Issue 6

Inside Culture: 15

WHP Presents Annie Mac: 16

Peaked Apparel Interview Veggie Special Food & Drink: 27 Fashion & Beauty: 26

FRE

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22nd October 2018 / Issue 6

WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Strike vote splits students

Lecturers vote on action over pay Photo: Socialist Appeal @Flickr

Nicole Wootton-Cane and Ethan Davies Head News Editor and Editor-in-Chief T h e re s u l t s o f t h e U n ive r s it i e s a n d C o l l e ge U n i o n ( UC U ) l at e s t s t r i ke b a l l o t a re d u e t o b e a n n o u n ce d t h i s we e k , w it h t h e p ro p o s e d i n d u s t r i a l a c t i o n p o t e n t i a l ly c a u s i n g d i s r u p t i o n fo r s t u d e n t s a c ro s s t h e U K .

T h e b a l l o t , wh i c h c l o s e d o n F r i d ay, c a m e a b o u t a f t e r U C U m e m b e rs vo t e d t o re j e c t t h e U n ive rs it i e s a n d C o l l e ge s E m p l oye rs A s s o c i a t i o n’s ( UC E A ) o f fe r o f a 2 % p ay i n c re a s e .

A n a t i o nw i d e re s u l t i s e x p e c t e d t o b e a n n o u n ce d o n M o n d ay.

L e c t u re rs a rg u e t h a t t h e p ay o f fe r fa l l s s h o r t a n d d o e s n o t ke e p u p w it h t h e ra t e o f i n f l at i o n .

T h e d i s p u t e fo l l ows l e n g t hy s t r i ke s l a s t a c a d e m i c ye a r ove r m e m b e rs ’ p e n s i o n s , wh i c h l e d t o we e k s o f c a n ce l l e d l e c t u re s . T h e i s s u e co n t i n u e s t o d iv i d e s t u d e nt s .

S e co n d -ye a r Po l it i c s a n d I n t e r n at i o n a l Re l at i o n s s t u d e nt To b i a s S o a r s a i d : “ P u s h i n g a s i d e t h e t h o u g ht o f £ 9 k a ye a r o f fe e s , u l t i m at e ly, m o s t p e o p l e a re h e re t o l e a r n . I wa nt t o g a i n a d e e p, n u a n ce d u n d e r s t a n d i n g o f p o l it i c s . T h e s e s t r i ke s i n f r i n ge o u r r i g h t t o e d u c at i o n . ” “ T h e UC U i s d o i n g s o c i e t y a d i s s e r v i ce by c h u r n i n g o u t u n p re p a re d a n d n o t- e n t i re ly- e d u c at e d u n d e rg ra d u at e s i nt o t h e wo rl d . Eve n i f u n ive r s it y wa s f re e I wo u l d b e f u r i o u s : I ’ m h e re t o l e a r n a n d my r i g h t t o d o s o i s b e i n g v i o l at e d by t h e s t r i ke s . ”

S e co n d -ye a r H i s t o r y s t u d e n t Ke l l e r C a n n o n t o l d u s : “ I ’ m i n t h e m i n o r i t y b e c a u s e I d i d n’ t m i n d t h e m s t r i k i n g at a l l l a s t ye a r e ve n w i t h a s l o n g a s i t l a s t e d a n d I ’d s u p p o r t a s t r i ke ove r p ay. ” “ U n ive r s i t y l e c t u re r s a n d t e a c h e r s i n ge n e ra l a re wh o l ly u n d e ra p p re c i at e d a n d I t h i n k w i t h h ow m u c h Vi ce C h a n ce l l o r s h ave b e e n k n ow n t o e a r n a p ay r i s e fo r t h o s e i n t h e t h i c k o f i t i s n o t u n re a s o n a b l e . I t ’s a s h a m e t h e y h ave t o re s o r t t o s t r i k i n g a n d I fe e l b a d fo r t h o s e d o i n g t h e i r d i s s e r t at i o n d u r i n g s t r i ke s b u t p e r s o n a l ly I ’ l l b e a b l e t o co p e i f it ’s n e e d e d . ” UC U l e c t u re r s a re d e m a n d i n g t h at t h e i r p ay i n c re a s e t o “c at c h - u p” a n d “ ke e p - u p” w it h i n f l at i o n . T h e y a rg u e t h at s i n ce 2 0 0 9, t h e i r p ay h a s d e c l i n e d by n e a rly 2 0 % i n re a l t e r m s . I n t h e i r c l a i m , UC U s ay : “C u r re n t ly 1 0, 14 4 s t a f f e a r n b e l ow t h e Acc re d i t e d L iv i n g Wa ge , a l m o s t d o u b l e t h e n u m b e r e a r n i n g a b ove £ 1 0 0,0 0 0 p e r ye a r. ” T h e i r c l a i m a l s o a d d re s s e s t h e ge n d e r p ay g a p, s t at i n g : “ W h i l s t t h e ge n d e r p ay g a p i n h i g h e r e d u c at i o n m ay h ave re d u ce d , t h e re i s s t i l l a s i g n i f i c a n t p ro b l e m t h at n e e d s t o b e a d d re s s e d w i t h a n ove ra l l m e d i a n s e c t o r p ay g a p o f 1 2 . 2 % a n d a m e a n s e c t o r g a p o f 1 2 .0 % fo r a c a d e m i c s t a f f a n d g a p s o f 1 1 . 1% ( m e d i a n ) a n d 9. 9 % ( m e a n ) fo r p ro fe s s i o n a l s u p p o r t s t a f f. ” A UC E A s p o ke s p e r s o n s a i d : “ I t i s d i s a p p o i n t i n g fo r a l l i n t h e s e c t o r t h at , a f t e r e x t e n d e d t a l k s ove r t h e s p r i n g a n d s u m m e r a n d a ge n u i n e at t e m p t t o a d d re s s t h e u n i o n s ’ co n ce r n s t h ro u g h j o i n t wo rk i n g p ro p o s a l s , UC U i s b a l l o t i n g i t s m e m b e rs fo r i n d u s t r i a l a c t i o n . We

Fallowfield Loop cycling protest gains national attention Page 2

State of the city report Page 3

a dv i s e d o u r e m p l oye rs t h at t h e p ay o u t co m e fo r 2 0 1 8 1 9 b e i m p l e m e nt e d a s e m p l oye rs d o n o t fe e l it r i g ht t o m a ke e m p l oye e s wa it t o re ce ive t h e i r s i g n i f i c a nt p ay i n c re a s e fo r t h e s eve ra l m o re m o nt h s . ” S t u d e nt s re m a i n d iv i d e d o n t h e i s s u e , w it h m a ny vo i c i n g a n ge r a b o u t f u r t h e r d i s r u p t i o n t o t h e i r e d u c a t i o n . O n e s t u d e nt , wh o c h o s e t o s t ay a n o ny m o u s , t o l d u s : “ I fe e l fo r £ 9,0 0 0 we a l re a dy (w it h o u t a vo i ce t o d e c i d e o n wh a t t o p ay) p ay fa r t o o m u c h fo r t h e co nt a c t h o u rs we re ce ive d s o it i s u n fa i r a n d we s h o u l d n’ t b e t h e o n e s s u f fe r i n g . ” H oweve r, o t h e r s t u d e nt s we re m o re s y m p a t h e t i c t o t h e c a u s e . Re ce nt Z o o l o g y g ra d u at e Kayl e i g h L e e S i m i o n t o l d u s : “ I t h i n k t h e a n ge r i s m i s d i re c t e d . We s h o u l d n’ t b e a n g r y a t t h e l e c t u re rs wh o a re s t r i k i n g .

T h ey a re s t r i k i n g ove r t h e i r p ay a n d p e n s i o n s a f t e r a l l , it ’s a m a t t e r o f t h e m e a r n i n g e n o u g h l ive o n . O u r a n ge r s h o u l d b e d i re c t e d a t t h e U n ive rs it y a n d h i g h e r m a n a ge m e nt , wh o h ave fa i l e d i n t h e i r t a l k s w it h t h e UC U, re s u l t i n g i n t h e s t r i ke . “ We s h o u l d b e a n g r y a t t h e U n ive rs it y b e i n g r u n m o re l i ke a b u s i n e s s t h a n a p l a ce fo r h i g h e r e d u c a t i o n , p r i o r i t i s i n g p ro f it s i n s t e a d o f t e a c h i n g , re s u l t i n g i n t h e m b e i n g re l u c t a nt t o g ive l e c t u re rs t h e p e n s i o n s a n d wa ge s t h ey d e s e r ve . A n d we s h o u l d b e a n g r y a t t h e v i ce c h a n ce l l o rs wh o s it o n £ 2 0 0 k + a ye a r wh i l s t t h e re s t o f t h e s t a f f a re u n d e r p a i d a n d u n d e ra p p re c i a t e d . ” T h e U n ive rs it y h ave d e c l i n e d t o co m m e nt u nt i l t h e re s u l t i s a n n o u n ce d .

Third of students risk mental health disorders due to financial struggles Page 4

2 News

ISSUE 6 / 22nd October 2018 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Cyclists protest lack of Police support on Fallowfield Loop

Inside Issue 5

Photo: David Dixon @Geograph

Some 350 cyclists took to the Fallowfield loop, affectionately known as the Floop, to protest the level of crime seen on the cycleway lately Brexit from the other side Opinion, Page 11

Victory over blindness Features Page 9

Nicole Wootton-Cane Head News Editor Up to 3 5 0 cycl i st s to ok to t he Fal low f ie ld lo op l ast We d ne s d ay to prote st t he g row i ng amou nt of mug g i ng s and a ss au lt s i n t he are a.

P rote st organ i s e r and G u ard i an e d itor He le n P idd , 3 7, ex pre s s e d f r u st rat ion w it h a l ack of p ol ice i nte re st . “We’ re s care d to r ide ou r bi ke s, ” s he ex pl ai ne d . “We want G M P (G re ate r M anche ste r Pol ice ) to t ake u s s e r iou s ly, b e cau s e at the mome nt we fe e l l i ke s e cond- cl as s c it i ze n s. ” T he Fal low f ie ld lo op i s, accord i ng to t he g rou p, one of t he few bi ke t rai l s prote c te d f rom t raf f ic. Oly mpic gold me d al cycl i st , Cal lu m S k i n ne r, 2 6, who at te nde d t he prote st , sp oke a b out t he i mp or t ance of p e ace f u l ro ad s such as t he ‘ F lo op’ : “ For cycl i st s who are n’ t ve r y con f ide nt i n t raf f ic, t he s e are re al ly u s e f u l route s. ” Howeve r, t h i s h as le d to r ide rs b e com i ng an e asy t arge t for c r i m i n al s as t he t rai l’s pr ivacy h ide s t he m f rom t he p ol ice a nd ge ne ral pu bl ic.

S i an L am b e r t , 4 0, was one cycl i st who was at t acke d by a g rou p of me n . S he told u s how “[ T he at t acke rs ] k icke d my

Letter to the Editor The University was extremely disappointed with the story regarding staff expenses in The Mancunion.

While we welcome the right of students to scrutinise t h e w o r k o f t h e U n i v e r s i t y, t h i s a r t i c l e c o n t a i n e d a n u m b e r o f p o i n t s w e w i s h t o c l a r i f y.

The University provided explanations for all of the items we were sent, which the online article calls ‘satisfactory’. However it also includes a number of items which we were not asked about, including: • Steakhouse bill – food for volunteers and staff after alumni reception, • Huel bars for outreach d e m o n s t r a t i o n a t B l u e D o t Fe s t i v a l ,

–

Science, Page 8 Contact us Editor-in-Chief: Ethan Davies editor@mancunion.com Deputy Editor: Amy Wei deputyed@mancunion.com Online Editor: Jeremy Bijl online@mancunion.com Design Editor: Kizzy Bray design@mancunion.com

News Editor: Nicole Wootton-Cane Deputy Editors: Sam Honey and Shivani Kaura news@mancunion.com Science & Technology Editor: Jacklin Kwan science@mancunion.com Investigations Editor: Felix Hanif-Banks investigations@mancunion.com

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The article links the routine claiming of expenses

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leg to unb a la nce me. I st a rted s crea m ing; I hop ed s omeone m ight hea r me a nd come but no one did.”

Mat t hew Hutchins on, 28 , wa s riding w it h a f riend when a group t ried to stea l t heir b ags. “ They cha s ed us for f ive or s ix m inute s”, sa id Hutchins on, who is reluct a nt to ride t he p at h any more.

Police rep ort ten s im ila r inst a nce s have o ccurred in t he la st six weeks, w it h a p oss ibility t hat more have gone unrep orted. G MP have e st a blis hed a n inve st igat ion, lo oking at who is com m it t ing t he ro b b erie s.

P rote sters greeted t he news, but t here wa s more to b e done, t hey a rgued: “P re s ence, com ing dow n here a nd riding t he route more of ten would s end a me s sage”, sa id Niki Tragen, 51.

However, G MP ha s 20 0 0 fewer of f icers a nd ha s had it s budget sla s hed by £18 0 m illion s ince 20 10. This ha s led to a wea ker p olice pre s ence in a rea s like t he F lo op.

Ma ny sy mp at his ed w it h t he p olice; “All we’re a sking for is a bit more at tent ion for cyclist s,” ex pla ined Skinner.

However, to m a ny it s eem s a n increa s ed p olice budget is t he only t hing t hat w ill bring p erm a nent cha nge.

Theatre Editor: Anuli Changa theatre@mancunion.com Lifestyle Editor: Sophia Ashby lifestyle@mancunion.com Sport Editor: James Gill

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ISSUE 6 / 22nd October 2018 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

3

Financial struggles put third of students at mental health risk Worries about money while at university are having serious repercussions on the wellbeing of students across the country, Satsuma UK have found Sam Honey Deputy News Editor Financial difficulties are one of the leading causes of mental health issues among university students, with over 30% admitting that they feel embarrassed about their economic situation, according to new data produced by loans company Satsuma UK. The eye-opening research suggests that the burden of student debt is having a s erious impact on the well-being of young people, who are suffering from a range of resultative conditions, including anxiety disorders and depression. The identification of financial matters as a significant factor behind negative student well being is r e l a t i v e l y n e w, w i t h l o n e l i n e s s h a v i n g p r e v i o u s l y been long seen as a key cause of such issues.

The Mancunion previously reported on economic anxiety among the student population, sugge sting that 31% have daily money worrie s. It was revealed that even essential living costs, such as accommodation, food, and course materials

were outstripping the total available through student loans. Satsuma UK identified a similar trend in their inve stigation, showing that s ome were having to work towards a monthly budget of nearly £1200 to stay af loat financially at U n i v e r s i t y. F o r m a n y, t h e f u r t h e r u s e o f o v e r d r a f t f a c i l i t i e s i s r a p i d l y b e c o m i n g a p a i n f u l n e c e s s i t y.

With spending at such astronomical levels for young people in higher education, post-university debt is far outstripping expected totals, with the ave rage de bt u p on g radu at i ng at a rou nd £ 5 0,0 0 0, a c c o r d i n g t o Yo u G o v.

University debt had previously been linked to long-term issues, such as decreased job satisfaction and delaying of retirement plans.

H o w e v e r, t h e i d e a t h a t c o n c e r n s o v e r p a y i n g back loans could be a serious contributory factor towards psychological issues while still in higher e d u c a t i o n i s a re l a t ive ly n e w c o n c e p t . S a t s u m a’s study delved further into the topic, to show that the like s of gender and s exuality both have an e ffect on mental health problems in the demographic.

A higher proportion of female students (34%) reported experiencing issues, than their male

counterparts (19%), while LGBT individuals were found to be 23% more likely than heterosexual students to develop a mental health condition.

Such a level of s crutiny in the area is newfound, with mental health on campuses across the country only recently becoming viewed as an epidemic. This changing perception led to the universities minister Sam Gyimah announcing the first ever national charter on student mental health in June, along with £1 million of funding in the area.

The charter has already set out to achieve effective solutions and has implemented a rewardbased system that will incentivise institutions to develop good practice in dealing with mental h e a l t h a m o n g t h e i r s t u d e n t p o p u l a t i o n s . H o w e v e r, the issue of student finance remains a serious problem, with students often left only with advicebased charities or economic support from parents as sources of support in difficult times.

The University Couns elling s ervice is available for anyone who is struggling with their mental health.

State of the City report discusses plans to move students out of Fallowfield

The annual ‘State of the City’ report focuses on a range of factors, from the council moving students out of Fallowfield, to statistics relating to International and Graduate students.

Photo: Robert Cutts@Wikimedia Commons

Nicole Wootton-Cane Head News Editor Manchester City Council have released their annual ‘State of the City’ report to the public. The report aims to monitor Manchester’s progress as a city by gathering together statistics on life in Manchester such as homelessness, recycling and education.

It also details issues directly relevant to students, such as student housing and graduate retention.

Significantly, the report highlighted a growing trend of students moving closer to the city centre, away from the traditional student neighbourhoods of south Manchester, stating: “This migration matches a long-term aim to free up homes in the south of the city, which are in high demand for families, and ensures that students are housed in well-managed accommodation in

the right parts of the city.”

The attempt to move students northwards has been used by some to explain the council’s decision to restrict opening hours of bars in the student area of Fallowfield. Recent graduate Robert Firth commented: “The special licensing policy where they’ll basically refuse any new license for bars/venues seems intended to rip the soul out of the area.”

Others were concerned about the quality of property available for families in south Manchester. Jack Swan, a secondyear Politics and Sociology student said: “If the Council is genuinely trying to move students out of Fallowfield, then the local families who do move in will be moving into properties owned by private landlords with no guarantee of quality.”

“Manchester City Council ought to be looking into developing new council

housing and opening up land for community land trusts, so local residents can move into decent housing managed responsibly, rather than the private sector.”

