Issue13

2nd FEB 2015/ ISSUE 13 FREE

MANCHESTER’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER

Pangaea Fancy Dress Competition

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#NotInMyName

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Man Wielding Knife Outside Stopford Building

Charlie Hebdo banned from Refreshers’ Fair Lauren Gorton, Charlie Spargo and Marcus Johns Outrage has been sparked on Twitter this week in light of a tweet from the University of Manchester Free Speech and Secular Society (FSS) accusing the University of Manchester Students’ Union of unjust censorship in preventing them from displaying a copy of the Charlie Hebdo magazine at the Refreshers’ Fair last Tuesday.

The FSS is dedicated to protecting the principles of freedom of expression and secularism, and endorses a rational and nonreligious legal system. Its main tenets include the right to challenge sacred beliefs no matter from which faith it derives.

The Society obtained one of 10 copies of the infamous Charlie Hebdo front page displaying the image of the Prophet Muhammad holding the ‘Je Suis Charlie’ sign, which was published following the Paris shootings at their offices on the 7th of January.

They intended to include the magazine, along with other editions of the magazine picturing the Holy Trinity cover, as part of their Refreshers’ stall last Tuesday.

In what the FSS describes as an act of good faith, they contacted the Students’ Union Executive team advising that they were intending to have the magazine as a small feature of their display. However on the evening prior to the Refreshers’ Fair, they received an e-mail froma representative of the Students’ Union informing them that they would not be able to feature the front cover at their stall.

The reasons for the censorship of the Charlie Hebdo front cover were laid out in an e-mail from the Students’ Union General Secretary, Charlie Cook, and chiefly reflected the view that they found it “unsuitable for the event,” and that they “could see no benefit in allowing

the presence of the magazine.

“There was genuine concern its presence may cause distress and insult to others,” she added.

A tweet posted by the FSS on the 27th of January contained the image of the Charlie Hebdo cover which they instead included on the stall, with the face of the Prophet Muhammad covered by a black square and the words “Censored by Students’ Union.”

Further to this, the tweet was picked up by writer and humanist Richard Dawkins, who called the Students’ Union “priggishly officious offence junkies,” and asked what they thought a university was for.

This tweet has since received 306 retweets and has caused a frenzy on Twitter.

Since then the FSS has issued a statement to The Mancunion stating that they “don’t necessarily endorse the views put forward by the magazine, but we do think it is essential that every student be allowed to decide for themselves where to stand on this issue.

“After the tragic attack on Charlie Hebdo, a copy of their survivors’ issue is naturally relevant to free speech and is of interest to many, given the difficulty of obtaining a copy in the UK. We had decided to have a copy at the stand, among other things, for students who were interested.

“We were planning to focus on topics such as imprisoned journalists around the world. The SU’s prohibition of the Charlie Hebdo magazine forced us to focus on this issue.

“If we now acquiesce to the de facto blasphemy laws the terrorists want to force on us, we are sending one message: violence works. We want to make clear, vocally and firmly, that censorship via violence does not work, or, at least, it shouldn’t.

“It is a commendable goal to make people feel comfortable at university, but censorship itself is offensive.

It is offensive to people who wish to commemorate the lives of the twelve people killed in Paris, [and

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Student activists meet with radical left Syriza Charlie Spargo Deputy Editor-in-chief

Photo: University of Manchester Free Speech and Secular Society

amongst others] to those Muslims who do not condone violence and feel infantilised and patronised by the pre-emptive censorship.

“Discussion around the issue of freedom of speech and the limits of offence must necessarily include the object of the controversy. Without it, debate is stifled and discussion limited—the antithesis of what a university should promote.

“The fact that we are being censored shows just how important it is to counter those who want to treat students as children. We believe students can make up their own mind and decide for themselves where to stand on any issue.

“We value our right to freedom of speech and believe it is worth protecting. Current laws criminalise incitement to violence and slander.

These are limits on free speech to prevent harm—and that is commendable.

“Ideas should not be protected from criticism. Bad ideas should be challenged and replaced by

better ideas through dialogue. We therefore urge the Union to review their policy.”

In a statement to The Mancunion, Charlie Cook said: “The Students’ Union is a representative organisation for a diverse student body of nearly 40000 people.

It is vital we try and balance the needs and wishes of our members considering the natural conflicts that arise, and sometimes this can be controversial.

“After being made aware of the potential presence of the images, we wanted to work closely with all groups involved to ensure they were comfortable with the final outcome.

The Refreshers’ Fair is a key point in the year to welcome new students as part of the January intake, and many of these students come from countries all around the world.

“On balance, we took the call that the open presence of the magazine was not in the interests of the event or our members, however the image could be made available to those who asked to see it.

University of Manchester Students’ Union Education Officer Harriet Pugh joined a group of activists in travelling to Greece during the fevered election season at the end of last month to meet with the youth organisation of Syriza, the radical left-wing party that has recently taken its place as the ruling coalition.

Pugh and around 20 other sabbaticals and activists from across the UK made the decision to travel to Athens to meet with Syriza Youth, “to see what [they] could learn about their political success,” she told The Mancunion.

“What really struck me about the atmosphere [of its publicity tent] was that it was largely made up of young people hanging out, having a chat, smoke, drink, and listening to music.

“I thought to myself that this—the normalisation and casualisation of politics—would never happen in the UK!” The Coalition of the Radical Left, better known as Syriza, achieved 36.3 per cent of the vote in a snap election held on the 25th of January 2015, after the failure of the Greek Parliament to elect a new President by the 29th of December.

The anti-establishment party endorses antiausterity, anti-fascism, feminism, and an ecological agenda, and has been credited with motivating the young voters of Greece. It aims to eradicate class struggle and strives for ‘Socialism of the 21st century’.

“On speaking to many of the young people there, it became clear that the reason for Syriza’s success was their unfaltering narrative of hope that developed in and against a backdrop of criticism from the other pro-austerity parties,” Pugh continued. “[They] spoke about how they were tired of the attacks on Syriza’s alternative vision, while no party could present their own solution to the problem—an economy crippled by austerity.

“The other thing that struck me was how much the party’s campaign was focused around young people; Tsipras, the party leader, gave his election speech at a university in Athens. The stance of Syriza has a clear influence from its young members, with policy for gay marriage, against discrimination in all forms, an end to police brutality, [and] free education.

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02 : NEWS

ISSUE 13/ 2nd FEBRUARY 2015 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Highlights P13

Music: Music: Interview: Slipknot

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Picture of the week - ‘Wonders of the University” The Brian Cox Tribute Mob. Photo: The Mancunion

- Students’ Union Education Officer and others made the journey to Greece during elections which saw socialist coalition Syriza take power in Athens - Syriza proposes to roll back the strict austerity measures imposed on Greece by the EU and focuses on the inclusion of young people in politics

Fashion: The Coat Edit

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Film: A Brief History of Hawking

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“The party is not without its faults. The lack of women in the youth committee, for example, remains an issue. But one criticism I cannot agree with is the idea that young people are not fit to provide the ideas for ruling a country.

“I wrote to a Syriza youth representative… and he explained that the youth committee was even busier than they had been pre-elections, as they were involved in organising the party in the first days of government.”

The German government continues to insist that Greece must stand by the commitments it has made to honour the EU’s savings programme under its new left-wing party.

A leak from the German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Finance Minister Wolfgang Schӓuble suggested a Syriza victory might lead to Greece exiting the Union.

“In the UK, it is almost inconceivable to imagine a government made up of ordinary young people who have not made it into Parliament by a long, dirty, and nepotistic career through a party machine,” said Pugh.

“Greece has all the hope of democratic leadership precisely because its primary organisers are able to relate to and understand the issues of the society they represent.

“With the likely attacks and stigmatisation [Syriza] will endure from capitalist European powers, no-one should be under the illusion that it will be easy, or possible, to carry out their promises.

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Editor-in-chief : Aidan Gregory editor@mancunion.com

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Deputy Editor-in-chief : Charlie Spargo deputyeditor.mancunion@gmail.com Postal address: Univerity of Manchester Students’ Union, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PR Phone (0161) 275 2933

“But the ideological revolution that has taken place should be exciting. If Syriza has achieved

anything, it is a glimmer of hope and the possibility for a new kind of politics in Europe.”

Alexis Tsipras, leader of Syriza and Prime Minister of Greece. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Sub-Editors: Morgan Hollet, Gemma Sowerby, James Jackman & Charlotte Pangraz

Beauty Editor: Nikki Patel beauty@mancunion.com

News Editors: Anna Phillips, Lauren Gorton, Jenny Sterne & Helen Chapman news@mancunion.com

Food & Drink Editors: Elena Gibbs & Adam Fearn

Science & Technology Editor: Andy van den Bent-Kelly

Film Editors: James Moules, Thomas Bruce, Martin Solibakke, & Andriana Hambi film@mancunion.com

Features Editor: Roberta Rofman features@mancunion.com Opinion Editors: Morris Seifert & Marcus Johns opinion@mancunion.com

foodanddrink@mancunion.com

Books Editors: Leonie Dunn & Ali Pearson books@mancunion.com Games Editors: James Thursfield & Matt Cole games@mancunion.com

Fashion Editors: Aimée Grant Cumberbatch & Gráinne Morrison

Lifestyle Editors: Robert Firth lifestyle@mancunion.com

fashion@mancunion.com

Music Editors: Patrick Hinton, Samuel Ward, Lowell Clarke, and Daniel Whiteley music@mancunion.com

Sport Editors: Andrew Georgeson & Will Kelly Sports Reporter: Liam Kelly sport@mancunion.com Theatre Editor: Nicole Tamer theatre@mancunion.com Arts Editor: Holly Smith arts@mancunion.com Societies Editor: Interested in photo journalism, with an eye for colour and detail? The Mancunion are looking for photographers ! If you would like to get involved, contact Aidan Gregory at editor@mancunion.com

ISSUE 13/ 2nd FEBRUARY 2015 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

NEWS : 03

University of Manchester marks world cancer day Elena Losavio News Reporter The 4th of February marks World Cancer Day, intended to raise awareness about cancer on a global level. It is an initiative organized by the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC), one of the major non-governmental organizations, who collaborates with UN. According to UICC, every year 8.2 million of people die from cancer and more than one third are premature deaths of people between 30 and 69 years old. In many cases this disease is curable, if discovered early enough.

A lot of options to prevent and treat cancer are now available thanks to new research findings.

The new slogan of World Cancer Day “Not beyond us” highlights the idea that through research it is possible to find a real solution.

The University of Manchester plays a crucial role in the global struggle to tackle cancer. Research involves the study of cancer from its molecular and cellular level to further development, and tests new drugs and other innovative therapies. Physical, emotional and economic impacts of cancer are also examined.

1.5 million of women suffering from breast cancer have now a better chance to fight this disease due to endocrine therapy approaches developed at UoM. In addition, Manchester researches improved the expectations of life for two or more years for 25 per cent of people with lung cancer, after they have received a diagnosis.

Donations contribute significantly to achieve

important results at the University; supporting the

support when you are making treatment decisions,

construction and the maintenance of new buildings

you are likely to receive more treatment than those

and funding student research.

without support.

The Manchester Cancer Research Centre will open

“The funding for my three-year PhD comes from

in Withington this year, as a new project developed

University of Manchester Alumni, through the

by the collaboration of The Cristie, Cancer Research

Research Impact Scholarship. I am very grateful for

UK and the UoM. The Withington centre will operate

the opportunity to spend three years learning new

in order to give innovative and personalized cancer

research skills, and applying these to contribute

treatments to an increasing number of people.

new knowledge to the area of older people and

Prof Nic Jones, the research centre’s director,

cancer treatment inequalities.

asserted: “Manchester Cancer Research Centre aims

“The social support needs of cancer patients

to improve understanding of how cancer develops,

are often overlooked, however with cancer

in order to translate basic and clinical research

treatments and survival outcomes improving, now

into new treatments that benefit cancer patients in

is an opportune time to look at cancer differently, to

Manchester and across the world.”

engage in multidisciplinary work, and to increase

He added further: “Our vision is to develop a personalised medicine strategy that spans the entire patient’s journey from diagnosis to treatment.”

knowledge of the patient and their cancer journey.

“As put by Ciarán Devane, Chief Executive of Macmillan Cancer Support, “Measuring success by

In Manchester, university PhD students are

one- and five-year survival rates is simply no longer

currently working along with world-class scientists

enough. We must see the reality – and the people

to tackle cancer and they represent key contributors

– behind the numbers” (Cancer’s Uneven Burden,

of this research. Many of them are funded by UoM

MCS, 2014:5). So here I am, continuing my quest for

alumni, friends and staff.

reality.”

Patty Doran, a second year PhD students at the

If you would like to join the fight against cancer

University of Manchester, said: “For my PhD research

and help the UoM to carry on with research, you can

I am looking into the impact of older people’s social

make a donation at https://your.manchester.ac.uk/

networks on cancer treatment outcomes.

support-manchester/donate.

This

research will bring together the fields of ageing, cancer treatment, and social support.

“In my second year I hope to carry out some studies to test my theories about the relationship between older people, cancer treatment and social support. My hypothesis is that if you have access to

SU presents: The Vagina Monologues Anna Phillips News Editor The Women’s Campaign and the Students’ Union will this month stage a production of the famed episodic play, The Vagina Monologues.

Based on author Eve Ensler’s Vagina Interviews, the original episodic play was performed in 1996, and is made up of various monologues read by a variety of women regarding their views on sex, relationships, and violence against women.

Each of the monologues deals with aspects of the female experience such as sex, love, rape, menstruation, FGM,

masturbation, birth and the female orgasm.

Ensler originally wrote the piece to “celebrate the vagina”, however she stated that its purpose has since changed to being a movement to stop violence against women.

The production, which will be held in Academy 3 of the Students’ Union on the 10th and 11th of February, will see a witty, outrageous and moving collection of tales from real women from around the world to highlight issues affecting women daily.

Women’s Officer, Jess Lishak, said: “I’m working with a group of incredible women and non-gender binary students to put on a production of The Vagina

Photo: The Vagina Monologues @Facebook

Monologues!

“Tickets are available now and all of the proceeds will be going to Manchester Women’s Aid and Manchester Rape Crisis, who are both facing huge and continuous funding cuts.”

The production will also promote Reclaim the Night which will take place at 7pm on the 26th February. This is a march to protest violence against women and victim blaming culture. Over 85,000 women are raped or sexually assaulted every year in England and Wales.

Tickets are £4 and all proceeds will go to Manchester Women’s Aid and Manchester Rape Crisis, and are available at the SU reception and online.

Man arrested after brandishing knife

by Stopford Marcus Johns News Editor A 32-year-old male was arrested outside the Stopford Building on Thursday the 29th of January at lunchtime.

Police were called at 12:35pm following reports of “a man [having] verbals with another man and [getting] out a knife,” Greater Manchester Police told The Mancunion.

The two were witnessed struggling outside the Sainsbury’s local on the corner of Oxford Road and Grafton Street.

They were then reported to have walked off together, with injuries reported.

Both a police car and van attended the scene approximately 10minutes after GMP received reports of a man brandishing a knife.

32-year-old Simon Monkman was arrested

by GMP for possession of a bladed article, and was charged. He appeared before magistrates on the morning of Friday the 30th of January.

The arrest took place on Oxford Road by the main entrance of the Stopford Building.

Witnesses reported seeing a man bundled into the back of a police van in handcuffs.

The University of Manchester have yet to comment.

The whereabouts of the second man involved in the incident is unknown.

Anyone who may have information about the incident should contact: Greater Manchester Police on: 101 or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.

Pickpocket hid eight mobile phones in trousers Aileen Rose Duffy News Reporter A man local to the Manchester area was arrested on Saturday night at the student-popular nightclub Factory 251 after being caught pickpocketing in the crowd.

Carlo Lanzon, 31, was caught by plain clothed officers who were on duty in the nightclub on the evening of the incident.

When caught, Lanzon was discovered to have a total of 8 mobile phones concealed down his trousers that he had stolen from clubgoers throughout the night.

Lanzon was arrested at the venue itself and on Monday was charged at Manchester Magistrates Court.

Factory 251, owned by former Joy Division band member Peter Hook, has been recovering its reputation since parts of the roof of the nightclub came loose and fell onto patrons, injuring 7 people nearly a year ago to date.

The thefts follow a series of other mobile phone pick pocketing in-

cidents in the Greater Manchester area, including an incident at a Slipknot concert at which eight mobile phones were also stolen.

The incident arises in the wake of a recent public service announcement from the Greater Manchester Police warning students about safety surrounding house parties and alcohol awareness.

With Refreshers events welcoming back the student population of Manchester after the exam period, personal awareness should not be disregarded on nights out, helping to prevent more crimes such as this occurring as students are notoriously targeted by thieves.

Greater Manchester Police stated that 1 in 3 victims of theft and burglary in Greater Manchester are students, further stressing a need for greater safety consideration.

If you have any information regarding phone thefts or pick-pocketing contact Greater Manchester Police on on 101 or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.

ISSUE 13/ 2nd FEBRUARY 2015 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

NEWS : 04

Starchaser Industries – the sky is not the limSteve Bennett, the CEO of Starchaser Industries, gave an interesting talk on how his company plan to be at the forefront of space tourism in the United Kingdom and outlined what he expects this promising industry to achieve in the near future.

Andy van den Bent-Kelly Science and Technology Editor Fancy a trip to space?

Good news—you can hitch a ride to the International Space Station with the Russians. Bad news—it will cost you in the region of $20 million.

Space tourism is a rapidly growing industry that has been talked about for decades. Back in the 1960s, it was widely believed that space hotels would be in orbit by the turn of the millennium and that family holidays to the Moon would be commonplace.

We may not have fulfilled those expectations just yet, but the industry is alive and kicking. Within a few years, private companies expect to be shuttling paying customers to the edge of the Earth on a regular basis.

Picture: Starchaser Industries Ltd @Facebook

But it’s not just the big boys of space exploration, namely the US and Russia, that are getting involved.

Steve Bennett is the founder and CEO of Starchaser Industries, a British company specialising in the development and commercialisation of space related products. Since their foundation in 1992, Starchaser have launched multiple rockets,

including the largest and most powerful one ever to lift off from British soil.

In a talk arranged by MANSEDS (Manchester Students for the Exploration and Development of Space), Bennett spoke about his company’s bid to lead the way in the space tourism industry.

Bennett began by introducing his company, explaining that they were now focusing primarily on suborbital spaceflight. They have been constructing rockets for more than two decades and have tested small capsules in which they eventually hope to seat a crew of tourists.

The initial aim is to transport people up to a height of 100km. At this altitude, describing the view as majestic is an understatement. The curvature of the Earth is clearly visible and the normal blue sky (or grey, if you live in Manchester) is replaced by a pitch black canvas dotted with countless stars.

Passengers will experience roughly four minutes of weightlessness before travelling back down to Earth.

Richard Branson is almost certainly the best known British advocate of space tourism, with Virgin Galactic’s endeavours regularly featured in the media. But despite lacking the financial might of the likes of Branson and Elon Musk, Starchaser looks set to play an equally important role in the growth of the sector.

Bennett talked about his interest in rockets. As a child, he was mesmerised by the Moon landings and Thunderbirds and was inspired to construct his own rockets. He essentially taught himself rocket science and through trial and error managed to launch multiple small rockets from his garden.

These days, the rockets he builds are quite a bit bigger.

In 2001, Morecambe Bay was the site for the launch of the biggest UK rocket ever to take to the skies— NOVA/Starchaser 4. Reaching a speed of 600mph in just six seconds, it flew to a height of over 5500 feet before parachuting back down to Earth.

Images and videos of the engines produced by the

company were shown. Their first liquid propellant engine generated half a tonne of thrust—their most recent one, which they hope to test soon, will produce thirty times that amount.

A unique selling point of the company that Bennett is particularly proud of is the Launch Escape System. Shortly after lift-off, the main rocket engine will be jettisoned, but a smaller mono-propellant rocket engine is attached to the top of the passenger capsule. This essentially acts as an ejector seat for the entire capsule.

Starchaser appear to be well on schedule, which is astonishing given the financial climate that they’ve had to cope with over the past decade. Bennett claimed that if funding wasn’t an issue, his company would be transporting customers within three

NOVA/Starchaser 5: the largest rocket ever produced in the United Kingdom. Photo: Mark Skeet @Flickr

years.

Current projects include Starchaser 5, which will see the three-seater Thunderstar spacecraft attached to a rocket and flown up to the edge of space. The first prototype has already been constructed.

A major aim of Starchaser Industries is to inspire the next generation of space scientists and engineers. Throughout a year, employees make visits to 200 schools, engaging roughly 150000 students. Rockets and capsules are often brought along too.

During a brief Q&A session, Bennett spoke of his excitement at what the space tourism industry could potentially achieve. He believes that it will have a monumental impact on the way we live our lives and that once it kicks off, the possibilities will be endless.

In fact, he’s so convinced by its potential that he thinks the industry will make a select group of people the world’s first trillionaires.

At the moment, space tourism is exclusively limited to the extremely wealthy. I asked him how long it will be until it becomes affordable for the wider public.

He replied by saying that the industry must follow the path that aviation took over a century ago.

A barnstorming phase of rigorous planning and testing must come first, followed by an exclusive era in which only the very wealthy will be able to afford trips. Once the industry has taken off and spaceflights become more common, the price will plummet.

Bennett stated that within ten years of the industry getting going, ticket prices for suborbital flights could fall to £10000—by no means cheap, but certainly affordable for a much larger market.

The future of the industry is incredibly exciting, although at the moment it is simply being held back by a lack of funding. Once this problem is solved, space tourism promises to revolutionise the modern world.

Schoolgirl dinner conversation leads to cancer breakthrough - An informal chat between a University of Manchester cancer research scientist and his young daughter over the dinner table has led to the discovery that simple antibiotics could play a major role in the quest to find a cure for cancer Andy van den Bent-Kelly Science and Technology Editor

An eight-year-old girl may have inadvertently come up with a cure for cancer whilst talking to her parents over dinner.

Camilla Lisanti was asked by her father, Professor Michael Lisanti of the University of Manchester, how she would cure cancer. She responded by suggesting that her parents—both of whom work in cancer research—treat it with antibiotics, as is the norm for many other illnesses.

Despite initial scepticism on the basis that cancer is not a bacterial infection, her father decided to test this out in the lab and was astonished to see that the proposal worked.

Professor Lisanti, who is the Director of the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Unit, had previously suspected that antibiotics could have some sort of effect on mitochondria, but credited this conversation with providing the inspiration to test the theory.

He said, “I knew that antibiotics can affect mitochondria and I’ve been doing a lot of work recently on how important they are to the growth of tumours, but this conversation helped me to make a

direct link.”

Mitochondria are the powerhouses for all animal and plant cells and provide energy for stem cells to mutate and divide, resulting in cancerous tumours.

The stem cells also maintain these tumours.

