#270

ISSUE 270, JUN. 2022

INSIDE :

INTERVIEW WITH VICECHANCELLOR SHEARER WEST,

BEHIND THE LINES OF THE TRENT BUILDING STUDENT OCCUPATION, AN INTERVIEW WITH A STUDENT MODEL AND MORE...

CONTENTS 6-7 35 Years of Conflict: Sir Stuart Atha, Ukraine and ‘Huge Gambles’ 8-9 Strikes, Salaries and the Students’ Union: Head to Head with VC Shearer West 10-11 Commissioners, Costs and Comparisons: Impact’s Stalking Investigation Continued 12 Nottingham’s Nightlife: Problematic Bouncers Rife in our City?

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NEWS

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To Panic Masters, or not to Panic Masters? 14 Nottingham’s Dating Horror Stories 15 “Like a Really Weird School Trip”: Behind the Lines 16-17 of the Trent Building Student Occupation Queerness, Religion and Authenticity: A Letter 18-19 to my Younger Self We’re Angry and Upset: Class of 2022 got only 20 29 Full Weeks of Teaching

FEATURES 22 How will the War in Ukraine affect the Food Landscape of our Future?

23 Vegan Stereotypes: Are they Harming the Movement?

24-25 “Flat Earthers aren’t Stupid” Why we should Meaningfully Engage with Conspiracy Theorists 26-27 Climate Change: How can we Choose Hope?

28 Soul-Searching and Surfing: What’s the Point Behind ‘Gap Yahs’?

29 Fashioning Class: How Clothing has been used to Impose Class 30-34 From Runways to Rejection: An Interview with a Student Model

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LIFESTYLE

36 Impact Chats with Award Winning Actor 36-37 Adrian Scarborough Impactuated: Impact Play Cupid 38-39 Bodega, Bathrooms and Bowling: Talking with 40-41 The Amazons The World of Wordle 42-43 Claim to Game: Could Gaming Land You Your Next Job? 44

ENTERTAINMENT 46 46-47 UoN Sports Clubs’ Season Roundup 48-49 Global Politics, Dictators, and Sport: A Match Made in Heaven?

50-51 Sports and Pseudoscience: A Strange Partnership?

52-53 REVIEWS: Impact Reviews Recommends

Front Cover: Model: Denziel Ofiaeli Photography and Editing

by Finn Mckenzie Inside Cover by Ciara Lurshay

SPORT Page Design by Rian Patel

IMPACT

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earest reader, Welcome to the final Impact edition of the year. It is with much nostalgia that I must accept my time as Editor-in-Chief of this lovely magazine, and as a university student, is drawing to an end.

And so, in the style of someone who has spent far too much time trying to make themselves sound employable on LinkedIn, allow me to recap on some of our team’s achievements this year. Most notably, Impact won Best Publication in the Midlands at the regional Student Publication Awards and received eleven nominations at the nationals (coming away with two wins). Further to this, we hosted two large-scale media conferences, one of which won Best Event on Campus in the Activities Awards. We also established several new committee roles, including an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Officer and an Impact Investigations team. The latter had immense success, receiving features on the BBC, ITV and GB News. But most telling must be the success of our individual committee members. With many of the team securing jobs and masters in the journalistic world, I feel a little bit like a proud mum on sports day, all dewy-eyed and wistful.

So, before I start ugly crying, let’s delve into this final edition. From a once-in-a-century pandemic to full-scale war in Europe to strike action, the class of 2022 have had quite the ride. And now, after finally leaving behind the apocalyptic landscape of Microsoft Teams and daring to cough without fearing social ostracisation, it’s suddenly all over. With the majority of Impact’ s committee in final year, it’s time to bid our cosy Nottingham nest farewell. And thus, this inspired the theme of our final edition. A complex, nuanced and philosophical pondering. A silly, sulky and satirical finale. Our issue #270 theme is, quite simply: “What now?”

In the working world, making it out of bed for a 9 am start is no longer a Herculean achievement. It’s a bare minimum.

And the expectation for what constitutes a ‘successful day’ is likely a lot higher than simply finding a seat in T&L (Monica Partridge). For many of us, the chirps of “student single please” on the 34-bus commute will be swapped for the sullen silence of London tubes. And our student-status privileges will be revoked too, for “because I’m a uni student” is no longer a valid excuse to lie in bed all day binge-watching Too Hot To Handle. The real world doesn’t accept ECs. But it’s not all bad. For here, at Impact , we always have your back. And this edition is no different. For the future-focused amongst you, we’ve got plenty of gripping content: a piece on Panic-Masters, a look at the impact of the Ukrainian war on our food landscape and an evaluation of the role of global politics in sports. And for those who prefer to bury their heads in the sand, we have plenty of escapism for you too, an example of such our newly launched ‘Impactuation’, where we set up two hopeful singles on a gig date and sent sparks flying.

So, as I leave you to ponder your own uni experiences, I’d like to take a moment to thank those who have made mine infinitely better. In short, Impact’ s committee. Special thanks must go to Aidan, Chiara, Ciara, Rian and Finn for your creativity, dedication and vision. A true print dream team. To the online team, comprised of the mastermind Mel and her trusty sidekicks Rosie and Nieve: I’ve owed my sanity to you three on more occasions than one. To Georgia for social media, and Issy and Abi for all things events, I couldn’t have wished for better support. And to Lauren also, for helping me head the investigations and for her incredible industry contacts. And last, but most definitely not least, to the whole Impact committee, including our wonderful section heads and editors. I so wish I could thank each one of you individually, but alas, that would require a far bigger SU printing budget. Instead, therefore, I offer one huge heartfelt thank you to you all. Alongside our talented contributors and treasured readers, you are the soul of Impact. I cannot wait to see this publication continue to thrive under a new Editorin-Chief: our current Comment Editor, the brilliant Lucinda Dodd.

And so, the moment has come for me to leave you with a profound and sage epilogue. As older generations fear for a future where social interactions are replaced by social media and emotional connections are swapped for Wi-Fi connections, it feels only fitting to sign off in true Gen-Z style.

May you love yourself like Kanye loves Kanye. May you deliver a punchline better than Will Smith. May you live life as freely as Britney. And may you embrace authenticity like your BeReal depends on it.

It has been an honour to be the Editor of this wonderful magazine. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your readership.

Yours faithfully, Niamh

A correction from Issue #269: Impact extends its apologies to writer Alice Nott and interviewees Nathalie and Richard Bennett for an unfortunate mistype. The affected pages have been removed from circulating editions and Impact’s editorial team accepts responsibility for the error.

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News

Photography by Finn Mckenzie and Rian PatelPatel

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35 Years of Conflict: Sir Stuart Atha, Ukraine and ‘Huge Gambles’ Stuart Atha led Britain in some of the most high-profile military engagements in British history, including Iraq and Afghanistan. Now retired, Impact’s Head of News Lauren McGaun spoke to the Honorary Professor about his extraordinary career and some of his insights for the future.

Although never particularly interested in the military, Stuart decided on his path during his third year at Glasgow University. After seeing a poster for the University Air Squadron, Stuart decided to give it a try. Upon graduating, Stuart became a pilot officer, working his way up the ranks to senior commander.

“We have only seen some of the capabilities that Putin has in Ukraine, he has got many more”

NEWS

Whilst Stuart oversaw many operational decisions, most of his career was spent supporting the development of other officers.

“What you don’t see is that 99% of your time is actually spent on training and education,” he said.

Stuart explained how following orders has been a consistent theme in the Royal Air Force. “The young men and women that I led would actually be as keen to do what they’re asked to do as any generation that’s gone before.”

Stuart also recognised that there were setbacks that came with this immense responsibility. Speaking on the psychological impact of war, Stuart said: “I think we recognise [the issue of mental health], but I think just like in society, we’ve probably still got some way to go.”

Whilst Stuart has been involved in a broad range of conflicts, he is most noted for the Iraq War. Asked about the war, Stuart remarked: “I have lots of regrets when it comes to the Iraq War and the failure of planning.” Stuart also found the scale of destruction particularly hard to process. “My greatest sadness is perhaps the loss of life, both Iraqi and our own, that there was during that warfighting phase,” he said. However, he felt the military were left with no choice: “There is no risk-free option in conflict.”

Recognising Stuart’s exceptional commitment to the military, he received honours (CB and KBE) from the Queen in 2015 and 2019. “To be able to say that you have met the Queen, it’s just one of those special experiences that adds to a number of very special experiences within the military.”

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Reflecting on Ukraine, Stuart said that Putin’s invasion has faced tactical flaws from the outset. “I can’t believe what Putin set out to do: a four axis attack into Ukraine, which was something that I think was a huge gamble. I think it’s a gamble that’s failed.” He continued: “They haven’t had the training and they are up against a more determined foe in Ukraine.”

Does the Russian threat therefore mean that we are set for another world war? Stuart thinks it is unlikely but warns not to rule out the possibility. “We have only seen some of the capabilities that Putin has in Ukraine, he has got many more.” He added: “Part of my job previously was to look at a very dark place, which was very unlikely.

But if it could happen, and it might change the world, then it becomes a priority.”

To round off the discussion, Stuart provided some words of wisdom for students aspiring to pursue a military path: “I have not met one person who said they regretted joining the military. It may not be for everyone, but I think that it offers you a really rewarding and satisfying career.”

By Lauren McGaun Photography by Stuart Atha Page design by Gemma Cockrell

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IMPACT

Strikes, Salaries and the Students’ Union: Head to Head with VC Shearer West

In an Impact exclusive interview, Lottie Murray speaks with the University of Nottingham’s ViceChancellor, Shearer West, touching on topics including UCU strikes, the SU elections and her salary.

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After receiving her degree in Art History and pursuing her passion for the discipline as an academic, the ViceChancellor has been given the opportunity to work in many different higher education institutions including the universities of Leicester, Birmingham and Oxford. With most days starting at around 5am and ending at 9pm, Shearer describes her role of “the chief accountable officer” as a “very exciting but very complicated job”.

Of course, the issues she deals with on a daily basis vary hugely but given recent events, the UCU strikes are currently taking up a lot of her time. So, what does she think about the strikes? Most basically, she says, “people in unions have the right to go on strike” and she “completely respects their right to strike”. However, she explained,“the senior leadership team and I have a responsibility as leaders of the university to mitigate any impact on students caused by strikes”.

Given mounting concern over China’s human rights record, there has been some concern amongst students over one of the partnerships which the University has formed in the country: the Ningbo Campus. On this, the Vice-Chancellor acknowledges that people have their concerns regarding human rights in China and understands those concerns completely. She even points out that “our academic community is engaged in researching, publicising and providing public comment and insight on these issues”.

On the issue of pensions, the Vice-Chancellor explains that “pensions and pay are subject to national negotiation” and so she argues that even if, as an individual Vice-Chancellor, she had the power to fix this issue, it is ultimately out of her hands. Moving forward on this matter, Professor West says that “we are trying to focus on the things we can change more locally such as gender pay gaps, introducing new contracts to address casualisation and reviewing academic workloads”.

Despite this, the Vice-Chancellor remarks that having established a partnership for over 20 years, this campus in China has a “very important role in soft power and embassy”.

The formation of this partnership is very important because it was “formed when UK universities lacked international students” so it is wonderful that our institution is so culturally diverse. Further, for Professor West, providing education to students living in China can help improve human rights: “we provide a liberal British education and we wouldn’t be benefiting anybody by removing our education in China”.

In March, the new cohort of SU officers were elected.

The elections, however, seriously lacked voter turnout and the results evening was disorganised and marred with controversy. On the Students Union, Professor West commends the organisation’s dedication to trying to improve the student experience and despite her busy schedule, she remembers she had been made aware of recent events. “It would be great if more students got involved with elections” was her response, while also commenting that engagement might be improved by better representation of the student body.

Continuing, the Vice-Chancellor explains that “the SU are effectively an independent body” and herself and the senior leadership team have a good relationship with the SU officers. “We meet them regularly, they have seats to represent student views in many of the University’s committees: they have seats as this representation helps us build a good relationship with them” she adds.

Another issue of contention often discussed amongst students is the Vice-Chancellor’s salary (£286,000). With pay disparity found amongst university staff and an ongoing debate about pay occurring with the UCU, this is a very divisive issue. Professor West explains that she “feels very privileged” to receive the salary that she does and she “understands completely why some people may feel uncomfortable with it”. She continues by explaining that “if you compare the pay of senior leadership in any university to those with equivalent responsibilities in the private sector, I believe my pay is justified”. The Vice-Chancellor stated that “I am happy to be transparent about my pay and the reasons for it are on our public website”.

Finally, with the climate crisis continuing to get worse, it is clear that all universities have a responsibility to commit to being more sustainable. On this, the Vice-Chancellor says she is very proud of the University’s research into sustainability which, she tells Impact, has led to a cut in the University’s emissions by 36 percent since 2010. Again, Professor West places large emphasis on her dedication to the local community because she says that “we, along with NTU, have committed to supporting our partners in the city with their ambitions for carbon neutrality”.

Some examples of UoN’s environmental initiatives, she notes, include the Trent Basin project which is one of the largest sustainable housing developments in the UK, and a vast range of research into solar and wind energy, as well as electric propulsion for passenger aircraft. Professor West believes that these steps, and UoN’s research records, will contribute to combating challenges to the environment and we will be moving in the right direction for becoming carbon neutral by 2030.

