The Reminissue by Exetera Magazine

The Reminissue

Exetera Magazine

A Lighter Alternative for Exeter University | Issue 7 | FREE

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The Reminissue

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The Reminissue

Exetera Magazine

The Reminissue

Exetera Magazine

WELCOME TO THE REMINISSUE Exetera had an awkward childhood. It was plagued with a twitch all through primary school, it didn’t get invited to parties in its teens (apart from the odd school disco, to which it wore supermarket threads picked out by its mother), it has never had a romantic life to speak of, and it endured a stint of therapy after its parents’ divorce. In short, it’s had a few issues. However, its past made it what it is today – which, let’s admit, is pretty damn good. So, for its first issue of the 2013/14 academic year, we decided to look to the past. As submissions flooded in from our talented student writers, some strong themes began to emerge: memory, nostalgia, and how the past affects the present. Inside The Reminissue you’ll read about the rare condition which prevents memories from fading, a reflection on the mythology surrounding the university experience, and thoughts on how we might understand the dubious label “hipster” (one which is often hurled derisively in Exetera’s direction, despite the fact that a magazine can’t

possibly wear Airmaxes). For the issue’s photo shoot, we transformed our model, Charlotte, into three strange archetypes, from the Victorian consumptive to the plastic surgery trophy wife, by way of the heroin chic waif. An interview with fashion forecaster Geraldine Wharry reveals how the past can inform a vision of the future, and with our horrorscopes (misspelling intended) you’ll find out a thing or two about what your own future has in store. The magazine which you hold in your hands, or perhaps squint at on a computer screen, is a sort of two-headed Janus. It has eyes on what’s been, eyes on what’s to come, and one eye on you. Before we get started, I’d like to thank all our advertisers for helping this issue go to print, and last year’s editors for allowing me to seize control of their magazine. Let’s hope I do it justice. Mark Izatt

editor Mark Izatt deputy editor Declan Henesy contributing editors Charlotte Simpson Ben Clarke marketing and publicity Jennie Frewen Imogen Custers Ruby Frankland contributors Max Benwell / Ben Clarke / Rob Harris / Milly Hindle Rosa Jones / Kate Latimer / Alexis Mastroyiannis Eileen McNulty-Holmes / Benjamin Westlake

get in touch To contribute: submissions@exeteramagazine.com To advertise: marketing@exeteramagazine.com General enquiries: exetera@exeteramagazine.com follow us Facebook: fb.com/exeteramagazine Twitter: @exeteramagazine Instagram: @exetera

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The Reminissue

CLASS OF 2013 Some of The Reminissueâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s esteemed editors and contributors at their peaks.

Clockwise from top left: Max Benwell, Eileen McNulty-Holmes, Rob Harris, Alexis Mastroyiannis, Imogen Custers, Ben Clarke, Ben Westlake, Rosa Jones, Declan Henesy, Jennie Frewen

CONTENTS s t o p t a k i n g p h o t o s , s t a r t m a k i n g m e m o r i e s Milly Hindle................................................................................................... 8

t h e b e s t d a y s o f o u r l i v e s ? Rob Harris...................................................................................................................................... 10

h i p s t o r y r e p e a t s i t s e l f Ben Clarke................................................................................................................................................. 12

f u n e s t h e m e m o r i u s Ben Westlake..................................................................................................................................................... 14

a h i s t o r y o f a m u s e m e n t Kate Latimer............................................................................................................................................ 16

t h e k i n g d o m o f t h e i l l Editorial Team........................................................................................................................................... 18

s o m e k i n d a h a t e Eileen McNulty-Holmes........................................................................................................................................... 26

s t i r r i n g u p t h e p a s t Rosa Jones........................................................................................................................................................ 28

m i d d l e a g e d s e x Declan Henesy.......................................................................................................................................................... 30

f a n n y h i l l Mark Izatt................................................................................................................................................................................ 31

f a s h i o n f u t u r o l o g y Max Benwell......................................................................................................................................................... 32

w h o i s y o u r f a s h i o n i n s p i r a t i o n ? Declan Henesy..................................................................................................................... 34

h o r r o r s c o p e s Alexis â&#x20AC;&#x153;Mysticâ&#x20AC;? Mastroyiannis.......................................................................................................................................... 36

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STOP TAKING PHOTOS, START MAKING MEMORIES Milly Hindle wonders if social media has stopped us from distinguishing between important and trivial moments.

Recently, my memories have become disturbingly disposable. It used to be rare that they would take a physical form: the camera only came out occasionally – the disposable for day trips and the Canon for life’s photo-album landmarks: family marriages, births, anniversaries and so forth. Sadly, it seems that social media has confused the significant memories – like that unexpected moment when you forget the peanut butter, run back to Sainsbury’s and bump into a childhood friend – with the insignificant ones. All of them are jumbled up, and now I see my memories everywhere. I can’t seem to get away from them, actually. There they are, flickering on the computer screen, attached to emails, saved on memory sticks. I suppose this is good – it solves the dilemma of which airbrushed landscape I should set as my desktop background. The problem comes when technology creates a memory-machine, churning out photos of the things you did yesterday, this morning, thirty seconds ago, into the giant boiling pot of social media. Do I really need a photograph on Twitter to remind me that it snowed today? Might I survive the day without Instagramming my glossy, manicured nails just to recognise the fact that they are still attached to my hands? For some reason, we don’t seem to trust our minds anymore. I’ve a sneaking suspicion that this is linked to the paranoia surrounding our social lives and the need to instantly broadcast what we’ve done. Snapshots are taken at every social event and hurled onto the internet, only to be reminisced about for a few days before the next batch are uploaded. Memories are becoming disposable, because their value is being undermined by the pace at which new ones are created. This in itself is very problematic, as we get stuck in a brutal

forwards motion, existing in the future and never having time to appreciate yesterday. A friend once told me how she finds it “hard to live in the present”, because she is always planning the next thing to look forward to. I had to sympathise with her. We strive towards the memories we will make, but find it increasingly difficult to appreciate those we already have. It’s a shame, really, because reminiscing is actually an incredibly calming activity that, if worked at a little bit harder, would provide some respite from our memory-making concerns. Goodness knows we’ve made enough to have some food for thought. When I reminisce, I’m forced to sit still, dwell on my life and shut up about tomorrow and the next day. I might start off with the past week in all its normality, or launch into one of those milestone events from the photo album. Inevitably, as my mind starts to relax, I’ll go off on a tangent – and that’s where the really bizarre, interesting stuff starts to speckle the forefront of my brain. This happened once with the sight of a packet of Walkers crisps. When I was in primary school, they brought out football star editions, @exetera cartooning the faces of players for ‘Cheese and Owen’ or ‘Salt and Lineker’. I have this weirdly vivid memory of seeing the empty packets trodden into the mud on the school playing field one lunch time. It’s a pretty insignificant memory, but somehow, it’s a part of my scaffolding; it can set off a whole string of playground memories and classroom daydreams. Other times I just strain to remember why I found those crisp packets so fascinating. Then, something will pull me out of that reverie and I’ll see that, if nothing else, I’ve spent a good ten or fifteen minutes relaxed and free from technological memory-madness. And it didn’t take a single photo to do it, either.

