Gair rhydd issue 721 May 2002

News 2

IN BRIEF Money Talk NATWEST HAVE laid out some basic tips for coping with debt following news that student debt has tripled in the last three years.

The guidelines include buying an annual travel card, repaying borrowings with the highest rate first and taking advantage of graduate packages available at banks.

A full list of advice can be found at www.natwest.com /graduates.

RAG week another huge success CARDIFF’S RAG team have had another hugely successful year, raising £23,000 for charity.

RAG week, held in February, saw students and Executive members sitting in baths of beans and downing pints of ale all in the name of charity.

The society is now looking forward to another year of fund raising. Anyone interested joining can contact RAG at www.rag.cf.uk.

Focus on Democracy STUDENT DEMOCRACY will be the theme of this Friday’s focus group.

The Meeting, which will take place in Buffers in Solus from 12-2pm on May 10, is open for all students to voice their opinions.

Help through the exams NIGHTLINE, CARDIFF University’s advice line, is available seven days a week to help with any problems you may be facing.

Run by students trained to deal with all sorts of problems, Nightline provides a completely confidential service to all Cardiff students.

Students can contact Nightline on (02920) 382141 seven days a week from 8am to 8pm or by dropping into the centre on Colum Road.

Gair Rhydd ADDRESS University Union Park Place Cardiff CF10 3QN

PhDs for cash at Lampeter

Gair Rhydd MONDAY 13TH MAY 2002

Mark Cobley reports LAMPETER UNIVERSITY, one of Cardiff’s partner institutions in the University of Wales, has been accused of offering doctorates in return for donations according to reports in the press this week.

The accusations have followed evidence that passages in a Saudi Arabian prince’s thesis were copied from a book by his Dean of Arts. The Dean has since been forced to resign, but there are also accusations that lecturers were prepared to cover up mistakes in another thesis, and both incidents were kept secret.

The dean at the centre of the affair, Dr. Mashuq Ally, allegedly had his secretary

“It isn’t worth the hassle to take back a degree already awarded”

City’s oldest cinema draws its curtains Lydia Kirby reports CARDIFF RESIDENTS are up in arms after news that the city’s oldest cinema is closing.

Following the closure of the Odeon Cinemas in Queen Street and the Capitol Centre in 2001, the Globe Cinema, on Albany Road is due to close its doors later this year.

The cinema, which specialises in Asian films,

EDITORIAL 02920 781434/436 ADVERTISING 02920 781416 EMAIL SSUGR1@cf.ac.uk VISITORS Find us on the 4th floor of the Students Union

copy chapters of a book into a thesis supposedly written by the Saudi prince. He also gave the internal examiner only three days to assess the work, and reportedly told him that it would help his career if he passed it.

The examiner, however, became alarmed at the content of the thesis and queried it.

One source who saw the work said, “Each chapter seemed to have a different style.”

Dr. Ally was called before the University’s ViceChancellor, Professor Keith Robbins, and it is understood he claimed there must have been a mix-up with the files on his computer. The University was not convinced by this, and Dr. Ally was forced to resign. The prince did not get his PhD. However, another Saudi post-graduate at the university was awarded a doctorate despite handing in a thesis that one senior staff member described as “a shoddy piece of work.” In a letter to a colleague, the staff member went on, “It isn’t worth the hassle to take back a degree already awarded.”

The end of a chapter

will be making way for a new restaurant but residents have started up a petition to save the cinema stating that it is a vital part of Cardiff’s Asian community.

The Globe Theatre was opened less than two years ago following the closure of the Chapter Globe arthouse cinema, and is one of only a few venues in South Wales to show Asian films.

One Roath resident, who visits the cinema occasionally to catch up on Indian films, admits it would be a shame to see the cinema close.

“The cinema does do well despite showing films that aren’t mainstream. There are lots of people – Asian and non-Asian – who are into these sorts of films.”

Petitioners claim that when the Chapter theatre was closed there was a planning condition that a cinema should remain on site.

Petitions have been placed on several sites on Wellfield Road and Albany Road and across Cardiff for members of community to sign.

Lampeter Uni accused of selling degrees

On Friday, the ViceChancellor of Lampeter described the affair as a “salutary lesson.”

Dr. Ally still denies the allegations, saying that he did not “know anything” about the allegedly doctored thesis. He continued, “I’m not prepared to continue this conversation.

You’re threatening me.”

Dr. Ally went on to become the head of the Commission for Racial Equality in Wales,

but has been suspended from this post after allegations emerged that he misused his power over staff at the Commission.

Lampeter student Herbert Marcuse was worried about the reports.

“If it’s all true then it’s very concerning.” he said. “I didn’t think stuff like this was allowed to go on at British Universities.

They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.”

Uni offers eco warrior degree Anna Hodgekiss reports A SCOTTISH university is offering courses in how to be an ecowarrior in collaboration with Friends of the Earth.

The environmental justice course, run by Queen Margaret’s University College, Edinburgh, has already enrolled 16 students eager to learn the finer points of environmental activism.

Chaining each other to trees, digging tunnels and launching campaigns are practical aspects of the year long course, funded by £300,000 of lottery money.

Other parts of the course include planning issues, campaign law and instruction in media and communication skills to interpret official documents.

Many of the intake are already active campaigners for environmental issues.

But Kevin Dunion of Friends of the Earth warned the course involved training in “successful activism, not in terms of chaining themselves to anything, but using the system and knowing what their rights are”.

Students on the course such as Andy Robinson, 40, believe the qualification will be beneficial in legal battles against big businesses, saying “it will allow us to be as clever as some of the developers are in using legislation”.

News 3

Gair Rhydd MONDAY 13th MAY 2002

Enrolment no Babes snub sell-out ball joke for JOMEC Sam Bryant reports JOURNALISM STUDENTS were furious after a day of torturously long queues, confused number systems and ‘appaling’ organisation left them waiting hours to enrol for next year’s modules.

Many students got as few as one out of their six module choices and were left facing a year that will see them take modules that won’t interest them.

In a repeat of last year’s debacle, two administrators were left to deal with three hundred students in less than three hours.

Although steps had been taken to simplify the system, by allotting tickets to avoid a free-for-all, the procedure collapsed.

Initially, several people were unaware that they needed to collect their numbered token. Secondly, these were not given out in order, so that one person received a ticket three weeks later than everyone else, only to find that they were near the front of the line.

The catalogue of errors continued last Thursday, when the department made students wait for several hours.

And the prize for this hiatus? Unwanted modules.

Few students were willing to be named, but the response was stunning.

“There’s people in front of us who have higher numbers than us and should be behind us”, said one.

Another second year stu-

JOMEC students queuing for hours to enrol in next years modules

dent commented, “Everyone’s piling in, everyone’s ignoring the numbers and it’s an absolute shambles.”

Alex Wordsworth 2nd year journalist was highly aggrieved.

“I’ve been waiting for an hour and a quarter and I didn’t get the modules I wanted.

The whole thing is a shambles.”

With modules evaporating quickly students began to question the logic of providing few places on very popular modules, especially practical schemes that were snapped up by less than one sixth of the department.

A first year student was adamant that the situation was simply not good enough.

“I think that they should really sort out their organisation.

They need to re-think it a bit.”

Nothing improved, with several first year students forced to leave without signing up in order to attend exams, catch trains, and avoid expensive parking fines.

“It’s worrying that things have not improved since previous years”, said one unfortunate student.

“Last year I was recovering from an accident. They told me not to worry and that first come first serve wouldn’t apply to me. This year I’m 113th.”

At the time of going to press there were no representatives from JOMEC available to comment, therefore they will be given space in next weeks gair rhydd to defend their actions.

Revellers enjoying last years ball

Lydia Kirby reports ORGANISERS OF Cardiff’s Summer Ball have suffered a further disappointment after failing to secure another act to replace Atomic Kitten.

Despite assuring students that they would do their utmost to find a third act, Cardiff Union’s entertainment’s department have announced that because it has been turned down by the Sugababes, it is now too late to find any one else to play.

But students who have paid £28 for a ticket and promised a ‘great line-up’ are angered that they will now only be seeing two acts.

“Atomic Kitten might not be everyone’s favourite band but they’re pretty mainstream,” said Anna Hudson, a first year English Language student.

“There really needs to be another act as well as Wheatus.”

Another third year student added, “We’ve been told that

Wheatus are going to play for an hour and a half to fill up the night but I don’t even like them. We don’t have to have big names. Why can’t we have some smaller bands instead?”

But Finance and Commercial Services Officer, Alex Molokwu, believes that there is nothing the Union could have done to secure a third act.

“Acts drop out all the time if they get better deals and you can never guarantee a line-up. And we have got local DJs and a jazz band playing as well,” he said.

Four thousand tickets have been sold for Cardiff’s Summer Ball this June but second year student Sally Weston believes organisers should have done more to improve the Ball.

“The Union seems to take advantage of the fact that we’ll buy tickets just because it’s the Summer Ball. They make a big deal about buying tickets early and then change the line-up. It’s absolutely rubbish.”

A night to remember for new uni officers Lydia Kirby reports

Ellie King and Simon Bradshaw feel the pressure

THE UNION NONSABBATICAL by-elections saw Natasha Hirst and James Knight re-elected into the positions of Students with Disabilities Officer and LGB Officer with 88 per cent and 73 per cent of the votes respectively.

Natasha will be entering into her third year as representative for Students with Disabilities.

She admitted not having much time to campaign but added, “It’s great to get such a high number of votes.” She stressed she will be continuing to put more pressure on the Union to

recognise the needs of Disabled Students.

James Knight was overjoyed to be re-elected stating, “it’s fantastic”.

This is the last year that the position of LGB will be given to just one person.

Next year the position will be shared out between a male and female officer.

The position of IMG chair was won by Billy ‘Dubbs’ Lee with nearly 70 per cent of the votes. “I’m just so glad I didn’t get ronned,” he said.

Kia Smith easily saw off the only competition in the Non-Sabbatical elections achieving over 50 per cent of the votes to secure the position of AU Vice-

President.

“I’m really shocked.” Kia said, “I had such strong competition but am thrilled to have won.”

Nearly a thousand students voted in the election despite it being just one week before the exam period.

And, to the delight of the Union Executives and the exhausted candidates, there was no repeat of the computer problems experienced in March’s Sabbatical Elections when many of the votes had to be counted by hand.

“Thankfully, the counting of the votes went off without a hitch,” said Union Kia Smith celebrates victory as President, Tom McGarry. new AU Vice President

Gair Rhydd MONDAY 13th MAY 2002

The Week In Print

Pim meets with fatal mis-Fortuyn Alex Hogge reports DUTCH FAR right leader Pim Fortuyn was shot dead last week, causing a wave of condemnation throughout Europe.

Mr Fortuyn’s party Pim Fortuyn’s List had created a furore in Holland’s predominantly liberal political scene since its foundation in March.

Expousing a policy of ‘zero immigration’, the campaign had been expected to win over 15 per cent of the vote in the elections this Wednesday.

The openly gay leader had drawn on anti-Muslim feeling in the country, calling the religion “backward” and saying “Holland is full”.

He was shot five times while leaving a radio station where he had just given an interview last Monday.

Police arrested the killer, nicknamed ‘The Green Robin Hood’ by the Dutch media shortly afterwards. Volkert van der Graat, 32, was said to be an animal rights activist against factory farming and other methods of animal exploitation.

Prime Minister Wim Kok led a minute of silence in the upper house of the Dutch parliament, saying, “A dark shadow has fallen over the Netherlands.”

He went on to say, “Respect for each other means that you fight with words, not bullets.”

Protests at Mr Fortuyn’s death caused rioting near parliament buildings in The Hague and the arrest of 20 people.

The incident has come at a time when far right politicians are making their mark across Europe with the electoral success of Jean Marie Le Pen in France and election of BNP councillors in Burnley.

The Washington Post also led a strong vein of criticism in the American Press against Europe’s stance towards Israel which it said was being encouraged by racist views in the European media.

The Dutch elections are going ahead this Wednesday with Mr Fortuyn’s party yet to find a new leader.

PM secures Beer a place in Sven’s squad hefty

CLIFF RICHARD is the pop star most of us want to emulate, according to a recent survey.

Other celebrities we apparently look up to include Britney Spears, Gareth Gates and Rolf Harris according to the survey by learndirect.

David Beckham was highest on the list with ageing Cliff Richard, whose first hit was in the 1950’s, taking a close second. Other old timers hitting the top ten included astronaut Neil Armstrong, in ninth place and Australian crooner Rolf Harris in sixth place.

The survey, of over 1,200 people across Britain formed

proves weight

Dick Barrison reports

Anna Hodgekiss reports

Although Alastair Campbell claimed that the days of Labour spin were over, his boss Tony Blair could not resist one last photo opportunity.

On the day the England World Cup squad was announced Blair posed on the steps of 10 Downing Street with Sven-Goran Eriksson and three of his trusty cohorts David Beckham, Gareth Southgate and David Seaman.

It is by no means the first occasion on which Blair has tried to paint himself as the ‘People’s Prime Minister’ by declaring his love for the beautiful game.

However repeated attempts to present himself as footy-mad have caused Blair embarrassment in the past.

In a radio interview he once claimed that his favourite football memory was watching Jackie Milburn playing for Newcastle while sitting on the Gallowgate End. Milburn retired when Blair was four and the Gallowgate was completely terraced until recently.

Blair may be advised not

A PSYCHOLOGY student is believed to be the first person in Britain to suffer Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) from excessive drinking.

Matt Royle, 26, from Lancashire has been ordered to wear a wrist support and now hold his pints in his left hand.

Drinking on average six pints of Boddingtons four nights a week since he was a teenager, Matt suffered ten months of agony before being diagnosed, saying “everyone was laughing at me when I couldn’t hold my pint properly because it was so painful”.

BLAIR: Player

to attempt to bask in the England team’s reflective glory. Should the side fail miserably in the Far East, the Prime Minister’s popularity may be adversely affected.

In the summer of 1970 Harold Wilson delayed the General Election until after the World Cup in Mexico.

He was counting upon England successfully defending their title in the tournament so he could capitalise upon the national euphoria.

Sadly the team were prematurely dumped out of the Cup by Germany.

Needless to say, Wilson and his government were ousted from power weeks later.

Stunned upon his physiotherapist’s verdict, Matt reflected “I never thought this could happen, but I suppose pint pots are quite heavy. All my mates are taking the mickey.”

RSI occurs when one part of the body is used repeatedly for one task, leading to pain and twinges. However, a spokesman for the RSI Association support group is dubious of this claim.

With drinking as yet an unknown cause he suggested Matt’s wrists were perhaps strained from essay writing.

Matt hopes to return to pain-free drinking in time for the World Cup beginning at the end of May.

Drinking is a health hazard

By Air, Sea or Road Worldwide Service.

Student Offer: From 99p per kg.

Cliff still Britain’s top pop idol Lydia Kirby reports

News 4

part of a survey to discover the basis of people’s career inspirations.

Participants were asked to name the celebrity who had most influenced their childhood and the job they had most aspired to in their youth. According to the survey 11-year-olds of today dream of becoming engineers, pop stars and vets instead of soldiers, footballers and nurses, as was the fashion in the 1950’s.

A spokesperson from learndirect said, “Childhood idols have an enormous influence on younger children’s ambitions for later life. Today many 11-year- olds dream of becoming footballers and pop stars.”

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Gair Rhydd is looking for enthusiastic and imaginative... ● writers ● designers ● web programmers ● photographers ● production assistants Visit us at our media penthouse Gair Rhydd, 4th Floor Students’ Union, Tel: 02920 781434 or 781436 Fax: 02920 781407 Email: ssugr1@cardiff.ac.uk

gairrhydd, Monday 13th May 2002

Letter of the Week The author of this week’s Letter of the Week is asleep Dear Gair Rhydd, Has the world gone mad?

As I sat down to breakfast this morning a began to read an article in your paper. What I discovered appears to be- in my opinion- utter b****cks.

Apparently 10% of the population of the UK are no longer clumsy or disorganised, they suffer from dyspraxia. Whatever next?

Am I now to be labelled disinsomniacic (I'm sure your readers can come up with better names for it) because I can’t get up until midday, after all it's not my fault, my parents didn't take to me to a doctor at an early enough stage, choosing instead to call my lazy. As a direct result I have missed the majority of my lectures, am going to fail my degree and become homeless – in which case I will probably cure my disinsomniacicness as a result of having to sleep in shop doorways that open long before midday. Unless I sleep outside a pub that doesn't open until midday, and become an alcoholic disinsomniac.

Please stop the madness before it goes too far.

By the way, do people that suffer from dyspraxia get extra grants like dyslexics? If so sign me up, I'll knock a few plants over in the doctors office – and turn up on the wrong day with my pants on my head and my (odd) socks over my shoes and he/she is bound to pass me as a dyspraxic.

The point I'm trying to make is that I don't think that people with 'dyspraxia' should be given preferential treatment in higher education institutions anymore than people who have equally if not more common personality traits such as being lazy or even just plain unintelligent. If the person who wrote the article really does suffer from anxiety in 'social situations' perhaps her problem lies elsewhere and she is just trying to hide behind some fancy medical terminology which basically says she is mal-coordinated.

Yours, A dyspraxic – not clumsy – physicist Lettersdesk says: Mate, if the number of spelling and grammar mistakes in your unedited letter is anything to go by, this “disinsomnia” of yours is the least of your worries. And take it from me, to those malcos who genuinely can’t clap in the dark, their condition is no laughing matter.

The Editor says: I would just like to make it clear that dyspraxia is an actual condition, and the above letter justifies our decision to highlight its existence.

The Debt Debate Dear Gair Rhydd, Whenever I look through your newspaper, I notice that there is

always more than one article relating to student debt. This seems stupid to me, because students aren't really in a bad position.

There is no doubt that some students come from working class backgrounds, and therefore

struggle, but in general, the reality in a University like Cardiff is that most of the students are middle class, and get a comfortable supply of income from Mummy and Daddy.

If anyone doubts what I am saying, walk though Cathays in during the summer months, and you'll notice that there are very few cars parked in the streets, which indicates how many students own and run cars. If students are so skint, why are they running cars, which is very expensive?

The reason students run a car is because they can afford it easily. It strikes as me as strange, therefore, when I read Gair Rhydd moaning about students going through a hard time, when they are not. Why don't you write some challenging material, instead of jumping on the 'student debt' bandwagon? You might say that you are writing about student debt because it has wider social implications, but why write so many articles and reports on the subject?

The reason your paper dedicates so much time to student debt is because you think it makes you look trendy. You can't argue that you are representing the interests of Cardiff students, because Cardiff is a middle class University. There will be students in Cardiff who do face financial difficulties, but they are not in the majority. Therefore, it is very misleading for your newspaper to moan about student debt so much, because many of your readers run cars, drink excessively, and get their rent paid by Mummy and Daddy.

Stop being such a toothless newspaper, and become real journalists with the balls to write something worthwhile and observant, because at the moment, you are proving yourselves to be the sheltered, gutless sort of student, that tends to make up a big proportion of Cardiff University.

Regards Gareth Adams Law Finalist Newsdesk says: The job of the worthwhile journalist is to inform

and flag up issues that matter to the reader. Now, I don't think any student will dispute that their increasing level of debt MATTERS to them, whether they support free education or not. True, student debt doesn't stop students going out and buying cars (that's sort of the point of a loan... duh!) but it sure as hell will affect you when you have to pay it back!

I'd guess from your attitude that you're one of the ones who IS supported by Mummy and Daddy, well, not everyone's as lucky as you. We're a student paper, sorry, that kind of means we cover student issues. If you don't like it, go buy the Telegraph.

This is Vi o l e n c e Dear Gair Rhydd, Before I start I would like to say that there is nothing wrong with getting drunk, I for one love to go out and have a good time with my fellow students, sometimes there is nothing better.

But what the fuck is the obsession in getting all macho and violent when drinking. If you get violent when drunk, don’t fucking drink.

In the last week alone I have seen many foolish incidents, all connected with drunk students, where there has either been fights or mindless vandalism. The IMG awards, OK maybe this was obvious, but why? It’s as if certain teams went there on the sole basis of wanting to fight each other, instead of celebrate what has been a great season of football. Sure enough fights broke out and, I have been informed by the owner, things were taken down to Incognito, where these yobbish wankers decided to damage a doorwoman’s car, break windows, throw signs and in the process get anyone wearing IMG football shirts banned from their pub…WELL FUCKING DONE. The other day a student puts his hand through a window in a drunken attempt to smash someone’s face in. Why? While I very much doubt this letter will in any

Letters ● 7 way change these fuckwits ways I would like this opportunity to let them know where they belong…in the army. Try and BE THE BEST, but to be honest I doubt you cowards would have the balls.

Yours, Cannon

Right-Wing Rubbish Dear Gair Rhydd, It seems that every time I turn to your letters page I see a letter by some disaffected right-winger complaining about something.

I've seen letters stating that socialist workers are a contradiction in terms (something which the author obviously thought was very funny), that Nestle are a fine upstanding company who the Student Union should be proud to support in their brave efforts to solve the third-world overpopulation crisis by convincing mothers to kill their children with baby milk made with polluted water, and that the NUS conference was dominated by "revolutionary" timewasters.

While I accept the right of these people to air their grievances, what has been most notable about all this is the absence of (m)any opposing left-wing opinions. On many occasions I have been tempted to write in, only to think "No – all those SWP people I see at demonstrations will be bound to generate a deluge of letters." But apparently not, which I assume the right-wingers will say just goes to prove their point about lazy lefties.

I'm not a member of any particular left-wing organisation, and my opinions are my own, but the biggest contradiction in terms I know of (aside from "military intelligence" and "US foreign policy") is "compassionate conservatism". So come on, all you left-wing students out there, help stem the flood of right-wing garbage!

Yours, A Guardian-reading nonmuesli-eater

Please send your letters in to us at Gair Rhydd, Students’ Union, Park Place, CF10 3QN or preferably e-mail SSUGR1@CARDIFF.AC.UK. Gair Rhydd will attempt to print any letter sent in, but apologises for those that do not make it in due to space restrictions. The views expressed in these letters are usually not those of the newspaper or the editor.

Crossword To some its an annoying habit, to others it’s welcome respite from essay/ exam stress. For the lucky few it’s a way of life.

ACROSS: 7. Elegant, stylish (6) 8. Sometimes confusing traffic system in towns (3-3) 9. Sound made by a cat (3) 10. Give off smoke (4) 11. Door lockers (4) 12. Ben-_____, film with Charlton Heston (3) 14. Number of deadly sins (5) 17. Greyish black mineral, used for rubbing (5) 19. Be of use to (5) 20. Number of diamond wedding years (5) 22. Molten rock (5) 24. Gave food to (3) 26. Agile for one’s age (4) 28. Accepted standard (4) 29. Another term for 30’s employment place (3) 30. One who attends horses (6) 31. Throat (6) DOWN: 1. Deceive (6)

2. Body of land surrounded by water (4) 3. Mythological maiden (5) 4. Seed-planter (5) 5. Bird’s bill (4) 6. Surname of eponymous Mark Twain hero (6) 13. Treatment, practice (5) 15. Distress, annoy (3) 16. In voting, the opposite of yea (3) 17. A tree of the genus Ulmus (3) 18. Cardiac monitoring equipment (3) 21. Force upon (6) 23. Scrap of food (6) 24. Mythical creature at bottom of the garden (5) 25. Dirty looking (5) 27. Prestigious US university (4) 28. World’s longest river (4) Get your answers to the gair rhydd office before Wednesday and the winner will be announced in the next issue. 720’s winner was Katrina Flack. Leave the man Daniels out of this.

720’s solution: ACROSS: 7.Canter; 8.Rewind; 9.Use; 10.Squeal; 11.Silage; 12.Yes; 14.Tense; 17.Beryl; 19.Knife; 20.Sabre; 23.Gunge; 26.Pan; 28.Status; 29.Yapped; 30.Arm; 31.Jovial; 32.Parity. DOWN: 1.Masque; 2.Stress; 3.Truly; 4.Cress; 5.Twelly; 6.Snugly; 13.Eliza; 15.Nob; 16.Eke; 17.Beg; 18.Run; 21.Action; 24.Umpire; 25.Ghetto; 26.Psalm; 27.Nymph.

Name:_______________________ Email:________________________ If at first you don’t succeed. . . . . _____________________________________

This week’s winner wins a meal for two at Chillies Restaurant and Takeaway

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SHAG OFFICE HOURS: Tuesday 3-5pm and Friday 12-2pm W E L S H A F FA I R S O F F I C E R / SWYDDOG MATERION CYMRAEG: Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons 2-5pm.

Contact Cerith Spooner on SpoonerC1@Cardiff.ac.uk I N T E R N AT I O N A L S T U D E N T S ’ OFFICER : Wednesday afternoons.

Contact Minelle Gholami on GholamiM1@Cardiff.ac.uk STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES OFFICER: Monday 2-4pm. Contact Natasha Hirst on HirstN2@Cardiff.ac.uk WOMEN’S OFFICER: Monday and Wednesday afternoons. Contact Sally Cameron Griffiths on Cameron-Griffiths @Cardiff.ac.uk.

LGB OFFICER: Wednesday afternoons 2-5pm, Wednesday afternoons. Contact James Knight on KnightJ2@Cardiff.ac.uk.

BLACK AND ETHNIC AFFAIRS OFFICER: Contact Prab Ramkumar on RamkumarP1@Cardiff.ac.uk.

MATURE STUDENTS OFFICER:Wednesdays 10aam-1pm in the TV lounge on the 3rd Floor. Contact Gareth Hiscocks on HiscocksG@Cardiff.ac.uk.

XPRESS STATION MANAGER: Contact Emma Gait-Carr on StationManager@Xpressradio.co.uk.

All officers (except Xpress Station Manager) can be contacted on the third floor of the Students’ Union.

PERSONAL Every night between 8pm and 8am nightline is just a local telephone call or a short walk away.

Here to listen.

Here for you.

Tel: 2038 2141 Drop-in: 148 Column Rd. Want to talk about sexuality? Or do you want information about lesbian, gay or bisexual issues? No hassle, no pressure, just a friendly ear. Ring the LGB PHONELINE on 029 2039 8903, Monday, 7.00pm-9.00pm BEREAVEMENT SUPPORT GROUP Open to anyone who has suffered a loss.

First meeting on 3pm Wednesday 8th May 2002 facilitated by Barbara Fairfax.

Contact the Dean of Students office on 029 20 874966.

