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XEP SÉ E THE UNIVERSITY OF EXETER’S INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SINCE 1987
Here we go again
29 FEB 2016 | ISSUE 651 | TWITTER: @EXEPOSE | WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/EXEPOSE | FREE
Elation as EURFC win South-West Derby, Pages 38-39
Second NUS referendum in 18 months to be held in May
Threshold required to leave reduced to simple majority James Beeson & Susannah Keogh Editor & News Editor
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REFERENDUM is to be held to decide whether The Students’ Guild should disaffiliate from the National Union of Students (NUS) for the second time in less than 18 months, after a Sabbatical election candidate proposed a Manifesto Idea to leave the Union on 23 February. The vote to decide whether to stay in the NUS will take place between 2 May and 13 May, with at least 900 votes required for the referendum to be legitimate. In order for the Guild to leave the NUS, a simply majority of 51 per cent of students will need to vote in favour of disaffiliation. The options on the Idea will be the same as for all other Student Ideas (Strongly Agree / Agree / Neutral / Disagree / Strongly Disagree and Confused), with a vote to decide the exact wording of the referendum question taking place in
Drugs & Alcohol: Exeter’s boozing habits under the Science & Tech microscope Pullout
April. As part of a new ‘Reward and Recognition’ scheme launched following last year’s Sabbatical elections, for every 450 votes received by a student who does not go on to win the election, a Manifesto Idea - the equivalent of a Student Idea that passes automatically - is granted to the candidate to start a project. Proposed projects costing less than £1000 require that the candidate received a minimum of 450 votes in the Sabbatical elections, but those over this threshold are only granted to candidates who received over 900 firstpreferences. The NUS affiliation vote was chosen by Paul Rota, who ran for the position of VP Welfare & Diversity this year, as a Manifesto Idea. Commenting on the decision to call the referendum, Rota said: “Last year, the NUS leave vote failed on the promise that there would be substantial reform in the NUS. There was not. “We see NUS officers working with...
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Photo: Edwin Yeung
£30k MACE rebrand under fire Fiona Potigny News Editor
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TAFF, students and SSLC members have hit out at the “unnecessary” new Accelerate module evaluation service, after the University spent £30,000 in a revamp of the MACE feedback system. Described as a “new tool for communication and gathering feedback from students” by the University website and launched in November last year, the new system was created in order to allow students to provide in-module feedback, which can be implemented mid-term, as opposed to the previous end-of-term only arrangement under MACE. Despite its promises to “encourage students to actively engage with giving feedback”, however, the new system has seen “disappointing” levels of student
News: Student forced to leave uni due to lack of eating disorder support Page 3
involvement, with some surveys seeing participation as low as 5 per cent. Across the College of Humanities, deadlines for surveys due by the final week of term were extended by an extra month until January 11, as participation rates were “lower than expected”, according to an email sent to Accelerate Representatives and SSLC Subject Chairs. Following these difficulties, SSLC members and Subject Chairs were called upon to assist with encouraging students to fill out their forms. Modern Languages Subject Chair Olivia Stanley told Exeposé: “I was surprised and frustrated to hear that the £30,000 was spent on Accelerate. As an SSLC Chair, I was frequently asked to promote Accelerate and was told that far fewer students had responded than typically would with the previous MACE system.” Although participation increased fol-
Features: President of the Supreme Court Lord Neuberger interviewed Page 12
lowing the extension, some surveys still saw participation at less than 50 per cent than what they were previously under MACE, with some Humanities surveys of around 30 students seeing returns as low as 10 per cent. Anna Romanska, English SSLC Subject Chair, believes that this is due to the University’s failure to communicate the transfer to the new system: “The University needs work on communicating with us. People want to give feedback but a lot of students just aren’t aware of the new pathways to do that. Ultimately, it’s just a change of name, and the system still works the way it used to – now we need the University administration to get the word out more efficiently.” This lack of communication, coupled with the system’s new branding, which incorporates a new rainbow logo...
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In brief
To rename a Mocking-building
Alabama students are petitioning to rename a building after Harper Lee, following her passing earlier this month. Run on Change.org, the petition, which is addressed to University of Alabama president Dr Stuart Bell, calls for the university to “show our support for racial equality, as well as honour the legacy of a woman who promoted kindness and empathy for all”. “It would be more than fitting for our English building to bear her name.” Since its launch, the petition has garnered 2,661 signatures, surpassing its original 2,500 target and has sparked international discussion.
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Exeposé News
NEWS EDITORS Susannah Keogh Fiona Potigny
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University news from beyond Exeter Stories compiled by: Susannah Keogh, Fiona Potigny and Sabrina Aziz
Deported student overcomes ban
Stay in the EU, urge university leaders
The lady’s for turning ...into a statue?
A Cameroonian student deported from Denmark earlier this year for ‘working too hard’ is now able to return, after securing a job in the country. Marius Youbi, an engineering student at Aarhus University, was forced to sit his final exams in just one day before he was removed from the country, achieving the highest mark in all of them. Yourbi has now been hired as an engineer by a local company, meaning he will now have a permanent residence permit that will last until 2018. A spokesman for the new employer said: “First of all we feel like Marius should be allowed to finish his education. Secondly, with this job offer we have gotten an advance on a recruitment that would have almost certainly happened later anyway.”
University vice chancellors have penned an open letter urging the public to consider how important the European Union is to higher education in the UK. Published in The Sunday Times, 103 university leaders said the UK’s position within the EU meant institutions are better placed to collaborate with partners to carry out cutting edge research and attract global talent to the country. Due to take place on 23 June, the referendum deciding whether Britain should remain in the European Union follows months of debate. Signing Vice Chancellors include Sir Steve Smith, University of Exeter, and Louise Richardson, Oxford.
University of Kent students are to vote on whether or not to construct a 250ft statue of Thatcher on campus, after a petition by the Kent University Conservative Association. The petition states that the creation of the statue opposite the university’s nightclub “would encourage good and sensible behaviour under the gaze of the 250 foot Colossus”. “Appropriately the statue would be constructed almost entirely of iron at a 46:1 scale. While the ingenious polished bronze handbag would also allow the statue to dazzle the eyes of those lefties who would the [sic] Colossus.” This is not the first time Kent Conservatives have called for such a statue; in 2013, they called for the creation of a smaller 200ft statue, made of bronze. With the Student Union having passed the idea through the first stage, it is now up to students to decide.
A different kind of NUS report shows LGBT+ discrimination ‘sundae’ school
Cambridge to return Shia Lift-Beouf hangs cock-a-doodle statue? out with Oxford
The NUS (National Union of Students) is “deeply concerned” about the widespread discrimination against LGBT+ individuals at UK universities, after a shocking new report revealed the extent of bullying and harassment. Having gathered the concerns of over 1,500 staff and students, the report – Pride and Prejudice in Education – showed that 60 per cent of students have witnessed bullying based on sexual preference, with one in ten stating that it was a “daily” occurrence. Staff were also affected, with 17 per cent having experienced name calling. NUS LGBT+ officers Robbie Young and Fran Cowling commented: “They shouldn’t have to face name-calling or other bullying, or have to consider dropping out because of the way they are treated.” The NUS is now calling upon universities to take action on the issue.
Students at the University of Cambridge are calling to return a bronze statue of a cockerel back to Nigeria, where it was taken from in 1897. In a vote, the Jesus College Student Union passed a motion to hold a repatriation ceremony returning the cockerel to its country of origins. The statue, located in the college’s central hall, was looted from Nigeria when it was part of the Benin Empire. In recent years, Nigeria has asked for all the Benin Bronze to be repatriated, citing its cultural importance. Ore Ogunbiyi, the JCSU racial equalities officer said: “We are almost positive we have the support of college and it’s quite nice to see Jesus setting a precedent and taking steps in the right direction to weed out the colonial legacies.”
I scream, you scream, students are all screaming for a new ice-cream university in Bologna. Founded by famous gelato manufacturing company Carpigiani, The Gelato University aims to teach students the artisanal ways behind the bestloved Italian delicacy. While modern ‘gelatiere’ (gelato makers) frequently work with technology, many of the processes remain unchanged since 3,000 BC. “You can still work in an artisanal way,” maintains Stefano Tarquinio, a university gelatiere. “The key is to use fresh, raw materials… extracting all of the goodness to produce something amazing.” Such “fresh” materials include locally-grown fruit and milk from regional cows, giving the gelato its distinct, silky texture that it is known for. Now that sounds like the kind of ‘sundae’ school we’d like to visit.
Hollywood actor Shia LeBeouf spent 24 hours in an elevator in Oxford city centre as a performance art project. Open to the public, who could queue to enter the lift, lift goers were able to spend as much time as they wanted with the star. A live audio and video feed captured the event, which seemed to be primarily targeted at Oxford University students, where LeBeouf later gave a talk. Many students queued for up to nine hours, during the day and in the middle of the night. One student reportedly asked the actor to slap him in the face, to which he obliged. Project “#ELEVATE - the act of enforced intimacy” was also the brainchild of Luke Turner and Nastja Ronkko, who joined La Beouf in occupying the lift. Those entering the lift were expected to give “a performance of monologues”.
Exeter student slams Wellbeing EXEPOSÉ
EXCLUSIVE
Sarah Gough Editor
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N EXETER student has spoken out about the lack of mental health support available at the University after being forced to drop-out. Sophie Harrison, a third year English student, has spoken out about the lengthy waiting times in Exeter and how her life was at risk as a result. Harrison, who suffers with anorexia nervosa and anxiety, was forced to drop-out of University in December 2015 and defer the remainder of her third year in order to seek treatment elsewhere. Speaking exclusively to Exeposé, she describes her support from the mental health services in Exeter as being “defined by continual stop-signs”. Harrison said: “When I realised I needed more support in second year, it took six weeks between the point of referral and my first consultation. From here, it was another month before I was assigned a care-coordinator.” Due to the lack of specialised eating disorder staff, once Harrison was assigned a care-coordinator she describes the support given as “very limited”. She recalls meeting her care-coordinator only three times in a term and the advice given included “go for a run after meals to reduce anxiety”.
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After a nine-month wait for psychological therapy in Exeter, Harrison received a letter informing her that she was still on the waiting list. Knowing she required specialist support, she was forced to register with her GP in her home catchment of Somerset. She describes how her care-coordinator at home “couldn’t be more different from the one in Exeter” as she has now been successfully referred to an inpatient treatment unit in Bristol.
If I had stayed with the services in Exeter my story would be very different Sophie Harrison, 3rd year English student
Sophie Harrison’s experience is not an isolated case. Hannah Butler, a third year English and German student, suffered with anorexia and depression and was ultimately forced to seek private help. She told Exeposé: “My doctor told me not to bother with the Wellbeing Centre because the wait was too long...It’s scary how many students have to rely on the NHS. If I’d had to, I probably wouldn’t be at uni anymore.” Butler continued: “The Wellbeing Centre does a brilliant job when you can finally get help... but that’s absolutely no comfort when you’re struggling to get from day-to-day.” Over the past four years student demand has increased in excess of 60 per
cent for the Wellbeing Centre, according to Jamie Horsley, Head of Student Services. In line with increased demand, the University funding contribution to student counselling has increased by 75 per cent since 2012. The Service has recently entered into a partnership with Depression and Anxiety Services whereby NHS staff can also be accessed at the Wellbeing Centre, however this service is only available one day a week. When asked about whether the Wellbeing Service requires expansion, Jamie Horsley, Head of Student Services, said: “The Wellbeing Services provides general support to help students in their studies; anorexia is a serious health condition and often needs specialist, longer-term treatment and support.” Horsley added: “Wellbeing Services is hoping to provide more targeted support for students with less severe eating disorders and are in discussion with the local NHS Trust to consider alternative ways of providing support for students with less complex difficulties. Additionally, the team are in advanced discussion with the Guild regarding the development of a peer-led support group for students with eating disorders.” Updating Exeposé on her progress, Sophie Harrison said: “I am currently midway through my admission at the Eating Disorders Unit in Bristol, but know if I had stayed with the services in Exeter the story would be very different.”
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Mental Health Week Invigilator in brings naps to campus exam no-show Thea Bichard News Team
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TUDENTS will be offered the chance to catch a snooze on campus this week, as part of a Mental Health Awareness Week initiative. For students needing a break, the A&V Conference room in Devonshire House will be filled with beanbags allowing students to rest on campus. Numerous activities will be happening across the week, which focus on lifting mental health stigma and encourage students to talk to each other about mental wellbeing. On Monday 29 February, a Mental Health discussion panel will take place from 6:00pm-8:00pm in Streatham C, focused around speakers’ personal experiences. Societies involved in organising events include Body Society, who are holding a free yoga session in the Lemon
Grove on Tuesday from 3:00pm-5:00pm. Topping off the week will be a run to raise money for mental health charity MIND organised by Cool Runnings Society on Friday 4 March. President Eleanor Morris shared the society’s reasons for organising the run with Exeposé: “Mental health awareness is such an important cause, especially here in a university environment. Physical exercise can be hugely beneficial to people’s well-being for so many different reasons. Through our fundraising run, we hope to demonstrate some of those benefits, in a fun, informal way.” Everyone is encouraged to participate, with a suggested donation of £2 for entry. Commenting on the week, Naomi Armstrong, VP Welfare and Diversity, said: “I invite all students to join the conversation during Mental Health Aware-
ness Week. There are a range of activities happening across the week to focus on lifting the stigma surrounding mental health, and to encourage students to talk to each other about mental wellbeing.”
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Mental Health Awareness Week: The full schedule Free bubble wrap and mindfulness colouring, 29 February - 4 March, Guild Information Point Believing is Seeing: A talk on Body Dysmorphia, 1 March, 6:30pm, XFI Lecture Theatre Share Your Story evening, 2 March, 6:30pm, Forum Exploration Lab Mental Health Fair, 3 March, 11:00am-3:00pm, The Forum ‘Look After Your Mate’ workshop, 3 March, 3:00pm, Peter Chalk 2.2 Campus Run for MIND, 4 March, 3:30pm, Forum Piazza
Photo: Sophie Harrison
Susannah Keogh News Editor
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IRST-year students were left bewildered after invigilators failed to turn up for a midterm exam, with the University unable to find their whereabouts. On Thursday 18 February, students awaiting their Statistics in Business and Management (BEE1025), scheduled for 5:30pm, waited over half an hour for an invigilator, with SID unable to locate their whereabouts.
The general carelessness with which the University treated this exam really does need to be pointed out Alex Manley, 1st year Economics student
Alex Manley, a first-year Economics student, told Exeposé: “It’s pretty unreasonable to sit an exam at 5:30 in the first place, as has been demonstrated
here. The infrastructure which is very much necessary for occasions where the exam goes wrong - student services, module convenors, etc - had all gone home, leaving us hung out to dry.” Manley added: “The general carelessness with which the University seemed to treat this summative exam really does need to be pointed out.” Carlos Cortinhas, Associate Dean of Education for the Business School, said: “We sincerely apologise for any distress and inconvenience students may have experienced. We have worked with the students involved to find a swift and acceptable solution, and have provided a replacement midterm exam – which the vast majority of students have indicated they will sit. The remainder will automatically have their final exam reweighted to 100 per cent of their mark for the year.” The mistake follows a multitude of problems in January exams, previously reported on by Exeposé in issue 648.
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29 FEBRUARY 2016 |
EXEPOSÉ
Sabbs to campaign to remain in NUS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
...extremist group CAGE - a group who supported Jihadi John; we see the No-Platforming of LGBTQ+ and anti-racism activists Peter Tatchell and Hope Not Hate; we see the NUS spending tens of thousands of student money campaigning against the Liberal Democrats. And all the while, the NUS have been deliberately and maliciously blocking ‘One Person One Vote’, the one motion that would bring true democracy to the NUS.” Rota, who finished last in the VP Welfare & Diversity election, also stated during the election debates that he wanted “to tear down the Guild not become part of it”.
We will be supporting the campaign to stay in the NUS Laure-Jane Tiley, Guild President The Students’ Guild last held an NUS referendum in December 2014, with 78 per cent of students voting to stay with the organisation. Due to the financial costs associated with disaffiliation, a majority of 66 per cent was required in order for the Guild to leave the Union, a significantly higher figure than the simple majority needed in the upcoming vote. The lower percentage now required for this year’s referendum is due to
changes made when Student Votes were absorbed into the Ideas system by the Guild. President of Labour Students John Chilvers, who lead the campaign to remain in the NUS in 2014, told Exeposé: “It is a farce that we’re having another referendum after we received 78% of the vote to stay just over a year ago but we are determined to come back and fight once more.” “It’s also ridiculous to hold a vote on something so vital to our student experience here at Exeter when everyone will be busy revising for their summer examinations.” The Sabbatical Officers have also outlined their intention to campaign to stay in the NUS. Laura-Jane Tiley, Guild President said: “As Sabbatical Officers, we will be supporting the campaign to stay in the NUS. We value the national representation as well as the benefits students receive in terms of good value prices through our outlets. “We value student debate on this topic, but although parts of the NUS must improve, we want to safeguard our voice at national level.” Charlie Evans, the proposer of the Student Idea calling for a vote on continued NUS membership in 2014, stated his intention to wait until the NUS national conference in April before deciding which team to campaign for. “I will remain independent until I go to the NUS conference and submit proposals for reform,” he said, “If it is the status
quo, then I will campaign to leave.”
Should we stay or should we go? Comment Page 9 The NUS currently has over 600 member students’ unions. However, several unions across the UK have voted in recent years to become independent from the organisation. Imperial College London left in 2008, whilst the University of Southampton has been disaffiliated since 2002. Other student unions not affiliated with the organisation include the University of St Andrews, Cardiff Metropolitan University, Dundee University and Glasgow University. In a student vote in May 2014, the University of Oxford also voted to disaffiliate from the organisation, but remained after allegations of vote rigging. Student Unions associated with the NUS must have the capacity to hold a referendum on membership on a yearly basis if required. One of the major arguments to leave the NUS purported by leave campaigners is the financial cost associated with membership, with a £50,000 affiliation fee charged by the Union yearly. The stay side claim the financial benefits currently received by membership to the organisation outweigh this cost. If Exeter were to leave the NUS, the Guild would stand to lose a projected income of £22,000 from the sale of NUS extra cards. This income is currently put back
into Guild services such as supporting societies, boosting Advice Unit services and providing discounts on food, drink and stationary items across campus. However, the NUS has increasingly come under fire for what some students perceive as a failure to protect their interests. In 2014, their refusal to condemn ISIS at the Union’s national conference sparked controversy, whilst in recent months their policy to ‘No Platform’ individuals or organisations deemed racist or fascist has been criticised
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in the press for restricting freedom of speech on university campuses. NUS campaigns to have benefitted students, though, have included overturning the proposed government cuts to the Disabled Students’ Allowance and becoming the first national organisation to take a stance on gay rights. Last year in Exeter, a successful campaign by NUS Women’s Liberation Representatives led to the removal of ‘luxury’ taxes applied to sanitary products purchased in Guild outlets.
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Exeter Medical School Teaching Awards strengthens Ethiopia ties set to break records Rachel Ashenden News Team
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XETER continues to strengthen its ties with Ethiopia, following its fifth successful trip to Wollega Medical School. Wollega Medical School is one of 13 recent medical schools set up by the Ethiopian government to combat the shortage of doctors in the country. The establishment contacted Exeter to create a partnership and to formalise an ongoing project. Exeter Medical School has a proposed plan of six visits to develop a relationship with Ethiopian students and establish a sustainable collaborative learning programme which would be mutually beneficial. The fifth trip was led by Dr Ian Fussell, Dr Rob Marshall and also a team of medical students. The focus of
this return was to provide teaching for the students and give feedback to the school’s Medical academics. Exeter medics focused on helping the students improve their communication and interaction with patients in the local hospital. Students Amy and Ailise created a series of workshops to overcome barriers between doctor and patient for the prospective medics; these targeted body language, introductions, and consent. Ailise told Exeposé of the “culture shock” she initially had comparing Exeter to Ethiopian hospitals: “it was very different to what we are used to in the UK and made me realise how extremely lucky we are to be able to rely
on the NHS for our healthcare…That said, it was really encouraging to see the innovations in healthcare taking place.” Dr Fussell, Community Sub Dean here in Exeter, worked with Dr Getachew, the Dean of Wollega Medical School to help create a new Clinical Skills Lab. This entailed working with the local GPs to provide clinical skills training for both Exeter and Ethiopian students. F u s s e l l called the Clinical Skills Lab “one of the major achievements” of the fruitful collaborative project, giving “the GPs a chance to try their hands at using and becoming confident with the new equipment provided by the Ethiopian Government”.
Photo: Edwin Yeung
Josh Mines Deputy Editor
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VER 800 nominations have been received for the Teaching Awards so far this year - far surpassing the amount received this time last year. Introduced in 2010, the Awards aim to recognise the research and teaching achievements of Exeter’s academic staff. There are ten awards to be won in total; eight for individual members of staff and two for whole subject groups. Individual awards include best lecturer, most supportive member of staff and most innovative teaching, whilst awards up for grabs for subject areas, which are nominated by SSLC representatives, are best research community and best subject overall. Once nominees are chosen, the winners are then judged by a panel of staff and students from the University.
Winners will be announced at a gala ceremony at an unconfirmed date in May where nominees will be treated to a black tie drinks reception hosted by the Guild, FXU and the University. In previous years, awards have been given to a staff from a range of disciplines – no member of staff has yet won an award two years in a row. Speaking about the significance of the awards, VP Education Bethan Jones told Exeposé: “The Teaching Awards are a unique opportunity for students to publicly thank the academic and professional services staff who shape our experience in Exeter. There are nine categories to recognise the full breadth of staff support we experience and any student can nominate someone for recognition.” Nominations close on Friday 4 March. To nominate a member of staff, visit exeterguild.org.
Tab ‘Jihadi’piece sparks anger EXEPOSÉ
Zak Mahinfar Comment Editor
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CONTROVERSIAL article published by student website The Tab entitled “How Jihadi is your uni?” has sparked outrage amongst students at the University of Exeter. Although the article was originally published over ten months ago, The Tab Exeter shared the article again on 22 February via their Facebook page resulting in a string of comments from students declaring their distaste towards its content.
This article trivialises significant and complex issues that are destroying lives Laura-Jane Tiley, Guild President Such comments included a berating from Hayden Cooper - “You should be
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bloody ashamed Tab” - as well as “This is absolutely disgusting” from Leila Dara. Another disgruntled student told Exeposé: “I can’t believe that just months after the Paris attacks The Tab would share such an insensitive piece.” The article assigned a “Jihadi rating” to a selection of UK Universities whose alumni include individuals who have defected to ISIS, Boko Haram or other terrorist organisations, either during or after their studies. This ‘Jihadi Rating’ was illustrated through the use of balaclava-embellished stars. According to The Tab, the University of Westminster has the highest ‘Jihadi rating’ due to Mohammad Emwazi, otherwise known as Jihadi John, having been educated there. Since the article was published, however, reports from US Officials in November revealed that Emwazi had been killed by a drone strike in Al-Raqqah, with confirmation of his death being released by Daesh in January of this year. Other Universities featured included Cardiff, Aberdeen,
Hertfordshire, and more. The article also dubbed itself “a round-up listing the old unis of current jihadis to see which uni has led the most to exciting career opportunities with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria” and joked that “Westminster might have the signpost for jihadi brutality but Liverpool [John Moores] have the success stories: if you want to go far, this is the place for you”. Jack Harrison, Editor of The Tab Exeter, said: “We feel that as a newspaper we should highlight what a contemptible and ridiculous ideology these terrorist groups have, and that they can attract those from all backgrounds; in the hope that if only one misguided youth realises before it is too late the dangers of these murdering warmongers then we have done something positive for the world.” Laura Jane Tiley, President of the Students’ Guild, commented: “This article, and the attitude behind it, trivialises significant and complex issues that are destroying lives.”
An anonymous member of Humanities staff commented: “As the phrase goes, ‘if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it’. Students were happy with the MACE system and it received good levels of engagement. This update therefore seems completely unnecessary, and has brought more problems than benefits.” Professor James Wakefield, Associate Academic Dean for Students and Accelerate Project sponsor, defended the project’s start-up issues: “As with the introduction of any new ITbased initiative, there were a few teething problems, mostly down to transferring all the details of over 800 end-of-module surveys from MACE to the new system. “We firmly believe that replacing MACE with Accelerate has been a positive investment in the student experience. The old MACE system did not have the ability to include in-module feedback or the analytical survey capability that the
new Accelerate system does. “Nevertheless, new initiatives do take time to become established practice and we hope that continued promotion towards the end of Term 2 and a growing understanding of how easy it is to use will see the engagement with, and response rates of, Accelerate rise.” The Accelerate team are now working towards improvement alongside the Students’ Guild and SSLC, having held a Focus Group last week. Week 10 will see the service appear on the iExeter mobile app and the team are considering adding a link to popular site ‘My Exeter is Down’ in order to increase exposure. VP Education Bethan Jones said: “I would encourage students to make use of all the academic feedback systems available to them to support the University in making sure the educational experience is the best it can be.”
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Accelerate slow to take off Exeter’s trade CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 ...and surveys signed “from the Accelerate team” has led to widespread confusion over the nature of the surveys, with some students even reporting having confused it with an LGBT campaign. One final-year student commented: “Students are bombarded with emails every day from the University, UCAS and the Guild – many of which take a survey format. Many of us just assumed it was another one of those, not realising that it was basically just MACE, and actually quite important.”
As the phrase goes, ‘if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it’ Anonymous member of staff, College of Humanities “We need to find ways to achieve the same levels of engagement with Accelerate as we had with MACE,” a senior lecturer told Exeposé. Participation has not been the only difficulty with the new service, however. “There was also a glitch with Accelerate that resulted in students being able to give feedback on courses they hadn’t actually studied and this caused confusion,” Stanley commented. A “user error” also saw confidential feedback from Modern Irish Literature module EAS3226 sent to members of staff across the College of Humanities.
Photo: Natasa Christofidou
>> The post as displayed on The Tab Exeter Facebook page.
history dug up Jeremy Brown Arts & Lit Editor
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HE trade secrets of Exeter’s past will be dug up for analysis, thanks to a new archaeology project in collaboration with the University. Run by experts from the University of Exeter, the projects hopes to offer a greater insight into the city’s Roman and medieval history. Supported by funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Historic England, academics aim to discover Exeter’s trade links between the 1st and 16th centuries. From animal bones to shards of pottery, the Royal Albert Memorial Museum has a catalogue of artefacts dating all the way back to Roman times, when the settlement was called Isca Dumnoniorum. Project leader Stephen Rippon, Professor of Landscape Archaeology at the University of Exeter, explains that “there was a huge amount of excavation in Exeter in the 1970s, due to big building projects at the time such as the Guildhall Shopping Centre. Now we have sophisticated techniques to analyse the findings from those digs”, adding that the project will “will show the relationship that Exeter had with its local area, the South West and Europe”. Academics from the University of Reading will be joining the project, and
the latest technology will be used to discover the growth and sophistication of the local economy, including research into the provenance of imported food, now referred to as ‘food miles’. The composition of animal teeth, for example, will give an insight into the grazing locations of the livestock, and thus the links the settlement had with its surroundings.