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@nicholasgrimshaw

@jfrewen

@beyonce

@mrizatt

@imogencusters

@harrystyles

@caradelevingne

@kimkardashian

@val_zelyaeva

@justinbieber

@rosiehw

@evachen212

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THE BEST DAYS OF OUR LIVES? Rob Harris wonders if undergraduate life lives up to its reputation, and whether our attempts to make it do so leave us unable to enjoy the present.

It’s never going to get any better than tual contentment. Living in the shadow of in which the recently graduated and this, so we are told. Unless you happen to youth’s glorified reputation is a daunting hyper-sentimental Max bemoans “I’m be over 22, in which case you’ve already experience. nostalgic for conversations I had yesterpassed your prime and have clearly picked As I stare despairingly into the void day, I begin reminiscing events even before up this student magazine in a desperate that is life after university, I wonder if they occur…I can’t go to the bar because attempt to relive ‘the glory days’. there is such a condition as ‘pre-nostal- I’ve already looked back on it in my memThe life of an undergraduate offers an gia’ [noun] – The constant romanticising ory and I didn’t have a good time.” The unquestionably enviable cocktail of perks of the present, and an obsessive fixation film captures the apathetic melancholia – financial support, independence, eclec- on how it will be perceived in the future. of the purposeless graduate, begrudgingly tic social circles, a lack of responsibility, Symptoms include chronic inertia and dragged into the adult world. The chardaytime T.V. and 10% discount acters prove to be emotionally at Superdrug – that are unlike- ‘...nostalgia blurs reality and often makes incapable of forging out their fuly to be enjoyed in combination the past appear better than it really was.’ tures after college and move back ever again, often leading to it bein with each other in an attempt ing dubbed by nostalgic elders to live out a desperate echo of (and Bryan Adams) as “the best their student existence. days of my life.” It’s all downPerhaps this anxious need hill from here then, as we brace to hold on to youth is what ourselves for the harsh realities motivates that egregious breed of adulthood: debt, commutof clubber who insists on taking ing, Christmas work parties, 156 pictures on a night out, mortgages, shopping lists and striking various poses beside flossing. towers of Jägerbombs and For a third year student in generally looking like they’re denial that’s a pretty depressing having an all-round banterful thought, and it has often resulttime. These Nikon Nazis, armed ed in my inability to actually with their photographic relics enjoy the present, for constant seem to be constantly trying fear of what it is not. Attemptto grasp on to a momentary ing to measure up to the lofty feeling that is, by its very nature, idealisations of this supposedly perpetually passing them by. peak-point in life – the terminal The only souvenir I’m left with velocity of happiness – induces constant short-term periods of disillusionment, from a night out is two and a half inches insecurities over whether I’m wasting the with those affected often complaining of of cold, sweet onion soaked regret, which best days of my life, or just waiting for an inability to move on in life. I’d rather not remember. them to begin; a kind of stasis-like state There’s a great scene in Noah BaumFutile attempts to preserve the of analysis paralysis that never leads to ac- bach’s Kicking and Screaming (1995) essence of a moment, by cataloguing it in

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“Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.” - Mary Schmich Facebook photo albums and Instagram feeds (note: the need to remember a plate of food before it is eaten), often result in an inability to actually experience and savour what it is that is being obsessively documented. If one is too focused on how an event will be perceived in the future, too ‘pre-nostalgic’ if you will, then one fails to be present for the present. This is the issue I find myself facing when people incessantly warn “enjoy it now, they’re the best days of your life”, or “I remember university, never had so much fun in my life.” What am I meant to do with that information, pencil ‘suicide’ in my to-do list for the day after graduation? Unless the older generation’s university experience actually was the three year drug-fuelled orgy that they make it out to be (and who am I to doubt, it was the 80s after all), then it’s unlikely that these truly will be the best days of your life. So these

hyperbolic and rather worrying assertions are either barefaced lies, or simply products of misremembering the past. Mary Schmich’s essay Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young, popularised by Baz Luhrmann’s musical adaptation Wear Sunscreen, warns that “Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.” Of course, nostalgia blurs reality and often makes the past appear better than it really was. We tend to gloss over the nights spent in Arena’s toilets. The very act of saying “they were the best days of my life” is a way of validating the expectation that has generated, which assumes youth to be the zenith of the life cycle, thereby continuing to perpetuate the myth of undergraduate hedonism. There is no doubt that the glorious

marriage of independence and irresponsibility that accompanies the life of a student is highly desirable and relatively unique. But the pressure to extract the most amount of fun possible from this transient period can often have the opposite effect. The compulsive documentation of the modern age is most rife among young students, though whether our motivations stem from social exhibitionism, insecurity, or a pre-nostalgic preservation of the present, is unclear. Anyway, I need to go have the time of my life, while I still can.

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HIPSTORY REPEATS ITSELF Ben Clarke dissects 2013’s incarnation of the “hipster”.