ACCOMMODATION

To LET: Blackweir Terrace. Three bedrooms with shared facilities. All mod cons inc. Gas central Heating. £35p.p.p.w. Contact John on 029 20 372400 or 07973 628648.

QUALITY WASHING PRODUCTS AT MISCELLANEOUS GREAT PRICES!

Boyer, Katy: Princess Leia comes of age! Happy 21st birthday on 18th May. From everyone you know!

Do you use washing powder tablets or liquid? Are you paying too much for them? If so then maybe we can save you money! £10 for 10kg (over 125 washes) of powder non-biological or biological. £25 for 360 tablets/ £14 for 180 tablets or 50p for a tube of six tablets. £10 for five litres of concentrated liquid (only 80 ml needed per wash).

Also available if you have a dishwasher: £14 for 144 tablets.

Contact 01633 601945/ 07812 646333 or baileypeter83@hotmail.com for details.

Cardiff University Students’ Union does not endorse or accept liability for any product/service advertised within this publication.

DON’T FORGET: The Classifieds page is the best way to sell stuff, ask for stuff, sort out a house, stitch up a mate with ‘an hilarious’ birthday photo or to make an announcement to the general populous. Use the form up there. Go on!

TAFARN 3 DAY FOOTIE SPECIAL MON 13 MAY 02

FAW Premier Cup Final

CARDIFF CITY V SWANSEA CITY BBC 2 Wales K.O. 6.55pm

£1 a pint on Fosters / Worthy / Strongbow Until first goal

TUES 14 MAY 02

WALES V GERMANY BBC 2 Wales K.O. 7.45pm

£1 a pint on Fosters / Worthy / Strongbow Until first goal

WED 15 MAY 02

Champions League Final

BAYER LEVERKUSEN V REAL MADRID ITV K.O. 7.45pm

£1 a pint on Fosters / Worthy / Strongbow Until first goal

Plus All the normal

tafarnhappyhours

GAMES go into combat with Conflict Zone

FILM review I am Sam

MUSIC electro-clash is the new black

Naked Ambition Music can’t get Kylie out of their heads No Exit • Fenix TX • Possible not Probable Freestyle Scooter • The Streets Inside: Get There! The ultimate guide to Cardiff and beyond!

Contents

02. Get There

Newly interactive and more pointless than ever: it can only be Get There!

04. Books

Books surpass themselves by interviewing sci-fi god Terry Pratchett.

05. Arts

Arts review Sartre’s claustrophobic play No Exit and find out about the Welsh Millennium Centre.

06. Games

Games look at a new array of games to hot Sega’s ailing Dreamcast console.

07. Music

Music get up close and personal with Kylie, and review the latest urban legend to hit the music scene The Streets

10. Film

Film review the Oscar nominated I am Sam and preview the long-awaited but probably-crap Star Wars: Attack of the Clones

15. TV Guide

Far funnier than it has any right to be – it’s the Gair Rhydd TV guide!

GRiP Editor Sarah Hodson GRiP Editor Mike Parsons Arts Lizzie Brown and LaDonna Hall Books D.C. Gates and Jane Eyre Film Neil Blain Games Chris Faires Music Gemma Curtis, Andy Pasons and Gemma Jones Get There Neil Krajewski TV Listings Nick McDonald, Steve Hurst, Alex Macpherson and Amy GRiP needs your help! We are overworked and losing our minds.

Visit our media penthouse on the 4th floor of the Union or • E-mail ssugr1@cardiff.ac.uk

02

Get There

et There enters the final straight. Anyone hoping for a final burst of energy should wait a few weeks though as, once again, Get G There remains the only page that looks the same every week but is in fact different! This week, we review absolutely nothing and interview no-one. It’s all about dates in out little world and we’re all the better for it. Remember, gang: Get Hip - Get There!

Exams appear, deadlines arrive, but you all still love Cardiff enough to make looking at this page worthwhile! Good luck over the next few weeks and remember Cardiff will still be there waiting for you once it’s all over.

Union Monday 13/05

Fun Factory @ Solus 9pm-1am, free.

Everyone needs to escape every so often. Why not support your Union as you emancipate yourself from your desk. Watch out for those cheap drinks though.

Tuesday 14/05

Candy @ Solus Postponed for this term, but set to return in September.

Wednesday 15/05 Jive Hive @ Solus 9pm-1am, £2.50.

Noted absence of activity on Union steps suggests attendances are falling. The Union’s solution: buy one Lash ticket and get a Jive one free! Inspiration of the highest order achieved without the acquiring the burden of an unpredictable music policy. Splendid! Economic analysis plotting the value of the lack of time spent queuing and drinks prices against the virtues of potentially free admission are welcome.

Thursday 16/05

Eighties Night @ Solus 9pm-1am, £2.50.

The fun continues as people try to spend everyday in the Union before their exams begin or end. The musical accompaniments are a rather pleasant distraction too.

Friday 17/05

Lashtastic @ Solus 9pm-1am, £2.50.

Now the weather has warmed up perhaps this night is set to compete with student barbecues, but I doubt it. You should of course be at home listening to Xpress though!

Saturday 18/05

Flirt @ Solus 9pm – 1am, free In a gesture to reward your loyalty, the Union offers you the chance to spend another craazy night in the presence of a host of ‘Dance anthems’.

Sunday 19/05

Java @ Seren Las 7.30pm, £1 Laid back sounds, wine and food. Decide on their order of importance for yourselves.

Clubbing Monday 13/05

Rational Thinking @ The End...

8pm-11pm.

Drum’n’Bass Djs are promised in ultra student surroundings.

Happy Mondays @ Barfly Sounds like a cash-in off the back of 24 Hour Party people to me, but you could always go and find out.

Salsa Lessons @ Bar Med Probably an inferior version of that hosted by Bar Cuba, but probably worth a look.

Guru Vibrations @ Berlins 9pm-2am. Soul, funk, hip-hop and, er, 80’s. NUS only. Why bother?

One Mission @ Cafe Calcio 8pm til late. Cracking night, cracking venue.

Cheese on Toast @ Cuba 9pm-2am, Free b4 10pm. Better than Zeus.

MAD @ Dylan’s 8pm-1am. Rated Cardiff’s best by Zeus, you only need stand outside and look what’s next door to find out why.

Exit Club 8pm. Free entry before 9.30pm. Gay venue.

Chart and Dance. Original, eh?

Student ‘Night Fever’ @ Flares Til 2am. £1 drinks all night. Suggs hosts edition of crap karaoke quiz show in Cardiff theme pub.

Possibly.

Salsa Classes @ Latino’s Classes from 7.30pm, disco 10pm til midnight.

Surprisingly good fun. All abilities catered for.

Universal @ Liquid 9.30pm-2am. Student night.

Retro Night @ The Roxy Free entry. Retro music played in a club, one presumes. Oh, the joys of blatant sarcasm!

Tuesday 14/05

Electromagnetic @ Clwb Ifor Bach 9pm-2am. Positive vibe hop-hop / pre-gangster rap / battle breaks / electro funk.

Absolutely splendiferous night, worth two quid of anyones money. Which is just as well, as that’s what it costs to get in! Tonight featuring DJ Mass.

Rock Inferno @ Clwb Ifor Bach (Top Floor) 9pm-2am. £2.50. Ifor Bach complies with convention and offers its own prescription of metal for the masses.

Hoochy Koochy @ The Emporium 9pm-2am, £1 b4 10pm/£2. Student madness, courtesy of the amusingly named Jockstrap 5.

Salsa night @ Cuba 8pm-2am, £4. Salsa classes from 8pm, disco afterwards. Great fun with a really friendly crowd.

Bonk @ Zeus 9pm, £3 Teens, tunes and terror. Oh the joys of subtlety.

Student Night @ Is It? Cafe. Bar. Place.

Open til 1am just like most places.

Alternative Beats @ The End...

8pm-11pm. Another night of total pish at The End, with ‘choons’ from the naffly named DJ Pete the order of the day.

Exit Club 8pm. Free before 9.30pm. Gay Venue. Chart and Dance. Who’d have thunk it?!?

YMCA Night @ Flares 8pm, I dread to think what this might entail.

Take Warning @ Metros 9pm-2am, £2 b4 10.30pm. Ska Punk Night with cheap drinks. It’s sweaty, it’s smelly, it’s dingy and it’s actually great fun!

Karaoke @ Reds If you must, I’ll not hold you back, but don’t expect me to join you unless you’re offering a duet. Shall I be your George, your Kiki or your Elton?

Latin Dance Party @ The Toucan 8.30pm-2am. Latin music, dancing, party vibe.

Obviously.

Alternative @ Sam’s Bar £2 - £5. Live music from local bands plus alternative indie and retro from resident DJ’s.

Bar 150 @ Bar Med Everything £1.50 all night. Beware that this fact alone might not justify the name magnificent.

Wednesday 15/05

The Cheesey Club / The Milky Bar / Popscene @ Clwb Ifor Bach 9.30pm-2am. £2/£2.50 after 11pm. A veritable melting pot of great music, local rivalries and Welsh music celebrities. Spread out over three floors, its technically possible to get through the whole night without seeing a single member of Tommy & the Chauffeur, but highly unlikely.

Twisted by Design @ Model Inn £2 Official pre-Welsh club night, get stamped at Clwb and then come back here to enjoy a few hours of indie from the 60s to the present day.

Student Night @ Bar Ice 9pm-2am. Late bar, drinks promotions, painfully average.

DJ Nicodeamus @ Moloko Electro and Funk in plush surroundings.

Shooters and Slammers Party Night @ Bar Med Theme night, where you get to shoot the retarded fuck-wits that drink here with a large gun, then slam their heads repeatedly into the bar. Maybe.

Cross the Tracks @ Cuba 9pm-2am, free entry. New(ish) night, with the Hustler seal of approval. Soul, funk and Old Skool are the order of the day. Sounds good, and the flyers are ace. Check it out.

Down to It @ Berlins 9pm-2am. I’d rather not, thanks. Ever.

Uni-Sex @ Club X 10pm-2am. Gay Venue. Student Night, worth a

mention if only for the highly amusing name.

Toucan Acoustic Sessions @ Toucan Club 8pm-2am. £3. Open mic, hosted by Little Miracle.

Entry gets you into the chilled DJ happenings in the downstairs lounge, too. Perfect for a relaxed midweek night out.

The Boogie Box @ Flares Karaoke from the 60s and 70s. The value of the 80s continues to be denied so I recommend a boycott!

Is it Chilled? @ Is it? Cafe. Bar. Place.

If your week has brought you down to the depths, perhaps you’ll end up here to sink down still further.

Latin Night @ Life Bar Cafe 2-4-1 drinks offers and dancing.

National Student Night @ Evolution 9.30pm-2am. Carlsberg £1, all spirits £1, all other drinks £1.50. Simple, but no doubt quite effective.

Wipeout @ Reds Meet UWIC students at their own night and steal secrets that could potentially accelerate the demise of the University of Wales.

Handbag 120 @ Zeus 9pm-2am. Utterly evil with garage and r’n’b.

Thursday 16/05

Singles Night @ Life Looking for love? Try this. Be sure to come dressed smartly though.

Student Night @ Bar Ice 9pm-2am. Late night bar and drinks offers.

Hard House @ The End...

DJ Jomec does the honours.

Big In Japan @ Clwb Ifor Bach 9pm-2am. The coolest Japanese thing this side of Banzai. Cracking tunes, cool clientelle and a permanent in Clwb Ifor. Corking night all round.

Plush @ Emporium £3 /£2. Anything with a groove, says the press release, and they’re not far wrong. Sexy, sassy and really too good for a Thursday, Plush truly is a top night for those who like their R ‘n’ B, garage and house slinky and sexy. Of course, if you’re a big Sisters of Mercy fan, you should give it a miss.

Enthusiasm @ Moloko Breaks, hip-hop and drum’n’bass.

From the Hip @ Incognito 8pm-1am. House and Dance.

Is it for Real? @ Is It? Cafe. Bar. Place Open til 1am. Like everyone else Bar Is It offers a night of R’n’B. Only this time you get the company of DJ Tony-C. Soul Power @ Liquid 9pm-2am. Soul and R & B, with Trevor Nelson every other week. A more extensive, and far less effective, version of Plush.

Higher Learning @ Toucan 8pm-2am, £3. Beats of a hip-hopping and funky nature. Excellent night.

Spellbound @ Metros 9pm-2am. 2-4-1 cocktails, metal early on, then indie classics. Arrive after 11pm, then, and it should be a right laugh. Hooray!

Cabaret @ Minsky’s Show Bar Cabaret is the order of the day, usually courtesy of camp men dressed as women. Great fun, actually. You probably won’t be surprised to learn that Noel ‘All Man’ Sullivan of Hear’Say used to work here. Nudge nudge, wink wink etc..

Dance Night @ Oz Bar 9pm-1am. Dance music, £1 entry.

Aspire @ Reds 9pm-2am. Great.

Alternative Student Night @ The Roxy 10pm-2am. Another night clinging on to the word ‘alternative’, as if it makes any piss poor cobbled together event worth a look. It doesn’t. As The Strokes sort of said, This Is Shit.

Friday 17/05

Precinct @ Clwb Ifor Bach 10pm, £8 DJ Rap is joined by hip-hop stars Rodney P and Skitz. Nearly three years ago, local radio stations began a mission to provide me with as many Dj Rap promos as I could carried. Like the CDs, DJ Rap subsequently faded into obscurity. Evaluate the prospects of her making a successful comeback with a night at Precinct.

Robots Eat My Face @ Oz Bar Live Bands and Rock, alternative Djs. Want your club night or event to be listed in the legendary Get There section? Then email us at SSUGR1@Cardiff.ac.uk including the date, time, price of your event, including any drinks promotions and we’ll include you on the page.

Get There Chicago’s Sweethearts Dolly Varden + Bill Mallonee

Sunday 19th May @ Chapter Arts, 9pm £6 Superb country styled summer pop from the American East Coast. Promoting their fantastic new album, ‘Forgiven Now’, Dolly Varden promise an intimate acoustic set in Chapter’s warm and comfortable surroundings. Furthermore, they’re joined by Bill Mallonee, singersongwriter from alt-country veterans, the Vigilantes of Love.

The whole event is thanks to the congenial people at alt.cardiff who might just offer a few songs of their own.

Finally some American music exported into Wales that is not merely the latest brand of contrived brash metal.

Scheduled, depending on your outlook, at the end of a bad 7 days or the beginning of a brighter week, there’ll be few better places to be.

8pm, free entry before 9.30pm. Gay Venue.

Commercial chart and dance. Again! PLAY SOME DIFFERENT SODDING MUSIC! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! Get Down and Groove @ Flares Til 2am. Funky disco says the press release. A bit crap says Get There. You decide.

Mellow Mellow @ Metropolis Not the same as Metros; no this, is Metropolis where tonight Andy Loveless continues to move his mobile entertainment installation around the city. Is his name related to the My Bloody Valentine classic? Meet him and find out.

Flirt @ Club X 10pm - 4am, £9 It may have the same name as one of our union nights. Why not go to both. Attend tonight and you’ll be entertained by K-Class, The Superstarz and

TAI I’W RHENTU

Pinnacle is run by ex students of Cardiff University. We are a member of ALMA, The Association of Letting and Management Agents. This means that we are recognised by Cardiff City Council and the Students’ Union for giving a PROFESSIONAL PROPERTY LETTING SERVICE. We also are happy to provide free, independent advice on all aspects of property rental, including legal problems. You don’t have to be one of our customers to get this advice, just drop in and we’ll be happy to help.

A SELECTION OF PROPERTIES AVAILABLE FROM 1ST JULY 2002 4 BEDROOMS Heathfield Road £200 Gelligaer Street £195 Flora Street £225 Dalton Street £225 5 BEDROOMS Malefant Street £195 Soberton Ave £195 6 BEDROOMS Merthyr Street £195 All prices are per person per month

Association of letting & Management Agents

Fever @ Barfly 10.30pm-2am. Indie classics and lager. Expect a lot of contrived ‘dancing’ and that not very funny Limp Bizkit version of Faith. Not at all bad, though.

Deliciously Wicked @ Berlins 8pm-2am. Repulsively awful would be a more accurate description.

Deep Heat @ Club X 10pm-4am. £4-£7. Gay venue. 6 rooms, 3 floor balcony, games room & garden terrace. Well worth a look!

The Big Party @ Dylan’s 8pm-1am. The party sounds like a great idea.

Sadly,it’s in Dylan’s.

Funky Techno @ The End...

8pm-11pm, with One Mission DJ’s. At last! A night a decent night at The End The ever reliable One Mission crew do what they do best – make people smile and dance!

Skool Disco Party @ Philharmonic 9.30pm -2am The Betty Ford Guest List @ Metros 9pm-3am, £3 b4 10.30pm. Top alternative night, with tunes courtesy of the great and the good of Cardiff’s indie scene. More leftfield than other Metros nights, the crowd and the music are slightly older and slightly cooler.

Weekend Madness @ Bar Cuba 10pm-2am. £2/£4. DJ Andy Loveless.

L’America @ Emporium 9pm, £10 Featuring appearances from Knee Deep, Craig Bartlett, Dave Jones and Neil Young Twin Scene @ Reds Same as Friday, only more expensive! Hooray!

Glam Night @ The Roxy 10pm-4am. £5. Expect an orgy of all things glam.

Apart from Gary Glitter, of course. And Jonathan King. Or that bloke from Slade...

Desire @ Zeus 9pm-3am. A night so unimaginably bad, I refuse to waste a witty comment on it.

Deep Heat @ Club X Dance and Funky house Worldwide Special @ Liquid Can you resist.

Sunday 19/05

HOUSES TO RENT

PINNACLE PROPERTY (CARDIFF) LTD 3-5 FANNY STREET (off Cathays Terrace) CATHAYS CARDIFF Phone: 029 2064 0200 Fax: 029 2039 8318 Email: info@pinnacle-group.com

Andre.

ROAR @ Vision 2K A confirmed appearance is rarer in the world of house and trance. Like the Gair Rhydd team, you always finds there’s so many demands and so little time. Listening to all those new 12”s can be so tedious too! However, if they have the time, you can expect to see Corvin Dalek, Scott Bond, Matt Hardwick and, the inimitable V2K resident, Fry. Heavy Metal @ The Roxy 10pm-4am. £5. Unsurprisingly, heavy metal.

Actually very good at what it does, though.

Saturday 18/05

Forward Motion @ Moloko Cardiff’s underground comes together for those who can’t afford Emporium or Clwb.

Chaos @ Metros 9pm -3am, £4 DJ Hwyel offers a selection of tunes in an alternative vain.

Drinks 4 FREE @ Liquid 9.30pm, £5 entry with 4 free drinks as a bonus if you arrive before 11pm. You’ll have to be over 20 though; who knows what that drink might do to you otherwise.

US Garage @ The End...

8pm-11pm, With DJ Gavin. Great.

Heaven @ Evolution 9pm-2.30am. £10. Brash and brassy hard house night, with a liberal sprinkling of? Its not a sodding wrestling match, people, its a frigging disco!

Exit Club

✃

03

Rational Thinking @ The End 7pm-10.30pm The same as Mondays except with the added promise of Guest DJs.

Live Music A guide to every vaguely engaging event going on over the next seven days. Well, all of them, except those playing at the CIA. I really enjoyed Enrique Iglesias’ one night stand last Saturday; sorry I didn’t disclose the information that would have enabled you to enjoy it. Such a dazzling wooly hat and I’ll never forget that smile!

Monday 13/05

Elaine Palmer + Reuben Blake + Urban Clearway @ Barfly 7.30pm, £4 Quiet acoustic affair one would assume. Highly appropriate for the beginning of the week.

Tuesday 14/05

Gwasanaeth Cymraeg ar Gael

BRING AN ORIGINAL COPY OF THIS ADVERT INTO THE OFFICE AND RECEIVE

10% discount ON YOUR INDIVIDUAL AGENCY FEE

ELWA WELSH INVESTOR OF THE YEAR 2002

192519

Oxbow + Guapo + Presto & Spartanie @ Barfly 7.30pm, £6 Expensive yet the bands are strangers to these hears. Perhaps there’s some kind of party involved.

Electric Soft Parade + The Leaves @ Newport TJs 7.30pm, £7 Another major coup for TJs as they present the indie representatives of daytime radio output.

Tuneful pop played with a youthful edge and zest.

The Leaves, meanwhile, are, apparently, Iceland’s answer to Supergrass and, if nothing else, better than Big Leaves.

Wednesday 15/05

This Girl + Ballgag + Hondo Mclean @ Barfly 7.30pm, £4 Oblivion + The Coronets @ Sams Bar 8pm, free Movietone + Headfall @ Grassroots, Charles Street 7pm, free!!

Would have rivalled Dolly Varden for gig of the

week had I visited the centre of our wonderful city earlier this week. Fantastic laid back slo-core indie from Domino records act from Bristol. Perhaps they’re promoting a new album, but it really shouldn’t matter when they’re this good!

Thursday 16/05

Smokehand + The Room Orchestra + Silversuit @ Barfly 7.30pm, £3 Touted as South Wales’ answer to Calexico, Smokehand are the men behind FF Vinyl records.

Jazzy dark waltzes are their speciality with plenty of ‘local content’ lyrically hidden within. Hopefully, the support will match the headliner’s high standards Songs of Struggle and Celebration @ Norwegian Church Art Centre 7pm, £5 Benefit tonight for the Campaign Against the Arms Trade charity. Principally folk based music in a delightful setting; describe the building as a local eyesore at your peril!

Spunge + Bowling for Soup@ Newport TJs 9pm, £7.50 Ska-punk from Cheltenham. Supported by an act who have been American hopefuls for most of the last decade.

Friday 17/05

Barker + Roostar + The Trash Monkeys @ Barfly 7.30pm, £4 10cc + Gallagher and Lyle @ St David’s Hall 7.30pm, £15.50 They’re not in love and neither would you be if you were still touring after all these years.

Saturday 18/05

Actual Size + Pop Vands + Hot Puppies @ Barfly 7.30pm, £4 Bristol collective offer sample drenched keyboard led indie. Joined by Pop Vandals, the most advertised local band in history. Possibly.

Teflon Monkey + The Afternoons + Amy Wadge @ Clwb Ifor Bach 9pm, £5 The excellent Teflon Money is joined by the slightly less exciting The Afternoons and Amy Wadge.

Come on, if you go out in this city you must have seen one of these acts by now!

Sunday 19/05

Dolly Varden + Bill Mallonee @ Chapter Arts Centre 8pm, £6 See above left.

Acoustic Jam @ The Toucan Club 8pm, FREE. A chance for all budding songsters to get up and show off their wares, which is usually a good thing.

Arts Fractured LDN @ Chapter Arts Centre Friday 17th May, 8pm, £3 NUS Stage project exploring the power of communicating through technology.

Welsh National Opera @ New Theatre A new season begins. Various performances across the next few weeks. Call in at the New Theatre for more details

Societies Welsh Turkish Society: Friday 17th May, Social at the Mackintosh Institute. 7.30pm, £5 entry + bring a bottle Food, Fun and Dance with a performance from a professional Turkish belly dancer. Contact Hastings@cardiff.ac.uk for further details

Coming Up Everyone needs to leave the house or the library at the some point. Therefore, if there’s nothing that catches your discerning eyes this week then take a glance at these forthcoming events.

Kid 606 @ Clwb Ifor Bach Monday 10th June Amazing noise pioneer in rumoured Cardiff appearance shock! Worthy of mentioning even in the absence of more thorough details. Celebrate the end of your exams in a style worthy of a remembering.

A@ Solus Tuesday 28th May, £10 The first band I ever saw and perhaps the last to play the Union this year. Pop-metal-rock spectacular for those who can bothered to part with their cash. Even with three albums behind them, ten whole pounds is a little too much to expect from students now.

booksreviews

04

There’s no-one to match Pratchett The 30th April saw a unique double as far as British fantasy fiction is concerned. Terry Pratchett, the author of the Discworld novels was at W H Smiths in Cardiff to mark the simultaneous publishing of the latest Discworld novel, Thief of Time in paperback in both English and Welsh respectively.Thief of Time, the 26th Discworld novel, is the first of the series to have been translated into the Welsh language.

Jane Eyre caught up with both Terry Pratchett and his Welsh translator, Dyfrig Parri, to see what they thought about the venture Terry. Are you pleased with the finished article, Lleidr Amser?

Yes, I am. Of course, I can’t read Welsh but it’s nice, clean and professional and people have been telling me that it’s a good translation.

Do you think it is important that your work is translated into other languages?

It’s actually interesting to speculate who it’s important to. I’m quite keen on translation, because it’s nice to be able to have fans, and to go and do a tour and meet a lot of people.

Before Christmas, I went to Estonia, and that was fun because the Prime Minister was a fan as well!

Do you think it is appropriate that your work is translated into other languages?

It’s more translatable than lots of stuff because the humour is fairly universal. Nearly every country’s got

some stories about someone meeting Death as they walk along the road, and tricking him or making a bargain with him. My work tends to draw on that kind of thing.

Which is your favourite character?

The three characters I enjoy writing for are Death, Susan and Granny Weatherwax. This is because they are screwed up characters. They screw themselves up, in a sense, and they have a lot of depth, and that makes them fun.

Now, characters like the Librarian, or the Luggage, people like them, and they’re very easy to do. It’s almost kind of embarrassing because you know that once you get onto the Librarian, he’ll be funny whatever happens. Anyway, those three characters, because I think they’re the most complex and in some senses, the most real, they’re the ones I enjoy writing for.

Which is your favourite

The three characters I enjoy writing for are Death, Susan and Granny Weatherwax.

This is because they are screwed up characters Interview with Dyfrig Parri: translator of the first Welsh version of Thief of Time Did you approach Terry Pratchett with the idea for translating Thief of Time into Welsh, or vice versa?

I was approached by the publisher, because I’m a translator by trade and asked if I was interested in translating a novel, which I was.

What made you choose Thief of Time, as opposed to another Discworld novel or a novel by a different author?

The intention was to do the first one in the series, The Colour of Magic, but when we met Terry

Discworld novel?

It’s always the last one I did! I very much enjoyed The Truth, because I was a journalist and lots of my own experience and the things that happened to me went into the book. I have a very soft spot for Guards!

Guards!, but I think the all-time favourite for everyone has to be Mort.

Put it like this, it’s one that, if people were to give their top three Discworld books, Mort would be in there.

Is there any truth in the rumour that a Discworld film is in the offing?

Well, there is some truth in the fact that Mort has been optioned and has been going in and out of development hell for about 10 years. I wouldn’t hold your breath, if I were you.