Ingenuity, skill and science are key to Exeter’s future prosperity Rosie Denham, Lead Councillor for Economy and Culture National company Cotswold Archaeology will also be taking part in the research, which is being supported by the City Council. Lead Councillor for Economy and Culture, Rosie Denham, notes that “ingenuity, skill and science are key to Exeter’s future prosperity. It is wonderful to also see them helping us understand our past”. The project commences in June and will run for four years. Once completed, the new discoveries and insights into local life in ancient times will be displayed at the RAMM Museum, located in Queen Street.
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Hannah Stevenson
W Referendums & reefers S HOULD we stay or should we go? We’re asking the question so much these days we’re in danger of sounding like The Clash. Another NUS referendum (the second in as many academic years at Exeter), conveniently placed slap-bang right in the middle of exams, seems a little excessive if you ask us. There are certainly valid arguments for leaving the organisation, not least due to the hefty administrative costs associated with membership, but one has to question the wisdom and timing of another referendum, so soon after Exeter decisively voted to stay in the union in December 2014. Questions too, must be asked of the procedure that has been introduced by the Guild; allowing any candidate able to garner 450 votes in the Sabb elections to propose something that could have huge implications on the entire student population hardly seems democratic or fair. Did Paul Rota actually want to win the position of Welfare & Diversity, or did he just run in order to force through his Manifesto Idea? Whatever the outcome of the referendum in May, we’re just hoping this vote will finally settle the question of NUS membership for the foreseeable future. With the world currently rife with referendums, we’re all constantly being asked for our say. Fitting, then, that the University spent £30,000 on rebranding the MACE system for student feedback? Our other front page story this week looks into the failings of the new and ohso-costly Accelerate system. The module evaluation system has seen slight changes - they’ve added a rainbow to the logo, how lovely - yet despite the massive cash injection, it’s still not managing to encourage greater engagement rates. With lecturers dissatisfied and students still too lazy, was this investment a worthy one? Considering our story revealing the dreadfully underfunded Wellbeing Centre, wouldn’t money be better injected into the necessary yet neglected support for student mental health? It’s Mental Health Awareness Week and Sophie Harrison’s shock-
ing story (page 3) - forced to leave Uni to receive quicker treatment elsewhere - it seems no better time to pressure the University into listening to its suffering students. After investigating the issue, it’s also clear that an eating disorder specialist is becoming increasingly necessary. Let’s focus on accelerating Wellbeing’s expansion, rather than throwing £30k at a futile feedback form. ***
Elsewhere in the paper, Science & Tech have dropped (not literally!) a snazzy eight page drugs and alcohol themed pullout. Informed by a survey into Exeter students narcotic habits, the pullout poses worrying questions about Exeter students dependency on substances (illegal or otherwise) in order to have a good time. Is our alcohol intake having serious implications for our health? Should some less harmful drugs be legalised in order to be better monitored and make their consumption safer? Pick up our pullout to find out more. On the subject of legality, Features have been chatting to President of the Supreme Court Lord Neuberger about all things law-related. Neuberger has oft exerted his influence in the realms of human rights, mental health and even the ever-growing threat of social media. For the full interview, check out page 12. On a slightly less heavy note, Lifestyle have been stripping down, and then redressing two students with exceptionally different fashion tastes on page 17. It’s an Exeposé Restyle, but not as we know it. Finally, it’s been a huge week for the Athletic Union, with two varsities and a South West Derby taking place in Exeter. Sport have got all bases covered with two brilliant spreads and all the details of EUMHC, EULHC and EURFC’s victories on one of the most memorable BUCS Wednesdays in recent history. Head to pages 36-39 to read all about it.
Thanks to those who helped proof this issue: Kate Giff, Kathy Giddins, Owain Evans, Sam Woolf, Victoria Bos, Helen Payne, David Smeeton, Bea Fones, Rachel Ashenden, the Exeposé copy editors and members of the editorial team.
HACK ‘student make money quick’ or the like into Google, and the countless articles that spring up will make it clear that many students are indeed searching out ways to make extra cash whilst studying. However, these are more than just Del boy-esque ‘get rich quick schemes’: they’re a very real indication of the financial pressures students face with the cost of university. When I say “the cost of university”, I’m not really talking about tuition. That ever-elusive £9000 a year never actually graces our bank accounts, and besides, the cost of attending university hasn’t changed in five years now (which, I don’t know about you, makes me feel old). It is living expenses- meeting the costs of steep rent, stacks of textbooks, a religious commitment to Cheesy Tuesdays and the copious amounts of coffee needed thereafter- where students struggle. Indeed, the cost of living in some cities – London being an obvious example, but ‘Exetah’ too- is comparatively high
anyway. Without turning this into some frenzied anti-Tory rant, it can hardly be said that Cameron’s scrapping of maintenance grants has helped. University life is less affordable than ever before, so it’s no surprise that many of us have to tighten our belts whilst some are forced to resort to more desperate measures to fund their studies. It was revealed in the latest edition of Exeposé that some 400 Exeter students are registered ‘sugar babies’, pursuing “mutually beneficial relationships” through the website Seeking Arrangment. That’s a sharp increase from the 122 students from the University reported to use the site just two years ago, but when wealthy benefactors are able to offer their ‘sugar babies’ a couple of thousand pounds a month, is this trend really so surprising? Whilst there are plenty of less controversial ways for a student to supplement their loan, from part-time jobs to paid online surveys, few of these promise to be quite so lucrative. That’s not to assume that all students that do become ‘sugar babies’ are unwillingly driven to it out of desperation. However, you can’t help but
feel that it’s no longer the case that students just want to earn a little on the side and add to the money they already have. The increasingly extreme measures that students resort to in exchange for greater sums of cash seems to suggest a need for money; for enough money to keep up with the ever-increasing cost of living as a student.
University is expensive for everyone, but for some it has become unaffordable Yes, university is expensive for everyone, but for some it has become unaffordable. Under the current government, that’s not about to change. It’d be perfectly easy to say “don’t go if you can’t afford it”, but then what would that do for social mobility? Conclusion: the system is pretty crap. And, cynical as it sounds, although it’s upsetting to hear about the extremities that some are driven to, we shouldn’t be surprised. Unfortunately, students are just doing what they have to do.
Degree...what degree?
Cartoon: Emily McIndoe
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As another NUS referendum dawns, Exeposé Comment delve into both sides of the argument
John Chilvers Leader STAYwithNUS
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‘M sure most of us have forgotten but last year the Guild had a referendum to determine if we should stay in or leave the NUS. Campaign teams were created and the week of hassling students to vote commenced. Thankfully, as students, we voted to stay in the NUS. The margin of victory wasn’t small, 78 per cent of students voted to stay. You can understand then my bemusement at hearing the news that there is to be another referendum so soon after. The Leave side need to accept they lost and stop demanding students keep voting until they give the answer they want. The Leave side are in complete denial about what matters to students: queues at the Wellbeing Centre, the lack of space on campus and the affordability of student life at Exeter. There is simply no appetite for this referendum.
The ‘leave’ side need to accept they lost and stop demanding students keep voting until they say yes The vote is going ahead though and I can say definitively that the ‘Stay’ campaign are determined more than ever to re-examine the arguments and show once again why we should stay in the NUS. There are those who claim that the NUS does not represent and act in the interests of students, put simply- they are wrong. As someone who receives the Disabled Students’ Allowance (DSA), I cannot thank the NUS enough. The Government planned to strip down DSA to virtually make it non-existent, they wanted to take away the support that is
vital to so many students. The NUS led the campaign that forced the Government to make a U-turn, by lobbying. When my student experience was most under threat, the NUS were there to stand up for me. If we vote to leave there will be no national representation for Exeter students, we will become a lone, insignificant voice. It’s not just DSA that the NUS has successfully lobbied, they also have fought on rights for international students, against sexual discrimination, increased postgrad funding and against the privatisation of the student loan book. What we have to be realistic about is how best our interests as students at Exeter are looked after. Most decisions that will have a major impact on our time at University are not made by Sir Steve and the University, they are not even made by the Guild, they are made in Westminster, by the Government. That’s why all university student unions need to pull their influence together into one national body that can fight to ensure students get the best deal. Even if we decide to leave, the NUS will continue to exist as a national movement that’s recognised by the Government and businesses. Exeter should be part of this movement. Most importantly, if we leave the NUS, students will be significantly worse off financially. Overall the NUS is a net contributor to the Guild, without membership the Guild would lose money and therefore services would have to be cut. We would also lose access to the NUS Extra card and other NUS training for Sabbs, Guild staff, and students. In addition to this, prices in Guild outlets such as the RAM and Guild shop would have to go up. If we left the NUS, prices would go up. While not perfect, the NUS is vital to our student experience, leaving would put our Guild and our national voice at risk.
No2NUS Team
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AST year, we the students of Exeter stood up to make their voices heard against the NUS. We complained about how the NUS failed to condemn ISIS, how they fought for higher alcohol prices, how the NUS stood against Free Education, how the NUS condemned gay men for appropriating black culture, how the NUS wasted tens of thousands on billboards attacking Liberal Democrats, how the NUS filibustered against ‘one person one vote’ (a ‘radical’ motion to let students vote on who becomes the NUS President), and so much more. The Stay campaign last time said that there would be substantial changes, and in response we acquiesced a reformed NUS instead of leaving. In an ideal world, the NUS would have become a democratic body addressing real student issues and listening to student voices, instead of moral grandstanding. Instead, the NUS tells its conference to stop clapping, its officers no-platform anti-racism and pro-LGBTQ+ rights campaigners Peter Tatchell and Hope Not Hate, works with antisemitic groups like CAGE, presidential candidate and current NUS officer Malia Bouattia argues “condemnation of Isis appears to have become a justification... for Islamophobia” and more. The NUS prefers shutting down dissenting student voices than acknowledging their mistakes. It would not matter if the NUS was pointlessly posturing and engaging in toxic student politics if it didn’t lead to constantly ignoring the cries of the vulnerable and constantly preferred statements over action. The byzantine bureaucracy and culture of student politics means that students are not being listened to. Just
one example of this: the NUS’s restrictive alcohol-selling cartel has meant we must sell Carlsberg at every bar, but can’t sell microbrewed ale or cider - because they’ve not made a deal with the NUS, we can’t take advantage of being in the West Country and buying a decent pint. For NUS officers, representation has become about springboarding into cushy political careers, not engaging in real dialogues with students. Most catastrophically, the NUS is constantly overspending.
The NUS is constantly overspending Last time they went near bankruptcy (in 2006, merely a decade ago, running £2 million in debt with a £300k deficit), they overspent so much they had to invent the ‘NUS Extra Card’ - where they took all your (previously free) student discounts, bundled them into one card, and had the gall to sell it to you at £12 a year. Stuffing over students and increasing prices rather than actually listening to students. All this joy at only 50,000 of your English pounds a year. Look at Southampton. Their student experience is cheaper - the average price of a pint is 20 per cent less. Instead of having to buy an NUS Extra card, they simply get student discounts. There is no politicos posturing for power, just student officers listening to students. Southampton is free from the shackles of the NUS - we can be too. We want real democracy for students. Give our Sabbs the power to represent us properly without the burdens of the NUS. Bring down the price of the student experience. Begin that move towards democracy. BeLeave in Exeter. Vote No to NUS.
Exeter must do more for social mobility Samuel Fawcett
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AST week, The Independent reported that Exeter is one of seven Russell Group universities who saw a fall in the proportion of poorer students admitted over the past decade. Such revelations should worry anyone who believes in social mobility, equality of opportunity and is proud to say they attend the University of Exeter. Social mobility is arguably one of the most important issues facing the country.
A 2013 OECD study found that the United Kingdom performs dreadfully when it comes to this issue, having the strongest link between the earnings of an individual and their parents of all developed nations. What makes the above admission figures worse is that, more so than ever before, a university education is the best means of bettering your social and economic standing. Long gone are the days when people could leave school and find a relatively secure and well-paid job. The old industries which made this possible have died, and the UK has transitioned from an economy
based on manufacturing to one based on services. This means that an increasing number of jobs, even fairly low-paid ones, require applicants to have a graduate degree. Furthermore, those without a degree risk being trapped in a job market defined by low-pay and insecure contracts. This threat is so profound that it has led economist Guy Standing to define this demographic as a whole new class – the ‘precariat’. The risk confronting us is that prospective students from working-class backgrounds will be effectively priced out of education by rising tuition fees and,
crucially, living costs. Exeter is a costly place to live, particularly when it comes to rent, and I know full well if I hadn’t taken two years out to work I would be more than struggling to make ends meet, and I can hardly say that my background is one of deprivation.
Working-class students will be priced out Social mobility is often seen as a leftwing issue, but there is no reason this should be the case. Granted, if the Left be-
lieves in alleviating poverty and bettering class situation then of course it should see it as a major issue. However, if the Right truly believes in meritocracy, with any individual having as much opportunity as another to succeed in the market, then they cannot possibly ignore these figures. Ensuring everyone has the possibility of pursuing a degree-level education is something that should bridge the political divide, and be a key issue for any government. We have had the privilege, and it is up to us to make sure that it is available to everyone else.
To B-or-NOC to be? 10
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Rachel Ashenden
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NFORTUNATELY, school works a little like university, and unfortunately, university works a little like the real world. BNOCs thrive in all these environments. BNOCs are synonymous for people we love to hate; people we secretly wish to be; people that are at the forefront of an impenetrable and intimidating clique.
BNOCs are synonymous for people we love to hate and people we secretly wish to be You may have experienced these figures at school – the so-called popular kids- they were the hottest, they were sexually successful, and they were loud and admired. They functioned by antagonising us virginal nerds. Sorry, I am working within clumsy and binary stereotypes. Stereotypes are more com-
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plex on campus. While school was a pubescent crucible for bullying, repression, and conflict; the dynamics of the popular/unpopular battle have matured and subtly so, scattered over a far grander scale of people, so it becomes a thousand times more difficult to broadcast your ego. BNOCs are the people we see plastered on The Tab, renowned f o r
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their certain qualities that they have arbitrarily recognised as special through persistent publicity. They are the individuals we admire, and think “bloody hell, their graduate salary is going to be so much better than mine”. While here I am, making my way through a tub of ice cream and delaying my entrance into the real world by writing continual Exeposé articles, their diaries are fully booked. While my inbox consists of unwanted emails from my mum forwarding me cat memes, theirs is full to the brim of opportunities and invitations. However some of these glor i f i e d BNOCs , those
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recognised by the Guild and otherwise known as Sabbs, should be congratulated; I am the adult version of the virginal nerd; you’re the go-getter.
My inbox consists of unwanted emails from my mum forwarding me cat memes However, I still want to draw a moustache on your larger-than-life poster in the Forum. God-like, looking over us, allegedly representing the student population but also retaining this unapproachable distance. These BNOCs promoting diversity and so forth do have brilliant intentions with morally upright outcomes; but there is an underlying narcissistic element to the motivations. As there is no such thing as a selfless good deed, narcissism, in the correct proportion, is productive and successful. The aspiration to be the face of Exeter is egotistical, but if you want to be the face of change and social mobility, rather
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than to merely reap in the shallow rewards (Twitter followers, likes on your Facebook profile pictures etc.), then you are an inspiration. The confidence bolster knowing that people want to be you and befriend you is a side-benefit. Popularity is the least of the priorities of the sincerely motivated BNOCs. In whatever environment and community, there will be individuals more well-known than others for whatever reason, good or bad in its origins. The issue is when it assumes a label (i.e. BNOC). It then accumulates a celebrity culture around it and prescribes aspirational qualities, and the ethics behind this has potential for exploitation. There are those on campus that abuse their recognition. For example, certain societies are notoriously cliquey. The committee may come across as friendly and approachable during the fresher’s fair when they want your money to fund their BNOC status, but afterwards you can become a redundant member, afraid to enter their office because you’re alien, new, and unfitting to the status quo.
“I’ve hidden in academia” One writer opens up about her struggle coping with mental illness during her time at university
Yasmin Braddell
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T 20, I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. I’ve lost years of my life to anorexia, depression and anxiety. I’ve lost friends in the whirl of academic commitments. Perfectionism has cost me time I’ll never get back. And a painfully restrictive life, dedicated to control and shrinking, has cost me memories that were never made, experiences that I’ve never had.
I’ve lost friends in a whirl of academic commitments. Perfectionism has cost me time I’ll never get back I’ve hidden in academia for too long, and having reached the end of university there’s nowhere left to hide. I’ve played a disappearing act and I’ve juggled it with a degree. I’m done running. I currently wouldn’t survive in a full time job or
masters – and trust me, the perfectionist in me is screaming, “failure, failure, failure”, and anorexia is hollering, “fraud, fraud, fraud” and the world is asking, “why, why, why?” And I wouldn’t survive travelling, because, quite simply, I don’t want to just “survive” anymore. I want to learn to live. Ironically, my time at Exeter has been some of the best years of my life – I will be forever grateful. To all my wonderful friends, healthy me knows we’ve got a lot more memories to make. And, in everything perfectionism has cost me, the saving grace is that it allowed me to get to Exeter! However, I’ve carried the weight – pardon the pun – of mental illness for too long. And yes, I’ve managed, coped, survived. But, carry anything for too long and the weight becomes unbearable. I’ve made more excuses than I care to admit, have spent more nights curled up in bed, too tired or cold or scared of life, to move. I’ve never sampled Exeter’s notoriously incredible array of cake shops. My order is a herbal tea.
I guess I’ve realised that sometimes, through nobody’s fault, life just happens. Realistically, 16 year old me’s dreams of a career in law will probably equate with continual spells of illness. And, if not being a barrister is the price I have to pay, I know it’ll hurt my family and friends considerably less than it will if anorexia wins. I’m not throwing it away, just placing it to one side. I’ve spent my life trying to disappear, it’s time to make a little bit of space for me.
Life means letting some things go, holding some things tighter and grasping new dreams I could be anything, but I can’t be everything, and I’ve spent far too long trying to be nothing. And I’m writing this in the hope that someone reading this has had the same end-of-uniepiphany. If so, I wish you luck. Or, that someone reading this sees some sense in what I’m saying – deep down
I know that this is the right thing to do. If so, it will be okay. As for me, in all honesty, I know I have a long way to go in accepting this; however, one day,
I’m going to be okay. Maybe I won’t have followed 16 year-old me’s plans to the T, but hopefully I’ll have lived, be living and have a whole lot of living ahead of me. I ’ d like to work in London, but I’d like to be well enough to not pass out on the escalators, both embarrassing and
dangerous, and I’d like to wander into the nearest coffee shop and grab something without a second thought. I’d like to travel, but I’d like to eat weird and wonderful foods and be strong enough to live life to the full… in whatever form it takes. I’d like to have a successful career, and I think, one day, I will. At 20, I’m learning that sometimes, life means letting some things go, holding some things tighter and grasping new dreams. So, with graduation looming and family questions of “where next?” gracing every get-together, for the first time in a v e r y long time, I’m going to give myself the time. I’m going to let time heal me. Because the degree, the dream job, the travelling, can wait. My health cannot.
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“ You can’t expect the legal world to put things right on its own ”
Photo: Gemma Bartlett
Following his visit to the University of Exeter, Lord David Neuberger speaks to Katie Jenkins, Features Editor, about the problems facing legal diversity
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OOD lawyers know the law; great lawyers know the judge.” It’s a famous – albeit anonymous - quote, yet one which encompasses all the cynicism which has surrounded (and somewhat defined) the legal profession over the past decades. Accused of being bureaucratic, money-oriented and elitist, for many, it would be easy to assume that the judiciary and legal system – as with so many sectors – have gradually been transformed into another playing field for predominantly rich, white males. Certainly, these are criticisms Lord David Neuberger, President of the Supreme Court, does not shy away from. “In the judicial world, we have to be more ready to encourage people to apply for jobs who otherwise wouldn’t,” he asserts,“we have to – in both the judicial world and the legal, professional world – get rid of unconscious bias and, in some areas, the slightly macho atmosphere which encourages, I think, prejudice in favour of men rather than women… But, to some extent, the legal world is typical of the rest of the world. You can’t expect the legal world to put things right on its own. However, as we are concerned with justice, we should be setting an example and be more directed, more determined to deal with it than anybody else.” Indeed, if there’s anyone who really can diversify the judiciary any time soon, you can bet your bottom dollar it’ll be Lord Neuberger. His credentials read like any Law student’s dream; a Chemistry graduate, he claims that he was “terrible” at the Science (neglecting to mention, of course, that he studied it at Oxford). Originally a merchant banker, he was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn only four
years upon graduating in 1974. In his talk, he jokes about our economy’s luck in his move away from banking “otherwise the recession would have happened much earlier” – a statement which, given his qualifications, I struggle to believe wholeheartedly. From there he went from strength to strength, becoming a Queen’s Counsel in 1987 and a bencher for Lincoln’s Inn in 1993. He held his first judicial appointment as a recorder in 1990, going on to become a High Court Judge in the Chancery Division in 1996 and a Supervisory Chancery Judge in 2000.
We have to get rid of unconscious bias and the slightly macho atmosphere Neuberger’s influence has perhaps been most potently consolidated within the last decade, becoming a Lord Justice of Appeal in 2004 and a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in 2007. His election as only the second President of the Supreme Court in 2012 is one which, you’d think, would be the cherry on top of an especially ruthless, egotistical cake. However, it is anything but. Perched in the corner of the Forum Alumni Auditorium (somewhat fitting given its courtly appearance in Broadchurch last year), surrounded by swathes of excited students, he humbly pins all his success upon his upbringing, citing his father, History Master and particularly his mother as his three greatest inspirations. “I was an argumentative little boy and my mother used to get fed up with me arguing and would say, ‘right, I’ve had enough of this, let’s change sides’ which I think trained me to be a lawyer,” he ad-
mits modestly. Nonetheless, that is not to undermine his ambition; his success certainly has not come without controversy, particularly from the House of Appeal. “When I was a first instance judge, there was a case where the argument was that somebody had got – I can’t remember exactly – but it was 30 acres of farmland by squatting on it for 30 years,” he reflects. “It was a very unattractive, unfair conclusion; I reached it with great regret, and the Court of Appeal said that I’d got it completely wrong. It went to the House of Lords and they said I’d got it right, and I think that slightly marked my card.” Likewise, he references two cases on human rights “which I knew nothing much about”. “The other two members of the Court of Appeal thought that human rights hadn’t been impinged, and I thought they had. Both cases went to the House of Lords, and on both cases they agreed with me. It was very lucky because not that many cases go to the House of Lords.” It is these three cases which he believes have assisted him in his upward career trajectory, although he humbly acknowledges that it’s “a slightly self-reverential” conclusion. However, it is perhaps Neuberger’s reflections on issues outside of the legal world which are what have propelled him into the public consciousness. Any Internet search will tell you about his criticisms of the European Court of Human Rights’ “inconsistency” or his stance regarding legal aid cuts: an issue he expands upon in his talk. “One has to accept the demands on government and finances,” he concedes. However, he agrees that the cuts do “make it more difficult to get into law”. In 2011, his warnings about the
risks of social media sites such as Twitter made national news, advising that more restrictions should be placed upon them since they’re “out of control”. In reflecting upon society’s attitudes towards freedom of speech, he acknowledges that, “We all accept freedom of speech has to be curtailed. We all accept that you shouldn’t be free to incite racial hatred; you shouldn’t be free in this hall when it was full of people to shout, ‘fire!’ and therefore it’s a question of degree.” Nonetheless, he does remark that in spite of society being more “liberal” nowadays, the limitations we place on freedom of speech are “dangerous”. “Freedom of speech,” he claimed, “if it’s only freedom to say things that don’t offend people isn’t really very valuable”.
Probably the most complex unit in the whole universe, as far as we know, is the human brain This regard for human rights is one which has translated into Neuberger’s involvement with mental health organisations. He acted both as the Chairman for the Schizophrenia Trust from 2003 to 2013 and is currently a trustee for Mental Health Research UK. This connection partially stems from more personal reasons, growing up with a sister with Down syndrome which “made me aware of [mental health] in a personal way”. However, he is all too conscious of the stigmatisation surrounding mental health: “I think I’ve always felt that mental health is a very tricky problem in the sense that, looking at it as a science, we are at the
same stage with mental health as we were with physical health 300 or 400 years ago. We pontificate about it but we don’t know much about it. We still have a slight embarrassment about not really wanting to admit it or know about it or know how to deal with it.” For these reasons, he praises the “important work” of mental health organisations, not least because of his “fascination” with the human brain: “It is such a new science and just reading books about the brain – whether it’s a healthy brain as it were or an unhealthy brain – is just eye-opening. Probably the most complex unit in the whole universe, as far as we know, is the human brain.” It is this genuine desire for equality and advancement which is, perhaps, the real key to Lord Neuberger’s success. Far from the stereotypical bureaucrat, his active promotion of diversity belies the traditional views of sceptics, appearing to offer a more advanced modernity to the legal system. However, in spite of such potential, recent cases have only further riddled the system with accusations of prejudice and discrimination. The recent Cheryl James inquest has attracted controversy due to the decision to not investigate the “wider culture of sexual abuse” within the armed forces – a decision which has been reflected in New York with Kesha’s case against sexual abuse in the music industry. Indeed, with claims that both black and mentally ill people are more likely to be found in prison than at university or in hospitals, it seems that genuine diversity cannot merely be enforced through quotas and judicial employment. In order to reform attitudes within the judiciary, first and foremost, we need to reform those of society.
Boris’ Brexit blunder?
