bristol University’s School of Earth and Sciences has embarked upon a unique expedition across the Equatorial Atlantic to pursue greater oceanic knowledge. The group, whose aim is to collect seawater, fossilised deep sea corals and sediment cores, whilst making at least five major stops on seamounts and the midAtlantic Ridge, will include chemists, paleoceanographers, biologists and geologists.
The expedition set out to explore new scientific territory on the, European Research Council funded, RRS James Cook British Royal Research ship. Eponymously named after the eighteenth century British explorer, it began on 13th October and will return on 30th November. Setting sail initially from Southampton to Tenerife, from where it began the 48-day cruise, it concludes in Trinidad. The ship contains science labs, where the team can preserve and analyse biological samples. They will use the remotely operated vehicles to collect coral samples and video, which they hope will retrieve the
ocean’s past. Dr. Robinson stated that ‘this project is a focused study of present and past ocean chemistry in the Equatorial Atlantic, designed to address how the oceans modulate climate, as well as assess the impact of ocean chemistry on fragile deep-sea ecosystems.’ She informed Epigram of the trip’s progress, stating that ‘the research has been going extremely well. We have been able to collect samples from nearly the entire depth transect, as well as capturing high definition video which we will use to map out the changing habitats in detail’,
providing the ‘first systematic pictures.’ She hopes to return to Bristol with the ‘first basin wide survey of the seafloor fauna in this part of the ocean.’ ‘Despite decades of research, there are distinct gaps in our knowledge of the history of the deep and intermediate ocean. To date, there have been no studies that attempt to match up co-located deep-sea coral, seawater and sediment samples in a single programme, so this would be the first directed study of its type’; illuminating the ocean’s vast abyss.
Epigram
11.11.2013
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Bristol named the ‘best city in the UK’ Olivia Lace-Evans News Reporter Bristol has been named the best city in the UK to live in for wealth and happiness by a recent survey. The survey, which focused on quality of life, also placed London behind Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds. According to the survey, carried out by MoneySuperMarket, Bristol has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the UK and has seen the highest increase in disposable income. It also identified that the average salary of an employee working in Bristol is £22,293, the third highest in the UK. This figure surpasses the national average of £21,473.
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Bristol has seen the highest increase in disposable income
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more investment, jobs, visitors and new residents. ’
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Bristol has gained a favourable reputation for having a flourishing local community, a world-class university, environmentally friendly attitudes and a thriving property market
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London only reached seventh place on the Quality of Living Index and Bradford was named as the hardest place to earn a living. The survey looked at the twelve largest cities in the country and assessed them on a variety of factors, including activity in the property market; rental costs; salary; disposable income; cost of living; unemployment and overall life satisfaction. The results of the survey as a whole are, in descending order, as follows: Bristol, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester, London, Belfast, Glasgow, Birmingham, Sheffield and Bradford.
Social network created by Bristol students
Enterprise Conference set for 23rd
important this is and often just turn to a friend because at first that’s the easiest option. We know who our market is: third years who don’t have or don’t want a graduate job and have a business idea they want to try out.’
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The events resemble speed-dating, where students can match up with potential business partners
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one of the many student ventures supported by the university’s Base Camp programme, designed by the university’s Research, Enterprise and Development Division (RED) as a student start-up service. Dave Jarman, who leads the team in RED, who run Basecamp, said, ‘DevelopmyStartup - like any good venture - services a compelling need, that of emerging entrepreneurs to find business partners and skilled talent to help them get going.’ ‘We actually support dozens of student e n t r e p r e n e u r s , Developmystartup are good, but they’re not as rare as you’d think! There are dozens of others just starting to shape up and we get a good regular audience at our Monday night workshops through Basecamp.’ The first DevelopMyStartup event is being held in Friska on the 29th November.
Adam Bushnell News Reporter The event formerly known as the Bristol Social Enterprise Conference has been renamed and revamped for 2013. According to the organiser, Ollie Yorke, it is going to be ‘bigger and better than before’. To reflect this, the event has been renamed RISE and is the ‘key event’ in the calendar of inc. ,the University of Bristol’s Enterprise Society. In a recent press release, Yorke said that the event is a ‘collaboration between inc. and Bristol Hub, part of the national charity Student Hubs, which aims to support and encourage students in social action.’ RISE 2013, taking place on Saturday 23rd November in the Social Science Complex on Priory Road at the University of Bristol, is established with the aim to ‘dispel the myth that making money and doing good are mutually exclusive’. There will be a combination
of speaker and workshop sessions. Speakers confirmed include Liam Black, former CEO of Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen, along with the Head of HR and Head of Finance from Triodos Bank. The founder of FrankWater, Katie Alcott will also be in attendance. A specific goal of Yorke’s for RISE 2013 is to increase participation among students who may be ‘totally new to the idea of social enterprise’. A recent article in The Bristol Post reported that the city of Bristol is moving to be ‘recognised nationally as a social-enterprise city’. The local newspaper quoted Stephen Parsons, chairman of the Quartet Community Foundation and the Local Enterprise Partnership’s Social Enterprise Sector Group, as having said ‘Bristol should be recognised as a leader in this [social enterprise] field.’ Therefore the RISE event is helping to further this aim by encouraging students to
get involved in the social enterprise sector. The organisers are keen to state that free lunch will be provided by Foodcycle and Fairtrade Cafe, which are both Bristol Social Enterprises, with the former using surplus food from supermarkets to feed Bristolians living in poverty. There will also be free tea and coffee from Oromo Coffee, entertainment provided by business based societies, free champagne reception at breakfast and a street market with social enterprises selling their own products. Further details about the RISE event and the society generally can be found at www.bristolinc.org.uk. Sign up and tickets (costing £5 in advance) are both available via www.eventbrite.co.uk/ myevent?eid=9085112817. They will also be sold from today in the Arts and Social Sciences Library Cafe all the way up to the day of the conference on the 23rd November.
For more news stories remember to visit us online at www.epigram.org.uk/news This week: Epigram reporter Ivana Scatola reports from Florence on Berlusconi facing trial
Flickr:Martin Sojka
Both students are hoping to expand the project by taking the event format to other universities in the southwest. As Alex lives in North London, he also hopes to take the idea over to London universities. Alex , a third year Mechanical Engineering student and head of the university’s Enterprise Society. Molly is studying ancient history and archaeology. DevelopMyStartup is
Flickr: stockmonkey.com
The website connects students with potential business partners
Beautiful Bristol: the best place to live in the UK
RISE up - inc.’s Bristol Social
Olivia Lace-Evans News Reporter A pair of Bristol University students, 21-year-old Alex Dotsch and Molly Bishop, have set up a social networking site designed for young student entrepreneurs. The site, Develop My Startup, is dedicated to students who are looking to find potential business partners and collaborators. The Bristol Post described the site as ‘LinkedIn meets Match.com’, and helps students from Bristol, UWE, Bath and Exeter. Most of the events resemble speed-dating events, where students can quickly match up with potential business partners. The pair of young businesspeople spotted a gap in the market for a network bringing students together to compete against those who may be working with more experienced businesspeople. Alex spoke to Epigram, saying, ‘We are the only student- and graduate-only space of this kind. We go beyond a bland search/ profile site to provide a site that is really tailored to allow people to find someone they click with. We have loads of different ways that you can put together a profile and show yourself off. It’s personal and about showing character. Molly added, ‘Our key message is the importance of having the right business partner early on in a startup. This is something we will have to really push; a lot of people don’t realise how
Vivian Lee
Edinburgh was considered the second best city, followed by Cardiff in third place. However, Edinburgh
scored the highest on the life satisfaction scale above Bristol, Cardiff and London. Bristol has gained a favourable reputation for having a flourishing local community, a world-class university, environmentally friendly attitudes and a thriving property market. In 2008 Bristol was declared Britain’s most environmentally sustainable city in the UK. David Alder, Director of Marketing and Communications at the University of Bristol, said, ‘This recent accolade cements Bristol’s reputation as being one of the UK’s most dynamic cities. ‘Continued investment in the city’s infrastructure and economy help make Bristol a great place to live, study and work, which explains why so many of our students choose to make Bristol their home after they graduate.’ George Ferguson, Mayor of Bristol, told Epigram, ‘I’ve been telling people for years that Bristol’s the best place to live and I’m very pleased to see this survey making it official! It’s yet another sign that Bristol is on absolutely the right track for attracting
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Epigram
11.11.2013
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Self-harm help site launches
Thomas Phipps News Reporter The number of Bristolians relying on foodbanks has rocketed over the past year. Between April and September over 3,100 people received a three-day aid package from one of the three food banks in Bristol, an increase of 1,700 in the same period last year. Foodbanks are charitable organisations that distribute food to individuals who would be unable to purchase it themselves due to their poverty. The three food banks operate across Bristol in the North West, North and East of Bristol. The North Bristol Foodbank has seen the greatest increase in footfall. Speaking to Epigram, Stewart North, Joint Foodbank Manager of the North Bristol Foodbank said, ‘We have seen a doubling of numbers of people fed since the end of July and are now serving around 100 people each week from our outlets
in North Bristol.’ North continued by saying, ‘It is really tough to hear people’s stories as we see people from all walks of life who are referred to us, because they have had a crisis situation and have no food to feed themselves. It seems very unjust to see this happening in our country. It is not looking hopeful for winter months with energy prices rises kicking in, and the challenge of heating or eating.’ A big reason for the increase has been due to problems with individuals receiving benefits. At the Bristol East foodbank the percentage of people coming in for food due to benefit changes and delays has increased, which is a trend reflected nationally. Kerry McCarthy, Labour’s MP for Bristol East said, ‘The Government is running out of excuses as to why use of foodbanks has exploded.’ McCarthy continued saying, ‘Despite reports from reputable organisations like
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Bristol artists are to construct a ‘living’ book sculpture
crisis, with rising energy bills, rising food prices and falling wages.’ Figures provided to Epigram from the Trussell Trust found that children made up over a third of those receiving food from foodbanks in Bristol.
Joanna Davies News Reporter
”
The British Energy Challenge was a series of events set up by the government’s Department of Climate Change, to encourage Britons to reduce emissions by 80% by 2050. Last week Bristol became the last city to host this innovative scheme with over 300 audience members and an expert panel comprising Kevin McCloud (TV presenter), George Ferguson (Mayor of Bristol), Peter Capener (Bath and West Community Energy), Beatrice Orchard (Federation of Master Builders) and hosted by the author and campaigner Mark Lynas. A carbon calculator was used to compute and analyse how changes to consumption and supply would affect Britain’s emissions. The panellists gave suggestions in turn; starting with what they believed was the most important and viable change needing to be addressed in order to reach this target. The audience was then asked to vote, on a scale of 1 to 4, on the viability of these changes and the level of ambition and commitment that would be required in order to implement them. At first, lifestyle and mitigation strategies were described. This began with Orchard’s plan to insulate all houses to a much higher level than many now have. This was almost unanimously supported by the audience. Capener followed, with plans to keep household temperatures down; the audience voted for a temperature of 16 degrees
Mshed
hundred years of public service is a real milestone for the city’s libraries and an occasion which is worthy of celebration’ and the ‘Book Hive’ is sure to do that. Further details of the launch of the Sculpture in December will come soon but work is already under way from the Rusty Squid team. In their Spike Island Workshop, the artists are already developing prototypes for public testing at the new Junction 3 library and it is sure to be a momentous occasion for Bristol.
Flcikr: First Broadcast
Wills Memorial Building Library
in Britain, and will be almost entirely funded by lottery funding. However, it is not just the council and Rusty Squid who are getting involved; booklovers all over the city are being invited to take part in the unique, one-ofa-kind sculpture. Library readers are encouraged to take part in the ‘Book Hive’ by donating the hardback books needed to make the distinctive sculpture. The books due to be brought to life by the team must be no bigger than 24cm x 18cm and are to be handed to staff at the Central Library during normal opening hours As the project develops, further volunteering opportunities will arise for anyone interested in the event. As Councillor Simon Cook, Assistant Mayor aid: ‘Four
Oxfam and Church Action On Poverty, the Government will not admit that many users are affected by delayed or withdrawn benefit payments. Others simply cannot make ends meet because of the cost-of-living
Britain has been encouraged to reduce emissions by 80%
Flickr: dearsomeone
In 1613, Bristol’s Public Library, not only the first library in the city but also one of the first libraries in the country, was founded. This December, four hundred years later, Bristol artists are to construct a ‘living’ book sculpture and, with due reason to celebrate, the masterpiece will commemorate this momentous year by incorporating around 400 hardback books. However, what makes the sculpture so special is that it will actually be ‘living’; assembled by Bristol artists Rusty Squid, a group made up of roboticists, puppeteers and model makers, it will use
animatronics, a technology which uses electronics to animate motorized puppets, in order to become ‘alive’. The impressive sculpture will cover the walls, pillars and arches of the Holden entrance hall to the Bristol Central Library, situated on the south side of College Green. Kate Murray, Head of Libraries in Bristol, is one of many involved in the project and has expressed her excitement that it is taking place. Murray has said that everyone is ‘very excited to be working with Rusty Squid on such an unusual and innovative project to celebrate our anniversary and we can’t wait to share the result with our visitors.’ And she has every reason to be excited; the £90,000 project is the first of its kind
3,100 people received a foodbank package between April and September
Bristol’s Energy Challenge
400 years of libraries in Bristol Lucy Stewart News Reporter
Flickr:Birmingham News Room
Amber Roberts News Reporter A young woman in Bristol, Imogen Smith, has made a new website to help support those who self-harm. It is called the Self Harm Organisation, which works in conjunction with ‘Fixers’, a charity aiming to help ‘fix’ the problems of young people. Imogen herself has suffered from self-harm herself for four years and wants to emphasise the importance of support from family and friends to aid recovery. She is worried about the young people out there who lack the right emotional and practical help and hopes that the Self Harm Organisation can help change that. She asks: ‘Are service providers and political influencers doing all they can to help them? The answer is no, this needs to change.’ Fixers is an awardwinning charitable project supporting thousands of
people across the country. It involves young people or ‘Fixers’ using their own experiences to help others through similar issues. The way in which each Fixer approaches an issue is their choice, provided they help others. It is thought that about 10% of young people have self-harmed at some point. According to research carried out by the Mental Health Foundation, the UK has one of the highest rates of self-harm in Europe with approximately 400 in every 100,000 self-harming every year. Imogen feels that change needs to happen particularly in Bristol, where self-harm is a recognizable problem. Now that awareness about self harm has increased, if a more comprehensive way of dealing with self-harm is taken, then Imogen argues that ‘Bristol has a chance to be at the forefront of this movement for change!’
Greater number rely on Foodbanks
despite concerns about Britain’s ageing population. However, it soon became apparent that changing our consumption is not enough to reach this the target: the supply of energy also has to be addressed. Changing the supply of energy to make it more sustainable inevitably centres on renewable energy sources, a much more debated, complicated and heated issue. Tidal, solar and wind power were all suggested by the panellists, with different levels of agreement from the audience due to the varying costs, scales and environmental impacts. As the session came to a close and the target of an 80% cut in emissions had nearly, but not quite, been hypothetically met, the sheer scale of the challenge that the UK faces in terms of energy became even more apparent. As Ferguson had said before the discussion ‘We take energy for granted at our peril. How we make and use it is one of the most urgent issues facing the UK today’; the energy challenge and target created by the DECC is, indeed, a challenge it seems.
Epigram
11.11.2013
Features
@epigramfeatures
Editor: Hugh Davies
Deputy Editor: Sophie Padgett
Online Editor: Michael Coombs
features@epigram.org.uk
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What would happen if mayors ruled the world?
benjaminbarber.org
Chris Giles Features Writer
Over 2000 years ago democracy was born in the Greek polis. The American political theorist and author, Benjamin Barber, wants to take it back there. His recent book,If Mayors Ruled the World, proposes a global parliament of mayors to solve the fundamental challenges we are facing today. The nation state has become outdated. The leaders of countries struggle in a world where issues such as terrorism, global warming, finance and health are undefined by the
borders drawn in a different age. I interviewed Benjamin Barber when he visited Bristol to deliver a speech at the Wills Memorial Building. In a day he had travelled from New York to London to Bristol, spreading the word that the world should be governed from the city. ‘The United Nations is a disunited nations’ he tells me. ‘The nation state was a great idea and has served us well, but we live in a different world now’. When despots and unelected monarchies ruled, the nation state was a revolutionary idea. The world is now interdependent. This means that countries are not separate entities, but closely linked by trade, people, culture and the internet. Dr Barber said ‘after all, it is not the English Web, or the Bristol Web, but the World Wide Web’. What connects everyone is not David Cameron wrestling with Putin or Merkel playing table tennis with Obama. It is not the G8, G7, G20, G2 or any other international institution. What connects everyone is cities. ‘For the first time ever more people live in urban rather than rural areas’ Dr Barber informs me. Countries divide people. The relationships shared between nations are riddled
with historical baggage and political machinations. The relationships between cities are ones of mutual exchange. Dr Barber goes on to explain that ‘networks already exist between cities, but what’s missing is a network of networks’. The United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) is just one example of a network where not nations, but Mayors and local leaders are working together. ‘But aren’t Mayors just driven by the same motivations as national leaders?’ I asked Dr Barber. ‘The short answer, no’ he replied. ‘Mayors are self-interested, but the interests of cities are the same, Bristol wouldn’t go to war with Buenos Aires’ he replied jokingly. Nations have fixed identities and traditions. Cities are often multicultural, dynamic and centres of innovation. Of course cities do have their problems. The problems that cities face, however, are shared across the world. Mayors are better suited to solving these problems rather than presidents or prime ministers, because they are closer to the action. ‘There is not a Republican or Democratic way of fixing the sewers’ Dr Barber claims. The day to day running of a city or metropolis relies on
benjaminbarber.org
Chris Giles meets political theorist, Benjamin Barber, to discuss his groundbreaking new book If Mayors Ruled the World
things getting done or fixed. A city is a complex piece of machinery which needs all the cogs to keep turning in order to function. There is no time for ideology. As Barber puts it ‘Mayors are pragmatists’. The approval rates of national leaders are dismally low, yet when citizens are asked about Mayors, there is more optimism. Mayors are often from the place where they govern. They know the people and the city. George Ferguson, the first elected mayor of Bristol, replied to Dr Barber after his speech. He said his favourite
phrase was ‘Mayors are neighbours’. Mr Ferguson is an independent figure who is unaligned to any party label. Known for wearing red trousers he describes himself as an ‘establishment rebel’. He seems to bear strong resemblance to the Mayor that Dr Barber describes. Bristol is a city which can take a lot from what Dr Barber is saying. I put it to Barber, that if this idea solves 21st century democracy, why not give this parliament legislative power? ‘Because people won’t respond positively to a
top-down implementation of a new global institution.’ That may be the case, but how does the professor see his own role in all this, is he sowing the seeds of future democracy? ‘I see myself as a facilitator,’ he said. From what I gather from this response, the idea of a global parliament of mayors is in some way a proposition for global democracy. He understands though that change can never be instant. To change institutions it has to be led by the people, namely the mayors who represent the people. Democracy is in crisis. The obstacle we have to overcome is how dp we solve issues that transcend the boundaries of nations in the most democratic way possible. Benjamin Barber has created the framework for an institution which can bring about more optimism for the world. There is apathy, even antipathy towards the current state of politics which is constantly stuck in gridlock. 400 years ago the nation state suited our needs and somewhat solved our problems. Not anymore. If we do not change the way we do things to match a changing world then democracy will be left behind.
