FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER 2016
Issue 99
Inside this issue... Comment The age old debate: Skeletons vs. Ghosts p. 11
FREE
Features Pride & Prejudice: Homophobia in Sheffield p. 16
Lifestyle
Sport
New segment: Tattoo Corner
Sports Thoughts: Jessica Ennis-Hill
p. 20
SU Officer wages war on Barclays
Josh Peachey News Editor
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The Students’ Union Development Officer has started a campaign to blacklist Barclays for their contribution to climate change, meaning that Sheffield SU would have zero dealings with the organisation. SU Development Officer Michael Kind targeted Barclays as they are a primary player in the non-renewable energy game, and are a major investor in UK fracking and global fossil fuel extraction. Michael Kind told Forge Press: “The idea behind banning
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Barclays is that you don't try and financially cripple them because they're huge, but instead you build up a social stigma around them. By publicly separating ourselves from them we start to challenge the acceptance that they have.” “Climate change is also a very gendered and racialized process. Climate change is perpetuated by western countries the people who feel the effect are largely people of colour in sub-Saharan Africa, Iran, or the Equator. “We wouldn’t accept racism in our buildings yet we legitimise it by giving space to companies like Barclays.”
Results inside!
...continued on page 5
167 - 169 West Street, Sheffield S1 4EW
886 Ecclesall Road, Sheffield S11 8TP
Delivering 24hrs a day, 7 days a week Closes for carryout from 4am - 11am.
Delivering 24hrs a day, 7 days a week Closes for carryout from 11pm - 11am.
01142 787878 01142 669988
p. 45
2 FORGE PRESS
FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER 2016
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press.news@forgetoday.com
In Brief...
Forge Press Editorial Team Editor
editor@forgetoday.com
Anna Gillies
Deputy Editors editor@forgetoday.com Dan West Hallam Roffey Head of Online
editor@forgetoday.com
Caro Kyllmann
Head of News press.news@forgetoday.com Lisa Latham
Kent Uni go the Wrong Direction
AM Elephant is ‘One Catastrophe Car for the Road’ Chase
Gregg’s stops Selling Scones
Kent University SU faces national backlash as it picks BritishPakistani’s Zayn Malik, former One Direction member and Mayor of London Sadiq Khan as poster-boys for Black History Month UK organisers of Black History Month said they were “deeply disappointed”
The Arctic Monkeys inspired elephant was sold at a charity auction but still belongs to the people of Sheffield. Business owners Alexis and Kate Krachai placed the winning bid of £16,500 and gifted it back to the city. The 6ft statue will remain in the Winter Gardens to raise awareness of the Children’s Hospital Charity.
Greggs customers have been furious after the big brand bakery decided to ditch scones. Greggs has scrapped all fruit, cheese and bran scones from all of its 1,700 shops across the country despite having sold them for several decades: as part of their shift to trendy on the go products.
A man was injured by jumping 30ft off a bridge in Sheffield in an attempt to escape arrest during a police chase. The 25-year-old man failed to stop for the police, leading to the chase in Attercliffe. The man crashed his jeep, got out his car and scaled a wall before jumping.
News
press.news@forgetoday.com
Chloe Coleman Josh Peachey Hope Cunningham Comment
press.comment@forgetoday.com
Will Morgan Michael Chilton Features
Editorial
press.features@forgetoday.com
Jess Davis Ellena Rowlin Laura Mullan
Coffee Break
press.coffeebreak@forgetoday.com
Sian Bradley Lifestyle
press.lifestyle@forgetoday.com
Anna Whittaker Joseph Mackay Sport
press.sport@forgetoday.com
Sheena Sidhu Ed McCosh Hugh Dickinson Music
press.music@forgetoday.com
Harry Chambers Emma Williams Games
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Ashfaq Emritte Nick Burke Arts
press.arts@forgetoday.com
Mollie Davidson Laura Mulvey Screen
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Luke Baldwin Beth Andralojc
Copy Editors Harriet Hales Harry Gold Kimberley John Shaun Thomas Katharine Swindells Tom West Holly Overton Molly Kerkham Jessica Green
T
he end of October marks two things, the opportunity to celebrate all things spooky on 31 October, and the exciting spectacle of Bonfire Night a week later. If any of you are struggling to get into the Halloween spirit, we have lots of scary themed content for you to enjoy this issue. As for Bonfire night next weekend, if you’re stuck for plans, the view over Sheffield from Bole Hill up in Crookes is seriously spectacular and with fireworks added is even more impressive. Most people who know me know that October has marked another serious event for me: the end of
The Great British Bake Off. The end of an era, the final of Bake Off was overshadowed by the overwhelming sadness for devoted fans who are still mourning its move to Channel 4. Candice emerged this year’s winner and although she divided opinion, I think she did deserve it in the end. More importantly though, was anyone else seriously craving a sausage roll by the end of the episode? For this issue we have some great stuff as always for you. Comment have an article comparing Guy Fawkes to the current political climate in the UK and US, Features have a contributor sharing their
experience of homophobia in Sheffield, and Lifestyle have picked out five places to visit on a student budget – perfect if you’ve been a bit spendy in the first month of term. Entertainment are offering their usual picks and reviews including a review of the recent ITV series Victoria which came to an end last week; my Sunday evening just isn’t the same without it. Sport have got a great collection of BUCS reports with a Sports Thoughts piece on Sheffield’s own Jessica Ennis-Hill. This week’s paper is the final issue before Issue 100 which marks 100 issues since the paper changed from Steel Press to Forge
Press. Keep an eye out for the next paper which will have some special content to mark this exciting milestone in Forge Press history. Until next time, enjoy your week, and as the deadlines begin to approach, make sure to leave time to unwind. Kick back with a beverage and a copy of Forge Press and take some time away from uni work – that’s what I’ll be doing this weekend.
What to look out for over the following fortnight
Want to get involved or got a story to share?
What’s On Event Halloween Freaks Festival: 4000 dead, demonic and eternally damned students descend upon the SU. Spiderwalk 2016: The legendary Rag 13 mile sponsored walk across the peaks. Features a halfway pub stop with warming food and a firework display. The Tuesday Club 18th Birthday: The famous SU club night celebrates turning 18 with Preditah, Mala, Randall and more!
Time/Venue
Event
Time/Venue
31/10/16 SU 23:00-04:00
Teaching Networking Event: If you’re interested in teaching, this one-off event will feature employers who want to meet you!
04/11/16 SU Concourse 18:00-22:00 £8 Tickets
University Challenge Auditions: Put your general knowledge to the test at this year’s auditions for the University ‘s University Challenge team.
07/11/16 and 08/11/16 17:30-18:30 SU - Nelson Mandela Auditorium
08/11/16 Foundry, SU 23:00-03:30 Tickets Online
Wellbeing Café: A communal space in your SU with a pay-asyou-feel, food surplus meal, and a proactive focus on your wellbeing.
07/11/16 18:00-20:00 View Deli, SU
03/11/16 Inox Dine, SU 18:00-20:00
We always welcome writers, photographers and artists to join us here at Forge Press. Come and pay us a visit in the Media Hub situated in the Students’ Union or email our editor at editor@forgetoday.com
FORGE PRESS 3
FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER 2016
press.news@forgetoday.com
Construction of Sheffield IKEA to start soon Hope Cunningham News Editor
•• New IKEA to open near Meadowhall in 2017 •• Store expected to create around 700 jobs The Swedish homeware giant IKEA is due to open next summer near the Meadowhall retail park. At present the nearest IKEA locations are in Nottingham and Leeds. Scunthorpe firm Clugston Construction has recently secured the contract to work on the £60m flagship store and are currently on site at the 31,500 sq m location. The two-storey shop will include a sales floor, café and children’s play areas as well as underground and exterior car parks. The store is likely to take shape within the coming weeks after much anticipation around its development. In 2001, the company submitted plans to build, but the application
was withdrawn in 2004 following concerns about traffic and the impact it would have on town centre shops. Department store John Lewis objected on the grounds it would hit traders based in the city centre such as themselves. 2013 saw IKEA revisit plans to build in Sheffield and in 2014, Sheffield city council made a recommendation to grant consent for the store to be built off Sheffield Road. In total, the store is expected to create around 700 jobs, including more than 300 construction roles and up to 350 in store jobs of various capacities. Sales, customer service, interior design, hospitality and logistics are a few of the positions on offer. Earlier this month, IKEA held a job fair at the Town Hall in order to give more information about positions and career opportunities. While applications were not open at the event, vacancies will commence in the winter. With Lock-In events held every
semester at Meadowhall, IKEA’s location will make it a popular destination for students as the store boasts its range of “well- designed, functional home furnishings products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be
NEWS
able to afford them.” Construction in Sheffield is part of the franchise’s expansion in the UK and applications are also going ahead for a store in Exeter.
•• First bout of strikes in 17 years •• Request for two per cent pay rise first drafted in January Binmen in Sheffield went on strike for the third time this year on Monday 17 October in an ongoing effort to secure a two per cent pay
rise from employer Veolia. The most recent strike affected bin collection in S6 postcode areas. A 24-hour strike was held in April over ‘aggressive managing’ and accusations of bullying within the workplace and was the first to occur in 17 years. On Wednesday 5 October, binmen went on strike again to campaign for a pay rise, an issue that was first raised in January. Peter Davies from the GMB Union said “the workers feel very very angry” and warned that a lack
of compromise from Veolia could result in further strikes. On Monday 17 October, the binmen held a strike for the third time and formed a picket line outside of one of the city’s bin lorry depots. They tried to prevent lorries leaving the site, but some were able to leave and make the rounds. Police were reportedly called to the scene to investigate the disruption. The union says the binmen are still demanding that their pay claim is met by Veolia and that workers from other areas have
In our last issue, we printed a feature titled ‘The New Manorexia’. We received a response from a reader which we have printed below. Anonymous
Binmen rubbish pay deal Lisa Latham Head of News
Your Responses
been drafted in to get lorries out. General manager of Veolia, Debbie Doohan, says “We have worked hard to try and resolve this dispute having had numerous meetings with the GMB.” The workers are asking for a 2% pay rise in a year, and have been offered a 1.5% rise. The waste disposal company says they are disappointed with the strikes, and feel that a 3% rise over two years is fair.
I am writing to express my concern at one of your recently published features, titled ‘The New Manorexia’ (14/10). First of all, I want to say that I think it’s great that you’re covering mental health topics and potentially helping students out there who are struggling. However, I find this article deeply insensitive and simply incorrect. The terms “bigorexia”, “reverse anorexia” and “manorexia” implies that only females can suffer with anorexia and trivialises the idea of men going through this disorder. The National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence estimates around 11% of those affected by an eating disorder are male. I understand that this is significantly less than females, but does this mean we can pretend that males don’t go through the same type of eating disorder? ‘Manorexia’ is a term that heavily suggests body dysmorphia is the only eating disorder males can be effected by. It adds to the stigma that men will only suffer disordered eating when training. In an article trying to challenge societal views on eating disorders, the last thing I expected was to be faced with offensive terminology and the idea that anorexia doesn’t effect men. Even if this was not intentional, this is problematic.
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FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER 2016
NEWS politics watch
Hard brexit? Doesn’t sound like it, Mrs May On Wednesday 26 October, The Guardian exposed the Prime Minister’s conflicting views on Brexit in an audio recording. Despite announcing publicly that the UK was going for a ‘hard’ Brexit, the audio recording of May contained strong arguments for maintaining links with the EU. She explicitly expressed how significant being a part of the EU is when seeking foreign investment and reiterated her views on the security benefits.
MPs launch new push to change voting system A group of MPs from almost every party in Parliament is proposing ditching the First Past the Post (FPTP) electoral system. The motion that FPTP is not “fit for purpose” came about following petitions with over 500,000 signatures. Senior Labour figure Chuka Umunna proposed the motion, saying that since the General Election “pressure is building” to change to system to proportional representation. The motion laid out has been signed by representatives from the Lib Dems, Greens, Ukip, the SNP and Plaid Cymru.
Zac Goldsmith to step down following Heathrow decision The former London mayoral candidate is expected to resign and force a byelection as a protest against the Government’s decision to go ahead with a third runway at Heathrow. Goldsmith was one of several Tory MPs, including Boris Johnson, to criticise Theresa May’s decision to overturn the party’s previous stance against Heathrow expansion.
press.news@forgetoday.com
University criticised for new building proposal Josh Peachey News Editor
•• University criticised for proposal sourcing method •• Director of Estates and Facilities Management, Keith Lilley, responds The University of Sheffield has come under heavy criticism from an architecture campaign group for how it handled the procurement process of a new proposed university building. Project Compass, a nonprofit campaign group that aims to improve the ways in which architectural firms are sourced for projects, said that the way in which the University appealed for designs for the future PEARL Music and Theatre building was ‘highly unusual’ and ‘unfair’ on architects. Russell Curtis, Director of Project Compass, said: “They asked for architects to submit proposals and effectively tender for providing an architectural service. It’s an interesting brief, a high-profile building, and one that most architectures would cut their left hand off to get to design. “What we’re frustrated about with this particular project is that the University hasn’t gone down the restricted procedure route. Instead, they’ve done an open procedure, meaning that anybody interested, can submit a design including proposed price, from
which the University chooses from, and there’s not going to be a shortlisting process.” The issue with not having a shortlisting process, the group argues, is that firms are expected to put time, money and resources into producing a design in an attempt to win the bid but don’t know how many other firms they’re going up against. Russell said: “It’s unethical because companies can’t build a business when trying to play the odds in such a speculative way. I think they have misunderstood what the issues are, they really should be trying to minimise the abortive or speculative work that’s undertaken by the various practices. They’re exploiting them in a way because they’re not going to pay them for the effort gone into it.” According to the contract notice: “The new building will enable Music, Theatre Studies and Creative Writing to develop, and expand teaching, research and grant capture, while also offering all university students and staff enhanced performance opportunities, and contribute to the University’s pledge to support a strong and vibrant city.” Project Compass said that a very large majority of projects of this size and complexity go through some kind of shortlisting process first, then only the shortlisted team have to prepare designs. The shortlisted teams are often paid for their design work.
In response to the criticism, Keith Lilley, Director of Estates and Facilities Management, said: “This is a very exciting specialist project and, whilst we have our own framework of approved suppliers, we really wanted to open this up to give all those with the relevant skills and experience the chance to demonstrate what they could bring to the project. “Given the specialist nature of the building it was essential to find out who could offer the best solution as well as providing the University with the best opportunity of securing high quality and value for money. The amount of information
required at this early expression of interest stage was relatively small. “We have made the process as open, fair and transparent as possible to encourage interest from a wide range of potential bidders and have had interest from as far afield as New York and Holland. We had over 150 expressions of interest, dealt with over 50 clarification questions, and have undertaken more than 25 site visits for potential bidders - all of which demonstrate clearly that there is a real appetite for this exciting opportunity.” At this point, the University is not expected to amend the process.
Fire Safety Doorstop Warning Hope Cunningham News Editor Students are being advised not to use door stops to prop open fire doors by South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue. According to student marketing companies, new university students may be tempted to wedge fire doors open in attempts to be more social. Business Fire Safety Manager Amy Jenkinson advises against this, saying “Fire doors are a crucial part of the passive fire protection of every commercial, public and multiple occupancy building. They save lives and property and should
never be propped open. They are designed to stop a fire spreading as fast, which is especially important in accommodation like student complexes where multiple people live.” Jenkinson advises that a safer and more effective way of making new friends could range from “a cup of tea and a packet of biscuits, to sharing some music or a film.” Other safety tips for students include: • Don’t cook under the influence of alcohol- buy a takeaway after a night out instead
• Switch off electrical appliances like mobile chargers, laptops and hair straighteners when not in use • Plan and practice an escape route with your house mates. In the event of a fire- get out, stay out and dial 999 • Never leave candles unattended and keep them away from curtains, drapes and clothes South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue have not recently reported any incidents due to open fire doors.
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FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER 2016
SU Officer wages war on Barclays Josh Peachey News Editor
•• Sheffield Students’ Union Development Officer Michael Kind has called for the SU to block Barclays
...continued from front page The first stage of the campaign involves getting 100 signatures on an online petition. After that, if it receives two thirds majority at SU Council, Barclays will join the list of blacklisted organisations that the Union has no dealings with, joining Nestlé and The Sun.
Banning the bank would mean that the contract for the Barclays ATM machine in Interval would not be renewed, and they wouldn’t be allowed to advertise on Union grounds. Michael said: “At a Students’ Union where we take so much pride in tackling sexism and racism, we need to bring that into play when we’re talking about climate change.” The issue of climate change is also a gendered one, Michael argued, as “70 per cent of people living in extreme poverty globally are women, and it is disproportionately people who live in extreme poverty who tend to be hit hardest by climate change.” Barclays fund fracking in the UK through owning 97 per cent of Third Energy, which is also a reason for blacklisting them according to Michael. “The government use it as an example of them tackling climate change but it’s just an alternative. It produces lots of methane, which is a lot more dangerous than carbon
dioxide, and it’s going to make the government’s commitment to reduce temperature rise impossible.” Michael argued that universities carry a lot of weight when campaigning for fossil fuel divestment, adding: “By this time last year, “$3.6 trillion had been divested from fossil fuels, and given the intention wasn’t to cripple them financially, that’s still crippling them financially.” This isn’t the first time Barclays has been blasted by a Students’ Union. In the 70s and 80s, universities nationally boycotted Barclays because of their funding to the South African government, which many saw as directly funding apartheid. Michael is hoping to boost the campaign through the NUS and encourage other unions across the country to join him in banning Barclays. You can sign the petition at this web address: https://goo.gl/ WEUdmU
Cigarette butt triggers flat fire in Ranmoor Dan West Deputy Editor
•• Fire began because of a discarded cigarette •• No one was injured because of the incident A student discarding a cigarette caused a fire to break out in Ranmoor Student Residences. This occurred in the early afternoon on Saturday 22 October resulting in firefighters arriving at the scene at 14:10 to deal with the blaze. Residents of the block were evacuated whilst the fire was extinguished before being allowed to return a couple of hours later. Two windows had to be smashed, as can be seen in the photo, to allow smoke to leave the room. A spokesperson for the University of Sheffield said, “Thankfully no one was injured in the fire and students were quickly evacuated,
but it could have been a different outcome. “This is why it’s so important for students to follow the fire safety messages and tips they are given. These include the fact that smoking
and e-cigarettes are prohibited in our student residences”. They continue “We will be recommunicating these important fire safety messages to all student residents as a preventative measure
NEWS
for future events.” To find out more about fire safety in the student residences see the residence life portal at browzer. co.uk/shef/our-top-tips-for-firesafety_2877
Cannabis farm found in Sheffield station
Lisa Latham News Editor A man has been arrested and charged for cultivating cannabis inside one of Sheffield railway station’s stone arches. Martin Lee Kemp, aged 41, has been given an 18 month suspended sentence, 180 hours of unpaid work and a curfew of 9pm-6am with an electronic tag. The crop was found by a Network Rail employee, who was carrying out routine fire checks on 17 December 2015. The police were summoned when the employee discovered four large hydroponic tents, one of which was sustaining 16 plants with electricity and water supplies. Kemp was arrested when he coincidentally arrived on the scene at the same time as police were investigating. Police searched his car and found cannabis seedlings and cocaine with a street value of over £600. Further searches of his home uncovered a large amount of cash and more cannabis.
Uni says hush on Halloween Lisa Latham News Editor The University of Sheffield has distributed noise guidelines to students living in private accommodation during Halloween. The university receives several complaints each year during this time due to rowdy house parties and noise disturbance. The guidelines suggest students close all windows, keep music levels low and encourage guests to leave the premises quietly. It also recommends providing neighbours with a contact number should they wish to complain. Substantial complaints to the University could result in the matter being referred to the Student Conduct and Appeals Office with a view to disciplinary action being taken.
FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER 2016
6 FORGE PRESS
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press.news@forgetoday.com
More people vote in SU Council Elections than ever before
REPRESENTATIVE AND LIBERATION COUNCILLORS: Representative Councillors Ethical and Environmental Representative – Chris Saltmarsh International Students Representative – Zeeshan Khan Mature Students Representative – Valerie Grant Postgraduate Research Representative – Robbie Morgan Postgraduate Taught Representative – Joshua Berlyne
NUS DELEGATES:
2016 2015
2014
Year
Liberation Councillors Black and Minority Ethnic Students’ Representative – Sarah Deria LGBT+ Representative – Eden Ladley Women’s Representative – Gracie Marlow Disabled Student’s Representative – Rosie Wright NUS Black Students’ Conference – Leonie Mills NUS Disabled Students’ Conference – Tanju Cakar NUS LGBT+ Students’ Conference – Rebecca Stroud, Steven Gaywood, Natalia Mole, Josie Le Vay, Joseph Lucy, Zachary Franck, Kezia Bryant NUS National Conference - Lilian Jones, Ali Day, Mathy Selvakumaran, Demaine Boocock, Gabe Milne, Kieran Maxwell, Chris Townsend NUS Part-time and Mature Students’ Conference – Nupur Chowdhury NUS International Students’ Conference – Santhana Gopalakrishnan NUS Trans Students’ Conference - Zac Snape, Eden Ladley, Zachary Franck, Natalia Mole NUS Women’s Students’ Conference - Holly Lown, Sarah Deria, Chloe Coleman, Natalia Mole NUS Postgraduate Students’ Conference – Mathy Selvakumaran
Nominations in this year’s SU Council Elections compared to 2014/15
Votes Cast in this year’s SU Council Elections compared to 2014/15
2016 2015
2014
3463*
Physics and Astronomy – Matthew Rowland Politics – Anne-Katrin Lother Psychology – Aashita Mirwani Russian and Slavonic Studies – Luke Taylor ScHARR – Dedipya Immadisetty Sheffield Methods Institute – Adam Hanrahan Sociological Studies – Amy Charles Town and Regional Planning – Bethany Wiles
Number of votes cast
Animal and Plant Sciences – Grace Davies Archaeology – Niamh Carton Architecture – Abdulbari E. Kutbi Automatic Control and Systems Engineering – Victoria Johnson Biomedical Science – William Mirfin-Boukouris Chemical and Biological Engineering – Damilola Oladapo Chemistry – Stephen Thornley Civil and Structural Engineering – Connor Round Clinical Dentistry – Ashish Parmar Computer Science – Tom Thomas Litman Lifelong Learning – Simon Todd East Asian Studies – Demaine Boocock Economics – Callum Burke Education – Michelle Eggett Electronic and Electrical Engineering – Rong Zou English Language and Linguistics – Hielke Vriesendorp English Literature and Theatre – Chalotte O’Neill French – Anna Blunt Geography – Eleni Ravanis Germanic Studies – Claudia Southwell Hispanic Studies – Matt Thomas History – Kieran Maxwell Human Communications – Shreya Sriram Information School – Xue Lu Interdisciplinary Engineering Studies – Emilie Brannan Journalism – Luke Baldwin Landscape – Christina Goodband Law – Brittany Hastings Management – Xiaofei Wang Material Science and Engineering – James Bromley Mathematics and Statistics – Jessica Chen Sue Lyn Medicine – Riyaz Sogiawalla Modern Languages – Loizos Theodosiadis Molecular Biology and Biotechnology – Thomas Brindley Music – George Bunn Nursing and Midwifery – Aqsa Khan Philosophy – Emmy Euston
Number of nominations
DEPARTMENTAL COUNCILLORS:
185
SU Council Election Winners
122
The new Students’ Union Councillors have been announced after last week’s three-day voting period. Students voted to elect Departmental Councillors, Representative and Liberation Councillors and NUS Delegates to represent them and their faculties at Council meetings. More students participated in voting this year than in the previous ten years with 4427 votes cast in total, an increase of 2,856 votes from the 2007 elections.
