Forge issue 70

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

Issue 71 Friday May 9 2014 @ForgePress /ForgePress

Features talk:

The women who took over the steel industry, p. 12-13

Comment challenge:

Lifestyle meet:

Cultural celebration or personal appropriation? p. 9

Everyday Sexism project founder Laura Bates, p. 22

Sigh of relief as marking boycott called off

Read more on p. 2

University’s million pound food and booze bill on student and staff socials 4 Some departments reveal up to 200 per cent increase in spending trends Jessica Pitocchi The University of Sheffield spent more than £1,000,000 on food and drink for student and staff functions last year.

A Freedom of Information request by Forge Press revealed the £1,055,412 figure from the academic year 2012-13 is a 24 per cent increase on the amount spent in 2011-12 which was £851,703.

The spending accounts for the variety of food, and alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages provided at social functions and events held by individual departments that are open to both staff and students.

The University spent £41,237 on alcohol, an increase of 61 per cent on last academic year’s figure of £25,550.

The amount spent on non-alcoholic drinks decreased by 7.5 per cent to £127,672 from £138,019 in 2011-12.

Spending on food at the events

£8

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£41,237

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increased by £200,000 from £688,135 in 2011-12 to £886,503 in 2012-13.

The University said this figure was less than 1 per cent of the total University’s operating costs.

A University of Sheffield spokesperson said: “The University hosts many events to celebrate the fantastic achievements of its departments and provides catering so students and staff can enjoy these occasions.

“The amount the University spent on food and drink last year accounted for just 0.62 per cent of its total operating expenses - an amount which has only increased by 0.01 per cent since 2011.”

Funding for the food and drink comes from the University’s other operating expenses, which also covers spending for books, stationery and printing and postage.

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£25,550

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£688,1

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2012-13

Delayed but ‘positive developments’ on living wage

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2011-12

Photo: Sheffield Students’ Living Wage Campaign

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NEWS Editor

elsa.vulliamy@forgetoday.com

Elsa Vulliamy

DEPUTY EDITOR Tom Schneider

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Uni alcohol spending up 61 per cent

Managing Editor Mikey Smith 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 Comment comment@forgetoday.com Lauren Archer Isaac Stovell LETTERS & COFFEE BREAK letters@forgetoday.com Lucy Copson Features features@forgetoday.com 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 Arts arts@forgetoday.com Chloe Coleman Joscelin Woodend COPY EDITORS Rosanna Austin Chloe Coleman Samantha Fielding Nicola Moors Jessica Pitocchi Matthew Smith Polly Winn PICTURE EDITOR Josh Rock M edi a H u b, U n io n o f Student s, We s t e r n B an k , S hef f ie ld, S10 2T G 0114 2 2286 46 // f or gepr e ss@f o r g e t o day.co m

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For ge P r e ss is pu blish e d by the Un io n o f St u de n t s .

Vi ew s e x pr e sse d a r e n ot nec ess a r ily t h o se o f t he Uni ver sit y, t h e Un io n o r t he edi t oria l t e a m . I n t h e f i r s t i ns t an c e a ll c o m pla in t s shoul d be a ddr e sse d t o t he Manag in g E dit o r, a lt h o ug h a f orm al pr o c e du r e e x is t s .

Photo: Patrick O’Connell Jessica Pitocchi

Continued from p. 1

The department with the greatest increase in spending on the events is Chemical and Process Engineering with an increase of £52,131 from £26,441 in 2011-12 to £78,572 in 2012-13 - an increase of almost 200 per cent.

University services, including the Careers Service, and Student Recruitment and Marketing (SRAM), more than doubled their spending compared to the previous academic year, with a 117 per cent increase from £5,518 to £11,999, and a 101 per cent increase from £16,332 to £32,891 respectively.

Among the subject departments with the largest increases in spending are Sociological Studies spending £25,594 more than in 2011-12, taking their total from £19,248 to £44,842, while Maths who totalled £15,188 in 2012-13 compared with £5,689 in 2011-12, a £9,449 difference.

The department with the greatest decrease in spending is the School

of Modern Foreign Languages, spending £13,385 less with a total £13,716 compared with £27,101 the previous year.

Offices for the high earning members of the University have shown a steady spending decline over the past three academic years. The office of the pro-vice chancellor for external affairs decreased from £7,241 in 2010-11 to £3,177 in 2011-12 and again to £929 in 2012-13. The expenditure of the vice chancellor’s office has halved since 2010-11 from £18,842 to £9,280 in 2012-13.

The faculties of Law and Engineering show a decrease in their spending. Law’s spending decreased by £4,064 from £18,058 in 2011-12 to £13,994 in 2012-13. Engineering showed a similar pattern, reducing its spending total over the three years from £11,066 to £8,959 to £6,387.

Union president Ally Buckle said: “I hope the University is being resourceful in its money, and I hope that this is to the benefit of as many people in the organisation as possible.

“I hope that they are keeping quite a close eye on how much money they’re spending on these things.”

YOUR UNIVERSITY

YOUR UNIVERSITY

Boycott called off as pay Living Wage campaign hope agreement reached for resolution by summer Neelam Tailor The University and Colleges Union (UCU) has voted to call off the marking boycott which was planned to begin on Wednesday May 7.

84 per cent of UCU members voted to accept the government proposition of a two per cent pay rise for 2014/2015.

The previous offer of a one per cent rise for the current academic year was rejected.

The marking boycott along with a number of strikes have been in action since October in protest of the first offer.

The Colleges Employers Association (CEA) said: “[the two per cent rise will] bring the vast majority of staff in the sector on the lowest points of the pay scale to

rates equivalent to or above the living wage.”

Kallum Taylor, York University Students’ Union president, said: “In future I’d like to see industrial action used which will hit the Government and institutions though, not the students. ” Ally Buckle said: “I’m genuinely glad that it has been called off, and that to a certain extent, the effort of our University staff is being rewarded with an improved pay off.

“I still think that pay off in recent years have been below what they should be, but i’m happy that an agreement has been reached and it won’t impact on students.”

Tom Schneider Sheffield Students’ Union and Sheffield University Living Wage campaign are still locked in negotiations over the pay of minimum wage staff.

Ally Buckle, president of the Sheffield Students’ Union said: “This was a positive meeting and I hope that we will start to see some real movement on this issue in the near future.

“The importance of the living wage can be seen by the growth of food banks and this is why I’m glad the University are moving on this issue.

“I hope that in a few months time they will be held up as an example of fair employment within the city.”

Olivia Blake and Josh Berlyne, co-chairs of Sheffield University of Living Wage campaign said: “We’re delighted that the University seems to be moving in the right direction

on this issue and we will continue to lobby until the living wage is paid for all its staff.

“We’ve spoken to the lowest-paid staff across the University and know that they will be very pleased with this and see it as a step towards pay once again fairly reflecting the cost of living in the city.”

Speaking to Forge Press, Berlyne added: “While we are disappointed that it’s taken three years to see any movement from the University, we know that they like to take things slowly.

“The situation is looking better than it has ever looked before and we are hopeful that the issue can be resolved before the summer break”.

After the meeting, SU Living Wage tweeted: “We have no more information for now, but we’ll let you all know more in detail on Tuesday” (May 6).

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BME committee continue to fight institutional racism with #ITooAmSheffield Neelam Tailor The Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) committee are highlighting the “institutional racism” directed towards BME students at the University of Sheffield through, often unintended, everyday “racial microaggressions”.

The #ITooAmSheffield campaign was launched in Sheffield at the end of March taking inspiration from the similar campaigns at Oxford and Harvard which have encouraged BME students to share their experiences of racism and prejudice at their respective universities.

The BME committee blog says: “These comments and assumptions rooted in racist and ignorant stereotypes being made by fellow students on campus not only illustrate regular experiences of black and minority ethnic (BME) students but they may also go some way in highlighting behaviour that people may not initially consider to be racist but is still rooted in prejudice. These contribute to black and minority ethnic students feeling marginalised at university.”

A member of the BME committee, Sparsh Pandya said: “We used these shared experiences to link with our campaign for a BME officer.”

The group is urging the University of Sheffield Students’ Union to create a specific

YOUR UNIVERSITY

SCIENCE & Technology

Blood samples confirm bird flu in penguins A recent study has confirmed the existence of bird flu in penguins in Antarctica. Blood samples taken from Adélie penguins revealed antibodies for the avian influenza virus H11N2.

Aeron Hurt, a senior research scientist for the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza, described the virus as “unlike anything else detected in the world”.

Hunts team collected blood and throat samples from hundreds of penguins, of which eight tested positive for the influenza virus.

Genetic analysis revealed a close relationship with the H3N8 strain prevalent in the 1960s.

Infected birds do not appear sick and the virus does not appear to be transmissible to mammals,

BME officer role and will be holding a referendum in October.

A University spokesperson said: “We are committed to promoting equality and diversity and nurturing a multi-cultural environment.

“We have robust procedures relating to harassment and complaints which we urge our students to use.”

The campaign also seek to address the high drop-out rates of black and ethnic minority students (BME), and increase their recruitment at the University by ensuring support with a full-time BME officer.

The committee feels that BME students have been neglected and receive inadequate support from the university institution.

The blog says: “We feel that we have been suffering long enough from complete neglect at the hands of the Students’ Union and Unversity in which we feel that our voices are silenced and our existence shunned.

“We love our University and take pride in being part of a strong and great students’ union, but would like them to take stronger action in widening participation.”

The campaign and referendum for a BME officer has received strong support from the NUS Black Students campaign.

Victoria Stanway

Photos: Wikimedia Sheffield’s DNA Sat Nav can trace your ancestral home

Photos: #ITooAmSheffield blog

TECHNOLOGY

Homegrown spacecraft project launched Danny Lorimer Two former University of Sheffield students have set up a website to help people build homemade spacecrafts.

Alex Baker, 29, and Chris Rose, 28, were studying for their PhDs three years ago when they decided to make a homemade spacecraft and launch it into space.

Their spacecraft consisted of a Styrofoam box, gaffa tape, a helium balloon, two cameras and a GPS tracking device which was originally built to track lost pets.

The flight lasted two hours and 50 minutes, with the ship reaching a height of 37 km. It managed to take

some photos which showed the curvature of the earth, despite temperatures being as low as -50C. Mr Baker and Mr Rose are now using their experience to give others the opportunity to build their own spacecrafts.

The pair have set up a website called www. sentintospace.com, where they give instructions on how to build a spacecraft from £170 to £500.

The website contains tutorial videos that explain how to construct a spaceship and how to predict where it will land at the end of the mission.

Mr Baker, who is studying for a doctorate

in Engineering, said: “The website shows people how to build a craft which is more or less the same as the one we used.

“Lots of people were asking us how to do it so we thought it would be easier to set up a website for people to view.

We’ve had interest from people across Europe, Australia, America, Russia and other countries. We can’t send people into space but this is the next best thing.”

Their adventure in space received national and international press coverage and they were awarded a Global Prize for Creativity

by Nobel Prize winner Sir The balloon ready to launch Harry Kyoto.

Photos: SentIntoSpace

Using the ground-breaking Geographic Population Structure tool scientists at the University of Sheffield are now able to trace where your DNA was formed over 1,000 years ago. Previously this could only be achieved within 700Km of accuracy but working like a satellite navigation system this new tool can narrow it down to the village or town of ancestral origin.

This breakthrough has massive implications for the future of personalised medicine as different genomes respond differently to medication.

This tool could help select the optimum drug and dosage to treat a genetic disease.

Connor McCarry NASA to conduct unprecedented twin experiment In 2015 NASA will launch astronaut Scott Kelly to the International Space Station to begin a groundbreaking new study. For one year Kelly will circle the Earth at 17,000mph, whilst his twin brother Mike remains on earth to act as a control subject.

The combined project will cover ten fields, observing the twins’ genetics, biochemistry, vision, cognition and much more.

The lengthy stay at the ISS aims to explore the effects of long term space-flight on the human body in order to establish the risk in sending astronauts on distant missions to Mars and beyond in the future.

Daniel King

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UniNEWS Ex-development officer cycles 7000km to Palestine

Interesting stories from other universities around the world

Anti-cheating poster helps student to cheat in exam Plymouth University have taken down anti-cheating posters from exam halls after a student claims it helped him during his exam.

The student, who took to Reddit after his maths exam, claimed that the formulae on the poster helped him gain 10 per cent more marks than he would have achieved without it.

The poster includes a Shutterstock image of a hand with genuine mathematical formulae written on it.

The University were sceptical that a student would be able make out the formulae from the posters, but they have been taken down as a precaution.

Neelam Tailor

Elsa Vulliamy Former Sheffield Students’ Union development officer, Sara Moon is cycling from Sheffield to Palestine to raise awareness internationally about the injustice of the occupation of Palestine.

Sara began her journey in April, and will spend four to five months travelling 7,000 kilometres, hoping to arrive in Palestine in September of this year.

Sara met a Palestinian asylum seeker whose family had been forced out of the country in 1948, while at the University of Sheffield.

The encounter encouraged her to promote peace in Palestine, where she had previously spent a gap year.

Horrified by what she saw, she worked throughout the next year to spread the word to the student

National selfie competition Students from the University of Warwick will try to break the Guinness World Record for most selfies taken simultaneously across multiple venues.

Students will be joined by participants from EFAP Paris, Hochschule Fresenius, Universidad Complutense de Madrid and University of Siena at 12.30 on Wednesday.

To break the record, each location will need to have at least 200 people and all selfies must be taken with a smartphone or tablet and include the full face and neck of the participant. It must also feature the arm used to hold the phone. Photos are limited to one per person.

The official hashtag for the event is #SanDiskSuperSelfie.

Adela Whittingham

Hugs and high-fives Auditorium could be raise millions for cancer named after Mandela A student from the University of Sheffield is taking to Sheffield’s streets to spread happiness in honour of his terminally-ill friend, Stephen Sutton.

Sociology student Adam Cole will be handing out free hugs, high-fives and handshakes to mark National Good Gestures.

Stephen, aged 19, has hit the headlines in the past couple of weeks with his efforts to raise awareness for young cancer sufferers.

So far, he has raised £3.1 million for the Teenage Cancer Trust.

Adam told the Sheffield Telegraph: “Ste is the most inspirational, ambitious and

courageous person I’ve ever met,” “His first thought when being diagnosed with cancer was to turn his negative situation into a positive one for other people.

“I am so proud to be his friend.”

You can find Adam handing out his hugs and handshakes on Saturday May 10 11am - 3pm.

Stephen, who was diagnosed with bowel cancer aged 15, held the first Good Gestures Day alongside national charity Fixers last year.

