London Student V.32 Issue 4 by London Student

www.london-student.net

NOVEMBER 7 - NOVEMBER 20 VOLUME 32 ISSUE 04 FREE

COMMENT

FEATURES

...and other opinions in our Comment section - pages 9-14

Julian Hitch and his Kung Fu school go to China to break a world record with the help of Cruciform Building lab assistant - page 15

“Drop in university applications was inevitable with £9000 fees”

Kung Fu fighting

COMMUNITY

SPORT

As well as science, entrepreneurship and academia news, Community looks at the success of Charity Week - page 22

The famous torch graces Guy’s Campus as nominations for ‘Future Flames’ continue - page 32

Islamic societies rally to raise thousands

24 PAGE CULTURE PULL OUT

Olympic torch comes to King’s

Play brings you all the latest reviews, interviews and previews from the world of culture.

‘Agony Uncle’ causes plenty of headaches with ‘shocking’ column

LSE Students’ Union calls it “u5erly disgusting.”

Editor of The Beaver faces criticism a3er publishing questionable article.

Writer Hattie Williams News Editor LSE Students’ Union newspaper, The Beaver, has been severely criticised by the LSE Women’s Society after an article was published satirising male abuse of women through sexual violence. The article, "Houghton Street Headaches", was published in The Beaver’s Social section on 1st November as part of a regular ‘Agony Uncle’ column dealing with imagined male students and their sexual anxieties. Comments include: “Approaching intercourse with a more feisty (or fisty) attitude will certainly keep your hands full.” It also advises men in “keeping your girl in check and dealing with less attractive females”. The writer concludes: "Always remember: it’s not rape if you shout surprise.” A spokeswoman from LSE Stu-

dents’ Union said the article was “utterly disgusting” and that its jokes about rape were “highly problematic” and “offensive”. The article has been removed from The Beaver website and blanked out from the online edition “to minimise further offense,” said Executive Editor Nicola Alexander. Lucy MacFaden, LSE Women’s Officer, is calling into question the editorial judgement on the weekly paper’s last issue. “I was shocked by the article,” she said. “It is appalling that, even now, joking about the rape of women is somehow deemed acceptable in our society. I want to know how and why this happened.” She continued, “The content goes against the paper’s constitution supporting equality and diversity

a t Univer-

sity.” In an exclusive statement last Friday, Alexander said: “I regret printing the column 'Agony Uncles' this week and take full re-

sponsibility for allowing these comments to appear in The Beaver but I do not condone the content of the comments made. As per my statement in our Union General Meeting earlier today, we will be printing a front page apology in the next issue of The Beaver which will be addressed to the women on campus.” Hours after the article was published, an emergency meeting was called to confront Executive Editor Alexander, the editorial team and the writer “in the form of letters, articles and posters”. The event, published on Facebook, took place on November 2nd – just 24 hours after the issue came out. As a result, the Women’s society has produced an official Open Letter of Complaint addressed to the Editor. It states: “The article advocates sexual violence and rape and

Students set to march as spectre of violence returns

Writer Toby Thomas News Editor

As thousands of students prepare to march through the streets of London on Wednesday November 9 to protest against the government’s higher education reforms, concerns have been raised over the potential

“When the government is smashing and vandalising the Michael whole of the welfare Chessum state, broken glass is horrible, but what is broken glass compared to that?”

for a repeat of the chaotic scenes at Millbank last year. A prominent Labour MP has called on “all students – from the leadership to the freshers – not to allow any violence or vandalism to undermine their message”. Former Universities Minister David Lammy, who voted for the increase in tuition fees last year, told the

London Student that although there is “a huge reservoir of support” for the marchers’ cause, “the lesson from last winter is that the minute those marches are hĳacked by people with other agendas, or those who simply want to have their day by vandalising central London and a5acking Police Oﬃcers, is the minute that the goodwill and sup-

perpetuates misogynist attitudes. You have failed to recognise that publishing this article has wider social ramifications: for the woman who chooses not to report sexual harassment and for that perpetrator who goes too far.” It continues: “The Beaver is published in the LSE Student Union's name and is responsible for upholding the SU equal opportunities policy (as according to the bylaws). The article published in last week's paper was undoubtedly in breach of these responsibilities due to its sexist and offensive material. The Beaver's constitution states that the Executive Editor "is responsible and shall have ultimate editorial control over the final content" (4.4). The letter produced over 160 signatures in the first day. Social Editor Shrina Poojara is said to have “deeply regretted” the decision to approve this week’s Agony Uncle column on the grounds of satire. Continued on p. 2

port will dissipate.” His comments came as a blog post on the oﬃcial National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC) website held up imprisoned proterstors such as Charlie Gilmour – who was pictured swinging from a ﬂag on the Cenotaph - as victims of injustice following their heavy sentences for violent disorder and announced “we will be marching for them too.” Continued on p. 8

LSE’s The Beaver under fire 02

Continued from p. 1

“We are aware that this piece was supposed to be satirical,” read the letter, “however in the context of the 1 in 4 women who will experience domestic violence in their lifetime; 2 women a week who are killed by their partners or ex-partners and approximately 80,000 women who experience rape or attempted rape every year, this is no laughing matter.” The figures are taken from the website Hidden Marks - the first ever nationwide report into women students’ experience of harassment, stalking, violence and sexual assault. The writer will remain anonymous unless LSE Sabbatical Officers and staff support MacFadon in revealing their identity. Alexander commented: “There has been some concern over the fact that the Editorial Board have made a decision to withhold the

identities of the 'Agony Uncle'.” She insisted: “We will not release the names of the writers while we are concerned for their well being on campus but we are currently working with the Women's Officer and the Students' Union to develop a constructive way in which the writers can apologise for their actions and be held to account.” The 'Agony Uncles' will not be allowed to write for the Beaver in the future and the column will not appear in future issues of the paper. Next week's Beaver we will be running a double page spread highlighting the issue of violence against women that will include a letter to the editor written by the Women's Society. Alexander is intending to host training sessions for the Editorial Board staff in conjunction with the Students' Union part-time officers, in order, she said: “to better educate ourselves about the issues that students face on campus and develop better way of representing the student body as a whole.”

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LONDON STUDENT Malet Street ULU WC1E 7HY 02076 642054 www.london-student.net facebook.com/london-student

VOLUME 32 ISSUE 4 LONDON STUDENT

Editor Hesham Zakai editor@london-student.net --

News Editors Hattie Williams Toby Thomas Bassam Gergi Steffani Garcia news@london-student.net

Comment Editors Rosa Wild Tom Chambers Abubakr Al-shamahi comment@london-student.net Features Editors Amy Bowles Ingrida Kerusauskaite features@london-student.net

Community Editor Victoria Yates community@london-student.net

Science Editors Harriet Jarlett Rachel Mundy science@london-student.net

Academia Editor Valeriya Nefyodova academia@london-student.net

Entrepreneurship Editor Ahmad Bakhiet entrepreneur@london-student.net

Guest reader

London Loves Jessica Broadbent love@london-student.net

Sub Editors Katie Lathan Niki Micklem Ayala Maurer Cathryn Parkes Jonathan Brunton chief.sub@london-student.net --

Art Director Rahim Hakimi design@london-student.net Designer Nathan Clutterbuck

Production & Development Manager Alireza S. Nejad Photo Editor Danielle Bergere

Broadcast Editor Freya Pascall broadcast@london-student.net Libel Checker Caz Parra

Caz Parra, QMessenger Editor, with her copy of London Student. QMessenger is the official student newspaper for the 16,000 students studying at Queen Mary, University of London.

VOLUME 32 ISSUE 4 LONDON STUDENT

Desmond Tutu celebrates 80th birthday at King’s College Writer Michelle Liebst KCL Archbishop Desmond Tutu had a ceremony, reception and dinner hosted by King’s College London on October 21, to celebrate their most famous and popular alumni’s 80th birthday. About 50 guests were in attendance, including former principals, colleagues, fellows and alumni gathered together to celebrate Archbishop Tutu’s considerable life achievements. Aside from his credentials as a King’s College Theology graduate in the 1960s, Tutu was the former Archbishop of Cape Town and a Nobel Peace Laureate, who played a key role in South Africa's transition from apartheid. The Archbishop reminisced about his time at the university and gratefully stated, “I credit King’s with enabling me to have returned to South Africa with a far greater, proper selfconﬁdence”. He added: “What an incredible joy and privilege it is to be back at my alma mater. Thank you for everything.” Professor Sir Richard Trainor, King’s Principal and President said: “We are delighted that, although the Archbishop has formally retired Dean “Throughout, we from public life following his 80th Richard were moved to birthday, he is still keen to maintain Burbidge laughter and tears, anger and joy, close links with his alma mater, as is silence and music, shown by his enthusiasm to allow us all to celebrate God’s to celebrate this milestone with him beloved servant and in this way.” The Archbishop has child Desmond maintained close ties to the college, Tutu.” he has taught at King’s as Professor in Post-Conﬂict Societies, and in fundraising campaign. 2010 he led a service at Westminster As part of the Archbishop’s visit, he Abbey to celebrate the life and work inspected the university nightclub, of Florence Nightingale, founder of Tutu’s, which has been recently rethe direct ancestor of King’s current furbished and was named a2er the Florence Nightingale School of Archbishop. At the ceremony HanNursing & Midwifery. A year ago he nah Barlow, Student Union Presimade a video message to support dent, presented the Archbishop with the launch of the College’s £500 mila specially commissioned King’s lion World questions King’s answers

Initiation leads to sports ﬁnes King’s College London

A collective fine has been imposed on the KCL sports clubs following damage caused during initiation ceremonies. The fines are run up to more than one hundred pounds. Spread among the hockey, football, rugby and netball societieis, the fines are in relation to vandalism at Berrylands sports fields. According to KCL sources, the damage is alleged to include misuse of the fields and the smashing of a window at one of the facilities buildings.

IC Radio shutdown Imperial College

IC Radio was shut down a2er Imperial College received complaints that the show had discussed inappropriate material, during an episode in which the presenters discussed the “dirty li3le secrets” of an unnamed student organisation. The show, which aired on Sunday 23 October, has since been removed from the organisations website. The shutdown of IC Radio comes one week a2er student publication, The Cheese Grater, was pressured to remove potentially oﬀensive articles from their website. Photo by Jillian Edelstein

hoodie with ‘Tutu 80’ on the back. The Archbishop was also made the ﬁrst receiver of the ‘African Achievers Award’, on behalf of the Transforming Africa Initiative, a nongovernmental organization based in Nigeria. Alireza S.Nejad, the former KCLSU’s Student Trustee, said that “it is always exciting to see famous alumni return, especially one as respected as Tutu.” “In my mind, Tutu is a serious ﬁgure who has done so much in the name of peace. It was refreshing to see the good nature in which he and the school celebrated together,” said Nejad. In addition to festivities at King’s, the Archbishop also celebrated his

birthday in Cape Town, where Professor Richard Burridge, Dean of the College, represented both the Principal and the Archbishop of Canterbury. This included a talk by Bono at the launch of the Archbishop’s new biography, and a debate via web link between the Archbishop and the Dalai Lama, made necessary due to his inability to receive an entry visa to be in South Africa himself. The Dean closed by saying: ‘At various points, the Archbishop stressed his relationship with Kings; throughout, we were moved to laughter and tears, anger and joy, silence and music, all to celebrate God’s beloved servant and child Desmond Tutu.”

concerning the employment of tutors familiar with the system. UCAS are introducing a new system of “significant changes” estimated to effect applicants entering higher education in 2016. The proposal – the largest overhaul for 50 years – is being backed by the whole education establishment. Their website states: “we would like to make it clear that the consultation does not propose any immediate

changes and current applicants will not be affected in any way.” Applicants will no longer submit to universities according to their predictions, but after their final results. Alevel and equivalent exams would be taken fifteen days earlier, results would be available by the end of the summer term and by July – a month before results are currently received – students would apply to university. Current university hopefuls can apply

Lectures broadcast to Gaza LSE

The LSE Palestine Society has expanded its relationship with the Islamic University of Gaza to include live streaming of lectures by LSE Professors. The decision to allow the society to move forward with its plan was made by the LSESU at the Union General Meeting on 26th November 2009. The motion says speciﬁcally that it is in order to “show solidarity with the students there who have had their campus bombed and their colleagues killed by the Israeli Occupation Forces.” Samer Araabi, who proposed the motion, is quoted in The Beaver as saying, it is in “no way a sign of support for Hamas.”

Wealthier applicants favoured in UCAS application process Writer Hattie Williams News Editor

In review of university admissions published last month, UCAS has admitted that the current application process for thousands of pupils applying to UK universities gives an unfair advantage to those studying at private schools. The review concedes that teachers from these schools are encouraging students to apply weeks before the in-

stitutions’ official deadlines which can be an advantage, increasing chances of a conditional place on some courses. UCAS have defended the report, saying that presently too many students have not thoroughly researched where and what they intend to study before applying. Families who are familiar with the application process are favoured and others disadvantaged. The same argument has been made

to five institutions. This is to be reduced to two and clearing to be abolished. Universities would be obligated to confirm places by late September or early October the academic year they are to join. Universities would have to tell students whether they have been accepted in late September or the beginning of October. UCAS will be consulting on the plans between now and 20 January.

VOLUME 32 ISSUE 4 LONDON STUDENT

SOAS graduate founds charity to ‘Help the Wounded’ Writer Hattie Williams News Editor Recent SOAS graduate Gibson Bull has launched a new charity Help the Wounded to raise funds and awareness for Afghan, British, and Iraqi victims of war. Bull left SOAS in 2010 after studying politics and history. He said: “The people I met there, the lecturers I had and the books I read, all played a role in forming ideas for the charity – particularly Edward Said and Noam Chomsky.” He continued, “SOAS is a left leaning sort of university that rigorously approaches history and politics from the perspective of the subaltern. However, my family is quite conservative.” Both Bull’s parents were in the navy and his brother is currently serving in Afghanistan. When asked what role his background played in inspiring this project he said, “I guess the combination of the two things contributed to me wanting to set up an organization that worked for the benefit of both the British Armed Forces and those innocent civilians affected in Iraq and Afghanistan themselves.” The website acknowledges that “There are many charities that raise funds for rehabilitation projects in Britain, Iraq, or Afghanistan but,” it continues, “there are none that raise funds for all three.” The charity’s statement reads: “Let

Gibson Bull

“I have been working on this small charity in the hope of offering a fresh and more collective perspective this remembrance tide and thereafter.”

us not reserve compassion for British victims of war alone. Let us

Photo by Flickr User: United Nations Photo

extend it beyond our national borders to all the good people caught up in the same war. Let us extend it to the mothers and daughters, the fathers and sons, who seek out peace and education just as people do in the United Kingdom.” In Bull’s own words, “The charity seeks to work within the mainstream and not be radical in nature.

By being this way I believe it will enable the charity to make more of a difference and encourage people to consider all those affected by recent conflict and hopefully encourage people to work towards a more comprehensive rehabilitation process.” Donations to Help the Wounded are divided evenly between reha-

bilitation projects in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the United Kingdom. Projects include back to school programs for displaced children in Afghanistan, back to work programs for communities in Iraq, and rehabilitation programs for British service men and women who have suffered injury and trauma.

Canadian Minister confronted at lecture

LSE Middle East Centre launches Director’s new book

Writer Zafer Khattak

Writer Filip Rambousek

Joe Oliver, Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources, spoke at a public lecture at LSE focusing on their energy production and the controversial Canadian oil sands. A group of protestors including LSE students rallied towards the theatre holding a banner ‘Tar Sands is Blood Oil’ and handed out fliers. Liam Barrington-Bush, the campaign manager for People and Planet, took to the stage just before the lecture began and attempted to present Oliver with an award for “Greenwash Propagandist of the Year.” After feeling that the point was made, he took to his seat and allowed the minister to begin the lecture.

The lecture laid emphasis on the rise of global oil consumption through the years and the environmental impact of the emissions. The policy of Canada to develop the energy resources in an environmentally and socially responsible way and has resulted in the government investing nearly $10 billion, in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Oliver did not ignore the protesters, saying that “Criticisms are often exaggerated to the point where they’ve taking on near mythological proportions.” Barrington-Bush criticised the event’s format and claimed that Joe Oliver should not have been given a platform to speak unopposed at an educational institute, with the audience restricted to asking questions after Oliver had finished speaking.

On the 25th of October, LSE Middle East Centre Director, Fawaz Gerges, launched his new book The Rise and Fall of Al Qaeda with a lecture entitled ‘Life After Death: Al-Qaeda and the US war on terror ’. The event was attended by approximately 100 students and faculty, and was one in a series of lectures on the state of the Middle East in the wake of the Arab Spring. The book which has received mainly positive reviews in the press argues that Western powers have become mired in a "terrorism narrative," and that in reality

Photo courtesy of OUP

Al Qaeda has shrunk to a small and fractured body, of little significance in itself. Gerges comments that ironically, the terrorist organization is being sustained by the very bureaucracy that was created to destroy it. According to Gerges’ lecture, it

does not matter how marginal Al Q’aeda has become. the war between terrorist organizations and their opponents is predominantly waged on the field of the media; significance and effect of terrorist attacks would not reach the heights of paranoia it currently occupies if the media did not broadcast the video messages of Bin Laden, if the images of the crumbling Twin Towers did not reach every television set, and if the topic of terrorist was not a popular one with every television and radio discussion programme. In this sense, the strengths of terrorism are about what it symbolizes rather than what it actually does. Gerges is one of the LSE’s more visible public intellectuals, regularly appearing on the BBC and in The Independent.

LONDON STUDENT VOLUME 32 ISSUE 4

Speculation and rumours swirl around initiation ceremonies at UCL Writer Toby Youell Regulations published by the CSC in May 2011 state that, “Any Club or Society Initiation Ceremony is strictly prohibited”. Despite the regulations, rumours and the occasional report on the ceremonies persist. Amy Evans, Student Activities Officer at the UCLU said steps taken to combat the ceremonies include: “Clubs and Societies Presidents are reminded before joining fortnight that initiations are prohibited”. As of yet, no further action has been reported, leaving Clubs and Societies to control their own members. Rachel Eyre, Welfare Officer at UCL, declined to say if people had approached her with problems relating to Initiation Ceremonies. London Student has approached most major sporting clubs. Initiation Ceremonies are banned in many universities across the UK, yet their persistence is widely acknowledged. In 2008, an investigation by the BBC found that students

Canadian “These practices are Journal of common in remote Sociology

hunter-gather societies, as well as sports clubs.”

prisonment of fellow athletes.” Most initiations finish with little more than extreme humiliation. A 2011 study in The Canadian Journal of Sociology showed that this was designed to degrade the individual

at University of Gloucestershire were forced to wear plastic bags on their head while an older pupil dressed as a Nazi forced them to drink excessive amounts of alcohol. This discovery came two years after the death of Gavin Britton who died at the University of Exeter’s Golf Club initiation. In December last year, members of a football team in Boise State, Idaho were charged with “forcible sexual penetration, battery and false im-

Photo by Flickr User: Open Kiko

in order to homogenize and incorporate newcomers into the Sports Club hierarchy. These practices are common in remote hunter-gather societies, as well as sports clubs. At best, initiations can create strong solidarity but at worse they are dysfunctional, violent and traumatizing. The specific activities that happen in these ceremonies are shrouded in secrecy as members are forbidden from discussing it with out-

University applications drop by 12 percent

Writer Hattie Williams News Editor

As fees rise to £9000 per year the number of UK university applicants for next September has plunged by 12 percent. UCAS’s first set of official statistics on next year’s university applications reveal that 52,321 applicants have applied from within the UK compared to 59,413 this time last year. These figures illustrate the number of applications received by October 15, the deadline for Oxbridge and courses in medicine, dentistry and veterinary medicine, disproportionately representing applications to the most competitive courses and universities. A decline in these applications could show that even the brightest young people are becoming confused over whether to go to university. Meanwhile the figures have widely been interpreted as foreshadowing a drop in total university applications this school year. In contrast, the number of applica-

tions from outside the EU has risen by 8. percent. The Government has been criticised by student groups who argue that the huge increase in tuition fees is deterring potential students. Others have expressed concern that this deterrence will be felt most strongly amongst those from low-income homes. The ﬁgures suggest more women than men have been put oﬀ from ap-

plying, seeing a drop of 10.5 percent and 7 percent respectively. Nevertheless, mature students have suffered the biggest decline. The number of applicants aged 30-39 has fallen by 22.7 percent. Among those over 40, the drop is 27.8 percent. Sally Hunt, General Secretary of the UCU lecturer’s union, said the statistics revealed the disastrous impact of the government’s fees policy.

