Epigram #268

page 29

page 28 Snapshot Travel photoBristol competition

45 The left’spage future?

The Walking Dead returns page 8

page 15 Drone warfare

Issue 268 Monday 25th November 2013 www.epigram.org.uk University of Bristol Independent Student Newspaper

A great escape Students hitchhike across Europe for charity Stephanie Rihon News Online Editor

• Winning team reaches Ukrainian border • £10,589 raised for charity • 26,208km travelled

Marketa Brabkova

Andrew Armson

90 students from across the university took part in the first Jailbreak weekend of the year. The event, organised by RAG, raised over £10,000 for charity – the largest amount raised in a single Jailbreak.

39 teams of students were given 36 hours to travel as far away from Bristol as they could without paying for transport, all in the name of charity. This year the teams travelled a collective distance of 26,208km, comparable to over halfway around the world. 87% of the teams made it out of the UK, travelling to destinations such as Brussels, Berlin, Vienna and Bordeaux.

Those who remained in the UK still made a solid effort and managed to get down to Dover.

The winning team, ‘The A Team’, consisted of 3rd year medics Amy Samson and Andrew Armson, as well as Epigram’s own Alex Bradbrook, a 3rd year geography student. The three described their Jailbreak journey as ‘nothing short of incredible’.

‘The A Team’ managed to hitchhike rides

with five different drivers to get to Rzeszow, Poland. Bradbrook said ‘we are indebted to Clara & Bev, Matthew, Birgit, Pawel and Eric & Anna for their generosity, from buying us Polish dumplings and McDonald’s to giving us CDs of Polish trance music and providing us with beers!’

Each team was tracked throughout by RAG, ensuring their safety. Team ‘Fast Food Fiasco’ finished their journey in Amsterdam, making it to France with the help of some Romanian lorry drivers who came to their aid despite not speaking a word of English.

Although the majority of participants were fortunate in securing free transport, some teams were not as honest in their methods, with ‘The Great Escape’ hiding on a train to Genk, Belgium, to avoid paying fares.

Regardless of the students’ methods, the weekend raised £10,589 for several different charities including Alzheimer’s Society, Make A Wish Foundation, Cancer Research UK and MS Society. This year saw a large rise in the number of students completing Jailbreak due to its success in previous years.

Chemistry student Zachary Edelen reached Monte Carlo with partner Martha Male in the last Jailbreak cycle and commented that aside from raising money, one of the high points of the adventure is the sense of accomplishment you achieve, because ‘you never realise you can do it yourself until you’re there, 500 miles from Bristol’.

Space race:

student wins chance to fly to space Andrew Armson

19 year old University of Bristol student, Jocelino Rodrigues, is one of four UK finalists who will undergo astronaut training at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre this December, competing for the chance to travel into space.

Our Jailbreak journey: ‘The A Team’ speak exclusively to Epigram on page 3

Epigram

25.11.2013

News Editorial

Editor: Josephine Franks

Deputy Editor: Alex Bradbrook

Editorial Assistant: Anna Fleck

editor@epigram.org.uk

deputy@epigram.org.uk

anna.fleck@epigram.org.uk

A note from the editor

Inside Epigram Features 10 “It’s do or die for the left” With the launch of the new political party, Left Unity, Features asks whether this party will go help solve some political Left’s problems.

Comment 15 Booting out racism Despite large improvements over the past few decades, racism still remains an issue in sport. Comment argues for more action.

Living 23 How to beat that hangover

Living reveals the best culinary delights you can use to beat the post-Lounge blues

At this time of year, charity seems to be everywhere you turn – Christmas c a m p a i g n s are plastered across billboards, Pudsey’s on TV and the charitable efforts of the male population are quivering tremulously o n upper lips across the country.

Charity is however, as the saying goes, not just for Christmas, and it is easy to criticise seasonal giving as a quick fix, a token effort to relieve guilt while we skip through the consumerism of Christmas shopping and festive fun. However, the success of the Typhoon Haiyan appeal, to which the British public have donated over £50 million, is hopefully an indicator that, despite a weakness for a cuddly mascot, all-singing all-dancing celebrities are not a prerequisite to charitable giving.

This month has also been an important time for fundraising at the university. RAG’s Jailbreak saw 39 teams of students gallivanting across Europe in the name of charity, travelling a combined distance equal to half the world’s circumference and raising over £10,000 in the process. No doubt a good portion of this money was cajoled out of friends and housemates, or at least made up from coppers found in the crevices of sofas, proving that despite the

perennial cry of student poverty, student philanthropy is still alive and well. In addition to our coverage on the front page, you can read a first-hand account from Alex Bradbrook, member of the winning group ‘The A Team’ (and incidentally Epigram’s dashing Deputy Editor) on page 3.

We also take a moment to applaud the efforts of some of Bristol’s mo-growers on page 5. While you’re likely to see a lot of questionable facial hair around campus as the moment, the hockey and rugby captains have taken their efforts a step further, pitting a grower against a shower to see who can grow the best ‘tache and raise the most money by the end of the month.

Perhaps the rise in Movember’s popularity can be seen as indicative of the increased visibility of charity in our society more generally. While on a personal level some may see this surge in facial hair as a prickly nuisance, underlying it is a suggestion of a society more willing to discuss charities that deal with more problematic or taboo issues – and this can surely be no bad thing.

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

News

Film & TV

Science & Tech

Music

Sport

Tuesday 26th Nov at 12pm Hawthorns

Thursday 28th Nov at 1.15pm Tuesday 26th Nov at 1.15pm ASS Library Café The White Harte

The Centre Spread

Features

Travel

Tuesday 26th Nov at 1pm HIghbury Vaults

Thursday 28h Nov at 12.15pm Tuesday 26th Nov at 6pm The Refectory Highbury Vaults

28-29 Around the UK in pictures

Comment

Style

Travel takes over the Centre Spread to reveal the winners of the photo competition, celebrating the best of British nature

Film & TV 44 Happy 50th, Doctor!

Film & TV celebrates Dr Who’s 50th anniversary

Science & Tech 51 Laser takeover Science & Tech explore the exciting combination of physics, dance, music and visual art. Could ‘danceroom spectroscopy’ be the next big thing?

Tuesday 26h Nov at 12.30pm The Refectory

Friday 29th Nov at 12.30pm ASS Library Café

editor@epigram.org.uk

Deputy Editor Alex Bradbrook deputy@epigram.org.uk

Editorial Assistant Anna Fleck editor@epigram.org.uk

Managing Director Editor Tom Flynn Ollie Yorke editor@epigram.org.uk ollie.yorke@epigram.org.uk Deputy Editors Editor JonOnline Bauckham Ciara Lally jon@epigram.org.uk c.lally@epigram.org.uk Hannah Stubbs hannah@epigram.org.uk News Editor

Tuesday 26th Nov at 1pm The Refectory

Arts

Thursday 28th Nov at 1.15pm Highbury Vaults

Editorial team Editor Josephine Franks

Thursday 28th Nov at 1pm The White Bear

Online

Features Online Editor Michael Coombs featuresonline@epigram.org.uk

Style Editor Maddy Streets style@epigram.org.uk

Film & TV Online Editor Alejandro Palekar filmandtvonline@epigram.org.uk

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Deputy Style Editor Deanne Ball deputystyle@epigram.org.uk

Science & Technology Editor Molly Hawes scienceandtech@epigram.org.uk

Deputy Comment Editor Style Online Editor Rob Stuart Amelia Impey deputycomment@epigram.org.uk styleonline@epigram.org.uk

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www.epigram.org.uk For the latest news, features and reviews

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Deputy Science Editor

Jacob Webster Living Editor Deputy Arts Editor Emma Corfield Emma Sackville jacob.webster@epigram.org.uk Tori Halman Rose Bonsier letters@epigram.org.uk deputyscience@epigram.org living@epigram.org.uk deputyculture@epigram.org.uk Sport Online Editor Culture Editor Sport Editor George Moxey Deputy Living Editors Arts Online Editor Calum Sherwood Laura Webb Tom Burrows sportonline@epigram.org.uk Sophia Hadjipateras Erin Fox e2 news@epigram.org.uk Editor culture@epigram.org.uk sport@epigram.org.uk shadjipateras@epigram.org.uk artsonline@epigram.org.uk Matthew McCrory Chief Photography Editor Deputy Culture Editor Deputy Sport Editor e2@epigram.org.uk Deputy News Editor Marketa Brabcova Izzy Kerr Music Editor Zoe Hutton Laura Jacklin David Stone photography@epigram.org.uk ikerr@epigram.org.uk Mike Hegarty News Editor laura.jacklin@epigram.org.uk deputyculture@epigram.org.uk deputysport@epigram.org.uk music@epigram.org.uk Alice Young Photography Editors Living Online Editor Music Editor news@epigram.org.uk Spencer Turner Puzzles Editor Vivian Lee Morwenna Scott Deputy Music Editor Nathan Comer spencer.turner@epigram.org.uk Lily Buckmaster Georgina Winney livingonline@epigram.org.uk Danny Riley Deputy News Editors music@epigram.org.uk deputymusic@epigram.org.uk Abigail Head Sub Editor NewsVan-West Online Editors Chief Proofreader Travel Editor Deputy Music Editor avanwest@epigram.org.uk Joseph Quinlan Emma Corfield Ed Atkins Olivia Lace-Evans Music Online Editor Pippa Shawley Stephanie Rihon Jenny Awford travel@epigram.org.uk Dan Faber Sub Editors newsonline@epigram.org.uk deputymusic@epigram.org.uk Sub-editors: jawford@epigram.org.uk musiconline@epigram.org.uk Harriet Layhe, Ciara Murphey Deputy Travel Editor FIlm & TV Editor Emma Rosemary Frazer FeaturesEditor Editor Kate Moreton, Wagg Features Andrea Valentino Film & TV Editor Guy Watts Will Ellis HughMartin Davies Tristan deputytravel@epigram.org.uk Gareth Downs Hannah McGovern Illustrator features@epigram.org.uk filmandtv@epigram.org.uk features@epigram.org.uk filmandtv@epigram.org.uk Jeremy Barclay Sophie Sladen Matt Floyd Travel Online Editor Deputy Film & TV Editor Deputy Features Editor Deputy Features Editor Nicholas Irwin Emilia Morano-Williams Deputy Film & TV Editor Web Designer Anthony Adeane Ryan Maguire SophieWhite Padgett Andrew travelonline@epigram.org.uk Matt Field Rob Mackenzie Sahar Shah deputyfeatures@epigram.org.uk deputyfilmandtv@epigram.org.uk deputyfeatures@epigram.org.uk deputyfilmandtv@epigram.org.uk Tom Herbert

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News

Epigram

25.11.2013

33 Editor: Laura Webb news@epigram.org.uk

Deputy Editors: Laura Jacklin & Spencer Turner ljacklin@epigram.org.uk sturner@epigram.org.uk

Online Editors: Joseph Quinlan & Stephanie Rihon newsonline@epigram.org.uk

MP tackles rogue landlords for exploiting students Edward Hooton News Reporter

Thangam Debbonaire and MP Emma Reynolds spoke to students on campus

Marketa Brabcova

MP Emma Reynolds, Labour’s Shadow Housing Minster, and Thangam Debbonaire, Parliamentary candidate for Bristol West spoke to students on Bristol University’s campus in their campaign to tackle landlords ripping students off.

According to their statistics, a third of privately rented homes in Bristol fall below what is termed the ‘decent home standard’.

Their goal is to protect tenants from rogue landlords and highlight the better ones out there.

Their aim is to universalise a new landlord licensing initiative to expose rogue landlords exploiting students with expensive rents and sub-standard services. This initiative requires landlords to apply for a licence requiring significant documentation and a £100 fee, to ensure landlords meet standards or consequently incur fines. Tenants will therefore be able to complain about hidden fees and poor service can potentially receive compensation if their complaint is upheld.

Reynolds and Debbonaire made adequate time to talk with students, local city councillors, as well as landlords and letting agency representatives, stressing that their goal with the licencing initiative is to do with ‘tackling

bad landlords, and promoting good landlords.

We are on both sides.’

Also present were members from the charity organisation Shelter who spoke on how landlords of privately rented properties do not want to work with the clients Shelter represents, namely those on housing benefits and with poor credit ratings.

A councillor from Easton detailed squalid living conditions he has encountered first hand, that upon description, made Reynolds and Debbonaire grimace in understanding at the state of living in areas of austerity. Reynolds shared a personal experience from when she was a student, of being charged by a landlord for the removal of a piece of furniture that hadn’t been listed in the property’s inventory and had been in her house all year. Representatives from UBU stood up to say how ‘it is too easy to be a student landlord’, because of the lack of rules they have to follow, and a wide freedom to charge as much as they want with little penalty.

If what they claim is possible, the landlord licencing initiative is to be put in place to formulate a register of all landlords operating in Bristol and thus encouraging them to have more stable tenancy agreements. This is line with broader government changes that look to register landlords for the sakes of the nine million private tenants in England. But is it enough to protect students from potential bad landlords?

Lecturers strike again Uni admissions policy attacked Four university staff unions have announced a second day of striking across the country on Tuesday 3 December after university employers failed to produce satisfactory negotiations about pay.

The 31 October strike saw walk-outs from university lecturers and support staff represented by three main unions, Unison, Unite and UCU. This time, they’re joined by EIS, the Scottish education union.

They’re caught up in a pay row against the UCEA (Universities and Colleges Employers Association), who represent universities as employers.

The best offer from the UCEA before October’s strike was a 1% pay increase, amounting to a 13% pay cut in real terms since the last pay rise in 2007.

Meanwhile, reports have emerged that more than half of British universities don’t pay their lowest-paid workers the living wage. Bristol was not on the list of universities who’ve pledged to pay the living wage.

Since October’s strike, the two parties haven’t come any closer to reaching an agreement. University student unions and the NUS have been lobbying to restart negotiations to avoid another day’s strike.

A spokesperson for the University

and College Union (UCU) told Epigram, ‘We’ve written to the employers asking for dates for talks. And we hope they will happen soon. We hope the employers will come back with a positive effort to resolve the pay dispute. Nobody wants to take strike action and lose a day’s pay.’

But because this is between several national institutions, there’s little Bristol University can do.

Bristol University officials seemed keen to make this clear in their statement: ‘This is a national dispute involving all universities and is not something which has been initiated locally or can be resolved locally. The University respects individuals’ right to strike and, equally, we will continue to work hard to ensure that any action has a minimal impact on our students.’

Still, Bristol wasn’t too badly hit by the first strike. A lot of teaching was cancelled or rescheduled, but most university services remained open.

Staff also took to picketing at main university points and a rally outside Senate House drew a crowd of almost 200.

Out of almost 400 000 university staff nationwide, only 29 538 voted on the strike question from Unison, Unite and UCU, with 17 800 votes for the action.

UCU

University staff unions have announced a second day of striking on Tuesday 3rd December

Edward Hooton News Reporter A University of Bristol admissions policy that makes it possible for students from schools in the bottom 40 percent in the country to secure their offer despite achieving lower grades has been under attack.

The University is offering candidates with a presumed academic disadvantage leniency with their grade requirements to engineer a more ‘balanced’ student body. They may admit students with offers typically one grade lower than the entry threshold for other candidates.

The Bristol Post and The Telegraph have been narrowing down on this policy. They highlighted that some private schools feature in the university’s list of 1,370 schools that are performing badly in the UK. This means that the university could offer both candidates with a presumed academic disadvantage leniency with

their grade requirements, but also pupils from private schools. This has been deemed unfair and viewed as a ‘loophole’ for private schools by The Bristol Post.

Professor Judith Squires, Pro ViceChancellor of Bristol University, spoke to Epigram about the situation.

She explained that the University of Bristol puts emphasis on academic ability as well as wider skills and achievements that are evidenced in a candidate’s personal statement.

However, in addition to this, if evidence is present that there has been an educational disadvantage resulting in adverse affects toward a candidate’s achievement, then the university also takes this into consideration as part of a ‘holistic assessment’.

This disadvantage in educational terms is defined in the university’s policy as ‘attendance in a school or college, which, in the previous year, was ranked in the bottom 40% of all schools or colleges in relation to average A

Level score per entry, average A Level score per student or progression to Higher Education’.

As a result, if a candidate is applying from one of these ranked school, then an offer to the student is made ‘at a lower (contextual) level’.

Squires was specific in mentioning that offers of both a standard and a contextual nature are published for all programmes in the UoB’s prospectus.

The reason for this approach was established in 2009 following research into the real-life outcomes of students admitted to Bristol from a range of different educational backgrounds.

Those from lower performing schools in fact equaled degree performance with those from higher performing schools, even in light of their lower A Level scores. This is the University of Bristol’s official stance on the matter as a means of ensuring that students are assessed beyond their educational background and with emphasis upon learning potential.

Jailbreak winner tells Epigram about his epic journey Alex Bradbrook Deputy Editor The 36 hours we spent on Jailbreak were a crazy mix of excitement, delirium and extreme fatigue.

After reaching Dover, courtesy of Clara & Bev, we managed to get a lift all the way to Cologne, Germany, with Matthew, a Polish guy living in London.

Before the weekend, we had aspirations of reaching Amsterdam, Paris or Brussels: 3 hours after leaving the ferry we waved to the Belgian capital, passing it on the motorway.

After a night of fruitless attempts at charming drivers at two service stations, our energy was waning and delirium was setting in. Just as we were about to bed down in a toilet block, we

struck gold, in the form of Pawel. We ascertained he was heading for Poland, provoking instant euphoria. Not only were we heading east – our desired direction – but he was willing to drive us 1100km, all the way to Krakow. 15 hours later, after run-ins with the German and Polish border police, a terrifying night sleeping in a deserted lay-by, many hours of Polish trance music and the joys of being wedged between two car tyres, we arrived at a service station just outside Krakow, where we managed to quickly pick up a lift to Rzeszow with Eric & Anna, a city just next to our new target: Ukraine. We arrived in Rzeszow with 2 hours to spare until the deadline and quickly realised Ukraine was a stretch too far, deciding to call it a day in the Polish city and hope it would be

enough for the victory.

Throughout the whole trip, the generosity and kindness of strangers was a recurring theme. From the couple on the ferry who gave us 20€; the couple at the German service station who bought us beers, and the service station owner who replenished them; Pawel buying us a full-on meal of Polish salad and dumplings to welcome us to his homeland; to Eric & Anna, despite speaking no English, treating us to McDonald’s meals in Rzeszow: all reaffirmed our faith in humanity.

For each of us, Jailbreak 2013 stands out as one of the most amazing experiences we’ve had while raising money for charities too - Bowel Cancer Research, Prostate Cancer Research and research into Parkinson’s disease.

Epigram

25.11.2013

4

UoB’s budding astronaut: to NASA and beyond Susannah Lindon-Morris News Reporter

Phillipa Walker

19 year old University of Bristol student, Jocelino Rodrigues, is one of four UK finalists who will undergo astronaut training at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre this December, competing for the chance to travel into space.

Rodrigues, a 2nd year Aerospace Engineering student, entered the global Lynx Apollo competition along with 87,000 others, all vying for enough public votes to make the shortlist of 250 applicants.

He told Epigram he attained the votes which secured him a place at the second stage of testing at Westfield shopping centre through sharing links on Facebook and other social media, utilising his friend’s circles of contacts in addition to his own to create ‘a sort of domino effect’ that won him the necessary public support.

At the Westfield weekend, Rodrigues said the toughest task he faced was cycling at maximum resistance whilst simultaneously completing puzzles on an iPad, which he described as being ‘quite out of the ordinary’. The tests were aimed at measuring “a wide range of skills, from speed and agility to public speaking and piloting”.

Challenges included a giant inflatable assault course used by the British Army, and a

question and answer session with a panel of judges.

With a keen interest in working in the space industry after graduation, Jocelino is eagerly anticipating his training week at NASA which he is confident “will be a truly unique experience”. He identified some of the more physically challenging tasks to include flying a fighter jet and going on the centrifuge, and is excited by the prospect of experiencing a zero-G flight.

He added: “regardless of the outcome, meeting Buzz Aldrin will definitely be one of the highlights”.

The 250 finalists are to be whittled down to just 22 winners who will get the chance to fly into space at the maximum possible airspeed over a distance of 103km and experience weightlessness in zero gravity, all whilst encountering some stunning views of Earth.

In fact the view from Bristol Temple Meads currently includes an image of Rodrigues, whose face appears on a billboard outside the station. He described such recognition in his university city as a ‘strange and cool’ experience.

Rodrigues said of the NASA training week that he is focussed on “giving it [his] all and enjoying the experience” and aptly commented: ‘for me, it’s already an accomplishment in itself”.

Jocelino Rodriguez prepares for the finals of the competition which could see him win a flight into space

Life on Mars: Bristol students lead the way Zack Rose News Reporter Madeleine Harrison

Thousands queued early in the morning for the chance to audition for a role

Star Wars auditions in Bristol

The south-west USA provides a Mars-like landscape

Musilova and Sue Ann Seah, will test ultrasonic spacesuit gloves which feed calibrated information to the user’s fingers to give a sense of texture and temperature, allowing better awareness of the environment around them. They will also be trying out other technologies developed by NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

The team will be testing the Canadian Space Agency’s Artemis Junior, a 270kg lunar rover scheduled for launch to the moon in 2018.

Benjamin Goddard Photography

Four Bristol students will be leading the way to a possible future of space exploration on Mars, as they head to the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in Utah.

The high altitude desert in Utah provides the most Marslike environment for their training, taking place between 18th January and February 1st 2014, as they are subjected to psychological, protocol and food studies conducted by space exploration groups around the world. Speaking of his new challenge, aerospace engineering PhD student Ashley Dale explained ‘It’s going to be as close to the reality of spending time on Mars as possible.’

They will be ‘the subject of various studies looking at how we cope psychologically and physically while also seeing how various technologies fare in the high-altitude desert of Utah.’ All outdoor exploration will be conducted wearing a new generation of analogue spacesuits with air supply packs, while the crew lives together in a small Habitat Module with limited amounts of electricity, food, oxygen and water.

Dale and his team, fellow PhD students Michaela

‘It’s extremely exciting to be working with experts from around the world to help shape the future of space exploration’ Dale said.

‘I formed this crew to open opportunities for the UK to get more involved in this sort of pioneering work. A big part of our expedition is communicating our work with people around the world. A film documentary of the expedition will be made, we’ll be hosting live video classes with schools via Skype and will also be giving public lectures on our

Spencer Turner Deputy News Editor Over the weekend of the 9th of November the first of the open auditions were held in Bristol to find two actors to play leading roles in the new film.

The casting call asked for a ‘street smart’ girl in her late teens and a ‘smart capable’ man in his early twenties.