Patrick O’Connell A proposal has been lodged to rename the Union auditorium after Nelson Mandela by members of Union Council after the former South African president died last year.

But plans to debate the proposal were scuppered when council was called off due to low attendance, failing to reach a quorum for the second time this semester.

The plans, signed by SU President Ally Buckle, development officer Sam Neagus, and councillors Abdullah Geelah and Minesh Parekh, could not be discussed.

Two-thirds of the council members must be present before

council can be conducted.

Mandela was elected as Honarary President of the Students’ Union on December 5, 1985. At the time, he was still imprisoned in the South African apartheid state. Mandela died exactly 28 years later, December 5, 2013.

The council proposal said that Mandela should be commemorated as a “figure of inspiration and resistance” and as a “celebration of the life of Nelson Mandela and what he stood for.”

The plan is to be debated in the next Union Council meeting, due to take place on Thursday May 15.

YOUR CITY

Funeral held for three generations of family killed in house fire Patrick O’Connell

Cambridge call for sexual consent classes Cambridge University could be offering sexual consent workshops after more than 70 undergraduates said they had been sexually assaulted in a new survey.

The authors of the study called for “compulsory consent workshops” after 77 per cent of the 2000 respondents said they had experienced some form of sexual harassment.

The Cambridge University Women’s Campaign officer, Lauren Steele said: “We wanted to highlight cultures surrounding victims of sexual assault which silence students, instead of encouraging them to speak out about their experiences.”

Neelam Tailor

Photo: Mondoweiss

YOUR UNIVERSITY

Adela Whittingham

Photos: hazzapp123 Reddit

body about what the happenings in Palestine.

Throughout her journey, she is stopping in various countries to spread awareness about the work of Stop The JNF, an organisation which aims to stop the Jewish National Fund from displacing Palestinians from their land, stealing their property and destroying Palestine’s natural environment.

She will be showing the film “Enduring Roots- 100 years of resisting the JNF” to aid her awareness campaign.

Sara’s friend, next year’s newly elected education officer Malaka Mohammed said: “I wish her all the luck.

“She loves cycling, when you do something you enjoy you’ll never get tired.”

Photo: Neelam Tailor and Adela Whittingham

The funeral of the three children and two women killed in a house fire in Nether Edge, Sheffield, took place yesterday, Thursday May 8.

Five members of the Parwaiz Kayani family died in the blaze on April 28, which broke out shortly after midnight.

The funeral ceremony took place at Madina Mosque, Wolseley Road, where an 2,000 mourners estimated to have attended.

The funeral cortege travelled along Queen’s Road, Wolseley Road and Abbeydale Road, and paused outside the fire gutted house on Wake Road, before arriving at the mosque.

Adhyan and Amaan Parwaiz Kayani, aged nine and seven, died along with their nineweek-old sister Minahil. The children’s aunt, Anum Parwaiz, and grandmother, Shabina Begum, also died in the fire.

The children’s mother, Razia Nazim Kayani, escaped from the fire and their father Nazim Parqaiz Kayani, a taxi driver, was working at the time.

Post-mortem examinations found that all five family members died from smoke inhalation.

Sheffield District Commander David Hartley said: “Our thoughts remain with the family and friends of those who tragically died in the fire.”

Police are continuing to investigate the cause of the fire, though it is not believed that the fire was deliberately started.

Isfaq Hussani Kyani, a relative of the deceased, speaking to BBC Radio Sheffield, said: “It’s a tragedy beyond imagination, beyond comprehension.”

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Downton Abbey inspired course on offer to students Estel Farell Roig University of Sheffield students can now register for a free online course, inspired by ITV’s Downton Abbey, about English country houses and their literature, life and culture.

On the Literature of the English Country House course, students will learn about Bolsover and Haddon Hall, with passages from Jane Austen and Charles Dickens and plays from Shakespeare and poetry from Margaret

Cavendish.

Dr Jim Fitzmaurice, director of Distance Learning from the University of Sheffield, said: “On this course we will be introducing learners to literature as it derives from 450 years of the English country house and we will be seeing how that literature shapes our understanding of the country house.”

“You will gain an insight into the life of these country houses and learn about some common misconceptions.”

Students will learn techniques to analyse literature and make their own connections with the English countryhouse and its historical backgrounds.

Professor Susan Fitzmaurice, Head of the School of English at the University of Sheffield, said: “This Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) illuminates poems, plays

and prose texts vividly by connecting them to those contexts, buildings and landscapes through a historical lens.

“Leading experts who are passionate about their subject introduce fresh ways of approaching this literature by walking the learner through the world of the English country house.”

The course will start on June 2 and will last eight weeks.

Photo: Wikimedia

YOUR CITY

Doc/Fest turns 21

YOUR CITY

Locals left waiting as IKEA plans delayed Adela Whittingham

Tom Schneider The international Documentary festival Doc/Fest returns to streets and venues around Sheffield for its 21st installment.

Among the highlights for this year are the screening of new work by Martin Scorsese, a talk by Grayson Perry as well as an appearance by Great British Bake Off presenter Sue Perkins. The world of music is represented by Goldfrapp, who will play a live soundtrack over a silent film, and Sheffield Britpop band Pulp will also attend.

The festival will run June 7 to June 12. Students can get discounted tickets for £99+VAT.

Photo: Doc/Fest

Students ‘rough it’ for homelessness awareness

Apply to Student Finance now

Around 60 students will take part in ‘Rough It’, an outdoor sleepover on the Students’ Union concourse organised by GeogSoc..

The annual event raises awareness of homelessness and destitution in Sheffield.

It is also raising money for Brain Tumour UK and Ben’s Centre, a Sheffield local charity that supports the homeless.

Tickets for the event, which cost £5, include the event entry, activities on the night, pizza and free hot drinks.

Participants also have to raise a minimum of £30 sponsorship.

Last year the event raised £2,243 for charity.

The event will take place on Saturday May 10.

Student Finance England is advising continuing students to re-apply now to make sure they have their finance sorted for the next academic year.

If students need to supply evidence to support their application, it should be sent straight away as the National Union of Students (NUS) has received “lots of complaints from students and parents about lost documentation”.

NUS advise students to keep copies of correspondence sent and post important documents by registered delivery.

‘Student Finance, sort it out!’ is the Sheffield Students’ Union campaign lobbying SFE for reasonable turnaround times as the majority of students “constantly worry about money”.

The verdict on the proposed IKEA store for the east end of Sheffield has been delayed.

The delay comes after fresh concerns that the surrounding roads would not be able to cope with the volume of traffic at peak times.

There are also concerns over increasing air pollution levels in the area that already exceed European limits when the roads are busy.

Although the government’s Highways Agency has dropped its holding opposition after initially raising concerns about the impact on motorway traffic, there are still concerns over the effect on other roads in the area.

Existing local businesses have also expressed concerns that they will lose sales if the IKEA is built.

SU wins awards

gold

in

eco

University of Sheffield Students’ Union has been given the highest possible standard in the Green Impact Students’ Union Programme.

The Students’ Union was awarded because of its increasing recycling rates, ethical trading in its shops and bars and initiatives such as “Bring it, Don’t Bin it” campaign, which collects unwanted items from students leaving at the end of the year.

The Green Impact Students’ Union programme is a national competition to find the country’s top green campuses.

John Lewis are concerned of the effect on its Barker’s Pool store, and owners of the Moor and Meadowhall echoing concerns that increased traffic could lead to the rejection of their own new developments.

However, the public response to the prospect of having an IKEA in the city is positive, particularly with the nearest stores currently being situated in Leeds and Nottingham.

The store opening would also create an estimated 700 jobs.

If the application is rejected, the development could appeal to Communities Secretary Eric Pickles.

Provisional dates for a council decision have been changed several times, but the length of time it is taking to assess the scheme suggests the council is trying to find a solution.

Technicians funding boost

receive

University of Sheffield will receive £400,000 for a scheme to boost the role of technicians.

The initiative will be launched as Higher Education institutions are set to lose between 25-35 per cent of their technicians as many will reach retirement age in the next five years.

The scheme aims to create a national framework, addressing the gap in training technical staff and improving the workforce.

The Institute of Science and Technology (IST) will run a professional accreditation scheme to prove technicians have the necessary credentials in their field.

The University of Sheffield’s director of technical development, Terry Croft, said the University was “the leading institution in the scheme”.

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A decade of awards glory for Kelham Island pub Estel Farell Roig Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) Sheffield has honoured the Kelham Island Tavern with the Pub of the Year Award for the 10th time – reclaiming the prize from the Shakespeare’s, who won it last year.

Dave Williams, who has been working in the pub for 10 years, said: “We consistently sell good quality beer that people want to drink. People want a clean, tidy pub that sells local beer at a reasonable price and they find it here.”

Kelham Island, at 62 Russell Street, serves 13 types of real ale as well as a range of traditional ciders and perrys. It has a large a selection of malt whisky and gluten free beer.

The CAMRA judges pointed out that drinks are served “in oversized glasses meaning that even with a head, you get the measure you pay for”.

Dave said: “We attract people from every single walk of life – from

18 to 80, men and women, straight and gay. We are a pub that caters to drinkers and nothing else. We appeal to people who enjoy a drink.”

The pub, which was opened in 2002 by Trevor Wraith and Lewis Gonda, has its own beer and cider festival every summer on its award winning beer garden.

Paul said: “We are from London and have been coming to Sheffield three times a year for 34 years. We are here to see the snooker.”

The top six pubs judged for the award were: Kelham Island Tavern, Shakespeares, the Blake, the Fat Cat, the Sheffield Tap and the Rising Sun. Dave said: “Saturday is always our busiest night. People wander around the area and come here.”

Sheffield has recently become Britain’s beer capital and Yorkshire has been chosen as one of the world’s top destination by the New York Times – because of its beer.

Photo: Estel Farell Roig

Kelham Island pub

YOUR CITY

YOUR UNIVERSITY

Pimp jailed for 12 years A Diamond in the rough Tom Pyman A mother who lured teenage girls into prostitution has been jailed for 12 years.

Amanda Spencer, from Sheffield, befriended girls as young as 13 before forcing them into having sex for money, Sheffield Crown Court was told.

The trial, which lasted for ten weeks, finally came to an end on Tuesday when Spencer was convicted of 16 charges relating to child prostitution.

Prosecutors decided they would not pursue a retrial on a further 14 charges on which the jury could not reach a verdict.

Mr Peter Hampton, prosecuting, read aloud several statements from Spencer’s victims in which they claimed the 23-year-old had abused their trust and ruined their lives.

He told the court that Spencer had clearly preyed on “weak and vulnerable” children, often from troubled backgrounds, and groomed them over time.

Mr Andrew O’Byrne, for Spencer, told the court: “We accept that a substantial custodial sentence is inevitable.

“She must go to prison for a long time but not for so long that she emerges without hope or future.”

Judge Murphy QC told her: “I have spent four very depressing months listening to young women re-live the horrors of their lives.

“They looked up to you and regarded you as a friend and protector. You provided these weak women to men you should be protecting them from.”

He condemned Spencer’s not guilty plea which forced the victims to give evidence in court.

Throughout the sentencing Spencer showed little emotion and played with her hair.

Mr Murphy warned her: “You are damaged and troubled and I hope you mature and develop whilst in custody.

If you do not, your future is bleak indeed.”

Keri Trigg The University of Sheffield’s under construction Engineering department ‘The Diamond’ is set to become the “jewel in the crown” of the campus when it opens its doors in September 2015.

The name of the £81 million construction was revealed on Friday, May 2, during a visit to the site by Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Keith Burnett and Sheffield Central MP Paul Blomfield.

It was selected to reflect both the diamondshape ‘wrap’ and the quality of the spaces and facilities that the six-storey, 19,500 square foot building will offer.

Photo: South Yorkshire Police

Located on the corner of Broad Lane and St George’s Terrace, the new building will create 500 jobs and contribute £44.5 million to the local economy whilst under construction and in its first year of operation, and a further £21 million annually thereafter.

Burnett said: “This is our largest ever investment in teaching and learning, and it is really exciting to see the fantastic progress being made on site.

“Even though it won’t be completed until next year, The Diamond is already making a great contribution to our academic life.”

Paul Blomfield said: “The Diamond really will be the jewel in the crown, not only for the University itself, but also for the city.”

Photo: Twelve Architects

STUDENT LIVING

Students being left to their own devices post-graduation Yvette Tan Universities in the UK are falling short on social mobility and must provide students with skills to secure professional jobs, new research shows.

Britain’s higher education system is not “fit for purpose” in assisting social mobility, according to Professor Michael Brown, the former vice-chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University.

Writing for the thinktank CentreForum, Brown said that current university policies focused wholly on “input” measures- the type of students being admitted to university- rather than “outputs”- what happens to students once they leave.

Brown has unveiled a Social Mobility Graduate Index (SMGI) to compare institutions’ success in getting disadvantaged students into graduate level employment.

Progress made in this field has been “particularly underwhelming” and Brown has called on the government to strengthen universities’ incentive to treat disadvantaged students as valuable assets.

The research added that, apart from teaching core subjects, universities had to provide graduate and high level skills development to ease the transition from higher education to professional employment.

Brown said: “Encouraging students to go to university but then not ensuring that those students are fully developed to facilitate them achieving professional

outcomes seems perverse, “It is time for universities to raise their game.”

The research comes after Alan Milburn’s call to professional employers to axe unpaid internships.

The Labour MP added that the growth in professional employment is not creating a new “social mobility dividend” for the UK. He claimed that Britain’s top jobs were dominated by a “social elite”, putting people from backgrounds who could not afford to work for free at a clear disadvantage.

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FO R GE PRESS Fr i day May 9 2014

@forgepress

NEWS

/forgepress news@forgetoday.com YOUR CITY Political comedian Mark Thomas performed a ‘minor act of dissent’ by setting up a pinata of Nick Clegg in the town centre for people to behead. It was full of sweets and broken promises.

YOUR UNIVERSITY

Sheffield arts festival returns for fourth year Adela Whittingham

Photo: LooBee Twitter

Lyric, the University of Sheffield’s annual arts festival, will be running for the fourth year next week.

The Lyric festival is the Faculty of Arts and Humanities’ annual celebration of written and spoken word and will take place in Mappin and Firth Hall.

The event will run from May 14 to 17, featuring poet Benjamin Zephaniah, TS Eliot Prize Winner Sinead Morrissey and Patience Agbabi who will read from her contemporary ‘remix’ of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

As part of the festival, year 10 students in the area have had the opportunity to take part in poetry workshops at the university with poets Bridget Minamore, Andrew McMillan

and Helen Mort.