Photo by Flickr User: University of Denver

“It is clearly having a serious impact on the choices young people make... People should study the right course for them, not just the cheapest one or none at all. These depressing ﬁgures take us back to the time when it was cost, not ability, which determined your future.” Others, however, argue against prematurely interpreting the ﬁgures as sign of an overall decline in total ap-

siders. This has led many wild theories to abound. In the USA, two men were reportedly put on a chair in a 69 position and duct-taped together. Reports from Cambridge tell of students drinking “dirty pints” of spicy sauce and cigarette ash as a part of nights where 80 units of alcohol are drunk, 20 times more than the daily recommended limit for men. Oxford allegedly outdoes Cambridge with the homoerotic human centipede. The student paper, “York Vision” claims that initiation ceremonies at the University of Gloucestershire involved six men performed oral sex and mutual masturbation on a public bus. Ms. Evans evaded answering if initiations persist at UCLU. In a statement she said: “Clubs and Societies should aim to be inclusive of all members and encourage students to join their activities, so I think it would be counter-intuitive for clubs and societies to organise initiations.” Both the UCLU Lacrosse Club and the Boat Club have confirmed that they do not hold Initiation Ceremonies. The other UCL sporting clubs approached declined to make a comment on initiations.

plications to university. Nicola Dandridge, chief executive of Universities UK said: “Historically, the application figures at the end of October have proven to be unreliable indicators of the final numbers. It may also be that students are taking longer this year to consider their options.” In 2006, when tuition fees trebled from £1000 to £3000 per annum, applications fell by 4.5 percent. Yet two years later, in 2009, applications rocketed by 10.1 percent. Although the increase in fees is much more significant for 2012, there is therefore a possibility that all universities will recover from the expected downturn. On the back of these figures David Wille6s universities minister, and Wendy Pia6, Russell group director general, have stressed the need to publicise increased fee waivers, bursaries and government support packages to prevent higher fees dissuading potential applicants. The England-wide school and college tour has thus been extended. Wille6s reiterated, “Going to university depends on ability, not the ability to pay.”

VOLUME 32 ISSUE 4 LONDON STUDENT

World Briefing Writer Bassam Gergi

Illustrator Nathan Clutterbuck

Demand for gas falls amid price drop

USA

Despite the fact that the average price for gas dropped last week, US retail gasoline demand fell as well. Demand dropped 2.7 percent compared with the same week in 2010, according to a report by Mastercard Advisors. The four-week moving average for gasoline demand is down 2.8 percent compared with year-earlier levels, and it fell for the 32nd week in a row. The estimates are based on aggregate sales in the MasterCard payments system.

Gas output rises 5 percent

BRAZIL

The amount of oil produced by Brazil in September is up 5.1 percent on the same month in 2010, according to ANP the country’s oil regulator. Natural-gas output reached 65 million cubic meters a day in the month, 2.1 percent higher than a year earlier. More than 90 percent of Brazil's oil and gas production comes from fields operated by state-controlled Petroleo Brasileiro. These include Brazil's biggest-producing oil field Roncador right offshore of Rio de Janeiro. Of Brazil’s 20 largest producing fields, foreign companies operate three of them. Output from Brazil's pre-salt fields under the seabed in the Atlantic Ocean accounted for 113.1 million barrels per day of oil, an increase of 1.4 percent over the previous month. Commercial production at Brazil's presalt fields started only the last year.

3) Electricity

demand slumps SPAIN

Spain, which is a major gas importer, saw a 3.7 percent drop in demand for electricity in October. The news paralleled data put out by Spain’s central bank that said domestic demand across sectors was lower. As a result, economists are now predicting that the economy may enter a recession during the final three months of the year. For January through August, Spain’s power demands had grown, although at a slowing rate. Renewable energy accounting for one third of all electricity generated. Coal though is providing more electricity than gas during October, only the second month it has done so since 2007. Spain is the world's eighthlargest importer of natural gas and the fourth-largest of liquefied natural gas. Yet cheap coal has led to a significant drop in demand for both.

LONDON STUDENT VOLUME 32 ISSUE 4

7) Fracking

quakes

AUSTRALIA

Australia is in the midst of a fracking boom, particularly in New South Wales and Queensland. Yet controversy over the process is set to reignite a6er a British report found the contentious mining tactic was likely to have caused seismic activity earlier this year. A team of European seismic experts have concluded it was ''highly probable'' that two tremors and series of a6ershocks that hit the British town of Blackpool earlier this year were caused by nearby fracking. Fracking is the method of extracting gas from deep underground and it has concerned environmentalists due to its potential to contaminate water sources. The fracking of deeply buried shale beds for gas is in its infancy in Australia, but it is integral to the $50 billion coal seam gas industry being developed in Queensland.. APPEA's chief operating oﬃcer for Eastern Australia, Rick Wilkinson said; "Our view that fracking is a well-understood and heavily regulated technology in Australia is unchanged".

4) Indian

company set for 75 percent production jump INDIA

Oil and Natural Gas Corp, which is owned by the state of India, is projected to see a 75 per cent jump in natural gas production in the next five years when it will bring its Krishna Godavara basin gas into the market. The output is projected to nearly double by 2016-17, according to the gas supply projections made by the Oil Ministry. Overall, the nation's gas production would rise by 50 percent in the same period. This represents a compounded annual growth rate of 7.5 percent. Most of the current production goes into the Indian power sector while fertiliser plants consume a significant second. The remaining is used by city gas projects, refineries, petrochemical plants and sponge iron units.

5) Ukraine

plans to finalize deal

UKRAINE

Ukraine is in the process of completing negotiations with Russia on the revision of the current gas contracts in November. Ukrainian Economic Development and Trade Minister Andrei Klyuyev was quoted s saying: "In our opinion, the talks will be over this month, in November. We'll be aware of the price we'll have to pay for the Russian gas in 2012." Due to the uncertainty about the price for the Russian gas, the government has not yet approved the amount, which are supposed to cover the diﬀerence in gas tariﬀs for the consumers. Ukraine is seeking a review of gas deals with Russia, claiming the 2009 contract's gas price formula is unfair. Moscow has tied the price for gas to the international spot price for oil, which rose strongly a6er a year of instability in the Middle East.

triggers

6) South

Korea eyes alternative energy KOREA

Korea’s government has outlined plans to transform about 10 percent of the country’s gas stations into “alternative” vendors to supply petroleum products as part of its ﬁght against rising fuel prices. The government has devised measures that include multiplying non-franchise and self-service stations. The ministry aims to boost the envisioned stores for 10 percent of the country’s entire network by 2015. Currently, SK Innovation, GS Caltex, S-Oil and Hyundai Oilbank control Korea’s petrol supplies. With Nonghyup, their combined stake reaches 94 percent in the domestic market. Operators of local gas stations were furious in August a6er reports that the government is mulling importing petroleum products from Japan. They claimed their business has been reeling in the face of cu7hroat competition and the temporary price cuts.

LONDON STUDENT VOLUME 32 ISSUE 4

LSE tutor to Saif Gaddafi resigns in advance of Lord Woolf’s report Writer Toby Youell David Held, Graham Wallas Professor of Political Science at LSE, resigned last Monday. The resignation came a week a5er an independent inquiry submi6ed its findings to the LSE about its relationship with the Gaddafi family. The timing of his resignation has raised some speculation that the Report contains damaging revelations about Saif’s experience at LSE. One LSE Professor described the resignation as symptomatic of an institution which has grown too cozy with wealth and power, and those who possess it. A spokesperson for LSE dismissed any link between the inquiry and David Held’s resignation calling the allegation “completely untrue”. LSE strongly denied that Held was pushed or that the London institution was relieved to see him go. In a statement, David Held emphasised that his move to University of Durham has been “for positive reasons”. He also played down his connections with Gaddafi’s son, emphasising that Saif was supervised in a separate department and that any contact between Held and Gaddafi was “informal” and “on occasion”. Lord Woolf’s Inquiry will be made publicly available in tandem with a separate report conducted by University of London. This report is to investigate claims of plagiarism in Saif’s PhD thesis. The delay comes despite Woolf’s expectation that the University of London report to be available sooner than his own. The University of London explained that this is due to the need to give the facts “painstaking” scrutiny but expect the report to be available in December. John Sidel, Sir Patrick Gillam Professor of International Relations and

Photo courtesy of the LSE and Flickr User: B.R.Q.

Professor “(The LSE has) an John Sidelabiding addiction to

wealth and power, and an overall tendency to engage with entrenched governments.”

Comparative Politics said he was not in a position to evaluate the reasons for his colleague’s departure from LSE. He argues instead that this was a symptom of a deeper problem in LSE which he described as, “an abiding addiction to wealth and power, and an overall tendency to engage with entrenched governments and institutions rather than those working outside and against them”. He hopes that the Inquiry will bring greater “integrity and independence of academic research at LSE”.

Ribaal Al Assad speaks at Queen Mary Writer Steffani Garcia

Ribaal Al Assad, with his European accent, crisp suit and CEO for the Organisation for Democracy and Freedom in Syria, did not look like a member of one of the most controversial regimes in the Middle East, the Al Assad’s of Syria. Having recently led a speech to a lecture hall of students in London at

Queen Mary University, he spoke of democracy, Syrian sovereignty, and also his woes of being a victim of the regime since his branch of the family were banished in 1984. Beyond the apparent optimism and liberalism he spoke of during his speech, there is fevering opposition against this Assad too. Worryingly, the organiser of the event had received death threats from Syrians more than willing to castigate Ribaal for the actions of his father, Rifaat

As the Arab Spring rolled onto Libya, the LSE came under intense scrutiny over its links with Gaddafi’s regime. It emerged that LSE had accepted a £1.5m endowment from a charity led by Saif for the North Africa Research Programme – directed by Held - as well as £2.2m to train Libya’s future political elite. Additional allegations of plagiarism in Gaddafi’s PhD embarrassed LSE, and on 3rd March, it appointed Lord Woolf to investigate “the full facts of the school’s links with Libya”. Money received from Gaddafi has been transferred to a bursary for North African students although Tripoli University have requested that the money be returned to Libya. LSE have promised to be transparent about the Inquiry although they acknowledge it makes, “uncomfortable reading”.

Student opinion was mixed on the subject. Vikas Kuthuria, Law student at LSE thought that he probably was pressured into leaving, and that such an action was “unethical” and “undemocratic.” Student in Philosophy of Science , Dominico Fumagalli held an opposite opinion. He described LSE taking money from the Gaddafi family as a “horrible spot on a wonderful university”. David Held will become Master of University College and Professor of Politics and International Relations at University of Durham in January 2012. If connected to LSE’s relationship with Gaddafi, Held’s resignation would make the second victim of a saga that has already provoked LSE’s Director, Howard Davies, to resign on 4th March. Saif Gaddafi’s whereabouts are unknown.

Al Assad, known as the Butcher of Hamaa. During the question and answers segment of the evening, Al Assad made bold claims that denied his father’s involvement in the massacre of Hamaa; a bloody slaughter of 40,000 Syrians which took place in 1982. Yet many claim this is mere revisionism, adding that it is well documented that Rifaat Al Assad personally overlooked the operation and has also been fluid in the discourse of the current Syrian uprising. Moreover, he is a known supporter of the Saudi ruling family, has provided arms to Shi’i factionalists during the

Lebanese Civil War, and American think tank Stratfor suggested he was a possible suspect for the 2005 bombing that assassinated ex – Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri as well as the bombing in Beirut a5er Syria withdrew troops with the ultimate goal of destabilising Syria and the Al Assad regime. Students unhappy about Assad’s presence protested that claiming the desire for a democratic Syria, whilst defending a ‘war criminal’, is oxymoronic and puts into question Ribaal Al Assad’s political agenda. Ribaal Al Assad works closely with his father in

Students set to march on November 9 Continued from p. 1

Meanwhile, preparations for the march continued with more students pledging their support and Facebook posts suggested that the N9 Anarchist bloc would also be joining the demonstration. The NCAFC have gone to lengths to distinguish between ‘direct action’which results in the damage of buildings and ‘violence’which results in harm to people. Asked at a press conference to explain whether he expected a repeat of last year’s scenes at Millbank, NCAFC representative and NUS National Executive Commi6ee member Michael Chessum said: “No, there isn’t [a plan for violence]”, but went onto add, in reference to Millbank: “When the government is smashing and vandalizing the whole of the welfare state, broken glass is horrible, but what is broken glass compared to that?” When pressed, he said he was not justifying the destruction, but giving “perspective” on its causes. The NCAFC have refuted the usefulness of publicly condemning vandalism before the march. Asked by the LS to explain the steps taken to explicate and disseminate the organisation’s position, Chessum said “if we go out and say nobody break anything, everything stay away from breaking things, this is immediately the worst way to set the tone for a demonstration, because immediately the demonstration becomes about that.” The Metropolitan Police, who have come under significant pressure for heavy-handed policing at past demonstrations, told London Student that “an appropriate and proportionate plan will be in place”, but said they could not comment further on their plans. The NUS-backed march will start outside the ULU building at 12pm on Wednesday, before making its way to Trafalgar square, from where it will head into City and converge at Moorgate. The NCAFC plans to join up with the Occupy London camp at St Paul’s, where Clare Solomon, the controversial exULU President who took a militant stance during last year’s march, is currently protesting.

the pan-arab TV Channel, the Arab News Network, which the family owns. Ribaal Al Assad, who is not perceived as charismatic nor as having the makings of a potential future leader, is not viewed as a legitimate successor in the eyes of many. There were no serious disruptions at the meeting.

VOLUME 32 ISSUE 4 LONDON STUDENT

The other occupied territories has been ignored for too long Steffani Garcia - page 11

Drop in university applications was inevitable with £9000 fees Jessica Gosling - page 11

Both drivers and cyclists need to do more to stop road deaths Hugh Thomson - page 10

The Libya conflict: was it a success? The Great Debate - page 12

Capitalism has outlived its usefulness - time for a change Josh White - page 14

Fortnum and Mason protester: My arrest shows why we need to challenge abuses of the law Devon Buchanan Ex-Fortnum & Mason defendant, had case dropped in July this year

“The power was deemed

illegal by the European Court of Human Rights in January 2010, but was reinstated in a similar form in March 2011.”

When I started a4ending protests a year ago I quickly learnt how it felt to be told that the act of dissenting made me a criminal.Peacefulprotestsalwaysfeaturedpolice officers, sometimes just a pair, sometimesaphalanx,andatlargedemonstrations they photographed and filmed. This supervision has never given me the feeling of security or safety, but of intimidation, that I’m doing something wrong by simply being at a protest. This was my first encounter with political policing, where the police conflate criminality with peacefulprotestinordertodeteranddelegitimise those who want to speak out. The police are able to mobilise much more than a disapproving gaze, as I discovered at the Fortnum & Mason department store last March. UK Uncut organised an occupation of the store to protestthe£10millionoftaxavoidedeach year by its parent company. The occupation was a resounding success, with hundreds of people entering the store peacefully,savetheknockingoverofabasket of chocolates. Despite this, 145 people, including myself, were ke4led then arrested when they le3 the store. I spent 24 hours in a cell with nothing but books of fairy tales and teen romances. My phone, computer, camera and clothes were taken from me then I was charged with aggravated trespass. The offence of aggravated trespass demonstrates how political policing occurs – the police are given powers so expansive and vague that they can be used against any protest. Aggravated Trespass is defined as “trespassonlandwiththeintentionofdisrupting, or intimidating those taking part in, lawful activity”, and was originally created to stop fox hunt saboteurs. However, it has been used to arrest and prosecute anti-arms trade and climate change groups for pu4ing their bodies in the way of factories, construction sites and power stations. In the case of Fortnum & Mason, the arrests were made simply for being in the department store. The police have an even broader power to arrest, but not prosecute, people for breach of the peace. Arrests for breach of the peace can occur if officers believe that your actions are provoking or will provoke the use of violence by others. This is another common property of protests – they are on contentious subjects. It’s incredibly easy for police to imagine somebody being provoked by any protest and blame you for it, even if it never happens. The most egregious recent use of this law

Fortnum & Mason protest during the March 26 TUC demonstration. Photo by Flickr user: Dominic’s pics

wasthepreemptivearrestofChristKnight and two colleagues for planning a mock royal execution on the morning of the royal wedding. They had done nothing but plan street theatre, and spent the duration of the wedding in a police cell because of it. The police don’t need to go to the length of arresting people to intimidate them however. Numerous laws are abused to give the police the ability to search you. Normally you can only be searched by an oﬃceriftheyreasonablysuspectyoupossess drugs, stolen goods, or weapons. However Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 gives the police powers to search anybody in an area, without needing a reason, if a senior policeoﬃcerdecidesseriousviolencemay occur in the future. It was originally made topreventminorfootballdisturbances,but hassincebeenusedatinnumerablepeacefulprotests.Morerecentlysection44ofthe Terrorism Act 2000 granted the same

search power if a senior police oﬃcer “considersitexpedient”fortheprevention of acts of terrorism. Such a justiﬁcation could be, and has been, applied to almost any gathering of people. It was used duringprotestsatRAFFairfordduringtheinvasion of Iraq. Each protester there was searched dozens of times in one day, with none of them being arrested on suspicion of terrorism. The power was deemed illegal by the European Court of Human Rights in January 2010, but was reinstated in a similar form in March 2011. These arrests and searches aren’t just used to intimidate people while they’re at protests, they’re also used to gather intelligence on dissidents. The arrests at Fortnum & Mason were a deliberate a4empt to gather intelligence, as the metropolitan police admi4ed later in Parliament. This intelligence is now being abused in the case of Edd Bauer, a Fortnum & Mason defendant who was arrested for a banner drop at the Liberal Democrat conference

on the 19th of September. A3er his arrest he was denied bail and spent 10 days imprisoned without trial on the basis that his “membership of an [anti-cuts] group” meant he posed a serious threat to the public. These laws and the way they are abused aren’t the only problems with the police – the victims of police violence can a4est to this. They are however things we know how to change. Every time a court rules against the police’s misuse of these laws they are less likely to use them in the future. This is why groups like the Fortnum 145 Campaign and Defend the Right to Protest are supporting those who are using the courts to challenge this abuse of thelaw.Thisincludestheremaining29defendantsfromFortnum&Mason(theothers had their charges dropped), for which thereisasolidaritydemonstrationoutside their ﬁrst day of trial at Westminster Magistrates court at noon on the 10th of November.

Agree? Disagree? Your views: comment@london-student.net Zachary Boren Goldsmiths

“I don’t mean to endorse

fare dodging but, considering that the cost of travel is increasing at a rate that many people cannot aﬀord, are we really to tell them that they cannot get around their own city?”

Hugh Thomson KCL

“While it is in many ways

rather perverse to think of the deaths of cyclists simply in terms of statistics, the number is so high that the issue demands talking about.”

LONDON STUDENT VOLUME 32 ISSUE 4

Sad goodbye to the bendy bus

Come January 2012, there will be no more bendy buses on the streets of London. The experiment of the articulated bus is being brought to its end in these last months of the year. The removal of London’s bendy buses coincides with an increase in travel fare. On average, Londoners will be asked to pay more than 7% than they do now - a single bus trip will cost an oyster card holder £1.40. Former mayor Ken Livingstone has challenged this rise in fares. Livingstone, running against Mayor Johnson in next year’s election, has said that his opponent is “failing to put Londoners first”. His pledge to freeze fare prices has been met with scepticism but his criticism of January’s fare adjustment is justified. Rising costs is to be expected but this is the fourth consecutive year in which transport fares have risen above the rate of inflation. This increase will contribute to the growing public unease at the ris-

ing cost of living in the capital. Brendan Barber, General Secretary of the TUC, has explained, “The cost of living is now rising three times faster than wages, squeezing people’s living standards even tighter”. In this case, a lower standard of living means being conﬁned to your borough. Now, how is all of this related to the withdrawal of London’s bendy buses? It all comes down to revenue. According to Transport for London, the absence of the bendy bus, whose design allows passengers to use the bus without paying, will result in a marked drop in fare evasion. TfL has estimated that £7million will be annually recouped and Mayor Boris Johnson has issued a warning, “fare dodgers are now le6 with no place to hide”. I don’t mean to endorse fare dodging but, considering that the cost of travel is increasing at a rate that many people cannot af-

ford, are we really to tell them that they cannot get around their own city? Fare-dodging aside, the discontinuation of the articulated bus is also motivated by disputed claims that it is more dangerous than other buses, that it is too long and wide for London’s narrow roads, that the people of London just don’t like it. On the contrary, a BBC report conducted in October 2011 led with the suggestion that Londoners actually liked these buses. In this report and all across the interweb, people are eulogizing the articulated bus – it’s more comfortable, it’s easier to board, it’s faster and, most importantly, it has almost double the capacity of the double-deckers that are being brought in as replacements. A staple of the streets of London since 2002, the bendy bus will be put to rest on December 10 2011. It will be missed (by some).