Normally, antibiotics are used specifically to kill or inhibit the growth of bacteria. However, since mitochondria are believed to be descended from early forms of bacteria, they are also affected by antibiotics, although not to the extent that the recipient’s life is endangered.

Professor Lisanti tested this by using five different antibiotics on the cell lines of eight types of tumour.

The results were astounding: Four of the antibiotics destroyed the cancerous stem cells in all eight of the tumours.

Crucially, the tests had no effect on ordinary, healthy cells. The antibiotics have long been approved for use in humans, slashing the cost of trials of new treatments as well as saving time.

Professor Lisanti added: “This research makes a strong case for opening new trials in humans for using antibiotics to fight cancer. Many of the drugs we used were extremely effective, there was little or no damage to normal cells and these antibiotics have been in use for decades and are already approved by the FDA for use in humans.

“However, of course, further studies are needed to validate their efficacy, especially in combination with more conventional therapies.”

Dr Matthew Lam, Senior Research Officer at Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said: “The conclusions that the researchers have drawn, whilst just hypotheses at this stage, are certainly interesting.

Antibiotics are cheap and readily available and if in time the link between their use and the eradication

of cancer stem cells can be proved, this work may be the first step towards a new avenue for cancer treatment.

“This is a perfect example of why it is so important to continue to invest in scientific research. Sometimes there are answers to some of the biggest questions right in front of us but without ongoing commitment to the search for these answers, we’d never find them.”

Doxycycline was one of the common antibiotics used in the tests. Photo: Cavutto @Flickr

NEWS : 05

ISSUE 13/ 2nd FEBRUARY 2015 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Will you defy ZURG’S occupation or will his ion blaster annihilate the competition?

Why not (vote) ZOIDBERG?

“Help me voters, you’re my only hope.” –PRINCESS LEIA

At Pangaea’s Space Odyssey, The Mancunion took to the skies to run Pangaea’s fancy dress competition in collaboration with the Student’s Union.

Bursting for a fix of our ALIEN VICTIM?

We took hundreds of photos of your fancy dress triumphs and disasters which The Mancunion have narrowed down to the top ten solo costumes here.

Is he taking your vote or is it a C3 P-NO?

Voting will open online on The Mancunion website to select the best solo costume of the night to be crowned our Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Empire.

The winner of the best costume competition from our top ten will win two guest list tickets to the next Pangaea in June.

WALL - E win?

Is he still flying high or is ROCKET MAN on a come-down?

All photos of the night, including those who fell short of our top ten, are posted on The Mancunion Facebook page.

Will she get GA-MORE-A votes than the competition?

Will GEORDIE boldly go where no student has gone before?

(Next year’s Pangaea)

Ground control to MAJOR HIPSTER; will he spacewalk to victory?

NEWS : 05

ISSUE 13/ 2nd FEBRUARY 2015 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Will you defy ZURG’S occupation or will his ion blaster annihilate the competition?

Why not (vote) ZOIDBERG?

“Help me voters, you’re my only hope.” –PRINCESS LEIA

At Pangaea’s Space Odyssey, The Mancunion took to the skies to run Pangaea’s fancy dress competition in collaboration with the Student’s Union.

Bursting for a fix of our ALIEN VICTIM?

We took hundreds of photos of your fancy dress triumphs and disasters which The Mancunion have narrowed down to the top ten solo costumes here.

Is he taking your vote or is it a C3 P-NO?

Voting will open online on The Mancunion website to select the best solo costume of the night to be crowned our Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Empire.

The winner of the best costume competition from our top ten will win two guest list tickets to the next Pangaea in June.

WALL - E win?

Is he still flying high or is ROCKET MAN on a come-down?

All photos of the night, including those who fell short of our top ten, are posted on The Mancunion Facebook page.

Will she get GA-MORE-A votes than the competition?

Will GEORDIE boldly go where no student has gone before?

(Next year’s Pangaea)

Ground control to MAJOR HIPSTER; will he spacewalk to victory?

NEWS : 06

ISSUE 13/ 2nd FEBRUARY 2015 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

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“Here at the Students’ Union, everything we do is for students, by students.

Sounds like a cliché, right?

Think about it.

15th Dec - 19th Feb

Ever been to Pangaea?

Joined a society? Needed advice on an academic, financial or wellbeing issue? Or simply eaten a delicious burger down in our bar?

All of these amazing facilities and events are provided with the direction of our elected Exec Team, who work full-time to implement your ideas, run campaigns, support student-led activities and ensure your voice is heard by the University.

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08 : Features

ISSUE 13/ 2nd FEBRUARY 2015 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Hope and loss: One student’s experience of organ donation There are some things you think you will never have to worry about.

Eilís Hall talks about organ donation and her experience with it.

T

here are some things that you just don’t think you’ll ever have to worry about.

You know that they’re issues and you know that people have to face them, but you never imagine that you will be one of those people. Even when the facts are staring you in the face you find yourself denying them; this is not possible; this is not happening to me.

I suppose that is why it never really occurred to me that my cousin Geraldine might die young, in spite of her diagnosis of Pulmonary Hypertension coming nine years prior to her death.

For those who haven’t heard of the disease, I will be honest and say I don’t really know how to describe what it is.

The simplest way to put it is this: she needed a heart and lung transplant.

Placed on the donor list when she was 21, it was seven years before her body simply couldn’t wait any longer. Even on the final day of her life, I was so convinced that she would beat her condition. A week before she died, she was moved to the top of the list; her sister knew it was bad then. I thought her sister was just being pessimistic. I was sure that her being moved up on the list could only mean good things. She would get her new organs. She would be able to live a normal life. She could go on holiday again. She could get her own place, maybe out of our boring hometown. She could adopt a child; she would make an excellent mother, everyone agreed.

Sadly, it isn’t that simple.

I’m not telling you about this for sympathy and I’m not telling you this to scare you. Nor do I want you to think about Geraldine as a feeble woman who sat around feeling sorry for herself for those nine years. She was, in fact, the most lively person I knew. She had a better sense of humour than most people in that she could laugh at the things everyone else would just complain about. She could turn the worst customer service in a restaurant into top quality entertainment

and the longest traffic jam into one of the highlights of your outing. She was inventive. She was talented. And even when her body finally did start to show weakness, she never did.

The reason I am telling you this is because I idolised my cousin, and even saw her as an extra sister in many ways, and yet it still took the shock of her death to make me understand how important organ donation

Over 90 per cent of the UK population said they supported organ donation, only 30 per cent of them had signed up to the register.

is. Before that, it was just something that would sort itself out. You needed an organ, you’d get one. It didn’t even occur to me that it had been seven years since Geraldine had been put on the waiting list.

Each year, an average of 1000 people will die waiting for an organ dona-

Photo: The Mancunion

tion, which is roughly three people every day. In February 2013, it was estimated that around 15 in every 100 people waiting for a heart transplant died due to a shortage of donors. And yet, at the same time that this was estimated, over 90 per cent of the UK population said they supported organ donation; only 30 per cent of them had signed up to the register. It is still an unfortunate fact that you are far more likely to find yourself on the waiting list for an organ donation than you are to become an organ donor. The gap between the number of organs available and the number of people who need them is an ongoing issue. But is it an unsolvable one?

The first Christmas after my cousin’s death, my girlfriend at the time got me the best Christmas gift I have ever received. She donated £30 to the charity Live Life Give Life, and in doing so introduced me to the organisation that changed my whole perspective.

In April 2013, I organised my first charity event for them and that September I was officially invited to an advocate training day. It was here that I was reintroduced to the world of hope. I met the people that made my younger self seem a little less naïve. And the strangest thing is, these people never expected to be the success stories.

Every single story was different; some

had been sick for years, some had been taken completely by surprise.

Yet no matter how close to death they had come, these people had survived.

One girl that I met was the same age as me—the same age as Geraldine had been the year she was diagnosed— and had suffered with Cystic Fibrosis.

At the age of 17, she had received a double lung transplant after becoming dangerously close to losing her battle. When I met her, it was hard to believe she could have ever been sick.

She was energetic—she was beautiful—she was everything that people want to imagine when they hear the word ‘alive’.

Still, I was not the only bereaved person at this meeting. I also met one of the fantastic founders of the Connor Saunders Foundation. This woman had lost her brother when he was 19, and until his death, her family had not known that he had registered to be an organ donor at 16. A summary of market research statistics taken in mid-2013 shows that only 40 per cent of the sample interviewed knew whether their relative had registered as a donor or not, even if an individual is signed up the family would still be asked for their agreement to donation.

While this might mean that people can still be donors if they have not registered, it also means that people who

have registered might not be. The real difference, however, lies here: Whilst the potential to save someone’s life has widespread resonance, only 31 per cent of the population are willing to agree to donation when their loved one’s wishes are unknown.

The NHS have stated that: “There is general consensus that objecting to donation in this instance is the easiest decision and least likely to offend.

Therefore a key message to communicate is that, in reality, 82 per cent of the population definitely want to or would consider donating all or some of their organs. The decision to agree to the donation of a loved one’s organs is more likely to be in line with the person’s wishes than the decision to refuse the donation.”

The family of Connor Saunders faced a hard decision upon his death but ultimately they chose to not only honour his wishes, but take pride in his decision. The website for the Connor Saunders Foundation, www.connors5.com, is named after the five lives that Connor went on to save. The family have devoted themselves to supporting the things that Connor loved.

They have turned a heart-breaking experience into something beautiful, and through their strength and kindness they have given the greatest gift possible to five other families.

ISSUE 13/ 2nd FEBRUARY 2015 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Feature : 09

Interview: Daliso Chaponda Editor-in-chief Aidan Gregory talks to Malawian comedian Daliso Chaponda racism, colonialism, and being politically correct Aidan Gregory Editor-in-chief

Facing a packed out Squirrels bar, Daliso Chaponda pauses with a slight smirk, ready for a perfect delivery.

“We’ve come a long way. If we had been here three hundred years ago, this would have been an auction.” The son of a Malawian politician, Chaponda read English at McGill University in Montreal where he decided to pursue a career as a comedian. After graduating, he lived in South Africa before moving to Manchester several years ago. I met Chaponda in Big Hands last semester.

On his Malawian background and going to university in Montreal “I’m from Malawi, the blood is from Malawi, but I was actually born in Zambia. My dad was an economic refuge, because at the time we had a crazy dictator. A lot of people left the country and he was one of them. Then he joined the UN and became a diplomat.”

After going to schools all over Africa, Chaponda moved to Montreal to attend McGill University. He originally studied computer programming, after being pressured by his family, but switched to English once he realised his potential to pursue a career in comedy.

“I knew I wanted to be an artist beforehand, but I was pressured by my family [into doing computer science], ‘do the straight and narrow, do the straight and narrow!’, because my math grades were good. I think it was only once I was [at McGill] that I got the strength to say ‘screw you!’ I’d rather try and do it and fail, than do the sensible path, because I think the mistake that a lot of people make is that they think they can have it as your side job. So my parents were like, ‘you can do your comedy on the side, and the rest of your time programming,’ but programming is a full time thing anyway. My brother is a programmer, he doesn’t just work nine to five. Doing both became impossible.”

On British audiences “In terms of the subject matter, they are more OK with people crossing the line. I mean comedians here like doing paedophile jokes and jokes about death and darkness. There’s more acceptability towards a dark sense of humour. But Canadian audiences are more liberal, if you’re using the leftwing definition of liberal. If you do a joke here that is slightly sexist or slightly racist, you won’t be booed off stage.

I’ve seen people do it, they do it every

week. But you could not do that in a place like Canada which is more liberal in the left-wing sense. Here, you’re politically correct and not politically correct, it depends which subject.

“I’ve got into trouble in Africa for telling jokes and I’ve got in trouble here for telling jokes. [In the UK], you get into trouble if it’s a special interest group you’re targeting. In Africa you get into trouble if it’s a person you’re targeting— that politician, or that public official.”

On getting into trouble in his home country “I essentially did some jokes about the government. The flag had changed.

We changed the flag from a rising sun to a full sun because we felt that the country had emerged. My joke was that the country is falling apart, actually I think we should change it to an eclipse. It was silly joke, and it just sort of spiraled out of control. Nothing actually happened, there were a lot of threats, and I had to talk to the censorship board. Realistically, the worst that could have happened was that I could have paid a big fine, and been arrested for a day or two. But it was more potential fires which I had to put out.”

On telling jokes about colonialism and slavery.

“I like jokes about stuff that matters.

There are some comedians whose entire life is about meaningless details. There are some people who only want to joke about how you spin your spoon or something like that. And it’s funny and it works, but it’s not what my strength is. For me to write about something, I have to start with something that pisses me off, and use comedy to turn it into a positive emotion.

“We can’t pretend we live in this glossed-over utopia, where no horrible things happen. You can talk about those things without being accusative people. We’ve got to accept that they happened, the effects are still here, and that we can now poke fun at it.

“I actually wrote that joke [about the slave auction] in response to people who don’t believe that there is such a thing as white privilege. Or people who wonder ‘why do black people write about it now?’ But I’m like, ‘no, there are still going to be echoes.’ Almost everything in Malawi is still owned by British people. It’s history, but there are so many things that are still going on, and when I do shows in Africa I talk about it a lot more.”

Chaponda went to McGill University in Montreal, and lived in South Africa before moving to the UK several years ago. Photo: Daliso Chaponda

On experiencing racism in the UK “It’s not something that really bothers me, I know how to deal with it. I’ve lived in places where there is real racism, like South Africa. A slightly drunk guy in Kendal who sings is small-time.

For the kind of comedian I am, it’s a very welcoming atmosphere here. For racist stuff, nobody is going to let people get away with it.”

On being politically correct “It’s all about self-knowledge. You’ve got to know who you are and you’ve got to know how people see you. Take Louis CK. He does nigger jokes, and he’s white. But it’s fine, because he knows how to do it. The truth is, you’ve got to know who you are. For example, it’s no coincidence that Louis CK used

to write for the Chris Rock Show. You can be part of a community without looking like that community.

“It’s all about saying something which is true, and then people don’t care who you are. Honestly, any white comic could talk about black people, no problem right, if what they are saying rings true to black people, but if it’s a stereotype that’s when they get very angry.

And the backlash to all the generationback comics in the UK, like Jim Davidson, is not because they were talking about race, but because they were talking about some weird stereotype.

“I think there is always going to be an evolution of comedy. Comedy moves forward, as society moves forward.”

Who would you say are your all-

time favourite comedians?

“Probably Bill Cosby, Woody Allen.

There are also new people that I love.

Joan Rivers who died recently.”

What advice would you give to students today who are looking to break into comedy?

“Write a lot of jokes, get on stage whenever you can. But the other big thing is you have to write about stuff which matters to you, because a lot of people think: ‘Oh, Jack Whitehall makes that really funny’, or, ‘politics seems like a good way in.’ But if you’re not really into it, why would you talk about it?”

10

Opinion

Editors’ Foreword Marcus Johns Morris Seifert

The horrific attacks at the Charlie Hebdo headquarters and around Paris this January have caused outcry and condemnation around the world.

This edition of The Mancunion Opinion focuses on the issues raised by the attacks such as the fundamental question: is freedom of speech an unlimited right, or is it wrong to offend an entire religion? And why we should not blame Muslims for Islamic fundamentalism.

Tweet us with your thoughts and comments: @MancunionOp. If you would like to contribute tweet us or like our page on Facebook at facebook.com/MancunionOp Next week we will be featuring articles about media ethics.

Political Correctness doesn’t exist Marcus Johns Opinion Editor Chancesareifyoudisagreewith me, you’re a white middle-class straight male, who is averagely (but not well) educated, and you come from a homogeneous small town in the home counties—or you’re Nigel Farage.

Perhaps instead you’re just a devout advocate of unrestricted freedom of speech without conscience; it doesn’t really matter.

The concept of political correctness only exists in the mind of those who want to criticise it, and even if it existed independently of its detractors—and UKIP—it wouldnotcontravenefreedomof speech.

The inability to call someone a “faggot” or “coloured” is in no way an attack on anyone’s freedom of speech. It’s not political correctness to avoid using terms like this, nor do those who avoid them because they’re offensive wake up in the morning and prepare their straitjacket of correctness for the day.

Offending someone is offending someone. Importantly, no one other than the marginalised groups being offended are permitted to decide what is or isn’t offensive. A straight man isn’t allowed to tell me that I shouldn’t be offended when someone calls me a “poof” or puts gay marriage in scare quotes. As a white male, I’m not allowed to decide what terms to use to call black people or to call women, and so on.

Not being offensive isn’t hard, nor does it detract from your opinions, however backward, in any way. Intelligent debate about immigration,gaymarriage,orany topic you could possibly imagine, can be talked about without offending people.

Comedy is an exception. It’s a blurry line between acceptable offence and just downright tastelessness but no one really knows where the line falls—it’s an undefined line that Dapper Laughs definitely crossed.

Not being offensive does not equate to censorship; for example, saying “AIDS” rather than “full-blown AIDS” doesn’t censor any ideas or opinions put forward in an argument.

We all have the right to an opinion, and the right to criticise anything. But you don’t need to be offensive and everything can be debated in polite, inclusive, terms.

We should stop blaming political correctness every time we offend someone, and just call it not being an arsehole.

ISSUE 13/ 2nd FEBRUARY 2015 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

@MancunionOp

#NotInMyName Guest contributor Dalal explains just how harmful ‘Islamic’ terrorism is for the Muslim community, and that the perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo attacks do not, and cannot, represent Islam.

In May 2013 Lee Rigby, a British soldier, was killed in London as an act of revenge for the British Army killing Muslims in Iraq. In April 2014, Boko Haram, an Islamic Jihadist organisation that claims it is resisting westernisation in Nigeria, kidnapped 276 Nigerian girls. In August 2014 the American journalist James Foley was beheaded by IS in Syria, followed by Steven Sotloff in September, then British hostage Alan Henning in October of the same year. Also in October of 2014, in Ottawa, Canada, a shooting by a Muslim at a war memorial resulted in the death of one Canadian soldier. In December 2014, an attack in Sydney, Australia by Man Monis, an Iranian Muslim, took the lives of two people in a hostage situation in a café. Finally, in January 2015, came the attack in Paris on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which published cartoons dishonouring the prophet Muhammad. The attack was carried out by three Muslims and resulted in the death of 12 people.

“The

identity of the terrorists, is not defined only by words such as ‘Muslim’ or ‘Islamic’, They do not represent the teachings or ideology of the Islamic faith.“ All these attacks were done by Muslims, “in the name of God” and, “in defence of Islam.” As Muslims, every time we wake up to such horrific incidents, we pray: “Please God, not another Muslim attacker!”

Many people view these attacks as war against liberty, freedom, and humanity. This may be true, but it’s also a war against Islam. Some may think this is complete nonsense: How can it be against Islam, if it’s targeting western nations whilst proclaiming “Allahu Akbar” and claiming to seek revenge for affronts to Islam?

Let’s look at the situation, so I can explain: First, these terrorist organisations have killed far more Muslims than any other group. Following is a collection of statistics of Muslim victims of terrorist attacks committed by so-called “Islamic” terrorists in November and December of 2014: In Iraq alone, the numbers of dead from suicide bombings included 143 civilians—all followed Islam.

In Afghanistan, 81 civilians were killed, and in Pakistan 69 civilians also perished. Let us not forget the horrific attack on a school in Pakistan that resulted in the death of 145 innocent people­—mostly children.

In Yemen, more than 25 were

killed, and five more were murdered in a shooting in Al-Ahsa in Saudi Arabia.

In Egypt, two were killed in a bombing attack.

In addition to this are the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Syrians in the ongoing conflict over the past four years, and the existence of IS that is brutalising and horrifying the Middle East.

These few examples of suffering in the Muslim world are evident enough. For many Muslims around the world going to school, going shopping, becoming a police officer or a soldier means that you don’t know if you will ever see your family again.

The second reason for my argument is that which follows each attack. The lives of the majority moderate Muslims in the Weat are negatively affected after each attack. I do not blame communities in the West for being angry: We are all angry! Western societies fought for their freedom, liberation, and peace.

No one wants to feel threatened, or to live under the fear of being on a hijacked aeroplane, taken as a hostafe in a café, being kidnapped, or being shot cold bloodedly at school or at work.

No human being deserves this.

Muslims know what it feels like when Western countries are being attacked for their freedom, liberty, security, and relatively stable economies.

Following the news of the Charlie Hebdo attack, I came across many comments on the Yahoo! news page that got my attention.

‘Dave’ and many others expressed their anger at the Paris shooting. He wrote: “Want to change Islam. The first thing is to not let anyone from these countries into the west [sic]. No exceptions. Next round up all of the radical ones and either lock them up or send them back to their country. Next isolate these countries completely economically. Accept high gas prices, but buy no oil from them. Make it so hard on these countries that they rid the world of the radicals themselves.”

Of course, ‘Dave’ speaks as someone fed up with what Muslims has brought to his country.

He thinks that getting rid of them, and being isolated from Muslims will solve the problem.

Of course this doesn’t represent every westerner’s views. Many still believe that those responsible for these attacks are criminals, and showed empathy for other Muslims in their community.

But for how long and how far will people remain empathetic?

People want to live in peace in their homeland. They don’t want to live in fear: looking over their shoulders for some crazy fanatic who believes that killing strangers will take him to heaven. Moreover, what got my attention was that most comments on social media targeted their hatred and anger towards Islam and Muslims in general and not

terrorists and criminals. Muslims are facing many difficulties with the rise of Islamophobia and xenophobia in the West.

In June 2014, a Muslim woman was stabbed to death in Essex as a result of hate crime against Muslims. Attacks on mosques, and hateful statements on social media are prevalent.

Terrorists are stealing our most sacred Islamic symbols. In my opinion, they are affecting Islam in a way that is more dangerous than any other war, even worse than colonisation: They are stealing the Islamic identity.

Throughout history there have been symbols that signify certain ideals, organisations, political movement, and countries.

These symbols hold deep meanings and emotions. For example, the symbol of the Nazi party: it

fortunately use the same text.

It shows the prophet Muhammad’s signature that he used to stamp his letters, alongside the core statement of the Islamic belief: ‘There is No God but Allah’.

A clear declaration of our belief, that there is only one God. Nowadays, if you show this symbol to both Muslims and non-Muslims, what they will think and feel? For both it will bring the images of fear, and opression. It will bring an image of something I never want to be—something evil, against freedom and liberty.

These terrorist groups are hijacking our core values, symbols, our prophet’s name and signature on their own flags. These groups and their actions do not represent Islam, the prophet Muhammad, our Quran, my family, my friends, my neigh-

The IS flag. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

automatically conjures horrible images of Hitler, World War II, the Holocaust, genocide, and destruction. I thank God I was not born during that time. On other hand, the swastika used in the flag is originally a Sanskrit symbol that means ‘good fortune’ and is considered to be a sacred symbol in Hinduism, Buddhism, and other faiths. Hitler’s actions managed to change what this sign signifies to millions of people around the world by placing it on the Nazi flag.