By Lottie Murray Page Design by Chiara Crompton

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IMPACT

Commissioners, Costs and Comparisons: Impact’s Stalking Investigation

Following on from our previous work, Impact continues its investigation into stalking in Nottinghamshire. This time including responses from Nottingham Police and Crime Commissioner, Caroline Henry, and an account of the shocking ‘cost of stalking’ for a victim.

In March, Impact uncovered that previous Police and Crime Commissioner Paddy Tipping had allocated over £80,000 to combat stalking in Nottingham. Speaking with the individual currently in the role, Caroline Henry, Impact were told that the Commissioner was “proud” that funding had been continued for Nottingham’s stalking advocacy service for another year.

While exact amounts are still being determined, Commissioner Henry did say that they “have increased the overall amount of funding allocated to the three charities’’ which she argued was “a clear sign of how seriously we are taking stalking” and their “commitment to tackling it”.

It remains to be seen, however, whether the funds they provide will be adequate to support victims of stalking. She also informed us that she has “recently commissioned a victim needs assessment to listen to the views of victims of crime across Nottingham and Nottinghamshire and what they would like to see improved”, to shape the support they provide. Nottingham was the first county to categorise misogyny as a hate crime and Caroline Henry believed this has made the police force more effective. She went on to argue that, by making misogyny a hate crime, it “increases women and girls’ trust and confidence in Nottinghamshire Police and sends a clear message that we care about this and will not tolerate it”.

NEWS GAMING

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Impact also interviewed the Investigating Safeguarding Stalking Officer, Kate Reece, who provided more details on the Cyber Protect and Prevention officers. She informed us that the cybercrime unit is “aligned to the national cyber 4P strategy: Pursue, Protect, Prevent, Prepare” to tackle crimes including online stalking. She also emphasised the importance of “police and support services such as Women’s Aid, Equation and the non-domestic stalking advocacy service working closely together to build rapport with our victims”.

However, while “Stalking Protection Orders were introduced in January 2020 and have been welcomed by the police”, they are not as quick to obtain as other orders due to “‘the criminal standard required”. Reece also argued that because stalking is not explicitly defined by the law it is “open to misinterpretation”. She remarked that “stalking needs to be legally defined, the impact on victims of stalking need to be at the forefront and the criminal justice process for stalking needs to be transparent, consistent and more effective”.

Reece also explained that, when it comes to stalking, the burden to collect evidence is on the victim not on the police. For this reason, she explained, the police “rely heavily on our victims to assist with our investigation”. Yet as we have found in our previous investigation, often the evidence victims collect simply isn’t enough.

Furthermore, the cost of collecting such evidence can act as a serious barrier to justice. One of the victims we spoke to, who has been consistently stalked for 12 years, described her struggle with accessing legal support. She told Impact that on reaching out to a solicitor “they [could not] even read the details I provided unless I was prepared to pay £800.” Similarly, another woman shared that her distressing case had led her to well and truly “hit rock bottom” Thankfully, she has a court date set, but the legal costs to progress her case thus far have already reached £5000.

Although these two cases are in very different stages, they both present the same major issue: victims are having to fund the process of justice themselves. It appears that being stalked comes with a price tag.

Stalking is, of course, not just a problem in Nottinghamshire. Speaking with Sussex’s Police and Crime Commissioner, Katy Bourne, Impact was told about how a rise in stalking in the county led her to introduce new ways to tackle the problem.

One element of her programme is education.

Bourne pointed out that misogynistic ‘locker room’ culture needs to be addressed before misogynistic attitudes, often a cause of stalking, become entrenched. Bourne has also initiated the ‘Do The Right Thing’ campaign, backed by local celebrities including John Simm and Norman Cook.

Bourne has also ensured that police in Sussex are specially trained in stalking, devising the acronym FOUR to help police recognise that behaviours of stalking are Fixated, Obsessive, Unwanted and Repeated. Bourne has also devised a new risk assessment for victims of stalking, which has been piloted across four police forces so far, in the hope that it will be implemented nationally.

In law, Stalking Protection Orders (SPOs) are important safeguards for victims of stalking. After the Stalking Protection Act 2019 was passed, Sussex was the first force in the country to secure SPOs from the courts, and 44 have been put in place since. Sussex is also trialling a Stalking Perpetrator programme, wherein people who have been given an SPO are given 12 1:1 behavioural therapy sessions, to help them manage the emotions and behaviours that cause harm to others. While a three year pilot scheme is in its early stages, Bourne says that the scheme has been successful so far.

Where Nottingham has kept up with Sussex (the provision of a local stalking advocacy service) important progress has been made. This begs the question, however: why hasn't Nottingham kept up with Sussex in other areas such as education, officer training and perpetrator therapy? It must be recognised that Nottingham does offer more support to stalking victims than many other counties.

However, we should be looking forward not backward and in comparison to Sussex, Nottingham’s support undoubtedly has room for improvement.

It is fair to say that Impact’s findings have, yet again, revealed that stalking is a problem that has many layers to it. With the help of stalking victims across the country as well as local authorities, we hope our investigation has been able to begin unravelling these layers.

However, in doing so it has become even clearer that there is still a very long way to go.

Change cannot come soon enough.

By Lottie Murray, Laura Scaife and Aidan Hall Research Team: Ellie Ames, Lauren McGaun, Lottie Murray, Niamh Robinson and Laura Scaife Page Design by Chiara Crompton.

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Nottingham’s Nightlife: Problematic Bouncers Rife In Our City?

For many students, going clubbing is a fun-filled weekly ritual.

However, clubbing environments have proven to be a breeding ground for misogynistic behaviour, violence and power abuse, from both those attending the venues and the security overseeing them.

Lottie Murray investigates bouncer aggression in Nottingham and the preventative initiatives that are being introduced to help nightclub attendees feel safer.

IMPACT Speaking with Impact, a UoN student described an experience they had at the beginning of last term whilst on a night out. A bouncer had rushed over to their friend and “pushed them to the floor while kicking and restraining them outside the front of [the club]”.

The student then went on to explain that, throughout the violent altercation, their friend was being called “horrific names” and suffered afterwards with several injuries. They told Impact that they were left feeling decidedly “unsafe”, ironically by the very individuals “supposed to be keeping us safe in the nightclub”.

One of the main issues appears to be that nightclub security is a male-dominated industry, with statistics showing that around 90% of door staff in entertainment venues are male. Undoubtedly, any gender can be subject to bouncer aggression. However, considering the recent media coverage of women feeling unsafe on nights out, there is even more of a need for those in charge to reassure female attendees that they will be protected.

Emily Garton, the University’s Women*’s Officer, told Impact that “as much as I appreciate that violence and abuse is a difficult issue across the industry, I do feel as though women*’s issues and general safety issues are not prioritised”.

There is a desperate need for all victims of violence to be taken more seriously and, until bouncers ensure that everyone feels equally safe on a night out, this issue will only continue to grow.

Emily has been creating close partnerships with groups who are working hard to protect the rights of women, and all other genders, against the violent misconduct of bouncers.

Although Emily completely acknowledges that “companies need to update their policies and rectify the process of carrying out background checks”, she is optimistic that these groups will help to prevent the issue from worsening.

Moving forward, we too must remain hopeful that initiatives such as The Consent Coalition’s ‘Safe Space Pledge’ will encourage those in authoritative positions to push for the positive change we are all so keen to see.

The pledge outlines several actions for change. These encompass: taking reports seriously, providing nonjudgemental support, employing safety champions in venues, displaying safety information clearly and adopting a zerotolerance policy towards harmful language, behaviour or attitudes to women. It is important to note that although this pledge is targeted at women, it by no means excludes other genders.

The pledge emphasises a number of non-negotiable, crucial actions which must be taken to improve safety on nights out.

However, in doing so, it simultaneously reminds us that there are several areas in which nightclubs are failing to protect us.

I urge the student community to continue researching the different initiatives aimed at keeping nightclub attendees safe.

This way, we can keep the pressure on nightclub owners, security and police to ensure worrying stories like the ones above do not become commonplace in our city.

Impact reached out to multiple nightclubs in Nottingham for a response, but received no comment.

By Lottie Murray Page Design by Chiara Crompton

FEATURES

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To panic masters, or not to panic masters?

Impact’s Kiah Tooke evaluates the pros and cons of applying for a ‘panic masters’, something which many final year students consider in the run-up to graduation.

Are you in second or third year with no idea what your life could become after departing from your overpriced student house in Lenton? Then, congratulations! You might be considering the allfamous panic masters. Doing a panic masters is a clever way of delaying the inevitable by making a last-minute decision to enter a master’s degree programme. However, is it really all that it’s cracked up to be?

To Panic Masters Who’s ready to give up the possibility of having a lie-in past 9 am, or the opportunity to play four hours of Stardew Valley whilst lectures fill the silence in the background? Definitely, not me. Plus, with Covid turning the world upside down, wouldn’t a panic masters be the perfect way to make up on time you could’ve spent downing VKs at Ocean, buying overpriced meal deals at SPAR, or talking too loudly in the silent areas of Hallward?

The job market right now is oversaturated with applicants anyway, so why not put it off for another year? Those graduate schemes will still be waiting for you and the 200 other people that have been ‘dreaming of working for this company since they were a child’ and whose ‘only flaw is perfectionism’. Or something to that effect.

If you’re unsure what the future holds for you past graduation, a panic masters could be the best way to add to your CV or learn more about an area you’ve always been interested in. Apart from being able to indulge in the student lifestyle for another year, you might even end up specialising in an area that opens more doors and improves your career prospects. Additionally, some jobs actually require a master’s degree for you to even enter the industry. An upper hand in the job market can’t be a bad thing, right?

Or Not To Panic Masters That student debt is already piling up and your master’s student loan probably won’t cover your weekly Uber Eats cravings. Maybe not even your tuition fees. So, is it really worth it? I know graduating seems scary and unknown, but another year of university is a big financial commitment to make. Especially if you aren’t really that committed to doing a masters in the first place.

The sting of rejection (or just being straight-up ghosted) from graduate jobs might dampen your desire to devote another minute to those ‘fun’ interactive job assessments. However, just like the wise old LinkedIn philosophers say, ‘rejection is merely a redirection’ – your ideal job could be out there waiting for you already! It might just take a bit of redirecting and soul-searching to get there.

Whilst some career paths require a master’s degree for you to even be considered, it’s worth debating if it really is necessary for entrylevel positions in your chosen field. Plus, aren’t you sick of writing essays and completing never-ending revision? Some masters require dissertations of up to 15,000 words. That alone should be enough to put you off.

By Kiah Tooke Illustrations by Alice Nott Page Design by Chiara Crompton

FEATURES

Nottingham’s Dating Horror Stories Whenever you’re out and about in Nottingham, you’re bound to spot some loved-up, or extremely awkward, couples on a date. But if you’re scared you’re the only one to ever experience a dating disaster, fear not! Amrit Virdi chatted to students familiar with Notts’ dating scene and uncovered some horrifying yet hilarious anecdotes – all anonymous to avoid the possibility of an exposé, of course.

We’re all familiar with MTV’s Catfish: The TV Show. But would you believe one such scenario took place right here in Nottingham? “She looked nothing like the photos, but I couldn’t just tell her to get out.’’

Being catfished was not what this boy expected when he invited a Tinder date to his house – safe to say that they never spoke again… even though she left her charger. “I knew she worked at Greggs, so I dropped it off and ran!’’

And the Tinder troubles don’t stop there. With this particular story happening to my housemate, I had the ‘pleasure’ (I suppose?) of witnessing it unfold firsthand. “I guess the point of the date was to get in my 10,000 steps,’’ he states, reminiscing on the time he agreed to go for a walk with a potential suitor, knowing nothing about him beforehand.

“It was most odd, he spent the whole date giving me an in-depth lecture about religion, before belittling me because I didn’t know as much as him.” So, just in case you’ve not been humbled enough by your Moodle feedback, there’s always the chance to be yet further humbled on a date - good to know! “We ended it with a short and sweet: ‘it was nice to meet you,’” he tells me, “then I walked away and never looked back.”

“I don’t know what happened,’’ one girl admits, as two-for-one cocktails took a bad turn. “I’m usually good with my drink, but I hadn’t been feeling great that day. So after one cocktail, I ran to the toilet, threw up, and had to go home… it was 8pm.’’ Miraculously, the date in question went on to become her long-term boyfriend, so if that doesn’t instil you with faith that there’s someone for everyone, what will? And the vomiting stories don’t stop there. Another anonymous girl recounts a time when she brought a boy back on New Year’s Eve – only for him to be sick in her toilet… for three consecutive hours.

“The first red flag should have been that he asked me to have sex in the library,” I’m told of yet another Tinder trauma. This story goes from 0-100 real quick. “Even when we started speaking, he only sent me videos. It was like we FaceTimed all day every day. But then, ironically, I didn’t hear from him at all on the day we had arranged our first date. I eventually assumed it wasn’t happening… until 7 pm rolls around and he says: ‘I’ve booked Turtle Bay for 8:30 today.’ I’ve never gotten ready so fast in my life – and he barely made an effort! The date was okay until he refused to walk me home at midnight. He then proceeded to ask me over to play Mario Kart every day, even though I repeatedly said no, before sending me the rudest voice note ever. Unsurprisingly, we never spoke again. A word of advice – never date a fresher.’’