Thousands of hopefuls queued at Bristol’s Arnolfini on both days of the auditions. Such was the popularity of the open auditions that queues began to form around 4.30am and by 10.30am the queue had to be

closed.

The open auditions were first published on Twitter and since there has been a swell of interest in trying out for a place in the film. Most films will not audition openly, so for many this is an unprecedented opportunity to star in a film that they grew up knowing and loving.

Auditions have also begun in the US this week and various open auditions will also take place around the UK in the coming weeks in the search for Hollywood’s soon to be stars.

In October last year Disney purchased Lucasfilm from its owner and creator George Lucas

for a staggering £2.5 billion.

The news of the purchase was accompanied by the exciting news that in 2015 a seventh Star Wars film will be released due to ‘pent up demand’.

By holding open auditions, Disney can be seen as carrying on the tradition of the Star Wars series of offering lead roles to relatively unknown actors. In the original trilogy the role of Luke Skywalker was then given to an unknown Mark Hamill.

Fear not if you missed them: there are further opportunities to meet and audition in front of the casting team in Glasgow, Manchester, Dublin and London over the autumn.

Check out more news stories at www.epigram.org.uk/news

Epigram

25.11.2013

5

Movember shaves the day Laura Jacklin Deputy News Editor Rich Elston

Hockey captain Rich Elston

Steffan Jones

day for men’s health. Goldney JCR President, Benjamin FrithSalem proves to Jones that gingers can in fact grow quite the impressive moustacheit’s only half way through the month and he is already contemplating bringing the moustache wax out. Speaking to Epigram he said, ‘It’s my third year of top lip cultivation and it’s definitely a month I look forward to. Initially I did it to raise awareness but last year in Goldney we also managed to raise £300 as a hall- quite impressive considering we were fresher faced!’

Although both sports teams disagree about who should take the title of best moustache, both are determined to raise as much money as possible for

the cause. Speaking about why Movember is such an important cause, Elston said ‘I think that Movember really put prostate and testicular cancer on the map as serious problems that affect a large number of the male population. Alzheimer’s is one of the scariest health problems, especially as so little is known about it and it’s affecting more and more people as we have an ever increasing population. So the more we can find out about it the better’.

Jones added ‘Health awareness is always important, but it’s especially so with men, as there has traditionally been a stigma attached. If we can contribute to breaking that barrier down a bit then that’s great.’

Movember

Rugby captain Steffan Jones

Movember is here, and as men across the world fashion their best top lip topiary, staff and students at Bristol are no exception. Rugby captain Steffan Jones and hockey captain Rich Elston are leading the way as they go head to head in an attempt to raise the most money for the men’s health cause by sporting the best moustache.

At the time of writing, so far Jones and the rugby team have raised over £600 and the hockey team have raised over £440 for the cause, with both still counting. Money raised from Movember goes towards improving men’s healthespecially concentrating on men’s cancers and mental health.

Although both teams so far have raised into the hundreds for the cause, the competition is beginning to heat up, with fighting talk from Jones, who told Epigram: ‘I have full faith in my mo-growing abilities. I have a natural advantage over Rich due to both our hair colours gingers haven’t historically had great moustaches, so I think I’ve got this one.’

Addressing the hockey team, he continued, ‘It’s probably

best to chat to your Twitter admin. Celebrating being £20 ahead on November 1st was a bit premature, as we now have over twice as much money raised! Rich, get your troops in order, it’s getting a bit embarrassing...’

Elston and the hockey team haven’t given up yet, ‘Sadly after a good start the better boys have fallen behind. It’s good to see everyone trying their hardest, although some are finding it harder than others. It’s a marathon not a sprint though and winners always win, so we’re quietly confident that we will be able to bring it back come the end of the month’ In other parts of the university facial hair is also shaving the

Movember raises awareness of men’s health

Big Give scoops award Death penalty Amicus talk Sarah Newey News Reporter

Sarah Newey News Reporter

award. It really showcases everyone’s hard work, the importance of partnership working across Bristol and the phenomenal effort Bristol’s students put into managing their environmental impact.”

The award was announced on the 7th November at the London Marriott Grosvenor Square hotel, where it was presented by TV presenter Michaela Strachan.

The University of Bristol is also a finalist for two awards at the Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges (EAUC) Green Gown Award, which recognises sustainability initiatives across further educational institutions in the UK. Clearly, the University of Bristol is doing something right in regard to environmental policies and hard work has been rewarded.

In the US, 18 states still have the death penalty

Flickr: sideonecincy

At the end of last term the University of Bristol, in conjecture with The Students’ Union and UNITE, ran the ‘Big GIVE’ initiative which has now won national recognition for its success in reducing the University’s environmental impact. ww The Chartered Institute of Wastes Management (CIWM), a 115 year old institution, have presented the initiative with a prestigious ‘Community Champion of the Year Award’, which encouraged students to donate unwanted items to charity at the end of term.

Volunteers worked hard to ensure that, in particular, the 4,000 first year students at Bristol took their unwanted items to appropriate drop off points, where it was sorted

and redistributed to be used in community projects or sold in charity shops.

The project was extended this year, when it was run alongside ‘The Summer Student Clear Out’, targeting students in private lets. In corporation with UWE and Bristol City Council this project raised funds specifically for the British Heart Foundation.

As well as having a positive impact on charities, the schemes have dramatically reduced unsightly waste and fly-tipping at the end of term. This helped to improve the quality of life for local residents and ensures a good relationship exists relationship between locals and the large student population.

Rose Rooney, from the Sustainability Department at the University, said: “We were all delighted to win this national

CIWM

Collecting the award: (from left to right) Mark Hogan (Kier), Jemma Harford, Trudy Feeney, Martin Wiles, Rose Rooney, Sam Fitzsimmons, Paul Roberts, Michaela Strachan and Nigel England

On Thursday 14th October, Mark George Q.C., criminal barrister and trustee of Amicus, gave a talk to Bristol University on capital trials and the death penalty in the USA. The event was organised by Bristol University’s Amicus Society.

His talk discussed cases in which he and other lawyers from Amicus, a Non-Governmental Organisation that helps defend those on death row, have assisted in overturning the prosecution of criminals

unfairly represented in the US’s legal system. The organisation believes the death penalty is ‘disproportionately imposed on the most vulnerable in society, violating their right to due process and the concept of equal justice before the law’.

In the US, 18 states still have the death penalty and some are considering abandoning it. The number of executions currently stands at 40-50 per year, and there are more than 1340 inmates still waiting on death row, many of whom will wait over a decade to receive their final sentence.

Having returned from Texas

which ‘leads the nation in the number of executions’, George stressed the death penalty is often ‘reserved for the poor’, emphasising that the expense of capital trials regularly leads to a quality of defence so poor, that in many cases a man may not be granted his ‘right to a fair trial’.

George drew upon a range of cases in which race, insanity and ineffective counsel have led to unjust capital punishment.

One case of particular note was that of George McFarland, who, whilst at trial was represented

by John Benn, a lawyer who preceded to fall asleep at various intervals, an act deemed fair according to the judge, ‘The Constitution doesn’t say that the lawyer must be awake’.

George pointed out that there are convicts who are found innocent. Since 1976, 140 people have been exonerated from death row following new evidence of innocence, ‘many more have been executed or remain on death row despite significant doubt about their guilt’.

The talk attracted a great turnout at Wills Memorial and overall was a huge success. If you would like to become a member or Amicus visit www.amicusalj.org where you can find out more about law internships with capital defenders in the US. For more information on capital punishment see www. deathpenaltyinfo.org and www. findlaw.com.

No agency fees, yes please!

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Epigram

25.11..2013

73

Wetherspoon’s named ‘best bar in Bristol’ Hannah Korn News Reporter

Milk Thistle was commended for its range of cocktails, and The Apple for its cider and relaxed outdoors feel, which is especially pleasant in the summer, when you can sit outside by the harbour.

“

Sociable, lively and cheap - an ideal student combination

”

A second student survey asking for the pub which sells the cheapest drinks yielded some surprising results – the obvious places such as Wetherspoon’s, Agora and the Cori Tap were mentioned, but the bar in the Catholic Chaplaincy is also said to sell extremely cheap drinks, with pints for only 1.50! Overall, though, Wetherspoon’s has come out on top, with students maintaining that it’s the best place to meet friends, for a fun but also fairly relaxing and cheap! - night out.

Flickr: Christian Senger

A survey of students has found Wetherspoon’s as the university’s favourite pub.

Described as sociable, lively and cheap – it’s an ideal student combination. One student described it as the place where you’ll ‘bump into the most people you know’, as it seems to be frequented by half the university each night. Wetherspoon’s runs several pubs in Bristol include V-Shed, The Commercial Rooms and The W.G. Grace, but the most popular is The Berkeley on Queen’s Road.

Any departmental bar crawl is likely to include this pub along the way, as it’s situated so centrally. However, this is by no means the only pub popular with students.

Those named as the second most popular included the Cori Tap, known for its cider, Agora, with mixers for 1.50 and 2 for 1 cocktails before 12, and The Flyer, with its

pub garden and frequent pub quizzes. Those looking for music taht is different from the usual pop mixes may like The Old Duke, which puts on jazz every night, and The Hatchet, a metal bar. If you like meeting unusual or crazy people, The Hatchet is also a good place to try for that! Pubs known as the best places for cocktails include The Woods and Papaji’s, with traditional mixes like mojitos along with tea cocktails such as the chai rum punch and the Palais Cosmopolitan; berry tea, vodka and orange liqueur. The Three Tons and The White Lion are perhaps amongst the friendliest and most relaxing pubs, but are less high profile than the others; if you don’t live in the city centre, you may not have been. The Bristol Post recently reported that The Milk Thistle, Hausbar and The Apple were named as some of the best places to drink in the UK; they were all runners up in the Observer’s Food Monthly Awards. The

Wetherspoons: Bristol’s best bar

The future of learning? Bristol win in green awards George Meredith News Reporter

has offered an alternative to campus based tuition for over 40 years, has seen the number of younger students rise by more than a third in the last four years. 35% more students aged under 25 enrolled on OU courses in 2011/12 than in 2007/08.

However, such students may miss out on some of the important shaping experiences university offers.

UBU community officer Ellie Williams says ‘The university experience is important because it’s one of the few opportunities in life to mix with such a diverse group of people from all different backgrounds from all over the world.’

At present, FutureLearn will not offer the equivalent of a degree qualification, instead intending its content primarily as ‘tasters’ for traditional university courses. However, with such increasing emphasis on online learning it may only be a matter of time.

Laura Jacklin Deputy News Editor For the second time in the same week, Bristol University was recognised for its ecofriendly efforts.

The Green Gown Awards, who ‘recognise the exceptional sustainability initiatives being undertaken by universities and colleges across the UK’, awarded the university’s sustainability team the accolade for ‘Continual Improvement: Institutional Change’.

With the university having just been recognised for its

achievements of the Big Give scheme, this second award shows the university is improving the impact it has upon the environment.

According to the Green Gown Awards website, the category Bristol was awarded focuses on activities put in place by universities and colleges that are both sustainable and successful which improve performance of the institutions, faculties and buildings. The initiatives must also have been running for at least five years.

Improvements that caught the judges’ eye which Bristol

has been putting in place include reducing water usage by 13%, starting up public transport and cycling programmes that ensure 82% of staff travel in a sustainable way, sustainability training, reducing carbon emissions by 2000 tonnes, diverting 76% of waste from landfill and buying local, Fairtrade, sustainable and organic food for its catering outlets.

The awards do not stop there, with Bristol going to compete at an international level and face the winners of the same category in Australia.

Flickr: Mukumbura

Recently announced free online university courses could threaten Bristol’s traditional student experience.

FutureLearn, a project owned by the Open University, gives users from around the world the opportunity to enrol in free courses created by leading UK universities.

Bristol, Bath and 27 other universities and cultural institutions are partnered with the scheme.

The content, which is optimised for tablets and smartphones, allows users to study when they can; while commuting, for example, or during breaks from fulltime work. Speaking about the scheme, Universities and Science Minister David Willetts said ‘FutureLearn has the potential to revolutionise conventional models of formal education’.

The courses vary in length and commitment time; for example King’s College London’s Causes of War, which examines the causes of modern conflict, lasts six weeks and requires a minimum of four hours of weekly study. Meanwhile, University of Leeds’ natural resources course, Fairness and Nature: When Worlds Collide, lasts just a fortnight, with a similar weekly study commitment.

While UoB has yet to announce the courses it will publish, it will undoubtedly offer tempting alternatives to those wishing to avoid the expense of university.

With annual course costs at £9,000 and the cost of living rising every year – the UoB website for 2013/14 estimates the average student spends between £6,700 and £10,000 a year on living expenses – more and more students are turning to distance learning as a cheaper option.

The Open University, which

Many students undertaking internships are not being paid

Unpaid internships tackled Spencer Turner Deputy News Editor

Flickr: Solo

Online universities could compete with traditional universities.

Many students up and down the country undertake internships in the hope of gaining a greater breadth of work experience to give themselves a head start in the race for coveted graduate positions upon leaving university.

Many students undertake internships and do not get paid for them, a problem which the National Union of Students (NUS) is beginning to tackle.

Many companies utilise the demand for internships by

offering them without salary.

The UK government has clear legislation to guide potential interns as to whether they should be paid or not. If they are legally defined as a ‘worker’ which means that they ‘have a contract or other arrangement to do work or services personally for a reward’, then payment is due to the person who is interning.

Unfortunately, due to the lack of clarity and publicity surrounding these rules, many students fall foul of large companies who exploit their

ignorance and decide not to pay them.

The NUS has gathered its leaders and campaigned to companies known for committing the violation of not paying their interns.

Such protests by the NUS led to Calvin Klein removing an advertisement they were running for unpaid interns.

If you are worried that you have undertaken an unpaid internship, you can see the relevant information by searching for it on the direct. gov.uk website.

Epigram

25.11.2013

Features

@epigramfeatures

Editor: Hugh Davies

Deputy Editor: Sophie Padgett

Online Editor: Michael Coombs

features@epigram.org.uk

deputyfeatures@epigram.org.uk

featuresonline@epigram.org.uk

Left Unity: ‘It’s do or die for the Left’ Ahead of its London launch on November 30th, Epigram spoke to members of the Left Unity Movement to find out whether they can solve the Left’s problems

When a few members of the newlyformed political party, Left Unity, agreed to meet me for an interview, I was left scratching my head as to what venue to suggest. Where do left wing activists like to sit down and wax lyrical about the political mess we find ourselves in today? Dark Alleyways? Clandestine caves? The Malcolm X centre? No. Boston Tea Party apparently.

I arrived at the unfortunately named café, Tesco bag hidden deep in my rucksack and a week’s worth of stubble worn proudly on my face.

My instructions read: “I’m in the BTP smoking bit. Matt”. I headed gingerly for the cold outdoor area, both hands clasped firmly around a pot of tea. It was then that it dawned on me, as I looked from smoker to smoker, what do activists look like? To my relief another text arrived: “As it turns out, it’s bitterly cold so I’ve retreated upstairs. I’m in the black hoody.” Ah, the black hoody. I should have guessed.

Matt is a student at UWE studying for a Master’s in Philosophy. He immediately asks me the question I was dreading; am I a political activist myself? I stumble through an explanation of my brief flirtations with the Socialist Worker Party (a few meetings and a few flyers), hoping that that will suffice, before blurting out some remark about how I’m yet to find a party for which I want to be active. Immediately I regret it and sense an air of disapproval, or perhaps its sympathy, descend.

Soon we are joined by Rob and then finally Barbara. Rob is also a student at UWE whilst Barbara is considerably older, her grey hair containing a large chunk of purple. She describes herself as ‘an anarchist or libertarian communist’ and is one of the Bristol representatives for the soon-to-be-launched Left Unity.

Minutes after their arrival, a group decision is made to return to the relative quiet and darkness of the outside area, and we finally settle down at a

table in the corner, illuminated by the intermittent glow of an outdoor heater.

This is more like it.

In a letter published in The Guardian in March of this year, acclaimed filmmaker Ken Loach made an appeal to the public to form a new party of the left.

The proposal was met enthusiastically by a reported 10,000 people, who have subsequently set up a 100 local groups across the country, laying the foundations for the Left Unity movement. So what is Left Unity and why the need for it? “It’s been created to fill a space to the left of Labour which I think a lot of people had given up on” says Barbara. “The aim is to unite people who perceive themselves as left wing, that’s people from the Marxist left, right through to disgruntled Labour supporters and people who aren’t politically active but aren’t happy with the way things are.”

Matt explains how the problems for left wing politics began in the late 80s, when the whole political spectrum shifted to the right. He blames Blair for reshaping the labour party to disconnect it from its grassroots. “It was changed from being a mass party, to being a cartel. This left a massive space to the left. Left Unity is about trying to take that space for the people who have been excluded.”

Rob chimes in with his own view; “There really isn’t a voice for people who believe in basic things like higher taxation on the rich and state ownership of basic services which are not controversial issues from where I’m standing”.

So higher taxation of the rich and nationalisation of utilities but what else is included in the movement’s ideology?

“It’s still being decided but it looks like it will be explicitly socialist, orientated towards a trade union struggle, but quite open democratically”, Matt explains.

“If we can keep it quite open, then we can create a hegemonic space in which people are being politicised and start to come to their own conclusions as opposed to the old Trotskyist parties which had ‘this is our line and this

is what we have to do to overthrow capitalism’.”

In a recent article, Guardian journalist John Harris suggested that Left Unity could be to Labour what UKIP is to the conservatives. I asked whether the analogy was one they welcomed.

All three agreed that the wording was something that made their skin crawl (Matt even suggested the anti-UKIP as a better tagline) but that they understood the thinking behind it. “Within UKIP you’ve got everything from real life Nazis, to disgruntled middle England Tories and yet they manage to function as a very effective political organisation.

What I’d like to have is people who are slightly to the left of labour all the way through to anarchists. I’d like that spectrum to be able to work together and separately without people having to be bound to a particular position,” says Matt.

Easier said than done though.

Managing all those different opinions is bound to be an uphill struggle, and they are the first to acknowledge that it is going to be to be a “colossal task”. Hardline Tories all over the country no doubt rolled their eyes when they heard the news that a new party was forming on the left. Brief happiness at the thought of Labour losing votes to this alternative movement, would probably have been swiftly replaced with condescending remarks about how it was probably just another idealistic group lacking substance, no more likely to dent the political landscape of this country than the failed left wing parties of yesteryear, Socialist Alliance and Respect. So what has changed?

“When there have been attempts in the past like the Socialist Alliance or Respect campaign, they have been coalitions of various parties, and all those groups have attempted to hold onto their own line,” Barbara tells me.

“They were too precious with their ideologies. We are making a huge effort to tolerate each other, you know, not jump up and down when someone says something too reformist or too Leninist.”

Matt cuts in, saying, “People see that it’s absolutely necessary for us all to work together if we are to achieve what we want politically, it’s not a fluffy let’s all be nice to each other, which is kind of what Respect felt like. It’s do or die at this point for the left.” Dramatic words, but words indicative of the feeling amongst left wing supporters who have gone decades without seeing any progress, just deterioration.

You wouldn’t know it from talking to these guys, but political apathy remains endemic amongst young people in the UK. The numbers of voters aged between 18-25 have consistently gone down in recent times, with a mere 44% voting in the last election. When asked to explain this, Rob says “There’s a huge temptation and one we all give in to a lot of the time, to just keep your head down and get on with it. Even if you are working as an apprentice earning £2.95 an hour or you’re paying £9000 for six contact hours a week, or you’re working on a zero hours contract you’re made to believe you’re lucky and one thing we hope to achieve is to point out the fact that

there is an alternative; we can all have a better life and a better future.”

That said, the last four years has seen an upsurge in global social movements and that certainly provides Left Unity with an inkling of hope that now could be the time that society is ripe for change. “Over the last few years, we’ve experienced the biggest youth movements the UK has seen for a long time. The student movement, Occupy, a resurgence in the feminist movement, the anti-globalisation movement. There was no way of drawing that together, so it dissipated very quickly. The movements dissipate but the people stay angry,” says Matt.

So perhaps Left Unity is a natural consequence of a growing feeling amongst several sectors of society that the current system is failing them. There will inevitably be those who will simply see the movement as another left wing group destined to be destroyed by their differences, and others who will dismiss their task as too huge to tackle, but one cannot escape the fact that here is a group of people actively engaged in trying to fight against injustice and improve people’s lives. Whilst the three major political parties continually fail to inspire young people, perhaps Left Unity can emerge as an alternative.

Barbara certainly thinks so: “Now is the time, people are looking for something. If only we can hold it together organisationally, I think there is a good chance we could have an impact.” If only indeed.

Ken Loach (progetto rebeldia)

Hugh Davies Features Editor

Epigram

25.11.2013

9

Should we declare the Co-op morally bankrupt?

As the Co-operative Bank is taken over by hedge funds Sahar Shah assesses whether it will lose its reputation for ethical banking

I’ve become politically paranoid—I meet new people, chat with them for a few minutes and then out of nowhere, a cold chill will run through me and I’ll wonder if they’re Conservative.

We’re living in a time and place where politics is the new religion. So, when the Co-op Bank went bust last Monday, my instinctive reaction was one of profound fear that this is exactly what every right-winger has been waiting for: a stake driven into the heart of the Cooperative movement.

The Co-operative movement is in so many ways the epitome of successful social enterprise.

There was an art exhibition at SOAS this summer that asked each spectator to write on a little piece of paper something that made them feel safe. On the wall were the words “home”, “family, “friends” and, memorably, “bankers behind bars. But somehow, even within an industry that (since 2008) people have largely distrusted, the Coop has managed to construct an oasis of uncontested purity and morality. People hate bankers, but perhaps not Co-operative bankers. Thus, it isn’t difficult to see why many panicked

flickr:kenteegardinn

Sahar Shah Features Writer

after hearing that the Co-op was essentially going to be taken over by hedge funds.

About 50 of the 324 Co-op Bank branches are expected to close and a significant number of jobs are at risk. The new

management team is in the midst of performing emergency CPR on the Bank in an attempt to recover drastic losses that can be attributed primarily to a cocktail of bad lending as a result of the Britannia Building

Society takeover and pressure exerted by the PRA to improve its capital position.

In exchange for injecting £462m into the bank, the Cooperative Group will remain the Bank’s single largest shareholder with a 30% stake.

The rest of the shares will be owned by its bondholders, most notably a group of hedge funds led by the U.S.-based Silver Point and Aurelius.

Will all this spell the end of the Co-op’s commitment to ethics? It doesn’t seem so.