Now look at the notorious IS flag. Most terrorist groups like Boko Haram and Al-Qaeda un-

bours or any Muslims I’ve met in the 35 years of my life. This holds true whether religious or liberal, Arab or non-Arab. None of them remotely approve of what these people are doing.

The prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) said: “There will come a time when holding onto your faith will be like holding in your hands a hot burning coal.” At school, they interpreted the prophet’s saying as: it will be hard to hold on to your faith because life will be full of temptations. It will be hard to be faithful, honest, modest, not corrupted in a time full of mate-

rial pleasure. But now, as terrorists are putting the whole world in danger in the name of Islam, Muslims globally will reach a point where they will be afraid to acknowledge or show their faith. When Islam is portrayed as violent and oppressive, then holding on to the Islamic faith will be like holding onto a hot burning coal.

What I am trying to say here to all non-Muslims is, in hard times like this, try and remember your Muslim friends, neighbours and colleagues whom you know aren’t terrorists. They are feeling just as confused and lost as you are. It is a time when you need each other the most.

We all need to think critically about terrorism, see beyond the attacks to what are causing these attacks. We need to ask why this phenomenon is growing around the world, what political decisions and agendas are reinforcing it? We need to all stand in solidarity, united and brave against our division. We need to recognise that the media follow their own agenda and everything that we are reading does not necessarily represent Islam. The identity of the terrorists, who are criminals, is not defined only by a word such as ‘Muslim’ or ‘Islamic’, and their motives, which are often politically motivated, do not represent the teachings or ideology of the Islamic faith. We must understand and explain to others the difference between being a criminal and being a Muslim and implore that the media choose different adjectives when describing the events that are deeply upsetting for all of us.

The terrorists are taking the most valuable thing we have in life, they are stealing our faith and our symbols. Worst of all they are brainwashing our youth, especially those who suffer from poverty, oppression, and neglect.

These terrorists are stealing our identity—it’s #NotInMyName.

Demonstrations like these have caused community tenssions for years. Photo: Virgorama @Flickr

Feeling underrepresented?

Opinion

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11

Love Britain? Love satire Al Murray’s FUKP has become a bastion of free speech in the fight against terrorism and the fear-mongering racism of UKIP. Joe Evans Contributor The Charlie Hebdo shootings and the disregard for freedom of speech instilled in the ideology of the murderers has no doubt united thousands.

Under the banner of expression and the right to free speech the world has responded with a vigorous two fingers up to anybody who attempts to supress their voice.

With free speech comes responsibility to use its power. In the words of Salman Rushdie ideas “deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.” To turn the issue of freedom of speech back towards a more light-hearted issue I would urge you to look back across the English Channel to Al Murray and FUKP. Under the guise of his creation, the ‘Pub Landlord’, the comic is igniting the fuse of satire in a huge way, evidencing, as ever, the power of possessing the freedom to mock power.

It would appear that amongst the stoic who are

able to endure the full monotony of British politics, a comedy candidate is as much a grievance as the politicians they satirise. Leaning over the parapet of satire, Al Murray will no doubt have been met by thousands of stony-faced realists. Too serious about the state of policy to recognize the existence or function of comedy, these people will invariably have missed the point.

Like Russell Brand before him, albeit in a more flippant tone, Murray is undeniably enfranchising more people into politics. Love or loathe Brand, the sales of his book ‘Revolution’ sold 22000 copies in 11 days. Likewise his appearance with Nigel Farage on Newsnight drew in the largest viewing figures of the series. Looking at the Newsnight Twitter response, Brand succeeded in his aims that evening, with #newsnight evidencing an outpouring of ridicule at Farage’s backwards ideology.

My issue however with Brand is that for all his beautiful, verbose, mastery of language, his ideology isn’t watertight. Herein lies the genius of the Pub Landlord’s approach. He doesn’t need

Photo: Isabelle Adam @ Flickr

watertight ideology. He is undertaking an immense task, but what he is doing is simply a brilliant satirical mission.

The utter lunacy of Murray’s Free United Kingdom Party policy serves to ‘out-UKIP UKIP’, but in a totally safe and humane way. Policies such as ‘bricking up the Channel Tunnel’ to keep out immigrants and ‘starting a war with Germany’, serves to highlight UKIP’s absurd stance without the need to appeal to its voters. Unlike the major parties Murray can openly satirise, highlighting Farage’s dangerous status as ‘a pound shop Ezra Pound’. Murray’s achievement is that the Pub Landlord is a comedy caricature of all that Farage really is, and the most valuable method of defusing Farage is to reflect just this irony.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Nigel Farage failed to get just that irony. He welcomed the competition of Murray stating, “the more the merrier… especially from the man who is David Cameron’s sixth cousin.”

This is true—Murray is a distant relative of David Cameron, linked through 19th-century Vanity Fair author William Thackeray. What Farage fails to realise however is that in pointing out the link to hierarchical bloodlines, he is undercutting himself.

Murray, unlike Farage, knows he isn’t an outsider or the voice of the disenfranchised masses. Nigel Farage, pictured on Boxing Day at a hunt, publicly educated and a former broker, is genuinely founding a career on an outsider-act image. The Pub Landlord is a heavily educated and wealthy person dressed as a mock-xenophobic man of the people. Nigel Farage is, well, exactly the same.

As if on cue, Farage has spoken out in the press against Paris’s plans to sue Fox News, serving to further validate Murray’s satire. Despite being founded on incoherent nonsense and despite the station being a one-stop shop for pathological liars, Farage has supported the statement of “no-go zones” in the city. He has attributed this to the “moral cowardice” of Britain and European countries.

Presumably this is the kind of all-encompassing, multicultural cowardice he will stamp out.

FUKP’s heavy-handed policy on immigration

can only be compared to an anti-assimilation bulldozer. Al Murray is propping up the mirror perfectly, reflecting back Farage’s rhetoric with the added layer of comic incoherency it so deserves.

Like I said at the beginning of this article, the stony-faced amongst us have stated Murray is simply making a mockery of the political system.

Patrick Kidd, a diarist at The Times, similarly pointed out Murray’s Oxford education as a failing of the campaign, showing you don’t have to be a one-brain celled bigot to miss the point.

Murray is mocking the political system to an extent. However we’re all part of a system that allows the medieval policy of Farage to be cultivated. Arguably we deserve to be mocked, maybe we need to take a long look at ourselves. In that sense he is possibly providing a greater public service than any other self-interested political party.

Where the campaign perhaps falls down is in its introversion. Whilst sat watching Great Britain, a play mocking the gutter press currently garnering rave reviews in London, I felt the same twinge I do now. As I looked around the room at the laughing audience who had paid to watch a satirical look at the media I realised that we were laughing, but that the message was one we already knew. Murray perhaps will face the same problem.

His strength is that he is in the public sphere far more than Great Britain, for example, however whether his message will be lost on those that need to recognize it remains to be seen. Whether he can truly make a UKIP supporter recognize their blindness will be the real test of his mission.

One thing that is certainly true though, is that one more person evidencing the backwardness of Farage and his backwards party is by no means a bad thing. If Murray can engage the public to even half the degree that Russell Brand has through a less serious but possibly more poignant campaign, then his contribution to the election will be a good one.

Al Murray might just provide a moral conscience often totally missing in politics.

Freedom to have integrity of speech We must defend the inviolable right to freedom of speech and use it to criticise intolerant and hateful views Lauren Wills Contributor Freedom of speech is said to prevail even in the presence of harm, as it is the cornerstone of democracy. Indeed, American first amendment jurisprudence makes freedom of speech paramount to a functioning society. In Europe, I think it’s fair to say that although freedom of speech is a fundamental right, as guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights, a stricter approach is taken. This is why we have hate speech laws—based on the idea that sometimes the effects of someone’s speech can be so harmful that it warrants suppressing their rights.

It’s a difficult debate. Freedom of the press, on one hand, can be perceived as extremely important as it facilitates open debate whilst holding the government to account for their actions. It allows us to make informed decisions on political and social issues. It also arguably provides us with unnecessary information about celebrities’ and public figures’ private lives about which we do not need to know. Yet we cannot pick and choose what stories the tabloids publish—the fact that they are free to write and are unregulated by the government makes them crucial, and as transparent as can be, to society.

There have been problems with the press abusing their freedom of speech, as many articulated in the Leveson inquiry after the phone-hacking scandal. However, as much as we disagree with certain stories that media outlets publish, they are rarely accused of hate speech crimes because of their professionalism and the need to attract a wide audience. More recently, however, the Charlie Hebdo attacks sparked a debate about the importance of freedom of speech and whether it goes too far, beginning to marginalise certain groups.

Social media was soon filled with people’s opinions on the situation. We all agreed that terrorism is wrong but what we didn’t all agree

Photo: laurenhowell @Instagram

on is how far the media should go in criticising, or mocking, religions; the implications being that the media arguably contribute towards tensions between minorities and majorities in society. It poses the question of where freedom of speech starts and ends.

Despite offence taken by some individuals, what Charlie Hebdo publishes isn’t ‘hate’ as such.

It criticises religion. I am religious and think it’s important to be able to take criticism and be questioned. However, I’m also aware of the detrimental effects of alienation in society. I don’t think media freedoms should be suppressed in terms of religious criticism, I believe in the importance of individual integrity and caution in

Come to our meetings: Mondays, 5pm, on the first floor of the Students’ Union

how speech is used.

Rupert Murdoch’s controversial comments that Muslims should take responsibility for actions of extremists fuelled debate on the issue, thankfully mostly criticism of both him and his comments.

This shows that social media fudges the line between individual freedom of speech and media freedom of speech. Twitter, Facebook and personal blogs give people virtual platforms to express their opinions which weren’t formerly available.

Bloggers can also post anonymously, creating a detachment in accountability for statements which are deemed unacceptable.

Despite Murdoch’s ill-informed statements, the response to his comments highlighted how media

platforms serve as a fantastic mechanism for people to engage in debate and reach their own decisions about issues such as religion. J.K. Rowling attacked Murdoch after his statement, tweeting: “I was born Christian. If that makes Rupert Murdoch my responsibility, I’ll auto-excommunicate.” It just shows that individual criticism can also shape society in the same way that traditional media outlets do.

As a generation consumed by social media, debating about such important issues shapes public opinion and thus attitudes towards different religions and sensitive issues. Suppressing press freedom in terms of what they are allowed to talk about is problematic in terms of democracy, but social pressure has the ability to suppress individuals from stating unpopular and extreme opinions, or if it doesn’t stop them, they gain so much criticism from social media users that they can be forced to change their mind (or at least reconsider their view).

Rights can be distinguished by looking at the difference between individual freedom of speech and press freedom. Social media platforms bridge the two, as the internet provides global spectators— which we love, because we love giving our opinion.

I think it would be unwise to regulate the media in terms of what they can criticise (though I agree with the Leveson inquiry recommendations into the way information is obtained), as if acting within the remit of the law, the media contributes to democracy. However, what we personally choose to write has an impact on others’ decisions. If we start using social media to have healthy debates about sensitive issues, since I really do believe there are more tolerant than intolerant people, then unpopular and unacceptable views will be overshadowed by an overwhelming acceptance of others.

We need to accept as a society that if we want to encourage multiculturalism, we must promote tolerant views. Whilst we have the power to criticise—and must do so when necessary— freedom of speech can be used to respect others’ beliefs, promote inclusion, and prevent alienation.

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Music

Interview

the MUSIC INTERVIEW

ISSUE 13/ 2nd FEBRUARY 2014 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Editors: Patrick Hinton, Lowell Clarke

Samuel Ward, Dan Whiteley Interview Photo: Laurence Barnes @Flickr

KORN Donald Spencer So it’s finally happened, the dream tour. It’s a monumental lineup. “It’s good, I can’t believe it didn’t happen sooner. I think each band was sort of carving out their own paths for a while, and I think it took a certain point in our careers, as well as a certain level of opportunity to make it happen.”

What about King 810?

“They’re really great, I think a lot of people are becoming more familiar with their music, and if I’m ever touring with a band I like to check them out to see what they’re all about.

They’re pretty heavy, but they also have some funkier songs.

They’re from Michigan, really nice guys. They’re trying to behave for the tour, but we can tell they’re fucking crazy.”

Around a year and a half ago they released the latest record The Paradigm Shift but on this new album we hear a mixture of old and new Korn. Why did you call it that?

“I came up with the title, and it felt like with Head coming back in the band and the fact we were reaching our 20th anniversary as a band, it was time to move forward and shift our way of thinking. We wanted to push ourselves, we don’t want to fade out and become a thing of the past.

“I don’t want to sound pretentious but we want to excel, and in my heart when I was a kid I wanted to be the next Metallica.” Not far from it.

“I’m not saying we’re anywhere near that, but I think we did present a new way of thinking about metal… With such a massive library of songs to choose from I think we might have to change our way of playing in the future. Perhaps we will play songs in part, then switch it up at the bridge the way DJs do it, that way our fans can hear more stuff.”

Metal is a very misunderstood genre of music, and there are some people who dismiss

it. “It’s an art, and it’s not for everyone. I can walk through a museum and say, ‘hey I like that painting, but not that one.’

It’s just personal taste, if there’s something that makes you feel something, whether it’s good or bad, it’s still cool. If it’s not for you, find something that is.”

Have you heard of Bring Me The Horizon? “They’re excellent, I like that band a lot.”

The front man Oli Sykes says “Love us or hate us, it’s still an obsession.”

“That’s a nice quote. British metal is great, Black Sabbath got me into this sort of music, I love me some Sabbath. There’s so much great music out there.”

Talking about Bakersfield California: “It’s a very working class kind of town, I was born in L.A. but because my dad was in the oil industry we had to move. There was pretty much zero going on for music around there. People thought our dreams would never come true, but when we turned 18 we got the fuck out of there. And so began Korn.”

“The name? It’s a pretty fucking disgusting story. There was a story in Bakersfield that there were two gay guys, one of them was eating the other guys ass and the other dude farted, and shat corn all over his face.

The K and the backwards R just gave us a trademark.” What about actual corn? “Yeah, it’s delicious on the grill.”

Finally, I ask Munky his favourite film: “Tough one. I would have to say Apocalypse Now. A long film. My dad took me to the movies one night and we watched that movie and it scared the shit out of me… But I was intrigued about it. I can still see the images in my head, it opened up a world of dark imagery, which I think satisfies a part of the human soul. It all reminds you how temporary this body is. that’s one thing we all have in common, we’re all going to be fucking dust.”

Photo: Anne Helmond @Flickr

Top 5

TOP

5

New year, New me Samuel Ward, Music Editor

the

MUSIC INTERVIEW

Slipknot

Chris Fehn of the legendary metal outfit talks hardships and new beginnings with Donald Spencer Donald Spencer A fantastic lineup; Slipknot, Korn, and King 810. I ask how the tour has been so far: “It’s been great man, it’s nice to show up every day and say hi to people, we’re all taking care of one another, and that’s really nice.”

The latest release, .5: The Gray Chapter, is an album six years in the waiting and in which time Slipknot have endured incredible hardships yet still come out the other side with a fantastic record. “I feel great, it’s an amazing record. I think it’s hard these days to find a record that you wanna listen to from beginning to end, and I think this album accomplishes that. You wanna listen to the whole thing, it’s a very interesting record.

You’ll wanna explore it.’’ I agree. It seems as if Slipknot have incorporated a number of different influences into the record, on songs such as ‘Sarcastrophe’ we hear elements of ‘Iowa’ and on songs such as ‘Nomadic’ and ‘Custer’ we hear some of the raw energy of the 1999 debut release. “It’s never intentional with us, it’s just creative. I mean we are Slipknot so you can obviously hear crossover between records. But we never want to make a copy of an old album.”

It’s been six years since All Hope Is Gone.

The new album primarily deals with the loss of his brother and bassist Paul Gray, but what other lyrical themes are explored on the album? “That’s the beautiful thing about Corey Taylor man, music can mean something totally different to me than it does to you. Whatever song it is, I can make it part of my life. One part might be about an ex-girlfriend, but to you it might be about an ex-boss, or your mother or whoever. It’s for the listener to interpet; Corey might have a specific idea or feeling that he writes about, but he doesn’t reveal that to me.”

So, with each new album cycle we see new masks, and that has happened ever since they began. Some change slightly and some change more drastically such as Clown and Corey—it’s almost as if Slipknot reinvent themselves each time. Could the masks

1. An Ivory Hand – The Cribs

2. Handsome – The Vaccines

The first single from the pop side of the Cribs’ pop/punk double instalment. If their inner angel sounds like this I can’t wait to hear their inner brat.

With the Cribs’ former Brazen Bull producer Dave Fridmann on board, the Vaccines’ latest effort could see the band return stronger than ever.

symbolise things in their lives? Or are they purely an aesthetic change? ‘’I’m sure they do represent things in our lives, although it’s an odd question for me because my mask stays the same. It’s cool though, and it’s refreshing.’’

On the most recent music video ‘The Devil In I’, we see the members of Slipknot destroy their old selves. I ask why Corey blows himself to smithereens and why Clown sets himself on fire and hangs himself…‘’Good question, I think it’s just basically the next chapter , it welcomes in a new era of Slipknot.

It’s the next section of our careers and lives, it continually evolves.’’

Slipknot have become a cornerstone of heavy music and a staple of modern culture, this surely must bring pressure, or do they do

They wanted us to do something radiofriendly. We said “FUCK YOU”and came back with ‘The Heretic Anthem’ it primarily for themselves? “I do it for myself first, if I didn’t enjoy the music I wouldn’t do it. It’s difficult touring with a band and anyone who says otherwise is out of their mind, but I love it. The second thing I do it for is the fans, Slipknot fans are fucking diehard. Every band says they have the best fans, but I think there are only a handful of bands who can truly say that. I think Slipknot have that right.”

It’s true that Slipknot have quite an extensive back catalogue: “We mix it up a little bit, we probably change it every four

3. We’ve Come So Far – A Place to Bury Strangers A must for any noise-rocker. The new album, Transfixiation, drops later this year.

days. Obviously there are songs that stay, songs that we love, songs that the fans love.

But yeah, it’s a great problem to have! We like to make a good setlist that flows. But we have to bear in mind that it’s primarily a show, we have to consider the pyro and such.” This year Slipknot are headlining Download Festival for the third time since 2009. In 2013 there were a lot of fans wondering if they would match up to the amazing 2009 show, which they certainly did. But what about third time round? “We just do what we do, it’s just real.

It doesn’t matter if it’s Dublin or Manchester.

We’ve played in front of 10 people before, we’ve played in front of 80000. We’re gonna bring it!”

Your early days were intense; you would set yourselves on fire at shows and throw pieces of pig into the crowd. There must have been a lot of raw and angry passion back then? “It was just fuck everything. It was very physical and we toured so hard. People wanted to make it corporate, they wanted us to do something radio-friendly. We said ‘FUCK YOU’ and came back with ‘The Heretic Anthem.’

We just wanted to make the heaviest record we could, nobody fucking controls us.”

There’s a lot of heavy musicians from the UK who really making a name for themselves. Is there any British musical recommendations?

“I’m pretty stuck in old metal. I’ve not really exposed myself to the hardcore vibe. I don’t have as much time to explore.”

Any final words to the fans in Manchester and across the UK? “Thank you for sticking with us, it’s been a long fucking time. Our fans are truly a family, a gathering of misfits. A gathering of people who feel the same as I do, whether it be feeling alone, feeling depressed, anxious, happy, sad. I have all that. But when we come together for those two hours, all the shit stays out there. In the shows it’s time to communicate and be together through music, I see it in their faces when they sing the lyrics. You can tell that our fans are the real deal.”

4. PINS

5. Muse

The Northern Quarter’s own poprockers headed to Josh Homme’s studio to begin recording their debut, due for summer. A great live band, expect to see them popping up all over the place soon.

Going back to their roots? Doubtful. But any album which contains a genuine ‘sequel’ to Citizen Erased is going to be a fucking good one.

Music the Interview Gordon Raphael ISSUE 13/ 2nd FEBRUARY 2015 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

@ MancunionMusic

/ TheMancunionMusicSection

Alister Pearson Gordon Raphael is probably best known as the producer of The Strokes’ first two records, Is This It and Room on Fire.

It is only when you search a little that you discover what a rewarding and extensive career he has had. Since a very young age Raphael has been immersed in music, whether it’s producing others or being a member of his own band.

He has travelled the world extensively, working with many a great artist along the way. Last year saw him work in Mexico and South America.

He tells me he was frequently asked to go to music colleges and universities to lecture about his time in music.

After the success of that and a recommendation from a friend in Leeds, Raphael will embark on a brief tour of the UK in order to share more of his stories. I received the chance

13

Alister Pearson talks with G. Raphael about turning down the chance to join Nirvana and producing for The Strokes to interview him to discuss this and many other events in his life. I expect to rack up an expensive phone-bill as he lives in Berlin currently, but his storytelling, and relaxed, courteous attitude, made it worth it.

Although born in New York, Raphael grew up in Seattle at a time when grunge was at its peak in the city, and “anyone with long hair and a guitar could get a record deal!” I ask him what he remembers most about this time; he tells me about the time he was invited to be part of Nirvana in 1989.

“I was in New York and I was told to go and see this band that had wanted me to join them on tour,” he revealed. The day after, he bumps into none other than Kurt Cobain on the street, who raised the invitation, “and I amazingly said no!” I ask him if he had any regrets about this, but without a moments

deliberation he replies “not one bit.”

Soon Raphael had moved across the country and was back in New York with his

Do I regret not joining Nirvana?

Not one bit. own small recording studio where he started recording as many artists as he could. It was during this time that he briefly worked with Ian Brown. “I got a phonecall during lunch one day from a man called Ian who wanted to do some vocals with me,” he tells me. At first he was unaware it was the Ian Brown, but decided to go over in order

to make a quick $25. It was only after hearing him sing that he exclaimed, “You’re Ian Brown from the Stone Roses!” to which the reply was, “my name is Ian Brown but the Stone Roses have broken up.”

I then decided to move the conversation forward to his time with The Strokes. In recent years the future of the band has been uncertain so I ask him what the band’s relationship was like at the beginning. He is full of praise and comments on them being “admirable” young people, and lauds their “communication, honesty and openness” with one another.

Raphael has recently revealed to NME that Pete Doherty had asked him to produce the first Libertines album when they were touring with The Strokes and The Vines. I ask whether these three now-indie icons, initially got along. “No” was the basic answer I got. “Albert

(Hammond Jr.) and Carl (Barat) perhaps came friends later on, but I think for dangerous reasons,” is the only affable aspect, he tells me, about the three bands touring together.

He does, however, have regrets about not being able to produce The Libertines’ first record.

In the most modest way he tells me he wished he could have worked with them and tightened up their sound. “They sound a little too drunk, a little too high, and I wish I could have changed that.”

Finally we talked about the state of rock today. He is disturbed by Fat White Family although feels “there is something there.” The uneasiness comes from the conflict between his veganism and their continued association with decapitated pig heads. He hasn’t given up on the genre yet though. He recently purchased Julian Casablancas and The

Voidz’s album, Tyranny, to add to his large collection of mostly 20th-century rock music. (The only other albums he owns from the 21st century are Up The Bracket, Is This It, Room on Fire, and 50 Cent’s The Massacre. The latter, he says, is one of the greatest production efforts he has ever listened to.)

