Forge Issue 78

INSIDE: modern feminism/ best ice rinks/ Hunger games/ Christmas around the world

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The independent student newspaper of the University of Sheffield. Est. 1946.

Issue 78 Friday December 5 2014

INSIDE

@ForgePress /ForgePress

Features

Interview: Aleida GuevaraMarch

Screen

7 weirdest Christmas films

Sport

Is football too expensive?

LOCKDOWN

Security close in on student occupation

Full story on page 3

n

Endcliffe Park rapist gets 9 years

page 3 >>

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Editor

elsa.vulliamy@forgetoday.com

Elsa Vulliamy

DEPUTY EDITOR Tom Schneider Managing Editor

j.may@sheffield.ac.uk

Jon May

fuse editors fuse@forgetoday.com Phil Bayles Kate Lovatt HEAD OF ONLINE matthew.smith@forgetoday.com matthew Smith News news@forgetoday.com Patrick O’Connell Neelam Tailor Adela Whittingham Estel Farell Roig Will Morgan Keri Trigg Comment comment@forgetoday.com Lauren Archer Isaac Stovell COFFEE BREAK letters@forgetoday.com Helen Hiorns Features features@forgetoday.com Kemi Alemoru Will Ross Polly Winn Lifestyle & travel lifestyle@forgetoday.com Isabel Dobinson Nikita Kesharaju Sport sport@forgetoday.com Joseph Bamford Edward McCosh Thomas Pyman Music music@forgetoday.com Rachel Bell Rebecca Stubbs Games games@forgetoday.com Samantha Fielding Robin Wilde Screen screen@forgetoday.com Joe Brennan Sophie Maxwell

in brief...

SHEFFIELD

EDUCATION

Catarina Beija

Emily Boswell

The Sheffield Photographic Society, one of the oldest in the world, is celebrating its 150th anniversary.

Mike Smith, society president, said: “We’ve taken the opportunity to dig out a lot of historic pictures from the archives that people normally don’t see. A lot of them are completely unrecognizable but some of them are strangely familiar as well.”

First established in 1864, the society now comprises members of all ages, ranging from professionals to amateurs.

Tapton School in Crosspool, Sheffield has been named Comprehensive School of the Year in The Sunday Times Parent Power Guide.

The school was chosen after outstanding GCSE and A-Level results saw it climb 60 places in national rankings this year.

Claire Tasker, co-headteacher said: “We are particularly proud to be recognised as a fully comprehensive school that performs better than many selective schools across the country.

AWARDS

SHEFFIELD

POLITICS

Chiara Vignati

Keri Trigg

In memory of the BBC Radio Sheffield presenter, Jane Kitson, an award has been set up recognizing great female radio journalism students.

The presenter and former Sheffield Hallam University broadcast journalism lecturer died in January 2014.

Rachel Cummins, was presented the award by Radio Sheffield’s Kate Linderholm.

A new South Yorkshire Police car had to be re-branded after a printing blunder left it displaying the word ‘POLCE’ in large lettering down the side of the vehicle.

It got as far as the delivery yard before unloaders noticed the mishap, which was corrected before the car reached the streets.

South Yorkshire Police saw the funny side, launching a Twitter appeal for the missing “i”.

ART

TRANSPORT

Alice Farmery

Matthew Drew

After a two-year fundraising campaign that succeed in raising £150,000, the construction of Sheffield’s Women of Steel statue is set to begin.

This statue will provide long-awaited recognition for thousands of local women who filled the spaces in factories left by men conscripted to fight in World War Two. The bronze statue of two female steelworkers was created by Martin Jennings, and will be located in the Barker’s pool area of Sheffield.

Sheffield has missed out on £214m of Government funding, allocated to help improve city cycling.

The Council did not apply for the funding, saying that Sheffield not having one urban mass would have made a bid ‘unworkable’.

Sheffield Hallam MP Nick Clegg announced the funding but said: “Unfortunately local Labour councillors didn’t even enter Sheffield into the race.”

Cyclist Andrew Aziz said: “It’s a dangerous commute into town from all sides of the city, and terrible that we get nothing.”

News from the Steel City

Female radio award set up

Steel statue erected

LEGAL STATEMENT

Clarifications, corrections and complaints

Arts Jon May, Managing Editor arts@forgetoday.com Chloe Coleman Last issue we ran a story Joscelin Woodend about a local dairy company and alleged that they were COPY EDITORS unable to provide information Lucy Barnes related to the distribution of Elizabeth Cunningham their product.

Friederike Dannheim This information was Declan Downey incorrect and we retract the Helena Egan article ‘New dairy farm deal Claire Fowler with The Village Store’ in its Ellie Tudor entirety.

Karen Wong Forge Press regrets that the company were not contacted M edi a H u b, U n io n o f for comment, that there were Student s, We s t e r n Bank , substantial inaccuracies and S hef f ie ld, S10 2T G that the article breached our 0114 2 2286 46 high journalistic standards.

It has also come to our attention that the picture used to illustrate the story was also incorrect as dairy cows have udders.

Forge Press is printed on Any complaints should be 100% recycled paper addressed to the managing Forge Press is published by Sheffield Students’ Union. Views editor in the first instance, although a formal procedure expressed are not necessarily exists under byelaw 16 and those of the the Union or the editorial team. Complaints the media complaints panel should be addressed to the of Sheffield Students’ Union Managing Editor in the first constitution. instance, although a formal procedure exists.

Photo group turn 150

Tapton school of the year

Blunkett wins award

‘Police’ mispelled on car

Samuel Spong Former Home Secretary David Blunkett has been handed a lifetime achievement award.

The 67 year-old will be retiring from parliamentary duty at the next upcoming election.

The longstanding MP for Hillsborough and Brightside was presented the award by Channel 4’s Jon Snow.

Mr Blunkett’s achievements were labelled ‘astonishing’ by the judging panel.

City misses bike millions

Photo: Twitter @WYPDogs

YOUR UNIVERSITY

Your £2.8m fossile fuel investment

Tom Schneider In documents seen

by Forge Press, it has emerged that the University of Sheffield has invested over £2.8m in fossil fuel companies.

This is despite a stated commitment to reducing its environmental impact with ambitious plans to do so.

In response, student campaigning group People and Planet Society have launched their Go Fossil Free Divestment campaign that aims to pressure the University into changing its policy.

At time of publication, their petition had almost 1000 signatures.

The petition calls on the University to honour the commitments made in its Environmental Policy where the University stated it will “allocate sufficient resources” to “reduce its environmental impact” People and Planet Society Chair Camilla

Zerr said “we think that students will be shocked Universities invest an average of £2083 for every student in the UK.” However, other universities around the country are taking action with The School of Oriental and African freezing their investments while the University of Glasgow will be divested within five years.

In provisional figures accurate as of October 31, investments in funds managed by Saracens Group totalled at least eight per cent of total University holdings and are likely to be closer to the historical level of ten per cent when the final figures are revealed.

Companies in which the University have invested at least £400,000 include BP, BHP Billiton, Shell and BG Group.

Students Union Council had previously passed a motion which said “the effect of

divestment is greater than the financial dimension, through inspiring a cultural change and normalising the movement.

We resolve to lobby the University to divest from top 200 fossil fuel companies.”

“Universities invest an average of £2083 for every student in the UK” SU Development Officer Jack Wyse said “this campaign has forced the University to see the ethical side of their investments. Just because it’s via a fund, that doesn’t negate their responsibility.

“It’s surprising that the money that you are paying to the University for your course ends up in companies that are extracting oil and gas” he continued.

This week, Wyse was present at a meeting which included the

University of Finance and said that the divestment issue was raised. “The University are not going to be divesting off the back of that meeting, nor are they going to make an immediate statement of principle that they intend to do so.”

Zerr said that this is an example of “the University waiting for it to happen. They’re definitely not being active enough. They are telling us that their hands are tied and that they can’t do anything but this is a smokescreen”.

When approached

by Forge Press, the University declined to comment.

The Fossil Free campaign are currently targeting academics and students alike in an attempt to force the University to change through sheer weight of signatures on the petition.

FO R GE PRESS

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CRIME

Endcliffe Park rapist jailed Patrick O’Connell A rapist who stalked an 18-yearold student walking home alone at night before attacking her in Endcliffe Park has today been jailed for nine years.

Jamie Leigh Seaton, 25, was sentenced at Sheffield Crown Court earlier today.

In the early hours of the morning of Saturday May 10, the woman was walking home from West Street. The court was told that she had lost her friends on a night out and did not have any money for a taxi, so decided to walk instead.

CCTV footage captured Seaton pursuing the victim for 40 minutes as she walked up West Street and Glossop Road.

As she walked along Endcliffe Vale Road, Seaton grabbed her and asked the victim if she was cold.

Her Honour Judge Wright said: “She made it quite clear to you that you should leave her alone.”

But Seaton then verbally abused the woman and put her into a headlock.

At 4:10 am, two 14-year-old boys spotted the victim being dragged in a headlock by Seaton on Endcliffe Vale Road. They

dialled 999 and police conducted a search of the area that lasted for 20 minutes, but Seaton had dragged his victim into a wooded area of Endcliffe Park.

In her sentencing, Judge Wright said: “You were abusive towards her. You put your hands over her mouth, she was struggling to breathe.”

Seaton then subjected his victim to a sustained sexual attack which lasted over 45 minutes. He threatened to drown his victim if she told anyone.

At a hearing held on Tuesday a statement by the victim, now aged 19, was read to the court.

In it she said that she suffered anxiety following the attack and often blamed herself for walking home alone.

Judge Wright said: “She blames herself for walking home alone. She should not – you are to blame.

“It must have been a completely terrifying ordeal for her.”

Robert Smith, defending, said that Seaton was drunk and had no memory of his actions on the night.

But Judge Wright dismissed the claim, saying: “I reject the submission made on your behalf that you were so drunk you did

not know what you were doing.”

She said that Seaton “had the presence of mind to call a taxi” to take him home after he had fled the scene, indicating that he was thinking clearly.

Seaton, of Burrowlee Road, Owlerton, had pleaded guilty to one count of rape and two counts of assault by penetration at a hearing on October 1.

Judge Wright sentenced Seaton to nine years for the count of rape and seven years for the counts of assault by penetration, to be served concurrently.

Half of his sentence will be

served in prison, the other half on license. His name will remain on the sex offenders’ register for life.

Detective Constable Jessica Hawley, the investigating officer on the case, said: “This was clearly a pre-meditated attack and that is reflected in the sentence that has been handed to Seaton today.

“It has had a profound and lasting effect on the victim and I would like to praise her for the tremendous courage and dignity she has shown throughout the investigation and court proceedings.”

Jamie Leigh Seaton

Photo: SYP

Students occupy Inox Dine

University security teams have instigated a lockdown of Inox Dine, barring doors with a lock and chain to prevent further protestors entering the occupied restaurant.

On Wednesday approximately 20 students from the Free University of Sheffield campaign occupied the University restaurant, situated on the fifth floor of the Students’ Union building.

Forge Press can reveal that University security staff were contravening the University’s own fire safety guide and may have broken the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, a piece of legislation applicable in England and Wales.

Last night, the Students’ Union Council rushed through an emergency motion proposed

by Otis Gilbert which condemned the chaining of the doors.

The motion, which council passed through at the beginning of their meeting, also resolved “to attempt to secure a promise from the University that such a tactic will be banned”.

The occupation began at approximately 12pm on Wednesday December 3.

Protestors held flags and banners as the entered Inox Dine.

Quickly afterwards, banners were hung out the windows, overlooking the SU concourse, which read: “for free education”, “against privatisation” and “for a living wage”.

The occupation took place on the same day as the University’s weekly campus tours, where prospective students and their families can view the University’s central campus and facilities.

But shortly after the occupation

began, University security arrived on site and began photographing the estimated 20 protestors involved.

On Wednesday afternoon, the Sheffield Students’ Union Officers Facebook page uploaded a statement from Free University of Sheffield describing Inox Dine as “a vanity project which does little more than appeal to a marketisation agenda across universities.”

Shortly after the occupation, security placed the building under lockdown and guarded the doors. Security staff said they were following management orders when refusing entry to students.

Rosie Carter-Rich, who tried to enter shortly after the occupation began, said she was “physically ejected” from Inox Dine by University security staff: “They said they wouldn’t shove me – as they were shoving me.

“I said I knew what I was getting into and I wanted to be in there – but they decided on my behalf that I couldn’t enter.”

Protestors inside the restaurant were told by security services that they could not use the toilets.

The song “Lonely Pup (In a Christmas Shop)” by Adam Faith was played loudly over the speakers on loop for about 45 minutes, in an apparent bid to annoy protestors into leaving.

However, when some protestors reworded the lyrics into a chant about the occupation, the music was turned off.

At approximately 2pm on Wednesday, Professor Paul White, Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Sheffield, released a statement. In it he said: “We understand fees are rightly an issue very close to the

Technology

Rosetta: origin of life “seeded by comets” Two weeks ago, after ten years travelling through space, the Rosetta orbiting satellite reached a comet on the outer region of our solar system.

The satellite sent back evidence of organic molecules found in the comets atmosphere, supporting the theory that the building blocks of life were first seeded by comets landing on our planet’s surface.

In the coming months, scientists from the ESA hope to learn all they can from the comet and what it can tell us about our origins as it continues on its journey toward the sun, before eventually leaving our solar system.

E-cigarettes could threaten your computer’s health

YOUR UNIVERSITY

Patrick O’Connell

SCIENCE &

hearts of students across the UK and as a University, we fully support freedom of speech and the right of students to express their views peacefully and within the law.

“However, we cannot condone any activity that causes disruption to our staff and students and impacts on the experience which they rightly expect to receive.”

By 2pm, protestors had gained control of the front doors and more students then joined them.

But at 5pm, security staff read a notice to occupiers informing them that Inox Dine would once again be placed in lockdown with immediate effect.

Three security staff members began guarding the main entrance.

Protestors were allowed to leave but will not be able to re-enter the area.

Many students remained in the occupied restaurant overnight.

By Thursday morning, security staff had placed a lock and chain around the door handles to the main entrance of Inox Dine.

In a statement read out to Union Council by SU President Yael Shafritz, she said the policy was carried out following a scuffle between protestors and security which resulted in a member of security sustaining a broken wrist after it became trapped in the doors.

It is believed that a University fire safety adviser was present when the chain was fastened to the door. However, a fire safety advisor was not believed to be present hours later the chain was tightened considerably, meaning the door could only opened to about an inch wide.

When asked to reply over the matter, the protestors said: “Security is responsible for

escalating the situation and turning the situation into a confrontational one. We don’t believe chaining a fire exit door will make any of us safe. It is just trying to intimidate us.”

The doors, which are a fire exit, should not be obstructed according to University’s fire safety policy and procedures.

Section 4.18 of the policy states that “any security device fitted to a door required for fire egress shall be capable of being released without the need to use a key.”

Under the Escape Routes section of the University’s policy, it says: “Exit doors must be able to be easily opened from the inside without the use of a key.”

It is possible that the action undertaken by University security services was unlawful, as Article 14 F of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order states: “Emergency doors must not be locked or fastened that they cannot be easily and immediately opened by any person who may require them in an emergency.”

Last night the University released a statement regarding the locking of the doors: “To ensure the safety of our students and staff, and in compliance with health and safety and fire regulations, one of the doors leading to the Inox Dine Restaurant has been locked.

“This action was taken following an injury to a member of staff, caused by a group of protestors trying to forcibly gain access to the area currently being occupied.

“To meet Health and Safety requirements and for the safety of our students two members of staff will remain at the door at all times ensuring that anyone wishing to leave the occupied area via this door can do so.”

There is no doubt that e-cigarettes pose less health risks than conventional cigarettes but, aside from concerns about e-cigarettes not being entirely free of health risks, it now seems that users’ computers are under threat from malicious software and viruses.

Most e-cigarettes are charged by connecting them to a computer USB port; either by directly plugging the device into the port, or connecting to it via an adaptor cable.

This makes e-cigarettes (particularly those from China), among other electronic devices, a target for malware.

Hardcoded into the device/ charger, the malware can attack your computer network once the e-cigarette is connected.

Megan Jones

Photo: Creative Commons Breakthrough in search for Parkinson’s cure Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have developed a new potential treatment for Parkinson’s disease.

Parkinson’s affects around 10 million people worldwide. It is caused by the breakdown of cells in the brain that produce dopamine, a chemical associated with mood and movement, resulting in tremors and memory loss.

The new treatment involves injecting engineered stem cells into the brain to replace the damaged cells.

Results show the treatment to be effective in reversing brain damage in rats.

However, it could take up to three years for suitable cells to be ready for trials in human sufferers..

Ashley Carley

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YOUR UNIVERSITY

UniNEWS Fire breaks out at Uni halls

Interesting stories from other universities around the world

Beyonce and Rihanna course to begin in Texas Beyoncé and Rihanna will be the topic of study at the University of Texas’ new course on feminism.

Starting in the spring, the 85-place class ‘Beyoncé Feminism, Rihanna Womanism’ is already full with a waiting list.

Students will be delving into the language the stars use in their music and when talking to the media, while scrutinising their music videos alongside theoretical texts.

The course is the brainchild of Professor Omise’eke Natasha Tinsley, and looks into topics such as what black women want, and black women and violence.

Keri Trigg

Will Morgan Students awoke at 11pm on Tuesday November 25, after a fire broke out at Allen Court, the city centre student accommodation.