PR Representative Patrick Tooher informed us of the Coop Group’s take on the situation, saying ‘we recognise the importance of ethics and values for all of our customers and remain committed to upholding them’. The Bank is enshrining its values and ethics into a new constitution, the Articles of Association of the Bank - this will ensure the ethical policy they have taken remains core to the running of the Bank. From a customer perspective, the Bank will continue to maintain its key differentiating features such as its excellent standards of customer service, underpinned by co-operative values and ethics.

So, customer-focused business will be retained. But what are the consequences of

the transference of management into the hands of the hedge funds?

New management will want to become more intensely commercial, it goes without saying. The Co-op has reportedly turned away 1.2 billion pounds of business on ethical grounds - it makes these decisions based on its characteristic customer surveys. It will be interesting to see how the Bank balances its commitment to seeking customer opinions on major decision and its need to dramatically alter the nature of its lending.

Keith Stanton, Professor of Banking Law at Bristol, suggests that the time hasn’t yet come to press the panic button in the moral control room. When asked if there’s a heavy risk of the Co-op losing what we may call its ‘ethical edge’, he says, ‘personally, I don’t think so. It would lose its market position if it did. It is not in the interest of the new shareholders to see its market share disappear, so they need to keep the customers happy.’ The real risk would perhaps come if the Bank were to be entirely swallowed by a larger one a few years down the line. The pertinent question at the moment, Stanton suggests, is whether or not the hedge funds are in this for the long

haul.

How bad are the hedge funds really, though? Stanton reminds us that it is the hedge funds, rather than the customers, who have had to take the immediate loss - having swapped income on bonds for shares than may end up being valueless.

At the end of the day, hedge funds are by nature sensible, - and by ‘sensible’, of course, I mean ‘ruthlessly shrewd’ - they won’t want to lose the Co-op’s following of loyal customers. If ethics are a selling point, then ethics will be preserved.

The fact of the matter is - that there are a lot of things wrong with our financial system and institutions. With the 2008 crisis behind us, but not comfortably so, we must ask ourselves: is it more crucial for the Co-op to cling to what is perhaps an illusory sense of ethical exaltedness, or is it better for the banking industry as a whole to benefit from a solid, reliable bank? Let’s say somebody makes you choose: would you rather have a bank that occasionally makes the decision to invest in unethical companies? It’s really up to the individual to decide, but for all my talk about supporting ethical banking and business, I know which one I would choose.

Time for action against unethical Amazon Last Wednesday, online retail giant Amazon.com launched a new US based initiative called ‘Amazon Source’ to apparently “empower independent bookstores and other small retailers” by being able to sell Amazon Kindle e-books in their shops. A quick look at the details is enough to explain the furious backlash from booksellers across the United States, with the scheme being described as ‘a Trojan Horse’ or ‘inviting hungry foxes into the henhouse’. My favourite response being Sarah McNally’s, of McNally Jackson Books, simply: ‘They can go fuck themselves’ .

Omnibenevolent Amazon offered these lucky businesses the opportunity to buy Kindles at 6% less than the Recommended Retail Price (RRP), bringing it down from £69.99 to £65.99, and then earn a 10% commission on each e-book purchased from the Kindles they sell for the succeeding two years. So let’s get this straight, booksellers will make next to nothing selling the Kindles and the customers will be encouraged to compare the prices of the books they may want in the shop with the inevitably much cheaper Amazon e-book version online

meaning the bookseller’s 10% commission is barely a fraction of what they could have made on the physical copy. On top of this, they will have lost this customer’s meagre contribution after only 2 years, and only plunged the knife deeper into the already endangered high street bookshop.

However, this is not the first time that Amazon’s morally questionable business techniques have come to light.

The Amazon Marketplace supposedly provides a platform for retailers who would not otherwise be noticed. However, Amazon claims up to 15% seller’s fee on each sale on top of a monthly membership fee and excluding VAT, hence Amazon Marketplace actually generates up to 12% of the company’s annual revenue. Furthermore, there have been numerous cases where successful third-party retailer Marketplace products have appeared as Amazon products for a much cheaper price. All this has been made possible through aggressive tax avoidance schemes using favourable European tax jurisdictions for their businesses.

The ‘Trojan horse’ and ‘hungry foxes’ once again come to mind.

Despite this, the question is not ‘How can Amazon get away with it?’, but ‘Why do we let them get away with it?’. Students like

us, supposedly some of the most enlightened in the country, will be aware of Amazon’s fraudulent practices yet still receive parcels from them every other week. And if you were not aware of what Amazon was up to, you probably still shop at McDonalds, Starbucks and Tesco, all of which have been widely branded unethical companies for various condemnable acts such as the use of brutal factory farming, destroying the rainforest to create grazing land, extreme tax evasion, killing local business and selling horse meat, to name but a few.

We seem blind to the connection between moral

outrage and moral action. How far must Amazon, McDonalds, Starbucks, and Tesco go until we simply look to buy the same products elsewhere? Has our lust for cheap products quickly and completely throttled our sense of moral awareness?

Convenience is the worst excuse since the capitalist system in our country encourages the availability of financially competitive alternatives, and of ethical alternatives we have plenty. For the sake of a pound, as is too often the case with students, we support everything that is wrong with the world. It is unacceptable to claim that our shopping practices will

flickr:nffcnnr

Ben O’Donnell Features Writer

change when we are earning since these alternatives are so available. Every product we buy does count and does make a difference. For many graduates, it will be us crying injustice when the companies we have supported inevitably come to exploit our business.

Boycotting is not picketing, marches and dreadlocks but simply making a conscious decision to purchase our products from companies that abide by practices we agree with. We must educate ourselves as to what we are buying and buy elsewhere if we do not like what we find. Ignorance is inexcusable in a technological world where it takes less than a minute to discover the owner of Urban Outfitters, so popular in the Arts and Social Sciences Library, is a large financial backer of American Republican conservatives including anticontraception, anti-feminist, homophobe Rick Santorum.

Through a boycott as easy as shopping at Co-op we can put pressure on companies to revise their practices and provide an ethic that we will be happy to buy in to. This simple connection between moral outrage and moral action will change our world: tell manipulative big businesses to ‘go fuck themselves’.

Ethical alternatives to Amazon: 1.Green Metropolis, an online charity bookstore dedicated to environmental preservation and every book costs just £3.75!

2. Oxfam Books, part of Oxfam online shopping with competitive prices and all profits go to the fight against poverty.

3.E-Books.com, simply not Amazon!

4. Sellstudentstuff. com, perhaps most relevant selling student orientated books and e-books for cheap prices and dedicated to environmental preservation. An offshoot of booksetc. co.uk.

Epigram

25.11.2013

10

Pacification: the battle to silence Brazil’s favelas With the world cup on the horizon, Brazil are struggling to pacify their favelas. But is the project motivated by morals or just for show? safer, replied ‘We certainly wouldn’t want to imply that it’s possible to paint the problems away, but hopefully it will stimulate change.’In another response, talking about dangerous situations they encountered, they recall that they ‘experienced some iffy situations, even had the police shoot at our painters, while they were running up the stairs to find a place to hide.’

Police violence has been a defining issue of the Favela Pacification Program. The

program consists of three stages: Paramilitary units, the Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais (BOPE), carry out drug and gun searches. BOPE forces then surround and occupy the area before a ‘resident police unit’, the UPP, moves in.

Described as ‘a more lightly armed resident force’, 10 UPP officers were nonetheless charged on 1st October with the torture and killing of Amarildo de Souza, bricklayer and resident of Rio’s Rocinha Favela. Local newspapers

report that de Souza was killed by use of electric shocks and asphyxiation with a plastic bag. With the UPP accused of concealing the corpse, locals say that many more killings as part of pacification go uninvestigated.

Indeed, the de Souza case is not a lone incident. In June, nine residents were killed – of them seven suspected drug traffickers – after an officer was murdered in the Maré complex, Rio. The planned pacification of the area was delayed as a result.

Brazil’s human rights minister Maria del Rosario said on the de Souza incident ‘What this investigation reveals is the necessity of changes so that the police are more focused, more accountable to citizens and not oriented towards criminal disregard for human rights.’

A fine point to make, but we have already seen how far State Police will go in order to achieve a World Cup without off-field turmoil. Try as they might to quiet dissenting voices, one thing’s for certain.

The Favela is not silent.

Several women jailed for miscarrying in El Salvador

unpreventable natural causes, are being punished for an act which they haven’t committed, and that should be legal.

Glenda’s lawyer, Dennis Munoz Estanley, has worked with many of the women in El Salvador wrongly convicted of murder and abortion, so far she has helped to secure the early release of eight women. He successfully reduced the sentence of Cristina Quintanilla, who unlike Glenda, was aware of her pregnancy and was looking forward to the birth of her second child. Cristina gave birth suddenly two months early and the baby died.

When she awoke in hospital she was interrogated before being handcuffed to the bed, charged with manslaughter and transferred to a prison cell. Her case was dismissed by the first judge but the prosecution appealed and upgraded the charge to aggravated murder, for which she was sentenced to 30 years in jail. Fortunately, she only served three thanks to Estanley.

El Salvador is one of five countries with a total ban on abortion, along with Nicaragua, Chile, Honduras and the Dominican Republic.

Their laws do not allow any exceptions, even if a woman is raped, her life is at risk or the foetus is severely deformed, as was demonstrated by Beatriz’s case. Morena Herrera from the Citizens’ Group for the Decriminalization of Abortion claims that

Amnesty International

Over the summer, El Salvador received international criticism over its strict antiabortion laws after the plight of a woman called ‘Beatriz’ came to public attention. Her pregnancy put her life at risk and the baby’s deformities were so severe that its chance of survival outside of the womb was extremely low. Despite this, the court deliberated for weeks whilst her health deteriorated and eventually decided to allow her an emergency caesarean at 27 weeks; Beatriz survived, but her child didn’t.

Although El Salvador’s Health Minister, Maria Isabel Rodriguez, criticised the abortion law after the scandal, the government have chosen to ignore the controversy caused by Beatriz’s case. They refuse to change the law as it is popular amongst the conservative population of the country.

More recently there has been the imprisonment of 19 year- old Glenda Xiomara Cruz, who, after suffering a miscarriage, was accused by the hospital staff of trying to purposely abort the baby.

When she began experiencing abdominal pains and heavy bleeding, Glenda went to the nearest hospital where the doctors told her she had lost her baby; this news was the first she knew of her pregnancy, as her periods had been carrying on as usual and her weight had hardly changed.

Four days later, at a court hearing that she was too ill to attend, 19-year-old Glenda was charged with aggravated murder, despite having undergone two emergency operations and spending three weeks in hospital after her miscarriage. Last month she was sentenced to 10 years in prison, although the prosecution wanted a 50 year jail term. It is absurd that women, who have tragically lost their children through

flickr: Michael Sharman

flickr: Thiago Trajano

Emily McMullin Features writer

flickr: anthony_goto

As the 2014 World Cup approaches, concerns have been raised about general unrest in Brazil and its favelas. As stadiums are built and refurbished at a cost of 8 billion Reais (£2.27bn) it’s easy to understand the disillusionment in areas without proper sanitation, healthcare or quality education. In anticipation of this, a ‘Favela Pacification Program’ was set up in 2008 with the first Unidade de Polícia Pacificadora (UPP) or Pacifying Police Unit established in the Favela Santa Marta. Fast-forward to May 2013, and 231 Favelas are officially under the control of the UPP. What exactly does this mean for the residents of the favelas? Is it a symbol of real change or a futile and reactionary attempt to quickly deal with a complex problem?

Gentrification, seen as one of the successes of pacification, has brought prosperity to favelas previously lost to drug gangs.

The Casa Alto Vidigal, sitting atop the Vidigal Favela, boasts DJ sessions, dance floors and lounge bars – all of which have proven a hit with tourists, but do nothing for locals who have been essentially priced out of the market.

In fact, rent increases following gentrification have led to some residents being forced out of their own homes to live in poorer areas.

A particularly poignant example being that of Maria le Socorra and the IndianaTujica community. Called to a meeting with Jorge Bittar, Municipal Housing Secretary at the time, the community were told to expect ‘public improvements’. After two weeks, residents awoke to their houses spraypainted with the Housing Secretariat initials SMH, a sign that they were marked for demolition. 110 families left before the community successfully delayed the demolition and began the process of legalising land ownership. Their fight back is, disturbingly, an anomaly in which a large group of people made their voices heard under the slogan ‘Favela não se cala’ - ‘The Favela is not silent’.

Not all aspects of pacification are detrimental.

For example, The Favela Painting Project kick-started in late October to the tune of £116,655. The project aims to ‘provide an opportunity for people to transform their own neighbourhood from a place seen as negative into a place that is able to communicate its creativity, beauty and innovation to the outside world through art.’

Providing both a new

attraction for tourists who now get to see a more accessible side to the favelas, alongside providing paid work for favela residents, the project is a shining example of a grassroots pacification process which really seems to, at least in the direct vicinity, work.

In an ‘Ask Me Anything’ session on popular website Reddit, the founders of the Favela Painting Project Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn, when asked if painting can make Favelas

flickr: anthony_goto

Connor O’Malley Features writer

many pregnant women who experience complications or miscarry are too afraid to seek medical help.

According to Health Ministry figures, suicide was the most common cause of death in 2011 among 10to-19-year-old girls, half of whom were pregnant and it was also the third most common cause of maternal mortality. What is even more shocking is that not a single criminal case is reported from the private health sector, where it is thought that thousands of abortions are taking place annually. A study by the Citizens’ Group for the Decriminalization of Abortion revealed that the majority of the women reported to the police are poor, unmarried and poorly educated. These women are almost always reported by hospital staff, which leaves them with nowhere to turn when they are at their most vulnerable.

Although there are pro-life groups within El Salvador fighting to change the law, and organisations such as Amnesty International, who launched a world-wide campaign in aid of Beatriz, drawing attention to the country’s appalling treatment of these helpless women, more needs to be done. It is easy to ignore what is going on in a far-off country when we live in a liberal society that allows us the freedom of choice, but this should be an incentive to help others attain the basic human rights that we take for granted.

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Frontline: A new breed of social worker Epigram caught up with CEO of Frontline, Josh MacAlister, to find out more about the new initiative they are launching Michael Coombs Online Features Editor

Your website talks about large numbers of families not getting the help that they need. Is there simply a lack of social workers in society today?

For us, the big message is that there’s not enough great professional social workers at the moment. The issues are complicated but you could start off by looking at the numbers. The vacancy rates are really quite high but we’re also in a situation where you have five and a half thousand social workers

Hours of on-the-job experience: 250

graduating every year who are unable to get jobs. It’s a pretty unusual situation.

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For us the big message is that there’s not enough great professional social workers

”

That’s in a context where there’s increasing demand, local authorities that are under funding pressures and all of this amidst high profile cases like the Daniel Pelka

case. It’s not a profession without challenges. That said, I think that the experiences we’ve had speaking to students on campus confirm that when you explain to people what the day to day role of a social worker entails, it really is quite exciting.

Is there any such thing as a typical day in the life of a social worker?

There probably isn’t a typical day. So our scheme makes sure that people are prepared, which sounds obvious, but at the moment a lot of graduates don’t get the chance to learn how you actually work directly with

thefrontline.org.uk

Josh MacAlister, Frontline CEO. image: thefrontline.org.uk

Frontline, a new two-year leadership programme, is offering high-achieving graduates a chance to be part of an ambitious revamp of the social work profession.

The organisation has already received praise from all sides of the political divide with David Cameron calling social care ‘as valuable to our society as medicine, law or teaching.’

With a competitive starting salary, the prospect of a Master’s degree on completion of year two and the chance to facilitate positive change in the areas of society that need it the most, Frontline is attracting a lot of interest from graduates.

The application deadline is rapidly approaching so Epigram spoke to Frontline’s Chief Executive Josh MacAlister about the current state of social care, Frontline and why ambitious graduates need look no further.

Application deadline: 30.11.13

families. We use evidence based interventions that can be used to work with adults and children to change behaviour.

How thick-skinned is a good social worker? And how does your scheme prepare graduates for the emotionally demanding aspect of the job?

Well, at the first stage, we assess candidates; they need emotional resilience to begin with. The assessment stage involves role-play situations with professional actors that test the adaptability of candidates and their ability to engage in difficult conversations that may well be uncomfortable. It’s crucial that applicants have a level of personal resilience already, but you’re quite right, over the two years this faculty is developed. Given that social workers are juggling risk on the one hand and the complexity of working with various families on the other, they need great supervision and support.

complicated circumstances.

Some studies suggest that current graduates are likely to drastically change their career path two or more times, what sort of transferable skills would Frontline offer?

Let me put it this way, if as a Frontline worker you are able to set out a vision for a family, build relationships with people in very difficult circumstances, convince a whole range of agencies and professionals to act with efficiency and purpose, given that they have their own agendas, and do all of that in a stressful, emotional environment, I would call that leadership. And if you can do that with some of the most vulnerable children and challenging families in the country, then I think you can do it in government, the boardroom, or leading children’s services teams.

There’s a whole range of skills, but the main one I would say is leadership.

Number of registered social workers: 87442 Number of graduates Frontline will select: 100 Number of social workers seeking council jobs in 2016: 84754 Number of months it takes to qualify as a social worker: 13 Starting Salary: £19k

The deadline for applications is the 30th November 2013, however they may close early if they receive a high volume of applications from outstanding applicants.

Apply online at www.thefrontline.org.uk

” Frontline offers graduates more on-the-job training than all the other existing routes into social work. You’ll have two hundred and ten days working in a unit with four frontline participants and a full time trained consultant social worker. What that gives you, that intense immersed learning, is expert, extensive supervision and support dealing with what are very

thefrontline.org.uk

flickr: Pink Sherbet Photography

“

Frontline offers graduates more onthe-job training than all the other existing routes into social work.

Comment

Epigram

25.11.2013

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Deputy Editor: Rob Stuart

Online Editor: Jessica McKay

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Are we still talkin’ ‘bout a revolution?

Vive la révolution? With Russell Brand sparking one of

Yes

the largest debates of 2013, do we still see revolution

Andrea Valentino

as an effective way of instigating change in Britain?

What was most damaging about Russell Brand’s recent interventions in print and on Newsnight was not his substance, but his style. To lazily chuck a word as muscular as ‘revolution’ around, Brand is degrading the meaning of a concept that can and has changed the world for the better.

By flapping incoherently about ‘corporations!’ and ‘exploitation!’ Brand evokes the dross habitually spouted by a certain arm of the radical Left.

This kind of fatuous worldview will be familiar to anyone who’s been leafleted by the Socialist Workers’ Party: a spectacular redistribution of wealth where Marx’s dreams finally can be realised. And how is this to be done? Silence! ‘Corporations!

Equality!’

But although ‘revolution’ has long been synonymous with the garbled Left, especially in Western Europe, it was not always like this. The American and French Revolutions were distinctly liberal in aim and orientation. For all their many flaws, both those upheavals made individual freedom and limited government matter.

Western democracy owes much to Washington and Robespierre whatever one might think of them personally.

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To make an omelette, you have to break a few eggs

Flickr.com/estenh

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At this point cynics may point to the most evocative revolution of them all. It was Stalin, after all, who coined the disgusting phrase that ‘to make an omelette, you have to break a few eggs.’ In the event, the Bolsheviks murdered millions of people for an omelette that never really got cooked. Such pessimism is understandable: the Russian Revolution’s footsteps clattered through the 20th century down paving stones soaked in blood.

Cambodia, China, Albania, North Korea: just naming the country is enough to invoke some of the most appalling traumas of the century.

But one can surely condemn a particular revolution without abandoning the concept of revolution in general.

Each revolution naturally develops according to the

special historical and cultural precedents in the country where it takes place. The centralising instincts of Lenin and Trotsky may have well have doomed the Russians to despotism, just as the rash economic principles of communist parties generally condemned whole societies to poverty. But history has shown that a single political or economic ideology cannot take ownership of a principle as broad as revolution, despite claims by some socialists to the contrary.

Indeed, to overly dwell on the naïve or obscene strain in the revolutionary tradition, one forgets all the good radical change has done – and recently, too. Poland would not be a capitalist democracy without the revolutionary change it experienced in 1989.

Nor would Hungary, or Estonia or Latvia or Slovakia, all places students blissfully explore on inter-railing tours around the Continent.

That all these countries are all comfortably foreign is telling.

Because of Britain’s relatively benign stumble towards liberal democracy, people here risk forgetting that revolution, for many, many people in the world, is the only conceivable way of improving their lives.

Whatever the eventual outcome of these conflicts, to dismiss the millions of brave people fighting for a better society in Syria or Egypt is the worst kind of arrogance.

Well, the Syrians can continue as they please, but we’re doing just fine, right? Britain can probably do without the kind of revolution imagined by many when they hear the word: no bourgeois dogs being shot at dawn and no Revolutionary Tribunals in Hyde Park. But what is the creation of the NHS if not revolutionary? What is the mass-provision of State support to the vulnerable if not revolutionary? What are generous aid packages to the planet’s poorest if not revolutionary?

This country has revolutionised itself over the past fifty years. It is utterly capable of doing so again, without needing to resort to glib posturing like Russell Brand or totalitarian slaughter like Stalin. Revolutionising a society is about a lot more than interviews and the Internationale. Both cynics and idealists would do well to remember that.

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No Natalie Steel Revolution is fashionable. It has long been the go-to political stance of countless students, and nothing short of mass media hysteria has surrounded Russell Brand’s recent essay in the New Statesman and subsequent appearance on Newsnight.

Have people forgotten what revolution really means? Characterized throughout history by blood, violence and poverty, the consideration of revolution as the answer to this country’s political problems could be seriously damaging.

Let’s get one thing clear from the start, I don’t believe that a wholehearted condemnation of the type of revolutionary ideas Brand puts forward is helpful. There is an undeniable appeal in his idealism. I too believe that this country can be better, that we can be better. In much the same vein, I am by no means an avid supporter of our governmental system as it stands. Brand’s regard for politicians as ‘liars and frauds’ resonates deeply for a generation who have witnessed the expenses scandal, struggled for employment through huge national deficit and been let down by a complete lack of backbone in the Liberal Democrats.

Nevertheless, revolution does not offer any real solution to these problems.

History contains countless warnings against revolution.

From 18th Century France to Stalin’s Russia, we have well documented examples of how revolutions that initially seem liberating almost always descend into bloodshed. The victims of socialist revolutions from the last century alone outnumber those of the Nazi regime,emphasizing the danger of considering revolution as our only option for change. The reality of death and destruction in the Arab world today is proof that political revolution can cause serious damage. Many of the revolutions of the Arab Spring are in part caused by people rising up to demand the level of political freedom that we have already in this country.

The right to vote, freedom of speech; can we not use these powerfully to change the way our government works? I am not suggesting that our form of democracy should be the ultimate end, but romanticized revolution is naïve in that it doesn’t take into account any of the dire consequences that we see time and time again.

