InQuire 17.5

InQuire The University of Kent’s student publication

www.inquiremedia.org

News: Page 2

Exclusive: Interview With Democratise UKC

Monday 15 November 2021 17.5

Dating Tragedies: Real-Life Encounters in Canterbury and beyond Lifestyle: Page 8

Postgrad Teacher Speaks Out Against their Department

Canterbury Culture: In review

Nathan Collins-Cope, Newspaper News Editor

I

nQuire sat down with Alexandra Rosie – a PhD candidate and postgraduate teacher (PGT) at the University of Kent Chemistry department. Alix got in contact with InQuire earlier in the term, aggrieved about the treatment she and other postgraduate teachers have faced at the hands of their departments.

The Chemistry and Physics departments were attempting to instill what Alix called “essentially zero-hours contracts” on the PGTs. She showed InQuire the contract they were given, which showed 1 hour for each teaching term (Autumn and Spring).

This contrasted with the amount of time she was timetabled to teach – 87.5 hours for these terms collectively. She described the speed with which these contracts were expected to be signed. “They sent us the contracts the day before teaching started – which I think was [part of their] plan”.

“It had [all the postgrad teachers] saying ‘I don’t know what to do – do we sign it or do we not sign it?”. She decided to reject the contract, on the basis that it was essentially a reversal to the old system – a system which was subject to strikes a few years back by the University and College Union (UCU).

Alix filled us in on the detail of these strikes, and how they “Used to be called Hourly Paid Lectures (HPL)” and how they compared to Zero Hours Contracts. “Then UCU campaigned for them to be removed and [struck an agreement with the Uni]. People found it hard to plan their finances [under the old system] – they changed it to the current system and it’s been like that for 5 years” The current system is set up with the intention for PGTs to be paid a set amount of hours, agreed upon be-

forehand, even if the university decides to cancel them for whatever reason. This was campaigned for and implemented largely so that “PGTs could plan their finances”, as Alix puts it.

The PhD candidate then received an email from someone at the university, explaining why there had been a drastic reduction in the hours her and her peers were contracted to work. Alix summed it up for InQuire, saying that it was related to the coronavirus pandemic, and that the university does not want to ‘overcommit the budget’, in case they had to cancel more in-person sessions due to another wave of infections.

“Last year, the first term was full labs, the second term... no labs. How are PGTs are meant to budget their life? You should have a budget for teaching – you know these many hours are gonna be taught, you need us to teach for you."

This culminated in a meeting with representatives from the Finance and Graduate Studies sections of the Natural Sciences department. Alix told InQuire that it seemed like they did not care.

“They seemed dismissive. It was a weird meeting – they were telling us how to spend our mon-

ey, saying ‘You shouldn’t be relying on this money, etc’ – like you don’t know anyone’s life, people may have children – I can’t believe I sat in this meeting” She said that one representative told them : ‘when I was a student, I didn’t need to do this much teaching – I just looked after my money’ – Alix was displeased with this, repeating the sentiment “Everyone’s situation is different – you might have someone to look after at home like a sick mum – you don’t know what’s happening in our lives” Departments have asked PGTs to “trust them", according to our interviewee – “but last year, one of (the PGTs) didn’t get paid for 17 hours of her work – so how can we trust them when we know there are instances of us not getting paid for our work”.

The university made the following statement to InQuire, when quizzed on the issue. “In 2018/19 the University reviewed the use and employment of Hourly Paid Lecturers (HPL) and Graduate Teaching Assistants. This work was done in conjunction with UCU and other stakeholders. As a result of this review, it was agreed that postgraduate students who are engaged as teachers and demonstrators are provided with HPL contracts that guarantee the minimum number of hours of work that will be of-

The Ingram building. Photo by Tarini Tiwari.

fered during a given period, usually a term or academic year.

“However, we have recently become aware of a number of postgraduate students who have not been switched to these contracts. HR are currently working to understand why this has happened and how the situation can be remedied as soon as possible.”

The president of the local branch of UCU, Claire Hurley, also gave a statement to us on the matter: "Precarious and insecure working is the dirty secret of Higher Education, and Kent UCU abhor employment contracts which force staff to live hand to mouth, not knowing how they will put food on the table one week to the next.

The use of zero-hours contracts should have been abolished by the University, but we know these types of contracts are still being used in areas like student support. It now seems as if 'guaranteed minimum hours' contracts are now also being exploited leaving our postgraduates not knowing how many hours of work they will be paid for. Kent UCU believes that all staff should be treated with dignity and respect, and given a fair and secure employment contract. Casualization and precarious working are included as one of the '4 Fights' which Kent UCU members will be taking industrial action over in the coming months, as we are fighting to end the use of zero-hours contracts in Universities. If you support your teachers, admin and support staff being paid properly for the work that they do, please support the UCU strikes".

In recent developments, a national ballot was held by UCU on whether strike action should happen. It seems that the pandemic has affected other universities’ approaches to how they treat teaching staff. There was a 53% turnout (with a minimum of 50% needed to validate the ballot), with 79% voting to for strike action. Certain universities need to have a recount on the issue, but it is seeming more and more likely that action will be taken to combat the perceived injustices that Alix has shed a light on.

News Page 2

Culture: PageEntertainment: 17 Pages 18-19 Science & Tech Page 12

X-Class Solar Flares: Could they be deadly?

How sports clubs are becoming more eco-friendly Sport Page 24

Plus:

Entertainment page 18 Film Reviews: Dune & The French DIspatch

2

Monday 15 November 2021 InQuire

News

Meet the team Committee

Tarini Tiwari Editor-in-Chief

editor@inquiremedia.org

Alex Charilaou Newspaper Editor

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Jake Yates-Hart Website Editor

website.editor@inquiremedia.org

Ainy Shiyam Head of Photography & Design photography@inquiremedia.org

Grace Bishop Head of Media & Events

media.events@inquiremedia.org

Johnathan Guy Head of Technology

technology@inquiremedia.org

Editorial Nathan Collins-Cope Newspaper News Editor

newspaper.news@inquiremedia.org

Vacant Website News Editor

website.news@inquiremedia.org

Sam Webb Newspaper Opinion Editor

newspaper.opinion@inqiremedia.org

Dan Esson Website Opinion Editor

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Priya Hawes Newspaper Features Editor features@inquiremedia.org

Vacant Website Features Editor

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Grace Bishop Newspaper Lifestyle Editor

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Katie Daly Website Lifestyle Editor

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Ed Streatfield Newspaper Entertainment Editor newspaper.entertainment @inquiremedia.org

Elena Martyn Website Entertainment Editor website.entertainment @inquiremedia.org

Juliette Moisan Newspaper Culture Editor

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Eleanor Summers Website Culture Editor

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Johnathan Guy Newspaper Science & Tech Editor technology@inquiremedia.org

Jamie Neil Website Science & Tech Editor science@inquiremedia.org

Vacant Newspaper Sport Editor

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Omar Ahmed Website Sports Editor

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Harvey Blazquez Newspaper Satire Editor

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Tahmid Morshed Website Satire Editor

website.satire@inquiremedia.org

Exclusive: Interview with The chair of Democratise UKC

By Hestia Linford-Allen, News Writer

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hat is Democratise UKC? You might have seen the trippy lilac stickers on the trek up Eliot footpath or the bins in Park Wood.

InQuire sat down with Alex Charilaou, the Chair of Democratise UKC (DUKC).

Alex first conceptualised the campaign in November last year. "They have proved themselves not just undemocratic and unaccountable but incompetent as well" they said, when quizzed on what they disliked about the current university management. There was a sense of discontent among students even before lockdown. Staff strikes began in 2020 in response to the university’s alleged failure to make improvements in pay, equality and workloads. Just last week however, the University and College Union (UCU) that represents up to 850 staff on both Kent campuses, were forced to send a ‘failure to agree’ notice to our Vice-Chancellor and President Karen Cox as she refused to respond to UCU's demands. The union is currently balloting for nationwide industrial strike action - Kent Union is currently in the process of deciding what stance it will take, if any. According to Alex, the strikes are ‘1,000,000% going to happen.’ For Democratise UKC, this will be the beginning of the campaign. The first aim of the movement is to persuade Kent Union to take a position in favour of the UCU when the stance is eventually decided by Kent Union Parliament in a few weeks time. Students are currently only able to elect 3 people to the 26-person decision-making council at university. Our elected representatives for this year are Student Union President Aisha Dosanjh, Vice President of Postgraduate Experience Tobi-Temple Obaremo, and Thomas Freeston. Staff have the chance to elect another 4 members to the council, with both academic and non-academic staff represented. Alex’s priority is to make this council at least 50% elect-

ed by students and staff. ‘What makes jobs, in schools, but we shouldn’t.’ You up the bulk of the rest, are just randowould expect some pushback from the mers- effectively consultants,’ Alex says. administration, but Alex tells me the Looking over the list of the members, only contact that management has had the 16 consultants that sit on the counwith DUKC has been through the Escil are officially called the ‘lay persons’. tates department, asking them not to The UKC put stickers website on the maps emphaa r o u n d sises their campus. tenuous However, links to the the group universihas had ty, or even ‘very good’ just Kent conversageographtions with ically - as Kent Union is the case and staff for Martin representCook, who ed by UCU. ‘has strong A r o u n d connecChristmas tions to last year, Kent havrent strike ing lived networks here for materialnearly 40 ised as uniyears.’ The versities myriad continued of others to charge that make rent even decisions though stuabout the dents were managenot legally ment of allowed to revenue, Photo by Ainy Shiyam return to resources, accommoand unidation unversity grounds, are a mix of pre-milder new lockdown rules. Accounts for lennium UKC graduates, bankers, and students wishing to withhold rent at local politicians. ‘They have absolute 30 universities appeared all over socontrol over every single part of the runcial media, with @ukcrentstrike and @ ning of the University of Kent, including canterburystudents_in_revolt having the appointment of the Vice-Chancellor over 1000 followers combined. Alex reand her team. You wouldn’t accept this calls this sense of anger in the student in any other part of your life.’ Alex corbody: ‘We want to recreate that, and the rects themselves almost immediately: strikes will be fertile ground for it.’

‘Well actually we do, constantly: in our They stressed that the strikes are go-

Nightline Awareness Week: Here For You

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his week is Nightline Awareness Week, where Canterbury Nightline will raise its profile among the students at Kent. InQuire sat down with Kent Union Activities Coordinator Shannon Higerty, who manages Canterbury Nightline, to find out more about the service. Students may be familiar with Nightline, who had a big presence at Freshers' Week this year. Shannon

explained Nightline as follows: “Nightline is a student-run listening and information service. They run throughout the night, from 8pm to 8am. It’s all confidential, you can literally talk to them about anything: if you’re feeling perhaps lonely, or have a problem, it can

be really rewarding to just have a chat with someone. There’s no judgement at Nightline”. We asked why students should feel they ought to contact Nightline: “The whole reason Nightline exists is for students: fellow students understand the specific pressures they face and can understand them a bit more”. Whether it's deadlines looming, relationship

ing to be an opportunity for students as well as staff to make demands of university management. ‘We need to support the staff; they are in a really precarious position with issues like pensions and job security.’ But students can also press administration regarding issues they have with management: ‘students have the power, we should use it.’ Speaking about our Vice Chancellor, Alex says, ‘I don’t know anyone who likes Karen Cox.' Despite taking a ‘voluntary 12-month reduction in salary,’ Cox’s income remains almost 8.5x higher than the average university staff member. This reduction of 20% will be removed after the year, reupping her basic salary to £240,000 before any other perks, such as pensions, incentives, or bonuses. For reference, no other senior staff member earns more than £175,000. Justification for Cox’s significantly higher income is listed in the university financial review in the form of a list of the academic merits of students and staff that have continued to flourish during the pandemic.

The Financial Committee concluded that the Vice-Chancellor is ‘achieving progress against all of her objectives,’ adding that a ‘modest increase’ in salary would be ‘appropriate’. This has been concluded despite the university continuing to plummet down the league table rankings under her premiership. Talking about the roots of the organisation, it seems that Alex had no idea of the impact that DUKC would have: ‘I thought it would be novel. I thought it would be interesting. I also just wanted to see how far we could get.’ At nearly 300 Instagram followers as of November 2021, Democratise UKC is gaining traction.

Now they are looking for volunteers to help leaflet and spread awareness for their manifesto across campus. If you would like to get involved or some more information, drop a DM to the movement’s Instagram @democratiseukc. problems or issues with depression or anxiety, Nightline are there to help. It's a valuable resource, and Kent students should make the most of it.

Talk to Nightline on 01227 824848 (8pm - 8am, Friday, Saturday & Sunday). Nightline is looking for volunteers: if you would like to apply, contact Canterbury Nightline at canterburynightline.org. Go and see the owls on campus by the Senate building 12-3pm on Tuesday 16th.

Corrections

Enquiries

We will report any inaccurate information published as soon as the error is discovered. Editorial corrections, including factual errors, missing photo credits etc., will be printed on this page. For more information, contact Tarini Tiwari at editor@ inquiremedia.org

Mail and Office: Student Media Centre, Above Venue, Kent Union, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NW

17.4 Corrections:

Additional copies may be found online at issuu.com/inquiremediagroup or on our website: www.inquiremedia.org Please report suspicious activity at our distribution racks by emailing editor@inquiremedia.org. © MMXXI InQuire Media Group, in partnership with the Canterbury Media Group. All rights reserved.

1. We apologise profusely to Tom George for not giving him a writer's credit for his wonderful horoscopes satire piece.

2. Luisa Gomes should have been credited for the photographs on the 17.4 feature article.

3. The Head of Drama at Kent was incorrectly named 'Jane Thomson' in our front page Little Amal piece. Her name is Jayne Thompson.