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Georgina Bolam discusses the impact of the London’s Mayor campaigning to leave the EU
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ORIS Johnson has gambled his long-standing ambition to become Britain’s next Prime Minister by joining the campaign to leave the European Union, putting himself at loggerheads with David Cameron and George Osborne. In a move that will electrify the referendum campaign, Mr Johnson decided to back a ‘Brexit’ (British exit) despite personal appeals from Mr Cameron to support his position. We are lead to believe that, through his actions, Mr Johnson believes that the European political project was in danger of losing proper democratic control. Unlike some of those backing a Brexit, Johnson raises the possibility that Britain may not ultimately leave the EU in the event of a leave vote. In fact, he calls for Britain to have a deep and co-operative relationship with the EU. His decision will entice the referendum campaign and comes as a major blow to David Cameron just one day after the Prime Minister called the June 23rd vote. It sets the stage for a leadership campaign that looks likely to see Mr Johnson face off against George Osborne, the Chancellor, for the chance to succeed Mr Cameron when he steps down. This now causes even deeper divisions within the Conservative Party as many Conservative MP’s have let Mr. Cameron know their own stance on the EU referendum. For example, Ian Duncan-Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretray, has claimed that the UK is more vulnerbale to a terrorist attack as we remain within in the EU.
Boris has gambled his long-standing ambition to become Prime Minister Cameron is therefore seeing opposition within his own party and now he must deal with the shock of Boris’ change of heart. Johnson’s decision is bound to deepen the party’s internal rift but, given that Johnson’s importance is routinely overestimated, whether he will be the enormous asset the Leave side calculates he will be is another matter. It was vital to see the referendum and the internal Tory battle as unique in their own two ways, but some newspapers believe that Johnson’s antics might precipitate an early general election. While it is thought that the referendum could make life hard for some pro-Cameron MPs in their constituencies, Johnson’s influence is arguably overstated in comparison to the bigger issues facing the UK and the EU. The public are surprised at Johnson’s sudden change of mind due to the fact that, in the past, he has written a lot about
the importance of staying in the European Union and it seems as though he is perhaps putting his personal leadership ambitions above the national interest. Johnson believes that there is a way that we could actually get a better deal that does more for Britain and restores some control to the people in this country. However, it’s hard to believe the mayor’s words when he has advocated staying in the EU for so long. The Leave campaign has now been boosted by the Mayor of London, which could potentially promote his bid to be the next Conservative leader. For someone who has been mayor of London since 2008 and who was re-elected in 2012, he’s certainly not under the radar. In fact, opinion polls have shown that the public view him as the second most credible politician on this issue behind Prime Minister Cameron. However, Johnson’s support for a ‘Brexit’ has increased concerns over the risk of Britain leaving the EU weighing on the pound because until recently, the sterling has been a popular choice with investors around the world. Our economy has outperformed many others, interest rate rises looked imminent. However, not only have our economic fortunes dimmed, we now have a date for an EU referendum - June 23. The impact of the ‘Boris Bombshell’ was very much felt. There’s no doubt that Johnson’s decision to support the campaign to leave the EU triggered a sell-off. Investors view his declaration as making the prospect of an “out” vote more likely. He is, after all, a very popular politician. Some would have you believe that this is proof that investors also believe that Britain outside the EU would be a poorer nation and a less attractive place to invest. This is a harder punch to land, not least because there’s no definitive proof that that would be the case. First and foremost, the fall in the value of the pound feels like a reaction to the heightened risk of the unknown. Human beings don’t tend to like change or uncertainty, and investors (usually) are human beings. My belief, and it is not a particularly controversial one, is that the prevailing view of investors is that Britain will vote to remain in the EU. So in the coming days, expect financial markets to be very sensitive to any news which hints at a different outcome. But even when you step back and have a look at the data, you notice that the pound has been weakening. The prospect of an interest rate rise has diminished, the likelihood of a Brexit has incrementally increased - both are being felt. The Prime Minister has characterised a decision to leave the European Union as “a leap in the dark”. That feels like a
fair comment. So students of Exeter, you have four months to decide whether it’s a heroic or a foolish one. Despite Johnson’s turn around and the increase in support in polls for the Out campaign, there remain many reasons why we, most likely, will not leave the EU. To understand the dynamics that strongly favour an “in” vote, start with the politics. Until this month’s deal, Britain’s leaders were not seriously making the case against ‘Brexit’. After all, Prime Minister David Cameron and his government had to pretend that they would contemplate a breakup if the EU rejected their demands. Under these circumstances, it is impossible for either Labour politicians or business leaders to advocate an EU deal that Cameron himself felt he was not yet ready to promote. The ‘Out’ lobby therefore enjoyed a virtual monopoly of public attention. This situation may briefly persist, even though the EU deal has now been agreed, because Cameron has no wish to antagonise his party’s implacable euro skeptics until it is absolutely necessary, but as the referendum approaches, this political imbalance will abruptly reverse. One reason is Cameron’s decision to release his ministers from party discipline during the referendum campaign. Initially viewed as a sign of weakness, Cameron’s move has turned out to be a masterstroke. Having been offered the freedom to “vote with your conscience” on the EU deal, most significant Conservative politicians – with the notable exceptions of Johnson and Michael Gove – have come around to supporting Cameron. As a result, the Out campaign has been left effectively leaderless and has already split into two rival factions – one driven mainly by antiimmigrant
and protectionist sentiment, the other determined to concentrate on neo-liberal economics and free trade. It can be confidently predicted that as the political tide turns, the British media and business opinion will follow, mainly because of direct financial interests. For example, Rupert Murdoch, whose outlets dominate the media landscape, needs membership in the EU single market to consolidate his satellite TV businesses in Britain, Germany, and Italy. Another powerful motivator for Murdoch, as well as for other media proprietors and business leaders, is to be on the winning side and to maintain good relations with Cameron, unless they see overwhelming evidence that he will lose.
The out campaign has been left effectively leaderless and has already split into two In a challenge that pits one of Britain’s most popular politicians against the Prime Minister and deepens the divide in Cameron’s party, Johnson said his boss has failed to deliver fundamental reform with an EU deal. It will be interesting to see how much of an effect Johnson, a political showman whose eccentric persona masks a fierce ambition to succeed Cameron, will have on the outcome of the EU referendum as well as the elections in time.
FEATURES
13
The Ins and Outs of Brexit It’s the issue everyone is talking about, and the Tory MPs are declaring sides on the big Brexit question. We take a look at the confirmed stances within the cabinet, and see who’s waving the EU flag, and who’s hoisting the red, white and blue...
The Ins
David Cameron The PM intends to campaign “heart and soul” to stay in the EU.
George Osborne The Chancellor says Brexit would be a “shot in the dark”.
Theresa May The Home Secretary is supporting Cameron, and says that staying in the EU makes deporting foreign criminals easier.
The Outs Michael Gove The Justice Secretary will be campaigning for Brexit.
Iain Duncan Smith The Work and Pensions Secretary has said that the UK risks a Parisstyle attack by staying in the EU.
Boris Johnson After what he described as an “enormous heartache”, the London Mayor has declared himself in favour of a Brexit.
Life in plastic, it’s fantastic? 14
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EXEPOSÉ
57 years after her conception, the once hyper-sexualised Barbie has had a makeover. Thea Bichard reflects on the doll’s history, asking if the change has come too late
M
Y cousin hacked off the hair of hers, convinced it would grow back. A friend of mine accidentally welded the plastic strands to some hair curlers, and another pulled the head off of hers completely. Personally, I was sick on mine on a particularly awful car journey her shiny blonde waves were never quite the same again. The unfortunate girl in question, perma-tiptoed, with impossibly proportioned pointy boobs, waspish waist and statuesque legs was of course, Barbie. Her creator, Ruth Handler, had been watching her daughter, Barbara, playing with paper dolls when she dreamt up the idea of a new type of doll. First showcased at the Toy Fair in New York on 9 March 1959, and named after Handler’s daughter, the Barbie doll was born.
Barbie was once perma-tiptoed, with impossibly proportioned pointy boobs and waspish waist Since then, Barbie has become many things to many people. Sold in 150 countries worldwide, over the years she has racked up an impressive CV, with an expansive list of job titles that has included: Sign Language teacher (1999), Surgeon (1973), Paratrooper (2000), US President (2000), Firefighter (1995), Architect (2011), NASCAR driver (2009), Ballerina (1961-present), Secretary (2007) and News Anchor (2010). There has never been a glass ceiling in Barbie World. She has also seen off a fair few challengers in her time. The British equivalent, Sindy, marketed as a more wholesome equivalent, briefly outsold Barbie in 1968 and 1970, but has since lost out to the American rival. Similarly, the bendier Betty Spaghetty had her moment in the late 1990s and early noughties, followed by the rise of the Bratz doll. None, however, managed to topple Barbie’s reign, until the flurry of ice and repetitive singing that came in the form of Disney’s Frozen and its protagonist, Elsa. Since the film’s release in 2013, sales of the Elsa doll have threatened Barbie’s supremacy. A continued drop in sales of Barbie dolls in recent years has been attributed in part to the success of Elsa dolls, as well as a narrowing of the target market as trends see children lose interest in their toys faster than ever before. It’s fair to say though, that Barbie remains the archetypal ‘girl’s toy’, and
her iconic status in popular culture is as steadfast as ever. Fashion followers will no doubt recall the Moschino Spring/ Summer 2015 show which saw a parade of ‘Barbies’ sporting platinum blonde wigs, bubblegum pink outfits, and which even featured model Charlotte Free rollerskating down the runway. As designer Jeremy Scott put it, “Like every girl and gay boy, I loved Barbie. It’s hard not to; she’s practically perfect, she’s a good big sister, she’s had every job in the world, worn every outfit. And it’s just joyful. Her and I share the same things: we just want to bring joy to people.” Clearly, though, this joy has not been shared by everyone. Barbie may have an impressive résumé and inspired plenty of copy-cats in her time, but one thing no one has ever accused Barbie of being is diverse. Nor has she been considered a particularly great role model, mostly due to her super-human measurements that, if scaled up to human size, would make perks of life such as breathing, standing and digesting practically impossible. The doll immortalised in Aqua’s 1997 school disco classic ‘Barbie Girl’ was the flag bearer for parental and media concerns over the sexualisation of young girls and a moral panic about girlhood being corrupted by the threat of sex and consumerism. More recently, terms like ‘pinkification’ have been coined to describe the gendering of toys and rise of the ubiquitous pink ‘for girls’ toy aisle that Barbie has long been the poster girl for. With an increased emphasis on the importance of an intersectional approach to feminism in recent years, questions of under-representation and a lack of diversity have been associated with Barbie. Back in 2013, the ‘Mexico Barbie’ landed production company Mattel in trouble for accessorising Barbie with a stereotypical national costume, a pet chihuahua, and a passport.
She’s linked to the sexualisation of young girls and the gendering of toys Although the company defended the product as being part of the ‘Barbie Collector Dolls of the World’ line, and there-
fore similar in style to how other other Barbies represented various nations, the controversy struck a chord with a larger problem of diversity within the Barbie product line. Her signature tall, blonde, skinny, white look has, until now, stubbornly refused to adapt to calls for an updated image which might better represent the appearance of the children who own her. Her unchanging look has inspired a host of companies to produce dolls which attempt to offer a more realistic alternative. The ‘Lammily’ doll, for example, has the figure of an ‘average’ woman, with the option to customise her with stretch-marks, acne, and scars, bringing her closer to achievable standards of beaut y . However, last week, Mattel appeared to have changed the game entirely, by announcing a whole new range of looks for Barbie. Through the company’s Twitter page, the latest dolls, along with the hashtag #TheDollEvolves was unveiled. The new faces - and bodies - of the ‘Fashionistas’ line will include seven different skin tones and three new body types: ‘petite, ‘tall’, and ‘curvy’, along with 22 eye colours and 24 hairstyles. Their website describes the move, saying: “This is just the beginning. From offering products that feature more empowering and imaginative roles to partnering with best in class role models, we believe in girls and their limitless potential. #YouCanBeAnything.” Of course, the move has sparked a barrage of praise, think pieces, and even appeared on the latest cover of TIME magazine alongside the headline, ‘Now can we stop talking about my body?’ The renewed narrative of ‘empowerment’, ‘role models’ and ‘limitless potential’ may be well-founded, as the new models are undoubtedly a positive move for the brand. The Guardian released a video of young girls playing with the new Barbie, with all of them reacting positively to the changes. The bigger thighs made Barbie “stronger” and “easier to hold”. The children were also recorded saying things like “she looks like me”. Yet it may be argued that the change has come 57 years too late. Although it is true that companies react to market
demands, cynics are speculating as to whether the decision to diversify Barbie was less about tackling problems of diversity and body image among young girls, and more about trying to recuperate the money that Frozen’s Elsa has run away with.
I didn’t try to look like Barbie, but then I, like my other home-counties friends, am white Considering the change itself, can a whole girl squad of dolls really have that big an impact on the way that girls cope with the pressures of looking a certain way? When I was growing up, my dad was against me and my sister owning Barbie dolls, in part because of the narrow image of femininity that she represented and perpetuated. My mum did eventually buy us them, and personally I cannot say I remember placing much importance on trying to look like her. But then, maybe that’s because I, like the majority of my other suburban, home-counties friends, am white, able-bodied, tall, and have always been fairly slim. Although I can’t say that a SCUBA Barbie ever inspired me to don a wetsuit, it never crossed my mind that some girls may not have been able to recognise any part of themselves in her. Perhaps my own cynicism as to whether the new Barbies will do much to help the girls who she now more closely resembles will actually make a difference, stems from the very fact that, except for not being blonde and having never been remotely interested in becoming a NASCAR driver or a ballerina, I was never made to feel as though Barbie represented a womanhood that was out of reach for me. It’s really very easy for me to dismiss the new dolls as a money-generating ploy. I do feel, however, that the latest Barbie debate raises some difficult questions about how we think about and treat girls in society. Girls are often hyper-sexualised, bombarded with products that focus on aesthetics and beauty, clothing and general cosmetic changes as ways of achieving happiness through self-improvement. Barbie has had a long overdue makeover, but outside of Barbie World, the fight to level the playing field for girls who have every right to aspire to be the next US President is far from having been won by a toy company.
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Photo: www.usatoday.com
Has the ink run dry?
With The Independent set to cease print operations in March and an expanding digital media, James Beeson, Editor, assesses the challenges facing print newspapers in the 21st Century
A
FTER a proud 30-year history, it was announced on 12 February 2016 that the liberal tabloid publication The Independent and its sister paper The Independent on Sunday would cease to operate as print publications from the end of March 2016, becoming the first major UK national publication to move to a digital only format. Just a few weeks earlier, Guardian News & Media, the company behind The Guardian and The Observer announced their intention to cut operating costs by 20 per cent in a bid to break even within three years, putting ‘a significant number’ (thought to be around 100) of jobs at risk. It is a similar situation faced by countless other regional and local publications across the UK, who in recent years have seen a significant downturn in the size of their readership, as well as increases in running costs. It is tempting to look at the facts above and declare the death of print media as somewhat of an inevitability. In an age where information is instantaneously accessible and news available from a huge range of sources at little or no cost to the average consumer, traditional print newspapers are increasingly struggling to adapt and survive. A 2015 report by The Guardian stated that in the last 12 months, national daily newspapers in the UK lost an average of half a million in daily sales, with the total number of national papers sold falling from an average of 7.6m a day to just over 7m between March 2014 and March 2015. Among the highest drops in sales were The Sun and The Daily Record, both of which reported declines of more than 10 per cent, and The Guardian, whose sales fell by 9.5 per cent. The Independent, which once had a circulation of more than 400,000 copies daily, now distributes fewer than 60,000 copies, and will soon cease to operate as a print publication entirely. Why are traditional print publications finding it so hard to compete in the digital era, and does The Independent’s move signal the beginning of the end for print media as we know it? Senior figures at The Independent were quick to argue their move was a sign of innovation and responsiveness to what
is a changing industry. Evgeny Lebedev, the owner of The Independent, was upbeat about the future of the publication. “The newspaper industry is changing, and that change is being driven by readers,” he said, “they’re showing us that the future is digital. This decision preserves The Independent brand and allows us to continue to invest in the high-quality editorial content that is attracting more and more readers to our online platforms.” The Independent’s Editor, Amol Rajan, also pointed to the success of the publication’s digital branch as a reason to be optimistic. “We were the fastest-growing quality news site in the UK over the past three years,” said the 32-year old in a piece for The Spectator, “Revenues were up 50 per cent last year and traffic went up 33 per cent.” With nearly 70 million global unique users a month, independent.co.uk is clearly both a profitable and popular source of news.
When information is instantaneously accessible... traditional newsapers are struggling There are concerns, however, that the move to an online-only format of journalism will lead to content increasingly driven by the need to attract advertisement for the site, with click-bait and short digestible content preferred to longer, investigative and more serious forms of reporting. The pay-per-click advertising model many outlets choose to employ to make profits has lead to fears of a ‘dumbing down’ in content and tone, with articles such as ‘This is why you won’t survive the apocalypse’ and ‘Meet the boys who will make you cry, wipe your tears away - then charge you for it’ leading The Independent’s indy100.com – a news source aimed at millennials – at the time of writing. It’s a far cry from the kind of serious and informed journalism that gained the paper such respect within the industry in years gone by, and it remains to be seen whether the quality of journalism pro-
duced by the publication will suffer as a result of the move to an entirely digital format. It’s not just national publications that are suffering in the 21st Century. Local and regional papers have always struggled to fund their operations, relying mostly on subscriptions from local residents and heavy use of advertising on their websites. According to figures released by ABC, all paid-for regional daily newspapers in the UK saw their circulations decline in the second half of 2014, with some falling by as much as 20 per cent. Many national publications such as The Times have been able to combat falls in revenue by introducing paywalls to access their online content, thus protecting against declining print sales. This strategy has been moderately successful for the Murdoch-owned publication, which now boasts 170,000 paid subscribers, and reported only a 0.9 per cent decrease in sales of their print edition between March 2014 and March 2015. Likewise, specialist publication The Economist recently reported their paid subscriptions were up 31 per cent to 303,000 in the last year, showing that perhaps the paywall could help provide a solution to publications hemorrhaging profits and losing circulation. Unfortunately, paywalls are not an option for many local papers, whose potential audiences are often too small to monetise through digital advertising, and who face increasing pressure to cut running costs and produce content with ever shrinking editorial teams. In January 2016, the Newsquest-owned Herald and Times newspaper group, who produce publications such as The Herald, Evening Times and The National announced an additional 25 redundancies in what was their fourth wave of cuts in just over a year. The future certainly looks bleak for regional print media, with Newsquest, the third largest publisher of regional and local newspapers in the UK, revealing in December 2015 that they now only employ one editor for all of their titles in Oxfordshire and Wiltshire. It seems like only a matter of time before many of these
publications cease to produce content for good.
Newspapers still continue to dominate the political agenda and influence digital news outlets Looking at the facts as they are, it is not surprising that many observers declare traditional print media a doomed industry. Digital formats, however, tell an entirely different story. Whilst The Daily Mail saw print sales fall by 4.6 per cent in 2014-2015, their website MailOnline. co.uk saw a growth rate of 16 per cent in the year 2015 to the end of September, and now boasts almost 200 million unique monthly visitors, the most of any UK newspaper website. Likewise, digitalonly news site Buzzfeed now has 200 million monthly visitors, about five billion video views, and a theoretical market value of about $1.5 billion. What’s interesting, however, is that recently Buzzfeed have taken a more active role in investigating and reporting on serious news stories, as opposed to the more light-hearted, viral content for which it is best known. The site’s new investigative unit, formed in 2014, has carved out a niche for itself, spearheading stories such as an investigation with the BBC into match-fixing in the upper reaches of tennis and a series on the abuse of foreign guest workers, which went on to win a prestigious Ellie award. This more serious approach to digital news is evidence that the shift away from traditional print mediums does not necessarily mean cat videos and funny gifs at the expense of hard-hitting and challenging journalism. Speaking to Exeposé in August 2015, Jim Waterson, Deputy Editor of Buzzfeed UK, said he believed “the battle is already lost” for print journalism. “Newspapers… people just don’t read them in the same way anymore.” However, there are still reasons to believe that print media can survive and indeed thrive in the digital era. On the
same day The Independent announced the closure of their print operations, their other sister paper The i, was sold for around £24million to regional publisher Johnston Press. The i was launched in 2010 as a cheap alternative newspaper and currently sells around 275,000 copies daily. The paper made underlying earnings of £5.2million in 2015 to the end of September and will continue to operate as a print outlet for content produced by The Independent, with around 50 staff moving to Johnson Press under the terms of the sale. The regional publisher clearly believes there is still a a profit to be had in the production of the high-quality, impartial print journalism The i prides itself upon, and they aren’t alone. On 22 February, Trinity Mirror Plc, the company behind publications such as The Daily Mirror and The Manchester Evening News, announced the launch of the first new standalone national daily newspaper for 30 years, entitled The New Day. The title will be available from 29 February across the UK, and will focus on “time poor” consumers whilst “trying to create a mood of optimism and positivity that is lacking elsewhere,” according to its editor Alison Phillips. In a move that undoubtedly hopes to mirror the success of The i, the paper will be politically neutral and cost 50p to purchase. If print journalism is to survive in any format into the future, more publications will surely aim to follow this cut-price, bite-sized approach to news reporting. There is no doubt that in the 21st Century the world of print media is more unstable than ever, and many will mourn the loss of The Independent as a print publication. There does, however, appear to be some evidence to suggest that the medium is not quite as doomed as some commentators have predicted. Despite declining sales, newspapers still continue to dominate the political agenda and influence the reporting of broadcast and digital news outlets, and hence their influence remains keenly felt throughout the industry. Digital journalism may well be the future, but for now, at least, print remains firmly a part of the present.
16
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29 FEBRUARY 2016 |
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Exeposé Lifestyle
LIFESTYLE EDITORS Sabrina Aziz Jack Wardlaw
EXEPOSÉ
@ExeposeLStyle
lifestyle@exepose.com
Leap for love this February
Two Exeposé Lifestyle writers debate over the age-old leap day tradition where women can turn the tables and propose to men: Is the tradition really that radical? Or merely a confirmation of gender roles?
“W
ILL you marry me?” is a question that, traditionally, a man must ask a woman. However, due to various tenuous myths it just so happens that once every four years, women can take a leap of faith and ask the man to marry them. One theory is that this stems from the fifth century when St. Bridget complained to St. Patrick about the length of time women had to wait till they were asked to wed. Another is that in 1288 Queen Margaret of Scotland, aged just five, apparently declared that women could propose to men on the 29 February. Either way, since 2016 is a leap year, the time has come once again for us to ask ourselves do we want to keep this tradition?
The leap year proposal tradition is a fun way of switching up the status quo I do. In my opinion, when customs have been a certain way for so long it usually means that people are happy with the way things are. There is no official law which states that women can only pop the question every four years, it’s just that some traditions die hard. I don’t want to have to propose to someone. In our society, men know that it’s the man who usually proposes so if they haven’t done it, it usually means that they don’t want to or they’re not ready. This doesn’t mean that I’m not a feminist and that women shouldn’t be able to propose whenever they want. I just think that the leap year proposal tradition is a fun way of switching up the status quo and an excuse to get what you want without seeming excessively desperate. I’m a hopeless romantic who grew up watching rom-coms and reading chick-lit, so like most girls I’ve fantasised about the perfect proposal... and it didn’t involve me bending down on one knee. However, I’m also a firm believer in not waiting for life to give you what you want. I know this argument might seem contradictory since leap years only come every four years but, without wishing to generalise, men tend to take
a little longer to decide what they want. Who knows? In another four years you might not even have to ask and he’ll have made up his mind. But otherwise you know that you can fall back on a leap year proposal as a Plan B. If you don’t ask, you don’t get, so why should marriage be any different?
When customs have been a certain way for so long it usually means people are happy Having spoken to both my guy friends and girl friends, there seem to be mixed views on this. The girls said that they’d rather be asked than ask, but they have nothing against women proposing on a leap year. On the other hand most of the guys said they’d rather do the asking but others thought the idea that the man should ask was “outdated in a society striving towards equality” and that “if you love someone you should just freakin’ propose!” I wonder if they’d have the same opinion if their girlfriends proposed to them? In the end though, no matter who’s asking who, there’s still the same nerves, fear of rejection, sweaty palms and desire for dutch courage.
KATHY GIDDINS
A
S it’s 29 February today, desperate women with Beyoncé lyrics echoing in their heads wait eagerly. This is it. After fouryears of patiently waiting, your big chance has come. For one day (or one whole year in some forwardthinking regions), you get a say about where your relationship is going. And if you propose and your boyfriend says no, depending on where in the UK you hail from, he has to buy you a silk gown, fur coat, or some new gloves - all essentials in any self-respecting 21st Century woman’s wardrobe. It’s a win-win really, if he says yes you get to live out what everyone says must be the best day of your life, if he refuses then you get something pretty. What more could a girl ask for? If not already clear, I think the 29 February tradition is just a bit outdated. Scratch that, the w h o l e tradition of proposing is stuck somewhere in the realm of chivalrous knights, love letters and embroidered handkerchiefs. Everyday Sexism’s Laura Bates recently explained the trouble she was having navigating the old, traditional, and totally un-feminist rituals usually involved when men and women marry each other. The white dress is a handy reminder that you’re a good virgin bride. Your father cer-
emoniously gives you away, much like the dowry he will also be presenting to your husband-to-be. Then you promise to ‘obey’ your husband’s every whim, and voilà, with the powers vested in me by heteronormativity, I now pronounce you Mr and Mrs Henry VIII. Why is it that in every other aspect of a relationship, it is a given that differences of religion, gender, culture and personal preference shape each couple uniquely, yet it is considered as boundary-pushing if it’s the woman down on one knee, or if a video of the whole affair overplayed with a Bruno Mars song is uploaded to YouTube? Marriage itself has finally been re-evaluated so that it’s no longer a privilege reserved for heterosexual couples. This in mind, 29 February loses any shred of meaning when there are no women in the relationship to do the proposing on that day, or on any day. What to do if two women want to marry each other? Does 29 February become a race to see who can pop the question first? Or, shock horror, what if a couple has simply already discussed the idea of a proposal, and has decided in advance that one person simply prefers to be the proposer, gender and tradition aside?
The whole tradition of proposing is stuck somewhere in the realm of chivalrous knights I personally don’t fancy the idea of proposing (though I won’t bore you by lingering on any underlying crippling fears of rejection that might sway that particular opinion of mine). Equally though, the idea of being proposed to in the romantic setting of the Eiffel Tower or some equally romantic landmark, makes me want to vomit, and not just because I don’t like heights. The institution of marriage is ever-evolving, and so too are the attitudes of each individual couple, who at some point may decide to hold their own individual weddings in their own unique, individual way. In whatever form they come, proposals should be no different.