We need to do more to stop road deaths

More training is needed for drivers, but cyclists take note too. As a frequent cyclist in London, I am no stranger to the issues involving road safety, having witnessed numerous near-misses, several serious incidents and having even been involved in a minor incident myself. Yet until last week my thoughts about cycling had been fairly emotionally desiccant, save for the occasional expletive uttered as a motorist cut across me. But whilst walking along the Euston Road last week, I noticed an una7ended bike, spray-painted white, on the junction between York Way and Grays Inn Road. This is, as I later learned, a ‘ghost bike’, a roadside memorial to a cyclist who has recently been killed. This one in particular stands in memory of Min Joo Lee, a student at Central St Martins, who was crushed under the wheels of a HGV at this notorious junction. The bureaucracy at TfL means that it is quite difficult to find detailed statistics on cycling deaths but there is a general consensus that approximately 17 cyclists are killed each year in Central London. Whilst it is in many ways rather perverse to think of the deaths of cyclists simply in terms of statistics, the number is so high that the issue demands talking about. More than half of all cyclist deaths in London are caused by collisions involving HGVs. London Cycling Campaign have launched a five point plan entitled ‘No More Lethal Lorries’ in which they call for cyclist-awareness training for drivers, more responsibility to be taken by drivers and safer designs of lorries. I find it incredible that it

hasn’t been implemented already. It would be so easy to increase the hazard perception element of the HGV license test. The majority of incidents involve lorries turning le6 at junctions. The gap that appears on the le6 hand side between the lorry and the curb can be enticing to cyclists, but also dangerous. Drivers who are not used to driving on the le6 hand side are o6en responsible and the sight of them should send alarm bells ringing in ears of any cyclist. In an ideal world there should be no private cars in central London. Unfortunately, such an idea is wonderfully naïve. So, what can cyclists do to stay safe? Because it looks like we need to take responsibility for ourselves. The ﬁrst way is by choosing a suitable route. On the TfL website, for example, by entering your location and destination you can be presented with a route that sticks to quieter back streets and avoids busy junctions. Then there’s conﬁdence: statistics show that women are much more likely to be involved in collisions than men. Of course this is based on generalisations, but perhaps female cyclists are more cautious: ironically, cycling too close to the curb or adhering strictly to junction markers where you could be in a blind spot, can create dangers. When given cycling advice, people are o6en told to “get into the mind” of other drivers. The value of this advice is questionable when we consider that accidents generally occur when a motorist does something that is “unpredictable”. Be7er advice would be to expect a

driver to do anything, whatever his or her indicators –or more usually the lack of them – suggest. So far I’ve tried not to be too critical of motorists. Everyone – at least we hope everyone –si7ing behind the wheel of a car has had to pass a test that qualifies them to drive their vehicle. The same cannot be said for cyclists, however, and in theory anyone can climb on a bike and start cycling down the Euston Road. Unfortunately the lack of any training is all too evident on a daily basis on London’s streets. As a pedestrian, as a cyclist and also from the comfortable vantage point of a bus I frequently see cycling manoeuvres that genuinely make me wince: ploughing through red lights, cu7ing in front of vehicles, and swerving in the road are not uncommon sights. The Boris bikes don’t help; I can partly understand their use in touristy areas around Westminster, where danger is minimal, but to have them situated by busy junctions, encouraging amateur cyclists to brave the traffic, almost certainly without a helmet, is ludicrous. What annoys me most is the arrogant a7itude of some of these cyclists. Of course it is very important to be confident when cycling. But at the same time you have to be realistic: you don’t own the road and that 10 ton bus is much bigger than you; in a collision you are almost certainly going to come off worse.

An independent Scotland means a Tory England for a long, long time Abubakr Al-Shamahi Comment editor

The First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, is carrying on his march towards Sco7ish independence. A referendum is due before the next Sco7ish elections in 2016, and although a majority of Scots currently oppose leaving the union, that may change. And that, for the rest of us, is a very worrying thought indeed.

Let’s put to one side all the general arguments against independence; the points about consistent Sco7ish economic growth, the greater international clout Scotland has as part of the Great Britain, and the great level of integration between the Scots and the English.

Forget about all that, and think of this: without Scotland, the rest of the UK is pre7y much unassailably Conservative. The 2010 general election saw the Tories gain the most seats in an election since 1931. However, in Scotland they retained their grand total of... one seat.

The party that came ﬁrst across Britain came fourth in Scotland. The Conservativeshave not won a majority in Scotland since 1955. Scotland is pre7y much hardcore anti-Tory.

I need not remind readers that Sco7ish students studying at universities north of the border do not pay tuition fees; indeed, Scottish students occupied universities earlier this year against the suggestion that English students studying in Scotland should have to.

So imagine what would happen without the Scots. Imagine the entrenchment of Thatcherism. Imagine David Cameron. Forever. Long live the Union, eh?

LONDON STUDENT VOLUME 32 ISSUE 4

Jessica Gosling SOAS

“I can guarantee I would not be going to university if I were going to be charged £9,000 per year.”

Steffani Garcia SOAS

“The international community needs to wake up, and take a close look at what’s really happening in Africa’s forgo en sand dunes.”

Huge drop in university applications was inevitable with £9000 fees

The drop in applications for university came as no surprise to me, in fact I anticipated it. The trebling of fees to £9,000 for one year of an undergraduate degree, the increased competition to get a place at university, the cuts in the teaching funding by 12.5% (a total of £940m), amongst a number of other things, are to blame. No longer will students be coming for the ‘student experience’. They will no longer be students but customers. These customers will expect a service, and on that note, a very good one, to justify the amount they will have to pay per year. In retrospect, the current system may not be up to scratch to handle the new expectations of students, as they will expect a service. It seems like a lot of institutions simply do not know what is going to happen from next year, as they have no idea what to expect. Granted it is new, yet there is a change happening. Universities are now being pushed to diversifytheir institutions: in order to ‘set’ them apart from other institutions, to catch and grab thea7ention of potential students and to in some way

‘qualify’ for their funding. For example,more extensive ‘outreach’ programmes in less off areas; offering larger grant schemes to new students, more places or lower fees to less well off students as well as the occasional new campus. The irony of it all is that, in the wake of all this talk of ‘diversifying’ universities, the process to apply to university, via UCAS, has admi7ed that it favours the rich young people at private schools. Jokes all round then, ey? Nevertheless, the cost of going to university is on every new student’s mind.For those students who are not very well off (also known as ‘poor’ students), the financialburden of university is o6en the signifier. University education has become very expensive,at the same time the number of job prospects for young people currently is minimal. One in six young people are not in work or education, and that there are almost a million unemployed young people in Britain. Students who are less welloff are being forced in to looking for other opportunities. The number of appli-

cations forapprenticeships and other training schemes has particularly increased over the last couple of years, as has the number of young people on the dole. It is clear to see then, that ‘poor’ students are the most vulnerable. Speaking as one of them myself, I can guarantee I would not be going to university if I were going to be charged £9,000 per annual year. It would also change my view of university. Honestly, I would not enjoy it as much as I have. Constantly, there at the back of my mind there would always be this feeling: ‘Have I go7en the most for my money?’, ‘Was that really useful?’, even if I received the same ﬁnancial aid as I do now. I would come out with three times as much debt, which is a huge burden a burden that some are either not willing or not able to bear. The thought of that debt is one of the principal reasons the ﬁgures of university applications have dropped this year. Young people are scared of their future, when in fact they should be looking forward to it.

A part of the Arab World, as desolate and forgo7en as its lonely desert plains, is suffering the bloodiest of human rights abuses. Li7le is known about the Western Sahara Conflict, it’s rarely, if ever, broadcast in the western media due to its lack of political significance. Since the Spanish decolonisation in the 1970s, its international strategic importance has diminished. The Western Sahara, a large strip of land south of Morocco, neighbouring Algeria and Mauritania, now under Moroccan quasi-rule, has been waiting, silently so it seems, for its independence. However, despite external pressures from the UN, King Mohammad VI of Morocco opposes any referendum of the Sahrawi people, and has said Morocco will never agree to one; “we shall not give up one inch of our beloved Sahara, not a grain of its sand.” However, the main cause for concern is far from political, the Sahrawi people of the region have suffered aerial bombardments with Napalm and white phosphorous aimed at refugee camps. As we know from the Gaza Massacre of 2008, the use of white phosphorous in combat is illegal under international law. This has led to the displacement of thousands of civilians from the country, and the Moroccan government has been immensely scrutinised by organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Society for Threat-

ened People and many other groups trying to draw light to what’s happening in the western province. Other human rights abuses include the kidnapping, and possible murder, of Sahrawi people. In 2010 520 people remained “disappeared” by the Moroccan forces, however, the toll could be as high as 2,000. Human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International claim that many of these individuals are usually held in secret detention centres, and are usually detained due to alleged pro-independent aﬃliations. Even more disgustingly, many of these prisoners are elderly people and children, whose relatives have been involved in the liberation movement. Many of these “disappeared” have eventually shown up – dead. In 2005, the remains of 43 Sahrawi’s who had been presumed missing, were found in a mass grave in the south of Morocco. Khelli Henna Ould Rachid, leader of the Sahrawi National Union Party, suspects that these people were even buried alive, not even for having any certain political aﬃliation, merely for being from the Western Sahara. Other mass graves have been found in the Sahara, notably in the towns of Semara and Bou Cra. These have not been the only crimes of the Moroccan forces, as reports in 2006 leaked out that demonstrations held in the region witnessed excessive police force

against the protestors, some arrested and then even tortured before being handed over to a life behind bars, and possibly more brutal torture. The Sahrawis are not the only group that the Moroccan forces wish to clearly exterminate, in fact anyone in support of Sahrawi selfdetermination, is treated just as viciously. In August 2010, Moroccan police arrested 11 Spanish activists who had joined in protests for independence in the disputed territory of El Ayoun. They claimed that the police had detained them and beat them whilst in custody, later releasing a photograph of one of the protestors wounded, indicating a sense of pride, and accomplishment of duty, that they had quashed those who wish to take the Sahara away from them. More light has to be drawn upon the situation; violations of human rights, torture of innocent people and displacement are rampant in the region. Ould Rachid calls upon the international community to try the Moroccan Forces for war crimes, but ﬁrst, the international community needs to wake up, and take a close look at what’s really happening in Africa’s forgo7en sand dunes.

Western Sahara - the forgo en occupied territories

Brutality on campus

Rosa Wild Comment editor One day last summer, SOAS campus briefly turned into a ba7lefield when HE minister David Wille7s decided to stop by. Of all the bizarre events of the past year, surely one of the strangest was standing outside one of our buildings, unable to get in because a line of police and four of the most brutal security guards I have ever encountered were protecting the government minister inside. One of the most upse7ing was seeing classmates arrested violently in a space where I usually see them eating vegetable curry and talking about assignments. At least they’ve been vindicated – at their trial, evidence emerged that the police had been lying in their witness statements, and that the students had been the victims, not the perpetrators, of the violence. All charges were dropped against three of them. Now, with the victims discussing suing the police, we have to ask how police brutality on our campus was allowed to happen in the first place. That our university allowed David Wille7s, a man who has cut its funding by 80% (but has been known to pay for expensive renovations to his second home with taxpayers’ money) to speak on our campus was frustrating, though understandable. But that he was speaking in the very building which had been occupied in protest at the tripling of tuition fees looked like nothing more than a smug act of provocation. The management were dreaming if they thought there wouldn’t be protests. Incredibly, they claim they weren’t aware that Wille7s was coming at all – that they had contracted out the room to a private company, and only found out about his visit when they heard the SU had organised a protest. That to me seems unacceptable. I accept free speech on campus, I am passionately for free speech on campus – free speech covers the right to speak at our university (though a government minister is hardly a person who lacks the opportunity to express himself), and our right to express our anger. But it is the university’s responsibility to know what is happening on its grounds. It is their responsibility to ensure that security and police on campus do not behave like thugs, and to stand up for its students if they do. The contracting out of our university buildings to private companies for private events may spin money, but it keeps those spaces from the students – and it escalates to the point where we are beaten to be kept out of buildings which were donated for our use. The university is our space, for learning, for engaging with each other. We should feel safe there. SOAS management have a lot to answer for over this incident.

THE GREAT DEBATE

VOLUME 32 ISSUE 4 LONDON STUDENT

Agree? Disagree? Your views: comment@london-student.net

Libya: a just and successful intervention?

With Colonel Gaddaﬃ dead and a new government emerging from the chaos, have those who called for intervention been vindicated against those who warned that conﬂict in Libya would be a bloody, expensive mistake?

YES

Wasim Mir

UCL The stage is set. It is time for the Libyan people to take their fate into their own hands. A lot of blood has spilled in prying Gaddafi’s iron fist away from his hold on Libya. Now, the tyrant is dead and regardless of whether his death came in ideal circumstances or with ideal media exposure, the fact is, he is no longer a factor in Libya’s future. It is time to realise that the saga that will be Libya’s recovery has just begun, and based on the events of the last few months, the Libyan people have much to be hopeful for. Politically Libya is not experiencing the abject chaos that many seem to expect after the fall of totalitarian dictators. The fallout includes an interim government, the election of Abdel-Rahim al-Keeb as interim Prime Minister and the likelihood of general elections in the next few months. Months of heart-wrenching struggle on the back of 42 years of hardship and oppression has led to this moment. The Libyan people can finally dare to be optimistic and switch fear to anticipation for a better future. Many Western media consumers will judge the Libyan movement by what they see as its end product, Gaddafi’s brutal and undignified death. Western newspapers have had no problem parading images of his bloodied face all over their bona fide pages to depict victory for an uncivilised people who know naught but brutality. Let them not forget that Gaddafi was the one who brought meaning to the word brutality on a scale that no Western country has had to face in recent history. Let us look for the images of the 1500 prisoners shot dead in the courtyard of Abu Salim prison. Let us look for the footage of the student activists hung on live television for speaking out against Gaddafi. Let us look for the shots of hundreds of dead bodies strewn around army

barracks, bodies of soldiers who refused to kill their own people and paid the ultimate price for it. Those images define the anger, the will, the determination and the boldness that created this revolution. It is those principles that we must focus on to understand the Libyan movement. Gaddafi was a brutal man. Brutal men do not deserve brutal deaths, but they do deserve to be forgotten, to be swept away by the tides of history as people move towards redefining themselves by their principles, not by atrocities that have been committed against them. The Libyan people have brought an end to Gaddafi. They did not do it alone and the fight is far from over, but finally they can step out of their houses and take a breath of freedom. The physical and psychological torture they were subjected to from a man who regarded and treated those who opposed him as cockroaches and rats is over. Now the Libyan people are masters of their own destiny and we can only hope that Libya both recovers and prospers in the future. This whole fight has faced unfounded criticism and predictions of doom from the start. Were any of these predictions correct? What happened to the apparent quagmire in Tripoli? What happened to the apparent partition of Libya? What happened to the apparent collapse of the NTC? None of these predictions were fulfilled. So let’s stop talking about Libya’s doomed future merely weeks after the end of a war that removed one of the world’s worst tyrants. From where we are we can see that the removal of Gaddafi is positive. The formation of the NTC and preparation for a workable democratic system in Libya is positive. Libya is going through a series of changes for the better and that cannot be disputed. The rest of the Arab World, those protesting for freedom in Bahrain, Syria and Yemen have added encouragement to push on and win. It may still be early but I firmly believe that optimism at this point is fully justified.

This whole fight has faced unfounded criticism and predictions of doom from the start. Were any of these predictions correct? What happened to the apparent quagmire in Tripoli?

“Military action is an expensive and risky tool for saving lives, which paradoxically involves a7acking the people one is trying to protect.”

Nikolaj Werk LSE

Judging by every leading article in the mainstream British press, only people who spend their a6ernoons shouting at stray cats would argue that the intervention in Libya was not a success: the brutal Gaddafi regime has fallen, a massacre in Benghazi was avoided, and celebrating Libyans are waving a new colourful flag. Before we get too carried away, however, it is worth considering how successful the Libyan intervention actually was in terms of saving innocent civilians. With the approval of the UN, a NATO mission led primarily by the British and French enforced a “No Fly Zone” over Libya in March to protect civilians from aggression by their leader, Colonel Gaddafi. Over the next months, sections of Libyan society who rebelled against the Gaddafi regime were aided militarily by the West, and succeeded in ge7ing rid of the regime last month. The UN mandate for the intervention ran out on October 31, officially ending the intervention that the General Secretary of NATO called “one of the most successful in NATO history”. Was it? Leaving aside the potential problems of future democratic transition, the mission in Libya has already highlighted the inefficiency of military intervention as a tool for saving lives. And a6er all, protecting civilians was the official reason for the intervention, so it is only fair to judge it by that standard. When the No Fly Zone was enforced, the Chancellor, George Osborne, told the public that the price would be in the tens of millions. Data published by the Guardian confirmed that spending has reached at least £680M, and recent research by Francis Tusa, a defence expert, sets the total cost at £1.75Bn. If this is the price of saving innocent Libyans from an a7ack that several academics have disputed Gaddafi

was capable of launching, then protecting civilians with military force is very expensive indeed. If the West had been concerned with saving innocent lives, had the money not been be7er spent on vaccines, health clinics, contraception or other such cheap and secure measures? For £6.50 a mosquito net capable of protecting a family of four against malaria for three years can be produced and shipped to where it is most needed. Not only is military intervention very cost-inefficient, it is also very unsafe. Even the most precise bombs have imprecision margins and cannot erase human mistakes. Any decision to use military force is therefore also a decision to accept inflict civilian casualties – it cannot be avoided. Unexploded bombs effectually become landmines. And arming rebels is a highly uncertain strategy. Recently, Human Rights Watch documented a mass execution of 53 people by rebels, who had tied up militants and civilians before killing them. Many political groups have also refused to hand weapons in a6er the rebellion, as they are powerful negotiation tools when the constitution is wri7en. This has led to several shootings between rebels groups in airports, hospitals and towns already. So far the National Transition Council has confirmed over 30,000 people dead. Meanwhile, non-violent alternatives were ignored. Carne Ross, a former British diplomat suggested ten options including; industrial pressure, naval blockades, electronic sabotage, and currency boyco7s. We can all be pleased that Gaddafi is gone, but that was never the official objective of the mission. And even if the intervention prevented a massacre in Benghazi, it also demonstrated that military action is an expensive and risky tool for saving lives, which paradoxically involves a7acking the people one is trying to protect. If saving lives is NATO’s agenda, they would be be7er off buying mosquito nets, but it is a military alliance a6er all, and to the man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

LONDON STUDENT VOLUME 32 ISSUE 4

Agree? Disagree? Your views: comment@london-student.net Paul Haydon UCL

“The ‘Occupy’ protests may

not have given us a neat, prepackaged solution to the present crisis, but they may at least help to spark a meaningful debate.”

Occupy LSX is only the beginning

The demonstrators occupying St Paul’s, as well as similar protesters in Wall Street and throughout the world, have seemed to capture the headlines for all the wrong reasons. First they were branded as hypocrites for consuming capitalist goods, as if owning a mobile phone or buying a coffee from Starbucks automatically disqualified them from any criticism of the current economic system. The purchase of one flavoured la0e, so the argument went, clearly amounts to a complete endorsement of unbridled capitalism, therefore undermining any argument for a fairer and be0er regulated global economy. The implication is that anyone concerned about the excesses of the free market should strip to a loincloth and return to a barter economy if they want their views to be taken seriously. Next the protesters were derided as lazy frauds, with infra-red images showing that many of them appeared to have le/ their tents and gone home to the comfort of their beds during the night. The

demonstrators responded that these images were taken during the evening when many had gone out to the pub, but not before the damage was done to their reputation. Even worse, the subsequent closure of St Paul’s seemed to show just how callous the protestors were, impinging on one of London’s most significant landmarks and tourist attractions. This view conveniently ignored the way in which most Cathedral officials had allowed and even endorsed the protest until they realised the affect it was having on visitor numbers and revenue. These a0empts to beli0le and demonise the protesters have served to obscure their message, portraying them as irrelevant troublemakers whilst ignoring any of the issues they are justifiably concerned about. However, whilst the right-wing media has been quick to label the protestors as nothing but a bunch of hypocritical, lazy, and inconveniencing hippies, many on the le/ side of the spectrum are also doubtful that the move-

ment could serve as an effective force for change. They bemoan the fact that the movement has no real sense of leadership and that the protesters have failed to articulate any clear aims. It has also been pointed out that claims to represent ninety-nine percent of the population are easy to make when demands are so vague that no-one could possibly disagree with them. This rhetorical ambiguity then contrasts with the precise efficiency of the St Paul’s protesters when it comes to logistical organisation, with the se0ing up of a kitchen, library and a list of health and safety regulations. For some it appears that simply maintaining the protest for as long as possible has become the biggest priority, rather than outlining any precise political objectives or demands. At first glance this comes across as yet another example of the lack of meaningful political engagement which is supposedly characteristic of the modern era. But perhaps this isn’t the point. Just as buying a coffee from Starbucks shouldn’t prevent some-

one from condemning corporate greed, not knowing all the answers shouldn’t prevent someone from voicing their doubts about the current system. One of the most striking aspects of the global ‘Occupy’ movement has been its diversity, showing just how many people are dissatisﬁed with the way things are. Regardless of age, ethnicity, or professional background, people the world over have come together to challenge the assumptions upon which the current global economic order is based, while countless others sympathise with their cause. They have a mutual desire to try and create a more just world and many have engaged in productive discussions about how we might actually go about changing things for the be0er. The ‘Occupy’ protests may not have given us a neat, pre-packaged solution to the present crisis, they may at least help to spark a meaningful debate about how the current system could be changed.

Anna McIvor KCL

“The vote over an EU ref-

erendum may have seemed the perfect way to show our European neighbours that Britain won’t be pushed around”

Josh White

“We no longer make things, we just make money out of money.”

VOLUME 32 ISSUE 4 LONDON STUDENT

Agree? Disagree? Your views: comment@london-student.net

Jumping ship from the EU will leave us drowning

It’s not o5en that the UK comes out tops in Europe. They’ve got the weather and the charm, da Vinci in the south and Ikea in the north. At times it seems that Great Britain is, quite literally, le5 out in the cold. So it’s nice to have the upper hand sometimes, a li6le bargaining power that threatens to sweep the carpet from under their feet if something goes awry. Now I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but I think something may have gone awry; a few billion euro to be exact. I’m not going to name names, but Zeus sure as Hellenic wouldn’t have let this happen in his time. So the great European Union is ﬂailing, and Great Britain wants to jump ship. Well, maybe. Probably not though. The UK’s role within the European Union has always erred on the side of caution. We can’t help but want to be in the popular gang, but a Union?

