Issue8

10th NOV 2014/ ISSUE 08 FREE

MANCHESTER’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER

‘Frack off’ at Manchester Science Festival

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Commemorating our fallen troops

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Controversy over ‘victim-blaming’ poster

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Tributes pour in for Owens Park resident who died of Meningitis Aidan Gregory Editor-in-chief University of Manchester students have been paying tribute to Teygan Sugrue, the first year Russian with Economics student living in the Owens Park tower who died of Meningitis last week.

It has been reported that Sugrue, of Saint Ives, Cornwall, was found seriously ill in his room on Sunday the 2nd of November. He was taken to hospital at around 8pm, but medics were unable to save him.

His death prompted a health scare on Owens Park campus, with students rushing to get vaccinations from local surgeries.

A great number of students have also been expressing their sadness and shock on Twitter and Facebook.

In response to the death, Dr. Tim Westlake, Director of Student Experience at The University of Manchester, said: “We are saddened to hear of the death of one of our students and our thoughts are with his family.

“Following advice from Public Health England, students living at Owens Park Tower have received guidance from Occupational Health advising that they are not at increased risk of infection.

“In line with public health guidance, a small number of students who have been in very close contact have been identified and offered antibiotics as a precautionary measure.”

Katie Sarah Sugrue, Teygan’s sister, paid tribute to her brother on her Facebook page.

She wrote: “This is most likely the hardest and most upsetting status I’ll ever have to write, but it is my deepest regret to announce that my brother Teygan passed away last night due to suspected Meningococcal Septicaemia (Meningitis).

“We know he spent some time in Falmouth last week so if I could ask all his friends/Facebook contacts if they could share this status to make sure the message reaches everyone to avoid any harm to others health.

“Anyone with information of his known Teygan Sugrue, the first year Russian with Economics student who died of Meningitis last week. Photo: Facebook

whereabouts during the week or maybe houses he slept at, please contact the numbers on the links below.

“Please act fast as this could potentially save someone’s life.

“Thank you everyone for your help, much love x.”

The NHS state that in 2011–12, there were around 2350 cases of bacterial meningitis in the UK, and that young children and teenagers are particularly vulnerable.

Students in halls are particularly vulnerable, due to “students starting university and mixing with lots of new people, some of whom may unknowingly carry the meningococcal bacteria”.

However, incidences of Meningitis have been falling since the introduction of vaccinations that eradicate the bacteria which cause the disease, such as the Meningitis C vaccine, MMR vaccine and pneumococcal vaccine.

Symptoms of infection include an aversion to light, vomiting, fever, and “pale, blotchy skin, and a red rash that doesn’t fade when a glass is rolled over it”.

Wellbeing Officer at the Students’ Union, Rosie Dammers, said; “We are all deeply saddened to hear of the death of Teygan Sugrue last weekend and our thoughts go out to his friends and family.

“We have spoken to the University, and are confident they are doing all they can to support Teygan’s family, issue the right awareness information to students in Owens Park and have taken measures to ensure the disease will not spread.

“If any student has been affected by the death, or has concerns about meningitis, I would encourage you to seek help and advice from Occupational Health or our advice service which is located on the ground floor of the Students’ Union.”

For further information about the symptoms of meningitis, or if you have any concerns about your health, visit www.meningitisnow.org or call 080 8800 3344.

02 : NEWS

ISSUE 08/ 10th NOVEMBER 2014 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Highlights P12

Music – Interview: Jaguar Skills Thousands gathered in Platt Fields Park last week for bonfire night.

Photo: Ellie Gibbs @ Facebook.

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Fashion – Infalliable fashion

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Film – Review: Horns

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Picture of the week - ‘Remember, remember, the fifth of November’

University of Manchester Student’s Union becomes licensed Duke of Edinburgh award centre Kathryn Murray News Reporter

The University of Manchester student’s union has joined a small number of other student unions to become a licensed Duke of Edinburgh’s Award centre. The licensing makes it possible to conveniently participate at the union directly.

The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award is a youth achievement award which is highly valued by employers. The awards recognise adolescents and young adults for completing a series of self-improvement exercises.

To achieve an award, participants must complete a set amount of hours focused on: volunteering, physical activities, skills (including social and practical), and an expedition.

The University of Manchester Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Society is dedicated to helping members complete the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award including Gold, the highest level of achievement.

Sean Ruane, President of The University of Manchester Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Society, was there to collect the license. Ruane spoke to the Mancunion directly about the student union receiving the license.

“Thanks to everyone’s hard work we’ve managed to become the second university in the country to be certified as a Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Direct Licensed Centre. Being certified is a fantastic oppor-

Lifestyle - Opinion: Being a fan girl was the best time of my life

Visit Our Website www.mancunion.com

Sean Ruane recieving the Duke of Edinburgh awards license..Photo: University of Manchester Student Union @ Facebook.

tunity for our society, as it means we can provide and manage our own awards, meaning that we’ll be able to grow our society and provide a better service for our members.

“With this license, we’ll be able to run faster and more efficiently, so students will be able to keep up with and see the results of their hard work more eas-

ily. My thanks to everyone who helped make this possible.”

You can find the society on Facebook at the University of Manchester Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Society or join via the University of Manchester student union website.

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

Beauty Editor: Nikki Patel beauty@mancunion.com

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

Food & Drink Editors: Elena Gibbs & Adam Fearn

Science & Technology Editor: Andy van den Bent-Kelly

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

Features Editors: Haider Saleem & Roberta Rofman

foodanddrink@mancunion.com

features@mancunion.com

Books Editors: Leonie Dunn & Ali Pearson books@mancunion.com

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

Opinion Editors: Morris Seifert & Marcus Johns

Games Editors: James Thursfield & Matt Cole games@mancunion.com

Deputy Editor-in-chief : Charlie Spargo deputyeditor.mancunion@gmail.com

opinion@mancunion.com

Lifestyle Editors: Robert Firth lifestyle@mancunion.com

Facebook: The Mancunion Twitter: @THEMANCUNION

Postal address: Univerity of Manchester Students’ Union, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PR Phone (0161) 275 2933

Fashion Editors: Aimée Grant Cumberbatch & Gráinne Morrison fashion@mancunion.com

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

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

ISSUE 08/ 10th NOVEMBER 2014 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

NEWS : 03

Controversy after “Just Stop Showing Off” poster accused of victim-blaming Jenny Sterne News Editor

The old poster in the Kilburn building with GMP’s new ‘anti-rape’ poster (left). Photo: Jess Lishak

A Greater Manchester Police poster has caused controversy across campus. The poster has been present on the University campus since 2007, but last week many students took to social media to condemn its ‘victim blaming’ content and existence on the university campus.

Found in the Kilburn building, the poster depicts a girl walking around campus with her thong showing above her jeans, along with having her Motorola flip phone, camera and iPhone visible.

This image is accompanied with the words ‘just stop showing off’ and ‘keep your assets out of sight’. The poster aimed to highlight that “one in three students will fall victim to crime at university,” however there has been much controversy on the way they chose to present this.

This all emerged the day that Jess Lishak, the Students’ Union Women’s Officer, received the antirape posters which she has been working on in collaboration with Greater Manchester Police. These posters are to go up across campus and around student areas.

The new posters read, ‘Drinking is not a crime. Rape is.’ and outline that it “doesn’t matter what she’s wearing, how much she’s had to drink or whether you’ve kissed… sex

without consent is rape.”

On Thursday Jess put up one of these new ‘anti-rape’ posters next to the old one in the Kilburn building, posting on Facebook that there was “quite a stark contrast between two Greater Manchester Police posters”.

Jess, in response to the poster found in the Kilburn building, wrote a letter to University management, with signatures from many students, demanding that it be “taken down and replaced with a positive message against victimblaming and sexual harassment”.

This all comes just weeks after many criticised Greater Manchester Police of ‘victim blaming’ in their response to the rape of a girl in Fallowfield. The police called for students to pre-book taxis, rather than walking home alone.

In a statement for The Mancunion last week, Jess highlighted that sexual assaults don’t “happen because women didn’t get prebooked taxis, they happened because men decided to rape or sexually assault them”.

Greater Manchester Police responded to this controversy with a statement to The Mancunion.

“This poster was produced in 2007

by GMP as part of a campaign to tackle robberies being committed against students.

“It has nothing to do with a publicity campaign on rape. The strapline ‘Keep your assets out of sight’ was simply a reminder to

students not to flaunt valuables such as mobile phones, iPods and cameras.

“The poster is no longer printed or distributed, and it is seven years since they were last sent out. The artwork was approved by the head of PR at the time, and this particular style was chosen as it was thought it would appeal to students and get their attention. It is worth noting that we received no negative feedback at the time these were produced.”

However, the university, when asked for comments on the posters’ presence on campus suggested that the poster was originally put up in the Kilburn building without university permission.

“A poster that formed part of an anti-crime initiative by Greater Manchester Police in 2007 was placed on a wall in the Kilburn Building without the knowledge or consent of the university. The posters were not displayed on campus at the time of the initial campaign and this single poster, put up by persons unknown, has now been removed.”

Students’ campaign against Victoria’s State school graduates earn less than private school counterparts Secret’s ‘Perfect Body’ goes global Jenny Sterne News Editor Students Francis Black, Garbiella Kountourides and Laura Ferris began a petition against the lingerie brand Victoria’s Secret after an advertisement for their new bra range ‘Body’ was released. The advertisement ran with 10 models of the same slim body type with the words ‘The Perfect “Body”’ overlaid on top of them.

The students are petitioning Victoria’s Secret to “apologise for, and amend the irresponsible marketing of your new bra range ‘Body’.” The petition which is being run through change.org outlines that the advertising campaign “promotes unhealthy and unrealistic standards of beauty.”

They aim to highlight that the advertisements play on women’s insecurities, and send out a damaging message by positioning the words ‘The Perfect Body’ across models who have exactly the same, very

slim body type. It fails to celebrate the amazing diversity of women’s bodies by choosing to call only one body type “perfect.”

The campaign running with the hashtag #iamperfect created a “social media firestorm” after they managed to gain international recognition, being covered by press in

sue that everyone can relate to, both men and women, young and old. I think the public is crying out for people to hold big companies to account for their actions. Our petition is not about skinny shaming, it’s about accepting all body types, each person can make up their own mind as to what is perfect… we don’t need to be

America, Australia, France, Germany and Italy.

The underwear brand Dear Kate has also joined in the campaign by creating a reimagined ‘The Perfect Body’ ad. In a statement on their website they write that their reimagined ad “showcases women who are often neglected by the media and traditional retailers. We show the multitude of shapes perfect bodies can take. We stand with the petition of Gabriella Kountourides, Laura Ferris and Frances Black.”

Speaking to the University of Leeds student newspaper The Gryphon, Gabriella Kountourides, said: “It’s going global because it’s a serious is-

told!”

Last Thursday, as the campaign reached 25000 signatures, it was announced that the lingerie company had changed the wording on their website from ‘The Perfect Body’ to ‘A Body for Every Body’. However the Leeds students wrote in a petition update on change.org that ‘the campaign is not over! We still want them to change all the posters in their stores, apologise and pledge not to use such harmful marketing in the future’.

The petition can be found at: https://www.change.org/p/victoriassecret-apologise-for-your-damagingperfect-body-campaign-iamperfect.

Anna Phillips News Editor

State school graduates tend to earn less than private school graduates, even in the same occupation with the same level of attainment in the same degree subject.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has revealed there exists a six per cent gap in earnings between state educated and privately educated students. This is equivalent to £1500 per year less for state educated students, even when their qualifications are identical.

The survey showed there was a seven per cent gap in pay between those who graduated with the same degree, which dropped to six per cent if they went into the same job.

Overall, private school graduates earn seventeen per cent more, or £4500 more per year than those from state schools.

Arguably this could be attributed to the fact that privately educated students are more likely to attend more selective universities and look for higher-paid jobs.

However, this pay gap exists between graduates in the same job and raises questions about whether the ‘old boy network’ is still influential when employers decide which

candidates should be offered jobs.

Dr Claire Crawford, assistant professor of economics at the University of Warwick and a researcher at the Institute for Fiscal Studies said: “Education is often regarded as a route to social mobility.

“But, our research shows that even amongst those who succeed in obtaining a degree, family background—and in particular the type of school they went to—continues to influence their success in the work place.”

This research follows figures released by the Higher Education Statistic Agency, that revealed the top ten universities for privately educated students.

Oxford came out on top with only 57 per cent of state school admissions for 2013/14, closely followed by St. Andrews and Bristol, both below 60 per cent.

The University of Manchester’s figures for 2013/14 reveal that 77 per cent of students are state educated.

“Taken together, our results imply that university does not entirely level the playing field across students from different socioeconomic backgrounds.”

ISSUE 08/ 10th NOVEMBER 2014 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

NEWS : 04

Mayor for Manchester

Chancellor Geeorge Osbourne and David Cameron host a roundtable in Manchester. Photo: HM Treasury @ Flickr

Marcus Johns News Editor

In Issue 05 of the Mancunion, we reported the devolution fever sweeping through Greater Manchester, and it appears to have come to fruition with Devo Manc.

George Osborne announced on Monday the 3rd of November that Greater Manchester is to have a metro-wide elected Mayor.

Currently the ten boroughs of Manchester operate quite independently. The boroughs of Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Bury, Rochdale, Oldham, Tameside, Stockport, Trafford, and Wigan came together however to form the UK’s first statutory combined authority, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA). The GMCA was formed in 2011 and Manchester was the first place in the UK to adopt the Combined Authority model, which has led the way in financial devolution including the Greater Manchester ‘Earnback’ model.

Earnback has been revised to ensure that Greater Manchester retains a larger proportion of its tax revenue that will be created due to increased local investment in infrastructure. For example, the Earnback scheme will allow the construction of the Trafford Park Metrolink extension, which will connect the Trafford Centre to the Metrolink system. The Earnback deal is worth £900 million over the next 30 years.

Lord Peter Smith, chair of the GMCA, said: “Make no mistake, this devolution settlement is a momentous day for Greater Manchester. It gives us greater control over our own destiny in several key areas and the ability to base decisions on local priorities and needs rather than on ‘one size fits all’ dictates from Westminster.

“This isn’t about taking powers from individual Greater Manchester authorities. It’s about powers coming down from central government to a more localised level.”

The new Mayor of Manchester will lead the GMCA, chairing its meetings, and making executive decisions concerning its cabinet, which is currently made up of the ten leaders of each of the borough’s councils.

Manchester, the borough, rejected a directly elected Mayor in 2012. However, the elected Mayor will represent each of the ten boroughs, and it appears that the substantial powers offered to Greater Manchester by the government changed their general apprehensions about the idea of a directly elected Mayor.

In order to qualm these worries though the Mayor will be required to have the support of two-thirds of the GMCA for executive decisions.

Osborne said that “this will give Mancunians a powerful voice and bring practical improvements for local people, with better transport links, an Oyster-style travelcard, and more investment in skills and the city’s economy.”

Greater Manchester’s economy currently adds £50991 million GVA according to the Office of National Statistics, bigger than any other county in the United Kingdom—for example Merseyside’s £25 billion GVA—barring Greater London, and is larger than the economy of the entirety of Wales or Northern Ireland.

Despite this large benefit for the nation’s economy previously, the GMCA was only given control of £5 billion of public finances in each year; under the new deal this is to be increased to £7 billion under the new plans.

Sir Richard Leese, vice chair of GMCA and leader of Manchester Council, said: “Greater Manchester has been in the vanguard of the national devolution debate.

“We are extremely pleased that we can now demonstrate what a city region with greater freedoms can achieve and contribute further to the growth of the UK. “Our ultimate ambition is for full devolution of all public spending in Greater Manchester, currently

around £22 billion a year, so that we either influence or control the whole amount.”

In addition to the increase in Manchester’s public budget, the powers of control over housing, planning, transport, policing, and skills will be devolved to the Mayor and the GMCA. Currently, Transport for Greater Manchester is bringing in the ‘get me there’ card, which hopes to bring a unified ticketing service to Greater Manchester’s transport provisions. Currently it is only being offered on the Metrolink system, but under the plans to devolve more powers to Greater Manchester, the Mayor will be given the power to control local bus franchising.

The control of bus franchising will allow the GMCA to control the routes, frequencies, and fares of buses in Greater Manchester—as currently takes place in Greater London. A new Housing Investment Fund worth £300 million is also being

introduced.

With the opening of the Manchester Airport Metrolink line a year ahead of schedule also taking place this week, Chief Executive of Transport for Greater Manchester Jon Lamonte said: “What it reflects is how successful we can be when Greater Manchester is given the funding and power to build something ourselves.”

Under the plans, Manchester will lose its Police and Crime Commissioner in favour of the powers being transferred to the Mayor—as currently takes place in Greater London.

Some powers can be devolved without need to legislate, and these will be transferred immediately to the GMCA; those powers that cannot be devolved without the need for legislation will be conditional upon Greater Manchester electing its first Mayor.

The first elections for the Greater Manchester Mayor are scheduled to take place in 2017.

Looking North Across Manchester City Centre from City Tower. Photo: Ian Caroll@Flickr

ISSUE 08/ 10th NOVEMBER 2014 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

NEWS : 05

Students’ Union hosts ‘Fair Pay Festival’ Elena Losavio News Reporter

During Living Wage Week, on the 6th of November, UoM Living Wage hosted the Fair Pay Festival at the Student Union’s Club Academy.

Professor Martin Hall, Vice-Chancellor of The University of Salford, and Frances O’Grady, General Secretary of the TUC joined the event to speak about Living Wage and why it is an important issue not only for UK in general, but also for the universities.

According the Living Wage Foundation, the current National Living Wage, calculated according to the basic cost of living in the UK, is £7.85 an hour.

Speaking during the Fair Pay Festival, Professor Martin Hall claimed: “Basically the difference between Living Wage and Minimum Wage is about £40 a week to an employee. This margin makes a huge difference to low-paid employees.

“The living wage foundation expressed that it’s the difference between have the heating on and the heating off in a house.

It’s the difference between being able to buy a full amount of food every week or not.

“A testimony from one of the employees of Salford City Council reports that for him was the difference to being able to send one of his children to the university.

Without the Living Wage there will be not the possibility for a great talented young person to go to the university, because it will be unaffordable.”

Furthermore, he explained the reasons why the University of Salford chose to pay the living wage to their employees and, in this way, become accredited by the Living Wage Foundation.

“First of all, the leadership of Salford

Frances O’ Grady, General Secretary of the TUc, speaking to the Living Wage Festival last week. Photo:Jonathan Nicholson/NurPhoto

City Council made the decision to convert Salford in a Living Wage city. We felt appropriate for us, as one of the three largest employers in the area, to join this project.”

Another significant motivation, according to Professor Martin Hall, was that the University of Salford felt that they should be engaged in this campaign, as the campus is situated in an area with a very high concentration of low income families.

Moreover, he added: “I think that taking an ethical position on things like that still remains important. Particularly for universities, because we are a public organization and I believe that public organizations can make a difference.

“The broader context for me above the living wage issue is beginning with consistently tackling the problem of

inequality. There is no way in a long term basis that a country like UK can sustains this inequality at the level it is doing at the moment.”

On the other hand, some employees of the University of Manchester are still not paid as much as the living wage, even though in 2012 it declared that it would try hard to change the situation.

It was asserted by a University of Manchester spokesman that the university is one of the employers within the North West who gives the staff a lot of benefits and very good work conditions.

He also claimed: “Some UMC employees, primarily students, are on zero-hours contracts because they have hours that fluctuate to suit not only the requirements of the business but the individuals themselves. Both the Unite and Unison unions are content with this.”

Mind the Crack

Helen Chapman News Editor

The Imperial College Rugby First XV team have been suspended pending investigation into reports that team members were stripping on a District Line tube.

The behaviour led to the train being terminated at Stamford Brook. All passengers were told to leave the train, and the police were called to the station.

A tube train was taken out of service after members of a London university rugby club apparently played a booze-fuelled stripping game on board.

They boarded towards the front of the 17:19 Richmond to Upminster service, swigging from bottles of wine, a witness said.

They were apparently playing a game in which you had to get off the train, strip, and board again before it moved off.

One Imperial College student said: “I heard a rumour they planned to come [to the union] as Spartans. All the union teams had a theme.

“I heard they did a naked calendar once too.”

One girl reacted with shock to the college’s announcement of their suspension.

She said: “I don’t think its fair if they were suspended from the team. We don’t want them to get in trouble even if they were misbehaving. They’re nice guys.”

However passengers expressed their irritation at the delay on Twitter.

Samuel Weatherstone tweeted: “Naked rugby initiations on the tube. Standard Wednesday in Gunnersbury.”

He added: “@TFL take @districtline out of service owing to

guy beingon the train.

“My luck man gonna be home even later than usual cos someone thought it was a good idea to undress on the train during rush hour what is life. [sic]” A spokesman for Imperial College said: “We’ve suspended the members pending further investigation.”

Imperial College said in a statement: “The Students’ Union has very clear policies and rules in place regarding the behaviour of all members of its clubs and societies.

“Any breach of these policies and rules is taken very seriously by the College and the Students’ Union, and disciplinary action will be taken where necessary. As a result of this incident the Union has suspended the team in question pending

naked London college rugby initiations. Only in England.”

Jordan Cornish tweeted: “Tube is delayed due to a naked

investigation.”

However, the unions commented that they don’t agree with the university’s policy of no Living Wage and zerohour contracts and that the university shouldn’t speak on behalf of them. Unite also emailed out to the University of Manchester members notifying that they do not assent with the University statement.

Furthermore, during the Fair Pay Festival, when a representative of the Unions was asked by Frances O’Grady if they support the Living Wage Campaign, he confirmed their approval to the project.

As Frances O’Grady reminded, speaking at the event, Living Wage is not only about the money, but it is also concerning on how people are treated. It’s about insecurity, about not knowing when they are going to be able to pay their rent or

bring up a family with dignity.

For this reason, UoM Living Wage is campaigning to increase the awareness among students and to motivate the University of Manchester not to stop moving forward living wage accreditation.

Conor Mcgurran, Campaigns and Citizenship Officer, said, “Over 150 people came to the Fair Pay Festival in order to celebrate the Living Wage, and we have gained over 1000 signatures to our petition in a week. This is clear indication that staff and students in are united in their desire for the University to become Living Wage Accredited.

“It is the responsibility of the University to ensure that none of its employees are slipping into the in-work poverty that Frances O’Grady described”.

Manchester first to receive hope and peace Hiroshima seedlings Lauren Gorton News Editor On Wednesday 5th November Manchester celebrated its 34th anniversary of becoming the world’s first nuclear free city, which placed Manchester at the forefront of the campaign to abolish nuclear weapons.