The event opens at Mappin Hall and will showcase the work of Creative Writing masters students. They will be joined by Agnes Lehoczky, who teaches creative writing at the University of Sheffield and who will launch her third poetry collection, Carillonneur, at the event.

The event will also see the launch of CAST: The Poetry Business Book of New Contemporary Poets.

Previous festivals have included musical performances, poetry readings, discussions and lectures by poets and performers as Linton Kwesi Johnson, John Burnside, Carol Ann Duffy, John Agard, Jo Shapcott, Stuart Maconie, Penelope Shuttle, Don Patterson, Jackie Kay, Paul Morley, and Chris Wood.

National News Has HS2 gone pear shaped?

An ancient and rare pear tree has been threatened by the High Speed 2 railway plans as it would need to be cut down to make way for the 50 billion pound train network.

The 250 year old tree is in Warwickshire and is one of the biggest and oldest in Britain.

HS2 Ltd have now planned to take cuttings and conserve the DNA from the tree so it can be replanted elsewhere in the area.

The proposed high speed train has caused much controversy due to its imposing nature on the British countryside.

However, MPs decisively backed legislaton in the second reading, enabling HS2 to be constructed.

Neelam Tailor

YOUR CITY

Hillsborough inquest 100 days of magic costs police £3million for Sheffield streets Neelam Tailor South Yorkshire Police have spent more than £3,000,000 on lawyers representing senior officers involved in the Hillsborough disaster inquest.

Police and Crime Commissioner Shaun Wright approved the use of police money to finance the legal costs for the eight senior officers who played key roles at the time of the disaster on April 15 1989.

The amount spent is expected to continue to rise with the relaunched inquest expected to last a year.

The total disbursed so far would have paid the salaries of 100 police constables on £30,000 a year.

A spokesperson for PCC Wright said an application for Home Office funding to cover the Hillsborough legal costs has been submitted.

She said to the Sheffield Star: “All costs are closely scrutinised to ensure every aspect of work carried out is essential” “Following a Special Grant Application to the Home Office in November, the commissioner has been informed that a decision is expected in the coming weeks.”

The new inquest started on March 31 2014 to take a fresh look into the disaster which claimed the lives of 96 Liverpool fans.

What’s on your mind?

Comment on this article online: www.forgetoday.com

DOT COM

TECHNOLOGY

Cluster robots designed with future in mind Adela Whittingham The Sheffield Centre for Robotics at the University of Sheffield have developed a way of making hundreds of tiny robots cluster to carry out tasks without using any memory or processing power.

Rodreich Gross, from the Sheffield Centre for Robotics, said: “In a real world scenario, this could involve monitoring the levels of pollution in the environment; we could also see them being used to perform tasks in areas where it would be hazardous for humans to go”.

A group of 40 robots has been programmed to perform the clustering task and the researchers have shown that this could be expanded to include thousands of robots.

Each robot uses one sensor that tells them whether or not there is another robot in front of

them. They will then either rotate on the spot, or move around in a circle until they can see one. This enables them to gradually form and maintain a cluster formation.

Gross also said: “Because they are so simple, we could also imagine these robots being used at the micron-scale, for example in healthcare technologies, where they could travel through the human vascular network to offer diagnosis or treatment in a noninvasive way”.

Photo: Sheffield Centre for Robotics & Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering

Adela Whittingham A quartet of local magicians is performing magic tricks around Sheffield for 100 days.

Friends Wiz Spencer, Gaz Neale, Alan Prior and Zack Washere are performing their 100 tricks over 100 days to people in different city locations. The three-minute stunts are filmed and uploaded to their YouTube channel.

The four came up with the project after being made aware of the #100happydays on social networking sites in which people post an image, a quote or a story that makes them happy, every day for 100 days.

Wiz Spencer, an illusionist, said: “Magic makes us happy,” “So we decided to do 100 days of that. It’s not been easy but we manage.”

They have performed in locations such as The Moor and Fargate, the Peace Gardens, Devonshire Green and some city bars.

The quartet plan to carry on performing after the 100 day stint, and produce 15 minute weekly episodes with bigger tricks.

Photo: 100daysofmagic Facebook

YOUR UNIVERSITY

#weareinternational campaign scoops awards Patrick O’Connell The University of Sheffield and the Students’ Union have been given two awards for their campaign on international students.

The #weareinternational selfie campaign won the Internationalising the Student Experience category at the National Union of Students (NUS) and UK Council for International Student Affairs (UKCISA) Internationalisation Awards, announced at a ceremony in Warwick on Tuesday May 6.

The campaign, launched in February, involved friends of different nationalities taking selfies and uploading it to an online collection to demonstrate the number of international friendships within the university community and beyond.

SU International Students’ Officer Alex Kohnert was also awarded International Officer of the Year.

Speaking on his awards success, Kohnert said: “It’s very flattering.

It’s very nice to be recognised by two very prestigious groups, but obviously I couldn’t have got it without the huge amount of work that my other officers and colleagues in places like Student Voice have put in.”

Kohnert also spoke about the combined efforts of the University and the Students’ Union on the #weareinternational campaign, saying: “we were really glad that we could find a message that we both wanted to get out and could work with really strongly together on.”

Second year Law student Peggy Lim had been shortlisted for the International Student of the Year prize.

Cheeky teen gets tat of cock on arse A somewhat cheeky individual has had Barci the Nando’s cockrel tattooed on his butt cheek. Bradley Holman, 19, then got angry when the restaurant chain refused to give him discounts for this display of fandom, despite his annual spend of about £1,500; a budget he has dedicated to Nando’s for almost five years.

In reply to his email, Nando’s outright refused to give Holman any kind of voucher or ‘black card’, sometimes handed out to celebrities. However, they’d “still love to see [his] tattoo”.

The tattoo is a portrayal of the Nando’s logo, sporting a traditional Barcelos cockerel with a large heart.

Will Ross Manchester’s gangster King Kong An infamous gangster climbed and staged a protest on a 197ft ferris wheel in Manchester.

Domenyk Noonan sat in the middle of the wheel, 100ft up, and stayed there for six hours in protest against him being recalled to jail.

The 49 year old was jailed for nine-and-a-half years for hiding a revolver under his car bonnet.

It cost £30,000 to rescue him from the wheel, and more than 1,000 people gathered to watch him in the city centre.

The Big Wheel was shut down by operators, leaving customers stranded in the pods for two hours.

Noonan gave a phone interview while on the wheel and said: “I want the police to stop harassing me, even the probation service over the last three days. They are threatening to recall me to prison.”

Neelam Tailor

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Fri day May 9 2014 F O RG E P RESS

COMMENT

@forgecomment /forgecomment comment@forgetoday.com

Fossil fuels: the burning question

Alex Stockham

Fossil Free campaign

Our environment is being transformed. The atmosphere is polluted by carbon; causing temperatures to rise, the cryosphere to melt and the oceans to expand.

We have disturbed the equilibrium of our planet but it’s not just us who are responsible. In the relentless pursuit of growth, the fossil fuel industry has led us to an unsustainable future.

We rely on their resources to power our lives but they possess far more than we can safely burn.

Five times more to be precise.

Alex Stockham

“Universities have a combined investment of £5.2 billion in fossil fuels”

Alex Stockham explains why the Fossil Free divestment campaign at the University of Sheffield is so important Photo: Z. Peckler

It all comes down to some simple figures. Temperatures have increased by 0.85 degrees since 1880. Scientists estimate that we can still emit 565 gigatonnes of CO2 and limit warming to two degrees.

But, if we burn the oil and coal currently locked up in reserves, 2,795 gigatonnes of CO2 will be released. Fossil fuel organisations have no plans to stop. In fact, they want to expand their stockpiles.

Now that enough ice has

retreated, they’re moving in to exploit the Arctic oil fields.

We all support this industry and its activities. It’s inescapable. We are powered by electricity; energy generated by the combustion of fossilized plants from the Earth’s mantle.

That in itself is a shame. But what’s even worse is the financial support of the industry our universities provide. It’s estimated that in the UK, universities have a combined investment of £5.2 billion in fossil fuels.

Not only does this fund the enterprise, it allows it to proceed with a stamp of academic approval. Although it is public knowledge that the University is engaged in partnerships with companies like Shell and UK Coal Mining, the monetary value of these remain private.

What we do know is that these connections play out through three avenues: investments of the University’s savings, research funding, and industrial partnerships.

The time for action is now.

Across Europe and the United States, a movement is taking hold.

Here in Sheffield, students from the People and Planet society are leading the Fossil Free campaign.

They are lobbying the University to publish and review its links to fossil fuel companies, with the ultimate aim of divestment.

History proves divestment a powerful tool. It contributed to the end of apartheid in South

Africa and reformed the way universities deal with sweatshops and tobacco companies.

Although the financial impacts may be minimal, the message will be clear. Society holds universities in high esteem; their collective voice will be heard.

Condemning the activities of fossil fuel companies through divestment would reverberate through public discourse, into the minds and actions of the people.

“Although the financial impacts may be minimal, the message will be clear” The Fossil Free Sheffield campaign is gathering momentum. Its petition has already received over 300 signatures, and in the next few weeks a motion will be taken to the Students’ Union Council to add the largest 200 fossil fuel companies to their blacklist.

The next challenge is our institution. With the support of the Students’ Union, Fossil Free Sheffield will navigate the University’s bureaucracy to begin negotiations with its financial managers.

The future of our successors will be shaped by our actions.

Keep your eyes and ears open, and support the cause with your name.

Anti-UKIP activists should say it, not spray it Mollie Carberry I think it’s safe to say that Ukip’s policies generally do not sit comfortably with the vast majority of the British public.

It’s not a new, refreshing or eyeopening realisation when Ukip are branded by a certain senior politician as “closet racists and fruit cakes”.

But tearing down posters, spray-painting ‘Fuck Off U Prick’ on billboards (yes, that really happened) and disrupting meetings? Has everyone suddenly

become 12 years old?

If you think that vandalism will make Farage turn around and say “actually yes, after reading that graffiti I see now that you are right and I am very wrong”, then you will be waiting a long time.

Fair enough, you may not agree with the stance that Ukip take. You are entitled to this opinion because of one beautiful wonderful thing that this country allows: freedom of speech. This freedom allows you to believe in whatever you wish and voice your opinions as loudly and passionately as you physically can.

But what people are forgetting is that this works in two ways;

while you are entitled to your own beliefs and values, Nigel Farage is entitled to his.

In an ideal world, people in a position of power and influence would use this to bring about positive change and promote unity.

Sadly we don’t live in this utopian society, and some people’s opinions are inevitably going to differ from others, making unity impossible.

But instead of creeping out in the middle of the night and spraypainting threats on posters like teenage hooligans, there are more productive ways to voice your opposition.

If these ‘activists’ have time on

their hands to plan activities such as disrupting Ukip meetings, then surely they have time to sit down and do their research.

Instead of retaliating in a somewhat childish manner, an obvious alternative (and one that could actually make a difference in the long run) would be to educate themselves on politics and figure out what it is that they actually believe. It seems to me that where ‘political activists’ are concerned, it’s normally a case of the blind leading the blind.

The voter turnout at the last few elections has been around 60 per cent, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the people ‘taking a stance’ against

Ukip are in the 40 per cent that don’t bother voting.

Is it acceptable to vandalise posters and disrupt meeting? No it isn’t. Not when the majority of the public have access to resources that can educate them on political parties’ policies and intentions, and the ability to vote.

Got an opinion on the topics discussed this fortnight? contact us letters@forgetoday.com

FO R GE PRESS Fr i d ay May 9 2014

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@forgecomment /forgecomment comment@forgetoday.com

Fashionable bindis: Cultural appropriation or appreciation?

‘Help to work’

Rhys Handley In a country with as rich and diverse a cultural tapestry as Britain, it would be a waste not to explore and celebrate the variety of experiences that different groups have to offer.

But, culture can also be a very personal thing. Certain traditions and practices are private and precious. In exploring what Britain has to offer, sometimes rather than different cultures being appreciated, people’s space is being invaded without consent.

It’s often ingrained into the mindset of white people (and I speak as one) that we unintentionally portray ourselves as ‘neutral’ ambassadors that are free to dip into different cultures, borrowing their ideas and practices for our own entertainment or education.

This may be well-intentioned, but it translates into harmful white privilege.

While done innocently, this behaviour implies that white people are central to society and anyone outside of this imagined centre is peripheral, existing for a white person’s self-gratification.

It happens without people realising they are doing it and may seem harmless from an outsider’s perspective.

An example of this is the emergence of the bindi as a fashion accessory. While it may seem exotic, it is a precious symbol in Hindu culture. Wearing it for fashionable purposes reduces that symbol’s value, belittling a culture’s traditions.

This happens with Christianity, too. The crucifix is often a staple of clothing and jewellery. It carries a lot of meaning and importance for Christians and is worn as a sign of their faith, but in absorbing it into fashion for its aesthetic appeal, an entire religion is trivialised.

The problem extends into practices and traditions, such as Buddhist meditation and worship. People sometimes go to Buddhist temples for health or relaxation rather than religion or spirituality.

While nothing is especially wrong with this, it should be remembered that a religious space is being occupied that does not exist to serve you and your curiosity.

I am not looking to blame all white people - or even only white people because cultural appropriation is often something that we all do, whether we realise or not, in food, clothes or anything.

While we may not always see the damage we could be doing, it can help to stay mindful of whether you are observing or invading a space that isn’t yours.

ssa Photo: Vane

stag Hudgens In

COMMENT

ram

won’t help or work

Isaac Stovell Britain’s economy is finally showing signs of grinding into a slow recovery, but this doesn’t mean that life for all is improving.

The coalition’s austerity measures have pushed the UK’s poorest citizens into even deeper poverty while degrading them for their poorness throughout.

The most recent example of this is the nefarious “Help to Work” (HtW) scheme designed to tackle long-term unemployment.

“A trial run of the scheme found that it was utterly ineffectual” Of course, this is a dire problem – from 2008 to 2010, long-term unemployment doubled to 2.6 per cent and has wavered thereabouts since. George Osborne stated that the jobless “were not going to be able to do nothing” and remain on Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA).

Instead, once they’ve been on the Work Programme (which was introduced in 2011 and isn’t working well either, but we digress) and having received JSA for two years, unemployed persons would have four choices. Either make daily signings at the Job Centre; accept training for basic workplace skills that may be deficient; take part in local community volunteering programs; or lose a full month of benefits if you decline these three options (three

months if you dare decline a second time).

Let’s dismantle HtW’s given options, starting with forced Job Centre visits – those involved have to pay travel costs for these, a worryingly sizeable dent in already minute incomes – and Job Centres lack the administrative staff to handle such large regular influxes.

