Epigram Issue 346

Lingerie looks Inside...

Wild waters

Queer theatre

Sexy underwear doesn’t have to be confined to Valentine’s Day

A student delves the deeps with the South West Seal Pups

Arts interview artistic director Imogen Palmer in LGBTQ+ History Month

The Croft page 17

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epigram

Fortnightly Feburary 17 2020

est. 1988

Issue 346

The University of Bristol’s Independent Student Newspaper

Spilling the secrets of a UoB Sugar Baby Georgiana Scott Investigations Editor

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Continued on page 8...

Continued on page 9...

Epigram / Topaz Maitland

survey also found that sugar dating wasn’t the only form of adult work students were trying, with escorting, webcamming and selling photos among the most common.

Seeking Arrangement, the world’s largest and arguably most famed Sugar Dating site, claims 22 million members worldwide. For students, the site boasts an ‘elevated college experience’ including ‘expanded networking opportunities’, ‘mentorship’ and ‘financial benefits’.

rior to the forthcoming interview, I had been subscribed to SeekingArrangement for just over a week. Overwhelmed by the messages I had received, I clung to comfort that my interaction with Bristol’s sugar daddies would go no further than online.

My personal experience of the website was, therefore, tainted by the fact I had remained behind the safety of my keyboard, and would not be enough to uncover the naked truth of student prostitution.

That being so, I found myself in contact with Hannah*, a fourth year University of Bristol student who had engaged in transactional relationships with the site’s subscribers throughout her undergraduate study.

I began what was to evidently be a deeply personal conversation by asking Hannah to talk me through the steps she took to entering the world of adult work.

She openly recalled how during her gap year she received a message on Twitter from an unknown account asking if she would accept £40 for three pictures of her feet. Despite being taken aback, she explained, ‘I thought, “this is an easy way to make money” and didn’t think much of it, so I agreed and sent the photos.’

A few months later, Hannah had ‘gained a reputation in the foot fetish community as a trustworthy seller’ she told me. ‘Many of my customers had actually asked to meet me.

‘Climate crisis’: Bristol has become the first UK city to declare an ecological emergency to protect the city’s wildlife, page

Students share the sour reality of sugar dating

An Epigram investigation has found the shocking mental health implications of student sex work Georgiana Scott London. premium membership to all students recent undergraduate count. The Investigations Editor

Imogen Horton Co-Editor-in-Chief

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ith the promise of connections and financial aid, many students are turning to sugar dating sites to help fund their university experience. At the University of Bristol, 435 students are currently signed up to the sugar dating site SeekingArrangement. This ranks the institution as the 8th highest, joint with the University of the Arts

‘Sugar dating’, or ‘sugaring’, is where a sugar baby receives gifts or financial benefits in exchange for companionship, which often includes intimacy or sex. The paying ‘sugar daddy’ is typically older and wealthier.

Previously, this has been a trend among students in the United States however, last month, SeekingArrangement, claimed that over 500,000 students in the UK have signed up to their site since 2015.

The sugar dating site gives a free

www.epigram.org.uk

who sign up with a university email address.

According to Save the Student’s 2019 Money Survey, currently 4 percent of students are using adult work as a source of money making.

This is double the 2017 figure, showing that the trend of students turning to potentially more risky ways to make money is increasing.

Although 4 percent may not appear a significant percentage, this could include as many as 70,000 students nationwide based on HESA’s most

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Editorial

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or the past few months I’ve been working on an investigation into student participation in adult work with our Investigations Editor, Georgiana Scott.

We’ve pestered survey companies for all the stats they have, spoken to current and former students and even signed up to a Sugar Dating website ourselves, stopping short of any meetings to try to ascertain the reality of the industry.

Before starting this, I had a suspicion that the industry spin was too good to be true. Surely you couldn’t earn four figures a month for a few dates?

At most I thought the reality was significantly lower earnings than advertised and perhaps the odd ‘weirdo’ to be avoided.

I never imagined the extent of the emotional impact that many students described to us. From being unable to share it, even in confidential meetings with wellbeing professionals, to having an overwhelming feeling of regret years after graduating, the darker side of sugar dating was truly revealed.

For some students this was the first time they’d spoken about it with anyone. For me, this makes our investigation even more key.

The bravery that students have shown, coming forward to talk about their actions and perhaps warn their peers about the reality of the student sex industry, has really inspired me.

Most importantly, it’s enabled us to tell the stories of those who haven’t had a voice.

We so often hear from Sugar Dating companies about the wonderful opportunities these mutually beneficial relationships can bring to the point where becoming a sugar baby is a joke among friends,

synonymous for an easy way to make money.

Hopefully our investigations have shown another side to student sugar dating work. The students who are afraid to admit to their friends the reality of their work and the ones who feel they have no other option due to time constraints and financial pressures.

As a student paper, we should be telling the stories of those in our university community who are too afraid to speak out, or whose story has never been told before.

Bristruths have just started their own Wellbeing Survey for students at the University. Those willing to share their story are able to submit a separate form allowing one of our editors to read their anonymous submissions. Through this we hope to tell more unheard stories of students, like those brave enough to speak out about their adult work, who don’t usually have a voice.

This helps to educate not only the student body but it informs the University of the issues that are really affecting the people around us.

Reminiscent of Patrick’s last editorial, the strikes are back.

Talking to my peers, the strikes, now happening for a second time this year, are slowly starting to lose the sympathy of many third year students.

One girl in my seminar yesterday even suggested to me: ‘Why can’t they strike for everything but third year lectures?’

However, if you talk to the lecturers involved, discuss with them why they’re taking industiral action, you start to see a bigger picture rather than just your third year dissertation seminar being cancelled.

Last year some staff members anonymously spoke to us about why they were participating in the strikes.

I really hope that we’ll be able to hear more of these stories during the next fourteen days of industrial action.

Students papers are a key part of the student body and both students and staff should use them to tell their stories.

To have people trust us, trust Epigram, to tell their story is incredible. If you turn to pages 8-9 and read our investigation, maybe you’ll let us tell your story too.

Epigram is the independent student newspaper of the University of Bristol. The views expressed in this publication are not those of the University or the Students’ Union. The design, text and photographs are copyright of Epigram and its individual contributors and may not be reproduced without permission.

Printed by: Iliffe Print Cambridge Ltd. Winship Road, Milton Cambridge, CB24 6PP

Co-Editor-in-Chief Co-Editor-in-Chief Deputy Editor

Imogen Horton Patrick Sullivan Will Charley

Digital Editor Tom Taylor Deputy Digital Editor Bethany Marris epionlineeditor@gmail.com

From the archives:

‘Call girl unmasked as Uni researcher’ Issue 220, released 30 November 2009, examined the financial difficulties of university life

S

tar blogger and ex-’high class’ prostitute Belle de Jour has revealed herself as University of Bristol employee Dr Brooke Magnanti. The academic researcher of the Bristol Initiative for Research of Child Health (BIRCH) made the relevation after deciding it time to unburden herself of the double life she has led for the past six years.Dr Magnanti, who is part of a team of three researchers led by Dr Margaret Saunders for BIRCH, began working as a prostitute for a London escort agency in 2003 when she ran out of money in the midst of completing a PhD in informatics, epidemiology, and forensic science from the University of Sheffield.

Following a comical incident in her new found employment she began a blog, under the pseudonym Belle de Jour, about her secret life as a prostitute. The blog, entitled ‘Diary of a London Call Girl’, was

voted Blog of the Year by The Guardian newspaper in 2003 and has since been made into a book and adapted into an ITV Television series, staring Billie Piper as the protagonist.

PhD completed, Dr Magnanti worked in various institutes before coming to Bristol and joined BIRCH, an initiative which concerns itself with the exposure of pregnant women to toxins, the role of placental barrers to the transfer of these toxins, and the effect which toxins, transferred aross the placenta, have on the unborn child. Questions have been raised about how new knowledge of her terebrous past may affect Dr Magnanti’s career with the University of Bristol. A spokesman for the University told the BBC that ‘This aspect of Dr Magnanti’s past is not relevant to her current role at the University.’

Neither would the revelation affect her chances of future employment.

Sally Cervenak and Hannah Stubbs

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epigram 17.02.2020

‘Secret life’: Billie Piper played the role of researcher Dr Magnanti for a 2007 TV series

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Got a story for the newsteam? Email newsteam.epigram@gmail.com

UCU announces 14 more days of strike action

• Strike action will place between 20th of Febuary and 13th of March • Bristol University staff will protest over pay, equality, casualisation and workload

Tom Taylor Digital Editor

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he UCU, which represents staff at universities across the UK, announced today that the University of Bristol will be hit with 14 days of strike action in February and March 2020.

Bristol University staff will join 73 institutions in protest. The staff are taking action against ‘universities’ failure to make significant improvements on pay, equality,

casualisation and workloads’, as well as disputes surrounding the ‘sustainability of the Universities Superannuation Scheme’.

These are the same issues under dispute during the strikes last November and early December.

The dates affected by planned strike action are: • Thursday 20th February and Friday 21st February.

• Monday 24th, Tuesday 25th and Wednesday 26th of February • Monday 2nd, Tuesday 3rd, Wednesday 4th and Thursday 5th March • Monday 9th, Tuesday 10th, Wednesday 11, Thursday 12th and Friday 13th March UCU general secretary Jo Grady has

said: ‘We have seen more members back strikes since the winter walkouts and this next wave of action will affect even more universities and students. If universities want to avoid further disruption they need to deal with rising pension costs, and address the problems over pay and conditions.’

Grady continues: ‘We have been clear from the outset that we would take serious and sustained industrial action if that was what was needed.

As well as the strikes next month, we are going to ballot members to ensure that we have a fresh mandate for further action to cover the rest of the academic year if these disputes are not resolved.’

In a join statement, Professor Tansy Jessop, Pro Vice-Chancellor

for Education and Professor Sarah Purdy, Pro-Vice Chancellor for Student Experience said: ‘These are important issues and we respect the right of our staff to take action.’

They continue: ‘As positive progress is being made and talks are ongoing at a national level, we are therefore disappointed at the prospect of students’ education being further disrupted by industrial action.’

‘We hope that even though the dispute may cause students uncertainty and anxiety, that wider strategies in place for wellbeing and education will enable students to keep communicating with their Schools and keep their studies on track.

As a University, we are proud of the way that we have worked with the local branch of UCU and the other

trade unions to make things better for staff. We are open to continuing the conversation and being proactive in addressing their concerns.’

Postgraduate Education Officer, Chris Brasnett, has said: ‘We continue to support the current period of strikes on pay and pensions as we previously announced in November.

We believe that a fair deal on pay and pensions for staff at Bristol are in the long term interests of students.

We will continue to work closely with the university to ensure that no student is unfairly disadvantaged during this period of industrial action, as well as supporting UCU in their fight for a better future for their working conditions. As in November, we will keep students up to date on our dedicated webpage.’

‘Justice for Palestine’: BME coalition protests Conservative Association event on Israel • BME societies opposed the BUCA event for being offensive to minorities

Will Charley Deputy Editor

Robin Connolly Features Editor

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coalition of BME societies protested a Bristol University Conservative Association (BUCA) event on 10th February, in the belief that both invited external speakers should not be given a platform.

Panel event, ‘A Unique Military Alliance: Israel and the UK’, was scheduled to have British Colonel Richard Kemp CBE and Israeli Brigadier General (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser speak in Wills Memorial Building about UK relations with Israel.

Organised under the slogan ‘No to Imperialism and Apartheid’, protests were coordinated and supported by the BME Network, the Bristol Socialist Worker Student Society, the University of Bristol Islamic Society and the University of Bristol Friends of Palestine. The coalition stated that both speakers were offensive to the BME community and should not have been given a platform.

Specifically, Colonel Kemp was

opposed for contributing regularly to Breitbart and for being a Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, which has published articles such as ‘Europe: The Great White Death?’ Similarly, Brigadier General Kuperwasser was opposed by the coalition because of his former role as head of the research division of the Israeli Defence Force Military Intelligence Directorate.

In hosting this event, the coalition accused the University of Bristol of failing in its duty to ‘safeguard minority students’ and in a separate statement, the BME Network has accused the University of taking a ‘shameful and embarrassing position’ by hosting the event.

Speaking to Epigram one student protester, who wished to remain anonymous, commented: ‘inviting someone who’s from the IDF onto campus completely eradicates the safeguarding of Palestinian students.’ The student, who originates from Palestine, went on to say that ‘so, inviting someone who’s from the army that killed my family and has terrorized me growing up is not safeguarding my mental health.’

The University denies these accusations. A spokesperson for the institution said that they understand ‘the views of the speakers may be considered

controversial, but we expect them to be discussed and debated in a measured way within the boundaries of an appropriately organised academic event.’

On 5th February, the BME Network launched a Change.org petition that demanded the University cancel the event. The University of Bristol refused to do so, with the spokesperson stating that the University is ‘fully committed to freedom of speech and to the rights of all our students and staff to discuss difficult and sensitive topics. We are also committed to being a place where everyone feels safe, welcomed and respected.’

A BUCA spokesperson defended their panel, saying: ‘BUCA sought and received approval for Colonel Kemp CBE and General Kuperwasser to speak at the University of Bristol. At all times it respected and obeyed the policies of both the Students’ Union and the University of Bristol. If the Queen saw fit to invite Colonel Kemp to the palace to receive his CBE, we see fit to invite him to Bristol.’

The spokesperson added that: ‘The Conservative Party has long supported Israel’s right to defend itself and the close bilateral relationship between our states has saved numerous

lives through intelligence cooperation.

‘We will not take lectures on Israel from individuals who have called for Israel to “cease to exist” and hosted inflammatory speakers.’

Just hours before the protest, 126 people had registered themselves as ‘interested’ or ‘going’ to the protesters Facebook event. The organisers called for students to ‘join our protest and stand in solidarity’ and vowed ‘No to imperialism.

No to racism. No to apartheid. Justice for Palestine.’

The petition and subsequent protest doubled security costs, which are arranged and mandated by the University, a source close to the organisers informed Epigram. However, the source also confirmed that both BUCA and the event remain unaffected due to ongoing external funding.

A spokesperson for the University said: ‘The University supports the view of the European Court of Human Rights that freedom of expression constitutes one of the essential foundations of a democratic society and that such freedom is applicable not only to information or ideas that are favourably received, but also to those that have the potential to offend, shock or disturb the listener.

‘Intellectual freedom is fundamental to our mission and values. Our freedom of speech policy underlines the vital importance of our right to speak openly without fear of censorship or limitation, provided that this right is exercised responsibly, within the law, and with respect for others who may have differing views.’

The BME Network has accused Bristol Students’ Union of failing to abide by the APPG definition of Islamophobia which it adopted in June 2019. A Bristol SU spokesperson responded that: ‘As a charity we are bound to uphold the law and allow freedom of expression, even where our views may differ from the speakers. The views of the speakers invited are not those of Bristol SU. Bristol SU’s societies are bound by our code of conduct and we have reminded them of their obligations.’

In a tweet following the event, Colonel Kemp, stated in response to the protesters: ‘Plenty of strident voce signalling, yelling slogans before the event last night in Bristol. Afterwards I spoke to several of them who displayed only absence of knowledge and confusion. In one hour I gave them the best political education they have received so far in their lives.’

epigram 17.02.2020

4 News

Student numbers set to grow by 1,000 per year over the next four years • Senior management admit the number of students admitted to the University will grow • Bristol Cut The Rent, which organised the event, criticised the expansion plans

Ellie Brown News Subeditor

Epigram / Ellie Brown

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senior manager at the University has acknowledged the ‘huge amount of change’ resulting from the institution’s expansion, but has defended plans for future growth, including an eventual target population of 30,000 students.

During a panel event organised

by Bristol Cut The Rent, Director of Campus Operations, Simon Bray, agreed that there had been a ‘bit of lag’ in the creation of facilities to cater for the rapid increase in numbers of students at the University.

He also accepted that the University had faced problems in adapting to its larger student body.

‘Look at the way we teach, the facilities we provide, the buildings we have - it’s not ideal’ he said.

However, he defended the University’s plans for future expansion, including a target population of 30,000 students - 4,000 more than there are at the institution

currently.

Arguing that by 2023, the University will have developed the necessary facilities to cater for this number, though he commented that this was ‘unlikely to happen soon.’

Another key announcement included the University's plans to take on 1,000 extra students in the 2020 academic year.

Mr Bray claimed that there would be enough beds to accommodate this number - 800 more than current levels, as it is estimated that 200 of the extra students will not need to be housed.

However, one member of the audience pointed out that these calculations do not account for the 200 students

left without accommodation in 2019, prompting Bray to respond that current targets are undergoing a ‘thorough review’ and subject to change.

Others on the panel and in the audience discussed the effects of expansion on current students and staff.

A former student and current member of staff at the Arts and Social Sciences Library, argued that library spaces had become ‘hectic’ during exam periods, and noted that the student health service had become ‘much busier’ since his time as an undergraduate.

In response, Mr Bray agreed that:

Hall bars to close and be repurposed • All har bars are to close their doors to patrons • Low drinks sales and underuse were cited as reasons for their closures • The spaces they inhabited will be remodelled into another social space following a consultation with students • Larger, more central, bars will open in residential villages

Benjamin Salmon Deputy News Editor

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all bars at the University are to close their doors for the final time, an email sent to first-year students has revealed.

Halls of Residence bars are set to be replaced by new spaces that will be decided as a result of a consultation among current students in halls.

A University spokesperson attributed the decision to lack of use: ‘The hall bars had been significantly

under-utilised for a number of years which prompted a consultation exercise in 2018 about their future.

‘Using the consultation, Food for Thought survey and the most recent performance data, a paper was tabled at Student Experience Committee in November 2019 to confirm both the closure of the bars and this consultation on how to repurpose these spaces [for future use].

‘As a result, it has been recommended that the bars should be closed and their space repurposed.’

The proposals will seek to replace the current bars with larger bars in five destinations: Hiatt Baker, Senate House, a refurbished Balloon Bar, Clifton Hill House and the new Temple Quarter Campus.

These bars will be set to open at varying times – as early as the next academic year for the Senate House Bar and as late as September 2023 for Temple Quarter Campus bar.

While these bars are being

developed, interim bars will be used in both the North and West Residential Villages (Stoke Bishop and Clifton).

The University believes the new proposals will provide the ‘perfect opportunity for students to tell us what they want to see in their hall and really inform the future look and feel of the spaces, to make them vibrant and exciting places where students want to relax and socialise.’

Winnie Thomas, a second-year Classics student and former bar staffer in Wills Hall said ‘it doesn't come as a shock.

'Nevertheless, it is incredibly disappointing.

‘The halls will lose any individual character the bars provided, alongside the social aspect that their presence provided.

‘Certain bars have been losing money but the Hiatt Baker bar wasn't used enough as it was and the decision to re-do it seems a mistake.’

‘there are shortages and challenges’ in the provision of study spaces for students, and stated that the University is ‘doing a major piece of consultation work’ to see if current spaces can be enlarged.

In a statement to Epigram, a spokesperson fro Bristol Cut The Rent said: ‘We organised the event because we wanted to raise issues surrounding University expansion, especially following the situation in September where over 200 students were unable to be housed in University halls in Bristol.’

‘We wanted to give students and staff the opportunity to hear from current students about the

crisis we are facing at Bristol, and to provide a channel by which the University community could pose their questions to Management about the University’s plans surrounding expansion.’

‘We hope that we have started a dialogue with the University around expansion, and that students were able to voice their concerns, which we hope will be taken to the very top of Senior Management.

'We hope that the University realised that it cannot continue with its disastrous expansion plans, which are set to continue at a rate of 1000 more students each year, without negatively affecting the lives of students and staff.’

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the University of Bristol said: 'It’s important to highlight that our Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus, due to open in 2023, will provide learning and study facilities for around 3,500 students – accounting for the lion’s share of our planned expansion.

'New student accommodation is being planned for the Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone to meet this additional demand.

'Careful planning has gone into accommodating and meeting the needs of additional student numbers on our current campus.

White Supremacist posters found on campus • Posters with the slogan 'Its okay to be white' were posted arround Woodland Road, Hawthorns and Tyndall Avenue • Many students ripped the posters down in protest against their content

Maddy Russell News Editor

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osters with the slogan ‘It’s okay to be white’ have been put up around the University in what is believed to be a White Supremacist act.

