Issue11

2ND DEC 2013/ ISSUE 11 FREE

MANCHESTER’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER

Feature: ‘I’m not welcome’ campaign

WWW.MANCUNION.COM

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Vice-chancellors OK segregated debates

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Daytrip: John Rylands Library Deansgate

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No forced Union staff cuts Jonathan Breen Editor-in-Chief

The Students’ Union will not be making any compulsory redundancies to deal with its over half million pound budget deficit, it has revealed Photo: Cil Barnett-Neefs

There will be no forced staff cuts in the University of Manchester Students’ Union after a number of employees opted for the voluntary redundancy option available for all staff.

Fewer than 10 members of staff have been accepted by the Students’ Union Trustee Board for the “enhanced” package.

At the time of going to print it was uncertain exactly how many would be leaving. What is certain is there will be no compulsory redundancies as a result of the need to make financial savings.

“On 25 November 2013 the Trustee Board was presented with a Report on the Union Budget Recovery programme.

This report included the names of members of staff who had put their names forward for the enhanced voluntary redundancy package and who the Senior Leadership Team had also accepted,” General Secretary of the Students’ Union Grace Skelton said in a statement to The Mancunion.

“The Board agreed to accept these following consultations with those individuals involved and to not move forward into a compulsory redundancy process for staff.”

The compensation staff will

receive from accepting the voluntary redundancy package will differ based on how long they have worked at the Union.

Those who have worked at UMSU for more than two years will get greater compensation compared to those who have not.

The redundancies come as part of the Union’s austerity measures in the face of an approximate £619,000 deficit announced last month.

After an emergency meeting of the Trustee Board on 8 November, £400,821 of budget cuts, and £68,000 of additional income generation was agreed to. But £130,000 of savings was still needed, for which the Trustees turned to staff for income-generating and costsaving ideas, or to ultimately make redundancies.

Skelton added, “Staff at the Students’ Union have also come up with numerous cost saving methods for the coming year which the Board will be considering over the coming weeks.” £7,000 has also been cut from the society grant budget, but this funding is as yet unallocated and so does not affect current society finances.

Other cuts include £10,000 from the campaigns budget, £6,500 from the NUS Conferences budget, and £4,000 reduction in the annual decorating budget.

Student takes ‘TukTuk’ hostage in pay row with Social Junkies Aidan Gregory News Editor Infamous club promoters Social Junkies are embroiled in a pay dispute with a University of Manchester student, which has seen an expensive prop of theirs being taken hostage.

The former employee, a third year student, who wishes to remain anonymous, worked full time for them during his first two years of university, then during Welcome Week 2013. He then decided to leave in order to concentrate on his studies. By that point, he claims Social Junkies owed him a conservative total of £800 in wages and expenses, of which he only originally received £300.

Speaking to The Mancunion, he said “[Social Junkies] basically said that they wouldn’t pay

me for the work I’d done during welcome week because I wasn’t carrying on the work. The intention in third year had been for me to event manage, and for me to be paid based on the profits of the night. So basically when the night made a loss, I wasn’t paid anything, and when it made a profit I would be paid 20 per cent.”

The student resorted to direct action, “When they said they wouldn’t pay me, I decided to take quite a valuable asset off them, and said that I would give it back as soon as they paid me.”

The student took hostage Social Junkies’ TukTuk - a rickshaw that the company bought to promote their Thai themed night held at Antwerp Mansion every month - which he claims cost the company £1,300.

In an email, one of the original owners of Social Junkies Louis Alexander, said, “We cannot discuss

any settlement unless we know that the TukTuk can be retrieved from whence it is hiding. If it cannot, it is court.”

Faced with the threat of legal action, the student sought legal advice from the Students’ Union, who instructed him to return the TukTuk. Having done so, Social Junkies paid out a further £280.

Following this payment, the student insists that he is still owed the sum of £250.

The well-known club promoting company told the employee, in an email shown to The Mancunion, “As a 20 per cent shareholder you were subject to 20 per cent of the profits and 20 per cent of the losses. We had no intention of asking you to contribute to the set-up costs and losses if you were still working on the night as it would have made money and the losses would have been paid off within a few events.”

But, they continued, “It is clear that you have not been telling us the truth for a while now. You told us that you were going to help and work on TukTuk. This is clearly not the case.”

The student was also working for a rival club night. But, he said he originally “did have every intention of quitting the promotions scene altogether,” but due to the pay dispute “I was left with no option but to look to earn money elsewhere.”

Having discovered this, Social Junkies told him in another email, “due to your lies and deceit and the predicament that you leave us in we feel we may have to ask for a proportion of the money owed by you to be paid if your new event starts to make money and you start to have accessible cash.

Continued on page 2

02 : NEWS

ISSUE 11 / 2nd DECEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Highlights

Music, Interview:

Students are made to queue outside the library

MSMR

after an evening fire alarm Photo: Sean Doherty

Page 12 Picture of the week

Fashion:

Makeup Metallica Page 27

Film, Review: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Page 19

Post-exam Pangaea tickets on sale now Europe’s largest student-run festival is back,

host a room at the event. All they need to do

and this time the theme is “The Lost City”.

is fill out an application form, found on the

Early-bird tickets went on sale for next term’s

Union’s website.

Pangaea at 10:00am on Monday December 2.

The post-exam bash will be held on January

The headliners for the event have yet to be

25 and likely see some 6,000 partygoers

announced, but in the past the festival has

descend on the University of Manchester

landed names including Grandmaster Flash,

Students’ Union.

Artful Dodger, and Ms Dynamite.

Tickets are available through the Students’

Anyone has the opportunity to perform or

Union website.

Continued from page one...

“The losses are currently

“I never agreed to that.”

at £5,235. Your share of this

Alternatively, Social Junk-

loss is £1047. Deducting the

ies offered to “forget the

money we owe you from

whole sorry saga and move

the money you owe us,

on in different directions.”

hall committee infiltration, and recruiting reps based on attractiveness.

The

Mancunion

repeated attempts to con-

this leaves an outstanding

The controversial night-

tact Social Junkies for com-

amount of £762.50 that you

club promoters, who are

ment, but they had not

owe to us.”

responsible for nights such

responded at the time of going to print.

The

maintains

as The BOP, Pout, Rehab,

that holding him liable for

student

and TukTuk, attracted con-

the night’s losses in this way

troversy last year with risky

is “just ridiculous” and that

club themes, accusations of Deputy Editor: Harriet Hill-Payne Sub-Editors: Dan Harold, George Bailey, Jennifer Grimshaw & Eleanor Muffitt

Food & Drink:

Christmas Party Drinks Page 23

made

Visit Our Website www.mancunion.com

News Editors: Michael Williams, Pippa Allen-Kinross, Sean Doherty, Aidan Gregory & Gawain Owen news@mancunion.com News Reporters: Inez Dawoodjee

Facebook: The Mancunion Twitter: @THEMANCUNION

Opinion Editors: Alice Rigby, Charlotte Green & Joe Anthony

Editor: Jonathan Breen editor@mancunion.com

opinion@mancunion.com

Postal address: Univerity of Manchester Students’ Union, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PR

fashion@mancunion.com

Phone (0161) 275 2933

Fashion Editors: Susie Coen & Marie Yates

BeautyEditor: Haylee Wells beauty@mancunion.com

Two jailed after Fallowfield stabbing Gawain Owen News Editor Two men have been jailed for a total of 8 years and 9 months after being convicted of a ‘motiveless’ attack which took place in Fallowfield on October 2012.

The attack took place on Wilmslow Road in Fallowfield, directly opposite Revolution Bar, where the two men stabbed their victim, leaving blood on the road.

The two attackers, Kemron Aberdeen and Samin Ghulamhan pleaded guilty at Manchester Crown Court on the 21st November.

Aberdeen admitted to Assault causing grievous bodily harm with intent, landing him with 6 years and 9 months in prison.

Ghalamhan also pleaded guilty and received a 2 year sentence.

Their attack, which left a man with a stab wound to the leg and injuries to his neck, was of unusual brutality for the Fallowfield area.

The attackers and the victim had been attending a house party on Ladybarn Road in Fallowfield and following a dispute the situation escalated.

At 4am an officer on patrol

Food & Drink Editors: Ben Walker & Maddy Hubbard foodanddrink@mancunion.com Film Editors: Sophie James, Robbie Davidson & Angus Harrison film@mancunion.com Features Editor: Sam Dumitriu features@mancunion.com Games Editor: Alasdair Preston games@mancunion.com Lifestyle Editors: Moya Crockett, Isabelle Dann, Beth Currall & Lauren Arthur lifestyle@mancunion.com Music Editors: Tom Ingham, Patrick Hinton & Phoebe Clarke music@mancunion.com

found the victim collapsed on the main road. The road was then shut and the victim was taken to hospital for treatment to his injuries.

The police went to the address on Ladybarn Road and identified Aberdeen and Ghalamhan as suspects.

Aberdeen was found with blood on his clothing and a hand injury.

Detective Constable Matthew Smith said, “The cause of the incident appears to be a something-and-nothing argument at the party that has resulted with the victim being stabbed”.

Police have also commented on the seriousness of the incident as both attackers were carrying knives.

“There was no need for things to escalate the way they did and once a weapon is brought into the equation the severity of what is happening as well as the potential consequences instantly increases”.

Whilst the victim suffered serious injuries they were not life threatening, however according to the police the attack could have resulted in a fatality.

Sport Editors: Andrew Georgeson, Thomas Dowler & Thomas Turner Sports Reporters: James Eatwell & Jonathan Roberts sport@mancunion.com Theatre Editor: Josephine Lane theatre@mancunion.com Web Editor: Jennifer Ho webed@mancunion.com Photography Editor: Peter Chinnock photography@mancunion.com Photography team: Patrycja Marczewska, Joshua Brown & Cil Barnett-Neefs

ISSUE 11 / 2nd DECEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

NEWS : 03

University vice-chancellors give go ahead for gender segregated debates - Gender segregation may be acceptable at university events, says report - Acceptable if the speaker has ultra-orthodox religious views Sean Doherty News Editor Universities UK, the group representing vice-chancellors of universities in the UK, has stated that gender segregation at university events may be condoned, should a speaker request it.

In its recently published guidelines for universities regarding external speakers in higher education institutions, Universities UK has followed a ‘separate but equal’ policy as regards the segregation of males and females in audiences at university events.

Within the report, it is stated that segregation would only be “discriminatory on the grounds of sex if it amounts to ‘less favourable treatment’ of either female or male attendees.”

In a case-study in which a representative of an ultraorthodox religious group is invited to speak at a university event and then insists that males and females be segregated, the report advises that segregation

Universities UK okay gender segregation to accommodate speakers’ requests . Photo: mike cogh @Flickr would be acceptable provided neither group is disadvantaged, such as placing females at the back where they would face certain restrictions i.e. the increased difficulty in being able to ask questions.

The report claims that “there does not appear to be any discrimination on gender grounds merely by imposing segregated seating. Both men and women are being treated equally, as they are both being segregated in the same way.”

The report addresses the legal problems which universities face in accommodating the views of different groups.

It states that, “one cannot rule out the possibility that discrimination claims will be made on other grounds.

“For example, it is arguable that ‘feminism’ or some forms of belief in freedom of choice or freedom of association, could fall within the definition of ‘belief’ under the Equality Act. This would in turn mean that applying a segregated seating policy without offering alternatives (e.g. a nonsegregated seating area, again on a ‘side by side’ basis with the gender segregated areas) might be discriminatory against those (men or women) who hold such beliefs.”

Manchester student Facebook photos uploaded to hotness ranking website Aidan Gregory News Editor Dozens of University of Manchester students have had their profile pictures uploaded, without their consent, to the controversial new site Ratemash, where users rate people on attractiveness.

The website has taken over 150,000 images, using Facebook to get students from 138 UK universities to rank each other’s pictures based on “hotness”. It then promises “modelling contracts, access to top nightclubs, party invitations, free alcohol, spa vouchers and cash if you are in the top 50.”

It also claims it will, “Sort out your nightlife”, by “giving you access to the coolest clubs and

parties in town.”

But, there has been an outpouring of criticism from students across the country, and Facebook have confirmed that the site is now under investigation.

The National Union of Students described the website as an “appalling invasion of students’ privacy.”

Colum McGuire, NUS Vice President for Welfare, said, “It is concerning to hear that students appear to be featured on this website unknowingly or without their consent. If this is true it would be a gross invasion of privacy. Those who have been featured without being asked should immediately contact the website owners and ask to be

removed.”

Andy Shortland, studying Accounting, found photos of himself uploaded to the “top 50 hottest guys of all time at the University of Manchester” section.

“I was pretty shocked about it to be honest,” he told The Mancunion.

Shortland had heard about the site following an expose

by The Huffington Post, and on discovering Ratemash used his profile without asking, he “didn’t really know what to think. It’s very very odd.”

He now wants his profile to be taken down, but “every time I’ve tried their website, the server has crashed. I’ve signed up and there’s no way to delete.”

Although the report proposed that a non-segregated area should be made available alongside segregated seating, it advises that, should the speaker demand unsegregated seating not be an option on the basis of their religious beliefs, the university should still go ahead with the event with only segregated seating, as to do otherwise may be seen as a breach of the Equality Act, which explicitly protects religious freedoms more so than ideological freedoms.

It said, “Ultimately if imposing an unsegregated seating area in addition to the segregated areas

contravenes the genuinely held religious beliefs of the group hosting the event, or those of the speaker, the institution should be mindful to ensure that the freedom of speech of the religious group or speaker is not curtailed unlawfully.

“Those opposed to segregation are entitled to engage in lawful protest against segregation, and could be encouraged to hold a separate debate of the issues, but their views do not require an institution to stifle a religious society’s segregated debate where the segregation accords with a genuinely-held religious belief.”

Lizzie Bowen, a third year Classics and Ancient History student felt the notion was outdated.

She said, “It’s 2013! I definitely wouldn’t go to an event if I had to sit in a separate seating area from guys. People can say ‘separate but equal isn’t discrimination’ but everyone knows that you don’t demand separation unless you favour one side.”

To see the full report, visit: http://www.universitie suk . ac.uk/highereducation/Documents/2013/ExternalSpeakersInHigherEducationInstitutions.pdf

University staff to stage second strike Dan Harold News Web Editor University academics and support staff will strike this week as part of a second day of action in the ongoing row over pay.

Members of the three campus trade unions Unison, Unite, and the University and College Union - will walk out on Tuesday 3 December in protest at the employers’ pay offer of a one per cent increase.

Union members and students first took part in strike action on 31 October, in protest at the pay offer, which unions say would mean

a fourth year in a row that university staff have been hit by below inflation rises.

Unite officer for education Mike McCartney said, “The employers have refused to budge from their hard line in refusing to recognise the contribution that the workforce makes to the excellent global reputation that Britain’s universities currently enjoy.

“We hope that this latest strike will drive home the determination of our members to achieve a fair pay deal and

focus the minds of the employers that they need to get around the table promptly to negotiate in a constructive and positive manner.”

The Universities and Colleges Employers Association, which represents institutions, said while the announcement is disappointing it “continued to be clear that, given the challenging and uncertain operating environment, the one per cent pay uplift is a good and sustainable offer and is at the limit of affordability.”

A spokesperson added that UCEA “continues to say that it is willing to talk to the disputing trade unions.”

UCU head of higher education Michael MacNeil said, ‘We remain committed to trying to resolve this dispute and the employers now have until 3 December to sit down and positively engage with the unions.

“If they don’t, then our members and those from our sister unions will be out on strike again, as well as continuing to work to contract.”

ISSUE 11 / 2nd DECMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

04 : News

Students’ Union lobbies against NHS costs for international students

New weapons scanner developed at Man Met to revolutionise global security

Inez Dawoodjee News Editor

Ewan Hamilton Contributor

Union defends international students’ right to free NHS treatment

The Students’ Union is protesting against the possible introduction of NHS fees for international students from outside the European Union.

The proposal, put forward by the government, suggests that international students should pay a minimum of £200 in order to procure NHS treatment.

Currently all international students staying in the UK for longer than 6 months have free access to the NHS. A report commissioned by the Government in October claimed that the cost of

treating foreign residents and temporary visitors was costing and estimated £2 billion per year.

A petition protesting the proposal has been set up by Clifford Fleming, Campaigns and Citizenship Officer for the University of Manchester Students’ Union. He explained why he was against the proposal.

“International students should not face added financial worries regarding their healthcare,” said Fleming. “If the government proposals pass in parliament many international students may avoid healthcare registration due to the added financial pressure.”

He added, “The proposals further discriminate those from countries outside the EU, and doesn’t respect the huge net benefit our international students provide (which the department of Business, Innovation and Skills estimates

at £7.9bn every year).”

The Students’ Union has also endorsed the ‘I am not welcome’ campaign which protests the introduction of increased surveillance of international students.

Wellbeing Officer Kazi Tasweef said, “We hope to persuade the UK Border Agency to change its monitoring process and end unnecessary hostile action towards non-EU international students.”

International students have reported receiving hostile e-mails from the University requiring them to participate in a monitoring program designed by the UK Border Agency.

Earlier this year the Home Office called for greater surveillance of international students. The University of Sunderland and the University of Ulster have since introduced fingerprinting systems to monitor attendance of international students.

Weapon scanner “will make the world a safer place” says MMU researcher

A team of developers from Manchester Metropolitan University have created a radar scanner which can detect concealed weapons such as guns, knives and bombs from distances up to 25 metres. It is hoped the scanner will dramatically increase security in high-risk areas, such as airports and other transport hubs, and has gained considerable attention from the United States and the Middle East.

The scanner works using low-powered, millimetrewave radar signals that reflect

off weapons and back to the scanner within seconds.

The scanner can also detect common metallic items such as keys, belt buckles and mobile phones, however these items will not trigger an alarm.

There are different versions of the scanner currently being tested. Two hand held battery powered prototypes and a much more powerful static version that could also be built for use in busier locations such as shopping centres.

University experts spent nine years perfecting the device, which was developed with funding from the Home Office and the police.

The University has signed a deal with electronics firm, Radio Physics Solutions (RPS), to start distributing the machine commercially. The first machines should be ready by next spring and will retail at approximately £31,000.

The developers believe there will be a wide potential market

for the device and plan to sell to police forces and security contractors around the world.

Professor Nicholas Bowring led the MMU research team and believes the scanner could be revolutionary.

“It will make the world a safer place – there is a significant amount of gun crime that could be stopped, for example.

We know that this technology works and has done very well in trials.”

The scanner poses no threat to people’s privacy or health and offers a viable alternative to body scanners, which have been criticised by civil liberties groups.

In contrast to the body scanner, this new model does not produce an image of the subject and uses only a thousandth of the power of a mobile phone.

“There are no privacy issues because it doesn’t form an image of any part of the body,” said Professor Bowring.

Signing a housing contract is a big commitment.

When you put your signature on the dotted line, it’s a legally binding document for all parties involved.

GET IT CHECKED OUT AT THE STUDENTS’ UNION FIRST.

Make sure you and your housemates know what you’re signing up to. Get your contract checked at the Students’ Union advice service for free before you sign. manchesterstudentsunion.com/adviceservice

ISSUE 11/ 2nd DECEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

NEWS : 05

Government sells £900 million of student loans for £160 million Student loans sold to consortium backed by debt collection companies Sean Doherty News Editor The government has sold off £900 million worth of student loan repayments for a fraction of their face value.

The move on Monday 25th November saw Erudio Student Loans, a consortium backed by private debt collection agencies Arrow Global and CarVal Investors, purchase roughly 250,000 student loans belonging to individuals who began their courses between 1990 and 1998 for £160 million.

The NUS president Toni Pearce stated that the sale will effectively lead to “the public subsidising a private company making a profit from public debt.”

Wednesday 20th November saw protests take place across the UK as students criticised the privatisation of the student loan book. A petition opposing the sell-off has also gathered 15,000 signatures. The fear among students is that with loans being sold off to private companies, the rates of repayment will also change.

The sell-off comes in light of the recent news that the debt which UK households are facing has risen for the first time in five years due to the pressure of student loans. The report by PwC also estimated that university students who began their courses last year will graduate with debts of £40,000-£50,000.

Fiona Edwards, of the Student Assembly Against Austerity stated, “We recognise that the privatisation of our student loans will cause interest rates to rise. We are demanding that they drop this outrageous policy immediately or expect further protests in the New Year.”

Toni Pearce claimed that, “The simple fact is that having these loans on the public books would be better off for the government in the long run.

“Selling off the loan book at a discount to secure a cash lump sum now doesn’t make economic sense.”

The government has justified the selling off of student loans for a fraction of their face value on the basis that there is currently a failure to recover many of the

loans. Thirty-six per cent of the borrowers whose debts were bought are currently earning under the repayment threshold and 40 per cent are not paying back their loans according to the terms agreed.

Universities Minister David Willetts said, “The sale of the remaining mortgage style student loan book represents good value for money, helping to reduce public sector net debt by £160m.

“The private sector is well placed to maximise returns from the book which has a deteriorating value.

“The sale will allow the Student Loans Company to focus on supplying loans to current students and collecting repayments on newer loans.”

Willetts was insistent that the privatisation of loans will not lead to former students having to pay back at higher rates than those they originally agreed to.

“Borrowers will remain protected and there will be no change to their terms and conditions, including the calculation of interest rates for loans.”

However, during a parliamentary select committee in June the Minister for Universities pointed out that,

Shock as ‘joke’ candidate wins Oxford Union presidential race Candidate who promised world peace wins 700 more votes than nearest rival Pippa Allen-Kinross News Editor Louis Trup wrote a ‘personifesto’ in crayon – declaring that a ‘manifesto’ would be sexist – and promised a monorail, world peace and double beds for all.

He also suggested that people vote for him because “I often wear flip flops”.

However, the unusual campaign won over his fellow students, as he received 700 more votes than his nearest rival.

Perhaps none were so

surprised as Trup himself, who was in a university bar when he heard the news, and shouted “what the f*** just happened?”

Despite performing a spoof country song while wearing devil horns instead of giving a speech at the central hustings, there appears to be a serious side behind Trup’s less than serious campaign.

In an article for The Oxford Student before the election, Trup wrote, “I am clearly not a careerist – a quick Google search of my name will show how unlikely I am to ever get a job anywhere where there is widely available internet access. That’s good.

“OUSU positions should not be seen as stepping stones.

We should have fun students working for fun students, not un-fun student politicians

working towards a cosy Labour seat in 20 years.”

He also spoke of his commitment to ensuring enough aid is given to those needing support with mental health issues, arguing, “OUSU should be spending money on hiring more university councillors, sending them to every college, and creating ‘admiral welfares’ to look after the peer-supporters and welfare reps, not infantilising welfare with petting zoos and mug painting.

“I still can’t believe people call me the ‘joke candidate.’”

Trup will no doubt be hoping to increase the popularity of OUSU, which came bottom for student satisfaction in this summer’s National Student Survey.

Students performed “debt-in” around campus to protest the sell-off of the student loan book. Photo: Sean Doherty “In the letter that every student gets there are some words to the effect that governments reserve the right to change the terms of the loans.”

Furthermore, in a leaked government report last year, the proposal was put forth that the cap on interest rates for repayments of loans would have to be removed in order for the student loan book to be

profitable to private companies.

Clifford Fleming, Campaigns Officer for the University of Manchester, said,“The government’s accounting on the loan book has been disastrous and the loan book sell-off is a quick fix to the serious problem of funding in Higher Education.

Continually government’s have over-estimated the number of students fully paying back their

loans, gambling public finances on debt repayments.

“With unsustainable levels of debt the likelihood of changing terms and conditions is inevitable. Higher Education funding needs a complete overhaul and ministers need to consider the public good of education.”

All Student Vote cancelled after administration error Jonathan Breen Editor-in-chief

A Student referendum had to be cancelled after the Students’ Union failed to uphold the guidelines dictating its publication last month.

The University of Manchester Students’ Union’s Returning Officer Emma Powell, who is responsible for the good conduct and administration of UMSU referendums, put a stop to the recent All Student Vote after a complaint was made by a student.

All Student Votes are required to be publicised no less than 10 working days before the vote is to take place, in order to allow students adequate time to create a campaign either for or against an issue. The vote in question was published 10 working days before hand, but with a typing error showing the dates for voting as October 22-29, rather than November 22-29. The referendum also had no “Abstain”

vote on the ballot, as required.

Returning Officer Powell said in a statement, “Having considered the points raised by the complainant, I have ruled that, as the Formal Notice was not both comprehensive and accurate for at least 10 working days before polling began and that there was no “Abstain” option on the ballot, that these All Student Votes are not valid and will be stopped immediately and should be rerun with full and accurate formal notice at the next appropriate opportunity and with the ‘Abstain’ option added on the ballot.”