4. A news writer was incorrectly named 'Kieran Clarke'. Their name is Kieran Clark.

5. Last week's feature was co-edited by Nathan Collins-Cope.

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InQuire Monday 15 November 2021

By Megan Brown, News Writer

The Local Women's Marches

'March Against Spiking ': On Campus

News

By Amber Lennox, Local Affairs Correspondent

'Reclaim These Streets': In Canterbury

Trigger Warning: Spiking, assault

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ver the last two months, the growing numhopefully the more we do, the more the university ber of spiking cases has caused mass anxiwill do”. More than 60 University of Kent societies ety throughout the population. The recent and organisations stood in solidarity with Respect reports of spiking via injection have created new The No and Kent Dance. Venue, campus security, fears of overdosing and contracting a blood-born Kent Union and many other groups and societies illness from dirty needles. Despite the NHS saying also became official supporters of the movement it is “extremely rare to contract HIV from a dirty and actively participated. External organizations needle”, it has massively increased the sense of also showed support, with Girls Night In Cantervulnerability one faces on a night out. There have bury and the national student network group Not been 56 reported casOn My Campus shares of injection spiking ing information on across the UK over the movement and September and Octopublicly endorsing ber, alongside 198 rethe March Against ported cases of drink Spiking. spiking as of the 23rd The route of the of October this year. march went around With these alarming the central campus statistics and the inand stopped outside creasing reports of the Registry, where spiking from club-goseveral speakers apers in Canterbury, pealed to Vice Chanalongside reports of cellor Karen Cox for staff negligence from more funding and local venues, students support to be given have taken it upon themselves to raise awareness to ensure student safety on campus and for the of this growing issue and call upon the university creation and endorsement of consent workshops, for more support. University of Kent groups Rerather than “leaving all of the work and funding to spect The No and Kent Dance organised the ‘March the students” as expressed by one attendee of the Against Spiking’ in order to draw attention to the march. Kent Union president Aisha Dosanjh joined issue and offered an opportunity for UKC students this plea with a speech highlighting the dangers feto share their own experiences, and thoughts, on male students face while on a night out in a bid to what needs to be done at the university to ensure show why we need such resources: “always having student safety. President of Respect The No, Charto check that my location is on just in case anything lotte Hirst, explains the motive behind the march happened to me on my way home when I’m supand the intentions: “The purpose of the march was posed to feel safe […] so at least one of my friends to act as a visual and audible outcry from students can tell the police where my body is is not me havwho feel that their safety is not being prioritized by ing fun. […] I shouldn’t have to keep doing stuff to the institution that they spend so much money to make sure that I am safe!” Mentions of Akon Seattend. The place which can oftentimes become a curity and their lack of help were prevalent during home away from home. If students don’t feel safe the marches, with student speakers claiming they in their second home, then universities are letting felt unsafe going to them and believing they would them down which is unacceptable.” This comes be blamed if they were spiked. Sarah Everard, who after several UKC students came forward to the was murdered by a police officer in March this year, group and stated that their reports were not taken was a prevalent figure addressed during the moveseriously by security when on a night out, ment. Several students claimed that they couldn’t even when they were presented trust security on a night out. One stuwith evidence, as one speaker from d e n t speaker, who shall remain the march claimed. Hirst anonymous, states that continues, stating “[the she found security servicmarch] is a show of es “freaky”, and their desolidarity among meanour was a deterrent students and stufor seeking help. dent groups alike The retraining of that this consecurity staff versation about was another spiking, sexual demand from harassment the moveand assault in ment.

The higher educamarch culmition spheres is nated in an not going away art sale outanytime soon.” side of TempleRespect The man Library, with No Wellbeing all proceeds going Officer Becca toward providing corroborates students with anHirst’s stateti-drink spiking ment, stating measures, and a “if nothing else, [the candle lit vigil, a way of march] is a supportive symbolically “bringing group of like-minded light” to the ever-growpeople who truly want to Photo by Kent Union ing spiking epidemic. see change happen and

"I shouldn't have to keep doing stuff to make sure that I am safe!"

T

he rampant spiking in clubs, senseless acts of violence against women and the ever-present inaction from relevant authorities is a story which InQuire has highlighted a number of times. On the evening of the 4th November - our community fought back, with the protest “Reclaiming These Streets.”

Students, backed by members of local government, had been organising this event for some time, and the march was originally supposed to take place in March, but was postponed due to Covid. Yet this worked out better in the eyes of organiser Meg Payne, as she explained that this time of year allows people to empathise with what women go through when it is dark and cold, and they are walking through town, scared and alone.

Although not planned to coincide, organisers of the march said they were delighted the ‘March Against Spiking’ (by UKC Respect The No) was happening in conjunction. They shared each other’s messages on social media and were glad to see more than one protest against spiking in the clubs and the violence against women.

The march started at The Marlowe and paraded up the High Street, through Whitefriars shopping centre, where the crowd then walked through Dane John Gardens and along the city wall and then down towards the town centre again, before turning down Burgate Street and concluding at the Cathedral Gates.

Along the way various stops were made to hear from different people about the ongoing epidemic of violence against women and on the streets.

Each story was heart-breaking as the last: assaulted friends, family members; all were very real experiences, and all of them rang out, drawing in more people to the protest that had not been there from the beginning.

Throughout the march one of the organisers, Kent County Councillor Mel Dawkins, encouraged the crowd in chanting various declarations of protest, notably: “2,4,6,8, STOP THE VIOLENCE STOP THE HATE; 3,5,7,9, SEXUAL VIOLENCE IS A CRIME!” The atmosphere was inexplicable and indefinable, the feeling of long overdue unity over an issue, that had been left to fester for far too long, was overwhelming. It was a celebration of standing together in protest and music. Whistles were handed out by Canterbury City Councillor Pip Hazelton and the other organisers, bringing the metaphor ‘whistleblowing’ to life.

The University of Kent societies also turned out i n

force. We caught up with Kent Amnesty International who had come out in support of the protest: “it’s great to see so many, not just women, and everyone has a role to play” said Fynn, who was with the society. The turnout was remarked on by more than one person present, which had climbed to over 100 by the time the march left The Marlowe and continued to grow throughout.

The protest was a stand, with the message “we are not victims” conveyed by more than one person present. However, the purpose of the march was to raise awareness and effect real change.

When asked who he hoped would receive the message, Kent Labour Students President Harry McKenzie responded, “Ben Fitter-Harding, leader of Canterbury Council: I want him to sort it out.”

Kent County Councillor Alister Brady echoed Harry’s sentiment that people in positions of power needed to start listening and working together to effect real change, explaining that perpetrators would continue to spike drinks and attack women so long as they went unpunished and there remained little support for the victims. He suggested that the police and relevant authorities need to work together to see justice done.

The march ended with a silent vigil outside of the Cathedral gates by the war memorial on the Butter Market. Contrasted to the noise that had filled the night up to this point, in those two minutes, the silence said everything the protest needed it to.

One response to the march has been the purported addition of CCTV systems on Eliot footpath. However, when students Harry and Meg were asked for their stance on this, they said this was no longer enough. “You can just cover your face and you won’t get caught,” Harry pointed out, whilst Meg said although she would rather have CCTV, it doesn’t allay her fears of being attacked: “it’s not a deterrent.”

We need to shift away from the idea of response, and towards prevention,” Harry explained, going on to say that he wanted to see more patrols and better lighting.

A sentiment which had been shared by everyone we spoke to on the night was the idea of the problem was systemic. It can only truly be tackled by changing mindsets and shifting societal views.

The way many wanted to see this change begin was through education, both in the home and in the schools.

It was hoped that education would birth a shift a w a y from the ingrained nature of misogyny, and a shift towards a generation of students that would not have to flood the streets in protest.

Photo by Thomas Shytermeja

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Monday 15 November 2021 InQuire

News

By Sophia Lueneburg Politics Correspondent

F

COP26 - Last Call for Climate Change

or two weeks the UK will host the 26th UN Climate Conference of the Parties (COP26). From the 31st of October until the 12th of November, leaders from almost every country of this planet will come to Glasgow, Scotland for what could “be the world’s best last chance to get runaway climate change under control”.

With today’s targets, a rise of global

Photo by Markus Distelrath

temperatures by 3°C or more is possible. This is widely thought to have severe consequences for life on earth: more extreme weather events, floods, or fires. Vast swathes of the planet’s wildlife is at stake, with predictions that 98% of emperor penguin colonies could be extinct by 2100. In 2015, the 21st Conference saw the birth of the Paris Agreement. This accord set up the international goal to keep global warming under 2°C and aim for 1.5°C. Additionally, earlier this year all G7 countries (UK, US, Canada, Japan, France, Germany and Italy) have pledged to keep global temperatures at 1.5 degrees at the G7-Meeting in England. We are six years on from Paris now, and scientific reports have been increasingly pessimistic on the possibility of achieving this goal. A global temperature rise of 1.5 degrees is likely to happen within the next decades, sooner than expected. With no immediate action, the 2°C limit cannot be met.

Therefore, COP26 will have an important impact on the future of our planet. So, what is on the agenda of COP26 in Glasgow? The main task is to work on the United Na-

tions Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). 197 different parties will be participating in negotiations to finalize the Paris Rulebook, a document that sets up rules, necessary to fulfil the Paris Agreement.

Some of the points at the negotiation table are “promoting fair, inclusive climate action”, “common timeframes for emission reduction commitments” or “enabling ambition through carbon markets”. Generally, there are four main goals of COP26: The first is to secure global net zero by mid-century and keep 1.5 degrees within reach. The second aims to adapt to protect communities and natural habitats, while the third goal is to mobilize finances to do so. The fourth presents the biggest challenge of all: working together to deliver. Goals and actions are planned to be adapted through new plans and finance actions, protecting and restoring habitats and “Adaptation Communication”, summaries of achievements to share best practices among countries.

Apart from nation leaders and country delegations, members of press will attend, as well as representatives of observer organisations which are invited NGOs and intergovernmental organisations. Topics also include indigenous peoples, youth involvement and talks between finance or education ministers. Outside the negotiations people like Greta Thunberg or Sir David Attenborough are involved in COP26. The latter was awarded the role of people’s advocate, telling sto-

ries about climate activists from the UK and encouraging the public to act.

According to Sir Attenborough: “It is crucial that these meetings in Glasgow, COP26, have success, and that at last the nations will come together to solve the crippling problems that the world now faces”. Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has found clear words for her disappointment in leaders’ inclusion of young people in the fight against climate action. During her speech at the Youth4Climate PreCOP26 Conference she said that leaders were “clearly not listening to us” and that the climate crisis is part of “a crisis of inequality that dates back to colonialism and beyond”. Generally, negotiating COP26’s goals and action plans could become difficult.

The Guardian’s Environment Correspondent, Fiona Harvey, predicted that “COP26 will fail unless countries can show they are taking action to cut emissions in this decade, to keep the 1.5C goal within reach”. Countries such as Australia have long stood against strong climate policies and new economic powers such as India or Saudi Arabia depend heavily on coal or oil. In a BBC report, leaked documents of country's comments to the recent report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) show how different countries tried to push the debate into a favourable direction for them. The report can include countries’ opinions to reach a larger consensus, is however not obligated to.

Australia rejects that coal should be

replaced as a source. Brazil denies the positive effects of a plant-based diet on the climate. Switzerland apparently wanted to cut statements saying that poorer countries would need financial aid. The COP26’s finance goal states that developed nations should provide $100bn a year in climate finance for developing countries by 2020. As this statement is still a goal, the target has not been met yet. Also, the UK has sent ambivalent messages on climate action. As the host, the UK has the responsibility of a leadership position. According to an explanatory document on COP26 the UK has been the fastest G7 country in decarbonizing this century and plans to achieve a net-zero carbon emission by 2050.

However, Boris Johnson's government has recently made plans for new coal mines, airport expansions and new oil and gas licenses. So what is the way forward? Most country comments to the IPCC’s report have been mostly helpful and were intended to improve the quality of the report. At COP26 countries will have to decide how to proceed, how to implement existing plans to cut emissions and how to upgrade, so that the Paris Agreement goals can be met realistically. Instead of a new, grant Agreement, small steps might be more likely: Concentrating on different economic sectors, finding help for the rising damage and costs especially in poorer regions of this world and an idea on how to deal with energy shortages and rising demands at the same time.

By Nathan Collins-Cope Newspaper News Editor

U

nder the leadership of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), the global age will see another international first. 136 countries have signed up to the deal which imposes a minimum of 15% corporation taxes. Before this proposal, large corporations like Google and Amazon would base themselves in tax havens like Bermuda or the Netherlands – places which have world-low corporation taxes to attract giant companies. This loophole allowed multinationals to pay a fraction of the tax they would pay elsewhere, as well as avoiding paying their share of tax in the vast majority of countries they operated in. In 2020, Google paid just £50 million to the UK’s HMRC, compared to the £1.25 billion they gave out in company bonuses alone.

The move was spearheaded by the Biden Administration, partly as an olive branch to an increasingly vocal US left. In early October, US treasury secretary Janet Yellen seemed confident the change would pass. However, the reason why this issue is only being addressed now, after decades of dismissal by generations of international communities, is largely due to the expenditure

of the coronavirus pandemic. The US and other G20 nations have been forced into trillions of dollars of debt, with the UK government reaching a record high for peacetime borrowing.

Firstly, the dual-pronged reform would see more than £92 billion of the most successful corporation’s profits reallocated and distributed more fairly (according to the OECD), so countries will see a percentage of the profits that corporations attain within their borders.

The second prong is the aforementioned 15% minimum for large companies, which intends to prevent a race to the bottom on international tax rates. These terms will only apply to companies with an annual revenue over €750m.

Although world leaders are excited about this move, some campaigners have claimed that this move does not go far enough, with Oxfam's executive director Gabriela Bucher being especially critical. "It's absurd for the G7 to claim it is 'overhauling' a broken global tax system by setting up a global minimum corporate tax rate that is similar to the soft rates charged by tax havens like Ireland, Switzerland and Singapore," she said in a statement. "They are setting the bar so low that companies can just step over it." She went further by pointing out that the deal benefits larger economies to a much larger extent – which is exact-

ly why Kenya and Nigeria have been reluctant to join the agreement. The Chief Executive of Tax Justice Network, Alex Cobham, stated that he was happy to see the progress, but also found the solution to be extremely unfair. "We've got one step of the way today - the idea of a minimum tax rate - what we need is to make sure that the benefits of that, the revenues, are distributed fairly around the world."

There were some initial tensions, with Ireland initially pulling-out of the accord due to fears of the minimum tax rate increasing later on. Ireland has historically benefitted from low corporate tax rates, with the 12.5% rate intending to bring a boost to the primarily export-based economy. Ireland eventually agreed to the new international 15% minimum after the EU conceded that there would not be a future hike in corporate taxes.

Photo by Christine Roy

International community arrives at consensus on corporate taxation

Photo by The White House

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InQuire Monday 15 November 2021 Have something you want to say? Write a letter to newspaper.editor@inquiremedia.org and be featured in the next InQuire newspaper

T Tarini Tiwari Editor-in-Chief

he festive season is upon us once more. Or, is it?

It feels like there’s massive contention around when we can start putting up the tree and hanging mistletoe from the ceiling (although, don’t do that. It’s creepy and totally not Covid-safe). For me, I can’t help but start feeling festive in November.

I don’t really care about Halloween since I’m petrified of horror movies and the slimy insides of a pumpkin give me the chills. Christmas, however, is the perfect holiday.

The carols, the food, the snow (theoretically, I realise it doesn’t usually snow until January if at all), the decora-

S Alex Charilaou Newspaper Editor

o, COP26 happened. Less of a bang than a whimper.

Expectations were low, but the reality couldn't have been more inadequate. We leave the Glasgow Conference with no clear roadmap towards global net zero, and absolutely no pressure on developed countries to rein in emissions.

Nothing has changed. Worse still, the spectre of climate justice looms large, with very little reason to think it will make a difference. Enough was promised six years ago, at the Paris COP. The 2015 Paris Agreement stipulated that developed countries like the US and those in the EU give

A

Jake Yates-Hart Website Editor

s much as Autumn is my favourite time of the year, it’s unfortunate that it’s around this time when Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) begins to kick in. The symptoms for SAD often appear in the winter months. These include a loss of interest in everyday activities; persistent irritability or low mood; and feeling lethargic throughout the day, just to name a few. As students, who may already be struggling with the anxieties of university life, SAD can make our everyday activities that much harder. So, in order to alleviate any feelings of guilt that we might be ‘lazy’ for not finishing our chores or assignments, its important to understand what causes

Editorial

tions, the cosy films, not to mention the gift-giving. I hold off on the Christmas carols until Halloween is over lest I become that friend, but once the clock strikes midnight on November 1st I’m ready to whip out the Quorn roasts.

Now, back to the original question.

When can we justifiably start planning for Christmas?

I think that the answer is whenever the hell you want to.