Also, as Iain Duncan-Smith neglected to mention, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) did a trial run of the scheme and the findings were that it was utterly ineffectual. Of those forced into volunteering, 18 per cent found jobs after 91 weeks of the trial scheme; exactly the same proportion as those outside the scheme – and this rate was only 19 per cent for those forced into making daily signings.

DWP is pushing policy directly contrary to statistical analysis. The only effect the trial had was to threaten the vulnerable with depleted benefits, and that’s the only effect the scheme will have.

What about community service programs? They’re also terrible. People “volunteering” for them pay their own travel costs, work 30 hours per week for six months, and face the full penalty of losing essential benefit payments if they refuse to pick up litter or clear graffiti.

It adds considerable expense and effort to the jobseeker’s life at literally no reward other than not being penalised – a humiliating form of quasi-slavery to punish their lack of employability.

Even large organisations such as Oxfam are boycotting the scheme’s mandatory volunteers, as such forced workers don’t count as voluntary.

The idea more resembles community service, a similarity made starker by the fact that under HtW these “volunteers” would

put in more unpaid labour hours than actual convicted criminals.

Basic training programs in literacy, maths and IT may actually go some way toward improving the employability of some people, but to make these compulsory is to be subject to the same ethical cringes as the rest, and once the training is finished, unemployed persons are presented with the same set of unworkable options as before.

Why is the coalition enacting policies

“Why is the coalition enacting policies for which there is so little moral argument?” for which there is so little moral argument, and against which lies the bulk of empirical suggestion? Because being tough on the jobless curries political favour with the disillusioned centre-right of the electorate.

The last five years have seen the poor vilified and demonised in the mass media and by the government, and policy now follows that line.

The reality of Britain’s poor beside this is truly depressing. According to the Trussell Trust, for every person dependent on emergency foodbanks in 2011, there are fifteen in 2014 – a monstrous increase – and delayed or changed benefits comprise 47.9 per cent of the causes for referral.

From the Treasury’s viewpoint, it’s cheaper to maintain an unhelped underclass than it is to employ or assist them, and HtW is just another example of the coalition doing so.

Fri day May 9 2014 F O RG E P RESS

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COMMENT

@forgecomment /forgecomment comment@forgetoday.com

The fairytale of Christian Britain Martin Bottomley There’s a very peculiar anxiety at work if the Prime Minister feels the need to affirm the idea of an intrinsically Christian Britain.

Who could possibly doubt it in a country where the state is not seperate from the Church and the majority religion has been some form of Christianity for centuries?

“No soil of this earth is fundamentally of one faith or another” Given, however, that church attendance is dwindling rapidly, other faith communities and atheism are growing, and the church is not the central, omnipotent heart of communities it once was, all the aforementioned historical ties really don’t matter that much any more.

A democratic, pluralist society is not about worshipping the past, but creating a better future.

Obsessively repeating how Christian this country allegedly is doesn’t do that; it’s a caveat

to maintain tokenistic cultural signifiers of Christianity without thinking about what that would mean politically.

Cameron treads a careful balance of making sure to emphasise how much democracy is founded on Christian thought, which he claims contains the first basis for proper democratic rule, pointing out that in Athens, only wealthy men had the vote.

Britain, of course, only got rid of that in the early 20th Century.

Similarly, the Bible contains passages where slavery is perfectly normal. It’s possible to read all sorts of things into it while being wildly anachronistic and ignoring centuries of political strife and bloody dissent that actually set into course meaningful change.

The speech may have been held for the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the King James Bible, but what it ended up being was not about that momentous feat of theology, translation and poetry, but rather a self-congratulatory box-ticking exercise for the Songs of Praisewatching Tory heartland crowd.

Just in case they (and we) forgot, he reminds us how the Bible gave us the values of “responsibility, hard work, charity, compassion,

humility, self-sacrifice, love”. None of these existed before or outside of Christianity, obviously, so yay.

Despite its careful calibration to include nuance and not alienate other faiths, Cameron’s speech replaces all meaningful political debate with a mere “lack of morals” on the part of “trouble makers”.

He names wealthy bankers utterly ruining the livelihoods of thousands in the same breath as murderous terrorists and impoverished youths looting during the London riots - it’s all down to a lack of morality, according to Cameron. And Jesus taught us all to hate those people, right?

This conflation of different “bad things” is a nationalist narrative of moral decay that can only be stopped by a return to the values of the good old days that only pays lip service to liberalism, but it’s not really about a pluralist society.

It pays lip service to community and loving thy neighbour, but it reduces that to an individual level while ignoring the political structures inherent in the existence of poverty and oppression. It pays lip service to Christianity, but really doesn’t want to think about

what that would actually mean.

That’s the fundamental problem with calling any country Christian - even if the majority of the population is Christian or even if it’s a theocracy: Unless society and political system match up with a biblical Kingdom of God, any link to Christian ideals is tenuous.

Unless we acknowledge the erasure of cultures and horrific massacres committed in the name of Christianity, any link to Christian history is more fairy tale than heritage. Unless we want to actually talk about politics, any referral to Christian morality is crypto-nationalist garbage.

“A democratic society is not about worshipping the past, but creating a better future” And fundamentally, no soil of this earth is fundamentally of one faith or another. For all the creation myths told by cultures across the world, the earth will always contain the ruins of religions that told the story of the world before, differently.

Join the Conversation: @ForgeComment on Twitter facebook.com/ForgeComment

Photo: Ian Britton

D.A.R.T.S.

Editorial

Spring has sprung Hello and welcome to your Forge Press handover issue.

Spring is upon us, and the sun is finally peeking through those dark Northern clouds in an attempt to cheer us all up before exam period. Traditionally, this season is a time for rebirth and renewal, and this is just what we’ve had here at Forge Press.

This fortnight, our newly elected editors collaborated with the old ones to create an unstoppable force of journalistic talent. Sadly, this is the last we will see of the old editors as they move on from Forge and attempt to engage in Real Adult Life.

It is with a heavy heart that I say goodbye to the old Forge Press team, who have given all of their time, passion and skill to this paper over the last academic year.

I must also bid farewell to Mikey Smith, our Media Coordinator,

who will be moving onto greener pastures at the end of the year.

Mikey has come to our rescue time and time again- saving us from libel error, fuzzy images and questionable copyright on a daily basis. We all we all wish him the best of luck in your Real Adult Job. I would like to extend a huge thank you to my predecessor, Nicola Moors, for being so supportive during this issue. She has taught me everything she knows and put an astounding amount of trust in me over the last two weeks.

The cheesiest editorial of all time? Probably, but I mean every word. It’s a bittersweet time here time here in the Media Hub, but we’ve got a fantastic new team, and a cracking year ahead of us.

You’re in for a treat.

Happy reading!

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

Forge Press takes its satirical aim

First Jeremy of the fortnight:

Teary farewell of the fortnight:

Apparently it’s news that Jeremy Clarkson has been accused of being racist. This from the man who has already had to publicly apologise to truckers, Indians and everyone whose eye formation leads Clarkson to brand them as “slopes”.

So this is it. Not only is Paxo leaving the BBC, but the world of journalism must now mourn an even greater loss, the end of a titanic era over here at comment towers. Yes, two students are no longer editing three pages of a free newspaper. But cancel the state funeral, tell the Queen to stop blubbing, the next era of comment promises to be even more exciting than the last.

With his latest blunder, in which he is said to have used a racist word beginning with ‘n’, the list of offended persons jumps a few more hundred million. But to me, accusing Clarkson of being mindlessly offensive is a bit like criticising the sun for its outrageously ballsy habit of rising every morning.

Also, being offended at something Clarkson says is tantamount to writing a letter to your MP regarding the sun’s behaviour in the morning.

Second Jeremy of the fortnight: Stop the clocks and dig out that tub of heartbreak ice-cream, Jeremy Paxman is leaving Newsnight for good.

After 25 years of his signature style of torturing public officials with a long-faced incredulous squint and repetition of awkward questions. He’s provided some of the BBC’s most glorious interview memories, from Tony Blair to George Galloway to Nick Griffin, every time giving the impression that the only reason it was only being broadcast was to ensure against the politicians strangling their arrogant interrogator.

Oh, and let us never forget the clash of mettles when Russell Brand tried to incite revolution, only to be told not to be silly by a disapproving majestic bearded Paxo.

Quote of the fortnight: “Jess get over here, we’re laughing at a hippie” Patrick O’Connell, news editor

Sure, there may be fewer mentions of Putin butt plugs, cat hotels and endless selfies but perhaps the obsession with vile dictators, feline-based eulogies and shameless narcissism is best consigned to the Schneider-Scull era.

Instead, we welcome the Stovell-Archer partnership to the Hub with our only bit of advice being to never ask ‘Does Anyone Read This Shit?’

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FO R GE PRESS Fr i d ay May 9 2014

@forgecomment

LETTERS

/forgecomment comment@forgetoday.com

Comment of the fortnight: Our article ‘Theatre Review: West Side Story’ got you talking Great review, but I had to comment on something my friend picked out on. He said: “So they write all that, ignoring how fantastic the band was, and then just put ‘the odd bum note from the band’. That’s not very fair - the band was great and deserve much more credit. It’s a shame when reviewers who supposedly should have some idea about what a musical is and know what to look for and listen for just take the band for granted, and just pick up on a ‘bum note.’”

Granted, it was indirect and could be taken quite rudely as a direct reply, but the bulk of it is true. The band put in just as much effort as the cast, with intense rehearsals for months before the show. ‘Bum notes’ are inevitable in any musical performance at university level and if they’re going to be picked up on, a bit of recognition for their hard work wouldn’t go amiss.

Gregory Waters What an awful review. Utter drivel. Completely missed the point – it’s a musical. Talk about the music!

B

At risk of showing bias I have to agree. The two leads were perfect, as were the whole cast. I have previously paid lots of money in the West End and not been as entertained.

Kev Bray

Your comments on www.forgetoday.com to: Caffeine tablets: working wonders or endangering students’ health?

Pro Plus gave me insomnia so I ended up taking sleeping pills at 3am to combat that side effect of caffeine, then I’d need more Pro Plus to wake up. Not a good idea. I was half zombie. I’d rather fail my exams than take any substances. But everyone reacts differently to caffeine pills so don’t let my experience scare you.

Lacey I went through a period last year of taking around 15 a night alongside five strong coffees and six Red Bulls. Didn’t work at all - I fell asleep within 15 minutes. Not worth the money.

Stephy You’re kidding, right?

Lacey

Got an opinion?

Email: letters@forgetoday.com Write: Forge Press, Union of Students, Western Bank, Sheffield S10 2TG Please include your name, course and year of study.

We reserve the right to edit letters for clarity and space.

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Fri day May 9 2014 F O RG E P RESS

Women on a role...

As Sheffield finally commemorates the ‘women of steel’, Polly Winn considers whether our views about the roles of women in industry have changed over the past 100 years

I

t seems like 2014 has been a good year so far for the women of Sheffield.

Our Students’ Union has elected their first female president in 12 years, and there have been numerous campaigns taking place to raise awareness and promote the wellbeing of women globally.

Our commemoration of International Women’s week was also massively successful. However, there is still much further to go to promote feminism and gender equality.

In 2013, fundraising began for the ‘women of steel’ project that would commemorate the female effort in Sheffield throughout the world wars.

The so called ‘women of steel’ provided a vital effort, without which Sheffield may not be renowned for its assistance in the wars today.

These women took on roles that previously only men would have been expected to fill, and devoted long hours, enthusiasm and relentless effort, not to mention bravery. While the men were off fighting, they built tanks, war vehicles and sometimes weapons.

The conditions of work were often extremely dangerous, and many women struggled to combine full time work with their usual roles of caring for their children and their homes However, when the men of Sheffield returned from the war, the factories returned to how they’d been before, with barely any recognition that the ‘women of steel had devoted years to the war effort, at the hand of

their machines.

This year, hopefully, this is about to change. With most of the ‘women of steel’ now in their 80s or 90s, the council and the city have finally recognised their effort, and decided to commemorate it with a £150,000 statue in the city centre. This will ensure that the contributions of these women will never be forgotten.

The project began over five years ago when local Sheffield reporter, Nancy Fielder discovered the stories of the ‘women of steel’, and decided it was about time these ordinary women were commemorated for their hard work and effort during the war. However, after five years of unrelenting work and fundraising, the project is still just under £15,000 away from its target.

It’s come a long way, with a mass of support from organisations and individuals all over Sheffield, including some of the University of Sheffield’s own societies. However, there’s one very recent fundraising effort that has particularly peaked interest.

On April 30, the ‘women of steel’ cause was helped by ScienceGrrl, an organisation that celebrates women in science, and Sheffield Neuro Girls, a society made up of female Neuroscience students at the University.

They set up a fundraising event with food, drink, quizzes and scientific brain teasing games.

The two organisations celebrate women in predominantly male industries, and they seem to be the perfect match to fundraise for ‘women of steel’. ScienceGrrl’s Sheffield branch has only recently been established, and it is encouraging to see that Sheffield has come so far in supporting women in these environments.

This is a success story for women in Sheffield; however, isn’t it shocking that 100 years on from the first world war it is still seen to be against the norm for women to be involved in science and industry?

The traditional view of women as frail and delicate and of men as strong and much more physically capable are surely unbelievably outdated.

In an age that is seen to be so forward thinking and accepting of new culturally and socially liberal ideas, there seems to be far too many expectations when it comes to gender roles.

In a recent episode of Gogglebox, they displayed people’s reactions to

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the first gay marriages, and even the families that were fully in support of them were questioning; so who’s the mummy and who’s the daddy?

In a recent Q&A session with The Amazing Spiderman 2 stars Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, Garfield flippantly claimed that the fact that Spiderman sewed his own costume is “kind of a feminine thing to do.” Luckily Emma Stone questioned him and pointed out the presumptuous nature of his comment, but even when Garfield tried to repair the situation, he still managed to – although in a more complimentary way – stereotype women as being suited to more delicate and precise tasks.

This is an issue that has become increasingly prominent and studies have found that gender stereotypes often originate in childhood, through gender socialisation. In some cases, this begins the moment a child is born.

Whether deliberately or not, children are taught to abide by certain social norms and take on cultural roles that are ascribed to their specific gender. This is perpetuated and legitimated through family, friends, education and increasingly, advertising.

Having such firm expectations of children from such a young age and limiting them to specific types of activities, clothes and hobbies, does not allow them to fully express themselves and be creative.

Luckily, in the past few years steps have been made towards increased gender equality when it comes to children, such as the ‘Let Toys be Toys’ campaign.