In a post on Facebook the StudentStaff Solidarity Group expressed their ‘disgust’ at the posters, stating that the phrase is considered to be commonly used amongst the TransAtlantic fascist movement.

Posters are believed to have been

placed around Woodland Road, Tyndall Avenue and the Hawthorns.

Epigram understands that some posters may have been removed by students, in protest against their content. A spokesperson for the University said: 'The University of Bristol aspires to be a community where everyone should feel safe, welcomed and respected.

'Together with the Students’ Union, we have been working actively with staff and students to ensure that our commitment to inclusion, diversity and equality is reflected in all aspects of our University.

'It appears that the posters have so far only been seen in public spaces – we have not had any reports of them being put up in University premises.

'We would ask that if anyone sees one of these posters on University premises, they take them down and contact security services.'

17.02.2020 epigram

News 5

University left with £69.5 million deficit at end of last year - though pay of senior staff increased • Shortfall caused by increasing USS pension contributions • Report also shows pay rises for senior staff including the Vice-Chancellor, who was paid £382,000 Epigram / Cameron Scheijde

Ellie Brown News Subeditor

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igures from the University’s newly released Annual Report show that the institution reported an overall deficit of £69.5 million in its accounts for the 2018-2019 academic year.

The shortfall was caused by the 2017 revaluation of the University Superannuation Scheme (USS), the main pension scheme of academic staff; proposed changes to this in the wake of the revaluation was the main reason for staff strike action in 2018.

The University, which is contractually obligated to help fund this scheme, saw payments to the USS rocket from £4.5 million to £105.9 million, resulting in the report’s stated deficit.

This is despite an increase in overall surplus before USS payments are factored in - from £11.4 million to £36.6 million. According to the report, this rise is due to an increase in capital grants from the National Composites Centre, a Universityowned spin-off company which funds composites research at the institution.

Speaking to Epigram about the deficit, Robert Kerse, Chief Operating Officer at the University, said: ‘Accounting standards require us to reflect on the balance sheet of the University the difference between the money that staff have already paid into the [USS] scheme and the amount that it’s expected to cost to pay out these pensions in the future.’

The results of the 2018 revaluation of the scheme - which was only signed off on September 2019 - mean that the University’s payments to the USS next year will decrease by £68.3 million, and Mr Kerse states that his budget for the next ten years includes all the cash that will be needed to fund both pension schemes for staff.

However, ‘because staff have already earned those pension benefits, or those rights to pensions in the future, we have to reflect the fact that that money has to be paid

in the future in our accounts now’ he said.

According to a November 2019 report by Times Higher Education (THE), many pre-1992 Universities will have recorded ‘exceptionally large’ deficits this year due to the revaluation of the USS Scheme.

The THE report also cited guidance from the British Universities Finance Directors Group, which stated that ‘these large university deficits are not a reflection of the cash or day-to-day spending position of universities, nor do they mean that spending has been significantly higher than income’ although a former chief of this group also said that the impact of these provisions ‘cannot simply be ignored and will need careful interpretation each year by lenders and others.’

Meanwhile, the report also showed pay increases for senior members of staff.

The number of staff on salaries of £105,000-£109,999 per year rose from 9 to 32, while the upper limit for salaries (excepting the Vice-Chancellor’s) increased from £180,000-£184,999 to £210,000£214,999, with two members of staff on salaries above £184,999 compared to none the previous year.

Additionally, Hugh Brady, the University’s Vice-Chancellor, was paid £9,000 more than he was the previous year - £382,000 in total compared with £373,000 in 20172018. The £9,000 increase derived from a £6,000 rise in Mr Brady’s basic salary, a £2,000 increase in nontaxable benefits and an additional £1,000 in payments received in lieu of pension contributions.

Out of all the Vice-Chancellors at UK universities, Mr Brady is the 11th highest paid, according to a recent report by The Tab. On the rise in staff salaries, a University of Bristol spokesperson said: ‘The Vice-Chancellor’s salary is set and reviewed annually by the Remuneration Committee comprised of external members of the University's Board of Trustees. The Vice-Chancellor is not a member of the Remuneration Committee and is not present when his remuneration, including salary and other benefits, is being considered or decided upon.

‘With effect from 1 August 2019, the Remuneration Committee awarded Professor Brady a pay

increase and he currently receives an annual salary of £300,000. There are no additional bonus arrangements.

‘This pay increase was in recognition of his performance and brings his salary closer to the average salary for other Vice-Chancellors in the Russell Group.

‘It is essential that the University offers a competitive remuneration package, allowing it to attract an outstanding Vice-Chancellor to lead a diverse and complex organisation of almost 24,000 students, over 6,860 staff and an income of over £700 million.

'Because the University is involved in the national industrial relations dispute on higher education pay and pensions, Professor Brady is voluntarily donating any salary rise above the average increase received by staff back to the University to fund student scholarships.

‘More staff now fall within the £105,000 to £109,999 salary bracket than the previous year for a number of reasons which include the standard salary increase of 1.8 per cent. The number of staff earning over £100,000 remains the same as the previous year.

‘Universities operate on a highly competitive global stage and Bristol needs to be able to appoint and retain talented individuals from across the world who make a vital contribution to the quality of student learning, to cutting edge research and the wider impact of UK HE institutions.'

University now employs more support staff than academics, according to report • Fewer academics than support staff are employed for the first time in eight years

Ellie Brown News Subeditor

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he University of Bristol employed more administrative and operational staff than academics in 2018-2019, according to its most recent Annual Report.

The report shows that between midJuly 2019 and mid-July 2018, levels of support staff at the University increased from 3,010 to 3,237, a rise of 227.

However, the number of academic staff only increased by 82, going from 3,109 to 3,191.

Research by Epigram found that this has not happened at the University in at least eight years. A comparison

of data from previous reports found that, while overall numbers of staff at the University increased after the 2010-2011 year - going from 4,782 in 2011 to 6,860 in 2019 - academic staff have not outnumbered those employed in other roles until now.

This follows an event on University expansion hosted by Bristol Cut The Rent, where a panel debated the effects of increasing numbers of students on the experiences of current students and staff.

A University spokesperson said: ‘The rise in the number of staff working in administrative and operational roles (known as Professional Services) reflects the University’s additional investment in new and existing services aimed at supporting students, such as the Wellbeing Service and projects such as Campus Heart.’

epigram 17.02.2020

6 News

Bristol declares ecological emergency

News Editor

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ristol has become the first city in the UK to declare an ecological emergency in response to increased threats to the city’s wildlife and ecosystems.

In a declaration made jointly by the Mayor of Bristol Marvin Rees and Ian Bartlett, CEO of Avon Wildlife trust, the Council pledged to do more in order to protect existing habitats from being destroyed and manage existing land more sustainably.

Bristol was also the first UK city to declare a climate emergency back in

“

It is not too late to start the recovery of our wildlife. We must work together to grab this last chance

“

Maddy Russell

2018.

In the announcement made last week, Mayor of Bristol Marvin Rees, said: ‘It is not too late to start the recovery of our wildlife. We must work together to grasp this last chance and put things right for nature and wildlife in our city.

‘This is about how we responsibly build and develop the City, so humans

don’t threaten wildlife and instead support them to grow alongside us.

‘We can’t solve this issue overnight but if we make sure we consider the ecology when we build each new development, and take major city decisions, then we can start to make major progress.’

• An agreement on closing the gender pay gap was signed on Tuesday 28 January and comes after 18 months of negotiations.

• In 2018 the median gender pay gap at the University was 13.6 per cent.

• As part of the measures the University has pleged to provide more opportunities for flexible working and increasing female members of staff

Ellie Brown News Subeditor

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enior representatives from the University of Bristol and Bristol Universities and Colleges Union (UCU) have signed a Collective Agreement to reduce the University’s gender pay gap – the first agreement of its kind in UK higher education.

As part of the agreement, the University has promised to take several actions to tackle its gender pay gap.

These include increasing opportunities for the progression of female staff, a change which the Union argues is vital due to the number of

women in roles with limited chances for career advancement.

Additionally, the University has promised to provide more opportunities for staff to work flexibly, train staff involved in recruitment and promotion, and fund a pilot scheme allowing researchers to work between grants.

In 2018, the median gender pay gap at the University of Bristol was 13.6 per cent, while for UK universities as a whole it was 14.8 per cent, according to analysis by Times Higher Education.

However, the difference between the mean hourly pay of male and female employees at the University was 19.6 per cent, greater than the average mean gap across UK universities, calculated to be 15.1 per cent by Times Higher Education.

Proessor Judith Squires, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost at the University of Bristol, said: ‘This agreement with UCU signifies our commitment to eliminating the gender pay gap. The University of Bristol and UCU have been working together on this issue since 2018 and have made real progress since

then with new initiatives to support women’s career development and a new academic promotions framework.But there is still more work to do, and this new agreement outlines key actions which will help to achieve our shared aim.

‘We’re proud to be leading the way on such an important issue and hope this collaborative approach may act

“

The University and UCU have been working on this since 2018

“

• Fifteen per cent of local wildlife is believed to be in danger of extinction • The annoucement comes following the council’s declaration of a climate emergency in 2018 • Mayor Marvin Rees has pledged to do more in order to protect existing habitats

University pledge to combat gender pay gap in landmark agreement with UCU

as a positive catalyst for change on the gender pay gap in the sector as a whole.’

Meanwhile, Suzy Cheeke, Vicepresident of Bristol UCU, said: ‘This landmark agreement shows what can be achieved when universities work with us to tackle a problem head-on.

‘We now have a series of measures in place to deliver real positive change for women at the University of Bristol.

A fifth of Bristol students are ‘often’ or ‘always’ lonely

Isaac Haigh

Investigations Correspondent

Ben Bloch

Fourth Year, French and Spanish

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ccording to the University of Bristol’s 2019 Mental Health and Wellbeing Survey, 22 per cent of students ‘often’ or ‘always’ feel lonely. This is nearly three times higher than the national average.

With the addition of the ‘some of the time’ responses, the number of students feeling lonely or isolated almost triples to 57 per cent.

This figure compares to a UK wide study, which showed that 8 per cent of 18 to 24 year olds surveyed felt similar levels of loneliness.

These statistics come following a complete overhaul of the institution’s wellbeing strategy for the start of the 2018/19 academic year, as a ‘Whole

Institution Approach’.

In a recent interview with Epigram, Mark Ames, Director of Student Services, recognised the issue of social isolation at the University. He said that feeling lonely was ‘quite high’ amongst Bristol students but that the University were unable to compare the figure with other groups of students as there is not a national data set.

The Director of Student Services also stressed that ‘community building’ is an important focus point for the year.

The survey was conducted throughout May 2019, and all current

university students at all levels were asked to participate in order to inform the institution’s mental health strategy going forward.

This was an issue highlighted following the 2018 Mental Health and Wellbeing Survey, where 24 per cent of respondents stated that they ‘rarely’ or ‘never’ felt close other people. In the most recent survey, this figure has increased to 26 per cent. The survey analysis gave no recommendations as to how the University could reach out to students experiencing isolation and even wrote that ‘there are no dramatic headlines in this survey analysis’.

Unspalsh/ Sasha Freemind

• The news comes following the release of the University’s report on its Wellbeing Survey for 2019 • This figure is nearly three times higher than than the national average

However, it was acknowledged that many of the figures remained ‘troublingly high’, including that ‘almost half of students have high levels of depression or anxiety symptoms’.

A University spokesperson said ‘For many students, coming to university can be a really fun and sociable experience, but we acknowledge that for some, it can be lonely and isolating, especially in the first weeks of arrival.’

‘In halls and residences, our Residential Life Team work hard to create a sense of community, organising social events and activities

designed to bring people together.’

‘Our residential life and wellbeing advisors are trained to recognise signs of loneliness and regularly check on students to make sure they’re OK.’ ‘In partnership with Bristol Students’ Union we have introduced a number of new initiatives, most notably the five SU Bristol Living Rooms across campus which provide an open, sociable space for all students. More than 700 students visit the living room in Senate House every day and feedback has been universally positive.’

‘We also work in close partnership with the SU, Sports Exercise and Health and academic colleagues to provide a range of activities, clubs and societies deigned to help people make friends and feel part of a community.’

‘Loneliness can be detrimental to physical and mental health and we would encourage anyone who is feeling lonely to talk to their residential life or wellbeing advisors who are here to help.’

You can contact the student wellbeing team on wellbeingaccess@bristol.ac.uk or phone +44 (0)117 456 9860

17.02.2020 epigram

News 7

• The new plans will house 416 first year students and are expected to open in 2021 • The plans for the new accomodation come following the news that the University plans to expand the student population by 4,000 over the next four years

Maggie Sawant

Students’ Union Correspondent

U

nite, is set to receive approval to convert the former Georgian hospital building into 62 flats (416 beds), 20 percent of which will be affordable.

The project is due to be ready to house students by the start of the 2021-2022 academic year.

The development of the BRI represents part of a partnership between Unite and the University, which aims to produce 3000 more beds for University of Bristol students.

Richard Smith, Chief Executive of Unite Students, said that the redevelopment ‘creates new supply in a city centre location where there is an acute shortage of high quality, affordable student accommodation.’

Simon Bray, director of campus operations at the University of Bristol, stated that the University’s priority is ensuring that all students ‘have access to accommodation which provides them with real value for money.’

Omar Suleiman, a second year Computer Science student, told Epigram: ‘It’s really good that they are building new accommodation in such a central location, particularly because there is such a shortage of affordable accommodation in Bristol.’

This report comes following the news that the University is due to expand by 1,000 places per year for the next four consecutive academic years.

News in Brief Students ‘angry’ after blackboard goes down for five hours

Maddy Russell tudents have expressed their frustration after the some of the University’s network services were inaccessible for five hours.

In an email to students the University’s IT Operations Director confirmed that they were working with their hardware supplier to fix the service issues.

Speaking to Epigram, however, students have expressed their ‘anger’ towards the situation with many having struggling to access their work as well as incoming essay and exam grades on blackboard.

One final year Politics and Economics

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Uni releases graduation dates for summer 2020 Maddy Russell uch to the relief of many stressed final year students, the end is in sight after the University has finally released its graduation dates for the summer of 2020.

Ceremonies for students graduating this comming summer will be held between Thursday 16th and Friday 24th of July, in the traditional setting of the Wills Memorial Building.

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student complained to Epigram: ‘I think it is ridiculous that strikes are around the corner and our studies are being disrupted already.

‘We are paying £9250 a year and they can’t even keep our Wifi running nor our classes. I’m supposed to be getting some very important essay marks back today and I may not even be able to access them.’

A third-year Mathematics student said: ‘I am incredibly angry that Blackboard has been down all day as it means I haven’t been able to get any work done. It has actually ruined my day.’

A third-year Law student also said: ‘I am pretty outraged that Blackboard hasn’t been working, to be honest. I really needed to get work done today but haven’t been able to access my required readings.’

Bristol enterprise celebrates £58 million turnover Maddy Russell Bristol University based enterprise, SET Squared, has collectivly achieved a revenue of over £58 billion in the year of 2019. SET Squared provides expertise, business support and consulting services for its residesidents and virtual members.

And offers coaching, mentoring and workshop sessions, business review pannels and investment training.. In total members received £66 in investment .

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VICE looking for students to inform ketamine documentary • Students are invited to share their experiences of taking ketamine for a Bristol-based documentary • Ketamine use in Bristol is thought to be higher than average when compared with the rest of the country

Patrick Sullivan Co-Editor in Chief

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he Media Outlet Vice, would like to talk to users or dealers of the Class-B recreational drug ketamine for the latest in its ‘High Society’ series.

Ketamine use in Bristol is widely known to be high compared to the rest of the UK. In a 2017 survey of 11,000 students in The Tab, 48 per cent of University of Bristol students and 45 per cent of UWE students admitted to taking ketamine. Those results put UoB second and UWE sixth of the 29 featured universities.

Joshua Torrance, from the Bristol

Bath University student tested for Coronavirus Maddy Russell the time of writing a student at the neighbouring University of Bath is currently being tested for the Coronavirus. In a statement a spokesperson for the University of Bath confirmed that a member of their community was currently undergoing a test for the virus whilst undertaking a manditory period of self-isolation to prevent possible contamination. It is unkonown whether the induvidual in question is a student or whether the illness is beleived to have been contracted in the UK or China. This news comes following a report by Epigram last week that a Bristol University student tested negative for Coronavirus.

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UoB submits planning application for £80m library

Ellie Brown n Thursday 6 February, the University submitted a planning application for a new library as part of its redevelopment of campus.

Thre new library building, which is set to replace The Hawthorns, at the intersection of Elton and Woodland Roads. will have 2,000 study seats and hold around 420,000 books and 70,000 journals.

Drug Project, goes even further by saying ‘Bristol is often referred to as Europe’s drug capital’.

Now, the UK branch of VICE media are making a documentary about the use of ket in Bristol and are looking to talk to Bristol students anonymously about their experiences with the drug. The documentary will be part of their ‘High Society’ video series, which currently features episodes on ecstasy, viagra, laughing gas, and even ‘groppers’, a slang term for ‘grandmas growing weed’. When they launched the series in 2016, the UK had three times the average drug mortality rate in Europe and VICE said they wanted to ‘meet the users, dealers, and manufacturers behind these statistics and look at the impact drugs have on British society’. Each episode varies between 10 and 20 minutes and, while mainly featuring on VICE’s website, the series has racked up nearly 500,000 views on YouTube.One

North Somerset Council votes against Bristol Airport expansion Ellie Brown lans to expand Bristol Airport were rejected by councillors at a meeting of North Somerset Council on Monday 10 February. The application to expand the airport, which was submitted fourteen months ago, was denied after councillors voted in favour of a motion to refuse the application by 18 to 7 (one councillor abstained). The motion was proposed by Councillor Steve Hogg. Mr Hogg told councillors that approving the plan would ‘fundamentally damage the relationship between this authority and the residents for years to come.’

Council rules mean that the decision to reject the plans must be ratified by the same committee at a later meeting to go through. If the committee vote to ratify the decision, the Airport will have six months to launch an appeal against it.

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third year UoB student told Epigram that they used the drug ‘once or twice a month initially’ and that ‘loads of people take it, especially in first year’. They said ‘it’s more intense than alcohol’ and a source of ‘escapism’. ‘[Afterwards] I feel bit delicate or hungover but there’s not a comedown like MD.’National drug advisory service, FRANK, says that ketamine ‘can be fatal’ and ‘increase heart rate and blood pressure.

Because of the body’s loss of feelings, paralysis of the muscles and the mind’s loss of touch with reality, you can be left vulnerable to hurting yourself or being hurt by others.’ It lists many other physical and mental health risks with taking the drug.If you are over the age of 18 and have any experience using or dealing with ketamine, or have a particularly interesting story with the drug you would be happy sharing with VICE, email highsociety@vice. com, or if you would like to share anonymously call 0800-086-9153.

Uni encourages students to take part in 10k Maggie Sawant ristol University Sport launched an event on Wednesday 29 January aimed at encouraging students to sign up for the Great Bristol 10k run, which will be hosted in the City Centre on Sunday 3 May this year.

As well as encouraging students to run the Great Bristol 10k, the University has invited students who have signed up to raise money for the University’s pioneering B:Active Healthy Minds programme, which aims improve student mental health through physical activity. Peter Burrows, the University’s Physical Activity and Health Development Officer, described the programme as ‘a physical activity intervention that utilises the benefits of physical activity to support mental wellbeing.’

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Epigram/Ellie Brown

Halls to be built on former BRI

epigram 17.02.2020

8 Investigation: Sugar Dating

“I regret that I had to turn to doing that just to survive” Co-Editor-in-Chief

Georgiana Scott Investigations Editor

Continued from front page...

The company has suggested that a 6.5 per cent interest rate on tuition fees in the UK is ‘enough to stop anyone in their tracks’, leading students to find alternative ways to cover tuition costs. They add that ‘opportunities for mentorship and an expanded network are also enticing’.

However, some students have told Epigram that the reality of sugar dating differs to the prospect of ‘saying good-bye to student debt and securing a better future’ that Seeking Arrangement advertises.

A study by National Ugly Mugs and NSWP suggests that nearly half of UK sex workers are victims of crime during their adult working.