A generation that is destined to be lonely Joyce Vincent, a ‘happy and bubbly’ 38-year-old woman with grand aspirations, was living in a London flat in Haringey, with a small stack of Christmas presents and a fridge filled with food, watching television in the winter of 2003. A well regarded ex-employee of accounting firm Ernst and Young, she would sometimes fall out of contact with her friends, who simply imagined that she was ‘off somewhere having a better life than they were’. She was enviable, but well loved. Yet, three years after those Christmas presents had been received, officials coming to repossess her house found her corpse on the sofa, untouched, identifiable only by her teeth. Those who knew her were aghast at how her body could have gone undiscovered for three years, accompanied only by the motes of dust floating through the stale air. In 2011, a disturbing documentary studying the circumstances of Joyce’s death was released.The documentary painted a vibrant picture of a
woman who thrived on self improvement, was charismatic and intelligent, who seemed not unlike many of the people that I know. This was the aspect of her death that caused me disquiet; not the thought of her body lying undiscovered, not the incessant, unheard flicker and chatter of the television screen, not the unopened presents or the three years and twelve seasons that blew and blustered through her open window. Bills printed by an automated computer were sent from water, gas and electricity companies, each landed on a growing mass of paper, each printed with her name. Somewhere along the line, she had found herself alone and abandoned, even by a state so often accused of its Orwellian gaze over every citizen. Whether Joyce Vincent’s case is tantamount to negligence or a horrific anomaly is a personal opinion, but just last month a forty- year- old man was discovered in his Paris flat, having been hanging, dead, for eight years. Loneliness is frequently studied, documented and reported in the media in relation to the nation’s elderly. However, a study conducted by the
Mental Health Foundation in 2010 revealed that 60% of 1834- year -olds felt lonely ‘often or sometimes’. Speaking to Epigram, Dr. Peter Byrne of The Royal College of Psychiatrists said: ‘Feeling lonely has clear links with depression and mental health problems. Clinical experience shows that the poorer a person’s social networks (for whatever reason), the more likely it is that mental health problems will occur and take longer to alleviate. Greater openness about being lonely, and looking out for vulnerable friends and neighbours, is an important first step.’ These vital links between a person’s social experience and their health are important, but also beg the question, how has this come about? In 2011, 30% of households were of single occupancy. The same Mental Health Foundation study which revealed a hidden prevalence of loneliness in the young also uncovered an attitude of ‘work over play’, with the importance of family life and friendships now secondary to career ambitions. This propensity to high achievement is something well engrained into many people’s psyche, but there
has been a shift in society and education that means a degree is now almost a rite of passage in an environment where graduate employment is not a guarantee. Social media ensures that we receive a veritable bombardment of ‘status updates’, but so often people’s personality and mental state are augmented, almost dismembered, by 140 characters. Though we may get an impression of our friend’s existence online, the loss of tangible presence and
eye contact is detrimental to our mental states. Our online footprint has a life of its own, whether or not we are there to affect it; if we were to die alone, not even the ever omniscient Facebook would know. So what can our generation expect, when we are finally set free into the void of the ‘real world’, post graduation? As alumni of the University of Bristol, according to 2010/11 figures, 67.6% of us can expect to be working full or part-time, voluntarily
or on a work and study programme. Once again, we will be scattered to the four corners of the UK or perhaps abroad, with the kind of absolute independence and responsibility that we naïvely expected when we packed up our bags at eighteen. With no student loan, no lecturers, no expedient freshers friends, the ‘real world’ can seem to become quite an isolating place. An anonymous face in a sea of ambition and competition, where everyone has something to offer.
Thomas Leutard
Caitlin Waddell Features Writer
Epigram
11.11.2013
Spike Island: giving artists a platform
9
Epigram spoke to Spike Island curator, Marie-Anne McQuay, to find out more about the impressive arts space in Hotwells
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It’s no longer artist led,
but it’s very much informed by the culture of supporting artistic practice.
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What’s it like running an arts centre in Bristol? Do you think that the city’s arts scene is thriving? Bristol is very fortunate in that it’s incredibly well-resourced in terms of studios. There are few cities in the UK apart from London and Glasgow that have as many studio complexes. There’s not just Spike Island, there’s BV studios, there’s Jamaica Street, there’s lots of long-running studio groups and then informal spaces that are maybe shorter term, but still really exciting project spaces. So Bristol is a really good place for an artist to be able to afford to have a place to work in. Artist led culture has always thrived here and you’ve got examples of independent culture like The Cube - not necessarily visual arts, but arts based – they’re amazing. In terms of artist led spaces, Bristol tends to have a faster turnaround than some cities; Transmission in Glasgow has been running for 25 years, G39 in Cardiff has been running for 10 years. It’s sometimes tended to be that there is the pull of London, so people move on. And also the fact that property in Bristol is quite desirable. It’s a city in which sometimes you can struggle to get hold of property. The city has a good critical mass. You obviously need to go to other places, you need to get on a train, get on a plane, and go to other centres but I’d say that as a place to practice, it’s a really lively city, and the art scene is very broad. There’s contemporary art, street art, there’s a real spectrum happening here. I think it’s a good city to also travel out from as well as live in.
October Drawing by David Batchelor
How did Spike Island come about? It formed in the 70s when a group of artists formed a collective and based themselves in the MacArthur warehouse in Bristol. By the time it got to the late 80s, there was the property boom, and they were going to be evicted from the building which still hasn’t been converted into luxury apartments although at the time that was the plan. They managed to negotiate rent for 100 years of this building that we’re in now, which used to be a factory and the artists moved in here in the late 90s. It was legendary for having open studios; the artists always had international residences and there was a sense of it having a public face. In 1998, they started doing shows, but it wasn’t until 2007 that a permanent public programme was set up. Since then, we have had a cafe, and a gallery and an events programme all year round. We still do the legendary open studios where 7000 people come through on the first bank holiday in May. The building is 80,000 sq. ft. The public only get to see a tenth of that which is still huge; the gallery, part of the ground floor, and other spaces if they come to talks, but the rest of the building is dedicated to the fine art studios of UWE and the 70 artists with permanent studios. The shows are free and last 8-10 weeks. Talks and events are also free or sometimes there’s a very modest charge and then there is also what we call our open weekends. So over the
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picture courtsy of Spike Island
Hidden down by the water in Hotwells lies Spike Island, an international centre for the development of contemporary art and design. It contains studio space for over 70 artists, and plays host to regular exhibitions as well as presentations and debates designed to engage audiences directly. The gallery itself is a large open space with expansive white walls. The place has the feel of an abandoned warehouse; the only thing that moves is the page turned by the girl dressed in black who sits reading serenely in the corner. In the background you can hear the crackle of a nearby television set, which forms part of one of the works on show. After perusing the gallery, there’s tea to be drunk in the cafe and also a range of art materials on sale. Alongside its exhibitions, Spike Island provides studio space for UWE’s fine art students and has long had a strong relationship with the university. Epigram felt it was time that Bristol University caught up with its West Country neighbours and took notice of this exciting arts space and everything that is going on there. We spoke to the gallery’s curator, Marie-Anne McQuay, to find out more about the Spike Island story and get her views on why Bristol is such a fertile land for producing young artists.
Atomic Drawing by David Batchelor
he does a lot of drawings, a lot of flat poured paintings. He always uses aluminium spray paint, household paint, things that are in their really pure pigment form so it’s going to be a really exciting show from a mature artist, but kind of showing another aspect of his practice. What else is on offer at Spike Island apart from the exhibitions? We always do free Saturday introductions to an exhibition that are often led by an artist who is giving their response to a show. They are at 2pm and there is one a month. And there is one behind the scenes tour per month, where you get to meet two different artists, and we usually try to find two really contrasting ones, and you get to meet them in their studios. We
have lectures and talks related to the exhibition so David Batchelor will come and do a talk, but we’ll also have discussions about synthetic colour. We are very interested in experimental literature and we’ve been running an experimental reading group and we’re looking next year to do some stuff on new novelists, because of the crossover between art writing and experimental literature. And we’ve got a real interest in contemporary graphic design and publishing, so some of our focus might not be on visual art, but instead how certain discussions are disseminated. So there’s a regular program of talks and events including performances and we have a printed brochure and then everything’s online, on Twitter, and on Facebook. The David Batchelor exhibition Flatlands runs from 23rd November to 26th January
The art scene is very broad.
You’ve
got
contemporary
art, street art, there’s a real spectrum happening here.
” So the David Batchelor show Flatlands is coming up, what should we expect from that? It is hugely exciting. David Batchelor is incredibly well established. He has taught generations of artists. He is very well-known for his light box pieces. He wrote this book called Chromophobia which looks at why there is a tendency after conceptual art to be suspicious of colour within art. He is incredibly well read, he has written about conceptual art but he is kind of championing colour, and he relates colour to urban environments. He is very well-known for his 3-dimensional pieces but actually what people don’t know is that
picture courtsy of Spike Island
Hugh Davies Features Editor
years it’s changed – it’s no longer artist led, but it’s very much informed by the culture of supporting artistic practice.
Epigram
11.11.2013
10
An Asian space race: India’s mission to Mars Max Miller Features writer The Indian Space Research Organisation launched a spacecraft to Mars last Monday, possibly beating its regional rivals China to the Red Planet. Its scientific aims are hazy, this mission is more about national pride and testing India’s space capabilities. Called the Mangalyaan probe, it has the potential to fire up an Asian space race, with China and Japan also beginning to make their first steps towards further space exploration.
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some are saying that this space programme is a waste of money
”
In sending this probe to Mars, India will be taking the next step in its already extensive space programme, which in 2008, facilitated a probe’s journey to the moon. Before the lunar trip, the Indian Space Research Organisation had been tailored more towards projects with clear economic benefits, such as improving telecommunications and monitoring its environment with satellites. However, they have recently redirected their efforts towards exploration, with the lunar probe, and now this mission to Mars displaying this new focus. When China was forced to abort the launch of a probe to Mars in 2011, India stepped up its own operations, readying the Mangalyaan
in just 15 months. This competition between the countries seems to be driving them both much like the U.S. - Soviet Union rivalry of the 1960s and 70s. Pallava Bagla, the author of a book about Indian Space efforts, ‘Destination Moon’, told BBC News ‘if India does beat China to Mars you can imagine the national pride.’ China, on the other hand, has been funding research in to its space programme in earnest since 1993, when it founded the China National Space Administration. It already has an orbiting space laboratory, Tiangong-1, and also plans to launch a lunar rover in December. China’s ultimate aim is to develop its own space station by 2020, and eventually send astronauts to the moon’s surface. It would appear that the Asian superpower has a major head start on it regional rivals, but with India showing that it can build a Mars probe in just over a year, and Japan being very experienced in space research, this may not be an advantage that is held for long. Despite being early frontrunners, Japan’s space program seems to be stuttering. They had planned to launch a manned spacecraft by 2022, but now the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has had its funding cut. Nonetheless, they still managed to launch a recent probe to bring images of Venus, Mars and Jupiter. They also conducted a successful test on a probe that will be launched in 2014. They plan to land the device on an asteroid and blow a hole in to examine fragments. India’s aspirations in this potential Asian ‘Space Race’ could be curtailed soon due to their domestic problems. With incredibly high poverty and ailing infrastructure, some are saying that this space programme is a waste of money that could be better spent elsewhere. In the weeks before this Mars mission was
flickr: tj.blackwell
India’s fierce race to Mars with China sees many of the country’s most pressing problems pushed to one side.
announced in August 2012, there were massive power cuts which left hundreds of millions without electricity. It’s an indication of the existence of two very distinct worlds in India. The veteran environmentalist, Vandana Shiva, told The Independent, ‘The money could be used on other things. You could make sure no child goes hungry; you could make sure your economy is sustainable and that you don’t need to dam every river.’ However the author Pallava Bagla responded to these allegations on BBC News saying, ‘You can’t bring the 400 million people who live in poverty in India out of poverty with this £60 million.’ Whilst this may be true, it is clear that the £60 million would at least help some of India’s impoverished. The Indian government
for their part claim that the space programme will bring tangible gains to its populace through the resulting technological advancements. How exactly this would manifest itself however, is not clear. So this space race may be over before it has even started, with both India and China having millions in poverty, and Japan recently cutting their space programme’s funding. Yet despite this, all three countries continue to speak of wanting to expand their space programs, and all three maintain their ambition to return humanity to the moon. What is clear is that the onus on space exploration seems to be moving from the west to the east, and who knows, maybe we’ll see man on the moon again sooner than we think.
An ‘au revoir’ to France’s food culture
Louvre pyramid. Meanwhile, Asia is dominating international gastronomy and conquering the hearts of French consumers. Since 2007, Tokyo has repeatedly beaten Paris in the Michelin guide, something that is particularly hard to swallow considering that some of the awardwinning restaurants in Japan offer a French-style menu. Within the French capital, Japanese restaurants and take-away joints are blossoming like lotus flowers: industry leader Matsuri Sushi has seen profits increase twenty-five-fold in 15 years. Simultaneously, Parisian brasseries are increasingly taken over by Chinese restaurants. Yet internal French issues have also played a part in the changing food culture. For instance, many young chefs are deciding to open small, rustic restaurants as opposed to high-end establishments, a
phenomenon dubbed bistronomie, in contrast to our gastro pubs, which elevate traditionally lesser pub food, this trend in France simplifies its haute cuisine. Similarly, older chefs Alain Senderens and Olivier Roellinger have symbolically handed their three Stars back to Michelin, in order to pursue less sophisticated cooking. Over the last decade other renowned French chefs including world-famous Joël Rebuchon, Paul Bocuse and Guy Martin, have put their names on upmarket readymade meals. Unsurprisingly, the French consume more ready-meals and frozen food than ever before. Picard has enjoyed astounding success, far more than its British counterpart Iceland, having doubled profits in less than a decade; they open 35 new branches every year. Interestingly, 800,000 French people bought their Galette des Rois (King Cake) frozen
from Picard in 2013, which has always been traditionally bought at one’s boulanger in celebration of the Epiphany. Indeed, this mass migration to supermarkets is stifling small merchants. In retaliation, boulangers and pâtissiers, world-famous for their baguettes and croissants, are working to innovate their industry. Boulanger Jean-Louis Hecht made headlines in 2011 with his baguettevending hole-in-the-wall which provides supposedly fresh and warm baguettes round the clock, and is entirely automatic. Hecht arguably found a way to save artisanal bread, faced with that sold in supermarkets, yet his concept cut out the human contact and manual fabrication that epitomizes the French boulangerie. France is Europe’s main agricultural power and is the second biggest on a worldwide scale, it is also the leading nation in the
flickr: wander.lust
flickr:avlxyz
While Britain’s gastronomy experiences increasing popular interest and media coverage, journalists and cooks alike have lamented the decline of France’s food culture. I spoke to Hugh Schofield, the BBC’s Paris correspondent, who cited the symbolic case of Jean-Pierre Coffe, a well-known gastronomic pundit who recently appeared on billboards advertising a budget supermarket chain. The cries come particularly from abroad due to the long-standing reputation of French cuisine, from its internationally renownedrestaurantsandtraditional merchants, to the supposedly healthy and hearty meals – fait maison – eaten at home. One recurring image is that of a supposed attack from all sides on France’s gastronomical identity: fast food from the West and Asian cuisine from the East. This is not without reason. In 2012, sales of fast food surpassed those of the traditional restaurant industry for the first time. Since 2009, France has been McDonald’s second major market after the USA. The French spend an average of €7 at KFC, a world record for the chain. So profitable is the industry that Burger King is back, after 15 years of absence. It’s a bad turn for the French, who once led the fight against fast food, a symbol of American imperialism, with farmer-activist José Bové, a people’s hero, making international news by destroying a McDonald’s branch in 1999; a decade later, the fast food giant would open up under the
flickr:Xiaozhuli
Robin Cowie Features writer
fight against Genetically Modified Organisms and pesticides (some of which have now been officially recognized to have caused the fatal diseases of over 40 French farmers). One quarter of French consumers regularly purchase organic products, and in 2009 the government aimed to increase organic farming tenfold by 2020. Most of this is positive, but the French people’s anti-GMO stance, led again by José Bové, reveals a deep reactionary attitude that extends beyond the mere fear of technological developments. In the words of Mark Lynas, an organizer of the anti-GMO movement turned GMO-supporter, ‘France, I remember, long refused to accept the potato because it was an American import.’ It is this fear of multiculturalism and foreign cuisine that threatens French food culture more than anything else.
Epigram
11.11.2013
Student fridge frenzy: it’s all going off!
Our survey on student eating habits found that 69% of us end up wasting odd bits of food on a regular basis. In an attempt to do our bit to help save the world, here are some anti-food wastage tips that we have come up with. Enjoy!
Here at Features, we’ve been doing some research to find out if student diets are really as bad as everybody says they are. I’m happy to report that you all did rather well! Only 6% of you told us that you considered your diet to be very unhealthy and a whopping 71% claimed their diets are mostly healthy. Of the people that took our survey, 41% told us that they would give themselves a 4 on a scale with 5 being someone who is a very knowledgeable cook, and 1 being someone who doesn’t know how to boil and egg. Encouragingly, 25% of our participants say they cook a meal from scratch every day and 39% said they cook once 4-5 times a week. Only 6% said they never cook a meal from scratch. Despite these quite positive results, 69% of our participants told us that they often have to throw away the odd bit of food and 11% said that they frequently throw away quite a lot of food. The most common items that students said they threw away included old bits of salad, bread, odd bits of vegetables and milk.
flickr:Stuart’Dootson
Sophie Padgett Deputy Features Editor
In light of this we put our thinking caps on and came up with some nifty tips to avoid throwing away the things that lurk in the bottom of your fridge. Generally planning out your meals is probably the most efficient way to avoid wasting things. Sometimes, unfortunately, opting for a meal that perhaps isn’t your first choice has to be done in the name of economy and anti-food wastage. Budding up with housemates and combining left over indigents is also a good way to avoid going to the shops and wasting food; win-win situation!
flickr:powerplantod
Sophie Padgett
Puff pastry tarts
Croutons and bread crumbs The bread buts and the last few slices of bread often end up getting chucked away, so chopping them up in to croutons, or making bread crumbs is a really good way of avoiding this. I’m aware the average student probably deems crouton making to be pretty far down their list of priorities, but it is really quick and they are great to have stashed away ready to chuck in salads or soup. Simply chop the left over bread into smallish cubes, spread over a baking tray and drizzle with olive oil. You can chuck on some dried herbs if you have any, if not salt and pepper will do the job. Bake on a low temp for ten minutes or so, depending on the size of them. Just keep an eye on the oven and fish them out once they look golden and crunchy! Bread crumbs are equally quick, and surprisingly versatile, if the bread isn’t that dried out bung it under the grill or in the toaster for a minute or so, then either break it into slightly smaller chunks and put in a food processor, or if your kitchen equipment doesn’t stretch this far, roll up your sleeves and get out the grater. Use one of the finer sections of the grater, in 5-10 minutes you’ll have a pill of bread crumbs ready to go. If you have any fresh herbs, finely chop them and add them in with the bread crumbs for extra flavour. If you don’t want to use them immediately, or have made quite a lot, put some of them in the freezer, ready to use later. They defrost in the cooking process so you don’t have to worry about taking them out of the freezer in advance. You can toss them through salads or pasta dishes for some added texture, or liven up the last chicken breast in your fridge by dipping it in egg wash and them the bread crumbs, this also helps keep the chicken nice and moist whilst it cooks.
Recipe for homemade pesto It’s useful for so many things, having a big jar of it in the fridge is always handy and it’s a really easy way to give a lift to some ingredients that may need using up. Pasta, salmon and chicken all go great with pesto. You can buy the jarred stuff, but trust me, it’s just not as tasty! Whilst this might seem like a bit of a faff, if you have a blender or hand whizzer it is literally the work of minutes. All you will need is: Half a pack of spinach Whole pack of fresh basil A clove or two of garlic (depending on how much of a garlic fan you are) The juice of half a lemon Half tsps. of salt A good helping of black pepper 3 tbsp. of olive oil A small mound of grated parmesan If you want to splash the cash add a small handful of pine nuts, if you don’t want to, or have nut allergies add a heaped tablespoon of porridge oats, they help give the pesto a slightly nutty taste and texture.
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These make for a really quick, yummy dinner, the joy of them is that you can chuck pretty much anything on top and they will (within reason) come out tasty! You can buy it in pre-rolled packs from most supermarkets, make sure you put something on the base of them to avoid them getting too dry; tomato puree and pesto are easy options. They are a great way to use any odds and ends of veg, topping them with some form of cheese, feta or mozzarella are usually my cheeses of choice, makes them all the nicer! Wilting down the old bits of salad on a low temperature gives them a new lease of life and they work really well spread over the base,especially if the salad mix has spinach in it.
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Whizz it all up, put it in a jar and you are good to go! Pesto is quite a personal thing, so give it a taste once it is all whizzed up and don’t be afraid to add more of certain ingredients.
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Comment
Epigram
11.11.2013
@epigramcomment
Editor: Rosslyn McNair
Deputy Editor: Rob Stuart
Online Editor: Jessica McKay
comment@epigram.org.uk
deputycomment@epigram.org.uk
commentonline@epigram.org.uk
Should companies that deal arms feature at the careers fair? In light of the recent protests at the careers fair, is
Yes
the University entitled to decide whether companies
This is not a question of censorship; it is one of morality
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The question remains whether students could potentially garner good careers from these companies and profit from their stalls being at careers fairs just like the one in the Wills Memorial Building. However, it would result in careers based upon corruption and violence which should be reason enough to prevent these corporations from advertising to students. Regardless of questionable
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What gives the University the right to pass moral judgement on our careers?
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The university cannot afford to encourage its students to be joining these companies
This is not a question of censorship; it is one of morality and seeing that there are other praiseworthy companies with just as many graduate jobs willing to promote themselves at our next careers stall. The university need not allow a wide variety of companies to present if the companies they are hosting were built on such disreputable foundations and corrupt funding. Students at University of Bristol aren’t ignorant as to why these companies are so successful and wealthy but they may not be fully aware of just how these corporations can afford to recruit so many graduates straight out of university. The secrecy and wealth involved in the arms industry spawns corruption and these are not the companies the university should be advertising as viable career choices to its students. With more and more investigations being opened up about these companies through recent whistleblowing, it would seem better for the University to ban these corporations before their public image falls even lower.
