30TH SEP 2013/ ISSUE 03 FREE
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• New betting service allows friends and family to bet on a student’s final degree grade • Ladbrokes testing scheme in 20 most popular UK universities Michael Williams News Editor Ever wondered how to really make money off your university degree? A bookmaker appears to have found a solution. In a new Ladbrokes betting service, students entering their first year at university can bet on - or have a bet placed on - what their final degree classification will be. “We always get requests for degree bets at this time of year so we thought we’d launch a dedicated service with a unique ‘microsite’ for the first time to cater for the demand,” said Alex Donohue of Ladbrokes.
The online service uses a computer algorithm to calculate the odds of a given student getting anything from a first to a third. All a bettor need do is enter the name of the university, course and three best A-Level results - and to collect any winnings, produce relevant graduation documents. The betting giant said they are targeting the scheme, not at students, but at their parents, friends, and family - who would not need permission to place bets. Donohue added, “Instead of the bank of mum and dad, this service could help give parents some return as they bank on their children’s academic progress.” The bookmaker is trialling the scheme with what they consider to be 20 of the
country’s most popular universities - including University of Manchester - in a two-month test period ending in October. There is currently a maximum stake of £10 and return of £1000, but to win this would require the odds of 100/1, which for the average student is not offered. When The Mancunion tried out the odds calculator, the best return for a University of Manchester was a straightA student studying Medicine or Law, where the odds of a first were 11/2 and for a third 9/1, respectively. The average stake placed so far has been between £5 and £10, and there are no plans to increase the limit, Ladbrokes said in a statement to The Mancunion. “We don’t think that increasing the
stake would have any bearing on developing this project,” they said, adding, “As for the future, the most logical step is to expand the number of courses and subjects”. When asked about concerns raised by gambling awareness charities, such as Gamcare, that the scheme will encourage gambling among students, the bookmaker declined to comment, saying only, “the service isn’t aimed at students directly but their parents [and] family.” The volume of gamblers using the scheme is unclear, however the bookmaker said, “we are currently equipped to deal with a volume of bets up to 5/6 times more than we are currently taking”. Speaking to The Mancunion, 3rd year
Manchester student Robert Clark was unsure about the scheme. “I don’t believe that it is ethical for parents to be betting on their children and it also creates new pressures for students to perform for their parents,” said Clark. Second-year Manchester Student Brian Cunningham felt the money might help as an incentive to study harder. “Financial motivation to get a higher grade in my degree would definitely make me work harder,” he said. Bets where the student in question fails to complete their degree or changes course will be considered as losers, said Ladbrokes.
02 : NEWS
ISSUE 03 / 30th SEPTEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM
Highlights
Games, Feature: Microsoft’s Mixed Messages
The 124-year-old Whitworth Art Gallery closed its doors on Wednesday for a year of renovations, after a weekend of free events Photo:We Are Tape
Page 15
Picture of the week
Fashion, Feature: Affordable Fashion Page 17
Film, Review: ‘Diana’ Page 19
Leading entrepreneur appointed to University Board of Directors Inez Dawoodjee News Reporter A Succesful British entrepreneur has joined the University of Manchester Innovation Group (UMI3) as a as a nonexecutive Director. Scott Fletcher, chariman and founder of IT solutions company ANS Group,which has a turnover of £50 million. He started up his company at the young age of 22 in 1996, using his bedroom as his first premises. He has been working as an entrepreneur ever since and today his business empire is valued at over £100 million. As ANS chairman, and also in a personal capacity, Fletcher has been keenly involved with investing in start up companies. He is also Chairman and lead investor for Gödel Technologies, a company
which supplies software development services. Fletcher has scooped many awards in recognition of his work, including entrepreneur of the Year for the North West at the National Business Awards, OD Young Director of the Year and The PLUS Markets Chairman of the Year. He has also been a board member of FC United of Manchester as well as the Manchester Academy and is currently a member of the Greater Manchester Local Enterprise Partnership. “It’s a great privilege to be part of The University of Manchester in this way. It is a university which has a rich, proud history. Their innovative vision for the future, excellent worldclass research facilities and strong pipeline of novel technologies are what enticed me to join as a nonexecutive Director.” “I am really looking
forward to working with them and to raising further the profile of entrepreneurship at the University.” UMI3 CEO Clive Rowland said, “I am delighted that Scott is finding time in his very busy schedule to join our Board. “We are always open to supplementing our inhouse technology transfer expertise with experienced entrepreneurs who know what it is like to build a successful company from scratch and Scott fits that bill perfectly. “[He] will help us further instil a spirit of innovation and drive into our activities which is as important to business success as are the amazing ideas and inventions that our staff and students come up with all of the time. “I know that Scott will be a huge asset to us.”
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Michael Williams News Editor The days of dog-eared textbooks arriving from Amazon marketplace may soon be a thing of the past, with the first ‘#TextbookRescue’ event taking place place in Freshers’ Week. Hundreds of first year students turned up to libraries across campus on the morning of Wednesday 18th September to pick-up free textbooks for their courses. ‘#TextbookRescue’ is based on an idea submitted to the Eureka! Library Innovation Challenge by a student at the University, who wanted to be able to drop off old textbooks instead of taking them home when they graduated. More than a thousand ‘high quality’ textbooks were donated by graduates to drop-off points in University libraries over the summer. Library staff have called the scheme a “great success”. Lisa Donnelly, Market Research and Marketing Officer, said, “All of us here at the Library
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are really happy to have had the opportunity to complete such an exciting project driven by students, for students. “We hope to continue Textbook Rescue and develop even more student-led innovation in the years to come.” The event also proved successful at further integrating the Library into Welcome Week events. “It feels like the Library is much more a part of welcome week than in past years,” said Esther Miller, Library Customer Services Co-ordinator. She added, “The academic staff have also been impressed with the scheme.” Gary Penrice, Customer Services Co-ordinator, said, “It’s been a real success here – attracting lots of people into the Library so that we can say hello and introduce ourselves.” The scheme will return in time for Welcome Week next year, and the organisers said they hope to make the event “even bigger and better.”
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ISSUE 02 / 23rd SEPTEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM
NEWS : 03
“Unwelcoming” navy had council permission to be outside Union - URNU paid £300 for permit - then moved on by Students’ Union Exec team Michael Williams News Editor Manchester University Royal Navy Unit had Council permission to occupy the space they were ejected from during Welcome Week, it has emerged. Manchester City Council issued two permits – a council parking dispensation and a council parking suspension – to the Manchester University Royal Navy Unit (URNU). The passes cost the URNU £300 - £30 per day for each pass across the five days of Welcome Week – September 16 to 20. Parking dispensations and suspensions allow vehicles to park in areas where they otherwise would not have been permitted. Part of the conditions of the passes being issued was the understanding that the URNU van would be parked as close to the Union building as possible, a council spokesperson told The Mancunion. This was to ensure foot traffic in the area – where Oxford Road joins Lime Grove – was not blocked. But, as The Mancunion reported last week, the Students’ Union Exec Team asked the URNU to move their van away from the Students’ Union building on Monday
morning. The URNU eventually relocated to outside University Place, Oxford Road. “We had been to the council planning enforcement officer months ago and asked permission,” said Lieutenant Commander Louis Gardner of the Royal Navy. “We asked exactly who owned that little spot of land, the council stated that they owned it, and we actually paid the council a considerable amount of money to park there.” The URNU were in possession of the valid paperwork on Monday morning – but were still asked to move. Lieutenant Commander Gardner said, “Initially, what looked like an undergraduate who worked for the Union came out, and then I showed my pass - that I had a permit to actually be there. “She went away and got the [union staff member], who came out and said that everything the council said was wrong.” Grace Skelton, General Secretary for the Students’ Union Exec Team, told The Mancunion, “there was a large Royal Navy mobile unit on Union property. It is the norm for external organisations to pay the Union a sum of money to operate on its premises, this hadn’t been the case.”
University Royal Navy Unit’s mobile unit at Manchester Metropolitan University’s Freshers’ Fair, last week Photo: Cil Barnett-Neefs
After being approached by the union staff member, Lieutenant Commander Gardner then tried to reach the parking council official via telephone, but found she was on leave. The decision to move was made “to keep peace with the Union”, he said.
Gardner added, “I said ‘look, we’re not here to annoy anyone at all, that’s not what we’re here for.’ “The union say that they own it, but the council say that they pay for that area of land to be paved in the same manner as the rest of the pavement because they own it.” The Students’ Union Exec Team
Survey suggests students work harder under 9k fees Sean Doherty News Editor Students paying £9k fees are working harder and partying less, according to a new study The National Student Housing Survey 2013, which polled over 20,000 students from across the UK, found the number of students who said they enjoyed socialising in their halls of residence, fell to 54 per cent from 62 per cent last year. Furthermore, just 63 per cent of students claimed they managed to form close friendships in halls compared
with 67 per cent in 2012, while only 36 per cent said there was a strong sense of community among students – down from 43 per cent last year. This latest shift in student opinion seems to be supportive of the theory that under the new fee regime, students appear to be taking their studies much more seriously. “What we’re seeing is an acceleration of a trend that began a few years ago, where students prioritise study over the social aspects of university,” said Tim Daplyn,
the author of the study, and chief executive of Red Brick Research.. The study also suggests that students are becoming increasingly concerned with the quality of accommodation, and value for money. The number of students living in student halls who felt “very satisfied” with their accommodation fell from 32 to 26 per cent. The figure fell by 3 per cent to 29 per cent for private halls and 9 per cent to 24 per cent for the private rental sector. Despite the evidence
presented by the study, some Manchester students are highly sceptical that paying higher fees makes a difference to their work ethic. Callum Hunt, second year engineering, does not see the cost of a degree is not a motivating factor. “For me, it’s the rewards at the end which really matter” Greg Francini, second year economics, went as far to describe the study’s suggestions as “misleading”, adding further that the fees hike “made no difference to how much work I did in first year”.
caused controversy in Freshers’ Week after they labelled Armed Forces societies who were outside the SU building “unwelcoming”. In a statement to The Mancunion, the Exec, “It was felt by the exec team that the highly visible presence of the armed forces large mobile unit directly outside
the Students’ Union, may look like an affiliation and would make some students feel uncomfortable. “They were therefore asked to move from directly outside the Students’ Union and were subsequently relocated on the main University campus.”
Mysterious break in at University of SalfordFallowfield Inez Dawoodjee News Reporter A catering storeroom at the University of Salford has been broken into. Police say that no stock appears to have been taken, although there was some property damage. The burglary occurred in the Chapman Building between 7.30 and 11.30 on Wednesday 11 September on University Road. The burglars left the building through a back entrance, setting off the fire alarm in the process. Police have released CCTV footage which show two men at the site of the crime, who are wanted for question-
ing in relation to the burglary. Police are appealing to the general public to come forward if they witnessed anything or have any information . Detective Constable Paul Reynolds said, “It is believed the offenders had hidden inside the building prior to it being locked up before getting into the storeroom. If you recognise either of these men we’d very much like to hear from you. “Alternatively, if you were in the area that evening and remember seeing anything unusual which may be related please call police.” Individuals who have any information
are encouraged to contact the police on 0161 856 5252, or alternatively to contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. A spokesperson for the University added that they “are liaising with the police over the incident.” According to the UK Crime Statistics website, there were 700 recorded crimes at the University of Salford in July 2013 alone. 40% of the crimes reported were incidences of antisocial behaviour. A similar incident at the University of Salford occurred earlier this year, when thieves broke into University House building.
ISSUE 03 / 30trd SEPTEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM
04 : News
Students miss lectures in MyManchester mess
- Student Portal and University email crash - Timetable system moved to Blackboard Sean Doherty News Editor
Students were left flustered last Monday after the Manchester Student Portal crashed, causing confusion for many as they began their first day of lectures. After problems were reported on Friday September 22, the MyManchester system crashed during the following Monday morning and remained inaccessible to students for the rest of the day. Students were unable to access Blackboard or their university emails. Although a link was later added to the MyManchester homepage, there were numerous reports that despite repeated attempts, logging on to university email accounts remained not possible. Third year PPE student Connie Kelly was furious, “It was very irritating. I couldn’t find out what lectures I had on Tuesday until 11pm the night before.” To add to the problems, certain students from Manchester Business School and the School of Arts, Languages and Culture found that, due to a change in how timetables are accessed, they were unable to
find the locations for their lectures or seminars. Third year English Literature student Jaisal Marmion told The Mancunion that after only half his group turned up to their introductory seminar, the tutor - aware that many students were having problems accessing their timetables - cut the three hour class short after one hour. A representative from the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures explained that the change in how timetables are accessed was detailed in the University’s Essential Guide, but some students felt this change was poorly advertised. Third Year English Literature student Jessica Wyer said, “I had no idea the way timetables were to be accessed had changed, I assumed the reason why we had no class locations was because the department had been lazy in updating them on the system as they have been before. “I check my university email account regularly and hadn’t received any information about changes to accessing the timetable so did not assume that was the cause of the problem. “Then I couldn’t even rectify the situation by finding out where my classes were because even though I had emailed my lecturer to find out, I could not log into MyManchester to see the reply when the system crashed. “I had to rely on other students that had just happened to see the locations up on a piece of paper in [The Samuel Alexander Building], but even then we were sent no email saying that was where you could find the locations, until it was too late that is. “The chaos was preventable, all the University
Trouble for students in the first week back, after the online student system crashed Photo: Cil Barnett-Neefs had to do was just send a pre-emptive email before term started about the new way of accessing the timetable.” Third year Management student Rohan Rana also said he did not the timtable system had changed, “‘I didn’t know that the way we access our timetables had changed. I don’t feel like anyone really told us about it.” Economics student Will Mcgregor missed a lecture due to technical issues - “I’ve always checked my timetable through Student system, but apparently now we’re supposed to check using Blackboard. The
timetable on student system was still saying that all my room locations were TBA. The people running my course sent out an email an hour before my lecture, but I didn’t get it.” When asked for comment, a spokesperson for the University told The Mancunion, “Over recent days, there have been some technical issues preventing users from accessing some of their University IT services - access has now been restored to all services.”
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NEWS : 05
Should we hate those ‘Blurred Lines’?
Robin Thicke’s ‘Blurred Lines’ has stirred worldwide controversy. Photo: cityyear@Flickr
‘What a pleasure it is to degrade a woman’ - Robin Thicke Pippa Allen-Kinross News Editor Six students’ unions across the UK have boycotted Robin Thicke’s controversial ‘Blurred Lines’. Students’ unions at the University of Leeds, Edinburgh, Sheffield Hallam, Derby, Kingston and West Scotland removed the song from the playlists within union buildings. Kirsty Haigh, Vice President Services from Edinburgh SU told The Indepedent they have
“a policy on zero tolerance towards sexual harassment, a policy to end lad culture on campus and a safe space policy - all of which this song violates.” The National Union of Students supports the ban calling ‘Blurred Lines’ “deeply offensive and dangerous” - and hsa encouraged other students’ unions to join the boycott. Alice Smart, from Leeds SU, also told the newspaper the decision had been made because the song “undermines and degrades women”.
‘Blurred Lines’ - which includes lyrics such as “I’ll give you something big enough to tear your ass in two,” “do it like it hurt” and “he was too square for you / he don’t smack that ass and pull your hair like that” - has sparked condemnation from women’s groups and rape charities across the world. At the same time it has become the fastest selling digital song in history, achieving Number One in 14 countries including the UK. In an interview with GQ magazine, Thicke said the song originated from him and Pharrell Williams, “Acting like we were two old men on a porch hollering at girls like, ‘Hey, where you
Can hearing voices improve your life? Sean Doherty News Editor
A study is due to take place which aims to investigate the possibility that hearing voices may help people achieve life goals. Two Doctors from the University’s School of Psychological Sciences, Dr. Filippo Varese and Dr. Sara Tai, are conducting the study. They are currently
seeking volunteers from Greater Manchester who have hear voices, whether this experience be positive, negative or neutral. Between 2-3% of the general population have reported hearing voices, according to earlier studies. This study is leading on from earlier research which suggests that, rather than being a sign of mental illness or necessarily distressing,
hearing voices may in fact have the potential to enrich the lives of those who experience them. Dr Filippo Varese from the School of Psychological Scienes, one of the leaders of the study, said, “Historically, we know there have been some very successful people who were reported to hear voices – a separate voice outside their head – including scientists, artists and spiritual
going, girl? Come over here!’” He defended the song from criticism, saying, “All three of us are happily married with children, we were like, ‘we’re the perfect guys to make fun of this.’ “People say, ‘hey, do you think this is degrading to women?’ I’m like, ‘of course it is. What a pleasure it is to degrade a woman. I’ve never gotten to do that before. I’ve always respected women. “So we just wanted to turn it over on its head and make people go, ‘Women and their bodies are beautiful. Men are always gonna want to follow them around.’” Helen McCarthy, a third year English Literature student, told The Mancunion, “I think people generally assume that a catchy chart-topper is going to be perfectly innocent, but ‘Blurred Lines’ is actually a really abhorrent song. “Lyrics like ‘I know you want it’ and ‘the way you grab me, just wanna get nasty’ are going to perpetuate this idea that women should always be up for sex, and be making themselves readily available for sex. “Anyone who thinks ‘just don’t listen to it then’ is the answer, has clearly not experienced the kind of harassment that the song endorses.’ She added, “I think the union should follow suit and ban it, and not doing so is just damn hypocritical. “They want the union to be a safe place for people of all genders, races, religions and sexualities, and playing a song that endorses rape and sexual harassment is not going to aid
leaders. “In Western society, hearing voices have often been labelled as symptoms of something abnormal, but they are considered a valuable experience in other cultures - such as a sign of contact with the spiritual world. “People are more likely to hear voices after a trauma or particularly stressful period of their life, such as being abused or experiencing bereavement. But, even after such traumas, the voices that people hear are not always distressing. “Recent research tells us that even in Western societies many people consider their
that cause.” But, third-year Criminology Student Brogan Thompson said, “I don’t think it should be banned as it’s only a song, and you can’t blame a song for someone’s actions. “You can’t put the blame on just one pop song, especially when there are lots of other songs and films that are probably worse than this.” Chloe Barr, also a third year, studying Environmental Management, agreed, “It’s just a song and its lyrics shouldn’t be taken too seriously.” Tabz O’Brien Butcher, Manchester Students’ Union Women’s Officer, told The Mancunion the SU has not banned ‘Blurred Lines’, “However, if women students wish to make this change in their Union then as Women’s Officer I am there to support them to explore how they might take this idea forward. “Much popular music is derogatory and undermining to women, and Blurred Lines is no exception. “However the scale and depth of feeling about this particular song from a wide range of students across the country can’t be ignored and it’s important that Students’ Unions continue to listen and respond to students’ experiences to make sure that student spaces are as safe and inclusive as possible. She added, “Robin Thicke made a statement saying it was ‘a pleasure to degrade a woman’. I think we need to do more than banning a single song.”
voices to be a positive part of their lives.” The team are looking for volunteers aged 16 and over who have been hearing voices for six months or longer. Volunteers will be asked to complete a questionnaire about their experiences, as well as take part in a oneoff, private interview which will be carried out at the University. Anyone interested in taking part in the study can call 07583 608 167 or email, voicesresearch@gmail.com. For more information about the visit: www.manchester. ac.uk/psych-sci/hearing-voices
MMU campus replaced by resident housing Gawain Owen News Reporter
Manchester Metropolitan University have announced plans to sell off its Didsbury campus and make way for a new Council-led development which will include a primary school and housing. MMU Didsbury Campus is a 17 acre estate which includes one Grade II listed property and a number of Grade II listed buildings. Although, these will not be affected, with the focus on new homes in the area and the preservation of a historic playing field which also resides on the campus. A report is being put forward to the City Council Executive which if approved will allow a public consultation in the Autumn. This joint venture between MMU and Manchester City Council is part of the latter’s residential growth plans, which sets out the city’s requirement for housing of mixed cost, size and tenure in areas all around Manchester. Plans have also been put forward to build a primary school on the site to meet the expected increase in the demand for school places in the Didsbury area. Cllr Richard Leese, Leader of the Manchester City Council, said, “Manchester’s success means we desperately need thousands of new homes of every type and size and we are working with a variety of partners to develop suitable sites across the city”. Vice-Chancellor of Manchester Metropolitan University, Professor John Brooks, said, “Our move to new facilities at Birley Fields in Hulme in September 2014 brings down the curtain on our long association with Didsbury, but opens up new opportunities for the city and the community in the shape of this draft framework.”