The fire started in an E-block flat belonging to a group of first year students, one of whom left a pan unattended on the hob.

It caused a small pan fire which grew larger and despite their best efforts with a fire extinguisher, lead to the emergency services being called to deal with the fire.

As the firefighters plunged into the small to medium blaze, the crowd of pyjama-clad students that had gathered in the accommodation’s courtyard grew and people began playing ‘Firestarter’ by the Prodigy.

S&M, BDSM, M&S, OAP

Police shut down an “S&M and M&S”-themed fancy dress party after finding 250 students in leather bondage gear and grandma outfits.

University students turned up in the house party in Jesmond, Newcastle, with object such as whips and dildos.

Geography student Alexi Pittalis, who was one of the organisers of the party said: “We got some speakers and smoke machines. We had two dance floors, one chill-out room and a room upstairs with a bouncy castle and a ball pit.

He said the party cost about £2,500.

Police were called after a neighbour complained about the noise around four o’clock in the morning.

Estel Farell Roig Feminists rename selves ‘Ugly Girls Club’

When a university Feminist society heard someone referring to them as the “Ugly Girls Club”, they decided to make it the new name of their group.

The society, based at Royal Holloway, University of London, overheard the jibe while giving a talk on sexual consent at their students’ union. Rather than take offence, they decided to change their name in honour of the insult, letting the bullies know that they won’t be silenced with superficial remarks.

The group has taken their movement to Twitter, encouraging members and supporters to show solidarity with their own pictures, under the hashtag #UglyGirlsClub.

Their new account, set up in the wake of the campaign argues that: “Judging people for their appearance is an unoriginal way to silence those who speak out about important social issues.”

Keri Trigg

to overload electrical sockets, never leave cooking unattended and making sure cigarettes are extinguished properly.”

“The only thing I could think about was my anatomy notes” Before people were notified of what the cause was, students were sharing rumours of how the fire had started.

One of the girls from the flat said: “The only thing I could think

Photo: Creative Commons

about was my anatomy notes”.

When talking to Forge, a member of the fire service said: “Students can help to reduce their risk of a fire starting in the first place by taking care not

People queuing outside Allen Court

Photo: Will Morgan

University alcohol research used by NI ministers Adela Whittingham Research by the University of Sheffield has been used by ministers in Northern Ireland in plans to introduce a minimum unit pricing policy for alcohol.

The policy could reduce drinkrelated hospital admissions by more than 2400 a year.

The Sheffield report showed a minimum unit price would ensure drink cannot be bought at prices which do not reflect its strength.

Westminster has so far resisted the move to introduce a 50p per unit minimum price in England.

Mr Wells said to The Star: “The level of harm caused by excessive alcohol consumption in Northern Ireland is staggering.

“The evidence in the Unviersity of Sheffield’s report is compelling and, subject to executive agreement, I intend to put the issue out to public consultation and will be keen to see what feedback we get on this important issue.”

YOUR UNIVERSITY

Aleida Guevara hosts University talks Adela Whittingham The eldest daughter of Che Guevara gave a talk in Sheffield Students’ Union Auditorium on Tuesday December 2 on the role of Cuba in tackling the Ebola crisis in West Africa.

Aleida Guevara March, a Marxist like her father, is a doctor of medicine and travels around South America providing healthcare to impoverished peoples.

Dr. Guevara March began her talk by discussing the history of the Cuban healthcare system and the opening up of universities to provide free higher education.

Cuba has always played a prominent role in educating medical professionals across the continent.

The Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) was established in Cuba in 1999 and educates students from all over Latin America to improve healthcare and increase the number of doctors in the region.

On the subject of tackling

YOUR UNIVERSITY Neelam Tailor A student loan system for postgraduate degrees has been announced in the chancellor’s Autumn Statement.

Students will be able to take out the government-backed loans of up to £10,000 from 2016/17.

Chancellor George Osborne said it would revolutionise access to postgraduate university courses, it is expected to bring an extra 10,000 students into master’s degrees.

Loans will be offered across all master’s subjects, but only to students under the age of 30 in a drive for a higher-skilled workforce.

Figures show a 10 per cent decline in postgraduate entrants from the UK since 2010/11.

Ebola, Aleida noted that Cuban doctors had already been present in many of the countries that are now facing the medical crisis.

When the crisis began, Cuba received international praise for sending 450 medical professionals into the front line.

Guevara March said that what was needed to help West Africa is proper information about the virus and what is happening in these countries, so that a proper reaction can be formulated.

Guevara March said: “We will have the last word, but we need to react”.

The lecture was organised by Dr. Steve Ludlam on behalf of the Politics department with the University of Sheffield’s Politics Society, Latin American society and Sheffield Cuba Solidarity campaign.

Dr. Ludlam said: “I was delighted, astonished actually, that over 500 students and others turned out to hear Aleida speak.

It is probably the biggest public lecture the Politics department has ever organised and we owe

thanks to the Politics Society and the Latin American Society for co-hosting. Cuba’s medical internationalism is, as Sheffield alumnus Prof. John Kirk has put it, ‘the greatest story never told’. Because of Cuba’s rapid and unmatched commitment of medical volunteers to the terrifying frontline of the Ebola crisis, it is beginning to be properly recognised.

“To hear this story from Aleida, herself a veteran of medical missions in Africa, was gripping and inspirational.”

Aleida with Politics Society

Polly Winn and Matthew Wilde, Features, pg. 14

“

What we thought would be a talk about Cuba’s role in the Ebola crisis became so much more than that...

”

New loan scheme for prospective postgrads

Autumn Statement reveals plans to improve access to master’s Ministers feared the slump in take-up would lead to the UK becoming less competitive in the global market due to the soar in the number of jobs demanding postgraduate qualifications.

Micheal Gunn, chair of the Million+ group of universities opposed the age limit to the loans.

He said: “[The loans] should be extended to all who want to study for postgraduate qualifications.

Dom Jeffrey, political events secretary of Politics Society said: “We were thrilled that Aleida was able to come to the university, and even more so that so many people came along to hear such a fascinating and thoughtprovoking talk.”

Sir David Eastwood, chair of the Russell Group, said: “The benefits of studying high quality postgraduate programmes to students and to the economy are significant and growing”.

“Postgraduates are currently funding their study through potentially disastrous measures”

Photo: Adela Whittingham Osborne said the high costs of postgraduate education “deter bright students from poorer backgrounds”.

Megan Dunn, the National Union of Students’ vice president, said: “Creating a governmentbacked postgraduate loans scheme will make a fundamental difference to the lives and opportunities of students.

“Many postgraduates are currently funding their study through potentially disastrous measures such as credit cards, overdrafts and personal loans,” The final loan details are yet to be discussed but they could be charged at a higher rate than undergraduate loans, while remaining below commercial rates.

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YOUR CITY

Steel City to host Sly Stallone

Keri Trigg

Hollywood legend Sylvester Stallone will be taking to the stage of Sheffield City Hall in a one-off event to talk to fans about his life and career.

Tickets went on sale on Monday, December 1, to see the Rocky and Rambo star, 68, in his first and only planned visit to the city on January 25.

Stallone will be interviewed on stage for 90 minutes, sharing personal insights from his fivedecade career, which has seen him credited for countless films as actor, director, producer and writer.

They range from the Rocky movies which catapulted him to fame in the 1970s, to his more recent ventures such as Spy Kids. He will also be discussing his latest blockbuster franchise The Expendables, which he wrote, directed and starred in alongside other Hollywood greats including Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

During the evening there will be an opportunity for the audience to ask questions and win prizes including signed memorabilia.

Fan Charlotte Gregory, who

Sylvester Stallone bagged a ticket on the day of release, said: “It’ll be a cool one-off experience, and seeing a Hollywood legend is something to cross off the bucket list. I can’t wait.”

On top of the ticket price fans were also able to purchase a £500 add-on to meet their idol

Photo: Wikimedia Commons backstage and have a photo, though these were snapped up

by Stallone enthusiasts within a matter of hours.

Amongst them are John Hendry and his father, who will be travelling from Gloucestershire for the event. John said: “I’m really looking forward to going to

see Sly, I’ve grown up watching the Rocky films and the Rambo films, I don’t think they ever get boring.

“He’s definitely an inspiration to a lot of people and I don’t think there will ever be an action star like him again.

“It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to meet him and get my picture done with him that I couldn’t miss out on.”

Eddie Ford, who also splurged on the meet-and-greet opportunity, said: “I will be there as Stallone has been a big part of my life, inspirational, and gives me hope that anything is possible.

“To meet Sly will be one of the greatest moments in my life…the day can’t come quick enough.”

Stallone is being brought to the boxing capital of the north by personal friend and promoter Rocco Buonvino, following the success of his appearances at the London Palladium in January and Manchester Arena in August.

Buonvino is known for putting on similar events starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and John Travolta, and will be bringing Al Pacino over in April.

YOUR UNIVERSITY

Living wage campaign wants to make disabled activism ‘sexy’

Tom Schneider The Disabled Students Committee was joined by members of Labour Students and Living Wage campaigners to mark the International Day for Persons with Disabilities in the Students’ Union.

This year, the events were focused on current welfare minister Lord Freud’s comment that some disabled people “aren’t worth a full wage” and should be paid only £2 per hour.

Jenny Poulton, Chair of the Disabled Students Committee said: “This government wants to treat disabled people as sub-par humans.

“It wants to demonise them for claiming welfare and claiming that if they do get a job, they

YOUR UNIVERSITY Estel Farell Roig The University of Sheffield Students’ Union has signed the Time to Change pledge to end mental health discrimination.

Welfare officer Tom Harrison said: “Signing the Time to Change pledge must highlight and consolidate our commitment to ending mental health discrimination. It can’t just be a symbolic statement.

“We are determined to create a full inclusive campus that empowers students and staff to address and talk about mental health.

“We want to provide spaces for students to practice and understand the importance of self-care.”

The officer’s proposals include creating “mental health first aiders” in all departments and developing a “Big White Book”, where students would write positive feelings and experiences which would then be shown

don’t deserve a decent wage.

“We worked out that if you lived on Lord Freud’s proposed wage, the maximum you would get is 1300 calories per day. You would starve to death on that”, she continued.

Co-Chair of Labour Students, Christy McMorrow said: “Joining this event is in harmony with our cost of living idea but, more importantly, if we take ourselves seriously as a socialist society then we need to fight all types of oppression.”

Josh Berlyne, Co-Chair of the Living Wage Campaign added: “Everyone is worth a living wage whether or not they are disabled.

Not only are disabled people worth a living wage but work should be made more accessible to disabled people.

“We need to get people talking about disability as a liberation campaign as it is often pushed to the side and ignored”, Berlyne said.

Poulton added that: “The big challenge for disabled people in

the University is that disabled activism isn’t a sexy activism.

“Today is all about saying that disabled activism can change people’s lives and is really rewarding”.

SYP: guns on streets daily Ewan Turner There is at least one firearm seen a day on the streets of South Yorkshire, mostly possessed by drug dealers and members of criminal gangs, according to Andy Male, Chief Inspector of South Yorkshire’s Firearms unit.

Male said to the Star: “There are a number of firearms which circulate between criminal groups – nobody owns them, but we try to disrupt that trade as much as we can.”

But actual injuries from firearmrelated crime remain rare, with 36 injuries having resulted from 127 reported incidents this year.

“People carry guns to make themselves feel and look big” But firearms held are not always legitimate: “People carry guns to make themselves feel big and look big. They are not always real guns, yet they are frightening people and putting themselves and others in danger,” Male said.

According to a government report, South Yorkshire has 10.1 gun crimes per 100,000 people, a lower figure than Greater Manchester (19.2) and the West Midlands (34.3).

This news comes after a recent gun amnesty held by South Yorkshire Police, during which 52 guns were confiscated.

DCI Zaf Ali, a leading officer in Armed Criminality said: “With the public taking advantage of this opportunity to safely dispose of these firearms, we can continue to keep the figure low and keep our streets safe.”

YOUR CITY

Refuge for domestic abuse Stephanie Crisp

Lord Freud

Students’ Union signs Time to Change pledge

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

affect our mental wellbeing.

“We seek to oppose these conditions and act as a model employer and educational establishment when addressing mental health and ill-health.”

He suggested using Student Minds research to identify barriers to good mental wellbeing. The research found the biggest challenges are fear of being judged, stress and finding the confidence to tell people you have a mental health problem.

“We are determined to create a full inclusive campus that empowers students and staff” Welfare officer Tom Harrison around the campus.

Although psychological distress while at university affects around 25 per cent of students, only 20 per cent of students nationally feel comfortable

CRIME

Photo: Students’ Union approaching University health and counselling services.

Harrison said: “Self-care is important as capitalism demands and, often needs, oppressive working environments which can

The proposal to sign the Time to Change pledge, submitted by welfare officer Tom Harrison, was passed in Council on November 20.

The pledge, led by Mind and Rethink Mental Illness, has been signed by over 70,000 people.

Sheffield City Council has spent millions of pounds on a brand new refuge centre in Sheffield.

The opening of the £2.5m ‘haven’ provides women and children fleeing domestic abuse a welcoming and safe place to live.

Figures suggest there are as many as 28,000 domestic abuse victims in Sheffield each year.

Former facilities where women and their children fleeing abuse at home had to share bedrooms, kitchens and bathrooms with other families have been replaced.

The refuge has 20 self-contained flats, a communal garden and a children’s play centre to give families the opportunity to meet.

A 29 year-old mum-of-two, who asked to be referred to as Becky, sought refuge when leaving her verbally abusive partner.

She said “He was always breaking doors by head butting them, smashing and throwing things. He used to call me names saying ‘you’re just pathetic’ - I couldn’t have stayed.

“The new refuge is brilliant compared to where I was before.

I had to sleep on a bunk bed with all three of us sharing a room I need my own space for me and my kids. Here I actually have it.”

Chairwoman Jaqui Devereux said: “We are delighted with the new refuge which will provide a haven for women and children.”

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YOUR CITY

University of Sheffield graduate killed in Palestinian attack on Jerusalem synagogue Adela Whittingham A University of Sheffield graduate was killed in an attack on a synagogue in Jerusalem last month.

Avraham Shmuel Goldberg was among four people killed after two Palestinian men armed with axes and guns interrupted the worshippers during morning prayers.

Mr Goldberg was a chemical engineer who studied Glass Engineering at the University of Sheffield.

The other three men killed in the attack were of dual USIsraeli nationality.

The violence took place in Jerusalem’s Har Nof neighbourhood, an area with a large number of Western immigrants.

The attackers have been named as Ghassam Abu Jama, 32, and his cousin Uday Abu Jamal, 22. Both were shot dead by police.

Israeli Prime Minister,

Mourners at the funeral of the synagogue victims Benjamin Netanyahu, has blamed the Palestinian group Hamas for instigating the attacks but it is not known if the assailants were affiliated with any groups.

Netanyahu vowed that Israel would “respond harshly” to the attack, describing it as a “cruel

Photo: The Times Israel murder of Jews who came to pray and were killed by despicable murderers”.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said he spoke to Mr Netanyahu after the attack and denounced it as an “act of pure terror and senseless brutality and violence”.

Mr Goldberg was born in Liverpool but emigrated from Britain in 1991. He had five daughters and one son, aged between 20 and 40.

Mr Goldberg worked as a chemical engineer in London and Israel, specialising in the pharmaceutical industry.

He was also involved in setting up educational facilities in Jerusalem to allow religious students to learn more about the secular world.

The attack comes in a recent surge in violence between Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

The synagogue attack came a day after a Palestinian bus driver was found hanged in his vehicle in Jerusalem.

David Cameron said on Twitter he was “appalled by today’s horrific attack” and that his “thoughts are with the victims’ families”.

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond also condemned the violence.

YOUR UNIVERSITY

Information Commons forced to implement ‘one in, one out’ policy Keri Trigg Students hoping to study in the Information Commons on Monday found themselves waiting outside the building as the university’s largest library was full to bursting.

Staff were forced to implement a ‘one in, one out’ policy at around 3.30pm, peak time for students with impending deadlines and exams to study for.

Alison Little, Assistant Director of Library Customer Relations, told the Tab: “There are times when the IC is full and, during those times, capacity is managed to prevent the building becoming overcrowded.

“We take this approach to ensure the safety of our students and staff and the quality of the study environment.

“During these times, students

STUDENT LIVING

Graduates claim their degrees are not challenging enough Neelam Tailor Students do not feel adequately challenged by their degrees and are questioning the value of £9000 higher education courses, a new study reports.

The report from the consumer group Which? was based on a series of large-scale surveys of students and recent graduates and found that the average workloads at university were under 30 hours a week, this is 25 per cent fewer that the national guidelines recommend.

The research revealed that some students did not work at all outside their university contact hours.

Only 39 per cent of students said that the work set by their academics was “stretching” while a quarter of the respondents insisted that they could “get away with doing little private study and still get good marks”.

The report called for the creation of powers to strictly regulate universities with the potential to strip them of their degree-awarding authority.

This Which? report appears to contradict a government-backed poll that found overall student satisfaction levels to be at record highs.

When speaking to the Guardian, one Russell Group student said: “Last term I

missed quite a lot of lectures but still managed 2:1s in all my exams.” Richard Lloyd, executive director of Which?, said: “We are rightly proud of our university sector with institutions that are regarded among the best in the world. The next phase of reform for this market should protect that reputation and help students get the best value for money from higher education.