However, some students noted the positives of a shift towards the city centre, with students in Fallowfield threatened by a notoriously high crime rate, including muggings and burglaries.

The report also discussed the growing population of students in the city, which has been consistent ever since a dip in 2012 following the introduction of higher tuition fees. It stated that “the city’s two main universities (The University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University) attracted approximately 73,500 students in 2016/17”, with nearly 48,000 of these living in the city.

The document highlighted the growing number of both graduate and international

students in Manchester, citing that they now make up over one in five students enrolled at a university in Manchester. One example is the number of Chinese students in the city, which has increased by 75% over the last five years.

Graduate retention figures were high, with 36% of graduates originally from Manchester choosing to work in the city after leaving university and a further 33% working elsewhere in Greater Manchester.

The career direction of graduates was varied, with the report stating: “Six months after graduating, the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) destination of leavers’ 2016/17 survey reported that most degree graduates working in Manchester were employed in the education, health and social work, and professional, scientific and technical sectors.”

4 News

ISSUE 6 / 22nd October 2018 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Three-quarters of people in North West suffer mental health problems alone New campaign aims to tackle the problem of young people suffering from mental health problems at university alone by telling people to ‘ask twice’

Shivani Kaura Deputy News Editor New research released revealed that, when asked, 81% of people in the North West of England would tell their friends or family that they were ‘fine’, even if struggling with a mental health problem.

The survey, consisting of 2,000 people nationwide, showed that the top concerns in the North West were: Just because people ask how you are, doesn’t mean they want to know (54%), I don’t want to burden people (63%), and I’d only talk if I was confident my friend or family member wanted to listen (40%).

Time to Change, launched in 2007, is a growing movement of people changing how we all think and act about mental health problems. Funded by the Department of Health and Social Care, Time to Change are releasing a new mental health campaign called ‘Ask Twice’.

It was stated by Time to Change that asking ‘How are you?’ can often prompt no more than a meaningless exchange. To tackle this, Time to Change is urging people to ‘Ask Twice’ if they suspect a friend, family member, or colleague might be struggling with their mental health. The campaign says the simple act of asking again, with interest, shows a genuine willingness to talk and listen.

Jo Loughran, Director of Time to Change, said: “We all hear it dozens of times a day: ‘How are you?’ ‘Fine thanks, how are you? ’Our research shows that, as a nation, we find it hard to answer honestly.

“This could mean someone close to you is struggling with their mental health – they might just be waiting for your cue to talk about it. Asking twice is a simple, effective way to show our friends and family members that we are asking for real; that we

are ready to listen, whether that’s now or whenever they’re ready.”

Depression and anxiety, the most common mental health issue within universities, have led to 1 in 4 students accessing counselling services whilst in education, although many are still suffering in silence.

The government wants to make mental health a priority, but a controversy was raised when Sam Gyimah, the higher education minister, said: “if universities don’t run with this, the government will enforce it.”

Gyimah has argued that universities should act as standin parents to their students, but university officials argue that young adults at university are clearly adults and do not need extra parenting.

He stated: “This is not about mollycoddling or cushioning students from the experiences that are part and parcel of university life. But if someone has threatened to take their life three or four times, and as an institution you know that but you only contact their parents after they have done it, that is just not acceptable.

“Some of the arguments against this are designed to sidestep rather than face up to the serious problem over mental health in universities.”

Some universities are asking students at enrolment for their permission to contact a parent or guardian if they are suffering from a mental health issue.

Time to Change, coinciding with Gyimahs’ claims, aims to help students push themselves towards wanting counselling services.

The University of Manchester offers counselling services in the form of one-to-one sessions, audio therapy, and Silvercloud, an online therapeutic resource.

Photo: Time to Change @ Newcast Online

Unilad acquired by rivals LadBible following administration Photo: Charlotte61404 @ Wikimedia Commons

UoM climbs 27 places in rankings of world’s most innovative university Maurits Bekkers News Reporter The University of Manchester has surged 27 places on Reuters’ list of the 100 most innovative Universities, becoming the 53rd most innovative university in the world.

The university was the biggest climber on the news agency company’s annual list, whilst for the fourth consecutive year Stanford University (US) has been given first place.

Jumping from 80th to 53rd place, the University of Manchester’s climb of 27 places in Reuters’ rankings is mainly due to the new studies conducted at the university

on the supermaterial graphene. Graphene is one of the strongest materials on this planet, and was first produced in 2004 by Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, two University of Manchester scientists.

Since then, the University of Manchester has had the upper hand in the world’s research for this new material. In 2010, both scientists received the Nobel Prize in Physics for “groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene.”

In total, the United Kingdom has five universities on the list, while the United States has 46. The second most innovative university-containing countries are Germany and Japan with nine each.

Web publishers Unilad had been acquired by social media rivals LADbible after racking up debts of £6.5 million, saving 200 jobs across Manchester and London Nicole Wootton-Cane Head News Editor Po p u l a r s o c i a l m e d i a a n d we b publisher UniLad has been bought by r iva l s L A D b i b l e .

Bentley Harrington, the firm that ow n s U n i L a d , we n t i n t o a d m i n i s t ra t i o n e a rl i e r t h i s m o n t h w i t h d e b t s o f £ 6 . 5 m .

I t i s s a i d t h a t £ 1 . 5 m o f t h i s wa s owe d t o H M Re ve n u e a n d C u s t o m s i n t a x .

T h e i r a c q u i s i t i o n b y L A D b i b l e s ave s ove r 2 0 0 j o b s w i t h i n t h e f i r m a c ro s s Manchester and London.

I n a s t a t e m e n t a b o u t t h e p u rc h a s e , L a d B i b l e s a i d : “A s o f t o d ay, L A D b i b l e G ro u p a n d U n i l a d G ro u p a re n ow u n i t e d u n d e r t h e s a m e ro o f. T h i s t ra n s fo r m s t h e m e d i a l a n d s c a p e wo rl dw i d e . ” “ B r i n g i n g t h e s e b ra n d s t o ge t h e r m a ke s u s t h e l a rge s t s o c i a l v i d e o p u b l i s h e r e ve r, a n d a yo u t h m e d i a b ra n d t o b e re c ko n e d w i t h , h av i n g ove r 1 2 0 m i l l i o n fo l l owe r s a c ro s s o u r

s o c i a l c h a n n e l s . I n Au g u s t a l o n e , o u r c o m b i n e d v i d e o s we re v i e we d 4 . 5 billion times.”

B o t h we b s i t e s a re p o p u l a r o n s o c i a l m e d i a , w i t h U n i L a d h av i n g ove r 3 9 m l i ke s o n Fa c e b o o k a n d L A D b i b l e boasting 33m.

N e i t h e r c o m p a ny s t a t e d h ow m u c h t h e p u b l i s h e r wa s s o l d fo r.

L a d B i b l e h e l p e d t o fo rc e U n i L a d i n t o a d m i n i s t ra t i o n t o b e g i n w i t h b y b uy i n g u p £ 5 m o f t h e c o m p a ny ’s d e b t .

T h e e n t i re a d m i n i s t ra t i o n p ro c e s s wa s c o m p l e t e d w i t h i n a fo r t n i g h t .

Jo i n t a d m i n i s t ra t o r s A n d re w P oxo n a n d A n d re w D u n c a n , o f L e o n a rd C u r t i s B u s i n e s s Re s c u e a n d Re c ove r y s a i d t h a t t h e y “ wo rke d w i t h t h o s e c o n c e r n e d t o d e l ive r a p o s i t ive o u t c o m e fo r a l l s t a ke h o l d e r s . ” U n i l a d wa s fo u n d e d i n 2 0 1 0, a n d wa s re l a u c h e d i n 2 0 14 a f t e r a t e m p o ra r y s h u t - d ow n i n 2 0 1 2 .

News

ISSUE 6 / 22nd October 2018 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Louder than words Festival Returns to Manchester for 2018 edition

5

Maria Kulik explores this years Louder than words festival, being held this November at the Principal Hotel Jill Adam @ Flickr

Maria Kulik News Reporter This year Manchester will again open its doors to the celebration of creativity that is the ‘Louder Than Words’ festival, a place where discussions about literature and music will take place, and where

“A number of highprofile figures will be in attendance including singer Guy Pratt, famed for his work with Pink Floyd and Michael Jackson” creative people can come together and share their energy and experience.

This November, Mancunians and students alike will have the chance to become a part of this cultural celebration and investigate the more intriguing sides of the music and literature industries.

The event will take place across three days, from the 9th to 11th November at the Principal Hotel. The festival’s co-founder Dr.

Jill Adam was keen to stress its inclusiveness, saying that ‘’Louder Than Words has a little bit of something for everyone.’’

A number of high-profile figures will be in attendance including singer Guy Pratt, famed for his work with Pink Floyd and Michael Jackson, as well as R adio 1 presenter Gemma Cairney, who will be offering advice in her role as an advocate for the young generation. World-renowned photographer Kevin Cummins will appear on the 10th of November to discuss his experience of touring with Morrissey.

Returning for its sixth incarnation, the festival will revolve around a varied structure, with performances, as well as Q&A sessions and panels with some of the event’s main contributors.

In addition to celebrating the achievements of industry-leading names, ‘Louder than Words’ also places significant emphasis on the younger generation, with the Slam Poetry group set to run workshops across the three days.

Tickets for individual performances and appearances are available on the festival’s website, and the chance for discounted student entries has also been mooted.

Photo: Joe Mabel @ Wikimedia Commons

Interested in writing for us? Come along to The Mancunion section meetings, held at The Hive at the times below. Join Mancunion Writers on Facebook to find out more.

No previous writing experience necessary!

6 News

ISSUE 6 / 22nd October 2018 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Details announced for Manchester’s Christmas Light Switch-On Spectacular Image: David Dixon @ Geograph

The Christmas spectacular will see Jonas Blue switch on the lights and a fireworks display to end the festivities

Charlotte Bayliss News Reporter Manchester City Council have announced details about their annual Christmas lights switch-on, which will take place on Saturday 3rdNovember in Albert Square at 7:30pm.

The official star who will push the button, commencing the beginning to Manchester’s festive activities, is Jonas Blue. Following Jonas Blue’s success producing numerous hit records including ‘Rise’, as well as global hits ‘Fast Car’, ‘Mamma’ and ‘Perfect Strangers’, he is expected to draw a large crowd to the event.

The council has also confirmed this year to be the final Christmas lights switch-on hosted at Albert Square for the next four years.

The event, which has been hosted in Albert Square for the last two decades, is relocating due to the £13 million revamp of the Town Hall.

The Christmas Market is yet to have its location for 2019 confirmed. Rumoured locations for the next four years include

Spinningfields, Piccadilly Gardens, Castlefield Bowl, and St Ann’s Square where the first Christmas lights switch on was located in 1989.

Other headlining acts performing alongside Jonas Blue are; Max George, performances from Wicked and Dr Dolittle the Musical, Mel Brooks’ comedy ‘The Producers’, as well as former Coronation Street star Vicky Entwistle.

The Manchester-based celebrities will partake in solo performances and speeches, and attendees can expect to enjoy musical numbers.

The show will be opened by Manchester Show Choir followed

by The Dance Academy and is partnered with Hits Radio. The crowd can expect music popularly heard on the radio station.

The celebrity-packed entertainment portion of the evening will finish with a ten-minute firework display.

The event is free for all to attend and will be alcohol-free.

Photo: Lou Zehner

Student LifeStart aims to boost CVs with new challenges The programme, launched by Virgin, aims to develop students’ business and professional skills in order to enhance their chances of employment by offering challenges Josh Sandiford News Reporter A new programme called Student LifeStart is aiming to push students further and boost their CVs with business challenges such as pitching app ideas to solve student money problems.

LifeStart has been developed by Virgin Money and Virgin Startup and describes itself as a “website and growing community for students to take real business challenges, evolve their professional skills and receive mentorship directly from associates who work in top UK companies.”

One current challenge includes helping Sony Pictures find new ways of gifting digital movies and making it a more purposeful experience.

The free service is attempting to help students break the cycle of being unable to get work experience to boost future career prospects, without having a significant amount of experience beforehand.

David Hall, Director of Future Generation Banking at Virgin Money said: “it’s become

increasingly challenging to enter the world of work and we want to give students an opportunity to gain entrepreneurial skills and connections that will help make their CV stand out and boost their career chances.”

He added that “we’ve seen students turn their projects into start-ups or even get jobs with the companies who hosted a Challenge with us. It’s those personal successes and the ability for us to boost students’ self-esteem that we’ve found especially rewarding.”

Students and young people aged 16 and upwards from all over the UK can submit their suggestions and be in with a chance of winning cash prizes and rewards like tickets to the London Marathon.

Lowri Owen, the Enterprise Projects Manager of the University of Bangor said: “participating in a LifeStart Challenge is a great opportunity for students to learn to pitch to companies and even win great prizes.”

Current challenges and more information about how to get involved on the Student Lifestart website.

The deadline for the Sony Pictures challenge is midnight on the 29th of October.

Photo: rawpixel

Photo: Amtec Photos @ Flickr

Investigations 7

ISSUE 6 / 22nd October 2018 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Fallowfield’s food under the microscope

Felix Hanif-Banks explores whether your favourite Fallowfield eateries are really up to the hygiene scratch Photo: superawesomevectors @ Deviant Art

Felix Hanif-Banks Investigations Editor Fresh data has been released by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) detailing exactly how clean Fallowfield’s favourite takeaway establishments can claim to be, with some of the student population’s most loved chicken shops, chinese takeaways, and noodle bars occupying the bottom spots of the list.

The FSA states that any business is able to achieve the maximum hygiene rating of 5, with the scale going down to 0 (in urgent need of improvement).

Businesses are graded according to handling of food, storage, preparation, cleanliness, and management of food safety, meaning late night quests for a pizza or some chicken and chips might have to be slightly more considered if a personal favourite has been branded with an unfortunate 0 or 1. From the last ratings, published in April of this year by the FSA, it seems there has been little widespread change or improvement. In April, 32 businesses in the Fallowfield, Withington, and

Rusholme areas found themselves with ratings of 0 or 1, a number that is now a similarly disheartening 31. Despite little improvement across the board, there were rare success stories of a diamond-encrusted wing in the rough.

Those who enjoy getting their chicken fix slightly off the beaten track will be delighted to hear Allen’s Fried Chicken has gone from a lowly 1 in April to a now ‘generally satisfactory’ rating of 3.

Elsewhere, brunch lovers and fans of Fallow Cafe will be interested to try their hand at Haus, a new restaurant in the same space that will hope to break from its predecessor’s rating of 1. A number of establishments still leave a lot to be desired, as Wilmslow Road underdog Krunchy Fried Chicken, usually a spot for the more traditional fried chicken crowd, keeps its 1 rating. A few doors down, the people’s champion Chester’s has maintained a 3 rating, meaning the unmistakable scent of red salt will likely continue drawing in passersby like the pied piper of box meals and burgers that it is. However, Dixy Chicken on Wilbraham Road holds the fried chicken

hygiene crown as it rests on a ‘good’ rating of 4.

Those on the hunt for a dinner defined by excellent hygiene shouldn’t fear, as Manchester still has many success stories. Fuzion Noodle Bar, Kosmos Taverna, and Jaipur Palace make up the most popular restaurants in and around Fallowfield with a 4 rating, meaning the general standard locally appears fairly high.

The dizzying heights of a full 5 rating aren’t seemingly too unachievable; more businesses in Fallowfield have achieved the top rating than any other number.

The unapologetically traditional Battered Cod, a real local sweetheart amongst Fallowfield students, maintains its excellent standard with another 5, as do The Great Central Wetherspoons and Revolution. Interestingly, all the universities catered accommodation is also subject to inspection and ratings; thankfully it’s 5s across the board.

Check out the hygiene rating for your favourite takeaway or restaurant here: www.scoresonthedoors.org.uk.

Investigations needs you!

To function in its most effective form, Investigations requires an array of perspectives, ideas, and of course people.

We’re looking for exciting writers who are keen to be at the forefront of student reporting, offering fresh takes on existing issues and new leads for us to follow.

No major writing experience is required, The Mancunion is an inclusive and nurturing environment where you’ll learn exactly the skills you need to flourish as a student journalist. All we ask of our contributors is to create

quality print and online content, which is achievable and a lot less intimidating than it may appear.

If you are at all interested or have any questions surrounding the Investigations section, don’t hesitate to get in touch; we’re open to all manner of ideas, suggestions and criticisms. We hold regular, incredibly casual meetings at 5.15pm every Monday in The Hive, on the First Floor of the SU, or message Felix Hanif-Banks on Facebook to find out more.

8 Science & Tech

ISSUE 6 / 22nd October 2018 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Trick or treatment The placebo effect has been known and studied for decades. This panel discussion dissects placebo in the arts, in research and now it is studied for its implications as a legitimate medicine in the future.

Byron Gamble Contributor Picture this: you are five years old again. Reckless and full of energy, you spend your days drawing anything, running anywhere and playing with anyone. Until one afternoon, when you have a bad fall and scratch up your knees. Your mum and dad dash across the playground as you writhe on the floor, bawling your eyes out. They lift you up and investigate the wound. They always know what to do.

In his deep, stoic voice, your dad’s prognosis is that you will indeed survive this minor injury despite overwhelming thoughts in your head thinking no human being has ever experienced this much pain. You snort and sniffle as you gasp for breath to wail some more, but then he brushes off the dirt from your knees and your mum kisses it better. The tears dry up. The pain dissipates, and so you return to your care-free days.

This is the power of the placebo effect. Without any form of pain medication, you were “tricked” into feeling better. The mechanisms of the placebo effect are far from understood. How are our bodies and minds conned into healing themselves and could we harness this effect for medicine and science?