The vote will be re-run alongside the Executive Officer elections in March 2014, the time of the next scheduled All Student Vote, the Union confirmed on Friday, November 29.

The cancelled All Student Vote had four questions; should students with British passports who have spent the last three years living abroad pay home student tuition fees? Should

the University provide merit-based scholarships to international undergraduate students? Should all expiring Student’s Union policy automatically be resubmitted and put forward to Assembly?

Should the Students’ Union create a rep council and merge its Assemblies?

Physics PhD student Joseph Clough, who made the complaint to the Union, told The Mancunion, “The All Student Vote should be all student in nature as well as name.

“The [vote] had not been communicated effectively prior to, and during, it taking place meaning that very few students were aware the votes were taking place and there was little possibility of effective campaign teams being able to be formed.

“If the all student vote had been allowed to continue, it would have been unfair and undemocratic and not engaged the students who belong to the Union.”

ISSUE 11 / 2nd DECEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

NEWS : 07

Businessman sentenced to 40 years for murder of MMU lecturer and his family Pippa Allen-Kinross News Editor A businessman has been sentenced to life with a minimum term of 40 years for murdering an MMU lecturer and his family in a revenge attack.

Anxiang Du, 54, was found guilty of stabbing to death Jifeng “Jeff” Ding, a senior lecturer in the Division of Chemical and Environmental Science at Manchester Metropolitan University, along with his wife Helen Chui and daughters Xing (also known as ‘Nancy’), 18, and Alice, 12.

Although Du initially pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, the jury found him guilty of four counts of murder.

Senior investigating officer Detective Chief Inspector Tom Davies, said, “Today we have seen justice done.

“This was a heinous crime, committed by a man who knew what he was doing and went with a plan to kill an entire family in cold blood.”

He added, “While the result today has been successful, we remain sorrowful and cannot lose sight of the fact that a family, including two very talented young girls, had their lives tragically taken away from them.”

During the trial, the jury heard that Du had travelled to the Ding’s family home in Northampton on 29th April 2011, the day of the Royal Wedding, and “massacred” them.

Du demanded money from Jeff Ding before stabbing him a

total of 23 times. When his wife Helen tried to stop the attack Du stabbed her 13 times.

After hearing a noise upstairs, Du proceeded to one of the bedrooms where Xing was stabbed 11 times and 12 year old Alice was stabbed four times, including once to the heart.

Du then slept for a short time in the house before stealing the family car.

After fleeing the country, Du was found in Morocco in July 2012 and extradited back to Britain to stand trial.

Du and his wife had been business partners with the Ding’s, opening a herbal medicine shop together in 1999. However, in 2001 Du was accused of stealing money from the business, leading to a series of bitter court disputes.

Helped by their friend Paul Delaney, the Dings won the court battle against the Dus, leaving Anxiang and his wife with a bill of £88,000.

The day before the murders, Mr Delaney’s solicitor delivered an injunction to the Dus, freezing their assets.

During the trial, prosecuting counsel, William Harbage QC, said, “Du made a plan and carried it out with ruthless efficiency.

“Having massacred the Ding family, he stole their car and went looking for Paul Delaney.

Fortunately for Mr Delaney, Du did not find him.”

Mr Delaney has since died of natural causes.

Earlier in the trial, the playing of a 999 call from the mobile phone of Xing Ding, an A-level student who had secured a place

Anxiang Du sentenced for murdering Jifeng Ding and his family, pictured, in April 2011 Photo: Northamptonshire Police to study medicine at university, caused several members of the jury to wipe tears from their eyes as they listened to the screams of both girls before the line went dead.

Sentencing Du, Mr Justice Flaux said, “There can be no doubt that this was savage butchery on your part.

“Not content with the slaughter of the parents downstairs, you then went upstairs to the back bedroom where the two Ding

girls were cowering.

“It is apparent from the fact that Nancy’s mobile made the 999 call, that they had heard what was happening downstairs and she was frantically trying to ring the police for help.

“At that moment it seems you came into the room and within a short period of time you had also murdered those poor defenceless girls.

“It is clear from their terrible haunting screams on the 999

call that it was during that call that you murdered them.

“Alice, who was only 12, was on her bed, curled up, no doubt in a futile attempt to get away from you. There was no struggle.”

Mr Justice Flaux defended his decision not to give Du a whole life order, citing a recent European Court of Human Rights ruling that such orders breach human rights.

At the time of the murders, a spokesperson for Manchester

Metropolitan University said that the University was “shocked and saddened” by the news, describing Jeff Ding as “a popular and dedicated member of staff.”

They said, “Jeff will be very sadly missed by all his colleagues in the Division of Chemistry and Environmental Sciences, all our staff, students and his friends at Manchester Metropolitan University and by the wider academic and research communities.”

Piccadilly Wetherspoons Foreign student recruitment in homophobia dispute agencies to be scrutinised

“I know what you queers are like” says barmaid after refusing service to group of gay men Pippa Allen-Kinross News Editor

A Wetherspoons in Manchester has come under fire for refusing service to a group of gay men.

The men were allegedly told twice by a barmaid “I know what you queers are like.” She then told them they were not wanted and threatened to call the police.

The incident occurred after the three men entered the Piccadilly branch at 7:30 a.m. to get breakfast after working at a venue on Canal Street.

The men reported the incident to the police, and the barmaid was questioned but released without charge.

A spokesperson for Wetherspoons told local news website Mancunian Matters, “The member of staff serving them believed one member of the group to be intoxicated.

“After conducting an investigation into the matter, we are satisfied that the decision to refuse service was not based on the sexual orientation of the individuals concerned.

“In the conversation that followed the initial refusal of service both the group and member of staff made reference to the sexuality of the customers but this was not intended on the member of staff ’s behalf to be in any way offensive and we

apologise if it was considered so.”

Matt Bonilla, 23, one of the men refused service, told Mancunian Matters, “This whole episode will make us a bit more cautious about where we go to eat or drink around Manchester in future.

“We certainly won’t be going in this Wetherspoons again.

“All we wanted in the first place was an apology and it’s just annoying that it takes it to get to this point for a major company like Wetherspoons to bother saying sorry.”

A spokesperson for Wetherspoons said, “Until we have spoken with those concerned we are unable to give a fuller account.

We guarantee it will be investigated.”

Recruitment agents will be made to sign ‘code of practice’ Aidan Gregory News Reporter Recruitment agents hired

by UK universities to recruit international students will be vetted under new plans by the government.

Agents will be made to sign a new ‘code of practice’, undertake regular assessments, and will have to obtain a professional accreditation before they can start work. The British Council will then keep a database, and monitor their conduct.

International students are well known as a lucrative market for UK universities, because under the current regulations they are

able to charge them in excess of the £9000 cap imposed on UK/EU students. More than 488,000 come to the UK to study each year, and the government expects that the numbers are going to continue to rise.

Last year research demonstrated that over 51,000 students were recruited by foreign organisations, and UK universities had paid these organisations over £220 million to recruit international students.

Newcastle University alone spent £2.2 million.

These changes come after The Daily Telegraph discovered that overseas agents were bragging to prospective students that they could secure them places at UK universities, even with worse A level grades than British students.

Kevin Van-Cauter, the

International Higher Education Advisor to the British Council, said, “We do not accredit education agents or agencies but we hope the global trained agents database and roll-out of the advanced training will add greater assurance to institutions that they are getting the best possible services when it comes to international student recruitment.”

He went on further to say that “International students make a tremendous academic, cultural and economic contribution to the UK, and our research suggests that the number of mobile students globally will continue to grow over the next decade - making the need for better quality agents who support that mobility process greater than ever.”

08 : Feature

ISSUE 11 / 2nd DECEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Overseas students campaign against government monitoring

The I’m Not Welcome campaign criticises the Government’s anti-immigration policies

Photo Caption: Peter Chinnock

Students start campaign to speak out against immigration laws that make them feel unwelcome

O

verseas students are vital to universities. The huge fees they pay, which can be in excess of £20,000 per year, provide an essential source of funding for universities such as the University of Manchester. Given the huge contribution they make, you’d expect the Government to roll out the red carpet for them. In reality, many feel they are under constants surveillance by the UK Border Agency and no longer feel welcome.

To challenge this contradiction, overseas students at the University of Manchester have launched a campaign to raise awareness of the UKBA’s heavy handed monitoring policies.

“On one side, we have a university that is very welcoming and all our classes are very welcoming, but at the same time we have a discriminatory politics from the government that make us feel very unwelcome,” said Chilean physics PhD student Tania Sauma.

The main target of the I’m Not Welcome campaign was the UK-wide surveillance and monitoring of international students. American cultural studies PhD student Patrick O’Shea explained the policy, “This is a policy that originates from The Home Office,

it’s administered through the UK Border Agency and the distinct schools of the University.

“It might differ in the way that it’s administered, universities might choose to do it differently, but all UK universities are obligated to monitor their non-EU students.

“This is part of a broader set of overseas student policies which go into an even larger set of anti-immigration policies of this government.”

When Tania Sauma arrived in the UK to begin her studies, the situation was very different.

“It all started last year, I arrived in April 2012 and everything was fine then. But things changed very quickly after the London Metropolitan case.

After that all the Universities were asked to monitor the students.”

At London Metropolitan University a large number of overseas students, who were primarily coming for language courses, were on either fraudulent visas or were not completing the terms of their visas. As a result, London Metropolitan were stripped of their Highly Trusted Sponsor status which allowed them to sponsor applications for student visas from international students.

Overseas students, including the ones that had not come on fraudulent

visas were being punished for the University’s lax behaviour, they were told that they had 60 days to either find a new place of study or leave the United Kingdom. For London Met this was disastrous, the University relied heavily on revenue from overseas students. While the UKBA eventually reinstated the University’s Highly Trusted Sponsor status, the damage had been done.

Patrick O’Shea explained that, “What’s happened since then is a crackdown on all the overseas students across the UK in universities.

So the UK Border Agency and the Home Office have been putting pressure on the universities and have obligated them to start monitoring the attendance [of overseas students].”

Overseas students now have to periodically check in to prove they are not violating the terms of their visa.

The system varies from university to university, Tania’s cousin at university in London has to sign in every week while at Manchester students are required to sign in every three months, although until recently they were required to sign in every month.

If for whatever reason they cannot check in, they are sent a threatening email.

“If we do not hear from you within

This is part of a broader set of overseas student policies which go into an even larger set of antiimmigration policies of this government

5 days of receiving this email we will have no alternative but to request that your absence be reported to the UK Border Agency (UKBA). This will mean that your permission to remain in the UK will be curtailed and you will have to return home as soon as possible (but definitely within 60 days). If registered, you will be withdrawn from your course at the University.”

Patrick compares it to being under house arrest or benefits, where you are regularly forced to sign in.

“Our big opposition to it is not just that it makes us feel unwelcome, which is the immediate impact, but in the larger picture it has repercussions for the way the university system across the UK will be affected in terms of attracting overseas students,” he said.

The visa restrictions on overseas students will be expanded to cover not just students but overseas scholars as well.

“There was an 80 year old historian from Algeria who got denied his visa to speak at a conference. He was invited by Oxford, not Manchester Metropolitan, but Oxford. This is happening across the country. The Anthropology conference organised here, was organised by a Manchester University professor called John Gledhill. He was cited in a Guardian article, he had a really hard time organising that conference and getting people from outside the UK to come in and speak.” Patrick said.

ISSUE 11 / 2nd DECEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

News Feature : 09

“I think it is harming academia in general,” added Tania.

The I’m Not Welcome campaign were quick to point their grudge is with UK Border Agency not the University.

Patrick said, “It is not the school. In fact, you can tell when the school language ends and the UKBA language begins, because it becomes more threatening. It basically says that if you don’t come in within five days we will report you to the UKBA, your visa will be revoked, your programme will be cancelled and you have to leave the UK within 60 days.

“This is in the middle of your programme, many of these came to me when I was in the middle of writing up the final version of my thesis in the final months of my programme. It was a very stressful period and they said we were going to deport you if you don’t come in within five days.

“It is not a hard thing to do, but essentially what it constitutes is another mechanism for the Home Office and the UKBA to be able to deport us if they see fit. It’s a way politically for them to be able to look good for the right wing politicians and the people who want to get tough on immigration. Targeting international students is an easy way to do that because there are not a lot of repercussions.”

Tania said she felt “powerless”. In her case she went on holiday for one week, she’d notified her PhD supervisor that she was taking a week off.

When she came back she had two emails from the school.

“One said ‘Tania, congratulations

me, if I am being so dangerous or doing something so wrong, why would they fund me.

“We realised that the University is not willing to do this. They are just doing it because they have to. There is no need to do this because we are actually being monitored by eProg, which is the online system for PhD and Masters students, and the undergraduates have to report into tutorials.”

Patrick stress ‘we are duly monitored, as PhD students we have to have monthly meeting with our supervisors. In some respects, we always have to be monitored. All these threats come before our visas actually expire. They basically say that we are going to terminate your visa early.’

While the monitoring is the focal point of the campaign it is not the only policy directly affecting overseas students. Once undergraduates and masters students finish their programmes, if they wish to stay in the country, they are only given two months to find a job which makes over £20,000 a year, if they cannot they have to leave the country. The employer also has to be able prove that a Briton couldn’t have been employed for the same role. The whole system is absurd, we educate some of the best and the brightest in the world, yet we only give them two months before we kick them out. Recently, the government have decided to extend the period for doctoral students who can now extend their visa for a year for £400.

There are several proposals currently being discussed that could make

would require them to pay even before any scholarships had been given out. For Patrick and Tania these policies would be too much.

our universities as they would no longer be able to attract the best talent in the world.

“I have a scholarship from my gov-

things would have been like this I

you have just got funding from the school for your experiment.’, then another email from the same secretary said ‘You will get deported because you have missed the International Student Census’. I thought okay, this doesn’t make any sense. Why are they funding me, if they are going to deport

the situation even worse for overseas students. One is to charge overseas students £200 to use the NHS, and another more severe proposal would require overseas students pay a £1000 non-refundable deposit to confirm their place at a University. This would apply to all overseas students, and

“I wouldn’t be here” Tania said and Patrick concurred that he wouldn’t likely either. This isn’t just an issue affecting overseas students alone. If these proposals go ahead and people like Tania and Patrick choose not to come universities will lack a key source of revenue and will devalue

ernment, I am absolutely funded by the Chilean government. I get nothing from the UK except the use of the NHS - I only went once. I could be anywhere else in the world because of my academic profile and because of my government funding. I just don’t want to be treated this way. If I had known

hold their first public assembly on

I’m Not Welcome fly their banner outside the University

Photo Caption: I’m Not Welcome Campaign

If I had known things would have been like this I would have gone to France. would have gone to France.”

The I’m Not Welcome campaign will

Monday the 2nd of December at 6pm in the Council Chambers. To find out more about the campaign, you can visit their facebook page: https:// www.facebook.com/imnotwelcome/ Sam Dumitriu

Why students join cults

Cult expert Ian Haworth tells Sam Dumitriu that the well-educated are the most likely recruits for cults Students and graduates should be the least likely to join a cult, yet in almost every cult the vast majority of recruits are well-educated graduates or students. Take the recent case of the Maoist cult accused of keeping women as slaves for 30 years, almost all of the women in the cult were either students or recent graduates. One member Sian Davis who died in 1997, was a high-flying law student studying for a Masters degree at the London School of Economics before she was recruited. Another, Aishah Wahab was an overseas students who won a Commonwealth scholarship to study surveying.

Why do well-educated people like Sian Davis and Aishah Wahab, join groups which anyone with the slightest amount of common-sense should be able to see as utterly crazy mumbo-jumbo?

“Most people that are smart assume that cult victims must have a big problem to gravitate towards a cult,” Ian Haworth, founder of the Cult Information Centre, a charity which provides advice and information about cults for victims, their families and friends, and the media, told The Mancunion. “That means the smart people believe that they don’t need to put up defences, they think it would never happen to them, they think it would never be relevant

to them and they are even easier targets that they would have before.”

Haworth encourages people to guard against cults even if they think they’d never expect to believe themselves. When first asked why students join cults, Haworth stressed that students do not join cults rather they are recruited. He argues cults rely on a series of mind control techniques to trap recruits into the ‘invisible handcuffs’ mentioned by Home Secretary Theresa May. The Cult Information Centre list on their website 26 techniques people should guard against. These include hypnosis, peer group pressure, isolation, and metacommunication (the act of impacting subliminal message by stressing key words).

Every cult is different and some only use ten techniques while others may use all 26.

Haworth stresses people are recruited by these techniques rather than by any allegiance to a message. But, Haworth is careful not to use the term brainwashing.

“Brainwashing was the word used to describe what happened to prisoners of war in Indo-China and Korea, [with mind control] you are not being held physically, you are not being taken by the enemy wearing army fatigues and being locked up. On the surface you appear to be quite free, but

psychologically you are being held. So it’s much more powerful and much more sophisticated.”

The Cult Information Centre offer information on how to deal with friends and family if it appears that they are being recruited into a cult.

“Expose the cult as much as you can - as long as they are not already controlled by the cult. It is easy to underestimate the speed of the influence. You have got to be sure that they are not already involved, because a cult member will be very quickly programmed to understand that anyone who is critical is full of negativity or is an agent of the devil or something like that.

“When family and friends are critical they fall into a trap, the cult member becomes alienated and it becomes difficult to talk to them after that.”

Once someone has been recruited Haworth advises against being directly critical but suggests other ways to reveal the true nature of the cult, “You need to be as loving and kind as possible, you don’t attack the group head on. You don’t say it’s a good thing, you don’t say it’s a bad thing either.

But instead of saying ‘Hey! That group is as phoney as a three dollar bill look at what is said about them on this website.’ which would cause them to become more alien-

Anonymous protest the Church of Scientology PHOTO: Flickr Cradle Apex ated from you.

“You might say instead ‘Hey! I know this means a lot to you.’ now you’re not saying its a good thing, you’re just pointing out it means a lot to them and it does. ‘Tell me, I’ve been trying to get my head around this.’

Cult members have been programmed to see themselves as the elite and you as a non-cult member are a mere mortal and nothing else. They like to understand that they can lord it over you, so you can play to that by saying ‘Hey! I’ve been trying to get my head around it all, I had a look on the internet the other day. Why are these people being so critical on their website about your group. Why are they saying these things?’

“So you and your friend now are looking at why these critics are saying things, so you’re on the same side. You’re trying to reactivate the person’s critical mind with this process. That could be achieved in a day, it might take a week, it might take a month, it might take ten years. But the good news is that there’s no reason why you should fail.”

While cases such the Maoist ‘slaves’ may never be fully explained, the Cult Information Centre highlights the way cults recruit members not through persuasion but through psychological coercion. Students should be wary, if you think you’re too smart to ever believe in such nonsense and let your guard down, you might just be smart enough to be recruited.

10

Opinion

ISSUE 11/ 2nd DECEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Keep your hands off our student loans

Harriet Pugh argues the privatisation of student loans is devaluing our education and continuing the consumerist culture that prioritises profit over people Photo:: flickr@MattfromLondon

My Political Villain...

Boris Johnson

Photo: Flickr@consumerist.com T h e g o v e r n m e n t ’s p l a n s t o s e l l o f f student loans are in response to a growing national debt crisis c aused by non-repayment of loans.

T h e r i s e o f t u i t i o n f e e s t o £ 9,0 0 0 means that thousands of students are saddled with vast amounts of debt they are unable to repay now and likely ever will be. In order to tackle this problem, the government are selling the debt off cheaply to private companies so, in the short term, the government c an recuperate some of the money that it will likely never get back.

Repor ts from the government reveal four key areas that are likely to change in order for companies t o e n f o r c e r e p a y m e n t m o r e q u i c k l y, and therefore make money on a cheap investment – a loan that was sold for far less than it is worth.

These are; inc reased repayment rates (the speed or amount of repayments); lowered repayment thresholds (so that you will have to pay back your loans when earning only a very small amount each year); increased interest rates; and write off extensions (so that the time it takes for a debt to be written off is extended).

This is a bad idea for one main reason, it is not an appropriate solution for tackling the issue of a deregulated higher education system.

The reason the government are in this debt crisis is bec ause it handed over too much power to private companies in the first place, allowing them to market educ ation inappropriately - much like the subprime mortgages that c aused the financial crisis.

Deregulated higher education meant that almost any company could qualify as a universit y and sell its services in the form of formal qualifications.

This

has had a number of disastrous consequences. It has created a competitive market in educ ation which forces universities to market themselves at the expense of spending their money on staffing and resources.

It also means that many students are receiving a poor standard of educ ation and getting into debt for a qualification that means very little and does not provide them with the job opportunities it promises.

Corporations a re c re a t i n g false demand for education on the fabricated p ro m i s e o f e m p l o ya b i l i t y And, it systematically devalues qualit y degrees as there are not the appropriate qualit y checks and assurances in place to ensure that students are receiving qualit y education. As a result, more and more students are borrowing money to receive a substandard educ ation from universities who spend far too much time conjuring up new ways to market themselves and provide t h e p r o m i s e o f e m p l o y a b i l i t y.

A r g u a b l y, e m p l o y a b i l i t y i s w h a t the students want - and rightly s o - b u t l e t ’s n o t f o r g e t t h a t t h i s is all happening in the context of a severe lack of jobs. Tailoring the universit y education system to meet the demands of an overly saturated job market is not only an inappropriate solution but is

eroding the very basis of academia; the pursuit of truth. Producing degrees that render students more and more employable to jobs and employers that do not exist is about as useful as plunging them into vast amounts of debt they will never be a b l e t o r e p a y.

Big corporations are making money out of students by creating false demand for education on the f a b r i c a t e d p r o m i s e o f e m p l o y a b i l i t y.

Education is therefore becoming increasingly expensive in a situation where it does not, and quite simply cannot, equate to a return on the investment that it promises. In the current climate, a decent educ ation will not get you very far bec ause it is not worth t h e p a p e r i t ’s w r i t t e n o n . W i t h o u t other vital attributes such as well p o s i t i o n e d s o c i a l c o n t a c t s , l e t ’s face it, a refined thinker is no more likely to run a bank than a methaddict.

Economising education is disastrous. It puts profit before p e o p l e , d e m a n d b e f o r e s u p p l y, employabilit y before academia, marketing before services and all at the expense of the academic communit y it is supposed to serve.

Education should be a basic right for those people who want to learn. Creating a commodit y for the extraction of profit is not only destroying academia but perpetuating a debt crisis that is completely unsustainable.

The privatisation of the loan book is just another means of transferring the responsibilit y for these kinds of decisions from the rich people who made them to the students who are simply trying to secure themselves a nice life in the conditions available to them.

Boris Johnson is normally regarded as a charismatic buffoon, delightfully un-PC, and constantly the centre of controversy. He is the antidote to all those politicians that parrot the part y line and refuse to answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to a direct question, even if his own response to hard questions is to splutter and spout words in latin.

His clownish exterior has managed to protect him from scandals that have ended the careers of many of his contemporaries. His notoriet y as a philanderer is laughed off, the fact that he lied to then part y leader Michael Howard about an affair does not dampen the public’s opinion of him as a ‘stand up chap’.

His journalistic past is equally dubious yet Boris has miraculously managed to separate his former career from his political one. Not even the fact that he nearly provided infomation that would have resulted in a journalist being beaten up, but failed on that occasion to supply the required address due to his own incompetence, has managed to change the overwhelming public feeling of support. Ye gods he’s only steps away from being declared a national treasure.

And then he performs a speech in which he trumpets the benefits of greed, mocks the population with an IQ under 85 and argued that inequalit y is essential to fostering “the spirit of envy”. Wow, what a great guy. Does this mean his new Mayoral policy will be to support the other six of the Seven Deadly Sins? I can just see the headlines.

‘Lust, envy and wrath declared “basic principles of British societ y” by London mayor’. ‘Policies on gluttony must change to accept the underlying realities of societ y’.

Boris is unashamedly elitist and an open supporter of the “hedge fund kings”. How can we still chuckle at a man who basically held up those people through whose carelessness and corporate greed precipitated a recession from which we are only just reovering as the best of societ y? When Boris talks about the need to give the hard-working people of London a break what he really means is, get off the backs of the financiers. Stop flogging a dead horse. The recession happened, these chaps feel very bad about it, now we’ve all got to get on and make some money.

Let’s stop holding him up as the saviour of modern politics and realise that he is just another politician, albeit with less traditional hair.

Many things make him my political villain, his populistic appeal, his chameleon nature in regard to social policy - he’s both opposed the repeal of Section 28 and strode at the head of a London pride march in a pink cowboy hat - and his steely political ambition - ‘Et tu Brutus’ is surely only a matter of time. Mostly my fear and dislike come from the terrible realisation that acting the fool might actually get this very astute Conservative elected. Only then will we realise what a morally-bankrupt, class-war mongering cit y-boy he really is.

