Exeposé Issue 647, 7 December 2015

WWW.EXEPOSE.COM

XEP SÉ E THE UNIVERSITY OF EXETER’S INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SINCE 1987

7 DEC 2015 | ISSUE 647 | TWITTER: @EXEPOSE | WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/EXEPOSE | FREE

Syria backlash: Exeter MP Bradshaw defends decision to bomb ISIS, Page 5

Uni u-turn on exam timetables Fiona Potigny News Editor

T

Over £6k of Guild Points unredeemed

>> Exeter MP Ben Bradshaw on campus with MEP for the South West Clare Moody, on Friday 4 December, talking to students about the EU referendum. Photo: James Beeson

88% of students still to benefit from new loyalty scheme

EXCLUSIVE Sarah Gough Editor

A

TOTAL of £6,643 worth of Guild Points are currently unredeemed, despite their imminent expiry at the end of term.

The loyalty scheme, initiated by Guild President Laura-Jane Tiley in early October, allows students to use their University ID card to collect redeemable points in Guild outlets. For every pound spent, the

Features: Was Britain right to start a bombing campaign against ISIS in Syria?

Page 13

student receives four points, each worth one penny.

Since the scheme’s launch, £7,528 worth of points have been collected. However, only 12 per cent of students have currently taken advantage of their points, while 56 per cent of students haven’t used the scheme at all.

Currently, points can only be redeemed if they cover the entire cost of the transaction. On Saturday 18 December any outstanding points will be reset to zero. This decision was taken at the loyalty scheme’s launch in order to evaluate its success at the end of term.

Student frustration over system’s T&Cs

In a 24-hour Twitter poll conducted

by Exeposé, support for the scheme was rather positive, with 49 per cent responding ‘yes’ to the question “Do you like the Guild Points loyalty scheme?” 21 per cent of the 104 respondents weren’t in favour of the system at all, while 30 per cent still haven’t used it.

A third-year English student was enthusiastic about the scheme. He said: “I spend way too much money on food on campus as it is - at least with the new loyalty system I can get a pack or two of wine gums at the end of everything.”

However, other students have com-

Music: The Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. interviewed Page 20

plained about the scheme’s technicalities. A second-year History student said: “‘I think it’s ridiculous to offer us incentives and then not provide sufficient reward. We can’t even put our points towards something - it has to cover a whole transaction and then points expire before you’ve even earned enough to redeem them. You’d have to spend nearly £50 a term just to get one coffee.”

The Lemon Grove management decided not to implement the scheme at all due to the lengthy disruption to transaction time. An anonymous Students’...

CONTINUED ON PAGE 4

Screen: The Force Awakens Awakens: all you need to know about Star Wars Episode VII Pages 24-25

HE University has reversed its decision to hold exams at 8:30am in January, following significant pressure from students and the Guild.

An initial examinations timetable, issued on Friday 27 November, claimed the move away from the usual 9:00am slot was “necessary”, attributing the decision to “the increase in student numbers and modules being examined in January”.

A Student Idea calling for the Guild to “strongly oppose and lobby the University to stop exams beginning at 8:30am” was soon set up, stating that the new exam time would encourage “unhealthy sleep patterns and cause unnecessary stress”.

69.6 per cent of students strongly agreed with the Idea.

Following consultation with the Guild, the University reverted to the original 9:00am start four days later. All examinations will now start 30 minutes later and timetables have been updated in the Student Record System (SRS) and ExeHub. VP Education Bethan Jones tweeted about the success of the Guild’s lobbying, telling students to “look forward to your extra half hour in bed!” She told Exeposé: “I am delighted that the University has reversed its decision to introduce 8:30 amexam starts and return to the regular 9:00am time. This is a great example of the University listening to and acting on student feedback.”

Students are not wholly satisfied, however, with one Student Idea calling...

CONTINUED ON PAGE 3

Download the free Exeposé app

EXEPOSÉ

Exeposé, Devonshire House, Exeter, Devon, EX4 4PZ

Email: editors@exepose.com Call: (01392) 723513 Editors Print: James Beeson & Sarah Gough Online: Kayley Gilbert & Harry Shepherd Deputy Editors Eamonn Crowe & Josh Mines depeds@exepose.com News Editors Print: Susannah Keogh & Fiona Potigny Online: Elizabeth Menshikova & Elise Metcalf news@exepose.com Comment Editors Print: John Chilvers & Zak Mahinfar Online: Natalie Bartrum & Emily Prescott comment@exepose.com Features Editors Print: Flora Carr & Sophie Harrison Online: Jessica Stanier & Theodore Stone features@exepose.com Lifestyle Editors Print: Joshua Rotchelle & Jack Wardlaw Online: Laurel Bibby & Harriette Casey lifestyle@exepose.com Music Editors Print: James Atherton & Katie Costello Online: Tristan Gatward & Joe Stewart music@exepose.com Screen Editors Print: Akash Beri & Ben Londesbrough Online: Emily Harris & Jack Smith screen@exepose.com Arts & Lit Editors Print: Jeremy Brown & Emily Kerr Online: Lisa Rellstab & Valentina Vacchelli arts@exepose.com Science & Tech Editors Print: Catherine Heffner & Lewis Norman Online: Sally-Ann Dunn & Bry Nickson books@exepose.com Games Print: Jack England & Evan Jones Online: Sam Brewer & Alex Howard games@exepose.com Sport Editors Print: Rob Cross & Emmott Leigh Online: Oli Davis & Tommy John sports@exepose.com Photography Edwin Yeung & Natasa Christofidou photography@exepose.com Copy Editors Esther Docherty, Kate Jones, Giorgi Mamuzelos & William Sandbach

@Exepose facebook.com/exepose issuu.com/exepose Advertising Ross Trant R.Trant@exeter.ac.uk (01392) 722607

Join

We always want more writers! Join Exeposé here to get your voice heard for just £5

The opinions expressed in Exeposé are not necessarily those of the Exeposé Editors nor the University of Exeter Students’ Guild. While every care is taken to ensure that the information in this publication is correct and accurate, the Publisher can accept no liability for any consequential loss or damage, however caused, arising as a result of using the information printed. The Publisher cannot accept liability for any loss or damage to artwork or material submitted. The contents of this, unless stated otherwise, are copyright of the Publisher.

Reproduction in any form requires the prior consent of the Publisher.

2

NEWS

NEWS 1-5

COMMENT FEATURES LIFESTYLE 12-15 18-19 8-10

NEWS

In brief

MUSIC 20-23

SCREEN 24-26

ARTS & LIT SCI & TECH 28-30 32-33

GAMES 34-35

SPORT 38-40

7 DECEMBER 2015 |

Exeposé News

NEWS EDITORS Susannah Keogh Fiona Potigny

EXEPOSÉ

@ExeposeNews

news@exepose.com

University news from beyond Exeter Stories compiled by: Susannah Keogh and Fiona Potigny

Welsh uni fee policy 70% of students comes under fire in favour of EU

Oh la la, Paris is the best student city

The Welsh government’s policy of footing the majority of the bill for university students has been called into question by the body in charge of university representation in the country.

Under current regulations, students in Wales save around £17,000 over a three year undergraduate degree, only having to take out a loan for the first £3,910 of their tuition fee. For students with an annual tuition fee of £9,000, the Welsh government covers the remainder, regardless of whether the university is in Wales.

Vice Chancellor of Cardiff University Professor Colin Riordan disagrees with the current system, however, stating that students “who come from disadvantaged backgrounds” should be prioritised.

Over 70 per cent of students would vote to preserve Britain’s membership of the European Union – far more than the UK population as a whole, according to a new survey.

In a poll of 1,000 students conducted by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) and YouthSight Monitor, just 13 per cent claimed that they would vote to leave.

Despite such seemingly strong support for the ‘in’ campaign, closer analysis shows the student vote to be unreliable and easily likely to be swayed by passionate ‘out’ campaigners.

Of those surveyed, only 46 per cent claimed that they “will definitely vote”, with females less likely to do so than males.

La vie est particularly belle for students in the ‘City of Love’, as Paris achieves the top spot in the QS best student cities rankings for the fourth year in a row.

Compiled by HE data experts QS, the rankings are a reflection of diversity of the student body, quality of life, graduate employment opportunities, quality of universities and affordability.

Despite the city’s notorious price tags, Paris scooped the winning place, with Melbourne and Tokyo following.

London’s high cost of living saw it fall into fifth position this year, with Sydney taking over the fourth spot.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said: “Our youth represents our greatest strength and incarnates our greatest hope... We will continue to support students by offering them opportunities in an open, dynamic and creative city.”

Uni President slams Uni gets cartoony student narcissists with new PhD

Bournemouth Uni goes green

Newcastle softens stance on drugs

A university president has slammed “self absorbed” students, telling them to grow up.

Everett Piper, President of Oklahoma’s Wesleyan University, penned an open letter on the university website, entitled: “This is not a Daycare. It’s a University!”

The President wrote that he was moved to speak out after a student approached him following a sermon at the university chapel, complaining that the sermon’s content made him feel uncomfortable and victimised.

In retaliation, Piper argued: “Learn that life isn’t about you, but about others; that the bad feeling you have while listening to a sermon is called guilt.”

It follows student protests sweeping America as tensions on college campuses rise over racial discrimination.

On a local radio show, Piper said: “This has nothing to do about race. This is about the arrogance and the narcissism of our culture.”

Arts University Bournemouth looks set to topple Exeter from its higher student to tree ratio after pledging to plant a tree for every new student enrolled.

Initiated by the University’s Student Union in a partnership with the Woodland Trust, the new initiative will see UK-grown trees planted, including 500 oaks, in an attempt to neutralise the university’s carbon footprint.

Union President Oscar Woodruff commented: “Planting a tree for every new student at AUB is a fantastic tradition and a creative way of offsetting the carbon footprints of each incoming student.”

The sets of trees and plants are being grown in various parts of the Bournemouth countryside on land offered by a local farm.

Newcastle University has changed its policy on drugs and illegal substance possession within student accommodation on campus.

Previously, s t u d e n t s found to be in possession of drugs would have been immediately evicted from their accommodation, but this will no longer be the case under new measures following pressure from Students for Sensible Drug Policy, who petitioned for the rules to be changed.

First-time offenders will instead be interviewed and allowed to remain if they agree to refrain from future substance abuse on campus-owned or managed accommodation.

A medical amnesty clause has also been issued, which protects those who may have suffered an overdose from being penalised.

Newcastle University maintains, however, that it does not condone drug use, possession or supply.

Students catch zzzs on campus

American universities are offering students the chance to refresh and catch some sleep between lessons.

The University of Texas at Austin and Macalester College have created campus-wide ‘nap maps’ depicting the best snooze spots as voted by students. Each location is ranked on a one to five scale by accessibility, comfort and crowd activity to help students find the best position to suit their napping needs.

College and university students are currently the most sleep-deprived generation, with only 11 per cent getting enough. With studies showing a strong link between sleep levels, grades and dropout rates, it is hoped that such an initiative will hit UK soil soon.

Passionate for a PhD in comic books?

Then the University of Lancaster is the place to be, with the appointment of a renowned illustrator.

Benoit Peeters, well known for his work on the Tintin series, will become a visiting professor of graphic fiction and comic art next summer.

The role, which is the first of its kind in the country, will see Peeters deliver lectures and creative writing workshops.

Describing the professorship as a great honour, he said: “I want to explore the connections between the history of graphic fiction and contemporary creation, and the world of comics and graphic novels.”

The Lakes International Comic Festival worked in partnership with Lancaster to create the three year role.

EXEPOSÉ

Sir Steve responds to HE Green Paper: “Do we want fees to increase? Yes, we do.”

Fiona Potigny News Editor

T

HE University of Exeter’s ViceChancellor Sir Steve Smith confirmed that the University would want tuition fees to rise in line with inflation if the Higher Education Green Paper plans are to be implemented.

We cannot go on forever with no in�lation on fees Sir Steve Smith, University of Exeter’s Vice-Chancellor In an all-student talk on Thursday 26 November, senior members of University staff answered questions from the student body. When asked whether the University would be “enthusiastic about raising fees”, Sir Steve responded: “Do we want fees to rise? Yes, we do. We cannot go on forever with no inflation on fees.”

Describing the potential future decision as a “fair measure”, Sir Steve maintained that a rise in fees would combat staff costs, which increased by 4.7 per cent last year, stating that the University would be unable to “keep absorbing rising staff costs if fees are stable”.

According to the Green Paper ‘Fulfilling our potential: teaching

NEWS

www.exepose.com

excellence, social mobility and student choice’ published by the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills, the Government expects to see institutions that perform best within the TEF (Teaching Excellence Framework) “reinvest in the quality of their teaching and grow their capacity to teach more students” through their greater ability to raise fees in line with inflation. The document also suggests that staff pay could be linked to performance.

Following the proposals’ release, the Students’ Guild issued a statement outlining a rise in fees as an area of concern. It stated: “The fear of debt remains a significant deterrent to entering higher education for many; particularly when graduate prospects are not as strong as they once were and the student experience across the sector hasn’t dramatically improved.”

A 2014 Public Accounts Committee report found that £200 billion worth of student debt could be highly detrimental to state finances in 30 years time and that the government consistently overestimates annual repayments on student loans. A recent Higher Education Academic Experience survey also found that just 35 per cent of students felt that they had received ‘good’ or ‘very good’ value for money.

Nonetheless, in a debate against former NUS President Toni Pearce

in March of the same year, Sir Steve successfully convinced students to vote against the motion “This House Believes That Tuition Fees Should Not Increase”.

Students were asked, however, to vote on the merits of the arguments they heard, rather than according to their personal opinion. During the debate, Sir Steve referenced the 52 per cent increase in applications despite the 2012 fee rise to £9,000, concluding that it would be “unrealistic” to believe that University development could be funded through government investment alone.

Photo: University of Exeter

As higher education becomes increasingly marketised, students deserve to get the most from what they are paying Laura-Jane Tiley, Guild President Students’ Guild President LauraJane Tiley commented: “The Sabbatical Officers strongly oppose any increase in fees but, whilst this is out of our direct control, we will always work to ensure that the student experience at Exeter provides value for money. As higher education becomes increasingly marketised, students deserve to get the most from what they are paying.”

Former Exeposé editor Uni scraps 8:30 receives national award examinations James Beeson Editor

A

SENIOR member of the 2014/15 Exeposé editorial team has been named ‘Best Student Reporter’ in the 2015 Guardian Student Media awards at a ceremony in London.

Harrison Jones, who held the position of Editor between March 2014 and March 2015, was chosen by a panel of judges including Jasper Jackson, Assistant Media Editor at The Guardian and Kamal Ahmed, Business Editor of the BBC, as the best student reporter nationally in the last year.

The category is described by The Guardian website as recognising “talented reporters who can find, develop and tell a story with skill and flair”.

Last year, Jones was responsible for writing numerous high profile stories for Exeposé including front pages on University staff expenses, animal testing on campus and University sports team initiations.

Speaking about his work, the judges said: “We were impressed with the range of stories he broke, showing an understanding of how to pick the right topics and issues for his audience.”

Commenting on his award, Jones said: “On an individual level I’m absolutely delighted and hopeful that this can help me break into journalism, which is a ridiculously hard industry to crack.

“The judges said they were impressed

3

with the collaborative work, so it’s not really an individual award - Emily Leahy, James Beeson and Gemma Joyce all played a big part as co-writers.

“I’m especially thankful to Gemma - we did everything as a pair last year. I couldn’t have asked for a better co-editor!”

Other winners at the awards included King’s College London’s Roar and Glasgow’s theGIST.

>> The award winners, Harrison Jones centre. Photo: Guardian

CONTINUED FROM PAGE ONE

... for a stop to exams that finish past 5:00pm. “Finishing an exam at 6pm is very late and will impact grades”, the anonymous student creator wrote. So far, 41.6 per cent of students have voted in favour of the Idea.

An exam at such an early hour simply adds unnecessary pressure Comment Page 10 The University has also faced criticism concerning the late issuing of the exam timetable. One student who lives abroad commented: “Leaving exam decisions until the last minute reflects a total lack of consideration for international students and those who live far away. Travel prices become increasingly expensive throughout term, meaning that the University’s

slow reaction has cost some students literally hundreds.”

78.7 per cent of students seem to share this opinion, having strongly agreed with a recent Student Idea calling for an earlier release of exam dates.

Ian Blenkharn, Director of Education and Student Experience, told Exeposé: “The University always appreciates feedback from students for consideration. In response to comments received by students, and in consultation with the Guild, the earliest exams in January will begin from 9am. “ We are confident this start time will be welcomed by all students, including those with care responsibilities and transport constraints.”

This news comes following student frustrations with changes to the teaching day implemented this academic year. The Students’ Guild, who officially opposed the plans, are currently running a survey to capture the full impact on students.

4

NEWS

NEWS 1-5

COMMENT FEATURES LIFESTYLE 18-19 12-15 8-10

MUSIC 20-23

SCREEN 24-26

ARTS & LIT SCI & TECH 28-30 32-33

GAMES 34-35

SPORT 38-40

7 DECEMBER 2015 |

EXEPOSÉ

12% of Guild New bus depot housing Points claimed could take 650 students Photo: Students’ Guild

CONTINUED FROM PAGE ONE ...Guild employee commented on the disturbance to other Guild outlets: “Scanning cards for the Guild Points scheme has added 15 seconds onto every transaction. This doesn’t sound like a lot but in busy periods it slows us down considerably. I’m not sure if it’s worth it.”

It is too early to say how the launch of Guild Points is affecting sales in our outlets Becky Morris, Students’ Guild Interim Communications and Marketing As one of the key pledges of her manifesto, Students’ Guild President Laura-Jane Tiley was quick to defend the scheme: “I would encourage students not to miss out on the opportunity to spend your hard-earned points and grab some free bargains in Guild outlets just in time for Christmas.”

Guild Services estimate that the scheme cost £2,000 to implement, when taking into account marketing and ad-

ministration outlays.

However, it is still unclear as to whether it has managed to boost spending in Guild outlets. Becky Morris, Interim Communications and Marketing Manager, said: “At this stage, it is too early to say how the launch of Guild Points is affecting sales in our outlets.

“A number of changes came into effect at the same time (teaching day, new products, new students, new prices) which make it difficult to identify a direct relationship.”

Following the successful introduction of the Guild Points loyalty scheme, President Laura-Jane Tiley now pledges to enhance the card’s benefits by adding a Gold, Silver and Bronze ranking system based on hours of contribution. In order to implement this, students’ participation hours will be surveyed in order to calculate their average contribution before working out the allocation. Rewards may include free hot drinks, Lemmy entry and reserved seats in DH1.

The Students’ Guild is currently offering discounts and deals until 11 December as part of its online ‘Advent Calendar’ scheme. A new deal each day is revealed on the Guild website.

Figures accurate at the time of print.

Samuel Fawcett News Team

A

NEW student accommodation development on Belgrave Road will house up to 650 students, if plans go ahead. According to Cara Bamford, partner at Make Architects, the existing Stagecoach bus depot would be replaced by blocks of student flats up to seven storeys high.

If building work goes ahead, the new complex will be located directly opposite popular student club Unit 1 and will join a number of other student developments in the immediate surrounding area. The Printworks on Western Way is less than one hundred yards from the new site and houses 500 students. Likewise, Sidwell Street is home to the Picturehouse Apartments and Exeter University’s James Owen Court, while Unite Trust accommodation, housing 135 students, is just minutes away on Blackboy Road.

Exeter City FC also recently announced plans to build multi-storey flats along St. James Park with a capacity to hold 330 students in order to fund redevelopment of their stadium. In addition to this, planning permission has been granted for an 185 bed development on the site of Kingfisher House, also on

Photo: Exeter Express and Echo Western Way. The news follows previous concern from estate agents, as cited in last week’s edition of Exeposé, that the development of new flats for students rather than affordable housing is becoming a growing trend.

The planning application for the new development on Belgrave Road is expected to be submitted before the end of the year, and a decision is expected by the spring of 2016.

É

Exeter private accommodation providers - Printworks - Mansion One - Iron Bridge Studios - Cricketfield Court - Unite Students - Downing Students

Fish fraud rates have fallen, Record success for according to Uni research alcohol workshops Lewis Norman Science and Tech Editor

A

STUDY conducted by University of Exeter researchers alongside scientists from six European countries, has shown a significant reduction in seafood mislabelling in supermarkets, markets and fishmongers in the EU. Conducted as part of the LABELFISH project and supported by the EU Atlantic Area Programme and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, species verification was carried out on fresh, frozen and tinned products labelled as cod, tuna, haddock, plaice, sole, swordfish, anchovy, hake and monkfish.

Previous studies have reported mislabelling in up to 40 per cent of cases. This has now decreased to 4.9 per cent.

The most commonly mislabelled fish was anchovy (15.5 per cent), followed by hake (11.1 per cent) and tuna (6.8

per cent). In contrast, only 3.5 per cent of cod and 3 per cent of haddock was mislabelled. None of the monkfish, plaice or swordfish samples were mislabelled.

Spain was found to have the worst record for fish mislabelling with 8.9 per cent of samples found to be substituted with other species. Portugal was second (6.7 per cent), followed by Germany (6.2 per cent), Ireland (3.9 per cent), the UK (3.3 per cent) and France (2.7 per cent). There was little or no difference in tinned, fresh or frozen products and no significant country-associated trends.

More transparent seafood supply chains are often linked with more sustainable exploitation of the oceans.

The academics involved argue that this trend comes in response to recent transnational legislation and public outreach, which has forced new regulation.

Dr Griffiths, a biosciences lecturer at the University, commented that he was “very pleased with the results”, stating

that the results show that “consumers can have more confidence in the accuracy of seafood labelling.”

Genetic identi�ication methods have progressively exposed the inadequacies of the seafood supply chain Stefano Mariri, lead researcher Lead researcher Stefano Mariri claimed that there was more work to be done, however, stating that: “Genetic identification methods have progressively exposed the inadequacies of the seafood supply chain, raising awareness among the public, and serving as a warning to industry that malpractice will be detected… but further standardised studies on a greater range of food provision channels, such as restaurants and auctions, are warranted, in order to have a complete understanding of the current state of the trade.”

Susannah Keogh News Editor

U

NIVERSITY-RUN alcohol awarenness courses have a zero per cent reoffending rate, a Freedom of Information request has revealed.

Alcohol awareness workshops were introduced by the University in 2011, developed in partnership with the charity Addadiction.

Following numerous resident complaints in 2013/14, first-year student attendance at the workshops topped a record high of 56, with 42 of these offences taking places in term one. However, only 36 students, both undergraduate and postgraduate, attended the workshops last academic year.

Rory Cunningham, Community Student Liaison Officer said: ”The overall fall in attendee numbers is positive and we feel that this shift is partially the result of a much calmer Freshers’ Week period.

“Our own monitoring indicates that students who attend the workshops find the format helpful in challenging myths

about alcohol. Students also report that they use workshop information to better manage various ‘risks’ associated with drinking and socialising with peers.”