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NEWS : 07
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08 : Feature
ISSUE 03 / 30th SEPTEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM
The war against free speech on university campuses
Greg Lukianoff speaks out to defend free speech on campus PHOTO: FIRE
Sam Dumitriu interviews US campus free speech activist Greg Lukianoff on the threat to free speech on campus and how to stop it
O
ver the past year student unions across the country have banned, boycotted or no platformed everything from the nation’s biggest newspaper to the most popular song of the summer. Against this backdrop of campus censorship and speech restrictions, I spoke to US activist Greg Lukianoff, President of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). Lukianoff weighed in on the big controversy surrounding UK students’ unions - the banning of Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines. “Trying to eliminate a pop song because it might be interpreted as offensive is just entirely wrongheaded. It misunderstands the point of free speech and it misunderstands the point of art. “If you want to know human nature, if you want to know something about the good and bad aspects of human nature, then look at art.” Lukianoff sees banning Blurred Lines as not an isolated incident but as part of a harmful trend within higher education that started in the 1980s. “It is funny that there are these strains within society, and particularly within academia that wants to bleach
out anything that can be construed as offensive. The University of Edinburgh Students’ Union probably thinks it is being extremely progressive and compassionate by engaging in censorship. But really to me, this seems like something straight out of the Victorian era. “There are deep and beautiful works of art that are so much more offensive than Blurred Lines. If you’re going to be at all intellectually consistent, then you are going to have to get rid of an awful lot of the canon. If you’re going to say that anything that can be experienced as offensive should be banned. To me the banning of Blurred Lines shows we have reach an absurd level on college campuses. “By banning a song that involves aggressiveness and sexuality you don’t address the problem. That’s one of the things makes this so analogous to the Victorian age. There is an idea that you can get away from things that make you uncomfortable about human nature by sticking your head in the ground like an ostrich.” “In a pluralistic society, I think you start realising pretty quickly that free speech is a sensible rule. You suffer the consequences. People might not like you for what you say, but you
cannot have a rule against saying it. “It really got brought home to me in a very real way when I was an undergraduate in Washington DC. I was a student journalist, and if there’s one thing you learn as a student journalist it is that even the bestintentioned regime for censorship will get turned against the press.” History professor Alan Charles Kors and constitutional lawyer Harvey Silvergate founded FIRE in 1999. Its mission is to defend free speech, due process and freedom of conscience across America’s college campuses. They defend any student of any political persuasion, from socialist students in Alaska to college republicans in California. Yet, looking at their cases, it seems they defend one group more than the rest. “People tend to censor opinions they disagree with and not so much opinions they agree with. Since universities tilt decidedly liberal, if you’re going to punish someone for what they say, for their ideas, it tends to be politically conservative ideas more often than not.” While many of the student FIRE defends do lean to the right, you could hardly say the same about Lukianoff. The Wall Street Journal described
him as, “a lifelong Democrat” and a “passionate believer” in gay marriage and abortion rights. But, many of the students that FIRE defends do not seem to be political at all. “There are cases where someone is criticising a parking garage or trying to talk about tuition on [their] campus. A lot of the censorship we
There are deep and beautiful works of art that are so much more offensive than Blurred Lines. If you’re going to be at all intellectually consistent, then you are going to have to get rid of an awful lot of the canon.
see on campus is very old fashioned. Administrators do not like their policies and practices being criticised and they wildly overreact.” Lukianoff points to a case at Oswego, which is part of the State University of New York system. “Oswego was very proud of its hockey team. An Australian student journalist, as part of a class, wrote to other university hockey coaches to do a profile about the schools hockey coach. At the end of his letters to other coaches he put a line saying, ‘Don’t feel the need just to say nice things’. One of the hockey coaches to which he wrote, took this as so offensive to even imply that there might be something negative to say about our esteemed hockey coach, they brought him up on harassment charges. “He was kicked off campus, treated as a threat to the lives to the students of Oswego, even though nobody really thought he was. “It was once again a case where because we took it public and because it got picked up by the website Gawker. We were able to get the university to back down. But it was amazing that it would even occur to universities to overreact to speech this tame. “ FIRE’s strategy to defend free speech is to use the threat of publicity. They send a letter to universities telling them to “get their act together” and if they fail to respond appropriately FIRE will put out a press release. “The main tool that we have is that universities can’t defend in public what they do in private. For example,
ISSUE 03 / 30th SEPTEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM
there was a student in Indiana, who got in trouble for reading a book called Notre Dame versus the Klan, it was about the defeat of the Ku Klux Klan when they marched on Notre Dame in 1924. Because the book, which was an anti-Klan book, had a picture of a Klan rally on the cover he was found guilty of racial harassment without so much as a hearing. “We follow the typical procedure in these cases - we send a letter to the university telling them to get their act together, and then if they don’t come to their senses we do a press release. Nine times out of ten, the press release does it, sometimes just the letter is enough.” When the press release is unsuccessful FIRE defends students in the courts, where they have been incredibly successful, winning every single challenge they have ever made against speech codes. When FIRE does correct a university either through publicity or the courts, the institution rarely apologises for the harm they have done. “Universities generally begrudgingly accept, they very rarely apologise for abusing student rights. It’s not totally clear that some of them even learn a lesson from it, except that you get in trouble with the US public if you violate free speech rules on what is supposed to be the greatest forum for the exchange of ideas in our country, US higher education.” Questions are raised as to whether students’ unions are in touch with the average student’s opinion. “When student governments make these kinds of decisions they are showing that they are very much not in touch with your average student. “If these ideas were put to a vote they would be, I hope, deemed absurd by most students. But when you put them in the voice of authority, people don’t want to question when people seem to be pure of heart or have good motives. But here’s the problem, every movement in the history of censorship believed at some level it was saving the world. Victorians believed they were saving their country from eternal damnation. During the red scares, we believed we were saving ourselves from nuclear annihilation on one hand and Communist infiltration on the other. When people were going after
Being offended is what happens when you have your deepest beliefs challenged, if you make it through four years of college without having your deepest beliefs challenged, you should ask for your money back
Feature : 09
Lukianoff promotes his book Unlearning Liberty: Campus censorship and the end of American Debate abolitionist speech, their strongest argument was that this would lead to a civil war. “That’s not a good argument particularly because those intentions, the way they usually manifest is so amorphous that it turns into something that can justify any inclination people in power want. That’s why you need to have, ironically, very clear lines. You need to say art can be expressive, art can be offensive, art can be challenging, and indeed probably it should be. As soon as you make the ability to express yourself contingent on the feelings of the listener, you open the possibility of silencing literally everyone.” Lukianoff discussed the recent controversy with Manchester Debating Union’s debate on pornography coming up against censorship from the Union. Flyers featuring a provocative image of the porn star Sasha Grey were banned from Union property. One of the speakers, Guardian columnist Julie Bindel, was forced to drop out after receiving rape and death threats from people who felt her presence a threat to their safety. Lukianoff believes using safety to justify restrictions on speech is dangerous. “I think that sexual minorities, and people who otherwise benefit from the rights of individuality and the rights of free speech should be very careful with how they use terms like safety. I think that it’s really unfortunate that this is happening over higher education. “Safety is supposed to mean that you are in physical danger, but it’s being used as a term that means you don’t want to be around people who anger you, who offend you, who deeply offend you. You don’t need a principle like freedom of speech to protect mainstream popular thought or opinion. You need it specifically to protect the kind of speech that might offend or might disturb.” Lukianoff sees a cry wolf aspect to the invocation of safety. “If you say you are in physical danger, when you just despise what someone has to say about you. When you are actually in physical danger people might think you mean that
you’re just uncomfortable. “I think that students should be very concerned by the way in which safety and the safe learning environment has been expanded to mean something as much as a right not to be offended. “The students who objected to Bindel’s column benefit from free speech. They can and should protest the speaker. They absolutely have the right to do that. But when it turns into the idea that because someone’s speech was so fundamentally objectionable that this gives them the right to stop them speaking, then they are misunderstanding some of the fundamentals of the concept. By invoking safety in that case, they are pulling out a very big weapon that potentially in the long run could censor them and a lot of ideas that they believe in that are controversial.” When the Students’ Union Exec banned the MDU’s flyers it was on the grounds they violated the Union’s policy of Zero Tolerance of Sexual Harassment. The Exec deemed the image objectifying because it was “a highly sexualised image of a woman in very little clothing.” In his book Unlearning Liberty: Campus censorship and the end of American debate, Lukianoff argues harassment codes have been misinterpreted and are threatening free speech. “The student at SUNY Oswego was brought up on harassment. The student who was punished for publicly reading a book about the Klan was found guilty of racial harassment. “The abuse of harassment codes on college campuses is real and it makes people uncomfortable because they say ‘but people shouldn’t be racially and sexually harassed!’ We all agree that people should not be racially and sexually harassed. But racial and sexual harassment rules were never meant to restrict free speech. “The problem is because there is such a strong belief in the rightness of preventing harassment… administrators are allowed to get away with the broadest possible interpretation of harassment, that it effectively turns into the right not to be offended.” The NUS has a No Platform policy,
Every movement in the history of censorship believed at some level it was saving the world which prevents controversial speakers who hold far-right racist views from speaking. Speakers banned under the No Platform policy include Nick Griffin MEP, EDL Leader Tommy Robinson. Lukianoff added, that he believes such policies end up hurting the very students they aim to protect. “Even if you hear the voice of ignorance, it helps you understand why you believe what you believe in the first place. If you have a set of beliefs that have never been challenged. There’s a tendency to not know why you had those beliefs in the first place. Holding your beliefs in the same way, in the same way people hold political prejudices means you are very good at explaining what they think on every single political issue. But, you are very poor at explaining why. “Being offended is what happens when you have your deepest beliefs challenged, if you make it through four years of university without having your deepest beliefs challenged, you should ask for your money back. “You can’t beat racism and discrimination by changing the law. You put some people into the position where it’s actually is easier to be racist because they don’t have to defend their ideas in the first place. They can just whisper the idea in someone’s ear and spread hateful opinions.” Lukianoff talks of a further problem
that restrictions on free speech contribute towards a climate of racial paranoia. “John L Jackson, an AfricanAmerican scholar at University of Pennsylvania, explains in his book Racial Paranoia that you can actually make people much more paranoid about the world they live in. You can have people believe that society is so savage, so hostel, so offensive, that the only thing that’s going to make this bearable for anyone to live in this society is the coercion of the law. “If you want to know what the world actually looks like you have to hear what people think. I think that my overall optimism is that while you may hear offensive points of view, but I think you’ll find that a lot of the opinions you might agree with do very well in the marketplace of ideas, and that racism doesn’t do very well. “There’s a value in knowing what people think, that if someone is racist or is hateful, the best thing they can do for you is to let you know that. If there’s a room of 24 people, and three are horrible Nazis it’s probably best that I know that.” Lukianoff argues that the best action a student can take to fight censorship is to raise awareness about violations of free speech. “I think in Britain there has to be a return to the idea of free speech being essential, even when it means hearing things that can potentially be hurtful. One thing that people have lost, particularly on campuses, is that at the core of freedom of speech is a deep-seated humility. “We could all benefit by knowing a little bit more about what the other thinks, and approaching things with a little more humility about what we do, and what we can know. That’s the principle behind tolerance. “You can’t predict what individual speech might incite someone to good action, incite someone to deep thought. The humility of a pluralistic system of free speech is something those who have a soft spot for censorship would do well to remember. “
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Opinion
ISSUE 03/ 30th SEPTEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM
Bouncers; an unchecked menace or preserver of the peace? Joe Anthony Ian Hislop Photo: Rosie Hallam Photography
My Political Hero... Ian Hislop
Newport Bouncers Len Harrhy, left, and Richard Davis. Photo: Wales Online (Channel 4: ‘Bouncers’) Courage can evaporate from even the toughest bartender when they find themselves informing a customer who looks like a more sinister version of Bane that he’s had a Jaeger-bomb too many. Clearly, trying to evict a rowdy, inebriated group of steroid junkies celebrating their friend’s prison release is a traumatising ordeal for any member of staff at your average bar. Yet all these stresses melt away when the establishment in question has doormen. Knowing that you have a blank cheque of physicality backing you up turns what would otherwise be a perilously stressful shift into a relatively harmonious experience. In recent weeks, many people across the country will have felt a softening of their antagonism towards private security staff after watching Channel Four’s new documentary ‘Bouncers’, as the show strives to humanise the men and women who guard our Friday night. How can one help but like ‘Gordon’, our protagonist, as he soulfully reflects on the nuances of his profession. At one point we listen as he waxes lyrical about how security staff are ‘a counsellor, social worker, philosopher, friend, enemy, sometimes just a shoulder to cry on – it’s all rolled into one’. Bouncers inhabit a strange legal and ethical grey area in modern life. They have a monopoly on violence within their immediate jurisdiction. Theirs is one of the only professions that are legally sanctioned to make physical contact with members of the public, yet they are far from police officers in both rights and responsibilities. To govern this precarious scenario the government made it obligatory for all bouncers to get an official licence for which training is required. Currently in the UK, police officers receive two years probationary training before being
deployed to the streets. To become a bouncer on the other hand is a lot less strenuous. If you have three days spare and £200, the licence is yours for three years: hardly a rigorous selection process. The hegemonic position these men and women find themselves in can often lead to what a casual observer might call a ‘god-complex’. With a legal right to use physical force, full backing of both the police and club owners and no system of oversight, club bouncers represent a powerful force in the average person’s night out. Throw into the mix the fact that a bouncer can ruin someone’s plans on a whim, plans for which the customer may already have invested time and money and we find a situation where Britain’s doormen enjoy an almost overbearing level of power. This may all seem banal and petty until the consequences of this system take on far graver dimensions. A Manchester court found last year that the death of Julian Webster, 24, outside a Deansgate nightclub, was the result of the effects of the bouncer’s ‘chin-lock restraint technique’ combined with pre-existing medical issues. The restraint technique was not in itself illegal and used after Mr Webster acted in a way that was ‘deemed to be threatening’, resulting in no prosecutions being sought. It is therefore not difficult to understand why bouncers have such a low reputation among student circles. Many of those who do go out have a story of abuse suffered at the hands of doormen; be it racial slurs, sexual harassment and physical altercations. Of course clouded by the haze of alcohol, the customer’s judgement is rarely astute, their sensitivities at pubescent levels and their manners only vaguely present. So perhaps confrontation is
merely the inevitable result when two groups with antithetical interests and objectives collide. It is important to remember that it is the general public that have created the demand for bouncers. We as a society have adopted an incredibly unhealthy ‘weekend warrior’ culture. One only needs to walk through any student halls to hear cheers of ‘down it fresher’ echoing ominously off the walls. Fuelled by cheap drink offers and social acceptance of extreme drunkenness, the British now drink ‘as regularly as Mediterraneans but binge like Scandinavians’ according to The Economist, resulting in a perfect storm of inebriation. Our high streets have got to the point where Sunderland City Council employ bouncers to guard taxi queues, Southend are making club doormen mandatory whilst Stoke on Trent ordered an OAP charity event to employ door staff for its ‘Goldenhill Sing-Song’. Many of these jobs were formally the reserve of the police, but come kicking out time the official keepers of the peace are stretched to the limit. So business owners, the council and the police all turn to private security to help keep a lid on the potential chaos that is the typical 2.am British high street. This article should not be read as an assault on the private security profession. The overwhelming majority of bouncers across the country are invariably decent, law-abiding citizens who perform an incredibly demanding job under tough conditions. Though they may appear to be the supreme enforcer of arbitrary rules they provide an essential service, made inevitable by our actions. It is just a pity so many do their job with such disdain for the customer.
The defining moment that transformed someone I merely admired into my political hero came on an episode of Have I Got News for You in 2011. The debate was about the Occupy movement, who were at the time residing outside St. Pauls Cathedral in London protesting economic inequality and corporate greed. Louise Mensch, chick-lit author and Thatcherite extraordinaire was holding forth on how the views of the protesters were worthless, if you considered their partiality for iPhones, coffee from Starbucks and relatively nice tents, to the staggered indication of the other panellists. “It’s just so obvious I can’t be bothered” laughed Ian Hislop. “You don’t have to want to return to a barter system in the stone-age to complain about the way the financial crisis affected large numbers of people in the world, even if you’re having a cup of coffee and you’ve got a tent!” Pure, incisive, brilliance. I was hooked. From that moment on I became a Hislop disciple, subscribing to Private Eye and revelling in its fortnightly cutting satire with the same joy as if I were the one uncovering the stories of grubby backhanders and salacious deals made during off-the-record lunches. An Oxford graduate, Hislop is one of the ‘good ole Oxbridge lot’, managing to shake off the elitism and privilege that abounded at the time to pursue a career in laughter and the exposure of corruption for the public good. His appointment as the editor of Private Eye was controversial to say the least, hired by the then editor Richard Ingrams straight out of university he became editor in 1986 following Ingrams departure, to the horror of Eye journalists Peter McKay and Nigel Dempster. Considering Hislop a young upstart, they attempted a revolt, with McKay taking out the majority shareholder, Peter Cook, to a boozy lunch in an effort to dissuade him from appointing Hislop. This backfired spectacularly as Cook announced that he was “welcome aboard”, and Hislop subsequently sacked both adversaries upon becoming editor. Since that contentious beginning, he has been hailed as the most sued man in English legal history, due to the many extensive libel cases brought against the publication. When you think that he has only won two out of the myriad of lawsuits brought to the Eye, his determination to continue to uncover and print allegations about the most powerful and corrupt is superbly kamikaze. Apart from his role as chief satirist, he has also deeply impressed me with his consistent political independence; critical of all the major parties for the last twenty years, he favours rationality over political rigmarole and has praised and demeaned each parties policies as he sees fit. Never in all his appearances as team captain on Have I Got News for You (every episode since 1990), has he ever laid down the gauntlet for a specific party or belief, allowing him to rip into each guest politician without being encumbered by a sense of loyalty. It’s wonderful to see someone be so political, but not politically-affiliated. Charlotte Green
Opinion
ISSUE 03 / 30th SEPTEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM
11
In the wake of Student Action week the question is...