Do you hate hipsters? Of course you do. drank the coffee before it was cool, the anEverybody does. Hipsters attract a degree ti-hipster makes sure everyone sees them of derision usually directed by the Daily drink their ethically sourced mocha at Mail at communist, homosexual, unem- Starbucks, with a Macbook Air (homeployed immigrants. But could you define page set to Vice) carefully placed over a what a ‘hipster’ is? You might come up £10 independent magazine. Anti-hipsters with terms like ‘alternative’, ‘edgy’ or conform to a fabricated ‘non-conform‘Cellar Door’, but such whimsical consid- ist’ dress code (“These Nike Air Max erations merely scratch will go perfectly with the surface of the true Obey snapback”), ‘Why is it so hard to my hipster aesthetic. can’t get enough of Why is it so hard to define what a hipster ‘deep house’ (“Have define what a hipster you heard Bashmore’s is?’ is? Simple: true hipnew banger?”) and sters are so small in say things like “epistenumber that they barely exist anymore, mologically speaking, that subculture is a like Siberian tigers, or working class postmodern phenomenon.” students at the University of Exeter. The Consumerism poisoned the Pursuit of authentic hipster subculture of suburban Hipsterdom. The current batch of plastic twentieth century America has been dis- copies vomited out by high streets make placed by a generation of postmodern a mockery of a movement that was once pin-ups that I like to call Anti-Hipsters seen as a genuine attempt to swim against – a collective of pseudo-hipsters who re- current trends and bask in a sublime affirm consumerist values and measure stream-of-consciousness. The tragic mutheir weight in Instagrams. tation is rooted in how we are seen: the How does an anti-hipster differ from true hipster rejects labels; the real deal? Well, I see true hipsters as the anti-hipster can’t those beat generation souls “mad to live.” wear enough of them. These crazy cats dug jazz in the 30s, 40 The result is a and 50s and just wanted to Go! Blow! Go! non-individual who They analysed, drank, injected and read concentrates so much anything and everything that would set on the image of hipthem on the path to unheralded, bound- sterism, rather than the less hedonism. Yeah, they have always essence, that they fail to been a little pretentious, concerned with see the irony – a hipster outward appearances and showing dis- staple – in their fabridain for ignorant slavish squares, but cated self-parody. The they were committed to authentic expe- anti-hipster cult may aprience, counter-culture and were always pear to be ‘alternative’ in their attitude and self-aware. dress, but only succeed to parody original The anti-hipster, on the other hand, hipster characteristics and paradoxically epistemologically speaking, is a post- reiterate mainstream values. In short, they modern phenomenon. Whereas the are a poor man’s hipster. They are what hipster burnt their tongues because they Pepsi is to Coca-Cola, what ketamine is

to cocaine, what masturbation is to sex… The ‘Urban Renewal’ section of Urban Outfitters neatly encapsulates the anti-hipster paradox. It claims to embody the hipster tradition of recycling, saving money and looking individual, but charges a Stussy T-shirted arm and a vintage Levi-jeaned leg to attain the ‘hipster’ aesthetic. I saw an Adidas rucksack in the Renewal section recently. It was the kind your mum bought you to carry your PE kit in Year 8. They wanted £40 for it. Herein lies the perversity of the anti-hipster attitude: people spend shed loads of money to look as if they picked up an old workman’s clothes from the floor of a shed. If you want cheap, charismatic clothes, abandon Urban Renewal and pop down to the charity shops instead. Still, I don’t mean to decry those who dress in a certain way or like certain genres of music. I am critiquing rather than criticizing. Of course people are free to enjoy deep house and wear vintage denim jackets. But, in a consumer-saturated age we are too quick to relinquish any individuality and succumb to socially accepted norms of taste, style and attitude – even when we think we are being individual. In this sense, anti-hipsters are the perfect subculture for our times. With no clear origin, no strong political movement to invest in (keep trying, Russell Brand), and no Dylan or Lennon to idolise, they encapsulate that anxiety-fueled desire to be individual in an elitist, homogenised, consumer-driven society.

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FUNES THE MEMORIUS Ben Westlake explores the affliction of remembering everything, forever.

Stephen Wiltshire draws New York City from memory for a UBS advertisment

“I remember him (I scarcely have the right to use this ghostly verb; only one man on earth deserved the right, and he is dead)...” - Jorge Luis Borges Have you ever forgotten your mum’s birthday and experienced the mortification that follows? She looks to your right hand, no card; she looks to your left hand, no flowers. Or have you ever clasped an empty carton in frustration, having once again forgotten that you’re out of milk? Or have you forgotten what the weather was like at 11pm on the 3rd July 2004? Of course you have. It is a common desire to improve our memory. We have all stared at a blank exam paper and begged our whirring brain to flick through our memories and come up an adequate answer. But what underpins this process of recollection? Why do we forget things? And how does our brain select what we remember and what we forget? Such questions pervade popular culture. Indeed, amnesia has been the basis of a number of major films (think Mulholland Drive, Memento and the more forgettable Fifty First Dates). These films explore how much of a person’s identity is the sum of their memories, and how losing them can alter your

view of yourself and the world around you. Less popular, however, is the consideration of an even more bizarre and rare condition: remembering everything. Jorge Luis Borges’s short story Funes the Memorious offers an interesting insight into hyper-memory. In the story we encounter Ireneo, a young man who, after falling from a horse, can recall without effort everything that he has ever seen and experienced: “He lost consciousness; when he recovered it, the present was almost intolerable it was so rich and bright; the same was true of the most ancient and most trivial memories.” Paralysed by his fall, Ireneo spends all his time indoors in a darkened room. But he cannot escape the domineering hyper-awareness that controls his mind. He perceives the past and the present, the inconsequential as well as the important, sometimes recalling entire days in a real time sequence: “He remembered the shapes of the clouds in the south at dawn on the 30th of April of 1882, and he could compare them in his recollection with the marbled grain in the design of a leather-bound book which he had seen only once...” Ireneo soon dies of “pulmonary congestion,” seemingly drowned by this condition of overwhelming sensual experience and awareness. The short story appears in Borges’ famous collection Labyrinths amidst stories that feature libraries with infinite rooms and maps so large that they exactly cover the thing they represent. The reader may dismiss the tale as an entirely con-

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Drawings by Stephen Wiltshire

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ceptual fiction, but the condition is real and affects a number of Although Price acknowledges eidetic memory can be useful, people worldwide. We are not talking about Derren Brown’s im- she generally see the condition as a burden. She lives an uneditpressive ability to memorise a London A to Z, or British memory ed life, feeling bad about things that happened thirty years ago champion Dominic O’Brien who can remember the sequence of and experiences old emotions viscerally as if grievances had a pack of cards in just three minutes. We are talking about a rare happened just that second. They say time is a great healer. But neurological condition, commonly referred to as photographic for Price the emotions felt after a break-up are as strong as if memory or total recall, officially called eidetic memory. the split happened yesterday. Regrets, choices, decisions – every Notable cases of eidetic memory include event and subsequent emotion appears fresh Stephen Wiltshire, who can memorize the “I have a split screen in my and clear. skyline of a city from one helicopter ride and head. I am here with you in Scientists have a hard time explaining the draw it with implausible accuracy (pictured). the present, but I also have condition. Enlargement in the brain of paJohn Von Neumann possesses similar powers a screen where I have a loop tients reflect the same pattern as those with of recollection: he is able to memorise a col- of memories free flowing all OCD. Just as people with OCD are in a conumn of a phone book with a single glance. It is stant battle to horde and organise things, the time.” Jill Price of America, however, who holds the - Jill Price suffers of eidetic memory too ‘horde’ images title of the most extreme case of eidetic memin their minds. Scientists hope that Price’s ory ever documented. Price claims that is was around the age mind could prove crucial in helping to unlock the secret of of twelve when she started to live two lives simultaneously, one Alzheimer’s disease and may even go some way to understanding in the present and the other in the past. “I have a split screen in the nature of genius. my head,” she told journalist Diane Sawyer. “I am here with you So next time you are staring at a blank exam paper, strugin the present, but I also have a screen where I have a loop of gling to recall information, perhaps take a small, infinitesimal memories free flowing all the time.” Price travels back in time solace in the fact that our happiness depends on not just what we in her mind, trawling through past memories and, like Ireneo, experience, but what we choose to edit from our lives and forget. constructing whole events and experiences. She finds it cathartic to keep a diary and so far has amassed over 50,000 pages worth.