Does that mean we have to hug? And yet, despite William Hague’s charming protestations, we spent years benefiting from the Single European Market. We certainly weren’t complaining when the EU’s influence straightened out our laws on food safety, the environment, and free movement of labour. To consider bowing out of such an integral part of modern democracy at this point is not only unwise, it’s childish. Of course Great Britain didn’t solely cause the economic crisis, but we also did nothing to prevent it. If banks are being let off the hook then we can surely show the Greeks some mercy. They clearly aren’t so great at maths now, but they did once give us geometry. Oh, and Democracy. They should get a li6le interest back on their loans for giving us democracy. As for the government’s half-hearted a6empt at controversy, the vote over

an EU referendum may have seemed the perfect way to show our European neighbours that Britain won’t be pushed around. It’s been a few years since the Euro was snubbed and someone up there obviously thought we were ge6ing too close for comfort. Cue our li6le troop of rebels, rising in arms against their leader; or rather, staging a friendly vote followed by a5ernoon tea, so that David can get on with sorting out the real problems brought on by us and our European counterparts. Rebels? They probably took a vote on whether to take a vote in the ﬁrst place. It was hardly a coup d’état. Rather a shoddy a6empt at ‘representing the people’ in order to decide that actually, there’s no real point in asking the people, because realistically we were never going to leave the EU. Being a part of it is bad enough, the

prospect of not being part of it is nigh on scary: the very cost of se6ing up alternative trading and political agreements is enough to bankrupt Germany; we wouldn’t be invited to any of the parties, and if we were we’d have to sit with the Swiss. It’s easy to forget that the EU is a relatively young institution, set up in good faith to improve our collective standing on the world stage and protect the rights of those in other countries that may not be as fortunate as us. Ideology may not hold much sway in the current economic climate, and granted, a li6le more stability wouldn’t go amiss, but let’s face it; when the times were good, they were very good. The aloof game is only fun for so long; sometimes it’s just nice to be in the popular gang.

To report the death of capitalism is to exaggerate, to say the least, given we find ourselves subject to austerity measures as the global economy stumbles from one crisis to another in a li6le under 4 years. In the past capital has been likened to a vampire insofar as it is parasitic in its relation to labour. But it is no longer a suave count as capital is seemingly dead when it comes to the suffering of ordinary people. At the same time it is still capable of violent bursts of energy and it is mindlessly destructive in the pursuit of its sustenance. So it seems appropriate to describe the current order as zombie capitalism, it requires a minimum of 3% compound growth in order to continue and that translates into a need for profitable investments of $1.5 trillion. In the future the system might demand even more, maybe $3 trillion in growth and we are struggling to find $1.5 trillion right now. One day the banking sector could be so big that it cannot be saved and we will be dragged into the abyss as it collapses. For us to gauge where we are today, and where we might be heading, it is important to remember the causes of the Crash of 2008. As David Harvey has noted, this crisis can be understood if we go back to the crises of the 1970s when organised labour posed a threat to capital. To the extent that the workers' share of GDP peaked in 1967. The unions had demonstrated a capacity to undermine the Establishment in Britain with the fall of the Heath administration in 1974. So the need for a broken labour movement emerged, which gave rise to Thatcher and Reagan to impose such discipline on the working-class. With the full-on assault on organised labour and its political allies came the mobilisation of a global labour surplus; the development of laboursaving technology and increased competition as neoliberalism emerged. The consequence was a

sharp decline in the share of wages in total GDP almost everywhere, an enormous disposable labour reserve emerged and survived under marginal conditions. In fact some of the biggest wage-cuts in the world were endured in the US in 1985 and the UK in 1990 which was a direct consequence of the way trade unions were crushed. The structures of monopoly power was undermined, with the state-monopoly capitalism being displaced in the meantime as the system was opened up to fearsome international competition. Ultimately the intensity of global competition led to lower corporate profits in non-financial domains. The early signs of a hegemonic shi5 of power towards East Asia came as uneven geographical development and inter-territorial competition had become key factors in capitalist development. The most fluid and mobile form of capital was utilised to reallocate capital resources at a global level, which led to the deindustrialisation in traditional heartlands of industry whilst new forms of industrialisation and resource extraction began in emergent markets. The character of these new forms might be labelled appropriately as ultra-oppressive, for instance in the Congo around 4 million people have been killed for the extraction of coltan. The ultimate aim was to enhance the profitability of financial corporations, thus the need for new ways to absorb risks through the creation of fictitious capital markets. Accumulation by dispossession became a means to increase class power for the ultra-rich and so a new round of primitive accumulation - against indigenous and peasant populations - was in order to augment the asset losses of the working-classes in the developed world. We have only to turn to the African-American victims of the sub-prime housing crash. The mass-

privatisation of social housing in Britain, which took place in the 1980s, appeared as a gi5 to the working-classes as it enabled them to convert from rental ownership at a relatively low cost to the control of a valuable asset which might make them rich. Speculation soon took over the housing market, eventually pushing low-income earners out to the outskirts of cities. It used to be that the capitalist invested in production. But for the last 30 years the economy has underwent financialisation as the capitalist has invested heavily in making money out of money rather than out of anything productive. The increase of sagging effective demand was accomplished by pushing the debt economy - in governmental, corporate and household spheres to its limits. This became standard method in the West, so it should be no surprise that in the US the household debt relative to income doubled from 1982 to 2007. By 2007 the ratio of financial assets to GDP had doubled since the early 80s. The compensation for anemic rates of return in production came in the construction of a whole series of asset market bubbles and culminated in the property bubble that burst around 2007. Each of these asset bubbles drew upon finance capital and were facilitated by extensive financial innovations, specifically derivatives. The control of assets and resources at the heart of international finance became central to the system in the last 30 years. We no longer make things, we just make money out of money. The way that the crisis of the 1970s was circumvented led to nearly 16 years of growth in Britain from 1992 to 2008. It led to Gordon Brown claiming that Boom and Bust had been abolished. The current crisis has to be circumvented somehow, in the past that has required the enforced destruction of productive forces, the conquest of new markets

and an even more thorough exploitation of old ones. So British manufacturing went into a decline from which it has yet to recover under Thatcher, employment in that area plummeted by 30 years from 1979 to 1990. The very means by which the system regenerates itself typically paves the way for even more extensive and destructive crises, as the means whereby crises are averted are diminished in doing so. The financialisation of the economy led to the financial crises of the last 30 years. The infinite capacity of capitalism to regenerate itself at the expense of the majority of the population should not underestimated, but with each recovery the foundations for another crisis are laid. The pressure is on for the ruling class to crank out profitable investments for $1.5 trillion, so it can meet that minimum of 3% growth for the time being. The state's reaction to the crises has opened a door which we're being led through and we don't yet know what is on the other side, it is just a mysterious darkness to us right now. This is nothing new, with the Crash of 1929 came such an opening and we all know what happened in Europe as Germans were marched into the darkness. Then there was the crisis of 1973 in Britain as a result of the oil crisis, which led to the collapse of the Heath government then the pathetic reign of a weak Labour government and then the emergence in 1979 of Thatcherism. This is not cheap fear-mongering, it doesn't seem realistic that either of these will emerge but we have to keep in mind what is possible. We might take comfort in the fact that when the Americans were marched into the same abyss it was the New Deal which emerged and not National Socialism. But it is not necessarily the case that history is on our side.

Capitalism has outlived its usefulness - it’s time for change

LONDON STUDENT VOLUME 32 ISSUE 4

Kung Fu fighting

Battle of Ideas

Foraging: Free food?

Julian Hitch and his Kung Fu school go to China to break a world record with the help of Cruciform Building lab assistant.

Controversy in the talk on Africa at last weekend’s Battle of Ideas festival. Do modern day philosophers hold the solutions to Africa’s problems? John Roche reports from the debate. - page 18

Skip the supermarket and go straight to the fields - does foraging offer an alternative to high air miles and expense? Sadly no, says Anya Pearson.

WRITER

had a great effect on Paul Dudley, he said: “Training with Si-Fu on the Great Wall was the happiest and proudest moment of my life”. The performance venues required formal permission from the authority before the performances took place which required significant co-ordination from numerous levels of government officials in China. Due to the political constraints of China it is not permitted to do any type of performance in public, and it was unprecedented for a non-Chinese Kung Fu school to tour and perform in China. Because of this, the journey took a year and a half to arrange.

ing the longest ever martial art class, at which students trained for 29 hours and 5 minutes. In addition to being the longest ever continuous martial art training to have taken place, this was also the longest ever exercise class of any type - breaking the previous record held by an aerobics class in Brazil by over 3 hours.

- page 15

London students get a kick out of Kung Fu tour Amy Bowles Features Editor

The Huangyaguan pass of the Great Wall, north of Beijing, on the morning of the 24th September 2011. After a gruelling performance-heavy 10 day tour across China, ten London students stand waiting, mentally preparing themselves to break the Guinness World Record for the highest number of Kung Fu full contact kicks in an hour, a record previously held by 36 students from Ireland.

Among them is Paul Dudley, a UCL laboratory technician from the Cruciform Teaching Facilities Unit. He is the most experienced of the record-attempters, although they had no preparation for the attempt and none had practised doing timed kicks before that morning. Filmed by three video cameras, a Chinese press photographer, Chinese television, and in the presence of two independent witnesses including a Chinese martial arts expert, Paul and his team achieved 19,294 kicks within the hour, breaking the previous record of 12,478.

The students had travelled from London's Julian Hitch Martial Art Schools of Excellence, a martial arts school specialising in Wing Tsun Kung Fu which was set up by UCL History graduate Julian Hitch when he was 18. The School is made up of several traditional Chinese Wing Tsun schools dedicated to teaching and protecting the ancient martial art.

The record-breaking trip across China saw the group performing at 20 iconic venues including The Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, the Summer Palace, the Olympic Stadium, and the Great Wall of China. This experience

The record was broken against all odds: the students were unprepared and fatigued, having travelled for 10 hours to reach the Huangyaguan pass. One of the students had only been training for six months, having been the official photographer and been required to step in due to another student's illness. However, the 10 students broke the record by a total of 6,118 kicks, earning the acclaim of the Chinese crowd – two women commented: “It’s so nice to see that westerners are doing Chinese martial arts and are keeping the traditions going. We thought the performance was excellent” . Julian Hitch expressed his pride in his students, saying: “From the smallest female (5ft) to the largest male (6ft4) every student gave their whole heart. After a very long tour I asked them for one more special effort and they rose to the occasion. The students showed the characteristics of true martial artists. No matter the odds against you, with believing and hard work nothing can stop you.”

The students had previously broken other world records, by hold-

- page 19

The London students who performed in the record-breaking China tour said: “It was a great honour to performing in the home of the greatest martial arts ever created. There is no greater accolade for a martial artist than to be accepted here. From appreciative monks to charming Chinese grandmothers, we could not have wished for a greater reception” Hitch added: “The whole of my adult life, and much of my youth, has been dedicated to fighting for the purity and survival of the ancient art of Wing Tsun. This trip has proved than my time has not been in vain.”

What we do: The Welsh Soc This issue’s Society Spotlight Robert Jones of the UCLU Welsh Society lets us know what they’re up to. - page 19

Student Protesters in Court

An examination of the justice given to students involved in the 9th December and 26th March protests, by Stanley Mertens. - page 20

Breaking the Guinness World Record for the highest number of Kung Fu full contact kicks in an hour Photographs: Paul Dudley

Julian Hitche and his team training with Shaolin monks in China

THE LYRIC PIC

Every issue, we open up our centre spread to submissions from photographers in a new competition called ‘The Lyric Pic’.

The idea is to shoot an image that you associate with one of your favourite lyrics. For example, you may choose to take a pastoral picture of forests to accompany Bob Dylan’s ‘upon four-legged forest clouds the cowboy angel rides’ lyric. Send your submissions to: photo@london-student.net

The best submissions will feature in the paper throughout the year.

NAME:CAYLA DELARDI

INSTITUTION: NEW YORK UNIVERSITYLONDON

CAMERA SETTINGS: Diana Mini, ISO 400

LYRIC: Well, I don't know where I'll go now and I don't really care who follows me there. But I'll burn every bridge that I cross, and find some beautiful place to get lost. Let's Get Lost, Ellio- Smith LOOKING THROUGH THE LENS OF THE PHOTOGRAPHER:

I used to live in southern California, and every time we took a trip up to Los Angeles, where this photo was taken (La Brea Tar Pits), I would only listen to music by Ellio- Smith. While the lyric may not seem relatable to this particular picture, it encapsulates my experience with California, and especially my time spent in L.A.

VOLUME 32 ISSUE 4 LONDON STUDENT

LONDON STUDENT VOLUME 32 ISSUE 4

VOLUME 32 ISSUE 4 LONDON STUDENT

Ba le of Ideas: the ba le over Africa Writer John Roche

Photographer Chris Sharp

The Africa session at the Battle of Ideas, a two-day festival of public debate organised by the Institute of Ideas on November 29 and 30, was on the question â&#x20AC;&#x153;Is this Africaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s decade?â&#x20AC;?

The session was part of the festivalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s series on global politics, produced by 21-year-old SOAS politics student Joel Cohen. Others in the series included â&#x20AC;&#x153;Eurozonia: too big to fail, too small to succeed?â&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;Middle East 'revolutions': hopes and fearsâ&#x20AC;?. Cohen, who got involved with the Institute of Ideas through their internship programme, decided to set up panel discussions on these issues in reaction to what he described in his introductory speech as "an international order that is increasingly mystified". "It was my hope that, in the spirit of the Battle of Ideas festival, a better understanding of the historic changes happening around us might challenge our political elite which seemingly can't think beyond 'kicking the can down the road'", he said.

The question of whether this is â&#x20AC;&#x153;Africaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s decadeâ&#x20AC;? is topical. There is a renewed sense of optimism about the prospects for the continent, given its high average growth rates, positive developments on governance, and increasing attractiveness to foreign investment. Real GDP across Africa rose 4.9% per year in the 2000s, more than twice its pace in the 1980s and â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;90s, leading some to suggest that the continent is finally on its way to prosperity. Yet pessimists point to persistently low levels of human development across the continent, and the vulnerabilities inherent to the commodity-driven nature of the new growth story: the boom in global commodities prices -- driven by rising demand from emerging markets such as the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) -- has driven growth in African commodity exporting economies, but this could be unsustainable in the long-run.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The economic boom currently happening in Africa has created a new space for questioning the continent's ambitionsâ&#x20AC;?, said Cohen. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Because Africa is so often

used as a rhetorical blank slate for westerners to articulate the fears they have about their own societies I wanted the opportunity to showcase some of the new ideas African's must battle with in this age of new optimism.â&#x20AC;?

Cohen adeptly chaired the session, which featured five panellists, each of whom talked for five minutes before the floor was opened to questions. What resulted was a wide-ranging, engaging debate covering a broad sweep of issues -- the impact of increasing Chinese investment in Africa, pros and cons of microfinance, how diasporas can contribute to African progress, among others. However, this breadth was perhaps at the expense of engagement with some of the big-picture issues concerning African optimism/pessimism.

Some of the panellists were keen to expound on their own pet projects and concerns. Sam Mendelson, an expert on microfinance, opened by stating that he is going to focus his comments on new advances in financial services to the poor in Africa. This was interesting enough, but he didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t succeed in relating this to the theme of the discussion.

Yet the clashes between them formed some entertaining moments.

The best value panellist was MariĂŠme Jamme, a blogger and social entrepreneur, whose combative opening remarks effectively pricked at the basis of the whole discussion, by questioning the value of sitting in London discussing â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Africaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. â&#x20AC;&#x153;If you want to understand whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s happening in Africa, go there and meet the peopleâ&#x20AC;?, she said, pointing out that the people are the continentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s greatest asset. On occasion, Jammeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s habit of exaggerating for rhetorical effect resulted in her making claims that were wholly incredible. â&#x20AC;&#x153;There is no corruption in Nigeriaâ&#x20AC;?, she boldly stated at one point, to smirks of incredulity from the audience. Later, she claimed â&#x20AC;&#x153;microfinance makes African women poorerâ&#x20AC;?. This riled Mendelson somewhat, responding: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve interviewed 100 women who say otherwiseâ&#x20AC;?. The discussion was at its best when points of consensus emerged around challenging dominant narratives on Africa, such as the suggestion to move away from hectoring African gov-

ernments about good governance and anti-corruption. Even panellist Christine Thompson, head of corporate relations at South African brewery SAB Miller -hardly likely to take a controversial view -- agreed with that point.

Panellist Angus Kennedy, from the Institute of Ideas, got closer than the others to tackling some of the meatier issues. On microfinance, he argued it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have potential for large-scale impact, amusingly commenting â&#x20AC;&#x153;the clueâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in the nameâ&#x20AC;?. He also argued that a major constraint holding the continent back was the role of NGOs, who are not interested in economic development per se, and are too focused on wishy-washy ideas about â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;sustainabilityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. Since promoting genuine growth would effectively put them out of business, he reasoned, they have a vested interest in the continentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s underdevelopment -- a somewhat conspiracy theoretical view, but not wholly fantastical.

The biggest lacuna in the discussion was a lack of questioning over what the current African growth story really represents. Panellists tended to take the fact that some African economies are experiencing high annual GDP

growth rates as de facto evidence for optimism, but it would have been interesting to see this assumption probed. Angola is a case in point: itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s easy to point out that the country had annual GDP growth rates of over 20% from 2005-07, giving it the second highest growth rate of any country in the world in 2007. Yet the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s experience after oil prices fell in 2009 demonstrates the vulnerabilities of primary commodity export dependent economies to changes in world prices. The Angolan government was plunged into a severe balance-of-payments crisis and had to call upon the IMF for a stand-by facility loan of 3 billion dollars -- the largest the IMF has ever given out.

There is an even more fundamental question about whether high GDP growth rates driven by oil exports even constitute genuine growth at all. Digging something up from the ground and selling it is not generating income, it is simply an exchange of assets -- and if itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ending up in Swiss bank accounts, effectively represents privatisation of the national wealth. These are the types of questions that need to be addressed to know how optimistic a view to take about Africaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s prospects over the next decade, and longer.

LONDON STUDENT VOLUME 32 ISSUE 4

Eats Shoots and Leaves

Foraging - don’t make a meal out of it Writer Anya Pearson

Apple scrumping hardly constitutes Crimewatch material in Hackney but as I half-fell out of my neighbour’s apple tree, redfaced and solemnly mumbling my apologies in her glowering direction, I resolved to start seeking out a source of free food that doesn't make you feel like an oversized Just William. The words ‘free’ and ‘food’ seem to have an insatiable appeal for students, incorporating our two favourite words after ‘Jaegerbomb’, and the practice of Skipping or going through commercial skips for perfectly edible groceries that are past their sell-by date is rapidly growing in popularity. However, I thought I’d find my niche in the hunter-gatherer tradition by looking for lunch on the fertile autumnal land of Hackney marshes. I went armed with a guidebook, friends with Tupperware (everybody needs them) and an unfamiliar willingness to eat things off the floor. You look at the world with fresh eyes when assessing everything

you see through the single criteria “But can I eat it?” The colourful barges and dappled light on the canal were of no interest to me, but I yelled in excitement as we identified our You look at first course the world growing on the with fresh towpath: ‘Fateyes when hen’. Apparassessing ently tasting everything like broccoli, you see this branched through the annual weed single critebeen susria “But can has taining human I eat it?” life since prehistoric times. We picked enough for a caveman. Next up was a thorny bush of ruby-red rosehips, which our book promised was great for making cordial. Twenty times higher in vitamin C than oranges? Into the Tupperware. Further along the marshes grew hundreds of dark blue sloe berries with their evocative dusty bloom; a much coveted addition to gin. Into the Tupperware they went. I’d been hoping to spot some sweet chestnuts for roasting and maybe the odd mushroom to identify, but the only edibles we could find on the ground were white dead nettles, which as

our book declared enticingly, “do not sting”. Unsurprisingly with all these mouth-watering ingredients, we began to feel a gnawing hunger. Before somebody suggested ‘foraging’ in the local Spar, it was time to get cooking… Wild food is wildly labour intensive. We blended, boiled and sieved the rosehips multiple times to make syrup, which had a spicy, plum-like taste, and pricked each individual sloe before mixing them with the sugar to make sloe gin (which we have to leave til Christmas - the clue’s in the name). And, since we had a strict policy of ‘urinated on unless proven otherwise’ we washed the weeds obsessively. Unfortunately, Fat-hen somewhat lacks the succulence of its fowl counterpart. Made into a sort of pesto, it tasted the epitome of grim. As my friend Celeste suggested hungrily: “We could spread it onto some toast, and then after maybe just eat some toast?” As for the dead nettle sautéed in butter and garlic, nobody liked to admit it, but it stank to high heaven and gave me a feeling of intense nausea that lasted the rest of the evening. In turn hilarious and demoralizing, foraging is a skill I intend to work on at least until the price of food goes down. That said, I think we burned more calories gathering and preparing our ‘meal’ than we got from eating it, and despite what Dr. Dre may have you believe, nobody can really survive on just gin and weeds.