To mark the occasion, the Lord Mayor of Manchester Councillor Sue Cooley received seedlings grown from seeds taken from trees that survived following the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

Despite the bomb reducing Hiroshima to ashes resulting in the deaths of as many as 140000 people, six Ginkgo trees growing 1 – 2km from the atomic blast survived, despite suffering extreme damage.

From these burnt trunks new buds soon began to emerge leading the Gingko to become a symbol of hope in Japan.

These trees still thrive today and it’s from these that the seeds were taken and have been nurtured into seedlings at Hulme Community Garden Centre.

Manchester is the first UK city to receive the seeds in recognition of its role as Vice President of the Mayors for Peace Programme. The programme was founded by the former Mayor of Hiroshima,Takeshi

Araki, aiming to provide a way for cities around the world to work towards the total abolition of nuclear weapons.

Taking inspiration from the saplings the 5th November also saw the launch of Project Gingko—a major art project for local school children. The project will ask children across the city to create artwork in response to the destruction that took place in Hiroshima and contemplate the way nature can help regenerate damaged cities.

The artwork will be exhibited next year and the creators of the winning entries will be invited to attend a special event with representatives from Hiroshima.

Lord Mayor of Manchester Councillor Sue Cooley said, “to receive these seedlings from tress that survived the atomic bomb is truly breathtaking; they serve as both a pertinent symbol of hope and a reminder that we stand proud, with our fellow Mayors for Peace cities, in the call for nuclear disarmament.

“I hope that local children are inspired by these symbolic Gingkos and look forward to seeing their art work next year. Involving young people with the Mayors for Peace programme is vital in making sure the next generation do not forget the immense destruction nuclear weapons can cause and do not repeat the mistakes of the past.”

06 : News

ISSUE 08/ 10th NOVEMBER 2014 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

To wear or not to wear, that is the question this house asks

- Last week, Manchester’s Debating Union posed the controversial and divisive question: should we wear the poppy?

Helen Chapman News Editor

The poppy has become one of the most evocative symbols of remembrance in the UK, and is the means by which most of the British public participate in commemoration.

However, there is a growing feeling that the way in which we remember and observe past conflicts is overtly nationalistic, making it impossible to critically analyse our role within conflicts past and present.

Advocates for the poppy argue that it is an important way to ensure that we never forget the horrors of past wars, and that those who died are owed a fitting remembrance.

Now there is the alternative of wearing the white poppy to show remembrance of death but to resist supporting militarism and recent foreign policy.

On the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, the Manchester Debating Union hosted the debate: should we wear the poppy?

The proposition panel had speaker Chris Nineham: co-founder and National Officer for Stop the War Coalition, who argued that the poppy put forward a “favourable view of war.”

Chris Nineham made the case that we need to “deal with a way of remembering war without repeating it,” and we should instead wear the white

poppy to show we are “concerned with death but want to generate more debate within society.”

“The trick,” said Nineham, “is that the poppy can be portrayed in the sense that you support war.”

Supporting Nineham was proposition speaker Maddy Fry: freelance writer, journalist and author.

Fry said that the poppy shows “love for the military. Full stop. And no mention of why we go to war, why we have a military.”

In opposition was Dr. Lynette Nusbacher: a former Devil’s Advocate for the British Joint Intelligence Committee and former senior lecturer in War Studies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.

Nusbacher said, in reaction to the proposition, that there is “no desire to gain propaganda value from remembrance... we will remember all of those who died because that is what remembrance is about.

“It’s not about us,” said Nusbacher, “it’s not about what we think, it’s about them.”

Alongside Nusbacher was Conor Ardill: a second year Politics, Philosophy and Economics at the University of Manchester, the Externals Officer for the Manchester Debating Union and part of the Officer Training Corporation.

Ardill said “people voluntarily sign up to the

The Royal British Legion’s paper poppy—a respectful symbol of remembrance or one of nationalism and warmongering?

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

army but they don’t get to choose what conflict they go to...they don’t get to choose what is right or wrong.

“The reason why soldiers are collecting poppies is because they see it as part of their job to stand in solidarity with those who have been in-

jured, not to support militarism.”

After a summary of both sides and their main points, the debate concluded with the proposition winning and the closing statement: “this house would not wear the poppy.”

Union Assembly: At the Union Assembly students make decisions about which issues or ideas the Students’ Union should take action on and what it believes and says about political issues. It is also the opportunity to hold elected officers to account and find out how they have been working on student policies and ideas.

KEY DATES 2014:

KEY DATES 2015:

Tues: 7th October

Tues: 17th February

Tues: 11th November

Thurs: 16th April Tues: 12th May

All students can submit ideas online: manchesterstudentsunion.com/myidea The Union Assembly takes place in the Council Chambers on the top floor of the Students’ Union from 6pm on the following dates:

Stand until 13 November 5pm

08 : Feature

ISSUE 08/ 10th NOVEMBER 2014 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Manchester Science Festival 2014 This year’s Science Festival ran from October 23rd until November 2nd. The Mancunion’s Science & Technology Editor Andy van den Bent-Kelly headed over to the Museum of Science and Industry to attend two of the festival’s highlights.

The Future is Fracking. Discuss.

“Frack off!” “Not for shale!”

Anti-fracking puns are plentiful, as are the arguments for and against the technique.

Advocates of fracking say that it could be a vital step in our shift towards cleaner, more efficient fuels, as well as creating thousands of new jobs. Those against it say that the potential environmental risks simply aren’t worth it. It certainly splits the general public.

However, a sizeable number of people remain unsure about fracking. It was with this in mind that the Museum of Science and Industry held a debate on the matter as part of the 2014 Manchester Science Festival.

Hosted by Discuss, the event saw a panel of four people tell an intrigued crowd about their views on fracking.

Before any discussion began, all members of the audience were asked to answer a simple question.

Were they for fracking, against it, or did they simply not know? The results of this quick survey were interesting: one third of the crowd stated that they supported the technique, whilst another third said that they opposed it.

Photo: Museum of Science and Industry

The remaining third, which included me, declared that they were undecided on the matter.

The host then invited the panel to present their views. Claire Smith, President of Stay Blackpool, was the first to stand up and talk. A native of the town, she spoke of its decline over the past few decades. Although still a popular holiday resort, the town struggles to attract nearly as many people as it did during its heyday in the late 19th and early 20th century.

“Blackpool desperately needs a creative way of finding new investment,” emphasised a concerned Smith. In her eyes, fracking is that creative new way. Unemployment is very high in the town and opportunities are few and far between for young people.

She pointed to Aberdeen, the gateway to oil in the North Sea. Over 40 years after the first major find, the city still prospers thanks to these vast reserves.

The industry still supports nearly 50,000 jobs locally and the 2% unemployment rate is among the lowest in the country. Indeed, Aberdeen was recently voted the happiest city in the UK. Smith spoke of the many opportunities and benefits that fracking could bring. 60,000 new jobs could be created in the energy sector.

The UK could enjoy nearly 50 years of energy security. She emphasised the point that a payment

of £100,000 per well would be committed to local communities affected by fracking.

Her final and perhaps most important point was that it would be senseless not to at least investigate extracting shale gas. Stating that some testing would be needed, she almost begged the crowd to see whether fracking can live up to its promises.

It was then time to hear from an opponent of fracking. Mark Berry, better known as Bez from the Happy Mondays, stood up and started by explaining how he had recently set up his own political party. The ethos behind his campaign at next year’s General Election will be “free energy, free food and free anything.”

He stated that he was frustrated at a lack of any real debate on the matter of fracking and questioned why no senior figure within the industry, or indeed the Government, has come out to defend it.

He views the exploitation of the alleged shale gas reserves in the North West as nothing more than typical corporate greed.

Bez expressed his concern that many fracking locations are situated on major agricultural sites.

There are many horror stories flying around about water becoming contaminated by fracking and he stated that he was deeply worried that this water would still be used on these sites.

He also raised the issue of failed well-head in Hull.

It allegedly costs £25,000 a day to keep it safe – all this before any fracking has even started!

Mike Bowman was the third member of the panel to speak. A professor of geology at the University of Manchester and a former exploration geologist for BP, he believes that fracking is a viable energy source for the UK but accepts that it is not the long term solution to the world’s energy crisis.

“This is a really tough decision,” was his opening statement. He emphasised that although we need to move away from fossils fuels, it’s not something that can just happen overnight. Their use will continue, but will have to be phased out gradually.

“We will be dependent on hydrocarbons for the next few decades,” he stated.

He was critical of the oil industry, explaining that it has a poor exploration track record. He stated that we should be investing in renewable energy sources now, but that right now, we need something else.

It was almost as if he was selling shale gas as

Museum of Science and Industry Tuesday 23rd October 2014

Photo: The Mancunion the “best of a bad bunch.” While acknowledging that it would still have a negative impact on the environment, he stressed that it was far cleaner than oil and needed to be used as a transition fuel.

Whereas Claire Smith had mentioned Aberdeen, Mike Bowman brought the United States into the equation. Fracking has been taking place there for years.

Not only that, but it has been performed “safely, securely and effectively” according to Bowman.

The shale gas agenda has transformed the country.

Bowman was quick to point out that implementing shale gas extraction here in the UK in a similar style to the US would not be the answer. “We should use US knowledge, but it must be tailored to the UK,” he stated.

His final point was similar to Claire Smith’s. He stressed that we must at least explore the possibility of fracking. “We must take advantage if it’s there,” he concluded.

The fourth and final member of the panel was Kevin Anderson, Deputy Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Manchester. His first statement was powerful: “I’d agree with everything Mike Bowman said, if it was 1990.”

Bez presents his views to the audience. Photo: Discuss

It was back then that the issue of climate change was first raised. The disappointment in Anderson’s voice was palpable when he explained that humanity had chosen to ignore the early warning signs. He warned of the consequences should we continue to dismiss the problem.

He pointed out that 75 per cent of shale gas’ weight is carbon, meaning that vast quantities of carbon dioxide are produced when it is burnt. It might not be as bad as oil, but it’s certainly far more carbon-intensive than renewable energy sources or nuclear power.

However, while Anderson was adamant that shale gas should not be extracted in the UK, he wasn’t so quick to dismiss its use in other countries.

He raised an interesting point that it could be used as a transition fuel in poorer parts of the world.

Although the Western world has been exploiting these fuels for generations, many less developed countries haven’t.

Anderson said that it would be unfair to not allow poorer areas to ever benefit from hydrocarbons and suggested that in the short term, it could help them.

He concluded by stating that like coal, shale gas must remain underground. “We cannot burn shale gas and expect to meet our climate change requirements.”

It was then time to open up to the audience.

Various issues were raised, particularly regarding the safety of the procedure. Mike Bowman was quick to stress that if performed properly, these dangers are not a concern.

The role of regulation was also discussed, as were a wide range of geopolitical questions.

After each member of the panel had presented their concluding views, the audience were once again asked for their views on fracking. This time the “not sure” option was unavailable.

So, did the public agree that the future is fracking?

The answer was an overwhelming no. It was revealed that 72 per cent of the audience had voted against the motion.

This interesting and highly thought-provoking debate didn’t quite manage to change my views on fracking. I remain unsure about whether or not it should be instigated here in the UK. However, I’m pleased that I was there to witness an intelligent topical debate about an issue that could shape the future of our country.

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Feature : 09

#HookedOnMusic Late Complete the lyric: “If you wanna be my lover…”

If you guessed “… you gotta get with my friends”, congratulations. But don’t be too smug.

After all, this is officially the catchiest song in the country. The Spice Girls’ first single was found to be the UK’s most instantly recognisable hit single according to the #HookedOnMusic study, which has been running for the past year.

On average, it takes listeners just 2.29 seconds to recognise the track. That iconic line 45 seconds in, which has a slightly different meaning now compared to when the song was released in 1996, was found to be the catchiest part of the tune. #HookedOnMusic is a citizen science experiment designed to determine the nation’s catchiest songs. It was launched at the 2013 Manchester Science Festival and the initial results were released just in time for this year’s event.

Interestingly, the experiment was conducted in the form of a free online game of the same name. A database of over 1,000 hit songs from the past eight decades was compiled; the game would pick one of these at random and play a section of it. If the participant recognised the song, they would click and the game would record exactly how long it took them to do so.

To avoid the possibility of people cheating the game by simply clicking immediately for every song, the music was then muted for a few seconds. Once it was turned back on, the participant had to state whether it was still in time. If they were correct, the result would stand. If not, the game would declare that they hadn’t successfully recognised the song.

There were other parts to the game, including a time trial and choosing which part of the song was the catchiest. All of these results were used to help determine which songs would be declared the most recognisable.

In addition to releasing the results, an event was held at the Museum of Science and Industry on the penultimate day of the 2014 Manchester Science Festival.

Dr Ashley Burgoyne is a computational musicologist working at the University of Amsterdam. He led the project and was present at the museum to discuss what he and his team had discovered.

Also taking part in the conversation was Dave Haslam, a DJ, writer and broadcaster. Dave has been heavily involved with the Manchester music scene for the best part of 30 years. He had a residency at the infamous Haçienda nightclub and DJed there over 450 times throughout the eighties and nineties.

Photo: Museum of Science and Industry After the introductions were complete, Ashley and Dave began to talk about the results of the study. Dr Burgoyne began by stating how incredible it was to get such precise data, emphasising that the key to the experiment’s success was getting enough people to play.

And play they did. 12,000 people gave it a go, which according to Dr Burgoyne enabled

Museum of Science and Industry Saturday 27th October 2014

Dave Haslam (left) and Dr Ashley Burgoyne (right). Photo: Museum of Science and Industry his team to get a mixture of different musical personalities. In his words, this produced the “average Brit” in terms of musical knowledge.

Dave, however, wasn’t quite as convinced by the study. He was keen to stress that judging the catchiness of a song is very subjective and depends on a huge range of parameters.

He almost despaired at how mainstream the alleged top 10 catchiest tunes were and wondered where the likes of The Beatles were in the list.

It was then that the first real question of the evening was raised. Dave mentioned that repetition might be vital for a song to be catchy, stating that if you hear the same beat enough times, it “invades your mind.” He suggested that even if you convince yourself that you hate a particular song, if the beat is repetitive enough you often can’t help but sing along.

Ashley responded by informing the audience that this is a question that splits members of the music industry. While some songwriters believe that repetition is the key ingredient to a memorable tune, there are others in the business who think that all a song requires is one striking moment.

He went on to say that on the whole, scientists tend to agree with the latter view. Looking at the results of the experiment, it would appear that the general public don’t quite share this view. If I was asked to describe Wannabe in one word, it would almost certainly be “repetitive.”

Dr Burgoyne also spoke about the concept of the hook – the catchiest and best-known part of the song, which quite literally “hooks” you and causes the tune to stick in your mind.

Dave Haslam then posed another question to Dr Burgoyne. It was something that I’d been wondering throughout the talk. He asked whether the hook was always vocal.

It’s an interesting point. There are many popular songs with particularly memorable and often powerful lyrics, but equally there are a great number of tunes best known for containing an iconic instrumental section.

That guitar riff in Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain immediately comes to mind. Numerous songs have great solos.

Ashley stated that it could indeed be both. He admitted that he was expecting the results to show a mix of melodic and instrumental hooks, but that the public had voted overwhelmingly in favour of the former. Indeed, the top 20 were all melodic.

The next point was raised by an audience member during the Q&A session. At last year’s event, it had been announced that the results of this experiment could potentially be used to help people suffering from dementia.

Dr Burgoyne stated that these plans are still very much alive. “At the moment the game doesn’t change,” he said. “It’s the same for every player.

“We’ve been trying to see if we can get the game to adapt to each individual player.”

I learned that Dr Burgoyne and his team are attempting to see if the experiment can be changed from an adaptive game to a form of

adaptive therapeutic technology.

It’s no secret that music can help to revive patients. Dave Haslam strongly agreed with these sentiments. “Music has a lot of power,” he emphasised. “It can conjure up memories and transform you.”

I caught up with Dr Burgoyne after his conversation with Dave Haslam had ended.

The rest of the audience were taking part in a big interactive quiz, similar in format to the online game. Although a lot of my questions had been answered either during the talk or in the Q&A session that followed, I still had a few things I felt compelled to ask him.

I was curious as to whether he thought the results of this study were generational. Music can change significantly over several decades,

than a few generations ago. I ask Dr Burgoyne whether he would expect similar results with classical music.

“My hunch is that it does, although we haven’t tested this yet,” he informs me. “I would love to a classical version of #HookedOnMusic.

“I think that at least within Western tone of music, there probably is a trend. A catchy melody from Mozart is still a catchy melody now, you just realise it very differently.”

Prior to the event, I read a piece online stating that the length of each line in a song, not just the content of it, is key to determining whether it will catch on or not. If a line is so long that it’s difficult to sing it all between two breaths, chances are that it won’t be a hit. Successful songs are both memorable and easy to sing along to. I ask Dr Burgoyne what his thoughts on this are.

“That’s an interesting question,” he replies.

“I’m not familiar with that theory, that’s the first I’ve heard of it. People enjoy singing along.”

He couldn’t have timed his response much better. Round Two of the quiz has begun and it requires the participants to sing. A booming rendition of “Don’t you want me baby” echoes throughout the building.

My last question relates to music videos. I ask him whether he thinks that some songs are becoming more well-known and memorable for their videos, rather than for the music.

“There’s no question that some music videos certainly stick in people’s memories,” agrees Dr Burgoyne. However, he’s not convinced that they’re going to take over. On the contrary, being a self-proclaimed member of the MTV generation, he believes that music videos have had their heyday.

“It’s almost become more disconnected,” he suggests. “At nightclubs, videos are becoming more and more prominent, but it’s rarely the actual music video on the screen!”

Photo: Museum of Science and Industry as can people’s perceptions of what makes a song catchy. I ask him if he’s worried that the results may be outdated by the time my generation have children.

“Because of the way we designed the experiment, I hope not!” he laughs.

“Obviously more songs are being written, will Wannabe by the Spice Girls remain the catchiest song of all time? I doubt that.

“But I don’t think that the core results are going to change.”

My next point applies to music from far longer

As someone who frequents the first floor of Factory more often than I’d care to admit, I can certainly vouch for this.

I left the museum intrigued. Music plays a huge role in so many people’s social lives but prior to the event I’d never once considered the theories and science behind what makes some of it so popular.

As I journeyed home, I suddenly found the phrase “I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want” stuck in my head.

Damn.

So what are the catchiest songs of all time?

1. Spice Girls - Wannabe (recognised in 2.29s) 2. Lou Bega - Mambo No. 5 (2.48s) 3. Survivor - Eye of the Tiger (2.62s) 4. Lady Gaga - Just Dance (2.66s) 5. ABBA - SOS (2.73s)

10

Opinion

Editors’ Foreword Marcus Johns Morris Seifert

This week, thanks to the Manchester Literature Festival we have a very insightful literature themed edition. It would not have been possible to have the detailed and interesting discussion at our meeting, which led to these articles, had Morris not have attended the festival. We would therefore like to thank the Manchester Literature Festival for a series of poignant, thought-provoking discussions about the state of literature in the modern world.

Do you disagree with something that’s been said? Tweet us with your thoughts and comments: @MancunionOp. If you would like to contribute tweet us or like our page on Facebook at facebook.com/MancunionOp Next week we will be featuring articles discussing strikes and unions, in response to the UCU marking boycott, which started last Thursday.

Comedy of Canon

David Brierley Contributor

This is an abridged version of David’s article, the full version of which can be found at www.mancunion.com It is a truth universally acknowledged, that some authors are nearly immune to criticism.

Take a cursory glance at the literary reception to Austen and you wouldn’t be far off in mistaking her for a deity. Dickens is a messianic figure in the grim world of Victorian England. And Shakespeare. I don’t think I even need to come up with a comparison for him, his name alone has such a gravitas in literary tradition that invoking it shakes the very core of our language.

In Shakespeare’s case, the reputation is due; so much of our modern vernacular comes from his pen it is impossible not to be enamoured by him. Even if it seems all Greek to start with, the long and the short of it is that most of this sentence comes straight from the Bard. But that is just one example.

I have no issue with those who praise Jane Austen—my personal dislike of her novels is not important but it seems insane that while Austen is considered a pillar of Literature, her equally talented contemporaries are forgotten by the canon.

Seamus Heaney won a Nobel Prize for his contributions to the literary landscape. Eavan Bowland, another Irish Poet of great importance, is virtually unheard of outside of a Literature Degree The idea of a Classical novel is entirely arbitrary. It’s a forced conjecture, and it’s robbing the world of a huge portion of its literary history.

I’m not saying the texts I’ve studied so far in my educational career are not significant or worthy of appraisal but for the layman, the oversaturation of certain texts is killing literature.

So many lists of top 10 books to read before you’re an arbitrary age repeat the same novels. Society has created a cocoon around some of the greats.

I am not here to belittle the masterpieces of English with my subjective opinions but I believe that we should take a serious look at what we rate our Literature for.

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I Love the Smell of Paper in the Morning

Joe Evans Contributor With the book sales at an alltime low, authors struggling to make ends meet and digital media dominating the entertainment sphere, the lifespan of print media seems limited.

The immediacy of the Internet, television, movies and game consoles meet the demands of a modern audience, providing instantaneous information and instant gratification.

One might say this is simply evolution. We invented the television and with it waned radio audiences. However, the falling prominence of books simply isn’t a progression. The negation of print serves to illustrate devolution in human thought.

We have outsourced our abilities of reason and logic. We have decided to ask for everything to be simpler, not to improve our abilities but to have the world simplified.

It is simply impossible to argue that modern spheres of entertainment contribute the same level of intellectual stimulation as the slow-burning process of interpreting a book. While once it was considered a normal pastime, the act of reading and understanding for recreation has become frivolous, almost elitist in society’s preconceptions. It’s a crime that we have allowed the issue to go so far.

When one hundred years ago approximately sixteen percent of sixteen-year-old school leavers couldn’t adequately read or write, it is completely unjust that we would allow a society with access to education to slip backwards into the dark ages.

These dark ages are to me instigated by a generalised dumbing down of all forms of media.

We now unfriend someone, or declare that we just liked something. We have declared forms of bastardised English valid, all in the name of keeping up with the frenetic pace of new media.

Imagine hearing somebody say to their friend, “I watched a movie last night,” and getting the response, “I like that.” You’d think their grasp of English was appalling, yet it slipped under the radar into standard vernacular, albeit subtly.

This is where the death of the book stems from. Why should you have to trawl through pages of difficult language, which has to be understood and interpreted? No, it’s much easier to have your brain scythed open by new media like Facebook and YouTube. That way you can have anodyne use of language, pouring straight into your consciousness and it’s so much easier to comprehend!