Charlotte Green

Opinion

ISSUE 11/ 2nd DECEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

11

A manifesto written in crayon speaks volumes about democracy The students at Oxford University recently elected a ‘joke’ candidate to serve as the President of their students’ union. Louis Trup managed to galvanise support by proclaiming people should vote for him because he regularly wore flip-flops, which was written on his manifesto in crayon along with a few other supposedly humorous reasons for electing him.

The reader may understandably dismiss Trup’s case as a pointless student election, that has no bearing on anything, but it may be more relevant to national politics than you might think.

Student elections can be viewed as a microcosm of national elections. In their university days, many of our current MPs honed their skills as student representatives.

Michael Gove, the current Secretary of State for Education, was President of the Oxford Union during his time at the prestigious institution.

One thing Trup’s election may

illustrate is the growing trend within politics of a heavy focus on personality. Trup offered no serious policies whatsoever, yet was elected.

Parallels can be drawn here with UK political ‘characters’ such as Boris Johnson. Boris is regularly featured in the media behaving like a clown and this seems to gain him certain popularity. Yet the reality is that Johnson is more of a cheerleader for the square mile of the City of London than a representative of the average London citizen. The media is undoubtedly the biggest driver of X-Factor style electoral contests, dumbing down the political debate to choosing a candidate because he seems ‘cool’.

Perhaps the greatest example of this is President Obama.

Obama managed to gain unconditional support from large sections of the electorate on the back of a personality driven, rhetoric fuelled campaign back in 2008.

The cult of personality that

surrounds the President was pertinently illustrated earlier this year by U.S. rapper The Game (real name Jayceon Taylor). In March, Taylor decided to have Barack Obama’s face tattooed on to his chest in order to affirm his love for the President.

Taylor stated that Obama could have come out and said his A-B-C’s in the 2012 Presidential debate, and still would have received his vote. It is rather ironic that Taylor, from the infamous Los

An additional course cost is anything that you’ve had to pay for outside of your tuition fees. Maybe you’ve had to buy expensive textbooks because there weren’t enough in the library? Or you’ve had to pay for a field trip that you thought was included in your fees?

Angeles neighbourhood of Compton, who even wrote a song entitled ‘Born in the Trap’ now adores the leader who is just like every other politician perpetuating the very ‘trap’ that he was born in to. Such elevation of form over substance has potentially serious consequences for our democracy.

Trup’s successful campaign illustrates the indifference felt by many at Oxford University towards the same old candidates running for

Name: Items bought:

the Union Presidency. None of the three other candidates managed to engage the student electorate like Trup. While Trup’s campaign was largely farcical, there does appear to have been something of a message behind it. Trup declared that he was not a ‘careerist’ working towards a cosy Labour seat in twenty years like the other candidates and wanted to bring some “fun” to the post.

Perhaps this reflects aspects of our national political system. Clearly, it would be nearly impossible for a ‘joke’ candidate to be elected as a Member of Parliament given the stranglehold of the two main political parties and the electoral system which helps to maintain it.

However, the appetite among Oxford students for something other than the unoriginal and inoffensive candidates in their election is an appetite shared by many in the national sphere.

Politicians appear self-serving and ultimately indifferent to the

Course:

populace they are supposed to serve. Faith in our politicians and engagement beyond occasionally laughing at Boris is at an all-time low as people do not feel that government is responsive to their needs.

People are tired of politicians breaking their promises. The Liberal Democrats came in to government promising to scrap tuition fees, fees have since trebled. David Cameron promised there would be no more top down reorganisations or structural upheavals of the NHS, we are now witnessing the most radical upheaval in the history of the health service.

The gap between rich and poor ever widens.

The fact that Louis Trup was elected as Oxford Union President despite his campaign lacking in any substance may just be a phenomenon confined to Oxford University.

Alternatively, it may serve as a useful analogy for aspects of our national democratic system.

Josh Knowles

Year: Cost:

If this has happened to you, please use this form to tell your student rep what you’ve had to pay for.

They can fight to get you a better deal next time.

Tell your Union about your additional course costs at manchesterstudentsunion.com/costs

ISSUE 11/ 2nd December 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Editors: Phoebe Clarke, Patrick Hinton, Tom Ingham Interview

Opinion

theMUSIC OPINION: Why everyone should listen to Jazz...

Listen to a conversation on any bus on the Wilmslow Road bus corridor on a Monday morning and you’ll be beguiled by stories of a student’s hedonistic weekend.

Most often the conversation turns to ‘how sick the DJ was at the house party’ and a discussion of the various genre-defying mixes that emanated from the oversized rig ensues. Yes, we take very seriously the music we hear on nights out, and a culture has evolved where people go to house parties to hear a specific DJ. Here in Manchester we’re lucky to be able to experience great quantities of quality dance music almost everywhere we go, but how many of us actually think about where it comes from and what it actually is?

You may be able to guess where i’m going with this.

If you think about it, practically all the dance music we come across is in some way indebted to jazz. Sounds like a sweeping statement, but starting with Disco each consequent movement has taken an element from jazz and incorporated it into its sound, from the obvious sampling of jazz breakbeats in hip-hop to the more subtle incorporation of jazz harmony into deep house.

I’ll illustrate this with some examples.

Why not start with one of the first ever disco records? Manu Dibango’s ‘Soul Makossa’ (1972) is a prime example of how jazz rhythm has influenced dance music. Here we see the emphasis placed on two and four of a four beat bar, rather than the typical one and three.

This has been an important feature of ‘swing’ rhythm in jazz from the 1930s onwards.

Moving on 40 years and elements of jazz are used by many House, Techno and Trance musicians. Examples range from the explicit sampling of jazz musicians themselves (such as in St. Germain’s album Tourist) to the more subtle incorporation of swing rhythms into most Techno tracks (that certain bounce you can hear is what a jazz musician would call swing).

I could go on but word limits are restricting so you’ll have to trust me.

But why does this mean that you should listen to Jazz? Isn’t it outdated and elitist, and anyway that’s why we’re seeing so many modern reinterpretations of it? Put simply, no. The reason why you should listen to Jazz, like so many of your favourite artists have, is because many of the themes and underpinning concepts behind Jazz are still relevant today. Rebellion, anger, oppression; these are the things that make it so exciting and so current.

Jazz has inspired musicians of successive generations. Surely this must be down to the fact that they felt something within it is so valuable that it must be preserved for anyone who hans’t been exposed to it?

So, go to Matt and Phred’s on a Monday Jam night to see the local talent (there’s lots!) and go find out which jazz artists inspired your favourite DJ to see what kind of Jazz you may be into. I promise you’ll be intrigued, if not delighted.

Nathan Pigott

the MUSIC INTERVIEW:

MSMR

We caught up with New Yorkers, Lizzy Palpinger (MS) and Max Hershenow (MR) to discuss their humble beginnings, snowballing success, and current tour.

I catch MSMR after a British-style blowout Sunday lunch before their show in the evening in Academy 3. Despite feeling slightly lethargic, they seem eager to tell me about the band. They reminisce about the last time they were in town; “We did a show in Manchester in the middle of summer and it was so hot that we literally melted” Lizzy says smiling, “but it was one of my favourite shows I’ve ever played with the most energetic crowd, I even stage dived.” Max cuts in to add, “well yeah, you could say that, I looked on Twitter after the show and someone had posted ‘the show was so great and Lizzy landed on me’ [they laugh].”

Lizzy and Max both attended Vassar College in New York, but it wasn’t until after they graduated and got back in contact that MSMR was eventually founded. This was only in 2010, and they’ve achieved a lot in the last three years, the last two of which have been touring worldwide. Max says “We’ve been on tour for two years and we only have two weeks left. I’m looking forward to getting home, but we’ve had the best time”.

But in their recent rise to success, they haven’t forgotten their humble beginnings.

Max explains; “We had a keyboard, a laptop and one microphone and that was it” and Lizzy adds “we didn’t even know we were going to make a record. It was just me and Max in Max’s closet turned studio”. With this, Lizzy turns to me and continues “We were doing it around our day jobs. I think that pressure of time meant that we had to be really focused and efficient. So we didn’t really know we were a band until we had a collection of songs and we were like “wow”.

So we put out an EP and started getting some industry attention and then things sort of… snowballed”.

We even pulled inspiration from Gothic literature...

Oddly, the band was signed having nearly a full albums worth of songs already up their sleeves. “We got signed and went to the studio and we already had the tracks so all we had to do was mix the record. It was a very powerful position to be in because we’d had the opportunity to completely define our musical and visual aesthetic ourselves before bringing other people into the process” says Max. Their dedication and hard work paid off and their debut album, Second Hand Rapture was released in May 2013, and received a very positive reception.

They both agree that they’ve really captured MSMRs identity in the album. Their pop sound is distinctively defined by their dark wave sensibility and catchy melodies.

Lizzy describes her lyrics by suggesting they are “often philosophical or introspective and metaphorical”, and says “I’ve even pulled inspiration from things like Gothic literature [laughs]”, all of which have contributed to the almost eerie style of captivating tracks like ‘Bones’ and ‘Dark Doo Wop’ that appear on the album.

“There are a lot of styles, genres and time periods that we draw from and are inspired

by” Max suggests, emphasising that “we pride ourselves on being a mixed media and collage orientated band”. This forms a particularly unique facet to the band, evident from their Tumblr (http://msmrmusic.tumblr.com/) which chronicles some of their inspirations and influences, serving as another creative outlet in addition to the music. “It started as a tool to help us define our asthenic and now it’s continued to be an on-going mood board that’s been with us from the very beginning” Max concludes. “The music comes first, and that’s how are interest is dedicated”, Lizzy interjects, “but I think it’s fun to see how your vision can be executed across different platforms to develop and extend the identity of the music and the band”.

Amid their busy tour schedule, the pair still found time to go to and perform at festivals throughout the summer. In amongst their summer highlight, Max says “We had an amazing time in Splendour in the Grass in Australia, it was wild. There were thousands of people there and they all seemed to know the lyrics” and Lizzy adds “it was definitely our Beyoncé moment” [laughs]. And when I ask them which festival they enjoyed the most, they pause, look at each other and unanimously declare “Glastonbury”. Lizzy says “It was awesome. Chic were my favourite, honestly it was so much fun. All different age groups full on dancing all together. It was just so much fun”.

It seems that MSMR have been busy for so long they’ve forgotten what it’s like not to be touring. They’ve been soaking up every minute, however, and are excited to see what is in store for the band in 2014.

Harriet Leitch

Top 5, by Bernadette Chapman

TOP 5 SONGS:

in the field of clothes

1. Chris de Burgh Lady in Red

2. Weezer- Undone (the Sweater Song)

Electric drums, the gentle guitar riff played with overbite, classic synth, and Chris’s smooth ‘mmmms.’ You cannot get any better. Literally; it’s Alan Partridge endorsed you know.

Made when Weezer were on the precipice of the frat-rock genre.

If only they stopped at this song about pulling a sweater thread until there’s nothing left, instead of going on to record ‘Beverley Hills.’

3. Velvet Underground Venus in Furs

4. The Cramps - I Wanna Get in Your Pants

5. Pissed Jeans Caught Licking Leather

‘Venus in Furs’ is drone music with a mysticism fetish and very few chords. It sonically aches with its story of love and obsession.

Imagine the dancing in Dirty Dancing was actually as sleazy as everyone in the film pretended it was and multiply by a factor of surf. Perfect rock ‘n’ sleaze.

I have no idea what they’re on about. The drums march on, but everything else bleeds in and out of the track in a fantastically noisy fashion. Brilliant.

ISSUE 11/ 2nd December 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

: @MancunionMusic : / TheMancunionMusicSection

Music

13

Interview

The Virginmarys

authenticity resonates throughout the band, especially when it comes to their stress on live performances. Kings of Conflict was recorded completely live, and the band cites the extensive time they’ve spent on the road as essential to “capturing the live essence” that is so important to them. However, when it comes to the band’s favourite aspect of being on tour - “sausage rolls and red wine, definitely”, says Dickaty, and the rest of the band agrees.

The Virginmarys spent the summer touring America, concurring the experience was “mind-blowing [and] a great time”. They also have supported Queens of the Stone Age in Germany, which was “pretty awesome” drummer Danny Dolan admits. It’s a step up from watching them perform live as a kid, apparently, which Dolan claims was “really disappointing”.

In the meantime, the band has been “writing loads”. But that doesn’t mean they won’t be appreciating their time off post-tour, which guitarist Matt Rose says will entail “watching a lot of Game of Thrones and drinking a lot of alcohol”. So what can be expected out

Academy 2 22/11/2013 7/10

The last ten years hasn’t seen many rock bands make a mark on the UK music scene with much noticeable success. However, fresh off winning ‘Best Breakthrough Act’ of the 2013 Classic Rock Awards and winding down a headlining tour, The Virginmarys may be the exception. The Macclesfieldbased rock group played a sold out homecoming show in Manchester at the Academy 2, and I caught up with the band before their set to talk about their recently released debut album, the importance of live music and the best Travelodge they’ve ever stayed in (answer - York; “they had superior rugs”, lead vocalist Ally Dickaty explains).

The Virginmarys, who have been playing together since 2006 and pride themselves on being “the real deal” who have “done what [they’ve] always

Want to write for us?

wanted... without fitting to any specific genre,” released their debut full length album Kings of Conflict this past year on Wind Up Records after recording four EPs in three years on their own. The band cites their previous DIY experience as the “only option” they had at the time. However, their time spent crafting their songs paid off when they were finally offered a record deal, as they were signed “for the album they had already created,” Dickaty explains, as opposed to being molded into a specific type of image or group. He explains the necessity of “being in it for the right reason,” and when asked what piece of advice to give out to bands starting out, the whole band resoundingly emphasizes the need to “avoid TV talent... like the X Factor”. This commitment to

and focused beats keep everyone from band members to gig-goers animated, and his skill as a drummer is obvious.

The Virginmarys have just put out a stripped acoustic album, and therefore the lack of acoustic numbers selected to lighten up a set heavy with rock and roll is surprising. Dickaty says the choice to put out the acoustic version “has gone over really well”, and therefore the band’s preference to overlook pretty much anything acoustic in their live set seems to be an odd choice.

However, all the members have stressed the importance of pure rock and roll, and if this is what the Virginmarys are going for, it’s impossible to admit that they don’t do it well. The shows ends with calls for an obvious encore (why bands pretend to leave the stage when they have yet to play their most famous single is something that remains unclear to me) of ‘Bang Bang Bang’, and the show ends with a fittingly resounding crash.

Ruby Hoffman

Mancunion Music Meetings Every Thursday, 5pm

Student Activities Office, 1st Floor of SU

Review

Queens of the Stone Age Phones4U Arena - 20th November 2013 Queens of the Stone Age have done a lot of touring with their new album, ...Like Clockwork.

But if they were fed up of playing I couldn’t tell, and we’re certainly not fed up of hearing.

Starting off with an old-time film-style countdown of sixty quite exciting seconds, Queens of the Stone Age began with ‘You Think I Ain’t Worth a Dollar.

But I Feel Like a Millionaire’ and from the start everyone was jumping.

They filled the set with tracks from their newest effort, the hearing of which instigated equal delight in the audience

of their sophomore album? “Well, it’s going to be better than the first album”, says Dickaty. “There’s a tendency for progression within second albums and I’m sure we’ll do the same”. While it may not be featured on an album anytime soon, Dickaty talks about his hip-hop influences, citing the “poetry” in hip-hop lyricism as influential to his own writing.

The band is currently on tour with Vox Empire, a band they were referred to through their agent. “Their guitarist has only been in the band for two weeks”, Rose explains, “but you’d never know it. It’s been awesome watching them come together”. Vox Empire does indeed live up to Rose’s hype, playing a half hour set of solid, energized rock.

The Virginmarys are understandably excited to play a homecoming show and the “positive vibes” they anticipate at such a gig lives up to these expectations. Opening with ‘Portrait of Red’ and playing such favourite singles as ‘Just a Ride’ within the first few songs, they keep the crowd high-energy from the get-go. Rose as a drummer particularly steals the show - his precise

as older songs such as ‘Burn the Witch’ with its stomping, glam rock guitar. With an audacious amount of infectiously sing-along-able riffs, Queens of the Stone Age are talented song writers, with, as Josh Homme commented in a recent interview, songs for both the boys and the girls.

The new ‘I Appear Missing’ came embellished, and urged the crowd to spin along with the stretched out final bars which rolled further than on record, and the ridiculously catchy ‘No One Knows’ had plenty going on to dance to. When

9/10

the deliciously sleazy ‘Make It Wit Chu’ was played, it was slow dance heaven. Despite the presence of so many people, the purring vocals made it feel entirely personal. As a front man, Homme is one sexy bastard with plenty of charisma to make a two hour set seem like ten minutes and leave everyone wanting more.

Initially worrying was the venue due to its size and the presence of advertising banners all over the shop, yet the choice was inevitable and Queens of the Stone Age had no problem filling the huge space with sound.

They have the complexity of song writing which is at once glam, scuzzy, melodious, and trippy, with little references like ‘Kalopsia’s’ shoo-wop from an old Flamingoes record, that means they could play in a fucking bin and I’d love it. I won’t get fed up of hearing them any time soon.

Bernadette Chapman

Review

Eddi Reader RNCM - 1st November 2013 Seeing Scottish singer’/songwriter Eddi Reader live for the first time promises to be a fascinating experience and the small theatre at the RNCM also allows it to be an intimate one.

We are first introduced to her warm-up act, Irish singer/songwriter Kieran Goss, who performs several simple yet pretty songs. ‘That’s What Love is For’ is particularly nice.

Eddi and her band enter to cheers. She addresses the crowd with affection and charm, telling lengthy and endearing anecdotes before every song. She is so sweet and earnest, it is impossible not to be entranced by her personality, let alone her musical talent - and that talent is striking. She and her band are a smooth outfit, completely in tune with one another. Her voice is sumptuous, and she loses herself in every song, letting it take her over, often dancing with contagious passion.

‘Dragonflies’, a popular choice in the house to judge by the noise when she announces it, is particularly lovely, as are ‘Galileo’

and ‘Married to the Sea’. The latter, about a man asking the sea to be his wife, is not only gorgeous but an interesting experiment as it was originally written and performed by a young man, Declan O’Rourke, and as Eddi herself says, it’s interesting to hear it sung by a middle-aged woman, the voice of the sea.

She performs her best known song and crowd-pleaser ‘Perfect’, yet the night without it would have been equally good.

Her biggest hit isn’t needed to

10/10 make the show complete, and I think that says worlds about her as a performer.

I meet her after the show and she is lovely. I feel privileged to have encountered this unique person, voice and attitude to life and music.

Elizabeth Gibson

14

Music

ISSUE 11/ 2nd DECEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Mancunion Recommends

Now: Eminem - The Marshall Mathers EP 2

Book now: 0161 832 1111 For full listings visit:

manchesteracademy.net DECEMBER Papa Roach Thursday 5th

Shady Recoords/Interscope. Release Date - 5th November 2013 7/10

“Shady’s back, tell a friend…”

In the world of rap music, few events are as hotly anticipated as the release of a new Eminem album; having sold close to a quarter of a billion records, he’s remained one of the world’s most influential pop culture icons ever since he inspired outrage and adoration alike with his breakthrough record The Slim Shady LP. Since then, his work has always seemed to follow a strong thematic thread, with 2002’s The Eminem Show being followed

by Encore, as well as the extended narrative arc of Relapse and Recovery. Within this ongoing narrative, The Marshall Mathers LP 2 is his first direct sequel, reflecting on - and paying tribute to - what is perhaps his best loved set of songs. The decision to release a second instalment of the album that inspired a nation to ‘not give a fuck’ was undoubtedly a risky one, and while it will never have the impact and appeal of the original, TMMLP2 is largely a worthy follow-up.

Opening with the ambitious seven minute murder story ‘Bad Guy’, a continuation of The Marshall Mathers LP’s landmark single ‘Stan’, the dark and at times uncomfortable tone of the original is re-established early on.

‘Brainless’ and ‘So Much Better’ continue to harken back to the vintage Eminem sound,

the latter of which being the latest example of his infamous misogyny. However, the album is surprisingly eclectic musically, thanks in part to the large rotation of producers, most notably Eminem himself and Rick Rubin.

Singles ‘Survival’ and the Beastie Boysinspired ‘Berzerk’ are refreshingly modern and upbeat, signalling that his celebrityname-dropping-in-a-funny-accent tendency in his lead singles has mercifully come to an end. ‘So Far…’ and ‘Love Game’ are some of the most fun and light-hearted tracks he’s released in years, whilst ‘Legacy’ and ‘Headlights’ – a startling and affecting apology to his mother – are exactly the kind of frank emotional outburst that has won him the trust and respect of his listeners for the last two decades.

That being said, as with most of Eminem’s recent records, the definite highs are accompanied by some cringe-worthy lows.

First and foremost is ‘Stronger Than I Was’, which straight off the bat is the worst thing to happen to music since the Crazy Frog; a soppy Bieber-esque piano ballad that sees Em’s nasal whine of a singing voice take centre stage for five wince inducing minutes, it’s both out of place and unnecessary. ‘Asshole’ - the other main culprit - sounds tired, with a flat, uninspired chorus, and filled with dated Insane Clown Posse and Gwen Stefani disses; a minor offense, but it’s hard to imagine the Eminem of old being so out of touch.

The Marshall Mathers LP 2 works as both an album in its own right and as a companion piece to the original; overall, it’s a welcome change of pace from the self-help preaching of Recovery and, despite its flaws and the inevitable comparisons that will be drawn, it’s at least good to hear Eminem start having fun again.

Dan Whiteley

Then: Slint - Spiderland Touch & Go - March 1991.

With Slint playing one of two ATP headlining shows in Manchester’s Albert Hall this Thursday before they go on to play ATP’s End of an Era Holiday camp this weekend, this seems a better time than any to look back at why Slint were such an important band.

Formed from the ashes of seminal punk outfit Squirrel Bait in the late 80s, Slint put out their first release in 1989. Recorded by Steve Albini, Tweez was an interesting albeit imperfect album, straddling the line between Squirrel Bait and what was to come, leading to what was ultimately a bit of a mess, despite the meticulous Albini’s presence.

Nonetheless Slint persevered, and in 1991 they released their masterwork. Comprising of six tracks and running for a total of just 39 minutes, Spiderland wastes no time achieving its vision. Each track contains a fully realised narrative (Barring the instrumental ‘For Dinner’, which sounds like a precursor to Radiohead’s ‘Treefingers’). Vocalist Brian McMahan mumbles his way through each story, accentuating the words with strained singing on the beautiful ‘Washer’ or even turning back to his hardcore days such as the shouts on ‘Nosferatu Man’ or the famous “I miss you” refrain that ends the album.

Instrumentally, each track features intricate interplay between each band member, with the guitars weaving in and out of each other as they explore their sonic palette. To a synesthete,

this music conjures only black and white, the photograph taken by Will Oldham that adorns the cover acting as a gateway to Slint’s beautiful, creepy world.

Many vouch for Spiderland’s influence on the creation of post-rock yet, much like Talk Talk’s later work, there are very few instances of others really trying to work with the Slint sound besides perhaps Chavez, Mogwai and fellow Kentuckians Rodan. Slint contains within itself an entire reality, one designed not to evoke necessarily positive feelings, but for one to immerse yourself in and think. Spiderland is a vital document of underground music at its most challenging yet listenable, and will forever remain a timeless and singular work.

Jack Winstanley

Watain Thursday 5th White Lies Friday 6th Dutch Uncles Friday 6th Hell To Pay Saturday 7th For Those About To Rock: Livewire The AC/DC Show + The ZZ Tops Saturday 7th

Gavin DeGraw Friday 28th

MARCH 2014 The Dear Hunter And Anthony Green Saturday 1st Temples Saturday 1st Blackberry Smoke Sunday 2nd R5 Louder World Tour Wednesday 5th Architects Friday 7th All Time Low Friday 14th

The Word Alive Sunday 8th

Heaven 17 Saturday 15th

The Men They Couldn’t Hang Thursday12th

Maximo Park Saturday 15th

Alabama 3 Friday 13th Gogol Bordello Saturday 14th Scar the Martyr Saturday 14th In Hindsight Wednesday 18th

Sex Pistols Experience Saturday 15th Kodaline Wednesday 19th Space & Republica Thursday 20th

Levellers Friday 20th

Ian Prowse & Amsterdam Friday 21st

The Ratells Saturday 21st

OneRepublic Friday 21st

Overload Saturday 28th

Franz Ferdinand Saturday 22nd

JANUARY 2014 Lamb of God Sunday 19th dan le sac vs Scroobius Pip Sunday 19th Megan Nicole Tuesday 21st Redd Kross Friday 24th Julia Sheer Wednesday 22nd Mayday Parade Thursday 30th RX Bandits Friday 31st

FEBRUARY 2014 Jefferson Starship Saturday 1st Killswitch Engage/Trivium Saturday 1st Skindred Sunday 2nd Less Than Jake & Reel Big Fish Monday 3rd

Transmission - The Sounds of Joy Division Saturday 22nd Earl Sweatshirt Tuesday 25th Azealia Banks Wednesday 26th Bonafide Wednesday 26th Deathstars Wednesday 26th The Stranglers Saturday 29th Katy B Saturday 29th

APRIL 2014 Halestorm Friday 4th Mentallica vs Megadeth UK Saturday 5th Deaf Havana Saturday 5th Devildriver Wednesday 9th The Wildhearts Thursday 10th

Ron Pope + Wakey! Wakey!