Originating on mumsnet.com, it has infiltrated stores like Toys R Us, M&S and Boots, so as to avoid narrowing down what is available to children from such an early age. It has now spread to books too, furthering the idea that children should have the choice, and we should not dictate what they can and cannot like.

Another reason to clamp down on the gender socialisation of children is the issue of bullying in schools.

There was mass outrage when a nine-year old boy

had been advised not to bring a bag displaying My Little Pony to his school in North Carolina.

Boys are so often called names or teased for being effeminite based on their interests in toys, books, music and style.

But we can (almost) breathe a sigh of relief, as it is an issue that has gained huge attention this year. Newcastle upon Tyne Central MP Chi Onwurah lead a debate in parliament specifically addressing the issue of targeting gender in advertising and marketing. Onwurah spent a large part of her career working in the engineering sector, and in the past few decades has noted a decrease in the amount of women becoming involved. Engineering is a vital market for our economy, and gender socialisation could be a significant reason for the amount of jobs going unfilled This is why campaigning and fundraising for the ‘women of steel’ statue is so important.

Having a monument that portrays strong, confident, happy women doing something that society does not dictate is typical for them can be an inspiration for us all. Both men and women can admire the way that the women of steel defied typical cultural norms and exceeded what was expected of them.

The ‘women of steel’ are also an example of the huge value women can be to industry.

Demonstrating how, even though traditional gender values can be deep set, if we break through them and fight against them, we can create a much richer and much more diverse society. We should work to enable women, and men to feel comfortable in any role.

“

@forgefeatures /forgepress features@forgetoday.com

”

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PROCRAS

In the form of YouTube blogge while everyone else is busy cra assessments and dissertations list of some of the best You

Happy stu Tobuscus

Toby Turner, AKA Tobuscus, is known for his ‘literal trailers,’ where he puts catchy songs on top of movie and video game trailers.

The lyrics then reflect literally what’s happening on screen. Sounds strange, but once you’ve found one for your favourite blockbuster, you won’t be able to get it out of your head, and don’t worry if you don’t, because he does requests. With a catchy subscription tune at the end of each episode, you’ll be hard pushed to leave his channel.

Jenn

Jenna’s a sexy, who loves to to Marbles, rip in generally just ta a Master’s degre come as a surp watch her videos. gained her loads o physical appearanc among some comme continues to post v internet icon. her friends complete mansion th paid

Top three videos

Tron: Legacy Harry Potter: The Deathy Hallows Assassin’s Creed 3 5,747,532

T

How To W

Nigahiga

Having overcome racial stereotyping in his childhood, Ryan Higa became popular on YouTube a few years ago for his interpretations of other standard stereotypes, such as ‘emos’ and ‘gangsters.’ Then, Ryan started to show off by combining his comedy with a hidden skill that is his martial arts training. In some of his videos he can be seen jumping around athletically, while proving some out of context point to his audience. With nearly two billion views to its name, Nigahiga is definitely a channel worth trying out on your essay break.

Top three videos

How to Be Ninja The iPod Human How to Be Gangster

Potter Puppet Pals

If you haven’t already come across these brilliant videos, more fool you. An angsty Harry Potter and his overly exaggerated Hogwarts friends get up to all kinds of mischief on this obscure channel. Dumbledore gets naked, Neville is a butternut squash and Snape has a compulsive depressive disorder.

Oh, and they’re all hand puppets. The Puppet Pals provide some light relief to the otherwise serious lifestyle you may be leading, and at just a few minutes per clip, you can very easily chill out when cramming for whatever deadlines you have ahead of you. In by far the best video, Draco is introduced after requests by fans, and is slowly destroyed in various ways by Harry, to the tune of a stupidly addictive ditty. Get onto their channel, sit back and enjoy.

12,193,570

Top three videos

Draco Puppet Wizard Swears The Mysterious Ticking Sound

356,330

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FOR GE PRESS Fr i day May 9 2014

STINATION

@forgefeatures /forgepress features@forgetoday.com

ers. It’s exam season, and amming for their end-of-year s, Will Ross has compiled a uTube channels for you.

udying!

na Marbles

silly, hyperactive ball of fun orment her dogs Kermit and nto social annoyances and alk at the camera. Jenna has ee in Psychology, which may prise to many who regularly . Her raving mad videos have of online speculation, and her ce has become a talking point enters, but Jenna relentlessly videos, making her a popular . In one video, Jenna and are engulfed in a Nerf war, e with accessories, in the hat her world-famous videos d for. It is simply brilliant.

KSIOblajidebt

Known as KSI, Olajide Olatunji has an entourage of YouTube hits for his many blog variations. The first, his most popular, is the obsession with Fifa video games, where he will challenge friends, celebrities and his poor brother to matches, with a hilarious face-cam set in the corner. KSI also openly attacks the gaming developer EA for its flaws and glitches in many of their games, often leading to pandemonium as his infectious laugh disables his gaming ability. Since becoming an internet sensation, KSI has branched out and started to go out in public, interviewing people with random questions and performing crappy magic tricks. Simply put, this Jamaican-Londoner is immaturely fantastic.

5,591,714

Top three videos

Fifa with BB guns Goat Simulator - This is Amazing Erie

Eric Calderone

Going by his YouTube alias 331Erock, metal guitarist Eric has made hundreds of musical spoofs to famous theme tunes and sound tracks, including video games, movies and even seasonal songs. His insane abilities on his guitars are a dream to watch for anyone who enjoys this kind of genre, and if not then they’re still fun to watch for the comic effect he has on some of your favourites. His arms are covered in Marvel and DC tattoos, which get more and more awesome as his channel progresses with time. He even has a signature cheeky wink. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, send him a request and see what happens.

Top three videos

o Mildly Annoy Your Dogs What Caffeine Does What R This?

13,193,893

Top three videos

The Dark Knight Rises Meets Metal Skrillex meets Metal Super Mario Bros Meets Metal

Epic Meal Time

The Epic Meal Time guys are mad. What they do will either repulse you or make you hungry, much like the effect of Man Vs Food. They create standard meals such as lasagne and burgers, but in monstrous proportions, and often with mental changes in ingredients. If you love whiskey, bacon or fast food in general, then these videos will make you feel a lot better about it. There’s no point in being ashamed of what you eat, because as these guys demonstrate, you are what you eat - and these guys, like their food, are epic. Check out their top three videos, but don’t stop there. Who knows, maybe you’ll even find inspiration in their biblical culinary creations.

Top three videos

Fast Food Lasagna All Bacon Burger Jack and Coke Cupcakes

6,279,120

846,175

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Throughout the whole trip I spent nothing on accommodation, except for the two days that were included in the ticket price.

A big tip would be to remember to make use of those foreign language phrases in the Bummit bible. Making signs on cardbord alone is not helpful. Any attempt to speak the language is useful, and charming if nothing else. Go up to people and talk to them, you seem more human to them that way, and this definitely makes them less reluctant to take you.

Also, international students planning on travelling further, make sure you know whether your visa is a double entry or multi-entry visa. After Bummit I went to Hungary and I wasn’t allowed to enter Croatia again to catch my flight back. So I had to go from Slovena to Germany and take a megabus to Sheffield a few days later - it all got very expensive.

Eliza Punishi

Surprisingly, it’s rather difficult to justify why Bummit, a nine-day trip that mostly includes sleep deprivation and begging strangers for help, was probably the best experience I’ve had at university.

I was lucky enough to be driven to Europe’s finest cultural centres, such as the outskirts of Zielona Gora, a charming Polish town with the most comfortable 24-hour Tesco I’ve ever slept in.

Sometimes you can be waiting hours before you find someone who speaks English and will give you a chance to explain that you’re not a lunatic.

Bummit really is a challenge and, without sounding too cliché, that is what makes it so rewarding.

The Bummit community is what makes the trip.

Once knackered, unwashed and vaguely delirious, people let their guard down you can finally make friends with that guy whose been sitting opposite you in Western Bank since November. It’s a confusing and emotionally draining experience but Bummit is unforgettable, and it’s all for charity - win-win.

Evelyn Gompertz

One freezing night in Vienna, we had to sleep outside a train station entrance, because there were no hostels available and we had little money.

Sharing a spot with a local homeless lady, who assumed we were homeless as well, was eye-opening to the disgusting way homeless people can be treated.

In the morning at about 6am, commuters were making their way into the train station.

Many gave us dirty looks and one woman even spat at us and screamed German swear words. We were doing nothing wrong.

Lucy Smith

Images: Jess Pitocchi, Chris Yates

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ayi dDayecembe 6 2013 May 9r 2014 FO R GE PRESS Fr i dFr

This year Bummit went to Croatia. Here are some views and stories of the good, the bad and the ugly, from some of the people who went.

After a first day of successful hitches we found ourselves on a very empty ferry thinking we would be stuck in Calais for the evening. However we ended up getting the best hitch of the trip when we met an awesome reggae band ‘Morgan Heritage’ from Jamaica and the US. They were touring around Europe and had played in Sheffield that weekend and took us into their massive double-decker tour bus.

The bus had 16 bunk beds and a lot of coconut milk.

The next morning we woke up in a small mountainous town in Austria after only 24 hours of hitching. We decided to hitch on as another member joined the band leaving not enough room on the bus. However 2 days later we made it to Prague where they were performing and after a few calls to the band manager ‘Skelly’ we were taken backstage at Lucerna music venue.

We got an enthusiastic greeting from the band who were amazed we had got there just by hitching. It was an amazing show and we even got a shout out to “our friends from Sheffield” which confused the crowd greatly! We made the most of the free food on offer (being students) and took a lot of cheese.

We then sadly had to say our goodbyes as they set off to Germany straight after the gig. We promised we’d spread the reggae love so everyone listen to Morgan Heritage.

Isabel Emerson

After spending the night sleeping in the arrivals lounge at Dover, our spirits were low.

We boarded the ferry and before it had even set off we met a lovely German man called Thomas who agreed to take us from Calais to Germany - an eight-hour journey.

En route, Thomas stopped in Bruge where he bought us lunch and then took us on a driving tour around the city. We then continued to Germany where he went 400km out of his way to take us to the best possible train station to hitch out of.

He couldn’t have done for more for us.

Bummit shows you a different side to people and you are often overwhelmed by the kindness strangers are willing to offer.

It was an experience I will remember for the rest of my life.

Lauren Spencer

On the third night we were in Dresden without a place to stay. So my team mate, Sonja, bravely went up to these smartly-dressed German students and said: ‘Hi, we’re hitchhiking all the way to Croatia and we need a place to stay for the night, do you know anyone who could help?’, clearly hinting at them to take us in. One of them did and even gave us her bedroom for the night. We would have had nowhere to sleep that night if we hadn’t asked. Even if it didn’t work we wouldn’t have lost anything, that’s one thing to always remember.

Eliza Punshi

Travelling down the autobahn with Polish Romain at an average of about 220kph was definitely an experience!

Despite occasionally fearing for our lives we managed to get from Dresden to Krakow in two and a half hours, cutting the normal journey in half! When we told him our friends were in a car about an hour in front he made it his job to catch up with them… with some serious acceleration, cutting of lanes and speeding through tolls we quickly overtook, with Romain slowing down and waving at them as we passed! Six of us sleeping on an Irish man’s kitchen floor in Trier was an interesting night too!

Lauren Murphy

The Bummit community is what makes the trip @forgefeatures /forgepress features@forgetoday.com

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LIFESTYLE&TRAVEL

@forgelifestyle /forgelifestyle lifestyle@forgetoday.com

WHAT NOT TO MISS THIS FORTNIGHT

Lifestyle leaves

by Niki Kesharaju

ES VINTAGE SHEFFIELD DO

BALLROOM TEA DANCE S

Saturday May 10, 10:30am-4:30pm at The Cutler, £1 entry at the door

Thursday May 15, 11am-2:30pm at the Sheffield City Hall, £3 at the box office

‘Britain Does Vintage’ returns to Sheffield with a fair worth going to for any vintage lovers out there. Stalls will include a range of vintage clothing, jewellery and home ware at bargain prices, fronted by very experienced stallholders willing to share their wealth of vintage knowledge. The vintage fair also includes a vintage tearoom, complete with a range of cakes and tea to go along with it. Also expect live music and a beauty salon to give you a vintage glam make-over.

If you fancy a lively atmosphere with couples dancing in an opulent art deco room, the Sheffield City Hall is opening its Ballroom to the public for one of their various Tea Dances complete with good music, food and drink.

Aubrey Robinson will be bringing in his live music for couples to waltz to and the Arches Bar will be serving refreshments for the duration of the dance. Take yourself back to the Sheffield City Hall’s traditional roots and get dancing.

Saturday May 17, 6-9pm at Meadowhall Showground, tickets £14 for adults, £7 for children at the gate.

Monday May 19, 8-10pm, Interval Bar, SU Building, tickets are £5.95 from the Students’ Union Box Office

The Extreme Team’s next venture as a part of their summer shows brings them to Sheffield. This event is sure to get your adrenaline pumping complete with monster trucks, daredevil drivers and breath taking BMX teams. After spending the winter months training hard, the skilled members of the Extreme Team will be presenting a range of death defying acts in the arena. If you fancy a live atmosphere buzzing with the sounds of monstrous engines and nifty flips, this one is for you.

It doesn’t get classier than the luxurious combination of wine and cheese. Bibendum wines are hosting a wine tasting event where you will get the chance to sample from a range of different wines and some cheese to go along with the experience. An expert from Bibendum will teach you everything you need to know about wine and how to taste it the right way. Get yourself to Interval for a classy night with a heavenly combination of wine and cheese.

extreme stu nt show

Celebrity fad diets

night Wine and cheese

Food

by Georgina Charlton Juice Cleanse - Blake Lively There are a vast amount of juice diets, cleanses and programmes on the market – Slim Fast, the Cambridge Diet and Dr Oz’s Juice Cleanse, to name but a few. Any celebrity that undergoes a juice cleanse or diet does so for up to five days to get into an awards dress or look good for an event. However, these types of meal replacement diets should never be undertaken for over a week and may have serious health repercussions for the dieter and weight gain once proper meals are resumed.

Veganism – Beyonce Earlier this year Queen Bey and her beau embarked on a 20-day vegan diet, cataloguing their meals via Instagram. Giving up all meat, cheese and dairy is not to everyone’s taste but evidently worked for the loved up pair as Beyoncé looked incredible at this year’s Grammy awards. Cutting out many of the major food groups, it is easy to see how you can quickly lose a lot calories. After a while you may find that even though you are eating low calorie veggie based meals, your weight loss plateaus. Be sure to find protein replacements and slow burning carbs to avoid your body going into starvation mode.