Despite there being a lack of research into the specific risks of being a sugar baby, it is clear that those who choose to exchange sex or intimacy for gifts are potentially vulnerable.

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You feel as if your body isn’t your own

of the industry, students may not feel comfortable seeking support from the University. There are specialist external agencies that students can access confidentially, if they would prefer.

‘The University understands financial management is challenging for students, but there are many opportunities for students to work part-time within the University, and we also provide advice about finding part time work elsewhere.”

However, Bristol University students have told us that they have been hesitant in accessing University support as they are scared of the potential consequences of admitting to partaking in sex work. One student admitted that although they had ‘unhealthy’ thoughts surrounding their actions they consistently thought ‘I can’t get help because if I do the ramifications would be worse’.

Others said they ‘had no idea if there was any support’ and that they ‘wouldn’t even know where to start looking’.

A student who was already receiving mental health support from the University added that they never mentioned their sugar dating even in confidential meetings. ‘I don’t know what action they would have taken or could have taken, or how they would have seen it.’

Currently there are no laws which cover sugar dating specifically.

If sex was given in exchange for financial payment as part of sugar dating, it would be legal in

even hotter’.

Alison Golden-Wright, Deputy Director of Student Services at the University of Bristol, has described the practice of students earning money through the sex industry as ‘of concern.’ She added that the University has ‘a variety of support services available to all students; those facing financial difficulties or any other issues can access nonjudgemental support easily and confidentially.’

‘Relevant specialist services include our Student Funding Team, Students’ Health Service and Student Counselling Service. Given the nature

England, Scotland and Wales due to being covered by prostitution laws. SeekingArrangement and other sugar dating websites encourage members to continue discussing their arrangements on external messaging services and don’t facilitate payment, which means that they can’t be viewed as digital brothels either.

All the students Epigram spoke to cited the potential financial benefit of sugar dating as their main motivation for engaging in adult work. For some this was extra money for saving on top of other avenues of income, such as bar work or cafe jobs. However others said they felt as if it were their

Epigram/ Georgiana Scott

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This vulnerability extends outside of physical harm, with students telling Epigram of the impact that sugar dating has had on their mental health. For many, the illusion of a normal relationship was shattered by the constant expectation of sex or intimacy - a far cry from the ‘relationship on your terms’ that SeekingArrangement advertises.

Sugar dating often begins like any ‘normal’ relationship. One student explained to us how ‘at the start he would put on a record and we would drink wine’. However, by the end of the relationship, she felt as if she was ‘just being used’. The student even went as far to say ‘you feel like some sort of mastubatory aid’.

For some, this feeling doesn’t dissipate once they stop adult work.

A former student told of how their experiences had ‘affected my mental health a lot’ and that they now ‘regret that I had to turn to doing that just to survive’.

A 2017 study by the University of Leicester concluded that the prevalence of mental health problems among female sex workers was ‘generally high’. Depression and post-traumatic stress disorder were commonly experienced by those who had participated previously in some form of adult work.

Epigram also found that body

dysmorphia and self-worth related mental health issues were incredibly prevalent among student Sugar Babies. Reports of showering immediately after meetings and thoughts such as ‘you feel as if your body isn’t your own’ or feeling ‘weird’ or ‘gross’, were prevalent among Bristol students involved with sugar dating.

Sugar dating has a profound effect on students’ relationships both with friends and romantic interests, warping their perception of sex, with one admitting ‘I would get into this mindset that no one would want to hang out with me if I’m not gonna have sex with them’.

Reflecting on her time on SeekingArrangement, one reporter concluded that even just signing up to the site was ‘a uniquely objectifying experience’. ‘You are putting a price on your self-worth and it felt like I had reduced myself to an online version of a mannequin, standing in a shop window for people to gawk at.’

Considering the safety of those who follow through with offers from ‘generous’ and ‘wealthy’ Sugar Daddies, she added: ‘without a doubt you are putting yourself in an extremely vulnerable position. There is a reason the men have chosen SeekingArrangement over eHarmony. com and that is to have sex with younger girls.’ This was confirmed by one ‘Sugar Daddy’ who told another reporter, ‘I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that having a very young sugar makes an already exciting experience

only choice.

Nearly 80 percent of students worry about making ends meet, with 6 percent saying that they would parktake in adult work if they were struggling for money, according to Save the Student. Epigram spoke to one student who said that they first felt the need to start adult work while also working full time alongside studying, and began ‘selling used tights, socks and underwear on eBay’.

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I can’t get help because if I do the ramifications would be worse

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Imogen Horton

With SeekingArrangement claiming that Sugar Babies can earn as much as £2,730 a month, more than most students could expect to earn from a part time job, sugar dating sells itself as a seemingly easy way to make money quickly.

Having entered university through clearing, a former Bristol student explained how they had ‘no other option’ after their rent for the year totalled more than their maintenance loan. This reliance on money from sugar gating to live can also mean that students are more vulnerable to coercion and pressure.

One student, who was signed up to Seeking Arrangement for three years, explained how they felt that being a student meant that Sugar Daddies were more likely to take advantage of them: ‘they know that you’re hard done by and I think a lot of the time they push their luck because as students we are in a bracket of society that is less likely to say no’.

Even over SeekingArrangement’s messaging service Epigram’s reporters found that potential Sugar Daddies were impatient and put pressure on them to reply instantly. Some messages were expectant of Sugar Babies to provide a service, rather than form a mutually beneficial relationship, with one reporter being told ‘I’d expect you to travel to me...I believe the first meet should be about you showing me what you have to offer’.

The founder and CEO of SeekingArrangement, Brandon Wade, said ‘Students understand the importance of a degree but with the magnitude of debt that may follow them after graduating, they are being forced to find alternative methods to finance their education.’

He added, ‘Sugar Daddies not only provide financial relief, but mentor these students on how to manage their finances and elevate their typical uni lifestyle.’

17.02.2020 epigram

Investigation: Sugar Dating 9

Case Study // SeekingArrangement: Sugar coating the reality of sugar dating? were looking for transactional relationships. Engagement in sexual activities for payment is known in the adult work industry as ‘pay-permeets’ or ‘ppm’.

One message received by both reporters said ‘Hi, want to do vid call sex I’ll give you 300 u free now what’s your wats app’ [sic]. Another Sugar Daddy asked one reporter if she minded not using condoms.

However, many were more careful not to be explicit about what they were looking for, instead using language such as ‘overnight stays’, ‘intimate meets’ or ‘adult needs’ to soften the reality of what they were expecting. One Sugar Daddy opened communications with, ‘Women often complain that men only want one thing. On this site that’s probably true, people just express it differently. Are

you up for that sort of arrangement?’

Other offers both reporters received ranged from being flown to Thailand for a ‘beach weekend’, to a week of ‘intimate fun’ in Luxembourg, to a threesome with a man, his wife, and his wife’s italian boyfriend.

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They spoke of their wives and children, who were mostly unaware of their online advances

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A

s part of Epigram’s investigation into adult work at the University of Bristol, two reporters signed up to the renowned sugar dating site SeekingArrangement. For forty-eight hours they spoke to Sugar Daddies over the sites messaging service and received offers for potential ‘arrangements’.

Within minutes of uploading a profile photo both reporters began to receive messages from not only the Bristol area, but the rest of the UK and even worldwide. During the time frame, they received a combined total of 98 messages and 221 ‘interests’ on the site.

Despite Seeking Arrangement saying that their members were looking for ‘hypergamous relationships’, many men

Upon SeekingArrangements’s recommendation, the majority of their Sugar Daddy’s were only willing to discuss the financial aspects of an arrangement over WhatsApp. However, out of those who did, 70% said they were looking for PPM’s.

Very few men on the site, if none at all, seemed to be genuinely interested in a hypergamous relationship.

A common theme among the men they encountered was the need to assert dominance. One reporter was immediately asked if she was ‘obedient’.

There was a clear power imbalance from the start which only got worse when age and the potential financial transaction was factored in.

Both reporters also found the men they spoke to to be pressuring, with some becoming rude if they took too long to reply. When one reporter took

longer than five minutes to reply, she was met with the message: ‘It’s a shame you aren’t polite enough to say ‘thanks but not my type’ or similar. As you haven’t come back I’ve started chatting with someone else.’

Some also disconcertingly spoke of their wives and children, who were mostly unaware of their online advances.

SeekingArrangement has been contacted for comment.

In 48 hours our journalists received: 98 Messages

221 Interests

“You feel like a masturbatory aid”: talking to a student sugar baby Investigations Editor

Continued from front page...

‘So, I started wondering if there was a way of making more money, but in a safe and regulated way.’

A friend pointed her to a sugar dating website, and having started her first year at UoB she used her University email address to get a free premium membership. However, it wasn’t until the end of the Summer term that she properly began to engage with men on the site.

Having received numerous messages from potential Sugar Daddies that were explicit and overtly sexual, she remembered; ‘There was one guy called Andrew* and his message was very normal, he just asked to take me for a drink’.

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He would pay me for the day and sex was expected

relationship as the couple-like activities (dinner dates, cinema screenings and museum trips) progressively began to get shorter and less frequent. ‘Towards the end, he would pay me for the day and sex was expected, so It felt like I was being used. You feel like some sort of masturbatory aid.’

Hannah described the unhealthy trains of thought that began to manifest; ‘At the time it would affect me quite negatively. It made me really wary of men.’

‘Even now I get self-conscious with my boyfriend and I’ll question whether he really likes spending time with me. There’s just something about the knock-on effect that made me quite untrusting.’

Hannah continued working as a

SeekingArrangement

“

She remembered being reassured by how the information on his online profile, including his salary of 75k, was verified - a feature the company no longer provides. She agreed to meet him at a pub on her road.

Confessing to me her naivety, and

that no one knew what she was doing or where she was going, Hannah recalled how upon arriving at the pub she counted it’s CCTV cameras and made conversation with the waitress so that someone was aware she was there.

She described her introduction with Andrew as ‘relatively normal’ aside from when the couple next to her asked whether he was her dad.

She had to say ‘no’ in case he tried to kiss her.

The date concluded with a kiss on the cheek and the exchanging of numbers, after which Andrew was ‘more comfortable asking for payper-meet arrangements’. He offered to take her for dinner at a flat fee of £150 on his next visit to Bristol.

Following through with his offer, and the one that followed after that, she fondly described how during their meetings the father of two had given her ‘good life advice’ and that she appreciated the sophistication of the dinner-dates.

A month after their first meeting, the arrangement became physical.

Initially sounding self-assured she told me ‘I would ask him whether he wanted to go back to his or to mine, so I would initiate it.’

However, she then described the rapid deterioration of their

sugar baby throughout her third year, balancing any escorting activities with University work and excusing her disappearances from her friends with cover stories of a Tinder date.

At the expense of her safety, she became desensitised to the possible dangers of the industry she was working in. One offer she accepted was to pick up a man’s dry-cleaning, who she had never met before, take it into his house and lay it down in front of him. For this, she received £200.

She described many occasions where she had to hide in public bathrooms for long periods of time to escape meetings where she felt uncomfortable.

‘Some of them would go on a date with you under the pretence of “I just want to get to know you” and then they’d say “I want to go back to mine now”. When I said no, that would be frightening because I wasn’t sure what would happen after that. They could be very pushy, they would say you could make so much more money with a body like yours.’

I could see she was unsettled as she reflected on such situations experiences and as I asked if she had ever sought-out support, she confessed that I was the first person she had told.

Although admitting in retrospect, that specific mental health support was something she needed at the time she was consumed by the fear of the truth spiralling out of control.

‘It was like, this is what I am doing and I have to deal with it myself.’ She

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When I said no, that would be frightening because I wasn’t sure what would happen after that

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Georgiana Scott

continued; ‘I don’t know the legal ramifications of it and I don’t know what action the Uni would take on it if they knew. I do know that if you are soliciting money for sex you can go to jail for it.

By the end of her undergraduate study, Hannah had earned just under £4,000 which is now contributing significantly to funding her master’s degree. However, she continues to be concerned that her escorting activities could prevent her from obtaining a profession in the educations sector.

I was more concerned with how the exploitative situations she encountered continued to be a burden on her brain and body. *Names have been changed to keep anonymity.

Features

Editor: Robin Connolly @robinnlcc Deputy Editor: Jack Charters Digital Editor: Oliver Cohen Investigations Editor: Georgiana Scott @GeorgianaScott7

Twitter: @EpigramFeatures

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or most people, going to university is almost always associated with leaving home and moving to a new city to live with strangers. Bristol is undoubtedly an amazing place to live; it’s a vibrant city with something new happening every single day. So when I tell people I live in Wales, I can understand their confusion. I’m not one of the few forced to live in Newport due to the shortage of space in halls, my almost two-hour commute from Swansea to Bristol is all my own choice.

After trying out halls in my first year, I realised that being at home was overall better for my mental health while studying, with my decision also being largely influenced by financial factors. It’s nice to have a quiet place to sleep and revise without the threat of being woken by drunken students bellowing One Direction lyrics in the early hours. Yet being a commuter student is not without its challenges.

The 2018 Student Academic Experience Survey reported that students who commute to university are likely to be from disadvantaged or underrepresented groups; they often come from lower- income households, tend to be mature students, have an ethnic minority background, and are usually the first in their family to go to university. The study shows that commuter students are likely to feel

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You'll spend a lot of time shivering on train platforms

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Second Year, English

less satisfied with their student experience, with almost one in ten who commute saying that if they could decide again, they likely wouldn’t have gone to university.

Being a commuter student is tough.

You will feel like you’re missing out on the real student experience and to an extent, you are. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy your time at university while also having a peaceful home life where you’re not constantly depending on ready meals and instant noodles.

For those considering whether to take up the commuting lifestyle, this is what I’ve learnt: Learn your timetables and plan ahead. First things first, get a railcard. If you do need to be in most days of the week, a railcard will save you a lot of money in the long run.

Second, you’ll need to be up to date on train times. Plan accordingly and make sure you give yourself enough time, especially if you’re hoping to make it in for a 9am as the early morning trains are going to be the busiest.

Know how long it takes to get from the station to where you need to be, spending time trying to learn a short cut if possible. If a train is coming at 4pm and your lecture ends at 4pm, leave the lecture early. It’s likely that the last ten minutes you missed to run to the station won’t be too vital and you’d probably be waiting an hour for the next train if you didn’t.

Ensure you have prepared for delays, for there inevitably will be. It will be incredibly stressful when your connecting train gets cancelled, but all commuting students have been there.

All you can do is make sure your university lecturers and personal tutors know that you’re a commuting student so that if there are any issues, they will understand.

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Be prepared for loneliness, but try to get out there

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The problems and solutions associated with travelling to University from an experienced commuting student Samantha Kilford

It helps to know what time the next alternative train will be and always make note of all the travel enquiry helplines such as National Rail and Great Western Railway as well as any complaint numbers for those services. It won’t hurt to keep some taxi numbers in your phone just in case.

Be prepared for the loneliness, but try to get out there!

Whether you are a commuter student or one living on campus, loneliness is something everyone struggles with from time to time. It can be especially daunting as a first year, as most freshers’ events are catered towards halls where you’re almost forced into being friends with your flatmates, leading you to feel more excluded as a commuter student.

Join societies - the number one piece of advice everyone gives freshers and it’s no different for commuting students. Initially, I found this particularly tricky as most societies are obviously tailored to those living on campus and weekly socials are almost always in the evening. Your social life will suffer as a commut-

er student, but it’ll be even worse or non-existent if you don’t try. Shop around, join the societies that interest you and try to attend some socials even if it means sometimes getting the very last train home. It may seem like an inconvenience, but it will keep you from feeling too isolated whilst feeling like you’re getting some sort of student experience.

Being a student living out of the city can be distressing. Most of the time you can feel as though you aren’t really part of the student community and while more can be done to acknowledge and integrate commuter students, much of the responsibility lies in our hands. By getting involved as much as possible, you may make a few close friends who’ll let you sleep on their sofa from time to time so if there’s a big night out or special occasion, you don’t have to worry about dashing off at midnight!

Dress the part. You’ll be spending a lot of time shivering on train platforms so it’s important than you invest in a good coat. As silly as it sounds, early mornings and late evenings at the stations are going to be absolutely arctic so you need to be prepared. Backpacks are essential. It’s more practical for when you need to run for your train and makes carrying a heavy load of books and/or a laptop that little bit easier. Getting a good pair of shoes is also important. You’ll also want a good pair of shoes that are comfy enough for walking and running – as you can guess, you’ll be doing a lot of running because public transport can be incredibly unpredictable with platform changes and delays. The upside is that you definitely won’t feel guilty about skipping on the gym!

Make the most of the commute.

For me, one of the best things about commuting is that I can use the time spent on the train to my advantage.

While you will be exhausted, and it’s perfectly fine to use the commute to snooze, it’s really beneficial to get some work done. I try and get a seat with a table – something which you’ll have to fight tooth and nail for if you’re travelling during peak hours – fire up my laptop and catch up on any required reading or even start planning an essay. A lot can be achieved in those two hours. I know

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Studies show that commuter students are less satisfied with their student experience

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Epigram/ Samantha Kilford

‘Commuting from Swansea to Bristol is all my own choice’

if I had been living at university, the temptation of nights out or staying in to watch just one more episode would have been too much. Instead, I manage to get next week’s seminar reading done in good time rather than rushing it the night before.

Advice to commuting students: • • • • •

• •

Learn your timetables and plan ahead.

Be up to date on train times and plan accordingly.

Ensure you have prepared for delays and let your tutor know if you are late.

Combat loneliness by making the effort to get involved with societies.

Dress appropraitely for freezing weather and long walks whilst carrying laptops and books.

Fight the urge to sleep and instead use the long commute to get ahead on work.

Your university experience is what you make of it, so have a good time.

Being a commuter student is far from easy. It’s a lot of early mornings and even later evenings where you are slightly tipsy, trying to not fall asleep and miss your stop on the train. While part of me will always feel a twinge of sadness at not getting the full university experience by living in the city, I don’t regret choosing to live at home as it’s what worked for me. Your university experience is what you make of it and you can still have an amazing time regardless.

Features 11

17.02.2019 epigram

Behind the University’s new £100m library A glimpse behind the scenes in the planning, design, and execution of the University's ‘New Library’ Jack Charters Deputy Features Editor

University of Bristol

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A project of this scale is not without its problems

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trance and interior, and study spaces of differing sound levels. Further to this library will include a ‘Changing Places’ facility for people who cannot use standard accessible toilets - one of just three in Bristol.

The library will also make the university more accommodating of the city by opening the ground floor to the public, meaning it serves not only students but also people across the city. In this way, the library aims at deconstructing stereotypes of the University, as reinforced by Hillary: ‘a lot of the work that they've done is to dispel this feeling that the University is the thing on top of the hill and really make accessible to the public.

It's important that this new library caters to a lot of people from a lot of different backgrounds, in ways that are meaningful for them’

mitigation for the traffic flow and the noise pollution. It's a significant logistical planning process.’

Another consequence of the demolition of the Hawthorns is the loss of 116 student accommodation plac-

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It's been really important that the student voice is captured intimately

es, which in the light of the recent Newport fiasco and the ever increasing pressure on student housing, is a cause for concern. The current deficit and future provision of accommodation lies outside the remit of Peter’s jurisdiction as Head Librarian, however he offered a reassuring response: ‘There is new accommodation coming on. There are new relationships with other providers. We've got temple quarter coming along. And so, the University will be mapping out.’

The Q&A section on the new library webpage is equally cryptic on how this loss will be minimised, with only

an reassurance that it will be: ‘there is a University-wide strategy being developed for the re-provision and/or relocation of the existing Hawthorns facilities within the University estate’.

Should the council grant planning permission in Spring 2019, and a suitable building contractor found, then demolition and construction should commence in Summer 2019 with the projects completion estimated in 2023/24.

To conclude, Hillary emphasized

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The library aims to deconstruct stereotypes of the University

the central role students had in designing the library: ‘Its been really important that the student voice is captured intimately; it’s something they have to actually want and will use. It’s a place where students can feel like they really belong to the university and have an identity.’