Either you’ll be wrapped up in Halloween or Thanksgiving (presuming you’ve educated yourself in the real history of the latter) and won’t have processed the transition from autumn to winter until the leaves have all fallen

from the trees.

Or, like me, you’re sniffing the festive candles in the shop and making lists of what to get your friends and family by the time it’s coat weather. I think it’s important to reflect, however, on why you’re excited for Christmas if you’re like me.

I don’t celebrate it as a religious festival, but therefore it’s easy to get wrapped up in the capitalist ideals of the holiday. For me, Christmas is a chance to see my family, fill my house with warm light and watch cheesy films.

And I think it’s never too early to look forward to that.

up to $100bn annually by 2020. Sufficed to say, this did not happen. In fact, the US has only pledged (not given, pledged) $11bn... by 2024. The EU hasn't fared much better, providing only $27bn in climate aid in 2019.

The ills of Western decadence will not hit the Global North first, but those we use as our workshops and scrapyards - coastal countries and those on the equator in Africa, South America and Asia. As Mia Mottley, the perspicacious Prime Minister of Barbados, powerfully reminded world leaders in her speech, a 2-degree Celsius rise in global temperature would be a "death sentence"

for island and coastal communities across the world.

Mottley demanded better from powerful world leaders: "are we so blinded and hardened that we can no longer appreciate the cries of humanity?".

The hard truth - obfuscated by liberal guilt release a la COP - is that the answer is yes. Profit, effort, electability; they do not pale in comparison to millions of deaths for Western politicians. When people start dying, and they will, the Bidens, Johnsons and Bolsonaros of the world will be to blame. If there's no justice now, there will have to be justice then.

SAD, and the best ways to cope with it. Unfortunately, the exact cause for SAD remains unclear, though the leading theory is that the lack of sunlight during late Autumn and Winter messes with the production of chemicals in our brain. This includes an increased production of melatonin and a decreased production of serotonin, which combined affects our mood, sleep patterns, and feelings of depression.

The NHS website suggest treating SAD with light therapy (via a ‘light box’ that simulates natural sunlight), talking therapies or changes to one’s lifestyle. While all of these options can absolutely improve our mental health,

it’s not always a realistic way of treating SAD. Light boxes are expensive, especially for a university student; the waiting list for therapy is notoriously long; and trying to change our lifestyle while struggling to cope with the one we already have feels like a catch-22.

So, for anyone struggling with SAD, all I can say is this: Realise that this time last year, we were all probably struggling with SAD and lockdown depression simultaneously and still came out of that experience perhaps not entirely unscathed, but definitely stronger.

As we’ve somewhat returned to normality, perhaps the next few months won’t be as difficult as last year, after all.

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Monday 15 November 2021 InQuire

Opinion

Why are we so fascinated with scammer scandals?

By Ainy Shiyam Head of Photography & Design

O

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters/Unsplash

ur obsession with scammers in popular culture is a long and interesting one. A rich tapestry full of brazen, audacious individuals who manage to lie, cheat, steal and delude themselves to the top. We are held rapt by tales of big-time millennial grifters, entrepreneurs whose dizzy rises are rivalled only by their disastrous ends. Among them are Billy McFarland, the impresario who dreamed up the doomed Bahamas-based Fyre music festival; Elizabeth Holmes, creator of the at-home blood-testing service Ther-

anos, which was once valued at more than $9 billion but never really worked; and Anna Delvey, the so-called Soho Scammer, who is said to have conned her way across New York as a German heiress in a bid to build a plush Manhattan arts club named after herself.

Now their tales are fuelling a genre of grifter-related entertainment. Netflix and other streaming platforms such as Hulu had dropped documentaries on the Fyre Festival. HBO had released a documentary about Holmes directed

by Alex Gibney, detailing the rise and fall of Theranos. And a series written

by Shonda Rhimes about Anna Delvey is on its way to Netflix, set to premiere in 2022.

Stories of scammers are reliably captivating. Celebrated American writer M a r k T w a i n held a soft spot for the flimflam

man in his novels, while the terms ‘grifter’ and ‘scam’ have their origins in the carnival circuit of the early 20th century. There’s a reason we call them con artists, we are inherently captivated by stories of true, white-collar crime.

Mark Zuckerberg’s now-famous motto- Think big! Think different! Move fast and break things! —encourages hare-brained scheming. Venture capital requires business start-ups to reap more than just profits; they must also promise explosive growth. And moving fast is now presented not as a shortcut to getting rich but a necessary aspect of any successful venture. The grandiose expectations placed on actual children have grown wildly out of proportion with the economic reality into which they’ve been born. Only a scam could bridge the gap.

One of the greatest modern scams is the entrepreneurial fetish itself, and its marks are getting younger and younger.

Silicon Valley has always romanticized the college dropout, including founders of the world’s biggest ventures such as Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates in their ranks. Now a broader effort seeks to enlist children into entities at an age before their prefrontal cortex is fully formed, the part of the brain that controls a variety of complex behav-

iours, including planning and greatly contributes to personality development.

Meanwhile, the tools for committing fraud are now more attainable than ever. Early chat rooms introduced a generation of children to the pastime of pretending to be other people online.

Now, everyone with a smartphone can manipulate photos and videos to create ‘deepfakes’. In this hyper-visual culture, constructing an image of something can feel like the most important step in conjuring the thing itself. Just ask the Chinese manufacturers that hawk clothes online with images of glamorous magazine spreads, then ship out deeply dissatisfactory products to unsuspecting customers. Holmes was obsessed with the image of a finger-prick drop of blood unlocking a wealth of medical information, and many powerful investors and medical companies were drawn to Theranos’ technology. The only thing that Fyre Festival did well was creating a viral advert featuring famous models cavorting on yachts and swimming with pigs. At some level, we are all growing familiar with this kind of sleight of hand. On Instagram, we are trained to create beautiful images of ourselves with no possibility — or really, expectation — that they be replicated in person.

McFarland may be the one in prison

for fraud, but the most fascinating thing about Fyre was how deep the scam reached. The festival was marketed

by Jerry Media, an online advertising agency that began as a popular Instagram account that aggregated online content and other peoples’ memes without credit. It was aggressively promoted by Instagram influencers — those model/advertiser/guru hybrids whose entire careers rest on smoke and mirrors. Even the documentaries on the festival seemed compromised. Hulu paid McFarland for an interview, initially reported to be almost $250,000, while Elliot Tebele, the founder of Jerry Media, is an executive producer of the Netflix documentary. It was scamming all the way down. And at the top? The closest-held secret of modern scam artists is how woefully unimaginative they really are. Our oversaturated scam culture seems to have produced something new: utterly unappealing con men and women who could not credibly be referred to as ‘artists’ at all. There’s not a lovable scamp or a master chameleon in the bunch. They’re just young people who wanted to make something incredible, failed in doing so, and refused to accept this failure. In other words, their ambition took precedence over everything else.

Spiking is on the rise, and with it so is victim blaming

By Amber Lennox Local Affairs Correspondent

W

omen are being attacked. This is no longer news, and I’ve now written about this multiple times. Frankly, I’m sick of having to do so, but I’m even more sick of having to overanalyse with my girlfriends whether it’s worth risking going to the club, or just playing it safe and staying in. It’s not just that we fear being spiked or assaulted, we’ve also got to contend with the fact that there will be no help offered when it happens.

Moreover, the major drugs used in spikings, Rohypnol and GHB, mainly imitate the effects of extreme drunkenness even if you’ve not drunk anything at all. The clubs are already looking for a reason not to help us, and yet the main method of abuse plays right into their narrative. The image that these drugs give allows them to point the finger at the victim for being ‘too drunk’, rather than take responsibility.

I would like to point out that these establishments claim to have extensive training, and they supposedly don’t employ idiots. This means that they must know what drugs are commonly used, and their effects, yet they remain content to challenge claims that a spiking

has taken place. Instead, they prefer to, often forcibly, remove them from the premises. These establishments are really leaning into the idea of ‘out of sight, out of mind’. It’s not just an issue surrounding one club: there have been unofficial reports throughout Canterbury at all the major venues.

A group of girls were thrown out of one club when they retaliated against a group of young men who had been harassing them and threatening to spike their drinks. They were told that they should have notified staff, despite having already alerted bar workers and seen no action taken. This lack of help is extremely dangerous.

It teaches men that it’s okay to do whatever they want and not fear reprisal, and it teaches women to just shut up and take it.

For the record, this problem is not about women standing up for themselves, the issue is on men attacking and threatening us, and bystanders doing nothing to help. Despite this, we’re still told to ‘report, report, report’. Am I the only one that feels stuck between a rock and a hard place? We’re being told to report these violations, yet when we do, we’re disbelieved!

At best, the clubs and relevant authorities are ignorant, at worst, they protect the perpetrators. Their priority is instead on the fear of deterring people from coming

Photo by Alex Voulgaris/Unsplash to their establishments should they implement proper preventative measures, which would eat into their profits. A quick news flash:

if the proper measures to prevent spiking and sexual assault are going to deter certain people from coming to your establishment, then good! We should absolutely be deterring those who intend to cause harm to others.

But why is there still this culture of disbelief? An ITV crime survey from 2014 found that one in ten people have had their drink spiked. Since then, numbers have skyrocketed even further, with some studies finding that between 2015 and 2018 alone, instances of spiking more than doubled. This means at any given time you will likely be in the presence of at least one victim of spiking.

Yet we continue to disbelieve women, even when they’re literally poisoned in front of us.

Club Chemistry’s original statement on the topic completely denied what had happened, going as far as to say that the stories had been fabricated and they hoped people would ‘think twice’ before causing ‘distress’ to others in the future. There are more than a few things wrong with this.

Firstly, disbelieving women should not still be happening. The MeToo movement wasn’t just a hashtag, and we didn’t fight to be seen only to be spiked

in a dark club. Secondly, I don’t know why people still think that women have nothing better to do than to go around making up stories, it requires a lot of effort and despite what people seem to think, we do more with our time than paint our nails and gossip! Thirdly, how dare they suggest that someone speaking out causes distress. What about the distress of finding yourself in an unfamiliar hospital room, foaming at the mouth, genuinely fearing for your life?

Workers at clubs get to go home at the end of that night, many women aren’t so lucky. The culture of victim blaming is still rife, and so long as we live in a society where sexual assault and abuse is normalised, we will continue to see people in hospitals fighting for their lives, or worse, dead.

Many venues try to pass the blame to victims in order to minimise a loss of profit and protect their own interests.

An establishment should never prevail over people’s actual lives! Whilst it’s true that the truth hurts, in this instance, the people hearing the truth and electing not to listen aren’t the ones who end up suffering. Women are being attacked. This is no longer news, but I’m praying that I might live to see it become history.

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InQuire Monday 15 November 2021

Opinion

Are the youth really radical?

By Daniel Esson Website Opinion Editor

I

t’s probably safe to assume that everybody reading this broadly falls into ‘generation Z’, or ‘zoomers’, for the more online of us. Many older people seem to view our generation, and our direct generational elders, the millennials, as particularly politically engaged and radical, though often phrased more disparagingly. However, as is always the case, such broad generalisations about massive groups of people are often base-

less. To even speak of political engagement in such broad terms is itself slightly divorced from reality. It should go without saying that, even among our relatively political generation, serious political engagement is the franchise of a minority. University educated people are broadly more likely to be interested in politics, and much more likely to be culturally liberal and/or left-wing. The students in any given year who leave secondary school and don’t go to university, are largely nowhere near as politically engaged and active

as their contemporaries who do. Then, why the perception that the young are so political?

Graduates disproportionately dominate what can be loosely termed the ‘elite’ – middle class professions – journalism, finance, and all creative and cultural industries. These are the professions which broadly shape public discourse through the media, education, political activism and the like. In modern Britain, due to the mass expansion of higher education in the past two decades, the most influential university graduates

Photo by Li-An Lim/Unsplash

Nuclear weapons: worrying the world

Photo by SKopp/ Wikimedia Commons

By Sophia Lueneburg Politics Correspondent

T

oday, even in an age of international cooperation and competition to dominate economic power, countries still work to improve their weapon systems. While states try to make themselves feel safe with the newest deadly technology, they produce a state of constant tension around them.

Military strategy is a complicated game of calculating the most unrealistic scenarios of the behaviour of your enemy.

The rule of thumb: always have a bigger arsenal then your opponent and be prepared for the worst. While one may place this type of thought in the Cold War, we can still see it being put in to practice today. Most recently, China has stepped up its number of missile tests, including those with advanced nuclear capabilities. This has unsurprisingly concerned the leaders of other powerful nations, most notably in the West.

In the summer of 2021, according to the Financial Times, China tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic glider. The Chinese state claims that it officially conducted a routine spacecraft check.

However, while they normally announce the launch of spacecraft, this time they did not. In this test, a hypersonic glider was launched on a rocket and then flew through low-orbit space, barely leaving the atmosphere, whilst still remaining controllable from the ground. This means that it is difficult for it to be detected by flight radar. The glider orbited the planet before slightly missing its target. Gliders, and technology allowing them to orbit the planet are not new.

However, the way China combined the two techniques into a potential weapon may be more advanced than anyone thought them capable to possess. It travels five times the speed of sound and can

reach a further distance than ballistic missiles. It flew around the South Pole, orbiting the planet instead of taking a shorter trip over the Atlantic Ocean. This is especially worrisome for the US, as this is where their radar and satellite capacities are at their weakest. The US government have since acknowledged China’s launch, describing it ‘very concerning’.

This advancement of China’s nuclear capabilities had indeed stunned the US defence department.

Many countries, including the UK, work with hypersonic technology, but China and Russia both work to combine it with nuclear-capable gliders. The issue is that new advances such as these will also push budgets for developing these sophisticated weapons up in other countries due to the lack of trust in the international community. It is a constant spiral. Most states will have no intention to actually use these gliders in an attack, but nobody wants to be less prepared, just in case. It is what political scientists call a ‘Security Dilemma’. Another issue is that while there are treaties on (nuclear) arms control, countries can drop out of them. For example, the US withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, an agreement that had taken two years to negotiate.

Since then, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has had difficulty in tracking how far Iran enriches uranium.

The world is getting nervous. Australia recently joined the US and the UK to form a trilateral security pact, which will involve nuclear powered submarines being built by Australia for the first time.

Inevitably, China has not taken this arrangement well.

If countries continue to define security through arms and measure safety of their citizens with nuclear capabilities, they will miss issues which may be much more damaging than a rocket test on the other side of the planet. With the massive

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impact that global warming will have within this century, spending money on planet orbiting nuclear bombs sounds just as ridiculous as it is. Maybe governments are still too dominated by masculine thoughts of the bigger the better, but before long leaders will be forced to realise that what we are really racing is time. Time is running out to come up with solutions to real life problems that will hurt us, no matter the intention of another government. Larger issues such as climate change, poverty, and social inequality do not have a face, or a Twitter account or an army base in the pacific. However, letting go of insecurities and working towards cooperation instead of competition is difficult, not only for governments but for humans generally. The possibility of an atomic bomb being used against another country is slim due to how prevalent they now are, but building weapons is still profitable. Arms trade is huge sector of countries’ economies. During 2016 to 2020, according to SIPRI the largest arms exporters were the United States, Russia, France, Germany and China. A new arms race would bring in a vast amount of cash for the global arms industry, and in doing so would further increase economic power for these already dominant states. Therefore, money will likely be used again to build weapons rather than securing a positive future of the planet. In attempts to nationalise citizens, the presence of a hostile, threatening foreign power can be useful for politicians who look to secure domestic popular support. While there is little to gain in in an arms race for the everyday citizen, governments and economists might secretly disagree.