The dangers, however, of this shift away from the fulfilling and intellectually challenging nature of print are obvious. This

truncation begets the opportunity for misunderstood views to flourish given the phasing out of print is abundantly clear.

When we start getting our news off Buzzfeed for example, the need for snappy news means that presenting a rounded story on current events is secondary.

Gaining a rounded view isn’t an option when even the source of your knowledge champions immediacy over education.

With print, the appreciation that the reader is in ‘it for the long haul’, so to speak, allows for the development of ideas and the presentation of differing opinion. This is totally lost in the need for speed that comes with the phasing out of such media.

Likewise, when the most common form of entertainment comes in the form of opiating television programmes or mindnumbing game consoles, rather than something that encourages interaction, our development is clearly stunted. The complexity of a book isn’t its biggest drawback; in fact it is its most powerful strength.

Rather than taking the form of mere entertainment, it serves not only to entertain or inform but also to develop —to develop the reader’s articulacy, interpretative skills and logic. On top of that it empowers a reader to question. Books, far from opiating a reader’s experience of the world, enliven it. They ask ques-

tions, the kind of questions that make us ask questions and by asking questions, never accepting the status quo; we can serve to develop our world.

The slow death of print is a dark reflection on us as an audience. The poverty endured by writers and the falling sales of books illuminate a worldwide ignorance for improvement, which has seeped into social consciousness. The market provides what the masses want, and we as the masses have chosen to ignore the vital importance of reading and of print in forming us as rounded individuals.

It is often argued that we read out of tradition, that the form is outdated and that it is becoming extinct due to its inability to

evolve. We do not however read out of tradition, we read out of necessity. Like numerous thriving species of animal we have forced into extinction, we run the serious risk of destroying books and reading as art forms.

Only by embracing the irreplaceable importance and relevance of books can we begin to reverse a generational rot which has set in, and caused damage, but which is by no means irreversible. Books carry information and education beyond any new media outlet. They have charted human history since their inception, and we cannot be the society to let that wither and die.

Photo: Pimthida @Flickr

Where have all the books Ama-gone?

Will Brown Contributor In the business world there’s a saying: “cornering the market,” essentially it means finding your niche. Amazon hasn’t done this, its enveloped portions of the market whole.

If you want something, whether it be a book, a TV show, a child’s rocking horse, drinking helmet or a sex toy, you can Amazon it; the online retailer will cater to the consumers every desire.

What with speedy delivery services and irresistible prices, it is difficult not to indulge in those guilty moments of online retail therapy. “Buy in one click”— how magical! Never mind the fact that it’s all backed up by a poorly paid workforce whose workload is such that they are at an increased risk of mental illness according to a recent BBC report. Never mind the whopping gap in our public finances, or where the tax from Amazon’s £4.3 billion worth of UK sales should be. We love it.

For Amazon, the sky is literally the limit, as last year Amazon was toying with the idea of drone delivery systems. One can almost envision a dystopian future where the skies are dotted not by

birds, but by Amazon deliveries.

Amazon started off simply as an online book retailer and although it expanded into new markets quickly, predictably that’s where its influence is most felt today.

Last year in the USA Amazon held a whopping 65 per cent share of books sold online and a 41 per cent share of all new book sales. Britain isn’t far off with Amazon holding a near 35 per cent share of the book market. The e-book market in both countries is similarly dominated: Amazon accounting for over 70 per cent of all e-book sales. And today Amazon’s expansion shows no sign of waning.

Think about the power that such a market share gives to Amazon; an author knows that nearly half of their sales will be through the retail giant. Recently, while the political writer Owen Jones was publicising his new book The Establishment he pointed to Amazon as having the power to make or break any author’s success.

The key lies in Amazon’s ability to withhold the sale of small or independent publishers’ books—unless they agree to often extortionate and unacceptable business deals. The editor of magazine The Bookseller, Philip

Jones, told the BBC that effectively Amazon’s terms were a “form of assisted suicide for the industry”, as they push small players out of the market.

However, the effect more noticeable to the average reader is Amazon’s devastating impact on independent bookstores. Thatcherite reforms in the 1990s heralded a deregulation of the book market, later allowing pricing to be slashed tremendously on online sales. This has resulted in a third of independent bookshops closing within the last nine years, leaving the UK with fewer than 1000 independent bookstores. If you exclude charity shops, Google will show you that Manchester only possesses five to cover a population of over 2.5 million.

I’m not one to fetishize independent bookshops, which can often be incredibly stuffy and pretentious, but we are losing something of cultural significance here to the mechanised commodification of literature.

The French certainly think so.

The protection of independent bookstores is one of the few things that both the political far right and the far left unite on. In France, regulation has been in place since the late 80s to limit pricing discounts.

Today the continuation of these discounts into the online world limits Amazon’s ability to offer free delivery on orders.

Now this may sound fastidious and dull—it is—but this legislation has had a very real effect on French high streets where there are presently more than 2700 independent book stores, nearly three times more than the similarly populated UK. Effectively, the French have given the Davids of the literary world a fighting chance against Goliath.

Now I’d be a hypocrite to call for

a boycott of Amazon, my order history from the company goes on for several pages; just today my flatmate was complaining about answering the door in the early morning for a package I’d ordered.

In a world where people read less and less, the value and efficiency of the company in providing accessibility to information cannot be downplayed. However, sustained pressure must be put on the company by us, as the consumers, to be accommodating to the wider literary world.

Photo: AlexInLeeds @Flickr

Are you literature-ally bursting to get your opinions heard?

Opinion

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11

Remembering and Respecting our Heroes on Remembrance Day Lauren Wills Contributor In the busyness of life, Remembrance Sunday is one of the few occasions where millions of people across the UK take two minutes of silence and reflection in memory of those who have given their lives for the freedom of others in all conflicts.

The First World War officially ended on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918. The tradition began one year letter as people were desperate to remember and thank those who were killed, injured or, affected by the war.

I am unsure whether or not the same appreciation resounds amongst our generation. As easy as it is to detach ourselves from something that hasn’t happened in our lifetime or affected us so directly, I believe it’s very important to remember, respect and, appreciate the fact that people of immense courage fought for us to live in a freed nation today.

After speaking to members of my family who lived through World War II, it became extremely apparent that nearly all aspects of life as we know it were nothing but a dream or fantasy. Firstly and most obviously, most men up to 39 years of age were drafted unless they were needed in other important areas that directly aided the war effort, such as energy production, farming, or factory work.

We think we understand this, but it’s difficult for most of us to imagine being a left alone by our fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons. It’s even more so difficult to imagine a family member being a prisoner of war. It’s also hard to comprehend living in constant fear for your family’s lives, not

having the chance see relatives for up to five years with minimal communication.

It’s difficult to imagine scrapping our career aspirations and meticulously planned lives to go and fight in war at young ages. Indeed, almost all of the young men studying at our university would have been sent to fight on the continent—regardless of their country of origin.

On top of this, it is impossible to imagine the austere lifestyles of families, particularly in relation to rationing. It has been said to have completely changed the social landscape of the UK for generations to come.

Everything was rationed from food to clothing; my grandmother was one of three girls and said that she can’t remember getting anything new as a child because of clothing coupon allowances.

In comparison, we are clouded by modern consumerism. We are showered with gifts, we always desire the next new product, and things are relatively easy to obtain.

Even the comparatively rich during World War II couldn’t purchase luxuries because there was nothing available to buy. Everything was suffering from shortages, everyone too.

Food wastage is common in today’s society, but people living in the 1940s were taught from a young age to appreciate and finish their food; a person’s typical weekly allowance was: one fresh egg; 4oz margarine and bacon (about four rashers); 2oz butter and tea; 1oz cheese; and 8oz sugar. Meat was allocated by price and points could be pooled or saved to buy different products. Even as students it’s difficult to imagine such a lifestyle, bound by a ration book and seldom able to experience variety.

Something that struck me about listening to my grandmother was the fact that she didn’t speak about those days as if they were terribly difficult.

She said everyone made do and got on with their lives. In regards to rationing, she said everyone helped each other, or as she put it, “there were better neighbours in those days.” If someone lacked food, then another with enough food would provide at their own expense. Altruism was the norm, and there wasn’t a culture of needing to be repaid or recognised for good deeds.

My perception of Western society today is that everything concerns money; goods and cash are only given away when they are in abundance and charitable obligation where there is always recognition and praise for having given. Whilst this is not wrong, I think there is something beautiful about a society where people shared what they had, even if what they had was very little.

Overall, the lifestyles most of us enjoy today are nothing like that of those living during past major conflicts. We seldom see the freedom for which was fought as our own freedom. I would encourage all, especially young people, to appreciate what people went through, whether it was in the military, raising a family in difficult circumstances or trying to get by.

It’s also important to remember more recent tragedies, and even the present where members of the Armed Forces continue to put their lives on the line for the sake of our freedom, regardless of our, or their, political opinions on current affairs.

The First World War and the Second World War affected everyone, and it’s true that we don’t know what kind of society we would live in if it weren’t for others’ courage and bravery all that time ago.

I was shocked and saddened that the 15 year old army cadet selling poppies for Remembrance Day was recently attacked in Manchester.

DI Liam Boden said, “This is an absolutely appalling attack on a young man who was raising

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

money to help remember all those who gave their lives fighting bravely for their country. At this stage we are keeping an open mind as to what motivated the offender to commit such an attack”.

The Guardian reported that it was sheer luck that the individual didn’t sustain more serious burns to his face and body.

Whatever the motivation of the attacker, it is saddening that a person wished to suppress the deeds of a 15 year old who was encouraging people to remember those who gave their lives fighting bravely in the wars and dying so that we could live as we do today.

I hope this shocking, thoughtless and horrific incident propels our society into a continuous state of gratefulness for our heroes, to be vocal in our thanks, and that we never forget the heavy price of freedom.

To e or not to e, that is the question E-books are the future and nothing to be scared of Marina Iskander Contributor With technology evolving at an incredible speed, we often find ourselves looking back and criticising where it has brought us today. One of the famous debates between the traditional and the new is between physical books and e-books.

At first sight, our argumentative and criticising nature may say that digitising books diminishes the need, or even the love, for the traditional, printed book. However, taking this defensive view is not always necessary—and definitely isn’t in this case. One should instead consider the fact that new applications and tablets facilitate the spread and accessibility of literature.

As students, two of the things most of us lack are money and time—both of which can be saved by purchasing a digital copy of a book online rather than going out and buying it. Having books at such discounted prices will not only encourage people to buy them, but also to step outside of their comfort zones and read things they usually aren’t interested in.

“One way or another, with the easy accessibility of e-books, we will soon get used to them and perhaps even prefer them to physical books.”

As for the original bookworms, having digitised copies of books makes it easier to read more than

Photo: Daniel Sancho @Flickr

one book at the same time, as you can carry them around with you.

One of the growing trends today is also audiobooks, where a recording of a book or novel is provided. At first glance, this sounds like a new level of laziness. However, listening to an audiobook offers a feat that reading cannot, it allows for one to listen to the book while doing other things.

Now, one can “read” while they’re driving, walking down the street or cooking, for example.

Of course, this compromises one of the most essential aspects of a book; analysing its characters, pondering different ways of wording, or mulling over the sentence structure. However,

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

compared to the alternative of not reading at all, audiobooks seem to be an acceptable hybrid between reading a book and skipping straight to the movie.

In fact, one of the reasons e-books are vital at this time and age is the technological advancement of everything else around them—why would one read a book if they can just wait for the movie to come out?

To compete with such modern advances in technology, books must also quickly adapt, even if that means that we must divert from the comfortable norm. With various new types of entertainment of instantaneous media such as online streaming, the book is becoming more

and more of a strain. Over the years, humans and animals have had to adapt to different changes.

Likewise, the only way for books to survive is by adapting to modern-day changes.

Lastly, it seems ironic that with so many campaigns and movements towards recycling and reusing paper, we still print endless copies of books that could easily be provided online.

It is a sure fact that books usually leave a mark on their reader. However, rarely does the reader leave a mark on a book; unless they are studying it, the reader will buy a book, read it, and then leave it as if had never been touched.

It may then lie there until the reader decides to read it again or perhaps lend it to a friend. Either way, it is a huge waste of paper and effort to print endless copies of books. Therefore, to cease this hypocritical waste, we should instead resort to the more ecological option of downloading books on phones and tablets that we already own.

Of course, physically flipping through pages and reading a book from cover to cover is an unmatched feeling. Many could easily argue that reading a book off of a screen or listening to it leaves more space for distractions, throwing away the true enjoyment of reading a book. However, this argument may only exist as we slowly transition from physical to digital books.

As time continues, e-books may become the norm, and given how we humans evolve, we will slowly begin to enjoy books this way as much as we did the old way. Perhaps this will in fact lengthen our attention spans as they become accustomed to concentrating on a e-book and ignoring distractions. One way or another, with the easy accessibility of e-books, we will soon get used to them and perhaps even prefer them to physical books.

Music

12

Interview

Feature

the

ISSUE 08/ 10th NOVEMBER 2014 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Editors: Patrick Hinton, Lowell Clarke

Samuel Ward, Dan Whiteley

Feature

Musical Body Image – What’s the Problem?

Elizabeth Rushton Most of you reading this will have grown up surrounded by images of unattainable female ‘perfection’: razorsharp cheekbones, waistlines photoshopped to within an inch of their lives, and legs stretching for miles. No child or teenager of the noughties can have been unaware of the trend of Size Zero in the fashion world, or warnings against being lured into a dark world of creepy Myspace blogs promoting anorexia. But in 2014, the Year of the Ass, there’s a new gang in town. With artists including Meghan Trainor and Nicki Minaj releasing songs focused on their curvaceous bodies, female body image has become more prominent within music than ever before— but should we be worried?

We’ve probably all seen the videos for, or at least heard, Trainor’s ‘All About That Bass’ and Minaj’s ‘Anaconda’.

Perhaps for young adults they are just light entertainment, but we’re not the key demographic here—it’s pre-teens, of whom, it’s safe to assume, most are girls, who idolise these artists, listen to their songs on commercial radio, and copy their style from tween magazines and fashion blogs.

Most importantly, members of this audience are at a confusing crossroads in their lives; they are working out who they are, and are highly impressionable.

In light of this, some scrutiny of the music aimed at this group might provide cause for concern.

References to size in these songs worryingly suggest some sort of booty hierarchy, meaning that having curves gives a girl superiority over a girl who doesn’t, commonly referred to as a “skinny bitch” by both Minaj and Trainor.

Maybe our idea of what the ideal female body looks like is changing, as it has many times before, but surely it’s dangerous to give anyone the idea that the only way to feel good about yourself if you’re at all unconventional is to create a false self-confidence by putting down your more ‘conventional’ peers. How ironic that ‘All About That Bass’, with its pure intentions of promoting self-acceptance, could actually perpetuate bullying and division between young girls over something as

trivial as their appearance.

This highlights another questionable issue; surely we’re trying to banish the idea that a girl’s looks are all there is to her? This hasn’t been helped by songs like John Legend’s ‘All of Me’, a song of love for a woman despite her flaws—all the flaws mentioned, however, are tied up with notions of beauty, and in fact the song contains virtually no mention of personality or character.

‘All About That Bass’ also contains the dubious idea that being a larger size is fine as “boys like a little more booty to hold at night.” The false selfconfidence strikes again; of course you can be confident in your appearance, but only if someone else gives you the OK to do so.

A more contentious point is how men come into this. Let’s enter the battlefield of opinions on Nicki Minaj’s ‘Anaconda’ video, featuring tropical fruits spinning comically on a turntable, Nicki giving an excruciating home cookery demonstration, and of course, lots of butts. Some argue that the explicit sexuality of ‘Anaconda’ is only there to sell it to a male audience, not only reducing the female body to a product, like in a horrific 1960s advert, but also planting harmful expectations of women in the minds of young boys and girls alike. Others claim that any critic of Minaj and her backing dancers’ suggestive outfits and dancing is simply slut-shaming; why shouldn’t these women flaunt their bodies? They’re beautiful and liberated, and have every right to portray their bodies however they want. In the case of ‘Anaconda’, Minaj’s frequent boasts of the sexual pleasure men derive from her body, with no appreciation or value for her as a person, make this hard to swallow.

The difficulty of all this is that the ideal message, that “every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top,” as long as you are living healthily both physically and mentally, is not easy to get across in a threeminute pop song. Perhaps the best solution is to make like one of Manchester’s greatest bands and simply accept that some girls are bigger than others. That’s all there is to it, isn’t it?

Photo: Flickr user Hot Gossip Italia

Top 5

TOP

Songs

5

played at RA WHP Patrick Hinton, Music Editor

Photo: Press Shot

the

MUSIC INTERVIEW

Jaguar Skills

David Crawley talks to Jaguar Skills about influences, the modern music business, and the reasons why he wears that black ninja mask David Crawley

Renowned for his versatile cut-and-paste mixing style; Jaguar Skills is a seriously talented DJ. In my opinion there are two things this DJ does that make him really special. The first is his intense speed-mixing; often moving track to track in five seconds or less.

The second is the breadth & depth of his samples. He finds these classic House/Funk/ Soul/Rap/Hip Hop samples and will then mix old with new, often blending genres.

The story of his style begins in the 80s: he explains that he “was a hip hop DJ originally” and credits the American artists DJ Clark Kent & DJ Kid Kapri as strong influences on his early sound. “They were the first guys I ever saw to play 4 beats of a tune, flip to another 4 and play another record real quick”. He has respect for what they did at that time: “they smashed it in New York.”

He explains that another key influence was a DJ Spinbad mixtape - someone he describes as “a straight hip-hop DJ and real legit”. At the time he had a very particular taste in hip-hop, but in this mixtape DJ Spinbad starts “scratching in 80s pop records” he was shocked and said it was “really amazing hearing this real shit record”.

But it was a game-changer and he says “I took that concept and flipped it to the electronic.”

Jaguar Skills was also raised in a house with thousands of records on vinyl. His dad was a DJ, who “used to sell records out of the house”.

He later worked for a record company & went on to run his own label. Music is a massive part of his life: “For me man. music is like food.

It is like [the way] I like sushi, I love a fillet of beef, Heston Blumenthal. McDonalds. KFC. Don’t eat it all the time but I like it”. He goes on to clarify that “It’s all just music. It’s all just food” and says this personal perspective was a “revolution/revelatory thing.”

He is not just fast at playing music; but

1. Barnt - Chappell

2. KiNK - Existence

Not even being dropped hree times over the course of night (by Hessle, Joy Orbison and Jackmaster) made ‘Chappell’ have any less impact. Track of the year.

A highlight of Joy Orbison’s masterful set in Room 1. Those piano chords on Store Streets’ speakers, impeccable.

When a man puts a mask on he reveals his true face also has speed-listening techniques to quickly judge if a song is decent saying “you know I give a record 40 seconds”. I ask him specifically about how he selects Dance records; given that there are so many throwaway tracks nowadays. He explains that “Most dance records are sequenced and arranged” with the breakdown ¼ way through and the drop ½ way through and describes the process: “Put a beat on, normal, skip through, drop. Ooh that’s interesting. Let me listen to the whole thing.”

Listen to ‘The Piano Loop Mix’ or ‘30 Years of Hip Hop in 30 minutes’ on his SoundCloud page and you can feel just how well these tactics can turn out for him. I then asked about how modern electronics and the internet have impacted on the way his music is made.

He says it’s “much easier to make records” and that “10 years ago you would have to buy tapes, have a studio, had to have all this shit, had to have a bit of money, really have to hope what you would make was good and then you would have to get signed!”

Comparing the traditional process to the modern day music business he remarks “the whole process seems nightmarish” by comparison, however at the time artists were “paid a lot more”. Nowadays “the money you make from selling records is minimal” but

“artists now get paid more for live gigs” and he loves the ability to just “make a tune on your laptop”.

The consequence of this is that “certain music has become more direct, more throwaway, more simple” and he laments that there is less of a place for “songs that take a while for people to get into.”

In terms of where he finds music online he visits the sites: Beatport, djcity & breakbeat.

He loves listening to new music, to “see how a crowd reacts to a song” and often checks venue listings to see which other DJs are playing where.

I then asked about whether he feels the mask detracts from his connection with a live crowd. He has thought about this a lot before and says that “people react to your face in a certain way. You get different highs off people’s faces” but that doing it masked frees him to “get more interaction with the crowd” because he “uses the body” more as a “communication tool” and that from a “semideep” perspective the mask is powerful.

It is powerful because “you lose your face, the thing that people are used to” and that it is “quite interesting to manipulate that”. He openly admits that would hate to be conventionally famous, that he is “quite private in a way.” Finally, Jaguar Skills produces a quote that best describes why he wears a mask: “when a man puts on a mask he reveals his true face.”

Jaguar Skills plays Sankeys this Saturday alongside Beardyman. Tickets are on sale now.

3. Aphex Twin Didgeridoo

4. Emmanuel Jal - Kuar (Olof Dreijer remix)

5. Ol’ Dirty Bastard - Got Your Money

An absolute classic pulled out by the Hessle Trio. This track was on Aphex Twin’s first ever release in 1992, and it still sounds fresh to this day.

Another tribal track the Hessle lot plumped for in their b2b2b.

This masterful remix from the male half of The Knife kicked off Room 1 early on.

A hip hop banger selected by Moodymann whilst he shared free vodka with the assembled crowd, what more could you want.

ISSUE 08/ 10th NOVEMBER 2014 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

@ MancunionMusic / TheMancunionMusicSection

the

Opinion

Stephen Miller A second album is a tough proposition for any band, particularly for those who found immediate and largescale success with their first.

Debut albums normally have a couple of years of development under their belts, with plenty of trial and error from live performances to help the band determine what works and what doesn’t. If a first album hits the ground running, record companies want a second album produced within a much shorter space of time, so it’s likely that a few of the songs that make it on to the second album are the finished products of ideas that were not deemed good enough to make it on to the first.

The debut album is something we have only recently developed a craze for, and

Music

13

Difficult Second Album Syndrome:

The Myth, The Mystery And The Mercury Prize

Stephen Miller asks whether a sophomore slump really does spell disaster for new acts this obsession could go some way to explaining why we had seven debut albums shortlisted for this year’s Mercury Prize.

The Mercury Prize can become a curse in itself, as a debut album will inevitably receive more praise and adulation than perhaps the creators can bear, and in some cases, more than the creators deserve. Winning the Mercury Prize with a debut album can be rather ominous, as the pressure is then on to ensure that the follow-up is as good as, if not better than the first.