YES The process of taking me and my possessions to university for the first time had the inevitable effect of triggering within my father that most incorrigible of parental reflexes; nostaliga. His stories of sit-ins and radical Trotskyists chain smoking rollups in the library café led me to believe that Fallowfield would be a thick den of heated debate and ideological discourse. Yet this turned out to be far from the truth. The reality is that most students are apathetic at best and actively opposed at worst to any sort of political involvement or display of passion. More often than not, a strongly held opinion receives a sneeringly cynical look of disdain. Of course to say that student activism is dead is obviously a rather controversial and inflammatory statement. One could easily point to the scores of political societies that exist on the Union’s books as testament to student’s continued involvement in political issues. Yet my argument is not that there are no politically motivated students. The crux of the issue is that
Joe Anthony compared to the mass activism of previous generations, our student politics appears meek and disinterested. In comparison to the idealistic student protests of the 1960’s, the destruction of the Millbank building in 2010 seemed petty and selfish. Only when student’s self-interests were threatened could we be roused to action. In this day and age political causes are only fleeting; the 24 hour news cycle washes away the issue before people can even respond it. We are barraged by news from hundreds of different sources as attention spans wane and distractions multiply. Therefore when an issue manages to break through the miasma and actually motivate people to action, it can be seen a significant success. Last year we had just that, as the Kony 2012 campaign managed to grab the attention of young people everywhere. With its slick production, snazzy graphics and shameless tugging of the heart strings, the Kony campaign took a complex, multifaceted issue and reduced it to an easily digestible,
“Is Student activism dead?”
simplistic narrative of good vs. evil. Throughout university people shared, ‘liked’ and retweeted the campaign without a shred of background knowledge of the actual issues, only to be bludgeoned with the dull reality that Kony was not in Uganda, had not been active for years and that the group behind the campaign were evangelical Christians who were pocketing millions of dollars out of the movement. Kony 2012 is the textbook example of what political activism is for most students in recent years. Whether you call it ‘clicktivism’, ‘slacktivism’ or jumping on the band wagon; tweeting for a free Tibet or liking the ‘Save the NHS’ Facebook page cannot be viewed as serious political activism. Political involvment for students, once a bastion of university life, is now little more than a fringe activity. Therefore in relative terms, student activism is dead.
Student activism reached its evident pinnacle in 2010 with nationwide tuition fee protests prompting hundreds of thousands of students to claim their own political voice. Those who argue that student activism is now dead cite the lack of success of protests such as these. However, that argument misses the point of student activism entirely. Widespread student protests have become manifest since the 1960s when students established themselves as a distinct political demographic. By campaigning as a group on issues such as nuclear proliferation and the Vietnam War students demonstrated that they were an independent social entity with different opinions to other parts of the adult population. Notably, almost all of these trailblazing protests were
Alice Rigby unsuccessful in achieving the actual ends that they had envisioned. Yet they are burned onto the collective memory of the world. Clearly, this student activism had an impact. It is this form of activism that students today look to when they stand up to defend their own interests on social issues. Although this activism may not achieve any meaningful change, challenging the status quo and ensuring that a different voice is heard has its own merits. For those who dismiss student activism, the fluctuating popularity of student protest is frustrating. It appears that this kind of activism is fashionable and that the majority of participant’s involvement is encouraged by a momentary interest rather than a long-term concern. However, this should not diminish the value of student protest. At university, students are engaging with issues on an intellectual level for the first time. Without the prejudices of home distorting their personal
NO perspective, teenagers can consider their own intuition on social issues and many form strong opinions on the basis of these. While the strength of these points of view is often only fleeting, they are the foundation on which that person’s political engagement will be based for the rest of their lives. Even if they only act on this conviction once, they are engaging with the political process and the world around them on a level some people never will. This gives student activism value in itself, regardless of results. The most powerful response to those who dismiss student activism is the emotional reaction of those who, even momentarily, get involved in it. The power of uniting with peers and making your own opinion heard, for probably the first time, is something both irreplaceable and unforgettable. Whilst that power is still available students will continue to buy into it and student activism cannot be dead.
Disagree? Tweet us @mancuniondebate, or email us at opinion@mancunion.com
The Pussy Riot incarceration, repeated abuses of civil liberties and now damaging anti-gay laws Charlotte Green explains why the University of Manchester should be at the forefront of student pressure on Russia Russia has been in the news for all the wrong reasons over the past two years. The imprisonment of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot after an allegedly ‘blasphemous’ impromptu performance in a Moscow Cathedral in February 2012 caused an international outcry and widespread condemnation of Russia’s perceived political and religious intolerance. Subsequent tensions rose over the enduring Russian support for President Assad’s regime in Syria which hindered attempts by the UN to establish a consolidated international taskforce, and created a bureaucratic and political maelstrom within NATO that raged whilst thousands of Syrians were being shot, bombed and gassed. Most recently in June came the news that President Putin (himself recently re-elected after a dubiously ‘honest’ election) had passed a series of fundamentally antigay pieces of legislation; banning the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality and gay ‘propaganda’, crimes that have been made punishable with fines of $30,000, as well as up to fourteen days detainment and ensuing deportation for foreign visitors who breach the new codes. The anti-gay legislation has caused many gay rights organisations and public figures to demand a boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics that are due to be held in Sochi next year. The call for a boycott intensified when the Russian Minister for Sport, Vitaly Mutko, made it clear that athletes will not be exempt from the ban and the safety of gay
LGBT protestors are arrested by police in Moscow. Photo: Jeremy Nicholl Archive athletes could not be guaranteed. A petition asking the International Olympic Committee to relocate the games to Vancouver has gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures and a letter from Stephen Fry written to David Cameron and the International Olympic Committee explaining his opposition to the games went viral over Facebook within a few hours. But what exactly is ‘gay propaganda’ and how can you legislate against it? The law against “propaganda for non-traditional sexual relations” essentially bans not only the act of providing information about homosexuality to minors, but also speaking in defence of gay rights or comparing gay and heterosexual relationships as being of equal standing. The law was enacted in July when four Dutch filmmakers who had attended a conference on gay rights were held overnight and subsequently
deported, for ‘exceeding the terms of their “cultural exchange” visas’. The law was passed through the Duma (the Russian Parliament) with only one abstention and the vitriol and fervour with which Putin explained how the new measures would cleanse Russia was sickening to observe. As an international issue it initially seems unclear what impact Manchester can have in halting the tide of prejudice spewing from Russia. However this city is in fact in a unique position to apply pressure on a key city, as it is ‘twinned’ with St. Petersburg, formerly Leningrad, and Vladimir Putin’s hometown. During August city councillors used the link to condemn the new legislation with a letter to the governor of St. Petersburg, stating that that “inclusivity and tolerance” are essential for the “enrichment of a city”, although they stopped short of ‘severing ties’ with the city. But more
needs to be done. The University of Manchester is an international institution of learning, ranked among the top universities in the world and attracts student from every corner of the globe. We should be the ones to begin a nationwide student campaign against Russia’s current crackdown on civil liberties and human rights. Businesses in both Manchester and London that cater to the gay community have begun a boycott of Russian-manufactured spirits, one that should be joined by our Student Union. After all, if it can ban Robin Thicke for drearily singing a plagiarised song surrounded by semi-naked women, boycotting Russian vodka is a walk in the park. The university also contains a huge number of sporting organisations, how do they feel about the potential endangerment of athletes during the Winter Olympics as a result of their sexual orientation or simply their support for gay rights? Sport Against Sochi? It’s got a nice ring to it. Because let’s get one thing straight, no pun intended; this attack is not about being gay and whether you are one or not. It’s an attack on personal freedom, on liberty, on the right to love who you want regardless of their gender, race, religion, ethnicity, whatever. Personally I fear that the backlash against sexual freedom will, if it is not checked, expand and spread, infecting others with prejudice and hatred until even our government is once again referring to ‘deviants’, ‘perversions’ and advocating sexual correction. If you support the right to choose and to love freely, without fear of persecution, then I ask you to support a University boycott of Russian-manufactured spirits and a national boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics. Oh, and you can send President Putin a dildo too, just for good measure.
ISSUE 03/30th SEPTEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM
Opinion
Editors: Phoebe Clarke, Patrick Hinton, Tom Ingham Interview: Sub Focus
the
MUSIC OPINION
Scuba vs. Zomby Patrick Hinton Music Editor Scuba is insufferable, that’s well known; it’s even been covered in The Mancunion before. However, this is often acknowledged in conjunction with labelling Zomby in the same way, unfairly in my view. The latest twitter spat between the two resulted in Zomby being unceremoniously scrubbed from the bill of WHP’s Modeselektion night, allegedly on Scuba’s demand. This left many ticket holders greatly disappointed at being deprived of a rare chance to see the elusive Zomby. The recent addition of fellow masked DJ, but purveyor of mediocrity, SBTRKT to the line up only heightened the devastated pangs at what might have been. Others favour Scuba. I fall firmly on the side of Zomby and I offer this comparision to explain why you should too. Zomby is a talented and versatile producer, adept at creating tunes across many genres from jungle to UKGarage. Scuba has gone from making credible techno music to filling his sets with Ibiza trance anthems that I bet the ‘bros’ at the main stage of Creamfields really love. Sure this criticism is just personal preference and I‘m sure I appear snobby, but hey this is my opinion piece. Both DJs are frequent twitter users and their conduct on the social network has been a decisive factor in creating their love/hate status. In my view, Zomby comes across as a loveable prick. Sure he goes off on arbitrary rants at people but everything he says is so wrapped up in hyperbole and ridiculousness that I can’t believe anyone takes it seriously. He also provides
TOP5
Songs
of the Summer Ben Glover
excellent cultural commentary like “His fade is terrible”, said of Kim Jong-Un, and tackles social injustice: “superman was arrogant..he chose to pick who to save at will usually white americans ..racist and also elitist”. Scuba on the other hand exudes smugness with every loathsome tweet he spews. These range from mocking the suffering of the recently deceased, “Whoever at Apple made the decision to use .m4a as the itunes audio format should be subjected to a long and painful death. Actually that’s probably already happened hasn’t it?”, to plain self-infatuation which the fulfilled promise of a naked photo at 40,000 followers demonstrated. Perhaps Scuba is also playing a character, surely no one could genuinely be so arrogant? Wrong. This is evidenced by the most damning factor of all - his questionable views on women, which some might find deeply offensive. This was proven by his public agreement with the statement “Feminism is not so much an ideology as a minority of women attempting to assert control on other women”. Only a sexist would twist the most recognised female empowerment beliefs into antifeminist bile. I’ve strayed from opinion to objectiveness here, right? Meanwhile, Zomby has stated his political views as “not in protest against anything but shit music and shit clothes..and bad fades” – a noble pursuit, I’m sure you agree. So if you’re at Modeselektion, make sure you’re on the barrier during Scuba’s set, wearing a V for Vendetta mask and shouting abuse. #TeamZomby.
1. Breach - Jack Love or hate it, Jack’s sheer omnipresence safely secures it the title Tune Of The Summer. Its stupidly catchy vocal hook gave an otherwise uninteresting song mass appeal & an express ticket to Radio 1-playlisted fame.
the MUSIC INTERVIEW
Sub Focus
In anticipation for the release of his new album ‘Torus’, Phoebe Clarke caught up with Nick Douwma aka Sub Focus to discuss space ships, inspirations and collaborations. Phoebe Clarke Music Editor Nick Douwma, better known as Sub Focus, has become one of the most important voices working in British electronic music today. From humble beginnings as a bedroom DJ, the now household name worked his way to notoriety as producer for chart toppers ‘Kickstarts’ (Example) and ‘Flashing Lights’ (Chase & Status). Drum and Bass heads will know him best for single ‘Out The Blue’ that has been played at every club and festival around the world and features on new album ‘Torus’. However, the rest of his new material is set to propel him further into the realm of mainstream success. “I started off wanting to write a bunch of electronic music in different genres,” he explains. “I’m certainly known for DnB such as ‘Out The Blue’, but there’s a mixture of a lot of different influences on this album. There’s House, Dub Step, general Electronic and even Indi references on tracks ‘Turn It Around’ and ‘Tidal Wave’. I wanted it to be diverse, a listening journey from start to finish.” Defending the diversion from his signature DnB sound, he replies, “it wasn’t a conscious decision to go more “mainstream”. It’s just adding extra dimensions to my sound. I used to spend years making underground club music and so it seems like a nice evolution to be writing more songs.” In fact, the diversity of the album has secured much support from DJs ranging from Skrillex to Avicii. “It’s been really cool to see different DJs playing it. I wanted to write more songs than I did on the last record as it’s true a lot of artists write new material depending on the reaction to their last album.” With collaborations ranging from Bloc Party’s Kele Okereke to upcoming vocalist Foxes, diversity is the running theme on ‘Torus’.
2. Paul Woolford Untitled The combination of a dark bass roll and a gorgeously-summery piano line would be enough. But then that vocal erupts. At first a surprise, it evolves with every listen into an anticipated, yet still spine-tingling, climax.
The film 2001: A Space Odyssey was a big influence as I wanted the artwork to reflect the idea of an unexplained object. “Coming from DnB, I wanted to pick people who were quite unusual and not normally associated with it for collaboration. I really like ‘Until the End’ on the new album, as I feel Foxes suits the track perfectly. MNEK has a great tone that works perfectly on ‘Close’ and I’ve always been a big Bloc Party fan so was keen to work with Kele.” “I believe it’s the unusual combinations that work. When you combine two things that don’t normally mix, for example the Indi sound and Drum and Bass, you get a cool mix of retro Dance with modern House, such as on ‘Turn Back Time’. I also have more confidence writing songs with other people than on my own. Although I would consider using my own vocals in the future, it’s a bit weird working on your own voice.” It’s not just collaborations but the artwork and samples used on ‘Torus’ that push boundaries. He describes, “a lot of my material is influenced by futuristic sound tracks as I’m a massive fan of sci-fi”. Similarly, the artwork has an unusual concept where a ‘torus’ shaped disk is the running feature “I wanted
3. Disclosure-You and Me Though totally unfashionable now, Disclosure reminded us this summer why they’re preposterously famous. Yes, the lyrics- “home is where the heart is”- are doormat-awful, but when your chorus has a bassline this danceable it doesn’t matter.
a simple shape people could easily identify with Sub Focus” he explains. “The film 2001: A Space Odyssey was a big influence as I wanted the artwork to reflect the idea of an unexplained object.” “I started off playing with a disc shape on the cover of ‘Out the Blue’ and ‘Torus’ was the geometric name for that shape. It felt like the natural title, as the design became such a monument for the album. It reminds me of space ship design in the future, something rotating, to imitate gravity.” The Sub Focus website similarly features this ‘torus’ shape in stunning 3D graphics that uses panorama to place the shape in locations around the globe. Excitingly, visitors can also preview every track before its release on 30th September here. “I wanted to move this shape into the real world and so placed it in various locations on Google maps that had relevance to the tracks. It was great fun working with a 3D web designer to animate the disc and see the concept come to life.” Looking to the future, Sub Focus will be hitting the Ritz in Manchester on 17th October. “Although the next thing for me is touring with my live show, hitting Manchester soon and then onto the USA and Australia, I’m always coming up with different ideas and will no doubt be making all kinds of music in the future. I feel my sound development for this album happened very organically and I’ve similarly already started working on music that could be the direction of my future material.” You can catch Sub Focus Live at the Ritz on the 17th October whilst album ‘Torus’ is available now to pre-order and buy on the 30th September.
4. Tessela - Hackney Parrot (Special Request VIP) The original was last year’s most hyped tune, this took us through it all again. Spin-backs, sirens and samples referencing Ford Fiestas ignited crowds on hearing this for the first time.
5. Ten Walls- Gotham Gotham isn’t your textbook summer anthem. Clocking in at over nine spooky and shadowy minutes, this techie roller is given legendary status by its timeless creep-up, creep-down synth line. Label Innervisions never fails to impress.
ISSUE 03/ 30th September 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM
: @MancunionMusic : / TheMancunionMusicSection
Music
13
Opinion
The Music Behind the Murder Tom Ingham Music Editor Kill, kill, drive, kill, fly a helicopter, kill, carjack, kill …wait, is this Warren G? Grand Theft Auto has reached iconic status in the world of gaming. Allegations of influencing murders have meant the game is largely recognised for its nonchalant approach to violence. However, growing up GTA meant so much more to a generation that had Franz Ferdinand hailed Best British Group in 2005. Admittedly, the main source of satisfaction in GTA comes from rampaging around town at high speeds whilst shooting hookers, but as enjoyable as that is it can become monotonous after a period if you don’t have a decent soundtrack to complement the terror. GTA: Vice City was the first biggie in terms of soundtracks, with the likes of Ozzy, Kate Bush, Luther Vandross and Grandmaster Flash gracing the airwaves. The game is a mix of respectable, established artists, and Spandau Ballet. Despite the jukebox nature of the artists Vice City was a real education, and more importantly a first big exposure to some of the sounds only previously
heard emanating from your parents car – I often heard Luther blaring from my Dads Rover 200 late at night, but strangely he never seemed to set off anywhere. As enjoyable as Vice City was the real daddy is of course San Andreas, set in 1992 the game expanded to include three metropolitan cities, introducing gamers to the legendary Radio Los Santos. Having been raised by a Progressive Rock enthusiast and an Al Green nut, I can boast having been to five Jethro Tull concerts (with a sixth on its way), so you can imagine the shock I received as an 11 year old hearing ‘Nuthin But a ‘G’ Thang’ for the first time. Radio Los Santos offered kids who seemed doomed to live their whole lives listening to Hall & Oates a slim chance of normality. To have Lynyrd Skynyrd, N.W.A and Hank Williams all in one package was a truly wonderful thing, and my first real peak past 70’s, cape wearing indulgence. But just as I thought I was on the road to becoming a Gold Teeth regular, Vice City Stories happened. If being set yet again in the 1980’s wasn’t bad enough, this game not only featured five songs from Phil and the Genesis lot (Genesis really should have changed names post-Gabriel, but that’s another article) but also the man himself.
Frustratingly the objective is to save Collins from murder in the missions, but nevertheless he’s the first recognised musician to appear in the Grand Theft Auto series, lending a charming, animated performance of ‘In the Air Tonight’ to the game. Now, on to the latest chapter in the series, GTA: V .This is by far the most sophisticated operation yet with 17 radio stations, plus original contributions from the likes of Tyler, The Creator and an original score that adapts to the actual gameplay (apparently anyway, I’m no gaming expert). Split into three volumes, the one I’m interested in is Vol.3 which features the much loved Radio Los Santos as well as new station FlyLo FM that plays original compositions as well as a hefty
chunk from Flying Lotus’ back catalogue. All of this is most impressive, but the inclusion of ‘Party All the Time’ by the one and only Eddie Murphy tops the lot – an absolute treat! I can’t say I’m going to shell out for the game that’s taking over the world, mainly because I ditched my console some years ago, but I am glad to see that what I always considered the most rewarding part of GTA just getting better and better. And if you don’t like running over policemen, park up somewhere in Blaine County and just enjoy the tunes, guilt free – although I would kill someone so as not to arouse suspicion.
Oxjam Manchester 2013 reaches its epic conclusion with the Takeover event on Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th October. Oxjam Manchester will be ‘taking over’ the Northern Quarter with a multi-venue music and performing arts festival showcasing the best of Manchester’s varied musical talent! You can catch everything from Hip-Hop to Gypsy Punk to fire poi performers. Early bird tickets available from WeGotTickets for £8.