The number of third-year students referred has risen year on year since 2012, although this is a small percentage.

This shift is partially the result of a much calmer Freshers’ Week Rory Cunningham, Community Student Liaison Of�icer VP Welfare and Diversity Naomi Armstrong commented: “I’m pleased that the number of students being disciplined for drunken behaviour has fallen.

Everyone wants to have fun at university but it’s important to be considerate of others and responsible for ourselves.”

The alcohol awareness workshops are also open to any student who has queries about excessive or long term alcohol consumption.

EXEPOSÉ

NEWS

www.exepose.com

5

top Protests over Bradshaw Syria vote Exeter for business James Beeson Editor

E

XETER MP Ben Bradshaw has defended his decision to vote in favour of UK military intervention in Syria in Parliament at a talk on the University campus on 4 December.

At an event originally organised to debate Labour’s campaign to remain in the EU, Bradshaw was confronted by a number of protestors angry at the 55-year-old’s decision to join the Shadow Labour Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn in supporting action in Syria.

Protestors, many of whom belonged to Exeter Socialist Students, held placards and chanted “One, two, three, four, we don’t want another war” at the MP as he arrived in the Forum.

Bradshaw responded by thanking attendees and described the protest as “one of the friendliest” he had ever experienced, before explaining he voted

in favour of the airstrikes due to his belief that “Daesh are a real and present threat to this country”.

“We have been in action over Iraq for the last fourteen months,” he continued, “in 1300 missions and they (The RAF) have hit 330 Daesh targets without a single civilian casualty.”

Daesh are a real and present threat to this country Ben Bradshaw, Exeter MP Many of the students at the event appeared to have little interest in debating the potential EU referendum, with the majority of questions focusing on Syria and the ongoing refugee crisis. On the refugee crisis, Bradshaw stated his belief that the issues were “absolutely linked” before claiming he believed the situation had been exacerbated by failure to back

military action in the past. “I was one of only four Labour MPs to defy the whip and not vote with Ed Miliband against military action in 2013 against Assad,” he said. “If you look at what’s happened in Syria as a result of inaction… what we have had in the last four years in Syria is the worst humanitarian crisis since the Second World War and the worst refugee crisis since the second world war, and this is as a direct result of a deep failing to do anything to address the situation.

“The aim of the 60 nation coalition against Daesh is to support the moderate forces who are still there. Any further delay in giving those moderate forces that support will lead to a situation where the Syrians have a choice between Daesh and Assad and I don’t think that’s a choice that anyone in this room would want to have to live with.”

The Exeter MP also confirmed he was in favour of other forms of intervention besides military action: “We can’t just

be tackling Daesh militarily - it has to be cutting off the funds that support them and also the ideology.”

In responses to concerns from a Muslim student about an increase in Islamophobia as a result of the decision, Bradshaw was defiant: “There is absolutely no place in our country for Islamophobia… it’s absolutely deplorable and it has to be condemned.”

Speaking about the protests, Natasa Christofidou, President of Socialist Students said: “We stand in solidarity with all lives that are going to be lost as a result of politicians’ decisions to bomb Syria. Despite not organising the protest as a society, individual members had a vital role in holding our local MP, Ben Bradhshaw, accountable for his vote.

“When condemning a violent ideology, it’s ridiculously contradictory to condemn an organisation for their violent actions, when the UK go ahead and use similar means.”

This was a valuable opportunity for students to express their views on Syria Laura-Jane Tiley, Guild President Laura-Jane Tiley, Guild President, thanked Bradshaw for spending time with students from his constituency.

“Although we strayed away from the intended topic of the EU, this was a valuable opportunity for students to express their views on Syria and I hope it proved informative for all,” she said.

A silent sit-in against the UK Parliament’s decision to bomb Syria is set to take place in the Forum on Monday 7 December.

India Crawley News Team

E

XETER University has been awarded Large Business of the Year at the annual Skills Awards.

The University was commended for the numerous opportunities it creates for apprentices of Exeter College every year. Through efficient work experience programmes and continually changing and developing them to meet the needs of Apprentices, the University was recognised for its role in the development of Apprenticeships across the South West.

It was noted the University was the first employer to fully support the higher apprenticeship provision within Exeter College.

River Exe overflows Rosie Shepard News Team

T

HE River Exe burst its banks following a downpour of heavy rain and abnormally high tides.

The city’s flood defences, only 50 years old, broke down near Exe bridges last Tuesday. Pedestrian and cycle paths running alongside the river were submerged, compelling cyclists and walkers to find a different route.

A similarly high water level occurred at the Quay but the defences have remained intact so far. To prevent any more breaches the Environment Agency, Exeter City Council and Devon County Council worked together to create an updated flood prevention scheme.

University spends £110,000 on art AgoodBlack Photo: Sarah Gough

Susannah Keogh News Editor

T

HE University of Exeter has spent almost £110,000 on artwork in only the last five years, the BBC has revealed.

Out of all the universities in England, Exeter comes in at ninth place, spending a mammoth £59,876 in 2012 alone.

The most expensive artwork was ‘Path’ by Alexander Beleschenko, the glass sculpture set within the walls of the Forum building. Belenschenko, who was made an honorary graduate of the University in 2012, specially designed the digitallyprinted glass to decorate the front of the Forum.

Although the University’s spend on art dropped dramatically last year, to £3,232, the previous year’s spend was more than four times this.

In response to the BBC, a spokesperson

for the worker’s union Unison said: “Paintings, statues and sculptures don’t enhance teaching, and leave the lowestpaid staff on campus unable to have a decent standard of living.”

Oxford and Cambridge topped the table, with an £8.9 million and £5.8 million spend on art respectively, However, both universities are home to numerous museums, unlike Exeter and the remainder of universities in the table, such as Durham, Warwick and the London School of Economics.

A University spokesperson told Exeposé: “The University of Exeter has one of the most attractive campuses in the country. The art on show enhances this public space for people living and studying in the city. Although the University has occasionally purchased artworks in the past, many pieces have been given to the University as bequests and gifts.”

Friday forExe Thea Bichard News Team

R

Photo: Edward Crumpton

OYAL Mail has released the results of a survey that ranks Exeter third in a list of the top 10 locations for online shopping on last week’s Black Friday.

Analysis of the number of parcels distributed by the Royal Mail across the UK placed Exeter just behind Norwich and Dorchester for items that went into the Royal Mail network on Friday 27 and Saturday 28 November.

Black Friday, a post-Thanksgiving tradition originating in the US that has taken off in the UK in recent years, takes place on the fourth Friday of November each year, offering discounts to shoppers in the run-up to Christmas.

8

COMMENT

NEWS 1-5

COMMENT FEATURES LIFESTYLE 12-15 18-19 8-10

MUSIC 20-23

COMMENT EXEPOSÉ EDITORIAL

SEND YOUR LETTERS TO EDITORS@EXEPOSE.COM

Points and politics

O

UR front page image this week relates to the issue on everyone’s lips.

Unfortunately this isn’t whether you prefer Mariah to Bublé, but the rather more terrifying concept of going to war. The decision to begin military intervention in Syria was passed last Wednesday. With many students disappointed to hear Exeter MP Ben Bradshaw voting for the motion, we were surprised to see him appear on campus just two days afterwards. He was here however, not to talk about his decision, but about the EU referendum - a farcical attempt to debate a topic few people are talking or caring about immediately after Parliament’s agreement to initiate airstrikes. With protesters greeting Bradshaw on arrival to the Forum, it was naive to expect students to ask questions about the sanctity of the EU over the survival of Syrian civilians. We cover the event in News in page 5 and provide an in-depth analysis of Parliament’s decision over on page 13 of Features.

In other News, not everyone is reaping the benefits of the Guild Points scheme - with only 12 per cent of points having been redeemed at present, and over half of students having not even used the initiative. The success of the scheme hangs in the balance. Costing £2000 to implement and adding transaction time onto already manically busy Guild outlets, the technicalities of the scheme mean that students aren’t earning nearly enough points in one term to claim back.

There is no doubt that LJT’s master plan would rocket in popularity if the points carried over into next term. After all, how else are we going to afford that £16.99 bottle of prosecco in the Ram?!

Elsewhere, the University appears to have actually listened to the student body and have moved January exams back by a staggering full thirty minutes, meaning that 8:30am exams will now start at the ever-so-slightly more reasonable hour of 9am. It’s interesting that the powers that be are still only too happy to make us attend lectures and seminars at that un-

godly hour. For Deputy Editor Eamonn Crowe’s thoughts, see Comment page 10.

Last week the University Vice-Chancellor Steve Smith confirmed the rumour that none of us wanted to hear; he hopes to raise tuition fees AGAIN in the near future. This announcement hardly comes as a surprise, however, it will still come as a crushing blow to prospective students from lower income families, who also have to contend with the Conservatives’ decision to replace maintenance grants with loans from September 2016. For the full story see page 3. *** More high profile interviews grace this fortnight’s edition of the paper. Music lead the way with internationally renowned indie-rock band The Strokes. Albert Hammond Jr., the band’s guitarist, begrudgingly answers questions about the future of the band and his relationship with Julian Casablancas, despite currently touring to promote his (less glamorous) solo project. Head to page 20 to hear his thoughts.

In Features, Sophie Harrison talks to Lib Dem MP Norman Lamb about his admirable campaign for equality in mental health (page 12), whilst Flora Carr questions controversial figure, Maryam Namazie, on feminism, atheism and Islamism (all the isms) on page 14.

Christmas themed content is also omnipresent as we get into the festive spirit.

Highlights include Music’s seasonal mixtape (page 21), Arts & Lit’s interview with the Northcott Theatre’s A Christmas Carol’s leading man Derek Frood (page 28) and Science & Tech’s list of this year’s must-have gadgets (page 33).

Finally, with the biggest blockbuster of the year about to hit cinemas, Screen go back to a long time ago in a galaxy far far away to reflect on the legacy of the Star Wars franchise ahead of Episode VII’s release later this month (pages 24-25).

Have a great Christmas break sleighing those revision notes. May the force be with you...

Thanks to those who helped proof this issue: Rebecca Broad, Owain Evans, Sam Woolf, Kathy Giddins, Holly Robinson, the Exeposé copy editors and members of the editorial team.

SCREEN 24-26

ARTS & LIT SCI & TECH 28-30 32-33

GAMES 34-35

comment@exepose.com

EDITORS James Beeson Sarah Gough

SPORT 38-40

Exeposé Comment

DEPUTY EDITORS Eamonn Crowe Josh Mines

7 DECEMBER 2015 |

EXEPOSÉ

@CommentExepose

COMMENT EDITORS John Chilvers Zak Mahinfar

Christmas: too soon?

Theodore Stone Online Features Editor

C

HRISTMAS. It’s a wonderful time, isn’t it? For weeks, you drive yourself further and further into willingly enforced bankruptcy in order to consume as much food as possible and buy as many gifts as your bank account will allow. But when should we start this season of gluttony? When is most appropriate for us to start filling our stockings?

For many nowadays, the answer appears to be mid-October. Towards the end of the month, when you’d expect shops to be devoting their stock to Halloween, I saw equal, if not greater, precedence being given towards Christmas, despite it being around one-and-a-half months until the lights in the University were switched on. The festive season, at least for the retailers, has become a multi-season event; with the winter, which Christmas in the northern hemisphere has become synonymous with, serving as but a small cog in this grand, slightly tacky, clock of a festival.

The basic impression one receives

is that we should devote the last quarter of the year toward the preparation of a season which has already set aside a 25day preparation schedule. The purpose of Advent, at least, within the semi-secular contemporary tradition of Christmas, is to prepare you for the onslaught that arrives on 25 December. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be good enough.

Part of the appeal of Christmas is that it happens only once a year Part of the appeal of Christmas is that it is an event that happens only once a year, and many of the activities, foods, and sights are unique to the event. The Christmas markets are enamouring experiences, but the threat of over-saturation is an extremely plausible one if they begin too early. The same can be applied to all and any Christmas tradition. Let’s say that we, hypothetically, start erecting our trees at the beginning of November.

Would the appeal be as strong as it would be if the wait were to be decreased? I

doubt it.

Alongside this, there are the obvious religious connotations. Now, I must confess that I am an atheist, and so the religious and spiritual impact that arrives with the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ does not have a particularly large impact upon my person. However, Christmas is nonetheless a religious holiday. Whilst it has been largely secularised by capitalist ambition, the core principles nevertheless remain at the core of the festival. If we are to celebrate an event that is enshrined within the heart of modern Christianity, and respect the meanings behind it, then we should allow at least some essence to be maintained. Pushing the beginning of the Christmas season further and further away from its climax only helps to accelerate the loss of meaning within the holiday, and only aids in the commercialisation of it and the destruction of its traditional role.

Some experiences are kept brief for a reason. The festive season is popular among so many because of its sharp climb towards an exciting climax. To stretch it beyond its worth would be senseless, and betray the very ideas that it stands for.

The festivities begin

Cartoon: Emily McIndoe

It’s a no from me for no-platforming EXEPOSÉ

COMMENT

www.exepose.com

9

As Brunel students turn their back on Katie Hopkins, Exeposé Comment debate no-platforming Marcel Golten Guild Council Chair

N

OTHING is more puzzling about the campaign to remove the Guild’s supposedly regressive ‘no platform policy’ than the mere fact that the Guild does not operate a no platform policy. The faux moral outrage regarding this alleged attack on freedom of speech is as confusing as it is ignorant.

Here at Exeter, student societies are free to invite any speaker they wish. The Guild has made it a point that it will only oppose societies’ events which pose a security threat or are in violation of the law; and they are right to do so. Even this opposition to events does not involve shutting them down, but rather a withdrawal of support and in serious cases a recommendation to the University to cancel the event. But what lies behind the liberal façade of these anti no platform campaigners?

The Guild has made it a point that it will only oppose societies’ events that pose a security threat First of all, this movement (if it can be called such) is driven by the politics of gesture. That is, political campaigns which aim only to make a point, rather than bringing about any meaningful change. Now, there is nothing wrong with the politics of gesture. The countless ‘Student Ideas’ on the Guild website calling for us to condemn ISIS are, although completely inconsequential, admirable.

The problem with the gesture politics of this campaign is that it is based on a lie: that the Guild is enforcing policies which undermine freedom of speech and push

forward its own agenda.

This blatant misrepresentation of Guild policy is part of a worrying trend across all universities: the politics of provocation. The politics that is designed to provoke a reaction from people, to offend people.

This blatant misrepresentation of Guild policy is a worrying trend across all universities The opposition to the albeit nonexistent no platform policy, as well as the opposition to the incredibly important Safer Spaces policy undermines the security of students. It suggests that rather than human decency and a concern for academic standards, the only reason why islamophobic, transphobic or any other kind of intolerant speakers are rarely welcomed onto campus is because of the over-arching reach of a Student’s Guild committed to undermining ‘free speech’.

As a result of this misconception, we see a truly sad deterioration in the quality of some of the speakers at British universities. It’s the Maajid Nawaz’s, the Katie Hopkins’ and the Tommy Robinsons of the world who have replaced the top academics, the grassroots activists, the policy-makers and intellectuals as the hottest tickets on campus.

As well as this, one society president informed me that he planned to run a “controversial speakers series”. This is all happening as part of a shift away from good quality, engaging discussions, into talks designed to provoke a reaction.

These kinds of societies must not be forced into choosing certain speakers. If anything is going to change, it should be a change driven by these societies’ memberships. The c a m paign against t h e Guild’s non-existent no platform policy is not helpful. It misrepresents the reality on campus, a reality that we should be proud of.

Let’s think less about the politics of provocation and the politics of gesture and more about the great academics out there, and at our own university who have so much to offer to the student experience.

David Browne

L

AST week, Brunel University students received praise for turning their backs on Katie Hopkins en masse during a debate on the welfare state, before walking out – with very few remaining in the room. However, we should be slow to be praising such tactics; the difference between such a mass walkout and a traditional ‘no platforming’ is one of degree, rather than kind.

In the first instance, both cases send out exactly the same message: namely that it is the identity of the speaker, rather than the arguments which they would make, that are important in a debate. In this regard, it’s notable that the walkout occurred before Hopkins had managed to make her points; just like when a speaker is ‘no-platformed’, the speaker is unable to make their points before an audience. As John Milton pointed out in Areopagitica, even when the ancient Greeks or Romans punished writers or burned their books, they at least read them first before passing judgement.

This is something which the students walking out of Hopkins’ speech couldn’t manage to do, and something which the traditional no-platformer will not allow anyone else to do either.

Yet the walkout at Brunel is not quite so innocent either; we must remember that this was an event where one needed to register to attend.

If the event was oversubscribed

(it’s unclear whether it was), what this protest amounted to was at least half of those who did register denying places to people who were actually interested in hearing Hopkins speak, rather than simply walking out in a stunt protest. Were the event oversubscribed (it’s unclear whether it was), the effect of this stunt was in fact to deny others the right to hear her.

A mass walkout is effectively no-platforming As Ray Bradbury wrote: “There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running around with lit matches.” No-platforming (or attempts thereof) need not take the form of simply banning a speaker outright.

Placing undue restrictions on an address to the extent that it becomes logistically unfeasible (as happened to Milo Yiannopoulos last week at York), interrupting a speaker to shout over them (as happened to Germaine Greer last week at the Oxford Union, though the protestors were removed), and the walkout on Katie Hopkins all have exactly the goals: they aim to make it as difficult as possible for a speaker to speak and, should the speaker overcome such difficulties, to make it as difficult for other people to hear said speaker – purely because the protestors disagree with them.

Yet so long as the media continue to lavish praise on ‘no-platform’ lite and focus on such protestors, it will not get better for free speech. Instead we should focus on the speaker, rather than sending out the message that the speaker’s ideas are less important than the actions of those who don’t want to listen. To corrupt Bradbury: you don’t have to ban a speaker to destroy a debate; just stop people listening.

How can the uni justify their arty-farty Forum?

Zak Mahinfar Comment Editor

A

S the BBC reports that the University of Exeter has acquired almost £110,000 worth of artwork in the last five years, it becomes increasingly apparent that they have lost both their minds and their integrity.

This money could have been spent elsewhere, on resources that would directly enhance student experience rather than a gimmick to namecheck on campus tours. I’m sure the students who were forced to delay commencing their course for a whole academic year because there

wasn’t sufficient first-year accommodation will be comforted by a £10,000 pane of multi-coloured glass when they get here.

The University of Exeter has spent almost £110,000 on artwork It’s embarrassing that the administration of a university hailed as a Global 100 and provider of academic excellence have allowed themselves to be so well and truly ripped off. I’m no Gaudi but with a couple of potato stamps I could totally ri-

val that set of stripes.

In the third term of last year, The Music Office was absorbed into the Guild in a move to alleviate its financial burden on the University. Exeter’s Music Office provided the largest extra-curricular music programme in the country. It’s £100,000 budget covered staff salaries, maintenance, equipment and funded events.

The 60 grand Steve and his cronies threw at art in a year could have been used to buy every single student at Exeter six packets of cheese puffs from the Market Place - some very well-appreciated revision fuel. Alternatively, that money could have paid the first three months of

his modest salary.

They could have used that money to fund scolarships and bursaries Or, given that Exeter has just missed their target for state school admissions, they could have used that money to fund scholarships and bursaries for students struggling with the costs of higher education and to establish an outreach programme to tackle the state of Exeter’s diversity.

Maybe I’m diminishing the artistic

worth of Picasso or whichever artist they commissioned to construct the ‘art’ in the Forum. Nonetheless, the University should recognise that the majority of Exeter’s students are not studying Art History and if they wanted to inject a bit of colour in the Forum they could have easily found a more cost effective way to do it.

At a time when the University is persistently implementing cost-cutting measures that are directly affecting the student experience, the notion that they are chucking thousands of pounds at decorative art instead of increasing study space is shambolic.

Irate thirty: 8:30am exams moved

10

COMMENT

Eamonn Crowe Deputy Editor

L

IKE a slightly warped version of X Factor, after weeks of nervous anticipation and gut-wrenching fears, the University finally announced our January exam timetables on Friday 27 November. As I opened the email with trepidation, my eyes were drawn to the casual note, which stated that due to the complexities of timetabling, exams would start on the half hour with the earliest ones beginning at 8:30am. My heart sank as I went to check my timetable, but luckily, my one (and thankfully only) exam was set to take place at 12:30 in the afternoon. However, some of my friends were not so lucky and I watched one in particular, suffer a minor ‘nervy b’ as they realised that two of their three exams began at this unspeakable (half) hour.

A friend suffered a minor ‘nervy b’ as they realised two of their exams began at this unspeakable hour I was shocked that the decision to start the teaching day half an hour earlier, that had caused so much uproar

NEWS 1-5

COMMENT FEATURES LIFESTYLE 18-19 12-15 8-10

MUSIC 20-23

SCREEN 24-26

ARTS & LIT SCI & TECH 28-30 32-33

90 per cent of the time I’m a good girl but every now and again I dip my fingers into my flatmate’s nutella.

Fourth Year, History

I’ve gone out a lot this term and my notches on the bed post have just reached double figures, so I guess I’ve been really naughty. But that’s what life’s all about, and if uni’s not the time to have fun, then when is?

First year, Theology

I don’t really think that’s any of your business.

Fourth Year, History

Nice. Very Nice. I asked my boyfriend to dress up as Santa but then I remembered that my Dad used to dress up as Santa.

Second year, Classics

7 DECEMBER 2015 |

EXEPOSÉ

seminars at this time are. Of course, exams bear more weight than individual lectures and seminars as they are a formal assessment which largely determine a student’s final grade. However, when we are paying £9000 a year for the privilege of studying at this institution, surely lectures and seminars are very important, especially as what we learn in these contact hours is what forms the basis of our knowledge for our exams.

In a shocking turn of events, the University actually listned to students So, if the University understands that early morning exams may affect students’ grades (and in turn those precious league table rankings), then why can’t they understand that starting the teaching day earlier could have the same impact? Of course, 30 minutes is just that and many may say that this whole debacle is insignificant.

However, technicalities such as this speak to the wider issue of the continued commercialisation of higher education, which is something we should all be very worried about. After all, as the old adage goes, time is money.

“Have you been naughty or nice this year?”

Can I be both? On the one hand I’m part of RAG and regularly give to charity but on the other hand I like to let go on a night out and objectify women at sports socials.

Second year, Biology

Generally I’ve been nice this whole year, but I’ve got a month to go wild seeings as deadlines are ending.

Second year, Criminology

It depends what you consider naughty or nice. I didn’t brush my teeth last night? I just forgot.

Third year, Law

Third year, Politics

I was meant to be saving my virginity ‘til marriage and then Wednesday TP happened.

SPORT 38-40

these students are in the minority, but that certainly doesn’t mean they should be overlooked.

In a shocking turn of events, the University actually listened to this student feedback and subsequently decided to push all exams back by thirty minutes, so that they would all start on the hour. While this half hour may seem like a small victory, it is an important one, not just because it will ease the exam stress a little, but also because it reveals the University’s seemingly contradictory beliefs on what students are capable of pre-9am. According to this change in timetabling, the University appears to agree that 8:30am exams are not practical for many students.