As part of Manchester Science Festival and Clod Ensemble’s project “Placebo”, I attended a panel discussion featuring experts from medicine and healthcare, science, and art examining the overlap of the fields when considering placebo. Among the panel was Anthony Jones, Professor of Neuro-rheumatology at the University of Manchester. Alongside him were Melanie Wilson, a multi-disciplinary performance maker, and Jeremy Howick, Senior Researcher and Director of the Oxford Empathy Programme at the

University of Oxford.

Before the panel even began, Howick implored the audience to think of a “placebo” in other non-medicinal instances by presenting some magic tricks. In essence, magic tricks work in the same way as placebos. By drawing away attention at precise moments, the mind is fooled into believing something is true when, in fact, the opposite is. Placebo works in a similar way: give a patient a sugar pill, and assure them it’ll cure their ailments.

In many cases, patients have reported improvements in their chronic pains despite receiving nothing more than good bedside manner and a sugar pill. To Howick’s silent approval, Jones noted how consultations can be a performance. Doctors are trained to consistently deliver news optimistically because it is shown to have a positive impact on the outcome of the patient.

Later, he drew into question why certain professions like herbal doctors and acupuncturists still exist in this day and age when they have long been discredited as “pseudoscience”. As a sufferer of chronic pain, Jones admitted visiting a herbal doctor as a last resort. Despite leaving only with a prescription of plenty of ginger tea, he found a significant improvement in his own well-being. These professions clearly exist because they do indeed work, even if only for a few.

Howick had plenty left up his tartan sleeve for the rest of evening.

To demonstrate further how the mind “jumps to conclusions”, he asked the audience to guess the material of his bowtie. Silk?

No. Polyester? No. Cotton? Yet again, the answer was no. To the audience’s surprise, the answer was wood. You see what you expect to see, hear what you expect to hear.

In his final statement, Jones included a troubling statistic that half of the elderly population takes up to five pills every day. Even as

Citizen Can: what you can do for science What are the best citizen science pojects you can do on your computer? Toby James looks at getting involved as an average science enthusiast Toby James Contributor By writing this article, I am slightly delaying the next big discovery in gravitational wave astronomy. My computer would be — were I not using it — crunching numbers I don’t understand for research teams I’ve never met, and that’s brilliant. The 21st century’s next great gift to science: other people’s computers.

Data in the 21st century is everywhere.

Big science projects produce it at a prodigious rate, and the facilities themselves often cannot keep up. The Large Hadron Collider, the iconic particle accelerator at Swiss facility CERN, can alone generate upwards of 20 gigabytes of data a minute. In 2010, it generated 13 petabytes (13,000,000 gigabytes) of data. By 2017, this had risen to around 30 petabytes a year, an unfeasibly large amount of data for even CERN to handle.

The solution?

HiggsHunters.

HiggsHunters is one of a growing number of citizen science projects aiming to solve the issue of data hyperinflation. In a simple web-based challenge, volunteers are asked to examine data from the Large Hadron Collider and identify patterns.

Pattern recognition is a trivially simple skill for humans, but a computer with even close to human levels of pattern recognition remains deceptively elusive. The best attempts so far to reproduce this seemingly simple human talent in machines rely on so-called neural networks, routines whereby neuron ‘pathways’ within the machine fire upon recognising a pattern in a dataset. Based on a simple model of a human brain, these often cumbersome algorithms are prone to misbehaviour, and are frequently criticised as being too much of a black box: it isn’t easy to tell whether a trained neural network has really noticed the trend you wanted, or instead focussed on a meaningless, subtle bias in the training data.

The best way around this problem is simple: more data. To train these algorithms, large, labelled datasets are key.

This is where the citizen part comes into it. By getting volunteers to label datasets, large amounts of valid training data can be gathered, vastly improving the accuracy of the algorithms.

Hosted on popular citizen science website, Zooniverse, HiggsHunters is one of many projects keen volunteers can get involved in. Other projects include Shakespeare’s World, which asks volunteers to transcribe Shakespeare’s handwriting. The brilliantly named project Chimp & See asks volunteers to help characterise chimpanzee behaviour in the wild. All manners of scientific discipline are represented in citizen science!

A more passive attitude to citizen science can also be taken. BOINC is a program allowing users to donate their computer time to ongoing science projects.

By taking advantage of the time computers are left idle to analyse data, it allows research teams to increase the computing power they have at their disposal.

This style of citizen science takes almost the opposite approach to the more interactive style mentioned above. Whereas Zooniverse and its projects typically look to capitalise on human skills, these projects are looking for raw computing power.

Projects such as Amicable Numbers are attempting to calculate pairs of numbers up to an arbitrary high point with certain characteristics – a skill at which computers excel.

Other BOINC projects include RNA World, identifying and classifying RNA molecules, and DENIS@Home, simulating a heart.

LHC@Home adds your computer to the, already ridiculously large, network of computers at CERN’s disposal. Einstein@ Home looks for pulsars using radio, gammaray, and gravitational wave astronomical data. The discovery of the Higgs Boson won the 2013 Nobel Prize for physics, and the observation of gravitational waves won in 2017.

One of 2019’s Nobel Prizes could yet be clinched by data processed by your computer. And that, again, is brilliant.

a veteran of human anatomy, he still finds himself astonished by its self-healing capabilities. Why then, he posed, are we not prescribing placebo pills as medication when we know it only has beneficial impacts. Citing constant NHS budget cuts to support his argument, he fully believed placebos were the way forward for public healthcare.

It was surprising to hear academic experts discuss the fuzzy nature of medicine and healthcare and the impact of art and mindfulness on the soul. With placebo, there appears to be symbiotic relationship between science and art which is fascinating since they are usually so separated.

Photo: v1ctor Casale @ Flickr

High death rate of discharged mental patients New research reveals that mental health patients are at a higher risk of dying than the general population after being discharged Carys Burton Contributor New research done by a team at the University of Manchester, led by Professor Roger Webb, has shown that patients discharged from their first inpatient stay at a mental hospital were significantly more at risk of dying from unnatural causes than those in the general population. Mental hospitals are places where those suffering from mental illness can go to seek help and recuperate, and once they are stable again they are then discharged back into everyday life.

The study tracked 47,000 Danes who had been discharged from their first hospitalisation and compared that to 1.6 million in the general population. The findings showed that suicide was 32 times more likely, intentional self-poisoning was 41 times more likely, and psychotropic drug poisoning was 90 times more likely in those who had been discharged. They are also 15 times more likely to die from any unnatural death.

Other research carried out in the UK has shown that the first month is when the risk level is at its highest, but during the first three months, patients remain more vulnerable. Despite taking its data from Denmark, the results of this study can still be applied to Britain due to the similarities in mental healthcare systems and population size.

While the risk to discharged patients is still fairly low, it is still significant enough to not be overlooked. On reasons that this might occur, Professor Webb said: “The post-

Photo: Publik15 @ Flickr

discharge period represents a particularly risky transition because people are returning to living in the community and often in the same or similar circumstances to the point at which they were so ill that they needed to be admitted to an inpatient unit.”

Adding to this, Webb also stated that this may be “an especially daunting experience” to those who are being discharged from their first inpatient stay. However, while there is a strong association between unnatural deaths and hospital discharge there is no evidence of a causal link.

Lauren Goodfellow, the President of the Mental Health Society at the University of Manchester, spoke on this topic; “The people in those hospitals do want to help but they want to help as many people as they can, so if they think you look better then they’re going to discharge you.” If patients being discharged have not completely recovered, then there is a high chance that their mental health will just deteriorate again. Webb also stated that, “Having a serious mental illness is the main driver for the very high relative risks that we observed.”

In order for these deaths to be avoided, changes would have to be made to the way mental healthcare is run, especially in regards to keeping in contact after patients have left inpatient care. Webb and his team suggested that there should be closer liaison between inpatient services and community care, and that psychosocial assessments following self-harm could be carried out in order to decrease the risk of unnatural death post-discharge. Lauren Goodfellow stated that “It is a case of underfunding for mental illness,” adding, “going from 24-hour care when people are checking up on you all the time… to then nothing can be very lonely.”

To decrease the risk to discharged mental health patients Lauren suggests, “The hospital could keep in contact and have mandatory groups for those who are discharged.” On why this is so important she adds, “You need to keep that follow-up, or they’ll feel alone, and loneliness can lead to negative thoughts and depression, which can lead to suicide.”

Solid ideas for reform such as keeping track of those who have recently been discharged and providing them with adequate support might help reduce these deaths. It is paramount that decent mental health care is available to those in need of it, even if they have been seen as being healthy enough to live outside of inpatient care.

Features 9

ISSUE 6 / 22nd October 2018 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

The creative space: Chloe Hawes O.W.W.W.P EP This month’s Creative Space features singer Chloe Hawes, who is about to release her latest EP and discusses how she’s balanced her music with university Emily Broncz Contributor Part of Manchester’s attraction as a city to many prospective students is its illustrious musical history. For final year English Literature and German student, Chloe Hawes, Manchester was the perfect place to help grow her musical career alongside her studies. Having recently returned from a year abroad in Berlin, and with her third EP due to be released at the end of October, Chloe gladly shared her tales of how her involvement in music is leading to an exciting future.

“I think I always went to watch a lot of gigs growing up,” Chloe explained, thinking back to when her interest in music and performing was first piqued. Describing her first gig experience, seeing the “not very cool” Busted at Wembley Arena, Chloe recounted how being surrounded by live and recorded music instilled a positive ‘can do’ attitude within her. In turn, she feels this environment allowed her creative hobby to be cultivated into something a lot more serious.

“Manchester has got the scene, it’s got the bands, it’s got the history” Reflecting on her big move up to university in Manchester, Chloe stressed the need to be in a city, especially one with the right kind of charm: “I come from a very small town where there’s no train station, it’s rural Essex. Manchester has got the scene, it’s got the bands, it’s got the history.” Although the rich musical tapestry woven by the past artists of Manchester is an appealing lure, moving to a brand-new city with few connections can present a frustrating uphill battle to new musicians hoping to make a name for themselves. “I found it quite frustrating initially coming up here because I was just at a point where I was starting to get some good gigs at home.”

Being split between two cities is a, sometimes cruel, reality

for the majority of students. Involvement in the Athletics Union sports teams, such as the ladies’ football and cricket squads, was something Chloe found particularly helpful: “You make friends in sports teams and if you get a fraction of them to come to the gig — you’ve sold 10 tickets!” The thought of asking friends to support your endeavours may seem slightly unnatural, Photo: Nathaniel Bidgood-Shelley even awkward to some, and was something Chloe wasn’t scared to mention: “I think you just need to be very shameless when Discussing future plans, Chloe eagerly spoke about her it comes to asking for gigs and also asking people to come to upcoming tour and EP: “I’ve got the UK tour at the end of this gigs. It still seems strange to me that I’m asking my friends to month — it’s my fourth tour this year!” Chloe has taken on stagcome and watch me play…but I’m just kind of at a point where es across Europe, playing cities such as Berlin, Amsterdam, and I’m like…‘don’t ask, don’t get.’”

Hamburg, which makes her return to Manchester’s Northern The ability to be actively involved in so many different facQuarter a gig you simply cannot miss. Although Chloe’s excelets of university life is not always an option taken up by all stulent list of tour locations may evoke a mix of admiration and dents. A sentiment echoed by Chloe was the suggestion that, envy amongst peers, she adamantly delivered her most key through the use of their musical facilities, the SU could act as a piece of advice: “Try not to burn yourself out, which is easily stronger stepping stone for musical students: “It could be somedone if you’re studying, going on tours and playing gigs as and thing that the university or the SU could maybe put forward to when you can. You need to know when to take a step back.” students who do music-related things, whether they’re actualChloe’s third EP is available on 26th October, with her ly students of music here or otherwise.” Playing at events orlaunch taking place on the same night at Gulliver’s, Manchester ganised by the Students’ Union, such as Reclaim the Night, has (tickets available, £5.50). You can find out more via her Faceallowed Chloe, and other students, to get a taste for performing book page. on well-known stages like those of the Academy.

The chance to attend university, particularly in a city with the largest student population, can prove to be an invaluable tool for furthering your artistic journey. Chloe agreed that different aspects of the student lifestyle, along with moving away from home, had helped to give her opportunities and experiences which she wouldn’t necessarily have had otherwise.

“The people who I’ve met have allowed me to record my music properly and to get a band behind it, which is something I always wanted to do when I started.” In the same vein, Chloe also mentioned fellow band mate and friend, Steve — a student at the creative industry specialist university, Futureworks in Salford. Through him, Chloe has been able to access professional standard recording equipment and facilities for free, which has helped elevate her project to an entirely new and impressive level.

Are you a talented, creative individual or know someone who is? Then apply for the Creative Space by emailing: features@mancunion.com

Victory over blindness: an interview with “The statue is ‘a sign of the times’ says Simon Brown ‘disabilities are no longer in the shadows” Veterans

Cachella Smith speaks wih war veterans about their battle with blindness, at the unveiling of a new monument commissioned by the charity Blind Veterans UK

Cachella Smith Deputy Opinion Editor

Photo: Blind Veterans UK

Marion Burrows joined the Woman’s Royal Air Force in 1951 and worked in catering in St John’s Wood. She began to lose her sight nearly 10 years ago due to macular degeneration. I meet Marion at the unveiling of a new war memorial in Manchester, which was commissioned by Blind Veterans UK , a charity that works to support veterans who have returned home only to fight a new battle; that of blindness. As I draw up a chair, she’s chatting away before I have chance to sit down, and I dive in my bag to quickly grab my notebook before I miss any detail of the story I am about to be told.

The first thing Marion tells me is that it was Blind Veterans UK who telephoned her when they heard about her condition – she didn’t have to reach out at all. This sets the tone for the rest of our conversation, gratefulness shining through every word she says. In-between telling me about herself, she also takes a keen interest in what I am doing. She jokes and tells me how her grandson studied IT at The University of Manchester. “I’m all over Facebook”, she tells me later on, “not sure what it is, but I’m there”. Having only been involved with the charity for three years now, Marion has already received a wealth of support. From IT help (so she can keep up with her grandson) to microwaves, “they make me feel safe at home”.

She was an amateur painter before her sight began to decline, and had feared that would be the end of her artistic journey. Yet

with the charity, she tells me, she was able to attend some arts and crafts workshops. Soon after, she received a package at home containing brushes and paints. I sense an underlying passion and ask her what she likes to paint. “Oh anything! Everything around me inspires me”, she replies.

In the middle of the interview she stops talking and begins fumbling with her bag. After helping her with her zip, she brings out a black and white photo of herself aged just 17 when she had just signed up, a photo with the name ‘Alma’ written on the back. A nickname of her mother’s, she explains, “as there were too many Marions around at the time!”. It was difficult for her family when she joined up, “I broke my father’s heart”, she tells me. Yet when she saw his smile, coming home in her uniform, she knew that she had made him proud.

Asking more specifically about the unveiling that morning, I am bombarded with too many words to jot down on my pad. “Emotional”, “overwhelmed”, and “tears” are what I manage to write down before she pauses, wanting my full attention and saying in a more serious tone, “It was an honour to touch every one, I wanted to salute them”. It is only when she is told that her taxi is waiting that she reluctantly winds up the conversation, realising in the process that she has forgotten to finish half of her lunch in her eagerness to share her story. To finish, she sums it up in a single line. With Blind Veterans, there is “nothing you cannot do”.

Simon Brown is another of the veterans that I speak to at the event. He was shot in the face with a sniper while serving in the Middle East. He was in a coma for 17 days and his left eye was completely destroyed. The first thing I notice about Simon is the impressive set of medals lining his lapel. Standing up amongst the hubbub of people chatting and laughing, I have a direct question for Simon and I get to it straight away. What does it mean that this is the first war memorial of a total of 77,000 in the UK to depict a disabled service man? He is very quick to take a positive stance. He explains to me that disabilities have always been seen through a screen of fear and intimidation.

When asked whether this was something he himself had experienced, he tells me about times when children had asked questions about his condition, only to be quickly hushed by their parents. The statue is “a sign of the times”, he says, “disabilities are no longer in the shadows”.

Simon now works for Blind Veterans UK. Currently he does not need support, but with Blind Veterans UK, he explains, you know the support is always there. He sums it up in a word; “safety”. When I ask whether this statue marks a change in the way that we see disabilities, he tells me that there is a way to go yet.

What sticks with me is his hope that the statue will someday become “iconic”. “Once it gets a nickname then we know that we have done something special.”

ISSUE 6 / 22nd October 2018 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

10 Opinion

Corporate lobbyists have no place in climate policy Sophie Marriott explores the roles of corporate lobbyists in the fight against climate change Sophie Marriott Opinion Editor

Photo: John LeGear @ Flickr

Photo: Alejandro Alvarez @ Wikimedia Commons

Climate change is one of the most urgent issues of our time, and yet policy on environmental issues has remained trapped in a stasis of debate and conferences.

As scientific consensus on the necessity of action deepens there does appear to be a genuine will amongst politicians and global leaders to enact change. However, despite numerous targets being agreed upon, and reams of agreements being signed and shaken over, big business and their lobbying groups maintain a stranglehold on climate policy.

A recent report by InfluenceMap, a UK based Think Tank, has highlighted just how paralysing corporate lobbyists are.

Around 90% of the World’s 200 largest industrial firms are part of trade associations which actively campaign against environmental policies. In 2015 the Guardian reported that Shell lobbyists had dissuaded the EU from setting binding emissions targets for its member countries.

This cannot be how policy is dictated.

It wouldn’t be accepted on a local level; if individual construction companies were found to be dictating urban planning by councils in the UK it would be called corruption. But the sheer size of business interest groups and their distance from our every day somehow makes the scheme appear improbable. There is almost an assumption that because meetings are all held around big shiny desks with the utmost professionalism, there can be no subversion taking place.