By Amrit Virdi Illustrations by Alice Nott Page Design by Chiara Crompton

And people’s hopeful date expectations being scuppered appear to be a running theme. “I’d met him before and I just knew I didn’t want to sleep with him,’’ our final dater confesses. After being an hour late and claiming he got lost when his phone died, even though he lived around the corner, they sat and watched a movie in silence. “I went to the toilet and when I came back, he moved really close to me. I wasn’t into it. He then said, ‘work with me here, what do you want?’. To which I exclaimed, ‘I want you to go!’ We never spoke again… but now he lives in my building.’’

So, if you ever worry that your dating life is a disaster, hopefully, these stories provide some reassurance that you’re far from alone. And after all, it’ll only make it that much better when you do find ‘the one’.

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IMPACT

“Like a really weird school trip”: Behind the Lines of the Trent Building Student Occupation

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Impact’s Features Editor, Anna Friel, went to the Trent building at the height of the occupation to speak with the protesting students and gain an insight into their motivations and daily routine.

It’s four o’clock on a Saturday and I’m heading into Trent Building. Usually, I’d come here for lectures, but not today. On this occasion, I’m meeting those inhabiting Trent to get an inside look at the student occupation in the University’s management corridor.

I don’t know what I expected when I approached the site of the resistance, but it was not a smiling security guard sat on a chair, cheerily directing me towards the protest. Once I passed the barricade and got to sit down with one of the occupiers, though, I got a real sense of just how taxing it can be to hole yourself up in a corridor with around 50 other people, some in shifts, some there permanently, for over a week.

They have many motives, but principally they want management to respond to the demands of the University and College Union (UCU): the union for higher education staff. The empathy they have for the staff’s situation was clear as they told me how the latest devaluation of the pension fund will be economically crippling for many when they retire with an unlivable annual payment.

Casualisation is another issue, they tell me. Staff on increasingly short-term contracts with no benefits or employment protection are living in constant fear of their future, and what they call the University’s “half measures” to ameliorate this is too little and too late. The pay of lecturers being constantly lessened is also a large point of contention. UK university staff’s pay has decreased, in real terms, by 20% since 2009, and pay inequality in the form of the gender, BAME, and disability pay gaps at universities form a huge aspect of the UCU’s fight. All of this is relayed to me as we sit outside the office of Vice-Chancellor Shearer West who, in the 2019-2020 pay period, earned over £325,000 when factoring in annual pay, pension contributions, and bonuses. The disdain from the occupiers is clear.

These are not their only demands, though. My friend cites a desire to demilitarize the University, which has a partnership with BAE Systems: a company that develops weapons and sold £15bn worth of arms and services to the Saudi military during their assault on Yemen. They also stand against the hostile environment policies brought in by the government and applied to universities in 2012, resulting in what some call a pernicious surveillance operation on international students and migrant staff. Finally, they mention the conditions of learning themselves. Classroom sizes have increased dramatically in recent years and lecturers are forced to work longer unpaid hours to mark assignments properly. Ultimately, they say, we are paying for a quality of education that is decreasing. Staff who genuinely care about our learning are being put in a position where they must cut corners and be “mercenary” with our education, as “they don’t have the time or money to invest in us”.

When I visited, they had already been occupying the offices for over five days and had not heard anything from University management, despite their efforts to open a dialogue.

The security staff, on the other hand, had been very hospitable. The occupiers voiced their guilt that a security guard always had to be stationed outside the corridor.

And so, they had been bringing the guards cups of tea, whilst the guards in turn shared some sandwiches. At the end of the day, they say, it is their pay too that they are fighting for.

In comparison to Keighton Auditorium, which they had previously occupied, Trent is much more difficult to sleep in.

Where Keighton had large, comfortable chairs that could be used as beds, Trent only has the floor. As I walk between the many people lying on thin roll mats, I think about how uncomfortable they must become night after night. One of the occupiers admits that what they want the most at that moment is just one night in a bed. In fact, the cycle of the day has been another unexpected challenge for them. Apart from one small room, the lights are left on 24/7 in the corridor with no way to turn them off. Time dilates; days and nights merge into one, and as I walk between the rooms, I see signs taped to some doors imploring me not to go in as someone is trying to sleep inside.

Food has been another challenge. Apart from a kettle, which they keep in the bathroom because “fire safety comes first”, they have no way of cooking or heating food. Many of them have been living off pot noodles which, after a while, certainly takes its toll. Students, lecturers and security have been bringing them various bits of food throughout the week which has helped, but one of them jokingly admits that they had to get some multivitamin tablets as “things were shutting down”.

There is a bathroom with a shower on the corridor – a luxury compared to Keighton – so they have been able to maintain better hygiene this time around, evident as I poke through the piles of soap, toothbrushes and toothpastes on the windowsill.

Shoes, however, have been a nightmare. “You don’t realise, until you’re in a room with 20 pairs of shoes, just how much they reek,” one of them tells me. “I’ve had to go and get some Ambi Pur plug-ins but there’s only so much you can do.”

To keep order in the day and maintain morale, they plan lots of activities such as eating meals together, playing board games, and organising film, party, music and poetry nights.

Not only does this break up the monotony, but it also helps them do work, they say. Most of the occupants have carried on studying for their course whilst behind the barricade – a task made much easier when they maintain some structure to their time.

Being in the same room with the same people, day in and day out, in an environment that doesn’t reflect time can be stressful, however. To combat this, they hold a meeting every day to check in with everyone and make sure they’re all on the same page. They have also devised a welfare team to ensure everyone is coping and to resolve any potential issues.

At the end of the interview, I was given a tour around their corridor and its rooms, before bidding my goodbyes. Walking away, I reflect on what to me was a very interesting story to cover, but for them, has been a taxing experience for a cause you can tell they are genuinely extremely passionate about.

Although they all seem to be firm friends, and have made considerable efforts amongst themselves to keep spirits high, it is disheartening to see just how far this protest has had to go in order to gain management’s attention.

The following Friday, on their twelfth day of occupation, they were forced to leave after the University sent a representative from the court with a notice threatening legal action.

Encapsulating the overall experience, one occupier simply described it as being on “a really weird school trip”.

By Anna Friel Page Design by Chiara Crompton

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Queerness, Religion and Authenticity...

...a letter to my younger self

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Dear Mini-me...

I know what it’s like, to feel trapped within a heavily conservative and religious space, especially when you’ve begun to question everything about yourself and society. I know you cry most days, feeling like a sinner for imagining a future where you get to express yourself truly, for straying from the put-together, Christian girl that everyone expects you to be.

You have always been a restless and creative soul. I want you to know that, although you constantly get put down for this, these traits have given you the strength to express yourself as a confident and queer individual. An individual who chooses everyday to surround themselves with an affirming community and to live authentically.

You probably have so many questions, like where I live since I chose to come out and accept the estrangement from my family. Well, it’s a funny story, because we never actually came out. At least, not in the way that we grew up watching white people come out on the internet.

It sounds strange saying we haven’t come out when I’m publicly declaring that I’m queer, but one thing we’ve learnt through queer and post-colonial theory is understanding there is no need to explicitly share your queerness with anyone. The concept of coming out has never fully included the experiences of people from different ethno-racial and cultural backgrounds. We have chosen to share our true and vulnerable selves with the communities through which we have been empowered and liberated.

You’re probably shocked to hear me mention communities, as I remember us being in a space where we couldn’t imagine finding anyone else going through the exact same sexuality and gender crisis as us. But there are so many people out there creating spaces for us to freely express ourselves, and I can’t wait for you to finally begin that journey. I won’t lie to you and say that we have fully discovered who we are, but I can say that we have accepted that it’s a life-long journey and all you need is to give yourself the love and space required to explore all that you’re currently feeling. Oh, and get rid of that religious guilt, because you are fully valid and loved exactly as you are.

I want to let you know that it is okay to open yourself up to a world that seems so far away from yours right now. For years, we’ve felt limited by patriarchal expectations of gender performance and sexuality. The need to present as feminine even though we were constantly masculinised for being a tall and fat, darkskinned girl. The need to seek male validation in order to build a sense of confidence and beauty, even when the Western standard of beauty was never created to include people like us. The need to hide away and limit our outwardly different expression of self. Although these struggles still exist, even in a world where we’ve accepted our queerness, the pain they bring feels like nothing compared to the joy of finally being free.

We have found so much love within the different queer communities we have encountered. From the ballroom scene to the more political, activist scene, we have left feeling stronger and more affirmed in our identity. We encounter so much difficulty as our life continues, things that seem like they are going to break us mentally and physically. But I hope you find peace knowing that I’m still here fighting for a future in which we get to truly experience joy, especially queer joy.

So, from this pansexual genderqueer self to another, I hope you know that you deserve to come into every space, unapologetically, and as your truest self.

By IO Photography by Rian Patel Page design by Gemma Cockrell

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We’re Angry and Upset: Class of 2022 Got Only 29 Full Weeks of Teaching

Hannah Penny shares her frustration and sadness about a university experience marred by pandemics and industrial action.

If there was a photograph of my optimistic cohort as we walked through the University of Nottingham’s gates for the first time in September 2019, you would see us beaming with excited anticipation as the best years of our lives lay before us. Back then, we thought we had almost 70 weeks of teaching ahead of us. Soon we’ll be leaving university, having had only 29 weeks of in-person teaching.

Honestly, it could not have been helped. Lecturers couldn’t have averted a global pandemic or the pay gaps that they still face (try hard as they might). Yet, I can’t help but wonder if the graduates of ‘22 might have had the unluckiest university experience imaginable.

In our first year, the six strike-affected weeks seemed like a fun holiday for a good cause. We went to Rock City and relished the lie-ins. Strikes ended abruptly when the world fell apart.

Fair enough. One Friday in March, we were assured that the pandemic wouldn’t affect universities. These are the institutions that stayed open during World War Two, after all. On the following Monday, we were in our hometowns with two pairs of jeans and enough underwear to last us our three-week break.

We wore those jeans until we collected our things in June.

In September 2020, we took a second stab at it, feebly returning to friends we hadn’t seen in months. The government ushered us back, pleading ‘please pay your fees and accommodation everything is back to normal, remember?’

By the 9th of October, there were 1,510 active COVID-19 cases at the University. Countless students isolated in box rooms and shabby houses, unwell and afraid. University went online and many went back to their hometowns once more.

In the 20/21 academic year, nearly £1 billion was spent on unlived-in accommodation. All this time, fees were being paid at full price. Russell Group universities collectively gained £115 million in furlough money. It remains a mystery as to where this money has gone. It’s certainly not in student refunds or lecturers’ bank accounts…

The staff is not to blame for the lack of in-person teaching in our second year. For Teams break-out rooms, however, we can hold them responsible. I know my professors’ living rooms better than I know the bottom half of my coursemates’ faces.

Meanwhile we're scoffing bowls of chips as a ‘substantial meal’ in order to buy vodka cokes in chilly pub gardens and obeying a state-mandated 10 pm curfew. The apocalypse campus experience par excellence.

Hundreds of years abroad were being cancelled or attended virtually, and Lenton is no Los Angeles. And for those staying closer to home, the pandemic squandered the possibility of European living too… enter Brexit stage right.

By our third September, we thought this would be our year. We were back on campus, back out partying and soaking up our final chance at university life. In October, nightclubs were boycotted as students were being spiked by injection. Then, strikes again.

In December, people ran home early again or were spending Christmas Eve isolating in student houses alone.

In our Spring semester, so far, there has been a petrol crisis, the government has been outed for ‘Partygate’ and a war has broken out. The strikes strike again and through it all, we have been foggy-headed and tired. Trying to write dissertations without tutors and essays without lectures.

Somehow, in a time characterised by illness, mourning, masks and Teams, we have made it to the end. Somehow, lots of us have still enjoyed it. My only sadness is that we are finding our feet in Nottingham just as we are being handed our caps and gowns and saying goodbye.

By Hannah Penny Illustration by Shaha Alzamil Page Design by Chiara Crompton

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How will the war in Ukraine affect the food landscape of our future?

With Brexit and the effects of climate change, British food prices have been on a steady rise for years. Will the war between Russia and Ukraine cause more problems with the global food supply chain further impacting the UK’s already turbulent food climate? Hannah Lowe gives us a rundown on what to expect.

As the war between Ukraine and Russia continues to escalate, you may be asking yourself how the conflict may impact the food landscape of our future. Although food prices before the war had already hit a record high, being 20% more expensive than they were the year before due to rising transportation costs, supply chain disruptions and rising commodity prices, it is predicted that food prices will continue to rocket globally.

over many countries’ overreliance on a small number of breadbaskets.

In his interview with Global Landscapes Forum, Dr Lawrence Haddad iterated the importance of diversifying production and trade links: “Geopolitically, we are

With nearly 30% of global wheat exports coming from Ukraine and Russia, they are considered global ‘breadbaskets’. It has been forecast that regions with a strong reliance on wheat and fertiliser imports, such as North Africa, may suffer immensely.

With commercial operations being suspended at Ukraine’s port facilities, most of the wheat harvested in 2021 is currently unable to be exported.

Although UK food producers do not import many items from Russia or Ukraine, with more than 90% of the wheat we consume being produced domestically, there may still be an increase in associated costs, such as packaging, transport and fertiliser.