Picking sloes Photo: Graeme Shaw

Spotlight on... UCLU Welsh Society SOCIETY SPOTLIGHT

Writer Robert Jones Welsh is… “Welsh is the rugby. Welsh is the first to score, the last to surrender. Welsh is the first to get back up. Welsh is still Tom and Shirley. Welsh is the Brains you want. It’s ‘Bangor Aii’, not yes. Welsh is making friends, no matter who, or where, or when. Welsh is ‘Cymru am byth’. Welsh is not English, it’s Leek and Potato or ‘Bara Brith’. Welsh is Manics and its High Contrast, its Charlotte Church and its ‘Prophets. It’s Blackout and the ‘Phonics. The Furrys. Welsh is good players, and even better lovers. Welsh is cheering in the semifinal, and even louder when we are going out. Welsh is the cities and the coast. Welsh is its own language. Welsh is Halfpenny,

Davies and Roberts. It’s Hook and it’s Jones and it’s Phillips and it’s Williams. It’s Bennet, and it’s more Jones. Welsh is having a ‘cwtch’. Welsh is the vibes. Welsh is making sweet sweet music…all the time. It’s Clwb Ifor Bach. It’s Liberty Stadium and Wrexham Football Ground. It’s being blind to the cold and the wind and the rain. It’s the most beautiful place on the planet. Welsh is laver bread. Welsh is a roaring dragon. It’s the ‘Gogs’ and the ‘Hwntws’. It’s the popty-pings, and it’s Huw Edwards off the news. It’s the ‘safe’ and it’s the ‘iawn!’. Welsh is the loudest croud, the ‘Yma ohyd’. Welsh is the cheering, and never giving up. Welsh is.” - Huw Stephens, 2011

UCLU Welsh Society is a brand new society this year. It aims to bring the Welsh culture to London through various events such as gigs, pub crawls, pub quizzes, rugby matches, trips to Wales, 6th nations events, and

massive St David’s day celebrations. If you are at UCL it is only £3 to join! We have already had our first social! The Wel/Cym Pub Crawl was a great success and our next event is ‘UCLU Welsh Society presents…’. ‘UCLU Welsh Society presents…’ is a Welshthemed gig that will be held on the 18th of November at the London Welsh Centre. We have teamed up with the LWC to bring you the most unique gig in London this term. The bilingual night will include Y Bandana, Breichiau Hir, and Casi Wyn, all young talented musicians from Wales dominating the young fresh welsh music scene. It guarantees to be a great night with student deals on the bar! Welsh is…coming to London. The ‘UCLU Welsh Society Presents…’ will be in the London Welsh Centre on the 18th of November. 7:00pm. Non-members welcome!

Student Protesters in Court 20

VOLUME 32 ISSUE 4 LONDON STUDENT

WRITER

STANLEY WILFRID MERTTENS

PHOTOGRAPHER TOM NICHOLSON

The officer said it was the worst riots he had seen in his many years with the Met. He then added, “Well, at least since Hackney” and looked to the judge with a knowing smile. I am at the trial of brothers Christopher Hilliard and Andrew Hilliard, jointly accused of pulling a policeman from his horse at the now notorious 9th of December student protest. As the defence question the police witnesses I am surprised how emotive they strive to be. Despite his smarmy comment about the riots I can’t help pitying the man in the stand, and I start to feel that the sardonic tone of voice she is using can hardly be ingratiating her and the defendants to the jury. However, I quickly realise how difficult their task is. The Hillards have pleaded not guilty, and that means that it is not just a case of arguing that this was a blip in the behaviour of boys of otherwise good character (as Ed Woollard and others did) but of proving that the police version of events is false. The problem is the police seem so eminently reasonable, even to someone like me who has been caught on the wrong side of a kettle. The female officer questioned next looks kind and trustworthy, making her gruelling time at the hands of the defence seem even more unbearable. However, when she finally describes how she hit Christopher three times as hard as she could, the defence’s tactics begin to make sense. Their case is outlined in a moment of real drama, where all the evidence they have been painstakingly building up is drawn together. They claim that the struggle that resulted in PC Cowling falling from his horse was not the result of the Hilliards pulling him, but rather him pulling the Hilliards, and them struggling to be free. When it came down to it, the jury had to decide whether two boys, previously averse to violence, were so determined to pull a policeman from a horse that they withstood a severe beating with a truncheon in order to do it, or alternatively, PC Cowling held doggedly onto two young boys

Criminals or concerned citizens?

while his colleague beat them savagely. To most people reading this, one of those possibilities will seem blatantly more plausible than the other. Perhaps it is no surprise that the case ended with a hung jury, and consequently that the Hilliards face a retrial in The problem is March next the police year. seem so eminently In a subject as reasonable, contemporary, even to complex, and someone like emotive as me who has been caught this, it is hard on the wrong to get a handle side of a kettle. on what is actually happening. From the distance all you can see is a kerfuffle, with tension occasionally spilling into violent outbursts from both sides. Who ‘started it’? Who is the perpetrator and who is the victim? Most reports use the chaos as a useful canvass to argue their own points. On the whole the CPS and the Judges have decided that the violence originates with the protesters, and is fundamentally unacceptable, a position that has been reflected in serious charges (usually violent disorder or ag-

gravated trespass) and in some cases, unusually harsh sentences. Perhaps the Hilliards can take some comfort in the cases of those arrested outside SOAS in June, who also decided to plead not guilty. They were acquitted two weeks ago when the judge threw the case out of court due to the strength of video evidence proving their innocence. After the first police witness took the stand, the judge turned to the prosecution and said, “You do realise your case has been blown out of the water?”

Many student protesters are facing jail time. Over a dozen will be sentenced for public order offences on Friday this week at Kingston Crown Court. If you attended any of the above protests, the Legal Defence and Monitoring Support Group have released the following witness callout: We need your help. Defendants need your help. Already we have people in prison when they really should not be there! If you think that you can help please get in touch with LDMG asap ldmgmail@yahoo.co.uk and please cc your messages to courtsupport@riseup.n

KEY CASES

9th December – The Milbank Occupation The Hillards are accused of pulling PC Cowling from his horse. They are pleading not guilty and are awaiting retrial in March. Alfie Meadows received injuries from police and required brain surgery. He will be tried in March and is due to be defended by top human rights lawyers a.racted to the case due to its high profile. Bryan Simpson is said to have jabbed a police officer and thrown a megaphone. He is due to be tried next week. Belinda Edney walked free from court. She had thrown office papers from the top of Milbank tower. Charlie Gilmour, son of Pink Floyd guitarist, has been jailed for 16 months. He admi.ed violent disorder. Edward Woollard has been sentenced to 2 years and 8 months for dropping a fire extinguisher off the roof of Millbank.

26th March – Anti cuts March Francis Fernie threw two sticks at riot police and received 12 months. He is out on curfew a-er serving 3. Omar Ibrahim has been on remand in Wandsworth, and was sentenced for violent disorder last week. The Fortnum 145 were those arrested for occupying Fortnum and Masons. Only 30 are being prosecuted, but 21 of the rest are demanding to be tried as well as they commi.ed the same crime. The CPS had decided that it was not in the public interest to try everyone of the occupiers, but are now in a diﬃcult situation, as if they are found not guilty it of course throws doubt on a potential guilty verdict of the others. The trial starts on the 10th of November.

13th June – Protest outside SOAS against David Willets MP Simon Behrman, Ashok Kumar and Aaron Peters all had their cases thrown out of court last Thursday in the face of copious evidence that showed the police acted violently and made arrests with no provocation.

LONDON STUDENT VOLUME 32 ISSUE 4

COMMUNITY

Still struggling to adjust to life away from home? Tomo Delaney might have the answer - page 22

Victoria Yates

COMMUNITY EDITOR

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

If you ever ask yourself if you’re “made of the start-up stuff” we offer some tailor made advice - page 23

Ahmad Bakhiet

ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDITOR

SCIENCE

There are many different types of disaster and knock on effects. Check out our interview discussing last year’s earthquake in Italy and its disastrous consequences for some scientists - page 24

Rachel Mundy Harriet Jarle/

SCIENCE EDITORS

ACADEMIA

Few people have failed to hear of the Nobel Prize and its prestigious accolades, but this week we consider what its missing out on - page 26

Valeriya Nefyodova ACADEMIA EDITOR

PSYCHOLOGY

Has to onset of autumn left you feeling SAD? Saul is here to help - page 27

Saul Hillman

PSYCHOLOGIST IN RESIDENCE

The Green Column Being green, thinking blue Writer Ben Parfitt UCL

Oh what a night with Fusion@London

Photos Victoria Yates

Writer Victoria Yates Community Editor

I arrived at the Fusion launch party suitably early while happy hour was still in its ﬁrst incarnation and the sparse crowd all gathered around the edges and ti9ered at the two solitary dancers whose wildly conﬁdent dancing hinted to early inebriation. The anticipation that I’d built up was not le8 wanting as I descended into the velvet-clad opulence of Café de Paris. The venue itself is a breathtaking throwback to a golden age of glamorous cocktail hours and wi9y repartee. The majority of the roughly 800 strong crowd rose to this unique occasion, bringing out some beguiling and elaborate costuming rarely seen within the usually lax student community. People gazing alone could have kept you occupied all night. The evening’s entertainment was a varied mixture of musical styles. The opening act, Jemima Jo (myspace.com/jemimajo), presented a collection of her own pop/R&B tunes reminiscent of Britney a8er her musical puberty; a lot of sexualized sound injections and some accomplished stage gyration. For all that it wasn’t necessarily my kind of sound

I couldn’t fault Jo’s abilities, her professional voice quality and aptitude for writing within her genre gave the whole performance the glow of a radio hit parade. A8er a brief pause the next group took the stage this time offering up some consummate a cappella singing from Apollo 5 (apollo5.co). The selection of melodious emotive renderings and upbeat jazzy numbers hit the tone of the venue perfectly and got most of the crowd toe-tapping along to their enthralling vocals. The Lorelles (thelorelles.com) were the first group to enjoy the now much expanded crowd as the fashionably late took their place on the dance floor and at the bar, and they fed off the fresh and excited energy with relish. The girl group’s music sated the crowd’s appetite for danceable, upbeat, and catchy tunes, delivering a wonderful set with their charmingly assured stage presence. As an interlude to the vocal array The Waacktitioners (waacktitioners.co.uk) briefly took to the stage for a high energy live Strictly style interlude. Their evident popularity with the crowd was evident from the raucous applause and generally excited reception. Warming the crowd for the headlining Clement Marfo and the Frontline (myspace.com/clement-

marfo) who were for many the greatest highlight of the night. Whether this was because of the average blood alcohol level or the almost anthemic, imposing tunes, or (most likely) some magical mixture, it was a festival worthy set. Although for most in the crowd this was their first exposure to the group by the second round of a chorus the band managed to have a more or less cogent sing along and a very exuberant selection of synchronized swaying, jumping, and fist pumping that rounded off the evening with a flourish. I cannot claim to have stayed long beyond the talent; the increasingly antagonistic crowd that shouted off the obscenely generous raffle prize draw was, with all the masked anonymity, beginning to pang a bit of Derren Brown’s latest morality stunt (if you haven’t seen it you should, see 4od). However, I went away contented and foot-sore. It was a brilliant night to launch a great cause onto the London psyche, if the main event is half as good as its taster session you’ll be in for a great night. Tickets to Fusion’s main event are 10% off until the 30th of November, see fusionatlondon.com for tickets and more information on the event and its great cause.

of cheese, 3875 for a beef steak and The UCL quad has recently been 10850 for a pair of jeans. According graced by a tinge of blue with li9le to the concept of embedded water, accompanying explanation. The statthe average UK resident uses 4645 ues wore jeans and the astronomy litres – or 50 bathtubs – of water each shed was cosily wrapped in layer of and every day. Lola had initially inblue insulation. Look a bit closer and tended to place 50 golden bathtubs you may have seen stickers reading in the quad but the powers that be “BLOO UCL.” prevented the idea from ever materiBLOO UCL was organised by the alising. guerrilla art movement BLOO NaAs part of the campaign, BLOO tion which aims to “prevent the UCL took part in the Waterworld's limited freshwater resources Hackathon, a global event that from running out by 2025.” The camunited programmers from Toronto to paign revolved around an Alternate TelAviv, from Lima to Lagos. UCL Reality Game which involved a scavComputer Science and Maths stuenger hunt both at UCL and online. dent, Devin Lundberg, developed a Lola Pedro, who last year completed web app to be used by any mobile her Masters degree in Technology device to identify Entrepreneurship the embedded at UCL, was comwater of any supermissioned by the market product. “It college to organise was designed to the campaign. make people aware “Everyone can of how they use identify with water, water and how as it is a fundamenmuch water goes tal source of life,” into the products she explains. “We they use,” he said, hope to bring some “it’s kind of jaw otherwise unheard dropping if you of issues to light in think about it.” a fun and memoCatrin Sohrabi, a rable manner, so first year Biomedthat people are able ical student, won to live more susthe scavenger hunt tainably and make Photo courtesy of bloonation.com to bag herself an smarter choices.” iPad 2. CulminatAt the heart of BLOO Nation’s phiing in a race to get the most Facebook losophy is the concept of ‘embedded ‘likes’, Catrin easily won the compewater’ –the volume of water used to tition with 147 likes for a single staproduce a product. For example, it tus about women wasting 50 billion takes 140 litres of water to produce a litres of water by shaving their legs single standard cup of black coffee. in the shower. Her status beat, This includes the water used in irriamong others, a video animation engating and processing the coffee couraging people to “pee during beans, as well as the water used to shower” to save water. package, ship and distribute the cofIronically, Facebook stores its data fee to our supermarket shelves. on servers cooled by water and one BLOO Nation hope to role out a microchip in an iPad uses over 4,000 ‘water proof stamp’ to help congallons of water to produce. At least sumers identify companies deemed there’s an app to calculate your perto be making an effort to decrease sonal water footprint! their water footprints. It is hoped that consumers will be able to idenVisit www.bloonation.com to foltify with the waterproof stamp in the low the campaign same way that they identify with the To work out your water footprint, Fairtrade logo. download the ‘Water Footprint CalEmbedded water is present in culator’ app or visit www.watereverything we consume: it takes 440 footprint.org litres to produce a loaf of bread, 1500 for a bag of sugar, 2500 for a chunk Follow Ben on @bparf

LONDON STUDENT VOLUME 32 ISSUE 4

Islamic societies rally to raise thousands

ThelastweekofOctobersawhundredsof students across London willingly don a uniform, and embrace a reformed character of professionalism in time for a phenomenon called Charity Week. These students, infamous for late assignments and chronically lazy One day of lifestyles,brokeseemcollections ingly impenetrable raised a fancliques (such as those tastic ofthedisciplinaryna£12,000 ture – medics verses that’s spare humanities anyone?) change you and joined forces in a can believe united eﬀort to raise in! as much money as they could for orphansandneedychildrenacrosstheglobe. Charity Week has grown at a phenomenal rate since its inception in London in 2004. It not only enjoys participation from Islamic Societies (ISocs) throughout London, but now boasts involvement from

ISocsacrosstheBritishIslesandfromother countriesacrosstheglobesuchastheUSA, FranceandAustralia.Asastudentproject, it serves many ends: from raising money for needy children to serving as an excellent inroduction for freshers enteri n g student societies. It is an ideal opportunity to meet new people from many diﬀerent universities, backgrounds and subject areas that ordinarily one wouldn’t have ever met.

Students participating in Charity Week dedicate themselves to raising as much money as possible in as many creative ways as the mind can conjure, and for a s m a l l group of students in each univ e r s i t y, planning Charity Week can t a k e months for oneweekof intense fundraising! This year, London has seen one day of co-ordinated collections across someofLondon’sboroughsraiseafantastic£12,000–that’ssparechangeyoucanre-

allybelievein!Butstreet/tube/campuscollectionsarepre9yvanillaincomparisonto what students have dreamt up to raise money during Charity Week 2011! We’ve had people space-hopping around the streets of London for sponsorship, crazy auctions where entire cakes were purchased for £1,200 each and then let’s not forget those students that tested the limits of their taste buds in a chilli eatathon...someone pass the milk! Each year the ISocs get more inventive: pantomimes, plays, concerts and even a display of fire breathing – the events are refreshing enough to draw crowds and have those buckets jingling with change! Lastyear,theIslamicSocietiesacrossLondonuniversitiesmanagedtoraiseawhopping £182, 707. This year’s totals will be revealed at the Charity Week Round Off Dinner on November 16 at the LMC in East London. Come along and find out how much one week of effort has raised this time around!

Virtually maternal: Community spoke with the founder of

justle"home.com, Tomo Delaney, about freshers, facebook, and sock puppets

For someone who hasn’t heard of you before, how would you describe the aims of the website? It's a social network and a support network. I remember how tough it was when I moved to London, and then to New York. It would have been so handy (and reassuring) to be able to search for people with the same interests as me, or from the same place as me. If justle8home had been around I'd have definitely used it to find a couple of drinking mates and a decent pub. I think the potential to use it as a snog-finder should not be ignored either. What inspired you to create the site? I'd been daydreaming and thinking what a great url mom dot com was. It sounded so snappy. It wasn't available of course, but it made me think what it could be - a virtual mum. She'd always be si9ing there on your desk, ready to help and answer any questions, even if your real mum was in a different time zone (although the image of your mum si9ing on your desk when you might have just pulled or come home blind drunk maybe isn't the best analogy). The site is now evolving into something different though, it's becoming more of a people-finder. How are you doing on membership thus far? We're just coming to the end of the ghost-town period, where a network launches and puts itself out there but has to wait and hope that people join, tell their friends and keep coming back. Facebook was brilliant in launching just at Harvard, because it was contained and everyone heard about it very quickly via word of mouth. When you launch across the whole of the UK (and beyond), it's much patchier at the beginning. There was a lot of lying awake at

night, staring at the ceiling and thinking "why-oh-why-oh-no-ohgod-what-have-I-taken-on-here-ohgod-no-no-no", but I'm feeling much be9er now. It has a very unique feel both in the aesthetic and in the li9le elements like the vintage style video voice, I always said what were you it should aiming to invoke look as if it with the design? was built I was adamant last Tuesday from the very benight in ginning that it someone's should all be dorm room, hand-drawn. You and it does see so li9le of this style of web-design, and when you do it really jumps off the screen at you. It's much trickier to build (as I discovered the hard way), but I'm really happy with the way it turned out. I always said it should look as if it was built last Tuesday night in someone's dorm room, and it does. There will always be bits which need refining, but I like the fact it feels so rickety, it has personality and it's a work in progress: it'll get be9er and be9er. At the moment in your Homey Tapes section there are 7 instructional videos, do you hope to expand this collection? Any thoughts on what you want to feature next? Yes. We've tried a few times to shoot 'how to laugh', which would just be the two puppets laughing hysterically with thick white smoke swirling around them and an ashtray in front of them, but we can't get the smoke to show up properly on screen, we will though! Also 'how to deal with bullies', which would be the first puppet saying something really horrible to the other, and the second one pulling out a huge stick and

beating the first one to a bloody pulp… is that a bit heavy? Why the sock puppets? Because they're funnier and pre9ier than me There has been a new trend of creating Facebook groups for incoming classes of students where they can talk before arriving on campus, do you think your site offers something different to freshers? I think it offers almost the opposite: you don't feel obliged to throw yourself into a conversation: you can browse the site, see who's there, work out whether they sound like a laugh (or look fanciable), and then send them a direct message. And if they don't reply, nothing lost. By profession, you’re a fashion photographer, is this your first foray into the start-up world? It is, but I do a lot of e-commerce photography, so I've met some very clever internet people. If this all fails I'd be very happy running a bookshop in an English market town, but I'd only have 8 customers a day. I want to at least try and do something a bit bigger first. The internet is fantastic because if you sell something right, you can have 700 million peo-

Film night has always been a classic. Flickr user wildebeast1

1/5

Embrace the Movie Night [COMMUNITY]

As the dark nights draw in and a cold chill seeps into the London air there is no better way to spend your time than enveloped in a chunky knit sweater, ensconced in a good film. So pull out the popcorn and turn your phones on silent, we’ve collected some of the newest releases and the classic favourites to give you some starting inspiration.

2/5

Contagion

[SCIENCE &TECH]

If your throat hurts, and you’re suppressing a cough, maybe it wouldn't be a good idea to see 'Contagion' about a lethal pandemic. Otherwise head down to you local cinema for a disaster movie with a difference: biological pathogens made sexy with Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow. ‘Contagion’ is in cinemas now See contagionmovie.warnerbros.com for trailer and cinema listings

3/5

A Beautiful Mind [ACADEMIA]

The Academy Award-winning film starring Russell Crowe as real-life mathematician and economist John Forbes Nash, a Nobel Laureate and paranoid schizophrenic. The film features gorgeous views of Princeton University and gives viewers a glimpse into the culture of elite academic research. Definitely qualifies as an example of superior storytelling, and it's certainly gripping. A must-see from Academia. Available now on DVD Currently on sale at HMV

justlefthome founder Tomo Delaney. Photo courtesy of Tomo Delaney

ple walk into your shop tomorrow. Damn you Zuckerberg!! And ﬁnally, what’s the next step for the site? World domination of the handdrawn-networking-and-snoggingsite arena, but I need to monetize it ﬁrst. I've been lucky in not needing it to generate an income immediately: I've been able to retain the aesthetic by not cramming lots of banner ads everywhere. But it will need to make money soon. I need a business partner actually, anyone fancy a challenge? Visit justle"home.com to sign up and learn more

4/5

We Need to Talk about Kevin [PSYCHOLOGY]

What do you do if your son has just committed a school massacre of columbine proportions? The story picks up here: We follow a grieving and repentant mother as she retraces the steps leading to her son’s psychopathic outburst. Adapted from the 2003 Novel by Lionel Shriver, the film displays a surprisingly subtle level of psychological complexity, not needing to slip into a brutal mode to convey its point. But why did he do it? ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’is in cinemas now See weneedtotalkaboutkevin.co.uk for trailer and cinema listings

5/5

Pirates of Silicon Valley [ENTREPREUNERSHIP]

You might think a tech movie from the late nineties based on the early seventies is no longer relevant. Well, Pirates of Silicon Valley is the exception not the rule. An engaging historical-fiction it looks at the development of Apple and Microsoft combined with an intriguing character study of two of the most extraordinary individuals of our modern technological era. The title is a pun referencing the idea of unethically 'pirating' the computer developments of other engineers and candidly similar to the current patent wars raging between Apple and Samsung. After all DaVinci did say “good artists create, great artists steal” Available now on DVD

VOLUME 32 ISSUE 4 LONDON STUDENT

Are you made of the start-up stuﬀ? Writer Martyn Hopwood

ple should have the opportunity to buy and cherish. If you love your product, your passion will shine through - you’ll find it easier to get investment, you’ll find it easier to sell your product and subsequently you’ll succeed.

trappings of what you think that kind of life entails - plus an Aston Martin to charge around town in - I’ll see you down at the job centre. You might get lucky; your start-up could be such a runaway success that you can flog it for a relaxed five million quid after three years. But sadly, life isn’t usually like this. Start a business because you have something to offer, a concept that may change the way people do things or a product to sell that you genuinely feel peo-

Think of it like the course you’re studying at university: if you’re not passionate about the subject you’re working on its unlikely you’ll get a first. The same notion applies to your product. As well as a product you love (bearing in mind, as a student you’re not likely to be that erudite and experienced when it comes navigating the flesh-eating recession imbued world of 21st century capitalism), to ensure success you need an experienced mentor, a business coach who is right for you and under-

stands your business. A good mentor should be the guiding trailblazer who will shine a light on the track through the murky uncertain world of your nascent venture. Another vital element for startup success is being economical with the company’s finances - be pragmatic and cautious. Remember you don’t need to rent that super trendy converted warehouse office space in Shoreditch with the Mauro Lipparini lime green sofa. Think about renting the cheap office space on Tottenham high street with the brown threadbare carpet. Not glamorous, but realistic. Be resourceful, for example, instead of outsourcing your Enroll on a marketing to a marketing firm, enroll on course and do a marketing the marketing course and do yourself the marketing yourself. Avoid drawing a wage until you have bountiful sales. Every penny a start-up makes needs to be reinvested. So if you’re positive you have a great product which you love, possess the drive and tenacity to see things through, and you’re settled and happy - perhaps you just might get that Aston Martin. And don’t forget to be wary of rapacious vultures that’ll be all too willing to hijack your concept, roll out an identikit version and eat your breakfast.