Later this year he is working with Italy’s self-proclaimed best rock band, Ministri.

Raphael’s endeavour to work with as many artists across as many countries is admirable, and he doesn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon.

He next plans to work in Stockholm, to tick another city off his increasingly long list of places he has worked. I finish by wishing him well for the future and recommending he try out Go Falafel when he visits Manchester at the end of the month.

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J Mascis

Funeral For A Friend

The Ruby Lounge – 10th January 2015

8/10

Henry Scanlan An empty stage, a blank canvas backdrop, a stool, an acoustic guitar, and a single spotlight. We all know what that means. As the Ruby Lounge crowd waited for a rock deity to grace the stage, this little pre-gig vignette foreboded a strippeddown acoustic set of campfiretype songs. That would no doubt have been delightful, but as a J Mascis fan, I can say with confidence that fellow J Mascis fans did not want to see their founding father of fuzz walk out on stage with a folk guitar and a harmonica.

Luckily, that acoustic guitar had a plug in it. Even luckier, that plug was connected to a big fat amp. What followed over the next hour or so was a musical sermon from a certified guitar wizard (I promised myself I wouldn’t mention the Gandalf hair & beard combo...)

He shredded his Fender until it smoked. He barely spoke a word to the crowd. He remained close to inanimate, bar the magic fingers. To me, seeing his muted behaviour in the flesh only thickened his beard of mystique.

What is going on inside J Mascis’ head? The cards are kept close to the chest, but one can only assume that the universal

Gorilla – 17th January 2015

1/10

David Crawley

Photo: Jason Persse @Flickr

language of Mascis’ screaming guitar communicates his thoughts in ways that words never could.

“The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you’re uncool”. These are the words of the great Lester Bangs, or rather, the even greater Philip Seymour Hoffman playing the great Lester Bangs in Almost Famous. The way I see it, J Mascis was so adored by so many young outcasts (or now, 20 years later, those same outcasts masquerading as husbands and fathers) because he was always so obliviously uncool, and because he never changed one jot, even with a career of fame and fortune

beckoning. The same could probably be said for cult heroes like Stephen Malkmus, Frank Black, maybe John Malkovich or someone, but these guys all exerted a level of showmanship, a self-aware dorkiness. None compare to Mascis’s authentic awkwardness. Mascis has zero showmanship. His hair is silly.

His clothes don’t match. This isn’t about the kitschy brand of being ‘so uncool you’re cool’. In the nicest possible way, Mascis’s uncoolness was the real thing.

His success was the beacon of hope that misfits could look to and think, “it’s okay not to fit in.”

I guess what I’m trying to say is thank you, J Mascis, for helping me and many others through our traumatic adolescences.

Casually Dressed and Deep in Conversation was arguably the most important record of 2003 if you were a teenager and into that sort of music. Those fans have not forgotten FFAF; now in their late twenties and thirties they packed Gorilla out. A largely male fanbase with more than its fair share of tattoos, piercings and dark clothing.

Matt Davies’ confidence on the night was bordering on arrogance. In between every song or two he was preaching that “after 14 years this still matters to us, after 14 years you still matter to us and after 14 years the music still matters to us.” He just kept going on and on with this heartfelt drivel.

Davies was struggling to sing the songs properly or make sense in his incessant speeches.

At one point he promised to crowd-dive, proclaiming he is “fast as fuck,” but then didn’t.

A disproportionate amount of set time was spent talking about music rather than playing it.

He claims that he makes “music with a fucking message.”

He wails about “no racism, sexism or homophobia.” He decides the point of FFAF is to “destroy against oppression.” He might as well have told me that

Photo: ERockUK @Flickr

he could fly. After paying £20 for a ticket, spending a few hours seeing the support acts, and drinking £4 beers, no-one was in the mood for ‘self-help’ punk rock speeches.

If he wants to release a podcast, or have political miniskits in the album, there is nothing wrong with that. But this was neither the time nor the place to form a political party.

Matt openly said that he didn’t care if people didn’t like the new stuff. His attitude sucked harder than some of his new songs.

The sound engineering was an absolute joke, probably the worst of any gig I have been to in Manchester. The amplification was so poor you could not distinguish one song from another.

The fact that many of the songs from Chapter & Verse sound very similar was the nail in the coffin for this gig. At least they played ‘History’.

If Matt Davies wants to change things; why doesn’t he run for Bridgend MP?

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Music

ISSUE 13/ 2nd FEBRUARY 2015 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

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The Mancunion Recommends

This week in Music

Father John Misty - I Love You, Honeybear

Yeezy Season Approaching Bella Union; 9th February

8/10

At the time of writing this, the new Kanye album is not in existance.

Any day now could see the suprise release of one of the years most highly anticipated albums...

Cordelia Milward Father John Misty is a perfect parody of himself. Taking the piss out of people who take themselves too seriously, he simultaneously praises his own conceitedness. I Love You, Honeybear is a non-chronological discovery of love, strewn with copious amounts of sex and scathing satire. From the opening title track Misty attempts to deceive, as swooning strings and ascending arpeggios could easily misconstrue his irony. But underlying this feigned sentimentality, Tillman critiques the cliché of the romantic love song. Such satire is shown in ‘Chateaux Lobby #4 (in C for Two Virgins)’, with Misty depicting the moment of losing his virginity, where genuine affection is blown over the top when accompanied by castanets and trumpets. Although seemingly smooth in his seduction, lyrics such as “I wanna take you in the kitchen. Lift up your wedding dress, someone was probably murdered in” deny him any sincerity.

Misty’s deadpan humour is most commendable on ‘The Night Josh Tillman Came To Our Apt.’, as he openly lists all the insufferable qualities of one individual that lead him to choking her, all disguised under an upbeat jingly tambourine. However scornful Tillman’s lyricism is, he translates a clear frustration with much that’s wrong with the world into humour, rather than appearing spiteful or aggressive.

‘True Affection’ finds itself out of place on this album, not least because of its lyrical content (as the title implies), but it reveals a progression from Tillman’s classic ballad, to an experiment with the electronic. Yet beneath this momentary diversion, Tillman’s irony seeps through with the hint of a sleazy electric drum solo.

Photo: peterhutchins @Flickr

King Kendrick Lamar And with rumours that Kendrick’s as yet unnamed album is shipping to stores as you read this, could the suprise rap album hype get any more... hypier?

Even if Tillman’s corniness is all an act, ‘When You’re Smiling And Astride Me’ seems somehow persuasive, in spite of his confession that he’s an “aimless, fake, drifter, horny man-child.” It’s not until the peculiar canned laughter in ‘Bored In The USA’ that you really begin to question who’s laughing at whom. What at first appeared to be a mockery for the sentimentality of modern lovers, Father John Misty inverts and instead produces a love song with a more meaningful affection, as if his use of irony proves his subject to be more than just a cliché. Perhaps Father John Misty is not a knob at all, but as he concedes to heartfelt sop in the most explicitly ironic manner, in fact we are the knobs for assuming it was anything but genuine.

Fall Out Boy - American Beauty/American Psycho Island Records; 20th January

8/10

Hannah Ainsworth Fall Out Boy’s latest effort is definitely a grower; nothing special at first listen but infectious if you can stick past that. Moving on from their angsty ‘Dance Dance’ days, it is clear that the Chicago quartet are headed in a different direction with their sixth album, no longer struggling to get mainstream radio play. Although many fans of the band have moved on, just as many seem to have grown up with them, and it isn’t difficult to see why.

If it wasn’t already obvious that Fall Out Boy had expanded their target demographic, the first song we heard from American Beauty/American Psycho is ‘Immortals’. Recorded for a Disney film, Big Hero 6, ‘Immortals’ was released in October 2014. Although it feels as though it doesn’t quite fit with the rest of the album, this can be attributed to the fact that it was written specifically for the film. The insanely catchy chorus, “We could be immortals/just not for long” more than makes up for it.

With a strong history of littering his work with pop-culture references, lyricist Pete Wentz doesn’t disappoint on this album, with the punchy title track half based on the Grateful Dead album and 1999 film American Beauty, and half on the Bret Easton Ellis book and 2000 film American Psycho. The song itself samples Mötley Crüe’s ‘Too Fast For Love’ and is lead singer Patrick Stump’s own favourite track of the record.

The heavy use of samples throughout the albums seems a little like cheating, especially given how little of the band playing is audible. Yet whilst this is definitely their most overproduced album, there is no denying that the samples selected fit well. Even the theme tune from The Munsters, used in ‘Uma Thurman’, (which is unsurprisingly due to be the album’s third

Photo: cavalierhorn @Flickr

BBC Radio 1 Residencies Kicking off this season of Radio 1 residents were Flying Lotus and Kaytranada—we’ll be tuning in again to the next session of John Hopkins and George Fitzgerald.

John Frushiate Former RHCP guitarist John Frusciante released his first acid house track last week. Admittedly, it’s not that bad—although he could’ve tried releasing it ten years earlier. How about some dubstep?

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Cowell Pat Simon Cowell’s pure shite sounding Ultimate DJ talent show has secured itself a home on online streaming platform Yahoo Screen. Clanged mixes and EDM are a certainty. single), doesn’t seem out of place. The anthemic ‘Centuries’ begins by sampling ‘Tom’s Diner’ by Suzanne Vega, which works perfectly against Stump’s assurances that: “You will remember me.” This first single of the release peaked at No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart in the U.S and is responsible for much of the hype surrounding the album.

If you’re expecting the Fall Out Boy of 2005, all heavy guitars and punky vocals then prepare to be disappointed. Standout tracks such as the soulful ‘Jet Pack Blues’, and ‘The Kids Aren’t Alright’ couldn’t be further from anything you’ll have heard in the ‘Sugar We’re Goin’ Down’ era.

However a decade and a string of sold out arena tours later, American Beauty/American Psycho shows that this is a band perfectly capable of remaining relevant.

Photo: vagueonthehow @Flickr

‘ill Louis Tragic news arrived this week that certified house DJ Lil Louis may have been permanently deafened by a manager at Sankeys testing an obnoxious new piece of kit. Get well soon.

Photo: Press shot

Games

ISSUE 13/ 2nd February 2015 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

15

Editors: James Thursfield, Matthew Cole

The Console Feature Retrospective: 2014 2014 was a significant year for Microsoft, Sony, and to a lesser degree, Nintendo. It has been the first full year the consoles have been on the market. Both Sony and Microsoft have launched with pretty strong momentum with 3-4 million units having been sold each since the end of 2013. However, this situation has changed rapidly in 2014, with a gap having grown between the two.

Sony has been seen as the strongest in the industry and has almost done everything right with the Playstation 4.

They built an affordable yet powerful system based on a familiar x86-64 architecture, a system that had precise focus on the core gamer, and this vision was maintained from day one. In 2014, the console marched on stronger with superior 3rd party releases, numerous indie games and PC ports, as well as key exclusives such as The Last of Us. However, there have been a few issues I have personally felt with Sony’s PS4. Despite the console as a whole remaining appealing to the core gamer, Sony’s insistence on charging consumers for an unimproved PSN service is disappointing to say the least.

PSN’s features, stability and security

Review There is nothing that has had quite the same presence as Super Smash Brothers. It pits Nintendo’s all-star cast of heroes and villains against each other in a fun and chaotic battle royal.

Earlier, in October of 2014, Nintendo released Super Smash Brothers for 3DS to the excitement of many Nintendo fans and video game fans alike. The game was amazing and was received with overwhelming positivity. The game ran really well, was playable in full 3D and at 60fps with no lag. Despite this, a lack of content and options proved that this series was obviously not meant to be portable. Many looked forward to the Wii U version of the game hoping that it would be packed to its fullest and fulfil its potential. They were not disappointed.

Super Smash Brothers for the Wii U has an outstanding roster with almost every new addition feeling unique and welcome. The game has also brought in the ability to customize all the characters, as well as allowing the player to use their own Mii Avatars.

The new characters range from fan requested characters such as Little Mac and Shulk, to surprise additions like the Wii Fit Trainer and Rosalina. With the playable Pokémon, you can also see how much love and attention went into the making of character design.

Gameplay wise, the game has never been better. It has hit the right balance between the super-fast melee and the

still remain in doubt and introducing a subscription fee has done little to alleviate online issues experienced during the last-generation. Worse still, Sony are also guilty of having done little unique, outlandish or innovative with the PS4 at launch. They chose to

hardware and software sales due to its focus of presenting their console as the core gamers’ system of choice. Over the years, Microsoft’s vision and focus has changed and culminated with the Xbox One. Presently, I have noticed that Microsoft have suffered the same

Photo: Javier Domínguez Ferreiro@Flickr

play it safe with the departure from the PS3 and although I am happy with the product, I do wish they had shown greater liberty to innovate.

Although I have a few minor grievances with Sony’s PS4, Microsoft in contrast see themselves in an unusually weakened position. For much of the life of the 360, Microsoft had maintained a strong lead in

affliction that Sony had faced with the PS3. Arrogance. Microsoft were so certain that their last generation lead would be maintained that they felt they could do what they wanted with the Xbox One. The Xbox One was not initially designed with non-gamer consumers in mind in contrast to the PS4. It was an expensive machine, with the price only now having fallen from

Marcus Winchester reflects on the inaugural year of the 8th generation of home consoles £420 to as low as £329. And the biggest mistake was including a peripheral in the form of Kinect. A device that many didn’t want and was as flawed as its motion detection predecessor. Also, Microsoft’s DRM policy regarding used game sales brought upon Microsoft the wrath of the entire gaming community.

Sony capitalised on this in a public mocking at E3 2013 that swiftly resulted in Microsoft back tracking throughout 2014 and eventually removing Kinect from the console package.

In the current market the early shortcomings of the Xbox One have hurt Microsoft dramatically and opened up a leadership position for Sony in the console market once again; a situation reminiscent of the PS2 days. By the end of 2014, Sony had sold over 18 million PS4s into people’s homes whilst maintaining a profit on every console. Microsoft, conversely, sold nearly 10 million units by the end of 2014 and even this inferior sum would not have been possible had it not been for the removal of Kinect as a compulsory accessory and the reduction of Xbox One’s price to consumers.

Ultimately, I believe it is a positive

that both consoles have recovered and are now selling relatively well. For as much as I am angry with how Microsoft introduced the Xbox One into the world, I am happy for the competition.

Having both of these systems in the market is good for us as consumers.

We benefit the most when competition keeps both of the two companies pricing the consoles fairly and it pressures them to continue building a list of strong exclusive content. It keeps the industry from stagnating.

For the future, both companies must remain vigilant, keep their eyes on the horizon, and put their predecessors to sleep to signal the end of the 7th generation of consoles. Both companies must also remain aware of the threat posted by a resurgent PC market, particularly with Valve’s Steam Machine lined up for release.

Worse still for Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo has been continuously strengthening the Wii U since its release and are already planning for their next generation release that I personally believe will be the console that delivers what Nintendo promised with the Wii U – A system designed for the core gamer.

Super Smash Brothers 4 Wii U Josh Goldie reviews Nintendo’s latest entry of Smash super-slow brawl. The multiplayer mode has also been expanded upon and the most obvious addition is the ability to play with more than 4 players.

In 8-player Smash you can do exactly what it says – Smash Brothers with up to 8 players all at once. This addition is welcoming yet it does have some shortcomings. On smaller maps it is too easy to lose track of your character and end up dying with no clue of what happened. Also, 8-player games can get really hectic, especially on smaller levels which feel more suited to lower player-counts. In addition, playing 8-player smash limits what stages you can use which is understandable in most cases, but some enjoyable maps are also exempt for vaguer reasons.

There are some levels that feel like they should have 8-player capability yet they are not playable, whilst other less suitable maps are. This leads on to my biggest issue with the stages, which is that there are simply not as many as I had hoped. The amount of new stages is in fact less in the Wii U version than in its previous iteration, with many returning stages padding out the selection.

Super Smash Brothers for Wii U comes with many extra modes, almost all of which can be done in multiplayer and single player. The Stadium returns from the 3DS version but is expanded to allow for multiplayer functions. Special Smash also returns

from Brawl and allows you to create some fun and random match-ups.

The event mode reappears here and in a new fashion. The events now progress in a grid fashion rather than a list and allow you to unlock multiple pathways and events by fulfilling certain requirements. Every event also has an extra challenge added to it which involves beating the event in a certain time or with no damage taken. The events also change when you are playing in co-op allowing for even more varied challenges. Overall, none of these events feel too easy and

Photo: Luigifan10@Flickr

they enrich the already enjoyable core game.

Unfortunately, not every mode in this game has been improved from

its predecessor. Both Classic and AllStar mode have never been worse.

All-star is just like it was in the 3DS version, but reversed, and it can get very boring. Classic mode allows you to pick which fight to compete in and who you want to fight. This is similar to the 3DS version except almost all the matches here are 8-player smashes.

So in classic mode you are presented with all of the problems that I had in 8-player smash but with the addition of a higher difficulty and a loss of money if you fail. This makes classic mode more frustrating than fun, which is a shame because the 3DS version had it working so well.

Two new game modes make their debut in this game: Smash Tour and Special Orders. Smash Tour is a party board based game that takes the place of Smash Run in this game. This game mode is passable. This mode is required to be played for some challenges and on your own it isn’t very fun. With friends, the game is fine but it is not for everyone. There is very little skill required and a lot of random elements can really make this game unpredictable. Special Orders, on the other hand , is really fun. This mode is split into 2: Master Orders and Crazy Orders. In the former, you exchange money for access to fights with special conditions. Winning these matches will award you a prize based around a certain series or a new musical track.

Crazy Orders takes the idea behind Master Orders but instead of paying per match you pay to play as many matches as you can in a 10 minute time limit. The more matches you complete the better your prizes, however, if you die or run out of time, you lose everything.

It may seem like I have rushed over some things in this review but the reason for this is that there is just so much content in Super Smash Brothers for Wii U. I have not even talked about the vault area, stage builder or the online sections of this game, which are both quite entertaining. The presentation is astounding with an amazing soundtrack and amazing graphics that really bring the game and its characters to life. Despite some of the solo modes in this game being boring or lack lustre, Super Smash Brothers for Wii U is an outstanding multiplayer title. It is fun both alone and with friends and is a beautifully presented game that shows off Nintendo’s massive gaming history. The gameplay is tight and most of the new core additions to the franchise are welcomed. I loved Super Smash Brothers for Wii U and I know any Nintendo fan will as well. As for those who are interested but not the biggest of Nintendo fans, I still highly recommend you check this game out.

ISSUE 13/ 2nd FEBRUARY 2015 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

/mancunionfashionandbeauty @MancunionFash

Editors: Gráinne Morrison, Aimée Grant Cumberbatch, Nikki Patel (Beauty) Review

Shopping

1) Short Anorak With Fur Collar, £79.99 Zara This short anorak is perfect if your main priority is staying warm. The detachable fur adds an element of sophistication to the traditional puffa jacket design. This beaut is available in black and brown, but opt for the mustard colour for a seamless seasonal transition.

2) Boyfriend Coat, £30 Matalan Wrap up warm this winter with this black boyfriend coat. Let’s face it, as much as you can see yourself rocking a bright coat with eccentric patterns, black will always have your back. The dropped shoulders and concealed buttons create a simplistic blazer design that can be accessorised with a scarf, gloves, and a hat to add a personal touch. Everyone could do with a LBC (Little Black Coat).

3) Four Pocket Parka, £99.99 Zara This coat just screams practicality, which is not necessarily a bad thing in preparation for blistering cold weather. The waterproof outer shell and hood make the prospect of getting caught in a downpour of rain a little less horrible. The pockets offer lots of storage space for your mobile, iPod, notepad, snacks, pet goldfish— whatever you fancy really.

4) Belted Mac, £70 ASOS Nothing screams sophistication more than a double-breasted camel mac.

With Burberry having an almost identical style for the current season at the whopping price of £695, it’s no wonder it’s so popular. This coat can go without accessories as the belt and pocket detail say it all.

5) Faux Fur Coat With Oversized Collar, £75 ASOS Every winter there is an explosion of faux fur, so much so that following this trend can go either way. The regular fit of this coat is perfect for keeping warm and not drowning the rest of the outfit. The soft material is very warm but warning: Have umbrella at hand if you want to keep that faux fur looking fresh.

Rick Owens likes penis. It reads more like an unfunny ‘frape’ than a runway manifesto, but if his AW 14/15 Menswear show is anything to go by, as far as Owens is concerned, flesh means fashion. For SS 14, his choice to use a sisterhood of African American step teams instead of the usual coterie of skinny and sylph-like catwalk models caused something of stir, however it was nothing compared to this season’s controversy. So why is it when naked bums and boobs barely raise the industry’s immaculate eyebrow, that a little game of penis peekaboo shocked so many?

Is it really such a surprise that Owens, who has gone further in the pursuit of accessibility -and not just in the trouser-less sense- than most contemporary designers, should stray so suggestively below the belt?

The designer had this to say for himself, ‘Boys with their dicks out is such a simple, primal, childish gesture’. And indeed, there was something freeing and deliciously juvenile about Owens’s ballsy move. A little like maths, dick drawings are one of

few truly universal languages.

Who can honestly say they haven’t scrawled one on a desk/ in a textbook/on a friend’s face in permanent marker pen at some sorry stage of their adolescence?

Yet, Owens’ penises weren’t quite this brash, they didn’t seem to be there to offend or be transgressive. They were subtle and in some cases unnoticeable, seeming, like the rough-hewn garments the models wore, to hark back to an ancient, more simplistic time.

This in turn recalls our own personal primitive existence: childhood, when bare skin was natural and free from sexual connotations.

Is it objectification? There are certainly those who think so. But in an industry which is so saturated with sex, these soft and frankly, flaccid male members, were refreshingly unsexy. They were there for a reason and for once it wasn’t arousal. When was the last time you saw a pair of bare breasts on the runway that weren’t there for titillation’s sake alone? Now, that would truly be ground- and maybe even ball- breaking.

Photo: rickowens.eu

Feature

all allowed to admit flowers bloom in Spring.

General election who? And while Miranda

Priestley may have turned up her nose at such calls the shots. I’m still a tad confused as to

We prep, prime, and preen our faces to within an inch of their lives only to undo all of our hard work with one

where Mancunion Fashion and Beauty’s invite

ghastly swipe of a filthy make up brush. Regular cosmetic brush sanitation is of the utmost importance but if you

to the Paris couture show went but I’m willing

won’t take my word for it, here are a few beauty truths to ensure that your tools receive the TLC they deserve.

to forgive and forget. Mainly because I’m too

‘‘I saw about 5 people who didn’t even bother to dress up. Sacrilege.’’

distracted by the astounding beauty of the

Dirty brushes...cause acne

‘‘There were loads of people who had stuck googly eyes all over their faces. I thought it was amazingly creative but creepy as FUCK.’’

clothes, the set up of the show and the apparent BFF status of Karl Lagerfeld and Kris Jenner.