In layman’s terms, people might be late and their brains won’t be switched on. It is interesting then, that the University maintains that while 8:30 exams are not ok, lectures and

earlier this year, had seemingly been extended to include the exam period as well. In minutes, the Yik Yak hotlist was brimming with anger about those crucial thirty minutes and my group chats were full of memes of Kim K crying her eyes out. Luckily for the affected, a number of students decided to shed our unfair ‘apathetic’ label and complained to the University. Concerns mainly stemmed from the belief that 8:30am exams are not only cruel (I mean, our sporadic timetables practically encourage lieins) but were also hugely impractical. An exam, which is already a huge source of stress and worry for students, at such an early hour simply adds unnecessary pressure. More importantly, it especially affects students who face long commutes, or have young families. True,

COMMENT ON CAMPUS

GAMES 34-35

Photo: Huffington Post

12

FEATURES

NEWS 1-5

COMMENT FEATURES LIFESTYLE 18-19 12-15 8-10

MUSIC 20-23

FEATURES

SCREEN 24-26

ARTS & LIT SCI & TECH 28-30 32-33

GAMES 34-35

7 DECEMBER 2015 |

SPORT 38-40

Exeposé Features

FEATURES EDITORS Flora Carr Sophie Harrison

EXEPOSÉ

@ExeposeFeatures

features@exepose.com

No silencing Norman Lamb Ahead of the the Chancellor’s Spending Review, Sophie Harrison, Features Editor, speaks to Norman Lamb, Liberal Democrat MP, on the cause behind his campaign for equality in mental health

H

IS party may be out of power, but Norman Lamb’s voice is stronger than ever. As one of eight remaining Lib Dem MPs, Westminster duties continue. “Norman has to be in the chamber, could we possibly reschedule?” requests his aide. Yet Lamb’s greatest cause transcends politics. On the day of our interview, a week later, Lamb introduces himself with “apologies for the later hour.

I just did an ITV news interview with my son, who’s suffered from OCD.” To the outside world, 27-year-old Archie Lamb was the successful music producer behind Tinchy Stryder; ten years ago, Norman and wife Mary remortaged their house to fund the rapper’s first album. Behind closed doors, however, Archie was “having to put on a front and convince everyone he was fine. This only increased the strain of the illness.”

Not only did Lamb stand by his son, during a decade-long battle with OCD, he then turned the “painful” experience into a career-long commitment to mental health. Until 2015, neither father nor son had publicly discussed Archie’s illness. “He was very worried that, if he spoke out, it would damage his career.”

Lamb reveals. “The turning point came in March, when we did a joint interview with The Times. The support he received was incredible.”

For Norman Lamb, the associated stigma of mental illness lies at the heart of his cause. Following the May Election, which terminated the Coalition government and Lamb’s time as Care Minister, he describes spending the summer “thinking how I could maintain pressure from the outside. I then wondered, rather

than the usual suspects making the argument for equality, could we bring together a stellar cast from across society?”

So Equality 4 Mental Health was born.

“I gave Alistair Campbell a ring back in August and put the idea to him.’ Lamb recounts. ‘He really liked it and suggested contacting Andrew Mitchell.”

The awful cliff edge of 18 is clinically disasterous As a cross-party alliance, the three men were united in their shared experiences of mental health; Campbell has been vocal about his past with alcoholism, while Mitchell has suffered from depression. “From there, we started to approach people and found that virtually everyone

said yes. It shows attitudes are starting to change.

“Ruby Wax was a force of nature; she exploited her address book brilliantly!”

Lamb laughs. “We arrived at an A-list cast of celebrities and I also approached professionals.” The result was a ‘who’s who’ of public figures, which include Miranda Hart, Sir Ian McKellen, Emma Thompson, Sir Steve Redgrave and the Archbishop of Canterbury. “They all united in a call for equality. The more people who sign up, the stronger our voice will be.”

“Our primary objective is to try and influence the Chancellor [in the Spending Review]. It is a defining moment” for cause of mental health. “We’ve got to get dedicated extra resources. The way the system works, mental health will always lose out. Even if the NHS gets an adequate settlement, the system is so unbalanced.”

In his two years as Care Minister, Lamb witnessed it first-hand.

“You have this whole set of very politically powerful access standards for physical health, with the 4 hour A&E target and 18 week referral targets,” reveals Lamb. “In the NHS, hospital funding works through ‘payment by results’, so the more patients that are referred and meet the waiting times, the more money the hospital gets.”

Targets are synonymous with the public sector, yet equally eludes mental health. “Until April this year, a maximum waiting time standard for mental health did not exist.”

The introduction of

waiting times, at the start of 2015, was an issue Lamb threatened to resign over. His reasoning is clear: “There’s a wealth of evidence for early intervention providing a better outcome,” he stresses.

‘In psychosis, for example, evidence shows that, if you intervene quickly after a first psychotic episode, you can often stop that condition in its tracks, stop further episodes and, ultimately, give that person a chance for a good life. If you neglect it and it becomes entrenched, all the chances are this person will have a life on benefits and damaged relationships.”

Here, Lamb highlights how this is both “a moral and economic argument.

It’s morally repugnant to neglect mental health, but it is also economically stupid, with its cost to the economy. The fact is, we’re not smart on how we spend money. We spend a fortune on benefits, rather than preventing it at the start.” It is refreshing to hear such candid words from the mouth of an MP. If only more politicians understood that straight-talk – rather than selfies and sarnies – is the way into public imagination.

This is a moment where we move forward or slip further back I broach the specific topic of student mental health, which Exeposé covered in a recent interview with Student Minds. “It would be laughable if it wasn’t so deadly serious,” responds Lamb, after I share my personal struggle with the dual postcode system, “it’s unbelievable that, if you choose to register with a University GP, you are subsequently isolated from a secondary care team at home. It would simply never happen with physical health.”

Lamb also disputes the transition between child and adult services. “On Radio Essex this morning, there was a teenager who spoke very movingly about her own experience. After the age of 18, services were just withdrawn.” On the impact of this, Lamb’s candour is once again palpable. “It is clinically disastrous,’ he asserts, “‘when you consider so much is happening at that time in your life. One thing I tried to do as a minister was to end this awful cliff edge of 18,” he continues “We included this in our March 2015 Taskforce Report, ‘future in mind’, which called for continued support into the early 20s.”

Following May’s Tory majority, Lamb is determined that the voice of mental health will not be barred from No.10: “I went to see the Chancellor last week,” he informs me, ‘‘along with Andrew Mitchell and Paul Farmer, the Chief Executive of Mind. He gave us a decent amount of time and committed to seriously considering the issues raised.” Lamb disloses, “Nick Clegg negotiated a £1 billion extra sum for children’s mental health over the 5 year period. I want something akin to that, within this spending review.

“This is a moment where we move forward or we slip further back. Am I confident? Sadly no. The rumours I hear are not encouraging. I am hoping George Osborne might watch the ITV interview, but I have my doubts.” While we cannot confirm if the Chancellor did hear Archie’s story, the Spending Review defied expectation. On 25 November, two days after we spoke, Osborne announced a £600 million investment into mental health services, after personally thanking Lamb for the strength of his campaign.

Notwithstanding this triumph, his campaign is not over, Lamb stresses.

“This movement of change has many dimensions. It starts at the top with the government’s funding obligations. But when you start to speak out from the ground level, it has the power to reach every school, university, workplace and organisation in the country. Through myself and Archie speaking on television, along with every other story shared, it makes it that little easier for the next person to come forward and seek help.”

As a parliamentarian, a minister and public figure, Norman Lamb is synonymous with the “cause for equality” in our nation’s health. Yet perhaps, most resonant for me, was the story of father and son. As I watched their ITV interview the next day, I was not only struck by Archie’s words, but the unmistakable loyalty of the 57-year-old sat beside him. On the subject of mental health, personal experience rises above any political point scoring.

In his speech at the Liberal Democrat’s Spring Conference this year, the MP concluded: “My family is not unique.

I will bring mental health out of the shadows for all.” After the success of Equality 4 Mental Health for the Spending Review, I am certain his resolve will only be stronger. For when it comes to talking about the elephant in the room, there is no silencing The Rt. Hon Norman Lamb.

EXEPOSÉ

FEATURES

www.exepose.com Photo: The Guardian

13

Reactions to the #SyriaVote In Exeter

Airstrikes: a solution in Syria?

Following Parliament’s decision to launch airstikes against ISIS in Syria, Theodore Stone, Online Features Editor, analyses whether the right decision was made

A

ND so it came to pass, that on 2 December 2015, the House of Commons voted to increase the United Kingdom’s air strikes against IS, in order to further contribute towards the on-going Syrian Civil War. With 397 MPs voting in support of the air strikes to the 232 who opposed the motion, and an apparent majority of the public opposing the motion, many of us are understandably disappointed.

Nevertheless, in light of the vote, many reactions tried to simplify the decisions made on Wednesday and compress them into a simple black and white moral scenario, with those who voted in favour of airstrikes being seen by many as ‘bloodthirsty’ warmongers. This is wrong, and we need to examine the reasons as to why the House of Commons did what they did.

Bombing runs will inevitably lead to increased radicalisation against the West It is almost impossible to deny that Iraq was the British Government’s largest failure of foreign policy in decades. The impact it has had on how the general public perceives both the United Kingdom and its premiers has been devastating. Its legacy will forever stain the Blair government and has provoked extreme groups to take action in the Middle East. Nevertheless, we should avoid the concept that Iraq and Afghanistan were the only interventions that mattered.

Military action has worked in the past. The bombing runs in Kosovo between 1998 and 1999, led by NATO, saw the war reach an end far earlier than if no action had been taken, whilst also ensuring that the humanitarian atrocities which were being committed were put to an end. The same can be applied to interventions in Bosnia between 1994 and 1995, and in Sierra Leone in 2000. These operations were largely successful acts

of international interventionism, which saw a satisfactory end to the hostilities within the respective nations. These engagements centred on air strikes supporting local military groups to put an end to genocide-focused terror.

Additionally, air strikes have worked before in Syria. Last year, IS forces were driven out of Kurdish territory through a joint initiative between Kurdish forces and US-led aircraft. The collaboration meant that IS’ expansion was effectively halted. These are the interventions many MP’s are using to make their decisions with. Iraq and Afghanistan are not the only countries the UK has intervened with in the last twenty years. To say that these events in history do not matter because they are not Middle Eastern countries would be a senseless rejection, because they demonstrate the fact that military intervention within a region can yield positive results against those participating in genocidal actions. Just because these events are not as famous does not mean that they are as important to the debate.

Tim Farron is not evil, nor is Ben Bradshaw, and neither is Hilary Benn.

They reached their respective conclusions based upon the evidence that they had been presented with, and by considering both sides. They did not vote for money, or for glory. Nor did they vote because of their unconcern for the innocent civilians in Syria. They voted because they see it as the most effective way of fighting a group driven by fundamental evil, and ending the atrocities that are currently being committed.

They believe that they are defending the same people who have seen their fathers killed, their mothers and sisters sold as sex slaves, their grandparents flung into a mass grave, and their brothers forced to fight for IS, as the people who are standing against air strikes. They are just as disgusted as we are by the actions of IS, and they are also committed to ending the violence. They are not authorising action for a monetary gain, or for personal glory.

Alongside this, the notion that not

bombing Syria represents a bloodless alternative is a fallacy, and the idea that those opposing intervention are moral examples should be rejected. Not bombing Syria would still lead to the loss of innocent lives. Innocents killed by IS advances in areas that could have been protected by aerial assaults would be still directly related to the decisions made by Westminster.

Furthermore, let’s say that, hypothetically, the air strikes greatly shorten the war, or prevent a conflict from taking place had there been no air strikes. Surely, using the same pattern of morality, we can construct the argument that not taking action has been a direct cause of the deaths of innocents?

Nevertheless, the problems with this course of action are numerous. This war is unlike any we have fought before. The enemy in this instance feeds off of terror. They are organised, but they are not urbanised. Bombing runs will inevitably lead to increased radicalisation against the West, whilst allowing IS to proclaim justification for its international actions towards its converted.

The deaths of innocents will be pinned to the United Kingdom, and thus it will grant our enemies the chance to enforce the idea that we are the villains of this piece. As such, the possibility of attacks on British soil will be increased, and will make us no less secure.

The idea that those opposing intervention are moral examples should be rejected In addition to this, we need to look at what it stands for. The argument in favour of military intervention argues for the notion that joining in will aid our international image, and show that we care about our neighbours. However, the governing Liberal Party of Canada has announced their intention to remove themselves from all military roles in Syria to further contribute towards the humanitarian

aid sector. A noticeable factor in this is that their international reputation has not been tarnished. In other words, if we have a country that is willing to withdraw and not lose its scale on the international stage, surely Britain can do the same?

Likewise, there is no plan. The reason behind why intervention in Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Bosnia worked was because NATO entered with a plan, knowing which groups they would support. In this conflict, we have no idea. Whilst the Kurds and Pro-Democracy Syrian Rebels are likely to be our constant allies, they might not be enough. The lack of an exit strategy, and the failure to explicitly state what we intend to do, aside from bomb strategic locations, means that an aerial assault might, in the end, simply be a symbolic gesture that contributes little.

So in light of all of this, should our MP’s have ordered the bombing of Syria?

Personally, I do not think that the decision that they made was the correct one.

Do I think that the MP’s who voted in favour are evil and should be deselected? Of course not. They did what they thought was right, just as much as many of us feel that our position to oppose air strikes is the correct one. It is understandable that many people are disgusted, but if we decide that we are justified in adopting a ‘holier than thou’ attitude, we nullify our credibility.

If we want to defeat IS, we need to show those fighting them that they will have our support. We need to ensure that they know that IS’ way of life is wrong, and that we can help them to rebuild. Simultaneously, we should realise that, to win the hearts and minds of the Syrian populace, we have to demonstrate kindness on our own soil, and we can do this by opening our borders to the refugees arriving from Syria.

We must not allow for the generation of the idea that movement will simply be a transition from terror to squalor. We must be, and we can be, better than this.

But we must not fall afoul of self-righteousness.

“Those who voted for strikes are not warmongers and those against are not terrorist sympathisers” Nick Sutton “Bombing from above ignores the people on the ground, people who hold the power to strengthen or destroy IS” Zeena Starbuck “This is just what IS want, an excuse to carry out more attacks like Paris” Kathy Giddins

On Social Media

uses of 50 thousand #HilaryBenn on 2 December, following the Shadow Foreign Secretary’s speech. uses 641 thousand of #SyriaVote, in reference to the debate.

By UK Government

during the 12 times debate, MPs called on David Cameron to retract a statement, in which he labelled Jeremy Corbyn a “terrorist sympathiser”.

after vote 57 minutes was passed, first RAF airstrikes carried out. cent of MPs 64 per voted in favour of air strikes.

MPs opposed 223 strikes, including Jeremy Corbyn, Norman Lamb and the Conservatives David Davis.

14

FEATURES

NEWS 1-5

COMMENT FEATURES LIFESTYLE 12-15 18-19 8-10

MUSIC 20-23

SCREEN 24-26

ARTS & LIT SCI & TECH 28-30 32-33

GAMES 34-35

SPORT 38-40

7 DECEMBER 2015 |

EXEPOSÉ

Photo: coventrytelegraph.net

“Islamism is a vast killing machine”

Flora Carr, Features Editor, talks Islam, feminism and that Sun front page with the militant atheist Maryam Namazie, recently banned from speaking at Warwick University

W

HEN I first sit down to interview Maryam Namazie, I notice how calm she seems. It’s her bodyguards who seem nervous; they barrel back and forth through the building’s doors. When Namazie goes to the bathroom, one bodyguard waits five minutes before rushing after her, his colleague pacing across the lobby. Iranian-born Namazie is, after all, a human rights activist who has received death threats; who has faced sharp criticism for her recent #ExMuslimBecause campaign, and who The University of Warwick’s student union attempted to ban from speaking on campus. For someone who seems so tranquil, and whose soft voice barely picks up on my audiotape, Namazie is an inciting figure.

My name actually means ‘prayer’... There’s some irony there Born in 1966 in Tehran, Iran, Namazie describes herself as a militant atheist and secularist. She’s spokesperson for the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain and is a Central Committee member of the Worker-communist Party of Iran.

Namazie campaigns against Islamism, which is separate from Islam. Islamism means advocating a political movement that favours reordering government and society, in accordance with laws prescribed by Islam.

In her talk on Exeter campus, organised by Exeter’s Atheist, Humanist and Secular society, Namazie refers to controversial artwork by Mimsy, showing Sylvanian toy families being threatened by ISIS, to highlight the everyday, pervasive threat of Islamism.

“People conflate Muslims and Islam and Islamists, and they’re very different things,” Namazie explains. “Islam is a belief and I can be critical of it, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think that a vast ma-

jority of Muslims are pro-rights. Islamism is like the EDL or Britain First, but of course with a lot more power.”

It’s a nuanced distinction that Namazie feels that many political commentators miss.

I ask whether the public’s blurring of Islamism and Islam was part of the reason Warwick University’s student union tried to ban her from speaking in September. “Definitely,” she responds. “They said that if I came on campus I would incite hatred against Muslim students.

What a low opinion they have of Muslim students. I have a much higher opinion of Muslims than they do, because I’m pretty sure people like my father can tolerate me saying things about Islam without resorting to violence.” She explains that the union’s decision was an example of identity politics. “[We] don’t see politics anymore, just identities. So everyone’s Muslim and if you’re a Muslim that means you’re a regressive, you want Sharia Law, you want the burqa, and you can’t have the same freedom of expression as everyone else because you’ll get offended and you’re too sensitive to handle it.” She believes that today’s society coddles Muslims, but allows criticism of others.

Warwick student union was forced to recant its decision to bar Namazie, following national coverage and an online petition. “Student unions are progressive,’” Namzie says, “they want equal rights for themselves, they want gay rights, LGBT rights, they want to be able to criticise Christianity and make fun of the Pope…

But when it comes to us [ex-Muslim dissenters], we’re suddenly not allowed to have the same sort of freedoms. We’re only allowed to criticise and live within the confines of Islam”. Namazie pauses.

“They have one sort of politics for themselves, and another for the rest of us. And the point is that we have just as much right to dissent and demand freedom of rights and equality as a liberal white student at Warwick does.”

“You mentioned there that your father is a Muslim,” I say. “What does he think of your work?”

“He tells me my grandfather is turning in my grave every time I speak; my grandfather was an Islamic scholar,” Namazie replies. “My last name actually means ‘prayer’, someone who prays, so I’m messing it up on many levels.”

“There’s some irony there,” I say. “Such irony,” Namazie laughs. “But he [my father] is very proud of me, he’s very supportive.” She continues: “If you touch on human values, beyond belief, if you see people as more than their religious or ethnic identities, you will open up a groundswell of support.”

I mention The Sun’s recent ‘One in Five Muslims’ Sympathy for Jihadis’ frontpage, Namazie flips the “unreliable” paper’s claim on its head. “Even if it was true, that means four out of five are not.

Even The Sun are proving my point, that a vast majority of Muslims are not Islamists, that they oppose it.”

There is Paris everyday in Afghanistan, in Iran and Mali and Nigeria Namazie goes on to say that her campaign against Sharia Law Courts in Britain has gained support from various Muslim women’s groups. “It’s called One Law For All, and on 10 December we’re going to hand in the statement. People can still sign the letter on our website.”

Sharia Law Courts are private courts that practise Islamic law, catering to Muslim communities. Namazie believes that the courts are “a form of terrorism against people”.

Under Sharia Civil Code, a woman’s testimony is worth half of a man’s, and she has limited rights concerning divorce and child custody.

“The government says, ‘well, women

can always go to a regular Civil Court if they’re not happy’,” says Namazie, “but that doesn’t take into account the amount of pressure and isolation that these women face, so that they can’t take that step.” When I ask Namazie whether she thinks religion ever plays a positive societal role, it’s women’s rights she focuses on. “Human society has moved on [from religion]. We now abhor violence against women. Even in places like Iran, where violence against women is part of the law, there are vast liberation movements against it. People deserve to live better than the frameworks religion give.”

Namazie also speaks against veiling, referring to the burqa as a “body bag” and angrily denouncing the Islamic slur ‘hojab’ used for half-veiled women.

I mention an article by The Guardian’s David Shariamadari, which seems to claim that Namazie believes that it’s impossible to have a Muslim feminist.

Namazie denies this, blaming Shariamadari’s claim on, again, society’s conflation of Muslims with Islamism.

“Having said that, I don’t think there is something called ‘Islamic feminism’, or ‘Christian feminism’. I don’t think religion can be pro-women, or can be feminist. I think it’s actually inhuman and misogynist. But I think people who subscribe to religious beliefs can be feminist.” When I turn our talk towards the Paris attacks, Namazie stresses both the horror she felt hearing of the atrocities, but also how ISIS is “the tip of the iceberg” of Islamism. “There is Paris everyday in Afghanistan and Iran and Mali and Nigeria,” she states. “You have Islamic states that are legally killing people. Killing apostates, killing free thinkers. Legally, and in broad daylight. Saudi Arabia, for example, has just sentenced a poet to death for apostasy this past week. So it’s [Islamism] a killing machine on a vast scale.”

She continues: “It’s not just the number of people who’ve died in terrorist attacks; it’s all of these people who’ve been

sentenced to prison, who’ve been buried in mass graves.”

I don’t think there is something called ‘Islamic feminism’ Namazie becomes passionate when speaking about everyday atrocities. “In Iran we have a place which the regime has called ‘The Cemetry of the Damned’. It’s a place where they’ve buried the apostates and blasphemers. Every year people go and bring flowers, roses; they don’t even know where their loved ones are buried.”

In our interview, Namazie stresses the atrocities that the British public don’t see. “You’ve heard that Kurdish forces pushed ISIS out of Sinjar… They’ve found three mass graves of over 80 women in each. The women were all over 50 so they [ISIS] couldn’t sell them as sex slaves.”

When I ask Namazie how she thinks we should tackle ISIS, she says that “it’s important to support” the Kurdish forces, in particular women fighters. “The ISIS fighters are very afraid of being killed by women fighters because they won’t go to heaven if they are, according to their beliefs,” Namazie explains. “So, as one of my friends says, it’s great because you’re denying them a virgin here on earth as well as the 72 virgins that they’re supposed to get in heaven.” Breaking her veneer of calmness, Namazie allows herself one small, sly grin.

It’s an intense interview; even as I try to tease out Namazie’s beliefs, I’m still wrapping my head around them. Her comments on Islam and Islamism are bound to enrage commentators on both the left and right of the political spectrum, just as they have done in the past.

However, if Namazie is right in her assertion that ‘I believe in free speech but…’ is the modern order of the day, perhaps this is a good thing.

Satire Clause is coming

EXEPOSÉ

FEATURES

www.exepose.com

15

Corbyn’s Christmas wish A very Conservative Christmas party Sarah Gough Editor

D

EAR Santa, I don’t think I’ve been too naughty this year. Sure, people have complaints. But it’s tough having the brains, the bod and the bubbling enthusiasm for utopian world order.