Writer Jessica Oﬀer

despairing a li9le over their job prospects. However, TheJobCrowd.com offers current students planning their future careers and new graduates applying for jobs a uniquely accurate picture of what working for a company really entails (warts and all!) giving applicants the opportunity to set themselves apart from their contemporaries. Reviewers are asked to share their experiences on what the job actually involves, what skills and qualifications they need to be great at their job and, crucially, what advice they would give to future applicants. They also provide ratings on a range of issues that most ma9er to applications such as responsibility levels, salary and career progression. The unrivalled online review database provides a realistic portrait of what a job in truth is like. Students and graduates can then use these reviews to tailor their applications and hone their interview technique to differentiate themselves from those candidates whose research is limited to the official company information.

The site was founded in 2010 by two recent graduates themselves – from King’s College and Oxford University –and has already notched up a huge number of successes, winning and being shortlisted for a range of awards (most recently including Website of The Year ). Thousands of students now visit the site each week and success stories of applicants who have used the site to help them land a job have poured in. Masters graduate, Dana Mayer, from University College London, praised the website saying “it eased the stress of researching career options and allowed me to gain impartial insights into the jobs I was applying for. I can say, now that I am in full time employment, that the website descriptions were appropriate and truthful. I would recommend this resource to anyone researching... their ﬁrst job.” Whilst, LSE Careers Information and Research Manager, Kezia Richmond, concurs by stating that TheJobCrowd “provides the valuable, hard to come by information that can help students to make well consid-

Are you happy where you are? Are you quite sure that you don’t have an itch to hop on the 16.40 BA flight to Buenos Aires to embark on that motorbike adventure across the Argentine countryside? The reality is, when you start a business, you’re in for the long run. Furthermore, you’re committed - think along the lines of getting married or signing up for a mortgage. If you The reality is, want to get when you start a into busibusiness, you’re ness purely in for the long to get rich run. Furthermore, quick, or beyou’re committed cause you think along the want the life lines of getting of a married or signsybaritic ing up for a mortp l a y b o y gage with all the

Flickr user: M.Angel Herrero

Gripping Writer Carolina Mostert

Everybody knows about Groupon. If you don’t, type ‘Groupon’ into any Google page- to get the picture, read the very first link at the top of the page, Groupon Deal of the Day: Find Great Deals on Fun Things to Do. Nowadays, there are many contrasting views on the website’s success. According to recent research (October 2011) Groupon and -more specifically- its business model is a “disaster”, an example of “how fast an internet darling can “How fast an fall”. Yet, internet darling on the concan fall” t r a r y , F o r b e s Magazine and The Wall Street Journal praise the company for how it is “on pace to make $1billion faster than any other business, ever”. Groupon reminds me of Facebook. In a way, I think it is the Facebook of selling and buying, a Facebook in which Friends are the customers and Profiles are the deals; instead of people, the stalking is of discounts. Groupon is similar to Facebook because it wants one to be social, social in an almost creepy way. With Facebook one can go through the Friends of friends, scroll down the list of names of Friends of Friends of his friends and feel connected, feel part of the endless chain of digital friendship. With Groupon, one gets the discount only if the so called ‘tipping point’ is reached: a certain

ered choices and ultimately, stronger applications. I regularly recommend it to our students and alumni.” Employers are also reporting that applicants using the site are much be9er prepared for interviews and the job itself because they know what they are entering into. In a turbulent economic time TheJobCrowd is constructing a ﬁxture to anaesthetise student’s worry by giving them inside advice in order to help them land the perfect job. Users are also able to submit comments to review writers in order to ask follow up questions and tips, opening a huge professional contact base for everyone to tap into. Natasha Freeman, co-founder of TheJobCrowd summarises by saying: “We set up TheJobCrowd in the hope of equipping students and graduates with the real information they need in order to stand out from the crowd when applying for their dream job. With so many applicants per place, it is more important than ever for applicants to both cast their net as widely as possible and to have an ap-

number of people must request the same discount or deal in order for it to be activated, and these people are many. In this way, no one will ever be the only fool falling for that discount, he will never feel that ‘all the others’ are going for something elseit just doesn’t happen. Risks diminish and, in a way, so do chances. If one goes to that restaurant, that cinema, it’s because enough people chose the same- Groupon gets you in the group, ties you into the chain. A bit like Facebook, it makes sure the fun is always there, keeps it safe. Reading about young people dropping out of university and launching popular start-ups makes me –jealous, yes- wonder. If Andrew Mason (Groupon founder), when interviewed, states “I never considered myself an entrepreneur or set out to launch a billion dollar coupon company”, I wonder when such an achievement looks like an accident. As many other dreamers, I want to hear about Mason’s sleepless nights and hard work, about his ‘eureka!’ moment when this coupon-realization hit him. Yet, it didn’t go like that: this deal & discounts business wasn’t a seizing inspiration. Ironically, it seems as if Groupon, for Mason, was bound to happen: “if I could get a deal on whatever my impulse was, whenever my impulse struck, and it was nearby, I would use that all the time. It would reshape the way that I shop." And it sure did, for the millions of people who, in this very moment, are looking through all his coupons.

Entrepreneurial graduates create award-winning job website to help other students stand out from the crowd As struggling economic woes loom over the nation and its students, the award-winning website TheJobCrowd.com is taking a novel approach to help students and graduates secure a job. The website hosts anonymous job reviews, wri9en by recent graduates now working at top companies. This self-confessed “TripAdvisor for graduate jobs” is making a real difference to graduate job prospects by giving applicants an inside view of graduate employers and careers to help them stand out from the crowd in their applications. With recent ﬁgures released by The Oﬃce for National Statistics charting that the UK unemployment has soared from 114,000, between June and August 2011, to 2.57 million; and the Association of Graduate Recruiters reporting that the number of applicants, per graduate place, has risen to an all time high of 83 applicants per vacancy , soon-to-be graduates could be forgiven for

TheJobCrowd's founders: Natasha Freeman and Keren Mitchell

plication which stands out. We are delighted that the huge range of insider reviews on the site provide graduates with exactly that.” The founders are aiding students and graduates land their perfect job by helping them ﬁnd a way to stand out in the busy 'JobCrowd'. Visit thejobcrowd.com to ﬁnd out more and try it for yourself

VOLUME 32 ISSUE 4 LONDON STUDENT

Research in Brief

Tube Tips

ROYAL HOLLOWAY [NEUROSCIENCE]

Researchers have found that listening to positive music helps people tolerate invasion of their personal space. In the study, a stranger approached the participants while they listened to either positive or negative music through their headphones, and they would say “stop” when they felt uncomfortable. The results, published in PLoS One, showed that positive music listeners allowed the stranger closer, indicating it is possible to shrink personal space. This research could help make your packed commute more bearable.

Saving Lives UCL [MEDICINE]

Many intensive care patients suffer from a shortage of oxygen (hypoxia), but now scientists have discovered that promoting the body’s production of nitric oxide (NO) could improve their recovery. As climbing to extreme altitudes also restricts oxygen supply, researchers from UCL and the University of Warwick analysed blood samples collected from the 2007 Caudwell Xtreme Everest expedition. They found that the body responds by increasing levels of NO in the blood. Published in Scientific Reports, the research suggests that drugs,or procedures that replicate this chemical change could help intensive care patients.

Animals Shrinking With Ice Caps QUEEN MARY [EARTH SCIENCE]

Scientists have published details in The American Naturalist suggesting global warming could have profound implications on entire foodwebs and ecosystems, because of the ‘temperature-size rule’, which almost all cold-blooded organisms are affected by. Funded by the Natural Environment Research Council the study found that growth and development rates are ‘decoupled’ so that this delicate relationship is threatened. Worryingly, this means, in a warming world, animals mature too fast and don’t reach normal size.

Fecal Phones QUEEN MARY [HEALTH]

One in six mobile phones in Britain are contaminated with E.coli derived from faecal matter. Scientists from the LSHTM and Queen Mary collected 390 samples from mobile phones, and people’s hands, in 12 cities across the UK. Analysis showed E.coli was present on phones and hands in every location, however there was a clear North-South divide, with Glasgow labelled the dirtiest city. Experts say the most likely reason for finding the harmful bacteria on gadgets is people failing to wash their hands properly with soap after going to the toilet.

Chrissie Jones

The Science of...Environment Writer David Simpson

We never seem more than a moment away from further bad news concerning the Earth’s climate. Especially regarding the damage we are inflicting on our ecosystem from pollution. However, research published this month has suggested we may have underestimated the protective role of our tall, green, forest friends. Carbon dioxide, as we all know by now, is a particularly nasty greenhouse gas. It absorbs infrared radiation and prevents it escaping back into space, causing the slow warming of our planet. Human contribution to atmospheric CO2 comes as a result of burning fossil fuels and deforestation (so plants can’t help remove the CO2 we add). The future is unequivocally fixed: CO2 levels will continue to rise. Since 1997, a team of ecologists led by Professor Donald Zak from the University of Michigan, have been simulating the expected atmospheric conditions of the future (2050 to be precise), by exposing trees to elevated levels of CO2 to see if they could reverse it. For 12 years, a 38 acre experimental forest in Wisconsin home to trembling aspen, paper birch and sugar maple trees - was pumped with CO2 to observe the effects. Previously, studies have shown that exposure to CO2 can cause a fast growth spurt in trees and increased absorption of CO2. However, this is a short-lived effect, limited by the trees ability to extract larger amounts of essential nitrogen from the soil. Zak and his team were surprised to find that the trees actually demonstrated continual growth for the entire 12 years, and so were able to soak up more of the CO2 over a longer period. From year 9 onwards the trees exposed to elevated CO2 showed 26% more growth than trees ex-

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Pollution in London Flickr.com/ epeigne37

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Self Healing Plastic?

Salman Ghani looks at how plastics that can heal their own cracks will benefit us in the future: It is well known that fluid flow in natural vascular systems is driven by a pump, more specifically the heart. This fluid travels along a vast network of vessels sustaining a healthy system... Read more at london-student.net

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posed to normal atmospheric levels. "Under elevated carbon dioxide, the trees did a bet“trees in the ter job of ge6ing Greater London nitrogen out of the area are saving soil, and there was us from inhaling more of it for other damaging partiplants to use," Zak cles. Estmated to explained. The contribute 1.9% trees grew lots of of urban deaths.” smaller roots creating a larger surface area for obtaining nitrogen. These results suggest there are feedback mechanisms by which plant life can help to buﬀer changes in atmospheric CO2 levels. Yet, these aren’t being taken into account when making predictions about climate change. "Some of the initial assumptions about ecosystem response are not correct and will have to be revised," says Zak.

Back home on our polluted city streets, scientists have discovered trees in the Greater London area are saving us from inhaling between 852 and 2121 tonnes of damaging particles a year. These tiny particles, known as PM10, have been estimated to contribute to 1.9% of urban deaths according to the UK department of health. The research, carried out by Dr Ma6hew Tallis from the University of Southampton, is able to show just how significant the benefit of more urban trees would have on future air quality. "Trees have evolved to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, so it's not surprising that they are also good at removing pollutants. Trees that have leaves the whole year are exposed to more pollution and so they take up more. Using a number of different tree species and modelling approaches, the effectiveness of the tree canopy for clean air can be optimised."

After this week’s disaster themed issue we lighten the load. Look out for features on how cannabis evolved from the non-drug hemp, and we explain the Science of...lightspeed in student terms.

quake.

inevitable that the villages and towns in

distinct in some ways.

in L’Aquila, immediately a5er the earth-

LS What were your ﬁrst impressions on

arriving?

most productive land agriculturally, so it’s

central Italy are going to be on these so5

Harriet Jarlett Currently studying an MSc in Science Communication at Imperial College. Rachel Mundy A 'Science Communication' student at Royal Holloway.

Next Issue

uncertainty – these things really are quite LS What exactly is the diﬀerence between

sediments. That goes for much of the area

risk and uncertainty?

many of the historic buildings had come

largest earthquake in terms of death toll

cal calculation of the risk of an earth-

where there had been old-style, historic

died in 1915.

devastated the medieval Italian city of

of loss of life – the village populations

government oﬃcial from Italy’s Com-

leaving 65,000 people homeless. In October

numbers of homeless people living in

for manslaughter a5er, in the eyes of their

the threat of natural disasters in Italy, went

LS Do we know what caused the earth-

Writer James Lloyd

On April 6 2009, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake

L'Aquila, killing more than 300 people and 2011, seven experts responsible for evaluating

on trial, charged with manslaughter. James Lloyd spoke to Peter Sammonds, Director of the UCL Institute for Risk & Disaster Re-

duction.

LS Did you travel to L’Aquila a5er the earthquake?

PSYes, I had a student who was doing her PhD on earthquake faulting in the

Apennine Mountains and we both

joined up with the Earthquake Engi-

neering Field Investigation Team (EEFIT)

PS L’Aquila itself was a complete mess – down. In the surrounding villages, buildings, there was a huge proportion

were quite small. There were also huge

tent cities around the place.

– L’Aquila is nothing special in that. The was in Avezzano, where 30,000 people

LS Six leading Italian scientists and one mission of Grand Risks are now on trial prosecutors, failing to provide adequate information about the threat of an immi-

quake?

nent earthquake. These charges have

ered in active faults, and L’Aquila has

community, with more than 5,000 scien-

PS The whole area of central Italy is cov-

been destroyed on previous occasions

largely been condemned by the scientiﬁc tists signing an open le6er to Italian Pres-

PSYou can sit down and make a statisti-

quake, and the damage it will do to an area in terms of the vulnerability of that

area. That’s a sort of risk assessment - like

the one undertaken for central Italy, in terms of the -frequency and magnitude of historical earthquakes, and the implica-

tions for the amount of damage that can be done to modern cities.

Then there’s the uncertainty, in the sense

that maybe you don’t know where all the faults are, and you only have short obser-

vational records (hundreds of years),

historically, so there’s no surprise that

ident Giorgio Napolitano in support of

compared to the earthquake cycle (can be

the vicinity.

earthquake risk is clearly a sticky issue.

I think this is where the problems have re-

there should be another earthquake in LS Is L’Aquila more prone to earth-

quakes because it’s partially situated on

the defendants. Communication about How do you think this kind of informa-

tion can be be6er communicated to the

an ancient lake bed?

general public?

where glacial lakes have formed is the

people don’t understand well: risk and

PS In these mountainous areas, the land

PS I think there are two concepts which

thousands of years).

ally arisen – the scientists were making their assessment of the risk, using the best

information, but they didn’t communicate successfully the uncertainty about their statements.

LONDON STUDENT VOLUME 32 ISSUE 4

Monkey Business Writer Antonio Torrisi

The touchscreen quiz in the centre of the “Who Am I?” gallery at the Science Museum, London, asks you to correctly remember a series of yellow spots among a uniform background of pink spots. Whatever the outcome of your performance, the computer will comment: “A chimpanzee would have performed better, because they have a much greater memory than humans.” In September of this year two scientists; Joel Fagot, from the Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive (CNRS/Université de Provence), France, and Roger Thompson, from the Franklin and Marshall College, US, published work in the journal Psychological Science, which demonstrates that baboons, alongside their excellent memories, are capable of reasoning through analogies. For a long time researchers have believed that this type of reasoning was strictly related to the development of verbal language. For this reason, it was deemed exclusively a trait of humans, however the recent research shows this is not the case. The scientists conducted an experiment in which they showed a reference image of two identical shapes (e.g. two squares) to baboons. After touching the reference image, another pair of shapes was displayed on the

same screen, but the images were of two unidentical shapes (e.g. one triangle and one star). Crucially, a third pair of shapes was also displayed, which had the same type of relationship between the two objects in the first image (e.g. two ovals). The monkeys were presented with a choice: select “A the image that chimpanzee has two objects would have that are the performed same, or the better, beimage with cause they two objects have a much that are differgreater mement from each ory than huother, to remans.” ceive a food reward. If the animal, after several repetitions and different sequences, selects the object pair that has the correct type of relationship (same or different) to that between the reference object pair, it has made an analogy. After an intensive learning period, six out of 29 baboons could make the right associations, and could exclude images that represented the wrong relationship between the two shapes, even if one of the illustrated shapes was the same as in the reference image. Furthermore, after a pause of one year, the experiment was repeated with the same baboons and they relearned the analogy-reasoning mechanism much faster. The analogy reasoning recently

Volcanic KATastrophe Writer Hugh Osbourne

One of Iceland’s most dangerous volcanoes, Katla, has been stirring in the last few days and volcanologists think it could be the next volcano to bring European air travel to a standstill. Jon Frimann, an Icelandic volcanologist, said: “When an eruption might start is still a mystery.” The beautiful geysers, bubbling

hot springs, and impressive volcanoes that make Iceland a tourist hot-spot have also proved to be a source of frustration for holidaymakers. Powerful volcanic eruptions, in 2010 and 2011, closed UK airspace and stranded thousands of passengers abroad. And it looks like it could happen all over again as another volcano shows signs of life. On October 5, the ground beneath the Katla volcano in southern Ice-

Katla (seen in the top left corner) may have been affected by last years eruption. www.flikr.com/geologistatfault

Events under the microscope A London Science Festival Special

Your Days Numbered

Are

EVENT REVIEW [ICL] Reviewed by Victoria Druce

Are analogies no longer a purely human trait? flickr.com/ epSos.de

discovered by Joel Fagot and Roger ThompSix out of 29 son, is particub a b o o n s larly important could make in transferring the right knowledge associations; from one field excluding to another. Sciimages that entists, from represented the Duke Centhe wrong retre for lationship beCognitive tween the two Neuroscience, shapes. demonstrated in 2007 that monkeys can perform mental addition (Science Daily – December

20, 2007) and in 2009 scientists, from Emory University, also discovered that monkeys, like humans, use parallel mechanisms to recognise faces (Science Daily – July 12, 2009), a process that enables us to form relationships and interact appropriately with others. The most recent discovery of the analogy-reasoning capability of monkeys demonstrates that this ability is not necessarily related to the use of spoken language as previously thought, and suggests a higher cognitive stage in the evolution of monkeys has been reached by this species.

land, began to shake from a series of tremors. Geologists have linked this earthquake swarm to the movement of magma beneath the volcano. Activity at the ice-covered volcano has increased throughout the summer with numerous earthquakes and at least two glacial floods. These dangerous glacial outbursts, or jokulhlaups, are thought to be caused by hot volcanic rock melting part of the Myrdalsjokull ice cap above. Despite the earthquake activity Erik Klemmetti, geoscientist at Denison University, said: “So far, there is no indication of a new eruption or flood, but it does show that things are still very active under the ice at Katla.” When the unpronounceable Eyjafjallajokul volcano erupted in April 2010, it released 250 million cubic meters of ash into the atmosphere, causing havoc with air travel. UK air space was shut for 6 days, 107,000 flights across Europe were cancelled and the airline industry was reported to have lost over £1bn. Many criticised the aviation industry and UK government of being under-prepared and over safety conscious. The worry is that an

eruption from Katla could cause even more damage. Many believe the volcano, which erupts roughly every 80 years, is overdue for an eruption. The last time Katla awakened in October 1918, the eruption lasted for nearly a month and produced three times more material than Eyjafjallajokul. The resulting ash devastated crops and livelihoods across Iceland. Even this pales in comparison to the huge eruption of 934AD which produced more than 23 billion cubic metres of material, and led to severe winters across northern Europe. Dr Adrian Jones, a geologist at University College London, said “these seismic tremors suggest magmatic activity is now building, and an eruption looks very likely”. The movement of molten rock beneath the surface of the volcano does not always indicate an eruption will occur. Jon Frimann explained: “Magma can go on the move at any time, without any warning at all. So monitoring Katla is important.” If an eruption does occur we can only hope that lessons have been learned from Eyjafjallajokul in 2010.