The fact of the matter is, however, that if the right decisions were being made and policymakers were putting the environment first, we would be existing in an entirely different world to the one we are now.

Scientists and activists have been suggesting legitimate and feasible regulations for decades and there is significant public support for reform. Yet, this mafia-esque outfit of fossil fuel companies are making change too uncomfortable to enact.

Industrialists have captured the rhetoric surrounding environmental issues in order to harness the public support for

Olivia Stringer Contributor

Photo: SkitterPhoto @ Pexels

Student Finance: A broken system?

Olivia Stringer explores the pitfalls of the system we, as students, rely on

“Can you come and smell this milk for me? Its 3 days out of date but I think it might be alright.”

I am sat in the kitchen of my student home, midway through interviewing some of my housemates on the struggles they face due to lack of student finance, and the harsh realities of these struggles are already being manifested. The milk, we decide, is probably ok and Jess proceeds to pour it into our mugs of tea.

I, myself am lucky enough to receive the highest student loan plus a pretty substantial bursary which has allowed me to have a wonderful summer filled with an abundance of unnecessary holidays.

However, listening to my friends’ difficulties in maintaining a decent standard of living has made me realise that student finance is indeed a broken system.

During our interview, Jess explains how she often skips meals in order to save money, living on a diet mostly consisting of 25p packets of noodles and bottles of mayonnaise, and of her frustration at being unable to join one of the sports societies because of the high costs of joining and of kit etc — both factors being detrimental to her health. Although Jess’ parents earn a reasonable amount of money (putting her in the lowest bracket for student finance) they have a large mortgage which means they are unable to provide their daughter with enough

money to sustain a decent standard of living.

Another of my housemates, Megan, explains how her student loan (also in the lowest bracket) did not cover her rent last year so she had to get a job to be able to cover the costs of living. Megan feels that this job massively affected her uni work, as she had to take two buses there and back which amounted to three hours of travel. “Some days I would leave the house at half eight to get to uni and not return from work until midnight” she explains. Adding that her boss had her work double hours during exam season which she feels affected her grades.

Another point raised during my interviews is the regional differences in the cost of living. Henry, a student studying at The University of Surrey expresses his frustration at the fact that his rent is £600 a month, however, he gets no more money than someone studying in the north — my own rent in Manchester is almost half of his.

“This summer I had to work full time in an office job, which was incredibly draining and massively affected my social life,” he said. Although he spent most of the holidays in an uncomfortable suit staring at a computer screen, Henry wasn’t able to save up enough money for his rent since his deposit and retainer fees alone amounted to £1500. He feels that he will be unable to get a job during term time because of the high demand of

climate action, whilst continuing to put the ecological future of the planet and its most vulnerable populations at risk. This strategy has granted them the moral, upper hand in all dialogues on climate policy.

InfluenceMap have revealed a prime example of this in the actions of BP’s CEO Bob Dudley, who has made an enduring show of publicly supporting energy efficiency regulation, whilst BP is simultaneously lobbying governments and the EU for subsidies which support gas extraction and actively resists various programmes for renewable energy.

By intentionally keeping the world locked in patterns of unsustainable living in order to protect their short-term profits, fossil fuel companies and energy providers are dictating the fates of billions of people — whom they cannot even have a pretense of being able to speak for. Therefore, climate change is not just the most pressing issue of our times because of the ecological damage being wrought on the planet, but also because it is in the fight for climate action that we can confront the true face of corporate power.

his course and is therefore unsure about where he will be able to get the money to pay his rent.

My final interviewee comes from the Channel Island of Guernsey. Although not classed as international students, as it is a crown dependency, students from Guernsey receive no student loan and instead get a minuscule grant. Dylan’s grant is £100 which doesn’t even cover the cost of a return flight to Manchester. “It’s ridiculous because even the students with the smallest loan in the UK get their tuition fees covered and a minimum maintenance loan of £4,054.” Because of this lack of funding, Dylan was unable to afford the study abroad programme, which, having already accepted a place at the University of Amsterdam, he found disheartening and felt as though he was missing out on an extremely enriching experience.

Having experienced my friends starving themselves, and sacrificing their grades in order to be able to afford to live at university, I believe we need to re-think the system. Instead of just assuming that parents with a decent income will throw all of their money at their children, student finance should take into account mortgages and regional differences within the costs of living. The minimum loan should be increased to allow all students to be able to afford their rent without either sacrificing their learning or plunging their parents into debt.

Opinion 11

ISSUE 6 / 22nd October 2018 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Brexit from the other side

Photo: Rlevente @ Wikimedia Commons

Isidora Cortes-Monroy Contributor Since the referendum in 2016, my Chilean family have asked the same three questions every time we speak on the phone: “How’s Uni going?”, “Are you dressing warmly enough?” and “What are people saying about Brexit?” When talking to other international students, they too have said that Brexit would never fail to come up in conversation. Being an international student in 2018, we find ourselves in the strange position of representing the UK to our loved-ones without actually being British. Like so many, we have no clue what to expect from Brexit, and because of our temporary positions here, we’re not even sure how much longer we may be here to witness it.

The main concern for EU students is what will happen to their tuition fees. EU students are eligible for lower fees than Non-EU students. Many of them benefit from loans given to them by their own governments. If, when the UK leaves the EU, they decide to make everyone pay international fees, there will be many students that will not be able to continue their studies here simply because

they cannot afford it. This thought is terrifying to anyone who has just started their studies in the UK, or anyone looking to complete a Master’s degree here. And even if they were to stay on in the UK, they will most likely have to get a visa, which in itself is quite expensive.

Furthermore, if you’re a European student, there is the question of how useful your degree will be back in your own country. The Bologna Process – an agreement signed between European countries that ensures a shared quality of Higher Education – was signed in 1999, when the UK was already part of the EU. This Process not only ensures a good quality of education, but also that signatories’ universities and employers recognise degrees obtained in other signatories’ universities. If leaving the EU means leaving the Bologna Process, our degrees will be reduced to pretty pieces of paper.

The issue of reduced mobility is also a huge factor when making plans for the future. It discourages any EU student looking for a job UK, even if they were determined to work here. It would make it difficult to convince companies to aid them with getting a visa. As someone that holds both a Chilean passport and a Swiss passport

Isidora Cortes-Monroy looks at Brexit from the perspective of an international student, suggesting that now is the time to start planning ahead

(which is part of the EEA), I know from experience how much easier it is to get a job if you have the right passport. Put frankly, any passport which requires a complicated visa process, is unattractive to companies.

If there were to be any advantages to Brexit, it would most likely be for non-EU students. Life as a non-EU student in the UK is plagued by bureaucracy, something which, as was previously mentioned, makes you automatically less attractive to hire and can bar you from a number of places.

If leaving the EU means that everyone who comes from outside the UK is automatically considered ‘international’, then perhaps this will mean that non-EU passport holders will be given more opportunities seeing as they no longer have to compete with the more attractive EU statuses. However, considering the nationalistic rhetoric of Brexit, I am aware that this is being overly optimistic.

Like most people watching the news, all we can do as international students is speculate and prepare as best we can for the possible scenarios. One thing is for sure though: depending solely on the UK is no longer an option. We have to start considering alternative countries on which to build our futures.

#MeToo needs to include the male victims of sexual assault

Photo: Gage Skidmore @Wikimedia Commons

Becky McNutt discusses the lack of coverage for the male victims of sexual assault and how it should be valued on the same level as female Becky McNutt Contributor It is no s ecret th at the su bj e c t of con s e nt a nd s ex u al a ssau lt is a hot topic in tod ay’s s oc ie ty. Re ce nt a llegat ion s of s exual mis conduct m ade aga in st nu me rou s powe r f u l me n have motivated a s ens e of de e p inj u stice a nd prompte d s omet hi ng of an alliance w ith in s oc ie ty. Pe ople from va r iou s b ackground s h ave come toge the r to fig ht for the r ig ht to ou r ow n bodie s, and the b odie s of thos e a lre ady s o wrong ful ly abu s e d .

O nline re sp on s e s such a s the # Me Too move me nt and , more recently, #Why IDid ntRe port, h ave s hown a de e p, a nd e mot iona l re sp on s e wh ich h a s ga ine d trac tion in the me d i a. Vict i ms have fou nd streng th in othe rs to come for wa rd and s h are t he i r own exp erience s of s exu a l a s s au lt a nd rape. T he c u r re nt ca l l for an FBI inve stigation into the a llegation s aga i n st S upreme Cou rt nominee B re tt Kava n aug h is a good ind icator of t he sign if icance of such move me nts.

We’ve made leap s and bou nd s in ou r attitude s a s a s o c ie ty, w it h th ings mov ing rapid ly in the r ig ht d ire c tion . T he on ly problem is, can it truly be s a id th at th is newfou nd aware ne s s st retche s to all?

The Crime Su rvey for E ng la nd a nd Wa le s h a s s how n t h at a round 510,000 wome n age d 16 to 59 expe r ie nce d s ex u al a ssau lt in 2017 alone. It is com mon k nowle dge th at wome n are more often v ictims of s exu a l a s s au lt th a n me n , howeve r, t h i s doe s not mean th at me n a re not a ls o vic tim s. I n 20 17, 1 3 8 ,000 men aged 16 -59 exp e rie nce d s exu a l a s s au lt. On ly 1 out of 6

m ale v ic t i m s f i le d re p or t s w it h t he p ol ice.

W h i le ou r c u r re nt s o c ie ty h as m ade g re at progre s s in e ncou rag i ng wome n to come for ward , s ex u al a ss ault aga inst me n i s st i l l of te n m arg i n al i s e d and ig nore d . T he recent pre ssu re for b e t te r con s e nt e ducat ion w it h i n s chools a nd unive rs it ie s, wh i le much ne e de d , u su al ly cate rs only for s ex ua l v iole nce agai n st wome n , by me n . T h i s exace r bate s t he lack of aware ne s s wh ich fe e d s t he cl i m ate of tox ic m as culinity a nd of te n ke e p s m ale v ic t i m s f rom com i ng for ward.

T h i s i s sue i s e sp e c i al ly topical at t he u n ive rsity, a s ca mpuse s and big c it ie s such as M anche ste r b ot h h ave much higher re corde d rate s of c r i me and s ex u al m i s conduct t ha n ot her a re as. A st udy by T he Comple te Un ive rs ity G u ide recorded 4 8 .6 re p or te d i nc ide nt s of v iole nce and s ex u al of fence s p er 10 0 0 st ude nt s i n M anche ste r l ast ye ar. A nd wh i le s ex ua l of fence s agai n st wome n m ay p e rh ap s b e more o bv iou s, incidence s of s ex u al v iole nce agai n st me n are not always s een a s such, swe pt ove r by ye ars of s o c i al i s at ion i nto ou r m a le a nd fem a le role s, whe re me n are not v ic t i m s.

T he # W hy ID id nt Re p or t move me nt i s p e rh aps most p o igna nt for m ale v ic t i m s, who face t he fe ar of r id ic u le a nd t he app ea rance of we ak ne s s. T h i s i s comp ou nde d by t he t hreat of b ackl as h f rom t hos e who m ig ht s e e re p or t s as an at tempt to t a ke at te nt ion away f rom wome n’s st r ug g le s. S cho ols a nd universit ie s s hou ld b e te ach i ng st ude nt s t he e q u al i njust ice of s ex ua l m i s conduc t agai n st anyone, regard le s s of ge nder, a nd p av ing t he way for a s afe r sp ace for b ot h me n and women to rep ort .

Photo: Gordon Johnson @ Pixabay

Photo: Marc Nozell @ Wikimedia Commons Photo: surdumihail

12 Societies

ISSUE 6 / 22nd October 2018 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

It’s not too late to join a Society!

Skip Netflix and chill and instead, learn a new skill Ellie Martin Contributor Still have all those flyers from Welcome Week stuffed in a Domino’s pizza bag in your room somewhere, but haven’t actually had the chance to sort through them yet? Or did you have a society in mind but missed the first week and now you feel too awkward about going?

We’ve all been there — getting caught up in the rush of the first few weeks of the university year, and despite our good intentions towards learning a new skill or getting involved with a team, it just didn’t happen and now it’s probably too late to join.

Fear not! Most societies on campus will actually still happily take new members, and so it’s definitely not too late for you to sign up to that new team sport or begin that new hobby you’ve wanted to start for ages.

It’s very easy to get settled into the rhythm of life at university: wake up, class, coffee, dinner, Netflix etc. It’s all too tempting to just stay at home after walking all the way back to your house or halls and spending time making dinner. The enticing lure of binge-watching The Bodyguard and your bed close by is very appealing. The idea of heading back up to campus for the evening just seems like too much effort sometimes.

However, societies are such a brilliant opportunity to expand your friendship group, take a break from class, learn something new, and generally add another element to your week that doesn’t involve a lecture theatre. The opportunity is just too good to be missed.

Joining a society can also dramatically help your time management skills. When the only commitments you have are class and feeding yourself, you can suddenly find yourself with more free time than ever before, especially for those just starting university. It can be very strange to have no commitments to school sports clubs, scheduled study periods or, in most cases, family commitments apart from the odd Skype call.

Your time is really your own at university, which is a first for many, and can be extremely liberating or very isolating. The temptation to stay in bed instead of heading out on a Saturday morning, or spending your evenings in the company of various social media and streaming services can be very appealing when you have nothing else planned, especially as no-one is going to tell you what to do or when to do it.

Personally, I found my new found freedom very stifling when beginning university, the opposite of what I thought it would feel like. I constantly had free time, and with no set commitments I found myself feeling paralysed by the possibilities, and most

of the time ended up watching Buffy on my laptop continuously. This also got me into extremely bad time management habits: with all the free time to get things done, I barely finished anything as there was abundant time to complete things, and therefore I never got round to them. It was only when I joined two excellent societies, and then had subsequent social engagements from them that my performance in class really improved.

I was able to maintain a better sleep schedule as I was busy and tired more, and much better able to hold myself to the ‘bed before midnight on weekdays’ rule. I wasn’t tired when I woke up, and was more engaged with life in Manchester in general. There

‘Your time is really your own at university, which as a first for many, and can be extremely liberating or very isolating.’ were so many benefits of joining societies, and it’s not too late for you to start too!

Below are examples of societies that are still taking new members, but it’s certainly not exhaustive. Most societies have a Facebook page or email address you can use to contact them and ask if they are still taking new members, so don’t miss out on starting the sport you’ve always wanted to or trying a new hobby just because you think it’s too late, chances are it’s not!

One example is your friendly local academic society. Most undergraduate and postgraduate degree courses have an attached society. This is a great way to meet more of your course mates (especially if you do an arts degree and literally never see them), and these are open all year round. What’s even better is that you don’t have to go to your own course’s society. Are you a Creative Writing student who’s also really into Physics? Join the PhysSoc! You can keep on learning about and discussing a subject you’re interested in, even if you didn’t end up doing it at uni.

Languages societies are also a truly brilliant way of making friends, as well as learning that language you’ve always wanted to learn. These societies are usually a mix of native speakers and

Photo:simisi1@ Pixabay

those who want to practise, so you get the opportunity to chat with someone who speaks the language fluently, and also enjoy learning about the culture of the country. Languages societies often organise themed food nights, as well as trips to sporting events and film/literature evenings.

Moreover, the University of Manchester Dance Society are still welcoming new members. This is a great one for combining trying something new with fitness. The classes are held locally, with options for beginners and advanced classes, and plenty of different styles! Bring a housemate along too, so you can keep each other accountable for getting out and trying something new, whilst not having to go alone.

The Choir and Orchestra society is made up of the university’s non-audition choir and orchestra, so anyone who’s brought their instrument or their voice can join. Singing in a choir is great for your health, as well as the social element, plus CAOS are know to have some excellent socials, including Disney Karaoke nights!

University sport – what’s the deal?

Chloe Hatton unpacks Campus Sports so we can stay active despite the nights drawing in

Chloe Hatton Contributor Are you interested in joining a sport but don’t know where to start? Do you want to play but don’t necessarily want the competition of the University teams? We’re here to help you figure out exactly where to go. Whether you’re interested in the Maths Football team or the the Aikido club, there’s certainly something for everyone.

Throughout the university there are 42 sports societies that belong to the AU (that’s the Athletics Union), and these encompass 38 different sports, so whether you’re looking for trampolining or rugby or even korfball, you’re sure to find what you’re looking for. Out of these societies, some also compete in BUCS (British Universities and College Sport), which runs leagues and competitions throughout the year, which is great if you’re interested in playing competitively. More locally, many clubs also take part in the Christie Championship, where students from the Universities of Manchester, Leeds, and Liverpool all fight for the glory of the coveted Christie Cup. If you want to show everyone who truly is the best northern university, this is the competition for you. Spoiler alert, it’s definitely us.

Campus sports is a great place to get started – there are around 130 teams made up of groups from courses, halls, and groups of friends. If you’re looking to play competitively without the pressure of the uni sides, this is the place to start. Leagues and competitions are still organised, but they’re a bit more low-key than the likes of BUCS and the Christie Championship.

However, they’re still a lot of fun, and are a great way to keep fit, whilst making new course friends and meeting people in your accommodation.

If you’re looking for beginner level sports, and are looking for something less competitive than either campus or club sports, then the university run a great programme every year called

Sporticipate, which provides over 60 hours a week of sports – all completely free. Whether it’s a weekly drop in session or a more structured ‘Learn-to’ programme you’re interested in, Sporticipate will be there every week for you to partake in. The timetable changes each semester, so make sure you check on the University Sport website for an up-to-date version. This semester, you can try your hand at water polo, squash, kickboxing, and indoor

cricket, amongst others. Sporticipate also offer women-only and men-only times for some sports such as swimming and dodgeball.