A predicted 15% inflation of food prices, alongside an increase in fuel and energy prices, will make it increasingly difficult for lowerincome families to live in the UK.

It has been reported that in poorer countries and households, the share of income spent on food can be above 40%. With even higher costs, people may be unable to continue buying wheat-based products.

To help minimise the impact of the war on the UK’s food chain, it is important to refrain from panic buying.

Instead, you should look to buy nonperishables in bulk (for example, pasta and rice), or buy frozen produce which is cheaper and more abundant.

North Africa also relies heavily on fertiliser imported from Ukraine and Russia.

Without fertiliser, it becomes very difficult to produce crops – impacting not only food supplies to their domestic population but their trade links abroad.

Like Covid-19, the war in Ukraine has exposed a lack of resilience within the infrastructure of the global food supply chain. It raises concerns

Illustrations and Page Design by Ciara Lurshay

it, but it will be the most resilient.”

Countries should begin to spread their reliance more proportionately on trade agreements with a higher number of countries. This means that when humanitarian crises like these occur, global food supply chains can more effectively respond and adapt in order to minimise the wider implications. Haddad also stressed the importance of trade continuing to occur both internally and externally in other countries, as a halt on trade means “everyone will suffer”.

much too dependent on five or six bread-baskets of the world – there needs to be 20. It may not be the most efficient way of doing

The war is clearly going to impact our everyday lives, especially our food chains. It is important to be prepared, whilst also not descending into panic. And of course, if you are able, donate to food banks too.

By Hannah Lowe

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Are vegan stereotypes harming the movement?

With the rise of ‘vegan influencers’ o n s ocial media, veganism is constantly in the headlines. Such publicity has fuelled gross stereotypes. Is this halting the progress of the movement in fighting climate change and protecting animal rights? Daria Paterek gives us her thoughts.

To many, vegans are seen as pretentious, angry and unfunny hippies.

Stereotypically, vegans are also white, rich and rife with bigotry.

Ironically, this is in stark contrast to the origins of plant-based diets in amongst the poor societies of Ancient India and the Mediterranean.

Even today, the reality is that veganism is a philosophy which promotes ‘the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment.’ However, there persists a perception that the lifestyle is classist, inaccessible and even racist. So, where does this stereotype come from?

“Slogans such as ‘Stuff Veganuary and do what you can-uary’ are overshadowed by vegan ‘influencers’ who continue to preach that veganism is all-or-nothing” Groups such as PETA have used shock-tactics, such as slaughterhouse footage, to create moral outrage. Despite new campaigns by the Vegan Society, like Veganuary and ‘Plate up for the Planet’, the public still associates veganism with these notorious protests. Slogans such as ‘Stuff Veganuary and do what you canuary’ are overshadowed by vegan ‘influencers’ who continue to preach that veganism is all-or-nothing. Vegan influencers, like James Aspey, use highly extremist language in their campaigns, an example of such is the comparison of animal husbandry to the horrors of slavery, rape, and the Holocaust. Unsurprisingly, this has caused many to turn away from the movement.

Aspey, who has 200k followers, caused outrage with his remark that “one day our consumption of animals will be known as the longest-lasting Holocaust.” Slogans like ‘End the Animal Holocaust, Abolish Animal Slavery’ can often overshadow more positive slogans such as ‘One World. Many Lives.

Our Choice.’ Influencers like this feed into the stereotype of veganism as a white, middle-class diet and deter those who may be considering plant-based living. While not all vegan influencers are like this, with channels such as SoVegan providing healthier, more moderate views, it is the aggressive and controversial individuals that garner the most attention.

The key for veganism to succeed is intersectionality, but how can a movement succeed whilst also being so hostile?

There are growing discussions about the accessibility of lowincome veganism, alongside the need to highlight cultural foods that are vegan and aid those who feel isolated when trying to go plant-based. Hopefully, this could be the beginning of veganism becoming more mainstream, as the wider vegan community starts to confront their inner bias and question their methods of activism.

This more diverse and accepting approach has led to 580,000 people joining the Veganuary campaign in 2021, alongside a further 23,481 joining the Vegan Society’s ‘Plate Up for the Planet’ week. As more people become disillusioned with the state of food production, it is important that positive initiatives like these allow wider audiences to be reached.

Being ‘vegan’ may still be associated by some with privilege and prejudice, but it doesn’t need to be. It is only through continually questioning controversial influencers, like Aspey, and challenging divisive tactics that veganism can reach the mainstream.

By Daria Paterek Photography by Finn Mckenzie Page Design by Rian Patel

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“Flat-earthers aren’t stupid” Why We Should Meaningfully Engage with Conspiracy Theorists Laura Scaife sat down with University of Nottingham’s Professor Philip Moriarty to discuss his views on engaging with conspiracy theorists as a scientist. How do you control your anger and frustration when talking to flat-earthers? Is it possible to connect with someone who has such different views to yourself?

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It can be very frustrating trying to communicate with conspiracy theorists who believe the earth is flat, climate change isn’t real and that establishment scientists are sheep. Professor Moriarty argues that the best way to engage with these people isn’t to shout them down with scientific facts, however. It is, instead, to meaningfully engage with them and try to understand why they believe what they do.

Professor Moriarty began by arguing that the problem with engaging with flat-earthers and conspiracy theorists scientifically, is that “the science is done and dusted. This is not about the science, this is about the psychology and the sociology, it’s about them finding a community to belong to.” Often “the more narcissistic among them” feel proud to be outsiders, they believe they’ve found something no one else has spotted and they are desperate to be proved right.

“Flat-earthers aren’t stupid,” Moriarty says, and the worst thing you can do when interacting with the flat-earther community is to patronise them and bombard them with scientific facts.

“We need to move beyond the idea that they’re completely rock stupid,” he tells me. They are “very, very good at picking holes in science” and they will argue that they are “the true scientist because they’re sceptical”.

This means that if you try to adopt a scientific approach when arguing with such individuals, they will just keep moving the goalposts. This can make arguing with them “exhausting, absolutely exhausting,” Professor Moriarty says. In fact, he had to “kill” his Twitter account and take his blog offline for 18 months after trying to reason with these science sceptics became just too frustrating.

You may be wondering, however, why it is so important to engage with the flat-earther community in the first place. After all, surely they’re fairly harmless, if very much illinformed? However, as Professor Moriarty argues “the ideology and mindset that underpins the flat-earth view is very, very closely aligned with the same type of ideology and mindset that underpins antivax; that underpins scepticism about climate; that underpins so much of the misinformation and, for want of a better term, fake news.” He believes these ideologies are “going to kill someone”. Therefore, the flat-earthers offer a test case on how we can engage with these denialist communities and begin to try and change their minds.

As Moriarty argues, the way to begin to change their minds isn’t by educating them, it is instead by engaging and listening to them. Moriarty gives the example of a time when he was arguing with a flat-earther and realised they were also a “massive Black Sabbath fan”.

While they “didn’t go away agreeing with each other”, he found that “certainly it was a lot less aggrieved and a lot less swearing [was] involved” than if they hadn’t found that common ground. Professor Moriarty then spoke about the YouTube channel ‘Sixty Symbols’, which was created by the School of Physics at the University of Nottingham, in collaboration with the videographer Brady Harran. Videos often capture the pain of experiments that go wrong in an effort to humanise the scientists behind them.

Professor Moriarty praises the importance of the channel in reaching these sceptical communities: “scientists are willing to engage with them, even if we disagree with them. If that person can feel that they’re being taken seriously, then you’re in a position of trying to sway their beliefs; if all you do is bark at them, laugh at them, ridicule them, and tell them they’re wrong, you’ve lost, absolutely lost.”

There is hope that this approach can be effective as well. Moriarty gave the example of Rising Out of Hatred, a book about a man who rebelled against the beliefs of his family, who were avowed white supremacists. “The book is about how he rejected all that.

Ultimately, it was about personal interactions. It was about people not ridiculing him, people not taking his view seriously but being willing to engage and counter his views.” It shows there is “promise and potential” if we stop shouting. If instead, we are willing to both listen and engage.

By Laura Scaife Photography by Rian Patel Page Design by Chiara Crompton

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Climate Change: How Can You Choose Hope?

The impact of climate change offers a bleak outlook for the future. Anna Boyne and Lucy Woodward sat down with climate scientists Amy Wright, Professor Greg Marsden and Dr Sofie Sjögersten to gain an insight into how climate change affects those studying it.

The climate crisis is more than an environmental disaster. The devastation that’s being inflicted on our planet is also a cause of widespread mental turmoil. Given that their research is fixated on the issue, it is climate scientists that are particularly vulnerable to this epidemic of climate depression and anxiety.

How can we expect scientists to also be experts in detachment, able to separate themselves from the personal aspect of this issue? How can they choose hope after uncovering the extent of the potential damage we’re inflicting on the planet?

Sharing the voices of those on the frontline of climate research is an important way to look for answers to these questions; they are the ones experiencing the real highs and lows of this work.

Amy Wright, a PhD student at Anglia Ruskin University, told Impact: “Before I started my Environmental Science Research Masters, I remember being so excited about the potential for my research and believing that it could be game-changing if it worked.”

Amy Wright’s work investigated the efficacy of Iron Oxides for aiding carbon storage in soils, which could be an effective way to sequester harmful greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

And after a year of research, the science was clear. It worked.

However, in the face of the devastation of climate change, she was faced with the realisation that it wouldn’t be enough. “I felt so disheartened when I realised that, even though this technique could aid the movement as an effective solution, it’d still be insignificant in the scale of the damage we’re causing,” said Wright.

It’s no wonder, then, that climate scientists are experiencing mental health challenges. Investing their time, finances and emotional strength to find solutions for an issue they deeply care about carries a meaningful weight to it. Yet, everyday the magnitude of the problem keeps growing, and little is being done to reverse it. Prof. Greg Marsden, an expert in Transport Governance, is researching a better future for the UK’s transport systems. He told Impact: “I went to the Scottish Climate Strike discussion at COP26 and cried at the level of worry our young people are feeling and their despair at the lack of action. I don’t think these conversations are happening enough – I think far too many people don’t get that this is an emergency.”

The continual feeling of fighting a losing battle is prevalent amongst climate scientists and must be a difficult thing to shake off. Especially when months, years, or even decades of research that holds potential for enormous positive change is ignored and disregarded by policymakers and governments.

One of countless examples of this is global travel. Prof.

Marsden explained that: “Globally, more movement is leading to more CO2 emissions. However, policymakers are struggling to move away from a world where travelling more was seen as a right and an unquestionable good for society to a world which sees climate as a constraint.”

“The car lobby, the infrastructure building lobby, the fossil fuel suppliers, the aviation and leisure industries and the investment banks all have a vested interest in only minor tweaks to ‘Business as Usual’ when the science says otherwise. All the time, messages are ignored, and science is used selectively.”

How can we expect researchers to remain mentally healthy when, after tirelessly researching solutions for our survival, they are slapped in the face by denial, pessimism and worse, indifference? How can they maintain hope, work-life balance and mental fortitude? Striking a work-life balance can be a challenge for everyone, but the immediacy of global warming makes it even more difficult for climate scientists. The trials and tribulations of their work follow them outside the workplace.

Dr Sofie Sjögersten, Professor of Environmental Science at the University of Nottingham, explained to Impact how she navigates talking about her work in social situations: “When I’m asked, then I will share my views, but I’ve been a little bit burned out by people as well. You say this is what you do when you’re at a party and then everybody wants to discuss it and have an opinion against it, and it makes you a bit vulnerable.”

Since starting research into climate change in 1998, Dr Sjögersten has been witness to a huge shift in attitudes towards the issue – from only an awareness of global warming amongst the scientific community, to a growing acceptance of the need to implement change. However, regularly dealing with climate change deniers can be draining. Instead, she prefers to share anecdotes of her adventures: being attacked by arctic terns, hissed at by boa constrictors and getting lost in the jungle in Panama, to name just a few.

“It’s not that I don’t talk about my work, but I try to talk about it in a positive way and about how the natural world is a wonderful thing. For me, personally, it’s provided me with my livelihood and adventure. I think I try to invoke a sense of wonder in people and appreciation of what nature does, because I think that’s much easier for people to engage with.”

Compartmentalising can be a useful tool for distinguishing between work, home and social life. Dr Sjögersten stressed the importance of knowing both the responsibilities and limitations of her role. Her position means she is entrusted with finding data which can provide solid evidence for the people working on the information campaigns, but it is the task of others to communicate this data in a digestible way to the population.

SCIENCE

Prof. Marsden shared a similar outlook on distinguishing between job roles. “I’ve not made the decision to be a politician or civil servant, so I have to recognise their worlds and try to exert my influence in a different way,” he explained. The weight of personal responsibility tends to lead to a desire to take on too many roles, but this mentality of doing what you’re best suited to seems to be an effective method for avoiding burnout.

Dr Sjögersten tries to see the magnificence of scientific discoveries despite the often-worrying results. If work becomes overwhelming, however, she will usually turn to her network of peers and colleagues. “I think it is really important to have a team of people that you know around you and supporting you who understand the challenges and the worries.” Rather than viewing the climate crisis in a fatalistic manner, it is touching to see how Dr Sjögersten finds such purpose and drive in her research. She told Impact: “I’m working harder than I would have done if I didn’t have the sense that this is important for my children’s future.”