Thursday 6th

Memphis May Fire Friday 11th

Little Comets Wednesday 5th

Uncle Acid &The Deadbeats Thursday 24th

Protest The Hero Thursday 6th Cassetteboy vs DJ Rubbish Friday 7th August Burns Red Monday 10th Phoenix Tuesday 11th The Defiled Tuesday 11th Mikill Pane Friday 14th Parquet Courts Saturday 15th Tich Monday 15th Sonic Boom Six Wednesday 19th twenty one pilots Friday 21st M.A.D. Friday 21st Room 94 Saturday 22nd MDNGHT Saturday 22nd Laura Cantrell Saturday 22nd ReConnected Monday 24th Rock Sound Impericon Exposure Tour We Came As Romans + Chunk! No, Captain Chunk! + The Color Morale + Palm Reader Wednesday 26th

UB40 Saturday 12th

Patent Pending & People On Vacation Friday 25th The Smiths Ltd Saturday 26th John Butler Trio Sunday 27th

MAY 2014 Martin Stephenson & The Daintees Thursday 8th Jagwar Ma Saturday 10th The Clone Roses Saturday 10th CASH – The No.1 Johnny Cash Tribute Saturday 17th Ned’s Atomic Dustbin + The Wedding Present + CUD + The Sultans Of Ping + The Frank & Walters

GIGANTIC – Classic Indie All Dayer Bank Holiday Saturday 24th

SEPTEMBER 2014 Evile (Album Launch Show) Saturday 17th

Games

ISSUE 11/ 2nd DECEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

15

Editor: Alasdair Preson Feature

Christmas Console Buyers Guide

Retro Corner

Bruce Tang recalls one of the most unusual and memorable games of his past

Alasdair Preston helps you find the best bang for your buck ‘Tis the season to invest in expensive tech gear and, wouldn’t you know it, it just so happens to come as soon as some big consoles have launched. But which one should you buy?

And what about all the other options? We take a look at the possible presents you could find under the tree and give our tips to being a Christmas Console Buyer this year.

then should you change your mind? The PS4 is already home to some of the year’s biggest top quality titles, such as Assassin’s Creed IV, Battlefield 4 and Call of Duty: Ghosts. The first quarter of 2014 will bring with it big name titles such as the hotly anticipated Destiny and Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs. The PS4 also boasts some decent free titles available to those with a PS Plus membership (now required for multiplayer anyway). But is it worth splashing out so soon? If you weren’t so enthusiastic that you had to buy it on day one, you probably don’t need to be rushing to buy it for Christmas unless a bargain happens to come along. But don’t wait for a price cut either, we won’t be seeing one for at least a year.

Buy it for: Killzone Shadow Fall, Knack, Resogun Wait for: Drive Club, inFAMOUS Second Son Price: £349.99

two latest system releases aren’t backwards compatible, and so don’t render their predecessors obsolete (just yet). The Wii U is, so the Wii, sadly, will be left out.

As another brand new console, the Xbox One suffers from the same launch window problems as the PS4. The launch line up offers some good prospects, but there are little in the Playstation 4 way of big releases between now and spring.

Having just released in the UK last week, most Add that to the expected settling in time of a people who were going to buy one soon will new system, and it may not be worth buying already have it and won’t need convincing. But either system straight away if you weren’t if you were waiting for Santa to bring it around already convinced. Having said that, games like Ryse: Son of Rome and Dead Rising 3 try to offer something you’ve never played before. If you’re itching to upgrade to the next gen, then there’s no time like the present as, again, we’re unlikely to see a price cut any time soon.

Buy it for: Dead Rising 3. Ryse: Son of Rome, Forza Motorsport 5 Wait for: Titanfall, Quantum Break Price: £429.99 “But wait!” you cry. “I haven’t even bought a CURRENT generation system yet!”. If this Killzone Shadow Fall on PS4, Image credit: ToTheGame.com is you, then you need to get involved this festive season. The

In its eight year life, the 360 has played home to some of the finest games of the generation, especially for action fans. The likes of Halo and Gears of War have made it the home of the multiplayer shooter fan. Communities for both games and many more still thrive, and will continue to do so. While big name releases for the 360 and PS3 have dried up indefinitely, there are still so many to catch up on that you’ll never be short of options.

Buy it for: Forza, Halo, Gears of War Wait for: Seriously stop waiting already.

Price: Again, varies. Top end £169.99 with two games @ Game.co.uk Don’t forget that, as well as their many exclusives, both the PS3 and 360 offer a huge library of shared multiplatform games that simply cannot be missed. The likes of GTA, Bioshock, Batman, Tomb Raider and many, many more all enjoyed their time on this generation and shouldn’t be overlooked.

Hopefully, you now feel well armed and well informed for making your Christmas console purchases. Really, there are no wrong choices.

Wii U

This is the Wii U’s second Christmas on the UK market, but sales have hardly been magical and, chances are, most people don’t yet own one. But, in truth, there’s never been a better time to buy Nintendo’s latest machine. In the past year, it has gathered a nice back-catalogue of quality titles and early 2014 should bring scores more. Nintendo have had a year’s lead on their competition and have ironed out the launch window kinks that Xbox and Playstation owners will continue to suffer from for the next couple of months.

Buy it for: Super Mario 3D World, Pikmin 3, Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD Wait for: Super Smash Bros, Mario Kart 8 Price: £229.99 with game.

Xbox One

Playstation 3

The PS3 is a platform in its prime. Sure, it may not be as powerful as the new systems, but as a low-cost Blu-Ray player/Netflix machine/full on gaming hub you can’t get better. Excellent bundles that give you the console and some of its finest releases for (relative) peanuts are a must if you aren’t already a PS3 owner. It boasts a string of killer exclusives like The Last of Us, inFAMOUS and Uncharted, as well as all the multiplatform greats of the generation.

Buy it for: The Last of Us, Beyond: Two Souls, Uncharted, Gran Turismo and so on…

Wait for: Nothing.

Price: Varies. Top end £199 with game @ Game.co.uk

Xbox 360

In 1998, LucasArts created a brilliantly dark yet comic game that has since amassed a huge cult-following. Based on the Aztec belief of the afterlife and is set in the land of the dead, Grim Fandango stars Manny Calevera, a travel agent in the Department of Death who must help newly dead souls travel on a dangerous four year journey to the Ninth Underworld.

Manny must find extremely moral souls in order to pay off his own debts from previous lives, all so that he himself can move on. The most pure of souls earn a shorter and more pleasurable journey on the Number Nine, a train which traverses the Land of the Dead in only four days. Manny, however, discovers a deep conspiracy when his most recent virtuous client, Mercedes Colomar, is denied a train ticket and must travel on foot.

This game successfully parodies the film-noir formula with an incredibly rich and inventive world and story. The writing is sharp and witty - every character I met had specific quirks which made them instantly recognisable and memorable even after all these years. It also made the game more convincing and much more engaging, almost hypnotic. As sad as it is to admit, my childhood was spent in that world, I was that emotionally invested in the story.

What also made this game both amazing yet incredibly frustrating was the inventiveness of the puzzles. Often they would be incredibly complex and difficult, with many parts to solving them. One puzzle had Manny become a sailor by faking the death of a shipmate using a name tag, liquor and a turkey baster. Picking up every item and combining them can get tedious, but the pay-off is more than satisfying. I really liked the game because it was unlike any other I knew at the time.

It felt nice having a break from explosion heavy games with a lot of action. Instead, Grim Fandango had intrigue and mystery, enough to keep me coming back instead of ‘rage-quitting’.

Fortunately, adventure games like Grim Fandango are making a comeback. More and more games now have greater focus on the story, such as the Walking Dead and Beyond 2 Souls. Titles like Grim Fandango show that games have the ability to captivate gamers with story alone and even pull on Image credit: ToTheGame the old heartstrings. You’ll find yourself wishing that the game never ends.

Bruce Tang

Alasdair Preston

Review

review:Planetary Annihilation up a notch.

For those who watched the first trailer, one particular part stood out that thrust Planetary Annihilation into the limelight: in one final act of desperation, an asteroid is sent colliding into a planet. The surface of the planet is destroyed, as are all the units and buildings. Much to the delight (or dismay if you’re on the receiving end) of players, this wasn’t just a con to get more buyers. The asteroid belt is a part of your arsenal and, if you can get to one without your enemy noticing, they’ll be in for a big surprise. Planetary Annihilation is more than just who can get the most units, but a real arms race with the ultimate goal of not only controlling the land, sea and air, but also the heavens above and using it to obliterate the enemy. After playing for many hours I can tell you now that a single enemy nuke beats hundreds of tanks any day. Perhaps obvious, but when you’re caught up in the moment, trying to overwhelm your enemy with constant barrages, you can forget how vulnerable you really are. As

Uber Entertainment • RRP: £39.99 • Available on PC, Mac & Linux

Damien Trinh takes real time strategy to a whole new dimension in this amibitious title Beginning life on the crowd funding site Kickstarter, Planetary Annihilation dares to dream a little bigger. Uber Entertainment (made up of many of the people who brought you Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander) brings you Planetary Annihilation; a new real time strategy title giving you a solar system to conquer.

No longer is your existence confined to a flat plane, allowing you to expand your forces across the planets, hiding and waiting in the fog of war as you gather strength. The appeal for this game is clear: large scale conflict taken to an interplanetary level.

However, you’d be forgiven for being initially sceptical. So, does Planetary Annihilation live up to

the hype?

Those familiar with Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander will find themselves at home. At its heart is an economy of resources driving your forces forward as you expand your base and increase your firepower, frantically escalating into an all out war with an opposing player. Planetary Annihilation ups the ante and allows up to 40 players to battle across the stars in one match. Think RTS games on steroids. You’re now racing against multiple others; trying to amass the most resources, gain the strongest fleet and conquer other worlds all the while protecting your own base.

It takes frenzied and awesome

it turns out, only one unit really matters: the C o m m a n d e r.

This special unit is the one you start with and will be with you until the end. If it dies, you lose.

Planetary Annihilation is currently in beta and it shows. The game itself is not properly optimised and very unstable, so large scale battles are unlikely to be as smooth as you’d like them to be.

Path finding is unpredictable and will almost certainly annoy you. The AI toggles between overly aggressive or entirely passive, leaving you to build up your forces uninterrupted making it little more than a simple building game.

However, these things will undoubtedly improve with time. As it stands now, Planetary Annihilation shows a lot of potential and things can only get better. Planned features include extending the

battlefield to cross the galaxy and the ability to form alliances with other players creating the potential for a Star Wars-esque universe. The game engine is built to be modded, paving the way for some no doubt crazy mods. But we’ll have to wait for all that.

Planetary Annihilation has been fleshed out quite a bit since its inception, but there’s still a fair bit to go. If Uber Entertainment manages to realise the game’s potential, it will not only be brilliant, but elevate RTS games to a completely new level.

Damien Trinh

Image credit: PlanetaryAnnihilation.com

ISSUE 11/2md DECEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Back to the future TOP5: Fashion Shimmer chic Apps

/TheMancunion: Fashion & Beauty @MancunionFash

Editors: Susie Coen, Marie ClareYates, Halee Wells (Beauty)

Opinion

Charlie Dick APPreciates the most APPealing (free) fashion apps that should APPear on all smart phones immediately

Opinion

Skye Scott has scoured the high street and explains how you don’t have to hide your shimmery statements until after hours

the FASHION “I dropped my

OPINION: iPhone!”

‘Tis the season to glitter, sparkle and shine. With this seasons futuristic, metallic trend you can do just that. From shiny shoes to fulllength embellished dresses in metallic hues of pink, green, silver and gold, there is something metallic for everyone this season.

1 1) Snap Fashion Remember seeing that most beautiful dress on your favorite celebrity, looking perfect on the pages of your fashion magazine? Remember having no idea who or where the dress even came from? Well I do, and I also remember the feeling of disappointment of knowing that I’ll probably never know where to buy it. Well, let me introduce

4) Style.com The infamous fashion website can now fit into your palm, pocket or Mulberry clutch. The app brings you the latest information and photos on the most glamorous and important runway looks and parties. With constant updates direct to your phone you’ll feel like you were there too, rubbing shoulders with some of fashion’s mos influential people. If browsing through endless ready-to-wear, couture, resort and menswear shows is too tedious for your bus ride, the app also gives you a simple look of the day as instant gratification for the eyes.

5) GQ Taking content from print to digital is not a new concept. However, when it’s done with effortlessly cool consistency using a layout of functional and aesthetic pleasure it’s difficult not to get excited about it. GQ offers an onthe-go style manual packed full of exclusive features as well as offering the chance to download and subscribe to current issues. With articles covering politics, cars, films, sex, music, technology and so much more, this really is an app for the modern man… as long as you have the memory space available.

17

Beauty

Beauty bible

50 shades of grey

Natalie Clark discusses this era’s strangest trend

The more I think about it the more I am persuaded to believe that to be exactly the case. Anybody who has seen the Arndale’s Apple store on a Saturday will be fully aware of the commotion surrounding the mothership. It echoes the January sales at Selfridges Oxford Street – the absolute panic of not missing out.

Even here at our University the Californian-born multinational has taken hold.

During a lecture you can almost taste the confusion created when somebody whips out a tablet that’s not an iPad for some 2013-style note taking.

The fact of it is, that it may or may fall into the category of accessory, it all depends what the individual is using it for. The products all do their jobs really well so it makes sense for people to want them on such a large scale. Surely we can’t all be stupid enough to be spending so much money on something we are only using as a status symbol to flash about. Yet if you think of an accessory as something that compliments something else, for example yourself, then yes, Apple merchandise is categorically an accessory as it helps you out.

you to Snap Fashion. The fashion app that allows you to upload a photo of that perfect-for-my-next-occasion-dress (or any other much desired item) and it will find it online or recommend similar items. See it, snap it, buy it!

Thank you Snap Fashion!

2) Pinterest From sports stars to kitchen sinks, this app allows you to keep a log of everything you like. Therefore, it comes with no surprise that fashion has become one of its most popular categories. The mobile version of the highly used social media site takes ‘pinning’ inspirational, beautiful and occasional novelty photographs on the move. By organising these images into categorised ‘boards’, it’s easy to keep a track of your wish-list items or potential outfits. You may even find a friend’s board that’s worth following, as long as you can ignore their 700 pictures of dogs in roller-skates.

3) The Hunt Desperately want that jumper from that Instagram you liked? Can’t find where to buy that necklace off of that Tumblr you saw? Worry not, because The Hunt is here to facilitate your materialism. Think of it like a sociable version of Snap Fashion. ‘Hunts’ can be created by uploading a photo of what you’re looking for either from your files or a linked social media site.

Then, after adding a brief description, you hope that fellow ‘hunters’ will help you find it whilst you do the same for them. With a growing number of ‘hunters’, matches are becoming more and more successful.

Keir Forde discusses what is perhaps the most useful fashion accessory of today.

Fashion

www.asos.co.uk £21 Not all metallic have to be gaudy and garish. These mint green metallic loafers give a subtle nod to the trend without being too much. They are sensible and practical enough to wear all day everyday, as well as making a unique going out flat shoe. Not only are they practical and comfortable but also they are pretty enough to be a Christmas decoration in themselves. Wear them for day with black skinny jeans and an oversized jumper. Alternatively, wear them with denim shorts and this season’s silky camisole for a casual but evening Christmas look. You can’t say no now,

TopShop £38

H&M £14.99

Don’t be scared of this statement metallic skirt. Plastic, coated fabrics are key this season and this skirt encompasses this as well as the metallic trend. The pencil skirt shape makes sure that you stay elegant and feminine whilst the silver colour and metallic effect keeps you bang on trend. If you’re not feeling silver, Topshop have the skirt on offer in many colour variations to suit you. This seasons pink jumper would work great to keep it a girly but casual look or wear it sports style with a sweatshirt and trainers. Rock it up by night by wearing it with a black crop top and leather jacket.

Metallic clothing can make a daytime look spring to life and that doesn’t mean it has to be ultra shiny or glittery. This chiffon metallic top can be worn for day and night to add a subtle sheen to an otherwise bland and boring outfit. The plain colour makes it wearable and versatile. This season is all about texture so layer it up with a leather skirt and furry jacket. Or how about wearing the metallic t-shirt with this season’s checked trousers for ultimate fashion brownie points.

Don’t worry though, it doesn’t have to be trend on trend. Even once Christmas is over you’ll be able to wear it tucked in to denim jeans for a fashionable casual look.

Comment

Fashion, beauty ... and technology?

Charlie Daniels on how technology has fused with fashion to deliver new avenues of style

With the increase of new technological channels such as blogging, social networking and the e-commerce explosion, it is no wonder that new technology has fused with fashion - and in such exceptional ways. Take for example Hussein Chalayan, one of the most innovative fashion designers in the world, who integrates fashion with architecture and technology to create extraordinary pieces of art that can also be worn. His catwalk shows are often perceived as performances due to his use of music, cinema and installation. In 2008, Chalayan designed a collection of LED dresses in collaboration with Swarovski – his work was on display at the Design Museum in London, 2009. Another incredible example of his fashion fusion with technology -Chalayan designed a living room where each object was created with the purpose of being worn or disguised. For example, the clothes were disguised as chair covers with suitcases as the chairs. A women’s skirt was also converted into a wooden coffee table.

“Technology touches every part of our lives and is becoming increasingly prevalent in fashion in terms of fabric and design.” - Little Miss Geek founder Belinda Parmar. Other amazing examples of technology within fashion lie with Cute Circuit, whose ‘Ready to Wear’ collection was the “first ever micro-technology infused fashion collection on the market and continues to lead the way in interactive RTW.” (Cutecircuit.com 2010) The brand was endorsed by celebrities, such as Katy Perry who wore a light pink gown adorned with LED lights. Nicole Scherzinger also wore the world’s first ‘Haute Couture Twitter Dress’ which included the latest technology in LED lighting showing animations and realtime tweets. By using the hashtag #tweetthedress, fans could see their messages flash over the dress. See the video at: www.cutecircuit.com/collections/twitter-dress/. If you would like to get your hands on one of these extraordinary designs, the ‘K’ dress from CuteCircuit was inspired by the one worn by Katy Perry and would set you back £1,500.00. The LED lights can be set to whatever colour and pattern you choose via a controller and can charged using a USB right off your laptop!

Image: www.shop.cutecircuit.com

Instagram: @theworlds4fashion When it comes to phones nowadays we basically think, iPhone or not an iPhone? It’s the same for laptops as Apple have stormed their way through our nation’s wallets with ease as we wave goodbye to old pals such as Sony and Dell.

Their products are impressive but still obtainable, and that recipe has led to millions of us waving our hands up to the branches of the Apple tree over the last few years. What’s new? , Have you got this app? , That app… It’s all so familiar now.

But are they just a trend – nothing more than the latest accessory?

I for one love my iPhone and it’s become a part of me in so many ways. Just think about how familiar it is to hear “I dropped my iPhone!” It’s devastating to lose.

Much like a treasured piece of jewelry.That said, whilst obviously Apple make some cool things, we are probably all being a little ignorant by refusing to consider the alternatives. After all we aren’t all using these machines to draw up our new business strategy. We can refresh a Facebook feed equally well on a Samsung Galaxy as on an iPhone but I guess those accessories just aren’t in right now.

For decades, the fateful discovery of that first grey hair is, for men and women alike, undesirable. Refusing to accept our findings, we banished and plucked them, resisted and hid them, denied and dyed them. Up until now, grey hair has not been the most prominent of accessories. You don’t see boxes of ‘Silver Grey’ lining the supermarket aisles, nestled confidently between ‘Dark Cocoa Brown’ and ‘Golden Honey Blonde.’ Neither did you often hear someone asking their hair stylist for a nice charcoal tint to cover their tresses. It is only recently that grey hair has surprisingly sparked the latest trend.

The fact of it is, that it may or may fall into the category of accessory, it all depends what the individual is using it for. The products all do their jobs really well so it makes sense for people to want them on such a large scale. Surely we can’t all be stupid enough to be spending so much money on something we are only using as a status symbol to flash about. Yet if you think of an accessory as something that compliments something else, for example yourself, then yes, Apple merchandise is categorically an accessory as it helps you out.

Beauty

Makeup metallica...

Makeup maniac Millie Kershaw discusses the latest metallic trends Year upon year, the world of makeup pushes its boundaries into unchartered territory. The demand for new technology affects the beauty industry too and there have been some intriguing beauty fads over the years in the pursuit of that winning formula. (Does anyone actually one of those vibrating mascara wands? And I think those notorious mousse foundations have seen their day.) The metallic makeup trend often returns with vengeance and plenty of new products to try - this season is no exception. Here are a few ways to wear metals, in keeping with the ever-looming Christmas party season...

Heavy metal

When creating a smoky eye, metallic finishes provide an extra dimension. Shinier shades are light-reflective and so they flatter the eye by brightening the area to create a look that is, quite literally, eye-catching. Finely-milled loose pigments such as those sold by MAC (or Barry M for a more student-friendly option) are perfect for a high-shine look but can cause mayhem to your carpet and clothes if not handled with extreme caution. Dampening your eye shadow brush slightly will pack on an intense amount of colour and minimise havoc-wreaking dust clouds. Estée Lauder’s innovative gelée powder technology infuses a gel with the colour pigment for an extremely smooth and liquidy finish to their powder products; perfect for pulling off a metallic eye that packs a punch.

Steely-eyed

Of course, we have always had our glorious ‘Silver Foxes’; having made grey look dashing for years. We’re looking to you Clooney. ‘McSteamy’ or Eric Dane (former Grey’s Anatomy star) has been simultaneously making ladies melt and rocking the salt-and-pepper-do, whilst Richard Gere’s gentleman good-looks have been getting better with each grey strand.

Manicure galactica

Admittedly, a smoky eye is not particularly daytime appropriate. Where time is concerned, I know I would rather spend a good half an hour longer in bed before lectures than perfecting an elaborate and product-heavy makeup routine.

Incorporating the metallic trend into your makeup bag can be done subtly too. Metallic eyeliners have been subject to new technologies recently, coming in all shades, sizes and price points. Clinique’s recent Chubby Sticks for Eyes provide a long-wearing metallic sheen for quick everyday use and high street brands such as Rimmel have brought out waterproof gel-based eyeliners. Costing under a fiver, it’s daylight robbery as well as on trend.

Matte, crackle, magnetic and caviar... Nail products have certainly seen their fair share of new technologies lately. The demand is high for DIY manicures which emanate creativity and novelty.

Nail wraps are increasingly popular as they showcase benefits including straightforward application, affordable pricing and effects as far-reaching as 3D textures, mirror-like reflection and galaxy print. Maintaining your talons has never been so technologically advanced.

Image credits: Instagram @walteriobal @ozproductjunkie @aubreyhannah

What about the women? Hollywood stars like Helen Mirren, Judi Dench and Meryl Streep have long been flying the ‘au-natural’ flag; their snowy bobs highlighting their feminine and natural beauty. But, it is the younger generation that is speeding up the greying process, on purpose. Rihanna recently dyed her black locks dark slate, proclaiming on Instagram, ‘gray is the new black.’ Other young celebrities like Kelly Osbourne, Nicole Richie, Ellie Goulding and Little Mix’s Perrie Edwards have all given the ‘Silver Look’ a test-run, and have received many mixed reviews. From some wondering why one would ever try to look old, to others believing that grey is the next ‘thinking-out-of-the-box’ revelation in hair colour, the debate continues as to whether this trend is here to stay. Developments have already been made, with the likes of Osbourne and Edwards blending in subtle violet and pink tones to their blank silver canvas. So will we soon see Oxford Road swarming with a sea of grey hues? Will the Learning Commons suddenly appear to be a new old people’s home? We’re going grey just thinking about it…

Image credits: Instagram @stellarbambii @missmolliemooo @tashitechno

ISSUE 11/ 2nd December 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

/filmmancunion @mancunionfilm

Film

19

Review

the REVIEW:

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

A sizzling success or did it just crash and burn? Mark Mcgrath gives us his take on the latest installment in The Hunger Games saga In Hollywood, 20 months is almost enough time for a popular series to be given a complete overhaul and a fresh lick of paint. And so with Catching Fire and its revisiting of exactly the same places and exactly the same events that were depicted in the first instalment of the series, you would be forgiven for mistaking the film for a reboot. It’s a mistake that isn’t made easier by the purely business-orientated decision to place The Hunger Games at the beginning of the title, something altogether absent from the name of the novel on which it’s based.