Opinion
Live: Roger Waters - The Wall Manchester Arena - Monday 16th September 2013 Who’d have thought a blank brick wall could ever symbolise one of the most ingeniously-conceived concept albums of all time, and arguably the most exciting and ambitious live show ever staged? Rockopera The Wall, released by Pink Floyd in 1979 is performed in full tonight by bassist Roger Waters. It tells the story of fictional character Pink, whose traumatic experiences through adolescence and early adulthood cause him to build a metaphorical wall, isolating him from the rest of the world and sending him into a spiral of mental decay. Rocketing fireworks accompany the first thunderous chords of opener ‘In The Flesh?’ as Waters takes to an enormous stage already housing the beginnings of a colossal brick wall. ‘The Thin Ice’ brings proceedings down to a gentler level, with soothing harmonies providing a stark contrast to its foreboding lyrics. During the song, images of fallen loved ones lost in the war that fans sent in prior to the show are projected onto the bricks, until the whole wall stands as a monument to their sacrifice. It’s the first appearance of an anti-war theme that permeates through the music for much of the night. Gone are the days of corporal punishment and intimidating, dogmatic school teachers, but “We don’t need no education” is a sentiment that will always be shared by future generations. Indeed, ‘Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2’ is met with rapturous applause, as a huge puppet descends from the ceiling, revealing itself as the terrifying headmaster character so brilliantly designed by Gerald Scarfe in the ‘70s. Its slinking limbs move in a spider-like fashion, towering over both the band and a group of children from a local secondary school. It is perhaps the most disco-like Pink Floyd have ever sounded, with an infectious guitar riff leaving no doubts as to why it became their most successful single. As the show progresses and the tone darkens, audience and band become increasingly separated as bricks get added to the wall. ‘Goodbye Cruel World’ sees the final brick put into place just before the brief intermission, signaling the beginning of a much darker, unsettling second half. The scale of the performance, both literally in terms of the wall size and logistically in terms of constructing a 400-brick wall while a twelve-piece band perform, is stunning to behold. A marriage of music and technology, the bombardment of
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sights and sounds brings the brain-child of Roger Waters to life, with the wall being employed as a projection screen for much of the show. It takes widescreen to a completely new level. Musically, the highlight of the night is ‘Comfortably Numb’, the rousing guitar epic tailor-made for arenas. A huge spotlight illuminates guitarist Dave Kilminster in dramatic fashion as that electrifying guitar break rings through the stadium. Taking on a Gilmour guitar solo is no mean feat, but Kilminster executes it with aplomb. Midway through the meandering second guitar solo, Waters slams his fists on the wall and some clever projection tricks see the dull, grey wall shatter to reveal a psychedelic canvas of bright colours. ‘Waiting for the Worms’ and ‘The Trial’ bring the show to a rather theatrical end, with projections of Scarfe’s animated clips lifted straight from the film. Iconic imagery of the marching hammers and disturbing Judge character (who is, quite literally, a giant asshole) work to combine all three mediums of The Wall: the music, film and live show. It truly takes on a life of its own in a live environment, and concludes in a spectacular nature when the 40-foot wall collapses in a cloud of dust and heap of bricks. The greatest compliment to the whole production, and the 1979 album itself, is that even after so long, the political and social commentary remains more ominously relevant than ever. Imbued with themes of isolation, abusive teachers, overprotective mothers, the horrors of war, and societal segregation, the show is relatable both on a personal level but also on a wider cultural level. From mere bricks and mortar in the mind of one disgruntled bassist in the ‘70s, to a fully-fledged live experience the likes of which no other artist has attempted, the development of The Wall is something very special. “So ya’ thought ya’ might like to go to the show” Waters sings on The Wall’s opening line. After this performance, you’d be mad not to go. George Bailey Sub Editor.
14
Music
ISSUE 03/30th SEPTEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM
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Now: DJ EZ - FabricLive.71
For full listings visit:
manchesteracademy.net SEPTEMBER The Twang Monday 30th
Fabric Records. Release Date; September 2013
The FabricLive series has grown to become a unique and honourable opportunity for the best DJs of the moment to express their musical diversity and mixing capability all under the name of one of Britain’s most iconic dance music brands. In recent memory, the FabricLive mixes have been conquered by the likes of; Jackmaster, Oneman and Four Tet, so it seems long overdue that the greatest UK garage DJ of all time should be asked to compile a mix and add the name DJ EZ to this respected list. Though EZ has been a staple figure in underground music for over a decade, the overwhelmingly positive response to that Boiler Room set has prompted somewhat of a resurgence over the last eight months for the North Londoner. From Parklife to Outlook, EZ has had a triumphant summer doing
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what he does best: leaving punters mimicking his rather special cueing technique whilst shouting “Little man!” at the top of their voices. Indeed, DJ EZ’s FabricLive demonstrates perfectly how the garage legend has been able win over new fans. The construction of this mixtape starts with brilliant track selection as old school anthems like ‘Sincere’ by MJ Cole and ‘All I Do’ by Cleptomaniacs are met with modern takes on garage from Disclosure and Woz as EZ confirms his relevance in today’s dance scene. However, for all the undoubted classics that DJ EZ graces this mix with, it is his own twist on them that makes FabricLive 71 great. The individual style of vocal chopping and cueing is an art that EZ has perfected so well that he is able to create an almost totally new sounding track before the imminent drop of another party shaking selection. EZ’s craftsmanship behind the decks is beautifully exemplified in this FabricLive mix as the steel drums from Wookie’s ‘Little Man’ remix are mixed and matched with the previous track before a brief climax to the drop. The mixing is of such quality that at times there is an uncertainty to whether it is the original track, a remix, or whether EZ has blended something entirely different - but this is what makes any of DJ EZ’s work so original and interesting, you just don’t know what’s coming next. With Fabric providing a sizable launchpad for this mixtape, EZ deserves to break away from merely being a garage legend and step up to the status as one the best DJs across any genre from this country. Sam Bartram
Then: The Beatles - Abbey Road Apple; September 1969 Few bands have emulated the success of the Beatles and whilst everyone has their favourite album, Abbey Road is surely up there at the band’s zenith. Their penultimate studio album was ranked the 14th greatest album of all time by Rolling Stone and has an iconic place in both British culture and music history. The album features a contrast of sounds, arguably tying together a decade’s worth of work as the Beatles would be no more by the following year. Classic love-based tracks are featured such as ‘Oh! Darling’, whilst more psychedelic songs appeared in the form of ‘Because’ and ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’. The opening track ‘Come Together’ is one of the finest late gifts the Beatles would leave behind. A mellow McCartney bass line underpinned the classic, as Lennon sang the lyrics in staccato style. Singing ‘One thing I can tell you is you’ve got to be free’, it’s almost as if they knew the infamous Sixties, and everything that came with the period, were over. A fine guitar solo is featured midway through the song, reflective of the Beatles at their best and showing they were by no means out of ideas come this album. Contrary to the Lennon/McCartney focus, Harrison was also vital part of the Beatles and the songs he wrote were amongst their best (yes he was my favourite Beatle). ‘Something’ and ‘Here Comes the Sun’ show his musical ability could align with the over spoken front duo. ‘Something’ holds true to the classic love ballads that have won over so many, whilst ‘Here Comes the Sun’ has a certain feel good
factor. As the acoustic guitar plays and the lyrics begin, one knows the winter is well and truly gone. Whilst it would be unfair not to mention Ringo’s ‘Octopus’s Garden’, his features have always seemed like a frivolous bonus track to each album, despite holding a questionably enjoyable appeal. Abbey Road remains an iconic album and image today, with the artwork displaying the quartet on the zebra crossing outside EMI studios a famous staple of popular culture. At the very least Abbey Road holds a sentimental value, as the Beatles wound down their unrivalled career. At its best, it represented a decade of musicianship whose image and sound would be recognised to this day. Alex Fenton
OCTOBER Reckless Love Tuesday 1st The Airborne Toxic Event Wednesday 2nd Hip Hop Shakespeare: Richard II Wednesday 2nd Fat Freddy’s Drop Friday 4th Kids In Glass Houses Friday 4th Wheatus Friday 4th Black Spiders Friday 4th Funeral For A Friend Saturday 5th Miles & Erica (of The Wonder Stuff) Saturday 5th Manc Floyd Saturday 5th Bootleg Festival Sunday 6th Glasvegas Monday 7th Johnny Flynn & The Sussex Wit Monday 7th Ryan Keen Wednesday 9th Kacey Musgraves Thursday 10th Johnny Marr Saturday 12th The Orb + System 7 Saturday 12th Turisas Saturday 12th The South Sunday 13th Children Of Bodom Monday 14th The Devil Wears Prada Monday 14th The Quireboys Tuesday 15th Sebadoh Tuesday 15th Goo Goo Dolls Wednesday 16th The Answer Thursday 17th Volbeat Friday 18th Kate Nash Saturday 19th UK Foo Fighters Saturday 19th Orange Sunday 20th Toyah Saturday 19th AlunaGeorge Monday 21st Baroness Tuesday 22nd Roachford Tuesday 22nd The Feeling Wednesday 23rd Skid Row/Ugly Kid Joe Thursday 24th Markey Ramone’s Blitzkrieg with Andrew WK Thursday 24th HIM Thursday 24th The Cult – Electric 13 Friday 25th The Pigeon Detectives Friday 25th John Power (Cast/The La’s) Friday 25th Real Radio XS Saturday 26th North Mississippi Allstars Saturday 26th The Blackout Saturday 26th Lissie Sunday 27th Warpaint Tuesday 29th Birdy Wednesday 30th Tyler Hilton Wednesday 30th
NOVEMBER
Bring Me The Horizon Monday 4th Watsky Tuesday 5th Deap Vally Tuesday 5th Dillinger Escape Plan Wednesday 6th 36 Crazyfists Thursday 7th Marillion Friday 8th The Union Friday 8th Whole Lotta Led Saturday 9th Satyricon Sunday 10th Defenders Of The Faith ft Amon Amarth Wednesday 13th The Wonder Years Wednesday 13th Stephen Lynch Live Thursday 14th Gary Numan Thursday 14th Laura Veirs Friday 15th Naughty Boy Saturday 16th Mallory Knox Sunday 17th Television Sunday 17th Blue October Monday 18th Hayseed Dixie Tuesday 19th They Might Be Giants Wednesday 20th The Rifles Thursday 21st The Virginmarys Friday 22nd The Temperance Movement Friday 22nd Absolute Bowie Saturday 23rd Lee Nelson Saturday 23rd MSMR Sunday 24th Barenaked Ladies Monday 25th The Fratellis Wednesday 27th Dan Baird Friday 29th Flux Pavilion Saturday 30th The Complete Stone Roses Saturday 30th
DECEMBER Capercaille Sunday 1st Papa Roach Thursday 5th Watain Thursday 5th White Lies Friday 6th Electric Six Friday 6th Dutch Uncles Friday 6th For Those About To Rock Saturday 7th The Word Alive Sunday 6th TheMenTheyCouldn’tHang Thursday12th Alabama 3 Friday 13th Kurt Vile Saturday 14th Gogol Bordello Saturday 14th Primal Scream Sunday 15th Levellers Friday 20th
JANUARY 2014 The 1975 Tuesday 7th Lamb of God Sunday 19th dan le sac vs Scroobius Pip Sunday 19th London Grammar Wednesday 29th RX Bandits Friday 31st
FEBRUARY 2014
Boomtown Rats Friday 1st IllumiNaughty Saturday 2nd 10pm – 5.30am
Ron Pope Tuesday 4th
Deserts Xuan Saturday 2nd Blood On The Dancefloor Sunday 3rd
Protest The Hero Thursday 6th
Academy.Gig.Ladder.Iss02.indd 1
Little Comets Wednesday 5th August Burns Red Monday 10th
27/09/2013 14:52
Games
ISSUE 03/ 30th SEPTEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM
15
Editor: Alasdair Preson Feature
Microsoft’s Mixed Messages Games Editor Alasdair Preston sorts through the noise to bring you up to date The biggest event in the gaming calendar is always E3, the gaming show held in Los Angeles annually. This year’s E3 did not disappoint. Microsoft and Sony wowed audiences with hordes of new details of their upcoming consoles. The Xbox One and Playstation 4 are set to launch on November 22nd and 29th respectively. The launch price for the Xbox One is £429, with the Playstation 4 coming in £70 cheaper at £349. At times like these, fans of a particular brand like to pick apart everything about their rival console. Unfortunately, Microsoft gave them a lot of fodder. While the ideas behind the Xbox One’s controversial policy changes are innovative, MS barely even mentioned their reasoning and instead worried many gamers with talk of stricter DRM (Digital Rights Management) involving the console requiring a constant internet connection to function and a harsh cutback on the viability of used games sales. Understandably, a vocal portion of the gaming community reacted badly to this news and, in an unexpected move; Microsoft later announced that many of these new functions would be reversed with a day one software patch. A victory for video game enthusiasts? Not necessarily. What Microsoft failed to emphasise about their stricter control of used games sales was that they’re aiming to adopt a system not unlike Steam, the most popular digital distribution platform for PC, Mac & Linux gaming. The main idea was to associate all of your purchases to your account. This allowed you to, for example, go to a friends house, sign in and have access to every game you own, not just the ones on your Xbox account or the ones you remembered to bring the disc for. The boxed copies of games themselves should be thought of more as a distribution system for this digital content, to save time and bandwidth for the bulky downloads. However, due to their lack of explanation, Microsoft eventually went back on this plan after a large fan backlash and will instead allow game trade-ins pretty much as before. Microsoft made a big deal over their expansion of the Xbox Live server capabilities. From a current total of around 15,000 servers
powering the service, the Xbox One will have up to 300,000 servers. This is approximately equivalent to the processing power of the entire world in 1999 and has cost Microsoft a reported $700 million to implement, perhaps explaining the higher price point on the Xbox One. They explained in a closed doors
press conference at E3 through Engineering Manager Jeff Henshaw some of the potential applications of this power previously unheard-of in the current generation. Mr Henshaw demonstrated this with an asteroid demo, and not the classic arcade game. Using data from NASA, engineers at Microsoft created a model of every single celestial body in our solar system. This tracked their trajectory and orbital position accurately, and even included everything approximately 30,000 light-years outside the system. This, Jeff explained, was being run on a single Xbox One unit. He zoomed in on a section of space between Mars and Jupiter containing about 40,000 asteroids. He elaborated that they “crammed the horsepower of ten 360s into this one elegant design that lets us do computationally insanely complex operations”. However, using the power of the cloud that every Xbox One will be able to utilise, the model generated a further 290,000 asteroids. Now, this is a simple example and definitely
just a demo for the benefit of the media invited to attend so all claims should be taken with a pinch of salt, but the implications of this setup are powerful. As has been pointed out several times, the Playstaion 4 seems, on paper at least, the more powerful system. However, with the power of the cloud the Xbox One would have a clear advantage. And how did Microsoft choose to tell the general public of this? By stating that they’re enforcing an “alwaysonline” policy that meant the console would have to connect to the internet once every 24 hours to function, and some games would require constant connectivity, without explaining why. However, shortly after E3 then-head of Xbox Don Mattrick released a statement on the Xbox blog saying: “An internet connection will not be required to play offline Xbox One games – After a onetime system set-up with a new Xbox One, you can play any disc based game without ever connecting online again. There is no 24 hour connection requirement and you can take your Xbox One anywhere you want and play your games, just like on Xbox 360. Trade-in, lend, resell, gift, and rent disc based games just like you do today – There will be no limitations to using and sharing games, it will work just as it does today on Xbox 360.” The one-time system set-up he refers to is a day-one patch that almost certainly has many engineers at Microsoft groaning at having to completely undo all of their hard work before the console even ships. The bottom line is that barring the initial installation, the Xbox One will no longer need to be connected to the internet, nor will it police your used games.
Retro Corner
Alasdair Preston reminds us why TimeSplitters was the funniest FPS Ten years ago, I was spending far too much time playing TimeSplitters Future Perfect. The third, and so far most recent, instalment of the shooter series that included zombie monkeys and a playable school of fish was the most ambitious one yet. The most notable expansion (and the reason I spent so much time playing the game) was the addition of online multiplayer. It brought players across the globe together and created a real sense of community in a way that I’ve not experienced on any other game. The fans are so committed, in fact, that they’re currently creating a TimeSplitters mod for CryEngine 3 and, with Crytek’s blessing, will be releasing the game for free on PC and maybe even PS4 and Xbox One. What sets TimeSplitters apart is it’s sense of humour. The guys at Free Radical love making fun of anything and everything. In Future Perfect, they tackled every movie trope going and folded in popular characters like cheesy 70’s secret agent Harry Tipper and the ever-present Sergeant Cortez. Playing the game was almost like an education in films and pop culture. Story mode blasted through a variety of settings and time periods, each one with a distinct identity and buddy partner. Arcade mode added a massive list of challenges, each with a wacky explanation as to how the whole fight kicked off that was usually extremely petty. Acing all of these took serious time, but was necessary to unlock the entire roster of playable characters. The main meat of TimeSplitters was always multiplayer. The game came with excellent maps and every multiplayer mode under the sun. If all that wasn’t doing it for you, there was even an in-depth mapmaker mode so you could build your own multiplayer and story missions. The addition of the online element meant that these creations could be shared more easily. The thing that sticks with me most from all of my time playing TimeSplitters is the fun element. Free Radical made sure that there were countless hours of content, and enough jokes to have you laughing the whole time. Most memorably, Sgt Cortez’s corny yet iconic catchphrase that is always true in the end, “ it’s time to split”.
Alasdair Preston
Feature
Former Nintendo Boss Dies From time to time an industry loses someone so important; it is hard to imagine it will ever be the same again. Quite often a loss is over emphasised or off-set by an obvious replacement. The death of a franchise or a much-loved character can be difficult to deal with, but when the passing of a man, an icon of the gaming industry and silent hero to millions world - wide occurs, sometimes words are not enough to justify their contribution. But here’s to trying! Hiroshi Yamauchi is not a name everyone will be initially familiar with. But when you come to realise he is the man ultimately responsible for a good proportion of the happiness you’ve experienced so far in your life, you will grow to know his name very well indeed. Between the years 1949-2002 Yamauchi transformed Japanese firm Nintendo from an obscure gaming-cards company into a video games titan. As a result of this the world witnessed the transformation and subsequent development of the first Nintendo gaming console.
Since this initial development, thought up by Yamauchi as a potentially successful money-spinner for the then ailing Japanese company, Nintendo has battled shoulder to shoulder with Microsoft and Sony as one of the dominant console developers on the market. It would be impossible to document every twist and turn of the Nintendo story in one page, however when you look at the timeline of Nintendo’s history, you soon begin to see the incredibly large mark Nintendo consoles have left on the industry – giving developers the ability and creative licence to produce some of the most definitive games of their generation. In 1977 the first Colour TV game console was released – though extremely simple, this was the start of a fruitful relationship between Nintendo and the gaming world. After a number of similar releases (such as the Nintendo entertainment system) it was not until 1996 that Nintendo became
a giant of the industry – with the release of the Nintendo 64. With it came some of the first and biggest releases from major franchises of its generation, such as Pokémon Stadium. The release of Game Cube in 2001 continued this upwards trend. But it was the Gameboy Colour and the Gameboy Advance that truly cemented Nintendo’s place amongst the great and good of the industry. On these platforms franchises almost bigger than the consoles themselves flourished. This record includes titles such as Donkey Kong, Super Mario and the Pokémon role playing games. Yamauchi’s successor, Saturo Iwata, had this to say: “We will continue to treasure the values Yamauchi taught us — that
what makes you unique lies at the core of entertainment. And we at Nintendo will continue to change the company flexibly to adapt to the times, as Yamauchi did, to carry on his spirit”.
Jack Crutcher
ISSUE 03/30TH SEPTEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM
/TheMancunion: Fashion & Beauty
Editors: Susie Coen, Marie ClareYates, Halee Wells (Beauty) Top 5
the fashion editors’
TOP
5
If you weren’t such a big spender during fresher’s week then it is likely your bank account is still dazzling thanks to that ever anticipated student loan. But, unfortunately for us (and our beauty regime) all that green will flitter away sooner than we may like. Take a look at these makeshift beauty tricks and tips to ensure that your beauty routine lives on even when your positive bank balance doesn’t.
1.
@MancunionFash
Feature
Making fashion affordable Bethan Morris advises on how to get the lastest fasion must-haves at the lowest prices... We all know that fashion trends are constantly changing so being a fashion conscious student can be hard, but there are ways to afford the latest must have item and snub the idea that to be fashionable one must have a fat bank balance. Here are a few ways to be fashion savvy on a budget:
A big incentive to keep buying into fashion trends comes with our nifty student discount that can save you up to 25% off some fashion brands. Unidays is the place to visit online, detailing the latest student discount promotions. They change frequently, so it is a good idea to sign up to their mailing list to be the first in the know. Don’t miss out on 20% off at Urban Outfitters - available at the moment. If you need that makeup fix, fashion magazines are the place to look. Magazines such as Glamour and Cosmopolitan frequently include mascara or a nail polish that will add that instant breath of fresh air to any outfit. In the past Glamour has come with Benefit makeup, so for a steal of £2 you could walk away with an eyeliner or mascara retailing at £17.50! Finally if it’s that pair of Converse you don’t want to spend £40 on, or a pair of high waisted denim shorts you must have - give eBay a go. It is a great way to buy budget-friendly items in a convenient and practical way. To save trawling through pages of products you get the best results if you have a specific brand and item in mind and know the size you need. eBay is the one-stop-shop for snapping up a bargain. Good luck!