Gjeta Gjyshinca It would be fundamentally naïve for the university to even consider morally filtering the companies that recruit students at careers fairs. It is primarily the responsibility of the student, rather than the university, to judge for themselves which companies are worth working for, and whether morals should even be a factor to consider in searching for a job.
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morals, the university cannot afford to encourage its students to be joining these companies. Instead the focus should be on searching for honourable companies to pitch a stall at Bristol and working on improving their graduate recruitment rather than resorting to corporations involved in the arms trade. This would not be a ‘naïve option’, it wouldn’t be ignoring the drought of good, well paid jobs available to graduates in 2013, as the university would not be banning the students from pursuing a career in one of these companies in their own time, but instead avoiding the promotion of an ethically questionable career on university property in a university organised environment.
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The question of morally censoring careers fairs is an issue of ethical evaluation rather than restriction. It’s surely logical that companies the University hosts at careers fairs require a legality of business or at least some moral fibre. It is obvious on account of the recent protests that there is a definite need for understanding from the University, as presenting these careers as viable to students the university masks the true implications of supporting those involved in arms trade. This is a dangerous method of promotion and could seriously mislead students who don’t see more to the company than a well paid career, rather than the true implications of participating in such an unscrupulous profession. The university should reserve the right to morally profile the quality of the companies that promote themselves at career events as it takes place on its property and it is their students who attend and are influenced by the event. Considering restrictions to the freedom of speech that are required to maintain control of the modern world, for example hate crime legislation, we must remember the audience the university is catering for at these events: students. We should, of course, be given a varied view of potential future jobs but there must be a screening process otherwise there is a concerning lack of management for the university on their own property. The lack of moral quality of a company should warrant an immediate red card to advertising at the careers fair.
with links to the arms trade can advertise to students?
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Margot Tudor
Write for Comment: Email comment@epigram.org.uk with w ideas, questions or just to register your interest. Once you’ve done this, you’ll receive article suggestions each fortnight. Alternatively, just send in an article on a topic of your choosing.
Even more crucially, what gives the university the right to pass moral judgment on our careers? There are many who would argue that, as a sovereign state, the UK must act in the best interests of its own citizens, and if this means defending the country by producing weapons, then it is a responsibility of the government to allow companies such as BAE Systems to facilitate this need. Although BAE Systems is a controversial example, it simply goes to show that there are complex arguments both for and against the legitimacy of such a company. It should not be up to the university to make this decision for us and restrict students from finding out about these companies in the same way they find out about every other company at the Careers Fair. Furthermore, just where do we draw the line if we allow the university to ban companies who deal in arms from presenting at the Careers Fair? There are a huge number of companies whose morality has been cast into doubt for a number of reasons; Starbucks, Amazon and Google were all accused of being ‘immoral’ due to tax avoidance. But students still use their services on a daily basis and a career at Amazon or Google, particularly for an Engineering or Computer Science student, would be hugely beneficial to their future prospects. If the university can ban arms dealers, then surely this could quickly extend to tax-avoiding companies, investment banks and oil and gas producers? The fact also remains that a number of students simply aren’t bothered by morally
dubious companies, and are just searching for a good graduate scheme or internship which will help them gain experience in the industry. This is clear in the huge numbers of students who apply to investment banks. Investment bankers were essentially hated by everyone after the worldwide economic crash and bursting of the housing bubble. But despite this the fierce competition for investment banking internships and graduate roles among students shows that many do not consider the impact of their chosen industry on society when deciding on a career. A friend of mine who spent his summer working at Detica, a technology consulting firm owned by BAE Systems, said he looked down on me for working at an investment bank! It goes to show that different people have very different values, and the university cannot expect to provide us with a ‘one-sizefits-all’ style Careers Fair, with companies hand picked and morally filtered to match the Careers Service’s idea of a moral company.
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Students simply aren’t bothered
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No
From the age of 18, young people are allowed to make a number of decisions independently and if we are allowed to choose who should run the country, to choose whom we will marry, and to choose where we will live, we should also be able to choose where we should work. It is one thing to protect young schoolchildren from exposure to companies who deal in arms, as this might cause fear or upset at such a young age, but for university students, it is a reality that many companies have questionable morals. It is also a reality that countries are threatened by war, that we need fossil fuels even though they destroy the environment, and that money makes the world go round. Therefore, companies who deal in arms, companies who dig for oil, and yes, even investment banks, are all crucial parts of our economy and of society. These sectors are some of the biggest in the industry, and should be allowed fair representation at
Epigram
11.11.2013
12 14
Immigration can only be positive Corey Sutch
Flickr:Flickr: Chotda Chotda
Accusations of sexism on The Great British Bake Off appear half-baked
So, sadly, our Tuesday evenings have returned to their mundane dreariness as The Great British Bake Off season has drawn to an end. However, in what seems to have been one of the most talked about seasons to date, Bake-Off fans will certainly not be short of GBBO news. Spurring worldwide twitter trends each week, the Bake Off certainly generated plenty of social media attention.
“ The issue remains that women on television do seem to be judged more harshly than men.
“ I would have to agree with Ruby’s claim that the accusations of her flirting with Paul Hollywood were sadly out of inevitability rather than evidence.
In her article, Ruby suggests that this is as a result of the wider context of gender politics that unfortunately surrounds the concept of baking and subsequently challenges any female who may not fit into the domestic goddess stereotype of a home baker. However, I fail to buy into Ruby’s argument that the misogynistic comments the female contestants received were anything to do with the baking context of the show. Yes, baking may be a stereotyped trade in which the thin are unwelcome and men are feminized; however it would seem that in modern day pop culture any woman or man on television (particularly of the reality genre) is bound to face criticisms from the general public. It is, of course a shame that audiences can’t
simply appreciate The Great British Bake Off as a show about baking, but the fact that it is a televised competition doesn’t make it’s cast any less exempt from cultural criticism than The X Factor. Regardless, I would have to agree with Ruby’s claim that the accusations of her flirting with Paul Hollywood were sadly out of inevitability rather than evidence. Yes, it is a television programme about baking, but, as Ruby points out, it is worth remembering that it is still a television program and therefore rumours of an illicit affair between a judge and a contestant are as unsurprising and boring as she says. Plus, it is likely that the accusations were generated as a result of the excessive media coverage that was attributed towards Paul Hollywood’s affair with the female host of the American series prior to the filming of this year’s season. That, combined with Ruby’s past modelling career and you have another satisfyingly juicy article up on the Daily Mail. So whilst it is unfortunate that the female contestants of The Great British Bake Off generated so much criticism, it seems that it is unlikely to appear on a television programme - especially one as widely publicised as the bake off - and maintain a neutral presence on social media. People simply love to judge, and if there’s a cupcake or two nearby they are likely to enjoy criticising those jolly bakers on the telly even more.
Flickr: James Sarmiento
“ Sadly, however, it seems that a large majority of the public’s comments were rather negative, and were often directed towards the candidates
that the criticisms against the three finalists spur simply from feminine competitiveness?
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Olivia Petter
themselves. Ruby Tandoh in particular received so much vitriol on Twitter that she felt the need to defend herself in an online article for The Guardian which was published the day after the final. She raised some interesting points regarding the judgements that were directed towards the show’s female contestants, writing that they were often criticised for being ‘too meek, too confident, too thin’ and ‘too domestic’. While this may all be true it seems that the derogatory comments that were directed at Ruby herself were nothing to do with the gender stereotypes she lists. Rather, the problem seemed to lie with Ruby’s attitude. Week after week she had audiences cringing at her false modesty, which arguably irritated viewers and undoubtedly made her a prime target for the (dare I say it) Twitter trolls. In her article she attributes the criticism she received as being gender specific. However, I think that had any of the contestants introduced each of their bakes with that same unenthusiastic, doubtful grimace that they would have been as much of a social media target as Ruby was. However, the issue remains that women on television do seem to be judged more harshly than men. While this may have something to do with the majority of Bake Off viewers being female (an average of 3.4 million females tuned in each week with only 1.72 million men) surely it is a bit severe, and ultimately depressing to suggest
It is a dangerous thing, ‘us vs them’ politics. The present government has been particularly reliant on this tactic in the face of widespread anxiety that support is being lost in favour of parties such as UKIP. The first debate to stem from this was the issue of those on welfare benefits. That argument is settled with the unfairness of the ‘bedroom tax’ acknowledged and the claim that £53 a week is more than enough. The debate has now turned to the new ‘them’, immigrants and in particular foreign students. Whilst in terms of welfare, Labour was quick to take a stand to support them, the tragic fact is that no major party is standing up for the rights of those who come to our country, leaving most of the population oblivious to the tragic effects of the harsh new policies being enacted. If you are an international student, you will already be aware of the excessive hostility aimed in your direction. Along with the continuing check-ins at universities to confirm to the government that you are still legal, the new immigration bill will now enact the same practice when dealing with landlords and doctors, and on top of this, a £200 annual charge is now required to use the NHS. This in particular strikes of great unfairness. Despite already paying more than domestic students for their courses, they are still viewed somehow as getting more out of the system than they put in, and are not able to enjoy the benefits of free healthcare despite benefitting the economy. Coupled with the vans driving around London until recently with ‘Go home’ emblazoned on them, I wonder why many would choose to come at all. Our universities are globally recognised as among the best in the world, and a key aspect is attracting the best international students. Universities are now finding themselves in the
difficult position of advertising internationally, whilst facing questions about how welcome the environment they’re advertising actually is. When we consider that the Department for Innovation and Skills revealed that international students are worth £8 billion to the economy, creating a hostile environment will lead to a larger economic gap which will need to be filled. The cost of a Britain free from global influence is a very large price indeed. We can already see this happened, when the government recently gave itself a pat on the back for lowering immigration, yet few realised this is primarily due to falling numbers of students. Rather than applauding, we should be devastated. What I really want to put across is that rather than this being an issue for ‘them’ that we should not concern ourselves with, it is rather an issue for ‘us’. This will dramatically affect our country if we refuse to embrace other individuals on account of where they were born. Not only is there a problem in terms of students and the national income from them, but another wider problem exists in regards to the ageing population. We need only look to Japan with its elderly population and increasingly pressurised welfare system. Japan is known to be not particularly embracing of immigrants, and looking there, we can see the future of our own nation, which is rather bleak. If we dissuade people not to come to Britain, what will happen then in 2050 when our elderly population is almost double what it is now, at 19 million? Who is to pay for the top-heavy age structure we will have? This question need not be rhetorical if we allow immigrants to fill the gap. I hold nothing but shame in Britain’s attitudes towards those who wish to come to the country and work or study. To create a culture of hostility for honest people is to isolate the UK and watch it slowly degenerate. We need to realise that both morally and practically we cannot keep up a rhetoric which keeps us in our enclosed little world on the fringes of Europe. To avoid a business or welfare crisis, the answer is simple: cease the war on ‘them’ and use ‘us’ to include, not vilify.
Epigram
11.11.2013
13 13 15
American politics are putting parties before people
The final hour of the 30th of September will now be seared into the memory of American history as one of its darkest and daftest to date. In the face of Obama’s healthcare reforms, dubbed Obamacare, the Republican party and their extreme element, the Tea Party, point blank refused to pass the Continuing Appropriations Resolutions in its complete form, which included the Affordable Care Act.
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It all seems rather insane that there is almost an entire party ideologically opposed to the less fortunate having access to healthcare
economy stumble and falter, coming to a spluttering halt over one section of the budget, the Republicans and Tea Party came back, tails between legs, and meekly agreed to fund Obamacare. Yet it is not just the reputation of their party that this re b e l l i o u s faction h a v e
diminished. Far from it; international reception of the crisis was less than favourable in its depiction of America, a country ready to criticise the failures of other government’s ignorance and failures in public service, ground to a halt due to an internal disagreement over something already chosen by its people. Indeed, it is the height of irony that a country so swathed in neoimperialistic attitudes, aiming its missiles and planting both its boots and democratising flag in every nation it can, should ignore the very vocal choice of its own people.
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Are the rights and needs of the American public to be sacrificed once again in an expensive pot-shot at the President?
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Despite it having passed the House of Representatives three times, Congress remained outlandishly obstinate in their
millions of Americans and our supporters that we could defund Obamacare’. To many, this was already as clear as day, however perhaps voices within speak louder than their external critics. Sixteen days after the whole fiasco began, with eyes the world over having watched the largest
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Oliver Carter-Esdale
will to destroy the Democrats’ reforms. To us comparatively lucky lot across the pond, it all seems rather insane that there is almost an entire party ideologically opposed to the less fortunate having access to healthcare, and even more so that they were willing to leave tens of thousands of government workers to bear the brunt of the shutdown, on unpaid leave. I have attempted to place myself in the Republican frame of mind that allowed such barminess to ride roughshod over common sense, but alas to no avail. Perhaps it is just a British thing to look at this entirely ludicrous episode with a facetious tone, as a BBC reporter said ‘it’s all quite bonkers’. Yet behind this comical disbelief at such outlandishly moronic tactics, it remains explicit in its criticism, highlighting both the childishness of Republican tactics and their selfishness. Though I fear daubing this castigation in essentialist terms, what we saw at the beginning of this month was not much more than a petty stab by the Republican party at Obama, the figurehead of their government, attempting to tarnish what they see as the crowning centrepiece of his administrative legacy. Yet this entirely backfired, and even senior members of the Republican party, such as Senator John McCain spoke out against such tampering with democratic process. He said ‘we started this on a fool’s errand, convincing so many
It is no secret that many of the very people who elected Obama in the first place did so based upon the merit of his proposed health care reforms. Returning to domestic impressions, it is almost certain that the Republicans may be on the
receiving end of punishment in the upcoming senate elections. Perhaps worst of all is the real cost of such a fortnight. The financial services company Standard and Poor’s estimates those stultifying stubborn sixteen days cost the US economy over $24 billion, and the projected growth for the final quarter of the year was reduced by 0.6%. Thousands of workers were told to go on unpaid leave, and many contractors and small business suffered financial losses after their business loans payments were stalled. Once again, the Republican party showed how out of touch it was with the American people, forcing further hardship upon those already under tremendous financial constraints. Was such an act really worth a possible return to recession? With the budget having been agreed only until mid January one wonders whether we might see a similar situation recur. Is the hardline, ignorant section of the Republican party willing to repeat its obstinance? Will the right hand of America once again muddy its own face, or will common sense prevail? Are the rights and needs of the American public to be sacrificed once again in an expensive pot-shot at the President? One can only hope that the lesson will now have been learnt, albeit at tremendous cost. Only time will tell.
Life is hard for those on the fringe of the Middle Classes
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The middle-class young will ‘fare worse than their parents’
Wages decreasing in value for the vast majority of workers, more and more who are unskilled or semi-skilled owing to the current job market depletes their buying power and ability to live a life of relative security: the Social Mobility
and Child Poverty Commission released its findings last month, and two out of every three children classed as ‘poor’ were from families where at least one parent worked. Even if your household income is increasing in line with inflation, many are finding themselves more vulnerable to shocks and unable to cope with the unpredictable events that can hit at any time. The mother of a friend of mine was forced by circumstances to take unpaid leave from work, and the family found themselves unable to afford birthday presents for their son. As they didn’t qualify for any kind of assistance, they had to borrow from their other son’s student loan, who, because of their income on paper, doesn’t qualify for bursaries or grants from his university. While many parents give their university-going offspring an allowance, another friend pays her working mother out of her student loan so that she can pay the mortgage, in a reversal of family roles. It is a fallacy to assume that now there is a more optimistic GDP growth or that job figures are on the rise, that standards of living or general wellbeing are also increasing, this is in part because the jobs being created
are low skilled, poorly paid, parttime or temporary without the security offered by higher-wage jobs. This is bad news for future generations: the government commissioned enquiry into social mobility concludes that the middle-class young will ‘fare worse than their parents’, those who are not especially bright are also being let down by the lack of assistance, financial or academic, which leaves them drifting into low-skill jobs. The government needs to address in-work poverty and
recognise the plight of those who, while not the poorest in the country, are becoming victims of a system which is failing them. The work of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty is a good start, recommending that the minimum wage be raised in order to ‘make work pay’ as having a job is no longer enough to keep from falling into poverty. The middle class is being squeezed, and students must excel to adapt to the new market dynamics.
Flickr: communityfriend
Addressing the ‘squeezed middle’ has been high on the Labour agenda since the inauguration of Ed Miliband to the party premiership in 2010. Since then, the buzz word has entered mainstream political discourse and commentators have fallen over themselves to write about this somewhat novel angle on the working poor: the New Statesman even devotes a whole column to the subject. But what is it, exactly? And how is it relevant to the futures of current students, who are emerging into a job market which has, in the words of Ian Jack, ‘cut the link between pay and productivity and can no longer promise upward mobility’? The ‘squeezed middle’ refers to households with a below median income, above the poorest 10% and with less than a fifth of their income derived from means-tested benefits, excluding tax credits. Not Middle England exactly,
relevantly by the day of action undertaken on Halloween, in which the three main university unions, University and College Union, or UCU, Unison and Unite, balloted to strike from work, leaving many universities to suspend teaching completely. The public sector pay freeze, which prevented automatic wage increases from 2010 to 2012 and since then has limited increases to only 1%, has effectively induced an 11% decrease in real earnings for lecturers, which is affecting many of their livelihoods.