Fortunately, and unlike many recent sequels, Catching Fire knows that “more of the same, but bigger” isn’t necessarily the key to success.

Although the film may retread some of the steps taken by its predecessor, mainly, the selection of the Games’ candidates, the journey to the Capital and the pre-battle propaganda, the beginning of the film emphasises that something is certainly different as Katniss unwillingly sparks a rebellion.

In fact, it is in these early scenes that Catching Fire really excels as an exciting, political thriller. Once again, Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss is the heart and soul of the film. She is

hugely impressive as she convincingly portrays sadness, strength, hopefulness and vulnerability often all at the one time. One scene in

particular, in which she goes toe-totoe with President Snow epitomises all that is fantastic about the film: the cast is excellent, the script crackles and the emotional complexities and philosophical ideas that Catching Fire has to offer come to the forefront.

This is an intelligent blockbuster.

It’s a shame, then, that the Games themselves are slightly disappointing.

This time around, Katniss’ entrance

into the arena is not quite as pulsequickening or heart-racing. We’ve seen it all before: the Hawaiian tropical setting is refreshing but

instantly recognisable; the breaking of the group of competitors into different factions with allegiances and friendships tested is far from original and there’s also an eerily familiar thick and mysterious fog to contend with. It seems as if the producers were borrowing directly from LOST. At one point, a character even says, “let’s get what we need and get off this damn island.”

Cornerhouse Pick of the Week

Director: Francis Lawrence Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Donald Sutherland Released: 21st November 2013

In a perverse way, the older, more experienced competitors don’t appear as dangerous or frightening as the child-killers from the first film and so what made the first film so disturbing in entirely absent. That’s not to say that the events of the arena are not engaging or exciting. There are some well-executed action and chase scenes, but is clear that the political backdrop to the Games and the growing rebellion have far more dramatic potential.

Ultimately, Catching Fire is a movie of two halves: one half intelligent political thriller and the other a straight-forward blockbuster.

Although both succeed in providing entertaining viewing, it’s the first that sets the film apart from generic action fare. And with one of the most unsatisfying endings in movie history, it’s fortunate that going forward into next year’s sequels, it appears as if the people’s rebellion will take centre stage. The wait for next November may be unbearable for some, but it may certainly be worth it if future instalments could well deliver on this exciting promise. ★★★

So the past 2 weeks have been all about I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! (ITV Player) With the antics from this year’s “Celebs” leaving us in stitches. From Joey Essex not being able to tell the time to ‘new-campmate’ Annabelle Giles’ insufferable groaning, it has already surpassed last year’s rather drab series and there’s still quite a bit to go (though it has to be said, we’re still eagerly awaiting Alfonso to crack out the Carlton dance, so there’s a lot to look forward to). Ant and Dec however, do need to brush up on their jokes as they have been quite dry this series, with few exceptions. Though I’m tempted to say that this crop of has-been’s have been the most entertaining campmates we’ve had in a while, so check out the whole series from episode one on ITV Player and catch it every night at 21:00 (That’s nine o’clock in ‘Joey Essex time’) on ITV1.

Of course if screaming ‘celebrities’ aren’t your bag, the 75-minute Dr. Who 50th anniversary special: Day of the Doctor is still available on BBC iPlayer. This saw both David Tennant’s and Matt Smith’s Doctors going toe to toe with their past in an enthralling episode starring Dr. Who heroes and villains from all stretches of time.

As always, the residents of the most exclusive post code in the country, were rocked with even more scandal in this week’s Made In Chelsea (4OD) with Jamie and Spencer STILL bickering over Lucy and Phoebe being her bitchy, sociopathic self towards... well, everyone. So if you’re in the mood for melodramatic twenty-something’s then swing by Chelsea and have your fill.

Luke Sharma

Mark McGrath

Contrary Corner

Blue is the Warmest Colour

Waxing about The Wackness

Jack Evans went to see the controversial Palme d’Or winner and gives us his verdict

Zach Fuller explains why Th Wackness’ quiet run in cinemas should not detter you from seeking out this underrated gem

Blue Is the Warmest Colour is a coming-of-age story directed

by Abdellatif Kechiche. Adèle’s (Adèle Exarchopoulos) life is changed when she meets Emma (Léa Seydoux), a young woman with blue hair, who will allow her to discover desire, to assert herself as a woman and as an adult.

It is based on the french graphic novel by Julie Maroh and follows similar themes of questioning sexuality, the want to conform and romantic loneliness.

As Maroh has stated on her blog, though, the film is purely Kechiche’s interpretation of the source material.

The visual style is similar when the focus is given to Emma’s blue hair.

This marks her as different and shows the colour she brings to the protagonist’s life.

One scene in the film shows the cold paleness and wintery blue of Emma side-by-side with Adèle’s warmer, earthy tones. The cinematographer Sofian El Fani does a tremendous job making almost every frame a beauty to behold.

Both film and source show sex scenes, just with slight differences

If your film didn’t have Batman, then 2008 was a hard year to get noticed. Blanket press appraisal of The Dark Knight overshadowed much of the year’s cinematic output, and this coming of age drama was one of the Joker’s many victims left hanging in the nosebleed section.

Puzzled expressions continue to greet the unfamiliar indie in my favourite films. It’s become like my delinquent child who secretly hides a heart of gold, and reacting as if it’s the last straw at a stressful parent’s evening, I find myself fiercely defending this roguish little misfit’s questionable outside appearance. I get it.

Funny title, few critic lists, and it doesn’t help my case that the main character is an alarmingly thinner version of the loudmouth cherub from Drake and Josh. Swift smartphone searches that reveal its considerable distance from the Shawshank summit of IMDB further hurt claims for its greatness, but The Wackness struck something special when I first saw it in a dingy SouthLondon Odeon, my friend and I composing half of the total audience.

Amidst the sticky summer streets of 90’s NYC, pre 9/11 and post Wu-Tang Clan, roams a lonely weed dealer named Luke

in style. Most viewers will have the sex scenes seared in their memories, although they take up just a fraction of the running time. I commend Kechiche for steering away from soft-focus

timidness and showing the lovers in an act of passionate pleasure.

It shouldn’t be misconstrued as pornography (see Don Jon for a look at how porn scenes are different to actual sex) although it does play into the mysticism of the female orgasm that the film questions at one point.

The technique Kechiche uses often, and to great effect, is to

have close ups of the characters’ faces, allowing you to see emotions from a flicker of a smile to a brightening in the eyes.

Exarchopoulos and Seydoux have some incredibly powerful scenes where the full weight of emotion is shown, earning their recogntion , with Kechiche, of the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

The downside of all those close ups is that you see Adèle’s mouth open. A lot. And the eating in the film is not refined dining.

At almost 3 hours, be prepared for a long film. The pacing is different to most current films, where the emphasis is more on getting from one scene to the next as quickly and slickly as possible.

This is more similar to the pacing from early cinema and other art house European cinema. The film is more of an experience to be chewed over (preferably with your mouth closed).

Jack Evans

Shapiro ( Josh Peck). Shapiro has recently graduated High School, and is quietly going about his risky occupation for the endless weeks until College, when he begins to deal to an eccentric

psychiatrist in exchange for therapy sessions. Enter Dr Squires (Sir Ben Kingsley), a welcome ear to Shapiro’s problems yet ill equipped to be imparting advice, as he is secretly self-medicating to handle a flourishing midlife-crisis. However, the pair’s dilemmas provide the impetus for an unlikely friendship, where they begin to bond over a mutual dissatisfaction with life. This is particularly with regards to their troubled and often mirrored dealings with the opposite sex, as their burgeoning friendship

coincides with Squire’s loveless marriage and Shapiro’s dicey infatuation with Stephanie, Squire’s stepdaughter.

In the present age of rigid consensus over what’s considered acceptably brilliant, this film was something rare; something fortuitously unearthed instead of aggressively enforced.

It was a snapshot of adolescence far removed from any of British TV’s offerings at the time: the cartoon hedonism of Skins or the unabashed goofiness of The Inbetweeners’ Though it follows well-trodden ground in dealing with the familiar themes of heartache and increasing responsibility, Peck and Kingsley’s effortless chemistry lifts this film above the more predictable crowd.

Their musings on life are so thickly etched into my memory that revisiting their scenes feels like I’m in the company of old friends, and the film’s lesson of dramatic action when life grows stale has continued to ring true in the years since I left that deserted Odeon. In the gloomiest of British winters, this story of love, blunts and the benefits of bad choices remains strangely comforting.

Zach Fuller

ISSUE 11/2nd December 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Editors: Sophie James, Robbie Davidson, Angus Harrison Top 5

TOP

Single Shot Scenes

5

James Moules considers the most impressive continuous shots in movies

5. Atonement (2007) Ever wanted to know what it would be like to have been at the Dunkirk Evacuations? In this scene, Joe Wright gives you the closest thing you’ll get to actually being there. As Robbie Turner arrives at the evacuation site, he is presented with what some may call hell on earth. Nothing is left to the imagination.

4. Children of Men (2006) Alfonso Cuarón (who may or may not be appearing later on this list) used several impressive long takes in this chilling, postapocalyptic movie, but the one that everyone remembers is the now famous car scene.

A normal drive along a country road turns quickly into a nightmarish chase sequence. It’s a scene that is not so much viewed as lived.

Feature

the FEATURE:

Animation Comes of Age: How grown ups can laugh with the kids Suraj Vara assures us that animated movies are getting funnier, even at our age As most self-respecting twenty-something year olds these days, I’m not afraid to admit I love animated films; my older brother, now closing in on his thirties happily mentions Shrek as his favourite film, and my dad, closer to sixty than fifty, tells me that Despicable Me is the best film in our (vast) collection.

At first you might go ahead and categorise us all as man-children who, in an attempt to retain a grasp of fleeting youth, have clutched a cartoon close to our hearts and superficially maintained that they’re amazing. Despite the way you decide to categorise us, there’s no denying that animated films have recently become more exciting, more daring and certainly more intelligent.

I remember classic Disney films, in the Pantheon of animated greats, such as Peter Pan, The Jungle Book, The Rescuers, Hercules, Beauty and the Beast, and who could forget Hamlet adapted for kids in The Lion King. All of these films, many of which were adapted from old folk tales, had inscribed within them a moral sensibility, one which often steered away from more daring content and were aimed at a specific child demographic. However, recent animated films have begun to grow into wonderfully intelligent works which appeal to both children and adults on many different levels.

I can think of a plethora of films which maintain some of the cheesy old school slapstick with intelligent one liners, Monsters Inc. for example.

After discovering that laughter is more powerful

than scream, Mike Wazowski, Sully’s wisecracking sidekick, is sent into children’s rooms to make them laugh: Mike: So, you’re in kindergarten right? I loved kindergarten, best three years of my life! [waits for laughter] …Of my life!

At this point the kid doesn’t laugh so Mike eats the microphone he’s talking into, lets out a huge belch and fills his quota of laughter for the day.

conventional man-boy or woman-girl.

In Pixar’s Cars, the heroine, a little Porsche called Sally, has a “tramp stamp” pinstripe tattoo under her spoiler; Despicable Me’s Gru makes mention of the “any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental…” speech, as well as labelling the Lehman Brothers as the “Bank of Evil”, an economic joke I’m pretty sure no-one under the age of sixteen is really going to understand.

Shrek was the pioneer in taking the piss out of the old Disney classics, with a princess who’s secretly an ogre; Prince Charming is really a stupid narcissistic mummy’s boy, Sleeping Beauty is a narcoleptic and the Big Bad Wolf is an open transvestite. Despite all the farts, burps, gross ogre food and Shrek getting hit in the nuts from time to time, there are literally hundreds of cheeky adult jokes woven into the fabric of the film series which elevates it beyond some if its goody-two-shoes ancestors.

These intelligent cartoons are also beginning to incorporate more adult themes, like the death of the hero in Megamind, Will Ferrell’s answer to Steve Carell’s Gru in Despicable Me, two of many animations which are making use of the anti-hero. Toy Story 3 which was reported to have made grown men cry in cinemas. Fat can be fought as taught

by Po in Kung Fu Panda, and it doesn’t matter what species or race you are, you can still make a pack, or so say Manny, Sid and Diego in Ice Age. Looking at these wonderful pioneers of animated comedy and their growth into conventional, multilayered films, rivalling much of the film industry’s live action productions, it’s impossible to deny that they aren’t just for kids anymore.

When I first watched these films in my much younger days, I never really noticed funny little jokes like these, and it begs the question: How has animation evolved?

Remembering the classics, it feels as though animation and its humour have grown up a bit, well a lot. Animated films have become a lot more implicit in their explicit nature, no longer shying away from some of the more crass comedy that appeals to the

Suraj Vara

Preview 3. Touch of Evil (1958) Tick tock tick tock. We follow a time bomb from the moment it is planted to its explosion three minutes and twenty seconds later. Only Orson Welles could have pulled this one off so effectively.

2. Goodfellas (1990) Mobster Henry Hill leads Karen through the nightclub where his fellow criminals are, and in this three minute tracking shot, she falls for both Hill and the gangster lifestyle. And who wouldn’t after seeing this scene? Good job, Mr Scorsese.

1. Gravity (2013) The opening take of Alfonso Cuarón’s latest is a whopping seventeen minutes long – that’s right, seventeen minutes. And this isn’t just seventeen minutes of a still camera recording two people talking in a room. It’s seventeen minutes of following space shuttles in orbit, George Clooney flying with a jetpack and satellite debris smashing everything in its path.

It’s not until Sandra Bullock goes spinning off into the void that the camera first cuts.

the PREVIEW: Anchorman 2 Will Ferrell has been talking up a sequel to the brilliant Anchorman for a few years now and it is finally here.

Sequels, and especially comedy sequels, are often disappointing in comparison to the originals, as they can be shifted out too quickly. This does not seem to be the case with Anchorman: The Legend Continues as it is clearly a project close to Ferrell’s and the director’s (Adam McKay) hearts.

Its predecessor is one of the most quoted films ever, so there is a lot to live up to.

In Anchorman we left the news team winning back over San Diego and end the 70s on top. In the gap between the first film and the new film the gang have split up and have hit rock bottom, without a hope to bring them out. This is until a 24-hour news channel is being put together in New York, and our heroes are being recruited back into the game. The aim, stay classy and do not self-destruct.

Easier said than done.

The whole gang is back with Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell), weather man Brick Tamland (Steve Carell), man on the street Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd) and sports guy Champ Kind (David Koechner).

Director: Adam McKay Starring: Will Ferrell, Paul Rudd and Steve Carell Released: 18th December

Burgundy’s now wife Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) also returns and is stirring up more screen time trouble for Ron. Everyone seems to have slipped back into their roles with ease and there are some hints to the first film within the

trailers. Director Adam McKay has promised another musical number (Afternoon Delight in the first) and even more screen time for Brick, with a love interest

mooted.

There are also exciting additions to the already stellar cast. Ferrell will be joined by Kristen Wiig, Harrison Ford, Liam Neeson, Amy Poehler, James Marsden and apparently Jim Carrey. Whilst many of these faces may be characters in the movie, the Anchorman universe is also ripe for cameo appearances, so expect names you weren’t expecting to pop up in the most unlikely of places. Remember Jack Black on the motorcycle?

Will Ferrell will revel once again under a breathable script by Adam McKay that will allow the performers to improvise. The comedy of Anchorman is at its natural best when the actors have moments to riff and test each other to see how far they can take an idea. There were so many golden outtakes from the first film they made a spin off Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie. There are rumors flying round that the film will be a cameo-galore and hopefully this won’t try to imbed itself into the film too much.

The odd “look who it is” is fun, but hopefully it will be necessary and not just gaining some egotistical screen time.

For fans of the first film this is kind of a big deal.

There is no doubt that this film will be being heard quoted in every public place possible after its release.

Lloyd Hammett

ISSUE 11/ 2nd DECEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

/TheMancunion: Books

Editors: Esmé Clifford Astbury, Annie Muir

@MancunionBooks

Feature

Literary daytrip: John Rylands Library

Books

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Secondhand Bookshops

Elizabeth Linsley heads to Deansgate to explore one of Manchester’s most treasured buildings

A book lover’s heaven... The John Rylands Library. Photo: Joe Sandler Clarke

Not to be confused with Main Library on Oxford Road, that omen of essay deadlines, poverty inducing fines for late high demand books and passive aggressive queuing for

computers which are being used exclusively for Facebook, John Rylands Library on Deansgate is a different affair entirely.

Located next to the sleek

and modern Spinningfields, the imposing red brick Gothic building immediately transports you back to a more simple time, far from Snapchat and twerking, where the written word was highly respected. The cathedral-like interior of the library is all huge slabs of carved stone and stained glass windows, perfect for those never got over not receiving their Hogwarts letter.

John Rylands is a working library, although I’m not sure what the average student would do with the gorgeous leather bound volumes.

However, there are rooms which can be used for study, and if a room could help you get a first, surely it would be this one, with its vaulted ceilings and hushed, reverent atmosphere.

The library also houses temporary exhibitions. These are small but of a mindboggling range. The current main exhibition explores the work of 14th century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio through different times, places and interpretations over the last 700 years. His book The Decameron was once banned for its ‘sexual depravity’, but during the 1930s was feted for its celebration of the erotic.

There is also a collection of British and French Romantic drawings and paintings from the 1700s and 1800s, many of

which are reproductions from paintings currently hanging in the Louvre. The illustrations are divideed into themes such as ‘Sinister Figures Peeping In’ (decidedly creepy) and ‘Damsels in Distress’ and represent ‘a collaboration of painting and poetry’.

The imposing red brick Gothic building transports you back to a more simple time, far from Snapchat and twerking, where the written word was highly respected These exhibitions are joined by some wonderfully creepy curiosities known as ‘Morbid Miscellany’, which includes an actual pair of human eyes and a display about Polari, a gay slang language.

All in all the John Rylands Library is wonderful literary place to visit in the heart of the city, if not for the often changing and varied collections then for the fabulous building itself.

John Rylands Deansgate

Library,

150

Paramount Books. Photo: Annie Muir

1. Didsbury Village Bookshop (at the back of Art of Tea café ) Eat cake in the warm café and then go through the back door into the Narnia of books. The sheer quantity and quality of the books here make up for the slightly higher prices and seeming disorganisation (the man sitting in the armchair is ready to help you with any questions).

47 Barlow Moor Road, Didsbury Village 2. Paramount Books This local gem is hidden behind the Arndale, next door to the megabus coach station. Allow yourself to be lured in by the loud classical music played on speakers outside the shop and spend hours modelling the art books on the sofa by the window. Beware: it’s only open on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

25-27 Shudehill 3. Oxfam Withington Charity shops are the cheapest places for second-hand books. Pop into your local charity shop on a Saturday morning and you will be sure to find something for a pound.

465 Wilmslow Road, Withington 4. E. J. Morten Booksellers Wander off down a little cobbled street and into the past. The shop opened in 1959, and John Morten has run the business since 1986. It specialises in 19th- and 20th-century military history studies, as well as travel and sporting books.

6 Warburton Street, Didsbury 5. Oxfam Whitworth Park There’s another Oxfam, just under our noses, opposite the Stopford building. This one is famous for its cheap second hand textbooks and reading-list books that might have some helpful notes left by the previous owner.

300-302 Oxford Road

Review

Classics digested: The Old Man and the Sea A tale of passion, perseverance and faith, Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea is a gem of American literature, says Shanda Moorghen

WHO

WHAT

WHY

A war veteran, Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) was one of the finest writers of the 20th century. As a reporter, he was the most prominent advocate of the Iceberg Theory, and he maintained his minimalistic approach in his fiction. He believed strongly that the value of a story resides in the beauty of its depth rather than the luster of its surface. The Old Man and the Sea was published in 1952 and was Hemingway’s most celebrated work, with a Pulitzer Prize (1953) and a Nobel Prize (1954) attesting to that fact. It was also the last novel published before his suicide in 1961.

Santiago is an old fisherman who has gone 84 days without catching a fish. His luck is considered so abysmal that even his young protégé, Manolin, is forbidden by his parents to continue seeing the old man. On the 85th day, Santiago decides to go even further out at sea, determined to break his unlucky streak.

Soon enough, a fish takes to his bait. Santiago immediately realises that he is dealing with no small or ordinary fish. It is a majestic marlin. The Old Man and the Sea is the story of the days Santiago spends at sea trying to catch this worthy adversary and the events that unfold thereafter.

A tale of passion, perseverance and faith, The Old Man and the Sea is a gem of American literature. Aside from the fact that it is a well crafted and beautifully written book, Hemingway’s novel will give you hope on the somber days.

There will be a time, a darker time, where nothing will seem to be going your way. In this realm of despair you will close your eyes and think of a simpler time, a time where an old man on his boat carried you through the ignominy of previous setbacks to the lights of glory.

is the author?

is it about?

read it?

CLASSIC QUOTE ‘But man is not made for defeat,’ he said. ‘A man can be destroyed but not defeated.’

Scratchboard illustration featured in first edition of The Old Man and the Sea (Scribner, 1952)

ISSUE 11/2nd December 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Editors: Ben Walker, Maddy Hubbard Feature

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...foodie gifts under £10 Housemates, coursemates, teammates and not to mention family means lots of presents! Why not be savvy and do a secret Santa agreeing an amount to spend put all your names in a hat and pull out the person you buy for- they might not be your favourite person in the world but hey look at the money saving! These are 10 original foodie treats for under £10 to impress and surprise your secret santa!

1. Yoga-themed ie cutters

cook-

For the gym-bunny of your friends these cute cookie cutters come in poses from tree to warrier to downward facing dog perfect for baking after a workout. (£5.30 yummiyogi. com)

2. Alternative Mince Pies Ditch the mince pies and have chocolate instead!

Hotel Chocolat have decided to opt for layers of salted caramel and praline instead of mince meat- nothing wrong with being different! (6.50 Hotel Chocolat)

3. Twinings Festive Infusion

Camomile blended with rooibos and pears this limited edition loose tea is a sure way to keep you feeling warm in Winter. (6.50 for a tin)

4. World’s Hottest Chilli Powders in a Matchbox

Your housemate thinks they can handle the heat? Let them show off their chilli proficiency with this mini set of 5 chilli powders. The set also comes with 4 chilli fact cards- water not included but probably necessary. (£5 notonthehighstreet. com)

5.

Make-Your-Own-Sausage Kit Yes, you read that right… Containing seasoning, 4m sausage casing, instructions and a piping bag all they need to do is buy 1.5g of minced meat and 20 sausages can be created. Not for the squeamish. (£8.99 lakeland.com)

of 5 Message 6. Pack Beanstalk Seeds Plant your beans like an ordinary plant and watch them grow with messages etched on the side of them a novelty gift with the element of surprise. (£3 notonthehighstreet.com) Kitchen Fudge Sauce Duo 7. Fudge Chocolate Fudge and Classic Toffee sauces ideal for topping over ice-cream, pancakes or stirring in hot chocolate. (£8.00 fudgekitchen. co.uk)

8.

Butler’s Grove Gift Bag with Santa’s Special Chutney and Rudolph Relish One is a mixed fruit and sherry recipe whilst the other is a spicy, crunchy carrot-style relish for the condiment fan in your life. (£7.15 amazon. co.uk)

Could Eat a Horse 9. ISpaghetti Measurer It’s always difficult to know how much you need isn’t it? This handy measuring tool helps decide what portion size you would like man, woman, child if you’re only feeling peckish and horse if you’re ravenous as this portion is for four! (£9, notonthehighstreet.com) An Orange and alcohol 10. You had to give them something; you know they’ll enjoy the alcohol and the orange might counterbalance this slightly.

By Faye Waterhouse. Photos: Ellegensia, Not on the high street

Feature

The Perfect Cheeseboard Victor Croci on a subject close to his heart - creating the ultimate Christmas cheese selection Welcome back readers! This week our eclectic wine column is being hijacked by a few good amateurs of dairy products: they are intent on deciphering the long concealed art behind the festive season’s cheese board.

Constructing a cheese board is just like playing Jenga, all it takes is one wrong piece or clumsy move and the whole show tumbles down like a block of wooden bricks, leaving you red faced with burning embarrassment in front of your distinguished guests. Here are a few tips on how to avoid looking like one of Pocahontas’ tribesmen at the dinner table, before desert…

Cheese boards are exactly like company boards, on them you will have the smelly, the extravagant, the exotic, the local, the mature and the milder personalities, those with character and those who are bland and the blander…

The centerpiece of your cheese board is essential. Every other slice of cheese will revolve around it. Therefore you have to weigh the pros and cons of placing a cheese that is a little extravagant such as a true French Roquefort. It is a strong, pungent and fierce blue cheese, mentioned in Pliny the Elder’s writings in AD 79. However remember that you can only have so many strong blue cheeses on your festive season’s board, therefore choose wisely between your English Stilton, Italian Gorgonzola and the fames French Roquefort.