Maybe it is just as naïve to have faith in our political system truly being used for good, and yet something tells me this is our strongest hope for peaceful progress.

Cries for change may be alluring to a disregarded, disillusioned people but, for it to have a real impact, the idea of traditional political revolution must be completely revised. Yes, it should still mean radical change, but it must go beyond revolution itself.

Instead of focusing solely on the overthrow of corrupt systems, revolution should really be a proposition of a workable alternative. This is ultimately where Brand’s ideas fall incredibly short. In many ways, once you unpick the essay and interview, he comes away from the media frenzy in a very similar light to the politicians he denounces. Just as they push their best policies forward to distract from the capitalist corruption, Brand’s elaborate, beautifully eloquent, language serves to disguise the shallow nature of his rally cries.

He calls for revolution that has no practical alternatives, no direction, no plan.

What grows clearer is that revolution needs to be redefined. Amidst his commands not to vote and suggestions of violent action if necessary, Russell has a moment of brilliance when he speaks of a ‘revolution of consciousness’. I think it is this notion that holds the key to change. A revolution of old will do nothing but enhance this country’s problems and in refusing to participate in the system, we effectively disengage ourselves and allow a continuation of the corruption we see in the government today. We cannot distance ourselves and negate our involvement simply by saying ‘but I didn’t vote!’.

Change must start with us.

Not through violence, but through a radical adjustment of mindset and action. We want our government to genuinely care for the poor? We must begin by helping the needy around us. Despise the way our planet is being destroyed? We must refuse to contribute to the profits of unethical companies.

Russell longs for a Communist utopia? Perhaps he should rethink his LA mansion.

Revolution as we know it has no place in our world, yet a revolution of our minds, could be the first step for real change.

Epigram

25.11.2013

12 14

More needs to be done to kick racism out of football

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The answer then, is to punish offenders in the strongest possible way, but to let the game live on

Every year millions of supporters turn up to football grounds across the continent.

The vast majority of them are well-meaning fans who just want to watch their team play.

But there will always be the

Comment on... ...The Bechdel Test Holly Jones It’s good news for gender equality in Sweden this week, as four cinemas have started rating the films they show according to the Bechdel test. The test measures female involvement in film, and was created by American cartoonist Alison Bechdel in the 1985 as a light-hearted way to view gender representation in films and TV. The test is straightforward: for the film to pass the Bechdel test and get an ‘A’ rating, two named female characters have to talk to each other about something other than a man. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Well, only one of the Harry Potter films passes the test, with none of the Lord of the Rings or original Star Wars trilogies doing so.

The objective of the test is not to judge the quality of a film, or point fingers and label them as sexist, it’s to create awareness.

Clearly, many directors haven’t consciously given much thought to the contributions of their female characters, who are all too often props to male characters, motherly figures, victims, or romantic interests. Hopefully the press this initiative has garnered will make film and TV executives think twice when creating their media.

tiniest fraction out of millions of people who form the exception.

The question is how anyone can prevent this. Clubs can’t read the minds of fans as they walk into stadiums to determine whether or not they are racist. They can give out life bans, perhaps, to those who they catch singing racist songs, but this won’t stop the problem completely. What about those who are first time offenders, or who have shouted racist abuse before but never been caught? The bottom line is, however much we all may want racism stamped out of football completely, no one can control all of their fans all of the time.

Every group has its bad eggs, and with a group as large football fans, those bad eggs are even harder to silence completely.

More often than not, however, what these fans want most is to cause controversy and gather attention, something which football must avoid from granting them. Walking off the pitch like Kevin-Prince Boateng did for AC Milan when he was the subject of racist abuse, is not the best way to respond.

As were Mario Balotelli’s claims that he would “kill” anyone who gave him racist abuse during Euro 2012. These sentiments are completely understandable, but also counter-productive.

These hecklers want a reaction, and if football is affected in

Flickr: Blue Moon

As an avid football fan, I’m glad that I wasn’t alive in the eighties. Those were the days when racism was rampant, when players like John Barnes were regular victims of abuse, and when hooliganism was so out of control that we were banned from competing in Europe until the problem was truly addressed.

In contrast to those dark days, 21st Century football doesn’t seem so bad. Projects like the Kick It Out campaign have done a fantastic job, and I, like many other football fans, have never witnessed an act of racism at a football match in this country.

The problem is that it only takes a tiny minority to bring it all crashing down again and drag the sport into disrepute.

Yaya Toure is the latest victim; a top black player abused in Moscow by a group of hostile fans. UEFA, to their credit, have punished CSKA Moscow, partially closing their stadium for their next European match.

In a statement, they claimed that ‘the fight against racism is a high priority for UEFA. The

“

Ben Andrews

European governing body has a zero-tolerance policy towards racism and discrimination on the pitch and in the stands.’

Now there’s definitely a case to say that a one match closure of part of their stadium was not a strong enough punishment.

As far as I’m concerned a full closure would have certainly been appropriate, and the club should have faced heavy fines to make sure that they do everything in their power to better control their supporters.

The undeniable fact though, is that there is only so much that the authorities can do.

this way by the voice of a tiny minority, then the problem will only get worse. This is especially prevalent in a world where racist abuse can be just as easily given on Twitter, after the match has finished, where the perpetrators are even harder to pin down or to punish. If they get a reaction, then they’re getting

exactly what they want, and they’ll continue trying to get it.

The answer then, is to punish offenders in the strongest way possible, but to let the game go on. The more we give these people the attention that they want, whether it’s by walking off the pitch, or threatening violence, or threatening to

boycott the 2018 World Cup as some players have, the more the problem will linger. But if we write them off as an irrelevant and prejudiced minority, with opinions too outdated to dent the footballing world, then the problem will be reduced, and the beautiful game will go on for the majority to enjoy.

... Movember Fail ...Egypt and Morsi Nick Herbert It’s that time of year again. Razors go unused, moustache idols are chosen and ‘how to grow better facial hair?’ is googled by a number of emasculated individuals. Yes it’s Movember, the month where people go unshaven in support of a number of male health charities.

I am taking part in Movember and failing miserably, the dreams of sporting a Tom Selleck like ‘tache are ruined on a daily basis when I closely inspect my face in the mirror. If I’m lucky by the end of the month I will be rivalling Kip from Napoleon Dynamite.

However I will not give up. We’re told throughout life that it is the trying that counts. The immediate lack of an inbuilt soup strainer will not stop us in our strides towards moustachioed greatness. Us follicley disadvantaged brothers should not give up; yes we look like we have a stain on our top lip and yes we will shave as soon as December arrives. But it will be worth it. So if you are one of those who, like me, are struggling through this month of non-shaving I can offer only these words of confidence.

Nice Mo Bro.

Alex Saad The Muslim Brotherhood’s fall from power in July seemed like a fresh start for Egyptians. But unfortunately after another implementation of military law the situation is far from resolved.

With ousted president Mohammed Morsi’s trial adjourned until January after a chaotic first day, Egypt’s political situation remains uncertain. In court Morsi declared he was still ‘Egypt’s legitimate president’. Protestors showed their solidarity for the old regime outside court, while in the public eye Ahmed Abdul Zaher, a player for one of Egypt’s top football clubs, signified his Brotherhood allegiance during a recent goal celebration.

Egyptians are divided in opinion between the Muslim Brotherhood and General Sisi, who is hailed as the man who took control during the military coup this summer. Many believe he would be an excellent presidential candidate.

However he has ordered the destruction of tunnels between Sinai and the Gaza strip in the wake of Egypt’s economic crisis, and has therefore cut off the main lifelines of the Palestinians living there. Egypt has always supported the Palestinians and one of Morsi’s few virtues was his attention to their needs.

In the meantime, the country is under emergency rule again. Protesters, mainly pro-Brotherhood, are shot down in the streets with live ammunition. Violence is escalating and shows no signs of abating soon. Egypt is still a long way from being out of the woods.

Flickr: John and Mel Kots

Epigram

25.11.2013

13 13 15

How can we still love the smell of napalm in the morning?

Sahar Shah

the idea that terrorism is now essentially a war between the U.S. and the Islamic world, and of course, utilitarianism.

Each of these issues should be looked at in turn.

Firstly 9/11 was a tragedy. It should have never happened and nothing like it should ever occur again. However, slow-but-steady mass murder can’t be the correct, or even the most effective, response to the threat of its recurrence.

Tens, or hundreds, of civilians have already died in drone attacks, and that’s as far as we know. How much longer can we justify viewing these civilians as mere collateral damage? In the Khan v SSFCA judgment, Khan describes his home as a community ‘plagued with fear’ as drones buzz perpetually overhead.

Responding to terrorist attacks in a manner that creates such an atmosphere in another country is rather like saying, ‘we can do exactly what you do, but we can do it with better technology, and in a more systematic fashion.’

The point about this being a ‘war’ between the U.S. and the Islamic world can be knocked off the table in one swipe: by all existing legal standards,the term

‘war on terror’ is a misnomer, the primary reason for this being that wars occur between states, not between states and insurgent groups. Reprieve UK, the organisation representing Khan, gives a succinct assessment of the various legal issues underpinning the situation on their website. They say that GCHQ employees that assisted the CIA in directing armed attacks in Pakistan are liable not only under domestic criminal law as secondary parties to murder, but may also be guilty of conduct ancillary to crimes against humanity.

Now, the complexities underlying the utilitarian dimension of this debate are far too extensive, and largely beyond my comprehension, to warrant a proper discussion of them here, but the essential reasoning is: if killing one terrorist suspect now could prevent hundreds dying in a terrorist attack in the future,then it must be justifiable. However, let’s make no mistake: violent terrorist and anti-terrorist sentiments have one thing in

common, they both spread as a result of rage and fear. So, even if we look at this pragmatically: launching a campaign of terror in Islamic countries hardly feels like a sensible way to stifle terrorist sympathies.

It’s understandable that we are in the process of seeking vengeance for terrorist attacks that have already occurred, but after Iraq, Afghanistan, and now drone strikes, let’s not wait until we’ve killed thousands of civilians simply because, like the Lannisters, Westerners always pay their debts. We need to tread with caution here because, through this campaign, we’re coming dangerously close to making the assertion that Western lives are more precious than any others.

As the self-appointed moral compass of the world, as

well as alleged promoters of fairness and transparency, we shouldn’t be too shy to ask ourselves some challenging questions. For instance, why has Noor Khan been denied entry into the UK? If the whole operation is completely vanilla, why shouldn’t an innocent victim of a misplaced drone strike be permitted to seek justice in the very country that helped place him in such a dire situation, if he so desires?

In this situation, you would think the UK government’s attitude towards Khan would be one of deepest apology rather than a cold shoulder.

I could drop a Ghandi quote on violence now, but people only do that when the logical

Flickr: Defence Images

It’s perplexing to hear people say, in defence of drone warfare, that drones are ‘state of the art’, precise and effective. This is a bit like saying, ‘alright, fine, a drone is a murder weapon, but it’s the latest in murder weapons, the most en vogue.’

The controversial dimension to this issue arises less from the mechanical efficiency of drones and more from the inevitable question raised by their use: what gives us the right to commit murder?

The U.S. has been engaged in a drone attack campaign in northwest Pakistan, particularly the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, since 2004. The drones target suspected terrorists and, as stated above, are relatively precise and effective. However, civilian deaths do occur due to missed targets or mistaken intelligence. It’s difficult to pin down an exact figure, but civilian death toll claims range from 67 to 789 since 2008.

The UK SSFCA is currently in the process of being sued as a result of GCHQ delivering locational intelligence to the CIA relating to Noor Khan, a non-terrorist victim that suffered injuries and lost family members in a 2011 drone strike.

The UK is now preventing Khan from visiting the UK, so perhaps this is an apt time to place the morality of drone warfare under intense scrutiny.

The issue doesn’t boil down straightforwardly to a question of whether or not murder is wrong, of course—there are several contentious issues underlying the drone dilemma.

There’s the fall out from 9/11,

basis of their argument is fragile, so I’ll save that card for another time. But a well-known man once said that while one death is a tragedy, a thousand is a statistic. Unless we want to be remembered as the generation that had the same collective mentality as Joseph Stalin, let’s encourage our foreign policy administrators to re-think their stance. It doesn’t matter that the civilian death toll has not yet reached the thousands, even one civilian death, at the hands of a foreign government for reasons that are not absolutely essential, is too much.

Spy bosses may have opened up but so have your emails

‘It’s not nice being snooped on, but it’s better than being blown up,’ spoke an insightful voice at a recent Question Time. And a growing number of us agree. But this conclusion misses out other important side-effects of spying.

After a brief interlude between Snowden’s asylum in Russia and Merkel’s nasty little ‘October surprise’, the topic makes a comeback. Andrew Napolitano of reason.com summarises it as, ‘last week we learned that [the NSA] has spied on the Pope and on the conclave that elected him last March. This week we learned that it also has spied on the secretary general

international calls and emails without warrant from a court.

India passed its Information Technology Act in the same year by substituting previous provisos on tracking electronic communication with the “investigation of any offense”, again no judicial oversight.

And the US has its PATRIOT Act. Democracies around the world engineer their own mass surveillance programmes such as India’s CMS and the American PRISM. Shockingly Britain stands accused of the largest one, Tempora, as documents leaked in The Guardian reveal. This is based on a dubious interpretation of the RIPA law. Tempora processes 10 GB per second of emails, social media posts, internet histories and calls, and shares them with America’s NSA. The EU Commission wrote to Foreign Secretary William

Hague demanding answers about Tempora, as this no doubt infringes a host of EU and European Human Rights laws. Theresa May, defending her Communications Bill (nicknamed the Snooper’s Charter),which would have given more legality to this warrantless access to user data, was content with the argument that only ‘criminals’ had anything to fear.

It was blocked by the Lib Dems.

If she was right, the MOD would not have issued a Defence Advisory Notice to newspapers in June this year advising them that publishing stories regarding such operations ‘may begin to jeopardise both national security and possibly UK personnel…’. Consequently, no other major newspaper reported this.

An irony considering that the government was so keen on press freedom just earlier this year justifying

its optional press regulator.

The US Army has also ‘restricted’ access to The Guardian website as a part of ‘network hygiene.’ Back in the UK, the Head of the MI5, quizzed recently by MPs last Friday, defended the programme arguing that while the GCHQ was collecting a ‘haystack of data,’ it was only looking for ‘needles’.

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They are looking for needles in a haystack because they lack the competency to streamline operations

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Eric Edward-Selvaraj

of the UN and has hacked into the computer servers at Google and Yahoo. What’s going on?’

What’s going on is that long gone are the days when intelligence agencies restricted their operations to other governments or organisations.

The Pope, the UN, allies, Princess Diana, Blair, what could potentially be you and me are among the growing targets of the NSA. What, whom, why and where they are snooping is of course not revealed in public.

Is the Pope a ‘potential’ threat to national security? And what about Ban-Ki Moon of the UN? Our suspicions deepen and the justifications offered are left crumbling.

For those among us seeking refuge in the nicety of the ‘it’s just the Americans’ argument’ ought to quickly rethink.

Sweden’s FRA law passed in 2008 allows it to track

The crux of the matter remains, however, that these restrictions directly impact public opinion, filter information, and spread misinformation.

Misinformation here is not

just false information, but also incomplete information.

They are looking for needles in a haystack because they clearly lack the competency required to streamline their operations to where it is necessary without this collateral infringement on rights, which is not proportionate.

While a determined and organised criminal will use internet cafes, prepaid cards, VPNs, and countless other circumventing mechanisms; many innocent will not.

The backdrop of these events is that the naked truth remains that the gap between the political and legal cultures of authoritarian and libertarian regimes has gotten closer.

I leave you with Benjamin Franklin: ‘Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.’

Epigram

25.11.2013

Letters Spoilt for spoilers I will not deny that I am one of those people who invests far too much emotionally in television shows.

When Sam Bailey walked into The X Factor auditions and belted out by far the best rendition of Beyoncé’s ‘Listen’ I have ever heard on a reality show, I was sat at home, tears streaming, praying for her to go through. And when Debbie accidentally used Howard’s custard on The Great British Bake Off, I truly did share his feelings of anguish and despair. AMC’s Breaking Bad, however, whose bandwagon I unashamedly jumped on as soon as the exam season was over, really is in a whole league of its own. You might say it is utterly ridiculous that people get so caught up in the fever of a television series’ plot, that the characters aren’t real so why on earth do we care so much, and further, the cynical amongst us will constantly try and state that The Wire and The Sopranos were so much better. ‘Breaking Bad is terribly overrated, don’t you know?’

Well, I have seen neither, and from where I’m sitting, Breaking Bad is easily the most enthralling, impeccably written drama to air on television in recent years.

The second half of the fifth series aired weekly on AMC from the 11th August until the finale on the 29th September. Interestingly, the number of US viewers fluctuated massively from episode to episode, from a surprisingly low 4.41 million viewers for the episode ‘Rabid Dog’ to the massive 10.28 million Americans who tuned in to watch the last ever episode, ‘Felina’.

However, since AMC is only available in America through a satellite or cable service viewers must pay for, and episodes only became available

on Netflix the day after they were aired, from 10:30pm onwards on the 29th September the risk of accidentally spotting mentions of massive plot spoilers anywhere

“

Is it so ridiculous to

suggest that we have a moral obligation not to post spoilers?

”

on the internet was immense.

Being the avid Twitter fan that I am - and considering that I follow the official Twitter accounts of both AMC and Breaking Bad, as well as Bryan Cranston (who plays the protagonist Walter White) and a parody account named ‘Breaking Bad Quotes’ - I was fully aware of the likelihood of the whole thing being ruined for me. So while I watched the finale as soon as was humanly and technologically possible, I also avoided scrolling through Twitter or Facebook until I had done so. Understandably, some will find my deliberate avoidance of social media a little melodramatic and unnecessary, but I like to think others will empathise with me; when you have become that engrossed in a television show, and the only thing stopping it from being essentially a waste of approximately 50 hours of your life is a 140-character blast about the ending, it does not seem unreasonable to take such drastic precautions to avoid spoilers.

This then raises the question of whether people should be

@EpigramLetters

tweeting or posting about the ending in the first place. Is it so ridiculous to suggest that we have a moral obligation not to post spoilers, simply because it is just downright cruel to those trying to enjoy the show at their own pace? Nowadays, television series have become incredibly easy to find online and stream directly from the internet, meaning many people can catch up with their favourite series in their own time.

Indeed, Samuel L. Jackson - whom I also follow on Twitter - tweeted a huge plot spoiler the day after the Breaking Bad finale was aired, receiving due criticism from many of his followers, my favourite of which being “I like u mate I really do but u have just absolutely ruined Breaking Bad for me cheers”. He has a point; Jackson has almost 3 million followers on Twitter, any number of which may have been fans of the show and could unsuspectingly come across this spoiler. But his blunt response of “Attention seeking bitches!! U knew the shit was ending!! Those of us that Really cared couldn’t wait & needed Closure! Tweet wasn’t 4 U!” is also fairly valid. The internet is a public sphere; obviously we are entitled to voice our own opinions, and it is both unfair and unrealistic to expect the entire audience of a TV show, who did tune in and watch the finale when it was aired, not to discuss anything to do with the plot or ending.

And so I reluctantly deliver a harsh truth to avid fans of all shows everywhere, get over it. Of course it’s annoying, but such is life.

Saoirse McStay 3rd year English

Flickr: drake lelane

letters@epigram.org.uk

bread, Leanne discovered that she was missing a cake. There are two peculiar ways in which this could have come about. Firstly, it was a simple mistake by the delivery driver, which would in turn single-handedly ruin the birthday celebrations of a devastated 22year-old girl. As she washes away her salty tears with alternate shots of vodka and amaretto she cannot help but feel the evening would have been more pleasant if only she had some kind of highly sugary food with which to line her stomach.

Alternatively, the incompetence runs far more deeply and alongside more sinistwer motives. Under this theory, rather than inadvertently supplying us with ‘birthday bread’, a substitution has occurred whereby in the absence of cake, the staff at ASDA found a related product to offer Leanne instead.

Bread. ‘Make a wish and blow out the candles on the bread!’. ‘Who wants a slice of bread?’ ‘Leanne, you should cut the first slice of your bread’. These are just some of the culturally counterintuitive phrases that we could have been forced to say to Leanne. In spite of ASDA’s efforts to create a completely new birthday product, we managed to find a rival supermarket with a more stable cake-based supply chain. Cake was back on the menu.

As such, the inquisition has begun. Do ASDA want to ruin everyone’s birthday or was it just Leanne’s? Was this a mistake by a helpless delivery man with unintended catastrophic consequences? Perhaps we may never know. Leanne had a pleasant birthday in the end, yet there can be little doubt that the memory of this year will scar her for decades to come. As for the harbingers of the birthday loaf, here’s hoping that they compensate a girl whose 22nd birthday they contrived to ruin. Cake does not equal bread ASDA. If you do not learn that soon then you wont be going to any birthday parties.

Alex Longley

Flickr: freakgirl

Want to have your say?

Write in and email letters@epigram.org.uk

Leanne, my housemate, celebrated her 22nd birthday this week. The birthday checklist was whipped out – cards (very homemade), presents (very alcoholic), night out (also very alcoholic) and most importantly, cake (very chocolatey). Yet this final component nearly never happened due to the immeasurable incompetence of one, or a number of people, working for ASDA. Had we allowed them to wield their axes of misery, Leanne may have had a cake-free birthday.

Picture the scene. Mummy Leanne is typing away at her laptop in the sleepy North Norfolk seaside town of Cromer. It is a peaceful agglomeration, notable for its crabs and Craig from Big Brother 6.

In the knowledge that she cannot be with her daughter on such a special day, Mummy Leanne improvises, buying her a bottle of Smirnoff and a bottle of Disaronno – a combination that should pave the way for a memorable birthday night out (point number three on the aforementioned birthday checklist). With the waves gently lapping against the struts of Norfolk’s finest pier, she hovers her mouse over the ‘confirm order’ button. Suddenly an idea flies through her brain. ‘What about a cake!?’ (Item number four on the birthday checklist). Accordingly she finds the biggest, chocolatiest and if you believe the branding, ‘finest’ cake that ASDA has to offer. With what she considers her work to be done, Mummy Leanne opens a bottle of wine and relaxes, safe in the knowledge that her daughter’s 22nd birthday celebrations will soon go off with a chocolatey bang. Praise be to online supermarket shopping.

How mistaken she was. Her plans were nearly foiled when my fellow housemates nearly turned away the delivery as it was in the name of Leanne’s mum and not Leanne herself. ‘There’s no one here by that name I’m afraid, try next door’. Fortunately the surnames were eventually matched and the order was beckoned in. However this was only the start of the ASDA sponsored birthday rollercoaster on which we were all about to embark. Upon closer inspection, something in this surprise package was amiss. The bottles of Smirnoff and Disaronno had both arrived, however the cake had been replaced with something that did not resemble cake in the slightest.