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A HISTORY OF AMUSEMENT Kate Latimer considers the enduring appeal of the theme park, and our craving for adrenalin.

There’s a grating noise of chains and pulleys working together to haul a small cart up a steep slope. Twenty people sit inside it, each having waited at least half an hour to board this somewhat dilapidated rollercoaster. There’s probably an older woman fanning herself, sitting near the back, asking herself why she ate that second hot dog, and how she even found herself in this theme park. There are several children talking a little louder and higher than usual, caught between excitement and complete terror at the mountain they are about to career down. Adrenaline will pump, stomachs will drop, their fear mechanism will kick in and they will be told by some primal instinct to get off this little cart that will send them rattling along a track that seems too narrow to hold them up. And yet they chose to go on this ride, drove several miles to get here, stood in line for hours. They crave that tense moment perched on the precipice: the anticipation, the uneasiness, the nerve-wracking moment before they’re flung forward and down and around. Amusement is simply a distraction from real life. It’s a kind of pastime – a witty anecdote, a jaunt down to the coast – that allows us to forget our responsibilities, if only momentarily. As Freud once said, “we laugh to keep from crying”. Lesser men and women than yourself have given themselves over to amusement, believing it not to be mere distraction, but a greater, more powerful state of being that closely resembles happiness. You might have picked up this magazine in a vain attempt to amuse yourself, realising it’s either this or re-watching your flatmate’s

West Wing box set for the sixth time. The magazine won by a narrow margin – mostly due to the fact that it was positioned on the table and you didn’t have to strain any kind of stomach muscle to reach it. You’re not reading a history of physical exertion now, are you? But amusement, as we live it and read it and watch it – is it a mask for the seemingly unavoidable disappointment of life, or is it a state of happiness, a perfectly valid emotion, part of happiness and sadness and the full spectrum in between? Is amusement just a cover-up for a bad job? Or can we say we are amused, perfectly aware of the troubles facing the world, but not masking or distracting, simply amused? We find this amusement gently nestled among suburban landscapes, in the outskirts of cities, in the large fields of the country. It is the amusement park; a great melting pot of human fear and pleasure. Rollercoasters, bumper cars, games, water slides, shows and food. We arrive in the massive car park and after walking for fifteen minutes to reach the gates we look up at the smiling clown who gazes upon us and say “We are here to be entertained.” Our amusement stems from the unnatural, seeing or feeling things we’ve never seen before, anything that will force a reaction out of us – awe and wonder, disgust and terror. From the Ancient Romans who gathered in the Coliseum to watch men fight to the death to the running of the bulls in Pamplona, there is something about the primal fear instinct that we crave. Not a pastime, but a feeling of losing control. This has been active within mankind for centuries and this need for an adrenaline

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rush has been translated into the totally simulated environment we call an amusement park. In 1583 the first theme park, Dyrehavsbakken (meaning ‘The Hill’ in English), was opened in Denmark and contained the first attempt to build what we now call a roller coaster. Today, theme parks are plentiful with branding and commercialism, pounding out a profit through world wars and economic depressions. What never changes about human nature is the need to be distracted and entertained. Walt Disney brought magic into his theme park, combining rides with movies, songs, books and characters to create Disneyland. Children are brought not for the thrill of rollercoasters, but for the magic of seeing beloved characters alive in a world they thought was imaginary. Fantasy becomes real, and the outside world ceases to exist for a while. We like to gawk and stare at the unnatural – from carnivals and circuses we can see another level of amusement: staring at the unbelievable and unusual and knowing that it’s really there in front of us. From conjoined twins to the world’s heaviest woman, from the man without bones to contortionists, we marvel at things which we previously thought impossible. Inherent within this carnival culture is the idea of freakery, those that do not fit in and become objects of entertainment. We stare at a spectacle,

and somewhere a line is drawn between the viewer and viewed, the freaks and the audience. Perhaps comfort is drawn from the notion that we are not onstage, and therefore part of the crowd, unanimous in our normality. The idea of the grotesque plays into our fascination at seeing images which stretch our notion of what is natural. Much of this entertainment is drawn from an older time, before the Internet and instant access to all manner of images. Without the veil of mystery and the unknown, carnivals don’t work to amuse us. Movies and literature hark back to the romance of these once great feats of entertainment – Water for Elephants, The Night Circus, Nights at the Circus – and yet we return to them only through the protection of imagining we’re back in time. There’s a beauty to their magic that only exists in the past, in a different time. And so you’re sitting on top of the rollercoaster, unconcerned about the bill you haven’t paid and the traffic on the way home, and you hear a click and the rollercoaster moves forward and all you can see is open air, no tracks in site. Hopefully you won’t come unhinged and fly off, or slip between the seat and the bar and fall from the cart – but the threat of death is what’s making your heart pound faster and your palms sweat. Trust me, it’s all part of the fun.