“We want to see better information for prospective students, improved complaints processes and a strong regulator that enforces high standards across the sector.”

The study found that there were large disparities between universities regarding the amount of teaching time students received.

Megan Dunn, vice-president of the National Union of Students, said the creation of more competition between universities meant that students were “increasingly treated like supermarket customers”.

She said: “The findings of this report should give the champions of high fees and high debt pause to think again about the way they have undermined higher education’s status as a public good and willed on a generation of consumers,”.

may experience a brief delay in entering the IC.” Despite boasting 500 computers and 1,300 study areas, some students feel that in busy periods they struggle to find a space.

Second year Medical student Katherine Godfrey said: “It’s always heaving around this time in the IC. If I knew it would have places, it would be my go-

to library, but with exams and deadlines around the corner there is no guaranteeing that if I go, there will be any nice areas that remain quiet to work left.”

Laura Thomas, a second year Zoology student, said: “The IC is a relaxed environment ideal for working, but in the run up to exam periods it is always extremely busy and there are usually no available computers.”

YOUR CITY

Blood-stained protestors campaign outside Fargate’s Barclays bank

Will Morgan Demonstrations were held on Saturday November 30 at Barclays’ city centre branch by the anti-Israeli “Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign” who are seeking to add more signatures to the already 1.7 million strong petition calling for the end to Barclays’ questionable investments.

Protesters held huge signs calling Barclays “investors in death”, banged drums and handed out leaflets whilst chanting. The protestors then entered the bank, with one protestor peacefully standing in a blood stained shirt in the middle of the bank and another holding a doll symbolising a dead child.

The aim of the protest was to draw attention to the “52-day

Photo: Will Morgan massacre that killed more than 2,000 Palestinians, including more than 500 children”. The protestors argue this was aided

by Western investment in Israeli arms dealers “Elbit Systems” who manufacture drones.

The SPSC argue that Barclays’ 3 million dollar investment both supports and profits from “Israel’s on-going war crimes against Palestine” and the Israeli “regime of apartheid” against the Palestinian people.

The manager of the Barclay’s branch then attempted to remove the SPSC’s protesters from the premises and denied any public picture taking.

This forceful evacuation did not lower spirits however as the campaign crossed the street and protestors continued to display their banners and distribute leaflets.

YOUR UNIVERSITY University finds Chinese-speaking students places in British companies Hsin-Yu Chin The University of Sheffield is leading the GREAT Ambassadors (China) Scheme, established by UK Trade & Investment (UKTI), to find Chinese-speaking students placements in companies that intend to access or expand their Chinese market.

The businesses include Chatsworth House, Gripple which is planning to export their fasteners to Chinese vineyards, and New Era Development which began plans to create Sheffield ‘Chinatown’ in 2005.

The scheme is designed to offer flexible work placement from 3 months to 1 year. Students who participate will be able to acquire working experience and gain employability skills. They can develop valuable UK business contacts, and maximise their chance to find relevant jobs back in China.

To encourage students to take part in the initiative, Sheffield career services has held relevant workshops; offered individual advice and helped students to apply for such opportunities.

YOUR UNIVERSITY SU launches ‘No Borders’ campaign with Sheffield MP Lydia Silver Ahead of the upcoming election, Sheffield Student’s Union is launching a campaign to challenge current immigration policies.

The ‘No Borders’ campaign, led by Sheffield Student’s Union in conjunction with MP Paul Blomfield, aims to change current policies that could block international students from coming to the UK. Currently, international students are included in net migration figures held by the government, despite that they are only temporary migrants.

The “No Borders” campaign fears that this has lead to the government discouraging international students in an attempt to meet the immigration targets set at the last election.

An e-petition, organised by the International Student’s Officer, Jose Diaz De Aguilar Puiggari, has been launched calling for the removal of international students from official net migration figures.

Jose said: “No Borders aims to put an end to immigration policies that are damaging international student recruitment and relations and make the UK a more welcoming place for international students.”

Sheffield Central MP, Paul Blomfield said: “We should recognise the extraordinary opportunity that students have, studying in an international environment. The international student population should know that they’re very welcome in Sheffield.”

Blomfield also said: “I’m hoping we will see a more embracing attitude to international students which is going to be good for us all.”

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YOUR UNIVERSITY

University honoured for #weareinternational campaign Tom Schneider The University of Sheffield picked up three gongs at the Times Higher Education (THE) Awards 2014 at the annual ceremony last week.

One was for Outstanding International Student Strategy, another for Widening Participation Initiative of the Year and a third for Outstanding Support for Early Career Researchers.

Vice-Chancellor of the University, Professor Sir Keith Burnett, said: “To win all three awards is a wonderful achievement and a fantastic way to end such a successful year.

“I am delighted that the #weareinternational campaign was chosen as the first ever winner of the International Strategy award. International students are vital to our communities and three-quarters of the British public say they agree with us – counting students within immigration targets is wrong and damaging” SU International Students Officer, José Joaquín Díaz de

Aguilar Puiggari, said “whether or not international students feel welcome in Sheffield is not just down to us. We need to urge changes in the Government’s policies with respect to international students if we want to make the UK a welcoming place for them.

“It is our hope that the #weareinternational campaign will inspire the government and

campuses around the UK to embrace international students for their talent and diversity”.

Commenting on being awarded the Widening Participation Award, AMRC Training Centre Director of Training Alison Bettac said she was “delighted to win. We believe we have created a blueprint for bridging the manufacturing skills gap and promoting social mobility at the

same time”.

Sarah Fulton, Director of Research and Innovation Services said that being honoured with the Early Career Researchers Award was “worthy recognition of the depth of quality and breadth of scope of our professional development offering for early career researchers.”

Lancashire institution Edge Hill bagged the top accolade as it was named THE University of the Year. Since it gained University status in 2006, the Judges were particularly impressed with achievements in student satisfaction and graduate employment.

Winning this year’s award is caps an exceptional period for Edge Hill. In 2012-13 it was one of only four universities in England to see applications rise after fees were raised to £9000.

The ceremony, which took place in London on November 27, was attended by more than 1000 staff from universities across the UK and conducted by the comedian Jack Dee.

National News The Pigeons of Penzance

A Cornish fire crew was forced to shut down a street in Penzance to rescue a trapped pigeon.

The incident, attended by five firefighters, was reported by the RSPCA after residents noticed the bird caught in anti-roosting netting.

Traffic was at a standstill for 15 minutes while the rescue operation was underway, due to the narrow street being blocked by the fire engine.

The pigeon was successfully liberated, and was taken to a specialist centre to recover from the ordeal.

Keri Trigg

José Joaquín Díaz de Aguilar Puiggari , International Students Officer

YOUR CITY

Sheffield City Council to fell trees to make way for 24 hour bus lane at Heeley City Farm

Ben Christmas

Sheffield City Council has revealed plans to fell 188 trees directly adjacent to Heeley City Farm to make way for a 24-hour bus lane.

The condemned trees, planted by volunteers in 1981, currently shelter resident farm animals, including sheep, pigs and goats such as Henry (pictured), from the noise and pollution of Prospect Road.

The plans, which could be given the go ahead in January, would see the trees chopped from councilleased land on Prospect, Spencer and Myrtle Roads in Heeley.

University of Sheffield students have long enjoyed Heeley City Farm as a haven of peace and have a long history of volunteering at the site.

Ujala Batool, the farm’s publicity officer, has said in response to the proposed bus lane: “They [Sheffield City Council] need to respect the farm and what it is doing with the local community and children, and

give it its space; it would be such a shame to disrupt the good work of the farm.”

At the public consultation on Wednesday November 26, representatives from the Council met with residents, farm workers and volunteers leading to some heated discussion.

Many questioned the benefit of the bus lane to the local area and were concerned about the impact to local wildlife. However, some did admit that Prospect Road is congested at peak times.

Tony Lewery, a senior transport planner at the city council has stated that the consultation process will continue for at least another three months with alternative plans being considered.

Farm workers and volunteers plan to tie orange twine around the endangered trees as a sign to passersby, making clear the scale of the planned destruction. They are also encouraging anyone who feels strongly about this issue to write to the Council.

YOUR CITY

Glass centre to create jobs Isaac Stovell Hundreds of jobs are set to be created in Sheffield by a £90million investment in the glass industry, with the creation of the British Glass Innovation Centre.

Sheffield-based trade body, the British Glass Manufacturer’s Confederation, aims to make the centre a leader in the worldwide industry for research and development.

The ‘Steel City’, as Sheffield is often known given its industrial past, has a history of innovative engineering and manufacturing, and investors hope that this development will re-stimulate the

sector and provide upskilled jobs.

Initial plans are already committed, with Siemens confirming a £4million investment with the UK glass industry, and Nick Clegg announcing £5million funding for the centre as part of Sheffield’s City Regional Growth Deal.

The centre, the first of its kind in the world, will be located close to the University of Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre.

It aims to aid national selfdependence in supplying largescale glass projects for construction, as the UK currently relies largely on imports for such goods.

New censor spanks pornography industry

New government regulations have put the coolers on UK porn, with a list of 13 acts that are now banned in X-rated videos.

With the aim of eliminating anything depicting violence, abuse or lack of consent, the Audiovisual Media Services Regulations 2014 mean that online videos now have to adhere to the same standards as porn DVDs. The new restrictions, following the British Board of Film Censors guidelines, stem from the Obscene Publications Act 1959.

They ban spanking, caning, and female ejaculation, though porn produced outside the UK containing such acts can still be viewed.

Keri Trigg

Henry the goat

Photo: Ben Christmas

YOUR UNIVERSITY

New Chancellor for UoS Adela Whittingham The University of Sheffield have appointed a new Chancellor following the retirement of current Chancellor Sir Peter Middleton in summer 2015.

The Right Honourable Lady Justice Rafferty, DBE is a graduate of the University and a Lord Justice of Appeal since 2011.

The Chancellor is the senior lay Officer of the University and has the power to confer degrees and other academic awards.

Dame Anne said: “The University gave me so much

that I have always felt in its debt. This privilege – which means the world to me – begins my opportunity to repay.

“Sheffield is a world-class player for good reason: its research contribution is outstanding, but it never forgets that university life begins with undergraduates and depends on inspiring teaching and leadership.”

Chairman of the University Council Tony Pedder, commented: “We are truly delighted to announce the appointment of Lady Justice Rafferty to the position of Chancellor.

Woman given ASBO for having sex too loudly

A woman has vowed to keep having loud sex with her husband, despite having been given an ASBO and facing jail twice.

53 year old Caroline Cartwright was given a noise abatement notice when her neighbours, the postman, and a mother on a school run all complained about her “screaming and shouting”. She breached her noticed five times, and was given an Anti-Social Behaviour Order as a result.

After breaching her ASBO three times and having the police called to her home over 30 times, Mrs Cartwright was given two suspended prison sentences.

Mrs Cartwright has made it clear that she has no regrets “It’s not as if I’m having sex and think: “Oh, I’m making too much noise. I better be quiet”.

Elsa Vulliamy

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What happened to talking sensibly about Europe?

Tom Schneider The European Union is not perfect. It won’t make vodka taste better; it won’t make you look five pounds thinner; it won’t even write your dissertation for you.

Judging by the hysterical tone in which the current EU debate is conducted, you might think that it promised to do all these things and you also caught it cheating on your sister in West Street Live last weekend.

For starters, let’s take the issue of immigration. The latest response to the seemingly unstoppable ramping up of the xenophobic rhetoric was that Britain would end its support for search and rescue operations in the southern Mediterranean.

These desperate asylum seekers are fleeing unimaginable hardship in war-torn Northern Africa; an estimated half never reach the coast. They are not undercutting manual labourers’ wages in Rochester. Mistrust of the EU should not lead to a dispassionate refusal to help drowning people.

More salient is the EU’s democratic deficit.

Officials repeatedly take an undoubtedly pompous tone. Just take the new EC president’s proclamation in reference to the 2005 French referendum on the EU constitution: “If it’s a Yes, we will say ‘On we go’ and if it’s a No, we will say ‘We continue’”. If the EU were a nation state led by such politicians and tried to join the EU, it would be rejected for not being democratic enough.

But I don’t think it’s democratic that a party flying at around 18 per cent in the polls will probably get around 0.7 per cent of the elected representatives on offer in the next general election. I don’t think it’s democratic that our leader is pushing for a trade deal with the US that wants to allow corporations

to sue elected governments before secretive arbitration panels which bypass domestic courts and override the will of parliaments. While we’re at it, it’s certainly not democratic that this same man is privatising the NHS when only seven per cent of the country support it. Pot? Kettle?

As is often the case with the Tories, the race to talk the toughest on the EU has led to some rather reckless behaviour towards the bathwater that leaves the baby looking nervous.

They did the same thing with the benefits system.

A classic case of conflating bad practice and bad principle.

In denying that the principle of greater European cooperation is a good one, the Monty Pythonesque Right are essentially asking us ‘what has the EU ever done for us?’ Oh, you mean apart from providing 57 per cent of our trade; structural funding to areas hit by industrial decline; break up of monopolies; the right not to work more than a 48-hour week and 60 years of peace and so on? Right.

Undoubtedly, the Union faces major

Will Morgan

challenges and we must not cede all grounds for criticism to the Little Englanders.

We progressive democrats should baulk at its sadistic austerity measures and its unaccountable, hubristic representatives.

As we drift – and drifting is what we are doing - towards an in-out referendum, not speaking out would be to risk losing the fight before it begins. Only in advocating practical reform can we return the debate to realism and be able to stand up for the EU’s noble principles: peace, cooperation and solidarity.

Let them eat Jaffa Cake Adela Whittingham Bypassing his school’s healthy eating policy, schoolboy Tommie Rose has shot to fame after selling sweets and fizzy drinks to his pals at school, something students have been doing since the beginning of time.

The 15 year old was smuggling Lucozades, Dairy Milks and Doritos into school to help raise cash for his university tuition fees fund.

After receiving public attention, Dragon’s Den stars Duncan Bannatyne, Deborah Meaden and Theo Paphitis have all showed their support Tommie’s entrepreneurial attitude and business savvy. The businessmen and woman took to Twitter with comments such as ‘Good on him!’ ‘He’s a natural’…

I think here it is important to note that it is probably not Tommie’s attempt to save money for university tuition that has nearly got him suspended from school, but rather the products his business plan relies upon.

Had it been pencils, apples, or even the t-shirts he is apparently now peddling, I highly doubt there would be such a ruckus.

Schools are now no longer allowed to be selling sweets, chocolates and caffeinated drinks to pupils and Tommie Rose faces suspension for breaching the school’s healthy eating policy. The school’s headmaster has specifically insisted school is “not the place to set up a black market of fizzy drinks, sweets and chocolates”.

Back in sixth form, we were allowed to

sign out of school in our free periods and saunter up the road to buy some lunch.

The newsagent was probably a ten minute brisk walk at the most, however, some savvy individual realized they could capitalize on our inherent laziness, buy Coca Cola and Twirls in bulk and sell them to us at school.

No walking necessary.

“the simple laws of supply and demand cannot be ignored” Our supplier at school happened to be Chris Bourne, brother of McBusted’s James Bourne and one quarter of the band Hollywood Ending.

I am not linking sales of black market Coca Cola sales to fame but clearly his dabbling in the black market has not impacted on his current success. School was definitely the best place to set up a black market of fizzy drinks, sweets and chocolates because there was a market for it, and the simple laws of supply and demand cannot be ignored.

I remember a devastating day in year eight when the chocolate machine took its last breath and was dragged out of the main foyer, and when Jamie Oliver filled our screens declaring his war on school dinners would not end until all school dinners had been defeated.

Instead of satisfying our sugar cravings at

Shia LaBeouf’s rape claims deserve our attentive support - because all such claims do

school, everyone getting the train in would stock up on diet coke and chocolate at the Tesco’s opposite the station. If you didn’t get the train, you’d ask your mate to grab you some. If girls want diet coke and chocolate, girls will find a way to buy diet coke and chocolate.

I stand by my point then, if kids are going to eat chocolate and drink fizzy drinks, there is not a lot that is going to stand in the way of them doing so. It doesn’t take a genius to realize this. I’m not looking down my nose at what this 15 year old has done, I think it was pretty clever how he hid all his gear at various friend’s houses so his parents wouldn’t catch him with £200 worth of KitKat Chunkies.

Anyone could do it, but not everyone thinks to. People complain that the youth of today have no initiative, maybe Tommie Rose doesn’t have academic aspirations but just because he wants to save some money up I don’t think we should be discouraging his entrepreneurial streak.

The only issue I have with the Tommie Rose case is that you’re not in school forever. Your career as a black market trader in unhealthy treats is limited by the inevitability of time. If you seriously want to get a good education, intentionally aggravating your school by breaking its policy on healthy eating is definitely not worth being suspended for.

Don’t start a war with Jamie Oliver, you are either with him or against him.

Piers Morgan, professional antagonist and Editor-at-Large of the MailOnline, showed this week why he was found to be the most hated celebrity on Twitter.

Starting on November 28th Morgan began tweeting a stream of vitriolic statements about the alleged rape of actor Shia LaBeouf, calling him a “silly little man” and demanding that he “apologise for his outrageous ‘rape’ claim”. The rape allegedly occurred in February of this year during Shia LaBeouf ’s “#IAMSORRY” art project, where he sat in a room alone with a bag over his head whilst members of the public had a private one-on-one with the actor, famed for his performances in the ‘Transformers’ franchise.