We all have a role to play in tackling global warming, and climate scientists are an integral part of this. It should be our responsibility to listen to their professional advice, especially when the evidence points to a crisis, and we’d rather pretend everything will resolve itself. It is unsurprising that so many climate scientists are experiencing feelings of depression and demoralisation. From speaking to scientists from a range of fields of study and stages in their career, it is clear we must acknowledge the science, support further research and look after the wellbeing of those carrying out the work our children’s futures depend on.

By Anna Boyne and Lucy Woodward Illustration by Katelanne Wint Page Design by Ciara Lurshay

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Soul-searching and surfing: What’s the point behind ‘gap yahs’?

If you meet someone who has been on a gap year, you will probably know about it. It might be the armfuls of beaded jewellery, or the tapestries hung in their room. Anna Boyne asks, what is it that makes people feel the sudden urge to ‘gap yah’?

The stereotype is that someone who takes a gap year is searching for a greater purpose, inner peace and to ‘find themselves’. They often set off for South America, Asia, Australia, or Africa in the hope that they’ll come back as a different person. However, eventually the harem pants come off, the tan fades, and they begin to regret that spontaneous but generic tattoo.

Nevertheless, as Leah, a student at the University of Nottingham, told Impact: “finding yourself sounds like a cliché, but it really is true.” Leah spent a month in Borneo, where she had no SIM card or access to Wi-Fi. She spent her time waking up at 6 am to do workouts on the beach, carrying out humanitarian work and swimming in the sea.

It made her realise that “we waste so much time on our phones. Social media is all fake and about how we make our lives look to people we mostly don’t know very well.”

It could be that gap years are a way to procrastinate becoming a real adult with a proper job. This is especially the case with fresh graduates not yet ready to let go of their university days. Instead, exploring the nightlife scenes across the world can seem much more appealing than work. And yes, supposedly ‘immersing oneself in different cultures’ plays some part in the decision too…

People who have taken gap years are often mocked for their uncanny ability to slip phrases like “on my gap year” or “when I was travelling” into nearly every conversation. Nonetheless, they almost always do have interesting, bizarre, funny and sometimes downright terrifying experiences to recount - from paying five euros to be slapped in Greece, to paragliding in South America. Maybe, therefore, gap years are about having stories to tell later down the line, long after you’ve sold your soul to the corporate world.

If someone mentions their gap year, they’ll nearly always be greeted with a taunting, ‘don’t you mean gap yahh?’.

This stems from the stereotype that people who take gap years are travelling using ‘daddy’s money’, having just left private school and not yet ready to take up their role in the family business.

Gap years seem to have quite a poor reputation amongst parents and teachers. They fear that students will take a gap year and never be able to get back into the education system again. But what does that say about the education system? Maybe the freedom and experiences gained through travelling make you realise that there is more to life than the conventional grind of school, university, work and, before you know it, retirement.

Leah told Impact that travelling gave her a wider perspective on life. “School tells you how important it is to be well-rounded, but the education system forces you into one channel. You have no real freedom or independence when you’re 18.” We are taught to be global citizens but haven’t actually seen much of life beyond the UK and Europe.

As much as we may all take pleasure in mocking people who have taken gap years, they only ever seem to rave about their experiences. Travelling does truly seem to be invaluable, even if you never work out quite what it means to ‘find yourself’.

By Anna Boyne Illustration by Shaha Alzamil Page Design by Chiara Crompton

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FASHIONING CLASS: How Clothing Has Been Used Throughout History to Impose Class

“The colour purple has become synonymous with wealth and nobility”

Impact’s Christina Giambollardo explores the “Classist History of Clothes” from Mediaeval Sumptuary Laws to the Hermes Bags of the 21st century.

One of the first things you notice about someone is their clothes.

In fact, the way someone dresses can tell you a lot about them, from their culture to their economic status. Clothes are even capable of waging social warfare and gaining leverage to exploit others, particularly in 13th century Europe. In the Middle Ages, it became a way to cement a social hierarchy and the class divides in society. The creation of classes helps cause economic inequality; outward signs of someone’s class allowing for discrimination and those at the bottom having less. Later, Sumptuary Laws (laws imposed to restrict what someone could purchase) were popularised by the English, who spread these practices across Europe and other cultures through imperialism.

In Shakespearian times, the nobility was expected to wear extravagant clothing and were the only class allowed to wear ermine fur and silk garments. By contrast, the peasants wore wool or linen and were only permitted to wear specific colours like beige and brown. In Medieval China, only the emperor was allowed to wear yellow robes. In Japan, the colour of your kimono, its weave, the way it was worn and the adornments, could tell you someone’s class.

“The way someone dresses could tell you a lot about them” In Europe, the Industrial Revolution set the stage for members of the lower classes to rise to nobility, challenging such strict rules. Since having money (old or new) meant you could buy expensive clothes and jewellery to show off your wealth, the new bourgeoisie wanted to wear these richer colours.

In terms of colour, historically, purple has been synonymous with wealth, even being associated with Roman Emperors.

So much so that Elizabeth I actually banned everyone but the royal family from wearing the colour! This was due to the dye being extremely expensive, with half a kilogram of wool costing more than most people’s yearly earnings.

From the famous frills and pale faces of Elizabethan times, to carrying a Hermès bag in the 21st century, the clothes you wear reflect your social standing. The aspiration to look ‘rich’, and the restrictions imposed on wearing certain articles of clothing, have led to labels being attached to fashion. What we choose to wear immediately open us up to scrutiny from passers-by, and people’s judgements are rooted in classism. But if you feel confident, who cares what they say anyway?

By Christina Giallombardo Illustrations by Olivia Mayne Page design by Monica Mancini

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IMPACT

From Runways to Rejection:

An Interview With a Student Model The modelling industry is known for being notoriously tough to both break into and remain inside. Self-confessed Top Model fan Daria Paterek speaks to first-year Liberal Arts student and model Margot Howell to find out the truth about this clandestine industry.

I first ask Margot how and why she decided to pursue a part-time career in modelling. “I never thought of being a model. But I was always told that I’m tall, which resulted in many ‘do you play basketball?’ comments,” she remarks. “I was scouted at a local supermarket aged 14 by Kate Moss Agency after going to the cinema with my family. I was wearing joggers and a big jacket. Honestly, I thought it was a joke.” Her transition to modelling was a lengthy process, with “test shoots lasting two years”.

Once she turned 16, she took part in her first-ever runway show at Paris Fashion Week. “I was the youngest person in the show. All my casting and auditions took place when I was 15.” And are runway shows as crazy as they seem in America’s Top Model? In short, yes. “It was very hectic,” Margot remembers. “What made it even more hectic was that it was completely new. Furthermore, a couple of hours before the show, the designer told me that I would be closing the show. It was a lot of pressure.” Fast forward to now, Margot has done “e-commerce work, which has included modelling for clothing websites, as well as working for Fendi and participating in London Fashion Week”.

Being a student is tough; balancing student life with modelling is even tougher. As a first-year student, Margot has found balancing modelling with student life “quite tricky.

I’ve been trying to settle into the first year of university and balance my social life”. This has impacted her ability to make long-term plans since “the modelling industry is very last minute. I will often find out that I have passed an audition the day before or the day of the shoot.”

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But at least you get well compensated, right? “Pay in modelling is decent. However, some modelling jobs don’t get paid. And when I get paid, it often isn’t for a very long time, normally up to a year,” Margot tells me.

Despite being very young, Margot has achieved great things in her modelling career already. She remarks how she doesn’t “take modelling moments for granted. I have had so many great experiences and made many friends. If I had to pick my most rewarding moment, it was probably my first runway show. Lady Gaga was in the audience!”

But it has not all been glamorous. “In the modelling industry, it is really about who you know.” And, aside from the nepotism, Margot explains how intense and exhausting the industry can be.

“London Fashion Week was really tiring. I had to take an entire week out of school. I was walking over 10 miles a day, attending lots of castings.”

While modelling boosted Margot’s confidence (and made her very good at small talk), it also helped her develop a thick skin.

She recounts how “you get turned away a lot. You lose out on jobs for silly things. Once I got a show, and they really liked me.

When they used me for the hair and beauty test, they rejected me since my hair was too long.”

Modelling has also taught her resilience. She tells me that she believes that if you lose a great opportunity, it’s an opportunity for an even greater one to arise. “The biggest job I was offered was a campaign with MAC Cosmetics. I was going to be in all MAC stores in the UK during Valentine’s Day. However, there was an outbreak of Covid at my school (during the early days of the pandemic), and I had to isolate and tell my agency that I couldn’t do the shoot.”

So, what is next for Margot? “If my modelling got big, I would think about doing it after university, since it’s hard to do on the side.

However, I always wanted to work in the entertainment industry.

I don’t see myself doing modelling full-time – but I believe that the skills and networking I have gained will prove valuable in whatever career I decide to pursue.”

By Daria Paterek Photography and Editing by Finn Mckenzie assisted by Rian Patel Modelled by Margot Howell Page Design by Chiara Crompton n

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ENTERTAINMENT

Entertainment

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IMPACT

Impact Chats with Award-Winning Actor

Adrian Scarborough

Adrian Scarborough will be starring in his own adaptation of Alan Bennett’s The Clothes They Stood Up In at Nottingham Playhouse from the 9th of September to the 1st of October 2022. Sporting his signature flat cap, the award winning actor sat down with Hannah Penny to chat about what it’s like to be the only person to adapt Bennett’s fiction for the stage and his curious advice for making it in the acting world.

FILM AND TV Over a brew, Adrian described how special this story is to him.

He recalled his family listening to Bennett’s novella “on a cassette tape, would you believe, those were things that were around in the Palaeolithic era,” he chuckled. The story, written by the cherished creator of The History Boys and The Lady in the Van, follows a couple who come home from the opera to find all their belongings are gone. “And I mean all of them, the oven is gone, the bookcase is gone, the light fittings have gone…everything has gone, and they don’t know why,” Adrian explains.

When I asked what drew him to add playwrighting to his repertoire, Adrian said that the story is simply too funny not to. Bennett manages to pack so much into so little, “you could read it in the bath in one evening.” Adrian smiles as he describes how his family constantly quotes it. “It seems to hit a nerve,” he says, Bennett puts “little wordy ear-worms in your head” that are “unforgettable and very funny”.

This isn’t Scarborough’s first-time performing Bennett’s work or acting at the Nottingham Playhouse. When I asked him whether he wanted to keep Bennett’s voice alive or let the adaptation take on a new essence, he was adamant that his primary objective was to “keep Alan’s voice as much as is humanly possible”. Adrian has modernised it, but his writing has Bennett’s seal of approval. Adrian beams that at one point Alan “couldn’t remember what he’d written and what I’d written, which is about as delightful as it gets”. It’s nothing short of an honour, Adrian claims, to “use a bit of Bennett and turn it into something else”.

Nottingham has been a cultural sanctum in Adrian’s life, growing up not far from the city in Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire. He’s thrilled to be back again, after performing Bennett’s The Madness of George III there earlier in 2018, to high acclaim. “The Nottingham Playhouse is where I had a lot of my formative theatrical experiences,” he mused.

It’s not just the theatre that Adrian adores, he “was always, always very fond of the Lace Market” and the surrounding countryside. He adds that the castle is “beautiful, stunning, very jolly”. He lauded Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem and the deli that sells Mrs King’s pork pies, chuckling, “which are without a shadow of a doubt the best in the county”. He’s even filmed in Nottingham Prison, he began to laugh, “they lock you in and it’s really fucking scary!”. Adrian loves regional theatre and is thrilled to bring the world premiere of The Clothes They Stood Up In to the Playhouse.

“be a jack-ofall-trades and master of none”

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“If you see an actor do something that you think is really cool, nick it. Nick it and make it your own” Adrian has played iconic comedy characters like Pete in Gavin and Stacey and Dreamboat Charlie in Miranda. He has gone dark in Killing Eve, and more recently, he has appeared as The Chelsea Detective. I asked him if he is drawn to a particular genre, or whether he looks for a character’s spirit that transcends this. He replied that he has “been absolutely and utterly blessed throughout [his] career at being able to play pretty much anything,” he laughs and then admits, “with the possible exception of major romantic leads”. What Adrian really likes is mixing it up.

He relays to me the piece of advice that he was given early on, to be a jack-of-all-trades and master of none; “that way,” he says, “you’re likely to be able to put marmite on the table”.

He confesses that he loves playing villains but also heroes: “I love chases, I love sword fights, I love all that kind of thing.”

We chuckle as he admits that the one thing he has never done but would love to do is a Western. “I’d probably be the priest or the drunk,” I joked that he’d end up in the pub next door, “exactly”, he laughs.

I asked Adrian how he has managed to play iconic characters and appear in works such as 1917, On Chesil Beach and King Lear without being type-cast. He says he used his forties to work outside of the remit of the comedy that he was known for. He found comedy cameos ended up being like “SAS acting”, where he was parachuted in, shot quickly, and had no chance to get to know the rest of the cast and crew. “It’s quite a lonely existence, that, as an actor. I tend to avoid those now because they don’t give me a lot of satisfaction.”

When I asked him if he had a preference between working on stage, television, film, or radio he replied that he likes it all.