Never mind your foundation, if you have fallen victim to a sporadic bout of cystic acne your brushes may well be

After a month in the dark and dusty library, I

the culprit. Every time you apply makeup to your face, your makeup brushes collect vast amounts of oil, dirt and

actually forgot so many colours existed.

dead skin which you consequently continue to smear all over your face every morning. In short, your brushes are a

Couture is by its very nature the less wearable

bacterial breeding ground and in order to avoid the spread of infection which leads to breakouts, you need to sanitise.

‘‘One of my house mates only managed to get a ticket at the last minute so sellotaped Mars bar wrappers all over his body.’’

form of fashion: hand made with the most expensive and delicate materials only to be

...break the bank

worn once or in fact never at all. However, it is by far the most inspiring medium of fashion

Deadlines, dissertations and debt may leave us feeling a little lethargic when it comes to something as ‘trivial’ as

design. This is very much fashion as an art form,

brush maintenance. However, cleaning your brushes prolongs their lasting power, which means those 10 minutes

‘‘I still don’t understand the abundance of topless boys that attended Pangaea this year. Last time I checked it was cold in outerspace.’’

the floral appliqué skirts are almost wearable

you spend each week on your ‘deep cleanse’ will save you a bomb in the long term.

Opinion

Monet masterpieces. Lagerfeld’s latest offering has had such a positive response that there can be no doubt of the ripples it has created in the

Happy cleaning!

fashion ocean and pieces such as the crop tops

Time to get down and dirty, just like your favourite stippling brush. Every time a toilet is flushed it spews a fine cloud Photo: jpnaddict @Flickr

of whatever it contains all over the various bathroom knick-knacks in its vicinity. Close that lid and sanitise your

Editors’ top brush cleaning picks: ‘‘Upmarket sanitising serums are out of reach for me so I simply soak my tools in warm water

...are a slippery slope

This year’s Pangaea was a universal success and we’re still finding glitter a week later. With this in mind we asked you: What’s the craziest costume you saw at this year’s Space Odyssey extravaganza?

a predictable theme, in this industry Chanel

Nikki Patel on the importance of a regular brush cleanse. Don’t say she didn’t warn you

brushes ASAP or egg won’t be the only thing left on your face.

Photo: Aimée Grant Cumberbatch Photo: Aimée Grant Cumberbatch On Thursday, January 29 The Mancunion fashion editors headed up Oxford Road for the opening of Goodstock, Manchester’s first vintage charity shop. The dream child of youth charity vInspired, the store aims to give second hand shopping a fashionable facelift.

Buzzing with bloggers, stylish students and excited shoppers, the store’s sleek yellow and black theme certainly felt very ‘fashion’. However, the latest in a series of ethical fashion initiatives in Manchester, Goodstock’s stock was unfortunately not that good. Though the store’s concept is admirable, in being a charity shop it relies on donations so there were sadly few gems to be found and a lot of digging to be done. And this isn’t reflected in the prices. So if you’re prepared to pay a little extra for your pre-loved garms, Goodstock might well be your perfect shopping spot. If not, you might be better off sticking to your slightly less stylish, but budget-friendly high street charity shop.

Florals for Spring? Ground breaking ‘‘We Ask You Answer’’ Breaking news from Paris: for SS 15, we are

What lies within: Make up brush neglect

The Fashion team check out Manchester’s first vintage charity shop

We ask you answer

Pretty much the most important article you’ll read this year by Gráinne Morrison

Beauty

...contain faecal matter (I’m sorry)

Goodstock store opening

Aimée Grant Cumberbatch gets an eyeful of Rick Owens’s AW 14/15 penis peepshow

Feeling the chill? Contributor Adrienne Galloway finds this winter’s top five coats

17

Event

Flashion

The coat edit

Fashion

and baby shampoo for 10 minutes once a week. It keeps my brushes fresh and oh so fluffy!’’

Nikki, Beauty Editor.

When they talked about gateway drugs at school you probably didn’t realise that the same concept applies to make

‘‘My student budget doesn’t really cover brushes and I find them a little fiddly so I stick to using

up hygiene. After all, if you’re willing to use a dirty make up brush, the chances are you probably don’t wash your

my fingers. It’s simple, and as long as you wash your hands before you apply it’s hygienic too.”

hands before applying makeup to your face with your fingers either. This year kick the dirty habit and sanitise

Aimée, Fashion Editor.

EVERYTHING in your makeup bag. Call me crazy, but it’s not a bad idea to mist your bronzers, blushers, and balms

‘‘I personally like to use the Brush Cleanser by Mac, it may be £11.00 but I have really sensitive

with rubbing alcohol to get rid of any nasty sneeze germs and food particles.

skin so can’t afford to scrimp.’’ Gráinne, Fashion Editor.

‘‘I was seriously impressed with the effort that had gone into sfx facepaint, my glittery lids paled in comparison.’’

(pictured) beg for more low-key, high street copy cat versions. The haute-couture industry has little relevance in the life of the average student.

But pay attention now and you won’t fall behind.

And Karl, if you’re reading this our address is: Mancunion Fashion and Beauty, 1st Floor, UoM

“

Student’s Union, Manchester.

This is fashion as an art form

”

Photo: backstagebombshell@instagram

As Valentine’s day is approaching next week we’ll be asking: ‘‘Is fashion a relationship dealbreaker?’’

18

Film

ISSUE 13/ 2ND FEBRUARY 2015 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Editors: Tom Bruce, Andriana Hambi, James Moules, Martin Solibakke Feature

TV Binge

Black Mirror

A Brief History of Hawking Eleanor Stead reports on her trip to a press conference for the Oscar-nominated Stephen Hawking biopic - The Theory of Everything.

Photo: Channel 4

We’ve all heard about the potentially harmful effects that technology may have on our society an abrasively large number of times. It is, of course, something we, for the most part, choose to ignore – whether it might come from Stephen Hawking, the Amish, or an overly enthusiastic conspiracy theorist, any hellfire and brimstone warning about how technology will destroy human civilisation tends to be shrugged off with a quick chuckle and clichéd quip.

Enter Black Mirror – it’s been hailed by many as our generation’s equivalent of The Twilight Zone. Only seven episodes have been broadcast to date, and each one of them – featuring a new premise and cast each time – is an exceptionally well-crafted and disturbingly relevant look at mankind’s relationship with technology. And it’s bloody terrifying.

Comedian Charlie Brooker – the show’s creator – gives us a series of stories that truly defy classification. The show isn’t preachy enough to be called a cautionary message, yet it’s too thought provoking to simply be a high-concept sci-fi drama. It’s too bleak and tragic to be a comedy, yet possesses too much of a sneer and air of ridicule to be a full-on drama. This is part of the show’s genius. It is, by any definition, a true black mirror – a dark reflection of humanity in the digital age, both through our ironic nature and the contractions that we have thrust upon ourselves.

As an anthology show, each episode treats us to a new setting to experience Brooker’s pessimistic outlook on life.

The scenarios give us an assortment of twisted ways in which our obsessions with gadgets could develop, from devices that make us never forget anything to machines that allow us to artificially communicate with our recently deceased friends and relatives. The most recent episode – a Christmas special rather ironically titled White Christmas – throws us into a world where people can ‘block’ one another in real life and create artificial replicas of their consciousness to perform menial tasks at home. And yet, despite all the emphasis being placed on technology, Black Mirror remains at heart a story about the humanity of the situation. One could easily interpret Black Mirror as being more misanthropic than technophobic, showing us how depraved we humans can be in our innovations.

Despite having a mere handful of episodes under its belt, Black Mirror is one of the greatest works of modern television. If you’re in the mood for losing your faith in humanity (or for reinforcing your already non-existent faith in humanity), then it’s the show for you. It’s no horror story per se, but I have absolutely no hesitation in saying that Black Mirror is one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen. By the end, you’ll be asking yourself if that smartphone you got for Christmas was such a great present after all.

The first two seasons of Black Mirror are available to watch on Netflix and 4oD. The Christmas Special, White Christmas, is also on 4oD. Plans for a third season have been announced, but any details about it – including airdates – are yet to be revealed.

James Moules

At the press junket for The Theory of Everything, four other students and I meet with James Marsh and Anthony McCarten, the director and screenwriter of the Academy Award nominated biopic of Stephen Hawking and his wife Jane. Both men are warm and charming, although while James is laid-back, Anthony exudes a slightly manic energy which contrasts with his restrained writing style. It is he who speaks first, to explain the development of the project from its inception to its completion. In 2004, Anthony read Jane Wilde’s memoir, and was inspired by the incredible courage of her private life with Stephen, and having been awestruck already by his incredible scientific achievements, Anthony attempted to obtain the rights. ‘I had naïvely imagined that I could probably conduct this whole thing in one afternoon, using my enormous charm’, he quips. However, despite his charisma, his endeavour took slightly longer than expected – 8 years longer, in fact. Anthony admits, ‘she didn’t really want to be depicted at all’, having initially questioned the exposure of her family’s intimate life to such international scrutiny. Anthony applauds her bravery in allowing him to tell her unflinching story, assuring us that neither she nor Stephen ever requested the film’s more delicate moments to be censored.

James, also, was initially reluctant to get on board with the project. ‘I was under the impression that it was a biography of Stephen Hawking, and I wasn’t sure I would be the right person to take that on’, he says

modestly, ‘so I was pleasantly surprised that it was something altogether different, that it was a portrait of a relationship, with an equal female voice’.

watching himself’.

Regarding the difficulty of creating an objective portrayal of the marriage, Anthony states that whilst Jane’s autobiography gave some important insights into the emotional state of Stephen following his diagnosis, something about which he has been tight-lipped, his own interactions with Stephen allowed him to add nuance to his character. Anthony stresses his ‘witty mischievousness’, and waxes lyrical about his artistic merits: ‘He’s under-celebrated as a writer of prose, he’s a beautiful writer’, adding ‘there’s something about the witty Oscar Wilde maverick about him’, even going so far as to compare his writing to that of F. Scott. Fitzgerald: ‘The last phrase: ‘Who are we? Why are we here? And when we know Photo: Universal Pictures this it will be the triumph of human reasoning for then we would know The casting of Eddie Redmayne and the mind of God’. To me that’s almost up there Felicity Jones was a rather smoother affair. with the final line of The Great Gatsby.’

James was drawn to Eddie both due to his God is often a point of contention in the striking physical resemblance to the young film. ‘[Stephen] vacillates between agnostic Stephen Hawking and his appreciation of and atheist, and [Jane]’s always held a very the challenge, as he ‘understood almost firm line of being a God-fearing, churchimmediately what it was going to entail’. going high Anglican, and there’s obviously Felicity, however, he had ‘had [his] eye on for a frisson there’. Here Anthony takes a final a while’, specifically in the films Like Crazy opportunity to rant about Stephen’s writing. and Ralph Fiennes’ The Invisible Woman.

‘Stephen says we don’t need God – he’d James remarks on Eddie’s fear of the role, and muddle the equations. [But] the last word his intense preparation: ‘he spent a lot of time in his great book is the word God, which is a with a vocal coach and a movement coach, kind of acknowledgement that we might not met people with motor neurone disease need him for the equations, but somehow the and was able to detail his performance very poem needs it, somehow our language needs specifically’, which nevertheless was ‘just a it.’ foundation for the emotion of the character One girl asks, just before we leave, if either to come through’. Eddie’s dedication to the of them have any advice for young people role paid off, however, as James tells us that hoping to become directors or writers. ‘Don’t on his first viewing, Stephen ‘thought he was do it’, Anthony replies. ‘It’s a bitch.’

Classic Review

That Thing You Do! In a world of fickle fame and fleeting success, the story of ‘15 minutes if fame’ is nothing new. But Tom Hanks’ That Thing You Do is as relevant as it is entertaining. It’s the story of a fictional Beatles era band trying to make it big, with studio pressure and internal conflicts, the one hit wonders (aptly names, The Wonders) find themselves struggling with fame.

I’ve got a lot of time for music movies; I’m not talking Katy Perry The Movie: Part of Me (which holds up), more The Monkees/ Spinal Tap. It’s a rather underappreciated and neglected genre, but what’s better than a musical without the jazz hands? Every song is a hit and perfectly integrated into the film without seeming stunted and perfectly captured the mood.

If you love music but hate musicals with a burning passion, you’ll love this film.

It’s got the kind of cast where now you see them crop up sometimes and half recognise them e.g. Pheobe’s brother in Friends, that guy that’s in that thing, you know the one.

Director: Tom Hanks Starring: Tom Everett Scott, Liv Tyler, Tom Hanks Released: 1996

The biggest names are the girls, with Liv Tyler playing the anti-Yoko love interest and a young Charlize Theron playing a complete bitch. Tom

the last few years, but this somewhat lesser known Hanks creation is pure magic. Written, directed and featured in by the man himself, this masterpiece – yes, masterpiece – leaves very little to be desired.

Being produced in the formative years of Hanks’ own production company Play Tone (named after the record label in the band) it has a really similar feel to some of the other Hanks classics like My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Starter for 10. It’s got his signature quiet and unaggressive approach to storytelling, where not a second is wasted on anything other than story. It’s a shame that his follow up directorial attempt was the utterly disappointing Larry Crowne.

Hanks does a great job of making the 60s look like a great time to be a teenager and in the modern Photo: 20th Century Fox wasteland of notoriety and Hanks stars as the band manager, where he celebrity, this film draws a distinct line between gets the chance to shake his nice guy image, fame and talent, and the virtues of both. This but not too much. The biggest star of this movie film has everything you could possibly want: is, of course, the music. The title track is catchy great music, great laughs, great hair. If nothing beyond belief, and all the peripheral songs else, just listen to the soundtrack, nay, the title are worth listening to without even seeing track. You will not be sorry. the movie. And who doesn’t love a decently detailed prologue of each fictional characters Andriana Hambi lives?

Tom Hanks has been a bit hit and miss in

/MancunionFilm

Film 19

ISSUE 13/ 2ND FEBRUARY 2015 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

@mancunionfilm

Review

Top 5

A Most Violent Year Elliot Coen praises this slow-burning gangster drama for its acting and richly thematic nature.

During the 1970s, and continuing into the 1990s, criminal activity soared in New York City as a result of economic downturn, race-related gang culture, and general political unrest. This bleak period in the city’s history is well recorded in film; well-known works such as Serpico, Taxi Driver, and Mean Streets emphasise the severity with which the city needed cleaning up, both figuratively and literally. Violence on the streets was mirrored by corruption in white-collar business and within the police department, with 1981 being widely considered the pinnacle of crime on both sides of the same coin. This atmosphere of systemic exploitation in 1981 serves as a backdrop for J.C. Chandor’s new procedural film, A Most Violent Year. Written and directed

by Chandor, A Most Violent Year stars two of my favourite actors working today, Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain. They play Abel and Anna Morales, a married couple at the head of one of New York’s largest oil suppliers, an industry that is made clear in having a culture of rule manipulation and number fixing. The Morales do not consider themselves criminals in how they operate, or moreover they do not like to admit as much; Anna constantly justifies their company’s actions as abiding to industry standards, a rather loaded statement given the nature of the oil business. There is certainly underlying irony between their blurred sense of morality and their surname be-

ing Morales.

The narrative in A Most Violent Year is driven by the culminating pressure of the Morales’ latest business deal with a group of Hasidic Jews, and the increasing number of street-level attacks that the company’s oil tank drivers and oil salesmen are facing. Abel has

competitors.

A Most Violent Year is not a film that everyone will love. It is certainly a crime film, albeit with a misleading title, as there is not a great deal of violence present.

The focus is more on Abel and Anna’s relationship as their situation worsens. Portrayed brilliantly by the aforementioned Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain, their relationship has a shifting dynamic of power. Anna is no stranger to white-collar crime; her father was Abel’s predecessor as CEO of the oil company, and she constantly emasculates Abel by comparing his decisions to those of her more ruthless and criminally-minded father. Anna is decisive in letting people know she is no trophy wife, particularly in one intense confrontation she has with the district attorney, played by man-of-the-moment, David Oyelowo.

The film is a slow and procedural drama, with its greatest qualities resting in the performances of the lead actors. The ethnicallyambiguous Oscar Isaac truly is one of the best actors working today. He is mercurial, giving such radically different performances in Inside Llewyn Davis, A Most Violent Year, and, my other favourite film of the moment, Photo: A24 Ex Machina. He is the Al Pacino of our generation, high praise I would not give to just invested all of his money in this deal, with a joint-inanyone. While not a masterpiece, A Most Violent Year vestment from a wealthy bank. It begins to eat Abel up should not be overlooked by those who love seeing from the inside when he feels that the bank may pull true actors at work. out of the deal, due to the bad press that his oil company is receiving because of the attacks. Meanwhile at home, Anna fears for the safety of her children, knowing the family could be in danger from the company’s

Cornerhouse Pick of the Week

You Can’t Handle the Truth!

Ex Machina Elliot Coen can’t rave enough about this AI-themed sci-fi flick.

Ex Machina is 2015’s answer to Moon. It is an intelligent and understated, thought-provoking piece of science fiction that will ultimately be overshadowed by the much louder films to come later this year. Much like Duncan Jones’ Moon, Ex Machina is a directorial debut, this time for fellow Brit, Alex Garland. Not only showing an instant knack in the director’s chair, Garland also penned the film’s inquisitive screenplay, one which I believe will prove to be his best to date.

That should tell you a lot, considering he wrote 28 Days Later, Sunshine, and the highly divisive Dredd.

At its core, Ex Machina is a film dealing with the philosophy of mind.

Questions are asked as to what makes us human, whether our mind is distinct from our material self, and whether our mindfulness is deterministic or stochastic. The narrative framework, within which these ideas are explored, is thrilling with a heavy dose of unease; There is plenty to enjoy in the story, regardless of whether or not you want to dig deep into the dualistic minutiae that lies beneath. It follows

a bright, young coder (Domhnall Gleeson) who wins the chance to visit the secluded home of his high-ranking boss (Oscar Isaac).

There, he is told that his superior has created artificial intelligence in the form of an android (Alicia Vikander), Photo: Film4 and that he was brought there to perform a Turing test on ‘her’. It is clear to him from the beginning that something isn’t quite right with Isaac’s character, however.

Initially, I was drawn to the film purely because of its cast, and the fact that both Gleeson and Isaac are set to be in the forthcoming Star Wars trilogy together. Whilst I came to see Gleeson and Isaac, I stayed for Alicia Vikander.

She is a talent; a human actress portraying a machine, thats purpose is to convince us, and the other central characters, that it has a human mind.

At no point does she come across overly robotic, nor too human. She delivers such a stunning performance without ever blinking an eye, literally.

Please give Ex Machina your money and attention, so that more films of such a quality get made by filmmakers like Alex Garland. If nothing I have said here interests you, also know that this film may have the most eerie dance sequence ever put on screen.

Birdman and Film Critics Confused film reviewer Tom Bruce grapples with the existentialism of Birdman.

Over the past few months I have come to question the relevance of film criticism in its purest form, the 500 word (or thereabouts) review. If someone is committed to watching a movie then they probably will, yet if they do place their trust in a reviewer that person will probably be found on YouTube anyway. Moreover, there are so many newspaper and blog critics out there that were you to run your any typical hatchet job or glowing endorsement through an internet plagiarism tester you’d probably discover two hundred write ups that made the same points about the same parts of the same film. So, what has brought on this introspective examination on the value of cultural critique? Birdman, mostly.

Squawking and flapping its way into cinemas and awards ceremonies everywhere, this cunningly made one-shot (or rather very, very welledited ONE- hundred-shot) drama has achieved global praise for its off-the-wall humour and gut-punch performances, to the point that saying anything negative about it would be as futile as ‘downvoting’ the next Age of Ultron trailer. Its Oscars are already waiting in the wings, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. It’s not perfect, though: to use that most sinful of reviewing clichés, Birdman is not for everybody, but it is a tightly

Sean Bean Deaths 5) Caravaggio (1986) Whilst attempting to beat his swearing record from the entire Sharpe series in one film, Bean provides one of his most dramatic deaths. Ranuccio (Bean) entangles himself in the love affairs of the titular artist and after striking off an opponent to win Caravaggio’s affection, his lover raises a knife to Ranuccio and lacerates his throat.

4) Game of Thrones (2011) Eddard Stark should have known that good, honest Westeros inhabitants last as long as Tyrion Lannister’s wine. Despite pleading guilty to treason to spare his life, King Bitch Joffrey had other plans for Stark whose head is put on the block.

As the sword swings down screams and protestations ensue, but to no avail, as silence rings out to mark the death of the Lord of Winterfell.

Photo:HBO

3) GoldenEye (1995) So good he dies twice. Come the second time with Alec (Bean) pursuing Bond, they naturally find themselves atop a giant satellite antenna. Following a quick scuffle, Alec precariously dangles from this structure, before dropping around 500 feet. Cue the screaming and flailing arms until his fall ends with a sharp thud. He’s not quite dead enough yet though as the antenna explodes and crushes his body.

2) Black Death (2010) Four words - pulled apart by horses.

Literally pulled limb from limb by the strength of two opposing horses charging away, with arms flying everywhere. If this wasn’t enough, Bean’s knight Ulfric was infected with the plague, meaning his death served to contaminate those who plotted his downfall.

Photo: Fox Searchlight Pictures

run ship which covers a lot of physical, psychological and existential material within an extremely confined setting.

One scene in Birdman really resonated with me; it made me not want to talk about the film at all – let alone review it - simply to avoid the inter-textual black hole which it would create. Main character Riggan Thomas (Michael Keaton) , in fit of jealous rage, accuses a revered theatre critic of being a coward, never ‘putting anything on the line’ and constructing an entire career out of capricious, superfluous sentences which have no higher function than to label and compare. Regardless of his crushing schizophrenia and playwright’s pretentions, Riggan has a point. It’s hard to rip yourself from the formula when writing about a film, especially one that has several Academy Awards attached to it along with 378 professional critic’s reviews roosting in its IMBd nest, a page which places it in the top 120 films of all time. What can all this mean? Probably, it means I should take a break from reviewing films.

Photo: Revolver Entertainment

1) The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) One does not simply walk to the top of the list without earning it. As a herd of uruk-hai descend on his innocent hobbit companions, Boromir (Bean) atones for his earlier wickedness, courageously fighting off his foes before he’s struck down by three solid arrow blows to the chest. As life passes from Boromir he’s able to inspire the then Strider to become the great Aragorn, before his body cascades down the waterfall, sword and shield in hand. Heroic doesn’t come close. Not only my favourite death but one the Yorkshireman prefers over all others. Is more proof needed?

Jack Lunn

20

Books

ISSUE 13/ 2nd FEBRUARY 2015 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

/TheMancunion: Books @MancunionBooks

Editors: Leonie Dunn, Ali Pearson

Feature

Great Worqs

Are you a keen publisher, writer or film-maker then check out Great Worqs the new and innovative publishing platform. load their work or stories and gain traction within days, and depending on how many members of the site love and rate yours stories. Film-makers will then be able to easily get into contact with you in order to hopefully turn your words into the next Great Worq.