Are there any plans to animate any more of the Discworld novels?

No. I was quite happy with those two animations (Wyrd Sisters and Soul Music) which were very good for the budget. They wanted to do Hogfather, though.

When you sit down and read, presumably you don’t read your own work, so what do you

plays on words, so I had to decide whether to adapt, or to omit them completely.

How long did it take you?

It took me 8 weeks in total, at around 18 hours a day because of the deadline, for the English and Welsh to come out together.

Do you think anything of the original has been lost in the translation?

Many people would say yes, because Terry Pratchett has his own style of writing, and therefore any translation must try and keep the similarity in the mood, but also put its own stamp on it, otherwise it would just be a literal translation of the text.

Are you a Terry Pratchett fan yourself?

I wasn’t, I am now. Since finishing this project, I’ve read two or three of his novels.

When we met Terry Pratchett he suggested we coincide the Welsh paperback with the English version Pratchett, he suggested we coincide the Welsh paperback with the English version, coming out on the same day.

Did you find it difficult translating Thief of Time?

Very difficult in parts. The use of language, the words, sometimes I couldn’t translate the puns, or

Are you pleased with the finished result?

Yes. I haven’t actually read the novel as a whole, since it was finished and edited, but I am quite pleased with the finished result.

What do you hope will happen in the future as a result of this venture?

Well, the idea is that I’ll translate the rest of the Discworld novels. The next one will probably be The Last Hero.

PRATCHETT: “A hat? My favourite! How did you guess?” read?

These days, history. Not kings, dates, battles, but social history. It’s astonishing, on a curious level, things that have happened even in the last hundred years, the things people have done!

Which authors do you particularly admire?

Well, for a good read, Christopher

Thief of Time Terry Pratchett (Corgi, 2002)

“THE AUDITORS are up to something, and where they go, you can bet that Death will not be far behind...”

THIEF OF TIME, the 26th Discworld novel, leaving aside the numerous tie-ins which include maps, plays and cook books, is in good company in that it is certainly among the best. It marks the feature-length return of Death, ably assisted by his granddaughter Susan and her inimitable sidekicks, the Death of Rats and Quoth the Raven, for the first time since Hogfather was published a couple of years ago. It has certainly been worth the wait.

Thief of Time has everything, including the characters that Terry Pratchett enjoys writing for the most because they screw themselves up, in this case Susan being a prime example with her angst regarding her place in the world as a not-quite-mortal.

However, in addition there is a fair bit of Nanny Ogg, who is no kind of sweet little old lady at all, the serious possibility of Armageddon, with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse thrown in, including the one who left before they got famous and now amuses himself by running a milk round, and finally, a death by chocolate that actually lives up to its name.

Like all the Discworld novels, Thief of Time is sparingly written with a minimum of description, yet still manages to provide a

Brookmyer, Carl Hiassen, George MacDonald Fraser, Bernard Cornwell.

We’re not talking high literature, but best sellers, good reads that people really enjoy.

I don’t actually read a lot of fiction, partly because you deconstruct as you go, you can see the joins, why that bit was done, and it takes the fun out of it.

hell of a lot of visual information. Also like all the Discworld novels, it deals with scientificcome-philosophical issues in an extremely amusing and irreverent way. In this case, Pratchett deals with time, space, the gods, religion, reincarnation and many more light topics.

Basically, it is typical Discworld and typical Terry Pratchett while not being typical at all; it stands on its own and is, in fact, terrific.

DEATH: free mercy killing for every reader

artsreviews

05

State of the Sartre

‘NO EXIT’ Two Sugars Productions Sherman Theatre HELL IS...

Sartre firmly believed that hell is life and also death. Life was hellish, ‘hell is other people.’

Perhaps the true hell is venue three at the Sherman theatre. Hot, cramped and also downright excellent for the staging of this fantastic production of Sartre’s classic. The oppressive heat of the venue adds to the effect of this play, hell genuinely is hot.

The audiences’ situation, right on top of the performers, adds an intimacy that really brings out the best performances from the three young actors. Ben Hammond is utterly convincing as the womanising Garcin, seeming to brim over with genuine angst and violence. Gemma Field plays the role of Inez, a sexy and manipulative bitch, with a naturalistic spite and malice that leaves the audience either wanting to kill her or ‘get personal’ with her.

Rachel Barnett’s whining posh girl role Estelle is solid if perhaps the weakest of a very good cast. She isn’t bad by any means, but the performances of Field and Hammond outshine her.

Director David Bevens drops into

the role of ‘hells valet’ with ease and adds a macabre slant to the introductions of the characters. He says that hell has no torture instruments, leaving the audience with a memory of his facial expression: gentile sadism, a butler meets a manager meets a mediaeval jailer. The simple set of the production, three chairs in a triangle, instantly conveys the four triangles inherent in the story. All three characters come from love triangles and in hell they face a triangle of people they cannot get on with. The simplicity of the production only adds to its charm and ease of viewing. The fact that the, at times physical, violence of the play is right in the audiences’ face brings home the issues strongly. When Garcin grabs Inez’s arm, the audience is close enough to see the marks that his impassioned performance leave on her arm.

The only really bad thing about this production is the fact that by now it has finished its run. It is a dire shame that it is not going to go on a nationwide tour, given that the production and the sheer quality of acting is so good. On a personal note, I’ve seen West End productions in London with huge budgets, I’ve seen Hamlet in Shakespeare’s Globe. This production compares favourably with them. Well done,Two Sugars. Sam Brokenshaw

Field plays the role of Inez, a sexy and manipulative bitch, with a naturalistic spite and malice that leaves the audience wanting to get personal with her

Arts Preview

possible, not probable g39, Mill Lane AH: ANOTHER EXHIBITION at g39, another round of headscratching concept art.

These Welsh artists are here to prove that while they cannot match London’s trendy East End scene for notoriety, they can – and do – match them for sheer cheeky obtuseness.

This exhibition pits arties against questions of chance and coincidence. Yoke + Zoom start us off. They have engineered a patch of clovers in which many mutate into the 1-in-10,000 fourleafed variety. Does this hold repercussions for our fortunes?

In this age of educated people who go to school and don’t follow superstition, not really.

However, it’s a nice, comforting installation.

The Vicky Isley and Paul Smith collaboration (pictured) is a mosaic of a satellite image of a military installation. A ‘sliding squares’ game on the computer nearby allows you to rearrange

the pieces, creating new and random landscape images.

God-like power is yours. Sadly, the interactive element is pointless and confusing, and the mosaic’s tacky and dull. Great idea though.

Michael Barclay’s piece is interesting: a patent for a magic wand, claiming to really invoke the user’s wishes. Can we really patent chance effects of such things? Again, while it’s quite a clever idea, the execution of it is lacking in real substance.

Which brings us to Ruth Ilife’s bewildering installation, comprising of a stack of old physics textbooks on a table, and a scribbled set of formulas on paper stuck to the wall. It just looks like her homework, and unless the concept flew over my head like an eagle, it might as well have been.

Strangely, the exhibition’s programme actually contained more interesting ideas than the works it referred to. So if you’re interested, my advice is that you run in and grab that and save your time. Mat Croft

No-one can dispute the wit and glorious decadence of Oscar Wilde.

Very soon one of his most popular plays will be gracing the New Theatre’s hallowed stage as A Woman of No Importance comes to Cardiff.

From Monday 27th May to Saturday 1 June catch this dark social comedy starring Kate O’Mara, Oliver Tobias and Josephine Tewson.

For more information call the New Theatre Box Office on 029 2087 8889.

Arts Centre Go Ahead

W

ELSH NATIONAL OPERA, along with seven other arts companies, are rejoicing this week with the news that work will soon start on their new home, the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff Bay. The National Assembly has agreed to put up the

extra £37 million needed to fund the £104 million pound scheme. Work on the building, which will house a 1,900 seater lyric theatre, will begin this week, when the first load of 5,000 tonnes of steel will be delivered. It is thought the framework will be completed by the end of the month, when visitors to the

site will be able to appreciate the full scale of the project.

Mr Spence, who has worked on projects such as London’s Sadler’s Wells Theatre, says the main challenge of the Wales Millennium Centre is that it must encompass widely different theatrical and arts spaces, to suit everyone’s

needs.

Hopes are high that the finished Centre, due for completion in August 2004, will have the cultural and social status of Sydney Opera House. Architect Johnathon Adams hopes that “This building is designed to reflect the confidence and pride of our country.”

gamesreviews g

DC: RIP

No, this isn’t about the demise of GR book man DC Gates, but Sega’s cracking Dreamcast console. Games takes a look at the last bunch of games for the premature death of a truly great machine FREESTYLE SCOOTER (DC/ PS1) Ubisoft

T

HE KIDS love scooters, and now they're so fashionable that even grown businessmen can enjoy riding them on the way to work (scooters, I mean, not the kids). But what to do on those rainy days when your Mum won't let you out of the house? Why, a scooter-based stunt game, of course!

If Freestyle Scooter could be summarised in a sentence, it would be 'like Tony Hawks with scooters', y'know, for kids. Perform stunts for points, and unlock arenas including (joy of joys) a school playground, where you can jump n' grind without Mrs Hawney ever telling you off. All

arenas can be explored and include a range of grind rails, ramps and platforms for you to hang loose on.

The graphics are decent, if unspectacular, and the soundtrack pure obscure nu-punk and skate metal- well, what else did you expect? Hip-hoppera? Brazilian drum n’ bass? Fischerspooner?

At least an effort has been made to vary the objectives. on every level you'll have to gain a certain amount of points, gain a high combo score, grind a certain distance, collect icons scattered around the course and rack up an impressive 'extreme' score. All entail different skills and emphasise different controls, giving a spat of longevity. Tony Hawks is still the daddy, but Freestyle Scooter is one that it's easy to like – especially for the kids. Chris Faires

Grind, boy, grind!

CONFLICT ZONE (DC, PC, PS2) Ubisoft

W

The Gulf war happened on CNN

AR JUST isn’t what it used to be anymore. Gone are the days of the ‘over the top, chaps’ attitude to conflict, as the world embraces sanitised skirmishes borne out on CNN. The game feels a lot like the classic Command and Conquer series in may ways.

Not for the first time in computer game land is an evil tyranny threatening the free world, or something, and it is your job to play as either the International Corp for Peace or indeed the bad guy Ghost. The main gameplay takes place on a large 3D mapped landscape, where you control your forces using a slightly tricky cursor icon.

As the good guys the name of the game is not only wipe out the enemy, but also to do it with minimal collateral damage, meaning harming as few civilians as possible. During

each of the 32 missions you are constantly updated as to what the media and public opinion is concerning your operations, and this has a large bearing on how you perform in future campaigns. Keep the media sweet and you find yourself with more funds and resources to progress though the game. Get yourself a bad name and you end up with a nothing more that a joke militia.

Although the controls are tricky to pick up initially, once you have a handle on them it becomes a lot easier to deal with the frantic pace of the action. In no time you find yourself marshalling your troops and forces over the beautiful 3D landscape like Monty himself. With around 50 hours of action to be had this game is not easy to put down and keeps you coming back for more.

All in all this is one of the better strategy games going at the moment, apart from looking great, it plays like a dream. No doubt this will be a real hit with strategy buffs as it offers a slightly refreshing angle to a genre which is at risk of being done to death. Well done Ubisoft.

James Bladon

HEAVY METAL GEOMATRIX (DC) Capcom

H

eavy Metal, aside from being a musical genre is the name of America's oldest fantasy comic, currently being edited by Kevin Eastman, inventor of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and illustrated by former Judge Dredd illustrator Simon Bisley, both of whom had creative input into this game. Aside from a successful movie, Heavy Metal is most famed for influencing the vision of Los Angeles in Blade Runner. Enough of the history, how's the present?

HMG is a 3D shooting game with beat 'em up rules and structure. Select your character from a range of 12, and engage enemies of ascending difficulty, beat them and win. The arenas allow for hide and seek then destroy tactics, with obstacles and multi-level features like ramps and platforms. Oh, they spoil you, they really do.

There’s a decent range of weapons, from the wimpy handgun to the devastating s-

bomb (which is viewed from above to target your fire upon your target). The other weapons

vary in quality and effectiveness, some will kick ass up close, while others are heat seeking.

What really lets the game down is the lack of camera control, and the unwillingness for the camera to give you the best view. You're in these environments, but haven’t got the freedom to see all around you, thus destroying a Metal Gear Solid style tactical element.

The game's longevity is aided by a two-player versus mode and a 'chaosmatrix' mode (which looks like the MGS VR missions add-on), where you'll have to navigate mazes in variants on the 'get key, go through door' scenario. It's mildly diverting, in a time attack way.

Heavy Metal Geomatrix is an uncomfortable shoot ‘em up in beat ‘em up shoes. There's nothing drastically wrong with it, it's not merely a tired beat em up, but despite the gameplay being quite challenging, isn’t as compelling or as good as either a straight forward beat ‘em up like Soul Calibur, or a shoot ‘em up like Halo. Even the presence of Megadeth and Halford on the soundtrack can’t stop this unspectacular game from the lower reaches of the Dreamcast's back catalogue. Chris Faires

06

CANNON SPIKE (DC) Capcom

A

S A parting shot to the Dreamcast, Capcom have released a 3D shooter which frankly could be summed up using the same words as could be applied to the console as a whole. Could have been brilliant but falls somewhat short of the mark.

In Cannon Spike you play one of seven characters resurrected from the golden era of gaming. Fans of the classic Ghosts and Goblins series will recognise the knight Arthur who wreaks havoc along side the likes of Cammy from the Street Fighter, the irrepressible Megaman, and slightly disturbingly little red riding hood. Any smart wolf would stay well clear of this tough little cookie who races around the screen on scooter fitted with a sizeable machine gun.

The object of the exercise in Cannon Spike is to rid the world of a group of terrorist robots who have taken over the world.

Moving though nine levels of frantic action the name of the game is quite simple, waste everything in sight. Original it isn’t. Fun it is.

But the repetitive nature of the gameplay soon leaves you hankering for a new challenge.

Although the two player mode is somewhat more enjoyable, the repetitiveness of game play is the games most significant fault. More often than not you find yourself holding the fire button lacing anything that gets in your way. Its fair to say this isn’t one for those who like a bit of strategy in their gaming.

The game does have its strong points though. For starters, as you might expect it looks spot on. The graphics are clean and smooth with a good Streets of Rage style camera angle which keeps you on top of the action at all times.

Another nice touch to the game is picture gallery unlocked as the game is completed on each of the 10 difficulty settings. This gives the players access to some beautifully rendered stills of the game, although not reason enough to buy the game.

Really this is one for the kids, because there is no real learning curve. The sense of satisfaction in finishing the game just isn’t there because you don’t have to work at it.

Sadly this game was a bit of a let down, fitting somehow that as one of the last games made for the Dreamcast it be spectacularly unspectacular. James Bladon

Top Ten DC Games: 1.

Virtua Tennis

Pure gameplay, multiplayer heaven

2.

Soul Calibur

Which can dick Tekken anyday

3.

Crazy Taxi

Brilliant, pick-up and play arcade game

4.

Rez

Looks and feels like nothing else

5. Phantasy Star Online Incredible online 3D RPG 6. Samba de Amigo Maracas based rhythm mayhem

7.

Shenmue (1+2)

Live as Ryu, search for vengance

8.

Chu Chu Rocket

Manic puzzle cat & mouser

9. Jet Set Radio Beautiful graffitti game

10. MSR

Eclipsed by PGR, but a cracking driver

musicalbums

Punk is not dead CBGBs And The Birth Of US Punk VARIOUS

THE RAMONES: hit the club

OCHO (Union Square Music) IN TRUTH, this compilation is a glamourised ‘Best US Punk Album In The World…Ever!’ but Christ, when the content is this good, it’s an educational resource. As such, copies of this should be provided to every schoolchild.

CBGBs… takes the form of a dressed up but necessary tribute to Hilly Kristal, owner of The Country BlueGrass Blues Club in New York’s infamous Bowery. His old-fashioned policy of giving long residencies to anything but oldfashioned 70s bands served to finally break many of those acts featured. Apparently, this policy survives today. The club’s new direction away from waning bluegrass began when Richard Hell and Tom Verlaine somehow managed to secure a residency.

DAN THE AUTOMATOR Wanna Buy a Monkey?

(Ultra Records)

THIS SWANKY new mix album from full time member of the Gorillaz clan and principal of the Handsome Boy Modelling School comes free with all the common traits of a mix album: the compulsory 5% of songs either by, remixed, or produced by the chief mixer himself, a collection of songs by artists you’ve heard OF but not heard anything BY, and a selection of excellent tracks which, predictably, you have to listen to a completely dire song first in order to get the ‘mix’ right.

There are some real gems lurking on this cd.

Sadly they all happen to be the ones associated with Dan himself, namely his beautiful reworking of Air’s sublime Le Soliel Est Pres De Moi, and Positive Contact by Gorillaz rapper Deltron 3030, who is certainly one of the more unique and listenable voices in hip-hop, and is not only better than the Gorillaz track on this compilation, but free of Albarn’s miserable squawk, takes on.. well, a third dimension. Elsewhere, spread out over the 16 tracks, there’s the scratch n’ shit of The XEcutioners, the frankly bizarre inclusion of Firesuite by The Doves and a perverse ode to stroking by Lovage, who may or may not be Portishead and Tricky accidentally phoning each other on a sex chatline.

Overall, it’s clear to see that Dan the Automator knows his hip hop, and knows his mixing, and excepting certain tracks it has a satisfactory level of funk, but as a whole sounds fairly indecisive as to whether it wants to go out, or to chill out. Oh, and you can knock marks off for being only the fifty-thousandth mix album in the last year to include Destiny by Zero 7. If only death was always so sugary and smooth. John Widdop

X-PRESS 2 Muzikizum

a groove that will keep you dancing around your bedroom (if you like to do that kind of thing).

Supasong keeps levels of menace and confused craziness flying high whilst Call That Love a collaboration with Steve Edwards keeps the soul vibe running through the LP. Its probably got too much personality be pop but then thank god its not bland. Kathryn Archer

MOSES The Swimming Zoo (BMN Music)

UNFORTUNATELY, THIS isn’t the debut album

by Moses of ‘say, wouldn’t it be ace to infiltrate the entire of Egypt with a massive plague of frogs’ fame (although think how good that would be), but the work of two rather sensible young brothers whom seem hell bent of having precisely no discernable features or identity, other than that they sound a bit like Gomez in places, a bit like Turin Brakes in others, and a suspiciously like the sound of acoustic tedium.

It’s evident in every audible note that the lads want to sound like Simon and Garfunkle, or Nick Drake, but no amount of over-producing and layering niceness more niceness hides the fact that the songs themselves are dreary and uninspiring and have clarinets on. There are some good moments, such as the way one of the brothers shouts ‘yeah!!!’ at the end of the line (because the truth is in the good book/ all you’ve got to do is read/ like a born-again cowboy)and how, on the very same song (the hideously titled ‘Raphael, Jesus and Me’), you can almost hear the sound of the overworked producer banging his head on the studio wall.

But really though, one ‘yeah’ and the sound of someone injuring themselves may work for Jackass, but seriously does not make you the new Simon and Garfunkle. John Widdop

(Skint)

ALANIS MORISSETTE Under Rug Swept

X-PRESS 2 are not going to let dance music be bland. Its official. Muzikizum the album is about house music that likes to be dark and dirty but also likes to be pop. Having already established themselves on the nations messiest dancefloors, the inclusion of singles Muzikizum, Smoke Machine and AC/DC here serve as a reminders for those perhaps best forgotten hedonistic moments over the last year. Having achieved pop status more recently with the odd yet genius idea of collaborating with David Byrne, Lazy brings a depth to the album as an anthem that encapsulates the X-press 2 attitude™ that doesn’t take itself to seriously.

Respect must be due then that the three well matured DJs that make up X-press 2 have managed to deliver a full album that at no point fails to be a soundtrack to wild nights out but has

COMPARED TO her last flop album Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, Under Rug Swept is a revisit to her relationships and angry white female lamentations of Jagged Little Pill. The only difference is that it lacks substance. (This is her fifth album contrary to what most people believe to be her third. Her record company banned her first two albums because they think it will damage her new alternative image and make her look hard. My verdict: rubbish) I don’t still understand why this woman tries to build a career by revealing the depths of her bitterness in public, announcing embarrassing personal details of her relationship and blaring out her frustrations against men to the world at large.

Is she seeking our pity or voicing out her rage in self-righteous victimisation? How come Glen

(Maverick))

They appeared as Television. Patti Smith, Blondie and The Ramones soon followed. The rest ,as they say...

Frankly, you should already own a few of these numbers and the opening track, I’m Waiting For The Man, is a fairly uninspired choice.

Though, generally, there’s going to be a lot to learn from some of the inclusions, such as the psychedelic gender twisting Wayne County & The Electric Chairs. Seductive attractions include a live version of Television’s Friction along with the superior and rare original ’75 demo of Judy Is A Punk by The Ramones. The absence of Talking Heads is a notable exclusion from an admirably comprehensive history, though this should be rectified with a second volume.

Ultimately, CBGBs presents the best guarantee of value for money you’ll ever get. And if you think The Strokes are that great then you really need to own this record.

Nick McDonald

Ballard doesn’t appear on this album?

Hmm…she produced it all by herself.

21 Things is a display of abrasive guitars, while Hands Clean has naïve Alanis as a minor in a sexual relationship. Her partner asks her to overlook the supposed crime especially, not telling her family. Narcissus is filled with accusations of her lover who is immature and never wants to discuss their relationship. Flinch is an explosive track about a lover old enough to be her dad and still haunts her. So Unsexy is about rejection and not being loved. Precious Illusion is a comparison

FISCHERSPOONER #1 (Ministry Of Sound)

BE AFRAID, be very afraid. It seems the 80’s revival is upon us again. Case in point: the use of the phrase Madchester again, Gary Numan being sampled by everybody and everyone and adverts on the telly for the “best synth pop album in the world ever.... (part 43)”. Soft Cell are even playing V2002 this year.

Every cloud has a silver lining though and while we can be sure of hearing lots of naff 80’s music, there’s an underground movement of electro-freaks that have their roots firmly buried in the past, but are making some of the funkiest dancefloor music in years.

Fischerspooner are just on of one of many acts spearheading this rebellion (including the marvellous Adult and Lali Puna) and having just been signed for £2 million pounds, someone at Ministry Of Sound obviously has a lot of faith in the new scene.

07 between her ex and her past commercial success,(“but this won’t work as they as the way it once did”). All she wants is just regain respect.

Noticeable is that her lyrics are not too bitter and less aggressive and confident. I hope this will be an end to her face hiding under her hair. Though I still suggest that she makes an appointment with the hairdressers because she is in desperately need of a trim. Nike Ogunjumelo

DJ HYPE Fabric Live 03: (Fabric Records) ANOTHER FABRIC compilation in the monthly series, and this time we’re treated to a heavy mix of drum & bass courtesy of old skool favourite DJ Hype.

Going straight in at the deep end, the mix opens with Moving Fusion’s Thunderball, before working the filters on Mist:I:cal, Zinc, and Total Science in a gradual build up that climaxes with the evil bass of Future Prophecies’ Nightmare Walking. In other areas, things are more predictable, with Krust’s Snapped It mix making a characteristic appearance, and Rodeo, one of Bad Company’s more ropey recent tracks, letting things down slightly.

As a reflection of Fabric nights, this is probably very accurate, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But if you want a bit of home listening, the raw mix, endless scratching and dancefloor choices might be just a little too much.

Paul Sloman

REMY ZERO The Golden Hum (Electra) REMY ZERO play epic radio friendly rock music that still manages to retain emotion and credibility, which is partly due to the brilliant song writing and production, but mainly due to frontman Cinjun Tate’s beautiful voice, which can move you from sadness to joy and back again in a few words.

The albums many layers may take a few listens to absorb, but once you have got used to it, you will find an amazing rock album which gets better with each listen. Owain Cooke

#1 sounds about as 80’s as it can possibly get with it’s arpeggiated basslines, vocordered vocals and precise synth-drums, but still manages on several occasions to produce absolutely cracking tracks. Opener Invisible sets the tone with a bassline the size of Craig Quinnel and a melody deserving of any early NES platform game. Fucker is a blistering instrumental track laid with suggestive moans and groans from both man and machine and stand-out track Emerge is suitable large and fast to destroy any dancefloor. It fits perfectly into a pop scene dominated by hits like Can’t Get You Out Of My Head and Freak Like Me and deserves to be a huge success.

Whilst Fischerspooner may not be the most credible or talented of the current scene (a position reserved for Adult), they produce quite interesting and very catchy music and with a few more belters like Emerge, could be one of the first acts to crossover into the mainstream.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be quite so afraid then... Andy Parsons

musicsingles GEMMA HAYES Hanging Around (Source) HANGING AROUND is one of those tunes that you hear but don’t realise it’s playing – like muzak only far less annoying. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing of course – the track, once you do have a listen is chirpy and fairly pleasant sounding but despite jerky guitar riffs and synthesisers it lacks something, something...exciting.

Gemma Hayes’s voice is beautiful though and would probably only suit this particular style of song. Buy this to play whilst revising – it won’t distract your trail of thought.

Katie Brunt

PHANTOM PLANET California (Epic) ST JOHN’S Wood is the only London Underground station whose name contains none of the letters from the word “mackerel”. If you think that’s boring, you haven’t heard this subBen Folds Five strumfest. It even starts with the old “four-bars-of-quietvox-&-guitar-before-the-drums-kickin” routine. It’s as if the Strokes never happened. Mat Croft

HALO Sanctimonius (S2) ROCKING OUT in the pouring rain behind sinister blood-red crosses on the sleeve, boring and pretentious band name and irrelevant lyrics such as “I face the end” or “Tear my life right out”; Sanctimonious could lead to Halo being dismissed as expendable studded guitar footsoldiers if it wasn’t for a Hundred Reasons-through-dirty-muffler intro leading into a gloriously powerchorded chorus that’s nothing short of exhilarating. I don’t think they’re Christian rock either, but I might be wrong. Jamie Fullerton

RHIANNA Oh Baby (S2)

musicalbums

19 YEAR old Rhianna is not a new pop wannabe. She is not a new Kylie

or Britney. Her debut single Oh Baby has a smooth, unique sound and doesn’t attempt to copy any of the pop trash that is around today.