THEA BICHARD
Walk a mile in their shoes EXEPOSÉ
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Jack Wardlaw, Lifestyle Editor and Rob Cross, Sport Editor, swap their styles for a day to see how the other dresses. Exeposé Lifestyle caught up with them to see how the fashion experiment went Rob before
W
E all have our own styles and we all tend to wear what we feel comfortable in, but here at Lifestyle, we wondered what would happen if we took two people with completely different styles and got them to swap clothes for a whole day. We got Rob and Jack to pick an outfit of theirs for the other to spend the day in. Afterwards, we caught up with them to see how things went. Rob, what would you say is your everyday style? I don’t mean to give a convoluted answer, but it honestly depends on what I’m going to be doing in the day. If I’m going to be in lectures or relaxing then I’ll wear outrageously colourful sweatpants with a Ralph Lauren shirt and Adidas trainers. If I’m going to be in meetings or more formal situations then I’ll trade the sweatpants and trainers out for jeans or smart trousers and brogues or loafers. What piece of clothing do you feel most comfortable/ yourself in? I love jumpers. If I could only save one sort of clothing from my burning house it would be jumpers. I have
Jack before
a wide range of different styles in my wardrobe, but I have a cream Ralph Lauren jumper which I absolutely love.
I wouldn’t spend the sort of money he does just to look like a personified chess-board How did you feel having to swap styles and wear Jack’s clothes for a whole day? Hated it. I’m sure I’d get used to it, but I felt unusually self-conscious. Tight and leather really isn’t my look. I definitely became a great deal ‘camper’ wearing his clothes and the spiked boots... well, they’re just something else. Out of ten, how would you rate their style? 5/10. Look, it works for Jack. That’s his style and he rocks it, but I wouldn’t spend the sort of money he does just to look like a personified chess-board. Would you ever wear any of their style of clothing again? I guess black jeans are a staple
Jack, what would you say is your everyday style? My everyday style is what makes me feel good about myself - it just so happens that all of that tends to be black, expensive and rare! I only wear what I really love, and I guess some people would think it makes me look overdressed but I don’t really think that matters. I love black, leather and pieces that are a bit different or a bit special, that’s what I look for when I go shopping. There is so much generic crap out there so I’m always looking for something that stands out, either because of how it looks or how it feels.
for about two years now, except that I’ve also added a couple of pairs of amazing leather jeans to my wardrobe, but they’re also skin tight.
People were staring at me because I looked like an overgrown toddler who found a snapback in Tesco
Out of ten, how would you rate their style? I’m going to have to say 4/10. Nothing matches, nothing is co-ordinated. The outfit he picked out for me looked like I’d got dressed in the dark. The whole lazy-chic thing (which is present only at university it seems) really shouldn’t be a thing.
What piece of clothing do you feel most comfortable/ yourself in? I can’t leave the house without wearing black skinny jeans. They make me look taller, thinner and mean I can experiment with more layers on top. I haven’t worn anything other than them
How did you feel having to swap styles and wear Rob’s clothes for a whole day? It was genuinely my worst nightmare. The colours and the prints were way OTT. Wearing his stuff, I felt like people were staring at me because I looked like an overgrown toddler who found a snapback in Tesco. Even though the trackies were comfortable, I actually felt more uncomfortable wearing them than my skin-tight jeans.
Would you ever wear any of their style of clothing again? I like the idea of perhaps invest-
of any person’s wardrobe, so I’d definitely wear them again, but I certainly wouldn’t pay that much for them. Other than that, no I wouldn’t. Quite frankly, his shoes are a health and safety hazard.
Rob after
Who rocked each look better in your honest opinion? I think Jack would be honest enough to admit that I suited his clothes better. Jack looked like he had just crawled out of bed, and it’s a style he clearly doesn’t feel comfortable in. On the other hand, I think I got quite into the whole catwalk strut…
What Rob wore • Shearling bomber jacket: AllSaints, £398 • Black silk blend top: Rick Owens, £210 • Print Cigarette jeans: AllSaints, £98 • Spiked boots: Jeffrey Campbell, £190 • Claw ring: Gareth pugh, £153
ing in a pair of trackies, but they would have to be black, and I’d only ever wear them in the privacy of my own home. If I became Guild President, I’d ban all of them from campus.
Jack after
Who rocked each look better in your honest opinion? Rob definitely looked better in my clothes than I did in his. Like I said, I looked like someone who never grew out of watching Balamory, but I saw him working the look I picked for him. He can deny it all he likes, but I think he secretly loved it really.
What Jack wore • Navy puffer jacket: Real McCoy, £50 • Aztec printed t-shirt: Topman, £15 • Printed sweatpants: Taxonomy, £30 • Lace up high-tops: Jack & Jones, £25 • Snapback, Yik Yak, Free Photos: Natasa Christofidou
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MUSIC
NEWS 1-5
COMMENT FEATURES LIFESTYLE 12-15 16-17 8-10
MUSIC Gig Listings
Tuesday 1 March Leona Lewis Colston Hall, Bristol Thursday 3 March Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra The Great Hall, Exeter Friday 4 March Field Music Phoenix, Exeter Sunday 6 March Grimes The Anson Rooms, Bristol Monday 7 March Natty Exeter Phoenix, Exeter Tuesday 8 March Walter Schreifels Cavern, Exeter Ludovico Einaudi Colston Hall, Bristol Thursday 10 March Muncie Girls, Birdskulls, Skeleton Frames Cavern, Exeter Sunday 13 March Animal Welfare Society Music Fundraiser: National Acrobats, Flaws Above and the Allergens Cavern, Exeter
Exeposé Recommends...
MUSIC 18-20
DRUGS PULLOUT
SCREEN 22-23
ARTS & LIT SCI & TECH 24-25 28-29
GAMES 32-34
29 FEBRUARY 2016 |
SPORT 36-40
Exeposé Music
MUSIC EDITORS Jim Atherton Katie Costello
@ExeposeMusic
Rocks and rolls music@exepose.com
Alongside the Exeposé Drugs Pullout, Wil Jones investigates why alcohol and narcotics so frequently riddle the best musicians’ lives
T
HE link between creative thought and drug use is a long one. From the Soma-soaked Vedas to the Romantic poets’ use of opium, artistic and philosophical creation has coincided with perception-altering substances across history and culture. Culture has treated the modern musical artist in a similar mystical vein as the authors of posterity: as possessing a heightened keenness for beauty or pain, able to access the divine Muse, particularly the more unrefined or instinctive the musical talent. They reach an aesthetic plane inaccessible to most, to provide us with revelations - revelations that- ultimately, are sold to us in songs. In the second half of the 20th Century, amid the mass commercialisation of music, many eras and genres were bound to a particular drug: LSD and 60s Psychedelia, ecstasy and House, alcohol and Country, marijuana and Reggae. It was a reciprocal relationship where composer, performer and audience would engage in shared usage. Yet one, less participatory drug maintained a special reverence in particular: heroin. Opium has a ritualistic origin preceding recorded history, and the rise of heroin chic in the 1990s highlights its cultural endurance as mystical and desirable, right up to the rec e n t past. As an
exhilarating pain relief, the heights and depths of feeling it grants the artists, supposedly, greater ‘aesthetic sight’, devoid of the limiting banalities of conformity and sobriety. Frequently, there is an assumed apex - prior to the inevitable decline - where the power of inherent creativity and heroin combine, manifested, perhaps, in a compositional opus, or when musical performance is at its peak.
Yet one, less participatory drug maintained a special reverence in particular: heroin Nobody epitomises this more so than Kurt Cobain. Calcified in youth, he is the self-sacrificial saint, exemplifying the futility and frustration of modern life. If we project our trust and belief in artists
to deliver a representation of their truth, then the patently nihilistic message from Cobain was that heroin - as pain relief - is only ever palliative. As the millennium concluded, heroin lost its fashionable charm, with death and destruction ushering in more than the promise of dishevelled catwalk androgyny, and thus we lost our taste for bleakness. Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty are perhaps the last two figures to embody the role vacated by Cobain, where Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, and Charlie Parker, among others, came before. Yet, with the mere pity bestowed upon Winehouse by her death, and the ambivalence that now greets Doherty, the romance of the selfdestructive artist has waned: there is less veneration of it as an ‘artistic ideal’, and a reworking into something symptomatic of mental illness. Where is such a figure, or movement, now? Taylor Swift’s cold-hearted corporate domination reigns in pop; her image carefully crafted online, she is perennially trapped in amber without dying young, devoid of the need to aspire to any artistic endeavour. She pervades as a model to base a modern musical career on.
Field Music @ Exeter Phoenix Friday 4 March Having spent their Valentine’s Day playing for our neighbours in Bristol as a part of the BBC 6 Music Festival, Field Music make the trip even further South to play Phoenix this week. After the recent release of their latest album, Commontime, their show could prove to be a suprise success.
EXEPOSÉ
Dance music - particularly househas re-emerged as the communal activity and soundtrack of choice, the drug being MDMA. Rather than the expansion of perception offered by the mystical artist, we are instead looking to limit to reduce experience to
within a dance hall, to the primal thud of a wordless beat, exacerbated by ephemeral chemical intoxication, recoverable in time for Monday morning. As the world becomes more confusing, the geopolitics more brutal, the Internet more bewilderingly capable, we are seeking the quiet contentment of an apparently sober, All-American sorority girl, or the soporific safety of Adele, adorned with a bottle of wine on a Saturday night. Perhaps we have rejected idolatry in music, our spot-lit proselytisers aside from most middle of the road and conformist performers. The appetite for another heroin-doused musician’s unravelling before our eyes has gone, as it only conjures the unremitting world at large.
Calcified in youth, Cobain is the self-sacrificial saint, exemplifying the futility and frustration of modern life With unique access through the Internet to the plethora of fallen idols and their grandly-emotive music, we can plunder the archives
of pain without adding to it: the seminal genius of Miles Davies and Charlie Parker, the ethereal Billie Holiday, the melancholia of Townes van Zandt, the revival of John Frusciante, and the heartbreak of Amy Winehouse. If we never demand more of mainstream music than Justin Bieber’s carefully, commercially crafted ‘Sorry’, then the past alone is where the caustic, opiate-filled artists and their great work will reside.
EXEPOSÉ
www.exepose.ex.ac.uk
Gone with the wind
Photo: Muncie Girls
MUSIC
19
Hot / Not / Long Shot / Forgot Lewis Norman, Science & Tech Editor, lets us know which songs he thinks are hot, which are not, one which is a long-shot and one which has been forgot(ten). HOT – Reichpop – Wild Nothing Maybe the most interesting a l b u m opener I’ve heard so far this year. The soft polyphony of steel drums amongst foamy synth walks an unstable tightrope between idyllic and self-indulgent.
Jim Atherton, Music Editor, chats to Muncie Girls to discuss their debut album From Caplan To Belsize, plans for the year ahead and encouraging women to join bands
T
HE U.K. D.I.Y. scene is thriving at the moment; and a number of bands are deservedly rising from it into the mainstream consciousness and receiving critical acclaim from the wider music community. One of these bands is none other than Exeter trio Muncie Girls, who play extremely infectious and endearing indie-punk music.
It’ll be nice to do what we actually started a band for, which is to play music and to play shows 2016 has already been a big year for the band, as vocalist and bassist Lande Hekt was featured on the cover of Kerrang! Magazine as a ‘Star of 2016’ as well as being interviewed and played on Daniel P. Carter’s Rock Show on Radio 1. Things look set to get bigger for the band as the year continues. They are poised to release their debut album From Caplan To Belsize on Specialist Subject Records on 4th March, followed by a string of dates with Tellison as well as playing major U.K. festivals like Download, 2000 Trees and The Great Escape. Catching up with Hekt and guitarist Dean McMullen in The Cavern on a lazy Thursday afternoon, they tell me that working towards the album has been a long process and they will both be relieved when it comes out, with McMullen stating that “it’ll be nice to do what we actually started a band for, which is to play music and to play shows”. The lyrical content on From Caplan To Belsize sees the band delve into more socially conscious territory than on their first two E.Ps, with one of the albums
singles ‘Respect’ dealing with issues of lad and rape culture. Hekt describes the song as a “plea” to anyone involved in either of those two scenes, with the music video “depicting a girl who’s had a hideous one night stand who is really demoralised by it because the guy’s room is full of lad stuff. So she goes away and returns and replaces all of his posters, books and records with awesome girl stuff like Bikini Kill records, it’s all about female empowerment!” I ask if the band fear any sort of backlash from people less inclined to their leftwing politics, but the pair brush off the idea, with Hekt keen to emphasise that the album is not designed to be a manifesto of their own ideas, but more a personal reflection of themselves. “All art and creative things are personal; they’re a way of expressing yourself and if people relate to us specifically, that’s great, but it’s not why we wrote it necessarily,” she says.
It’s all about female empowerment! Muncie Girls are definitely a product of the Exeter D.I.Y. punk music scene that they grew up in, with McMullen tell-
ing me that they owe “everything” to The Cavern and the bands that they were brought up on within its walls. Hekt explains affectionately the sense that anything can be done when she saw Exeter bands like O.K. Pilot playing The Fest in Florida and touring Europe. The pair also explain the influence that Exeter heroes The Cut-Ups had by making them “aware of where they’re from and not to hide it and pretend that you’re something that you’re not”. The pair are both prolific in a number of things outside of Muncie Girls as well, with H e k t playing in three o t h e r bands, namely Selfish Son, The Fairweather Band and Big Words, and also putting on workshops under the ‘School of Frock’ moniker which aims to encourage women to learn instruments, start bands and play gigs. Given that Muncie Girls operate in a scene which champions bands featuring members from marginalised sections of society, I ask what Hekt sees as the biggest obstacle to breaking the unequal representation of women in bands in the mainstream and at festivals, where women often only account for ten per cent of the members of bands playing. She is forthright in her affirmation that “the biggest obstacle is that there are not enough girls
starting to play in bands from a young age, like a lot of guys do. In school, guys are told that if they’re into music then they should start a band, whereas girls often don’t have any of that encouragement or those fields. Girls are told ‘you can be a lawyer or a doctor’, but when it comes to underground things like skateboarding or being in bands, which are both things that I’ve always loved, a lot of girls aren’t encouraged. I think the way to fix the problem is that musicians need to ask their mates to get women into their bands and girls should start bands.”
When it comes to underground things like skateboarding or being in bands, a lot of girls aren’t encouraged We finish the interview by discussing goals, with McMullen laughing that he can die happy because Muncie Girls have already played Reading & Leeds Festival, back in 2014. After much deliberation, the pair agrees that progress is their goal, with McMullen telling me that they hope to “continue to play music by progressing and going forward because you can’t do something forever”. Muncie Girls release their debut album From Caplan To Belsize on Specialist Subject Records on the 4th March and are playing a set of release shows the following weekend, including an Exeter show on Thursday 10th March at Exeter Cavern with Birdskulls and Skeleton Frames, which promises to be a very special night.
NOT – Coldplay ft. Beyoncé – A Hymn for the Weekend It’s no surprise really that artists are admitting that they’ve turned down Coldplay collaborations. Uninspired lyricism and recycled four-to-the-floor beats make up the framework of this particular tragedy. You’re feeling drunk and high, Chris? Me too, so much that I think I’m going to vomit. LONG-SHOT – Bop English – Trying This is a masterfully executed funk song that’s tinged with jaunty pianos, bold brass and, of course, slick guitar hooks. As far as texture is concerned, it’s verging on perfection, but it never seems to take itself too seriously. It’s just really good fun. FORGOT - Beck – Devil’s Haircut Beck is the most talented solo artist on the planet; there is almost enough evidence for this to be declared fact. He might be releasing indie-rock bangers right now but this grungy and blues-infused song is cleverly nonchalant without ever sounding lazy.
Dances with (Gnar)wolves 20
MUSIC
NEWS 1-5
COMMENT FEATURES LIFESTYLE 16-17 12-15 8-10
MUSIC 18-20
DRUGS PULLOUT
SCREEN 22-23
ARTS & LIT SCI & TECH 24-25 28-29
GAMES 32-34
SPORT 36-40
29 FEBRUARY 2016 |
EXEPOSÉ
Joe Stewart, Online Music Editor, survived Gnarwolves’ show at the Cavern last Thursday to tell the tale Gnarwolves Exeter Cavern 18 February 2016
I
N a brief moment of calm within the storm of flailing bodies that Gnarwolves stir up in the Cavern on Thursday, a grinning but sincere Thom Weeks declares that the “one thing I want you all to do is join a band. To be honest, our generation’s fucked. It’s completely fucked. But with this,” pointing to his beat up guitar, “you can do something about it. Being in a band is the most fun thing you’ll ever do. So just do it”. In other words, you probably can’t change the world anymore with six strings, but at least you can have fun while the ship sinks. Thursday night provides just the evidence for his statement. To include a Gnarwolves headline show as part of the Cavern’s run of gigs celebrating their 25th anniversary milestone, a feat not matched by many independent venues, seems particularly apt. The band are the model of D.I.Y-donegood, enjoying the fruits of their backbreaking touring schedule and steady slew of EPs; they’ve released a full-length on American heavyweight Pure Noise Records, played an opening slot on the Reading and Leeds Main Stage in 2014,
and have a particularly avid fanbase who probably know the lyrics better than the band do. It is a testament to the band’s roots, though, that they continue to regularly play smaller spaces like the Cavern, and evidently enjoy it: Weeks says himself at the gig that “it’s what we really like to do”. In response to a shout of “what about Reading?”, he shoots back, smirking, “would you say no?” The band are supported, fittingly, by two of Exeter’s D.I.Y mainstays, Splitsville and The Fairweather Band, featuring Lande Yo of Muncie Girls and Rory Matthews of Some Sort Of Threat. Splitsville, who are primarily made up of students, open the night with their particularly glum brand of grunge-tinged alternative rock, playing to a crowd not usually seen for opening acts at the Cavern. Immediately evident is the band’s progress since their first appearance at the beginning of the year at the Exeposé Music Showcase; the instrumentation melds better, Alex Hall’s vocals are employed to great effect, and the songwriting, and playing, is far more confident. Splitsville’s glumness and all-round apathy doesn’t preclude energy, though, and double-time drumbeats and rapid chord changes
reminiscent of Title Fight and Such Gold inspires the beginning of the crowd movement that would be later kicked into hyperdrive by the headliners. Second up are rather less distorted Fairweather Band, who keep up the en-
ergy but lift the mood with their short, snappy, occasionally folk-tinged indie punk. Just like their take on Some Sort Of Threat’s tune ‘Elastic Band’, Rory, Lande and Corey demonstrate their own elastic, fluid musicianship, man-
aging to stay tight in the midst of organically shifting time signatures and twangly (yup, that’s what I’d call them) riffs. A product of the Cavern through and through, the band seem cosy and at home, not allowing a guitar that refuses to stay in tune to dampen their enthusiasm or mar their vocal deliberations on how best to live your life in the face of confusing and shifting circumstances. The comparatively wide age range of the crowd suggested that the night was to be dominated by the headliners. Gnarwolves have hit just the right note with their combination of pop melody with gritty, rambunctious skate-punk, and are that rare example of a pop punk band who aren’t embarrassing to like. There’s something legitimate, genuine, even slightly amateurish about the band; they sort of look like skatepark lurkers, something that clearly appeals to the crowd who roar back the line “there’s something wrong with the kids in my hometown” in a furious rendition of ‘Melody Has Big Plans’. The band play to old and new fans alike; they storm through both newer cuts like ‘Smoking Kills’ and ‘Bottle to Bottle’ and fan favourites, even going back as far as their first tune ‘Party Jams’. In that song,
they seem to predict the future with the lyrics that “this is only the start, this is only one party”: four years on and the party hasn’t stopped yet.
The band are a model of D.I.Y.-done good, enjoying the fruits of their backbreaking touring schedule It isn’t just a party for the band, either, with attendees launching themselves off the small stage onto the heads of the (un)fortunate with aplomb. Particularly rousing is ‘CRU’ cuts ‘History is Bunk’ and ‘Community, Stability and Identity’ as well as post-hardcore tinged opener ‘Tongue Surfer’, which burst sinto the room with impossible speed. Gnarwolves make the most of tempo changes, and seem to jam rather than play as a rigid unit, something they are all the better for. In sum, it is a sweaty, foot-in-theface affair, and although that might quite rightly put some people off, the crowd is rather cleanly divided between the standing and the flailing. Whatever camp you chose, though, one thing is made clear: being in a band looks like the most fun thing in the world.
Music and #blacklivesmatter
With race in the US under scrutiny, Susannah Keogh, News Editor, has a look at how music is reacting
E
VERY successful campaign has some sort of figurehead, an ambassador in popular culture. During the black civil rights movement, it was musicians who often took centre stage, and now, music seems to be finally getting political again - but is musicians’ support a help or an unwelcome hindrance?
Are music and politics colliding once more? Certainly on the surface it seems to be the former. The Black Lives Matter global movement formed following the death of an African-American teenager, Travyon Martin, and subsequent acquittal of his shooter George Zimmerman. Jay Z and Beyoncé recently announced their donation of $1.5 million dollars to the movement’s fund, amongst others, with Queen Bey using her half-time Super Bowl performance of ‘Formation’ as a global platform. Afterwards, her
dancers posed for a photo holding a sign calling for justice for Mario Woods, an African-American man shot and killed in December by police officers in San Francisco. Beyoncé’s vocal support for Black Lives Matter evokes the question: are music and politics colliding once more? To backtrack into history here, one such black liberation movement in the 1960s was hugely influenced and promoted by the rise of soul and funk music. Albeit violent, the Black Panthers civil rights campaign (to whom Beyoncé alluded in her Super Bowl performance) spearheaded a new type of activism - the Black Power movement in music. Once activists message would be carried out on the streets; then messages of black liberation could be passed through the airwaves, reaching new levels. The music of artists such as The Last Poets helped change the rhetoric into something overtly political, getting people’s attention and engagement whilst at-
tacking those who were apathetic to the cause. Their anthems carried a message: “Be Black and Strong…/ America is a terrorist feeding off racism and greed.” Yet, all these claims lie at a simple assumption - that all these successful musicians should help the cause just because they themselves are black, by virtue of their skin colour. It’s not necessarily an association that sits quite right with me; surely the music industry as a whole should act as one to help fight for racial equality, as opposed to just one sector of it? So how important is music to the Black Lives Matter movement? In short, it’s simply a way to gain publicity; a new way of campaigning with a far greater reach into popular culture that would be almost unfathomable without it. In the words of Mario Wood’s mother, Gwen, “Beyoncé carries weight.” On the other hand, there’s a chance the political message these musicians are sending risks being misunderstood or
deafened by the music and their individual legacies. Already, police departments across America, are hitting out at Beyoncé’s half time performance, with New York’s former Mayor Rudy Giuliani calling it an “outrageous” affront to police officers. He complained that, “she used it as a platform to attack police officers, who are the people who protect her, and protect us, and keep us alive”. For those involved in the Black Lives Matter movement, though, the involvement of musicians in their campaign can only be a good
thing. Leading activist DeRay McKessen told USA Today such celebrities are “high profile influencers”, describing how they are able to amplify the message and bring the campaign to spaces previously inaccessible. We live in a 21st century news cycle, where even things that matter aren’t necessarily given the attention they deserve. Music’s promotion of Black Lives Matter will, at the very least, keep the campaign at the forefront of the public attention - and hopefully pave the way for other sections of society to take up the cause.
E xeposĂŠ Science & Tech Drugs & Alcohol Pullout 2016
Illustration by Jack Schulkins
2
Contents 2
40% of Exeter students are alcohol dependent. Exeposé Science & Tech
reveal the results of their drugs and alcohol investigation
3
Why d’you always tell me that you’re high? Is drug use an exercise in attention seeking?
4
The seduction of the drinks industry. Professor David Nutt sheds light on the complications of drug policy
5 The healthy high? How dangerous is marijuana? Josh Mines investigates
6 The dealer wears Prada. We shed light on drugs in the fashion industry
7 Science of addiction. Alina Ivan explains the neural basis of addictive behaviour
8
Cocaine and the brain. Catherine Heffner details how particular drugs operate
Acknowledgements We’d like to thank Dr Lee Hogarth and Freddy Wordingham for their assistance with the survey as well as for the analysis of our data. Thanks also go to Flora Carr and Katie Jenkins, Features Editors, for sourcing content and design for pages five and eight. We’d also like to thank Zak Mahinfar, Comment Editor, for his contribution to page 2. We’re especially grateful for the designs of the watercolour infographics and front cover, courtesy of Jack Schulkins. Pullout design and survey by Catherine Heffner & Lewis Norman.