People are jel, Nick. You know the feels, they’re all like “Santa isn’t real”, you have to deal with that shit. To me, they’re all like “Corbyn’s a disastrous leader, Labour will never win an election again, the party is divided, what is he wearing, why is he here, what is he doing, he is anarchist, pacifist idealist, in-need-of-a-wardrobe stylist, DIE JEZZA C DIE.” You see Santa, you’re the same you and I. While I appreciate your long-standing commitment to symbolically connecting the proliferation of fossil fuels with naughtiness, I don’t think I deserve coal this year. Don’t mock me with the decimation of the Ozone layer when I am doing my best to prevent it. That would be low Nick, real low. Daily Mail kinda low.

I’m not a materialistic guy, I won’t ask for much. However, a few practical additions to the wardrobe would be useful. People who live by hegemonic soci-

etal norms, think it’s smart and clever to have their neck constrained by a piece of fabric all the live long day, have the moronic nerve to criticise me for not living my life to their standards of stupidity. A postmodern tie, therefore, would be fab.

I’m thinking red, with the embroidered words “they’re going to bomb Syria and all you can think about is my tie”.

A hat too, would be good. Something rather loose. Something that would definitely fall off my head should I choose to bow it at future public occasions. That would stamp out any did he/didn’t he debates I think. It could even add to my popularity, my ‘image’. You’ve rocked that Santa hat for so long and now everyone wants you in their house late at night.

I could only hope to gain a similar level of trust from the masses.

In my short time as leader, I’ve discovered that music is an important part of our culture. If they want you, Santa Claus, come to their town and sing about it. An LP of ‘God Save The Queen’ would be of use, I guess. I could spin it on my record player for nationalistic nostalgia.

One final request, I’d love a loyal set of MPs. That might be slightly out of your remit, but you are magic after all.

Yours mate, JC.

Jonny Ainslie

“T

HE best thing, the truly best thing about Christmas is...”

“I think you better stop there Prime Minister, we talked about tact…”

“Pigs in blankets, Osborne! Nothing like getting your sausage slapped between a roll of...“ “Bacon?”

“Spot on Osborne! Why do those Labour chaps have hardly any food this year?”

Looking down the monolithic table, it was clear to see the disparity. The bearded Corbyn sat glowering over a small microwave dinner, whilst his disgruntled MPs looked glumly over a paltry spread of leftovers and greasy takeaway chip wrappers.

Scanning down the polished oak, George had to assume that one or two of their backbenchers were a little jealous; the mountains of roast potatoes, succulent turkey, sage and onion stuffing – all the way down to the pink, glistening ham of Cameron’s forehead, was a sight to behold.

“I have a feeling that Corbyn donated his share of the annual Crimbo piss-up to the food banks this year Prime Minister” “Whining scroungers.”

“Indeed, Prime Minister. But I fear that even Mr Corbyn’s efforts couldn’t deliver to all of them, there’s a million or so this year I think.”

“It looks like Pickles brought his own from home!”

“Yes, we had a sit down with Eric last year and explained the budgetary cutbacks and how they’d hit hardest. Don’t worry – expenses will cover it.”

Jeremy continued glowering from his end of the table, managing a thinly lipped smile as he saw the distant Cameron raise a crystal champagne flute in toast.

“Look at them, the bastards. They’re probably sat over there –“ “With their turkey…”

“Yes. With their turkey – stop interrupting Watson.”

“Sorry Jeremy.”

“Sat over there – probably making fat jokes, or some other insensitive dribble between the lolling of their chins…”

Watson nodded.

“You see Tom, I thought our moral stand would get through to the noble Prime Minister…”

“It’s a shame a few of our lot rebelled in the ranks, Sir.” “I told EVERYONE that Tupperware-ing in Christmas pudding was unacceptable!

I’ll make Kendall pay, she can go and sit on her own next to Farage and Lucas for the rest of the dinner.”

“Sir, can I ask: what are we planning for next year? You know, the meat and two veg of our policy.”

“There’ll be none of that Watson, meat and veg is all for the foodbanks.”

“You know what I mean sir…”

“We’re planning to do nothing. Inaction is key – like with Santa. He doesn’t actually do anything but gets all the credit.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“Well we’re not planning on bombing Syria, we’re not planning to renew trident – frankly it’s easier to sit around and make vague statements like giving up Christmas dinner than thinking of ‘solutions’.”

“Right. Can you pass the salmon please?”

“Watson keep up, it’s all sturgeon this year – and you’re not having any of it.”

“Neither are you sir, Scotland seems happy keeping itself to itself at the moment.”

“Merry Christmas Watson.”

vehicle was later discovered to belong to none other than the ‘Santa Claus’ gentleman arrested earlier that day.

He was later fined for drunken and disorderly driving after being found over the limit, admitting that he’s had a problematic history with alcohol and his sleigh has a secret stash of sherry in the glove box. However, he wasn’t charged for illegal parking, as there were no double yellow lines on the roof.

The day’s events subsequently came to a dramatic conclusion when ‘Santa Claus’ managed to escape the police HQ completely undetected. A police officer, who has now been suspended, stated that he turned his back on him “for just a moment” before spinning around to find “a

sprinkling of magic dust occupying the space he was in”, claiming he had just “vanished into thin air”. Police have also confirmed that the reindeer and sleigh have also disappeared without a trace, with one local swearing he glimpsed them flying northwards over the city skyline.

In response to the dramatic news, the Government have decided to go ahead with Christmas as usual, despite safety concerns being raised over the madman who may potentially break into all our homes. They advise putting for burglar alarms on the top of your Christmas list.

Scotland Yard released a short statement yesterdy, assuring the general public this would not put ‘the security of our christmas’ at risk.

Why is it that the Labour chaps have hardly any food this year Osborne?

Is Saint Nick bringing us a very merry Crimemas?

Evan Jones Games Editor

A

large-scale investigation by a leading UK tabloid has revealed that the festive holiday of Christmas is in fact an elaborate scam coordinated by a criminal mastermind. The discovery was made after a fat man dressed in a red coat with white fur trims, a large snowy beard and half-moon spectacles was caught in the local area with plans to break into all the houses across the UK. The large white male, who identified himself as ‘Santa Claus’, was subsequently arrested by police and, when informed he had the right to remain silent, simply

responded with very jolly laughter before asking the police officers what they wanted for Christmas. He was then taken into custody around lunchtime yesterday for further questioning.

He works under multiple aliases, including Father Christmas and St. Nicholas Meanwhile, the journalists, who have wished to remain anonymous, later handed in evidence they had uncovered during their investigation including a handwritten list of all the UK children who had been naughty or nice, an aerial map of the

UK and a very large sack of presents.

Inside sources have informed us that upon being interrogated about how he acquired these gifts, ‘Santa Claus’ told them an extravagant story about “elves he employs to make the gifts” and “runs a largescale toy manufacturer based at the North Pole”. He also revealed that he works under multiple known aliases including ‘Father Christmas’ and ‘Saint Nicholas’.

Police also want to question a so-called ‘Mrs Claus’ who is believed to be assisting with the suspected criminal’s operation.

Things became more extraordinary later that day, when a member of the public called local authorities to report that a bunch of reindeer - attached to a four-byfour sleigh - were parked on her roof. The

18

NEWS 1-5

LIFESTYLE

COMMENT FEATURES LIFESTYLE 18-19 12-15 8-10

MUSIC 20-23

LIFESTYLE Tweets of the week These people are making the most of their final weeks of uni before heading home for Christmas...

SCREEN 24-26

ARTS & LIT SCI & TECH 28-30 32-33

GAMES 34-35

7 DECEMBER 2015 |

SPORT 38-40

Exeposé Lifestyle

LIFESTYLE EDITORS Joshua Rotchelle Jack Wardlaw

EXEPOSÉ

@ExeposeLStyle

Restyle is back lifestyle@exepose.com

To celebrate Christmas, Jack Wardlaw, Lifestyle Editor, restarts our restyle feature and takes one lucky student on a shopping trip he won’t forget Photos: Edwin Yeung

Tweet us @ExeposeLStyle Sarah @sarahgoughy Found out that I will be working 8 hours on the Waitrose ‘turkey desk’ on Christmas Eve. Could my life get any less glamorous?

Eamonn @EamonnLC The winter just makes me lose any ounce of motivation that I have Carmen @CarmenPaddock Saw a girl using her laptop as an umbrella on the rainy walk to campus this morning. University educations are overrated Laurel @laurelbibby I ate breakfast at 3:30pm today and have had pizza for dinner four days in a row. Not sure whether to be proud or ashamed.

Exeter Strikes Yak •

Just need 146% in my January exam and I’m back on track

•

Shower thoughts - Everytime you paint a room... it gets a little bit smaller

•

To the angry guy at Unit 1 last night who said he’d fuck my mum: jokes on you she’s hideous

•

Last night I had sex with not 1, not 2, but 0 girls

•

Forever trying to work out how they chose which colour chairs went where in the forum alumni lecture theatre

•

Time to get Michael Bublé out of his cage

I

Before

T’S a cold, November night and I’m on my way to meet Matt - the lucky chosen guy who will be our first Restyle candidate in two years. When I meet him outside John Lewis, I can see the slight look of trepidation on his face. He is clearly second-guessing why he ever agreed to let a complete stranger dress him. I try to reassure him that I won’t make him look terrible or ridiculous, but he doesn’t seem convinced. To begin with, I ask him a few questions, just to get to know what his sort of style is so I can get an idea of what I can get away with and what will make Matt draw the line and potentially punch me in the face.

When I meet Matt outside John Lewis, I can see the slight look of trepidation on his face Matt confesses that he knows nothing about fashion and doesn’t have a particular style: this is going to make the job harder. How do you pick out clothes for someone who doesn’t really know what they like and what they don’t? We start by hitting Urban Outfitters, mainly so I can gauge his reaction to different styles of clothing. I suggest a green jacket, but Matt’s cowering reaction says it all.

Zara is where we begin to make progress. Matt tries on a rather festive cardigan complete with fur collar - he’s starting to be a bit more adventurous but it looks like something Macklemore’s grandad would wear, so we have another look around. Matt seems to be gravitating to fairly plain knitwear, in shades of blue and grey, so naturally I tell him to take a red and navy checked shirt into the fitting rooms to try it on, with high hopes for the outcome.

The gamble pays off, and Matt emerges with a moderately surprised look on his face. It actually suits him and he says he likes it. At £30 it’s not too bad for a shirt, but as we discuss what outfits we can build with it, we agree that jeans would be better bought elsewhere. It’s already been about 45 minutes but now we’re making progress as we pay for the shirt and head round the corner to Topman.

As we all know, Topman has more choices of jeans than there are pigeons in Timepiece, but somehow, after much deliberation, we manage to narrow it down and Matt takes in about five or six pairs to try on.

Surprisingly, we manage to decide quite quickly on a great pair of slim navy jeans that go perfectly with the shirt and aren’t as spray-on skinny as Matt was fearing. Thanks to the Black Friday

After

promotions, we also grab a few bracelets that are half price to add a finishing touch to the look and, relatively painlessly, we suddenly have a brand new outfit for less than £75. Mission accomplished.

As a follow up to the evening, I caught up with Matt to ask a few questions about his experience of being restyled...

What were your expectations before being restyled?

At one point I was just sat in my room with a housemate of mine saying “Why am I doing this?” so that gives you some impression!

2

What was the experience like?

It really was a lot of fun! Going to a few shops where I would never usually go was pretty interesting.

Were there any awkward moments?

Probably the worst was when I was initially told that I was a “prime subject” for a restyle - i.e. “you look like a tramp.”

1

What do you think of your new look?

I was pleasantly surprised. It was so simple but it was a great improvement.

Will you change your shopping/dressing habits now after being restyled?

Yeah, I’ll probably start bringing a clothing sage along to help dress me.

What is the one bit of advice you would give someone else who is hoping to be restyled?

I would say something clichéd like “be willing to try something different” and not to be apprehensive because it’s great fun. Or to just blow the whole Restyle budget on a Jon Snow-like cloak.

3

1. Check Shirt - £29.99 Zara 2. Stretch Slim Jeans £29.99 Topman 3. Braclets - £1.50 each, Topman

The best of 2 15 EXEPOSÉ

Exeposé Lifestyle recap the year’s best pop culture moments 5. Madonna’s fall from grace Edna Mode, from The Incredibles, is probably one of the greatest philosophers of all time. Her legendary rule of “No Capes!” is something which is universally true, but Madonna thought she was the exception to the rule. It was the Brit Awards in February that saw Madonna suffer the same fate as so many superheros before her. Her giant Armani cape, while stunningly beautiful, proved to be her downfall as she struggled to remove the fastening and promptly got dragged down a flight of stairs by an unfortunate backing dancer. However, Madonna got up and carried on like an absolute pro, and now we can look back on this moment fondly and relive the clip again and again and again. Don’t lie, we’ve all seen the video and laughed a bit, even though we hate ourselves afterwards.

4. J.K. Rowling’s SSB invite It was a moment akin to the bit in Mean Girls where Bethany Byrd says of Regina George: “one time, she punched me in the face. It was awesome”. Exeter students everywhere couldn’t believe it when we awoke in October to find that the legendary J.K. Rowling had tweeted about us. Granted, it was rejecting our invite to attend the infamous SSB as a guest of honour, but that’s not the point. We will treasure the memory forever, as we were metaphorically punched in the face as she tweeted: “Thanks for the kind invitation!

I’ve got a feeling I’m three decades too old to enjoy this, but you have fun!” Perhaps

she was just too busy - maybe she was doing car commercials… in Japan.

3. The Left Shark Never let anyone tell you that you can’t dance. That’s the advice we’d give the Left Shark who was throwing caution to the wind and dancing to the beat of his own drum during Katy Perry’s Super Bowl Halftime show in February. In the hilarious couple of minutes he was on stage, the adorable Left Shark threw off the shackles of conformity and just went for it, and it made for great TV viewing. You do you Left Shark- you’re an inspiration to us all!

2. Calendar Girls Traditionally, the Pirelli Calendar is an exclusive collection of images that get sent to celebrities and select VIP clients across the world - it isn’t exactly something you can pick up at your local W.H. Smith - featuring the most beautiful women in the world.

It is traditionally a raunchy, nudityfilled calendar, but the latest version, shot by Annie Leibovitz takes the project in a completely different direction. Instead of

models, the 2016 calendar features some of the most powerful women in the world, selected by Pirelli for their “outstanding professional, social, cultural, sporting and artistic accomplishment”.

These women include Serena Williams, Patti Smith and Amy Schumer. The potential positive impact of the calendar definitely earns it a spot on our countdown - it’s just a shame not everyone will be able to see the pictures.

1. “Call Me Caitlyn” And so, the best moment of the year is here. It was a moment in June that changed our social landscape forever.

It was the moment that Caitlyn Jenner appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair for the first time after her transition and pushed the issues of trans people to the forefront of our discussions. As a symbol, Caitlyn’s cover made waves across the internet and stands as a statement that trans people will no longer be invisible in society. Awareness is growing as people become more educated about issues facing trans people, and the significance of how that cover furthered the discussion cannot be ignored. Growing and continuing discusiion is a sign that positive changes are underway, and Caitlyn’s cover is a symbol of these positive changes.

Base and banter

James Beeson, Editor, reviews Exeter’s newest crafty hotspot Base and Barley Longbrook Street

B

ASE and Barley is the latest venture from Exeter’s poshest coffee shop chain, Artigiano. Situated just a stone’s throw away from Exeter Firehouse and across from the (in)famous King Billy pub, the restaurant opened its doors last week, offering pundits and foodies alike the chance to sample their Italian sourdough pizzas, craft beer and cocktails.

The restaurant itself is a spectacle, with a mixture of rustic and modern interior fittings and ambient mood lighting. A huge wood-fired oven dominates the room, churning out delicious looking and authentic Italian pizzas. The drink selection is varied, with

LIFESTYLE

www.exepose.com

exotic cocktails and posh soft drinks. The craft beer selection, however, is a little limited, with Brewdog’s Dead Pony Club probably the highlight.

The menu is surprisingly reasonably priced, with the pizzas all costing under nine pounds. I plump for a No.2 pizza, topped with mozzarella, peppers and spicy nduja sausage. The waiting staff are attentive and friendly, although there are clearly still some teething problems that need to be ironed out - orders kept arriving at our table, before our hopes were dashed as we realised these weren’t in fact our pizzas.

Unfortunately the turnaround on the food is slow, and our pizzas finally

arrived almost an hour after we ordered.

Luckily the food is excellent - crispy thin sourdough bases and fresh toppings that could easily have been prepared in a restaurant on a sunny Rome piazza. The portions aren’t massive, but represent good (if not great) value for money for under ten pounds, and the food seems reasonably healthy, or certainly healthier than your average Domino’s.

It’s safe to say that the restaurant is clearly still finding its feet, and there are undoubtedly some flaws that need attention, but once these are sorted, Base and Barley may just become one of the trendiest and most popular hangouts in town.

19

Written in the stars Our brand new shiny resident astrologer, Necromantic Nickie has rubbed her crystal ball(s) to predict the future for your month ahead Sagittarius (Nov 22 – Dec 21) There’s something about the glaring Christmas lights of Princesshay that make you go all weak at the knees. Find a new route, or risk unhealthy joints.

in Arena (or whatever the kids are calling it these days), and you’re going to be offered something. It will have Santa Claus’ face on it. It will be a bauble, and you will end up in the ER.

Capricorn (Dec 22 – Jan 19) Financially, December is going to be awful, Capricorn – but you’ve got Student Finance on your side, so go ahead and buy those rosegold toenail clippers.

Leo (Jul 23 – Aug 22) The answer to all your worries is in the anagram: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen.

Aquarius (Jan 20 – Feb 18) There’s only so much that a stocking can take, and there’s a dark abyss lurking inside your cheerfully-seamed, glorified socks. Trust noone this month.

Pisces (Feb 19– Mar 20) This winter, you’ve got a warm feeling in your heart. Is it the relentlessly-twinkling lights? The street choir that suddenly starts singing as you pass by, scaring you half to death?

The general public voluntarily wearing Santa hats? Who knows.

Whatever it is, grab it with both mitted hands, because it’ll never happen again.

Aries (Mar 21 – Apr 19) Despite the spilled mulled wine and that one piece of glitter that won’t get off your cheek, you’re feeling pretty good this month.

Nothing can hold you back, Aries – not even that one housemate who ate all the advent calendar chocolates in November.

Taurus (Apr 20 – May 20) Taurus, you’ve been trying to ignore it, but it’s nearly Christmas. Be a dear and rant about consumerist culture and the ethics behind mince pies – this month, your friends will love you for it.

Gemini (May 21 – Jun 20) You’ve been trying to get the perfect Christmas present for that special someone, but everywhere you look – desolation. Just get them those socks and call it a day.

Cancer (Jun 21 – Jul 22) At some point this month, you’re going to find yourself

Virgo (Aug 23 – Sep 22) You know that really obscure society you paid for during Fresher’s and then never turned up to because you’re lazy and apathetic?

Well, they’ve got a Christmas social and you should definitely go. With a tinsel scarf. But like, in an ironic way. This is Exeter, after all.

Libra (Sep 23 – Oct 22) Fill the mantle piece of your front room with all the Christmas cards you receive this year, dear Libra.

When there’s no more room, hang the cards from some string, taped onto the wall. Be sure to really rip it off when Christmas is over, leaving some holes in the paint to remind your roommates of how popular you are.

Scorpio (Oct 23 – Nov 21) You boycotted Starbucks and Costa over the summer because a) screw the system and b) coffee makes you weird. Now you eye people with their fancy cups and cinnamon lattes. Stay strong, Scorpio. It’ll be the harshest winter yet.

20

MUSIC

NEWS 1-5

COMMENT FEATURES LIFESTYLE 18-19 12-15 8-10

MUSIC Gig Listings

Monday 7 December Pillars, The Dreamer Within Cavern, Exeter Tuesday 8 December National Acrobats, The Allergens Cavern, Exeter Don Broco The Lemon Grove, Exeter Wednesday 9 December Hacktivist Cavern, Exeter Thursday 10 December Bad Manners, Mad Splodge Cavern, Exeter SiKth Motion, Bristol Friday 11 December Chester P Cavern, Exeter The Computers Phoenix, Exeter Saturday 12 December The Poet Junkies Cavern, Exeter Thursday 17 December Grice Phoenix, Exeter Friday 18 December The Selecter Phoenix, Exeter

Exeposé Recommends...

MUSIC 20-23

SCREEN 24-26

ARTS & LIT SCI & TECH 28-30 32-33

GAMES 34-35

7 DECEMBER 2015 |

SPORT 38-40

Exeposé Music

MUSIC EDITORS James Atherton Katie Costello

@ExeposeMusic

music@exepose.com

You Only Live Once James Beeson, Editor, chats with The Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. about the emotional strain of being a rock star, his most recent solo album and Julian Casablancas

“D

ON’T mention The Strokes”, reads the headline of the Sydney Telegraph’s 2008 interview with Albert Hammond Jr. You must be joking, I think to myself as I pick up the phone and dial the number of a member of one of the biggest rock bands on the planet. It’s not often that an opportunity to chat to a member of The Strokes arises, and I’d be damned if I was going to let one prickly interview stop me from asking the questions I wanted answered.

Nevertheless, when Hammond is patched through to me by his PA, I decide to start the conversation by asking about the 35-year old’s solo career; a venture that has so far yielded three albums and brought him to Bristol to play The Fleece just last month.

“Both shows of the tour have been amazing so far,” he tells me, “The reaction has been fantastic, especially to the new songs; I couldn’t wait to play them.

We played our first show [in the UK] in Oxford and it was great to see the crowd waving for the new ones.”

The new songs to which Hammond refers are of course tracks taken from his latest solo album, Momentary Masters, released earlier in the year. Unfortunately for Hammond, the new material hasn’t taken off in quite the same way as The Strokes, with his latest release failing to chart in the US or in the UK. Hence, Hammond now finds himself playing significantly smaller venues than in the past. I ask him what the transition has been like for him as an artist.

ally love to play large venues with my band right now. Just last night (playing at Gorilla in Manchester) it was like our dreams were across the street at the Ritz – a visual representation of where we want to go… but as a new band, you have to build a career, and even if your last venture was successful you can’t just go into the next one doing the same venues.”

One thing Hammond has always been keen to emphasise (hence the Sydney Telegraph interview) is that his solo material is something to be kept distinctly separate from his work with The Strokes.

I ask him why this is the case, and how he deals with instances, such as when in September 2015 he was heckled by members of the audience to play Strokes songs at a solo show.

“I don’t really feel like I’ve ever had people heckle me!” he retorts, a little taken aback, “but this naturally feels separate to me. I’m in that band [The Strokes] and I’ll always have been in that band, and no matter what happens, I’ll always be thankful of it for the rest of my life. But it’s hard, because we made such an

impact at a young age… so now it’s just a case of going and doing what I do, and letting time and records build something else, something new up.”