Coveting the centerpiece like bankers do bonuses will be your second class of cheeses.

This will usually be an opportunity to whisk in something with a particularly striking taste but not necessarily pungent. Camembert, made from unpasteurized milk, has such a character trait as does a Brie de Meaux. Naturally if you’ve had enough of those frog-eating French then there is always the option to bring out a lesser known British or other continental soft cheese. However in soft cheese

we are still referring to those which are firmly cut with a butter knife and not scooped up with a spoon like vanilla and pistachio ice cream on a hot summer’s day. Therefore Mascarpone is out of the question, Madame Loic is a decent choice however it is perhaps a little too soft in texture and could never seriously be placed on your cheese board.

As it’s nearly Christmas, Toffee apple cheddar would make a fine addition but then again so would Snowdonian cheese (Welsh) and usually Wensleydale’s cranberries can be replaced by nuts or even berries if you should be so fortunate to find it…

Then arriveth the pawns, the cheeses you place in strategic spots to distract your friends with while you cut generously into the centerpiece and the upper second class. Pawns is not demeaning to this last class of cheese, it merely highlights the fact that they would be more accessible and lack that magic aura. Enter the gruyeres! These can be both salty and soft, either way they are perfect in their hard nature and definitely a must have. The same can be said of Comté, a fainter softer type of French cheese which ravages the desert course of many a dinner party. In this category you can throw in some pickled onion with whatever decent

cheddar catches your eye. If you are going all pickled onion though, then extra mature cheddar will compensate the acid nature of your vinegar soaked vegetables. Dutch red Gouda and Belgian ‘Bruges’, the latter stronger and more characterful than the former, are two other cheeses which would make fine additions to your cheese board.

Finally, if you have anything else lurking around in your fridge or you’re feeling particularly banterous then you can demonstrate it through babybel. We always laugh at babybel but it remains, unexpectedly, a quite popular cheese as people enjoy peeling off the red wax and tasting the bland industrial nature of mass industrial production.

In any case, it is down to you and your measly student allowance to find the perfect balance.

Piecing together a cheese board is in the end, an art, so if you cannot learn it – just copy furiously and hope that the plagiarism police isn’t on campus that day.

Photo: Fardon Fields Farmshop

Feature

Gifts for an Ethical Foodie

Maddy Hubbard advises on what to buy the eco-foodie in your life, and suggests some alternative gifts to connect to Manchester and support local businesses All these lists in the national papers of gifts for foodies are great, but if we’re honest who really needs a £50 apron or £250 knife? Sometimes it’s nice to think of things that are not only useful, practical gifts but also make you feel good about giving or receiving them. Sure, it’s a bit of a cliche in 2013 to talk about locally-produced food, box-ticking for the latest trendy cafe in Northern Quarter that wants to create a certain image for itself, but what if you knew your purchases were really ethical and local, as well as being useful things that someone will really appreciate and enjoy? I’ve been looking for great gifts produced in and around Manchester, and here are my top 3:

No 1:

hamper goes to a dog charity, making it an ethical as well as gastronomic gift.

A cookbook that is so rooted in the North West you should read it aloud in a Mancunian accent ‘Crispy Squirrel and Vimto Trifle’ by Rob Owen Brown, £11.99 Rob is one of my favourite chefs. Northern to his core, he cooks at the Mark Addy - a fabulous pub in Salford, down by the canal opposite the People’s History Museum. His book is the first from a new publishing company which wants to profile local people, and is full of beautiful photography, mouth-watering recipes (with a few slightly challenging-sounding ones using tripe thrown in as well) and really funny anecdotes.

It’s a wonderful way to feel connected to the food heritage of the area and also supporting a great new publishing business which is raising the cultural profile of the North West.

No 2: The Christmas hamper for the animal lover Black Dog Deli’s Hamper, £45 We’ve all heard of Black Dog Ballroom, perhaps even gone bowling at Dog Bowl, but did you know that this mini-empire now have a deli as well? Their hamper provides a lovely selection of luxuries to excite any foodie, including delicious, grassy spanish olive oil, piquant olives and flavoursome risotto kits. Best of all, £5 from each

No 3: The veg box for the eco-foodie, £7 p/w A lovely gift for someone who wants to turn each week into a muddy version of the Masterchef invention test. The Food Co-op has been running for over a year now, providing students with locally-sourced, organic veg boxes that contain more veggies than you could possibly get through in a week (although I’m sure it would be very good for you to try)! This gift could not only fend off hunger pangs during the last few weeks of term when loans are running out, but also supports a brilliant student-run society. Win-win!

/TheMancunion: Food & Drink @MancunionFood

Food & Drink 23

Feature

Christmas Party Drinks It’s nearly time to open the first chocolate in your advent calendar! It’s not just me who still gets one, right? And that means the sometimes dauntingly boozy festive season is upon us, but what the fuss can you rustle up in terms of Christmas party drinks, both boozy and non-boozy? Beer and wine is all fine, but Christmas is the perfect opportunity to experiment with some different concoctions that warm the cockles when it’s wet, dark, and wet again.

Firstly, eggnog. It’s taken me many of my years to erase the image of scrambled egg that comes in to my head whenever somebody says eggnog, and replace it with ideas of American families in Christmas jumpers having a terrible Christmas a la National Lampoon. And what exactly is ‘nog’*? Is it just a made up word to make a lousy non-rhyme with egg? The important thing is that eggnog is basically custard with booze, and you can make it by doing this:

Bernadette Chapman on the best way to (drunkenly) celebrate Christmas...

hurl, have a bash at using refreshing Campari in your cocktails. The 70s label is alone enough to make it feel like Christmas as there’s always a bottle at the back of the drinks cupboard that gets ransacked around the festive season. The Telegraph suggests you drink Campari with Cava, but of course they do. The less solvent amongst us can whip up an easy cocktail that is equal parts Campari, vermouth, Prosecco and some orange peel.

It feels a bit special, as it sparkles, and what better time to have some sparkling wine than party time.

You can also serve the above with it with lovely gin instead of Prosecco.

Put the following in a saucepan: 2 pints of milk, or a little less and make the rest up with cream, go on.

6 eggs 50g of caster sugar Vanilla (essence, or pod if feeling fancy) Heat all those bad boys up. Then, pour in to drinking vessels.

Little Irish coffee mugs would be cute decorated with cocoa around the rim (dip rim in egg white and dip in cocoa) like a Pinterest dream, but mugs of the stuff will do. Then add brandy if you would like booze. You can experiment with different kinds of drink like cherry brandy, or maybe even fancy cordials if you want an alcohol free option. Go wild, and don’t forget the Christmas jumper!

If the idea of that sweet eggy creamy stuff makes you want to

Finally, a hot drink which is more refreshing than the ‘nog: mulled Photo:Martha Stewart gingery cider. You can replace the alcohol with non-alcoholic counterparts for alcohol free deliciousness. It’s also nice to have this in a big vat and serve in cute little tankards. I love tiny tankards.

2 litres of cider (please don’t use Frosty Jacks, use apple juice for non-alcoholic version) 500ml alcoholic (or not) ginger beer A couple of oranges, peeled and segmented, with the peel cut in to chunks 6 cinnamon sticks 6 star anise (Use less if you’re not keen of course, but a little does add a nice dimension) 12 cloves

A thumb’s worth of grated fresh ginger Boil it all up in a pan. The longer you boil, the less the alcohol content.

You can replace the booze component with wine and gin or wine and sloe gin.

I hope the above has given a few ideas for alternative party drinks that can’t help but make you feel Christmassy and cosy. *So apparently, the nog is either from noggin, which meant a small wooden mug used to serve drink, or from egg ‘n’ grog, merged in to eggnog. Mystery solved.

Recipes

our RECIPES OF THE WEEK:

Maddy Hubbard shares her favourite family recipes, passed down to her over the years.

Granary Bread

Rosalie’s Cheesecake

This recipe comes from my godmother Mary, who is a phenomenal cook. Going to her house is amazing - she measures her cookbooks by the yard (and apparently they’ve all been left to me in her will!), and she’s a brilliant source of cooking tips and interesting new flavour combinations. But it’s the basics that come in handy most often, and this is a fool-proof bread recipe. While I’m not going to lie and say it’s cheaper to bake your own (particularly when you take energy costs into account), nevertheless it’s an incredibly satisfying thing to do, and you can be sure the result is healthy, tasty and fresh, unlike the horrible cheap bread you can get in the supermarket. I definitely recommend giving this a go, especially if you need stress releif - the combination of kneading out your frustrations and getting to eat fresh bread slathered in butter is pretty magic at calming frazzled nerves!

This is another family recipe I wanted to share. Rosalie is my uncle-bymarriage’s mother, a wonderful Jewish lady whose recipes I have recreated many times over the years.

Her cheesecake is the best I have ever tasted, and although I don’t have much of a sweet tooth I can’t resist it.

Ingredients: 1 tsp easy blend yeast (Mary recommends the brand ‘Doves Farm’) 450g granary flour 1 tsp salt 1 tsp honey 1 tbsp sunflower oil 270ml warm water Put the yeast, flour and salt in a mixing bowl. Dissolve the honey in 100ml warm water then add 200ml of cold water to it. Make a well in the middle of the flour and pour the water into it. Add the oil and mix gradually, using a spoon and then your hands.

For the base: 9-10 digestive biscuits 1 oz butter For the filling: 1 lb curd cheese (you can get this cheaply from the deli counter, although use cream cheese if you must) 8 oz caster sugar 2 eggs For the topping: 1/2 pint sour cream 1 and 1/2 tbsp caster sugar Juice of 1/2 lemon

Flour a surface (and your hands) and knead the dough for 10 mins, before putting it into a lightly oiled bowl, covered with a tea towel, and leaving it for 2 hours in a warm place or overnight in the fridge.

Crush the biscuits and mix with the melted butter. Press into the base of a spring-form cake tin.

After waiting for this, knock all the air out of the dough, knead it breifly and roll it into a sausage shape. Put it into a greased loaf tin, seam side down, and cover until doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 180C

Bake at 200C (or 220C if you don’t have a fan oven) for 15-20 mins, then turn the oven down by 30C for another 15-20 mins.

Raise the temperature of the oven to 200C. Mix the ingredients for the topping, pour over the cheesecake and return it to the oven for 5 mins.

Leave to cool before eating if you can wait, because otherwise it could give you a stomach ache, then enjoy with lots of butter.

Mix the ingredients for the filling well and pour onto the base. Bake for 30 mins.

Photos: Foodie Nelly and Wikipedia

Turn off the oven and leave the cheesecake to cool inside it.

24

Arts & Culture

Venue

ISSUE 11/ 2nd DECEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Editors: Abbie Roberts, Matilda Roberts

Review

The Royal Opera House Zoe Landau, tells us about her role as Student Ambassador for the venue and why she thinks there’s so much more to it than meets the eye.

Image: Word of Warning

Domestic Festival

Image: Sarah Lamb as the Sugar Plum Fairy (©ROH/ Johan Persson, 2009) image by AKA (©ROH, 2013).

Situated in Covent Garden and home to two of the most famous opera and ballet companies in the world, it’s a shame that many believe it to be a posh place where only old people go. I first attended the Royal Opera House when I was thirteen, and it has been a big part of my life ever since. I grew up watching videos of ballet stars performing but watching it live and being in such a grand place is a completely different experience. The building was originally built in 1732, however most of what is seen nowadays was built in the 1990s. Before then, guests would have had to enter through a different entrance if they had cheaper seats in the amphitheatre. Now, people enter together, whether they’re in suit and tie or jeans, to be settled in one of over 2,200 places to watch a fantastic performance.

So how did I end up working for the one of the leading companies in the arts sector? Well when I first heard of the Student Ambassador scheme, I never actually thought I’d get a place on it. I hadn’t danced for a number of years and had never seen an opera, and yet something I said at the interview managed to work.

The Student Ambassador scheme was new last season; devotion to student interest is clearly a priority for the Royal Opera House. With the average age of visitors at over 55, it is crucial to bring in new people, particularly students. That is where the Student Ambassadors come into play. We have meetings where we discuss the new ways to involve students with productions on the various stages and with the Royal Opera House Live Cinema Season. The general conclusion of our last meeting was that the cheaper something is, the more likely a student will go and see it.

It’s not all boring meetings. As we are all either part of team-ballet or team-opera, there are treats for us all. So far, I have wandered around the backstage of the Royal Opera House (including standing on the main stage), listened to a speech from Kasper Holten, Director of The Royal Opera, and witnessed a rehearsal for The Royal Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker. So far, I’ve been to two Student Amphitheatre performances – a ballet, Don Quixote, and my first ever opera, Wozzeck.

The Student amphitheatre performances are just one way in which students have the opportunity to see a ballet or opera. These are specified performances in which the entire amphitheatre is reserved for students, at prices between £2 and £20. There are also allocations of 20 tickets for every single main stage performance that students can buy before the general public. Finally, if you, are willing to drop anything to go see something, then there are also £10 standby tickets (which is where the name for the Student Standby Scheme comes from!), which is for any unsold seats up to 24 hours before a performance. If it’s difficult to get down to London, then you can always see a live cinema screening, where you can even see what goes on backstage in the interval breaks.

So there you have it. Ballet and opera is for normal people too. It’s not all elitist, and it’s definitely not all about fat people singing, or men in tights and women in tutus. Though trust me, the man in tights isn’t such a bad look. You never know, the rousing music and drama might be something for you.

Sign up for free at www.roh.org.uk/studentstandby to get access to great low price tickets at the Royal Opera House.

To find live opera or ballet in a cinema near you visit www. roh.org.uk/cinema

Cooper House does not look like a building that’d house contemporary live art performance pieces and an audio-visual installation. In fact, it took me about four trips around the outside before I realised that this 70s tower block was very definitely the home of Manchester based organisation ‘Word of Warning’s’ new mini-festival, Domestic. Kitchens, bathrooms and balconies were the stages of Domestic, scattered in flats dotted all over the huge Cooper House, coexisting alongside the building’s permanent residents and it was this confrontation with reality that made it such an interesting weekend. For me, Domestic began with a 55 minute long performance by Belgian artist Leentje Van de Cruys entitled ‘Kitsch N Sync’ which explored the significance of the kitchen as a domestic space. As me, and eleven other nervous looking audience members shuffled into the dingy flat on the building’s top floor, I realised that these performances were going to be something special. Dressed in stilettos and a gold-sequined dress, Van de Cruys comically stumbled and tripped her way over the potatoes lining the kitchen’s floor whilst reflecting on her role as a wife and a lover.

It felt like her eyes never left yours as we stared earnestly up at her while she moved around the room, pulling potatoes from her heels and revealing mysterious blue lights within cupboards. The most striking moment in the piece came when Van de Cruys physically imitated the cycle of a washing machine, shaking and convulsing whilst holding a packet of washing powder. She revealed her breasts and suddenly became a fragile, vulnerable embodiment of the monotonous, beige life she portrayed. With two short pieces booked on Saturday, I set out for Cooper House expecting a similar experience to ‘Kitsch N Sync’ that had still maintained some theatrical conventions. However, my preconceptions were soon to be proved wrong. The first piece was Jo Bannon’s ‘Exposure’, a one-on-one encounter, described as ‘an investigation into how we look’. I was nervous as I entered the dimly lit living room where one of the festival’s helping hands took my coat and bag before showing me to a door in the corner of the room. The nine minute encounter behind this door was hugely powerful and inspired a mood of self-reflection which may not have been entirely helpful leading into the next free ‘encounter’ of the day – Julia Wilson’s ‘Shower Scenes’. With only a short break between the two, I barely had any time to recover from ‘Exposure’ before I found myself undressing in the living room of another flat! Don’t worry, prior to this I had been shown in to the flat by the artist and instructed to undress - I hadn’t gone completely insane. These instructions were issued by a mysterious pre-recorded electronic voice over an intercom system and before I knew it, I found myself having a

Jasper Llewellyn attends live art festival Domestic…

full-on, real shower while the voice instructed me which shampoos and shower gels to use! However, the tone of the voice began to change and I soon realised quite how dark the bathroom really was. Abstract and threatening projections began to appear on the shower curtain, quickly manipulating the atmosphere from one of comfort to one of unease and tension, as images of pools of blood and terrifying silhouettes seemed to dominate my vision. Almost as quickly as it had begun, the projections ended and I found myself, fully clothed, back in the living room. The usher that had shown me to and from all of the other performances was nowhere to be found when I left the flat and it gave me a chance to reflect on a performance that truly engaged with the idea of the voyeur and surely, when living in culture where we can see and hear most of the world from the comfort of our home, this is a topic that needs addressing. I left Cooper House in the early evening, satisfied that I had ‘witnessed’ two incredibly different but both equally gutwrenching ‘encounters’. I approached Sunday’s performances with a slight apprehension after Saturday’s experiences. I began by seeing J. Fergus Evans’ ‘My Heart Is Hitchhiking Down Peachtree Street’, the longest performance of Domestic so far at an hour and ten minutes in length and, in many ways, the most like a piece of theatre so far. We were ushered into the sweltering (we were soon to discover that this was a deliberate heating choice in order to imitate summer in the State of Georgia) Cooper House apartment where Fergus proceeded to outline what life is like in Georgia, focusing in particular on his experiences as a young homosexual man and using animation, storytelling and spoken word to create a well-rounded experience. I enjoyed touches such as the passing round of Bourbon and peaches but on the whole, I found the piece slightly jarring as I was unsure to what degree Fergus himself was ‘acting’ as he often suddenly moved from seemingly natural, unrehearsed conversation to completely scripted spoken word piece with no transition or word of warning. The next, and final, piece of the Domestic festival was similar to ‘My Heart Is Hitchhiking Down Peachtree Street’ but, in my opinion, far more engaging. The artist’s, Greg Woohead, made minimal but imaginative use of the video camera and had a comic performance style. This provided an uplifting end to a weekend of many ups-downs, ins and outs. I came away from the festival hugely satisfied and with the feeling that I had truly witnessed some really intimate, personal and thought-provoking encounters. Look out for Word of Warning’s final performance of the season with Stacy Makishi’s one-night only performance at Z-Arts on Friday, definitely will be worth a watch!

Opinion

Noise and Signal

Jasper Llewellyn reviews Daksha Patel’s

Daksha Patel has been making work for a number of years now across the North West, regularly displaying pieces across Manchester and Liverpool in galleries including The Cornerhouse in Manchester and FACT in Liverpool. The overarching point of focus throughout Patel’s career so far has been, what she describes as, ‘medical visualisation technologies’ and yes, it seems like a somewhat unorthodoxly scientific interest for such a visual artist, however, after five minutes looking at/with/in her work, it all somehow seems to make complete sense.

‘Would you like to see your body rhythms as part of a piece of artwork? ‘– This is the premise of Patel’s latest work, entitled ‘Noise and Signal’ which ran unfortunately for only 4 hours last weekend at the Cornerhouse. Using sensors monitoring the subtlest heat changes on the end of your index and middle fingers, Patel aimed to map participants’ responses to other pieces of artwork within the Cornerhouse by undertaking live

drawing as the readings coming from the sensor were projected on to the wall of Cornerhouse’s ‘Annexe’ space, a room often devoted to live and installation art. Glimpses of abstract gridlike formations appeared on the wall with random frequency as participants ventured out into the main Cornerhouse gallery and bar area, complete with skin sensor and a wireless pack which sent readings back to the Annexe where they were combined with readings from Patel’s own body and then run through an assortment of programs before appearing physically as blueprint-esque projections. This is where Patel’s skill with a pen came into play as she keenly focused on the movements of the projections, drawing over the projected image and often personalising it with small touches of her own. I thought this was a fantastic piece, which raised some really interesting questions about how we view art on a sub-conscious level, and I’d really recommend keeping an eye out on what she does next. Check out her ‘Fat Drawings’ if you’re interested.

Noise and Signal.

Theatre

ISSUE 11/ 2nd DECEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Editor: Josephine Lane Review

What’s on

Boys

Harriet Duddy reviews Drama Society’s production of Ella Hickson’s ‘Boys’ directed by studen, Flora Anderson

To conclude their Autumn Showcase the University of Manchester’s Drama Society performed ‘Boys’

by Ella Hickson. This piece is set within the grubby kitchen of a student flat in Edinburgh and with graduation day just around the corner, the four boys are forced to confront their future.

For any students, particularly those in their final year of university when the reality of adulthood and a career set in, this play is acutely significant. Writing about adolescence is a topic that all too often results in a patronising and clichéd performance. However, this piece displays a playwright that has recently experienced the feelings that we see her characters so authentically portray. This ultimately presents a refreshingly accurate performance of the bridge to adulthood.

Walking into the theatre, the naturalistic set instantly puts you into a typical student flat with messy kitchen surfaces and rubbish strewn across the floor. From here the first act introduces us to the six characters with playful wit, easing an audience into the false sense that the play will simply be a light-hearted comedy.

The humour in Hickson’s script was brought to life with great energy by the cast, particularly in the case

of Rowland Stirling who plays the part of Timp. As one of the boys who isn’t actually a student but has been working in a restaurant, Timp is a wild, fun-loving character who never wants to grow up. Through commitment to his character’s constant enthusiasm, Stirling kept the momentum going throughout long scenes. The first half, in my opinion being the superior of the two, was carried by great dynamics within the cast and a slick pace that grabbed my attention as we are revealed to more about the inner turmoil of characters and their relationships. However in the second act there was a slight sense of lag owing to some overwritten scenes with lack of structure that could have been cut. Having said that, this darker and more convoluted half of the show was played with great sensitivity by the cast. Particularly notable was Joseph Aldous in his portrayal of Benny whose frustration and confusion overflows in a heart- rending outburst.

Mirroring the tensions rising throughout the piece, so do the rubbish bags build in the kitchen and there is description of rioting and social unrest just outside. In this way, the space felt more and more claustrophobic, heightening the tension in such a way that I left the

theatre space feeling physically exhausted. This aspect gives the piece another dimension as it turns into a more universal social commentary rather than simply a focus on these young adults and drug culture.

Hickson’s skilful writing also allows for particularly poignant scenes to also include humour so that you find yourself laughing and then welling up within seconds. This was the case in a touching scene between Mack played by Oliver Robert-Vale and Sophie played by Hannah Jackson in which their forbidden feelings for each other were finally addressed, followed by Mack, upon request, raising a laugh with a surprisingly accurate impression of a seagull.

With a mixture of hilarious and heart-breaking moments, ‘Boys’ does not give you any answers about how to deal with this next step in many of our lives but never have I seen a play deal with it in such a perceptive and convincing way. Add to this a cast who are experiencing, or who will soon experience, exactly what their characters are going through, and the result were raw performances that created a memorable piece of theatre.

Review

Box Clever: Romeo and Juliet

Stephanie Scott reviews Box Clever’s modern spin on Shakespeare’s classic ‘Romeo and Juliet’

Romeo and Juliet is, arguably, the most classic and well-known Shakespeare play and, perhaps one of the most well-known plays ever written. Box Clever have taken this iconic piece of theatre and analysed, interrogated and modernised it, producing a piece that forces the audience to challenge their pre-conceived notions about the romantic Romeo and Juliet story.

Box Clever’s production features only three actors and an on-stage DJ. These actors portray Romeo (David Ajao), Juliet ( Jessie Dubieniec) and a narrator (Carl Chambers), whose purpose is to serve as an all-seeing, challenging outsider, who objectively comments on the central love story whilst also portraying the characters that have been eliminated. This reduction in characters enables the focus of the play to be

directed forcefully at the two lovers and intensifies the interactions between them. Although modernised, the production still incorporates and intertwines the original Shakespearian script with more colloquial and contemporary language, especially at the beginning of the play. Slowly, as the action unfolds, Romeo and Juliet drop all modern language and become immersed in the original text.

As well as using modern language, modern music is also played by the on-stage DJ throughout the performance. This vibrant and urgent music serves to keep the energy of the performers at its highest and increases the sense of passion between Romeo and Juliet. Carl Chambers performs especially well, tying all the strings of the plot together and moving seamlessly

into and out of the different characters which he embodies. Both David Ajao and Jessie Dubieniec immerse themselves in the frantic and youthful passion that is the core of this classic tragic love story.

As an English Literature student, and therefore someone who will analyse the back of a cereal box if I read it for long enough, I appreciated the analysis integrated into the play, however I felt it didn’t bring enough new and gritty commentary to the table.