University of Bristol

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However a project of this scale, coupled with the centrality of its location on Campus, is not without its problems. Having read the noise impact assessment as part of the planning application, I received its judgement with scepticism: ‘the proposed development is considered suitable in terms of noise and planning, and acoustic concerns are not considered to represent any barrier to development’. Surely the destruction of the Grade II listed Hawthorns, the removal of its debris, and the consequent construction of the huge library in the heart of the campus will cause significant disturbance. I raised my concern with Peter, and he responded: ‘The University's priorities are to make sure that there's the least disruption for students throughout the whole construction period so they are doing it in phases. We will obviously try to schedule things, so that we're not making lots of noise. We're looking at things with traffic modelling and traffic flows with ARUP. So we can’t have trucks to remove all the stone and dust until we had some

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ation in the construction of the new library, with floor to ceiling windows that allow for large amounts of natural light. Similarly the colour scheme, furniture, and even plant type have been chosen to create a calming atmosphere.

Accessibility for disabled students at the University is certainly a challenge, with the Clifton Campus situated on a fairly significant hill. Travelling to lectures through the warren of passages and stairways is another instance of how inaccessible the university is to those with disabilities, therefore the design of the library aims to try and rectify and alleviate some of those burdens, through the provision of a wheelchair friendly en-

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ith the University of Bristol having sent the planning application for the demolition of the Hawthorns and the construction of a ‘landmark new library’ in its place at the end of January, I spoke to Director of Library Services Philip Kent and Undergraduate Education Officer Hillary Gyebi-Ababio, about the visions for the project and its impact on student experience at the university.

The new library comes as part of the ‘Campus Heart’ initiative, which is ‘about bringing together a set hub for the university to be centred around’. Philip elaborated further that it is a is a programme, that consists of an assembly of projects under an overreaching title. We started with the redevelopment of the gym, then the next project off the ramp was Senate House.’

Another project that Philip spoke passionately about is the ‘public realm’ initiative, which is the expansion of parks and gardens at the university and will be implemented alongside the new library. He stated that: ‘The plan for public realm was to take advantage of Royal Fort Gardens to spread their experience more openly’. He continued: ‘[we want it to] feel like an integrated whole because we heard very strongly from students that they didn’t feel a sense of place because the university is so dotted around.’

So with the radical refurbishment of Senate House and the expansions of parks and gardens across the University, what benefits will the new Library bring? The building will house more than 420,000 books and 70,000 journals, a café, an events space, a gallery, and approximately 2,000 study spaces - nearly ten times the existing study capacity of the Hawthorns.

However, to Hillary, the library does much more than just bolster study space; ‘the way I see it, it brings a lot of balance to what the university experience is about, you have your academic side but the library’s design means that you can do so much more than your course.’

Indeed following multiple consultations periods, that have included planning boards, student meetings, and online surveys, the library’s design has come to encompass four main pillars: wellbeing, accessibility, inclusivity, and study space.

Wellbeing is a significant consider-

epigram 17.02.2019

12 Features

The man using dogwalks to help other men open up about their mental health Epigram speaks to the founder of Dudes and Dogs, Rob Osman, about his project supporting men in talking about their mental health in Bristol Robin Connolly Features Editor

Rob Osman

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8 percent in 16- 24-year olds nationally.’

Rob and I talk about how university can be a breeding ground for negative thought processes. We discuss the general pressures of university life – from the expectations that come with academic work to sporting culture and even social media.

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Almost two thirds of students repeating a year screen as positive for depression

that you’ve never faced up to - I never admitted I got homesick.’

Rob tells me how to him, ‘it’s one of the most challenging times in terms of changing environments, isolation and meeting new people - an expectation that can be placed upon someone, and I have huge admiration for people that come through it as such rounded individuals’ Talking about the prospect of running a dog walk on campus (an idea Rob has for the future), he describes how dog walking at the University may give someone the first chance they’ve had to say to a peer: ‘I’m not handling this, I’m not doing well.’ He sees dog walking as a kind of alternative therapy and looks to encourage universities to start thinking more broadly about mental health and consider ideas like his that think outside the box.

Stating that he believes that young minds have the ability to fluctuate so often between the good and the bad, Rob explains how ‘we can really help people if we put the right support and networks in place for students.’

He goes on, ‘if you can come out and you get some fresh air and change your mindset and have a conversa-

tion with someone who can talk you through and make you realise that what you’re feeling is not unusual? I think that’s got huge benefits.’

As Rob pitches his idea to me, I become more and more convinced that his idea works and will be really successful. ‘Can you imagine if there’s a space, and there’s six blokes going out - all of them feel like they’re alone at university and they’re isolated and that and they’re having suicidal thoughts?

‘And they come on out and walk and they realise that there’s five other blokes on that walk who feel exactly the same?

‘How powerful could that be? It could be a really big, positive shift’.

For me, it’s something that I’ve only really come to realize and understand more this year, that everyone seems to have something going on. No one

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Young minds have the ability to fluctuate so often between the good and the bad

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Everyone knows getting in the fresh air is good for you, everyone knows talking is good for you, and everyone knows animals can be great therapy as well

Rob recognises this, explaining that ‘university is a really difficult time of life, full stop.’ ‘You’re just discovering yourself - knowing who you are, you’re becoming an adult.’ He goes on to explain that ‘you’re away from home possibly for the first time ever. You may have anxieties around

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Boxing Day. Since then, Dudes and Dogs has gained support and enthusiasm at a rapid pace. Last week there were fifteen men who joined the group to walk.

As Rob confesses, ‘it’s just been the fastest ride I’ve been on ever since.

Sometimes the scariest.’

Rob and I begin to discuss the mental health record at the University of Bristol. The recently published 2019 UoB Mental Health and Wellbeing Survey has shown that mental health should still, by far, be a top priority topic for discussion on our campus.

It highlights that there has been a rise from 41 percent to 48 percent of PGT’s showing depressive symptoms over the year and that almost two thirds of students repeating a year screen as positive for depression. It shows that ‘subjective wellbeing still appears to be much lower in Bristol students than 16-24-year olds nationally.’ Furthermore, it contains the shocking revelation that ‘22 percent of Bristol students admit to often or always feeling lonely – compared to

is ever just what they present themselves to be on the outside, whether it be home, relationships, finance – nobody is living a ‘perfect’ life.

In his recent statement, publicly coming out as homosexual, Philip Schofield declared that ‘you never know what’s going on in someone’s seemingly perfect life.’ This really hit home for me and seems to be a point that Rob is getting at.

For someone suffering with their mental health, sometimes it must not be easy to come forward and open the book on their emotions. What Rob’s group is successfully doing for men is to allow them to come forward on

their own terms, as and when they need to, in a more casual environment than, say, a support group or therapy session.

It is already a popular group, and demand is only growing. Rob explains that ‘people want it yesterday and I want to do it right.’ He is currently designing a training

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No one is ever just what they present themselves to be on the outside

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think that ‘so, tell me about your dog…’ has to be one of my favourite questions ever.

Speaking to Rob Osman, founder of Dudes and Dogs Walk and Talk, might be one of the only chances I’ll ever get to sit down in an interview with someone and start by discussing their canine companion. I’m buzzing.

When Rob starts to speak to me about his five-year-old Hungarian Vizsla, Mali, it is clear that the two share a great bond. As with any dog owner I know, he is keen to inform me on her habits and of course offers to show me pictures.

Rob worked in the corporate world for most of his life before having to take time off his job because of contracting Bell’s Palsy, the cause of which was subsequently put down to stress. ‘I knew I wasn’t happy, but I also knew I’m about that typical age for blokes,’ he explains, ‘where you start to question your belonging in the world and your value and what you have contributed.’

After taking some time away from work, he began to realise that he had an interest in men’s mental health, possibly in the realm of working with veterans suffering from PTSD. However, he came to realise that he was already reaching out to his male friends through his dog, inviting them to chat in the positive, friendly context of walking.

‘I’ve had this idea about dogs in my head for a while - just in terms of how good they’ve been for me,’ he tells me. ‘Everyone knows getting in the fresh air is good for you. Everyone knows talking is good for you.

And everyone knows animals can be great therapy as well. And why wouldn’t you put them all together in one place?’

On the 10 October 2019, Rob made a video for World Mental Health Day, about his idea for Dudes and Dogs, a Bristol-based dog walking support group for men to discuss their mental health. After running a couple of trial walks with a friend and another walker, the BBC made a video about the group, which was released on

programme to train ‘Dude-Dogs’ to lead these sessions, so that they can ‘spread out around the country and then eventually go global as well.’

As an exclusive to Epigram, he tells me that the aim of this will be to show people that they already have the skills necessary to help people. The training will start causally, in conversation over coffee, to show people that just by making small talk and having conversations with people, they are already allowing people to open up – very clever.

There will perhaps be space for such training at the university, although that is a discussion for the future. In the meantime, I wish Rob nothing but luck. I left our conversation feeling highly satisfied. It makes me so happy to see passionate, caring people trying to change their bit of the world. Here’s to more fresh air, conversation and, of course, dogs!

If you, or a friend, are struggling with issues to do with your mental health, you can contact the student wellbeing team on wellbeing-access@ bristol.ac.uk or phone (9 am to 5 pm Monday to Friday) +44 (0)117 456 9860.

Opinion

Editor Digital Editor Deputy Editor

Sabrina Miller Kofo Ajala Elisha Mans

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Fancy yourself as a budding cartoonist?

Send in your submissions or ideas via email to opinion. epigram@gmail.com

Coronavirus has exposed the UK's racism

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s of last week, the coronavirus has found its way onto British soil, and one of the three positive cases is a student at the University of York.

The coronavirus outbreak has been accompanied by considerable panic and overt racism towards Chinese nationals, in particular Chinese students who make up 28 per cent of the Chinese population in the UK. This has sent the nation into a racist hysteria with people indiscriminately targeting those of Asian descent.

The first cases of the virus were not reported until 31 December 2019.

Many Chinese students had already flocked back home for the winter break to be with their families for Chinese New Year which fell on the 25 January. Students who did

Unsplash/ Alejandro Luengo

First Year, Law

not have exams were not expected back until the week commencing the 27 January. Over the course of the month, the coronavirus not only spread rapidly across China but also around the world, claiming hundreds of lives. It has since surpassed SARS with the number of people affected.

The Wuhan region in China is under lockdown to prevent further contamination.

Countries have started closing their borders to people from mainland China and foreign nationals who have recently visited China. This has left students stranded through no fault of their own, having

to endure a surge in racist rhetoric towards them on social media.

Those who were relieved when they managed to return to their universities before borders were closed have found themselves the subject of racist and xenophobic treatment in person.

The mood around campus has been hostile towards Asians since the spring term began. It is upsetting and worrisome that international students and students of Asian heritage alike have had to endure these experiences anywhere, but least of all on our university campus. Racism towards these students has ranged from passing comments from classmates in lectures complaining about Chinese students not going back to China and self-isolating for everyone’s benefit or wishing those who wore masks were quarantined. There’s also been the unsympathetic exchange of casually racist memes about my Chinese housemate in my student house. A fellow student who works for 111 said he had a particularly disturbing call when someone rang to

ask if they had coronavirus because they had been in a bus filled with Chinese people. As the situation grows increasingly out of hand the racism is becoming more and more overt. It reached new heights when a hazmat unit was spotted taking a student with flu-like symptoms

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The mood around campus has been hostile towards Asians since the spring term began

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The arrival of the virus on British shores has been greeted by a worrying rhetoric Isaac Chambers

to the hospital from Wills Hall. The frenzy and racist conversations which followed the incident showed an utter lack of empathy for those having to deal with the fear of having contracted Coronovirus or worrying about loved ones back home. My friend Helen, a fellow student, went back home to Wuhan for the winter break. She had not been back home for a couple of years and wanted to celebrate Chinese New Year with her

family. She is now unable to return due to the lockdown. This isn’t the first time the world has faced a deadly outbreak of disease which originated from non-white nations; far too often, the first instinct of the west has always been a racist one. There was a similar reaction towards the African community when Ebola broke out.

This was used to further fuel already existent racist propaganda. It seems as though it is easy to get wrapped up in the misinformation culture which ails our societies and resort to humour – often racist and at the expense of those with less power and privilege – to trivialise the graveness of the particular epidemic, but that is the first world western privilege we enjoy. Bristol has often prided itself as a liberal beacon; but as a person of colour living in this city and attending its university, it has not recently lived up to its billing. We have not come as far as we would like to think we have with the issue of race and the coronavirus epidemic has really exposed that for all to see.

Opinion 15

17.02.2020 epigram

Students need to lead the way for our community

Co-Editor-in-Chief

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n May 2018, hundreds of students took part in a march demanding better mental health services. Later that year in November, many again turned out in solidarity with one another after a period between October 2016 and April 2018 where 11 of their fellow students had died. During the academic year 2017/18, I was based in South Wales for my year in industry but would come back to Bristol most weekends.

Everybody was speaking earnestly about mental health, the changes needed to services at the time, why there was an increased demand, and why Bristol particularly was suffering so badly. Students all seemed to be ramping up the conversation both inperson and online, as platforms such as Bristruths swelled with heartfelt student stories.

Two years on and the services have improved, though short blocks of counselling and long waiting times (albeit lower than the NHS) still struggle with demands. The student voice, however, seems to have reduced to a small group of easy-to-recognise individuals and campaigns with the

wider dialogue seemingly drowned out by more vitriol politics and other issues. Simply put, mental health is still the greatest issue affecting campus and it affects everyone in varying ways.

I’m now in my fifth year as a UoB student and have seen the evolution of the discussion go from barely a

return, I threw myself into a role with Epigram and found several student groups who were open, friendly, and going through similar experiences as myself. Before, I would rush to and from lectures, if I went at all.

After you miss the first few lectures, what you realise is that nobody really notices and, looking back on

capable of meeting the needs of students moving to the city, the issue of loneliness can be attributed partly to our student community. There’s a number of brilliant projects, such as Peace of Mind, Nightline and many, many more, led by students who really care about others. The SU Living Room is another project which

whisper during my Freshers’ week to public outcry to simmering below the surface again. When the mental health debate peaked in 2017/18, I was largely on the outside, working Monday to Friday at an engineering firm with people far-detached from the issue, both in age and lifestyle.

I was desperate to be a part of this newfound Bristol student togetherness, especially having spent my first two years here feeling isolated from university life and working 20 hours a week in a clothes shop to pay my way. Upon my

it, that was actually quite scary. As a student, you have the freedom to completely withdraw yourself from the community but also the power to make yourself a part of it.

The results of the University’s 2019 Wellbeing Survey revealed that 22 per cent of the student participants felt ‘very’ or ‘often’ lonely. Among a plethora of worrying statistics about student mental illness, it is the proof that loneliness is rife that is the most striking. While diagnosed conditions require the University or NHS to provide medical services

students have embraced and brings a greater spirit of togetherness. It’s harder on our fractious city centre campus to feel the presence of a 26,000 strong student population, but a kind, welcoming environment starts with students willing to put their time into mental health projects.

After the loss and suffering we’ve endured as a university, we need to look out for each other.The caveat to the survey results is that only 10 per cent of the student population (2,637) took part in the survey and those who did are more likely to be

Epigram / Ed Southgate

Loneliness and mental health are still the greatest issues on campus Patrick Sullivan

aware of mental health issues at the University. In 2018, 22 per cent of students filled it out and it proves the conversation is fading a little into the background. It’s somewhat worrying and as the years go on since the marches of 2018, fewer and fewer students remain with the memories.

There needs to be a lasting legacy from that time that this campus is always willing to listen rather than let someone suffer on their own.

There are three initiatives where you can reach out now.

The SU Wellbeing Network is hosting a student-led wellbeing conference on 5 March and SOS is running an all-day event on 17 March, at both of which I’ll be talking about the charity Talk Club with the project’s co-founders.

Bristruths have also set up an anonymous submissions page specifically for individuals’ wellbeing experience at the University.

Epigram’s involvement in the latter will be contacting willing students who want to share their stories more publicly. I strongly believe this conversation needs to be as open and honest as possible, and the relief of simply being listened to can make a huge difference.

It’s time again to show unity on the issue of mental health as a student body and work together so that everybody feels welcome here.

Rebekah Morris

Second Year, Economics and Politics rexit has proved the most tumultuous political event for Britain in the 21st Century. With the Leave vote winning by 1.9%, and the turnout for the referendum being significantly higher than any of the general elections in the last 20 years, it’s safe to say Brexit has divided the nation. However, these divisions have and will remain following our departure from the European Union – and it’s ok for businesses to take a political stance and refuse events based on this. The day prior to our departure from the EU, staff at the Royal Navy Volunteer in Clifton chose to cancel a Brexit celebration party upon finding out the nature of the event. As a spokesperson quoted to BristolLive said ‘we are well aware that 31 January is going to be a day

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of celebration for some, and a day of deep sorrow for others, and, as such, we have no interest in taking one side over another and therefore have cancelled the booking.’ Almost half of the electorate who voted in the referendum were disappointed with the outcome, and this disappointment didn’t just vanish after 31 January.

Now more than ever the population is politically engaged, and we can’t pretend that just because it’s over the sentiment has gone. For a business to capitalise on something it fundamentally disagrees with brings into question the principles

of the business and how much they are willing to sacrifice in the name of profit. Political opinions don’t vanish when we enter the business sphere, and nor should they. That is why we must let politics shape how we conduct business. Obviously, we can’t refuse business based on any protected characteristics – discrimination cannot be a factor in business transactions.

Additionally, businesses shouldn’t refuse individual customers based on their political views – just events supporting views that they disagree with. By keeping the political element

within business, political statements can be made. Choosing how we spend our money in the economy is effectively voting – boycotting has proved successful in the past, such as The Body Shop boycott that resulted in them becoming cruelty free following an 11-year campaign.

This doesn’t just have to be on the part of consumers – businesses can enact this as well. By refusing to allow their business to represent something that they’re opposed to, they can make it known their

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Choosing how we spend our money in the economy is effectively voting

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Bringing the politics to business is not necessarily a bad thing

Courtesy Unsplash of BUCA / Frederick Tubiermont

It is okay for a business to refuse an event due to their political views

business doesn’t believe in whatever the issue may be, and accordingly decline business from them. This is important not only to keep the spirit of debate alive among the public as well as business communities, but to

show that change is still possible – we shouldn’t be passive when being politically engaged can garner real results. Every consumer interacts with businesses, and if they were to take a political stance the decline in political apathy in Britain that has been present over recent years would potentially revert.

The opinion that a business cannot be political isn’t to maintain the divide we currently face in the country, but rather to enable business to support their views without having to be unbiased – by no longer holding events a business disagrees with, they’re able to conduct business in alignment with their own views, rather than purporting those they disagree with.

Consequently, this should lead to businesses not being contradictory in their principles and means of generating profit – leading to a more ethical business sphere within Britain whilst also encouraging debate to help keep political apathy from returning.

15 Opinion

epigram 17.02.2020

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wenty-seven per cent of students obtained a firstclass honours degree in 2016/2017, up from 16 per cent in 2010/11. Of all university students, 78 per cent now obtain an upper degree (first or 2:1). Analysis of these figures concluded that the scale of this rise cannot be attributed to the rise in pupils’ prior attainment or changes in student demographics alone. To measure the impressiveness of the first; to report on the matter of grade inflation; to define what is deserving of academic merit are all mighty tasks for the meek undergraduate – an assessment of sorts required of me.

But what does it matter? Are students really worse than the undergraduates of yester year? Has the matter of grade inflation got out of hand? Are firsts less impressive than before?

The Government thinks so, but I certainly do not. For me the question it is not whether they are more or less impressive than before; the question is, ‘who cares?’ We should refute any accusations of idiocy, recognising the ever-shifting nature of modern higher education. We must place it all in the context of university monetisation.

And, we can abandon any attempt at comparison, because with that

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We should celebrate the growing number of people in higher education

the ‘meritocracy we all deserve.’

This rhetoric is ill informed and is a profound misreading of society.

With or without grade inflation, our personal value and impact on the world beyond university relies far more on our personal capabilities.

Remember, plenty of people have changed the world with their 2:2.

Before coming to university, I had naively assumed that I would gain an education in all the things I’d ever need to be successful. Certainly, outside of STEM, I’d assumed studying politics would mean learning how to govern. Art history leading me towards a career in art; law preparing me to assess a crime. But this isn’t what university is for. We all know this. Base knowledge is important, but the real lessons are in how to think. Through this we discover great things, a notion deserving more attention than that given to it by our ever-expanding educational

machine. British universities have continued to award an increasing number of degrees. They’re a national success story with more and more people gaining access to a higher tier of education. Universities, it seems, have managed to surge in both size and quality. Perhaps grade inflation is the result of a method of learning based on transaction? That a first is a must if we wish to succeed beyond graduation. I do not consider this to be true. We shouldn’t worry about the impressiveness of a first if we accept that university has lost its purpose.