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Holly Jones
but thoroughly average. We are talking here about working households, not the unemployed or those unable to work. There is no longer a dichotomy of the workless and the prosperous, blurred lines, as a particular now-bannedfrom-campus song would say. This means that those just above the threshold for income support suffer the most: meeting criteria for government assistance is like jumping through rather rigid and unyielding hoops. They are inflexible and look only at your circumstances on paper. If you are barely making ends meet, a pay rise which pushes your earnings up a tax bracket can paradoxically leave you worse off than when you were earning less. Wage stagnation plays a significant part of this equation. Real wages, which take into account the effects of inflation, have increased over the 30 years leading up to 2011 at around 108% for the highest 10% of earners but only 27% for low income workers with earnings even falling in some areas of employment, bakers and forklift truck drivers for example, saw real declines of 1% and 5% respectively. The effects of wage stagnation is illustrated perhaps more
Epigram
11.11.2013
Letters Bristful thinking Dear Epigram,
Flickr: brizzle born and bred
I felt compelled to write this letter after seeing the Welcome tables for new students at Bristol Temple Meads; the ramblings of an old man. Recently, I went to Temple Meads to see an old friend onto the train. The station was awash with students, and in the entrance were these welcome tables staffed by smiling students and loaded with information leaflets. I couldn’t help recalling how I arrived at Temple Meads 52 years ago to begin a 3year History course at Bristol. I was scared, as a boy from a small Wiltshire village, and there was no welcome at Temple Meads. I made my way by bus to Churchill Hall; no welcome there either. Halls were awash with public school boys; not a girl in sight. They owned the place from the start, oozing confidence, at ease with their bodies and the world. I never had any meaningful contact with any of these privately educated students in all my time at Bristol. They were a breed apart, ready to rule the Empire except it had all but gone. The class system was alive and well. All so different now I’m sure. Halls were a comfortable place. A bedmaker, Elsie, called every morning and tidied our rooms. A formal supper was served in hall every evening; we had to wear gowns and the high table was served by the cadaverous Mr Cainey, butler to the Hall. I believe his service ended in the 1980s. I walked recently with a friend around Churchill Hall, which is apparently undergoing renovation. We looked through the windows at our rooms; there is all new furniture, no bookcases in sight (yes we still used books then), and beds large enough for a whole family. Ours were so narrow that if you wanted to share yours with another person, one of you was bound to end up on the floor or on top of the other too soon. There was one incident when a student’s landlady discovered him in bed with a girl and reported it to the University authorities. All so different and much better now. And recently we had a visit from an old friend we hadn’t seen for 50 years; he was a lively member of Wills Hall and of the History Department. He said he knew he was homosexual but could talk to
no one. He tried to get help from the University Health Centre but a doctor said there was no treatment and it might pass… of course it didn’t. You students are lucky that it’s all so different now. On a recent visit to Wills Hall I picked up some leaflets from a table: ‘How To Build Up Your Self Esteem’, ‘Talking With Confidence’, ‘Counselling Services’, ‘How To Survive Exams’. All so much better now. I’d have enrolled on every course and each year too. Freshers’ Week was long drawn out and most details have faded, but it included: talks in the Vic Rooms from the Vice Chancellor (‘grasp this freedom... it won’t come your way again’); a societies fair; a tour of the Wills Memorial Tower (where I met the girl who was to become my wife); trips by coach to Wills Tobacco factory, where we were given a packet of cigarettes; and a trip to Fry’s chocolate factory in Keynsham where we could eat as much as we liked. I think we had tours of Bristol then as now. I visited Clifton and the old city. We were shown a sociological slice of the city, from the richest in Stoke Bishop, to the poorest in Barton Hill where great schemes of slum clearance were taking place after the War. Later I helped out with youth clubs and drama groups. The slums were giving way to the brave new world of tower blocks, a sort of Corbusierinspired utopia. Are students today aware that the city is not just Clifton, Henleaze and Redland? I’m sure they are. Finally the History department, where I was supposed to be studying. The teaching was abysmally bad. The lecturers all appeared to be on life tenancies and
@EpigramLetters
to be more involved with internal politics and a little research than anything else. Every morning there was a mass exodus by them to the Guild for coffee and chat. We never saw an original source until the final year. There was no attempt to teach us the skills of the historian. Perhaps they hadn’t been invented then. There must have been many exceptions but one man above all others stood head and shoulders above the rest, John Cannon, later Professor of History at Newcastle. He took immense trouble over his tutorials; he wanted to help students learn; he invited all of us for supper at his house in Park Row. Now I hear students are asked, invited, begged to express their opinions of the courses and the teaching as they go along. Such lucky, lucky people. All so long ago now, and so different. Barry Williamson
letters@epigram.org.uk
second wasted at the behest of the machine’s desire to sporadically create rules to befuddle its user. ‘Place the item on the pile.’ ‘Remove the item.’ ‘Place the item on the pile.’ ‘Unexpected item in bagging area.’ ‘Remove item.’ ‘Place the item on the pile.’ ‘Assistance needed.’ Around this point you begin to question the futility of your very existence. Is it even worth having food anyway? If you don’t buy food you could just leave the shop now and be free of the fiery grasps of this automated oblivion. The most troubling thought of all is that the minutes and hours spent negotiating with these computers will never be given back to us. What makes this forced implementation of technology all the more bizarre is that they regularly fail to serve the interests of the companies that use them. Reports have suggested that theft is as much as five times higher when self-service checkouts are in operation. Students at Bristol received an email in 2012 warning them against theft by incorrectly scanning items in supermarkets. They are also often slower than their human equivalents. We have all seen the mammoth self-checkout queue sprawling through the aisles of Sainsbury’s on weekday lunchtimes. Therefore I propose that we collectively take a stand. Next time you borrow a book from the library see if you can get the librarians to do it for you. Next time you are in a shop and there is only you, an assistant, and a self-checkout, see if you can get a human being to serve you. In so doing you might just help to keep some people in a job. You might also maintain your own sanity for one day longer. Alex Longley
Flickr: cowfish
Want to have your say? Email us: letters@epigram.org.uk Follow us on Twitter: @EpigramLetters
Piercing the clamour of Clifton Down Sainsbury’s is the constant beeping of checkouts. Yet amongst this you will occasionally hear the words ‘assistance needed’ or ‘thank you for shopping at Sainsbury’s’. Not even a decade ago the idea of these robotic, albeit friendly, voices emanating from self-checkout machines would have stupefied us. However these days they have become a staple of the majority of shopping experiences. Even the University Libraries now use them. Whilst technology is undoubtedly a wonderful thing, even selfcheckouts to a certain extent, it is increasingly being used. Are the machines slowly taking over? A friend of mine recently went to the library and tried to loan a book using what would have previously been described as the ‘conventional method’ – give book to person, person scans book, continue gleefully with day. This time, however, he was informed that the person was unable to help him withdraw the book unless there was a problem with it. In spite of vociferous protestations, the library assistant was adamant that the self-service system must be used unless there was some kind of issue with the book. My friend promptly declared that there was an issue (although he did not explain that the issue was a distaste for automated checkout services) and the librarian loaned the book for him. Madness. This rather peculiar state of affairs is typical of the superfluous orders that often seem to flood down from the corridors of power. They are by no means particular to the University either. WH Smiths quite often only have one member of staff available, whose job is to man the self-checkout machines rather than actually help customers. This all seems a highly counterintuitive state of affairs. Perhaps if fewer machines were employed and they were replaced by real human beings, more people could be served with a modicum of actual customer service. Moreover, it is increasingly the case that shops are employing fewer people in favour of computerised systems. Technology is a great thing, but it is slowly taking over our lives. An unintended consequence of our newfound love affair with ‘robotic voice lady’ is the sense of overwhelming despair that comes with each
Editor: Emma Leedham
Epigram
11.11.2013
17 13
Puzzles
Brought to you by Emma Leedham
epAnagram
Fortnightly news quiz
Can you unscramble these extreme weather events?
How much do you know about the events of this fortnight?
Flickr: katgrigg
1) Which US popstar was asked to leave Abu Dhabi mosque after posing outside for an unauthorised photoshoot? 2) How many godparents have the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge announced for their son Prince George? 3) Who was crowned winner of the Great British Bake Off 2013? 4) Which computer manufacturer received numerous complaints that one of their laptop ranges ‘smell of cat urine’?
Last week’s answers: Strudel, Eclairs, Pavlova, Trifle, Brownies, Shortbread, Treacle tarts
5) Who is the latest noughties boyband star to have declared himself bankrupt? 6) The phone hacking scandal is back in the news, but when did the News of the World publish its last edition?
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7) Which singer won the prestigious Mercury Prize for best British or Irish album of the year? 8) David Beckham is setting up a Major League Soccer franchise in which US city? 9) A new report has predicted a global shortage of wine, but which country has the world’s largest wine consumption? 10) Which American musician, and frontman of the Velvet Underground, passed away aged 71? Last week’s answers Qs 1-10: Cardiff City FC, Miley Cyrus, Haribo, ‘Bark at EE’, Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard, Madonna, Brad Pitt, Saturn and Jupiter, Andrew Mitchell, Jay Z
Picture quiz: Mercury Prize nominees
Can you work out who these Mercury Prize 2013 nominees are?
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WHAT ARE
LIBERATION GROUPS?
Through UBU, students are represented in every aspect of university experience. In particular, Part-Time Officers are elected to address specific needs and raise awareness of issues affecting four student groups across campus. Referred to as Liberation Groups, these are:
Women
Disabled students
LGBT+ students
Your Women’s officer is Alice Phillips
Your Disabled Students officer is Emma Ronayne
Your LGBT+ officer is Nicola Willis
Black and Minority Ethnic students Your BME officer is Hafsa Ameen
Each group holds a forum each term and, as a self-defining student, you are welcome to attend a forum to observe, discuss or raise issues that matter to you.You can also find out more information and get in touch with the officers at any time via www.ubu.org.uk/representation/part-time-officers
BME Forum The forum will be an opportunity for students to discuss BME activities for the year including the chance to get involved in a Cultural Fair next term - an extravaganza organised to showcase all cultures. Whether you're a society leader, member or student interested in arts, culture, music or food, your input is needed! If there are issues you would like to discuss, or if you have any access needs, email bme.officer@ubu.org.uk
Date: Nov 13, 2013 Location: G59, 13 Woodland Road, BS8 1UQ Time: 6:30pm
UBU NEWS
News and opinion from the University of Bristol Students' Union www.ubu.org.uk
ACCESSIBLE SPORT
UBU LETTINGS
WHAT'S ON
Take Pride in UBU Sport
'Blazing a trail'
UBU events this fortnight
UBU LAUNCHES GREEN SCHEME
Nov 2013
Students at last year's Big Give project
U
BU is pleased to announce the official
students to reduce electricity consumption
You can join the Get Green team and volunteer to
launch of UBU Get Green; a brand new
and increase recycling
help out at events, spearhead your own campaigns,
project that will transform sustainability at
the University of Bristol by fostering a community of sustainable behaviours and actions.
and gain great CV skills in the process.
• The annual Big Give which allows students to donate unwanted items at the end of each
This project gives you the opportunity to inspire
year
your peers, the University, and the city to Get
UBU was one of 25 students’ unions to win funding from the NUS Green Fund in the summer. The funding is now being allocated to several
Green!
• Green Impact Accommodation which helps students in private accommodation to reduce
The UBU Get Green launch event will take place
their environmental impacts.
at Coexist, Hamilton House in Stokes Croft on
initiatives that will enable students to ‘get green’.
Thursday 28 November, 7-8:30pm. One of the most exciting parts of UBU Get
These include:
Green is the opportunity for Bristol students to
Come along to learn more about the project and
• A Student Switch Off campaign, currently
meaningfully engage with the project.
how you can get involved. To attend, please email
underway in halls of residence to encourage
louise.goux-wirth@bristol.ac.uk.
STRIKE ROUNDUP
F
ollowing the motion that passed at Student Council, UBU supported the University staff strike on Thursday 31 October. We went down and asked you
what you thought. Here's what you told us.
Nov 2013
UBU 'BLAZING A TRAIL' WITH LETTINGS SERVICE
O
n Thursday 7 November, UBU hosted an open discussion meeting to talk rogue landlords, rip off rent and sub-standard properties in Bristol.
Labour Housing Minister, Emma Reynolds and perspective Parliamentary Labour Candidate for Bristol West, Thangam Debbonaire chaired the meeting to share their views on what can be done to make property renting easier for students. VP Community, Ellie Williams suggested that the problem with the private rental sector was that negative student stereotypes mean students have to move into poor quality housing that landlords don't maintain. It is hoped that the UBU Lettings service will transform student renting in Bristol by setting an example for letting agencies and landlords to follow. Emma Reynolds said:
Thangam Debbonaire and Emma Reynolds MP
"UBU are blazing a trail with a new lettings service."
U
BU Lettings will open on Monday 18 November on Tyndall Avenue.
(0117 331 8266), or on our website www.ubulettings.co.uk.
In honour of the launch, we will be running a free prize draw to win
You will need to provide your student number, contact email, phone
an iPad Mini, kindly donated by Student Castle, from 18 – 30 November!
number and a few property requirements to qualify.
All you have to do is register your details in the office, over the phone
The winner will be picked at random on the Monday 2 December.
SOCIETIES GIVEN £6,000 LIFELINE
U
BU is excited to announce that 18 affiliated student groups have been awarded over £6,000 by the Student Lifeline Fund. The Lifeline Fund was
established by UBU to help student groups who have been affected by the ongoing refurbishment of the Richmond Building. The first round of the Lifeline fund, kindly donated by the Alumni Foundation, has awarded £6,457 to help student groups cover any additional costs, including venue hire and the cost of hiring equipment that wouldn’t otherwise be needed. Groups included are: Boxing, BULABDS, Christian Union, Ju-jitsu, Shaolin Temple Kung Fu society, Pantomime Society, Art Official, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Chess, Revunions, Aikido Club, Capoeira, Computer Gaming Society, Music Theatre Bristol, Tae Kwon-Do, UBES.
PRIDE IN UBU SPORT
T
ake Pride in UBU Sport is a new equality initiative launched by UBU Sport and Health aiming to embed an equality and diversity culture across sports clubs
and ensure all students feel welcome and accepted. Following the success of similar campaigns in other Students’ Unions; the scheme will improve the sporting lives of LGBT+ students at the University of Bristol. The new equality charter will tackle behaviour such as homophobia, sexism and racism, after a motion to introduce the scheme passed unanimously at the UBU
VP Activities, Imogen Palmer said: "The new spaces in the Richmond Building look incredible and I hope everyone can see that the building work is worth the wait. Talking to Activities’ officers across the country has made me realise how lucky we are to have such extensive activity space and whilst I know delays and teething problems can be frustrating, the Lifeline fund is there to make sure this transitional time is as smooth as possible. " The deadline for the next round of Lifeline Fund applications is Sunday 15 December. The form can be found at www.ubu.org.uk/activities
Sport Conference in May. As part of the project we are asking clubs to nominate an Equality Officer to attend training and workshops throughout the year.
OFFICER IN THE SPOTLIGHT:
ELLIE WILLIAMS
H
VP Sport and Health, Hannah Pollak said:
i, I'm Ellie and I'm your VP
"We want to take active steps to promote a safe and welcoming environment
Community.
for all students within our 53 UBU sports clubs. Not only is equality a major
I am responsible for issues
part of the UBU club development process, but as a Students’ Union, we want to
surrounding student housing,
celebrate and promote the positive action clubs are taking at the moment.”
accommodation and transport as well as looking at ways UBU and
The launch of Take Pride in UBU Sport follows the NUS LGBT report, ‘Out in
the University can be more ethical
Sport’, which found that sports teams and societies need to actively publicise
and environmentally friendly.
LGBT+ friendliness in order to create a welcoming environment. Adopting a zero tolerance policy to homophobia, biphobia and transphobia will also ensure LGBT+
Last month saw the launch of #LikeYourBike week which aimed to help students
students feel safe.
become safer and more confident cyclists. If you missed out on a waterproof seat cover, do pop into UBU and get one before they run out!
Nicola Willis, LGBT+ Part-time Officer said: "Take Pride in UBU Sport looks to be very well thought out, and based on really
Projects I'm currently working on include a Christmas party for student parents
solid ideas and intentions. LGBT+ students are prevented in many very real ways
and their families, an international cultural celebration festival, a Reclaim the Night
from fully feeling comfortable participating in sports. Everyone should be able to
march and a Fossil-free Bristol campaign.
access and enjoy sport, so I think that this campaign is incredibly valuable and I look forward to seeing its effects in the future."
If you would like to find out more about my work or have any issues you would like to raise then please email me ubu-community@bristol.ac.uk. You can also
Both the department for Sport, Exercise and Health and the University of Bristol
follow me on Twitter @williams_ellie to hear all the latest and how to get
LGBT+ Society actively endorse Take Pride in UBU Sport.
involved.
Nov 2013
WHAT'S ON NOVEMBER MONDAY 11 UBU Active Badminton Indoor Sports Centre WEDNESDAY 13 BME Forum, G59, 13 Woodland Road, 6:30pm - 8pm THURSDAY 14
Photos © Jamie Corbin
Karnivool, Anson Rooms, 7pm - 11pm SATURDAY 16 UBU Active Dodgeball, Kingsdown Sports Centre UBU Active Touch Rugby, The Downs UBU Active Volleyball, Indoor Sports Centre MONDAY 18 UBU Active Badminton Indoor Sports Centre Stand Up Bristol with Nish Kumar, Anson Rooms, 8pm - 11pm
SCORE The first SCORE of the year was a massive success. Congratulations to the UBU Sports Exec for all their hard work and delivering a sell out event. VP Sport and Health, Hannah Pollak said:
SATURDAY 23 UBU Active Dodgeball, Kingsdown Sports Centre UBU Active Touch Rugby, The Downs UBU Active Volleyball, Indoor Sports Centre Anson Rooms Presents: Big Band Takeover, Anson Rooms, 9pm - 2am
"So for the UBU sports exec it’s really exciting to have booked such a high profile DJ - KISS FM Ibiza DJ Charlie Hedges. No SCORE last year completely sold out - this was a huge success and a really great way to kick off the social calendar. Bunker’s sports nights continue weekly and preparations are already underway for the Christmas SCORE." The next SCORE takes place on Wednesday 11 December at the O2
SUNDAY 24
Academy.
Half Moon Run, Anson Rooms [SOLD OUT] MONDAY 25 UBU Active Badminton Indoor Sports Centre TUESDAY 26 Public Service Broadcasting, Anson Rooms, 7pm FRIDAY 29 Crystal Fighters, Anson Rooms, 7pm FOR FULL LISTINGS VISIT WWW.UBU.ORG.UK/EVENTS
Contact UBU University of Bristol Students’ Union Richmond Building 105 Queens Road Bristol BS8 1LN www.ubu.org.uk /BristolSU @UBUBristol
CULTURE
Illustration by Lauren Peters. See p. 39 for full feature
Epigram
11.11.2013
Arts
Editor: Claudia Knowles
Deputy Editor: Rose Bonsier
Online Editor: Erin Fox
arts@epigram.org.uk
deputyarts@epigram.org.uk
artsonline@epigram.org.uk
Concrete and dripping tongues -
Cat Tyack on Michael Dean
It is rare for museum stewards to encourage gallery visitors to touch the precious artwork that’s displayed before them. Michael Dean’s The Introduction of Muscle, which is running at the Arnolfini until the 17th November, is one of these anomalies. Gallery goers can enjoy a ‘hands on’ experience of this body-part themed display while gaining a little insight into Dean’s unusual way of representing the human form. Michael Dean, born in 1977 in Newcastle upon Tyne, is a multimedia artist whose artwork originates from his own extensive writing and is often accompanied by short, poetic texts. He’s interested in how the process of representation mutates the object or original thought that inspired it. This thought process starts with the many layers involved in simply reading a text: the original word is mutated into its graphical representation, read, understood, and processed. Dean bridges the gap between object and representation, and allows it to be an autonomous presence in its own right. This is a tactile experience: as Dean says, we should ‘touch with the eyes, and then allow ourselves to touch with the hand’. In his quest to portray parts of the body in a way that relates directly to the human form itself, Dean uses cast concrete and other industrial materials to create a work of art that
Michael Dean, Architecture of a Mother’s Arms (2012)
@EpigramArts
is both inviting to touch and interesting to look at. Concrete, which is usually considered to be cold, hard and impenetrable becomes, in the hands of Dean, a medium which draws its viewer in a surprisingly intimate way. It adapts to and reflects its environment as it soaks up traces, stains, and even oils from human skin. In a way appropriate to their subject matter, Dean’s sculptures change throughout their lifetime as they become polished by repeated touch or are stained by their environment. It’s not just the sculptures themselves that are important to Dean. The environment in which they’re displayed is equally vital to the exhibition as a whole. He uses the space in the Arnolfini in a way that can seem almost underwhelming, with displays such as an empty room filled with just a large green concrete tongue dripping off the windowsill. This gives the artwork a feeling of understated importance, as the viewer is not overwhelmed by the quantity of work but encouraged to actually engage with what is there. It seems that this is what Dean’s artwork is all about: his works are not things just to be idly looked at and moved on from, but form part of an interactive gallery experience. Running until 17 November at Arnolfini.
The American reality Bryson’s latest work strips down the ‘dream’ of a by-gone era Bill Bryson came into prominence as a travel writer, but his literary career branched out into the realm of so-called ‘popular science’. Recently, his oeuvre has been populated by historical non-fiction of excellent wit and insight, a theme continued by his latest work. In the wake of The Great Gatsby’s recent silver-screen release, One Summer: America, 1927’s subject matter could not be any trendier. The summer of 1927 might not be a date one would remember from a history lesson. Yet with the tabloids covering every lurid detail of Ruth Snyder’s trial, a virtually unknown pilot successfully crossing the Atlantic, and Al Capone’s days being numbered by the ingenuity of Mabel Walker Willebrandt, this was, as this study proves, a time to remember. Bryson takes us through one summer month to another, following the antics of memorable figures such as Charles Lindbergh or President Coolidge while simultaneously placing them in the wider socio-cultural context of the roaring twenties.
-Agata Frymus
The story of America’s rite-of-passage is as exciting as any story can get: abundant in extraordinary characters and calamities, full of twists and turns no fictional plot would be ashamed of. Bryson immerses his readers in a swinging era of American prosperity and encourages them to see the intimate, human aspect behind the era’s greatest politicians and inventors. Did you know that Charles Lindbergh’s mother was so distant she used to shake the young Charlie’s hand instead of embracing him? Bryson’s style is personal and vividly descriptive; probably as far from scholastic writing as writing can get. His inquisitive spirit shines through the pages of the book, effectively forcing us to look at the familiar modern phenomena with a newly rediscovered awe. One Summer is a genuine page-turner that proves that reality can often be more fascinating than the wildest fiction. One Summer (Doubleday publishing) is out now in paperback and hardback
I really hate the Daily Mail. Perhaps you have seen its latest fail; It abused the leader of the opposition, So here I’ll lay out my position. I may not be Ed’s biggest fan, But I certainly do not hate the man. And when you slander someone’s father, Wouldn’t you expect some bother?
It publishes lies and nasty stories In a vain attempt to support the Tories. Maybe you have seen the Mail Online? Where pictures of teenage girls are fine. Whose modesty they will betray, Under orders from Paul Dacré.
Please, oh please don’t buy the Mail, Ignore it when it’s put on sale. The Daily Mail is a shameful Ian Hislop’s got it right – paper, And hopefully you are also We should be the ones to put up a fight. haters. Send us your poems for the chance to be published in the next issue
WHO
Wes Anderson Director (1969-present)
WHAT
in his films: Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman,Owen Wilson. corduroy suits. In fact, More often than not, films with If you see a constant his image embodies long or odd names: Rushmore, use of pastel colours, the character and tone The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, uniformly costumed of his films: quirky The Royal Tennenbaums, Moonrise actors, retro typography, and quaint. He’s been Kingdom. His films all contain u n c o n v e n t i o n a l nominated for a tight-knit group of outsiders perpendicular camera Oscars, but who and oddballs, which mirrors angles and quick pans, needs them? his travelling-circus-esque cast it’s one of Wes’s films. who return time and time again
www.last.fm
A film director you may not have heard of. He wears an awful lot of tan
Adam Beckett
Epigram
11.11.2013
39
Another load of TRASh What happens when you put 50 actors on one stage, in eight plays from eight decades -Bertie Darrell Drama society’s biggest show of the year, TRASh, exhibited an entourage of talent on the 23rd and 24th of October this year. The evening commenced with an eruption of sleek, almost galoshing 40’s dance moves from the likes of Ollie Feather and Harry Zundel in Theo Scholefield’s fabulously directed version of The Palm Beach Story, before taking an eerie twist of events into Rose Lucas’s production of Under Milk Wood. Nat Mayne’s No Sex Please, We’re British was another whirl of success, with farcical sexual mishaps and lashings of pornography almost decanting their way into the orchestra pit. Meanwhile, Jack Chesher’s accurate portrayal of Brian Runnicles - aka, the ‘stampeding demented bird’ was fabulous, zipping on and off the stage with humorous gusto. Credit simply
cannot evade Jacob Fredrikson and Daisy Jacobs’ production of Hysteria, where the talented duo Misha Patel and Jamie Budgett made the prospect of a living wardrobe seem realistically possible.
