Read our ‘Dine Sheffield’ reviews in Lifestyle
Read Games’ Red Dead Redemption II review
Check out our interview with Tom Grennan in Music
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THE UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD’S INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER
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ISSUE 127 | WEDNESDAY 14TH NOVEMBER 2018 | FREE
Welfare Officer issues advice as students wait up to nine weeks for loans to arrive
Majority of war memorial trees set to be saved Ben Warner
Sheffield City Council have announced that 32 of the 35 remaining war memorial trees in the city will be saved after a lengthy campaign by Sheffield Tree Action Groups (STAG). The trees, which are a memorial to soldiers who died in World War One, were due to be cut down after it was determined it would cost £500,000 to save them. Six have already been felled since... (cont. on p4)
Reclaim the Night to return to Sheffield Niall O’Callaghan
Welfare Officer Katharine Swindells. Image: Ben Warner
Ben Warner
Katharine Swindells, the SU Welfare Officer, has jointly released some
advice for students who are still yet to receive loans from Student Finance England, alongside the Student Advice Centre.
They say some students have been waiting up to 45 working days (nine weeks) for their loan to arrive, which SAC say is bad for their general wellbeing, causing stresses about
paying for their course as well as food and accommodation. Katharine Swindells said: “Money is a crucial factor in your university
experience, and something going wrong with your loan can seriously affect your overall wellbeing. If you’re having problems, don’t just struggle through it by yourself. Come to the Student Advice Centre and our experts can try and help.” “We know that finance is one of the main pressures that students
face and struggling with your money, worrying about not making rent or being able to afford can massively exacerbate any existing mental health problems and can increase the stress you are under.” “We’ve had accounts of students who’ve known since August that there’s been ... (cont. on p5)
Reclaim the Night, a women’s march against sexual violence, returns on Saturday, 24 November. The march will start at 6:30pm outside the Cathedral, heading through the city centre and Devonshire Green before concluding outside the Students’ Union. A rally will follow the march on the SU concourse, where representatives from charities Vida and Sheffield Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre will deliver... (cont. on p6)
JUST USE CODE: THE OFFICAL FOOD OF
SHEFFIELD STUDENT LIFE
PIZZA241 EVERY SINGLE DAY
*Buy one get one free on medium & large pizza only. Valid online only. Free pizza must be equal or lesser value than the first. Not valid with any other offer. Offer can be withdrawn without notice. Available in participating stores only. Student ID required. EXP 31-5-19
AT THE CHECKOUT
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PIC OF THE PRESS
The bandstand before a downpour in Weston Park
Editorial Team Editor-in-Chief David Anderson Managing Editor Becky Sliwa Webb Deputy Editor David Craig Deputy Editor James Pendlington Head of News Ben Warner Head of Sport Adam May LOF Coordinator Sorcha Simons Culture Coordinator Tom Buckland Culture Coordinator Gethin Morgan News Editor Lucas Mentken News Editor Niall O’Callaghan News Editor Alex Peneva Features Editor Arya Damavandy Features Editor Rebecca Lally Opinion Editor Connie Coombs Opinion Editor Matthew Hartill Arts Editor Charly Hurrell Arts Editor Sophie Maxwell Lifestyle Editor Harry Browse Lifestyle Editor Amelia Shaw Music Editor Harriet Evans Music Editor Ben Kempton Screen Editor Gethin Morgan Screen Editor Izzy Cridland Games Editor Luke Baldwin Games Editor Tom Buckland Tech and Science Editor Aidan Hughes Tech and Science Editor Jade Le Marquand Break Editor Robin Wilde Break Editor VACANT Sport Editor Patrick Burke Sport Editor Joshua Taylor News Online Editor Ewan Somerville News Online Editor Ynez Wahab Features/Lifestyle Online Editor Rebekah B Lowri Opinion Online Editor VACANT Culture Online Editor Brenna Cooper Culture Online Editor Ben Kempton Sport Online Editor Michael Ekman Sport Online Editor VACANT Copy Editor Coordinator Leah Fox Copy Editor (News) Charlotte Knowles-Cutler Copy Editor (LOF) Brogan Maguire Copy Editor (LOF) Laura Foster Copy Editor (Culture) Salena Rayner Copy Editor (Culture) Bethan Davis Copy Editor (Sports) Charlie Payne
Image: Juliet Cookson
Editorial
Now Halloween and Bonfire Night are over and done with, it’s basically Christmas, right? Well, it certainly feels that way at least. Festive decorations are cropping up around the city, you can already pick up a turkey sandwich in most meal deals, and our Students’ Union even recently started stocking this year’s selection of advent calendars. But I’m certainly not complaining. There’s only about a month left of the semester and, with deadlines and exams fast approaching, some festive cheer may be just what we all need to get us through these final weeks. In fact, I can’t wait until our friends at Forge Radio are allowed to dust off that Michael Bublé album and take the final plunge into Christmastime. Because for me the
season really embodies the warmth of Sheffield. In this issue of Forge Press we have once again tried to unearth and highlight some of the best things this city has to offer. From Lifestyle’s feature on Dine Sheffield (a great way to grab a bite to eat on a budget) to Arts’ reviews of events at the Enable US festival (a great way to catch an affordable live performance without straying too far from home), there’s plenty of local activities to get stuck into. Something I recently got stuck into (in one of my rare forays outside of Forge Media) is Coffee Society, and their weekly trips to Marmadukes coffee shop where they play a game of Scrabble against a staff member to win a discount. In fact, I recently
took on the challenge myself and won, not only winning a 10 per cent discount for members of the society, but also justifying my position as Editor of this newspaper. Because Scrabble is to do with words and so is a newspaper. But, jokes aside, it was refreshing to try something outside of my normal routine, and I’d recommend you all do the same. First semester can seem like a long haul at times, especially if you don’t get a reading week, so it’s important to give yourself a breather. I hope you enjoy the read.
Design and Training Coordinator Chloe Dervey Secretary and Social Secretary Connie Coombs Inclusions and Welfare Coordinator Charlotte Knowles-Cutler Marketing and Publicity Coordinator Chloe Dervey Photography Coordinator Juliet Cookson Website Coordinator VACANT In-house Artist Chloe Dervey
Get involved Want to join the team? Get involved! No prior experience is necessary, just join the Facebook group Forge Press Contributors and come along to our regular contributor meetings
every other Tuesday to meet the team and pitch your own ideas. Contact editor@forgetoday.com with any questions.
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News
NEWS IN BRIEF SHEFFIELD Fire crews called to Balti King
UNIVERSITY Medical school ranked in top 100
NATIONAL Starmer: “Brexit can be stopped”
Three fire crews were called to Balti King to put out a chip/wok pan fire on 1 November. The fire at the iconic late night curry spot was classed as ‘accidental’ and it was even reported that waiters continued to serve customers as the crews put out the blaze.
The University has been ranked as one of the top universities globally for teaching and research in clinical, pre-clinical, health and life sciences by The Times. Sheffield placed 13th in the UK and 87th globally in the league table for pre-clinical, clinical and health subjects out of 500 unis.
Shadow Brexit Secretary Kier Starmer has said that “Brexit can be stopped”, bolstering hopes of a second referendum. He made the comments to Sky news, rejecting his leaders comments that the only decision remaining was what kind of Brexit to implement.
SHEFFIELD Woman changes name to ‘Leadmill’
SHEFFIELD Man found dead in city centre named
NATIONAL Raab under fire over Dover border
“History has been made” according to The Leadmill after a woman has changed her middle name to ‘Leadmill’. The iconic venue offers a Gold Card yearly to anyone who changes their name, this is the first year it’s been done. She now has free entry to every event for a year.
The homeless man found dead outside Poundland on Castle Square has been named as 59-year-old Graham Green from Chesterfield. Green was one of two men found slumped outside the store last month, he was pronounced dead at the scene.
Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab has come under fire for saying he “hadn’t quite understood” the UK’s reliance on the Dover-Calais crossing at a tech conference last week. Around 17 per cent of the UK’s trade in goods pass through the crossing. Nicky Morgan tweeted “Gulp” in response.
Alan Turing
Alan Turing theory explains shark scales Ben Warner Scientists at the University have found that a theory proposed
by Alan Turing in the 1950s can
explain the pattern of shark scales.
Brovember: ‘Help a bro out this November’ Lucas Mentken
‘Brovember’ has been launched by the Students’ Union’s Activities and Sports Officers, Cecilia HudsonMolinaro and Sarah Morse, with the aim of raising awareness about men’s mental health. There will be a number of daily challenges and activities this month for students to participate in, including a meet and greet with Sheffield’s Lord Mayor Magid Magid on 21 November. Sarah said: “Myself and the Activities Officer have launched Brovember, a month long campaign in support of men’s health and tackling toxic masculinity which is prevalent in our society. “We wanted to join forces on this campaign because not only is mental health a priority for both of us this year, but many of our sports clubs and societies already do so
much fundraising for various mental health charities. “Brovember is aimed at all genders because we all have a role to play in improving men’s mental health and tackling toxic masculinity.” There will be a space within the Activities and Sports Zone in the Students’ Union every Wednesday with information on relevant services and events that students can take part in. ‘Brovember’ will finish with a ‘Shave Off Event’ in Coffee Revolution with local barbers for everyone who has taken part in the national Movember campaign. A timetable with all events can be found around the Students’ Union as well as online on the “Sheffield Brovember” Facebook page. Participants are encouraged to see how many of the daily challenges they can complete and share their experience to @SheffBrovember or using the hashtag #Brovember.
Turing, who is also credited
with much of the first work on
computers, proposed the reactiondiffusion theory in 1952, just two
years before his death. The theory is also accepted as the reasoning behind the patterning of mouse hair and chicken feathers.
Researchers at the Department
of Animal and Plant Sciences found that shark scales have evolved to reduce drag and therefore save energy.
The scientists involved in the
research believe studying the
patterning could help develop new shark-inspired materials with improved efficiency.
Dr Gareth Fraser, formerly of the
University of Sheffield and now at
the University of Florida, said: “We started looking at chicks and how they develop their feathers. We
found these very nice lines of gene expression that pattern where
these spots appear that eventually
Cecilia Hudson-Molinaro and Sarah Morse
grow into feathers.
“We thought maybe the shark
does a similar thing, and we found two rows on the dorsal surface,
which start the whole process.”
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New Sheffield burger restaurant Randy’s embroiled in menu controversy Ewan Somerville
Sheffield City Council to retain majority of memorial trees Ben Warner
(cont. from front page) ...Councillors voted to replace them last December. Of the 35 remaining, 32 will be saved, while three on Western Road in Crookes – where 20 of the trees are located – will still be chopped down due to decaying. The other trees are located around Crookesmoor, Binfield Road and Heathfield Road in south Sheffield. Private contractor Amey have agreed to fund the new agreement and there will be no additional cost to public money.
32
of the 35 remaining trees will be saved
Councillor Olivia Blake, Deputy Leader of Sheffield City Council, said: “We have listened and it’s great to announce that the vast majority of war memorial trees in the city can now be retained. “For a number of months we have been working to find a compromise and it is right that this compromise recognises the special and unique status of the avenues of trees that have been planted as war memorials.”
A Sheffield burger joint has been accused of ‘mocking rape and sexual assault’ and ‘propagating and glamorising rape culture’ by the University’s Feminist Society. It came after they named a burger after the disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.
The burger names are not only highly insensitive, but in fact contribute to the harmful and stigmatized conversation surrounding rape and rape culture Last week Forge Press reported how despite Randy’s Hardcore Burgers apologising for ‘The Weinstein’ burger’, uproar and outrage on Twitter did not relent with some calling for the restaurant to shut down. Feminist Society damned the apology as “an understatement”
Members of the University hockey club braved the rain on Wednesday 7 November, putting on a taster session outside the Students’ Union. The session was being run as part of the Brovember campaign, enticing more people to take part in weekly Social Sport sessions. Sport is seen as a great way to improve mental health. Those who chose to have a go at the course set up by the club, which featured dribbling around cones, were offered cake as well as information about the regular sessions hosted by the club. Image: Ben Warner
and called for the rest of the menu, including ‘Fake Taxi’, ‘Ja-Makin’ me Dinner’ and ‘Ca$ting Couch’ burgers, to be rebranded. In a public statement, the society added: “The burger names are not only highly insensitive, but in fact contribute to the harmful and stigmatized conversation surrounding rape and rape culture. “We find it both shocking and intolerable that you would make a decision to capitalise on those who have been raped or sexually assaulted, in an attempt to sell burgers.” Weinstein is on bail for alleged rape and sexual assault, after 70 women came forward with allegations against him - widely regarded as the beginning of the #MeToo movement. Last week, the Randy’s branch in Manchester took to Twitter to disown the Sheffield restaurant over its addition of ‘The Weinstein’, but both restaurants share the same remaining menu. But, FemSoc commented, “We would like to remind you both that it is…purely luck that your chain has not been publicly disgraced for your other burger names previously.” Louise Haigh, the Labour MP for Sheffield Heeley, condemned ‘The Weinstein’ as “grotesque” and said she won’t be dining at Randy’s.
Image: Randy’s
5
News
Sheffield Labour demand a real end to austerity Naomi Kanapathypillai
Sheffield Labour councillors have criticised the central government’s austerity programme and called for needs-based funding. The Sheffield City Council budget has been reduced by £430 million since 2010 and more cuts are on the
way. Sheffield City Council Leader and Labour councillor Julie Dore said: “Rising demand for social care and children’s services has meant that resources have become increasingly stretched. “Quite simply there is not enough money to deliver the council services we would expect. Labour
would end austerity responsibly and fairly, properly funding our public services by ensuring the rich are taxed effectively.”
£430m
amount of the SCC budget cut since 2010
According to Sheffield Labour councillors, the council is at a breaking point as rising demands for
social care and children’s services have meant that resources have become increasingly stretched. Olivia Blake, Cabinet Member for Finance, said: “All we got from the recent budget was more sleightof-hand from the Treasury but no meaningful funding.” Critics say that recent budget cuts have created a funding gap of £7.8 billion which local councils will have to face by 2025.
Councillor Olivia Blake Credit: Sheffield City Council
First of new ‘invaluable’ Physician Associates graduate Loshana Shagar
Image: Ben Warner
Welfare Officer urges students struggling with loans to come get SU support Ben Warner
(cont. from front page) ...problems with their student finance and they’ve been trying to deal with it themselves, making their lives a lot harder. “If they’d come to the Advice Centre a lot earlier they could’ve caught this and fixed it. That’s the main message we’re pushing because a lot of the time SAC can deal with it. Something that might be quite hard for you, they can get around it or figure out how to help you.” One such student, Luke Baldwin, a journalism second year, hasn’t yet received his tuition fee loan or maintenance loan and has suffered delays over multiple years. He
said: “This year it’s been about two months. It’s now mid-November, we’re meant to get loans in at the end of September. Bearing in mind I put my application in at the end of August and it’s meant to take six weeks so about a month and a half at this point.” He added that the Student Advice Centre are the best people to talk to. “I remember in my first year, I was told by the department that I couldn’t attend until I had finance confirmed or you’re liable to pay if it doesn’t go through so I decided not to go until I had finance,” he said. “It ended up being the start of November before I could attend I was told it was too late, I’d missed too much of the year so I had to start again the next year.” The Student Advice Centre has
financial advisors, with whom you can make appointments to talk about issues such as this one, as well as a much wider range of things. Luke added: “I think it’s a fairly common problem, I don’t know what it is. Some people have situations with their parents so that causes delays. I can only imagine what it’s like for an international student to have to do all this. Every time you go to SAC or the income office there’s a queue out the door, especially at the start of the year. You’re expected to sit on the phone for half an hour, sit in that queue for half an hour, on top of a degree and maybe a job, it’s a lot to handle.” “The best people to talk to are SAC, they’re really reliable and good at putting you at ease.”
The University’s first cohort of Physician Associates have just graduated, but are already proving invaluable as they offer cruvcial support to NHS staff in hospitals and general practices. The students, who have had two intensive years of study, are now supporting staff on the frontline of the NHS throughout South Yorkshire and the wider region. Physician Associates are trained to diagnose patients, recommend treatments and perform minor procedures, while subject to the same regulations as doctors and nurses. The Physician Associates career is considered an alternative to traditional healthcare roles – one that could help fix the NHS workplace crisis. The University offers a Masters in Physician Associate Studies, aimed at those with high grades at degree level in Biochemistry, Physiology or Biomedical Science. Graduate Rebecca Saunby, 23, from Eckington in Sheffield, holds a rotational training post in Emergency Medicine, Acute Medicine and General Practice at Barnsley District Hospital, said the Physician Associate course had aspects of medicine she enjoyed, without the usual medical school route. She said: “The majority of
Physician Associates are in fixed roles. This is not only important for the consistency of patient care but it means they are a valuable source of knowledge for new medical staff.” Graduate Jill Malbon, 32, also from Sheffield, took the course 10 years after graduating with a Biomedical Science degree to pursue a healthcare career. She said: “I had been looking for a career in the medical field for a while and this seemed to be the perfect combination of medical knowledge, helping people, building on my degree and in a time frame that seemed doable for me as I have three children. “There are many problems and conditions that patients have which don’t require a doctor or a nurse in order to treat them – this is where our role as a Physician Associate comes in. Less complex issues can be seen by a Physician Associate who has had an intense period of training, freeing up the doctors to see patients with more complex needs.” Ben Jackson, Head of Teaching in Primary Medical Care at the University of Sheffield, called the graduates “trailblazers”. “This course has given an opportunity to talented students who otherwise might not have had the chance to work in healthcare,” he said. “While Physician Associates will not offer a complete solution to the NHS staffing crisis, they can help reduce waiting times and allow doctors and nurses to focus on patients with more complex needs.” The first UK-trained Physician Associates graduated in 2009 and as the ongoing workforce crisis in A&E and primary care continue, there is a renewed interest in the role with Health Education England now starting to invest in its development.
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Reclaim the Night will return to Sheffield with performances and march through the city Niall O’Callaghan
(cont. from front page) ...speeches alongside the Chair of the Women’s Committee Natalia Mole. The evening will conclude with two spoken word pieces from University students and a performance by the Belly Dance Society. Women’s Officer, Mayeda Tayyab, said: “Reclaim the Night empowers women to stand up for their rights and challenge the environment that makes us feel unsafe on our own streets. “Since the day women can remember, we have felt unsafe and afraid walking alone in the dark but on Reclaim the Night this fear is pushed aside and we all come together to acknowledge that it is
Image: Leo Haywood
not okay for us to feel unsafe in our own towns and cities.” The first Reclaim the Night march took place in Leeds in 1977 as a response to the police warning women to keep out of public spaces after dark, due to the Yorkshire Ripper murders. The women marched in solidarity to call out violence and take back public spaces for themselves, it has continued regularly since 2004. Speaking about the march in the context of the SU’s first year with an all women officer team, Mayeda said: “This year’s Reclaim the Night is definitely different in the way that all eight officers will be marching through Sheffield with all the women. “Being an all women officer team, we feel very passionate about the
University of Sheffield represented at Crowdsourcing Week US conference Alex Peneva
A student from the University of Sheffield was chosen as one of the 25 Young Achievers to attend the Crowdsourcing Week (CSW) Global 2018 conference in Washington, USA, last month.
The organisers are really keen on people who can talk about who they are without actually boasting Hemanshi Galaiya, a final year Chemical Engineering student and President of the Women in Engineering Society at the University, independently applied and passed the competitive process to become one of the two under-25 achievers to represent the UK at the conference.