We should celebrate the growing number of people in higher education and take steps to refocus its aims.

We mustn’t get caught up trying to measure its value if we place its broader meaning in context.

Now I’m sure someone will write to me in response arguing that we all don’t have the luxury of pursuing our dreams; the world isn’t full of Elon Musk’s ‘who don’t give a damn about our degrees’. But if buying into this grade factory means monetising

Epigram / Grace Caroll

Third Year, Politics and IR

we condemn a generation. When we place the blame on Universities, it naturally shifts onto students.

And whilst so much of me is ready to accept that we’re a higher calibre of student, it is likely other factors are at play. In my despair I risk sounding like some proverbial young conservative desperately hailing

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Commercialising education has given too much weight to grade inflation Callum Ruddock

Epigram / Leah Martindale

More students are getting a first-class degree, who cares?

learning, I’d rather find a third way.

Academics have fought great battles in efforts to uphold standards.

The importance of education for all remains. In conversation with Professor Wickham-Jones I seek an explanation: ‘I am dubious about claims of grade inflation. For years many top universities gave so few firsts it was not worth having the category and certainly did not mean there were no good first-class students out there. Once you defined a first and mapped out the grade descriptors, students were going to achieve that level. Moreover, it's not really surprising more students are getting firsts when you think about what has changed in higher education. The standard of teaching has improved.

A levels are better taught. Essays are now typed, packaged and presented in a completely different way. Most importantly, students have access to a much wider range of sources and material as well as to theoretical

literature that have impacted on the quality of the work they do. How does student work compare with what was being done 35 years ago?

Quite simply, it is at a far higher standard, especially in dissertations and extended essays. Obviously I can't speak for practises elsewhere.’

The Government's desire to blame is rooted in an understanding that all that matters are numbers.

Meritocracy must be the outcome of mathematics. Distributions and curves will define our world without paying any attention to those that succeed regardless. And as I said this does not lessen the importance of education. It strengthens it with calls for the pursuit of knowledge above all else. Grade inflation hasn’t weakened out education system. It just reflects a new one driven by ideals that differ to those established 50 years prior.

To answer the question – does this undermine the expressiveness of the first? Who cares?

Deputy Opinion Editor

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here are so many party themes out there: you could do dress as a thing beginning with a certain letter, you could do dress as your course, you could do dress as a certain decade. Why then is there even a need for a discussion of why a chav-themed party is entirely blind-sighted and unnecessary?

Bristol University is one of the worst Universities in the country in terms of inclusivity. We are largely made up of private schooled students or students who grew up in middleclass backgrounds. However, that is no excuse for ignorance, in fact, it

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We need to wise up to inequalities in Britian

some way, more privileged. This is applicable when it comes to class as well as racism and sexism – so the saying goes, ‘eat the rich’. Whilst this

phrase is often chucked around by middle-class students who actually, compared to many others, may be the rich, it does say something about privilege. Students tend to be leftwing or even socialist, but there is little to that if you are then willing to make fun of the people who are oppressed by our unequal system.

If you think that it is funny to dress as a ‘chav’ or a ‘pleb’ then it is probably because you have never experienced poverty or being on the breadline. I am eternally grateful to say that neither have I. But people do experience it. In fact, an estimated

14.3 million people in the UK are in poverty. The idea of making fun of people who are in the situation where they are struggling to get by is frankly disgusting. To make light of a situation where people cannot afford basic commodities like food, suitable housing and energy is either a sign of extreme ignorance or extreme lack

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Making fun of people who are struggling to get by is frankly disgusting

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Elisha Mans

should be a glaring sign that we need to wise up to inequalities in Britain and the way to do this is certainly not to wear trackies, cheap jewellery and hold a spliff. Whilst I am not suggesting that these parties are particularly common, they do occur.

And, they are not acceptable.

Whenever you're trying to have a laugh at something or someone it's always important to punch up. You can make light fun of someone or something as long as they are, in

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There should not even be a need to explain why ‘chav-themed’ parties are inappropriate

Unsplash / Matheus Frade

No, you cannot host a ‘chav-themed’ party of care.The people who host these sorts of parties will probably say that I don’t understand banter, that it is just for fun. But there is little fun about dressing up as someone who is under-privileged and then stereotype them as unintelligent and useless.

So, please, if you are hosting a party consider whether you can pick a theme which is inoffensive and light-hearted, rather than one which makes light of oppression. And if you do consider one of these parties, please think about the fact that to not participate may be a wise choice; if not for the glaringly obvious social reasons, but because being seen to make fun of those less privileged then you, may not be well regarded by future employers. There is no need for these parties, or any other similarly inappropriate parties in 2020.

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Editor Deputy Editor Digital Editor

Vilhelmiina Haavisto Isobel O’Loughlin Topaz Maitland

Meet Dr Mika Tosca: the transgender NASA climate researcher and LGBTQ+ activist bringing together art and climate science

Carissa Wong

PhD Cancer Immunology

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r Mika Tosca is a remarkable scientist and transgender woman, who completed her PhD in Earth System Science at the University of California. She went on to work at NASA’s renowned Jet Propulsion Laboratory for six years, where she is still an affiliated Assistant Professor.

Mika completed her PhD thesis in evaluating the impact of fire aerosols on regional and global climate. After experiencing gender dysphoria and depression, Mika completed her transition from male to female in 2016. Now, she dedicates her time to improving public engagement with the world’s climate crisis.

A year later, she decided to make the exciting move to the School of Art Institute in Chicago, where she brings an artsy approach to confronting the climate crisis. Despite mountains of

evidence, segments of society still deny global warming is happening at all. We need to change the way the information is presented; the future of our planet depends on it.

Mika believes that artists offer a different way of thinking about the climate threat, a way that can help people engage more organically with cold, often boring scientific evidence. Mika said, ‘There’s not a lot of human engagement as part of the scientific process… I wanted to think about new ways, or perhaps more effective ways of ultimately getting the general public to buy into the science but also the solutions to climate change.’ Mika’s lectures at the School of Art bring her knowledge of climate science to art students and help them to produce art pieces that can communicate different aspects of climate change to the public.

For example, art pieces that can provoke the viewer to consider how climate change intersects with gender, class and access to resources.

She also believes that an artistic perspective itself can improve the productivity of scientists by offering improved tools for conducting the research. Mika worked with a designer to redesigned one of the

the infamous case of Typhoid Mary, also known as Mary Mallon, who is thought to have caused widespread fear and infection. She was the first asymptomatic carrier of typhoid, infectious disease that caused high fatalities in the early 1900s, to be discovered. Mary Mallon worked as a cook whilst being knowingly

infectious.

In 1907, over 3,000 people in New York were infected and it is widely believed that Mary Mallon was the cause of the outbreak. Dr Baker tracked Mary down, apprehended her and even held her down in an ambulance to ensure her safe arrival to the hospital. Mallon was placed in

software interfaces that scientists use to analyse wildfire data. ‘We redesigned it to be more aesthetic and more interactive…it actually did facilitate better science and better communication of that science,’ she explained. In an online article published this past summer, Mika identifies an interesting parallel. ‘Fifty years ago,’ she writes, ‘queer folks began a revolution that demanded we be respected as equals – both in

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We need to change the way the information is presented; the future of our planet depends on it

life and in law – and that revolution has resulted in enormous progress for LGBT+ people everywhere.’ She believes, and tells her students, that the current climate crisis ‘offers another opportunity for us to be truly revolutionary.’

Dr Mika Tosca believes in the power of revolution driven by optimism.

A revolution in our engagement with climate science can open the doors to widespread understanding,

ley ed

Epigram / Maegan Farrow

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r Josephine Baker (18731945) was the first woman to earn a doctorate in public health from New York University, paving the way for the progression of women in medicine.

She pioneered preventative health care for children and focused on the social context of disease, especially the impact of poverty in the slums.

Her ground-breaking outlook that the best way to treat people was to prevent them getting ill in the first place caused controversy and upset with her peers.

However, Dr Baker didn’t let this get in her way. She travelled through New York’s slums teaching the importance of ventilation, bathing, simple hygiene and breastfeeding to inhabitants. In one year, Baker had single-handedly reduced the infant mortality rate by 39 per cent in New York City.

quarantine and tested for typhoid, ultimately confirming she was a carrier.

In 1908, Dr Josephine Baker established the Division of Child Hygiene, which set up state control of child healthcare. Notable policies included licensing of midwives, the introduction of school nurses and the inspection of schoolchildren for infectious diseases. She also created the Little Mother’s Leagues in 1910, which was an educational club for girls aged 12-16 years old.

This taught young girls how to care for their siblings whilst their parents were working, as well as providing a safe space for girls to socialise. By her retirement in 1923, New York City had the lowest infant mortality rate of any major American city.

Sara Josephine Baker faced discrimination throughout her career; however, this only made her more determined to revolutionise America’s health care system.

The impact of her work can be seen in the shift to preventative methods, such as vaccines, which are now an integral part of modern medicine. Despite being unable to come out during her lifetime, it is still important to recognise her sexuality and the inspiration she provides to queer people who want to pursue a career in STEM fields.

Epigra m/E sme H

First Year, Neuroscience

Dr Baker never publicly came out, due to the stigmatisation and persecution of lesbians; in the 19th century, lesbianism was largely considered a sexual perversion.

Although there were no laws directly criminalising female homosexuality in America, there was still risk of persecution, with lesbians being charged with disorderly conduct.

However, this did not stop Dr Baker from living with her partner, the Australian novelist and screenwriter Ida Wylie. The two women can be said to have been in a ‘Boston marriage’, a term describing the cohabitation of two women who were completely independent of any support of men.

In the public eye, these relationships were presumed to be nonsexual and non-romantic. Unsurprisingly, this was not true for many women including Baker and Wylie.

She minimised her femininity by wearing masculine tailored suits, arguably to fit in to the male dominated profession – although this was perhaps an element of her queer identity and disregard for gender norms. Her peers nicknamed her Dr Joe, often admitting that they forgot she was a woman. Her work was so successful that 35 states implemented a version of her school health programme.

Dr Baker was also involved in

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As part of LGBTQ+ History Month SciTech are celebrating two important LGBTQ+ figures. Meet Dr Sara Josephine Baker: the lesbian, feminist, suffragist scientist Katherine Griffiths

Epigram / Maegan Farrow

SciTech celebrates LGBTQ+ History Month

discussion and problem solving of the climate crisis. It is people like Mika who are invaluable to society: willing to push boundaries and bring

others – with all their differences – together, so that our specialities can shine for the good of our common humanity.

18 SciTech

epigram 17.02.2020

The critically endangered Kordofan giraffe receives help from above

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The demanding political tensions in Cameroon have pushed back the priority the government has for protecting wildlife

from the University of Bristol’s Earth Sciences Department, and Dr Tom Richardson from the Aerospace Department, are designing fullyautomated drones with ‘multispectral cameras, combined with machine learning and high-performance vehicles.’

The new venture was inspired by Dr. Richardson’s team’s previous use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)

unregulated inhabitation. Though most agriculturalists stick to their permitted regions, many non-local nomadic tribes trespass into reserves in order to allow their cattle to graze.

The demanding political tensions in Cameroon have pushed back the priority the government has for protecting wildlife. Bénoué National Park is located in a region deemed unsafe by foreign tourism ministries, resulting in a substantial decrease in visitors. The loss of tourism has rendered paid ranger jobs practically non-existent and now less than 10 percent of the park is properly

monitored. According to the Human Rights Watch, these concerns come from long-term tensions, such as the Anglophone crisis and Boko Haram, who have strongholds in northern Cameroon.

The Anglophone crisis on the western border of Cameroon has forced thousands of people to resettle around wildlife reserves such as Benoué National Park. Their refugee status leads them to resort to hunting bushmeat in order to survive, which further fragments the habitat and safe migration routes of the Kordofan giraffe.

In the lab at UoB

Vilhelmiina Haavisto

GPS monitoring has shown that sheep vary their grazing behaviour based on their health. Researchers from Biological Sciences and the Vet School GPS-tagged 23 ewes and showed that less healthy sheep avoided grazing areas where ticks were more prevalent, presumably to decrease their infection risk. Caroline Liddell, lead author and PhD student, says the results ‘emphasise the need to study livestock as individuals’, and thinks future work could further unpick the ‘processes generating the observed associations’.

Vilhelmiina Haavisto

Beetles use flashy camouflage to dazzle predators Iridescence has been assumed to have a function in signalling to potential mates or as a warning to predators. However, researchers at the University of Bristol’s Camo Lab have found that iridescence within jewel beetles acts as a form of camouflage. Iridescent models had more attacks by birds than non-iridescent ones, showing that iridescence functions to decrease predation. Surprisingly, humans were also found to have difficulty locating the iridescent beetles within the forest environment.

Isobel O’Loughlin

Flickr / Len Worthington

Researchers at Bristol have shown that peace of mind is a key benefit of people having their children vaccinated. However, this benefit is often ignored by economic players and policymakers in healthcare. The co-author Dr Hannah Christensen explained that ‘the NHS considers the benfits and costs to assess whether [an] intervention provides value for money.’ Dr Gemma Lasseter, lead author of the study, said that the findings ‘indicate that the current economic approach…may need to be refined’ to incorporate peace of mind.

Sheep make grazing decisions based on their own health

Flickr / Andrew Gustar

The benefits of vaccines go beyond immunity

Flickr / Sanofi Pasteurl

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ordofan giraffe population numbers are dwindling drastically, with less than 2000 individuals thought to be distributed across West Central Africa. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has listed the Kordofan giraffe as ‘critically endangered’ on its Red List.

If no conservation efforts are taken, this subspecies of giraffe will likely go extinct.

Cameroon has classified the Kordofan giraffe as a Class A species protected under wildlife law.

However, they are still threatened by agricultural habitat loss, illegal wildlife poaching, and the politically unstable areas they inhabit. One population of interest constitutes an estimated 20-30 individuals in Benoué National Park in Cameroon.

However, unstable conditions make Benoué National Park unsafe for conservation scientists to access; therefore we lack knowledge on the current population size and distribution of the Kordofan giraffe.

for the measurement of volcanic emission levels in Chile. These were drones designed based on the robust Vulcan ‘Black Widow’ frame, possessing ample propulsion and able to remain stable in strong winds. It is built on a multi-rotor platform, allowing for static hovering in order to collect accurate measurements. The drones which hovered over volcanoes were equipped with an autopilot, GPS system, sensor packages and barometric altimeters. The team used three separate radio frequencies in order to communicate with the drone and receive live footage and data.

A similar, successful strategy was used to monitor parks in South Korea, where researchers from Kyungpook National University used drones equipped with GPS, cameras, barometric altimeters, 3D motion sensors and thermo-imaging for the purpose of population ecology.

If successful, automated aerial monitoring of critically endangered species may be the key to designing prosperous conservation strategies worldwide.

Benoué National Park is one of the few protected areas in Cameroon, however it is surrounded by densely populated villages - approximately 60,000 people - and 11 hunting concessions.

The park is threatened by illegal agricultural practices, poaching and

Flickr / Roland

Second Year, Zoology

Aside from the anthropogenic threats, the giraffes are well camouflaged in the dense vegetation, making ground surveys very difficult. Accurate population counts are vital in order to measure the success of conservation efforts. Previously, camera traps were employed, however these were either stolen or destroyed through illegal activity.

Now, a collaboration between Bristol Zoological Society and The University of Bristol is working to improve deployment techniques, sensor technology and thermal imaging drones. Dr Matt Watson

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Bristol scientists and Bristol Zoo are collaborating to implement high-tech conservation solutions Julia Riopelle

17.02.2020 epigram

SciTech 19

The hidden environmental cost of plant-based milks

Third year, Biology

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rom the surface, it would seem as though plant-based milks were all environmentally friendly. It’s well-established that these dairy alternatives are much better for the planet; a 2018 study at the University of Oxford found that a glass of dairy milk produces almost three times more gas emissions, and consumes nine times more land, than any plant-based milk.

However, plant-based milks have a darker side which shouldn’t be ignored. The mass production of any crop will inevitably leave a carbon footprint, use substantial volumes of water, and affect the native habitats in developing countries.

Food sustainability experts are reluctant to label one plant milk as best, since all have their pros and cons. However, we have the power to remain as environmentally conscious as possible on future supermarket shops by familiarising ourselves with the facts.

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Retail sales of oat milk have significantly risen from $4.4m in 2017 to $29m in 2019

more pressure than ever to meet the growing demand.

Nearly 70% of commercial bees are used every spring for almond pollination, and as a result, over one-third of them (a record 50 billion) died by the end of last year’s farming season. Rice milk harms the

environment in a similar way by using substantial volumes of water and producing more greenhouse gas emissions than any other plantbased milk. It also lacks nutritional value, despite its cheap cost and wide availability.

There are niche contenders which arguably deserve more attention, such as hazelnut, hemp and flax seed. Unlike almond trees, hazelnut trees are wind pollinated making them environmentally less costly.

Hazelnuts also grow in moist climates, such as the Pacific and North-West, where less additional water is needed during the farming process. Hemp and flax seeds are grown in relatively small quantities, making the milk they produce a more sustainable option. This milk is also highly nutritious, as it’s rich in protein and healthy fats.

Soy is making a comeback. It is the only plant-based milk to offer a protein content comparable to dairy. At first, many opposed soy due to its high concentration of hormones that are similar to human hormones. However, evidence now suggests you would have to consume an impossibly large amount of soy milk and tofu for that to ever be an issue. One disadvantage of soybeans is that they are often grown in mass quantities to feed livestock for meat and dairy production, which often results in acres of Amazon rainforest

being burned down to create space for soy farms. This practice doesn’t have to be supported though, as one can make sure to only purchase soy milk made from organic soybeans.

The majority of evidence highlights oat milk to be the most sustainable option. It recently surpassed almond milk as the fastest growing plantbased alternative. According to Bloomberg Business, retail sales of oat milk have significantly risen from $4.4m in 2017 to $29m in 2019.

Oats are much more environmentally friendly as they are grown in more temperate climates and are therefore not associated with the deforestation occurring in developing countries.

Although many oats come from mass-

produced, monoculture operations where the potentially carcinogenic RoundUp pesticide is used, certified glyphosate-free oat milk can be purchased if this is a concern. It is clear that there have never been more options to choose from when it comes to milk alternatives, which suddenly makes deciding what to splash on your cereal each morning a lot more complicated. Although certain plant milks may be more sustainable than others, consumers should ultimately choose whichever alternative they like the most. Whichever they decide, the damage caused by choosing a plantbased alternative is incomparable to the damage which could be caused by the supporting the dairy industry.

Epigram / Vilhelmiina Haavisto

Annie La Vespa

Plant-based milk production is undoubtedly flawed in some respects, especially for coconut, almond and rice milks. As innocent as coconut milk may seem, the pressure to meet global demand often leaves workers exploited and rainforests destroyed.

‘Farmers in Indonesia should be growing food to feed their families instead of meeting international demands,’ Isaac Emery, a food sustainability consultant, told The Guardian.

Almond milk production has significant environmental consequences: a single glass of almond milk requires 130 pints of water, more water than any other dairy alternative, according to the 2018 Oxford study. Furthermore, as almond trees are insect pollinated, US commercial beekeepers are under

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Not all plant-based milks are created equal; how does your favourite measure up when it comes to sustainability?

University of Bristol computer scientists and media companies aim to shed light on the carbon impacts of digital content Esme Hedley SciTech and Sports Sub-editor

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alk about the carbon footprint of food and travel is commonplace, but have you ever considered the carbon impact of digital content, or how to calculate it? Over the next 12 months, University of Bristol researchers will take part in the first serious collaborative attempt to create a tool that can map the carbon impact of digital media. This collaboration will see the University Computer Science department working with sustainability and technology teams at media organisations such as the BBC and ITV, facilitated by sustainability consultants Carnstone.

The online carbon calculator, nicknamed DIMPACT, aims to

reduce the complexity of calculating digital carbon emissions. Director of Corporate Responsibility Márcia Balisciano, of the media company and project partner RELX, says that today ‘print accounts for less than 10% of revenue’ for the company and that it is often ‘easier to understand the environmental impacts of traditional print’ over digital media.