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K I N G D O M 18

O F I

T H E L p h o t o g r a p h y a n d w o r d s Mark Izatt m o d e l Charlotte Simpson l i g h t i n g Declan Henesy h a i r a n d m a k e u p Imogen Custers, Jennie Frewen

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In her 1978 book Illness as Metaphor, Susan Sontag wrote about the popular mythologies surrounding two diseases: tuberculosis and cancer. At the time, the writer was undergoing treatment for breast cancer, suddenly finding herself a citizen of ‘the kingdom of the ill’. Dissatisfied with the feeling of isolation which attitudes towards the disease brought to her, she sought to deconstruct the way illness is perceived and mythologised by society. In her discussion of tuberculosis, or ‘consumption’, a disease which became strangely iconic during the 18th and 19th centuries, she explores the tendency for society to ‘aestheticize death’. Tuberculosis became known as a ‘disease of passion’, bewilderingly linked with both sexual vigour and sexual repression, either way ‘thought to make the sufferer sexy’ in their state of waifish pallour, subject to bursts of libidinous energy as well as extreme tiredness and languor. The signs of the illness, which could render the sufferer both drained of blood and flushed with it, were identified with signs of sexual arousal, and slowly, tuberculosis became symbolic of romance and passion, utilised in literature, theatre, and opera. Associated with the lungs, despite the damaging effect it had on many other parts of the body, it remained synonymous with ‘breath, life’, and the soul. As Sontag observes, it is ‘the romantic disease which cuts off a young life’, allowing them to transcend the trappings of the mortal body and ascend into the realms of the spiritual. After many decades, during which mythology surrounding the disease snowballed and became almost independent of the horrors in which it originated, the ‘consumptive appearance’ found its way into mainstream fashion. It became a sign of fragility, of wealth, of elegance, and of a particularly languorous sexual energy. Camille Saint-Saens wrote, in 1913, of ‘a time when good health was not chic’; later, the Duchess of Windsor remarked ‘One can never be too rich. One can never be too thin’. It’s easy to see how this

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malnourished aesthetic has endured even in the 21st Century, with fashion’s preference for extremely skinny models – which Sontag terms as a ‘cult of thinness’ – and, in particular, hollow cheeks and jutting hip-bones covered with ghostly pale skin. Sweat, a fluid linked to both fever and sex, also finds its way into countless fashion photographs, models dripping with an inordinate amount of the stuff, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, unsure if they’re beckoning us closer or asking for help. We might think, also, about the ‘heroin chic’ trend which pervaded the fashion world during the mid-1990s, morbidly inspired by the look of severe drug addicts, by the dark rings around their eyes and their skeletal figures. At the same time, attitudes towards heroin were changing; its price dropped and it became more accept- ‘slowly, tuberculosis became able recreationally, symbolic of romance and increasing in popularpassion.’ ity as the AIDS crisis of the 1980s – which heightened awareness of the dangers of sharing hypodermic needles – was beginning to fade in the collective memory. It’s hard to consider fashion photography which plunders images of illness without sensing the dark current which bubbles beneath them, glamorising illness and fetishizing poor health. In some instances, trends have veered to other end of the spectrum, promoting a suntan so drastic and unnaturally orange that skin looks ready to bubble and fry. Inspired by the words of Susan Sontag, and by fashion’s frequent preference for the extreme, we decided to create our own ‘Kingdom of the Ill’, transforming our model Charlotte into three grotesque characters, progressing from the consumptive Victorian angel to the over-botoxed WAG of the 21st century. We’re not sure Sontag would approve, but we hope that you do.

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Dress: Real McCoy 21 McCoyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Arcade, Fore St, Exeter

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S O M E K I N D A H A T E a short story by Eileen McNulty-Holmes

“Why do kids still make pilgrimages to Lodi just to pore over the Misfits' old tax records and yearbooks in the public library? - Jon DeRosa, ‘Stuck in Lodi’. Another fan shows up at the library, the third this month. Same as all the others – combat boots, faded purple hair, walking in here as if they were walking into a chapel. They all stare at the floor in the wonder, as if to say he might have walked here. This one’s particularly bad. She runs her fingers across his name as though it was Braille. I consider telling her I actually touched him once, years ago. I wish I could say he had that ominous, hypnotic pull about him, even back in those days. I wish I could tell you I recall the exact pallor of his vampiric skin, or the dull, prismatic sheen of his black hair. But honestly, all I remember was that he was abnormally short for his age. He looked tiny buoyed up on our overstuffed sofa, his legs awkwardly dangling inches above the floor. His ears stuck out too, delicate and pink as conch shells. Though whenever we played checkers during our play dates, he did always insist on being black.

I remember one day he handed me a pocket Swiss army knife. I recall the unexpected weight of it, the simple joy of pulling out all of the tools at once. He told me he’d swiped it from his Dad, and asked if I wanted to be blood brothers. I agreed, although I had no idea what it meant. He took the knife off me, and drew a thin red line up the pad of his index finger. He took my hand and made a matching incision. I made an effort not to yell out, I wanted to prove I wasn’t a girly girl. He touched our fingers together, and said – ‘There, now my blood is your blood.’ My Mother screamed when she found the red smudges on the checkers, and he was never invited round for a play date again. It played havoc with Mother’s blood pressure when they started terrorising the neighbourhood. Ever since I had hit puberty, she had become convinced any boy who so much as glanced at me wanted to violate me. The thought of the local boys running rampage and hollering songs about zombies and rape was enough to finish her off. As soon as I got back from the library in the evenings, I was sent to bed. I would hear her downstairs, triple-locking the door and shutting the curtains in her brisk, military fashion. I was never allowed to see them, but I could hear them – his rich baritone over the clumsi-

ly-tuned guitars. Whenever he played the keyboard, I could picture his fingers sinking into my skin. The nights they started fires were the best. The column of orange light would appear in the crack in the curtains, bathing the room in its brilliance. I still remember the sibilance of the hissing flames, tender as a lover’s whisper, as they set the neighbourhood ablaze. I only saw him once. I waited until Mother had gone to bed and crept downstairs. He was standing in front of the window, spectral, motionless. The dark of his hair and leather jacket bled into the night, and made his face appear to be

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floating in the murk. He’d blackened in his eye sockets and nose, with a line of crudely-painted teeth across his lips and cheeks. An inexplicable laugh rose in my throat - I clasped my hands over my face to stop it. But it was no use. He looked ridiculous. He spat at the window and stormed off. I watched the flames dance in the reflection of his saliva as it ran down the window. He never spoke to me again. They moved to New York right around the time I conceded defeat in trying to sell Mother’s ramshackle old house and moved into the master bedroom. The local papers clamoured over them; a bunch of no-good

hooligans. Their latest shenanigans made the front page every week. There was one picture in particular I remember, of him spitting glass in some girl’s face. The photographer had managed to capture the exact moment he had sprayed the shards into the air, flecked with his blood. They dazzled in the spotlights. The strangest thing about the shot was that the girl didn’t look in pain, or afraid- she looked enraptured. Splinters of glass and blood freckled her neck and cheeks. Looking at that picture, I could almost feel the hot prickle of the shards against my skin. I turned to the previous page- a picture of

me standing proudly in front of the new bookcases in the library- and didn’t allow myself to concede envy. I was about the same age then as this purple-haired punk in front of me today. She doesn’t even register my picture before she flicks the page and drools over the rendering of him in black and white. Some of the kids used to ask me if I knew him, I don’t get that much nowadays. I find it’s best not to bring it up. It seems unfair to tell someone their idol once played checkers with some saggy, small-town librarian.