“ lashings of pornography almost decanting into the orchestra ”
Praise must also go to Hazel Monaghan’s accurate portrayal of the overly sassy drama teacher, Lauren, in Letty Thomas’s production of Circle Mirror Transformation, and equally to Alice Kirk and Joe O’Toole who captured modern flirtation with mechanical, and almost electrical, charges of awkwardness.
DramSoc’s next show, Tusk Tusk, runs from 28-30 Nov at The Little Black Box
Arts Introducing : Lauren Peters
Lauren Peters - 3rd year Sociology student
The majority of my work is concerned with the power of body language to convey meaning, but there are a few pieces that look at surfaces, illustration... while others were simply intended for my friends and relatives’ birthdays. Left: Georgia McAlpine (pencil/ink) Above: Elderly Woman (pencil/ink) Right: Rust (mixed media)
WHERE
Right this minute. Anderson’s latest masterpiece The Grand Budapest Hotel is due for release in 2014. Check out the trailer and poster online. It’s so good it almost made me cry.
The easier question to ask would be ‘where not?’ – He’s filmed everywhere: France, Italy, America, Germany, India. The list is endless. (He was born in Texas.) Other notable locations include my shelf, containing several
WHY
www.poptower.com
WHEN
of his DVDs, and the wall in my room where a Moonrise Kingdom poster hangs.
Why not? His films are unlike anything you’ll ever see. He strives for a greater simplicity in the aesthetics of his work that juxtaposes his complex and generally mad plot lines. He has an undisputable talent for filmmaking with such a clear and unique creative voice. Joshua Ward
Epigram
11.11.2013
40
A comic bookful of smashing pumpkins Bristol University’s artist in residence, Melanie Jackson, lives in Stoke Bishop. Billy Huband-Thompson caught up with Melanie just before her recent event in Wills Hall chapel, discussing prophetic dreams, her obsession with vegetables and borrowing Hiatt Baker’s crane... B. Mark Harris of Art in America has said that you treat the gallery as a ‘stage for experimentation with art forms’. Having looked at your work I see it ranges from sculpture to digital images to short animations. What medium have you chosen for your latest work - The Nexus? M. For The Nexus I have been making a comic book based on my own thoughts and reflections, shaped by a range of sources and mediums. The launch itself [was] at the Stoke Bishop campus and also featured film screenings from Pil and Galia Kollectiv. B. For the project you presented over Halloween there was a recurring theme of vegetation. Was this for aesthetic reasons or was there something more subliminal you were trying to draw attention to? M. I’ve run two other exhibitions over the last two or three years regarding primordial plants. They begin with the idea of a plant and observe how we can unlock old scripts through them as they transform over time. The idea pertains to science but also to actual ideas, so it is a social device as well. It is in part a literal thing, but it’s also an idea, which is why it’s so exciting. B. An artist who springs to mind with regards to fruit and vegetables is the Mannerist, Archimboldo, who discussed the relationship between art and humanity. Would you say that your art assesses the relationship between art and science? M. Yes, absolutely I feel there is a false division between the natural and art. I’m interested in why we put ourselves above nature, or even beyond nature, when I don’t feel that we are. I’m fascinated by dreams we have for the future; dreams that science has for
us which may or may not be true but appear frequently in fairytale and fantasy. Some genetic biologists are now giving us examples of things we might imagine, which are always plants that will heal us or redeem us or take us into the future, or solve our problems or become gargantuan. I’m really interested in how that chimes with a European fairy tale. B. Now, the film festival you are hosting. Am I right in thinking the theme is of vegetables seeking revenge? M. Yes, we have been looking at ways that nature may avenge us or take revenge against us due to our takeover of plants. We’re also looking at moments where realism and representations we’ve drawn in nature might be revolutionary or transforming. So, it’s a mixed programme of youtube clips, popular science fiction, horror movies and artistic film, culminating in a performance with the ‘great drop’. B. What is the ‘great drop’? M. One of the things that I’m interested in about this relationship - I’m not just obsessed with vegetables! - is how it can be used as a metaphor to investigate nature and technology. I enjoy observing the relationship between art and science, and the effort they go to to distort and play with scale. Something I find curious and extraordinary are things that go beyond scale, like those who can grow giant and brilliant things. So I’ve been talking this year to people who try to grow giant vegetables. We’ve actually got some on display now in the Botanic gardens if anyone’s curious. My residency is partly funded by all the building work that’s been happening on the Stoke Bishop campus. So we’ve asked the crane company if we can borrow a crane for the evening, and we’re going to drop a giant pumpkin from a crane as an explosive event. When you receive the comic book at the event, I’m looking for students to take the free mask inside it and all put it on and chant down the pumpkin. B. Tell us about your interest in fairytales M. I’m fascinated by how present they are. That we still - even though they are folkish and
B. Do you feel that a sense of craft has been lost in agriculture and vegetable excavation? M. Not necessarily a loss of craft, but certainly the food industry has begun to orientate itself towards money and the economy. I’m not making a simple critical judgement in this case, but I am interested in how agriculture and science work together, and the radical change between the 18th and 21st centuries.
childlike - have dreams. Whether they’re of vitamins being injected or crosspollution or improving nature in some way to help secure our future. B. And I suppose you saw Halloween as a fitting night for it?
B. Despite the mythical backdrop, a lot of your art seems concerned with contemporary issues. What is the creative M. Yes. It’s spooky and strange. We see the line process between the concept and medium between good and evil crossed alongside that you eventually end up with? of life and death. I’m really interested in the origins of lighting pumpkins. It originated M. I feel the two very much come together. from an Irish story where the devil gets Ideas stem from books I have read, places trapped in a coin. I’m also intrigued by the I have been to and people I have spoken relationship between money, the economy to. Recently I have spoken to scientists and and bioscience. gardeners at Stoke Bishop alongside ‘folk lawists’. I think about how those things appear in the world; how they materialise. For instance, giant pumpkins are very much a sculptural form, one of social sculpture in fact. This is an example of how art can enter everyday life. For the comic, I decided to bring a range of ideas together to animate this as one homogenous thing.
“ We’re going to drop
a giant pumpkin from a crane... an explosive event ”
B. Is The Nexus a collaborative work?
M. I have taken quotes from other writers who I’ve been working with and mixed them with my own. This work is very much about exploring sight and to give insight to students. The only place students truly congregate together is the dining hall and so this is where I have based my workshops, including the pumpkin carving. Hopefully it will fit between the things they already have planned for Halloween. It should be a nice bit M. They seem oppositional but I don’t of fun but there is a more serious message if think they are; I think they have a history people are interested. of connection. The gargoyle is actually the ‘money devil’. It comes from a 19th century idea in France that once a society www.melaniejackson.net become obsessed with money, all tradesman compromise there craft for money. B. Returning to the relationship between science and art. It seems a lot of your work consists of diametric oppositions. For instance, the cover of The Nexus sees a heavily computerised gargoyle contrasted with the colourful foreground. Could you comment on how you use contrast in your work?
Are you a dancer? -Contemporary dance was my thing. Do you try many of the dance classes here? -Not since I did my knee in! Playing football, not dancing. This place used to be a swimming pool. It’s now the longest running dance centre in the UK! Been going since 1976. You see such a range here; we’re about inclusivity. There’s a 73 year-old who leaps across the floor. Dance shouldn’t be daunting. Would you mind if I took a photo of you? -Of me? Oh no! Wait, where’s the Egyptian belly dance class gone? Eugenia’s the instructor, let me get her for you she’s absolutely beautiful…
Alan Roberts
Artistic Director of Bristol Dance Centre (Jacobs Wells Road, student discounts for all classes)
Like to contribute to Arts? Send us a Humans of Bristol piece about anyone you find inspiring in the city you study in, with a small snap that we can get one of our fantastic artists to sketch. Fancy yourself an artist? Even if not, send us your work and you may be the next to feature in Arts Introducing... Artwork left: Alan Roberts
by Charlotte Peet (pencil/charcoal) Charlotte turns 21 today. Happy Birthday!
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11.11.2013
@epigramfilm Editor: Gareth Downs
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Film & TV
Epigram
Thor: ‘Asgard’ as it gets for Marvel fans Nerds out there will certainly appreciate the famous Marvel witticisms and brotherly banter that appear in the comics - exaggerated upon since the first Thor movie, which had few more great comedic interludes than when Thor walks into a pet shop and casually asks for a horse – I mean, in this sequel we see Thor ask for directions on the tube! You’ve also got to love the divine blend of sci-fi and fantasy nurtured by the graphics and special effects that closely mimic those of Man of Steel. You can’t help but compare the 3D projection of Jane’s cells in Thor: The Dark World with the mystical Kryptonite projections in Man of Steel. Nerds all over rejoice in the Marvel blockbuster takeover that is relentlessly producing sequels, each bigger and better than the last. Both Man of Steel and Thor: The Dark World faced a risk in closely succeeding the highly successful Avengers movie but each proved it could make its own mark in the nerdy Marvel-appreciating world of film and, of course, Hollywood. The first Thor movie slightly lowered expectations, perhaps in part due to being directed by a man best known for Shakespeare adaptations. Game of Thrones director, Alan
Taylor, takes the reins in Thor: The Dark World, introducing a gloomy, dark and twisted, but still comedic atmosphere beginning with a Lord of the Rings-meets-Star-Wars-esque verbal prologue. This introduces the fiendish antagonist, Malekith – a dark elf seeking to create a blackout across the nine realms – something made possible with possession of the Aether, a weird evil plasma substance that has been hidden between the realms. The movie sets the stage with an
Photo: Gage Skidmore
Katie Pearce
imprisoned and resentful Loki (Tom Hiddleston), punished for attempting Armageddon in The Avengers; a pissed off Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), upset because she hasn’t heard from Thor in two years; and Thor, with his mighty hammer, trying to create peace among the realms before he can take the throne. The film plays out nicely, with anarchic exchanges between parallel universes, a fantastical Asgardian realm that is directly facing the threat of the dark elves, and dreary, rainy London in which we particularly love the appearance of facetious Kat Dennings who gives a remarkable performance as sarcastic assistant to Jane Foster Despite the hilarious interludes and gripping storyline that hooks us with increased screen-time for favoured characters, Loki and Darcy, the film remains slightly muddled and confused. This impression is created by the lack of a backstory for Malekith, not to mention, it’s no secret that Loki was given additional scenes in postproduction. Consequently, it is easy to forget that Malekith is the main evil of the movie. It’s not that we don’t love the constant Loki-interjection with Hiddleston’s incredible portrayal of vulnerable evil but it’s because we do that it’s hard to ignore his presence
and instead focus on Malekith (nicely performed by Christopher Eccleston), and the Aether. The problem is that we only get scattered bits of Malekith’s story but are left in no doubt about the supposed sub-character Loki. Subsequently, Malekith fails to be the forceful, fearful villain that would tie the movie together. Nevertheless, the film somewhat saves itself in the penultimate fight scene, in which we see the main characters, including flippant Kat Dennings and eccentric Stellan Skarsgard, battle it out in the fight of all fights that takes place across multiple dimensions and realms, climaxing in Greenwich of all places, where dreary weather meets ultimate doom and portholes into parallel universes. It may not be the greatest Marvel blockbuster of all time, but it certainly has its moments and we definitely geeked out at the appearance of Captain America! Just don’t forget to wait for the nerdgasmic post-credits sequence, which definitely leaves us wanting more...
Thor: The Dark World is in cinemas now Dir. Alan Taylor, 112 mins
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 - Review Alejandro Palekar
Sequels rarely live up to first instalments. An easy source of revenue, they usually lack originality, merely rehashing old ideas. Cody Cameron uses the same recipe as last time but produces great results. In the first film, Inventor Flint created a machine which turned water into food, but a malfunction led to disastrous weather conditions. Here, it remains out of control altering the environment and introducing several new species, of living food. The author of this meteorological banquet, Flint, feels responsible, and a secret mission to destroy the machine comes as a chance to redeem himself. Hilarious and full of likeable characters, it carries an interesting ecological message. Impressively original, its absurdity is its key strength, and renders it one of the most imaginative children’s films of recent times. Silly but fun, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 is surprisingly sweet; a welcome second serving. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 is in cinemas now Dir. Cody Cameron, 95 mins
Epigram 11.11.2013
44 30
Epigram’s November TV guide: telling you Our writers teamed up to give our readers a heads up on what’s
Ripper Street faces up to HBO’s Dracula in a gory battle for Halloween ratings
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Matthew Floyd British-American new series Dracula emerged recently onto screens in time for Halloween, courtesy of NBC (US) and Sky Living (UK), to a warmish response. Starring Henry VIII himself - Jonathan Rhys Meyers - 3 years on from his lead role in the Beeb’s silly, though entertaining, The Tudors, Dracula delivers basically the same package with a different concept. Somewhat refreshing the mythology, Dracula follows Meyer’s sexy and brooding vampire – as if the market is wanting of these – as he pitches up in 1896 London under the alias Alexander Grayson, with intent to finding and destroying the secret society ‘Order of the Dragon’, with which he has cause to claim revenge. In effect, this plays out as Saturday evening BBC, with the promised sex and gore if anything more conservative than one would expect - the single ‘erotic’ scene induces laughs rather than gasps, meanwhile the inherent gore of the character’s nature is limited to the odd splash of red. As such, the squeamish need not avoid, although the dial is still turned higher than 7pm primetime: Merlin would surely faint at the sight of such blood and cleavage. The show’s strong points so far are clearly
twofold; the production and Rhys Meyers, with the former offering impressive period dress and décor - on full display during the lengthy ball scene - whilst smaller scenes are often steeped flatteringly in light from wood fires or a toobright moon, plus the initial un-deadening of Dracula is an impressive sight. Rhys Meyers, meanwhile, excels in the role, nailing the intense guess-what-I’m-thinking looks across large rooms and certainly continuing the new tradition of handsome young vamps- Christopher Lee apparently just doesn’t cut it nowadays. Nonetheless, his American accent could use some polishing- sounding inconsistent and recognisably fake (Meyers is Dublin-born), even a little startling to those used to his Tudors English drawl, though hopefully this improves as the role progresses.
‘‘
Ripper Street seems to be Hollywood’s Sherlock Holmes, transported to the small screen
’’
Unfortunately, much of the English supporting cast are underserved by the script, though Grayson’s scenes with chief love interest/possibly
reincarnated wife Mina Murray (Aussie Jessica De Gouw) elicit notable and promising chemistry, in contrast to his flat scenes with servant/confidant Renfield (Nonso Anozie). Entertaining and knowingly camp, Dracula offers a decent way to spend 43 minutes, with the series preview sufficiently piquing interest in how the 10episode run will play out. Also coinciding with Halloween was the return of the BBC’s unexpectedly popular Ripper Street, whose first season averaged 7.1million viewers per episode. Set in 1889 (7 years before Dracula), it follows a bromantic trio of post-Jack the Ripper Whitechapel cops as they pursue numerous villains engaged in various nefarious activities. Coincidentally, Dracula’s premiere amusingly referenced the Ripper, claiming he was a fiction constructed as a cover-up for a bout of vampire murders. No such supernatural business here, however, as the show aims for and mostly hits a gritty realistic tone, where the streets are grimy and the heroes are spiffy, with an equally impressive though broadly dirtier design which comfortably rivals Dracula in terms of quality. In effect, Ripper Street seems to be Hollywood’s Downey-Jr starring Sherlock Holmes, transported to the small screen. This is a testament to the production quality, snappy direction and a soundtrack which feels lifted right out of the
blockbusters. However, the show loses out in terms of acting and screenwriting, as the plot moves along quickly but unsatisfyingly and each of the trio’s love interests are summarily ignorable. Naturally, scale is another casualty compared to the big screen, with set-pieces confined to a few Bourne-style brawls, which nevertheless put Dracula’s embarrassingly wooden fight scene to shame. Having not sat through Ripper’s first season, one would hope that the three leads were solidly established earlier in the run, though there’s little evidence of such a thing here, suggesting that this second series will be more rewarding for loyal fans than those who dip in-andout- it being initially a challenge to even tell the three apart. Nevertheless, Ripper Street is a solid BBC production which offers mildly entertaining crime-drama yarns, though conspicuously lacks the personality of the Holmes/Watson dynamic that it tries so hard to reproduce.
Dracula and Ripper Street are both airing on TV now. Ripper Street, Series 1 available to buy.
Epigram
11.11.2013
what to look out for and what to avoid...
45
coming to your TV sets in November (TV license permitting)! More Fresh Meat to get stuck into
Photo: Carolyn Djanogly
Matthew Field Fresh Meat returned in a 4od premiere special last week with a brilliant new episode. The alternately hilarious and heartbreaking series returns with the familiar cast of characters having moved on into second year and facing the reality of returning to University. While the characters are no longer Freshers, the series remains new and original and the introduction of new characters only appears to be a plus. Candice makes an appearance as an innocent home schooled fresher come to join the gang at 28 Heartnal Avenue, or as it is renamed by JP: ‘Pussy Haven’. JP lays out his pulling plans for second year stating ‘first year is beer year, third year is fear year, but second year is… spear year!’ However in spite of forming ‘team hard-on, the three cockcateers’ with Howard and Kingsley, JP struggles to make any headway with the latest batch of ‘hotties’ making it his aim to ‘bang the hottest hottie’. Jack Whitehall is strong as ever and after the tragedies his character has undergone it was nice to get some comedy back into JP’s character. Howard continues to pluck the heartstrings with his innocent and shy love
interest in a new fresher while Oregon and Vod return from South America with Vod’s new love interest, a Mexican who cannot speak a word of English. Meanwhile Josie starts at Southampton and spends much of the episode trying to stay with the gang via Skype. In fact they even end up taking her virtual presence to the pub and the Fresher’s Ball but she ultimately begins to enjoy her new university and friends. It was an episode of the hook-ups and heart breaks of second year uni. The series is looking strong from the outset and I have finally begun to feel sympathy for the rather unfortunate Heather, who briefly cameos at the end of the episode but with some quite disturbing suggestions about her character’s stability. Kingsley continues to make bad choices and Joe Thomas returns with all the cringe worthy humour and awkwardness that we expect. It has been a promising start and series three of fresh meat is hitting all the right buttons with its variety of the comic and the melancholy. While full of mad characters and quirky situations it arguably accurately still documents the bizarre, almost bipolar, life of uni students with its alternations between hedonism and boredom, friendship and alienation, love and loneliness.
Hello Ladies is fantastically awkward Hello Ladies is Stephen Merchant’s first solo venture and it comes courtesy of the American TV giants, HBO. The cable executives approached Merchant following the success of his stand-up tour of the same name, and he has delivered for them. The sitcom follows Stuart Pritchard (Merchant), a British web designer living in Los Angeles, as he aims to fulfil his deluded fantasies of what life should be like in Hollywood. Together with his best friend, Wade – played to absolute perfection by relative newcomer to bigger roles, Nate Torrence –
Stuart attempts to land himself a girlfriend, often overlooking the women who are interested in him in favour of those who belong on the catwalk. The show carries the exact temperament that one who has watched Merchant at length, would expect. His acting is spot on; he brings so much of what we would attribute to his character in Extras, Darren Lamb, to Pritchard’s somewhat sleazy pursuit of beautiful women. For any fan of Merchant’s previous work, this is a treat. Although Hello Ladies might lack the pure ingenuity of The Office and Extras, it certainly offers laughs and cringes in equal, and frequent, measure.