Advertising, publishing and broadcasting have a complex carbon footprint, largely due to the fact that the underlying technological systems behind these services are constantly shifting and hard to track.

There are tens of different elements of the delivery chain that media content passes through, such as web infrastructure, data centres and user devices.

Digital consumption is only increasing but little is known about how this translates into carbon impacts and where the ‘hotspots’ are globally. DIMPACT will shed light on the downstream carbon impacts of digital content, right through to the end user. Feeding back to the companies which produce this digital

Flickr / Andre Turcotte and Unsplash / Neil Soni

Mapping the media’s carbon footprint

media, data from DIMPACT will enable companies to make informed decisions on how to reduce their carbon footprint.

The Sustainable Computing team at the University of Bristol, led by

Professor Chris Preist, focuses on the impact of digital technology on human behaviour and the implications of this for the challenges of sustainable development. This collaboration will allow companies

to more easily comprehend the environmental impact of media creation right through the production line, which could hopefully lead to the innovation of more sustainable media practices. This could be through identifying the carbon savings that can be made by alternative design decisions.

The need to create this tool runs parallel to the increasing demand for digital content and leaves some food for thought. Everything we consume, whether physical like food or intangible, such as a YouTube video, has an impact on the world around us. As the climate crisis becomes even more desperate, it is vital we consider the carbon impact of the multiple different aspects of our lives.

After a successful kick-off meeting in 2019, the DIMPACT project is underway and initial development of the underlying model has begun. Dr Dan Schien, from Bristol’s Department of Computer Science, says ‘this is a great opportunity to leverage our existing research strengths to help create a ground-breaking tool with real world applications’.

Film & TV

epigram 17.02.2020

Editor Deputy Editor Digital Editor Deputy Digital Editor

Leah Martindale Louie Bell Laura Aish Tom Goulde

IMDb / Bron Studios, Dreamworks, B Reel Films, TSG Entertainment

Who are 2020’s rising stars?

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The excellence of his performance in carrying the comedic and dramatic beats of the film on his little shoulders cannot be denied

little shoulders cannot be denied. It’s exciting to see what awaits him next, and hopefully he and Jojo co-star Archie Yates will get the chance to do a rendition of their young Simon Pegg-Nick Frost routine again.

With a knockout musical leading turn in Wild Rose (2019), good notices in Judy (2019) opposite Renee Zellweger, and terrific supporting work in HBO’s Chernobyl (2019),

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Jessie Buckley looks primed to head into the 2020s as the next big thing

Jessie Buckley looks primed to head into the 2020s as the next big thing, with a Charlie Kaufman collaboration for Netflix, I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020) and a starring role on the fourth season of Noah Hawley’s acclaimed Fargo (2014- ) series leaving us all waiting with bated breath.

Lulu Wang’s family dramedy The Farewell (2019) burst onto the indie scene as one of the year’s big surprises, winning Awkwafina a richly deserved Golden Globe and solidifying Wang as one of the most highly sought directors in the industry. Apparently she’s pursuing sci-fi as her next venture and I for one can’t wait to see how that pans out.

Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Taylor Russell gave two of the most powerful performances of the past

year in Waves (2019) , delivering naturalistic depictions of anger, grief, resentment and the healing process and taking over the screen with their captivating screen presence. With Russell getting an Independent Spirit Award nomination and Harrison Jr. nabbing a role in Aaron Sorkin’s upcoming The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020), here’s to hoping both will continue to get work deserving of their calibre.

With her narrative film feature debut Honey Boy (2019), IsraeliAmerican director Alma Har’el received raves for her heartfelt handling of of Shia Labeouf’s autobiographical text, winning critical acclaim all the way from Sundance to a Director’s Guild Award for a First Time Feature Film.

Whether she decides to return to the documentary format with which she started her career or pursue other routes, one thing’s for sure: she’s a talent to watch out for.

Kaitlyn Dever broke out onto the scene with back-to-back leading

turns in both television and film, with her critically acclaimed work in crime drama series Unbelievable (2019) and a hugely entertaining doubleact with Beanie Feldstein in Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut Booksmart (2019). She’s proven herself to be equally adept with comedy, drama and everything in between and in turn has received a string of awards and should see her star continue to rise as the decade goes along.

He’s simply gone from strength to strength with each year, and Jonathan Majors seems primed for stardom with his superb scenestealing turn in The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019) last year leading to both critical and awards plaudits. Next up is a role in Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods (2020) where hopefully he’ll get lots more juicy material to sink his teeth into.

Whatever the next decade holds, it looks as though there certainly will not be a shortage of fresh talent to keep us all entertained in the coming years.

IMDb / Big Beach Films

I

t should come as no surprise to anyone who’s followed her work prior to 2019 that Florence Pugh’s been a star in the making for quite some time, with her striking performance in Lady Macbeth (2017) winning her the British Independent Film Award for Best Actress, but 2019 simply sealed the deal with her richly deserved Oscar nomination for Little Women (2019), bringing the often maligned Amy March to life with a winning blend of hilarity and emotional depth. Add onto that her superb turns in Midsommar (2019) and Fighting With My Family (2019), and co-starring in the upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Black Widow (2020), and it’s exciting times for the ever-growing Pugh fandom.

He’s been a solid mainstay in British independent cinema for sometime now - with a glowing tribute video

by Mark Kermode himself to boot -, but George MacKay made his leap into stardom with his leading work in 1917 (2019). The film itself has solidified itself as one of, if not the,

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MA, Law

frontrunner for Best Picture at the Oscars, and it is a technical marvel held together by MacKay’s generous, understated work that is the beating heart of the film. While his work has been sorely underrated this awards season, raves from audiences and critics alike, as well a promising upcoming turn as Australian outlaw Ned Kelly, have brought him into the star stratosphere.

Speaking of 1917, screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns collaborated with director Sam Mendes on the screenplay to the WWI epic and was nominated for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for her feature film debut. Her next project? An Edgar Wright collaboration for his upcoming psychological horror film Last Night in Soho (2020) as well as a commission for an Amazon Studios miniseries on drug cartel boss Paul Le Roux. Talk about making a splash!

Another astonishing debut this year came from young Roman Griffin Davis in Jojo Rabbit (2019). The film may have proved divisive among audiences, but the excellence of his performance in carrying the comedic and dramatic beats of the film on his

“

As we enter a new decade, exciting things hover on the horizon for film fans. Of course, plenty of surprises await us, but 2019 gave us a fair few pointers to who the newest upand-coming names in cinema could be.

Calvin Law

17.02.2020

epigram

Film & TV 21

2020’s hotly awaited upcoming releases

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rom Midsommar (2019) to Booksmart (2019) to Joker (2019), horror to comedy to drama, there seemed to be a great new release every month, meaning awards season will be especially competitive.

But what about 2020? There are several exciting releases to look forward to already, whether you’re into arthouse films, easy Netflix watches, or blockbusters.

February saw the year starting off on the right foot with the UK release of two particularly hyped foreign films - first, South Korean director Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite (2019), which has already earned $129 million worldwide after being released practically everywhere other than the UK. The black comedy/ thriller follows the relationship between two families; the wealthy Parks and the impoverished Kims, and defied expectations in taking home the top prize of Best Picture at the Oscars.

- also released in February. Expect plenty of blockbusters, including the new Bond, No Time To Die (2020), which is out in April. Superhero fans, Marvel and DC alike, have plenty to look forward to, with Black Widow (2020) set to release in May, and Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) in June.

There’s a new Minions film coming out in July, if that’s your vibe.

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This time, she has TWO hot guys lusting over her.

Relatable!

The end of the year is already looking promising too, with director Denis Villeneuve remaking 80s sci-fi flick Dune (2020) - the cast is impressive to say the least and includes Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Oscar Isaac, and Jason Momoa to name a few.

As for awards season, what did we expect? Parasite, as already mentioned, was already tipped to potentially win Best Picture at the Oscars - and became the first foreign-language film to do so when successful. Joaquin Phoenix and Joker (2019) more broadly have proved divisive, generating both massive support, opposition, and also memes, though the general consensus is that

IMDb / Netflix

Second Year, History of Art

French love story Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) follows later in the month, released on the 28th. The film tells the story of a lesbian romance set in the late 18th century between the daughter of an aristocrat, and a painter who is commissioned to paint her wedding portrait. The film lost out to Les Misérables (2019) as France’s entry for Best Foreign Language Film for the Oscars, but still was one of the best reviewed films of 2019. Both are showing at Watershed, so be sure to catch them.

February is also a big month for fans of romcoms - the sequel to 2018’s Netflix hit To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, To All The Boys: P.S., I Still Love You (2020), arrives on the 12th, and sees the continuation of the saccharine romantic saga between Lara-Jean and Peter Kavinsky. But this time, she has TWO hot guys lusting over her, and must choose between them. Relatable! Later in the month comes All The Bright Places (2020), based on the 2015 YA novel by Jennifer Niven about two high schoolers who meet whilst attempting to commit suicide, but form an unlikely friendship instead.

Other highly anticipated films include Harley Quinn movie Birds of Prey (2020) - which we can only hope is better than Suicide Squad (2016)

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2019 was something of a mammoth year for cinema, and 2020 is already looking like it’ll be the same Sophie Hutchison

Phoenix’s performance as the titular character was the best of his career.

Adam Driver was perhaps the other strongest contender for Best Actor for Marriage Story (2019), though it was Phoenix who took home both the Golden Globe and Oscar for Best Actor. As for Supporting Actor, Brad Pitt received his first Oscar win for his role as stuntman Cliff Booth in Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019).

Overall, it’s looking to be another

exciting year for films, though it’ll be pretty tough to beat 2019. As for awards season, whilst there were some favourites to win, it was anyone’s game; with some unexpected wins like last year’s Best Picture Green Book (2018). We’ll just have to wait and see who comes out with next year’s most coveted awards.

Read the full article on the Epigram website!

Editors’ Picks IMDb / Warner Bros. Television

IMDb / Fox Searchlight

IMDb / Netflix

IMDb / Focus Features

IMDb / Universal Pictures

Valentine’s Day is behind us, but our love of the screen never ends: here are our true loves

Leah Martindale Editor

Louie Bell Deputy Editor

Laura Aish Digital Editor

Siavash Minoukadeh Entertainment Sub-Editor

Daisy Game Entertainment Sub-Editor

Girls Trip (2017)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Marriage Story (2019)

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

Gilmore Girls (2000-2007)

Tiffany Haddish, Queen Latifa, Jada Pinkett-Smith, and Regina Hall. Drug trips, cheater’s revenge, and debauchery. Riotous laughs, tests of friendships, and undying sisterly love - there is nothing in Girls Trip I do not love. While romantic love gets its day each year, platonic lasts all year round. There is nothing that makes me happier than girls’ girls having fun and sisters, truly, doing it for themselves. If you want to belly-laugh, gasp, and cover your eyes at excruciatingly cringey moments, Girls Trip is the guilty pleasure for you.

It’s that film your hipster mate has been telling you to watch for years. The one where Jim Carrey actually gives a three-dimensional performance? The one with Kate Winslet’s rainbow-hair? The one with the wacky romantic-science fiction storyline? It’s a beautiful love story told backwards in the most heartbreakingly ingenious way. I love this film for its twists and turns, charming score, visual storytelling and its messages on the importance of memory. So silence that hipster friend and enjoy this gem of a film with someone you love this year.

Starring Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver, Marriage Story has all of the right ingredients to be a success. The film takes its time and lingers on moments that might ordinarily be rushed through in other films. It has a gentle and relaxed pace but it is never dull.

All of the performances are strong and engaging throughout. Marriage Story, from my perspective, is definitely worth the praise. If you do get a chance to have a look for yourself, I very much recommend it, as I was pleasantly surprised by how much I ended up enjoying it.

Wes Anderson has a style and he sticks to it. Grand Budapest Hotel is one of the best examples of his pastel-hued, hyper-symmetrical style that is made for Instagram.

Whilst it doesn’t provide the most complex plot or timely social commentary, Anderson’s adaptation interests with its nested narratives and, as we’ve come to expect from Anderson, its incredible all-star cast featuring household names.

Pair this with a charming, twinkly soundtrack and what you get is one of the most watchable, technicallydetailed films made in recent years.

It’s become a running joke – if I’m watching Gilmore Girls, it’s been a rough week. Homesick?

Heartbroken? Just a bit down? This early noughties family drama is a hot-chocolate-cup-of-tea-comforttelly combo. I am fully aware that the whole thing is completely ridiculous. Lorelai’s pitch perfect verbal repertoire, Rory’s ability to charm the socks off each and every new-and-exceptionally-handsome kid on the block? Absurd. Yet my love simply knows no bounds: when I’m feeling blue, only the Gilmore girls will do.

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epigram 17.02.2020

Film & TV

Writers’ picks: Recent releases we love T

he Lighthouse (2019) is perhaps the most powerful cinematic experience of the year. I had the privilege of watching this back in October at the London Film Festival twice, whereby both viewings left the audience practically speechless. The film stars Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson as two lighthouse keepers who slowly lose their sanity, in particular Pattinson’s character whose mentality is damaged by the repetitive nature of his labour, as well as the mystery of the light seen at the top of the lighthouse which ends up consuming his mind. It possesses an intricate storyline that will not provide simplistic answers. The viewers are therefore left to interpret on their own the validity of the experiences portrayed on screen and whether they are a whole representation of reality. Ambiguity feels purposeful in the context of this story as, in its essence, the film focuses on the ways in which we confront our troubled past and how alcohol abuse may transform you into a violent and repressive being.

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There is no doubt that The Lighthouse is the best film of 2019

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It is necessary to mention that both Dafoe and Pattinson deliver career best performances. Quite honestly, Dafoe’s performance alone is likely to be one of the most powerful sensory experience you’ll have in the cinema this year. Him and Pattinson convey a perfect mix between visual storytelling and theatrical delivery thatalthough is certainty overwhelming at times- never feels out of place.

There is no doubt that The Lighthouse is the best film of the 2019. It offers an incomparable cinematic experience that is endlessly rewatchable whether you seek to analyse the inherent complexities found in the film’s narrative- with many individuals noticing the integration of Greek mythology- or whether you simply want to strap back in for an atmospheric journey consisting of unnerving character building, outright insanity and a whole lot of spilling beans and malodorous farts.

In light of Jaqueline Durran’s win for best costume at the 2020 Oscars, Little Women’s aesthetic vision deserves some love…

Greta Gerwig’s films never fail to showcase visual attitude of formidably groovy personality: from Frances Halladay to Lady Bird (Christine), but Little Women ramps up the Gerwig Aesthetic to a whole new level.

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2nd Year, Law

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The Lighthouse

Little Women

Our ensemble of sisters ramble through their shifting landscape clad in a muddle of skirts and trousers; tam o’shanter hats and all engulfing scarves. Jo kicks about the hills and city boarding houses in handsome heavy-velvet waistcoats and berryred capes; bloomers-for-trousers and stomping-leather-boots for shoe.

Durran’s ability to show us characterin-cloth is a truly remarkable thing - we see Jo’s tomboyish inclinations in and through her stubborn, aptly askew jackets; we see Amy in her fur collars and extreme-circumference skirts, and the love-sick-Laurie in his mess of just-who-am-I-playingtoday layers.

But whilst costume is a lovely thing, Gerwig’s Little Women is so much more. It’s about choice. The March sisters choose and pursue their own, individual definitions of joy. For Meg, it’s love; for Jo, joy is a piece of paper and an ink bottle; Beth chooses family; whilst Amy swirls her path through the ballrooms of high society. Marriage or career; socialite or social recluse: Gerwig trains a tender spotlight on Meg, Amy, Beth, and Jo, celebrating their own personal passions and desires with level enthusiasm.

Gerwig’s Little Women is a world of gleefully bickering sisters and firm but gentle mothers; returning fathers and surrogate brothers - Mr. Lawrence, I’m looking at you. It is comfort and heartbreak, art and family, fighting and loving. If only we could all stay there - tucked amongst the papers and paintings and pianos - for just a little while longer.

Queen & Slim

Louie Bell

Deputy Editor, Film & TV

B

ut I’m not a criminal.’ …

‘You are now.’ The opening scene of Queen & Slim (2019) is almost immediately tense, thanks to the flash of police lights arriving in the dark behind two African-Americans out on a lessthan-stellar first date. When Slim (Daniel Kaluuya) kills a white police officer in self-defence after a bout of racist brutality, he and his date Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith) are forced to go on the run from the authorities in a wild chase that ends up being more than just escaping the police.

What ensues is a genuinely frightening tale of near-misses, road trips and shoulder-glancing from our two main characters as they frantically plan out each trip of the journey to avoid capture, which they both accept will guarantee both of their fates in the face of the U.S. judicial system. The film isn’t subtle in its reminder that the death penalty is still legal in Ohio and more than thirty other states.

Slim’s innocence is hardly touched on by the pair, but a police dashcamera recording of the incident is spreading like wildfire without their knowledge and fractures relations between police and black citizens all over the state. Their anonymity busted, it reinforces a terrible tension between the chances of finding justice for their innocence and the likelihood of their capture.

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The film is beautifully shot as they travel across the American countryside: the contrast in deep, autumnal colours to the grey Ohio seems to represent their freedom from their chasers, and throughout the film has a genuine tactility in its cinematography that puts the audience ever more in the pair’s strange new world.

The fantastic score and soundtrack comes to embody the tempo of their flourishing relationship even as the deathly grasp of the state gets tighter, and is celebratory yet mournful, as if Slim’s song choices as he drives on and on reflect his sombre understanding of what their final destination will be: exile or imprisonment.

Jojo Rabbit

Stephanie Kelly

First Year, Liberal Arts

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any of you may know Taiki Waititi from his sparkling adaptation of Thor: Ragnarok (2017), or 2016’s Hunt for the Wilderpeople, but his new Second World War comedy - a juxtaposition if ever you saw one which won the Toronto International Film Festival People’s Choice Award, marks his ascent into becoming one of the most important figures in cinema today. Jojo Rabbit (2019) does not, as many critics assure, belittle the plight millions of Jews suffered at the hands of Nazis: the impact of concentration camps within the film is only briefly mentioned and never actually seen. It touches on gargantuan issues of mass genocide, and ideological fanaticism, but, ultimately, those issues are not what the story is about.

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It is a comedy about a ten-yearold Nazi whose best friend is an imaginary Adolf Hitler: who is ‘like, really into Swastikas!’ but chooses to let a rabbit escape rather than wring its neck, earning himself the nickname ‘Jojo Rabbit’; who accidentally blows himself up in retaliation to being called a coward; who is lonely and misinformed and who is a perfect antihero.

The pair eventually strike up a friendship, hidden from Jojo’s empathetic mother Rosie (Scarlett Johannsson), who we realise is a member of the resistance.

Johannsson’s warmth and humanity shine through her role in this movie also. She understands her child has been poisoned by society, but she also recognises the young person behind the awful front of Nazism and does her best to teach him right from wrong.

When presented with several dead, hanging bodies, Jojo immediately exclaims ‘Yuck!’, turns away, and the same mother who plays, dances and cycles with him, grabs his head and forces him to stare at the consequence of the Nazi Regime. Serious moments like these within this film are rare, as it is mostly incredibly comedic, but they ground in the true horrors of the time. Much like a chiaroscuro painting, the brilliant lightness in Waititi’s script illuminates the darkness of the time.

Le Mans ‘66

Anna Scott

Third Year, Politics

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hilst the US title of Ford v Ferrari (2019) suggests an America against Europe narrative, Christian Bale and Matt Damon fire on all cylinders to portray the beloved underdogs, Ken Miles and Carroll Shelby. Not only do they have to battle for racing supremacy on the track but also in the boardrooms filled with Ford executives.

This is a film that truly has it all. The brilliant cinematography, capturing the adrenaline and the danger of getting behind the wheel led to me pressing imaginary pedals on the cinema floor, aspiring for that perfect gear change. You can nearly smell the burning rubber. Although Le Mans ’66 is of course perfect for petrolheads, it goes beyond roaring engines and tight corners.

The film displays the human condition in its rawest form, focusing on the sacrifices of these men but also the impact that their passion for cars and determination for success has on their families.