It was, in fact, a loaf of bread.

Having examined the receipt to see if her mum had actually got her a birthday loaf of

Editor: Emma Leedham

Epigram

25.11.2013

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Puzzles

Brought to you by Emma Leedham and Sam Tomes

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Across 2) Domed home (5) 5) Time of your life (3) 6) Side squared, for a square (4) 8) St Jude, for example (5) 11) Foul (5) 12) Half a score (3) 14) Leader of the Roundheads (8) 15) Equestrian game 16) Bristolian pub, famous for its Cider (10,3) 18) Burma, formerly (7) 21) 4 stringed Guitar relative (7) 22) Knight’s game (5) 23) Greek vowel (5) 25) Roman Emporer (4)

Down 1) Annual ‘tache growth for men’s health awareness (8) 3) Apple’s alternative to Skype (8) 4) Bet (5) 7) Festival of lights (6) 8) Witness (3) 9) Lighten the load (9) 10) Ficticious name (9) 13) Festival Log (4) 15) Reality show, gave us Gareth Gates and Will Young (3,4) 17) Nada (5) 19) Largest US State (6) 20) Prayer ending (4) 24) Adhesive (4)

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2) What is the name of the devastating typhoon that swept the Philippines?

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his shoulder. But what animal does the tattoo depict?

Sudoku

4) What did US popstar Miley Cyrus do at the MTV EMA awards in

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3) 75-year old Question Time host David Dimbleby got his first ever tattoo on

Last week’s answers Qs 1-10: Rihanna, 7, Frances Quinn, Dell, Duncan James, July 2011, James Blake, Miami, France, Lou Reed

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auditions for parts in which forthcoming Hollywood film?

TV comedy, should another series be aired?

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5) Prince William agreed to a cameo role of which hit BBC

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Quick fortnightly news quiz

Amsterdam to cause further controversy?

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UBU NEWS

News and opinion from the University of Bristol Students' Union www.ubu.org.uk

A VERY UBU CHRISTMAS

OFFICER IN THE SPOTLIGHT

WHAT'S ON

Our Guide to Christmas

Tom Flynn

UBU events this fortnight

BRISTOL AGAINST RAPE CULTURE

Nov 2013

© Rajitha Ratnam

Campaign against rape culture

A

t Student Council last month, a body made up

conversations around the subject. The event was a

topic. Student media would rather discuss Blurred

of student representatives spanning all areas of

great success and I was extremely pleased with how

Lines or claim the Union is banning things just

student life, discussed and passed a motion called

positive and everyone was. There are some great

to be provocative. The Union didn't ban anything;

'Ending Rape Culture at the University of Bristol'.

photos on the UBU Facebook page of the demo.

students did - the motion was voted on by student representatives.

The motion was put forward by the UBU Women's

The date was chosen purposefully to coincide with

Officer, Alice Philips and seconded by myself,

the launch of the city-wide campaign ‘This is not an

For me, if discussions about Robin Thicke lead to

Alessandra Berti.

excuse to rape me’. The campaign has been launched

actions around these points then that’s great. If not,

by Safer Bristol who state that whilst there has

then focusing solely on whether his song is played in

The motion aimed to give UBU the mandate to

been legislative change on how rape is prosecuted,

the Union is really derailing attempts to battle rape

campaign to end rape culture by:

attitudinal shifts are needed to increase reporting

culture.

1) Tackling myths surrounding rape

rates. It is estimated that 3,894 women and girls

2) Educating students about consent

aged 16-59, are victims of sexual assault each year in

There are lots of things we could be improving, see

Bristol, but only 834 are reported.

my latest blog on ubu.org.uk for more information.

demonstration on Tyndall Avenue to bust rape myths.

Given the reaction the Student Council motion

If you are interested in getting involved please e-mail

For two hours students shared pledges on what

garnered, it seemed really apparent that as a student

me at ubu-welfare@bristol.ac.uk, or Alice at

they will do to end rape culture and engaged in

community, we are lacking knowledge around this

ubu-women@bristol.ac.uk

On Thursday 21 November, UBU held a

UBU GUIDE TO

Christmas IN BRISTOL

University of Bristol Christmas Cards

A Bavarian Christmas Sat 7 Dec - Anson Rooms

Keep warm this winter University of Bristol style

Get your skates on!

Ice skating at At-Bristol

Spread some festive cheer this year with University of Bristol Christmas cards available at www.ubushop.co.uk

Anson Rooms presents 'a wonderful Christmas stein' with live music, cheap drinks and partying till 2am.

Look great and keep warm this winter with our range of University of Bristol bobble hats available at www.ubushop.co.uk

Millennium Square will be transformed into a winter wonderland complete with Ice Rink! www.at-bristol.org.uk

Essential winter wear from the UBU Shop

Made In Bristol Gift Fair Sat 14 Dec - Colston Hall

Vegsoc Veggie Christmas Tues 17 Dec -Multifaith Chaplaincy

Mulled Cider on the Christmas Steps

Refresh your winter wardrobe with our range of gilets from ÂŁ30, available at www.ubushop.co.uk

A shopping extravaganza! A stunning array of locally created must-haves. www.handmadeinbristol.co.uk

Don't feel left out this Christmas, learn some great recipes and tips! www.bristolvegsoc.moonfruit.com

Visit Bristol Cider Shop on the Christmas Steps for a truly Christmasy experience.

Nov 2013

NEW NUS DELEGATES

T

he NUS Delegates represent you on a national level. They attend the NUS National Conference in April next year; vote on NUS policy; elect the national

representatives and network with students from other Students’ Unions. Thirteen candidates stood for five available positions. The votes have been counted and we can now announce the NUS Delegates who will attend the NUS National

WELFARE WORKSHOP

Conference in April 2014.Your NUS Delegates are:

T

he UBU advice service, Just Ask, is organising an interactive Welfare Workshop for Postgraduate students on Wednesday 27 November, 3-4pm in the Enderby

•

Alessandra Berti

•

Sorana Vieru

•

Matthew Graham

•

Jennifer Salisbury-Jones

•

Josh Nagli

Room, Physics Building.

It will focus on breaking down the stigmas and stereotypes surrounding mental health, best practice and useful tools for talking about mental health and information about different mental health issues.

Workshop Exercises include: •

Mental Health Model

•

Mix and Match: illness with symptoms (anxiety, depression, anorexia etc.)

•

Scenarios

•

Use of Language

•

Round-up: support services overview

OFFICER IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Statistics suggest that 1 in 4 people will experience a mental health problem and that they are more common in the student population - it’s important to be aware of the range of mental health problems and also the support that is available at University and beyond.

TOM FLYNN Hi, I’m Tom, and I’m your Vice President for Education.

My role is all about your experience at University and making sure your education is the best it can be. I represent students on numerous education and student experience focused university meetings, and meet the people running the university on a regular basis to discuss and lobby for changes that benefit you.

At the moment I’m: •

Working with the university to make sure Course Reps are taken seriously and supported. We want UBU to be guided by the work that Course Reps do with their departments, that affects students on a day-to-day basis.

•

Working with Academic/Departmental society leaders to see what more support they can be offered by both the university and UBU.

•

NIGHTLINE IS BACK

U

Developing a Postgraduate Students’ Network that puts on events aimed at our postgraduate students, link into postgraduate representation, be an effective, independent voice for PG students, and work with the University as a partner on projects and initiatives.

BU Nightline is a telephone-based listening and information service run by students, for students. It’s open every night during term-time from 8pm to

•

8am, with a dedicated and trained team who will listen to anything you want to

Lobbying the University for a system of student financial support that provides greater cash support for students from low-income backgrounds.

talk about.

• They are non-judgemental, non-directive, non-aligned and non-advisory.

Beginning the process of developing a student development plan with the university that maximises opportunities and skill development for students.

Everything you say is confidential and anonymous.

You can get in touch with me on ubu-education@bristol.ac.uk or follow me on Call UBU Nightline on 01179 266 266. www.ubu.org.uk/nightline

Twitter @Flynny123.

Nov 2013

WHAT'S ON

ANSON ROOMS PRESENTS

NOVEMBER MONDAY 25 Find out more about Blood Donation, Hawthorns, 10am - 3pm UBU Active Badminton Indoor Sports Centre TUESDAY 26 Public Service Broadcasting, Anson Rooms, 7pm - 11pm 2 RO OMS OF MUSIC AND SALSA INDUCTION

WEDNESDAY 27 Postgraduate Welfare Workshop, Physics Building, 3pm - 4pm

3 0 N O V E M B E R • 9 P M - 2 AM

FRIDAY 29 Crystal Fighters, Anson Rooms, 7pm - 11pm SATURDAY 30 UBU Active Dodgeball, Kingsdown Sports Centre UBU Active Touch Rugby, The Downs UBU Active Volleyball, Indoor Sports Centre Anson Rooms Presents: Latin Beats, Anson Rooms, 9pm - 2am

ANSON ROOMS PRESENTS: LATIN BEATS On Saturday 30 November, Anson Rooms Presents Latin Beats! Anson Rooms Presents is the new night on the block. For three weekends before Christmas, the Anson Rooms will be hosting the best in Saturday night entertainment.

Join our Abanico Salsa maestro for an induction to salsa dancing and DJs

DECEMBER

playing the best in latin, salsa, Spanish, modern swing, RnB, hip-hop and house music across 2 rooms.

MONDAY 2 Try something new, experience latin culture and meet new people!

UBU Active Badminton, Indoor Sports Centre Stand Up Bristol Comedy Night, Anson Rooms, 8pm - 11pm

Tickets available at ansonrooms.co.uk

SATURDAY 7 UBU Active Dodgeball, Kingsdown Sports Centre UBU Active Touch Rugby, The Downs UBU Active Volleyball, Indoor Sports Centre Anson Rooms Presents: A Bavarian Christmas, 9pm - 2am SUNDAY 8 Postgraduate Film Night, Richmond Building, 6:30pm - 10:30pm

Contact UBU University of Bristol Students’ Union Richmond Building 105 Queens Road Bristol BS8 1LN www.ubu.org.uk /BristolSU

FOR FULL LISTINGS VISIT WWW.UBU.ORG.UK/EVENTS

@UBUBristol

CULTURE

In Between Time and Paul Blakemore

Epigram

25.11.2013

Arts

Editor: Claudia Knowles

Deputy Editor: Rose Bonsier

Online Editor: Erin Fox

arts@epigram.org.uk

deputyarts@epigram.org.uk

artsonline@epigram.org.uk

@EpigramArts

Baring-all in the name of art

Millie Morris discusses student’s decision to lose virginity on-stage Naked bodies have wriggled their way onto artists’ canvases for centuries. From the Ancient Greeks’ roughly-hewn archaic Kouroi to Egon Schiele’s evocative portraits and all the thousands of flesh-coloured, skin-sculpted artworks in between; the nude is a central part of Western art.

In recent controversy, a student at Central St. Martins, Clayton Pettet, has vowed to lose his virginity with another man as part of a performance piece next January, in front of approximately one hundred people. Though Pettet has commented that the piece is conceptual and aims to emphasise the stigma attached to virginity and its social importance, there is inevitably a plethora of other issues bound up within the subject.

“ Does stamping ‘art’ on something justify it’s likeness to porn? ” What will make this live sexual act so different from others seen in the seedy backstreets of a Redlight District? Does stamping the term ‘art’ on something which centres around the nude really

justify its likeness to porn?

Or more broadly, is nudity necessary within art, and does the naked body still have to ability to shock?

Discussion within Pornography and the Public, an event organised by Bristol art enthusiast group Young Arnolfini, offers some interesting perspectives. Amongst the other tangents explored within this captivating debate, panellist Zoe Margolis hits the nail on the head where she endeavours to differentiate the words ‘porn’ and ‘erotica’. ‘If something is there to titillate,’ she says, ‘that is porn... “Erotica” is something that’s about thinking rather than feeling.’ So, according to Margolis, erotic art and literature is supposed to make you think. But as Hannah Chapman, another panellist, points out when I chase up the speakers individually, judgment of Pettet’s piece ‘really depends on how you define porn, and how you define art.’

Doris Uhlich, an Austrian dancer whose body has been cruelly criticised for its ‘corpulence’ and unorthodox appearance within the dancing world, explores the subject of body image through the nude figure in her own performance

move in the name of art. Any piece, More than Enough. Amongst accusation of its likeness to porn a series of live phone calls to can be undercut by the fact that fellow dancers seeking their the affair will probably be far from opinions on how a dancer’s akin to the experience shown body should look, the show within an adult movie; virginitysees Uhlich strip entirely loss is no neat naked and cake business in her body in “ Why the strange, the first place, talcum powder. let alone with She then employs a quirking jerks the gaze of series of flesh-quaking hundred movements, staring causing her thighs one onlookers at the audience as she the twists and wiggles, to ripple, her bottom following process. white puffs creating to shake? ” That art has a cloud around her. lost the ability Why the powder? to shock is an idea often under Why the strange, quirking jerks scrutiny, but arousal from the causing her thighs to ripple, naked body only depends on her bottom to shake? One what the artist does with it; thing’s for certain: she is not whether it be Pettet’s conceptual trying to be sexy, and she is exploration or Uhlich and her not trying to allure her avid Ruben-esque presentation of crowd. an image-obsessed society, the Uhlich is making a point nude does not always have to be – one which does not employ sexually captivating. nakedness as a means of ‘titillation’, but instead uses it to emphasise the poisonous judgments which permeate both the dancing profession and the world at large.

Perhaps she is ridiculing her body in mimicry of those cutting tongues; perhaps she is celebrating it. ‘This is my body’, she says, and it will not submit.

Personally, I think Pettet’s Doris Uhlich - More Than Enough. ©Paul Blakemore scheme is a dynamically brave Clayton Pettet

Crammed full of freshers When a playwright takes their inspiration from a bunch of anonymous freshers, it is with slight trepidation that one approaches the undoubtedly insane results. Cram was no exception to the rule of madness: topics ranged from the attempt to found a new religion to a porn addict. And yet the show was an absolute acting, writing and directing success.

The entire programme was written and performed to combat the potential confusion caused by so many short plays in such quick succession. The stand-out script was Jeremy, setting a Fawlty Towers-esque farce amid a scene which was easy to follow but intricate, with the basic plot points laid out almost immediately. Similarly, Adele James and Katie Wells in An Awkward Meeting used subtle expression to create wonderfully

textured characters that told the subtext of Rose Bonsier’s genius script with ease. The use of a minimalist stage allowed for tiny but notable scene changes which further helped an audience to get into the world of each piece.

Despite the lunacy which filled the scripts, there was an almost consistent believability about the performances. Bertie Darrell’s ‘prophet’ was far beyond the earthly limits of irritating and self-obsessed and yet presented with a skill that allowed the audience to suspend their disbelief. Meanwhile the caricatured characters in What if I Found a Balloon in the Toaster were nonetheless real and excellently performed. This was coupled with Annabel Kitson’s great and serious acting, which was in perfect balance with the slightly humorous events at work and

dealt with the solemn destruction of a marriage.

While The Legend of the Golden Teacup lacked a little subtlety of character which left the silent Charlotte (Sophie Grenfell) the most interesting character onstage, the performance was beautifully directed by Gisele Payvandi and Tommy Winchester.

This is typical of all the plays, where the direction was the final positive piece of the near enough faultless puzzle.

“A fantastic, varied and entertaining show which left the entire audience smiling.”

Kane Walpole

WHAT

WHO

Richard Wagner

Composer/director/conductor/ polemicist etc.

(1813-1883) The Morrissey of the 19th century: snide, petty and egotistical in the extreme, but still one of the best musicians of his generation.

Revolutionised opera

by insisting that music was just one aspect of the artistic whole: encompassing music, drama, visual art and poetry. Unfortunately all this good work is often forgotten: Wagner was rabidly anti-Semitic and Hitler was his biggest fan.

The Ring Cycle, an odyssey through Norse and German mythology. At sixteen hours, the only classical music where bringing a pillow along to the performance is considered acceptable. Epic chorales and arias bolstered by complex harmonies and Wagner’s famous invention the leitmotiv, a musical

phrase

associated with particular characters and repeated throughout the performance.

Epigram

Disabled Photography; Enabled Art Sammy Steele

©David Constantine

©Giles Duley

Over the past month I have been lucky enough to attend two talks by photographers Giles Duley and David Constantine. Two years ago Duley suffered the unfortunate fate of stepping on an IED in Afghanistan whilst on foot with troops, resulting in him becoming a triple amputee. In 1982 at the age of 21, Constantine was on a camping trip to Fraser Island and became a paraplegic after hitting his head whilst diving into the sea.

Constantine decided to put photography aside, but this was only for a short while, as he felt that his life as a paraplegic prohobited him from being a photographer. Duley on the other hand was determined not to bail on his dream. The first words he said to his sister on arrival at a hospital in Birmingham after being transferred from Afghanistan were ‘I am still a photographer’.

Constantine, disregarding all previous thoughts he had held about his condition not permitting him to be a photographer, returned to what he loved most.

As he said he realised how lucky he was to be ‘very much alive and kicking’.

Everywhere he went he kept seeing things that he knew he wanted to photograph, it was a reminder to him of who he was.

Both Duley and Constantine held concerns about how their lives

WHEN The second half of the 19th century, when Romantic music reached its apogee.

A big emphasis was placed on emotional intensity and, increasingly, nationalist themes: it’s partly for this reason that Wagner set many of his operas in a mythical version of Germany.

explores the works of David Constantine and Giles Duley, their battles with injury and proving to all that their debilitation didn’t have to mean limitation.

Left: David Constantine From Sitting Images

25.11.2013

39

Arts Introducing: Millie Morris

Second year English student

Below: Giles Duley Self Portrait

would change, but there was nothing stopping their determination to return to what it was they did best. Whilst Duley was in intensive care he came up with the project he is currently working on, 100 Portraits Before I Die. Whilst discussing his work he said, ‘it’s funny because there was something that was in my head telling me it was so important. The reason why it was important is because for me photography is my soul. It’s everything that I do.

It’s my way of communicating with the world. It’s the way the world communicates with me.’

Both men actively work with charities, Constantine with Motivation – The Chair that Changes Lives and Duley with the Mines Advisory Group.

Both seek to improve the lives of people who have being affected by similar fates as Duly and Constantine.

The physical debilitation of these two men has not changed who they are.

Rather, the unfortunate experiences they both underwent have allowed them to exemplify a passion that is shared between them.

That passion being the essence of who they are.

They are photographers and neither has allowed anything to change that. www.gilesduley.com www.motivation.org.uk

“When it comes to painting, my chief interest is people. I used literary narrative in a lot of my art at school to explore individuals and their psychologies, lives and stories, here imagining a younger Miss Havisham from Dickens’ Great Expectations. Medium is still something which I continually explore, slowly breaking away from my dependence on acrylic paint.”

Clockwise from top left: Portrait for The Memory Project (Acrylic on paper) Winston Churchill (Pencil and biro on paper) Miss Havisham (Oil on canvas) Facebook: Millie Morris Portraiture

WHERE Born in Leipzig (a musical city that had previously housed both Bach and Mendelssohn), Wagner had to flee Germany after the Prussian army crushed the liberal revolutions of 1848. Returned later and became hugely successful, something demonstrated by the enormous opera house he had built in Bayreuth purely for the performance of his music. The town remains the destination for Wagner fans to this day.

All Wagner images ©freeinfosociety

Want to feature in Arts Introducing?

Send us your name, year and course alongside examples of your artwork by Monday 25 November to apply for the next issue.

WHY If you ignore Wagner’s dreadful ego and bigotry, his music is some of the most emotionally thrilling stuff ever written. And if the sublime music isn’t enough, the drama and verse is as good as any Shakespeare. Just don’t go expecting to see it at Bayreuth – tickets for the annual festival there sell out years in advance.

And remember to bring a pillow.

Andrea Valentino

Epigram

25.11.2013

40

Visualising the invisible - art’s contribution to music become almost sy n o n y m o u s with each other; see Peter Saville’s sadly over-used work for Joy Division or Storm Thurgerson’s Hipgnosis collective that exercised hegemony over the visual aesthetic of 70’s progressive rock.

Pale imitations of Leif’s work can be seen in the repeat patterning of clothes from many high street fashion outlets, but take even a glance over any of his compositions and you can tell that his shit is the real deal.

Sometimes it features find arcane images and photographs, digitally enhanced and arranged in perfect symmetrical patterns. At others it consists of amorphous whorls resembling amoebae, synapses or Rorschach tests.

It consistently pertains to ideas of fantasy, pantheism and the sublime boundlessness of the imagination.

In interviews the designer stresses the importance of music in the composition of his work; the lengthy stoner jams, international funk and trippy beat music ©Leif Podhajsky

I saw Leif Podhajsky in the flesh in Camden’s Electric Ballroom, at a sold-out gig of the mysterious Swedish heavy afro-rock collective Goat. I didn’t have the confidence or required level of intoxication to approach the Australian album artist and tell him what I thought of his work, but it did make me think about the huge recent resurgence of popular interest in the psychedelic – that is, the catchall phrase for experiences of a mind-expanded and inner-searching nature.

Here were two proponents of art that aim to provoke changes in consciousness, be it through the band’s raw and ragged jams or the artist’s beautiful compositions which utilise digital manipulation of images to create symmetry, repetitious patterning and hyper-real explosions of colour.

Psychedelic music in particular and modern album culture in general relies heavily on the visual aspect of its presentation.

At the least, album art and other artifacts like tour posters aim to give a visual approximation of the music’s overall aesthetic. At the most the aural and visual

compiled on his online mixtapes being a good indicator of how music can invoke the required headspace for a particular artist.

A more explicit and widely recognized interplay between graphics and music might be Gorillaz – the collaboration between ex-Blur frontman Damon Albarn and designer Jamie Hewlitt, creator of the gonzo comic character Tank Girl. In his lecture at Wills Memorial Building, Royal Holloway’s Dr Ashley Thorpe attempted to trace the links between Gorillaz’ amalgamation of animated graphics and pop music and Albarn and Hewlitt’s involvement in Chen Shizheng’s acclaimed opera Monkey: Journey to the West. He argued that the fictional hip hop group is a subversive piece of postmodernism that aims to critique the system of modern pop production by means of its own apparatus.