“Sport is an amazing way to meet like-minded people at Uni that doesn’t revolve around studies, exams and deadlines” Another great way to keep fit at uni is to join the gym! There are a few different options – for everyone living in the Fallowfield area, both the Armitage and The Gym offer student deals for a nine-month period, costing £120 for the Armitage, including free classes and access at peak hours, and The Gym costing £134 for the same. For those closer to the city centre, there are a whole host of options includingPureGym, The Gym, and Anytime Fitness Cachella Smith, a fourth year English Literature and French student and member of the cross-country society, said “sport is an amazing way to meet like-minded people at Uni and have conversations that don’t revolve around studies, exams and deadlines. It also allows you to work towards a sense of achievement that isn’t directly academic”. Whatever you choose, joining a sport during your time at uni is a great way to keep fit, make new friends, and relax after a long day of lectures.

Photo: Herbert Art Gallery & Museum

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Inside Culture

Superorganism Grimmfest Interview: 18 Review:20

Man Booker Prize: 23

Women, Art, And Peaked Apparel: 26 Revolution: 25

The Power of Veg: 27

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THE

16

ISSUE 6 / 22nd October 2018 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Music

Live Review: WHP presents Annie Mac Radio One icon Annie Mac curated a packed out all-nighter for The Warehouse Project, writes Jack Burnett WHP presents Annie Mac Jack Burnett The Warehouse Project (WHP) is a behemoth of clubbing. Hosting sell-out events from September till New Years in a 2000 capacity venue takes some big names, and 2018 did not disappoint.

Four tet back-to-back with Ben UFO? Dettmann, Daphni, and Daniel Avery all in one night? Bonobo and Gilles Peterson sharing a setlist with Manchester’s iconic Now Wave DJs? It’s all here, but one of its most essential acts returns for her 12th WHP: Annie Mac. House and disco were the main stars of her curated night, but grittier tech from Chaos in the CBD and Moxie’s deeper beats provided welcome variation between the three rooms. The night’s three biggest names, however (Honey Dijon, Mall Grab, and Annie herself), all blessed the stage consecutively in the main room.

Honey’s love for classic house resonated as she played Crystal Waters’ ‘Gypsy Woman’, the sound of over a thousand people’s “La da dee la dee da’s” being a uniting highlight. Annie graced the stage herself at 2 o’clock, to an audience packed in shoulder to shoulder right back to the bar, throwing applause in her direction. She dived through house, techno, and disco blending in some hip-hop and industrial sounds whilst behind the decks — it was an eclectic masterclass in good vibes.

Although a packed venue is a

Photo: Hakken @ Wikimedia Commons

8/10

testament to popularity, WHP is not without its problems, like all venues. A group being completely separated while skirting the wall to the toilet is a common occurrence at one of their events. The bar also won’t accept cards after midnight and will point you to the convenient cash machines nearby which charge £1.99 for each withdrawal (take out another tenner for two more drinks, or drop another unnecessary two quid later?).

Other provisions like the smoking area (fenced off pavement) and toilets (some 40 portaloos lining a large square) are laughable.

There’s also the question of Warehouse Project as a tourist spot, trying to capture Northern industrial grit whilst still charging £25-40 entry. Southern freshers dip their toes into a faux ‘Edgy Manchester’ night that is generally disliked by the small promoters and underground organisers it tries to emulate, in its own corporate kind of way.

Despite the flaws, The Warehouse Project undeniably excels at putting on a huge set of nights. They bring the advertisement, the venue, and the brand whilst the acts bring the energy and the crowds.

If you don’t focus on it, its something you won’t even notice.

Event management is a back-thought when you’re in a room with 2000 strangers dancing beside you and Annie Mac up on stage.

Split Milk Society Jasmine Bennett gives the details on Spilt Milk Society’s return to the indie scene for this week’s Hot Right Now Birmingham five-piece Spilt Milk Society have been drifting more and more around the airwaves since the release of the incredibly popular ‘She Tastes Like Summer’ last July.

However, the band had a swift change of membership back in April, leaving people wondering how long it would be before we heard more from this summery pop group.

Their brand new single ‘Turtleneck Boy’ is an unbelievably catchy track featuring sonic-sounding guitars and powerful choral vocals from lead singer Harry Handford. For fans of something slightly softer, older eponymous EP Spilt Milk Society features the soft-sounding ‘Over The Edge’, showing the band’s ability to master the slow song. Mood-lifter ‘She Tastes Like Summer’ is perfect for brightening up the increasingly dreary days, drawing to mind bands such as The Magic Gang and JAWS. With new releases expected in November and January, this up-and-coming band are sure to be coming up with great things.

Hot Right Now Photo: Josie Richards Photo: (flames ) XoMEoX @ Flickr

ISSUE 6 / 22nd October 2018 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Album Review:

The Stars, The Oceans & The Moon

by Echo and The Bunnymen The Stars, The Oceans & The Moon Caolan Coleman

5/10

Photo: Drew de F Fawkes @Flickr

The Scouse favourites pay a largely pointless tribute to their younger, more vibrant selves

In conversation with: Tom Walker

Photo: Album artwork @ Flickr

Amidst his hectic tour schedule, Tom Walker sits down for a chat with contributor Alex Stagg before putting on an electric performance at the O2 Ritz

Music

17

Revisiting old hits in a ‘new’ manner is an increasingly familiar way of older acts justifying the reeling out of their bestknown songs for the umpteenth time. While these records can sometimes turn a new light on to lesser known tracks from an artist’s back catalogue (like Paul Simon’s recent In The Blue Light), the Bunnymen have elected to wheel out thirteen classics (with a couple of newbies) on latest outing The Stars, The Oceans & The Moon.

Opener ‘Bring On The Dancing Horses’ manages to somehow be more uniquely eighties than its 1985 original: its drum machines, washy synths, and scratchy guitar are pure New Order. It’s a strange choice and not one that really works. Ian McCullough’s melodramatic croon has developed an endearing husk over the years, and it lends an earthy charm to the campfire reimagining of late 90s hit ‘Nothing Lasts Forever’, adding an extra sense of poignancy to the elegiac track.

It’s one of the better rearrangements on the album, unfortunately. Others aren’t so good. ‘Lips Like Sugar’ is so faithful to the original, one wonders what the point or re-recording it was. Likewise, ‘Bedbugs and Ballyhoo’ and ‘Rescue’, whose overproduced arrangements only succeed in robbing the songs of their post-punk vitality.

Things work a little better when the band take the opportunity to slow things down a notch. ‘Seven Seas’ jangly guitars are replaced by an accordion, turning the song into the left-field sea shanty that it always threatened to be. ‘Ocean Rain’, the title track of their 1984 opus, is given a similar treatment. While not radically different

from its original state, the manner in which it builds from piano to sweeping strings is just as powerful this time around, and a reminder of just how magnificent the Bunnymen were at their peak. The two new songs are guitar-driven pieces, giving guitarist Will Sergeant a welcome workout. The first, ‘The Somnambulist’, is an instantly forgettable mid-tempo latter day Funnymen number, yet ‘How Far?’ is one of the album’s real highlights. Sergeant’s glistening guitar recaptures the band at their brightest and most accessible, while McCullough brings the vocals to match, singing with a boyish optimism that we haven’t heard in years.

Of course, no discussion of Echo & The Bunnymen would be complete without their calling card, ‘The Killing Moon’, knowingly placed at the end of the record. McCulloch famously believes that his most enduring work is the greatest song ever written, and the version on The Stars, The Oceans & The Moon is more personal than ever. With just a shimmering piano for company, McCulloch’s voice sores over the old lyrics with as much passion as ever.

While the synths and shards of brittle guitar that made the original the brooding, darkly romantic classic it became are missing, it’s a song that will always find a captive audience, no matter what the arrangement.

The Bunnymen’s ‘latest’ is an odd exercise, to say the least. While being another reminder of how the moody Scousers have one of the greatest songbooks in British indie, there’s nothing here (beyond the surprisingly great ‘How Far?’) that fans can’t gain from revisiting one of their many ‘best ofs’ instead.

Kicking off in style with ‘Fly Away With Me’, Tom sang with style and confidence, hypnotically beckoning each audience member to “fly away” with him into his musical world. The quality of his tone and sense of vocal line was immediately noticeable and had me gripped from the get-go. Bopping in swagger, it made me realise that he was dead serious when stating “I don’t really get nervous anymore!” his confidence was simply infectious.

With a cheeky smile, Tom and his threepiece band (who I must say were remarkably tight and expressive throughout), transitioned into his hit song ‘Heartland’. The deep bass pounding through the speakers filled each inch of the room, sending vibrations through the floor and body as Tom let his raspy vocals soar, interjected by lighter string motifs and earthy rock n’ roll guitar riffs.

Tom, bubbling with obvious excitement and joy, remarked to the crowd how “fucking good it is to be back up north”, forming a rather sentimental spin to the performance as his visiting friends waved and cheered from the side of the room. This was later met with a heart-warming moment — and highlight of the gig for many — in which Tom called up his Nan on stage, spurring the crowd to belt out a rendition of Happy Birthday to celebrate her 81st. It was visible how much this meant to them both, forging a truly precious and special moment that I’m sure they’ll treasure forever. Happy birthday Nan! One of my personal highlights of the night was the 26-year-old’s rendition of ‘My Way’, driven by strong drum down-beats and glittering vocals in the catchy chorus, set between bouncing verses with an R&B-style. With the energy palpable in the room, Tom handed the mic over to the gleaming audience, ecstatic with the chance to let their vocals ring as they belted out repeating iterations of the climaxing chorus — I myself even got a bit

carried away and left the gig with a slightly croakier voice than expected!

Treating the audience to an energetic and varied set, Tom also teased his upcoming debut album — set to be released on the 1st of March next year — with new Rudimental track ‘Walk Alone’ proving a favourite. Discussing his forthcoming music he spoke of an exciting new single with Zara Larsson, stating, “I can’t wait for people to hear it. It’s something totally different to anything I’ve done before”. With over 150 gigs played last year, his current ongoing European tour, and abundance of upcoming music it certainly is a busy time for the singer-songwriter.

An evening full of fun, laughter, and tear-jerking moments climaxed and concluded with an encore of his worldwide hit single ‘Leave a Light On’, sung along by each and every partying punter as Tom bounced around the stage with a brimming grin. Tom described the feeling of having such a worldwide fanbase for the song as “a bit crazy”, and that it often leaves him feeling “a bit shocked when seeing the sheer amount of people”.

It’s abundantly clear that Tom revels in the opportunity to be on stage and it’s truly a blessing to see first-hand. “People seem to find emotional release in my songs, I can see it in the gigs, from romantic couples to people who have had a bad week at work letting loose and raving,” he tells me. This was noticeable within the crowd as those young and old swayed, sung, and danced with each passing beat.

Tom certainly is a natural-born performer and together with his jaw-dropping vocal personality full of height, depth, and gliding ease made for a gig experience that I will not be forgetting in a hurry. The future is bright for the singer-songwriter and I look forward to seeing, and hearing, what is to come.

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ISSUE 6 / 22nd October 2018 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Music

Interview: Superorganism Ahead of their Manchester show Alex Wain catches up with the world-dominating Superorganism Photo: Paul Hudson @ Flickr

Ahead of their upcoming tour and gig at the O2 Ritz in Manchester on the 25th of October, I was lucky enough to speak to the lovely B from Superorganism, a band who have evolved online and consequently gained rapid success in the past year for their unconventional and fun style of electronic pop music.

The 8-person group of friends (Orono, Emily, Harry, Ruby, B, Robert, Tucan, and Soul) includes members from all over the world including Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK. I was curious to know how this dynamic helps the band and how B felt about their unexpected rise to fame.

“It’s crazy, it’s been a whirlwind, the fact that there is 8 of us – a lot of us who have been friends for a long time, really helps with navigating this new world. It’s new for all of us so we’re just taking it one step at a time, it doesn’t always sink in at the time so it’s nice to be able to discuss it with each other as it’s happening.

“It’s funny as well because we live together, and we are back at home at the moment so it’s good to be chilling out and doing normal stuff”. The group live together in a 24-hour live in studio where they can continuously come up with ideas for songs and videos, I asked if such proximity causes any tensions, but the group of contrasting individuals get along like a house on fire, “It’s pretty cool, we still get

along very well which I’m surprised about”.

I asked if anything has changed post record release: “Just to have it out in the world feels really good, I think a highlight for me was just playing shows post record and people in the crowd knew every single song- that was a real shift from pre-record where people knew maybe 3 or 4 songs – it changes the whole experience!”

Any regular festival goers may have been introduced to Superorganism this summer at one of the many festivals they performed at, the highlight of B’s being Primavera festival in Barcelona. “At that point, it felt like the biggest crowd that we had ever played to, maybe a crowd of 8,000 people but it felt even bigger it was just like a sea of people, reaching as far as the eye could see and that was very overwhelming – the crowd was just amazing!” B also loved performing at Splendour in The Grass in Australia. She said it was really fun to play to their amazing Japanese fan-base at Fuji Rock in Japan, and finally Latitude festival was a good one a bit closer to home.

When I asked where she is most excited to play on their upcoming tour I was expecting her to say one of the countless cool foreign venues they’re set to visit, but she immediately replied “Oooh Manchester! You’ve got some of the rowdiest crowd I’d say, which will be really fun. Having just come back from America I’ve decided that some of the smaller cities are

some of my favourites, in places like New York, L.A or London people can be a little too cool”.

The band started out originally as a casual online recording project, this influenced their focus massively: “We wouldn’t exist without the internet at all. We all met online over a long period and we use it every day as part of our music making process: a song will start off with one person and then they will send files over the internet for the next person to work on. We’re less of a face to face band as we are more of an internet band, and I guess it sounds really different as well, there’s a lot to uncover”.

I asked B if she had any similar influential bands to recommend and discovered that Superorganism have collaborated with Gorillaz and fans typically compare the two as “cartoon” bands, with different characters and cool visuals. “A solo artist that people may not have heard of is Knox Fortune, a Chicago-based artist who has collaborated with Chance the Rapper, I recommend your readers to check him out.”

As my interview with B came to an end I wanted to find out what people like me, who haven’t seen them perform live before, should expect. B said: “People can get excited for an all singing, all dancing, colourful, sparkly, multicentric experience!” And if that doesn’t make you want to see them I don’t know what will.

EP Review: Autonomy by Drenge

It may not blow fans’ minds but it will keep them happy for now, writes Rona McCann Automony Rona McCann Drenge are quiet in their field. Taking a three-year break between releases and spacing out tours that makes catching them live a lottery prize seems to have been their go-to of late. You probably won’t hear their songs on the radio outside of their own occasional on-air interviews and they probably don’t get stopped on the streets of home city Sheffield every day for selfies. And yet, Drenge are still going. Trudging through with songs true to themselves and that are a revved-up treat for their long-serving fanbase.

Whilst their presence may be quiet, their music is anything but.

Autonomy seems to have been gifted to us a concept album; a robot graces the artwork and its adventures are the pivotal theme of opening track ‘Autonomy’ lyrics. Take the Blade Runner-referencing conundrum of “Do androids dream of electric sheep?”, a hook

6/10

that is accompanied by an almost cartoony mechanical riff.

Still, it remains the case that the thing that stands out as the most obvious tie connecting each of the four songs is simply that they sound, well, Drenge-y.

Thankfully, this doesn’t matter too much because the Drenge sound is a unique one.

Frontman Eoin Loveless’ deep, near speechlike vocals are instantly recognisable and adapt well to whatever each song demands of them. 2015’s Undertow managed to capture the deep-riffed spirit of their grungey, angsty, in-your-face self-titled debut but with an added darker layer of ominousness occasionally just creeping into its lyrical subject matters and fuzzy, crescendoing guitars. Autonomy’s tracks sound as if they could have been easily lifted from the album this merge brought us three years ago, leaving room (and

Photo: (guitars) Krzysztof Ostrowski @ Wikimedia Commons

hope) for Drenge formulating a new strain of their signature sound when they decide to make their next full-length record.

Drenge do experiment a little with pace and percussion on this record. ‘Outside’ sees a sudden quickening of the EP’s journey. Cymbals are placed in the audible foreground and inject a clash in time with each word of Loveless’ shouts of “It’s so much better on the outside!” ‘Before the War Begins’ keeps it going fast, but this time a little smoother and even a little sadder. Of course, what’s a Drenge release without at least one tune that will get you feeling just a little more deeply?

Autonomy is not an EP that will blow your mind if you already know what Drenge are all about but since an album is not yet on the horizon, it’s enough to keep fans happy for now.

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ISSUE 6 / 22nd October 2018 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Games

Review: Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 Tobias Soar

8/10

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Call of Duty returns to form with a boots-on-the-ground instalment that feels fresh and familiar, all a once, writes Tobias Soar

It’s 2018 and the new Call of Duty is the experience; you have to purchase the full £50 talk of the town. Many would argue – and I game to play it. In a market where PUBG costs agree – that the series’ fall from grace came £27 and Fortnite is free, I believe that the in 2012 with the launch of Ghosts. In the last game would stand a chance at becoming the num5 years, the franchise kept diverging from the ber one Battle Royale if it was sold separateoriginal formula in an attempt to stay fresh ly from the base game for, say, £20. with yearly releases. Exo-skeletons, jetpacks, “Push, push, push” applies to the multilaser weaponry and cyborgs became the norm un- player mode, too. Every element of the game – til last year’s WWII, the setting that started specialists, map design, perks, scorestreaks it all. Despite an attempt a rebirth, WWII was and mechanics – is there to keep you moving not well-received and was massively overshad- forward. Gone are the days of camping a window owed by its competitor, Battlefield 1. Black and landing a 25-kill nuke before the match Ops 4 was a make-it-or-break-it entry for the ends. Although the gameplay is mostly “bootsfranchise and it’s definitely made it. on-the-ground”, fast sprints, fast animations, The current gaming scene is all about the Battle Royale experience.

Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds brought the sub-genre into the mainstream and Fortnite launched it into the pop culture stratosphere.

Activision clearly wanted a slice of the Royale pie; prompting two massive changes to the game’s core: they did away with the staple yet overdone cinematic campaign (press “F” to pay respects) and replaced it with Blackout, the franchise’s very own Battle Royale. However, before you sigh and overlook the mode, you’ll be pleased to know that it’s the best Battle Royale I’ve ever played.

Photo: SteamXO@Flickr “1v1 me on Rust, quickscopes only” was the challenge everyone heard back in slides on the ground and fast gunplay (fast the day. Stepping up to the challenge made us being the key word here) put you on edge every the gamers we are today. (Well, we thought so, match. Gunplay is satisfying and easy to pick anyway.) Blackout brings this classic philoso- up, as it is in every Call of Duty. “Spephy and applies it to a 100-player deathmatch. cialists” bring elements of Overwatch to the The Battle Royale formula and the Call of Duty franchise by forcing players to take up roles gunplay mechanics are a match made in heaven; that have a noticeable effect on the battlenot only can you feel like the king of the hill field with their unique characteristics. Every when placing first, but you can get there with Specialist has a minor ability that recharges reliable hit-reg and fun gameplay mechanics every 90 seconds or so; for example, Torque designed to keep you pushing forward, unlike can place razor wire and Ruin can grapple hook PUBG. Many critics of Playerunknown’s broken, to zip around the map (he is the only spebuggy mess argue that the game mostly consists cialist with a grappling hook and its use is of waiting around for enemies to push you – very limited and, therefore, well-balanced). and they’re not wrong.

They also have a stronger ability that acts Blackout keeps the match interesting with similarly to a scorestreak but doesn’t require a map that feels large but not enormous and skill to achieve. Nomad can call in a K-9 unit a shorter time between phases in which the to do his dirty deeds, for example. circle limiting free roam closes. An intelThe health system has been revamped; gone ligent move by Treyarch is that of including are the days of bleeding eyeballs that recover classic Black Ops maps within the larger map. by magic. Every player has 150 non-regeneratNuketown, Estates (Villa), Turbine and Firing ing hitpoints, which can be reinforced with Range are on the list. And, uniquely, there armor, and a syringe. This syringe refreshes are also zombies maps (Verrükt, Diner) popu- every 5 seconds, allowing players to heal up lated with hordes of the undead. The higher multiple times in a life, making engagements risk in these zones ensures better loot, if strategic. A particular gadget allows players you’re willing to mow down zombies and real to keep a weapon up while healing, allowing opponents alike. for greater control over the gunplay.

Unfortunately, Blackout is not a standalone Maps are cleverly designed, with a similar

formula present in all of them; they have two spawn areas, a midpoint with a circular flow and multiple paths around the whole map. This design subtly does away with the classic tugof-war feeling maps used to have and mixes players’ routes around each other. 10 of the 14 maps available at launch are new but some classics return: Firing Range, Summit, Slums and Jungle. Nuketown, the staple map of the Black Ops series, will be coming to all, for free, in November.

The learning curve is rather steep, however, with hundreds of possible class customizations and 10 specialists to master over the game’s lifetime. Of course, forthcoming DLC packs will bring even more content to get accustomed to.

The third and final mode in the game is the beloved Zombies – a game within the game, a new sub-genre of the FPS genre that no other game, or studio, has been able to replicate. Treyarch simultaneously birthed and pioneered the mode in 2008 with World At War. As the years went by, Treyarch’s instalments in the Call of Duty franchise kept becoming more and more ambitious. Maps got bigger, the storyline became more complex, the gameplay evolved with crafting and magic powers, and the easter eggs which ultimately told this story became more bizarre each map release (by franchise entry and by DLC). Black Ops 4 brings back the undead stronger than ever with three maps at launch. A new cast of characters are thrown into Voyage of Despair, a map on the Titanic, and IX, a trip back in time to a Roman Coliseum. The original Black Ops quattro return to Alcatraz – first introduced in Black Ops 2 as Mob of the Dead – in Blood of the Dead.

There are many changes to the gameplay, as every DLC on Black Ops 2 used to do, but, at its core, it’s another instalment of Black Ops Zombies, and that is fine by me.

Black Ops 4 brings back everything that made Call of Duty great. Every mode is playable with friends and it all feels familiar yet fresh, all at once. Multiplayer challenges and unique matches of Blackout will keep players returning to the game over and over again, like we used to do back in the day. The triedand-tested formula got stale, forced innovation and flopped but it’s time for it to reign supreme once more.

The well-polished experience might not appeal to all; if you hated the franchise back in 2010, you’ll hate it now but if you’re willing to give it a chance, you might just find one of your favourite releases of the year.

King of the North dates announced The UoM eSports society officially unveil details about King Of the North, the UK’s bbiggest student run eSports tournament, writes Jeremy Bijl The University of Manchester eSports society have officially announced the dates for the upcoming ‘King of the North’ eSports tournament, scheduling the event to run on the 1st to the 2nd of December, 2018, in MediaCityUK in Salford. This winter’s competition is to be the sixth installment of the tournament, with the previous one taking place in March of this year.

King of the North is the largest student-run eSports tournament in the United Kingdom, and its March edition attracted university eSports teams from all around the country. The University of Portsmouth, The University of Birmingham, and the University of Warwick walk away with the bragging rights for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO),

Overwatch, and League of Legends (LoL) respectively.

The tournament in December will again feature CS:GO, LoL, and Overwatch, but has also added Rainbow 6 Siege to its roster. As well as being available live for those in attendance, the matches taking place over the weekend will stream on Twitch, as will the qualifiers, which will take place over the next two weekends, the 27th-28th of October and the 3rd-4th of November.

Tickets will cost £3 in advance and £4 on the door, with a bulk discount of ten tickets for £20 also available.

The full statement from the UoM eSports Society reads, “The University of Manchester Esports Society is proud to announce King of the

North VI. The UK’s largest student-run gaming festival is back for its sixth iteration! Join us at MediaCityUK in Salford on the 1st and 2nd of December 2018 for a day of competition, rivalries, and everything esports.

“This year we’ll be hosting the NUEL’s CS:GO University Championship finals and USL’s Rainbow 6 Siege finals as well as our own League of Legends and Overwatch tournament finals. Entry to our tournaments is free with sign-ups open now! Whether you’re a player or not, there will be plenty of entertainment over the weekend to excite you.

“Ticket sales are now online, and you can check out our website for more details at uomesports.co.uk. We look forward to seeing you all soon!”

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ISSUE 6 / 22nd October 2018 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Film

Grimmfest 2018: Summer of 84

Photo: Grimmfest

tobias Soar Film Editor

4.5/5

The 80s themed tale of a killernext-door was shown at Grimmfest 2018, shocking audiences with an explosive, violent final act.

climactic build-up pays off, delivering a

Me and The Goonies. The soundtrack by Le

violent, shocking end that feels like a gut-

Matos fits the nostalgic journey perfectly,

punch.

filling your ears with humming synths and a

Shows such as Stranger Things paved the way

rumbling bass line that pushes you to the

for an 80s nostalgia explosion that has in-

edge of your seat.

fected the mainstream with cliché references

Without spoiling the plot, we can delve into

and an abundance of synth-filled soundtracks.

the eventful story line: teenager Davey Arm-

The show is up-in-your-face with the refer-

strong (Graham Verchere) is convinced that

ences, constantly reminding audiences: “HEY,

a serial killer is living in his unevent-

YOU, REMEMBER HOW AWESOME THE 80s WERE?!”

ful, suburban town. He convinces his gang to

Conversely, whilst Andy and Barbara Mus-

help him hunt down the suspected killer. The

chietti’s IT reboot toed the line between

twists and turns in the story don’t let the

a nostalgia-fest and cheese fondue, it paid

pace falter until the violent final act. My

off to critical acclaim and box office suc-

jaw dropped throughout the whole final half

cess. Summer of 84 also toes this line with-

hour, and I wasn’t the only one – I was sur-

out being too cheesy; the only explicit ref-

rounded by the noise of other audience mem-

erence to the 80s (aside from the setting)

bers gasping too. The wait through the ini-

is found in the form of a short scene where

tial build up pays off, arriving at a point

Ronald Reagan graces the presence of a fam-

where every minute deals a different blow,

ily’s television and prompts them to say a

and you still smile through the tears be-

few words about the Cold War.

cause it’s delightfully twisted.

On the technical side of things, the witty

Summer of 84 stuck with me for days after I

writing is executed perfectly by the cast,

saw it and almost made me wish I’d been born

the 80s’ trope is overdone – think again.

making their performances believable. The

in a white American suburb in the 80s with a

Anouk Whissell, François Simard and Yoann-

camerawork is meticulous, with angles being

serial killer living next door.

Karl Whissell’s Summer of 84 is one of the

used cleverly and edited pleasingly, allow-

best horror films I’ve seen this year. With

ing dialogue to flow effortlessly between the

the first two captivating acts twisting and

cast members. Their dynamic brings inev-

turning their way to the final chapter, the

itable yet permissible echoes of Stand By

If you think that the ‘gang of friends in

Almost.

Summer of 84 was shown at Grimmfest 2018.

It is available to stream on Amazon Prime.

Review: Utøya: July 22 (with Q&A) The focus of discussion surrounding the 2011 tragedy is put back on the victims’ experience thanks to Poppe’s remarkable new film The ‘based on a true story’ film genre is obviously no rare one. These films usually star a protagonist hero and maybe even features a love story. None of these are contained within Utøya: July 22’s 90 minutes. This film makes you consider that adding these is an insult to the real-life events upon which this genre chooses to base itself. It is one of the only ‘based on a true story’ films that is the telling of an event that had no triumphant, hero-led happy ending.In July 2011, a lone far-right extremist, armed to kill, travelled to the small island of Utøya where a Norwegian Labour Party youth summer camp was taking place. Approximately 600 teenagers were at the camp and 77 never made it out alive.

Recreating the events of that monumental day has it challenges: how do you capture the true timeline of a modern-day massacre in a way that feels real? Director Erik Poppe’s solution is to shoot in a single take stretching the entire runtime. As was elegantly put by lead actor Andrea Berntzen in the Q&A following the screening, the victims cannot pause and cut away from the action like actors or viewers of it can.

Poppe describes how he wanted to give a sense of what 72 minutes (the exact amount of time the shooting lasted) feels like, and the single shot aids this. The film certainly does feel long in a way that one that had been cut and chopped and edited and musically-scored might not. Honestly, you don’t find yourself on the very edge of your seat like you might at

the climax of an epic containing them either, even though the theme of Utøya is so infinitely more emotionally-trying – but if you want these things, you do not want truth. There are points of main character Kaja’s (played by Berntzen) journey that lead the shot to linger in one place for a truly significant amount of movie time. Such as Kaja sitting with one

Photo: Rona Mcann

other person, words only being exchanged infrequently. Somehow, you aren’t swept with a yearning for the scene to hurry up. There is something about the reality of the situation and the power of the on-screen turmoil that lets these lengthy moments not live in fear of outstaying their welcome.

Berntzen’s performance is staggering as she portrays such a believable character in every breath she takes, and every single physically gruelling movement she makes, especially considering that she is present on camera

every second.There is only a single moment in the entire film in which you can feel a filmmaker’s artistic presence. In the opening minute, Kaja’s eyes meet the centre of camera lens as she says “you won’t understand”. Only after do you realise she is actually talking into her phone and that would be the last time she faces you straight-on again.

The Q&A included the highlighting of a concerning issue that lingers in the wake of terrorist attacks, namely the media’s narrative of that infamous day being focused almost exclusively on the perpetrator. Inadvertently, the malevolent attacker comes to be fed with the attention they had craved all along.

At the same time, the victims remain nameless, faceless and anonymous. Their struggle is shunned away from the light, a light that shines instead on questions such as where to put the memorial statue, really just because it is so hard to talk about the former. By turning the narrative on its head and giving the attacker this anonymity and lack of screen time, Utøya: July 22 puts the focus entirely back on the victims - where it needs to be right now.

Not to be confused with the recently-released Netflix drama 22 July, Utoya: July 22 will be showing at HOME from 26th October. This is an essential watch.

Rona Mcann Sub-Editor

5/5

ISSUE 6 / 22nd October 2018 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Film

Tetsuo: The Iron Man Tetsuo: The Iron Man Ashwin Tharoor

4/5

HOME Cinema recently screened the 1989 Japanese film Tetsuo: The Iron Man, as part of Asia Triennial Manchester (ATM). ATM is a visual arts festival across Manchester showcasing film and art with the theme of Asia.

It was the first of a number of screenings at HOME that are said to be collectively part of Japan’s ‘early punk generation’.

Directed by the then 29-year-old amateur filmmaker Tsukamoto Shinya, Tetsuo: The Iron Man is both a thrilling and horrifying film.

Produced on a very small budget, shot in black and white, and with largely handheld camerawork, The Iron Man follows the story of a nameless man in a world where metal creatures start to ‘infect’ and take over helpless victims.

The opening scenes set the tone with visibly suffering people consumed in some kind of metallic hellscape. It is a vaguely familiar factory setting, but made unfamiliar through unusual camera angles. Throughout the film are recurrent themes of the meshing of man and machine, usually in particularly graphic ways.

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Ashwin Tharoor reviews Tetso: Ironman as part of HOME cinema’s Asia Triennial

Photo: HOME

The blood and gore are unrelenting in some aspects which might be off-putting to the more squeamish. The special effects are exceedingly realistic and become increasingly torturous as the film progresses. This metallic infection corrupts people to produce something neither man nor machine, but a grotesque amalgamation of the two.

The protagonist in one sequence is chased down by a metal-ridden woman in a train station and the unique cinematography is perfect at capturing his sheer fear and desperation.

This is created by shaky handheld tracking, upside-down panning and constant shifting between close-ups and wide shots. Accompanying much of this was an imposing soundtrack composed almost entirely of factory-like sounds.

The clanging, scrapes and thrashing of metal provide the ideal backdrop for the disturbing world created.

I found the sexual elements of the film fascinating, with the ‘punk’ notions of the film definitely extended into challenging sexual norms and taboos of Japanese society. They were, however, challenged to an extreme. In

a dream sequence our man is raped by a devilish version of his girlfriend wearing a massive metallic snake, no doubt highlighting his subconscious fears. In waking, only the next scene, his penis transforms into a giant drill. This is only the first part of his metamorphosis.

Throughout the film I felt constantly on edge — quiet scenes are invariably sandwiched between those filled with blood and screams. The acting is certainly horrifying, although at times is quite exaggerated. I felt that all the emotions expressed in this film could be generalised into either anguish, fear or rage. The last third of the film lost some of the thrill with protracted, gore-filled battle scenes between people who just seemed to keep coming back to life.

Tetsuo: The Iron Man was and is a ground-breaking Japanese film, not least for its power to instil a deep sense of unease in the viewer. It remains largely obscure except for fans of the body-horror genre, but I would recommend it to anyone as a disturbing, raw and impressive piece of film.

22 July 22 July Nimo Ober

3.5/5

A review of Paul Greengrass’s drama depicting the 2011 terror attacks in Norway and their fallout among the survivors Photo: Wikimedia Commons

at the summer camp in which Breivik would mow them down. It is a difficult scene to watch, with shaky camerawork and jarring editing — which, admittedly, was initially lost on me but as it progressed it became clear what effect this was trying to achieve.No detail is spared in the depiction of the shooting — nothing is left to the imagination. Whilst some might say this is unnecessary, I would argue the opposite. For us to truly confront the barbarity of what happened we must face it in its totality, and see what people can be capable of.After a fast-paced start, 22 July slows down entirely and becomes a slow burn drama of sorts. The rest of the film follows the aftermath, including Vilijar Hanssen (Jonas Strand Gravli) recovering after multiple surgeries and battling the inner turmoil and trauma of what happened.We witness with Hanssen the most painful emotions on-screen, in stark contrast to the vacant stares and cold emptiness

of Breivik. The characterisation of the people doesn’t just show victims and monsters — it is a nuanced, three-dimensional portrayal of the worst and best humanity has to offer.

This is Greengrass’s real triumph.

By the end of the film a solitary, hollow and defeated Breivik is signing papers with his lawyer. Greengrass manages to transcend the absolute misery that Breivik inflicted on an entire nation, and end an incredibly tragic film on a note of optimism and celebration of multiculturalism.

The true climax of the entire film, however, is when Breivik’s lawyer, Gier Lippestad (Jon Øigarden), turns to him and says: “you lost.”

In our current political climate, with Europe once again flirting with fascism, 22 July was a wakeup call that we all needed. We cannot be complacent with so much on the line, because when it goes wrong it does so in unthinkable ways.

Reviews.

22 July is a compelling and emotionally demanding film that delves into the lives of some of the people who were impacted by the devastating terrorist attacks in Oslo and Utøya, in which 77 lives were taken.Director and writer Paul Greengrass knew how big the margin of error was when creating this film. It could have been a triggering recollection of what happened, giving Anders Behring Breivik (hauntingly played by Anders Danielsen Lie) the attention he wanted: a platform for his abhorrent political ideology and rabid hatred.Greengrass skilfully avoids this because 22 July in its entirety concerns so much more than the terrorist attack.

He takes the events of a day full of despair, an indictment on humanity and its seemingly endless violence, and by the end makes it hopeful.

Greengrass shows us the dichotomy of what it means to be human in this film. He expertly portrays the terror and panic of the young children

Join the Students’ Union, the University, and student societies in celebrating Black History Month this year! We’ve got everything from educational talks to art shows, a dinner, a club night, and more. All year long, but this month especially, we want everyone to celebrate Black culture and achievements, and to get educated about Black history. We will also offer safe spaces for students to discuss the issues they face as ethnic minorities in education. find out what’s on this month at:

MANCHESTERSTUDENTSUNION.COM or download our app

ISSUE 6 / 22nd October 2018 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Books

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Anna burns Review. wins the celebration of 2018 man muriel Spark booker prize gurnaik johel reports on Anna burns’, long overdue man booker prize victory

Anna Burns has become the first Northern Irish writer to win the Man Booker Prize. On Tuesday 16th, she accepted the £50,000 award for her novel Milkman.