The 25 young people who got the chance to attend the CSW are considered to be doing phenomenally well in their professional field and to have had a social or entrepreneurial impact on the world. Being involved in Women in Engineering as the society’s President and in the Sheffield Leadership Engineering Academy (SELA) made Hemanshi stand out among the hundreds of applicants. She said: “Basically I had to sell myself to the organisers. They are really keen on people who can talk about who they are without actually boasting. It was a very hard balance to achieve.” This year’s topic of the conference - ‘Decentralisation’, is not tightly connected with Hemanshi’s degree but she says crowdsourcing is still really significant in Engineering. “My interest in the conference was from an academic perspective, because I really like working with young children,” she said. “As engineers we are also not really skilled in crowdsourcing and this is something we inevitably have to do in our roles, but we don’t have
the skills yet. For me the conference was a way to develop these skills for myself.” Hemanshi was also among the three Young Achievers who got chosen to join the core team of the event organisers for next year. This will allow her to get involved in framing the Young Achievers programme and make sure participants make the most of the experience.
The CSW conference took place over five days, during which the participants heard lectures from some of the most successful people in their fields, such as the CEO of CSW Epi Ludvik and Amy Kaminski, Programme Executive at NASA HQ. There were also workshops and seminars held and the conference finished with a visit to the US National Air and Space Museum.
Hemanshi with other Young Achievers and CSW organisers
issue of sexual violence hence we have made it one of our team goals to ensure that we are all working to make Sheffield safe from sexual violence offences rather than just the Women’s Officer, like it has been the case in previous years. “This march is as important today as it was decades ago when there was no #MeToo movement. However, now it seems there is more willingness to take this issue seriously. “Nonetheless, it is not to say that survivors of sexual violence do not face struggles in reporting and being believed especially if it is a historical incident, we still have a very long way to go in order to serve true justice to those who commit sexual offences” she added.
Pickling society approved by SU Niall O’Callaghan
Sheffield Students’ Union’s Societies Committee has approved a new Pickling Society, who aim to bring pickling into the mainstream. The society will meet monthly, sharing pickles they have made and new ideas. Founder and President Reagan Duff said: “Over the summer I pickled some onions and realised how fun and rewarding it was. “I thought that there might be other people at uni who like pickling already or who might have never pickled before, so I decided the best way to bring these people together would be to start a society so everyone can have a platform for pickling. “It’s a great way to meet new friends and try some delicious pickles.” They have set up a Facebook page called ‘University of Sheffield Pickling Society’ and hope to have their first official social this month. Reagan added: “The best way to start would be with some garlic or celery, pickling them brings out new flavours and makes them completely different entities.”
7
News
Sheffield Labour Students criticised over handling of Chris Williamson event invite Ewan Somerville
Sheffield Labour Students has been told to ‘respect Jewish students’, having u-turned on its controversial invite to MP Chris Williamson amid a police probe into alleged antisemitism within the Labour Party. SLS decided to “indefinitely postpone” the November 8 event with the divisive MP for Derby North, after its co-chair resigned in protest and Sheffield Jewish Society (JSoc) described it as “a betrayal of Jewish students in Sheffield”. JSoc told Forge Press it is “a shame” SLS decided to cancel the entire event, rather than going ahead without Williamson, and hoped this was an “exceptional case”. “It is impossible to say what the lasting impact [of the fallout from the event] will be but we hope that all societies and organisations on campus will consider and respect the concerns of Jewish students on campus,” they added. In a public statement ahead of anti-war panel discussion event, JSoc accused Mr Williamson of
having “repeatedly defended, and shared platforms with, anti-Semites expelled from the Labour Party.” University Security screened the panellists, including Mr Williamson, and concluded that there was no risk to staff or students. JSoc’s criticism included Mr Williamson tweeting an ‘attack’ on a Jewish organisation, the Board of Deputies, hours after the Pittsburgh shooting, which left 11 Jewish people dead.
I think we all just need to take a step back, reflect and make sure to learn from this for the future Caelen Reid
“He only retweeted condolences from Jeremy Corbyn hours later after outrage against him. He has called antisemitism allegations in the Labour Party ‘proxy wars and
Image: Chris McAndrew
bullshit’,” they added. SLS initially voted by six to three to proceed with the event, despite the “strong condemnation” of JSoc, leading SLS Events Officer Caelan Reid to resign in protest.
“I think we all just need to take a step back, reflect and make sure to learn from this for the future,” Mr Reid said. Journalists at LBC Radio handed a leaked dossier to the Metropolitan
Police with a reported 45 cases of alleged antisemitism by Labour members, leading the Met to begin a criminal investigation last week. SLS said on Friday 2 November that “although Chris Williamson MP is not personally implicated by these allegations”, in the current context of the investigation the visit is cancelled. Speaking to Forge Press, JSoc said: “While we are glad that Chris Williamson isn’t coming onto campus, we are saddened that there was a need to make a public statement. “As a committee we never wanted it to reach that point.” There remains the possibility that the event could take place in the near future, as SLS say they will conduct another vote when the investigation is concluded. “If it does happen again in future JSoc will act accordingly in the interests of Jewish students,” JSoc co-chair Gabe Milne added. “We just want to emphasise that racism in any form, including antisemitism, should never be tolerated anywhere. This also goes for those who encourage an antisemitic culture.”
Novelty football shirts raise £30k for local children’s hospital Ben Warner
Image: Bands F.C.
Over £30,000 has been raised for Sheffield Children’s Hospital through the one-off sale of football shirts based on veteran local band Pulp. The money has been raised by Manchester-based company Bands F.C., who create designs that are a mix of football badges and bands. Popular designs include Blur, The Stone Roses and Wu Tang Clan. They mocked up a shirt based on the 1982-83 Sheffield Wednesday kit, featuring the Pulp badge and the sponsor as ‘Disco 2000’, one of the band’s biggest hits.
The shirts were only on sale for 24 hours, at £50 each. Former lead singer Jarvis Cocker was one of those lucky enough to get a shirt during the short period they were on sale.
£50
price each of the Bands FC shirts sold
Nick Fraser, co-founder, said: “Nick Banks, the drummer from Pulp, saw the shirt on Twitter and he liked them. I asked him if he wanted to make some for charity, he checked with the band and they
were keen so we went ahead with it. “Pete McKee, a local designer who I’ve worked with before, makes an exclusive Christmas card design every year which is in the shirts.” McKee is a well-known artist from Sheffield, who is also an avid Wednesday fan. He has recently been awarded with an honourary doctorate from Sheffield Hallam University. Bands F.C. have almost 500 designs now, which are promoted through their Twitter account and their website. They’ve also had exhibitions in Manchester at the National Football Museum, as well as in New York City.
t h g i N e h ReclaSiamturdtay 24
th November 2018
A march for all women through the streets of Sheffield for: • increased street lighting in sheffield • Increased and improved support services for survivors/victims of sexual assault • A zero tolerance to sexual harassment in all places
March: 6.30pm outside Sheffield Cathedral Open only to Women including cis, trans and non-binary women and non-binary people who identify to some extent as women
Rally: 7.30pm, Coffee Revolution, Sheffield Students’ Union Open to all genders
Mayeda Tayyab Women’s Officer
9
Features
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Features Editors Arya Damavandy Rebecca Lally It’s finally getting to that extremely chilly time of the semester, and for many of us, that means it’s time to get serious about work. So it’s remarkable that this issue’s contributors are continuing to send us deep, detailed features! We’ve got a brilliant article on the soul of Movember, its relation to men’s health awareness, and how it’s being interpreted more than a decade after its inception. The more you know! Our second piece is a great indepth look at food banks and the greater social issue that they highlight. Powerful. On October 30th an event was held in the Students’ Union campaigning for the release of a detained Bangladeshi journalist. One of our contributors attended and wrote an article covering not just the event, but the whole issue. Check it out! Our final piece this time is an insightful article on the increasing use of essay writing services among university students. Don’t get any ideas! And of course, make sure you wrap up warm in the coming weeks, and don’t forget your umbrella.
Want to write for Forge? Great! Join our Facebook group Forge Contributors or just drop any of us an email! Hope to hear from you soon!
Movember: Is the ‘tache still making cash? Lauren Savage
As the month of November approaches we all know the word on everybody’s lips — moustaches. This will be the eleventh year that the charity month ‘Movember’ will be gracing our streets with facial hair felonies. But, is it still a thing? And more importantly, is it still relevant? The idea of Movember began in the place where all great ideas begin— the pub. Two friends, Travis Garone and Luke Slattery sat for a swifty in Melbourne, Australia in 2003 and discussed the absence of the moustache from latest fashion trends. After getting 30 men willing to take on the challenge of bringing the ‘stache back, the boys decided to take it to the next level. The next year, the Movember foundation was registered and 480 Mo Bros and Mo Sistas raised around £21,000 for prostate cancer. To date there have been over 5.5 million participants (and counting), and 1,200 men’s health projects have been funded. The impact and importance of Movember has been undeniably proven but in the last few years the momentum has significantly slowed. When asking students if they were thinking about taking part in the challenge, I received an influx of similar responses. “No, but I am in the middle of Stoptober” (quitting cigarettes for the month)”, “No, but I’m thinking of doing Veganuary” or “No, but I did do it a couple of years ago…might try the Decembeard”. When asked if any of these commitments were to fundraise for charity, the answer was negative. It seems Movember has become a victim of its own success. Despite
being one of the first campaigns to use a month, as opposed to a single day, it is has now become lost in a sea of popular monthly movements, all vying for our attention. Rex Beacon, a second year student, has done Movember three times but will not be doing it this year. He said: “I think everyone is a bit bored of me doing it now to be honest. It has lost its unique shock factor. Once you have done it once that’s kinda it. Plus, I feel bad; I keep asking money from the same people every year for the same reason. They don’t want to give anything anymore and fair enough. It’s not particularly hard to grow a moustache. ”
The movement’s drive to raise awareness for men’s health issues has become buried under contemporary vanities
Apathy and charity fatigue are not the only issues that Movember faces. In 2003 when the idea was formed, moustaches on men were as rare as a front page without Brexit. The ‘stache had fully vanished after all the 1970’s porn stars sank into oblivion so bringing it back was a big thing. Nowadays, however, with the rise of the hipster, there is a proliferation of hair—beards,
topknots, armpits—it’s more of a mission trying to find someone without hair on their body (both men and women alike). Steve Thatcher, Masters student who sports a significantly large beard, said: “I’m pretty precious about my beard, so I’m not sure I would be okay shaving this off and starting all over again. I’d be up for raising some money for something but maybe not something that affects the beard.” At the heart of the movement is the drive to raise money and awareness for men’s health issues (both physical and mental), and this has become buried under contemporary vanities. The whole point of growing a moustache back in 2003 was that it was not fashionable. Likewise, shaving off your facial hair and starting again will make you feel uncomfortable, but that is what Movember is really meant to be about. Aware of these problems and its declining popularity, the Movember foundation has introduced other challenges and new ways of getting involved. On the website bio it says: “We are committed to keeping things fresh.” Now, as well as the ‘Grow your Mo’ challenge, you can also ‘Make your move’—taking part in a physical activity of some sort— or you can simply ‘Host an Event’. The charity has evolved significantly over the decade it has existed. Last year, the charity funded a three part series called ‘Man Up’ for the Australian Television Network ABC. In light of the crisis with male mental health, the programme focused on gender stereotypes and the increasing pressure on manhood. Similarly, in the USA there was a project called
‘Making Connections’, which was delivered across 16 sites. The idea was to connect men with their communities, particularly men of colour, military members, and veterans. Despite having to adapt to a rise in the popularity of facial hair and competing with numerous other similar challenges, the message of Movember still remains an important one, especially with regards to male mental health. In the UK, men are three times more likely to commit suicide than women, and the highest suicide rate is men aged between 45-49. So, regardless of where the charity began and where it has now ended up (it is currently 49th out of the top 500 non governmental organisations), it is still a worthy receiver of donations, whether you want to grow a moustache or not. There seems to be an overwhelming amount of students that have or will be participating in a monthly campaign this year, but few of them are doing it for charity. The motivation behind many of these commitments is purely personal. “I’ll go vegan this January so I lose weight” or “I’ll grow a beard this December because I’ll look good for Christmas”, but many of these challenges were set to raise awareness of something else and it’s a shame that compassion for these causes can be lost amongst our excitement to do something ‘for a bit of banter’. Maybe it’s time to think about the real intention of these challenges and the causes that lie behind them.
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A tragic necessity: The food bank dilemma Kate Procter
For many people, the idea of food banks is intrinsically linked with Ken Loach’s 2016 film I, Daniel Blake. For those unfamiliar, in his condemnation of modern England, Loach tells the story of Katie, a single mother of two, who has had her benefits sanctioned for arriving late to a Jobcentre appointment. Cash-strapped, Katie goes to a local food bank where she presents her voucher, before being steered around the food-laid shelves by a volunteer. Partway through however, overcome by hunger, she desperately cracks open a tin of beans and shovels a handful into her mouth. The scene is a distressing performance of a woman in crisis. But in Britain today, Katie’s visit to the food bank is not a rare event . Between April 2017 and March 2018, the Trussell Trust – the UK’s largest food bank provider – distributed over 1.3 million emergency food supplies. In fact, the food bank Katie visited is a real one in Newcastle – the volunteer who helped her really works there, the extras all people who used it. Before 2010, most people had never even heard of food banks. But over the past decade they have become emblematic of the political and economic changes Britain has undergone. Coming into power in the wake of the Great Recession, the Conservative-led coalition government announced this time to be the “age of austerity”. Driven by a neoliberal ideology of Big Society, rather than raise progressive taxes, the government focused on cutting public spending to overcome the deficit. But alongside this, use of the Trussel Trust food bank network has increased by over 2,000 per cent. In 2010, there were only 56 food banks in the country. By 2018, there were over 2,000. Currently, low income accounts for the biggest single – and fastest growing – reason for referral to Trussel Trust food banks. However,
the other primary reasons are benefit delays, sanctions, and changes that create immediate income crises. The introduction of the Welfare Reform Act in 2012 has seen drastic changes made to the provision of benefits within the social security system. These included reforms to Housing Benefit (commonly referred to as a “bedroom tax”), the Social Fund, Employment and Support Allowance, child support and, most significantly, the introduction of Universal Credit. Analysis of food banks that have been in full Universal Credit rollout areas for a year or more shows that these projects experienced an average increase of 52% in the twelve months following. In particular, criticism has centred on the time it takes for claimants to receive their first payment (35 days), leaving some struggling to pay their bills in that period. Set against a backdrop of rising living costs, more people are being forced to live in “food deserts” – locations where poverty, poor public transport and a dearth of big supermarkets severely limit access to affordable and fresh food. The provision of informal food aid is nothing new; churches and charitable initiatives have long provided such assistance in local communities. However, where previously this help was typically for the homeless, now it is for lowincome families with children. A 2018 report by the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute found that they make up over half of all food bank users. Dr Rachel Loopstra, the lead author of the report, said: “Low-income families with children have experienced significant reductions in welfare entitlements in recent years, and entitlements will be reduced further for low-income families given changes to Child Tax Credits and the ongoing benefit freeze in the context of rising living costs.” As Katie shows in I, Daniel Blake, by skipping meals to feed her children, food budgets are commonly perceived as the most flexible
element of household spending in times of financial insecurity. In comparison, the Institute of Fiscal Studies has found that middle-tohigher income households have escaped remarkably unscathed from austerity measures leaving one to wonder whether George Osborne’s claim that “we’re all in this together” could have been any hollower. Yet despite report after report showing the clear connection between austerity and food bank usage, the Conservative government has been resolutely defensive. Embarrassed by the revived use of foodbanks as the classic counterargument to claims of an economic recovery benefitting all of Britain, they have sought alternative excuses to dismiss the rise. Lord Freud, the former Minister of State for Welfare Reform, suggested that this was a supply rather than a demand led issue; that if food banks are set up, people will use them. What this completely ignores is the fact that the majority of foodbanks users will only seek a referral as a last resort and do so under the shame of the attached stigma. Meanwhile, David Cameron suggested that increased usage was due to Jobcentre advertisement that previous governments did not allow. Yet, according to the Trussel Trust, only 2-5% of people who come to them are referred by benefit advisers from Jobcentres. Other politicians have found fault with the Trust itself who produce many of the reports. Iain Duncan Smith, the former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions who is responsible for the changes to the welfare state, argued that the Trust were merely seeking publicity to promote their own growth. That is despite it maintaining transparent accounting practices as a not-forprofit social franchise. Worse still, the government has fuelled negative public opinion of benefit “scroungers” popularised in the “poverty porn” of mainstream media. Michael Gove suggested that food bank users were themselves
to blame, guilty of making lifestyle decisions that showed they were “not best able to manage their finances.” Similarly, MP Dominic Raab sparked outcry when he characterised “the typical user of food banks not [as] someone who’s languishing in poverty” but as someone who simply “has a cash flow problem episodically.” The sweeping generalisations made, such as by Ian Duncan Smith, that “people are going to food banks because they get divorced, ill or addicted to drugs” shows a disturbing lack of understanding by key government figures of the complexity behind the circumstances that lead to food bank referral. At the same time, the government has sought to encourage the normalisation of foodbanks by coopting them as an example of a local sense of community. The welfare state is seemingly content to be structurally dependent on charity provision – effectively incorporating volunteers as informal partners. Rather than addressing the bureaucratic inefficiencies and inadequate funding of his reforms, Ian Duncan Smith insisted that he “welcomes” foodbanks. Prior to his resignation, he had even planned to draft job advisers from the Department of Work and Pensions into food banks. However, The Trussell Trust has advised their food banks against entering into contractual service level agreement with local authorities, arguing it would jeopardise the nonjudgemental environment in which they operate. Even worse is that food shortages have been exacerbated by this normalisation of foodbanks. The issue has fallen off the radar at a time when donations are needed more than ever. A possible answer to the problem could be to redistribute food waste. Given 1.9 million tonnes of food is wasted by the food industry each year in the UK, it sounds like a win-win solution. But recycling food waste does not address the cause of food poverty. Instead, we risk
institutionalising foodbanks as has occurred in the USA and Canada. A sign we are already headed this way became apparent in February when ASDA announced plans to invest £20 million into The Trussel Trust and fellow food aid charity FareShare. Such initiatives may be able to relieve short term crises, but they cannot meaningfully tackle deeprooted issues. What is more, given ASDA’s removal of permanent food bank collection points in its stores in 2016 (that were only returned following a backlash) and general record of low pay, the supermarket’s motives remain questionable. So what is the solution? Well, the government may finally be starting to take responsibility for the problem. Secret proposals were reported by The Guardian that ministers plan to investigate whether policies have influenced foodbank use. In her conference speech Theresa May declared she was “ending austerity.” But where the extra £19bn a year to enable this is going to come from is still being decided. With regard to the welfare system though, focus needs to be on improving the administration of the benefit regime. In the last week, Universal Credit rollout has been delayed yet again. Originally meant to be fully installed by 2017, a litany of hitches means that the programme is now not expected to be fully complete until the end of 2023. But Conservative backbenchers and anti-poverty campaigners are rightly lobbying hard to restore the £2bn removed by George Osborne back into the system. This is more than just an issue of policy. The government must uphold the human right to food. As a society, we have a moral responsibility to make sure that everyone has enough to eat.