Breatharian diet – Madonna Madonna is apparently keen on the Breatharian diet, but even the name for this diet is ridiculous. The premise of the diet is to gulp air instead of eating. The motion of gulping down morsels of sweet sweet nothing should make you feel fuller. There is of course no scientific backing to this crazy diet and air has absolutely no nutritional value. I, myself, would feel like an idiot sitting opposite my friends, gulping like a fish out of water, trying to make myself feel full on nothing while they eat their sandwiches.

Fashion

by Hannah McCulloch and Ellie McCaldin When we wobbled nervously into the media hub a year ago I don’t think we had any idea just how fun our year as Lifestyle editors would be. From traipsing around burlesque shows forcing our friends to try on fetish collars (always about the photo ops!) to stuffing our faces with Harley burgers, there has never been a dull moment. We just wanted to steal a little bit of the lovely Niki and Issy’s hand over issue to say thank you to everyone that has ever helped us out in a scrape: the friends who wrote articles for us, interviewees, restaurants that supplied us with ample free wine and all of the artists that helped to make the section beautiful this year. It really has been amazing so thank you Forge Press! *dabs eyes*.

And with that we leave you in the very capable hands of your new editors Niki and Issy. Look after the section girls and don’t let InDesign or the Media Hub printer defeat you!

Image: Ellie McCaldin

Spring trend watch : Androgyny

by Alice Burrows

Androgynous trends are huge for S/S14, blurring the lines between menswear and womenswear.

Women are luckier than men in terms of interchangeable unisex fashion as it is much easier for girls to incorporate menswear into their outfits rather than the other way round. Men’s shirts are a particular favourite of mine and the more oversized the better. Paired with extra skinny jeans and chunky sandals, they look great in the awkward spring months when the weather is still quite unpredictable. Thrown on over a lace camisole or a feminine dress is a great alternative too.

However, there are so many ways for men to incorporate major trends into their wardrobe. For S/S14, logo emblazoned clothing appeared all over female collections on catwalks such as Ashish and Alexander Wang. This is a really easy spring trend that men can embrace. Vintage shops are full to the brim of retro logo jumpers for those looking to avoid the high street.

If in doubt over androgynous clothing, shoes and boots are perhaps the best unisex accessories.

Dr Martens are the undisputed classic unisex shoe. There are so many different ways to style Dr Martens. On females, they can toughen up your favourite floral dresses in the summer months or low styles like the three hole shoe look lovely paired with baggy ‘mom’ style jeans. On men, Dr Martens look great with rolled up or scuffed up jeans with old band t-shirts. The Clarks desert boot is another unisex boot, usually a favourite amongst men but they look fabulous on girls worked into a casual outfit with light wash jeans. Items of unisex clothing and accessories are really useful pieces to have in your wardrobe and they work with so many different trends.

Gluten free – Gwyneth Paltrow Renowned clean eater and yoga enthusiast, Gwyneth Paltrow, has put her incredible form down to her gluten free diet. This diet involves not eating anything with flour in, so there go your pasties, pasta, doughnuts, biscuits, bread; just anything nice really. Unless you have to go gluten free for medical reasons, this diet fad isn’t worth the investment. Gluten free products are up to three times the price of normal ones and often contain much more sugar to make them palatable. Unfortunately I, myself, am gluten free and living proof that it does not give you Gwyneth’s washboard abs.

Dukan diet – Kate Middleton The Dukan diet involves a two day rotation of meat and meat with vegetables. Kate Middleton and her mother supposedly undertook the Dukan Diet in the run up to the Royal Wedding. High protein content in diets was for many years thought to make people feel fuller for longer and build lean muscle when combined with regular exercise. However, more recently these high protein diets have come under a lot of criticism with many dieters claiming that over long periods of time the lack of dietary fibre and nutrients, causing bowel problems and bad breath.

Jumper from River Island (£28), jeans from Levi’s (£45), shoes from Dr Martens (£95)

T Shirt from Burton (£18), jeans from Zara (£46), shoes from Clarks (£85)

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@forgelifestyle /forgelifestyle lifestyle@forgetoday.com

LIFESTYLE&TRAVEL Spotlight on: Enactus

Societies

By Glenn Hicks Enactus Sheffield is a social enterprise run by students here in Sheffield. Social enterprise is a bit different from charity, as it doesn’t rely on just helping someone as a one off, but instead we go for a more long-term solution.

We do this by setting up a business where the profits go towards a social cause, such as homelessness. We have a lot of projects and social businesses, meaning we run the society as a company with a structure of a managing director, executive board, and 169 team members.

Our social enterprises range from local

projects in Sheffield to international projects in South America and Africa. One of our biggest local enterprises is HOPE, which works with victims of human trafficking or domestic and sexual abuse. We’ve set up our very own HOPE cosmetics business from scratch, where we offer two month paid work placements to give women the confidence and skills they need, allowing them to be self sufficient.

Internationally, we’re just about to launch a new project in Nepal where we’re tackling neo-natal hypothermia by training locals to create innovative insulating cot liners made from waste crisp packets.

To fund these social projects, we also run commercial projects, which is what I’ve personally been involved in for the last two years. I actually joined Enactus in the first place through being part of ‘The Intern’ project, an Apprentice style enterprise competition where students compete to win an internship with top companies like Centrica, Teach First and Enterprise Renta-Car.

Fashion

Enactus isn’t just here in Sheffield though; it’s global. There are 54 teams in the UK and

1,600 teams across the world. Every year we have a national competition so that we can show our social enterprise projects to other teams and meet with top business leaders to make our projects even better. This year Sheffield won the national competition. We’ll be representing the whole of the UK at the Enactus World Cup in Beijing this October.

Without a doubt Enactus is the best thing I’ve done at university and has changed who I am and what I’m capable of. But I’m just one of many. We’ll be recruiting new members next semester, but we also want people to get involved over the summer.

Don’t worry if you don’t know anything about business (I study Geography), just be passionate about doing something worthwhile at university.

Get involved now by emailing hr.director@ enactussheffield.org Images: Enactus

Concourse couture

by Niki Kesharaju

Dom Ader Third year, Geography Wearing: vintage jacket and bag, shoes from Nike, jeans from River Island, dad’s sweater from Reebok

Mimi-Jane Wilsher First year, Psychology Wearing: coat from Topshop, top from Primark, bag from charity shop, shoes from the internet

Jad Soubra First year, Int. Business Management Wearing: vintage denim jacket from Levi’s, jumper from Adidas, jeans from Zara

Liv Graham Third year, Speech Therapy Wearing: dress from Zara, cardigan from Warehouse, shoes from H&M and bag from Oasis

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LIFESTYLE&TRAVEL

@forgelifestyle /forgelifestyle lifestyle@forgetoday.com

When Laura Bates created the Everyday Sexism project in 2012, she had no idea how quickly it would expand. Now with over 14o,000 followers on Twitter and Everyday Sexism going global, she is one of the most influential voices in the fourth wave of feminism. Lifestyle interviewer Ellie McCaldin catches up with her before her talk at the Students’ Union Was there one incident in particular that inspired you to create the blog?

It was more of a collection of incidents that all happened within a very short period of time.

They were varying in severity and ranged from cat calling to a man who followed me off the bus all the way home. There was a guy who appeared when I was sitting outside a cafe on my own and just grabbed my hand and wouldn’t let me go and another who sat next to me on the bus and started stroking and groping my leg. I think so many of us for so long have thought ‘is it just me?’ I could not believe the stories that women told when I actively asked them about it. It was unreal! So many people were suffering severely from this problem but no one was prepared to acknowledge it existed. It was kind of invisible to the people who weren’t experiencing it and that’s why I started the project.

Do you feel that the Everyday Sexism project works to preemptively tackle the causes of this discrimination?

Yes I do. For example I take a large amount of the entries that we get from young women and go to schools and universities and use them in talks and workshops with young people to really actively cover these issues. We talk about consent, violence and healthy relationships. We took about 1,000 to 2,000 of the entries that were specifically from women who’d experienced harassment on public transport, on the tube or the bus and we used them to help retrain 2,000 British Transport Police officers. That particular campaign raised reporting of sexual offences on public transport by 26 percent. Even internationally as well, there was an event at the UN about Everyday Sexism a couple of months ago. There’s a definite ripple effect going on.

How has Everyday Sexism worked to encorporate male support into the movement?

One of the ways that we’ve done it has been through making it really clear right from the off that this is not about men vs. women, it’s about people vs. prejudice. It’s a human rights issue.

We’re not for one second accusing all men of being sexist and we share men’s experiences of gender discrimination on the website and on the Twitter feed. It’s something that affects everybody. For example we’ll get a story from a woman in the workplace who has been denied a promotion because she’s considered a maternity risk and

then the same week we’ll get an entry from a man who has asked for paternity leave and who has not only been denied it but has been ridiculed in the office just for asking. These people are not suffering from separate problems but the same sexist stereotype of men going out and being breadwinners and women having domestic duties.

How would you respond to campaign groups such as avoiceformen.com who claim that male human rights are compromised by the feminist agenda?

Well with that group specifically and many like them, I think they really don’t deserve a response.

They are not about promoting men’s rights, they are simply about attacking feminism. These are groups which have written protracted articles making fun of the sound of my voice or the way my eyes look when I’m talking and saying nasty things about my unborn children. It’s very much about personal attacks and they don’t in any way engage with the content of what we’re saying. If they did, then they would be forced to recognise, I think, that everything the feminists are fighting for would be great for men’s rights. It’s very much not about taking rights away from men, it’s about improving things for everybody. I think it’s great to engage with male rights groups who are actually working towards gender equality, but with these groups which are just about bullying, essentially I don’t think it’s worth the time.

What was the thought process behind creating your new book? What does it do that the website can’t?

Well the book is a lot more about commentary and analysis whereas the website is just the entries in their rawest form. It looks thematically at issues to do with women in politics, women in the media, women in the workplace, women in public spaces, women in education. It was quite exciting to be able to really examine those broader themes that have arisen. I also wanted to reach as wide an audience as possible. That was very much the key thing from the project right from the very beginning and I thought that we could reach people with the book that might not have seen the project online. So I was quite excited to have the chance to look at everything all together and put it all down side by side in one book and kind of say ‘this is the problem’.

What advice would you give to students who may feel that they’re experiencing sexual discrimination at university?

It’s definitely worth being aware that you are likely to be protected from sexual harassment and sexual discrimination whether it’s under university guidelines or under the law itself. Also I think one of the best pieces of advice I could give is that, if it’s an ongoing situation, to keep a diary where you make a note of what happens every time it happens so that it’s much easier to prove a pattern of behaviour later on, especially if they’re quite subtle incidents. Note down the dates and exactly what happened and what was said and if there were any witnesses and how it made you feel. That can be particularly helpful when it comes to looking at things later on.

Considering your website receives around 1,000 stories of Everyday Sexism a week how do you manage to maintain a positive mind frame?

It’s kind of like a rollercoaster because I’m also getting messages from young women who’ve reported assault for the first time after not having realised before that it was illegal. Or girls who’ve started feminist societies in their schools and are standing up together against sexism in the classroom. Things are being picked up in the press now like the John Inverdale comments about Marion Bartoli at Wimbledon. It always strikes me that that was headline news for a week. In the past it wouldn’t even have been picked up.

I can see that this is all for something and that it’s working and that change is happening. That’s what keeps me going.

What would you say to those that claim we no longer need feminism?

Statistics are really powerful. Right before I started the project I looked into the statistics to see if people were right when they told me that women were now more or less equal and that this wasn’t an issue. It was reported in 2010 that out of 300 works, the National Gallery contains paintings by just 10 women. Only 10 percent of our engineers are women. 63 percent of female architects within the UK has experienced sexual harassment during the course of their career. Women are 50 percent of chemistry undergraduates but only 6 percent of professors. Out of 573 listed statues around the UK commemorating people of interest only 15 per cent of them are women. It is everywhere you look and that in itself is really striking.

Image: Schjelderup

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FO R GE PRESS Fr i d ay May 9 2014

@forgelifestyle /forgelifestyle lifestyle@forgetoday.com

LIFESTYLE&TRAVEL

Lonely Hearts

Artwork: Philppa Spottiswoode

In search of the lonely whale The lonely whale. A solitary mistress from the myriad waters of the North Pacific ocean. Her unique 52 hertz cry has yet to find her a mate, despite attracting the attention of scientists for decades.

She truly is alone.

Most whales have a cry that reaches between 17-18 hertz, a frequency that allows them to communicate across vast distances underwater. But this fair maiden sings to a tune that only we humans can hear.

In 1989, William Watkins of the

Review

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution noticed a strange recording in a study of male fin and blue whales. The anomalous cry has stumped science boffins ever since, yet many more aural sightings have been made by the US navy when they took over the case.

Since whales mainly vocalise during mating season, scientists have taken to intermittently hunting her down in specific times throughout the year.

However, no-one actually knows what species of whale she is, making this ever more difficult.

This poor, lonely creature is believed to be swimming around, singing to herself, to an underwater tune only she can hear. Is her cry a malformation, or

Abdul’s: Eccelsall Road

Walking into Abdul’s Indian at the bottom of Eccesall Road, you would be forgiven for thinking that you were walking into a takeaway, not a restaurant. Indeed the interior is very different to that of the tradition decoration of your standard Indian restaurant. Instead, terracotta and mint green pop against each other, while the pale tables help to compete the fresh and vibrant feel inside.

After we entered to a very friendly welcome from owners Ghul and Laurence, we were immediately sat down to scour the menu. My vegan companion and I went for the same starter, as recommended by Ghul; the chefs were quite happy to alter dishes to cater for a vegetarian diet.

Our starter, punjabi paratha (£3.75), was chicken and mushrooms in shallow fried bread in a lightly spiced cream sauce. The portion was huge, while the bread – which was almost like a thin pastry – was surprisingly crisp, considering the plentiful amounts of sauce.

While we were waiting for our

starters, Ghul brought over two other dishes which he insisted we try: vegetable samosas (£2.45) and a chappal kebab (£3.10). My lamb kebab was almost like two burger patties.

They were juicy, tender and an excellent size for the price. The vegetarian samosas were crispy, with spices that didn’t overpower, but provided plenty of flavour.

For our mains, I had a chicken shahi korma (£6.70) – a creamy sauce with pistachio and cashew nuts – which was delicious.

Again portion sizes were very generous (and by this point I was getting extremely full) so I had to take the rest home to enjoy for lunch the next day. To accompany my main, I had a peshwari naan (£1.95). Ghul was extremely excited about the naans at Abdul’s and now it’s clear why: it was easily the best peshwari naan I’ve ever had (and I’ve had a few). This naan was made with a coconut and almond paste which was spread on the inside of the bread giving it an extremely sweet taste, while the crushed coconuts complimented the texture of the bread.