Currently Great Worqs are running a competition in partnership with the MMBF trust which much like their usual set up allows students to upload stories, connect with film-makers/ student film-makers and work together to make a film that will be sent back to Great Worqs. Following this the short films will be put onto their Youtube Channel.

The highest viewed videos will then be reviewed by their high profile independent film-makers who will judge the best film. Winners will get free independent film festival tickets to any festival in the world of their choosing and £100 prize money.

At the same time if you already have a short film made you can submit the synopsis of that film and send your film right over, where they will upload the film and your story as a pre-collaborated piece.​

Image: Great Worqs

Having started just over a month ago it seems that Great Worqs is certainly a force to be reckoned with, just looking over their website alone shows their substantial growth across multiple social platforms. Great Worqs is using media itself as a source to connect and unite people who are interested in publishing, with their aim being to connect Readers, Writers and Film-makers, it is a market that is tapping into the new modern and malleable approach to all creative avenues.

Great Worqs is a platform which encourages and enables writers and writing enthusiasts to put their hand at writing short stories, film synopses

Editorial Message Leonie and I are looking to move in a slightly different direction this semester in our section.

We realise that there are a number of people out there who like writing fiction, and poetry. We believe the Mancunion is the perfect platform to try and showcase some of your talents, and so we would like to help.

We cannot promise to be able to print every piece you send into us. This is due to the fact that many of the pieces will be too long, and we currently only have one page to publish stuff. What we can promise, however, is to get your pieces published online on the Mancunion website, which is visited by thousands of people every month.

So, if you would like to send any pieces that you have written whether it’s a short story, a poem, or any other creative writing pieces, we will help you to get it published on the Mancunion website.

We have already received one short story by Jess Sired, which you can read on the Books section of the Mancunion website now. Jess’ story employs a unique narrator to describe the break down of a marriage, which also includes a brutal ending to one of the partners. Here’s a snippet: “You can shove it up your arse!” He screams, the familiar vein appearing in his neck, protruding above his blue shirt collar and snaking its way up behind his ear. With a final huff of frustration he slams the front door too, kicks over his wife’s favourite pot of Daisy Marguerites and opens my door harshly. I wince.

He only drives me to the end of our street before he stops and lights up his pipe. I hate it when he smokes; he gets the fumes in my upholstery and now I have a permanent stench. “Stupid bitch,” he mutters, taking a long drag. John does this every time he and Jen fight in the morning, which is every day except Sunday now, when we go to golf before she wakes up. I should be glad that he still takes me, but parking me down the road so his friends don’t see me hurts a bit.

Ali Pearson

and blurbs that will be submitted and if the pieces are good enough they will be published onto the platform.

Writers with published work on the site are able to upload books and scripts which can be bought for a fee of £1.49/ $2.32 to readers of Great Worqs, with the majority of royalties being returned to the writer.

There is an aspect of the platform that provides the basis for film-makers from all around the world to connect for free. With Great Worqs already boasting platforms from multiple well established film-makers including Terance Nance,

Andrew Corkin, Dean Craig, Eric Kolelas and more. The Great Worqs team consists of students from Swansea University, Imperial College London and NYU, along with other schools.

Yet, as of the New Year the organisers were already expanding by involving an abundance of students from the Met Film School based in Ealing, after the school is pushing Great Worqs through their institutions social pipeline.

Great Worqs is focusing on creating a platform that will break down the barriers for writers when it comes to publishing and the film industry.

Through the platform writers and readers can up

For more info check out: www.mmbf.co.uk/ greatworqs Or for more information on Great Worqs visit the site, the URL is: www.greatworqs.com Leonie Dunn

Opinion

Review: Scar Tissue by Anthony Kiedis with Larry Not for the faint-hearted, Kiedis reveals his innermost sins in one of the most explosive rock autobiographies ever written.

Scar Tissue by The Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ frontman Anthony Kiedis, along with Larry Sloman, is certainly one of the most honest and obscene autobiographies you will ever read. Kiedis appears to hide nothing as he takes the reader on a tour of his life up until 2004, reaching crushing lows and unbelievable highs. At the end, it is hard to decide whether he is a narcissistic asshole, or just a sincere man trying to be the best person he can be.

Whatever your final position is though, it is almost impossible to claim his life has been boring.

Kiedis’ bohemian lifestyle starts pretty much from birth. His father and mother split when he was very young, and during his childhood he would alternate between living with his father Blackie Dammett in California, and with his mother in Michigan.

By the age of fifteen, a young Tony Kiedis was already one member of his father’s gang. He recalls unbelievable tales of snorting coke and smack, and negotiating with his father about who he would lose his virginity with. The theme of drugs and sex is seemingly as ubiquitous as vowels for the rest of the book.

The frantic and wild lifestyle continues into his adult life as he documents the rise of The Red Hot Chilli Peppers. However, one criticism of his story is that he doesn’t dwell too much on how the band really recorded their music. People looking to receive a detailed insight into how the Chilli Peppers function or get along will be left still wondering what it is like. Take for example Chad Smith, the drummer of the band for the past 15 years at time of publishing. Kiedis spends a mere half a page in

total to describe his relationship with Smith. It may well be that Kiedis is protecting his friend by not sharing intimate stories, but it appears more like an insult to not even refer to him as a primary figure in his life. More shockingly is his quick digression of his other band mate, Slovak Hillel. The death of Hillel is mentioned almost in passing and Kiedis’ spends an insignificant moment to reflect on what his death meant to him.

The autobiography, however, is for the most part enjoyable. For fans of the Chilli Peppers, the least it will do will make you re-live some of the notable moments in the band’s history. For instance, watching their 1991 performance of “Under The Bridge” on David Letterman will make you tense up. The guitarist John Frusciante is high on smack, and without warning Kiedis proceeds to play the song in an unknown key, leaving the frontman all lost at sea. For people who are not fans of the band or don’t know too much about them, it will appear to be endless cycle of overindulgence leading to addiction leading to recovery leading to overindulgence again and again, until it becomes tedious and boring.

Overall, the book is designed for fans of Kiedis, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. If none of the above take your fancy, you’re probably best looking elsewhere.

Ali Pearson Image: wikimedia commons

Societies

ISSUE 13/ 2nd February 2015 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Editors: Jenny Sterne

Volunteer for Save the Children Jenny Sterne Socities Editor UoM Save the Children work with the national charity Save the Children UK by supporting its work in 120 countries. They help the charity to save children’s lives, fight for their rights and help them fulfill their potential. They do this by organizing fundraising events and creating awareness with aims to give children a brighter future!

They are looking for students who are passionate in making the world a better place for our children.

It does not matter whether you have any experiences in fundraising; what matters is the compassion you see in yourself. Each of us has the ability to make a difference. So join them and inspire them with your ideas to achieve the goal together!

The last event they organised was Christmas Jumper Day, in conjunction with

the annual celebration of Christmas Jumper Day by the national charity before they took a break for Christmas and first semester exam. It was held on the 8 December 2014 in Student Union.

Their next event will be in collaboration with the Filipino Society, they will be having a food stall selling Filipino food and a stall for a bake sale. Our shared aim is to raise donations for children in the Philippines. The event will be on going for two days, the 17th and 18th of February at the Student Union. Students are welcome to join them manning the booths or volunteer to collect donations around campus.

They are also collaborating with Belly Dancing Society by carrying out a Belly Dancing workshop, a 2 hours long workshop to teach belly-dancing enthusiasts the basics. With the full support from Belly Dancing Society, all class

fees collected will be channeled to Save the Children.

Save the Children UK is also looking for volunteers to help out with collecting donations after a concert in March.

They are having a meeting with all members on the 11th February, at room 3 in SU from 2-3pm; so for those who are interested to know better about their upcoming plans can drop by to attend their meeting.

If you want to get involved with the upcoming events or to suggest more fundraising ideas, contact them at: uomsavethechildren@gmail.com or register yourself as a member of Save the Children under the Student Union’s website and you will receive emails of any updates.

Contact them at: uomsavethechildren@ gmail.com

Pangaea group pictures Lauren Gorton and Anna Phillips News Editors

Image: The Mancunion

Image: The Mancunion

Image: UoM Save theChildren

21

Image: The Mancunion

22

Food & Drink

ISSUE 13/ 2nd FEBRUARY 2015 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Editors: Ellie Gibbs, Adam Fearn

Review: Umami Co-editor Ellie Gibbs visits Oxford Road’s Japanese restaurant, Umami Umami,aJapaneseloanword,translatesasa ‘pleasantsavoury taste’. Included with the four classic taste dimensions: sweet; salty; bitter and sour, it can be recognized largely in Japanese cuisine often found in the additive known as MSG. This flavour is associated with a salty, savoury taste which is why its inclusion in the basic list was in dispute. However, the distinction from the ‘salty’ category can be made due to the way that Umamicanbecreatedthroughcombinationsofsavouryfoods put together. Think Remi with his cheese and strawberry in Ratatouille.

Umami means adding the intense flavour that you need in order to enjoy your meal to the full extent. Parmesan on spaghetti Bolognese. The little bit of burnt on your roast potatoes.

Mustardonham.Fishandchipswithtartarsauce.Soysauceon sushi? Umami!

It’s also the name of a lovely underground noodle bar on OxfordRoad.Havingvisitedonfiveoccasionswithoutasingledisappointment, I thought a review of my fifth taste was in order.

On descending the restaurant’s steps I first expected to be greeted with a neon-lit counter, hectic atmosphere and claustrophobic but versatile seating - a sort of cross between Archie’sMilkshakesandYo!Sushi.Thispresumptionwasonlydue to a glance at the offer of a £5.95 lunch deal and the coloured sign modestly pointing to ‘noodle bar’. What in fact lives at the bottom of those stairs is a sophisticated and authentic Japanese restaurant that is a great meeting place for lunch or dinner, student or superior.

Shiny rectangular wooden tables stand at perfect elbow-resting height, with matching benches and similarly sized Japanese artwork adorning the right wall. Another wall gives home to the half-open kitchen with a tall bar for freshly made orders to wait. Those orders don’t wait long as staff are attentive and efficient, in fitting with the place’s clean and functional look.

Despite the sleek design, the restaurant still holds just the right amountofcharacter,beingundergroundandspaciouswithout feeling confined or empty.

The food itself is similarly simple without being boring. Mostly centred around noodles in various sizes with differing broths and flavourings, the menu also offers fried rice dishes and an appetizing selection of small plates or starters.

FromthevastamountthatIhavetried,Iwouldparticularlyrecommend the crispy salt & pepper tofu - perfect for first time tofu-triers,orthosewho’vehadbadexperienceswiththespongy stufftastinglikewell,sponge.Thekingprawngyozadumplings are equally satisfying and when dipped in the sweet sauce really create that UMAMI flavour.

The udon and ramen soups are honestly much of a muchness for me, which doesn’t mean to say they are not good. The combination of noodle and broth makes a refreshing lunch and a spicy one is perfect for a cold winter day. Offerings on the lunch menu are a careful selection of the best sellers that the chefs are readily prepared to make in a short time, it seems encouraged during this time as a means of practicality for the staff.

This means that you’re not getting a pared down version of something from the full list, so it’s a win-win situation.

The speed of service here means I’ll normally go for lunch so I can spend more time doing nothing quickly get back to the library. However, on occasions where I’ve dined in the evening it has also been a lovely choice, always positively commented upon by the friends I have taken. Although one night we gave in to the temptation of Japanese beer Asahi, a regret after examining the receipt to find it was £3.60 a bottle. I suppose that’s just how these restaurants make their money, but as a student it’s unlikely that I’d opt to have a drink there again.

Toconclude,I’ddescribeUmamiasanup-marketandlesscommercial Wagamamas that guarantees a fulfilling meal. It won’t blow your tastebuds, but it’ll pleasure them.

Umami Japanese Sushi Noodle Bar Restaurant 147/153 Oxford Road Manchester M1 1EE http://www.umami.cc/

Recipe: Peanut Butter Pad Thai Co-editor Ellie Gibbs shares her recipe for a tasty Thai dish Pad Thai is a combination of rice noodles, shrimp and tofu stir-fried in tamarind, egg, beansprouts and chopped peanuts.

This version contains the key ingredients of rice noodles (vermicelli) and egg, but I have swapped the seafood for chicken and added a few extra things I had in the fridge.

The ingredients are interchangeable and open to interpretation; we’d love to hear about your attempts! (measurements given will serve two) The noodles: 150g Rice Noodles Add nest to bowl of boiling water, set aside The sauce: 60 ml fish sauce 60 ml toasted sesame oil 1 tbsp tamarind paste 3 splashes soy sauce Cap full cider vinegar 1 tsp each minced garlic, ginger, chilli Pinch hot chilli powder 1 tbsp sugar 1 tbsp peanut butter Add all ingredients to mug, microwave for 20 secs to melt PB, stir and set aside.

The chicken: Splash toasted sesame oil 1/2 chicken breast, thinly sliced 1 tsp minced garlic 1 tsp minced chilli 1/2 tsp ground ginger Few mills black pepper 2 eggs Bring wok to high heat with oil and add chicken and seasonings. Fry until white and push to side of the wok.

Crack eggs into center and let cook for around one minute. Scramble for another minute and add: The veg: 1/4 savoy cabbage, shredded 8 baby button mushrooms, halved 1 carrot, julienned or chopped thinly 1/2 chopped romaine lettuce Small handful pumpkin seeds Continue to fry in wok for around 5 mins until veg is softened but not mushy. Keep eggs to the side to prevent overcooking.

The garnish: Add sauce to wok and heat for around 2 mins. Serve into bowls with extra black pepper, a pinch of fresh coriander and a wedge of lime.

Photo: The Mancunion

Photo: MavenTheAvenger

Photo: TheMancunion

Photo: TheMancunion

Deliciously Ella App A few weeks ago, we featured an article on the food of Ella Woodward Knownbyherfansas‘DeliciouslyElla’,Woodward’snew app offers a wealth of food-related information that celebrate natural healthy food. The software includes over onehundredsimple,easy-to-followplant-basedrecipes that are free of gluten and refined sugars, with five different detox menu plans that last either three or five days.

Recipesthatfeaturewithintheappincludesweetpotato brownies and banoffee pie to superfood bread, butternut squash risotto and amazing fruit smoothies.

If you are looking for an introduction to the world of delicious healthy living after the exam season, this app will providewaysofkeepingenergizedandhappywhilstyou work!

The app is available to download on both iOS and Android devices for the price of £3.99.

Photo: DeliciouslyEllaApp

Photo: The Mancunion

Photo: DeliciouslyEllaFans

If you fancy your hand at food and drink journalism, whether it be interviews, recipes, reviews, or some interesting culinary anecdotes, email us at food.mancunion@outlook.com or get in touch via Facebook or Twitter .

ISSUE 13/ 2nd FEBRUARY 2015 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

/TheMancunion: Food & Drink @MancunionFood

Food & Drink 23

Review: Baltic Cellar Review

Recipe: Spaghetti Alle Vongole

Matthew Fairley samples a new cuisine at Baltic Cellar

Adam Fearn creates a quick and easy spaghetti dish

Student Discount!

Fancy trying the restaurant yourself? Baltic Cellar is currently offering 10% discount off food for students!

Photo: Tian Guyen

Ingredients (Serves four):

Take each clam from its shell 500g small fresh clams and dip them quickly into their Eaten any- 3 tbsp olive oil cooking water to rinse off any 2 garlic cloves, chopped where nice sand or dirt. All of the juices 2 tbsp finely chopped parsley should be removed from the pan recently?

Cre400g canned chopped tomathrough sieve. toes Throughout our meal, our waitress,ated something Heat the olive oil in a pan over a freshly ground black Ineesa, provided us with helpful advice delicious?

We wantsalt toand know! medium heat. Add the garlic and pepper fry until the garlic begins to coland recommendations on us some of theit at food.manTell about 1lb dried spaghetti our, then add the parsley and stirhidden gems on the menu. As most of Preparation time: under 30 fry for about 30 seconds. the restaurant’s Baltic food was unfamins Add the chopped tomatoes and miliar to me, Ineesa’s attentiveness and the strained clam juices that were Directions: the guidance she provided was greatly previously removed. Bring to the clean the clams. Make sure that appreciated, providing a service that far boil, then reduce the heat and any that open when tapped are exceeded other restaurants within Mansimmer for 20-25 minutes. discarded. Place the clams into a Cook the spaghetti according to chester. pan over a high heat. Add enough its packet instructions and drain.

Conclusively, The Baltic Cellar is a fan- water to cover the clams, then When ready to serve, add the tastic place for all occasions. The restau- cook for 3-4 minutes (or until all clam flesh to the tomato sauce rant offers a unique cuisine that is whole- the shells have opened). Ensure and stir well. Mix the sauce into some and tasteful, its staff are excellent that any clams that have not the cooked spaghetti. opened are removed. and focussed to their customers’ tastes, To serve, spoon the sauce and Got any delicious recipes of your own?into Bebowls. it sweet, and the prices are reasonable for the exspaghetti cellent portion sizes that are offered. savoury, bitter or sour, we want to know! Email us at

(cannot be used in conjunction with any other offers that are on)

Photo: Baltic Cellar

As The Mancunion shows weekly, the city of Manchester offers almost every form of cuisine; from Chinese to Italian, it’s easy to find food that suits your tastes at any time. One cuisine that has often been overlooked is that of the Baltic. The Baltic Cellar, a restaurant that lies just off Albert Square, injects welcoming new flavours into Manchester’s vibrant food scene.

Class oozes from every corner of The Baltic Cellar. The restaurant features a combination of sleek, modern decor with a wooden ceiling and floor, demonstrating the restaurant’s ‘cellar’ look whilst giving an intimate log-cabin feeling to the establishment. This mix is complemented by the scarlet coloured seating which creates a warm and home-

ly feel that is inviting to anyone who passes.

The attractive decor and top quality service compliments the most vital and definitive aspect of the Baltic cellar; its amazing food. To start, I opted for the Chicken Sesamechics: deep fried chicken breast pieces, coated in sesame seeds, served with a garlic sauce. The crunchy sesame seed layer worked well with the succulent chicken, creating contrasting textures that added to the dish’s tasteful flavour. Next, I sampled the Shi soup, containing sauerkraut, carrot, onion, smoked bacon and potatoes. The flavour from the bacon combined effectively with the sauerkraut and other ingredients to create a light, tasty and herby flavour.

food.mancunion@outlook.com to get involved.

Manchester Beer and Cider Festival 2015 After Sam Joyce and Charlie Filmer-Court visit this year’s Manchester Beer and Cider Festival at Manchester Velodrome

Photo: Jack Pople

An annual testament to the world’s favourite drink, The Manchester Beer and Cider Festival saw thousands of drinkers descend on the Velodrome in SportCity to sample over 400 brews, get merry, and fall over.

This was by far the most colossal beer festival either of us has attended. Armed with glass and programme, we took a step out onto the stands to admire the drinking floor. The sheer intensity of beer related movement made what we soon started calling ‘the pit’ a pretty impressive sight. We quickly got into the mix, and slid into the rhythm of filling our halves and retiring to a cosy spot on the concourse. One of the highlights for me was holding an India Pale Ale in one hand and a hotdog in the other, watching cyclists race round the track - a combination we can all relate to. A close runner up was an A list celebrity encounter with the one and only Chesney from Coronation Street.

There being hundreds of beers there, it was obvious we wouldn’t be able to scratch the surface in terms of trying everything, which is a shame as some really exciting brews were available. However we made a pretty brave attempt, powering through the halves right up until the last barrel aged stout, whilst managing not to get too smashed, which can’t be said to everyone I saw wearing a cone/shark hat. Here is a rundown of a few of the beers we put into our faces.

Photo: Jack Pople

Port Stout 4.8% - Hanlons Brewery This beer combines the tangy, rich and fruity red wine flavours from the port with classic, smooth stout character. A taste of this quickly turned into a full pint. We feel like this would be the perfect pie accopaniment.

Rhubeer 4.5% - Celt Experience/Wiper and True This is one of only three sour beers available at the festival - so it naturally stood out. The aroma is midget gems, with strong forest fruits top notes. This is apparently both brewed and fermented with fresh rhubarb, and there is really no mistaking this. The tart sourness comes through in the end but it’s relatively mild and well balanced.

Good stuff.

Peach Melbear 4.4% - Beartown Brewery This is a bit of a strange one from a brewery in Congleton we are fans of. It has a really light body with fresh and sweet elderflower and peach flavours. The beer is refreshing, almost cordial like, but can’t see myself drinking more than one pint of the stuff.

Belgian Blue 4.9% - Bradfield Brewery Feel like it might be a little late in the year for a Christmas beer, but there you go. This is an easy drinking best bitter, with berries on top and warming caramel undertones. The head actually is a little bit blue!

Photo: Jack Pople

Photo: Jack Pople

24

Arts & Culture

ISSUE 13/ 2nd FEBRUARY 2015 WWW.MANCUNION.COM /TheMancunionArtsCulture @ArtsMancunion

Editor: Holly Smith

What’s on

Spotlight

10 Th

What You Didn’t Know What’s About Salvador Dali On In The

The 23th of January saw the 26th anniversary of the death of Salvador Dali.

Thanks to his moustache, the famous surrealist artist still remains recognized all over the world, but his antics are a bit more than unusual.

1. He believed he was the reincarnation of his brother Dali was born on 11th May 1904 in Figueres, Spain. He had a brother, also called Salvador, but he died at the age of 22 months from a stomach infection. 9 months later, Dali was born. Since the second Salvador heavily resembled the first and had been born exactly nine months later, his parents began to harbour a suspicion that he was actually their dead child reborn. This had a huge psychological effect on Dali—much of his later work would contain allusions to the dead child he believed was the best part of him.

2. His artistic career began young Salvador went to drawing school and the first exhibition of his work took place when he was just 13.

City

Your inside guide to what is happening around Manchester

Dali refused to pay his secretaries and instead gave them commissions which didn’t pay their rent at the time, but resulted in many of them cashing in seven-figure sums in later life.

10. He went to extremes for money In order to sell his book, The World of Salvador Dalí, he lay in a hospital bed in a Manhattan bookstore surrounded by fake doctors and nurses, hooked up to a machine that measured his brain waves. Anyone who bought a copy of the book also got a copy of the machine’s readings.

By Holly Smith

3. He was a sadist For Dali, even at a very young age, pain and pleasure were the same things. This explains his childhood habit of attacking people for no reason. For example, he pushed one of his friends off a bridge and he was seriously hurt. Apparently he sat calmly watching as his friend was being cared by his mother.

4. One of the biggest sweets companies brands Dali’s artwork Dali designed the Chuppa Chups logo in 1969

Cornerhouse Projects: The Society of the Spectacles @ Cornerhouse

5. He liked to be different He was also a stunt man and sometimes, his stunts could be more striking than his art. Once, he delivered a lecture wearing a full deep-sea diving suit which he refused to take off. This almost led to suffocation as a result. Another example of his bizarre stunts was the driving through Paris in a limo filled with cauliflowers, handing them out to people on the street.