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Gareth Downs
Rick Grimes and his misfit gang are back in series 4 of The Walking Dead Matthew Floyd Smash post-apocalyptic zombie, or rather ‘walker’, drama The Walking Dead returned for its fourth season to US channel AMC, home of Breaking Bad and Mad Men, not with a groan and a limpas is the case of the majority of its cast-, but rather with a pleasant stroll followed by a mad dash for survival. Season three concluded, to some fans’ disappointment, not with the muchanticipated confrontation between widower hero Rick and boo-hiss villain the Governor, played with aplomb by Brits Andrew Lincoln and David Morrissey respectively. Instead, with
the Governor going full maniac by slaughtering his own community, Woodbury, leading to Rick and co heart-warmingly accepting a busload of refugees into their prison-sanctuary. Four’s premiere, ‘30 Days Without an Accident’, re-joined the freshly bloated gang 6-7 months later, using the episode’s first half to calmly exhibit the many changes which occurred in our time apart, most notable among them are acquisitions of a vegetable garden and MP3 player for Rick and a boyfriend for Beth. The scene is also set for the next 15 episodes’ worth of character development, with Rick no longer the hard-ass Sheriff we’ve come to love and comicbook-fanfavourite Tyreese revealed to be even more of a softie than we already knew. Subplots abound
to also be developed, but this opener focusses chiefly on Daryl and his never-ending supply of sleeveless tops leading a troupe on a supply run to an abandoned camp/supermarket, obviously with disastrous results, which fill the second half of the running time. Three seasons of experience are clearly apparent as the cast and crew are strong as ever, whilst the design and ambition are arguably the most impressive of the show so far, further expanding the world both inside and out prison walls. Fortunately, the somewhat patience-testing but necessary first half is only the calm before the storm, as the second breaks out into balls-tothe-wall action horror, featuring some of the most gruesome walker put-downs yet, culminating in a
spectacular cliff-hanger which promises that the season has much to offer. Sadly, fans may need to accept that the wonder and originality of the first season may never be matched, an almost inevitable consequence of three seasons worth of familiarity. Nevertheless, happily this is still a show dripping with enough character drama and meaty plots to satisfy any hungry walkers tuning in.
AMC’s The Walking Dead, Series 4 is currently airing on Channel 5.
Music
Epigram
11.11.2013
@epigrammusic
Editor: Mike Hegarty
Deputy Editor: Danny Riley
Online Editor: Dan Faber
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Ye Olde Sugababes: a timeline 1998: All Saints manager Ron Tom forms Sugababies from 13year olds Mutya, Keisha and Siobhan. He allegedly likens their different appearances to the United Colours of Benetton ad campaign. yikes. 2001: Siobhan leaves the group during a Japanese promotional tour amid reports of infighting and bullying. Fresh out of Atomic Kitten, Heidi Range joins as replacement. 2002: ‘Freak Like Me’ drops. 9 year old me finds the video a bit scary for MTV Hits. Angels with Dirty Faces debuts at number 2, eventually goes triple platinum. Sugababes are now undoubtedly a thing. 2005: Mutya leaves the group. The official message posted on the band’s website states she leaves for purely personal reasons to do with the birth of her daughter, but rumours persist. 2009: Final original member Keisha is forced from the band. The Guardian runs an article entitled “Why the Sugababes can’t go on without Keisha”.
Suga, Coulda, Woulda: Mutya
Grab your Walkmans! after nearly a decade of lineup changes and tabloid slanging matches, the original Sugababes lineup are back together. Matt Redley spoke to Mutya Buena about the old days and the new. The year is 2002. As the hordes of schoolchildren rush into their local Woolworths and charge for the pick n’ mix, the plucky voice of Scott Mills pings off the budget biros over the intercom, announcing the Sugababes have made it to number 2 in the charts. The CD rules. Ugg boots are cool. Ron Weasley flies a car into a tree. Could this have been a defining year for UK culture? Perhaps not, but 2002 also witnessed the meteoric rise of the Sugababes, a trio of R&B-leaning teenagers who looked set to take the charts by storm. I’m speaking to Mutya Buena, the 2nd -babe to leave the group, who is fully braced for everything I throw at her…almost. After all, her involvement with the group has spanned 15 years of dizzying success, outright bitchiness, some abysmal European interviews, not to mention the dropouts. The original lineup of Mutya, Keisha and Siobhán now make up MKS, a rebranded product, after all breaking from the Sugababes over the 11 years since they started. With all the original line up having jumped ship, the ‘Sugababes’ were left with
3 members, none of whom had been founders, holding about the same authenticity as The Bootleg Beatles do to the real thing. I’m interviewing Mutya on the brink of the group’s second stab at the game. Only a year after charting at Number 6, the group’s future was put to the test when Donaghy left the group. The babes have been the subject of almost relentless tabloid fodder due to rifts and scraps between the members, past and present. But Mutya is adamant that she’d do it all again in a heartbeat. “The problem was that we were all so young, that none of use recognized what was going on.” The coolness with which she speaks has been fostered from being thrown into the studio at 11, and then the spotlight at 15. So when I ask her what path she might have gone down, had music not swept her up, she acknowledges “I may not have had time to fully assess my options.” It can’t have been normal. Whilst the majority of moody teenagers might have been picked up after school by a parent and sloped through the front door for a couple of hours shooting up
pixelated goons on the PS2, these girls were regularly bundled into the studio instead. Studies were sidelined, so when I drop the name of her old biology teacher whom I have a vague connection with, I can hear the smile break out on Mutya’s face. “I hope she says I was well-behaved!” she
“...The problem was that we were all so young, that none of us really realised what was going on...I may not have had time to fully assess my options”
jokes, with a hint of teacher’s pet about her. She shrugs off the over-enthusiasm with ease, though, stating she was “always a back-row student, with a kind of ‘no biggie’ attitude.” However, she makes it clear that education has not been disregarded, which is admirable for someone who has sold millions albums and can easily sit on their sunbed in the Mediterranean until the end of their days should they want. She muses that, whilst music
is her first calling, she’d be keen to pick up studying psychology again, and get back into education. The thing is, they’re all still young. Whilst their gently swaying Top Of the Pops performances may be in the dim and distant memories of most of us, Mutya is only 28 and practically has her whole life ahead of her. Some artists only get their big break after years of hard graft; Louis Armstrong, for example, got to number 1 with ‘What A Wonderful World’ at the age of 66. There’s hope for us all. In the promotion of an album or tour, I can bet that artists do enough interviews that, by the end of the day, they look in the mirror and see that their face has actually slipped a couple of centimeters from where it had started. So I thought I’d mix it up a bit and play some word association, which yielded some interesting results. “Kendrick Lamar”, “Take That” and “Kanye West” produced some very runof-the-mill answers: “Swimming Pools”, “Gary Barlow” and “Kim Kardashian” respectively. (Mutya may well have simply been google-ing at this point…) However, when posed with
2011: Mutya Keisha and Siobhan sign £1m deal with Polydor Records, but are unable to win back the name. They are, however, allowed to use the band name on on paper, cardboard and goods; namely stationery, paper gift wrap and gift wrapping ribbons. ‘David Cameron’, she snapped back, “What about him?”, like an undercover Conservative cabinet minister. Mutya eventually settled for ‘not interested’, but I’m still not convinced. ‘YOLO’, however left me speechless - her response to this was “banana”. Banana. Although the phone chemistry was dampened after this bananaskin slip, we chatted on for a while longer. Her enthusiasm at the suggestion of an S-Club, Spice Girls, Sugababes mega-tour was almost enough to make me think it was a genuine possibility. Nostalgia and an appreciation for the ‘old days’ shines through with Mutya’s reflection. “I love those days, those days were amazing!” is the verdict, but it’s clear in their recent production history that they’re keen to keep up with the pack. Emeli Sandé, Naughty Boy and musical wonder-boy MNEK have all contributed to their upand-coming record, showing that they’re willing to move with the times. It’s hard to imagine MKS experiencing the same stratospheric popularity that engulfed them in their early years, but from Mutya’s calm, focused approach to the future, they may well have plenty more miles left in the tank. I just hope they refrain from resorting to Z-list reality TV and margarine adverts, because frankly, they’re better than that.
Epigram
11.11.2013
47
A Tribute to Lou
Since Lou Reed’s death, the tributes have been unbelievable. Juliette Motamed reminds us why they’re so justified
Interview: Big Deal
compliment Alice and Kacey had spent years writing songs together in order to hear: “That made me so angry! I really had to restrain myself from going on an absolute rant…I didn’t want to start a silly Twitter war. But it’s just so typical of some people’s attitudes to girls in bands…the idea that if a girl is in any way attractive, obviously her musical talent can’t be her main contribution.” It’s something female musicians have to put up with a lot, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating. I felt like a bit of a stupid male journalist myself at points. When I asked whether, from a purely musical and performance standpoint, it felt natural to sing these songs with someone of the opposite gender to bounce off, Alice pointed out “We actually share all of the lyrics… If you wanted to really sit down and analyse it, you can probably figure out which lyrics are mine and which are Kacey’s, but you don’t really look at a band full of boys like, I don’t know, the Rolling Stones when they’re singing love songs and think, ‘oh, I’m sure Mick Jagger is feeling this, but what about all the other guys?’” And perhaps now the whole question is even more irrelevant than it was to begin with – whereas their first album had all the buzz of first romance and awkward sexuality, this album sees them shifting onwards: “we wanted to become a little bit less self-involved,
and write about other things.” Alice was still doing her A Levels when the band started, and I ask if her perspective on relationships has changed since then. “No, I think I’m still quite naive, but I do think the way I wanted to write about things changed…things have happened, we’ve lost people, but a large part of it was just touring the songs you wrote in your bedroom for two years and thinking ‘oh shit, am I just baring everything, am I embarrassing myself ?’” Big Deal are certainly heart-onsleeve, but temper their songs with a sense of uncertainty and hopelessness often absent from love songs that prevents things from ever taking on the sickly sweetness they clearly want to avoid. People should continue to pay attention to them on the strength and poignancy of these songs, rather than for any other reasons.
Jagwar Ma @ Thekla
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Funnily enough, Big Deal’s 2011 debut, Lights Out, reminds me an awful lot of my first term at Bristol. Whilst it’s a dead good album, this seems to suggest I may not have had the debaucherous freshers’ term we’re all supposed to have – its hazy, intimate atmosphere is certainly not the most logical accompaniment to those preposterous first months of uni. It didn’t even have any drums on it, just songwriting duo Alice Costelloe and Kacey Underwood’s understated voices as they respectively strummed a fuzzed-out Telecaster and a nylon stringed acoustic. Whilst their latest album may not be blaring out of iPod docks at Stoke Bishop predrinks any Monday evening soon, June Gloom finds their songs given new impetus and intensity by a full band, and showcases new sonic confidence and thematic maturity. I spoke to Alice on the phone as she restrung her guitar in Kacey’s east London flat, ahead of a European tour. Since they first started playing together, the young duo have attracted almost as much journalistic attention for their music as for commentators irksomely wondering but are they a couple? Are they sleeping together?? They aren’t, but the idea persists - “I think people find it quite difficult to see a boy and a girl onstage and separate that from the idea of a couple” says Alice. People may say there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but more than a few music writers have tried to flatter Big Deal for reasons nothing to do with their music. Most recently on Steve Lamacq’s roundtable show, ex-NME editor Danny Kelly was full of blunderous, backhanded compliments, praising Kacey “for running everything in that band” and telling listeners “when you see Alice and the way she looks, you’ll be further attracted to it.” Probably to the surprise of the NME dinosaur, this wasn’t the kind of
by Mike Hegarty
On that fateful Sunday evening, as I was frantically mashing out an overdue essay, whispers of the news began to build on the internet, until the whispers were confirmed and the rumours became fact, allowing social media to reach it’s sombre mournful climax. Lou Reed was dead. Despite his seventy-one years, which were peppered with heavy drug and alcohol abuse, I was shocked. For me, Lou Reed has always been the archetypal symbol of constant survival and relentless drive, and to have this fearlessly transgressive influence suddenly extinguished stunned me more than I ever would have expected. Lou Reed was involved in numerous musical ventures in his youth, before meeting John Cale and forming one of the most iconic bands of the 1960s, The Velvet Underground. Reed’s contribution to the band was outstanding, from the acerbic grit of his lyrics, to the unflinching view of the squalid events that he sang about. As well as songs like ‘Heroin’ and ‘I’m Waiting For The Man’ which dealt explicitly with the pleasure and pain of heavy opiate use, Reed also pushed the boundaries of censorship by singing about sadomasochism, (“Venus is Furs”) violence, homosexuality and transvestism (“Sister Ray”). Reed also drew upon the horrific events he experienced in his adolescence to write some of his solo work, in particular the trauma of undergoing electroconvulsive therapy to “cure” his bisexuality, which inspired the track ‘Kill Your Sons’ in his album Sally Can’t Dance. What also struck me was the overpowering sense of unity that arose after the announcement of Lou Reed’s death. Despite Reed’s avant-garde tendencies and his continual pushing of conventional musical boundaries, the unanimity of praise for someone with such progressive inclinations was surprising. Throughout Reed’s career his continual experimentation has led him to balance precariously on the tightrope between critical acclamation and denunciation. Reflecting on his lesser-known, experimental albums, we can see the duality of Reed’s artistic identity. On his double album set of Metal Machine Music, Reed Jagwar Ma managed to epitomise the complete Madchester era in a set solely consisting of material from their 2013 debut Howlin’. Lead singer and guitarist Gabriel Winterfield, sporting a Reni hat for the first few tracks, exerted infectious energy throughout, creating a buzzing atmosphere in the crowd. It was impossible not to watch him perform, and even mimic his simply cool dance movements. With his reverb-soaked vocal, the overall sound comes across as electronic-dance which embraces rock; effectively the other way round to acts like Happy Mondays and New Order. Unfortunately the chorus of the anthemic ‘Man I Need’, usually making it a stand out track on the record, turned out to be a bit of an anti-climax as the vocal was drowned out by Jono Ma (the band’s namesake) getting a bit too carried away with the synth. The more electronic-based tracks proved to be the more successful in the transition from record to stage, with impressive improvised sections between tracks
created what one reviewer described as “the only recording that attacks the listener”, drenching the albums with droning guitar feedback at different speeds. However despite it’s critical failings, it sold 100,000 copies in the US. These conflicting views were also echoed in “Lulu”, a collaboration with Metallica that received mostly negative reviews, despite simultaneously being referred to as a “surprising triumph.” Although Reed’s career hasn’t been an immaculate run of critical adulation, this is exactly why we value Reed, not only for his music, but for himself. We can relate to the mess, the excess, and the eccentricities of his character, something that in this age of pre-packaged, plastic, X Factor pop, is rare. Lou Reed lived a turbulent, vivid, extraordinary life, which can’t even begin to be summarized for this article. He left behind a lasting legacy of music, and if we are to take anything from this, perhaps we should all learn to be a little more risky, and little less fearful, and much more radical. To those still suffering from the blow of losing Lou Reed, let his often disarmingly sweet, simple words console you: “These are really terribly rough times, and we really should try to be as nice to each other as possible.” such as ‘Come Save Me’ and ‘Four’. Acid house influences in crowd-pleaser ‘The Throw’ and ‘Exercise’ were particular highlights, creating a genuine club atmosphere. The middle section of the performance felt nothing short of incredible; the whole crowd was completely lost in it. It was clear that the majority of the older generation found in the crowd had lived through the rise to the Madchester music scene, an Unknown Pleasures t-shirt repeatedly catching my eye. The encore was relatively weak compared to the majority of the set but it still left you with the feeling of eager anticipation for the release of new material. Following the gig bassist Jack Freeman ensured us that they would return to Bristol in April. One can only hope that they will be back in the studio afterwards, it would be a huge waste if they don’t grow and gain greater recognition. Louise Kelly
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Reviews
Matangi MIA N.E.E.T. Recordings 4th November
flickr: danie
MIA has never been, and most likely will never be, your well-polished, billboard-ready super star. A middle finger to America during a halftime Super Bowl show, an invitation to Julian Assange to deliver a skype message as a warm-up to her gig, and incessant growling at her label all indicate she gives less of a fuck than most. Matangi, MIA’s 4th studio album, accompanies the focused chaos that she regularly serves up both in and out of the studio. Over the course of an hour, you’re yanked along her journey, and, god, what a journey. ‘Bring the Noize’ and ‘Double Bubble Trouble’ explode into bass-heavy anthems, which inevitably eclipse the memory of the silky opening sitar strings of ‘Karmageddon’. Everything comes together, however, for MIA’s lead single ‘Bad Girls’, that beautifully blends raw girl-power and jeering middle-eastern beats. There are moments when MIA rains on her own parade, however. ‘Come Walk With Me’ could make anyone forget about the absolute lyrical lavation that MIA is. With lyrics like ‘There’s nothing that can touch me now/You can’t even break me down’, moaned over an initially gimmicky beat, it’s a cartoonish nightmare. Nevertheless, Matangi extends MIA’s reign as music’s bohemian princess. Matt Redley
Reflektor Arcade Fire Merge 1st November When writing about Arcade Fire’s new double album a couple of things come to mind. Firstly, the band have a well deserved, fanatic following hooked since Funeral. Secondly, I’m going to have to break it that they would have struggled to make an album more dull than Reflektor. The first half of Reflektor sticks firmly to the path Arcade Fire have been following for years, with both eyes fixed on the indie-club scene. Sadly, the upped post-punk and new-wave influences mostly serve to accommodate this rather than give the record any real flair. It’s far from an outright mess, with excellent production courtesy of LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy and some pretty entertaining intro/outro takes, but the jingle-jangle Bowie-esque pop on display is too bogged down in Arcade Fire’s high ideas to be truly entertaining. Reflektor mellows out for disc two, going for a more hypnotic, reflektive (heh.) atmosphere notable for its ability to evade memory even after a week of listening. The band display some novel ideas, yet stretch them too thin to fill an average track time of six minutes. With a timelessly popular debut like Funeral, this could be said to be the third time the band have had to release that difficult second album and the third time they’ve fallen short - only shorter than usual with Reflektor. Jonny Hunter
Free Your Mind Cut Copy Modular 4th November Cut Copy’s fourth album is a thoroughly engaging and diverse transportation to a psychedelic world through a haze of unique tracks, melodic vocals and imaginative synth and bass riffs. The songs are hypnotic and successfully reference many different dance genres. This begins with the title track ‘Free Your Mind’ which superbly develops its musical ideas and thus is much more than just a catchy dance track. The fourth and fifth tracks ‘Let Me Show You’ and ‘Into The Desert’ are where Cut Copy show creative versatility providing a more synth-pop 80s feel. The segues between ‘Into The Desert’ and ‘Footsteps’ and tracks 7 and 10 are expertly done with ‘Meet Me In The House Of Love’ providing an excellent finale to the latter medley; again demonstrating diversity but also lyrical creativity with Dan Whitford singing ‘once I was lost but in this house I can be found’. Dan Whitford’s voice is relaxing and something that could have been emphasised more in the mixing of the tracks because of its distant quality that leaves the listener wanting more. Cut Copy’s ability to develop musical ideas stated at the beginning of songs whilst maintaining their original character is particularly impressive. This is an excellent album that should be highly praised. Guy Barlow
flickr: nrkp3
flickr: neatephotos
If you’re a fan of any of the weird, freaky or obtuse elements permeating the musical landscape these days you owe Rocket Recordings, and you owe them big. In June this year Goat, the Swedish band in their roster, played the (large) West Holts stage at Glastonbury, illustrating the accessibility and excitement of music born out of experimental impulses, collective weirdness or psychic diversity. This wasn’t allowed to happen over night or in a vacuum, but with the courageous otherness and excellent taste of the Bristol/London label, which with this compilation of original compositions celebrate 15 years of their ‘unlikely survival’ as a record label. The material here ranges from empty quirkiness to explorative profundity,
but the result is always unique. Teeth of the Sea get things off to a bleak start, their offering ‘Run Red’, coming on like what Julian Cope describes as ‘blackest ambient metal’; a cinematic tone poem of electronic drones, guitar squall and disembodied screams that can only be likened to something off of Sunn O)))’s Black One, or an alternative soundtrack to 80’s nuclear apocalypse flick Threads. The brittle, afrobeat-indebted post-punk of Blood Sport follows this contrastingly, their offering mixing nasal Lydon-esque vocals with complex rhythms, suggesting a modern take on This Heat. Elsewhere Mancunian free-formers Gnod carry on their progression away from the blisteringly heavy repeater-rock of their album Chaudelande towards a sort of industrial kosmiche, with spacey VCS3-sounding synths swooping over primitive programmed beats. The sexy Swedes assert a strong presence here also, with the batshit motorik race of newcomers Uran segueing into countrymen Hills, whose tambura-heavy drone hymn looks to their national heritage of
Tres Cabrones Melvins Ipecac Recordings 5th November After the underwhelming covers album Everybody Loves Sausages, Melvins’ latest effort Tres Cabrones sees long-time Melvineers Buzz Armstrong and Dale Crover teaming up with original drummer Mike Dillard. But, those hoping for a return to the blazing originality that marked the Melvins of the early 90’s may have to somewhat temper their expectations. The scattering of quirky covers of public domain songs (think ‘99 Bottles of Beer’) spread throughout the album end up sitting uncomfortably with the record’s heavy tone, and even the original songs lack some of the vocal ferocity that distinguishes Buzz and co.’s best work. No one listens to Melvins for the lyrics however; we’re here for the sludgy guitar and pounding drums dammit, and it’s here that Tres Cabrones really delivers in spades. ‘American Cow’ opens with a riff that could turn the head of even the most jaded Electric Wizard fan and the 9 minute epic ‘Dogs and Cattle Prods’ combines folksy acoustic melodies with visceral distortion, making for one of the most engrossing Melvins tracks in years. Tres Cabrones won’t win any new converts to the band’s sludgy aesthetic, and there’s nothing here to rival 1993’s Houdini, but for fans it’s a welcome addition to the Melvins’ pantheon. Alex Whitehead