Rhianna’s voice is immensely powerful, matching her equally big hair, but does this song justice. It may be a bit repetitive in places but with such an intense voice and cracking bass beat, it is great to just relax to. Kate Shaw

THE ELECTRIC SOFT PARADE Empty At The End / This Given Line (DB) THIS DOUBLE A-side sees the Paraders head in a more gentle direction than their usual formula.

With an undercurrent of raw sentiment and poignancy, this single makes for great sunny afternoon listening. Empty At The End is a cascade of coolness, sounding a little like Doves, it mixes a rather funky beat with bittersweet lyrics: “All I know is no one is my friend”. The results are an uplifting experience.

Similarly, the second A-side, This Given Line laced with easy guitars and soothing vocals has a resembling emotive effect. With its overarching post-Britpop feel you can’t help but love this single.

Gemma Jones

FIVE FOR FIGHTING Superman (It’s Not Easy) (Columbia) IF SONGS from soppy American teen dramas are your cup of tea, then this song is right up your alley. It’s the kind of song you’d expect to hear halfway through Dawson’s Creek, due to its dream-like (dream being the appropriate word, as it’s so boring and bland and lacking any real emotion that it’ll soon send you to sleep), everything-will-work-out- inthe-end, lyrics.

It’s been getting major airplay in the US, which is understandable since the song has a certain September 11th memorial quality to it. Just like the ‘great’ and ‘wonderful’ Nickelback, this band appear to take

08 themselves too seriously, with a song that would be better on the insomniac ward at Whitchurch Hospital.

Tim Carne

HUNDRED REASONS Silver (Columbia Records) YOU CAN always trust the ‘Reasons to come up with a cracking good tune. They don’t disappoint on the latest single from the new album Ideas Above Our Station.

Starting with a rippling, phased guitar line and building to a chorus worthy of whatever stadium you care to mention.

Silver is a grower, entrapping the listener with its smooth and yet rocky edges. Any one disappointed by the last single will be pleased with this one, and anyone who loved the last single will be in heaven. Bands like this come along once in a lifetime.

Sam Brokenshaw

LAUGHING GRAVY The Revelator (Sexy Intellectual) WHEN THE spasmic laughter at the hilarity of the bands name dies down (Laughing fucking Gravy, for Christ’s sake!) a hoarse Beefheart fronting 90’s barn-dance specialists Rednex Euro-pop line-dance anthem can be heard, possible a song designed specifically for cowboys to have gay sex to. Banjo-tastic, then the laughter turns to tears after the second listen.

Tears of pure joy, grab the nearest cowboy, and fuck his arse to your heart’s content. Jamie Fullerton

THE HIVES Main Offender (Poptones) URGH. THE Hives’ several albums prior to current abomination, Your New Favourite Band didn't even get released this side of Scandinavia, on the grounds that they were fucking awful. Last summer, moneybags McGee signed them to the terminally awful Poptones label quicker than you can say “strokesandwhitestripesbandwagon”, rush-released a dubiously titled “best

BRITISH SEA POWER The Spirit of St Louis / The Lonely (Rough Trade) BRITISH SEA ‘power’ once made a nation great, now it appears outdated and generally pointless. The Spirit of St Louis, in actual fact, appears to be the Talking Heads as BSP take us through indecipherable lyrics, lo-fi recording techniques and verses which don’t appear to go anywhere to remind us how monotonous and drab the 1980s were for rock. However, sign them to a major label, flash some cash at them and I’m sure there’s some bugbear waiting to escape in there. The Lonely is more of the same, just more so. Jamie Fullerton of” album and thus, a meteoric rise to super stardom. Main Offender, if you haven't heard it, is pretty much the same as the last one, complete with hired goose to honk the chorus, and is currently advertising a talentless woman whose arse is more famous than her voice. Hideous in every way.

John Widdop

GREEN VELVET La La Land (Credence) PERHAPS IT was my subconscious connection of the word ‘velvet’ which prompted high expectations from this record. The word has always conjured images of richness in my mind, a quality certainly not reflected by the offering La La Land. This odd house record lacking in any definite structure

It has come to this

GONZALES Presidential Suite

THE STREETS OriginalPirate Material

PROVING THAT white boys can rap (even if they aren’t deep south trailer trash or NYC bboys), Berlin’s self styled “Worst MC” is back with his usual brand of wit and musical tomfoolery.

From the same label and school of thought that gave us the delectably filthy Peaches, Gonzales’ third LP is another mixture of funky rhymes, keyboard instrumentals and quality nutbag antics.

Presidential Suite finds Chilly on good form debating the joys of fame and running as part of a political campaign. While some rhymes just end up as amusing nonsense there are some interesting points made about business executives on Decisions, the falseness of celebrity on So Called Party Over There and what it’s like to live the life of a fictional character (Chilly Gonzales is really named Jason Beck). ”Try living you life as a concept” on the funky You Snooze, You Lose and “Don’t you know that life is a masquerade, just like the Ice Capades” on Salieri Serenade.

Mixing the two styles of his previous albums (funky lounge soul and rough comedy hip hop) has produced the most cohesive Gonzales album to date. Single Take Me To Broadway is deliriously good, highly infectious and stands out here along with a collaborations with Peaches (The Joy of Thinking) and of all people, lounge singer Louie Austin on Starlight.

Bizarre, bonkers and very, very good: “That’ll

(679)

IT’S BEEN released for a while but Original Pirate Material is too good an album to be missed out from any music pages.

Birmingham bred Mike Skinner (who singularly makes up The Streets) has composed a storming debut that reflects the everyday dismay- toeuphoria experiences coming from, suitably, the street-culture of the 22 year old. Self-reflective, but not so much about disaffected youth but more a blatant discussion of a heady suburban climate of drugs, mates and girls, it’s a privilege to hear such inventiveness coming from typically mundane subject matter.

Ultimately as The Streets, he manages to produce astute social commentary without being contrived, complete with sarcasm, humour and unaffected lyrical ramblings.

Boasting the irrepressible vague dance buzz of Has It Come To This and The Specials-esque ska doodle of Let’s Push Things Forward the single’s lifted are superb,

but there is much more to this debut than a couple of tracks and some light-weight radio play. Much to its credit, each track offers a different and ambitious take on the raw, fuelled, garage tip that lies at the core. Even though largely spoken word there are plenty of tunes, notably the surprisingly delectable Its Too Late. Same Old Thing and the funny (if cringe making) tale of male friends rippingthe-piss out of lusting loyalties to a new lady on Don’t Mug Yourself is honesty at its best.

Original Pirate Material is innovative and expressive. A lo-fi base sound slumming it alongside urban living. From a side-alley, a star is born. Gemma Curtis

(Kitty-Yo)

or substance compensates for all its failings through fantastic lyrical content. Listeners are treated to three whole minutes of android Cher-like vocals through which various pillpopping, aftershow party antics are unfolded.

The undoubted climax of the record follows the lyric, “Who’s gonna take me to the aftershow?” to which it sounds as though several excited women hysterically reply, “Me!” but on closer inspection, I realised it was simply the android warbling in a higher voice. Although lacking in style or originality, La La Land is an amusing effort with the ability to ease initial raised eyebrows of hatred into fond smiles at the realisation that it wasn’t recorded under the pretence of a masterpiece, it was just recorded under the influence.

Melanie Roberts

be Chilly putting ants in your pants” then.

Andy Parsons

BLUE LIGHT FEVER Blue Light Fever (S:alt Records)

THE MAN behind Blue Light Fever, Matt Preston, is a man of eclectic taste. We know this because he cites fifty-one acts, ranging from the Dead Kennedys to Aimee Mann, as ‘inspiration’.

It's fair to say that neither of these have a particularly noticeable presence, though, as Blue Light Fever plants its feet firmly in the square marked “sinister, experimental electronica with tunes”.

Preston works his terrain with panache: Spite Zoo ís claustrophobic drum’n’bass and the seven-minute technoid groove which is DJ are superbly executed, and Fireball even sees him cheekily lift the piano riff from Arab Strap’s Love Detective, only to twist it almost beyond recognition. Still, there’s a sense of contrivance to the album: the desire to disquiet is too transparent and too affected, the sinister effects laid on too thickly, and the faux-horror movie vocals too ridiculous to really perturb. “Tick tock, fuck fuck!” growls Preston’s sidekick Little Annie on Toytown, but she’s a long way from the genuinely disturbing sexuality of Peaches. A pity, as Preston’s music is impressively inventive, but it's the same trying-too-hard mindset which lists fifty-one influences in the liner notes.

Nevertheless, an intriguing debut.

Alex Macpherson

musiclive

09

CIA should be so lucky

KYLIE CIA

PIC: Michael Parsons

HAVING BOUGHT my ticket for Kylie about six months ago, by the time the day of the concert actually arrived, I was in a state of pop frenzy. After the support act LHB and another half-hour wait, the pintsize Miss Minogue finally appeared.

Emerging through the stage in a Star-Trek inspired cyborg outfit, pieces are removed one by one to reveal the person we’ve all been waiting for.

Greeted by the seven thousand strong audience on the first night of her UK tour, she opened with Come Into My World and performed current hits, the old favourites which we still knew all the words to, as well as her own version of The Real

...AND YOU WILL KNOW US BY THE TRAIL OF DEAD Bristol Academy “ARE YOU ready for an evening of violence, death and moshing?” ask Trail of Dead, and whether the crowd was ready or not they got it anyway.

Trail of Dead are one of the most exciting live bands around at the moment. They thrive on being unpredictable, no one, not even the band knows what is going to happen on stage.

They begin with It Was There That I Saw You, the second track off their new and ‘mellow’ record Source Tags and Codes. As soon as it begins you are hit by a wall of noise that is sheer power and confusion. Yet they are not happy as they order the sound engineer to turn everything up. The band move about the stage with energy that would suggest that this is their last ever gig, but it isn’t, its just a normal Trail of Dead show.

By the time the final song arrives the crowd are moshing hard and fighting with the bouncers. Several of the band appear in the crowd along with guitars and microphones, these are then hurled at the drums which are sent flying and amps toppled onto the security guards.

The show appears to be over, but no. Jason, with a devilish glint in his eye shouts “Give me a fucking instrument, I wanna play, we’re gonna play all fucking night!” And indeed they do play, it isn’t a song, just a ten-minute jam that turns into a wall of feedback and distortion. Amps and drums are destroyed again and in a final act of destruction Jason swings like Tarzan on the drapes at the side of the stage.

The end has come, the stage is strewn with

debris. Wherever they go Trail of Dead bring chaos with them, in fact that’s wrong, Trail of Dead ARE chaos. Why isn’t all rock music this exciting? Anthony Lloyd

TOMMY AND THE CHAUFFEUR/ JT MOUSE/ WATERSHED Clwb Ifor Bach BOOBYTRAP SHOWCASES at Clwb have a tendency to be hit and miss, but tonight’s spotlight settled on three of the most accomplished acts on the ‘Trap. Watershed tunefully eases the ears into the evening with their brand of spacey pacey melancholia, in particular closing barnstormer Keep on the Inside. A band who seem to improve with every listen. Original Huggy Bear Ben James himself even manages to drown out the chants of lost Arsenal fans who must have got turned away from Liquid. Top stuff.

Local mullet JT Mouse and crew provided the Fish, Eggs, Wheat and Bread to tonight’s band sandwich. Familiar favourites such as the aforementioned (“Everyone eats food” the Mouse himself informs us), Sundrenched Torso and strongest track American Style put in an appearance. The word from the hole in the skirting board is that JT Mouse have been nibbling at a London record deal to get their tongue-in-cheek country space-pop in a record store near you. An acoustic performance with 80% new material is promised at Barfly on Tuesday.

Tommy and the Chauffer, the premiere Boobytrap band have no trouble at all demonstrating exactly why they’re considered to be among the very best of Cardiff acts.

Slim Shady. Undoubtedly the best song of the night was Better The Devil You Know, one of the last to be performed but definitely worth the wait. Revamped versions of Locomotion and I Should Be So Lucky, while not as good as the originals, were brilliant and In Your Eyes and Burning Up really got the audience going.

With the fantastic set, five video screens with pre-shot footage and the usual strangely dressed dancers, the show was simply amazing. During the performance, Kylie admitted she was ill but ‘cancelling was not in her vocabulary’ – by the end she couldn’t speak but pushed through and performed the obvious Can’t Get You Out Of My Head for a mind-blowing finale. Kate Shaw

Their atmospheric tuneful pop levitates in a strange place somewhere between Pulp and James, although their intelligent song structures and build up often surpasses the efforts of both. Their songs weld themselves into the inside of the head, on June 24th their long awaited Kid’s Chorus EP will weld itself to your CD player.

Rarely has a Booby gig had such a high strike rate, if any of the three bands never release an album, it will be the biggest crime against the ear ever committed.

Jamie Fullerton

Gigolo Joe out of AI. Losing the mirrored shades and looking at the audience makes all the difference, so do it.

Headtest feature the keyboardist out of Tommy and the Chauffeur, yet sound nowt like them. Instead, it’s chorus-laden punkish guitarpop in the vein of Feeder. This sort of thing either floats your boat or sinks it, and to me Headtest are an iceberg in a dark ocean.

Cynics might feel that in any other city – without the Tommy connection – Headtest would find themselves propping up the bottom of the bill. Mat Croft

HEADTEST/ JARCREW/ TALKSHOW Clwb Ifor Bach

CRITICAL BREAKS/ ASCENSION Clwb Ifor Bach

FUSING ’77 punk with freak-out metal a bit like 80’s Matchbox B-Line Disaster do, Jarcrew are, to be precise, a fucking bomb exploding RIGHT IN YOUR FUCKING FACE! They boast the arresting frontman Kelson: part Henry Rollins, part Howlin’ Pele. Only rising from his knees in the audience to deliver surprise organ solos, this hyperactive giant provides a focus amid the madness. And what fucking madness! And the mental drummer! As one tiny example, the incredible tune Boy Wonder threatens at any second to turn into The Strokes before going metallic disco then crumbling into a brainrattling, Fugazi-ish rumble. An unusually calm single called Paris and the New Math is out soon.

Talkshow start out with a similar disjointed punk ferocity, but this gives way to Suede-like melodies (and singing) with heavy, dynamic backing. With these tunes this band could get big; they’re let down by the robotic poseur they have instead of a frontman. He looks like

IT TAKES a huge amount of time, money and dedication to organise a regular and successful night. Finding a club, printing posters and flyers, laying down the money and finding big name DJ’s to play takes effort.

So the 4th Critical Breaks/ Ascension night at Clwb Ifor Bach just goes to prove that these Cardiff students are passionate about their music. The special guest tonight was DJ Pilgrim and he did not disappoint, playing some excellent jungle and old skool. One Missions own DJ Dexter and Omega 2 headed back 2 back with some chunky Drum and Bass keeping people happy. DJ’s Taffster and Marde J also put on a great line-up of hardcore despite the early set.

The MC’s were once again bringing their own personality forward and showing constant improvement, adding an important element to the night.

All that effort paid off as a great night for all.

Brendan Rainford

filmclub/reviews

10

Play it again Sam I AM SAM Starring: Sean Penn, Michelle Pfeiffer, Dakota Fanning, Dianne Wiest, Laura Dern Dir.: Jessie Nelson 12, 132 mins.

P

LAYING THE part of a mentally retarded individual is possibly the most difficult role in the film industry.

Yet probably even more challenging is steering the oar of a film primarily about a mentally retarded person, without slipping into There’s Something About Mary style retard gags, while still maintaining an aspect of light heartedness and sentimentality at the situation.

Step forward writer/ director Jessie Nelson, because that’s exactly what he’s managed to do.

Our unconventional hero is Sam (Penn), a semi-autistic man with a mental age of seven.

Sam apologises to eggs when he cracks their shells, (“sorry egg”) and has a permanent unsatisfiable hunger for French pancakes, yet still manages to get laid once (to a homeless person who didn’t pay with cash for a nights accommodation), and the consequence is his daughter, Lucy.

Lucy’s homeless hippy mum scarpers as soon as she’s back on her feet and out of the hospital

doors, leaving Sam to take care of her alone.

He manages with the help of Nickelodeon show schedules to synchronise feeding times and a socially phobic neighbour’s advice and childminding duties until time (and it isn’t a great deal) passes, Lucy grows up, and soon surpasses her father in the intelligence stakes.

So the dilemma begins, Lucy is naturally taken into custody and Sam must battle to be permanently reunited with her with the help of a super face-lifted ‘hard-arse’ lawyer bitch (Pfeiffer), the anti-Ally McBeal, complete with lame back story

involving a decaying relationship with her own son (“Ooh! Look at the parallels, how deep!”).

Hollywood studio pressures could easily have forced Nelson to follow the fairytale blueprint and have everyone who opposes Sam portrayed as Scrooge-esque bastards who delight in drowning kittens and suppressing love in any way they can, but thankfully this is not the case.

While not exactly politically correct, scenes are never offensive or oppressive against the mentally retarded It can at times appear blindingly obvious that Sam is not fit to be a parent, but his undying love and lawyer Rita’s truth manipulation keeps the audience questioning.

And if this is a bit heavy for you light relief comes in the form of the ‘comedy’ characters in the film, i.e. Sam’s group of mentally retarded friends,

including a chronically paranoid grouch and a perma-grin moustached chortler.

Their hilarious (well at least slightly amusing) antics include claiming balloons in a shoe store and randomly reciting film scripts.

While not exactly politically correct, scenes are never offensive or oppressive against the mentally retarded and at many moments are

genuinely funny. A bold move that pays off, and gives dimension to what would otherwise be a tiring effort (I Am Sam passes the two-hour mark).

There has rarely been a film that covers the issues like I Am Sam does, and combined with a sparkling performance from Penn that is no less than captivating, I Am Sam is refreshingly original and entertaining viewing. Jamie Fullerton

The countdown begins STAR WARS EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES Starring: Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, Natalie Portman, Samuel L. Jackson Dir.: George Lucas

A

TTACK OF the Clones is not on general release until the 16th of May, but seeing as its the most eagerly anticipated movie so far this year, film thought it just about deserved to have its own preview.

Set ten years after the events of The Phantom Menace, Episode II rejoins the older (and wiser?) characters of the previous blockbuster, to find the Republic once again in turmoil.

The ageing Anakin Skywalker, with mentor Obi Wan, are

ordered to protect Queen Padme Amidala who is under threat from an unknown assassin.

However, with the heavy weight of responsibility on his adolescent shoulders, Anakin begins to struggle with the delicate nature of the force.

With promises of excellent fight scenes between the jedi knights and Jango Fett (Bobba’s dad), less scenes featuring the worlds first hyperactive Rasta, Jar Jar Binks (‘hooray’ I hear you cry), and a darker exploration of themes and characters we can only hope that Lucas improves on the disappointing Phantom Menace. Neil Blain

Due to a lack of demand through the exam period there will be no gair rhydd film club film next Wednesday. Also, apologies must go to those that did not get to see O Brother, Where Art Thou? last week

Weekly Film Competition

The answer to last weeks question ‘Name the talented brothers who directed and produced Fargo, The Big Lebowski, Millers Crossing, and O Brother, Where Art Thou?’ is The Coen Brothers.

The winners of five pairs of cinema tickets for UGC Cinemas Cardiff are: Sarah Blunt, Antoine Daurel, Assimina Traganida, Jen Cannock, and Jamie Fullerton. Your tickets are ready to be picked up in the gair rhydd office now.

In association with

Television

20 May

Monday HTV

S4C

CHANNEL 5

6.00 Breakfast 9.00 Kilroy 10.00 Ruby 11.00 Big Strong Boys 11.30 Bargain Hunt 12.00 No Win No Fee 12.30 Wipeout 1.00 BBC News; Weather 1.30 Regional News and Weather 1.45 Neighbours 2.10 Doctors 2.40 Diagnosis Murder 3.25 CBeebies: Tweenies 3.45 CBBC: Arthur 4.10 50/50 4.35 Kenan and Kel 5.00 Blue Peter 5.25 Newsround 5.35 Neighbours Michelle skips P.E. Nice one....

8.15 Brum 8.25 The Story Makers 8.40 Clifford the Big Red Dog 9.00 Teletubbies 9.50 Playdays 10.10 Tweenies 10.50 Magic Key 11.05 Numbertime 11.20 Words and Pictures 11.35 Watch 11.50 Megamaths 12.05 Pathways of Belief 12.20 Maths Challenge 12.30 Working Lunch 1.00 Brum 1.20 FILM: The Password Is Courage 3.15 Afoot Again in the Past 3.20 BBC News 3.30 Delia Smith's Summer Collection 4.00 Afoot Again in the Past 4.05 Stefan's Ultimate Gardens 4.30 Ready Steady Cook 5.15 Weakest link

6.00 GMTV 9.25 Trisha 10.30 This Morning 12.00 Family Fortunes 12.30 ITV Lunchtime News and Weather 1.10 Shortland Street 1.40 Crossroads 2.10 Heartbeat 3.10 ITV News 3.15 HTV News 3.20 Tiny Planets 3.25 Maisy 3.30 Preston Pig 3.45 Butt-Ugly Martians 4.15 Star Street 4.40 Sabrina, the Teenage Witch 5.05 Never Had It So Good 5.30 Crossroads Kate thinks Scott should see a child psychiatrist. I reckon a fully grown one would be better value mate...

6.05 The Hoobs 6.30 The Hoobs 6.55 RI:SE 9.00 Bewitched 9.30 Ysgolion/Schools 12.00 Six Experiments that Changed the World 12.30 Planed Plant: Rhacsyn a'r Goeden Hud 12.45 Sali Mali 12.55 Planed Plant: Ding Dong 1.00 Planed Plant: Twm 1.15 Pet Rescue 1.45 Junkyard Wars 2.45 Fifteen to One 3.15 Countdown 4.00 Sam Tan 4.10 Na Dderyn 4.20 Cnafon Coed 4.50 Ffeil 5.00 Richard and Judy 6.00 Newyddion 6 News.

6.05 Wedi 6 News 6.30 Rownd a Rownd 7.00 Pobol y Cwm 7.30 Newyddion

6.00 Sunrise 6.30 Beachcomber Bay 6.55 Nosey 7.00 Happy Monsters 7.15 Little Antics 7.20 Mr Men and Little Miss 7.30 Rolie Polie Olie 8.00 Bear in the Big Blue House 8.30 Barney 9.00 Jay Jay the Jet Plane 9.30 Designer for a Day 10.00 The Wright Stuff 11.00 T J Hooker 12.00 5 News at Noon 12.30 Home and Away 1.00 Family Affairs 1.30 It's Your Funeral 2.00 Divine Designs 2.20 Open House with Gloria Hunniford 3.50 FILM: Angel Flight Down 5.30 5 News

6.00 BBC News 6.30 Wales Today 7.00 Holiday on a Shoestring 7.30 4 x 4 Reports 8.00 EastEnders Tom organises the Walford World Cup. Sonia plays the part of Martin Keown.

8.30 EastEnders A two-part drama which catches up with Bianca Jackson...and then blows her ginger head off, hopefully.

9.00 Spooks MI5 are looking for a pro-life terrorist who is targeting abortion clinics.

Pro-lifers who kill...ahh, the irony of it all.

10.00 BBC News 10.25 Regional News 10.35 The Fergie Phenomenon Michael Crick introduces a profile of football manager Sir Alex Ferguson. Sports Desk’s Mr T: “If Fergie was manager of an Italian team he would have been sacked by now for spending all that money and winning nowt.” Harsh words, but he’s got a point...

11.35 FILM: Saturn 3 Futuristic adventure in which a couple of space-station dwellers are menaced by a scientist and his amorous android, Metal-cock.

1.00 Liquid News 1.40 Joins BBC News 24

6.00 The New Adventures of Superman 6.45 FAW Premier Cup Final Live: Cardiff City v Swansea City “A bonanza of top-class sporting action” as Alan Partridge might ironically say. A fiver on the commentator to use the words “disapointing” and “Fortune-West” more than 8 times.

9.00 Never Mind the Buzzcocks Panellists are Christian O'Connell, Ashley Taylor Dawson, Kerry McFadden and Pete Burns.

Gemma says one of them is in Atomic Kitten...other than that, no idea.

9.30 Coupling 10.00 The Day Today YES!!! The best spoof TV thing ever. Talking of ace spoof TV things, check out www.blatext.com. It has some racy sprites to engage your love-pump, or something....

10.30 Newsnight 11.20 Tinsel Town 11.50 48 Preludes and Fugues 12.00 Despatch Box 12.30 Open University: Ever Wondered?

12.45 Personal Passions 1.00 Ever Wondered 1.30 Classical and Romantic Music

6.00 HTV News 7.00 Emmerdale Diane and Rodney take a trip down memory lane... by going at it like rabbits.

7.30 Coronation Street Molly's plans for a special evening end in tears.

8.00 Tonight with Trevor McDonald Six tigers are returned to freedom in India.

And then they are used as targets for testing of nuclear weapons. Possibly.

8.30 Airline A group of business students go wild at a tomato festival in Spain, those crazy cats. I bet sometimes they even have a slice of lime in their lager.

9.00 Helen West Helen is frustrated when another indecent-assault trial against a locally despised reprobate collapses. Games desk lives another day....

10.00 ITV News at Ten 10.20 Helen West 11.20 HTV News 11.30 The Premiership 12.35 UEFA Champions League Weekly 1.05 Wish You Were Here...?

1.30 The People's Vets 1.55 Trisha 2.50 Tonight with Trevor McDonald 3.15 FILM: The Breaking Point

8.00 Taro Naw 8.30 Y Busnes Babis 'Ma 9.00 Mae'r Byd yn Grwn: Diwedd y Gan yw'r Geiniog 9.30 Sgorio 10.35 Big Brother - Small World 11.05 V Graham Norton 11.40 The West Wing 12.35 The New Entrepreneurs 12.40 State of Terror 1.40 Channel 4 Gospel Singers of the Year 3.10 More Embarrassing Illnesses 4.00 Schools CH4. As S4C except: 6.00 Ivor the Engine Eureka! 9.45 Book Box. 10.00 Chez Mimi. 10.15 SciTech in N I. 10.30 Place and People. 10.50 Being Different. 11.00 The Hoobs.

11.25 Handmade. 11.40 Science in Focus Special.

12.00 Jesse 12.25 ER 1.20 Little House on the Prairie 2.15 Little House on the Prairie Classic s 3.15 Pet Rescuei 3.45 Fifteen to One 4.15 Countdown 5.00 Richard and Judy 6.00 Hollyoaks 6.30 Hollyoaks 7.00 Channel 4 News 7.55 The New Entrepreneurs 8.00 Junkyard Wars 9.00 State of Terror 10.00 Big Brother - Small World 10.30 Brass Eye Special 11.40 FILM: The Ring 2 1.25 FILM: The Night of the Hunter.