Witty and relaxed, Matt Parker (a selfstyled “stand up mathematician”) seamlessly combined comedy and calculations. Opening the show with a mental maths challenge went down well with the audience and the show continued in the same vein. At one point they used intellectual banter to compliment a statistical analysis of death-rate probabilities in the UK (less morbid than it sounds). Even a joke about Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle wasn't out of place, drawing a cheer from the Imperial College crowd. However, there was a lull as the performance reached its halfway point the combination of comedy and statistics made more of a clumsy marriage than in opening stages of the show. Heavy-handed and predictable gags seemed too obviously dumbed down for the sold out auditorium at Imperial College, and stood at odds with more data-heavy sections. Despite this, the creative and comedic use of props worked well, delivering laughs and breaking up occasionally overwhelming statistics. The duo, who have performed to critical acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe, had a genuine rapport with the audience and their inspired and unusual show was well worth the £7.50 ticket. Their tour, planned for 2012, is definitely one to look out for.

Closing Arguments EVENT REVIEW [UCL] Reviewed by Sophie Williams

As London’s successful science festival came to a close, it ended on a high note with Matt Melis speaking about the 30 lessons learned from Spaceflight. Beginning the talk, Melis took the crowd through shuttle-life and the audience were treated to exclusive photos and videos explaining how a shuttle is built. He then discussed the Columbia disaster, the investigation in which Melis was involved. Passing around some of the failed components, including insulation foam (the same type that broke during re-entry), gave everyone time to reflect on the risks involved with space travel. Melis had a way of really engaging everyone in what he was saying and he was a pleasure to listen to. His enthusiasm for the Space Shuttle was incredible and the talk just didn’t seem long enough. The audience were more than happy to stay longer, listening to his views and encouraging him to elaborate as he answered questions. He was cheered as he finished his talk and surprised everyone by handing out giant NASA stickers (something the space-loving crowd appreciated). And so the science festival drew to an end, but what an end it was

VOLUME 32 ISSUE 4 LONDON STUDENT

Why are Psychologists deprived of the Nobel Prize? Writer Julie Jo University College London

ogy in particular, were an alien subject to many and far from the customary practice of “had” science. It is only since Nobel's death that so-

Sigmund Freud vs Alfred Nobel Photo: CoinArchives.com

In 1895 Alfred Nobel wrote his will rewarding those who provide “greatest benefit on mankind”. He decided to annually give 'instant recognition, lifelong celebrity, and unrivalled authority around the world' to those who excel in the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine or physiology, literature and peace, as said by the science historian, Burton Feldman. He just forgot to mention psychology. In fact, social sciences all together. Nobel is not to blame for ignoring the social sciences -- he was a man of his time. In the late nineteenth century, social science, and psychol-

cial science has taken a more scientific structure and research evidence become fundamental. There have been steps toward recognising social sciences by including a sister prize for economics. This Nobel Memorial

Prize in Economic Sciences was formed in 1969. Although it is not a Nobel Prize, to many people the economy award is no less prestigious than the Nobel Prizes. Why then is psychology still not recognised in the Prizes? Is it the case that the study of economics provides a greater benefit to mankind than the study of psychology? Psychology has saved and improved people's lives around the world. Studies in psychopathology for example, have lessened the stigmas and misconceptions of psychological disorders and addressed the psychological and physiological

roots of the disorders. No longer are people with schizophrenia accused and punished for “witchcraft” or “madness”. The study of psychology can also explain how the present culture of

He just forgot to mention psychology. In fact, social sciences all together.

fast-food, media and fashion has driven obesity, diabetes and anorexia. Today's problems are social whereas in Nobel’s time they were focused on disease and death. Psychology addresses these social roots of the issues and phenomena. If understood, they can be addressed to prevent the by-products in the form of health problems. This shows that in today's world, psychology is just as important as medicine (let's not forget clinical psychology). Come and check out the UCL Psychology department if you are not yet convinced. Who is to blame for the continued ignorance and prejudice towards psychology? Those smart-looking guys the Nobel Organizations? The growing role of psychology in understanding social behaviour suggests that the Nobel community should have made efforts to recog-

nise the discipline. Wasn’t it the very wish of Nobel to reward those that benefited mankind? Admittedly, social sciences were omitted by him, but having been a scientist himself, he would understand the evolving nature of the scientific world and how important it is to support this. However, we must be practical. It is unlikely that Psychology will have its place in the Nobel world as a recent declaration has stated that after the Economic Sciences award no other prizes will be added on. Perhaps it is not the Nobel Prize and its policies that need to change but how we perceive the Nobel Prize. Since Nobel’s death, science has evolved, and so has psychology. Social sciences are dynamic and responsive to the changing conditions

Since Nobel’s death, science has evolved, and so has psychology.

of society. In contrast, the Nobel Prize is stuck in tradition having been based on the opinion of one man. Maybe it is not a bad thing that there is no dedicated Nobel Prize for psychology – after all wasn’t it Pavlov, on of the greatest contributors to psychology, who taught us that we can condition ourselves not to be slaves of meritocracy?

Lack of cultural interest in Engineering and Science is alarming Writer Alireza S. Nejad

Yes, this is one of the examples of the astonishing actions in the field of science and technology in Britain, particularly at King’s College London. And honestly, it is more like a comedy drama than an integrated plan. We open our eyes in the morning and we hear that everything continues working properly, just without the science. The question is, why should one employ practical cuts on science and engineering in one of the leading research universities in UK, while the government keeps saying that we need to have more people on science and technology? The importance of this subject has even mentioned by Barack Obama, the US President, during his speech to British parliament in May 2011: “…we will have to redouble our investments in science and engineering, and renew our national commitments to educating our workforces.” Unfortunately, we have to face the unpleasant statistics: with 11.2% increase in engineering students from 2002 to 2008, the UK’s global share of scientific publications in engineering has been decreased from 7%

Financial Times Reporter -What was the main reason of the closure of the engineering division?

KCL Spokesman -There are great engineering schools elsewhere in London. The department was wasting money. (11/05/10) in 2002 to 5.5% in 2008. It has happened because there are some pure business views on education, when quantity plays a more important role than the quality. Moreover, when we hear that a nation-wide TV

Professor Mark Miodownik presents the 2011 Royal Institution Christmas Lecture on BBC 4, which is likely to be cut from2012.

channel, BBC 4, announces that science TV programming is to be cut completely, do we expect any in-

crease of interest in science and technology in our society? This becomes extremely relevant when one thinks on youngsters choosing their future pathways in life. So, is the future of engineering in danger? Or is it the case that most of the engineering graduates go to work in financial services? Fortunately, a recent study by Engineering UK shows that about nine out of ten of E&T graduates entering employment begin careers as Engineers and Technicians and only 3.1% go to work for an employer in financial services. The truth is that we are concerned about making innovating products and new services. Britain does not want to lose its place in the global economy and market. And more importantly, it does not want to see the decrease in number of high skilled people. If Higher Education does not provide high skilled graduates in science and technology or does not provide a secure job for science lecturers, then we cannot expect to have more

innovative people and progressive ideas in our society. Secondly, we need to support the promotion of science and technology because they are the cornerstones of innovation, discoveries and social and economic development. As an example, how many institutions of University of London

We need to support the promotion of science and technology because they are the cornerstones of innovation.

have got student publications or media groups specifically devoted to science and technology? At the same time we need to find out how many and what types of engineering a world economy leader such as the UK needs and then review the engineering curricula and teaching methods, enhance laboratories and library resources. Therefore, by implementing the brain power of our future engineers we can have a better livelihood and stable economy. It is then extremely important to monitor all the changes and policies for science and technology, as Evan Davis, BBC's economics editor says: “creativity and innovation are life blood of British economy.”

WHAT’S ON:

Brain food and entertainment around UoL FIND OUT MORE

How we perceive and live with risk and uncertainty

Speaker: Professor Gudela Grote, ETH Zurich

Some fundamental features of risk perception, decision-making under uncertainty and organising for high reliability are presented and consequences for risk management discussed.

Time: November 2, 5.30-6.30pm Place: Clore Lecture Theatre, Huxley Building, Imperial.

CHALLENGE YOURSELF

Against nature? Homosexuality and evolution

Speaker:Professor Volker Sommer , UCL Anthropology

Same-sex sexual behaviour is o3en condemned on the grounds that it is "against nature". Yet homosexual behaviour is widespread - not only amongst humans, but other animals alike, be they flamingos, gorillas, dolphins or bisons. Doesn't this constitute a paradox for Darwinian theory?

Time: November 17, 1.15-1.55pm Place: Darwin Lecture Theatre, UCL EXPLORE

Art Night at the Museum

The medical artists and illustrators association will talk us through medical illustrations over time.. “Autopoiesis: Paintings and drawings of imaginary biological processes and forms” Time: November 9, 5.30 pm Place: Pathology Museum, St. Bartholomew's Hospital, West Smithfield

Proofreading/Proposal Writing Services

Need urgent help with editing / proofreading your Masters or PhD assignments/thesis/research proposals? We provide a stress free service in track mode. Charges: £15 for 1000 words. We have edited 1000's of essays- so why not improve your chances of a be4er grade now? Contact our experienced and professional team: info@phdentry.com. More info: www.phdentry.com

LONDON STUDENT VOLUME 32 ISSUE 4

London Listens

Dr Saul Hillman works as a psychologist at The Anna Freud Centre/ University College London. He also has his own practice as a hypnotherapist/life coach/NLP practitioner.

NEXT ISSUE

The unbearable darkness of being

We will be looking at addiction. Please email me with any letters or experiences you have in this or any other area

Saul can be contacted on 07939 523 025 or saulhillman@blueyonder.co.uk. For more information and resources visit www.saulhillmantherapy.com Animals react to season changes with shi4s in mood, metabolism and behaviour just like we do. For many, the changes are mild and may just mean eating or sleeping a bit more, whilst for others, the dark mornings and short days can be the onset of what is sometimes referred to as the 'winter blues'. This is a recognised problem known as Seasonal Aﬀective Disorder (SAD). Additionally, there may be a whole variety of other symptoms including depression/ anxiety, lethargy, loss of concentration / libido, mood changes, and physical symptoms. Most of us feel nostalgic at the beginning of Autumn with the sense that Summer and everything that comes with it has been thrown to one side and replaced with darker, colder and we5er weather. Indeed, this time of the year can also hold great resonance with us when recalling our own childhood and the long and smothering sense that the change in routine brings. Epidemiological surveys show that nearly 30 per cent of people nearly 30 per experience a nocent of people ticeable loss of experience a energy between noticeable October and loss of energy March and, in between Octonearly 10 per ber and March cent of these

cases, the symptoms are serious enough to be described as depression, with women and young people more likely to be aﬀected. The lack of bright light in winter causes an increase in the production of Melatonin (the hormone that makes us sleepy at night), and a reduction of Serotonin, the lack of which causes depression. Until about 200 years ago we tended to work outdoors whilst nowadays less than 10% of the population work in natural outdoor light. Whilst this is ﬁne in the Sum-

mer months when there are longer -daylight hours, in the Winter months, people tend to go to work in the dark and go home in the dark and don't enough natural daylight. A combination of a change in seasonal light, our lifestyles and the periods of darker days and poorer weather, can result in dramatic effects on our circadian rhythms. As a direct consequence of these environ-

Don’t resign yourself to the depression of winter’s wet dark days. Flickr User drosen7900

mental and lifestyle factors more people are affected than in previous times. Depression amongst young adults has been steadily increasing for years and it is now 5 to 8 times more likely for young people to meet the criteria for suffering from depression or anxiety than it was half a century ago. Though depression has many triggers and causes, our moods are naturally affected by changes in season and climate. Solutions: Light therapy itself is highly recommended with light boxes providing illumination roughly five times brighter than a well-lit office. These can alleviate symptoms associated with SAD and benefit almost everyone with increased energy levels. Light boxes vary in price from £100 up to more than £300. There are other cheaper

resources available on www.sad.co.uk including alarm clocks which simulate sunrise and sunset. Besides exposure to light, there are countless strategies to beat the blues, and in relation to the seasonal changes, it is advisable to prepare oneself sooner rather than later. In many ways, we need to accept the shorter, darker days, which is very much out of our control given our choice to live where we do. Acceptance is a huge step to managing any problem.

Depression amongst young adults has been steadily increasing for years In addition, we can do the following to help: Get outside - go outdoors in natural daylight as much as possible, especially at midday and on bright days. Exposure to bright sunlight for 30 minutes a day helps keep your internal clock set. Keep warm - being cold itself can exacerbate low feelings. It’s also been shown that staying warm can reduce the winter blues by half. Keep warm with hot drinks, hot food, and wearing warm clothes. Eat healthily - a healthy diet will boost mood and provide more energy. It is worth ensuring you eat enough fresh vegetables / fruit and limit alcohol, caffeine and high sugar foods. More research has also shown the benefits of Omega 3 fa5y acids. Sleep –ensure that your sleep routine is conducive to a good night’s rest which can mean engaging in calming activities like reading and taking a warm bath, and not working late or doing stressful activities. There is a huge movement, ‘Action for Happiness’ which promotes positive social change and a focusing on ways in which we can become happier and more fulfilled as individuals, thereby reducing our anxiety and

In Conversation with the Doctor JJ is a final year female student doing a BA at Birkbeck College, London.

PROBLEM: Every year at this time of

the year, I get very depressed by the short, dark days and the cold, depressing weather. It really brings me down and just makes me want to stay in and not go out. Saul I think first thing to remember is that you are not alone in feeling like this. The seasonal change at this time of the year affects millions but I wonder whether staying in is giving in to the problem? JJ I don’t understand what you mean by giving in? Saul Well by staying in, you are almost allowing yourself to be defeated by something. JJ Okay, I get it. But I just don’t feel like doing anything, even going in for lectures. Saul But what I am suggesting is that passivity and resignation are unhelpful, and though the changes in season are out of your control, there is plenty which is within your control. JJ But the weather is terrible! Saul To be fair, it’s not always the case and it’s vital you get out in depression. Many of their tenets of happiness are applicable to our lives for how we can counter the blues. Relationships - it’s well documented that social intercourse is a massive boost to how we feel, so it’s good to engage on a regular basis. Trying Out – we respond well to changes in routine as this acts as a mood li4er. If you keep your mind active with new interests and activities, it can make a difference. Meaning -being part of something can make us feel connected and less alone. Of course, being at university itself is providing you with that but on a smaller scale, it is worth considering societies/clubs/groups that could provide you with further support. Keep active - aerobic exercise at

daylight as this can improve mood levels, as can ge5ing exercise. JJ I do try to go to the gym but less so in the Winter. Saul Well I think it may be even more important in the Winter, so even if it’s brisk walking, or cycling, get out more. JJ I know you are not the first to say these things. Saul It is also really useful to try something like yoga or meditation to help you relax and feel more in control of your state of mind. JJ I’m not very good at that sort of thing. Saul It is important to give these things a try once more as they are proven strategies. You also need to change your way of thinking about the problem. Accept that it’s dark and the days are short, but decide you can handle it! JJ By going outside more and doing exercise. Saul No, not just by doing those things but by doing your best to operate in the way you normally do during the spring/summer – so keep mentally and physically active, see friends, go out and have some fun. JJ I will do that as I’m sick of being like this around others. Saul And remember, talk to your friends about what you’re feeling, that can make a big difference. least 3 times a week allows endorphins to be released regularly. Additionally, it’s also a good way to work through and release stress. Positivity – surround yourself with positive people, thoughts and stimuli (such as music), reflect on past successes and future goals. Above all, accept that it is okay to feel the way you do, you are not alone as this article has hopefully made you realise Talking itself is hugely beneficial in order to make sense of some of the feelings you are experiencing. If this is not possible, there are treatments such as counselling, psychotherapy or cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). See your GP or student counselling services on what's available locally on the NHS and privately.

LONDON LOVES with Aphrodite

VOLUME 32 ISSUE 4 LONDON STUDENT

Justus,

Allison,

Music and communication

Economics & Geography

An American exchange student here

A Dutch student from UCL, Justus-

in London, Allison studies music and

worked for the Bank of America and is

communications, and loves to travel.

president of the largest poker society in London.

Interested in: a talkative but not cocky gentleman.

Interested in: confident, intelligent and independent

The Date: Justus’s Report

Having worked at the local HSBC, the terrain surrounding the petite and atmospheric Real Greek was vaguely familiar. I did however come in an unfashionable five minutes late. First thing to notice; Allison was wearing a charming grey dress and had some flair. Catching her attention, we greeted with a kiss on the cheek. After joking about how we had managed to get ourselves in this situation, the conversation smoothly flowed on to travel. Vargas and Istanbul on her part, Bruges and Istanbul on my part. Conincidentally, Alison is from UNC, the university where my family lived for a semester and I spent my Christmas during my time in the U.S. This lead to a talk about sports; basketball, soccer (the actual association football), football (the one where you throw a egg-shaped ball), and ice hockey, which I brought to a halt reminding her she was not supposed to know so much about sports. Very talkative and ener-

Perfect Date: would be one that I didn’t have to

getic, there was little space for nervousness, awkwardness and somehow attraction. The conversation was full of fillers, most common were the 'oh my gosh' and the food is 'like,' 'really' so 'awesome'. We ordered a carafe of white house wine, Greek salad, potatoes and souvlaki for two as our main course - unusually put in a wrap, but nevertheless as rich in taste and complex in texture as only the most hedonistic of cultures could tolerate. On Alison's request we were moved to couches in a private room. The atmosphere was entertaining and filled with excitement. However London Loves, we must score on the slow side. Potentially the gap to bridge between a Drama and Communications student and an Economics and Geography student; an American and an European, in this case was too much. The opportunity presented itself in the rare moment without speech to make up my mind whether to woo her. The moment passed and I was surprisingly content how it was. We left it with a hug and swapped details at the tube.

plan. I’d let the guy make all the decisions and just enjoy myself. Definite points for creative dates too!

The Date: Alison’s report

I’ve never been on a blind date before, so this was a “first” for me. I was pretty excited though because I like trying new things, so when I was asked if I wanted to go…I thought, “Sure, why not?!” We went to The Real Greek restaurant, a really busy restaurant right in Covent Garden - you know a restaurant is going to be good when it’s packed with locals! When Justus got there he introduced himself and kissed me on the cheek, which I thought was great and slightly hilarious because we don’t really greet each other like that in America. Justus was a really easy going, nice guy, and we started talking right away. We somehow got on the topic of sports, which I know a decent amount about because it is so big in the US. He commented to me, “You know a lot about sports. I was trying to prepare myself to talk about fashion the whole night”! So the lesson there boys, is don’t judge a book by its cover. There are a lot of us girls out there who know a little about a lot of different subjects!

Allison and Justus went to The Real Greek restaurant in Covent Garden. 14 - 15 Hoxton Market London N1 6HG Call on: 020 7739 8212 num bers S n

ged og

d pe

Swa p

women. Dream Date: would be in a tent under heavy rainfalls in beautiful surroundings.

LOVE-O-METRE

The food was fantastic! I’d definitely recommend it. Justus suggested the Souvlaki because he’d been to Greece and said it was really delicious…and he was right! After that we talked about traveling, London, and the fact that I was totally jealous of his new MacBook air! Comically, hetold me my accent was easier to understand compared to a true English accent, because “Americans use smaller words and they don’t know how to whisper”. Slightly offensive to my homeland, but I can take it because it’s totally true. I fit the loud American stereotype…can’t help it. We had a great time and spent hours at the restaurant. The plus side of going out with someone from a different country is that the conversation never fails. For me guys in Europe are very talkative and worldly. It makes for easy, fun conversation. The slight downside is that it can be a little bit difficult to flirt because it’s a little different from country to country I think. Like when he kissed me on the cheek when we met, I was totally unprepared for that, and it can be a little hard to read each others ‘signals’. But if anything I definitely made a good friend, and had a really fun night. I’d go out with him again & it was definitely a good first blind date.

London Haunts:

This issue we welcome our new colum devoted to romantic haunts in the big smoke. Flora Neville tells us why Hampstead is the place to be: It is worth commenting for this little romantic snippet that one person’s romantic mecca is often another’s most horrific, clichéd nightmare. While some get a kick from flowers, others get hayfever. Whatever your inner trappings or temperament and relationship status, head to Hampsted Heath on a crispy, autumnal day for guaranteed romance without the frills. Just a few stops on the northern line transports you from the soulless smoggy city into a magical wonderland of velvety lakes and grassy glades. The Hampsted village itself certainly deserves an amble. Feeling a bit like a model village or an urban version of Hot Fuzz, boutique coffee houses meet expensive shops and low key pubs. The charm of it is understated and simple. When you get to the heath itself don’t settle too hastily in a blind romantic haze. The woods are endless fun to explore and if you wander for long enough you will reach a viewpoint from which you can look over the whole of London’s financial district oddly beautiful in this context. Skinny dipping is a must, though perhaps it would only encourage the sordid reputation of the heath and turn this day of Keats-worthy romance into a Mills and Boon novel... Flora Neville, KCL

Afterthoughts from Aphrodite

Liefde. ἔρως.Love. Congruous in every language, love is something many desire yet few feel they truly understand, and we all express individually. This week’s pair certainly tested the cross-continental potentials of love, and although didn’t find the evening led to immediate romance, they were able to embrace φιλία, the love of frienship. Perhaps that is the most one can ask from a first, and totally blind date. Perhaps one of our couples will soon find more...