Milkman, Burns’ third novel, has been praised for its “utterly distinctive voice [which] challenges conventional thinking and form in surprising and immersive prose.”

Kwame Anthony Appiah, Chair of the judges, went on to say that Milkman “is a story of brutality, sexual encroachment and resistance threaded with mordant humour. Set in a society divided against itself, Milkman explores the insidious forms oppression can take in everyday life.”

By winning the 50th Man Booker Prize, Burns became the 17th woman to claim the prize since it began in 1969.

Burns was born in Belfast and lives in East Sussex. Milkman draws on her experience of living in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.

It’s a time that Burns has explored throughout her writing — her first novel, No Bones, was similarly set in Northern Ireland in a time of violence.

While the context of the Troubles is key to the novel, it is actually set in an unnamed city and filled with unnamed characters. In an interview for the Man Booker Prize website, she noted that “the book didn’t work Photo: Stannered@WikimediaCommons Photo: (past due stamp) Merlin2525@OpenClipartLibrary

with names. It lost power and atmosphere and turned into a lesser — or perhaps just different — book. In the early days I tried out names a few times, but the book wouldn’t stand for it.

The narrative would become heavy and lifeless and refuse to move on until I took them out again.”

The competition this year was particularly strong, with Esi Edugyan’s Washington Black, Daisy Johnson’s Everything Under, Rachel Kushner’s The Mars Room, Richard Powers’ The Overstory and Robin Robertson’s The Long Take all shortlisted.

While it is set in the past, Milkman is particularly timely in the era of #MeToo as it focuses on a young woman who is sexually harassed by a powerful man. Appiah, speaking at the Guildhall in London, said the novel “is to be commended for giving us a deep and subtle and morally and intellectually challenging picture of what #Metoo is about”.

But it’s not just the subject matter that makes Milkman a difficult read.

There are few paragraph breaks and the experimental style can make it challenging, but Appiah said that it can be “challenging, but in the way a walk up Snowdon is challenging. It is definitely worth it because the view is terrific when you get to the top.”

Anna Burns has certainly reached a new peak in her career and said she’ll use the money to “clear [her] debts and live on what’s left”. Let’s hope she does a little more writing too.

Bailey Cornfield reflects on the muriel sparks celebration at the manchester literature festival

Last Tuesday, the Manchester Literature Festival welcomed guest speakers Alan Taylor and Jackie Kay to the Martin Harris Centre for Music, to celebrate the life and literature of Scottish author, Muriel Spark. And what a celebration it was – while of course Spark could not be there in person (she died in 2006 at the age of 88), Taylor and Kay ensured that she was most certainly there in spirit.

Like many other women writers, Spark had a late breakthrough in her career, publishing her first novel, The Comforters, when she was 39. The book follows writer Caroline Rose who, after a recent conversion to Catholicism, becomes aware that she is a character in a book. And she, along with her boyfriend-turned-detective, Laurence, and his potentially diamond-smuggling grandmother, Louisa, are just some of the wonderfully wacky voices that make this story so wildly original, and terribly funny. But this is a novel as much about reality as it is about fiction. As with much of Spark’s later work, noted importantly by Taylor and Kay throughout the evening, it addresses questions of who she was, who we are, and why we are here As noted by the event’s charismatic hosts, it is impossible to separate Spark’s own devotion to Catholicism and her life in Scotland from her writing. Despite feeling like an exile in Edinburgh – Taylor humorously recalled Spark stating that she was simply ‘Scottish by formation’ – she penned The Prime of Miss Jean Brody in 1961.

Kay told of how the titular character and school setting was based on Spark’s own experience being taught by Christina Kay at James Gillespie’s School for Girls, before going on to give a captivating reading of one of her favourite passages from the book. Through stifled laughter, Kay, the Scottish poet laureate, perfectly captured Spark’s sharp wit and dazzling ability to imitate so vibrantly the world and people around her. As she later stated, there was nothing of the nitty gritty of people’s lives that Spark was not utterly fascinated by. Taylor, a close friend of Spark’s for over fifteen years before her death, added that her work seems as if it is made up of conversations overheard in res-

taurants.

Though a successful writer himself – notably for The Scottish Herald and The New Yorker, among many other publications – Taylor’s fascinating friendship with Spark allowed him to contribute something remarkably personal to the discussion. Prompted

by Kay, and later, questions from the intrigued audience, Taylor detailed how he first came to meet Spark when he was invited to her home in Arezzo, Italy, to interview her. This particular anecdote gave an insight into how her writing style reflected her own dry humour and attention to detail. Taylor described how he become the interviewee when Spark quizzed him about whether his hair was dyed – she claimed that her own flame-red locks were natural.

His further anecdotes about her disinterest in domestic life and other relationships, were all met by what became knowing sighs and giggles from an audience who clearly felt that, over the course of the evening, they had managed to chip away a small part of the mystery surrounding the enigmatic author.

I went to the event a little concerned that it would be highbrow and intellectual. I thought it might not be accessible for those who aren’t extensively familiar with Spark’s work. She was not just a novelist, but a short story writer, poet and essayist.

But instead, it was more like witnessing a nostalgic conversation between friends.

Published this year on the centenary of Spark’s birth, Alan Taylor’s memorial, Appointment in Arezzo: A Friendship with Muriel Spark, is out now.

Photo: johnny_automatic@OpenClipArtLibrary

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ISSUE 6 / 22nd October 2018 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Theatre ‘Titters and Tassels Burlesque and Comedy show’

Bella Jewell and Anuli Changa review ‘Titters and Tassels Burlesque and Comedy Show After interviewing Mandy Tootil (Toots), seeing Titters and Tassels was highly anticipated. Together with her comedy partner Kerry Leigh (Leigh), the two were personable and hilarious from start to finish.

Bringing a really enjoyable informal and friendly atmosphere to the show.

Held at Gullivers (Northern Quarter), the venue was intimate and packed. The audience were constantly immersed in the performances, as the burlesque dancers sashayed past us to the stage.

Entering dressed as ironic nuns (with balloon breasts), Toots and Leigh had the audience laughing from the start as they stripped to reveal their vampire inspired lingerie. Toots was sporting a bedazzled strap-on penis on which she kept getting her mic cord caught on and both women were unapologetically messing around on stage with obvious zest and chemistry. They entertained the audience with their rendition of ‘Sweet Transvestite’ (Rocky Horror Picture Show) and worked out how many “burlesque virgins” were in the room.

Toots and Leigh described Burlesque as “Disneyland for adults” and told the audience that they’d have to make some noise otherwise it would be “like sitting in someone’s bedroom watching them get undressed.” Indeed, this appeal to the audience to embrace the performance as an artform instead of something more private, alluded to the debate over burlesque. Is it something sexually empowering, owned by the performers or another embodiment of a patriarchal society that perpetuates the objectification of women?

Theatre in late Victorian Manchester Rosa Uijtewaal looks at the world of 19th century theatrical Manchester

Photo: Mikey @Flickr

Photo: Titters and Tassels Burlesque and Comedy show

Millie Dollar was the first act, evoking the glamour of Old Hollywood as she appeared adorned in green feathers and sequins. She was powerful and mesmerising and showed off her dynamic moves that would have been at home at Notting Hill Carnival.

The Toots and Leigh interludes created the “Carry on meets burlesque” atmosphere perfectly. Next on the stage was Coco Love, whose fiendish demeanour certainly fulfilled the promise “dance with the demon, and it’ll leave you on fire” (Toots). The focus of her devilish performance was the use of a pair of fans trailing black and red fabric. They rippled with expert precision, creating an intense sense of strength and power.

Just when you thought the show had reached its outrageous and entertaining quota, Velma Von Bon Bon entered. Dressed as a skunk, she shimmied past the audience, tickling us with her black and white tail.

Her humorous performance of Prince’s ‘Get off’ put the ‘burla’ in ‘burlesque’, given the comic origins of the dance form stem-

Although we now associate going to theatre with a sort of high art, classy night out which is so unlike our daily student activities, in the 19th century theatre had a long way to go to become a respectable art form.

Theatre and performance played an important part in cultural and social life in Europe throughout the second half of the 19th century. Theatre was inclusive and accessible to all social classes. In fact, opera houses were the first to open their doors to the general public, allowing in everyone who could afford a ticket.

Still, in the mid-19th century going to theatre was still a activity dominated by the aristocracy who considered it to be a social activity. The noise of their chatter quite often overpowered the text or songs of the actors, which infuriated many visitors. A reviewer for the Mancunian Guardian on 20 June 1849 wrote: “it gave occasion for the rude and noisy mirth of some persons in the dress circle, whose fitter locality would have been the gallery – or rather the street”.

‘The street’ would have been quite an insult to many aristocrats at that time. The upper-class Mancunians were appalled by the abundance of noisy drunkards, prostitution and riots that often occurred around the theatres. The labouring class lived close to the city centre and the factories, as opposed to the middle class with their suburbs further away from the city.

ming from the Italian word for a jest (burla).

Toots and Leigh returned to the stage to leave us crying with laughter at their play on the Naughty Boy’s ‘Runnin’ (Lose It All)’ by changing the word ‘running’ to ‘strumming’ as Toots complained Leigh was never around because she was too busy masturbating. This moment underlined the brazen display of female sexuality which ran throughout the performance.

Toots and Leigh undertook as many costume changes as the burlesque artists, at one point arriving in skeleton leotards paired with trainers, then changing into fluffy dressing gowns. Penny Lick was another stand out artist, with her “voluptuously vintage” style (Leigh) wearing a blue negligée. Her intense sensuality and platinum blonde hair certainly evoked Marilyn Monroe.

Velma von Bon Bon returned to wow us with her ‘Village People’ costume changes whilst on a unicycle. If this wasn’t an impressive enough display of multi tasking, there was still more to come. She finished the act skipping whilst still balancing on the unicycle!

The audience was persistently involved in the show - there were birthday shoutouts, pass the pumpkin trick-or-treat games and the constant hilarity of Toots and Leigh.

This show made us fall in love with the combination of burlesque and its comedic hosts. We can’t wait to go back for more titters and more tassels.

Picture: OpenClipart-Vectors Picture: Clker-Free-Vector-Images Picture: Collin Barker

The theatre area around Oxford Road and Lower Mosley Street was a unique melting pot of people from different social strata.

In Victorian Manchester, theatre got more and more affordable for the labouring and middle class. Theatres and music halls sprung up around Peter and Oxford Street after 1850, such as the St. James Theatre in 1884 and the Alexandra Music Hall in 1865, the latter created out of an old chapel. These new theatres compared to the 18th century buildings were commercial and built for large audiences, entering the age of popular culture. Music halls, especially, were known for their ‘liveliness’. This often resulted in street fights among the working men, resulting in a consistent fear among the bourgeoisie for the working class; a fear of being overtaken by their ‘degenerate moral values’.

The proposed plan to build the new Manchester Palace of Varieties in 1891 (now Palace Theatre) led to a heated debate in the newspapers about morality, as it was viewed by some as a threat to decency and the moral welfare of citizens. Still, theatre in Manchester has a way of creating links between classes of people that wouldn’t usually meet. Theatre became increasingly a way of transferring political ideas – a role that would soon be partly overtaken by film, which created the need for theatre to re-invent itself. In the end, film made sure theatre became more clearly considered as art, as it replaced theatre’s former commercial and entertainment function.

ISSUE 6 / 22nd October 2018 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

‘Women, Art and Revolution’ at HOME Photo: Elias Schäfer

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Kizzy Bray reviews the panel discussion and Q&A, part of ‘celebrating syria’ festival

To make art is to say something. Making art that actually reaches people is to say something that people listen to. That’s why for so long art seemed to be reserved for the elite; those who already had the advantages of talking and being heard. The panel ‘Women, Art and Revolution’ hosted at HOME as part of the arts and cultural festival ‘Celebrating Syria’ turned elitism on its head, recognising the revolutionary power of art, even when – or especially when – your voice is failing to be heard.

For the women on the panel, art in the context of the Syrian revolution was a way for Syrians to speak up, especially women, against an oppressive regime. Graphic designer and curator, Sana Yazigi, of creativememory.org, a website which collates into one place the rich art scene that emerged during the Syrian revolution, spoke on the panel.

Yazigi explained that “when the revolution started, I was amazed, just like all other Syrians”.

“Men and women began to express themselves: as a citizen, as a militant, an artist. Being represented like this was hugely important.

It provokes the anger of the regime”.

“Around 40 women artists emerged during the revolution”. Yazigi showed the room a collection of images of these artists’ work, including that of the cartoonist and caricature artist Sahar Burhan. If you venture onto creativememory.org you can find no less than thirty three pieces by the artist, each satirical, and undeniably chilling. ‘Ceasefire’ (2016) depicts a bomb in a glass of water.

Though the weapon is lit, underneath we can see roots growing from it.

The second panellist was Muzna Al-Naib, a children’s author and self-described “aspiring film-maker”. Upon watching her film during the panel, which focused on deaf Syrian story-telling, it was clear that Al-Naib was established in her own right. Al-Naib explained that anything from the red water representing blood in the fountain in Damascus to the viral image of an old woman holding up a sign stating she still hoped for the life of her son was art.

“Art is the language of our struggle,” she stated. “Art is not elitist anymore. It carries the force and the heartbeat of a nation”. Al-Naib described the added layer of complexity that stems from her gender: being

a woman demonstrating in Syria may have meant that she “has to do her own mini revolution at home before she goes to the street”. This is why the writer believes more female artists emerged within the revolution, “it was a liberation journey for freedom from the regime, as well as from being a woman”.

It was clear, listening to the voices in the room who introduced themselves and stated where they were from, that the talk had attracted many Syrian women. Both old and young, university students and mothers, they were all here in Manchester, and eager to share their own personal revolutions. One woman stood up and said she always wondered what art was for. “Art never represented me,” she stated. “I always thought in art class, how does drawing fruit in a bowl help with anything? It never meant anything to me. But when I saw the old woman with the sign, I thought, there is hope”.

The panel sort to prove that art has the power to say: I will still hope for better, even when right now may feel so hopeless. Art has the power to make a fountain bleed in the middle of the street. Art liberates and revolts, and doesn’t back down.

The Great Debate: ‘All Schools Should Be Art Schools’ Photo: Sebastian Matthes

Arts

Bella Jewell and Alexander Cresswell discuss the outcome of The Great Debate, a discussion about education

The impact of Gove-era cuts to creative education served as an apt backdrop, both literally and metaphorically, to Design Manchester’s Great Debate — ‘All Schools should be Art Schools’. Behind the panel of five — Jack Tindale, Lisa O’Loughlin, Joanne Roney OBE, Ellie Runcie, and Lou Cordwell OBE — was a bold, open-letter to Michael Gove encouraging him to reverse his 2011 reductions to the education budget.

Spoiler alert: Michael Gove did not listen and nor did the wider Government policy. Since he was appointed as Secretary of Education, entry to creative GCSEs fell by 47,000 — a trend, described by Penny Macbeth (Dean of the Manchester School of Arts), as “very worrying”. Given the positive rhetoric surrounding STEM-based subjects, this might be interpreted as not entirely negative; the panel however, offering the statistic that the creative industries is worth an estimated £85bn to the UK economy, could not disagree more.

This set the tone for the debate with many of the panellists making the economic argument for creating more ‘art schools’. Macbeth pointed out that the “Victorians knew that design and manufacture would set us apart” and it would appear that this thinking still rings true; 70% of Manchester-based businesses employ graduates but only 13% feel that students are properly equipped with the creative skills needed for the workplace. Over the course of the debate it became clear that the panel believed creative subjects were a key factor in economic success. Given the statistics they were citing, it was hard not to agree.

Whilst this debate could sound exclusionary, the panellists did a good job of reaffirming that everybody has creative talents and it is the responsibility of schools to nurture these. This reframed the debate effectively as the notion of ‘art schools’ can often sound as though it caters to a niche de-

mographic. What was really being discussed was the need to foster the skills that everybody has. Given the ubiquity of creativity in all workforces, and its status as a key-skill for employers, this debate began to sound much more common-sense.

A key sticking-point of the debate was the question of accessibility, a point underlined by Lou Cordwell OBE. She described how a “middleclass-ization” of the Arts has grown out of the modern trend towards a gig economy – a system which renders the creative industry “the domain of the privileged few.”

Panellists reiterated the need for investment in schools in order to encourage students to develop their creativity, with Joanne Roney OBE identifying the “vocabulary gap” between modern class structures as the reason for the current lack of diversity in the Arts. The panel was united by the belief that “the middle classes haven’t got a monopoly on talent”, and continued to highlight the necessity of educating the public on the importance of the Arts.

Jack Tindale raised the issue of tuition fees, describing the “tragedy” that students now “have to aim for ‘practical’ subjects” at university with a view to their employability on graduation.

Ellie Runcie outlined the necessity of role models who “mirror more diverse areas of society” to inspire young people to enter the currently elitist design industry. The panellists discussed the creative influences that inspired them as young people, coming to the consensus that “it’s quite exceptional to break in without the influence of a person in your youth” (Cordwell), reiterating the importance of targeting people at a young age to enter the Arts.

This rings true with the aims of the Design Manchester festival, which seeks to promote creativity, specifically targeting schools.