The vegetarian jalfrazi (£6.85) had the perfect amount of spices and

Images: Curtis Coombes

plenty of sauce. Ghul told us that his chef could make naans with any filling so my companion requested a green chilli naan, which wasn’t on the menu. He described it as “absolutely amazing”.

The meal was finished off with two small pots of natural yoghurt, strawberries and honey – delicious.

Despite only being open for a couple of weeks at the time of our review, it was clear that Abdul’s Indian has amassed quite a following as Ghul kept welcoming regulars. The only negative is that at the moment Abdul’s Indian doesn’t deliver (its takeaways are pick-up only).

During May, the Indian is doing some special deals just for students: Until May 30, their offers are, buy one curry, get one free, get chicken tikka on naan for half price and buy a donner kebab for 99p. Head over for deliciously authentic Indian food and a decadently full stomach.

By Nicola Moors

simply an indication that a solitary lifestyle can be sought elsewhere in the animal kingdom? Perhaps we will never know. But we will keep searching, always on the lookout for this mysterious creature. Looking to befriend the lonely whale.

By Will Ross

Lifestyle’s recipe corner Guacamole hair mask

by Jay Harrison Want to restore life back to dry, damaged and/ or curly hair? Avocados provide essential amino acids and vitamins A, B, C and E, which provides a moisturising base to soften your hair. Eggs are full of protein, helping strengthen and moisturise while the yogurt conditions and adds extra shine.

The extra virgin olive oil helps smooth your hair cuticles, making hair resistant to damage and the lemon juice breaks down oil and grease to restore life and bounce to your hair.

Ingredients: • 2 avocados • 2 eggs • 2.5 tbsp. yogurt • 3tsp. extra virgin olive oil • lemon

Method: 1. Cut avocados in half, remove stones and scoop flesh into a bowl

2. Mash the flesh with fork until a buttery consistency 3. Crack eggs into another bowl and whisk until liquid becomes pale and a yellow-orange colour

4. Add this to the avocado butter and stir until fully mixed 5. Add the yogurt until creamy consistency 6. Gradually add the olive oil and stir in

7. Squeeze half a lemon into the mix and whisk together until the mixture is a pale green colour

8. Once ready to use, apply a generous amount over the entire length of your hair and leave for 20 to 30 minutes and wash hair as normal

Images: Jay Harrison

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Fri day May 9 2014 F O RG E P RESS

COFFEE BREAK TWEETS OF THE FORTNIGHT

@FPCoffeeBreak /forgepresscoffeebreak

Spotted in the Students’ Union this week: an unknown prankster has had a lot of fun with a pack of googly eyes. Keep your eyes peeled when you walk past the photo booth near New Leaf to see this cheeky chappie looking back at you. Other spotted googly eye locations include the hand dryer in the women’s toilets near the Gallery and the red postbox near the main entrance to the Union. Send us an email if you find any we’ve missed.

Photograph of the fortnight: Googly eyes in the Union

Photo: Lucy Copson

...

That’s one kind of world record Jonah Falcon has become internet-famous for an unusual reason.

The 43-year-old from Manhatten was featured in a documentary for having the longest penis ever to be measured, an attribute that has made him an Internet star. Some might call it a blessing, while others might call it a curse.

Although he has turned down many offers to appear in pornography, he was recently contacted by the Icelandic Phallological Museum, known colloquially as the ‘Penis Museum’. They have offered to display Falcon’s 13.5-inch penis after his death, letting his legacy live on.

Falcon accepted the museum’s offer.

He said: “I appreciate your museum’s devotion to science, and it would be an honor to have my manhood put on display,

hopefully nestled between the sexual appendages of a sperm whale and a polar bear... I hope I don’t make either of those creatures jealous. May I suggest you call the exhibit, ‘Jonah and the Whale’.”

The Phallological Museum opened in Reykjavik in 1997.

It currently features over 300 specimen penises from more than 93 different animals, including seven types of walruses and seals, a polar bear, a gorilla and 17 kinds of whales. They range in size from two millimetres to six feet. The museum was founded by a retired teacher who had a personal collection of penises from different species.

Falcon’s would be the second human penis to be put on display, the first being from an Icelandic man who died in 2011, and was recorded as saying “I have no use for my penis when I’m dead.”

Word of the fortnight Saudade, noun: 1. A nostalgic longing to be close once again to something or someone that is distant, or that has been loved but then lost.

2. ‘The love that remains.’

know u o y d i D The Molotov cocktail was so named for ‘Molotov’s bread basket’. This was the Finnish nickname for a bomb the Soviet Union used in WWII a bomb that the Soviet foreign minister falsely claimed was a ration drop. The Finns responded with Molotov cocktails - ‘a drink to go with the food’.

The name and concept of the ‘yellow pages’ came about in 1883, when a printer in Wyoming was printing copies of a telephone directory.

He ran out of white paper, so used yellow paper instead.

Technology to make life easier In science and technology news this fortnight, US company BKON has invented a machine that they claim can make the perfect cup of tea.

Loose tea leaves and water are placed into a brewing chamber, and the air is then drawn out to create a vacuum: the negative pressure in the chamber draws out flavour more accurately than using boiling water, according to Bkon.

Prototypes of the machine are currently being tested in American coffee shops, and the full product could be available to buyers later this year for the splutter-inducing price of £7,700.

Coffee Break wonders why this isn’t being tested in Britain as well, where some people would do anything for a good cup of tea.

Another very English invention to hit recent headlines is a smart umbrella that doubles up as a rain gauge.

Rolf Hut of Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands has produced a prototype umbrella that uses

a sensor to detect the vibrations caused by raindrops falling on the material, using Bluetooth to send the data via a smartphone app to a computer.

Hut hopes that his invention could be incorporated into thousands of umbrellas in order to provide data for researchers

who currently rely on a very small number of scientific gauges, which are expensive to maintain. He explains that having thousands of rain gauges moving around a city could greatly improve our ability to predict urban flooding.

On the other side of the world, scientists at Zhejiang University in China claim to have found out the best strategy to win a game of rock-paper-scissors.

They recruited over 300 students for a huge rockpaper-scissors tournament and recorded their movements to see if there were any hidden patterns, or if we truly do play completely randomly. They discovered that the winner tends to stay with their winning action, while the loser tends to change over to the next move in the sequence of ‘rock, paper, scissors’. Therefore, for the best chance of winning, you should randomise your moves so your opponent can’t anticipate what you will do next.

Photo: BKON

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FO R GE PRESS Fr i d ay May 9 2014

@FPCoffeeBreak

COFFEE BREAK

/forgepresscoffeebreak

Puzzle Page: sudoku Medium

Easy 9

7

1

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4 8

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1 6

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Hard

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Quotes of the fortnight

“ No matter how you feel: get up, dress up, show up and never give up.

”

Regina Brett

“

When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’

Fred Rogers

”

dingbats

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

1.

Across:

Down:

1. Tiring (10) 7. Opulent (8) 8. Hector and Paris were princes of this city (4) 9. Pop group formed in 1972; Aramaic word for father (4) 10. Sweet pastry made with filo pastry, chopped nuts and honey (7) 12. ___________ of soda, used in baking (11) 14. Deadly poison, found in some root vegetables if improperly prepared (7) 16. Russian alcoholic drink made from black or rye bread (4) 19. Crudely or roughly made (4) 20. (see 12 down) (8) 21. A person of desire (10)

1. Tenth letter of the Greek alphabet (5) 2. Sharp and forthright (7) 3. Young goats (4) 4. Emitter of heat (8) 5. Relating to birth (5) 6. One of the world’s largest museums (6) 11. One who hunts prey (8) 12. Embroidered cloth depicting the events leading up to the Norman conquest of England (see 20 across) (6,8) 13. One who suggests the best course of action (7) 15. Sibling’s daughter (5) 17. An area of low shrubs and grass (5) 18. Find (something) (4)

2.

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Fri day May 9 2014 F O RG E P RESS

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Sheffield SU Highlights Friday 9 May - Thursday 22 May /sheffieldstudentsunion

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FRIDAY 16 MAY

GIAG: York and York Dungeons

Space: Candy Shop 23:30 - 3:30, Octagon, £4 adv

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The Wolf of Wall Street 15:30 & 19.30, SU Auditorium, £2.50

TUESDAY 13 MAY

GIAG: Blackpool 8:00, £12 adv

SUNDAY 18 MAY

Sheffield on a Plate Student Market

Fresh local produce- veg, fruit, eggs, jams & bakery goods From 10.00, Students’ Union Concourse & Plaza

THURSDAY 15 MAY

Wild Food Quest

10.00-16.00, Meersbrook Park.

Sign up in Volunteering Office

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Hand Of presents A Long Walk to Grimethorpe 19:30, S1 Artspace, £4 / £3 earlybird

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25

FO R GE PRESS Fr i d ay May 9 2014

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SPORT

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Matchdebating

Should The Rooney Rule be introduced into British sport?

Diversity is the spice of Ability should be the primary factor life Ed McCosh In 2003, facing a crisis of misrepresentation so serious lawsuits were under serious consideration, the USA’s National Football League (NFL) devised a new rule to address the issue of a lack of minority coaches in the sport.

Named after Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney, the ‘Rooney Rule’ stipulates that at least one minority candidate must be interviewed for the role of coach or general manager.

In the 80 years before the Rooney Rule six black head coaches had been appointed; double that number have found a job in the decade succeeding the implementation of the rule.

12.5 per cent of current NFL coaches are minorities, as opposed to 2 per cent in 2002, while the net was spread in 2009 to allow all minorities the opportunity to be interviewed for a number of technical and operational roles within clubs.

There has been success too; Ozzie Newsome, the first African-American general manager appointed after the rule was introduced in 2002, remains at the 2013 Superbowl-winning Baltimore Ravens.

Evidently, the rule is taken seriously in the NFL, and just as evidently it continues to work.

Meanwhile, the fate of black coaches in English sport reads like the Agatha Christie novel Ten Little Indians; in professional football there

were five, and one by one they were picked off until only Norwich manager Chris Hughton remained.

When the Carrow Road outfit sacked Hughton the situation for all minority coaches around British sport looked bleak.

It certainly makes for disturbing reading that while a quarter of players in the Premier League and Football League are a minority, no manager is.

“More interviews would encourage minorities to take their coaching badges”

would increase the demand for minorities in management roles, and the promise of more interviews would encourage minorities to take their coaching badges.

A gay managerial candidate may feel more able to be open about their sexuality if it earns them more job opportunities rather than the tribal barracking that plagues football still.

All in all, much like the NFL itself, the rule could be one of Britain’s better sporting imports from

Proponents for female, Asian and LGBT managers would also point out a current zero per cent success rate.

While Sol Campbell and John Barnes among others have hinted at the presence of institutional discrimination, even racism, in the boardrooms, the fact is there is simply ambivalence or even scorn towards the idea of acting to force inclusion.

T h e Rooney Rule

Former Norwich manager Chris Hughton

Sonia Twigg The ‘Rooney rule’ introduced to the NFL in 2003 requires interviews for minority applicants although there is a lack of a ‘quota system’ and no numbers are specified.

There is a pressing question as to whether this system should be implemented in the UK, specifically with regard to football; at the start of the season there were five black managers across 92 clubs, and today there are none.

However in the UK, and especially in the Premier League, when a manager is sacked the board usually has a candidate in mind, often before the dismissal of the previous manager.

Meaning that the system of interviews, if a minority manager w o u l d have to be included, could easily become a ‘charade’ and the chance of minority c o a c h e s receiving a

Photo: Wikipedia Commons

Forge Sport awards

management position may not increase significantly.

In contrast to the NFL, where many coaches did not play professional football themselves, all but one of the managers in the Premier League, Jose Mourinho, have played football at the top level and most players do not come from a minority background.

This is accentuated Europe-wide with even fewer numbers of black players, and as a whole many managers transfer between the top European leagues.

There is also an unwillingness to try ‘untested’ managers, b r e a k t h r o u g h opportunities are far from the norm, and only 2 of the premier league’s 20 clubs have managers without previous experience, and Norwich have only since March.

The fan culture of English football is strongly resistant to changes, particularly those introduced by forms of authority and is likely to react strongly against a manager, if assumed they are given the job by a scheme.

Although this may not be the case, it’s hard to imagine that in a struggling side opposing fans, particularly those in lower leagues, would not start to chant along the lines of ‘you only got the job because you’re black’ or other provocative responses.

The rule itself has also been questioned in America, to give the example of Todd Bowles

who has interviewed for five top coaching positions since 2009 and landed none of them.

So, is he being given interviews simply to fill the quotas?

Or does he genuinely have a chance of receiving

“Is he being given interviews simply to fill the quotas? these jobs?

Such questions cannot be ignored.

There have been no previous rules and quotas in England, and it would also be hard to ensure the scheme was being used fairly, and no guarantee that this would increase the numbers of minority players, despite this having been the case in the United States.

What we’re left with is a rule that at best simply papers over the cracks of discrimination in sport and could even have a detrimental effect on coaching.

How “positive” can “positive discrimination” be?

Forge Sport editor Joe Bamford chooses his heroes and villains of the week Mark Selby Beat Ronnie O’Sullivan to win the World Snooker Championships at the Crucible. Selby came from 10-5 down at one point.

üü

Luis Suarez

ü

Being crowned Football Writer’s Player of the Year capped a remarkable turnaround for the Uruguayan this season.

Manchester United It’s been said they’ve dealt with the David Moyes affair poorly; some say the Ryan Giggs/Louis van Gaal situation is equally embarrassing.

û

Racism

ûû

Dani Alves dealt with being racially abused brilliantly, but the point still stands that there’s no place for racism in football.

26

Fri day May 9 2014 F O RG E P RESS

@forgesport

SPORT

/forgepress sport@forgetoday.com

Sports personality of the week Forge Sport’s Joe Bamford met squash player and Varsity hero Kritin Gupta for an interview

How long have you been playing squash?

I’ve been playing squash since I was 10 years old. My father plays squash so he once took me with him to the squash club to try it. I really liked the game and started playing it regularly. First my father gave me basic training then later I even trained under professionals.

What aspects of the sport do you enjoy most?

What do you enjoy most about being part of a uni sports club?

The best part of being a member of a university sports club is that you get to play the sport you love with people who share your passion for the sport. Plus you get to meet a lot of new people and make new friends.

There are a lot socials and fun events where you can take a break from your course assignments.

We had won two matches against Hallam this year and our team also reached the semi-finals of the cup tournament so we had a very positive frame of mind and high morale. I was pretty confident as I had a very good season, winning the majority of my games.