It’s difficult to pin-point when the difficult second album syndrome concept became prominent in discussions about music. The term has been applied, using words of a similar effect, to follow-ups in other areas such as TV and

to paraphrase Chumbawamba, if a band gets knocked down, they need to get up again. sport for a number of years, however this happens in music with depressing regularity and with often more damaging consequences for those involved. A flop second album can destroy a promising career, but, all is not lost. With dogged determination and moments of

inspiration, the best a band has to offer may take a few years, and a few albums to come to fruition.

This is evident in the history of some of the biggest bands of the 60s and 70s. Many of these bands didn’t really hit the peak of their powers until a few albums down the line. Pet Sounds was the Beach Boys’ ninth album, Revolver was the Beatles’ seventh and Rumours was Fleetwood Mac’s eleventh.

Any band such as these with substantial careers can hit a rough patch, but to paraphrase Chumbawamba without even the slightest hint of embarrassment, if a band gets knocked down, they need to get back up again. Good things can come to those who wait.

Before I exhaust my supply of clichés, it is possible that a

difficult second album may not necessarily be a difficult second album after all. Sales figures and YouTube views may tell you one side of the story, but albums, and this can be applied to music as a whole, should never

be defined by numbers and statistics. Music should always be defined by us, the ones who love it for what it is, not the mediums through which we access and contextualise it.

Photo: Album Artwork

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Free Tickets, Mondays at 5:30pm Interviews & Albums Student Activities Office, 1st Floor Students Union Live

Live

The Antlers

The Tribal Sessions: Halloween

HMV Ritz - 31st October 2014

8/10

Dan Whiteley Music Editor With their dense, intricate arrangements and subject matter that often touches upon – though detractors might say ‘bear hugs tightly and refuses to let go of, ever’ - the bleak and despondent, The Antlers are not a band you’d initially peg as translating effectively from the record to the live arena.

Their intense, ethereal brand of dream pop is practically purpose-made for weeping along to in your bedroom, not chanting along to with your pissed-up mate in one hand and an overpriced Red Stripe in the other. Witnessing these songs live is a different kind of gig experience; the stillest crowd you’ve ever seen, all entranced and mesmerized by the heartwrenching sounds making their way from the stage. And on that level, Pete Silberman’s band of not-so-merry men prove to be a sensational live act.

Opening with the trio of ‘Palace’, ‘Doppelganger’ and ‘Hotel’, the band maintained a serious, detached and almost business-like demeanour throughout. The set relied heavily on their latest two records Familiars and Burst Apart, with their breakthrough

Sankeys - 31st October 2014

2/10

Elliot Coen

Photo: Kevin N. Murphy @ flickr

Hospice almost completely ignored apart from an early airing of ‘Kettering’ and an encore ‘Epilogue’. The band’s signature multi-layered yet minimalist soundscapes were recreated note perfectly by an army of synthesizers and guitar effects pedals, and Silberman’s ghostly, expressive falsetto – still the band’s most prized asset – was used to devastating effect on tracks such as ‘No Widows’ and the anthemic ‘I Don’t Want Love’.

Live favourite ‘Putting the Dog to Sleep’ closed the main set in typical morbid form, with

Silberman yearning “prove to me/I’m not gonna die alone” over a skipping, dirge-like beat, followed an encore of ‘Refuge’ and ‘Epilogue’ that saw them engage in some sparse guitar and trumpet interplay for the finale. The band swiftly left the stage suddenly and without fanfare, leaving an emotionally fragile crowd to pick up the pieces of their psyche.

Though they’ve often been overshadowed by other acts in the Brooklyn indie scene such as The National, The Antlers are a band that deserve their recent newfound exposure.

Excitement gripped me upon first hearing of this event.

Chicago’s own Paul Johnson is a renowned legend of house music in almost every circle of the vast genre, and it was to be my first time seeing him play. Similarly, Parris Mitchell is another name steeped in the history of ghetto house. With him I knew what to expect, having been in attendance at his electrifying performance as part of a recent Chow Down night at Soup Kitchen.

The residents in Spektrum for the night, Oli Furness and Angus Jefford, the guys behind Manchester’s own Music is Love label, are also DJs I was very familiar with. By all means, this should have been a highly enjoyable night for me and my friends. So, where did it go wrong?

Sankeys as a whole has fallen far in the five or so years I have been attending. The process has only accelerated since its reopening last year. We were greeted by heavy handed security on arrival and funneled to the entrance, forced to pay a compulsory charity donation for having the privilege of being on the guestlist.

Photo: Album Artwork

Once inside, it was hard to breathe, let alone dance.

Obviously they had sold over capacity. The bar staff were rude but I don’t blame them entirely, as a vast majority of the clientele on the evening were vapid. At every turn you were caught in someone else’s selfie. The amount of times I was asked about pills reached double figures by the end of the night. Constant annoyances like this kept taking me out of the moment.

The only enjoyment I can actually salvage from the whole

debacle is the music itself, with all DJs previously mentioned playing great sets. However, it was apparent that the floor staff weren’t aware that Paul Johnson had been wheelchair bound since 1987. I watched him lifted over and into the DJ booth, a cringeworthy display, in which he could not reach the height of the decks and mixer to play. It was another half hour before he began.

The main message here is that a stellar line-up is only a small factor in putting together a great club night.

14

Music

ISSUE 08/ 10th NOVEMBER 2014 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

What’s Right... Or Shite?

Mancunion Recommends

This week in Music

Taylor Swift – 1989 Big Machine Records; 27th October

Patrick Hinton

Hinge Finger-Bangs

6/10

This absolute club weapon from Barnt dropped last week on Joy Orbison and Will Bankhead’s Hinge Finger imprint.

Joe Evans Taylor Swift is back with 1989 and it’s big, bold and bollocks. Now I have your attention it’s actually not that bad, but the multi-Grammy award winner has hardly reinvented the wheel, producing an album of solid, if uninspiring, tracks.

The album opens with ‘Welcome to New York’ which would suit the soundtrack to the movie Drive but clearly lacks the mystique or cool of Ryan Gosling. Swift does however declare “Welcome to New York / It’s been waiting for you,” clearly a reference to the state’s falling unemployment rate (down to 6.4%). It’s nice to see a pop star with a social consciousness! Second track ‘Blank Space’ evokes the same 80s pop as the album opener, however track three, ‘Styles’, is where the album gets interesting. Is it a reference to Harry? Are they back together? Who cares?!

The song is nice, with a quirky vocal melody.

‘Out Of The Woods’ and ‘All You Had To Do Was Stay’ follow, evidencing an 80s chic that, while flowing nicely, falls well short of the decade’s classic hits. The album’s first single ‘Shake It Off’ is a clear standout, reminiscent of La Roux, a great pop record for the hit parade.

‘I Wish You Would’ sounds like The 1975 fronted by a woman, no bad thing, however this is undermined by ‘Bad Blood’ which is jam-packed with anodyne rhymes such as “bad blood” with “mad love”. ‘Wildest Dream’ however is a good song, mirroring Lana Del

Photo: Artwork

Bloc. Let’s Party

Rey; the song, again, sounds like something from Drive. ‘This Love’ is 1989 ’s first stray away from computer generated sonics, making use of the acoustic guitar, and is a welcome break. A strong ballad.

What Swift has produced is by no means groundbreaking or career-defining. What it is, however, is a record that will sustain her fan base, packed full of pop hits that will appeal across the board. It’s by no means award-winning material, but it’s certainly not a career-ending piece of output.

Everyday I’m Hesslin’ Hessle Audio’s winter tour will be hitting Manchester in February 2015 and Pearson Sound has an album coming out. Rejoice.

Photo: Logo

Hookworms – The Hum Weird World/Domino Records; 11th October

6/10

Cecilia Bicknell Leeds rockers Hookworms are a truly collaborative effort. By choosing to be named by their initials as individuals, the band shuns the ‘rock-star’ trope in their egofree, DIY, improvisation-led compositions.

It is rare in the days of the radio-friendly single and the shuffle-friendly album to hear records with such a sense of unity, feeling like a polished jam that just happened to be picked up by an array of microphones.

The all-guns-blazing energy of The Hum is balance by ambient noodlings, tying the whole album into a fuzzy free-flowing whole. This builds on, and largely imitates the critically-acclaimed formula of their previous record, Pearl Mystic .

The low-fi vocals sound as through they were recorded through a builder’s radio turned up to 11, blending seamlessly with the instrumentals. Drums are full and drive the whole album along like a freight train at breakneck speed. Guitars are dynamic and colorful. Organs and synths are crystalline in their contrast. The resulting wash of sound is underpinned by a bubbling energy, threatening to boil over at any moment into anarchy.

‘The Impasse’ opens with an oscillating wave of synths that are quickly pushed aside by a cacophonous, head-banging groove with screaming, distorted vocals.

‘Off-Screen’ offers a moment of respite with some beautifully delicate vocals over subtle percussion and a melodic bassline, and smacks of classic shoe gaze bands such as

Bloc. are returning home to Butlins in Minehead in March 2015 with what looks set to be the strongest festival line up of the year.

Photo: Logo

TechNo-Show Ricardo Villalobos left punters disappointed by pulling out of WHP on Saturday. Unforgivable since he was replaced my Mancunion Enemy #1 Scuba.

Photo: Press Shot

You’re A Wordsmith, Harry

My Bloody Valentine. The album closes with ‘Retreat’, a cheerful, almost surfy tune which is stark in its contrast to the rest of the record.

This album is great for all the same reasons we loved Pearl Mystic – great contrasts between convoluted noise and crystal clear melodies, screaming punk and sensitive vocalisings. Hell, it could have even been recorded in the same session. And therein lies my only criticism: it is difficult to observe any real development in what by all accounts is a great aesthetic. Be excited to give the record a listen, but if you’ve heard or loved Pearl Mystic , don’t expect a challenge.

So Daniel Radcliffe can actually speak without spluttering and taking a huge breath after every word. Where was this ability when ruining Harry Potter?

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Ruddy Hell

Phil Rudd, drummer of AC/DC, has benn cleared of conspiracy to murder. But he still faces charges of drug possession. Looks like he still might be in need of a ‘Jailbreak’.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Games

ISSUE 08/ 10th NOVEMBER 2014 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

15

Editors: James Thursfield, Matthew Cole

Feature WOW! Make Way for the (ML)G-Unit Many people can’t wait for the ephemeral montage parody craze to shut up, log off and die, but Tom Bruce reckons it’s here to stay. And he accepts it gladly.

‘Montage parodies will take over YouTube so clench your gluteus maximus you got to deal with it m9;)’.

This important message, passed on by prolific YouTube uploader Barnacles, is an elegant (well, more than most anyway) summary of what the gaming montage movement represents.

Barnacles, proud creator of such montage classics as ‘Mlg Hitler looses his Doritos’, ‘Edgy ISIS video (Super MLG)’ and ‘Bear in da big dank house’, may just be right when he/she says that the MLG parody is the future of online entertainment. You see, Barnacles is not a lone wolf amongst the sheep, but a cub in a truly globalised pack, a pack whose numbers and hunger and collective length of unemployment increase with every waking day.

The origins of the constantly evolving montage parody are as uncertain as those of life itself. Some say Gabe ‘Gaben’ Newell, co-founder of Valve gaming, conceived of the very first MLG mashup in his private Steam lair while in the throes of an existential crisis brought on by the overbearing power of video game journalism upon his life force, and then, unable to contain his creation, unleashed it onto the interwebs. More probably, montage parodies are a long-standing sub-culture of the online gaming community which have been in

operation from as far back as 2011, but the snowball effect of their popularity took many months to kick in. To find the epicentre of this movement one has to look no further than the reddit. com page /r/montageparodies/. This is the Heart of Dankness, the end of the

duration, which utilises a combination of visual and auditory internet memes to poke fun at Major League Gaming montages. MLG is the biggest online gaming institution but it is rarely the sole target, with IGN entertainment usually ranking second on the hit-

Photo: Tom Bruce

road, home to Colonel Kush and the blazeit420 army – enter if you dare. At this juncture it might be useful to tell you what a montage parody actually is. Basically, it is a farcical YouTube remix, usually of two minutes or less in

list of these cheeky online montage comedians Having personally watched in excess of two hundred or so (conservative estimate) MLG parodies, the formula is still pretty tricky to dilute: 1) Select a

video on a topical media subject (for example a new MMO game, a Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad clip, or some Ebola news coverage – nothing is sacred); 2) Incite hype in the opening seconds with a Skrillex remix or dubstep version of Turn Down for What; 3) Overlay chosen clip with an ungodly amount of professional gaming competition emblems, such as those of Faze Clan and Optic gaming, then mix them up with Mountain Dew and Doritos (aka Gamer Fuel) logos, plus whatever else you want – McDonalds, Tesco Value and Pampers seem to be popular choices; 4) Pepper the entire video with Call of Duty ‘hitmarkers’ in the build up to the ‘drop’, which should occur at the exact moment that maximum euphoria is achieved in your pre-selected film segment (such as Walter White declaring ‘I am the one who Knocks’ or Epic Meal Time announcing how many calories is in their latest abomination); 5) Unleash all hell on the viewer, exploding their ear drums with the screams of excitable pre-pubescent gamers and the blaring of a thousand air horns, cramming so many dancing Snoop Doggs, nuke explosions and psychedelic frogs into the closing thirty seconds of the video that the original clip is barely visible through the dense hotbox haze of memes; 6) Before the montage ends

An Island in the Sun: Super Mario Sunshine The first real gaming platform I lived on for years was the GameCube. An old console you may have heard of released by good ol’ Nintendo back in 2001. The infamous Cube was home to some of Nintendo’s greatest endeavours in its 125 year-long existence. The game that defined the GameCube for me, but also created the greatest controversy of any Nintendo game at the time, was Super Mario Sunshine.

The first thing you will notice upon booting up Super Mario Sunshine is the sun. It is prominent throughout and is even in the title of the game.

You would have probably realised by now that Sunshine is heavily influenced by the tropics, somewhere like the Caribbean. This was a daring change for Nintendo at the time, especially coming hot off the release of Super Mario 64. The visual style of the game was a complete departure from previous Mario games. With Mario’s latest adventure, it turns out he has grown tired of fighting Bowser (a big stinky turtle), saving princesses and eating mushrooms—he now just wants to relax in the sun.

As a kid back then, the game looked stunning and refreshing. It had a warm, inviting atmosphere that made you wish you could visit the game’s

island paradise called Isle Delfino. It is smack gorgeous and stands the test of time despite being over 12 years old. The art style carries across to the varying game environments you will be running around in. These locations include a picturesque hotel on a beach, a theme park, a dock and many more inspired areas that resemble the real world. However, although these levels are beautiful with intelligent design, with aesthetics that are classic Nintendo, they are quite small. For fans of Mario 64, they will be disappointed by the new aesthetic if they were looking for a Mario 128 affair.

It is this disappointment that might drive some long-time Mario fans away.

Despite being a refreshing take on Mario, many long-standing Nintendo fans have found that this design decision was too radical a departure for the company. However, I love the new direction it took, but it was evident by 2007 with the release of Super Mario Galaxy that my dream for a Sunshine 2 had fallen on deaf ears.

Super Mario Sunshine, like all of the mainstream Mario games before it, boils down to platforming. This involves a lot of jumping, adjusting the camera and navigating a level from point A to point B. Where Mario 64 brought 3D platforming to the

series and played it safe mechanically, Sunshine builds upon many of the aspects of Mario 64, ramps it up a dial and throws in a whole new mechanic that redefines how the

Photo: John@Flickr

game plays. This mechanic is the FLUDD (produced by E. Gadd, a Luigi’s Mansion character).

FLUDD is a sort of water gun/ jetpack/hovering/thruster type of trinket you are introduced to almost as soon as the game starts. FLUDD, like the art direction for Sunshine, was

don’t forget to include a reference to the Illuminati – accompanied by the X-Files theme tune – and chuck in a reprehensible trivialisation of a serious tragedy such as 9/11 for good measure; 7) Finish strong by playing ‘Darude – Sandstorm’ and warn your viewers to subscribe to your YouTube channel or else a member of their extended family will get ‘slapt in da gabber’.

If you found the above recipe to be disorientating, don’t worry; as you progress from uninitiated hardscoping scrub to fedora-flipping MLG master you’ll come to demand more from this burgeoning community and learn to appreciate the idiosyncrasies of its leading pioneers as deeply as you could with any other art form.

Computer games may be entertaining but they are ultimately time wasters.

This apparent by-product is actually where the real magic is happening, and you need to be a part of it. Look up MLG parodies when you get home (NFKRZ and Blazin Skrubs’ YouTube channels are excellent gateway points) or perhaps even watch one in the library if you’re feeling #2brave. There’s enough MLG parody content out there to laugh yourself to sleep for the rest of the academic year, so go check em’ out or get rekt m8. Pizza out.

Marcus Winchester revisits a love it or hate it classic in Super Mario Sunshine.

highly controversial amongst die-hard Nintendo fans at the time, who were hoping for a more traditional Super Mario 128 type affair. However, fans such as myself saw the potential for a new innovative way to completely shake up the dynamic of the platform genre and, for the most part, it succeeded.

The primary story and gameplay purpose for the FLUDD is to clean up ink. Yes, I am being serious. There is a shadow version of Mario covered in ink, running around with a paintbrush that creates living creatures—it’s all very strange. When in spray or hover mode, you can wash away the ink and kill some enemies such as the piranha plants or jelly fish-like creatures in the process. These mechanics extend to boss battles as well. For example, during one of the beach levels, you are forced to contend with a giant caterpillar. The only way to stop it is to spray plants on the floor until they cause an up swell of the sand to knock the caterpillar over so you can pound it on its belly. When the game blends the mechanics of platforming with that of the FLUDD machine, the strengths of Nintendo’s classic design technique really show and are enriched by the game’s beautiful setting.

However, the game shows its flaws

when you are platforming in the game, where the erratic behaviour of the camera will often drive you mad.

If you play the sand bird level, you will know what I mean. The controls can be a tad oversensitive and this makes the platforming aspect more difficult than it should be. This particularly shows in the racing on the dock level, where you ride on some kind of minisquid and the handling is downright awful. Super Mario Sunshine is a game that works best when it hybridises old and new game mechanics and, despite some errors, most of the game thankfully centres around this philosophy.

Super Mario Sunshine demonstrated that Nintendo did not want to rest on its laurels and make an iterative successor to Super Mario 64. It is a truly divisive game—it’s like marmite.

You either love it or hate it. The game has its quirks and some glaring issues with the camera but it is a triumph of design and it receives my badass seal of approval as the most innovative GameCube game. It is just a shame that this island of paradise never received the beaming sequel it truly deserved.

ISSUE 08/ 10th NOVEMBER 2014 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

/mancunionashionandbeauty @mancunionfash

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

Tutorial

Classic makeup tutorial Infallible fashion:the LBD and the

Adrienne Galloway helps you to create a flawless finish, paying particular attention to defined eyes and lips

To achieve this look you will need: Foundation Concealer (Usually two shades lighter than your skin tone) Bronzer Eye shadow palette (Sleek I-Divine in Storm, £7.99 at Boots) Liquid eyeliner Mascara False eyelashes (Eyelure Katy Perry Banging Beauty, £5.95 at Boots) Pink or nude coloured lip gloss or lipstick (Collection 2000 Cream Puff Lip Cream in Cotton Candy, £2.99 at Boots) Eyebrow kit (Sleek Brow Kit, £8.49 at Boots)

black suit

Laura Springer profiles two timeless, iconic and unfailing trends which epitomise ‘classic fashion.’

The little black dress The LBD has survived as a staple item in the wardrobe of most women since roughly the 1920s when it was designed by fashion icons Coco Chanel and Jean Patou. This classic piece has remained extremely popular and is reinvented every year by different designers. The LBD was epitomised by style icon Audrey Hepburn in the classic romantic comedy, Breakfast at Tiffany’s in which Audrey accessorised it with pearls. This signature look is remembered to this day and still remains highly fashionable. The allure of the LBD is still popular today due to its extreme versatility as it can easily be dressed up or down depending on the occasion, it can be completely transformed by the addition of different accessories.

For example, many women choose the LBD for daytime business wear by teaming it with a blazer. Alternatively, with the addition of statement accessories, a pair of heels and more dramatic makeup, it is instantly converted into a look that is suitable for a night out.

This classic piece should also be an integral part of every student’s wardrobe. After all, it can be worn to any event imaginable, rendering it the most worthwhile style investment you will ever make.

Worn with a leather biker jacket, boots and red lipstick it can create the perfect grungy look. On the flip side, team it with a chignon and minimal accessories and you’re on your way to channelling Audrey. With such versatility and class it is highly unlikely that the LBD will ever disappear from fashion, it’s a sartorial stalwart and it’s here to stay.

Step 1: In a circular motion, rub in a primer that will allow the skin to stay oil free and increase longevity of make up wear. Apply foundation using a flat foundation brush.

In order to highlight, use a make-up sponge to apply concealer under the eyes leading up to the top of the cheekbones. This gives a fresher look and covers dark circles under the eyes. Next, use a wide and fluffy powder brush to apply bronzer, working from the cheek bone inwards and down towards the jawline. Use a brow kit to fill in the eyebrows and neaten up using concealer and a small, angled make up brush.

Burberry: Best of British

Step 2: Apply a light eye-shadow so that it fully covers the eyelid – this colour can also be used under the outer corner of the eyebrows as a highlighting mechanism. Apply a dark grey shadow into the crease between the eyelid and brow bone. Using a dusty pink eye-shadow, work from the inner corner of the eyelid, getting thicker towards the edge and eventually creating a wing at the outer edge of the eyelid. Using black liquid eye-liner, start from the inner corner of the eyelid making a thin black line and only thickening at the very edge to create a subtle wing.

Photo:Adrienne Galloway Step 3: Apply a thin layer of mascara in preparation for the false eyelashes. Follow the instructions on the box to apply the lashes – it often takes a few tries before they fit on just right. It is useful to measure up the eyelashes against your own before starting, and trim the outer edges if necessary. It is also practical to have a pair of tweezers nearby to secure the eyelashes in place. Finally, apply the creamy lip gloss or matte lipstick to finish off the look.

Timeless fashion icons Mia Krikler celebrates the sartorial stars that won’t stop shining

Aimée Grant Cumberbatch fills you in on the SU’s inspiring new fashion initiative

Kate Moss Kate Moss is undoubtedly the world’s biggest supermodel and international style icon. Few things in fashion have longevity but Kate is the anomaly. From photographer Corinne Day’s images of Moss running wild and carefree on sandy beaches to her red carpet style debuts, it is her chameleon appeal off the runway that has been as pivotal to her success as her unique looks. Designer and friend of Moss’, Marc Jacobs said “You can never make Kate look as good on the runway as she does in real life”.