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Le Mans ‘66 demonstrates the mental resilience required to succeed at the highest level

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Although Valentine’s Day has been and gone, there are some films we will be in love with for a long time to come

The bromance of Miles (Bale) and Shelby (Damon) provides many laughs, usually ones taken at the expense of the Brummie/British and Texan/Southern stereotypes. Bale’s brilliant take on the Brummie accent, coupled with the use of British slang and mannerisms, adds to Miles’ character as ‘the’ maverick British race-car driver.

Le Mans ’66 is an incredibly inspiring film that demonstrates the mental resilience required to succeed at the highest level. Mangold has you on the edge of your seat, physically and emotionally - you never know what is round the corner.

Le Mans ’66 ticks all the boxes for an enthralling, inspiring and meaningful experience - it is a truly motivational film, that showcases the heart and grit of these racing pioneers. It inspired me to the extent that I went home and googled how to become a race-car driver.

Read the full articles and more on the Epigram website!

Arts

epigram 17.02.2020

@epigramarts

Editor Deputy Editor Digital Editor Deputy Digital Editor

Livi Player Imogen Howse Will Maddrell Serafina Lee

‘I perform as an over-the-top diva’: queer feminist theatre with Imogen Palmer formative time for me, during which I formed a lot of my artistic practices and values,' she explains. ‘When I got back to Bristol, I found the comedy and improv scene reflected a depressed country [after Brexit and Trump had just been voted in)]’ Imogen wanted to offer something different to the stories fuelled by anger and sadness, with her theatre company aiming to make work which delights and inspires both the performers on stage and the audience watching. ‘I believe that face-toface engagement can be an antidote during disconnected times and I hope the work I make brings people together in a way which stimulates conversations,’ is her emphatic conclusion on the topic.

Livi Player Arts Editor

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It's an interactive show with monologues about feminism, sexuality, rape culture and consent

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It’s taken Imogen three years to complete this project and she makes sure to express her gratitude for the generosity of collaborators like Jack Drewry (Tremolo Theatre), who helped with music composition, and for the mentoring she received from Deanna Fleysher (Butt Kapinski), who Imogen says ‘is a phenomenal clown teacher and performer.’

Imogen had been doing improv for six years when she started experimenting with clown and solo work; this led to her slowly creating her show through performances at Scratch Nights. This was a turning point in her career: Imogen believes ‘improv is one of the best ways to

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Photo courtesy of Lee Pullen

mogen Palmer is the Artistic Director of Bristol-based theatre company The Delight Collective and the Theatre School Manager for The Bristol Improv Theatre.

When we asked her to tell us a bit more about herself, she informed us that she’s a huge fan of cycling, brunch, costumes and, of course, pop music, and cites one of her proudest moments as being retweeted by Ru Paul whilst dressed as Ru Paul for a music legends party. ‘This was a very significant moment for me in my drag queen journey,’ she says.

IMOGENÉ, her debut show, is in Imogen’s words ‘a queer, feminist comedy clown show where I perform as an over-the-top diva who needs the audience to help save her career by inspiring new songs for her latest album.’ It’s an interactive show which intersperses monologues about feminism, sexuality, rape culture and consent, with wild physical comedy and improvised songs based on chats with the audience. ‘It’s very funny and silly!’ Imogen exclaims excitedly.

discover organic moments of comedy because you have the immediate feedback of the audience.’ She also explains that it’s a great way to let go of perfectionism, citing improv as the creative pursuit that gave her the courage to take greater risks in her professional and personal life while also helping her social anxiety.

Conversation moves on to Imogen’s decision to use the genre of comedy to explore deeper and more thoughtprovoking issues. ‘What I love about Imogené,’ Imogen explains, ‘is that she is an unapologetic, sometimes ridiculous, loud and proud queer person who isn’t afraid to be seen. I love making people laugh whilst also giving them something to talk about in the pub later.’ Our discussion takes a more emotive, political turn when Imogen tells us how important it is for there to be more queerness – and more women – on stage, ‘especially in a world that seems to be regressing with Donald Trumps and Boris Johnsons in power...’

Imogen tells us of some of her favourite conversations with audience members after her shows: one woman told her ‘if all women could be like IMOGENÉ, the world would be a better place,’ and one teenager said she wants to try improv

after seeing the show, which was a particularly happy moment. ‘If I had had improv when I was a teenager,’ Imogen says, ‘it would have really helped with my confidence and creativity.’

For any aspiring theatre-makers, artists or comedians, you may be interested to know that Imogen started out studying English at the University of Bristol, and spent much of her university experience performing with the Bristol Improv Society as well as a local group called Only Humour, which is now known as Degrees of Error. ‘I did the Edinburgh Fringe Festival every year for four years with these companies and learnt a lot!’ She exclaims.

After graduating and working for a couple of years in Bristol, Imogen went to Australia looking for adventure! She travelled for a while and worked for the Adelaide Fringe and the Melbourne Comedy Festival, which she considers as the place she received, in her own words, ‘an incredible education in the diversity of fringe theatre and comedy.’

Imogen then worked in retail while also completing a full-time acting course and performing with worldleading improvisation company Impro Melbourne. ‘This was a very

Imogené is an unapologetic, loud and proud queer person who isn't afraid to be seen

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Deputy Arts Editor

One piece of advice Imogen offers for wannabe creatives is to find a solid rent-job that doesn’t drain you too much – ‘I’ve done cafes, front of house, and retail, and at times they drained me to the point where I didn’t have much energy to rehearse in the evenings.’ Now Imogen teaches

Speech and Drama for a couple of days a week at a school, which provides her with enough security for her to invest a bit of money in her own shows and training. She also advises building a solid support network of nurturing and encouraging friends around you.

Imogen tells us that one of the best choices she made in the past three years was actually to give Edinburgh Fringe a miss and instead use the money she saved to invest in developing her work for sharing at smaller festivals. ‘I am much happier and feel more sustainable as an artist and also feel like I’ve shaken the need to prove myself,’ she clarifies. She goes on to powerfully explain that ‘if you can find a way to make art for the sake of making art, rather than external validation, it is a gift for your mental health and wellbeing.’

Finally, Imogen explains why she’s chosen Bristol. ‘I love this city!’ She exclaims. It's full of creativity and inspiration, and is ‘the sort of place which supports new theatres and ventures.’ There’s hope for us all!

IMOGENÉ is coming to The Bristol Improv Theatre for one night only on Thursday 20 February and hits London Wednesday 26 - Friday 28 Feb, as part of VAULT Festival.

Photo courtesy of Lee Pullen

Epigram Arts speak to Imogen Palmer about life as a working artist and her debut solo project IMOGENÉ ‘an improvised pop concert’ Imogen Howse

24 Arts

epigram 17.02.2020

The art of the perfect Bristruth A student collaboration Has your most recent and proudest Bristruth been unsuccessful? Here's the ultimate guide to guarantee those sweet reacts

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Take the above submission for example. Short, snappy, witty and relatable - because who doesn’t like garlic right? I for one tagged my flatmates in this, contributing to my cheeky (but still unclaimed through sheer embarrassment) top fan badge status. The fad ‘.... isn’t a substitute for a personality’ took off on the Bristruths page, and even took off away from the screen - I overheard a few banterous comments in the ASS cafe, with ‘having pastel highlighters isn’t a substitute for a personality’ remaining one of my personal favourites.

Photo courtesy of Bristruths

acebook verified top fan badge holder Leah Martindale writes, ‘the ultimate Bristruth success relies on at least two of the golden trifecta of posts: humour, relatability, and snappiness. If your post is funny and relatable, we allow excess length see: the library reviewer. If your post is snappy and relatable, we excuse questionable humour - see: ‘stays on during sex’ gags. If your post is snappy and funny, it doesn’t need to be particularly relatable - see: the ski trip shenanigans. The ultimate Bristruth, however, merges all three of these qualities for a short sharp laugh you’re sure you could have experienced yourself. It is for this reason alone that the “overheard in Bristol” Bristruths reign supreme, and will live forever, like reviews, substitute for a personality, or ‘phantom lift shitter' gags.’

So, another classic is the ‘yeah sex is good but...’ line, which plays on university stereotypes of sex crazed teenagers finding pleasure in the tittilating moment of discovering you don’t have to work as much as you thought you did. Again, one we can all relate to - and wow is it a nice feeling.

Photo courtesy of Bristruths

How can we forget the infamous 'phantom lift shitter' of Unite House?

Gaining over 400 likes on its initial post, the community of Bristruths lapped this one right up - as well as its sequels. The mystery still remains and the culprit is still on the loose and ready to strike another lift, laundry room or hallway, perhaps near you waiting to be discovered by a poetic Poirot of Bristruth.

But let us not forget the classic 'overheard in...' posts. The laughable Wills comments in particular seem to make frequent and stand out appearances amongst the most successful Bristruths. Whilst quite unrelatable to the average Joe, the

pretentious remarks speak for themselves as to their success on the Facebook page. ‘I'll only date someone with 3 A's at a level or above’ remains a shining star in the Bristruths Hall Of Fame.

There are many memes, fads, gags and relatable fails posted on Bristruth, along with their other pages: for the ASS ‘eye-fuckers’ we have Briscrush and for the sad student missing their doggo, the wholesome Brispets.

The question ‘did you see that Bristruth?’ that I often overhear around campus and the glow of receiving the notification ‘so-and-so has tagged you in a comment’ is always a sign you’re in for a good one. And hey, the feeling of having your Bristruth posted, better yet being successful and meme worthy around campus, will always put a smile on our faces.

Arts 25

17.02.2020 epigram

Getting into the creative industries: student stories

Third Year English

Lizzie Gill

Third Year English

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his Christmas I was lucky enough to spend two weeks working as a Features Assistant at The Telegraph. During the fortnight I formatted and uploaded articles from the print magazine onto the online website, I transcribed interviews from various film cast and crew members, and I shadowed the Features Writers as they covered upcoming releases and even created an entire magazine dedicated to Princess Diana. The best experience I gained was when I was asked to write my first piece for ‘The Best of British’ feature and was tasked with interviewing independent businesses.

This made me realise how many questions you have to prepare for an interview and gave me experience in weaving all the quotes together to write my final piece.

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My advice for anyone wanting to do work experience like this is to say yes to as much as possible!

school children could be at the same risk as the Grenfell victims.’ Having never interviewed in person before, this was a great new experience!

My main piece of advice would be that no matter how conscious you are of the fact that you’re the least experienced in the office, don’t let your colleagues be made aware of it.

It is so much better to ask questions that allow you to do your job to the best of your ability instead of taking a guess and wasting someone else’s time as they fix your mistake.

a media session for the Bristol Flyers Basketball Team, and later attending an exhibition which aimed to recreate a drug consumption room at Colston Hall. My favourite part of the week was reviewing a restaurant on St Mark’s Road, which was then featured in their February publication.

My advice for anyone wanting to

do work experience like this is to say yes to as much as possible! Even if you don’t fully understand what is needed from you, you can always ask someone for help and this way you will learn the most you can in the shortest space of time.

Lizzie Gill

Lilia Sebouai

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fter making an inquiry about six months ago, this January I was able to gain a week’s work experience at Bristol 24/7. Almost immediately after I arrived I was sent press releases which I was asked to turn into articles. This involved research of the story and often involved travelling to different locations in Bristol to interviews and exhibitions. While I felt apprehensive about being trusted with these stories so early on, it meant that I could really make the most of my week!

Other experiences included going to

Epigram / Livi Player

Lilia Sebouai

My favourite thing about working at a newspaper is that you’re always learning. You have to stay up to date with current affairs and a significant part of the job is constantly doing research for pieces. I was at one point compiling information for the Queen’s obituary! One time where I was really put to the test was when I was summoned by the Head of News desk and sent across London on a reporting mission. He wanted me to check if the combustible cladding used on Grenfell tower – denounced as the main cause of the rapid spread of the fire – was still on a primary school in North London. When I arrived at the school and saw that the cladding was, shockingly, definitely still on the school, I sent my boss the pictures expecting to be told to return to the office, but he instead responded with: ‘Great, now you can get a quote from a local resident about how young

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Two third year English students tell us about their experiences working in creative roles

Book Corner

Second Year History of Art

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hen Cecilia Lisbon tries to take her own life, a male doctor asks her, ‘what are you doing here, honey?

You’re not even old enough to know how bad life gets.’ What’s her response? ‘Obviously, Doctor, you’ve never been a thirteen-year-old girl.’

Personally, I wouldn’t relive my early teens for all the money in the world, but The Virgin Suicides makes me want to - which may seem weird, given the titular tragedy that looms throughout the book. It makes me want to sneak out and make out with boys in cars and on the roof and on football pitches late at night.

Tess Skelly Third Year Politics & International Relations

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raeme Simsion’s The Rosie Project is a heartwarming and hilarious story of genetics professor Don Tillman’s search for a wife. Given his tragic dating history, he decides to create a questionnaire to help him find the woman most suited to him – ‘The Wife Project.’ Enter Rosie, a psychology graduate who asks Don to help her find her birth father – ‘The Father Project.’ Although Rosie is not a match for Don by his questionnaire’s standards, he is drawn to her in ways that make him question whether you really have control over who you fall in love with.

Ginny Darke First Year English

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hree Women explores love and sex with immense honesty. Lisa Taddeo’s near decade-long project was originally created with the intent of exploring men’s desires, but as her rigorous research progressed, she instead found herself drawn to the ‘vital truths’ of the women she interviewed.

As the title suggests, the book follows the experiences of three women, juxtaposing gender stereotypes and cliches with the naked truth of contemporary struggles with relationships, power and sex.

Taddeo’s brutally honest tone makes it an enlightening read.

Laura Aish

Film & TV Digital Editor

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n this biography Walter Isaacson details Steve Jobs’ life and career in immense detail.

The book charts the rapid rise of the personal computer and the history of the technology that we are nowadays not only so familiar with but also reliant upon. The biography explores Jobs’ impressive entrepreneurial skills, his unwavering passion and his ability to make the impossible a reality again and again - give it a go if you're looking for some motivation this year! I definitely recommend reading this if you’d like to learn more about the origins of our technological world.

Photo courtesy of Waterstones

Photo courtesy of Waterstones

Photo courtesy of Waterstones

Photo courtesy of Waterstones

Sophie Hutchison

Photo courtesy of Waterstones

Epigram Arts’ regular feature: your go-to for our top book recommendations

Leah Martindale Film & TV Editor

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his year one of my strangest friends gifted me a book, assuring me he knew I would love it. The book’s content and style entirely belies the oddness of the gifter, following the story of an obituary writer and his pet king penguin in post-Soviet Ukraine as he gets tangled in the seedy world of hitmen and paid killings, all the while enjoying frozen fish and Finnish vodka. It is a funny, touching, and bizarre story of love, loss, and unlikely friendships that I simply could not put down. This book is a must-read for anyone seeking the surreal side of life.

Music

epigram 17.02.2020

@EpigramMusic epigram_music

Editor Deputy Editor Digital Editor Deputy Digital Editor

Francesca Frankis Guy Marcham Joe Boyd Will Snelling

Epigram Music’s artists to watch in 2020 Guy Marcham Deputy Music Editor

Working Men’s Club As the colossus synth strikes into action on ‘Teeth’ – you know you’re in for a treat. An alternative dance behemoth that mixes rave fuelled abandon, post-punk guitar tones, industrial energy with a gnarly British sense of grit. LCD

Soundsystem synth pulses boom as an antagonistic Fall influenced vocal grabs you by the scruff of the neck. Frankly, you don’t want it to let go. ‘Suburban Heights’ sees the band take on a more jangly indie guitar tone – a darting Parquet Courts-esque angular groove.

An eclectic band that dances and destroys.

Black Country, New Road This Cambridgeshire seven-piece are the haunting and intense future of British alternative.

Amongst a seething frenzy of overdrive and feedback, an unearthly wail of saxophone and violins cackle. Arcade Fire have just started listening to Metallica and incorpo-

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Music Editor

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Sinead O’ Brien

rated a dry British sardonic sense of humour. A weird cacophony of post-punk that jolts at every turn.

They may look like the regular kid you sat next to in your year 10 English class – but as Black Country, New Road they make a colossal racket. A sucker punch to blow you away.

Avant-garde poetry meets haunting industrial guitar tones.

A ferocious spine that jolts into metallic industrial screeches and jagged bass-line swagger.

Steam Down

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2020 promises to be all the more conquering

tival and Glastonbury’s bucolic Park Stage; yet with just one re-

An early PJ Harvey sense of abandon etches deep. Sinead O’ Brien is an abstract and enigmatic artist, pushing musical boundaries with her artsy alternative juggernauts.

A darting blend of surging krautrock and post-punk discordancy to strut to.

The immediate sense of musical dread is laced with a well-crated poetic license. An intellectual and philosophical assault on the ears. lease to their name, 2020 promises to be all the more conquering.

Mixing soulful vocal tones, spoken word hip hop verses and surging horn cacophonies that leave you breathless and craving for more.

As bullish as Sons of Kemet but with a snappy Melt Yourself Down tinged sense of chaos.

Katy J Pearson A soothing acoustic shimmer, a blossoming ray of sunshine. Katy J Pearson is a gem of an artist. Nestled deep between Gloucestershire

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Her blend of country and twee indie pop is nothing short of irresistible

and Bristol, Katy J Pearson’s blend of country and twee indie pop is nothing short of irresistible. On debut 2019 single ‘Tonight’ – Pearson embraced the subtle and effortless indie folk of Scotland’s best, Belle and Sebastian and Camera Obscura.

Music to make you forget your worries and niggling apprehensions and instead smile and wile away your time in amongst rolling hills and the refreshing open air. Expect more well-crafted earworms in 2020.

Facebook/Steam Down

[Paradigm Talent Agency/Katy J Pearson

Yet another outstanding Jazz act to come out of Britain’s immense new scene. Steam Down are a collective, hailing from the diverse South-East London creative hub of Deptford.

The band have already stormed Gilles Peterson’s We Out Their Fes-

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Francesca Frankis

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Music 27

17.02.2019 epigram

Editors’ Picks - Albums to listen to in February Tame Impala The Slow Rush ATC Live/Los Bitchos

14/02/2020 via Modular

Los Bitchos Shirt buttons loosen, beer bottles crack open and tequila shots are generously passed around. Los Bitchos know how to get a party started. With their thundering knack

for killer guitar riffs and dancefloor ready bongos – Los Bitchos embrace their inner-carnival. A darting fiesta and frenzy of good time vibes, intricate guitar solos and joyous escapism. The all-female quintet are

sure to bringing their sun-soaked beach party tunes and live shows to you in 2020 - so don your Hawaiian shirts and get ready to dance.

King Krule Man Alive!

21/02/2020 via True Panther Sounds

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Joe Thornalley a.k.a Vegyn consistently reinvents all of the rules – pioneering a sound that defies style and genre. Having worked alongside the likes of James Blake and Frank Ocean, the London based producer dropped two records in 2019, epic 72 track mixtape Text While Driving If You Want To Meet God!, and debut album Only Diamond Cut Diamonds. Vegyn fluctuates in and out of musical norms with alternating rhythms and chopped up vocal

Miss_Anthrop0cene 21/02/2020 via 4AD

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samples - fleshed out with moments of glossy electronic introspection.

PVA Surging synths, dancefloor belters and intricate delay infected guitars.

PVA ooze cool. A killer assortment of warping genres that make them utterly danceable, strangely abstract and ethereally atmospheric.

Think of them as Foals’ cooler and weirder younger brother. Whereas Foals have stagnated into an overblown arena-filled mess, PVA have kept intact their knack of intricate dancefloor laced bangers. It’s effortless, underground and red hot.

Real Estate The Main Thing

28/02/2020 via Domino Records

Soccer Mommy

Color Theory 28/02/2020 via Loma Vista

Hannah Diamond London based creative Hannah Diamond curates a unique musical style that marries elements of trance music with the best of sparkly noughties pop – whilst being a member of prolific music collective PC Music that boasts an arsenal of artists like Charli XCX and A.G. Cook. Her debut 2019 album Reflections entirely reimagined what it means to be a popstar in 2020 – with an exaggerated autotuned vocal style, and a visually surreal dystopian stage presence.