Thursday 8 January – Tuesday 17 February Free entry Robert Hamilton, Hilary Judd and Susan Platt present The Society of the Spectacles, a collaborative photography project looking into the design and meaning behind modern eyewear. theyconsiderhowwearingglasseschangestheway we look and are looked at, as well as the links between art and design, style and culture, architecture and physiognomy, seeing and not seeing, seeing and being seen.

6. Dali had some clever little tricks to make himself more creative.

He would stand on his head for so long that he would almost pass out, and make himself semi-lucid. He would get himself into a self-induced paranoid state to draw irrational relationships with objects.

7. He had a weird fascination with Hitler One of his first paintings appears to be a landscape, however if you turn it on its side, it is actually a photograph of Adolf Hitler.

Dali even stated once that “I often dreamed about Hitler as other men dreamed about women.”

Casa Tomada @ The Lowry

8. His phobia He had an intense fear of grasshoppers 9. His secretaries were to unknowingly become millionaires

Saturday 24 January – Sunday 26 April Photo: d-illusion @Flickr

Photo Of The Week

This photograph is from Holly Smith, Arts and Culture Editor. If you would like to enter a Photo Of The Week, email us your photos at mancunion.arts@gmail.com

Free entry A swarm of giant ants invade the gallery walls in this extraordinaryinstallationbyColombianartistRafael Gómezbarros from the Saatchi Gallery, London.

Exploring ideas of displacement and immigration these ants are assembled from two human skull casts invoking thoughts of life and death.

Launch Pad: For Posterity @ Castlefield Gallery Friday 13 February - Sunday 22 February Free entry For Posterity brings together six artists whose practice engages with chance, failure and the functions of objects. Working across sculpture, installation, film and performance they present the transformative ways in which artists invent and reinterpret history, place and language

T C d

ISSUE 13/ 2nd FEBRUARY 2015 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

/mancuniontheatre @themanctheatre

Review

Theatre 25 Matthew Gormley

Pantomime season is now just a distant memory, but 2015 looks set to be another great year for theatre in Manchester

Photo: Manchester Evening News

Whilst award-winning smash-hit The Lion King returns to the Palace Theatre for five weeks, over at the Opera House, the satirical spectacular Spamalot launches its 2015 tour. Billed as ‘the hit musical lovingly ripped off from Monty Python and the Holy Grail’, Spamalot tells the story of King Arthur.

Here, the story of King Arthur’s quest to find the Holy Grail is combined with the humour of Monty Python.

Originally consisting of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin, the Python’s sketch show, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, aired on the BBC for four series between 1969 and 1974.

Its popularity spawned a number of feature films, including the above mentioned King Arthur spoof, upon which this hit musical is based. The title is inspired by a line from the 1975 film, ‘we eat ham and jam and Spam a lot’.

Joe Pasquale returns to the role

Review

of King Arthur, having previously completed two stints in the West End. Joe has long been a favourite in the entertainment industry, he was starring in Mel Brooks’ The Producers (2007) and The Wizard of Oz (2010).

Comedy is where Joe excels, so many would argue that this is the perfect role for him; although you cannot fault his comic timing, his singing voice is weak and he is often drowned out during musical numbers.

Sarah Earnshaw puts in a stunning performance as The Lady of the Lake.

Her CV boasts an impressive number of musical theatre roles. She has been a lead vocalist in Puttin’ On The Ritz’ (UK Tour), and when you hear her voice it’s easy to see why. Earnshaw has magnificent stage presence and steals the show with her performance.

Popular television actor Todd Carty portrays King Arthur’s quiet, bumbling but lovable assistant Patsy. In homage

Camilla Lindner

to the original film, where the six Pythons played the majority of the roles, the other actors, including Will Hawksworth, Richard Kent and Richard Meek, each play various characters.

Packed with laugh-out-loud moments from the minute the curtain is raised, this show fails to take itself very seriously at all. Musical numbers include the ‘Fisch Schlapping Song’, ‘He is Not Dead Yet’ and ‘Find Your Grail’, and although the score stays true to the original Broadway production, ‘You Won’t Succeed in Showbiz’ brings things bang up to date, with references to current television favourites, including Mel & Sue and Mary Berry. ‘The Diva’s Lament’, a song belted out by The Lady of the Lake about her lack of stage of time in Act Two, is delightfully funny and, for me, the musical highlight.

Of course, this being Monty Python, it’s as much about the surrealism as it is about the songs, and there are plenty

Review

of ridiculously hilarious moments, such as the corpse who refuses to die and Sir Lancelot ‘accepting’ himself and heading to the YMCA. There’s even audience participation as we head towards the finale, with one member of the public getting more than they bargained for when they bought their ticket. And no Monty Python show would be complete without a rousing rendition of ‘Always Look On The Bright Side of Life’, a sing-a-long of which from the entire cast and auditorium finishes the show in style.

There’s even an appearance from physicist Brian Cox! Spamalot is the perfect show feel-good show to blow away those January blues; a musical comedy that will leave you wanting more, with huge laughs, huge sets and huge songs.

Morris Seifert

Tuesdays at Tescos The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night time Tuesday. Pauline is sitting on the train which is heading to where her father lives. She looks out of the window and crosses her legs. She puts her hands on her short red skirt. When the train slows down and suddenly stops, she gets up and walks towards her father’s flat.

The one-woman play is written by French dramatic adviser Emmanuel Darley and is directed by Sue Womersley. It is a one hour monologue performed by a transgender woman who visits her father every Tuesday. Pauline, who is played brilliantly

by Scott Kentell, cleans the flat and does the weekly shopping at Tesco accompanied by her father.

Kentell manages to draw in the audience with her persuasive presence on stage in a red skirt, blouse and high-heels, and the simple props of a chair and a white screen behind her.

The play makes the audience aware of the daily situations in which Pauline struggles because of people staring at her and making her feel like a misfit, a ‘different’ person within a seemingly sorted society. It shows how deeply Pauline wishes to be able to live an ordinary life and how much she fights for this. As long as her father refuses to accept her as his daughter, the people on the streets and in Tesco will not do so.

But there is a hint of some acceptance for transgender women within society; on the way back home, Pauline and her father meet one woman who is apparently a friend of the father.

She greets Pauline with her ‘real’ name and talks to her in a friendly way. Those seemingly ordinary acts are really extraordinary because this woman respects Pauline for who she is and who she has always been on the outside and inside and for what she struggles to be recognised as such: a woman.

Photo: The Lowry

Christopher Boon is an ordinary fifteen year old with an extraordinary brain; a brain that could tell you the intricacies of nuclear fusion, but not how to get from Piccadilly Gardens to Piccadilly Station, a brain that could understand the far reaches of abstract logic; but would be stumped by the implications of sticking your hand out when you say ‘hello’. Christopher Boon is autistic and his journey in life is greatly tempered by both the ‘curious incident’ and his curious interpretation of life. The heart and soul of “A Curious Incident” is not

merely in solving the mystery of a dead dog, but in the compassionate analysis of how a boy burdened with autism seeks to interpret a deeply confusing and difficult world. To this end I can confidently say the play is a triumph, an experience that polarised my emotionally, but that I will not readily forget.

The special effects are outstanding. The stage was turned into a manifestation of Christopher’s mind. Surrounding the stage were screens which flashed, strobed and throbbed in a wonderful marriage with the emotions of the protagonist. When Christopher was scared a deep red would jitter on the screens around the stage.

Joshua Jenkins, who plays Christopher, played the part with such energy and skill I was constantly reminded of a boy with autism I knew growing up. Even in his most

boisterous and bizarre moment he never loses the awkward gesture, jarred speech and wonderful timing that remind us the world to him is a bizarre place and he is doing his best.

He is also supported by an excellent cast that never disappoints – his father being the highlight for me. A man who is deeply conflicted by his actions and the actions of those around him, a man trying to get along the best he can with what he has got. Whilst Christopher may be the protagonist – I see his father as the hero. There were certain moments in which he put his hand on Christopher and simply said “I’m trying”, which were the highlight of the play for me.

In light of all this it will come as no surprise when I say the play was one of the best I ever seen performed on stage. It is a truly special piece of art.

I saw the theatre play ‚Unter Eis’ (under ice) from Falk Richter one month ago in the Berlin theatre ‚Schaubühne’. For me the play was extraordinary as I felt like touched of the words, as I could identify myself with them. ‘Unter Eis’ is a battle of words, as it reflects the battle of a daily working live (in the

consulting sector). Human beings work like machines, they live to produce money, they produce dissatisfaction, motionlessness, coldness, they even produce passive or active hate. When the human does not work well and efficient in this sector, he has to leave and the next one will just replace his part silently,

Camilla Lindner

Favourite Line Under Ice “(…) Frozen under ice, Snow, Cold, Cold cold cold ice ice ice Everything is under ice, nothing moves, everything stands still, cold shock.

Cold frozen, frozen, frozen food, cold cold everything is under ice (…)”

EDITOR’S

Spamalot

Luke Sharma The Mist in the Mirror The Oldham Coliseum 30/01 - 01/02 A stage adaptation of the eponymous novel by Susan Hill, the author of The Woman In Black, The Mist in The Mirror follows adventurer James Monmouth as he tries to follow in the footsteps of Conrad Vane, his childhood idol. He begins to hear a person sobbing, and a little boy begins to follow him. Ignoring the warnings set before him, James perseveres and continues his quest to discover the truth about Conrad Vane.

After watching The Woman In Black on stage, The Mist In The Mirror promises to be a creepy and enthralling experience.

Light The Lowry 04/02 - 05/02 Based on the recent revelations regarding Edward Snowden and state surveillance, Light is set in a dystopian future where every citizen is implanted with a “thought moderating” implant, where their feelings and thoughts can be monitored by the government.

It follows a young government agent who is charged with tracking freethinking “terrorists” and encounters a shadowy figure from his past. Presented by the indefinably fantastic Theatre Ad Finitum, Light promises to be a thought provoking experience.

A View from the Bridge The Bolton Octagon 15/01 - 14/02 One of the legendary Arthur Miller’s greatest plays, A View from The Bridge is the story of Eddie Carbone, a dockworker and family man in 1950’s Brooklyn, who lives with his wife, Beatrice and niece Catherine. When two of Beatrice’s Sicilian nephews illegally come over to chase their dreams in New York, they are welcomed into Eddie’s tiny apartment.

Tempers soon draw short and Eddie is faced with a decision which could tear his family apart.

Phoenix Nights Live Manchester Arena 31/01 - 01/02

On the 31st January and the 1st February 2015, the full cast of Peter Kay’s award winning show will reunite for the first time in 15 years for a one off Comic Relief special.

The show follows the lives and schemes of the staff and atendee’s of the Phoenix Club, headed by club financier and owner Brian Potter (Peter Kay). If the series is anything to go off, this show will be absolutely, sidesplittingly hilarious, and as an added bonus all proceeds will go to the charity; “Comic Relief”.

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Lifestyle

ISSUE 14/ 9th FEBRUARY 2014 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Editor: Robert Firth Valentine’s Day

SAD: Singles Appreciation Day Embrace SAD! Kitty Treverton Jones asks why should couples have all the fun on 14th February?

Valentine’s Day each year appears to be dominated by two kinds of people. Firstly, the couples who are halfsickening, half-cute, proclaiming their love for each other by Instagramming their romantic meal and the gifts they’ve bought for each other. Secondly, there are the anti-Valentines, those who refuse to participate in it and lament the day as a consumerist, commercial, downright ridiculous excuse for a holiday.

This leaves single people feeling as if they either have to feel sad that they’re not in a relationship, or that they have to hate the day on principle.

However, the 14th of February for singles does not have to be

a choice between these two attitudes. Valentine’s 2015 falls on a Saturday, so there will be plenty of other things going on.

Call it the perfect excuse to go out and have a great night with all the other thousands of single people in Manchester.

Girls could alternatively choose to start celebrating ‘Galentine’s Day’ (as seen on US TV sitcom Parks and Recreation): Celebrated a day before the 14th, you go out for brunch with your girlfriends, and give each other gifts. What could be better? This can be for those who are in a relationship or not; it is a day for celebrating your friends, who are arguably much more important than your other halves anyway. As

the show’s protagonist Leslie Knope explains, “Ovaries before Brovaries.”

This mentality can be extended to the 14th as well.

Instead of thinking of Valentine’s Day as a day for romance, think of it as a day of love. Use it as a chance to tell your family and friends how much you love them and how important to you they are, and this automatically makes it a day filled with positivity, whether you are in a relationship or not.

Singles should not be excluded from Valentine’s Day, so reclaim the day as a happy one, and if in doubt, just go and see Fifty Shades of Grey.

Valentine’s Day across the globe

‘I love you’; ‘Je t’aime’; ‘Ti amo’ - Perisha Kudhail explores 14th of February customs from around the world

Photo: Simon Turkas @Flickr

WORST AND BEST

Valentine’s Day Gifts Get out of Ann Summers, bin the teddys, but keep the Roses, so long as they’re not red, Says Molly Allen

Photo: thinkretail @Flickr

And so the month of February has rolled around and we are faced with the teeth-hurting, cringe-inducing Hallmark festival that is Valentine’s Day. The day designed to make people in relationships even smugger and those who are single want to die a slow death being eaten by their cats.

Photo: Hadock @Flickr

Roses are red, violets are blue, we love Valentine’s Day and the world does too. The day of love has become a global phenomenon, as couples around the world express their love on the sacred 14th of February.

Just as we expect, roses and chocolates are a must, as expressing our affections is not stemmed down to a few flowers. For those of the Western Hemisphere, Valentine’s Day is an excuse to be cheesy and lovey-dovey to no end. The same goes in Japan, where the 14th of February is an extravagant event. Not only is it the social norm for women (who normally shy away from showing affection) to show affection for their husbands, but also for their friends. Chocolates are a must, as each chocolate represents a different relationship.

Although cards are a tradition in many countries, Denmark puts a special twist on the Valentine’s Day card. People in Denmark send transparent cards, which when held up to the light show a hidden message.

These notes of mystery are known as ‘lovers cards’.

With all these romantic (and not so romantic) notions of love around the World, how can we forget about our beloved Britain? Whilst we may not be harbourers of personal chocolates, we live in the land where Romeo and Juliet was written. With Saint Valentine on the tip of our tongue, our tradition is to write love-coated words. Now we tend to stick to good old roses and champagne, but maybe this Valentine’s Day we can step outside the box, and take some inspiration from other countries.

It also means being expected to waste money on pointless, thoughtless gifts. Well I like a good present just as much as the next person so here is my best and worst V-Day gifts.

WORST:

• Nipple clamps: one quick visit to the Ann Summers website and in about 3 clicks these monstrosities appeared. I like my nipples and am in no hurry to torture them, neither should you.

• Red roses: the epitome of the cliché that is this joke of a ‘holiday’. Try to be a bit more adventurous and go for something less thorny and less reminiscent of ‘America Beauty’, which let’s be honest, ruined roses for life • Teddy bear: a juvenile waste of time, so-called effort and money. Moving on...

• Tacky underwear: no, no and no. We are not in ‘50 Shades’ or ‘Secret Diary of a Call Girl’. And even Belle de Jour managed to keep it classy at times

BEST:

• Roses that aren’t red: I’m willing to tolerate these thorny death traps if they are presented in different colours. I was once sent a single white rose on V-Day and it was so nice to have something a bit different, that wasn’t slut red • ‘A nice time’: Manchester is stuffed with alternative restaurants, bars and tea shops. Skip the gifts and just enjoy each other’s company • ‘A nice time indoors’: and by ‘indoors’ I mean between the sheets. Act out fantasies, try a new position (do not consult Cosmo for suggestions) or just do it a different way. Perfect for those on a budget.

• Good underwear: not from Ann Summers or Primark, not in slut red and nothing crotchless, Photo: Elina Baltina (Flickr) cupless or cutout.

Try colours of cerise, emerald, deep blue (if you don’t know what I mean, Google it) And there you have it; a comprehensive list of all the crap you could possibly buy for this godforsaken day.

ISSUE 13/ 2nd FEBRUARY 2014 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

/TheMancunion: Lifestyle @MancunionLife

Job Hunting

MDMA Finance

MDMYay or MDMNay?

To gurn or not to gurn? That is the question that one student was faced with last week.

Upon reflection, my entire life and perhaps yours too (along with most citizens of the over-medicated West) has been an alarmingly constant binge, a towering list of one drug-addled rampage after the next. At age five I was the kid on a North West London street corner swigging Calpol from a brown paper bag.

I’ve smoked enough weed to realise that I’m boring on it. I’ve blacked out drunk more times than I can remember. Most terribly, I’m also sorely dependent on caffeine. Then there are the painkillers: Ibuprofen, Tramadol and Codeine. Class acts, all of the above, but none of them Class A. Then came a 2015 post-exams blitz, as a two-week slog of work came to an end and students began to do what students do best again.

At a night out the day after exams finished, I took two doses of MDMA. This was my first ever contact with ‘party drugs’ but I wasn’t worried since I knew all my good friends were having it too.

This is not a total damnation of the drug— for all I know the dealer mixed our stuff

Is the paper CV dead?

All that time you spent procrastinating on Twitter Photo: Andrew Taber (Flickr) and Tumblr might have been worth it after all…

Photo: ddaa @Flickr

with speed and Ricin—but merely a selfreflective exercise that will maybe make some people approach drugs like MDMA with more caution. After forty-five minutes I began to feel definite effects, and from midnight until three (roughly when I had more of it) I was convinced that I was having the best night of my life.

I was a space Communist riding out into oblivion with my best friends and loving every second, in perfect harmony with the music (blatantly I wasn’t though) and my species. We stayed until the night broke apart and I felt pretty much fine.

From the venue I went to three separate houses, mainly because I wanted to be among company during the dreaded comedown I’d heard so much about.

Sweats, shakes and paranoia were taking hold. Under the influence of this new and confusing drug I was consuming anything that people suggested would make me feel better: including beer, weed, serotonin replacement pills and herbal tea. None of it helped. I was pacing and stuttering like a cannibal. Long story short, myself and a friend ended up in

A&E at around 2pm having not slept whatsoever, and I had blood tests and an ECG which revealed my heart rate to be a steady 160bpm. Most adults have a resting heart rate between 60 –Alchemist 100bpm.

Photo: The Pins and needles, facial numbness, uncontrolled limb movements, chest pains and incredible difficulty breathing were my main symptoms. Constant thirst, nausea and sleep-deprived delirium added to the horror. After several hours of attentive care from my friend and the hospital staff, who put me on a drip and did their best to sedate me, I was allowed to go home that night. After a spasmodic fourteen-hour sleep I was fine.

Since then I have carefully weighed up my two very different experiences of MDMA. Negative was considerably heavier on the scale, and based upon this, I will never take it again.

Come back next week for ‘My First Ether Binge’, which I’m off to research now.

Travel

A New Years in Miami...

Natalie Silver reminisces about her unusual new year spent in The Magic City I’ve done a lot of travelling around America and Europe and my favourite city in the world, despite growing up in NYC, is Miami. Miami is like a millionaire’s playground. If you don’t see at least ten high Lamborghinis or Rolls Royces, you must not have left your hotel room. The weather is always perfect.

It’s a little humid, but it’s not overwhelming, and it felt great to have 27 degree Celsius heat in December.

If you’re tired of listing the transferable skills that reading 13th-century Italian sonnets has given you, you’re in luck. A recent survey by graduate social networking site Kloodle reveals that the traditional paper CV may be on the way out. According to the results, 42 per cent of students believe the traditional CV format isn’t dynamic enough to best showcase their skills, with half (49 per cent) willing to welcome an interactive social media platform for job searching; like Facebook right?

Nicky Sidebottom, talent and resourcing specialist at the Manchester Airport Group, explains that both employers and job seekers are swapping the paper CV for alternatives. “Employers and job hunters are now embracing all the online world has to offer.

The traditional CV format can be limiting, as it can give a one-dimensional overview of an applicant’s past accomplishments and skills, without any real insight into their actual capabilities and future potential.”

Despite the paper CV falling out of fashion, the survey found that over half of students (57%) are still using the tried and tested format in their quest for employment.

Fride, a second year economics student was unconvinced by the notion of a digital CV. “I think it depends on the job. They are time consuming for both the employer and employee. I would prefer to do a traditional CV”.

However Emily, a second year Geography student felt that a digital CV could be useful, especially for those seeking work in the creative industries. “I think that it could be helpful for people who work in design: they could upload examples of their work to the internet so that employees could have a look”.

She also dismissed the idea of a digital CV being time-consuming: “if there are ways for you to upload videos of yourself that might be quite helpful for the employees to see who you are without having to interview you first”.

Phil Hayes, Founder and CEO of Kloodle, is keen to highlight the multidimensional advantage of a nontraditional CV, remarking that platforms such as Kloodle allow job seekers to create “a three dimensional story of a candidate’s experience. You’re encouraged to create an all singing, all dancing profile.”

Although opinion about the relevance of the old-school CV today seems split, with the perforation of digital into every aspect of our daily lives, the death knell may be sounding for our romance with the traditional CV.

- Keep ‘on it’: Whatever online platform/social network you’re using, make sure you

The sun makes people want to get out, exercise, and make new friends. The city is full of colour and light. The food is also amazing—they have so many different cuisines available to try. After spending some time in South Beach, I went over to the Fontainebleau Hotel (most famous for its appearance in James Bond’s Goldfinger).

It’s a cat and mouse game. Photo Cobalt123 @Flickr

Follow these tips from Kloodle on how candidates can make a strong impression online:

I spent New Years Eve in South Beach. South Beach is a very lively neighbourhood: it is like constant Mardi Gras and full of Hispanic food and culture.

While a public, crowded beach might not seem fun to all, what people who haven’t visited don’t know is that the best part of Miami is that everyone is constantly happy. Everyone is in a good mood and looking to have fun.

Later at night, the King of Miami, Pitbull, performed for New Years. There was lots of screaming and cheering on the streets, and tons of huge firecrackers lit up the sky above the ocean. It was amazing to be on the beach with so many people to watch the fireworks. In Miami, you really don’t need to be in a club or have a drink in your hand to have fun. Even when the sun has gone down the warmth carries over into the night and there is an exciting, positive environment that could make anyone happy.

Lifestyle

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Photo: Kay Gaensler@Flickr

Want to write for Lifestyle?

Email: mancunion.life@gmail.com Meetings: 5pm Thursday, 1st Floor of the Students’ Union Photo: Olga Pavlonsky (Flickr)

keep your online profile up to date and remember to list all the skills you have that people may search for - It’s not all about UCAS points: Remember to highlight your ‘soft skills’ as well as your academic achievements. Have you shown initiative in your extra curriculum activities? Do you bring your leadership skills to the rugby pitch? Have your organisational skills benefitted the theatre group you’re part of?