Photo: Gráinne Morrison

Craving & Saving

Photo:Adrienne Galloway

The Upcycling Project

Photo: mancunionfashionandbeauty

‘The suit remains an iconic piece of men’s fashion’

Burberry was founded in 1856 when 21-year-old Thomas Burberry, a former draper’s apprentice, opened his own store in Basingstoke. Burberry today remains quintessentially British, with outerwear at its core. 150 years’ worth of old tradition and print design has made this brand one of the most popular in the fashion world today.

Burberry has always been a very British brand. In 1914, the design house was commissioned by the War Office to adapt its officer’s coat to suit the conditions of contemporary warfare, resulting in the ‘trench coat’ that we all know and love today. This patriotic history is one reason Burberry is still striving. Burberry is considered to be ‘functional luxury’; the iconic Burberry trench coat itself is made from gabardine, a hard-wearing, water-resistant yet breathable fabric.

Of course, it is not just the iconic trench coat which epitomises the brand. The Burberry check was created in the 1920s and used as a lining in its trench coats and later as a pattern in clothing and accessories. However the brilliance of the brand’s pattern is also its downfall. The start of the 21st century saw the classic check become so popular that it lost the exclusive appeal Burberry espouses. Burberry successfully turned the print’s reputation around by removing it from all but 10% of the company’s products. A stroke of genius because now the check’s rarity makes it more desirable.

Although Burberry is focused on heritage and timeless, classic styles, going digital is one of the brand’s key strategies to ensure that customers’ needs can be served efficiently and effectively.

Burberry has received awards including ‘Contemporary Design Collection of the Year’, the ‘Classic Design Collection of the Year’ and the ‘Digital Innovation Award’.

Their products fall into one of two main categories: fashion or continuity. Fashion products are designed to be responsive to trends and are introduced on a collection by collection basis.

Continuity products have life cycles that are expected to last for a number of years. The clean cut tailoring, and on trend collections keep Burberry current while it’s timeless designs make the fashion house desirable.

In recent years, Burberry has successfully rebranded itself with ultra-modern advertisements in GQ, Esquire, Vogue, Tatler, and Harper’s Bazaar. Featuring British celebrities such as

17

Top 5

Photo: konabish @Flickr

Photo: Sara Gambarelli @Flickr The black suit Meanwhile in men’s fashion, the classic allure of the black suit is stronger than ever. With its British origins as ‘country wear’, the suit has withstood the drastic evolution of men’s fashion over the years. It still remains a staple piece in any man’s wardrobe. Popular designers of the suit are bespoke tailors such as Savile Row, who tailor each suit individually which inevitably comes at a price.

Therefore the black suit is classically associated with suave celebrities on the red carpet. It was also largely popularised by icons such as James Bond due to the air of sophistication that it effortlessly creates. Nevertheless, celebrities such as Scott Disick are now transforming this classic piece and wearing it more frequently in different cuts and more flamboyant colours. This lessens the formality of the suit making it more versatile whilst simultaneously retaining the classic look. Despite this evolution of the suit, it remains an iconic piece of men’s fashion and is still worn formally to this present day. It is now a much more affordable outfit as many high street shops such as Topman and Burton are creating the tailored look at very reasonable prices. It appears as though the classic black suit is still going strong and is truly irreplaceable.

Photo:Adrienne Galloway

Event

Fashion

Kathryn Murray profiles a classically British brand

actors Emma Watson and Eddie Redmayne, as well as Romeo Beckham and most recently models Cara Delevingne and Kate Moss.

Burberry is a classic British brand which is everywhere; online, on TV, in magazines and in vintage shops.You won’t come across someone who hasn’t heard of this fashion giant, or at least seen the iconic check-pattern. Constantly evolving to suit the needs of their customer, whilst continuing to supply classic designs is what keeps Burberry current and ever popular.

Who doesn’t love to shop? Nobody worth talking to. What isn’t

4 weeks. The Upcyling Project is also looking for volunteers to

quite so easy to love however is fast fashion and its unsustaina-

be involved in the shop, organising events and upcycling the

ble practices. So how do you reconcile those moral misgivings

clothes. So if you’re as excited about the initiative as we are

when you have a wardrobe in desperate need of an update?

come along to the fashion show launch in Academy 3 at 7pm

With a little help from the Union, that’s how. As part of its new,

on November 11th or get in contact via the Facebook page. Stu-

and may we say genius, venture—the Upcycling Project—start-

dents are also invited to soup up their sewing skills at an upcy-

ing on the 10th of November, the Students’ Union will be run-

cling workshop in the store space from Junk (November 10th)

ning a shop in the old RBS building next to Academy 1. The

who will be showing you tips and tricks, such as hemming and

store will stock pre-loved items that have been given a modern

how to transform an unwanted shirt into a beautiful new bag.

makeover by a selection of talented student upcyclers.

We can’t wait.

Want to get involved? Donating clothes is probably the simplest way to be a part of this inspired new scheme, so bring your unwanted items to the foyer of the SU all throughout the

Want to volunteer? Sign up through the student portal via www.facebook.com/theupcyclingproject.

Photo: naomlisapatel Cher from Clueless “Where’s my white collarless shirt from Fred Segal? It’s my most capable-looking outfit!” says the teen queen fashion guru Cher in the ’90s classic ‘Clueless’. The film opens with Cher going through her computer-generated closet. At that moment, we all wanted to be her. Renowned for her yellow tartan Chanel skirt & jacket suit with knee high socks, no one does up upscale prep chic better than Cher.

Style guide

The fashion formula

With Chloe Collingwood’s classic picks, you don’t need to be a genius to ace your fashion finals

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‘Fed up of jeans and leggings day in and day out, but too chilly on these brisk Autumn days to possibly brave the skirt? The pencil pant is your everyday saviour.’ Pencil pants, Asos, £30.

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‘With everything from fur to leather to shearling we wonder if it’s possible to find a simple, classic coat that will quite literally go with everything. Well, the collarless coat could be the answer to your prayers.’

Collarless coat, New Look, £37.

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‘A good pair of loafers will look pretty paired with everything from dresses to jeans, and are often more practical than your average pump shoe.’ Loafers, River Island, £45.

‘The film opens with Cher going through her computer-generated closet. At that moment, we all wanted to be her’ Photo: Paramount Pictures Audrey Hepburn The classic beauty. Whether prancing around Rome in ‘Roman Holiday’ in Givenchy gowns or looking elegantly shabby in ‘My Fair Lady’, Hepburn is an infinite style icon. For many women, capturing Audrey’s appeal continues to be the pinnacle of timeless grace. Hepburn’s elegance and elfin beauty are synonymous with 20th century Hollywood glamour. During the making of ‘Sabrina’, Hepburn was introduced to Givenchy and went on to become his muse. Audrey said in regards to Givenchy: “His are the only clothes in which I am myself”.

Photo: mancunionfashionandbeauty

)

Annie Hall In 1977, Diane Keaten famously played the role of androgynous style icon, Annie Hall. This sparked a revolution of masculine silhouettes. Layering is the key to Hall’s look; versatile white shirts matched with chunky ties and men’s trousers.

Hall’s cloaked on layers of tweed and button up shirts marked the introduction of menswear inspired fashion into the mainstream. Annie Hall is the epitome of playful borrowed-from-the-boys style and this is a look that is still going strong today.

‘Whether fitted or A-line, the mini-skirt looks great for any occasion and should be in included in every wardrobe.’ Mini-skirt, Topshop, £45.

‘The shift dress is the perfect day to night dress.

The design is bold but subtle, and will be sure to outlive any of the modish dress trends on the high street at the moment.’ Shift dress, Missguided, £24.

Photo: netaporter.com

Cara Delevingne Cara Delevingne is famous for her laidback attitude and tongue in cheek sense of humour. With a quintessentially tomboyish style consisting mainly of beanie hats with comical slogans on, it is Delevingne’s off-duty look which draws the most attention. Delevingne’s androgynous aesthetic has cemented her as a modern day icon; as she easily makes the transition from street style to red carpet. What sets Cara apart from other models is that her style is more about her attitude than anything else.

You can convince everyone you’re a dedicated follower of fashion with just a few staple items that will look fabulous season after season, without having to keep up with all the constant new trends. Here are our 5 favourite classic items that will keep you looking on trend for as long as the items will last you! And all for £50 or less; so you will look great and your bank balance will too!

Photo: United Artists

Who is your personal fashion muse? We want to know! Tweet us your answers to @mancunionfash. #classicfashionissue

18

Film

ISSUE 08/ 10th NOVEMBER 2014 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Editors: Tom Bruce, Andriana Hambi, James Moules, Martin Solibakke Top Five

Feature

Madness in the Method

Top Five: Most Quotable Films of the 90’s With no sign of Ace Ventura anywhere (because it’s crap).

5) Titanic The top quotes from this film may not be witty, thought-provoking or humorous but in terms of the sheer number of times they get repeated, they are right up there. Who hasn’t stood on the front of a boat/edge of a building/any other precipice, arms outstretched in front of their significant or insignificant other and told Jack that they’re flying? (And that he saved you, in every way a person can be saved?) I imagine I’m probably the only person who’s ever said, “to making it count” in a toast though. No one got the reference —it was really awkward.

4) Muriel’s Wedding A little less obvious, but this outstandingly Australian romantic comedy-drama complete with hideous 90s outfits and a banging (banging!) ABBA soundtrack is packed to the brim with brilliant one-liners—although they really need to be said in the accent for the full effect. Watch the film and you’ll appreciate the sheer hilarity that the picture below depicts. I’m sure this one, however, can be understood: “They’ve accused him of raping a Japanese tourist, which is ridiculous—Chook hates the Japanese.”

Photo: Buzzfeed

3) American Pie Like, where the fuck do I even begin…

2) Pulp Fiction “DOES HE LOOK LIKE A BITCH?” “No...” “THEN WHY YOU TRY TO FUCK HIM LIKE A BITCH?” I could sit here all day listing off Samuel L. Jackson as Jules Winfield’s quotes regarding dogs, hamburgers and the Book of Ezekiel. Say what you will about Tarantino, but you can’t deny his dialogue is *the shit*.

Photo: Paramount Pictures

1) Forrest Gump Arguably the most quotable pre-Mean Girls film of all time and the indisputable holy grail of exercise related quotes. I mean, who hasn’t had “run Forrest, run!” shouted at them at least once, and wanted to reply (in that thick Alabaman accent) “I just felt like running.” Not to mention his mother’s eternal wisdom concerning life and boxes of chocolate.

Edward Bains

Luke Sharma reflects on the process of extreme acting. In what other business could you go obese and get a trophy for it?

Method acting is defined as a ‘group of techniques used by actors to create in themselves the thoughts and feelings of their characters, in order to create lifelike performances’. Method acting derived from a technique of teaching acting, called the ‘Stanislavski System’, suitably named after Constantin Stanislavski, a Russian actor and director who taught his students how to draw on personal emotions as a way of emitting and portraying a characters emotions on stage. Stanislavski firmly believed that only specific actors were emotionally capable of performing specific roles, and if there was no connection on a psychological, physical or emotional front, then the actor could not truly understand the character. This ideology paved the way for the modern method actor.

When Lee Strasburg came across Stanislavski’s work, he brought the Stanislavski System to the USA and essentially bastardized it to create method acting as we know it tody. Strasburg, although he did agree that an actor must connect with his role on an emotional level, also felt that there must be a physical connection with the character being portrayed, which leads to the extreme commitments that we hear about regarding method actors.

One of the most famous instances of method acting was when Robert De Niro put on 60lbs worth of mass, was trained how to box and actually entered some fights to get ring practice for his role in Raging Bull (1980).

Because of his huge commitment to the role, De Niro’s trainer, Jake LaMotta (the real Raging Bull) said that by the time they had finished his training he was arguably in the top 20 Middleweight boxers of all time. Such preparation may seem excessive, but it paid off as De Niro collected the Academy Award

for best actor.

Though De Niro is one of the more famous method actors, there are definitely more extreme actors (who may take it a bit too far), like Sir Daniel Day-Lewis, the only winner of three Best Actor Oscars. Most famous for his

does not necessarily mean that the role is well played out. For example Mia Wasikowska revealed how much she feared Shia LaBeouf on the set of Lawless because she thought he was ‘too method’. Although I enjoyed the movie, in my opinion it wasn’t even a particularly great performance from LaBeouf himself. It has been revealed that he literally cut his face up and pulled out a tooth to prepare for his role as a WWII soldier in Fury (reviewed in last week’s issue). Brad Pitt has lauded his performance, but we as the audience will be the best judges.

Although method acting does produce some beautiful performances, there is no doubt there is a massive toll to pay sometimes. Numerous actors have ended up in hospital (Robert De Photo: Miramax Niro included) but sometimes there is a much darker turn. We all know role as Daniel Plainview in 2007’s There Will and loved Heath Ledger’s performance as Be Blood, his prep for this particular character the Joker in The Dark Knight (2008), though is completely outshined by others (although his tragic and untimely death marred the he did literally start throwing bowling balls production. A great actor, though many at co-star Paul Dano). For his role as Christy believe that it was his commitment to role Brown in My Left Foot (1996), he refused which led to his demise. He revealed in an to leave his wheelchair for the duration of interview with the New York Times that; ‘Last filming and had crew members feed him week I [Ledger] probably slept an average of his meals. For his role in The Last of The two hours a night. ... I couldn’t stop thinking.

Mohicans he learned how to track and skin My body was exhausted, and my mind was animals, build canoes and also refused to go still going.’ Ledger accredited this sleeping anywhere without a gun (even to Christmas problem to his preparation for the Joker, later dinner). I could go on all day about Sir Daniel; overdosing on the very sleeping pills that I can’t ignore his effort for the role of Bill the were prescribed to help him.

Butcher in Scorsese’s Gangs of New York, As it stands, I still find method acting an where he refused to wear an overcoat and incredible and brilliant way of demonstrating caught pneumonia, lived on set and learned commitment to a role. For the most part, I feel how to be a butcher. So in those scenes where that those actors who completely commit he’s butchering a pig, you know he’s doing it themselves to their craft are the ones that will perfectly. be remembered as ‘truly great’.

It must be said, however, that method acting

Classic Review

Eraserehead

Director: David Lynch Starring: Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Allen Joseph Released: 1977

Nik McNally Modern horror audiences are plagued less so by terror and more by the root of genre mainstays. An over-reliance on jump scares that shake the mind for even less time than they do the body, saturating the supernatural by milking the zombie and vampire cash cows to a point where the otherworldly has never seemed so mundane, and paper-thin characters so abysmally acted that you’d be forgiven for thinking you’ve accidentally stumbled across a dark corner of PornHub best left unclicked. With this in mind, David Lynch’s recent announcement that Twin Peaks is set to return to the small screen arrives as more unsettlingly welcome than ever before. Lynch’s brand of serene menace is all the more unnerving as it hides , surreal and savage, under the plain sight of suburbia, and not in a Halloween costume ready to shank Horror Bimbo 101, who really shouldn’t have ran up the stairs.

Predating the domestic noir of Blue Velvet and Mullholland Drive’s hallucinatory Hollywood among other mind screws, Eraserhead still stands as Lynch’s keenest reveller of muted terrorism. Mostly void of dialogue, the film’s screams are as piercing as they are silent. Shrouded entirely in a black and white overcast – the most vibrant images coming from jets of industrial smog – Eraserhead’s incessant whirring of mechanical

white noise chases factory worker Henry Spencer to his girlfriend’s house for the meetthe-parents dinner from hell.

Again, no one jumps out with a knife – all the terror comes from a dry sense of surrealism.

Social interaction at the dinner is terse, the characters’ body language, warped by twisted postures and volatile gyrations, are passed off as nothing. Henry is tasked with carving a chicken – a miniature chicken thigh, nonetheless – the legs of which begin to flail as the camera pans to the chicken’s bubbling blood. The girlfriend’s mother, who seconds before was utterly aghast at the all singing, all dancing chicken suddenly regains her stern composure to warn Henry

of what most closely resembles a plot point – his girlfriend’s given birth to a baby, or more accurately, an it so horrifying that even the staunchest Pro-Lifers might reconsider.

If this account sounds esoteric, it’s because that’s exactly what Eraserhead is. No explanation is offered for why desolation and disfiguration are so rife Photo: Libra Films in Eraserhead’s world and by refusing to fill in the gaps, Lynch has created an abomination all the more unnerving. The nearest to cohesion the film gets is in its visual exploration of the panic of parenthood – windows are often framed like prison cells, suckling puppies provide a distracting presence at the parents house, and the lingering temptation of the woman who lives opposite Henry gives Eraserhead an undercurrent of supressed sexuality. But then of course, there’s just the batshit insane. Eraserhead is a film too sparsely symbolic to catch on for those looking for an engrossing story or characters though, David Lynch makes an excellent argument for the horrifying power of show, don’t tell.

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Film 19

ISSUE 08/ 10th NOVEMBER 2014 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

@mancunionfilm

Review

TV Binge

Horns Henry Scanlan reckons you’d have to be a loser(fer) to enjoy this hellish flop.

“Are you horny?”

The opening line of dialogue in Horns, aimed at soon-to-be-horny Ig (Daniel Radcliffe) by his soon-toperish girlfriend Merrin (Juno Temple), sets the bar low for Alexandre Aja’s vulgar horror-comedy. Over the next hour, the film sets about gleefully lowering that bar with a glut of trashy gags that find debauchery in all walks of life.

Ig is on trial for the murder of his girlfriend. No one seems to buy his innocence - not even his own parents - and then, to make matters worse, he starts to grow devil horns. The horns grow quickly, so no time for an excruciating Cronenberg/Kafkaesque transformation process that many may have hoped for. However, they do provide fertile ground for sketch comedy: the horns compel anyone who sees them to immediately reveal their deepest, darkest desires, prompting a wicked take on Ricky Gervais’ The Invention of Lying. To their credit, Aja and Bunin ride this premise to its limit – at one point, an old, fat man in a bar shows everyone his penis because, well, he wants to – but unfortunately that limit is reached about halfway through the film, by which point there are frankly not enough taboos left to break.

Those who remember The Invention of Lying might recall a similar problem; the novelty of the gimmicky premise wears off, and it becomes clear when the gags dry out that the film depended on its plot device for laughs.

Despite early hints of a Gone Girl-esque mystique, Juno Temple’s character is ultimately sorely under-

written, required only to act the sweetheart and look fantastic in a billowing, transparent robe, dancing to David Bowie in exaggerated flashbacks. Temple, such a game actress recently in Sin City 2 and Lovelace, is a wasted presence here. Sadly only her gameness for nudity is made use of in Horns.

Daniel Radcliffe, on the other hand, is given emotional miles to run in another role representing his

that channels into Ig’s anguished, drunken malaise.

However, his character is never fully committed as either hero or villain, and the manic energy of the film is severely dampened when we learn that horns or not, he’s really just a pretty nice guy.

Aja, whose wildly sadistic 2006 remake of The Hills Have Eyes escalated to startling levels of gore, has a knack for racking up tension and then releasing it with vicious, visually striking scenes. Horns is tame in comparison to his back catalogue, but that’s not saying much: it still leaves room for all kinds of flesh eating, pitchfork-wielding violence, and one blood curdling scene in which we endure the drug induced hallucinations of Ig’s brother Terry (played by a brilliantly squirmy Joe Anderson).

But as his CV might forecast, Aja doesn’t appear to possess the sleight of hand to weave together Keith Bunin’s disparate script, which twitches all over the place, right across the Photo: Dimension Films spectrum from childhood romance to fully fledged gore fest.

Nevertheless, while tonally a mess, refusal to let his career be defined by Harry Potter. the film manages to strike gold in certain areas. The He’s locked his English accent away and swallowed greatest success is had where Aja sets the plot’s the key, and not once does it threaten to escape. He gushy romance to one side and indulges his talent also makes a far better job of crying here than his for perverse violence and scorching visuals. constipated reaction to Dumbledore’s death. Admittedly Radcliffe isn’t the most natural on screen presence, but he possesses a manic, vulnerable intensity

Cornerhouse Pick of the Week

Nightcrawler Elliot Coen praises Jake Gyllenhaal’s creepiness as psycho journo Lou Bloom.

I laud Gyllenhaal’s performance here as the best of his career so far.

As Bloom, he gripped me with his psychosis that evoked the very same feeling I had watching De Niro in Taxi Driver for the first time. The supporting Photo: Entertainment One cast is also surprisingly strong in Riz Ahmed The city of Los Angeles has long been and Rene Russo (being the director’s the backdrop to many a Hollywood wife has its perks) both give fitting film, naturally so, as filmmakers have complementary performances to merely to step outside their workplace Gyllenhaal’s unnerving lead. in order to catch a whiff of L.A. life It is hard for me not to draw in action. Through cinema, the city comparisons between Nightcrawler has taken on a character of its own and other films in a similar vein (I for me; a melting pot dominated by already did above so there really is no certain appearances, such as in Cox’s stopping me now). It draws narrative Repo Man or Lynch’s Mulholland and stylistic essence from the likes Drive. Dan Gilroy’s directorial debut, of Wilder’s Ace in the Hole and Refn’s Nightcrawler, adds to this concoction Drive but never so far as to call the with its chilling depiction of L.A.’s story an act of plagiarism. It is always journalistic corruption that only the apparent to me when a filmmaker naive would doubt exists in real life. is in total control of direction and Jake Gyllenhaal takes on the role writing, and Gilroy’s Nightcrawler is no of Lou Bloom, an extremely driven exception. No shot feels ancillary, no individual seemingly devoid of line of dialogue superfluous. any compassion towards his fellow Late to the party in a year of man. In an effort to make big money extremely high calibre cinema, quickly, he engages in nightcrawling, Nightcrawler enters very highly in the act of racing to crime scenes my ‘best of’ list. Hopefully it gets the before his competitors to then sell on recognition it deserves come award the captured footage to the highest season. Go see it. bidding news station. Bloom knows exactly what he wants and won’t stop until his hunger for it is satiated.

Gyllenhaal took this greed to an extreme by dropping 30 pounds for the film, literally going hungry in order to gain his gaunt demeanour.

You Can’t Handle the Truth!

Why so Fanboy?

Imran Bukhari feels that The Dark Knight failed to get it right.

Could The Dark Knight be better? without any justified reason the viewer To many film scholars and casual is both repulsed and enticed by his moviegoers the proposed question murderous spree. It’s Bale’s compelling is sacrilegious. In their minds there and intriguing persona that keeps the is no comprehendible way that the audience hungry to understand him, best comic book film ever made and and this is comparable to the Joker’s arguably one of the greatest films of all unexplained motivation for anarchy. time could be improved.