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are essentially either millennials or zoomers.

Herein lies the reason why many older people view the young as disproportionately political and radical: important cultural institutions, from journalism to the arts, are largely steered by relatively young, very liberal, university graduates. So even if most people around our age couldn’t care less about socio-cultural issues and politics, those who do tend to have real decision-making power.

But what actually is the character of the politics of the young? It’s fairly apparent that of the politically engaged minority of our generation, the majority consider themselves to be left-wing.

Young right-wingers are relatively hard to come by, but not as hard as you’d think, and there are reasons to believe that our generation is, in relative terms at least, more right-wing than millennials.

Among young self-identified leftists, formerly obscure sectarian labels such as libertarian socialist or anarcho-communist are commonplace, often congealing into a united mass of political ideals, miles from the views of the ordinary people in whose interest they claim to struggle, with only differences of aesthetics between tendencies. In a 1868 letter to Johann Baptist von Schweitzer, Marx stated that the radical sects of his time prided themselves not on their unity with the working class, but ‘in the particular shibboleth which distinguishes’ them from that class. The same could be said of the far less organised radicals of today, who pride themselves not on their support from the public, but on how much more enlightened they are than the public.

Among today’s ostensible radicals, ideological emphasis is seldom placed upon matters which generations of leftists past would expect. The focus of supposed radical leftism today is on social and cultural matters such as identity and representation; issues regarding the structure and ownership of industry, the nature of the economy and how best

to change it, are often paid only lip-service, croutons drowned in the soup of liberal individualism. When there is such broad agreement on the left about the social and cultural matters which are deemed most important - those of identity - then the aforementioned political labels themselves become just that: markers of identity, more of personal political branding than of ideological meaning.

There are obviously some reasons to be hopeful about the politicisation of the young. People of our age are acutely aware of the environmental catastrophe which faces us, and which threatens to be humanity’s final challenge. Opposition to neoliberalism and its detrimental consequences is widespread; when the state is essentially in the pocket of property developers and banks, wages have been until recently stagnant, the cost of living is skyrocketing, and social services are battered within an inch of functionality, it’s hard to find young people who don’t want some kind of serious economic change. However, when the left which claims the right to change society and the economy is almost totally bereft of relation to those who really can change society – workers - and their priorities, it’s hard to see how vague anti-capitalist sentiment can translate itself into real world change.

Perhaps this is symptomatic of the exceptionalism with which every generation tends to view itself, but the politics of our age cohort seem uniquely paradoxical. The middle class and the wealthy, with the most to lose, are often the most radical. The workers exploited most are often the least politically engaged. To be a radical is to be a conformist, and the emergent establishment consider themselves anti-establishment. The language of movements considering themselves radical and transformative has been seamlessly co-opted by international mega-corporations. It seems that everything is on the cards, and that all is to play for, but those who claim the responsibility of change are unknowingly trapped in the confines of the system they seek to overturn.

The views expressed in each article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of InQuire Media. To publish a response, contact newspaper.opinion@inquiremedia.org

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Monday 15 November 2021 InQuire

Lifestyle

Dating Tragedies: Real Life Encounters ing ey esle yW

better about your love life.

to b

submitted by Kent students and beyond, if you need to feel

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Have a read through these true tragic dating anecdotes,

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Ever gone on a date that left you cringing?

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ave you ever accidentally got into a relationship? Two years ago after a rather angry phone call I got the dreaded breakup message from my ex. Following an hour of eating my feelings and a teary phone call to my mum I plucked up the courage to download tinder. Having riffled through random pick up lines I arranged to meet someone who ‘super-liked’ me as my rebound victim. The next night he came to mine, we ordered pizza and…

We’ve been dating for 2 years. Who said Tinder doesn’t work?

I

went out on a date to a bar with a guy I met on Tinder. I ordered a cocktail, and he got a hot chocolate complete with cream and marshmallows. Fair enough, but was that really the vibe? I didn’t see him again after that.

- Anonymous, 22, London

I

- Grace, 20, Canterbury

have a friend who went on a lovely date to Alexandra Palace to see the fireworks, ended up getting (very) intimate in a bush and had her bag stolen. A really nice bag with all her makeup inside and car keys. So traumatic.

- Anonymous, 22, London Photo by Tejasvi Ganjoo

A

fter hooking up with a guy in a club, I went back to his and things got intimate. When we’d finished, he took the condom to the bathroom to wash it out before chucking it as he didn’t want the bin men finding his DNA! Who knows what he thought they’d be doing with it. Safe to say I didn’t see him again.

Photo by Masimo Grabar

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- Anonymous, 21, Canterbury

boy took me on a date to watch him skateboard up and down a hill in a park.

Literally that was it. And he picked me up on a scooter which I had to get on the back of.

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was meant to be meeting a guy from Tinder. I messaged him to confirm where we were meeting, and he said he couldn’t make it anymore. Turns out he’d fallen down the stairs in Tokyo Tea Rooms and smashed his face so badly that he was on antibiotics.

- Tilly, 21, Canterbury

A

friend of mine went on a date with a girl, who although they were supposed to go out for dinner refused to leave the car! And so, he just awkwardly sat next to her for a couple of hours in the car park and then drove home. He insisted she was strange and wouldn’t be seeing her again. They are now 3 months into their relationship!

- Anonymous, 21, Essex

Photo by freestocks

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went on a date with this guy from Grindr. We went to Spoons for dinner, and things were going really well. He convinces me to go back to his flat with him, where things are about to get intimate... and then I get a message from my friend. 'Gonorrhoea, gtfo!!' - so I did.

- Anonymous, 20, Canterbury

Got any tragic dating encounters? Email us at newspaper.editor@inquiremedia.org and they could be featured in the next issue!

Photo by Lucas Hobbs

9

InQuire Monday 15 November 2021

Lifestyle

A Beginner's Guide to: Feminism

By Grace Bishop Newspaper Lifestyle Editor/Media & Events

F

eminism is a tricky subject. Is believing in gender equality enough? I’ve always wondered what does it mean to be a feminist? Does wearing makeup make me un-feminist? I probably ‘woke up’ when I came to University and developed my opinions on certain matters allowing me to embark on a never ending, ever evolving journey of self empowerment.

For many women, it’s the core of their fight for equality; a word encompassing female liberation. Yet historically feminism is a word that not only frightens many but also angers people.

Feminism is about relieving all from oppression of gender roles regardless of gender identity. The history of this is long and complex but I feel it is important to understand First Wave Feminism: This was the original incarnation of the feminist movement focusing on women’s suffrage which had been limited throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The legal rights of women achieved through the suffrage movement formed the basis for future waves of feminism to emerge.

Although this movement began the liberation of women; it however was mainly white women due to the lack of diversity and racism during this era.

Second Wave Feminism: This was the first time that feminism had entered mainstream political and social dialogue from the 1960’s to 1980’s. Many issues concerned sex and sexuality through the introduction of the contraceptive pill. However many second wave feminists campaigned for issues including equal pay, domestic abuse legislation and the criminalisation of marital rape.

The associations surrounding feminism is often derived from the second wave movements in which women burned their bras and became ‘radical feminists’. This movement however was also not welcoming of different ethnicities or religions.

Third Wave Feminism: Third Wave Feminism began in the 1990’s and is widely attributed to the failures of the second wave. One

of their main attempts was to expand and diversify the feminist movement ensuring it encompassed a variety of identities. This was distinct for sex positivity which remains an issue for some feminists who believe that fetishisation of BDSM and pornography is harmful for women.

Fourth Wave Feminism: This is based on the value of intersectionality which embrace the LGBT community and race theory into the

"Ever noticed how the pill is specific to women? Or how speech recognition software is 70% more likely to recognise male voices as opposed to females?" movement. One of the major elements of this wave was the introduction of social media allowing mass mobilisation like Women’s Marches to be broadcast globally. This wave is also strongly associated with reproduction and abortion rights as well as increasing the voices of marginalised women and support of transgender women.

Although most feminists don’t identify as being apart of a specific wave. These labels are helpful In identifying the values of feminists throughout the history of equalising power.

Throughout my research for this article I stumbled across a variety

of definitions which I hadn’t known before so I thought it would be educational to share these. Radical feminism is a movement stemming from the second wave which calls for a complete change In society and abolition of male supremacy. Misogyny is the hatred of women and girls shown through legal, cultural and social practises (pay gap in employment). Misandry is the hatred of men which is often incorrectly seen as the base of feminism. Intersectionality is the idea that groups of people under systems of discrimination and oppression can intersect and unite. It underlines the importance of solidarity toward a specific cause.

Although it seems women have come far in abolishing the gender barriers, there is still a long way to go. Did you know that women are 73% more likely to be injured in a car accident due to differing body size and shape compared to men and are 50% more likely to die.

Ever noticed how the pill is specific to women? Or how speech recognition software is 70% more likely to recognise male voices as opposed to females? CPR dummies are always men, meaning people are untrained when it comes to saving a woman’s life.

The size of smartphones are physically too big for female hands.

Although these things aren’t usually noticed it underlines how the world is built for men.

Feminism is not about bullying men into submission, nor is it about intimidating anyone to become a feminist. It is about breaking down gender barriers and roles that are harmful in hopes of preventing a specific group being drowned out by others. It is about giving an equal voice and opportunity in society.

If you would like to develop your understanding of feminism then check out these recommended books: Invisible World; Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Perez, Women Don’t Owe you Pretty by Florence Given, Feminists Don’t Wear Pink

by Scarlett Curtis, The Little Book of Feminism by Harriet Dyer, 101 Essays to Change the Way you Think by Brianna Wiest and How the Pill Changes Everything by Sarah E Hill.

The Best Way To Celebrate November 5th

By James Simon Lifestyle Writer

no rule that you can’t do it yourself! Amazon offer loads of packs of neon face paint and glitter to embrace the theme. You could also extend this to your drinks menu that night emember, remember the fifth of with a glass of bubbly or The Firecracker?

November; gunpowder, treason This needs 150g of sugar, 200g of berries, and plot.

450ml of gin, juice of 4 lemons and 1 bottle For centuries Fireworks night has of Rose all mixed together. A great addition become more and more popular to mark to the nights festivities! the anniversary of Guy Fawkes Demise, Watch the Fireworks in Canterbury: preventing his terrorist attack against Either go and watch the fireworks from afar the Houses of Parliament in London. Alor host them with friends and family in your though this night has become the divider garden (obviously make sure it’s ok with the between Halloween and Christmas in the neighbours first - the biggest buzz kill is a Autumnal months - it doesn’t seem to noise complaint) If you choose to host and gather the recognition it deserves. Aside light the fireworks yourself, make sure you from attending bonfires and watching are following the safety labels (and try not the glow from the fireworks there doesn’t to be too wasted… its a recipe for disaster). seem much to do. However hopefully this However if you and your housemates would article will provide some inspiration to rather watch them then Spitfire Ground, make this Bonfire night one to remember.

Leeds Castle and Tyler Hill will all host.

Attend a Bonfire with Sparklers: Fancy They include free entry plus live music and a classic and cosy setting listening to fairground rides. the crackle of the fire. Just grab a warm Bake off: If you’d rather avoid the freezing blanket, some sparklers and come marshcold weather this November, then the permallows and you’re all set. Gather your fect indoor activity would be to hold your closest friends and sit around the bonfire. own British Bake off Competition. Choose Of course if you’re having a bonfire then whatever you’d like to bake and theme it on you NEED to make s’mores! A classic Photo by Charles-Adrien Fournier Photo by Marisol Benitez fireworks. With an array of sprinkles and American favourite consisting of melted edible glitter you can transform your cookmarshmallow, melted chocolate, all sandies into colourful fireworks. (You’ve also got wiched together with a Disgestive biscuit. A flask of hot chocolate you, a neon night is a great idea for a Houseparty. Although Cana delicious treat for later whilst watching Bake off!) or something a little stronger, will keep you warm and cosy. Don’t terbury don’t have any Firework’s themed club nights on, there’s

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forget to take some Instagram pictures with your sparklers!

Glow in the Dark Theme Night: With fireworks exploding around

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Monday 15 November 2021 InQuire

Lifestyle

Contraception: Which Type is Right For You? C

ombined Pill: This is often just called the pill and contained artificial hormones of oestrogen and progesterone. This contraception stops the release of an egg which prevents pregnancy.

This method is over 99% effective and you take the pill once a day for 21 days and then have a 7 day break. You need to remember to take the pill at the same time every day (if you miss a pill, vomit or have diarrhoea then it could result in pregnancy).

It can also help with heavy periods and painful periods. There are minor mood swings and there is a low risk of blood clots and cervical cancer.

It will not protect you against STD’s and is not suitable if you smoke.

Condoms (Male and Female): This is the only form of contraception which can prevent both pregnancy and protect you against STD’s.

There are two types external (Male condoms) and female condoms. They stop you coming into contact with your sexual partner and are 98% effective. You are able to get free condoms from sexual health clinics. There is the chance they can slip off or break during intercourse and must be used before their expiry date.

Contraceptive Implant: This is 99% effective and doesn’t need to be changed for 3 years. It is usedful for women who can’t take oestrogen and forget to take the pill everyday. It can be taken out if there are any side effects but you might experience bruising and tenderness around the implant.

Your periods may become irregular and one common side effect is that your periods stop.

It also doesn’t protect you against STD’s.

Contraceptive Injection: This releases the hormone progesterone into your bloodstream to prevent pregnancy and lasts for 8-13 weeks. This is more than 99% effective. It is great if you forget to take the pill every day but does include some side effects making your periods more irregular. It can also take up to 1 year for your fertility to return after the injection wears off. It does not protect you against STD’s.

Contraceptive Patch: This is a small sticky patch that releases hormones through your skin to prevent pregnancy. It is more than 99% effective at preventing pregnancy and lasts for 1 week (you change the patch every week for 3 weeks and

then have a week off).

It is still effective if you’re sick.

You can wear it when swimming or playing sports and might help with cramps.

This can however raise your blood pressure and by a doctor. can cause a blood clot. It is not suitable for women It is 99% effective, works as soon who smoke or are overweight. It also doesn’t pre- as its inserted and lasts for vent STD’s.

5-10 years. It can n itio oal Vaginal Ring: This is a small, soft, plastic ring be taken out C s plie that you place inside your vagina. It releases a at any Sup h t l continuous dose of hormones including oestrogen a He and progestogen into the bloodstream to prevent tive c u pregnancy. It is 99% effective and provides rod Rep y contraception for one month. Bleedb tos ing will be lighter and less Pho painful but there are some temporary side effects.

It can sometimes come out on its own and doesn’t protect you against STD’s.

Diaphragm or Cap: This is a circular dome made of thin silicone that is inserted into the vagina before sex. This time but covers the cervix so sperm is your periods can unable to get into the Uterus to be heavier and longer. fertilise an egg.