That is, by creating a highly stylised pop group that insists heavily on the visual, Albarn and Hewlitt highlight the superficiality

Cutting to the core of political issues Started in 2010 as a response to the brutal cuts brought in by the government, Theatre Uncut has developed as a forum for debate and discussion about the political issues of the moment. The principle behind what has become a nation-wide festival of theatre is that every year well-known playwrights are given a theme and asked to write a short play based around it. These politically charged pieces are then made available to perform free of charge throughout the month of November by anyone who wants to encourage their audience to think about the issues they raise. The organization has managed to sustain the involvement of bigname contributors such as David Greig, Clara

Brennan and Mark Ravenhill over the last few years, but their mission goes far beyond this. What co-founders Emma Callander and Hannah Price aim for is the encouragement of political thought and engagement across the widest spectrum of society possible.

For a second year Bristol is running a series of Theatre Uncut events across the city, including a flagship performance at the Bristol Old Vic on the 28th November. To get an insight into this year’s festival I went along to The Trinity Centre, a converted Church in Old Market, for one of Theatre Uncut’s first events. For 2013 the group of writers were asked to consider the question ‘Do we all get more right-wing in hard times?’

which, coupled with the topic of Scottish Independence, has led to a series of vastly differing scripts that are sharply insightful and very cleverly written. A personal favourite was Tim Price’s ‘Capitalism in Crisis’, a play based at the heart of the Occupy movement but more concerned with the responsibility and division associated with money than about Occupy itself.

After the performances we were invited to stay for a discussion group with the actors to talk about what we thought of the pieces.

Chaired by Jesse Meadows, who is organizing the Bristol events this year, and attended by Bristol Green Councilor Rob Telford, who was on hand to help explain current political legislation, this was a refreshing chance to talk completely openly about current issues.

Topics ranged from the

of manufactured pop, MTV and its associated culture.

Thorpe went on to discuss the postmodern elements in Shi-zheng’s opera, itself an adaptation of the popular Chinese novel Journey To The West by Wu Cheng’en. He postulated that the work was postmodern in that it used modern music, performance and visual art to present a didactic message that emphasises the importance of spirituality against the suffocating force of consumer capitalism, combining high and low art in the mixture of pop and opera with outlandish cartoon imagery.

Music and visual art are independent of one another, but can be combined to create a greater aesthetic or intellectual experience. Album art aims to relate ideas about the music within, often experienced prior to the music being heard. Animations and opera can be used to relate moral or cultural concepts, the auditory and visual combining to create a stronger message.

Danny Riley introduction of the ‘bedroom tax’ and its impact on the disabled to a good old chat about the relevance of the royal family in modern life. A similar session will follow the performance at the Bristol Old Vic and is definitely worth staying for.

If the idea of talking about politics makes your stomach turn, please don’t let this put you off. Theatre Uncut’s not about preaching at the audience or making them feel guilty, telling them what they should believe in or who they should vote for. The objective is to get people to take time out to think about the problems affecting the world, their country and their community, and what, if anything, can be done to solve them.

Rose Bonsier You can read our interview with Jesse Meadows on the Epigram website.

Jesse Meadows Organiser of Theatre Uncut 2013 in Bristol How did you get involved with Theatre Uncut?

Claudia Knowles - pencil on paper

‘I worked with Emma during the first year of Theatre Uncut acting in ‘Fat Man’, which she directed at the Bristol Old Vic, where I was resident at the time. Because I personally have quite a background in politics and activism as well as theatre it really appealed to me.’

A Response to ‘Philosophy Students Have No Skills’ Missing Cat. Troublesome puss, on the loose, on the prowl.

Surreptitious feline, bag of tricks, rhythmic meow.

Missing Cat. Chaotic pet, peculiar fashion, criminal record.

Take note, take care, you have been warned.

Missing Cat. That I do not, will not, want back.

Max Moore

Film & TV

Epigram

25.11.2013

@epigramfilm Editor: Gareth Downs

Deputy Editor: Matthew Field

Online Editor: Alejandro Palekar

filmandtv@epigram.org.uk

deputyfilmandtv@epigram.org.uk

filmandtvonline@epigram.org.uk

Hollywood and the Japanese invasion

The history of American cinema might be said to reflect the history of the nation itself – an amalgamation of styles, genres, inspirations from a number of cultures and countries.

Hollywood blockbusters continue to make billions of dollars the world over, and over the last couple of years we have seen an influx of films in the blockbuster market with clear thematic and aesthetic tropes from one of the oldest and most fascinating cultures in world cinema.

If you mention Anime to many people it is perhaps unsurprising that the first thing they might think is that you are a bit of a geek… But Anime and the influence of Japanese cinema has been in plain sight for

many years the most popular and influential blockbusters and T.V. series.

From Pokémon to Transformers and even The Hunger Games, Japanese cinema has influenced and inspired Hollywood directors in a way that little other world cinema has.

For a nation so traditionally insular about its culture and media it is perhaps surprising the influence Japanese cinema has. The clearest example in this Summer’s outing of blockbusters was Guillermo Del Toro’s Pacific Rim, starring British actors Charlie Hunnam and Idris Elba. Del Toro described his film as an homage to Japanese cinema, to the anime he has watched throughout the years. While it has garnered some decent critical reviews I was sadly underwhelmed. With the tag line ‘go big or go extinct’ and what

is basically giant robot fan service I didn’t think it could go wrong, but sadly the plot is about as clever as the huge, slimy, ugly ‘Kaju’ sea monsters that attack the nations of the pacific.

What Pacific Rim arguably failed to do was to acknowledge that there is so much more to anime than fighting robots beating the ever-loving crap out of each other. Most anime revolves around an interest in the psychology of characters. Pacific Rim attempted to emulate these flashbacks but failed to grasp the importance of character over CGI. The beauty of anime is that while it often provides a stark and other worldly splendour with its art style, which might be best shown in the Studio Ghibli films, it also clearly takes us out of our world and into another reality, one of fully rounded c h a ra c t e r s rather than dull Hollywood stereotypes.

Of course there are clearly exceptions. There is also a lot of anime which can be simply awful. But there are lessons to be learned from the best series and films. There is a plethora of intelligent Japanese anime and cinema out there for the viewing.

Neon Genesis Evangelion perhaps provides one of the bleakest investigations into the human flickr: kodomut

Matthew Field

psyche with regards to depression and loneliness in youth. Ghost in the Shell was ahead of its time with regards to cinema to explore the digital age, with the directors of The Matrix, the Wachowskis, even taking the film to their producer and stating ‘we wanna do that for real’.

In 2014 there is a new Godzilla film coming out starring Aaron Taylor Johnson, Elizabeth Olson and the everawesome Bryan Cranston. If Ga-reth Edwards, the director of the stylish Monsters, can bring this film to life it will be a new dawn for Japanese American cinema. Next we just need some ambitious directors to take on Evangelion and Akira and maybe even get some of the better series shown on UK television for once!

h u n ky ’ as Christian Grey than giving us a meaningful troubled hero and the less said about Ron Perlman the better. Idris Elba gives a decent enough stab at the stock character that is the self-sacrificing general and Rinko Kikuchi is passable.

But with such a poor script to work with it is hardly surprising the performances are so underwhelming.

Furthermore the visual effects which were really rather good on the big screen will not transfer well to home viewing, or more likely the student habit of illegal streaming… While I am not a fan of 3D, Pacific Rim did have its moments of visual splendour which are all but lost on DVD. Pacific Rim is big, brash and silly and thankfully doesn’t pretend to be anything else. It delivers some epic fight scenes but lacks any emotional depth I am sure that in a few years I may well come back to this one with popcorn, pizza and a few beers in the hope of renewed enjoyment and, once again, I fear I shall be sadly disappointed. flickr: shinkazo

flickr: kodomut

(And why you should love it)

Matt’s Pacific Rim DVD Review

This Summer’s biggest blockbuster, Pacific Rim was released on DVD in the UK this November. Guillermo Del Toro’s epic homage to Japanese Mecha anime received early rave reviews from high profile critics including five stars from the Telegraph’s Robbie Collin.

Sadly in spite of all this hype all we are left with is a sorry excuse for a Japanese rip off, a film so vapid and empty of emotional depth or meaning that even 200ft tall giant fighting robots cannot fill the deep painful void of disappointment that is Pacific Rim. The performances are largely sickeningly poor, Charlie Hunnam is probably better suited to just ‘looking

Pacific Rim is out on DVD now Dir. Guillermo Del Toro, 132 mins

Epigram 25.11.2013

44 30

Cuarón’s Gravity is out of this world

movies.ie

Alejandro Palekar Fernández

BBC’s Doctor Who turns 50 Toby Jungius In just a few days’ time, it will be the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, one of the most iconic pieces of British Television ever. Over the last year, there has been a tremendous sense of build-up, from the series itself tantalising us with plot developments and subtle hints, to the British public getting into the spirit of things with fan projects, a TARDIS at Heathrow, and even giant Daleks made of hay. It’s rare for a show to capture the hearts of the public in such a way as Doctor Who has, and, very soon, we will finally see what Steven Moffat has in store for us.

Despite the anticipation for the Anniversary Special - titled Day of the Doctor - , very little had been revealed about its plot until recently. For a while, all we knew was that David Tennant and Billie Piper would be returning, and that John Hurt would be introduced as a mysterious entity who both was and wasn’t the Doctor. This succeeded in creating excitement and hype for the special, as well as maintained a level of mystery and curiosity towards its story. A few days ago, however, a trailer came out that showed new footage, and, since then, a few plot details have emerged. The special will most likely follow three converging time periods that will involve a murderous conspiracy in Elizabethan England, an unknown threat originating in London’s National Gallery, and an ancient battle in space, which all evidence points towards being the infamous Time War. The Doctor will face numerous blasts from the past, including Daleks, Zygons, Rose Tyler and, most excitingly, his past lives as the Tenth Doctor and the mysterious John Hurt Doctor.

With Tennant and Piper returning, as well as the old TARDIS set from their tenure resurfacing, this special will undoubtedly do a fantastic job at embodying the series since its revival back in 2005. However, from the look of the trailer, as well as the TV spot that showed stills from across the series’ history, the special will also pay great

radiotimes.com

Gravity is in cinemas now Dir. Alfonso Cuarón Running time: 91 mins

www.wired.com

Directed by Alfonso Cuarón, Gravity is completely absorbing. Starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as two astronauts working on the Hubble Telescope, before disaster strikes, it is a landmark in cinematic history: a film which will influence filmmakers for years to come.

The premise of the story is essentially set out in the first 10 minutes, through some truly masterful action sequences. At first, it’s quite hard to understand what is actually going on: the astronauts’ mutterings are muffled and quiet, and their operations are extremely complicated.

This initial confusion, however, is vital, creating a sense of uncertainty and an eerie atmosphere which pervades the entire picture.

Gravity deals with how humanity copes when faced with adversity. We humans like to think we are in control, but what happens when we are not? What happens when we are powerless and cannot rely on other humans to save us?

Cuarón’s film may be set in outer space, but the themes it deals with, such as isolation, fear and regret, are universal.

Cuarón cleverly juxtaposes his characters, who couldn’t be more different, with some great exchanges between the two. George Clooney’s charismatic Matt Kowalski is confident and chilled, an experienced astronaut who wants to break his own record at space-walking: a reallife Buzz Lightyear. On the other hand, Sandra Bullock’s character, Dr. Ryan Stone, is an anxious and nervous scientist, using this journey as a means to deal with her grief. Experiencing pain, fear, sadness and strength, it is Bullock who carries the entire film, delivering the performance of a lifetime, far outdoing her Oscar-winning turn in The Blind Side. Indeed, most scenes only feature her, and no one else, which could have gone awfully wrong – yet it works brilliantly, and she conveys all these emotions, and more.

What attracted Ryan to space was the silence, which she saw as a retreat from the hustle and bustle of daily human life. Yet this, initially relaxing, silence is a permanent reminder of her isolation, not only in

space, but also in her life on Earth. Steven Price’s soundtrack also plays with it; building up tension and momentum to climax in silence, reinforcing both the grand emptiness of space and its myriad, infinite possibilities.

Emmanuel Lubezki’s cinematography, however, is the film’s key strength. The visuals of space, debris, and Earth as seen from above, are both beautiful and mystifying; only comparable to 2001: A Space Oddyssey. Moreover, the bouncy camerawork aids this, jumping around like the weightless characters – often to dizzying effect, it brings us much closer to them, and makes their reality much more vivid. With such incredible imagery, this is one of few films which actually warrants watching in 3D. Gravity is a masterclass in how to create atmosphere using 3D. Yet this is not merely a technical achievement, like Avatar, but a genuine emotional rollercoaster.

For all its cinematography and action sequences, Gravity is an incredibly subtle film. Dealing with universal themes, such as hopelessness and isolation, and featuring some of the most beautiful shots of space ever seen in film, this is a definite frontrunner in the Oscar race.

Gravity is overwhelmingly tense; a stressful but mesmerising experience.

reverence to the franchise as a whole, potentially reaching as far back as its original episode back in 1963. It promises to be a thoroughly selfindulgent affair, and honestly, after 50 years of impact on science-fiction, I believe it has earned that much.

In addition, a 90 minute docudrama will be aired on 21st November, on BBC2 called An Adventure in Space and Time. The film will focus on the details of Doctor Who’s original creation, and stars David Bradley as William Hartnell, the first actor to play the Doctor. It looks to be an interesting and enjoyable representation of an important piece of the show’s history to brush up on before enjoying the Anniversary Special two days later, and I would encourage you all to check it out when it airs.

Day of the Doctor will be simultaneously broadcasted at 7:50 on the 23rd of November in over 75 countries worldwide, and will also be screened in certain cinemas at the same time in 3D, including the Cinema De Lux at Cabot Circus.

Epigram

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Review: Philomena audience’s mind.

The ingenious screenplay from Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope allow for wit and warmth throughout the heart-breaking story to create hope through humour. This is done through the charming relationship of the two main characters.

Martin Sixsmith is a highly educated and weary man; Coogan’s Sixsmith has resemblances to his best known role Alan Partridge, with blunt and irritable traits. However, Philomena with her devout faith is movingly played by Judi Dench; she takes delight in what Sixsmith takes for granted. Their continuous differences yet growing affection create a jesting dynamic which is thoroughly enjoyable to watch. In places there are a few dubious Irish accents, but they are barely noticeable due to the quality of acting as a whole.

On the surface you might expect this film to be somewhat predictable, however due to Philomena’s inability to blame anyone other than herself for her loss, and her constant resilience and ability to take things in her stride, it is far from it.

Gordon-Levitt ‘Don’ good Matthew Floyd

Philomena is in cinemas now Dir. Stephen Frears Running time: 98 mins

cloudfront.net metro.us

Don Jon marks Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s featurelength debut as both writer and director, following his 2009 short film adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s Sparks, available online, which marked him out as a talent to watch behind the camera as well as in front of it. Happily, Don Jon broadly meets the hefty expectations placed on its shoulders, a consequence of both the success of his short film and the wide scepticism which always meets an actor’s declaration of intent to direct/ write.

Effectively a character study, the film imaginatively and somewhat aggressively lays out Jon’s weekly routine – gym, church, family, porn, and clubs – before seeing it get shaken up by the entrance of two women into his life; Scarlett Johansson’s brilliantly named Barbara Sugarman and Julianne Moore’s Esther.

Perhaps the result of having an actor behind the camera, excellent performances are coaxed out of every cast member, supporting includedfeaturing in particular a brilliant turn from Tony Danza as Jon Senior, though Brie Larson is sadly underused as sister Monica.

Without Gordon-Levitt and Johansson’s natural charisma, the first half of the film would be a challenging watch - nothing but fake tanned douchebaggery and vacuous personalities, though seeing the two portray such vividly obnoxious characters lends the film a strong degree of voyeuristic pleasure.

However, this pleasure would have been difficult to stretch over its 90 minute run-time, and fortunately GordonLevitt swerves this potential criticism by injecting a muchneeded dose of humanity in the second half, by way

of Moore’s Esther. Plot-wise, the primary focus of the movie is Jon’s addiction to porn, and how it has become a barrier to him achieving true emotional intimacy in the real world.

Conservative viewers be warned, Gordon-Levitt far from shies away from the sexual explicitness warranted by the subject matter; with Don Jon comfortably earning its 18 certificate by way of large quantities and frank discussions of sex, porn and masturbation – though the film rarely lapses into exploitation. Fans of the trailer, released way back in May, should also prepare themselves for a more dramatic and less comedic experience than suggested, though laughs are still to be had. An impressive debut on the whole, a rushed third act and abrupt ending stretch the character-driven believability established earlier in the film, though the finale still delivers a heartwarming conclusion that gratifyingly doesn’t try to provide a ‘Hollywood’ solution for every issue.

Not bad for a New Jersey douchebag.

thefocusedfilmmographer.com

Philomena comes at a time where films inspired by true stories are flourishing. Philomena is a testament to the empathetic power that a true story can bring. The director, Stephen Frears, balances this emotional weight with somewhat bitter sweet comedy to perfect a film carrying a strong message. Judi Dench adds yet another outstanding performance to her repertoire, carrying the movie with her exceptional portrayal of Philomena Lee. Martin Sixsmith, played by Steve Coogan, is a political journalist, who comes across Philomena’s story by chance at a party. Although Sixsmith is not particularly drawn in by the story initially, upon meeting the Irish Catholic he is won round by the endearing woman and her fifty year old secret. Philomena had fallen pregnant at age18 in Ireland, during a time where sex before marriage was considered a great sin. She was given over to the nuns by her disgraced parents, who ruled that she must not be allowed to keep her child. Like many other young women who sought the help of the convent, she found her child removed to a childless couple. The film depicts the five year journey, of the unlikely pair of Lee and Sixsmith, and their efforts to find Philomena’s lost son.

The true story is nothing short of harrowing, with the atrocious actions of the Catholic Church making it easier to look for a dry eye in the cinema than for someone in need of tissues.

Throughout the film, small clips of home movies are played; a clever technique keeping the truth of the film constantly in the forefront of the

hollywoodreporter.com

Hannah Price offers her thoughts on the beautiful depiction of a terible true story

Don Jon is in cinemas now Dir. Joseph Gordon-Levitt Running time: 90 mins

Music

Epigram

@epigrammusic

Editor: Mike Hegarty

Deputy Editor: Danny Riley

Online Editor: Dan Faber

music@epigram.org.uk

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musiconline@epigram.org.uk

Statues of Livity

Bristol bass/techno ‘supergroup’ Livity Sound played their first live show at The Island last week. Dan Faber reveled in the aggressive sonics and the awesome mood as these three friends bounced their tracks off one another.

Have you ever wished you and your friends could throw a party in a bunker decked out to look like a prison? Livity Sound have.

Bristolian bass heroes Peverelist and Kowton’s new label has seen them adopt relative newcomer Asusu to represent the uniquely fascinating sound they honed at previous label, Punch Drunk. In the last year these West Country locals have released a string of outstanding singles and now for the first time they’ve collected all this work into one album. It’s a release that bears all the hallmarks of the recent Bristol grime, jungle and dubstep scenes, while still remaining resolutely techno on the surface, and naturally they decided a party was in order.

“A man beside me shouted “Techno? TechYES!” as one track drew to a close.

”

I’d been down the ‘Police Cells’ at The Island once before, so the initial shock of going down a steep staircase into a sparse post-apocalyptic network of rooms was tempered, but it’s got to be said that there’s no more suitable place in Bristol for a night like this. At the centre of the labyrinth of rooms and corridors were Livity; three diminutive silhouettes taking turns to man decks in front of projected visuals and swirling blue smoke. In the early part of the evening the mood was strictly techno, with harsh unvarnished percussion

25.11.2013

morphing and reconstructing itself. Set against the ethereal visuals, the dissonance was at first unsettling but as the crowd began to close their eyes and get into the

music, a unified industrial groove swept through the room.

Each member of Livity would switch in or out every track like a tag team, djing over a

desk housing two vinyl decks, a controller, and six efficientlyemptied beer cans.

Even in the middle of the techno storm, it was heartwarming to

see the three adorable, T-shirted friends occasionally pitching in to help each mix. The mood mellowed as night turned into morning, with more use of vocals from Asusu in particular nudging the four-to-the-floor beat into the background, while still retaining a very danceable edge. The big Dr. Marten shoes of Kowton stomped in from time to time for some of the harsher material, but the mood overall was joyous and fun. I met Kowton himself in the queue for the toilets, and he was full of laughter. The night was the culmination of a year of high quality production from one of the only strong local scenes with a distinct sound left in the UK. At points all three producers took control of the decks together, mixing each track not seamlessly but beautifully.

Each switch ever-so-gradually raised or lowered the tempo, and the crowd would adjust their graceless but euphoric flailing seemingly automatically to suit it. As the atmosphere lightened, a particularly memorable vocal of “I want your love... I need... Your love” was repeated within so many acidy frameworks that it started to feel like the three had become electronic exhbitionists. It was hard to blame them though. A man beside me shouted “Techno?

TechYES!” as the track drew to a close. Livity Sound found the rare combination of technically outstanding yet hugely danceable and fun production, and we can only hope for more musical innovation and sparkling nights like this in Bristol.

Interview: Peverelist Epigram spoke to the man at the centre of Livity Sound’s ‘techno storm’ Livity Sound’s founding member Tom Ford (aka. Peverelist) is a Bristol soundsystem lifer. From managing the sadly now-defunct Rooted Records on Gloucester Road (which used to stand opposite the Sainsburys by the arches), to founding the Punch Drunk imprint that became a stable for the familiar phrase ‘forward-thinking bass music’, all the while producing and DJing under the Peverelist moniker, the modern musical heritage of our city is something that Tom is very familiar with.

Livity Sound at the Island at Bridewell was really awesome the other night.

Yeah cheers, it was good. We all enjoyed it too funnily enough!

How did you find the venue?

It was the first time I’ve been there. It was really cool, these Qu

Junktionz guys put on some of the best parties in Bristol, it was a good soundsystem and a cool space.

You’ve said before that you used to be a little reluctant about live shows. Has that changed?

Well, I’d never actually done it before. I come from a DJ background you know, I’m into soundsystem music, so recreating tracks live doesn’t really suit the type of music I’ve always made.

It was a real challenge, we had to set about finding a way of executing it live that we thought was interesting and actually worthwhile, which is always the difficulty.

Having previously written tracks mostly by yourself, how do you find collaboration as a new way of creating music?

How did it come about?

I kind of decided that I wanted to work on this new project and I’d been playing with Joe (Kowton) for a long time, and we started making some tunes together. I’d known Craig (Asusu) for a little bit, and he was on a pretty similar vibe. As far as collaboration goes, it’s just a bit different, easier in some ways and definitely a lot more fun…I think when you’re working on your own it’s quite easy to get lost There’s a lot more influence from 4/4 types of dance music in the Livity Sound stuff. Is that something you decided you wanted to move towards or did it happen naturally?