3500
•• There were also more nominations received this year than previously
203
•• More people vote in SU council elections than ever before
The elections also saw a general increase in nominations for positions with 91 more candidates running than in 2015. Representative Council positions that saw a particular rise in nominees included International with an increase of 10, LGBT+ with an increase of five and Ethical and Environmental with an increase of four. The number of student candidates in the elections has fluctuated since 2007 but peaked in 2016 with a total of 203 nominees.
4427
Lisa Latham Head of News
*Not including votes from referenda
Year
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FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER 2016
press.news@forgetoday.com
Design Scheme Grey to Green wins Hayman award Elizabeth Day News Contributor
•• Sheffield Design Awards held Wed 26 October •• Award commemorating Keith Hayman given to design scheme Grey to Green
Janet Hayman will present an award at the Sheffield Design Awards, in memory of her husband, who died cycling home 3 years ago. The winners of the Sheffield Design Awards was revealed on Wednesday 26th October at Hallam University’s Sheffield Institute of Arts. Keith Hayman was an environmentalist, artist and retired town planner. He died after having collapsed on his cycle home on Southgrove Road, aged 69. The Keith Hayman award celebrates public art and cycling projects. Mrs Hayman said: “I was proud of Keith – he touched such a lot of people’s lives.” There were four nominees for the Hayman Award: Grey to Green, the Council’s design scheme to revive West Bar, the Sheffield University Bike Hub, the Herd of Sheffield’s sculpture trail and the Women of Steel statue. Design scheme Grey to Green received the most votes as the ‘most
outstanding project of the year’ and won the award. The Hayman Qward was first presented in 2014 to honour the Friday Night Ride. The Friday Night Ride is a cycling initiative that brings the community together for social, non-competitive bike rides. Keith Hayman, an active campaigner, came to Sheffield in 1983. It was in his retirement that the father-of-two practiced as an artist. He organised art events such as, the Sheffield city centre art markets and the open studio weekends. Mr Hayman’s own paintings reflected his concern with the tension and mayhem of city life. Janet Hayman said: “He wanted art to be for everybody, which is the whole concept of this award. He felt people were important and he thought art was important for people”.
Startup Weekend welcomes aspiring entrepreneurs Rebecca Lally News Contributor The University of Sheffield Enterprise has launched a new scheme called Startup Weekend. The scheme offers an opportunity for aspiring entrepreneaurs to gain business skills and build their CV. Described as an ‘entrepreneurial hackathon’, the weekend offers teams the chance to create a solution to a global issue, deliver a pitch and formulate a business proposal in just 54 hours. There will be help from industry experts and mentors and feedback from the panel of judges with backgrounds in design, development and entrepreneurship. The aim of the Startup Weekend is to create connections with your co-participants and meet potential future co-founders. Workshops will be conducted including training in presentation delivery and pitch performance. The opportunity is not exclusively for students, the event welcomes
people of all ages and education levels. The event will take place from 18 - 20 November in the Diamond. Tickets cost £61.65, which includes travel, meals, accommodation and a Startup
Weekend t-shirt. The tickets are available now online at the University of Sheffield Enterprise website.
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SCIENCE & TECH Artificial Intelligence Judges Lisa Latham News Editor Computer scientists at University College London are developing Artificial Intelligence software that can accurately predict the outcomes of real legal trials. The AI “judge” uses software to weigh up legal evidence and our moral understanding of right and wrong to reach a verdict, and has produced the same results as judges in four out of five cases at the European court of human rights. Dr Dimitrios Tsarapatsanis, a law lecturer from The University of Sheffield, co-authored studies
into court cases and found that, particularly in violations of human rights, judges are more legal theory “realists” than “formalists”. They rely more on non-legal facts than legal evidence. In these cases AI may be useful in interpreting the most legally and morally sound judgement. Dr Nikolaos Aletras, the lead researcher from UCL’s department of Computer Science, said: “We don’t see AI replacing judges or lawyers, but we think they’d find it useful for rapidly identifying patterns in cases that lead to certain outcomes.”
Surgical Equipment Inspired by Nature Lisa Latham News Editor Jeffrey Karp, a bioengineer at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is conducting pioneering research into new surgical equipment inspired by nature. His first invention, in 2005, was a type of surgical tape that can be used as a safer alternative to stitches or staples. Karp considered how geckos use
tiny hair-like pillars on their feet to easily attach to flat surfaces, and engineered the tape based on this. In 2008, MIT’s Technology Review magazine named Karp one of the top innovators in the world under the age of 35. His current work includes surgical staples inspired by porcupine quills which can create tiny punctures in the skin and prevent infection, and a surgical glue inspired by the secretions of marine worms.
Uber revolutionises drink driving Will Morgan Comment Editor The app-based taxi service Uber has teamed up with the makers of Budweiser to create the world’s first automated beer delivery service. Uber’s self-driving truck drove 120 miles down Colorado’s I-25 highway loaded with beer in a world first. Though this won’t be Budweiser’s new mode of delivery, it could mark the dawn of a new
era in the transportation of heavy goods. Uber acquired ‘Otto’, a selfdriving truck service, earlier this year and are beginning to roll out self-driving taxi services in trial zones in America.
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FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER 2016
NEWS
Police appeal for information following sexual assault Dan West Deputy Editor
A man, 44, was released on bail on Tuesday after a 25-year-old woman reported being sexually assaulted in Sheffield on Sunday 23 October. He was released after being questioned by detectives pending further inquiries. The incident occurred at 01:10 in the Duke Street area of Park Hill. Temporary Detective Inspector Graham Stead said “The offence is
NUS president attacked in Parliamentary Report Andrew Burdett News Contributor A hundred student representatives have joined Parliament in condemning the president of the National Union of Students (NUS). Dom Trendall, the Sheffield Students’ Union president, is among the signatories on an openletter demanding the resignation of Malia Bouattia, if she does not first issue a “full and formal apology to Jewish students”. The letter states that Ms Bouattia has caused “significant damage […] to NUS and the student movement more widely”, through her words and actions. It follows a cross-party report, recently published by the Home Affairs Select Committee, in which Ms Bouattia is accused of not taking “sufficiently seriously the issue of antisemitism on campus”. Her “unwillingness to listen” to Jewish students’ concerns suggests “a worrying disregard for her duty to represent all sections of the student population”, according to the report.
believed to have occurred in a car. This is being treated as an absolute priority and we are already pursuing a number of strong lines of enquiry”. The woman is receiving support from specialist officers. Anyone with information has been asked to contact South Yorkshire Police on 101 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555111.
Union plead for Pumpkin Rescue Anna Gillies Editor
•• Union organise pumpkin rescue to combat food waste. •• 18,000 tonnes of pumpkin are thrown in the bin each year A pumpkin rescue plan is being orchestrated by Sheffield Students’ Union in order to combat food waste. From 27 October to 1 November the Union are driving a Pumpkin rescue, a series of events and initiatives designed to reduce food wastage caused as a result of Pumpkin carving during the Halloween period. 42 per cent of people in the UK buy pumpkins while 18,000 tonnes are thrown in the bin each year – 1,000 tonnes is the same as 20
The parliamentary inquiry was launched in April in response to a reported rise in antisemitism. Its wider findings discuss “antisemitic” memes shared on Facebook by Naz Shah MP, Ken Livingstone’s “offensive” defence of these posts, and the Labour Party’s own resulting investigation. It praises Jeremy Corbyn’s “proud record” opposing racism, but questions whether “he fully appreciates the distinct nature of post-Second World War antisemitism”. In a damning indictment, the report also criticises a blogpost Ms Bouattia co-wrote in 2011, in which she described Birmingham University as a “Zionist outpost”. This, the report says, “smacks of outright racism”. However Ms Bouattia, who became the first Black British leader of the NUS in July, denied that her comments showed her to “[take] issue with being Jewish”. In a written response to the inquiry, she reiterated: “At NUS we are absolutely clear that there is no place for any form of racism, including anti-Semitism, within the student movement or within wider society.” Police recorded a 29 per cent rise in antisemitism hate-crime in England between 2010 and 2015. For the same period, hate-crime more generally increased by nine per cent.
million portions of pumpkin pie. The aim of the initiative is not only to give students creative ideas of how to utilise their pumpkin waste, but also to draw attention to issues of food wastage more generally. As part of the rescue there are various pumpkin-themed events taking place throughout the Union including a ‘Guess the weight of the pumpkin’ competition and a pumpkin carving contest with free cake for each entrant. Leaflets are also available throughout the Union with easy recipes using pumpkins. Event organiser, Kiran MalhiBearn, Sustainability Coordinator at Sheffield Students’ Union said “Food waste exists in so many different contexts and we’re often oblivious to it until someone draws attention to it. We’re hoping to change the landscape of Halloween by encouraging people to think creatively about pumpkins. They’re
super tasty!” SU Development Officer, Michael Kind told Forge that the rescue is “a great example of the work our Students’ Union does in tackling and raising awareness of environmental issues.” On Tuesday 1 November there will be free pumpkin soup available in the SU Plaza from 5pm, with vegan soup available.
Film Unit nominated for two community awards Lisa Latham News Editor The Sheffield Students’ Union cinema Film Unit has been nominated for two major community awards, Best Student Cinema and Best Single Event, by Cinema For All. Cinema For All is an organisation for community and volunteer cinemas. It recognises the dedication of films societies and cinemas across the country, and commended Film Unit for their screening of They Have To Kill Us First which included a live performance and talks from the film’s stars Songhoy Blues. Jacqueline Chalakova, Film Unit
Publicity Officer and Biomedical Science Graduate, said: “Joining Film Unit is one of the best experiences I’ve had in University. I am amazed by how dedicated and hardworking the people are who run it. They never fail to deliver a professional quality cinematic experience.” Film Unit is a volunteer-run cinema based in the SU’s Nelson Mandela Auditorium, and has been running for nearly 70 years. Tickets for screenings are £3, and all students and members of the public are welcome. The awards ceremony will be held on November 5 at the Showroom Cinema.
FORGE PRESS 9
FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER 2016
Asylum seekers find sanctuary in Sheffield Josh Peachey News Editor
•• The University of Sheffield raised over £50,000 to provide scholarships to asylum seekers. •• This catered for four new undergraduates and two postgraduates Amongst the thousands of students that come to Sheffield this year, there are six asylum seekers who have been awarded scholarships to study here. The University has provided fully-funded scholarships for four undergraduate and two postgraduate students. The students, from countries including Syria, Iran and Sri Lanka, have made Sheffield their home after being forced to flee their own countries due to war or persecution. The scholarships have been partly funded by the University’s
Big Walk fundraising events which took place over the summer. Staff, SU officers and students were joined by hundreds of Sheffield residents on the walks, which included a week-long coastto- coast challenge and the Sheffield Walk for Refugees. Together with other fundraising activities across the University, these events raised over £50,000. The scholarships cover the cost of tuition and provide a £9,840 award to support living costs for each year of study. Sir Keith Burnett, Vice Chancellor of the University, said: “I am deeply proud of alumni, staff and students at Sheffield who continue to raise funds for refugee scholars and who support asylum seekers in our community and around the world in many ways, working with others as they do so. “These wonderful people are part of a crucial tradition in our university and in British universities more widely. Many of our disciplines and universities
owe a huge amount to people who escaped the tyranny of Nazism, for example; I was taught by a number of Jewish physicists and scholars from the former Soviet Union who made the UK their home. “As a University we cannot help everyone, but that does not mean
NEWS
we help nobody. We can keep a flame alive for humanity and for an ideal of learning which is beyond borders.”
•• Sheffield’s ‘Herd of Elephants’ raises £410, 600 for Children’s hospital •• Pete McKee’s elephant ‘Marjorie’ has highest bid with £22, 000 (pictured) Sheffield’s Children’s Hospital is set to recieve over £400,000 following a stampede of charitable bids at a recent auction. The ‘Herd of Sheffield’, a collection of painted elephant sculptures seen around the city in recent months, pulled in a total of £410,600. The 58 fibreglass elephant sculptures were auctioned off to raise funds for a Multipurpose Fluoroscopy system, a life-saving piece of equipment that will allow the city’s Children’s Hospital to obtain real-time moving X-rays. The individually designed elephants were placed around
Sheffield during the summer to raise awareness for the Children’s Hospital. The project manager, Rebecca Staden, speaking before the auction, said: “It’s so important that we auction them off and raise as much money as we possibly can.” She added: “I think everyone likes different elephants, its subjective like any art, so I honestly don’t know how the auctions going to go, I don’t know who is going to be the favourite.” Each elephant sold for more than the £1,500 estimation, with the highest bid being for Pete McKee’s elephant ‘Marjorie’ which sold for £22,000. The designer is most notably known for his mural at Fagans, titled ‘The Snog’. An elephant signed by the Artic Monkeys and designed by artist Matthew Cooper sold for £16,500, with the Henderson’s Relish elephant ‘Hendophant’ by Matt Cockayne being sold for £11,300. Lisa Maltby, who’s elephant ‘Small Beginnings’ sold for £7,600, said: “I was really surprised that
Daddy Doctor Strange
He’s the star of one of the most anticipated films of the year but Benedict Cumberbatch has something else to be happy about. He recently revealed that he is expecting his second child with his wife Sophie Hunter.
Bake Off winner Well done to Candice who proved herself Queen of the heavenly household treats. Based on Britain’s love for Bake Off, they can surely expect a MBE in the near future.
Herd of Sheffield helps raise for Children’s Hospital Jessica Mary Clair News Contributor
GOOD WEEK
Forge Follows the Fornight...
Bill Gates’ kids
The Microsoft creator (net worth $81.7 billion) revealed on This Morning that his kids won’t be recieving his fortune when he passes away. He said that the money is for helping the poorest and that his kids will have to go out and make their own wealth.
Theresa May
The PM’s public and private views of the EU don’t seem to match up as The Guardian released a secret recording of May talking about how significant it is to be part of the EU when seeking foreign investment.
my elephant design got chosen out of how many applicants applied. I didn’t think it would become so big, I just thought it would be a nice little thing that I could be a part of.” She added: “Having people say that the elephant means something to them and that it made a difference to them is lovely to hear.”
Lisa’s elephant was damaged before the auction at its temporary home in the Botanical Gardens. A Just-giving page was set up that helped fund the repairs before the big night. The auction took place last Friday.
BAD WEEK
10 FORGE PRESS
FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER 2016
COMMENT
press.comment@forgetoday.com
Fawked off with politics? In this, the spookiest of weeks, Matt takes a look at the ghost that still haunts politics Matt Wickens Politics and Philosophy Student
G
uy Fawkes is pretty famous for one thing. Found with barrels of gunpowder underneath the House of Lords the night before the state opening of Parliament in 1605, he and his gang of
conspirators were looking to overthrow James I and install his daughter as a Catholic queen. Years later, he continues to be a big influence on our lives. We all marvel at the fireworks on 5 November, but he also gets referenced in films like V for Vendetta - and I’m pretty sure the end of season 6 of Game of Thrones was based on the actions Fawkes and his conspirators took in a pretty big way. But in such enlightened times, it feels like we’d never blow buildings sky high as a way of changing the government. Yet whilst no one is reaching for gunpowder in 21st century Britain, the anger
that Fawkes and his troupe felt still boils over towards the British political process and often in not particularly pretty ways. Public dissatisfaction with the political elite in Britain has intensified since the Expenses scandal of 2009 and has worryingly continued to grow since then. A parliamentary paper on voter engagement stated that the “negative stereotypes” on both Parliament and Government “could undermine the very basis of our representative democracy.” The ghost of Guy Fawkes haunts more places than Parliament. The establishment of governments, political parties and international organisations are reeling from the explosive events of 2015 and 2016. The Government seems to have got its head around the decision that 51 per cent of the electorate took to leave the EU yet Labour Party MPs continue to struggle with the reelection of Corbyn as their leader. The fiery ideas of Guy Fawkes seem to be transatlantic. The heads of the Republican Party in the US seem astounded by how a bigot without a hairline can be representing them at in the biggest election their country has to offer. 2016 sees a clash between a figure
who’s been inside the establishment so long she melts into its walls and a man whose principle claim is that he isn’t from the big Washington political machine. Trump’s claims about Muslims, Mexicans and most other things are absurd, yet that is their principle attraction to voters fed up with Washington rhetoric. His promise that the day he assumes office the country will return to a state of law and order, that he’ll bolster police powers and the American military, and that he’ll achieve all of this whilst reducing taxes for all, seem as well thought out as the plans those conspirators made in the autumn of 1605. Perhaps most worrying of all is how fractious our world is compared to the one Guy Fawkes lived in, 411 years ago. Britain in the 1600s was filled with tension over the new Protestant religion and the old Catholic one. The death of Elizabeth I in 1603 and the enthronement of James I brought deep political uncertainty about the new rule of the Scots. By the middle of the century, England would be embroiled in a bloody civil war. In 2016, things aren’t quite that bad. Yet the fractious world of Guy Fawkes is not disimilar to today’s
Britain. The EU referendum debate shocked us all, highlighting deep divisions in society over the state of the country. The violence that was present during and following the campaign saw a 57 per cent rise in hate crime and the tragic murder of the Batley and Spen MP, Jo Cox. In the US, tensions simmer, especially as Trump keeps us in suspense over whether or not he’ll accept the vote of 8 November. Many commentators, politicians and voters alike wonder how the country can overcome the ugly divisions that this particular election cycle has brought to the fore. If (or when) Trump is defeated, a far harder battle has to be fought to bring the country together - something that is by no means the easiest of tasks. So this 5 November, when you remember the attempted assassination of a long dead king, remember that the spirit of Guy Fawkes still lingers in the air like firework smoke. Whilst many celebrate him as a figure who took a stand against Parliament, brave enough to fight against the establishment, we shouldn’t welcome him too quickly into our modern political life.
Anna Gillies - “You can’t touch this”
Sadly too many people will go out as creeps this Halloween
L
Anna Gillies Editor
ast week a friend was telling me about a night out she’d been on. During the usual postnight out debrief in her room, she dropped into the conversation that a guy had touched her inappropriately as he walked passed her in the club. She rolled her eyes as she said this and we spent a while recounting stories of when we’d experienced similar things: guys holding you by the waist as they move behind you to be reunited with their friends; guys touching you on the bum as they squeeze through your group to head to the loo. My housemate continued recounting the details of her evening and we moved on from the subject as though it were normal.
It struck me that I’d had that same conversation many times before. I couldn’t think of a time when I’d been out and a guy hadn’t
had a grope of either me or a friend at least once. Somehow in the 21st century we have a culture where it is accepted that as a female you’ll be literally man-handled when you go out. Who are these guys you ask? Nobody wants to admit it’s them. My male friends insist they would never do such a thing and on the whole I believe them. That said, the sheer scale on which it happens would suggest that more guys do it than would like to admit. After a few drinks in a crowded club it’s easy, I guess, to see how a quick fumble as you’re walking passed can be ignored – I’ve given up trying to seek out who’s responsible, often by the time you’ve turned around they’ve blended into the crowd, nowhere to be seen. My main question is why do guys do it? I want to clarify that I appreciate that not all men are guilty of this and please note that discussing the issue from a female point of view does not denying that similar things happen to men.
That being said, in my two years as a student I have never had a guy friend complain of the problem, yet have lost count of the number of times my female companions have raised the issue. Do some try it on the offchance that it somehow might be reciprocated, relying on the success of spontaneity? Or is it just funny to invade someone’s personal space so they feel uncomfortable and violated? Neither of those arguments really stand up in my opinion. I don’t often complain about being a female. Maybe it’s the allgirls grammar school I went to or the close relationship I have with my mum and my sister, but I’ve often considered myself immune to the woes that face modern-day feminists. That’s not to say I haven’t experienced sexism and don’t feel passionate about the problem, but it’s never bothered me enough to spend time thinking about it; it’s never stopped me trying to pursue my ambitions and so far it’s not
been a barrier to my achievements. It has to be said, that in a generation that is progressing socially in so many ways, its upsetting that people have come to accept that it is okay to touch a female without her consent, just
because she’s in a dress and you’re in a nightclub. If the same thing happened on the street in daylight it is labelled as sexual assault and dealt with in a serious manner, why should clubs be any different?
FORGE PRESS 11
FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER 2016
COMMENT
COMMENT DEBATES: HALLOWEEN EDITION
THE PULP-PIT “the soap-box of the common people”
What is the spookiest thing you have ever seen?
Skeletons vs. Ghosts ARGUING FOR SKELETONS Will Morgan Comment Editor
S
keletons are the earliest form of the macabre that humans learn to fear. When our earliest ancestors looked down at the decaying corpse of a former lover or friend and saw this bleached white structure staring back at them, that was the moment man learnt to fear death.
The spookiness of skeletons doesn’t come from their ability to harm us but from the fact that they are us yet distinctively not us. Unless you were to have a complex knowledge of human anatomy, every skeleton would appear the same to you, with no remnant of the person they used to be. Next time you flick on the TV, try and imagine everyone you see as a skeleton; they will cease to be say Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton and instead become merely two bone structures. Admittedly Trump would still be recognisable by his spookily small hands. This is frightening to the human psyche as we spend every second of our waking life validating and endorsing our mental and physical concept of the self, whether it’s listening to Death Grips because you think it makes you edgy or being a spoken word artist because you think it makes you a poet. What truly scares the shit out of us is the idea that not only do we not matter, but that we don’t really exist at all. This is why the thought that we are all just meat wagons supported by a complex structure of calcium is enough to give anyone the heeby jeebies. It’s why Jason, of Jason and the Argonauts fame, fights off skeletons to defend the golden fleece. He isn’t merely fighting bones, he is attempting to hold back the force of death itself. Its why The Killers’ music video for
Bones culminates in two lovers running into each other’s arms, only to crumble into a pile of bones. Death is the end, where all human experience drips off to reveal the grinning white puppeteer behind it all. This is clearly a more frightening prospect than a ghost. Ghosts are merely the product of lazy humans who have run out of physical things to fear. Think about it, those same early ancestors who might have got a chill seeing a skeleton would not have even had time to fear something that isn’t real. Those unexplainable sounds you hear at night would have manifested as predators or maybe even just a strong breeze. Whereas now we are faced with so little to fear in terms of predation that this primal instinct has to manifest in something that is profoundly unreal. Ghosts represent merely a fear of the unknown, powered by the natural human yearning for there to be something beyond death. Skeletons represent our fear of the known, death and being forgotten. It should also be noted, as it is Halloween, that skeleton costumes are far superior to ghost costumes. If you walk around as a ghost people will either think you’re a Ku Klux Klan member who has lost their hood or, more likely, that you were too lazy to put in any real effort. Whereas choosing to be a skeleton over a sexy cat makes a statement about your intellectual integrity. Ghosts will fade from our collective consciousness as we grow to understand more about the world around us and our place in it. But skeletons will forever haunt humanity, matching our every step until our brains die and our flesh decomposes, waiting for the last remnant of self to fade before emerging victorious. Make no mistake, skeletons will inherit the earth.
ARGUING FOR GHOSTS Michael Chilton Comment Editor
W
hy are ghosts clearly the odds on favourite as Halloween monster? It may be an obvious answer but worth unpacking further.