6.00 Home and Away Gypsy realises her dream man is just a substitute. She then dumps Phil Neville for his more hansome brother Gary.

6.30 Family Affairs 7.00 Toyota World of Wildlife 7.30 5 News National 8.00 5th Gear Motoring Including new alloys that specifically made for “Kevs” and new “Sharon-proof ” front seats.

8.30 The Most Evil Men and Women in History: This programme looks at King John, a man decreed by the Magna Carta as cruel, violent and ruthless. Not when he was played by Sean Connery in Robin Hood...

9.00 FILM: Revenge An ex-Vietnam War navy pilot becomes involved with his jealous friend's wife and suffers the consequences when he is discovered.

Probaly won’t involve Loretta Bobbit-esque scenes.

11.25 CSI: Crime Scene Investigation 12.20 The Pepsi Chart 12.25 USPGA Golf 1.15 Seniors Golf - Tobago 2.05 NASCAR Busch Series Motor Racing 2.55 AMA Supercross 4.30 V8 Supercars 5.20 Motorsport Mundial

Daytime

The Fergie Phenomenon 10.35pm BBC1

Malcolm in the Middle 8.35pm BBC2

Today’s Highlights

BBC 2

BBC 1

12

Evening

Helen West 9.00pm ITV1

State of Terror 9.00pm C4

CHOICE The Day Today BBC2,10.00 pm Ahh, Chris Morris, the man is a genius.

Anyone who can piss off the entire readership of the Daily Mail is alright by me. He didn’t cause such a fuss with this program, although the way it

satirises the media is easily as incisive but perhaps not as hard hitting as Brass Eye (also on tonight, C4 at 10.30pm). This program also launched the career of Steve Coogan, featuring as it does, the seminal Alan Partridge (“Smell the cheese you mother!”).

Alan’s sport round-up is pure gold by itself, including such quotable magic as “The goalie there.. with football pie.. all

over his shirt”.

The thing is, Partridge and the anchorman played by Morris are just a too little close to the real thing. If I ever hear Paxman utter the words “Arafat ablaze in kerosene oyster hell,” I may well wet myself. I have also come realise that Partridge could welll be the bastard offspring of Robert Kilroy-Silk and Richard Madeley. What an image...

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Television

13

14 May

Tuesday HTV

S4C

CHANNEL 5

6.00 Breakfast 9.00 Kilroy 10.00 Ruby 11.00 Big Strong Boys 11.30 Bargain Hunt 12.00 No Win No Fee 12.30 Wipeout 1.00 BBC News; Weather 1.30 Regional News and Weather 1.45 Neighbours 2.10 Doctors 2.40 Diagnosis Murder 3.25 CBeebies: Tweenies Songtime; Tweenies 3.45 CBBC: Arthur 4.10 Get Your Own Back 4.35 Big Kids 5.00 SMart 5.25 Newsround 5.35 Neighbours Libby challenges Drew to write an article for her magazine. Not as easy as it looks, eh Drew?

Especially not if you’re writing about TV.

6.00 The Arena Chapel 6.50 Ever Wondered? 7.00 Chuck Finn 7.25 Histeria 7.45 Blue Peter 8.15 Binka 8.25 The Story Makers 8.40 Clifford the Big Red Dog 9.00 Teletubbies 9.50 Playdays 10.10 Tweenies 10.50 Megamaths 11.10 English Express 11.30 Music Makers 11.50 Zig Zag Shorts 12.00 Shakespeare 12.30 Working Lunch 1.00 Binka 1.10 Pingu 1.15 FILM: To Dorothy, a Son 2.40 Assembly 3.20 News 3.30 Delia Smith's Summer Collection 4.00 Afoot Again in the Past 4.05 Ultimate Gardens 4.30 Ready Steady Cook 5.15 Weakest Link

6.00 GMTV 9.25 Trisha 10.30 This Morning 12.00 Family Fortunes 12.30 ITV Lunchtime News and Weather 1.10 Shortland Street 1.40 Crossroads 2.10 Heartbeat 3.10 ITV News Headlines 3.15 HTV News and Weather 3.20 Tiny Planets 3.25 Maisy 3.30 Preston Pig 3.45 Sitting Ducks 4.15 It's a Mystery 4.35 Weirdsister College: The Further Adventures of the Worst Witch 5.05 Never Had It So Good Steve’s told me to put something in about Matthew Kelly’s alleged sexual preference being for dead babies. Or something.

5.30 Crossroads

6.05 The Hoobs 6.30 The Hoobs 6.55 RI:SE 9.00 Bewitched 9.30 Ysgolion/Schools 12.00 Powerhouse 12.30 Planed Plant: Tweenies 12.50 Planed Plant: Bibi 1.00 Countdown 1.45 Channel 4 attheraces from York 3.30 Fifteen to One 4.00 Chwedlau'r Byd 4.15 Y Rhagalen Wirion Na 4.50 Ffeil 5.00 Richard and Judy 6.00 Newyddion 6 6.05 Wedi 6 6.30 Mae'r Byd yn Grwn: Diwedd y Gan yw'r Geiniog 7.00 Pobol y Cwm 7.30 Pel-Droed Rhyngwladol: Cymru v Yr Almaen 9.45 Newyddion 10.00 Pen Tennyn

6.00 Sunrise 6.30 Beachcomber Bay 6.55 Nosey 7.00 Happy Monsters 7.15 Little Antics 7.20 Mr Men and Little Miss 7.30 Rolie Polie Olie 8.00 Bear in the Big Blue House 8.30 Barney 9.00 Jay Jay the Jet Plane 9.30 Designer for a Day 10.00 The Wright Stuff 11.00 T J Hooker 12.00 5 News at Noon 12.30 Home and Away 1.00 Family Affairs 1.30 USPGA Golf 2.20 Open House with Gloria Hunniford 3.40 FILM: Moment of Truth: Cult Rescue I’m guessing this is a straight-to-video type thang.

5.30 5 News

6.00 BBC News 6.30 Wales Today 7.00 Wildlife on One: Citizen Cane Toad Oh, well done Mr. Documentary Maker. Arf arf. 7.30 EastEnders 8.00 Holby City I’ve never watched this – am I right in assuming it’s a 57th-rate ER? 9.00 Cutting It Something which this programme notably fails to do. 10.00 BBC News 10.25 Regional News and Weather 10.35 Week In, Week Out 11.05 Countryside at War A documentary look at the disputes that can arise among people living in rural areas.

I’m not sure an hour will be enough to cover everything which gets yokels pissed off.

It’s cos there’s nothing else to do in the sticks. 12.05 FILM: Blind Side 1.40 Sign Zone: What the Victorians Did for Us Turned us into a nation of fucked-up sexual retards, for one. Witness the fuss over Baise-Moi. It’s sex.

That’s it. 2.40 Sign Zone: Queen and Country 3.40 Sign Zone: See Hear on Saturday A few days out, aren’t you? 4.25 Joins BBC News 24

6.00 The Simpsons 6.20 Rough Science 6.50 The Best 7.20 International Football: Wales v Germany ‘Two second-division teams fight it out to decide who hates the English more’ – Sports Desk. 9.50 University Challenge Reunited 10.25 Afoot Again in the Past 10.30 Newsnight 11.20 The Experiment: Conflict Social psychology experiment in which 14 volunteers take on the roles of prisoners and guards for ten days. ‘Social psychology experiment’, they say. ‘Gratuitous voyeurism’, we say. 12.20 48 Preludes and Fugues 12.30 BBC Learning Zone: Open University: South Korea: The Struggle for Democracy 1.00 The True Geometry of Nature 1.30 The Roof of the World 2.00 Secondary Schools: Expressive Arts - Music File 4.00 Languages: Talk Italian 1-2/Italy Inside Out: Venice ‘Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate’ Dante, La Commedia Divina.

5.00 Working in Travel and Tourism: What's It Really Like? Prostitution: it’s providing people you hate with a service you really don’t want to give. But it’s less sticky.

6.00 HTV News and Weather 6.30 ITV Evening News 7.00 Emmerdale 7.30 The Real Dad's Army 8.00 Coronation Street Maria and Toyah plan a holiday in Blackpool.

8.30 Barbara This programme claims to be a ‘sitcom about a woman coping with all that life throws at her’. But all that appears to happen is this: ‘Barbara tries to join the local Neighbourhood Watch scheme’. Hmm, one for the Trade Descriptions Act methinks.

9.00 Real Crime: Tracie Andrews - Blood on Her Hands 10.00 ITV News at Ten 10.20 England's World Cup Showdowns: 1990 - Gazza's Tears ‘When Gazza cried, I cried with him. Tears of joy’ Arsenal Desk.

10.50 The Ferret Is this about Frank Skinner?

11.20 HTV News and Weather 11.30 Waterfront 12.00 Top Sport 12.35 F1: Austrian Grand Prix Replayed 3.25 World Sport 3.50 Box Office America 4.15 ITV Nightscreen 5.30 ITV Early Morning News

10.30 Sex on TV 11.35 V Graham Norton 12.10 Tourist Police 12.40 The New Entrepreneurs 12.45 Wasted 1.45 FILM: The Boys from Brazil 4.00 Schools CH4. As S4C except: 6.00 Animal Alphabet 9.30 Eureka! 9.45 Stop, Look, Listen. 10.00 Hennings Haus. 10.15 Pressure Points. 10.30 Place and People. 10.50 No Crew 1.

11.00 Hoobs. 11.25 First Edition. 11.40 Science in Focus. 12.30 ER 1.20 In Your Face: Neil and Glenys Kinnock 1.35 Channel 4 attheraces 3.45 Fifteen to One 4.15 Countdown 5.00 Richard and Judy 6.00 Hollyoaks 7.00 Channel 4 News 7.55 The New Entrepreneurs 8.00 The Real Crawfie 9.00 The Edwardian Country House: Cold Comfort 10.00 Sex on TV 11.05 V Graham Norton Graham 11.40 Tourist Police: Goa 12.05 Teachers 1.05 Dreaming on Desolation Island 2.05 Yeti: Hunt for the Wildman 3.00 Going Critical: The Eruption of Mount St Helens 3.30 Three Minute Wonder 3.35 Powerhouse 4.00 Top! 2: Auf Deutsch.

5.40 Planet.com.

6.00 Home and Away 6.30 Family Affairs Paul is taken aback by Fern's startling revelation. Is she shagging around with the cactus plant on the windowsill then? Goodness.

7.00 5th Gear 7.30 5 News 8.00 Post Mortem 8.30 Arrest and Trial: Deadly Affair 9.00 FILM: Sphere ‘It’s meant to be shit-scary!

Oh no, sorry, I’m thinking of Event Horizon’ - a confused Dr Fox. 11.35 World's Nastiest Neighbours 12.35 La Femme Nikita 1.20 NFL Europe 1.45 NHL Ice Hockey Live So, when Murdoch’s allowed to buy this, can we expect Channel 5 to suddenly become good? Hmm. Probably not. At all. 4.00 NHL Ice Hockey Replay This week, TV Desk loves: Eminem, Andrew Rawnsley and, bizarrely, Ann Widdecombe. TV Desk hates: Ann Winterton, snooker-watching idiots with whom it is forced to live, and Dubya Bush, who’s only gone and exponentially increased the risk of an Aids epidemic in the Third World by blocking UN family planning programmes – all because he doesn’t believe in sex before marriage.

Countryside at War BBC1 10.35pm

Rough Science BBC2 7.30pm

Emmerdale ITV1 7.00pm

Sex on TV C4 10.00pm

CHOICE The Experiment: Conflict BBC2, 11.20pm So, what do you think happens when some people are arbitrarily given power over others? Well, it’s obvious: the fine line between exercising it and abusing it swiftly

becomes horribly blurred. And so, with few surprises and beaucoup cod-psychology comes the somewhat bombastically-titled The Experiment, with seven volunteers taking on the roles of prisoners and seven those of guards. And, inevitably, the prisoners start to pick off weak guards and the most powerful prisoner is sentenced to solitary confinement.

This trumpets itself as an insight into human

Tuesday 14th May

Evening

BBC 2

Today’s Highlights

Daytime

BBC 1

nature, but the real insight will come from the ratings: how much do we want to witness scenes of humiliation and pain when we already know the outcome?

Darn it, still space to fill. I can’t wait til we get The Osbournes so I can write about some proper TV again. Apparently Kelly Osbourne is best mates with Mandy Moore...

Television

14

15 May

Wednesday HTV

S4C

CHANNEL 5

6.00 Breakfast 9.00 Kilroy 10.00 Ruby 11.00 Big Strong Boys 11.30 Bargain Hunt 12.00 No Win No Fee 12.30 Wipeout 1.00 BBC News 1.30 Regional News 1.45 Neighbours 2.10 Doctors 2.40 Diagnosis Murder 3.25 Tweenies 3.45 Arthur 4.10 UBOS 4.35 Even Stevens 5.00 Blue Peter Vet Joe Inglis has a guide to corgis – the Queen's favourite dogs – and music comes from Atomic Kitten.

This is the sort of stuff which turns kids into complete dullards. Lucky that none of ‘em watch this crap, then.

5.25 Newsround 5.35 Neighbours

6.00 Chinese Cultures 6.30 Global Warming 7.00 Ocean Odyssey 7.25 Histeria 7.45 Get Your Own Back 8.15 Bob the Builder 8.25 The Story Makers 8.40 Clifford the Big Red Dog 9.00 Teletubbies 9.50 Playdays 10.10 Tweenies 10.50 It's a Wrap 11.05 Numbertime 11.20 Hit and Miss 11.35 Cats' Eyes 11.50 Hands Up 12.05 Pod's Mission 12.20 Maths Challenge 12.30 Working Lunch 1.00 Bob the Builder 1.10 Pingu 1.15 FILM: The Square Peg 2.40 Assembly 3.50 News 4.00 Afoot Again in the Past 4.05 Stefan's Ultimate Gardens

6.00 GMTV 9.25 Trisha 10.30 This Morning 12.00 Family Fortunes 12.30 ITV Lunchtime News and Weather 1.10 Shortland Street 1.40 Crossroads 2.10 Heartbeat 3.10 ITV News Headlines 3.15 HTV News and Weather 3.20 Tiny Planets 3.25 Maisy 3.30 Preston Pig 3.45 Butt-Ugly Martians Josh Hartnett. 4.15 Star Street 4.40 Sabrina, the Teenage Witch Buffy for kids. But nowadays, kids just watch Buffy. Sigh. 5.05 Never Had It So Good 5.30 Crossroads Scott barricades himself in his room. Aw, bless his angsty teenage heart.

6.05 The Hoobs 6.30 The Hoobs 6.55 RI:SE SH:IT. 9.00 Bewitched 9.30 Ysgolion/ Schools 12.00 Powerhouse 12.30 Planed Plant: Caio 12.35 Planed Plant: Caffi Sali Mali 12.50 Planed Plant: Mymryn Bach 1.00 Countdown 1.45 Channel 4 attheraces from York 3.30 Fifteen to One 4.00 SuperTed 4.10 Y Consuriwr 4.40 Sgorio Bach 4.50 Ffeil 5.00 Richard and Judy 6.00 Newyddion 6 6.05 Wedi 6 6.30 Rownd a Rownd 7.00 Pobol y Cwm 7.30 Newyddion 8.00 Tipyn O Stad 8.30 Ffermio 9.00 ER 10.00 Brookside

6.00 Sunrise 6.30 Beachcomber Bay 6.55 Nosey 7.00 Happy Monsters 7.15 Little Antics 7.20 Mr Men and Little Miss 7.30 Rolie Polie Olie 8.00 Bear in the Big Blue House 8.30 Barney 9.00 Jay Jay the Jet Plane 9.30 Designer for a Day 10.00 The Wright Stuff 11.00 T J Hooker 12.00 5 News at Noon 12.30 Home and Away 1.00 Family Affairs 1.30 Oprah 2.20 Open House with Gloria Hunniford 3.40 FILM: The Art of Murder 5.30 5 News Oh my days - just heard the new Muse single for the first time and it’s fuckin’ A! MUUUUUUUSE!!!

6.00 BBC News 6.30 Wales Today 7.00 Tomorrow's World 7.30 This Is Your Life 8.00 Queen and Country: Enduring Loyalties It’s been reported that the Queen’s ‘populist touch’ has been responsible for an upsurge of support for the monarchy. That’s because she invited lots of hacks to Buckingham Palace and plied them with very strong gin and tonics. 8.55 The National Lottery: Midweek Draws 9.00 Crimewatch UK 10.00 BBC News 10.25 Regional News and Weather 10.35 Crimewatch UK Update 10.45 Life Matters: Body Politics A documentary in which two female Welsh body builders attempt to reconcile their roles as wives and mothers with the ruthless training regime needed to win the big contests. Wins Most Disturbing Premise For Documentary Tonight award by a mile. 11.15 FILM: Red Heat 1.00 Sign Zone: Holiday on a Shoestring 1.30 Sign Zone: Antiques Roadshow 2.15 Sign Zone: The Toughest Job in Britain 2.45 Sign Zone: Ice Dogs 3.15 Sign Zone: Dome Raiders 4.10 Joins BBC News 24

4.30 Ready Steady Cook 5.15 Weakest Link 6.00 The Simpsons 6.20 Star Trek: Voyager One for geek boys with no sense of humour only. Like Games Desk. 7.05 TOTP2 Archive footage from Voice of the Beehive, Joe Cocker, Heaven 17, Robin Sarstedt, Sub Sub, and Lynne Hamilton. Plus new music from Norah Jones.

New music on TOTP2?! Oh my days! Anyway: no-one can quite remember who they were, a bit crap, ace in an ‘80s stylee, who?, fab former incarnation of Doves, who?, and meant-to-be-ace. 7.30 Your Money or Your Life 8.00 Home Front 9.00 The Experiment: Order 10.00 Dossa and Joe 10.30 Newsnight 11.20 Foot in the Door 11.50 48 Preludes and Fugues 12.00 Despatch Box 12.30 BBC Learning Zone: Open University: The Unusual Suspects 1.00 Independent Living 1.30 Open Advice - A Meeting of Minds 2.00 Secondary Schools: Expressive Arts Mad about Music 4.00 Languages: Talk German 12/Germany Inside Out: Munich and the South 5.00 Working in Travel and Tourism: Selling and Communication Skills

6.00 HTV News and Weather 6.30 ITV Evening News 7.00 Emmerdale Ray risks a double bluff with Louise to keep her in the dark. Oh, go on then. Fnarr.

7.30 UEFA Champions League Final Live: Bayer Leverkusen v Real Madrid ‘Actually going to be sponsored by Disney so the Mickey Mouse tag becomes official’ – Sports Desk, not at all bitter that Arsenal didn’t make it here. 9.50 Survivor 10.50 ITV News at Ten 11.20 Survivor: The Last Word What’s the difference between the Queen Mum and Margaret Thatcher? 11.55 FILM: Cold around the Heart About two weeks if we’re lucky. And especially if TV Nick’s voodoo continues to work. 1.40 Coach 2.05 Trisha 3.00 ITV at the Festivals 3.55 2002 FIFA World Cup Watch the UK population turn nocturnal.

4.20 ITV Nightscreen 5.30 ITV Early Morning News So Britney’s not a virgin after all – what a, um, shock. Still – when she first announced her virginity, at least people were interested enough to debate it. As opposed to Christina Aguilera, who just got laughed at. Aw, it’s her sluttishness we love.

10.30 Teachers 11.35 V Graham Norton 12.05 Jackass 12.30 The New Entrepreneurs 12.35 Flash 1.35 FILM: Rentadick 3.15 Public Enemy Number One CH4. As S4C except: 6.00 Animal Alphabet 9.30 Rata-Tat-Tat. 9.50 Number Crew 1 10.00 Mix. 10.15 All about Us. 10.30 English Programme. 10.50 Number Crew 2. 11.00 Hoobs. 11.25 First Edition. 11.40 Music.

12.30 ER 1.20 In Your Face: Sir Bobby Charlton 1.35 Channel 4 attheraces 3.45 Fifteen to One 4.15 Countdown 5.00 Richard and Judy 6.00 Smallville 7.00 Channel 4 News 7.55 The New Entrepreneurs 8.00 Brookside Bev's son Josh comes between Mike and Rachel. Fnarr! 8.30 Selling Houses This week, advice for an Essex couple having difficulty selling their property. Well, that’s cos it’s in Essex. Doh. 9.00 ER 10.00 Teachers 11.05 V Graham Norton 11.35 Ally McBeal 12.30 Strippers 1.00 FILM: Vault of Horror 2.30 Sacred Weeds: Salvia Divinorum 3.25 The Syphilis Enigma 4.15 Powerhouse 4.40 Vee-TV 5.10 Countdown 5.55 The Clangers

6.00 Home and Away 6.30 Family Affairs Gemma is distraught when she finds out that Fern told Paul about her kiss with Cameron. Never trust these plants, they hear everything. 7.00 Toyota World of Wildlife: Fur, Feathers, Scales and Skin Channel 5 expands its coverage of all things flesh to include examples from the animal world. 7.30 5 News 8.00 FILM: Doc Hollywood Utterly dreadful ‘romantic’ comedy’ featuring misshapen dwarf Michael J Fox. 10.30 FILM: Blowback Sounds like shite action bollocks, but appears to have been the inspiration for the latest Tricky album title. Which is a good thing. 11.50 NHL Ice Hockey Replay 4.10 Seniors Golf - Tobago Noooo Manchild are on the radio yet again. This time a duet with Kelly Jones; quite possibly the worst thing ever recorded. They’re playing at the Barfly as I type. A plague on anyone who went.

(Though there’s not much need – they’ve been punished enough already.) 5.00 Australian Rules Football Am now feeling slightly ill from eating two packets of love hearts. Rather like too much love, really.

Tomorrow’s World BBC1 7.00pm

Your Money or Your Life BBC2 7.30pm

The Big Match ITV1 7.30pm

Teachers C4 10.00pm

CHOICE Teachers S4C, 10.30pm It’s not an idea which should work.

Teachers, as I’m sure we all remember, are far from being exciting people (my insane former French teacher excepted, pace Mme Meare). And indeed there’s much to criticise about the resulting

sitcom/ drama: the way it can’t make up its mind which genre it is, the lazy characterisation, the implausibility of it all (since when did teachers go round discussing their sexual problems – in a corridor full of pupils at the tops of their voices?). And it still hasn’t decided what kind of school it’s set in: one minute the kids are lippy, surly and generally uncooperative; the next they’re paying full attention in class and analysing

Shakespeare with more depth than the dumb-ass teacher in charge. And yet, and yet – it works, in a strangely enjoyable way. It does everything well enough to pull viewers in again – a soundtrack with good tunes, competent one-liners, and surprisingly decent plots.

Not sure whether it’s supposed to be glamourising the profession, though; if it is, it ain’t working. No – it’s just another excuse to laugh at teachers.

Wednesday 15th May

Evening

BBC 2

Today’s Highlights

Daytime

BBC 1

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Television

15

16 May

Thursday

Daytime

BBC 2

HTV

S4C

CHANNEL 5

6.00 Breakfast 9.00 Kilroy 10.00 Ruby 11.00 Big Strong Boys 11.30 Bargain Hunt 12.00 No Win No Fee 12.30 Wipeout 1.00 BBC News; Weather 1.30 Regional News and Weather 1.45 Neighbours 2.10 Doctors 2.40 Diagnosis Murder 3.25 Tweenies Songtime; Tweenies 3.45 Arthur 4.10 The Cramp Twins 4.20 There's a Viking in My Bed 4.35 Jackie Chan Adventures 5.00 Short Change 5.25 Newsround 5.35 Neighbours Steph tries to make plans for her wedding, but Chloe is determined to get in the way.

6.00 Open University 6.30 On Pictures and Paintings 7.00 Chuck Finn 7.25 Histeria 7.45 Blue Peter 8.15 Andy Pandy 8.25 The Story Makers 8.40 Clifford 9.00 Teletubbies 9.50 Playdays 10.10 Tweenies 10.50 Hotch Potch House 11.10 Look and Read 11.30 Zig Zag 11.50 Landmarks 12.10 Focus 12.30 Working Lunch 1.00 Andy Pandy 1.10 Pingu 1.15 FILM: Days of Glory 2.40 Assembly Live 3.20 BBC News 3.30 Delia Smith 4.00 Afoot Again in the Past 4.05 Stefan's Ultimate Gardens 4.30 Ready Steady Cook 5.15 Weakest Link

6.00 GMTV 9.25 Trisha 10.30 This Morning 12.00 Family Fortunes 12.30 News and Weather 1.10 Shortland Street 1.40 Crossroads 2.10 Heartbeat 3.10 ITV News Headlines 3.15 HTV News and Weather 3.20 Tiny Planets 3.25 Maisy 3.30 Preston Pig 3.45 Sitting Ducks 4.15 It's a Mystery 4.35 Weirdsister College: The Further Adventures of the Worst Witch 5.05 Never Had It So Good Bitter old women whose own childhoods were wasted down the mines abuse small children with walking sticks.

5.30 Crossroads

6.05 The Hoobs 6.30 The Hoobs 6.55 RI:SE 9.00 Bewitched 9.30 Ysgolion / Schools 10.45 Test Cricket: 1st Test: England v Sri Lanka 1.05 The Lunch Break 1.35 Test Cricket and Channel 4 attheraces from York 4.00 Test Cricket 6.35 Wedi 6 7.00 Pobol y Cwm 7.30 Newyddion 8.00 Profiad 8.30 Tipyn O Stad 9.00 Selling Houses.

9.30 Treats from the Edwardian Country House Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall explores the extravagance of the Edwardian age. I fancy him, I do. Fact.

10.30 Procar Poeth 11.05 V Graham Norton

6.00 Sunrise 6.30 Beachcomber Bay 6.55 Nosey 7.00 Happy Monsters 7.15 Little Antics 7.20 Mr Men and Little Miss 7.30 Rolie Polie Olie 8.00 Bear in the Big Blue House 8.30 Barney 9.00 Jay Jay the Jet Plane 9.30 Designer for a Day 10.00 The Wright Stuff 11.00 T J Hooker Classic police drama with a fat, old William Shatner. It’s total, total genius. 12.00 5 News at Noon 12.30 Home and Away 1.00 Family Affairs 1.30 Oprah 2.20 Open House with Gloria Hunniford 3.40 FILM: Gunsmoke: The Long Ride 5.30 5 News

6.00 BBC News. 6.30 Wales Today 7.00 Animal Hospital Rolf Harris suffers a moment of madness and tries to force a hamster up his brown starfish.