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Features
Detained without cause: The case of Shahidul Alam Loshana K Shagar
Bangladeshi photojournalist Shahidul Alam’s Skype interview with Al Jazeera took just under five minutes on the 5th August. Little did he know that those five minutes would cost him his freedom. Outside, large-scale student protests on road safety raged in the capital city of Dhaka, after a speeding bus cost two students their lives. Tuning in to the interview, one would hardly have guessed that moments earlier, Alam had been attacked by suspected members of the ruling political party Awami League’s student wing, while he was covering the violence against student protesters. Alam matter-offactly condemned the government’s handling of the protests, which he described as “pent up emotions, energy and anger that has been let loose”. Hours after the interview, 63-year-old Alam was arrested and charged under Section 57 of the country’s controversial Information and Communication Technology Act (ICT Act) for “provocative comments”. A friend who saw Alam in court the next day said he was unable to walk on his own and
showed signs of being beaten up. He remains in custody at press time. Outraged by the inhumane treatment and lack of response by the Bangladeshi government, second year politics student at the University of Sheffield Olive Enokido-Lineham organised a campaign to free Alam and stand in solidarity with students in Bangladesh who were also arrested during the protests. The campaign on the 30th October in the Activities Zone in the Student’s Union is the only student-led event for the cause in a UK university. EnokidoLineham said while student activism was celebrated in Sheffield and the UK in general, this was not the case in Bangladesh and that Alam’s arrest epitomised the “gagging of the media” he referred to in his Al Jazeera interview. “This is not even specific to press freedom in Bangladesh, as new projects to monitor social media accounts in the run up to state elections extend beyond the press to ordinary citizens. “Shahidul Alam’s case is also one of many worldwide - take the example of the unprecedented murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The crackdown on political dissent worldwide is overt,” she said in a
statement. Saudi Arabian journalist Khashoggi, who had long been a critic of its government, was killed at the consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on the 2nd October after visiting to obtain documents he needed to get married. At the event here, a UK university student and staff petition was also set up to urge the Bangladeshi government to release Alam, with 135 signatures from 23 universities and counting. The petition will be sent to the British High Commission in Bangladesh, the UK Department of Education, UK Department for International Development and the UK Foreign Office. Guest speaker, PEN International chairman Salil Tripathi, observed that Alam’s arrest was unfortunately the latest in a string of unjust and unprofessional treatment of journalists in the state. He described the “chilling atmosphere” for journalism and free speech in Bangladesh at this time, where people risk being arrested or harassed simply for sharing social media posts. “Bangladesh is improving in material wealth, but is declining in citizen liberties. There are rules where citizens can be arrested on suspicion for offences that are
non-bailable. It is truly a harsh atmosphere,” he said, adding that Alam believed in modifying the media to bring a “new understanding” of the communities and their hardships, and that “pretty pictures” should never be the end goal for any photographer. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) noted that “the entire Bangladeshi journalistic profession was targeted” on the day of the protest, as 22 other journalists had also been injured in deliberate attacks while doing their jobs on the scenes. RSF also ranks Bangladesh a mere 146 out of 180 countries in its 2018 Freedom of the Press Index. In the wake of his arrest, leading British artists and curators, including filmmaker and artist Steve McQueen, dancer and choreographer Akram Khan, and artists Antony Gormley and Anish Kapoor, have joined an international call for justice and transparency about Alam’s alleged crimes. A British exhibition of his work is also being planned in support of the cause. At the event, however, the most impactful statement came from Alam’s brother in law, Saiful Islam. As he showcased a series of photographs by Alam and his students from the Drik Gallery in
Bangladesh, Islam recalls how Alam loved to speak through his images, starting forty years ago when Alam was a PhD Chemistry student in Liverpool and had visited a company there to take photographs for an assignment. “He was more curious about what was happening in the company instead of merely asking details about the assignment. He will always try to understand the hidden story – what something means, before he begins taking out the camera for photographs. He even decided not to be a chemist because he felt the country did not need more chemists, it needed someone who would document its story and call for change,” he said. Islam also left students at the event with words from Alam, which was written on a note and smuggled with great difficulty out of prison to be delivered to the family and his well-wishers. The note read “If I cannot speak freely when I am outside, then the loss of freedom when I am incarcerated doesn’t feel as much. I am staying strong. Please do so too.”
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Features
Essays on demand: Why essay mills are on the rise Jess Murray
We live in a society of instant gratification. From TV shows to taxis, your favourite restaurant food to a new pair of shoes, everything is just a click (and a bit of cash) away. And in the past few years, it appears that essays have become the latest addition to the list of things that can be acquired when you want them. The rise of so-called ‘essay mills’ – services that write custom-made essays in return for money – have reached such a level that just a few weeks ago over 40 university chiefs signed a letter to the education secretary calling for them to be banned. The move follows research that revealed more students are turning to the services than ever before. In August, an investigation by Swansea University found that the number of students who admitted to cheating at university rose by 15.7% in 2014-18, and two of the biggest essay writing services claim they are providing work for more than 20,000 students a year. Those who submit these essays are ‘contract cheating’ – they’re breaching the contract they sign as a student to only submit work they themselves have produced. Essay monitoring software like Turnitin has long been capable of rooting out standard plagiarism – where students copy published work in their essays – but the technology needed to detect contract cheating is only just starting to be rolled out. Turnitin announced earlier this year that they’ll be introducing
‘Authorship Investigation’ to monitor a students’ writing style over time and flag up any irregularities, but its effectiveness has yet to be tested.
Still technically legal
Despite this crackdown on the practice, essay mills remain legal in the UK, although Universities Minister Sam Gymiah has insisted that outlawing them remains possible. It seems baffling that the services are still allowed to operate, but essay mills defend their services by asserting that customers are never told that they should submit the work they buy to university as their own. However, the message is far from clear if you don’t do your research. Clicking on one of the first search results for ‘essay writing service UK’, I’m faced with the usual aggressive marketing tactics; “Struggling with work? Get it right the first time and learn smarter today”, “INSTANT PRICE”and “PLACE AN ORDER”. The site tells me that I can order a ‘perfectly written’ ‘fully-referenced’ essay that will be completely plagiarism free. Prices include £126 for a 1,000-word undergraduate level essay at a 2:1 level, to £868 for a 3,000-word Master’s essay that will get you at least 70%. Dissertations are typically priced at over £1,000. Everything is deliberately vague; there’s nothing that technically says these essays should actually be submitted. But to get the exact clarification takes some digging. A small link at the footer of the page directs me towards the company’s fair use policy. Here, the essays from
the previous page have magically transformed into ‘model answers’. There is an explicit statement that the essays should not be submitted to university as your own work, and that to do so would be plagiarism. Customers should simply use the model essay as inspiration and guidance for their own work, which should be 100% original and formed from ‘your own ideas and perspective’. These clarifications, however hard they are to find, cover the essay mills’ backs and the difficulty of marrying completely original work with a pre-written model answer is the students’ problem to figure out.
A grey area
Of course, it’s likely that the vast majority of students would know that submitting an essay they haven’t written as their own is against the rules, even if they haven’t read the small print. But there are some grey areas where students would perhaps be not so sure - thirdparty essay proofreading services, for example. These agencies aren’t writing anything for you, they’re just checking the spelling, grammar and punctuation, like getting your parents or a friend to give your essay a read before you submit it. However, if the essay is partly graded on the quality of your spelling and grammar, surely bringing in the professionals to sort this out for you is a degree of contract cheating to some extent? The main problem is different university departments have differing stances on this. Dr Oliver Johnson, Academic Skills Advisor from the 301 Skills Centre, told
me how hard it is to pin down a university-wide definition of acceptable practice. “At one end of the spectrum, you’ve got a Philosophy student who is actively encouraged by their tutor to talk to other students about their essays, to share what they’ve written and get feedback on it. That’s seen as part of the discipline of philosophy; it’s supposed to be discursive. “At the other end of the spectrum you have the Law school where they have a really strict blanket policy that any piece of work submitted by students should be their work and their work only, and having it read by other students or parents is not acceptable.” The mixed messages can be confusing. At the time of writing, a large advert for ‘Student Proofreading Services’ hangs on a wall opposite the university tram stop (from a building not owned by the university and not under their control). How many students would know whether taking up the offer is acceptable or not on their course?
Differing definitions
It’s not only a university-wide problem, but a global one too. Definitions of plagiarism differ around the world, depending on the academic style of a country’s education system. Sheffield SU’s International Students’ Officer Rex Béchu said the fact that definitions of plagiarism can differ so widely across the world means that international students are more likely to experience unintentional plagiarism. For these students, expulsion from university
will often also mean deportation, so the risks are huge. The message is clearly that thirdparty services are a no-go. But while these services remain legal and are able to freely advertise to students, the university surely also has a duty to make students aware of the risks – and the alternatives. Dr Johnson tells me that the closest the university has to a proofreading service is the Writing Advisory Service at the English Language Teaching Centre, where those who are writing in English as a second language can get a specialist writing tutor to go through their work and pick out recurring issues. And, of course, the team at 301 are there to help students develop the skills they need to do proofreading and essay writing themselves. But whether these alternatives tackle the reasons why students turn to essay mills and other thirdparty services in the first place is debatable. While confusing definitions of plagiarism play a part, so does the increased pressures students are under nowadays, and the commodification of degrees. With students now paying over £9,000 a year for a degree, do some feel entitled to the good grades they feel they’ve paid for – regardless of how they get them? There are no easy answers here, but while essay mills remain legal, more transparent definitions of plagiarism and adequate support to help struggling students are surely needed.
Opinion Opinion Editors Connie Coombs Matthew Hartill Welcome back for our penultimate issue before Christmas! It feels like yesterday that we were penning our first editorial. If you’re desperate to get involved in our section and have a modicum of responsibility, we’ve got an EGM! You can run for Online Opinion Editor, so finally we can have something of an online presence. Technology is magical. If you just want to write for us, we’re begging you please do. It gives us the illusion of people caring about a student publication. Until next time, and happy reading!
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Arrogant or necessary? Jack Mattless argues Lord Hain should not have named Sir Philip Green; Tierney Green argues the opposite Jack Mattless
I get it; Philip Green is a thoroughly odious figure. Obnoxious and oozing a tacky sense of entitlement in every public appearance he makes, it’s not hard to imagine someone this grotesque subjecting his employees to the types of harassment now alleged against him. By contrast, Peter Hain seems to be a committed and reasonably well-respected politician, making judicious use of parliamentary privilege to disclose information deemed to be in the public interest without fear of being subject to legal action against him. The problem is that it simply isn’t Hain’s role to act as some kind of moral judge as to what is in the public interest. Had the Court of Appeal applied a sinistersounding super-injunction, where the press is prevented from both reporting the content of allegations and from reporting the fact an injunction exists at all, then the use of parliamentary privilege would be the only channel through which to reveal information without threat of legal action. In this instance, it would be easier to argue in favour of Hain. But the reality is that the injunction granted in this case was a temporary one, designed only to give Green anonymity whilst the courts considered the arguments for naming him in the public interest from both sides. So, intentionally or not, Hain interfered with an ongoing legal process and undermined the courts in their role of independently interpreting and applying UK law. The move is particularly hypocritical given the Labour government in which Hain was a cabinet minister was the one bent on dislodging the judiciary from parliament in the first place through the abolition of Law Lords.
There’s also a dangerous precedent at play here. The UK legal system works on the basis of presumed innocence until the accused is found guilty. In naming Green in relation to the allegations, his reputation is inevitably tarnished regardless of whether he is guilty or not. True, Green’s own standing with the British public is already so low that it’s hard to see how association with these allegations could ruin it further. But not everyone is Philip Green and injunctions exist so the reputations of individuals aren’t prematurely or mistakenly reduced to tatters. One only needs to look at the case of Cliff Richard being falsely named in connection with child sexual abuse a few years back to see the damaging consequences of such moves. Legal process is often slow and cumbersome but impatiently trying to circumvent it seldom yields better results - and Hain should have known better.
Image: Nick Youngson/ Alpha Stock
Tierney Green
The key question in this debate is ostensibly whether Lord Hain should have exercised his parliamentary privilege to name Sir Philip Green as the recipient of an injunction. However, the larger question is whether the injunction should have been granted in the first place – if granting it was the right decision, Lord Hain made the wrong choice; if it was not, he acted in the public interest. The idea behind injunctions stopping the media from disclosing alleged events is to protect the reputation of the party applying for the injunction. It was granted in this case primarily because the accusers of Mr Green were subject to Non-Disclosure Agreements. These NDAs – alongside injunctions – have been used increasingly to cover up “bad behaviour”, and have been particularly criticised in the wake of the #MeToo movement after it was revealed that Harvey Weinstein used them to keep a number of alleged victims quiet. These NDAs can only have come about as part of a settlement negotiation. Such settlements do not appear out of the blue – usually, the victim will have made a complaint. When considering this, we must
bear in mind that 79 per cent of female workplace sexual assault victims did not report it to their employer. It is a fairly common perception that true victims will not accept money as recompense for wrongs done to them – that only justice would suffice. What that fails to take into account is how intimidating the whole process is, especially when the alleged perpetrator is as wealthy and powerful as someone like Sir Philip. The victims are generally junior members of staff who cannot afford legal advice, let alone representation, and many fear that their career prospects will suffer if they make a public complaint. An NDA buys their silence – but for whose benefit? The alleged perpetrator has the most to gain from the allegations not being made public. This allows people like Max Clifford or Rolf Harris to continue to exist in plain sight, continuing their pattern of predatory behaviour. Disclosing allegations, particularly where they are multiple, is clearly in the public interest to protect future victims. It also allows investigations into patterns not previously identified. An injunction is a court mandating the non-disclosure of information in much the same way as an NDA. Injunctions, as MP Jess Phillips said, “allow rich and powerful men to do whatever they want as long as they can pay to keep it quiet”. There is a place for due process, and the allegations are not yet proven; but gagging the media from reporting on it at all only helps these things to stay hidden.
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With mental health issues on the rise across the campuses of the UK, Danny Lardner argues that universities should be doing more to address the problem.
Image: Alex Folkes / Fishnik Photography Photo credit: The People Speak
Danny Lardner
Amid the blur of open days I visited over the eighteen months before arriving in Sheffield, one thing I was told by a marketing lecturer at the University of Sunderland stuck out. He told me that bigger universities simply can’t give every student the attention they deserve and that can cause serious problems in regards to mental health. The government lifting the cap on student numbers in 2013 allowed for oversubscribed universities to expand.Institutions such as Surrey and Coventry grew by 50 and 53 per cent respectively, while Sheffield has gained 3,000 extra students over the last eight years. Unfortunately, this only puts more pressure on both lecturers and pastoral workers - when so many people are in need of care the quality of support is reduced and relationships with students are strained. The days of going out for pints with your lecturers aren’t around anymore, and many students feel anonymous - another face in a crowded lecture theatre. This is just one reason why the
number of students seeking mental health support has more than doubled in the last five years. Moving to a new city, even one as friendly and accommodating as Sheffield, comes with a host of new challenges. Throw in the social pressures of university life and the stress of academia, and anxiety might start to be a bigger distraction. Poor eating habits and an almost certain increase in alcohol intake don’t help either - a good homecooked meal can work wonders both nutritionally and mentally. Also, many students arriving at Russell Group universities are used to being top of the class - the big fish in a small pond. Losing the feeling of being the special student, instead feeling distinctly average, or worse, can have a deeply detrimental impact on mental health. More seriously, stresses of university life and the anxiety they cause can have dire effects that universities should spend more time tackling. Almost 100 students committed suicide between July 2016 and 2017. Going back to the issue of overcrowding, two-thirds of the students who commit suicide are unknown to support services.
While there’s no reason to criticise the mental health support here at Sheffield, there is no doubt that the national issue of student wellbeing needs to be addressed, and I would urge those in charge to protect the minds that universities like this are expected to nurture.
If you are experiencing mental health difficulties, the following support services are available to help: University Central Welfare and Guidance Team: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/ssid/cwag Student Advice Centre (Level 3 of the SU): https://su.sheffield.ac.uk/student-advice-centre Big White Wall: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/mental-wellbeing/bww Nightline: sheffieldnightline.co.uk
We reached out to Katharine Swindells, Welfare Officer for the Students’ Union, for reply: We have lots of great support at Sheffield, but it’s not enough - you don’t have to be told statistics to know that. Everyone loves to talk about mental health, but we are in the midst of a crisis, and we need concrete action. We cannot have students bounced from service to service when they’re at their most vulnerable. We cannot have students fall out of our system because of a lack of continuing or inter-connected care. And we cannot have them lose out on their education, because of circumstances that are not their fault. I am working to restructure our support systems, to make getting help as easy as possible, and improving awareness of the services that we already have. Sheffield is an world-class university for teaching and research, let’s work to make the same true for student welfare.
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Opinion
All this ‘Bomb stuff’: An attack on democracy itself Stela Gineva
In the week of October 22, at least fourteen packages containing pipe bombs were mailed to prominent Democrats and known Trump critics. The man arrested on suspicion of sending these devices, Cesar Sayoc, has been described by those who knew him as “troubled”, “crazed” and a “fanatical” Trump supporter. Although no one was injured, the alleged perpetrator attacked the very concept of democracy. Simply put, the attacker felt that an appropriate response to differing political beliefs was death and terror. This attack speaks to the tumultuous political times that the country has faced over the last two years. The polarising anger and hatred that has long fueled the fringes of politics has been personified by the alleged attacker. He is the typical political extremist who opts for terror and violence when faced with healthy criticism of his ideology. Despite the unsuccessful attack, the days that followed led to fear and division at a crucial time in American
politics. This was in large part due to President Trump’s reaction to the events that unfolded. To say his response was inadequate would be an understatement; it was divisive, contradictory, and hypocritical. In a speech following the events, the President said: “Americans must unify and we must show the world we are united together in peace and love and harmony.” What could have been a dignified response
He is the typical political extremist who opts for terror and violence when faced with healthy criticism of his ideology
was marred by other remarks made by Trump almost simultaneously. A tweet saw the President possibly backing a far-right conspiracy theory which said the bombs were
sent by left-wingers to create sympathy for Democrats prior to the midterm elections. The tweet read: “Republicans are doing so well in early voting, and at the polls, and now this “Bomb” stuff happens and the momentum greatly slows- news not talking politics…”. In a world that made sense, a callous tweet dismissing an attack on democracy would affect people’s support of Trump and his politics. This would be reflected in the upcoming midterm elections. However, this is Trump’s America. This is a society where, according to a recent poll, roughly half of registered voters believe that Trump’s rhetoric contributes to political violence, while the other half blames the media. In a society as divided as this one, Trump supporters are unlikely to have any sympathy. Many are already calling this a liberal hoax. Everyone exists in their own echo chamber. The only hope is that liberals who may have been on the fence about how to vote in the next presidential election in 2020 will be spurred to action by this attack on their beliefs.
Photo credit: Michael Vadon
Jade LeMarquand argues we should all pay less for degrees, not just humanities Jade LeMarquand
As a student, I’ll admit there are many days when I resent paying £9,000 for an education that was a heck of a lot cheaper for the people educating me. However, considering a career in science is something I’ve always wanted to pursue, I’ve accepted that my education apparently needs to be bought – although I would’ve appreciated some sort of discount. This apparently is what may be being offered to future students – as it has recently been announced that reducing some fees to £6,500 is under ‘serious consideration’. Sounds too good to be true? Almost definitely. Like everything in life,
this reduction in fees comes with a catch. This is only being considered for those studying a humanities degree; for those studying science, well they’d have to make up the difference by being charged £13,000 a year. Now, the idea behind this may seem straightforward – it costs less to teach humanities students and they’re likely to earn less than their science counterparts, but is this all really fair? Or smart? No. It’s not. The average nurse working for the NHS earns around £30K – according to the current thresholds it would take the average nurse 118 years to pay all of their loan back (with minimum maintenance grant) without interest.
If I had been given the option to reduce my fees by half by choosing to study History rather than Biomed, you can bet your sweet ass my UCAS applications would have looked a lot
Photo credit: David Hallam-Jones
different – and I can say that that would have been the case for a lot of other people too. Making this change would create a deficit in science students, thus reducing our numbers of doctors, nurses, engineers and everything in between. Furthermore, there would be higher numbers of applicants for humanity-based subjects making them more competitive and the likelihood would be that fewer people would end up attending university. I’m not saying that humanities students should be paying more – I’m saying we all should be paying less. Although having a degree doesn’t seem to be as grandiose as it once did, having one is still important to those who want one.
Forcing someone to pay more to study something they are passionate about seems warped to me. I’ll leave you with the word of Bernie Sanders to summarise: ‘Education should be a right, not a privilege’.
Do you think it’s fair that different degrees should be assigned different monetary values? Get in touch!