First and foremost Ghosts can never be killed. Not least because they are already undead but also, unlike your other monsters they don’t have that Achilles heel. Vampires can be offed with a stake to the heart and an active enjoyment of garlic. Werewolves can be removed with a collection of silverware and a gun. Zombies just need a clobbering to the head and they are no longer a problem. Unlike any of the above however, ghosts can never be defeated in any wholesome or conclusive manner. Only an overzealous vacuum cleaner wielded by either a lesser known Italian plumber or Bill Murray proves a problem for a ghost. And even then it is only a temporary one, because they will get out. They always get out. It doesn’t even matter for how long you keep them there either. When you exist for eternity what is a year or two in a Henry Hoover? Furthermore, ghosts (depending which horror cannon we are subscribing to admittedly) have all sorts of supernatural powers that clearly set them out as the apex Halloween monster. The ability to move objects, possessing the bodies of fragile mortals, being able to float/fly and best of all move through solid matter as though it was mere air. Running from such horrors is just out of the question, instead all one can really do is sit whimpering for it to be quick as they slowly begin their approach. With all the above in mind it is hard to fathom how one could ever
even hope to beat such a potent monster. They are the definition of inevitability that is always there and slowly getting closer with every passing moment. Why even bother fearing anything else given that these ghouls are the only thing to be concerned about. At least with everything else you have a fighting chance but not with ghosts. You have no chance. How then could it possibly be that skeletons even challenge the supremacy of our Halloween juggernauts? Remember no matter how scary skeletons are still just organic matter, ripe for decay and dismantlement. And let us be completely honest here, how do skeletons provide such a threat? Granted they may look unsettling but there is no genuine threat behind them. All they are is simply a bag of bones that has started walking. To illustrate this point further just try and name a famous skeleton that invokes fear into your heart. All that comes to mind is Jack Skellington, a singing bag of bones who goes soft and fails to achieve his dreams. Now consider all the famous ghosts in the world such as The Headless Horsemen, The White Lady or The Flying Dutchman. They are the kind of entities that should stop you having a pleasant night’s sleep. Evil to the core and intent on your death with all in the time in the world to achieve this goal, ghosts are clearly the scarier and superior Halloween monster. Fear not however; in case one is now overly jealous of the indomitable ghost, you only have to wait a few more decades and you too can join the ever growing ranks… just don’t be too good a person that you end up in heaven. If you are still not convinced though best look for your nearest Dyson because they are coming for you.
“I took a picture of a spooky house at night once with my camera flash on, when I got home there was a face visible in one of the windows. The house was derelict.” HORROR FILM-FAN
“I woke up one morning after a long night of drinking and blearily stumbled out of my bed for a slice of toast whilst trying to remember the events of the night before. As I sat down amongst empty cans of Stella and flicked on the telly, the events of the previous night flooded back to me, the British public had voted to leave the European Union. As if summoned by this rememberance the ghoul of British politics appeared on my screen. Nigel Farage.” GHOST BOTHERER
“Picture this, waking up and seeing the bomb-site that is your flat after a squad night out, usually that’s fine. Sadly that was not to be this morning. *1 new Message* - Mum: ‘Good morning sweetheart, we should be at yours in 20 mins. Xxx.’ I still get chills now.” MOON HOWLER
“I made my annual pilgrimage to visit one of my dead relatives in the local graveyard. The sun was setting as I placed the flowers on their tomb and I had a moment’s silence remembering their life. I became increasingly sad thinking about their life, their love of free market economics, globalisation and the removal of individual nations’ ability to selfdetermine. As the sunlight died I realised I’d been mourning the death of neoliberalism all this time.” BROOMSTICK HOARDER
12 FORGE PRESS
FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER 2016
COMMENT
press.comment@forgetoday.com
Comment FIGHTS BACK
Comment would like to award Justice for Men and Boys:
0/5 stars!
- Segments of a piece Forge were recently asked to host
Comment vs Men’s rights activism. Will Morgan Comment Editor
grounding, here is the piece’s dark crescendo:
nce in a while an opinion piece hits the inboxes of the wizened and malicious goblins that run Forge’s Comment section that breaks through the coma of their existence, making their talons clack across the keyboard in pent-up fury and spittle fly from their mandibles as their prey comes into view. “finally! Not a rehash of an Owen Jones article” Last week a former Comment Editor was approached with a request to host an article from the organisation ‘Justice 4 Men and Boys (and the women who love them)’ that attacked the deployment of Safety Wardens on nights out in Sheffield. Usually we would welcome controversial opinions in this section, even if we disagree wholeheartedly with them individually, as it challenges people to think critically about their own beliefs through presenting an opposing opinion. However, we have had to make an exception for this article as, quite frankly, both the writer and the argument are fucking stupid. So that this piece has some
“Male students at Sheffield University, if they have any balls left, need to shut this down. First, they need to identify the feminists behind this. Is there a male-hate terrorist organisation behind this such as Women’s Aid? Once identified, they need to make a complaint to the police and University of harassment, of violation of their right to respect for family life, and anything else they can think of. They must do so in a peaceful, nonviolent manner in spite of these malicious feminists deserving to be burned at the stake.” It is a genuine struggle to find somewhere to begin with rhetoric like this, so rather than explaining why it is wrong, I’m going to use it to prove that the writer is, in fact, a fucking idiot. Firstly, as I presume with many of his allies, he is oblivious. This pervades all levels of his argument, most poignantly in the “burned at the stake” comment where he references the exact mode of murder and oppression that patriarchal society in the 16th century used to villainise women
O
who chose to live independently. This Freudian slip of a metaphor betrays the author’s motivation in campaigning for men’s rights, not equal treatment regardless of gender but the oppression of women. We are forced to either believe that he is incapable of gaining more than the most basic understanding of the world around him, or he genuinely thinks women deserve to be
playground snitch. It translates the awkwardness of that pain into an anger at the system of empowerment that allows an individual to challenge their actions and have agency over how the world interacts with them. Finally, as I presume with many of his allies, he is deluded. In encouraging a McCarthy-esque purge of “the feminists behind” the Safety Warden scheme he
“Feminism has weaponised women. It has removed the barriers that makes it difficult to report those creepy guys.”
burned alive for not agreeing with his view of the world. Secondly, as I presume with many of his allies, he is confused. He misidentifies individual pain with universal injustice. In this way a first or second hand experience of perceived mistreatment turns into labelling a women’s safety organisation like Women’s Aid as “terrorist”. It is the childish “It wasn’t my fault, it’s their fault” cry of a
Comment FIGHTS BACK
is un-ironically proposing the exact same informer state that he fears would be the side product of helping women report sexual harassment. I feel confident that I can say this.
This guy is a fucking idiot.
At one point in the 500 words of anger and fear, the author attempts to make the male reader aware that a system of simply reporting sexual harassment makes men into victims; he calls for the reader to “recognise that feminists have weaponised women” and in this he is, oddly, absolutely right. Feminism has weaponised women. It has removed the barriers that makes it difficult to report those creepy guys in clubs, who flock around the club like socially inept seagulls, unable to engage another human being as an equal rather than an object. It gives women the power to turn around and tell a creep to piss off and then receive support from someone dedicated to ensuring their safety. It gives everyone the right to a safe night out. The only victim of a weaponised woman is a cretinous man. And this Comment Editor is a-okay with that.
FORGE PRESS 13
FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER 2016
COMMENT
NGOs are being tainted by corporations C
David Goodman Philosophy Student
harities and other non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are having to face an issue that is threatening to undermine their independance and damage the public perception of them as purely benevolent entities. In recent years there has been an increase in the number of non-profits partnering up with large corporations, leading to questions being asked about the benefits and drawbacks of such alliances existing between two types of organisation whose primary motives are so drastically different. Dr Genevieve LeBaron, senior Politics lecturer at the University of Sheffield and one of the authors of ‘Protest Inc.: The Corporatization of Activism’, writes in her book that the the deepening links between activists and corporations started to become apparent early on in the Occupy movement of 2011.
“Occupy was an explicitly anticapitalist and anti-corporate movement, yet many groups within the movement accepted funding and other forms of support from companies.” One such example of this was when Occupy Wall Street in New York City accepted funding from a group of business leaders led by Ben Cohen and Jerry Green of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, which is owned by multinational consumer goods company, Unilever. A relationship between a pillar of global capitalism and a grassroots activist group formed to combat the ills of global capitalism seems incomprehensible but, upon further investigation it is becoming an increasingly common practice. You only need to spend a short time browsing the websites of NGOs and corporations, to discover that many of the groups and movements considered to be independent and largely focused on holding corporations to account over environmental and labour abuses, are in fact partnering
with big businesses. Some of the more striking examples are those where groups widely considered to be independent of companies - and in fact are responsible for holding them to account - are working alongside the world’s biggest corporations: the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has a worldwide partnership with Coca-Cola worth over $20 million a year. In some cases, NGOs are renting their brands to companies to sell more products. For instance, the WWF allows companies that donate $1 million or more to use their panda logo, an internationally recognised symbol of environmental sustainability and conservation, in their marketing, as Gap, Bank of America and Coca-Cola have done. This can give consumers the impression that these companies’ products are sustainable and ethically made, when in reality they may not be, leading to a kind of purchasable ethical legitimacy, which may not accurately reflect the true green credentials of a corporation. The WWF of course
has fought hard to protect their brand as well, famously suing the World Wrestling Federation in 2000 over ownership of the acronym WWF, which they eventually won, forcing the company to change their name to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) instead. One key question concerning this topic is whether activism should be focused on tackling root causes of the key issues facing society. Arguably, political concepts such as neoliberalism allow big businesses to behave in the exploitative manner that they do, so can activists ‘working from the inside’ have any effect? Some of the incremental changes that NGOs and corporations are pushing for may have merit. One of Greenpeace’s recent campaigns focused on convincing Mattel, who manufactures Barbie dolls, to remove illegal rainforest wood from the packaging that it uses. Greenpeace claimed this as a major victory in 2011. Reducing a single company’s use of illegal rainforest wood is not a bad
thing in itself, but it does seem to legitimise the unsustainable patterns of grown, consumption and trade that Greenpeace has long protested. And this type of incremental campaign is a pretty radical change from Greenpeace’s activism in the 1970s, when they were using small fishing boats to stop nuclear tests. A concern is that as more and more activists focus on incremental change within the system, system-changing causes and issues are being marginalised and taken off the table. The worry is that the time, energy and resources that activists are devoting to working with companies reflects a growing belief in the ideas that corporations can govern themselves , as well as iron out the problems with global capitalism more broadly. I am sceptical about the extent to which those strategies are effective. Further exploration is needed to determine the successes, failures and compromises that can spring from these alliances.
The future of UKIP without the EU
T
Matthew Rowland Physics Student
he future of the party that received more votes than the Liberal Democrats and the SNP combined is one that extends beyond the EU, and whilst uncertain is of great importance to the droves of people who turned out for the first time ever to vote for them in 2015. UKIPs’ popularity beyond Europe is symptomatic of the dissatisfaction with the core parties. The resignation of Diane James 18 days into her term as leader, and the notion that the party officers were not quite sure who was the party leader might be quite amusing, the question really is, what is the significance of this? To many, Diane was seen as a unifying candidate, and consequently received 46 per cent of the votes in this contest. Questions now arise as to who, if anyone can unite the two major factions in the party. The
‘Faragists’, who would prefer Mr Farage himself to remain at the helm but, given his determination to step down, want a candidate of similar persuasions, charisma and approach; and those similar to Douglas Carswell, neoconservative ‘modernisers’; primarily Tories who have become disaffected with the Conservative Party. Division is not cohesive to a strong, election winning party. Once this decades-old European question is answered, what will be the future of Britain’s third largest party? This really depends on the direction that the party elects to take once UKIP is no longer serving as a check on the government’s commitment to Brexit, and how well it functions in this role. If there is any backsliding by the government allowed to go unchecked by UKIP then it will damage the hard won credibility the party has amongst its voters. There are three primary platform directions the party
could take: the neo-conservative stance, a right leaning libertarian stance, or attempt to displace labour as the party of the working class. Clearly, the first of these options puts the relatively upstart party in direct competition with the oldest surviving major party in British Parliamentary history, the Conservative Party which of course would be disaster, as well as putting them at odds with much of their core voter base. Whilst the libertarian direction might be appealing to some, and it would seem that in the absence of a small-government party could provide niche and opportunity for the party to solidify a voter base. Perhaps however there is a reason that no such party exists: the ideals of a minimised welfare state, flat taxes, minimal restrictions on freedoms and small non-interventionist government are present in a small number of people and in a parliamentary democracy that doesn’t translate to seats. The only option remaining is
to become a party of the working and middle classes in a way that Labour is currently failing to do. Most people don’t want to associate with the radical left, antipatriotic notions represented by Jeremy Corbyn. Whilst refusing to sing the national anthem may seem trivial, such things as this and lying about seating on a train, sticks in the minds and throats of ordinary people, myself included. UKIP has presented the image of a patriotic party of the people. Labour is failing to appeal on a number of fronts: opposing immigration, borrowing money to give it away in foreign aid, and ending green taxes that increase bills considerably. These are policies entirely unrelated to the EU, that UKIP is often the only party offering. It is these policies, in combination
with a weak Labour Party that will bring in seats. This, however is if the Conservatives don’t outmanoeuvre them. Under Theresa May, the Grammar schools policy, focus on social mobility, tough immigration reform, legislation making employers publish the number of foreign employees they have, these polices which had long set the ‘kippers apart from the rest have been taken. This stolen platform is the conservatives adapting to the new centre of politics created in the wake of UKIP, which is undeniably no longer a fringe, single issue party. Clearly the coming months are of existential importance to them, and the nation.
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What’s the beef with vegans? Megan McGrath, President of the University of Sheffield’s Vegetarian and Vegan Society, shares her experiences of going vegan.
V
eganism has risen 360 per cent in the past 10 years in the UK. Vegan restaurants, cafés and shops are opening in almost every city up and down the country. Over the summer, in Sheffield alone, two new vegan restaurants opened and many more created vegan menus. But what is it exactly that’s causing people to adopt veganism in droves - especially those under 25? Is it just part of a current hipster fad (because what’s a good beard without a dusting of falafel crumbs) or is it the familiar pattern of the younger generation being at the forefront of social progression? I
used to think vegans were sandal-clad, tiedyed, harem pant donning hippies who just needed a good wash and some KFC. Now I’m President of the University’s Vegetarian and Vegan Society and promoting veganism is something I want to dedicate my life to.
So how did I get here? One day, bored from my return home for summer, I absentmindedly Googled “vegan.” The information that I read over the next two hours led me to make one of the best decisions of my life. My only regret is not doing it sooner. The first month I was vegan was honestly quite challenging. Not because I particularly
missed any food or drink in particular; but because everything seemed so vastly different to me whilst nothing changed in the world around me or to anyone else. The best way I can describe it is the day you found out Santa Claus wasn’t real. The consuming level of betrayal you felt, the realisation that the world you thought you once knew wasn’t, in fact, the world at all. But, instead imagine every day is Christmas Day and those around you continue to wholeheartedly worship in him. On the TV, on bus stops and on the radio are adverts devoted to Santa and his chimney-bending,
red-nosed-reindeer-steering magic. You just can’t fathom how everyone else can’t also see it’s completely illogical. But when you try and share your realisation, people don’t want to hear it. You get told you have no right to tell others how they should celebrate Christmas and that believing in Santa has what has happened for years. You present facts, recommend documentaries, websites and books all proving Santa is fiction, but all of your good-intentioned advice merely falls on unrelenting, Santa-hat-muffled ears. I remember I was at a friend’s house
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approximately a week after going vegan and their family was sitting round the table anxiously tucking into a pepperoni pizza, something I would have joyously joined in on just seven days prior. Meanwhile, all that was running through my head was the sound of the pigs shrieking in pain and horror in the video I’d just watched on YouTube. “Aren’t you having any, Megan?” their mum asked, politely. “No, she’s gone vegan now” my friend replied with a mildly mocking tone and a slight smirk. “More for us then!” their step-dad said merrily as he grabbed another slice. I couldn’t comprehend how they weren’t aware of the process behind the cheese-laden pepperoni creation that laid before them. All the suffering, torture and eventual death those pigs had undergone for a few mere minutes of taste-bud titillation. I ended up having to leave the room. I didn’t know how to respond without making a scene and accidentally becoming that vegan stereotype I’d always scoffed at. I remember staring at myself in
“There
their bathroom mirror, slightly blurred through tears of frustration, asking myself how on Earth my life now involved almost crying over someone else’s takeaway. People always ask me what the hardest part of being vegan is: “Do you miss the stringy texture of perfectly melted cheddar cheese or the satisfying greasiness of fried chicken more?” However, honestly it’s the ease of never having to think about food. I miss going out for food with friends and not having to scour the menu and ponder “Is that cheese actually in the burger or just on top?” or “Does that sound like it has milk in it?” I miss the times when I didn’t receive those less-than-subtle eye rolls from the waitress when I ask a question. I miss the times when I didn’t have conversations with non-vegan friends to tell them that the place they want to eat only offers me salad (and if I’m lucky, chips) and the subsequent awkwardness. I miss the times when I didn’t have to be prepared for a debate whenever I want to eat something. I miss not having to hastily analyse the person to guess what side of veganism they would relate most to and try and sound passionate but not preachy, knowledgeable but not condescending in my reply. I miss not having to disguise my grimace as I get asked for the hundredth time, “but where do you get your protein from?” My biggest struggle was coming to terms with the industry I had been supporting for 19 years of my life. All of the would-be crimes, if done to any animal other than those we consider ‘livestock’, funded by my own money. I used to think I could call myself an animal lover: simultaneously stroking a dog with one hand and eating a cheeseburger with the other. The realisation that they are direct contradictions was a
are so many more important things in the world than your taste buds.
”
substantial struggle for me to process. The same occurred with learning the environmental impacts of my dietary choices. I thought recycling meant I was an environmentalist until I learned of the horrid and vast consequences of the western world’s preoccupation with and necessity for meat and dairy in every meal. The industry is one of the leading causes of climate change, deforestation, ocean water dead zones, species extinction, habitat loss, water pollution and thus was the culprit of much of my fury. Being vegan is comprised of three main concerns: conservation, animal welfare and human kind. Any other act for any three of the aforementioned reasons would likely be expected, if not celebrated; e.g. recycling, preventing a person harming a cat or sponsoring a starving person in the global south. But it is something about the amalgamation of all three issues through a single solution that makes people uncomfortable. Ask pretty much anyone if they support the large-scale and rapid destruction of the Amazon rainforest (a football pitch’s worth a second) or the placing of male chicks in a grinder fully conscious and they’ll likely reply with a stern and pertinent “Of course not!” But tell them meat consumption is by far the leading cause of the aforementioned issue or that it is legal and daily practice in the egg industry, and an odd reaction occurs. Rational people, whom you’d expect to act accordingly when presented with fact, respond fervently with justifications I would never imagine them to. Never before have I heard a person use the habits of humans’ ancestors, hundreds of thousands of years their senior, as a way to excuse an action. In fact, when used to excuse any other scenario, e.g. assault or murder, it seems completely incredulous, if not flippant. However, it is truly an excuse I’ve heard often to defend the consumption of animal products. Interestingly, I’ve found that it’s those who opposed me the most in my decision to go vegan, that have been the most likely to go vegan too. For 19 years of my own life, I completely avoided watching slaughter house footage, deep down knowing that what it contained was something that would disrupt my consumption of bacon and egg sandwiches - and what else would I eat for hungover breakfasts? I believe it is the underlying and repressed guilt that I and others feel about the industry that fuels this reaction. On the inside we know that our pets aren’t the only animals that have feelings. To anyone considering a plant based diet or even merely cutting
down on their meat consumption, your new best friend is the internet. Pretty much anything has a vegan alternative and veganism opens up your diet to so many more cuisines and foods that you’ve probably never eaten before and will thoroughly enjoy. I feel healthier and have more energy than ever before, as well as my skin, hair and nails being in their best ever condition. Most vegans absolutely relish in helping people interested in veganism - it’s one of my favourite things to do – so feel free to ask questions. If you have no like-minded people around you, join us! The Univeristy’s Vegetarian and Vegan Society goes on trips, holds documentary screenings and runs campaigns on plant based diets, so there’s always a way involved. Even with all of the hassle, I wouldn’t change being vegan for anything. I’ve met some of the most compassionate, kindest and passionate people in my life and made some lifelong friends. For me, a large part of being vegan is crediting oneself for the huge impact one can personally have on our planet and on the lives of people and animals. If you don’t agree with the destruction of our planet or the unnecessary killing of 56 billion animals a year - don’t fund it. There are so many more important things in the world than your taste buds.
WANT TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT VEGANISM? ‘Cowspiracy’
A documentary that addresses the affects of cattle on the environment. Univeristy of Sheffield’s Vegetarianism and Vegan society are hostig a free showing of Cowspiracy on the 8th of November at 18:45 in the Diamond.Also available on Netflix.
‘Forks Over Knifes’
A documentary exploring the possible health beneifts of a plant based diet. Available on Netflix
‘Farmageddon’
A book looking at the effects of livestock production and industrial fish farming across the world. Available in most bookstores and online.
Vegan Starter Kit
Available on the PETA website. A free starter kit that includes lots of recipes, advice and nutrition guides.
TED Talk: “The Psychology of Meat Eating” Available on YouTube.
Vegan Calculator
An online tool that allows you to calculate the environmental benefit of being vegan.
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Pride
&
Prejudice Harry Browse shares his experience of homophobia in Sheffield through targetted abuse on the streets.
C
an you believe it? Three weeks into starting my first year at the University of Sheffield and I have already found an admirer. I do not know his name but I can tell he is in love with me. For the purposes of convenience, I have called him Dave. Dave is
just like any other man; tall around 6 foot, brown hair, slim build. Dave is a ‘grafter’, a man’s man – obviously. He drives a large, white van. I can imagine he boasts about how big it is to the lads down the pub: his large, impressive, manly white van. I did not catch the registration plate as he drove past, which is upsetting because I would
have liked to have got to know Dave. From the way he interacts with me as he drives past I can tell he is missing something important in his life and wants me to fill that void. How charming! Dave, my knight in shining armour. Today he spoke to me again. I say spoke but he had to shout in order for me to hear; after all he is a very hard-
working man and has no time for prolonged flirting and conversation. My stomach swelled in reaction to his passing words. To think he took the time and effort to roll down the gleaming driver’s window to make me aware of his presence, is delightful. How sweet it was to feel the moving words of ‘faggot’ and ‘bender’ grace my ears.
