Issue 94

Issue 94 Friday 11 March 2016

DOM-INATION OF THE UNION IN THIS ISSUE: FULL ELECTION PULL-OUT Eight pages of interviews, photos and analysis of your new officer team

PLUS: OCCUPATION

GOES TO COURT DE

More on Page 5

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In Brief...

Friday 11 March 2016| Forge Press

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Al fresco area in library extension Further details have emerged of the proposed £500,000 revamp of Walkley Library - which is being turned into a shared venue featuring a café.

University is great at University-ing

Sheffield college bridges gender gap

A campaign has been launched in Sheffield to help bridge the gender gap in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Sheffield College is part of a European project promoting science, technology, engineering and mathematics education and careers in schools and colleges internationally.

New hospital service for bereaved mothers

Eyesore building returned to glory

EDITOR editor@forgetoday.com Polly Winn

HEAD OF ONLINE ned.westwood@forgetoday.com Ned Westwood

DEPUTY EDITOR chloe.coleman@forgetoday.com Chloe Coleman

NEWS news@forgetoday.com Keri Trigg Will Morgan Lisa Latham

PICTURE EDITOR dan.west@forgetoday.com Dan West

It’s been amazing to see so much engagement throughout the elections, and we were overwhelmed when over 600 people tuned in live to the first night of Forge Debates.

The whole team have worked so hard to bring

you insightful and informative coverage, and Press, Radio and TV have come together in a way that we haven’t before.

Officer elections are an important time for student democracy, and we need to ensure that as students we have representatives that we feel respect and acknowledge our interests. It’s been a very eventful week for student politics. The Free University of Sheffield students have been in occupation in the Richard Roberts Auditorium since Tuesday 1 March, and on Tuesday 8 March, a week after the occupation began, these students were taken to court by the University.

DEPUTY NEWS news@forgetoday.com Jess Davis Nathaniel Robinson Ellena Rowlin

job at the end is becoming slimmer.

Throughout the SU elections, Union staff have paid an unbelievable amount of attention to the welfare and well-being of all of the officer candidates.

It’s wonderful that the Union made these students feel so supported, but it highlights the lack of support that most students feel all year around.

Campaigns to improve our student experience, shouldn’t just take place once every year. They should be something we strive for all year around.

You can read more about that on pages 4-5 of this issue, but events like this do make us question whether our Universities and Unions actually represent our interests. Our generation pay the highest fees, are no longer entitled to grants, and the promise of a reasonably paid

What not to miss this fortnight St Paddy’s Day Bash

An iconic Sheffield building has now been restored to its former glory following a major improvement project.

The Grade II listed Lion Works at Spital Hill has undergone a £240,000 restoration of the roof as part of Sheffield Council’s ‘Stuck Sites’ programme.

DEPUTY EDITOR OF ENTERTAINMENT fuse@forgetoday.com Kazuma Osaki

W

elcome to the special election edition of Forge Press! We’ve worked tirelessly over the past few weeks to bring you the best election coverage we possibly can. I’m writing this editorial before the elections themselves, but by the time you read this we will have elected a brand new Students’ Union President.

Also by the time you’ve read this, myself and the rest of the Forge team will be completely exhausted after the mental week of Forge Debates, Varsity Boxing and E-Day. I want to say thank you in advance to the wonderful Press volunteers that will be holed away in the hub with me all evening.

The University of Sheffield has once again topped the University league tables. The University is number 40 in the EU. Unsuprisingly, Oxford was the top ranked European university this year, followed

by Cambridge in second and Imperial in third place.

A local hospital in Doncaster has started offering a new service to improve it’s aftercare for mothers who have experienced a miscarriage, a stillbirth or a neonatal death. The hospital is using butterfly symbols to identify the rooms of bereaved patients.

Editorial

Thurs 17 March 23:00-03:00

“3 rooms, 1800 student, Luck of the Irish £100 cash Giveaway, Green Candyfloss, Green Cocktails, Face Painting, Irish Karaoke, Giveaways Galore!”

£5.00 Advance Ticket, in Studio, Foundry and Fusion

Feminst Friday

Fri 18 March 18:00-19:00

“We’ll discuss two topics you might not have previously connected: gender and climate change. We’ll consider how climate change adversely affects women around the world and discuss inspiring examples of women leading the fight back. All genders welcome.”

Coffee Revolution, Students’ Union Feminist Friday offer - Brownie/traybake and a regular drink for £2.95

Sat 19 March 20:00-22:00

Forge Presents: Celebration of Women in Music

“Come and celebrate the end of International Women’s Month at Forge Presents!

It will be an evening celebrating women in music, with a range of live music and performances headlined by awesome women. Come along to support and raise lots of money for the chosen charities, Ashiana and Sheffield Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre!”

COMMENT comment@forgetoday.com Robin Wilde Chris Saltmarsh COFFEE BREAK press.coffeebreak@forgetoday.com Adilah Hameed FEATURES features@forgetoday.com Sheena Sidu Anna Gillies Hallam Roffey LIFESTYLE lifestyle@forgetoday.com Mojo Abidi Mared Gruffyd

Nottingham House, suggested donation of £3

SPORT sport@forgetoday.com Ed McCosh Rob Milne Anthony Phillips MUSIC music@forgetoday.com Tara Hodgson Charlotte Pick GAMES games@forgetoday.com Moya O’Rourke Ash Emritte

ARTS arts@forgetoday.com Joshua Hackett Jo Gallacher SCREEN screen@forgetoday.com Rhys Handley Luke Baldwin COPY EDITORS Sophie Cockett Bethan Littley Emily Quigley Harriet Hales Joanna Booth Lotte Dobson

Forge Press | Friday 11 March 2016

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Christian social worker removed for homophobia Chloe Coleman

A Christian social work MA student was removed from his course after expressing homophobic views on Facebook.

Felix Ngole, 38, was in his second year of the MA here at the University of Sheffield when he shared a Facebook status which said “I stand with Kim Davis” - Kim Davis is an American county clerk who was jailed for refusing to give marriage licenses to same-sex couples. He had also commented on a link that quoted a bible verse from Leviticus which called homosexuality an “abomination”.

Two months after this, Ngole received an email from the university which stated he was required to attend a meeting regarding the posts he had put on Facebook. He was then referred to a fitness for practise committee, which decided to remove him from his course.

In a letter which revealed

the decision of the committee said that the decision was not based on his homophobic view, but on the fact that he had broadcast them publically.

Mr Ngole told The Independent: “My beliefs about marriage and sexual ethics reflect mainstream, biblical understanding, shared by millions around the world.

“Simply expressing that understanding, in a personal capacity, on my Facebook page, cannot be allowed to become a bar to serving and helping others in a professional capacity as a social worker.

“I wonder whether the university would have taken any action if a Muslim student who believes in Sharia law, with its teaching about women and homosexuality, had made moderate comments on his Facebook page. I don’t think so.”

SU President, Christy McMorrow said: “The Union is strongly against hate speech and homophobia but does not have the information to comment on this story.”

Atheist Society refuse Maryam Namazie Hallam Roffey The University’s Atheist society has announced they would not invite a high-profile secularity speaker to the Student Union for fear that her views would damage relations with Muslims at the University.

In 2 March, the Sheffield Atheist Secular & Humanist Society (SASH) issued a statement on their Facebook page after it emerged they had refused a student’s suggestion to invite Maryam Namazie, the Iranian-born secularist and human rights activist, into the University to speak.

They said: “Maryam is indeed an excellent speaker, however the discourse in the zeitgeist concerning Maryam is not particularly conducive to the particular direction of the society at this moment.

“This hard anti-Islamist approach, is a conversation that is hosted frequently on Youtube and podcasts.

“Maryam may damage relations with the Islamic Circle and we cannot invite a speaker who may set the society back

from those goals.”

Namazie responded with a post on her blog entitled ‘Sheffield ASH doesn’t like my anti-Islamist stance’. It was shared widely on Twitter and many of her followers directed criticism towards SASH. The society said: “We are in no way abandoning Maryam Namazie. This year the society has shifted its focus from hard line atheism as it tends to stagnate numbers and decrease membership, to focus on humanism, which has had the opposite effect.”

SASH have gone on to say that they would be fearful of hosting Namazie after one of her talks at Goldsmith’s University, London saw its Islamist society interrupt the event to threaten her and the audience.

They said that they would be delighted to invite Namazie if they could be assured that a similar incident would not occur and that they do not want her to feel undervalued or unwelcome.

Namazie responded by saying: “The issue is not about an invitation to me. The point is

that you are saying you cannot invite me to your uni at the suggestion of a student because of what happened at Goldsmiths University Atheist, Secularist and Humanist soci-

ety.

“It is the politics of cowards - always siding with Islamist narrative at the expense of dissenters.”

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SCIENCE & Technology

The Achilles’ Heel of Cancer Ground breaking developments in cancer research have revealed that the illness carries characteristics that can be consistently recognised by the immune system.

Cancer therapies are so commonly unsuccessful due to the rapidity with which cancer cells can evolve and consequently evade treatments.

Scientists at University College London and Cancer Research UK have found that cancer retains signature molecules regardless of its stage of development or mutation.

These molecules are antigens, which are targeted naturally by the body’s immune system. Scientists believe that by isolating and multiplying immune cells within a lab they could transfer enough of them back into the body to eradicate cancerous cells.

The discovery means that future cancer treatments could be much more accurate and effective, and provide an alternative to aggressive and more disruptive treatments like chemotherapy.

Josh Lawlor

Stem cells continue to succeed Stem cells can now be used to reverse the growth of cataracts and even replenish the vision of those suffering with blindness.

Surgeons managed to reverse blindness in 12 infants who were born with congenital cataracts by removing the malfunctioning cells and coaxing connected cells into repairing the damage.

Cataracts occur when proteins coagulate over time and cloud the eye. Previous treatments involve the insertion of an artificial plastic lens, though this can lead to infection and inflammation.

Encouraging the body to regenerate a lens using its own stem cells is a relatively natural process which is likely to be safer and more effective in the long-term for sufferers.

Tom Fishwick

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NEWS UniNEWS

Uni ranked in the top 10 for producing future CEOs: Sheffield is found to be one of the best universities in the UK for producing CEO’s and other top management positions.

Emolument, who created the list, analysed 26,000 graduates from all over the UK to show which universities are the most likely to produce successful business leaders.

The data placed The University of Sheffield at 9th place, making 2.3 per cent of senior management professionals in the UK. Also, entrepreneurial skills of Sheffield shone through, as students tend to be more inclined to launch our own businesses.

Student earns £30,000 a year and here’s how: One savvy student has earnt £30,0000 selling her old clothes on eBay. She first started getting into selling by putting her clothes up for auction when she was a teenager and since then she has really learnt the trade.

Laura Rose splurges on three holidays a year thanks to her eBay earnings and savvy selling to places like Venice, Spain, France and Amsterdam.

The third-year student, who is studying business management at the University of East Anglia, started selling her old clothes when she was still in sixth form.

She knows how to flog her stuff well and has shared her top tips.

She thinks that 7pm is the perfect time to sell, as people will be mostly likely to be browsing at this point. She also tells aspiring sellers to stick at selling online, as it takes time to build up a great buying history, so her greatest tip of all is to persevere.

Friday 11 March 2016 | Forge Press

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News feature - Occupation 2016: Fully-automated luxury Communism or bust

by Will Morgan

University engages in cold war with student socialists The heating has been turned off and the air conditioning turned on at the occupation of the Richard Roberts building.

The Free University of Sheffield group has previously occupied the Inox Dine restaurant in the Students’ Union and former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s office.

The University went to court, Tuesday 8 March, to get a possession order for the university campus, excluding the Students’ Union, allowing them to remove the occupiers.

This means that any future occupations of university property could be removed without having to go through the courts.

The University of Sheffield building has been occupied by the Free University of Sheffield group since 1 March for: the abolition of student fees, the University to practice non-compliance with Higher Education Green Paper and the government’s PREVENT strategy.

PREVENT is the government’s anti-radicalisation strategy that requires teachers, medical professionals and

anyone working in the public sector to report anything that might be seen as leading to radicalisation.

Though not specifically targeted at Islam, PREVENT disproportionately affects Muslim communities as there is a direct correlation between PREVENT funding in local communities and the size of the local Muslim population.

Of the 4000 people sent to the government’s CHANNEL program through PREVENT, 2000 are children.

Enforcing PREVENT was made a legal requirement by the Conservative government in 2015.

The Higher Education Green Paper is a proposal to allow ministers the ability to raise tuition fees without consulting parliament and recommends the implementation of the Teaching Excellence Framework that would allow successful universities to raise their fees in line with inflation.

The occupation has caused all lectures and seminars in the Richard Roberts building to be cancelled, with the university citing health and safety concerns.

The activist group replied in a statement to the cancellation of lectures by saying: “From the start of our occupation, we planned to create a space that embodied our principles of free education, by making the space our own.

However, this was never to be at the inconvenience of students expecting to have lectures in the Auditorium.

“We planned to welcome students with lectures to our space, and move to the side while they received their education. We are not trying to disrupt our fellow students’ education; we are not the government.

“The University has decided to move all of the lectures scheduled to take place in the Auditorium today to other parts of campus. This was practically unnecessary because of our willingness to facilitate the prior organised lectures, and because we had clearly communicated that to University management.

“So why have management decided to disrupt their own students’ learning in this way by moving their lectures?

It can only be to restrict access to critical voices and dissent, and the space that we have created. It is not in their interests to expose their students to criticisms of their model of capitalist, competitive, individualistic education.”

The Free University of Sheffield officially ended the occupation in the evening of Wednesday 9 March with a statement on their Facebook page saying: “We know that in order to fundamentally transform education, we cannot just reimagine it. We have and will continue to make demands of and interventions into the managerial university to alter its structure.

“That said, we still hold true that a free university within a capitalist society is ‘like a reading room in a prison’.

This is not the end of the Free University of Sheffield in action, it is the beginning of the Free University as an idea and as a movement.

“Solidarity forever”.

Forge Press | Friday 11 March 2016

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News feature - Occupation 2016: Fully-automated luxury Communism or bust

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by Will Morgan

Sheffield Uni vs. peoples unknown

The University’s court battle to stop student attendance

On a windy grey Tuesday morning in March, two valiant defenders of the right to free education and student activism took to the stand at Sheffield County Court to rail against the neoliberal agenda of the bourgeois power holders at the oppressive apparatus sometimes known as the “University of Sheffield”.

Our student peers, and glorious leaders, Students’ Union President Comrade Christy McMorrow and Education officer Comrade Minesh Parekh verbalised the abuse of student rights inevitable in such an intrinsically capitalist

education system eloquently.

The judge called our comrades’ efforts “succinct, eloquent and comprehensive”, though he still bowed to the University’s desire to be able to remove its students from their property.

The judge did seem reticent in applying the law, expressing disdain for how the University chose to begin proceedings by saying to their lawyers: “the student representatives were given one day clear notice when they should’ve been given two. So you (the lawyers) are seeking to half the time stated in the rules.”

When it came to evaluating the logic of each argument

the judge also came out in the occupiers favour. In replying to the University’s lawyers’ assertion that “the occupation is there without permission” and that “there are issues of health and safety” involved in “students sleeping there overnight”, the judge commented that “students should be allowed to express their concerns and it’s refreshing to have an exchange of views within society”.

In reading out the verdict, the judge expressed sympathy for the group stating: “They are trespassing, so I have no discretion but to make an order.

A fallen comrade

“It is unsatisfactory that the union seems not to have recognised that the full extent of the law affects everybody in this country.

“Ironic, those who seek to enforce legal rights should not seek to comply assiduously with the law which is there to protect those such as students.”

Marxist theorist, and wifestrangler, Comrade Louis Althusser can perhaps explain the reasoning behind the occupations for the misled petit-bourgeoisie. Proletariat knowledge source Wikipedia tells us that Ideological State Apparatuses, like universities,

can only be challenged by “using the inherent contradictions” that force us to submit to the dominant ideology through “fear of social ridicule”. So by inconveniencing the University through sitting peacefully in a building and holding lectures on (presumably) hegemonies, the occupiers are applying the same tools used by the University, the social ridicule inherent in removing students for using a place of learning to learn, to challenge the ideology we fee-paying/ideologysubmitting students usually have no power to question.

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Friday 11 March 2016 | Forge Press

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Unite in disarray at Labour Students’ Conf.

Will Morgan Electoral drama broke out at the Labour Students’ Conference held in Scarborough Sunday 28 February.

The biennial election of a youth representative to the Labour National Executive Committee was marred by electoral drama at the Labour Students’ Conference.

The race was between James Elliot and Jasmin Beckett.

Elliot was the leftist candidate who was supported by Unite and the Corbynite Momentum group, whilst Beckett was the relatively rightist candidate.

The drama unfolded when a Unite delegate, whose caucus of Unite members had decided to cast their vote for Elliot, chose instead to vote for Beckett.

A caucus is when supporters of a specific political movement meet in person to vote on

issues. In this case Unite members met in a caucus to select who their conference delegate should vote for. Their delegate then changed his vote when at the conference.

Beckett won by a single vote.

Allegations have been made that Charlotte Upton, a Unite rep, asked to see the delegate’s ballot paper but was refused.

The conference was attended

by Sheffield Labour Students, who sent 12 delegates.

Co-chair of Sheffield Labour Students, and delegate for East England, Dom Trendall said: “It was the first time Sheffield Labour Students had sent 12 delegates and it was great to have Sheffield’s voice heard.”

The election uses an electoral college system, with regional delegates being sent to the conference as well as delegates from students’ unions and Labour affiliates.

When asked about the electoral drama of the delegate changing his vote, Trendall went on to say: “I think as a union delegate you’re not there to represent yourself, you’re there to represent your union.”

Adding that: “allegations of bullying should be taken very seriously.”

The Labour Party has begun to investigate allegations of bullying surrounding this vote change.

Other party political drama that unfolded at the conference included almost excluding the BME caucus from voting for the main officer positions, as they were out of the room at their caucus meeting.

Trendall said that “the fact that people didn’t realise the BME members weren’t in the room is symptomatic of wider issues.”

Making Sheffield 2016 has been launched A new year-long celebration of making in Sheffield has launched this week which has confirmed the city’s position as a city of creation and manufacture.

The University of Sheffield is fully supporting the chance to collaborate and celebrate by showcasing the diversity of skill within Sheffield.

It will also offer opportunities for local, regional and international businesses to engage with the cultural sector, covering anything from art and design to groundbreaking research.

The Year of Making Sheffield 2016 will demonstrate to audiences that our city is full of skill and innovation via highlighting how it is a great city to live, work, study and invest in.

It will incorporate five main themes: Art & Design, Manufacturing & Industry, Film & Literature, Heritage & Placemaking, and Music & Performance.

It will feature an exciting programme of festivals, theatre, exhibitions, conferences and cultural events offering a unique opportunity to unlock hidden talent and break down barriers.

The Year of Making Sheffield 2016 is led by Sheffield Culture Consortium, with partners the University of Sheffield, Sheffield Hallam University, Chamber of Commerce, Made in Sheffield, The Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire and Sheffield City Council.

Jess Davis

Uni of Sheffield’s first charity ball sells out weeks before event

Lisa Latham

Tickets for the University of Sheffield’s first ever charity ball have sold out.

The event has been organised by student society Mental Health Matters, Amnesty International, Unicef, Oxfam and STAR and will be hosted in Inox Dine on level five of the Students’ Union.

The night promises a sophisicated sit-down meal and the opportunity for students to get dressy.

Sam Webster, social secretary of Mental Health Matters (MHM) and lead organiser of the event, says: “The student response has been fantastic.

We wouldn’t have sold out otherwise!”

“People seem really happy that they have the chance to go to a big event like this ball with their housemates and other friends, rather than maybe a society ball which might restrict you to your coursemates.”

“The main aim of the event is to raise as much money and awareness as possible for the charities.”

“We’re not completely sure how much we might raise, but my estimate would be upwards of £2,000, maybe £2,500 depending on the night!”

“I really hope there are similar events in the future!”

Tickets were on sale for £30 at the SU box office and include a three-course meal, drinks, live jazz and a photographer.

Anna Mullaney, President of MHM, says: “I see it as a really great opportunity not only to fundraise but also to heighten awareness of the Mental Health Matters society and therefore mental health in general!”

“It should be a really lovely night and I can’t wait for it after all of these elections.”

214 tickets were sold in total, with two set aside for sponsors.

All proceeds will be donated to charities Sheffield Mind, Amnesty International, Unicef, Oxfam and Student Action for Refugees.

The event welcomes students and non-students, and a corresponding Pop Tarts party has been organised for those who fancy staying out later.

Forge Press | Friday 11 March 2016

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Uni named in UK’s top 100 happy workplaces Keri Trigg The University of Sheffield has some of the happiest employees in the country, according to new workplace rankings published by the Sunday Times.

The results come after 94% of staff claimed to feel proud to work for the University, placing it at number 32 on the list of the 100 Best Not-ForProfit Organisations to Work For 2016.

Sheffield is the only university to make the list, and was also honoured with a two-star accreditation for outstanding employee engagement, and the Wellbeing Special Award in recognition of its approach to improving all aspects of employees’ health.

The Sunday Times Best 100 Companies is an annual ranking of Britain’s happiest workforces, with its release now a highly-anticipated event in the UK business calendar.

Professor Sir Keith Burnett, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sheffield, said: “I am delighted that the University

has been recognised in this way, however a university is only as strong as the staff who teach students, carry out research, and who support vital work from running our libraries and laboratories to student accommodation and IT provision.

“It is our dedicated and talented staff from around the world who make this institution a place of high educational standards and an excellent place to work, and for that I am very grateful to them all.”

Andrew Dodman, Director of Human Resources at the University of Sheffield, added: “This ranking by the Sunday Times shows that the University of Sheffield is one of the best places to work in the UK and is an organisation where talented staff from all over the world are given a platform to succeed and become leaders in their fields.

“We have worked hard to create an environment in which staff can pursue the extraordinary in a creative and

diverse workplace.

“The city of Sheffield has also contributed to this ranking by being such a great place to live.

It’s friendly, vibrant, modern and fun, which provides the perfect setting for one of the world’s best universities with a talented workforce.”

The new accolade follows the University’s recent ranking as one of the UK’s top employers for workplace equality by leading LGBT+ charity Stonewall.

Two new University of Sheffield buildings have been shortlisted for a prestigious architecture award.