There is a small risk of inWhen this is used correctly fection and does not protect against it is 92-96% effective at preSTD’s. venting pregnancy and you Progestogen only Pill: This prevents pregnancy can put it in at any time bef o r e by thickening the mucus in the cervix to stop the having intercourse. This however does sperm from reaching the egg and needs to be taken need to be left in place for at least 6 everyday. Its more than 99% effective and there is hours after sex. It also isn’t effective at no break unlike the combined pill. Periods may be preventing sexually transmitted Infec- lighter and you also need condoms against STD’s. tions. There is a chance you may develop cystitis (bladder infection) and you may experi- (All information has been taken from the ence irritation.

NHS website) IUD and IUS: IUD is known as the Intrauterine

By Grace Bishop Device or Coil and IUS is known as the Intrauterine Newspaper Lifestyle Editor/Media & Events system or hormonal coil. This is a small T shaped plastic copper device that is put into your uterus

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Monday 15 November 2021 InQuire

Science and Technology

Quantum GPS: ‘Unhackable’ Navigation Could It Be Just Around The Corner...

By Tom Calvo, Science Writer

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ost? Need to find how to get somewhere? Today, we use GPS to least in terms of the signals that could be used), it is ‘un-hackable’. An help us navigate our way around. On roads, on foot, everything. immediate advantage, which no doubt goes some way to explaining Currently, GPS relies on satellites, which use a process known why the US Pentagon is fascinated by quantum tech. as trilateration in order to calculate a person’s location.

However, this, much like the materials and setups used to This is a process whereby three (or more) satellites run quantum computers, has big downsides. Firstcan register where they believe the user’s sigly, it needs, as mentioned, to be super-cooled at nal is coming from, ‘place’ a circle with a all times. This… is really not ideal. Certainly certain radius, and by seeing where the not if you want it to be usable commerthree (or more) circles overlap, you cially in settings such as planes – this can pinpoint a fairly accurate lowould require, if nothing else, far cation. Three satellites is the abtoo much power. You also can’t solute minimum for a decently have any other particles interaccurate location to be found, fering with the process. A single with four or more allowing electron could collapse the sumore sophisticated measureperposition states of some of ments to be made such as elethe atoms, leading to totally vation and altitude. inaccurate measurements.

Atomic sensors, however, This last challenge has been rely on a process called atomsomewhat overcome. At a ic interferometry. This propostdoctoral research centre cess is based fundamentally at Sandia National Laboraon the principle of nature that tory, NM, US, two scientists, matter, such as light, behaves in Peter Schwindt and Bethany a wave-like way. It relies also on Little are observing a tiny little the strange behaviour of quantum golf-ball sized container, made of physics known as superposition, titanium and sapphire, which conwherein an atom can be in two states tains a group of precisely calibrated Photo by Sandia National Laboratory at once (or rather, have a certain probatoms capable of allowing very precise ability of being in each until observed). navigational measurements. Possibly even Atomic interferometry uses photons to kick out-performing GPS altogether. The team at super-cooled atoms into this state repeatedly, and this laboratory have developed a method of using a when environmental changes occur, the end-states of the type of aluminosilicate (amongst other things), in order to atoms change. This allows you to make impressively accurate measmore passively extract chemicals and other particles that should not urements of things like acceleration, gravity, and distance. Now, bebe in the chamber. Without using a vacuum. This step forward could cause this technology relies quantum physics, it also means that (at be monumental, as the lack of a requirement of a near-perfect vac-

X-Class Solar Flares: What Are They, and Could They Be Deadly?

By Johnathan Guy, Newspaper Science & Technology Editor

even days, and have the ability to completely knock out systems on Earth, especially those which rely on satellites. This is much like the itting on a beach, off on holiday, hiking in the woods, it’s easy Richter scale for earthquakes, wherein a jump in class represents a to forget that the sun, 10-fold increase in magnitude. our constant companAs you’d expect then, within ion, is, really, just a huge ball each class is a 1-9 subclass. It’s of glowing hot plasma. Get often expected that any solar too close, and you’d likely flare of a C-class or below genfry. Well, that’s if the massive erally won’t (too noticeably, at radiation didn’t take care of least) affect Earth-based sysyou first. For centuries howtems. However, above C-class, ever, a particular solar event and things can start to get a fascinated astronomers and bit hairier. The most comphysicists alike: Solar flares. monly cited example is a flare Our sun is, as mentioned, a in 2003, which exceeded the giant ball of hot plasma, the measurement capability of the composition of which is varisensors we had available at ous gasses which sit at several the time, cutting out at a scale (relatively, though nowhere of X-28. This particular flare near completely) discrete levcreated incredible auroras in els on the surface of the sun, the night sky across Maryland much like how our atmosphere and various other parts of the has layers. When the magnetic world, and also knocked out field lines of the sun become lots of radio communications. ‘tangled’ in a certain spot, this How does this happen, then? makes the surface unstable, reWhy does an ejection of energy sulting in an explosion of light, so far away have such an imheat and other forms of radiPhoto by NASA pact on Earth? Well, one of a ation in magnitudes classified solar flares’ key radiation comby scientists into a range, anyponents is X-rays. When a flare where from A-class, all the way to X. These flares can last for hours, or occurs, the levels of X-rays hitting the side of the Earth’s atmosphere

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uum in order to use these devices, may mean that they are one step closer to being commercially viable. This isn’t just theoretical, either.

The team at the Sandia laboratory have been running a device exactly like this for over a year now, and they claim that there has been no significant degradation in its performance over that time. Advances in this area of atomic science may lead to these techniques being applied to quantum computers too (since they suffer from similar issues).

This could be the start of a new age of quantum-driven technologies.

Gunpowder, Treaso How Do Firew

By Johnathan Guy, Newspaper Science & Technology Editor

I

t’s that time of year again – the sound of explosions and the smell of gunpowder filling the cold wintery air, and, if you time it right, it’s also the time of year when you can see our sky filled with a vast array of colours. While obviously being visually stunning, they are also scientifically fascinating. Most people are aware of the basic composition of fireworks – a fuse, and gunpowder. At least, that’s how they were originally made back in 7th Century China, where legend says that a cook created the first firework accidentally by igniting a mixture he made using sulphur, honey, and saltpetre (known better as potassium nitrate). Supposedly, he realized that igniting his “black powder” in a bamboo shoot produced a colourful flame/explosion.

For centuries after, fireworks didn’t really change all that much. In the modern day, however, we have developed new and more efficient methods for fireworks. Today, Photos by Thirdman they differ in design depending on country, type and other factors, but most have a main fuse, as well as a time delay fuse, which when lit, trigger a bursting charge, and smaller charges are released, which themselves explode.

Some fireworks carry a lifting charge to make them shoot upwards too, which can be triggered before the bursting charge. When fireworks first came about, they were launched by hand, on the ground. It has taken various scientific advancements in many fields to get us to today, where a computer can, without intervention from people, launch a perfectly timed firework display (though that doesn’t always go to plan!). Chem-

(most notably the ionosphere) lit by the sun increases, which ionises the gases present. Usually, high frequency radio makes use of the ionosphere in order to travel greater distances, but during a flare, these radio waves are interfered with by the ionised gas, resulting in the waves gradually losing energy, fading to undetectable, or unusable levels. The question remains, then: are these massive eruptions dangerous to us, on the surface of the Earth? In short, no. They aren’t. At least as far as we know! Why? Well, it is reasonable to assume that life on Earth evolved during the sun going through many phases of increased and decreased activity, including huge solar flare activity, and luckily, we on the surface are protected by the magnetic field of the Earth which deflects lots of the radiation, and also by the (very thick) atmosphere, which also absorbs quite a lot, (though not all, or you’d never tan!). These solar storms and flares will, however, pose a huge threat to any long-distance manned space project outside the protection of the Earth. How these threats are best dealt with, and whether they will remain a large stumbling block to more ambitious, far-flung projects remains to be seen.

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InQuire Monday 15 November 2021

By Jamie Neil, Website Science & Technology Editor

Science and Technology

The Science Behind: Doctor Who

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octor Who’s Series 13 – a miniseries called Flux – opened over Halloween weekend at the end of October with the spookily-named Halloween Apocalypse. The series opener had our favourite Time Lord battling against the villainous Swarm, the warmongering Sontarans and the terrifying Weeping Angels.

While the Doctor’s adventures seem fantastical, the show has always had a grounding in real-world science. From the TARDIS to Trenzalore, what is the science behind Doctor Who? Firstly, we must get to the blue box in the room: time travel. It’s the core premise of the show. Sure, the Doctor might have a preference for 21st century England, but we have seen adventures from the

on and... Chemistry: works Work?

ical research regarding salts and their behaviour under heat has given fireworks more spectacular colour. Progress with regard to computers changed shows too, allowing operators to time launches well and stand safely back. But let’s talk about the pretty bit: the colours. They’re trickier than you might think. Chemicals produce different colours when they are heated due to the release of photons at varying wavelengths.

This is due to the electromagnetic spectrum, and it is this which gives them their colour. Quantum physics is how, but suffice it to say, each element we know of has a certain amount of energy, (a ‘quantum’) which it requires to emit a photon.

That photon will carry the amount of energy that the element needed to ‘get rid of’, and given we know that with an energy, we can calculate a wavelength, then that photon’s wavelength will correspond to a particular colour (if that wavelength is within the visible range). That sounds great, but surely finding the right compounds to produce colours can’t be that hard? Well, it isn’t. However, that isn’t all. Safety, as most n and Roven Images will know, is a huge concern around fireworks, especially if they are going to be sold in shops! We know some elements will of course interact with one another, or others, such as sodium, can react violently to things like water. So not only do the creators of fireworks have to carefully curate the right compounds to produce the right colours and effects, but they also have to ensure they choose compounds that won’t explode in their hands!

So where next? Well, gunpowder-based Fireworks will likely be here to stay for quite a while yet!

creation of the Earth all the way back in 2006’s The Runaway Bride to the end of the universe in 2007’s Utopia.

To explain this phenomenon we are going to need some help from Einstein.

His theory of special relativity holds some of the answers we are looking for. One of its main outcomes is to do with the perception of objects traveling at the speed of light, to better explain this imagine two twins, one on earth and the other on a spaceship traveling near the speed of light. Upon return, the twin on earth would claim that 100 years have passed, whilst the twin traveling at the speed of light would argue that it been closer to ten. In essence, the twin on the ship appears to have skipped about 90 years into the future. This theory of time travel plays out most explicitly in 2017’s World Enough and Time,

& Alex Charilaou, Newspaper Editor

where a spaceship is caught by the gravitational pull of a black hole. fore there ever was such a thing as a Weeping Angel. One of the most In the side of the ship closer to the black hole, time moved more exciting real-life developments in technology – at least partially inquickly than at the bottom of the ship. spired by the Doctor’s telly exploits – is a real life sonic screwdriver.

Where centuries would pass at the bottom Scientists at the University of Dundee created a tool that uses sonic of the vessel, minutes passed waves to manipulate parts of patients’ bodies at the top, in a similar without needing to make fashion to the Einsteinicontact with an twin them. The analogy. So, final perhaps thing the key to that the TARDIS is in harnessing the power of special relativity?

Well, unfortunately, there would are some issues be a good with this theory. idea to discuss is For one, the sort The Doctor’s ability of time travel special to regenerate. Indeed, we relativity allows is see abilities like this in the a one way trip to the animal kingdom. Cephalofuture. Also, to reach even pods – the family of tentacled close to the speed of light Photos courtesy of the BBC, molluscan creatures that the requires massive amounts Design by Rory Bathgate octopus and squid are part of energy. Reaching the of – are known to be able to reactual speed of light is generate limbs.

Some lizards like Iguanas are able impossible, so it would be quite the feat of engito regrow their tails and other body parts. Given this, one might neering to achieve this. Despite this, there are a number of far out expect the Doctor to look more like a Silurian – the species from ideas in Doctor Who which Madame Vastra which have real-life hails – or even more like precedents. The Docthe creature inside the tor’s two hearts, for Doctor’s most hated foe, instance, take after the Dalek. some octopus species Whilst these amazing who have three creatures suggest a hearts. Moreover, lots promising start to our of heart surgeries ininvestigation, there is volve overlaying one perhaps one that has an heart with another even closer resemblance – essentially meaning to the Doctor’s abilities. a person has two Turritopsis Dohrnii, hearts. The Weeping more commonly known Angels, who have made a fearsome return to Doctor Who by the magisterial title of ‘the immortal jellyfish’ has the amazing in Flux, cannot move while being observed, ability to revert to a younger age when stressed or nearing the end of hence that now-famous ‘Don’t Blink’ its lifecycle. instruction.

While this sounds ludiThis is somewhat akin to the Doctor’s organic crous, there is some real-life precedent biology completely changing when suffering for this idea.

There are, apparently, a fatal wound in order to escape death and stone monuments that have been regenerate. It could be that when we see replicated in uranium, and The Doctor regenerate, we are seeing the they have an uncanny habit: same or a similar process to this. according to the Quantum Zeno And with the revelation Effect uranium doesn’t decay while that The Doctor is not being observed – only when a Time Lord but a creapeople aren’t looking. Researchers at ture from another dimension, the University of Texas who could say whether the discovered this effect Doctor’s true form is in 1977 bein fact closer to that of a jellyfish. In any case, it seems that a

“The Weeping Angels cannot move while being observed, and while this sounds ludicrous, there is some real-life precedent for this idea.”

Photos courtesy of the BBC

world about a mysterious figure in a blue box who travels through time saving the day isn’t as unlikely as it might first appear.

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Monday 15 November 2021 InQuire

Feature

THE PROBLEM WITH H&M'S MERCH COLLAB WITH NETFLIX'S SEX EDUCATION

By Iona Singh Writer

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etflix’s series ‘Sex Education’ is one of the most progressive shows of its time due to its honest and truthful portrayal of the individual realities faced by young-adults today. This is down to it’s refreshingly diverse cast - diverse here encompassing all distinctions, including: race, class, sexual-orientation, gender-identity and disabilities- which allows for a critical exploration of the characters' inner development; the creator Laurie Nunn’s comedic, fun and relatable portrayal of young adults figuring out their identity is everything YA (Youngadult fiction) shows have been missing.

T h e wide-array of topics portrayed on the show such as the school’s mishandling of Cal’s non-binary identity makes the show a perfect example for what YA shows should include, which simply put, is inclusivity without any of the token symbols or clichès. The show’s ability to create characters that are both realistic and relatable is sadly something quite unprecedented when you compare it to other popular television youngadult series like Glee and Riverdale where popular cheerleaders, prom queens and socially awkward ‘geeks’ are rampant. The writers of Sex Education instead deliberately

play on these misrepresentative stereotypes by presenting viewers with characters like Otis and Adam who at first appear to fit the role of ‘geek’ and ‘jock’ until viewers are not only shown what drives these characters but also what their fears and worries are.

While character development is very much explored effectively in other YA shows, the reason ‘Sex Education’ is deservedly in a whole other league of its own is because of its hilariously realistic portrayal of not just teenagers but characters that resemble actual people with individual stories and lives that cannot be simplified and labelled.

However, while the success of the show deserves to be praised until the h i g h heavens, its merchandise collaboration with the clothing retailer H&M is just emPhotos by heatworld.com barrassing.

So much so that I've decided to write an article on it because I just can’t let this go since it completely undermines the show’s whole ethos surrounding the rejection of labels and importance of complexity within character development.

Firstly, I just want to say I have no fault with any of the more generic pieces including the short, pleated skirts, jeans and pastel-coloured dresses and trousers, in fact, I love them, they radiate fresh autumnal energy which we love to see.