In my opinion, this production of Romeo and Juliet is best suited to those without much experience of Shakespeare, who are looking for a more accessible and fun route into, what can often feel like, a heavy and archaic body of work.

My Favourite Scene

my

25

FAVOURITE SCENE

‘Waiting for Godot’ is arguably the play that began the absurdist movement in theatre and Samuel Beckett’s most famous play. The play is characterised for its ‘lack’ of action and events, rather than by them. It follows two tramps as they, quite simply, sit and wait for the elusive Godot, who never appears. Whilst waiting, they meet Pozzo, a cruel master of his slave, Lucky. The next day (and act) the same things happen all over again, slightly differently, without the vaguest any sort of recollection of the day before. Confused?

Not as much as you will be once you watch it. A fascinating play that deals with the banality and point (or lack thereof ) of existence. This section is the very beginning of the play, but to be honest, you can expect more of the same from the rest of it.

A country road. A tree. Evening. Estragon, sitting on a low mound, is trying to take off his boot. He pulls at

This week, Theatre Editor Josephine Lane tells us about her favourite scene from Samuel Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’

it with both hands, panting. He gives up, exhausted, rests, tries again. As before. Enter Vladimir.

ESTRAGON: (giving up again). Nothing to be done.

VLADIMIR: (advancing with short, stiff strides, legs wide apart). I’m beginning to come round to that opinion. All my life I’ve tried to put it from me, saying Vladimir, be reasonable, you haven’t yet tried everything. And I resumed the struggle. (He broods, musing on the struggle. Turning to Estragon.) So there you are again.

ESTRAGON: Am I? VLADIMIR: I’m glad to see you back. I thought you were gone forever.

ESTRAGON: Me too.

VLADIMIR: Together again at last! We’ll have to celebrate this. But how? (He reflects.) Get up till I embrace you.

ESTRAGON: (irritably). Not now, not now.

VLADIMIR: (hurt, coldly). May one inquire where His Highness spent the night?

ESTRAGON: In a ditch.

VLADIMIR: (admiringly). A ditch! Where?

ESTRAGON: (without gesture). Over there.

VLADIMIR: And they didn’t beat you?

ESTRAGON: Beat me? Certainly they beat me.

VLADIMIR: The same lot as usual?

ESTRAGON: The same? I don’t know.

VLADIMIR: When I think of it . . . all these years . . . but for me . . . where would you be . . . (Decisively.) You’d be nothing more than a little heap of bones at the present minute, no doubt about it.

ESTRAGON: And what of it?

VLADIMIR: (gloomily). It’s too much for one man.

(Pause. Cheerfully.) On the other hand what’s the good of losing heart now, that’s what I say. We should have thought of it a million years ago, in the nineties.

TOP 4 PLAYS TO CATCH Grease Everyone’s favourite American high-school musical classic, ‘Grease’ is coming to Manchester this week.

See Danny and Sandy meet, fall in love and, well, you know the rest.

Grease promises to be a fun, feel good time to get you in the mood for some good, old-fashioned musical fun!

Runs from the 2nd to 4th of December in Club Academy

The Write Night Recent graduates of the University of Manchester, Ransack Theatre Company are putting on a collection of short plays from new writers this week. The plays promise to be intelligent, engaging and very modern. There is also free cake and its only £3! Get down to Salford and support the brilliant talent of our local artisistic community.

Runs from the 3rd to 5th December at the Lass O’Gowrie

War Horse Michael Morpurgo’s infamous National Theatre classic has just entered its seventh year of performing. Join Albert Naracott and Joey the horse to embark on an epic adventure, that takes place in World War One. Runs 20th November until 18th January at the Lowry

Wanted: Robin Hood The Library Theatre Company’s family Christmas show this year is a brand new adaptation of Charles Way’s classic tale, Robin Hood. Join Robin for an evening of adventure, comedy, music and daredevil fighting,.

Runs from the 29th November to 11th January at the Lowry

ISSUE 11/ 2nd DECEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Editors: Lauren Arthur, Moya Crockett, Beth Currall, Isabelle Dann Ask Izzy

Feature

ask Will Facebook stop you getting a job?

IZZY

an earnest attempt to cure all your woes. Tweet any burning issues, genital or otherwise, to @izzydann housemate manages Q My to single-handedly stink up our small flat by failing to do any laundry ever.

He just leaves dirty clothes in various mountains in his room, the pungent stench of which manages to permeate into the kitchen. He has taken this behaviour to such extremes that he simply buys new socks instead of washing old ones.

Suggestions? them – the clothes, A Burn that is, not your feral flatmate. If he complains, simply explain that you presumed these garments were soon to be thrown away due to their putrid stagnant existence and you thought this would be an excellent opportunity to save money on your gas bill.

got my anniversary Q I’ve coming up with my

We’re used to sharing every detail of our lives online. But, asks Moya Crockett, will this benefit us in the long run?

It’s approaching the end of term, and for students in their final year, the prospect of graduation is beginning to loom menacingly. What once seemed a faintly ridiculous proposition – wot, us? Join the real world? – now seems like it might, you know, actually happen. People are beginning to think about what they might do next. A grad scheme, an internship, maybe a master’s degree. And on the parallel world of my Facebook newsfeed, a small but noticeable phenomenon is occurring. People are changing their surnames.

There’s only one reason for this, and that’s fear. In an age where our online presence will actively shape our search for a reasonable future, many students are genuinely unsettled by the prospect of the “real them” being uncovered by prospective employers. Changing their name online is one way, they hope, that they won’t be tracked down. Our parents had the luxury of pretending to be someone they weren’t when it came to job-hunting. The chances of their interviewer seeing a photo of them vomiting into a bin on a Saturday night were negligible. It was unlikely that something idiotic they said at the age of 15 would come back to haunt them. But, as we all know, things are different now.

Generation Y has grown up with social media as the backdrop to our lives. Over the course of our communal adolescences, we’ve segued seamlessly from Bebo to MySpace to Facebook, perhaps dipping our toes into Twitter and Instagram along the way. A 2013 UCAS survey found that over 92% of UK university applicants are on Facebook (a statistic which actually seems quite low, doesn’t it?), while 73% tweet, and 27% post photos on Instagram. When you think about why we actually use social media, it all boils down to two things: facilitating connections with people we consider significant, and creating an image of ourselves that we consider attractive. However, while 892 Facebook “friends”, thousands of tagged photos showing you in a state of disarray, and a Twitter feed full of references to your hangover might have seemed kind of cool once upon a time, the reality is that it really won’t look that way to potential employers. Hannah Bouckley, BT’s tech and gadgets editor, advises first locking down one’s profile through privacy

It’s...

Photo: John Loo (Flickr)

discover that, threeyears ago, they were 100% not your type?

No matter how great they are now, that kind of information could still put you off. “Employers’ use of online social networking sites to research job candidates raises a variety of notable implications,” says Alessandro Acquisti, professor of information technology and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University in the U.S. “A vast number of job candidates reveal personal information on these sites that […] employers can’t ask in an interview or infer from a résumé.” A recent large-scale field experiment conducted by Acquisti and his colleagues at CMU found conclusive evidence (as if we needed it) that sharing personal information on social media can hinder your chances of finding a job.

It’s not all doom and gloom, however. If your social media identity can prevent you from getting a job, it can be turned around to help you find one. Personal contacts are still the best way to secure a new position, so putting out the word on social networks that you are job-hunting could be a useful tactic, particularly as a growing number of recruitment managers now say they use social networks to headhunt.

LinkedIn has always been associated in my mind with annoying emails asking you to join, but it’s nevertheless a great way of publishing your experience – essentially a more personal, online CV. Louie, 21, graduated this summer and is now interning at a Manchester-based creative studio. “I got the placement I’m on at the moment through LinkedIn conversations, and other creative agencies have since got in touch over Twitter,” he says. “Social media’s definitely been helpful to my career.” Many professions, such as those in public relations, the media and the arts, encourage an active, responsible Twitter presence as a means of promoting your own professional reputation and that of the company you work for, and the ability to skilfully navigate social media is one area where young jobseekers will genuinely have the edge over older rivals.

The temptation to overshare is always at our fingertips, but being conscious of the image you project online is crucially important for today’s students. Give yourself a Google and see what comes up - because you won’t be the only one doing it.

Blind Date

Emily, 3rd Year History of Art

Jonny, 3rd Year Economics

First impressions?

First impressions?

He seemed and was a thoroughly nice guy!

boyfriend, whom I love very much. Recently, however, certain standards have slipped and now sometimes sex is as exciting as watching paint dry.

On top of this, I find myself suddenly infatuated with an extremely attractive male on my course, and we’ve got an end of term Christmas party coming up. Please advise.

What did you have to eat and drink?

infatuations are very A Such common in the classroom

Did you have much in common?

(especially within the humanities – God help you if you’re an English Literature student), and this is really what end of term festive parties pertaining to academia were invented for. If you partake in some embarrassingly awkward dancing in front of your tutors, then follow up with a drunken snog with your desirable object – who will inevitably proceed to play with someone else’s tinsel – you’ll be sure to wake up the next morning in a cold sweat of shame and regret and therefore can promptly return to your relationship. As for the anniversary itself: when the big day finally arrives, try painting the bedroom ceiling.

settings, and even suggests that graduates should effectively delete their online pasts. “If you’re just coming out of university, you may have had a Facebook account for several years, which means it may be packed with photos and posts from your youth, when you were perhaps more immature – maybe discovering alcohol, going wild on a lads’ holiday, falling madly in love or hitting the university booze trail. […]

The safest solution is to delete every incriminating post or photo.”

The idea of someone peeking, uninvited, into our online social lives with the sole purpose of judging us can feel unfairly intrusive. (I remember my rage, aged 14, when my dad told me he’d looked at my MySpace. “That’s PRIVATE!” I yelled, mortified that a member of my family might have seen my extensive selfie gallery. He shrugged. “No, it’s not.

Anyone could Google it. Why not me?”) But employers researching candidates online is no different to how we might Facebook stalk a prospective love interest. What happens if you left-scroll through their profile pictures and

She seemed like a nice, pretty girl. Though, she was around 15 minutes late so I did have a fear of being the first guy ever to be stood up on Blind Date.

Burgers and beer (keeping it classy).

What did you have to eat and drink?

Any awkward moments?

I had a spicy bean burger, chunky chips, some lager and a tequila shot at the end. Cheers Fallow!

I was seriously nervous at the beginning, so that was incredibly awkward for me. After that, though, none at all.

We’re both super chatty and confident so it was easy. We were there for 3 hours, which speaks for itself.

Any awkward moments?

No – we were chatting for 2 and half hours straight! And she also seemed as if she could take a joke or two, so no awkward moments thankfully. Maybe the beginning was a little awkward, as she said she was pretty nervous and was mentioning warnings such as “falling asleep” or “passing out” during the date, so I thought this was going to be a slightly tough night initially.

Is Jonny your usual type?

I don’t have one, so no. But he is the epitome of a nice Jewish boy!

We both enjoy a laugh. Apart from that not that much but that makes for more interesting conversation.

Is Emily your usual type?

Any secrets revealed?

Fun and talkative is what I like, and she ticked those boxes.

Um... He likes Westlife! I don’t think it’s a secret, but it should be!

Did you have much in common?

Other than being from London and loving dogs, not really.

But that gives you more to talk about and more to learn.

How did you say goodbye?

After tequila shots (not my idea) we had a friendly peck on the cheek.

Any secrets revealed?

I really can’t tell you now… Some things she told me are just not suitable for a student paper. Crazy stuff.

Would you see Jonny again?

I will now I’ve found out how much free food the Jewish Society give out!

Marks out of ten?

Found my soul mate, wedding bells are clanging already 10.

Mazel Tov! Flo and Louis went on their date at Fallow Café, 2A Landcross Road, Fallowfield, which has free music gigs and a quiz on Mondays.

Fancy appearing in Blind Date? Email mancunion.lifestyle@gmail.com

Emily

&J onny

How did you say goodbye?

Got the digits, got the kiss on the cheek. Success.

Would you see Emily again?

Yeah, she’s cool to hang with.

Marks out of ten?

9, for the flowing conversation and great dinner. I’d say that’s a fair score!

Photo: Peter Chinnock. Interview: Moya Crockett

/TheMancunion: Lifestyle @MancunionLife

Finance

It’s beginning to look a lot like bankruptcy

Christmas is a difficult time for us penniless students, so Beth Currall provides the best tips on how to give the most special of gifts, without maxing out your overdraft…

I’m sure if I’d asked you readers as little as three years ago how you felt about Christmas, you would have said that it was the most magical time of year: great food, presents, and best of all, you never had to spend a penny because you were young and still under your parents’ wings. Now, we’ve all been launched into the ‘adult’ world at Christmastime, and that includes the stress of spending a small fortune on gifts that all too often end up in a dark corner of a loved one’s closet. Is it possible to avoid the tempting calls of the overdraft extension this year, I hear you ask? Well yes, it is, if you follow these simple, shopping-savvy tips.

1. Set a budget It may seem tedious, but writing a list of what to buy your relatives and friends will probably save you a lot of money, and a lot of time when you’re doing the Arndale spree during Christmas week.

Write down a budget for each person, and make sure you stick to it; we often succumb to the impulse buys, and it is usually these that mount up the cost and tend to make meaningless gifts. Put in the time, and your bank balance will be sure to reap the rewards.

2. Do your research It often seems easier to run down to the shops and get all your gifts in one day, but now we’re living in the Internet age- A.K.A, the era of dirt cheap online shopping. Be sure to browse on Amazon or Play before you head out to buy the latest video game for your brother, or check that eBay aren’t advertising that bracelet your mum really wanted. Also, check out price comparison sites such as moneysupermarket.com, as they do the hard work for you!

3. Ban gift-giving It may seem like a very Scrooge-esque idea, but why not make a pact with friends and extended family members to not exchange presents this year? I’m sure they will probably breathe a sigh of relief at your suggestion, as it saves them just as much money as it does you! Alternatively, if you feel like too much of a tight-arse broaching the subject, you could place a cap on Secret Santa gifts, which prevents everyone from splashing out.

4. Get creative Some of the best presents are those which have a personalised touch to them- and what could be more personal than a gift made by yours truly? Get your hands on some free photo prints onlinesites such as Snapfish and My Photo Prints offer you as many as 50 free photos delivered straight to your door, just for signing up with them! Then, you could stick the photos into frames, or even make tree decorations with that extra special touch. Guaranteed to be a hit with the females in your life.

5. Save a little, give a lot Be prepared to sacrifice a couple of your own indulgences for the next couple of weeks- Christmas does only come once a year, after all. You could save loads by not buying clothes or gadgets for yourself, and try to limit your food shopping or put a hold on eating out. Surely it’s worth having a couple of evening in front of the TV rather than pissing it up the wall on a night out, to be able to afford an extra-special Christmas this year? Remember: short term pain = long term pleasure.

Photo: EEPaul (Flickr)

Health and Wellbeing

I’m not lonely, I’m alone Are we as independent as we make out? Lauren Arthur thinks otherwise We’re relentlessly being told as a generation that we’re too dependent on technology. The teens and tweens of the era are glued to our phones; we’re constantly refreshing our newsfeed/timeline/ Instagram feed, we’re apparently at risk of developing ‘digital dementia’ and we’ve been rendered incapable of holding meaningful conversations (drunken DMCs not included). Whilst this dependence is undoubtedly worrying, what I actually find worrying is the youth of today’s dependence on each other.

I am totally fine with doing things by myself; as self-consumed as it may sound, I like being on my own. I can manage to do my weekly shop housemate-less, happily walk around the park with just my iPod and am able to brave sitting by myself in a lecture (usually to mine and others’ benefit). I have days where I don’t plan what I’m doing: wander, explore, find a little coffee shop, read for an hour, and wander some more. Going to art exhibitions with other people stresses me out, and I can’t shop to my heart’s content when someone else is trying to drag me into a store I have no interest in entering. Long train journeys are definitely only enjoyable when I’m in my own company, and yes, I probably would go to a gig on my own if no one else wanted to go. This is the hopeless romantic, head-in-the-clouds part of me talking - obviously I’m aware that not everyone wants to spend their average Sunday gazing admirably at Grayson Perry’s tapestries - but it seems few young people fly solo.

Despite being independent students, it seems that many of us have real issues with doing things by themselves.

Photo: Natesh Ramasamy (Flickr)

Second-year student Rosie* openly admits that she has dependency issues at university, much more so than she does at home.

She says: “I only feel satisfied with my student life if I’m surrounded by friends. When I came to Manchester, I felt so lonely, that until I made close friendships I seriously considered dropping out. Now, I’ve developed a fear that when I am on my own, those feelings of isolation and depression will return. You will never catch me on a bus on my lonesome, and I will definitely never, ever even contemplate taking a solitary trip to Sainsbury’s. I know loads of people who are the same”. But on the other hand, fresher Mark* believes that the move to uni has made him more independent than ever.

“I’m not afraid to go anywhere alone in Manchester, which is a stark contrast to how I was at home and sixth form, when I wouldn’t dream of wandering around without a crowd of mates. Now, I love going to explore the city in solitude, and I even go to football matches alone. Coming to university has definitely made me realise how comfortable I am in myself ”.

We are also increasingly prone to losing ourselves in the relationship trap. The O.C. star Olivia Wilde said in an interview after her divorce: “I think it’s very healthy to spend time alone. You need to know how to be alone and not be defined by another person.” The fact that over half of Tumblr users believe this quote was said by Oscar Wilde suggests its profundity (or maybe ‘digital dementia’ generation’s gullibility) but snaps for Olivia, I wholly agree. We all have friends that we’ve lost, temporarily or permanently, to a relationship. They become totally dependent on this one individual, revolve everything around them and completely forget how they coped previously. The romantic in me smiles for them, happy that they’ve found happiness. The realist me is wary: as cutthroat as it sounds, you are the only person you can really trust.

Everyone is needy sometimes. We shouldn’t distance ourselves from our friends and relationships, but young people should learn to accept being alone every so often and find respite in their own company. You’re more likely to be sure of whom you are and what you want when you’re not constantly influenced by other people.

Remember, as Sex and the City’s Samantha Jones once said, the longest relationship you will ever have is with yourself, so that is ultimately the one you should work on.

Lifestyle

27

Careers

Career Corner The place where former Manchester students report back from the ‘real world.’ This week, Moya chats to Charity Director, Olivia Barker Olivia graduated from the University of Manchester in 2011, with a BA(Hons) in Economics.

She currently works as the UK director for Kids Club Kampala.

Tell us a bit about Kids Club Kampala.

We are a charity working in the slums of Kampala, Uganda, aiming to bring hope and love to vulnerable children. We work to empower children and parents from disadvantaged communities through different development projects and supporting their basic needs. KCK currently works in 16 different centres in and around Kampala, reaching over 4000 children and families, with a team of over 60 dedicated Ugandan volunteers helping in their local communities every week. Projects currently include Children’s Activities, Feeding Programmes, Clothing Projects, a School Sponsorship Programme, Women’s Initiatives, Community Development programmes, Agricultural Projects, a Music and Dance project and a Football League.

What are your main responsibilities in your current role?

Fundraising, recruiting and training volunteers, undertaking publicity, communications and social media, budgeting, and writing funding proposals and applications to grants and trusts for support. · Did you know you wanted to work in Uganda before you graduated?

Before I started at the University of Manchester in September 2008, I’d spent several months living in Uganda during a gap year programme, working mainly in schools. One day a friend invited me to go into the slums of Kampala to meet the children and the community there. I was heartbroken to see the situations they were living in, and went back every week to play with the kids, feed them, and to try to help them in some way. After I left Uganda, my Ugandan friends continued this work and I sent some money to help. I went back to Uganda in the summer after my first year of uni and realized that something needed to be done - money had run out, but the volunteers desperately wanted to continue this work and so did the kids. I tried contacting other organisations in the UK and Uganda to help these children, but none were interested so we realized that we had to do something ourselves. In June 2009 I set up the charity Kids Club Kampala, to bring hope and love to these children living in desperate situations in the slums of Kampala. When we began, we were working with 200 children in one slum community, but over four years KCK has grown to reach over 4000 children in 16 different communities throughout Uganda!

Until March this year, I ran KCK in my spare time - undertaking lots and lots of fundraising, organising volunteers, publicizing and raising awareness about the charity, and travelling out to Uganda myself at least once a year. In Uganda we have a great team of over 60 Ugandan volunteers who give up their time every week to help their local communities. But since winning some funding from Vodafone, I’ve been able to work for Kids Club Kampala full time.

How has your degree helped you in your career?

I studied BA Econ, specialising in Development Studies, and I also did my dissertation in Development Studies. I learned a lot about International Development, theories of development, and also practical skills such as project monitoring and evaluation – as well as learning a lot about myself and my own interests and passions.

After graduation, I got a job working for an International Development Consultancy company and having my degree from Manchester definitely helped me to secure the role. However, I still spent most of my spare time running Kids Club Kampala in the UK, and spent all of my money and annual leave on going out to Uganda which is my real passion.

What would you say has been your greatest achievement to date?

Being selected as one of the winners of the Vodafone World of Difference Awards, which has funded me to work full-time for Kids Club Kampala.

It’s a dream come true.

What advice would you give to someone thinking of pursuing a similar career route?

I was very involved with numerous societies when I was at Manchester, particularly Student Action, which played a huge part in my life as a student. You have to have a passion for what you’re doing, and be incredibly determined to succeed. It was very hard at times running a small charity with no money in my spare time whilst at uni, and then when working full-time. But I knew that I needed to help these children, and that’s what kept me going.

For more information about Kids Club Kampala, visit kidsclubkampala.org.

With thanks to Rosie Haynes at the University of Manchester Alumni Association.

For careers advice, visit careers.manchester.ac.uk.

ISSUE 11/ 2nd DECEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

SPORT

/TheMancunion @Mancunion_Sport

Sports Editors: Andrew Georgeson, Tom Dowler and Thomas Turner

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Contact: sport@mancunion.com

Should English football have a winter break?

YES

Jonny Roberts Sport Reporter

Thomas Turner Sport Editor

Although many of us feel Christmas would not be the same without the seemingly never-ending instalment of football, it is clear that a ‘winter break’ would offer a number of vital benefits to our game. With many clubs potentially having to face 5 games in 15 days, it seems this packed period can be at the detriment of both our domestic and international teams.

When analysing the performance of our domestic clubs, it seems apparent that a winter break would help English teams to excel. All four teams in the semi-finals of the most recent Champions League competition came from the German or Spanish leagues.

With both leagues enforcing a winter break of over two weeks during the Christmas period, the players Fans help to clear snow off the pitch at Barnet after heavy snowfall last winter. have the opportunity to relax and allow their Photo: @BarnetFCPics bodies to rest. This can be seen as both a mental and physical benefit for the players.

Furthermore, would we complain about a Players are able to return to the high intensity of No sooner has the mercury started struggling to get winter break if England won the World Cup? their leagues without extreme physical fatigue but past zero are you bound to hear the words ‘winter Evidence suggests a strong link between England’s also with the psychological boost of seeing their break’ in footballing circles. You’d think that after consistently poor performance in international family and friends. With depression becoming an the upteenth time a Premier League manager competitions and a lack of a winter break. increasingly prominent feature of modern day pointedly asks ‘is it time?’ and got very little England manager, Roy Hodgson, feels the sport, there seems no better time to allow players response, they’d give up. But not so. The debate congested fixture list is not ‘logical’ and believes to escape the extreme pressure of professional rattles on every bit as regularly as Kirtsy MacColl, a winter break would show that ‘England is football for a short period of time over Christmas. and I for one will be more than happy to ignore it important’. Hodgson believes that Premier This can be combined with the fact that only every single time.

League takes precedent over the international 26% of players in the Premier League are English, There’s a familiar sound which accompanies team. Arsenal manager, Arsene Wenger, has also meaning an extended winter break would allow every discussion about the winter break. Can’t expressed his criticism of the Christmas period in foreign players to visit their home countries. quite put your finger on it? It’s the sound of people England, claiming that it is ‘internationals who are Ex Premiership star Paul Scharner argued that scraping the barrel to find more reasons to explain the most exposed to severe physical stress’.

‘Christmas in England is the toughest time’, having why we’re still no closer to winning a major It seems unfair to put players under the pressure not spent Christmas in Austria with his family for international competition. and expectation of an international tournament six years before December 2012.

‘Germany’s got one’, they’ll inevitably point out. after a season that can amount to over 50 fixtures.