The Diamond and the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) with Boeing’s Factory 2050 have been picked for the Royal Institute of British Architects’ (RIBA) regional shortlist.

The Diamond, which opened for students in September 2015 and cost £81 million, is the University’s biggest ever investment in learning and teaching. The impressive sixstorey building was designed

by Twelve Architects.

Factory2050 is the newest addition to the University’s manufacturing research campus on Sheffield Business Park. It was designed by architects Bond Bryan and constructed by Interserve.

The AMRC’s Integrated Manufacturing Group (IMG) is currently fitting the new building with state-of-theart advanced technologies in robotics, automation and assembly that will drive its

NATIONAL NEWS Victoria sponger A cheeky tenant sent a contract with a certain beneficial clause to sign by their landlord.

Newly amended, Number 16 on the clause reads: “Lessor shall provide birthday cake for Lessee(s) in the weekend closest to their birthdays, which are 7 June and 17 February.”

They helpfully add: “Vanilla cake is not acceptable.”

The tenant shared on Reddit how they realised they could alter the text of their contract before signing it.

They realised the contract had been sent as a Word document rather than a locked PDF file so thought they would see how lucky they could be, by sticking in a birthday cake clause.

Let me out of ‘ear

Researchers unearth Uni buildings nominated for prize Anglo-Saxon island Jess Davis

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research.

The University previously won an award in 2008 for the Information Commons building. The winners will be announced at a ceremony in Leeds on 21 April 2016.

Ellena Rowlin The remains of an ancient island have been uncovered by researchers at the University of Sheffield in one of the most important archaeological finds in decades.

The island which was found at Little Carlton near Louth, Lincolnshire was home to an Anglo- Saxon settlement.

Researchers believe their work has only revealed a glimpse of the settlement so far.

The discovery was made after a local metal detectorist Graham Vickers reported an intriguing item at the site.

Vickers found a silver stylus, which is a writing tool dating back to the 8th century, in a plough field that had already been searched.

After this discovery, many more unusual items continued to be unearthed at the site, holding important clues to the historic settlement lying below.

The number of artefacts now include a total of 21 styli, around 300 dress pins, and a huge number of ‘Sceattas’, coins from the 7th-8th centu-

ries, as well as a small lead tablet with the letters spelling a female Anglo-Saxon name engraved on it.

Students from the University have now opened nine evaluation trenches at the site which have revealed even more information about what life would have been like back then.

They have found a number of interesting artefacts including Middle Saxon pottery and butchered animal bone.

An unlucky man has been the victim of a cruel prank whilst having a cigarette outside.

The victim heard a click, then realised someone had stuck a padlock through the stretcher in his earlobe.

Stretchers are earrings that sstretch the earlobe by slowly increasing the size of earlobe hole Tom Grim Fandango Matthews, as he is known on Facebook, has now gone on a rant online about the unfortunate incident which has gone viral.

We’re yet to hear news of whether he has managed to unlock it yet.

Comedians take punt at Hunt for being a... twit Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt MP has been crowned “dick of the year” by the TV show The Last Leg. Jeremy Hunt beat off Donald Trump, Martin Shkreli and Walter Palmer to be awarded the phallic prize.

This follows Hunt’s proposed changes to the contracts of junior doctors which have been branded as “not safe, not fair” by the British Medical Association.

When physically presented with the golden representation of Freud’s best/worst nightmare, Hunt sheepishly retreated.

Clearly unable to deal with having something forced upon him.

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Friday 11 March 2016 | Forge Press

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Adnans investigated claims of homophobic abuse after night out Lisa Latham

A 23 year old man, Ryan Cox, was allegedly subjected to homophobic abuse when visiting popular takeaway restaurant Adnans on 29 February.

He visited the takeaway with work colleagues after his shift in OMG gay club and a quick trip to West Street Live. After a dispute regarding a food order mix up, the counter staff began to make homophobic comments, reportedly calling Ryan a “faggot” and a “batty boy”.

According to Ryan’s Facebook post, intended to warn others of his bad experience, the staff’s comments got increasingly offensive when Ryan confronted the abuse.

He posted: “[he] was telling me I probably have AIDS, and told me I’m not normal, told me that apparently I just wanna ‘get bum raped’”.

The staffs’ reported response to Ryan saying he’d tell others of their abusive treatment was

“good, we could do without you batty boys in here every night.”

The post has so far had 7,650 shares on Facebook and the story has been well publicised by other parties.

The post was forwarded to South Yorkshire Police, who have now launched an investigation into the incident.

Adnan has denied being homophobic, and says: “It’s all bullshit. Some girls took his donner kebab and then he got angry at me and told me he was going to fuck up my business.” He also claimed that Ryan initiated the argument and responded with racist remarks.

Adnan also defends himself against accusations of homophobia, saying “I have nothing against the gays, a few of my mates are gay.”

“Loads of customers are gay, a few gays who know me told me he’s an idiot.”

The employee’s alleged connections within the

vast network of “the gays” is clearly his key point of defence, though his supposed tolerance for the community is undermined slightly by his vague and somewhat obtuse referral of his informants as “a few gays who know me”.

Ryan has responded to Adnan’s accusations of racism, saying: “Those racist comments are absolutely disgusting.”

“Being a gay guy means I’m too a minority, just like any person of colour – so I understand discrimination and would never even dream of bringing anything personal into an argument such as race, sexuality, religion or gender.”

Though there is video footage of the heated exchange, no audio feedback is available and hard evidence for the dispute has not been uncovered.

Women recognised in Union’s Junior docs strike month-long celebration again over contract Keri Trigg The Students’ Union is using International Women’s Month to celebrate the successes of women around the world.

A range of workshops, discussions, exhibitions and other activities are taking place throughout March to highlight the diverse experiences of women, as well as highlighting barriers women face and how they can overcome them.

The events, hosted by Women’s Committee and SU Women’s Officer Sharmin Jahan, are raising money for Ashiana – who give advice, help and refuge to those affected by forced marriage, domestic abuse and violence in the BME communi-

ties in Sheffield – and Sheffield Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre.

The month kicked off with the opening of the Women’s Exhibition on Tuesday 17 March in the Gallery Eye, followed by a panel discussion ‘We All Can Do It’ the following day.

Last week also saw a screening of the film Suffragette in Film Unit on 4 March, and a themed Pop Tarts night on Saturday, 5 March.

This week, a quiz took place, as well as a poetry evening and intersectionality workshop.

On Wednesday, 9 March, there was a screening of The Colour Purple with Sheffield Central MP Paul Blomfield, with stalls selling cakes, cookies

and drinks to raise money.

Sharmin said: “It’s a very diverse, inclusive range of events. Yesterday we had our big event with Paul Blomfield and raised a lot of money.

“We’ve got more stuff next week, such as the Muslim Women and Islamophobia panel.

“We’ve had good feedback so far.”

Next week’s events also include an activism workshop, gender and climate change workshop, and Forge Presents: Women in Music.

More information can be found on the International Women’s Month 2016 Facebook event.

Lisa Latham Junior doctors participated in another nationwide strike on Wednesday 9 March in retaliation to the implementation of Jeremy Hunt’s new contract.

The 48 hour strike caused the cancellation of around 5,000 operations and procedures, and NHS England have estimated that just 44 per cent of doctors turned up for work on Wednesday.

The increase in severity of the strikes may indicate more serious detrimental effects for the patients of the NHS in the future, should Hunt refuse to reconsider the terms of the contract.

Third year medical student Ben Gregory said: “If Jeremy Hunt doesn’t renegotiate the contract, morale is going to plummet in the NHS. “People are going to leave their jobs in England and move.

“Wales, Scotland and Ireland have separate health trusts

because they’re based on the local government there. “[The people left behind] will not be happy.

“Junior doctors will be working harder for less and they’ll be inclined to move into more privatised work where there’s more job satisfaction.

“Emergency care is still ongoing, junior doctors are still working, especially those in A&E, those on call. They’re not leaving patients unattended.

“Also consultants are very supportive of their junior colleagues – they were there not too long ago. Things are still running as smoothly as possible without the juniors.

“We don’t want patients to suffer, it’s not a strike against patient care. It’s a strike so we can say we’re not happy.

“Until emergency care is stopped I don’t think we’ll see as large an effect on patients.

That’s when things could potentially get worse for the

Forge Press | Friday 11 March

@ForgePress /ForgePress

NEWS

9

Forge Debates highlights Your MP Presidential candidate Chris to Dom: “You are a careerist politician” *audience gasps* Presidential candidate Nazma to David: “I have effectively decimated your manifesto” Presenter Hallam Roffey: “None of you are going to abolish tuition fees or smash capitalism”

says...

Regardless of the election result (which we don’t actually know yet) we need to focus on all of the positives of the campaigning season. From the Forge Debates that brought you the previous sassy comments, we bring you some of Twitter’s finest moments: Every year, one of the highlights of the Officer elections is when the equally hilarious and sassy ‘Guido Forge’ rears his head. Not affiliated to Forge in any way, this elusive figure emerges every year when voting opens, and injects a little bit of humour into the elections.

The refugee crisis is Europe’s biggest test yet and you can help us pass it Paul Blomfield MP for Sheffield Central

Activities candidate Candidate’s email pulls out of race sparks fairness row Keri Trigg Activities Officer candidate Simon Watters withdrew from the race the day after dandidates were announced.

Simon, a third year Journalism student, pulled out of the running on Tuesday, March 1 – the day before physical campaigning began.

The JournoSoc President, running under the slogan ‘Watt You Want for Activities,’ was the first and only candidate to bow out of the 2016 Officer Elections.

He said: “I’ve just got too much work on. With dissertation and JournoSoc on top of running in the elections, I thought it would be best just to leave it.”

His withdrawal leaves three

in the running for the Activities Officer position – Anna Berestova, Sarah Boyle and Sophia Arthurs-Hartnett.

It became the third position being contested by all-female candidates, after Women’s and

Rhys Handley The Students’ Union had to take action when one candidate running for Development Officer sent an unauthorised mass email to thousands of students to promote his election campaign.

Candidate Ashwin Ashok sent out an email using the SU’s societies mailing list, infringing the Union’s rules on fairness for campaigning.

The SU then authorised a similar email sent to the same mailing list by Ashwin’s only rival, Michael Kind, in order to balance out the competition.

The email said to recipients: “It’s important that you give all candidates an equal hearing before deciding on your vote.”

Ashwin’s campaign platform

included an SU scholarship and increased food diversity while Michael’s focused on sustainability and worker’s rights.

Europe’s refugee crisis is worsening. And it’s no surprise.

A devastating war continues to rage in Syria and there is ongoing violence in Afghanistan and Iraq, forcing people from their homes.

But what can we do here to help? That’s what hundreds of constituents have asked me since the crisis began.

I’ve worked with local groups and raised funds to provide practical help. But there’s something else – we should campaign for Britain to stay part of the EU. I know that the response of European countries has been inadequate, but walking away would be the worst thing we could do. We need to be part of finding a fair way of sharing responsibility to offer sanctuary to those who need it.

At the moment, it’s Greece that needs support, as it struggles with being the entry point to Europe, but we all gain from working together on the big issues facing us – from climate change to corporate tax avoidance.

The refugee crisis is testing that ability to work together as a continent for the greater good. But let’s make sure the UK isn’t left standing on the sidelines.

Please get in touch via paul. blomfield.mp@parliament.uk if you want to get involved with campaigning to stay in the EU.

Friday 11 March 2016 | Forge Press

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COMMENT

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Concourse Campaigning isn’t cool

SU Officer election campaigners on the Concourse.

Chris Saltmarsh

O

ver the last couple of weeks, I've been campaigning to be the President of our Students’ Union. By the time this is published, the election will be over and we’ll know our next President along with the rest of the Officer team for 2016/17.

I must admit the experience of running was an overwhelmingly negative one. I found the culture of our SU around Officer elections means this hugely important part of our democracy is widely inaccessible and exclusionary.

I also think, though, that it’s important to recognise that this culture isn't the fault of the election organisers or any particular candidates, it is a set of traditions that we collectively uphold, largely because they've been done for so many years before. As such, we should take responsibility to address these issues so that our democracy can be as accessible, inclusive and engaging as possible.

In terms of excluding the electorate, our culture of elections, which places so much value on the campaign tactics of canvassing on the concourse and door-knocking at student halls, makes

many students feel unsafe or unwelcome around campus.

Much of the campaigning on the concourse starts with the innocent desire to have a presence on campus and engage students with your ideas. However, it soon turns into candidates and their campaign teams prowling around the area and latching onto any passing student; a practice that can slip more towards harassment than welcoming engagement.

Elections redefine the purpose of the concourse from being a shared, communal space for all members of the University, to being a site of relentless and shameless electioneering. People are pressured into accepting a barrage of leaflets, and their engagement with candidates is often expected to be limited to speaking to them in the midst of the toxic and anxiety-inducing concourse environment. This atmosphere isn't conducive to welcoming students with even a small propensity for anxiety, let alone those who suffer from it severely, and many students spend the whole election period avoiding large parts of the SU. Are these really the feelings we want to be fostering around our democracy?

As well as the inaccessibility of the concourse area, the common, and often assumed essential, practice of door-knocking at student halls involves candidates taking the elections into the private space of many students. Although a resident has to let candidates and their campaigners in, this is without the consent of all residents, some of whom may be actively avoiding the elections. To take the elections to their

accommodation, or homes, is an invasion of their private space.

It is easy to make the argument that elections are great because they engage students in their Union and the policies of future officers. Although in reality, the way we have taught ourselves to do elections only reaches out to certain students, while excluding and alienating many who can't access spaces in the SU during the period.

we need to go back to the drawing board with elections The focus on canvassing on the concourse disproportionately advantages people who are able to spend long periods of time outdoors in that environment. If a candidate has issues with fatigue, they couldn’t spend so much time standing around and talking to people out there. People with anxiety would find it incredibly difficult to sustain being in that environment, and approaching people to discuss their campaign.

Some people rely on a job to sustain themselves through University, and can't access that campaign method.

Some candidates are able to stand there through all weather (including snow), whereas some just could not do it in those conditions. Why should a candidate be advantaged by their ability to tolerate that toxic culture and environment?

Similarly, not every candidate can

knock on student halls' doors, also because of possible anxiety and fatigue, or if they have kids and need to look after them in the evening.

The whole process seems to demand that candidates be constantly extroverted, ignoring the reality that many are not, or are wholly uncomfortable with presenting or promoting themselves in that way. We develop a mutual expectancy to be campaigning all of the time, and to live up to whoever can campaign the most. If we do not, we are told, we will lose.

The way that we encourage each other to campaign seems to revolve around a normative idea of a young, physically and mentally healthy, financially secure students with no dependents. In reality, this excludes swathes of students that need the SU to work for them the most. Candidates assume that, to stand any chance of winning, they have to match the candidate most able to fulfil these normative requirements for a successful campaign. This in itself causes stress and anxiety and candidates are unable to control the relative success of their campaign if they are up against people who are more able to campaign in these ways.

Taking a break from physical campaigning to obsess over YouTube video views and social media reach is not a break. The whole period takes over your life, but ends up demotivating passionate, committed activists as they are engulfed by its stresses and strains.

The experience of running has cemented in my mind the idea that elections are essentially unhealthy and divisive. I wholly appreciate that great

efforts have been made to care for the health of candidates, especially in trying to foster cooperation and mutual support rather than competition. But the reality is that you are competing with people for the position. Someone will win and the rest will lose. However hard we try to redress this, I feel like elections will always pit people against each other who should be working together. Their very nature will cause divides and antagonisms.

If we really care about our SU having a democracy that is engaging and accessible, we need to go back to the drawing board with elections. There are so many people around the SU with exciting, innovative ideas about how to foster a healthier, more participatory democracy, and how to make the elections an enjoyable time of year, not an anxiety-inducing one. We need to listen to what they have to say and try hard to take their suggestions on board and use them to change our processes. We must work together to remember our collective experience of this election period, and do what we can to improve it.

Got an opinion? Join the debate at press.comment@forgetoday.com

Forge Press | Friday 11 March 2016

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COMMENT

Short Terms hurt learning - cut the holidays

I

Protestors boycotts of the Israeli products.

What your campaigning desk probablyforlooks like by holidays each semester.

Shaun Thomas

t’s truly difficult for freshers, when you consider the whole process of going to university. For most students this involves moving to a new home, starting a new life; economically, academically and socially. This is recognised by the NHS having a webpage specifically dealing with student stress and related issues such as depression.

It is obvious that this kind of stress continues throughout every semester.

While seemingly attractive to have long breaks during Christmas, Easter and summer, I would argue this is unnecessary, leaving most students with a surplus of free time which would be better invested into productive endeavours related to their degree.

Students, by and large, would benefit much more from having a greater period of time to begin undertaking assignments and other coursework.

Speaking as a student from the humanities faculty, most modules’ deadlines fall at exactly the same time.

Whilst this can be helpful in terms of freeing up time around the year, it has the tendency to force most students into cramming the work for deadlines into one weekend, which I feel would be better spread more evenly throughout the semester.

The University would generate

happier, less stressed students, achieving higher grades, if they spread their students’ workload over more weeks.

On a related note, inter-module coordination is called for, with module co-ordinators considering the deadlines of other modules so as not to overload students. This is especially the case for modules of the same or related subjects, where module co-ordinators are aware their students are taking both courses.

However, without deadlines, short courses and other events taking place at the same time or within the currently short time periods, I would argue it is easier to plan for academic and social affairs without everything occurring concurrently.

For example, Achieve More Level 2, which is currently taking place, has been co-ordinated so that there are deadlines at the exact same time as midterms. To attend many of the – admittedly optional – talks during the initial Festival of 10bn, students often had to rush from lectures at the end of a full day or attend events on an otherwise day off which could have been dedicated to working towards deadlines at a calmer, more laid-back pace.

If the University’s semesters were lengthened, short courses like this, which benefit students academically and

Homophobia has no place in a profession that helps the vulnerable Will “The Thrill” Morgan

L

et me paint you a picture. A medical professional posts on Facebook saying that they consider all people over six foot to be subhuman and that this is justification for denying them the legal right to marry other tall people.

Subsequently this height-ist is removed from their job because they are unfit to practice due to their discriminatory views against tall patients.

It’s a no brainer. If one of the founding principles of your profession is to help all people, you can’t retain that job whilst clearly discriminating against a large proportion of society.

This applies to the expelled social work Masters student Felix Ngole. Mr Ngole was kicked out of the University of Sheffield after a fitness to practice committee decided that his Facebook post opposing same-sex marriage, calling homosexuality an “abomination”, made him unfit to practice social work.

In the post, Mr Ngole aligned himself with the Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis who refused marriage licenses to same-sex couples despite multiple rulings from the Supreme Court.

How can a man hoping to work for the betterment of society be fit to work when he agrees with not adhering to that society’s laws and standards?

Especially when it is in turn justified by a religious belief not held by the vast majority of citizens.

Same-sex marriage has been legal in the UK since 2014 and so far the sky has been relatively clear of hellfire and brimstone, so it’s safe to say that any deities out there are pretty chill with homosexuality.

Mr Ngole used the El Classico of Old Testament homophobia, Leviticus, to justify his beliefs. If we disregard that this book was written thousands of

years ago, and that a fair amount has happened since then, we can see that Ngole is only using Leviticus to qualify his own intolerance. This is obvious when we look at the other biblical no-nos of Leviticus, which include include: being a psychic (19:31), planting more than one kind of seed in a field (19:19), cutting the hair on the side of your head (19:27) and waiting too long before consuming a sacrifice (19:5). Yet Mr Ngole made no Facebook statuses about Mystic Meg or Skrillex, instead going after a section of society he doesn’t understand and so fears and hates.

On the British Association of Social Workers’ website, social work is defined as aiming to help “vulnerable people” as well as “individuals and families”. Whilst Mr Ngole might not be able to see homosexuals as individuals and denies their right to a family, many are undoubtedly vulnerable as they still have to face this discrimination and hate on a regular basis. So clearly a man who practices discrimination and hate is unfit to work in this field.

Furore erupted online when Ngole went to the press, as people called the expulsion a violation of free speech and a sign of the increasing intolerance to all religions in the UK. This isn’t an issue of free speech or secularism, as no one is attempting to stop Mr Ngole from saying or believing in these things, it’s an issue of ability. He could never practice as a social worker when he clearly discriminates against large proportions of society.

The only threat to freedom of speech here is Ngole’s belief that two people of the same sex can’t have their love legally acknowledged.

Even if he worked in a field that didn’t require the ability to not be horrible about fellow human beings, he should still have lost his job. What right does one man have to call people abominations for who they are? Quite simply, it’s none of his business what other people do with their lives as it doesn’t affect him in any way.

If he wants a different career, I suggest he runs in the Republican primaries. He’ll fit in better.

socially, would be more manageable and I’m sure more students would enrol.

While it is not fair to presume we can change the structure of the university’s timetable solely so students have more free time available to party or use for leisurely activities of their choosing, it is essential that staff consider the necessity of free time for students within the semester. Learning is a better experience in a more relaxed environment.

Most students are familiar with the concept of an all-nighter to finish essays and submit assignments at the last minute. Granted, procrastination is also something most students are familiar with, but the intense structure of the university timetable is another sizable factor here, meaning students often have to submit more than one assignment at a time, alongside personal and work commitments, leaving most of us with no choice but to sacrifice a night (or more) of sleep in order to complete the work.

Therefore, semesters should be longer and breaks shorter, giving students greater amount of time to complete assignments.

The pain of rain falls mainly on campaigns

B

Robin Wilde

ad weather, like broken glass in your shoe, is one of those things you don’t notice until you’re forced to deal with it.

One of those circumstances is when you, like me, have squandered two weeks running an SU Presidential campaign. Those hours spent out on the concourse in snow and driving rain are a good way to develop your constitution and get experience, but nobody can deny they’re hardly much fun.

Given the officers don’t actually take office until the glorious early days of summer, it seems frankly bizarre that the elections take place at a time when it still regularly gets below freezing.

Understandably the university are keen to avoid putting elections during exam time. But there are several weeks left until the end of April when assessments start in earnest, and it wouldn’t hurt to be able to go outside without a coat.

Whoever the officers - at time of writing, not yet elected - are, it’s a matter worth raising with the powers that be. If it’s so difficult, maybe they can just cancel the elections and institute some sort of hereditory monarchy for the Union. That could work.

Sunday trading?