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Such poetry, eloquence and In a way, I sympathise with Dave. It doorstep. I am sure if my charming heckler Dave sophistication that even Wordsworth could would be a miracle to grow up in a society It is impossible to praise ourselves as had spent a day with me he would realise not have conceived. Despite me hoping that that force-feeds hatred so readily, and still equal, free and superior when we suppress that our lives are not that different. Even it is only Dave that admires me, I cannot be come out untainted by prejudice. and avoid our own failings as a society in if I went to lectures in drag. I am sure we completely sure that the other times I have Unfortunately, and rather ironically, addressing social justice. A prime example would both sleep, eat, have ambitions, talk heard ‘gay’, ‘faggot’, ‘bender’ and ‘queer’ maturing into an adult has become of this was the embarrassing interview to loved ones and go out with friends. shouted at me from passing a reductive process of Sky News conducted with Guardian writer However, something tells me that Dave “Hatred vehicles were him also. unlearning nurtured and LGBT activist Owen Jones, would not be willing to You never know, I may be masquerading opinions. For some it merely in which they unapologetically spend a day with me any “Targeted as lucky as to have multiple as free speech comes too late. Theresa persisted that the Orlando time soon. Men often feel abuse in admirers from around the is often viewed May’s vows of encouraging terrorist attack was targeted at the street is they cannot even ‘come out’ city! Excellent. But there is social justice contradict “all people”, not just the LGBT intimidating, in support for the LGBT something about Dave that I as acceptable.” her votes against gay rights community. Western societies upsetting and community regardless of am keen to address. I do not legislation during Iain find it uncomfortable to admit how straight they are, for frequent.” believe I am the only person he admires. Duncan Smith’s conservative leadership. their own failings so the issue is fear their masculinity will Despite the fact Dave was shouting Similarly, Hilary Clinton and her ‘down- changed and made to recognise be compromised - guilty by a perfectly true statement out of his with-the-kidz’ approach to equality seems everyone as a victim. association. The unhealthy social construct window (he is right I am gay) this kind of disingenuous, seeing as she was vehemently I have labelled this ‘nothing-to-see-here’ of masculinity is a double-edged sword. targeted abuse in the street is intimidating, against marriage equality until 2013. This approach as an insidious brand of social Not only does it motivate homophobic upsetting and frequent. Minority groups world is led by indecisiveness about what is masking. This phenomenon was explored attitudes but it prevents men, in particular, often experience a sense of isolation from considered socially acceptable. As society by the great Panti Noble in her call at from finding a mutual understanding their own towns and cities due to the social gets sucked deeper into this uncomfortable the Abbey Theatre. The Irish drag queen with the LGBT community. Luckily attitudes of the many and brutal actions of void of uncertainty, it is frankly more and LGBT activist asserts that “the word most straight people are allies of the gay the few. convenient to choose the easier option, homophobia is no longer available to gay community, it’s only a minority who still As Britain’s more extreme right wing which is to close your mind to the issue and people”, society’s powerful (the straight, fear the homosexuality. opinion leaders are given a bigger platform; fear it. white, men and women However, to an LGBTQ+ person, a hatred masquerading as ‘free speech’ is “But it could be worse “Our lives are not who dominate every seemingly insignificant action, like being that different...” institution in modern shouted at, can feel like the entire world now perhaps becoming more acceptable. though, why are you It is key to understand that hatred of any complaining? You could live life) dictate who are the is against you. I pledge to Dave and to the form is passed down from the elite: we are in South-sodding-Sudan where it is illegal victims of homophobia when they see it as apparently untouchable elite to roll down not born to fear the ‘gay agenda’, we are to be a homosexual!” I can hear someone convenient. the windows of their large, white vans, not born Islamaphobic or xenophobic and resembling a soggy slice of bread exclaim. Panti remarks that this act of avoidance not to shout at an innocent pedestrian we are not born to feel racist inclinations. And the bottom line is, yes it could be and table-turning is “a spectacular and but to listen, as it is only through care and Instead it is passed on like the clap from the a lot, lot worse. However, this ‘get over neat Orwellian trick, because now it turns understanding that we can improve as narrow-mindedness of certain politicians, it’ sentiment stems from the same ‘west out gay people are not the victims of wider community. the lies of the media and the selective is best’ attitudes which blinds many to homophobia, homophobes are the victims preaching from some religious groups. the inequalities that exist on their own of homophobia.”
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Original artwork by Madeleina Kay
STOP CLOWNING AROUND!
Catherine Horner tells you how the killer clowns are killing Halloween...
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U
nless you’ve been living under a rock you’ll know that in the last few months the UK and the USA have become enthralled in a killer clown craze, which has seen people dressing as threatening clowns, before jumping out on and scaring an unsuspecting member of the public. Whilst many of these ‘clowns’ perform these acts simply to scare the public, some have taken it a step further, particularly across the pond, where these killer clowns have become as threatening as the name suggests. In some states, not only have these individuals chosen to adorn a mask and fancy dress costume, many have also been seen to be carrying dangerous weapons including kitchen knives and machetes. Arrests have been made and injuries have happened. Whilst for the majority the intention of these weapons is to instil another level of fear into their unsuspecting victims, some have begun to use their weapons for more sinister purposes, leaving members of the public with heightening fears for their own safety. It is well known that clowns feature amongst the most widespread phobias in the world, with many finding the face paint and bizarre costumes incredibly unnerving. Everyone knows at least one person with a fear of clowns. This increasing trend unsurprisingly plays significantly on these fears, with sightings of these killer clowns ranging from the mildly odd, with clowns simply choosing to sit in their local park, to genuinely terrifying. As early as August this year – way before the usual emergence of the clown figure, around the Halloween period – sightings of these creepy figures began. In the US, reports were made to police of individuals dressed as these killer characters frequenting parks, car parks or forest walks. Many were just behaving in a creepy and unnerving manner, whilst some took to chasing after people in these areas, leaving them frightened and concerned for their own and others safety. Sightings first began in South Carolina where according to witnesses clowns were seen attempting to lure children into the woods. Before long, sightings were reported in states across the country including New York, California and New Jersey. Whilst it is not an
offence to dress as a clown, when behaving in a threatening manner or attempting to lure in children, legal issues begin to arise. The killer clown trend began to hit the UK around the beginning of October, with Northumbria police officially warning a 13-year old boy for scaring people with a fancy dress clown outfit. Since then, sightings of these creepy clowns have been reported up and down the country, including here in Sheffield, which now has a Facebook page dedicated to city sightings. The police are taking the issue seriously, with up to 30 arrests in the US relating to clown offences, and further arrests across the UK. One woman and two teenagers were arrested only last month for making threats to high school students on social media in America and police put the school on lockdown, searching classrooms for clownrelated evidence. In the UK, reports have been filed containing details of clowns undertaking
and Homeland Security to launch their own investigations. Just how far could this worrying trend go? It is one thing to undertake this craze in an attempt to frighten a full-grown adult who, if feeling especially threatened, has the means to fight back. However, no one could dispute that it is another thing entirely to pick specifically on children. In the USA, four schools were put into lockdown after receiving clown threats, with one teenager being stabbed to death, allegedly over a dispute regarding a clown mask. The terrorising of young children to the point of them refusing to leave their homes or attend school is surely a sign that the trend has gone too far? The increasing killer clown trend also appears to be affecting other members of society. Not only have clowns now become a further stigmatised group, putting genuine, hard-working clowns out of business – such as the individual whose appearance at a children’s ward in Newcastle Hospital was cancelled following fears for the children’s safety - but the trend is also negatively impacting sales of such costumes at this popular time of year. Many shops have restricted the selling of clown costumes, whilst some have removed the items all together. But is this just a case of the public simply becoming too sensitive to the premise of Halloween and the costumes it encourages? Are costumes now expected to conform to wider standards of what is considered right and acceptable in modern times, and is this even chievable? Looking back, it would appear that the costume trends have begun to mellow in taste in recent decades. From the 1920’s through to the 1950’s, costumes were inherently more creepy and disturbing than many of today’s costumes. Many costumes were homemade and, instead of the traditional funny concepts that many choose today, costumes were designed to strike fear and shock into the hearts of any passers-by. However whether the motive of these killer clowns is to bring back tradition is questionable. The various reports, arrests and cases of violence and injury say otherwise. It seems to be general consensus that noone is finding this phenomena funny at all.
“Sightings of these creepy clowns have been reported up and down the country, including here in Sheffield.” acts such as: riding a mobility scooter around a town centre; and attempting to break into another member of the public’s car whilst brandishing serious weaponry. Not only is this clown trend appearing to become increasingly dangerous, it is now also further stretching out the resources of already over-stretched police forces. Worryingly, as Halloween draws ever closer, the fear that these clowns are physically hurting people is becoming ever more real. A man was stabbed in the US whilst attempting to defend himself against a clown, whilst another man received head injuries after being attacked by not one, but a group of the killer characters, each with their identity hidden under their clown mask. According to more recent reports, these clown antics are set to continue to grow in severity. Not only are clown sightings and attacks continuing, reports in recent days suggest that these killer clowns are planning a ‘Purge’ style attack on the eve of Halloween. Whilst these reports have not been corroborated by any clown or clown group in particular, the threat alone is a terrifying one, and was apparently enough for the FBI
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LIFESTYLE Travel on a student budget TRAVEL
Lifestyle Editor Anna Whittaker shares her affordable travel experiences in and out of the UK.
Brighton A colourful, vibrant and bustling city, Brighton is perfect for a weekend away with friends or a boyfriend/girlfriend. If you’re looking for an upbeat holiday, Brighton is the city which never stops. In the day, expect to find the beachfront busy with tourists enjoying the sun with a drink on the beach, and at night the gay bars open to offer a night out like no other. The pier is an iconic landmark for the city, where you can enjoy a breezy walk and some chocolate-covered donuts. The city’s clubs and bars are pricey but worth it. A night out in Brighton is guaranteed to be a fun (and messy) one.
Paris Paris is a beautiful city, but it can often be expensive. A lot of the attractions are free for students, so make sure to take your Uni card. The Arc de Triomphe is well worth a visit, plus sitting next to Notre Dame by the river and soaking in the atmosphere is unmissable. Adding flights to your budget break can often prove to be a budget breaker more than anything. But with tool such as Expedia, Google Flights or Skyscanner, you can compare budget airlines prices and
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LIFESTYLE EXPLORES
you’ll be sure to find a good deal. For the really budget conscious there’s even Megabus! The L’Atelier Montparnasse is an affordable but modern hotel situated just outside of Paris, but if you’re on a really strict budget, there are plenty of hostels in Paris which can cater for your needs.
Liverpool Known for its mad nights out, Liverpool is a student must-do. In fact, thousands of Britons each year visit the city of the Scousers. The Albert Docks are beautiful place for a walk, situated amongst historic listed buildings. The Beatles Story costs £11.50 for students, whilst you can wander round Tate Liverpool for free. Bold Street offers a wide range of independent shops to explore, showing tourists a unique and cultural side to Liverpool. Head to Concert Square at night for some cheap and certainly cheerful clubbing.
Budapest Dubbed ‘Little Paris’, Budapest is an alternative city break which can certainly be done on a budget. Wombat City Hostel is an ideal place to stay - it’s in a great location and it’s cheap too. The city itself is separated into the areas of Buda and Pest. In Pest, you can find the breathtaking Parliament as well as plenty of budget nights out. In Buda you can see the Royal Palace, Matthias Church and divine thermal baths. I personally recommend the Széchenyi Baths. Be sure to wander around the city at night for stunning views of lit up
buildings, and for a fab night out head to Morrison 1 or 2.
York If you’re looking for a more citybased getaway without the feel of a jam-packed centre, York is the place for you. It is filled with things
to do: shopping in The Shambles is a must, as is exploring York Minster and dining in style at Betty’s (although if your budget is strict you may prefer having a look from the outside). If you’re into cute cafés and delicious food, head to Brew and Brownie to share some
scrummy pancakes. Stroll along the City Walls completely free of charge. Being a student city, York also has plenty of bars and clubs to keep you busy at night. At night, cheap drinks can be found in jazzy bar The Parish, followed by Kuda or Club Salvation.
TATTOO CORNER SIAN BRADLEY
Lifestyle’s regular section exploring the University of Sheffield’s Best Student Ink.
I
was living in Spain when I got my first and only tattoo. I’d wanted this design for a good few years, and had spent far too long trawling the internet for examples and then drawing possibilities. So, as a 20th birthday present to myself I decided to finally stop talking about how much “I really want this tattoo” and get it done. I asked my Spanish classmates for tattoo parlour recommendations and eventually went along to La Mano Zurda Tatoo. Thankful that Spanish people tend to make more of an effort to learn English than we do with any other language, I booked in for the next day - the day before my birthday. I’d been drawing my ideal design on the inside of the forearm all week and spent that night finalising the style. This tattoo means a lot to me. It’s a lotus flower. They bloom in murky and muddy waters to produce beautiful white and pink blossoms, representing strength in
adversity and rebirth. They are often referenced in Buddhism as a symbol of growth, enlightenment and purity. Fancy symbolism aside, the dot work illustration inked into my skin simply acts as a daily reminder of personal issues I’ve overcome, like the eating disorder I recovered from. It’s motivation to not fall back in bad habits. Getting tattooed in Madrid is significant to me as well. Studying there on Erasmus was, as cheesy and textbook as it sounds, an
experience of a lifetime and a place I made some real positive changes. The final tattoo was a transfer of my own drawing, which means it’s truly unique to me. The three dots were a purely aesthetic addition, but Google tells me that dots symbolise the solar system or the sun, so I can always pretend that’s what I intended. Do you want to be featured? Fire us an email! press.lifestyle@ forgetoday.com
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LIFESTYLE LIFESTYLE Vegetarianism? Veganism? LOVES Why not keep it Flexible? By Anna Whittaker
FOOD
Lifestyle contributor Katharine Walton discusses about the benefits of cutting down on meat without going cold turkey.
T
oday, it’s difficult to read a magazine, look at Instagram or go past a coffee shop without seeing an advert to follow a new healthy lifestyle. From plant-based #cleaneating to bacon-obsessed paleo, it seems that every tastebud has a lifestyle to suit them. There are two potential problems with these lifestyles. They can be expensive and restrictive. When you’re a student on a budget who doesn’t want to feel guilty about takeaway, an expensive and restrictive menu isn’t going to be popular. So what do you do if you want to eat healthily and save money where possible without sacrificing your favourite things? One solution being embraced is flexitarianism, also known as semi-vegetarian. At its heart, being flexitarian is about cutting down how much meat you eat in favour of a diet that is more plant-based.
Switching mince for lentils in your Bolognese or having mushrooms on toast for breakfast throughout the week and then enjoying a roast on the weekend is what its all about. With #flexitarian appearing over 50,000 times on Instagram, this is a movement that is beginning to gain traction globally. This shouldn’t be a surprise when the emphasis on plant-based lifestyles, veganism and clean eating is growing but most students are loathe to give up their bacon butties. Having spent this term experimenting with flexi-eating, I’ve found that reducing meat has not been the sacrifice I was expecting it to be. While there have been days where the meat cravings were intense,these three tips have helped me stay on the flexi wagon. 1. Make carbs your friend (again). You need energy to get out of bed or you will get serious cravings for any and all food. If you want to cut down your meat, allow yourself to enjoy a bowl of rice and beans or pasta in tomato sauce. 2. Make cooking meat an occasion. If you’re only going to have it once or twice a week,
Italian lentils
FASHION
Cosy jumpers are a must-have in this deceiving Sheffield weather. The sun may be shining, but don’t be fooled; temperatures are probably sub-zero and you are almost guaranteed to get rained on. In comes the huge XXL winter jumper to save us all.
FOOD
Look at this cute baby chick. LOOK AT IT! make it special and a chance to dig out recipe books. Or invite your flatmates out for a roast dinner. 3. Get creative with store cupboard staples. Bags of dried
lentils and tins of beans can seem boring but if you combine them with spices, herbs, garlic or anything else you can find, they can become flavour-filled meals that you won’t miss chicken.
My love for hummus has been well and truly re-vitalised after experiencing the absolute beauty of Humpit this week. Creatively named after the classic hummus and pitta combo, this place offers a range of delightful hummus and falafel pittas, with a 50% discount for students until Halloween! (Other hummus outlets are available)
LIFESTYLE RECIPE
T
o help you on your way to a budget-friendly, flexible fridge, here’s one of the recipes that I swear by.
Ingredients
Method
- 1 onion - 2 garlic cloves - Oil - 1 cup of green lentils (1 cup is about the same size as an average mug) - 1 heaped tsp Italian seasoning - Stock, enough to cover the lentils
1.) Slice the onion and garlic. 2.) Heat the oil in a saucepan. 3.) Fry the onion and garlic until softened. 4.) Stir the lentils and seasoning into the fried onions and garlic. 5.) Pour over enough stock so that it rises just above the lentils. 6.) Bring lentils to the boil and then simmer until the lentils are soft. There should be no liquid left. 7.) Serve up with whatever you fancy, from a leafy salad or steamed greens through to a fried egg on top. Suggestion: the lentils keep really well for a few days in the fridge, providing you with an easy meal or two throughout the week. You can even eat them for breakfast with a fried egg on top.
TRAVEL
Like many students, I am way too poor to travel :( However, I recently went to Matlock Bath Illuminations (a slightly classier version of Blackpool Illuminations). If you like fireworks and good old fish and chips, head down to Matlock Bath this weekend for a typically British time.
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LIFESTYLE FEATURE
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s is usually the case with binge watching entire seasons on Netflix over a matter of days, I felt a strange (pun not intended) sense of emptiness after finishing Stranger Things. It becomes a part of your life for the few days you’re watching it, it becomes a daily ritual, you become so intrinsically absorbed in the world of the show and then POW. It’s gone. You’ve got nothing left. You’ve got to wait for another series. Your whole world is suddenly turned upside down (niche pun was intended that time).
But with Stranger Things, and I hope people will relate to me on this, it was different. It was a great show with complex and wellwritten characters, an interesting story, a well-suited soundtrack, and, above all else, a well-
Lifestyle Editor Joseph Mackay ventures into the unknown to unearth a sudden contemporary reinterest in late 20th centruy culture constructed world with remarkable style. It finishes and leaves you wanting more episodes, but it leaves you wanting so much more. Nostalgia is a flaw in the Romantic Imagination. Our generation never even lived in the 80s. So why do we have such a yearning for the past? There’s no better example of expectation vs reality than in Back to the Future Part II which celebrated an anniversary of sorts on October 2015 when Marty ‘arrived’ in the future, hoverboard in tow. We didn’t get funky fresh™ pink’n’lime green Mattel hoverboards in 2015. We got ‘hoverboards’ that in fact didn’t hover at all, but had two wheels and a knack for catching fire and ruining Christmas. Even now in 2016, Marty McFly’s 1989 Hoverboard Self-fastening Nike trainers and Steel-brushed DeLorean seem futuristic to us in the strangest possible way. That’s the appeal of the late 20th century. Walking around over summer you could occasionally be forgiven for thinking you were living in the 90s, as little kids ran around playing in the street dressed as Ash Ketchum from Pokémon, frantically signalling his friends over to go and catch Pikachu in the park. Was it just children
playing it? Nope. Did far too many people aged 18-30 suddenly start streaming the original Pokémon TV series online? Yes. The biggest
innovation in Video gaming at the moment is Virtual Reality. But the idea was huge in the 80s and 90s, with the Nintendo Virtual Boy and the Power Glove. The biggest contemporary gaming innovation isn’t even innovative, it’s just been on an 80s backburner. Nintendo recently announced a re-release of their original 1986 8-bit NES, and pre-orders are currently sold out online. Let that sink in – even in a world of technologically superior Xbox Ones and PS4s, demand has been so high for a rerelease of a 30 year old console that they it’s can’t even take any more pre orders. A major complaint with George Lucas’ second Star Wars trilogy was that it was ‘too new’. It didn’t retain the spirit of the originals. Star Wars Episode VII comes along with all the retro styled flavour of the original trilogy and becomes the third highest grossing film of all time, with Jurassic World cinching fourth place. Recent sequels and remakes have included Ghostbusters, Mad Max, Tron, and a flurry of films including obscure Marvel characters; mostly to critical and audience acclaim. Cult films seem to have become more highly regarded than actual classics. Blade Runner 2 anyone? This influence doesn’t just extend to media. Asos have recently launched a specifically
70s influenced ‘Haze’ collection, and you have to look no further than Tuesday Club to see a barrage of 90s sportswear, curbed peak baseball caps, silver crop tops, mom jeans and t-shirts 3 sizes too big. Sheffield is awash with vintage shops, and fashionable styles centring on monochrome and bold eclectic prints. Since I’ve just really been listing stuff so far, I might as well finish off with music just so I’ve covered everything. Vinyl Revival doesn’t look like it’s stopping anytime soon, House music is sitting comfortably in the charts, Justice and Daft Punk are cranking out commercially successful Disco tunes like it’s nobody’s business, and Dusky’s most recent techno offering even had a song featuring Gary Numan. A quick YouTube search for ‘Vaporwave’,
a genre combining satire of 90s commercialism, lounge jazz samples and modern production set to a backdrop of videos of heavily edited old Simpsons clips perfectly epitomises the feeling I’m trying to get across. In our modern world of clinical white smartphones, minimalist décor, carefully thought out classy advertising and serious pop music, the late 20th century almost represents a future that could have been. We won’t be driving down to the Disco on a Saturday night anytime soon. I’m not going to start listening to music on a Walkman instead of my phone. I’m not going to exclusively play games on a PlayStation one. But it’s nice to imagine a world that could have been, no matter how impractical. Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.
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LIFESTYLE The York Dungeon are creeping it real this Halloween... TRAVEL
Lifestyle Contributor Cameron Green takes a spooky trip to the York Dungeon...
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here are some perks of contributing to Lifestyle for Forge. In this case, a chance to experience the terrifying ‘Viking Adventure’ at the York Dungeons with my good pal Joe. Our Experience began much like many great nights of ye olde time, with a few glasses of prosecco and nervous banter with a seemingly sanity challenged monk. Upon sniffing his entrails (yeah baby), we were informed of our impending demise at the hands of a vicious Viking horde (the Yorkish seem to have a bit of horn on over Vikings, if you’ll excuse yet another awful pun). It was at this point that the lights dimmed for the first point in the evening, signalling the first
of many well executed ‘jump scare’ moments. This is the archetypal moment the York Dungeons are known for, and the actors genuinely seemed to relish frightening the attendees of the evening’s tour. Moving from room to room and various moments in time,the experience seemed more like an anthology than a full story. However, where chronology and
“One might be forgiven for screaming like a fishwife” overarching narrative was lacking, the entertainment value of the unrelenting jump scares more than made up for it. The immersive nature of the group activity and the merciless harassment means that you simply can’t lose interest in the experience. Even if atsome points you can lose your head. In a dark, dingy recreation of
a public house, the setting for a Victorian ghost story, one might be forgiven for screaming like a fishwife. Occasionally you may find yourself at the front of the group, traversing the narrow, shadowy corridors to discover the next experience, where a shriek or 10 is understandable. If you’re incredibly unlucky you might get accused of being a Southerner and find yourself publicly executed. The acting and setting of each story was immersive enough to make the audience feel part of a moment in history, and at times wonder if the monk slipped some hallucinogenic entrails into your prosecco. I bet that’s what medieval gigs were like. Get your tickets for ‘Tudor cinema club’ before they sell out. This Halloween the dungeons are also hosting a brand new experience, ‘Wicked Women’, where a mysterious woman awaits inside the dungeon. The York Dungeons were sound. Spooky AF.
Marmadukes Café FOOD
Lifestyle Contributor Florence Wyatt-Brun reviews Marmadukes Cafe Deli
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fter having heard many good things about this café [Ed. - maybe it was in the last ten or so reviews we’ve done!], I thought it was about time I tried it out for myself, and boy was I glad that I did. I could immediately see what all the hype was about: the café had an eccentric atmosphere and a delightful selection of homemade food for both vegetarians
and meat eaters. The café itself is misleadingly larger than it appears from the outside, with three floors shabby-chic interior design to explore. Each room is filled with character, surrounding you with cosy plant pots and hilarious wall hangings, giving it the perfect ‘front-living room’ vibe ideal for long catch-ups over coffee. We were greeted at the entrance by a buzz of people waiting to place their orders which I already took as a good sign as there’s nothing worse than an empty restaurant or café. We continued inside, eyeing up their scrumptious display of cakes, sandwiches and salads. Having a huge sweet tooth myself,
I couldn’t resist ordering the giant slice of red velvet cake, with its two layers of thick Nutella chocolate and coat of meringue mousse for dessert - I was not dissappointed with my choice. For our savouries, my friends and I went for the Derbyshire Homity Pie served with a choice of deli salad, the ham & cheese toasted croissant, and the sandwich of the day. Everything was simply delicious. I will definitely be going back again to try their brunch menu which included scotch pancakes (I’ve got my heart set on the peanut butter, banana, mascarpone & nut brittle), a range of full Englishes, Derbyshire Oatcakes and Eggs Benedict and Florentine. Their Halloumi & Herb Burger also looked pretty awesome too! On the drinks side of things, I can assure any coffee snobs out there that they won’t be disappointed: their artisan coffees are superb. Marmaduke’s is actually one of the few places in Sheffield that I have been able to find that make real coffee. I was also impressed by their refills on Yorkshire tea.
LIFESTYLE REVIEWS
FORGE PRESS 25
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ENTERTAINMENT Inside this issue...
Five Minutes with Forge
Every issue we take someone from around campus and quiz them on their cultural tastes. In this edition we have the dashing and debonair Station Manager of our sister-outlet Forge TV: Tom Mason. Who is your all time favourite band or artist? Currently my favourite artist is Avenged Sevenfold, I’ve loved them for years and I’m secretly a metal head (it’s no secret). What is your favourite album of all time? The album I always go back to is Metropolis 2 by Dream Theater. It’s a fantastic concept album that’s epic from start to finish.