7.30 EastEnders Janine hassles Ian. Dear god, why why why would anyone want to even attempt to shag Ian Beale? Mind you, we are talking about Janine ‘Munter’ Butcher here.

8.00 Death by DIY Nick Knowles attempts to murder innocent members of the public with common DIY implements. This week: the nail gun.

9.00 Most Wanted: A Shops, Robbers and Videotape Special 10.00 BBC News 10.25 Regional News and Weather 10.35 Question Time Why do women fancy Alan Titchmarch?

11.35 Dragon's Eye Insert eye of Japanese origin joke here.

12.05 FILM: The Road to Galveston 1.40 Sign Zone: Cannabis Cafes UK Where?

I want addreses! Not that I condone illegal drug taking, you understand.

2.10 Sign Zone: Tomorrow's World 2.40 Joins BBC News 24

6.00 The Simpsons 6.20 The Fresh Prince of Bel Air 6.45 Buffy the Vampire Slayer Total, total genius and anyone who disagrees needs a slap in the lady (or man) parts.

7.30 Reading the Ruins 8.00 Dragon's Eye 8.30 Panic Mechanics 9.00 Horizon: The A6 Murder 9.50 Crime Kids: Double Trouble Series focusing on stories involving children and crime. The tale of two 11-year-old boys who, in the early 1990s, became Britain's most persistent child criminals.

10.30 Newsnight With Jeremy Paxman.

11.20 Rugby Special 12.00 Despatch Box 12.30 BBC Learning Zone: Open Science: Cell City: City Life 1.00 The Next Big Thing: Cloning 1.35 Lab Detectives 1.50 What Have the 70s Ever Done for Us? One word: glitter. 2.00 Test Tube Miracle? 2.30 A Time to Be Born 3.00 Open Advice - The University without Walls 3.30 Curriculum Development: Teaching Today 4.00 Languages: How to Learn a Language 5.00 Working in Travel and Tourism: Computer Skills

6.00 HTV News and Weather Regional news round-up.

6.30 ITV Evening News; Weather 7.00 Emmerdale 7.30 Wales This Week Hullo, I’m new to this TV Desk lark having been roped in to ease Steve ‘Lazy Feckface’ Hurst’s heavy workload, so be nice. Or I’ll kill you. In a brutal yet interesting manner.

8.00 The Bill 9.00 Bad Girls Great stuff! Not a straight face or a dry gusset in the house.

10.00 ITV News at Ten 10.30 Baddiel and Skinner Unplanned Frank Skinner and David Baddiel – unscripted and totally unrehearsed. And (need I even say it?) totally crap.

11.00 Tonight with Trevor McDonald 11.30 Night and Day 12.35 Dharma and Greg 1.00 Riders and Rich Kids 1.25 CD:UK 1.50 Nelly Furtado in Profile 2.20 Cybernet 2.45 Motorsport UK 3.10 2002 FIFA World Cup 3.35 Tonight with Trevor McDonald 4.00 ITV Nightscreen 5.30 ITV Early Morning News

11.35 Daisy Daisy Daisy Donovan tours with an American heavy metal band.

I’ve developed an irrational hatred of Ms Donovan and this series is unlikely to change my mind, I fear.

12.05 Strippers 12.35 Today at the Test: England v Sri Lanka 1.05 The Book Group 1.35 Hypnosex 2.05 FILM: Hondo 3.35 - 4.25 Third Watch

6.00 Home and Away 6.30 Family Affairs Lewis gives Darren a hard time. Tee hee hee! Fnarr fnarr wahey! etc etc 7.00 The Pepsi Chart Is it me, or has this year been fairly shite for music, contrary to what TV desk said last week? For a start Atomic Kitten are still alive and Natalie Imbruglia still insists on upsetting us with her pseudo-tortured ranting.

It’s all bad, chums.

7.30 5 News 8.00 Life Doctor 8.30 Stark Naked Four-part documentary series on naturism. Heyhey! Now this is more like it! Good work Channel 5 fellas!

9.00 FILM: Code Name: Wolverine 10.55 Sex and Shopping 11.30 Sex and Shopping So good they showed it twice.

12.00 Jonathan Pearce's Football Night Right, I’m off to watch Buffy. Awesome scenes. Argentinian Football 2.00 Major League Soccer: Columbus Crew v San Jose Earthquakes 3.40 Channel 5 Football Classic: Germany v Kuwait 5.10 USPGA Golf: Verizon Byron Nelson Classic

CHOICE Diagnosis Murder BBC1, 2.40pm This is top quality pap from the other side of the pond. If you’re foolish enough to actually go to your lectures you may well have missed this gem of so-crap-it’s-fried-gold daytime

CH4. As S4C except: 9.30 4Learning 9.30 Scientific Eye. 9.50 The Number Crew 2. 10.00 Darren Gough's Cricket Academy.

10.25 Being Different. 10.35 Handmade 3. 10.40 Handmade 3. 7.00 Channel 4 News 7.30 Today at the Test: England v Sri Lanka 8.00 Brookside 8.30 Treats from the Edwardian Country House 9.00 Football Stories: The Ultimate Rulebreakers 10.00 Friends 10.30 Daisy Daisy 11.35 South Park 12.05 The Book Group 12.40 FILM: Death Race 2000 2.10 ICC Cricket World 2.45 Trans World Sport 3.45 The Meteorite that Vanished 4.40 Today at the Test: England v Sri Lanka 5.50 The Clangers

telly in which white-haired geratric doctor Dick Van Dyke (mercifully, or perhaps disappointingly, minus the Cocker-nee accent he sported in Mary Poppins) solves murders with his trusty medical sidekick. Aside from the mind-blowingly bizarre plots, shamefully obvious endings and simple scripts, you’re also treated to Barry Van Dyke, a man so ugly he makes Neil Hamilton look like a hunk-

Eastenders BBC1 7.30pm

Panic Mechanics BBC2 8.00pm

The Bill ITV1 8.00pm

Treats from the Edwardian Country House C4 8.30pm

Today’s Highlights 16th May

Evening

BBC 1

o-hunk o’ burnin’ lurve. What did Dick mate with to spawn such a creature?

Sadly, there’s no details of today’s plot, but expect it to involve a pink eyeshadow, a small piece of cheese and Barry Van Dyke looking slightly bamboozled by the whole thing.

Worth failing your degree for. Not that I advocate laziness or skiving. Oh no. I’m a hard worker me. Honest.

Television

16

17 May

Friday

Evening

HTV

S4C

CHANNEL 5

6.00 Breakfast 9.00 Kilroy 10.00 Ruby 11.00 Big Strong Boys 11.30 Bargain Hunt 12.00 No Win No Fee 12.30 Wipeout 1.00 BBC News; Weather 1.30 Regional News and Weather 1.45 Neighbours 2.10 Doctors 2.40 Diagnosis Murder 3.25 Tweenies 3.45 Arthur 4.10 The Woody Woodpecker Show 4.20 S Club Juniors: The Story 4.35 The Wild Thornberrys 5.00 Really Wild Show 5.25 Newsround 5.35 Neighbours

6.00 OU 6.50 Ever Wondered? 7.00 Ocean Odyssey 7.25 Histeria 7.45 Short Change 8.15 Pablo 8.25 The Story Makers 8.40 Clifford the Big Red Dog 9.00 Teletubbies 9.50 Playdays 10.10 Tweenies 10.50 Punch the Clock 11.05 Numbertime 11.20 Words & Pictures 11.35 Watch 11.50 Zig Zag 12.10 Landmarks 12.30 Working Lunch 1.00 Pablo 1.10 Pingu 1.15 FILM: Bhowani Junction 3.05 Afoot Again in the Past 3.20 BBC News 3.30 Delia Smith's Summer Collection 4.00 Afoot Again in the Past 4.05 Stefan's Ultimate Gardens

6.00 GMTV 9.25 Trisha 10.30 This Morning 12.00 Family Fortunes 12.30 ITV News and Weather 1.10 Shortland Street 1.40 Your Century 2.10 Village People 2.40 Get Gardening 3.10 ITV News Headlines 3.15 HTV News and Weather 3.20 Tiny Planets 3.25 Maisy 3.30 Preston Pig 3.45 Butt-Ugly Martians 4.15 Star Street 4.40 Sabrina, the Teenage Witch 5.05 Never Had It So Good 5.30 Catchphrase

6.05 The Hoobs 6.30 The Hoobs 6.55 RI:SE 9.00 Bewitched 9.30 Ysgolion/Schools 10.45 Test Cricket: 1st Test: England v Sri Lanka 1.05 The Lunch Break 1.35 Test Cricket and Channel 4 attheraces from Newbury 4.00 Test Cricket: 1st Test: England v Sri Lanka 6.35 Wedi 6 7.00 Pobol y Cwm 7.30 Newyddion 8.00 Tic Toc 8.30 Pawb a'i Farn 9.30 So You Think You Want... A Healthy Lifestyle Jaci Stephen undertakes two weeks of healthy eating, exercise and no alcohol. Will she notice any significant improvement in her health?

6.00 Sunrise 6.30 Beachcomber Bay 6.55 Nosey 7.00 Happy Monsters 7.15 Little Antics 7.20 Mr Men and Little Miss 7.30 Rolie Polie Olie 8.00 Bear in the Big Blue House 8.30 Barney 9.00 Jay Jay the Jet Plane 9.30 You Can't Take It with You 10.00 The Wright Stuff 11.00 T J Hooker 12.00 5 News at Noon 12.30 Home and Away 1.00 Family Affairs 1.30 Oprah 2.20 Open House with Gloria Hunniford 3.40 The Return of Marcus Welby, MD 5.30 5 News

6.00 BBC News 6.30 Wales Today 7.00 The Toughest Job in Britain BBC pursues its public service remit by wreaking ritual humiliation upon Jeremy Spake.

7.30 Top of the Pops 8.00 EastEnders 8.30 Alistair McGowan's Big Impression 9.00 Have I Got News for You Guests include Lord Bill Deedes and Dr. Fox. Awesome butty!

9.30 Blackadder II Ben Elton, how far you’ve fallen since these heady hights.

10.00 BBC News 10.25 Regional News and Weather 10.35 Friday Night with Jonathan Ross Guests include Ronnie Corbett and Sanjeev Bhaskar. Corbett, you’re a legend. Far, far funnier than Ronnie Barker. I love being provocative, me.

11.20 FILM: We're No Angels With Robert De Niro and Sean Penn. Anyone seen We’re No Angels? “Is it a Dido album?” Just get on the special bus and fuck off.

1.05 FILM: Attack of the 50 Foot Woman With Daryl Hannah and Daniel Baldwin.

Directed by Christopher Guest, but still a bag o’ shite.

2.30 Joins BBC News 24

4.30 Ready Steady Cook 5.15 Weakest Link 6.00 The Simpsons 6.20 The Fresh Prince of Bel Air Kinda like an American ‘Two Pints of Lager & a Packet of Crisps’.

Why is it so popular?

6.45 The New Adventures of Superman 7.30 Small Town Gardens 8.00 The Curious Gardeners 8.30 Gardeners' World 9.00 A Queen's Kingdom Why is she so popular?

Interesting Fact: According to Kitty Kelley, Lizzie & Margaret were conceived with the aid of a turkey baster.

10.30 Newsnight 11.00 Newsnight Review Tom Paulin’s back! Better watch out Pearlo!

11.35 Later with Jools Holland Featuring music from Beverley Knight, Eric Burdon, Wilco, Damon Albarn and Afel Bocoum, and Norah Jones.

12.40 Buffy the Vampire Slayer 1.25 FILM: Melvin and Howard Directed by Jonathan Demme.

3.00 BBC Learning Zone: Secondary Schools: Expressive Arts - Marsalis on Music

6.00 HTV News and Weather 6.30 ITV Evening News; Weather 7.00 Emmerdale Seth discovers the potential of his new webcam. Christ, anyone got any Tums?

7.30 Coronation Street 8.00 Confessions of...

Doctors and Nurses Not rude....

8.30 Inspector Morse and not the rave episode. Gutted.

10.30 Tarrant on TV Its people like you, Tarrant, who keep me here thinking up tat when I’ve got an essay in tomorrow.

11.00 ITV Weekend News 11.20 HTV News 11.30 Anatomy of Disaster: Crashing Continents Series documenting natural disasters and their devastating effects. This edition focuses on the disastrous effects of plate tectonics.

12.30 Dial-a-Date 1.00 Dare to Believe 1.30 Veronica's Closet 1.55 Box Office America 2.25 Semisonic in Profile 2.50 Mixmasters 3.15 World Football 3.40 Trisha 4.40 ITV Nightscreen 5.30 ITV Early Morning News

More to the point, is it worth it?

10.00 Brookside 10.35 Frasier 11.05 V Graham Norton 11.40 South Park 12.10 World Rally Argentina 12.40 Today at the Test: England v Sri Lanka 1.10 ICC Cricket World 1.40 FILM: Man Bites Dog Splendid! But we recommended this last week.

3.30 FILM: Man with the Gun With Robert Mitchum.

Wicked! I love Mitchum but you may have gathered that.

CH4. As S4C except: 6.00 Ivor the Engine 9.30 4Learning 9.30 Royal Institute Christmas Lectures. 10.20 La Tienda des Luis. 10.35 Being Different. 7.00 Channel 4 News 7.30 Today at the Test: England v Sri Lanka 8.00 So You Think You Want... A Healthy Lifestyle 8.30 Brookside 9.00 Father Ted 9.30 The Book Group 10.00 Frasier 10.35 Frasier 11.40 Jackass 12.40 Daisy Daisy 1.10 Onedottv 1.45 FILM: Blood Simple Ace Coen Brothers film 3.35 Third Watch 4.25 Tulip 4.45 Today at the Test: England v Sri Lanka 5.10 Countdown 5.55 Bagpuss

6.00 Home and Away 6.30 Family Affairs 7.00 5 News 7.05 UEFA Under-21s European Championship: England v Switzerland 9.20 FILM: The Silencers With Jack Scalia and Dennis Christopher. Science fiction adventure in which a secret agent assigned to protect a cryogenic transporter uncovers a sinister alien plot to invade and take over the Earth. Pitted against sophisticated alien weaponry and intelligence, the agent and his assistant race against time to avert the ultimate demise of mankind. But I bet they get there in the end.

11.20 FILM: A Passion for Murder Adult drama about a private investigator who becomes involved in depraved situations after a smut kingpin hires him for protection against a would-be assassin - who may just be one of his horde of lovelies.

Like the sound of this, don’t you?

1.00 Xena: Warrior Princess: The Debt 2.25 FILM: Band of Angels With Clark Gable and Yvonne de Carlo.

4.25 Two 5.10 Sons and Daughters 5.35 Sons and Daughters

Alistair McGowan’s Big Impression BBC1 8.30pm

The Curious Gardeners BBC2 8.00pm

Coronation Street ITV1 7.30pm

The Book Group C4 9.30pm

CHOICE V Graham Norton S4C, 11.05 pm I hate ‘Choice’ more than Monarchy itself. Cos there’s never anything worth watching. I have to nip out for a fag on the balcony to think it over. And speaking of aha ha ha fags, er V Graham Norton.

Sorry, yeah I’ve gone for the safe option, cos Graham usually passes the time quite pleasantly. But then I expect by now you know whether you either love him or hate him and his daily show’s really no change from the tried and tested formula. Though it’s a hell of a lot better than Johnny Vaughn’s banger of a vehicle. Gutted I missed Grace Jones on the first V Graham Norton. She still does it for me.

Who would the office have as their ideal chatshow guests? “Evan Dando, Jimi Goodwin and Fran Healy, but that’s just men I want to shag.” Er, cheers Gemma, you’re the new Harold Wilson of chatshows. What about you, Sarah? “Brett Anderson” Pourquoi? “Cos he’s fit and may have some drug related stories”.

Bladon wins for Les Dennis. “I bet he’s got a few stories to tell”.

Friday 17th May

BBC 2

Today’s Highlights

Daytime

BBC 1

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Television

17

18 May

Saturday HTV

S4C

7.00 Spot's Musical Adventures 7.10 The Shiny Show 7.30 Pocket Dragon Adventures 7.45 The Genie from Down Under 8.10 Yvon of the Yukon 8.35 Rugrats 9.00 The Saturday Show 12.00 BBC News; Weather 12.10 Football Focus 1.00 Grandstand 1.10 Table Tennis 2.20 Olympic Dreams 2.35 Disability Athletics 2.50 Athletics 4.45 Final Score 5.25 BBC News; Weather 5.40 Wales Today 5.45 Friends like These

7.00 Weekend 24 8.15 See Hear on Saturday 9.00 Weekend 24 10.00 Saturday Kitchen 12.00 Star Trek: The Next Generation 12.45 FILM: Logan's Run 2.40 Scrum V Live 5.15 Malcolm in the Middle 5.40 Trade Secrets Professionals A team of explorers equip you to deal with life's difficulties.

5.50 Hollywood Greats: Cary Grant Awesome!

Watch this!

O xxxxxxx xx xx x __ x X x I I x I x I I x I

6.00 GMTV 9.25 SMTV Live 11.30 CD:UK 12.30 ITV News; Weather 12.35 HTV News and Weather 12.40 International Motor Racing 1.10 FILM: Our Lips Are Sealed Biopic of Luce Irigaray.

2.55 FILM: Oscar 4.55 HTV News and Weather 5.05 ITV News; Sports Results; Weather 5.25 Lily Savage's Blankety Blank Little picture for you there. Can you guess what it is yet? Can I go home and do my essay now?

6.10 The Hoobs 6.35 Blue's Clues 7.05 GT on 4 7.30 Cisco City Challenge 8.00 Trans World Sport 9.00 The Morning Line 10.00 Cricket Roadshow 10.55 Test Cricket: 1st Test: England v Sri Lanka 1.05 The Lunch Break 1.25 Channel 4 attheraces from Newbury and Nottingham 2.25 Y Clwb Rygbi: LLanelli v Pontypridd 5.00 Test Cricket: 1st Test: England v Sri Lanka 6.45 Newyddion a Chwaraeon 7.00 Tipyn O Stad Omnibws

6.00 Russell Grant's Postcards 6.10 WideWorld 6.35 WideWorld 7.00 Sunrise 8.00 Klootz 8.05 Fat Dog Mendoza 8.30 Mega Babies 8.55 The Powerpuff Girls 9.20 Xcalibur 9.50 Max Steel 10.20 Animal Xtremes 10.35 Hercules: The Legendary Journeys 11.30 Zoe 12.00 5 News Saturday 12.30 The Pepsi Chart 1.00 Popular 1.55 The Tribe 2.55 Home and Away Omnibus 5.00 FILM: Don't Look under the Bed

6.40 The Waiting Game 7.20 The National Lottery: In It to Win It 8.10 Casualty 9.00 Parkinson Guests are “comedian” Ben Elton (die Elton, die), rock group Queen, television presenter Charlotte Uhlenbroek (who?) and musician Barry Manilow(why?).

10.05 BBC News; Weather 10.30 FILM: True Lies With Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis. An allaction secret agent investigating Arab terrorists discovers that his unsuspecting wife has been seduced by tales of spying from a used-car salesman.

Embroiled in a mission investigating the smuggling of nuclear weapons, the agent decides to use the resources available to him to stop his wife from embarking upon a romantic liaison.

Directed by James Cameron.

Not bad actually, hope they don’t make a sequal, but far more interesting is the fact that Jamie Lee Curtis is chromasomally a man. This is true.

12.45 Friday Night with Jonathan Ross 1.35 Top of the Pops 2.05 Joins BBC News 24

6.30 Omnibus: Matisse: Paradise Found 7.20 Omnibus: Matisse: Paradise Indulged Couple of documentaries marking start of the spiffing new Matisse/ Picasso exhibition at Tate Modern.

8.10 Queen of Sheba: Behind the Myth 9.00 Dickens: Blazing Away Peter Ackroyd introduces a docudrama series examining the life and times of 19thcentury author Charles Dickens.

10.00 Arena: Estonia Dreams of Eurovision In Tallinn, Marina Zenovich learns why the song competition has captured the imagination of this relatively new state and why victory may provide the key to membership of the EU and NATO. Eh? I’d take issue with that.

11.05 Have I Got News for You 11.35 FILM: The Sweet Hereafter With Ian Holm.

Directed by Atom Egoyan.

1.25 FILM: The Music of Chance With James Spader and Mandy Patinkin. Based on the novel by Paul Auster.

Directed by Philip Haas.

3.00 BBC Learning Zone: Exam Revision: GCSE Bitesize Revision: Maths 3

6.05 You've Been Framed!

6.30 The Vault 7.15 Blind Date 8.15 Family Fortunes Les Dennis ruefully reflects on his domestic arrangements.

8.45 ITV Weekend News 9.00 An Audience with Lulu 10.15 2DTV 10.45 FILM: Groundhog Day With Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. Any good, Sarah? “Yeah, it’s an interesting concept, executed quite well.” Any further witticisms? It’s rather a large space. “Er, Andie McDowell’s hair is hilarious”. That’ll do, thanks.

12.40 Survivor 1.40 Baddiel and Skinner Unplanned Nowhere near as funny as it should be.

Bizarrely, when Baddiel tasted success he abandoned his PhD in er, ‘Childhood Sexuality in the Early Victorian Novel’. So that’s how he gets to make a twat of himself on book prize panels.

2.10 Dial-a-Date 2.35 FILM: Malone With Burt Reynolds and Cliff Robertson.

4.10 Cybernet 4.35 World Sport 5.00 ITV Nightscreen 5.30 ITV Early Morning News

8.00 Noson Lawen I'w Chofio 9.05 Y Clwb Weekend 9.35 Y Clwb 9.50 The 100 Greatest World Cup Moments 12.50 World Rally Argentina 1.20 Today at the Test: England v Sri Lanka 1.50 FILM: Twice Round the Daffodils With Juliet Mills and Donald Sinden.

The comic capers and romantic involvements of patients in the men's ward of a TB sanatorium, including an RAF officer, a Welsh miner and a country bumpkin. Directed by Gerald `Carry On' Thomas.

3.25 Secrets of the Dead

6.45 Charmed 7.35 5 News and Sport 8.00 Soap Stars up a Mountain AND STAY THERE! 9.00 CSI: Crime Scene Investigation 9.55 Law and Order 10.55 Murder Detectives: Postal Mortem 11.25 The Jerry Atrick Show 11.55 The Laureus World Sports Awards 1.40 FILM: You're a Big Boy Now Not as filthy as it sounds, it’s directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

3.10 FILM: Crime in the Streets With John Cassavetes. Harrowing tale of an alienated teenage gang leader who conspires with his youthful cronies to murder an outside aggressor. After trying their terrible tactics on an unfortunate tramp, they proceed with their deadly plan, despite protestations and warnings from a concerned social worker.

Directed by Donald Siegel.

Bit grim for a Channel 5 Saturday night. Gutted I bought that job lot of Kleenex. 4.45 Russell Grant's Postcards 4.50 Hercules: the Legendary Journeys 5.35 Sons and Daughters

CH4. As S4C except: 1.25 Test Cricket and Channel 4 attheraces 4.00 Test Cricket: 1st Test: England v Sri Lanka 6.45 Channel 4 News 7.20 FILM: Carry On up the Khyber 9.00 The 100 Greatest World Cup Moments 12.00 World Rally - Argentina 12.35 Today at the Test: England v Sri Lanka 1.05 FILM: The People vs Larry Flynt 3.30 Dark Skies 4.25 Code Name: Eternity 5.15 Phantom Tiger

CHANNEL 5

Casualty BBC1 8.10pm

Dickens BBC2 9.00pm

The Vault ITV1 6.55pm

CSI C5 9.00pm

CHOICE

greatest film actors evverrr. From Clifton, Archie ran away to the circus, became an Hollywood Greats: Cary acrobat and went to America. After securing a studio contract, he changed his name to the Grant slightly smoother Cary Grant.

BBC 2, 5.50 pm Expect the programme to gloss over the Yeah, I chose the one on Robert Mitchum last eleven years spent with Randolph Scott as week but look, it’s Bristol’s Archie Leach this his ‘housemate’ and alleged seductions by week! Arguably, Bob and Cary are the two Howard Hughes, among other scurrilous

Saturday 18th May

Evening

BBC 2

Today’s Highlights

Daytime

BBC 1

rumours. Taking in five wives along the way, hopefully they’ll mention that he wore women’s underwear “because it’s more comfortable”. Also, perhaps that he wouldn’t have sex more than once a day due to the Native American saying, “Take my cum, take my strength”.

Still, the smoothest bugger that ever lived. Cary, I salute you.

Television

18

19 May

Sunday HTV

S4C

CHANNEL 5

6.00 Breakfast 9.00 Breakfast with Frost 10.00 That's The Spirit! Indeed it is. 11.00 The Cruise 11.30 Countryfile Does John Craven still do this? He was the man on Newsround.12.00 On the Record 1.00 Afoot Again in the Past 1.05 Keeping Up Appearances Hyacinth Bucket is my grandma 1.35 FILM: Zulu Dawn 3.25 EastEnders 5.15 Points of View 5.30 BBC News; Weather 5.50 Regional News; Weather Local news.

5.55 Songs of Praise Diane Louise Jordan’s in Sheffield for a special edition of the programme.

7.00 CBeebies: Teletubbies 7.45 CBBC: The Genie from Down Under 8.10 50/50 8.35 Rugrats 9.00 Yvon of the Yukon 9.25 Super Duper Sumos 9.45 S Club Juniors: The Story 10.00 S Club 7: Don't Stop Movin' 10.25 Even Stevens 10.50 Kenan and Kel 11.20 Star Trek A never-beforebroadcast episode where Kirk, Spock and Uhura make sweet lurve on the bridge of the Enterprise. Honest.

12.10 Star Trek 1.00 homeground 1.30 Sunday Grandstand 1.35 Rugby Union 4.30 Adventure Racing 4.40 Sport Relief Update 4.45 Triathlon

6.00 GMTV 9.25 Stuff 9.55 Garfield and Friends 10.25 Clueless Yes, I am rather.

I’ve just managed to crash one of the GR computers and I’ve just lost almost all my work. Insert string of highly offensive swearwords here.

10.50 Disney Cartoon 11.00 My Favourite Hymns 12.00 A Little Bit of Heaven This week: Ant and Dec naked and covered in chocolate.

12.30 Waterfront 12.55 HTV News and Weather 1.00 Jonathan Dimbleby 2.00 That's Esther 2.30 FILM: Arabesque What, like an Arab?