16
Lifestyle Lifestyle Editors Amelia Shaw Harry Browse From Halloween antics to dinner discounts, we’ve been out on the town reviewing the best restaurants and nightsout Sheffield has to offer. If a cup of tea and a slice of homemade banana bread is more your thing, head to page 18 where we have some easy tips to help you switch to a vegan lifestyle.
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Creeping it Real: Halloween at the O2
Emily Evans reviews her spook-tacular night. Emily Evans
For many of us, Halloween is the perfect excuse to look daft and get some laughs. Some make significantly more effort on their costume than others, with a handful looking creepy and others the opposite; it’s not like I can say anything, I went as Maggie Smith! But really, it all fizzles down to one thing - the cracking night out that lies ahead. This year, one of the most talked about nights in Sheffield on the 31st
was at the O2 where Jungle artist Congo Natty, also known as Rebel MC, headlined the night. The place was swarming with fans dressed as all sorts of characters – The Hangover trio seemed to be popular this year, along with The Mystery Gang and The Flintstones being spotted too. The queue was lengthy as expected but it was very much worth the wait. When entering, we saw that they definitely lived up to the twisted, circus freak show like we were promised, with an array of festival themed decorations filling
each corner. The lights filled the club, giving everyone the chance to have a gander and a good old giggle at other Halloween outfits. However, we don’t go out to gawp at lights and decorations, especially given we were all £15 more skint due to ticket pricing costs – but essentially, it’s all down to the artists. Cirque Du Soul tour all over the UK beside other huge Drum and Bass, House and Jungle names, from SHY FX to Redlight, as well as the Weaver Bros, who also made an appearance for us the other night.
The O2 was crammed with bassheavy tracks with a dose of reggae, making it all the more worth the visit. Congo Natty’s most famous tracks of ‘Get Ready’ and ‘Nu Beginingz’ that featured in his 2013 album ‘Jungle Revolution’, played on Halloween and everyone went wild, skanking to the beat. It was definitely a night to remember (or not in other cases!) but one which I would recommend for those who have a lot of energy to release when on a night out.
Adios España... Ey Up Yorkshire Lewis Wright
Five years is a long time: long enough to get halfway towards brewing a decent port; long enough for Catalonia to decide they’ve had enough of Spain; long enough for Britain to think ‘that’s a good idea, who can we fall out with?’. It’s how long I’ve been in Spain, away from my homeland. Away from Yorkshire. Yorkshire being Yorkshire, not much has changed. For starters, I’ve slipped back into nodding as an acceptable form of communication. However, one thing is different: just how ‘Yorkshire’ everything is.
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When I left, being from Yorkshire
was like being a stonemason, or keeping an allotment - something for old people. Now though, Yorkshire is everywhere. Like a Brexit comment in a Guardian article, it’s crowbarred in wherever you don’t expect it, and in the few places you do. Soon after my return I spent a few days in the Peak District. All over Castleton and Hathersage, lovely villages in Derbyshire, cafes advertise ‘traditional English breakfasts.’ Again, a few days later, whilst visiting villages in the Yorkshire Dales, I saw cafes advertising ‘traditional Yorkshire breakfasts.’ Along with that you could have a Yorkshire tea, or, if the mood struck you so early, a choice of traditional Yorkshire beers to be accompanied by Yorkshire crisps,
made with Yorkshire cheese. There’s now a ‘national’ football team competing in a tournament for displaced nations. After you’ve seen them play, you can cycle some of the routes on the Tour de Yorkshire, such as the Côte de Buttertubs. Like a 60 year old man ordering ‘oon beer sivoo plet’ on his holidays in the Vendee, the merger of flat Northern vowels and a French vernacular sounds cumbersome, like an elephant traversing a rope ladder. But should it? My Dad argues that it sounds glamourous when the French and Spanish speak English heavily accented, so why shouldn’t it the other way? Other than ‘because it does’, I’ve no idea. It’s been a year since I was reading stories of Catalan Independence. Whilst I’m not advocating an independence referendum and arresting local councillors, perhaps Yorkshire has more in common
with Catalonia than first appears. We both have flags, our own way of communicating, and a love of cycling. Perhaps the Tour de France visiting Yorkshire in 2014 was the tipping point for the current love for Yorkshire.. Helicopters and drones filmed the landscapes that European audiences made a note to visit. One million people watched the peloton ride up Holme Moss and then spilled into surrounding pubs and restaurants. As the world saw the true beauty of God’s Own Country, its as if we all looked at each other and decided ‘Aye, it’s alreet round ‘ere.’ Imagine that said in a French accent.
Image: Lewis Wright
17
Lifestyle
Dine Sheffield
Getting a slice of the action: Connie Combs talks about her week of dining deals.
Connie Combs
Despite being in Sheffield for coming up on five years now, I only discovered Alive After Five’s fortnight-long event ‘Dine Sheffield’ this year. I’m greedy and bad with money, so naturally I went to three restaurants in the space of a week and a half to really make the most of the experience., and here I’ll do my best to rank them. The first was a triple date with two other couples to OHM, next to Revolution. We managed to time it with Happy Hour, so my judgement herein is somewhat clouded. They do excellent cocktails, and it’s very reasonable if you get a deal like we did. The food deal was two courses for £10, with an extra course for £2.95. For that tenner I got seven mozzarella sticks, which were delicious, and a ‘quarter bird’ with fries, which was unremarkable. The chicken was moist enough, but it was hardly an explosion of flavour. I’m reliably informed the puddings
were good, but I opted for a liquid dessert. I wouldn’t have paid any more than £10 for what I got, but it was absolutely fine. The best part of the whole night was our waitress, who was an absolute angel and incredibly attentive with regards to my friend’s gluten intolerance. None of us can remember her name, but she was fantastic, and I’m a little bit in love with her. The second was a trip with an old friend to Revolucion de Cuba with a friend I’ve known since I was 12, ,who had a 3-for-£10 tapas deal. Usually their tapas is 3-for-£14, which isn’t a shabby saving. Once again we accidentally timed it to coincide with Happy Hour; this was a far better deal than OHM, in my opinion, as Cuba Revs allows you to mix and match, unlike OHM. I opted for cheeseburger tacos, calamari, and honey roasted vegetables. The vegetables were easily the best part of my meal, because I love veg, but the calamari was a close second. The tacos left me disappointed, in part because the coriander wasn’t
chopped and had just been lobbed unceremoniously on top of the meat like an afterthought. As with OHM, the cocktails stood out as being the best part of the meal, but it’s entirely likely that says more about me than the restaurants. The last deal I allowed for myself was a £5 burger at Firepit Rocks, on West Street. I was hesitant, because I loved the food at Firepit before it rebranded as a dive bar, and they’ve massively reduced their menu. Confession: I didn’t actually get the
£5 deal. My boyfriend did though, so this is based on his opinion of his lunch. The deal applied to all of their main attraction burgers, which normally run to £8 or £9. He opted for the ‘Big Ol Brekkie Burger’, which was a monstrosity of a burger. Containing a double cheeseburger, a sausage, two hash browns, a fried egg, sliced cheese, ‘pig bits’, buffalo sauce, and salad, it was the size of his head and more than worth the fiver he paid. He managed to eat the whole thing, citing it as ‘delicious’,
Review: Pieminister
Pieminister also offered up a value menu for Dine Sheffield. Alice Lorenzato-Lloyd went to check out what they had to offer. Alice Lorenzato-Lloyd
On a cold and breezy Sunday afternoon, entering Sheffield’s Pieminister was just what we needed- hearty comfort food to warm us up. As part of their set menu, you could order a pie and one side of your choice as well as an ice cream sundae for the reduced price of £10! I ordered the Deer Stalker pie which contained succulent pieces of venison with green lentils and a red wine sauce encased in flaky, golden shortcrust pastry. There was
no soggy bottom in sight. My dining companion ordered the Kate and Sidney pie, which had chunky bits of steak and the kidneys really helped to make a delicious gravy inside the pie. We both chose mashed potato as our side, but you have the choice of garden or mushy peas, smoky baked beans, or Pieminister slaw. The mashed potato was smooth and creamy with no lumps and the restaurant even offers a vegan alternative. I personally would have liked two sides just because I was pretty hungry and thought I could do with some peas as well. Pieminister
do offer a pie and two regular sides for £8.95 on their original menu as well as plenty of other pie combinations including the Sunday Best- a pie, mash and Yorkshire pudding with all the trimmings for £9.95, which is not too shabby when you compare it to gastro pub Sunday lunches. The pie and side arrived on a wooden board and also came with a personal gravy boat. In my opinion, the gravy was a tad disappointing as I prefer my gravy quite thick and this was rather on the thin side. The gravy did not taste meaty but similar to the Bisto instant gravy. I would
Image: Alice Lorenzato-Lloyd
rather have had more of the red wine sauce that was in my pie and poured that over as opposed to the gravy. In terms of dessert, the sundaes were a nice way to finish our meal and fill us up because we could have probably eaten another pie or more side dishes. We ordered the apple pie and the cherry pie sundaes. The apple pie sundae came with vanilla
and said he’d get it again and pay full price. My one regret about my Dine Sheffield choices was that I wasn’t more adventurous. Had my bank balance allowed I would have pushed the boat out. While the deals have now ended, keep an eye on the Alive After Five website for future offers. I’d absolutely recommend it.
ice cream topped with stewed apple, salted caramel and a sweet pie crumb, the cherry pie sundae came with vanilla ice cream too but with cherries, frangipane and toasted almonds on top. My only wish was that there had been hot puddings as part of the offer because I really fancied one of their sticky toffee puds I saw on another table. Overall, Pieminister has an array of pie options for whatever your dietary requirements may be, such as gluten free, vegetarian and vegan. I think the Dine Sheffield voucher encouraged me to explore more restaurants on a budget. If you’re looking for comfort food and want to be spoilt for choice on pies without the price tag, it is worth visiting Pieminister.
18
Lifestyle
Veganeasy: How to go vegan the easy way the most obvious advice I can give, but it’s the best way to keep an eye on what you’re eating. I realised that a lot of the food I cooked was vegan until I sprinkled cheese on top. It might surprise you that most dried pasta is vegan (but do keep an eye out for egg in the ingredients) and from there all you need is some tomatoes, some vegetables and some seasoning, and you have a simple, staple student meal! There are tons of easy and cheap vegan recipes online that are just as delicious (and probably healthier) as many meat-based dishes. Cooking vegan has helped me engage with new cuisines and recipes that I wouldn’t have otherwise found. Use dairy-free milk Almost all coffee shops offer a dairyfree alternative to milk, which taste
Jade Le Marquand
Veganism is a lifestyle choice that has rapidly become popular in recent years, a trend which can be seen by the increasing choices of vegan food in restaurants and supermarkets. However, despite these changes to the consumer world apparently making it easier than ever to be vegan, devoting yourself to this lifestyle can still be extremely difficult. As a vegetarian, I have tried on countless occasions to have a full vegan diet and have failed every time. But with each attempt has come a new way to introduce veganism into my normal diet - some of which I’d like to share. Cook your own food! Cooking your own food is probably
Cookbook
Banana Bread Steps
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3.
Danny Lardner
Ingredients 150g butter, softened 150g caster sugar 140g self-raising flour 2 large eggs, beaten 2 bananas, mashed (best to use over-ripe bananas as they are softer) 1 tsp baking powder 50g icing sugar Handful of dried banana chips, or chocolate chips, for decoration
great and are miles better for you than the full-fat milk they normally offer. You can also buy long-life cartons of milk-alternatives in the shop. Personally, I make my own because it is by far the cheapest option. All you need is one cup of rolled oats, three to four cups of water, and a date. Blend them
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1. 2.
The
New research found reducing meat and dairy consumption is the biggest way to reduce climate change.
together and stick it through a sieve and there you have homemade vegan milk! Double-check the labels A basic bread recipe is vegan, however a lot of the bread sold in the shops isn’t vegan, so when you’re in the supermarket doublecheck the labels to see which brands contain animal products and which don’t. Look out for ingredients such as casein and sodium casinate as these are derived from milk. Many fruit juices aren’t vegan as they use animal by-products as preservatives - stick to 100 percent fruit juice, or maybe even make your own! Shop smart Aldi offer a lot of vegan food at very cheap prices! They stock brands such as ‘Earth Grown’ and ‘Simply Nature’, which specialise in vegan
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Preheat the oven to 180C Butter the loaf tin using a folded paper towel, and line a 9x5x3in (2lb) tin with baking paper. Cream the butter and caster sugar, then slowly add the two beaten eggs with around 20g of the flour while mixing with an electric whisk. Using an electric whisk adds more air to the mixture, making the end products lighter and softer. Once incorporated, fold in the remaining flour, the baking powder, and the 2 mashed bananas. Pour into the tin and bake for about 40 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then remove and transfer to a wire rack. Mix the icing sugar with 2-3tsp of water to create an icing, and decorate however you like, alongside the banana/ chocolate chips. Enjoy!
products. Think veganism is too expensive? Think again! Ultimately, being full-time vegan can be very difficult and can be huge commitment. But, by following these tips and trying in small ways to make your diet more vegan, you cannot only help the environment, but also your bank balance! P.s. Hendos is Vegan. You’re welcome.
Get in touch!
Tea Society Fatima Sheriff
Tea Society was the first society I joined. Particularly introverted in my first year, I didn’t even attempt any Give it A Go sessions -terrible Fresher practice, I know. But in my spring semester, I brought a friend along to Tuesday Tea Soc, and another, and before I knew it, this rag-tag bunch of loose leaf lovers had my heart. When I heard on the day of the AGM that the position of Biscuit Officer (yes, a HEAR accredited role) was available, I jumped at the opportunity. For someone unseasoned in public speaking, I felt surprisingly comfortable giving an impassioned speech about Richard Osman’s Twitter biscuit World Cup, my Food Tech GCSE and my weakness for bourbons. After a dramatic debate as to the
classification of Jaffa Cakes as cakes, I won over the other candidate and have been providing biscuits ever since. (Aside here for musical theatre fans: the existence of Tea Society, its Biscuit Officer and my speech have been approved by Hamilton legend Lin-Manuel Miranda on Twitter.) But, what is the University of Sheffield Tea Society? We meet every Tuesday, 5-7pm on level 3 of the SU. From our treasure trove (locker) we select four teas: at least a black, a green and a caffeine free / herbal. We set up our teapots, I bring biscuits, and people bring their mugs to try new flavours and chat. Like most long-term members, I have been on a taste-testing journey for the bargain price of £3 a year. Personally, I discovered a penchant for Harrod’s Summer Fruits and T2’s Strawberries and Cream, but each to their own.
Yes, that’s it, we may possibly be one of the most relaxing societies within the university’s impressive repertoire of over 370. There’s no pressure to attend every week or for the full two hours, but many feel comfortable to do so. Though currently we have a disproportionate number of Arabs, physicists, biomeds and mountaineers (apparently the most passionate demographics who bring friends) our members are across the international and academic spectrum – who doesn’t love a cuppa? Tip for people like me who don’t drink alcohol: praising or complaining about your brew is a brilliant icebreaker, and for international students, an excellent introduction to the sacred role of tea in British society. So, if you’re around uni on a Tuesday, come say hi, we are a friendly bunch.
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20
Break Break Editor Robin Wilde I hope you all had a good Reading Week. In celebration, here are some facts about Reading: Reading is Berkshire’s largest settlement, with a population of more than 300,000 people. Despite this, it has failed on three occasions to obtain city status, making it Britain’s fourth largest town. So they can at least celebrate beating those smug bastards in Southend. Residents of Reading are referred to as Redingensians, presumably by the same people who insist loudly in the pub that it’s a railway station, not a train station. Some famous Redingensiantonianites include author Jane Austen, Paddington creator Michael Bond, former Labour leader Michael Foot, and Dick Poole, owner of the world’s most amusing name. The University of Reading is based in the town at the Whiteknights Campus, where students are trained to defend women in arguments on the internet. Be honest with us - you didn’t use your Reading Week to do any reading at all, did you?
Easy
Hard
“If you must Break the law, do it to seize power; in all other cases observe it.” Julius Caesar
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Relatable Content Corner
21
Badvertising
Targeted content isn’t just for turning your granddad into an extremist on Putin’s orders - it’s also used to sell crap at your face. Our corporate overlords have placed these here based on the latest data about what students really want.
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22
What’s on
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15 Nov - 28 Nov
Editing Workshop
Other Highlights:
Film Unit: Tully
Sunday 18 November 1pm - 4pm Diamond Computer Room 2 £5.50/£3.30 (Res Life)
Forge Press EGM 15 November, 6pm Location TBC
Sunday 18 November 3:30pm and 7:30pm Nelson Mandela Auditorium
This workshop will teach you the basics of video editing, perfect for any budding filmmakers or YouTubers out there. Don’t forget to smash that like button etc.
Tully is the latest collaboration between director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody, best known for the superb comedy-drama Juno. The film follows Marlo (Charlize Theron), a woman struggling to keep up with the demands of her three children. Enter Tully: a nanny hired to split the workload, who Marlo forms a special bond with.
ESCAPE THE CITY FOR A DAY
£3.30
Chase & Status: RTRN II Jungle 16 November, 11pm - 4am Foundry Sold Out Veg Out at Peddler 17 November, 12noon - 11pm 92 Burton Road Free Entry Teaching English as a Foreign Language 20 November, 4pm - 7pm ELTC - 78 Hoyle Street £5.50/£3.30 (Res Life) CR Events: Low Waste Living 2 20 November, 7pm - 9pm Coffee Revolution £5.50 TTC x Le Freak: Horse Meat Disco & Fleetmac Wood 20 November, 11pm - 3:30am Foundry £13.20 (second release) Yellow Arch Cafe Sessions #9 21 November, 6pm - late Yellow Arch Studios Free Entry
Credit: David Wilson Clarke
Stonehenge and Bath
CR Events: Knit and Natter 27 November, 7pm - 9pm Coffee Revolution £5.50
Saturday 24 November 7am - 6pm Glossop Road outside Bar One £55/£49.50 (Res Life) These trips from the Give it a Go team should offer a nice escape from the deadlines looming eerily over the horizon. The Stonehenge and Bath trip has a fairly hefty price tag, but includes coach travel and entry to the historic monument...
Newcastle and the Angel of the North
Credit: Freesally
Reclaim the Night 2018 Saturday 24 November 6:30pm-9pm Sheffield Cathedral
The annual Reclaim the Night march, organised by the SU Women’s Officer Mayeda Tayyab, is a safe space for women to stand against rape and male violence. The march starts at Sheffield Cathedral followed by a rally at Coffee Revolution.
Sunday 25 November 8:30am - 5pm Glossop Road outside Bar One £24.20/£18.70 (Res Life) ...while the Newcastle trip gives you the chance to see a fantastic northern city, not to mention one of the most iconic structures in the country: The Angel of the North.
Hailey .M T shuma National Union of Students exp: 09/09/19
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24
Arts Arts Editors Charly Hurrell Sophie Maxwell
Hopefully for the most of you, the first wave of assessments have come and gone and with the tinge of your halloween makeup still in your hairline; it can be hard to keep your enthusiasm for the coming months of vitamin D shy days at a high. But, do not despair as these days of cold, red noses means an armchair and a good a book can only get more appealing. If you’re running low on literature, pop into a charity shop and grab a novel for less than a few pounds. EnableUS is just beginning on our down-theroad theatre that is the Drama Studio, so don’t be worried you might miss out on your theatre fix if you’re trying to avoid windbitten cheeks. But if you’re feeling a little more energised after a hot cup of tea then check out these picks that’ll brighten any 4pm sunset on a cold autumn’s day.
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We want your poetry! Here at Arts, we know you’re all a brainy, creative bunch with rhythms and stanzas flowing out your ears, and we want to showcase those yummy juices. Our university is bursting with inventive lyrics and haikus, so why not make an ode to
A showcase of student creative writing
Poem of the paper: Sculpture by Emily Evans
with your favourite iambs, if you’re feeling like a rhythm maestro.