flickr: metalchris
Crystallized Various Rocket Recordings 25th November
poncho-sporting forest folk like Parson Sound, International Harvester and Trad, Gras och Stenar. The studio jam by Goat has less of the wild vitality of the steaming cuts from their 2012 album World Music but introduces a sense of insistent subtle repetition similar to that of Can post-Tago Mago. Rocket Recordings don’t want to make friends and they’re not going to hold your hand once you’ve been thrown into the psychedelic maelstrom, and this has its pros and cons. Some of the bands here mistakenly conflate weirdness with inventiveness; see the frankly annoying offering from Vision Fortune, with its budgetsynth quirkiness and steel pan samples, and later on the ineffectual noodling of Cherrystones. However some of the more extreme cuts here are of most interesting. ‘Please Don’t Share’ by noise-rockers Shit & Shine is music to soundtrack a panic attack or psychotic episode, with unrelentingly repetitious digitally-distorted samples, sub-bass rumbling like the sound of burnt-out amplifiers and free-jazz sax skronk. At fifteen minutes long it’s the most imposing and uncompromising piece here; at seven minutes you start to feel sick, at nine your bowels loosen and at ten the barrage dissipates into spooky samples and glitchy electronic percussion. You shit, it shines. This compilation will irk, irritate and excite. There’s not much in the way of solid gold here but it is an excellent signpost to where the bands on Rocket Recordings are going. Long may they be allowed to do so in evermore convoluted, lateral and contrary ways. Danny Riley
What Makes Us Glow Psapp The state51 Conspiracy 11th November UK duo Psapp are best known for providing medical drama Grey’s Anatomy with its theme music, but don’t hold that against them; What Makes Us Glow has enough quirky charm and musical creativity to make it well worth your time.While 2008’s The Camel’s Back contained its share of jazz infused up-tempo moments, their latest album slows the pace down to Morcheeba-esque levels of inertia. Indeed, tonally, the record has more in common with folk than most electronic music; plinky guitars and soft minimalist percussion contribute to a serene and peaceful sound well suited to the study, if not the dancefloor.For a band consisting of just two people, a surprisingly diverse range of instrumentation is on display here. Horns, synthesisers and noodly acoustic guitar are supported by a marimba made of bones (christened ‘the bone-a-phone’ by the band) and a host of other home-made instruments, creating an interesting assortment of sounds, giving each track a unique flavour and lending the album as a whole a vibrancy that belies its subdued nature. Many listeners won’t have time for the band’s offbeat sensibilities and leisurely pace, but for those interested in a charming and relaxing record with moments of real ingenuity, you could certainly do worse than Psapp. Alex Whitehead
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11.11.2013
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Strictly come dancing: Shangaan Electro It’s not often that you find mobile phone repair shop workers launching dance crazes that grab the attention of the likes of Caribou and Damon Albarn, and especially not in South Africa; a country whose most famous contributions to the world are Nelson Mandela, apartheid and biltong, amongst other delicacies. Well now we can add Shangaan Electro founder and veritable Simon Cowell of Soweto, Noizinja, to the mix of venerable South African achievements. Starting out as impromptu gatherings and dances in the townships of Soweto in the early 2000’s, since 2004 Noizinja has turned the dance phenomenon, dubbed Shangaan Electro, into a global business and music empire. The Shangaan music is notable for its use of incredibly fast bpms, forcing the listener to concentrate not only on the blur of instrumentation created but to also try and formulate a way of dancing to it, because it is primarily dance(ing) music after all. The rotund, affable, Fat Controller lookalike 44 year old Noizinja lists himself as a producer, artist, video director and promoter all in one and from his business mind he has put together a music and dance show that has been touring everywhere from Finland to Australia. He has even found the time to put out a 2012 Shangaan compilation on Damon Albarn’s world music label Honest Jon’s Records. With Shangaan in full swing , Nozinja and his crew of dancers took to Bristol’s Exchange on
a Wednesday night to treat the Stoke’s Croft crowd to their break-neck, head-thumping 180bpm-plus tracks. Before they took to the stage, however, we were treated to support from techno producing newcomer Heatsick. Looking like a cross between a bearded Alexis Taylor from Hot Chip and a man with a serious penchant for smoked cheese despite harbouring a lactose intolerance, he carved out a solitary presence on stage with only his Casio MT520 for company. Fresh off the release of his first vinyl for the Sounds of the Universe label, ‘Snakes And Ladders’, which features a highly recommended neon-glazed video of a two person sexy dance battle, he blasted out a relentless series of layered samples and early2000s sounding drum loops all triggered live from his keyboard. The novelty of his live-triggering was definitely worth watching as he showcased his production skills in a live setting, through creating a series of intricately layered four-bar loops, that built to a deafening crescendo before they cut back out to either some Hacienda-era synth stabs or a squelchy acid bass line. With his support slot coming in around a lengthy 90 minutes though, his repetition started to border on the ketamine trance zone at around the 50 minute mark, as it soon became apparent that he was effectively layering and manipulating the same song at the same bpm. Still, he was worth a watch as it was refreshing to see a live electronic show in all senses of the word, rather than
a gauche man standing over his pre-loaded tracks, headnodding and letting them play out to studio-standard levels. After a short break which gave everyone the chance to properly limber up for the Shangaan moves, Noizinja and co. took to the stage in a variety of feathered accoutrements and Venetian masks. Taking his throne behind the decks, Noizinja was more a master of ceremonies in the traditional sense of the phrase rather than an artist. He pressed play from his CD of Shangaan tracks and thus began a timeless blur of body-shaking and afro-beat inspired music. The most enjoyment I got out of the night was observing everyone around me, myself included, trying desperately to formulate some sort of dancing that could possibly follow the speed and ferocity of the percussive, xylophone-heavy music. One thing is for certain, Shangaan is definitely a fun live experience; the speed of the tracks allows less time to think about the music or what you’re doing but instead you can effortlessly meld into the repetition and watch as the jaw-droppingly flexible dancers booty-shaked until it looked like there were no more bones left in their bodies. Noizinja himself was a polite and professional host, showing excellent customer service as he continually thanked the crowd for their participation, but the real plaudits have to go out to the dancers who put every person in the room to shame with their insane levels
flickr: nudevinyl
Ammar Kalia visited The Exchange, Bristol’s best underground venue, to get down to transcendant tempos and ruminate on smoked cheese
of energy and choreographed timing. After a good hour or so of rubber-necking and feetshuffling, the Shangaan crew exited the sweaty den that was The Exchange and we revellers were left to begin the cold, slow
trudge home. Shangaan Electro definitely isn’t for everyone when it comes to private listening, it lacks the structured subtlety of other high-bpm genres such as drum and bass and jungle. However as a live experience it comes highly
recommended, if not only as a great workout (I hope to see Shangaan workshops overtake Zumba in the very near future) but also as a musically unique phenomenon and definitely not one that you would hear every day.
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Epigram
11.11.2013
Science & Tech
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Familiar forms evolving a world apart Steve Zhang Science Writer
resembled a tapir on steroids but again bears no close family relationships with its modern superficial counterpart. All in all we find some form of zoological flea market littered with counterfeits- but why? To untie the knot we must remember that the Earth’s continents are in a constant state of movement, albeit at the same rate as fingernails grow. Once landmasses break apart so do the endemic animals and
plants which then go on their separate evolutionary paths. This is precisely what happened as the ancient super-continent of Pangaea continued to breakup during the dying years of the dinosaurs. Laurasiatherians, the ancestors of a critical majority of modern placental mammals, became scattered across Europe, Asia and North America. South America was cut off from the rest of the world with a handful of basal marsupials and the
Flickr: iamrandygirl
There is much grandeur in Charles Darwin’s view of life through evolution by natural selection. This process generated the countless exquisite and sophisticated shapes and forms that scientists have come to appreciate in the vastness of life’s history. Since the Enlightenment, pioneers of modern taxonomy such as Carl Linnaeus, Georges Cuvier and Richard Owen have devised a system to classify life’s grand diversity, but looks can be deceiving! One of the fossils which inspired Darwin was first described during a short stint in South America during his renowned tour with HMS Beagles. The fossil belongs to a large, long-necked mammal which Darwin perceived to resemble a primitive camel. He named the animal Macrauchenia, meaning ‘long llama’. Today we know that Darwin did his shrewd bit of science in describing the
animal’s camel like build, but we also know that Macrauchenia was in fact as distantly related to a camel as a human is to a rabbit. Over the next 150 years these enigmatic fossil mammals of South America just kept cropping up: Toxodon, much like a hippopotamus but in fact a close cousin of Macrauchenia; Thylacosmilus, a predatory marsupial who looked much-like a sabretoothed cat; Pyrotherium
a strange group of mammals known as the Meridiungulates. As Laurasiatherians gradually evolved into modern horses, cats, canines, cattle, deer, camels, swines and hedgehogs, selection favoured similar traits in the unique animals of South America and eventually gave rise to animals with very similar anatomy. While physiologically and ecologically similar they were phylogenetically distinct. South American marsupials evolved into vicious hunters like Thylacosmilus and a bone-shattering marsupial hyena, Borhyaena, whereas meridiungulates mimicked a huge variety of laurasiatherian ectomorphs- a subset of a species which is adapted to an ecological niche. Subsequently as the African continent collided with the Arabian peninsula faunal exchanges between the whole of the Old World and North America became possible. At this point the Laurasiatherians have been tried and tested and have come out on top in the desperate scramble to
become one of the dominant modern mammalian lineages. It is therefore no surprise that when North and South America finally joined up some 2.5 million years ago the true cats, true horses and so on quickly outcompeted their South American mimics who had evolved in isolation and thus likely under weaker selection pressure. This phenomenon still happens at an alarming rate to this day when domesticated animals are introduced to novel islands and quickly overrun the endemic fauna. Convergent evolution is a pattern repeated multiple times in Earth’s history with some spectacular modern examples such whales and dolphins, the mammalian fishmimic; the falcons, thought of as birds of prey, are actually closer relatives of parrots than to eagles, hawks and owls. As ‘intelligent life forms’ the responsibility is on our shoulders to give the planet a stable future- who knows what other strange mimics might crop up?
‘Turning point’ in Alzheimer’s research Ben Clarke Science Writer
“
scientific findings get a large amount of
hype from journalists while the scientists remain cautious about a discovery
”
protein synthesis. The study showed that the kinase acted independently to the infectious prion and therefore could be viable as a target for other neurodegenerative diseases. However, kinases are notoriously difficult targets for drugs as they usually control several different processes inside a cell and therefore a drug acting as a kinase would have a large number of side effects. PERK deficiency in humans causes problems with the liver, kidneys, skeleton and most notably the pancreas. Mice in the study had elevated blood glucose and lost 20% of their body weight which resulted in the termination of the experiment. Experiments involving animals in the UK must comply with the license for that particular project and usually the animals aren’t allowed to lose more than 15-25% of their body weight depending on the study. Weight loss and diabetes are very significant side effects in the treatment of Alzheimer’s as the majority of suffers are aged over 60. A huge problem for drug development is the translatability of results in rodents to clinical trials in humans. Many drugs will have an effect in cell cultures (in vitro) and in animals (in vivo) but will fail to have any effect at all in humans or have severe side effects that make the drug
unsuitable. This is even more difficult in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s as it is a disease isolated solely to humans whose cause is unknown and basic pathology not fully understood. Mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease are therefore only useful when put into the right context; they are limited in their function as the human brain is vastly more complex than that of a mouse. Further problems arise in the time course of the disease. The cognitive problems that we associate with Alzheimer’s start well into the progression of the disease and take many years to manifest. Designing
pharmacological treatments is therefore more difficult as sufferers already have significant and possibly irreparable damage, before they they are diagnosed. The noticeable symptoms are very subtle to begin with and are easily mistaken for other dementias. Testing for Alzheimer’s has come a long way in recent years, yet the only definitive method for diagnosis is by post-mortem. These difficulties make finding a cure for Alzheimer’s a daunting task. It will be decades before a drug is made available that will have the same neuroprotective effects
as the compound used in the MRC study. However, progress is being made: a recent study focusing on the genetics behind Alzheimer’s has doubled the number of genes known to be risk factors for the disease. This is crucial in the long term for developing preventative measures for combating Alzheimer’s and increasing knowledge about its causes. Current research is encouraging due to the new targets that are being discovered and these studies give new hope that one day new treatments will be developed that will modify or even completely stop the progression of the disease.
Flickr: Bev Sykes
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia characterised by a degenerative loss of cognitive function. Recently the media have reported significant breakthroughs in the fight against Alzheimer’s. One in particular got a large amount of attention; Prof. Roger Morris of Kings College London was quoted saying it was a ‘turning point’ in research of the disease. All too often scientific findings get a large amount of hype from journalists while the scientists remain cautious about a discovery. However, in this instance, many academics agreed that this was indeed a landmark in Alzheimer’s research. Using a compound from the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, scientists in the MRC unit at the University of Leicester were able to stop the death of nerve cells in a mouse model of prion disease. They reported to have completely stopped the process of neurodegeneration. Prion diseases, like CJD and mad cow disease, are caused by an infectious protein that replicates itself and aggregates together to cause cell death. As prion diseases involve misfolding of proteins, it is hypothesised that stopping
the proteins from being made would have benefits for other neurological diseases such as ALS, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s since these diseases are also associated with misfolding proteins. However, this is only a possibility as the pathologies of these conditions are not fully understood and are very complex in nature. More research is needed; perhaps by testing the compound in other mouse models, such as those expressing tau or amyloid - thought to be important biomarkers of Alzheimer’s. there would be a clearer picture of whether it could be useful in other neurodegenerative diseases. The compound used in this experiment targets a specific protein kinase (PERK) which is involved in the control of
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Moseley talks health at UoB Pork’qoui? Stephanie Harris Sol Milne Science Writers
and not be swayed by financial incentives, such as those from pharmaceutical companies; Marshall is an important example of this. Moseley’s next controversial documentary was The Truth about Exercise. Intending to dispel the rumours surrounding much of the fitness industry, Moseley went met with sports scientists around the world. The overwhelming consensus was that high intensity training is the way to go: 80 years of research and over 200 trials have come to the conclusion that three minutes of real high intensity exercise per week will do more good to your body in terms of maintaining a healthy metabolism, fat loss and insulin
response than jogging ten miles every day. Moseley spoke about the enormous benefit of fasting, which causes the mitochondria - the powerhouses of the cell responsible for producing energy from food - to become stronger as weak ones are killed off. The body becomes more efficient in its processing of food and returns metabolism to a healthy rate. It was found that people forced to ration and fast during the world wars lived significantly longer than people today. After his talk, Science reporter Stephanie Harris caught up with Dr Moseley to ask a few questions about his career.
Global Warming More fuel is used in meat production every year than all forms of transport comibined, contributing significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. Not to mention the average cow daily produces an amount of methane comparable to the pollution from a car! Producing meat is incredibly inefficient; eight times as much fossil fuel energy is used producing animal protein compared to that amount of plant protein. If the entire planet became vegetarian over night and ate standard animal feed, we could solve the global food crisis 14 times over!
know I’m going to be interested in until I get myself immersed in them. I’ve read that you think psychology is an important tool in science communication. How do you apply that to your work? I think what you do is you sit down and try and think what the audience is going to be thinking. You can put in all sorts of stuff or too much information and it goes completely over their heads so the reality is that you kind of have to… [pensive pause]. The reality is when I went to psychology lectures
when I was doing medicine I remember they said: people only remember the first thing you say, the last thing you say and anything about sex. So the audiences projection of content is relatively limited. The other thing they said is try to keep it to 40 minutes because any longer and you’re likely to lose people- and then they spoke for an hour which I thought was amusing. The other thing they said is that in a consultation people don’t remember what you said but how you made them feel. So a big part about science communication is: do they like you?
interesting alternative explanation for this abnormal replication, and therefore have the potential to serve as a model cell line for cancer cells in research testing, allowing us to gain a deeper understanding behind the mechanisms of uncontrolled cell replication and provide possible targets to stop its occurrence. As of now, more research is required as it is not possible to directly extrapolate these results to humans. The results do, however, succeed in challenging the almost universally held belief that all organisms age, as well as uncovering another potential exploratory pathway for cancer cell proliferation and tumour growth.
Welfare Probably one of the most quoted reasons by vegetarians; is that nothing you consume has suffered, felt pain or had any level of conscious thought or emotions as we understand them. You also sidestep factory farming. Conscience free consumption!
Finance
Last but not least, it’s cheap; a major plus for any student. So go out and try it! Swap that mince for some chickpeas. Flickr:poetographie
how findings in a simple organism such as this are of any relevance to us as complex humans. The answer lies in the fact that cancer cells exhibit a similar property known as ‘replicative immortality’possessing the ability to divide indefinitely. The majority of research appears to cite increases in activity of a specific enzyme, called telomerase, as the principal cause for this. This enzyme combats the genetic instability that would otherwise cause a cell to stop dividing and eventually die; the uninhibited cancer cells can therefore continuously proliferate and go on to form tumours. However, these recent findings may provide an
Our oceans are being overfished, much of it illegally - as high as 50% in some areas. The EU estimates a staggering 60% of all this sea life caught is then thrown back dead as unwanted by-catch. Bluefin Tuna, classified as critically endangered (alongside the White Rhino) is still being served up in restaurants. With a shocking 90% of large fish having disappeared from our oceans in the last 60 years, ‘sustainable fishing’ may simply be a concept now, with no practical application. The answer, unfortunately, is not as simple as eating less fish, but cutting down on all meat; cattle and poultry are some of the biggest consumers of fish in the form of fishmeal in their diet.
Flickr: Steven&Clairefarnsworth
Aging affects all organisms on our planet and there is no means of escaping from it. This has been the widely accepted paradigm among those in the scientific community, until now. Researchers at the University of Bristol and the Max-Planck Institute in Germany have discovered a common type of yeast which has evolved the ability to stay forever young. The yeast in question, S. plombe, has been found to ‘rejuvenate’ itself upon reproduction in favourable conditions. Rather than divide asymmetrically into one part with old, ‘defective’ material and the other with fully functional
material, the microbe has been shown to divide symmetrically to produce two halves with only half of the ‘old’ genetic material from before. As the lead investigator of the project, Iva Tolic, explains, ‘ both cells get only half of the damaged material (so) they are both younger than before’. However, what happens when this ever youthful microbe is subjected to a battery of harsh conditions? Heat, UV radiation and damaging chemicals slowed the rate of division of the microbe to the point where it could no longer stay young. Instead, under these conditions of stress, the cells divided into a younger and older half like most other cells. Now you may, quite understandably, be wondering
The four biggest costs to healthcare in the US are heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity. Every single one of these diseases can be prevented and sometimes even treated through adopting a plant-based diet.
Save the oceans
Yeast: immortal microbe? Sophia Struszczyk Science Writer
Health Benifits
Flickr: notsogoodphotography
It seems that your most successful films have been
based on the things that you’re incredibly passionate about; do you think that’s a prerequisite for making a good documentary? I think sometimes what happens is you get passionate about them when you go into them. So I wasn’t that passionate about exercise but I was kind of interested in it, but the more I did it the more interested I got and when it went out on Horizon it got 3 and a half million viewers which is, you know Horizon normally gets one and a half million so this was a phenomena. I do all sorts of subjects that I don’t
Epigram looks at the benefits of eating less meat
Flickr: Poetografie
Flickr: Nottingham Trent Univerisity
What piece of work are you most proud of and why? Probably the film on Ulcer causes - Helicobacter Pylori,partly because it was the first long form documentary I ever did and partly because it genuinely changed medical practice because what Barry did and what I said helped push it forward and it changed the lives of many millions of people. It was a genuine paradigm shift in medicine and you don’t come across many of those in your lifetime.