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STIRRING UP THE PAST Exploring a new country triggers an exploration of family heritage for Rosa Jones.

I have come to consider myself a bit of a thought to have died in 1906, was found the recession took hold, and cutbacks and nomad: I have a small family who were – to have boarded a ship to British Colum- redundancies began being made. Her fuand I can now say this in past tense – in bia, to the very Island which I had just ture became unsure, her security was lost. no ways close like some are. We support- booked flights to. Here she married, and Nor is it a coincidence that the story has ed each other if it was needed, but you lived with a medic on the always cold, of- taken such a hold of me as I go into my fiwouldn’t have caught many of us spend- ten disease-ridden, and sometimes hellish nal year. For the first time, a future looms ing time with one another because we places that were the lumberjack camps. In in which I don’t actually have any path to actually wanted to. With no real attach- conditions few of us would cope with, she follow. The days of my structured route ment to the town I grew up in, I’ve instead lived until 1943; to me, she was the tough- through education are up. I love feeling always seen the world as my oyster, and est of the tough. Tragic circumstances at like a nomad, feeling free, but what am I in consequence, been seriously hit by the home in England meant she never saw the going to do with my life? When Ada was travelling bug. Last summer I attempted family she left behind again. They didn’t alive, and often even in the case of our to ease my itchy feet once again, this time mourn her death; they didn’t even know parent’s generation – at least in terms of by finding work in Canada. When the middle-classes – at this age we ‘why would the lady interviewing me asked how I might be living close to our family, a “past” make me change the way I see would deal with homesickness I was we might be thinking about marriage, myself in the world?’ fairly stumped – ‘Home what-now?’ about settling down to raise children And Canada – perfect! Forests, lakes, in our home town, we might just carry bears, whales, Canadian whiskey; the she was alive. For someone who was start- on the family trade. Life’s road was fairly slightly idealised but not far from accurate ing to reject the importance of having one-directional. Now, fantastically, young image I had is one that had enticed me to a family, it was strange that I found it so people are invited to a whole new world the country for a long time. shameful that we, her descendants, had of prospects. So many of us have taken I was ready for the adventure, think- left this woman’s story entirely unrecog- a Gap Year, travelled half way across the ing I was going off to explore a new land, nised. So in 2013 my adventure to Canada world, and experienced things our parents somewhere none of my family had ex- became our journey into the past. With would never have dreamed of in their day. perienced, my own little corner of the my family now counting on me to find her We all have the chance to go to universiworld. Meanwhile, my Aunt had been grave, Ada’s headstone finally saw flowers ty; it’s no longer exclusive to those with keeping up with the BBC series Who Do for the first time in 60 years. Her great, money. Opportunity is a truly exciting You Think You Are? and ever interested great granddaughter had found her. Her and fantastic thing when it is taken. But, in history, she started finding out more family now knew her story. opportunity means choice. Choice means about ours. But it wasn’t until after the job I’m touched by her story. I have roots, decisions. Decisions will sometimes incur was confirmed that coincidences started suddenly, that I respect more than an- regret. Who’s going to advise us, now that occurring, and began to get a little weird. ything. But why has this story had this our parents’ generation can’t actually reDeath certificates showed up where they effect on me? It doesn’t change the pres- late to the future we’re facing? It’s in times weren’t supposed to, there were residen- ent, it’s surely irrelevant to the future, why of such uncertainty that looking to the cies in strange places, and surnames we would ‘a past’ make me change the way past becomes comforting. It allows us to didn’t recognise. One missing link led to I see myself in the world? Why has the remember that we have roots; we are not another. Suddenly, we were hooked. More number of resources, websites, archives, just atomised students floating in a sea of of my family’s time was going into the in- and specialists in this area completely change, and there is a bigger picture to our vestigation, huge holes were being filled, boomed recently? I don’t see any coin- lives. A history. An Ada. and our history was being rewritten. cidence in the fact that my Aunt started My great, great grandmother, Ada, investing so much into this research as

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MIDDLE AGED SEX There were a lot of rules.

words Declan Henesy

Most of us know how sex is done today; we’ve either done it, tried it, or have an inkling of what goes on if we haven’t. But sex was not always so simple a matter. In medieval Europe sex was only deemed acceptable within marriage, and even then it was for the lower echelons of society; the religiously superior abstained from such carnal vices. In marriage there were many ins and outs with regards to bedroom activity, with too much sex thought to be a bad thing. Many medieval authors agreed it was a sin if couples didn’t abstain from sex during Lent, the Pentecost and Advent; amounting for almost 70 days of every year. That’s a dry spell for up to twenty-percent of the year. Some thinkers also thought it wrong to engage in sex on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Common folk were warned against sex during the day, sex whilst naked, and sex in any other position than the missionary. The man had to be on top, otherwise it was deemed as ‘unnatural’; reversing the social hierarchy by suggesting women were superior to men. Christian theologians likewise denounced sex from behind, considering it beastly. Non-procreative sex was condemned, meaning oral and anal, described as ‘whorish embraces’, were out the window (rather than through the back door). Masturbation, thankfully, was seen more leniently and could be resolved through confession. In a sense, you could masturbate as much as you liked so long as they told the priest about it. Whilst masturbation was seen as only slightly wrong, sex outside marriage met with serious punishments and the law treated adultery primarily as a female offense. Women, after all, were seen as the weaker sex, more prone to giving in to sinful carnal desires. If convicted of adultery women might well have had their heads shaved and been forced to march through the streets. Authorities forbade the killing of adulterous

wives but the courts would often turn a blind eye to a husband who slay his wife’s lover. The most serious sexual deviancy during the Middle Ages was sodomy, this being sexual relations between any persons of the same gender, or non-vaginal sex between a man and a women. Bestiality was viewed as sodomy by some, as a separate crime by others, but to all religious writers it was considered slightly better than homosexuality. Yes, you read that correctly, humping an animal was considered superior to being gay. It might shock, then, to learn that prostitution was more widely accepted. If prostitutes were not around to appease men’s lust then things may turn sour for society as whole, and in some places prostitution came to be seen as a public necessity. It would be unfair to say that medieval Europe was all rules and regulations. It’s likely that the wide majority of people were much more lax with their sex-lives than their ecclesiastical counterparts. In fact, there are a number of references to women using dildos, though it’s widely accepted these artefacts were quite different from the rampant rabbits used today. The use of such implements might have been used by women if their partners could not perform. If impotency occurred, wise women from the community might be brought in to examine the dysfunctional penis. If the penis was deemed inadequate or the husband could not consummate the marriage the couple may be allowed to separate. So, be thankful that we are free to realise whatever carnal desires we want. Without the need for bestiality, you can frolic with whomever you want, and however you want, even on a Wednesday if you’d like (hello literal hump day). So, lets debunk the findings of the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles’ and get naked, because we can.