It was here, the actor said in his interview with Dazed magazine, that a woman came in “whipped my legs for ten minutes and then stripped my clothing and proceeded to rape me” before walking out with “dishevelled hair and lipstick”.

If this were a criminal case then the weighing in of the editor of the MailOnline would be understandable, however this is not the situation.

Instead the failed host of an axed show on CNN is attacking the alleged victim of a serious sexual crime and calling him out on his masculinity, mentioning how he “cut his own face” for the film Fury making him one of the “toughest actors in Hollywood”, implying that only the weak can be raped.

Not only is that a sickening view but it’s also wrong as no one expects to be raped, just the shock and fear alone would be enough to understand LaBeouf ’s lack of action, and when the reports of his alcoholism and “existential crisis” are take into account it makes it even clearer that a vulnerable human being was taken advantage of sexually. That is rape.

The validity of the claim means nothing to the wider world, as they can make up their own minds, however the response to any claim of rape does matter. Piers Morgan’s self-appointed position of judge and jury in deciding to call it not a “real” rape only goes to encourage a culture where victims of male (and female) rape feel afraid to come out about the crime because people will react the way this famed social commentator has, making an already horrifying life experience worse. I’m not saying that in cases of rape we should revoke the presumption of innocence and immediately jail all alleged rapists, but I am saying that people with particularly high pulpits (like the mislead 60 million who read the Morgan’s MailOnline every month) should be more understanding than to participate in victim blaming and dismiss claims of rape.

In the interview, LaBeouf describes how the shock of it rendered him speechless when he tried to explain it to his girlfriend causing them to both sit “with this unexplained trauma silently”, an understandable reaction to such a horrific occurrence, the reaction I wish Piers Morgan would have as well.

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How to be a marginally more respectful lefty Jack Monroe’s tweet about Ivan Cameron was scathing, but not quite wrong: political dispute would greatly benefit from tactfully remembering the humanity of those you disagree with

Rhys Handley Bringing a politician’s family into your critique of their conduct is incendiary stuff, but never more so than in reference to a dead child.

Jack Monroe, writer on food and activist on austerity for the Guardian, contributing to the #CameronMustGo hashtag thread on Twitter, gave as a reason to oust David Cameron from power the controversial tweet shown here.

To bring Ivan, Cameron’s son who died in 2009 aged six after suffering from cerebral palsy and

epilepsy, into the debate is a bold and dangerous move on Monroe’s part. The fallout was just as viciously impassioned as expected.

What began as discussion and critique descended into personal attacks, some petty, some extreme.

Sarah Vine lashed back in a Mail comment piece, making jibes at Monroe’s sexuality and her own son, while Monroe received rape and murder threats online.

Somewhere here, the actual root of anyone’s argument was lost. In her initial comment, Monroe was highlighting a very real and serious problem - the dismantling and profit-reorientation of the NHS.

Since the Health and Social Care Act of 2012 and the appointment of pro-privatisation Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, we’ve been moving ever closer to the inefficient, regressive American model of healthcare. Bits and pieces of our health services are being quietly sold off to the highest bidder with the best treatment reserved only for those who can afford it.

This has been on the Conservative agenda for a long time; it’s a real and dangerous truth of the government we live under, which Monroe was absolutely right to call out.

But the shock and anger over her reference to Ivan isn’t exactly unjustified - it’s a powerful insensitive point, and one could never expect Cameron’s friends and allies to sit back and take it placidly.

Whatever your stance on Cameron’s ideology, a terrible, e ar t h - s h atte r i ng thing happened to his family in 2009 - he was suddenly, cruelly robbed of his son. Step outside

the political sphere, and in human considerations they deserve only sympathetic support and condolences for what they went through.

“Whatever your stance on Cameron’s ideology, in human considerations he deserves only condolences for his son’s passing” It’s tricky territory to enter when using this against him. Monroe arguably toed the line carefully, but it’s easy to understand where her detractors are coming from, and perhaps a little understanding is required.

As a child of bereaved parents, I have seen firsthand how the death of a child can define someone in every way - their attitudes, convictions and decisions are altered forever. Ivan’s death will forever be part of Cameron, and will constantly affect both his personal and political life.

While his son was being treated, Cameron made no secret of his support and admiration of the NHS staff that cared for him. In a position like his, you can see how

his son’s death could sway him to do all in his power to make the health service the best it can be, and as a Conservative, he presumably sees an NHS driven by market competition as the way to get the best care out of the system as possible.

Therefore regardless of the economic sense of Cameron’s policy methods to this aim, his motivations for it are humanly commendable. But, as much as Ivan’s death is significant, he should never use it as a shield - a way to deflect any criticism of him or his policies.

Monroe is right to call out Cameron’s policies and his approach to his arguments, but it’s a sensitive topic to broach - a little tenderness could go a long way to making sure rational debate like this is met similarly.

Got an opinion on the topics discussed this fortnight?

Contact us: comment@forgetoday.com @ForgeComment

University of Sanctuary: an idea whose time has come Thomas Sexton In the summer of 2011, the Students’ Union council passed a motion approving the ‘University of Sanctuary’ policy, committing the SU to promoting access to higher education for asylum seekers and reducing the barriers to education that asylum seekers and refugees face. Fast-forward three years and the University’s access policies remain unchanged, and the ‘University of Sanctuary’ policy is now up for review. It seems the case for opening higher education up to asylum seekers must be made again.

To be an asylum seeker awaiting a verdict on an application is to count yourself among the most marginalised people in modern Britain. You are expected to make do on the equivalent of £5 a day for food, clothing, transport and anything else you may require, you are not permitted to work and while some of form of accommodation is usually offered, it is often not well suited to your

needs. In this context asylum seekers often find themselves very isolated and struggle to form social ties. Many asylum seekers have fled persecution and horrific violence in their home countries and are seeking safe haven and a better future in the UK but it is difficult for them to move forward with their lives while their case remains in the hands of the Home Office.

Any child of an asylum seeker is guaranteed access to education under the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. However, for the purposes of higher education asylum seekers are considered international students so cannot access student finance and are charged international fees; this is currently the case here at the University of Sheffield. Given the perilous circumstances that have brought asylum seekers to our shores it is absurd to believe they would be able to pay tens of thousands of pounds for tuition, especially as they are prevented from seeking employment. The current admissions policy of our

university effectively prohibits asylum seekers from accessing higher education.

It is this injustice that the ‘University of Sanctuary’ motion was intended to change; the Union recognized the transformative power of education and understood the need to provide asylum seekers with the opportunity to study.

Be in no doubt: there is need for a change in university policy.

“Our University was built on the aspiration of bringing education to those who could not access it” While most asylum applications are determined within a year, some cases drag on years without a decision leaving asylum seekers in a state of limbo. Some asylum seekers will arrive in the UK at school age but will not have the financial support to continue

studying beyond the age of 18.

If the University were to remove the barriers to higher education for asylum seekers it would be opening up a precious space in which asylum seekers would be seen first and foremost as students with as much right to learn and to explore ideas as any other. In doing so the University would enrich the student body with new voices and experiences.

This is hardly a radical change, several universities including Kent, the London School of Economics and Manchester already offer asylum seeking students home fees and often additional financial support. Despite Sheffield’s wellearned reputation for outreach we have found ourselves lagging behind our contemporaries on this issue.

It should be noted that Sheffield has a history of honoring it’s commitment to asylum seekers; Sheffield was the first City of Sanctuary. Nor should we forget that our own civic history as a university was founded on the penny subscriptions of local

workers a century ago. Our University was built on the aspiration of bringing education to those who could not access it. We as a University should be following this civic example.

As far as I can see, it is imperative that Council renew the University of Sanctuary Policy, commit to actively lobbying the University to offer asylum seekers tuition at the home fees rate and increase the number of bursaries for asylum seekers and refugees who wish to study here. I also urge all sympathetic societies to sign the equal access pledge being circulated by the University of Sanctuary society. It is the support of the student body that will see this policy change enacted. As a community we can reaffirm our commitment to the idea of being a university of sanctuary and demand that management address the issue so that we may become a fairer more open society.

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“Christmas spirit” is empty and corrosive Isaac Stovell Bah humbug.

I actually rather like Christmas, but given the impossibility of critically discussing broader social attitudes towards the overplumped occasion without being branded a cynical grump, I may as well get that phrase out of the way. Especially given that it is the most secularly-holy aspect of Christmas which I intend to review.

There are many things about our modern performance of Christmas that are probably worth disparaging: its relentless materialism within the twisted drives of capitalism; its forced reunion of families in a world where blood-relations are growing more irrelevant and friendship more socially meaningful; its insistent clinging to wasteful traditions of excess; even the oddness inherent in systematically deceiving all children to believe that their gifts are bestowed upon them not by loving relatives but by a fat white stranger and his team of hypersonic reindeer. But underpinning all of these (except arguably Santa, but let’s ignore him) is the same misjudgement of what Christmas, or any holiday, is for.

As we know it in all its vacuous sacredness, there is one idea that I think roots those other weirdnesses. This is, of course, “Christmas spirit” – perhaps interchangeable with “season’s merriments” or “happy holidays” or a handful of other phrases – all roughly trying to convey that this is a time of year where nobody should be unhappy, or needy, or excluded, or unentertained. Holidays, especially Christmas, carry with them an unspoken

“ought” as to shared food, gifts, conversation and fun ensuring that these cosy conditions are secured.

But, I hear outraged readers snort, these are lovely aims! What’s the problem with our pursuit of them? Nothing is properly wrong with the aims themselves, but our means of pursuit has two downfalls: individualism and convention.

Individualism first. The perfection of our restful occasions is done by our own standards, moulded just enough by culture to share a common ideal and yet varied just enough by personal taste to spark clashes.

We know what our Christmas “should” look like, and so make extra efforts – to send cards to forgettable cousins, or spend on exotic thoughtful presents, or put up trees even earlier – or we don’t. We then judge those who do whatever we don’t as being ostentatious or inconsiderate in failing to assign the holiday a right degree of respectful conformity.

“There are many things about our modern performance of Christmas that are probably worth disparaging” These veins of competition are arguably present in most aspects of modern life, but in affecting holidays the communality of those poor occasions are soured in ways which defeats the whole point of them.

The entire culture is subject to this absurd game; that’s why we end up with adverts for supermarkets that make paint World War One’s trench warfare as dignified and jolly or in which small boys mail-order brides for their sexually-frustrated penguins.

Editorial Carols and capitalism Hello!

If you’ve been living anywhere other than under a rock, you might have noticed that it’s Christmas.

I’m fully aware, writing this, that my editorial is due to be published underneath the annual bah humbug comment article.

The article is a rite of passage, and I wouldn’t have it any other way, but I’ve got to say it: I love Christmas. I love ironic jumpers, I like hearing the same songs played over and over again, I really, really love mulled wine and Bailey’s hot chocolate.

I understand where the Christmas sceptics are coming from: like pretty much everything else ever, Christmas has been corrupted by the evil capitalist overlords and believe me I’m not happy about it either.

But just because I’m not a big fan of capitalism that doesn’t mean I don’t like mince pies (and vice versa!).

Do I think we should use Christmas as an excuse to buy iPhones? No. Do I think we should

use it as an excuse to be nice and drink mulled wine? Yes, definitely.

Anyway, now that that’s out the way, I guess it’s time for a temporary farewell. This is our last issue until February, and that also means I’m over halfway through my reign of terror as the editor of Forge Press. But I’m trying not to think about that.

We’ve got a truly cracking issue for you this fortnight, so look out for the aggressively Christmassy layouts and enjoy!

See you in February.

Happy reading!

Elsa Vulliamy - Forge Press editor elsa.vulliamy@forgetoday.com

Christmas and the days (or weeks) preceding it become a tiresome marathon of one-upmanship in who can have the most carefree, generous and happy time.

Second, convention. The squabble for being merry at Christmas wouldn’t be such a fount of Decembery angst if it weren’t for the massive weight of cultural pressure on it to be a merry time. Everything regarding the time of year drips with an enforced jubilance; there is a vaguely palpable stigma with not having the merriest Christmas possible. This powers the individual competition, and yet it is utterly unfounded – tradition by itself isn’t a good reason to do something!

Yet these are not bad things to do; cultivating the raw niceness central to such occasions is in itself a good thing to do, by no means worth restricting only to Christmas, and rightly this niceness is something that people can and do enjoy all year round. But by enforcing, through expectation and tradition, an intense period of these priceless goods, there is almost a compulsory nature to the merriness of Christmas, cheapening the simple human joy of it.

Individualism and convention together have distorted our reasons for celebrating.

Sincerity is not the same as trying hard, kindness is not the same as splashing out, family is not the same as pulling crackers.

I feel this piece has rambled through hedges of concept without making any particular points (à la the Queen’s speech), so I’ll wrap up by looking at the origins of Christmas itself.

The nativity story, as taught by Christianity, tells of God himself living a human life as a man called Jesus, who was famously born in a barn, and later claimed

D.A.R.T.S.

to be mankind’s salvation through his death and resurrection. To speedily package the theology, he was the ultimate cosmic gift to humanity; his merely being alive on earth was the ultimate enactment of love’s centrality to the universe.

“Sincerity is not the same as trying hard, kindness is not the same as splashing out, family is not the same as pulling crackers” Christmas rose out of annual celebrations of this heavenly generousity. Christians are already called to live a life of recognising this powerful eternal love, but the implications of God’s coming to them in such a way were so magnificent as to warrant special annual remembrance – a “holy day”, or holiday, marked by gift-giving and fellowship even beyond the inclusive communal love as was normal among early Christians.

If recognition of Jesus is the original “Christmas spirit”, then it’s no wonder that post-Christendom western Christmas has lost some of those footholds. Regardless of one’s religious beliefs, a Christmas that incurs competitive anxieties among its celebrators and occurs solely because it’s on the calendar is one that feels somewhat hollow.

But no matter; picking at the mountains of leftover roast potatoes and re-watching Love Actually may, as every year, help us not mind the gap.

Forge Press takes its satirical aim

“Sadly this is the last DARTS in a while” of the more-than-fortnight

Yes, the holidays are almost upon us, and alas (and alack while we’re at it), this means the waiting-space between this and your next copy of Forge Press will be miserably longer than the typical two weeks.

How will you cope? What will you read over the long dark wintry gaps of time away from campus?

More importantly, what the frock do we suffix our little subtitles here with now!?

For those readers who are somehow already excited about Christmas here’s a nice seasonal image

Black Friday recap th

November 28 saw the UK’s second annual national rounds of the competitive phenomenon known as ‘Black Friday’.

The extreme sport, which derived from and still vaguely resembles shopping, originated in America and has gained popularity in dimmer areas of Western Europe over the last couple of years.

The aim of the game is to purchase as many slightlydiscounted consumer goods as humanly possible.

Minor violence is permitted, though rare plays see tactical queueing replace the need for such squabbles.

Given the immense physical and financial drain it has on its thousands of hosts and millions of players, Black Friday is played only once annually. Matches are traditionally held the day after Thanksgiving, an American holiday honouring gratitude, fellowship and contentment.

Rules concerning online purchases are still awaiting clarification from the sport’s officials, but preliminary estimates of the overall winner across England are settled. The title goes to Philip Robson, a retired accountant from Sunderland, who claims to have bought over two-thirds of his local Argos.

Quote of the fortnight

“There’s so many better things to do with chicken - like let it live” Elsa Vulliamy, Forge Editor and friend of poultry

And for those who aren’t, here’s the most cheerfully mundane image we could be bothered to find

Christmassy pun of the (how long?)

No, I told you already, we’re not filling DARTS with either jolliness or wordplay, both of those things disgust all rational readers. Come up with something else to put in here (i.e. don’t leave this passiveaggressive note in when it goes to print).

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Cultural Christmas

Christmas for many is a beacon of light in what would be a cold and dull winter and however you look at it and with the time off everybody carves out their own traditions, whether you go to the pub, visit family or attend mass there is no one definitive way to spend the Christmas season. Christmas has endured a radical change from its origins and as the issue of the increasing commercialisation of Christmas has been frequently discussed we decided that as an international university in honour of our university’s diverse student community we would explore diverse traditions around the globe to show that wherever you are in the world Christmas is different for everyone. Features Editors Kemi Alemoru, Polly Winn and Will Ross bring you some of their favourites.

Finland’s restless souls

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s everybody knows, Santa Claus lives in Finland. Atop Mt Korvatunturi in the region of Lapland, Joulupukki (or Christmas Goat, as the translation suggests) hides himself away, awaiting the three-day December holiday.

After a busy year, Fins like to take a step back and relax in their saunas. That’s right, more often than not, the inhabitants of this country will have their own steam room attached to their house, and it has become tradition to use it so long as they don’t misbehave while they’re in there - otherwise the sauna elf will join them and cause havoc.

The Finnish people who own a sauna will typically strip naked and enjoy some quiet time, finishing up before sunset, for in this country Christmas holds traditions for restless souls as well as its festivities.

Post sunset, the sauna is a place strictly for the souls of dead ancestors, who make their way into the house through the steam chambers therein. On Christmas eve, Fins light candles for their ancestors, or those of a close friend, lighting up cemeteries across the country for all to see. They believe that if they scare away the bad spirits, the good ones will be able to enjoy Christmas with their family in peace.