He does, however, have a soft spot for audiobooks. They are “a very meditative way of just being alone with yourself and a piece of literature,” but it’s a lot of homework. The audiobook adaptation of Les Misérables posed a French-accent shaped challenge but he contemplated that it’s nice not to be seen.

Because what Adrian really loves is the spell-binding capacity of storytelling.

We began to chat about The Nottingham New Theatre, and he was overjoyed to hear about the only entirely student-run theatre in England. “How fantastic,” he beamed, “it’s not an easy thing to do!” I wondered if he had any advice that might help students trying to find their way in the acting world.

“I’m a great advocate for stealing,” after a moment, he added laughing, “from actors”. “If you see an actor do something that you think is really cool, nick it. Nick it and make it your own because they’ve probably nicked it from someone else because everyone steals in this profession. Turn it into your own and make it look like you came up with it and it will make you look very very good and very very clever!”.

Catch Olivier Award-winning Adrian Scarborough and Sophie Thompson in The Clothes They Stood Up In this September at Nottingham Playhouse and discover what you have left when you own nothing at all. You would be a fool to miss it.

Tickets available here: https://nottinghamplayhouse. co.uk/events/the-clothes-they-stood-up-in/

By Hannah Penny Page Design by Chiara Crompton

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Impactuated: Impact Play Cupid For one night - and one night only - Abi and Matt arrived at Nottingham’s The Bodega for a blind date with one another, to see the hellishly flamboyant Walt Disco. Post-gig, I chatted with them separately to see how it went. Call me Cupid.

How did you feel when you first arrived tonight?

Abi (A): You know what, I wasn’t too nervous. I think the rain made me forget about anything else because I really hate the rain.

Matt (M): It was okay because I knew her before, by accident. She was at a party I’d been to.

What were your first impressions?

A: Oh, I fancied him! I think he’s fit [giggles] AND also very nice, but that’s less important.

M: She was really welcoming. She was bright… in terms of her aura.

How was the beginning of the date versus the end of the date?

A: We had a nice little conversation before, and we got some drinks downstairs. During the gig, we got a little shoutout from Walt Disco, and at the end we got pictures with them, like celebrities of the night!

M: Great question. At the start of the gig, we were unhinged – we didn’t mean to be, but we went to the bottom floor and we had a pint on our own, and had a bit of a chat.

Would you have preferred a different location or event in hindsight?

A: Before I came, I thought a gig was a weird one. I thought it might be like going to the cinema, where you just get off instead of getting to know each other. I think The Bodega is the perfect location though, because it’s very chilled out, so I actually think it went really well.

M: Yeah, at the start, I thought ‘why on earth have we been put here?’. But as the night went on, it kind of made more sense.

Did you get any icks?

A: I actually didn’t. It’s really nice because the last guy I dated gave me about twenty.

M: Erm, she drank a pint really slowly. It wasn’t really an ick. She just drank slowly.

What did you think of Walt Disco?

A: I’d never listened to Walt Disco before, but they are so fun! I literally texted my mum during the gig to tell her how much of a fun band they are. I had a really great time. They were crazy, and amazing.

M: I had a little gander at their songs before. The only song I actually listened to was Be An Actor and it was during that song when they basically outed us as lovers.

Yes, you got a shoutout from the band before they performed Be An Actor, which has the lyric maybe I’ll “be an actor or get married soon” – so, would you get married to your date?

A: I’m pretty desperate, so I’ll get married to anyone.

M: Within reason, yes!

Would you go to a gig on a date again?

A: I would! Especially at The Bodega, or maybe somewhere like Rescue Rooms, because they also have a little bar area. Maybe not something like Stormzy, but something like this - perfect!

M: Yeah, I would! It was really fun. I did struggle to chat at the start because it was really loud, but then we had a pint.

The question everyone wants to know: would you go on a date with each other again?

A: Of course!

M: Yeah, I would.

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By Nieve O’Donnell Page Design by Abi Kara-Fernandes

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Bodega, Bathrooms and Bowling:

Talking with The

Amazons

MUSIC

Matt Thomson (vocalist) and Chris Alderton (guitarist) of The Amazons met up with Impact’s Alex Tearle at Nottingham’s Motorpoint Arena, where they were performing that evening as a support act for Royal Blood.

Evidently chuffed to be back on tour, Matt explained, “It’s our first tour in two and a half years. In lockdown, everyone paused, but coming back has been the most stimulating baptism of fire.” The duo shared the warm reception they’ve enjoyed from Royal Blood. “It’s intense,” the pair joked, “Ben [Thatcher, Royal Blood’s drummer] comes in before the show with tequila shots, and then afterwards with champagne.

Tequila is our drink of choice now, what’s yours?” they ask me. “Whatever’s cheapest!” I responded, a comment met with humoured empathy from the pair.

“Everyone was experiencing the last two years in so many ways, from a place of restrictions and having big parts of your life on pause,” they explained. “On the album, we’re trying to navigate what it means to love someone when they’re absent physically.” This shines through on their most recent single Bloodrush , a sombre yet catchy track that maturely discusses relationships within lockdown. “Bloodrush was quite an instinctive record to make. Lyrically, we wanted to zoom in on the microscopic details and the chemicals around a release: letting your hair down, going to a gig or jumping off a plane, it doesn’t matter what it was that created it… those kinds of things were dismissed in the past as trivial luxuries. But the last couple of years have made us realise that these things are integral to feeling human, feeling alive, feeling yourself.

We get our own high and fulfilment when playing that song to crowds.”

I was keen to learn more about this sense of self, and whether it was key to the album. Chris was quick to answer, clearly passionate about this topic. “We really don’t need to be anyone else to be successful and happy in our own skin. We make the stupid jokes we make and settle into things without overthinking too much. It’s much more natural for us and makes for a better record.” This theme of selfactualisation is also well documented in Arcade Fire’s album ‘The Suburbs’, a record that clearly means a lot to the band, having recently covered one of its songs at BBC Maida Vale.

“It’s really hard to pick covers, but the sky is the limit on Annie Mac. We wanted to put across who influenced our record… we just love Arcade Fire, and every record we’ve made was influenced by ‘The Suburbs’ – it’s very important to us. It was the ten-year anniversary of the album too, so it just felt right.

It’s a performance inspired by the Jools Holland version, which was much more visceral; the whole band are shouting – it was so much fun to play.” This style of writing is prevalent in Bloodrush, through the track’s rawness and relevance, a great direction in which I hope the album will continue.

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The band then delved into more detail about their writing process for the forthcoming album. “Lyrics almost certainly come later. I’ve been on a personal journey when it comes to writing lyrics,” Matt explained. “I’m more of a ‘feely’ person and so the music is the thing that starts, I find it most natural and instinctive. This record was very different for us; most of the songs were demoed between Chris’ house and my bedroom. We were keen to keep a lot of the stuff that just sounded good, no matter if it were recorded in a toilet or a high-level studio.”

This approach, born out of necessity and a desire to create music, was really levelling. By contrast, Matt conceded that some of the tracks on their previous record ‘Future Dust’ were rushed, adding that this wasn’t necessarily a negative: “We’re proud of ‘Future Dust’ in a way people are not aware of. We put something pretty damn good together in just six months – that’s what makes me excited about it. At that time, we were on a purist kick, very much ‘no computers, man!’ but we’ve ripped up that rulebook and started again.”

We went on to talk about past shows that the band have played in Nottingham. “We’ve played everywhere, mate!” they both laughed, “I feel like we have good local knowledge.

We’ve been pretty messed up in lots of clubs round here, nights like Pop Confessional at The Bodega and the like.” This “local knowledge” was apparent during their performance that evening at Motorpoint Arena, when they rattled off all the local venues they had performed in to raucous applause from the audience.

It felt only right, from there, to finish the interview on a similar high, by discussing the band’s touring traditions. “We do a lot of bowling,” Matt nodded, “on lots of our days off, we go straight to bowling, even though we aren’t that good!”. This was a tradition that was picked up when the band toured the US. “When you’re touring between cities, a lot of towns are fairly dead, with nothing interesting except for a bowling alley.

It’s not like a kid’s birthday party, it’s league bowling. The Big Lebowski style: a great way to kill an evening.”

The Amazons’ third album,

releases on the 2nd of September 2022.

By Alex Tearle Photo courtesy of The Amazons Page Design by Chiara Crompton

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THE

OF WORDLE

GAMING

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Amelia Brookes explores the creative spin-offs that have spawned after Wordle’s worldwide success.

If you haven’t already heard of Wordle, I’m sure you have at least seen a collection of little boxes filled with letters on your friends’ social media feeds. If you don’t have any friends (or at least not any on social media), allow me to introduce you to the puzzle game and late 2021 onwards phenomenon that is Wordle.

It’s a word-guessing game where you have six tries to guess the correct five-letter word. You start with any word that is five letters, and for each letter, you get a grey (which means the letter is not in the word), orange (which means the letter is in the wrong place), and green box (when it is in the right place). From there, it’s pretty self-explanatory. Recently, we have received many spin-offs and completely new puzzle games inspired by Wordle. Being the puzzle fan I am, I decided to review them, so here we are…

WORDLE: It’s a classic. I think the original Wordle is one of those puzzles that you do every day without fail for about two weeks - ‘Oops!

I almost forgot to do the Wordle today!’- but then forget about it for another two months until it comes back around again for the nostalgia value. It’s nice and challenging, without any extreme difficulty. Plus, it’s fun to discuss with your friends in a way that you can’t do with Nerdle or Semantle because no one’s heard of them. A solid four stars!

QUARDLE: Wordle but make it four. This increases the difficulty level exponentially, and if you can get all four individual games within the number of guesses, you deserve to receive an award for either being a very adept puzzle solver or someone with an IQ of over 300. I suggest playing it like Wordle, focusing on one word at a time, and then using the clues you have gathered to guess the others once you have the first one. If you don’t get the first one… what can I even say? Three stars because it doesn’t have the same comforting energy as the original.

OCTORDLE: Wordle but make it eight. It’s a no from me. I knew it would honestly take up too much of my brain power, and I would have to go through the day with one remaining brain cell… Two stars, because I know that some of my friends love Octordle because it’s ‘fun’.

BARDLE: Wordle but make it Shakespearean. This game is for the English, Drama and Liberal Arts students, especially those who have a favourite Shakespeare character. I recommend playing it like regular Wordle, except you can use the word ‘thine’ (oooh, fancy!). Kind of a letdown though, because the final word is not usually a sixteenth-century one, so if you want a real challenge, you might be disappointed. Three and a half stars.

NERDLE: Wordle but make it mathematical. I don’t classify it as for

nerds, as it just contains addition, subtraction, multiplication and division - so anyone with a calculator app could play this and do okay. It’s an interesting twist on the original. I give it as many as four stars because it is great to play in waiting rooms (and allows you to feel smart when you get the right answer).

By Amelia Brookes

Page Design by Chiara Crompton

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Claim to Game: Could Gaming Land You Your Next Job? Tim Ovenden has not once experienced a job interview. Nor is he a particularly proficient gamer.

He soon might need to be: delving into the world of gaming in recruitment, Tim finds it has serious potential.

As anyone applying for internships or graduate careers will know, the job market is pretty competitive. Well, very competitive. A few years ago, the average job vacancy received 120 applications, with only 2% of applicants progressing to the interview stage.

Perhaps these statistics don’t quite ring true anymore, a postBrexit, post-Covid Britain is rife with vacancies, we’re told. Yet the fact remains: employers need a way to sift through large quantities of candidates swiftly and effectively.

Many commonly used sorting methods utilise algorithms to scan CVs for keywords and phrases typically used by an ‘ideal employee’. However, a potentially perfect candidate would be rejected by this model for missing out on only one or two of these ‘ideal’ words in their resume. At the interview stage, unconscious biases can result in a lack of diversity, whereas sweet talkers and ‘yes-men’ that say exactly what high-ups want to hear often obtain roles regardless of ability. Many people can talk the talk, but it’s undoubtedly better to hire someone who walks the walk.

This is where video games come in. Candidates are screened based on their performance in games specifically developed to demonstrate certain skills. With data collection tailored to each job, these games aim to assess cognitive ability, work ethic and problem-solving skills – crucial information a CV will not provide.

So no, you won’t have to beat Elden Ring for a job, but at least you can game guilt-free as it can now be considered interview practice!

One of the specialised games I have taken a peep at is Wasabi Waiter, a knock-off speedy chef game akin to the Overcooked series. It claims to test qualities like “how creative, cautious, adept at multitasking or easily distracted… potential job applicants are”. Another game is Firefly Freedom , involving flinging fruit at fireflies in a jar. It is essentially a rip-off of Angry Birds , but with a twist. One of the ten slingshots will smash the jar, leaving a score of zero, so the game has a risk / reward element. Each participant’s final points tally is fundamentally pointless, with employers instead studying play to deduce each person’s “risk appetite, mental agility and persistence”. To me, it’s all just corporate mumbo jumbo, but if companies think this will help them find the next best venture capitalist, who am I to argue?

What have we learnt today? Well, for starters, I think I may have been a bit generous with the term ‘video game.’ These are glorified mobile games at best. Nevertheless, corporate-speak aside, I believe there is something in whittling down applicants based on their responses to games rather than CVs. It is nondiscriminatory and can give a fair judgement of a candidate’s applied skillset and management of stressful situations. Still, anyone with a basic understanding of mobile gaming and decent reaction times has nothing to worry about when job seeking. As for the future, one day we could see the CEO of Nintendo chosen by a game of Mario Kart Wii . Anyone who picks automatic over manual is instantly out of the running for me.