Alternatively, if there is From the gritty tone to one thing missing from the breath-taking set Bale’s Batman it is a sense pieces; The Dark Knight of emotional vulnerability. has become a staple of The anguish and regret modern cinema. One area of his parents’ death is of the film that surely is permanently etched upon faultless is the casting of his demeanour, but at the two central characters. times this can remain on Christian Bale maintains Photo: Superherohype one note. Ledger would the solid foundation have brought an extra he laid originally and a whole other layer of complexity, enticing the viewer praiseworthy article could be written to question what is driving him. The on Heath Ledger’s Oscar winning lines between right and wrong would performance. But it could have all been have been even more blurred, fully very different. fleshing out the bleakness of The Dark When Christopher Nolan began Knight. With Brokeback Mountain, casting, he approached Ledger for the critics truly began to take notice of his role of Bruce Wayne first. Ledger turned versatility. Playing a character filled the opportunity down on the basis with inner turmoil, a hard false exterior of it being just another comic book and a constant longing for a lost love... film. After being suitably impressed sound familiar? Ultimately, what lingers

by Batman Begins, Ledger willingly in the furthest recesses of my mind is accepted any role in The Dark Knight, the image of a manic Bale Joker being and the rest, as they say, is history. confronted by an imposing Ledger Entertain the notion of a parallel Batman and it fills me with childish universe… what if the two main roles wonder. had been reversed? Let’s consider the past performances of the respective actors, for example Christian Bale’s turn as Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. Put some white face-paint/ green hair-dye on him and the film could easily be an origin story of the Joker. As he kills numerous people

Masters Of Sex Now that the second series has reached its climax, Eleanor Stead gives Masters of Sex a good seeing to.

Photo: Sony Pictures

The second series of Masters of Sex, the Emmy-nominated drama which follows the pioneering sex researchers of the late 1950s, Dr Bill Masters (Michael Sheen) and Virginia Johnson (Lizzy Caplan), concluded a fortnight ago on UK TV. This series was in many ways superior to the (still excellent) first series, developing its will-theywon’t-they dynamic, which was compelling but only sustainable due to the genuine chemistry between the show’s leads, to explore the diverse difficulties of human relationships, both sexual and platonic, with restrained subtlety.

Masters and Johnson’s ongoing research (definitely not an affair) becomes ever more emotionally and morally complex, as both find it increasingly difficult to separate their professional and private lives.

Tortured by jealousy, Masters finds himself unable to perform, prompting research into various types of sexual dysfunction, which opens up some interesting new narratives, such as that of Masters’ old secretary Barbara (Betsy Brandt of Breaking Bad), whose relationship with lonely cameraman Leicester is painfully sweet. Meanwhile, Bill’s wife Libby struggles with her repressed sexual urges and her prejudice towards the black community, explored through her relationship with her young black nanny and her handsome older brother, whilst Masters’ work in a coloured hospital reveals the sexual stereotyping and objectification of black people which is promulgated by the white community.

Masters of Sex never simply idealises sex and all the relationships it explores consist of at least an equal measure of pain and pleasure. Whilst the first series showed us the strength of the central couple, the second series excels in revealing their vulnerabilities. No other programme has attempted to convey the true diversity of human sexuality to such an extent as Masters of Sex, which it achieves without ever making the viewer feel like it’s trying too hard to ‘cover all the bases’. Always stylishly executed, Masters of Sex is a sexy programme, the central interest of which is a couple whose relationship allows them to cope with some very real and unsexy problems.

20

Books

ISSUE 08/ 10th NOVEMBER 2014 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

/TheMancunion: Books @MancunionBooks

Editors: Leonie Dunn, Alister Pearson

Review

Review: Russell Brand “Revolution” Books editor Alister Pearson reviews Russell Brand’s third book “Revolution” that commands us to overturn this corrupt capitalist society in favour for a society focused on love.

Image: MarchPayne@Flickr

His appearance is ubiquitous, his language is grandiose and verbose, his vernacular is almost unique, but his intentions are pure. Last year Britain’s leading no-nonsense and crude presenter Jeremy Paxman interviewed the wonderfully elaborate Russell Brand where he elucidated the fact that people had become disenchanted with politics, that the members of parliament have no idea what the word “representation” means and that true democracy in Great Britain was as real as Harry Potter. Paxman looked perplexed at Brand’s revelation that he had not once voted and proceeded to grill Brand in such a way that most would have crumbled to the floor begging for mercy, but as you would expect from one of our generation’s finest comedians, Brand remained defiant in his message, and through humour left the interview unscathed.

A year later, Brand has released his third book entitled “Revolution,” a more serious and striking title compared to “My Booky Wook,” I’m sure you will agree. The key message of the book though is love, which, if you notice, is present in the word rEVOLution. A manifesto, perhaps, that elaborates on what he said in that now famous interview.

The love Brand wants us to realise is the love between our fellow human beings. Deep down we are all the same, we all have basic needs and wants. We all have capacities to feel sympathy, passion, and respect for one another. Even David Cameron and Barack Obama have these qualities despite leading the capitalist machine that is hell-bent on destroy-

ing the planets resources in order to make a quick buck. This same capitalist machine that make the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Brand raises some alarming facts about this capitalist machine.

Imagine a bus with 85 of the richest people. There is now enough money on that bus than in the pockets of 3.5 billion people. He hilariously quips that upon using a calculator to work out what 3.5 billion minus 85 is, that the answer had a letter in it. “Even the calculator has gone berserk at this injustice,” he exclaims.

This is what I found great about “Revolution.”

Sure most of the facts and figures have been taken (with permission and proper referencing, I might add) from people more qualified in the subject than Brand, but he is able to accumulate this data and present it with an entertaining glint to it. Imagine if Noam Chomsky did this, how many more followers he would get. I accept that the man is a genius and is almost criminally under read but the books that he writes or the speeches that he gives are so doom and gloom, and, I whisper this quietly, boring.

Russell realises he hasn’t done the hard work in his book. He knows he’s not going to be spearheading this revolution and looks embarrassed now when an uninformed interviewer asks the inevitable question of “what will the Russell Brand revolution look like?” He also knows that people’s intuitive disenfranchisement with politics has deeper merit under the surface, and that’s why he has written “Revolution.” Of the people who didn’t

Review

vote in the last election, “54 per cent believed big businesses ran Britain, and 96 per cent thought the voting public had no influence at all on the way the country was run.” Brand is a famous public voice that can convey an important message to the masses in a humorous and informative way.

At times the book does seem self-indulgent, as anything Russell Brand does tends to be. He frequently points to God as a huge inspiration for his new focus in life. At one point he extensively looks at the Lord’s Prayer dissecting each line to highlight its importance. It’s dull and unnecessary in my opinion. There may well be a universally shared consciousness that can only be accessed in a spiritual realm but I do not see why a God is necessary for this. At other times he almost begs to be felt sorry for, which I cannot see any normal person doing. He frequently recounts his time as a famous Hollywood actor with such melancholy, when his stories are so far-fetched and desired for by many that it borders on it seeming like he is bragging under a masquerade of guilt.

Regardless of my qualms about Brand’s religious views and his reflections on his life, the book is a success for anyone who is angry at the way the world is governed today. The truths Brand reveals are sometimes obvious and sometimes shocking to their core. Yes, his revolution probably won’t happen but it should happen if we want the world to become a better place.

Top 5

Review: Jerry A Coyne “Why Evolution is True”

The Top 5 ‘Whodunit’ Novels

Jay Fagerberg recommends this rather small and unassuming book to the truly passionate evolutiongeek or the Hermione-esque student who wants to impress their teacher, as it is jam-packed with facts and features on the theory of evolution.

Books Editor Leonie Dunn picks her top 5 novels on those faceless killers and their detective counterparts

Photo: BBC Films

Already from the first page the reader is thrown into the subject. The thread in the book is Darwinism; the modern theory of evolution, and the evidence for it. This is painstakingly illustrated by an endless stream of examples taken from around the world, enthusiastically urging the reader to fully and wholeheartedly embrace this theory. Parallel to this he compares evolution with the alternative theory: the thought of a creator. Despite all the evidence that

evolution exists, it still fails to explain some essential features of the subject in question. This is where Coyne’s Achilles heel lurks, leaving the reader somewhat puzzled.

He does however hit it off rather well by trailing down Darwin’s road. I assure you that by the end of the book, the reader will be a pro when it comes to significant concepts such as natural selection, gradualism and the molecular clock. Logically, argument follows upon

argument and the reasoning is easy to follow throughout the chapters.

Nevertheless, at one point in the book he brings up two classic examples that argue against natural selection; blood clotting and the complexity of the camera eye of vertebrates. Coyne makes an effort, using a good two and a half pages, trying to explain the incredibly complex biochemical process which results in blood clotting.

He mentions gene duplication as a plausible explanation and uses sea cucumbers as an example, just to finish off with: “After all, biochemical evolution is a field still in its infancy”.

In contrast, a more detailed and more digestible explanation is given to the complexity of the camera eye of vertebrates, which can now be explained by the process of natural selection after numerous of experiments have been carried out.

This is a splendid example of the scrutiny and tidiness that underlines every single word in this book. It is extremely well written and can be advantageous when read parallel to text books about evolution. No wonder I was recommended this book by my professor.

To summarise, despite the quality, authenticity and logical structure in this book, the non-stop flood of fossil records, experiments and extinct species was too much for my plate. It felt more like a text book than a novel. The book barely touches on how our genes are affected by environmental factors (epigenetics), and fails to explain some essential features of evolution, such as previously mentioned example of blood clotting. Nonetheless, if you wish to learn about all sorts of creatures, evolutionary concepts and Darwin’s ideas, this book could well become your best friend.

Image: L’Orso Sul Monociclo @Flick

1. Agatha Christie’s ‘And Then There Were None’ At number one it is the lady herself, Agatha Christie, with what may well be the most definitive whodunit novel.

While the premise itself is simple, it does rack up an impressive body count with ten deaths, one being a suicide. This is a must read for mystery fans and I dare you to find the killer. This one I can assure is case you will not be able to peg until the very last page, so good luck!

2. Dan Brown’s ‘The Da Vinci Code’ Brown’s masterful thriller intertwines the pure relished factors of a whodunit with the cryptic but engrossing knowledge culled from 2000 years of Western history. The Novel follows the protagonists Robert Langdon a symbolist and the daughter of the victim, Sophie Neveu who is a famed cryptologist. The due follow the murder of Neveu’s father into a flight through western history and its cultural secrets.

This page turning thriller will have you wishing there was more.

3. Gillian Flynn’s ‘Gone Girl’ There is no doubt you will have heard of Gone Girl, whether it be the mystery novel or its cinematic adaptation. The hype that surrounds this whodunit does not come without its dues. While this novel follows the tale of the missing woman and it is her husband who becomes the obvious suspect. But is everything really as it seems? I’ll leave you to decide who the suspect is in

this brilliantly psychotic and deranged novel.

4. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘A study in Scarlet’ Doyle’s inaugural novel on the notorious duo on the whodunit scene, being Sherlock Holmes and his trusty sidekick Dr Watson. While this novel ‘obviously’ see’s the know-it-all Holmes find the murderer, it does take a turn into what may appear on reading this novel, a totally un-related tangent. But all in all, Sherlock Holmes needed a place in this list and I only saw it fit to hand you the first novel in what is a classic series of mysteries. While it isn’t often perceived as the greatest, it is the introduction to the epitome of the murder mystery detective that is Holmes himself.

5. Umberto Eco’s ‘The Name of the Rose’ This one really is some brain food.

This book is far from a light read and Eco purposefully made the first part of the book particularly difficult to get through. But if you stick at it you will follow Brother William, the protagonist, on his journey through the gruesome murders of multiple monks that imitate the punishments from the Book of Revelations. But the one thing that all mystery loves will relish in this books is that no matter how many times you reread it there will always be another layer of meaning that unfolds in front of yours.

It’s the book that keeps on giving.

environmental &

ethicsgroup The E&E Group is a campaign which works to improve Union and University policy relating to ethics, the environment and sustainability.

The student group also works on the University’s Social Responsibility agenda and is open to everyone, so get involved!

Our meetings are on: Thursday Thursday Thursday Thursday

13th Nov 4th Dec 29th Jan 19th Feb

Thursday 19th Mar Thursday 23rd Apr Thursday 14th May

Meetings are in Room 8 at 6pm in the Students’ Union

Like us on facebook at: www.facebook.com/ManchesterEandEGroup Join our facebook organising group at: www.facebook.com/groups/226240017514412/

YOU DECIDE...

On May 07 2015, the country will turn out to decide who governs for the next five years. With around 100,000 students in Manchester, we could finally make our concerns heard over poor housing, high crime, extortionate tuition fees and more.

Even if you were registered last time, you must register to vote for these elections.

HOW WILL WE USE THEM?

Register at: www.votebooster.org/register/umsu

2014

22

Food & Drink

ISSUE 08/ 10th NOVEMBER 2014 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Editors: Ellie Gibbs, Adam Fearn

Who to Follow: Anna’s Best Foodie Instagram Accounts New to Instagram? Obsessive Foodie? Anna Lawson-Walker suggests some of the best accounts to follow.

Describing myself as a foodie would be a dramatic understatement; I live breathe and, most importantly, eat (obviously) food. In fact, I have an entire Instagram account dedicated to it, posting photos of whatever delicious delight I’ve been gorging on and following many others who do the same.

Foodie or not, if you want to see something other than selfies on your homepage I’ve compiled a shortlist of some of my favourite gastronomic guys and gals on instagram. Be warned, these WILL make you hungry...

@thrillist (Thrillist) Thrillist is a digital media company based in New York with branches in food & drink as well as travel. Their Instagram for all things edible is a smorgasbord of gluttonous treats. Most are the super-sized, deep-fried American kind of treats which look utterly fabulous but in a heart-attack kind of way. A picture from last week showed crispy fried chicken smothered in sausage gravy and then stuffed into a waffle ice-cream cone(!!) In fact, #waffle features highly on their feed, along with other typically American delicacies from sickly Mississippi mud pies to out-of-this-world sized pastrami sandwiches.

Photo: @thefeedfeed

Only recently have I discovered that ‘food stylist’ is a career. Can you imagine a job so great!? LA-based Jenny Park is lucky enough to do just that and, teamed with photographer Teri Lyn Fisher, the duo created the extremely well-named spoonforkbacon; a website full of tasty recipes ranging from everyday dishes to party food. Their instagram account is an incredible display of their talents with each delicious dish captured beautifully.

Photo: @thrillist

Photo: @theboywhobakes

Avid Great British Bake Off watchers will recognise @ theboywhobakes’ Edd Kimber as the show’s first ever winner when it started back in 2010. Since then he has continued to bake and, fortunately for us, posts snaps of all the sweet treats created for his new book ‘Patisserie Made Simple’ (published October 16th). His pictures show sheer pastry perfection. Who would have thought that candied orange peel dipped in chocolate and lined up in little rows could look so darn satisfying? And have you seeen the layers in his millefeuille? My goodness, Paul Hollywood would be proud... Well, evidently he was, in 2010.

@top_london_restaurants does exactly what it says on the tin, posting daily photos of delicious-looking dishes from a range of London’s best restaurants. Each perfect photo makes you wish you lived in London and had enough money to sample all of them. A girl can dream. @thefeedfeed is like a ‘best of’ list in itself, sharing great food photography and recipes from a range of different instagram and food blog users across the web. All sorts of stunning creations are shared everyday with links in the description to the original creators. The latest I’ve been drooling over was a salted caramel chocolate cake topped with a mountain of salted caramel popcorn...woah.

Recipe: Mexican Fajitas Tilly Embling shares a recipe perfect for entertaining guests.

I have recently set up a supper club as a nice excuse to meet up with friends I no longer live with and to test out any new recipes. I wanted to start with something easy that didn’t require too much time in the kitchen. I chose a Mexican classic, fajitas. This is such a good meal for getting to know people, there is something about sharing out food and passing it around the table that is perfect for breaking the ice. I thought this meal could translate well for those of you who are new students or have moved into new houses with new people and are getting used to cooking for the first time. Fajitas are really easy to make and they’re a great way to bring your whole house together, so next time you decide to have a house meal, here ‘s something you can try out.

Ingredients • One large onion • 5 chicken thighs • One and a half peppers • One chilli • One dessert spoon of cumin • Half a dessert spoon of coriander • Half a dessert spoon of paprika • Half a tin of tomatoes • A bunch of fresh coriander • Two limes • Two avocados • A handful of cherry tomatoes • Quarter of a red onion • A tub of sour cream • Half a block of cheese • One lettuce • 2 packets of tortilla wraps • A bowl of cooked rice (optional)

Photo: @top_london_restaurants

Photo: @spoonforkbacon

So follow, browse and be inspired!!

P.S. If you want to see my (not even comparable) Instagram, please find me at: @annalawsoneats

Pub of the Week: Sinclair’s Oyster Bar

Method Sam Joyce and Charlie Filmer-Court check out the drinks available Although the list of ingredients looks a bit intimidating there are only really two aspects of this dish that require any preparation. Start with the chicken. Slice the onion and fry in oil. Slice the chicken thighs as thinly as possible and add to the pan. Now add the chopped chilli, the spices and a handful of diced coriander stalks. Fry for a minute but make sure the spices don't burn. Add the tomatoes.

Slice up the peppers and add to the pan along with half a cup of water and leave to simmer with the lid on.

Now tackle the guacamole. Mash the avocados in a bowl, squeeze in the juice of one lime. Chop the tomatoes and add to the avocados. Dice the red onion as finely as possible and add to the bowl along with a handful of chopped coriander leaves. Season with salt and pepper.

Return to the chicken—a lot of the liquid should have evaporated by now. Stir through loads of coriander leaves Photo: Wikipedia and squeeze over half a lime. Serve alongside the guacamole, sour cream, grated cheese, thinly chopped lettuce, the rice (if using and tortilla wraps, warmed in the oven. Dating back to the 18th century, Sinclair’s in their Yorkshire brewery—making everyOyster Bar is one of Manchester’s oldest and thing from spirits to bar snacks. You won’t most famous pubs. Situated in shambles have heard of these beers before but that’s square, just behind the Arndale, it provides not to say they aren’t enjoyable. Old brewery a fantastic location for a post shopping pint. bitter slips down easy, and for £1.85 a pint, it’s The pub is immensely popular, drawing in the cheapest you will find in the city centre a crowd of all ages from the hub of the city. by a country mile—and in Fallowfield for that The interior is punctuated by a succession matter. If you are looking to break the bank, of warmly lit nooks and crannies perfect Taddy lager is an old standard and comes in for stowing yourself away for the evenunder £2.50. Go there, drink. You will like it! ing. Whilst on warmer days, sitting under the unique Tudor façade in the expansive Get there: Any bus to Piccadilly, walk down Time to cook: 30 minutes.

Photo: The Mancunion outdoor space can be the perfect place to Market Street and turn right down New Cost: £2.40.

Washing up: Off the charts but you can get your friends to absorb Manchester’s character.

Cathedral Street. give you a hand!

Drink: As a Samuel Smiths pub they don’t sell anything they don’t produce themselves @SpecialBrewsMCR

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

ISSUE 12/ 8th DECEMBER 2014 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

/TheMancunion: Food & Drink @MancunionFood

Food & Drink 23

Recipe: Tilly’s Cheesy Hotpot Review

Pub of the Week: Peveril of the Peak Sam Joyce and Charlie Filmer-Court visit their latest Pub of the Week

The grim weather at the moment necessitates a return to proper, hearty comfort food. Sometimes things like stews can be a real pain to cook though, especially when money is tight. Mince is such a good ingredient when you’re cooking on a budget; it is cheap and really adaptable.

Sometimes the old classics get a bit boring though so I thought I would come up with a warming winter mince recipe that is a bit different. This recipe is really simple although the homemade cheese sauce might prove tricky.

You can obviously substitute this for something from a jar but white sauce is such a useful thing to learn how to make. You only need three cheap ingredients. The quantities here are just guidelines; really you just need enough butter so all the flour is incorporated but no more. The key is not to get frustrated and give up if you go wrong, just give it another go.

Cheesy Hotpot (Serves 2): Ingredients: – 125g of beef mince – Half an onion – 2 carrots – One leek – One beef stockpot – 2 potatoes – 10g of plain flour – 10g of butter – A cup of milk WNW9.MANC.QUART.pdf 1 27/11/2014 – A couple of handfuls of cheese

Method: Dice the onion and leek and add to a hot pan with a knob of butter. Once they have sweated down add the mince and brown. Add the carrots to the pan along with a cup of hot water and the stockpot. Leave to simmer on a low heat with the lid on, checking on it everyEaten now and again. anyThinly slice the potatoes and parboil them for around where nice 5 minutes.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons CreMelt the butter. Add the flour and mixrecently? until it forms a paste. Now add a little of the milk and whisk it is all ateduntil someA bastion of proper pubbiness, this establishment stands proudly as an incorporated, add a little more and whisk again.

Contin- island of Victorian thing delicious?

We want to tiling in a sea of new apartment buildings and developue this process until all the milk is added. If it still looks a ments. Inside is what can only be described as a ‘heritage interior’ and is a know!

Tell us about it attime food. complete warp of stained glass and polished dark wood. Testament bit thick add some more. If it is lumpy don’t worry—just to this, the pub is apparently run by the oldest serving landlady in the city. keep vigorously whisking it. If it tastes of flour just leave it There is a public bar complete with an antique table football machine, if you on the hob until it boils, this will cook out the flour. fancy getting rowdy with the ‘Pev’ locals. Alternatively, for a more relaxed Whisk half of the cheese into the sauce. Put your mince pint there is either the lounge bar or smoke room (smoke no longer) complete in a dish and top with the potatoes and the cheese sauce. with antique bell pushes that once summoned table service. This boozer is a Finally top with the rest of the cheese and cook under a real Manchester institution medium grill for five to ten minutes.

Drink: There is a good selection of ales on cask, including Copper Dragon and Robinsons Dizzy blonde. Pints are cheaper than most bars in area.

Get there: The pub is on Great Bridgewater street, get off the bus at the palWashing up: A knife, a chopping board, 3 pans, a ace theatre, walk to the McDonalds on the corner and turn left. wooden spoon, a whisk, an oven dish, a plate and knife and fork.

Tilly predicts that this meal would only cost £1.67 for per head to make. Any leftovers could be reheated or frozen Been to any pubs recently that you think deserve spefor another day.

More of Tilly’s recipes can be found on our website.

cial merit? We want to know!

Email us at food.mancunion@outlook.com!

10:25

In Partnership with the Students’ Union

NO MONEY TO

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M

Y

CM

GET HOME? The Students’ Union has an exclusive partnership with Street Cars which means you can get home, even if you don’t have any money!

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Even if you don’t need the SafeTaxi scheme, you still get 10% student discount off your fare.