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FANNY HILL Reading 18th centur y pornography on the tube.

words Mark Izatt

A beautiful virgin, new to the idea of sex, is led secretively into a wardrobe by a highly seductive girl a few years her senior. In the wall is a peep-hole, through which the pair watch a prostitute named Polly enjoying ferocious sex with a well-endowed, muscular Italian man. Excited by what they see, the two girls begin to masturbate – first themselves, and then each other. Does this sound like the beginning of an atrocious 1970s porn film? I wouldn’t know, of course, never having used the internet for anything but writing careful, inoffensive prose and reading about the healing power of God. As a lascivious plebeian, however, you’re probably familiar with this sort of debauchery. But get this: it’s a summary of a scene from the 1748 novel Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by all-round rebel John Cleland, an Englishman who flunked his education, lived in constant financial debt and was eventually imprisoned because of the novel’s extreme sexual explicitness, which was blamed for “corrupting the King’s subjects”, many of whom read it while it was circulated in secret. Fanny Hill tells the story of a country girl who finds herself thrown into the sexual world when the death of her parents forces her to relocate to seedy 18th century London. Cleland’s rich prose puts unimaginative smut such as 50 Shades of Grey to shame. The novel’s world is one of ‘fleshy orbs’, ‘hard, firm, rising hillocks’, ‘plenteous effusion[s] of white liquid’, and ‘the sweet seat of the most exquisite sensation’. It even contains its fair share of BDSM (take that, E.L. James).

I read Fanny Hill in preparation to study it in the colourfully titled English class ‘Prostitutes, Pornographers and Inverts: Sex in the Long Nineteenth Century’. I made the flawed decision to read it on my daily commute, which really helped me perfect the art of hiding reading material from curious tube passengers. The skill of it is holding the book vertically in front of your face, so that onlookers can see the front cover of the novel (presumably admiring your capacity to read a Penguin Classic at 8.30 in the morning) but can’t catch a glimpse of the pages inside it, which are held so close to your face that your nose is almost stroking them. You’ll avoid embarrassment as long as they don’t find out you’re lingering on a sentence describing “the stiff intersertion between the yielding divided lips of the wound now open for life”. Awkward public transport aside, Fanny Hill is a novel well worth reading. It helped to dispel my inaccurate misconceptions about the supposed prudishness of centuries gone by, entertaining and strangely seducing me in the process. It’s sex scenes are relentless, but never boring, and what was once seen as nothing but pornography has, through time, become something beautiful and worthy of the literary canon, if only for how alien its language appears by today’s standards. Fortunately, you no longer need to be privy to the secrets of Cleland’s literary circle to get hold of a copy. You’ll find Fanny Hill in your local bookshop, clothed modestly in the standard Penguin Classics cover – although what you’ll find inside is anything but modest.

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FASHION FUTUROLOGY GERALDINE WHARRY: TREND FORECASTER

At Exetera, we don’t always find it easy to let go of the past. So, here is our founder and previous editor Max Benwell interviewing London-based trend forecaster Geraldine Wharry.

When Geraldine Wharry calls from A&E and says that she knew she was going to be ill today, I‘m not surprised. It is her job, after all, to predict the future. Clouds begin to gather as I stand outside her home in North West London, waiting for her arrival. Eventually, I find myself sitting in her office. Rain spits against the window while two cats circle the room. Appearing from behind the door, Wharry, 37, has a delicate presence, with curly springs of dark blonde hair and owlish eyes that appear slightly bigger behind a large pair of glasses. Upon first glance, a certain professor of divination comes to mind. Yet there are no crystal balls in her office, and not a soggy tea leaf in sight. Instead, a large Apple computer furnishes her desk. Most of the time, she tells me, its glass screen is the only thing she stares into when exploring the beyond. As a trend forecaster, Wharry’s job is to provide brands with predictions of the cuts, textures, fabrics and colours we will all be buying in the future, sometimes up to two years in advance. With 14 years experience, she is a senior voice within an industry that was recently valued at $32bn (£23bn). Having worked full-time at one of

the largest global forecasting agencies, WGSN, Wharry now operates freelance from her home, a stylish modern flat in Kensal Green. Sitting opposite me in her open plan office, the kitchen beside us, she attributes her illness to how busy the last two months have been. “If I don’t slow down,” she tells me, “I know I’m going to get sick.”

Primal futurism by Todd Lynn

As it soon becomes apparent, Wharry’s gift of foresight is more a research-based skill than a mystical power. Seventy per cent of her work is done on her computer, and with most new clients finding her through social media, the first hour of each day is dedicated to maintaining her online presence. The remaining eight hours she then spends replying to emails, talking to clients, and “hunting and gathering” through the various blogs and visual archives of the Internet for inspiration. Fashion feeds almost entirely on trends, and as the trillion-dollar plus industry grows, so does its appetite for knowing what they will be. However, Wharry describes what she does as being as much about archaeology as futurology. “I’m keeping track, collecting, dusting and archiving, but always keeping everything in mind,” she says; “and then I’m using certain elements to create an image of the future while always looking back as well. I love the push and pull between the past and the present. What you might find in a traditional African cloth you might find again in a GIF.” There are two types of trend forecasts that Wharry makes. Short-term, or micro trends, draw almost entirely from the

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“I love the push and pull between the past and the present. What you might find in a traditional African cloth you might find again in a GIF.”