4.30 Nash Bridges 5.30 Grass Roots

6.20 The Hoobs 6.45 The Hoobs 7.10 The Players 7.35 Taina 8.00 As If 8.30 Hollyoaks Omnibus 10.30 Test Cricket: 1st Test: England v Sri Lanka 1.05 The Lunch Break 1.35 Test Cricket: 1st Test: England v Sri Lanka 6.35 Pobol y Cwm This is genius.

Probably. 8.30 Oedfa'r Pentecost 9.00 Pen Tennyn 9.30 Newyddion 9.45 Maniffesto 10.15 FILM: Arlington Road Paranoia-orama 12.05 World Rally 12.35 Today at the Test: England v Sri Lanka 1.05 Battle Centre 2.50 FILM: Texas Critically acclaimed biopic of Sharleen Spiteri.

6.00 Russell Grant's Postcards 6.05 WideWorld 6.30 It's Your Funeral 7.00 Beachcomber Bay 7.30 Tickle, Patch and Friends 8.05 Adventures from the Book of Virtues 8.35 Babar 9.05 Wishbone 9.35 Redwall 10.05 Pet Project 10.35 The New Adventures of Robin Hood 11.30 Date That 12.00 You Know What I'm Saying 12.30 5 News Update 12.40 Moto GP: France 2.30 FILM: The Cowboys 4.55 5 News and Sport 5.25 FILM: The NeverEnding Story Oh my life, a classic. A total classic.

The big shaggy dog thingy rocks.

6.30 The RHS Chelsea Flower Show Preview Yay! Pretty flowers! Also including the first koi carp garden at the show. Hm, fish and flowers. Good god, how am I meant to make this funny and exciting dammit?!

7.30 Ground Force Garden makeovers presented by Alan Titchmarsh, who is apparently considered a sex god in some circles. Not by me though, oh no. Honest.

8.00 Born and Bred Drama series about father-and-son doctors, set in a 1950s village. Looks like utter arse to me. Avoid as you would avoid Dot Cotton on heat.

9.00 Auf Wiedersehen, Pet Drama series following the fortunes of a group of British builders. If Jimmy Nail’s as good at acting as he is at singing this should be genius.

10.00 BBC News; Weather 10.15 Panorama: Fingerprints on Trial 10.55 FILM: Jaws 2 With Roy Scheider and Lorraine Gary. (Drama, 1978) “Not as good as Jaws”, choruses the entire GR office.

Directed by Jeannot Szwarc.

12.50 Joins BBC News 24 Ostriches can swim. So can moles. Fact.

6.10 World Cup News BAN THIS SICK FILTH!!!

6.25 Scrum V BAN THIS SICK FIL...actually, no, don’t. I don’t wanna get beaten up by angry, ugly rugby players on my first day at TV desk.

7.15 Looking for Karadzic: A Maggie O'Kane Investigation. On the trail of Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian-Serb leader who is charged with leading the slaughter of thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Croats.

8.00 Ray Mears's Extreme Survival 9.00 Hooligans: Kicking Off Three-part investigation into football hooliganism. It’s not big, it’s not hard and it’s not clever.

Unlike me.

10.00 24 Is this worth the hype? Answers on a postcard.

10.45 The X Files Starring Robert Partick looking perplexed as if searching for a lost pound coin.

11.30 Room 101 12.00 Later with Jools Holland I wish Jools was my uncle.

2.00 BBC Learning Zone: Exam Revision: GCSE Bitesize Revision: English 2 - Poetry 4.00 Languages: Get By in Portuguese 5.00 Working in Travel and Tourism: Customer Care for All

6.00 HTV News and Weather 6.15 Presenters The search to find a new HTV presenter among 500 hopefuls. The contestants have to construct a presentation working with snakes and cockroaches. EH? 6.45 ITV News; Weather 7.00 Wish You Were Here...?

7.30 Coronation Street Molly tells Sally she's welcome to have Kevin. Oh, that’s so a fnarr.

8.00 Where the Heart Is 9.00 The Beckhams' World Cup Charity Party 10.05 Frank Skinner: Kimonos for Goalposts ITV ship the unfunny Brummie to Japan for some spurious football-related reason.

11.05 2DTV 11.15 ITV Weekend News 11.30 Ultimate Questions Is that song by Tweet really about the joys of onanism?

12.15 FILM: AWOL: Absent Without Leave With Jean-Claude Van Damme.

“An intellectual romp” says Film Desk, possibly untruthfully. 2.15 My Favourite Hymns 3.10 Box Office America 3.35 Motorsport UK 4.05 ITV Nightscreen 5.30 ITV Early Morning News

CH4. As S4C except: 6.15 The Magic Roundabout 7.10 Blue's Clues 7.35 T4 8.30 T4: Hollyoaks Omnibus An impossibly high number of impossibly stupid blondes dither through their impossibly dull lives.

Do we care? No, but it’s a damn sight better than revision.

7.00 Channel 4 News 7.35 Today at the Test: England v Sri Lanka 8.05 The Colombian Connection 9.00 The West Wing Presidential frolics.

10.00 FILM: Arlington Road With Tim Robbins and Jeff Bridges. (Thriller, 1999) Conspiracy thriller.

12.10 World Rally Argentina 12.40 V Graham Norton Norton but nice.

(Arf.) 1.45 Anatomy of Disgust An in-depth examination of Camilla Parker-Bowles’s pock-marked and craggy arse.

2.45 State of Terror 3.45 Liberty! - the American Revolution: Blows Must Decide A fnarr there if you think about it, I’m sure.

4.40 Catastrophe - The Day the Sun Went Out 5.35 Today at the Test: England v Sri Lanka

7.05 5 News Update 7.10 Martial Law Police drama series.

8.00 Ultimate Supercars Broom broom!

9.00 FILM: Johnny Mnemonic With Keanu Reeves and Dolph Lundgren Futuristic drama about a courier who smuggles information in a computer chip in his head.

The only time the wide open space between his ears has benefitted Mr. Reeves.

10.55 Hard B-----ds: Hugh Collins Kate Kray presents a documentary series about men and women with criminal records. This week, Billie Piper is made to explain precisely what Honey to the B was all about before being brutally beaten.

11.30 Law and Order 12.30 UEFA European Under-21s Championship Report 1.00 Major League Baseball Live: Houston Astros v Pittsburgh Pirates It’s like rounders but with a bigger stick. Really quite sad.

4.25 Major League Baseball Replay What, no tacky soft-core porn for me to review?

Hmph. What’s this channel coming to, I ask you?

Auf Wierdershen, Pet BBC1 9.00pm

The X-Files BBC2 10.45pm

The Forsythe Saga ITV1 9.00pm

The West Wing C4 9.00pm

CHOICE The Beckhams’ World Cup Charity Party HTV, 9.00pm A behind-the-scenes look at the party of the year, as David and Victoria Beckham host a send off for England's World Cup squad while raising a big sum for charity

into the bargain.

I dispute the use of the phrase “party of the year” – I mean, how good can a party hosted by a jumped up Essex girl and her pea-brained footballing husband really be?

Still, it’s always nice to have an opportunity to laugh your arse off at old Vicky ‘n’ Becky, even if they are the most overexposed couple in the history of humankind.

Expect awesome backstage scenes as

Mr Golden Balls slips into one of his wife’s lacy thongs (allegedly) and Victoria bleaches her moustache hair and waxes her legs in anticipation of a great night out with various B-listers and some men who kick a ball around.

While I’m here and I’ve got some space to fill, just what are those crisp adverts that Vicko’s doing all about? Gary Lineker’s a better actor than her, and apparently she’s been taking acting lessons. Balls!

Sunday 19th May

Evening

BBC 2

Today’s Highlights

Daytime

BBC 1

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13.05.02

Focus

The Gair Rhydd Features Section Free Word 721

The War On Humanity

The war between the Hindus and Muslims in India continues. Yet how long can we continue to use the ‘War on Terrorism’ as an excuse? How can we decide who is at fault and who is to blame? Where do we draw the line between revenge and fascism? Pete Samuels attacks the reality of a state torn apart on the war-ridden streets of Gujarat

D

awn. A city comes into view. With its skyline smoky from a few slowly burning cars and houses and its streets close to empty, you couldn’t be blamed for mistaking Ahmedabad for Jenin or Ramallah. While the stalemate in the Middle East has captured news headlines in recent times, half a world away carnage of another sort has unfolded in India. The site for the latest spree of violence between Hindus and Muslims is the northwestern state of Gujarat.

Still recovering from the devastating earthquake last year, Gujarat has been hit by a harrowing cycle of blood-letting triggered by an arson attack by Muslims on a train carrying Hindu activists. Although

“The commercial capital of Gujarat, Ahmedabad, was the scene of serious violence.

Muslims and Hindus hacking and burying each other alive”

Destruction: May 7 2002

‘investigations’ are still ongoing, reports suggest that this act of violence was provoked by harassment

by Hindu extremists. A total of 58 people, including children, are reported to have died in the fire.

What followed, it has come to light, was the execution of a marathon of revenge attacks lasting some three days. It has left an estimated 2,000 people dead and nearly a million dispossessed. A recent independent report by the New York based monitor Human Rights Watch is the latest to condemn both the local and central governments for deliberately assisting the revenge attacks on Muslims.

Far-right groups closely affiliated to the Hindu nationalist BJP government are reported to have immediately responded to the train attack by whipping-up the local Hindu population with the rhetoric of revenge. With lists of Muslim residences, businesses, organisations and mosques printed out for them by the local authorities, Hindu gangs of up to 5,000 went out seeking Muslims.

Documented details of the attacks make disturbing reading. The commercial capital of Gujarat, Ahmedabad, was the scene of serious violence. Muslims and Hindus hacking and burning each other alive.

Property was vandalised and pillaged, and as is often the case, rape was used as a weapon against many young, married and elderly women.

Pregnant women had their foetuses cut out before being dismembered and burned. The police often took part in the killing. Calls to other emergency services were met with silence and in some areas phone lines had been cut

Muslim women confront policemen: Ahmeddad, May 8 2002

altogether.

While most of the attacks took place in early March, sporadic violence and various acts of discrimination have continued with virtually no positive concern being shown by the government. Some 80 thousand are estimated to be living in poorly conditioned camps. Those fortunate not to have been caught in the violence live in fear. Their children, if brave enough to go to school, are escorted under military guard.

If anything, the political response to this crisis is cause for concern on par with the rise of fascism in Europe.

India’s secular constitution has never rested well with the Hindu right but what is important is the way in which their rhetoric has been able to ride the post-September 11th political climate.

With George Bush’s ‘you’re either with us or against us’ mandate, fascist forces the world over have been able to use the ‘war on terrorism’ for furthering their agendas and the events in Gujarat could possibly be a reflection of this. While communal

tension between Hindus and Muslims (particularly in Gujarat) is nothing new, a new audacity was all too apparent in Gujarat. Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s description of the attacks as a show of ‘remarkable constraint’. Similarly, the Indian Prime Minister A. B. Vajpayee has been providing comments along the lines of ‘spontaneous reaction’ referring to the attacks.

While I in no way intend to belittle the tragic deaths of the Hindus on the train and in the violence that has followed, the way in which a democratically elected government has been able to behave in such circumstances is a worrying sign of the new currency of acceptability that fascism is forging for itself.

In India the Hindu right sees nationhood and Hinduism as the same thing and ultimately does not regard non-Hindus as indigenous Indians.

Both Hinduism and India are all the poorer for it.

Although the events in India over the past few months have represented the truly vicious face of extreme right-

wing tendencies, they are part of the same desire to purge democracy of diversity that we have seen from Oldham to Paris.

For more information Websites of Interest:

Human Rights Watch: http://www.hrw.org/ (Includes the report titled ‘We Have No Orders to Save You’: State Participation and Complicity in Communal Violence in Gujarat) Bharatia Janta Party (BJP - Indian People’s Party): http://www.bjp.org/ (Includes details of party organisation, history, philosophy etc.)

Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP): http://www.vhp.org/ Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS): http://www.rss.org/

INSIDE FOCUS THIS WEEK: Welsh culture in danger • World Cup fever • Britney Spears • Media Awards madness

Focus • 10

Gair Rhydd Monday 13th May 2002

Wellcomm too Univercitty

Misspellings, mindless ignorance, and Anglephone domination. Siwan Roberts attacks the rape of the Welsh language and urges us to immerse ourselves in the endangered culture of the Welsh heartland

Y

ou may be wondering why this title is not spelt correctly. The thought is likely to have crossed your mind at least. You probably understand the intended meaning of the title, but are intrigued (maybe annoyed – depending on your disposition) as to why such appaling spelling was ever put to print. It’s possible, if you’re the inquisitive type, that one or more of the following thoughts occurred to you: Can the title be a typing error? (No. I mean, no one’s ever that unlucky, are they?)

Does the writer of this piece have great difficulty with English spelling?

(Even if that’s the case, someone must have checked over it before printing, right? Or, how about using a dictionary?) Is the clever writer trying to make a subtle point that will reveal itself as this article progresses?

(Ah. I’ll read on to find out. I somehow feel compelled to do so).

Just imagine, for a second, that you lived in a world where everyday, all around you, there are signs, leaflets, posters, advertisements and official documents where these sorts of thoughts (well, the first two at least) pass through your mind every time you look at them or read them. Go on, imagine. Really IMAGINE. Astonishingly, this is the cold reality of what thousands of Welsh-speaking students in Cardiff face every day.

Imagine what they must be going through. What they are feeling. Their frustrations. Imagine having grown up as a child speaking Welsh. Speaking Welsh to family and friends. Attending Welsh schools (primary and secondary) and studying every subject (except English – your second language, and French – your third) through the medium of Welsh. Speaking Welsh in

“What struck me on arrival at this University we have in Cardiff was the widespread ignorance, misconceptions and even discrimination toward Welsh speakers still prominent”

shops, cafes, bars. Reading Welsh books and magazines. Watching Welsh TV and listening to Welsh radio.

You know about this language – you know it’s real and definitely out there in the world. However, you arrive to start University in the capital city of Wales and are faced with a whole new reality where no one can predict from one minute to the next what new and bizarre versions of your language will confront you. After years of becoming accustomed to the spelling and grammatical rules of your native language, all the signs and posters around you are telling you something very different.

You may feel that this is a lot of fuss about nothing. Of course, a few spelling errors here and there may not seem worthy of major concern. You may argue that it’s hardly a cause for wild panic. However, my fear (shared by many others) is that it might be reflecting something much more deeprooted than the seemingly trivial issue of sticking letters in the right place.

What struck me on arrival at this University was the widespread ignorance, misconceptions and even discrimination toward Welsh speakers still prominent in many non-Welsh individuals even at this day and age. I was amazed (if not appaled) that some people (professors and students alike) thought that Welsh lessons might occur in schools in Wales as maybe Latin lessons occur in schools in England. I still remember the words of a professor in my department when I explained that I studied my A-levels through the medium of Welsh: “Mathematics through the medium of Welsh?! How extraordinary!”

Not very extraordinary, I thought to myself. Considering that the inhabitants of many countries in the world learn mathematics in their native language.

More to the point, my educational history was very ordinary considering that Welsh language education is very common in Wales (with every school offering at least GCSE level Welsh).

What was extraordinary, however, was that this grown (apparently welleducated) man who lived and worked in Cardiff had no idea that all around him, people were immersing in a strange and peculiar thing – they were living their lives through the medium of Welsh.

The feminist movement continues to influence life today. Individuals such as Martin Luther King, Ghandi or Nelson Mandela are all nowadays regarded as heroes of their time. Preventing racism.

Promoting equality. It seems that many students are still constantly raving on about feminism, human rights, equality for all. As long as it’s all done in English.

Welsh seems to only deserve to be a second-rate language. Welsh-speakers seeking services in their country

through the medium of their own language are “petty-minded, troublemakers, extreme nationalists”. Of course, English speakers (the superior species) have the right to equivalent services in their country in their native language.

With many of the English-Welsh arguments ongoing, it’s almost as if we’ve all lost sight of what we’re fighting for here. Just consider for a moment what the real issues are. It’s more than just the colours of our rugby shirts.

Like many whom are keen to preserve endangered species (even talking about cloning dead cells), many Welsh citizens are only similarly keen to preserve a language and heritage. They are only interested in keeping hold of the beauty and uniqueness of the Welsh language, culture and traditions. Isn’t that understandable? Why do we hate the idea of a certain species of animal becoming extinct? Shouldn’t we equally hate the idea of a whole culture and language becoming extinct?

Sure, it would be easier for everyone if the whole world communicated to each other through the medium of English. It would take less effort. It would be more convenient. In the same way as it’s more convenient for every person in the world to eat their meals in McDonalds every night.

Isn’t variety the very thing we admire in nature itself? You must have a special talent or skill – something that makes you different from other people. Isn’t that worth something? Isn’t it precious to you and worth preserving?

Some of you may have learned some Italian while visiting Italy, for example.

Did you really just do this for convenience or was there some

enjoyment, an element of discovery in the challenge? You felt that you were learning more about the world. Possibly, you may even have felt a sense of duty to learn a few phrases of Italian – to respect the people of the country. If so, why not show the same interest in this country which you’ve decided to live in for a few years? Why not really try to get beneath the skin of the people of the country? Familiarise yourself with the sound of the language and get to know some of the long-held traditions. Learn about the Urdd Eisteddfod, the largest youth festival in Europe and the cultural highlight of the Welsh calendar.

Incidentally, the Eisteddfod will be held here, in Cardiff, this year (for the first time in 17 years) between June 2nd and June 9th.

In my experience, no one’s really interested in beating up the English (Ok, I suppose there have to be a few psychopaths in every country, though!).

That’s not the point. Generally, the Welsh just want to receive the respect and affection that their language and country deserve. Acknowledge their existence and appreciate their beauty and importance. If at all possible, show an active interest in getting to know this wonderful country in which you chose to spend your University life.

If you believe in equal rights or in preserving endangered species, support this relevant cause which is happening now, right on your doorstep. I can see no reason why you shouldn’t. It’s not just relevant for the people of Wales, it is of paramount importance for all mankind. Welcome such new societies as ‘Cydradd’ (which, if you’ll translate in your dictionary, means ‘equality’) who are eager to see the Welsh language having equal status to the English in

Cardiff University. That’s all the Welsh ask for. Equality.

If you’re still one of those individuals uncomfortable with the University’s bilingual policy – I can only recommend one simple solution.

Learn Welsh. That way, we can really banish the bilingual policy and offer all services through the medium of one language only. The Welsh language.

Oh, and as a final piece of advice, remember this phrase when greeting freshers in September: “Croeso i’r Brifysgol”. For those of you requiring a translation, it’s: “Wellcom too Univercity’’.

– The Union’s Welsh translation of ‘Security’ is ‘Sicrwydd’ which literally means ‘certainty’. So, for every Welsh-speaker getting chucked out of the Union in a drunken state, they are being ordered by a man/ woman with ‘certainty’ written on his/ her back.

– In ‘Gair Rhydd’ (issue 719), there were arguments about how the general annual meeting of the Union was held. The photo in the Gair Rhydd was of the back of Tom McGarry, the Executive or the ‘Gweithred’ in Welsh (the word ‘gweithred’ actually translates as ‘work’, ‘act’ or ‘deed’).

– The new signs outside the Arts and Social Library (ironically placed by the sign directing people to the Welsh learning centre) read as ‘Safleoedd Fraill’ and ‘Cerddwyr yn Unic’ translated as ‘fther sites’ or ‘pedestrians onlc’ (the English misspellings are intentional in an attempt to translate the errors).

Gair Rhydd Monday 13 May 2002

gairrhydd 2001-2002

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A big thanks to everyone who helped to make the media awards a great success this year.

Although all the winners were thoroughly deserving, I’d just like to say well done to everyone who has helped to make Cardiff Student media the best that it can be, no matter if you won an award or not.

As the old cliche goes, it’s the taking part that counts, so thanks to everyone who has done just that.

Contact us Address Gair Rhydd Cardiff University Students’ Union Park Place Cardiff CF10 3QN Telephone Editorial – (029) 20781434/436 Advertising – (029) 20781416 E-mail ssugr1@cf.ac.uk Visitors Find us on the 4th floor of the Students’ Union

Focus • 11

Drunk and yet orderly

Daniel Barnes reviews the student media social event of the year the Gair Rhydd and Xpress Radio Media Awards

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ast Friday night the Great Hall was awash with the fatal combination of free alcohol and the darlings of Cardiff’s student media, which was optimistically called the Gair Rhydd and Express Radio Media Awards.

Appearances can be deceptive, though. And as with all awards ceremonies, this was no exception.

Behind the grand façade of glamour and occasional flashes of starry-eyed mutual appreciation there was a bundle of boisterous fun tumbling down that slippery slope of wannabe celebrity.

To everyone’s surprise and delight, the Great Hall was transformed from the place where we are forced to take exams into a superb venue for the event: there were huge video screens either side of the stage (which only occasionally complied with orders to display graphics); and rows and rows of round tables beautifully adorned with wine, bottles of VK and a twiglet and lollypop orientated buffet.

The awards are the best networking opportunity we have here on the fourth floor of the union. Not only were we from the paper but all those lovely people from Xpress. Unlike last year relations between the two media giants were very good. In fact, towards the end of the night, after everyone had received their awards, affectionately heckled the other winners, secured their future editorial positions and pretended to recognise near strangers through the mire of their drunkenness the evening went a bit ITV. There were hugs and kisses exchanged between people who either barely know each other or who usually retain an air of professional

animosity in the office.

A few old but never forgotten faces loomed through the infernal darkness to make their continued interest in alcohol known. These included legendary Noel Gardener (who was pushed across the room of a party when Abbi carelessly opened the door with too much haste), and Ed Holmes, estranged from the paper since January but still much loved.

Amongst others, Gair Rhydd awards were presented to Lydia Kirby (Editor’s Award for Dedication), James Bladon (Best News Reporter) and Jonathan Steven (Best Designer) who in his acceptance speech thanked Britney Spears for his achievement. Xpress awards were presented to Jodi Campbell (Best Newcomer) and Adam Brooks (Best Male). Everyone who went up on the stage succeeded in keeping their speeches short and amusingly insulting, and all looked genuinely surprised they had won, leading even the cynic in me to believe that the winners really were kept a well-guarded secret.

It didn’t go unnoticed that the Best Feature Writer award was judged by a representative from The Daily Telegraph, so this page had no chance of winning. But they didn’t get away with it, as Charlotte (Features Editor) was duly and affectionately heckled as she went up to collect her welldeserved award. Surprisingly perhaps, there was a serious lack of any pizza or pants being thrown up onto the stage, unlike last year.

As the evening flew by, the applause subsided as our powers of coordination left us, but the

congratulations and appreciation grew as inhibitions were swept under the proverbial carpet. There was a genuine sense of everyone being really glad to be there and everyone being quite genuinely pleased with the choice of winners.

One of the constant joys of the evening was that nice boy Chris North from Wise Buddah who compered the event. With wit and grace he glided through the technical error and rowdy audience responses, encouraged drunkenness and debauchery and

generally made the whole experience even more amusing at every second.

All in all, the awards was a rare taste for us all what its like to be a celebrity – to be admired, respected, appreciated, heckled and forced to drink free wine.

It was a good opportunity to dress up and accessorise and generally pretend to be executive for a whole night; that is, until you wake up in the morning with the worst hangover ever, all the magic dispelled, feeling like the media Cinderellas we are – just whores to the system, but we love it.

Jonathan Steven and Charlotte Spratt celebrate their win

A little World Pop’s new Cup joy...

Neighbour In a cunning ploy to mention the man PopScene: Abbi Shaw is talking about a girl that’s not Britney – pop’s as attractive as Ronan, Abbi Shaw newest, most naked star gets a second column and gives us all a good reason to enjoy this ’m not going to start this article Yet, for all my praise, whilst with the obvious comparisons – Madame Valance is like Britney, she summer’s football despite the fact that I clearly isn’t Ms. Spears, and equally she’s no

I

t is almost time for the only thing in this world that is regular, organised and more exciting than Britney (for a few weeks, anyway). I realise that a significant proportion of you won’t care at all, but I do urge you to read on, on the grounds that you probably don’t realise what you’re missing. I am speaking of the joy that is the World Cup, an opportunity to see football at its most comic, violent and skillful. Not to mention beautiful.

Reasons to watch? If you’re Welsh, you’re in for lots of fun for, as long as England don’t win, you can count it a victory. If you’re English, you can choose between pretending to be supporting the underdog, in a patriotic sense, or on the grounds that we have the best team in the world.

If you have a healthy appreciation of aesthetics (or are more than familiar with behind M&S) then there are only two ways to go. I concede David Beckham is one of the most beautiful people in the world, although he’s not entirely to my taste, and if you agree, then that’s more than enough reason to cheer for England and manage to sit through 90 minutes of play. If you’re prepared to have shifting allegiance,

then my highest recommendation is Sweden, as, for the past week the sight of Freddie Ljungberg excelling himself for Arsenal has kept me with a permanently ridiculous grin across my face. We can but hope for the swapping of shirts at the end of the England v Sweden game.

If even these things fail to excite you, (and there’s every chance you are blind, or wrong if they don’t) at least bear in mind that football is one of the best opportunities in the world for social and professional networking, making for conversation between even the most mismatched of people.

The next best Fredrik after Nietzsche: the sexy Swedish boy in question

I

have, now… let’s try again. Holly Valance. She’s Australian, she’s permanently scantily clad, she’s remixed a foreign song that the record company assumed nobody would have heard of, and now she’s number one. Well done, PopScene says.

It can’t be easy, coming from Neighbours into the pop world – such previous forays have been spectacular in both the good and the terrible extreme, and her reception was initially wary.

However, numerous nearly naked performances on CD:UK convinced us that, if she flicks (ah, an entirely unintentional almost pun…) her hair about enough she can look more than a little like Britney (and you should know by now that this is my highest accolade) and dance most entertainingly.

I imagine a considerable part of her success was guaranteed by that “Look how naked I can be” video, which won the affections and devotion of at least one person well known to me, mentioning no names (*cough* Gavin *cough*). Far be it from me to criticise encouraging such attention-seeking devices, though, I think, what with the stream of live appearances she’s made, we all believe she’s worthy of the term “popstar”.

great diversion from the plethora of beautiful-young-talented-oh-soslightly-continental females deluging the market at the moment. While we cannot deny that she’s just as worthy as all the others, it does seem just a tad (oh, this is fun) greedy too, having already established a career in which she thrives, go on to take another one.