STORY The Freeman Diary: Chapter Four Ryan Smith
help me find a way out
Curves and ridges
Monster, SUTco’s new performance is opening on 14th November, another brilliantly written play by James Huxtable, but this time we’re going a little darker and deeper. Still craving some halloween shivers down your spine? Grab your tickets for this one online at sutco.org/ tickets.
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trochaics, or even a pyrrhic
your favourite few lines and get them out in the open. If you’re feeling a little shy, we won’t emblazon your name across our beautifully crafted The Bookshelf, you are more than welcome to submit anonymously!
Bookshelf
Editors’ Picks
Monster
Send us an email at
The
I stand behind and see
The Cellar Theatre, one of the new kids on the Sheffield venue block, is hidden tidily below DINA. Opening their exhibition space with help me find a way out, a flick through a hand drawn selfguide on dealing with trauma. It’s being exhibited for the first time, and not for the last I imagine…
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The edges of your sculpture Dimensions and more Our eyes don’t lock Nor does your head even turn But thoughts left alone to wonder Whispers infinitely more Simplicity is beauty Technicalities shall lie In the depths of their darkness Whilst your freckles grow more Rays that pierce storm clouds Float over houses of joy Our house of joy That our sculptures will share
Inspired by the Romantics expression of weather on these cold breezy days? Get in touch with press.arts@forgetoday.com to get involved!
‘You are thinking correctly. They haven’t been producing for years and agreeing that takeover would be a very bad idea indeed. You will work out who we are sooner or later, but that is not a concern for now. All you need to do now is stay quiet. Keep yessing them. Practise your poker face. Enjoy your family and remember when I say this – you’re not alone.’ The line went dead, leaving me with the phone in my hand and a thousand questions. I couldn’t place the voice. You get used to certain voice types. You know when someone tries to flog you something – their voice becomes a shade or two higher, almost like talking to a child. Reverse that for someone calling in sick. I was left guessing the wind. The Co-Line Transexpress was never fully commissioned in the end. A few million pounds wasted in bids and summaries, nothing too major. That’s business, folks. I tried piecing the phone call together. How did they know I didn’t agree on the takeover?
What did they mean by not being alone? The more I thought about dissecting the conversation, the more the thought of a joker in the office got to me. I kept my eyes on people for days, listening for any voice that sounded similar to that call. Nothing. Whoever it was knew what they were doing. Oxley Square sat in the middle of Section Six. Right after they decided to change the layout of the city, their next idea was to attach all buildings over a certain height to a new name. ‘Tower Block’ sounds as attractive as a battleship looks. The plan was to make everything far simpler, a ‘smoothrunning State for all’. I put the original letter in a larger envelope. If it fell as I walked, or I really were set up for a joke, how would I look with a document like that on my person? I’d be in a prison cell faster than you could say ‘conspiracy’. If anybody else found a letter like that. Plus the sensor tagged seal… The story continues in our next issue out on 28 November.
25
Arts
THEATRE Close Quarters
at Studio Theatre Harry Cottle
Close Quarters is a new play from Kate Bowen which follows three female soldiers stationed in Estonia. The soldiers face discrimination from their male counterparts and must deal with the pressure of being the first generation of female infantry soldiers to serve in the British Armed Forces. Shortly before the play began, the original actor playing Private Sarah Findlay, the lead, was forced to drop out. Therefore, Adiza Shardow was forced to step into the role in the last minute and had to use a script in certain scenes due to the time constraints. Whilst this was slightly distracting at first, I was soon too captivated by the performances to let it hinder my enjoyment. But it’s Chloe-Ann Tylor as Private Alison Cormack that steals the show.
Her performance as the soldier who faces constant harassment due to a former relationship with a male member of the squad was incredibly convincing. And her relationship with childhood friend Private Findlay becomes more and more fractured following an incident on a mission. The core cast is limited and the staging was compact but this intimacy helped to immerse me in the setting and helped to empathise with the characters. However the plays bigger set-pieces didn’t land as well for me due to the staging. Bowen’s dialogue is sharp, funny and at times cutting. My favourite moments were the quieter ones; the three women and their male squaddie exchanging banter after a difficult day, a conversation between Findlay and her captain, an argument between friends. I also wasn’t convinced by the opening
and closing monologues of the play. These are exposition-heavy sections which feel clunky when compared to the slick dialogue in the rest of the show.
Image: Sheffield Theatres
THEATRE The Netherlands at Theatre Deli
James Doran
Theatre is increasingly aiming to bring about discourse on difficult topics and The Netherlands is a production which manages to do this in a considered yet touching way. First created nearly 8 years ago by Iain Bloomfield and Lucy Hind, The Netherlands tackles the heartwrenching subject of raising a child with a disability and the additional challenges this brings to the already unenviable task of parenting, plus the strains this can put on marital relations. The use of immersive sound and dizzying lights before a distinct word is said as a premonition for the anxiety-inducing tales the viewer is to encounter in this Two Tonne Theatre’s production. The piece lends itself to the intimate atmosphere of Theatre Deli, as the two parents recount the ordeals of
parenthood, often flitting back and forth in time and progress; we hear the joys of seeing your child flourish contrasted with the damning cruelty of hospital visits and bullying at school. The piece follows the premise of a couple that plan to move to Italy after years of meticulous planning, only for their fantasy to go awry as they eventually find themselves in The Netherlands; a far cry from their hopes of Tuscan olive groves, warm climes and Mediterranean cuisine. However this geographical mix-up is perhaps only a metaphor for the turbulent, unexpected terms of parenthood that the couple encounter. Throughout the play, the two parents engage in short monologues, often referring to one another but never recognising the existence of the other on stage; occasionally culminating with one parent embracing the other through sheer exhaustion and
empathy. A particularly powerful scene was one in which the usual long outpourings from the parents of Sian gradually deteriorate into a jarring, snapping back and forth between the two parents. The mother lists Sian’s hobbies and endearing habits whilst the father reels off a list of the horrendous physical and psychological effects of their daughter’s genetic condition like the webMD. This disparity in outlooks between the two parents becomes clearer as the story progresses, and their relationship breaks down concluding with the father being hospitalised with psychosis. The subject of mental health is another key theme with hints that alcohol becomes a crutch for the desperate father. A strong performance from the two-member cast combined with the powerful subject matter delivers a production of great value, not only artistically but also of note socially. At the end of the performance Iain Bloomfield expressed his desire to bring about a discussion to break stigma on parenting and disability,
hoping to allow audiences to shape the future of the production through open discourse and constructive criticism of the piece.
First created eight years ago, The
Netherlands
has been
reworked and updated after extensive
conversations, tea and cake, with parents across the North of
England.
The Netherlands was created by Mind the Gap - Britain’s largest learning-disabled theatre company
26
Arts
Enable US Festival returns to Sheffield Sophie Maxwell
Enable US Festival has returned to the University of Sheffield Drama Studio this month, delivering an extensive lineup of new professional theatre that explores everything from haunted moustaches to the healing power of art. The festival boasts 11 new shows that have toured up and down the country as well as a performance workshop, all of which is crammed into just two weeks. As the second week approaches, the line-up is only getting better. On 27th November Intronauts, a sci-fi inspired show on the futuristic consequences of miniaturized human cleaners injected into people’s bodies to undertake essential maintenance works, promises to ‘really get under the skin’ of the audience. The finale show on 1st-2nd December, Painters of Light and Shadow, is not one to miss either. With a community cast, the Worker’s Educational Association (WEA) present the unique, inspirational story of severely disabled Sheffield servicemen injured in WWI and their love for fabric painting. It promises to ‘move, enlighten and entertain you’, whilst also educating you on local historic tales. The festival, produced by the University’s Performance Venues team, is affordable and accessible to students. The free after show Q&A sessions with the performers advocate discussion surrounding the themes of each show throughout the festival.
Why not check out the impressive line-up and beat those winter blues? Enable US continues until Sunday 2 December. A full list of events can be found on Enable US website.
The Haunted Moustache by Dr David Bramwell
Kate Procter
Not many people can say they have inherited a moustache. Maybe old furniture, perhaps jewellery, quite probably money – but a moustache? No. However, when David Bramwell’s great Aunt Sylvia dies that’s exactly what he’s left. So, what does one do with a 100year old moustache? Well, in The Haunted Moustache, Bramwell charts his weird and wonderful journey to discover the story behind the tash’s elusive former owner, Ambrose Oddfellow. He takes us on his journey from
Coventry Polytechnic to Woodhall Spa (a small village in the depths of Lincolnshire), with its stilloperating ‘Kinema in the Woods’, before finally to Brighton – where he went for a day and never left- as you do. There he explores its seedy underbelly – spiritual churches, séances and an underground club, The Zinc Bar, where he unwittingly becomes the host of a modern-day freak show. Believing the heirloom is possessed, Bramwell joins a cottage-squatting cult, with whom he dabbles in telepathy-inducing psychedelics. The most dramatic episode of which leads him to
Drako Zarhazar – a man who can remember modelling for Salvador Dali and hanging out with The Stones but not the day before. The show’s second half was devoted to Bramwell’s theory of what magic is. Where traditional notions bind magic up in a material culture of voodoo dolls and hagstones, he suggests that magic is the intentional use of language to manipulate conscience. Nations, human rights and money – all examples of modern magic, or “inter-subjective reality” as termed by Yuval Noah Harari in his best seller Sapiens: A Brief History
of Humankind. That is, shared fictions that exist solely in collective imagination to allow strangers to cooperate and dominate both the objective and subjective worlds. He discusses the intersection of science in superstition. That contrary to rational notions, studies have shown that the mind is capable of healing in ways we still don’t fully understand. Charming till the end – Bramwell holds his audience’s’ attention in his one-man show of heritage and curiosity, as he explores the life of Oddfellow and ideas of what magic is throughout society.
Contributor Kate Procter attended a couple of shows in the first week of the festival. She summarises her experiences with shows so far.
I Used to Hear Footsteps
by Jack Britton Kate Procter
“Do you believe in ghosts?” asks Jack Britton, as he begins his oneman performance: an investigation into his haunted Nottinghamshire childhood home. Dressed in a lecturer’s jacket and armed with a chalkboard, Britton searches for an explanation behind the strange noises and activities the house’s inhabitants have experienced. Footsteps, rocking mugs, moving toys – none too threatening but, nonetheless, mysterious. Part lecture, part story - this is not your typical ghost-telling. Britton - inspired by documentarystyle podcasts like Serial and This American Life as revealed in a Q&A session after the performance plays aloud his recorded interviews. Voices echo around the audience in the intimate, church-converted theatre.
In keeping with his lecture style, he employs an overhead projector to present his evidence. On his chalkboard he organises his findings into columns - who and what, but also why? Possible scientific explanations for paranormal activity include: apophenia (the tendency humans have to perceive patterns in meaningless data); carbon monoxide poisoning, and infrasound. However, this clinical gathering of evidence, whilst interesting, removes much of the fear and intrigue. A self-confessed “sci-fi nerd”, Britton seems more interested in focusing on the theme of time. “The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once” - a quote commonly attributed to Einstein - is the first reference point in the show. In one of the few fictionalised aspects, Britton casts the original owner, Harry, as having built the house within a time rift, through which he subsequently
haunts the inhabitants. A sub-plot emerges as Britton reveals a pattern he has discovered: that all the couples who live in the house separate, including his own parents. The mysterious house and his preparation for the show itself become the grounds on which he reconnects with his father. However, this theme of family was disappointingly not explored further. Britton hints at the unnerving events experienced
as acting as a potential motif for familial break up. The performance would have been more impactful had he embraced his emotional vulnerability - like that exhibited in the audio documentaries by which he was inspired. Despite his earnest storytelling, the performance loses momentum as the show’s purpose is lost. Whilst containing some nice ideas, the eerie ambience created at the start fails to be maintained.
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28
Music
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Interview
Music Editors Harriet Evans Ben Kempton
Husky Loops
This issue we’ve got loads of great interviews to get stuck into with Husky Loops, The Manor and Tom Grennan as well as a review of the sold-out event SHD presents: Mumdance at The Harley. Happy reading!
Matt Boland
Editors’ Picks
Harriet: RTRN II JUNGLE Spotify playlist To celebrate one of my all time favourite artists, Chase & Status, coming to Sheffield this week I had to choose one of their own playlists as my pick this issue. As a massive fan of jungle, this playlist brings together some huge tracks from the genre from legends Top Cat, Shy FX, Congo Natty and Andy C, just to name a few. If you were lucky enough to get a ticket for Friday, see you there.
Ben: ‘Hacienda’ The Manor After interviewing these guys and having the pleasure to go to their sick event at The Deaf Insitute in Manchester, I think it’s only fair to put them as my Editor’s Pick this week. ‘Hacienda’ is my favoruite song from the album because of how well it’s produced and how amusing the lyrics are - just the lads out in Manchester getting fucked! “Caj from the doorman I’m in, now I can relax and let my jaw swing.”
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Husky Loops play the kind of gig you feel in your chest. Playing at Sheffield’s intimate Record Junkee, I got a chance to speak to the threepiece band as they celebrated the release of their latest EP, Spool, in an impressive style. For a relatively new act, lately they’ve been churning out great music like it’s going out of fashion. The new EP doesn’t buck this trend – a striking mix of ecstatic pop vibes with ‘20 Blanks’ and heavy, powerful sounds with ‘Good As Gold’. A tonally surprising EP with their two most recent singles, it combines touches of Beck and Kasabian with a rollercoaster of energy levels and emotions. “We kinda wanted something you digest more as ‘okay, it’s an actual EP’, because we actually feel like if we put our first two Eps together, we have a first album”, says frontman Danio Forni about what they wanted to do with Spool. The group’s talent is apparent in their popularity – they’re accelerating through the music scene, helped by supporting the likes of Placebo and the Kills, as well as even having ‘Every Time I Run’ featured on the new Fifa 19 soundtrack. “It’s really happening, I’m really glad it’s there – it really fits”, But it’s not all popularity and praise, as Danio details, “There was one guy who hated [the song] so much – it was the best comment of all time – ‘Oh my god, this is so annoying I had to uninstall the song’, and I thought ‘it’s so weird, but it’s a great way to listen to music’”. With such a varied discography, everyone has a different reaction to their music, but this isn’t really a consideration during their songwriting process. “I don’t think too much about what the reaction to a song is gonna be – that’s what we do live. In fact, live shows in the end shape songs”, says Danio. The guitarist takes an artistically pure outlook on making music, “For me it’s quite personal, I just wanna do what I think is right to do.I believe
Photo by Peter Moylan
you’re really gonna enjoy our songs, or hate them, which is a form of enjoyment if you’re really honest with it”. The band are unwavering in their drive for originality and creativity, flouncing expectations and refusing to be predictable. Conforming to a specific genre or committing to a certain direction can restrict your ability to make whatever you want, and Forni is acutely aware of this. “ I wanted to do something that felt like me. Like, I am unique, you are unique, and if you’re really honest with yourself, you won’t be pigeonholed”.
The band are unwavering in their drive for originality and creativity, flouncing expectations and refusing to be predictable
All hailing from Bologna, Italy, Husky Loops are now based in London, but they have played their fair share of gigs in Europe. “In Europe there’s this general thing of being really interested in bands coming from England”, says Tomasso. “The UK doesn’t understand what a privileged position it’s in”, adds Pietro, “because of the myth of British music, all European countries are waiting for that scene to come, so as soon as you’re a ‘London band’, it’s a huge thing”. The trio are committed to their sound and keeping their music honest and pure. Already they’ve begun to define their own space in the market, exploring and experimenting, so I was curious as to what they had planned next. Danio gives me a very succinct answer “I have no fucking clue”. But he smiles and elaborates “and I think that’s great, because the best things come from chaos”. Nodding, Pietro rounds off, “In the next month we’re just gonna lock ourselves in a studio, and if we manage not to kill each other, something amazing will come out”.
On stage, Husky Loops play a visceral set. They tended to only take a few breaks, sewing their songs together with impressive ease. They were fairly taciturn when up there, but they more than made up for that. Musically, they were difficult to predict, even more surprising than they were already. It was a gig that immersed you in the sound, keeping you constantly engaged. To close, they finished their huge crescendo with a few minutes of high-tempo freestyle – with Danio and Pietro on the sampler. Their talent is blindingly obvious, even in the relative dark they submerged their stage in. With only a projector and minimal lighting, the overall effect focused the attention onto the music, very much in line with the band’s ethos. Accenting each song with a small slideshow or design gave a little insight into the meaning for their music. Husky Loops are making waves that are only set to bigger. If you want surprising and entertaining with quality music, this is the band for you.
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Music REVIEW
SHD Presents: Mumdance The Harley Charlie Holliday
“Pure, utter, unadulterated madness” is what this night could only be described as by one third of SHD, Chris James. If you haven’t heard of SHD get to know the name because they are making moves in the Sheffield electronic music scene. Following up their successful SHD Student Kitchen event t last at DINA and a string of nights at Crofters Rights in Bristol, SHD have pulled out all the stops to bring together “Mumdance”. An evening with a whole host of DJ’s, guaranteed to put on a spectacular night with not just amazing music but also jaw dropping visuals.
Unlike “Student Kitchen”, this event sees a venue change to the Harley, providing that same intimate DIY vibe as their previous events. Opening act ‘Gremm’ was great, kicking off the night off at full force. SHD’s own Edward Malus stepped it up a notch, showcasing his impressive skills behind the decks. This was intertwined with the visuals provided by VJXYZ which ranged from atmospheric shapes and patterns to ‘Don’t hug me I’m Scared’ characters,capturing the mood of each song perfectly. However, Mumdance was truly the star of the show, Chris remarked why Mumdance is one of a kind, “you never know what he is going to play. It could be grime, hardcore, jungle,
techno, or even house. It could be all sorts of stuff”, and tonight was no exception. He started out with some techno bangers which got the crowd moving to the hypnotic rhythm. By the end of the set the style had transformed into a much heavier sound with a hardcore and hardstyle beat, combined with the showstopping,bright visuals. If you have not been to an SHD event, make sure you get down to one and get used to hearing their name. SHD provide a one of a kind experience that should not be slept on, as Chris put it himself, , “solid music, solid tunes and a solid party” and this is always guaranteed at their events.
Picture by SHD
INTERVIEW
Tom Grennan Niall O’Callaghan
Swaggering through the Academy dressed head to toe in an oversize black tracksuit with his hood up, Tom Grennan is a man who is capable of exuding coolness in a way that only rock stars are gifted with. Worried about his voice we’re asked to keep it succinct, but who can blame him? Sheffield was his 12th date out of 15 on his biggest tour yet, which has
Photo by Tom Grennan
completely sold out. Although the tour so far “has been fun” and he says “I feel like I’ve been on tour for years” he’s still hungry for more. Speaking about his Brixton Academy show which sold out back in March, he said “Brixton was kind of like an eye opener, with how quickly things have got big, but then I kind of want bigger”. His top five debut album Lighting Matches was released in July, “I think it was the best-selling male record of the year, so I’m happy mate”. For most artists, releasing an album means a lengthy period of touring before getting back in the studio, but Grennan wants to get back in the studio as soon as he can. “I’m actually going to go away and write another album” he says. “I’m not going away for too long, I think if you go away people move on. Things move very quickly now. I’m going to release new music maybe in January. As soon as I finish this tour I’m going to get straight in, my head feels colourful enough now”. Moving on to his past experiences of Sheffield, he says “I love Sheffield man, I used to come when my mates went to uni here. As a city I think it’s fucking cool, one of the coolest. And just the people are really really nice and the love for music up here is just
incredible as well.” His show was attended by the whole of veteran Sheffield band Reverend and the Makers. The Rev, Jon McClure, put Grennan as the headliner of his stage at Tramlines in the summer. Talking of festivals, he says his highlight of his very busy summer was playing Reading and Leeds. “It was like a dream to play Reading. It was the festival I used to go to as a teenager, so it was mad going back there and headlining the Festival Republic stage. It was nice and it was good, but it made me ambitious to headline the whole fucking festival.” Grennan had switched on his showman persona by the time the gig rolled around, running on stage to album closer ‘Sweet Hallelujah’. Gone was the black tracksuit and muted voice, the stage and the crowd was most certainly his for the evening. You could hear a pin drop in the Academy as he hushed the crowd down for ‘Lucky Ones’ before closing the set with ‘Sober’, with Grennan dancing round the stage in an ironically unsober fashion. It’s a promising time for Grennan, with the promise of new music in January, the only way for this 23-year-old lad is up.