By Tim Ovenden Page Design by Chiara Crompton

SPORT

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UON Sports Sports UON Clubs’ Season Season Clubs’ Roundups Roundups The 21/22 season has been yet another impressive year for Notts sport. The University once more hosted BUCS Big Wednesday, where we topped the standings after picking up 14 fantastic well-earned titles and a 10-7 Varsity victory over the old enemy, Trent. Overall, the University saw some massive successes and history made. Impact asked some of the biggest Notts sports clubs for a round up of their season.

IMPACT Men’s Hockey 1s A BUCS Silver and the England Hockey National League Division One North title marked one of the club’s best seasons. Promotion into the Premier Division will see Notts become the first university with two Premier Division teams thanks to the immense success of the men and women’s 1s.

Having not made a BUCS final since 2015, freshly appointed Head Coach, James Bateman, and new Video Analyst, Matt Stoner, helped the Green and Gold concede the least goals in BUCS Premier League (6) on the way to winning 25 out of 28 matches this season in all competitions. They capped off a memorable season with a stunning 4-1 Varsity win.

Some special mentions from the team to Jon (S&C), Rory (lead physio), Roisin (Psychologist), Dan (CDO), Jodie (Nutritionist), Tris and ‘the Lydia’s’. They say goodbye to a chunk of the squad but especially missed will be Imre Gerrits. After five years and countless man of the match votes, UONHC finally bids farewell to the GOAT. Honours – National League Division One North, promotion to Premier Division, BUCS Silver, Varsity.

League W-D-L – 6-0-2

Men’s Football 1s.

Women's Hockey 1s

The University of Nottingham Men’s Football Club have enjoyed an immense season, both on and off the pitch. The 1st XI had a fantastic league season, becoming champions of Midlands 1A for the first time in years, averaging over four goals a game.

The 1st XI had a season of dreams, beginning with a 3rd-place BUCS Premier League finish, scoring a league high of 40 goals.

The team then went a step beyond in the National Championship, securing BUCS Gold in an intense 1-0 win versus league-winners Birmingham in the BUCS Big Wednesday final.

Despite a spirited Varsity loss to a very strong Trent side, further successes were encountered across the club. The 2nd XI claimed third spot in the same Midlands 1A league.

UONFC’s most improved team this year was the 5th XI who dominated the season with a 100% record.

Success continued in the weekend league, with the team winning BUCS Gold and the Division One North league within the space of four days. An unbeaten season secured promotion into the highest league - the Women’s Premier Division - with 86 goals scored.

The first team finished the season magnificently as a Toby Gould hat-trick fired them to a play-off final win over Leeds Beckett to send Notts to the Premier Division North.

Off the pitch, club members volunteered their time: giving food to the homeless, providing hundreds of school meals to those most vulnerable during half term and raising a significant amount of money during ‘Movember’.

Contributing to the team’s success are four 2021/22 bronze medal-winning/ 2022 Junior World Cup England squad members, alongside German Olympic Captain Nike Lorenz.

Honours – BUCS Championship Gold, BUCS Weekend League Gold, Division One North, promotion to Premier Division.

League W-D-L – 6-0-2

Honours – Midlands 1A, promotion to BUCS Premier North.

League W-D-L – 8-1-1

American Football Women’s Football 1s This year, the women’s first team enjoyed a tremendous season, taking eight victories in the Midlands 1A league to claim the title ahead of Birmingham and bitter rivals Trent.

Notts continued their fine form in the National Trophy, dispatching Birmingham, Essex and Cardiff enroute to an allNottingham final against Trent. Unfortunately, NTU ran out winners, but UoN were not to be dispirited.

Their league success rewarded them with a play-off place for promotion to the BUCS Premier North. A titanic clash saw Edinburgh take Notts to penalties, where the Green and Gold prevailed to wrap up an admirable season.

Honours – Midlands 1A, Women’s National Trophy runnersup, promotion to BUCS Premier North.

League W-D-L – 8-0-2

The American Football community at the University had a tough start to the season with the tragic passing of coach and club friend Stephen Brittle, known as Coach Beef. Despite the impact this had on the squad, the team achieved their most successful season ever in his memory.

They took seven wins from eight on the way to league victory. In the club’s first ever National Championship final, they were beaten agonisingly in the last minute of a game. It has been touted by many as the best British American Football game ever: a title the team are immensely proud to have contributed to through some amazing plays.

Fortunes fell in Notts’ favour when they kicked off Varsity 2022, triumphing 24-21 over Trent. A fitting end to a fine season where they scored 438 points and conceded just 123.

Honours – Varsity, BUCS Championship runners-up, Premier Division North.

League W-D-L – 7-0-1

SPORT Men’s Rugby Union 1s The 1st XV got off to a shaky start, losing two tight games against Newcastle and Trent. However, they bounced back with convincing wins against Durham and Leeds Becket, bolstered by the return of captain Ben Sugars from injury.

This built momentum and culminated in some of the boys’ biggest wins, with revenge against NTU and Newcastle part of a 15-game undefeated streak as the side finished top of BUCS Premier North and winners of the BUCS Vase Cup. A historic promotion to BUCS Super League, the top tier of university rugby, was up for grabs against Northumbria. Notts recorded yet another play-off W, winning 28-22 to complete a wonderful treble.

Honours – BUCS Vase Cup, BUCS Premier North, promotion to BUCS Super League.

League W-D-L – 12-0-2

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Student Athlete Spotlight: David Paterson Impact’s Head of Sport, Matthew Cotter, fired some questions at final year pharmacy student and GB canoe slalom athlete, David Paterson.

Favourite place on campus?

Got to be David Ross; avoiding my responsibilities really!

Women's Rugby Union 1s Notts Women’s 1s had a storming season. Their only league loss came early in the campaign, narrowly defeated at Leicester.

From there, the team has gone from strength to strength, winning all remaining games to dominate the league and take a welldeserved title.

The team also reached the semi-final of the National Trophy, a fantastic effort despite bowing out to UWE. Their league efforts were rewarded with a place in the playoffs for promotion to the Premier North League. Facing a strong Leeds Beckett side, Notts took an incredible 50-49 victory to secure promotion. A 62-5 dismantling of Trent made it a Varsity match to remember.

Their excellent season was exemplified by Evie Butler and Olivia Lowrie, who top-scored with 17 tries each.

Honours – Midlands 1A, Promotion to Premier North League, Varsity.

Favourite place in Nottingham?

Embankment near Trent Bridge.

Go-to VK flavour?

Too many bad memories with VKs… if I had to pick, it would be orange.

Crisis or Ocean?

Ocean.

How did you get into canoeing?

My older brother’s rugby coach formed a team to try canoeing as a team building activity. He preferred it to rugby, and I was dragged along with him at 10/11-years-old. I loved it!

How does UoN support you as a student athlete?

League W-D-L – 9-0-1

I’ve been lucky enough to be a Sport Scholar throughout university. I have a lifestyle advisor from UoN and my personal tutor is supportive, both with my studies and my sport.

Wheelchair Basketball This season has been mega for the club. In wheelchair basketball’s inaugural BUCS season, the team dominated from the get-go, with a total of 617 points scored to 144 conceded.

The major highlight of the season was BUCS Big Wednesday.

The noise from the home crowd was fantastic, and Notts came away 66-40 winners against Cardiff Met to take the Gold.

The progress of the team over the last few years has been phenomenal, from finishing 6th nationally in 2019 and then 4th in the 2020 season, to finally taking the title in 2022. Hopefully, there’s even more to come!

Honours: Midlands Tier 1, BUCS Championship.

League W-D-L: 9-0-0 With all that, UoN recorded another incredible sporting year, firmly cementing itself as a leader in university sport. Many thanks to the teams for providing details of their seasons, and a massive congratulations on the numerous amazing successes that culminated in this epic year. Hopefully, it will be onwards and upwards for the Green and Gold in 2022/23!

By Rhys Thomas

How do you manage your time between studying and canoeing?

It’s difficult, I don’t get a load of time for social stuff, balancing a demanding degree with training up to 14 times a week! I think studying during a pandemic has actually been beneficial for me.

It’s allowed me to be more flexible with when I do my university work, meaning I could train almost full-time for the last 2 years.

Go-to hype song before a big event?

It’s Yourz by Wu-Tang Clan.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

In five years, I hope to be well in contention for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic selection. I’d hope to be a full-time athlete at this point, but I’d also like to be involved in some way with pharmacy.

I think it’s an exciting and innovative field to keep in touch with for when I finish my career as an athlete.

By Matthew Cotter Page Design by Chiara Crompton

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IMPACT

Global Politics, Dictators, and Sport: A Match Made in Heaven?

Do governing bodies and influential figures within the sports world have a responsibility to speak out on matters of politics? Daniel Evans contends yes, they do, and raises concerns about numerous human rights violations being overlooked by the sporting industry as we speak.

Does sport have a role in global politics? The answer is certainly yes. FIFA, UEFA, the Olympic committee, the Formula One group and the International Tennis Federation have all played their part in legitimising autocratic and human rights abusing regimes.

In the case of FIFA, this role is played out through laughably blatant corruption.

Complicity also comes in the form of wilful ignorance, the peddling of propaganda and hiding behind platitudes. Sport has a great power to bring people together, but this power can be easily corrupted. Hitler, Mussolini and Franco all recognised this. Putin, Mohammed bin Salman and Xi Jinping certainly understand it now.

SPORT

Sport has always been corrupted and it is very unlikely that this will change. What can change is people’s tacit acceptance of the worst examples of its corruption. The recent action taken against Russian oligarchs has only highlighted the selective nature of outrage. The abuses of states like China and Saudi Arabia continue to be ignored while sporting bodies take action elsewhere. Although sporting bodies are a part of the global diplomatic game and have the power to act, this power is almost never exercised.

Out of all the major sports, football has perhaps been the most effective tool for autocratic regimes. This has been seen with the hosting of international tournaments, but also the ownership of individual clubs. The 2018 World Cup in Russia was obtained through bribery, and North Korean slave labour was reportedly used to build stadiums. The upcoming tournament in Qatar was similarly obtained through corruption and has been built off the back of egregious human rights abuses.

The Saudi state’s takeover of Newcastle United, Qatar’s ownership of PSG and the UAE’s ownership of Manchester City, to name but a few, have all served the purpose of legitimising human rights abuses. They do not gain ownership of the businesses alone, but also the loyalty of their fans. Fans that will happily ignore the abuses committed by their owners and even defend them tooth and nail so long as their club is successful.

The Saudi-led bombing campaign and blockade in Yemen has killed tens of thousands and put millions more at risk of starvation. There was no significant outcry from anyone of influence in English football when the Magpies became a Saudi tool, nor any sign of the Premier League and the FA intervening to uphold their professed ‘values’.

Arguments have been made that the hosting of tournaments can encourage reform. However, any and all changes that are seen are certainly hollow. Evidently, Russia was not reformed by its hosting of the World Cup in 2018; it only served to increase Vladimir Putin’s internal power and prestige. The invasion of Ukraine is proof that hosting tournaments encourages nothing meaningful and has very little (if any) effect on autocratic governments. Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler went to great pains to host the 1934 World Cup and the 1938 Olympics, and the years that followed were certainly not marked by harmony and tranquillity.

David Beckham, for all his charity work and moral encouragement, has hypocritically taken a 150-million-pound bribe to peddle propaganda for Qatar. If I was being kind, I could say he was extraordinarily naïve, but in reality, he is extraordinarily greedy, sacrificing his values for millions of pounds in blood money. The corruption of Beckham and many others like him is a part of the goal for such states.

49 Reducing human rights campaigners to grovelling sycophants is undoubtedly amusing to autocrats, but it also greatly weakens the credibility of the cause that such campaigners had previously supported. Football is certainly the easiest target, in large part due to the astounding corruption of its governing bodies.

However, it is not just football that aids and abets such abuses. Numerous tennis tournaments and Formula 1 races are held in anti-democratic states.

The Winter Olympics in both Russia and China have also been used to legitimise abuses. Ethnic cleansing in Xinjiang and the repeated murders of journalists and opposition leaders in China and Russia, respectively, seemingly had no bearing on each country’s bid to host large sporting events.

These governments do not spend billions hosting prestigious events because they want to promote sport. Rather, it is only done to increase their own power and control. It is true that the International Tennis Federation recently suspended tournaments in China for 2022, but this was due to the disappearance of the player Peng Shuai, not the ongoing ethnic cleansing. The treatment of Shuai by the Chinese Communist Party should come as no surprise, and the fact that tournaments had been hosted for years in China shows that tennis officials had no problem turning a blind eye when no pressure was being applied.

It might be easy to point to certain countries who should obviously not be allowed to host international sporting events. What is altogether more difficult, however, is deciding where this line should be drawn.

For example, the 2012 Olympics was awarded to London just two years after the Invasion of Iraq that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and decades of regional instability.

Was it right for the United Kingdom to showcase its best qualities in the wake of such a crime?