I think it just kind of fits, it’s not considered really…it’s just kind of about dance music and whatever works. I think a lot of people don’t really seem to know what kind of box to fit us in, whether it’s techno or dubstep or whatever. We’ve

always been really conscious to avoid that pigeon-holing, we’re keen to be our own thing.

Although you’re very much associated with Bristol, you’re not from here originally, right?

No, I’m from Essex originally but I’ve been here from 1997. It was just the music that drew me really, obvious stuff like Massive Attack and then a lot of the Jungle that was coming out of the city. That

was what really made me want to get involved in music.

Where do you see dance music in Bristol heading in the future?

I don’t think you can ever predict that. There’s a lot of young producers coming up all the time, so there’s always gonna be great music getting made.

Interview by Mike Hegarty

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Against all odds, the Happy Mondays are still going strong.

Danny Riley chatted with Rowetta about keeping the Madchester spirit alive - without the mad.

How’s the set shaping up for the tour? Is the chemistry still there in the band?

It’s great, we’ve been back together for eighteen months now so everyone’s getting on brilliantly. We do it right now, we didn’t used to.

We used to live on top of each other and spend all our time with each other. Now Shaun just turns up before a gig and leaves pretty much straight after because he wants to get home to his kids. There’s no arguments between the band and we’re all getting on really well.

The best thing about rehearsing and writing now is that you can bring it home with you because of computers and mp3s. Everything’s just easier now. We do still get on like brothers and sisters.

What do you think of the recent revival of dance music like House and Disco? Do you see any parallels between now and when the Mondays were first embracing that culture?

Definitely. I see a lot of Nile Rodgers – I think I was onstage with him four times last year and he’s a fan of the Happy Mondays. I was

Days of Wine and Roses

hoping we might be able to get the two together, I’ve been hinting that maybe he should produce something by us. I don’t see it as the same. I actually sing on a lot of house tunes and I’ve been sampled constantly since I wrote the song ‘Reach Out’ in ’88. Black Eyed Peas sampled it recently on ‘Boom Boom Pow’. I think good songs and good music never really go out of fashion.

We’re reworking the songs for the ‘Bummed’ tour, I’m going to be on the songs that I wasn’t on initially.

The songs will be different but at the end of the day it’s still great music, if you write classic tunes – same with house music and disco – it might need reworking but not too much.

Great music’s great music.

Are there any new artists that you like? What sort of stuff do you listen to together on the tour bus?

As a band we listen more to old stuff: The Beatles, The Specials. In the car I listen to a lot of Reggae because it’s completely different to what I’m working on. Whether it’s dance tunes or the Mondays stuff I’m always writing so I like to listen to something completely different.

Student band bassist reviews himself

Flickr: Gio - Spots

It’s cool being in a band...right?

The Fleece, Bristol 6:30 pm, Saturday 19 September Part One: Sound Check ‘Bassist…Bassist?’

‘Yeah, sorry, sorry, what’s wrong?’

He had been calling to me, a delirious, sweat-drenched, onstage mess, for over a minute

from the sound-desk. Of course, this was only the sound check.

‘You’re trying to plug yourself into the monitor, kid.’

I tried another socket.

‘No, you don’t plug in there do you? No you don’t, boy. Not unless you want to make some ears bleed.’

The sound technician was now

answering his own rhetorical questions. I just nodded and apologised in the gaps where he wasn’t speaking and tried to look less damp.

‘Try the bass amp behind you, maybe?’

It was marked ‘WünderBass 4000’. Needless to say, I felt rather stupid at this point.

Part Two: The Gig

‘Chris’ I hissed, whilst the singer and guitarist of the band’s eyes were diverted. They could play, sing and do other stuff at the same time. This time they were probably looking at girls, again, who enjoyed looking back at them.

‘Chris, what are the chords to the chorus of “The Shakedown?’”, I asked. ‘The Shakedown’ was our trump card; the lead singer’s dad said it reminded him of The Who mixed with The Beatles, whilst of course maintaining the integrity of a classic Stones hit. All bases covered.

‘E…A…G…’ Chris pronounced as he angrily hammered each chord out on his keyboard, as someone would spell their name to someone who consistently mis-spelt it. He then realised that I didn’t know where A or G was, so continued to play the keys with one hand whilst shifting my hands to where they should be on the fret board with the other.

‘Cheers’, I muttered and slid back to my part of the stage - a dark lair where the bright lights above us did not penetrate.

And then, holy of holies, my strap snapped and the bass crashed to the floor. I thought it sounded like it fell on the right note, but as I swept my head up, I saw the sound engineer wince and throw down his headphones down.

Part Three: Afterparty

I was quivering. Girls (plural) were checking out my skills!

I knew the £859 on my new ‘Foogle Mudhorn’ bass was well spent, even though I didn’t know what most of the dials did and now I couldn’t afford to buy either of these ladies a drink.

‘Maybe they’ll get me a drink’ I mused and chuckled, rosy cheeks pinched and gathered under my eyes.

And now time for the victory lap, I thought, as I walked into my house – alone. The door was already open and music was blaring from the living room.

I trotted into the garden; by the door were three girls who I recognised. Their heads tilted to the side as I wondered past. ‘Ah, well played’, they cooed. I was now gawking at them, jaw not dropped but definitely lowered – a sort of yearning gurn, eyes shining up under heavy brows.

‘Cheers’ I said, my funk eyebrow raised. I tilted my head a bit too, as the lead singer appeared behind me and immediately absorbed their attention. They screamed and suffocated him in kisses and hugs. He reluctantly shrugged, winked at me, and then patted me out of the door.

On the bus back to ours, the lead singer turns to me, ‘Dude, these girls said you played really well’.

I looked over to see three sultry, nose-ringed babes.

YEAH! Maybe I had got away with it. Maybe my fears were false alarms.

Catch the author’s band, The Bellsniffs, playing various support slots around Bristol from next week until the end of time.

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48

Reviews Boards of Canada - Reissues Warp - 2013

when still at full force during the turn of the millenium.

Albums like Music Has The Right to Children and Geogaddi were highly praised and commercially successful at release but it wasn’t until much later that the music community realised just how good they were. Couple this with a constant stream of new fans attracted by their rock-solid cult status and anyone looking to buy one of their albums -second-hand and in decent condition- would have to shell out three figures. It says a lot that many people did.

Obviously I’m a student and alcohol won’t buy itself so my record collection is decidedly Boards of Canada-less. The reduction of price to just under £20 (otherwise known as seven pints, a posh bottle of vodka or a small Starbucks’ coffee) for an LP seems much more reasonable for a classic album, even if it follows the general trend of vinyl prices recently by still being a fiver too much.

An in-depth description of why it’s objectively worth

spending £81 or more on all three LPs and three EPs being reissued will undoubtedly strike the uninitiated as a bit bizarre.

Boards of Canada’s music can’t be said to be anything remotely approaching w h a t ’ s commonly popular.

On top of this, it is almost impossible to describe just why they’re so good without sounding like a complete and utter prick.

For starters, the two brothers make downtempo electronic music loosely inspired by old 70’s documentaries. This explains the name (from the National Film Board of Canada), the fascination with analogue synthesisers and the efforts

they take to create a rich, visual atmosphere with slow buildups, subtle shifts and repetition.

Happy in a very mellow form, it becomes nostalgic with heavy sampling of children’s’ voices, quirky, upbeat melodies and the fact parts often seem vaguely reminiscent of old-school BBC science programs.

Boards of Canada use this deceptively simple premise, mix

it with vague yet deep concepts and turn out some euphorically brain-melting material. No one can make a child saying “I love you” so deeply unsettling quite like them, and when they set their mind to it the duo can make you happy, scared, inspired, sad and want to dance within the space of five minutes.

Most fans will recommend Music Has the Right to Children,

Throwing Muses

Manu Chao Sibérie m’était contéee Radio Bemba 2nd December

Purgatory/Paradise The Friday Project

flickr: thevondooms

flickr: serguei_2k

29th October 2013 Kristin Hersh, college rock goddess of the 1980s and 90s, has been somewhat less than prolific in her musical output over the last decade, presumably due to dealing with all that real life stuff like families and kids. At long last, she and her Throwing Muses bandmates have managed to come together here for their first proper studio album since 2003. What constitutes ‘proper’ is another matter, because there’s nothing conventional about the release of Purgatory/Paradise. Issued by the Harper Collins publishing group the music is designed to work in tandem with a corresponding book, containing Hersh’s written accompaniments to the 32 tracks, as well as artwork contributed by drummer David Narcizo.

Although 32 songs might be deemed excessive or indulgent, Purgatory/Paradise’s run-time still clocks in at a respectable 67 minutes. Only two exceed the four minute boundary; most sit lithely between one and three minutes, some even less than that. Such an abundance of short tracks renders Purgatory/Paradise curiously fractured, but it seems this has been bestowed intentionally. Perhaps it is to reflect the natural broken-up rhythms of life which is where Hersh’s lyrical subjects demonstrably originate from (she once told the Guardian that she felt

Geogaddi or as the first ports of call, possibly due to the reason each one could easily be placed among the best records of all time, but it’s hard to go wrong.

So go and buy one, and even if you don’t have a record player you can always buy one of them, take the digital download code and sticker telling you about the code before sending it off as a thoughtful, satisfyingly selfserving Christmas present.

like committing suicide every time she wrote a song). Those shorter cuts are not negligible or disposable though, at least not in her eyes: each is emotionally relevant to Hersh as the brief extracts in the book indicate. ‘Milan’, for example, details the story of a house she used to own before it was swept away in the Hurricane Katrina floods.

This composition style does purify the album concept somewhat though, making it inaccessible for the short listening bursts typical of many modern listeners. Not that Purgatory/Paradise lacks melody or hooks; there are a couple of tracks, like ‘Sleepwalking 1’, that could probably sit quite comfortably on a Pixies or early Muses record. Each song is endowed with assured guitar riffs and Hersh’s crisp, coarse vocal quality This collection attests to a self-confidence, a conviction of artistic integrity that nearly thirty years of writing and recording experience brings.

Purgatory/Paradise is refined and honed to a stylistic perfection but it also carries a primal edge – it’s subtly swaddled in the folds of Hersh’s lyrics, but it is definitely present. The execution of that delicate duality represents a major achievement for a band some may have considered old hat in the synthesised modern world.

Barney Horner

From singing in Spanish, French, English, Portuguese, and Arabic, to his assorted influences from a variety of genres, Manu Chao has always been the king of eclectic, marrying different strands of language to create vibrant pieces of music. However in “Sibérie m’était contéee” Chao seems to take a step back.

This album was first released back in 2004, but was available only in France until this reissue.

The album opens with a cheerful, light-hearted duo of songs, ‘La P’tit Jardin’ and ‘Petite Blonde du Boulevard Brune’ respectively. The former’s comically upbeat instrumental, thrusts the album enthusiastically onto the listener’s ears, with its cheery childlike nursery-rhyme rhythm and trumpets, and the latter continues in this vein, adding texture with a sampled police siren. However, the next few songs on the album are so similar as to pale dismissively into the background, with the exception of ‘Helno Est Mort’’s catchy harmonies and a soulful brass solo.

In this album Chao recycles his lyrics, altering the instrumental so that the lyrics change in meaning.

Instead of originality, for me this idea created a feeling of déjà vu, as though the same song was being played repeatedly, almost like background music.

Although Chao’s lightness of touch results in some wonderfully executed songs, many seem to just miss the mark, leaving Chao with only a slightly-betterthan-average album.

Juliette Motamed flickr: russgarrett

This past month has brought a highly anticipated and long overdue event in the electronic music calendar: the reissue of almost the entire Boards of Canada catalogue.

Men everywhere who post on internet forums and wear vintage clothing are said to be stoked. I should know, I’m one of them.

Boards of Canada are one of those word of mouth groups who, with the likes of Neutral Milk Hotel and Godspeed You! Black Emperor, have found a comfortable home in recommendation lists for new music listeners. The two Scottish brothers excel in making warm, calming electronic music perfectly straddling the gap between the immediately enjoyable and deceptively deep, with many new listeners describing a kind of eureka moment when all the puzzling bleeps and bloops click into place.

Because of this common delay, Boards of Canada didn’t actually print too many records

flickr: skydivedparcel

Jonny Hunter takes a trip into the mysterious duo’s back catalogue

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Ascending the Mount On their second album, Mount Kimbie attempted to graft heartfelt songwriting to their meticulous, indefinable electronica. Griff Ferris caught them at Bristol’s The Fleece to see how this translated to a live setting on their new album due to its distinctive harp-like sound, as the pair showed their full committal to the live show, switching from electronic drum pads to guitars and back again.

On ‘Home Recording’, although still holding true to their asymmetrical beat aesthetic, you can hear the true voices of Campos and Maker without any recourse to synth filters, showing signs that their early work performing with James Blake has had a continued influence. They are perhaps affirming this change of format to a different sound in ‘Made to Stray’: ‘Sure its time to break…

flickr: blidungsr0man

melody moving and morphing into the endlessly looped guitar riff and Koreless-like looped and chopped vocals of ‘Before I Move Off’, in which, like much of their first album, they toy heavily with a conventional rhythm structure.

From there they moved into the ‘blaheh’ vocals of the early and experimental ‘Maybes’, from which it isn’t hard to see how their music has been described as embodying “a beautiful use of space and melancholy” by Jamie xx. Then came the slow-building looped arpeggio crescendo of ‘Break Well’, one of the standout tracks

flickr: pietroizzo

Mount Kimbie have come a long way since their 2009 debut EP Maybes, via the game-changing Crooks & Lovers, released on Scuba’s Hotflush label, to the Warp-released Cold Spring Fault Less Youth.

They were supported at The Fleece by the witch house project oOoOO, a set full of ethereal and haunting synth, and surging ambience with indiscernible vocals, creating a conspicuous preview to the performance of Kai Campos and Dom Maker. The duo opened with ‘Carbonated’, a throwback to their early electronic, static heavy sound, the xylophone

You gotta find your way’.

Although this latest sound is a refreshing juxtaposition to the old, neither would be worth what they are without the other.

Campos and Maker appear to have moved marginally away from their electronic beginnings, influenced as they were, self-admittedly, by the UK Dubstep scene of 2009. The overused and vague moniker of ‘post-dubstep’ never really seemed to fit with Mount Kimbie, however, especially so

as they move towards a more acoustic sound.

Indeed, they refer to themselves as ‘the band’, and their chosen detachment from dance music culture is clear in their venue choice, The Fleece, which has hosted Radiohead and Oasis and lists Reverend & The Makers in their upcoming shows, and they cite Wu Lyf as an influence. Their productions are widely acclaimed, their single ‘You Took Your Time’ remixed by the renowned DJ

Oneman, and ‘Made to Stray’ by the eclectic German DJ Koze, formerly of house and techno label Kompakt. Their tour continues across the UK, and moves through Europe and down to Australia in 2014, a tour of indefinable (postdubstep? garage?) but intensely radiant music, and they have moved from merely producing attractive beats to actively vocalising their thoughts.

Epigram

25.11.2013

Science & Tech

Editor: Molly Hawes scienceandtech@epigram.org.uk

@EpigramSciTech Deputy Editor: Sol Milne deputyscienceandtech@epigram.org.uk

Online Editor: Stephanie Harris

Bristol makes song & dance about lasers

Flickr: SamSaundersLeeds Flickr: CaesarSebastian

Flickr: DarrellBerry Jimmy Scott-Baumann Science Writer At the end of last month, the passenger shed hosted an interactive ‘experience’ open to the public, which explored ideas of quantum mechanics and particle physics at the nano-scale, through the media of music, dancing, lights and DJs. Created by Dr David Glowacki (Royal Society Research Fellow at University of Bristol), ‘Danceroom Spectroscopy’ involves a depth sensor in

Flickr: DarrellBerry the middle of a dance floor which picks up movement all around it, then projecting the silhouettes of the dancers live in 360 degrees onto the walls above the dancefloor. The massive silhouettes, projected on the wall directly above who they map, alter constantly in colour as well as having effects which change constantly, such as delay, streams, waves.

The projections also contain particles which interact live with the dancers on the screen in different ways based on the laws of physics. As well as simply playing electronic

music for backing, the motion of the dancers’ silhouettes on screen can be used as energy vibrations and converted to sounds you can then hear. It’s an exciting mix of physics, music, dance and visual art which has never been done before, and because it’s interactive and not pre-programmed, will never be done quite the same again.

The whole experience opens with an explanation of some of the science behind it and its various collaboratorsincluding a theoretical chemist, a programming prodigy, an electronica artist

and choreographers. Then there’s a performance by four professional dancers and finally the floor is opened to the public. This is where it gets really fun. Not surprisingly, the majority of the participants taking up the dancefloor are parents with young children, entertained by the bright lights and music, alongside a few of the dreadlocked drug-addled Stokes Croft hippies, with the more reserved viewers, who’d rather watch the shapes of others projected above the dance floor taking up the side lines. It was not simply the

small children but all of us who became mesmerised and strangely addicted to watching our own projections and their interactions 10 feet tall on the walls above us. Because the depth sensor is in the centre of the room and not surprisingly has depth perception, it is able to pick up and portray where you are, so you can effectively visualise every single person on the dance floor. This entire 3D view of everyone on the dance floor projected onto the surrounding walls in different sizes depending how far from the centre you are is fantastic!

Complete with the trippy colours, effects, and backed by electronic music, one wonders if this could become the newest form of nightclub visual effect.

It would certainly go down well at a Psytrance festival.

It’s not only a different way to visualise how the nano world works, and makes some ideas of quantum physics fun for kids (no small feat), but is generally a new, exciting combination of technology, science and art. It can’t be done justice in words, so check out its videos at onlinedanceroom-spec.com

In-flight calls? Shirley you can’t be serious?

Stephanie Harris Science Writer In the past month both the US and European bodies governing aviation safety have ruled to allow the use of electronics during take off and landing. They had previously been restricted to use once the aircraft was above 10,000 ft.

The new rulings refer to devices that have an ‘airplane safe mode’, which will still have to be turned on, but should mean you will soon be able listen to your favourite songs during take-off and landing or

distract yourself with the latest best-seller on your Kindle.

‘This is a major step in the process of expanding the freedom to use personal electronic devices on-board aircraft without compromise in safety’ said Patrick Ky, executive director of the European Aviation Safety Authority.

Despite these changes the ‘airplane safe mode’ stipulation means there will still be no access to voice or text services during a flight. So how long before the last bastion of radio silence falls and we are all subjected to wolf whistling ringtones as we cross the

Atlantic?

The most often stated reason passengers are still restricted from using their phones for voice and text services is that the radio frequencies mobile phones use to transmit this kind of data are known to potentially interfere with certain bandwidths utilised by the plane’s systems. Although there are no known instances of mobile phones or other personal electronic equipment causing aviation accidents, there have been a few, rare reports of issues, normally navigational, associated with their use during a flight and

the aviation authorities’ stance is to err on the side of caution.

There are also concerns that the use of mobile phones on-board may interfere with communication networks on the ground.

But change is coming: some airlines and mobile phone providers already provide inflight Wi-Fi that allows users to stay connected. This often comes with quite a hefty price tag, however, and is not yet common on most European airlines despite being prevalent in the US. This month, however, GoGo, the biggest in-flight WiFi provider in the US, put on

a special demonstration flight to show off it’s new app, Text & Talk which allows users to receive texts and voice calls over it’s Wi-Fi network whilst in flight. However, when it is launched next year there won’t be much of the ‘Talk’ as GoGo plans to block voice calling following feedback from customers worried about being subjected to one person’s rather loud conversation. So although the technology and regulations are progressing maybe the real question is - are we, the passengers, really ready to break the radio silence?

Flickr: Bossco

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The case for engineering a healthier future Micronutrient deficiencies lead to loss of life all over the worldbut could scientists be close to solving these problems?

Maybe.

But pressure groups are opposing this development.

This has lead Environment Secretary Owen Paterson to speak out against the opposition, branding their actions ‘Wicked’ and ‘Disgusting’.

25% of all deaths from Vitamin A deficiency could be prevented with new technology that ‘switches on’ the genes rice carries which allow it to produce the nutrient in the grain.

To overcome fear of GM, scientists must be prepared to explain what they are doing to the public. In this case, the vitamin is naturally produced in the husk- but the husk causes the rice to turn rancid quickly.

Brown rice therefore isn’t an option as an aid delivery or a crop to put back for the dry season. All that scientists are

“

670,000 children a year die from vitamin A deficiency- I believe we

must

deploy

any and all possible methods to reduce child mortality. Fear of

technology

is

no excuse and the EU

should

inform

legislation based on evidence not emotion

”

proposing is to alter the rice to grow beta-carotene throughout the plant- which is what the Dutch did in the seventeenth century with carrots. The only difference is that this is being done in a test tube instead of via selective breeding.

If this simple change can prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths a year, I agree with Paterson that the option must be explored. As he says to allow the GM option to go without investigated would be disgusting.

One in three children around the world suffers from vitamin A deficiency and 670,000 children a year die as a result. Yet fear of advancing technologies is hindering efforts to find a solution.

The Golden Rice Project aims to combat this by genetic modification to produce ‘biofortified’ rice- full of vitamin A. Important for growth and development, lack of this nutrient wreaks havoc with the eyes and skin as well as hindering gene

transcription. Paterson has thus attacked campaigns by Greenpeace and friends of the earth: these groups have stated that there are better solutions to this devastating situation.

While both are charities with whom I generally agree, I feel this short-sightedness is unforgivable in the face of such widespread disease.

The reality is that humans have been genetically modifying our food since we started selective breeding. The only difference is that we have moved from field to test tube.

The scale of the problem indicates to me that we must act fast. All possible options must be explored, including those unpalatable to pressure groups.

Delaying possible solutions is not only improvident but tantamount to murder. As a scientist I believe we must deploy any and all possible methods to reduce child mortality- fear of technology is no excuse and the EU should inform legislation based on evidence not emotion.

Flickr: IRRIimages

Molly Hawes Science Writer

Development through crowd-sourcing Hamish Hay Science Writer According to the Oxford Dictionary ‘Open Source’ refers to software for which the ‘original [computer] source code is made freely available.’

This may be true, but is only a fraction of the impact that open source systems have and will have on our lives.

The growth of open source systems is for one obvious reason - communication. The sheer significance of shifting from only being able to access data in your immediate physical environment to being able to instantly access information from across the world is mind boggling. Between 2000 & 2012, the percentage of the global population with access to the internet grew by 566.4% and in Africa the figure was 3607%.

Imagine how many minds can come together through such a system to make the world a better place- and this is exactly what’s happening with open source.

Most of us use Wikipedia – it has a staggering 2.5 billion words in the English edition.

Compare this to around 40 million in the world’s 2nd largest Encyclopaedia, Encyclopædia Britannic.