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INTERVIEW The Manor Ben Kempton
T
he Manor are a Garage/ UK Rap/House threepiece outfit from South London that released their first album ‘Don’t Do What We Did’ in 2015. Manor members Danny Graft and Johnny Dutch sat down to talk to Forge during their UK tour and ahead of their sell out show at The Deaf Institute in Manchester, describing their first tour of the country as “wicked”. Despite releasing their first album in 2015, the group have been together since 2007 after meeting in an unusual way whilst going to Beckenham College. Graft explained, “Johnny was just getting some Haribo at the corner shop – “I was a fat todger” Johnny interrupted - I asked him for some sweets and he said no so we had a bit of a row and then we sorted it out over a rap battle.” As for the third member, “Scotty was a bit of a wrong’un. He sold us a draw in Year 7.” After a sweet and marijuana fuelled introductory to each other at college, the boys went on to university. “We were doing an economics degree and as we were doing that there was the banking crisis
Music so they stopped hiring banking people,” Graft explained, “so we thought, look, we’ve always done rapping for a little bit of a laugh but we can rap our way out of this recession.” The group came together and formed the rap group The Manor. Graft smiled and said, “Now the recession is done and we’re rappers. Everyone's a winner.” With a slightly different and somewhat less inspiring version of events Dutch announced, “We just didn’t want to get real jobs to cut a long story short.” As a collection of young working-class lads, The Manor delve into issues of social injustice and inequality. Dutch explains, “For me it’s like a working man’s club. There are none left in Britain so they have regressed into rap groups. You’re going to talk about all the bollocks of the day, probably your Mrs, someone bringing everyone down.” Graft cuts in with, “Brexit. Fucking Brexit.” Although this is an important part of their lyrics, they also have another side to their music. Their hit song ‘Hacienda’ illustrates this perfectly with the lyrics going ‘Caj for the doorman I’m in, now I can relax and let my jaw swing’… ‘mangled absolutely loving it I’m rushin’ Spadlangled come give us
a cuddle girl I’m buzzin’’. Dutch turns to me with a smile and says, “At the end of the day the whole mission of it is to get fucked.” A huge part of the groups “essence” is their South London origin. “Most of our early stuff was written in building sites in South London and in trucks driving around the South Circular. It is born and bred in South London,” Dutch explained. The capital city provides music inspiration for any genre but it is particularly known, especially recently, for the Grime/UK Hip Hop scene. Dutch touches on his influence saying, “Skinnyman, Black Twang, Rodney P (Dub Pistols). These people were the original UK Hip Hop fore fathers, these were the people that started what we do. Along with the Wiley’s and the Skepta’s and the Kano’s.” The Manor aren’t just a rap group though. They have Garage and House integrated into their music which found itself in the group’s lives before The Manor started. “The thing about us is nostalgia,” Graft explained, “We listened to everything growing up. Before we worked with producers we’d just go on YouTube and find an instrumental to rap over. We started finding instrumentals of garage and then we found garage producers.” Yanaku, The Manor’s producer, worked on tracks such as ‘Don’t Like Going Places’ and ‘Creps in the Rave’ introducing a South London new era garage sound to the groups. “It was a match made in heaven for us. We saw him at a rave and
he liked what we do. We knew a bit about him and I had a song written to one of his SoundCloud instrumentals and so we just got cracking.” Since the pairing between Yanaku and The Manor, they have continued to produce a garage sound that has resulted in them selling out venues around the UK. Before The Manor released their album in 2015 the group released three free mixtapes. “The only reason why we were releasing them for free was because we didn’t know how to sell them,” Graft jokes. “I remember we released ‘Full English’ on Christmas day when I had no money for Christmas presents so I thought to myself ‘this is a liberty, I’ve spent 6 months on this mixtape, we’re releasing it at Christmas and my Nan aint getting a Christmas present.’ But we still released it on SoundCloud and it helped because people had access to it and they enjoyed it so then we could sell it and we ended up going number 2 in the iTunes charts.” As a group starting from nothing Graft believes this was the best way to do it, “You’ve got to start like that, let people get to know you then eventually you make money of it, it’s one of those games.” They eventually got their record deal and the pay cheque it came with it, “First record deal you get, you do spunk it. We did it all in Vegas. I was going to the mini bar battered
and we had the record deal so I deliberately opened bottles and had one sip out of them then put them back. It was $150 for a fucking bottle of Jägermeister! Just throwing parties and spending for the sake of spending.” Dutch said whilst looking into the distance with the memories of a heavy night in his head. Football is a big part of The Manor’s lyrics, with two of them being Arsenal fans and one of them Crystal Palace, they reference both teams throughout their album ‘Don’t Do What We Did’ which can cause a lot of aggravation amongst audiences at shows – you only need to go to a Courteeners gig to experience that. “We’ve never had beef. If you come to The Manor you come to have a good time. I aint having no one turn up and fight but if it does we’ll get in the crowd and have it with them ourselves.” Dutch jokes. The Manor have a new single coming out and “the biggest headline show that we’ve ever done” at The Roundhouse in London on December 15th. “It’s going to be bigger than the X Factor final. Shoot me Simon Cowell.”
Photo by Jack Bridgland
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32
Screen Screen Editors Gethin Morgan Izzy Cridland Bonjour mi amigos. The dust may have settled from Halloween but Screen is as bloody as ever this issue, with a review of the superb Mandy and an on-set diary from a student who found herself as an extra on Slaughterhouse Rulez. Imagine that.
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BIG SCREEN
Mandy
Editors’ Picks Rocky
Gethin Morgan
A cult classic, Rocky is the original underdog movie. Rocky Balboa is a small time amateur boxer and debt collector for a loan shark. The movie follows him as he gets a shot at becoming heavyweight champion. It has an iconic soundtrack and that legendary training montage. However, Rocky is about far more than boxing and the gritty representation of class struggle and touching love story elevates the film to one full of heart and soul. - Izzy
The Big Lebowski
I dressed up as Walter (John Goodman) from The Big Lebowski this Halloween and it just served as a reminder of how much I adore this film. Endlessly quotable, The Dude is one of cinema’s most perfect characters and the dynamic between him, Walter and Donnie is just wonderful. It gets better with every single watch and walks straight into my all time top ten. The Coen brothers at their character-comedy best. But, you know, that’s just like, my opinion, man. - Gethin
After a mysterious religious cult interferes with Red (Nicolas Cage) and Mandy’s (Andrea Riseborough) idyllic, secluded life, Red goes on a bloody rampage to stop the evil force’s monstrosities. Mandy is comfortably one of the craziest, completely unhinged and totally brilliant pieces of cinema to be released this year. From ItalianCanadian director Panos Cosmatos, it begins as a meditative, tranquil portrayal of the simple yet beautiful life shared by its lead characters. Yet there overhangs a sense of inevitable dread as the threat of darkness looms over their quaint forest home.
When that darkness finally strikes, and strike brutally it does, the weirdness is amped up and the film flips into a trippy survivalist rock’n’roll murder marathon. The work done so beautifully in the early scenes is investing enough that when it does turn, it has earned the right to go completely off the rails. What ensues is an extended sequence of violence which goes from shift-in-your-seat creepy to laugh-out-loud funny and ultimately punch-the-air awesome. Whether it’s cocaine fuelled combat or chainsaw duels, the action continues to escalate in a way that each passing scene makes your jaw drop an extra few millimetres. Nic Cage is the only man who
could play Red. He brings genuine weight to romantic scenes with the ever-brilliant Riseborough, but it’s the dramatic descent into wideeyed madness which only he can deliver with such raw commitment and energy. Perhaps the other crucial factor in selling the surreal nature of Mandy is its stunning production. From the opening credits, every single frame has clearly been handled with extremely delicate care. Drenched in a gorgeous neon-red light, every shot is so well framed and the camera moves so effectively, utilising zooms to particularly great effect. With sets designed to a Kubrickian level of meticulousness, the whole experience is sumptuous
on the eye. Most notably however is the extraordinary rock-infused, synth heavy score from the late great Johann Johannsson. The Icelandic composer, who died aged 48 in February, was one of the great musical talents of cinema. It only adds to the tragedy of his early death that this masterpiece will be his final composition to be appreciated on screen. Blending into the film’s incredible soundscape, his score elevates the film onto an ethereal level. Mandy is a wonderful, psychedelic blood fest. Somehow maintaining a serene beauty throughout, it is an unmissable testament to the artistic potential of cinema.
NETFLIX
the TV sitcom. Instead, it’s based on the Archie Comics title of the same name by show creator Robert Aguirre-Sacasa. The comic leans more into horror, but even then, the Netflix series seems to shy away from it. However, Aguirre-Sacasa still keeps the show engaging by avoiding exaggerated storylines, infusing each episode with dark humor. The cinematography, sometimes dizzying due to the focus aspect, is stunning thanks to the gothic aesthetic of the setting. The series is decently paced over the span of 10 episodes. The first half focuses more on plot and character building, so it’s lacking in terms of emotional stakes. But when the second half hits, the real fun begins. The stakes are raised as Sabrina faces bigger obstacles in the form of tragedy and greater evils.
What truly allows the series to shine is the cast. Shipka holds her own as Sabrina, a confident, rebellious teenage witch willing to do anything to protect the ones she loves most. Lucy Davis and Miranda Otto, who star as Aunt Hilda and Aunt Zelda sharply oppose each other. Hilda is the humorous, relaxed aunt and Zelda is the stern, Satan-praising aunt. Most importantly, Michelle Gomez, who plays Ms.Wardwell/Madam Satan, truly captures the antagonistic spirit, pulling Sabrina’s strings from behind the scenes. Gomez plays her in such a devious and likable way, the audience will struggle to not love her character. Overall, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina may not widely appeal to fans of the comic, but for others, the fun 10-episode journey will surely cast a spell on you.
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Adam Phan
The series follows the adventures of half-witch, half-mortal Sabrina Spellman (Kiernan Shipka) who must make a life-changing decision: stay in the comforts of the human life she cultivated and slowly give up her powers or embrace her witch nature and sign away her freedom to the devil. It’s darker in tone compared to Sabrina the Teenage Witch, but that’s because it’s not based on
33
Screen
all images from Movie DB
BIG SCREEN
Bohemian Rhapsody
Josh Teggert
Dissecting the fascinating yet heartbreaking life of Queen’s front man – played astonishingly well by the brilliant Rami Malek – Bohemian Rhapsody looks at the decade-or-so leading up to the band’s breathtaking performance at Live Aid in 1985. Initial concerns for the film concentrated around the idea that the story was to focus more on the other band members. This is not the case with the finished film. What we see is a loose attempt to get close to Freddie, one that always feels distracted. The band’s vexations with Freddie’s exuberant lifestyle
Big Screen The Hate U Give Mate Mohos
The Hate U Give begins with Khalil (Algee Smith) and Starr (Amandla Stenberg) driving home from a party. Sirens are heard and Khalil gets pulled over. As the policeman runs a check on his license, Khalil reaches for his hairbrush in the car. What happens next is not difficult to guess. It then follows Starr as she tries to find her voice in a world that changes around her. People protest against police brutality by marching and confronting the police, while students at her all-white high school protest by skipping class and taking
are shoehorned into the film through changing the time that Queen released material. This is frustratingly silly; there are several ways writers Anthony McCarten and Peter Morgan could have illustrated this, but it seems that the need to represent the bandmates took unnecessary precedence in parts. Yet despite issues with storytelling, Rami Malek singlehandedly elevates Bo Rhap to a level worthy of a Freddie Mercury biopic. He puts on a simply flawless performance as ‘The Great Pretender’, providing us with the “touch of the heavens” that Freddie promised. His co-stars all support him fantastically; Lucy Boynton works selfies. In contrast, TV organisations show black people damaging police cars and the father of the murderous police officer giving a heartfelt statement. This is an example of black creativity that aims to give due representation and to challenge the status quo in Trump’s America. Aside from reflecting the larger context, George Tillman Jr.’s film never loses focus from the core of the story - Starr. She is aided by a cast that includes Regina Hall as Starr’s mother, Common as a conflicted man on the police force and Anthony Mackie as the neighborhood druglord. The film is presented in a way that is consistently resonant, and will provide much needed representation of those facing systemic discrimination. The Hate U Give is an important movie.
well as Freddie’s life-longاfriend Mary Austin. Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy and Joseph Mazzello as Brian, Roger and John respectively provide spot on portrayals of the bandmates. But it is Malek who ties the film together. Every positive emotion the film bestows on the viewer, Malek’s performance implements. Bohemian Rhapsody’s pace is patchy. At one point it’s hurtling through the early years of Queen at a ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ pace, then slows down completely in an effort to try and understand Freddie’s conflicts. Sadly, the points where natural emotions are trying to be conveyed is where the film weakens. And that is a massive disappointment, because
everything else is spectacular. Yes, it’s overcooked, admittedly it over-dramatises certain events in an attempt to provoke a stronger response, but isn’t that what Queen were all about? The fancy lights, the flamboyant displays, organised chaos left, right and centre; it is what it is, and what it is, is Queen. It isn’t as emotionally stimulating as the 2016 documentary The Freddie Mercury Story: Who Wants to Live Forever?, but that’s not to say it doesn’t pack a punch as powerful as Freddie’s iconic stance. An extraordinary story indeed, but told only adequately; Bohemian Rhapsody is ultimately a muddled yet magnificent showcase.
Big Screen Peterloo Aaron James
Mike Leigh’s Peterloo combines his credentials in kitchen-sink realism with an epic production value to humanise the ordinary lives lost during Peterloo. The film begins with Nellie’s (Maxine Peake) son returning from Waterloo. Following his service abroad, Joseph (David Moorst) has PTSD but has been inspired by Napoleon’s ideas and believes similar progress can be achieved at home. Manchester’s local newspaper and left-wing offices therefore invite middle-class socialist Henry Hunt to orate at the ill-fated event, which will become known as ‘Peterloo’. The film is a panoramic canvas of Manchester as it focuses on various communities in anticipation of the event. Despite the modest kitchensink perspective, Peterloo’s style is visually impressive. The film consists of dark, elongated still frames, which almost resemble moving paintings from the period, emphasising Leigh’s intention to humanise the historical figures. The costume and set design meanwhile will surely be in line for Academy nominations later in the year. When the Peterloo massacre finally does arrive, Leigh does not attempt to provide a sanitised view or protect the audience from the bloodshed. The spectator is positioned with Nellie’s family in the crowd as the director uses a handheld camera to glide above the protesters. The actual battle is brief but gruesome as the audience is candidly shown fatal stabbings and bayonets gouging eyes. Nellie’s offering of bread to a family from Wigan poignantly reminds us that most of the victims were ordinary, apolitical working-class people. An epic Dickensian critique of the event on its bicentennial, in the context of our contemporary government, the promotional material suggests Peterloo will be a twee heritage feature. But Leigh uses his kitchen-sink credentials to personalise the subject and the ordinary Mancunian lives lost, which only makes the event itself feel more tragic when it arrives.
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Screen
Emily Finan tells the tale of her experience on set of the new horror comedy
B
eing asked to be an extra for Slaughterhouse Rulez was the most surreal experience of my life. The film is a horrorcomedy set in an elitist publicschool called Slaughterhouse, directed by Crispian Mills and is the debut feature from Stolen Pictures – the production company founded by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. Due to my connections in the Air Cadet Organisation, I was asked to appear as a member of the cadet force of the fictional Slaughterhouse during a scene where the main characters are hunted down by the sadistic leader of the cadet force and his henchmen. We were driven down to Buckinghamshire and stayed the night in a hotel before going on set bright and early the next morning. We hung around in our personal trailer for a few hours, grazing on free food provided by the caterers, before being driven to the main set of filming for that day. For me, the strangest moment
Review Emily Finan
Slaughterhouse Rulez is the debut feature from Stolen Pictures, a production company founded by longtime comedy partners Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. Don Wallace (Finn Cole) enters the world of Slaughterhouse, an elitist boarding school that harbours
of the day was sitting in the makeup trailer with Asa Butterfield, making polite conversation. I had seen and loved him in the classic and poignant Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, as well as the beloved Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang. Now here he was talking to me. “Aren’t you young!” Asa said, watching as foundation was applied thickly to my face. “Well, I’m eighteen,” I replied quickly. “Not that young.” He laughed, “No. That’s very young.” Everyone in the trailer looked at me as if I was very naive and so, clearly out of my depth with these stars, I quickly returned to my own trailer and listened to Asa and Finn Cole, star of Peaky Blinders, laughing and blundering about outside. Contrary to popular belief, movie sets are incredibly boring. We spent a lot of time sitting in camping chairs and shivering in thick coats as we watched the real stars being preened and filmed. Surprisingly, they also seemed
bored a lot of the time, passing the time bizarrely, hitting each other with sticks and skimming stones. The other extras and I watched through the minibus windows, wishing we were cool enough to join in on the stick war. In my role, I also had to film a stunt. And I discovered there is nothing more humiliating than being filmed falling backwards, holding a plastic rifle, again and again in front of about 30 people. The next day I was covered in bruises, but when viewing the film myself, I was pleased to see my stunt did make the final cut and my injured dignity was worth it; thousands have paid to see me grimace and fling myself
backwards in slow-motion - not a bad onscreen legacy. Despite being a tad disappointed in the final product, the experience of being on set of Slaughterhouse Rulez
a dark secret. When a nearby fracking accident releases evil forces into the school grounds, Don must fight alongside his new schoolmates, the troubled outcast Willoughby Blake (Asa Butterfield) and school goddess Clemsie Lawrence (Hermione Corfield), for survival. The film is a typical Pegg and Frost horror-comedy, with quick, crude British humour and outlandish gore guaranteed to make you laugh out loud. Director Crispian Mills makes use of
impressive drone shots to exhibit the beautiful Slaughterhouse Hall and its surroundings. However, the camera is rarely still which leads to some very busy scenes. A sequence where the main cast run through tunnels is very uncomfortable and disorientating, with a combination of shaky camera work and flashing lights. The plot is fast-paced and chaotic, with little flow between scenes. There is a lack of character development and weak
chemistry between the main cast, although Butterfield shines as the perturbed Willoughby. If you are a fan of Shaun of the Dead and The World’s End you will find this film entertaining. Even though it’s hard to shed the thought that had Edgar Wright been the man in the director’s chair, like with the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, Slaughterhouse Rulez would be a far more nuanced, intelligent and ultimately enjoyable film. Whilst not a bad piece of work, it will
was like something out of a dream. I will never forget rubbing shoulders with people I had grown up watching on television and I will never ever get bored of saying: “Hey, did you know? I’m in a movie!”
inevitably be compared to earlier, more successful Pegg and Frost features, and Slaughterhouse Rulez is noticeably poorer in quality.
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Games
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Images owned by Blizzard
Games Editors Tom Buckland Luke Baldwin Whether you’re loving being a scoundrel, going for peaceful horse rides, or frantically stroking every dog you come across: Red Redemption 2 is the game of the town the last few weeks. We have provided you with a review of that decorated by some other goodies. Did you miss Blizzcon or Nintendo Direct? Are you asking, like we are, what exactly IS Deltarune? Buckle up cowboys.
Editors’ Picks Ashe the red-eyed cowboy yeehawed her way into our hearts.