40% of Exeter students are alcohol dependent Catherine Heffner & Lewis Norman Science & Tech Editors
A
recent survey conducted by Exeposé Science & Tech has revealed that 39.7 per cent of Exeter students who drink have demonstrated behaviour pointing indicating alcohol dependency. A collected 253 s urvey respondents were asked to answer a series of questions from the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT). Designed by the WHO and widely used in clinical settings, the test assesses alcohol consumption and patterns in drinking behaviour and relates them to clinical issues such as harmful drinking and alcoholism. In a series of ten questions, the AUDIT test assesses hazardous alcohol use and dependence symptoms. These included questions such as: “How often, during the last year, have you failed to do what was normally expected of you because of drinking?” A further 41.3 per cent of respondents were categorised as harmful drinkers: individuals exhibiting a drinking pattern that could have negative impacts on their health and wellbeing. 22.5 per cent of respondents admitted to drinking six drinks or more in one session on a weekly basis. Of even more concern were responses to the question ‘How many standard drinks do you have on a typical day when you are drinking?’, to which 27.2 per cent answered ‘five or six’. In the context of the new NHS guidelines, which advise a maximum of 14 units (this is the equivalent of about six pints of beer or seven 175ml glasses of wine) per week for both men and women, the drinking habits of Exeter students are worryingly high. A significant proportion of students exceed the weekly alcohol intake by two or three times on a weekly basis. In 2007, AUDIT was used to survey the national population with the same parameters used in our survey. The results were much more modest, with only 24.2 per cent of adults expressing behaviour that could be defined as harmful drinking. However, it may be important to note that this data included results from older adults than the student population that was surveyed
Exeter drug use bleeds green Lewis Norman Science & Tech Editor
C
annabis is the most popular illegal substance consumed by Exeter students, followed by MDMA. Of the 50.2 per cent of respondents that admitted to trying cannabis, 24 per cent were regu-
Alcohol dependent
Harmful drinkers
here. Alcohol misuse remains a significant health issue for many young people including students. Anecdotally, we are aware that many young people may have engaged in regular alcohol consumption earlier on in their teenage years so that patterns of unhelpful drinking have become established before coming to university. An anonymous member of Wellbeing staff commented, “Wellbeing Centre staff are aware that consistent recreational misuse is of particular concern as the longer-term impact upon physical and mental health may go unseen for some time and therefore any incentive to reduce consumption is low. “However, Wellbeing Centre staff see a number of students who ‘self-medicate’ through alcohol as a means of coping with distressing mental health symptoms. Unfortunately, alcohol misuse is likely to exacerbate and intensify mental health difficulties. Staff at the Centre therefore try to help students find safer and more effective ways of coping with their underlying distress so that symptoms become more manageable. When alcohol issues overwhelm students to the extent that they can no longer participate fully in student life, we would recommend more specialist treatment – usually through discussion with the student’s General Practitioner.” After consideration of the survey results, Dr Lee lar users of the substance, smoking occasionally, weekly or daily. 24 per cent of respondents had tried MDMA, ten per cent of which were occasional users of the stimulant. Notably, a higher percentage of Exeter students had tried cannabis, MDMA, magic mushrooms and cocaine than legal highs; only 12.2 per cent of students admitted to taking legal highs. Of these, the most popular were nitrous oxide and legal cocaine replicates. The most concerning result was the figure for cocaine; one in ten Exeter students revealed that they had tried the highly addictive class-A substance. A paper published in 2012 ranked cocaine as the fifth most
Recreational drinkers
Hogarth, Associate Professor in Psychology at the University of Exeter commented: “Students inherit a set of beliefs about alcohol which highlight the social acceptability and fun of heavy drinking. The reality is that alcohol consumption at typical doses ranges does cause serious physical and emotional harms which accumulate across the individual’s lifetime. Students need to develop greater foresight about their entire life course, and be mindful of these long term consequences. Generally speaking, students who do not drink will live healthier, happier and more fulfilled lives.” A further part of the investigation looked into students’ temptations to drink alcohol. It was found that students were equally as likely to drink alcohol when they were feeling depressed, worried or anxious as they were when they were socialising. Several students expressed pressure to drink in social situations, and that their lack of desire to drink did not serve as an excuse to refrain from joining in with drinking. Notably, the data identified no significant difference in drinking behaviour from students who participate in an AU sport. VP Welfare and Diversity, Naomi Armstrong, encouraged students “to look after each other and raise any concerns about dependency at the earliest opportunity.” harmful recreational drug in the world. This study takes into account the personal harm inflicted on the user and the social harm, the potential harm that one under the influence of pyschoactive substances can have on others. The results for Heroin, PCP and other class-A drugs known to cause the most personal and social harm were small and statistically insignificant. A minority of students (less than 5 per cent) have taken drugs in order to enhance study performance, with most students preferring to drink caffeinated drinks. An even smaller, statistically insignificant, minority have admitted to taking drugs to enhance sport performance.
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3
Exeter students say...
Is drug use an exercise in attention seeking? Zak Mahinfar, Comment Editor shameless shenanigans. If, on the other hand, you are employing a drug-related colloquialism, then I can only assume your humble enquiry is a somewhat thinly veiled announcement of your own indulgence in substances of the illicit nature, and consequently, confirmation of your belonging to the pigeon species.
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eople are free to make their own choices in life: from teetotal sobriety to snorting cocaine off a toilet seat. Though I myself am not one to dabble in drug use, I still respect that it’s a personal choice and I don’t like to preach. I have my own reasons for not taking drugs and I accept that you don’t care and will probably think I’m an awful bore. However, I’d far sooner be a bore than the guy who can’t ‘drop’ without announcing it to the whole of Exeter. This is my primary concern for drug-users, or at least a certain swathe of the drug-using population, they seem far more preoccupied with telling everybody else that they’re getting high, or that they are currently high, or that last night, they did in fact ‘get high’, than they seem to be in embracing the state they have just paid upward of £20 to attain. “Have you dropped?” If by that question you mean to know if I have ever executed the popular dance move otherwise known as the slut-drop, then yes, I have been known to slut-drop when circumstances dictate such
Drug users seem far more preoccupied with telling everybody else they’re high
You don’t see people shuffling around pre-drinks enquiring in hushed tones “Are you drunk?” “Are you going to get drunk?” as if the person’s answer is in someway weighted to define their social stature. Worse still, drug use is frequently succeeded by
long, painful comedowns; not for the user, for the poor bastard that is forced to endure their whining. Nobody wants to listen to you, in your semi-inebriated hysteria, mourning the pet gerbil you lost to frostbite when you were nine, nor do they want to humour your self-pity when you are confronted with the consequences of having chewed halfway through your own lip like a selfdevouring cannibal. If, all things considered, you genuinely want to experience the effects of these substances on your mind and body, by all means, don’t let me stop you. But if what you are really searching for on the road to rebellion against your middle class background (that otherwise consists of chain-smoking and wearing clothes that make you resemble a homeless person) is social kudos, I am inclined to take issue with peer-driven motives. If your biggest ambition at University is to achieve popularity amongst pigeons, you are doing it all wrong.
Friends in high places An Exeter student details their friends’ experiences with alcohol and drugs Anonymous
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can’t say that I’ve experimented with addictive substances all that much. The odd bit of weed here and there, but please point me in the direction of someone who would say otherwise. I don’t smoke regularly. Whilst travelling last year, I had some MDMA, and the comedown – which left me sobbing on a walk through the jungle, before running madly down a dock clutching my backpack to catch the last boat of the day off an island where I’d stayed far too long – convinced me that I definitely don’t want to try that again. Like most students, I drink, but not regularly enough that I’d at all call it a problem. However, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t had some experiences which have driven home just how damaging alcohol can be to your relationships with other people. I don’t count the few times when I’ve gotten too drunk and wandered off without telling the girls.
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her at the moment. My second experience of being affected by someone’s problems with alcohol is a little more recent, and more upsetting. For a couple of years, I’ve had something of a tumultuous relationship with a male friend who not only used to drink far too much, but dealt as well as used a lot of drugs. He stopped drinking and having much to do with drugs completely before coming to university (aside from, his words, “the odd bit of coke”… Right.) He got way too into Freshers Week and ended up staying in a pretty awful mentality far into the year. Didn’t do any work and was drinking far too much. Unfortunately, this also had a dreadful effect on his behaviour and I could see his flatmates quickly tiring of him. One night, we ended up back at his as he was in
no state to make it to the club, but despite being pretty drunk myself, I could see he was out of control. That was the first time I was ever scared of him, and his behaviour towards me then was disrespectful and bordering on violent. Despite what I tried to tell myself, drunkenness is never an excuse for that. Becoming reliant on alcohol or drugs makes us distance ourselves from those who care about us, and significantly skews our priorities. It’s easy to shrug off our friends’ concerns, but we need to remember that our actions do affect the people who love and care about us. If you’re struggling with alcohol or drug abuse, there are a number of sources both on and off campus where you can seek advice – for your sake and others’, please don’t keep your struggles to yourself.
This was the first time I was ever scared of him
One of my closest friends before university, for reasons like family troubles and confidence issues, became far too reliant on alcohol. We all like a night out now and again, but once we realised that she was regularly drinking a bottle of wine on her own at home, we started to get worried. The problem with this kind of thing is that it’s so easy to brush off, and for a long time, we had to accept her excuses and wave away our concerns. Unfortunately, with our group having split off to different universities, I don’t know that much about how she’s dealing with things and whether alcohol is an issue for
I stopped drinking because it worsened my depression and I couldn’t just have one or two when I was out.
Being drunk can lead not just to physical injury (accidental) but to being taken advantage of sexually which can be extremely damaging. In one person, I have known drinking to lead to (very serious) selfharm. I know someone who binge drinks and gets in a terrible state emotionally and at times will selfharm as a result.
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Being a non-drinker at university can feel isolating at times. Although societies claim to be inclusive, it often just means casually throwing in a “you don’t have to drink if you don’t want to” disclaimer on the invites to a pub crawl. That being said, some societies plan enough non-drinking events that this is not an issue.
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Why d’you always tell me when you’re high?
I have had to be firm on my alcohol stance (not drinking too much) because of my antidepressants. However, the drinking and drug culture here is quite strong and I have had to cut out some friends because of the pressure they put me under.
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Comment
They say that heroin is the most addictive substance. It’s good, (nothing on morphine) but to get addicted you’d have to be around people doing it a lot.. and be a bit of a fool.. or have something genuine to escape from. I’ve never known anyone die due to heroin, only meow and bad MD often in pills.
I’ve recently cut way back on my drinking, as I noticed a direct correlation between my mental health and my alcohol habits. Since stopping, my moods are much more stable, I’m generally happier and far more productive.
I feel saying you don’t want a drink is very difficult, and others don’t seem to expect it as a reason for not drinking.
Photo: Independent
4
Interview
The seduction of the drinks industry An interview with Professor David Nutt, a neuropsychopharmacologist specialising in drink and drug research Catherine Heffner & Lewis Norman Science & Tech Editors what it was when I was at university. And then we drank heavily. Alcohol is disproportionately cheap. And it’s cheap because the drinks industry has lied to us about the harms… and it’s also perpetuated this myth that there’s a lot of benefits from drinking and that’s not true.”
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ou’re waking up at midday. You’ve been sleeping off the antics of last night, in which there was undeniably a lot of alcohol involved. Facebook and Snapchat have begun heralding relics of the night that you failed to commit to memory. Your friends will soon be helping you piece together the rest with embarrassing stories, and a good laugh will be had by all. We know drinking gets us in trouble, and it’ll do so again. But maybe we need to have a serious look at it. “People know it’s dangerous, I don’t think they know how dangerous it is.” David Nutt is a professor of Neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London. Aside from his research into the neural circuitry involved in anxiety and addiction, Nutt spends a lot of time on public outreach, giving lectures and media broadcasts. He aims to set the record straight about the evidence on drug and alcohol use - evidence and not exaggeration as he is clear to point out. “There’s new data which shows that alcohol is the leading cause of death in men under the age of 50.” Nutt continues. “And it’s going to be the leading cause of death for women as well. The first thing [people] need to know is that it is dangerous.” Over 87 per cent of the British population drink. A great deal of those will drink to excess, particularly students. What needs to be done to make the dangers more widely understood? Nutt suggests that the sources of our drinking may be much more sinister than previously thought. “Modern drinking is being essentially subsidised by tax payers. The reason you guys drink more than I drank when I was a student is because in real terms alcohol is a third of the price of
Alcohol is disproportionately cheap because the drinks industry has lied to us about the harms
Throughout history, alcohol has been widely prescribed for various medicinal purposes. Brandy for fainting, Guinness for tuberculosis, gin for fevers. Even today, the media frequently produces claims about the benefits of alcohol - protection from cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s and diabetes being most popular. On his blog, drugscience.org, Professor Nutt hopes to clear up confusion surrounding these myths by providing drug information supported by the scientific
research. “They need to know that they’ve been seduced into drinking by the drinks industry. They’ve been sold this myth that alcohol is almost a necessity in life – the only way you can have fun is through drink… alcohol is the opium of the masses. It’s become a necessity and the access has been made more available. What we’ve got to do is get people to invest in change so alcohol is more expensive and we should be drinking better quality alcohol.” But how can we even begin changing a drinking culture that’s so firmly ingrained in our social norms? Nutt suggests we need to look no further than the situation across the pond. “The American drinking experiment has been one of the most remarkable health interventions in the world.” Back in the USA in the 1980s, the organisation Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) lobbied the US Department of Transport to increase the drinking age. Slowly, states began increasing their drinking age, until eventually a federal law was passed in 1984 that raised the drinking age across all states to 21. A 2014 review suggests that since the implication of this law, the USA has seen a huge reduction in road traffic accidents linked to alcohol and many lives have been spared as a result. “The reason that works is because every year you get older you get considerably more sensible”, suggests Nutt. “So the longer you delay people from taking drugs the less damage they get from drinking.” From current research, the neuroscience behind this phenomenon has been well described. It is thought that in adolescent development, the mesolimbic system has a greater need for reward fulfillment. This comes at a time when the prefrontal cortex is still underdeveloped, thus lowering your ability to make informed decisions. As a result, adolescents are more likely to engage in impulsive behavior and risk-taking. All this considered, Nutt recognises the obvious protestations against raising the legal age. Not least to do with free will. “I can see the arguments against it. I can see if you can go and get blown up in Afghanistan maybe it’s fair that you should drink. I can see the arguments against it, I just think it’s a discussion that needs to be had in a mature way.” Nutt went on to give us some staggering statistics about the toxicity of alcohol. “You know the maximum annual exposure levels to toxins – poisons get into water, you can’t get water pure so there’s stuff in there like benzene, all sorts of shit in water, right? If you apply the same rule to alcohol – the maximum safe dose of alcohol per year is a glass of wine. So we make enormous exceptions for alcohol. Isn’t that staggering? It is truly remarkable how we close both our eyes when we talk about alcohol toxicity.” Nutt’s controversial views of our current alcohol laws have been subject to harsh criticism. Back in 2008, he served in the government as chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, and was heavily criticised by other politicians for his desire to
update our drug classifications. Nutt was later dismissed from this position by the Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, on the grounds of this controversy Professor Nutt proposes that our drug laws are not only backwards in that they diminish the actual toxicity of alcohol, but they over-exaggerate the harms of other drugs. He argues that this has come about through a horrific disregard for scientific evidence in making political decisions regarding drug laws. “The drug laws are political laws. There’s almost no evidential basis on it. Basically, you’ve got this unholy trinity. You’ve got regular bureaucrats who exist to make drug laws so that’s a big business for them. And then you’ve got the media that exist to scare people about drugs and you’ve got politicians who can see political advantage in scaring people about drugs. It’s a terrible collusion.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, Nutt’s solution would be to take power of drug laws away from politicians and into the hands of scientists, who would be better guided by the evidence. “The first thing you should do is take control of drugs out of the Home Office. Laws are the worst way of dealing with drugs so we’ve got to get it out of the Home Office and into the Department of Health, who’ve said they would have it. And we’ve got to have relational policies. We’ve got to stop criminalising young people to make them turn to drugs as their only source of employment. And then people can do research - it’s outrageous how little research is done. British scientists discovered all the components of cannabis twenty years ago and they’ve developed none of them because the government says they’re illegal – even though some of them don’t even have psychoactivity. But the Government says ‘just ban everything just in case’. We’re in an absurd situation. We need a royal commission to review the drug laws, and we’ve got to put scientists in charge.” These drug laws have come to be a significant obstacle to scientists pursuing neuropharmacological research such as Nutt. On the day of our interview, he described his current predicament. ‘This afternoon, I’ve just been in email correspondence with a pharmaceutical company, who’s manufacturing MDMA for us. Over two years ago we had ethical permission and approval by the hospital in Cardiff which is a National Centre for PTSD research to do a study on MDMA in PTSD. We still haven’t started. We have been trying to source the drug for over a year, and we cannot source the drug because the people that will make the drug need to get a license. It takes a year to get a license that costs about £5000. They haven’t yet managed to get a license because the Home Office is well behind.” Nutt’s frustration is understandable. It seems, from Parliament to the student population, people just don’t want to hear the somewhat inconvenient truth about drugs and alcohol. Hopefully, we’ll wake up in time to assess our health choices and let scientists actually get some research done. In the meantime, we’ll be listening to people like David Nutt shout to set the record straight. That is unless we keep giving them the sack…
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Incidence of injuries as a result of drinking
Features
The healthy high?
Have you, or someone else been injured as a result of your drinking?
Evaluating the dangers of smoking Marijuana Josh Mines, Deputy Editor mkay’. It’s an argument that lacks nuance and refuses to acknowledge the growing scientific evidence that weed is far less harmful for us than cigarettes and alcohol.
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ast week, bored and looking for something to distract us from the tedium of dissertation research, my house mate and I watched a movie. It’s a black and white movie that was made in 1936, famously called: “Reefer Madness (formerly known as ‘Tell Your Children’)”. The film has gained notoriety in recent years for its hyperbolic, ridiculous presentation of the dangerous effects of smoking weed, something that is apparent from the Star Wars-esque title crawl at the beginning of the film that informs us of: “Marihuana: that violent narcotic, - an unspeakable scourge, the real public enemy number one!” Over the course of the next hour, we were in fits of giggles as Mae and Jack (the titular drug dealing protagonists/ demonic commie couple) maniacally smoke doobies with their eyes dilated insanely like crackheads, play the piano cartoonishly fast in a furious, dank induced haze and finally end up murdering two people, for no apparent reason. The film is a reminder of how far our drug education has moved forward in 80 years. And whilst time has proved that, no, smoking one joint will not kill you, nor provoke you to kill all your friends, unwarranted stigma for the drug still exists even in the present day. Despite recreational marijuana being made legal in four US states last year, and medical marijuana use being legal in 17 additional states, legalisation is still a topic that our politicians don’t want to talk about. Last year, a petition was signed by 220,000 people to urge the government to hold a debate concerning the legalisation of marijuana. Although this debate did take place, the turnout was appalling – only 16 out of 640 possible MPs were in attendance. Pressure from the public and legalisation activists alike is still met with a reaction of total apathy from politicians or the simplistic, patronising message that the Conservatives have adopted over the issue, which can be neatly summed up as: ‘weed is bad for you kids,
Weed is far less harmful for us than cigarettes or alcohol
Contrary to what Cheech and Chong might tell you, common sense would dictate that smoking anything into your lungs is probably worse for your body than not doing it at all. However, the majority of scientific research into the effect of smoking weed on your body actually suggests that the risks are relatively slim. A pamphlet written by the Royal College of Psychologists in June 2014 conceded that, though weed does contain some cancerogenic mutagens that could negatively effect your lungs, it’s actually the tobacco that is often mixed with weed in joints that causes the real damage. Weed doesn’t produce harmful chemicals like carbon monoxide and it doesn’t contain tar, two chemicals that are found in tobacco that have been proved to cause lung and mouth cancer, as well as a variety of other nasty diseases. Medically speaking, hitting a bong with just weed in will be better for you in the long term than rolling up a spliff. So put down your rizla king size and get yourself down to your local head shop if you care that much about your health. When it comes to how much weed could negatively be affecting the brain, there is still a lot more to find out and new findings are being made very often. Last week, a study undertaken by scientists at the University of Colorado (one of the four states that have legalised recreational marijuana use) looked into whether smoking weed was a catalyst for subjects developing depres-
sion and anxiety earlier than people who didn’t smoke at all. The study looked into the prevalence of marijuana use among 34,000 participants, and then assessed their mental health problems after three years, eventually concluding that there was no link between people who smoke weed and a development of depression. But anxiety and depression is not the only mental illness that weed has often been linked to. For years, earlier onset schizophrenia has also been mentioned as a potential side effect of smoking too much of the magic herb. About a year ago, researchers from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King’s College London found that one in four cases of psychotic conditions like schizophrenia could be the direct result of smoking too much weed. However, the study found that this was only the case with people who regularly used an extra potent variety of weed called skunk. Skunk is typically made up of about 15 per cent of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC for short), the compound that causes a user to feel high when smoking. This is compared to only about four per cent found in more common strains of weed commonly referred to as hash. Other studies have also discovered that subjects with a genetic predisposition to psychotic disorders were more at risk of developing schizophrenia from regular use than those who didn’t have a history of schizophrenia in their family. Though we are still not totally certain of the full risks of marijuana use, the mounting scientific evidence is clear, weed is not the danger a lot of people still believe it to be. A report in Scientific Reports even went as far as to say that weed is 114 times less dangerous to our health than alcohol is. By that logic, if you don’t have an issue with drinking, then you probably shouldn’t have an issue with people smoking either. I’m sure this will probably be met with the same ‘you’re a stoner’ accusations that I’m used to from my friends. But the fact of the matter is this, the view some people have that weed is a dangerous compound is antiquated, archaic and factually incorrect.
Pyschoactive censorship The government’s proposed Psychoactive Substances Act explained Rebecca Broad
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tarting this April, the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 will prohibit production, supply and importation of legal highs. Substances that have similar effects to illegal drugs such as cocaine but are chemically different enough to remain legal have caused dangerously unpredictable effects amongst users. The new laws aim “to end the trade in harmful psychoactive substances” and allow those caught offending to be charged with up to seven years’ imprisonment. The Government hasn’t specified banned drugs by name, but outlawed all psychoactive substances including future inventions. Alcohol, nicotine and caffeine remain legal. The new laws follow Ireland’s suit, where a Psychoactive Substances Act was enforced in 2010. However, it led to just four prosecutions in five years, and ministers have recently decided on new actions to decriminalise
recreational drugs. The Psychoactive Substances Act has received a slew of criticism, and not just from the anti-prohibition camp. Paul Flynn, Labour MP, submitted a parliamentary motion describing the bill as “one of the stupidest, most dangerous and unscientific pieces of drugs legislation ever”. Clare Wilson for the New Scientist pointed out the ineptitude of the Parliamentary Debate MPs: some mispronounced drug names, misinterpreted medical data, and thought poppers – a relaxant drug popular among gay men – were mere party streamers (not so the Conservative MP Crispin Blunt, however, who called his Government “fantastically stupid” and went on to reveal he is a user of poppers). Writing in the Guardian, the neuroscientist Vaughan Bell dubbed the Psychoactive Substances Bill
“a work of monumental ignorance”. He discusses confusion over what a psychoactive substance is (many everyday items including cheese, for example, are known to affect brain chemistry) and how the only way to test whether a substance changes mental functioning is to take it – probably not a method the Home Office would endorse. 129 deaths were reportedly caused by psychoactive substances last year. Karen Bradley, Minister for Preventing Abuse and Exploitation, said “we cannot, and should not, tolerate the open sale on our high streets and over the internet of these potentially harmful substances. That’s why we are imposing a blanket ban”. She did however admit that “legislation is not the silver bullet” and referenced continuing action in education and treatment to reduce drug use.
No : 63.9% Yes, but not in the last year : 14.1% Yes, during the last year : 22%
Has a relative, a friend, a doctor, or another health worker been concerned about your drinking or suggested you cut down? No : 85.9% Yes, but not in the last year : 4.3% Yes, during the last year : 9.8%
How often, during the last year, have you had a feeling of guilt or remorse after drinking? Never : 32.4% Less than monthly : 41% Monthly : 20.5% Weekly : 6.1% Dailly, or almost daily: 0%
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Student Drug Use
Drug Use Student use frequencies were surveyed for various drugs including cocaine, MDMA, heroin, ketamine, marijuana and LSD. Of these, cannabis stood as the most popular drug, with 50.8 per cent of students stating use. 60%
The dealer wears Prada An insider’s view of fashion’s rebellious streak Jack Wardlaw, Lifestyle Editor
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mage is everything. That’s the golden rule of fashion. If you ever look up and suddenly realise that you’ve managed to blag your way into a Fashion Week after-party, remember this message and perhaps you might just realise where fashion’s reputation of unrestrained drug use comes from. When you’re surrounded by hundreds of London, Milan, Paris or New York’s most achingly cool people, you can bet your Burberry that it won’t just be the free bar that is getting people wasted. The fashion industry is, first and foremost, a people industry. They are everywhere - literally. You can’t even get changed on a fashion shoot without at least one or two people present watching you. Working so closely with different groups of people every single day, as well as meeting hundreds more backstage at fashion week, at exclusive fashion parties and working on shoots, it is inevitable that at some point, you’ll be offered a line of cocaine. I have been. The fashion stereotype isn’t a stereotype at all; in fact, it is the truth. Models are perhaps the most high-profile consumers of drugs within the fashion industry, because we are the faces of it, but make no mistake, stylists, photographers, assistants and the random bloggers that tag along are all equally as guilty. In 2005, Kate Moss became the infamous face of the stereotype when an image of her handling a white powdered substance was splashed across the front page of The Daily Mirror under the headline ‘Cocaine Kate’. An undercover reporter had videotaped her in a studio allegedly snorting five lines of this white substance, along with her then boyfriend Pete Doherty.
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Survey results indicated that only 9.7 per cent of students smoke. This is comparatively lower than current estimates of the national average which stands at about 19 per cent.
Fashion loves the druggedup rebel image
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The backlash was enormous. According to a Tatler article on the scandal, when the story broke, Kate got a visit from the advertising guru David Lipman who braced her for the impending backlash. “Kate, this is going to be a storm. You are going to need to stand strong and stand tough. This is not going away… I knew that the English media were going to be brutal.” Sure enough, Moss was allegedly dropped from contracts with H&M, Burberry and Chanel in the wake of the scandal. Fashion loves the ‘drugged-up rebel’ image, but in actuality they don’t want to be associated with the drug part of it. Whether rightly or wrongly, brands are aware that people look to them for guidance and influence, and, in official terms, they can’t associate themselves with illegal activity. Cara Delevingne came close to a scandal when she too was papped after a bag of white powder fell out of her bag while she tried to find her house keys. Luckily for her, despite wide speculation, no one ever proved exactly what the powder was, so after a stern talk from her modelling agency Storm, she didn’t lose contracts over it. It’s a dangerous tightrope for a model to walk. Agencies and brands put enormous pressure on mod-
els to avoid the dangers of drug use, and yet models in particular, can be paid ludicrous amounts of money and have access to practically anything they want. It’s hardly surprising that lots of models do end up taking drugs at least once in their careers. Male models can earn upwards of £20,000 per Fashion Week season, and women can earn well over triple that, and this happens twice a year. When you are paid thousands of pounds for a few hours work, it’s easy to lose your grip on reality a little bit, especially as models are typically less than 25 years old and often have no or very little real experience earning and spending money in the ‘real’ world. Couple this massive amount of disposable income with the fact that at almost every after-party, there will be someone who has cocaine on them, and now it becomes clear where fashion gets its reputation from. Model Sophie Anderton, in an interview with The Independent on Sunday, confirmed that “drugs are so accessible within the industry, and it is very difficult to steer completely clear of them”. There are also claims that some take drugs in the same way athletes take steroids. Stephen Fried, the writer of model Gia Carangi’s biography (who also had a well-documented drug abuse problem) says that “these women work incredibly hard. They take drugs for the same reason a truck driver takes drugs: to stay awake and do their job. Like steroids, these are performance-enhancing drugs”. Models have to stay bright-eyed and bushy tailed for up to 12 hours at a time on set, and when they only get to eat perhaps once during the day’s shooting, drugs can provide a much-needed boost of energy. Contrary to popular belief, however, drugs are not taken to stay thin (or at least, not among most models). Liz Hurley shared her experience with drugs, pointing out that female models are thin naturally. “If they get to 6ft when they’re 14, they’re going to be thin. They haven’t filled out yet. So they’re not necessarily on heroin just because they are phenomenally skinny. And most of them, when they get to 18 or 19, they fill out and kind of look normal.” As was mentioned earlier, taking drugs as a model is
a dangerous risk; if a brand or their agency finds out, they can be dropped in a heartbeat, so most models avoid regular drug use.