Someone tell Interval

T

Robin Wilde

he Interval Great British Sundays menu was a regular fixture in the rotation of little-listened Forge Radio contributors and Press editors trying to catch up on their late sections.

The removal of fish and chips and bangers and mash from the Sunday menu is truly one of the great crimes of our time.

It’s not exactly the most stimulating of menus at the best of times, and cutting the variety down further does little to draw in customers, costing the Union money it desperately needs to pay staff.

Former Social Work student Felix Ngole

Friday 11 March 2016 | Forge Press

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Richard Roberts Occupation: sit down and be counted Charlotte O’Neill

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t’s a bizarre feeling to wake up in Richard Roberts Seminar Room B79.

Especially when it’s the same seminar room you took a module in last year. I don’t think the two things are separate, though: my module was called Radical Theory, and focused on critical discussion, finding ways of intervening in our world, and non-hierarchical collaboration with lecturers. It changed my perspective on what University could be like, somewhere I could contribute something vital to a critical debate; I learnt that as a student, I’m instrumental too, not just there to receive a product.

That led to me joining the Free University of Sheffield, a loose organisation of people concerned about the state of Higher Education (HE) today. That then led to me participating in the occupation of Richard Roberts, which— as I write looking out over a sea of lecture theatre seats— is about to hit the week-long mark.

For me, this occupation is about taking the glossy, high-concept spaces which Sheffield proudly offers its

students, and refilling them with the educational intent the University has sadly lost. We wanted to create a space where we reimagined education, research and teaching as not merely about employability and the circulation of profit, but about collaboration within and between students and academics, critical thinking, and open, non-elitist doors.

The University has deflected all our demands Obviously and unfortunately, not every aspect of that space is within our control: we have frequent supervision by security, and in recent days the heating has been switched off making it unbelievably cold. Our potential illness didn’t matter, but ‘occupier safety’ was still important enough that lectures and even seminars in the building were shut down: according to management, this would stop us being attacked by inflamed students.

That really wasn’t our intention: I’m glancing at our poster emblazoned with ‘Lectures as Normal / We don’t want to spoil your Education / We’re not the Government.’ We were planning on sitting to the side as lectures continued, but also leaving our mark in the atmosphere and on the walls; we think the University should be an inherently activist space, not isolated from it. It’s a shame that the University has disallowed this (despite repeated requests to the contrary) and also a shame that management has, thus far, ignored our demands.

Beyond the reinstatement of lectures and seminars, we are asking for four things. One, public condemnation of, and non-compliance with the HE Green Paper, the most comprehensive and scary piece of education policy in recent years. The Green Paper threatens fee rises in line with performance in the Teaching Excellence Framework, a new measure for bullying academics into marketable teaching which doesn’t reward education for its own sake.

We also ask for condemnation of and non-compliance with PREVENT, which

disproportionately victimises Muslim students and jeopardises unhindered democratic exchange within the University. Beyond this, we want better and more consistent pay and working conditions for casualised academics within the University.

Another thing we’ve asked for is simple accountability on the part of Vice Chancellor Keith Burnett: all we ask is that he meets up with students and staff for regular public forums.

Keith is paid £374,000 a year, plus extras for travel and a luxury house.

In light of the struggle to secure all University staff a basic Living Wage, the need for him to respond sincerely to the demands of the huge student-staff body he represents is ever-increasing.

The University has deflected all our demands - even this, the easiest to enact of demands, we acknowledge are legally complex - with noncommittal acknowledgements of our aims, and cyclical condemnations of our means. Our cause has been supported by fellow activists around the world, academics in Sheffield and across the UK, and even Sir Richard Roberts

himself. Management, however, would still rather haemorrhage £2000 a day on security (and more on the callous decision to turn the air conditioning on) than critically engage with our demands. If it did so, it would provide a key precedent for other Universities to do the same, living up to its selfproclaimed innovation and helping to crush measures we all know to be detrimental.

The atmosphere at the occupation is sometimes one of exhaustion, but more often one of motivation and cheerful community. Management’s attempts to undermine us only increase our conviction. The University has taken out a possession order against our peaceful and (at least on our side) non-disruptive protest: in court, we had our heads held high. What’s been great is engaging with other students who I wouldn’t have met if not for the creation of a spontaneous community. Reclaiming a University space is a great way to remind yourself, and other students, that you have the power to make a chang

Forge Press | Friday 11 March 2016

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COMMENT

I

t’s going to be a great year, 2016.

Part of the reason it’s going to be great is the superb advice we’re going to offer in answer to your problems.

To receive our agony relations’ advice in response to your problem, email press.comment@forgetoday.com, or tweet us at @ForgePress

““Worrying about my insomnia keeps me up at night” - Coffee Addict

T America might not be the greatest country in the world - but give its people a break

Robin Wilde

A

mong left-wing British students it’s fashionable to be derisive of the United States. Its people are overweight, uneducated gun-lovers and religious fanatics, such people often think (even if they don’t say). Its military is overfunded and overreaching, and its corporations poison the seas and skies and drive individuality out of our towns and cities. All, to an extent, true. But all somehow missing most of America.

Coverage and discussion of the ongoing US elections similarly misses the point. For all the sound and fury over Donald Trump, he is vanishingly unlikely to become President. And, though this will disappoint plenty of our readers, so is Bernie Sanders.

I cast my primary ballot in the middle of last month, for the totally insignificant Democrats Abroad ballot.

I don’t mind letting it be known I voted for Bernie Sanders. Not because I’m after a ‘revolution’ in the country of my second nationality, but because I think his personal integrity and hopeful programme would be something that appealed more to swing voters than Hillary Clinton’s rather safe robotic approach and questionable personal record.

But the British people I talk to about the elections seem to believe the two countries are united by more than 200 year old history and a common language.

The American elections are riddled

with personality. Candidates for the Presidency do not have to scrap with the current President for five years as our Prime Ministerial contenders do.

They win votes on the basis of who voters want to have a beer with, not on the basis of detailed manifestos.

It’s not as if personality plays no role in British politics - we saw that when a man lost a General Election on the basis of his consumption of a bacon sandwich, and we still see it in the inexplicably rapturous crowds Nicola Sturgeon can regularly draw. But the average person can probably name more members of Cameron’s cabinet than they can Obama’s.

We view politics and political ideas from a different angle. British public opinion is united in condemnation of Donald Trump’s absurd statements on Mexicans or the use of torture. The British left is shocked when Hillary Clinton backs the death penalty. But those are attitudes that often succeed when tapped into in the USA, and that’s down to hundreds of years of cultural development rather than anything so crude as a lack of education.

American people do tend to like guns, be lax about corporate overreach, and consume more of the world’s resources than are good for them. But they also value family and community. They are generally honest and open people.

They believe in fair play. And if significant numbers of them are voting for someone with views as undeniably shocking as Donald Trump’s, that’s the fault of whatever and whoever has made them so angry.

And they have reason to be angry.

Wages among the poorest Americans have been stagnating since the 1970s, and in some cases even falling.

Free trade agreements passed in the 1990s mean that jobs in manufacturing and industry can and often do go with the stroke of a pen to Mexico.

That isn’t the fault of Mexican people

- goodness knows they need jobs too, and that country is in an even worse state of police and gang violence than its northern neighbour. Nobody in this paper is disputing that Donald Trump is scapegoating, nor that his rhetoric against Mexicans is ridiculous and hurtful.

But those are scant consolations to Indiana or Ohio manual workers now working bad jobs or no jobs after the running down of their industries by successive governments.

I’m sure it was never the intention of the Democratic Party to endanger jobs.

The NAFTA - and free trade in general - are seductively sold, as opening up to neighbours, as internationalism, even as anti-racist.

“We owe that country and its people more than we could possibly say” But now it falls to that party - which forged its current name in the 1930s and 1960s as the party of the workers and of social liberalism - to rescue those same workers from the lure of populists like Donald Trump. He is a Pied Piper leading America down a dark path, but the people following him aren’t necessarily evil.

In our own city of Sheffield, a good proportion of voters support yearly a party - UKIP - squarely opposed to their interests. They do that not because they are stupid or ignorant, but because that party has become very good at selling them answers to legitimate fears, at a time when their old parties - the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats - have descended into functional irrelevance to their lives and experiences.

The Liberal Party in this country

died when it became a party of the middle and upper classes talking to the working classes without any clue as to their lives. The Labour Party, if it treads wrong, could encounter the same fate. The same goes for the Democratic Party across the pond. No political movement has a God-given right to exist, and continues to do so only on the permission of the people who really matter in a democracy - the voters.

As for those of you in Sheffield, do bear in mind that the American government has a major impact on our lives and that of our country - whether we go to war being the most obvious of a number of major factors. You would do well to try not to sneer at a group of people who may well hold unsavoury views, but in many cases hold them for well-founded and understandable reasons.

How those people feel in Indiana cannot be too far removed from how people in Sheffield felt as the steel jobs slipped away.

America gave us the Polio vaccine, breakfast cereal, bubble wrap, the fax machine, the concept of the modern welfare state, the world’s greatest and most powerful entertainment industries and dental floss. They saved the world years of the Second World War and saved Western Europe from decades of grinding Communist oppression. They did all this on the backs of millions of well-motivated, patriotic citizens who love their parents and their children, and worked ordinary jobs with high rates of union membership and stability.

We owe that country and its people more than we could possibly say - so when those people are hurting, the least we can do is listen, and try to understand.

his is a problem I have encountered many times. You fear the time when you get into bed and begin to count the hours that pass. Oh if I go to sleep at this time, I will get seven hours sleep, or six hours sleep, then five hours sleep, four hours sleep and then before you know it, it is 8am and you have to get ready to go to a pointless 9am seminar.

Firstly, dont drink coffee or any drink that contains caffiene. Secondly, ease your mind by engaging in horrendous binge watching.

In the past two nights, I have watched all four lethal weapon movies and all three Beverly Hills Cop films. Instead of being worried about the lack of sleep you are having, instead immerse yourself in 1980’s buddy cop movies.

You will love it.

Yours, Anthony

“My left wing activities are getting in the way of my course” - Vladimir Trotsky

Y

es, I’ve wondered when you’d be in touch. It’s very admirable trying to turn the world on its head through the power of sitting in a room, but at some point you come to realise that whether it’s right or not, you are piling up tens of thousands of pounds in debt.

A degree might actually be useful, somewhere down the line. You could use the sharp edge of the certificate to beat back burglars.

In the mean time, you’ve got until your graduation date to hope the proletariat and the vanguard party can work together in glorious revolution to bring down the hated capitalist oppressors.

Clock’s ticking.

Yours, Robin

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FEATURES

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Shaken&

Stirred

T

here is something special about taking a trip to vodka revs or Bloo 88 and having a skilled bartender carefully craft an exotic beverage, but as students even with a handy two for one card things can get a little pricey and so the experience is saved for special occasions.

For a lot of us students, making a cocktail usually means you’ve run out of mixers and have had to combine your lemonade with your coca cola in order to make your vodka somewhat drinkable. I remember dropping a raspberry into my gin and tonic once and feeling infinitely fancy.

That being said, going the extra mile and picking up a few extra ingredients can mean that you’re left not just with barely consumable alcoholic beverages: you may actually find that you enjoy the taste of them.

My housemates and I decided to have our own little cocktail night, and after a few failed attempts, managed to come up with some idiot-proof concoctions which look as good as they taste!

Sheena Sidhu has tried and tested the best cocktail and mockail recipes that will change your pre drinks experience. Perfect for summer, or even the Sheffield snow, these drinks will allow you to liven up your liquor and familiarise yourself your fruits

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Forge Press| Friday 11 March 2016

@ForgePress /ForgePress

Posh vodka lemonade (MAKES 1) Make your basic vodka lemonade, strong or as weak as you like it.

Then get fancy- throw in a few mint leaves, a couple of raspberries and blueberries, and the juice of one lime along with a teaspoon of sugar. Chuck in a lime wedge for good measure.

Sip with curly straw. Pretend you’re better than everyone else.

FEATURES

Frozen Tiramisu (makes 4) Whisk 250 grams of Whipping cream in a large bowl until light and fluffy.

Fold in 100 grams of Mascarpone and put to one side.

FRUITYAPPLEMOCKTAIL(MAKES4)

Fill 4 sundae glasses with chunky ice cubes and add a shot of coffee onto each.

Pour 500ml apple juice, 50ml pineapple juice, 100ml orange juice, 100ml coconut milk, 50ml peach juice and 100ml strawberry juice into a blender.

Throw 4 large scoops of Vanilla ice cream into a blender and add 4 double shots of Irish cream liqueur.

Blend until orangish and foaming.

Blend with a few quick blasts then pour and top with a dollop of mascarpone cream.

Pour into a glass adding a straw and plenty of ice.

To be extra fancy, make a small slit in the slice of an apple and wedge onto the side of the glass.

Decorate with maraschino cherries and grated chocolate.

MALIBU CHEESECAKE (makes 4)

Mojito Mocktail (MAKES 2)

Fill four sundae glasses with ice and add a splash of Blue Curacao.

Muddle one tablespoon of sugar with a handful of mint leaves using a pestle and mortar (or a small bowl and the end of a rolling pin if your student budget won’t stretch that far!)

Blend four large scoops of coconut ice cream with half a chopped pineapple and 4 double shots of Malibu.

Pour and top with mascarpone cream.

Decorate with a slice of pineapple or coconut on a cocktail stick.

Divide the juice of 3 limes between two glasses and add a handful of crushed ice to each.

Divide the sugar mixture between the two and top of with soda water. Finish with mint leaves for an extra flourish.

Mango margarita sunrise (makes 4) Moonlight Margaritas (MAKES 1) Salt the glass and fill with chunky ice.

Add a double shot of tequila, the juice from one lime, then fill with Blue Curacao.

Decorate with orange peel.

Wet the rims of four glasses with lime juice and dip in salt.

Pour a splash of grenadine into each.

Blend 1 chopped mango, 1/2 cup of orange juice, the juice from 2 limes, and 4 double shots of tequila.

Pour over chunky ice and decorate with spiraled lime and trashy paper umbrella.

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: o t e id u G s e r u t The Fea

The US Election 2016 

B

ecoming president of the most powerful country in the world is a long, messy and complicated process. Following the campaigns from the announcement of candidacy to the election in early November, often over a year later, can be confusing and exhausting. Therefore, it is useful to take a breath, sort the Clintons from the caucuses, and figure out what the hell is going on.

Who can run for president?

From a school janitor to Kim Kardashian, any natural born US citizen who is over 35 and has lived in the US for over 14 years, can run for president.

However, here are a few things which make the march up Capitol Hill to the White House that bit easier: Money. It doesn’t have to be your money, but without a great heap of cash, running for president is very difficult. The sheer amount of money involved in the US elections dwarfs what we are used to in the UK. In 2012, Obama’s Democrats spent over $1billion on his re-election. It is often touted that the nominee who has spent the most has never lost.

Experience. It helps if you’ve done something pretty impressive like represent your state, build a business empire or fight in a war.

It is extremely useful to be white and male when running for the presidency.

Obama may have broken the mould when it comes to white presidents but

American politics is still dominated, like politics in the UK, by white, Christian, wealthy men.

How do parties decide their Presidential candidate?

This is where it gets silly and complicated. Unlike in the UK where parties elect a leader, in the US the main political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, don’t have leaders and instead elect a presidential candidate every four years.

Party members in each state vote for who they want as their official party candidate in elections called caucuses and primaries. Each state is weighted by population so some states are more important than others.

Caucuses – Caucuses are a bit odd.

Party members in a state go down to their local church hall and debate who they think will be the best candidate. At the end they all vote by raising hands or moving to different sides of the room.

Sounds fun, but caucuses can go on for a while and if you leave early you don’t get to vote.

Primaries – Primaries are just like normal elections. Party members go into a voting booth and anonymously vote for their preferred candidate. Quite boring really, but if you live in one of a majority of states that don’t have caucuses then it’s the best you’ve got.

Once everyone has ticked their boxes or raised their hands, the state will

announce the results and a candidate will get a certain amount of points depending on how well they did and the population of the state. The last state will vote for their nominee in June but by then the winning candidate will most likely already be decided.

After winning the party nomination, what then?

As if the five months of relentless campaigning for primaries and caucuses wasn’t enough, the winning party nominee now has to convince everyone else that they’d make a great president – or a better one than that loser on the other team. There are no caucuses in this election, just a good old fashioned first past the post vote in which each state will decide their candidate for president.

Again, states are weighted on population, so you want to focus your wins on the big states, notably California and Texas. Like in the UK, the US election is usually decided by a number of swing states which can go either way. Bus drivers in Sunderland are generally going to vote Labour, just like oil ranchers in Texas will likely vote Republican, so for a radical Democratic candidate, there isn’t much point campaigning there.

Even once a candidate gets enough weighted states to have a majority and is named the president elect, they still have to wait until 20 January, over two months later, to be sworn in as president and move into the White House.

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A

merican politics is very much a two party system split between the Democrats and the Republicans. It can be tempting to make a comparison with UK politics and say that the Democrats are similar to the Labour Party and the Republicans to the Conservative Party, but such comparisons are too far from the truth. The Democrats are somewhat to left, similar to New Labour except without the spending, and the Republicans are way out on the right, closer to Thatcher than to David Cameron.

Key Dates 1 February: Iowa caucuses are the first votes cast in the nomination process = Very close results for all candidates.

9 February: New Hampshire primary is the first primary (they wrote it into state law) = Big win for Trump and strong win for Sanders.

1 March: Super Tuesday when 13 states vote all at the same time because, well, America = Big wins for Trump and Clinton.

15 March: Not so super Tuesday when five states, including Florida, choose their candidates.

7 June: California and a few others are the last states to go to the polls (the district of Columbia has its primary a few weeks later).

18-21 July: Republican National Convention where official Republican candidate is announced.

25-27 July: Democratic National Convention where official Democrat candidate is announced.

26 September: The first presidential debate.

8 November: The big day.

Not sure how it works or who’s in the running?

James Delger has simplified the process and outlined the candidates in one easy Forge approved guide

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Republicans

Democrats

Ted Cruz – Republican Texas senator Ted Cruz was originally one of the favourites for the Republican nomination but has become stuck in second place. Cruz, of Cuban decent, is the darling of the Tea Party (a vocal far right branch of the Republican Party). Ted promises to introduce a flat rate of tax for all Americans, repeal Obamacare and do away with climate change regulations.

Quote of the campaign: “If you want someone to grab a beer with, I may not be that guy.”

Hillary Clinton - Democrat The Democrat favourite, Clinton is a former Secretary of State and wife of former President Bill Clinton. Mrs Clinton advocates liberal abortion law, increased gun control and higher taxes on the wealthy. She is supported by the Democrat establishment, moderates and big business such as J.P Morgan.

Quote of the campaign: “You may have seen I recently launched a Snapchat account. I love it. I love it. Those messages disappear all by themselves.”

Mark Rubio – Republican Also of Cuban decent, Florida senator Marco Rubio is strongly anti-abortion and pro-guns. Rubio also promises to destroy Obamacare and do away with America’s Clean Power Plan. Rubio was initially a rank outsider and hasn’t really made any inroads to challenging for the Republican nomination.

Quote of the campaign: “I don’t buy into the dystopian scenarios of self-aware robots enslaving mankind.”

Bernie Sanders – Democrat The rogue outsider, Sanders is the Jeremy Corbyn of American politics. A grizzled old socialist, Sanders ran for election with no real expectation of winning. However, grass roots support and straight talking politics swept this fiery New Yorker into challenging for the nomination with socialist policies advocating equality and human rights.

Quote of the campaign: “There is too much shouting. There is too much making fun of each other.”

Donald Trump – Republican The enigmatic yellow haired businessman has grabbed all the headlines in the election race. Trump, a billionaire New Yorker, has gone from a bit of a joke to the favourite for the Republican nomination in the last few months. Famously outspoken and a virulent critic of political correctness, Trump presents his policies in brash confident terms. He promises to “make America great again” by building a wall between the US and Mexico and banning Muslims temporarily from the US. Quote of the campaign: “I would just bomb those suckers, and that’s right, I’d blow up the pipes, I’d blow up the refineries, I’d blow up every single inch, there would be nothing left.”

Others and independents John Kasich – Republican Governor of Ohio who is still in the race but doesn’t have a prayer.

Jeb Bush – Republican Brother to former president George Bush and initial favourite for nomination before performing badly in first primaries and pulling out.

John Carson – Republican Retired neurosurgeon who was also at one point in the running for the nomination before succumbing to bad publicity and bad results in the primaries.

John McAfee – Libertarian Party That guy that protects your computer from viruses? Well he’s hoping his campaign can be a Trojan horse in the battle for the White House.

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Glued to the Screen? You could have a much bigger problem W

ith the return of the much anticipated House of Cards, it seems appropriate to document the many stages of Netflix series addiction. While you might scorn at the gravity of this article, PSA (Post Series Addiction) is a serious affliction with very little media or health coverage.

No doubt many of you engage with Netflix recreationally, but do you ever consider the long term consequences? No, well then read on and become educated. A lot of the information shared may be distressing to readers, but this is simply used to inform and hopefully deter you from an inevitable demise.

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Stage 1- Experimentation So all the cool kids are talking about Netflix and some shows like Narcos or Orange is the New Black. You’ve watched television before so surely there’s nothing new to be discovered here? You proceed to sign up, you subsequently receive a membership and there you go; you’ve tasted the sweet ecstatic high of endless television to be experienced at your internet leisure.

Documentaries, comedies, action - is there ever a comedown to this unnatural pleasure? You scroll through the plethora of choices wondering why you’d never signed up for this before; in this moment everything seems so blissfully easy and perfect. It’s at this point you ought to leave and go for a walk, vacate the confines of your room and explore the world around you, trust me.

Stage 2 - Social Use/Regular Use Once your friends, flat mates or significant other have caught wind of your membership, you start organising non-sexual (or not, if that’s your thing) Netflix and chill nights to get the most out of that monthly subscription.

Once a week becomes twice a week and soon enough the frequency picks up.

Netflix thus becomes the centre of your social activities and with this, you start forming a loose attachment to a series. In essence, you start caring if the protagonist dies or not. This is a precarious position to be in, caring is your kryptonite and you’re on a dark route to imprinting on the cast of New Girl. If only there were more hours in the day and lectures weren’t holding you back, you’d have definitely finished the end of the series by the end of the week.