In case you’re thinking this is a case of mild hypocrisy, Britney’s foray into acting is entirely allowed as a result of the lack of good post-teenage actresses in the world. Furthermore, Holly can’t mime to save her life – though I might forgive her this as she has clearly mastered the art of ‘spirit fingers’…

I am most bothered about how Neighbours will survive without her, however – she’s due to film her last episode in August and frankly, what will Tad do without her? I think her talents were better employed in Neighbours, and the introduction of Ellie in an attempt to divert attentions might not be entirely successful. One is given to wondering who exactly could be next in the line for pop fame – perhaps Tad’s extremely postmodern remix of Harold singing ‘Amazing Grace’ could give the UK one of the most exciting chart battles ever in the not too distant future [so long as he gets naked too – Page Ed]. What a truly terrifying thought.

Monday May 13th 2002 / Sport Page12

Optimism sparks gold rush Chris Wathan Rugby Chief MENTION THE last tour to South Africa and any Welsh rugby fan will quickly offer a change in conversation.

For the last time the dragons visited the home of the Springboks, Wales were on the receiving end of an almighty hiding.

96-13 to be precise.

That particular black day in Welsh rugby history sparked a rollercoaster ride in the fortunes of the national side, engineered by a certain Mr Henry.

But now the Great Redeemer's premature successor hopes to signal a new direction in Welsh rugby's travels with the announcement of the Wales squad to embark on their return trip to the Gold Coast.

Former Canterbury coach Steve Hansen has certainly made his mark in the 27 man squad, including four new call ups and numerous returns from the wilderness.

Perhaps most suprising is the inclusion of the ageing Neil Jenkins who has spent the majority of the season in the Cardiff treatment room. In comparison, Neath's Lee Jarvis has amassed over four hundred points in the All Blacks' assault on the title yet will have to contend with watching his compatriots from his living room.

So too will the Saracens bound Craig Quinnell and the sometimes brilliant, sometimes mediocre Chris Wyatt.

But the notion that Quinnell's exclusion refers directly to his decision to ply his trade the other side of Offa's Dyke is thrown out by the inclusion of London Irish's Steve Williams.

Ponty's Robert Sidoli is one of five forwards from the Parker Pen Shield finalists including the outstanding Mefin Davies at hooker and the tireless Richard Parks in the back-row.

The back line remains akin to that used in the forgetful Six Nations campaign, meaning that Jon Bryant's and James Storey's consistently excellent performances have been overlooked this time round.

James, son of athletics commentator Stuart Storey, has been in particular rich vein of form this year and – with his eligibility being confirmed one day into the tour – could have easily filled the massive gap in the centre exposed by Scott Gibbs' retirement from the international scene.

A similar decision taken by Rob Howley has left the door open for the Scarlet's Dwayne Peel and Gareth Cooper to claim the red No. 9 shirt in time for the World Cup. The captain's armband remains firmly attached to the bicep of Colin Charvis despite the flanker's niggling injuries and indifferent form for the All Whites.

So the revolution that the second coming promised hasn't really happened and it seems highly doubtful that the selected staff will offer any real opposition to a Springbok side that is gradually returning to their better days.

But the fresh thinking that Hansen has provided has generated a respect and an optimism within the Welsh squad that was last witnessed during Henry's early days.

And you won't find many Welsh supporters so reluctant to talk about that topic.

Wales captain, Charvis

email grsport@hotmail.com From Back Page they have conceded only one goal, Arsenal’s form, particularly since Christmas, has been phenomenal.

Indeed, it seems that the team’s road to glory all started back in December when Arsene Wenger extended his contract at Highbury and the players have responded accordingly, which is testament to the squad’s admiration and respect for the Frenchman.

In recent years, Arsenal have been criticised for not having enough strength and depth in their squad and long term injuries this season to

Tony Adams, Martin Keown, David Seaman, Giovanni van Bronckhorst, Robert Pires, Ashley Cole and Francis Jeffers have resulted in the squad’s character and ability being tested to the maximum.

Arsenal’s French contingent were the leading figures in the Gunners path of destruction with Patrick Vieira and Robert Pires performing brilliantly in midfield before the latter was cruelly injured against Newcastle, bringing an early end to his domestic season and ruling him out of the World Cup. Thierry Henry had

another prolific season scoring over twenty goals and Sylvain Wiltord contributed well with some impressive performances on the wing and up front.

In defence Sol Campbell, after struggling early on in the season, became a rock in Arsenal’s defence and the return of David Seaman and Tony Adams from injuries in the crucial final games of the year strengthened the rearguard and eased the pressure for the midfield and attack.

Undoubtedly though, Arsenal’s man of the moment is Freddie Ljungberg who has

scored six goals in his last six matches, including his magnificent strike in the FA Cup Final, and is the club’s second-highest scorer this season with 17 goals.

Wenger will now spend the summer attempting to strengthen his side with some new players and perhaps more importantly trying to persuade Vieira that North London rather than Madrid is the place to be next season.

While a domestic league and cup double is nothing to write-off, Wenger will now want to conquer Europe.

Public go potty not Motty Report by David Williams

PETER EBDON’S 18-17 win over Stephen Hendry brought to a close one of the most dramatic World Championships at the Crucible Theatre.

And more people watched these flagship event than tuned into John Motson during the Cup Final.

Ebdon, who was beaten by Hendry in the 1996 final, won a final frame shoot-out to take his first World title in the 25th Anniversary of the Sheffield venue.

“I always believed I could be world champion, but it’s something different to go and actually do it,” claimed Ebdon.

Memories of the 1985 final between Steve Davis and Dennis Taylor were rekindled as Ebdon and seven times winner Hendry started the final frame.

And it looked to be all over when Ebdon visited the table needing only a simple black and a red to win.

However, like Steve Davis seventeen years earlier, the relatively easy black hit the jaws of the pocket and gave Hendry a reprieve.

But, while attempting a snooker behind the black the Scotsman sent the cue ball into the pocket and the foul gave Ebdon the biggest prize of his long career. " I have to admit that I was on a different planet in the final and the last couple of matches have been like a dream," stated Edbon.

It was fitting perhaps that the final went to a deciding

frame in a tournament that will be remembered for so many close matches.

Ebdon’s semi-final against Matthew Stevens and Hendry’s versus last years Champion Ronnie O’Sullivan produced some of the most breath-taking snooker in the game’s time at the Crucible.

Indeed, had it not been for an error of judgement by Stevens, Ebdon wouldn’t have even reached the final.

Leading 16-14, the Welshman refused the option of a snooker on the pink. It was a mistake that let Ebdon in to take the frame on the black that proved to be the inspiration as he clinched the last two frames.

By comparison, the other semi-final was a heated affair from the beginning following Ronnie O’Sullivan’s war of words with Stephen Hendry. Words, which O’Sullivan was to later regret as, at 12-12, Hendry produced his best snooker of the season to pull away and qualify for his ninth final appearance.

Stevens’ heartbreaking defeat was, unsurprisingly, the best Welsh performance in this year’s Championship.

2000 winner Mark Williams couldn’t keep his good form going as he crashed out to Anthony Hamilton in the second round.

Anthony Davies’ second round 13-3 loss to Stephen Hendry signalled his best ever Crucible performance while ‘spaceman’ Dominic Dale showed his anger by snapping his cue in half after a thrashing at the hands of Jimmy White.

Euro title round-up Report by Matt Greenhill WHILE THE domestic cup competitions headed the agenda of British football last weekend, elsewhere in Europe it was league matters that were the focus of attention.

Perhaps the most dramatic and competitive league finale came in Italy as Inter Milan, Juventus and Roma all began their final matches knowing that the Series A title was theirs to win. Unfortunately for Inter, it was theirs to lose.

With the last round of group games to play, Inter held a narrow one-point lead over Juventus at the top of the table with Roma in third. A win for the Milanese giants over Lazio would have seen them end their long wait for the league championship.

Despite leading twice, Inter appeared to crumble under the mounting pressure from the Lazio attack and eventually lost the match 4-2.

A 2-0 victory by Juventus over Udinese and Roma’s 1-0 defeat of Torino meant that Inter had slipped from first to third, leaving their title dreams shattered and Juventus to steal the crown.

Whilst the result meant that Juventus could lay to rest the hurt of losing the league on the final day of the season two years ago, for Inter the pain had only just began.

Indeed, no-one more than Inter’s coach, Hector Cuper, will be as upset by the season’s conclusion as he suffered two consecutive Champions League final defeats with his previous club Valencia and a European Cup Winners Cup final loss the year before with Mallorca.

For Rafa Benitez, however, the man who replaced Cuper at

Valenica, the story was a much happier one. A 2-0 victory over Malaga meant that Valencia’s 31-year wait had ended and they had won their fifth Spanish league title and their first since 1971 as their six-point lead could not be overhauled with only one round of league games remaining.

Real Madrid and Deportivo will now face each other in the final league game of the season, with the winner securing second place and an automatic entry into next season’s Champions League.

As for the losers, they will join Barcelona in the qualifying rounds for next year’s competition.

In Germany, Bayer Leverkusen suffered a second successive final day heartbreak as a late goal by Ewerthom helped Borussia Dortmund beat Werder Bremen 4-3, giving them the three points they needed to claim the Bundesliga title.

Leverkusen, who a few weeks ago sat comfortably at the top of the German league, will surely see their unexpected success in this season’s Champions League as the major factor in their domestic league downfall.

A title decider between Lyon and Lens saw the outcome of the French premier division. In a combative and tense match Lyon emerged victorious 3-1 while former champions Monaco narrowly avoided relegation into the French second division.

Finally, as is not too unfamiliar, Ajax and PSV Eindhoven were left to battle it out for the Dutch league title. A 2-0 victory over NEC Nijmegen and a PSV draw saw Ajax once again crowned champions of Holland.

Londoners invade Cardiff as Gunners take no prisoners Tristan Thomas Sports Editor IN A season that has seen the selfishness of players come to the fore, it’s refreshing that the winners of the double have epitomised teamwork and collective spirit.

For every Bowyer, there’s a Ljungberg, for every Terry, there’s an Adams.

The FA Cup Final wasn’t pretty, but it was exactly what football needed. The battle of the Londoners proved exactly that.

Both teams lacked fortitude in the final third, but no one let themselves down. A glance over the Millennium Stadium turf yielded few star performances. But heroes were easier to find.

The first half proved tepid, as players countered their nervousness by relying on physical presence.

This suited the Gunners more than Chelsea, as Parlour, Viera and Ljungberg out fought the impressive Lampard and the spasmodic Petit.

With both teams favouring a 4-4-2, we were left with interesting personal battles as

players were forced into combat in direct competition.

The first 45 minutes saw both sides counter each other in this tactical duel.

Defenders frequently outpaced and outfought the strikers (has Hasselbaink played football before?), Desailly was immense, Adam’s recalled the glory days of his early career, and the 1998 double year when the Arsenal back four conceded 15 goals to win the title.

The second half was slightly more open, as Parlour emerged as more of an attacking force and Wiltord showed fleeting glimpses of

his questionable talent. But no one looked like scoring.

I watched the match in a largely Arsenal dominated pub very close to the stadium.

As anyone in the city centre can testify, there was a friendly jokey atmosphere, punctuated by very occasional and friendly banter between opposing supporters.

The harshest words came when Parlour picked up the ball from an incisive Wiltord dart, and set himself to shoot. The Gunners shouted in dismay.

This was the same Ray Parlour who would miss an open goal five minutes later.

But for one magical minute,

he was Zidane.

Chelsea never recovered from his dipping drive, and the second goal from the gifted Ljungberg was as conclusive as it was superb.

Arsenal have played more games than anyone this season with runs in the Champions League adding to their FA Cup exploits and a tough league campaign. Yet the squad has coped admirably, with understudies emerging to play key roles in all competitions.

The internal discontent which appears to have savaged many of their

competitors doesn’t seem to have effected Wenger’s men.

Squad players were willing to be just that. For the good of the team.

Chelsea have improved massively under Ranieri, but as the Chelsea manager is all too aware, their rivals, including Arsenal, have improved at a similar rate.

One last point. Alex Ferguson has berated Wenger for avoiding post match drinks after matches. What odds on Wenger enjoying the double in Manchester Royal Infirmary if he had taken up the Scotsman’s offer on Wednesday night?

Monday 13th May 2002/ Sport Page 13

email grsport@hotmail.com

Apparently, there are opponents...

It appears England face more hurdles than just Beckham’s broken foot this summer. GR Sport’s Pete Samson looks at group F and the teams that stand in the way of Ireland’s qualification for the second round, in group E ENGLAND FANS should not have saved their prayers for David Beckham’s broken foot – they should have used them before the World Cup draw last December.

England were handed the World Cup’s most difficult group. Group F sees them take on tournament favourites Argentina, bogie side Sweden and the dangerous Nigeria in the aptly named Group of Death.

One look at the pool of players Argentina have to choose from shows exactly why they are considered the best squad in the competition.

Attack-minded coach Marcelo Biesla plays a 3-4-3 formation with several creative players feeding Hernan Crespo – who scored nine goals as Argentina stormed to the top of the South American qualifying group.

It is likely to be Ariel Ortega and Kily Gonzalez joining Crespo up front as Biesla likes to have two wider players feeding him.

And this means recordbreaking striker Gabriel Batistuta could be left out.

If ‘Batigol’ is warming the bench he will be in good company – Claudio Lopez, Javier Saviola, Juan Riquelme and Pablo Aimar are likely to be joining him.

The pivotal Juan Sebastian Veron will be the creative force behind whatever talented forwards Biesla decides on.

And after his muchpublicised mediocre season for Manchester United, what’s the betting Veron tears England and the rest apart – much to the delight of Alex Ferguson.

While their defeats against

ENGLAND Goalkeepers: Seaman (Arsenal), Martyn (Leeds), James (West Ham).

Defenders: Ferdinand (Leeds), Campbell (Arsenal), Southgate (Middlesbrough), Ashley Cole (Arsenal), Bridge (Southampton), Mills (Leeds), Brown (Man Utd), Keown (Arsenal).

Midfielders: Beckham (Man Utd), Scholes (Man Utd), Gerrard (Liverpool), Dyer (Newcastle), Butt (Man Utd), Hargreaves (B Munich), Joe Cole (West Ham).

Strikers: Owen (Liverpool), Heskey (Liverpool), Vassell (Aston Villa), Fowler (Leeds), Sheringham (Tottenham).

IRELAND Goalkeepers: Shay Given (Newcastle United), Alan Kelly (Blackburn Rovers), Dean Kiely (Charlton Athletic).

Defenders: Steve Finnan (Fulham), Ian Harte (Leeds United) Gary Kelly (Leeds United), Steve Staunton (Aston Villa), Kenny Cunningham (Wimbledon), Richard Dunne (Manchester City), Gary Breen (Coventry City), Andy O'Brien (Newcastle United).

Midfielders: Roy Keane (Manchester United), Mark Kinsella (Charlton Athletic), Matt Holland (Ipswich), Kevin Kilbane (Sunderland), Mark Kennedy (Wolverhampton Wanderers), Lee Carsley (Everton), Jason McAteer (Sunderland).

Forwards: Robbie Keane (Leeds United), Damien Duff (Blackburn Rovers), Niall Quinn (Sunderland), Clinton Morrison (Crystal Palace), David Connolly (Wimbledon).

Argentina are more memorable England haven’t beaten Sweden for 33 years.

Sven Goran Eriksson summed up why England have struggled to beat his home nation.

“Sweden’s strength is that they are very disciplined and aggressive,” he said.

“They don’t give you the time to play and the space to play in.”

The pace of Celtic hit man Henrik Larsson and Arsenal’s red-hot Freddie Ljunberg is deadly.

But having only conceded three goals in ten qualifiers it is Sweden’s defensive solidity that should be most feared.

Nigeria – the group’s weakest side – have reached the second round of the last two World Cups.

With Nwankwu Kanu and Jay-Jay Okocha’s trickery feeding powerful goal-scorer Victor Agali they have the flair to pull off an upset.

But having failed to reach the final of the African Nations Cup in Mali they are fast being seen as the continents underachievers.

Turbulence caused by a controversial new coach and a suspect defence mean they are unlikely to repeat the excitement they generated in the 1994 and 1998 tournaments.

Group F could yet prove the Group of Death for England – while progressing is probable it is by no means assured.

And finishing second to Argentina will bring what many pundits see as the game of certain death – a second round tie against holders France.

DAYS UNTIL THE WORLD CUP

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NEXT ISSUE: We look at Brazil, as they attempt to prove to the world that they aren’t a spent force. We review Sven’s England squad and also Cameroon’s wayward defender Rigobert Song and Nike’s (and Korea’s) Seol HAVING GOT through some tough qualifying ties to get to Japan and Korea the Irish face a World Cup group that looks easy in comparison.

Republic of Ireland knocked out Holland and only lost out to Portugal on goal difference in qualifying.

Germany, Cameroon and Saudi Arabia don’t have the quality of either of those two sides.

Germany are the heavyweights of Group E but nearly got knocked out before the real bout began.

As England faltered against Greece last October a win against Finland would have been enough for automatic qualification but they drew the game 0-0.

Add that to their humiliation at the hands of England a month earlier and German football was in a rare crisis.

Since then there has been a mini revival but former captain and manager Franz Beckenbauer remains unconvinced.

“I do not like to damage the

German team with my comments, but the frustration swells inside me like a volcano,” said the Kaiser.

“Nobody can reproach Voller. The problem is some of his players are not good enough.”

Relying on the clumsy Carsten Jancker in attack suggests a lack of quality even though the talented Sebastian Deisler and Michael Ballack will offer goals from midfield.

Despite having the excellent Oliver Kahn in goal, their frailty at the back was shown up by Michael Owen and Emile Heskey in Munich.

And while Germany are losing some of their famous defensive stability a German coach has brought that attribute to Cameroon.

Since becoming Cameroon manager Winfried Schafer has added tactical discipline to the flair and pace he inherited making Cameroon the Germany of Africa.

The African Cup holders also have attacking threat of exciting young Real Mallorca striker Samuel Eto’o – hailed

as the new Roger Milla.

The old Roger Milla – who set Italia ‘90 alight the last time Cameroon made an impact on the biggest stage – summed up Schafer’s influence on the side.

“I don’t know what it is about German people,” said the Cameroonian legend.

“But they know how to organise things.”

The final side the Irish will face will be Saudi Arabia.

They have been the host continents most successful side winning three of the last five Asian Cup finals and became the first Asian side to qualify for the World Cup second round in 1994.

But with an ageing squad these heroics are unlikely to be repeated.

Portugal and Holland they are not but Germany and Cameroon will pose Mick McCarthy’s Ireland side different sorts of problems this summer.

Expect a tough if sometimes scrappy qualification tussle between those three sides

Hierro set to be a hero? Cardiff canoeing Report by David Williams, Sports Writer of the Year FOR THE last decade, Real Madrid’s Fernando Hierro has been the lynchpin of the Spanish side and has experienced the trials and tribulations of international football.

In what could be his last major tournament, Hierro will lead his country into the World Cup hoping to fulfil the potential that so many Spanish sides have shown.

With over 90 caps and nearly 30 goals for the national side, Hierro will be hoping to end his glittering career on a high as he appears in his third World Cup finals.

In the last ten years, Hierro, who started his playing career with Valladolid, has been a stalwart in the Real Madrid side who have won almost every honour in the game.

In his time at the Bernabeu, Hierro has won the Spanish League four times and the Champions League twice but will be hoping to add another European medal when Madrid take on Bayer Leverkusen this week.

Although a central defender for his club side, Hierro has an incredible record of scoring over 100 goals in nearly 500 club games which shows just how dominant Madrid have been in the 90’s.

However, the 34 year old from Malaga would surely swap a Champions League medal for a World Cup winners medal as Spain go to Korea and Japan as one of the favourites.

Memories of Spain’s first round exit in France ’98 were

Hierro is a legend in Spain

difficult to forget for Hierro, who also suffered heartache in 1994 after a last minute Roberto Baggio goal in the quarter-finals put them out.

And, ironically, the team that eliminated them from the last World Cup, Paraguay, will also be in their group this year along with South Africa and Slovenia.

With the people of Spain expectant of success it looks as though Fernando Hierro will have to use his all of his experience and know-how to lead his country to the trophy that has eluded them for so long.

left disappointed Report by Anna Mitchell TWO CARDIFF Canoe Polo teams presented a strong defence at the national division one tournament in Aberdare, last Saturday.

Cardiff University canoe club attended the second tournament of the season, in what was a closely fought competition.

Apprehensive of the challenge ahead, the teams arrived at the pool to compete against strong teams, some comprising of national players and GB squad players.

The A side played a difficult first game against last seasons division victors Dragon. After a slow start, the defence kicked in and Cardiff made the game a difficult win for Dragon. Their next game against Amazons was more evenly matched, and having beaten their opponents in previous tournaments, the team were confident of a victory.

However, Amazons managed to get through the

Cardiff defence on several occasions. The A side, though, put a couple of goals past their opponents, with the final score was at 4-2.

Their other games were included a defeat to Aberfan, contenders for first place in the division, and a 1-0 win over Wimpy Dragon.

The A team had battled Report by Rosalind Sack against a difficult draw of teams, but had impressively Cardiff netballers ended their defended against the top triumphant season with yet another victory and teams in the country.

The B side first played championship title to add to Wimpy Dragon, but found their impressive list. Cardiff them a little less easy to pulled off a 40 - 36 win to beat defend against. However, by Swansea away and take the taking their game up a level Welsh Cup in a match that proved not as straight-forward towards the end of the game, as it should have been. they displayed good defensive Departing club captain Kate skills.

Edwards did much to help The B side also played clinch the match, and will find Drago and Amazons, out soon whether she has been conceding defeat both times. selected to travel to Although the results from Manchester for the both sides were not as Cardiff Commonwealth Games with had hoped, with better the Welsh squad. Kate will be equipment, these teams could sorely missed but the club now pose a real threat to some of has the potential for even the teams in this competetive bigger and better things next division. season.

“If Arsene had taken up Ferguson’s offer of post match drinks on Wednesday, the Scotsman may have got physical”, page 12

gair rhydd

Arsenal

WRU Tour

The Gunners clinch the double and Manchester United finish empty handed

GR investigates the summer tour of South Africa. A new dawn?

Sport email grsport@hotmail.com

Monday 13 May 2002 / Free Word 721

Pulze beat fades The endurance race, Karting’s equivalent to Le Mans

Chris Knapman reporting THE top step of the podium was taken for the final time this season as the Cardiff University karters fought out a gruelling one-hour endurance race at Race Hire, Bridgend.

As usual the racing was split into a rookie class for newcomers and amateur class for more experienced karters.

Of the rookies it was Pete Richardson who took pole position from championship leader Alex Brown, with Dan Gandesna lining up in third.

Following the start Richardson pulled into a half lap lead while Brown spun on the slippery track. The other karters struggled to maintain the pace of the leading two and battled out third to seventh positions between themselves.

After 50 minutes of non-stop action Richardson was still leading, with Brown in hot pursuit. But an incident with a back-marker put a furious Richardson into the wall at the bottom hairpin.

As the other karters drove past they saw Richardson waving his arms at the marshals in frustration. None of this mattered to Brown who

took advantage to win the race on lap 147.

This result also gave Brown the rookie championship with a total of 27 points.

Commenting on the incident after the race Richardson said: “Am I frustrated? I led for 50 minutes, what do you think!”

A delighted Brown put his win down to skill and experience, commenting: “When the going got tough I retained my composure, kept focused and it all came good in the end.”

Next was the championship deciding amateur race, with Paul Pulze and Jon PinkertonHiron both in with a chance of taking the spoils. And it was Pulze who took pole position for the race, ahead of Pinkerton-Hiron and rookie Chris Elliott.

From the start Pulze pulled into a strong lead as the pack behind fought for the rest of the positions. Elliott moved through the field to catch and pass Pulze on lap 23.

From here the rookie pulled away, while Pulze fell to third behind Simon Matthews, with Pinkerton-Hiron in forth. But at half distance Elliott pulled into

the pits because his transponder timing equipment had fallen off the kart. A quick stop fixed the problem and Elliott returned to the track in second place.

This left Matthews to take race victory on lap 162, with Elliott in second, Pulze in third

and Pinkerton-Hiron forth.

A modest Matthews said of his victory: “I had a bit of luck and was gifted with the win.”

But the championship battle is still to be resolved as Pulze and Pinkerton-Hiron finished on equal points.

This endurance race marked

the end of a successful year for Cardiff University karting.

Club chairman Paul Pulze said: “This year we have seen lots of new faces and the championship has been a big success. Next year we hope to have more events and continue to grow even more.”

Lewis brightens future for CU Report by Tristan Thomas MAY BANK holiday saw a busy weekend for Cardiff University athletes. The BUSA outdoor championships, held at Bedford International Stadium, brought mixed fortunes for the team.

The men's and women's events were dominated by Loughborough University who were placed in almost every event. Local University UWIC performed well to finish in the top three overall in the men's competition.

Cardiff University middle distance athlete Gavin Keight ran an impressive 1500m heat, missing qualification by the narrowest of margins.

Geff Kettle also competed in a tough 3000m steeplechase and Alex Jackson jumped well in his long jump heat.

The success of the day was the ever-consistent Natalie Lewis, a 2nd Year Welsh and French student.

After her 1500m AAA triumph at the indoor

championships earlier in the year, Natalie ran a promising heat going on to take second place in the final where she was narrowly beaten.

Natalie now waits to receive confirmation of selection for the British Universities team later this month.

GR Sport is always looking for contributors, designers and editors.

Come to our editorial meeting, 1.15 pm on Monday at the top of the Students Union, or e-mail us at grsport@hotmail.com. Articles need to reach us by 12.00 pm on Thursdays.

Shift in power?

Matt Greenhill reporting SYLVAIN WILTORD completed a perfect FA Cup and league double for Arsenal mid-week with a strike that proved enough to beat Manchester Utd 1-0 and dethrone the current Champions on their home ground.

For Arsenal, the victory means that Arsene Wenger has won the double for the second time in four years and it is the Gunners’ twelfth league title in all.

While Sir Alex Ferguson may disagree, Arsenal have undoubtedly been the best team in Britain this season and have come through as deserved champions.

Consistency has been the major key to Arsenal’s success from the start of the season after a 4-0 victory at Middlesbrough.

Since then the Gunners have been in contention for the league and despite the odd disappointing result they never experienced a poor run of form to which the likes of Man Utd and Liverpool did.

Unbeaten away from home all season, with only one defeat in their last 22 games and twelve straight victories in which

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