Tea bag toner
Green tea is good for your health. Fact. But did you know after you brew that lovely bag of antioxidants, you can use the tea bag as a toner? The trick is not to squeeze out the excess and just to dab the tea bag on your face like you would a cotton ball. Allow the tea to dry naturally on your skin and it will clear your spots and also work wonders for oily skin too. 2.
Fairy Liquid nail varnish remover
The part I hate about painting my nails is that I always accidently go ‘outside the lines’ and my fingertips get painted too. To counteract this problem (and score some Brownie points with your flat mates) try doing the washing up after the varnish is dry. The washing up liquid removes the unwanted nail varnish from around your nail, leaving your nails in perfect condition! 3.
The potato Place raw potato slices over your eyes for 10 minutes to reduce puffiness and dark circles. It works because potatoes contain an enzyme that lightens the skin and the coolness of the (refrigerated) potato leaves you feeling fresher, too. Try and do this three times a week and see if you notice a difference!
Craving & SAVING
4. Orange peel tooth whitening White teeth look good. Unfortunately for us, popular drinks like coffee and cola stain our teeth and there are some scientific uncertainties about the safety of home whitening kits. So how to tackle the yellow teeth situation? Rub the white side of the peel directly onto your teeth and they will become whiter. Be careful though - the citric acid might ware away the enamel on your teeth. 5.
Oatmeal exfoliating scrub
Exfoliation should play an essential role in your beauty regime; it removes dry skin cells and leaves your skin looking healthy and glowing. Oatmeal has been proved not just to be an excellent exfoliant but also an excellent way to tackle acne, sunburn and dehydrated skin. All you have to do is mix one tablespoon of ground oatmeal with one teaspoon of water to make it in to a paste. Rub it gently onto your skin in circular motions and leave it for ten minutes before rinsing.
Chanel ‘Rouge Allure’ £25
Marie Clare Yates
Feature
DIY: layered chain necklace Susie Coen explains how to make your own statement jewellery
HALEE’S
17
Beauty Editor Halee Wells advises on what to spend, how to wear & how to apply
ESSENTIALS
DIY: Fuss-free uni hair
Making your own jewellery is a great way to increase your array of accessories without the price tag. It’s really simple and you can buy all sorts of different coloured and sized chains, beads and ribbons from the bead shop in Affleck’s Palace. Here is a step-by-step guide of how to create a statement necklace within minutes. What you will need: - Chain cutters - 3 pieces of silver chain, different sizes - 2 jump rings - A clasp
So you thought you snoozed your alarm this morning, but you’ve turned it off. Shit. You’ve got 30 minutes to make it down the Oxford Road corridor before you miss yet another seminar this week. Sound familiar? Do not fret, you can look cute for your crush with this quick and easy uni-friendly up-do, and all you need is abobble!
1. Dry Shampoo Step 1: Get the largest chain and cut a piece 16 inches long. Then cut the medium sized chain to 17 inches and the smallest to 18 inches. When the chains are laid out they should look like the above picture. Making them different lengths will allow the chains to layer and hang nicely.
A cheeky spritz of dry shampoo will not only make your hair look instantly clean, it will give your hair volume and staying power all day!
2. Back Comb Volume doesn’t just have to be for nights out, make your up-do bigger by back combing at the roots, or skip this step for a more sleek looking style.
3. Tie it up Step 2: Open up one of the jump rings and put the chains on it in order of size, starting with the largest. When you close the jump ring all the chains should be held together in the correct order. Repeat on the other side making sure to keep the same order.
Craving & Saving
For me, the most important beauty essential is my lip-gloss; it lights up my face and makes me look dayready. According to research conducted by our very own university, apparently men are more interested in a woman’s lips than anywhere else on her body - especially lips tainted red. And this season, that is exactly what you should be doing. Dark berry colours were seen on the catwalks of the likes of Dior and Lanvin, while Prada showcased a plumb palette for those feeling extra daring. For luxurious, wine-stained lips (and for those who can afford it) Chanel has a ‘rouge allure’ range. At £25, it is radiant, rich with a sleek and seductive lack casing.
Fashion
But my most fabulous find in a long time has to be NYC lipstick. Cheap and chic, to say the very least, this little stick of glamour is £1.99 from Superdrug. I must admit, I was a little dubious at first – how can something so cheap be worth the purchase? But purchase I did and I’ve never looked back. It’s smooth, glossy and stays on all day; my only reservation is that the lid falls off in your bag sometimes, leaving the stick exposed. Lid aside, I absolutely love it! If you don’t like the matte look then you can always apply a layer of gloss and remember to always team dark lips with nude eyes.
Tie the hair into a bun as normal, but instead you want to leave a bit of a ‘tail’ out of it to create the bow. Try to leave about five to ten centimetres depending on how messy you want the bow - the longer, the looser.
Step 3: On one of the jump rings attach the clasp that you can then use to put on and take off your necklace by attaching it to the other jump ring. Voila, you have a new, original statement necklace. Wear with a black roll neck jumper, tartan trousers and some cut out boots for a perfect winter-chic look. You can can also embellish the necklace with studs or beads to add some extra detailing.
NYC ‘Red Rapture’ £1.99
4. Make the bow
Part the bow into two and grab the ‘tail’. Pull the tail over the bow and tuck it under the bobble. Who knew chic could be so simple? Now hairspray and bow down for your new fave hairstyle!
ISSUE 03/ 30th SEPTEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM
Editors: Sophie James, Robbie Davidson, Angus Harrison Top 5
TOP
Travel Films
Feature
5
It’s week two, the rain’s pouring down and after the excitement of Freshers Week followed by a week of dragging yourself out of bed for lectures, you’re probably feeling exhausted, gloomy and in need of a holiday. Well fear not, here is Parizad Mangi’s top 5 films to transport you away from the drizzle and get you dreaming of next summer!
5. Before Sunrise (1995) This sweet and succinct love story unravels in the charming European city of Vienna. As the film progresses, you will fall in love not only with the two protagonists but also their surroundings, just as they fall in love with each other in the span of a day.
the FEATURE:
Our take on events from the world of film and television
Rowling’s Return to the Wizarding World Jackson Ball discusses the recent annocument that J. K Rowling will be writing the her first screenplay an adpation of her book, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them It has been just a couple of years since the final Harry Potter film stormed the box-office, but it already seems time to hop back on our broomsticks for a triumphant return. J.K Rowling, author of the all-conquering series, has recently announced that she is planning a new feature set within the Potter universe. The new film will be based on one of the series’ spin-off books: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. For those of you who have never heard of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, it acts as a purported text book that Harry and his friends study during their time at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft a Wizardry. The book, which Rowling penned as fictional narrator ‘Newt Scamander’, is one of three similarly ‘academic’ spin-offs, with the others being Quidditch through the Ages and The Tales of Beedle the Bard. As the title would suggest, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a compilation of evidence and anecdotes on all sorts of magical creatures. As a leading ‘magizoologist’, Newt Scamander is at the forefront when it comes to a huge variety of monsters. So while the film version is likely to offer some old favourites, like the Hippogriff and the House-Elf, we can also expect a whole hoard of brand new beasties. From what we know about the book, the events Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them will take place 70 years before the first Harry Potter story, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. This makes it unlikely that many of your favourite Potter-verse characters will make an appearance, especially as the book contains no major links to the original
series’ plot. However, avid fans among you will know that Rowling went to the unnecessary effort of marrying Scamander’s grandson Rolf to fanfavourite Luna Lovegood. Could we see a flashforward in which Rolf and Luna are telling their children about their great grandfather? Or perhaps
quite a considerable change of pace for the author herself. Despite being one of most successful writers of modern times, this latest project will be Rowling’s screenwriting debut. While she obviously had a massive role in the previous films, Rowling acted only as a story consultant figure, never touching pen to paper when it came to the actual script so this is really uncharted territory for her. It suffices to say; writing a screenplay for a movie is a very different challenge to writing a novel. If someone excels on one platform of writing, it does not mean they will excel on others. For example, many of Stephen King’s stories have been adapted for film by other writers. When King’s initial stories have been adapted by others, they have gone on to become some of the most beloved works of cinema around, including The Shining and The Shawshank Redemption. However, when King took the adaption task upon himself and actually single-handedly wrote a screenplay, the result was the poorlyreceived 1986 film, Maximum Overdrive. So how will Rowling fair in this new role? Only time will tell. In the meantime though, it can’t be denied that the author has once again sent Hollywood into a state of frenzy. They can change the stories, the cast and even the screenwriter, but one thing remains certain: a return to the Harry Potter universe will have fans flocking to cinemas in their thousands.
Newt himself may bump into a younger incarnation of Luna’s father Xenophilius Lovegood? For now we can only speculate. While many of you might be thinking this new film will just be ‘more of the same’, it actually marks
Jackson Ball
4. Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) Evergreen beauty Audrey Hepburn stars in this cinematic classic that takes place in New York. Here we get to follow our heroine Holly Golightly on her eccentric and amorous adventures in the city that never sleeps (and looking fabulous and fashionable while doing so).
Preview
thePREVIEW: Carrie
3. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011) This little British gem brings you the colourful and vibrant allure of India with the trademark Brit humour you would expect. It’s the perfect mixture of spices that makes it a treat to watch.
2. Midnight in Paris (2011) The old and the new charm of the city of love adorn our screens as we explore Paris through Woody Allen’s quixotic lenses. In what is probably his most successful and acclaimed work in recent times, this Parisian escapade will awaken your wanderlust.
1. Mamma Mia (2008) If this movie doesn’t fill you with the urge to immediately pack your bags and take the next flight out to Greece, you can sue me. Adapted to the big screen from the iconic musical, with sing-along numbers from ABBA and a joyous spirit, this takes the top spot for being the perfect getaway film to immerse your senses in. Let the goddess Aphrodite lead the way!
This October Stephen King’s 1974 horror novel will get its second chance to shine on the big screen. Carrie was largely seen as a runaway success in 1974 and many fans of horror fiction will recognise it as one of the stand out films of its genre. All that then, should highlight how much is at stake for this autumn’s A-list fright-fest.
Director: Kimberley Peirce • Starring: Chloe Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore, Judy Greer Released: 29th November
You might think Chloë Grace Moretz would have shied away from taking the lead role in a remake of a muchloved classic - after all, her career so far boasts almost unblemished success in acclaimed roles such as Rachel Hansen in 500 Days of Summer, Isabelle in Hugo and Hit Girl in the mega-money Kick Ass franchise. However, not one to shy away from the expectant eyes of the public, Moretz and director Kimberley Peirce (Boys Don’t Cry), will hope to have increased their stock further with this latest foray into the Hollywood big-time. Pierce’s take on Carrie promises to stick closer to King’s novel than the 1976 film - mainly in an attempt to differ as much as possible from Brian De Palma’s take on the book. This may appease die-hard fans of the original, who will probably view this addition as a needless money
spinner. Carrie is ultimately a horror-story centred on emotional abuse. As a film fan you would hope for a director with an impressive repertoire, that goes without saying. But also one able to take on the subject in hand and make it entertaining, even emotionally challenging, but not distasteful. In this respect, Peirce is a sensible bedfellow for this Carrie re-run. Peirce’s most impressive success to date is with Boys Don’t Cry; a film that cleverly tackles the challenges faced by Brandon Teena, a transgender teenager who lives life as a male until it is discovered he was born biologically female. Much like Carrie, the film tackles the issues facing a young person with deep personal problems. As with any horror remake, the chances are high that this film will be enjoyable, but lacking in the magic of the original. The horror genre is a pretty saturated market with a number of big franchises like Saw, Paranormal Activity and Final destination. Market saturation is not the only challenge faced by Carrie. As with many of the aforementioned films, the horror paradigm seems to have hit a brick-wall of late. However with a decent director and a promising up-and-coming lead actor, anything is possible for Carrie. Jack Crutcher
ISSUE 03/ 30th SEPTEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM
/TheMancunion: Film @MancunionFilm
TV
Review
theREVIEW: Diana
Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel • Starring: Naomi Watts, Naveen Andrews, Douglas Hodge Released: 20 September
Film Editor Angus Harrison tried his best to go in with an open mind to see the Peoples’ Princess biopic I got a feeling, before seeing it, that Diana wasn’t my sort of film. Nevertheless it is the role of the critic to enter the cinema with objectivity, making sure bias is left at home and assumptions are locked out. Besides, how easy is it to write a bad review? In fact, wouldn’t it be great if I could write a really nice review, waxing lyrical about its gorgeous cinematography and the fantastic lead performances. That would be really great. Diana is probably the worst the film of the year and may feature one of the worst screenplays of the decade. It is a fantastic example of condescending, arrogant and headachingly dull filmmaking. The script reads like a mind map, with the words “Stuff Princess Diana might have said/ done” written in a circle in the centre. The writer, Stephen Jeffreys, seems to have simply strung a series of bizarrely staged moments together, that Naomi Watts’ stale Diana floats through like a helium filled angel. The dialogue serves horrifically apparent functions in every scene, always opting to directly state the most obvious meaning of any moment. “I
just want to help people” Diana pouts in the back of a car, before getting home and telling all of her staff they can “go home for the night!” She then proceeds to make beans on toast. So she wants to help people, but she also likes beans on toast? I suppose that makes her amazing and benevolent but also really down to earth and ordinary like me? I love beans on toast!
Yet even this criticism borders on crediting the film too much, for all its attempts to spell out Diana’s wonderful character, it actually manages to make one of the most
beloved national figures in history seem pretty self centered. Yes, there is all the Jesus Christ meets Marilyn Monroe posturing, but ultimately the film is concerned with her loneliness and attempts to be with the heart surgeon, Hasnat Khan, whom she considers her true love. Whilst, in truth, that may have been a time of huge anguish for the Princess of Wales, the onscreen relationship
seems so disingenuous and contrived that any tears shed over it seem equally fatuous. Diana hardly even mentions her children (who feature once for 6 seconds), is always looking
in the mirror, and consistently courts the press who hounded her so much. Possibly this was an attempt to portray a multi-faceted woman under great pressures, trying to simultaneously live with and fight against the position that defined her. This attempt failed. Maybe these all sounds like cheap shots against a film that is clearly not trying to reinvent the wheel. However, my issue is that the film isn’t trying to do anything at all. It seems that the creative team behind the project assumed that by making a film about the ‘People’s Princess’ and printing posters that used the same font as Stephen Frears’ far superior The Queen (2006), accomplishment was somehow guaranteed. Instead the failures of Diana prove that trying to simply profit from a national tragedy, blindly retelling well known history, is lazy and in this case borders on emotional manipulation. This film, at best, added nothing to Diana’s legacy and categorically did not need to be made. Angus Harrison
Film
19
CATCH UP
Find a space on the sofa and ring the bell for tea because Downton’s back to save us from the Sunday evening blues! After the Christmas special from hell last year, many questioned the motives (and sanity) of Julian Fellowes. How would the Oscar-winning screenwriter rekindle our love for Downton Abbey after the betrayal felt by millions as we lost not only Matthew Crawley but Lady Sybil last series? As it turns out, very easily. After just a few minutes into episode 1 of series 4, Lord Fellowes had bamboozled us with shock departures, new arrivals, grief, romance, treachery, betrayal…and some fantastic one-liners from Maggie Smith! It was out with the Downton depression and in with the roaring twenties and before the first ill-timed advert break Downton Abbey was well and truly back on track. If you weren’t there to witness it, get on ITV player now! A must-see movie from the TV listings was Into The Wild. With an all-star cast including Vince Vaughn, Emile Hirsch and Kristen Stewart and a screenplay written and directed by Sean Penn, this two-time Oscar nominated story is a hard-hitting travel film that’ll leave you completely awe-stricken. Resist the urge to catch up on yet another episode of The Great British Bake Off and do something different with your TV time by experiencing this incredible true story of a uni graduate who leaves civilization behind him and goes to live life in the wild. From English country estates to the Alaskan wilderness – our top two picks of last week’s TV are different enough to keep everyone entertained until next week. And if not, then there’s always Bake Off! Sophie James Film Editor
Contrary Corner
Cornerhouse Pick of the Week
Hannah Arendt
The Force is Strong with this one
Film Editor Robbie Davidson previews the tense Nazi trial drama
Suraj Vara says that Star Wars fans should trust JJ Abrams instincts and rest assured that the franchise is in good hands
‘The banality of evil’ is one of those phrases that has become more famous than the person who originally coined it, which is perhaps why the biopic of its creator, Hannah Arendt, is such an intriguing prospect. But as is obligatory with biopics, the balance between the professional exploits and personal struggles has to be struck to appeal to the widest audience. Ardent’s professional life was a fascinating one, as a German Jew who emigrated to America during Hitler’s rise to power, she went on to become a respected political theorist and philosopher. But it was her work during the trial of Nazi war criminal, Adolf Eichmann, for which she perhaps best known and why the film naturally focuses on this period. But whereas the drama you might think would stem from the personal impact reporting on a key figure of the Holocaust had on the Jewish Arendt, the film in fact explores the controversy which surrounded the publication of her articles for The New Yorker in 1961. Far from writing a basic account of the events of Eichmann’s trial, Ardent was vocal in her criticism of the conducting of the trial in Israel, and most controversially, argued that Eichmann and other Nazis like him were far for psychopathic murderers but in fact ‘normal’ people who chose to commit appalling acts of genocide. It is from this ‘the banality of evil’ phrase came about and in which, in a scene from the trailer, Ardent (Barbara Sukowa) precedes by stating “the greatest evil in the world is the evil committed by nobodys”. And by the looks of things the film won’t shy away from portraying the vicious attacks
Arendt received as a result of her work. Directed by Margarethe von Trotta, on the leaders of ‘New German Cinema’ in post war West Germany, we can hope Hannah Arendt pulls no punches when it comes to casting a critical eye on the social issues from the time. The film boasts an excellent international cast including Brits, Janet McTeer and Nicholas Woodeson. The film also makes the wise choice of trusting the audience to be able to enjoy a film with... SUBTITLES: rather than attempting to jarringly insist that every character speak the same language (usually English) but change their accent to reflect their true nationality, the filmmakers have decided to have characters speak in the language they would have actually spoken. As a result the large parts of the film’s dialogue are in both and German and English, which may not seem that novel a notion but hundreds of great European films have been denied mass distribution simply because the characters speak in their native language. So if you aren’t afraid of reading and have any passing interest in history or psychology or just want to try something different then go see Hannah Arendt which is now showing at the Cornerhouse. Robbie Davidson
When I heard that George Lucas had sold the Star Wars franchise to Disney for more than $4bn, like every other Star Wars fan, I couldn’t help but utter “I have a bad feeling about this”. Since Lucas has made many awful changes to the Star Wars films over the years, often with financial motivations not creative ones, die-hard fans seemed well within their rights to groan at Disney’s procuring of Lucasfilm. However, as preproduction begins to transform into filming, several new updates have made me feel more confident about the new films. With the first film, Episode VII, expected in 2015, there is still uncertainty as to what the story will be. There are hundreds of different directions the films can take, and with the science fiction prowess of J.J Abrams in the directorial driving seat, fans should look a little more optimistically at the new sequels. After all, Abrams’ success with the recent Star Trek reboots makes him one of the best candidates to direct the new Star Wars franchise, especially as he will be creating a continuation of the original trilogy.