Stage 3 - Netflix Abuse So you promised to watch American Horror Story with your housemates but you’ve already finished the series behind their backs. This started as a social activity but everyone else is just slowing you down. You need to know what happens to Jesse’s heroin addiction. What about Claire’s abortion?

Fictional characters become more of a family to you than your actual parents. When was the last time you called them? Who cares. You might have an essay due within the next few weeks but you’re considering using an extenuating circumstances form to bide your time. There are only a few more episodes of Pretty Little Liars after all. At this stage your academic department hasn’t seen or heard from you in days and your u-card is gathering dust. You need help, desperate help.

Stage 4 - Netflix Dependency Your department cottoned onto your consistent absences from tutorials or seminars and have taken action in the form of a letter home to your parents. Words like ‘rehab’ are being thrown around. You’re planning on running away from your previous life and instead, living off the grid with your laptop.

Surely you could keep on the move and find multiple Starbucks’ wifi to connect to and get your fix. Right now your body is craving a Netflix and chill so god-damn bad that you keep getting the shakes. ONE MORE EPISODE then I’ll sleep you say. Just one, just one...

Where did it all go so wrong? You fleetingly wonder what has become of your flatmates and their television watching

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habits. If only they could see you now at your absolute lowest. FYI by this stage showering and petty human rituals such as tooth brushing have fallen wayside so you are probably looking and smelling horrific.

Piles of take-away boxes surround your bed as you manage only to run to collect the delivery from the front door in the 14 seconds in between episodes, cooking a meal is out of the question.

Listen, observe, learn: these are the features of a truly depraved Netflix addict.

This is your rock bottom.

CONCLUSION A lot of secrets got shared there but it’s all based on a (kind of) true story. Trudy was a straight A student but started experimenting with online television. Trudy now doesn’t go to school or college; Trudy is a nethead.

So folks, think carefully before embarking on a ‘casual’ relationship with a Netflix series as there is no such thing. You will get addicted and suffer the unfortunate repercussions. Ultimately, one episode or one subscription is a gateway into a life of television abuse.

Instead, think of your loved ones and the sky outside, things that would become secondary should you become a Nethead.

Whilst help is always available please remember that this doesn’t have to be the life you lead. For any more queries please see: www.netflixaholic.co.uk/help

Ruchira Sharma explains the four stages of binge watching TV and the repercussions this can have long term. Prepare to cancel your Netflix subscriptions...

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LIFESTYLE

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The Rise of the Healthy Fresher

By Madeleina Kay

I

’m sure that most students have become accustomed to our parents mocking us with the stereotypical image of the student as a dishevelled, unwashed, unshaven youth that lives a near animal existence. The dirty flat, with stacks of unwashed pots of every surface, rife with germs; combined with drinking sessions lasting until the early hours, on a nightly basis; a diet consisting predominantly of pot noodles and stale, discounted bread from the local off-licence, toasted to oblivion and

smeared with a “highly nutritious” own-brand chocolate spread; and not a single fruit or vegetable in sight (unless you count the withered cucumber at the back of the fridge that has slowly come to resemble something more like a pickled gherkin over the duration of the term).

Too poor to fork out for a gym membership or a sports club, the day is spent, bent over books in the library, the evening in a dark, dingy, disreputable club and the weekend lying in bed playing Xbox: It is hardly

considered the healthiest (or most sociable) of existences. However, it is questionable the extent to which this stereotype actually reins true.

Undoubtedly, this description fits a minority of individuals (not all of them university students), I heard a report of a school friend of mine who attempted to live on a £6 per week shopping budget by bulk-buying vast quantities of dried pasta and not even bothering to fork out the cost of a cheap, tomato based sauce. Unsurprisingly, by the end of his first term he was looking

somewhat like a malnourished vampire and returned home for some much needed festive gluttony.

However, I consider this case an exception to the norm. The waiting room (and the waiting time…) at the University Health Centre, is evidence that most students are health conscious and even when they do encounter problems, know where to seek assistance. However, preventative measures, such as positive lifestyle choices probably have the biggest influence on an individual’s health.

Diet is one of the biggest factors, but far from subsisting on ready meals and convenience foods, the majority of students aren’t so frugal that they would risk contracting scurvy from lack of vitamin intake.

If you walk through Broomhill after the 5pm “student rush hour”, you will see the fruit and veg aisles of Morrisons, Sainsbury’s and Tescos all ravaged of fresh produce. Many a time have I wandered down to the precinct and had to visit all three stores before acquiring every item on my shopping list, or returning home empty handed in the hunt for a single cucumber to replace the gherkin at the bottom of the fridge...

Exercise is another key element in a healthy lifestyle. Sport England claimed in 2012 that less than 3 in 10 university students played sport regularly.

However, 72% claim they would like to do more, marking a significant change in attitude from the lazy “x-boxer” of our parent’s conception. I have the added benefit of an over-energetic German-Shepherd to motivate me out

of bed for a run every morning, and in the evening, I don’t even bother taking of my coat and shoes before clipping on her lead and walking back outside.

But even without the responsibility to exercise a furry companion, most students would accept that we also have a duty to ourselves. And it seems that once established, this commitment stays with us for life; 19.3% of university graduates are still playing sport regularly, at the age of 50, compared to less than 13% of the overall population. Many students are also becoming less inclined to indulge in other bad lifestyle habits. Studies have shown that alcohol consumption has been steadily falling since 2000, most noticeably amongst males aged 16-24, indicating that the bingedrinking culture is more associated with the previous generation rather than the modern student.

So why has there been this shift in behavior? What has triggered the rise of the “healthy fresher”? It could be the result of government initiatives to promote health in schools, such as the “Change4life” campaign which began in 2009.

It could also be influenced by the increased tuition fees, now that we are paying (through the nose) for our education, we value our work, minds and bodies much more and want to take care of our health to ensure a happy, successful future. Or it could be that we have finally realised that quiet nights in, eating salad and dog walking really aren’t that bad.

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LIFESTYLE

Favourites at Fashion Week

Jess Davis talks to Forge about all her Fashion Week faves, from chandelier dresses to pole dancers.

F

ashion Week is one of the most important times in the industry and it has dawned on us once more.

From London to New York, Paris to Milan, fashion lovers all over the world have joined together in celebrating the wonderful (and let’s face it bizarre) world of fashion today.

When deciding on favourite shows and designers from shows that occurred all over the globe, it is very

difficult to pin point favourite looks that have graced us.

Something that stands out for me was the recent Dolce & Gabbana show for Milan Fashion Week that was any Disney princess lover’s dream. The brand really did go all out for their Autumn/Winter 2016 collection, with chandeliers, beds fit for a princess and golden carriages. The designers took inspiration for the show from their belief that fashion is fantasy. One

Concourse Couture

Marcus Goff First Year Architecture Shoes: Vans, jeans: Topman, jumper: H&M.

dress had the slogan “Dreaming of my prince” written across it in punkstyle letters, which says it all really!

Another well-known brand, Moschino, is a label that I have a love/ hate relationship with and is something of an individual taste. Set against a mansion in ruins, complete with smashed pianos and gilded frames, Jeremy Scott sent out 59 looks that had everybody talking.

Guests were gifted Moschino’s “Fashion Kills” cigarette phone case, which is one of the many items in the buy-now capsule collection this season. I think it will be a long time until a model tops Anna Cleveland’s walk down the catwalk in a literally smoking dress, which showcased the collection’s #ItsLit theme. Speaking of dresses, the one that still has me in awe is the chandelier dress that dominated the Instagram accounts of fashionista professionals.

One of my all-time favourite designers is Alexander McQueen and at the heart of the house is Sarah

Burton. The gowns for Autumn/ Winter 2016 were what dreams are made of, shown through the sequined embroideries glistening as the models paraded down the catwalk. The ruffled dresses and lace bras with camisoles were so striking in their delicacy.

The show finished with tulle gowns and capes gleaming with shooting stars or silvery moons. A particular highlight of the show was the two of the most elaborate bed jackets you will ever see, which were quilted literally like a duvet and covered with dainty floral embroideries.

Someone who really pushed the boundaries this year was Alexander Wang, at New York Fashion Week.

The new collection did just that, featuring anything from pole dancers to cannabis plants. The collection showcased a riot of late 80s and early 90s influences, but he wasn’t aiming to make this collection overly challenging; these are clothes to live in and to be worn straight off the

catwalk.

Slogan sweatshirts, mohair slip tops and mini dresses in leather and lace were constant, with hems and seams stitched with silver hardware.

Chokers and chunky earrings were worn by every model giving every look an edgy feel.

There is no doubt that the fashion industry is on the top of its game at the moment, with designers bustling with creativity at an all time high. I can’t wait for the next Fashion Week!

Photos taken by Anna Whittaker

Chris Saltmarsh Second year philosophy Boots and jeans: Topman, shirt: Cow, scarf: charity shop coat: Matalan.

Sophia Arthurs-Hartnett Third year Philosophy and Politics Yellow mac: Tesco, jeans: Cow, shoes: Doc Martens.

Muyiwa Oki Sixth Year Architecture Shoes: Cow, jeans: Zara, shirt and jacket: vintage shops

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@ForgePress

LIFESTYLE

/ForgePress

On a Shoestring: Venice Hannah Smith tells Lifestyle about her week in beautiful Venice, from vaporetto trips to speaking Italian. beautiful

or

fascinating.

One evening we were walking back to our hostel and popped our heads into an open door to find an artist slaving away well into the evening. He welcomed us in and we had the most fascinating conversation.

I

’ll just come out and say it, Venice is expensive. It’s the most beautiful city I have ever visited, but it is an expensive place to go on holiday.

Expensive, but worth it.

We stayed at a Generator Hostel, one vaporetto (public boat) stop away from St Mark’s Square, where the main tourist attractions are. I would definitely recommend finding a hostel away from the Square as prices rocket the closer you get. I definitely would say do your research before arriving in Venice; it’s not a city aimed at students and so decent and reasonably priced accommodation is few and far between.

timetable, you wait at the stop – except the bus is a boat. If you are in Venice for more than a day or two it’s definitely worth buying a pass for the vaporetto as it will help to make your time in Venice less expensive.

We found the best way to explore Venice was just walking, we’d always end up stumbling into something

There are many must-see sights in Venice, such as the St Marks Basilica. Arrive early to avoid the rush!

Also ensure you are dressed modestly, with covered knees and shoulders, unless you wish to accessorise with the provided ugly orange fabric.

The Doge’s Palace is also a must visit. We headed here to escape the rain and we were so glad that we did. This is a beautiful palace – you can also buy a ticket that gets you into two other museums for free.

Venice is an island, so to get around you’ll be pretty reliant on the vaporetto. This works exactly like a bus - there’s a

Remember to take a gondola ride – this is probably the main image we all have in our head of Venice, a romantic gondola ride for two, however on a budget a gondola for two is just not going to happen.

Determined not to leave Venice without a gondola trip, we headed down to the common room of our hostel and rounded up our fellow travellers. The next day the six of us set off and had the most beautiful journey along the Grand Canal.

We also had a bottle of wine between us but we realised once we were on our way that we didn’t have a bottle opener. Not a problem for our Gondolier he stopped at the window of a restaurant and one minute later we had an open bottle of wine.

We spent a week in Venice. Our fellow travellers were shocked that we were staying so long, most people we encountered felt Venice could be seen in two days. With the extra time that we had we visited the lagoon islands that surround Venice and if you have the time I would definitely recommend visiting Burano, Murano and St Erasmo.

Burano is full of beautiful, bright buildings. It is famous for lace-making and the museums and shops are

surprisingly fascinating.

Murano is famous for glass making, it seemed you could watch glassblowing on every corner.

St Erasmo was stunning. We rented bikes and spent the day riding around the island.

The thing we found amazing was that when we stopped to ask for directions, no one spoke English, we had finally escaped the tourist traps and found the Italians’ Italy; a worthwhile experience.

Recipe Corner: Crème Brûlée

The university’s Baking Society shows us how easy it is to make a delicious, French style crème brûlée.

Ingredients: 332ml double cream 2 tsp vanilla extract 67g caster sugar (plus extra for the topping) 4 free-range egg yolks Method: - Preheat the oven to 150C/300F/Gas 2.

- Pour the cream into a saucepan. Add the vanilla to the cream.

- Bring the cream to boiling point, then reduce the heat and simmer gently for five minutes.

- Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, beat the sugar and egg yolks together in a large heatproof bowl until pale and fluffy.

- Bring the cream back to boiling point. Pour it over the egg mixture, whisking continuously until thickened - this indicates that the eggs have begun to cook slightly.

- Strain the mixture through a fine sieve into a large jug, and then use this to fill six ramekins to about two-thirds full.

- Place the ramekins into a large roasting tray and pour in enough hot water to come halfway up their outsides. (This is called a bain-marie.)

- Place the bain-marie onto the center shelf of the oven and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until the custards are just set but still a bit wobbly in the middle.

- Remove the ramekins from the water and empty the water from the roasting tray. Then fill the roasting tray with cold water an return the ramekins to the water to speed up the cooling process.

- When ready to serve, sprinkle one level teaspoon of caster sugar evenly over the surface of each crème brûlée, then caramelise with a chefs’ blow-torch.

- Set aside to cool for a couple of minutes, then serve.

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LIFESTYLE

Pure-O: The Unseen Obsession

Eva Stepney discusses an OCD condition that many people might be unaware of, but should know about. four years, and can safely say that it is far from being about clean hands.

We grow up in an environment which, for the most part, persuades us to be ‘good’: we are told not to steal, act violently, or behave in sexually abnormal ways. We are told that if we commit actions outside of the culturally defined ‘good’ that they are ‘wrong’ and we are ‘bad’ people. While most of us adhere to this external set of guidelines, those suffering with pure OCD take matters further: we transfer this binary sense of right and wrong into an internal set of rules.

W

hile people seem to have ideas regarding the nature of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, most frequently being that it centers on order and cleanliness, there are many complex and unseen elements of the illness that rarely enter the discursive realm. I have suffered with ‘Pure’ OCD or ‘Pure-O’ as it often referred to for the last

While 94 percent of the population suffers with thoughts termed ‘intrusive thoughts’, those with Pure-O interpret these intrusive thoughts as signifying an absence of morality. Thoughts that are common to everyone, thoughts that pop up out of nowhere and are likely the product of our minds making false connections, can lead us to have an identity crisis so painful that

nothing else seems to matter.

I left university because of one thought. A single thought I still don’t feel comfortable writing because of what I fear it means about me. This thought gathered such power that I even ended up attacking my body in an attempt to eliminate its force.

The nature of Pure OCD doesn’t allow any freedom, it grabs for your attention every second of every day, asking: What does the thought mean about me? Why have I had it? Will it last forever?

Is it true?

Conversations start to falter as the thought leaps and flies through your mind, other topics seem less important, and time to yourself gives you space to assess, analyse, and look for evidence of the thought being ‘true’. Circuits in your mind seem to connect every experience to the single thought; memories are molded to justify its existence, and any confidence in your self as ‘good’ dissipates into dust.

Many of us have had times in our lives where we have thought

Review: Upshot Espresso

a great deal about a particular person, a conflict maybe, or something we feel anxious about. Many of us are prone to ‘over thinking’. But, for those with OCD ‘obsession’ and ‘over thinking’ equate to something quite different. Obsessing for sufferers is like fighting: you push and shove your unwanted thoughts away and they come back with twice as much force. You spend time trying to avoid them and they pop up everywhere, taunting and mocking your failed attempt at running away. No matter how much you try and hide, they seem to remain beside you.

Fortunately, there are many treatments that help those with this type (and other types) of OCD. Cognitive behavioral therapy, talking therapy, mindfulness, exposure techniques, and medication all contribute to softening your reaction to these unwanted thoughts.

an acknowledgement that these thoughts pass through everyone’s mind. Experiencing such obsessions in solitary silence is heartbreaking, so just talk to someone. You might find your mum, as mine did laugh and say ‘you’ve got to see the funny side’ or a friend who has momentarily also considered the fact that they may be a psychopath. You might also find someone whose recovered from Pure-O, someone who tells you that it will get easier and even admits that they believe it had made them a stronger person.

Talking is a step towards restoring your fractured sense of self.

However, the ultimate solution to gaining a sense of safety has to be a personal acceptance,

Mared Gruffydd explains why Upshot Espresso on Glossop Road is perfect for both mid-morning brunch or afternoon tea. recommend the hot chocolate which is ideal with a delicious chocolate brownie, without being too rich and heavy on the stomach. Nowadays, edgy cafes tend to serve drinks on some kind of eccentric objects and Upshot Espresso is no exception; tea and cake being served on unique silver metallic trays and cool, modern cups and saucers.

Definitely Instagram worthy.

Situated on Glossop Road, Upshot Espresso is just a step away from the Students’ Union, so it is the perfect place to stop by between lectures for beakfast, brunch, lunch or an afternoon tea and cake. It doesn’t seem like much on the outside with its grey and wooden wall and too small, orange sign hanging above the

door. However, once inside, the place is noramally buzzing with people and gives off a comfortable, fun atmosphere with its cool wooden tables and stools. The drinks are all reasonably priced with coffee ranging from £2.20 to £2.60, all teas £2.50 and hot chocolate for only £2.60. I would definitely

Breakfast plates range from £2.40 to £8 and varies from avocado on toast and rarebit to banana bread granola to bacon sandwiches and sourdough toast. Lunch sounds and looks just as delicious, with a selection of light sandwiches such as halloumi, beef and chorizo, as well as artichoke soup. However, brunch is many customers’ favourite, with Forge Press’ Features editor, Anna, even saying that Upshot Espresso is her favourite place for brunch.

Served on Saturdays from 10 till 3, it is no surprise that so many are fans, as the choice varies from pistachio crumble pancakes to mackerel with poached egg and wild mushrooms.

The workers have obviously received some kind of coffee art training as the hot drinks are always neatly and impressively decorated with a pattern of milk on the top.

For budding baristas, the cafe also offers Espresso, Professional Espresso and Latte Art courses, which sound both interesting and very useful if you’d like to work in a similar environment to Upshot Espresso in the future.

Upshot Espresso is an ideal place for brunch and coffee lovers, especially those who enjoy eating and drinking with their friends in a peaceful place giving off a calm, chilled vibe.

YOUR NEW PRESIDENT

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OFFICER ELECTIONS 2016

Friday 11 March | Forge Press

@ForgePress /ForgePress

He’s a Trendall setter...

What does the President do?

President

Read more at

forgetoday.com/elections

T

he figurehead of your Students’ Union.

Leads and oversees the work of your Student Officer Team.

Ensures the Students’ Union is valued by its members as an effective, responsive and accountable organisation. Chairs the Trustee Board, Student Executive Committee and Staffing Committee.

Also sits on University Council and Senate as well as a number of other University committees.

Dom 23%

Nazma 22.7%

Adam 15.6%

Jon 12.3%

Chris 8.1%

David 6.6%

Oliver 5.3%

Charles 3.7%

RON 2.7%

Your new SU President Dom Trendall, celebrating his victory in true rock star time

“The highight has been the people who’ve supported me”

A

t 11.55pm on Thursday 10 March, Dom Trendall was announced as next year’s new President of the Students’ Union.

After a campaign which was met with fierce competition, Dom edged out into first place after eight rounds of vote counting, winning by just 0.3 per cent.

Speaking to Forge Press about how he felt, Dom said: “I’m not really sure. The adrenaline is really pumping.

I’m so happy to be here with so many friends who have supported me.”

Dom, whose campaign

included promises to fight against bus fare rises, defend maintenance grants and open University access to students from disadvantaged backgrounds, is keen to learn how the Union works before getting into his work.

He said: “I need to find out what I’m doing! I think I’ve got the right experience and the right policies but I need to try and learn the intricacies of how the Union works and make sure I understand what’s going on so that I can do the best job for the students.”

Speaking about his housemate Alex Richardson’s

unsuccessful campaign for education officer, Dom said: “It’s mixed emotions with Alex not winning but I’m feeling positive.”

Running against seven other candidates, Dom was actually beaten by Nazma Begum if only first preference votes were counted, as Forge were made to report by the Students’ Union on the night.

Reflecting on his campaign, he said: “The highlight of my campaign has been the amount of people who have come out and supported me, people who I didn’t expect to have been just turning up and

helping out and that’s meant a lot to me. I’ll never forget it.”

Dom wanted to thank his friend Robin Wilde, who helped to run his campaign.

Robin also ran Max Bell’s unsuccessful presidential bid last year, and the pair were reunited at the elections to support their friend Dom. He said: “Robin Wilde has been a massive help in terms of graphics and things, but I can’t name everyone – they know who they are. I’ve had masses of support, that’s why I’ve won and I’m really appreciative of it.

“My win was down to my

support network. Though it was a small team. I can’t thank my team enough.”

Speaking about what he hoped to achieve next year, Dom felt hopeful about representing students in the Union.

He said: “I hope I will have worked towards my objectives that I laid out in my manifesto, but also I hope that I’ve represented the students and been a voice for them coming together.

“We’re much stronger together than we are apart so that’s what I really hope I’ve done.”

Forge Press | Friday 11 March 2016

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OFFICER ELECTIONS 2016

Today is Ali’s Day T he new education officer Ali Day who won with 33.7 per cent told Forge Press that “it was tough seeing all my fellow candidates receiving their results, it made me more nervous”.

Day said however, that victory made her feel like she was “Literally on top of the world, I know people say that all the time but I’ve never done anything like this and I never thought I was capable of anything like this. I have no words”.

In terms of her manifesto, Day is running on a platform to campaign for free education, put

study spaces in university accommodation and to promote political education.

When speaking about the highlight of the campaign, She said “The highlight was definitely all my friends rallying round me, coming down every day, helping me, sharing stuff on Facebook… all that kind of thing. It was really humbling and it made me feel really good”.

She stated that her first thing in the role would be to “Get students to realise they can make a change in their education. If there’s something they don’t like they can do something

Ali 33.7% Alex 29.8% Josh 18.6% Imogen 9.4% Jamie 4.9% RON 3.6%

about it, they don’t just have to complain about it.

They can actually come to me”.

When speaking about why people voted for her over the other candidates, Day said “i’m quite friendly, I’m quite, I don’t know… approachable.”

In terms of celebration, her focus turned onto the free bottle of prosecco given to each of the student officers, stating “We’re gonna open that bottle of prosecco.

Somebody else has bought me prosecco, and apparently someone else too. So a lot of prosecco to be honest.”