Scharner believes that a winter break means If a Bundesliga side started playing under water We would not expect someone in an office to ‘everybody has a break and can recover and start there would still be some moron on TV telling us produce their best work at the end of a long 10 afresh for the second half of the season’ and feels that it’s ‘time we followed suit’. The reasons why hour day, so why do we demand so much of ‘mentally, this is a big recovery point’. we struggle to get past the last eight on the global our international players after such a long and This emphasises the idea that a period of stage are numerous, but I’m not convinced that not strenuous season? With key international players, such congested fixtures is detrimental to the having a fortnight off at Christmas is one of them. such as Wayne Rooney, performing inexplicably performance of our players in both domestic and The final game of this year’s Premier League badly in international tournaments, maybe the European competitions. Perhaps we would have season is to be played on May 11th, with the first answer lies in a winter break. seen two English teams in the Champions League game of the World Cup to be played almost exactly It seems high time that we give into the commercial final had one month later, on June 12th. Now I’m sure there demands of TV companies and consider the deep it not been for the fatigue induced by the winter will be a whole host of performance analysts, problems that such a long domestic season is fixture list. nutrition experts and whatever birdbrain names creating.

NO

you want to call them now lining up to tell me that it’s not enough.

Based on admittedly no evidence, I don’t believe them. But even if I did, can’t we, you know, because we’re paying them bloody millions, expect our players to find another ten percent in their tanks to fire their country to World Cup glory?

Saying that we haven’t won a major competition for so long because we haven’t had a winter break it akin to saying we haven’t done so because the players aren’t being individually transported around in Batmobiles. The performance of the England football team has consistently ebbed and flowed since its formation. We didn’t have a winter break in the season of 1965-6 - and God forbid anyone have mentioned even the possibility of it at the time. To say we need one to win in Rio 2014 is outright guesswork.

But there is more to the issue than just international success - what would we as fans lose if we took a fortnight’s break at the turn of the year?

While you will no doubt hear Wenger and co. use the equally dreaded phrase ‘fixture congestion’ in the coming weeks, claiming they don’t have a big enough squad to play three games in one day, the ‘Christmas fixture pile-up’ is one of the most exciting times of the season to be a football fan.

A team rock bottom of the league can find themselves in touching distance of mid-table by the end of January, and the fans convinced that promotion was beckoning them are within a matter of weeks back down to the ground with a thud as they face another year of mid-table obscurity.

The boxing day fixture is a Christmas staple.

Nobody really wakes up on boxing day morning chomping at the bit to start another day of crap films and stale mine pies. There are points at stake.

The turkey sandwiches can wait until the 27th.

And as for the argument advanced by Paul Scharner that it’s too cold for fans. I do not believe for a single second that a player who spent quite so long at Wigan did so without ever discovering the radiating powers of a half time-pie.

Nothing says Merry Christmas like three points on boxing day. And even if you get beat, winter break or not, we haven’t got a chance in Rio all the same.

Up four the cup Netball fourths see off the thirds in close cup encounter Helen Gavin UMWNC Club Captain University of Manchester Netball 3rds

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University of Manchester Netball 4ths

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The Armitage played host to the highly anticipated cup draw between Manchester thirds and Manchester fourths last Wednesday. The battle for bragging rights dominated conversation at training in the week leading up to the game.

Although technically the fourths were the underdogs coming in the game from a lower league, they showed no signs of nerves as they stormed to a seven goal lead in the first quarter.

However, they were quickly chased down by the thirds, who clawed back the deficit to take the lead at quarter time.

After two stern team talks the players then returned to battle hard again with excellent defending from Augustine and Mellor at one end and Connelly and Timothy at the other.

This quarter saw the fourths take the lead by one goal in the final second and the building atmosphere of tension flooded the sports hall going into the second half.

Some superb, consistent shooting from Kennedy and Savin for fourths saw them retain their lead up until the closing minutes when thirds came back again to make it 27-27 going into the final quarter of the game.

With the pressure almost unbearable, mistakes

The netball fourth team, who overcame the third team to progress through to the next round of the cup.

Photo: UMWNC

were being made by both teams but the fourths dug deep and took a two goal advantage which would eventually be too much for the thirds to make up.

This capped an exceptionally impressive 38-36 victory for the fourths.

The deserved victors will now progress, leaving a solemn 3rd team behind, who must now direct their attention to winning the division. It is fantastic to see plenty of strength-in-depth in the UoM Netball squads.

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ISSUE 11/ 2nd DECEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

BUCS Sport catch up

Durham stick seven past Manchester Second half comeback isn’t enough to stop Manchester suffering massive defeat

Rob Eden and Oliver Fenton Sport Reporters University of Manchester

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Durham University

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Manchester men’s hockey 1st XI welcomed Premier North league leaders Durham to the Armitage.

Manchester have had a difficult season so far, only taking one point from their first four games. Durham on the other hand, are league leaders, and perhaps unsurpsingly proved too much on the day, running out 7-1 victors.

Manchester opted to field their customary 3-4-3 formation, with captain Phil Dutoy moving to midfield, facing Durham’s 4-3-3.

The match started intensely, the ball being moved around at a fast pace. Both teams created chances, but Manchester looked the more promising.

But it was the league leaders that began to dominate proceedings, scoring first after eight minutes, albeit luckily.

A poor clearance fell to a Durham attacker at the edge of the D. He mishit his shot, but still found a teammate lurking left of the goal. Drawing the keeper, a simple flick, to his right, assisted a Durham forward, giving him, a simple tap in to score.

Seven minutes later, Durham found themselves two goals to the good.

Durham’s towering striker picked up the ball in his own half and drove towards Manchester’s D. Manchester center-back Oli Clements forced him out wide, blocking his reverse stick attempt, but the ball, again, found it’s way to a Durham forward. Looking up, he played the ball to an unmarked Durham forward on the penalty spot, allowing him time to pick his spot and finish with ease.

was then played to a Durham forward who knocked it, slowly, into the D. Chasing his own ball, he caught up, striking it first time across the face of goal into the left hand corner.

Durham’s fourth came two minutes later. A cross from the right wing was left for Manchester’s keeper AJ Friswell.

But a Durham attacker reacted quickest, getting the important flick that parried off Friswell into the back of the net.

It was a tough day at the office for UoM, who fell to a 7-1 defeat to Durham Photo: Mancunion Sport

Manchester, then, attempted to calm the game down, but they lacked fluidity between midfield and attack, and Durham intercepted effectively.

After 18 minutes, Durham were three goals up, thanks to a sublime finish.

Winning the ball in Manchester’s half, it

Unfortunately the goals kept coming, the fifth coming after 23rd minutes when Durham were awarded a short corner. Shooting low and central, it ought not to have caused a problem for Manchester. However, a deflection off a Manchester stick directed it through

Friswell’s legs.

However, the sloppiness of these goals invigorated Manchester, creating their best chances of the first half.

Kav Jabbal forced a great save from the Durham keeper, whilst excellent hockey from Dutoy brought Manchester a short corner, which, unfortunately, amounted to nothing.

Half time came, and the message from the coach and captain was clear; Manchester had to eradicate silly mistakes in order to take anything from the match.

The team talk seemed to have worked as Manchester dominated the second half. Right back Jake Davies spearheaded this Manchester fight back, winning the ball, and making crunching tackle’s, reminding Durham a game was, still, on their hands.

Eight minutes in to the second half, center back Clements made the play of the game. With two attackers closing him down deep in his own half, he span round, knocking the ball through the middle of them. Continuing his run, he dribbled in and out of defenders, running all the way into Durham’s D. The flying center back seemed to have the goal of the season wrapped up, but unfortunately couldn’t hit the backboard with his shot.

A few minutes later and Manchester finally had the breakthrough. Winning a short corner, forward Jacob Plummer

dragged the ball low and fast into the bottom left corner of the goal, to reduce the deficit to four goals.

Manchester sensed a comeback, and won another short corner, 15 minutes into the second half. Plummer, again, kept his shot low and hard, and appeared to have hit a Durham foot on the goal line. This would normally result in a penalty flick for Manchester, but the umpires gave possession to Durham.

While Manchester protested, Durham launched a counter attack, created a two-on-one and scored. And even more controversy ensued. The umpires initially awarded Durham’s goal, then reversed the decision. Play briefly stopped, whilst discussions were held with the captains. Play was finally reverted to Manchester’s original short corner but Manchester failed to score. The game had restarted, but the referee’s indecision had affected Manchester most.

Manchester went all out attacking pushing for goals, however this left themselves open at the back. This allowed Durham to score two more goals before full time, making the score 7-1.

The second half was a much tighter affair, but Durham played in a manner befitting the league leaders.

Manchester’s next match is away to Sheffield Hallam.

Was the Rugby League World Cup worth it?

Andrew Georgeson talks empty seats, predictability and North West dominance Andrew Georgeson Sports Editor

Well that’s it. The Rugby League World cup has drawn to a close. Another carat in Britain’s ‘golden age’ of Sporting events.

What a tournament it was! Full of shocks, twists, drama. It was a true underdog classic, like the lovechild of Denmark’s winning Euro ’92 team and the USA Miracle on Ice Squad.

Well, maybe not.

The tournament was thoroughly predictable in honesty. England were third in the three horse race, and finished third, while our Sothern Hemisphere friends bossed it, as expected, and clashed heads at the Theatre of Dreams on Sunday gone.

The other home nations were astonishingly poor. It still baffles me how Ireland, Wales and Scotland, nations with such proud rugby playing traditions are so inexplicably poor at their national sport’s other code.

But, as a proud Englishman, I delighted in our battering of Ireland, was in awe at Sinfield’s leadership, and felt like an adopted Yorkshire man for the few weeks the tournament was in play.

But, was it honestly worth it.

This is not a polemic against Rugby League, it’s just my stern belief that not only should England not have bid for the tournament in the first place, but I also believe there should not be a world cup at all.

So let’s begin with the venues.

Not only was there not one venue anywhere down the east coast of our island, there were hardly any outside of the North West. Ok, we had that one ground in Bristol, a few kicking around in France and a Wembley Stadium with 25,000 empty seats despite it hosting the clash between the home nation and the current champions in a semi-final of a world cup.

But what about the North East? What about Scotland? What about anywhere that isn’t a satellite city to Manchester?

If you lived in Norwich, I doubt you would even know that there was a tournament going on at all.

This makes Brian Barwick’s, chairman of the Rugby Football League, recent comments even more alarming as he said, “it has exceeded our expectations in terms of people going to games, the quality of the games, and media interest,” and pointed to the game of Tonga v. Cook Islands played at Leigh to prove this point where 10,000 people showed up despite it not being in their interests. If people showing up to watch a match in the heartland of rugby league country exceeded their expectations, they have to seriously evaluate the validity of the tournament.

The choices of venues showed a total lack of ambition on the organizers part.

Yes, you sell to the market you know best, but this tournament was rugby league’s chance to really make its mark in Britain as an established sport.

During last years Olympics we all became besotted with sports like handball, people rushed to watch anything and to be part of the

atmosphere. We all even got into dressage. Surely the same team who worked to get us to all like dancing horses should have worked on getting the Rugby League world cup a bit more coverage and advertisement then a few billboards on the side of the M6.

The actual competition was also a problem. If those teams were the fourteen best teams in the world, then Leeds should declare itself independent from England, starting their own nation state with Keith Lemon and Mel B as rulers. This may seem extreme, but a semi-final that sees one team run out 64-0 winners is ridiculous, really.

This lack of competition makes the World Cup final probably the third

biggest Rugby League competition to happen in England this year, with the Super League and the Challenge Cup finals superceeding them.

The State of Origin matches, one of the finest sporting events in the world in my opinion, is obviously of far more importance to Australians than a competition the national team will almost certainly win.

However, there are some elements of the tournament that have impressed me.

The USA Tomahawks looked a decent outfit against the Cook Island and Wales before being battered by the Aussie’s.

The actual finances of the tournament seem sound from an outside

perspective. Certainly the ticket prices were reasonable, especially with the announcement of the Rugby Union World Cup Final tickets being £150 for the cheapest seat whereas a ticket to Old Trafford would have only cost you £30, well under the usual Premier League price for the same seat.

But the tournament has a sad history of hemorrhaging money, with the last tournament in Australia ending with £1 million pound defecit, so we will have to wait and see if this cheap ticket scheme has worked.

The matches themselves have ranged in quality. It seems on the international stage a team will either get destroyed or it will be a blinding match. Look towards the two semi-final fixtures for a demonstration of this.

But in reality, it’s all about how many people actually watched it. A 12:15 KO to miss the Premier League matches speaks volumes of its importance in terms of television contracts.

The tournament meant a lot to various people. The tears in the eyes of the England team were real when they were so cruelly knocked out in the dying moment in North London, but would the tears have been any less if that was the Super League final?

I’m not so sure.

Did you go to any of the Rugby League World Cup games?

Tweet your thoughts to Photo: @2013RLWC

@mancunion_sport

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ISSUE 11/ 2nd DECEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM/

#PurpleandProud Sabres sink teeth into Tyrants

Rob Eden reports on Manchester’s 29-6 defeat to Sheffield Sabres Manchester Tyrants are still hunting their first win of the season after a spirited 29-6 defeat against a strong Sheffield Sabres side.

Manchester had previously fallen victim to two top15 rated teams in Derby and Liverpool, and with predictions of 42-0 to Sheffield, Manchester were not expected to pose a challenge once again.

Sheffield won the toss and elected to kick first, Manchester’s resultant drive was a three-and-out, punting Sheffield the ball to start their drive from their 30-yard line.

This seemed to be a running story of Manchester’s first quarter offensive display.

Sheffield burst out of the blocks, running the ball to deadly effect and scoring a touchdown in their opening drive. A missed field goal meant Sheffield led six points to nil.

On their next drive, Sheffield immediately tried pass the ball deep over Manchester’s cornerbacks, an approach that had worked against Manchester in the opening games. However, running back, turned cornerback Matthew Studt read the pass, and claimed his first ever interception in his first defensive drive.

Manchester’s offence faired slightly better on the resultant drive, achieving a first down.

However Sheffield’s defence was resilient, forcing the punt, which was blocked following a

Manchester (in black) struggled in the 29-6 loss to Sheffield Sabres Photo: Mancunion Sport

poor snap, allowing Sheffield to regain possession on Manchester’s 25-yard line.

Again the Sabres proved error prone with their Quarterback throwing a backwards pass to the floor. This allowed Tyrants’ free-safety James Bowyer to pounce on the ball, claiming Manchester possession on the grounds of a backwards pass equalling a fumble.

Nevertheless, the Tyrants’ offence was indecisive, and again punted the ball back to the Sabres after an unsuccessful drive.

This time Sabres capitalised, taking the ball from the halfway line to Manchester’s 10-yard line. The Sabres’ quarterback threw a lofted pass into the right hand corner of the end zone for a

touchdown. The following field goal was slotted over to extend Sheffield’s lead to 13 points at the end of the first quarter.

The second quarter included some great defensive work from Manchester. Tyrants’ Rookie of the game Oliver Tipler recorded a sack, only to be outdone by Luke Hart registering the biggest sack of the game by bringing Sheffield’s quarterback down for a loss of seven yards.

This sterling defensive effort forced Sabres to punt for the first time in the game.

Unfortunately, Tyrants fumbled the catch allowing the Sabres to recover the ball on Manchester’s 30-yard line.

Sheffield passed to within 3-yards of Manchester’s end zone, with their running

which can be signified by what colour a member’s belt is.

The ‘belt system’ is the process where martial artists take a physical exam which usually involves a demonstration of skills, understanding and fitness. Upon passing the exam, a member is awarded a new coloured belt.

The classic progression of belts is from white to black. Not a universal

Seamus Soal takes a look at what’s going on in the University’s Martial-Arts scene!

Students taking their grading Photo: Mancunion Sport

The holiday season is fast approaching and what better present could you get than a brand new martial arts belt?

Coming up to the end of semester most of the University martial arts clubs will be holding their first grading of the year.

Within each style of martial arts there are different levels of experience

rule in all styles of martial arts, but the general idea is that each new belt should be a darker colour than the former. White to yellow to orange... all the way up to black.

For the first few belts, the time between each grading should roughly be 3-4 months. So for those freshers who have signed up to some of the martial arts clubs this year, you will

back scoring on the next play, extending their lead to 20 points.

Finally Manchester’s offence started to gel.

This started with a great 40-yard kick return from Anthony Eiliazadeh. Tyrants’ quarterback Chris Payne then started to hit his receivers, mounting Manchester’s longest drive of the game.

Passing to within 15-yards of Sheffield’s end zone, Payne handed off to running back Lawrence Sarpong who trucked his way through the Sabre defense with ease, just to be stopped two yards short.

The following play saw Manchester finally register a score with Payne scoring from close range.

Manchester’s attempt at the two-point conversion was

be taking that dreaded white belt very shortly.

Most senior instructors of martial arts will tell you that the two gradings you will remember most are the white belt and the black belt.

So what is it that makes the white belt so frightful for beginners? Depending on the apparel worn in class a belt may even be necessary to tie the uniform, for example, the Gi worn in Judo and

Karate. A white belt is an initiation. It is where prospective members become an official student of the club. In the same way as taking your first exams the white belt is a new experience.

You don’t fully know what to expect and a ‘freak out’ process can happen, especially the ‘I am so bad I could fail the white belt’. The reality is that no grading should ever be easy, but

unsuccessful as the Sabres’ defence stopped Sarpong in his tracks to keep the score at 20-6.

With not long to go until half time, Manchester’s kicker Studt missed a difficult field goal from 40-yards, leaving the Tyrants with a lot of work to do if they were to overturn the huge deficit at half time.

The halftime break didn’t seem to faze the Manchester defence as they continued to make plays. A massive hit from Studt, caused a Sabres receiver to fumble allowing Matthew Hudson to gather the ball.

However, Manchester’s offence failed to complement the defence and the ball was back in Sheffield’s possession after an unsuccessful drive.

The turnover proved costly for Manchester as it allowed Sheffield to launch at attack from their own 35-yard line as the Sabres quarterback evaded ensuing Tyrants defenders, throwing to an open receiver on the far left of the pitch, who took the ball to Manchester’s 20-yard line.

The following play saw Sheffield run the ball into the end zone making the score 27-6.

The final score of the game went to the Sabres who were awarded two points for a safety.

The game finished at 29-6 to the Sabres.

Manchester’s next game is away to Staffordshire Stallions.

if there was an easy progression, the white belt is it. So to all freshers taking the white belt, don’t panic you will sail through it and you will pass with flying colours... literally!

As you progress, with each new belt, you should have more knowledge of the arts and a better level of fitness.

The last belt of the colour system is black. Being a black belt entails a certain respect, even from those who don’t know the martial arts. Upon reaching black you continue up a numbered system which can reach up to 12th black belt.

Future levels of black belt should be a progression of knowledge but on the first black belt, students are expected to be at the peak of their physical fitness. Students should have an excellent display of fitness, pad work, drills, combinations, forms and most importantly, the ability to use these skills in a combat scenario i.e. sparring.

There is no way to estimate how long a black belt should take as it is an individual journey, but one which should take several years. Some ‘McDojos’ will claim they can get you a black belt after a year or two. These clubs mislead students, promising quick and easy transitions to black belts. To see a funny yet truthful video of what a McDojo looks like, type ‘did you get your black belt from kmart’ into YouTube.

Thankfully at the University of Manchester, all instructors of the clubs are chosen for their qualifications and high ranking reputation.

Good luck to all those taking their gradings in the upcoming weeks!

Stirling pound Manchester Andy Dowdeswell Sport Reporter University of Manchester 1sts 0 University of Stirling 1sts

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In the shadow of Etihad stadium, Manchester had a difficult task to contain the impressive outfit of Stirling’s 1st team. The more accomplished and professional outfit looked to cash in on the many mistakes that Manchester kept committing, and eventually ran out comfortable winners 12-0.

The format consisted of the four seeds facing their equivalent seed in a best of 3 set match, and then two doubles matches to complete the match. Manchester opened up with their 4th seed, Jack Whetton, who was pummelled 6-0, 6-0 by Stirling 4th seed Ellen McClure, who sapped the confidence from Whetton and sailed through his match with some excellent shot making, meaning he was good value for his win.

The real banker for Stirling was their very impressive third seed, Argudo, up against Hegazy who struggled to contain the plethora of shots which he was bombarded with. Argudo opened up with a first set victory 6-1, and followed that up with a top dollar performance in the second set, not losing a game.

UoM were well beaten by Stirling Photo: Mancunion Sport

The final two games were slightly more competitive with the two top seeds playing some wonderful tennis. Owen’s serve was a constant threat, but was returned with interest from Rosenzweig throughout the match, and the consistent high level of return eventually paid dividends. Second seed Barnes unfortunately fell to McCullock, losing 6-3, 6-4, but fought well in an adrenaline-fueled encounter.

The doubles matches were significantly closer, with Manchester posting a statement of intent in the first set, opening their account with two straight games. Unfortunately, Stirling dug into their reserves and recovered well to win 7-5 in the opening set. They completed the victory winning 6-0 in the second to set up the whitewash.

In the other doubles pairing, Manchester struggled to hold serve consistently, and Stirling profited greatly from their mistakes.

Rosenzweig again impressed with some acute finesse at the net, and the cumbersome Manchester pair were punished for simple mistakes, gifting their opponents easy points.

Looking forward, Manchester have a tough game next against Durham University, who are currently second in the league and have only lost to Stirling 1st’s themselves. After a taxing time at the hands of Stirling, Manchester will to regroup if they are to progress up the league from 4th.

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English winter break? P.29

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Men’s Hockey vs Durham P.30 Tyrants vs Sheffield

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Swift exit for men’s football

Liverpool JMU knock stuttering Manchester Men’s 1st XI out of the BUCS Cup University of Manchester 0 Liverpool JMU

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Josh Cook and Paul Scott Sport Reporters The Men’s football team fell out of the BUCS Trophy on Wednesday afternoon after losing 1-0 to Liverpool John Moores in the first round of the competition.

Before the game the home manager was expecting a strong performance from his inform side despite having captain Guy Ansah-Palmer side-lined due to injury, confidently stating prior to kick-off that ‘the loss of Guy is a massive blow for us, but we have good depth in the side to be able to win today.’

Manchester lined up in a 3-5-2 formation, with a holding midfield player sat in front of the back three and two pressing central midfielders. In the opening minutes the pace of the game was fast, with both sides pressing to try and find early breakthroughs. The best chance fell to the visitors when a cross was met with a glancing header that drifted inches wide.

It was clear in the opening 10 minutes that the game would be a hard fought contest. From the outset LJMU looked very capable all over the pitch and Manchester struggled to get a grasp on the game. Frustrations grew when a good move on the left wing was played in with pace by LJMU but the resulting shot was blazed over the bar by the striker.

UoM’s first chance came after 15 minutes where some great switch play found Boylan in enough space to shoot

from just inside the box. His attempt was deflected behind for a corner, rousing encouragement from the players in purple who finally sensed they were getting a foothold in the game.

Despite this pressure, Manchester struggled to cause LJMU any serious problems in the first half and the men on the side lines were becoming increasingly aggravated.

Manchester were being forced to latch on to half chances when possible and at one time had the ball in the back of the net. The ball was lofted in from Hornby and headed in at the back post. The jubilation of the home side was met sternly by a whistle from the referee who felt the goalkeeper had been

fouled in the build up to the goal.

As the first half continued LJMU’s persistance, dominance and pressure paid off. A rash challenge resulted in a penalty being awarded. There were some protests from the home contingent who felt the incident occurred outside of the box, but their efforts were in vain as the referee waved their pleas away.

The central midfielder from LJMU stepped up and struck a near perfect penalty sending Heltorp the wrong way, but the woodwork came to the home side’s rescue and the ball pinged back into open play.

It seemed Manchester didn’t learn from their mistakes and two minutes later LJMU were appealing once more for

a spot kick. However, this time it was the visitors’ turn to have their appeals dismissed by an adamant official.

As the first half came to a close UoM were very lucky to go into the break on level terms after LJMU had created and squandered great opportunities to take the lead – not least the unconverted spot kick.

The UoM manager tried to invigorate the team with the traditional ‘hairdryer’ treatment, urging his side to up the urgency levels in the second period.

The home side responded to their lacklustre first half display with an improved performance in the second.

They were able to enjoy a greater percentage of possession across the

midfield. There were positive signs for the home team, who certainly had grown into the game; however any real quality in the final third continued to elude them when they did find themselves in promising positions.

Unfortunately any early optimism was crushed by a goal ten minutes from time which put the away team firmly in the ascendency.

A deep cross was floated past the back post and was driven back into the penalty area. Failure to clear led to the ball eventually falling to a white shirt, who calmly squared to his unmarked teammate who made no mistake with an assured finish from ten yards.

As a frustrating afternoon for the home side was brought to a close, the team were marched into the dressing room without comment to no doubt receive a dressing down from the manager.

Manchester will be hopeful that they can give a better account of themselves when the two teams next meet.

Hanbury

Carter-Allen

Jones

Hornby

Kolonas

Boylan

Mackintosh

Skaros

Oredein

Jowett

Manchester struggled to get going against a determined LJMU side.

Photo: Mancunion Sport Heltorp

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