StreetCars are the Union’s approved supplier

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For more information on how to use the Safe Taxi Scheme visit manchesterstudentsunion.com/safetaxi or pick up a business card from the Union helpdesk.

Download the booking app or call:

0161 228 7878

24

Arts & Culture

ISSUE 08/ 10th November 2014 WWW.MANCUNION.COM /TheMancunionArtsCulture @ArtsMancunion

Editor: Holly Smith

Photo of the Week

Spotlight

Turner Prize 2014: Artists

In the run up to the Turner Prize being announced on December 1st, The Mancunion Arts & Culture brings you introductions to the four 2014 nominees.

Archives New Zealand@Flickr Established in 1984, the Turner Prize is awarded each year to a contemporary artist under 50 living, working or born in Britain, who is judged to have put on the best exhibition of the last 12 months.

Previous winners include Gilbert & George, Antony Gormley, Grayson Perry, Jeremy Deller and Damien Hirst. This year’s shortlist showcases artists whose work spans film (Duncan Campbell), prints (Clara

PANEL DISCUSSION AND FREE ED PARTY WEDNESDAY 12 NOVEMBER 17:00 CLUB ACADEMY

Philips), video (James Richards) and liveperformance(TrisVonna-Michell) Born in 1972, Duncan Campbell is an Irish-born video artist, based in Glasgow. After studying at the University of Ulster and University of Glasgow, Campbell was awarded Bâloise Art Prize in 2008 and was one of only three artists chosen to represent Scotland at the Venice Biennale.

His conceptual art creates rituals that explore how our tribal past has determined our future. Campbell makes films about controversial figures such the Irish political activist Bernadette Devlin or the quixotic car manufacturer John DeLorean.

By mixing archive footage and new material, he questions and challenges the documentary form.

Campbell has been nominated for the Turner Prize for his presentation “It For Others”, a social and historical examination of cultural imperialism and commodity which was exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2013.

Photo Of The Week

This Photograph is from Georgia Dolan, a second year Spanish and German student.If you would like to enter Photo Of The Week,emailusyourphotographsatmancunion.arts@gmail.com

Exhibiton

Holly Smith

DEMO ON CAMPUS

FRIDAY 14 NOVEMBER 13:00 UNIVERSITY PLACE

NATIONAL DEMO WEDNESDAY 19 NOVEMBER 12:00 LONDON

SUBSIDISED TICKETS CAN BE BOUGHT FROM THE SU FOR £7.50 PLEASE CONTACT FREYA.POTTER@MANCHESTER.AC.UK OR COME INTO THE SU VOICE OFFICE TO FIND OUT MORE.

www.facebook.com/pages/Defend-Our-Education-Manchester

Theatre 25

ISSUE 08/ 10th NOVEMBER 2014 WWW.MANCUNION.COM /mancuniontheatre @themanctheatre Nicole Tamer

What’s On

Editor: Nicole Tamer

Interview Review: Madama Butterfly

Annabel Cartwright

Editor’s Choice

5 performances to look out for to light up dreary November days

A Farewell to Arms Tue 13Nov – Sat 15Nov, The Lowry £17 / £19 Based on the author’s real-life experience in 1918 in Italy, A Farewell to Arms tells the story of Frederic Henry, an American ambulance driver for the Italian army and his relationship with English nurse Catherine Barkley. Against the backdrop of the war the two protagonists discover the redemptive power of love and experience the loss of innocence as they attempt to cement their relationship in a time of devastating conflict.

Photo: Ellen Kent

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 30 Oct – 29 Nov, Royal Exchange Theatre £7.50 – £15 Maggie the Cat and her husband Brick return to his home of the night of the patriarch Big Daddy’s 65th Birthday. The evening spirals into disaster as the family scramble to secure their futures and renegotiate their relationships. This tense, heartstopping story uncovers a passionate and dangerous world.

John and Mark Wed 12, Thur 13 Nov, Taurus Bar £9 Set in the cell of a New York maximum security prison, the play sees prisoner Mark David Chapman visited by John Lennon; the man he shot dead years earlier outside the Dakota building.

Within the confines of a prison cell the play offers an insight into the mind of the man who started off a fan and became a fanatic. Touching on issues of love, loss, faith and obsession, the play gives Lennon the opportunity to ask the question that has riddled millions of people across the world since December 8th 1980.

Review: Jeeves and Wooster

It is 1904 in Nagasaki, Japan, and two lovers prepare for their wedding.

Their fate, however, seems bleak from the outset. Japanese girl Cio-CioSan has been fooled by American Lieutenant F. B. Pinkerton into marriage. He considers their union to be temporary and intends to leave CioCio-San when he is able to find a suitable wife in America. On the day of her wedding, Cio-Cio-San is renounced by friends and family due to her rejection of traditional Japanese values.

She is left alone in the world except for her new husband and her maid, Suzuki. In Act Two of the opera, the audience finds Cio-Cio-San having been abandoned by her husband, and caring for their three year old son. She dreams of Pinkerton’s return, and the happy life they will share together.

Unfortunately, the reunion of the couple does not go as Cio-Cio-San had hoped. Pinkerton has since remarried, and brings his new wife with him in order to claim his son, and take him back to America. Pinkerton’s return brings the opera to a close, with tragic consequences for Cio-CioSan. Ellen Kent’s touring production of Puccini’s masterpiece brings to life the timeless tale of Madama Butterfly with true feeling. The recurrent challenge of staging a classic opera, or any well-known theatrical piece, lies in the audience’s capacity to become emotionally hardened to a familiar story.

New productions of old classics must find ways in which to remain relevant, in order to have a real impact upon audiences. Whilst Kent’s production remains relatively traditional in style and setting; the design,

Nicole Tamer

musical performances and direction succeed in powerfully bringing all the tragedy and emotion of Cio-Cio-San’s story to a modern audience.

First and foremost, commendation must be given to the leading performers. The performances of Cio-Cio-San, Suzuki and Pinkerton were thoughtful, tremendously emotional and musically stunning. The second greatest achievement of this production was that of the visual designers. The set and costumes were intricate and magnificent to behold.

All the beauty of Japan was made real on stage, which added to the overall exquisite tragedy of the performance.

Underpinning the quality of the performance on the whole, however, was the orchestra of the National Opera & Ballet Theatre of Moldova, conducted by Nicolae Dohotaru. The performance of the instrumentalists was sensitive and full of feeling, bolstering the vocal performances whilst wielding their own independent command over the audience’s emotions.

The only minor failing of the production was the quality of acting displayed by the vocal chorus. Whilst the extremely skilled vocalists provided an excellent performance musically, they appeared to be uninterested and unengaged in the action being presented on stage. Alongside being rather unconvincing as supporting characters within the narrative, a few small choreography and cue mistakes were noticeable to discerning audience members.

Definitely a must-see, Ellen Kent’s production succeeds in bringing one of Puccini’s most popular works to audiences with resounding skill, emotion and vibrancy.

Annabel

Photo: Uli Weber

“There are always boring parts in a play” explains Wooster to the audience while changing his clothes behind a partition screen. This performance of Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense at the Lowry certainly lacked them. The three performers in the roles of Bertie Wooster, an aristocratic fool with his faithful valet Jeeves and Seppings delivered a magnificent performance when they switched between characters, transformed the stage continuously and broke the fourth wall by interacting with the audience.

P. G. Wodehouse, the author of the popular “Jeeves” book series written from 1917 to 1966 , would have been delighted by the attention to detail that the actors incorporated in their performances. James Lance managed to portray the snotty Wooster as a likeable and clumsy fool that just tries his best to keep everyone happy around him and thereby creating more trouble that Jeeves has to sort out in his typically nonchalant way.

Especially astounding was the performance of Robert Goodale who co-wrote the play and performed the role of the senile butler Seppings, He switched seamlessly between three roles of Roderick Spode, Dahlia Travers and Constable Oates, and portrayed his characters with an astounding vocal range and poignant mannerism.

The highlights of the show were the costumes and sets designed by Alice Power. which initially seemed to be very simple, but then escalated into a major catalyst for even more jokes and character interaction. Stage properties where

constantly added and transformed by the actors to move the narrative forward.

A wonderful moment ensued when Jeeves was forced to play two characters talking to each other in the same room. The problem was creatively solved by a costume consisting of a female and male half and by showing the respective side of the speaking character to the audience.

This is only one of the examples of the creativity of the costume design.

The strength of the play was that theatre tropes and all of the possibilities on stage were used to create a wonderful performance. It was a play within a play, the fourth wall was perpetually broken and special effects, as far as they can be taken in theatre, constantly astonished the audience and were followed by repeated applauding, laughter and cheers throughout the play from the viewers. The atmosphere was literally buzzing.

Furthermore, the play was a celebration of nostalgia and very aware of it. As a student, it was easy to feel very young compared to the rest of the audience members and it was fascinating to observe the reactions of people who re-experienced the time when they either read the books or watched the highly recommendable ITV series with Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry. When the curtain closed after a comedic Charleston performance of the actors and when the fulminating applause abated, it was clear that the Olivier Award for Best Comedy 2014 is completely justifiable.

Nicole Tamer

26

Lifestyle

ISSUE 08/ 10th NOVEMBER 2014 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Editor: Robert Firth Feature Advice

Opinion

ask

Kitty

Being a fan girl was the best time of my life

Yeah Nick Jonas was pretty average in the end, but being part of a fandom is about so much more, says Natalie Silver

Lifestyle is...

Sex, Relationships, Travel, Health, TV AND MORE.

Photo:: Jetske @Flickr

This week our resident lifestyle guru Kitty Treverton Jones deals with relationship worries and kitchen time

Q

A

Q

A

I met a guy a few weeks ago and we have seen each other a few times since. He has got a great personality and we get along really well.

The only thing is he’s not that good looking. I am attracted to him, but I’m still conscious of the fact he’s not very good looking and my friends have been telling me that looks are very important. I don’t know what to do!

If you like his personality and you’re attracted to him, why do you care what anybody else thinks of his looks? Your friends sound like morons. Beauty is subjective; there are no universal standards when it comes to attractiveness. This sounds like the start of a beautiful relationship, I’m really happy for you.

I’m in a house of seven and they are some of my best friends at university. However I’m worried we will all start to fall out because of our kitchen situation. Since September we’ve all flooded the kitchen at around 7pm making dinner but there just isn’t enough room. Last week we had ‘microwave-gate’ when someone removed my packet rice before it was cooked and I’m afraid sometime soon one of us is going to snap. What can we do?

I hate to break this to you, but you are that one housemate that everyone finds mildly to massively irritating because they complain all the time. Do any of the rest of your house even care about this crowded-mealtime problem? It sounds like you’re the one that’s about to snap. Uncle Ben’s microwave rice can’t take more than five minutes to cook; it sounds like you need to relax a bit and have some patience. If it is really a problem can’t a couple of you adjust your eating time by fifteen to twenty minutes? Fighting

Got a problem?

Unsure who to turn to?

Just ask Kitty: mancunion.life@gmail.com

Want to write for us?

Email: mancunion.life@gmail.com

Jonas Brothers fan boying over Avril Lavigne?

Photo:: JOnasIsMyMiddleName @Flickr

The craze around boy bands has been around for decades now. From NSYNC to the Jonas Brothers, and more recently, One Direction—teenage girls have a history of being obsessed with groups of pretty guys and their music.

Many, including myself, can remember covering every inch of wall space with posters, shrieking at concerts, playing favourite songs on loop, and fantasizing endlessly about their teen idol.

And my idols were the Jonas Brothers. I spent hundreds of pounds on concert tickets and merchandise, and can remember many hours spent waiting outside of the hotels where they were staying, just to catch a glimpse of a face.

Many have a snobbish attitude towards band fanaticism, but they simply don’t understand what they haven’t been a part of. Being in a fandom gives you access to some great friendships, formed through mutual obsessions. I’m from New York City, and would see the same people outside of the Jonas Brothers’ hotels, and sleeping overnight on the sidewalk for free shows like Good Morning America. Overtime these people became my friends. Now, social media websites have created massive communities of fans, regardless of location.

Fans of groups meet each other through Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook. Some girls I know have met their best friends through a mutual passion for a band.

Fandom is a serious commitment that allows people to escape from their “real” lives. Being in a fandom involves stalking where a band is, checking multiple websites for new photos of the band and its members, planning meet-ups with other fans in the place the band is, and obsessively tweeting the band, in hopes of being followed, receiving a reply or (hold your breath) getting retweeted.

This may seem unhealthy, but for a lot of people, their role in the fandom can be their greatest source of joy each day. Genuine friendships form through mutual support of a band—people may spend a lot of time talking about the band, but they also spend time getting to know and supporting each other.

Some may argue that these girls should focus on making friends at their school rather than online and shouldn’t get their hopes up about dating a boy that they might not even ever meet. However, not everyone is able to make friends so easily and with time, girls grow out of dreaming of the day Harry Styles starts DMing then on Twitter.

Although I spent countless hours trying to meet Nick Jonas to no avail, I ultimately met him by accident, running into him on the street. He was quiet, and let me take a picture with him, and all of the things I dreamed of saying to him for years didn’t really matter.

He wasn’t a god in that moment, just another guy on a New York street.

After meeting him, I thought about all the time I spent idolising a pretty normal guy, no better than myself. I decided though that it wasn’t a waste, because ultimately Nick Jonas was only a reason to meet-up like coffee or Birthday celebrations. What mattered was how close I became to fellow fans, and how those friendships have lasted long after the Jonas Brothers were ripped from my walls.

Now, I am happy and embarrassingly a bit envious of the girls tweeting and posting on Tumblr about how much they love One Direction, 5 Seconds of Summer and the like, because I know they are part of a positive community with the amazing opportunity to make new connections.

Photo: Images of Money @ Flickr

Nostalgia

The Noughties was the BEST decade The Noughties was the WORST decade Molly Allen reminisces about the decade that brought to fame Girls Aloud and Turkey Twizzlers The general consensus seems to be that the noughties was a very suspect time for all of us. Personally I was sporting my older cousins’ hand-medown leggings that were miles too big, singing along to Steps (my dad disapproved of the Spice Girls) and had my four front teeth missing.

One thing the noughties brought us...

Photo: gimmeahighfive@Flickr

Photo: e4 press image

So if I was so well dressed, how could it possibly have gone wrong? We witnessed 9/11, The Iraq War, the Credit Crunch, the introduction of the euro and the Internet becoming huge. Although a lot of these events were hugely tragic and caused enormous destruction and devastation, many of these things that happened bound us closer together. The British became determined not to

lose the Pound; we united in our remembrance of the victims of war; and we started Googling and stopped Asking Jeeves (although my mum still says this).

LGBT rights have expanded hugely; same-sex marriage is now legal in seventeen countries and people are bravely fighting worldwide for the prejudices to end. School dinners have had a complete facelift with Jamie Oliver scrapping the turkey twizzlers – the child in me is still not over this, I loved those curly bastards.

Along with the demise of the turkey twizzler came the surge in technology. Many say that the rise in technology is driving us apart. However, it

helped me stay in touch with my boyfriend when he was 6000 miles away for a whole year (yes we are still together, thank you Skype). It means I sent a friend a message of support to her mum who had breast cancer when I’d lost her number, it means we can have people the other side of the world in the same room and feel like they never left.

So what did the noughties leave us with? Some hilarious photographic evidence of a lot of people in very suspicious clothing, the ability to communicate without even saying a word and we’re all that little bit closer to finally having equal rights (feminists, our time will come).

ISSUE 08/ 10th NOVEMBER 2014 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

/TheMancunion: Lifestyle @MancunionLife

Lifestyle

27

Television

Opinion

Poppy memorial attracts millions of visitors .

WHY?

Beth Slatcher-Greenwood reflects on the unprecedented popularity of a memorial commemorating one hundred years since the outbreak of World War I

From the Vault...

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

Photo: Laser Burners @Flickr

Stevie Grieves considers the enduring appeal of the 90s sitcom that brought Will Smith to stardom ‘Now this is the story all about how my life got flipped-turned upside down’; you would be hard pressed to find a person over the age of twelve who didn’t spontaneously burst into quasi-rap and finish The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’s most enduring legacy; its opening theme song.

Millions of people including myself have made the journey to London to view the construction of the sea of ceramic poppies, by Artist Paul Cummins, that will progressively fill the Tower of ‘Blood Swept Lands London’s famous moat.and Seas of Red’

by Paul Cummins

Regardless of how big of a fan you were of the show at the time, most people can enthusiastically sing along to one of the nineties’ most popular sitcom’s opening titles, rapped by the now household name, Will Smith. Whilst the famous rap and burgeoning talent of its leading man were certainly some of its most defining features, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air has remained a firm favourite for more than its witty one liners.

There will be 888,246 ceramic poppies planted in the ground before the 11th of November, each flower representing a fallen soldier of the First World War. The exhibition has far surpassed anyone’s expectations, least of all the representatives of the Tower of London who have had to bring in extra staff to secure the site and keep crowds under control.

Following The Cosby Show, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was not ground breaking in its presentation of a largely all African-American ensemble cast in a sitcom at the time, but its enduring popularity among the younger generation have made it more important.

Why has it been such a success? Is it the occasion or the spectacle?

The real reason that the memorial has been such a triumph is a combination of both. The visitors to the display are of all ages and backgrounds but everyone has come to reflect.

The true accomplishment of this memorial is its universality which must be said to be rooted in its design. The concept is simple: one poppy for each casualty, however the outcome is so much more meaningful.

Viewing the poppies from a distance they form a sea of red to mimic the immense bloodshed that started 100 years ago, yet view them up close and you can appreciate just how many men and women gave their lives to protect our country’s future.

The show became a comedic vehicle for American audience’s to recognise the growing economic gap and prosperity levels in AfricanAmerican culture. But where The Fresh Prince started out as a stereotypical comedy concerned with the clash of the classes and the trope of the ‘fish out of water character’ in Will struggling to fit in with his upper-middle class family, it became a sitcom that focused on its characters’ warming relationships and strengthening family ties.

Smith himself said at the end of the series’ run that “We never started out trying to make some big social statement or leave a big fingerprint on American pop culture, we were just trying to have fun. We wanted to not only present some positive black images, but also give people a vehicle to relieve some of the stress in their busy lives.” Indeed, the scenes with the greatest emotional depth, such as Philip’s heart attack or Will’s emotional outpouring about his absent and disappointing father remain some of the series’ most memorable moments.

So whether you loved the show or were largely ambivalent to it during the seemingly endless reruns on TV; The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air proved itself to be more than just a routine sitcom. It cemented itself as a classic that younger generations would continue to appreciate, if only for one of the most famous novelty raps of all time.

Careers Corner: ‘Facebook’ for student employability Kloodle is Facebook for student employability and graduate recruitment: a LinkedIn for students. The company was founded by four friends: Phil Hayes, Andrew Donnelly, John Coles and Stephen Cheetham and they’re based in Bury, Manchester. Robert Firth spoke to them about how they got started.

You had to wait six months after you pitched at the Dragon’s Den style event to get an offer of £150k.

Why was that?

These things take time. After our initial pitch, we had follow up work to do with the investors who had shown interest. We kept in touch with emails about our progress, to ensure that they didn’t forget about us!

this common?

Yes, with good reason. Graduate employers receive thousands of applications, and have to whittle the numbers down somehow. They do this by using what the University’s Director of Student Life, Dr Paul Redmond calls “weapons of mass rejection”. It’s not uncommon for students to be rejected for one spelling mistake.

How did Kloodle get started?

Kloodle was born out of an idea I had during my penultimate year at university. I had known Andrew since being at school, having played cricket against him. We discussed the idea of Kloodle over a beer (or eight), and the journey was started.

How would you recommend someone to prepare for pitching a business concept to potential investors?

If you have success with something you start to believe that you’re suddenly the world’s authority!

Firstly, tell a story. Kloodle was born out of my frustration with the world of graduate recruitment, how I thought a first class degree would be the road to a great career. The reality was much more difficult.

Portraying the need for our business within the context of a story allowed us to highlight the need for our platform. Secondly, investors are there to make money. In your pitch, you have to show them how they’re going to do that. Take them on a journey from them putting money in, to them making a big return.

If you cannot do this then you will probably struggle.

Do you think Kloodle would have been able to get up off the ground if you hadn’t got the £150k investment?

I would like to think I would’ve been able to, as I like a challenge. The difficulty was that I had so much else going on in my life. The investment money allowed me to concentrate full time on Kloodle. The goal is to increase the value of your business as much as possible before seeking external funding.

What were you all doing before Kloodle?

I had commenced teacher training. Steven had got back from Australia after spending four years as a professional cricketer at Lancashire. Andy worked at a local college, and John had just finished his A-Levels.

How many students/employer/institutions does Kloodle have using it at present?

We started marketing Kloodle to students in September, and have three thousand five hundred students on the site. We have up to twelve employers, three universities, and three sixth form colleges.

How did you find out about the Dragon’s Den style event in Manchester?

Heavy duty googling! We knew that with our commitments (I have two children, was working towards my PGCE and played as a professional cricketer in the local leagues) that we would require funding to allow us to concentrate on the business full-time.

Phil Hayes, Co-founder of Kloodle

Whilst not solely relying on storylines that explored race relations in America, the show did have poignant episodes: such as one episode where Carlton and Will were racially profiled and arrested for driving a car that looked expensive, even though it belonged to them. Despite the comedic element that ran through every episode, scenes such as this prove The Fresh Prince had moments of real cultural awareness and raised race issues that programmes such as Friends failed to tackle.

Explain specifically how Kloodle matches employers to students.

When employers post jobs on Kloodle, they’ll be presented with students who’ve created the most relevant evidence. If a job requires a lot of teamwork, people who’ve written teamwork blogs and uploaded videos and work that demonstrate a degree of teamwork, will appear highest on the employer’s radar.

A reason for the idea of Kloodle coming about was your frustration at being rejected by graduate schemes which discriminate on UCAS points. Is

What have students thought of of Kloodle?

The student reaction was pleasantly surprising.

We had to compete with nearby Domino’s Pizza and Baa Bar’s free shots! The mention of “employability”, however, engaged students. Students now are more than aware they are paying £9k a year for the privilege of university and any avenue that helps them gain meaningful employment after their degree is worth exploring. Manchester deservedly has a great reputation because of the calibre of students it attracts.

Why should employers pay to use your service, when they can recruit by themselves?

Recruiting students is an expensive business. Only the biggest employers can afford to attend many graduate fairs. We’ve spoken to employers who only attend fifteen fairs due to cost. Kloodle will allow them to access more students at the other one hundred+ universities they cannot attend.