Extensions of the Star Wars story in comic books and cartoons suggest that we could see Leia and Han’s daughter, Jaina, who just happens to be a lightsabre wielding genius and badass fighter pilot extraordinaire; we could also see the coming of age story of Luke’s son, Ben, whose mother was a Sith apprentice, duelled into submission by Luke, kinky. However, from Abrams’ treatment of the Star Trek franchise, there’s no certainty that he will continue pre-recorded storylines. Furthermore, rumours of the reappearance of original cast members, Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher, are becoming more prominent and should add a hint of nostalgia to the new films by bringing them back to their 1970’s and 80’s roots. The next part of the new Star Wars franchise that I am excited about is the recent press release by Disney which stated that the Star Wars films would also include “stand alone origins films”. So far, Han Solo, Yoda and Boba Fett are the most likely candidates to have their beginnings translated to the silver screen. Who wouldn’t want to know about the mysterious beginnings of Master Yoda before he became head of the Jedi council? After Jango dies, how does Boba Fett find himself in his father’s armour? How does Han end up with the Millennium Falcon, and when did he do the Kessel run in under twelve parsecs? The fact is the “origins” idea has worked for fictional comic book heroes like Superman, Batman, the Avengers, the X-Men and many others, and it ties in well with the way the new films will continue on from the originals, an overall revisiting of the past if you will. Similarly, the Star Wars universe is just as vast as the Marvel and DC universes, and the production of comic books, the Clone Wars cartoons, and even the “Star Wars Lego” cartoons, which were released this year, suggests that a multitude of audience captivating films are, potentially, in the pipeline. With the influence and vision of new writers and directors, the franchise seems far away from burning out now. Suraj Vara
Assemblies.MancIss3.pdf
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26/09/2013
10:09
University of Manchester Students present their ideas to make the University, the Union and the Community better for students - will they PASS or will they FALL? All University of Manchester students welcome!
Assemblies take place in the Council Chambers on the 2nd floor of the Students’ Union from 6pm. For more information go to manchesterstudentsunion.com/assemblies
ISSUE 03/ 30th SEPTEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM
Editors: Esmé Clifford Astbury, Annie Muir
Books
/TheMancunion: Books @MancunionBooks
Interview
21
Preview
Helen Isserlis talks teenage angst, Spike Milligan and e-cigarettes
Editors’ Picks: Manchester Literature Festival
Emerging poet Helen Isserlis talks to Books Editor Esmé Clifford Astbury
From October 7th to October 20th, celebrated authors will be descending on venues across Manchester. Books Editors Esmé Clifford Astbury and Annie Muir reveal their top picks for this year’s Manchester Literature Festival With seven years of enviable line-ups under its belt, the Manchester Literature Festival promises to delight. “Once again,” says Cathy Bolton, Director of the Manchester Literature Festival, “we are making Manchester the destination of choice for literature lovers this October; launching some of the hottest new books of the autumn season, and presenting an exciting series of bespoke commissions, talks and walking tours celebrating some of the city’s rich literary heritage and inquiring spirit.
Every so often I read something that reaches out and grabs me by the throat. Helen Isserlis’ poetry did just that. It is honest and pareddown, with dark undertones. And she is only 28. Isserlis has just completed an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Manchester. Her work is featured in The Manchester Anthology, a collection of poems, short stories and novel extracts published by the University’s Centre for New Writing. When I met her at Kro Bar on Oxford Road, she had recently handed in her dissertation.
“Neil Young pursued his values and his art to the point where he alienated a lot of people,” she muses. I ask her if she thinks of herself like that. “No,” she answers, “I put people first.” She started writing poetry in her mid teens, mainly as a form of escape. “I found it very cathartic,” she says. Although her poems are no longer prompted by teenage angst, her own feelings and life experiences still play an integral role in her work. Isserlis’ poems are autobiographical, “but only to an extent,” she hastens to add. We get to talking about her influences. Isserlis cites Spike Milligan, whom she has been reading since she was a child. “I love everything from his silly stuff to his really serious stuff,” she says. Like her, Milligan struggled with mental illness. He wrote frankly about his battle with depression – a source of comfort for Isserlis.
But her main influences are songwriters: Leonard Cohen, Fairport Convention and Neil Young, among others. “I saw Neil Young live this year,” she tells me, “he did a 25-minute rendition of ‘Like a Hurricane’ in the middle of a thunder storm.” “Neil Young pursued his values and his art to the point where he alienated a lot of people,” she muses. I ask her if she thinks of herself like that. “No,” she answers, “I put people first. Although Isserlis had been writing poetry for several years, it did not immediately occur to her to study it. She did her undergraduate degree in English and Philosophy at the University of Liverpool, then went to Nottingham to study Old English, but dropped out. This was a particularly difficult period. “I really hit rock bottom,” she says. “So,” she continues, “I thought ‘Why not do something that I really enjoy?’ ” She applied to study Creative Writing at the University of Manchester and, to her surprise, got in. “I was over the moon,” she says.
When I haven’t got inspiration, it’s like pulling teeth It is often said that the only way to get better at writing is to write. What is the advantage of actually studying Creative Writing, I ask. “It helps with the discipline,” she answers. A lot of writers talk about writing being a nine to five job. I asked her if she is that strict with her own writing. “Not at all,” she laughs. “When I haven’t got inspiration, it’s like pulling teeth.” Isserlis’ writing process is rather more impulsive. “I have an idea and I get to the point
Photo: Jane Perry where I can’t resist it,” she explains. Usually this happens just as she is about to go sleep. “I write in bed a lot,” she confesses.
I have an idea and I get to the point where I can’t resist it Though she has finished her degree, Isserlis tells me that she plans to stay in Manchester. “I have a pretty permanent apartment here,” she says. Some say that Manchester is undergoing something of a literary renaissance at the moment, and I ask Isserlis if she agrees. “I think that, culturally, Manchester is ready,” she replies. She lists the written word events taking place across the city and tells me that she herself is planning to launch a poetry night at Fallow Café (formerly Trof Fallowfield). I am thrilled by this piece of information and will be sure to keep readers abreast of any further developments. As we finish our coffees, I ask Isserlis if she plans to pursue a career in poetry. She shrugs. “There’s no money in it – you either do it for the fame or for the passion,” she answers. The advances on poetry books are very low, she tells me, and she often wonders if she is good enough. “But I’ll give it a go,” she says. In the meantime, she will do interviews for coffee, she jokes, producing an e-cigarette and taking a drag. I can’t help but laugh. “You can charge it on your laptop,” she informs me, laughing too.
On 11th October the author and American scholar Sarah Churchill explores the time, the place, the music and the people that inspired and shaped F. Scott Fitzgerald’s seminal novel, The Great Gatsby in ‘The Great Gatsby Uncovered’. She is joined at Matt and Phreds Jazz Club by jazz troupe Alligator Gumbo who will provide the sounds of the roaring 20s.
On 13th October, Roddy Doyle will be talking about his new novel The Guts at
the Royal Exchange Theatre. Doyle is perhaps best known for The Barrytown Trilogy, a series of novels centred around the Rabbitte family. Fans will be pleased to hear that Jimmy Rabbitte, who we first encountered in The Commitments, which chronicles the rise and fall of a Dublin soul band, will be making a comeback.
Another well-loved character is set to return this year: Bridget Jones. Comic novelist and screenwriter Helen Fielding will also be at the Royal Exchange Theatre on 13th October, launching her latest addition to the Bridget Jones series, Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy, and filling fans in on what their favourite singleton (not so single anymore?) has been up to.
‘I am, I am, I am: Reflections on Sylvia Plath’ on 13th October marks the 50th anniversary of the Bell Jar and her posthumous collection of poems, Ariel. Two contemporary authors, Jackie Kay and Ali Smith, consider the infamous poet’s legacy, as well as the ways in which she
has influenced their own work and lives.
Jeanette Winterson discusses myths, wonder, storytelling and the imagination with Audrey Niffenegger on 13th October. Winterson is the author of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit and is currently Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Manchester’s Centre for New Writing. Niffenegger has written three graphic novels: The Three Incestuous Sisters, The Adventuress and The Night Bookmobile. She is also famous for the international bestseller The Time Traveller’s Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry.
Manchester Literature Festival and Manchester Camerata have organised a special programme marking the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech. Lemn Sissay has been commissioned to respond to the speech and create his own ‘poetic vision for our times’. Join him and witness something special at the Manchester Town Hall on 19th October.
Want to write for books? Come to our weekly meetings: Tuesdays, 5:30, first floor of the Students’ Union Or email us: books@mancunion.com
ISSUE 03/30th SEPTEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM
Editors: Ben Walker, Maddy Hubbard Recipe of the Week
Restaurant Review
OF THE recipe WEEK
This week we have a vegetarian favourite from the Middle East, great for a sharing platter or even as a burger
Falafel Falafel are incredibly cheap and easy to make, so I definitely recommend giving this recipe a go. Ideally you need a stick blender - one of those hand-held food processors used to make soups, but you could probably manage with a potato masher and some good old fashioned elbow grease!
Maddy Hubbard tells us why she loves Fallow (the new and improved incarnation of Trof Fallowfield) I was so disappointed when I heard Trof Fallowfield was changing hands. “It won’t be the same” I insisted. “Where am I going to go and gossip over a bottle of red wine now?” But in fact Fallow has been revitalised from its former status as a neglected outpost of the vast Trof empire, and the new owner is allowing the lovely staff (who have all stayed on) the freedom to make the place their own. Here are four reasons why you should visit and see for yourself! The awesome staff, relaxed atmosphere and great music nights - Trof is not a place for harder club nights or embarrassing drunkenness *cough 256 cough*. Instead they put on events of up-and-coming bands and nights with music that is fun to dance to even if you haven’t downed 10 Jeigerbombs. The chilled vibe is helped by how lovely the staff are, and during the day you can always expect a really cool soundtrack.
The cocktails are pretty great - no watered down polish vodka here! While slightly more expensive than Font, the depressingly popular vendor of bubblegum-sweet drinks that mainly consist of ice round the corner, these are worth the extra pound or so, while their selection of bottled beers is astonishingly good, making my beer-loving friend go slightly weak at the knees and geek out with the staff for a while.
1 tin chickpeas, drained 1 onion, chopped 2 cloves garlic, chopped 2tbsp flour 3 tbsp parsley 1 tsp ground coriander 1tsp ground cumin salt and pepper to taste Combine all of the ingredients in a bowl and use a food processor, stick blender or masher to form a rough paste from them. Form into balls and fry in half a centimetre of oil over a medium-high heat until golden brown on each side, which should take about 4 mins before you flip them, but will vary depending on size.
This is the home of the best hangover cures for miles! Already well known for their full english (treat yourself to one, you really won’t regret it), you should definitely also try the american pancakes and the milkshakes, or if you’re more of a hair-of-the-dog sort of person, then you should check out their range of bloody marys, with the ‘Bloodyest Mary’ containing more vodka, port, wasabi and a heap of other interesting ingredients that are sure to sort your head right out!
All of this creates the kind of place you just want to chill out in for hours, with a mediterranean platters, burger or if you’re feeling flash steak and chips. They also serve up a pretty great sunday roast, and the specials board changes daily so it would be pretty hard to get bored of this place.
Serve with pitta breads, hummus, salad and any other mezze you can think of!
Getting involved
According to the Jordan Times, the current world record for a falafel is 74.75 kg (164.4 lb), set on 28 July 2012.
If you fancy your hand at food and drink journalism, whether it be interviews, recipes, reviews, or some interesting culinary anecdotes, email us food.mancunion@gmail.com
>Journalism experience >CV enhancement >Opportunities for editorship >Wine and dine around Manchester.
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Food & Drink 23
Feature
The Art of Budget Mixology
Ben Walker is making a stir with this selection of studentfriendly cocktails Dale DeGroff is the King of Cocktails. He led a revolution in cocktail design and drinking and he pioneered a gourmet approach to mixology. He is the founder and president of The Museum of the American Cocktail. He is accredited to reinventing and professionalising the art of bartending. Keen cocktail drinkers owe a lot to DeGroff, but let us not forget great cocktails must be exchanged for great amounts of money.
weASK
you ANSWER
What of Coffee on Campus?
No room for highfalutin Iordanov Vodka or Nolet’s Dry Gin here—my mission was to make drinkable cocktails both easily and cheaply.
photo Ben Walker
I had a great time making and sampling these cocktails—it may not have been completely coincidental that the more I made the tastier they were. All I can say is that these are tasty, cheap, and easy to make for you and your friends for a house party or pre-drinks. You can scale the quantities up to make a jug or fish-bowl or make individually to drink with an air of sophistication—your choice.
For 4 easy, delicious Vodka classics you will need: Vodka (I got a 35cl bottle from Sainsbury’s for £7.50) Bitters (again £7.50 from M&S, but also available from Sainsbury’s—one bottle will last you forever) Pomegranate, cranberry, and orange juice, Ginger ale, Soda water, Fresh lime wedges Brown sugar Lots of ice
PRETTY IN PINK Fill an Old Fashioned Glass (a short, stubby glass) mostly with ice and add 3 dashes of bitters. Add 2 parts vodka and top up with pomegranate juice. Rub the rim of the glass with lime, squeeze in a spritz of fresh lime and add a wedge to finish.
MADRAS 2 parts vodka and 3 parts cranberry in a high ball glass and stir well. Top up with orange (about 1-2 parts). There should be a fade effect of orange to deep red.
MOSCOS MULE
LONG VODKA Either .5 part lime cordial or mix fresh lime juice with a little sugar. Add a few good dashes of bitters, 2 parts of vodka and top up with soda water or lemonade
GIN FIZZ (you can substitute the gin for rum) I used Bombay Sapphire here, but if you are using a basics gin do taste it first, as cheap gin can be very sweet—if so, hold back on the brown sugar. Muddle half a teaspoon of brown sugar and lime wedges until the sugar begins to dissolve in the lime juice. Add 2 dashes of bitters and 2 parts Gin. Top up with ginger ale and a lime wedge.
OLD FASHIONED Jim Beam is reasonably priced bourbon and works well in this drink. Rub fresh orange peel on the inside of an Old Fashioned Glass. Saturate half a teaspoon of brown sugar in Bitters and fill the glass with ice. Stir until the sugar is mostly dissolved—the ice should begin to melt to help this process. Then add 2 parts bourbon and stir in well. Serve with a spritz of orange zest and a piece of orange peel.
Photo: Ben Walker
Muddle two lime wedges in a high-ball glass and add lots of ice. Add two parts vodka and top up with ginger ale.
Quote of the Week To my Lord’s, and there in the house of office vomited up all my breakfast, my stomach being ill all this day by reason of the last night’s debauch Samuel Pepys, 1660
It’s the Manchester Food & Drink Festival this week, and it’s running from the 26/9 - 7/10 so be sure to go and check out the events! More details at www.foodanddrinkfestival.com
So, there are to my reckoning three types of coffee drinking within the not so little insular world of UoM. The first isn’t really proper coffee; I refer to the quite repugnantly sweet and syrupy and artificially flavoured buckets of lukewarm swill. Of course this is a verbal assault on the likes of gingerbread lattes, double ‘mochachino’ latte with vanilla, cream and choco-flakes. It is necessary to dig a small grave in the mountainous terrain of over whipped cream to find the liquid; the reward of all that strenuous effort is not worth it. Though these drinks are nasty, I am not sending these drinks on the long march to the beverage gulag. There is a place, though ever so slight, for them—just don’t call it coffee or really associate with coffee. Number two is a drink consumed out of habit and necessity. An early morning pick-me-up macchiato, a mid morning recharge cappuccino before clawing towards the luncheon hour, or that last-ditch afternoon latte to drag oneself to home time. Here I believe the consumer is looking for the effects of coffee more than the taste, and this is what indeed Food on Campus rely on, and with a steady customer base, F on C sit happily on the coffee monopoly. Then there is the third type, the discerning drinker, in search of that elusive nectar; body, aroma, and taste. Now it may seem out of the question to expect Oxford Road to sprout a North Tea Power, but why? There is definitely a market in the campus area for a truly elite coffee house, serving a variety of brilliant coffee drinks from elegant flat whites to powerful ristrettos. For now however I can suggest looking out for Eros coffee in University Place, Café Nero—the high street’s best chain and to its credit pretty good coffee, and finally The Anchor, over looking Whitworth Park, as the areas entry as best independent and most enjoyable place to sit and savour.
24
Arts & Culture
ISSUE 03/ 30th SEPTEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM /TheMancunionArtsCulture @ArtsMancunion
Editors: Abbie Roberts, Mattie Roberts What’s on
Feature
WHAT’S
ON
this week Think Studios @ Vernon Mill Friday 4th October Former ‘Vernon Mill Artists’ are opening their doors for their annual
show in a packed weekend of art, , demonstrations and entertainment as well as a fascinating peek into an artist’s studio. Spirit of Theatre Exhibition Quays Bar, Lowry, Salford 27th September – 12th October TO coincide with the opening of the Library Theatre Company’s autumn season of plays at the Quays Theatre, in the Lowry at Salford Quays, Manchester Metropolitan University present a new exhibition, The Spirit Of Theatre. Featuring original drawings by artist and MMU PhD student Simon Woolham, the display will be on show in the Quays Bar for the duration of the run of Chris Honer’s production of Educating Rita.
Emergency 2013 (Word of Warning) From 12pm at BLANKSPACE (43 Hulme Street), From 3pm at Z-arts (335 Stretford Road), Free Entry Saturday 5th October Spread across two locations, Emergency 2013 is a performance lucky dip - a chance to sample an eclectic selection of live work from all over the UK and beyond. From work that sits at the edge of fine art to work that touches on stand-up comedy. Audiences are invited to dip in or to stay the duration.
Art and Science Leonardo da Vinci whilst most famous for his paintings such as the Mona Lisa and the Supper was both artist and inventor, renowned in the fields of civil engineering, chemistry, geology, geometry, hydrodynamics, mathematics, mechanical engineering, optics, physics, pyrotechnics, and zoology. Art and science while coming from what are thought to be opposite ends of the spectrum of human understanding, have found gaps in each other that require filling. Art can provide unique, and often unpredictable, viewpoints from which to inspect or challenge scientific ideas and assumptions. Last week saw the opening of the Science Museum’s, Media Space, a new exciting collaboration between the world of science and art. At its opening fashion designer, Vivienne Westwood gave a speech in which she announced that ‘the thing about great artists and great scientists is that they have great imagination - they can see the world differently’. The Museum of Sciences and Industry (MOSI), in Manchester is currently displaying an exhibition, Brains: The Mind as Matter, that investigates what humans have done to brains in the name of science, medicine,
culture and technology. An artist included in the exhibition is Helen Pynor who majored in cellular and molecular biology, and in photography, sculpture and installation. Pynor draws extensively from the writings of scientists as well as philosophers of biology, in addition to collaborating with scientists for her photographs. Her practice is tied to a questioning of the philosophical and material status of human and non-human organisms. Other artists who look to science to inspire and inform their work include, • Ælab A research collective that seeks to reintroduce the world of animal/vegetal/minerals into the electronic arts. • Alexander Calder With a degree in engineering he applied kinetics and geometry to his creation of sculpture that moves. His kinetic pieces alluded to the phenomena of nature—the rustle of leaves, the flight of birds, and the flutter of insects. • Annie Cattrell Her work captures moments in time, fleeting things, clouds on a particular day, a breath inside a human lung. Her
subjects stem from her interest in neuroscience, anatomy and meteorology, and she is drawn to working with glass because of its transparency and ability to reveal. • Jack Burman Photographer Jack Burman created a collection of stilllives of dead but preserved people, specimens and skeletons — dehumanized but very human. • Jonathon Keats An American conceptual artist and experimental philosopher known for creating large-scale thought experiments. Experiments include: attempting to genetically engineer God in a laboratory and transmitting his own abstract artwork out into the cosmos. • Orshi Drozdik Her work consists of series of installations exploring subjects such as deconstructions of medical representations of the female body. Her installation series Adventure in Technos Dystopium deconstructed scientific representations of truth. For this series the artist created a fictional 18th century female scientist called Edith Simpson and from1989 she used models of her father’s brain as part of sculptural installations.