- First Impressions Count: Make your page as visually appealing as possible: your page should look innovative and striking at first glance to draw people in Photo: trekkyandy (Flickr) -Director’s Cut, insert a video: This is a great opportunity to showcase your personality. Also, you may use this to demonstrate your passion for a certain career, if you’re looking to go into TV journalism why not include footage of you interviewing a local personality?

- Take Charge of Twitter: This is a great platform to show that you are a thought leader by tweeting and commenting on relevant stories. Follow individuals and businesses you would be interested in working for and use the 140 character limit to present yourself the best.

- The Grandma Rule: Potential employers often check your entire online profile, so think before you post. If you wouldn’t like your Grandma to see it, don’t post it!

Kloodle is the social networking site for student and graduate employability. www.kloodle.com Words: Robert Firth

TUESDAY 10TH AND WEDNESDAY 11TH FEBRUARY 2015, 7:30PM IN ACADEMY 3, UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER STUDENTS’ UNION / TICKETS £4, ONLINE AND AT THE SU RECEPTION/ BOX OFFICE All proceeds will be donated to Manchester Women’s Aid and Manchester Rape Crisis. email: jess.lishak@manchester.ac.uk for more details

SPORT : 30

ISSUE 13/ 2nd February 2015 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

ICC World Cup Preview

In the first part of his World Cup preview, Nayeem Quraishi discusses the chances of Austrailia, India and South Africa Nayeen Quraishi Sport Reporter

Australia Captain: Michael Clarke/Steve Smith/ George Bailey X Factor: James Faulkner Co-hosts and the current No.1 ranked ODI team in the world go into the tournament as one of the favourites.

This team has been built on the same formula which served Australia so well during 1999-2007 when they won three World Cups in a row. In David Warner and Aaron Finch, Australia has two explosive openers who can provide a quick start during the powerplay overs and take the game away from opposing teams. Warner has been in a rich vein of form over the past year and will look to build upon the exceptional test series he had against India. Steve Smith, George Bailey/Michael Clarke and Glenn Maxwell will lead the middle order and Brad Haddin and James Faulkner will ensure that the lower order makes runs.

In Maxwell and Faulkner, Australia have two very exciting cricketers who can win the match on their own through their powerful batting and can also bowl as the fourth or fifth option depending on the match requirements.

Faulkner originally came into the team as a left arm fast medium bowler but his bowling has suffered a little bit due to his focus on batting. Australian selectors have persisted with Shane Watson at the number three position despite his unreliable form over the last two years. Watson has never looked comfortable batting at number three due to problems in his footwork and the huge responsibility of batting at Ricky Ponting’s position. The inclusion of Mitchell Marsh in the squad will only add to the pressure on Watson.

Mitchell Johnson will lead the Australian bowling and will be supported by Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and Xavier Doherty. Johnson will have to quickly settle in the role of bowling leader as none of the other bowlers have played in the world cup before, he has yet to replicate his test form in the ODIs but important matches bring the best out of him. Xavier Doherty has been picked over Nathan Lyon and will have to justify the selection, Australia have struggled to find an adequate spin bowler since the retirement of Shane Warne and Stuart MacGill. Bradd Hogg is still available but he is 43. Anything other than an appearance in the final would be considered a failure.

Despite the talented squad, Australia will enter this tournament with a major storm brewing off the field, involving their current ODI captain Michael Clarke. Clarke has always been a polarising figure in Australian cricket, his mental toughness and self-belief has never been in question but he has fallen out with coaches and senior players throughout his tenure. Simon Katich has sighted Clarke as the reason

for his departure from the Australian team and former coach Mickey Arthur has alleged that the feud between Clarke and Shane Watson created a poisonous environment in the dressing room. Clarke’s decision to join the commentary team after his hamstring injury, during the Indian team’s tour also made his current teammates uneasy. The sudden emergence of Steve Smith as Australia’s main batsman across all three formats of the game and his appointment as the test captain during the India series have placed the Australian selectors in a difficult situation. Should they stick with the man in form or should they go back to their ‘original’ captain? Clarke has been set a deadline of 21st February to recover from the hamstring injury and get back in the team, until then Australia will already have played two games at the World Cup under the captaincy of Smith.

If the selectors decide not to pick Clarke, then it would be a sad end to an entertaining career. Clarke should be remembered for his inspirational batting and ‘funky captaincy’. He has been plagued by back problems which have restricted his bowling, otherwise he was a handy left arm bowler.

Most importantly Clarke should be remembered for his leadership skills after the death of Phil Hughes, he singlehandedly kept the Australian team together and delivered a poignant speech at his dear friend’s funeral.

India Captain: MS Dhoni X Factor: Ravindra Jadeja Defending champions and the No.2 ranked team in the world should be considered as one of the favourites to win the World Cup. Indian team has been in Australia for the past two months, playing a fiery test match series and are currently playing an ODI series. This has given them an excellent opportunity to get acclimatised to the Australian conditions, some of the pitches in the test match series were quite batting friendly and the pitches for the World Cup will be different but the experience gained during the series will only help the players come the World Cup. India have brought a well settled squad to the World Cup and will be led by the strategically gifted MS Dhoni. After relinquishing the test captaincy to Virat Kohli during the Australian test series this might be Dhoni’s last major international tournament but one can never be sure about what Dhoni is thinking, he operates on a different level. Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh and Harbhajan Singh key players from the previous campaign have not been picked for this tournament. Their exclusion is not only a testament to the quality of young players being produced by India through domestic cricket and IPL but also shows the confidence Dhoni has in his young players.

Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma will open the innings and will look to quickly establish a solid platform.

Both of them are naturally attacking

players and will have to adjust their techniques on the seaming wickets in New Zealand. Shikhar Dhawan has struggled overseas and is currently out of form but the long format of the world cup will provide him with ample opportunities to gain back his form.

The newly appointed test captain Virat Kohli will bat one down, at just 26 years of age Kohli has already scored 21 ODI centuries and has got a phenomenal record when chasing. No active player has got more centuries than Kohli and only two active players have got a better ODI average than Kohli (after 100 ODIs) .As long as he stays at the crease India will be in the game.

Ajinkya Rahane, Suresh Raina and MS Dhoni will lead the middle order.

The presence of Ambati Rayudu and Stuart Binny in the squad will offer Dhoni some flexibility, if he wants to change the batting order, Ambati Rayudu has shown in IPL that he is comfortable batting in the top order.

Ravindra Jadeja and Ravi Ashwin will be incharge of the lower order, both of them are capable lower order batsman and have played decent innings in tests and ODIs. India will need Jadeja to bring a spark in the fielding department, for a team which wants to win the World Cup their fielding was atrocious during the Australian test series.

Bowling has been India’s weakest link since the departure of Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh and their bowlers have struggled to adapt to overseas conditions. Indian bowling will be led by Ishant Sharma and Ravi Ashwin, who will be supported

by Umesh Yadav and Mohammad Shami. Ravindra Jadeja and Suresh Raina will look to complete the quota of overs. Indian bowlers have been in Australia for a while and will have developed an understanding of the conditions. Varun Aaron’s ordinary

bowling during the test series has cost him a place in the World Cup squad.

Promising left arm spinner Akshar Patel is a surprise inclusion in the squad and could be used a replacement for Jadeja who is returning from an injury.

Due to the very strong batting lineup this squad is more than capable of reaching the final.

South Africa Captain: AB de Villiers X Factor: David Miller Along with Australia and India, the No.3 ranked ODI team in the world will also go into the tournament as one of the favourites. In order to win the tournament South Africa will have win a match in the knockout stages, a feat which they have not achieved in their cricket history. South Africa have always had a talented squad and have performed well in all forms of cricket but they have never been able to perform well in the knockout stages in major tournaments.

Quinton de Kock and the elegant Hashim Amla will open the innings for South Africa. Among the active players no one has a higher ODI batting average than Amla, he has quickly established himself as one of the best batsman in the world. He is not as explosive as other openers but his solid defence and the ability to play the ball late allows him to stay on the crease for long periods. He will have to shepherd the young de Kock who will be playing in a major tournament for the first time in his career and will also be in-charge of wicket keeping. Coming fresh of scoring the fastest ODI century and the man with the second highest average in ODIs, AB de Villiers will be batting at the number three position. His batting is the perfect amalgamation of orthodox and unorthodox styles of batting and is inspiring a new generation of attacking batsman who make cricket purists scratch their

heads. ODI cricket has changed since the advent of T20 and de Villiers is the one who has led this change.

T20 captain Faf du Plessis, JP Duminy and David Miller will be in charge of the middle order. This is a talented middle order but all three of these players have found it difficult to play a long innings in ODIs. It could be said that the presence of Amla and de Villiers has stunted the growth of these players, they have not found themselves in a situation where the entire team depended on them, when they have played a good innings either Amla or de Villiers has been present on the other end or a solid platform has been laid by those two players. For South Africa to win this tournament their middle order will have to mature quickly as there will be matches when the top order does not perform.

Farhan Behardien, Wayne Parnell and Kyle Abbott will be fighting over the number seven position. For a team which has always produced allrounders who have been the envy of world cricket, the current crop is nowhere near the standards set by Shaun Pollock, Lance Klusner and Jacques Kallis. These all-rounders will not only have to ensure that the lower order makes some runs but will also have to bowl 10-15 overs. Parnell is the most accomplished bowler among the three but has got the weakest batting.

South Africa have got a well settled and dangerous bowling attack, led by Dale Steyn, who right now is the best fast bowler in world cricket in tests and ODIs. ODI fast bowling is going through a transition period due to the constant rule changes by the ICC which massively favours the batsman. In the current World Cup only four fielders will be allowed outside the circle after the powerplay.

The Mancunion Sport alternative team of the year After being dissolousened by the fact David Luiz made it into FIFA’s team of the year, we decided we would pick the less attractive names for our alternative World XI. Players are picked for outstanding performances, or importance relative to their importance for their club.

Goalkeeper: Samir Handanovic. The Slovenian and Inter Milan keeper has a video on Youtube which refers to him as ‘Spiderman.’ He is rated 84 on FIFA Ultimate Team, and dosne’t have the defence for club, and certainly not country, the Mr. Neur has.

Left Back: Aaron Creswell. He fended off David Alaba because we wanted

to have someone from the Football League in this XI. Now at West Ham, he is an important part of Big Sam’’s new look European challengers.

Centre Back: Diego Godin.

Unbelievably loosing out to Luiz and Silva, he had a wonderful season with Atletico, winning their first league title since 1996 by scoring the equaliser in the final game against Barcelona.

Scored against Italy to take Uruguay into the last 16.

Centre Back: Miranda: Godin’s partner at Atletico, he formed the partnership that conceded the fewest goal in 2013-14 La Liga season. He epitomized Simone’s grit and never-say-die attitude

which helped Atletico win the league.

Right-Back: Pablo Zabaleta. A difficult claim, as Man City’s defence is abit of a derth, but his, and to a certain extent Kompany’s, class are show as they have to hold an ever changing back 4 together.

Midfield: Jack Colback. I’ll be honest, he’s in here because I desperately wanted a Newcastle player in, and we’re a shambles at the moment. The ‘Ginger Pirlo’ is good because 1) he moved on a free from Sunderland. 2) He is consistantly excellent, and has started scoring goals.

Midfield: Yacine Brahmimi. A product of the famous Clairefontain

academy, he refused the chance to sign for Paris St-Germain as a youth player to continue his international baccalaureate program, and instead went to Stade Rennais. Now aged 24, he’s at Porto where he hit the ground running with 6 goals and 4 assists in his first 14 matches.

Midfield: Morgan Schneiderlin.

Controversial Saints German who Koeman managed to cling onto by his fingernails during this summers mass exodus. He still seems to wants a move away, and still probably will, despite being with the club since their old League 1 days. Still though, he is a key player for the Saints.

Midfield: Ashley Young.

Many thought he would be on his way out of Old Trafford but has thrived under Louis Van Gaal.

Forwards: Wilfred Bony. Consistenly excellent for Swansea, and surely will carry this form to Manchester.

Forward: Loic Remy. Scored 14 goals in 26 games on loan at Newcastle last season, twice as many as the second top scorer. He turned down the chance to become a Toon legend and followed the road all the way to the West London bank of Chelsea where he is sitting on the bench and is apparently being lined up in a swap deal for West Ham’s Valencia.

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ISSUE 14/ 9th FEBRUARY 2015 WWW.MANCUNION.COM/

Curtain time for on Jim White and co.

James Houghton has grown tired of the charasmatic Scotsman’s antics

James Houghton Sport Reporter

So the latest transfer window has now come and gone. In total around £130m was spent by Premier League clubs in this window, which, according to the BBC, is similar to last year’s expenditure, but also well below the record January spend of £225m, achieved in January 2011.

Transfer deadline day was, to put it mildly, underwhelming, as the three biggest incoming transfers of the window – Juan Cuadrado to Chelsea, Gabriel Paulista to Arsenal and Wilfried Bony to Manchester City – were all either completed before deadline day or had only the formalities left to be completed. This left Sky Sports News, and Jim White in particular, to attempt to wring out every last piece of drama from Aaron Lennon’s, a player who has started a mere three league games for Spurs this season, proposed loan move to Hull, then Stoke and finally to Everton, and Darren Fletcher’s free transfer to West Brom.

The BBC tried to get in on the act too, with a “transfer deadline day” weather report on BBC breakfast and a “transfer deadline day” Bargain Hunt video just two of the embarrassing ways that they used to commemorate deadline day.

Nevertheless, despite however hard Sky, the BBC or any other media outlets tried to create excitement, it did not work, as the general consensus was that this transfer window and deadline day had been one of the most boring of the lot.

But why should transfer deadline day be a cause for celebration and wall-towall coverage? Indeed, every football fan is excited to watch a new signing play for their team for the first time, yet nowadays it seems that, amongst some, the questions of how new signings will fit into a club and whether there will be a change in formation to accommodate the new signing are secondary to the club signing a new player in the first place.

And deadline day is not just about transfer news anymore; with any deadline day there is now the inevitable avalanche of memes plastered over the internet of Harry Redknapp (or a dog, there are a surprisingly large number of these on Twitter!) sat in a car, waiting to be interviewed, or of Jim White getting ready for deadline day etc. There was even discussion about Natalie Sawyer being replaced by Kate Abdo for the position next to Jim White for the closing few hours of deadline day.

Plus there used to be the idiots who thought that standing behind SSN reporters all day made them anything other than the pathetic fools that they were; alas, having seemingly decided that attacking a reporter with a purple dildo was the tipping point, SSN reporters are to be stationed within training grounds from now on, leaving the people who stood behind them to search for another way to attain fifteen seconds of fame.

Jim White’s tireless enthusiasm and the deadline day speculation were endearing a few years ago, but as each transfer window goes by they become more and more tedious. Nevertheless, even if the transfer window speculation borders on madness and the amount of

coverage for something in which no one actual sport takes place is perplexing, they are ultimately harmless, and the January transfer window should not be abolished because of these, but it should be ended for a much more important reason: it affects the integrity of the European leagues.

The premise of the Premier League is simple: each team plays the other nineteen both home and away once, with each game being worth an equal amount of points, and at the end the winner is the team that has amassed the most points (or has the best goal difference amongst teams that have accumulated the most points etc.). It is a system that is fair and much better than a play-off system, in which a team that has had a much better record over the course of numerous games compared to another is beaten to the title on the basis of one or two games.

But a mid-season transfer window negatively impacts the fairness of the league system. Firstly, it allows underachieving teams to buy better players in order to improve their squad and rectify their poor form, something which teams such as Burnley cannot do.

For example, why should Manchester United have been allowed to buy Juan Mata midway through last season in an attempt to reverse their poor form over the first half of the season?

Second, the transfer window creates uncertainty in the minds of players and managers. For example, Sean Dyche said that he thought of leaving Danny Ings, Burnley’s star player, out against Sunderland because Ings had been affected by interest from Liverpool.

While some may say that Ings should not be affected by such speculation, it is

The Football Ramble Logo Photo: Wikipedia Commons

only natural to expect that uncertainty over one’s future will disrupt, however small, their performances, and so it is Burnley being punished by a midseason transfer window, because their player has performed well enough over the first half of the Premier League season to attract attention from richer clubs.

Finally, a mid-season transfer window creates situations in which certain teams get lucky through the fixture schedule and face a team with a weaker squad. For example, Manchester City have twice faced an Arsenal squad without Gabriel Paulista and a Chelsea squad without Juan Cuadrado, whereas Manchester United and Liverpool have only once faced Arsenal and Chelsea without Paulista and Cuadrado. Sure, there are squads which are weaker at

certain periods of the season due to a combination of injuries, suspensions, international call-ups (e.g. African Cup of Nations and the Asian Cup), but these cannot, in the case of injuries and suspensions, be mitigated for by any league system, or, in the case of international call-ups, they are not something that can be avoided.

Therefore, the mid-season transfer window should be abolished in order to better protect the integrity of the league, despite however disappointed Jim White and the Bargain Hunt presenters may be by the decision.

Continued from page 32...

Sir Bobby Charlton was pulled from the burning wreckage by Harry Gregg, after being unconscious for quarter of an hour. Bill Foulkes also joined the search with Gregg, as they went in and out of the burning wreckage helping people. Bobby Charlton put his coat around Matt Busby, as he lay in a pool of water seriously injured. People who knew Charlton best, including his brother, say there is irrefutable evidence that he “stopped smiling” and left his sparkle in the wreckage. He would never forget a German patient in the hospital he was admitted to, reading out the names of the dead, “The names of all my pals”.

Friends he would go to the dance with at the weekend. Friends that would invite him over for dinner at Christmas. “It felt like my life was being taken away, piece by piece.” Matt Busby was critically injured and had to have his death rites read 3 times and Bobby Charlton remarks that Busby probably felt the loss more than anyone else: “He had brought

these players together, he had cajoled everyone’s parents to make them sign for Manchester United and then he took them into Europe when he had been told it was against the FA’s wishes”.

Everyone associated with football in England was devastated by the news.

Sir Alex Ferguson recounts whilst he was revising for a exam, his friends burst into his room in tears and his football training had to be cancelled because everyone was in shock. On a personal note, my grandad had taught the great Duncan Edwards whilst he was a teacher in the black country. He used to put Duncan in charge as he stepped out the classroom because “no one would ever mess with big Duncan”. Still to this day, fans who had the chance to see him in action get emotional. Many claim he was the greatest player they had ever seen at 21, which is quite something considering the likes of Ronaldo and Messi today.

As Matt Busby lay immobile in Mu-

nich, he told his assistant Jimmy Murphy (who had missed the trip because of his duties as Wales manager) to “Keep the flay flying, Jimmy”. As Harry Gregg noted in his autobiography, those who could play had to play and it saved his sanity. 13 days after the crash, United faced Sheffield Wednesday in the FA cup in front of an emotionally charged Old Trafford of 59, 848 fans. The team United’s chairman Harold Hardman left a message on front of the match programme that was simple, yet effective.

“Although we mourn our dead and grieve for our wounded, we believe that great days are not done for us....Manchester United will rise again”.

Perhaps then, just as Matt Busby returned to England when Manchester United reached the FA cup final it was fitting that the clubs badge would be a phoenix rising from the ashes. The frail Busby sat on the bench and watched his team finally run out of steam, losing 2-0. Murphy whilst in charge, proved be-

yond doubt that United would indeed go on as it was a minor miracle to have reached the FA cup final. In the European Cup semi final they beat Milan 2-1 at Old Trafford, before a valiant, yet comprehensive 4-0 defeat in the San Siro.

Yet 10 years later, Matt Busby and Jimmy Murphy had rebuilt a team and won the European Cup, captained by survivor Bobby Charlton. Fittingly, the exuberance of local youth- the driving force behind Busby’s dream- played a full part in United winning the European Cup at Wembley, defeating Benfica 4-1 after extra time. This was for them, the ultimate debt to their memory. 50 years later from the Munich Air Disaster, Manchester United would become champions of Europe for a third time in 2008. Manchester United should have won many more European trophies than they have and they would have done had this terrible disaster had not taken place. Almost certainly, Real Madrid would not have dominated European football had

the Busby babes been around. Sir Bobby Charlton is also convinced with the quality of English players in the team, England would have won the World Cup a lot sooner than in 1966. Every year, hundreds of fans gather at the memorial to show their respect. The defiant song that is still heard in the stands today echoes around: “We’ll never die, we’ll never die, we’ll keep that red flag flying high, because Man United will never die”.

Oh England’s finest football team its record truly great, its proud successes mocked by a cruel turn of fate, Eight men will never play again who met destruction there, the Flowers of English football, the Flower of English football, the Flowers of Manchester. Eric Winter (1958).

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Alternative Ballon d’Or

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LJMU Leopards beat Manchester Metros in a thrilling innaugrial Ice Hockey Varsity LJMU Leopards Manchester Metros

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Thomas Powell, Rachel Reynolds, and Matt Lowry Manchester Metros

In the last week of first term, Silver Blades Ice Rink Widnes hosted an epic clash between the Manchester Metros and the LJMU Leopards in their debut match. After a blistering game of three high octane periods, the Leopards edged the Metros out of the competition thanks to a power play goal and some remarkable acrobatics by LJMU’S Nicole Jackson in net to make it 3-2 in the second. The players of the match were Nicole Jackson for LJMU and Allen Gunn, scorer of a stunning breakaway, for Manchester. In the changing room, Allen said: “It was a fast paced game; both sides were really hungry for goals for the full 60 minutes. Their goalie made lots of great saves. As did our goalies, Lewis McBride and Phil Pearson; they kept us in the game when we were down by 1 goal. It was very close, there was only

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Cricket World Cup

Leopards pounce on Metros 1 goal in it for the entire game. We were very unlucky not to equalise, if we’d played for another minute, we would have won.”

Despite the loss Rachael Reynolds, President of the Metros, was pleased by the team’s performance and maintained a strongly positive outlook, saying: “We are delighted to have the opportunity to showcase the level of talent the club has attracted and nurtured over the years, with some of our former B teamers now playing alongside our A team in this year’s Varsity.

I’m excited to see the supporting turnout from the B team too! It most definitely reflects the welcoming environment for mixed level players we try to foster here at Manchester Metros Ice Hockey Club.”

An electric game played in front of a buzzing crowd, with huge hits on every shift, the inaugural North West Winter Varsity was an unforgettable experience that truly captured the soul of North American sport.

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Upcoming fixtures Wednesday 4th February: Men’s Basketball (League): Salford 2nds v Manchester 2nds Mixed Golf (League): Manchester 1st v Leeds 1st Women’s Tennis (League): LJMU 1ST v Manchester 1st Men’s Badminton (League): Durham 1st v Manchester 1st Men’s Badminton (League): Manchester 2nd v Manchester 3rd Men’s Fencing (League): Durham 2nd v Manchester 3rd Women’s Fencing (League): Northumbria 1st v Manchester 1st Women’s Hocket (League): Manchester 4th v MMU 3rd

Manchester Metros were narrowly defeated by a strong LJMU team Photo: Mancunion Sport

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