The Finnish Christmas has its roots in the old pagan harvest feast called kekri, named after the ancient Finnish cattle protector and fertility god, hence why it lasts three days to our one. Joulu, the Finnish word for Christmas, originates from the Viking hjul, meaning “sun wheel”. This translation is similar across the Scandinavian countries, whose languages are structurally similar.

In the old town of Turku, the former capital of Finland, a special ceremony is held to declare the beginning of “Christmas peace” period, starting at 12 o’clock noon on Christmas Eve and lasting for twenty days. The tradition of declaring Christmas peace is known to date back to 13th century. It used to be common to all the Nordic countries, but only in Finland has it been maintained almost uninterruptedly up to our days.

For many Finns, watching or listening to the declaration ceremony broadcasted live on television or radio signals the proper start of Christmas celebration. Will you be peaceful this Christmas?

The Netherland’s Annual Race Row

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s Christmas time rolls around again like most of the world the Dutch await the arrival of jolly old Santa Clause. Saintly Sinterklaas’ annual feast day lands on December 5 in the Netherlands and with this day comes a celebration of Santa’s little helper Black Pete. Actors playing Black Pete usually portray him by using curly black wigs, earrings and blackface makeup – a tradition that has invited much controversy in recent years.

Black Pete arrives every year to amuse children and to hand out treats to those who come to meet the saint as he visits stores and schools. In addition to this he also has a switch to beat children who are naughtier rather than nice. Originally named Zwarte Piet, the delightful character first appeared in 1850 in a book by Jan Schenkman.

He was originally depicted as a Moor, a medieval Muslim from the North African country of Morocco, who arrives on a boat bearing gifts for children from his home in Spain. Despite many Dutch citizens of African descent finding the depiction offensive the Netherland’s highest administrative court ruled that the mayor is right to allow parades which will feature hundreds of actors in blackface. This ruling overturned the finding of a lower court which had called the traditional depiction of Black Pete ‘a negative stereotype that infringes on the European treaty of human rights’. They reasoned that only a threat to public order would justify a cancellation of the parade and interestingly declined to rule on the claim that the character was racist. Critics of Black Pete and particularly the blackface element of the depiction argue that the tradition is a racist echo of the nation’s colonial past and plan to protest at the re-enactment this year.

Perhaps the only way to peacefully incorporate Black Pete into everyone’s Christmas traditions in the Netherlands is to give him a makeover. Incidentally this is exactly what Eberhard van der Laan the mayor of Amsterdam has plans to do. Eventually Amsterdam will refashion Black Pete and change his appearance over the course of four years via drastic measures such as ridding him of his trademark golden earrings. This Gok Wan style makeover is intended to make Pete less of an offensive racial stereotype and make him resemble someone who has climbed through a chimney rather than an exaggerated caricature of an African. Whatever happens to Black Pete in the future this year’s Sinterklaas parade promises to be eventful.

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Have a finger lickin’ Christmas in Japan

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hristmas is a holiday that is celebrated, or at least recognised globally, with traditions and customs varying. Even countries that don’t have a predominantly Christian population have taken advantage of the commercial benefits of the holidays - the festive decorations, the food, the presents, the Christmas sales. Japan is one of these countries, with only one per cent of the population estimated to be Christian. Yet something that Japan does exceptionally well is adapting foreign ideas and shaping them and fitting them into their own domestic market.

Japan does not celebrate Christmas in traditional, Christian sense. Instead they celebrate the more commercial side to the holiday, embracing the decorations and lights and gifts. Japanese businesses thrive at this time of year and fully take advantage of the consumer culture that has come to surround Christmas.

However, a pretty common Christmas tradition that Japan struggled to follow was that of the christmas dinner. Turkey’s apparently aren’t very common in Japan, therefore Japanese families were forced to have something else. This meant that there was no traditional christmas feast that was widely accepted in Japan.

American fast food chain KFC seized the opportunity to fill this gap in the market, and launched an ad campaign in 1974 called ‘Kentucky for Christmas.’ If you ever doubted the power of advertising, this will definitely prove you wrong. The campaign took off, and with thousands of Japanese families struggling to find a turkey, they flocked to KFC instead.

Christmas at KFC included a set menu for the equivalent of 10 dollars - when it first started - which at the time was relatively pricy. Today Christmas at KFC now involves a special adapted premium menu, which can involve a fully roasted chicken! It is also available to pre order, which many Japanese families do months in advance. Booking a seat or your order to take away at KFC is now a completely common thing to do in Japan, with meals selling out months in advance, and queues on the day taking up to two hours.

Due to it now becoming a staple of Japanese christmas tradition, KFC has expanded massively in Japan.

In 2012, Japanese airlines even took the fast food chain to the skies.

Although families in the UK do take trips to fast food chains on Christmas day, particularly in the evening, it is almost impossible to imagine the best feast of the year centering around greasy deep fried chicken - although apparently they have quite the gourmet menu, with red wine sauce and everything.

Five Fun Festive Attractions Around the UK The Hot Tub Cinema is a revolutionary way to watch a film with friends. There’s drinks, there’s water and there’s festive favourites such as Home Alone. Shoreditch once again continues to out do itself in terms of inventive and cool chill out spots, this East London attraction returns for the festive season after it’s summertime success. Look out for more films to be released and get your party hats ready for December 18 as there’s a Hot Tub Cinema Christmas Party with some surprises in store. £35 Adult Ticket or £27 each for a private hot tub for 7

Brighton will draw in crowds on the Decemeber 21 which is the shortest day of the year. Same Sky - Brighton’s community arts charity organises this free event where local people make their own paper lanterns and pass them into the fire on Brighton Beach as a token of the year’s end. This is a lovely way to celebrate the festive season regardless of your age or beliefs.

Henley-on-Thames has it’s own unique twist on the advent calendar Christmas tradition.

Each day of December a window or a door is opened at 6:30pm exactly to reveal a different thirty minute performance. Performances can include songs by live bands, carols, plays, book readings, artist sketches, dance performances and notes from local history folklore all with a Christmas theme. All performances are free to watch.

Chatsworth House, Derbyshire opens its doors to reveal a magical Alice in Wonderland adventure. Visitors should be prepared to head down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass into a vivid reimagining of Lewis Carroll’s classic. There’s attractions such as the Mad Hatter’s tea party and many characters you’ll recognise along the way. Along with all of this festive fun they will be holding an Alice and Wonderland themed masquerade ball.

Adult ticket £22

Bournmouth will be exhibiting Michael Grubb Studio’s award winning Light Pods and turning them in to an interactive illumiated spectacle which combines architecture, materials, sounds, video and light. Open from 10am to 10pm in Lower Gardens until January 4. Best of all this exhibition is completely free of charge .

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Dr Aleida Guevara March was invited to our Students’ Union to address the student body and other guests about the Ebola crisis and Cuba’s position on the international stage. She gave an informative and captivating speech which provided insight into Cuban internationalism and much more than just Cuba’s role in combatting Ebola. Matthew Wilde and Polly Winn were able to interview Guevara March, and learn more about her perspective on Cuba, international healthcare, and the power of the media

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The rest of the world could be missing out on life saving treatments

Dr. Aleida Guevara March, daughter of famous revolutionary Che Guevara, was invited by the “Comrades of the Cuban Solidarity campaign” to Sheffield, and then to talk at our Students’ Union. In her talk she painted a different picture, not just of Ebola, but of the international relations surrounding global response to health. Cuba’s influence in the Ebola Crisis and in other health crises is seemingly under told in international media.

When Guevara March told Features that the World Health Organisation (WHO) directly asked for the help of Cuban authorities to work towards resolving the Ebola crisis, it came as a slight surprise. We fully acknowledge - disclaimer alert - that this was completely down to our naive ignorance of Cuba and its prevalence in international health.

Perhaps if we’d taken Steve Ludlam’s POL3021: Cuba in the Post-Bipolar Age, we may have been slightly better informed! However, the talk was enlightening and broad, and Guevara March has a gift of storytelling, even with the barrier of an interpreter.

Features asked Guevara March whether she felt that the WHO’s decision to approach Cuba and their recognition of Cuba’s medical efforts would impact their position on the world stage, she responded; “No, because what we are doing now we have been doing it for a long time. Now it’s just that they’ve come to us to specifically ask for this. But a few months ago they asked for Cuban doctors to go to Brazil, and there are nearly 1400 in Brazil, so we have been doing this for a long time.”

In the UK press the story of Cuba’s influence is rarely told, it is only from the point of view of the USA. Guevara March commented on this saying; “This is a problem of UK journalists. Unfortunately, a lot of the time they just parrot what is said in the US press. It is not just the UK but Europe in general. They need to respect themselves as professionals, they need to investigate the information, not just replicate it.” Being given journalistic advice by Guevara March certainly was a story to write home about and gave Features food for thought.

The history of Cuba and the USA is one

of conflict and tension;the Bay of Pigs and Guantanamo Bay are examples of this. Given this we asked Guevara March how it would be for Cuban health workers working alongside Americans to fight Ebola. She gave us a clear and definitive answer: “There’s no problem. We get on well with the American people. The problem is not with them. The problem is with their government.”

The Cuban Embargo – or as Guevara March said the Cubans call it the “blockade” – makes life more than difficult for Cubans.

Guevara March told us of how Cuba have to pay three or four times the market price for goods (including baby milk formula) because the blockade limits their options to access global free trade. Boats that harbour in Cuba cannot travel into the USA for six months after, meaning that the transportation and purchasing of vital drugs can be extremely complicated and take a long time. Guevara March mentioned how sometimes there are loopholes through which Cuba can trade, but if these companies are found out they can be fined just for trading with Cuba. This has detrimental effects on the Cuban economy, and Guevara March suggested that if the blockade were to be lifted, the Cuban economy would flourish immediately.

But these policies are not isolated to just Cuba. Cuba has been developing new drugs and vaccines and they continue to do so, but due to the embargo put in place by the USA, they are unable to sell them around the world.

This means that the rest of the world could be missing out on life saving treatments. Guevara March even suggested that Cuba had been developing cures for forms of cancer.

Features wanted to know more on what Guevara March thought about the USA and the media. She pointed out that the “United States is the country which consumes the most oil in the world” and draws attention to conflict between the USA and Venezuela; “There is [an] extraordinary campaign against Venezuela, why?” Guevara March explains that it is “because the United States used to buy a barrel of oil from Venezuela for between five and seven dollars, and now they have to pay the market price.”

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If you demand respect you have to respect other people as well

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ecently the Ebola crisis in West Africa has created a media storm and dominated press, even motivating good ol’ Bob Geldof to step in with a brand new rendition of ‘Do they know it’s Christmas?’ for the sole purpose of helping people suffering with Ebola. Yet the prevailing picture of Ebola and the response to it that is portrayed in the media is predominantly from a USA perspective.

She highlights how ”for the first time, the people of Venezuela are the owners of what they produce. They can use their money for free hospitals, free universities, decent housing, and making work for their people, and this really doesn’t suit the United States” it is “economically affected” by the fact it has to pay the market price for oil. Guevara March stated that the USA “can’t accept that” and as a result, the USA has made efforts to “[turn] round international opinion.”

It was obvious that Guevara March had

a strong message she wanted to tell; about global health, economies, politics but perhaps most importantly about international cultural respect. Guevara March told Features that she was once asked her opinion of Saddam Hussein, when she gave a relatively apathetic answer, the woman confidently claimed that Saddam Hussein was a “tyrant”.

Guevara March responded: “Well, I am not going to argue with you about whether he was or wasn’t a tyrant. I don’t have sufficient information, I didn’t live in that reality, I can’t judge something I haven’t lived.”

Guevara March expanded this story to encompass her experiences of her time in Iran; “it was a huge sacrifice for me because from the moment I arrived I was forced to cover my head and I didn’t understand why, because that’s not my culture. And I said it to them, you have to respect all cultures, you can’t say that your cultures better or the only one in the world, I came because of respect of a people who that are brave, but you haven’t respected me, that’s a problem you are going to have to resolve in the coming years.”

Through these stories, Guevara March relayed a strong and significant message: “one thing I can say is no country in the world has any right to go and intervene in internal affairs of another country.

You have to respect countries, you have to respect cultures.”

Going on to say: “If you demand respect, you have to respect other people as well, and this is a basic question so that we can understand each other as human beings.”

Dr. Aleida Guevara March’s talk and the interview that followed was to say the least, inspiring. She spoke with impassioned messages of respect and solidarity. What we thought would be a talk about Cuba’s role in the Ebola crisis became so much more than that, and Guevara March’s readiness to answer our questions, and her gift for storytelling made it an eyeopening experience.

If you’d like to hear more about the talk, or more about Dr. Aleida Guevara March and her message check out News on Page 4, or go online and watch Forge TV’s interview on www.youtube.com/user/forgetelevision

@forgefeatures /forgepress

@ features@forgetoday.com

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A talk with Dr Aleida Guevara March: “The Greatest Story Never Told: Cuba Internationalism and the Ebola Crisis�

Photo Credit: Creative Commons

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How do you solve a problem like misogyny?

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Forge contributor Alex Burns explores the direction of modern feminism and its recent challenges

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’m a feminist. If believing in the equality of genders means I’m a feminist then that is exactly what I am. I would criticise anybody who thought differently. In a civilised society the fact that gender inequality exists is a disgusting truth and should be accepted as just that.

Yet unfortunately the term ‘feminist’ bears different connotations for many. Some believe that feminism has become about promoting female superiority rather than a movement for equality. A base group of radical protestors exists, but that’s not the media focus. Feminism is in the news, and for some that’s a positive step – any press is good press right? Women are speaking out for themselves, public figures are getting called out on sexist remarks and headlines are embroiled with terms like ‘misogyny’ and ‘patriarchy’. Yet, when we take a closer look at these examples, none of them directly address the problem.

Dapper Laughs, the now infamous TV personality created by comedian Daniel O’Reily, got his ITV show cancelled a few weeks ago. A figure risen to prominence through the use of social media - in essence the people made him popular - Dapper Laughs was one of a new craze of pickup artists, a group of predominantly male comedians that make jokes and slurs based on the art of picking up or pulling women. Despite the fact that Dapper Laughs, as a character, has been around for several years now, recently he became central in a media storm based around the inherent sexism in a lot of comedy. He was given a platform to voice his comedy to the nation and not just his followers. The public brought him to fame and then they destroyed him once he got there.

Daniel O’Reilly was ridiculed, and the internet went berserk. Live TV interviews and public apologies followed and O’Reilly promised never to portray the character again.

The river of popular opinion can flow quick – and it seems that many of those who had laughed along with his vines turned against him as soon as it became fashionable. As the media furore surrounded this Dapper and used him as a scapegoat for people to condemn male sexism, it became clear that the aims of

C u t the problem

sociological feminism were shifting. Is it no longer the wider attitude of the people that should be addressed? Or has, as ‘Dapper’ so honestly represents for us, the necessity to bring down the individual started to outweigh the problem of the public opinion that brought such a character to the fore in the first place?

The recent controversy surrounding Ched Evans’ partial readmission back into the folds of Sheffield United FC has brought the city into the debate. Ched Evans is another example of a high profile case that has caused a media storm. Julie Bindel noted in her piece for the Guardian a couple of weeks ago entitled ‘Feminism in in Danger of Becoming Toxic’, that Evans remains the only convicted rapist of any Football League player out of many who have been accused. Yet the focus remains on Evans, the reaction of Sheffield United, and the effect on their public image. It doesn’t depict the struggle to try and overturn a legal system that statistically fails rape victims on a regular basis. It doesn’t address the problem of communal sexism within football, or indeed the Football Association’s inaction.

ITV paid Daniel O’Reilly to broadcast his sexist views. The Player’s Football Association supported Evans’ right to return to the privilege of playing professional football. Waves of protest have been flung at both of these characters evidencing one of the greatest shows of general support for feminism, but bringing one person down does not deal with the problem. The fact that ITV have been left seemingly innocent for creating the platform through which ‘Dapper’ was able to voice his misogyny is something that surely should be questioned. The fact that they hired a man whose humour was so inherently sexist arguably highlights the problem of institutionalised gender inequality. One half-witted sexist little man risen to prominence is not the big problem.

Cut the problem at the root and the tree shall not grow.

When Matt Taylor, the Rosetta Stone scientist who landed a probe on a comet made a somewhat unconventional wardrobe choice, bearing images of scantily clad women, the slander he received made me feel honestly sorry for the man. An absent-minded decision from a man who obviously has more pressing issues at the forefront of his mind than his dress sense is more a crime against fashion than it is an act of blatant of sexism. I respect the fact that many may have found his shirt offensive, and empathise with the frustration felt by female scientists that were marginalised within

at the root and the tree shall not grow

their field. But expounding Taylor’s actions as an expression of inequality rather than an honest mistake again highlights the media problem with scapegoating.

The fact that feminist rhetoric has been used to justify the public shaming of an individual such as Taylor is, in itself, alienating. To see a grown man weep on TV you have to question whether the public outrage was proportionate to the act committed. Taylor had the right to wear whatever he wanted, and people have the right to be offended by it. But to focus on that offence and on one individual so indignantly can be isolating, and cause people to sympathise with the victim to a point where the feminists are seen as the aggressors. The Telegraph called the event ‘the day political correctness officially went mad’ and, in my view, they hit the nail on the head. Few people could argue that’s good press, focussing on supposed instances of casual sexism actually belittles real examples of inequality in the workplace.