Education

What does the Education Officer do?

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esponsible for all educational matters affecting students, undergraduate and postgraduate.

Co-ordinates and supports democracy and

student representation within the University, and works with the Academic Representative Committee to campaign on, and keep students informed of, academic

issues.

Sits on many University committees including University Senate and Learning & Teaching Committee.

You’re zany for Mullaney Welfare

What does the Welfare Officer do?

P

rovides support, representation and raises awareness of student health, finance, housing & safety issues.

Works closely with the Student Advice Centre to ensure relevant and effective advice is available to students.

Works with the University to ensure adequate welfare provision and support for students.

Anna 40.2% Talitha 21.3% Your new Welfare Officer...Anna Mullaney

A

nna Mullaney, who won the Welfare Officer race by 40.2 per cent of the vote, was especially overjoyed with her victory.

Speaking to Forge Press, she said she was “ecstatic, I really really really wanted to win and I’ve wanted to for ages.”

Anna, who is currently

president of Mental Health Matters – the Students’ Union society which campaigns for the destigmatisation of mental health – campaign on a platform which of fairer extenuating circumstances for assessments, encouraging finding housemates later in the year and improvement of disability and mental health

Chenhao 11.8% services.

When asked what she’d like to have achieved in a year’s time, she said: “Mental health first aid training, it’s so important. The more people we have trained with mental health first aid training the more people we can help.”

The third year politics student expressed her

Emily 17% Cassie 6.1% RON 3.6% gratitude to those who helped with her campaign: “I think my campaign went really well. I was so happy with the amount of people that expressed their support for me. More than I ever imagined could.

“It was amazing! I’m so privileged to have met so many people here and it’s been the best experience.”

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OFFICER ELECTIONS 2016

Friday 11 March 2016 | Forge Press

@ForgePress /ForgePress

YOUR NEW STUDENT

I

f there was ever a place for Sheffield students to be elected it would have to be the vodka-coke stained room of Foundry in the Students’ Union.

Thursday 11 March saw student politics reach its pinnacle, as a small cohort of third-year Politics students shouted drunkenly at each other while their candidates either won or lost.

Truly a night for wide participation in an incredibly important political system.

For a while, following Forge’s exit polls, it looked as though it might be a close presidential race between a joke candidate and the actual reincarnation of Clement Atlee.

We soon learned it was in fact a race

for second preference the only woman runn to co-chair of Sheffie Dom Trendall by 0.3 Maybe the only re night was the left’s the officer roles it ha though the seeming prosecco might challe idea of these student proletariat.

Citrus fruit was all anarchists. Re-writte signalled the beginnin Old Labour and disap thrown from predeces a rallying Labour Part

Forge Press | Friday 11 March 2016

@ForgePress /ForgePress

OFFICER ELECTIONS 2016

TS’ UNION OFFICERS

e as Nazma Begum, ning in the race, lost eld Labour Students per cent. eal victory of the s consolidation of ad held previously, g omnipresence of enge somewhat the ts championing the

legedly thrown by en football chants ng of a new era for pproving looks were ssor to successor as ty cry was given out

to the waiting crowd of pissed students.

Despite this, the night proved to be a happy one.

New officers won with grace, old officers drank with little and people whose job it is to report on politics attempted to take the edge off while retaining motor skills.

If all of the joy and comradeship shown tonight can be translated into a year of productivity, the famously inert world of Sheffield student politics might manage to make some progress.

We might see mental health issues championed, free education (or not) and a graduate ball. Maybe.

WILL MORGAN

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Friday 11 March 2016 | Forge Press

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OFFICER ELECTIONS 2016

@ForgePress /ForgePress

One in Emily-ion for Sports What does the Sports Officer do?

T

he Sports Officer ensures the provision of sports opportunities and clubs for students. They encourage students to get involved and engaged in sport at all

Emily 38.3%

Your new Sports Officer....Emily Roche

N

ewly elected sports officer Emily Roche told Forge Press after her victory that she felt “good and surprised, really surprised I got it”, after receiving 38.3 per cent and planned to “get pretty drunk now”.

She praised the other candidates saying: “They ran incredible campaigns”.

Roche promised in her manifesto to introduce subsidisation of gym memberships as well as working to continue the efforts

of incumbent Flic Wilbraham to keep Wednesday afternoons for sport.

When stating why people voted for her over the other candidates, Roche said “To be

“Going to get pretty drunk now”

honest I really do back my policies. So I think hopefully people just saw what I want to

Activities

levels.

They aim to increase student participation in Sports and most importantly they help to organise and promote sport.

do and thought, I like that”.

The highlight of her campaigning season for Roche was “It’s so nice getting to know people. I’ve been going round to sports teams and telling them about my manifesto and it’s nice to talk to all the different teams”.

Asked what she was doing on her first day in office, Roche stated “the first thing I really want to focus on is the fact that they’ve got these pitches at Goodwin and they don’t go to university students”.

Omar 35.5% Yasmin 16.8% John 5.4%

Sports

RON 4%

The wait is over for Berestova What does the Activities Officer do?

Your new Activities Officer...Anna Berestova

Anna 52.7% Sophia 31.9% Sarah 11.8% RON 3.6%

O

versees the provision of student activities and the Students’ Union’s societies. Works to increase the number of students engaged in societies, activities and volunteering projects.

O

n how she feels to win, Anna Berestova, the new Activities Officer with 52.7 per cent of the vote told Forge Press she felt “heroic.”

She said: “The competition was really tough. I didn’t know the girls before I started this so I wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out.”

Anna, whose campaign was based on expanding volunteering and internship opportunities, creating an activities app, and improving accessibility and inclusion, has previously been engaged in the SU as President of the Amnesty International society and spent a semester abroad in Barcelona on Erasmus.

She also plays Women’s basketball, and her team help out with campaigning: “The girls suggested that we do an unofficial social, so I made signs for them and printed out copies of my face for them to wear. It was the cutest thing ever; there were about 20 of them running around ROAR!”

After making the most of celebrations, Anna looks forward to getting hard to work on her ambitious manifesto.

She said: “I realise some of my policies might require a lot of work. I spoke to Annie before I started this

“ I wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out”

election and she said that they matched some of the things on her manifesto. She wanted to do them and she could have if other things hadn’t come up that got in the way.”

@ForgePress /ForgePress

OFFICER ELECTIONS 2016

Michael is the Union’s Kind of guy

Development A What does the Development Officer do?

T

hey represent students’ commercial interests and oversees budgets and expenditure. They’re also responsible for ensuring Students’ Union services are relevant and responsive to student needs.

fter being crowned Development Officer with 58.9 per cent of vote, Michael Kind was overwhelmed, so much so that he was unable to fully express his joy to Forge Press.

When asked how he felt, he said: “Relieved more than anything.”

Kind, who ran on a platform of sustainability, worker’s rights and amplifying student voices, said he would be celebrating his victory with his free bottle of prosecco and a possible trip to Dempsey’s, a popular bar on Young Street.

When asked what he would do first when he enters office, he said: “Chat to the people above and learn.”

But before then, Michael still has to focus on the daunting task of completing his Politics degree, saying: “I have

to write 17,000 words and finish my degree.”

“I’m looking forward to chatting to people above me to learn.”

“

Forge Press | Friday 11 March 2016

Finally, when asked how much a pint of Carling is at the Foundry bar, he responded: “£2?

Coors is my drink of choice anyway.”

Michael has been heavily involved with Save Our Sandwiches and the People and Planet campaign.

Read more at

forgetoday.com/elections

Your new Development Officer...Michael Kind

Ana-Gabriella is voted Popa the top What does the International Students’ Officer do?

T

hey support and represent the University’s international student population, facilitating the integration of home and international students in Sheffield.

To run for International Students’ Officer, you must be an international student, but all students can vote in the election.

Your new International Students’ Officer... Ana-Gabriella Popa

A

na-Gabriella Popa, the new International Students’ Officer with 51.6 per cent of the vote, has a very different celebration strategy to some of her fellow winners.

When asked how she would be celebrating she said: “Sleeping!

I am so exhausted! But I’ll definitely stay until the end to see who my colleagues will be.”

Ana, who ran on a campaign of campaigning for students’ rights, promoting integration between home and international

students and empowerment of international students, plans to establish a Finding your Feet programme.

“Some days the campaign was a struggle but it went smoothly.”

The programme will be an interactive opportunity for new students to ask questions, get

involved and generally make themselves at home.

Upon reflection on the campaigning process, she said: “I feel amazing! The campaign went really smoothly, actually.

Some days it was a struggle but there was lots of support.”

Ana hopes to secure poststudy work visas for international students and encourage more ‘society mashups’ during her year in office.

Ana 51.6%

Ghoona 23.5%

Julius 19.9%

RON 5%

International Students’ Officer...

7

8

OFFICER ELECTIONS 2016

Friday 11 March 2016| Forge Press

@ForgePress /ForgePress

We should’ve Serena coming

What does the Women’s Officer do?

R

Your new Women’s Officer... Serena Cavasin

S

erena Cavasin has been declared winner of the race for Women’s Officer with 58.3% of the vote.

She told Forge Press after her victory: “I feel good. It’s an amazing feeling that all the hard work has paid off.”

She said the campaigning process was a series of ups and downs.

“Everything was going wrong and I felt like my campaign had no highlights. But actually, door knocking was amazing fun.”

In her manifesto, Serena ran on a platform which included sexual consent workshops, an intersectional approach to campaigning and making periods free.

She said: “My number one priority is to talk to the counselling service and see what it promises to deliver in terms of dealing with sexual assault and sexual violence.

“I want to help combat feelings of vulnerability and all the toxic thoughts people get after going through such

Women’s Officer

awful experiences.

“I want to make people feel like they’re always safe on campus and ensure there are no threats. Students should know that there’s protection and support for them.”

But, in the wake of victory, Serena was just happy to enjoy her win with her friends, saying: “I’m going to share my joy with the rest of my team and see who I’m going to work with next year!”

epresents the views and interests of all women students within the Students’ Union and University as well as at a national level and creates a student environment free from sexism and discrimination.

Serena

58.3% Niamh

31.1% RON 10.6%

Your reactions from the night....

News Reporting

Design

Data Analyst

Jess Davis Lisa Latham Will Morgan Keri Trigg

Anna Gillies Joshua Hackett

Luke Baldwin Photographer Dan West

Election Night production team Chloe Coleman Jo Gallacher Rhys Handley Anthony Phillips Polly Winn

We’d like to say thank you to every one across Forge.

Also, a huge congratulations to all candidates. :)

Forge Press | Friday 11 March 2016

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@ForgePress /ForgePress

ENTERTAINMENT

THIS FORTNIGHT...

I

Copy right or copy wrong?

t has been confirmed this week that sculptor Anish Kapoor is to become the only artist legally allowed to use Vantablack; the blackest black ever created.

Vantablack is a colour developed

by UK company NanoSystems in conjunction with Kapoor which absorbs up to 99.65 per cent of all light.

This is a fascinating material that artists would love to use. Indeed, many artists have spoken out against the decision, with portraitist Christian Furr claiming “It isn’t right

that it belongs to one man.” This decision provokes the question “Is it fair that an artist can copyright a colour?” The answer, frankly, is yes.

Business has always been incredibly important in the art world. Historically, artists would have patrons who would fund their works and receive the right to do what they wished with the work. This case is no different. NanoSystems’s funding and Kapoor’s work have allowed Vantablack to be developed and so it is only fair that the creators get to choose how

H

are forced to innovate and create their own products, which is exactly what Frederik De Wilde has been doing with Hagopian.

De Wilde stated that he has no intention to keep his product private, and that’s fantastic news for artists as a whole, but it still remains that the creator always has the right to distribute the creation as they see fit.

LEVI LEWIS-OLDING

Promotional material or just plain lies?

ow many times have you played a highly anticipated game only to be bitterly disappointed?

Sometimes it’s due to the game being unfinished or buggy. Other times it’s my own overly high expectations. But more often than not, it’s due to the fact that the product is different to the one advertised.

Need proof of this? Then look no further than the sleezy marketing man’s wet dream of

A

it’s used. Collectively, the creators have decided that the best use of their product is for it to be retained exclusively for Kapoor’s art.

There is a case to be made that you can’t ‘own’ art, but that detracts from the specifics of the case. If we were to start demanding that creators make all their products publicly available, then how can we have private property?

This situation is exactly what you want to happen in a working capitalist system. With a monopoly on the material, competing artists

a convention that is E3. Make no mistake, this is the purpose of E3, hence why the general public isn’t invited. Instead, they are expected to sit at home salivating at their computer monitors, wallet in hand.

Patrons of E3 2013 were treated to an incredible presentation of Ubisoft’s new open world hacker IP Watchdogs.

Featuring beautiful graphics and innovative gameplay, Watchdogs won several “Best of Show”

awards, which contributed to it’s high number of pre-orders. The final product, however, left many feeling angry and dumbfounded.

Graphics were sub-par and gameplay was boring, a far cry from the video seen a year prior to release.

But arguably just as bad, is the recent trend of selling games by using ambiguity. Many purchased Bungie’s Destiny not realizing it was essentially a faux MMO. Google “most anticipated

games of 2016” and you will undoubtedly be presented with Hello Game’s No Man’s Sky. With three months until release, no one is quite certain what the purpose of the game is, yet thousands have already spent roughly £40 on it. Considering the only footage of the game has come from promotional material, I’m guessing someone at Hello has just received a hefty bonus.

LUKE BALDWIN

The year David Bowie saved the Brits

fter a tepidly predictable Madonna cape-gate joke and a dramatic display of cross-dressing dancing men that wouldn’t look out of place in Zoolander, it looked like we were in for another average night of the BRIT awards.

It was the usual ‘look-howcool-and-quirky-we-are’ without actually demonstrating how cool and quirky the UK really can be (where was Lianne La Havas’ nomination for Best British Female?!) That was until the David

Bowie tribute.

Since he passed away last January, the onslaught of tributes to Bowie has been almost nonstop. Amongst the most notable and high profile was Lady Gaga’s shambolic, Intel-sponsored karaoke attempt at compressing the majesty of Bowie’s spanning career into five minutes.

There was a great fear that the Brits would fall into the same trap. Thankfully, Annie Lennox and Gary Oldman’s eulogies were so moving it felt like the national

M

funeral the superstar deserved, and the nation was subsequently treated to a musical tribute from Bowie’s own band, along with the re-inventor of pop music herself, Lorde.

Emanating just one of Bowie’s many guises, the Thin White Duke, Lorde broke into a hauntingly powerful version of Life On Mars.

Still accompanied by Bowie’s long-term band, emotion flooded from the Kiwi singer out into every audience member - whether they were there in person or just

watching from their sofa.

David himself once said that Lorde’s music sounds “like tomorrow”, so who better to do his music justice.

Bowie encapsulated the concept of ‘tomorrow’ in the worlds of fashion, art, music and gender, and touched the lives of every Briton, whether they realise it or not.

EMILY BAKER

There’s history in the stories we tell

ost students will agree that academia isn’t exactly emotive.

Having sat through hours of measured seminar discussions about historical atrocities like American Slavery and the Holocaust, I’ve been trained to detach my emotion from the history I study.

Film is one of the most powerful emotional platforms we have at our disposal. Through an emotive combination of language, imagery, music, acting and scripts, directors can have cinemas full of people howling with laughter or

drenched in their own tears. But the stories directors choose to portray are equally as powerful.

When we are really captured by a series, documentary or film it can become all we think about, and that’s something we shouldn’t underestimate.

HSTSoc and Film Unit recently screened Suffragette, a film that was surrounded by criticism.

Beforehand, leading gender, feminist and film historians debated the white-centric controversy surrounding the film, and the way it portrays this astounding and vital piece of

history.

Film has unique opportunity to either perpetuate or destroy common myths about our own history, and can bring significant events out of the past into the forefront of our thoughts. Despite the controversy, Suffragette brought the feminist agenda into the limelight again and provided an opportunity for activists to use the rare platform to illuminate causes that still affect so many women.

After Sam Smith’s awkward Oscar blunder, Owen Jones wrote in the Guardian that

‘LGBT people should know their history’. This is the case for all of us. For anyone who has ever been oppressed, history is vital in ensuring that we continue to resist discrimination.

I came out of Suffragette feeling impassioned and empowered in a way that my gender history seminars can’t quite arouse. Film should grasp this opportunity to educate and inspire, and use its emotive power to promote the history that we often forget.

POLLY WINN

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GAMES

Friday 11 March 2016 | Forge Press

@ForgePress /ForgePress

ZOMBIE CULTURE in the games industry

William Elmer questions the motive of resurrecting long dead franchises.

Forge Press | Friday 11 March 2016

@ForgePress /ForgePress

I

f horror movies have taught us anything, bringing back deceased family members or pets is probably an ill-advised venture.

While at the time it may seem like a viable solution to fill the vacancy within, usually it’s for the best that we just move on and remember the positives rather than attempt to reanimate our lost ones. Sounds simple right? Sadly, some game publishers have either never seen Pet Semetery, or simply they firmly believe ‘this won’t happen to us!’ because this seems to be a concerning trait when it comes to certain publishers who cannot accept their beloved children have aged and died from the gaming spotlight.

Back in June 2015, Atari Interactive attempted to breathe life into the decaying corpse of one its former heavyweights, Alone in the Dark. The series was arguably at its best in the 90s and early 00s before succumbing to the unavoidable and having its life as a game series snuffed out by the ever evolving behemoth that is mainstream gaming. Rather than acknowledge that it was time to just pat themselves on the back for their past success and move on, Atari dug up Alone in the Dark from its grave for one last payday. They knew full well that Alone in the Dark: Illumination at launch was a broken, hollow version of its former self and that it clearly would fail to emulate its former glory. The issue is not with the game per se (although it was abhorrence incarnate) but more so the ideology for allowing it be released in the first place.

It is clear Atari did not care enough during the production of Alone in the Dark: Illumination which is disgusting in and of itself. The fact they knew they could abuse the faith of the consumer to meet financial quotas by riding off of nostalgia alone is my biggest gripe. By unleashing this zombie upon the gaming world, it was closer to being a spit in the face of long serving customers than rewarding their faith. The same happened with Gearbox Software (and a culmination of other major studios) back in 2011, attempting to revitalise the Duke Nukem series with the soul crushingly poor Duke Nukem Forever. Knowing that fans were desperate to see Duke return to the limelight from his long absence, these companies knew they could exploit the 15 year gap between Duke Nukem Forever and its predecessor Duke Nukem 3D. At launch, Duke Nukem Forever suffered from texture loading delays, clunky controls and outdated graphics, never mind the humourless dialogue that made me cringe pretty much throughout the entire game.

While Take-Two Interactive state Duke

Nukem Forever did not meet ideal sales figures initially, the game generated profit which means that it doesn’t matter that consumers effectively paid £40 to watch a lifeless zombie of Duke shamelessly hurl faeces at a wall (yes, that is in the game).

While these two series have effectively run their course and will most likely (hopefully) be left to wither away with what little dignity they have, there is one character who’s had his image completely destroyed.

An individual that has been stripped of his legacy and had his lifeless corpse whored out for monetary gain for nearly 25 years, this individual is Sonic the Hedgehog.

Back in 1991, this speedy anthropomorphic hedgehog rushed onto the gaming scene as SEGA’s rebuttal to Nintendo’s golden boy Mario, who had been dominating the market in the 80s. Sonic brought a fast paced style to the 2D platforming genre with just enough charm and excitement to solidify SEGA’s stance in the industry. This led to Sonic finding critical acclaim for over a decade and maintaining momentum over several sequels before showing the inevitable signs of age. Even with the transition from 2D to 3D platforming, Sonic was failing to adapt to the ever demanding industry in the early 00s, especially with the breakout of new, high quality games like Halo Combat Evolved which shifted interest from platforming back to first person shooters. Also, the increase of third party games rocked the status quo by offering much more variety to the gaming scene, making Sonic fall further down the pecking order.

Since then, Sonic has headlined over 20 games, each with lackluster results. The harsh reality is that the Sonic franchise has run out of steam and should have been put out to pasture after the Dreamcast failed to overcome the Playstation 2, which should have been an indication that Sonic and SEGA were no longer the powerhouse they once were. To my dismay there are currently no plans to end Sonic‘s nightmare. In fact, it will have a live action movie in 2018. While this movie could bring financial stability and potentially encourage SEGA to invest more time, money and effort into Sonic, there is the risk however that this could have the reverse effect and adversely encourage appalling film-based games, similar to the fate of Austin Powers, Space Jam or even Little Nicky.

Bringing back dead franchises is not inherently destined to fail, rather, like all things, it depends on intention. Unfortunately, greed and laziness has pushed things to becoming a little bit... apocalyptic.

GAMES

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GAMES XCOM 2

Taking place 20 years after the events of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, XCOM 2 assumes that the humans failed to drive off the alien invasion. Now, you take control of a group of soldiers branded terrorists by the ruling Advent faction.

The atmosphere of the game really stands out, with Firaxis successfully making you feel like a resistance group. Armed with only a ship as a base, dated technology and limited resources, you must face a worldwide organisation determined to stop you through propaganda and frequent retaliation strikes.

The plot centres around the sinister ‘Avatar Project’ devised by the aliens which it is stressed must be halted at all costs for the sake of humanity. Ominously, this project can only be delayed through attacking alien ‘Black Sites’ and cannot be permanently stopped.

Additionally, you are faced with a monthly decision on whether to delay the Avatar Project or stop the aliens from advancing their technology and making your entire game harder.

CULT CORNER

Z

DEFUNCT

any, stylish and frantically fun to play, Swedish developer Freshly Squeezed’s Defunct is a wonderful and well-crafted, if sometimes frustrating experience.

An interesting hybrid of an adventure, puzzle and racing game, Defunct is the story of a robot who falls from his ship onto the planet surface below and must zoom across various terrains to get back. Armed with a magnetisation ability and a mean wheel, the aim is to traverse a myriad of puzzles at breakneck speed.

Imagine WALL-E on Red Bull in the Ratchet and Clank universe and you have a fairly good idea of what Defunct is all about. The game-world is delightful, using cartoon visuals and beautiful colours to create something that is neither too childish nor too pretentious. Our protagonist is very much like WALL-E in the sense that he (it?) manages to ooze personality without ever saying a word. He’s a fun guy and a true denizen of the world around him.