However, it is the fluffy shoulder bag with the slogan ‘I don’t do boyfriends’ emblazoned on the front and the sweatshirt that says ‘Comp l e x female charac-

"I don't do boyfriends"

ters’ that I am just mortified with because this male is complex because of her defiance towards quote completely men. On top undermines why of this, the the show is deservuse of this edly celebrated for quote out of effective character context also development. negates the It is important to significance note here that I ferof Maeve advently encourage mitting this an added focus on as this came the literary trope, from a conComplex Female versation that Characters within took place the mainstream in series 1 English curricuepisode 4 in lum where young which Maeve women are taught states this in that a female charresponse to acter is not just Jackson after deemed complex he asks for by their supposed clarification defiance or attion the natude towards the ture of their male characters. relationship.

The term ‘complex’ Maeve’s rewhen defining fesponse ‘I males not just in don’t do literature but in boyfriends’ the big wide world, comes from carries subtle miher difficulty sogynistic undertrusting othtones because the ers and formword complex is ing close-relasynonymous with tionships due problems, difficulPhoto by tvguide.com to her past ties and ulexperience; timatethe abandonly something that requires a fix. Where ment of her mother and brother, the derogatory I find fault in H&M’s appropriation label ‘cock-biter’ enforced upon her by her peers of this literary term, is that they are after she effectively did this in self-defiance when simply monetising off this trendshe was sexually assaulted. ing topic and social discussion Having any prior knowledge of any of what this whereby women are demanding character has been through sheds some light on realistic characterizations of feher response, ‘I don’t do boyfriends’ and allows male characters whose complexity viewers to not only sympathize but understand and has nothing to do with their relaeven support Maeve’s decision after all that she has tionship to men. been through.

In fact, H&M’s use of Maeve’s ‘I By taking this quote context and profiting off its don’t do boyfriends’ quote which seemingly badass and satirical undertones, it alis printed on fluffy shoulder most reinforces the same stereotypes that Laurie bags and bucket hats, Nunn was challenging in the first place as Maeve only serves to is made out to be this femme fatale stock figure perpetuate because she is subversive in her rejection of social this patrinorms and yet inherently seductive because of this archal transgressive attitude. i d e a While none of these clothing pieces can be lat h a t belled ‘problematic’ in light of woke culture, H&M’s a fedecision to use the following quotes to profit off the show’s popularity is certainly questionable.

However, perhaps, if H&M had selected other quotes from the show which carried less emotive significance and simply are just funny such as Eric’s infamous ‘Wash your hands you detty pig’, the line could be seen as good promotion for the show, but by choosing to monetise the important literary term ‘Complex Female Characters’ and taking Maeve’s quote out of context, it completely undermines Sex Education’s powerful message of communication and taking the time to get to know Image courtesy of Netflix someone before placing a judgement on one’s character.

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InQuire Monday 15 November 2021

Feature

THE LOOMING CLIMATE CRISIS: ARE WE TOO LATE TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

By James Davis Writer

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ntering another global pledge to reverse the trends of climate change, our efforts of climate stabilisation are on a knife edged cliff. With the global UN conference in Scotland happening, COP26, the eyes of the world turn to the 200 countries invited and their commitment to net zero emissions. Yet fears have already arisen that the commitments already made, will not be enough to reverse trends and our efforts may have been too little too late.

A recent report published by the UN Environment Programme has revealed that current commitments recently made by countries around the world fall short of meeting the desired target of keeping the global temperature at 1.5C. So far each countries plan only removes 7.5% off the predicted 2030 emissions, yet what is needed is 55% to meet the 1.5C goal. With the current course set, it is estimated that by 2030 the world is still facing at least a 2.7C global heating. This damning report has been labelled as a “thundering wake up call” by the UN Secretary General, Antonio Gueterres.

The climate change conference COP26 in Glasgow marks the beginning of a possible dramatic change in plans and developments for global climate c h a n g e commitment. Despite efforts made to reverse climate change since the Paris Climate Accords of 2015, the past decade has been the hottest on record and a report from the WMO has shown that warming gases were at a new high last year despite the COVID 19 pandemic. Nevertheless, pressure on governments to act has never been stronger. In the past few years environmental protests have risen exponentially and a number of high profile strikes from groups such as Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain have stirred up much public and governmental debate.

The UK has set out its plan to commit to net zero emissions through what the PM labels “the unique power of capitalism.” An array of large investments in environmental action has been committed Photos by piqsels.com

by the UK government such as promises of £140 million towards accelerating industrial carbon capture and hydrogen; providing £380 million for the offshore wind sector and implementing a £240 million Net Zero Hydrogen Fund in 2022. As we enter this new age of a heightened global climate crisis, conflict has arisen between Number 10 and the treasury on how much public finance to invest in the overarching goal of achieving net zero emissions. Fears of supposed “greenlash” fears from voters have emerged in anticipation of voter response to environmental and economic measures coming in to force.

The COP26 conference represents an important diplomatic and political development o n

and Priya Hawes Newspaper Features Editor

the world stage for the UK. A successful conference the livelihoods of billions of people. Some scienwill not only potentially strengthen the UKs global tists already claim that the decisions being made image, it will set the foundations for further globat the COP26 conference have come too late and al opportunities led by the UK. The political and whatever is decided upon will not materialise into logistical risk associated to the UKs current posireality. tion also carries much weight and has the potential So, the question remains: How can businesses to undermine the UK governments lower their carbon emissions? goals. The greatest chalDoing your bit for the lenge is setting out a environment helps unified coherent to a certain deplan with 200 gree, howevcountries, this er the real gets especialproblem ly tricky when here lies in huge sums of big corpomoney into the rations not billions are inchanging the volved. way they are proThe ambitious goals set ducing their goods due forth represent a positive set of to political and monetary reacommitments, yet the great deal of scepticism sons. The efficiency of the production cycle should on the actual results reveals a lack of adenot be at the forefront of their goals anymore. Inquate trust in global powers to act on their vesting in renewable energy is one way of reducing word. With the absence of both Russian carbon emissions. Renewable energy consists of president Putin and China’s President four different categories. The first being solar enXi, tensions remain over global uniergy and as the word entails it uses sun as a renewfication to match the ambitious able resource due to us having an infinite supply. goals.

Secondly, wind energy which is a source of clean Nevertheless, there is wideenergy. This clean energy is something we need to spread awareness that the decistrive for. One of the most useful renewable energy sion being made will not simply sources would have to be hydro power as it is one affect one or two countries but of the most commercially developed. Lastly, we will have a dramatic impact have geothermal energy by harnessing the natural on countless factors such as heat below the earth’s surface, geothermal energy jobs, geopolitics, and dipcan be used to heat homes directly or to generate lomatic conduct. An imelectricity. Although it harnesses a power directly portant feature of the conbelow our feet, geothermal energy is of negligible ference that will get much importance in the UK compared to countries such talking time will be the speas Iceland, where geothermal heat is much more cialised focus on developing freely available. Lastly, when talking about COP26, countries and climate justice. many speculate it has done more damage than Developing countries pollute good. With heads of governments flying in from all less than most developed around the world to attend, the carbon emissions countries and are suffering the had probably increased by that day alone. We have consequences of our actions. all seen how meetings can be done over zoom and Climate justice and aid to help teams, so in future when thinking about the bigger ensure the stabilisation and rechanges we can incorporate into our daily lives, duction of emission are extremely staying home or taking cleaner energy powered important factors to bring about a transport is the way forward. unified stance against climate change.

In 2009 developed countries agreed to mobilise $100 billion in climate finance per year by 2020 and in 2015 agreed to extend this goal to 2025. However, the UK COP26 presidency claims that the $100 billion goal is likely to fall short in 2021 and 2022.

Without rapid progress now in making decisions, we face the real threat of falling short of the goals set and entering a point of no return where o u r global climate m a y threaten Photo of the Scottish Event Campus, Glasgow, by Fredrika Carlsson

"Pressure on governments to act has never been stronger."

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Monday 15 November 2021 InQuire

Culture

Moara Marques: Illustrating Canterbury's Most Iconic Buildings

By Batholomew Hall, Writer

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or those who traverse Canterbury’s cobbled and historic streets day in and day out, many will be familiar with staples of the city, including the slanted door of The Crooked House bookshop or the prominence of Café des Amis’ blue woodwork shining over Westgate Gardens.

However, for one artist, these buildings have been a source for inspiration since she moved to Canterbury in late 2019.

Liked and shared by hundreds on Canterbury’s resident Facebook groups, Moara Marques’ artwork is often described as “beautiful”, “fantastic” and “stunning” by those who comment on the

posts.

Marques was born in Brazil, however, has lived across the world in her lifetime. She “immediately fell in love” with Canterbury when she temporarily moved in next to the cathedral. She said: “The little gondola style boats reminded me so much of Venice, a city where I lived for one year (2009) and where I first started painting.”

“My first choice was the Café des Amis. It just had to be illustrated. It’s a small A4 painting, that I ended up selling many prints and managed to keep the original, framed on my wall, despite many offers from people who love the place.”

The Café des Amis has sat outside the Westgate arch since 1988 after its founders combined their French heritage with the inspiration from a Mexican excursion in ’87. Similarly, Moara combines her Brazilian heritage with the sights she has seen whilst travelling. Her “fixation on birds and exorbitant nature” that represents freedom is juxtaposed to the anchored concrete and bricks. She described this as: “A dynamic that goes beyond the quotidian life of people in the city”.

Growing up under the care of two architects, Moara attributes her fascination with buildings to seeing her mother and father designing many buildings over the years. “My dad took me many times to watch the constructions happening, I didn’t find it very interesting at the time” With a preference for working on-site, Marques finds that the fantastical elements of her pieces come to her when sketching. She first started drawing buildings after sitting outside a pub in Venice and spoke of ‘adding a flamingo, walking in to lighten the grey day’. Her career skyrocketed after the pub she had drawn, their neighbours and many other businesses on social media came to ask for commissions.

Since moving to the UK, Moara’s work has featured in Leeds’s ‘The City Talking’, ‘BBC Merseyside’ and ‘The Liverpool Art Book’.

Moving forward, Marques is planning an exhibition, as well as drafting her portfolio to find more editorial work, in newspapers and the like. However, she told me it was important to her that she continues taking commissions. She said: “It gives me a great pleasure to see the satisfaction of the customers when they receive their artwork”.

INQUIRE MEETS COMMUNITY STARS OF SUPPLIANT WOMEN

By Alex Charilaou, Newspaper Editor

T

o celebrate Suppliant Women coming to the Gulbenkian in November, InQuire spoke to members of the production’s local community chorus to find out more about their experience.

The Suppliant Women is part of a series of three productions that will take place at the Gulbenkian.

It is one of the oldest surviving Greek plays, written by Aeschylus around 500BC. The story involves fifty women leaving everything behind to board a boat in north Africa and flee across the Mediterranean. Escaping forced marriage, they hope for pro-

tection and seek asylum in Greece. At the production’s heart is a powerful chorus of young women drawn from Kent, arguing for their lives, speaking to us with startling contemporary resonance. An extraordinary theatrical event, full of music and movement, The Suppliant Women is part play, part ritual, part theatrical archaeology. It offers an electric connection to the deepest and most mysterious ideas of humanity – who are we, where do we belong and, if it all goes wrong, who will take us in?

InQuire spoke to Rhona, Bryony, Johanna and Loïs – members of the young women’s chorus – about their experiences coming from the local community into a professional, high-buzz production.

‘What’s really exciting about the play,’ Rhona told us, ‘is the emphasis on these modern themes:

things like democracy, refugees, these big ideas.

And the focus on women is so contemporary-feeling and refreshing’. Rhona was excited about the rigour of the production: ‘there are 15 of us in the women’s chorus, and it’s an amazing opportunity to work with professionals to make something that’s slick and high-quality.’ When we asked what the draw was for Kent students to come and watch Suppliant Women, Rhona discussed how though the play may seem old and alien, it has a lot of current vitality: ‘it touches on things like consent, belonging and social integration – really dynamic and impactful themes.’

Johanna and Loïs agreed that while the process has been rigorous, it has also been exciting: ‘it has taught us a lot of things, a whole professional world of working on a project’. Despite the profession-

alism of the crew, both chorus members were impressed by the patience shown by them to the amateur community singers.

Bryony is not a student – she is one of several young women who are from the broader Kent community. She is excited about being to experiment with classics and musicals, her two biggest interests: ‘it’s really nice to be able to work with the composer of Suppliant Women, who is with us in Canterbury for rehearsals. It’s a very rhythmic, flowy score. Really lovely.’ When InQuire Asked Bryony about the contemporary resonances of Suppliant Women, Bryony revealed that the play contains one of the first written references to democracy ever found in a fiction text: ‘it’s incredibly current’.

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InQuire Monday 15 November 2021

Culture

Cultural Review

With the Canterbury Festival and the rich programmation at the Marlowe and the Gulbenkian, the last two weeks have been full of shows and plays. Round up of some of them that InQuire got the opportunity to attend.

Photo from thebrewhouse.net

Female Gothic

By Priya Hawes, Newspaper Features Editor

F

emale Gothic was a thrilling, gruelling and dark play that gripped the audience’s attention from the very moment Rebecca Vaughn, the performer, walked on stage.

Led by a Victorian woman, dressed in a long black dress, standing still on stage, you set out on a weird and wonderful experience. Next to her, an old armchair with a small table, serving as a podium for a candelabra. You are transported from the everyday day world of social media and modern slang to ghost stories of cousins turned lovers (albeit a bit incestuous but hey, it was the olden days)

23 OCTOBER

be born all the while being haunted by a shadow, which drives him insane. One evening, after the baby’s birth, the father witnesses the haunting shadows creeping into his baby’s room, leaving a sad image waiting for him behind that door.

What struck me the most was the descriptive language used for this genre of writing. It makes you forget you are not living the play yourself by completely immersing you in the fiction before you. This play exceeded expectations regarding the genre of the female gothic. Dyad Productions have done it again by continuing to put on plays written by woman or led by them, which is much needed. The Canterbury Festival has, every year, a plethora of productions for all ages, spread across the city. Everyone will have something they could be interested in, you just need to take a closer look at the Festival’s program!

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Photo from viagogo.co.uk

OCTOBER

The Rake's Progress

By Juliette Moisan, Newspaper Culture Editor

he Rake's Progress is Stravinsky's only full-length opera, and, now, it has also become a key opera within the Glyndebourne company. Taking place near London and loosely based on Hogarth's eight paintings and engravings within his Rake's Progress series, the opera follows the story of Tom Rakewell. Madly in love with Anne Trulove, he makes a deal with Nick Shadows after wishing for money and refusing to work a traditional job. He follows Shadows, who turns out to be the Devil in disguise, to London, where, after a series of misadventures that the Devil throws his way, he gradually becomes insane and ends up in Bedlam.

The Glyndebourne company delivers a truly

The décor of the production is quite simple, as it is a a beige levelled structure, and it stays identical throughout the play. However, the simplicity is successfully offset by the profusion of props that sets the scene, from the interior of a posh restaurant to a busy mall.

The RSC's take on the play brings a new breath to The Comedy of Errors, and the choice tomodernise it by setting it in the 80's is a successful gamble, as it makes it more youthful and dynamic. While the story in itself is a bit confusing and feels a bit childish at time, the company's excellent acting, singing and cohesion makes this play worth seeing.