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Smoking
Features
Fashion is all about the indulgence and the thrill
By far the most common use of drugs in the fashion industry is for recreation. Fashion is all about the experience, the indulgence and the thrill, and drugs play a part in heightening all of these. It can feel at times like you’re a character in Alice in Wonderland. Like I said, I’ve been at a few after-parties where a bag of white powder is passed around and when you’re down the rabbit hole, it’s hard to say no. From the early 1990s, fashion has fetishised the ‘heroine-chic’ look and adopted it into its ideal aesthetic. They love the image, as long as it comes without the substance.
7 Science
Mechanisms of the mind The science of addiction Alina Ivan
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ore than 40,000 people in the UK crave drugs and alcohol compulsively. And this happens at the expense of the harms associated with its long-term use, be it physical, such as withdrawal, or behavioural, such as quitting one’s job or alienating from friendships. Since any of those are unlikely to be on anyone’s bucket list, why do people get caught in this trap? Throughout history, drug and alcohol addicts have been regarded as either sinners or criminals, receiving punishment from the Church or the court. That was until the 19th century, when addiction was proposed as an explanation in itself for substance abuse. In the 1950s, the World Health Organisation regarded alcohol and drug addiction as a disease, recognising that those who are addicted cannot control their behaviour. Yet this theory did not explain how one comes to get this ‘disease’ in the first place, thus this explanation had to be refined. Drugs influence the activity of neurotransmitters. They work to either excessively stimulate their action or, on the contrary, to over-inhibit their effect. Different drugs can affect neurotransmitters in different ways – they can stop them from being recycled back into the transmitting neuron, act on the cell to release abnormal amounts or even mimic their effect. After repeated drug abuse, the cell’s firing rate can become abnormally high or low. This kind of cell activity can damage the cell and lead to its death, but thanks
to an inbuilt mechanism, the cells adapt to protect themselves. Cells reduce their receptor sites so that less neurotransmitters can manage to bind to the receiving neurons. This way, neurotransmitters have a diminished effect on exciting the cells (or inhibiting them, depending on the drug and neurotransmitter type). Alternatively, the existing receptors will no longer be sensitive to these neurotransmitters. Even if neurotransmitters do bind to receptors, this will not contribute to exciting or inhibiting the cell. As a result of these changes, a drug user would not experience pleasure as usual, hence the depression and lack of motivation in addicts. They would experience discomfort in the form of withdrawal. Take heroin for example. It leads to euphoria and relaxation, among other effects. The withdrawal symptoms come in the form of dysphoria and agitation. One theory for addiction states it is withdrawal that brings the addict back to drugs. In other words, addicts take drugs simply to avoid the negative symptoms of withdrawal. This was the first theory for addiction classified as ‘scientific’. The withdrawal hypothesis has lost popularity with the advent of the positive reinforcement theory. This theory highlights the evolutionary importance of the reward system. The reward system will work to ensure that behaviours that are necessary for survival will be repeated or reinforced. Activities such as eating or having sex are made to be pleasurable so that we do them again.
Drugs, on the other hand, hack this mechanism. They activate the reward system artificially. This means that behaviours linked to taking the addictive drug will happen more often, as they are being associated with a positive outcome. We can observe how the brain can get addicted to behaviours that activate the reward system in rats implanted with microelectrodes. In one study, the microelectrode was placed in one of the regions which is active during a cocaine high, the ventral tegmental area. By the press of a lever, they could stimulate this area themselves. Stimulation would lead to an outburst of dopamine in the mesolimbic system. An additional lever was present, which they associated with food. Rats pressed the lever for electric shock as often as 2000 times per hour, leaving food aside. After one day, they had to be disconnected from the apparatus to prevent death from starvation. But that was not the case for rats which had stimulation on the neocortex, the outer surface of the brain. These rats pressed the shock lever randomly. Clearly, pressing this lever produced no reward. The fact that a rat could get addicted to an electric shock sends a loud message: overstimulation of the reward system can easily lead to addiction. Next time you fancy taking drugs, bear in mind that your brain is going to make a few changes. It may even need a little extra support to generate pleasure sensations in the future. And sometimes, such changes are irreversible.
Better off without it?
Wellbeing Contacts On Campus Student Health Centre GP service for Exeter students 01392 676606
AccessAbility Academic support for mental health struggles www.exeter.ac.uk/wellbeing
Student Voice 8am-8pm seven days a week
Mind Your Head The University’s MH Society
Guild Advice Unit 9:30am-4:30pm Mon-Fri
Off Campus Talk to Frank Friendly, confidential drugs advice, with testimonies from former addicts talktofrank.com
Exploring the association between alcohol use and depression Isabell Neelands els and reduces excitability. One reason for this is down to neurotransmitters, chemicals that help to transmit signals from one nerve (or neuron) in the brain to another. This chemical change is felt through the relaxed feeling we get after having a drink-the part of the brain we associate with inhibition is being depressed. In this way it is understandable why someone who is feeling depressed may turn to alcohol to relax.
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here is a clear link between alcohol and mental health. As Drinkaware put it: “Anxiety and depression are more common in heavy drinkers – heavy drinking is more common in those with anxiety and depression.” You may have heard singer songwriter Sia Furler reveal, in an interview with the New York Times, that she seriously contemplated suicide in 2010, while battling addictions to alcohol and drugs, suffering from depression. More recently, well-known former England cricket captain Freddie Flintoff announced that he cut out drinking in a bid to help his depression. Talking about this in an episode of the Australian version of I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! Freddie said: “I suffer with depression and [alcohol] doesn’t help at all. I just hit rock bottom afterwards. So you’re better off without it.” Thus the question lingers: what is it that makes the link between alcohol and mental health so strong? Does reliance on alcohol cause depression, or does depression lead to alcohol dependency? Alcohol is a depressant. Our brain relies on a delicate balance of chemical processes. When we drink, alcohol disrupts this balance. The official Drinkaware website describes the depressant as thereby “affecting our thoughts, feelings and actions – and sometimes our long-term mental health”. Alcohol depresses arousal lev-
It’s unlikely for an alcoholic not to be depressed
What’s more, alcohol has the ability to make us feel great, even if it’s harming our mental health. Simultaneously altering chemical balances in your brain that may enhance depression whilst decreasing inhibition, alcohol can also increase dopamine levels. This can give you the perception that drinking is making you feel good. Interestingly, research has suggested that alcohol’s affect on dopamine is more significant in men than in wom-
en. This could be a reason to account for men drinking more than women on average. According to results from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (2001/2002), about ten per cent of men compared to three to five per cent of women become alcoholics in the course of their lifetime. However, as you drink more, the dopamine effect diminishes. Your brain becomes more affected. Through constant intake, levels of serotonin (a chemical that helps to regulate your mood) in your brain reduce. It is possible that a bad emotional response could take over, causing you to become angry, aggressive, anxious or depressed. In this way alcohol increases anxiety and depression. Although both alcoholism and depression are interrelated, whilst one may be diagnosed with depression without having ever touched a glass of alcohol, it is unlikely for an alcoholic not to be depressed. This is not to say you cannot enjoy alcohol responsibly. Rather, it is important to be aware of how much you are drinking, how regularly and perhaps most importantly, how it’s making you feel. Warning signs of depression include: feelings of guilt and worthlessness; irritability and restlessness; loss of interest in activities once pleasurable; persistent sad, anxious or ‘empty’ feelings; thoughts of suicide.
Devon Samaritans 10.30am- 9.30pm daily 01392 411711
NHS Offers advice on drugs rehabilitation and links to your nearest drop-in centres www.nhs.uk
RISE (Recovery and Intergration Centre) The main referral in Devon 01392 492360
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Science
Cocaine and the brain A brief explanation of how neurons function and what drugs do to disrupt this Catherine Heffner, Science & Tech Editor
Illustrations: Jack Schulkins
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When the signal reaches the end of the neuron, something incredible happens. The neuron converts that signal from electrical energy into chemical energy. Chemicals called neurotransmitters are stored at the end of the cell, primed for release. When the signal reaches the end of the neuron, the chemicals are released from the cell and diffuse across a gap between two neurons known as a synapse.
Your brain has 100 billion neurons. These processes are happening within a fraction of a second ALL the time. Right now. In your head. Just let that sink in…
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Neurons are the basic cells of the nervous system. They use electricity to transmit signals from the environment to your brain. It all starts with a stimulus - this can be pretty much anything you can detect – a sound, a smell, a punch to the face… When a neuron picks up a signal, it gets excited (literally). The incoming signal causes charges to flow in and out of the cell and an electrical impulse is transmitted along its axon.
Heroin is an artificial form of the morphine that is often medically administered as a pain relief in medical situations. It acts by binding to opiate receptors and increasing their activity. The enhancement of this system results in reduced experience of pain and an enhanced feeling of relaxation.
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Nicotinic receptors in the brain are widespread and excitatory. These are activated by the nicotine in tobacco, producing a short-lived excitatory effect that raises your blood adrenaline level and improves focus. It also induces a relaxing effect by raising levels of betaendorphins in the brain.
Ecstasy gets its name from the experience of increased energy and euphoria it produces. MDMA increases the release of serotonin which enhances alertness. It also increases levels of the hormones oxytocin and vasopressin. These have strong roles in emotional and social connections, thus increasing sociability and communication.
Despite efforts to pursue research, the actions of LSD are still not well understood. This is partly because its effects are so diverse. A strong acid trip can produce powerful psychedelic experiences that alter your perceptions and emotions for days after consumption. Some of these mechanisms may be shared with psilobilin.
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Amphetamine accelerates the release of the neurotransmitters dopamine, noradrenaline and serotonin. This increases activity in certain parts of the nervous system involved with reward and pleasure. Effects range from the positive, increasing confidence and focus, to the negative, inducing anxiety, paranoia and violence.
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Ethanol is a depressant and works by mimicking the action of the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA. It also stimulates release of dopamine and endorphins, giving it the feel-good factor. Its main actions are in areas of the brain involved with inhibition, judgment, memory and coordination. Now doesn’t that explain a lot…
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Once the neurotransmitters have diffused across the synapse, they find their way onto the next cell. There, they bind to receptors on the cell membrane. This binding causes a cascade of events in the second neuron, causing it to fire and for the whole process to begin again.
The active ingredient of cannabis is THC (or tetrahydrocannabinol if you want to be impressive about it). It activates cannabinoid receptors which respond to naturally occurring cannabinoids in the brain. It’s thought that this cannabinoid system has an effect on pain, appetite, memory and emotion.
Coke works by temporarily boosting the effects of neurotransmitters noradrenaline, serotonin and dopamine. These leave the user feeling euphoric and alert, often presenting as a ‘rush’ of energy. However, as cocaine leaves the system, the user experiences a comedown and may feel anxiety, irritablity and paranoia.
Studies on psilobilin (the active ingredient in ‘magic mushrooms’) have defined its action on serotonin receptors that are involved in alertness. Current theories suggest that the hallucinogenic effects come from an enhancement in sensory information coming under conscious awareness.
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SCREEN
NEWS 1-5
COMMENT FEATURES LIFESTYLE 16-17 12-15 8-10
SCREEN Animation Trivia
Emma Thompson wore a “fat suit” to make her appear heavier Was the most rented DVD in the UK Pixar Animation Studios was in 2004.
established in 1986, and
was bought Disney in The vicar used forby Peter and Juliet’s wedding is a$7.4 real vicar. 2006 for billion. The word “actually” is spoken twentyAdjusted inflation, Snow two times by for various characters in White (1937) is the highest the film.
grossing animation ever.
Although Karen refers to David as her big brother, Emma Thompson Aladdin’s face was modeled is actually seventeen months older after Tom Cruise, and Ariel than Hugh Grant.
was partially modeled after
Andrew wrote the romantic AlyssaLincoln Milano. cards himself.
the mainmarkets character InSimba, Russian-language the in Thetitle Lionis “Realnaya King, translates to film’s lyubov” (Real Love). ‘Lion’ in Swahili. The “Lake” that Lucia Moniz and Colin The Little Mermaid’s Firth jump into was actually only 18 Ursula was inspired by inches deep.
a drag queen named
Kris Mashall handed back his Devine. paycheck for the day he got to have three American girls undress him for hasa had a John scene. Ratzenburger He said he had such good a voice role in almost of time, he was willing to do it forall free. Attaboy! Pixar’s films, most notably
as Hamm in Toy Story.
The Little Mermaid used 1,100 backgrounds featuring 1,000 different colours. In 1944, Snow White became the first film to ever release a soundtrack. Donnie Dunagan, the voice of Bambi, went on to become a decorated war hero in Vietnam. Sleeping Beauty flopped so badly,, another princess movie wasn’t made for another 30 years,, until The Little Mermaid (1989). The Lion King was the first truly ‘original’ Disney cartoon (i.e. not an adaptation of a pre-existing story). Hakuna Matata wasn’t in the original script for The Lion King.
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SCREEN EDITORS Akash Beri Ben Londesbrough
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Sam Woolf unpacks the interesting and varied history of animation
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ITH Pixar Animation Studios celebrating its 30th birthday this year, and with dozens of high profile animated films being released on an annual basis, it’s sometimes easy to take it all for granted. In 2016 alone, moviegoers can expect feature length animated productions from the likes of Disney, DreamWorks, Pixar, Illumination, Blue Sky, and several others.
The notion of an inanimate drawing coming to life was magical But it wasn’t always this way. In fact, at the start of the 20th century the art of animated film making was only just beginning to take shape. Walt Disney is often associated with the early days of animation, however in actuality the very first ventures into the animated frontier were made nearly three decades before Disney by a man named James Blackton. Blackton’s 1900 film entitled The Enchanted Drawing, despite being under two minutes in length and not actually being a purely animated feature, contained the first ever animated sequence recorded on standard picture film. Viewers were captivated; the notion of a seemingly inanimate drawing of a man’s face coming to life was quite simply magical. It seems trivial now, but back then nothing like it had ever been seen before. Blackton would later go on to create the first entirely animated film in 1906 with Humouros Phases of Funny Faces. Ironically, despite actually be-
ing the first of its kind, the film didn’t use what would come to be known as traditional animation and instead opted for a form of stop motion. Humorous Phases then, is actually more of a precursor to Wallace and Gromit than Mickey Mouse. Blackton’s success did have other long lasting effects however. Many other artists were inspired after seeing Blackton’s work and went on to create their own cartoons. The first of these which saw monumental success was Gertie the Dinosaur. Released in 1914 by Winsor McCay, the film featured a sauropod named Gertie who went on a journey to explore the outside world and was more intricate than previous animation in that it actually featured a fleshed out character. Gertie appeared to have emotions; she was inquisitive, she could get angry, she could be sad, she somehow seemed real despite not actually existing.
Computer generated films have taken precedence since Toy Story in 1995 This notion of having cartoon characters subsequently exploded in later decades; beginning
with Felix the Cat, by the end of the 1920s the world had been introduced to the likes of Popeye, Oswald the Rabbit, and of course Mickey Mouse. Mickey’s 1928 debut film – Steamboat Willie by Walt Disney – was actually the first animation to feature sound and was successful in propelling Disney towards a long and successful career, and an even more successful legacy. Then later in the 1930s, the trend continued with the introduction of characters such as Betty Boop, Donald Duck, and Bugs Bunny with the rest of the Looney Tunes gang. However it was not until 1937, with the release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, that the first ever technicolour feature length film was made. The influence of Snow White was unbelievably far reaching; it spawned nearly eight decades of traditionally animated films, and amazingly still manages to hold up as a piece of entertainment today. The 20th century was also defined by technological advancement, so it isn’t just traditionally animated feature length films that have come about in the last hundred years. With the advent of television in the early 1950s, animated TV shows such as The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show
met with great success. In particular Hanna-Barbera’s The Flintstones, which was released in 1960, was a monumental hit. Also, very rarely is traditional animation even used in mainstream cinema anymore as computer generated films have taken precedence ever since the release of Pixar’s Toy Story in 1995. However, it wasn’t easy for Pixar, who were established in 1986 creating the first very simple computer animated graphics.
The aim to tell new stories has always been a constant for the art form However, in being the first ever 3D film entirely made up of CG animation, Pixar eventually initiated a new era in filmmaking. In fact, virtually every new major animated film today is composed with CGI. Without Toy Story there would be no Finding Nemo, Shrek, or The Incredibles. Other films like Big Hero 6 have pushed the boundaries of animation and continue to marvel audiences. It’s truly wonderful to see just how far animation has come. The plucky little films that pioneered the industry have now become these massive multimillion pound blockbusters. However, from the minimalist black and white flipG book animation of Gertie the Dinosaur in 1914, to the near photorealistic settings of Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur in 2015, the aim to tell stories through new and innovative methods has always been a constant for the art form. I predict it will continue to captivate audiences and dominate the box office for the foreseeable future.
Deadpool: A filthy beauty
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Beth Atkinson reviews the long awaited, crude and violent comic-book outing of Deadpool Deadpool Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin, Ed Skrein Director: Tim Miller 2016, 108 minutes
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HEN a film’s opening credits describes its lead actor, Ryan Reynolds, as ‘God’s Perfect Idiot’ and introduces the obligatory Marvel Stan Lee appearance as ‘A Gratuitous Cameo’ instead of an actual name credit, you know you are in for a tongue-in-cheek comedy like no other.
Deadpool, a film almost ten years in the works, looks at the origin story of everyone’s favourite antihero and becomes technically the eighth film in the X-Men franchise. From his torture by Francis Freeman to his seeking revenge for his kidnapped girlfriend to the ultimate showdown, the film is packed with emotion, character development and of course, a boat-load of sexual innuendo, crude put-downs and lots and lots of coarse language. The film is everything to be expected of a comic book film and more. The writers haven’t wasted time on a lengthy backstory that usually no one cares about; instead
opting for integrating an actually compelling backstory, (perhaps more so because I didn’t know it), into the action of the present day.
The film is everything to be expected of a comic book film and more As someone who is not well versed in the Deadpool comics, but who is a little more so in the other comic book films originating from the same universe of characters, I was more than pleasantly surprised by what I was faced with. There are a few rather obvious but nonetheless clever references to the last
failed Deadpool appearance in X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Ryan Reynold’s own failed DC vehicle as Green Lantern in 2011. However, the film does not hide anything from viewers and makes these references clear, so even the least versed of audience members such as I, could understand the plot and still relate to the events going on. Ryan Reynolds excels in the film, his part going beyond that of an actor as he also produced the film as well as helping with some rewrites of the script. He embodies one of the dirtiest characters in Marvel comic history, and is only pushed further by the supporting cast. TJ Miller provides more comedy as Deadpool’s trusty sidekick and is a driving force of character development outside of the main action sequences. Ed Skrein is suitably British and terrifying as Francis Freeman, sorry, Ajax, bring-
ing a chilling dark tone to what is otherwise a hilarious film. The only criticism that I would have of the film is that it is a rather cliché ending, you can guess where it is going and while it is satisfying, I perhaps expected a little more from such an otherwise genre subverting film. Similarly, perhaps some of the cultural references get lost in the fast paced action of the film therefore losing the comedic value they would otherwise hold. The best jokes break the fourth wall within the X-Men universe, with poor Hugh Jackman being a prime target.
Ryan Reynolds excels in this film, his part going beyond that of an actor However, the film keeps the audience in a state between laughing, cringing and heartstring-pulling, ending neatly without making the film seem too long. Deadpool is definitely worth the wait for fans of comic book films. However, I probably would not take your nan to see it!
Power and problems in parody Mark Allison discusses the strange genre of parody, from its successes to its pitfalls
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LMOST since the dawn of celluloid, parody films have been an integral part of the cinema-going experience. It was over fifty years ago that the Carry On franchise was at the peak of its power, while more recent years have inflicted upon us the notorious Scary Movie series, and its similarly unfunny cousins Disaster Movie, Epic Movie, and so on. This year, we have the less abstract (but quite inexplicable) Fifty Shades of Black sending up EL James’ BDSM odyssey, starring one of the mod-
ern purveyors of parody, Marlon Wayans. It often seems like no film or genre is beyond the pale for a hastily written spoof to cash in on its name. However, while these derivative train-wrecks may seem like easy targets, especially when considering recent examples such as the offensively dreadful Movie 43, which took a bunch of A-listers and put them in the crudest and most unoriginal positions possible, it should be remembered that parodies do have the potential for good as much as evil.
For starters, many classics of the comedy genre have been parodies, which often become more famous than the films they mocked. The 1980 disaster spoof Airplane! is revered as one of the funniest films of all time, but few can recollect that it was based on earlier aerospace dramas Zero Hour! and Airport 1975.
Parodies do have the potential for good as much as evil Likewise, the legendary Leslie Nielsen vehicle The Naked Gun is remembered immensely more favourably than the fifties television series M Squad from which it drew inspiration. When they’re made with a little effort and a touch of wit, parodies can secure a place in the annals of comedy greatness. The influence of
spoof films has also done much to bring about change in the wider film industry, often for the better. When Austin Powers mocked the tropes of the spy genre in the late 1990s, it exposed the silliness and complacency of the aged James Bond franchise at the time. As Daniel Craig put it, Austin Powers “kind of fucked us”, and the result of this savaging was 2006’s Casino Royale, a film which recast the Bond franchise in a more brutal mold, reinvigorating the spy for a cynical generation. Just as political satire has put many a politician in their place, so too have film
parodies made Hollywood executives think twice. It’s not my intention to make excuses for the unoriginal and unfunny schlock which manages to weedle its way onto our screens, but to make the case for parody done properly. The modern trend for cash-grab spoof films has undeniably damaged the genre’s reputation, with the likes of Scary Movie spawning multiple sequels, most of them being utter trainwrecks of bad moviemaking. A lot of them should be avoided, but as long as the silver screen remains so ripe for mockery, let’s not give
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Paint and pot
Inspired by the Exeposé Drugs Pullout, Jeremy Brown, Arts & Lit Editor, looks behind the psychedelic acid posters to reveal a darker world of drugs and dependancy
28 Feb Russell Kane Corn Exchange 7 March Russell Howard Corn Exchange 11 March Richard Herring Northcott Theatre
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Dance 8 - 9 March Richard Alston Dance Company Northcott Theatre
Arts in the news
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ICTURE the scene: your creative writing deadline is rapidly approaching, you’ve completely run out of ideas, and then the internet tells you that Ernest Hemingway - one of America’s most celebrated writers once said: “write drunk, edit sober”. In such desperate (hypothetical) circumstances, you’d perhaps be forgiven for thinking that it might just work. After all, drugs - including alcohol - definitely have the ability to elevate your thoughts, or give you a new perspective on life; in the words of songwriter Graham Nash, “weed unlocked my mind and my emotions, which had to be awakened for me to start writing meaningfully”.
The trend for eye-catching acid posters in the 60s contributed to an artistic revolution Nash certainly isn’t alone: the highpressure music industry is particularly infamous for creating drug addicts, often with tragic consequences. Reduced inhibitions, enhanced imagination, and vivid hallucinations can all add to the artistic process, although of course it’s worth noting these artists might simply be using drugs for the enjoyment of it. Dr Alain Dagher wrote that drugs help you when “making conceptual links in your brain between things
Eddie Izzard aiming to complete 27 marathons in 27 days
that you may not normally link”, but other studies suggest that a large part of this is simply the feeling that you’re more creative. A study from the Netherlands tested this theory, asking 60 cannabis users to invent as many alternative functions for domestic items (for example a pen or a shoe) as possible. Their research showed that low doses of cannabis had a minimal impact on creative ability, and high doses actually impaired them, so there isn’t a clear-cut relationship between drugs and artistic success. There’s definitely a link though, and one which stretches back through the centuries. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Romantic poet extraordinaire, famously composed ‘Kubla Khan’ after a particularly vivid dream, whilst on a “medication” which was
presumably opium. In addition he described laudanum as “a miracle” and was glamourised by the public as a fantastic, drug-fuelled genius. Vincent Van Gogh frequently drank alcohol to excess, especially high-
Hamlet and Gypsy crowned winners at the WhatsOnStage Awards
percentage spirits like absinthe. On top of this, the digitalis that was used to treat his epilepsy could have caused him to see yellow spots, hence his frequent use of the colour. Obviously, the 60s was an important decade for drugs, and this was abundantly clear in the art world. In particular, art critic Ken Johnson notes the importance of the psychedelic movement, and the trend for
eye-catching acid posters, which he argues contributed to an artistic revolution where “colour exploded… typography was twisted and oozed and melted into shapes”. From Jimi Hendrix to The Beatles, these gig posters suddenly felt like mind-bending optical illusions that “spoke directly to an audience happily experimenting with LSD”. These bright explosions and groovy colour-schemes are still prominent today, filtering into modern art and even being used in adverts for companies Coca Cola. Bryan Lewis Saunders, from Tennessee, took the concept of drugs influencing art to the next level. Experimenting with a new drug every day, he produced a range of self-portraits under the influence; he now has over 50. Although the
Major Hockney exhibition planned for Tate Britain
science is questionable, the range of styles and images is intoxicating: heroin, for example, produces a distorted line drawing, in which his eyes, nose and mouth are barely visible underneath a mess of incoherent squiggles; hash, meanwhile, leads to a recognisable portrait in childish pastel colours, with pink, blue and yellow fumes filling the background. After 60mg of Geodon, Bryan even decided to add bullet holes to the sketch, saying he recalls “bouncing into the walls like a fly going bong, bong, bong”. Saunders’ experiments show the range of feelings produced by drugs, and the variety of artistic possibilities a creative mind can create.
Saunders took the concept of drugs influencing art to the next level - taking a new drug every day But does that mean drugs make artists more creative? Well, it turns out the Hemingway quote about writing sober is completely falsified, or at least misattributed, and maybe that shows society has a poor attitude towards art. The ability to create great art can’t simply be attained by anyone with access to drugs: it takes hard work, practice, and skill. Hallucinogens might be able to release an artist’s imagination, but you still need a brilliant creative mind for anything to come of it.