The gameplay is all about speed and truly thrives when the game gives the necessary space to really put the pedal to the proverbial metal. It’s a heck of a lot of fun to zoom over ramps or go around loop-the-loops or even just going up and down hills.

The level design is exceptionally good, giving a surprising number of different routes and paths and offering significant replay value.

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This underdog status is transferred to the gameplay.

Advent troops are far more competent than in previous editions, with even the easiest of units proving a challenge through not only superior gear, but also destructive new abilities. Success relies heavily on your tactical prowess, with miscalculations easily getting your troops slaughtered.

While punishing, it makes every success that bit sweeter and keeps you engaged in the challenge.

Mission rewards also provide you with a difficult decision; either take the resources for a quick fix, or do a potentially more difficult mission and be rewarded with a new engineer or researcher to significantly decrease the time needed to construct new facilities or develop new gear.

An overhaul of the classes combined with the implementation of randomly generated maps for each mission allow you not only to specialise further tactically, but also put your skills to the test in a challenging new environment each time. A welcome upgrade from previous XCOM games where the same maps quickly became tiresome.

LEVI LEWIS-OLDING

It does suffer sometimes when backtracking is required which results all too often in getting lost.

It can be frustrating at times, in particular when the need to slow down is required for a puzzle.

The controls are particularly pernickety and sluggish. This however could probably be attributed to a steep learning curve.

Defunct then is an enjoyable and memorable game, brimming with stylish personality and agitated spark.

JACK STACEY

DYING LIGHT: THE FOLLOWING

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he gruesome fun of 2015’s Dying Light continues. This time Kyle Crane steps outside the zombie-ridden, indistinctly Middle Eastern city of Harran into a large countryside map. The Following takes you in search of a mysterious cult supposedly immune to infection in a desperate attempt to save your friends in the city.

Storytelling is certainly not a strong point o f The

Following, with the basic premise being a simple one in which you must find this cult, find out why they’re immune and enlist their help. The plot is far from the most gripping you’ll see this year and many of the characters feel remarkably one dimensional, sending you to complete various side quests which feel suspiciously like menial chores.

Despite these drawbacks, The Following impresses by creating a layer of mysticism which helps to set it apart from other games in the bloated zombie slasher genre.

As well as this, the expansion continues with the incredibly fun gameplay so highly rated in the base game with the inclusion of a dune buggy - an upgrade-able, zippy car which happily ploughs through hordes of undead.

A new skill tree is added specifically for the buggy, allowing you to add various outrageous additions, such as an electrified roll cage or a land mine dispenser, provided you can find enough screws lying around.

While this detracts slightly from the fantastically crafted parkour so prominent in the base game, it does help keep the game at an exhilaratingly fun pace.

Speeding through the game at such a pace can however leave you feeling a little short changed. Taking around five hours to complete the main storyline, the £16 price tag can feel a little steep.

If you enjoyed the base game this is a very welcome release, continuing the fantastic visuals and highly entertaining gameplay.

LEVI LEWIS-OLDING

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LAND OF OUR FATHERS

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ollowing a number of sell-out performances and endless critical acclaim, Chris Urch’s Land of Our Fathers stopped by the Crucible Theatre to show audiences just why it deserved to be Time Out’s Fringe Show of the Year.

The play presents the funny, albeit equally heartbreaking story of six Welsh miners in pre-Thatcher Britain, who after becoming

trapped down a mine-shaft, look to survive while awaiting rescue.

In doing so, the characters form a band, leading them to change and grow as individuals.

This group dynamic forms the core component of the play and on the whole, works to great effect in creating six diverse and nuanced characters. From Joshua Price’s fresh-faced new boy Mostyn, to John Cording’s portrayal of the group’s elder statesman, Bomber, each member offers something different without feeling one-note or underdeveloped.

This setup serves to create many

memorable and entertaining scenes, stand-outs of which include Mostyn’s humorous attempts to find his place amongst the other miners, the group’s acapella rendition of the Sex Pistols’ ‘Pretty Vacant’, and a gripping moral dilemma that arises following the shocking close to the play’s first half.

The strong and natural chemistry between the actors plays a huge role in making these scenes work as each character’s performance convincingly portrays the relationship and camaraderie the group share as both friends and work colleagues, without coming

across as forced or insincere.

Although some of the exchanges and vignettes can seem to drag on in places, the play moves along at a steady pace marked by a slowburning shift in tone which sees a building of tension mirroring the miner’s slow descent into madness.

“Strong and natural chemistry between actors”

The play’s second half not only provides a much more complex

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and darker exploration of the characters’ now waning psyche, but really shows off the range of each of the actors as the light-hearted banter and jovial exchanges of the first half explode into heated confrontations.

This shift takes the play to some dark places, as we are exposed to some harsh truths, as well as the underlying flaws surrounding each character. Overall, the play provides both an entertaining and thought-provoking experience, and is definitely worth your time.

THOMAS FAY

BOOK CORNER MRS DALLOWAY

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LET IT BE

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nitially called ‘the Quarrymen’, the then five member band had no idea that their influence and creativity would change the face of rock and roll forever.

The Beatles had an unparalleled career, touring internationally and eventually became the world’s best-selling band in history before splitting in 1970.

All members of the band subsequently experienced successful musical careers, most notably Sir Paul McCartney (who was knighted for his services to music), and John

Lennon before he was shot and killed in 1980.

The show itself claims to be an “International Sensation”, debuting in London in 2012. The performance is an invigorating montage of archive videos and live footage, visual projections, lighting design, voice over commentary, spectacular costumes and, of course, The Beatles’ most famous musical hits.

“Invigorating montage of archive videos and live footage”

Let It Be tells the story of the band’s progression through time: from the smart, black suits of their days huddled at the back of a dimly lit Cavern Club in Liverpool, through to “Sergeant Pepper’s” acid-fuelled era of psychedelic colour (the height of Beatlemania),to the moving ballads of their slightly more toned-down later years.

Of course the music ought to be the focus of the show, however there was a dissapointingly minimal amount of actual acting.

The show was therefore somewhat lacking in historical content. All members of The Beatles went through tragedy and heartache, which inevitably was a huge influence in the way they created

and developed their music, so it was therefore a shame for these elements to be missing from the show.

Overall the standard of performance was incredibly impressive thanks mainly to the show’s innovative lighting design.

By the end of the night, everyone was on their feet swaying to ‘Hey Jude’ and boogying to ‘Twist and Shout’.

A fun-filled evening, and highly recommended for all Beatles fans, young and old.

MADELEINA KAY

By VIRGINIA WOOLF

he plot of Mrs Dalloway can seem at first a rather dull idea for a novel: the story takes place in a single day, focusing mainly on Mrs Dalloway (Clarissa), the upper-class wife of a politician in 1920s England, preparing for one of her famous dinner parties. However it is through Woolf’s stream of consciousness narrative style and the complex mix of themes covered within the story,which makes it worthy of its place as a must read novel.

Once you are used to the unusual narrative style, Woolf’s characters become intriguing and remarkably life-like. The focus glides from the perspective of one character to another smoothly and often darts back-and-forth between two characters whilst they interact with each other. Through this style, the reader slowly gains insight into the memories, feelings and thoughts of each of the characters and their respective views of each other.

The complexity of how Mrs Dalloway and her former suitor Peter Walsh relate and interact with each other is thought-provoking and engaging. This is characteristic of one of the best aspects of Woolf’s novels. Her characters are life-like because they are complex people, shaped by their past and relative perspectives.

BENJAMIN RILEY

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ARTS

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The only time I ever saw Louise Rennison was in Ilkley. She had an hour’s slot with an interviewer who seemed prepared to ask her sensible questions but in the space of six minutes, Rennison made the concept of time, the format of a question and answer session and, indeed, the interviewer redundant. She just talked and interrupted her own anecdotes with her own laughter.

The humour that permeated throughout the confessions of Georgia Nicholson and Tallulah Riley was real. Which is why I was so sad when I found out she had died. The woman who

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shaved her eyebrows, dressed up as an olive for a party and told everyone about it was not around.

But what she leaves behind is a depiction of girlhood and the madness of it and baffling mantras that should fuel everybody’s vocabulary. Her place in culture assured all to take comfort in being bizarre, brazen and bold because how else are you meant to be?

Mollie Davidson

arch marks International Women’s Month, and what better way for Arts to celebrate than to honour some of our favourite female authors.

Malorie Blackman’s epic Noughts and Crosses felt like my first step into the grown-up book world. She completely destroyed the childish notion of obviously fictional heroes and villains and made me question my own perception of what it meant to be good or bad.

To use her platform as an influential author to educate children about what inequality and discrimination means in such a powerful way has stayed with me since. She taught me when I was young to challenge my own prejudice and recognise my privilege.

MALORIE BLACKMAN

As a black woman in such a challenging and competitive industry, she’s used her platform to educate children on the issues that she and so many others have experienced, and she’s done it in such a subtle and memorable way for it to become second nature to all those who read her books.

This woman deserves to be celebrated for the emotive and powerful world that she created for the younger me to get lost in.

Polly Winn

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Reading Jacqueline Wilson books is a rite of passage when going through your teens. She taught me about friendship, boys, being the uncool one in school and tricky family problems.

She created vibrant worlds I wanted to be part of her characters faced some of life’s biggest problems, and I picked all of the wisdom up along the way.

Dame Jacqueline Wilson gave me buckets of life advice but in a non-preachy, accessible way.

JACQUELINE WILSON

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As a young girl looking trying to figure out the ways of the world, I took her word as gospel. If you’re feeling a bit lost in your 20s, you could probably do worse than re-reading the whole collection.

From Tracy Beaker to Candyfloss, there was always a character you could empathise with.

I have kept my collection and wouldn’t think twice about giving them to my children. I don’t think I’d be the same without them.

Abbie-Joelle Skliarsky

Until the age of eight I avoided books at all costs. I was struggling in school and took no interest in reading or writing. Then I picked up a copy of Harry Potter from the school library, and I haven’t stopped reading since.

As I made my way through the series over the following years, and started picking up more and more books to fill the endless months between each new release, and the void left after Deathly Hallows, my teachers and family noticed a huge improvement in my own written work. I am now three months

J.K ROWLING

away from completing my Journalism degree.

What makes Rowling even more admirable is the fact that when she began working on Harry Potter, she was a single mother, living on benefits after leaving an abusive relationship. If she can be going through that still manage to knock out one of the most celebrated book series’ in the world, what can’t she do? Rowling single handedly pulled us back, and we should be so grateful.

Keri Trigg

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MUSIC

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The inaugural Outlines Festival descended on Sheffield last month. Katherine Hardy and Sam Kelly give us their verdict on various acts over the course of the day.

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t’s a big job opening a festival, especially when there are two other bands to compete with at separate venues. Joy Atlas do it perfectly, playing out their cheery synth-pop tunes to the O2 Academy so all feet are tapping; a warm up for the rest of the day.

Lead singer, Beccy Owens, wows with her stunning voice that matches the band’s music perfectly.

She draws similarities from the likes of Robyn and Alison Goldfrapp via Imogen Heap. The rest of the band look genuinely pleased to be there, and appreciate that we have picked them to see first.

Silence ensues as they play; everyone is polite and sober enough to fully appreciate the music.

Being relatively new to the scene, the band have a limited back catalogue but are still able to fill the 30 minute slot with mostly upbeat and cheery tunes.

Having had the nod from BBC 6 Music’s Steve Lemacq, this is a band that has true talent, but their friendliness alone is enough to hope that they will go far.

Saif Mode is a project by recording engineer Ben Hunter. He creates music that transcends genres through the use of his analogue synthesiser equipment and occasional help from a drummer.

The music is beyond eclectic and is more comparable to the likes of Nordic Giants than Giorgio Moroder.

Having previously played unusual performances, such as to a room full of people exercising with a monk, many of the audience aren’t quite sure what to make of this unusual electronic music, but this is an interesting experience unlike any of

“Skinny Girl Diet deliver a straight-to-the-point half hour of venomous punk” the other bands on at Outlines. The 30 minutes we spend listening to Saif Mode are slow to begin with, but as the drums kick in and the beat is uplifted, the mood relaxes and the crowd start to tap feet and nod heads along.

Despite perhaps being difficult to initially get into, Saif Mode are a band you need to see. The array of knobs and dials is as great as many DJ sets but extend to a more diverse and interesting listen. We receive a gentle nod from Hunter just before he leaves the stage and the crowd stand, pondering their next move.

The Harley is one of the main bases of Outlines with bands on from 4 until 11 and a DJ set until the early hours of the morning. Skinny Girl Diet, a riot-grrrl influenced punk trio from London, take to the stage at seven.

When supporting Primal Scream at iTunes Festival in 2013, they delivered a confident, brash set that satisfied an impatient Roundhouse crowd. Two and a half years on and they haven’t lost any of their energy, delivering a straight-to-thepoint half hour of venomous punk.

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scale atmosphere that Outlines has created. Small festivals like this are a time for unknown artists to shine and show what they have to offer, and are maybe less suited to more established acts like TOY.

“TOY’s meandering, prog-tinged songs”

Delilah Holliday’s muscular guitar and Amelia Cutler’s propulsive bass complement the furious drums of Delilah’s sister Ursula - but despite the anger in their music the band are clearly having great fun on stage, as Delilah and Cutler take turns to hurl vicious screams at the packed pub as loudly as they can.

Their powerful stage presence and riotous enthusiasm emanates into the crowd deservedly, who nonetheless seem a little stunned when this whirlwind of punk energy is over, and a wordless exit from the stage ensues at the conclusion of their last song.

Skate Central is probably the most interesting venue at Outlines and an inspired choice on behalf of the festival organisers. The stage is set up in a roller skating rink which is open for fans to skate on as the band performs.

Gang of Four are miserable. It’s hard to tell why. It could be the fact that they are playing in this roller venue to a handful of people (even though it is pretty cool), or maybe that the technical difficulties seem to be never ending. Either way it seems to work, as the crowd awkwardly smile at each other in between original member, Andy Gill, throwing his guitar on the floor

“Despite the dark tones, Gang of Four still ooze cool”

and John Sterry staring into the back of the room for longer than seems comfortable.

Despite the confusion and lack of smiles from the band, the act are fantastic. Gang of Four are notorious for putting on great, energetic shows. The bassist, Thomas McNeice, is possibly the coolest bass player ever known, proving the newer members of the band are just as talented as the original.

They gel together as well now as the band’s old line ups have done.

Songs such as ‘Damaged Goods’ excite the audience, especially the older crowd who have probably been fans since the band’s heyday.

Despite the dark tones, Gang of Four still ooze cool and deserve a much bigger crowd than those that turned up at Outlines.

There’s an unusual atmosphere created at Skate Central, with half the crowd standing around with the other half circling the venue, but it works well as Manchester’s PINS take to the stage.

Another all-girl band, PINS’ vibrant indie rock sound varies in style but is consistent in quality, with single ‘Young Girls’ from their most recent album, Wild Nights, going down particularly well.

The acoustics of the huge room provide a contrast to the previous tiny venues, magnificently amplifying Sophie Galpin’s drums without sacrificing sharpness and clarity.

Lead singer Faith Holgate is a charismatic and engaging frontwoman throughout, and delivers excellent vocals.

They’re great to watch, but it’s equally interesting to turn your eyes away from the stage and watch the roller skaters, whose attention is split between watching the music on stage and attempting to stay on their feet. The inspired venue choice delivers a gig experience quite unlike any other and it’d be interesting to see more music brought here in the future.

Headlining Skate Central this evening is Brighton’s TOY, one of the current wave of psychedelic rock bands enjoying success in the UK. After the half an hour sets given to everyone else seen today, a full

hour feels almost excessive, but is certainly needed to cover a decent number of their meandering, progtinged songs, many of which exceed seven minutes.

The performance is tight and technically proficient, but something about this is a little disappointing after the great sets that have come before; lead singer Tom Dougall looks a little bored and the band appear to just be going through the motions. The enthusiasm and fun that was so clearly displayed by the other bands is simply lacking here, and with it the friendly, small-

London-born Roots Manuva has been on the scene since the 90s, giving him plenty of time to learn how to entertain an audience.

Now on his ninth album, Manuva has a huge back-catalogue of hits, including everyone’s favourite ‘Witness (1 Hope)’, and not forgetting the long list of collaborations with artists such as Mr Scruff, Massive Attack and the Maccabees.

Plug proves to be an excellent venue for the rapper, band and backing singers, filling it out with festival go-ers so there’s not much space left to breathe. All the dancing keeps us warm on a cold February night, and spirits are up as the festival begins to draw to a close.

Having lived in Sheffield for a while, this feels like a homecoming gig for Roots Manuva and he sounds very nostalgic about being here. There is plenty of witty banter inbetween songs, giving the crowd some pearls of wisdom about marriage and what labels not to sign to. With latest album Bleeds under his belt, the tunes just keep getting better. A welldeserved headliner.

Outlines is a success and a nice taster for the weekend of Tramlines in July - here’s to next years’ doubly long event.

“Roots Manuva is a welldeserved headliner”

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SINGLES JAKE BUGG: GIMME THE LOVE

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ff the scene since his 2013 album Shangri La, Jake Bugg is back and he has brand new sound.

The 22-year-old revealed ‘Gimme the Love’ on Annie Mac’s Radio One show last week - the first official single from his upcoming third studio album On My One.

“Gritty, edgy vibe”

Unlike the bluesy, acoustic tunes that have made Bugg a festival favourite in recent years, ‘Gimme the Love’ is noticeably more upbeat.

With its opening drum sample, unmistakeably nostalgic of 90s acid

FOXES@ PLUG

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oxes proves that she deserved to have sold out a Friday night at Plug with her first song, ‘Body Talk’. Skipping across the stage in a tasselled white jacket, Foxes is reminiscent of an excitable pixie and mesmerises the audience with a voice that matches that heard on the album.

Foxes’ love of performing is infectious – despite being one small woman on the stage she interacts with both the band and the audience, filling the room with heavy bass and her memorable voice.

The audience is comprised of all ages – couples, teens, even lads

who appear to be on a night out.

This is a great compliment to Foxes not only has she written music which transcends generations, but she has also made enough of an impact for all ages to come and see her perform.

Not wasting time with boring chat or greeting the audience in a clichéd manner, Foxes runs straight through three of her most upbeat songs: ‘Body Talk’, ‘Holding onto Heaven’ and ‘Better Love’. Mixing a variety of music off her old and new album, she includes all members of the audience within the first 20 minutes, which seems promising for the remaining hour of the gig.

Despite the energetic opening to the gig, the attention of the audience deteriorates rapidly exes are reminisced upon like an ‘in joke’ the audience are supposed to understand, and a run of slow songs

are played – not exactly what’s looked for in order to finish the week and begin the long awaited weekend.

In moments the buzz of talking overpowers her singing and the floor clears as many go to get a drink. The majority of people in the crowd have already proved that they were big fans, yet if she is unable to keep them interested for the duration of the gig there is little hope for those who had come on a whim.

It is a shame that the gig did not continue as it started, but the night overall cannot be slated.

Considering that she began writing music untrained in 2011, she is definitely one to watch if she smooths out her performances, enabling her to achieve bigger things in the future.

EMMA WILLIAMS

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heffield-based band the Crookes manoeuvre what can safely be termed as a takeover of the city’s Leadmill on Saturday night.

The set begins with ‘Where Did Our Love Go?’ from the band’s sophomore effort, Hold Fast, and the faithful crowd start to sing along.

The atmosphere turns positively electric, with the crowd shouting the lyrics at the band rather than the other way around.

Age isn’t even a consideration.

It appears that all flocks of life in Sheffield have descended to watch their much loved local band.

The set proceedes to ‘Maybe in

the Dark’, and something about the chorus sends the crowd mad.

This live performance is a danceable treat compared to the lo-fi vibes on the band’s flurry of albums. Listening to George Waite croon, it doesn’t take you long to remember why you fell for this band in the first place.

‘Roman Candles’ is not a very remarkable number on latest album, Lucky Ones, with bigger hits like ‘The World is Waiting’ and ‘I Wanna Waste My Time On You’.

But this song performed live packs a neat punch.

‘Chorus of Fools’ is blue but undeniably romantic. It is your cocktail of serendipity and melancholy as you helplessly fall in love with the lyrics – “But we’re still young/Let us fall asleep together in the sun/And there’s still time/Let us raise our glasses and drain out cheap wine.”

With ‘A Collier’s Wife’ they begin

by sounding like Arctic Monkeys, but transition into sounding like the Smiths. By the end of the intro, the song grows into itself, capturing a certain essence of wanderlust coupled with an intense lethargy that characterises our generation so well.

‘Yes, Yes We Are Magicians’ is one of those songs you wish you had discovered earlier. This peppier version is slightly disappointing but the crowd are still digging it.

‘Backstreet Lovers’ is a metropolitan ballad that can put the poetic back in people ‘doing things’ in alleyways.

There is a lot of tinkering happening with the guitar and drums but the vocals hold throughout, understated and heavenly. ‘Afterglow’’s resonating chorus ended the night on a perfect high.

NAVYA HEBBAR

house and an intensified bassline to match, you’d be forgiven for thinking the single belonged to a reborn Primal Scream rather than Bugg himself.

A track that would not be out of place on a Green Street Hooligansesque soundtrack, ‘Gimme the Love’ also features Bugg’s half-sung-halfspoken vocals which add to the track’s gritty, edgy vibe.

Whether you put it down to a desire to be more mainstream or just an incorporation of influences other than Bob Dylan into his music, there is no denying that Jake Bugg has matured since his self-titled debut album back in 2012.

If nothing else, ‘Gimme the Love’ successfully gives us a taste of his previously unknown versatility and has certainly got people talking, making the release of On My One even more anticipated.

PORTIA MURPHY-GINGELL

YUCK ANSWER OUR QUESTIONS

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ondon-based Yuck, are a whose fuzzy garage rock bursts with energy. Frequently compared to Dinosaur Jr. and Pavement, the band are picking up where the 90s left off. We caught up with their frontman, Max Bloom, following the release of their third album, Stranger Things.

THE CROOKES @ LEADMILL

|Forge Press

What’s the biggest difference between your latest album and your previous work?

We made this album on our own terms, without much outside influence. I wanted to make an album full of good pop songs, stuff that’s fun to play live, and that’s what I guess we did.

Do you think you’ve matured as a band recently?

I guess. We’ve been through a lot as a group of people, and I’ve been through a lot myself. I’m trying to take what I’ve learnt over the last few years and move on from it, especially with personal relationships.