catwalk, and are sold to the high street so that they can be quickly released into the mass market. And then there are the long-term, macro trend predictions. Taking into account much broader concerns, their aim is to second-guess how global events and shifting socials attitudes, as well as emerging visual trends, will affect a person’s spending habits in two years time. The names of macro trends, sleek and oxymoronic – Radical Neutrality, Eco Hedonism, Primal Futurism, Faux Real – sound as though they were made up by the evil twins of the people who coin political theories. But when she talks about them, you can tell that Wharry is completely on board, regardless of semantics. Excitedly she describes how Radical Neutrality was “all about making a big statement but still staying neutral,” as well as “disappearing but still making a statement”. And when it comes to telling me about one of her proudest predictions, any pain

her infection is causing her seems to disappear when she jumps up from the sofa, grabbing a large book from the shelf above our heads. She flicks through its pages, which depict the Hopi tribe, and describes how she visited their reservation in 2011 while researching a macro trend called Idiomatic. They had always been a group she had been fascinated by, and after the trip she included their intricately crafted Kachina dolls in her report. “No one I’ve ever spoken to knows about them” she tells me. “It’s not a culture people talk about.” Yet five months later, when inspecting one of the latest catwalks online, she saw her prediction suddenly appear in a brightly coloured Hermès scarf, covered in a Kachina doll pattern. However, correctly predicting the future is one thing, but getting people to believe you is another. Wharry describes one Cassandra moment she had in 2009 while working for the label 7 For All Man-

kind. From her research she started to spot the signs of a skimpy denim shorts trend emerging, in which anyone behind the wearer “gets a bit too much information”. Buyers and retailers, however, weren’t convinced that it was the future, and it never took off. Of course, that was until this summer, when a new phenomenon to rival the “sideboob”, called the “underbutt”, emerged, driven entirely by the booming popularity of such shorts among young women. “Beware the underbutt! Hotpants get even hotter as Miley Cyrus, Rihanna and Cara Delevingne sport shorts so tiny they reveal the buttock crease,” read a Daily Mail headline in July. “We were just way too early with it,” Wharry explains with a slight grin. “Obviously, if we had predicted it for summer 2013, then we would have done really well.”

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WHO IS YOUR FASHION INSPIRATION?

Anna Wintour

words Declan Henesy

A Unicorn

Jimmy Choo or Jimmy Carr?

A Tiger

Do you love the limelight?

Choo Carr

Darling, I’m a star

My legs are the only accessories I need

I am fashion

One day I’ll be on the cover of Vogue

I’ll have a Big Mac meal, please

No thanks Fashion makes me uneasy

I’m so fashionexic My mantra!

Marie Antoinette: More is more. Excess and extravagance are the only reasons to get dressed in the morning.

No pics, please

Kate Moss: You. Are. Fashion. If you’re not looking heroin chic then you’re probably doing coke off Naomi Campbell’s midriff at some high-end London party. Never change.

Ew, Gaga

James Dean: You throw on a leather jacket and you look fucking cool. Fashion? You wear what you like and you make it a new trend.

I <3 fashion

Jesus Christ: For you, simplicity is key. You wear clothes that show off your rock hard abs and stick to one simple rule: never wear socks with sandals.

So true

Simplicity is key. One staple item makes an outfit

What, these tree trunks?

Yes please! Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels

Vintage is the only way

Say no to second hand

You’re more fashion forward than Lady Gaga on the motorway

I’m fit. Get over it 34

If I had to choose, my spirit animal would be...

The simpler the better

I need more clothes

Are you more glamour puss or sophisticated socialite? Glamour puss

Marily Monroe: Clothes, clothes, and more clothes. Furs, silks and diamonds. You make an effort because you’re beautiful and people should notice you.

Sophisticated socialite

Ron Burgandy: You’re sexy and you know it. Pure animal magnetism oozes from your crisp, tailored collection of fine suits.

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Leo July 23 – August 22 If you’re a final year reading this, you should probably start reliving Gemini all those fresher nights out that deMay 21 – June 20 fined your first year in uni, because It might be a good time to remem- in roughly six months’ time you’ll be Aries ber that this year marks the fiftieth jobless in your mum’s attic. March 21 – April 19 anniversary of the assassination of your fellow Gemini, John F KenneTerrifying cat hybrid and fellow Ardy. You might want to wear a bullet ies Andrew Lloyd Webber penned proof vest until after the New Year. the immortal words ‘Touch me/ It’s so easy to leave me/ All alone with my memory/ Of my days in the sun’. Unfortunately, whilst Webber is mystifyingly successful enough to pay people to touch him, you are definitely not. So hang on to those memories; they’re all you’re gonna have this month.

O R R O H

Libra September 23 – October 22 Cancer June 21 – July 22 Taurus April 20 – May 20 It’s more than likely that in a hundred years’ time the most significant event of the nineties will turn out to be the collapse of Enron; not the rise of grunge. So you should probably take some time this month to throw away your second hand plaid shirts and artfully worn in Doc Martens; you’re way too old to smell like teen spirit anyway.

Long deceased French novelist and all round great guy, Marcel Proust, once wrote ‘…the memory of a particular image is but regret for a particular moment’. Unfortunately for you, the moment you regret will be making out with an unsightly drunkard in Mosaic, and the image will be all over Facebook.

Jupiter seems to be on board with you, so luck is on your side this month. I see a handsome man, from a faraway land, coming to visit you, bearing many gifts. Sort of like Santa, but way hotter. If guys aren’t your thing, you might want to check out another horoscope.

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Scorpio October 23 – November 21 It’s easily forgotten that not all of Exetera’s readership are still in university. So don’t you worry, all my graduate Scorpio friends, you won’t have to stay in your godforsaken hometown for much longer. I see great things in your future. xoxo

Aquarius January 20 – February 18 This month will finally see you getting the recognition you deserve, because just like your fellow Aquarian, Harry Styles, you’re much, much hotter than the group of trolls you hang around with, and no amount of debate is gonna change that.

S C O P E

Postmodern pop genius and/or racist slut-monster Miley Cyrus has and will continue to dominate the celebrity sphere this month. So, capitalise on what little you have in common with her (being a Sagittarius, being white, probably, if you’re an Exeter student), because although you might be proven to be a talentless, racist idiot in a couple of months’ time, at least people will be talking about you. And let’s face it, you need that right now. 37

prophesised by Alexis “Mystic” Mastroyiannis

Capricorn December 22 – January 19 It’s always tempting to romanticise the past; the fifties were a time of plenty, the sixties were a time of liberation etc… But don’t be fooled, bceause the fifties were prejudiced as s**t, and the liberation movement still hasn’t won the day. So think about that before you try out your new retro look, because the past was heinous.

Sagittarius November 22 – December 21

Virgo August 23 – September 22 Pisces February 19 – March 20

Venus is being a real dick this month, so you’d better watch your I know what you did last summer. back. Please remember that the internet, much like an elephant, never forgets. You’d be wise to untag yourself from tragic photos of you and your ugly friends from college, before someone sees.

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