Readers mourn the loss of Harper Lee and Umberto Eco
Harper Lee’s legacy EXEPOSÉ
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Theodore Stone, Online Features Editor, celebrates the incredible life of Alabama’s greatest author
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UTHORS come in many guises. Some fill you with joy, others fill you with existential dread, and then there are those who keep you company through those long dark nights. Every now and again, however, there comes a writer whose words define the very nature of humanity and moral action, whose prose echoes throughout history and helps to make the world a truly better place. One of those authors was Harper Lee. She was born Nelle Harper Lee, on 28 April 1926, in Monroeville, Alabama. The youngest of four, she developed an interest in literature whilst at high school, but went on to study Law at the University of Alabama for several years, however left before she could obtain a degree. In 1949, she moved to New York, taking a job as an airline reservation agent and wrote fiction in her spare time. She successfully found an agent in 1956 and during the Christmas of that year received a year’s wages from friends, with a note reading: “you have one year off from your job to write whatever you please. Merry Christmas.” The following year, she submitted her draft of Go Set a Watchman to the publishers, who eventually bought it. Throughout the next few years, Lee would continue to refine the
novel, until the text was completed. On 11 July 1960, To Kill a Mockingbird was published. Critical and commercial success was immediate: it became an instant bestseller and received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction that year. For the remainder of her life, despite her near-universal recognition, Lee continued to exist outside of the public eye. She gave few interviews, and published little. Nevertheless, her literary contributions continued to seep through into the American consciousness, thanks largely to the assistance she provided Truman Capote whilst he was writing his magnum opus In Cold Blood. Despite the decades of living incognito, the honours and the awards continued to flood in. Her life story re-ignited in 2015, when it was announced that Go Set a Watchman, the draft to her opus, would be published by HarperCollins. Controversy raised its head as questions of ethics filled the media, after it was hinted that Lee’s health had deteriorated to a point where her representative’s au-
thority was called into question. Nevertheless, the manuscript was published and became a bestseller. It is almost impossible to ignore the importance of Lee’s contribution to the literary and public world. To Kill a Mockingbird is not just a story in of itself, but a public story, of the power of the human condition and how the agency of one can go onto the define the agencies of millions. Mockingbird not only taught us about the heroic deeds of Atticus Finch, but of why we should be like him. Not because it is easy, not because it will lead us to a life of comfort, but because it is the right thing to do. It inspired those at the time of publication to take a stand against Jim Crow’s bigots and fascists, and it encourages us to do the same today.
Despite near-universal recognition, Lee continued to exist outside of the public eye It perfectly portrayed the American South like no other novel has ever achieved; through Scout’s eyes, we see a world of normal humans, reckless, confused, and looking for
Multimedia artwork
This week, we’re featuring the artwork of Natalie Alford, a second year Classics student
Mixed media and making a massive mess are two things that spring to mind when thinking about my art. Texture and abstraction are sort of what tie it all together. I love creating depth, movement and a sense of energy. Usually my work’s half-physical, half-digital, transferring paintings/sketches into Photoshop. Music is a majorly heavy influence in everything I create: I’m definitely guilty of spending half of my time scrolling through Spotify for new inspiration, sparking ideas based on lyrics or crazy instrumentals. Whenever I paint, sketch, scan, rip and edit there’s always some sort of soundtrack helping the process. Iconic album covers from the likes of Blur to Bowie are arguably as important as the music itself. It’s definitely a dream goal to create album artwork and collaborate with musicians in the future. For now though, experimenting and evolving my style whilst deafening my flatmates are all ‘necessary’ parts of my creative journey.
answers. Through Atticus Finch and his children Scout and Jem, we are able to see a better world. Atticus is the defining lone ranger, a hero trapped in a world of villains, who fights alone for a form of justice which has not been marred by ignorance. There’s a reason why so many cite him as the ultimate hero: he’s willing to do what is right, regardless of how it will affect him personally. Lee’s work can be defined by two things. Firstly, it taught us to look beyond the aesthetic. Tom
Robinson and Boo Radley may appear different at first glance, but upon closer inspection we learn that they are just as human as we are, perhaps even more so. Secondly, it taught us to question, showing us morals which should be replicated. These two lessons are among the most important things we learn as we grow up, and we are indebted to Lee. They say that the greatest thing an author can do is inspire somebody. Harper Lee went beyond that. Harper Lee defined us.
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By Eamonn Crowe Poop Power A bus in Bristol is running on human waste in an effort to popularise sustainable energy. The GENeco Bio-Bus is powered by toilet waste, as well as discarded foodstuffs. The public transport has made use of pioneering developments in renewable energy, which use urine and excrement as an energy source. The bus is also decorated with pictures of people on the toilet, because Bristolians are nothing if not self-aware. No word as yet on how the bus smells.
Volatile Vaping Vaping has potential links to reproductive harm in males and heart disease, according to new findings revealed at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting. Studies have shown that vaping can affect the activity of several genes and weaken the immune system. Although useful when used to transition from smoking, it appears that vaping doesn’t just diminish your street cred, but also your health.
Neanderthal Naughtiness An international group of researchers have revealed potential new information about the relationship between early human ancestors and Neanderthals. This development comes after the discovery of human DNA on a Siberian Neanderthal and is the first time such DNA has been found embedded within a Neanderthal’s genes. The discovery could mean that humans and Neanderthals started getting jiggy with it far earlier than scientists believe, and that their relationship was more complicated than initially thought.
Apps for addiction
Natasa Christofidou, Chief Photographer, explains the triggers behind impulsive eating
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S part of the ‘Research Uncovered’ lecture series, Dr Natalia Lawrence, a senior lecturer for Psychology at the University of Exeter explains her strategy for tackling compulsive eating. Dr Lawrence is a neuroscientist, with a background in experimental psychology, behavioural neuroscience and clinical research. Recent research into addictive eating evidently reflects these interests, as she demonstrates how electronic forms of Cognitive Training have been used to tackle overeating, especially constant binging on unhealthy foods. A rather distinct form of ‘brain training’ was introduced to the audience, which targets key psychological and behavioural processes with an aim to alter our environmental interactions. The electronic training that’s been intensively tested ever since July has proven to condition people into repeatedly responding to specific images with a distinct positive or negative attitude through the click of a button. As a result, people’s attitudes towards particular kinds of food alters eating behaviours, the process aims to simultaneously aid weight loss and healthy living. The lecture initially began with some relatively shocking health facts that were used by Dr Lawrence as proof that overeating is becoming an increasingly worrying problem in society. In the UK, approximately 64 per cent of adults are classed as either obese or overweight, making it particularly concerning for young people. Dr Lawrence views this as a “ticking time bomb” that the NHS is understandably concerned about as estimated figures show that up to 50 per cent of adults risk being obese by 2030. In an attempt to underpin the causes of increased obesity amongst the public, Dr Lawrence highlighted
the detrimental effects of the food culture that we’re exposed to in society. Inactivity was brushed over as a controversial generalisation, whereas all evidence directed researchers towards an increased calorie intake. The estimated amount of calorie intake over the years has systematically increased by one per cent per year since 1980. This parallels heightened risks of health conditions, such as type II diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, strokes, and cancer.
The estimated amount of calorie intake over the years has systematically increased by one per cent every year since 1980 Dr Lawrence described the UK as an “obesogenic environment”, due to the ready availability of tempting and highly hedonic foods that are excessively high in fats, refined sugars, and salt. There was a heavy emphasis on the diverse variety of foods, their ‘on the go’ accessibility, and the ridiculous amount of marketing that exposes such foods to the public eye. The absurdity of having vending machines loaded with chocolate and crisps outside of sports centres was emphasised in the lecture, a detrimental food habit indoctrinates society from a young age, as many perceive eating so much junk food as a social norm. Therefore, even if someone tried following a healthy lifestyle that involved exercise, temptations will cross their path more often than not. Why do we initially have cravings that leave us with hopelessly low levels of self-control? Surprisingly, it’s all due to a stimulus. Our mind retains memories of how enjoyable the experience
of eating particular foods was, which is triggered by a cognitive process in our brains when particular foods are in our environment. A motor response is therefore evoked when in sight of a stimulus (processed foods), which is created within milliseconds as our experience of eating food in the past has taught our minds the rewarding effects to our taste buds. What determines whether or not we give in? Self control is a phrase that gets thrown around a lot, but the majority of the time the impulse is stronger than the urge to resist due to the speed of our motor neurons. Dr Lawrence’s aim is to therefore tackle the way our mind processes certain stimuli, by altering our association with foods that we would previously give into. In the aftermath of several fMRI (functional Magnetic Response Imaging) experiments, researchers analysed how our mind subconsciously desires food that it was previously exposed to. With our daily exposure to food adverts and chocolate deals, simply being told to buy an overpriced pack of grapes wouldn’t be enough of a deterrent from the highly calorific and satiating junk food. The technological experiment aims to change the brain’s dominant ‘go’ response to a ‘stop’ response.
The impulse is often stronger than the urge to resist due to the speed of our motor neurons Dr Lawrence adapted the online test to suit our seating arrangement. As opposed to clicking on images on a screen, we were asked to tap on our desks when we were presented with PowerPoint slides of healthy foods and
to refrain from tapping when a framed ‘unhealthy’ food was presented. The method of resisting to tap or click when we see conventionally desirable foods is a way of training our minds to refrain from certain temptations. Experiments were initially conducted at the University of Exeter’s medical school with 9000 adult participants, who all averaged at around a similar BMI of over 20 and who consumed highly fatty foods more than three days a week. The online tests consisted of four ten-minute training sessions over the span of two weeks. Long-term after effects of the training were seen to be positive; on average participants lost around 2.5 kilograms after six months. Having said that, 69 per cent of participants would have preferred it if they could have chosen the foods they were encouraged to avoid as different individuals have different cravings. A survey was conducted to determine the main trigger foods that cause binging and the results pointed towards alcohol, chocolate, cake, and soft drinks. A feature that allows individuals to cater their food options will however be implemented onto the app version of the current online game, however. Like most experiments, the outcomes were more effective for some participants, according to their history of eating habits. There was a noticeable trend, in which individuals who had stronger impulses of snacking frequently benefitted more from the tests as there was more to alter in their behaviour. Lastly, Dr Lawrence emphasised that a computer game that can control our eating habits shouldn’t be seen as a solution to weight loss, as she advocates regular exercise and mindful, informed eating as part of any weight loss journey.
Putting the T in treatment EXEPOSÉ
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SCIENCE & TECH
29
Photo: Lucasfilm
Becca B ‘s science for students
Victoria Bos presents the cancer treatment that made headlines this week
S
CIENTISTS have recently made a breakthrough in the treatment of certain blood cancers from a newly deployed T-cell therapy with results, which the scientists themselves have described as “extraordinary”, appearing to show a huge increase in remission rates and a decrease of symptoms in the first clinical trials. Dozens of patients, who would have had only months to live otherwise, have seen huge improvements through the use of the immune system altering therapy, with 94 per cent of one group of participants, suffering from Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia, seeing all symptoms vanish following the treatment. Similarly patients with other blood cancers had a response rate of over 80 per cent and more than half experienced complete remission. Researcher Dr Stanley Riddell, speaking at the American Association for the Advancement for Science (AAAS) described the results as “unprecedented in medicine […] to get response rates in this range in these very advanced patients”. The treatment works by removing T-cells, a type of white blood cell which detects foreign or abnormal cells within the body, from the patient. The cells then
have genetically modified antigen receptors grafted onto them, which serve as sensors to identify and seek out specific types of cancerous cells within the body, as T-cells normally would with illnesses such as the flu. These are then allowed to multiply before being infused back into the patient’s blood with the antigen receptors, allowing the modified cells to locate and attack the cancerous cells throughout the body, helping to lessen symptoms whilst fighting the disease. While the research into the use of T-cells in cancer treatments is not entirely new, the research team at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle, have taken a new approach to the technique, leading to these impressive results. As Dr Riddell describes it, “one of the things that we’re doing that’s a little bit different than the other groups, we’re
engineering particular types of T-cells that we know have the capacity for longevity, so they are the cells that provide us the immunologic memory, and so they
the cells before they take hold again, helping to prevent repeat cases in patients. Though the treatment is currently in its early stages, and there are side effects being experienced by some patients, such as auto-immune issues, researchers are working diligently to establish the safest levels and techniques for clinical use.
Dozens of patients with only months to live have seen huge improvement, with 94 per cent seeing all symptoms vanish
do, theoreti- cally, have the potential to live in the body for life”. This means that, should the cancer reassert itself, the modified cells should still be in the body and therefore should be able to destroy
Seemingly expressing cautious optimism, Dr Riddell stated that, though it will not be a “save-all”, the treatment and immunotherapy as a whole, has the potential to be “a pillar of cancer therapy”. Currently the focus is being put on specific blood cancers, however the research team are hopeful the techniques could be developed to help those suffering from other forms of cancer, by modifying the antigen receptors accordingly to assist as many patients as possible in the future.
Unpacking picky-eating
Kate Jones, Copy Editor, explores the latest research that justifies our fussy eating
I
’VE been a bit fussy with what I eat for years. Though I have a very healthy appetite and have never suffered from an eating disorder, I certainly wish I had a slightly broader palate. Included on the list of things I won’t eat are tinned tuna, salmon, many ready-prepared sandwiches, cucumber, raw fish and raw tomatoes. In other words, a cold buffet is not usually my idea of fun. However, though there are quite a few foods I won’t try, I’m certainly not that badly off. For others, the situation is a lot more restrictive. It’s common for children to be
fussy with food, yet some have extreme eating habits, only eating a single-figure amount of items. The internet offers stories of adults who only live on one thing, such as chips or pizza. Similarly, the sympathetically-named TV show Freaky Eaters, with the UK version running from 2007 to 2009 and the US version from 2010 to 2011, often dealt with incredibly narrow eating, focussing on people with, across both shows, cheeseburgers, burnt sausages or even French fries, for example, as the sole mainstay of their diet. But is there a scientific basis behind picky eating? For some, picky eating can be caused by an eating disorder. Avoidant/ restrict i v e
food intake disorder (ARFID) was added to the American Psychiatric Association’s fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), published in 2013. ARFID denotes an eating or feeding trouble that is severe enough to mean that a person fails to meet ideal nutritional needs, resulting in problems like weight loss, dependency on supplements or a feeding tube, nutritional deficiency and psychosocial disruption. The way symptoms manifest can include eating habits that on the surface might seem like fussy eating, such as only eating a certain brand or type of food. However, just because a person has certain likes or dislikes regarding food doesn’t necessarily mean they have a disorder – it is when the problem is beginning to interfere in the areas listed above that someone may need to seek help. Studies have also been done on food neophobia – a fear that people can have of consuming new or unfamiliar foods. Some people are supertasters – people who perceive tastes far more intensely than the average person. The term ‘supertaster’ was first coined by Professor Linda Bartoshuk, a psychologist with a special-
ism in taste and smell. Through research into the tongue anatomy, she discovered that people have variable numbers of fungiform papillae - integral cells in the taste buds. To be defined as a ‘supertaster’, a person must have a high density of papillae and the ability to detect the synthetic chemical PROP. Genetic inheritance clearly plays a role. The TAS2R38 gene which codes for taste receptor 2 membrane 8, a receptor for bitter taste, is essential for the ability to detect PROP. It has been suggested that 25 per cent of the UK population are supertasters. Less than 15 papillae makes a person a non-taster, between 15 and 35 indicates an average taster and over 35 indicates a supertaster. However, one 2014 study could not find a link between the amount of papillae and supertasting. These are just some of the theories behind the phenomenon of fussy eating – many more studies have been done in this field. However, these ideas do suggest that those with narrow eating habits may not simply be being awkward or fussy after all.
The impact of Brexit on Science and students Last weekend’s issue of the Sunday Times saw University of Exeter Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Steve Smith join forces with over 100 other university leaders to “urge the British public to consider the vital role the EU plays in supporting our world-class universities”. As students at such a University, I believe that it is our duty to examine this side of the argument. In May our Vice-Chancellor was accompanied by Science Council presidents, journal editors and Nobel prize winners to state that the relationship between the EU and British scientists “is a very positive one”. It therefore comes as no surprise that the Scientists for EU campaign is going from strength to strength, informing voters on how an exit from the EU would cause a loss in both scientific talent and research funding. Thankfully the Minister of State for Universities and Science Jo Johnson agrees, not least because around a quarter of all European Research Council grants are awarded to the UK. Eurosceptics may well ask: but what about leaving the EU, then asking to join its science program, similar to Israel? Firstly, we hold far too large a research community to make this anything more than a huge risk. Secondly, that excludes us from all of the decision making processes which we would still be affected by. Thirdly, we don’t want to idealise Switzerland’s situation: being against EU bilateral agreements (for many of the same reasons as the UK’s out campaigners are for Brexit) meant the Swiss research status was downgraded, it lost funding, and was removed from Erasmus+. As scientists we need to listen to the evidence we’re presented with, and that all sounds pretty compelling to me. To finish with a quote from Julian Huppert: “If you’re pro-science, you should be pro-Europe”.
32
GAMES
NEWS 1-5
COMMENT FEATURES LIFESTYLE 16-17 12-15 8-10
GAMES News for N00bs by Evan Jones Zelda Turns 30 In a year of major milestones for Nintendo franchises, The Legend of Zelda has reached its 30th anniversary. The original actionRPG title was first released on the Japan-only Famicom console on 21 February 1986. It marked the beginning of a successful series of titles that have gone on to sell over 75 million copies worldwide and have featured on every Nintendo console ever since the franchise’s inception. To celebrate the occasion, the Big N have already announced a HD remaster of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, originally released back in 2006, for the Wii U whilst the 3DS will be getting Hyrule Warriors Legends, a Zelda-themed spin-off of the popular hack-and-slash action series Dynasty Warriors.
SCREEN 22-23
ARTS & LIT SCI & TECH 24-25 28-29
GAMES 32-34
29 FEBRUARY 2016 |
SPORT 36-40
Exeposé Games
GAMES EDITORS
Jack England Evan Jones
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@ExeposeGames
games@exepose.com
Jack England, Games Editor, gives us a detailed insight into the fledgling controversial video game industries of Iran and South Africa
“D
O you want to play?” a friend asks, extending their hand clutching a controller towards you. This isn’t just a sight found in the bedrooms of acne-ridden teenage boys anymore, but something found in nearly every country on the planet. Of course, the American and British markets dominate the sphere, churning out countless Call of Dutys and Grand Theft Autos without a care or a worry. But for some people, the world of video game development isn’t so easy. Iran has 18 million gamers, almost a quarter of its population, with ages ranging from the smallest of children to the eldest of adults. However, according to Ahmad Ahmadi, chief business officer at the Iran Computer and Video Games Foundation, this puts it at the number one spot for video games in the Middle East.
While Iran might sport plenty of
18 February saw the 19th annual DICE awards take place. The academy of industry experts aim to recognise and celebrate the best video games of 2015. Bethesda blockbuster, Fallout 4, took home the top prize of ‘Game of the Year’ as well Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction and Role-Playing Game of the Year. Other notable winners included Metal Gear Solid V receiving Adventure Game of the Year, Star Wars Battlefront getting Action Game of the Year, and The Witcher 3 taking home both awards for Outstanding Achievement in Story and Game Design.
DRUGS PULLOUT
Gaming goes global
Iran has 18 million gamers, almost a quarter of their population
Wasting the Competition
MUSIC 18-20
Unfortunately, getting your game made and out there isn’t the only problem Iranian developers must fight against. A lack of copyright laws means that a pirated copy of Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 can be sold for the same price as a physical copy of an Iranian-made game, pitting a triple-A international title with a development team in their hundreds against a small underdog with only 15 people to their name.
Pitting a triple-A international title against a small underdog with only fifteen people to their name Of course, it’s hard for international developers to get a foothold in the Mid-
time, a continent over, a fresher in South Africa packs her bags in preparation for her first day studying game design at Witwatersrand University, the first dedicated game design program in the country. Gaming is an incredibly expensive hobby in South Africa, with even the humble smartphone being hard to spot at first glance. Unlike Iran though, gaming hasn’t truly taken off yet, with knock-off consoles and beaten up PCs dominating the market until the release of the Xbox 360 in 2007. Although any developers in the country right now are primarily educated abroad, the new course at Witwatersrand University is set to change all that. For the first time, there might be a market in South Africa for games. This isn’t to say that South Africa hasn’t had any success with video games so far, as both Broforce and Viscera
haven’t really had a chance to take off. One student of Witwatersrand, Tsitsi Chiumya said, “I’d like to make a board game, maybe one that anyone can print out, because video games have become too westernised.”
I’d like to make a board game, maybe one that anyone can print out, video games are too westernised Getting into the South African gaming industry is tough enough anyway, with university fees being far too expensive for the majority of students. Not only does this limit the gaming industry to those from affluent backgrounds, but Witwatersrand has also found issues
“Hey there, Delilah!” EXEPOSÉ
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Sam Woolf, armed with a walkie-talkie, embarks into the wilderness to discover himself Firewatch Campo Santo PC, PS4 Out now
G
OING back to E3 2015; there was one game that intrigued me more than any other: The first person exploration game, Firewatch.. It appeared to be a captivating and mysterious adventure in which you embody a park ranger delegated to the wilds of a Wyoming National park. Taking us across mountainous terrain, highlighting pyromaniacs that threaten the serenity of nature, and ending on a chilling cliff-hanger; the 60 second clip certainly stood out from the crowd of numerous HD remasters and tedious first person shooters. Ultimately the final product masterfully delivers on the promises that accompanied the trailer,
The game’s events begin in 1975 where we are introduced to a young romantic couple - Henry and Julie - and are shown key moments for the pair over the course of the next decade or so. Following this introductory segment, we are taken to the year 1989 and re-join Henry who has gradually grown distant from his wife due to reasons largely outside of his control. To escape from the pressures of his life, Henry takes up a job in the mid-
game. Firewatch originally featured a pumped up, 1980s infused soundtrack full of classic tunes, but mid way through development this changed to create a mellow and relaxed atmosphere that added to the world of Firewatch rather than overwhelm it. This is clearly for the better, as in one of the opening scenes, where Henry finds himself having to scold some skinny-dippers, features some chilled out
and explorative, to chilling and suspenseful after around the first third of the game. From this point on, I often found myself turning around to check if I was being followed, or double-talking after thinking I had seen a shadowy figure in the undergrowth . It was an effective change of pace and due to prior character development shown through Delilah and Henry’s radio conversations - one that motivated me
The game is only four hours in length and the linear storyline doesn’t do much for the title
Delilah never comes face to face with
er Campo Santo have planned for the future, as through Firewatch they’ve shown that a fire that burns twice as bright, although burning for half the time, is one that is far more likely to be remembered. Firewatch may be brief and have a few
however unfortunately Firewatch fell short of my expectations in a few key areas. My biggest problem with the game – and unfortunately the thing that struck me first whilst playing – was a lack of technical polish. Within my first few minutes of trekking through the thick forests of Firewatch I experienced noticeable lag. This unstable frame rate continued to plague my experience over the course of my journey, and instances such as distant trees or rocks popping in as I approached them, only highlighted the game’s mechanical shortcomings.
The rolling meadows drenched by orange sunset and canyons illuminated by creeping blue moonlight es on loading screens, which meant that I had to replay sections of the story that I had just completed on a number of occasions. If it weren’t for these issues, the visually distinct game-world consisting of rolling meadows drenched by orange sunset, and canyons illuminated by creeping blue moonlight, certainly would have been more engaging. As it stands though, the stylized art direction and impressive lighting effects combine to create an aesthetic marvel in Firewatch. Added to this, the tantalising soundtrack of soulful and immersive instrumental music left me in awe at times. Further still, the game’s technical faults were soon a side thought as I became engrossed with the story and characters.
sion, was more bothersome than simply having a mini map feature to use. In addition, Henry can’t do much except run around and interact with specific items or landmarks, so a little more freedom when it comes to movement would have been appreciated, especially as it meant I never truly got to explore the Wyoming wilderness in a way I would have wanted to.
technical hitches, but it is an experience that is essentially beautiful and compelling. It is an absorbing tale of isolation, friendship, and tough decisions that has set a new standard for spoken dialogue in games, and it is not an experience I will be forgetting anytime soon.
Firewatch Trivia Firewatch takes place the Emma Thompson wore ain “fat suit” to Wyoming wilderness in 1984. make her appear heavier Was the most rented DVD in the UK Firewatch runs in the Unity in 2004.engine. game The vicar used for Peter and Juliet’s The development team spent a wedding is a real vicar.
the highlights of
few nights in Yosemite National Parkword to gain inspiration. The “actually” is spoken twentya page turner. Sadly though,
two times by various characters in Firefilm. towers predate the United the
States Forestry Service, which
Although Karenin refers to David as was founded 1905. her big brother, Emma Thompson isThe actually gameseventeen is playedmonths in firstolder than Hugh Grant.
ryday things like past relationships, doing crossword puzzles, and occasionally a
person to reduce animation costs.
Henry and her will often engage in playful banter, talking about everyday things These casual conversations – fantastically brought to life by voice actors Rich Sommer and Cissy Jones - really drive home a sense of realism that is absent from many triple A games nowadays. Henry and Delilah feel like genuine people as opposed to just another pair of exposition spurting characters in a video
Joy Chun and Nate Bosley. Firewatch has an episodic structure in that its main plot occurs over the course of an entire summer with players getting to experience only a few select days of Henry and Delilah’s escapades. This initially leads to a relatively chilled tone as Henry is literally shown the ropes by his distant supervisor and gets to grips with his new surroundings. However after a while it will become abundantly clear that you are not alone out in the wild. There was a thematic shift from light-hearted
veloped, the gameplay can be mechanically shallow and overly intricate at times. The abrupt end hits the characters hardest, as both Henry and Delilah’s story, that I had grown so attached to simply ended. Perhaps Campo Santo were working with a limited development time, or maybe Sony was pressuring them for the PS4 release, but whatever the case Firewatch simply could have benefitted from a few more hours under its belt. Navigation can prove complicated as using Henry’s map and compass, whilst arguably adding to the game’s immer-
Andrew Lincoln wrote the romantic cards himself.
Despite the game featuring a day-night cycle, it markets will onlythe In Russian-language when the player fioccur lm’s title is “Realnaya lyubov” (Real Love). completes certain objectives.
The “Lake” that Luciayou Moniz and Colin Firewatch allows to send Firth jump into was actually only 18 in-game photos to your real life inches deep.
address for £10.
Kris Mashall handed back his Announced in 2014, paycheck for the day heFirewatch got to have was released early 2016 for PCfor three American girls undress him PS4. aand scene. He said he had such a good time, he was willing to do it for free.
Return to Red (and Blue) 34
GAMES
NEWS 1-5
COMMENT FEATURES LIFESTYLE 16-17 12-15 8-10
MUSIC 18-20
DRUGS PULLOUT
SCREEN 22-23
ARTS & LIT SCI & TECH 24-25 28-29
GAMES 32-34
SPORT 36-40
Victoria Bos gets nostalgic for the 20th anniversary of Pokémon
2
7 February marked the 20th anniversary of the Pokémon franchise with the original Red and Blue games being released in Japan on that date back in 1996. I can’t believe how much the franchise has grown in that time. As well as a trading card game, an ever-continuing cartoon series and multiple manga, Pokémon has now reached its sixth generation. It’s come a long way from the daydreams of game designer Satoshi Tajiri, in terms of graphics, storytelling and the sheer number of Pokémon out there to catch (it currently sits at 721). In order to mark this momentous occasion, Nintendo have decided to hit fans with a dose of nostalgia by re-releasing the original Red titles on the 3DS Virtual Console. These re-releases will feature wireless trading, utilising the 3DS’ capabilities, meaning there will be no more pesky link cables.
not forget the big thing here; you have your own team of monsters. What sort of kid didn’t want that?