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You can only take five records with you to a desert island. What would they be? Dance of Eternity - Dream Theater No One Knows - Queens of the Stone Age More than Words - Extreme So Far Way - Avenged Sevenfold Walk of Life - Dire Straits
I’m really looking forward to Rogue One. I’m a massive fan of the Star Wars universe (Spock is my favourite death eater)
What’s the best gig you’ve ever been to? Download Festival 2016. I saw Avenged Sevenfold headline the Main Stage. They did two encores and were just incredible! Who are you really into at the moment? Jordan Rudess. In particular his Notes on a Dream with its stunningly beautiful piano. When you think of your childhood, what film comes to mind? The School of Rock is the film that absolutely sums up my childhood! What is your favourite film? Hot Fuzz. No luck catching them swans them? (Bristolian accent is required). Are there any upcoming releases your looking forward to film-wise? I’m really looking forward to Rogue One. I’m a massive fan of the Star Wars universe (Spock is my favourite death eater). Do you have a favourite artist? Hans Holbein (yeah I’m cultured. What of it?) Have you been to an exhibition or museum recently that impressed you? I recently went to the Imperial War Museum and they have an exhibit of British stamps that each have the face of a British troop who has fallen in Afghanistan or Iraq. The sheer number of them is quite
harrowing and has definitely stayed with me ever since. What is the best play or musical you have seen? Groundhog Day. It’s one of my favourite films and the stage adaption has been executed perfectly. I could watch it over and over and over... You can only have one console and one game for the rest of your life. What would they be? Xbox 360 and the original Borderlands. I’ve spent too many hours playing that game and it still makes me smile every time. Have you ever raged at a game and broken something? I don’t rage. The game just doesn’t like me and won’t let me win. I still haven’t completed Need for Speed: Underground after 13 years. What is your favourite book? Day By Day Armageddon. If you’re into zombies, this is a must read. It’s set out like a diary, but it drags you into the story and is captivating from line one. Have you read anything recently that you’d reccomend? I was reading a really interesting article about hyper complex numbers the other day? Thrilling. What is your favourite TV / Netflix series? The first season of Heroes is by far my favourite TV series of all time. The storyline is good, but the character development is what does it for me. I feel like I can relate to every single character, and that rarely happens in TV nowdays. Also, Sylar is the best baddie ever. Are you into any television series at the moment? Just started watching the latest season of Black Mirror. Adshdflalijsaaklak. (That’s fangirl for ‘it’s really good’).
GAMES An exploration of the divisions within the world of gaming communities P. 26
ARTS The students behind new theatre company Colla Volce chat to us about their upcoming performance of Cabaret P. 29
MUSIC We have an exclusive interview with Dan Flint of You Me At Six P. 32
SCREEN Tired 0f the same old horror movies? These are the new and true gems of horror P. 36
FREE HALLOWEEN GIFT
Get your free Pull-Out Poster on Page 37
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GAMES
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hen playing a game, there’s no better feeling than the first time you enter a world, packed with exciting prospects and potentially a riveting lore. From delving into the Dwarven ruins of Skyrim to felling the grotesque, nightmarish Lovecraftian monsters of Bloodborne, each game has the potential to captivate the player in its own unique way. Although the key to a successful game boils down to an epic story or satisfying gameplay, what makes some of these games truly stand
press.games@forgetoday.com
out is their communities. Skyrim currently has a strong modding community that has found ways to rejuvenate the game and add more dynamic opportunities. What also needs to be stressed is the people who have dedicated time and effort to provide guides and locations on the Dark souls 3 Wiki need a medal (the amount of times I got lost was unreal). Unfortunately, life can’t always be sunshine and rainbows which means that for every good part of a community comes a bad side too. While you are reading this, someone somewhere is complaining on a Steam forum about how much they hate a certain developer or
are ridiculing a game for having (or lacking) features that rub them the wrong way. Most of the time it’s a frivolous endeavour that never really progresses past being a means to vent; in some cases however these feelings are reciprocated by others, leading to trial by electronic jury. This effectively results in a virtual mob, rallying others to gather their pitchforks and fight for their cause in hopes that their cries will be heard pushing for change. Eventually this behaviour aggravates those who feel the opposite, who may also join forces to battle the other side. This results in a back and forth exchange which can at times regress to simple
juvenile name calling, a bit like verbal trench warfare that becomes a battle of attrition rather than about who’s really in the right. It’s an issue that is so frequent that people outside the discussion tend to shrug off these incidents as another arbitrary war between ‘haters’ and ‘fan boys’. Although both parties can be portrayed negatively, there are times when people will convey a reasonable or valid argument for their respective side. Then again, there have also been times when people have become so absorbed in a product or company that it reaches the point of Evangelism, disregarding all those who doubt or criticise what they
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GAMES love and in some cases issue death threats to their opposition. This was evident with the recent controversy surrounding No Man’s Sky after it was released to mediocre reviews. Upset fans complained that in the build up to this project they were strung a web of promises that were never delivered or over hyped features that never truly captured the magic that was expected. On Reddit you can find a compiled a list of all the promises/ features fans were sold on in the build up to the game’s release, only to see features either missing or overly simplified. For example, it was initially promised that ships could be retooled to homogenise ship play over the diverse class system. But we are not going to dwell on the idiosyncrasies of pre order culture. What’s important here is the reaction it sparked from its fans and critics alike. Upon release, fans flooded Sean Murray’s twitter expressing their anger, stressing that this was not the game they paid for and that its price of £40 was way too overpriced for the product. The most notable expression of disappointment has been shown through Steam’s review system which currently has No Man’s Sky
sitting on a mostly negative review with only 33% positive from 70,794 submitted reviews. Whilst one might think this objectively means the game is bad, it could also be evidence of the fact of how united fans can respond when they feel cheated or wronged in any way, leaving bad reviews in spite. While they have every right to feel disappointed, it is also true that some individuals are overjoyed at its failures and that, to me, seems counter-productive. By making posts that are deliberately created to antagonize and effectively kick consumers while they are down seems a juvenile, regressive approach to take when it could happen to them with a game they are excited for. Personally, rather than treating games that don’t appeal with vitriol or yearn for its demise, solace can be taken in the fact someone is enjoying the game and simply move on to a game that does appeal. The Call of Duty franchise campaign is, in my opinion, lack lustre and contains over the top explosion scenes taken straight from a Michael Bay movie. Does this make the game inherently bad? No. The game has simple and reasonably fun gameplay that tends to gravitate towards a younger audience, effectively leading to the claim that the COD
community is just ‘angry 12 year olds’. This sadly leads to groups of people who play a similar or rival game (Battlefield in particular) to bicker and argue with COD fans, presumably to annoy them for kicks. COD fans do the same thing which creates factions within FPS genre. The issue taken with these exchanges is that it actually accomplishes nothing and inadvertently creates a safety net for developers. The only way developers can review feedback is through their forums and if they are constantly coming across juvenile or outright threatening comments, these commenters can be disregarded as trolls. An issue with that can lead to genuine critique falling through the cracks, resulting in a lack of constructive criticism or direction for developers leading to less improvements in the next instalment. This isn’t to say the developers are completely faultless, but disputes blowing out of proportion allow for the possibility that certain developers could then choose to allocate minimal resources to improving a game. Effectively, no criticism, no need to innovate. Coherent comments that don’t come across as abusive, regarding issues with a game from
a mechanical standpoint, have a higher probability of developers looking into these concerns. The latest Bioshock remastered PC port is testament to this with numerous people voicing issues with the graphical settings being too linear or problems with the mouse’s sensitivity. Eventually the developers took notice and patched these issues, showing that voicing genuine concerns in a constructive manner can result in progress. In the end, everybody is free to hate a game, but the dangers of attaching or immersing yourself in a product too much are clear. Passion and hype can later turn to spite, which can then breed reactions that are outright innapropriate, like sending death threats to developers - in particular to Jennifer Hepler whilst working for BioWare. Threatening behaviour may not eminate from the majority of gamers, but they stand out, and allow the entire world of gaming to be stereotyped by certain characteristics. Such generalisations unfortunately simplify what is a very wide, diverse, complex and usually pretty balls to the walls amazing community. William Elmer
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GAMES OPINION
Nintendo flips the Switch
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Joseph Mackay Lifestyle Editor
nce upon a time, every Tom, Dick and Harry (and maybe even Harry’s grandma) had felt the sharp-but-inevitable pain of being smacked in the face by a Wiimote whilst playing Wii Sports tennis. The Wii was a resounding success for Nintendo. Yet part of what made the console such a lucrative product also proved to be its biggest setback. With the amount of casual gamers it attracted, the number of ever-so-slightly rubbish casual minigame compilations
skyrocketed (Carnival: Funfair Games anybody?) and dominated the market. Don’t get me wrong, the Wii was an ingenious console with some really great titles: Super Mario Galaxy, WarioWare: Smooth Moves, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and the questionably ‘new’ New Super Mario Bros. Wii. In the end though, nobody really cared about motion control gaming, The gimmick grew stale and so did the Wii. Nintendo’s answer? The Wii U. Basically the Wii on steroids with a new touchpad controller. Graphically pretty impressive
REVIEW
Bioshock: The Collection
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Josh Taylor Games Contributor
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he Bioshock trilogy is the latest franchise to receive the ‘remaster’ treatment, with Blind Squirrel Games teaming up with 2K to bring one of gaming’s critical darlings to currentgeneration platforms. Bioshock: The Collection comes with all three games upgraded to full HD 1080p and 60 frames per second in addition to enhanced audio. This especially brings Bioshock and Bioshock 2’s city of Rapture to life more than ever before, with the ocean floor populated with even more creatures of the deep and covered in various types of flora. Rapture itself is more vibrant and colourful as bright neon signs light up the surroundings, drawing comparisons to bustling cities around the world. The many environments the player will encounter within Rapture are again more detailed and visually impressive when compared to the originals, down to the littlest details such as improved running water and lighting. The crisp, clear vocals of an already excellently voiced game and the revamped noises of gunfire really supplement this impressive remaster. However, all of these factors don’t necessarily improve on the original experience of
the first two games. Gameplay is largely untouched with repetitive combat scenarios and objectives that can feel stale in this modern age of gaming. The frame rate also drops significantly when too many objects are on screen and textures also take some time to load. Still, both Bioshock and Bioshock 2 are thrilling experiences with twisting stories and interesting characters. For both new and veteran players these remasters really impress. Where the collection doesn’t excel as much is in the third game of the trilogy, Bioshock Infinite. As it came out only three years prior to the remaster not a lot has been done to improve it. In fact, in the PC version Infinite isn’t even improved in terms of frame rate and graphics, with 2K stating the game already meets the publisher’s technical standards. Despite this, Bioshock: The Collection is undoubtedly the best way to experience the Bioshock trilogy. With updated graphics and frame rates this is the best the first two games have ever looked, ensuring The Collection successfully compliments one of gaming’s biggest franchises.
and also (eventually) home to a fair few great titles, the console suffered from poor marketing by Nintendo, who maybe
means you can play multiplayer games on the go without dragging around a load of bulky controllers - a move which
“It’s always nice to see Nintendo catching up with the so-called ‘serious’ gaming machines” overestimated its immediate appeal. At its core remained the motion controls nobody was bothered about anymore, and the controller really proved a difficult hurdle for third party developers to get past. Whilst the Wii sold in excess of 101 million consoles worldwide, the Wii U managed a fraction of that. Even 2001’s GameCube reached sales of just over 21 million in a considerably smaller market. Understandably there was a fair amount of pressure on Nintendo to produce something that people actually wanted. Predictions over their mysterious new project (working title ‘NX’) were pretty varied - until last Thursday. After over a year of waiting Nintendo’s new console was revealed: the Nintendo Switch. The majority of the speculation ended up being pretty spot on in the end, with the Switch doubling up as both a home and portable console. It achieves this by having a central control dock that plugs into the TV and a 720p glass screened control pad. There’s a separate ‘Pro’ controller that’s distinctly Xbox-esque, while the sides slide off the main control pad to form two mini controllers. This
PREVIEW
Football Manager 2017
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Joshua Clements Games Contributor
s the new season gets fully underway, the world’s most in-depth manager simulation makes its return with new features, buttons and mechanics added to keep us in the dugout for another 12 months. Changes are quickly apparent with the Beta’s new start menu. Text looks smoother, the shortcuts are more responsive and the much-improved manager avatar now dominates the screen. Inside the game this trend continues. The new ‘social feed’ launches FM17 into the modern era, with fans and journalists ‘tweeting’ about the latest footballing affairs. Through this you can see reactions to the decisions you make, ensuring FM17 is far more immersive than its predecessors. This feature also has consequences:
brings the Mario Kart to predrinks. If rumours are to be believed it’s going to ship with a custom Nvidia Tegra processor, which should nicely align it with the Xbox One and PS4’s specifications. Plus, it’s always nice to see Nintendo catching up with the so-called ‘serious’ gaming machines. For those still unsure, there’s a reveal trailer that has a variety of millennials with nice apartments and enthusiastic friendship groups showcasing all of these features. There’s a particularly good bit where somebody’s trying to play but keeps getting pestered
“If Nintendo learns from its mistakes, the Switch could be a complete game changer” by their dog, so they take it out for a walk whilst continuing to play. Why bother with warm, friendly animal companionship when you’ve got Super Mario Brothers? Not many launch titles have follow a player’s twitter feed and you might unsettle him, he may even request a transfer. Additionally, backroom staff advice is now easier to implement. The game no longer drags you through menus, but advice is read and applied from inside your inbox with a press of a button. The scouting interface is similarly effective, with scouts now offering their thoughts on their
“FM17 is far more immersive than its predecessors” next destination and giving more analytical reports. On the pitch, the match engine has been revamped with over 1,500 new animations. The latest rule changes have been added, and improved data maps present information about your team’s shortfalls in a much friendlier way than before. There is even a nice touch in the use of vanishing spray. Transfer dealings are also
been announced, but we know the list will include the hotly anticipated Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and an as-yet unannounced 3D Mario game. Skyrim: Special Edition along with an array of some of the better Wii U games in Mario Kart 8 and Splatoon have also been previewed. If Nintendo learns from its mistakes, the Switch could be a complete game changer. As the undisputed leaders of the portable gaming industry, the hybridity of the Switch allows for new and interesting possibilities for both formats - maybe even the first Pokémon game on a home console (we can dream, right?). It’s even got one of those endangered headphone jacks. With the right marketing, a reasonable price point and a respectable array of games to please both serious and more casual gamers, the Switch might just be the commercial saviour Nintendo both needs and deserves. The Nintendo Switch is due for release March 2017. more refined with pre-contract promises. These differ from promises to strengthen the squad or just allowing the player to be the free kick taker, offering a happier medium to the solitary ‘make captain’ promise of FM16. The option to have a clause that stops a transfer going through until you sell a player is also welcomed, allowing you to agree a transfer whilst attempting to move on another player. Loans haven’t been neglected either, as wage fees can now change whether or not the player is involved on match day. Football Manager 2017’s new features the game whilst keeping things familiar. Features such as the social feed and updated transfer negotiations bring the game into the modern day, succeeding in keeping you up into the early hours of the morning. It seems the infamous ‘just one more game’ effect is now stronger than ever before. This preview was written after playing the FM17 Beta. The full game will be released on 4 November.
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ARTS
catching up with:
Colla Voce by Laura Mulvey. Following the stashed-away dream of many a musical theatre fanatic, fellow students and firm friends Jack Robertson (third-year English Literature) and Tom Williams (third-year Psychology) have taken the plunge and set up their very own company. Colla Voce is a growing force in Sheffield, specialising in small-scale, intimate productions with a West End flair. This week, the dynamic duo took time out of their busy schedule to chat to Arts Editor Laura about their upcoming performance, Cabaret.
who is who? Sitting in Interval, chatting animatedly with pints in hand, the two halves of Colla Voce look the picture of partnership but who actually does what? They glance at each other, pondering. “We’re both co-founders,” explains Tom, “we came up with the idea together and we both implement the business side. But I probably do far less than Jack.” When pushed, however, Tom’s role turns out to be fairly crucial. “I suppose I’m the House Director – I focus on the acting. That puts me in charge of the artistic vision: deciding how the stage should look, organising the coherence of the piece”. And Jack, it seems, is in charge of everything else. “I act as Company Manager, which entails a lot of the same jobs that a Producer might have; sorting out sponsorship, delegating roles, design, publicity, chasing people for thing.” He’s also the Musical Director, in charge of the band, the singing and vocal coaching. Together, the pair specialise in smallscale, intimate theatre with a real focus on story-telling. I ask how this joint vision came to be branded as Colla Voce. “Oh, it’s incredibly pretentious”, laughs Tom. “It comes from a musical direction which means “to follow the voice.” That basically encapsulates what we aim to do”.
the Colla Voce story. Colla Voce seem to have their blossoming business fully under control, but I’m intrigued to find out how they got to this point. Painfully aware of my own looming deadlines, I can’t fathom how two busy students have
made this project a reality. Tom casts his mind back over his rollercoaster of a year. “We’ve known each other for a long time, and we met again at uni by chance. Quickly, we realised that we still shared the same love of musical theatre, and Jack started to introduce me to some fantastic shows that were just too small to be performed at uni. SUPAS and SUTCo do amazing work, but they’re bound by the need to put on shows of a certain size. We realised there was a gap in the market.” “But at that point, it was still just a pipe dream”, Jack interjects. “We had absolutely no money, and no way to get it off the ground. That’s where our friends from SUTCo came in, they talked us through how to apply for funding, how to find sponsorship, how to make it real. We couldn’t have done it without them.” Their perserverence certainly paid off. In less than a year, the company had developed, produced and staged their first production of Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years in Sheffield’s most up-andcoming drama hub, Theatre Delicatessen. The much-loved musical follows the slowly disintegrating relationship between Jamie, a rising author, and Cathy, a struggling actress. “It worked really well as a first production”, reflects Jack. “The show has something of a cult following, which meant that people were really excited to see it in Sheffield. It only requires a cast of two, so the small scale of the project gave us an opportunity to focus on the acting and the music in a really intimate way. Plus, we had the chance to work in the basement of the Moor Theatre Deli, which was an interesting challenge.”
Cabaret: the next big thing. The whirlwind success of The Last Five Years has driven the group towards their latest project. Cabaret will be playing for
one night only at Theatre Deli on Friday 4 November. With the striking red logo giving little away, the night is shrouded in mystery. What can they reveal now? “The show is a collection of contemporary musical theatre pieces, performed by a cast of eight, with a twist. It’s still going to provide the silly, drunken, raucous fun you’d expect from a cabaret evening, but we’re flipping the concept on its head. Instead of inviting the audience to ogle women, the men are going to be the butt of the joke.” Jack fills me in on his vision for the night. “When you produce a show for Theatre Deli, you’re presented with a blank canvas – you can do whatever you like. If you come on the night, you’ll be transported into a classic cabaret club, complete with red velvet, wine, incense and smoke. It’s like a piece of Berlin here in Sheffield.” “We even have our very own cheeky emcee”, adds Tom. “He’s witty, flamboyant and incredibly sassy. He loves to ridicule the people onstage, but the audience isn’t safe, either. The front row is definitely the danger zone. “The evening we’re hoping to create will give the audience a unique theatrical experience. No one really puts on a proper cabaret show anymore; we think it’s something people won’t have seen in the flesh before.” “The show developed very organically, from a small idea we had in the wake of The Last Five Years to a main project for the company. It’s far more than just a showcase of musical numbers, there’s a real narrative running throughout. It devloped from a rehearsed open mic night
to a complete evening experience. Everyone involved in this production is showing off, in a nice way, which is pretty fantastic.”
highs, lows and future hopes. With all this developing in less than a year, I’m wondering if Jack and Tom can pinpoint a stand-out moment from their Colla Voce experience. “Overselling on the final night of The Last Five Years. We had to run through the building looking for chairs. It was great! And that was all down to news of the show spreading by word-of-mouth. The audience size went up exponentially over the week because of recommendations. For me, that was when the realisation came that we had actually pulled it off, we can keep this going into the future!” And were there any major disasters along the way? “Working in the basement brought its own challenges at times. Throughout the run, all the power for the performance was coming from a single socket. It could have blown at any moment. But the University really helped us out with technicians and advice, it almost went too smoothly.” On the topic of what’s next? Jack keeps his cards close to his chest. “We’re in talks with a composer from Manchester who’s writing a new show, and the possibility of the Edinburgh Fringe is on the horizon. We have plenty of ideas for our own writing, too. Anything to beat the post-production blues.”
Cabaret comes to Theatre Delicatessen on Friday 4 November at 7.30pm. For tickets, visit theatredelicatessen.co.uk.
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FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER 2016
ARTS COMEDY
Simon Munnery ««« Diana Read Arts Contributor
D
arkness falls moments before Simon Munnery clatters on stage, a coat of cider cans draped over him. A light beams down on the comedian from whose head flies a plastic bird, attached to his tin hat via a rotating pole. “Anarchy is loosed upon the world,” says the alien man on stage, using a sleight of hand to cause two prop-vases to crumble into pieces behind him. The comedian keeps up a cultish chant, predicting a “second coming”. Light is killed once more. Overall, quite a memorable introduction to Simon Munnery’s
INTERVIEW
Thomas Parrish
“I
Ethan Hemmati Arts Contributor
think you have to be open to interpretation with new writing, otherwise it becomes a very dictatorial thing. That’s not what it’s about, man. You put it out for the banter.” Or so says Thomas Parrish, the third year English Literature student, whose play Jackdaws which he has written and directed, is premièred on Wednesday 26 October. It’s a taut, mythological and sporadically comedic insight into the ‘darkest elements of humankind’. Parrish, who speaks with a politeness and intensity, discusses how the inspiration for this strange piece of theatre came from the current refugee crisis, the concept of power, and a desire to challenge set preconceptions of mythological beings. “I’ve always been interested in satire, and driving some sociopolitical message into any piece of work. I think it keeps the material relevant,” he says. “I’m a quarter Greek. My mother used to read these mythological stories to me
show Standing Still. Sadly, it was as memorable as it was misleading, as the room’s lighting was restored, so was normalcy. Relatively speaking, Munnery still wore a pig-mask codpiece. The eccentricities of the 49-yearold comedian thankfully weren’t over. Yet, through the rest of the show they were sporadic, made up largely of a miniature policelight, a conversation with ‘Peggy Sue’, a bucket and a printed toucan picture.
“The comedian keeps up a cultish chant, predicting a second coming. Light is killed once more.” These intriguing episodes in Munnery’s performance were tempered by the more mundane comedy: throwing digs at David Cameron (see pig-mask codpiece),
mocking capitalism, ridiculing the presidential debate and belittling of the Royal family. Also, Munnery’s righteousness got the better of him and he allowed it to disrupt his comedic flow. His dissertation on the agricultural revolution that occurred 250 years ago and the story of Mrs Barber who organised a rent strike in Glasgow, had one feeling like they had signed up for a history lecture. Still, there were some occasions where Munnery managed to balance surrealism and humour, most memorably, by showing Dalek pictures with funny captions and promoting his new invention: The Umbrella. He slid jerkily between being a mad eccentric and a confused, weary man who had to frantically search a printed sheet to find a verse he missed in one of the many songs he warbled through.
eccentricities but just being himself. The stories relating to his past were original and gave great punchlines that received thundering rounds of applause.
“He slid jerkily between being a mad eccentric and a confused, weary man.” Despite his decades of experience, Munnery’s routine was an awkward and coltish affair that led you to wish that he would perhaps just stand still.
However, Munnery is at his most endearing when not relying on
about gods and stuff. I thought it was great stage material if you write it into a comedic setting.” He’s reluctant to label the play a comedy though, claiming that genre is a very dangerous territory to get into. “When you try to delineate a play into character types,” he argues, “then, for me, you will have less of an affinity with the audience.” Perhaps, his play could be better described
writing and the directing all come as this wonderful threesome, and if you can manifest those into one productive and infused ball of energy then all you’ve got to do is turn up to the rehearsals and it just happens. That’s all there is to it.”