Despite this attempt to keep his solo project separate, Hammond’s solo material is unmistakably similar to The Strokes, something he isn’t shy of admitting: “I try to make bombastically melodic rock and roll,” he says, “I don’t really think about how different or the same it is from other things I like or in the vein of The Strokes. I feel very different from the band… when I fell in love with making music, it was more like what I’m doing now, and I feel like I’ve finally got to the right place where I feel like I can do it well.”

I’ve thought about [a Strokes reunion] for a long time Regardless of this, Strokes fans will undoubtedly be keen to know whether they can expect to see the band playing together again in the UK. With this in mind, I brace myself for an onslaught and ask: will we see another Strokes tour anytime in the near future?

Hammond’s response is surprisingly honest:

“I’ve thought about it for a long time,” he sighs, “but it was just too hard emotionally to keep up

“ I think it’s just

Don Broco @ The Lemon Grove Exeter Tuesday 8 December Don Broco are playing in Exeter this month, following their latest album Automatic which bagged them their first top ten album. It promises to be a fun show, with the boys refining their party style live show with a series of house gigs in November.

EXEPOSÉ

where I’m at (as an artist) right now,” he admits, “I’d re-

not at least I’m continuing doing what I love to do.”

Intrigued by the ‘emotional strain’ Hammond refers to, I begin a question asking him exactly what he means by this, but he interrupts me: “It shouldn’t be like that!” he exclaims, “It shouldn’t be emotionally straining, it should be fun! In the grand scheme of things we’re really lucky to do what we do. It’s just music, it’s not brain surgery, and sometimes I think that gets lost…” he trails off, and I decide not to push further on what is clearly a sore and personal subject.

Hoping to lighten the mood, I turn the conversation towards Hammond’s close friend and band-mate Julian Casablancas. Famously cold and detached on stage, I ask Hammond, who has known Casablancas since he was 13, what he is like to work with, and how accurate the media’s perception of The Strokes frontman really is.

“He’s never like he is on stage,” Hammond tells me, “I think the biggest misconception about us is that we’re all really moody, but we’re really more all funny goofballs than anything else. I guess in mediums like the media and on stage you can’t build a three dimensional person really…It gets projected out in little bits, and nobody is really how you read about them.

“I don’t ever really ask him [Casablancas] about that…But no, he’s definitely not wearing sunglasses and cold when you’re talking to him. He’s a very normal, silly person that also has a wonderful sense of depth. But I don’t know if you’d get that across by talking to him though!”

Its just music, it’s not brain surgery, and sometimes I think that gets a bit lost with, so I just kind of let go. I’m not the one pushing for it anymore. One half of me can picture it, the other half just can’t… so I think it’s just silly to worry about it because if it happens I’ve worried for no reason and if it doesn’t happen the worry isn’t going to help make me feel any better.

“I’m going to focus and spend a couple of years to try and build this band and to build a repertoire with them,” he continues, “whether The Strokes do stuff or

It is this funny, sillier side of Casablancas that saw him release a cover of Saturday Night Live Christmas single ‘I wish it were Christmas today” back in 2009. To finish the interview, I ask Hammond what he thought of the track.

“Yeah…. it was cool,” he mumbles, undoubtedly a little peeved to be answering yet more questions about The Strokes, and, having probably pushed my luck a little already, I decide it’s probably best to leave it at that.

EXEPOSÉ

Adele: slightly happier

MUSIC

www.exepose.ex.ac.uk Photo: goodthingsguy.com

A

LBUM releases don’t come more highly anticipated than Adele’s 25. After the phenomenal success of 21, an album that seemingly broke every record possible, Adele left herself little room for improvement with her third offering. Yet, when ‘Hello’ flashed onto our screens during an X Factor ad-break, Adele’s signature vocals were instantly recognisable and she set the music industry, rather than the rain, alight this time.

Arguably, the success of 25 rested entirely on the reception to her comeback single, and ‘Hello’ certainly didn’t disappoint. An impressive ballad, ‘Hello’ hasn’t taken long to saturate the airwaves, with it being played almost wall-

to-wall on the radio. But despite this, it hasn’t tired or got old. Like her previous major hits, ‘Hello’ looks set to pass the test of time, with it only growing on me more with each listen. It’s uplifting with just an edge of melancholia, a perfect combination, and one which Adele has become quite an expert in achieving.

Whilst ‘Hello’ may have grabbed the headlines, the rest of the album matches, and in some places exceeds, the original hype Whilst ‘Hello’ may have grabbed the headlines, the rest of the album matches, and in some places exceeds, the original hype. As Adele recently remarked, “I make records, I don’t want to be about singles,” and 25 is certainly not about

Hot: ‘Last Christmas’ – Wham!

In true last-editionbefore-Christmasstyle, how could I not mention a Christmas song? As soon as those opening few bars hit you, get ready for George Michael to be stuck in your head for at least three months.

manufacturing commercial hits, instead presenting a complete body of work, with clear soul influences running through it like the ‘River Lea’ Adele so hypnotically serenades.

Other particular highlights from the album include ‘Send My Love (To Your New Lover)’ - an unusually upbeat number from the queen of tragedy – and the sultry acoustic ‘Million Years Ago’.

‘Water Under the Bridge’ is another highlight, being far punchier, a song of defiance with Adele refusing to allow her heart to be broken again. By far, the stand out track of the album is ‘When We Were Young’, a song that makes you feel nostalgic about the memories you never had, and makes you mourn the relationships you never lost.

Once again, Adele showcases her talent for storytelling that ‘Someone Like You’ made her famous for, making you feel her pain in a way no other artist can.

Admittedly, upon first listen, it’s easy to find yourself feeling underwhelmed by sections of 25. This is to be expected from an album which has been surrounded by so much excitement that you’re half expecting to be induced into an emotional state somewhere in-between multiple orgasms and an Indian head massage.

Not even Adele seems able to transport us to this sensory euphoria which packs a cumulatively more thrilling punch with each song. But that’s no criticism of 25, and overall Adele does manage to create a truly wonderful album.

It’s difficult to follow a success like 21, but in her latest release, Adele has made something which has the potential to be just as record-breakingly popular.

She has reaffirmed her position as musical royalty with an album which blends musical elements of the Adele we know and love with a newfound artistic maturity.

Santa’s road trip tape

With Christmas just around the corner, the Exeposé Music writers hedge their bets on what Saint Nick will be listening to, whilst he is delivering presents on Christmas Eve.

Hot / Not / Long Shot / Forgot As the end of the year draws near, Helen Payne lets us know which songs she thinks are hot, which are not, one which is a longshot and one which has been forgot(ten).

Zak Mahinfar, Comment Editor, is pretty smitten with Adele’s new album 25 Adele 25 November 2015

21

The Beach Boys You Still Believe in Me - Joe Stewart Ridin’ Solo - Jason Derulo - Phoebe Davis Slayer - Raining Blood - Oli Thompson Ludacris - Ludacrismus - Alex Brammer Joy - Tracey Thorn - Emma Previgano Rush - Fly by Night -Theo Stone Status Quo - Rockin’ All over the World -Kathy Giddins A$AP MOB ft. Santa - Hella ho ho hoes - Josh Mines

Not: ‘What Do You Mean?’

– Justin Bieber Apparently Justin Bieber is cool now. I must have missed this memo as I still can’t get over the sickening ‘Baby’ of 2010 that everyone else has mysteriously forgotten. Biebs seems to have begun exploring tropical house but I’m sorry Justin, it just doesn’t cut it.

Long Shot: ‘London Planes’ – Bibio Bibio released a new album recently that I’d been waiting a few years for. His experimental electronic music uses acoustic, layered guitars and first hand recordings of nature, people and the areas surrounding him to create vivid and tantalising atmospheres that are always just beautiful.

Forgot: ‘Once Around the Block’ – Badly Drawn Boy I cannot stop playing this song and I’m shocked that it’s fifteen years old. I purchased the album The Hour of Bewilderbeast in HMV for a bargain of £2.

I hope they make a comeback as all of their tracks are modest and brilliant.

Albums of the year 2

22

NEWS 1-5

MUSIC

1

2

3

COMMENT FEATURES LIFESTYLE 18-19 12-15 8-10

To Pimp A Butter�ly Kendrick Lamar

T

HERE are a few albums which can only be talked about in hushed reverence. Illmatic by Nas. The almost self-titled Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). Dr. Dre’s The Chronic. N.W.A.’s seminal Straight Outta Compton. Madvillain’s Madvillainy. And the next entrance into that pantheon is To Pimp A Butterfly.

Carrie & Lowell Su�jan Stevens

S

UFJAN Stevens’s Carrie and Lowell is his best record since his 2005 breakthrough Illinois. That is undeniable.

But the fact that the record abandons that album’s avant-garde maximalism in favour of stripped back, intimate tracks filled with anguish and personal reflection is something of a revelation. The album autobiographies the death of his

Sometimes I Sit & Think, Sometimes I Just Sit Courtney Barnett

A

FTER a great deal of hype and a string of EPs, Australian slacker Courtney Barnett finally landed the highly anticipated Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit. Over the past few years Barnett has built a growing fan base with her brand of observational suburban poetry and this album does

4

5

B’lieve I’m Going Down Kurt Vile

B

‘LIEVE I’m Going Down is lazy indie-rock in the best way possible.

Kurt Vile’s sixth studio album is a genuinely captivating piece of work, its infectiously laidback pace dealt by a subtle and continuous rhythm akin to a heartbeat. It has been expertly produced with a huge amount of depth in the instrumentals, layered perfectly alongside a consistently

Another One Mac DeMarco

D

EMARCO knows what works.

From last year’s Salad Days, he keeps to the same recipe of twinkling, twangy guitars and funky bass lines to make this album the spectacle that it is.

Its impossibly chilled out vibes are made for those lazy summer evenings that don’t seem to end, of laughter, empty beer cans and a long burnt out barbeque. With a

MUSIC 20-23

SCREEN 24-26

ARTS & LIT SCI & TECH 28-30 32-33

GAMES 34-35

SPORT 38-40

7 DECEMBER 2015 |

EXEPOSÉ

I remember waking up one cold January morning, crusty-eyed, cursing the world, opening my phone and seeing a text from a friend: “THE NEW KENDRICK IS OUT EARLY, AND IT’S GREAT.” I’ve been following Kendrick Lamar’s work for a couple of years now, so that woke me the fuck up. Three years of rumour and hype were building up to that first listen, but I still wasn’t prepared.

From the opening Flying Lotus beat on ‘Wesley’s Theory’ to the electrifying final

‘interview’ with Tupac on ‘Mortal Man’, I was rapt. A lot of you might dismiss this as just the latest Pitchfork-core token rap album to throw at the top of the list, but To Pimp A Butterfly is so much more than that. Lamar’s art has a novelistic, confessional aspect to it quite unlike anything I’ve heard before. Maybe that’s why there’s a spoken word poem at the centre of the album, sharing more with Sylvia Plath than Drake.

The album has intense instrumenta-

tion and incredible melodies and funk.

Kendrick also features a number of relatively unknown artists such as SZA who complement the album perfectly.

Since the hip-hop renaissance of the 1990s, people have been wondering who could possibly match legends like Nas and Tupac. With Kendrick Lamar’s evolution into conscious street-poet on To Pimp A Butterfly, we have an answer.

mother, and his relationship to her.

On this album, we get poignant songs about Sufjan’s childhood in the form of ‘Eugene’ and the title track, and, in a way, Carrie & Lowell can still be seen as something of a career summary for those who have followed Stevens over the years. Obviously owing more to the equally stripped back Seven Swans than any of Sufjan’s other albums, there are still shades of the electronic experimentation of Stevens’s previous Age of Adz. The

extended ending to ‘Should Have Known Better’, equals Radiohead’s Kid A in terms of electronic music capable of articulating genuine human emotion. Equally, the record matches the musical ambitions of Illinois, albeit in terms of it possessing the most personal and direct lyrics Sufjan has ever written. Never has Sufjan sounded more as if he is speaking directly to the listener; the lyrics act more as a confession from a close friend than generalised platitudes. 2015 has been a year of the

loud, pushing the boundaries of how many instruments and genres can sit on an individual record.

With Carrie & Lowell, Sufjan has created something more intimate, but no less complex.

not disappoint. Delivered as a meandering stream of consciousness, Barnett’s debut explores topics ranging from road kill (‘Dead Fox’), swimming (‘Aqua Profunda!’) and house hunting (‘Depreston’) in an effortlessly witty fashion. Even with the omission of two of her biggest previous singles in ‘Avant Gardner’ and ‘History Eraser’, Barnett provides a very strong album, filled with the wit and humour of her earlier work. Musically, Barnett and her band are more than adept, drifting between the hard rocking grunge

of tracks like ‘Pedestrian at Best’ to the indie pop of ‘Elevator Operator’ and with the messy, distorted guitars complementing her nonchalant delivery, that sees her almost talking in many of the songs. A true standard bearer for intelligent guitar music, Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit is easily one of the year’s, if not decade’s, greatest albums and shows the birth of one of this generation’s most naturally talented lyricists.

heavy baseline throughout the tracks.

Opening with ‘Pretty Pimpin’’, Vile draws out his syllables to the limit, alongside a crisp guitar track that sounds a little bit country and a regular, thumping beat that follows us through the rest of the album.

Vile’s individuality is best shown by his use of the banjo, particularly in ‘I’m an Outlaw’ where it brings a folky undertone that is refreshing in a potentially repetitive genre of music. The layering of cyclic instrumentals paradoxically enthrals

your attention as you drift through the tracks in a haze of shaky speaksing vocals and fuzzy guitar strumming. The album generally requires very little effort to listen to, with its super chilled vibe leaving you in a relaxed headspace as lethargic as Vile’s voice and guitar sound.

mixture of sleepy, slow tracks like ‘Another One’ and ‘A Heart Like Hers’, and more upbeat, rinky-tink, country influenced songs, such as ‘Just to Put Me Down’, this shorter album by DeMarco will keep fans of this hypnotic stoner ambience craving for more. The final track, ‘House by the Water’, is a minimalistic mix of running water, aeroplane sounds and an invitation from DeMarco to visit his apartment for coffee.

HELEN PAYNE

RORY MARCHAM

JACK POWYS MAURICE

ALEX BRAMMER

CHRIS FILSELL

2015: King Kendrick EXEPOSÉ

MUSIC

www.exepose.ex.ac.uk

Coming Home Leon Bridges

L

ISTENING to Texan-born Leon Bridges’ debut album Coming Home is like stepping into the past. It brings to mind American diners, movie drive-ins, frilly skirts and red lipstick, and does so with a skill that keeps it from sounding dated.

After a surprisingly short time on the music scene, Bridges has

How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful Florence & The Machine

T

HIS year saw Florence return bigger than ever with her

already been compared to the greats like Sam Cooke and Otis Reading in his sweet sounding gospel-soul album. Bridges was only spotted in 2014, at a gig by Austin Jenkins of White Denim, and was then signed to Columbia Records. Within the year he was viral on Spotify and selling out shows.

Coming Home moves seamlessly from the slower waltzes of ‘Lisa Sawyer’ and ‘Shine’ to the upbeat jive tracks like ‘Flowers’, with each song being the per-

fectly produced nugget of vintage tone.

Particular highlights include ‘Smooth Sailin’’, which complete with soulful backing singers and a saxophone sounds straight out of the sixties, whilst ‘Better Man’ is pure funk and motown. Lyrically, Bridges covers themes present today and in the past, ranging from failed relationships to the geography of America, to Bridges’ own mother’s biography. With each of these, he manages to do what so many fail at, and fully immerse himself in the infec-

tious gospel rock n roll of the 50s and 60s, whilst still retelling immensely personal stories through his lyrics.

As if that wasn’t enough, Bridges’ voice is soft and velvety; the perfect sound for the smooth soul music he does so well.

Coming Home is a faultless album of nostalgic tracks, in which he manages to perfect a vintage sound without sounding like a cheap tribute.

third studio album. Distinctively and satisfyingly Florence, albeit on a grander scale, the album sold just under 70,000 copies in its first week of sales to make it to Number One in the UK Album Charts as well as receiving a nomination for the 2015 Mercury Prize Award. How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful is a cohesive album, with consistency in the production showing a maturity from her early goth-girl days as seen with the inclusion

of striking orchestral elements over tribal drums, bar ‘Third Eye’ which harks back to beefy early releases such as ‘Dog Days are Over’. Similarly, there is unity in the lyrical themes, such as the recurring metaphors of moody storms and nautical imagery which reflect the tumultuous year Welch experienced prior to the making of the album. In a press statement, Welch described this album as her “trying to learn how to live and… love in the world

rather than trying to escape from it” and this pervading sense of Welch being adrift on a raging sea comes across making this exceptional album an emotional listen at times. My only issue with this album is that it is almost too consistent, and this lack of un-predictableness and move into the mainstream is sad from a band once considered so eccentric.

Hyperview Title Fight

Hyperview sees the continuation of the band’s movement toward grunge and shoegaze. Chorus bands reign throughout the record whilst vocals pushed back in the mix create a fatter and (positively) alienating effect.

Stand out songs like the opener ‘Murder Your Memory’ and ‘Rose of Sharon’ display hard hitting execution of what is essentially the four piece staying true to their end roots, yet experimenting with new sounds as the front runners in their

scene. This sound has inevitably been adapted by their contemporaries and now shoegaze in the emo scene is a norm, but this record is one that does it so boldly and effectively that transforms each song into an emotive powerhouse. Even down tempo songs such as ‘Liar’s Love’ and ‘Your Pain Is Mine Now’ manage to force an atmosphere of cathartic release through intelligent lyricism.

have defined the hardcore mould for the last couple of years. Following 2013’s acclaimed Step 2 Rhythm, which made hardcore seem fun again in a scene dominated by dumb, laddish beatdown bands, Nonstop Feeling is the crystallisation of Turnstile’s positive, vibey, groovey ethos, combining their roots with radio-friendly rock and NYC hip-hop. Hardcore’s punch is present throughout the album – it’s just more tastefully applied. ‘Bring It Back’ is

a masterclass in stop-start riffage, whilst ‘Drop’ has, well, one of the best drops in recent memory. The grooves on the album are so numerous they are almost uncountable. Nonstop Feeling is the best hardcore record in years, and if the band’s wild live shows are anything to go by, shattering the mold is actually the best thing a band can do.

Ivy Tripp Waxahatchee

and a beautifully aimless statement of its own.

Where Cerulean Salt was her existential childhood ending epiphany, Ivy Tripp is a masterclass of experimentation and texture, with Waxahatchee displaying her fantastic songwriting and guitar playing brilliantly throughout. This album isn’t about being in love or falling out of love; it’s about being tangled up in the fuddled realms of the glorious centre.

E

VERY fan of Title Fight will have a different impression of the band’s sound. Many will describe the self loathing pop punk proclamations of their debut The Last Thing You Forget. Whereas others will recall the professional sultry attitude portrayed through more grunge vocals and reverb effects on guitars. However now there’s a new player in the saga.

Nonstop Feeling Turnstile

F

OR a genre that deals in positive aggression, groovy tempo shifts, and socio-political lyrics, laying claim to such legendary acts as Fugazi and Have Heart, hardcore is often exceedingly dull, more often than not a tick-box exercise.

Baltimore’s Turnstile, however,

N

ATIVE to Birmingham, Alabama, Waxahatchee takes her name from the Waxahatchee Creek on the Coosa River. Her third record Ivy Tripp is the perfect example of when pop comes to play with indie and punk.

Synthesisers, keyboards and 12-string guitars nestle down on acoustic reverbs and strong basslines. It is both the perfect continuation from 2013’s Cerulean Salt

23

6

KATE GIFF

7

VICKI GILMORE

8

JORDAN WHITE

9

JOE STEWART

TRISTAN GATWARD

10

24

SCREEN

NEWS 1-5

COMMENT FEATURES LIFESTYLE 12-15 18-19 8-10

SCREEN

MUSIC 20-23

SCREEN 24-26

ARTS & LIT SCI & TECH 28-30 32-33

GAMES 34-35

7 DECEMBER 2015 |

SPORT 38-40

Exeposé Screen

SCREEN EDITORS Akash Beri Ben Londesbrough

EXEPOSÉ

@ExeposeScreen

The hysteria awakens screen@exepose.com

Photo: blogs.indiewire.com

In anticipation of Star Wars: The Force Awakens hitting the big screen in December, Ned Whiles joins in on the hype and gives his predictions about what’s to come for the world’s most popular franchise

S

O all aboard the hype train, right?

Having been sat down by my Dad nearly 15 years ago to watch the original trilogy, I can honestly say that I have never been more excited for a film. Forget Christmas, this December is all about Episode VII! Star Wars is a series that fully captures the imagination and, when done right *cough* prequels *cough*, blends fantasy, western and sci-fi together in probably one of the most iconic films ever made. With just over a month left to go until the new film, and the trailers not giving too much away, let’s break everything down and look at who’s who, and what’s what.

I can honestly say that I have never been more excited for a film First, the who. Rey, played by Daisy Ridley, hits the screen first in most trailers, revealing her to most likely be our

main protagonist. At the moment there’s a very strong smuggler/rogue vibe to her, a sort of Han Solo – Luke Skywalker cross over. As it stands, she seems to be hiding out on Jakku (that desert planet from the trailers), but what is she hiding from? The theorists out there look to her parentage, the original characters, and a certain ‘sith’. Does her mirroring Kylo Ren’s pose on the posters point to some sinister connection?

Which leads on to the next new character, Kylo Ren, portrayed by Adam Driver. Meet the new Darth Vader ladies and gents. This sinister fellow seems to be both a spiritual and actual successor to the big bad of the original trilogy. Wielding what can only be assumed to be a ‘homemade’ lightsaber, you know, the one that looks like an actual sword. It is rumoured that he is not actually Sith and instead he belongs to the ominous Knights of Ren, who we will no doubt learn more about once the film hits the big screen.

Filling in the role of the prodigal son-

Jedi role is Finn, played by John Boyega.

Entering stage left as what appears to be a stormtrooper, before starting a whirlwind adventure ending in a lightsaber show down. Are we looking at an apprentice for Luke, suspiciously absent from any trailers? It seems his will be an interesting character, teaming up with Ridley’s Rey to fight Driver’s Ren.

Set thirty years after the Return of the Jedi, expect to see old favourites Rounding off the new characters are those who we don’t know too much about.

The shiny stormtrooper we see in the trailers is Captain Phasma, played by the brilliant Gwendoline Christie of Game of Thrones fame. We also know that, true to form, Andy Serkis will play a motion capture character in Supreme Leader Snooke.

Both of these characters are aligned with the villainous First Order. In contrast to

this, Oscar Isaac will play Poe Dameron, a pilot in the Resistance - this film’s Rebels.

Rounding off those new characters to pay attention to is Maz Kanata, played by the Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o, a pirate who has lived for over a thousand years.

All of these characters will be set against the backdrop of the struggle between the First Order and the Resistance, the new iterations of the Empire and the Rebellion.