With Uni winning events left right and centre, did you and the rest of the squash club feel any kind of pressure?

There was a high spirit in the squash club when we went to play t h e

Varsity match but we didn’t feel any pressure as we had a very good supporting crowd. And when we were playing the Uni required two points to win Varsity and next result was due from squash so we just wanted to win it fast.

What’s your standard prematch routine?

I generally don’t eat anything for an hour and a half before the game because you cannot play with a heavy stomach. I do four court runs and stretch before the game as part of the routine warm up. I also do standard knocking before the game so that I get a proper grip with the racket.

Was the atmosphere exciting before you took to the court?

There were a lot of supporters from both universities and the crowd were cheering their players very loudly. The club had even made posters to support the players!

How did you feel when you found out you’d claimed the winning point in this year’s varsity? What was the triumphant moment like?

I didn’t have any idea that I had claimed the winning point.

Then one of my team mates congratulated me on winning Varsity for Uni. Once I’d realised what had happened, I was on cloud nine and I immediately called my parents in India. It was one of the most memorable moments of my Uni life.

What was the buildup like leading up to Varsity?

Were you expecting to win?

The buildup to Varsity was pretty positive.

“It was one of the proudest moments of my Uni life” What do you think the win should do for the profile of the club?

The win should help the club build a better reputation with the sports office of the uni which would help the club get more members and more funds.

Do you think the profile of the sport should be raised too, so more people get involved and play it?

Squash has never been a very popular sport like football or cricket but I think it is one of the fastest and most energised sports. People don’t really know about squash so they should be informed about the sport. I

believe that squash is becoming more popular; we have more members compared to last year.

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

DOT COM

United reach seventh heaven after rollercoaster season Football Sky Bet League One Sheffield United Coventry City

2 1

Ed McCosh Sheffield United finished the 2013/14 League One season in seventh place as goals from Ryan Flynn and Ben Davies secured a 2-1 comeback victory against Coventry City.

After being second from bottom at the beginning of February, the win caps off a remarkable run which has taken Nigel Clough’s men up sixteen places, as well as to an FA Cup semi final at Wembley.

Amidst the drama unfolding through the Football League, this match was somewhat of a dead rubber, and an uninspiring opening 25 minutes reflected that fact.

Conor Coady, playing the 50th and final game of his loan spell before returning to parent club Liverpool, was the only player able to force a save from either keeper in the opening half an hour.

While Ryan Flynn was causing problems for the Coventry defence, the Blades’ back line faced a similar threat from the pacy Mark Marshall.

For both sides, the lack of a

final ball meant an inability to test the opposing keeper, and it appeared the game would be an end-of-season stroll.

A relaxed crowd and rare, glorious sunshine certainly helped add to an occasion that felt a lot more like a preseason exhibition match than a competitive league fixture.

Yet with six minutes left of the first half, the away side struck.

John Fleck was pulled back as he cut through the United midfield, but referee Darren Bond allowed play to continue and the Scot’s precise pass found Nathan Delfouneso, who poked the ball under the advancing Mark Howard.

Nigel Clough sent the Blades out for the second half with a renewed vigour, and the opening stages were dominated by his charges.

Despite their dominance of possession, United still struggled to make their pressure count for anything, and both Marshall and 22-goal striker Callum Wilson linked up with Delfouneso at the other end to give home fans a scare.

But the feeling around Bramall Lane was that it was only a matter of time until the home side scored, and Flynn sent Blades fans into raptures just after the hour.

Cutting in from the right, Flynn played a one-two with Coady and slotted the ball expertly past Joe

Murphy for his fifth league goal of the campaign, celebrating signing a new contract in style.

It really was a spectacular team move that epitomised the rapport these Blades players have developed between one another throughout a challenging campaign.

The tempo only increased after the goal, and United continued to press with Coady pulling the

strings in midfield.

It was the England Under 20 captain who set up United’s second goal ten minutes after their first, making a trademark charge through the Coventry defence and beating two defenders on the edge of the penalty area before unselfishly playing in substitute Davies, who made no mistake.

Two goals of the highest quality

were a fitting tribute as the curtain fell on another campaign.

For United, the win perfectly capped off a season which, like this game, was a victory snatched from the jaws of defeat.

27

FO R GE PRESS Fr i d ay May 9 2014

@forgesport

SPORT

/forgepress sport@forgetoday.com

IN PICTURES: SEASON HIGHLIGHTS

From rough to Clough: 50 shades of Gray: Sheffield Wednesday Sheffield United Ed McCosh Sheffield United fans may have been expecting a visit to Wembley in August, but not one of them could have seen how this bizarre and memorable season would pan out.

The 2013/14 season began with the hunt for a new manager after Danny Wilson was sacked during a ‘failure’ of a campaign which saw the Blades finish fifth and lose to Yeovil in the play-offs.

Everton academy coach David Weir was chosen to return the club to the second tier, yet from his two opening games in charge, it was the home League Cup defeat to Burton Albion rather than the victorious League One curtain-raiser over Notts County that proved indicative of the Scot’s fateful reign.

Weir lasted just 13 games, nine of those being defeats, and Hartlepool dumping United out of the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy on October 8 proved the final straw, with the decision to end a miserable 93-day stay made three days later.

With United rooted shockingly at the bottom of League One, the board turned to sacked Derby County boss Nigel Clough, and the former England midfielder started off with a 3-1 success over Crewe at Bramall Lane.

The rest, as they say, is history.

The Blades’ form improved with a seven match unbeaten run spanning the end of November and the entirety of December, yet when Crewe won 3-0

Tom Pyman in the reverse fixture on February 1 United were still second bottom.

Following the defeat at Gresty Road, United went on a run of 10 successive wins - seven of them in the league - keeping eight successive clean sheets from a 3-0 demolition of Shrewsbury on February 8 to a 0-0 stalemate with Preston North End on March 17.

The turning point came three days after the Crewe reverse, at Craven Cottage.

Despite a poor run of form, United made national back pages with a stunning 2-1 victory away at Premier League side Aston Villa in the FA Cup third round before holding top flight rivals Fulham to a draw at Bramall Lane.

With the replay in West London seconds away from going to a penalty shootout, Shaun Miller stooped to head home a historic winner and prompt a remarkable run of form in both league and cup.

While United continued to rise up the League One table, victories at home to Championship sides Nottingham Forest and Charlton Athletic secured a first FA Cup semi final for the club since 2003, and the first for a third tier team since Wycombe made the last four in 1997.

The trip to Wembley would end in disappointment as Hull City fought back to beat the valiant Blades 5-3, yet the team provided a trip to the capital that was expected to mark a play-off final; it would be argued by many that the semi

final experience was sweeter than that of any play-off tie.

United will enter the 2014/15 campaign looking to continue a current run of eight games unbeaten, capped off by a 2-1 win over Coventry at Bramall Lane, and with defender Harry Maguire recognised for a sterling season with an appearance in the League One Team of the Year.

The likes of Maguire and Chris Porter, who ended as top scorer with 11 goals, provide genuine promise for a tilt at the League One title next season, and with Clough leading a rejuvenated young side hopes will certainly be high.

Expectations will be as well; with Saudi Prince Abdullah bin Mossad Al Saud buying a 50 per cent stake in the club came the promise of a return to the Premier League “as soon as possible”.

The future looks bright for Sheffield United, yet the topsy-turvy nature of the 2013/14 campaign suggests the coming seasons will be far from predictable.

Much like their Steel City rivals, Sheffield Wednesday endured a season of two halves.

A decent cup run and Championship football secured for another year goes down as a respectable campaign for the Owls having endured a terrible start.

The season began with a 2-1 loss at QPR, and from then on, Wednesday continued to struggle and suffered plenty of disappointing results.

Incredibly, they failed to register a single win in their opening 12 league games, leaving them rooted at the bottom of the table, with their future looking decidedly bleak.

Before their first victory finally came on November 2, everyone other team in the football league had won a game; a statistic that certainly made for grim reading at the time.

It certainly didn’t satisfy chairman Milan Mandaric, who relieved Dave Jones of his managerial duties with immediate effect.

Whilst the players spoke of their regret at Jones’ sacking, many feeling they’d let him down, the response was instant and emphatic.

Jones’ former assistant Stuart Gray took the reins and the Owls sprung something of a shock as they

thrashed promotionchasing Reading 5-2 in a thrilling game at Hillsborough.

Matty Fryatt and Connor Wickham, both on short-term loan deals, had shown flashes of their considerable ability earlier in the season but clicked for the first time to devastating effect against the Royals - Fryatt netting twice and Wickham once..

The latter in particular went from strength to strength, as his improved confidence in front of goal coincided with a significant upturn in form for the side.

The 2-1 victory over eventual champions Leicester City will undoubtedly go down as one of their best results of the season, with Wickham particularly impressing as he grabbed a brace.

Much like Ross Barkley, who graced the Hillsborough turf whilst on loan from Everton last season, Wednesday can take pride in grooming Wickham, who recently won the Premier League Player of the Month for his exploits on Wearside, into the far more polished player he is today.

Come the turn of the year, Gray had been given the permanent position of head coach and the Owls were slowly edging their way out of the bottom three and towards safety.

They also began to embark upon an FA Cup run which although they needed a replay to overcome non-league Macclesfield in the third round.

Sandwiched between

these games was an emphatic 6-0 win over rivals Leeds which seemed to signal the end of their dismal first half of the campaign.

Wickham and Fryatt returned to their clubs and were replaced by Leon Best and Benik Afobe, both of whom also impressed.

A win over Rochdale took Wednesday into the last 16 of the FA Cup where they faced fellow Championship side Charlton.

They were hot favourites to defeat them on home soil and set up a mouthwatering quarter-final date with Sheffield United.

Disappointingly, for Owls fans and neutrals alike, they were beaten 2-1 by the Addicks.

Comprehensive wins against the likes of Huddersfield, Birmingham, QPR and Bournemouth ensured their safety and consolidated their status as a Championship club but there will have been regrets that they didn’t go a step or two further on the road to Wembley.

The season fizzled out somewhat with defeats in each of their final three games but survival, let alone a 16th placed finish, looked impossible back in November, and there are some real foundations to be built on.

Having relied heavily on loan players, Gray has a tough job over the summer, but he’s certainly proven his credentials and, with some shrewd business in the transfer market, Wednesday could yet move further up the table next season.

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Fri day May 9 2014 F O RG E P RESS

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Girls end Hallam hoodoo

Women’s cricket team celebrate their victory over Hallam

Women’s cricket University of Sheffield 61/9 Sheffield Hallam 60 all out Ed McCosh University of Sheffield Women edged to a tense one wicket victory over close rivals Hallam to make a perfect start to the 2014 season.

Uni were out for revenge after defeats to Hallam both in last year’s league and Varsity 2014,

Photo: Roshini Navaratnam

as well as looking to secure a victory after a winless league campaign last time out.

Uni won the toss and put Hallam in to bat, and it proved a shrewd move as opening bowlers Roshini Navaratnam and Lucy Buttery restricted the batting team to just eight runs in the opening five overs.

The former was also able to pick up a wicket before a devastating two-wicket over from Zara Aslam left Hallam reeling on 21-3.

Hallam’s opening five were all dismissed inside 13 overs and

with just 33 on the board, but a partnership of 19 frustrated the Uni bowlers before a lower-order collapse precipitated by Aslam and Shannen Lucas, who both ended up taking three wickets, saw Hallam post a total of 60.

The 61 required to win was a lower score than Uni had managed in Varsity, although higher than the 48 and 57 notched up in league meetings against their closest rivals.

Added to the frustration of a rain delay, the match was set up for a tense finale.

victory.

The Jester from Leicester is now champion of the world and king of the Crucible.

But the biggest shock of the tournament came when jointfavourite, and world number two, Ding Junhui from China was knocked out in the first round of the championships by Englishman Michael Wasley.

Wasley was fulfilling his lifelong dream of playing at the Crucible and took the opportunity to shine, after qualifying for the tournament from a re-spotted black.

A nervous final frame saw Wasley hold off Ding Junhui and dump out the Chinese player 109.

Despite no 147 maximum breaks being recorded in the tournament, one moment of brilliance was Neil Robertson securing his century of centuries, in a single season, in his quarterfinal against Judd Trump.

The Crucible crowd and Robertson celebrated this feat

like the world championship had been won, Robertson later said it was the biggest roar he has ever heard from a crucible crowd, even greater than Ronnie O’Sullivan’s record 147 in 1997.

Robertson punched the air in satisfaction as he pocketed the green to complete the incredible achievement.

His opponent Judd Trump arguably provided the most exciting shot of the tournament, which is being described as the ‘pinball shot’.

It may be a ‘fluke’ but a brilliant fluke at that, pocketing the pink after playing the ball off multiple cushions.

Selby’s plant shots were something to marvel at, as were Robertson’s, but Ronnie ‘The Rocket’ O’Sullivan yet again displayed his ability from distance.

It is impossible to decide which series of shots were the best in the tournament.

With an exhilarating final and a tournament full of record

Lucas and Aslam saw out the first six overs, but a devastating two over spell meant Uni had gone from being 12 without loss to 12-3.

With defeat looming large, Izzy Groves and Polly Harrison steadied the ship with a vital 24 partnership. Groves’ eight was the highest score by a Uni player, but after she departed the score took another hit.

Two wickets in two balls took the score from 39-5 to 40-7, but an unlikely hero intervened; extras.

A period of slack Hallam bowling, plus resolute Uni batting, saw the score creeping up towards the required total.

Typical to the unpredictable nature of the game, a ninth wicket fell with just two runs required for victory, but the 45th extra of the game sealed the win with over two overs left.

Despite only scoring 16 off the bat, it was a determined run chase that secured a landmark victory over Hallam and made for a perfect start to the outdoor season.

Selby rises from the flames to beat Ronnie at the Crucible Snooker World Championships Mark Selby Ronnie O’Sullivan

18 14

Rob Milne In a tournament ripe with shock defeats, Mark Selby provided another in the final, beating fanfavourite Ronnie O’Sullivan 1814.

Selby, 30, produced a comeback up there with the greatest seen at the Crucible.

During the first two sessions he was five frames behind O’Sullivan but fought back winning six frames in a row to take the lead.

From that point onwards, Selby never looked like losing, the trophy and £300,000 prize fund was firmly in his sights.

The crowd produced an electric atmosphere in the Sheffield theatre and other fans watched on the big screen outside as Selby battled to his first ever world championship, securing a famous

Mark Selby celebrates breaks and big upsets, this year at the Crucible was one of the top championships in recent years.

Tickets for next year’s championships will already be selling quick, as Selby attempts to defend his new title as Snooker World Champion.

Photo: Wikipedia Commons

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