“Sometimes you’ve got to exemplify for your actors exactly what you need them to do, rather than just asking for a sad or a happy face.”
“I’ve always been interested in satire and driving some social-political message into any piece of work.” as a tragicomedy; he settles on “an elevated form of naturalism”. At the end of the day though, in Parrish’s view, Jackdaws is “my understanding of the human condition as a 21 year-old man”. So then, what kind of an impression does he hope the play will have on his audience? “If, after a performance, I have someone come up to me and say that they had any sort of artistic affinity with the characters, the plot, the ideas, then that’s success.”
then that’s success.” The story follows the experiences of the protagonist Ray Sterling, who has been transported to another world where he is confronted by these mythological beings. Parrish insists that he set the piece in fictional landscapes to suspend the disbelief of his audience. “Naturalism is one of those things that, by its very nature, [allows] you to take raw experiences from
“Naturalism is one of those things that, by its very nature, [allows] you to take raw experiences from your past and inject them into the scene.” your past and inject them into the scene.”
However, at the core of his story is the belief that even the superior and mystical gods of the plot are just ordinary people. “My intention through putting these gods in a stratosphere of humanity is to show that godliness and power and truth are all things that we strive for. And the reason why we strive for them all the time is because they’re unachievable.” There’s little ego surrounding Parrish’s manner. With Jackdaws being only Parrish’s second directorial experience, I ask what the title of director means to him. “It’s literally just standing up and saying ‘you do this, you do that’. It helps that I’ve acted a lot in the past because sometimes you’ve got to exemplify for your actors exactly what you need them to do, rather than just asking for a sad or a happy face. The acting, the
Before he leaves, he uses the last few minutes to plug a few upcoming events, including his next passion project, a “minimalist technointerpretation of the Bauhaus ballet”, which he is adamant is entirely disconnected from the world of Jackdaws. “I would never get away with putting some sort of social or political message in a ballet,” he says, grinning. “It’s just who I am, man. I’m a hippy. D’ya know what I mean?” Jackdaws is playing at the Drama Studio from Wednesday 26-Saturday 29 October 2016. Tickets are £6/£7 available at Sheffield SU Box Office, SUTCO.org or by telephone on 0114 222 8678.
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FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER 2016
ARTS LITERATURE LOVES
The Road Danielle Mustarde Arts Contributor
I
INTERVIEW
Tom Beesley Mollie Davidson Arts Editor
A
s I enter Bloc Projects, I must admit it is the first time I have ever felt nervous. The artist Tom Beesley gives me time to take it in, to adapt to my surroundings. He calls his latest work de-, dis-, ex- “a little bit like site specific work” which has been informed by ideas emerging from a period working with the Sheffield School of Architecture. His earliest piece Escape is a huge Buckminster Fuller style geometric orange design; bright and bold against the white walls of Bloc Projects. Inspired by the geodistic domes that were a utopia for some during the 60s and his work with the Sheffield School of Architecture’s Steven Walker, Beesley’s work represents his “interest in the unravelling of modernism”. He explains that his aim was to “look at contemporary art and its relationship with architecture and design. [I was] looking at how contemporary art might unpick, look a little bit closer at the things that are concerned with architectural theory.”
“A huge Buckminster Fuller styel geometric orange design; bright and bold against the white walls of Bloc Projects” Beneath the Street the Fertile Soil is a television screen that shows a floating tool, concieved for breaking up tarmac in order to access fertile soil beneath, with a view to growing food and urban farming. The piece references the 1968 Paris riots with a combination of high resolution digital and the ad hoc handmade.
Future Primitive however, is aggressive and unnerving. He laughs at my wide-eyed reaction to the propellers lying on the floor. Beesley understands my apprehension and he talks of how the industrial work is very machismo which he says “must reflect some part of my personality”. Before we part, I ask him how does academia play into his work. Beesley is currently undertaking a PhD at the University of Leeds on which he notes that “a practice based PhD takes a great deal of research around theory, ideas and concepts. I get excited by the potential for bringing contemporary ideas discussed in the cultural university setting into the world. The work is put in a public space and people can engage with it”.
“I get excited by the potential for bringing ideas, contemporary ideas, discussed in the cultural university setting” In discussing academia in art, Beesley describes a wall “where there’s a huge area for art and on it there is a small section [for] contemporary art and within that is an even smaller space for the academic”. He laments that “institutions are under a great deal of pressure to show the value and the usefulness of research.” He asserts that you make the work because the work needs making. “You can carry on doing stuff in your shed or studio but I think a lot of people who make the work will want to show it”.
f you haven’t already read The Road where have you been? Published in 2006, the novel was penned by Cormac McCarthy often credited as one of North America’s greatest living writers. Renowned for his Southern Gothic and postapocalyptic style, The Road is a beautiful illustration of both. The story centres on a father and son as they make their way across a barren North America after an unknown catastrophe has left the continent cold and dark. We follow the pair as they journey south, forever looking over their shoulders as they push through abandoned towns scattered with the charred relics of a society not unlike our own. The writing itself, with passages such as “‘What’s the bravest thing you ever did?’ He spat in the road a bloody phlegm. ‘Getting up this morning’” is completely stripped back, much like the world that it describes, leaving the reader with only the bare essentials. Simple dialogue and cyclic accounts of a ‘gun-metal grey’ world envelope the reader in this literary lament.
LITERATURE LOVES
642 Things to Write About
U
Lauren Davidson Arts Contributor
nlike your average book 642 Things to Write About wasn’t written to be read. It was written to conquer the crippling writer’s block that so many of us suffer. Published in 2011 by the San Francisco Writer’s Grotto, this one-of-a-kind page turner was designed to get the creative juices flowing and kick start that ‘need to write’ feeling. Each page includes one or two brief introductions of a bizarre or everyday scenario and it’s your job to finish the story. For example, experience the banal and imagine you “are a fifty-three-year-old woman living in Chicago [and] write a letter to Santa,” or release your inner soppy side by “Describ[ing] the face of someone you love.” One of my favourites has to be “The day your cat starts talking.” If only! This book is a useful tool to overcome writer’s block or to help your imagination.
FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER 2016
32 FORGE PRESS
MUSIC
Forge Talks To You Me At Six’s Dan Flint
How’s the tour going? It’s going really well, it feels good to go and play shows again because its been 18 months since we properly toured. The arena tour with All Time Low in February was our last proper tour so its been a while since we’ve been out and played shows. It’s been really good fun.
THE LEADMILL
You’ve been to Sheffield quite a few times over the years. We’ve done this venue [o2 Academy] before. We’ve supported another band here and then done it ourselves. We’ve done the Leadmill and the smaller ones as well. We’ve climbed our way through the ranks.
You Me At Six must have done the majority of UK festivals by now? We’ve done the majority! We haven’t done Glastonbury but that’s one we would like to do! We played Isle of Wight and that was probably the best festival we’ve done because we weren’t expecting to have a good show, I don’t know why. Reading is the one we grew up going to... You’re like regulars there aren’t you?! Yeah we are like regulars, we love it! That feels like we are coming home so its always amazing. But we were blown away by Isle of Wight we were playing with bands like the Black Keys and the Prodigy and things like that so we were thinking, ah we don’t know how well we are going to go down here. And the day after us Pharrell Williams had our slot so we were like, crap we’ve got big shoes here, but we were blown away by the crowd. It was pouring down with rain but everyone just went nuts! Our families stayed for the whole weekend and got to watch Fleetwood Mac. The whole experience of the whole weekend was just so incredible.
What have you been doing in your eighteen month break? We’d had ten years of the band and then we all started moving out of home as we were 26ish and thought we would take our time and not rush back into it. After 10 years it wasn’t like we had fallen out of love with it but we needed to find the fire in our bellies again so we went away. I built a studio at my house (it’s sick) so we wrote at mine. Three or four times a week we would write, it would be so relaxed and we’d have BBQs in the Summer. We were writing 40, 50, 60 songs - some of them didn’t even sound like YMAS obviously but we might use them for something else. We took our time to do it really. Then we went up to Blackburn studios in Nashville with Jacquire King to record the album, we did that in two stints. We spent a good 3 months in Nashville and recorded it all, it got mixed and mastered and now we are here! How do you feel looking back on the 10 years you’ve been a band and all you have achieved? It’s been a blur! We grew up doing it, we were 16 or 17- we went through all of our adolescent period getting really into it, into our early twenties where you are figuring out who you are as a person on the road, all together in each other’s pockets. Its been a crazy crazy time but what a ride. We’ve headlined some of the biggest venues in the UK and travelled around the world multiple times. Its been absolutely incredible.
press.music@forgetoday.com
The Leadmill is one venue you’ve got to do in Sheffield! Yeah we wanted to tick that off the list! Then we did give it a name when it was on about nine years ago at the Sheffield arena we didn’t even have an album out, we just had a couple of songs on Myspace that’s how long we’ve been coming to Sheffield for!
Isle of Wight is more of a mixed crowd. Do you find a student city easier to play? You know a little bit more what to expect from that crowd. When we played Leeds the other night it was crazy, and that’s because you know all the people have gone back to uni and thought ‘right, let’s have a good night tonight’ and you can feel that in the air when you hit those kind of towns, and I’m probably feeling it’ll be the same tonight! Leeds was up there. Leeds and Nottingham have been the best shows so far. With Nottingham, you’ve got the massive universities there. So when you go to the university towns they just kill it. Is there a difference between playing in the North and the South? Definitely different to play. The northerners are way more mental usually. Sometimes the southerners are abit more reserved and cooler. Especially in London they’re like ‘yeah we get loads of shows in London’ whereas everyone just seems to throw everything at it when you’re up north. No inhibitions, let’s just go for it!
Plus One You Me At Six «««« Faith Ridler Music Contributor You Me At Six’s year-long silence is finally over. The band announced details of their upcoming album Night People in August, revealing the title in an agonisingly slow game of hangman. Their returning single, also entitled ‘Night People’, kicked off a gritty, volatile new era for You Me At Six. ‘Plus One’ is the album’s second offering, released online on October 2nd. The track leaves absolutely no doubt that You Me At Six has moved on since the days of Number One-nabbing album Cavalier Youth. You Me At Six’s versatility has been a theme since the release of Sinners Never Sleep back in 2011. Like the album, ‘Plus One’ dares to introduce a much darker tone to their pop-punk foundation. The single soars at points, before lashing out with demanding lyrics: “You hold the cards, you make the rules / and I want you when I need you”. ‘Plus One’ was premiered at this summer’s Reading and Leeds Festival, when the band made an unexpected appearance on The Pit stage. You Me At Six may be rooted in pop-punk, but this is a band that dare to take risks. And with more tracks like ‘Plus One’ on the horizon it’s good to have them back on our radar.
There’s a lot of smaller, local festivals now which have become quite popular. Do you think You Me At Six would ever play any of those? We were talking to our agent before and there’s all these smaller festivals that really big artists are doing now like Catfish and Dizzee, so that could be our next summer hopefully.
It would be great to see you in Sheffield! Yeah that would be cool!
FORGE PRESS 33
FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER2016
MUSIC After an almost two year break from both writing and performing music, fans were eagerly anticipating the return of You Me At Six in Sheffield, evident through the size of the crowd for the support act Vant. It was immediately obvious that Emma Williams You Me At Six were going to use Music Editor the break as a chance to change direction and redefine their band’s sound. The lights stayed low and there was a red, misty haze over the opening drum beats of ‘When I Was Younger’. Leaving no time for talking the band raced through some of their older tracks to open the gig: ‘Bite My Tongue’, ‘Fresh Start Fever’ and ‘Loverboy’ appealing to their now older fanbase by making the tracks darker and heavier. The band proved to their fans that although they had been away, they are now back and are definitely still worth listening to. There were only three tracks played from their new album- two which have already been released, ‘Night People’ and ‘Plus One’ which went down well with the crowd but also ‘Swear’, reflecting the moodier vibe they showcased at the start. Josh encouraged the crowd that ‘not a single person should be stood still’, a cliché but one that people actually listened to this time. Looking down from the balcony the fans filled the entire floor and rather than there being one group in the crowd who were moving with the music, in this case it was everyone, which is a credit to the band and the dedication of their fans. There was one part of the night that could be considered slightly like Marmite- you would have either loved it or hated it. The band talked about how we all should be united and ‘leave our baggage at the door’ to be able to enjoy the gig together, but then the speech turned political. Talking about the current US political debate seemed in a way unnecessary and not related to the music. It was quite a long speech and potentially unpopular. Although there were cheers encouraging the speech, they were nowhere near as loud as those heard previously. However Josh then sang an acoustic version of ‘Too Young To Feel This Old’, showcasing the range he can achieve on his voice with Max accompanying him on the guitar and potentially redeemed themselves with any unhappy fans. This led the band into their encore, finishing the night with ‘Night People’, reminding the crowd of the sound of the new You Me At Six, and what they can expect from their next album.
YMAS @ o2 Academy ««««
Your new album is out in January, which you recorded in Nashville. Did you do a lot of stuff over there? It was because of the producer Jacquire King, he’s the one of did the record ‘Sex on Fire’ on Only By The Night by Kings of Leon. To be able to go to the same place where all these artists have been... Pharell was in there the week before us and Stevie Wonder was coming in the week after, Lionel Richie has been there, all of the biggest country artists. It’s probably in the top 5 best studios in the world and the equipment they’ve got - some of their drum kits are like old Beatles kits from the 60s and things like that, it was just ridiculous! The coolest gear, the coolest rooms, the best sound and then you get to work with one of the best producers in the world. That’s why we were like ‘let’s go to Nashville. He works out there, he wants to do it there - let’s go to Nashville’. Plus, if you were to do a record in the UK, people would always be popping home for friends’ birthdays whereas if you go to Nashville you get engrossed in the whole music scene and you’re like ‘we’re here to make this record’ and that’s what you do. The sound of it is ridiculous, it’s really good. Everyone’s always going to say that about their album to be fair but it is! What did you use as your inspiration after the break you took? We used some new music but mostly old. To be fair we were listening to the new Arctic Monkeys stuff anyway - I honestly think AM is the best record of the last 10 years, maybe longer. I honestly think it’s that good. I think it’s genius - lyrically, melodically, everything. It’s just incredible! Obviously things like that do have an effect on us. We were actually listening to quite a lot of older stuff like Black Sabbath, and things like that. We wanted to bring a rock and roll, grunge element to our band but then almost bring it up to date and have the YMAS effect on it, that was where the whole Night People thing comes from- you’ve got the riff a bit slower and sludgier and head-boppy. But mostly we listen to hip hop as well so that’s why there’s sample drums in there and you’ve got the tempo, beat and groove. We tried not to focus too much on other bands and genres and what other people were doing but naturally at the time we were listening to old school rock and hip hop so that’s where that came from.
BLACKBIRD STUDIOS
With a client list including Taylor Swift, Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Kings of Leon, Blackbird Studios is one of the most well renowned studios in the world. Jacquire King who produced Night People is a three time grammy award winner. His first major breakthrough was on Kings of Leon’s Only By The Night which won him his third grammy in 2010
How about your fans? What kind of gifts do they give you? All Time Low have bras thrown at them. Does anything like that happen to you? I remember the first time we toured with them and there were hundreds of bras thrown at them and I’m like ‘aren’t you guys like thirty years old now?’ We used to get a lot of gifts, people like to bake you cakes with your face on and stuff, especially if its someone’s birthday you get treated really well but we haven’t really had anything on this tour yet. Where we took 2 years out to write we’ve noticed that we’ve come back and it seems like everyone has grown up. We look into the crowd and we’re like, ‘this isn’t the YMAS crowd!’ It’s the same people but they’re just slightly older now and obviously don’t want to make us cakes anymore!! What about crazy fan girls? There are already some people queueing outside for tonight! People like to be at the front, I don’t like to call them crazy but they are definitely excited and dedicated! And how does that make you feel? Amazing, like a god! Someone asked me what does it feel like to play a show where you’re sat at the drums and I said I feel like the captain of the ship. I’ve got this big raised platform and I don’t actually have to move around I can be like ‘yes all you minions, man the deck!’ Do you always try to put YMAS from first 4 albums onto your music? You know what? We don’t. When us 5 play together it just happens naturally. When you’ve been playing for 10 years and written as many songs as we have together it just happens. I know what each of them are going to do. The same 5 people always playing their instruments together is always going to sound like YMAS.
THE ALBUMS Favourite album? New one. Genuinely think it is the best one. From the rest? Everyone seems to like Sinners, so I’ll go with Sinners. What about to perform? Songs off Sinners. They’ve got the energy. ‘Hold Me Down’ and ‘Sinners’ are the most fun to perform. I love playing ‘Forgive and Forget’ and I love playing ‘Lived a Lie’ obviously because it’s such a crowd pleaser. ‘Fresh Start’ is fun. Actually ‘Room to Breathe’ is one of my favourite songs to perform! Just nothing off of Take Off Your Colours basically. It’s too fast we were so young and I’m like ‘oh God I’m getting old I cant play that fast!’
Has that always been the approach you’ve taken as a band? We just jam, sometimes we just have no idea and we just play until someone goes ‘oh that was really cool play that riff’ or someone might come in and have written something at home and we go from there. To be honest the first 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, songs we are just like ‘no’ but we are getting into it, into a routine of starting to write and feel. And then there’ll be one song that comes out, and that was Night People, and we are like ‘okay this is the direction we are like, ‘let’s evolve this sound and this feeling’. Good luck with your show tonight! Cheers, can’t wait to play the Steel City again!
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FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER 2016
MUSIC Reviews Walls Kings of Leon ««««
K
Ethan Hemmati Music Contributor
ings of Leon’s WALLS certainly sounds ambitious. Channelling the same sort of youthful energy that made Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs sound so distinctive in 2010 – possibly in part due to their latest producer, Markus Dravs, who worked on the album – the Nashville band seem to be determined to give birth to a comprehensively retro iteration of the Kings of Leon myth, delicately informed by runaway Springsteen rock and punk abandon. At times, it sounds like a bolder version of some giant lost concept album that The Strokes
Joanne Lady Gaga ««««
L
Georgi Tinkov Music Contributor
ady Gaga is back with her fifth studio album Joanne, (supposedly named after her aunt) and it presents the artist in a whole different light than any of her work before. In fact, on the surface there is almost nothing that hints at her ‘Mother Monster’ alter ego, which was the persona prevailing in her
might have been dreaming up in their bedrooms. It’s an album that desperately wants to be remembered, and, for the most part, it certainly isn’t forgettable. WALLS’ greatest strength lies in its musical tone. Pitched somewhere between glorious Americana (“you bled out red and blue”) and, on “Around The World”, Of Monsters
and Men-style adventure, it’s filled with fairly uninspiring stories of feelings of alienation (“get me out of California”) and self-labelling solidarity (“you’re my misfit/And I’m your freak”). On opener ‘Waste A Moment’, lead vocalist Caleb Followill tears down an empty street “shooting sparks into the night”; on “Over”, he reflects on
the correlation between fame and death. The music does its best to make you ignore them, and it’s clear that Dravs’ influence has resulted in a lot of attention paid to subtle details: the way that late-night ‘Over’ smartly blends into the earlymorning, confessional ‘Muchado’; the heartfelt acoustics of the Photo: http://alterna2.com/
previous albums. This might be a good change, since Artpop did not live up to the fans’ expectations. Instead, Gaga appears and sounds a lot more mature and sincere. You can also see the different approach in the tunes. Noticeably, the lack of auto-tuned overlay gives way to the sheer power of her voice that lately she has been so keen on showing off. And it clearly worked out fine as it was showcased in the album’s very first single, ‘Perfect Illusion’. It is wild, exuberant and passionate. This character resonates through ‘A-YO’, although it is tamer, cheeky and uplifting. In this song, Gaga has supposedly taken shots at The Chainsmokers, for openly saying that her lead single “sucks”, with
the very first lines– “I can’t wait to smoke them all / whole pack like Marlboro”. The rest of the album however is a whole different story. The tracks are strikingly slower and soulful. There are more ballads than in any other of her albums before. Most of them, particularly ‘Joanne’ and ‘Million Reasons’ are deeply reminiscent of ‘Speechless’, in the sense that they express her inner emotions and feelings towards her loved ones in a strongly evocative way. ‘Hey Girl’ is the only collaboration on the album featuring Florence Welch. It is surprising how well the pair’s voices mesh. While Gaga herself says that the genre of the album is pop, this is vague and a bit of an understatement. It has rock, RnB, disco, jazz, country and last but not least, a sprinkle of pop. In the past she connected with fans through the messages that her music bore; establishing herself as an LGBT icon. This time it is the other way around. With Joanne you can peek behind the madness and flesh dresses into the artist’s feelings and experience them yourself. At this point it is difficult to say whether stripping off the monster flair was a lucrative move, or whether the new Gaga will appeal to her army of monsters. Her new music is targeted at a more mature and emotionally-literate audience. One thing is for sure, though, with Joanne, she has established herself as one of the most versatile musicians of our time and she is ready to return to the top where she once belonged.
Gameshow Two Door Cinema Club ««« Amelia Shaw Music Contributor
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wo Door Cinema Club have returned to the music scene with their new album Gameshow after a two-year hiatus from the music industry and a four-year break since their last album. The new music was waited for with anticipation, yet opinions will be split over the newest entry to their discography. Expectations were high after Beacon reached number two in the album charts in 2012, yet Gameshow fails to deliver. The album kicks off with the catchy ‘Are We Ready (Wreck)’ that establishes a similar sound to Beacon and Tourist History. The track is definitely one of the redemptive moments of the album. Others like this include ‘Ordinary’ and ‘Invincible’. However, tracks ’Bad Decisions’ and ‘Je Viens De La’ hugely contrast in sound and style; overused and forced falsetto reminding the listener more of a Bee Gees cover band than of an indie-pop group. Gameshow is an album all about materialism, social media, and the vanity of the famous and the
closing title track; the muted guitar lines that introduce ‘Reverend’. Followill’s words grind and hammer out a story for the brain, but his guitar and voice go straight to your heart. At its best, WALLS is strikingly distinctive. It’s a brave piece of work that bucks the expectation set upon most bands these days to keep quiet and stick with what they’re known for. WALLS explores ideas of connection, disillusionment and intimacy; hardly new ideas, but WALLS lays them out with sympathy and intelligence. “When the walls come down” Followill seems to marvel midway through the closing track, as if making a passing nod to the missing bravado of earlier and bombastic songs like “Sex on Fire”. It’s a bit dry towards the end and overall far from perfect, but Kings of Leon have succeeded in creating something crisp, confident and genuinely affecting.
lyrical intelligence of the Irish trio is evidenced throughout the album, particularly in the title track. In the song, the band talk of the shallow nature of some music fans: “sing to me you’re so pretty” and “I’ll be the souveneir” in addition to, arguably, the malleability and falseness of the music industry: “I’m made of plastecine, I’m Pinnochio”. Praise must be given to the band for the effort and often intelligence behind many of the songs, yet with 15 tracks on the deluxe record, it feels uncomfortably crowded with all tracks lasting around the fourminute mark. Perhaps if the tracks themselves weren’t so muddled and clashing this wouldn’t be a problem, but in this circumstance it just doesn’t work.
“Two Door Cinema Club have just tried too hard.” Overall, certain parts of the album show promise and will please the admirers of previous albums, yet the general aura of the record is chaotic and it appears strained. In trying to find a new sound, they have lost their unique contribution to the indie-pop field. It is as though on this occasion, Two Door Cinema Club have just tried too hard, which is somewhat disappointing after such a long wait.
FORGE PRESS 35
FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER 2016
MUSIC
Reviews Jamie T @ o2 Academy ««««
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get p*ssed” louder than any other line in the set.