Daniel Blumberg [the band’s former frontman] left Yuck three years ago. How did that affect you as a band?

Obviously, it affected things - but not as much as people think it did.

We’re still pretty much the same people making music, just with someone else singing.

Were there any major obstacles

when you were recording this album?

There weren’t really any obstacles. We had a clear idea of how we wanted the album to sound and we had all the resources to achieve it. The album didn’t cost any money because we recorded it in my parents’ house. It was stressful though, because anything you care about is stressful.

What are this album’s influences?

We were listening to a combination of things: lots of 70s punk, bands like Television, Fleetwood Mac, and Modern Lovers.

How do you go about making an album?

One song comes to us and then the rest just fall into place. It’s not like you set out to write an album, but one song is the catalyst and then off you go. There are some new songs on the album, but we also go through our archives from over the last few years - we often find something that maybe seemed unusable at the time now works.

What’s next for Yuck?

Next week, we’re leaving for America to tour for six weeks. Then, we’ll be touring the UK, and Europe in the autumn.

MOLLY KERKHAM

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THE 1975: I LIKE IT WHEN YOU SLEEP, FOR YOU ARE SO BEAUTIFUL YET SO UNAWARE OF IT

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ny artist faces the same post-debut conundrum: is it better to label their sophomore effort ‘a departure’, or produce more of the same content? This is an especially tricky choice, as in the case of the 1975, following a first album success.

In this way, I Like It When You Sleep must be applauded. This is the work of a band entirely unafraid to

change course, disregarding any media or fan pressure.

Despite this, there remains a lingering question over the lengthy running time of I Like It When You Sleep: what is it actually trying to achieve? The lyrics are cultured, sometimes even inspired, without ever actually making a point, while the majority of songs, though very well produced, far overstay their welcome. Certainly, the 1975 have displayed an exceptional grasp of their craft across the 17 tracks presented here, but all too often it feels as if Matty Healy is trying to say something and failing, all wrapped up in needlessly profound faux-poetry.

Let it not be said though that there are no flashes of brilliance to be found here. Much of the album

is unashamedly fun and upbeat, summarised by the energetic single ‘Love Me’. These are the tracks in which the melodies veer from foottapping to generally throwaway, from the excellently funky and vibrant ‘UGH!’ to the rather forgettable and repetitive ‘She’s American’ or ‘Paris’.

Impressively, there are also moments of maturity and melancholy contemplation, more on a musical rather than lyrical level.

The measured, artfully crafted ‘Somebody Else’ is a particular standout, boasting a vibe ripped straight out a time closer to the real 1975 than to the present day. The titular track is particularly unique, encompassing the album’s diversity across six expertly produced minutes.

As with the first album, there is also a clutch of airy, ambient work too. This both does and doesn’t succeed, especially with the odd decision to include two lengthy numbers back to back.

Rounding out the album are a smattering of songs that attempt to tackle more thoughtful subjects under the veneer of a slower ballad, such as ‘Nana’ and the insipid ‘She Lays Me Down’. These represent perhaps the only true lack of expertise; an unrefined combination of genres that doesn’t work nearly as well as the band might think.

Regardless of critical reception, I Like It When You Sleep is all but assured as a strong debut amongst the 1975’s growing fan base, and will surely cement the band’s rising cult-come-pop status. Despite

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sometimes veering into punchy nonsense, and the prevalence of a strange juxtaposition between modern lyrics and an 80s theme, this is nevertheless an album that offers a genuinely enjoyable listening experience. The music is nothing if not fun, and it is very likely that many of the criticisms voiced here were in fact carefully measured design decisions.

One thing is for sure: this a band that clearly knows its audience.

The 1975 are proving shrewd songsmiths, with a refocusing of their creative efforts befitting its younger following. It may well be that this ‘departure’ was far less of a gamble than once thought.

NICK BURKE

CULT CORNER THE AVALANCHES: SINCE I LEFT YOU

O THE CORAL: DISTANCE INBETWEEN

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runchy psychedelia judiciously framed by a unique and deft indie-rock sound, recently reformed the Coral offer up a new album of surprising simplicity and enduring charm.

After a hefty hiatus of six years, it’s uplifting to see that the Coral have lost nothing of their talent which fuelled the earlier success of albums such as The Invisible Invasion. Taking their cues from early psychedelic rock, Distance Inbetween is an album of variety and sharpness which gives off an instant liveperformance vibe. The one-take nature of the recording process for the album only adds to this, and the

result is particularly refreshing in this age of ostentatious and often obnoxious over-production.

“Gives off an instant liveperformance vibe”

The music itself is a decidedly stripped-down affair. Any use of synth is toned-down and subtle, relying more on the sound of frizzy guitar and the hypnotic vocals of James Skelly to give the songs their identity. Perhaps the best way to describe the sound is sort of a laidback Black Keys tone tempered by an Arctic Monkeys growl. And it works very well for such an odd coupling.

It’s a little difficult to really pin down any theme here. We slip from

acid-trip happiness to hangover depression, and it’s quite a nice ambiguity which gives Distance Inbetween its diversity. The lyrics are excellent, creating a hazy dreamscape around the songs, omnipresent in each track and underlined by the music itself.

“The lyrics are excellent, creating a hazy dreamscape around the songs”

A particular highlight comes in the form of the deliciously held-back titular song ‘Distance Inbetween’, with its haunting, drifting guitar and its ethereal lyrics. Another is the

entirely different ‘Holy Revelation’ which opts for pumping drums and an altogether more positive and garage vibe, solidifying the indie elements of the album. ‘White Bird’ is straight from the 60s, coming across as a far-out Pink Floyd number if it were sung by Buffalo Springfield, coupling dreamy words with slick synth.

Distance Inbetween is a fantastic return to form for The Coral. Varied songs and a defined style make it a deservedly memorable album, lost in its own dream, and happily so.

JACK STACEY

ne of the most intriguing but oft-forgotten subgenres of alternative music is the brilliantly named ‘plunderphonics’, a style of electronic music composed entirely from pre-existing samples. Perhaps the definitive plunderphonics album is the breathtaking debut of Australian group the Avalanches, Since I Left You. Composed of what the group estimate to be over 3500 samples, the album’s 18 tracks take the listener through dense sonic landscapes that are endlessly inventive, often hilarious, and danceable against the odds. Their most successful single, ‘Frontier Psychiatrist’, sums up the band’s wacky approach: a swirling mix of neighing horses, turntable scratches, the score from Lawrence of Arabia and vocal snippets from a 60s comedy sketch somehow come together to create something wonderful.

The Avalanches have apparently been working on a follow-up since 2005, but nothing has ever surfaced. If they ever do release another album, it will hopefully bring more attention to one of the greatest records of the 2000s.

SAM KELLY

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“Your main resource for making films with no budget is dedicated friends.”

S

heffield has history with Ben Wheatley. The Essex-born director came to the city to make his 2011 horror/thriller Kill List, which concerns a war veteran-turned-hitman whose mental state rapidly deteriorates as he goes from job to job. Full use was made of the city’s rich, diverse geography over the 18-day shoot.

“The thing about Sheffield is that there’s lots of different environments within the city. We needed hotels, suburban areas, woodland, rich estates and industrial land.

“There are many varied faces of Sheffield and we used that to our advantage to make Kill List.”

Half a decade later, Wheatley returned to the Steel City on 3 March for a special preview screening of his new film High-Rise - a J.G. Ballard adaptation written by his wife Amy Jump concerning the deteriorating societal structure of an insular, dystopian tower block.

The film is his fourth collaboration with Jump and they live in Brighton with their son. They worked together on Kill List, murderous comedy Sightseers and psychedelic medieval horror A Field in England.

“We’ve been together since we were 16. I go out and direct the scripts she gives me then she comes back to do the editing. She says my directing is actually ‘ruining’ her scripts so she has to come back in and clean up the mess.”

With a cast populated by heavy-hitters such as Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons and Sienna Miller and an increased budget, High-Rise breaks new ground for Wheatley both in reputation and artistry.

Having garnered greater studio backing, the film sees him play with more dynamic, interpretive and expressive visual techniques, in contrast to his previous super-low budget fare, whose visuals were always grounded in some kind of tangible reality.

“If you look at my work as a whole - in cinema, on TV and adverts - the language in the film isn’t so surprising.

The visual stuff I do in High-Rise is quite similar to some of my work on shows like Dr. Who or The Wrong Door.

“What’s different is that I’ve never translated that into film before. So obviously if you were to compare Sightseers to High-Rise it’d be a huge leap, but not so much when you look at what I’ve done elsewhere.

“With High-Rise, the budget is a massive amount of money by any sensible standards, but it’s still a low budget picture so that means I still had a lot of

creative freedom, no troubles with studio interference or anything like that.

“The budget gave me more control over what I could do with the image - I could build sets and do more interesting things with the camera, but it wasn’t necessarily more creative than my other films, just done in different ways.”

As a relatively low-budget production still, HighRise wasn’t blessed with the promotional clout of major blockbuster fare. Wheatley’s team elected to tour the UK, hopping from one small, independent cinema to the next, to promote the film through advance showings.

“I love these kinds of smaller cinemas where you can feel a groundswell of an audience, which these kinds of films need. You can see the whites of the audience’s eyes and really gauge how they’re receiving the film.

“It’s ok for big movies with massive budgets whose saturation marketing gets into every corner of people’s lives but High-Rise’s advertising, outside of TV ads and a few posters on the Tube in London, doesn’t really penetrate like that, especially not in places like Sheffield. These films live and die on word of mouth.”

While there are difficulties and limits to low-budget, independent filmmaking, Wheatley clearly holds real affection for the homespun movement. For those looking to get a start in the industry, he says that dedication, rationality and self-sufficiency are vital.

“The main thing is that no one is really going to help you, don’t bother applying for grants and funds. Start by just making stuff and eventually, if you’re good, you’ll attract people and work to you.

“There’s definitely something to be said about going it alone, making your own thing and being independent.

It doesn’t even have to cost much - I made a lot of short films on the dole and it couldn’t cost anything because I had no money.

“You just need to set limits to your big projects and be realistic. You can’t set your film in a club in the 60s with hundreds of people in the crowd if you can’t pull that off, so see what’s around you. A front room, a park, roads use your immediate environment to tell the story.”

That said, Wheatley argues that no filmmaker can hope to achieve anything without help.

“Your main resource for no-budget filmmaking is friends - you need them to be dedicated to helping you. Build a support network - these things are easy if you come across as keen, nice and polite. Write your

characters to fit your friends rather than forcing them into roles. Everything will start to happen gently from there.”

Though he’s an indie filmmaker at heart, Wheatley doesn’t come across as cynical - he shows a genuine affection for storytelling and art in all its many forms.

“Cinema is broad, there’s all sorts of styles of movies.

I watch and enjoy all those big blockbuster films. I wouldn’t necessarily write off doing one but my films so far aren’t just an audition to get me up there.

“Still, I went to see the new Star Wars and enjoyed it.

My son said it was one of the best films he’d ever seen and that’s who these films are for.”

Wheatley, born of the independent cinema model, is experiencing a very noticeable rise. His next film Free Fire, out later this year, is an ensemble heist thriller starring Oscar winner Brie Larson and District 9’s Sharlto Copley.

“It’s more commercial and action-based than my earlier stuff, but I wouldn’t say it indicates where I’m going in the future. I just do what suits each story I’m telling really.”

Sat in the foyer of Sheffield’s Leopold Hotel the morning after a warmly-received preview of HighRise, Wheatley, with his gruff resting face framed by untamed brown locks and shaggy beard with a vicious sea monster erupting from his t-shirt, sips peppermint tea and watches the unexpected springtime snow fall outside.

He’s intent to come back to Sheffield when he tours again in the autumn, his affectionate connections to the city shining through when he speaks.

“My favourite thing about Sheffield is the energy of the place. When I came to shoot Kill List, we were staying on West Street which lit up like Ibiza until four in the morning every night. We had a fantastic time going to see bands and all the art.

“There’s a London-centric view of England that I don’t think is true. I went to school there and couldn’t leave fast enough. Every city we’ve been to on this tour is like a hive of activity - lots of people interesting and engaged, ready to consume and create the best in art and film.”

High-Rise is out nationwide March 18. It can be seen in Sheffield at the Showroom cinema. Our review is on page 38.

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SCREEN

HIGHER & HIGHER

In a Forge Press exclusive, Screen editor Rhys Handley sits down with director Ben Wheatley to discuss his latest feature High-Rise.

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“Challenging and dynamic predictive sci-fi - a grinning indictment of modern living and social class.”

Departing from the grounded aesthetic of his previous films, Wheatley relishes the opportunity to play with a more heightened plane of reality - dreams and hallucinations increasingly collide with real life as disorder comes to the high-rise.

There’s a sick pleasure taken in the perversion of the familiar - the raw, angular concrete of brutalist architecture, which is everywhere in modern city life, becomes an oppressive futuristic spectre, while jovial Swedes ABBA see their hit ‘SOS’ mangled into a terrifying recurring motif.

Tangential to Liang’s macabre coming-of-age story, a stellar cast of heavy-hitters tell the stories of the building’s residents and young Louis Suc’s infant Toby forges a touching bond with Liang that keeps him partly decent as he succumbs to the wildness of the block.

Bolstered by an often chilling, frequently hilarious screenplay by Amy Jump and a sweepingly sinister score by Clint Mansell, Wheatley pushes himself artistically in this daring, thrilling Ballard adaptation which hits deliciously close to home.

CULT CORNER

SCREEN DIGITAL

POKEMON: THE FIRST MOVIE (1998)

HOUSE OF CARDS (SEASON 4)

TV in so few words. But one criticism that could be raised is how fans of the first two seasons might be less keen on the slower pacing, akin to that of the divisive third season.

The Underwoods are at the top now, so naturally politics has to rear its head. But if by the end of the first few episodes you find yourself longing for the story to step-up a gear, then expecting a shocking twist, think of Game of Thrones’ Red Wedding.

Perhaps too, the final episode of the season feels somewhat underwhelming for all but the last act. But then there is the last 10 minutes, and then the last 10 seconds - the last few moments of the season are beautifully unsettling - does it mean she has known all along?

A central element of this season is also the return of characters who were left in the wake of the Underwood’s corrupt rise to power.

It is fantastic to see so many roles

HIGH-RISE

W

hen the rigid social order of J.G. Ballard’s monolithic tower block descends into debauched anarchy, director Ben Wheatley warps the everyday into an inescapable predator in this grim, vibrant, wryly clever beast of a film.

Directionless bachelor Dr. Liang (Tom Hiddleston) moves into the high-rise - a residential tower

W

hen asked about animated films of the 90s, most people will cite any films categorised as “Renaissance Disney”, most notably the critically and publicly acclaimed Lion King.

Few people will give fair mention to the film adaptation of Pokémon, which last month celebrated it’s 20th anniversary. But why?

Arguably everything that Lion King does, Pokémon does better.

Take the awe inspiring soundtrack of the prior, beautifully composed and performed with the input of the legendary Elton John and including classics like ‘Circle of Life’; terrible in comparison to the heart wrenching melody of ‘Brother My Brother’, which features in one of Pokémon’s climactic scenes.

You might argue that nothing tops the emotion of Mufasa’s death, but look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t weep uncontrollably when Ash turned to stone and Pikachu cried?

Maybe I’m being facetious.

Maybe Pokemon: The First Movie isn’t better than the Lion King.

Maybe the fact that the tagline is “Mewtwo Strikes Back”, despite the fact that this is the first time Mewtwo appears in the series, makes absolutely no sense. But dammit, it’s a movie adaptation of both a TV series and a video game that’s at least semi-watchable, and that’s a rare thing to come by.

LUKE BALDWIN

block filled with all the essential amenities of modern living, so its residents need never leave. His hopes of a quiet life are dashed by the interference of gregarious neighbours, their rambunctious parties and the schemes of the building’s architect Royal (Jeremy Irons), who watches from on high.

Royal’s ambitious plans to create a vertical city - entirely selfsufficient and isolated from the world - quickly turn sour as power cuts on the lower levels lead to a volatile upheaval of the delicately established hierarchy and the upper-floor aristocracy clashes with

the ravenous proletariat that live below.

With the charming Liang as bemused mediator between the two sides, increasingly dragged into their vices and conflicts, HighRise is a challenging and dynamic predictive sci-fi - a grinning indictment of modern living and social class, exploding gorgeous and horrific visuals packed with allegory and mystique.

Wheatley leaves reality behind with rampant abandon, stitching ambiguous, psychedelic visuals together with fractured edits and a dizzying camera.

T

he release of critically acclaimed Netflix series House of Cards sees the return of America’s most ruthless power couple who audiences love to loathe - or should that be loathe to love? In the words of Francis J. Underwood (Kevin Spacey), “here is the brutal fucking truth” - season four is another masterclass from creator Beau Willimon.

Expect to see Frank and Claire (Robin Wright) just as scheming as ever in a battle with adversaries both old and new. Their corrupt rise to the top has frequently seen the extortion of anyone presenting an obstacle, and we can expect this duplicity to encroach on even their oldest and closest allies this year.

RHYS HANDLEY

“Make no mistake, this is House of Cards at it’s finest” Let us not forget that “the road to power is paved with hypocrisy and casualties”.

What’s so commendable is that it feels as though the show’s producers have taken a new dynamic and artistic approach to the production of House of Cards rather than rest on the trophies of the past. From this comes a heavy introspection on the Underwood’s own personal life after the turmoil of the third season. They even dare to give Frank a conscience, albeit just for an episode or two.

It’s hard to do a comprehensive review of thirteen hours worth of

reprised as many of former cast members return. But despite the heavy use of old players, it never feels a case of reheated leftovers, but rather an amalgamation of every incarnation of the franchise so far.

Make no mistake, this is House of Cards continuing at its finest. Often chilling, but always thrilling. Looking forward, let’s just hope the imminent departure of masterful showrunner Willimon won’t be to its detriment.

MATTHEW KEW

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“A hugely self-indulgent film, but all the better for it.”

HAIL, CAESAR!

T

hough it’s a hugely selfindulgent film, Hail, Caesar! is all the better for it. It follows the life of the religious Hollywood fixer Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) over the course of a few eventful days.

We meet many actors, all with different problems, and each gets their own entrance as it were, with an overlong excerpt from whatever film they are starring in.

This includes Baird Whitlock’s (George Clooney) biblical epic, Hobie Doyle’s (Alden Ehrenreich) western or DeeAnna Moran’s (Scarlett Johansson) aquatic musical.

Almost the entirety of the, frankly ridiculous, cast list are in the film so sporadically - they are effectively cameos.

While some people might find this disappointing, it actually works rather well, because you can instantly connect with them and it gives the story a bit of variation.

George Clooney is particularly well cast as a sleazy leading man,

but he’s also incredibly charismatic, and a bit of a fool.

The film is visually stunning, as you’d expect from Roger Deakins and the Coen brothers. The lengthy dialogue scenes have so much background detail it’s akin to an animation - I particularly like the sarcastic looks at the ‘star’.

While I’ve not seen much in the way of biblical epics, the internal film called ‘Hail, Ceaser!’ looks exactly as you’d imagine, with painted backgrounds, huge numbers of extras and impressively large sets.

Sections of Hail, Ceaser! had

me in genuine tears of laughter.

One scene in particular between Mannix and a group of religious representatives having a meeting about a film, had me laughing for several minutes after the scene had finished.

Other parts of the film aren’t meant to be funny, some are much more sombre and reflective, facing questions of why people do the jobs that they do, and while these scenes are very well done, the mix between the two can be jarring at times.

Another issue I have with the film is that some sections feels dragged

out or tacked on, like the Coens forget about certain characters and feel the need to give them some more to do.

One character has a very sudden and meaningless opening, just because they’re needed for later on. Tilda Swinton’s dual role as competing journalists is rather pointless and just put in because it entertains the Coens.

Overall the film is a bit of a mess narratively, but it’s one of the most enjoyable films I’ve seen for a very long time.

DAN WEST

SCREEN SPECIAL: JAPANESE SEASON at the Showroom Cinema

I

THE ELEGANT LIFE OF MR EVERMAN

n first-person narration the story recounts Eburi’s (Kobayashi Keiju) struggles to bond with his co-workers or family members, his father’s war profiteering, the hardships of marriage and providing for his family. He reveals how often he thought of giving up on life. In his essay-style biography he discusses risqué topics such as his own mental and his family’s physical health.

Director Kihachi Okamoto manages to cast a spell over the audience by introducing animated clips to narrate parts of Eburi’s life such as reasons behind his marriage. Using this unusual technique, he breaths life into the protagonist, adding depth and colour.

Whereas the beginning of the movie is fast-paced and quirky, it becomes rather tedious to watch towards the remaining 20 minutes. It almost seems like a representation of Eburi’s life: repetition.

The film does show that if you have enough vigor and ambition, even the ordinary life of Mr Everyman can become elegant.

VICTORIA SCHEER

I

MY NEIGHBOUR TOTORO

BEING GOOD

t is saddening that much entertainment for children is fuelled by money. It doesn’t seek to understand, or to embrace the creativity and joy of youth; rather, it simulates what appeals to the majority.

Because of this, My Neighbour Totoro exists as one of few slices of perfect innocence. It is a journey through the wondrous nature of childhood. Universally it exists as a classic.

With beautiful animation and a narrative that flows gently, this is one of Studio Ghibli’s most cherished accomplishments.

It tells the story of a family moving to a new home, focusing upon the characters of the two young girls. Of course, the numerous encounters with the iconic spirits of the forest, headed by the loveable Totoro, are the main attraction.

These are the films that live on, that children and adults alike refer to time and again for their good feeling and nostalgia.

The magic of these worlds need never be understood, only celebrated.

NICK BURKE

A

decent and realistic portrayal of three generations are present in Being Good. The director, Mipo O, meticulously demonstrates how a small hug can brighten up the life of isolated people.

Being good seems to be a superfluous topic for us as it is expected as a matter of course. However, it does not apply to every single person. There are those who are not being loved and gradually lose the intentions to be good. The film reflects this sadness by using three totally different stories and show the audience that a minimal kindness can rescue a person with a lost soul.

Regrettably, a film often shows an ideal and, sometimes, unrealistic world created by the director. Here, the audience is left not knowing whether one of the characters is safe under the violence of his step father.

This leaves a message that there are people who still lead a life without love and care.

What can we do to change it?