The game mechanics were simple but brilliant The game mechanics for Red and Blue were simple but brilliant, as shown by the fact that the core gameplay hasn’t changed in 20 years. You have the strategic element of choosing your team as well as needing to pick certain types (e.g. Rock, Electric, Ghost) in order to defeat
encounter. The ability to play as yourself as well as name your rival and Pokémon, allows players to feel a lot more involved with the game. Add in the hero element of stopping the evil bad guys and what’s not to love? It pioneered the idea of collective and cooperative gaming, making use of the connection cable for the Nintendo Game Boy to encourage battling and trading. Indeed, you couldn’t ‘Catch ‘Em All’ by playing Pokémon Red unless you traded with someone who owned Pokémon Blue (or you were lucky enough to own both
upon very successfully over the
years, through the introduction of new features such as breeding, contests and, most recently, the introduction of character customisation allowing you to feel more attached to your virtual self.
The story elements have also become increasingly more sophisticated, such as in Pokémon Black and White, where the story examines the morality of keeping and imprisoning Pokémon, which helps to keep the formula fresh for generations
foray into a fighting game, Pokkén , is due for home release on the Wii U at the end of 2016 and their first mobile game is in the works. With a lot of hype around the series, now would seem the perfect time for Nintendo to announce the hotly anticipated seventh generation of games. In the meantime, let’s enjoy the two games that started it all and inspired a whole generation of gamBlue, I choose you!
rejoiced at the news that we would be able to go back and enjoy those glorious, black-and-white memories of the original 151 pocket monsters. Pokémon Red the first game I played as a child and the decision of whether to pick Charmander, Bulbasaur or Squirtle (or any of the starters in the generations that followed) is still one of the toughest choices I have faced in any game I’ve played. But let’s
You’re gonna be the very best David Agnew gets his cap, turns it backwards and grabs his balls
Pokémon Master Trainer Hasbro Table top Out now
R
ELEASED in 1999, Pokémon Master Trainer puts you in the shoes of the legendary Ash Ketchum as he travels across the land of Kanto on a Pokémon journey. Despite being a game clearly intended for children, Pokémon Master Trainer reached levels of complication only Mouse Trap or Risk could compete with, where players had to capture and collect little cardboard discs with pictures of Pokémon on them as they moved (unoriginally) from the left to right across the board. Added to this, those little cardboard
discs are incredibly easy to lose, meaning that Master Trainer can end up being a one-time only event. Imagine the horror when you go to capture your first Pidgey, only to discover that the disc is missing! Pidgey isn’t the only Pokémon to capture in your quest, as all 150 ‘mons are available to pocket and train (although, you’re only allowed six on you at a time, similar to the traditional handheld RPGs). You’ll be able to relive your childhood memories without the need for electronics or your mum shouting at you to “get off that screen David” or “go outside for once David!” Playing Master Trainer doesn’t even require you to have any knowledge of the franchise itself, as the only skill required is basic addition of single digit numbers. Obviously, the biggest bonus of this is that it means anyone can play, whether you’re five years old
or a hundred and five years old. The game is also incredibly fastpaced and you’ll probably blaze through it in less than 30 minutes, meaning that you can easily get a few grudge matches going or even create your own variants of the game (drink every time you catch a Pokémon?).
EXEPOSÉ
The Orange Box We asked three writers to create their own Pokémon for this issue JACK ENGLAND Exeposaur
It’s clear that Nintendo is pulling out all the stops for its anniversary year
It’s clear that Nintendo is pulling out all the stops for its anniversary year, with some other titles such as Super Mario getting the Pokémon treatment in the way of additional levels and characters. In addition, the Pokémon Company’s first
Nintendo have decided to hit fans with a dose of nostalgia
29 FEBRUARY 2016 |
Everyone I’ve played Master Trainer with has commented on how different it is to anything else they’ve played, whilst maintaining the core values of a board game, however that doesn’t save it from a two star review. With the pieces being too easy to lose and the difficulty of learning the game, it’s hard to catch ‘em all.
EVAN JONES Arena Fossil
HARRY SHEPHERD EdMillibander
Free Game of the Week
Rudeboy Rampage 2 Inspired by Pokémon, Rudeboy Rampage 2 features a bold hero, armed with nothing but Pokémon and a couple of bombs as he fends off the attacks on his village Scan the QR code to download your free copy
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STUDY BREAK
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35
BREAK
STUDY CROSSWORD # 82
SUDOKU # 18
Across 1
Popular vote by the electorate (as will be
To read more about a role and download an application form, search for the internship’s reference code on My Career Zone.
held on the 12 Across on the 23rd of June, 2016?) (10) 8
Central (5)
9
Taking thought or care (7)
10
Primitive person (7)
11
Greasy - oily (5)
12
International organisation formed in
Maastricht in 1992 (8,5)
Part-time Student Internship Vacancies:
15
Outshine (the Don?) (5)
17
Nevertheless (7)
20
Involve in a dispute - ERM boil (anagram)
(7) 22
External (5)
23
Not divided into parts - I’d screen it (ana-
gram) (10)
ANSWERS:
Down 1
Go beyond (a limit, e.g.) (3,4)
12
Regard highly (6)
2
WWW discussion area (5)
13
Hard seed of some fruits (3)
3
Christian Church ruled by a Pope (5,8)
14
Guest (7)
4
French rejection? (3)
16
UN bar (anagram) - of a city (5)
5
Out of shape (5)
18
Complete (5)
6
Metallic element, atomic number 30 (4)
19
Thin on the ground (4)
7
Exploit (feelings, e.g.) (4,2)
21
French acceptance? (3)
11
Viral disease (3)
ANSWERS: Down: 1 Run over, 2 Forum, 3 Roman Catholic, 4 Non, 5 Unfit, 6 Zinc, 7 Play on, 11 Flu, 12 Esteem, 13 Pip, 14 Invitee, 16 Urban, 18 Whole, 19 Rare, 21 Oui.
WEATHER
Across: 1 Referendum, 8 Inner, 9 Mindful, 10 Caveman, 11 Fatty, 12 European Union, 15 Trump, 17 However, 20 Embroil, 22 Outer, 23 Indiscrete.
Exeter’s outlook for the week ahead
Mon 29th
High Low
°C
5°C
Tues 1st
Wed 2nd
Thur 3rd
Fri 4th
Sat 5th
Sun 6th
12°C
9°C
9°C
8°C
8°C
7°C
6 °C
4°C
4°C
3°C
2 °C
2 °C
Data accurate at time of print
‘‘
PUZZLES BY ALFRED
WORDS OF WISDOM... All I’m saying is... I’ll know when I know. And until I know, I don’t know.
Justin Timberlake
Cartoon by Katie Learmont
SCP 3428 Research Intern (Graphene, Metamaterials and Sensors) - SUMMER INTERNSHIP Closing Date: 6th March 2016 Salary: £9.27 Location: Exeter A student is sought as a Research Intern to provide support within Prof. Geoff Nash’s research group. SCP 3444 Ipplepen project Public Engagement Intern - SUMMER INTERNSHIP Closing Date: 2nd March 2016 Salary: £9.27 Location: Exeter An Intern is required in June 2016 for the Archaeology Department’s Ipplepen Field School. They will work with Danielle Wootton, Portable Antiquities Scheme, in running the public engagement. SCP 3449 Employment Services Administration Assistant (Two Posts) Closing Date: 6th March 2016 Salary: £9.27 Location: Exeter Two students are required for Employment Services, to provide a range of admin support with Graduate Recruitment activities, particularly fairs and employer events, and our Internships schemes.
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SPORT
Player Ratings By Owain Evans
30. Jack Banister - 6 Solid, but will have been disappointed to have conceded.
4. Tom Watson - 7.5 Passed well, and scored a late goal.
6. Mark Loughrey - 7 Managed some shots, but failed to convert in the end. Defended well.
7. Noah Sharples - 7 His lucky goal kept EUMHC firing.
8. Jack Simmons - 6 Set up chances, but gave the ball away a few times.
10. Ben Francis - 6 Missed a good chance, but played solidly in the middle.
12. Lewis Burnham - 6
Easy Varsity wins NEWS 1-5
COMMENT FEATURES LIFESTYLE 12-15 16-17 8-10
MUSIC 18-20
DRUGS PULLOUT
SCREEN 22-23
ARTS & LIT SCI & TECH 24-25 28-29
GAMES 32-34
SPORT 36-40
29 FEBRUARY 2016 |
EXEPOSÉ
MEN’S HOCKEY
Tommy John Online Sport Editor Exeter 1s Sheffield Hallam
7 3
E
UMHC 1s fought off a second half comeback to run out comfortable 7-3 victors in their BUCS quarter-final clash with Sheffield Hallam. The sun shone over a glistening Water Astro, with the forecast of goals looking likely as the ball fizzed about the turf during the warm-up. As Hallam commenced proceedings, the away side controlled early possession without posing an immediate threat. Conor Caplan and Max Heaver were proving to be a thorn in Hallam’s defence, constantly harrying them in possession. Mistakes were creeping in for Sheffield, as Matt Richards and Heaver came inches away from diverting dangerous crosses into the net. Exeter were eventually rewarded through a penalty corner, as Richards clinically slotted the ball home with great aplomb to the keeper’s right.
Impressed with good passing.
13. Edward Fleet (c) - 9 Passed well and scored in a great Captain’s performance.
14. Matt Richards - 7 Scored one, and attacked well.
16. Graeme Scott - 6 A reasonably skilled showing.
17. Max Heaver - 6.5 No major mistakes, held firm.
18. Ollie Davies - 6 Accurate with his passing.
19. Alex Robey - 6 Put in some good shots and passes to keep Exeter keen.
20. Conor Caplan - 9 Scored two good goals and played a big role in the win.
21. Alex Manton Jones - 5 Cautioned, and scored an own goal.
Tireless displays from Richards and Caplan could not be contained by Sheffield Before Sheffield could dust themselves off, a blistering counter attack from Exeter saw them awarded a penalty. The away contingent received a yellow, as the defender deflected the ball away with the wrong side of his stick. Ed Fleet stepped forward, slinging the ball high into the top left corner and granting EUMHC a dream start to their Varsity fixture. By this stage, Hallam were in disarray. A rout was looking inevitable four minutes later, as a superb inside ball found Jack Simmons one on one with the keeper. EUMHC’s all action midfielder kept his composure, sliding it home and giving Sheffield a hefty mountain to overcome. Hallam desperately needed halftime to re-evaluate their shape, as Exeter were causing carnage on the break. However things went from bad to worse for the away team, as poor discipline led to another penalty corner. A sweet strike from Mark Loughrey saw the ball soar into the bottom left corner, surely putting the game beyond doubt for EUMHC. As the second half began, a marauding charge from Fleet put Exeter on the front foot once again. The defender had
>> Clockwise from left: Jack Simmons gives his teammates high fives after Exeter’s fourth goal, EULHC gather before the second half, Mark Loug dictated the pace of the match tremendously, launching attacks with great vision and accuracy. Tireless displays from Richards and Caplan could not be contained by Sheffield, as Exeter looked set to comfortably see out the remainder of the game. However, Hallam bounced back unexpectedly with a tremendous counter-attack of their own. After tucking away the resulting penalty corner, Hallam were now on the charge to gain some credibility. However, their patient build-up play was largely quashed, as Caplan continued to look dangerous on the break. Hallam did strike again though, converting another penalty corner. Seven minutes later, the unthinkable looked possible as a goalmouth scramble saw Alex Manton-Jones inadvertently divert the ball into his own net. With ten minutes remaining, and the score at 4-3, the game looked poised to produce an exhilarating climax. However, Hallam had run out of steam after their courageous fight-back. A superb dribble from Tom Watson saw him breeze past two defenders and
find Noah Sharples at the far post, who tucked it home.
A sweet strike from Mark Loughrey saw the ball soar into the bottom corner, surely putting the game beyond doubt
EUMHC stats Goals 7
3
Shots on target 12
Caplan then produced his own moment of magic, dodging three Hallam tackles before finding Watson, who managed to lash the ball home for Exeter’s sixth goal and put the game out of reach. With Hallam now out on their knees and practically begging for the final whistle, Exeter polished off a display of some wonderful exhibition hockey with a runaway goal scored by Caplanhis second. After this fantastic result, EUMHC 1s will now go marching into the BUCS semi-finals to face a very tough side in Birmingham, who won their quarterfinal against Oxford Brookes 7-0.
5
Shots off target 3
1
Possession % 53
47
Fouls 9
12
for Hockey clubs
SPORT
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Player ratings By Emmott Leigh
45. Ella Jackson - 6 Was given nothing to do!
24. Kathryn Lane (c)- 8 Although sometimes rushed on the ball, was an effective sweeper and captain.
27. Rebecca Mercer - 9 With a couple of crucial interceptions, defended admirably.
109. Jasmine O’Connor- 7 Although kept quiet, was a reliable presence.
167. Paloma ArrazolaMartin - 7 Kept herself about and contributed to some major plays.
11. Bobbie Burkin - 7 Forced the second goal in, and held up play well on the flank.
161. Beth Marriott - 7 Defended well and had a couple of good efforts too.
154. Georgie Whitehouse - 7
ghrey applauds another EUMHC goal and Kathryn Lane beams at her players after EULHC’s first goal. Photos: Sachi Minami, Anthea Lau, Yong Yan Wang.
WOMEN’S HOCKEY Rob Cross Sport Editor EULHC 1s Durham
E
2 0
ULHC 1s progressed to the semifinals of BUCS with a dominant 2-0 victory over Durham, with such a defensive effort that Durham did not muster even one shot on goal. From the onset, Durham looked for width and were Exeter’s equals for most of the first half. The hosts were quick to close down the visitors and stage their own opportunities. Both sides were playing positively, not afraid to switch sides. Great covering play by Rebecca Mercer stopped what could have been a Durham opener. About ten minutes in, play broke down, with poor control on both sides leading to lost possession and half chances. A positive passage of play saw Meg Crowson steal the ball brilliantly on halfway, advancing into the opposi-
tion area. Durham’s defence covered, but Griffiths was a nuisance down the left flank, dribbling in space and fashioning half chances. However, there had been no real opportunities for either side to score. Katie Taverner linked up well with Crowson but was unable to find a killer pass. Bobbie Burkin was a stalwart in defence, making several key tackles. Crowson had the first shot of the game, lashing a shot over the bar. Griffiths then showed fantastic skill to weave into the D and win her side a short corner. Going into the break, Exeter needed something to show for their dominance. Coming out of the interval, Taverner won a penalty corner off a defender. The keeper saved off Beth Marriott but the ball was not cleared. Taverner was on hand to scoop home from close range. Durham were looking increasingly vulnerable, their passes becoming wayward. Crowson intercepted well but her shot was matched by the save. Much to the dismay of their coach, Durham were issued a green card and presented Exeter with an opportunity to put the game
beyond doubt. Exeter were playing more proficiently and Yard intercepted again, winning a penalty corner. She then shot, but it was well saved. Durham were ragged and Exeter had their tails up. A loose pass was intercepted and Exeter won another penalty corner. Taverner passed to Burkin, whose fierce shot went in off a Durham stick. Everything was going their way. When Durham broke, the defence was on hand to sweep up. With the result now inevitable, Exeter were at their highest confidence and were feeding off Durham’s errors. Kathryn Lane highlighted the team’s confidence, plucking the ball from the air before fizzing a pass to the other end. The final whistle marked a top result for the EULHC 1s, who will now go forward to play Edinburgh. The Scots crushed Cardiff 3-0, and will certainly prove a sterner test than Durham. The Ladies are still unbeaten in BUCS this year and, based on this showing , there is surely no reason why they can’t extend their record.
Was workmanlike around the pitch
EULHC stats
16. Katie Taverner - 8
Goals Goals 2
Scored the opener and dominated
0
129. Elly Yard - 8
Shots on target 5
0
Often tested the keeper and was a nuisance high up the pitch.
42. Hannah Griffiths - 9
Shots off target 3
upfront.
0
The MV. Wonderful skills shown with the stick.
Possession % 54
46
Was almost impossible to get off the ball with numerous
Fouls 36
121. Meg Crowson - 9
attacking runs.
30
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SPORT
Player Ratings By Oli Davis
1. Jack Owlett – 8
A typically bruising performance from the giant loosehead prop. Consistently carrying over the gain-line as well as putting in some boneshuddering hits.
EURFC retain Derby
NEWS 1-5
COMMENT FEATURES LIFESTYLE 12-15 16-17 8-10
MUSIC 18-20
DRUGS PULLOUT
SCREEN 22-23
ARTS & LIT SCI & TECH 24-25 28-29
GAMES 32-34
SPORT 36-40
29 FEBRUARY 2016 |
EXEPOSÉ
2. Paul Davis – 7.5
Despite sporting a sizeable shiner by the end of the game, Davis was a constant threat throughout. Worked hard at the breakdown and showed fantastic awareness for his try.
3. George Beale – 7.5
Led from the front and was always on hand to make the hard yards. Bath posed him very few problems at the scrum and it was also his try that started the procession.
4. Fred Wheadon – 7
Exeter’s main threat at the breakdown and essential to the effective mauling strategy that the hosts implemented.
5. Sam Skinner (c) - 7
Led from the front, clearing out rucks with ease and providing the impetus in the opposition 22. Will be disappointed with a few poorly gathered restarts, but his leadership skills were in abundance for all to see.
6. Matt Eliet – 8
Enjoyed a fine game. Consistently terrorising the breakdown and not afraid to sacrifice his body in defence.
7. Harry Ledger – 7.5
Won a few turnovers for the hosts and was integral in defence. Showed great line speed to get up in the opposition faces and led the defense well.
8. Tom Lawday – 9
Lawaday combined raw power as well as a surprising turn of speed to great effect. His ballcarrying was unstoppable at times and he was consistently puncturing holes in a relatively sturdy Bath defence.
9. Sam Waltier – 9.5
In attack he was a constant threat, finding gaps and working around the fringes. His link-up play with Claxton was sublime and his creation of Knight’s try was inch-perfect.
>> Clockwise from bottom left: Exeter huddle before kick-off, celebrating Sam Waltier’s try, Tom Lawday raises his arms aloft, Ollie Claxton kicks-off, Exeter scrum at Bath’s try-line. Photo: Edwin Yeung an
RUGBY UNION Freddie Eastwell Sports Team Exeter 1s Bath
E
46 8
XETER University’s 1st XV thrashed rivals Bath 46-8 in a onesided South West Derby on Wednesday evening, in a match that looked more like a Rugby Farcity. The EURFC side completely outplayed the visitors as Captain Sam Skinner led the team to another emphatic victory at Sandy Park. A huge crowd turned out to fill the main stand and cheer Exeter on to a big win. The Bath fly-half took up the ball on the centre spot and got things underway with a huge kick-off that the visiting forwards managed to reclaim in the air. The shaky start didn’t last long however; a number of huge tackles forced the Bath backline into touch, back inside their own half. Scrum-half Sam Waltier
made an early break off the back of the lineout gaining his team some good territory. The forwards quickly asserted their dominance in the contact area, winning a penalty in front of the posts that fullback Gavin Parker easily slotted to make the score 3-0. Bath responded quickly however, regaining possession after the restart and began throwing bodies at the Exeter backline. The defence held out for five minutes as Bath struggled to cross the gain line and get anywhere near Exeter’s 22. Eventually, the visitors won themselves a penalty within kicking range and Bath’s Flyhalf levelled the scores at 3-3. Unfazed by this, Exeter pushed back into Bath’s 22 as Oliver Claxton kicked deep from the centre spot and forced a knock-on from the Bath forwards. Gavin Parker went close to scoring off the back of the scrum but again the Exeter pack bullied the Bath defence into conceding another penalty in front of the posts. Parker added the three points to bring the score line to 6-3 but the team were visibly
frustrated that they weren’t converting their territory into tries. The opening 20 minutes continued to be extremely physical with neither side looking to shy away from big hits. Gavin Parker skilfully kicked for the corner and landed the ball on Bath’s five-metre line. Substitute Mike Perks threw a fantastic ball to the back of the lineout and Exeter set up the driving maul. Club Captain George Beale secured the ball at the back and drove his forwards over the line to score the opening try of the Derby game. With the crowd noise now at an exceedingly high level, Gavin Parker managed to keep his composure and slot the tough conversion to bring the score to 13-3. After the celebrations of the opening try, Exeter nerves appeared to have settled as halfbacks Waltier and Claxton began to orchestrate some impressive phases of play. Fullback Parker continued to kick his side into good areas and a second try just before the half time whistle seemed inevitable. A lovely backs move off the back of a scrum set up the Exeter
forwards again to batter their way to the Bath try-line. However, it was Waltier who managed to dart over for his team’s second score off the back of a ruck. With the successful conversion, EURFC’s 1s stretched their lead to 20-3 at the break.
The opening 20 minutes continued to be extremely physical with neither side looking to shy away from big hits After half time, EURFC’s 1s coach Keith Fleming sent the boys flying back out onto the pitch. Claxton kicked off deep into Bath’s half and for the next 35 minutes, the visitors would not leave their 22 except for restarts. Centres Pete Laverick and Tom Holdsworth continued to carry well in the backs whilst flankers Matt Eliet and Ledger made hard yards on the crash ball.
crown with huge win
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39
Player Ratings By Oli Davis
10. Ollie Claxton – 9
An incredibly composed performance. Alongside Waltier, Claxton ran the show with aplomb, finding a perfect balance on knowing when to kick and when to run with the ball.
11. Ned Warne – 7
Didn’t receive much ball or room to work with but grew into the game as it wore on. Made a few sprightly breaks in the second half and looked a threat off his wing.
12. Pete Laverick – 7.5
Worked hard in defense to nullify any Bath threats. Worked hard in attack to provide a useful link-up option, often stepping in at first receiver.
13. Tom Holdsworth – 8
While his centre partner was providing the guile to work alongside Claxton, Holdsworth was immense in the tackle area as well as providing real momentum with his carries.
14. Alex Brown – 8
Always looking for work and consistently making a nuisance of himself to the opposition defence, Brown was sharp with the ball and made a number of half-breaks that caused the opposition defence concern.
15. Gavin Parker – 8.5
g and Natasa Christofidou. After increasing pressure from Exeter, Eliet found himself held up just over the line after a good lineout move. Minutes later, winger Ned Warne managed to get Bath’s tighthead prop sent off for foul play after a darting run to the corner. The deadlock was finally broken from the driving maul off the back of a lineout again as number 8 Tom Lawday trundled over the line for Exeter’s third try. With the lead now at 25-3, Exeter continued to grow in confidence with Waltier and Claxton running a series of flair attacks in the backline. Winger Alex Brown found himself tackled into touch just short of the line as his side looked for the all-important fourth try to secure the bonus point. Substitute Jacob Knight came off the bench for the final 20 minutes and made an immediate impact as he charged down a kick and almost scored in the corner. The outside centre eventually got a well-deserved try off the back of another maul as Waltier broke away again and drew the last man in to put Knight under the posts. Parker easily slotted the
conversion to bring the score to 32-3. Minutes later, Exeter were back again in Bath’s 22 with a great kick to touch from the fullback. Captain Sam Skinner won the ball in the air and drove over the line to score in the corner from yet another lineout. Parker finished off another clinical attack with the two points to stretch his side’s lead still further to 39-3.
If the 1s continue playing like this, it doesn’t seem unlikely that the team could in fact make the BUCS final at Twickenham As they entered the final five minutes, Bath finally found an opportunity to spend some time in Exeter’s half after the home side conceded a scrum from the restart. A number of scrappy phases followed that eventually saw Bath score from a fifteen-man driving maul but their
kicker struck the post with his conversion. However, it would be the Exeter side that would have the last say in the game as scrum-half Waltier set up a final try for the towering second row, Fred Hosking. Gavin Parker converted the easiest of kicks to leave the final score at 46-8. Speaking after the game, man of the match Sam Waltier acknowledged that it was a “pretty tough first 20 minutes”. He praised the “physicality and dominance of the forward pack… that let us chuck the ball around a bit in the backs”. Captain Sam Skinner echoed the sentiments of his scrum-half, and also lauded the crowd and “the massive atmosphere”, emphasising the importance “that we kept our cool and kept doing the same things we do week in, week out”. The consistency of this Exeter side to keep delivering such comprehensive wins is certainly recognised by the Captain but the team aren’t getting carried away just yet. They are currently in a very strong position to be potentially hosting a university side from the North Division in the
BUCS semi-finals. If the 1s continue playing like this, it doesn’t seem unlikely that the team could in fact make the BUCS final at Twickenham.
Match Stats Tries (Converted) 5 (3)
1 (0)
Penalties Conceded 5
6
Scrums 5
6
Lineouts 10
7
Possession (%) 60
40
Yellow Cards 0
1
Almost perfect from the kicking tee in blustery conditions. Was solid with ball in hand as the game opened up.
Substitutes
16. Mike Perks – Physical in the loose and solid at the lineout. 17. Thomas Rhodes – Solid in the scrum. 18. Freddie Hosking – Grabbed a late try. Physical as usual. 19. Tom Edwards – Saw plenty of game time and provided a perfect foil to Lawday. 20. Adam Worth – Real threat in attack, making testing runs in behind the Bath defence. 21. Jacob Knight – Was on hand for Waltier’s moment of brilliance to take his try and looked enterprising. 22. Alex Webb – Strong hits in defence and carried well.
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NEWS 1-5
COMMENT FEATURES LIFESTYLE 12-15 16-17 8-10
SPORT
MUSIC 18-20
DRUGS PULLOUT
SCREEN 22-23
ARTS & LIT SCI & TECH 24-25 28-29
GAMES 32-34
SPORT 36-40
29 FEBRUARY 2016 | Exeposé Sport
SPORT EDITORS Rob Cross Emmott Leigh
EXEPOSÉ
@ExeposeSport
sport@exepose.com
BUCS battering Varsity wins for Men’s & Women’s Hockey while EURFC smash
>> From left: Annie Dalton (EULHC), Sam Skinner (EURFC), Ed Fleet (EUMHC). Photos: Sachi Minami and Edwin Yeung.
In this issue of Exeposé Sport...
BUCS semifinals await for Hockey clubs Page 36-7
EURFC demolish Bath in Derby Page 38-9
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