“Treays only had to sing the first line of ‘Sheila’ before he was drowned out by fans.”
David Anderson Music Contributor
amie Treays turned 30 earlier this year and his debut album, Panic Prevention, is soon to turn
10. But the artist known as Jamie T showed no signs of weariness when belting out fan favourites, old and new, to a sold out O2 Academy Sheffield on Friday night. Now touring his fourth album, Trick, the South Londoner has matured with age. But Treays still exudes the same brash attitude he did 10 years ago, strutting around his stage spitting brutally honest descriptions of modern life into his microphone. His opening song, ‘Power Over Men’ from the new album, had the crowd singing and dancing
Teleman @ Queens Social Club ««««
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Levi Lewis-Olding Music Contributor
cold Friday night sees an almost capacity crowd gather at Queen’s Social Club for Teleman’s Sheffield return. Having released a new album in April this year and having played at this year’s Tramlines festival, Teleman are starting to garner attention. The evening is kicked off however by local three-piece, Katie Pham & the Moonbathers who bring with them an endearingly bizarre performance. Musically excellent, the Moonbathers produce a dreamy jazz-infused set with exceptional basslines and musical arrangement. Despite the trio playing brilliantly, the stage presence comes across clumsily.
along from the go. ‘Tescoland’ followed, before a throwback to 2007 with two album tracks from his debut record, ‘Operation’ and ‘Pacemaker’. After a series of slower tunes, Treays had a break from the music to recall the time he heard his first song on the radio, and to thank a certain DJ John Kennedy for
making it happen. He then played said track, with a 2,000 strong crowd screaming every word of ‘If You Got The Money’ back to him. Treays only had to sing the first line of ‘Sheila’ before he was drowned out by fans, who ranged from teenage girls to groups of middle aged men. At this point the crowd descended into complete
chaos, with the crowd surfing better described as swimming, or even drowning, because all that could be seen of some ‘surfers’ were flailing legs above heads. ‘Rabbit Hole’ and ‘Sticks and Stones’ soon followed, wrapping up the set in a suitably hectic manner, with fans screaming “I’m a featherweight champion, cheap to
Shout Out To My Ex Little Mix «««««
Some unique humour is brought to the show, with lead vocalist and guitarist Katie Pham being sure to thank various supermarkets for their performance amongst other odd philosophical remarks. Disregarding the bemusing antics, their innovative music sets the scene superbly for Teleman to shine. A brief interlude follows the Moonbathers, during which the crowd really surges in numbers. While half empty at first, the venue is now full of eager faces. Teleman arrive and without a word launch in to ‘Strange Combinations’, setting the scene for the night. Their heavy synth mixed with a crunching guitar and prominent bass make for a brilliantly rounded sound; a sound which at times is reminiscent of Joy Division and at others more like that of Hot Chip. Overall the setlist feels well put together, though far from perfect. At one point the songs blur in to one and the band themselves look almost disinterested with what they’re playing. This isn’t the norm for the night however. The
set finishes particularly strongly with an energetic performance of ‘Düsseldorf’ before re-emerging for an encore consisting of hit single ‘Cristina’ and the anthemic ‘Glory Hallelujah’ from latest album ‘Brilliant Sanity’. While it proves an exceptional encore, it also highlights Teleman’s biggest problem right now; two excellent albums now sit in their catalogue, but two varying ones. How best to mix the two styles into the perfect set feels like something Teleman are still working on. At times the performance is mesmerising. Everything is rehearsed and performed meticulously perfectly. In stark contrast to the fans, Teleman remain angular and rigid throughout. This is a recurring theme in their shows and is surely deliberate. Their music videos have also echoed surrealist themes, as if Teleman’s act is actually a piece of Dadaist performance art. They aren’t as disciplined or motionless as Kraftwerk, but there seems to be a deliberate lack of typical crowdpleasing on Teleman’s part; there’s no engagement with the crowd at all until beyond the halfway mark of their set. Regardless of their peculiar stage presence, the crowd loves the set; large scale singalongs come towards the end and a rare smile decorates frontman Thomas Sanders’s face as he draws a strong show to a close.
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Katherine Page Music Contributor
f you haven’t heard Little Mix’s new single, then you need to. The song not only takes a swipe at Perrie’s ex Zayn Malik, but also represents female empowerment in a way reminiscent of the Spice Girls. The song begins with Perrie solely singing the first verse, and completely ripping into her ex’s sexual abilities, “I hope she gettin’ better sex, / Hope she ain’t fakin’ it like I did”. This is satirical, but it’s also reassuring. Perrie rolls off clichéd lines used by every girl going through a break up that make us relate to her. It’s no wonder so many people are hooked. Not only are the lyrics entertaining, but the music itself is catchy. Little Mix have received some criticism for the track, with several commentators accusing them of copying G.R.L.’s song, ‘Ugly Heart’. G.R.L. even responded to the song, tweeting “#ShoutOutToUglyHeart”. Regardless, the music adds to the upbeat nature of the lyrics, arguably emphasising the sassiness
When Treays emerged solo with an acoustic bass guitar for an encore, one fan jumped the gun, screaming “Take your brother down to the sea” before the singer had even reached his microphone. When ‘Back in the Game’ started for real, every word was again sung by all, from the front row to the balconies. As has become tradition since 2014, Treays ended with ‘Zombie’, leaving his usual lengthy gap after the opening verses before breaking into the chorus and allowing his fans one final frenzied dance. With his latest album, and a set this strong, it’s fair to say Jamie T is well and truly back in the game.
of the song. That’s the best thing about this song. It’s sassy, rather than bitter. Whilst acknowledging Zayn broke her heart, the song presents Perrie as stronger and better because of it, “I’m all the way up, I swear you’ll never bring me down”. It’s written from the point of view of someone who has moved on; someone who is over it, and that’s what makes it so great. This was reflected in their X Factor performance too, as the group couldn’t stop smiling. The performance strikingly contrasted with Taylor Swift’s 2013 Grammy performance, when she faked an English accent to make a dig at exboyfriend Harry Styles. Taylor’s performance reeked of bitterness; Little Mix’s smelt of success. During the third chorus, Perrie sings alone before the rest of the group join in. Fans on social media have claimed this signifies her bandmates stepping up to support her in the wake of Zayn dumping her. Again, the energetic X Factor performance draws comparisons, this time with images of Perrie breaking down in tears at concerts last year. The song on the whole symbolises female empowerment and strength. Whether you like pop or not, this will be the song you turn to when your heart gets broken, or the song you drunkenly scream the words to when you’re on your next girls’ night out.
36 FORGE PRESS
FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER 2016
SCREEN
press.screen@forgetoday.com
Are you tired of the same old horror movies, sick of the Saw franchise, or are just in need of a truly terrifying movie experience? Fear no more: Forge contributor Rob Heffron imparts his wisdom on the over-done genre whilst offering valuable insight into the new and true gems of horror.
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Not decided on any spooky Halloween plans yet? Why not check out the Film Unit screening of The Shining? Tickets are just £3.00 - and they’re buy one, get one free! Details: The Shining Monday 31 October at 19.30 £3.00 (Buy One, Get One Free) Film Unit Cinema, SU Auditorium
s Halloween rolls around once again, people up and down the country will be readying themselves to head to the cinema. Year 9 students will be sneaking in under the radar to watch 18-rated pictures, astounded at how incredibly cool they are on account of their ability to bypass the non-existent security. Romantic dates will be scheduled, as couples hope the terrifying nightmares onscreen will give them an acceptable excuse to huddle close to one another (or if the date is tanking to flee from the room). Amidst all of this, fans of the horror genre will no doubt be warming up for yet another disappointing cinematic experience. It’s a sad fact that horror films have barely changed at all in the last few decades, as many filmmakers continue to tread the same, well-worn path. The studios relentlessly churn out cheap, easyto-manufacture films, designed to spawn an endless stream of sequels, each one notably worse than the last. The impetus is clear: look at the top grossing horror franchises and you’ll notice that almost all of them consist of at least five films, with the big money-spinners stretching into the double digits. This drive towards quick, assembly-line mass production means that the majority of modern day horror films are unbelievably lazy. There’s no real intention to scare you because that requires too much work. Instead they continue to shoot towards one of two incredibly unambitious goals: either they try to make you jump, or they try to gross you out. It doesn’t really matter which, as each outcome can be achieved with a minimal amount of effort. It’s like deciding, in your very first week of university, that you’re going to spend the next three or more years aiming for an overall mark of 42. Making people jump is easy. I
jump whenever the postman rings the buzzer at my flat. If I’m walking down the street and someone slams a car door, I might jump at that too. All you need in order to make a person leap out of their skin is the rapid transition from quiet to loud. The makers of the insufferably boring Paranormal Activity franchise understand this concept perfectly. Each of these thunderously dull films follows roughly the same pattern: inordinately long stretches of silence, in which nothing much happens, followed by a great big BANG. It’s the cinematic equivalent of having somebody intermittently jab you with a sharp pencil. Any fright you feel lasts precisely as long as the time it takes for you to complete your jump, which is about half a second. As for the gross-out gore flicks, these films rely upon the fact that we, as ordinary well-adjusted people, can reasonably be expected to feel mildly uncomfortable when presented with, for example, somebody having their eyes forcibly removed from their face. There’s no creative flare behind this type of cinema. It doesn’t take a psychiatrist to work out what is and isn’t horrible to watch. With these movies, the audience suffer as much as the victims onscreen, mostly thanks to the hours of agonising boredom these things take to play out. I remember watching some poor soul in Hostel get assaulted by a blow torch but at the time I was so profoundly upset that I’d wasted the better part of ten quid on a cinema ticket to see this rubbish that I couldn’t decide who had it worse. Even the Saw films, the first of which was solidly passable, quickly deteriorated into a series of torture set-pieces, loosely tied together by a ridiculous plot. For many, there’s certainly a place for these things within cinema. But genuine horror fans
want a movie that stays with them after they’ve left the cinema. A horror should genuinely scare you otherwise it’s not doing its job. You ought to be laid in bed at night, silently assessing how ridiculous it would be for somebody in their twenties to keep the lamp switched on. The unfortunate truth is that making a genuinely scary movie takes time and effort. Filmmakers need to invest in their characters. We have to care about what’s going to happen to them; we’ll be more shocked to see Sandra’s head lopped off if we’ve spent the past hour getting to know her. Suspense needs to be built throughout the entire film, not just in the five second prelude to yet another burst of immense noise. We also need a plotline that actually carries us along, rather than a string of meaningless dialogue that just takes us from one scene to the next. The happy news is that 2016 has been a surprisingly good year for horror fans. The latest Halloween instalment Ouija: Origin of Evil is genuinely spooky in parts. The Conjuring 2 is littered with moments that send shudders up my spine, courtesy of a spectral nun that looks eerily like Marilyn Manson. Audiences have even been treated to a thought-provoking, interesting horror film in the form of The Witch. There have also been some great successes in recent years, with The Babadook easily standing out as the scariest of the bunch. There’s clearly hope for the genre and I’m optimistic that it’s heading in the right direction, although there’s a long way to go before the decent films start to outnumber the bad. As a genuine horror fan, I would try and persuade you all to follow me in a boycott of any movies this Halloween that promise only to shout ‘boo’ for 90 minutes. But I won’t, as I’ve already arranged my date….
Chloe Dervey
38 FORGE PRESS
FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER 2016
SCREEN Dr Strange
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David Craig Screen contributor
FILM UNIT
Cemetery of Splendour «««« Danielle Martin Screen contributor
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emetery of Splendour follows retired volunteer worker Jen (Jenjira Pongpas) as she helps her new friend, a young medium Keng (Jarinpattra Rueangram), care for a group of soldiers suffering from a strange sleeping illness from which they appear to be unable to recover. Jen forms an almost spiritual bond with Itt (Banlop Lomnoi) a soldier with no visitors. Be prepared for thought-provoking issues including loneliness, friendship, spirituality and love, carefully touched on by Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul.
“Expect to be pulled into a fictional world which often comes frighteningly close to reality. ” His depiction is admirably unafraid, choosing to work outside of Thai studio system’s rules (which the majority of filmmakers adhere to strictly) and refusing to screen his latest work in his homeland for fear of provoking the Thai military junta and their significant cinema censorship. Expect to be pulled into a fictional world which often comes frighteningly close to reality. The shots, both broad and short, are photogenically beautiful
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press.screen@forgetoday.com
he latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Doctor Strange brings yet another classic super-hero to the party. Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a world-class
neurosurgeon, who’s success has made him arrogant and selfish. After a car accident he is unable to perform surgery and his attempts to heal eventually lead him to The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton), who
opens his eyes to a world of magic. Doctor Strange stumbles out of the starting gate with an opening act that doesn’t bring much to the table. The title character initially comes off as little more than a less likeable Tony Stark, and the supporting cast take some time to grow into their roles. Additionally, many of its attempts at humour fall flat. Fortunately though, the further this movie gets into its two-hour runtime the stronger it becomes, with its final impression being that of yet another satisfying epic from Marvel. The visual effects are some of the most mind-bending ever put to film and ensure that this movie lives u-+p to its name. Initial fears that the visual style would draw too heavily from the likes of Inception are unfounded with Doctor Strange putting enough new spins on these ideas that it successfully crafts its own identity.
Also, this movie has a fascinating final battle sequence which is a very inventive departure from what is usually seen in the genre. Genuinely unexpected and refreshingly original, this finale proves wrong those who believe that super-hero films have nothing new to offer. Something that the MCU movies have consistently struggled with is a lack of compelling villains, with Tom Hiddleston’s Loki being the only one to leave a lasting impression. Doctor Strange’s main villain Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen) doesn’t reach the giddy heights of Hiddleston’s charismatic trickster but is in the upper echelon of MCU baddies. The initial shortcomings are redeemed by an exhilarating second half which offers some fantastic action sequences, and ends in a clever and satisfying way. The film should please both fans and newcomers alike.
throughout the film. Weerasethakul makes a sunny day’s lightly clouded sky appear reflected in a lake of glowing fish. The lighting choices aren’t just made for stylistic reasons but complement the theme of the bright city lights pitted against the sombre dusk of rural Thailand. The film deals with many paradoxes. The village of Khon Kaen is insomniac but sleepy, calm but hysterical, making the viewer relax but at the same time keeping them slightly on edge. The slightly dark, animalistic mortal qualities can appear crude but the approach is one of honesty and openness about the grim, but necessary, essentials of human life.
SMALL SCREEN
Coleman and Hughes’ chemistry. It’s impressive how quickly the viewer goes from backing Melboure to routing for the young Albert.
venture. Generally the practical side of shooting is fantastic, with sets and costumes being on point throughout, however CGI exterior shots can sometimes be a let down. The music is also consistantly brilliant, with the medieval style choir perfectly reflecting the regal tone and setting. Since the emergence of Game of Thrones many historical dramas of late have upped the sex and gore. In Victoria you will find a more dignified affair with costumes and settings that makes it fittingly Victorian, making it a must for any period drama fans.
Victoria
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«««« James Pendlington Screen contributor
TV’s take on the early years of Victoria’s reign delivers a royal treat. Jenna Coleman’s transition from being Doctor Who’s apprentice to Queen Victoria is superb as we get to see her acting chops from such a different role. We begin the first episode with the young princess receiving the news that she has now become the Queen of England following the death of her uncle King William IV. Arriving in London she meets her tall and brooding PM Lord Melbourne (Rufus Sewell). The first three episodes lead the viewer on to believe that there may be some kind growing romance between the 18 year-old Queen and the 58 year-old PM, but those hopes are dashed following the entrance of Albert (Tom Hughes). At first Victoria is opposed to the idea of marriage, styling herself after her new found idol Queen Elizabeth I, and refuses to allow her cousins Albert and Ernest to come to court. Despite this, Victoria’s uncle King Leopold of Belgium (Alex Jennings) invites them and the pair meet. There is some turbulence at the start of their courtship, somewhat contradicting the oft-thought idea that the real Victoria and Albert were smitten with each other on sight but it takes only takes until the end of the episode for Victoria to propose to Albert. The star of the show is the relationship between Victoria and Albert, brilliantly conveyed by
“In Victoria you will find a more dignified affair with costumes and settings that make it fittingly Victorian.” Although ITV has been late to the historical bandwagon with Victoria, with the plethora of programmes that have been coming out recently such as Versailles, Poldark, Wolf Hall, and The Last Kingdom (all BBC), it has struck a unique tone with its most recent historical
FORGE PRESS 39
FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER 2016
American Honey
SCREEN after meeting Shia LaBeouf (Jake) when he is stood atop a till in a Walmart style setting, singing ‘We Found Love in a Hopeless Place’. After leaving the little she has at home, Lane embarks on a journey of magazine sales and partying throughout rural America, where she succumbs to Jake’s charm, personality, drugs and thievery. Much seems amiss about American Honey and many scenes make little sense. With very little plot to actually follow, the viewers are left trying to make sense of what is really happening. For example, when a trio of cowboys appear after an argument erupts between Star and Jake, Star takes off in their car, yet Jake somehow manages to follow on foot and find them in their house, without knowing who they were or where they were headed. Arnold has attempted to create a chick flick, but has missed out the importance of plot. Visually, much of the film stays close to Lane, showing shots of just her face for much of the film. When combined with some of the lovely landscape cinematography of rural Oklahoma,
this works well. However, there is a real lack in other notable cast members in the van of befallen nobodies who take the road trip with Lane and LaBeouf.
SCREEN DIGITAL
CULT CORNER
Black Mirror: ‘Nosedive’
[•REC]
footage film about a zombie outbreak. It follows the story of a news reporter and her cameraman covering the night shift of a local firehouse, when they receive a call about an old woman trapped and screaming in her apartment. However, what makes the movie different from its counterparts is that not only the way in which the cinematography relates to the story, but also how the writing presents adult characters dealing with an unexpected situation. The characters trying as hard as they can to be rational while fear takes over will have you gripping your seat. This is something that even its sequel manages to accomplish. The product of two overused subgenres, it is impressive how [•REC] and [REC] 2 are still able to bring a unique horror experience. This film is a definite watch!
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I Inferno
««« Anna Gilles Editor
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0 years since the release of The Da Vinci Code, Tom Hanks reprises his role as Professor of Symbology, Robert Langdon, in the third instalment of the film franchise based on Dan Brown’s successful book series. The film follows Langdon attempting to piece together recent events after suffering from memory loss induced by an unexplained head wound. With the help of his doctor, Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones), the usual treasure huntesque pursuit ensues as Langdon sets out to follow a series of clues related to Italian poet, Dante. The film struggles with its opening. For the first 20 minutes we are subject to Langdon hallucinating as a result of his head trauma. The filming style is erratic and no doubt intended to reflect Langdon’s confusion; unfortunately, however this is distracting, hard to follow and all in all a bit messy. Once the film gets into its stride, notably at the same
moment that Hanks switches from a hospital gown to a suit, things begin to improve. For fans of the puzzle-solving element of the Dan Brown stories, there will be disappointment. There seems to have been a trade off between keeping to the books and utilising the expertise of their main character and making a film that can stand up modern thrillers. There is less focus on the skills of Langdon and his knowledge of symbology and religious iconography. Indeed the presence of religion is completely absent in contrast to the previous two films. As a one off thriller the story is strong and offers up some interesting questions. The theme of over-population is consistent throughout and contributes to the contemporary feel that was clearly a central aim of the films creators, (however not necessarily a feature that would appeal to fans of the books and the previous films). There is a sense that there was something different attempted, which will ultimately divide viewers. It’s a good film, but is it a good Da Vinci Code film? This reviewer, for one, remmains torn.
Charlie Ward Screen contributor
n winning the ‘Prix du Jury’ prize at the Cannes Film Festival, big things were expected from American Honey. However, reluctantly, much of the audience seemed jaded after 45 minutes, with a few older couples even leaving. By the end of the two hour runtime, it was clear the viewers were uninterested to say the least.
“Much seems amiss about American Honey and many scenes make little sense.” Director Andrea Arnold has succeeded in dragging out a coming of age road trip, in which adolescent ‘Star’ (Sasha Lane) runs away from a background of unfortunate events
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James McCann Screen contributor
harlie Brooker’s dystopian tales of the near future Black Mirror is back, this time released as a Netflix exclusive series. After two fantastic seasons and a chilling Christmas special, the highly anticipated return of the series, had a lot to live up to, a fact seemingly referenced by the first episode’s title ‘Nosedive’. This is, however, a misnomer and Brooker’s return is happily everything Black Mirror fans have been waiting for. Here we find ourselves flung into an American pastel-suburbia where social media has evolved into
a popularity-based caste system, with everyone giving and receiving one-to-five star ratings. The brilliance of Brooker has always been in his ability to mirror our world so accurately. The episode perfectly encapsulates the feelings of inadequacy and jealousy that social media often drags up in
us and pushes that feeling to the extreme. Presented to us is a world under constant judgement, maybe we’re closer to this world than we think. A Black Mirror episode dedicated to the pitfalls of rating systems. I’d still give it 5 stars.
Giovany Orozco Leal Screen contributor
ike many stories, this Spanish movie is about the triumph of the human spirit in the face of adversity. However when the face of adversity is represented by an apartment block full with rabid cannibals, it is not difficult to realize that this is not such a common story. Adverse and uncertain times birth some of the best horror movies: the 1970-80s rise of slasher films arguably exemplify the cultural representation of society’s fear of uncertainty. In 2007, Europe was starting to suffer from its most long-lasting economic downturn and this brilliant film came out as a result of this. [•REC] is a amazing found
“Arnold has attempted to create a chick flick, but has missed out the importance of a plot.” The movie does display a good catalogue of acting from Lane and LaBeouf but overall shows a lack of direction. If the characters were more relatable perhaps American Honey would have been more enjoyable. As it stands however it falls far too short of the coming of age drama it was advertised to be.
42 FORGE PRESS
FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER 2016
COFFEE BREAK BITESIZE HORROR STORIES
press.coffeebreak@forgetoday.com
ON THIS DAY
Growing up with cats and dogs, I got used to the sounds of scratching at my door while I slept. Now that I live alone, it is much more unsettling.
1960 - Cassius Clay wins his first professional fight in Louisville, Kentucky. He would later go on to become heavyweight world champion and change his name to Muhammad Ali.
I begin tucking him into bed and he tells me, “Daddy check for monsters under my bed.” I look underneath for his amusement and see him, another him, under the bed, staring back at me quivering and whispering, “Daddy, there’s somebody on my bed.”
1994 - Francisco Martin Duran shoots between 20-30 rounds at the White House with a semi-automatic rifle in an attempt to assassinate President Bill Clinton.
Don't be scared of the monsters, just look for them. Look to your left, to your right, under your bed, behind your dresser, in your closet but never look up, she hates being seen. I can't move, breathe, speak or hear and it's so dark all the time. If I knew it would be this lonely, I would have been cremated instead. I woke up to hear knocking on glass. At first, I though it was the window until I heard it come from the mirror again. There was a picture in my phone of me sleeping. I live alone. The last thing I saw was my alarm clock flashing 12:07 before she pushed her long rotting nails through my chest, her other hand muffling my screams. I sat bolt upright, relieved it was only a dream, but as I saw my alarm clock read 12:06, I heard my closet door creak open. Working the night shift alone tonight. There is a face in the cellar staring at the security camera.
1998 - John Glenn becomes the oldest person to go into space at the age of 77. 2004 - Al Jazeera broadcasts a video by Osama bin Laden where he takes credit for 9/11 and references the U.S. presidential election. 2011 - Jimmy Savile, now infamous television and radio presenter, dies aged 84.
Only 57 days until Christmas!
HIDOKU The aim of this game is to build a path from the first number (1) to the last number (49), by placing numbers in a square that is adjacent in either a vertical, horizontal or diagonal direction from the preceding number. Only one number can be used per square.