CARMAN LEUNG

NORIBEN

O

utside of the occasional cartoon here and there, I have next to no experience of Japanese filmmaking; I went in with a blank

slate.

Noriben is a film about the struggle of a woman trying to find independence from her husband and care for her young daughter.

She moves to Tokyo where she finds packing lunch boxes are her true calling in life.

This is the very beauty of the form – this plot wouldn’t make any sense in a western setting.

Witty dialogue and humour carry the plot well, and the balance between whimsical and serious is well executed. Cinematic techniques such as cartoon renditions of food spinning across the screen accompanied by pop music make for interesting viewing.

A good introduction to the world of Japanese cinema, Noriben is a clever film with an interesting insight into a culture different from our own.

JOSEPH MACKAY

Friday 11 March 2016 | Forge Press

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COFFEE BREAK

and chill.

Netflix - the only thing that gets you through university life. You find yourself watching back to back episodes of your favourite TV programme, whilst distracting yourself from the mountain loads of work you have to do. The vast variety of genres on Netflix means that it meets everyone’s needs. So here are things you should look out for...

Gossip Girl: Ladies and fellas, this should on your list of things to (re)watch.

The series starts off with a group of elite teens going to high school and facing the daily struggles of a teenage life. The famous Chuck and Blair love story is sure to warm all of your hearts.

Making a Murderer: Ten-part documentary, explores the story of Steven Avery, who served 18 years in prison for the sexual assault and attempted murder of Penny Beerntsen Suits: This US legal drama is about a college drop-out who lands himself a job with one of New York’s best lawyers, Harvey Spector.

Orange is the New Black: Being Netflix’s most watched series, this American-comedy follows the story of a young woman who is sentenced to 15 months in prison.

Dingbats DKI ONE

GOGOGO GO GO GO GO

Quote of the fortnight: “Always borrow money from a pessimist. He won’t expect it back.”

OSCAR WILDE

Photograph of the Fortnight

Caption: Karaoke night with your mates

Unique Holidays in March Irish American Month Music in Our Schools Month National Craft Month National Frozen Food Month National Nutrition Month National Peanut Month National Women’s History Month Red Cross Month Social Workers Month There is also a National Pi Day; Frozen Food Day, Take a Walk in the Park Day, I Am In Control Day, Waffle Day, Pecan Day.

Forge Press | Friday 11 March 2016

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Sudoku Easy

COFFEE BREAK

Hard

Medium

Crossword Across 1 Fair (8) 5 Couple (4) 9 Oarsperson (5) 10 Futile (attempt, e.g.) (7) 11 Vote back into office (2­5) 12 Place ­setting (4) 14 Be mistaken for (someone else) (4,2) 15 End (6) 18 Lecture (4) 20 Slanted letters (printing) (7) 22 Opposed to (7) 23 Mental representation (5) 24 Bottomless (pit) (4) 25 Daughter of a ruler (8)

Down

Answers

Credits for the crossword: Matthew Sapsed

1 Type of statistical chart ­grab harp (anagram) (3,5) 2 Anarchic (7) 3 Distressing ­tense (5­7) 4 Compare (with something) (6) 6 Awake (5) 7 Corrosion found on iron (4) 8 Sweat (12) 13 Beard (8) 16 Copy (7) 17 Sour­tasting (6) 19 Astonish (5) 21 Music group (4)

Across: 1 Balanced, 5 Pair, 9 Rower, 10 Useless, 11 Re­elect, 12 Site, 14 Pass as, 15 Finish, 18 Talk, 20 Italics, 22 Against, 23 Image, 24 Deep, 25 Princess.

Down: 1 Bar graph, 2 Lawless, 3 Nerve­racking, 4 Equate, 6 Alert, 7 Rust, 8 Perspiration, 13 Whiskers, 16 Imitate, 17 Bitter, 19 Amaze, 21 Band

Forge Press | Friday 11 March 2016

@ForgePressSport /ForgePressSport

SportsThoughts Ed McCosh The Wenger Complex: Who are football’s specialists in failure?

“He’s a specialist in failure” It was a cutting barb from Jose Mourinho, one which not only caught the attention of a gleeful press room, but set tongues wagging among football fans worldwide.

At that point on Valentine’s Day 2014, Arsène Wenger had endured a lengthy spell without a trophy. Arsenal’s thirst for glory was quelled by successive FA Cup wins, but this season the spectre of Mourinho’s jibe has returned to haunt the Frenchman once more.

In the most open top flight season in years, perhaps decades, Arsenal have stuttered, and missed an open goal. Perhaps they will stage a miraculous recovery and take the title – in fact, that would be the most Arsenal way of doing it.

My mother, made wiser and wearier by 50 years of following the Gunners through times much less prosperous than these, always trots out the same line.

“If we have a game in hand,

and winning it means we go top,” she tells me, “We won’t win it.”

More often than not, she is absolutely right. If Arsenal fail to win the league or FA Cup this season – as their exit from the Champions League is now a formality – would it finally be time for Wenger to go?

And would his legacy be one of failure, or one to be proud of? As a club, Arsenal’s 13 league titles and 11 FA Cup victories set them among the most successful teams in English football.

Their conversion rate is impressive as well: the Gunners have appeared in 42 quarter-finals, reaching 25 semis.

Arsenal have only fallen at the penultimate hurdle six times, not the behaviour of a side specialising in failure.

Chelsea share a similar record, winning seven of their 11 finals, but Spurs’ eight wins from nine appearances is perhaps the most impressive of all.

It is Everton who shoulder the albatross of failure in the world’s oldest domestic cup competition.

The Toffees have reached a record 45 quarter-finals, losing 21 of those. Of the 13 finals Everton have reached, they have won just five and lost eight – again, a record.

Five victories in 138 years of history does not read well

in that particular corner of Liverpool. In fact, fans worn down by years of following Everton – myself among them - now use Everton as a verb.

To “Everton” something is to contrive to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in the most ridiculous fashion imaginable, or to make a seemingly easy task look difficult.

Many clubs have this deepseated cynicism – Newcastle, West Brom and Sunderland supporters will feel failure looms over them after going 61, 48 and 43 years respectively without domestic honours.

Therefore, it must be Wenger’s problem, right? Until a trophy for fourth place is awarded on an annual basis, the Frenchman’s Premier League drought continues.

But this is still a man who has brought three league titles, six FA Cups and six Community Shields to a club that before his arrival lacked any sort of consistency.

Reaching the Champions League every season since the turn of the century screams reliability, if not success. And what counts as success?

Is it related to spending?

The thought of a team being judged on a pounds-perpoints basis seems futile when the top teams all spend heavily.

Yet Leicester City, so often vaunted as a paragon of any dormant footballing virtue

desperate sports writers can pluck out of the air, have at least proved money does not provide the exclusive route to success, nor does a trophy provide the only means of it. Arsène Wenger has created a dynasty at Arsenal.

His style of m a n a g e m e n t ushered in a new era, and has become synonymous with his club in an age where one-club players are regarded as the last bastions of loyalty in football.

So what d e f i n e s success or f a i l u r e ?

Si l verware, building a legacy, or entertaining loyal fans?

It can easily encapsulate all of them.

M o u r i n h o, who leaves a glittering trail yet also fails to hold down a job for more than three years, has achieved success in his own way.

You would be hard-pressed, however, to find

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a club that didn’t want an Arsène Wenger. Failings do not a failure make, and when Wenger finally leaves the club and the dust settles he will leave a legacy to be proud of.

Sports Personality of the Week Rob Milne spoke to Men’s Lacrosse 1s captain Cameron Parks about their unbeaten season and Varsity prospects

The University of Sheffield’s Lacrosse 1s have enjoyed an incredible season, sitting atop the BUCS Northern 2B division with one game to play and winning the BUCS Trophy. They have enjoyed a nine game unbeaten run under team captain Cameron Parks.

The 20-year-old was born and raised in Manchester, taking to lacrosse at an early age: “I first got into the sport at the age of nine.

“The local lacrosse club, Timperley LC, sent American players into primary schools, in order to spread participation in the game and attract players.

“I instantly became obsessed with the sport. I played football, cricket and competed in track and field at that time but I managed to juggle all of them relatively easily, each one benefiting my lacrosse play.”

Since then, Cameron has pursued a career in medicine and is now in his second year at university, but despite his busy schedule he is dedicated to the club: “It requires a lot of time management in order keep

on top of my work, whilst making sure the team is working at their best and everyone is happy.”

The person he admires most in the sport is his old coach, and current England international, Mikey Armstrong.

Armstrong is a University of Sheffield alumni, graduating in 2011, and has since gone on to compete in world championships for his country – after winning the

BUCS championships during his time at the University of Sheffield. He also played at Timperley, the club which got the current Lacrosse 1s captain into the sport.

The former Yorkshire Player of the Year is still around when Cameron needs to talk: “He epitomised drive and a will to win when I was a young player watching on from the side-lines, and has always been there to offer advice whenever needed.”

Cameron trains for around 10 hours a week for the University team alone, not including his commitments to other teams, and is dedicated to keeping fit with team fitness sessions. All with the goal of improving in, what he thinks are, the toughest aspects of lacrosse: “The hardest thing is the coordination required to play the sport at a high level.

“The hand eye coordination needed in order to catch a rapidly moving ball whilst at full sprint and being hit by a defender at the same time is immense. You definitely take it for granted once you’ve played for a long time.”

He has aspirations to one day play for the senior English national team, following in the steps of Mikey Armstrong, but recognises he has to get to that level and maintain it after he leaves university – to be able to play at that top standard.

Cameron is a team-player, and despite his individual success, recognises how brilliant the team around him is: “The best thing about the lacrosse club is the people. I challenge

any society to have such a large, welcoming group of personable, friendly people who are always there for each other and always up to celebrate a win in style.”

The Medic hopes that one day lacrosse can become as big in Britain as it is across the pond, as some athletes begin to choose lacrosse over football and rugby.

But his immediate priority is the upcoming Varsity competition with Sheffield Hallam next month.

Hallam are an elite team and currently sit joint top of the BUCS Northern 1A division. The team suffered a narrow loss at Varsity last year, but Cameron thinks this year could be different: “This year’s success has been great for the club and morale within.

“We set out our stall at the start of the year and have done everything we set to achieve so far, we knew that we are an extremely capable team so expected a lot of ourselves.

“As for Varsity, it will be a exciting game; naturally we are going for the win which we are completely capable of pulling off.”

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Varsity Boxing 2016 Continued from page 48:

Harry Hughes beat John McKeating (TKO) Rob Milne Harry Hughes tore apart John McKeating, beginning the University of Sheffield come-back after the opening two losses.

Both fighters entered the ring looking similar in stature, but Sheffield’s Hughes started firmly on the front-foot offensive.

A composed Hughes built on his early success with a series of methodical punches, McKeating taking one flush in the face early on in the first round.

Hughes, still on top, caught his opponent again with a combination of punches, forcing the referee to begin a count-out for McKeating – reaching eight before deciding the Hallam boxer was good to fight on.

The man in black and gold kept the initiative putting pressure on a dazed McKeating until the end of the first round, who was sat permanently on the back-foot and absorbing Hughes’ punches.

Hughes continued to utilise his effective jab, keeping in control of the fight as the second round began.

It didn’t take long before McKeating was rocked back again following a barrage of Hughes punches, not giving McKeating a moment of breathing space in the fight.

The referee began his second count, reaching nine this time, the fight all but over for McKeating.

The Hallam boxer was not throwing any punches back at his opponent; it wasn’t long until Hughes delivered the hammer blow.

Hughes caught McKeating flush in the nose with some excellent boxing, blood splattered onto the Hallam fighter’s chest before the referee stopped it again – this time deciding McKeating could not continue, giving Hughes a well-deserved win by TKO.

Rob Dixon beat Conor Quinlan (TKO) Anthony Phillips With the University of Sheffield 2-1 down to Sheffield Hallam after three fights, Rob Dixon stepped into the ring to fight Conor Quinlan and produced one of the fights of his life to stop Quinlan in the third round after a number of incredible punches that left his opponent flailing in the arms of the referee.

The result was redemption of sorts for Dixon who got knocked out 20 seconds into his fight at last years

Varsity event.

Quinlan started the first round with a number of strong jabs and uppercuts that troubled the guard of Dixon.

For most of the first round, Dixon was trapped against the ropes as Quilan unleashed combination after combination.

With the crowd beginning to sense a Sheffield comeback, Dixon boxed his socks off in both round two and three, punishing Quilan with a large amount of hits to the body.

Though the Hallam boxer occasionally managed to land a good hit onto the face of Dixon but by the third round, it was too little, too late.

Quilan was unable to land any blows and he was camped in the corner of the ring as Dixon unloaded.

The referee halted the contest after the second stoppage of Quilan who looked dead on his feet as the crowd roared the comeback by Sheffield.

Matthew Smith beat Yaseen Noorani (Unanimous decision) Ed McCosh Few fights that go the distance can be decided on the opening seconds alone, but when Matthew Wright raced out of the blocks with a ferocious combination it seemed the writing might already be on the wall for Sheffield’s Yaseen Noorani.

The Hallam fighter’s far superior reach and offensive style gave him the advantage from the off, and though Noorani landed a couple of blows in the first, Smith sent the Sheffield man to the deck before the bell.

Noorani, though knocked down, got up again, and put on perhaps the most impressive performance of the night to hang on with the odds stacked heavily against him.

Noorani, who later admitted to Forge Sport: “I have endured the toughest fight of my time in university boxing.”

He finished the fight bloodied, with his gumshield almost knocked out of his mouth, and he was consigned to defeat after the impressive Smith secured the only unanimous win of the night.

Hashim Rehman Joe Moylan decision)

beat.

(Split

Rob Milne Entering the final fight, the pressure was on Sheffield’s Hashim Rehman to salvage half a point from the event – he did not fail to deliver.

Hallam’s Joe Moylan had lost his two previous Varsity fights, but started on the front foot. Using his jab, Rehman

kept his opponent at arm’s length, boxing off the back foot and catching the Hallam man on the counter when he came forward.

Rehman focused his attack on the body early, rocking the Hallam fighter with some good tactical boxing. It was clear from outset this would be a tough one for the judges to call, with flush blows being landed.

But it wasn’t long before Rahman drilled Moylan with a powerful hook, probably edging the second round.

The Sheffield boxer continued to fight on the counter, ducking a Moylan punch and producing some lovely combinations on the inside. Rehman continued to dodge everything thrown at him, catching Moylan clean in the final round.

The judges awarded the match by split-decision to Hashim Rehman, securing half a point for the University of Sheffield, after a very composed and mature performance from Rehman.

Forge Press | Friday 11 March 2016

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Valiant victory for Volleyball Men’s 1s Volleyball

Featured Game

University of Sheffield Men’s 1s Lancaster University Men’s 1s

Oliver Thrift The University of Sheffield Men’s Volleyball 1s capped off an impressive BUCS Northern 1A division season in style with a resounding 3-1 victory over Lancaster University, which saw them finish second.

After an even start to the first set, the home side romped clear to win 25-17, with Lancaster committing a number of faults.

Lancaster came out strongly in the second set after falling behind.

But Sheffield pulled away

3 1

at a vital moment when the scores were tied. A fantastic spike that split the Lancaster defenders gave Sheffield the upper hand.

Sheffield held on in the second set to edge it 25-23.

The third set was almost identitical to the second, but this time Lancaster gained the upper hand. Sheffield let slip a two point lead when 20-18 up and mistakes cost them dearly as they lost the third set 2523.

Despite winning the third set, a number of the Lancaster players were not afraid to voice their disagreement with the officials’ decisions.

Sheffield were galvanised by the anger of their opponents and began to dominate serves

and win quick points. The home side raced to a 14-11 lead and followed it up by winning 11 of the next 15 points to win the third set 25-15 and seal a 3-1 victory.

After the match, Cameron Bartlett spoke to Forge Sport: “Despite missing out on the league title, I am pleased with the team’s committment throughout the season.

Now the hard work starts

again as we train for Varsity, which we have a real chance of success in.”

Volleyball Varsity will take place on Monday 18 April at EIS Sheffield.

In terms of other competitions, the men’s team lost 3-1 to Heriot Watt University in the last 16 of the BUCS Trophy.

In terms of the women’s team, they were relegated

from the BUCS Northern 1A Division after finishing fifth and going down on points difference behind the University of Liverpool.

The women also went out in the last 32 of the cup competion after a 3-0 defeat to the University of Aberdeen, but will also be looking ahead to the Varsity clash against arch-rivals Sheffield Hallam University.

Image: Dominic Lowe

Best ever finish for Women’s Cricket

Notts success for Canoeing

Cricket

Canoeing Anthony Phillips

University of 77-4 Sheffield Women’s 1s Loughborough 128-3 University Women’s 1s

Sonia Twigg The University of Sheffield Women’s Cricket club achieved their best ever finish in the BUCS Indoor Cricket Championships, finishing joint third.

The club improved on last years’ sixth place finish by reaching the semi finals where they lost to Loughborough by 51 runs.

The team had finished second in their group, following victories over Canterbury Christ Church University and the University of Bath before losing to Durham University in the final group game.

In the first game, Sheffield lost the toss and were put into bat first.

Sheffield openers Millie Boddington and Hannah Lautch scored heavily and Sheffield set Canterbury 118 to win after posting 117-1.

The score proved to be too much for Canterbury who fell short of the target

after posting only 54 with Sheffield bowlers Lizzie Durham and Saima Ahmed claiming two wickets each.

In the second game against Bath, Sheffield won the toss and decided to bowl first.

The fielding was a strongpoint for Sheffield in the game and played a big part in restricting Bath to 82 from their 10 overs.

The run chase for Sheffield started badly with a run out on the first ball.

After four overs, Sheffield were sitting at a precarious 42-4.

But Boddington led the way in the chase reaching 38 not out to see Sheffield get over the line.

After a great start in the first two matches, Sheffield lost to Durham by twelve runs after only scoring 84 in reply to Durham’s 96.

U n f o r t u n a t e l y, four matches in one day proved a step too far for Sheffield as they were comfortably beaten by a Loughborough side who clearly

benefited from regular access to England facilities.

Loughborough scored 128 after their 10 overs, but Sheffield could only manage 77-4, despite captain Boddington scoring 30 not out.

After finishing joint third, captain Boddington told Forge Press Sport: “I couldn’t be prouder of how far the club has come in the past couple of seasons.

“We made the top six last year, the top four this year, and are still looking to improve.

“This was all down to the hard work put in by both players and coaches, on and off the pitch.”

The University of Sheffield Canoeing Club enjoyed a very successful weekend at the National Student Rodeo finishing second overall at the National Watersports Centre in Nottingham.

The event featured over 40 universities and 1000 students competing in the largest student kayaking event in the world.

The University were well featured in the Women’s Beginner final with Isabel Emerson, Eleanor Rose, Gabriela Montejo Kovacevich all finishing in the top 30.

Sam Black and Tom Herrington also managed to get into the final of the Men’s Beginner final and finished within the top 25.

The University won its first medals of the day in the Men’s Intermediate final with Joe Moorhouse finishing first and Lawerence Blackhurst and

Ed Pearce also finishing well placed.

In the C1 competition, Eoghan Kelly finished third to give Sheffield their second medal of the competition.

On a cold and blustery weekend, Sheffield added their third and final medal of the weekend where Peter Heywood and Dave Gibson finished second in the duo event.

The canoe club also won another prize for coaching, with club coach Chris Brain winning an award for having the most beginners on the water in numerous competitions.

For finishing second overall in the competition, the University received a new canoe as a reward for their achievements.

Canoeing Club publicity officer Eleanor Rose was happy with the club’s performance telling Forge Sport: “We absolutely smashed it”.

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Image: Joe Alborough

Spoils shared at Varsity Boxing Boxing

3 3 Images: Dan West The University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University shared the spoilts with a 3-3 draw securing half a point each in a thrilling night of Varsity boxing.

Hallam raced into a 2-0 lead but TKO victories for Harry Hughes and Rob Dixon turned the tide, before Hashim Rehman won the final point of the night after a tense bout to retain the Varsity Shield.

Ben Otter beat Chris Taylor (Split decision) Anthony Phillips

In the first Varsity fight of the evening, Ben Otter of Sheffield Hallam University narrowly defeated Chris Taylor in a split decision after three closely fought rounds of boxing.

The Hallam boxer started the strongest in the first round with him using his narrow height and reach advantage to effectively jab at Taylor and land some punishing shots.

In the second round, Otter continued to push forward, using a number of great combinations to hit the face of Taylor whose nose began to bleed across the canvas.

With the crowd noise ramping up, Taylor came back strongly late in the second round, landing a number of hits on Otter, including a jab to the ribs which sent the Hallam boxer to his knees.

In round three, both boxers

began to tire and had many numerous wild swings that went wide of the target.

However, Otter landed one final blow to the face of Taylor, causiing further bleeding.

After the fight, the judges awarded a split-decision but speaking to Forge Sport after the fight : “I didnt think it was a split decision.

I did the best I could, but I really thought I won that fight.”

Alireza Foroughi beat Niall Patrick (Split decision) Ed McCosh The second bout of the night began in cautious fashion, Niall Patrick offering the odd left hand jab and Alireza Foroughi moving quickly around the ring, coaxing his counterpart into action.

With the first round petering out without many punches landing cleanly, Foroughi struck late with some welltimed blows to edge it at the bell.

The Hallam fighter was chastised by his trainer, being told to “stop showing off”, and the fighter who returned to the ring had the focus and steel the one who left it lacked.

The intense concentration and fleet-footed movement had left Patrick visibly tired,

and Foroughi took advantage with swift combination punches. Patrick had begun to land a couple of his own, but it was too little, too late.

Foroughi boxed his Sheffield counterpart into the corner for the majority of the third round, and after Patrick was given the count by the referee near the end the result seemed a formality.

The only shock, one which prompted gasps in the crowd, was that Foroughi only won by a split decision. Patrick told Forge Sport: “I fell for a few cheap shots…but my performance was okay today.”

More inside on Page 46

Bout round-up Chris Taylor vs Ben Otter Otter wins by decision Niall Patrick vs Alireza Foroughi Foroughi wins by decision Harry Hughes vs John McKeating Hughes wins by TKO Rob Dixon vs Conor Quinlan Dixon wins by TKO Yaseen Noorani vs Matthew Smith Smith wins by decision Hashim Rehman v Joe Moylan Rehman wins by decision

Image: SportsBeat