Headache, Helen Pynor C-type photograph on Duratran, face-mounted on glass Photo from MOSI What’s On Guide
Bohemian Grove @ Islington Mill Photo provided by Bohemian Grove
Nancy Barnes draws our attention to the artistic work that goes into a night out, beside the music. The Bohemian Groves night at Salford’s Islington Mills on Friday 20th September confirmed that this venue, drawn attention to in the Mancunion’s venue guide, is one of Manchester’s creative hidden treasures. Of course the music played by ‘artist of sound’ Traxx was a huge part to play in the mind-blowing experience of the night but additionally the contemporary, simplistic space and the use of video projections delivered a vibe which is unique to the Manchester music scene.
The modest but spacious one room studio space allowed for no distractions from the music and a sense of unity from the crowd. The visuals created and controlled live by KHOM (touring visual engineer) were in his words a “visualization of the music”. Although visually pleasing they were not there to be a artistic focus but to enhance the musical experience and add to the atmosphere, which they certainly did. This was made possible by the projections working in time with the music,
KHOM said “doing it live allows me to follow the music and change the visuals accordingly”. Islington Mill as a venue and its light shows demonstrated how the visual can effect our experience of music. The music was the main event but the spectacle of the performance transformed what would have just been a great night into a great experience at Islington Mill.
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We’re looking for lovers of this great city’s culture and art scene to share their enthusiasm with the world by writing for us! Whether you’re a complete novice or have been writing for years, if, like us, you have a passion for Manchester and the wonderful art and culture it brings us, you are our perfect writer! We’re commissioning reviews, interviews and features now so get in touch! Enhance your CV with published writing and journalism experience.
Theatre
ISSUE 03/ 30th SEPTEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM
Editor: Josephine Lane
Review
Review
What’s on
An Inspector Dark Vanilla Calls
Caroline Hailstone journeys up to Bolton’s Octagon Theatre to inspect this brand new production from David Thacker J.B Priestley’s An Inspector
for their social- climbing
be described as the lull before
Calls takes place in a single
nature, as they unsuccessfully
the storm of the second half,
night, set in the house of the
attempt to hide their true-
which left me on the edge of
mill owning Birling family
selves under airs and graces
my seat throughout.
in 1912. It is the playwright’s
of society. This is obviously
There was some notable use of
most famous work, and after
a more general critique of
the in-the-round setting, which
witnessing my first perfor-
Edwardian social-hierarchy,
I think added interest to a play
mance of it, it became clear
and their treatment towards
which takes place in only one
why. The play opens to the
the lower classes, who, in this
room. The acting was all very
scene of a warm, close-knit
case, are represented by the
strong, especially Kieran Hill,
celebration of the engagement
dead girl. The plot continues
who played a convincingly
of the Birling’s eldest daughter
with a thrilling twist, which
deceitful Gerald Croft, and
Sheila to Gerald Croft, inheri-
I won’t reveal now, and ends
Margot Leicester, who I think
tor of Crofts Limited, a rival
with a scene so chilling that
really captured the despair of
business. This pleasant scene
every audience member left
an Edwardian woman about
is soon disrupted by the arrival
with goose bumps.
to lose her social standing.
of an Inspector Goole, who has
In general I was impressed
However I did feel that David
called to investigate the tragic
by the work of the director
Prosho could have played a
suicide of a young woman,
David Thacker, and the cast,
much more cunning, and char-
who has killed herself by
who successfully stayed in role
ismatic inspector, who instead
drinking bleach.
in spite of the crisp crunch-
came off as very plain.
From this moment on the au-
ing and giggling of a rather
Overall I would definitely rec-
dience watch as the seemingly
disruptive audience full of
ommend a trip to Bolton’s ver-
happy family unit is slowly
GCSE kids on a school trip. I
sion of the West End if you’re
pulled apart by Goole. One
did feel that towards the end
looking for something which
by one, it becomes clear that
of the first half, possibly due
will leave you with chills.
each member of the family
to the play’s “drawing room”
has played some part in the
theatre style, the pace started
death, as the inspector strips
to lose momentum, and I,
away their lies. It is clear that
amongst some other twitch-
using the inspector, Priestley
ing teenagers, started to lose
wanted to punish the Birlings
interest. However this could
Jungle
Helen McCarthy reviews Philip Ridley’s new play at the Royal Exchange
Most people will recognise Gemma Whelan’s face, rather than her name. It’s probably not ringing any bells for you right now, but if you’re a Game of Thrones fan you’ll know her as Yara Greyjoy, the slightly smarter and less gungho Greyjoy sibling. In Dark Vanilla Jungle, a monologuebased piece that briefly came to Manchester before its longer run at the Edinburgh festival, she’s almost entirely unrecognisable. Before the show it’s quite evident that no one really knows what to expect, and on entry to the Exchange’s studio space we were told that leaving for the toilet would mean absolutely no re-admittance. Jumpy and hushed, the audience waited for an unexpectedly tiny Whelan to walk out. Dark Vanilla Jungle is a play about a young woman desperate to be part of some kind of a family. Whelan’s character needs love from someone and ends up looking for it in the wrong people, over and over again, and this is played out with remarkable accuracy. I can’t really imagine this being communicated in a better way than Whelan, standing alone, just talking to us. It was a very involved experience; she was making eye contact with audience members left, right and centre. There was no costume change, no set whatsoever, no design, no
lighting, no music, absolutely nothing. I was prepared to get snotty about it and dismiss it as simply ‘not my cup of tea’. I’m a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to theatre - I like it to be an event - but Dark Vanilla Jungle was an event of a different kind, without the usual dramatic bumf. Whelan carried it perfectly all on her own, and Philip Ridley’s script is extremely heavy indeed. It deals with child abuse, unexpected pregnancy, infant mortality, disability, absent parents, violence, grooming and rape, all over the course of just over an hour. There seemed to be a tremendous amount of space in that tiny studio theatre, and Whelan made great use of it. For a monologue it was played in an incredibly physical way, to the point of it being nearly too much. Many members of the audience were visibly in tears by the end. To some, myself included, it’s difficult to watch. The phrase ‘not my cup of tea’ springs to mind, simply because Whelan is incredibly good at taking disturbing subject matter and making it somehow even more disturbing. By the end, I felt exhausted. Gemma Whelan, however, must have been absolutely knackered.
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25
>Journalism experience >CV enhancement >Opportunities for editorship >See the best new shows in town
TOP4
PLAYS TO CATCH
this week
An Inspector Calls . The death of one seemingly unconnected young woman, reveals truths in all the Birling family that demonstrate the deeply entrenched hypocrisy that lies at the heart of Edwardian society. Runs until the 5th October at the Bolton Octagon
Educating Rita Mancunian treasures the Library Theatre Company return to the Lowry with Willy Russel’s two-handed play. The piece sees straighttalking hairdresser, Rita, return to education to find herself tutored by Frank, an alcohol-fueled, failed poet lecturer. As expected, the unlikely two form a life-changing bond in this touching and life-affirming comedy. Runs from the 26th September to the 12th October at the Quays Theatre, The Lowry
All My Sons Michael Buffong returns to the Royal Exchange to direct Arthur Miller’s first successful plays. All My Sons tells the story of Joe and Kate Keller, an all-American couple dealing trying to deal with their son who, missing in action, is presumed dead by all but his mother. Runs from the 25th September to the 26th October at the Royal Exchange Theatre
20 Stories High: Melody Loses Her Mojo
Blending theatre, hip hop, dance and puppetry, 20 Stories High’s latest show looks at Britain’s care system through Melody and Rizla, two victims within a compelling tale of personal journeys. Runs from the 1st to the 5th October at the Contact Theatre
ISSUE 03/ 30th SEPTEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM
Editors: Lauren Arthur, Moya Crockett, Beth Currall, Izzy Dann Ask Izzy
Feature
ask
IZZY
an earnest attempt to cure all your woes. Tweet any burning issues,genital or otherwise, @ izzydann My neighbour constantly plays really loud music (mostly dubstep), which makes getting any work done very difficult. I’ve asked them to turn it down a few times but nothing seems to stick. What can I do? Invest in some formidable speakers of your own and blast a cacophonous medley of Cliff Richard whilst inserting some newly purchased earplugs.
Freshers Week has just been an all too painful reminder that I am no longer a fresher. These days I start reading books and actually finish them. Does this inevitably mean my best drinking days are over? Clearly you are still very young if you have not yet realised that drinkers seldom diminish their habits with age but instead disguise them. Often with the arrival of final year/postgraduate life, individuals may find themselves harbouring an illusion of educated maturity in that they no longer go out to Poptastic every week (both Tuesday and Saturday). In reality, however, one usually ends up simply substituting these rampant glitter baths for ostensibly sensible social situations, such as going for drinks with tutors who are now your actual friends. Instead of shamelessly knocking back the Apple Sourz, you now find yourself quietly drinking beer/ wine for further extended periods of time until you’re really just as drunk as ever. Of course, these days, it is imperative to feign sobriety until that magical moment when someone cracks, turns to the person sitting next to them and whispers furtively, “Are you drunk? Don’t tell anyone but I think might be drunk! OKAY, THANK GOD WE CAN FINALLY ESTABLISH THAT WE ARE ALL IN FACT QUITE DRUNK.” In short, the best is yet to come. Do you have a story that you’d like to share? Send them to lifestyle@mancunion.com
Pangaea: an unexpected success A Pangaea during Freshers seemed like a gamble. But, says Lifestyle Editor Moya Crockett, it’s one that paid off Pangaea is traditionally the glorious finish to a hideous exam period, and has always been one of the most successful strings to the SU’s bow. You don’t have to know or care about university politics to want to put on a stupid costume, get really drunk and dance to Riot Jazz after being shut in the library for weeks. In many ways, then, the SU’s decision to stage the event at the end of this year’s Freshers’ Week wasn’t surprising. It’s as near to a guaranteed success as a student night can be, and the SU could do with a Freshers’ success, particularly after the disaster of last year. (The M13 Festival had to be cancelled at the last minute due to lack of interest. Ouch.) But – I don’t know. There was something about a Pangaea before the start of term, rather than at the end of exams, which just seemed wrong, somehow. Maybe I’m surrounded by relentlessly negative people, but I heard many a grumble that it all seemed a bit unnecessary. “Pangaea’s meant to be a celebration,” my friend Jaz pointed out, “but if it comes at the end of Freshers’ it’s like, what are we celebrating? Being hungover for the seventh day in a row?” A general sense of apathy hung about. Rather than meticulously planning their costumes like they’d done for Pangaeas past, people sloped off to Luvyababes on Friday afternoon. Those partial to stimulation beyond a bottle of Basics vodka fretted about having to go to Monday lectures on a two-day comedown. Meanwhile, rumours of underselling tickets only stirred anxieties. A rubbish Pangaea would be like a rubbish Christmas. It’s always good. But what if this time, it’s… not? Well, you know what they say: low expectations, high rewards. It was really, really, genuinely, honestly brilliant. We arrived just before 11 and waltzed straight in. Elsewhere, the easy pace of the queue might seem like a bad omen: we’ve all experienced the awkward horror of walking into a club to find three people bobbing about on an empty strobe-lit dancefloor. However, for anyone who remembers the murderous lines of previous Pangaeas, the easy entry was a blessed relief (yes, ha, ha, that’s what she said). There were no shoving hordes of lads in leotards. There were no girls in animal ears practically weeping because they needed a wee so badly. The security guards didn’t have to roar at everyone to “STOP – BLOODY – PUSHING!” It was a dream. Inside, the cheery atmosphere continued. Pangaea is always
It’s...
fun, but it’s not usually relaxing, especially if you’re with a big group of people. Everyone wants to go to different rooms, then someone has to go and queue for the toilet for half an hour, then someone else goes to the bar, and then you get lost and end up stumbling round on your own for forty minutes. And of course, everyone’s in fancy dress, so spotting your friends in a crowd turns into a terrible, real-life game of Where’s Wally. But this time, everything was miraculously, happily hassle-free. Whether this was down to better organisation, more bar staff or simply fewer revellers I’ve no idea, but it was a vast improvement. I won’t attempt a comprehensive review of all the acts that performed on the night. There were too many, and I was too drunk, and this isn’t the music section. But the Stevie Wonderland room deserves a special mention for keeping everyone – girls who like old R&B, boys who like house – boogieing away with
Blind Date
Pete, 3rd Year Physics
Maddie, 3rd Year History and Sociology First impressions?
First impressions?
Very tall – tall, dark and handsome!
She’s very friendly, very open and bubbly! Really genuine, down to earth sort of girl.
Best features?
Best features?
He had a winning smile.
Great personality, obviously, plus she’s got a good smile.
What did you guys eat and drink?
What did you guys eat and drink?
I had wine – I don’t know what he had, but I was enjoying my wine at the time. I think we had burgers, which were great. I’ve never been here before, but it’s lovely!
We both had burgers – she had the chicken Cajun burger, I had the cheeseburger. Both very nice; I’d definitely recommend them! I drank the Fallow lager and she had white wine.
Any arbitrary psychological assumptions that you inferred from your date based on their dietary choices?
Any arbitrary psychological assumptions that you inferred from your date based on their dietary choices?
No., I don’t think so. He didn’t order anything unusual.
Young? Fashionable!
Any awkward moments?
Any awkward moments?
Surprisingly not!
No, not really. Conversation flowed really well, apart from when the guy came to take the plates but that’s always really awkward isn’t it?
Did you find much in common? So much in common! Not everything ever, but almost everything. I’m too lazy compared to him – he seems very sporty and active, I like the lazy life.
Did you find much in common? Yeah, similar sort of age group and background.
Can you spill any sordid secrets?
Can you spill any sordid secrets? She told me she got kicked out of Sankeys in freshers – she’ll probably hate me for telling you that but put it, in definitely put it in! Apparently for groping a guy as well... How did you say goodbye? Hug? Kiss? Heavy petting? Hug and peck on the cheek. Would you like to see your date again? Yes, but maybe not as a date, maybe just as friends. Rate the experience out of 10? A solid 8/10.
ridiculous grins on their faces for what felt like hours, in a really, really good way. The unexpectedly balmy night meant that dancing by the outside stage felt almost, almost like being on holiday, at least until you saw a Magic Bus glide by. Kano, the big headliner of the night, performed to a half-empty Academy 1, but rather than feeling awkward, it just meant everyone had more room to dance, and reminisce about getting sent ‘P’s & Q’s’ via Bluetooth in Year 8. There were, of course, enough sexy girl leopards to populate a jungle. There were one or two fights, people slumped in doorways, and lots of enlarged pupils. Someone got wheeled off on a stretcher, and everyone spent far too much money, and the next day we didn’t wake up until 4.30pm. But it’s Pangaea. We wouldn’t have it any other way.
Pete & M
My tender lips are sealed. I just feel that some secrets need to be kept and he’s a mysterious kind of guy!
addi e
How did you say goodbye? Hug? Kiss? Heavy petting? We did a shimmy. Would you like to see your date again? Yes, for more wine. Rate the experience out of 10? 10!
Pete and Maddie went on their date at Fallow Café, which has free music gigs and a quiz on Mondays.
/TheMancunion: Lifestyle @MancunionLife
Lifestyle
27
Horoscopes
Travel
Travel: Unknown Festival
Illustrations by Cecilia Tricker
ANOTHER house and techno festival in Croatia? Joe Hand gives his verdict on the Warehouse Project’s Unknown Festival
Whether it’s Glastonbury, Dimensions or Shambala, festivals are a staple of many a student’s summer. This year, I chose Unknown, a house and techno festival in the Croatian beach town of Rovinj. (As you all know, house and techno is so in right now.) Why Unknown? I’d like to think that I wasn’t just jumping on the ‘deep house’/ ‘future [insert any genre here]’ bandwagon. This was Unknown’s first year, and going to the first of anything is usually fun – bar first dentist appointments and first days of school. The first thing I thought when arriving in Rovinj was that there was a lot of fake tan, snapbacks and bicep tattoos, as if lots of edgy
students, a few hipsters and the odd meathead had been transported to idyllic Croatia. But this was just a first impression; once I got chatting to fellow festivalgoers, I realised that most people were just there to have fun and enjoy the music. And there was certainly plenty of music to enjoy, with an amazing line up curated by our fellow Mancunians from the Warehouse Project. My personal highlights included Richie Hawtin, Kerri Chandler and Jackmaster. Although the organisers delivered on the music front, this music festival is undoubtedly a big business, a long way from the hippie roots of festivals like Shambala and Glastonbury. Punters had to book accommodation through the Unknown website, a shrewd system which meant the festival could dictate the price of accommodation. As far as I know this is a European festival first. Although the camping was reasonably priced, many of the villas and apartments were over what you’d expect to pay in Croatia. My lasting impressions of Unknown will be great music, soedgy-it-hurts students, and my poor bank balance at the end of
it. All in all I had a great time, but I don’t know if it was so great that I’ll be back again. As a country Croatia is beautiful, and the people are very friendly. However, with Outlook, Dimensions, Hideout and Unknown all located in Croatia, I get the feeling that its festival market is at saturation point. This year I tried something new. Next year, I’m going to try something different: for summer 2014, all roads lead to Sonar in Barcelona. Many have told me it’s the best festival around, so watch this space…
Advice
Making the cut
LIBRA (24 SEPTEMBER 23 OCTOBER) Something has been worrying you recently, but don’t fret. As the moon approaches its eight phase in Jupiter, resolutions will unfurl.
SCORPIO (24 OCTOBER 22 NOVEMBER) A certain someone has been on your mind for a while. As Venus and Mars come into line, now’s your chance to make your move. Go for it! You can’t fail.
AQUARIUS (21 JANUARY 19 FEBRUARY) On the whole, things have been going swimmingly for you recently. Don’t avoid that one little thing that’s been nagging at the corner of your mind: confronting the issue will make you feel much better
GEMINI (22 MAY - 21 JUNE) Geminis are naturally curious and adventurous characters. You’ve been deliberating whether to take a certain risk for a while now – go on. You know you want to.
PISCES (20 FEBRUARY 20 MARCH) The uneven distribution of the stars has caused some upheaval in your life, but try not to get too caught up in the drama. Take a step back. As the stars realign, so will your problems.
CANCER (22 JUNE - 22 JULY) Make an effort to keep up, or you may get left behind. If you sit around and wait for someone to grant you an invitation, you’ll probably never get where you want to go.
ARIES (21 MARCH - 20 APRIL) You’ve been bombarded with new responsibilities lately, but don’t be scared. Embrace every opportunity – it could be the start of a new adventure.
LEO (23 JULY - 22 AUGUST) Let your friends know how much they mean to you if you haven’t spoken in a while. Pick up the phone and share the love.
Worried you don’t fit in, or having trouble making friends? You’re not alone... The first few weeks of university are always hard to adjust to, whether you’re a fresher or a fourth-year. It is, for almost every student, a nerve-wracking time, because making new friends is never an easy experience. So if you feel like you don’t ‘fit in’ with your flat mates, or you haven’t made as many mates as your best friend from home has at their uni, relax! Follow some of these simple steps and you’ll find the transition will be become much smoother. Firstly, it’s vital that you remember this well-used phrase: the grass is always greener on the other side. When you’re feeling uneasy everyone’s social lives will seem much more exciting than yours, from the giggling girls in the flat downstairs to the rugby captain selling Varsity tickets outside Owen’s Park. But often, all these people are feeling just as nervous about making friends as you are, and would probably welcome you into their group. The key is to act confident, even if you don’t feel it inside. A simple smile or a hello can strike up conversation- and, this is where most friendships begin after all! Don’t be afraid to put yourself out
there. Join a society, which will help you to make friends with people who have the same interests as you- plus, many societies tend to have socials, making it easy to go out and boost your social life. Don’t be afraid to chat with those on your course too, as you’re bound to find like-minded individuals who you’ll be spending the next few years in lectures and seminars with. Make sure you attend those house parties and quiz nights at the pub too, because that’s where the most random (and drunken) friendships form. Finally, and most importantly, don’t ever pretend to be anyone other than yourself. You will often find that the most popular of people at the beginning of the year tend to become the unhappiest, because they have spent their time putting on a front to impress their new ‘mates’ (remember, the grass is always greener…). The truest and lasting friendships will be formed with people who like you for exactly who you are, and that’s when you will be happiest in yourself. Don’t expect to make millions of friends in your first week, but rest assured that you will make great friends in time.