27 OCTOBER

Iain Stirling: Failing upwards

By Juliette Moisan, Newspaper Culture Editor

O

n Saturday 17, InQuire attended Iain Stirling's stand-up show "Failing Upwards". Famous across the UK for his different current projects, ranging from a new sitcom, Buffering, to the publication of his book, Not F*cking Ready to Adult, but mostly for being the voice-over on Love Island on ITV2, Iain Stirling uses his own experiences in life to feed his show. He uses amusing anecdotes from his own life, such as the time he got his shoes stolen as a yoga studio or attending a sex par-

astonishing performance. Every single one of the principals dazzles, from Frederick Jones's Tom Rakewell's spiralling insanity to Rosie Aldridge's Baba the Turk. Special mention to Nardus Williams who also impressed us as Anne Trulove. The libretto, written by Auden and Kallman, works perfectly for the performance, and the singers and the orchestra are in such perfect symbiosis throughout the performance that you forget how rare that happening actually is. Finally, the chorus brings the perfect balance to the principals, going in and out of the performance.

While the scenes in the countryside worked well with only the principals on stage, bringing in quietness and reflection, the fast-paced and lavish London scenes were perfected by the number of people onstage.

The other true masterpiece of this performance is the décor, created by David Hockney. Each time a new tableau, the backdrop for the scenes, was revealed, you could hear the audience audi-

ty in college, to deal with broader issues. He also spends a good portion of the show talking about body image, opening up a discussion about how lockdown had had an impact but also about the media pressure as he humorously goes on about sharing Love Island's host Laura Whitmore's life, and being often reduced to this in the press.

His analysis of Kent, and his description of Margate as a very posh and elegant city, kept the audience entertained and allowed for more interactions between the public and Stirling.

All in all, Iain Stirling delivered a successful show, thoroughly engaging the audience and bringing them into the stories he related. While stand-up is not typically my favourite form of perfor-

bly gasp at the beauty and the detailing of each decors. Hockney's touch is unmistakable, with its simplicity, its rapid strokes and its lines. The use of colour is also a success. Using a reduced palette, with only black, white, red, blue and green, means that they become more noticeable, and Tom's descent into madness is conveyed by the set gradually turning to exclusively black and white.

If you're not necessarily an opera fan, or if you are one and want to discover a new production, this is the perfect one for you! The story is easy to follow without being overly simplistic, the music is beautiful and hypnotic and you are guaranteed to enjoy your night. The only issue could be the length of the production, almost 3 hours, that can be a bit overwhelming for some people.

Glyndbourne is touring in the UK this Autumn with the Rake's Progress (as well as some other productions) so be sure to catch them if you can!

mance art, and despite some moments that felt a bit long, we spent a very nice evening and didn't see the time pass.

Stirling's first part was Steve Bugeja, who, despite a slow beginning, was also very convincing, especially when he talked about himself. While his first skit about Japanese toilets was very long, as soon as he delved into his relationship with his mom and his college friends, the audience was captivated and taken by the stories he told.

The show, originally supposed to be held during lockdown, has obviously been rescheduled. If you like British humour and pop culture references, you should definitely not miss it!

Iain Stirling's tour will bring him back to the Gulbenkian on March 27.

Photo from vthe Observer

T

he Royal Shakespeare Company's production of The Comedy of Errors, currently touring across the UK, set its bags for a night at the Marlowe. We were intrigued to see the play, as we had heard it was often referred to as Shakespeare's "joke play", which is a rather pejorative name to highlight the preposterousness of the play.

The synopsys of the play would probably feel too exaggerated even for the boldest telenovela. After having two identically-named twin sons, and purchasing for their service identically-named twin slaves, an accident leads a father to lose one of his sons and one of the slaves. While a pair of slave and master was raised in Syracuse, the other one was raised in

Ephesus. When the pair from Syracuse finds itself in Ephesus, unaware of the existence of their twins, confusion ensues as they run into relatives and friends of the other set of twins. The storyline is quite convoluted and it takes focus to keep track of which twin is which.

The RSC production of the play delivers a very convincing performance and, as soon as you've figured who is who onstage, it is very easy to follow along. The cast is brilliant, especially the two pairs of twins. The women in the show, however, are not given as much room as they deserve, and they sometimes feel more like props than they do full-fledged characters. The quantity of actors onstage at different moments of the production adds value to the production by giving a chorus to key moments, but at times it also felt rather overwhelming and drowned out the action.

Photo from weekendnotes.com

The Comedy of Errors

By Juliette Moisan, Newspaper Culture Editor

T

and we even experience what we would call ghosting (notice the pun) when her lover never writes back. The lover does go through his fair share of bad karma, though, as the woman dies upon his return, which I bet makes him regret not writing back sooner. Rebecca’s powerful voice keeps you mesmerised throughout the performance, which is accompanied by the raw emotion expressed on her face.

The second story involves a greedy scientist, defying human biology to create an elixir that improves all senses. After his lover deems him unethical because he uses animals as his test subjects – even back then there were vegans – he uses himself as his own guinea pig. While he succeeds at first, everything comes with a price.

The last story, and possibly my personal favourite, deals with a father awaiting his child to

03 NOVEMBER

18

Monday 15 November 2021 InQuire

Entertainment

Dune: Philosophical Blockbuster Sci-Fi is Back!

By Ed Streatfield, Newspaper Entertainment Editor

T

he infamously unadaptable has been conjured. After decades of limited budgeting, technological or creative capability to bring Frank Herbert’s colossal feat of imagination to the silver screen, Denis Villeneuve cements himself into the annals of sci-fi history. Much like how the unforgiving climate of the desert planet Arrakis has swallowed those who dared inhabit its arid dunes, directorial geniuses have attempted to adapt Herbert’s dense and intricate novel to no avail. Originally this appeared inevitable as the scope of Dune is beyond biblical.

David Lynch’s 1984 portrayal is absurdly incomprehensible, remaining the only work in his filmography he has openly disowned; while Alejandro Jodorowsky’s fourteen-hour phonebook sized script, starring Salvador Dali, failed to attract the funding required. Dune is an inordinately dense work of politics, anthropology, ecology, sociology, theology, and philosophy.

Villeneuve therefore decides to split the book into two parts, a carefully considered choice allowing the philosophical

chronology to breath, and gambling on the success of part one to garner funding for the story’s completion.

This however was never guaranteed as his previous triumph of sci-fi worldbuilding, Blade Runner 2049, slumped at the box office in one of the biggest existential threats to blockbuster sci-fi cinema. Warner Brothers have now given part two the greenlight, which if consistent could potentially carve Dune into the same status of franchise cannon as Lord of the Rings or Star Wars.

Every aspect of stylistic creation within the film bleeds passionate devotion towards the source material equivalent to the painstaking process of Buddhist Monks applying each granulate of colourful sand to the Kalachakra Mandala.

The cinematography reflects the despondent gloom of the Machiavellian universe, ridden with exploitation and despair, while exhibiting vast scenic landscapes of awe-inspiring beauty; comparable to the overwhelming desert planes of David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia. The sheer scale of the universe displayed provides a

palpable scope ensuring the total believability in what you are witnessing.

What ensures this is the design which perfectly balances classical historicism and futurism, and CGI which is unparalleled compared to anything seen before in cinema.

As the colossal sandworms cascade through the desert, every granule of sand is visible as it flies through the air. The sound design is so immersive and tangible, every droplet in the pitter patter of rain can be heard in its precise location. Hans Zimmer’s score provides his usual low brass groans a n d his

Photos from Legendary & Warner Bros

sweeping atmospheric electronica.

However, the utilisation of the middle eastern Phrygian Dominant scale, cried out with a female reverberated voice sends shockwaves into your soul.

Cascading drums which clammer down your entire dynamic range. The use of Mongolian throat singing and bagpipes. What the audience feels more than anything is the future holds the ever-expanding weight of the past, while the original sin of human nature remains unmoved.

In order to lay the foundations of the universe; the political intrigue of the competing intergalactic fiefdoms of House Atreides and Harkonnen, the anthropology and customs of the Fremen, the climatology and biodiversity of Arrakis and other planets, Villeneuve’s cold direction renders itself as necessary for con-

veying the sheer scope of its lore. While this comes at the expense of fleshed-out character development, this is entirely excusable as without the worldbuilding the plot progression would fall under its own weight. However, despite this the acting from the stellar cast conveys the characters inner conflicts and turmoil impressively without having a sluggish reliance on internal monologues. The standout performance of the film is Stellen Sarksgaard as Barron Vladamir Harkonnen, he conveys an intimidating grotesque malice entirely with his presence, echoing Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now. All that is required of the film to achieve true excellence is the success of the second part. The story jarringly cuts and your mind remains in Arrakis for days after. The foundations for a truly era defining sci-fi saga have been laid; if Villeneuve can continue to provide aesthetic excellence and further flesh out character development, this will be achieved triumphantly.

8.9/10 Dune is available in cinemas now Catch it in the Gulbenkian on 12th - 16th November

The French Dispatch: Anderson's Art Nouveau Cardboard Boxfort

By Ed Streatfield, Newspaper Entertainment Editor

W

Photos by Searchlight Pictures

es Anderson is back with his abundantly talented cast and delectable medley of pastiche postmodernism. An ode to the New York Chronical and “a love letter to journalists”, The French Dispatch is an anthology film cataloguing the final issue of the French foreign bureau of the fictional newspaper, Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun. If you are already familiar with Anderson’s style you already know exactly what you’re getting into: pastel colour schemes, symmetrically staged shots, art nouveau stylisation and deadpan delivery. After The Royale Tenenbaums, the last exploration of genuine character and emotion, Anderson has sunk further into his stylised world. Notably in the latter half of his career, he has explored the avenues of animation, while his live action films replicate this as he desperately runs further away from the real. Each prop, actors included, function in a grandfather clock mechanism, each gear clicking into place to serve the almost authoritarian formation of his aesthetics. Although his stag-

ing, cinematography and set design is steadily accumulating in technical prowess across his career, it comes at the expense of any emotional engagement with the characters. This reoccurring observation of Anderson’s work runs true with The French Dispatch.

Although the plethora of prolific actors adorn this film, I can’t help but feel that actors love to work with Anderson because of the lack of emotional depth that’s required for them to convey. It provides an extremely easy check to cash in along with the added prestige of Anderson’s name. However that being said, Benicio Del Toro as a modern artist and double homicide prisoner was far in away the most impressive and hilarious section of the film. A critique of the art

Photo by Mashable.com world, as Adrien Brody as an art curator, convinces the international bourgeoisie who state they “don’t get it”, “that’s the point, neither do I”.

Displaying impressive utilisations of tableau vivant, montage, gliding steady cams, varying aspect ratios and colour schemes, Anderson’s stylisation is impressively finetuned. Unfortunately, as

the film progresses with each new story it becomes increasingly bogged down in an assault of bafflement, like a cake with an excessive amount of pink icing. Timothee Chalamet’s story arc as the head of a student protest movement, recounted by Frances McDormand, is comical in its separated commentary of politics through a chess game with the police played through the barricades. However, by the final act of the film on culinary arts, which transforms into animation, the assault of bourgeois opulence is so tiring, that you feel cheated by the fact you were so initially invested in the magic of the world. Ironically, the most amount of genuine emotion was shown within the animated sequence, which was possibly intentional, however as Mark Kermode said “postmodernism means you never have to say you’re sorry”. While not as technically impressive as The Grand Budapest Hotel, The French Dispatch remains fun and charming, however sickly nonetheless.

7/10 The French Dispatch is available in cinemas now Catch it in the Gulbenkian on 19th - 25th November

19

InQuire Monday 15 November 2021

Entertainment

What's Going On after fifty years?

After Rolling Stone magazine proclaimed Marvin Gaye's legendary soul album as the best of all time. Our writer Harry Brown assesses its legacy 50 years on.

By Harry Brown, Entertainment Writer

A

great point of bonding between me and my dad has always been music, and a conversation that regularly comes up between us is our favourite albums. I have always upheld The Beatles’ Abbey Road whilst my Dad always insists on Marvin Gaye’s What's Going On, a choice which Rolling Stone agreed with when last year they placed What’s going on? at number 1 of their top 500 best albums of all-time list. The album is now 50 years old, so I listened to it for the first time to find out why it still persists as a masterpiece in critical evaluation and in listeners ears. What's Going On was recorded in June–September 1970 and in March–May 1971 and released 21st May that year. The album was produced by Gaye, who had to fight with Motown boss Berry Gordy about doing the album his way. Gordy only agreed after Gaye secretly released the title single and hit no. 1 on the hot soul singles charts and no. 2 on billboard hot 100.

The contention from the Motown Mogul was the more politically explicit nature to Gaye’s new songs.

The singer had gained more political awareness by listening to his brothers’ experiences in the Vietnam war.

Gaye had changed himself as he fell more into drugs and depression after the death of his singing partner, Tammi Terril and failure of his current marriage. He was stepping away from performing and a clean-cut face and suit to not performing, letting himself grow a beard and wearing pant suits. Marvin Gaye was at a very different stage in his life then when he was writing What’s

Going On then when he first signed with Motown in 1961. Speaking to Rolling Stone he said ‘In 1969 or 1970, I began to re-evaluate my whole concept of what I wanted my music to say...I wanted to write songs that would reach the souls of people. I wanted them to take a look at what was happening in the world’

with his personal lyrics straight from the opening title track. He shows the listener his observations on how the world is working and what’s happening with violence and hate as he sings ‘Brother, brother, brother, there’s too many of you dying’.

He stresses throughout the importance of love as in the opening track he sings ‘you know we’ve got to find a way to bring some lovin’ here today’.

The idea of being in on a relaxed recording session is added upon when there is a feel of elegant improvisation to the riffs of the different instruments. The album has an illusion of a calming simplicity whereas when you listening to the album there are all multiple instruments doing their own thing that blend to create an experience. From the groove of the percusAlbum covers courtesy of Motown Record Corporation sion work in What’s Happening Brother tening experience as you can’t help but ture in the same way today as it did to to the ascending bass riff in Flying tap your feet. listeners in 1971. Sadly Marvin Gaye high that makes us feel like Gaye is In What’s Going On Gaye sings of his was shot in 1981, but it’s a very powerful bringing us up to the clouds to view the view on the world of 1971, however fifty force that his music is not only be able to world below. The album is able to have years later he could sing the same lyrstill be listened to by people but that it’s this continuous flow to it that makes a ics and it would be instantly relatable to message and meaning still resonates; an ongoing relaxing feel. The songs blend modern listeners. aim he outlined when he talked to Rollinto each other where it feels like one As previously mentioned, he sings ing Stone. composition, yet each song is able to of environmentalism and saving the The album ranks number 1 accordhave it’s identity in the album. Gaye is planet in Mercy Mercy Me (the ecoloing to the best albums of all-time list in able to go from a more upgy), making a better tomorrow in Save Rolling Stone, it celebrated it’s fiftieth beat track like Right On that the Children and violence in protest in anniversary earlier this year with a spehas heavy use of percussion the title track. The album continues to cial edition vinyl release coming soon to Wholy Holy where he resonate in the zeitand the Nu Civilisation Orchestra are soulfully sings of God, and geist of pop touring with a special What’s Going On it works. Brilliantly. culconcert (due to be at the Gulbenkian on A true highlight of the al26th November). bum is obviously the title This shows the album is still prevatrack but there are other lent and alive. Gaye was able to craft a standouts. Flying High beautiful album with great vocals, perwith it’s cymbals and suscussion and instrumentation where it tained singing notes at the feels personal and subtle whilst also start of the track. The ashaving a lot to digest. Fifty years after cending bass under Gaye’s What’s Going On release it is worthy harmonies work together of being called one of the best and I brilliantly for the song as he have no doubt it will still be in andescribes a drug experience. other fifty years.