As this is set thirty years after the Return of the Jedi, expect to see old favourites like Han Solo, Leia, and Chewbacca make an appearance, though the fate of Luke is unknown. This film looks to promise some good old fashioned Star Wars action, more akin to the original trilogy than the prequels, and I imagine it is going to be well worth a watch, or three, this Christmas.

Prequel problems Mark Allison takes a look back at the troubled Star Wars prequels

T

HERE’S little that hasn’t already been said about the Star Wars prequels. It’s been sixteen years since the beginning of the trilogy, the same amount of time that passed between the release of Return of the Jedi in 1983 and The Phantom Menace in 1999. Fans have complained ceaselessly about inconsistencies with the original films (Midi-chlorians) and dodgy dialogue (“It’s over Anakin, I have the high ground!”). But the truth is that these issues were already a part of the Star Wars saga since its inception in 1977. The reason the Star Wars prequels fail so spectacularly, both as Star Wars films and science fiction cinema, is a total lack of humanity. The prequels are a cold, joyless experience, spawned by the uninhibited mania of George Lucas and his mob of adoring yes-men.

Throughout the prequels, there is a feeling of immense lifelessness. The characters inhabit a dull, sexless world, leaving the central romance of the series between Anakin and Padme feeling, at best, a bit creepy. The Jedi are inexplicably

forbidden from marriage and spend most of their time standing around in massive robes, spouting philosophical gibberish like “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Everything around them is built on a computer, and none of it resembles anything vaguely real. The best example of this is probably the climactic battle in Attack of the Clones. It’s a mass of expendable droids fighting a horde of nameless clones, in a war over trade regulations, and it quickly becomes impossible to care about what’s happening on screen, because none of it matters and no one involved seems to care either.

The original Star Wars were never great because of George Lucas This sense of coldness extends to both the action and the character development. The lightsaber fights and space battles look impressive, but they

inevitably devolve into a series of impossible, computer generated stunts; it’s tension-less and lacks any connection between the audience and what is happening on screen. A number of excellent actors are wasted in the prequels; Ewan MacGregor’s performance as Obi-Wan Kenobi is probably the saving grace, but like the rest of the cast, he doesn’t have much to work with. Anakin Skywalker, who grows into the badass of the galaxy as Darth Vader; is turned into a whiney teenager who starts killing kids because the script tells him to. Likewise, Natalie Portman’s Padme Amidala is an emotionless shadow of a character, falling in love and then dying because she has to for the next three films to take place. There’s no reason to care or understand why all this happens, it just does.

The Star Wars prequels are an excellent example of what happens when a cult of personality develops around a single film maker, much like the disaster of Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate.

The original Star Wars films were never

great because of George Lucas, but because of the army of creative artists who contributed to make the first three films a ground breaking, seminal experience. They were never perfectly directed or even intelligently written, but there was a sense of joy and physicality to them that the prequels are entirely lacking. Their characters and events have weight and significance, and they feel real. With luck, JJ Abrams can bring back some of that old magic with The Force Awakens this year, but in a post-prequel world it’ll take something really special to surprise us like in 1977.

Attack of the theories EXEPOSÉ

www.exepose.com

SCREEN

25

Josh Mines, Deputy Editor, explores the many fan theories surrounding the new film

T

O put it bluntly, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, whether it flops or flies, is going to be the biggest film of 2015. For geeks like me, it’s an opportunity for the franchise to reconcile itself with fans that were (unsurprisingly) disillusioned by the diabolically awful prequels, as well as a chance to prove that the

Star Wars saga can indeed be revived in the 21st century. No pressure then J. J.

Theories range from being plausible to questionable to really fucking dumb This level of anticipation for the films has led to a great deal of speculation about what could be in store for us when The Force Awakens hits cinemas on 17 December. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet and online forums like Reddit, every obsessed and probably delusional Star Wars nerd can now air their crackpot space theories in a public forum. Theories like these range from being plausible, to questionable, to really fucking dumb.

But before we delve into the murky waters of Internet movie conspiracy, it’s worth thinking about why there’s been so much more theorising about the plot of The Force Awakens than there was for any of George Lucas’ shitty prequels. Cast your mind

back ten years or so and the trailer for Revenge of the Sith has landed. The trailer pretty much spoils every potentially surprising twist in the film, whilst also providing the viewer with nothing more than a flurry of lasers, sabers and moody Hayden Christensen facial expressions. It doesn’t attempt to provoke any kind of suspense or tension from the audience - because remember kids, the prequels weren’t really films made for people who like Star Wars. Or science fiction. Or movies generally.

Could it be, that Jar Jar Binks, is actually a Sith lord?

Compare this to the scintillatingly awesome Force Awakens trailer, with its careful slot selection, subtle nudges to familiar characters from the original series and absolutely incredible use of the original soundtrack – and you’re left with something that not only makes me weep with joy every time I watch it, but it’s also a trailer that leaves a tonne of questions left unanswered. The fact that Mark Hammill was totally omitted from almost every piece of marketing for the movie also goes to show that secrecy has been prioritised over everything else by the producers of the movie.

And so it’s in these gaping holes and unanswered questions that elaborate fan theories rise from. One of the more plausible theories I’ve read suggests that the main antagonist of the movie, Kylo Ren, and Rey, the female protagonist could be twins - and not only that they might also be the children of Han and Leia. If this is true it could strike an interesting parallel with the originals in the obvious fact that Leia and Luke were also twins.

More importantly than that, a familial battle between the D a r k

Side and the Light is sure to stoke up tensions, especially if it turns out that Han or Leia have to make a choice between their children. Of course the issue with this theory is that seeing as we don’t yet know if Han and Leia are still together, or actually have any children, this idea does sit firmly in the realm of speculation.

But these sensible theories are boring. An absolutely golden idea that I stumbled across on Reddit poses a far more outrageous thesis. Could it be, that Jar Jar Binks, the most terrible character in the entire series is actually a Sith lord? Darth Jar Jar certainly does have a ring to it. This theory suggests that despite Jar Jar’s bumbling persona, he’s actually highly adept in battle, and as well as this, the fact that he was the counsellor responsible for granting senator Palpatine special powers to take over the Galaxy in Revenge works as evidence to prove his allegiance with the Dark Side. Could it be that the Binks is the real antagonist in The Force Awakens? As much as I’d love this to be true (ironically) I highly doubt it – but my God would that make for a weird movie.

I’m beyond excited to see which (if any) of these ideas do come to fruition Remember however, that these two theories only just scratch the surface of the wonderful (and incredibly odd) world of Star Wars fan lore. Love them or loathe them, fan theories certainly make for great reading, and I’m beyond excited to see which (if any) of these ideas do actually come to fruition.

Star Wars Stats

Episode IV: A New Hope May 25, 1977 Gross: $1,314,850,434 Rotten Tomatoes: 94%

Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back May 21, 1980 Gross: $751,204,635 Rotten Tomatoes: 95%

Episode VI: The Return of the Jedi May 25, 1983 Gross: $724,064,338 Rotten Tomatoes: 79%

Episode I: The Phantom Menace May 19, 1999 Gross: $699,066,761 Rotten Tomatoes: 57%

Episode II: Attack of the Clones May 16, 2002 Gross: $414,858,818 Rotten Tomatoes: 67%

Episode III: Revenge of the Sith May 19, 2005 Gross: $460,743,580 Rotten Tomatoes: 80%

Top Christmas flicks this season 26

NEWS 1-5

SCREEN

COMMENT FEATURES LIFESTYLE 12-15 18-19 8-10

MUSIC 20-23

SCREEN 24-26

ARTS & LIT SCI & TECH 28-30 32-33

GAMES 34-35

SPORT 38-40

7 DECEMBER 2015 |

EXEPOSÉ

Ben Londesbrough, Screen Editor, offers up his five favourite movies to enjoy on a cold night in

Die Hard Cast: Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia Director: John McTeirnan 1988, 132 minutes

The Snowman Based on the book by Raymond Briggs Director: Dianne Jackson 1982, 27 minutes

It’s A Wonderful Life Cast: James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore Director: Frank Capra 1946, 130 minutes

I

T

T

T’S set at Christmas, ok? That makes it a Christmas film. I have watched this movie most Christmas Eves since I was 14, and I will continue to do so whilst forcing my future children to do the same. You cannot go wrong with a bit of action and Christmas combined, what better than baubles and bombs?

If you want to go a little bit hardcore this Christmas, then watch Die Hard.

Carols and karate? Bruce Willis’ bald-headed John McClane doesn’t much embody Santa Claus – he shoots a gun and swears like a trooper – but what better Christmas gift than a group of terrorists being wiped off the naughty list as they attempt to take over the Nakatomi Plaza during a Christmas party in order to carry out a theft? If you want to go a little bit hardcore this Christmas, then watch Die Hard. Yippee-ki-christmas motherfuckers!

HE Snowman, whilst not a feature, is often quoted as people’s favourite Christmas film. This wordless piece of perfection is based on the classic children’s book by Raymond Briggs, chronicling the tale of a boy who makes and then befriends a snowman. Together, they play with toys, go on a motorcycle ride, and then fly in the snow to ‘Walking in the Air’ - a moment which makes everyone’s tummy tingle as it fills up with nostalgia. If you don’t watch it on, or at least around Christmas, then I have to ask you - do you even Christmas? It’s as essential to a British Christmas as a plate of loathed brussels sprouts (yes, I’m not kidding around here). With its 30 minute running time, and its wide circulation on TV every Christmas day for the past 30 years, it’s easy to squeeze this one into your busy day of opening presents and eating copious amounts of sprouts.

There is also a sequel called The Snowman and The Snowdog, which isn’t as good (sequels rarely are to be honest), but is also worth a watch.

HIS is the Christmas classic, starring the brilliant James Stewart as George Bailey, a man just trying to do the right thing for his family, and finding his options gradually depleting.

Directed by Frank Capra, this film often hits the top spot on the ‘best Christmas’ film lists. Through angelic intervention, we see George’s life turn into a nightmare of despair, despite his well-intentioned efforts.

It’s going to hit you so hard in the feels you’ll cry like a melting snowman It is sometimes quite depressing, but do not despair! The ending is so good, and so happy, that when it does come, it’s going to hit you so hard in the feels that you’ll cry like a melting snowman. If you haven’t seen this classic, I urge you to make this Christmas your first time. It’s earned a permanant place in the hearts of Christmas-lovers everywhere.

Elf Cast: Will Ferrell, James Caan, Zooey Deschanel Director: Jon Favreau 2003, 97 minutes

Home Alone Cast: Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern Director: Chris Columbus 1990, 102 minutes

T

B

HIS film is hilarious, joyful and oh-so Christmassy. I have to watch every Christmas, and summer, and spring, and autumn - I watch this movie all the time. Will Ferrell and a blonde Zooey Deschanel star in this film about a human who has grown up under the illusion that he is an elf. When he finds out he is not, he goes on a journey through the seven levels of the Candy Cane forest, through the sea of swirly twirly gum drops, and then through the Lincoln Tunnel into New York City to find his birth parents. What ensues is a Christmas film with an excellent tone, expertly directed by Jon Favreau.

Buddy the Elf is (bar Anchorman’s Ron Burgundy) Will Ferrell’s most quotable and funny character, and James Caan (of The Godfather fame) puts in a rather great performance as his reluctant birth father. You just have to go all out and sing along, as “the best way to spread Christmas cheer is to sing aloud for all to hear”, and you have to enjoy it - if you don’t, you’re a cotton headed ninnymuggins.

EFORE Macaulay Culkin turned into a garbage human, he gave us the gift of Home Alone. The film is a cartoonish, slapstick romp based around a young boy who gets left at home for Christmas.

Home Alone is the perfect Christmas fodder for the whole family.

It’s big and brash, clever in its own foolish sort of way, and emphasises the importance of family just as much as It’s A Wonderful life does. As in Capra’s film, being deprived of family makes the young Kevin McCallister realise how much he needs them, despite his competence in fending off burglars. His hijinks and pranks are implausible and audacious, but it’s that element disbelief that makes Christmas so magical, right?

From a hot iron in the face, to a whack from a snow shovel, Home Alone is the perfect Christmas fodder for the whole family.

#Quintessential Quotes - Christmas 2015 Edition

‘‘ 1

Seeing isn’t believing.

Believing is seeing.

Test your film knowledge by guessing these crazy quotes!

‘‘ 2

Making Christmas, Making Christmas!

‘‘ 3

You HATE Christmas!

You’re gonna steal it.

‘‘ 4

To me, you are perfect And my wasted heart will love you.3

‘‘ 5

SANTA! OH MY GOD! SANTA’S COMING! I KNOW HIM! I KNOW HIM!

1. LITTLE ELF JUDY (PAIGE TAMADA) - THE SANTA CLAUSE 2. MAJOR (GLENN SHADIX) - THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS 3. THE GRINCH (JIM CARREY) - HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS 4. MARK (ANDREW LINCOLN) - LOVE ACTUALLY 5. BUDDY (WILL FERRELL) - ELF

NEWS 1-5

28 ARTS & LIT

COMMENT FEATURES LIFESTYLE 18-19 12-15 8-10

MUSIC 20-23

ARTS &LIT Arts Diary Comedy 30 Nov The Last Laugh Phoenix 12 Dec Jasper Carrott & Alistair McGowan Northcott Theatre

Theatre 2-19 Dec Gloriator Theatre Royal Plymouth 9 Dec - 9 Jan Eloise and the Curse of the Golden Whisk Bike Shed Theatre

9 Dec - 3 Jan The King With Donkey’s Ears Phoenix 18 Dec - 16 Jan Cinderella Theatre Royal Plymouth

Art 17 Nov - 30 Dec Printed Illustration by Plymouth University students Phoenix

ARTS & LIT SCI & TECH 28-30 32-33

GAMES 34-35

7 DECEMBER 2015 |

SPORT 38-40

Exeposé Arts & Lit

ARTS & LIT EDITORS Jeremy Brown Emily Kerr

EXEPOSÉ

@ExeposeArts

Don’t be a Scrooge artsandlit@exepose.com

Sarah Gough, Editor, talks to Derek Frood, star of the Northcott’s A Christmas Carol

I

T’S not often you spend a Saturday morning scouting for Scrooge. Yet here I was, analysing members of Coffee #1’s queue on the basis of Dickensian demeanours. I eventually spotted tall, bearded Derek Frood towering over the cake counter with a longing that screamed over-tired actor, before catching his attention with a creepy, expectant smile.

Frood is the Northcott’s own Christmas grump, picked to play the protagonist in their rendition of the Dickens classic A Christmas Carol but in an un-Scroogelike fashion he was more than willing to chat to me ahead of his final day of rehearsal.

A Christmas Carol is the Northcott’s first in-house production in recent years, marking a new phase for the theatre and its newly appointed Artistic Director Paul Jepson.

Perpetually struggling with financial problems and forced into administration back in 2010, there is now a real drive for the theatre to rekindle some of the booming success of its early rep days. “It’s quite important for them,” Frood confirms, “it’s got to work, and it will work”.

Why is it then, at a festive time of mirth and merriness, that we so often turn to Dickens, one of the most depressing writers on this mortal earth? Frood explains that there has been a “proliferation” of the production recently as not only is the tale a Christmas classic, but a social commentary with as much relevance today as it had back in 1846.

It’s a piece about redemption and taking notice

30 Nov - 23 Dec Surface/Contact Exhibition Phoenix

SCREEN 24-26

“I find it mind-boggling that we’re in this situation where people are suffering, I don’t think we scream and shout about it enough,” he says. “The reality is that people are being sanctioned constantly, job centres aren’t receiving enough money, the disabled are being put down and not being cared for properly, the care system is nose-diving. Dickens was responding to

a similar thing happening in his lifetime.

He supported quite a few charities at the time and could see what was happening.

A Christmas Carol was a response, and Scrooge is that figure that he hated. It was all about money and greed, it’s a piece about redemption and taking notice”.

Keen to portray an unconventional edge to Scrooge, Frood describes his

interpretation of the iconic selfish character as “menacing” – “they’ve picked the [promotional] photos that aren’t quite as scary which I’m a bit disappointed about. I wanted to make him a bit more real. I’m just trying to present a horrible a picture of him as I can”.

Frood is not short of menacing figures on which to draw inspiration, having grown up in Plymouth. Unable to afford Drama school, Frood got his acting grounding in local youth theatre before falling into performing for a touring company by chance. He has been a regular touring actor for Theatre Alibi, largely performing for children and pursuing his particular passion for puppetry. His big-

gest focus, while briefly overtaken by his Christmas commitments, is his own theatre company Ripple, co-founded with fellow South West practitioners and now in its tenth year. Having just finished a residency at the BikeShed Theatre, Frood has noticed a real hike in cultural vibrancy in the region in recent years and encourages students to make the most of it: “You’ve only

got to write a page of stuff and get up in front of people, play with ideas, talk to other people and make things happen for yourself.”

Frood has headed his own advice in this respect, he is the quintessential jobbing actor, confessing that for him “the acting has never really taken off”. “It doesn’t for a lot of people,” he admits, “you’re often months and months without work.” It’s his unrequited love for the profession that motivates him, rather than money.

It was a shock for Frood, then, when he landed a leading role in the BBC drama Poldark, alongside hunky Aidan Turner or ‘Torso Turner’, as he’s affectionately named. Just having finished filming se-

ries two as Captain Bray, he recalls being treated like acting royalty.

[Poldark] was ridiculous, you get put up in crazy expensive hotels...I can’t quite deal with it “It was ridiculous”, he says, “you get put up in crazy, expensive hotels and you get chauffeur driven everywhere”. As well as that, he always struggles with the knowledge that some badly-paid crew member is constantly following him around with a chair, just in case he wants a sit down between shoots.

“I can’t quite deal with it,” he admits modestly. Nice to know our licence fee money is being spent wisely.

Despite the frivolities that TV brings, the bare dollar that comes with it is an attractive prospect for Frood. After years making ends meet, what advice would he give to struggling student actors? “Don’t let yourself get stuck in a rut”, he says, “that’s happened to me once or twice.

You need that passion: believe in yourself, don’t take no for an answer, just pursue your dream. You’re not going to be rich out of it financially, but you’ll be rich in other ways”.

I hope everyone can walk away from the theatre with a warm heart Ah, we’re back to A Christmas Carol, I laugh. Moral rewards over financial excess is what it’s all about, isn’t it? “Yes, absolutely,” Frood says, “Scrooge becomes rich in so many ways. He starts to realise the errors of his ways, those things that he’s missed out on. I hope everyone can walk away from the theatre with a warm heart and go and at least give the guy sat outside of Tesco a sandwich.” It’s clear that if nothing else, the Northcott’s A Christmas Carol will definitely provide some Frood for thought this winter.

A Christmas Carol runs at the Northcott from 4 Dec to 3 Jan 2016.

Stocking-filler stories EXEPOSÉ

ARTS & LIT

www.exepose.com

29

Exeposé Arts & Lit decide which short stories should be on your 2015 Christmas list

Pig Tales Marie Darrieussecq Fiona Potigny

Q

Metamorphosis Franz Kafka Theodore Stone

I

The Last Question Isaac Asimov Alex Brammer

T

UIRKILY translated into English as ‘Pig Tales’ (originally Truismes), one would be forgiven for thinking that this story – a tongue-incheek tale of the porcine metamorphosis of a fluffheaded beautician (of the ‘happy ending’ variety) - is a chucklesome take on Kafka. And in many ways, it is; after all, the entirety of this semi-fantastical tale of the increasingly swinish protagonist’s naivety – at times, verging on downright pig-headed ignorance - is narrated by or, rather, scribbled by a Parisian sow.

It all starts very jovially: after a farcical bit of slap ‘n’ tickle and one breast squeeze, our heroine’s delighted with her new job at ‘Perfumes Plus’. À la 70s Carry On comedy, pantomime-like, she ogles her contract over the groper’s shoulder. But the clientele soon diminishes as her ravishing looks are lost, and a ravenous appetite takes over.

What initially seems a playful romp soon turns to blatant and unapologetic satire. It’s third-wave feminist message is as raw, sordid and bare as the pig behind it: “If all men are pigs, then what can a woman do but turn into a sow?”

Although nearly 20 years old, this work still holds plenty of truismes for the noughties generation.

F there is one author to be held in reverence above all others for their prowess in the world of the short story, few are as worthy as Franz Kafka. The story of ‘The Metamorphosis’ will be familiar to many. A haunting tale of the suffering caused by physical transformations, the story’s gripping narrative emerges from the sheer hopelessness that the characters find themselves in.

Gregor Samsa is not special. He is an ordinary man, who simply wishes for nothing more than a good life for his family. Kafka’s writing exhibits no joy for poetry: his interests lie in the struggles we all face against impossible situations. Burdened with a monstrosity beyond our comprehension, how should we react? Should we play the frightened housekeeper, maybe the violent dictator? Or should we be like his sister, and play the saint? Based upon Kafka’s rich, haunting narrative, the answer is clear.

His sympathy for the struggle of humanity against the horrors of the world is more clear than ever in ‘The Metamorphosis’.

HE phrase ‘science fiction’ is usually associated with space battles, lightsabers and Nazis in spacesuits (Darth Vader, anyone?). While these can be a hell of a lot of fun, science fiction is at its best when it totally ignores these pulpy tropes and instead uses the lack of limitations that come with the genre to pose philosophical questions, play with the structure of the medium or just generally mindfuck the reader.

‘The Last Question’ does all three; rather than follow a character, it follows the plight of huge supercomputers trying to solve the question: “how can the net amount of entropy in the universe be massively decreased?” As we move closer to the end of the universe, the story moving through the iterations of human and scientific development, the question is asked with more and more desperation, but each time the response from the computer (which is the centre of the story) replies that there is simply insufficient data. Eventually, the question is asked for a final time, at a point where notions of time or space cease to exist. Be warned: you should only read this story if you’re prepared to spend a few hours in bed staring at the ceiling, contemplating existence as only Asimov can force you to do. As fresh today as it was in 1956, this story is truly fantastic.

Arts in the news

The art world has started trolling Donald Trump on the campaign trail

Artist Peter Liversidge sends unwrapped items to people around the world

The story’s gripping narrative emerges from sheer hopelesness

Hills Like White Elephants Ernest Hemingway Flora Carr

Guests of the Nation Frank O’Connor Sophie Beckett

‘M pretty sure that, at some point in your academic career, your English teacher has scribbled ‘show don’t tell’ across one of your lovingly-crafted short stories. But fear the red biro no more.

Help is at hand from Ernest Hemingway, the King of show don’t tell. His understated style had a huge influence on 20th century literature, and has been copied and parodied in equal measure.

He famously employed his ‘iceberg theory’ for his writing; the idea that good prose should, like an iceberg above sea level, show only a fraction of the implied hidden depths.

‘Hills Like White Elephants’ is a great example. In the short story, two unnamed characters, a man and woman, sit in a station café. They have a very mundane conversation with obscure references to an ‘operation’. It takes secondary reading to see what they’re referring to, and why they take such different views of the distant hills shaped ‘like white elephants’. And (*spoiler alert*) when you do, it’s heart-breaking.