One has got to question why personal attacks and identity politics have over-taken wider feminist political activism. A disproportionate focus on the individual due to the ‘cotton wool culture’ of everyday life is more in line with ideological censorship than with the aims of the feminist movement. It seems many feminists these days have lost the bottle to attack big corporations. Yet when the problem of sexism, however casual, remains ingrained with wider society, the attack on a solitary public figure rather than addressing the wider problem is a step backwards.

I’m not saying Dapper Laughs should have kept his show. I’m definitely not saying that Ched Evans should be pitied in any way. And I’m not saying that people were wrong to be offended by the shirt Dr. Matt Taylor wore.

People have the right to an opinion, but through feminist rhetoric seeping into popular culture it has become distorted.

It has become in some ways a movement of belligerence, not one of equality. Some branches of modern day feminism have arguably become something different to what feminism is supposed to stand for – and will increasingly lose progress as a movement if it continues to scapegoat.

We need that to change. We need to return to the basic ideas of political activism and target the institutions and the environments in which sexism is inherent.

Feminism is in danger of becoming something it was never meant to be, and if the movement dies arguing over a scantily clad woman on a scientists shirt then I would argue that it deserves little sympathy.

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@ features@forgetoday.com

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@forgelifestyle

LIFESTYLE&TRAVEL Lifestyle loves

by Isabel Dobinson

Fashion Christmas Jumpers This may be predictable, but Christmas jumpers are the staple piece of every winter wardrobe. Not only do they keep you warm and snuggly during the coming cold months, but you can also be fun and creative, adding Image: Wikipedia a splash of festive colour to your outfit. If you wanting the vintage look, then have pop into Cow for some authentic jazzy numbers. Otherwise high street shops including Topman and the Renewal section of Urban Outfitters have a great selection of festive jumpers and remember, the baggier the better!

Music

Kygo I admit, when it comes to Kygo, a 23-year-old DJ from Norway, I am a devoted (if not slightly psychotic) fan.

If you are into tropical house and electro then this chilled out music is perfect Image: KygoMusic for you. Following his outstanding remix of Marvin Gaye’s Sexual Healing and more recently, Ed Sheeran’s I see Fire, Kygo is rapidly becoming one of Europe’s freshest emerging DJs. Other fresh and inventive remixes include covers of Dolly Parton, Coldplay and Kyla La Grange. Kygo’s current tour is almost a sell out and witnessing the electronic atmosphere at his Edinburgh gig last week, I would certainly recommend investigating tickets to his London gig, Image: Isabel Dobinson you will not be disappointed. If you like what you hear, check out French DJ, Kungs - I have his Bob Marley remix on repeat!

Books

Everyday Sexism, Laura Bates Ever since listening to her talk last March organised by the Student Union, I have been an avid admirer of feminist writer and campaigner, Laura Bates. Following the launch of the Everyday Sexism Project in April 2012, via social media, women from across the globe have been sharing experiences of everyday harassment and are now spreading the word and taking a stand against the normality of sexism in the modern age. Last year, Bates published her first book, Everyday Sexism, which through thorough research and use of shocking stats, not only exposes the reality of sexism in the 21st century but also is incredibly inspiring – definitely a must read for women both men!

Image: Isabel Dobinson

/forgelifestyle lifestyle@forgetoday.com

Reclaim the Night On the November 21st, hundreds of women took to the streets of Sheffield to march for the right to feel safe to walk the streets of their own towns and cities, without the fear of harassment, attack and rape. In 2014, it’s shocking that rape and violence against women is still rife across the UK. This makes the Reclaim the Night marches just as relevant and popular now as they were when they first began here in Yorkshire in 1977.

Following a series of brutal murders by Peter Sutcliffe, dubbed the ‘Yorkshire ripper’ attacked and killed 13 women between 1975 and 1980, the Leeds Revolutionary Feminist Group took to the streets in response to the police restricting women across the county by placing a curfew. Although this was aimed to protect potential victims, not only was placing a curfew impractical and a violation of freedom, it was Image: Isabel Dobinson a clear example

by Isabel Dobinson

of victim blaming.

The marches have continued up to today with women from across the globe marching on the same night for the justice of rape survivors as well as for a broader Image: Emma Templer struggle against sexism, victim blaming and violence against women.

Like many others, I was completely unaware of the shocking statistics for rape and rape conviction until fairly recently. Thanks to campaigns including Laura Bates’ Everyday Sexism Project, previously taboo subjects such as rape as well as the prevalence of sexism in general are finally gaining the coverage needed to raise awareness.

This year was my first Reclaim the Night experience and it is safe to say that it will not be the last. Armed with our placards, my housemate and I enthusiastically posed for photos and chanted rhymes for the right to walk the streets of Sheffield without looking over our shoulders.

Like any protest, marching as a collective identity for something you passionately believe in is not only empowering, but also

really fun. Despite the rain, our spirits were not dampened and there was a fabulous turn out, including a band, which helped get us in the marching mood. After the march, there was the chance to warm up with a hot drink at the rally in Coffee Revolution, where a variety of speakers from women’s charities shared their own stories, inspiring the rest of us to carry on their work in campaigning for gender equality and the end of victim blaming. It soon hit home that despite many advances, there is still a long way to go to gain complete gender equality, globally and in the UK.

47,000 rapes, around 40,000 attempted rapes and over 300,000 sexual assaults happen in the UK every year, yet the conviction rate is only Image: Tricia McMillan 5.3% per cent.

(British Crime Survey) These statistics alone should be enough for men and women to join in the campaign for gender equality and the Reclaim the Night marches are just one of many ways to do this!

Britain’s best outdoor ice rinks

by Sophie Cockett

Whether you can dance around the rink like Christopher Dean, or you are aiming to keep yourself on your feet, skating at one of the UK’s magical outdoor ice rinks is the perfect way to spend a day this festive season. Up and down the country, iconic backdrops have been decked up ready for you to have a fun day out with your family and friends. Lifestyle contributor, Sophie Cockett lets us in on her top five outdoor ice rinks this winter.

London Winter Wonderland

London’s Hyde Park has once again been glammed up ready for Christmas. It has been transformed into the magical Winter Wonderland with a circus, fairground attractions, an ice kingdom, and of course, an outdoor ice rink. Set around a Victorian band stand, the ice rink has been decorated with over 100,000 lights making for the perfect setting.

The rink is open from 10am to 10pm daily, so you can skate in the winter sun or underneath the stars. Skate hire is free and sessions last one hour.

It’s no surprise that time slots get Image : Flickr booked up really quickly, so it’s well worth reserving to avoid disappointment. Winter Wonderland is open until 4th January, every day except Christmas Day. What are you waiting for?

Manchester’s Spinningfields

If you’re at the opposite end of the country and willing to face the unpredictable weather of the North, then head to Manchester to don your skates and glide around the ice.

For the fifth year running, Hardman’s Square has been transformed into one of the most sought after skating locations in the UK. Not only is the rink a stones throw from fairground rides and attractions, but you can also enjoy performances from carol singers and indulge in hot cocktails or mulled wine at one of the squares two Christmas bars. Once you’re feeling suitably festive, head to some of Manchester’s boutique shops for a last spot of Christmas shopping or settle down in front of the big screen for showings Image : Wikipedia of Christmas films

and music.

The rink will be open until January 5th 2015, and ticket prices range from £4 to £9, with discounts for family tickets.

Brighton

If you happen to be in Brighton this winter, head to the famous Royal Pavilion Gardens for an unforgettable and eco-friendly skating experience.

Image: Pixabay Brighton is leading the way when it comes to environmentally friendly skating this year, with the UK’s first ever “green rink”. Green energy is being used to freeze the ice and supply power for the thousands of twinkling lights used to decorate the gardens, so you can have guilt free fun in an atmospheric setting. What’s not to love?

The rink is open from now until the January 18th 2015, and it will cost £15 for adults and £8.50 for children.

Cardiff

The centrepiece to Cardiff’s own Winter Wonderland has to be the outdoor ice rink, suitable for everyone from seasoned ice skaters to complete beginners. Set on the City Hall Lawn, the rink is surrounded by rides, attractions, a Christmas market and Santa’s Grotto, so there’s plenty to do après-ski.

The rink is open from now until 5th January, and it will cost you £9 for adults and £6 for children.

London’s House

Somerset

For the last ice rink we are back in London, this time in the courtyard of Somerset House.

London has its fair share of outdoor ice rinks, but this one remains to be one of the most popular in the capital. According Image: Flickr to the Sunday Times, it’the “coolest rink of all”. It has something to offer whether you’re there day or night: once you’ve stepped off the ice during the day, head along the river to the Southbank Christmas Market. After dark, the rink will be home to some of the best clubs and DJ’s in London for a series of club nights. Grab yourself a cocktail from Fortnum’s Lodge or the Skate Lounge and relax in and amongst the most festive backdrop of them all.

Skate at Somerset House is open until January 11th 2015, from 10:00am until 11:30pm daily. Tickets cost £8.75, and booking is highly recommended.

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@forgelifestyle /forgelifestyle lifestyle@forgetoday.com

LIFESTYLE&TRAVEL

Society Spotlight : Swing Dance Society The University Swing society is one of the fastest growing society. We draw people from all sorts of backgrounds with a shared enthusiasm for fun and dance. Weekly classes are held on Tuesdays at the Students’ Union as well as regular workshops and plenty ofinformation on the latest events happening around Sheffield to showcase your latest dance skills.

Swing dance is a social dance, typically danced in pairs to music from the 1920s up to the 1950s. There is plenty of variation to how and what can be danced to, from the Charleston to the Jive. A revival in swing rhythms and styles in modern music in addition to the creative blend of swing music and electro house music, hip hop and house (electroswing) has captured a audience worldwide. The weekly lessons, which are held at Uni Central, welcome all dancing abilities, allowing people who have an interest in putting their moves on their dance floor and learning a variety of interesting styles.

Under the concourse or Revolucion de Cuba’s big Image : Pixabay Swing on a Wednesday

evening, the aim is to give people the confidence to get on to any dance floor and have a great time!

For those who want to further improve their dance skills, Swing dance society has for the first time organised Image : Maite Pinto i n t e r n a l Zangróniz workshops based on what our members have a passion for; from learning how to be a good partner to social dancing skills and working on details such as spatial awareness on the dance floor, the workshops are fun and educational.

These day workshops are smaller, more focused classes that help improve confidence and specific skills. Due to high levels of interest we will also be holding workshops focusing on slow dancing and blues, along with an aerials skills workshop.

Another event to watch out for is the society’s second swing weekend, the Seven

Hills Hop, in collaboration with the Sheffield Swing Community. This hugely successful event, which will be held on the Saturday February 28th and Sunday March 1st 2015.

It is a whole weekend of live music attended by internationally-acclaimed dance teachers and is a great way to gain comfort in social dancing in all environments and with a range of people.We also provide information about monthly speakeasies ranging from places such as Dada and The Harley to Sunday tea dances held by Lindy Hop Sheffield.

We love going on fun socials with our lessons always ending with a cheeky trip to Interval to help you get to know your fellow dance enthusiasts. If we’re not quite ready to head home, we carry the night on at Bloo88’s Salsa night, which is always great fun.

For those who love to put on a show, Swing dance society also puts on a performance group where routines are jointly choreographed and new skills are shared.

There is also the opportunity to take part in dance shows, past performances have been at Ceildhs and the Bio Medic bar. We love trying new dances so next year, in collaboration with Hip-Hop society we are having a dance off, showcasing talent, versatility and adaptability.

We are a fun and friendly society, welcoming everyone and anyone with a enthusiasm for dance.

Fun Fact: The name Lindy Hop comes from Charles Lindbergh also known as Lucky Lindy.

Though not known for his dancing style the world’s celebrations at his 1927 solo Atlantic crossing coincided with the naming of this wonderful dance. Thus was born the Lindy Hop. 8

loo 8 Image : B

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: Platfo

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Concourse couture

Fashion

David Kim Second year, Biochemistry Wearing: Coat, jumper, jeans, and shoes from independent shops and boutiques in South Korea

by Rebecca Soloman

by Mared Gruffydd

Harriet Brooker First year, History and Politics Wearing: Coat, top and shoes from Topshop, skirt and scarf are vintage.

Isaac Tendler First year, English Literature Wearing: Shoes and shirt from eBay, jeans and jumper from Topman and coat is a hand-me-down.

Beth McLeod Second year, Architecture Wearing: Jeans from Miss Selfridge, shoes from Zara, jacket is vintage, top is from a second hand shop.

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LIFESTYLE&TRAVEL

@forgelifestyle /forgelifestyle lifestyle@forgetoday.com

The Forge Lifestyle Advent Calendar

Over the next 21 days, Lifestyle brings you our Advent Calender to help you feel just that little bit more Christmassy. This calendar covers everything from festive fashion advice to Christmassy craft sessions you can attend. Work your way through this calendar created by Lifestyle editor, Niki Kesharaju, to find recipes for easy edible treats and Give It A Go trips to wintery castles.

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It’s not too late to do Secret Santa with your housemates or coursemates; avoid the drama of who gets to pick names out of a hat first and use www. drawnames.com. All you need is their names and emails and it does the hard work for you.

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If you haven’t heard about www. elfyourself.com already, you are missing out. Use images of friends on a template provided by the website to create a hilarious dance. We particularly love the ‘Hip Hop’ dance.

Download the video and share with your friends!

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Head to the beautiful 18th century Castle Howard for a breathtaking Christmas atmosphere, decoration, a brand new Garden Room and live music. Tickets cost £25.50 and can be bought either online or from the box office.

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Until Christmas Day, the Fired Arts Cafe on Ecclesall Road are open 7 days a week if painting festive mugs and baubles sounds fun. Keep them for yourself or give them away as presents.

Prices start at £3 per item and booking in advance is definitely reccommended.

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For Christmas cupcakes, pay a visit to Fancie on Ecclesall Road. These delightful cupcakes cost £2.70 each or a box of four is £10, which makes for a great Christmas present. If the Christmas cupcakes don’t take your fancy, the regular range is just as good.

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We wish you a very Merry Christmas from Forge Lifestyle and Forge Press.

Don’t worry that you’ve eaten over 5000 calories today. You’re just storing all that energy for the winter. Also, spending Boxing Day hungover is fully acceptable!

Image : Wikimedia

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Festive nail art is a fun way to spend a lazy Sunday.

There is lots of inspiration out there by bloggers and vloggers sharing their tutorials with you. Styles range from Santa to candy cane prints. Get glamorous with glitter or just quirky with snowmen.

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If you haven’t got your Christmas jumper yet, pop into A New Shop on Division Street or Freshman’s Vintage Clothing on Carver Street who have a range of jumpers from festive to foul. Whatever your choice, there’s a jumper waiting for you.

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Your best friend for Christmas Eve is NORAD’s Santa Tracker website, www. noradsanta.org. Follow Santa’s journey across the world, as he stops at different countries and count down till it’s Christmas in the UK.

Image : @flipnails on Instagram

Image : imgkid.com

Candy cane heart recipe Place candy canes in heart shapes on a tray and bake for five minutes at 150C. They should soften, so pinch the tops and bottoms to join them. Pour melted white chocolate once the hearts have cooled.

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Visit the Manchester Christmas markets with Erasmus society (USEES). Tickets are £12 (travel included) for nonmembers can be bought from the box office or the Students’ Union website.

D0n’t miss out on visiting one of England’s best festive markets.

Christmas is about sharing, so why not volunteer an afternoon wrapping presents for the homeless at St Wilfrids Centre? Visit the Sheffield Volunteering Office in the Students’ Union to book your place. The afternoon also includes a cooked lunch!

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One of the biggest trends for this party season is big jewelled accessories. Go for a chunky statement jewelled necklace or a sparkly top with jewel detailing around the neckline. Hair up and big gemstone earrings also add to the holiday glamour.

Cranberry sauce recipe 100g muscovado sugar 100ml water 250g cranberries Stir the water and sugar in a pan and bring to boil.

Then stir in cranberries for between five to eight minutes. Serve at room temperature.

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Make your daily cup of tea taste of Christmas with cinnamon.

Use either cinnamon powder or a cinammon stick with a teabag and then add the hot water. Let the tea infuse the flavours for two to three minutes and add the milk. Home made chai tea is now done!

Go for a short walk around the Botanical Gardens and pick up pine cones. Paint them golden or silver with spray cans so you can place them in bowls around the house.

Alternatively, you can hang it up on your Christmas tree as makeshift baubles.

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For a relaxing bath, Lush have their Christmas range of soaps, bubble bars and bath bombs to get you in the mood. The range comes in delightful shapes of snowmen and Santas, very affordably priced between £2 and £5 per item.

Buy a large pack of baubles and have any guests that come round yours sign them and hang them up on your Christmas tree. It might be cheesy, but it’s a great way to create a memorable personalised Christmas.

Save the baubles for the next year and read the messages!

Image : Lush

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Save a fortune on expensive Christmas cards and make your own. Items like card, glitter, paint can be bought very cheaply off eBay. It may take up some time, but nothing is more personal than sending a loved one a hand-made Christmas card.

White Christmas martini recipe Shake the following ingredients with ice for 30-60 seconds and pour into martini glasses: 1 shot of Baileys 1 shot of Creme de Cacao 1 shot of vodka 1 shot of single cream Serve with a dusting of cocoa powder on top.

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The Activities and Sports Zone is running a Give It A Go ‘Christmas Crafternoon’ where you can make home-made presents by upcycling items from landfills.