Tom - The Banner Saga When I sat down and played The Banner Saga I wasn’t sure what to expect but I was immediately enticed by it’s viking-inspired artstyle and intricately detailed storyline. A game about leading yourself and others through what the world interprets as “the end of the world”, the game is pretty dire. You’ll lose endearing friends and valuable assets on the way, but the story will be worth it.
Luke - Civ 6
I’ve always been a huge fan of the Civilisation series but it’s not without its faults. However the latest iteration seems to have ironed out many of the issues faced by the empire building sim. Overalled systems and graphics perfectly capture the charm and splendor of the series whilst streamlining gameplay. Lack of a decent laptop has stopped me from indulging in Civ 6 until recently, but now that I can I am loving every minute of it. Baba Yetu gang!
What happened at Blizzcon 2018? SUMMARY Alex Bruce
Blizzcon is a unique event within the video games calendar. While most of the big expos such as E3 and Eurogamer feature flashy world reveals of new IPs and hundreds of smaller games, Blizzcon is a much more focused event. It is where Blizzard, the iconic developer behind the four classic, renowned, and popular franchises of Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo and Overwatch come to announce primarily the future of these series and the next Hearthstone expansion. This year was certainly an interesting show. Firstly, Overwatch revealed the next hero to be added to the roster, called Ashe (because no one has ever thought of that name for a character before). She is a gunslinging bandit who looks mechanically much more similar to a traditional FPS character than many of Overwatch’s other heroes. Her most interesting ability is “dynamite”, a projectile which causes increased damage if shot in mid air. It looks very powerful, and may help break the tank/ shield meta which has alienated many in the community. World Of Warcraft showcased a number
of small reveals off what looked like a school project PowerPoint presentation, but there was no real indication of the wider future after the hugely underwhelming “Battle For Azeroth” expansion other than some more information on the “Classic” version arriving in 2019. Hearthstone predictably had a new expansion announced called “Rastakhan”, focusing on trolls and Starcraft II had its finals tournament won by Serral. Destiny 2 was announced to be free to play for the next 2 weeks and for the three people who still play Heroes Of The Storm a new hero called Orphea was announced. However the defining moment of Blizzcon 2018 was the announcement of Diablo Immortal. An attempt to make a mobile Diablo, the dismal story and “gameplay” trailers were met with boos in the arena and a worse like/dislike ratio on Youtube than the infamous Infinite Warfare trailer or even Jake Paul’s “It’s Everyday Bro”. One fan at the event asked in the following Q&A whether this was a late April Fools joke. However, the best announcement of the convention was yet to come: Overwatch’s Lucio is getting his own cereal. They are called “Lucio-Oh’s”. They are yellow and green loops. Incredible.
No one puts Diablo in the corner.
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Image owned by Nintendo
Nintendo Direct: Let’s just say they SMASHed it SUMMARY Arya Damavandy
“With this Nintendo Direct, we’ll have revealed every fighter you can find in the game.” It was these words that foresaw the crushing of so many fans of the highly anticipated Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, set to be released on 7 December 2018. With much dismay, fans will still not be able to play as: Geno, Banjo & Kazooie, Isaac (confirmed assist trophy), or Shadow the Hedgehog (another confirmed assist trophy despite being believed to be one of the most viable Echo Fighter candidates). Instead they are gifted with: Ken from Street Fighter, the Generation 7 Pokemon Incineroar, and Piranha Plant. It was a rude awakening, given the insane hype generated by “Everyone is Here!” and the reveal of long time fan favourites Ridley and King K. Rool joining the brawl. It seemed as if designer Sakurai would give fans anything they wanted, but alas, it
was not to be. Ken is an Echo Fighter of Ryu of course, with a few minor differences. Incineroar’s moves have all the style and swagger to be expected from a pro wrestling heel character, and despite being considered a meme by many a cynic, his inclusion as representation of newest Pokemon generation makes sense. Piranha Plant demonstrated an extremely versatile moveset with ability to attack from a distance and at unique angles; bizarre and creative picks like this have a history of creating a lot of fun in Smash, as seen previously with Wii Fit Trainer and Duck Hunt Duo. The second big reveal is one many have been awaiting due to the hints given in the animated trailers; the inclusion of ‘Spirits’. These will replace standard trophies, and are being made in the spirit of maintaining Smash’s place as the biggest crossover event in video games. Spirits are non-playable characters which are obtained through event-style matches against relevant opponents
Image owned by Toby Fox
Don’t trust these cute faces. Their eyes have seen things.
(for example, ‘Guts Man’ is won through a fight with a giant orange Megaman), which can be equipped to provide boosts to your fighter. Spirits can be leveled up through repeated use in battle and fed snacks. A slew of online improvements have been made, including the ability to set preferred custom rules and search for matches based on criteria. A global ranking system called Global Smash Power provides a separate ranking for every character you use online which allows you to gauge exactly how good you are compared to other
players. Online has been a point of great irritation to Smash fans for years, and through these changes Smash Ultimate may be the game to solve a lot of the previous issues the series has had with online play. Paid DLC, including brand new fighters which will continue to be developed after the game’s initial release, have been confirmed; the first being Piranha Plant, who will be free for a limited time. Finally, in what is perhaps the most important announcement of this direct, a new Adventure mode has been revealed. A true Adventure Mode was sorely missed in Smash
4, so this return to form is sure to have people excited. Legions of Master Hands have captured all the beloved heroes (except Kirby, unsurprisingly) and turned them into evil reflections of themselves to be fought individually across various stages. This will have at least some cutscenes and character interactions, although Sakurai has specified that the mode is “more about fun than story.” It even has a delightful vocal theme, which has been played in the trailer. The mode is called “World of Light” and is shaping up to be an exciting new aspect of the game’s release.
What the heck is Deltarune? IMPRESSIONS Arya Damavandy
This guy just wants to be taken seriously. His parents don’t understand him, okay?
Deltarune, being an anagram of Undertale, is being seen by many as the much anticipated follow up to the sensational 2015 indie game. However, what has been released so far is just a prelude to the full package, which creator Toby Fox has said may take years to finish, or may not be finished ever (the demo itself apparently took a few years to make). For now though, the Internet has a 3 hour demo to go over again and again with a fine toothed comb. The demo begins with a character creator. At the end your creation is “discarded” and you are told “no one can choose who they are in this world”, an interesting prologue to the rest of the experience. When the game properly begins, you’re greeted with the familiar characters carried directly over from Undertale, complete with “goat mom” Toriel and her butterscotch
cinnamon pie, except in a more suburban setting. Undyne is now a police officer, Alphys a school teacher, and the world is a grassy neighbourhood rather than being underground. However, Fox has stated that there is no continuity between the two games, and that all the characters in Deltarune have lived different lives to those of Undertale. The central adventure begins when your character and the school bully enter the supply cupboard, which is a Narnia-style portal to a world not unlike the underground of Undertale. From here, the bigger differences in the core gameplay become apparent; battles now take place in a party of at least two, allowing you to sequence the actions of different party members together in one turn, making the system much more similar to a traditional JRPG. Controlling multiple characters also means that the charming NPCs you come across will cue reactions from your party members, yet your protagonist still
remains silent. The game itself is a joy to play. In many ways it’s just more Undertale, more fun little one off characters to come across, more light overworld puzzles to solve, more unconventional battles and so on. And of course, the music is gorgeous. In particular, ‘Rude Buster’ and ‘Field of Hopes and Dreams’ stand out as aural gourmet. An article like this can only scratch the surface of what there is to discover in this limited release of what could be a massive game. I advise you to play the game yourself; especially if you are already a huge fan of Undertale. There are tons of little references and parallels to discover.
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Games
Angelo Irving
The idea of Rockstar creating a subversive game is nothing new. The GTA series is an astute critique of consumer culture, Michael Di Santa’s empty life and emotional detachment despite his wealth serving as a modern-day morality tale. It is impossible to talk about Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2), Rockstar’s latest gaming behemoth, without looking back to its last one, GTA5. GTA5 plays fast, allowing the player to skip long journeys and upgrade to increasingly fast cars. The speed of GTA5 makes everything within the world feel disposable. It is tough to feel emotionally attached to a world that flies by you. RDR2 is, if possible, even more subversive. As has become customary, the early missions serve as an introduction to the game’s controls. You play as Arthur Morgan, a member of the Van Der Linde gang, a group of outlaws that are on the run after a heist gone wrong. For a world that turns out to be massive, it is impressive how claustrophobic the opening of the game is, the darkness and snow immediately immersing the player in the mountains. Red Dead Redemption
(RDR) was a nearly perfect game, achieving widespread critical acclaim, so it should come as no surprise that RDR2 makes tweaks instead of wholesale changes. As in RDR, the player quickly learns how to ride a horse, make camp and shoot. The controls are familiar but feel more intuitive than ever. A good example of this is Dead Eye, which has returned with a small but valuable tweak. The addition of a critical hit area on a target is exceedingly valuable, especially if you go hunting some of the bigger game. Horses play a more important role in this game as well. The more you bond with your horse, the better and quicker it rides. This means spending time feeding it, brushing it and reassuring it. If your horse dies (absolutely crushing when it happens hours
into playing the game) there’s no bringing it back. In this game, your actions have consequences. If you return to an area where you have killed an animal, you might find vultures picking at the remains. The honour system is more consequential in this game too. Rob a store and the next time you go in, the store owner will remember you and tell you exactly what the town thinks of you. Play it straight and you will get discounts. These tweaks make your actions feel more consequential than any other Rockstar game before it. One thing that is noticeably different from RDR is the pace. RDR2 is a slow game. However, that l a c k of speed
is deliberate. It forces you to look at the world around you, and what a world it is. This is a game that demands to be watched, no, appreciated. It is easy to lose hours of your day immersing yourself in the mountains, rivers and newly formed villages of this vast world. Even small things that can be passed over in other games, like looting, take time. Whilst it can be annoying, that’s the point. 1899 is a time before Pegassi’s and Nagasaki’s and so travel should feel and be longer. Morgan must do everyday things like shave, eat, change his clothes and contribute money and goods to the community (a pleasingly diverse community it has to be said). Taking the time to do these allows you to appreciate the level of detail that has gone into making this game. It isn’t just the gameplay t h a t
leaves the player searching for superlatives. This game sounds like the Old West. Whether it is sound of the animals in nature (wait until the first time you hear a bear: if you have surround sound, I guarantee you will jump), the satisfying squelch when you traipse across mud or the score which unobtrusively rises and falls in volume in perfect synch with the game’s events, this is a game that sonically envelops the player. But it isn’t its speed, gameplay or sound that makes it subversive. There is a romanticism that belies the truth of nation building. RDR2’s greatest subversion is to present an America that links criminality with success. An America that is what it is because of, not in spite of, Morgan and Van Der Linde’s visions for community, for good and ill. You can argue that art imitates life a little too accurately when you consider the plight of the Chinese immigrants in the game, forced to build the railroad, in the context of Rockstar developers working 100-hour weeks in the lead up to the release of the game. In a world in which consumers have become ever more disconnected from the things they consume, RDR2 not only bridges the gap, but forces us to consider the consequences of our actions. That it manages to do so, whilst allowing you to sit indoors playing a game, is truly astounding.
Images owned by Rockstar
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Science & Tech Science & Tech Editors Jade Le Marquand Aidan Hughes After a truly terrifying issue a fortnight ago, this week we have some of the hottest new tech announced during October from Silicon Valley and beyond. In addition, we also have a thoughtprovoking article on plastic pollution both in the oceans worldwide and closer to home in the River Don.
‘Techtober’ round-up In the past month or so we have seen more tech announcements and keynote events than there are pixels on the iPhone XR’s display. Pretty much all of the tech companies have stepped into the ring this Autumn including Apple, Google, OnePlus, Huawei, Microsoft, LG and Razer amongst others - all in time to cash in for Black Friday and Chrimstmas. Here are a few of the biggest and best tech release from the past month - your very own ‘Techtober’ round-up.
Aidan’s Pick The Infinite Monkey Cage: Are we living in a simulation?
BBC Radio 4’s award winning radio show and podcast The Inifinite Monkey Cage is hosted by Prof Brian Cox and comedian Robin Ince. In series 16 episode 5, Brian and Robin are accompanied by comedian Phil Jupitus, philosopher Prof Nick Bostrom and neuroscientist Prof Anil Seth. Together they discuss the possibility (or certainty?) that we exist in a computer simulation. Listen to it on the Radio 4 website, Spotify or iTunes.
Jade’s Pick ASAPscience
ASAPscience is a great youtube channel which provides quick, fun and interesting videos that answer the everyday questions we
have for science. Run by Mitchell Moffit and Gregory Brown, they make science easily accessible and relevant to its viewers. Personally, one of my favourite videos is ‘Is your phone watching you?’ - very intriguing yet terrifying at the same time. Image: Google
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MacBook Air and iPad Pro Bethany Thomas
Getting into the Halloween spirit, the 30th October saw Apple release its frighteningly sleek new MacBook Air and iPad Pro, complete with cutting edge technology for ease and security. The MacBook Air boasts Touch ID, a 13-inch Retina display and the most portable design yet. The convenience of the device certainly appears to be the focus of the appeal, perfecting what has always been the purpose of the MacBook Air: portability. However, it is not only the compactness of design which is cutting edge; the 13-inch Retina display provides over 4 million pixels of resolution and 48% more colour than the previous generation for stunningly sharp images. The design now also includes Touch ID, a relatively alien
feature in laptop technology. The fingerprint sensor is part of the keyboard and can also be used for Apple Pay, providing a more secure authentication system. Whilst the device’s new, 20 per cent larger trackpad may be inaudible, Apple has proudly announced their MacBook Air to include speakers which are 2 per cent louder than the previous generation, along with twice the amount of bass to provide a more immersive audio experience with more advanced processing technology. The processing speed and memory capacity of a device are competitive sales aspects, and Apple’s MacBook Air proudly features an 8th generation Intel Core i5 processor and 2133 MHz system memory, along with SSDs up to 1.5 terabytes, providing a response up to 60 per cent faster than the previous generation. Apple is also showing an interest in its moral responsibility to the environment, claiming that their new MacBook Air is the greenest Mac yet. The enclosure is made from an Apple-designed aluminium, able to be made using 100 per cent recycled aluminium, reducing the product’s carbon footprint by almost 50 per cent. It seems overall that the new MacBook Air has much to boast with
12 hours of battery life, a low carbon footprint, great sound quality and a high Retina display. It is particularly designed to be compact, taking up 17 per cent less volume, being 10 per cent thinner and weighing in at just 2.75 pounds. However, last Tuesday was not solely focused on this product, with Apple also releasing the new iPad Pro, apparently marking the biggest change ever to the iPad, available in two sizes: 11-inch and 12.9 inch. The Liquid Retina display reaches the far edges of the iPad, with rounded corners to follow the hardware’s shape. The display is the brightest and most colour accurate yet, and ProMotion technology works to automatically adjust the display. It weighs in at the same 1lb as its predecessor, but with a bigger display (complete with more pixels to achieve a high resolution), whilst also being 25 per cent smaller in volume for increased portability. Like the MacBook Air, it is designed for convenience. The all-new A12X Bionic chip was built by Apple specifically for the iPad Pro, in order to achieve speed and responsiveness. This is further assisted by the next-generation Neural Engine, completing up to 5 trillion operations per second,
which users can enjoy for up to ten consecutive hours thanks to the extended battery life. Like with the MacBook Air, passwords are a thing of the past. The iPad Pro marks the first iPad to use Face ID, mapping the user’s face so that they can unlock it at any angle thanks to the True Depth camera system. This also works to make purchases via Apple Pay and access secure apps. A new addition to the iPad is the Apple Pencil which, like the Smart Keyboard Folio, is available for purchase separately. It attaches to the device magnetically for convenience and to charge wirelessly. Both the new MacBook Air and iPad Pro are at the cutting edge of technology, with high resolution and sound quality, sleek designs and specialist features. Both were released for sale on 30th October and can be ordered through apple. com/uk. The MacBook air starts at £1,199 and is available in gold, space grey and silver, and will be available through authorised retailers from Wednesday 7th November, whilst the iPad Pro is available at its cheapest for £769, in the 11-inch Wi-Fi model. It is already available both online and in store and can be bought either in silver or space grey.
Images: Apple
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Science & Tech
Pixel 3 Lucas Mentken
Google released the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL at its annual “Made by Google” launch event in New York City on 9 October. The new flagship phones were revealed alongside the Pixel Slate (a new high-end Chromebook), the Google Home Hub (a new Chromecast) and a charging port called Pixel Stand. The 5.5 inch FHD+ OLED display makes the Pixel 3 look like a slightly taller version of the previous Pixel 2 with the same rounded edges and the iconic but dated looking bezel and chin. This design choice makes the phone immediately recognisable as a Pixel, but it is unambitious at the same time. With its larger 6.3 inch Pixel 3 XL, Google finally gave in to the “notch” trend. This created controversy with many arguing that the “notch” cut out is too big for the functionality it provides, wasting valuable screen space. Love it or hate it, the “notch” houses a second front facing wide angle camera, perfect for capturing group selfies. However, there are no biometric sensors for unlocking the
OnePlus 6T Pankaj Kumar Chaman
Arriving from the Chinese market, the OnePlus 6T is the latest smartphone and unquestionably this is their best yet. But can it can really compete with the already well-established rivals? Its predecessor, the OnePlus 6 was released in May this year and has been popular with tech minded individuals who want a lot of functionality and power at an affordable price, and with an outspoken OnePlus community that actually gets listened to, OnePlus has pumped out some pretty spectacular phones. As the OnePlus 6T is an iterative update, there aren’t any major changes, but there are a handful of new things that are pretty significant.
phone with your iris or face. Instead, Google relies on the well established fingerprint sensor, dead centre on the back of the device. The ability to take stunning pictures has always been one of the most impressive features of the Pixel line up, putting it ahead of its competition, and it is no different this year. Unlike other smartphone manufacturers, the Pixel 3 phones still have only one 12.2 megapixel sensor on the back instead of a dual camera set up. The only hardware addition on the rear is a “Flicker sensor”, reducing the flacker created by shooting pictures under certain indoor lighting. Machine learning is also improved to help you pick the best frame of every shot, get sharper details when you zoom, edit the blur on portraits, get better pictures at night and much more. Everyone who was hoping for a return of the headphone jack will be disappointed. However, the Pixel 3s will ship with new USB-C earbuds, as well as a 3.5mm adapter for other headphones. For the first time on a Google phone, wireless charging will now finally be an option in addition to cable charging. You can conveniently rest all Pixel 3 devices on Google’s own Pixel
Stand or use most other third party wireless charging pads. The Pixel 3’s battery has a capacity of 2,915 mAh which is a slight improvement of last year’s model with 2,700 mAh. The Pixel 3 XL has also got you covered with a battery capacity of 3,430 mAh which is slightly smaller than last year’s XL model with 3,520 mAh. To help you with managing your phone, Android Pie features new battery saving options alongside more tools to address phone addiction with its digital wellbeing scheme. The regular Pixel 3 starts at $799, making it $150 more expensive than last year’s model. The bigger Pixel 3XL starts at $899, classing it among the more high-end devices you can purchase this year. This still makes both phones, which come in the colours “Just Black, “Clearly White” and “Not Pink”, cheaper than its competitors. The Samsung Note 9 and the iPhone XS for example start at $999 each. The Pixel 3 is a noticeable upgrade from the Pixel 2 and a solid flagship. However, in the wake of other phone manufacturers pushing for innovation, such as Samsung’s foldable smartphone concept, the Pixel 3 is just another phone among others.