ET during the Irish War of Independence, Frank O’Connor’s 1931 short story, ‘Guests of the Nation’, is a powerful study of the human realities of conflict. It begins with a game of cards between four “chums” in a house in the Irish countryside. Two of the men are English and the reader learns that the other two are tasked with guarding them. Yet this role seems to be only nominal; the Englishmen have become as much a part of the local community as their guards. The story focuses on the evening routine of the four men, who have heated discussions about religion and capitalism as they lose to each other at cards.

As the story progresses, however, the guards are told that the Englishmen are hostages, who must be killed in retaliation for the deaths of Irish soldiers.

The Irishman who narrates the story sees his principles morphing into a justification for violence. While initially “disunion between brothers” seems to him “an awful crime”, he comes to realise that the true crime is the violence these principles force him to commit against friends. The events of the story haunt them for the rest of their lives, and he memorably concludes that “anything that happened to me afterwards, I never felt the same about again”.

More publishers are failing as e-Books rise in popularity

J.K. Rowling reveals why Harry Potter named his son after Snape on Twitter

I

His understated style had a huge influence on twentieth century literature

S

30

ARTS & LIT

Follow us on Instagram

Byrne, baby Byrne...

NEWS 1-5

COMMENT FEATURES LIFESTYLE 18-19 12-15 8-10

MUSIC 20-23

SCREEN 24-26

ARTS & LIT SCI & TECH 28-30 32-33

GAMES 34-35

SPORT 38-40

7 DECEMBER 2015 |

EXEPOSÉ

Kathy Giddins heads to Exmouth to see Ed Byrne set the world of stand-up on fire

@elea norhe berox

110 lewis1 a m @gem

@anto niawh illans Tag your photos with @exepose_arts_lit for a chance to be featured

Artistic License As we’re feeling festive, this week we’ve asked you what you’d put on the top of the Forum Christmas tree...

FIONA POTIGNY Myley Cyrus coming in like a wrecking bauble JAMES BEESON A 2:1 - to watch all the increasingly desperate third years try and climb it EAMONN CROWE My latest selfie because I’m the f*cking star

Outside, Looking In Exmouth Pavilion 18 November 2015

F

ROM the moment Ed Byrne saunters onto stage, grinning sardonically with a pint of beer in hand, I know I’m in for a fun night, and it seems I’m not alone in this assumption.

Straight away, a woman in the front row throws him a note with her phone number which says “you are incredibly sexy”. We all know everyone loves the Irish, but I’d never had Ed down as a sex symbol. Nevertheless, he seems flattered, but bashfully reminds everyone that he’s happily married.

We all know everyone loves the Irish, but I’d never had Ed down as a sex symbol This was quite a fitting start to the evening, as relationships and the terrifying world of dating forms a large part of Ed’s act, as he expresses his lament at never having been part of the Tinder generation. “In my day, you had to actually meet her in person before she’d agree to have sex with you,” he jokes, “dates were more like auditions or interviews”. He then proceeds to regale us with hilarious stories of his worst dates, including the time he bought flowers for a girl and asked her twice if she was going to put them in some water to which

she laughed in his face - they were plastic. The irony of course is that he’d studied two years for a Horticulture degree.

It’s a fact that very few people know, and Ed doesn’t often talk about his time at university. However, he does give us a brief insight into his student life, saying that he once witnessed a medical student piss on a snail and then eat it for a bet - there wasn’t even a cash wager (that whole eel affair seems quite trivial now, doesn’t it?)

Asides from amusing anecdotes with extremely eloquent turns of phrase, such as when he describes his bout of diarrhoea as “oxtail soup in a sodastream”, I find that Ed touches on some important issues relating to feminism, and in particular gender stereotypes which he himself brands as “the thorniest issue since Jesus was fitted for a hat”.

In particular, he speaks a lot about the trials and tribulations of parenting, and the struggles of trying to raise children in a society where boys aren’t meant to like pink shoes or Frozen.

A high point for me is definitely the moment when he blasts Nigel Farage for saying that breastfeeding in public is OK as long as it’s not “ostentatious”. This was accompanied by some amusing suggestions as to how one could ostentatiously breastfeed, such as clamping twins onto both breasts and swinging them round like tassles, or locking eyes

ART TO ART This week, we’re featuring the artwork of Helen Payne, a second year English student

THEODORE STONE An Apple MacBook - but that’ll be under the tree for most students anyway SARAH GOUGH Strictly’s new pro dancer, Gleb Savchenko, glittered * Here’s our favourite detail - the reflection of the coffee pot

with the first man you see across the room for the whole duration. I’ll remember that one for the future.

All-in-all, it was a great night, and I definitely laughed a lot. Ed Byrne’s style of comedy is timeless, being neither crass nor vulgar. Instead, it’s emotion-

Acrylic on canvas I took a picture of a metallic coffee pot with a glass lid against a background of navy and white striped material. I hung it as a backdrop, then gathered it together around the bottom of the pot to create huge contrasts of shadow and light. I started to draw the image out in pencil on to an A1 sized canvas, then began to paint sections at a time in acrylic – first the striped material, then the pot’s reflections, then the artist-inspired material in the background. I chose two contrasting pieces of famous artwork to incorporate into the piece, which I did by taking a small section of their painting and making it look like folded material. I chose Henri Matisse’s Harmony in Red and Preparedness Roy Lichtenstein as I thought the colours, notably the reds, worked well together. The folded sections of material were the hardest, and took the longest amount of time, but ultimately the most rewarding aspect of this piece in its finished outcome.

ally intelligent, thought-provoking and laugh-out-loud hilarious. In short, Ed Byrne makes me proud to be Irish.

32

SCIENCE & TECH

NEWS 1-5

COMMENT FEATURES LIFESTYLE 18-19 12-15 8-10

MUSIC 20-23

SCREEN 24-26

ARTS & LIT SCI & TECH 28-30 32-33

GAMES 34-35

7 DECEMBER 2015 |

SPORT 38-40

EXEPOSÉ

SCIENCE& TECH The Government’s Nutts Exeposé Science & Tech

SCI & TECH EDITORS Catherine Heffner Lewis Norman

@ExeposeSciTech

sciandtech@exepose.com

Biweekly Breakthroughs

by Joshua Rotchelle The Captain Morgan mutation

Psychiatrists at the University of Helsinki in Finland have tracked down a particular genetic mutation that is likely to be behind those who “can’t hold their drink”, and quickly develop erratic and reckless behaviour after relatively small levels of alcohol consumption. The mutation is also linked to more impulsive behaviour while sober and an increased likelihood of mood disorders.

Its discovery has sparked hopes for future treatments to help control impulsive behaviour disorders.

I’ve got a feeling...

A team of researchers at the American Technion Society have developed a type of man-made sensor that is both flexible and able to heal itself over time – much like human skin. Minor scratches and cuts to the sensors are reportedly healed in “less than a day”. Until now, flexible sensor technology has been hindered by its lack of durability, but with this new development, prosthetic limbs that stay sturdy and allow users to “feel” their environment are a future possibility.

Wi-Fi wattage University of Washington engineers have figured out how to use a simple Wi-Fi router as an actual power source. While wirelessly charging devices is nothing new, this technology – by piggybacking on wireless internet signals in the vicinity – actually powers given devices off of existing wireless signals alone through antennae, without affecting nearby internet connection quality. The invention will come in handy as small electronics in everyday life become smaller and more numerous, making it harder to plug them all in.

Science, statistics and a lot of slagging off: Lewis Norman, Science & Tech Editor, summarises a stimulating talk by Professor David Nutt on the science behind drug policy

T

HE past week has been a big one in terms of breakthroughs in drug science. Perhaps the most well-known case is the recent revelation that LSD could be, in small doses, a viable treatment for anxiety and depression. Pharmacological science has never been more exciting, so why is it still so hard to get our hands on drugs for research?

His message is obvious: There’s just too much politics in drug policies I had the pleasure of listening to psychiatrist Professor David Nutt, and he does a very good job of making it very clear that he knows what he is talking about. There’s about ten minutes of cutting jibes against David Cameron and just about every politician you can think of; it is hard not to notice that Nutt is still particularly bitter about being sacked by the Department of Health.

He makes his message obvious: there’s just too much politics in drug policies.

The first ten minutes is a tidal wave of statistics, and it is really quite sobering stuff. There are four times as many tobacco-induced deaths per year than alcohol and less than 20 cannabis-rated deaths per year - the list goes on and on.

Nutt tells us alcohol horror stories, perhaps the most notable being the death of Amy Winehouse, who died of blood alcohol poisoning back in 2011. Although many other preventable diseases have been controlled effectively since 1970, deaths due to liver disease have shot up exponentially and alcohol is now the leading cause of death for over

44s in the UK. So if this is the case, then why aren’t we talking about it? Why is it that marijuana, a statistically ‘safer’ drug is illegal and alcohol isn’t? Why does this stigma around smoking cannabis exist when we are seemingly killing off our livers every Friday before Timepiece?

The answer isn’t particularly surprising: it’s all about the money - and there’s a lot of dolla’ in the drinks industry. Over the past 40 years, the cost of alcohol has halved whilst overall consumption has doubled along with drink-related disorders. Admittedly, Nutt’s language gets a bit dramatic and romantic at times, but I suppose I’d be pretty frustrated too if my life’s work was hindered by antiquated policies. But what about the weed though? Is there a scientific foundation behind the criminalisation of marijuana?

What about

its proposed links to neurological disorders?

Why does this stigma around smoking cannabis exist when we are killing off our livers every Friday before Timepiece?

The classic example is schizophrenia, a mental disorder that has reported links to cannabis abuse. Despite this, where marijuana users have increased 20-fold over the past 40 years, we’ve actually witnessed a decline in cases of schiz-

ophrenia among cannabis users - bit strange for a drug that has historically been labelled as a confident cause of it, isn’t it? Nutt jokes that the closest you’ll get to a schizophrenic episode is the hour or so after you’ve put a joint to your lips.

Of course, this proves nothing. There is still a wealth of research to do in this area and that is why the decriminalisation of marijuana is so important.

Obviously, it isn’t just pot that’s prohibited. Back in 2010, the drug Mephedrone was immediately banned, despite no knowledge of its pharmacology, due to a media uproar in response to two deaths reportedly related to abuse of the drug.

Nutt’s talk takes an interesting turn at this point. With the help of a graph he clearly demonstrates that cocaine-induced deaths actually decreased with introduction of Mephedrone to the market and instantly increased again in the wake of its prohibition.

Nutt doesn’t provide a lot of answers - in fact, he only offers one: put the scientists in charge. It’s a bit of a hopeless plea, but Nutt makes his points loud and clear, correctly backed up by data. We can’t possibly learn more about the neurological impact of these chemicals while they’re criminalised - you don’t need a graph to see that (although, if you did, Nutt has one of those too). Mr Cameron, don’t do it for the stoners, do it for the science.

Booze vs. blunts

22,000 ~20 The overall harm, out of 100, that alcohol and marijuana cause. The scores are based on a standardised index that takes into account the harm that each drug causes to the user and the harm that it indirectly causes to others.

The score for alcohol was 72, while the score for marijuana was 20.

deaths due to alcohol deaths due to cannabis

According to a study conducted in 2011, alcohol was responsible for 22,000 direct deaths a year, mainly due to cirrosis of the liver. This is ten thousand times the figure for cannabis-related deaths per year.

EXEPOSÉ

SCIENCE & TECH

www.exepose.com

33

Photo: Lucasfilm

May the force = mass x acceleration

With The Force Awakens hitting cinemas this month James Beeson, Editor, investigates the science behind Star Wars

T

HE Star Wars franchise is a science-nerd’s paradise, chock o’ block full of futuristic and far-fetched technologies and mysterious wonders.

For the most part, these concepts are considered to be pure fantasy; a figment of George’s Lucas’ vivid imagination, with no real scientific clout. However, being a Star Wars super-fan I decided to find out whether any of the concepts in the films have any real scientific clout… and the results were somewhat surprising!

The Force One of the biggest wonders of the Star Wars franchise is the existence of The Force – a metaphysical and spiritual power that gives Jedi and Sith the ability to leap huge distances, read minds and shoot lightning from their hands. In the original trilogy, the Force was a spiritual and unknowable power, with almost religious connotations. However, in the prequel trilogy the force is explained by Jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn as a sentient entity that could be detected in life-forms in Midi-chlorian count in the cells. In sufficient numbers, Midi-chlorians could allow their host to detect the force and use it to perform remarkable feats.

Midi-chlorians can be detected by measuring their concentration in a being’s red blood cells, in a process not dissimilar to a modern day blood-test. It is believed that Lucas based the idea on mitochondria, organelles that provide energy for cells. In humans, mitochondria help to produce Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) by oxidizing products of glucose and pyruvic acid. Unfortunately, this only results in the transportation of chemical energy within cells for metabolism, and doesn’t enable us to force choke pesky lecturers and annoying housemates.

Lightsabers By far the coolest in the Galaxy, lightsabers are the weapon of choice for Jedi Knights and Sith Warriors. Usually around a metre in length, lightsabers have a metal hilt that projects a brightlylit energy blade capable of cutting, burning and melting through most substances with little resistance. The weapon consists of a plasma blade suspended in a force containment field, enabling it to retain its shape. The plasma is projected through a crystal, focusing the energy beam and giving lightsabers their distinctive colours.

Scientifically, lightsabers are prob-

lematic for several reasons. Logistically lasers don’t clash when their beams cross and are also silent (unlike the humming incarnations in the films). More pressingly, however, is the fact that the level of energy required to create such a beam could only currently be produced by something like a nuclear reactor – not something you’d comfortably be able to fit into the palm of your hand at any rate!

It is believed that Lucas based the idea of Midichlorians on mitochondria In the documentary Can You Build A Lightsaber? Dr. Michio Kaku argues that a nanotube, while small in size, could produce the required energy through the use of carbon atoms that can conduct electricity. However, this still leaves the problem of how to hold the beams of light in place to produce a blade that is limited in size, as opposed to the endless reaches of a normal light beam if it is not obstructed by another surface. Dr. Kaku suggests that this could be solved using a relatively new process of trapping light by firing la-

ser photons into a small container filled with gas atoms. However, this would expose the wielder to extreme heat, which, without the protection of a force containment field, would render the lightsaber highly dangerous. Dr. Kaku concludes that lightsabers are theoretically possible, but still require some technological advancement to function in a similar manner as the ones in the Star Wars universe.

Twin Suns One of the most iconic moments in Star Wars is the sight of Luke Skywalker staring out across the Tatooine desert at the twin setting suns of the planet. In the past scientists thought that planets would be unlikely to form around binary stars but it is now widely accepted that planets can revolve around multiple stars. In the case of Tatooine, where the two stars are very close together, the planet would most likely orbit their common center of mass.

In fact, in 2011, it was reported by The Guardian that a NASA space craft had discovered a planet, named Kepler-16b, with twin suns as seen in the Star Wars films. Similar planets could exist that are capable of sustaining life elsewhere in the galaxy.

Hoverbikes It is hard to argue that the hoverbike chase between Luke, Leia and the Stormtroopers in Return of the Jedi isn’t one of the coolest scenes in the original trilogy. The hoverbikes depicted in the Star Wars universe use repulsorlift or anti-gravity engines to float around a metre off the ground.

The closest we’ve got to replicating such technology in the 21st century is Maglev trains – high speed railway trains that levitate a small distance above their tracks by the use of magnets. These trains are able to travel at high speeds (The Shanghai Maglev Train has a top speed of 270 mph) but are only able to follow a set route dictated by the magnets, unlike the hoverbikes in Star Wars which have coils that directly repulse the gravity of the surface of the planet they are on.

Similar bikes have been developed by Australian inventor and engineer Chris Malloy, whose bikes use turbofans to enter flight and can travel at a horizontal speed of 173 mph. These bikes are reportedly being developed by the US military, which I think makes it just about legit for me to claim hoverbikes are a real scientific possibility (well, sort of.)

Have yourself a very techie Christmas

Theodore Stone, Online Features Editor, makes a list and checks it twice for the best tech gifts this Christmas

1

For your typical Exetah students: iPad Mini £239.00

Cheaper than a regular iPad, but just as useful, and with a more compact frame. The resolution rivals that of the iPad Air and possesses an A7 processor that outstrips many of its rivals, while ensuring that it can actually fit in your bag. A simple pad and pencil won’t suffice in today’s high-tech world, and, to be honest; Angry Birds is more enjoyable than Hangman. Furthermore, it’s an Apple product, and a list recommending tech to Exeter students wouldn’t be complete without one.

2

For liqueur lovers: Perfect Drink Bartending System £32.49

Do you enjoy a nice cocktail, but are too afraid you’ll mess up the formula? Fear no more. With a smart scale that connects to your mobile device via a downloadable app, you can measure your contents to the nth degree. With a range of recipes and adaptive system to boot, you’ll be able to serve up the perfect martini, leaving your friends shaken, and maybe a little bit stirred.

3

For hipsters: AeroPress Coffee Maker & USB Cooler £25.00 & £13.31

Good news everyone! Once the New Year begins, so does the exam season!

Once again, you’ll be spending your life stuck in the library. You need to stay awake, but how? You look towards the vending machines, but the coffee is rubbish and AMT has closed for the night.

What you need is an AeroPress Coffee Maker. Taking only 20 seconds to operate, you just need to bring your own boiling water and beans to produce a caffeine-filled Americano, or a shot of espresso. Want milk? Simply use the supply you brought with you in your USB Thermoelectric Cooler, it’s quite literally a USB fridge.

4

For those tasty beats: Bose Soundlink Mini II £140.00

These Bluetooth speakers may not be cheap, but they boast outstandingly clean audio quality and are loud enough to disturb people’s sleeping patterns from the other side of campus. With an extremely long battery life that can be recharged via a portable charging cradle, and a durable aluminium body, you can rest assured that you’ll be pumping out a non-stop party until the twelfth day of Christmas, when the police eventually arrive to shut said party down.

5

For fitness fanatics & gym lads: The Jawbone Up2 £49.00

What will you be Up2 over Christmas?

For some of Exeposé’s more fitness fanatical readers, exercise will be a given.

To help ensure that your health and sleep regimes won’t be knocked out of sync

by Christmas gluttony. The band comes with an inbuilt sleep tracker that also functions as a silent vibrating alarm, for just that little extra kick in the morning. Paired with software which you can download onto your phone, you’ll be provided with a plethora of tools by which to live a healthier lifestyle.

34

GAMES

NEWS 1-5

COMMENT FEATURES LIFESTYLE 12-15 18-19 8-10

G MES

MUSIC 20-23

SCREEN 24-26

ARTS & LIT SCI & TECH 28-30 32-33

GAMES 34-35

7 DECEMBER 2015 |

SPORT 38-40

Exeposé Games

GAMES EDITORS Jack England Evan Jones Adam Smith

EXEPOSÉ

@ExeposeGames

games@exepose.com

Battlefront: A New Hope?

Jabez Sherrington goes to a galaxy far, far away to review Star Wars: Battlefront Star Wars: Battlefront EA DICE PC, PS4, Xbox One Out now

B

ACK at E3 2013, one 30-second teaser trailer generated more of an impact than the majority of other games featured, put together. For many fans of the monolithic Star Wars franchise, the announcement of a new Battlefront game ended years of worry – the series was loved, but since the release of Battlefront 2 in 2005, it awaited an unknown fate. People were willing to set aside their qualms about EA, Disney, and DICE, in

often met with sceptical eyes (and rightly so, with the amount of marketing abusing the ‘in-game engine’ tag as of late) – but upon release, Battlefront has confirmed how aesthetically refined it is. Accenting this is a set of recognisable sounds, fulfilled with equal polish.

As a mostly PC-focused gamer in recent years, the whole ‘next-gen’ graphics discussion has mostly passed me by,

tween them. Four. In a solely multiplayer game, the worth of the game rests upon the match quality, and playability in the long run; the lack of maps are but one reason why many people across online forums are already getting quite bored of Battlefront.

For DICE’s most stable release of a game to date, there is not too much that they needed to keep stable.

Many of the gameplay features are

power-ups; meaning they can be attained by anyone. This includes the ability to become a hero or villain, creating a frustrating power dynamic, where people are disregarding the objective in order to camp the spawning areas of these power ups.

Luke is just a bit wrong facially, or this is simply a cunning foreshadowing of a clone subplot

PC, left me bored when I eventually found the power-up in a real game.

Overall, Star Wars: Battlefront is a solidly built game – the weapons are quite balanced, it’s relatively bug-free, and the overall spectacle is rather attractive – I’m usually all for mechanics over aesthetics, but the grand presence of a looming ATAT actually does invoke a sense of survival when on the rebel side, or a snarky pride as the imperials.

But several hours in, it suddenly hits you that you have seen it all; games begin to feel repetitive, the guns feel balanced because they are all quite similar, and add that to the fact that there are only 15 to unlock and four maps to play on, you feel cheated. You have just paid 50 quid for a game that then has the cheek to offer you

order to cling on to the chance – a new hope – that gamers would receive a beau-

a 40 quid season pass, filled with future promised content you feel you should

tifully realised version of a world that had been intertwined with their own since the late 70s.

have had access to in the first place.

You have just paid 50 quid for a game that then has the cheek to offer you a 40 quid season pass

They load you into maps filled with glorious skyboxes, beautiful landscapes, and wonderful terrain Partially, with the release of Star Wars: Battlefront, we have received this.

The game is absolutely gorgeous. The title screen and menus are presented in a slick plastoid shine, but it’s when they load you into maps filled with glorious skyboxes, beautiful landscapes, and wonderful terrain, that you truly see how good this game looks. All of the screenshots, stills, and videos from before the release were

enth film where some clone subplot is revealed). These issues would not be so pronounced if they were not sat alongside a near-perfect depiction of the Star Wars world.

The main issue with this level of graphical fidelity, is that there is simply not very much of it. The two gamemodes worth playing (most are incredibly basic or devoid of variety) have four maps be-

brought to the game do not have a lot of variety. Most weapons have a very random firing pattern, severely cutting the skill ceiling for the game quite low; there is not a massive gap between good and bad players, but there is also not a driving motivation to improve your playstyle, or move up the unlock tree.

The most exciting items to utilise are littered across the map in the form of

the stand-out moments which usually define DICE games – Battlefield was notorious for creating opportunity for stand-out plays, or interesting solutions to reactive problems. But once you have ran away from Boba Fett, gone on a killing spree as Han Solo, and brought down an AT-AT, you have pretty much seen it all. Even the Darth Vader minigame which the game lets you play during the installation on

With some mechanical changes, DICE’s Star Wars: Battlefront could have been a solid contender for game of the year – if it had more content. The December release date for the new Star Wars film likely rushed the game, but we received a finished, yet short product, instead of a fleshed out, but unrefined one.

I would recommend waiting a while to see how the future additions to the game pan out and how the DLC and new maps look before you head to a galaxy far, far away.