Caribou Suddenly

28/02/2020 via Merge Records

epigram 17.02.2019

28 Music

‘We try to dance along the spectrum of tone’: Q&A with Explosions in the Sky Instrumental Rock band Explosions in the Sky speak to Epigram Music about dusty West Texan landscapes, confiding in layered instrumentation and celebrating 20 years together Guy Marcham, Deputy Music Editor

tours with us in Europe over our first 10 years of being in a band.

Today we walked around and just talked about old tours, old shows.

2.

What first drew you towards creating instrumental music?

We started off thinking we would have vocals. We started writing a bunch of music pretty much from the day that Munaf, Michael and I met Chris (the three of us had grown up in the same town and had already played in bands together and then Chris moved to Austin). And we had written a handful of songs that we liked, and then we started drafting up lyrics and thinking about vocal melodies and everything.

But we realised we already liked the songs as they were, and no one really wanted to sing anyway.

And it gave us a lot of inspiration to see bands like Mogwai and Tortoise making really cool music that had no vocals, so we went with it.

3. It’s been nearly four years since your last album – how have you spent those intervening years? Are you coming back with a refreshed approach?

I hope so and think so. It’s been on our minds a lot lately, and we’ve

talked a lot about it. It’s the fun part, we have no idea what we will make, what it will sound like. Everything is vague right now, of course, but now that we can see the end of the touring cycle (we have dates lined up until mid-May) we’ll start writing again.

4. As an instrumental band, how do you go about adding a sense of emotion and personal expression to your music? Is this something you find comes naturally?

What all four of us all want from music is emotion and expression. And if a song doesn’t have that quality, if it doesn’t make us feel something, then we just start working on something else until we get to something that does have that quality. Most of us are not that technically proficient when it comes to music, and I sometimes wonder if that is actually to our benefit. To write music, we don’t think in terms of scale or key, we just mess around until something moves us, and then we develop that feeling as much as we can.

5.

How do you conceptualise the term post-rock? Is this something that you align yourself closely with or a label put on you by others?

Pretty much the latter. I just can’t say I’ve ever spent time thinking about it or felt the need to call it something, except when I meet someone and they ask me to describe the band. I usually just say instrumental rock.

6.

Your last studio album was entitled ‘The Wilderness’ – is nature and the outside world something

that greatly influences your music?

Ever since Munaf, Michael and I lived in West Texas, we’ve always talked about trying to make music that evoked those landscapes and Texas skies. And now that we’ve seen more of the world, it’s even more so.

7. Some of your pieces can be quite subdued and melancholy – do you find the mood of your compositions to be changing as we reach 2020?

Not really, although I don’t know the tone of what we will write in upcoming songs. I think we just try to dance along the spectrum of tone. It’s not like we always feel a constant way, it’s always changing.

So, we try to hit the melancholy, the elation, the comfort, the anxiety, the highs, the lows, the mediums.

8.

Do you think streaming services such as Spotify and today’s culture of instant entertainment dampens the emotive effective of instrumental music?

I don’t. I use a streaming service every day, and to be honest I’m still just happy with the convenience. Maybe it’s for the better, maybe it’s not, but if I listen to a vinyl record versus streaming it still feels like the same piece of music to me.

9.

Are there any lyricists that you believe would suit the material you make? If so, who?

I wouldn’t exactly rule it out, I’m sure it would make for a good experiment but, yeah, it’s just not something we are seeking out. It feels like putting lyrics to one of our songs

would narrow the way it could be experienced in some way, I love the broadness of interpretations. So maybe it would be better to have a singer sing without words, if that makes sense. Vocal melodies without lyrics, using drawn out syllables or a language no one knew. Although I guess that’s basically SIgur Ros. 10. Your 2011 album was titled ‘Take Care, Take Care, Take Care’ – do you think that is an even more poignant message in today’s society?

I think that’s one of our mostly unspoken guiding lights; we mostly try to see the good. It might be aspirational but, even in the melancholy songs, they end up feeling like comfort to us.

I find it difficult to generalise about society and culture, other than just trying to seek out and support the things and people that tend toward doing the best you can do, given whatever situation you’re in.

“

Even melancholy songs, they end up feeling like comfort to us

“

1. You’re celebrating your 20th anniversary this year – is this a stage you ever envisioned Explosions in the Sky getting to?

How does it feel to be reflecting over such a long history?

The actual 20th year of us playing together was last year; we started playing together in March of 1999. It’s a mixed bag, of course ... we feel good, mostly. A little proud, a little surprised ...

I almost think I can throw any adjective here and it works. We feel a little old, humbled, grateful. We’re on tour right now (I’m writing from a hotel room in Bologna) and with us on this tour is the first sound engineer we ever used, who did many

Bella Union Records

E

xplosions In The Sky are masters of the atmospheric. Effortlessly poigniant. Stretching long open roads, jagged harsh mountain edges and superlunary stratospheres. The band unfurl with a gracious and elegant discordancy.

A juxtaposition of thoughts , feelings and musical ruminations. As fierce cacophonies of whirling guitars rage amongst a gelid sheet of melachonly ice, others trickle like dew dampening rich earthly branches and spawning moss. An effloresence of all things natural and permanent. Music that you can touch. An early morning bite, a wind swept breeze that awakes and refreshes - turning anxious past resmemblances into forified compassions. Explosions In The Sky have been expertly crafting this sound for over twenty years now. Their insturmental rock arrangements tower like gentle giants. Strokes of cathartic and emotional release freckle every inch of their shimmering atmospherics and hauntingly bucolic gaze. A special band celebrating a special musical history .

11. What can fans expect from your 20th anniversary shows coming up?

We’re just basically thinking of it as a retrospective of sorts, playing a few songs from every album. Like I said, it feels good to make it to 20 years so it’s a bit of a celebration for us before we start on the next 20 years.

Puzzles

Editor Subeditor

Kezi James Fergus Ustianowski

epigram.puzzles@gmail.com If you need any help, contact the editor by email or through social media

Holiday Fill-in Crossword Fit in each of the themed words below into the crossword shape to the right.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

advent aeroplane beach easter explore family passport relax sand suitcase sun sunbeds ticket time tour vacation

Sudoku

Fill the empty squares with the numbers 1-9 so that each number appears once in each row, column and box.

Credit: Laura Stock-Caldwell, Fourth year Engineering Mathematics

95 8 1 795 68 4 4 1 5 97 5 9 7 86 96 87 4 9 8 6 3 2 8 2 7 436 51

Continuing Puzzle This will be a running puzzle where every week the previous weeks answer will help you solve this puzzle. Every week the puzzle shall be put up online if a week is missed.

Credit: Fergus Ustianowski, Puzzles Subeditor

Using the spirit from last edition’s puzzle, what is the main ingredient in its production?

Word Wheel Create as many words as you can with the letters in the word wheel. Every word must contain the letter in the centre and you can only use each letter once.

U

S

C

F

O E

D N

Solutions will be posted online at: epigram.org.uk/tag/puzzles facebook.com/epigrampaper If you would like to submit ideas for Puzzles, email epigram.puzzles@gmail.com

30 Sport

epigram 17.02.2020

Formula 1: 2019 in review Third Year, History of Art

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n the 2019 grid only the lineups of Haas and Mercedes remained unchanged from the previous year, with a whole host of driver movements and four new rookies making the step up to the highest level of single-seater motorsport in the world. Despite the lack of a title challenge against Hamilton, the 2019 season was one of the most exciting for a while. Here are some of my highlights: 1.

The rise of Lando Norris Bristol born Lando Norris, who at 19 became the youngest ever British Formula 1 driver, is tipped by many to be the next Lewis Hamilton. Whilst he

may not have made the same impact as Hamilton in his first season, Norris can certainly be proud of not only his personal achievements, but those of his team McLaren, who experienced a resurgence that was one of the great surprises of the season.

The pairing of the young Bristolian with the more experienced Carlos Sainz Jr was great to watch, both on and off the track. They managed to secure a podium and 4th place in the Constructors’ Championship after a barren several years for McLaren.

Norris further cemented his position as the possibly the most entertaining

man on the grid - just watch the video of him collapsing into a laughing fit and having to leave the Silverstone press conference.

2. Germany Although it won’t be returning to the calendar for 2020, the Hockenheim Grand Prix was recently voted the race of the decade, and it’s easy to see why. Wet races usually bring drama, due to slippery and changing conditions, but this was something else. Arguably Mercedes’ worst race since Barcelona 2016, it saw six drivers all spin off at turn sixteen, ending the races of Charles

University of Bristol Motorsport Society

With the 2020 Formula 1 season soon to commence, let’s look back at the highs, the lows and the talking points of last year Emily Tuson

Leclerc, Valteri Bottas and Nico Hulkenburg. Having had an awful start, Max Verstappen was able to win despite having pitted five times, and we even saw Lance Stroll leading the race briefly!

3.

Leclerc’s win at Monza With his win in Belgium overshadowed by the tragic passing of F2 driver Antoine Hubert on the Saturday, in Italy his jubilation was tangible as he crossed the line in first place, shattering the eardrums of anyone watching the race with headphones. Taking pole position and then passing Hamilton to lead after the pit stops, Leclerc was propelled forward by the Italian fans, their joy evident as they swarmed the track to celebrate and congratulate him after his win.

4.

Bedlam in Brazil Consistently one of the best races of the year, this time round Interlagos was no different. A far cry from the processional races of the first third of the season, positions were constantly changing and continued to do so after

the race finished; Sainz was awarded the 3rd place trophy Hamilton had accepted several hours earlier! With both Ferraris taking each other out in a bizarre incident, and Hamilton making an uncharacteristic mistake, there was room for two different midfield teams (McLaren and TorroRosso) to join Verstappen on the podium for the first time in years.

If you’ve enjoyed this article and are thinking of watching when racing returns in Melbourne, then why not do so with some likeminded people and join the University of Bristol Motorsport Society. They offer regular indoor karting events around Bristol, including some special events throughout the year, and F1 Socials for every race at Allstars Sports Bar, located on the Triangle.

Alternatively, tune into WTF1, a YouTube channel, whose videos simply explain some of the more complicated aspects of the sport along with humorous discussions of each race, and interviews with Formula 1 drivers of past and present.

What do the Bristol football, rugby and basketball teams need to do to thrive in the coming seasons?

Eddie McAteer Student Sport Correspondent

W

ith Christmas, New Year and exams out the way, we can now turn our attention to the array of sport taking place in Bristol over the next year, as the city’s teams look to write their own story for the coming decade.

In football, a busy transfer window for both Bristol City and Bristol Rovers has seen City’s captain leave for Burnley, whilst Rovers have brought in multiple new signings.

City are aiming to find that extra bit of consistency that would allow them to reach the play-offs, after narrowly missing out on them last season. Lee Johnson’s side are currently fifth and have been as high as third in the championship this season. A strong run in 2020 could even see Bristol City in the premier league for the 2020-21 season. Their home game against West Bromich on 22 February could prove to be a determining factor in the Robins’ fate, as a win

would prove they have what it takes to beat the top teams and therefore compete in the premier league.

Bristol City Women currently find themselves bottom of the Women’s Super League table with six points from 12 games. Equal on points with Liverpool Women and one point behind Birmingham City Women, Bristol’s future remains in the balance. On Sunday 23 February the team will play out a crucial fixture away at Birmingham which could determine their status as a top tier team for next season. Bristol’s dire defence, who have conceded an average of just over three goals per game, will be a cause for concern if they are to remain in the league.

Bristol Rovers, who last won in the league in mid-December against Ipswich Town, will be aiming to prevent their stuttering side from dropping further down the table. At one point in the season, they were flying high in fourth place, however fast-forward four months and they have fallen to 13th. Rovers fans will be hoping that the return of manager, Ben Garner after an extended absence, due to family reasons, can boost the team. The Pirates host a Sunderland team, whose fall from grace has been

unenviable, on Tuesday 10th March, a game that will show if they are able to finish above tenth for the first time in over 20 years.

In the rugby world, Bristol Bears fans will be hoping that their team can rediscover the form that saw them win 17 points from their first five games. After missing out on the European Champions cup by just five points, the Bears are going to want to unleash Fijian star, Semi Radrada, on top tier European rugby after it was announced that he would be joining the team at the start of the 2020-21 season. England prop, Kyle Sinckler, is another exciting addition to the squad for the new season and he will be aiming to win some silverware with his new club. A potentially crucial game against Northampton on 16 February could determine if Bristol are serious about their top six ambitions.

The Bears’ women’s team is in a stable yet unspectacular position of seventh in the Women’s Premier 15s table. They are in no danger of falling down the table and are not really close enough to challenge for the play-offs so, for the Bears, the aim for the rest of the year must be to try and move into the top half of

Epigram / Eddie McAteer

2020 vision: how are the city’s teams shaping up?

the table.

In basketball, Bristol Flyers currently sit in eighth place in the BBL Championship with three wins from six. Just inside the play-off positions, a strong start to 2020 is needed if the flyers are to be at the O2 on the final day. After falling short

against Worcester Wolves in the BBL Cup final, the flyers have won one and lost one whilst suffering their heaviest defeat of the season against Glasgow Rock. There is still plenty to play for in 2020, however, a seasonending injury to MVP Fred Thomas could threaten to derail their season.

Sport 31

17.02.2020 epigram

UBACCC

UBACCC dominates the Edinburgh BUCS cross country

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his is by far the biggest competition in the Uni Cross Country running calendar and subsequently the hype was huge. Whilst perhaps not the best preparation for a big race, Friday’s 10-hour bus journey up to Edinburgh was certainly entertaining. The highlight was a top-quality quiz, testing everyone on not only their running knowledge but their grasp of random obscure facts and ‘90s bangers.

When we eventually arrived in Edinburgh, we had time to have a quick wander and a Spoons dinner (where we bumped into UWE undergoing some serious pint-based race preparation).

Since we are much more professional than UWE, however, we went back to the hotel for a stretch and an early night.

Saturday was the perfect day for

“

Not only did we have the biggest gazebo, we also had the loudest voices and by far out cheered everyone else

Now it was time for the big guns.

Before they even had time to catch their breath, the B runners were back on the course to cheer on the UBACCC A runners. The girls were up first, with UBACCC’s resident Scotswoman Emily Strathdee smashing out an excellent 62nd place, followed, hot on the heels, by Amy Hammersley and ing their own for 8km across the Amelia Williams. Then it was time for savagely windy course. It was Alex the final race of the day, the men’s Stewart who took the first place for A. After a ridiculously fast start, it UBACCC finishing 235th in a strong was Ben Westhenry who pulled it V Cars Bristol Uni Epigram 131x170mm.pdf 1 17/09/2019 09:58:35 time of 31:02. out the bag for UBACCC finishing

the 10km course in 46th. There were also some stellar performances from Dom Priest, Nathan Williams, Benjamin Mann, Owen Hibbert and Steven Denby, proving that UBACCC really knows how to dominate a race.

Perhaps the biggest achievement of the day, however, was the sensational level of support. Not only did we have the biggest gazebo, we also had the loudest voices and by far out cheered everyone else. I’m sure cries of UBACCC will continue to echo off the Edinburgh hills for years to come!

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Third Year, Geography

a race, not too cold and not too wet.

The course was in Holyrood Park set against the beautiful backdrop of Arthur’s seat to one side, and the stunning Edinburgh city skyline to the other side. Whilst we were not one of the biggest uni teams there, we quickly made our presence known by setting up base under our massive gazebo, showing even the cross-country heavyweights of St Marys and Birmingham that in some cases, size does matter.

The course itself was relatively flat and dry, except from two sections where one had to cross a stream and run around a small rocky knoll. We were initially worried we may have to run up one of the seriously steep hills that bordered the course, but luckily this was not the case.

The women’s B race was first up, with four UBACCC athletes taking a place on the start line in a 500 strong field. Rachael Haddow smashed the 6km course and brought it home for UBACC in a fantastic 68th place, swiftly followed by Hannah Thom, Katherine Skipper and Hannah Jacobs. Next up it was the Men’s B race, with all the UBACCC boys hold-

“

Last weekend saw 30 of UBACCC’s top athletes descend on Edinburgh to compete at BUCS cross country Hannah Thom

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Sport

Editor Student Sport Correspondent

India Gay Edward McAteer

Swimming with the South West Seal Pups

Epigram / Josh McMinn

South West Seal Pups

A Bristol student provides an insight into the non-university affiliated South-West Seal Pups Josh McMinn Fourth Year, Maths

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he alarm sounded at 0640 to tell me it was time to get ready for the cold swim. It was still dark outside, but then that is the price to pay if you decide to swim at sunrise. Robotically, I switched the kettle on, stuffed my bag with towels, choked down some porridge, filled my thermos, and set off to the SU to catch my lift. There were five of us, all in big winter coats squished into a modestly sized hatchback and all slowly recovering from the early morning wake up. There wasn’t much conversation in the car as we made our way through the countryside up to Clevedon marine lake in the predawn twilight.

I’d originally heard about the South West Seal Pups from a friend over summer, in fact it was some of the first news I’d heard about Bristol since coming back from my year abroad.

We were on Hamstead Heath heading to the swimming ponds at the time.

‘You’d love it,’ she said. ‘They drive down to the seaside every week, go for a cold swim and refuel on warm tea.’ It didn’t take long for me to find them once I was back at uni.

The Pups was started a little less than two years ago by two students Leo and Amelia, who, after discovering the wealth of cold swimming spots only a short drive from Bristol, found that more and more of their friends were eager to join them on trips. It was originally just a Facebook page for them to coordinate lifts, but it quickly flourished into something much bigger, and today it boasts 630 members. This is especially impressive as the club is not affiliated with the uni, with most people, discovering it through word of mouth.

Our car was the first to arrive at Clevedon Marine Lake. The lake is a smallish manmade but irregularly shaped structure on the beachfront, overlooking the pier. The sides of the lake are made of concrete with steps and a handrail leading into its deepest part. The water was placid and empty beside a blue pontoon out in the middle of the lake, and some

occasional ripples from the sea breeze.

One by one the other cars started to pull up, and their eager occupants piled out. The energy was starting to pick up now as a group began to form by the concrete benches on the lakeside, placing down their swim bags and shaking their limbs to get the blood flowing.

It always surprises me just how many people come on these swims.

About 2-3 are posted a week on the Facebook page, and without fail, they are always met with a flock of attention. Even though it was Tuesday morning, this was no exception. Of the 15 or so of us there, about two thirds were girls. This surprising trend is something I’m told extends beyond just the Seal Pups, with the majority of outdoor swimmers in the UK being female.

With the final carload of people, Leo arrived. Leo is something akin to the mascot of the Seal Pups, possessing a dynamic social energy and an unnatural enthusiasm for icy swims. The excitement he brings to the group is contagious, and he quickly has everyone involved in a warm-up in which we introduce ourselves and give an exercise for

the group to do, 80’s-gym-videostyle. After this everyone starts to get their kit off, and soon the moment of truth arrives. No matter how much I pysche myself up, I still never find the desire to climb into cold water comes naturally to me. The energy of the other Pups however, helps put this fear to the back of my mind.

Explaining the appeal of cold swimming to someone who’s never done it before can be a little difficult.

In my experience, once you’re in the water, you spend about 10 seconds panting and feeling like you’re about to die, and then a further 30 seconds in a state of intense but gradually decreasing pain. Then after that something rather odd happens.

You no longer feel in pain, or like you’re going to die, in fact you no longer really feel cold at all, rather you feel a pleasant burning sensation on your skin and are suddenly acutely aware of your muscles and your heart and your lungs all working exactly as they should. It’s simultaneously a hugely energising and strangely relaxing feeling all at the same time.

Whilst the experience of cold swimming itself is certainly unique and thrilling, the experience of

swimming with the Pups offers something more. When I asked Leo and Amelia what they thought attracts people to cold swimming they cited community and camaraderie as its main allure. Leo said ‘it’s a crazy, ridiculous, endorphin inducing, energetic, wonderful activity, and to share that with other people, and to be in a community who finds such an activity so exhilarating I really think draws people again and again back to the madness of it’.

The community is something you really couldn’t fail to miss swimming with the Pups. It was the birthday of one member of the group, and to celebrate we bumped him off the pontoon and all sang happy birthday as we swam. Amelia thinks that ‘everyone just seems overwhelmingly joyous, and kind and caring. And I think that we really feel to be a family even if you’ve just met that person’.

As we were all warming down we each shared what we were doing with the rest of our day: some working, some taking the day off, myself probably napping. And still, some others – including the birthday boy – decided to go on yet another cold swim!