Beth Currall SAGITTARIUS (23 NOVEMBER - 21 DECEMBER) You’re feeling anxious over money issues but as long as you’re sensible, all will be fine. And remember – the most important thing is that you feel happy.
CAPRICORN (22 DECEMBER - 20 JANUARY) Someone has been getting on your nerves this week, but keep your cool. They might just turn out to be worth your while.
TAURUS (21 APRIL - 21 MAY) There’s tension between you and a close friend. Take a deep breath and make an effort to clear the air. You’ll both feel better for it.
VIRGO (23 AUGUST - 23 SEPTEMBER) You’ve been feeling exhausted recently. You’re a natural hard worker, but remember to take the time to relax - you deserve it.
Want to write for Lifestyle? Come along to a contributors’ meeting, Tuesdays at 5pm in Biko’s Cafe in the SU, or email lifestyle@ mancunion.com.
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ISSUE 03 / 30th SEPTEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM
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Club Profile- Basketball The Mancunion talks to club captain Freddie Stephenson 1) Why should people join your club? People should join UMBC because basketball is the coolest sport ever due to two words: slam dunk.
importantly, all our BUCS teams represent the University at the Armitage centre every Wednesday. So come and support our games when you can!
2) How successful has your club been over the past few seasons? The basketball club has been very successful over the past few years, our men’s first team and women’s team both play in the first division. We’re also looking to create a storm in the Campus league with our third team this season.
4) Do you have to be of a high standard to join your club? The standard, like most clubs, varies throughout each of our different teams. However, even if you’re inexperienced you can still play as the University of Manchester Basketball Club now coaches Hall Sport, so we can see you play every week.
3) Where and how often do your teams train/play? All of our teams train at least once a week at the Armitage Centre, and we also do fitness training together as a club. Most
every year. It is an unforgettable experience each and every year, and one which is worth joining the club for in itself! 6) Anything else? Our first game is on the 16th October. Come down and support us, we’ll make you purple and proud!
Club Profile- Cheerleading The Mancunion speaks to Cheerleading club gymnastics officer Essy Martin
5) What is the social side of the club like? We certainly aren’t the most outrageous sports club, but we can definately hold our own. We go out as a club together regularly and also go on tour
1) Why should people join your club? It’s fun, addictive and a great way to get in shape! The sport combines gymnastics, dance and the acrobatic pyramids that cheerleading is renowned for, There’s something for everybody! 2) How successful has your club been over the past few seasons? We’ve been representing the University for 6 years now and won loads of competitions all over the UK! Just a few months ago we won the UK championship for our level! 3) Where and how often do your teams train/play? We have informal Thursday session (8-10pm at Didsbury Sports centre) that people can attend just for a fun way to keep fit!
Club Profile - Men’s Cricket The Mancunion speaks to Cricket Chair Elliot Gerrard Why should people join your club? Simply put, the UMCC is one of the biggest, most active and inclusive clubs in the AU. We provide those who love cricket with opportunities to play and train all year round. Our top teams and players compete with some of the best university teams in the country, while our beginner sessions give those who have never played before a chance to learn and enjoy the game. Has your team had much success over the past few seasons? The UMCC’s success over the last few seasons is best illustrated by the position of our 3rd team, who have now been competing in the same division as our 2nd team for two seasons, and compete against first teams from Liverpool, Sheffield
and even Durham. The fact that the club can sustain 7 teams is also testament to its growth and stability.
Where and how often do your teams play and train? We have four training groups that train for one and a half hours a week each at Manchester Grammar School on either Monday or Friday nights. We have an inter-club soft-ball tournament that runs on Sundays at the Armitage, and we also run
an inter-society league on Saturdays. When the season finally comes around after Easter we play 50 over games on Wednesdays and Sundays. Do you have to be of a high standard to join the club? No! This is one of the defining principles of the club. Anyone can join, and everyone will be able to train and play all year round and are encouraged to be part of the committee. We are easily the highest performing and largest club in the AU that takes on complete beginners and offers them the same opportunities as our top performers. What is the social side of your club like? Our socials are a huge part of the club. We have large formal dinners at Vodka Revs at
Christmas and at the end of the season, as well as more relaxed and innovative socials such as pub cricket. In the season it is usual for members of all teams to meet at a pub or bar in Fallowfield after matches to reflect on the days play.
Those on the Nationals Squad train an additional two times a week and get together for additional fitness sessions. 4) Do you have to be of a high standard to join your club? Not at all! Absolutely no experience is necessary, we teach you from the ground up and welcome all levels of experience! 5) What is the social side of the club like? We like to vary our socials and enjoy teaming up with other clubs like Basketball and American Football! We’re regulars at AU, go bowling, have movie and cocktail nights, do sports swaps, celebration dinners...whatever we can think of! We love a good fancy dress opportunity too! Joining the squad is an excellent way to make brilliant friends!
Anything else? The club is currently holding trials to sort players into training groups over the winter, however, it’s never too late to join the club, just join our Facebook group (University of Manchester cricket club).
6) Anything else? Cheerleading is not just for girls, boys are welcome to join our Thursday sessions and even join the competition team! See you at the upcoming Rugby and Ice Hockey Varsity events! Our Twitter page is: @UoMCheer Our Facebook page is: University of Manchester Cheerleaders
Alternatively email me at Elliot. gerrard@student.manchester. ac.uk. Our fresher’s curry is being held next Tuesday (see the group for details) and is a great opportunity for new members to be introduced to the club.
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Comment: We ought to tighten the regulations, not the laces Mancunion Sport editor Thomas Turner argues that while Stonewall’s ‘rainbow laces’ campaign may raise awareness, only the authorities and individual clubs can truly rid the game of homophobia Thomas Turner Sport Editor In last week’s Mancunion, Jonny Roberts highlighted the latest significant move in the battle to remove homophobia from football, with players being urged to don a pair of rainbow coloured laces to show their support. I was a rainbow lace sceptic from the off. We’ve seen it all before, haven’t we? Remember Nike’s ‘Stand Up Speak Up’ wristbands, launched in 2005 to stop racism in football? Every playground in the country was awash with a sea of intertwined two-
Inappropriate: Many have criticised the campaign’s choice of language. Photo: @StonewallUK
we have a serious issue trivialised in the form of a fashion item devoid of its original intent and meaning
Your 60 second sporting round-up
bringing the much ignored issue of homophobia back to the fore of discussion and raising awareness at a time when homophobia has somewhat slipped off the sporting agenda. Indeed, the dire need to raise awareness of the issue may have led to the decision to adopt such a controversial marketing campaign. But the question is, for how long will the issue remain prominent? And in practical terms, what concrete change can it achieve? As I see it, we need to engage with homophobia in much the same way as was done with racism so effectively. We firstly need to banish it from the terraces. From experience, much of the racist chanting previously heard in football stadiums has now ceased, as clubs have stamped down on such incidents with the use of banning orders. Sadly, the same cannot be said for homophobia. If the clubs and authorities really wanted to tackle homophobia, they’d encourage clubs to take the same zero-tolerance approach. FOOTBALL: Manchester United have been drawn against the Premier League’s Norwich City in the Fourth Round of the Capital One Cup, following their Third Round victory over Liverpool at Old Trafford. The game will be played at Old Trafford on either Tuesday 29th or Wednesday 30th October. Look out for cheap tickets at the union in the next couple of weeks!
Photo: @NUFCOfficial
tone rubber wristbands. They were popular alright, but why? Because people were staunchly concerned about the rise of racism in football? Possibly. Or, was it because Thierry Henry, Wayne Rooney and others wore them, and by default, made them ‘cool’? Probably. Eight years later, and here we are again. This time Paddy Power provided the commercial clout. And once again, we have a serious issue trivialised in the form of a fashion item devoid of its original intent and meaning. In 2013, are we still naive enough to believe that a risqué marketing campaign and a handful of celebrity endorsements can resolve a problem as deeply-seated as homophobia in football? In fact, risqué is an understatement. The campaign slogan ‘Right Behind Gay Footballers’ is so jaw-droppingly inappropriate that even Ron Atkinson would probably not chuckle, and even the notion that it might be acceptable or ‘tongue-in-cheek’ is indicative of how insignificant many still perceive the problem of homophobia to be compared to that of racism, for example. Now I of course do respect Stonewall and those players who wore the rainbow laces. They contributed to
Support: Newcastle managerAlan Pardew in his rainbow laces. They’d eject and ban fans taunting Brighton supporters with chants of ‘you’re just a town full of queers’. They’d eject that loudmouth who refers to players wearing headbands only as ‘ponce’, or ‘bender’. The problem is, that clubs aren’t. And that normalises the phenomenon which needs to be stopped. It tells the FOOTBALL: Manchester City, on the other hand, earned an away tie at Newcastle United following their 5-0 demolition of FA Cup holders Wigan Athletic at the Etihad Stadium. RUGBY UNION: There are still tickets remaining for the Manchester Rugby Union varsity, taking place this Wednesday at Sale Rugby club. The women’s fixture kicks-off at 5pm, with the men’s game kicking off at
young kid on the next row that calling his classmate ‘gay’ for ducking out of a tackle is a perfectly acceptable insult, in the same way which insults based on race no longer are. And what we are left with is a sport wrapped in an uber-masculine bubble where gay footballers feel unable to come out because they feel out of place. Because ‘gay’ is a term of ridicule. Because having the WAG or the hotel room threesome is the norm, in much the same way that the American ‘jock’ isexpected to have the cheerleader in tow. Only if we start to take these sort of measures will we see the effect which Stonewall desires - that more footballers feel comfortable ‘coming out’. But for it to happen, it needs to be driven by direct action by the FA and individual clubs, not by Stonewall and its controversial pairs of laces.
They’d eject that loudmouth who refers to players wearing headbands only as ‘ponce’, or ‘bender’.
What do you think? Join the debate @Mancunion_Sport
7:30. Coachres will be leaving from the Armitage Centre at 4pm. Tickets can be bought from outside both the Students’ Union and Owens Park for £5, or £8 with a social ticket included. ICE HOCKEY: Talking of Varsity games, here’s another date for your diary. The Ice Hockey varsity takes place on Tuesday 29th October at Altrincham Ice Dome. Doors open at 6:45, with the
ominous sounding ‘face-off’ at 7:30. Keep your eye out for more details and build up in Mancunion Sport in the coming weeks. AND FINALLY: Macclesfield born Ben Ainslie presided over a thrilling USA fightback as they snatched the Americas cup away from New Zealand with a 9-8 victory. Ainslie was drafted in as a tactician with the USA 8-1 down!
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Frustrating start for Manchester’s men University of Manchester
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University of Nottingam
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Manchester’s Rugby Union men’s team fall short in Varsity warm up match at the Armitage against premier division Notts.
Williams 10, Sves 34, Hemming 40, Foster 44, Sparks 59 Andrew Georgeson Sport Editor Manchester men’s rugby union team preparation for the varsity took a hit with a defeat against the University of Nottingham at the Armitage centre. The match started brightly for Manchester, crossing the try line after a grubber through from Blyth, however, the ball was judged to have been knocked on over the line so the try was disallowed. Despite Manchester seemingly controlling the early exchanges of the game, Nottingham went on to score against the run of play with a good line from their fly-half Williams splitting the Manchester defence making the score 5-0. The match had a pre-season feel about it, and both teams will know that a more consistent performance in the backs will be needed if they hope to be successful this year. Most of Manchester’s creativity in the midfield came through centre Coskie, but most periods of possession ended with the ball being lost through handling errors after a few phases. Nottingham had similar issues as they wasted a glorious two-on-one chance to take a commanding early lead. Manchester were much stronger up front, they forced a turnover on their own try line and moments later a brilliant recovery tackle from Secker helped keep the score at bay. Although there was a lack of match readiness in terms of skill, the intensity and effort of the players could not be doubted. The commitment was epitomised through several strong runs from Manchester winger Akinloatn, as well as the incredible pace of the Nottingham full back Hemming.
Manchester will be looking to bounce back against MMU this week. Photo: Cil Barnett-Neefs A tit-for-tat first half climaxed five minutes before the interval when Manchester’s line was broken by another try against the run of play with flanker Sves crossing after a scrum close to the
Manchester try line. The home side then managed to get on the score sheet just before half time. Manchester will hope to exploit their scrum dominance against MMU, as continued pressure
finally paid off after destructive props Walden and Richardson caused the scrum to collapse, leaving the referee no choice but to award a penalty try. The dramatic end to the first half saw Nottingham score again after strong play in the midfield left the half time scores at 17-5. Nottingham extended their lead even further after the interval when full-back Hemming broke Manchester’s defence, running in unopposed to score under the posts, making the score 24-5. This did create a resurgence amongst the Manchester ranks with great interplay between Blyth and Barrett forging a chance to score, but a lack of support left him isolated, before another Manchester break was turned over by Nottingham on the line. After a period of sustained pressure, centre Coskie managed to cross for Manchester after 15 minutes of the second half and a successful conversion made the score 24-12. Nottingham continued their attempts to play everything through the middle but the physicality of Manchester saw their efforts go unrewarded. Then, in a mixture of skill, speed and a bit of luck as well, the ball broke to Nottingham substitute Foster, who picked and ran around the outside to score in the corner, leaving the score at 29-12. With the match all but over, a small scrap emerged amongst a few players. Perhaps Manchester’s players felt small sparring session was needed before Wednesday’s game where tensions will be slightly higher than in this week’s match. In many ways it was a bittersweet result for Manchester. They can be content in the fact that Nottingham will be playing
in the league above them this season, whereas Wednesday’s Varsity opponents are a league below Manchester’s 2nd XV. However, Manchester will feel aggrieved by what was a flattering score line constructed by Manchester not taking their chances and a few defensive errors. Elsewhere, the men’s 2nd XV played a thrilling match against Nottingham University 2nd XV coming from behind to win 14-12.
Manchester’s starting XV Booth Walden Richardson Swall Harrison Barrett
Secker Kennedy
Tom Carter Coskie Blyth Akinloatn
Wace
Perry
Five reasons to play sport in Manchester
Mancunion Sport looks past the pitch to show why playing sport at University is a great experience Too hungover for the sports fair in Welcome Week? Or just intimidated by the lycra-clad football team and afraid to go and put your name down? Don’t worry, you haven’t missed your only chance to sign up. The term is still young, and here are five reasons why fresher or not - you should think about joining a sports team this year. 1) Keep yourself in shape Okay so maybe not a reason for those of you contemplating venturing into cue sports. But nonetheless playing a regular sport might just be the perfect counter-balance to all those late night Kebab King’s. Whether it’s joining the
cross country team or getting involved in one of the many team sports, the AU offers a myriad of ways to keep those chins in check.
teammates, and they’ll undoubtedly leave you with some happy memories post-graduation.
2) Meet new people It might sound clichéd, but getting involved in a sports club is a brilliant way to meet new people and make friends. You will already have something in common with the existing members - a love of your sport of choice, so the chances are you might hit it off with your teammates far easier than with some of your more distant flatmates. 3) The trips away If you’re after a change of scenery every now and again, then sports teams are a great way to get out of Manchester. Whether it’s taking to the skies on a football tour, or hitting the road for national competitions, many university sports teams offer trips away throughout the year for you to enjoy. They’re also a great way to bond with your new
4) Something for your CV Potential employers are always interested in candidates who have been involved in club committees. Whether you become a chair, social secretary, president or treasurer, you can learn extremely useful transferable skills such as managing budgets, organising events and even arranging sponsorship deals with local curry houses, all of which show business nous that would make Lord Sugar proud.
5) Kit stash One of the main reasons many people join a sports club in Manchester is to get the latest club shirt or hoodie with their own name or nickname on the back in University colours. You will notice a lot of people this year proudly parading their new stash up and down Oxford Road and in the gym. Some however take this too far, a club polo shirt is one thing, but a full team tracksuit is a little unnecessary.
More of a writer than a player? Come and join us at Mancunion Sport! Contributor meetings every Thursday at 6pm in the SU bar. No previous experience required!
Bo
SPORT MANCHESTER’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER
30th September 2013/ ISSUE 03 FREE : @Mancunion_Sport : /TheMancunion
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Armitage Centre renovated: “We wanted to create a world class venue” - Significant financial investment - Revamped sports hall - New changing rooms - Better oportunities for students - Outstanding sporting hub in the heart of Fallowfield Tom Dowler Sport Editor In 2002, the Armitage Centre was at the heart of the Commonwealth Games and it was seen as a highly valued asset for University of Manchester students. However, as the years went by, other facilities cropped up around the city to rival the Fallowfield sporting campus and students and the public alike became dissatisfied with the quality and range of facilities. However, over the summer, the Armitage Centre underwent extensive redevelopment works and The Mancunion Sport section were invited for a behind-the-scenes tour of the improvements. The main developments are in the sports hall and the gym, but there are also refurbished changing and showering facilities in the previouslyinadequate firs pavilion, while the addition of a synthetic cricket pitch will be warmly welcomed by Manchester cricketers. The sports hall has had an immaculate new floor fitted and the various marked courts are international regulation size for netball, badminton and basketball. There are new badminton nets and the basketball and netball hoops have been replaced. Further to this, there is now enough room for a safe run-off area at the end of the courts. However, the prize new addi-
tions in the main hall are the two giant electronic scoreboards, which add a real air of professionalism to the venue. Also, the LED lights can be varied to fit appropriate sporting requirements, for instance, the glare can be reduced for racquet sports - an adduced luxury admittedly, but one that sets the centre apart from others in the country. In the gym, the free-weights area has been re-arranged and slightly extended to accommodate the huge demand for those hoping to ‘pump iron’ in the evenings, while even the smallest details have been considered with new carpets throughout the majority of the centre. The modernised, welcoming entrance area now gives an excellent first impression, a must considering the centre is hoping to convince students to part with a chunk of their loan at the start of the year. Assistant Manager Mike Kelly is delighted with the improvements: “We have acted on pretty much every suggestion the public and students have given us. “We wanted to create a world class sporting venue for everyone as we firmly believe that sport has a huge part to play in the student experience. “We also hope to encourage people to be active in body
and mind, and we think these changes should encourage people to try new sports and enjoy themselves in a top facility.” Manchester University sport is thriving on campus and in the 2012/13 season, the AU teams came ninth in the overall BUCS standings, ahead of some excellent sporting institutions including Cardiff Metropolitan University, Newcastle University
and Christie Cup rivals the University of Leeds. Cracking the BUCS Top 10 list was a remarkable achievement which was greatly helped by teams such as the Women’s Rugby who won the BUCS Cup and excellent performances in Squash and Badminton. Sizable investment in Manchester sporting facilities is only going to help students go further and achieve their full
potential in the purple colours of Manchester. Mike also divulged that there are further exciting developments in the pipeline over the next few years however, for now, they remain a Mancunion Sport secret. Nonetheless, the Armitage Centre stands out as a venue of sporting excellence. Whether you are an international sportsman or a hapless
five-a-side player, the facility has something for everyone in an ideal setting for our students. Any feedback on the exciting new changes is warmly appreciated by the Armitage Centre, so please do post comments on their Facebook page and tweet the Mancunion Sport section @Mancunion_Sport to let us know what you think.