The high repeated guitar riff in Mercy Mercy Me (The What's Going On is availaEcology) are beautiful when ble on streaming services, combined with the dual voCD and Vinyl now cals which hauntingly feel like his most modern lyrics as he speaks of problems in the environment. Felt in all the songs in the album is the groove which is completely contagious and enhances t h e Photo by Motown Records Photo Archive lis-

"Crime is increasing, Trigger happy policing, Panic is spreading, God knows where we're heading." and this attitude comes across clearly in the album. The album is undeniably a masterpiece but in a very subtle way.

The opening chatter between people at

"Mother, mother, Everybody thinks we're wrong.

Who are they to judge us, Simply because we wear our hair long." the start of the album feel like we’re listening in on a very private but relaxed recording session. Then the enticing seductive saxophone plays over the talking bringing you into the album and the soft vocals of Gaye start. He invites us to show his point of view on the world

Puzzles Solution for last issue's Crossword Across Across: 1 Purr, 3 Sewer (Pursuer), 8 Driving, 9 Issue, 10 Checkmate, 11 Ice, 12 Rotate, 14 Ascend, 16 Ink, 17 Escalator, 19 Group, 20 Excited, 22 First, 23 Help.

Down: 1 Pod, 2 Raise, 3 Signal, 4 Writer's block, 5 Respire, 6 Wicketkeeper, 7 Defender, 10 Carriage, 13 Take off, 15 Accept, 18 Title, 21 Dip.

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13 Financial (6) 14 Baths (8,4) 17 Shoeless (8) 19 Departed (4) 20 Warmth (4) 21 Assortment (5)

1 Small bit of bread (5) 4 Yank (4) 7 Framework (4) 8 Upside down (8) 9 Observation (of a criminal) (12) 11 Attractive (6)

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Puzzles compiled by Matthew Sapsed Pick up InQuire 17.6 in three weeks for answers!

Gulbenkian

Monday 15 November 2021 InQuire

Photos by The Gulbenkian

Nobel Prize Winning Kent Professor speaks at Gulbenkian Arts Centre

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n an exclusive appearance at the Gulbenkian Arts Centre, Nobel Laureate & Professor Emeritus of English and Postcolonial Literatures Abdulrazak Gurnah returns to Kent to reflect on his life, writing, and sense of place and belonging on Thursday 24th February 2022.

Abdulrazak Gurnah won the 2021 Nobel prize for literature, with The Nobel Committee commending ‘his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents.’

His stories, some of which were first drafted in the University’s very own Templeman Library, have touched millions worldwide and shine a light on human experiences that are so often ignored.

Professor Abdulrazak Gurnah was born in 1948 in Tanzania. He is the author of the ten highly

acclaimed novels including Memory of Departure, Pilgrim's Way, Dottie and Paradise, which was shortlisted for the 1994 Man Booker Prize. The theme of the refugee’s disruption runs throughout his work, reflecting his own cross-continental journey. Until his recent retirement, he was professor of English and postcolonial literatures at Kent’s School of English, having completed his PHD here in 1982.

In this incredible one-off event, Abdulrazak Gurnah will be in conversation with Bashir Abu-Manneh & Amy Sackville from the School of English at Kent tackling questions such as what motivates his work? How is narrative shaped by migration, forced change, and historical injury? Does justice have a distinct imaginative language?

Big themes. But also person-

al reflections on winning the Nobel, his time at Kent, and advice to budding writers.

The event is presented by the University of Kent School of English in association with the Institute of Cultural and Creative Industries and will be introduced by Karen Cox, Vice Chancellor of University of Kent.

Tickets are £10, student £5.

For more information and tickets please visit www.thegulbenkian.co.uk or call 01227 769075.

Photo from the University of Kent News Centre

Festive season at the gulbenkian arts centre

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ulbenkian’s Christmas Season 2021 is a scrumptiously festive selection box of treats! From merry music gigs, festive family events to comedy nights full of Christmas cheer, Gulbenkian has Christmas all wrapped up this December!

Schedule: The Nightmare Before Christmas (PG) Fri 3 Dec, 7:00pm. Tickets: £6-£8.95 The Polar Express (U) Sat 4 Dec, 11:00am. Tickets: £3.50-£4.50 Home Alone (PG) Sun 5 Dec, 3:00pm. Tickets: £3.50-£4.50 Elf (PG) Tue 7 Dec,7:00pm. Tickets: £6-8.95 ROH: The Nutcracker (Live) Thu 9 Dec, 7:15pm.

Tickets: £14-£16 Funny Rabbit Comedy Club: Don Biswas & Michael Legge Fri 10 Dec, 8pm. Tickets: £5-7 Accessible Film Club: The Nightmare Before Christmas (PG) Sat 11 Dec, 3:00pm. Tickets: £5 University Chorus and Orchestra: Tidings of Comfort and Joy Sat 11 Dec, 7pm. Tickets £7-£13

ROH: The Nutcracker (recorded) Sun 12 Dec, 2:00pm. Tickets: £14-£16 Frozen Sing-Along (PG) Sun 12 Dec, 10:30am. £3.50-£4.50 It’s A Wonderful Life (U) Sun 12 Dec, 6:00pm.

Tickets: £6-£8.95 Christmas Swing-Along! Wed 15 Dec, 5:15pm.

Tickets: £5 St Agnes Fountain Thu 16 Dec, 7:30pm.

Tickets: £10-£19 Stile Antico: A Renaissance Christmas Fri 17 Dec, 7:30pm. Tickets £10-£20 Arthur Christmas (U) Sat 18 Dec, 11:00am. Tickets: £3.50-£4.50 The Muppet Christmas Carol (U) Sat 18 Dec, 3:00pm. Tickets: £3.50-£4.50 The Albion Christmas Band Sat 18 Dec, 7:30pm.

Tickets £23 We’re decking the halls and singing merrily on high with incredibly merry music gigs this December including Grammy nominated vocal ensemble Stile Antico with a specially-curated celebration of the festive season A Renaissance Christmas on Friday 17th December. Folk in the Barn bring us not one

For more information and tickets please visit www.thegulbenkian.co.uk or call 01227 769075.

but two early Christmas presents with St Agnes Fountain on Thursday 16th December celebrating their 21st anniversary evolving old carols and The Albion Christmas Band are back with more Christmas music, humourous stories and spine-tingling ballads on Saturday 18th December. Plus the University Chorus and Orchestra present a sparking seasonal concert Tidings of Comfort and Joy on Saturday 11th December and University of Kent Big Band returns with its annual festive cracker of a Christmas gig, Christmas Swing-Along! featuring season classics and big band swing on Wednesday 15th December.

There’ll be hohohos aplenty at our Funny Rabbit Comedy Club on Friday 10th December, featuring possibly the angriest Irish vegan you will ever meet Michael Legge and political gag merchant Don Biswas.

Snuggle up in our cinema and be enchanted by our incredible screenings this December.

Delightful and darkly comic, ghoulish holiday musical The Nightmare Before Christmas kicks off our Christmas season on Friday 3rd December & full of Yuletide cheer, who can resist Santa’s biggest helper in our screening of Elf on Tuesday 7th December. Be wrapped up in the world of old Hollywood as we celebrate with a 75th anniversary

screening of evergreen classic It’s a Wonderful Life on Sunday 12th December.

Rediscover the childlike wonder of the season with Christmas family film favourites including Aardman Animations’ Arthur Christmas on Saturday 18th December, the joyous and anarchic take on the icon Charles Dickens’ tale The Muppet Christmas Carol on Sunday 18th December, and The Polar Express stops by our screen on Saturday 4th December. Cheer on pint-sized hero, Kevin as he runs rings around two would-be burglars in this Christmas caper full of pranks and booby-traps galore in Home Alone on Sunday 5th December. Let yourself go once again with Disney’s Frozen SingAlong which skates onto our screen on Sunday 12th December.

Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without the inspiring and opulent Royal Opera House’s The Nutcracker. Experience one of the most enduring and enchanting versions of the age old tale The Nutcracker. Follow a young girl’s journey as an enchanted present leads her on a wonderful Christmas adventure in this beautiful classical ballet, danced to Tchaikovsky’s magnificent score. It will be screened live at Gulbenkian Arts Centre on Thursday 9th December and recorded live on Sunday 12th December.

Photo from Royal Opera House

23

InQuire Monday 15 November 2021

Satire

Students Escape Rutherford After Fifty-Year Odyssey

By Rory Bathgate, Retired Sailor

Photo by Tahmid Morshed

Shock was felt by all on campus this week at the discovery of a rogue band of students who had been wandering the halls of Rutherford since 1967. The students, who had arranged themselves into a roughly hierarchical structure, had been living for over half a century on open-day buffet leftovers. Upon being led out of the college by rescuers, the students expressed shock and amazement at the advancement of the architecture on campus in their absence, and asked whether Templeman Library had finally "acquired a computer."

This is not the first such occurrence on campus, though it does mark the longest recorded period that a group has been unable to find their way out of the winding halls of Rutherford.

In 1987, theoretical physics students began research on the staircases leading to and from the Cloister Rooms but were abruptly served a cease and desist notice by then College Master, Roland Bertram. “It doesn’t concern me that whatever staircase you walk down, you still seem to come out on the opposite side of the courtyard to the room you need to be in,” Roland

stated at the time, “as most students eventually end up where they need to be.”

The leader of the group told InQuire that they had at one point come into contact with the Newspaper Editor of this paper’s former incarnation InCant, and broached the possibility of an interview. However, the clamour around the 1969 moon landing prevented the interview from taking place.

The group claims that from time to time they would run into other students, but that they would invariably mistake the bearded wanderers for Humanities professors. “And besides,” they added, “as second years, we couldn’t possibly let Freshers know that we were also lost.”

The group, who had given up hope of rescue sometime in the 1990s, were recently emboldened to resume their escape efforts after feeling wind and rain on their faces for the first time in decades as a result of last year’s Rutherford roof collapse.

“It was

truly a sight to behold” said one of the beleaguered students, “until that point we had quite forgotten how sunlight felt, and had taken to using the safelights in the photography darkrooms as the next best thing.”

Kent Estates were quick to issue a statement on the matter, reminding students and staff alike that “despite our best efforts, Rutherford College is extremely difficult terrain to map.” The spokesperson went on to add that ample disclaimers have been given for the potential risks of navigating Rutherford, such as the “pictographic warning in the shape of a labyrinth” next to Eliot Footpath.

Did you know?

Ernest Rutherford wrote about a fictional location called "Park Wood" in his personal diary.

Rutherford described the location as: "a brutal landscape to which I am transported to in my dreams... if Dante had imagined a 10th circle of hell it would closely resemble this forsaken place."

This diary entry served as inspiration for the naming of Park Wood Photo by Tahmid Morshed accommodation.

Photo by Rory Bathgate

Sport www.inquiremedia.org/sport

InQ Quire

CUP26: How sport is becoming more eco-friendly

By Samuel Leah Sports Writer

Photos from IOC Media

B

clothing items accounts for a large proportion of carbon emissions in sport. More and more sports teams are releasing environmentally sustainable kits, not just in the UK but the rest of the world.

Rugby Union is a great example, with a big

majority of teams sporting sustainable jerseys.

Furthermore, we can make do with kit we already own and could potentially mend and repair, rather than buying new equipment and uniform at the great environmental cost.

Photos from Forest Green Rovers. Left: planned eco-stadium currently under construction. Right: club chairman Dale Vince, owner of Ecotricity.

efore the COP26 summit kicked off in Glasgow at the start of the month, various Olympic and Paralympic athletes recorded a video titled “Dear Leaders of the World” in which they called the summit “the Olympics of climate summits” and pleaded world leaders to try their best to spark change in our habits, just as the athletes had tried their best in Tokyo earlier this year.

The video was a nice message from some of the best world athletes, reminding us that the sporting sphere was just as committed to ecological change as everyone else.

And they have every reason to send the message they did. Sport is something that could become severely affected by climate change, with a rising global temperature and more extreme weather conditions that could have the potential to massively disrupt some sports and sports events in the future. On average we lose an entire football field's worth of tree cover every second, which leads to easier CO2 pollution. Even now, the consequences are beginning to show, with the Tokyo Olympics this summer going on record as the warmest ever games, and some major sporting games delayed, postponed or cancelled as a result of poor weather conditions such as storms, fires and floods.

So, what can the world of sport do in order to bring about improvement?

Well, us fans can start doing simple little things that will make a big step towards a greener game.

For example, we can reduce paper waste by switching to mobile tickets and programmes, or make the effort to walk or cycle to a game instead of a car or public transport, if possible. Litter and waste left behind after games is, well, wasteful, and fans could make more effort to recycle their waste items before they leave. In 2019 football team Watford brought in reusable pint glasses that were collected at the end of the match and reused in the future, reducing waste.

Clubs and teams that sell meat products at their stadiums such as burgers could opt to include meat-free options, as imports of meats like beef and lamb produce large amounts of greenhouse gases. Furthermore they could look into introducing more sustainable clothing products, as production and distribution of fashion and

Sports teams will undoubtedly want to remain as eco-friendly as possible, and have made steps to lower their carbon footprint. Though, none have done it as much as one English football club.

Forest Green Rovers, who play in the fourth tier of the English football league, are described by FIFA as the ‘greenest football club in the world’ and are the only football club in the world to receive carbon neutrality status by the United Nations. The club is powered solely by renewable energy, using solar powered robots to cut their stadium’s pitch, and recycled rainwater to water it.

They became the first vegan football club in 2015, serving only vegan food to fans, players and staff, and their past kits have been made from bamboo and recycled coffee grounds.

Forest Green serves as a shining example that more can be done in football to cut carbon emissions, and the club have endless green plans for the future, including a stadium made entirely out of timber wood.

Not only that, they also serve as an inspiration for other teams to follow in their footsteps. Teams like Seattle Sounders in America and Real Betis in Spain have pledged their commitment to becoming carbon neutral, signing onto the Sport and Climate Action Framework, an agreement created by the UN a few years ago, with participating teams being urged to report their greenhouse gas emissions in order to stay on the carbon neutrality track and reduce global temperatures.

This year, COP26 ran a competition before the summit called ‘CUP26’ in which they asked for football fans from 49 English football clubs to perform green tasks, such as walking the length of 50 football pitches or eating a meat-free meal in order to score ‘goals’ for their team. The Premier League also held it’s very first net-zero football match in September in association with Sky 0 and COP26, with Chelsea facing Tottenham Hotspur. The two teams arrived on sustainably fueled coaches and the game was powered on renewable sources.

The yearly COP conference is a good reminder of the actions that are being carried out by sports teams all around the world, as well as further stressing the steps we can take to improve. It just goes to show that sport can easily and effectively play its part in the overall world goal of fewer carbon emissions and a greener planet, and of course, so we can continue to enjoy sport as normal.