To be sure, there is not a single country on Earth that is pure, but we can perhaps agree on some kind of basic criteria. Representative government, press freedoms and a clear respect for human rights would have easily excluded Russia, China and Qatar from the Olympics and World Cup. Sadly, even these criteria would exclude many, many nations, so there would have to be a degree of pragmatism in the decision-making. Perhaps the additional criteria of the murder of activists, journalists and engagement or complicity in war crimes is a more realistic criteria for exclusion.

Sporting bodies have a responsibility to uphold basic levels of integrity. They should not allow themselves to become a tool of autocracy, and it is entirely within their means to prevent this from happening.

It is also up to fans to question the events we love so much. There is power in collective demand, however unlikely it is for this to happen.

By Daniel Evans Illuatration by Faaris Parker Page design by Ciara Lurshay

IMPACT

50

Sports and Pseudoscience: A Strange Partnership?

From elite athletes following supposedly harmless alternative therapies like ‘cupping’, to others endorsing truly bizarre conspiracy theories such as the Earth being flat, Alex Ismail asks why influential sports people are more likely to fall prey to pseudoscience.

By Alex Ismail Illustration by Zainab Shakeel Page design by Ciara Lurshay

SPORTS For a decade, social media has ensured that elite athletes are more exposed than ever. Not only do they face scrutiny for their athletic performances, but also for their domestic lives, beliefs and actions. Today, athletes are so often the subjects of popular discussion and regularly trend online. In some cases, this occurs when athletes make a positive impact on the world, such as Marcus Rashford. Unfortunately, however, he is the exception, not the rule. Most athletes make the front pages for all the wrong reasons, an example of such being the commitment many athletes have to certain pseudoscientific beliefs and practices.

Put simply, pseudoscience describes statements, beliefs and practices that individuals wrongly believe to be scientific truth.

Ranging from astrology to cryptozoology, its many forms attract millions of followers every year, including elite athletes.

Alternative therapies are an especially popular pseudoscience among athletes, despite medical studies proving that most provide no known benefits. They are often presented misleadingly, with data from studies manipulated to emphasise their alleged effectiveness. Some are thousands of years old, but others are more recent. Three commonly used therapies will be the focus here. First is ‘cupping’: an Ancient Greek healing method used by athletes in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and popularised by Michael Phelps in Rio 2016. Cupping involves suctioning small areas of skin for short periods of time, a practice which usually leaves dark, circular bruises. Whilst Phelps’ many medals could appear to lend some credibility to the practice, the studies supporting his claim are laced with bias. Researchers have been unable to find a suitable placebo to test the method rigorously, meaning we have no way to accurately prove its effectiveness.

The second practice up for scrutiny must be acupuncture. In this traditional kind of Chinese medicine, needles are inserted into strategic points on the body to promote healing. Vincenzo Nibali, winner of the Tour de France, and Kobe Bryant, the late NBA legend, both endorsed the practice. Not only that, but the NHS recognises acupuncture as an effective treatment for chronic pain and migraines. Supposedly, acupuncture needles stimulate sensory nerves under the skin and in the muscles, causing the body to produce natural substances like pain-relieving endorphins. Despite the perceived benefits, this therapy still falls under the umbrella term ‘pseudoscience’, as the theories and practices are not grounded in scientific facts.

Kinesiology Tape – also known as ‘K-Tape’ – is a stretchy, flexible tape used by athletes across many sports. It is applied to the joints and muscles to reduce pain and swelling, as well as to increase performance. Now, this is a pseudoscientific therapy I am familiar with, having torn the MCL in my right knee twice.

I have found K-Tape incredibly helpful for building stability and

aiding rehabilitation.

Yet, the science does not agree. With mixed results seen in medical studies, the benefits of this practice appear minimal, with some finding there was no difference between K-Tape and placebos, leading to the nickname: ‘Sham-Taping’.

So, why do amateur athletes, like myself, and elite athletes, like Phelps and Nibali, continue to use these therapies despite the lack of scientific support? Athletes lust for a competitive edge, always wanting to be better and do better. Therefore, any opportunity to get ahead – scientific or otherwise – is vital and an avenue to be explored. Also, I believe that superstition has its part in these beliefs. If an athlete performs well following an alternative therapy, this only reinforces their faith in these unconventional methods. This would explain why the strongest advocates of these practices are often those who have achieved great success.

Kyrie Irving, basketball star and apparent conspiracy theorist, claimed in an interview in 2017 that the Earth is flat Widely regarded as the faith of the socially ostracised, conspiracy theories are generally disregarded or deemed laughable. So, when elite athletes demonstrate their support for such beliefs, it shocks and confuses the wider population. Kyrie Irving, basketball star and apparent conspiracy theorist, claimed in an interview in 2017 that the Earth is flat. The Cleveland Cavaliers player was quizzed by journalists and mocked on social media, but it emerged he was not alone in his belief. Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green and Boston Celtics’ Jaylen Brown came out in support of Kyrie, as did NFL wide receivers Stefon Diggs and Sammy Watkins. It seemed ‘Flat Earth Fever’ had hit American sport, and ‘The Flat Earth Society’ was provided with an opportunity to spread their views on the world stage.

Another popular conspiracy among sports stars emerged in 2018, with NBA player Steph Curry and former Real Madrid goalkeeper Iker Casillas questioning the legitimacy of the moon landings.

The internet, again, was swift to provide feedback. One of their critics was NASA’s Scott Kelly, who tweeted Curry asking to talk and eventually spoke to him about the matter on Instagram Live.

Curry and Kyrie both later retracted their statements, though this is just as likely due to public backlash as opposed to a change in belief. I have no doubt that many elite athletes hold similar opinions, but they will likely never reveal their beliefs due to a fear of repercussions.

Yet, some conspiracy theories are not just pseudoscience, but anti-science. Anti-vaccination campaigns, for example, have caused numerous high-profile figures to peddle their ‘truths’ dangerously. Many athletes have been struck down with this ‘Anti-Vaccination Fever’. Aaron Rodgers is one of many unvaccinated NFL stars, and Kyrie Irving, the former flat-earth advocate, was suspended this year due to his vaccination status.

Outside of America, tennis ace Novak Djokovic was refused entry into Australia due to his refusal of the Covid-19 vaccine.

Retired athletes are also throwing their support behind the cause. Recently, John Stockton, of the NBA Hall of Fame, claimed that hundreds of athletes in America had dropped dead due to the vaccine. Yet, what he seemed to ignore was that not a single NBA player had died on the court since the vaccine rollout began. Across the pond, former Southampton striker Matt Le Tissier emerged as a vaccine-sceptic unafraid of spreading misinformation. Le Tissier’s Twitter is an echo chamber of conspiracy theories, going so far as to doubt the horrific war crimes seen in Bucha.

So, is it harmless or harmful? It is evident that many athletes, especially those chasing a competitive edge, believe in pseudoscience. They represent a minority, albeit a loud one.

Their views set them apart, guaranteeing the popularity and longevity of superstitions, alternative therapies and conspiracy theories. While harmful beliefs face backlash, those which are harmless – such as K-Tape – only make them human. The relationship between pseudoscience and athletes will always spark discussion and, whilst some beliefs carry risks, I don’t believe they should always be a cause for concern.

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52

Impact Reviews Recommends

Zadie Smith, Intimations (2020) Despite being a mere 96 pages, Intimations

by Zadie Smith explores what we all went through over the pandemic: a sense of ‘what now?’. Through six personal essays about 2020, she unpacks her mind in a time of crisis. She touches on the pandemic, race, politics, and more, all whilst our world was changing and we learnt to live with this new reality. Zadie Smith recognises that her essay collection is one of many memoirs to emerge from this period, but she doesn’t let that diminish her own experiences. Her writing stands out for its recognition of the constant need to be doing something – and something big at that – during this pause in our lives.

IMPACT Our Planet (2019) Sir David Attenborough’s iconic documentary, Our Planet, directly deals with the uncertainty surrounding the planet’s future. Each episode explores different natural habitats, from rivers to the rainforest and the high seas, addressing the very real question of what will be next for our planet if we do not stem human interference and ever-growing climate change. These threats are causing catastrophic environmental consequences, including melting sea ice and coral bleaching. The most memorable part of the series is the exceptional photography.

By presenting the environments and their inhabitants in such a realistic manner, viewers are filled with dread at the thought of the ambiguous future of this wildlife, and also with a sense of determination to enact change.

By Hannah Walton-Hughes

SZA, ‘CTRL’ (2017) ‘CTRL’ is an album that is hard to put into words; you must experience it to understand it. It’s lyrically masterful, genreblending and raw. Despite being such a personal album, it is remarkable how relatable and universal SZA’s experiences are. ‘CTRL’ will take you on a rollercoaster of emotions: happiness, liberation, anger, sadness and insecurity. The album resonates with people who are still trying to figure out their life as they transition into adulthood. It accurately depicts insecurity, relationships, and the struggle to find and formulate your identity. Throughout the album, SZA demonstrates how hard it is to gain control - and how easy it is to lose it. In SZA’s words, “God bless these 20 somethings.”

By Victoria Mileson

By Daria Paterek

Three Colours: Blue (1994) Three Colours: Blue, directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski, follows a woman named Julie (Juliette Binoche) after the death of her husband and child in a car accident. The character is consumed by grief, seemingly unable to move forward in life as she avoids social interaction.

The film is part of Kieslowski’s ‘Three Colours Trilogy’, in which each film respectively explores a theme from the French motto ‘Liberty, Equality and Fraternity’. Exploring Julie’s freedom, but also her difficulty in starting a new life, Kieslowski crafts a film which is the quietest of emotional rampages, as the character comes to terms with the death of her family.

By Alex Watkin

REVIEWS Stuart Little 2 (2002)

53 Freshman Year (2021)

Boasting career-best performances from Geena Davis and Hugh Laurie, Stuart Little 2 is an irrefutable masterpiece. Director Rob Minkoff’s previous picture The Lion King was a mere palette cleanser, readying audiences for the sheer majesty of the ‘Little’ franchise to come. In this instalment, adopted rodent ‘Stuart’ (Michael J. Fox) grapples love and loss after the wounded canary ‘Margalo’ plummets into his custom 1955 Chevrolet Corvette. Their romance – with all its gasp-inducing twists – is a doomed one, as Margalo must migrate south for winter. Her bittersweet farewell is punctuated with Laurie’s recurring quote “every cloud has a silver lining.” Margalo has gone, but she’ll be back some day. To those leaving halls or university altogether, I know it’s sad, but it’s not the end. Every cloud…

Raiff’s directorial debut and he also stars. He excels at both, with incredible directing talent at just 23 years of age.

His performance captures the in-between feelings of university: a stage where you have some sense of maturity and identity but also face new experiences with no blueprint and little idea of how to succeed.

Eventually, he meets a girl who seems to share none of these same problems, appearing to be the answer to all his worries.

Played with confidence by Dylan Gelula, she is a character with more depth than first meets the eye. This film reassuringly guides you through both the overwhelming feelings associated with university life and the great joy that it brings.

By Charlie Maris

By Tim Ovenden

JP Saxe, Dangerous Levels of Introspection (2021) JP Saxe’s debut album is honest and heartfelt, and the use of light piano and guitar accompaniment enables his mellow voice and poignant lyrics to stand out.

Saxe aims to explore the idea that the stages of our lives are not a straightforward progression: they are complicated and unexpected. Songs such as Sing Myself To Sleep and Tension tackle universal struggles, such as losing a parent and relationship problems. The album’s highlight is Saxe’s single, If The World Was Ending, featuring Julia Michaels. The song depicts reconciliation with a loved one, regardless of past issues, in times of uncertainty and disaster. It was made into a multi-artist charity single during the pandemic, and the song has become relevant again within the context of the war in Ukraine.

By Emily Campbell

Illustration by Ciara Lurshay Page Design by Chiara Crompton

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IMPACT

Goodbye to the team

Editor-in-Chief: Niamh Robinson Print Editor: Aidan Hall Online Editor: Melina Williams Deputy Online Editors: Rosie Pinder & Nieve ODonnell External Manager: Isabelle Raikes Internal Manager: Abi Kara-Fernandes Social Media Assistant: Georgia Honey Welfare Officer: Harriet Bray Artistic Director: Chiara Crompton Head of Illustrations: Ciara Lurshay Head of Images: Rian Patel Head of News: Lauren McGaun News Editor: Safa Shahid Campus News Editor: India Rose Campbell Head of Features: Jasmin Lemarie Features Editor: Anna Friel Comment Editor: Lucinda Dodd Head of Entertainment: Cora-Laine Moynihan Arts Editor: Fatima Bobboyi Film and TV Editor: Tylah Mofford Music Editor: Gemma Cockrell Gaming Editor: Daria Paterek Head of Lifestyle: Alice Nott Style Editor: Kiah Tooke Travel Editor: Anna Stacey Food Editor: Aleyna Adamson Science Editor: Christina Giallombardo Head of Sport: Matthew Cotter Sports Editor: Josh Collins Head of Reviews: Amrit Virdi Reviews Editor: Alex Watkin Head of Podcasts: Charlotte Smith Podcast Editor: Hannah Penny Investigations team: Niamh Robinson, Lauren McGaun, Ellie Ames, Laura Scaife, Hannah Walton-Hughes, Emily Vivian, Poppy Read-Pitt, India Rose Campbell, Lana Christon, Natasha Saxton, Sarina Rivlin-Sanders, Tessa Williams, Alice Nott, Fatima Bobboyi, Gareth Holmes