If we start with the display, it’s still an edge to edge AMOLED screen but now it’s even larger at 6.4 inches. The bottom chin is one millimeter smaller and the notch at the top is now a ‘teardrop’ shape and considerably smaller than before. So, for anyone who hates notches, this is probably one of the few 2018 phones that you will be able to tolerate. An even more significant change is the all new under screen fingerprint scanner for unlocking the phone. OnePlus has removed
the traditional fingerprint scanner that was at the back of OnePlus 6 and completely embedded it inside the 6T’s screen. The company claims that it’s the fastest in-screen scanner in any phone, however there aren’t a bunch of other phones with a similar feature to compare it to. Now if you do want a faster and, more convenient, but a less secure feature to unlock your phone, the 6T has the same face unlocking system as the OnePlus 6. The OnePlus 6T has the same set
Image: GSMArena
of specs as its predecessor. On the hardware side, it has a Snapdragon 845 processor, 6GB/8GB RAM and 128GB/256GB non-expandable storage. Unlike the OnePlus 6 the 6T is no longer available in a 64GB model anymore. OnePlus has bumped up the battery capacity to 3700mAh which provides 20 percent more battery power than the OnePlus 6. The bigger battery does have an impact on the overall body of the body of the phone - it’s a little thicker and heavier than before and
Image: OnePlus
the back has more of a curve than OnePlus 6. So, if you aren’t a fan of monster size phones, this phone isn’t for you. Another upgrade (or downgrade) is that the headphone jack has been removed from OnePlus 6T. Now, it’s just as annoying as it is on the Pixel or iPhone or any other phone without a headphone jack, but OnePlus is including a little adapter in the box, so you can still use your 3.5-millimeter headphones. In terms of software, the 6T is shipping with OnePlus’s Oxygen OS, on top of the latest version of Android 9 Pie. The 6T’s camera is exactly the same as the previous model’s with a 16-megapixel main sensor and a 20-megapixel second sensor for portrait effects plus a 16-megapixel front camera. However, this time OnePlus have added a bunch of software tweaks and a couple of new features including a better portrait mode, better low light shots and a new night-scape mode.
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Science & Tech
What’s the deal with plastic? Darby Knight
It’s everywhere we look - not just in the media but everywhere in our lives. Plastic, previously only at the forefront of our consumption, is now at the forefront of our minds thanks to Sir David Attenborough and Blue Planet II recently bringing plastic’s environmental crimes to the masses. We all know the tale of the turtle and the straw, and whilst voices cry for a clean-up of the ocean, unfortunately this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the plastic problem. But before we go further, what is plastic? We’ve taken its presence for granted, but what is it? Plastic is a synthetic (man-made) material produced using long organic chains of atoms, called polymers, which are extracted from crude oil. These polymers are composed of a carbon ‘backbone’ with atoms of other
The River Don below Doncaster was recently exposed as being stuffed with macroplastics elements attached to the outside and ends. Different attached elements adjust the plastic’s properties – strength, melting point etc. – which allows us to customise polymers to make many different plastics, from food packaging to chairs, and even synthetic fibres which make up our clothes. Tiny plastics that are less than 5mm wide, like clothes
fibres or microbeads found in some cosmetics, are called microplastics. These get washed out of clothes and down drains, travelling through sewers to wherever the pipes empty. Larger plastics, when discarded into the environment, are worn down into microplastics by the same natural processes that erode rocks: chiefly wind, temperature changes and water action. The impacts of large plastics are obvious, making the news often: turtles with straws in their nostrils, whales suffocated by plastic bags, penguins trapped in beer can rings. Plastic pollution in the oceans is by far the most famous environmental impact. Last year blocks of polystyrene were found near the North Pole by Arctic research vessels, and this year a plastic bag was found 11km down at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest point on Earth. Even quaint British rivers are succumbing. The River Don below Doncaster was recently exposed as being stuffed with macroplastics. But microplastics spread the plastic plague further than we ever imagined. Researchers at the University of Manchester discovered the River Tame, in Greater Manchester, contains the most micro-plastic pollution of any river on Earth, with hotspots registering 76,000 particles per kilogram of river bed sediment. While public eyes have scanned the seas for signs of sickness, we’ve missed the epidemics in rivers right under our noses. What’s worse is the Environment Agency’s recent reveal of corruption and fraud in the UK plastic recycling industry. Plastic is being left to pile up and spill into rivers and oceans, being exported despite being contaminated and illegally shipped
Our own River Don is awash with plastic
to the Far East via the Netherlands. According to Netherlands-based recycling firm Kunststof Recycling - “It won’t all get recycled. Europe is getting overflowed with the material from England, they are flooding Europe with their plastic.” The Netherlands doesn’t have the capacity to recycle the amount of plastic waste produced by the UK. The question arises: what will happen to our plastic waste when Brexit hits? Will the piles grow taller? But not everyone cares about the environment, so what does plastic pollution mean for us? Unfortunately, what goes around comes around. Humans don’t exist in isolation from the natural world, and plastic pollution is fast developing into a public health concern. Over 1 billion people globally, many in poverty, rely on fish for their protein intake. Researchers at the University of California have found plastic in
fish sold at markets in the US and Indonesia. In Indonesia, plastic was found in 28 per cent of all fish available for sale and in 55 per cent of all species present. In the USA, plastic was found in 25 per cent of all fish and in 67 per cent of species.
Humans don’t live in isolation from the natural world, and plastic pollution is fast developing into a public health concern
It doesn’t matter where you live or how developed your country is, plastics are working their way back up the food chain, and guess who’s
sitting at the top. Even if you don’t eat fish, the contamination doesn’t stop there. Researchers in South Korea and Greenpeace Asia have uncovered microplastics in 90 per cent of table salt brands from around the world. And it gets worse. Researchers at the Medical University of Vienna have now reported to have found microplastics in human faeces, and are in the process of publishing their findings. Contamination has circled back to us. Suddenly those animals with plastic in their stomachs seem a bit more relatable; it’s likely you and I have had plastic in our own stomachs at some point. If you weren’t convinced plastic pollution was an issue to be taken seriously, or you’ve taken what you’ve heard with a pinch of salt up until now, chances are there was plastic in that pinch anyway. If not for the environment but for our own health, we all must make an effort to reduce our plastic consumption.
Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is a polymer commonly found in plastic bottles. Image: Jynto
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Together against tragedy: football unites once more Benjamin Gomes
Three seasons ago they shocked the world of football. Scenes of jubilation echoed across the globe. The impossible was made possible. But two-and-a-half years since their heroic title-winning exploits, Leicester City are back in
the headlines for a much sadder reason. On 27 October, after seeing his team draw 1-1 with West Ham United, the Leicester owner, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, left the King Power Stadium in his personal helicopter. However, what happened almost immediately afterwards shocked the world into tragic silence.
The helicopter spiralled out of control seconds after taking off and crashed just outside the stadium, erupting into flames. Feelings of disbelief and horror reverberated up and down the country as the man who saved Leicester City from near bankruptcy to deliver the most unlikely of sporting triumphs lost his life, along with two members
of his staff, Nusara Suknamai and Kaveporn Punpare, as well as pilots Eric Swaffer and Izabela Rose Lechowicz, who were partners.
We cannot escape tragedy, but as has always been the case we stand together and find strength in each other
The footballing world was dealt another appalling blow in what is a long list of catastrophic events. Sheffield is no stranger to sporting tragedy after 96 Liverpool fans tragically lost their lives at Hillsborough almost thirty years ago. But much as football fans of all teams united to bring justice to the families of those who passed in 1989, our sport must sadly come together once more, this time in
Image: Wikipedia
remembrance for a man who has brought happiness to millions. The togetherness shown has been there for all to see. Almost immediately after the incident, tributes started pouring in. Leicester players past and present, fans and anyone associated with the sport or otherwise expressed their overwhelming sadness and gratitude for the man that brought so much joy to so many people’s lives. Those closest to Mr Srivaddhanaprabha as well as thousands of fans have contributed to a poignant and fitting memorial. Once united in victory, and now in grief, extraordinary levels of support have been shown in the face of such tragedy. The phrase “put things into perspective” has been used frequently in the last week or so as fans who gladly “hate” each other when a ball is kicked unite to pay their respects as the play is rightly put on hold. We cannot escape tragedy, but as has always been the case, we stand together and find strength in each other in its aftermath.
Inexperienced British Gymnastics squad draw plenty of postives Nicole Oshisanwo
British Gymnastics just competed in Doha at the World Championships and, albeit with a relatively inexperienced team, managed just one medal, with Max Whitlock bringing home a silver in the pommel horse final. It’s fair to say that injuries disrupted their preparation. Nile Wilson was ruled out with a finger injury and the experienced Claudia Fragapane and Amy Tinkler were also forced to sit on the sidelines, whilst Ellie Downey competed through the pain barrier. All of this may seem a far cry from the excellent showing at the 2016 Olympics, where Team GB managed to win a total of seven medals, but it’s important to remember that this was by and large a youthful team.
Some of the female gymnasts were competing at a team competition for their first time, and for the male gymnasts, injuries have resulted in call ups for some new gymnasts.
It’s important to remember that this, by and large, was a youthful Team GB.
Another factor to take into account is the fact the Team GB work very much to the Olympic cycle. British Cycling, for instance, won fewer than 10 gold medals at the intervening World Championships
between the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, but come Rio they were dominant, as they were at London four years earlier. Regardless of their performance at the Worlds, which was encouraging in many aspects, we can all be incredibly proud of how far British gymnastics has come in such a short space of time. From winning just one bronze medal at the 2008 Olympics to being justifiably disappointed with winning just one medal the 2018 World Championships shows incredible progress. In the span of just ten years, British gymnasts have managed to put themselves up there with the Americans, Chinese and Russians as a serious nation in the sport. A further encouraging sign is the promise of the young gymnasts waiting in the wings. At the European Championships this year, Team GB’s
juniors picked up over 10 medals, and they continued the good form at the Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires with a further four. Indeed, with the news of the pending decertification of USA Gymnastics and the potential disruption that could cause for their world class athletes, who knows,
Image: Wikimedia Commons
maybe British Gymnastics will overhaul the Americans at the next Olympics. Allwecansayforsureisthatthefact that we’re all a little underwhelmed with the performance at the World Championships shows us how far we have come.
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women-only gym induction proved a success
SU Sports Officer updates after a successful term so far Sarah Morse
S
port at Sheffield got off to a flying start this year with a brilliant training day for over 100 club sport committee members at Bramall Lane, a 13% increase in footfall at the Sports Fair during Intro Week, and a brand new gym and fitness facility opening in Ranmoor Student Village available to Residence Life Members. As well as this, the new Norton Sports Park was opened and is now up and running. I’m continuing to work with Sport Sheffield and senior university members of staff to ensure a smooth transition for our students and to make the sporting facility university leading. Myself and Katharine Swindells, the Welfare Officer, have been working closely this year. We put
on Sheffield University’s first ever women-only gym induction. With there being only one women-only gym in Sheffield, this session received a lot of interest and a positive response from those female students who attended. Katharine and I plan on continuing to work with Sport Sheffield to make this a regular opportunity. Secondly, during the Welfare Officer’s ‘Our Mental Health Week’ in October, myself, the Sports Committee and other student athletes hosted and attended various sessions including a ‘Welfare in Sport Training’ session, the Varsity T-Shirt design workshop, ‘Mental Health and Masculinity Panel Discussion’ and a Wellbeing Wednesday breakfast. Wellbeing Wednesdays is a concept that I’m launching this year to try and get the university to dedicate
specific time in the week for our students’ wellbeing. The end of October saw the first #SportForAll campaign this year - #WeAreInternational. Sport has the power to unite and bring all students together under one shared passion, transcending personal circumstances and backgrounds, and can help create lifelong friendships and memories. Over 15 sport clubs visibly demonstrate their commitment and celebration of international students within their clubs during this year’s World Week. I look forward to the end of November for the next Sport For All campaign - ‘Disability in Sport Week’ where we will have a wide host of events and activities taking place aimed at both abled and disabled students across both ours and Hallam University’s campuses.
Finally, this month is what the Activities Officer, Cecilia, and I like to call ‘Brovember’. This is a month-long campaign aimed at supporting men’s health as well as tackling toxic masculinity that exists within society. We have produced an ‘Our Wellbeing Action’ calendar which features a daily positive thought, action or event to do or attend throughout the month. Visit sheffieldsu. com/menshealth and ‘Sheffield Brovember’ on Facebook to follow the campaign.
Honours even in Steel City Derby as Owls stop rot moments. They rotate a lot.” Just one month ago Wednesday were in the play-off places, but a recent run of poor form, which saw Norwich walk away from
Hillsborough last weekend with a 4-0 win, cast doubt over Luhukay’s future.
Image: Adam May
Adam May
Sheffield Wednesday manager, Jos Luhukay, praised his side after their 0-0 draw in the Steel City Derby at Bramall Lane. Owls ‘keeper Cameron Dawson saved a first-half penalty from David McGoldrick to help earn Wednesday’s first clean sheet of the season – and stop a run of four
defeats on the spin. Luhukay said: “You’re always happy when you’re not losing games but I think today the draw was, for us, very important. “We have in the beginning of the game the luck that Cammy [Dawson] stopped the penalty at a very important moment. “Sheffield United were strong, made a lot of pressure and were highly focussed in the offensive
The draw was, for us, very important. The last four weeks haven’t made me a bad coach or manager. Jos Luhukay
It was something that the Dutchman shrugged off, however, as he maintains that he always gives 100 percent. “You can believe me, I’m very relaxed,” he added. “I do my everything, the best that
I can give, and in football you have good periods and maybe the not so good. “The last four weeks haven’t made me a bad coach or manager.”
His counterpart, Chris Wilder, was full of delight at his side’s display, a match which they fully dominated and, had McGoldrick converted the penalty or had Sharp not glanced an injury-time header wide, United would have been looking at all three points. “I’m delighted in the way we played. I’m made-up,” he said. “It shows how far we come and I know sometimes people don’t want to hear that but we’ve pegged a team back that two years ago were in a play-off final. “They’ve got big-hitters, bigname players, big wages and I thought last year [at Bramall Lane in the derby] we didn’t play. We got the balance right tonight and we picked it up, we played, we moved the ball about the pitch, we had a purpose. “We had a style, a way of playing and we can nitpick that performance and say we should’ve put the ball in
a bit earlier and the final bit could’ve been tidier. “The keeper’s made some great saves, Man of the Match from their point of view I’d imagine by a country mile. “I’m not down, possibly people maybe thought I would be, I asked for a performance and I got one. “I think if we score the penalty early on they might show a bit of ambition and come out to play. “The only time it became open is when they showed a touch of ambition but I’m delighted. We totally dominated it tonight and I’m happy in the path that we’re going on.”
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Captain’s corner
This week on Captain’s Corner, Trampolining captain Charlotte Sweet and vicecaptain Liam O’Keefe give us a rundown of what the sport and society are like. Josh Taylor
JT: How did you get into the sport? CS: I was introduced to trampolining by a school friend who suggested that I should come along to one of her training sessions. I loved the sport immediately, and am still doing it five years on to prove it! LO: I used to do gymnastics when I was younger, and did a little bit of trampolining with it at the age of 10. And I came back to it in my second year at university. JT: What’s it like being a part of the society? CS: It’s more like a family than a society or sports team! The club is very relaxed and although there are many members who come to every training session, competition and social, this is not required to be a part of the club. It’s a common misconception that all members need to compete, this is not the case, people only compete if they want to.
LO: It’s incredible fun, meeting new people, having a laugh and you make some great friends. It’s hard to think of a life not being part of a society. JT: What’s the sport like? CS: Trampolining is unlike many ‘traditional’ sports because it doesn’t separate people into teams. There are differing levels of ability, which people can either do recreationally or competitively. However, because it is a sport where people compete individually, everyone trains together and is a part of the trampolining team. We have training, competitions and regular socials, so there is something for everyone to get involved with. LO: It’s thrilling, and it takes a lot of mental perseverance. A big part of trampolining is how you think your way through each move, and how you can overcome your fear of trying something new or scary.
to raise money for charity. During the big bounce we have at least one person bouncing on a trampoline for 12hours, a bake sale and a raffle. This year my aim is to make this the biggest event yet! LO: Personally, I want to become neater so my routines look nicer and to progress the difficulty of my moves a bit further. But for the club I want to help get as many people involved as possible! It’s an amazing sport that is quite underated.
JT: How can people get in touch? CS: People are welcome to join trampolining at any point in the year. Newcomers are welcome all year round! We train at Goodwin on Thursdays,8-10pm and Sunday 5-7pm. So if people are interested they are welcome to simply turn up and join in. Our club email is trampolining@sheffield.ac.uk
JT: Aims for this year? CS: We hold a ‘Big Bounce’ each year
We teach a range of skills such as CPR, first aid and dealing with emergencies Adam May
Continued from back-page... country. Some of those will go on to compete in the World Championships later this year. It was great to see the best of the best compete. A handful of us got PBs and Sarah Falconer won silver in the women’s 200m obstacle swim.” Formed in 2013/14, the club is relatively new in the Sport Sheffield world, so much so that they scooped Most Improved at last year’s Sports Club Awards Night. Daniel, a PhD student, says the sport involves much more than just swimming, but is also a gateway to picking up other skills. “We teach first aid, general CPR, how to treat certain medical conditions if you come across them, rescue skills and, while we don’t cover everything in competition, we still try to provide a lot of information on emergencies you
may come across,” he said. “We offer awards and certificates so you can try and implement that in employment, such as First Aid at Work, Survive and Save and the National Pool Lifeguard Qualification (NPLQ) at a discounted rate.” The club runs Give It A Go sessions and urges people to get in touch via Facebook if it’s something that intrigues you. The club competed in Bristol last weekend in the Freshers competition in the University League, with new starters able to taste the competitive edge. It was a weekend of success as the ‘A’ team came 7th out of 36, including third place in one of the events. The ‘B’ team, which consisted of three Freshers, were the best performers out of the new starters, winning a medal and coming 17th overall. The ‘C’ team, meanwhile, came 33rd.
Image: Lifesaving Club
Head of Sport Adam May Hi everyone. Can you believe it, we’re midway through November? Before we start, this is our first issue since the Leicester City tragedy and we’d like to send our thoughts and prayers to all those involved and who sadly lost their lives. Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha’s work in the community often went unnoticed beyond the realms of their wonderful city, but his legacy will forever live on and the outpouring of emotion from the Foxes shows just how much he meant to the club. The power of sport uniting together can never be underestimated, and we feature just this in our Sports Thoughts section. To continue our theme this year, we’ve had a great chat with the lifesaving club as they seek to expand their membership and get as many people involved in what is an interesting and physically demanding sport. Thanks to King Yee and Daniel Jensen for taking time out to speak to us. Please search the club up on Facebook and get involved. They’re a lovely bunch. Also in this issue we have the usual Captain’s Corner and the SU Sports Officer, Sarah Morse, pens a column to talk all things sport throughout the University of Sheffield. Oh, and we also had the little thing called the Steel City Derby. While it was a 0-0 stalemate it was a great occasion, and we bring you the reaction from both sets of managers. Enjoy the issue!
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Image: Juliet Cookson
It’s one of the most demanding sports
Meet Lifesavers King Yee and Daniel Jensen Adam May
Described as ‘possibly the most demanding multidisciplinary sport that exists in the world today’, lifesaving tests its athletes to the extreme. While that claim comes from Royal Life Saving Society UK, it hits the nail on the head. As Club Captain King Yee and
member Daniel Jensen sat down to chat about the sport after their first appearance at the Yorkshire Speeds last month, it was clear it’s a sport with a bit of a difference. Lifesaving promotes skills in a competitive setting with teams consisting of four people, including one captain and three members. The competitions are split into two parts,
one sees you go into a simulated emergency with the aim to respond to it in the best way you can in a team of four. The second is focussed on speed with an emphasis on strokes, such as tow and rope throw. Getting to see the top athletes at the Yorkshire Speeds fuelled the pair’s ambition to continue to improve.
“We’d never been to Yorkshire Speeds before as we’d always competed in the University League and University Championships,” said King Yee. “We’ve never really branched out to proper national competitions before. It was really good, a great experience and it was against the best athletes in the... (cont on p.43)