Photo: Ralph McQuarrie

EXEPOSÉ

“Tetris ruined my life” www.exepose.com

Natasa Christofidou, Chief Photographer, tells us about her trials and tribulations of being addicted to the Russian video gaming classic

W

E all have our guilty pleasures, or rather embarrassing habits that we wouldn’t share with others, due to the unmanageable fear of being completely ridiculed. For some it might be eating an entire jar of peanut butter before bed, or even listening to the Backstreet Boys on repeat, but for me, it’s Tetris.

Tetris had become my most intellectual and beneficial way of procrastination One stressful night of cramming for deadlines just before the Christmas break, Tetris provided me with the ideal soothing sensation that a cup of Rooibos vanilla tea had failed to do that night. Unexpectedly, I soon after found myself resorting to Tetris every time I was feeling stressed or nervous. Once I realised how beneficial it was to assort colourful blocks onto an online platform, I ended up researching the game. It turns out the ‘Tetris effect’ is actually a proven benefit

that helps the brain by making it more efficient as it works less and less each time to perform the same activity.

Tetris had become my most intellectual and beneficial way of procrastinating. It helped with my concentration, it calmed me down and, most of all, it was fun. Tetris was simply amazing. However, like most games out there, I quickly became addicted to it and when I went back home for Christmas, I couldn’t even watch a complete Christmas edition episode of Eastenders without having to play Tetris on the side. Things got even worse when I dropped out of my course at the end of January. What I thought would have been an enjoyable five months of catching up on everything that I had been putting off during university because I had claimed to be ‘too busy,’ shortly turned into an obsession over Tetris.

As my flatmates were stressing over their es-

I know that my newly discovered, so-called ‘talent’ for ended up taking over my life.

At first, I was convinced that finding myself curled up on the kitchen sofa playing multiple captivating games wasn’t the worst thing I could’ve been doing on a gloomy Monday night.

You only realise how hooked you’ve become though once you make the conscious choice to stay in on a Saturday night to play Tetris, when the rest of your friends (who were actually enrolled on a course) went out clubbing.

Dancing your heart out to the sound of aggressive rap bangers in top ten isn’t necessarily everyone’s’ cup of tea, but systematically playing the same game every day had turned into an unhealthy habit.

was Tetris.

I would robotically log into it and fixate on it for hours, to the stage where I wouldn’t even go through the effort of starting from level one. I’d skip to level ten, so I could reach my high score faster. Never did I think that this simple little Russian video game would consume me so much, to the point where I’d have dreams about it, but I wish I was joking when I say I have nightmares about Tetris blocks falling on my head.

Even writing now about my past addiction is forcing me to fight an unbearable urge to play the game right this second. I’m not going to lie, I’ve had many relapses since I decided to detox from the game in September, but when I play in moderation I like to believe that I only

says during dinner, I was too preoccupied stressing over how fast the blocks were moving on Level 34. Little did

In the same way that, when wanting to log into Facebook, most people just type ‘f’ into their URL and their browser automatically recognises what they’re searching for. When most people type ‘t,’ into their browser, a drop down list of websites usually appears with Tumblr, Twitter, or even The Times; but for me it

inherit the positives of the ‘Tetris effect’: increased efficiency and concentration.

Returning home after changing course caused some of my flatmates to suggest I had gone to ‘Tetris rehab’, others just believed what I had told them. However, the one thing we do know is that, just for a short while, Tetris ruined my life.

Are you sitting comfortably?

GAMES

35

The Orange Box We asked writers to game-ify their favourite Christmas songs and carols EVAN JONES All I Want For Christmas is Mew(Two) JACK ENGLAND Silent Hill Night ADAM SMITH Walking In A Windhelm Wonderland DAVID AGNEW Once In Royal Arkham City SAM WOOLF Frosty The S-No Man’s Sky DAVE FIANDER STONE Fairytale of New Vegas XIN LAU Happy XCOM Everyone

Free Game of the Week

Kathy Giddins shares the dark, dark secret of a childhood favourite

I

‘M sure we all have fond memories of playing musical chairs when we were little. Who could forget those moments of sheer joy as we jostled awkwardly amongst friends at a birthday party, just pretending to dance before the sound of silence meant it was time for us to find

woman for themselves and, of course, someone would inevitably be left out.

That’s how the game works after all: each time the music plays someone, usually an accompanying adult, removes a chair so one by one the players are eliminated until only one participant reigns supreme.

and the slow shall perish because there just isn’t enough room for everyone.

Eventually, the circle will close in on you and, unless you’re sitting down, you’ll be thrust to the sidelines and rendered a pathetic outcast.

You were too busy dancing and enjoying the music to foresee the economic recession, weren’t you? Well that’s your problem. The adult who controls the game, also known as the Chair Master, shall have no mercy upon your soul.

Is it any coincidence that Chair Master is also a brand of stair-lift? I think not! After all, even if you do manage to find a chair (a symbol of finding a job with a pension), you can never be certain that you’re not going to end up spending your twilight years rotting away in some care home as your children wait for you to die so they can reap their inheritance. Thus, the most enjoyable part of your day will eventually be navigating the stairs on a mechanical lift, the Chair Master.

Overpopulation is also another is-

sue which I feel musical chairs causes us to consider. Just look at the struggles one must face to get a seat in the Forum Library.

Eventually the circle will close in on you and unless you’re sitting down you’ll be thrust to the sidelines Maybe it’s a game the Guild should actively employ to ensure that every student has at least an outside shot at winning some study space. I propose that every hour they could order everyone to stand up in the library before blasting out “The Winner Takes It All” by ABBA. Then when the music stops, every computer would suddenly be fair game.

It wouldn’t be fair of course, if you were on crutches or had some sort of mobility issue, but musical chairs doesn’t make allowances for the weak. It’s every man, woman and child for themselves.

Snow Flower Snow Flower is a simple puzzle game that requires you to change a cold, white flower into a multicoloured, masterpiece in as few moves as possible.

Scan the QR code to download your free copy

EXEPOSÉ

STUDY BREAK

www.exepose.com

37

BREAK

STUDY CROSSWORD # 79

SUDOKU # 15

Across 1

The 18 to be 7? (informal) (4)

4

Centre of activity (3)

6

TBBT’s Mr. Koothrappali (informal) (3)

9

Clothing (we now don it in 27 25 20) (7)

10

As late as - before (5)

11

1 shrub (20 are 27ed with 5s of it in 27 25

To read more about a role and download an application form, search for the internship’s reference code on My Career Zone.

20) (5) 13

Luckless - ill-advised (7)

14

Prompt - hint (6)

15

Bowery (anagram) - old supplier for arch-

Part-time Internship Vacancies:

ers? (6) 19

Very difficult problem (7)

21

Song of joy (such as 27 25 20) (5)

22

Cook (cheese on toast, say) (5)

23

Surprise suddenly (7)

25

See 27

26

SCP 3357 Climate Change Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) Assistant

Body at the centre of the Solar System (3) 27/25/20

Famous 1 21 with English lyrics dating

back to 1862 (falalalala...) (4,3,5) Down 2

Chart (of the world) (3)

3

Any pros (anagram) - applied by an aerosol (5-2)

4

Very light gas - atomic number 2 (6)

5

Tree branch (5)

6

Peer at ray (anagram) - person given local charges?

ANSWERS:

(9) 7

Merry (tis the 18 to be it in 27 25 20) (5)

8

Bring together (6)

12

Large lavish car (9)

16

Enclosed fruit garden (7)

17

Comfort - aid (6)

18

Natural division of a year - winter, say (6)

19

Stingy (like Scrooge?) (5)

20

See 27 Across

24

Twitch (of the face, say) (3)

ANSWERS:

Tight, 24 Tic.

27/25/20 Deck the Halls. Down: 2 Map, 3 Spray-on, 4 Helium, 5 Bough, 6 Ratepayer, 7 Jolly, 8 Gather, 12 Limousine, 16 Orchard, 17 Relief, 18 Season, 19

WEATHER

Across: 1 Xmas, 4 Hub, 6 Raj, 9 Apparel, 10 Until, 11 Holly, 13 Unhappy, 14 Remind, 15 Bowyer, 19 Toughie, 21 Carol, 22 Grill, 23 Startle, 26 Sun,

Exeter’s outlook for the week ahead

Mon 7th

High Low

Tues 8th

Wed 9th

Thur 10th

Fri 11th

Sat 12th

Sun 13th

‘‘

PUZZLES BY ALFRED

WORDS OF WISDOM...

Bah, Humbug!

14°C

11°C

12°C

5 °C

11°C

8°C

11°C 7°C

11°C

7 °C

10°C

6 °C

10°C

6 °C

Ebenezer Scrooge

Cartoon by Katie Learmont

Closing date: Wednesday 9 December Salary: £9.27 per hour Hours: Up to 15 per week (flexible) Location: Streatham Campus Summary: 3 students are sought as part-time ‘Climate Change MOOC Assistants’.

The roles involve supporting on-line climate change discussions and conducting a weekly feedback video. These exciting SCP internships are for eight weeks, starting in January 2016.

Why not sign up for Access to Internships during the vacation, and make a start on arranging your own paid internship for the summer?

Search for ‘A2I’ on the University website.

Merry Christmas from the Career Zone team!

38

NEWS 1-5

SPORT

The best of BUCS Selected results from BUCS matches played on 2 December Basketball Men’s 1s Bristol

Football

Women’s 1s Bournemouth

Golf

Men’s 1s Buckinghamshire New

Hockey

66 61 2 1 5 1

Men’s 1s Bristol

6 1

Men’s 2s Sussex

w/o 0

Men’s 6s Southampton

6 0

Women’s 2s Sussex

9 0

Lacrosse Women’s 1s Cambridge

8 6

Women’s 2s Bournemouth

22 2

Women’s 3s St. Mark & St. John

35 1

Netball

Women’s 3s Southampton Solent

Rugby Union

36 31

Men’s 1s Bristol

14 0

Men’s 1s Plymouth

68 12

Tennis

Women’s 1s Cardiff Met

10 2

Table Tennis Men’s 1s Bath

15 2

Ultimate Frisbee Men’s 1s Bristol

7 10

Volleyball Women’s 1s Bristol

2 3

Tennis win in mix

COMMENT FEATURES LIFESTYLE 12-15 18-19 8-10

Frisbee lose tight match

MUSIC 20-23

SCREEN 24-26

ARTS & LIT SCI & TECH 28-30 32-33

GAMES 34-35

SPORT 38-40

7 DECEMBER 2015 |

EXEPOSÉ

ULTIMATE FRISBEE Stephen Strickland

Ultimate Frisbee Club Captain

Exeter 1s Bristol

7 10

E

XETER’S Ultimate Frisbee 1s emerged on the wrong end of a 7-10 result against rivals Bristol.

Exeter started off on a high, scoring three unanswered downwind points, including one very difficult catch at the back of the endzone by Louis Cash. Exeter then worked the disc upwind for a crucial point, extending the home side’s advantage to 4-2. The following point, however, signaled a loss of momentum as a solid downwind huck was missed in confusion over the boundaries of the pitch. Bristol, in possession at this time, were able to work the disc back upwind and cancel out Exeter’s earlier effort.

With the momentum firmly in Bristol’s favour, the visitors scored a further three points in a row after this, taking the score up to 4-6.

Exeter recaptured some of their earlier momentum with the assistance of experienced Captain, Chris Ross At this point, Exeter recaptured some of their earlier momentum with the assistance of experienced captain, Chris Ross, and Exeter’s offensive formation regained its structure. After some great cutting upfield from Sean Jagger, among others, Exeter were working hard to rein in the clinical Bristol side. Despite some superb play, including impressive layouts from Club Captains Mike Forrest and Stephen Strickland, Exeter were unable to make up for their earlier lack of focus and continued to concede.

Even though the hosts levelled the scores at 7-7, Exeter ended up suffering a 7-10 loss as Bristol added three unanswered points near the close of play.

The defeat means that Exeter will have to win their two remaining games of the season, against Southampton and Swansea, to make it into the Division 1 National tournament next season. Just one win would be enough to get them into the Division 2 Nationals.

With those crucial matches occurring after the Christmas break, the team is looking to keep their fitness up at the same high standard and make sure that they are well drilled ahead of these vitally important games.

>> Clockwise from bottom left: Volleyball celebrate winning the second set, Ultimate Frisbee in lifted spirits, another point for Olivia Parson and

WOMEN’S TENNIS

sistance in the second set. They greatly reduced the number of unforced errors and put Exeter under greater pressure.

It paid dividends as the visitors took the second set 4-6.

Matt Nicholson & Jason Burge Tennis Club

Exeter 1s Cardiff Met

E

10 2

XETER eased past a Cardiff Met side positioned just below them in the table. The team of Athena Nathalia, Olivia Parson, Lydia Green and Summer Colling pulled together to secure Exeter’s second win of their BUCS campaign in emphatic fashion with a 10-2 victory.

In the doubles, Nathalia and Colling played as first pair. They took a convincing 6-1 lead in the first set before coming up against a much sturdier Cardiff re-

Playing at number one seed, Nathalia gave an absolute masterclass and was a joy to watch, showing all her talent In the third and final set, both sides were engaged in a scintillating battle to take the win. Fortunately, Exeter came out on top as Nathalia and Colling won 6-1, 4-6, 10-5 in a Championship Tie Break. Parson and Green were next up as the second seeds against Cardiff Met

pair Joanne Bowen and Abbie Reynolds. With strong serving throughout both sets, they took a comfortable 6-2, 6-3 win. A particular highlight were the infrequent unforced errors that both players conceded. Both matches were entertaining and had plenty of drama, and the Exeter girls were resilient and came through well.

With the scoreboard reading 4-0 in Exeter’s favour, they had a healthy lead to take into the singles. Colling and Green took to the courts as numbers three and four, keen to extend the home side’s advantage. Nursing an injury prior to the match, Colling fought valiantly, but emerged on the wrong side of a 6-4, 6-0 result to give Cardiff Met a fighting chance.

Green, meanwhile, overcame her opponent in spectacular fashion, and

ed day for Exeter www.exepose.com

SPORT

39

Women’s Volleyball defeated by Bristol VOLLEYBALL

Emmott Leigh Sport Editor Exeter 1s Bristol

2 3

D

ESPITE holding a 2-1 lead going into the fourth game, Exeter slumped to a 2-3 loss at home to Bristol.

The first point was well put away by a Wangler attack. After Beth Sharkey had done well to keep the ball in play, Bristol put the ball out and Exeter went up 2-0. However, Bristol stayed in touch despite the promising offensive play of Alejandra Marma-Gutiérrez and Joanna Czylok. Sharkey was prominent here, claiming many of the points as Exeter stormed to a 10-3 lead.

Continuing to make a big impact, Exeter secured another couple of points. However, a few mighty attacks from Bristol brought them roaring back into only a four point deficit at 13-9.

The home side then got momentum back by winning two of the next three points. Problems with the net brought a momentary delay to proceedings, but Exeter got right back into the thick of it at the resumption when Sharkey played an attack off a well-worked assist from Marma-Gutiérrez. In fact, Exeter then won nine straight points to end the game at 25-9.

Bristol won several points of their own in the next game. Exeter got back

on the way themselves, but a near miss brought the score even at 8-8. Bristol’s attacks were often the difference as they marched on to an 11-9 lead.

The Green Army landed another attack, but Bristol kept their hopes alive by fighting to a 10-14 lead. Czylok finished off a wonderful long point to get Exeter back into it, but it was looking ever more likely that Bristol would take the second game. They continued to play well in reaching 13-21, and ended up taking the game 17-25.

Continuing to make an impact, Exeter secured another couple of points In a tense opening to the third game, Exeter worked a 2-1 lead as Exeter forced some unforced errors. A long point with many exciting moments got Exeter up to 5-4, and they took advantage to work it up to 12-7. After a long point with strong defence from MarmaGutiérrez, they got over halfway to the finish line with 13 points. Despite Exeter storming up to 20, Bristol then went on a tear and levelled at 20-20.

At this point, Exeter’s two successive points looked crucial and Sharkey made it three with an unreturnable attack. Having won the game 25-22, unfortunately Exeter could not keep up this momentum through the final games and lost 2-3.

Hockey 1s claim league

CONTINUED FROM BACK PAGE

d Lydia Green in Women’s Tennis. Photos: Natasa Christofidou and Mia Brown. despite losing the first set 2-6 in a period of play where the scoreline did not quite reflect the respective talent on display, battled back to win consecutive sets 6-3. Green’s slice was particularly effective in the latter two sets, as she brilliantly pinned her Cardiff opponent firmly on the back foot for the remainder of the contest to get Exeter a fighting response after having lost the opening singles match.

A particular highlight was the infrequent number of unforced errors that both players conceded Parson and Nathalia then took to

the court with the assured knowledge that a victory for either player would result in an overall success for Exeter.

With stunning forehand winners, Parson took her match comfortably 6-3, 6-3. Cardiff Met were unable to handle Parson’s big serves, and they were comfortably played out of the contest.

As a result, Nathalia was able to enjoy her dead-rubber encounter. Playing at number 1 seed, Nathalia gave an absolute masterclass and was a joy to watch, showing all her talent as she outclassed her opponent in all aspects of the game. The sheer variety and accuracy of her shots made life far too difficult for her struggling opponent as Nathalia managed to overcome her 6-1, 6-1, often without the Cardiff Met player scoring a single point in service games even off her own serve. Nathalia’s emphatic

performance, complete with deft drop shots and crisp one-handed backhands, was the exclamation mark in an overall performance which left Exeter as the comfortable victors over their Welsh opponents. It was a very strong team effort on the day, with all four girls doing their part to work towards the overarching victory.

The final result was an emphatic 10-2 result for Exeter Women’s 1s, which leaves them comfortably in fourth place and three points above Cardiff Met. They also have a game in hand with which to increase the distance between the two teams. Next week, the girls face the bottom club in the league, Leeds Met, hoping to close the gap that keeps them behind Bath 1s, who currently sit only one place higher at third in the league.

...give Richards with a simple opportunity to complete his hat trick.

This meant that Bristol’s consolation goal from a penalty corner to make it 4-1 was little worry. There were a couple of wild passes that did not reflect the high standard of the other play, but Bristol were largely harmless.

It was Exeter who had the next notable effort, with Simmons’s shot deflected away by the Bristol defender.

Although the ball was scrambled in soon afterwards, a foul had been given for aggressive play. Watson soon made up for it; smashing the ball high into the net when the defence failed to wrestle the ball away from his stick on the way through into the area to put Bristol 5-1 up.

To his credit, the Bristol goalkeeper made some smart stops in the couple of minutes that followed and left Bristol with some chance of reducing the fourgoal deficit. Once again, they failed to get a significant effort in on target and Exeter had the next good chance when a

pass just slipped beyond the desperate lunge of Caplan and wide. A mere touch would have got the goal. Fleet then saw a pass fizz just beyond the waiting Simmons. It was made 6-1 by Watson soon later after an impressive dribble afforded him a simple finish.

With the match drawing to a close, Bristol tried again to retrieve some credibility by pressing high. This almost got them a score, but the whistle soon blew for a resounding 6-1 victory. Exeter’s 1s deserve all the plaudits that come from this excellent win, having secured the title with two games to spare.

BUCS Hockey Premier A South P W D L Pts Exeter 1s

8 7 1 0 22

Bath 1s

8 5 1 2 16

Oxford Brookes 1s 9 4 1 4 13 Cardiff Met 1s

8 3 1 4 10

Bristol 1s

8 1 2 5

5

Oxford 1s

7 1 0 6

3

40

SPORT

NEWS 1-5

COMMENT FEATURES LIFESTYLE 18-19 12-15 8-10

MUSIC 20-23

SCREEN 24-26

ARTS & LIT SCI & TECH 28-30 32-33

GAMES 34-35

7 DECEMBER 2015 |

SPORT 38-40

EXEPOSÉ

SPORT EUMHC stroll to league title Exeposé Sport

SPORT EDITORS Rob Cross Emmott Leigh

@ExeposeSport

sport@exepose.com

>> Matt Richards, Noah Sharples and Max Heaver run back to the restart of play having extended Exeter’s lead. Photo: Natasa Christofidou

MEN’S HOCKEY Emmott Leigh Sport Editor Exeter 1s Bristol

6 1

T

HE Exeter Hockey 1s secured the BUCS South Premier A League title with a 6-1 demolition of the visiting Bristol team. There are two games still left to play in the season.

A very early chance fell for Exeter’s Max Heaver but it ended up as only a penalty corner. Although it was missed, the opportunity did give the home side some early encouragement. After some composed defending by Mark Loughrey and Alex Manton-Jones, Exeter won

In this issue of Exeposé Sport...

a penalty corner, which Matt Richards narrowly failed to convert following a good save from Bristol’s keeper.

Although Bristol tried to forge an opening for themselves, in response to the Exeter pressure they were under, goalkeeper Jack Banister confidently let the ball run out of play following a Bristol shot at goal.

Exeter were soon given a chance to get on the scoresheet when Connor Caplan tried to take advantage of an incisive run through by Heaver, but the resulting deflection did not quite come to fruition. Soon afterwards, however, Matt Richards was able to rifle through a shot from a penalty corner which put the Green Army 1-0 up.

In response to this, Bristol charged up the other end to win their own penalty corner. Good defending from

Women’s Tennis 1s easily defeat Cardiff Met Page 38

Loughrey and Captain Ed Fleet prevented an equaliser, but it was clear that Bristol were looking dangerous on the counter-attack. A sublime longrange effort from Fleet, however, found its way into the net via a couple of deflections in the area to make it 2-0 and crushed Bristol hopes of a quick comeback.

Watson ran through on goal before pulling it back to present Richards with a simple opportunity to complete his hat trick In the following few minutes, the away side started to press for a chance to reduce the deficit. It was Exeter’s

chance to try for a counter-attacking goal, but Bristol were holding firm in defence and preventing the home side from extending their lead.

The game was opening up; Fleet was called into action again to block off an approaching defender whilst at the other end of what was becoming an increasingly frantic game, Caplan fed Jack Simmons for a chance which was hastily cleared. Ollie Davies then showed impressive skills to run around the side of the defence, but Bristol recovered just in time to smuggle it away again.

Exeter were frustrated by Bristol’s resistance, and their inability to get the ball in was exposed again moments later. A penalty corner earned after a foul on Caplan in the box ended in similar fashion, as Exeter’s forwards lunged in around the keeper’s pads but narrowly

Women’s Volleyball edged out by Bristol Page 39

failed to scrape it in. Tom Watson also experienced disappointment after his well-worked dribble around three defenders resulted in a pull-back which just evaded the onrushing attackers.

Half time was called with the score at a reasonable 2-0, as the home side looked to extend their advantage.

The second half got underway with Noah Sharples at the heart of Exeter’s passing moves. A foul committed by Loughrey looked to have put Exeter in danger, but the defence held firm before striking twice in quick succession.

A wonderful passing move involving Sharples was expertly finished off by Richards, before Watson intercepted a poor Bristol pass and ran through on goal before pulling the ball back to ...

CONTINUED ON PAGE 39

For the latest BUCS news head online