Tickets can be bought from the Students’ Union website for £1.

Images by Wikipedia and guardians-of-the-food.tumblr.com

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@forgelifestyle /forgelifestyle lifestyle@forgetoday.com

On a shoestring : Langkawi

Travel This fortnight’s travel column by Jonathan Pickles gives you some tropical South East Asian inspiration for your next holiday destination. Find out where is best to stay, eat and go and live your dream island holiday in Langkawi.

Situated in the Andaman Sea parallel to Thailand, Langkawi is just off the coast of Malaysia. It is the picturesque island that offers everything you would expect from a South East Asian beach resort.

If you have saved up a few pennies and fancy an expedition to South East Asia, then you should definitely visit Langkawi.

Even if it is just for a few days, Langkawi is the perfect destination for restoring your energy during the day and letting it loose during the evening.

If you have just finished trekking around Angkor Archaeological Park or getting lost in Bangkok, then take the opportunity to wind down for a few days in a destination you will never want to leave. Langkawi is only a small island and far less popular than its Thai neighbours, Phuket and Ko Samui. But if you want to avoid tourist traps, then this is the place for you.

Image : Wikipedia

With plenty of day time activities to participate in, be it water sports, a trip up to the famous sky bridge,

Lifestyle visits...

by Mared Gruffydd

LIFESTYLE&TRAVEL

or just relaxing on one of the many magnificent beaches, there is something here for everyone and all at affordable prices. Depending on the time of year you visit, you can also find jellyfish out on the beaches. Although, if you aren’t a fan of these little creatures, there are nets out so they won’t ruin your fun.

There are plenty of hotels you can rest your head in over the island, however you should try Pondok Keladi.

It’s is perfect if you are Image : Jonathan Pickles feeling a little adventurous, and are not one of these people who thinks that every poisonous creature in the rainforest is out to get you. Located in the rainforest only a 10 minute walk from the nearest town, Pantai Tengah, for only 100 Ringgits a night (£19), you get a room, free use of the communal kitchen and either a Land Rover or a moped you can take all around the island. In Malaysia, they drive on the left side of the road, which is perfect for the frantic British driver. You may be lucky enough to get the room with the tree frog perched above the door, that urinates in its enemies eyes as a defence mechanism – perfect if you get intruders.

As well as day time activities, there are also lots of things to do in the evening. With plenty of restaurants along the beach, being a fishing resort, you can dine in one of the many

By Jonathan Pickles restaurants that offer you expensive seafood dishes for only a few ringgits. There are also a couple of McDonalds on the island if you find yourself missing home comforts.

At night you can visit the many bars on the island and buy pints of beer or spirit mixers for as little as 5 Ringgits (£1).

If you want a good night out, visit the reggae bar on the beach, in Pentai Te n g a h , Image : Jonathan Pickles followed by SunBa up the road, which is perfect for dancing and meeting lots of other travellers and locals. It is best to steer clear of drugs as in Malaysia they issue the death penalty to anybody carrying over a certain amount (100g of cannabis and 30g of cocaine).

Just to make your holiday even cheaper, Langkawi is a duty free island. So if you need to stock up on cigarettes before you go home, do not forget to visit the local duty free store.

A carton of 200 Marlboro Lights costing around 80 Ringgits or £15.

South East Asia is a bucket list destination for most of you, so do not go all that way without visiting Langkawi. Your dream island holiday is only a short journey away.

Recipe Corner Sheffield style show Lifestyle’s Definitely alcoholic

by Tom Schneider

On November 23 and 24, Sheffield Style Show hosted its first fashion event in the elegant Royal Victoria Hotel on Victoria Station Road, only five minutes away from the city centre. Tickets to get in were £15 but the goody bag on the door made up for it as it included a free sample of Colgate Max White toothpaste, Nivea shower cream, two small packets of Special K granola, and even a £25 gift card to spend at Hellofresh.co.uk, an online company which delivers healthy recipes and ingredients to your door. Sandwiches, croissants, cakes and drinks were available in the grand foyer and the main room was beautifully decorated with Christmassy trimmings and had posh chandeliers dangling from the high ceiling. In the middle of the room was a catwalk with models strutting down it wearing different kinds of clothes for the photographers and the audience.

I was lucky enough to see four catwalk shows all together but there were many more throughout the day. The models wore local designers’ clothes, which were also on sale on little stalls around the room. Love The Lot was the first brand I saw on the catwalk; a boutique on Ecclesall Road which opened last February. Offering timeless pieces for women of all ages, it is a place where you can buy clothes by many designers from all over Europe. I very much liked their variety of stylish clothes, from short leather skirts and floor-length shimmering dresses to chunky knitted jumpers and navy trench coats. One well-dressed designer, Fan Yang, had a stall at the event and her clothing line, Roselle, is available in Love The Lot. The boutique is also online on www.lovethelot.co.uk.

Next on the catwalk were children modelling clothes from Squirts. another boutique on Ecclesall Road which sells fun, bright children’s clothes of different makes, including the British brandHunter to the French brand Eliane et Lena. Polka Dot Velvet was another that exhibited their collection on the catwalk, but this boutique is situated in Blackburn and their website will be online soon. Their models wore leather trousers, black fur gilets, sparkly peplum tops, tight lace dresses, pleated skirts and many other stylish night out clothes that would be perfect to wear to upcoming Christmas parties.

mulled wine

Now that December is in full swing, ‘tis the season for guilt-free merriness. Surely the best route to a seasonal sozzling, is making an industrial amount of mulled wine, filling the kitchen with the official smell of Christmas. Also, if you make a suitably industrial amount, this recipe will make you housemate of the day for sure.

And the brilliant thing with this recipe? By avoiding boiling the wine like most other mulled wine recipes, you aren’t boiling off any of the alcohol!

Ingredients: (Enough for three thirsty students)

3 bottles of red wine (quality by no means essential, seriously) 1 bottle of smooth orange juice Mulling spices (3 cinnamon sticks, decent amount of cloves, some grated nutmeg, or, much easier, use 3 tea bag-sized bags of mulling spices) Method

1. Put the orange juice in a saucepan with the mulling spices and reduce until at least half of the juice has boiled off and you are left with a syrup 2. Pour some wine into a glass and add some syrup, to taste (probably about 6:1 ratio)

3. Then give the glass a wizz in the microwave and you are left with mulled wine and the alcohol very much intact.

There were many stalls around the room, displaying clothes from different local companies, like I Want Your Clothes which started as a fashion blog back in 2011 but is now a successful online shop which sells quirky jumpers, pretty blouses and printed dresses, all affordably priced from £15 to £40.

For those who could afford it, more expensive pieces were on sale at the event too, like Michael Kors handbags and Barbour coats. In a little room at the back of the hotel, there were stalls selling hair and beauty products, jewellery and even Christmassy crafts to put everyone in the festive spirit.

The event was a real success and I hope even more people will go along to it next year as it was the perfect opportunity for new designers and small companies to show off their collections. It also showed another side to Sheffield - a stylish, classy side. The glamorously dressed women in heels and dresses gliding around sipping wine and the exhibited elegant clothes which looked a lot more expensive than they were, made me think that I was at some chic London fashion show rather than at Sheffield. Photos and films from the event will be up soon on www.sheffieldlive.org so make sure you take a look.

All images: Mared Gruffydd

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ikimedia

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COFFEE BREAK December 5th in History

@FPCoffeeBreak /forgepresscoffeebreak

Did you know...

1492 Christopher 1932 Albert Einstein Columbus dissevered was granted a visa Hispaniola, now known making it possible for as Haiti. him to travel to the U.S.

“Jingle Bells” was originally written for a Thanksgiving Celebration, but still became the first song to be sung in space by astronauts Tom Stafford and Wally Schirra, on the 16th of December, 1965.

1560 Charles IX 1932 Little Richard succeeded Francis II as (Richard Wayne King of France Penniman) was born 1839 General George 1951 In Washington Amstrong Custer was DC, the first pushborn in New Rumley, button controlled garage OH. opened

Coca-Cola was the first company to use Santa Clause in a winter adverting campaign.

1848 U.S. President 1989 the former Polk confirmed that gold leaders of East Germany had been discovered in were placed under house California, triggering arrest. the Gold Rush of ‘49 2008 iTunes Music 1901 Walt Elias Store reached 300 Disney was born million applications downloaded

Christmas was declared not a legal holiday in Oklahoma until 1907, the last US state to do so.

The first was Alabama in 1836.’

Mistake of the Fortnight

India’s most senior policeman, Ranjit Sinha, was caught sleeping through the prime minster’s speech about alert policing. Irony, much?

Word

of the fortnight:

Opsomaniac, noun: 1. A person with an excessive craving for a particular food, esp. a delicacy.

In Charles Dickens’ famous festive novel ‘A Christmas Carol’, Ebenezer Scrooge’s original catchphrase was ‘Bah Christmas’ rather than ‘Bah Humbug.’

Dates for the Diary For those just barely biting back the bah humbugs, are already fed up of Christmas songs or already behind on the advent calendars, Coffee Break has found some alternative festivities to embrace.

December 5th of Bathtub Party Day! Creators of this special event Wellcat. com encourage you to run yourself a bath, overdose on bubbles and give yourself some time to soak. December’s a busy month, so take some time out this Friday and embrace Bathtub Party Day.

December 6th is Put on Your Own Shoes Day! Probably created by a young mother trying to encourage her children to put their shoes on for the first time, Put on Your Own Shoes Day is still a great opportunity to celebrate the small things in life. The little victories are important and putting your shoes on wasn’t always so easy. Good job, guys.

December 5th is also Repeal Day! On December 5th 1993, congress repealed the 18th Amendment and ended Prohibition. After fourteen years dry, Americans were once more free to buy, sell and consume alcoholic beverages. I’ll drink to that.

December 10th is Human Rights Day! Created by the United Nations, this day comes 66 years after the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and aims to raise awareness of the importance of Human Right issues around the world.

December 12th is National Ding-a-Ling Day! This Friday is a day to embrace to ‘ring your bell’ and embrace your crazier side. Forgetting reigning yourself in, it’s time to celebrate your bizarre eccentricities and chuck out our conceptions of normal. Cut loose. Act a little weird. On this day, anything goes.

Festive Dogs of the fortnight

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COFFEE BREAK

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Quotes of the fortnight

“

He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree.

Roy L. Smith

”

“

Maybe Christmas, the Grinch thought, doesn’t come from a store. ” Dr. Seuss

“ The two most joyous times of the year are ”

Christmas morning and the end of school.

Alice Cooper

dingbats

Dingbats are visual word puzzles from which you must identify a well-known phrase or saying.

Crossword: Matthew Sapsed Across: 7. Dye (6) 8. Shake (6) 9. Batter - abuse (8) 10. Join (4) 11. Brief note (4) 13. Definite - total (8) 15. Cellar (8) 17. Arrest (4) 19. Cab (4) 20. Fine (4,4) 22. Expose (6) 23. Take for granted (6)

Down: 1. Reason (for murder?) (6) 2. Fasten (4) 3. Shocking (8) 4. Badly behaved child (4) 5. Adult male horse (8) 6. Draw back (6) 12. Unfair (3-5) 14. Lesson (8) 16. Stir (6) 18. Regular feature in a newspaper (6) 20. Disgusting (4) 21. Informed (4)

1.

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r u o g n i n i o j f o g n i k n Thi ? m a e t GM A r o f e c a p s s i h t h ! s Watc e t a d

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SPORT

PricE of Football

Forge Sport writers Danny Armstrong and Jack Wignall investigate how rising prices in football have come at a serious cost to the fans

onicaly of whom ir oligans, man ions, the umbrella ho ll ba ot fo s mill wn on ted Thatcher’ who ut a busi- do st a game b s at that. ly also popula country’s unemployed govju r ge n lo o es e e n n th iv si is r at u l b fo rv al le se tb b rm on te ta Foo generating effect of her C highly profi ness - and a the largest revenue-ing to grow, were a sidepolicies. u of n t’s e ernmen is conti It is on increase in e world and was evident sports in th been reflected by theubs on wage the terraces ovided ample on e cl as nc y h le b io h t V ic en so pr wh last couple of money sp and a e country and the amount transfer fees over the 90s, across th for radical punishmentsll fans 19 e th of d g an ce ba iden of foot eginnin packets multiplied ev neralisation acSince the b of decades. cord transfer fee has , outlining sweeping ge hen current author and for W re on ed li s. ld il on ug or is m th w pr 5 as £8 the nant was im st the football en fold to tor Cass Pen 1980 he became the fir r almost elev d impact of money in in s ce ar an ence fo nt se four ye y the enh th ng a le an to receive . world. ce gue in 1992 m en ea ol L vi r ll ie ba m ot re tion of the P nglish foot- fo the The introduc upturn in revenue in Eally known, t tough and p in ar vernment go ous. ig sh or go a as he w T it V caused as T ri came se lucrative miership, At £4.50, Con ball. The Preh it extra money from per year. This penalties be fe iit ad on w St lli t l bi gh s se ide Kidderm rence Premier £2 ou ey br oximately fecting the dedicated ter the H la pr s ap n ar ee th ye or tw e w iv be F af ge rights offer the mo insster Harriers sts is mainly ge extortionr drove a wed increase in coball clubs in this era charkits and any um Disasteotball and the sport on in the top fiv st expensive pie fans. Top footr season tickets, replica fer. They can English foent. English teams were e divisions. ate prices fo t and service they can of due to sheer the contin om European competifr es uc nic ed ie od pr al pr ud e r cl gh othe with such hi ance of Pre- exon and English fans wer A pie at also get awaycted by the average attend last sea- ti .

1% 2. fle Harriers’Agg the ated demand, re games – which rose by borough tragground wou mier League season before. e Hillsboroughfluenth , e ld 89 th s 19 e om t you back In fr son most in ainst by £1.20 more e protests ag driv- edy prompted the lish stadium ag su as th t a no n to Eng day is is does United’s offe Sheffield However, th the price of football to s roots and tial changes as as cl ring. s, st ng . co ki gn or si ng w de si s ri away from it ters to be able dent, ci in ing the gamepossible for many supporthe game they e th on In his report Taylor recommaking it im ch and be involved with et for a Preice Source: BBC to afford, wat t expensive season tick charge up to Lord Just at all professional os th ho m w d , he de be al T . en en in m ve rs ta e lo games at th team is at A ounds in Bri mier Leaguens to watch all their home £53 for each football gr ater stadia and soon ailse of fa lr me a seat av rt al fo e pa £2,013 h top com terraces beca t European grounds - the best lis sh m ng ti iu E ri ad e B th St on whils ble in spaces Emirates l year round eapest availa chester City, able to rent alr original form. game. The chided by champions Man retained thei flight is prov de play ched their si y at £299. an m ted fans wat just £3.50 in 1989. ni at U r an te th es e iv ch pens Man s for % ish giants, much more ex ’s elite team rate of inflation at 77.1 0.

This is still ean clubs. The two Span e .2 as the division th r £6 e fo tl st ts lit co en w as m op cket should noStretford End of the big Eur d Real Madrid, charge ern Munich With adjust e , the same ti Barcelona an£174.65 respectively. Bay £100 for an since then the cheapest seat in th ity, 0%. al 70 re of In se £103.38 and Dortmund charge around or ri P a £28, Lisbon of now stands at and Borussiaon ticket while Sporting 5. of nostal£5 as at se e e op eciate a pinchat is seven ag ur pr er E ap av in t ho w es w u lo yo the es, th For those of tugal charge finance figur t and r. the continen liti- gia mixed with hard ba o on dd es re lu F a va of tween ease ber of po times the incr The chasm ben be attributed to a num popularity ca lly ca ti es y and risingtive Premier m lit do bi la ai s. av or ct fa attrac Diminishing cal and social the uction of an et prictroduction of dec- stoked by the introdclubs soon increased tick erage in e th g in av a ed e at ec as th th pr w by nt h ly ea ot ed te m m match League Immedia gue behe what could be Premier Leae that shaped the working es far beyond in s ad se as cl e iddl hing and lower-m e roots of the fan. ue, will anyt England - thn. set to contine in ticket prices of d en tr is th fa With e valu ‘dedicated’ to improve th mething back ever be done avyweights and give so e game - the s ar ye n te he w th - the football le who really care about try are being The 1980s sa under Marga op e coun th ss ro ers ac of governance which unques- to the pe ns through bann ans’ opinio ret Thatcher, ed blue-collar fans? F rough chants and seeng heard? Will it be ap tionably sh tball can lay a heard thests, but are they bein n seriously and imot Britain. Foo being one of the and pr fore their views are take ill tell. solid claim tosocial life directly long bee powers that be? Time w segments of by the Iron Lady’s pact th transformed ng her tenure at politics duri her sought to crack No. 10. Thatc

At £10, Sheff ie ld We d n e s d ay ( a lo n g w it h D e r by C ounty) o f fe r t h e c h e ap e s t m a t c h d ay t ic ke t o f a ny s id e in the Fo o t b a ll L e a g u e.

£10

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We asked you for your suggestions of Christmas football player puns... And here are the best! And, for an extra stocking filler, read some of 2014’s funniest sporting quotes.