If you are a Lonely Londoner and fancy some good old fashioned company and a free meal, do contact Afrodite at: love@londonstudent.net with your name, age, university and 3 words to describe you. Find some Liefde today....

LONDON STUDENT VOLUME 32 ISSUE 4

London Student Comedy: Meeting Alun Cochrane Writer Jon Brunton Sub-editor

“You’re from Hull, eh? People often think I’m from Hull, but I’m not”. The opening exchanges with stand-up Alun Cochrane did much to set the essence of our interview, indeed, it even resonated to his recent show, with Cochrane coming across as someone who feels the need Cochrane is to explain not a comehimself, to dian that you prevent comwill expect to ing across as see filling someone else. the O2 anyIn the opening time soon, stages of his but this is set, Cochrane not an issue explains that, of popularity. whilst he may

be a misanthrope, he is far from an angry man of early middle age – there is a difference, apparently.

Cochrane is not a comedian that you will expect to see filling the O2 anytime soon, but this is not an issue of popularity. Indeed, Cochrane’s self-confessed

prospective guilt at causing a traffic jam generated by such a large gig, is the reason why he would be reluctant to embrace the cash-cow that is a stadium tour. This is a comedian that is thoughtful, considered, and a lot more subtle than many give him credit for, and Cochrane is a great exponent of the more thoughtful side of observational comedy, erring more towards the deconstruction of the observation, akin more to Stewart Lee than Michael McIntyre. The middle-aged mores of a northerner are fully explored in his show, Moments of Alun, ranging from innocuous, though imbecilic suggestions from his “moronic” friends, to the flat-out rejection of theoretical debate, and to the philosophical thought one can give to the everyday whilst sat in a Virgin Trains quiet coach.

His month-long Edinburgh stint enjoyed a near sell-out run, and you can tell that he is still enthused from his reception in Edinburgh: “The thing is, my set isn’t really a set of jokes, just me talking about things, and yet I still managed to almost fill the place every night”. The thing

that struck me most about Cochrane was his humble nature, and you get the sense that, despite being on the circuit for almost ten years, the air of beg i n n e r ’s humili t y

h i m . “I did a

h a s n ’t l e f t

month long stint at Edinburgh, and I was sharing the daily bill at The Stand 1 with the likes of Stewart Lee, Simon Munnery

and Phill Jupitus. Being on straight after Phill was unbelievable – the guy was on TV when I was still at school”.

Cochrane didn’t follow the welltrodden route through university to enter the world of stand-up comedy, so his response to my question of adCochrane vice for budding didn’t folstudent comedilow the ans was prewell-trodd i c t a b l y den route brusque. “Adthrough vice for stuuniversity dents? Well, I to enter the don’t have a world of bloody clue restand-up ally. What I comedy would say to anyone wanting to get into the industry is; embrace it, go and see as much comedy as you can, and don’t be a snob about it. The day you realise that your heart isn’t in it, then that’s the time to get out. I’ve always wanted to be a comedian, it’s the only cloth I’m cut from, and I couldn’t do anything else”. What does the future hold for

Cochrane? Potentially an absence from another long August in Edinburgh: “I’ve done Edinburgh for six out of the last seven years, and to be honest, now I’ve got a little boy around, I might just spend the summer on the sofa watching the Olympics”.

Cochrane gave four pieces of advice to the younger members of the audience, garnered from his venerable position as a thirtysomething father of one: “Always play to the strengths of the cafe menu”, explaining his logical thinking of not ordering a steak in a greasy spoon, which was the last in a long line of lifestyle musings, which, truth be told, got a trifle repetitive after a while, though it only formed a small section of the set.

One thing is for certain, if he contains to play to the strengths of his varied and thoughtful comedy menu, his star will continue to rise.

Alun Cochrane is on a national tour until November 19.

Two minutes with someone funny: Jen Izaakson has a brief interview with Jen Brister How do you feel right before your stand-up shows? I generally feel a little rush of nerves just before my name is called but once I'm on stage the nerves tend to disappear and are replaced by adrenalin which keep me sharp. When I first started doing stand up it was very different. It wasn't so much nerves as utter terror and I'd feel like I was going to wet myself. The MC would call my name and in my head I'd be thinking, "Hang on! I need the loo!" But once I was on stage the feeling would subside. I can honestly say that I've never wet myself on stage. Yet.

What's your impression of students today generally? I feel bad for them. Back in the day, University was a more care free experience where most students (including myself) got a grant. Now they have to get massive loans as well as jobs to subsidise their living expenses. I like to think that despite this burden students are still going out and getting hammered on Jaeger bombs, leaving all their assignments to the last minute and eating their body weight in tuna pasta bake. Yes I am projecting. What of it?

Did you go to University? If so, where, to study what and what was your experience like? I went to Middlesex University to study Drama & Theatre Studies, which meant that I spent a lot of time wearing track suit bottoms and pretending to paint the wall purple with my voice, or pretending to be a pregnant camel (I'm not joking). When I wasn't engaged in that kind of intense academia I was probably drunk, stoned or eating a lot of bread.

If you had to go back to University, to study something else, what would you choose to do? I'd like to study Religious Studies. I'm not religious myself but looking at all the wars/divisions/prejudice and acrimony in the world, I think we can safely say that religion is involved somewhere. I'd like to get a better understanding of what each faith really believes in, how much of it is actually written down and how much of it has been 'interpreted' by men to give them license to do whatever they want. I also think I could get a hell of a lot of material from it... Do you think being funny is the

best quality a person can have? No, I think being kind and empathetic are better qualities. Having said that I've always wanted to make people laugh to make them feel better. I find myself trying to m a k e friends

laugh i f they're down o r

depressed. It doesn't always work, especially at funerals... Which comedians do you admire most? The funny ones, but in particular the funny female ones of which

there are MANY. I get asked this question a lot "Are women funny?" Which as a female comic I find more than a little insulting. So, if there are any readers out there who are in any doubt as to how funny women are, here is a list, some you'll know, some you'll soon know: Victoria Wood, French & Saunders, Miranda Hart, Tina Fey, Margaret Cho, Zoe Lyons, Kerry Godliman, Shazia Mirza, Jo Enright, Sarah Millican, Jo Brand, Maria Bamford, Gina Yashare, Bridget Christie, Joanna Neary, Leisa Rea, Suzi Ruffell, Hannah Gadsby ... you get the idea.

What 3 things do you want to achieve in the next 10 years? I'd like to think I'd have found a cure for cancer, introduced peace to the Middle East and helped act as a catalyst for the introduction of civil rights to China/Africa/Saudi Arabia and the Indian Sub continent, but I think it's more likely that I'll get a mortgage, or buy a cat.

Got a favourite book? A Prayer for Owen Meaney by John Irving or How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran

Got a favourite film? Mike Leigh's Life is Sweet. Nothing really happens in this film but i just love watching the interaction between the characters and the dynamic of the family. It's funny, tragic and heart warming.

What did you make of the student protests last year? Go the students! I love a protest. I think as British people we don't protest enough, not like the French who lose their rag at the drop of a baguette. I'm hoping they'll go all out and do it again, and when the police start kettling I'd like to seem them hurling tea bags at them, or Kettle chips, or Rich Tea biscuits... I don't know where I'm going with this...

Finally, what will you be doing in the coming year that our readers should look out for? I am doing a little tour with comedians Zoe Lyons and Suzi Ruffell. It's only 7 shows but it promises to be lots of fun. It's called The Stand Out Tour and the dates are the 21st - 27th November. We'll be traveling all over the shop and you can get tickets on Ticketweb. All other upcoming gigs can be found on my website: www.jenbrister.co.uk.

Not all handballs are unsporting

Sport Editor Natalie Khan introduces readers to a lesser known sport - page 30

VOLUME 32 ISSUE 4 LONDON STUDENT

Wayward Wandering

The Inside Track

Daniel O’Donnell examines the issues, triumphs and decisions relating to the Olympics in the run up to London 2012page 31

A passionate fan takes a look at the (mis)fortunes of Bolton Wanderers page 31

Olympic torch graces King’s

King’s College is the only London university hosting the famous Olympic torch - page 32

Unraveling the mystery of the unknown ballgame Writer Natalie Khan Sport Editor

When I first arrived in the UK and had planted piles of my belongings haphazardly around the 9 square meters that would be my home for the year, I immediately started looking for something to occupy myself with in lieu of actually sorting through said piles. And what I went looking for was the University Handball team.

I started playing handball for I spent a submy local club stantial part around the age of my of 11 and spent teenage a substantial years running part of my up and down teenage years a brightly lit running up and indoor court down a brightly with the lit indoor court cheers and with the cheers screams of and screams of the crowd the crowd bouncing off bouncing off the walls and the walls and against my against my head head. In Sweden as well as in many other European countries, handball is a massively popular sport. Games and tournaments draw huge audiences, even at local levels and it isn’t uncommon for sixty people or so to show up and watch a regular U16s game on a Thursday night.

The World Championships have been played since 1938 and the most recent one, held in Sweden this year between the 13th and the 30th of January, saw 24 teams competing from all across the globe. A bit naively, I don’t mind conceding, I thought all that meant something as I stepped off the plane and onto british soil. Having moved into halls and subsequently left my bomb site of a room, I walked around Freshers Fayre

Photo: Ville de Clermont-Ferrand

asking for the Handball team, but was met only with blank stares and confused smiles. While talking to the various committee members manning the booths, I came to the realisation that very few, if any, knew what I was even talking about. How was this possible?

Throughout my years at University, I have encountered only a handful of people who know what handball is and not one who plays it. Why is it then that this Olympic sport has not enjoyed the same popularity in the UK as it has in other parts of Europe?

The dominance of other, ‘traditional’ sports in this country might be partly the culprit, the overwhelming popularity of football, rugby and netball making it difficult for up and coming sports to break ground. However, handball is very unlike sports such as Ultimate Frisbee, a small and relatively new sport trying to win over

Handball is fiercely physical with defensive play featuring aggressive full body contact as defenders are allowed to block attackers when they are directly in their path. Contact from the side and behind is considered dangerous however and results in penalties. Unlike in basketball, where only 5 fouls are allowed in a game, handball players can make an unlimited number of ‘faults‘, which is seen as good defence that disrupts the rhythm of the attacking team participants, or Lacrosse which has existed primarily on the North American continent and is a fairly recent import to our own. Handball is a sport over a century old, played by some 39 million people in 159 countries, primarily in Europe. So why don’t the Brits fancy it? Well actually, while most read-

ers of this article might not have heard of it, it is one of the fastest developing sports in the country. For those who don’t even know what the game looks like, here is a brief description:

Handball is played by two teams composed of six players and one goalkeeper each, on a court measuring 40 by 20 meters. The aim of the game is to dribble, pass and shoot a ball into a goal about 3 meters wide and 2 meters high, with one goal equaling one point. The ball is similar in appearance to a football but much smaller, easily gripped with one hand. The court however is comparable to a basketball court, with half circles on both ends marking the zone or goal area, which extends six meters in front of the goal. Only the defending goalkeeper is allowed inside the goal area but players may handle the ball in the air, as long as a jump has been made

from outside the zone and the ball is released before the player hits the ground. This rule results in gravity-defying leaps over the line for a chance to score while in the air. Handball is fiercely physical with defensive play featuring aggressive full body contact as defenders are allowed to block attackers when they are directly in their path. Contact from the side and behind is considered dangerous however and results in penalties. Unlike in basketball, where only 5 fouls are allowed in a game, handball players can make an unlimited number of ‘faults‘, which is seen as good defence that disrupts the rhythm of the attacking team. All these components makes for a game which is incredibly fast paced, aggressive and exciting both to play and to watch. Teams score on average between 20 and 30 goals during the 60 minutes of play, most of them while suspended in mid air in a mesmerizing display of both power and accuracy.

If this sounds exciting to you, I recommend tuning in to the upcoming Women’s World Championship, held in Brazil between the 3rd and the 16th of December. The Women’s side is played under the exact same rules as the Men’s and is just as passionately contested. If you find that you would like to try the sport out then fear not, the British Handball Association (BHA) has recently been given funding from UK Sport in order to raise the sport’s profile nationally. “It‘s a mystery why handball is not more popular in this country,” BHA’s Media Officer Frazer Snowdon recently said in an interview. And indeed it is. With its speed, physicality and intensity, handball is easy to like. Hopefully with the British national team’s participation in the Olympics next year and awareness raised about the sport, more and more people around the country will come to feel the same way.

LONDON STUDENT VOLUME 32 ISSUE 4

The Inside Track: London 2012

Every issue, Daniel O’Donnell examines the issues, triumphs and decisions made by the various organising commi ees in relation to the Olympic games that will aﬀect everyone in London next summer.

Writer Daniel O’Donnell

Last week I put in a small satirical make-believe advert in the Goldsmiths paper, The Leopard. It was to seek buyers for the Olympic Stadium in Stratford and it dawned on me that what I considered a bit of fun, shouldn’t now be taken as anything other than a really serious problem for Lord Sebastian Coe and Boris Johnson. The number one icon, ﬂagship and centre of a:ention come the 27th July is rapidly becoming a transfer saga worthy of the back pages that dwarves any rugby player’s antics in New Zealand or certain Argentinian footballer’s activity (or lack, thereof) in Manchester.

Though before anyone does the whole bandwagon-jumping thing about this it needs to be understood why the decisions were made to opt for this particular ‘style’ of Olympics. For that, we need to put on our best Spanish accents and travel back 19 years. The genesis of a legacy

The games in 1992 saw the introduction of Michael Johnson, who became one of the greatest ever sprinters, the conﬁrmation of Carl Lewis being the greatest sprinter ever (Bolt permit-

ting) and most importantly the rebirth of a grand city. In the late 1980’s Barcelona was in decline, tourism was dropping and as a consequence the economy was suffering. Quite simply Barcelona needed to change. They were given the opportunity in 1986 when they were awarded the games and they took their opportunities by grabbing the bull by the horns. There was no cost-cu:ing ‘do it on the cheap plans’. The decision had been made to use the games as a catalyst to turn the fortunes of the fortunes of Barcelona around. The first step was to overhaul the outer suburbs at Monjutic into an Athenian-like stage for the athletes, which would become the symbol and icon for the games whilst also regenerating a run-down and dilapidated area. The next part of the plan was to improve the a:ractions and features for tourism, most notable and arguably most successfully, was the creation of large sandy beaches that transformed businesses and trade along the coastline. The final, and largest, of the main changes made was the introduction of new roads, new underground systems and a new port. Top-class transport links were the piece that completed the jigsaw. Barcelona had, inside 6 years, turned

The Olympic stadium in east London

from being in a depression to enjoying an economic boom. The XXV Olympiad was a roaring success in transforming a city.

So where does London ﬁt into all this? Well, our patron, Lord Coe, was only trained in, and indeed only experienced, excellence. He wanted the best and always was the best on the track (Ove: and Cram were a bit of a pain admi:edly) so it’s natural to understand his decision to want to replicate that Barcelona model. Redevelop an area to hopefully cause a ripple eﬀect

across the city and the country.

Now, while tourism and activity are not problems that are regularly associated with London, the east end – well, it could do with a li:le work. Especially, if Channel 4’s series TopBoy was anything to go by. Therefore, Boris Johnson and Coe were only too keen to stress the importance of regenerating a deprived area, and reviving communities. The parallels between the two developments are fairly similar, apart from any major roads being built or beaches being de-

Wandering into the Championship Writer Ben Jackson If you take a look at the bo:om three of the Premier League, you’ll ﬁnd a surreptitious map of Lancashire. At the time of writing, Wigan Athletic, Blackburn Rovers and Bolton Wanderers currently occupy the relegation spots; Wigan because they lack quality on the pitch; Blackburn because they lack leadership oﬀ it. But I’m going to focus on the curious situation at the Reebok this season, as from the outside it beggars belief as to why the founder members of the league are in such dire straits. A9er an outstanding start to the season

beating QPR by four goals to nil, the Wanderers have only managed to get one more win against fellow strugglers and neighbours Wigan. Bolton have lost ﬁve out of ﬁve games at home which is a damning statistic, especially considering their home ground was formerly dubbed ‘Fortress Reebok’ under Big Sam.

On the subject of Sam Allardyce, of late, Bolton have managed to shake oﬀ the previous stereotype of brutality and long balls that was so o9en a:ributed to their style of play (these qualities now belong to Stoke.) Under Owen Coyle however, the Wanderers have cultivated a promising hybrid of the harsh play of captain Kevin Davies and Brazil-esque a:acking spirit through their youthful midﬁeld.

Take for example the sublime counter-attack against Blackburn last season, which earned Bolton the win and the stunning team play leading up to Chung-Yong Lee’s strike against Blackpool.

But the momentum of Coyle’s cause has since been severely aﬀected by long-term injuries to Stuart Holden and Lee, players who have been deemed crucial to the creative spirit of the current squad. The only player with an ounce of creativity le9 in the starting eleven is Mark Davies, who is a joy to watch, running at defenders with dexterity and pace. Furthermore, Gary Cahill, the starlet who has been trailed by the top teams since last summer, has succumbed to an embarrassing loss of form.

In defending the recent form of the Trotters, one might argue that their opening fixtures were decidedly tough, with away games at Manchester United, Liverpool andArsenal. Wanderers lost these 3-1, 5-0 and 3-0 respectively, in a series of annihilations. But the alarm bells started to ring when the side was pummeled 31 away at Swansea City of all places. This may not be as serious as one might initially think, as the sending off of longserving Ricardo Gardner put a spanner in the works. He should have had his testimonial two years ago. Coyle spoke to the club’s official website, saying: "When we were reduced to ten men it was still nil-nil, but within a couple of minutes we'd set ourselves a mountain to climb, conceding the goals

ployed (horse-guards parade aside), improved transport links in the London Over ground and Underground systems, the new shopping centre at Westﬁeld’s ‘Stratford City’ and of course that stadium and village development there too. I guess for now at least we can understand why they chose the model they did. We just need to understand what they are going to do with it all. Daniel writes a blog to accompany pieces wri en for London Student on his website www.daniel-odonnell.com

as we did. We showed spirit and endeavour to get back into it and score a goal for ourselves.”

Looking at the performances of Wanderers thus far this season, one might enquire as to where this spirit and endeavour has been since September. It certainly wasn’t apparent in south Wales. Coyle continues, “We threw everyone forward, which obviously le9 us open at the back and when you are chasing a game there's always the chance you can get picked oﬀ, which is what happened.”

The crisis at the Reebok needs to be addressed by the ones who are at fault. The manager can only do so much. In times of hardship, the players need to take a long hard look at themselves and dig the club out of the mess they’re currently in. Form comes and goes, but the class that Owen Coyle has instilled within the squad since his arrival from Burnley is permanent and the fans need to realise this before calling for heads to roll.

VOLUME 32 ISSUE 4 LONDON STUDENT

Olympic torch sparks celebrations at King’s College Writer Hesham Zakai Editor

Holly Walsh

The arrival of the historic Olympic torch at Guy’s campus, King’s College was the cause of much merriment as London continued the countdown to the Olympics. The stop was part of the London 2012 Olympic Torch Relay tour which is making its way around the country in search of “inspirational young people”. At the time of going to print, almost 1000 students had lined up to hold and take photos with the torch with no end in sight for the queue. Holly Walsh, KCLSU’s Vice President for Student Activities & Facilities, said: “The day has been brilliant. There is such a lively atmosphere and huge crowds. Three schools have also visited and that has helped to give the day a real community feel”.

King’s students have the opportunity to nominate their fellow peers as “Future Flames” until December 20. Future Flames are “young people who use their passion in areas like sport and physical activity, music and dance, and community and the environment; to spread happiness in their local communities.” The winners will have the opportunity carry the Olympic Flame next year. Perhaps to the envy of its rivals, King’s College was the only London university chosen to host the tour.

The entertainment was served up by various students, including the popular KCLSU Dance Society, whose group perform-

QUICK CROSSWORD

Leave a space in the crossword grid between answers with two words. You’ll find some of the answers in this issue!

KCLSU Dance Society with the Olympic torch

ances delighted the crowd. Also present was Olympic hopeful Ryan Chamberlain, an MA Science and Security student

Across

2 - Root vegetable (6) 4 - Birthplace of the Movember movement (9) 12 -A new type of pricing model somewhere between ‘free’ and ‘premium’ (8) 14 -Owner of Bolton Wanderes Football Club (5,6) 17 - The Brazilian city taking part in the 1Day6Cities photography venture (3,5) 19 -Second largest spectator sport in the UK (9, 6) 20 -Greenhouse gas (6, 7) 21 -First Minister of Scotland (4, 7)

at King’s, who won a silver medal at the 2010 World Championships in New Zealand.

country in crisis (10) 8 -The American Saxophonist who plays in a Berlin council estate in Anri Sala's film Long Sorrow (6, 7) 9 -Marcel Duchamp put a urinal in a gallery and called it art. What did Gerard Richter paint as a response? (6, 5, 4) 10 -A city within Beijing (9) 11 -Earthquake measure (7) 13 -To start a company with no money of your own you'll need ____ (10) 15 - Author of book recently adapted to the big screen about a Belgian reporter and Down his alcoholic friend? (5) 1 - Great ape (10) 16 -Bertolt Brecht rewrote 3 - Icelandic Volcano (5) this play post-Hiroshima as a 5 - Team that plays at the response to science's harmful Inonu (8) potential (7) 6 -Italian dish made by boiling 18 ___Park. Site of the Occornmeal (7) cupy Wall Street Movement 7 -Prime Minister of Hellenic (8)

SUDOKU

The day has been brilliant. There is such a lively atmosphere and huge crowds. Three schools have also visited and that has helped to give the day a real community feel.