Try something new on your lunch hour…

Wellbeing Week (10-14 November) is the perfect opportunity to break out of the routine and to try something extraordinary for FREE. From Pilates and Yoga to ‘an introduction to hypnotherapy’, there’s something for everyone to try.

Everyone is welcome and you need not be an expert to take part! Find the full listings on the Wellbeing Week website and see what you could give a go.

#UoMWellbeing

www.manchester.ac.uk/wellbeingweek

ISSUE 01/ 15th SEPTEMBER 2014 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

SPORT

SPORT : 29 /TheMancunion

Sports Editors: Andrew Georgeson, Will Kelly

@Mancunion_Sport

Contact: sport@mancunion.com

Football Manager: More than just a game With the upcoming release of Football Manager 15, Andrew Georgeson talks about life as a keyboard manager Andrew Georgeson Sports Editor I’ll say this now.

If I buy Football Manager 2015 I will not get a degree, I won’t be able to do my Masters in Journalism and achieve my dream of being a professional writer, and my life will crumble around me.

Despite this, I’m still undecided over whether or not to get it.

Football manager, for me, is essentially a microcosm of the battle between man and technology. Given my progress on the game, I have concluded that I would handle what happens in iRobot a lot better than Will Smith did. And I wear converse too, like Will Smith on that film, although probably look slightly less impressive whilst having a shower.

Although in iRobot Mr. Smith needs to fight off a series of homicidal robots that have turned bad by having to reset their system. I, too, need to fight a similarly evil force in Tottenham Hotspur with a Newcastle Side on the cusp of Champions League football.

It’s tense, Newcastle are tailing 1–0 on 67 minutes. Sammy Ameobi is off injured, all my subs are used and Cisse couldn’t hit a barn door with a banjo, yet I conclude “he has something to prove,” so he gets the nod. In a moment of haste, I move Ryan Taylor from holding midfielder to left-mid, push the creative Remy Cabella up to sit behind Cisse and the newly acquired Danny Ings, with Obertan on the other wing. Basically reverting to a 4-4-2 diamond with no bottom edge.

It almost instantly works, levelling 1–1 on 72 minutes. But we’re not out of the woods, Eriksson has a free kick. I curse Steven Taylor and the day he was

Who was meant to be marking him?!Photo:@askmenUK

born for giving away the free kick, but nothing can be done, and the fateful words “surely he’s going to have a shot from here” comes up in the blue box at the bottom of the screen. He strikes it, and Tim Krul gets a big beautiful Dutch left-paw on the ball and equally beautiful Dutchman Janmaat cleans it to Orbertan.

But wait. I remembered I have the ‘counter attack’ option ticked. We’re in business. It’s three-on-two, Orbatan gets the ball in the box and Cisse knocks it passed a flailing Hugo Lloris.

Scenes, absolute scenes.

Then Spurs equalised as in the crazy world of football manager they bring on an 82nd minute sub in the shape of Paul Pogba who tears my 10 men apart.

That is simply 6 minutes and one

match in the life of a football manager veteran, and it is a hard life style to give up.

I asked Twitter to send me their Football Manager memories, and within minutes I was inundated with tweets regaling stories of taking Dagenham and Redbridge from the Conference to Premiership in five year and leading Sheffield Wednesday from League 1 to Champions League glory.

Even mentioning the game to fellow Sports Editor Will Kelly brings out an emotional and confused side of the Manchester United fan and Football Manager die hard.

The game’s a conspiracy against United,’ he claims, ‘some leaders in it [designers of the game] are City fans apparently so they always make them

struggle.’

Yet I’m sure Will, like all of us, will forgive the designers of the game for the matches that looked seemingly fixed when we realise that maybe Newcastle just can’t overturn the 4-0 deficit against Real Madrid, and maybe Manchester United really are that bad in real life.

After we’ve had some time to think we always return to our lover with open arms.

Yet there are some who just don’t believe.

I was sitting with my girlfriend and on my laptop I had FM open and was playing with Newcastle in an FA Cup quarter-final replay against a Brighton side that I had battered home and away, and somehow they had me in extratime.

‘I don’t get it,’ she said, ‘you’re just clicking and watching, they aren’t even real people.’

It may seem that way, to the untrained eye, but the stats and statistics has a similar depth to all great literally works.

The Old Man and The Sea seems like a nice story about a man in a boat who catches a fish and it gets eaten, then he dies. But it’s more than that. Like old Santiago, I’m going through a dry spell here, and I must sail beyond where anyone’s sailed before, and catch that fish to prove my critics wrong. But it’s to no avail, that tactics, the scheming, my catch of a team, is ruthlessly pulled apart by Brighton just like Santiago’s fish and I am left with nothing.

The game has reached such notoriety for accuracy, predicting the rise of players such as Falcao, that clubs are using the games databases as part of scouting systems.

The game also inspired comedian Tony Jameson to write the show ‘Football manager ruined my life’, which recieved critical acclaim.

As I watch the copies fly of the shelves in agony, I will look forward to the Christmas break where my team of underdogs and I can fight again, against all the odds.

It’s intense, it’s infuriating and it’s wonderful. Long may it continue.

‘All Row together’ – A unique Manchester double Nemisis records a historic double for Manchester Boating Club’s Alumni

Photo:UoM Alumni

It’s not just Oxbridge that has a long tradition of student rowing.

Manchester undergraduates have been racing on the River Irwell since 1862 (predating the foundation of the University), and now the graduates have finally joined the party.

Manchester University Boat Club (MUBC) is one of the largest student sports clubs, with over 300 members and regularly rows at regattas around the UK. This year they again qualified to row at Henley Royal Regatta—the most prestigious in the world—but

were for the first time joined by the club’s alumni.

Since 2005 graduates have been able to row for “Nemesis Boat Club” (named after a famous Manchester rowing club founded in 1847).

Nemesis regularly joins the students

at regattas around the UK, as well as providing support to student rowing with coaching and additional funding.

July 2014 finally saw Nemesis qualify for Henley alongside MUBC, 152 years after the start of Manchester student rowing. Both crews gave a

good account of themselves, despite coming up against tough opposition, and this “Manchester first” is hopefully the sign of further success to come in the future.

SPORT : 30

ISSUE 08/ 10th NOVEMBER 2014 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

NBA Western Conference Preview

Nayeem‘s second NBA instalment talks about the unbalanced wealth of talent in the Western Conference Nayeem Quraishi Sport Reporter NBA Western Conference Preview Ideally superstars and competitive teams should be divided equally across the two conferences but the Eastern Conference does not even come close to the Western Conference.

The superiority of the Western Conference can be seen from the fact that last season, Phoenix Suns who finished 9th and missed out on a playoff spot in the WC had the same winning percentage as Toronto Raptors who finished 3rd in the EC. San Antonio Spurs Last year’s champions, the San Antonio Spurs did not have any pressing issues going into the offseason. There have not been any departures but half the players on the roster including Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard, Manu Ginobili and Marco Belinelli are in the final year of their contracts. Spurs have taken a risk in not giving Leonard, considered as the future face of the franchise, the max extension he was seeking.

He will be free to explore free agency and talk to other teams once the season finishes.

Spurs will be led by the ageless Tim Duncan and head coach Gregg Popovich now in their 17th season together. These two have brought immense success to the franchise, five championships have been won over a period spanning fifteen years. They have not only qualified for the playoffs each year but they have also built a very strong franchise through the draft lottery, without signing any expensive free agents. This season, six time WNBA All-Star Becky Hammon will be taking over the responsibilities of the assistant coach, becoming the first full time salaried female coach in NBA history.

Oklahoma City Thunder There have been no significant changes on the Thunder roster.

Last year’s MVP Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook are still

Photo: Basketball Blicker

here and will look to continue their unstoppable scoring ways.

Derek Fisher announced his retirement and is now the head coach for the New York Knicks.

Due to the abundance of point guards and small forwards on the team, Thabo Sefolosha was allowed to move to Atlanta Hawks. The departure of these two players will ensure more minutes for exciting young players Reggie Jackson and Jeremy Lamb. Lack of a low post game has been Thunder’s Achilles heel in the playoffs and the team might struggle again if Scott Brooks does not work on this aspect of the game with his players during the regular season. Kendrick Perkins and Steven Adams will continue to play on the centre position but both of them are limited offensively.

In Perry Jones, Thunder have got a talented power forward, it is up to Brooks to ensure that he fulfils his potential. If he fulfils his talent then he will take some load off Serge Ibaka, ensuring that Ibaka does not burn out during the playoffs.

Houston Rockets Houston, we might have a problem... in playoffs. Houston GM Daryl Morey promised a huge offseason and the team experienced a significant change on its roster, although it is difficult to say whether the new additions are an actual upgrade to the players who left. Rockets have got two of the best players in NBA right now, in James Harden and Dwight Howard but there is a noticeable talent gap between them and the rest of the roster.

Second year pro Terence Jones will continue his development at the power forward position and will provide a number three scoring option after Harden and Howard.

The Rockets made an attempt to bring Chris Bosh from Miami by offering him a max contract but Bosh preferred to stay in Miami. Promising small forward Chandler Parsons left the Rockets to join their divisional rivals Dallas Mavericks, after the Rockets declined to match the three year $46 million contract offered by the Mavs.

Veteran small forward Trevor Ariza was instantly signed as a replacement, this will be the second time Ariza will play for the team having playing for the Rockets in the 09-10 season.

Although Parsons will have to convince everyone if he is worth so much money, letting him go and re-signing Ariza is not an upgrade. There were two other questionable departures, Omar Asik joined division rivals New Orleans Pelicans and Jeremy Lin will now play alongside Kobe in Los Angeles.

Dallas Mavericks After closely losing to Spurs in the first round of playoffs last season, Mavs owner Mark Cuban, went all out to sign players in the offseason.

The biggest arrival has been Chandler Parsons from the Houston Rockets, he will add much needed energy into one of NBA’s oldest teams. Tyson Chandler has returned to Dallas after spending, two forgettable years in New York and will look to regain his form from the 2011 championship winning season,

when he anchored the Mavs defence. Jameer Nelson and Raymond Felton were signed as backup point guards and will allow the head coach to give some much needed rest to Monta Ellis, who was revelation last season and will look to continue from where he left off.

There have been quite a few departures as well, integral parts of last year’s team, Jose Calderon, Vince Carter and Shawn Marion have joined other teams. Overall, Mavs have got an exciting roster with enough veteran presence to ensure that the team does well in playoffs. With Dirk Nowitzki, approaching his 37th birthday, Mavs have got a very small window to win another championship. In Rick Carlisle they have got an experienced head coach who knows how to bring the best out of his players and win a championship.

biggest issue for Kerr will be to ensure that the team focuses as much on defence as it does on offense. During the offseason, the Warriors flirted with a trade for Kevin Love but in the end decided that it was not worth giving up promising shooting guard Klay Thompson, Harrison Barnes and Draymond Green.

Klay Thompson was rewarded for his breakout season last year with a new contract, he will look to continue the ‘Splash Brothers’ partnership with AllStar point guard Stephen Curry.

The team failed to solidify itself on the centre and power forward position and with the departure of Jermaine O’Neal, David Lee and Andrew Bogut will have to play for long periods of time. Shaun Livingston was signed from the Brooklyn Nets as a backup point guard and will bring experience in the backcourt.

Golden State Warriors Five-time NBA champion Steve Kerr will be the new head coach of the Warriors after the departure of Marc Jackson. The

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ISSUE 08/ 10th NOVEMBER 2013 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

The Imitation game Despite popular opinion, more fans dosen’t equate with more success The first is that the hub of Manchester City fan’s find themselves in the areas surrounding the Etihad and in South Manchester, are some of the most economically deprived areas in the country. The median income in Central Manchester is £23,567 which is substantially lower than the national average of nearly £29,000. Indeed, the average income in Chorlton was £36,460 where Longsight was just £17,661. So playing for upwards of 30 matches a season for many will simply be impossible due to financial reason.

Many of those who fill the seats at Old Trafford aren’t actually from Manchester, and this is well known the Manchester City’s owners who want to expand the clubs global image to rival Manchester United’s. The thinking behind this is not just to sell more shirts, but also to get more bums on seats. United’s superior global image was confirmed when Barcelona played at the Etihad last year, their fans did the stadium tour of Old Trafford before beating them 2-0. Salt in the wound, eh?

Andrew Georgeson Sport Editor I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m a Newcastle United fan. Yes, a Geordie born and bred with a stupid accent—the lot. Whenever I return home to see family, work or some other sort of punishment I always check whether or not Newcastle are playing, and if they are I’ll always buy a ticket. Yet after it took an 87th minute Cisse goal to see us draw level with Hull—at home—in October I found myself questioning why. I mean, I’d had a season ticket from 2005 until I moved to Manchester in 2012 and seen us get relegated, promoted and then finish 5th. That was it. No cup finals, no European nights, topped off with the board actually saying they didn’t see the financial sense in winning a cup, thus curtailing any sense of ambition, so why bother going at all.

But there’s something about Newcastle which makes fans keep going. We have the third largest average attendance in the league, filling 95 per cent of our 52000 seater stadium, which, keeping in mind Newcastle is only a city of just under 300000, is quite impressive. We also have an extraordinarily loyal attendance away from home and, as the team who have to travel furthest out of all teams in the league, which is no mean feat.

The polar opposite of that is little old Wigan Athletic, my second team. The plucky underdogs who, “like the dirt underneath your fingernails,” a friend of mine once said, just wouldn’t leave the Premier League. The town had a sordid affair with football when it won the 2013 FA Cup taking a quarter of the town’s 80000 population with them.

They were vehemently criticized for not filling their allocation. “A small Rugby League town,” cried the ‘purists’.

Yet, they still went on to win the FA

Captain Kompany and his team have struggled to replicate form of last season. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Cup against Manchester City. Wigan have had a remarkable 20 years, from the brink of extinction, to the dizzying heights of the Premier League, FA Cup final and Europa League. I think we’d all agree that’s far more exciting than the bigger club, with the more fans, Newcastle United.

It also helps going someway to explaining why City are receiving such harsh criticism for their current gates during cup games. Leading the crusade was Manchester United old guard Paul Scholes, who said that he didn’t believe that City fans realised how fortunate they were to be playing Europeans elite, and that they need to make Special atmospheres.

Voice of reason Rio Ferdinand, now at QPR, chipped in on Twitter as he

so often does saying, ‘big CL game & fans would rather Ramsays Kitchen or something at home’ (followed by that monkey face emoticon that covers it’s eyes). No one can quite be sure what Rio meant by that, or why he committed such grammatical genocide, but I think the gist was City need to be selling out their attendances every match to be considered a ‘top club’ like Manchester United.

After all, the Capital One Cup defeat against Newcastle and last week’s tie with CSKA Moscow at the Etihad, City billed their tickets as £15 pound for adults, £1 for kids and buy one get one free respectively, neither managed to sell out.

But there’s a deeper problems afoot than just claiming City fans don’t care.

The second point that has to be made is that City fans are rather new to this winning malarkey, and contrary to Paul Scholes’ opinion, they know exactly how lucky they are. Neither of their title wins have been particularly convincing- one took a last minute Aguero goal against a relegation threatened QPR on last day of the season to win the league on goal difference, the other took a spectacular capitulation by Liverpool and Chelsea as well as another last day victory against West Ham. The primary hope for City fans every year is to win the Premier League, and that is quite simply enough. Let’s not forget that only 10 years ago City were playing Macclesfield Town. It is the same reason City fans aren’t putting pressure on Pellegrini just yet and paid for an ad in the Manchester Evening News

in dedication to Mancini after he left.

These aren’t dark days yet, City fans have lived through them already.

European competition is a totally different psychology, as we saw with the Liverpool team of 2005 and even struggling Manchester United team of last season that reached the quarter finals of the Champions League. I would go as far to say that Manchester United would probably have gotten out the group City were in this year. That’s because Manchester United have a legacy, an array of legends, an European pedigree. This was epitomised when Clive Tysedale last year described them as the ‘all conquering heroes’ after beating Olympiakos at home, despite already having been beat by Newcastle and Swansea at home that season.

Whereas on Football Manager 2014 under the Manchester City ‘legends tab’ for you find Robinho, Jo and Sheik Mansour. Two dodgy strikers and an exceedingly wealthy man.

It was summed up quite nicely by two older City fans I talked to after they defeated Newcastle at St. James’ when City were in touching distance of their first championship. ‘I have a lot of time for Newcastle, you know’ one said to me, ‘you used to be just like us.’

In a few years City, providing the Sheik’s money is still there, City will be a force in Europe. Pellegrini will hopefully get more time. If the quota really is five trophies in five years it is a good thing he already has two, as it’s unlikely they’ll get any this season.

But if anything City proves thisattendances don’t make any difference, and you can’t judge the fans that are in the ground on the fans that don’t show up.

Lifting the lid on Rugby League #2 Tom Marsden returns to tell us about new boots, polytechnics and Judy Dench.

Tom Marsden UMRFC Press Officer

With the new recruits and old boys united together as the 2014/15 rugby league squad, what some have branded the AU’s answer to Stone Cold Steve Austin was eager to get off to a positive start. The beginning of the new season and league was a fierce confrontation on paper, with UMRLFC playing Leeds Beckett University (formerly Leeds Met) 2s away. Manchester allowed the first try of the game to slip between our defensive wall early on before the team had even had chance to brush the cobwebs off last season’s kit! The simple first-man-run tactic that Leeds employed thereafter however allowed Manchester to prove that their size accounted for very little, going on to triumph 38-12. Last season’s top try scorer Jonny Bates had his crown temporarily taken from him by returning veteran back Oli White, who earned himself a hat trick to kick off this season’s tally.

The following week, however, was a less spectacular affair for our first home match of the season playing Leeds University 1sts. In a scintillating display that proved to us that the new league was, in fact, far more competitive than previously thought, Leeds dominated the majority of the

UMRLFC and their new (and lackof) kit. Photo: UMRLFC

match. The Manchester team only managed to pick our heads up for the last 20 minutes of what could easily be regarded as UMRLFC’s Vietnam war, wherein skipper Jonny Cottom led by example to fetch himself the only

Manchester try of the match. End score Leeds Uni 50 – UoM 6 Eager not to continue on from last week’s display and waste a long coach ride, Manchester made their way towards Newcastle a few days before

Halloween to play Northumbria 2’s.

The winning mind-set adopted for this week was combined with the additional aid of some boot trials from adidas to several club members during the match for their #allinformcr campaign.

The multi-national company was looking to give UMRLFC the cutting edge in the new league and help demonstrate that our rugby league players are renowned for something other than the breathtakingly high standard of karaoke talent within the squad.

It certainly appeared that the boots gave an immediate kick-start on Newcastle turf, with dummy-half Phil Manning slotting a try home in the 1st set of the game. A tad more wherewithal from Manchester this week allowed us to dictate the game’s tempo in the 1st half. The beginning of the second half, however, saw a lapse in concentration to allow Northumbria to slip 2 tries past the purple defence in a short space of time. However even Cillit Bang’s own Barry Scott couldn’t have envisioned how UMRLFC cleaned up their act from then on for the last 25 minutes, with several superb tries scored to put the game to bed, with the final score 3218. It should be worth noting that this score line is a lot more flattering than the game suggested, with audacious individual talent required to break the Polytechnic line. The reverse fixture is

certainly something worth keeping an eye out for in future Mancunion issues.

From the Northumbria match, it was brought to light that all the Manchester try scorers were wearing brand new boots supplied from adidas; coincidence? We think not!

Captain Jonny Cottom had a few choice words in saying that “I was in RS heaven” giving his RS7’s a run out during the game, and ‘T&P sec’ Scott Houston was quoted in the changing room afterwards as saying “I felt like I was much harder and stronger than all of the opposition forwards. The boots made it a no-contest really, like Mike Tyson boxing against Judi Dench.”

Coach Lewis Lockett even spared a few seconds of his precious time to comment on the new boots and the performance: “It’s impeccable. The visual difference as the team plays with the adidas boots is stunning. It’s like going to a JCT600 and swapping your used Ford Focus for a brand new Porsche.”

In the coming weeks, UMRLFC will face the toughest opposition so far in Liverpool John Moors at the Armitage centre November 5th and cross-city rivals Manchester Met away the week after. Keep a keen eye out for the match results and more rugby league updates soon, or if you can’t wait follow @ UMRLFC on twitter.

SPORT

10th November 2014/ ISSUE 08 FREE

MANCHESTER’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER

City’s fan problems

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UMRLFC Part 2

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Halcyon flying high Men’s ultimate frisbee soar to victory at the Regional Championships

it finishes regardless of the time. On Sunday Manchester 1st came in hard, winning their first two games to make it 5 games in a row where they hit the maximum score of 13. They got off to a slightly rockier start in the final game against Newcastle but weren’t even fazed, managing to bring about a 10–4 win with no sweat. This leaves Manchester Mens a clear top of the North Region and ready to smash Nationals. They now have to face off against some seriously strong Scottish teams and Sussex, a formidable force from the South and Warwick and Bristol, who are always hot teams to watch.

But they’re heading in to Nationals 1st Division with a lot of confidence for this year, with a huge choice of fantastic men from which to select an elite first team; there’s a high chance they’ll push out on top.

Jessie Benson Sport Reporter

It was a big weekend in Men’s Ultimate as University Indoor Regionals for the North West took place in Liverpool. We’re Manchester so there were huge expectations for the team going in, from themselves and from all the other teams—Halcyon are known for being fast and ruthless. The main aim was to get through to Nationals with only 5 places available but at this stage in the Indoor season it’s also a chance to scare the other teams, ready for outdoor season, and to show off how good our Freshers have got in just a few weeks. Halcyon managed to put up and impressive three full teams, showing just how committed our new players are.

Manchester 1st easily beat everyone on Saturday, with two games finishing 13–0 to us. Manchester 2nd also smashed their way to 5th place, beating Chester and UCLAN 2nd in their pool, hoping to take it all the way and squeeze a second spot at Nationals for us. Manchester 3rd, a complete team of newcomers, had a great game against Chester 2nd resulting in a nice 7-5 win.

Manchester 3rd, an entirely beginners’ team, impressed everybody by cracking out two great wins on the Sunday against Liverpool and Newcastle 2nd teams, 8–2 and 10–6. Sadly for the 2nd team they didn’t quite make it through to Nationals – having two teams in for Manchester would have been a huge show of strength— but they still placed a fantastic 7th.

There was what’s known as a Point Cap on all the games, meaning that if a team take 13 points in a game then

Around the grounds: Mens’ Basketball 1st: UoM 67-60 Sunderland Women’s Netball 1st: UoM 71-38 Newcastle Men’s Hockey 1st: Sheffield 2-1 UoM Women’s Volleyball: UoM (1st) 3-0 UoM (2nd) Photo: Instagram – @uomultimate