Jimmy Scott- Baumann Science Writer
Flickr: MisterBissom
On the 4th of October the Medical Sciences lecture theatre was packed to the brim for a public lecture by British journalist, medical doctor, producer and TV presenter Dr Michael Moseley. After studying medicine and psychiatry, Moseley became disillusioned by his practice and joined the BBC as a trainee assistant producer. He went on to become an executive producer and presenter, producing and featuring in many successful and controversial documentaries. One episode of Moseley’s
documentary Medical Mavericks focused on the causes of ulcers, in particular the work of Dr Barry Marshall. He found that stomach ulcers were usually caused by the bacteria Heliobacter pylori, a subject of controversy in the medical profession, as it brought to light that the previous treatment which had cost as much as £500 per month was actually not as effective as £5 drug used to treat the-ulcer causing bacteria. Marshall had such confidence in the results of his study that he inoculated himself with the ulcer-causing Heliobacter bacteria to show the effectiveness of his treatmentand it worked. Scientists should be honest about their results
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Epigram
Sport
11.11.2013
53
The American invasion Benj Cunningham Sports Reporter It seems that the Americans have landed, and they are here to stay. The Jacksonville Jaguars vs San Francisco 49ers game attracted 84,000 gridiron fans to Wembley last Sunday, leading to many asking whether this will be a permanent fixture in the NFL calendar. The Florida-based franchise have committed to hosting three more games until 2016, and their owner Shahid Khan, who also owns Fulham FC, has expressed interest in bringing the struggling Jaguars to London. While travelling from London to the US and back every week might seem completely unfeasible, it is not actually too dissimilar to what Californian sides have to do to play against East Coast franchises. The idea of a London franchise is not beyond the realms of possibility. There is a whopping great stadium they can use, they would have sole access to the biggest city in Europe and its fan base, and there is demand, with legendary
Keith Allison: Flickr
Matt McGee: Flickr
49ers Quarterback Joe Montana calling for the move. But why is the sport so popular on this side of the pond? To Americans, Rugby players seem suicidal for venturing on a pitch without all sorts of padding and helmets, so the contact isn’t any more ferocious than we already have. Maybe it’s the pace of the game, but given that any British person you ask about American Football invariably comes out with ‘they only play for like two seconds at a time though, where’s the fun in that?’, so I don’t think it’s that. What is more likely is that us Brits, usually so reserved in our support, are drawn in by the unashamedly garish spectacle of the NFL. Every one of the 16 games of the regular season is an event: a party which goes on for four hours every week of the season, with endless fireworks, cheerleaders, hot dogs and beer - and when it gets to the post-season, the ‘Greatest Show on Earth’ becomes even more ludicrous. We, in the UK, don’t feel like we are allowed to watch sport so blatantly brashly. We just do not see, and we are not meant to enjoy, this kind of pageantry surrounding sporting events. However, there is a little American in all of us. We all wish we could pull off a Ray Lewis or Al Pacino team-talk, or could sign off a rugby tackle with the mandatory American scream of ‘woooooooooo’ and with rather-too-enthusiastic high fives. But we can’t. Because we’re British. So maybe this is why the UK enjoy the NFL so much. It’s not so much because of the great skill on show or the massive tackles that their pads allow - although this is undoubtedly part of the sport’s appeal - but it’s because we all want to be a little American. We all want to holler and shout at the TV. American football lets us be Yanks for an hour or two every Sunday. Whether or not the Jaguars do eventually move to London for good or not, I have a sneaking suspicion that the UK’s flirtation with American football is not going away any time soon.
Women’s volleyball Ladies tennis 1st’s overthrow Cambridge suffer defeat at the
Savannah Simons
Hetty Knox Sports Editor
hands of Bournemouth
Team Captain Georgia Walker gives her account of her team’s trip to Bournemouth. The Ladies’ first team started off their BUCS season with an away match at Bournemouth, perhaps not the most convenient location to ease us into the season. Nevertheless, we travelled the 130 or so miles and warmed up in high spirits, in preparation for the 12pm start. We began the first set competently, unsure of our opponent’s abilities and relying on skills developed in recent training sessions. Taking the lead at 7-3, we had high expectations of the sets
to follow, with Kelly O’Connell performing impressive spikes and Rebeca Perez settling proficiently, considering her limited practice with the team. Unfortunately, with Bournemouth managing to creep their way back in and level at 10-10, we got stuck in one rotation and were unable to defend their hits and blocks. The team persisted whilst trying to work out our transitions, but this came too late as they took the first set 25-15. Slightly disheartened, we approached the next set with
more determination: again securing the first point and the set played out evenly. In particular, Catherine Wright (Player of the Match) demonstrated spectacular blocks and composed digs, while Luana Tabirca’s tenacity was vital to our play. Our serving was strong and consistent, especially Kelly and Alissa Ambrose’s, yet insufficient to conquer Bournemouth’s defence and quick attacks. We lost the second set 25-16 - a positive improvement from the first.
UoB volleyball club
This season is the Bristol ladies tennis team’s fourth consecutive year in the BUCS Premier South Division. Having firmly cemented their place in the top league, this term started with mixed fortunes for the team. A defeat to favourites Bath and a draw with Exeter saw them placed near the foot of the table prior to this clash with Cambridge. Therefore, victory was imperative to propel them up the standings. The opening doubles encounters saw first pair
Hannah Moran and Hetty Knox narrowly lose out in an extremely tight three set match. In the pair’s first match together this year, they were attempting to reignite their successful partnership from previous seasons. Narrowly losing the first set 7-6, they found a little more in the tank to take the second 6-4. A championship tie-break ensued and this saw the Bristol pair defeated by the narrowest of margins, 10-8. This result left it to first years Hely Phillips and Savannah Simons to win their rubber and send the teams into the singles matches on level terms. Despite this being their
first season playing university tennis the two have formed a formidable partnership and made light work of their Cambridge equivalents,sealing victory with a 6-3, 6-0 win. In order to secure the vital win, Bristol had the difficult task of taking three of the four singles rubbers. One of these rubbers was secured with ease as Phillips continued her rich vein of form, comfortably defeating the Cambridge number four, 6-1 6-1. Some fantastic baseline exchanges between Bristol’s Moran and the Cambridge number one saw Cambridge emerge on top 6-2 6-1, although the score line didn’t reflect the high quality of tennis played. It was left to Simons and Knox to complete the job. Simons sealed victory (6-4, 6-0) with some high quality tennis against the Cambridge number three and Knox followed her off court soon after; defeating the Cambridge number two (6-1, 6-4) - despite having some difficulty closing out the final game. After this comfortable win over Cambridge, the ladies tennis firsts now sit level on points with third placed Bournemouth and are hoping this win can spur them on to an away victory against the, fifth placed, Bath second team next week.
Epigram
11.11.2013
54
The dark side of sport
Editor’s Column
Spencer Turner reveals the underhand deals that are undermining the morals that sport is built on
gettingevenfaster.blogsport.co.uk
continued from back page. Underhand and undemocratic decisions are a running thread throughout the sporting world and such activity is now at the forefront of public consciousness, and has led to public questioning of the decisions of sporting bodies. A particular example of note is the decision by FIFA to award the 2018 and the 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar respectively. The former of these countries is noted for the troubles it faces as a result of racism at football matches, and the latter has 50 degree heat in the summer: possibly the most unsuitable conditions in which to play football. How has bribery become the dominant culture in sport? The factors are numerous. Corruption in sport, unlike corruption within a company, for example, is far more difficult to prosecute because many sporting bodies are self-regulating. Selfregulation provides the perfect opportunity for corruption to take place. Moreover, the term “Sporting family” is common throughout sport and reminds us that of the affable relations between big names in sport. A prime example is the bidding
process that decided the 2020 Olympic Games hosts. As most voting officials did not have the chance to visit all of the
cities in the running to win the right to host the Games, each country must go on a ‘charm-offensive’ to secure the votes of the officials. Such a costly relationship only serves to encourage undemocratic procedure and bribery. The internal nature of selfregulation in sport means that the solution has to come from the inside. The governing bodies of the biggest sports, such as FIFA and the IOC need to ensure that they adopt and fully implement initiatives that promote democracy and discourage underhand procedures. The
naming and shaming of those who are part of bribery and corruption is essential, not only to discourage others from doing the same thing, but also to stimulate the growth of public confidence in sport again. Sport is not a corrupt industry, but is particularly susceptible to corruption; acceptance of the problem and increased levels of openness and transparency will quell the problems which sport is facing today and will give the limelight back to those who deserve it: the champions of the sports who work tirelessly day in, day out to be the best.
Rugby League World Cup kicks off in style Alistair Haggis Sports Reporter
The hardest part of running is getting out the front door. At least so they say. Who are ‘they’? Who are these people telling me this? It didn’t matter: they were right. When I signed up to Amsterdam Marathon in February I was blissfully ignorant of how far 26.2 miles (or 42.2 km) actually is. I quickly found out that running was more difficult than it first appeared. Having followed sport for as long as I remember I knew the Holy Grail of first marathon times was anything under four hours so this was my initial target but it wasn’t until a ‘pound a minute’ bet was struck mid-July with my housemate Fred that my competitive edge suddenly glinted. After all, by running under 4 hours, who was I really beating? Having signed up together, the original bet of £20 to the winner was unimaginative at best; this new deal was to bring out the best in both of us as we spent summer scrambling over future bragging rights. What we hadn’t accounted for was beating ourselves.
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Soon all I could picture was Simon Pegg in Run Fatboy Run
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game of the afternoon. With the roof closed and under floodlights, Italy and Wales took it in turns to keep the ball and both looked unlikely to score. The Welsh gifted the Italians their opening try midway through the first half, however, and from there on the game began to open up. An entertaining second half followed and the Italians, looking extremely solid in defence, eventually ran away with the game, winning by a clear margin of 32 points to 16. The Welsh will be disappointed with their attacking returns, as they had a number of chances which should have been converted, but with Italy beating England in a warm up game before the competition started, the result could be seen as simply them extending their good run of form.
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Fred used a popular 4 runs-a-week training plan and I was on a stubborn I-know-best type scheme, on which I ran 4 or 5 times and always ate a high-protein meal after a run. By the time September came around my initial dismay at not being on terms with Mo was a thought well buried, as was my first grasp of the concept of running as slightly pointless. What had developed in its place can only be described as an endorphin filled hot spot, a bundle of activity for all things running related. The weekend arrived and October 20th loomed. Fred soon started enquiring as to what I would do when ‘I hit the wall’; I thought he had read one too many ill-ending stories on reddit and was imparting his nervousness on to me as a consequence. Not that I wasn’t nervous, but thinking about hitting ‘the wall’ the weekend of the race was absurd – soon all I could picture was Simon Pegg in Run Fatboy Run. I quickly refuted his claims that hitting this imaginary obstacle would happen but as I struggled to distinguish my words from stubbornness and competitiveness – was I subconsciously psyching him out? – I found myself believing in the words I spoke. Foolishness of the highest degree: the mental toughness of marathon running cannot be overstated.
sum_of_marc: flickr
Saturday 26th October saw the eyes of the Rugby League world focused on the capital of Wales for the beginning of what could prove to be an historic Rugby League World Cup. In fact, with the USA winning their first game against the Cook Islands, it has already started in just that the style. The US has never competed at a World Cup before, making their first victory in this year’s competition even more impressive. The game is of extremely high intensity, demanding extreme physical commitment from minute one to 80; players have no time to rest as the ball needs to be recycled quickly and attacks can succeed or fail based on one player missing a tackle. Therefore there is great pressure on defences to be well-organised and willing to resist the physical onslaught. The first game of the competition kicked-off with England and Australia, two of the great sides in world rugby league and two of the favourites to win the competition this year. The Australians, considered the best team in the world at the moment and favourites to pick up the trophy in a couple of weeks time, started the slower. England touched down with the first try of the game within ten minutes and were deservedly further in front shortly afterwards when fine offensive work caught the Australians on the back foot. The class of the Australians became too much for the English defence to bear, as the game continued, running in three tries before half time to cancel out England’s early lead and then taking the lead themselves. The dominance displayed at times by the Australians revealed to the world why they will be extremely hard to beat at this tournament, and that if England are to win their first World Cup in over 40 years, they will have to improve quickly. The game was close and England did pose a threat on a number of occasions, but they never looked like getting close to beating a strong, well organised Australian team. The Aussies looked threateningly comfortable the more the match wore on and ran out as eventual 28-20 victors. Wales proceeded to get their campaign underway in the second
This week, Epigram’s online Sports editor George Moxey describes his 26.2 mile physical and mental battle in the Amsterdam marathon
My legs were soon gushing with lactic acid, 23 miles in and all of my body’s limbs were telling my brain to stop
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Before I knew it Sunday arrived and my legs were soon gushing with lactic acid, 23 miles in and all of my body’s limbs were telling my brain to stop. Hopeless, it had become saturated with such messages miles ago. It soon began to latch onto sources of inspiration to keep me going though and it was surreal to consciously witness my unconscious finding ways to keep me from the true walk of shame. One such moment included finding a strange amount of solace in seeing a man with a Juventus shirt with Pogba on the back, 25 miles of pain numbed in a heartbeat of laughter at the expense of Moyes and co. Such sources quickly dried up before the run into the stadium which hosted the 1928 Olympics but despite an almost paralysing exhaustion, the euphoric wave of emotion that swept me up at the finish was one that will genuinely live in the memory. I ended up taking a tenner off of Fred with a time of 3:43:54 but it was the realisation of beating myself, beating my mind to the finish that tasted sweeter. Well, not quite, but it came close. The hardest thing won’t be getting out the front door from now on - it’ll be keeping it closed.
Epigram
11.11.2013
55
England gunning for 4th consecutive Ashes victory Down Under Edward Henderson-Howat previews this winter’s hottest sporting event opendemocracy: flickr
It is just three years since the England cricket team thrashed Australia in the last Ashes series down under and on the 21st of November the two sides will once again go head to head in one of sport’s most iconic rivalries. Having beaten the Aussies 3-0 this summer, Alastair Cook and his men are favourites to win what would be their 4th Ashes series victory in a row – something no England team has achieved for 123 years. However, this contest looks set to be anything but a pushover. Any Australian team is dangerous and in their own back yard they are sure to prove a real challenge for the tourists. In cricket, home advantage has a massive role to play: the ball will be different, the pitch and weather conditions alien and the crowds more aggressive than anything England faced in the summer.
A jubilant England team celebrating previous Ashes victory
Test Who to keep an eye on venues
pulkit sinha: wikipedia
Why watch?
cormac70: flickr
But, this isn’t just going to be about the individuals. In cricket, every match is as much defined by the ground in which it is played as it is by players themselves. The series will start at the ‘Gabba’ in Brisbane, more of a fortress than cricket stadium as England will walk into a soulless steel arena with no room to hide. Three years ago, Peter Siddle made history, taking a hat-trick for Australia on the opening day before Strauss, Cook and Trott ground their opponents into the dust to finish on 5171 in England’s second innings. It’s certain to be a fiery start to the series and where better to begin than this sporting amphitheatre. At the start of December the tour will head south to Adelaide – a field of joy and woe for both teams in the last two series. Controversial Aussie bowler Mitchell Johnson From a position of such assured strength England collapsed to will be seeking revenge on home turf defeat in 2006 but exacted their revenge in style in 2010: dismissing Ponting for a golden duck before Pietersen powered his way to a double ton and Swann picked up a match winning five wicket haul, just hours before the heavens opened with rain. The historic scoreboard on the hill is certain to witness some thrilling cricket over the five days. The third Test Match at the ‘WACA’ in Perth will be a memorable occasion for the two captains who will both be playing their 100th Test Matches. Both Michael Clarke and Alastair Cook are outstanding players who have proved themselves to be so capable of record breaking performances but in a ground where England have won just a single Ashes test there will be reputations on the line. Australia turned the series on its head here in 2010 so there is no room for complacency on one of the bounciest, most aggressive wickets in the world and this time it is set to be an intriguing battle between England’s battery of tall pace bowlers and the home batsmen. One-hundred thousand people will flock to the MCG in Melbourne on Boxing Day for the fourth game to witness one of the most iconic days of Test Match cricket. By this point in the series there are no second chances so any new faces stepping in after a month of battle will be under the most intense pressure. In 2010 England produced such an outstanding display on day one – bowling Australia out for 98 before racking up 157-0 – that one of the biggest grounds in the world was empty of Aussie fans by tea time. However, the people of Melbourne are sure to be looking for revenge this time around. And in 2014, we will move to Sydney for the final game. This is no hit and miss knockout, the beauty of the five match series is that it allows players to exploit every weakness and flaw in the opposition they have come to know so well. And after back to back Ashes series, any team or individual who rises for the final test really can call themselves champions. Under the tradition and splendour of the famous old pavilion, one side will lift that hallowed urn.
There are so many individual stories to look forward to. How will Mitchell Johnson fare? The Australian left arm quick was the victim of that famous chant from the ‘Barmy Army’ in 2010/11 on account of his wayward bowling, but on his day he can be one of the best in the world. Will it be the panicked ‘bottler’ or deadly strike bowler who comes to the party this time round? David Warner was the pantomime villain for much of the summer after his hook shot connected with Joe Root’s jaw rather than the ball in a Birmingham bar but the Yorkshire man got the last laugh when he caught Warner out in the third test at Manchester - but, which batsman will emerge on top in this particularly personal duel? Or what of England’s Ian Bell, mocked by the Aussies earlier on his career for his resemblance to American Pie’s ‘Sherminator’. He has now gone from strength to strength, picking up man of the series last summer, coming to the fore every time England appeared under pressure. In the last few weeks he has already been scoring runs in the warm up games so will he be the man who once again takes England to glory or will he return to his former weaknesses? Between now and January, heroes will rise and stars will fall, so many tales are ready to unfold in the Ashes, the greatest cricketing battle on the planet.
Leading the charge: England captain Alastair Cook
One-hundred and thirty years of sporting history has been formed from this impassioned rivalry. No other cricketing contest can come close to matching the pure sporting theatre on show and this series will be just as fierce as the first contest in 1882. Every Ashes battle is intense, every wicket, every run, every catch is fought over and with so many reputations to fight for and dreams to follow we are set for one hell of a ride. The cast is assembled and the stage set for what should be an historic series.
Epigram
11.11.2013
Sport
Editor: Hetty Knox
Editor: Jacob Webster
sport@epigram.org.uk
jacob.webster@epigram.org.uk sportonline@epigram.org.uk
Online Editor: George Moxey
The dark side of sport Spencer Turner News Deputy Editor
Inside Sport David Beckham wants to take on an MLS franchise, so how about bringing the NFL to the UK permanently? page 53
Keith Allison: Flickr
professionaljeweller.com
Men’s Volleyball thrash rivals UWE On Wednesday 30th of October, the Men’s 1st team got their season underway with a home fixture against local rivals UWE. After winning the first toss of the season with a superb call of heads by captain John House, Bristol served first. The men appeared to suffer
John House First team captain
from some nerves in the first set with passes going astray, and at 6-1 down, a timeout was needed. Bristol were much improved after the break, but this didn’t prevent UWE maintaining a four point lead throughout most of the set, so
after some excellent hitting, the rivals ran out 25-18 winners in the first set. At times in a big game like this, you need players to perform and in the second set for Bristol, one man did. The Polish enigma, Pawel ‘Big P’ Laskowski. Opening up his shoulders, Pawel slammed in 4 unanswered serves in a row, opening up an early lead for Bristol. Supported ably by Caddick and Pennifold, Bristol executed some majestic volleyball, repeatedly spiking the ball down into the UWE half of the court, eventually winning
Featuring...
the set 25-8. So it all came down to the final set. With Nigel Yanlock Chan setting like a man possessed and some great blocking from Jonny Childs, Bristol continued to punish UWE. Despite UWE managing to pull level with Bristol at 9 all, they couldn’t close the match out and finally at 14-12, Bristol had 2 match points. After squandering one, the ball was floated outside to who else but the ‘Big P’, who, leaping like a salmon, smashed the ball down into the UWE court. Bristol won the set 15-13, and the game 2 sets to 1.
The Ashes are coming! We preview the series on page 55
nic_r: flickr
Sport has a dark underside. Amidst the glamour, fame and opulence of the sporting world, there is a face of sport that has become increasingly prominent over the last few years. Today the sporting world is grappling with the problem of bribery. The problem isn’t reserved for far-flung countries, such as in Nigeria, where the acting secretary-General of the Nigerian Football Association, Fanny Amun admitted bribery was common in the Nigerian game. The problem pertains to those at the very top of the biggest sporting associations. Sebastian Vettel’s incredible fourth consecutive Formula 1 World Championship title has been accompanied by the news that F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone had been formally indicted by German prosecutors on bribery charges and had been accused, in the High Court, of making a ‘corrupt agreement’ in order to remain in charge of the sport. Earlier this year Joao Havelange, FIFA’s honorary president resigned after a report had found that he was guilty of taking bribes from a World Cup marketing agency, the report went on to describe Havelange as ‘morally and ethically reproachable’. The 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics was hit by a scandal, where an International Olympic Committee (IOC) report showed that members of the IOC had taken bribes during the bidding process for the 2002 Winter Olympics. Bribery, it seems, is a vice for the world’s top sporting bodies. continued on page 54
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Ladies tennis defeat rivals Cambridge . See page 53
And... Mark Olver
Nish Kumar 18 November 8.00pm • AR2, Anson Rooms, The Richmond Building
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