Forge Sport’s Christmas XI

Referee: Wolfgang Hark

Formation: 4-3-2-1 (Christmas Tree)

Demba Ba-Humbug

David Egg-Nog

Manager: Stuart Pearce and Goodwill Fabian Elf

Assistant manager: Ryan Giggs-inBlankets Substitutes Bench:

“I’ve seen Jaws 1, 2 and 3 and sharks don’t scare me” - Toulon owner Mourad Boudjellal on the prospect of his side playing South African side Sharks “What we build with our hands, we knock down with our butts” - Borussia Dortmund boss Jurgen Klopp doesn’t take defeat sitting down

Ryan Bauble

Santa Cazorla

Ho-ho-Jose Enrique Sledley King

Silent Zat Knight Ruudolph van Nistelrooy Angel Gabriel Agbonlahor Harry Candy Kane Sleighton Baines Stefan Scroogeall Ben Froster

Christmas Crackers

“Coaches are like watermelons. You find out about them when you open them” - An ominous quote from Leeds owner Massimo Cellino

Leroy Fir

Vixen Kompany

“Fellaini has taken his tracksuit off. Fortunately, he he has a Man Utd strip on underneath” - West Brom’s Twitter account...just before Fellaini scored.

Eric Rein-Dier

“Basically, I am like a dog - I just run after a ball” - An indepth look into rugby union tactics from Chris Ashton “He dribbled through the Spurs defence like Ricky Villa, but his finish was more like Ricky Gervais” - Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers on Raheem Sterling

Roy Carol

“We’re aiming for a top 11 finish” - London Welsh skipper Gordon Ross on their promotion to the 12-team Guinness Premiership

Ruthless Hallam women hit sorry Sheffield for six Women’s Football BUCS Northern 1A Sheffield Hallam 6 University of Sheffield 1 Anthony Phillips The University of Sheffield Women’s 1s once again fell short in a highly anticipated BUCS Northern 1A clash with close rivals Sheffield Hallam, collapsing to a 6-1 defeat.

On a cold but clear afternoon at Hallam Sports Park, Sheffield were attempting to gain revenge on their neighbours

following a 7-0 loss in the Varsity fixture earlier this year.

Sheffield started the brightest against the league leaders, with Hallam being held down in their own half following intense Sheffield pressure for the majority of the opening 10 minutes.

After 15 minutes however, poor play at the edge of the Sheffield box gave Hallam a gift as the ball was intercepted and driven into the box, allowing an easy tap in for the Hallam striker.

The visitors were quite content to hit Hallam on the counter attack, with captain Sophie Williams giving a commanding performance as the sole striker with numerous runs causing havoc for the home defence.

The second and third Hallam goals were reminiscent of the first. Poor Sheffield defending allowed the Hallam striker to nip in and lob the ball over the stranded keeper, whilst the third goal was another tap in following an expertly driven low cross into the box.

Williams pulled one back for Sheffield before the stroke of half time with a well placed shot from the edge of the penalty area that curled into the top corner.

That goal gave Sheffield renewed confidence, but a minute after half time they conceded a fourth following abysmal defending at a corner.

The referee’s performance came in for criticism from both coaches following Hallam’s fifth goal. A Sheffield clearance

struck the low hanging wire that runs across the 3G pitch and rebounded to a Hallam player who couldn’t believe her luck as she stroked the ball home.

The referee allowed the goal to stand, much to the consternation of Sheffield’s players, but they could have no complaints about the hosts’ sixth as a Hallam player hit a first time volley going across her body into the top corner of the Sheffield net.

Katie McGreavey added a consolation for the away side towards the end of the match, but Sheffield will hope for a much better performance next week away to Leeds University.

Forge Sport awards

Forge Sport editor Ed McCosh chooses his heroes and villains of the week Cricket

üü

After the tragic death of Australian batsman Phil Hughes, the cricket world rallied together to pay tribute with the “Put Your Bat Out” and “63 not out” campaigns.

Ronnie O’Sullivan Maverick snooker sensation Ronnie O’Sullivan produced an inch-perfect trick shot to pot the black as he cantered on in the UK Snooker Championships.

ü

Alastair Cook

Photos: Wikipedia Commons

û

It doesn’t rain, but it pours for the England cricket captain.

Cook finally secured an ODI win in Sri Lanka after calls for his head, but has now been banned for the fourth match due to a slow over rate.

Dave Whelan

ûû

The Wigan owner, while attempting to bail out manager Malky Mackay, somehow managed to land himself in hot water for controversial comments of his own.

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Home is not where the heart is

One point from three home games for Sheffield United as they slip to another home loss Football League One Sheffield United Milton Keynes Dons

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Tom Pyman Sheffield United were left frustrated as they were beaten by a late strike against fellow promotion hopefuls, MK Dons.

Highly-rated midfielder Dele Alli scrambled the ball home on 87 minutes to claim a smash-andgrab victory for Karl Robinson’s side after United had dominated most of the game.

The Blades had only scored seven of their 35 goals in the first half of games going into this fixture, so it was perhaps ambitious to expect goals in the opening period.

Nigel Clough suggested as much in his programme notes, saying of the Notts County game last Friday: “It is worrying that it takes us until falling behind to another poor goal in the first half before we start playing on the front foot.”

So it proved in a cagey first 45 minutes where chances were few and far between.

The hosts were seeing a lot of the ball but struggled to create anything substantial until Michael Doyle switched the play to the left, where Bob Harris slid a dangerous ball across the face of goal that evaded everyone including Chris Basham who came steaming in at the back post.

Disappointingly, Chris

Sheffield United’s Bramall Lane home O’Grady’s Blades debut lasted just 23 minutes after he limped off with an injury to be replaced

by Marc McNulty.

The best chance of the half came six minutes before the break when McNulty headed CampbellRyce’s corner over from six yards when he really should have hit the target.

In truth, the second period did

little more to warm the 17,000 in attendance on a bitterly cold evening at Bramall Lane.

Stefan Scougall warmed the gloves of Dons keeper David Martin early in the half before McNulty hooked a chance narrowly wide after the visitors failed to clear a Blades corner.

Campbell-Ryce then fizzed in another cross which Basham also

Photo: Joe Bamford headed wide.

The introduction of top scorer Benik Afobe for Ben Reeves added another dimension to the Dons’ game.

The man on-loan from Arsenal roasted Ryan Flynn on the left and fired over a dangerous cross with the outside of his boot that, like Harris’ delivery in the first half, narrowly evaded everyone.

At the other end Murphy tested Martin at his near post before Flynn blazed an effort miles over when he had men in support, much to the dismay of fans and teammates alike.

On 76 minutes, United had the ball in the net courtesy of Paddy McCarthy after McNulty was initially denied by the post, but the linesman’s flag was quickly up to deny the home side.

Ten minutes later, MK Dons were awarded a free-kick in a promising position just outside the area.

Danny Green’s strike initially hit the wall, the ball pinged around the area like a pinball until Alli tucked home from close range to score what would prove to be the winner.

United huffed and puffed in the short time that remained, and Green was sent off for a second booking in injury time but the visitors held on to win three huge points.

Afterwards, Clough told the press: “I thought there were 22 very, very honest players out there but I’m at a complete loss to try and explain the officials.

“I couldn’t understand what they were doing from the first minute to the last tonight.

“We don’t seem to be getting a break at the moment but we keep putting good balls in and to a man I thought we played well.”

On O’Grady’s injury, he said: “He just felt his calf, he strained it a couple of times since Friday and he felt it tighten up again.

“We’re hoping it’s not too bad and he’s got 10 days until Fleetwood when he can play again.”

Scot slots twice to answer Gray’s Mayday call Football Championship Sheffield Wednesday Wigan Athletic

2 1

Ed McCosh “We must get it right in both boxes and that means scoring goals” If Stuart Gray had known that the prayers in his pre-match notes would be answered so resoundingly, he’d be tempted to outline some more exact demands in the programme when Wolverhampton Wanderers come to town in two weeks’ time.

A first win since September 20 over a struggling Wigan Athletic may not have moved Wednesday away from 13th in the Championship table, but the effect on team morale could yet prove to be priceless.

In the end the home side were indebted to now fully fledged Scotland international Stevie May, whose brace not only provided the Owls with their first Hillsborough goals in a day shy of two months, but with all three points.

It was the home side who threatened first, with Atdhe Nuhiu heading Royston Drenthe’s clipped cross tamely into the hands of visiting keeper

Scott Carson before the everpresent May dragged a low shot across goal.

The Latics, hit by the lastminute withdrawal of influential winger Shaun Maloney through illness, struggled to create chances early on. James McClean started in Maloney’s place, and posed a threat throughout along with Callum McManaman, who tested Kieren Westwood in the Wednesday goal with a drilled shot 13 minutes in.

Wednesday were dominant in the opening stages and when Jose Semedo’s effort beat Carson only the post denied them the lead. Therefore, it was a surprise to all 20,609 in attendance when Wigan took the lead against the run of play.

McClean’s inswinging corner from the right was met by a stooping Chris McCann, who celebrated his return from a lengthy spell on the sidelines with a powerful header that put the gleeful visitors in front.

Even more surprising than Wigan taking the lead was the swift response from Wednesday that restored parity within a minute. Nuhiu was the architect, holding up the ball in the visitors’ penalty area under pressure before playing a clever ball to May, who somehow found himself in space while three defenders flanked his strike partner.

The Scot made no mistake, slotting confidently past Carson to level the scores.

A sensational minute of football was the catalyst for a flurry of chances for either side in the latter portion of an exciting first half; Jeremy Helan was denied by a sprawling Carson as he burst clear on the Wednesday left, before McClean and McManaman both went close.

The Wigan defence was struggling to deal with the twin threat of the powerful Nuhiu and the ceaseless energy of May - a long punt by Westwood seemed to be heading nowhere until Nuhiu’s perseverance saw him dispossess Ivan Ramis, who was booked for dragging down the Austrian as he bore down on goal. It proved to be the Wigan defender’s final act, as boss Malky Mackay ended the Spaniard’s torrid afternoon early by replacing him with James Perch.

A noteworthy moment came as the players trudged off at the break - Westwood appeared to have an altercation with midfielder Chris Maguire over the latter’s marking for the opening goal. With such a heated first half something was always likely to boil over. A storm in a teacup, Gray promised in his post-match press conference. It seemed to be indicative of not only the team spirit that kept

Wednesday going even in tough periods, but the desperation to secure a vital victory.

The second period lacked the intensity of its predecessor, but both sides still looked capable of scoring. McClean rose highest to power a header towards goal just after the 50-minute mark, but Lewis McGugan was on hand to hack the ball off the line and to safety.

Minutes later, an inswinging corner was headed into McCann’s path by Leon Barnett but the Wigan midfielder could only hook his shot over the bar.

The tempo dropped off somewhat, with Barnett’s booking for blocking off McGugan’s run the only moment of note for a period of around quarter of an hour, but Hillsborough was rocking again on the 70 minute mark as May gave Wednesday the lead.

Just as the opener had been, the decisive goal was against the run of play. Great work from Helan on the left allowed Maguire to whip in a cross, which was met by May. His header struck the right hand post, bobbled across into the left, and was cleared by Carson.

However, the ball had already crossed the line, and after some nervous glances across at the assistant referee the Wednesday players and fans were able to

celebrate taking the lead.

The final stages were played out in a circular fashion - Wigan would attack, Wednesday would clear and launch a counter which fizzled out due to poor decisionmaking, and the cycle would continue. May passed up a giltedged chance to complete a first hat-trick in English football, a poor first touch allowing Carson to come and deny the Scot the goal that would’ve sealed the win.

However, in the end a third goal was not necessary, and in scoring two goals in a home league game for the first time this campaign Wednesday were able to round off a crucial victory.

Photo: 101greatgoals.com

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Basketball fall just short

Women’s Basketball BUCS Northern 2B University of Sheffield Durham University

41 45

Rob Milne The University of Sheffield Women’s Basketball 1s were unable to complete a dramatic comeback against Durham University 2s, losing 41-45.

Unbeaten Durham lead the league going into the game, whilst Sheffield were looking to bounce back following defeat in their previous game and earn their fourth victory.

Sheffield opened the scoring at Goodwin with a perfectly executed rebound and layin but Durham bounced back immediately. In the early stages Sheffield had the better of play, especially with rebounding and

pure hustle.

But the teams struggled to open up a significant lead in the first quarter, as both suffered from a poor shooting performance.

Despite this, it was clear that Durham were getting more opportunities to score as a result of some elite spacing around the basket.

Going into the second quarter at 14-14, Durham started to convert a higher percentage of their chances, while Sheffield continued to miss. This was certainly a quarter to forget for the Black and Gold as they looked for something to change their luck, enduring five straight minutes without a point before Courtney Shaw sunk one of her free throws.

Three point shots were not forthcoming for either side, as both were simply wasting possession when taking a shot from beyond the arc. Both teams

were wasteful, with the difference being Durham were clinical when given a wide-open opportunity.

The rim was Sheffield’s greatest enemy.

Going into the third quarter, despite Sheffield’s struggles they were still in touching distance, only trailing by five points. Shots continued to fall for Durham but Sheffield finally found their scoring touch. Katherine Szabo entered the game and made an immediate impact, finishing two lay-ups in quick succession, marking the beginning of a comeback. The momentum was with the home team.

The lack of persistence on the offensive saw the comeback stall, as Durham were given more offensive possessions and capitalised with some crisp shooting.

Toward the end of the third quarter and into the fourth Courtney Shaw came into her

own. A lovely drive to the basket sparked a good run for the team as Shaw confidently laid the ball in. At times it seemed Shaw was becoming frustrated with her teammates but without her input the game would have been out of reach going into the final minutes.

Durham’s shooting percentage continued to improve keeping the five-point gap. Sheffield showed signs of talent and high-tempo play but not often enough to grab the win against the league leaders.

from Jack Coulson put Hooper one-on-one with Durham keeper Sam Lloyd, who stood tall and forced the shot wide.

Hooper was made to rue his lack of composure in front of goal as Durham equalised on 15 minutes after some lax defending allowed Guy Dickson to fire home.

The home side quickly restored their lead two minutes later as Jack Culmer rounded off a fine team move, putting the ball past the hapless Lloyd in the Durham goal to make it 2-1.

James Cozens could have made proceedings more comfortable before the break, but he fired over from point blank range.

Sheffield came out firing after

the break and Owen Davies nearly squeezed in a shot at the near post, but he fired narrowly wide.

As the game wore on, Davies began to have a greater influence on proceedings and was instrumental in the third goal.

A fine one-two between Davies and Cozens on the right put the former in the clear and he played a fine pass to Ollie Large, who ran to the byline before producing a pin-point cross for Coulson to finish with aplomb.

With the two goal lead reestablished, Sheffield began to play with real verve, cutting the Durham defence open at will.

Hooper nearly doubled his tally

for the evening but was once again thwarted by Lloyd, who produced a man-of-the-match display for the visitors.

Lloyd’s heroics, however, couldn’t stop Sheffield adding a fourth. This time Culmer turned provider for Cozens, who scored a thoroughly deserved goal on the turn.

It could have got even worse for Durham but for Lloyd’s heroic display, as he once again produced a series of fine stops to keep out efforts from Davies and Large.

The hosts were full value for their 4-1 victory, which sees them remain top of BUCS Northern 1A table on 18 points.

More articles online Read more reports, fixtures and features online all fortnight

DOT COM

Hockey 1s hit summit after Durham drubbing Men’s Hockey BUCS Northern 1A University of Sheffield Durham University

4 1

Jack Taylor The University of Sheffield continued their flying start to the season with a comfortable 4-1 victory against Durham at Goodwin.

Sheffield flew out of the blocks, with Marcus Hooper drove home at the second attempt following a penalty corner routine.

The hosts almost doubled their lead two minutes later, when a quick break and fine through ball

Mixed results for University hockey club

2s left in doldrums after Durham humdrum Men’s Football BUCS Northern 4B University of Sheffield Durham University Reginaldo Rosario The University of Sheffield Men’s 2s slumped to their fifth straight defeat of the season on Wednesday, losing 2-0 to Durham University 2s at Norton.

Having lost 3-1 last time out to the University of York 2s, Sheffield were looking to bounce back and earn their first points of the season, but Durham dominated proceedings in what was mostly a drab encounter.

The first goal went to the visitors in the 29th minute, with the Durham winger scoring with a placed effort across the keeper from the edge of the Sheffield box.

With the away side dominating possession, Sheffield were unable to gain a foothold in the game as they spent most of their time chasing down lost causes.

The Durham attackers were causing the home defence all sorts of problems, and they had chances to extend their lead. A mistake from a Sheffield defender gave the Durham striker a good opportunity, but he skied his shot way over the bar.

Durham then had another great chance, as a ball over the top of the Sheffield defence left the Durham winger through on goal with only the keeper to beat, but he dragged his finish just wide of the right hand post.

Sheffield looked to get back into the game as they pushed forward, but they were unable to muster any real chances of note, with their first touch letting them down.

Durham then got their deserved second goal in the closing moments of the game. Another through ball over the top cut through the Sheffield defence, and the Durham striker slotted the ball into the bottom corner, securing all three points.

The defeat leaves Sheffield firmly rooted to the bottom of the BUCS Northern 4B table, three points adrift of the University of Sunderland 1s heading into the Christmas break.

This week’s contributors Ed McCosh Joe Bamford Tom Pyman Anthony Phillips Rob Milne Danny Armstrong Jack Wignall Reginaldo Rosario Jack Taylor University of Sheffield’s mens’s hockey 2s lost 4-1 in their game against Northumbria 1s

Photo: Chris Chadwick

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