Common complaints about Wikipedia are common with other open source systems – how do you ensure accuracy?

How to avoid internet ‘trolls’ that simply seek to cause havoc on the internet? These are genuine problems – but Wikipedia’s transparent peer review system largely keeps

things stable. Have a look at ‘view history’ any controversial article on Wikipedia (such as the ‘Rape of Nanking’) and you’ll see that the community of people committed to the principles of accurate open data quickly corrects the actions of many internet trolls. In most cases, the benefits of access to large volumes of data outweighs the risk of inaccuracy.

Other areas traditionally dominated by small specialist organisations,such as geospatial analysis and mapping, are also opening up. Open Street Map was started by a Briton in 2004

and has gone on to become, by far, the world’s biggest and most comprehensive mapping database. Footpaths, local schools, shops, transport links and public services are mapped all over the world. Just compare the level of detail in Gaza City on Open Street Map and in Google Maps. It enables people all over the world, in both developed and developing countries, to make more informed decisions on a day-to-day basis. No better was this demonstrated by the way Open Street Map was used immediately after the earthquake in Haiti - where

a sudden explosion in open mapping data led it becoming the standard mapping source of choice for all humanitarian agencies, where if a road was blocked, a building destroyed, or a temporary hospital or refugee camp established, the rest of the world also know about it instantly.

However, Open Source is reaching another watershed – and moving from up-inthe-cloud technology to real hardware – ‘stuff’. The Open Geiger Counter project has used cheap Geiger counters to provide open data on radiation

levels in the aftermath of Fukushima – challenging the government’s closed, selective distribution of their own data.

Fed up with the costs of maintaining and running commercial agriculture machinery, Open Source Ecology was started in 2003 in order to try and make agricultural machinery available to everyone. Their goal is the completion of the ‘Global Village Construction Set’ that ‘allows for the easy fabrication of the 50 different Industrial Machines that it takes to build a small civilization with modern

comforts’.

Crowd-sourcing knowledge and expertise from around the world will play a pivotal part in the rise of localised solutions in both developed and developing countries. If our experience so far has shown anything, it proves that the number of people willing to commit time and expertise to making the world a better place, without the profit motive, far outweighs those who think otherwise. The future is here – the future is open source – get involved!

Just compare the level of detail in Gaza City on Open Street Map (right) and in Google Maps. It enables people all over the world, in both developed and developing countries, to make more informed decisions on a day-to-day basis

Sport

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BUCS Watch

Game of the Week Men’s Basketball 1st’s ease Bristol 1st v Cardiff Met 1st to victory Downhill

Make your way down to Coombe Dingle on Wednesday afternoon to see the men’s rugby team in action:

James Throup Men’s Basketball Captain

Rojin Philip lines his sights up to take a free throw

Mixed week for Ladies’ Hockey Rhian Richardson Sports Writer The Bristol Ladies Hockey Club had a mixed week, as some sterling performances were coupled with frustrating results.

The Ladies 1st’s travelled to Exeter for a show down against a side that was top of the table.

A win would have seen Bristol leapfrog their rivals to the summit of the BUCS league, but unfortunately the final score ended in a 1-0 defeat, leaving the 1st’s in second position. The circumstances were not ideal as their coach was delayed, therefore a rushed warm-up coupled with players out injured produced a somewhat belowpar performance. Hopefully,

when Exeter venture Bristolway in the next scheduled fixture, the team will be fit and ready to get a deserved 3 points from them. Their next fixture sees Bristol play Cambridge and the team are hoping for a solid victory and plenty of goals to get their goal difference up, which could prove crucial if it all comes down to the wire at the end of the season. It is also an opportunity to demonstrate the title-winning potential of the team, and to get the season well and truly back on track.

The Bristol Ladies 2nd’s journeyed to Cardiff to play the university’s 4th team. This was an important game to win for the 2nd’s as Cardiff were following close on their heels in

the BUCS league table, so a 3-2 win was just what was required to keep them 3rd in the table.

Looking at the table as a whole, The University of South Wales Cardiff 1st’s are 2nd with just a 3 goal lead on Bristol 2nd’s, whilst

the league leaders are Swansea, who are also unbeaten. This coming week the 2nd’s are playing Swansea, it would be a great result to come away with 3 points from the game.

The 1st’s squad before their game aginst Exeter

Biking tear up the trails Flickr

On Wednesday 13th November, Bristol University Men’s 1st Basketball team took to the road to play Plymouth Marjons (University of St Mark & St John). The fixture was nearly postponed due to Bristol’s minibus breaking down on the M5, however the tip off was pushed back to 2.30pm, allowing for repairs that were duly carried out.

Bristol got off to a strong start, with a fast break basket straight from the tip. Going from strength to strength, Bristol held Marjons scoreless for the first 5 minutes, whilst scoring 10 points against a poorly executed zone defence.

Bristol continued to dominate in the second quarter, using an effective mix of set plays and basketball IQ to take the quarter by 20 points.

Early in the second half, there was a highlight-reel dunk for James Throup, after captain Paddy Lloyd put up the perfect alley-oop on a fast break. The 3rd quarter went the way of the first half, with Bristol playing excellent defence and running the ball well, holding Marjons to seven points whilst scoring 21.

Going in to the 4th quarter with a 40 point lead, Bristol became complacent, allowing shots that earlier would have been challenged, and not rotating to help on defence.

This was an opportunity to boost stats, which Justin ‘Young Blood’ Cheng and Davide ‘The Professor’ De Mola took advantage of, both sinking two 3 pointers late in the game. Tom Lawrence had an impressive rebounding performance, taking 14 rebounds in the game.

Bristol managed to play very deep down the bench, with every player scoring and playing meaningful minutes.

The close top scorers--Theo ‘The Prodigy’ Spyrides 13, James Throup 12, and Justin Cheng 10--reflected this team effort. The final score was Bristol 80-43 Marjons, taking Bristol’s season to 3 wins and 0 losses, with Southampton 1sts, the other unbeaten team who are yet to be played, now the main rival for the league title this year.

The next home game tips off at 3pm on Wednesday 20th against the Men’s 2nds, come along and show your support at what promises to be a passion-filled exchange.

James Collins Sports Writer A hugely successful trip to Triscombe saw the Bristol Downhill Biking team emerge victorious against UWE, Bath and Exeter. Bristol captain Matt Kovar took gold after completing his last run in 1 minute 6.2 seconds, pipping the previous leader, who had been on top almost from the start, a downhill sports scholarship student from Exeter (to beat this sort of quality shows what a magnificent performance it was).

Being my first race experience with UoB, and only having been riding downhill for six months or so, I was not really sure what to expect. Would the other boys be there just to have a good time as I was? Or would they have a somewhat more serious and intense approach to the race? The answer, thankfully, was both. With the more serious riders, many went through the course by foot over and over again, picking the most efficient lines for them to take and memorising every

last twist, turn, jump, drop and ditch. Other riders were content to ride the course a couple of times and then spend the remaining time chatting at the top of the hill, exchanging riding stories. – just picture the scene from Jaws showing off scars.

If I were to describe my experience in three words, they would definitely have to be fun, scary and tough. All of the boys couldn’t have been more welcoming and we had a great day out. Some parts of the course were fairly extreme, or ‘gnarly’, to use a biking expression, and not for the faint-hearted.

When we all decided to call it a day, it’s safe to say everyone was exhausted. Pushing heavy bikes uphill ten to fifteen times is no mean feat. Physically and mentally drained and feeling thoroughly satisfied with our day’s work, we rounded things off in suitable fashion with a relaxing drive back to Bristol listening to Neil Young and Eric Clapton. All in all it was a great day out and I urge anyone else interested in downhill biking to get involved.

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25.11.2013

54

Editor’s Column This week, nothing escapes the critical eye of Epigram sport’s co-editor Jacob Webster, as he gives his forthright opinion on the important issues that are dominating the sporting world MotoGP is too easily ignored in my opinion, and I feel that it is high-time that this changed.

As I commented on in my first editor’s column, Formula One has reached a crossroads, a point at which fans are beginning to tire of the boring nature of a sport dominated by

most of the focus leading up to the tournament has been, and will continue to be throughout, on Ronnie O’Sullivan, the flawed genius of the sport. How will he play? Does he even care? I have something to say about this now, and it is this: do we even care? Snooker is not snooker

“

first rookie to win four MotoGP races in a row and is now the youngest winner of a MotoGP championship news.com.au

Has cricket lost its direction?

With the Ashes under way our focus on cricket continues with a look at an increasingly commercial game Adam Becket Sports Writer In the recent One Day International series between India and Australia, on three separate matches out of the seven, scores in excess of 350 were chased down. In one match India scored 383 in the first innings, and in another Rohit Sharma scored the third ODI double century ever. Therefore, this begs the questions: are ODIs becoming too much a batsman’s game, and are pitches being made for commercial entertainment?

This issue has been covered in major newspapers, with The Guardian’s cricket correspondent, Mike Selvey, writing “It is easy to rubbish bowling in ODIs but the game is loaded towards batsmen to a ridiculously disproportionate degree.”

This ODI series in India might be an extreme example, as India’s fast pitches and outfields are loaded like this to provide the best advantage for their explosive team. However,

scores have been creeping up in ODIs all around the world, as seen in both ODI series held in England last summer, and also the Champions Trophy. Perhaps this could be put down to the constant tinkering the ICC does on the rules. In the past few years, only four fielders can be positioned in the outfield even in non-powerplay overs, and one white ball is used from both ends, almost ruling out the effect of ball wear.

ODIs have essentially become ‘double twenty-20s’ through their expansive runscoring. The India captain, MS Dhoni went as far to say that the bowlers want to use bowling machines to provide more of a test.

The ICC has done all this in the name of ‘excitement’ in order to keep crowds coming to One-Day Internationals, and also keep television revenue in. Would it be too cynical to suggest that the most important thing on the minds of cricket’s administrators is advertising and television money? This is certainly the case in domestic cricket, with pitches being

specifically prepared to provide the best watching for the crowd, possibly rather than the best match of cricket. My former local ground, the Ageas (Rose) Bowl, was called the best one day international ground, because in the international matches it hosted this summer, it provided the best ‘entertainment’.

Creating pitches to help the home side win is no new thing, and isn’t a particularly controversial subject, but when a pitch is more of a ‘run-fest’ pitch, one wonders whether it has something more to do with money.

ODIs are important in modern cricket in providing the link between the highly popular T20s and the pinnacle of the game, test cricket. They are vital in being the best of both worlds, but recently they have been edging more towards T20s. It is sad that cricket is becoming more and more about TV revenues and advertising gains - it is the sign of a sport that has lost its heart in test cricket in the greedy pursuit of financial gain.

technicians and machines rather than pure driving skills. If it wants to improve, it need only take a leaf out of MotoGP’s manual, where bikehandling is most important and unpredictability reigns supreme. Whilst there may be the same concentration of top teams on ‘factory’ bikes, this cream of the crop is not so concentrated as simply Red Bull. Instead, two companies vie for success – Honda and Yamaha. Their competition went all the way down to the final lap of the final race of the season, harking back to the glory days of F1 this century when Lewis Hamilton won his first World Championship on the final corner of the final Grand Prix.

The eventual winner, Marc Marquez, is the epitome of the unpredictability that makes MotoGP so exciting. A rookie this year, he has had the sort of debut season that he could only have dreamed about. He became the first rookie to win four MotoGP races in a row, recorded the most wins in his debut season and is now the youngest winner of a MotoGP championship. And all of this with a bubbly personality and a beaming smile off-track.

Compare this with Sebastian Vettel – cold and calculated like a Bond villain – the Blofeld of the motor-racing world. Yet the press coverage that has been afforded to Marquez has been virtually non-existent in comparison. Let us recognize magnificence, let us rejoice in his skill, and let us smile at the way he has captured the hearts and minds of everyone connected to MotoGP. Time for a true rant now. It is the Snooker UK Championships starting tomorrow, (26 November) and, as per usual,

”

anymore; it is O’Snooker.

Anything and everything is always linked back to him. When he decides not to play, the focus is on him. When he decides to play, the focus is on him. When he wins, it is all about how he has rediscovered his magic.

When he loses, questions are always raised as to whether he still wants it. The time has come to move on. I am as much of a fan of Ronnie as anyone else is – no other in the history of the game matches his majestic poise, potting brilliance and outrageous skill. However, the time has come for us to shift away from O’Sullivan, for the simple fact is that he will not

a true sport again, not the plaything of one brilliant, but mortal, man.

In many instances, the pride of a man is truly shown not in so much as how they succeed, but in the effort that they put in.

Nothing epitomised this more than the sterling performance of the England team in their final QBE Rugby Union Autumn International against New Zealand at Twickenham.

Rarely have I stood so tall and proud after a defeat as I did that Saturday evening, walking down Whiteladies Road with the Red Rose prominent on my chest. Yes, England may have eventually succumbed to the All Black might 3022, but the manner in which they fought and battled was something that would stir even the hardiest of souls. To fully appreciate the magnitude of the England performance, the sheer brillaince of New Zealand must be recognised, read this stat alone - in the last 3 years, 33 games played, and only one defeat. Yet England stood up, to a man, and defended ferociously; the forwards dominated to such an extent that I was shaking with excitement and sheer joy.

“

the manner in which they fought and battled was something that would stir even the hardiest of souls

”

be around forever. When he does finally decide to go through with one of his numerous retirement threats, the world of snooker will be all the worse for it. But that itself will be made worse if we do not concentrate on who shall take the seat of Ronnie at the altar of modern greatness.

Will it be the quiet assassin, Ding Junhui, who has gone almost unnoticed in winning three straight titles at the start of this season? Or Ronnie incarnate, Judd Trump? Perhaps it will be the consistently brilliant Neil Robertson? Or maybe the opinionated but talented Mark Allen? In listing off these names, the key problem arises. All of these players, put together, create Ronnie O’Sullivan – individually, they cannot touch him. They must combine to show that snooker can become

The final outcome may not have been the perfect end to a nigh-on superb display, but the sheer drive, determination and commitment after getting off to a poor start was something that I will not forget in a hurry.

England flattered to deceive in their wins against Australia and Argentina - here flattery went out of the window, and it was a win for pride and for sheer guts. England, I salute you - you made a lot of fans extremely proud.

As a side-note, the News of the World hacking scandal may have raised all sorts of questions regarding morality and legality, but it has also introduced this comedy gold. Wayne Rooney’s voicemail password was found to be… wait for it…this will be worth it... ‘Stella Artois’. Do I need to say anymore?

Epigram

55

Striving for perfection Hetty Knox Sports Editor

Tweets of the week Joey Barton @Joey7Barton

“Football is a simple game complicated by people who know little about it. After all, simplicity is genius.”

Jose Goulao: Flickr

In his post-race interview, on a night that is surely the greatest that British athletics has ever witnessed, Mo Farah humbly acknowledged those who were instrumental in helping him achieve his victory in the 10,000 metres final at the London Olympics.

There was the obvious ‘thank you’ to family and coaches alike, as well as a less familiar name- Barry Fudge, an exercise physiologist from the English Institute of Sport.

Gone are the days where footballers visit their local for a few pints after training, in fact it is very rare for any athletes to consume any alcohol over their professional career. With strict training and dietary regimes,

every percent of an athlete’s performance is now accounted for in one way or another. In today’s world of professional sport nothing can be left to chance and so now, more and more athletes and teams are turning to sports science to aid their performance.

In preparation for the London Olympics, Fudge spent 5 weeks with Farah at an altitude training camp monitoring various physiological variables of our bodily functions. The testing and analysis involved in exercise physiology includes measurements of heart rate, hydration and oxygen consumption to name only a few. The science team behind an athlete extends further than this though.

Elite athletes and sports teams also employ sports psychologists, who explore

25.11.2013

Unchainedfitness.com

how psychological factors can impact on performance, such as the ‘head doc’-,Dr Mark Bawden, who has helped the likes of Alaistair Cook in the England cricket team. Biomechanists apply engineering principles to the movements and biological systems of their athlete. The analysis of Usain Bolt’s start shows that the 6 time Olympic gold medallist and 100 and 200m world record holder is by no means perfect and somewhat scarily, still has room for improvement.

Sports science is not only a performance enhancing tool but is also key in injury rehabilitation. It is widely recognised that a physiotherapist is a vital part of any elite sport set up nowadays. Some prominent sports stars have gone further than physiotherapy to aid their recovery. Before the 2006 World

Cup in Germany, Wayne Rooney famously slept in an oxygen tent in attempt to speed the healing process of his broken metatarsal and in 2009, Robin van Persie opted to have a massage involving the fluid of a placenta whilst recovering from ankle ligament damage.

With the meticulous training regimes and hightech equipment available to sportsmen and women today, world class sport is closer than ever and so every athlete is looking for that something that can give them ‘the edge’. It has been touted that the 100m world record is unlikely to reduce by more than fractions of a millisecond in the near future, any more than this would not be humanly possible.

Perhaps the decimal places can be shaved by the minute attention to detail that sports science provides.

The ever philosophical Joey Barton tells it straight. Ironically he doesn’t seem to understand the ‘simple game’ having been charged with violent conduct three times by The FA: for the assault of Ousmane Dabo, for punching Morten Gamst Pedersen in the stomach and for attacking three players on the final day of the 2011–12 season.

Andy Murray @andy_murray

“Who loses their hair first out of me and rafa?”

Murray clearly has a lot of time on his hands at the moment after his back operation….

At Epigram we think Andy is going to be the first polishing a bald spot out of this pair.

Andrea Petkovic @andreapetkovic

“Today I fell in love with Roger.

Totally platonic of course. What a man.”

She is of course referring to a certain Roger Federer at the recent ATP Tour Finals in London in which he bowed out at the semi-final stage. Has the German number 3 been hiding under a rock? The rest of the world fell in love with Roger years ago!

The good, the bad and the ugly Sachin Tendulkar Performance enhancing drugs

...bad...

Carmen2037: Flickr

Good...

After the Lance Armstong fiasco, doping is back in the spotlight. Jamaica’s senior drug tester said recent failed tests might be the “tip of an iceberg”. WADA declared that Jamaica has “lost its way” on drug testing for athletes, prompting an angry response from the world’s best female athlete, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, who threatened to boycott all major track events. To further compound the doping issues in sport, the next two Olympic hosts are facing suspension by WADA after a disciplinary panel met to consider concerns over testing in Rio and Sochi. The world of professional sport is gaining a tarnished reputation.

Privatemusings: Wikipedia

This cricketing legend finally hung up his bat after 24 years at the crease.

Unfortunately he did not quite complete his dream farewellfalling just short of a century in front of his home crowd in Mumbai, after getting bowled out by Darren Sammy.

Already the highest runscorer in Test history, Tendulkar, increased his career aggregate to 15,921, some 2,543 more than the next highest batsman, Australian Ricky Ponting, who retired from international cricket late last year.

He walked off the pitch to a standing ovation. Fans streamed out of the Wankhede Stadium in the aftermath of his dismissal, tears pouring down their faces as they worshipped their ‘God of Cricket’.

Roy’s boys Roy Hodgson’s face says it all really. There was certainly a lot to ponder after a an England performace against Chile which did not show the squad in a positive light at all.

Seen as something of an experiment, it showed up the real dearth of quality that England have to back up the established first team. Only

Adam Lallana really came out of the game with any credit; the defence and central midfield looked slow, sloppy and completely devoid of effect.

This really was ugly.

...ugly

Epigram

25.11.2013

Sport

Editor: Hetty Knox

Editor: Jacob Webster

sport@epigram.org.uk

jacob.webster@epigram.org.uk sportonline@epigram.org.uk

Online Editor: George Moxey

Lacrosse dominate rivals

Eliot Wilde Sophie Sullivan Imogen Rowe Bristol Lacrosse For the second season in a row the men’s 1st’s has seen a raft of players disappear from their roster, crucially losing almost their entire defence to the ravages of graduation. But despite all expectations they shot out of the gates, starting the season with three confident victories. The previous week, though, had seen them stall, losing away to Exeter. This defeat meant that going in to the game against Oxford they needed a win to ensure their

ambitions of winning their first BUCS Southern Premier League title were kept alive. However, previous experience for Bristol at Oxford has not been fruitful having never won a game there in their history. Bristol went into the game quietly confident but wary of the potential for talent from across the pond in the Oxford squad.

Bristol patiently controlled the start of the game and were rewarded with a 2 - 0 lead after the first quarter. Even after adding a third goal to their tally, Oxford began a comeback after a scrappy goal snuck in to the back of the Bristol net. Despite Bristol dominating possession they only maintained a narrow

lead. The game remained close with the score at the end of the third quarter, 4 – 3. Both teams were nervy as the final quarter began, with the

ball moving end to end but not finding the back of either net.

The back-and-forth continued until a well-worked goal from the Bristol captain. This was the breaking point for Oxford as Bristol surged ahead putting in a series of quick goals in the last ten minutes to win the game 9 – 3.

With the season at its h a l f way mark Bristol perch at the top of their league. They remain hopeful that they can stay at the top of the league and take their first ever premiership title.

Though with three other teams narrowly behind them, they will

have to work hard to maintain their position.

The same day saw the Bristol Ladies’ Lacrosse first team overcome Cardiff University Womens’ 1st team 22-2 in the BUCS Premier South league.

Cardiff were promoted at the end of last season, having convincingly won every game in the league below. Bristol were coming off a 6-6 hard fought draw at Oxford, and so were motivated and ready to earn a big win. The Bristol attack started strong, scoring thirteen goals in the first half, leaving the score at 13-2. The strength of the Bristol attack was further emphasised with another eleven goals scored in the second half.

75% of the players earned a goal for the team, with Tara Lumley and Captain Miranda Nicholes each scoring an incredible five goals for the team. First year players, Lucy Lukic and Flora Brown were similarly influential in attack, scoring seven goals collectively and creating a number of assists for their teammates. Imogen Rowe and Lottie Hoskin were influential in the midfield, both controlling the draw an impressive six times each, and safely transitioning the ball to settle in attack.

Defensively, Bristol showed strength and solidity as a unit – only two goals were conceded throughout the game and the team boasted an aggressive turnover rate of one positive turnover in every four minutes.

This was weakly opposed by only four turnovers for Cardiff throughout the game. Overall, it was an incredibly encouraging day for the entire club, with the second team also winning their home game 19-1 against Swansea.

Featuring...

@epigramsport

Inside Sport The margin between winning and losing in sport is getting smaller and smaller, so what are athletes using to gain ‘the edge’? page 55

Round up of the standout BUCS fixtures. Including basketball, downhill racing and hockey. page 53

Who is philosophising about football again? See the #Tweets of the week, page 53

And... Fin Taylor

Stuart Goldsmith 2 December 8.00pm • AR2, Anson Rooms, The Richmond Building

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