I slept in a cabin in the woods last night surrounded by old portraits of evil, angry faces. This morning I woke up and realised they were windows. My daughter won't stop crying and screaming in the middle of the night. I visit her grave and ask her to stop, but it doesn't help.
All stories courtesy of /r/TwoSentenceHorror on Reddit
FILBERT
Images: The Pumpkin People of Saginaw Texas (carousel pumpkin); Ray Villafane (Chucky pumpkin); Holtdorf Pumpkin Carving Association (landscape pumpkin); Kennymatic (LEGO pumpkin)
FORGE PRESS 43
FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER 2016
COFFEE BREAK PUMP-KINGS
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FORGE PRESS 45
FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER 2016
press.sport@forgetoday.com
Sports Thoughts
SPORT
This week’s first helping of Sports Thoughts centres around one woman, as Forge Sport Editor Ed McCosh joins the queue of people clamouring to pay tribute to Jessica Ennis-Hill, Sheffield’s favourite daughter. Tim Adams casts an eye over Qatar’s bid to host the 2022 World Cup.
Evergreen Ennis-Hill deserves spot in pantheon of greats Ed McCosh Forge Sport Editor
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t is quite an incredible feat to be the world’s best athlete in any given event. Usain Bolt receives plaudits for dominating the 100m and 200m (one sprinting event, and one slightly longer sprinting event). To be a champion heptathlete is another prospect entirely. Yet one mild-mannered Sheffield girl became, through a combination of 100m hurdles, 200m, 800m, high jump, long jump, javelin throw and shot put, a true British sporting great. When the debate over the best female athlete to come from these shores springs up, Jessica EnnisHill will be one of the names at the forefront of discussion. Her retirement this month at 30 years old was a surprise to many, but made perfect sense to EnnisHill. She wanted to go out on a high rather than let injury curtail her twilight years. Instead of falling into the trap
that claimed the dwindling careers of so many sporting titans unable to stop and lose that unparalleled adrenaline rush, Ennis-Hill bows out with typical quiet grace.
“Simply put, a British sporting legend”
Mo Farah. Giving birth to son Reggie in 2014 meant sitting out the season and yet it merely marked the passing of the ‘pre-birth’ career and the inception of the ‘post-birth’ years, bringing another world championship gold and an Olympic silver. There are few sporting figures as suited to be a role model as Ennis-Hill - always committed to
sporting schemes and causes, she has supported a new generation of young female athletes who can look to her for boundless inspiration. With athletics in the throes of a full-on doping debacle, she has remained clean. While Ennis-Hill attributes much of her success to coach Toni Minichello and a support cast including husband Andy and her
Twice world champion and once Olympic champion (and both a world and Olympic silver medallist), the University of Sheffield alumna has spent the last eight years at the pinnacle of British athletics. Injury ruled her out of the Beijing Olympics and threatened to cut her career short, but she fought back to claim World Championship gold the next year. While she explains the pressure of being a Team GB poster girl at the 2012 Olympics set her back, Ennis-Hill was stronger than the obstacles in her way, and formed a triumvirate of ‘Super Saturday’ heroes with Greg Rutherford and
parents, it is her incredible work ethic that has made her what she is today. Which is, simply put, a British sporting legend, a Sheffield institution, and one of the University’s finest ever graduates.
Image: Al King (Flickr)
Skyscrapers and soccer: Qatar’s World Cup dream Tim Adams Forge Sport contributor
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Hollywood movie on the world’s future cities seems surreal but walk through Doha and that becomes a reality. Qatar’s gleaming skyscrapers dominate its arid desert landscape. Ferraris are as familiar as each
grain of sand taken to the coast to construct yet another man-made island. Michelin star meals with a view overlooking the Gulf is a necessity, not a luxury. The dream of FIFA is similar to that of most of the Gulf states. Their motto ‘For the Game, for the World’, is taken literally. Every continent bar Oceania has hosted the World Cup. One of the primary objectives
Image: Qatar Daily Star
of the world’s most prestigious sporting institution is to expand, recognise and deliver the needs of millions of people whose chance at playing football is limited. But FIFA’s grandeur is paramount to those who run the organisation, and in 2010 they chose to reflect the essence of the global game on the grandest scale. Against all the odds, Qatar had won the rights to host the 2022 World Cup, beating the bids of far more well-recognised sporting countries like the USA, Japan, South Korea and Australia. Those who support the Qatari bid argue that sporting events are synonymous with the desert nation. Just this month, the state held the UCI World Cycling Championships and has hosted the Moto GP, FINA World Cup Swimming Championships, Qatar Total Tennis Open and the Men’s Handball World Championship. Winning the bid for the 2019 IAAF World Athletics Championships
does highlight a change in opinion from leading officials in sport. It is interesting to see that international sporting organisations such as the IAAF trust Qatar to host a major sporting tournament. When Doha beat Barcelona and Eugene, it implied that major sporting institutions wanted to explore something different. Although crowds in the Qatar Football Super League are dwindling, maybe the country will use the likes of Lionel Messi and Neymar to improve its football legacy. The dismissals and resignations of FIFA’s top staff, such as Sepp Blatter and former FIFA Vice Presidents Mohammad Bin Hammam and Jack Warner have led to calls for there to be a re-run of the 2022 World Cup bid. This may not be out of the question, such is the intensity of the ongoing FBI investigation into corruption within FIFA. After all, seven FIFA
officials were arrested on just one day last year. Qatar has been widely condemned for its treatment of migrant workers. According to Amnesty International, over 4,000 foreign workers will die during the development of the infrastructure relating to the 2022 World Cup. FIFA’s technical assessors said Qatar was dangerously hot to host a World Cup, with temperatures possibly harming players and fans. Amnesty has said that the abuse of the Kafala system, which allows migrant workers from South-East Asia to work in the Middle East, has created unfair working conditions. Questions of corruption, legacy, sustainability, heat, safety and human rights plague Qatar. A nation synonymous with a shortterm economic boom, one in the process of converting its financial sector to a world player, is frustrated by questions on the morality of the leader’s dream.
46 FORGE PRESS
FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER 2016
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press.sport@forgetoday.com
Superb Steelers breeze past tame Flyers
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Adam Bailey Forge Sport Contributor
heffield Steelers ensured a night that began with celebration ended in celebration as they came from a goal behind to beat Fife Flyers 4-1 on Saturday. Before the face-off there was a celebratory mood inside the Sheffield Arena as the Steelers lifted the 2015/16 championship banner in front of 6,000 fans. The Steelers have now set their sights on adding a sixth EIHL title banner to their collection this season and they have made a strong start to their defence, with their defeat against Cardiff Devils last weekend ending their unbeaten start. Sheffield dominated the opening 20 minutes, but they couldn’t initially capitalise on the numerous power-plays they had, including a long five-on-three man advantage, as Fife edged the first period 1-0. Mike Ratchuk, John Armstrong, Jesse Schultz and Ben O’Connor all went close for the Steelers but for all their shots the hosts were unable to turn their dominance into goals, mainly due to an impressive performance by Flyers’ goaltender
Shane Owen. Despite being under pressure for almost all the first period it was Fife who took the lead in the 15th minute. Former Steeler Russ Moyer launched a quick breakaway; the defenceman found Brendan Brooks, who took his chance firing high into the top left corner to give the visitors the lead at the end of the first period. Brooks’ goal was one of only three shots the Steelers goaltender Ervins
“The Steelers have now set their sights on adding a sixth EIHL title banner to their collection.”
injury, the forward laid the puck off to Mike Ratchuk on the left-hand side; Ratchuk slid the puck back to Nelson, who slotted home from close-range. Nelson’s equaliser meant it was all to play for in the third and final period, but Sheffield secured the points and victory with three goals in what was their best period of play. Nelson this time turned provider as he found Rob Dowd, who slotted his first-time shot into the bottom corner to give the Steelers a 2-1 lead.
Mustukovs faced in the opening 20 minutes; but if he wasn’t busy in the first period, he certainly was in the second. The Latvian made several outstanding saves to stop Fife extending their advantage and to give the Steelers a chance to get back into the game. The Steelers did just that in the 33rd minute through forward Levi Nelson. On his return to the side after a spell on the sidelines with an
A scramble in the front of the net was eventually touched home by Tyler Mosienko to give the Steelers some daylight before Mosienko then turned provider in the final minute of play. The Canadian set up Guillaume Desbiens on the breakaway to seal a 4-1 victory for the Steelers. Listen to Steelers captain Jonathan Phillips’ thoughts at forgetoday. com/sport.
Image: Adam Bailey
Good omens for England despite Doncaster draw
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Katy Sandalls Forge Sport contributor
lthough England’s game with France ended 0-0 there was much to be learnt from the game itself, both on and off the pitch. Toni Duggan had a potential winning goal chalked off due to a handball in the dying minutes of the game and it would have been more than they deserved in a match dominated by the visitors, a side England have not beaten in 42 years. Yet, in the crowd, something interesting was happening.
To the casual spectator, the makeup of the crowd was interesting. There were a few of the die-hard male fans, but it was predominantly made up of families and young girls from local football teams who had come out to see the game. All seemed to be enjoying themselves, cheering on England and joining in with Mexican waves and endless chants. Isn’t that to be expected? At an England ladies game there is bound to be more women in the audience, surely? Well, yes, but that’s not really my point. All these families and aspiring footballers were coming
Image: Katy Sandalls
together to watch a team that has been on the up in recent years, yet largely goes unreported. It is forgotten even now, so soon after it happened, that this was the team who came third in last year’s World Cup in Canada. Most of us, bar those desperately avoiding the back (and front) pages, will remember that the men’s team suffered their worst World Cup campaign ever in 2014. England’s women are not and should not be forgettable, and that is why it was so inspiring to see so many young girls seeing professional footballers at the top of their game playing in Doncaster. Moments like these, I am sure, will be remembered for a long time to come. During half time, the stadium PA at the Keepmoat proudly announced the presence of many local teams and the schemes that the FA is running to get girls interested in football, a nice touch which again showed the growing interest in the women’s game and the continuing support for its growth. A growth which was also demonstrated by the game’s attendance of 7,398 - nearly five times the attendance of the average Women’s Super League match, and
a figure helping to add to the trend of increasing supporter sizes at women’s games.
“Local girls could see what they could achieve if they kept up the hard work.” What also impressed me about this game was its accessibility. Tickets were relatively cheap, and the game took place in Doncaster, not London. Here, local girls could see what they could achieve if they kept up the hard work with little-to-no distance to travel. At a time when ticket prices are being bemoaned heavily in the men’s game, it was refreshing to find the game open to everyone. After all, nothing motivates quite like seeing your hero in the flesh. As for England themselves, they head to Euro 2017 with good form behind them and increasing legions of supporters to cheer them on. A 2-1 friendly victory over Spain sealed a successful pre-tournament campaign, and Mark Sampson’s side will be confident that they can go one step further than they did in Canada.
Sheff FC apply to UNESCO
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Hugh Dickinson Sports Editor
s Sheffield FC celebrate their 159th birthday this week, the world’s oldest football club crave one gift above all others. As the birthday messages flooded in from well-wishers from local ‘rules’ rivals Hallam FC to world governing body FIFA, the club announced that they would be applying for UNESCO World Cultural Heritage status. A statement on the club’s website confirmed that they would be applying for Olive Grove to be recognised as the place where the world’s first football club began playing and that they would be asking the UK Government for support in the matter. Her Majesty’s Government was also given an honorary club membership and declared the “Future Protector of Football” in the message from Chairman Richard Tims. If accepted, Olive Grove would become the UK’s 29th World Heritage site, joining the likes of Canterbury Cathedral, the Palace of Westminster and the Giant’s Causeway on the prestigious list. Olive Grove’s acceptance would be groundbreaking as traditionally sporting heritage is overlooked by UNESCO, which focuses on historical or architectural distinction. Olympia and the Colosseum make the list on this basis ahead of their sporting significance. Sheffield FC hope to return to Olive Grove and have so far raised £150,000 towards that dream, funding a new pitch at the site which is being leased by the club in agreement with Sheffield City Council. With a £2 million final target to build a complete stadium, progress remains slow, but the installation of a new pitch a year on from the launch of the campaign is a promising start. On the field, the news has not been as good so far this season, with Sheffield FC languishing in 20th place in the Evo Stik Northern League First Division South after 13 games. The Ladies team have fared better, standing in 5th place with two games to play in their debut WSL 2 season. Sheffield FC Ladies’ final home game will be live on Forge Radio Extra on Sunday from 1.50pm.
FORGE PRESS 47
FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER 2016
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Badminton batter Beckett to continue fine early form BADMINTON
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University of Sheffield Men’s 2s
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Leeds Beckett University Men’s 2s
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Tim Adams Forge Sport contributor
he University of Sheffield Badminton Men’s 2s kept their 100 per cent record intact as they trounced Leeds Beckett 2s 7-1. The Northern Conference Cup tie at Goodwin on Wednesday afternoon was the team’s third consecutive win, having already beaten Hull 5-3 and York 7-1 in the league. The previous meeting between the sides last year ended in a 5-3 Sheffield victory, but the margin of Wednesday’s triumph was far greater. Captain Shannon Chen led the team of six, which also featured Matthew Chan, Charlie Zhong, Lewis Leo, Tom Moore and Ben Sharples. In four singles and doubles
matches, the home side only lost two sets, as they blew Beckett away. Zhong started the avalanche of Sheffield scoring when he won 21-8 21-10, with Chen and Chan doubling Sheffield’s lead as they triumphed 21-6 21-7 in the first doubles match of the day. Leo suffered a setback when he lost 11-21 21-12 21-18, but after that Beckett failed to pick up a single set.
The pair of Tom Moore and Ben Sharples lost just 18 points in their two doubles matches, winning the first 21-5 21-8, and even more remarkably the second 21-1 21-4. When Shannon Chen and Matthew Chan completed a clean sweep of doubles victories for Sheffield, Beckett were 5-1 down. The highest quality match of the afternoon brought the home side’s sixth point when Charlie Zhong’s incredible leg-stretching defensive performance dumbfounded his opponent, with the former rounding off a 21-12 21-7 victory.
The final rubber of the day compounded Beckett’s misery as Lewis Leo got his name on the score-sheet, with a 21-16 21-17 win. Sheffield captain Shannon Chen told Forge Sport: “This year we’ve got loads of really good new players and I’m sure this year we’ll do really well. “We want to win the league, go up a division and also beat Hallam.” Unsurprisingly, Beckett captain Ewan Russell was disappointed with defeat. He said: “In all honesty, we weren’t expecting that. We thought
we were going to have an easier run, but they brought a hell of a lot of competition. “One or two of our players have never played competitively before so at the back of the game it was important for them to give it their best shot.” Sheffield’s victory draws them against Northumbria, a division above, in the second round. Their following league match is at home to bottom side Sunderland next week.
“This year we’ve got loads of really good players and I’m sure this year we’ll do really well” - Shannon Chan Image: Tim Adams
Darts 1s prevail but 2s fall narrowly short in Nottingham DARTS
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University of Sheffield 1s
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University of Nottingham
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Ed McCosh Forge Sport Editor
here were mixed fortunes for the University of Sheffield Darts 1s and 2s as they kicked off their Northern Universities Darts League campaigns at the University of Nottingham. Adam Warner led the 1s to a 9-2 success in his first game as captain, while Matt Royle’s debut as 2s skipper ended in a narrow 6-5 defeat. It was the 1s who took on the hosts in the first of the double-header, and they started in style by taking all of the opening five points on offer. Greg Batting, Danny Hall and Matt Eardley sealed the opening trebles point, before Warner, Max Orange and Brad Clowery extended the early advantage to two.
Eardley and debutant Batting then teamed up again in the first of three doubles ties and were rarely troubled as they secured a 2-0 win. Warner then struck a crucial 180 as he and Ed McCosh took the second doubles encounter 2-0 against Nottingham captain Lewis Townsend and Jonnie Rai in a high quality encounter. Hall and Orange were made to scrap as Jack Mears and Alex Ross secured Nottingham’s first leg of the day, but the Sheffield pair were able to recover and claim the fifth point of the tie with a 2-1 success. With the visitors needing just one more point to open their NUDL season with a win, they suffered their first and only wobble of the evening. Batting took the first leg against Townsend in the opening singles match with a 19-dart leg, but Townsend recovered superbly
to claim the point for the hosts. Alex Codd followed his captain’s example to defeat Clowery 2-0 and give Nottingham some hope. McCosh swiftly extinguished said hope, however, and his comfortable 2-0 win over Richard Forsyth gave Sheffield an unassailable 6-2 lead. Orange, Hall and Warner were in no mood to let their opponents reduce the deficit, with the former hitting 16 and 20-dart legs in a sumptuous win over Gianni Forcellati. Hall dispatched Rai by the same scoreline, and Warner capped off a fine team performance by defeating Nottingham Darts Society President Mears 2-0 to make it 9-2 to the visitors. Sheffield 2s were up next, and their quest to improve on showings in their inaugural season started in fine style as they won both trebles matches for the first time in an NUDL match. Rai, Daniel Gott and Joe Hayward set out of the blocks quicker than the Sheffield triumvirate of Oli Newall, Sian Bradley and James Piggin, but a wobble coincided with an improvement in the visitors’ scoring to turn the tables. Bradley came to Sheffield’s rescue on her debut in the trebles,
hitting double two to seal a point. Meanwhile, Jack Lewis, Nick Hood and Ellis Turner claimed the second point of the tie, with Turner keeping his cool to strike the winning double. The doubles matches began as the trebles had ended, with Turner throwing a leg-winning dart. However, he and Newall succumbed to a 2-1 defeat against Mears and Codd. Royle and Bradley were then outplayed by Adam Smith and Daniel Gott, who secured a 2-0 win to level the overall scores. What Sheffield needed was a moment of magic, and Nick Hood provided it. With he and Jack Lewis leading 1-0 in a close tie against Townsend and Forcellati, Hood checked out 90 on the bullseye to make it 3-2 to Sheffield going into the singles. Nottingham kicked off with an impressive 2-0 win for Mears against Piggin, before Hood narrowly missed a 150 checkout in a 2-1 triumph over Gott. Bradley ran Townsend close in the first leg of their tie, but the Nottingham captain kept his nerve to check out before a 20-dart leg made it 2-0. Newall was next to take to the
oche for Sheffield, and he secured a 2-1 win over Smith to make it 5-4 to Sheffield. When Forsyth sealed a 2-0 win over Lewis, it was down to Ross and Royle to decide the outcome of the match. It was Ross who claimed victory for Nottingham, as he settled a nervy encounter with a 2-0 success. The 1s, who topped the NUDL South division last season before falling short in the season-ending play-offs, started their campaign in style as they look to go one better in 2016/17. The 2s could be satisfied with a strong team effort that bodes well for the future. Victorious 1s captain Warner told Forge Sport: “I thought it was a good start to the season. Nottingham are a good team, and we’ve lost a couple of regular first team players from last season, so to come away with such a good victory is very positive.” 2s captain Royle said: I was very impressed. At that start of the night I’d have bitten your hand off had you offered me a 6-5 loss, but by the end I was gutted.” Sheffield 1s and 2s continue their NUDL campaign against Dartsity rivals Sheffield Hallam 1s and 2s.
48 FORGE PRESS
FRIDAY 28 OCTOBER 2016 DAY XX MONTH 2016
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BUCS Weekly Round-up
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Anthony Phillips Forge Sport Contributor
he University of Sheffield had an exceptional third week in BUCS, claiming 27 wins and two draws, losing just seven times. Out of 136 BUCS fixtures this season, Sheffield have won 81, meaning Sheffield teams have won close to 60 per cent of matches they have played. The Sheffield Golf team continued their superb start to the season, claiming a third victory in as many matches with a 4.5-1.5 win over the University of Manchester that sees them top the BUCS Northern 2A division. In week one, the Sheffield Squash teams went a perfect six for six and this week was no different, with four wins from four. The Women’s 1s beat Newcastle University 4-0 while the Men’s 1s crushed Manchester 5-0. Both Women’s and Men’s Squash 1s top their respective BUCS leagues. The Men’s 3s beat Teeside 3-0 while the Men’s 4s beat Salford with the same score to maintain the strong start for the Sheffield Squash teams. The Men’s Football 1s failed to build on their opening day victory over Sheffield Hallam after drawing 2-2 against the University of Central Lancashire. The Men’s Football 2s also had to settle for a point, drawing 2-2 at the University of Liverpool, but there was some success for the Men’s teams as the 4s thumped Central Lancashire 4-1 away from home. In Rugby Union, the Men’s 1s maintained their perfect start to the season, grinding out a 15-10 win over Durham. The Men’s 2s also won, claiming a hard-earned 39-15 win against Newcastle. The Men’s 3s also won in significant fashion, shutting out Sunderland in a 20-0 victory. The Men’s Rugby League 1s just about kept their perfect record, narrowly beating Liverpool 34-30, while the Men’s 2s beat York 36-14. Sheffield’s Women’s Netball teams all put in strong performances, winning all four games by a combined score of 192108. The Women’s 1s beat Leeds 36-26, the 2s beat Leeds Beckett 5942, the 3s beat Central Lancashire 47-38 while the 4s saved the best for last with a 50-2 demolition of Sunderland.
Star performers The Women’s Rugby Union 1s beat Liverpool 66-0 at Norton, running in 12 tries. This dominating display sees the women lead the BUCS Northern 1A division with an impressive 90 point difference.
Image: Adam Bailey
Superb Lacrosse 1s cruise past Bangor Adam Bailey Forge Sport Contributor
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LACROSSE
University of Sheffield Men’s 1s
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Bangor University Men’s 1s
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he University of Sheffield Men’s Lacrosse 1s secured their first win of the season in style with an emphatic 19-5 victory over Bangor University. After a thrilling 10-10 draw with Sheffield Hallam and a 7-1 defeat to the University of Newcastle, Sheffield produced a dominant and commanding performance against Bangor to round off a perfect afternoon for the University’s Lacrosse teams, following a pair of wins for the Women’s 1s and Men’s 2s. It was Bangor who took the lead in just the third minute of the match, but two goals from Ben Page-Laycock saw Sheffield lead 2-1 at the end of the first quarter.
The attacker did not have to wait long to complete his hat-trick as he extended Sheffield’s advantage to two goals inside the opening five minutes of the second quarter. The rest of the second period saw the momentum constantly shifting between both sides, but the hosts managed to maintain their lead. Marcus Goodlad quickly restored Sheffield’s two goal lead after Josh Happ reduced Bangor’s deficit to one. Page-Laycock increased the hosts’ advantage to three, before Happ scored his second goal of the game to drag the visitors back into the game and make it 5-3 at the end of the second quarter. While Sheffield had been dominant, they were unable to
build a comfortable lead in the first half. The hosts, however, soon stepped up their game in a brilliant third quarter that saw them score seven goals in quick succession, conceding just once to take what would prove to be an unassailable 12-4 lead into the final quarter. Kei Ishizaka scored two goals in the third quarter, but the pick of the goals was a free-flowing attacking move by Sheffield which was finished off by Ollie Murray for his first goal of the match, while defender Alex Burley scored from distance after gaining possession from the face-off.
“We have brought some new plays into our game and it really is about practicing together” - Adam Jones
Sheffield continued to extend their advantage in the final quarter as Ben Page-Laycock scored his fifth goal, Matt Tatton and Ollie Murray both completed their hat-tricks, while Ben Scola, Max Champneys and Chris Gardner all got on the scoresheet. The win for the 1s rounded off a successful day for the University of Sheffield’s Lacrosse teams. The Women’s 1s started their away campaign in style as they cantered to a 25-3 thrashing of the University of York 2s, while the Men’s 2s overcame Liverpool John Moores 1s 5-4 in a thriller. Men’s 1s captain Adam Jones told Forge Sport after the final whistle: “We have been close to getting our first victory; we have kept working hard and it has paid off. “We have had some extra training sessions, which have made a big difference to us, we have brought some new plays into our game and it really is about practicing together.”