To read the full article, head to mancunion.com

Artefact of the week: The Principal Hotel

Photo: Claudia Neuray

Observed by Bella Jewell ‘The Principal’. If you have been living for any amount of time in Manchester, you will know what I’m talking about. No? It’s an impressive, Grade II listed, Victorian-Gothic style terracotta building, dominated by a sixty-six-meterhigh clock tower. Better?

Yeah, it’s pretty hard to miss.

We all know it as a swanky hotel, however, this has not always been the case.

The first part of the building was commissioned by the ‘Refuge Assurance Company’, an English life insurance and pensions company founded in 1858. Alfred Waterhouse was put in charge of the design, and the building was constructed between 1891-1895.

To read the full article, head to mancunion.com

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ISSUE 6 / 22nd October 2018 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Fashion & Beauty

In conversation with Conor Peek of Peaked Apparel P eaked Apparel w as l aun che d b ack in 2012, as an online sh op, and t he cr eative direction has alw ays b een in th e han ds of Conor Peek. The bra nd’ s sig nat ure loo k lays in an alterna tiv e, da rke r s tyl e whi ch commonly involves pop c ult ure a rtw ork a s well as typical sce ne mot ifs li ke mo ons , pentacles, and sk ull s.

Co nor Peek’s ge nuin e en thu sia sm for this alternative aest het ic i s ver y muc h conveyed throug hout the bra nd a nd is clearly contagious. As th e Ins tag ram p age sits at 11,000 fol low ers , and 76 ,00 0 lik es on Fa cebook, with a cl ear c ult fol lo win g of t he brand. As I spo ke to C ono r, we discussed the fut ure of the br and , i ts creative inspiratio ns ,a nd th e tri als i t has faced.

On e thing Peak ed Ap pa rel r eco gni ses is the need for harmo ny an d d iv ersi ty wi thi n the alternative fa shi on ma rke t. It c oul d be argued that in th e ag e of s oci al m edia , it has become easi er t han ev er to d is cove r new styles and a num ber of ind epe nde nt labels, so peop le ha ve the cha nce to be m ore open and exp eri men tal . Bra nds like Peaked Appare l ha ve r esp onde d to this booming sub-c ult ure , i nco rpo rating a measure of jov ial ity to tr adit io nall y Gothic templates.

He says “when I was c rea tin g Pea ke d back in 2012 I wa nte d to m ake s ure I didn’t fit into on e box ... I ai m to bring out somethi ng f or eve ryo ne be it a moody dark a esth eti c or a fu n mem e inspired design” , thu s al low ing it to represent a playfu lne ss t hat is often missing from th e mai nst rea m mar ket .

Another importan t thi ng a bou t Pe ake d is the communication be twe en t hei r staff and customers. The ir F ace boo k pag e is incredibly active, both in terms of frequent

Jack Sedgwick Chats to the founder of the fashion brand founder about his brand, style and aesthetic

u p d a t e s an d pro mot ion s, bu t wi thi n the com ment s se cti on.

Fa ns of thi s bra nd are pa ssi ona te abo ut it, an d ar e d riv en by th e und ers tan din g t hat s taf f r es pon d to a re mar kab le num ber of m ess ages , e ng aging th e cu sto mer on a pe rso nal lev el and ma kin g th em f eel lik e a sig nif icant co ntr ibu tor to th e b ran d I a ske d Co nor abo ut t his rap por t an d

Photo: Peaked Apparel

in ter act ion wi th cu sto mer s, as kin g i f the de cis ion s o f t he comp any ha ve eve r b een de ter min ed by cu stom er in put . H e t old me “o ver th e y ear s w e’v e h ad sugg est io ns.

No w a nd th en an d I r ead th em al l... bu t w e a lway s put our ow n s pin on it to ma ke it the P eak ed br and ing w e al l kno w.”

Th e to pic of crea tiv e i nflu enc es i s in ter est ing w hen lo oki ng at P eak ed, as t he br and i s so d yna mic . Co llab ora tio ns ar e on e of the way s in whi ch P eak ed A ppa rel st ays ahe ad o f the curv e, p ion eer ing pr oje cts w ith p eop le d irec tly i nvo lve d in ot her me dia .

No tab le p roj ect s oc cu rre d th is s umm er, wh en th ey p art ne red wi th And y G las s from th e ba nd We Cam e As Rom ans for their ‘P eak ed X Gl ass C oll ect ion ’. Th e de sign s

in clu ded grap hi cs of s nak es an d ma gic , wi th a n o vera ll them e o f da rk w isd om an d w iza rdr y. Con or cr edi ts “fri en dshi p an d a lov e of the ir wo rk” fo r the ir co lla bor ati ons .

Pe ake d e xpe rien ced fu rth er s ucc ess at t he st art o f Sep temb er , when it wa s an nou nce d tha t th ey w ere l au nch ing a ph ysi cal sh op f or the fir st tim e. Con or i s ev ide ntl y t hri lle d a t t hi s a chie ve ment .

He to ld me tha t it “wa s a lwa ys a d rea m” to get a br ick a nd m ort ar st ore , an d th at he “ cou ld n’t b e mor e exc ite d” t o sho w his pl an for th e f utu re unf old .

As w ell as h is en thu sia sm I als o de tec ted a deg ree of imp ati enc e, but of a k ind t hat is dese rve d. F or a s muc h as he w as abl e to get th ing s i n o rde r, th ird pa rti es pro ved an obs tac le to his pl ans a nd h is sc hed ule . “T he U nin vite d St ore isn ’t actu all y o pen as o f ye t.

We hit so m any del ays wit h th e bu ild ing du e to pr evi ous t ena nts a nd the age o f th e b uil din g t hat i t k ept ge tti ng pu she d ba ck but it ’s fin ally ne arl y r ead y f or th e p ubl ic” .

Co nor was ea ger to ma ke i t c lea r t hat th is “w on’ t be you r ave rag e r eta il st ore ”.

Cu rre ntl y, th e br and h as ju st r ele ase d a n ew h orr or- ins pir ed “I co ns Co lle ct ion ” wi th tw o a va ilab le pr int s – Penn ywi se th e Cl own , a nd Mi cha el Me yers f rom H all owe en.

Bo th have th eir own ap pea l, a nd Cono r an nou nce s h is pla ns to re lea se a “ Vo lum e 2” to th e c oll ect ion if any thi ng gre at co mes to mi nd.

Wi th a lot to a ntic ipa te in th e ne ar f utu re, c urr ent r ele ase s to t ake ad van tag e of , a nd t her e b eing no sig n of an ex hau sti on of c rea tiv e t ale nt, it co uld ha rdly be a b ette r t ime to be a fa n of P eak ed A ppa rel a nd se e a su cce ss st ory ou tsi de of the ty pic al mai nst ream .

Dureshahwar Qureshi gives her tips for the best products from the cruelty-free brand Wi th an immi nen t a nd exc itin g l aun ch, we t n wil d is se t to hit the UK h igh str eet la ter th is Octo ber wi th an o nli ne and subsequent in- sto re la unc h at B oots . Fo r t hos e who aren ’t aware of the bran d, w et n wi ld is t he U SA’ s num ber 1 v al ue beauty brand base d in LA, i s ve gan and h as, fro m day 1, b een cruelty-free.

Th ey have always bee n tren d-d riv en an d wer e int eres ti ngl y the first brand to i ntr odu ce blac k na il var nis h in to dru gst ores !

The brand have a va rie ty o f pr odu cts fro m the ir w ell kno wn nail varnish and ‘ pho tor ead y’ s kin c oll ec tion s, to th eir mor e extravagant rainbo w h igh ligh ter s. Wha t un ite s t hei r va ri ed range is their in exp ens ive pric e t ag a nd a mazi ng q ual ity , ha il ed by industry expe rt s, w inn ing awa rds su ch a s th e C osm opo lita n Beauty Award and A llu re’ s Be st o f Be auty , an d no t to men tion the brand’s cult fol low ing by mak eu p a rtis ts. we t n wild’s phi loso ph y is to p roduce cru elt y-f ree mak eup , and this is vi sib le on ev ery o ne of the ir pro duc ts wi th a li ttle bunny sym bo l whic h rep res ent s the P ETA ’s ‘b eau ty without bunnies’ prog ra mme . S o we t n wi ld hav e n ot onl y g rea t products, but grea t e th ics beh ind them t oo . Wi th the br and ’s pricing being in lin e wi th a s tud ent b udge t, her e’s a run dow n of our favourite pic ks of wet n w il d p rodu cts .

Ph oto Focus Fo und ati on:

‘Wet ‘n’ Wild Launches at Boots Photo: Clker-Free-Vector-Images @ Pixabay

Th is h as bee n a n ab sol ute st apl e fo r m any hug e Y ouT ube be aut y gur us, b ein g com par ed to the li kes o f pre miu m pr oduc ts su ch a s YSL F usi on I nk an d th e bes ts elli ng E ste e Lau der Dou ble We ar. I t c lai ms to pro vid e a fl awl ess , fu ll c ove rag e, m atte lo ok w ith no fl as hbac k. It co mes in 20 sha des , wh ic h for a dr ugs tor e f oun dat ion is qu ite com pr ehe nsiv e.

Me gaG low Hi ghl igh tin g P owd er: Th is col lec tio n o f h igh lig hte rs co mes in 7 dif fer ent co lou rs, th at hav e a si lky , h igh ly pi gme nte d f orm ula fo r t hat per fec t g low . I t ha s a n i mpr int ed fl owe r des ign i n the c omp act , and c olo urs i ncl ude y our stap le pe ach es an d gol ds, a nd ev en wa cky p inks and a b lue . This has be en com par ed to the B ecca h igh lig hter s tha t a re one of t he mo st rav ed- abo ut prod uc ts on t he mar ket a nd a re a f rac tio n o f th e p ric e.

Pe arl esc ent Pi nk B lus h: Th e i ndu str y c ult cla ssi c Na rs Or gasm i s £ 24, y et wet n wi ld’ s Pea rles cen t Pin k si ts at a m ode st £3 , wit h thi s sha de a pe rfe ct du pe to de liv er a h eal thy g low w ith an ev en he alt hie r pri ce t ag. we t n wi ld hav e a v ast ra nge of fa ce, li p a nd ey e p rodu cts t hat ar e all i nex pe nsiv e tr easu res defi ni tely wor th ch eck ing o ut.

Th is lau nch is o ne of the mo st exc iti ng on es for a whi le, a nd we kn ow we wil l de fin ite ly be s to ckin g up!

Food & Drink 27

ISSUE 6 / 22nd October 2018 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Yottam Ottoleng and the power of the vegetable Catrin Stewart discusses Yottam Ottolenghi’s influence on the rising numbers of people choosing plant based diets in the UK

Photo: Catrin Stewart

This week, the environmental benefits of plant based diets have been all over the news as the IPCC report on climate change was released.

One of the key points taken from this was that choosing a Mediterranean or ‘flexitarian’ diet is one of the most valuable things an individual can do in order to benefit the environment, if they are not willing to be fully vegetarian or vegan.

Enter Yottam Ottolenghi: one of the most popular rising chefs in the past few years. Ottolenghi has played a vital role in this movement towards vegetarian diets because of his unbiased attitude towards food. An Israeli-British chef with an Italian father and a German mother, his food celebrates multiple cultures. This results in incredible fusion food and unique blends of flavours, but also a mixture of plant based and meat based dishes, with no favour toward either.

Ottolenghi’s vegetarian dishes celebrate vegetables, pulses and grains in their own right, without displaying them as a ‘meat substitute’ or a side dish. When flicking through one of his successful recipe books such as ‘Jerusalem’, ‘Plenty’ or most recently ‘Simple’; you will find yourself salivating over roasts on one page, and butternut squash salad on the next.

He is responsible for so many recent food trends. The introduction of sumac to our spice cupboards, scattered pomegranate seeds on everything, and the popularity of what Ottolenghi likes to call ‘the mighty aubergine’

to name a few. However, I see his influence on vegetarianism as the most important change he has made to British diets. Commissioned to write The Guardian’s food column ‘The New Vegetarian’, Ottolenghi managed to avoid isolating readers by often commenting that some recipes would serve well as a side dish to certain meats, whilst also celebrating vegetables in a way that never made the dishes seem second best.

This attitude is what will bring more people to the way of flexitarian or vegetarian diets. Pressure and ‘all or nothing’ thinking only serves to discourage those who enjoy meat, whilst seeing both diets as equal in flavour and nourishment will help in reducing our meat intake, and in turn, benefit climate change.

I encourage you to try some of his recipes (especially the vegetarian ones) and see how full and wholly enjoyable they can be. With Ottolenghi, you always discover new techniques, ingredients, and flavours, with incredible meals as the outcome. His restaurants and delicatessens are based solely in London, but if you’re in the capital they are definitely worth seeking out.

And lastly, learn more about the joy in cooking with Ottolenghi’s new podcast ‘Simple Pleasures’. It sees Ottolenghi interview guests such as Michael Palin or Nadiya Hussain about their relationship to food over a delicious meal made from recipes from his new cookbook.

V- Rev Diner: saving the animals one overdraft at a time

Photo: Elena Bradley

Contributor Elena Bradley reviews the biggest vegan hype in town: V-Rev’s Diner. Is it overpriced or worth the splurge?

Vegan, Veggie or not, V-Rev’s Diner has extremely positive reviews and also an accordingly positive word-of-mouth support — I was curious. Being neither vegan nor veggie myself, I was genuinely excited to try some vegan junk-food and even more excited to be indulging without having to feel guilty about animals dying at my meal’s expense.

Firstly, the decor was not what I had expected. I had envisioned a cool, mismatched-diner vibe somewhat similar to the styles of it’s Northern Quarter neighbours; Almost Famous and Luck, Lust, Liquor and Burn. This was not what we got, however; my three girlfriends and I arrived to a lurid green and yellow room that frankly looked like a daycare nursery...

With half of us at the table being veggie, V-Rev’s had everyone excited looking at the menu — it looked amazing. Choosing from burgers, hot-dogs, club sandwiches, and mac and cheese, the familiar feeling my veggie friends had of limited choice and dejection at the lack of imaginative, varied food was long gone. I went for the ‘Notorious D.O.G’ (I hope you got as much joy from that as I did) with buffalo topped fries which sounded insanely good. Two friends opted for ‘chickn’ sandwiches, ‘Churri up we’re dreaming’ and a ‘Clubber Langwich’ with the last going for a burger ‘Whopper Way to Make a Living’ (again, brownie points for creativity here).

Whilst the decor isn’t matching, the prices at V-Rev are definitely in the ballpark of ‘Almost Famous’. My hot dog, topped fries, and drink came to just under £20, however, my anticipation for the best vegan cheatmeals definitely silenced this money-woe.

When the ‘Notorious D.O.G’ stepped into my life with my topped fries I was wholly content. A vegan dog topped with ‘cheez’,

homemade guacamole, coriander, and jalapenos alongside fries with buffalo sauce, ranch and more ‘cheez’. The fries were glorious, saturated in buffalo-ranch goodness. My first bite of the hot-dog was even better, a herby, well-seasoned sausage with the perfect combo of avocado, coriander, and jalapeno.

I would thoroughly recommend the hot-dogs, even with the slightly unsettling and unpleasant ‘cheez’ that they could have forgone altogether. My friends were less impressed with their meals; the ‘chickn’ in the two sandwiches was chewy, lemony, and unworthy of being the centre stage of the dish.

Most of the dishes were focused around a mock-meat of some kind, which, to a meat-eater was sub-par and to a vegan was unnecessarily trying to resemble something they chose to not eat anyway. My veggie friend commented that perhaps they would be better focusing less around imitating meat and focusing more on well-cooked and seasoned alternatives to meat, like pulses or mushrooms. As a meat eater, I agree that my hopes for a fantastic vegan restaurant would make me forget about meat by feeding me the best-cooked, vegan taste experiences, not offering up imposter meats that make veganism look like a lifestyle in which you’re always just taste and texture away from ‘the real deal’.

For four students the bill totalled £75 which felt expensive and over-priced. Whilst I thoroughly enjoyed my hot-dog and thought the vegan sausage was perhaps nicer than the meat alternative, my veggie friends were disappointed and didn’t believe the V-Rev hype as they felt over-charged and underwhelmed.

Lifestyle 29

ISSUE 6 / 22nd October 2018 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Hair politics: reconfiguring beauty for black women

Cara Thompson talks to The Mancunion Lifestyle Editor about black hair, identity and traditional beauty narratives Sophia Ashby Lifestyle Editor There is a strong link between femininity and hair that is integral to most women’s identity, but this version of femininity applies only to certain hair types. Cara Thompson talks about how we can configure afro-textured hair into this beauty narrative. Hair politics is a term not often used, but it is a point of discussion integral to racial identity issues.

I asked Cara about her hair journey, as she has recently decided to wear it naturally for the first time in years. “I had worn braids since I was 14, but it became less about my creative expression, and more performative”. Feeling like her hair defined her is one of the main reasons why Cara decided to remove her braids. “Initially they were liberating, but after a while they consumed my identity... I became known for my hair.”

It is no secret that there is a lack of understanding surrounding Afro-textured hair within predominately white cultures. Cara believes that a contributing factor to this is a lack of representation.

“There is only one form of acceptable afro, its big and made up of loose curls. The issue is that black culture is accepted to a point, but never fully”. According to Cara, the normalisation of afros is key to making women feel comfortable with their natural hair.

But it is not easy, “I’ve had women from my own culture approach me and say, ‘I would never let my child walk out of the house like that.’” Backlash from her own community signals how deeply entrenched our racial prejudices are. The belief that European hair is more acceptable is so strong that it infiltrates all cultures.

Speaking about her mother, Cara explains how she influenced her position on hair politics. “She’s great, but it is complicated because she comes from that generation where relaxed hair is viewed as more professional”. Relaxing is a chemical treatment used on afro hair to make it straight. Cara said she had her own hair relaxed when she was younger, which destroyed it. “It started snapping off...

I think my mother carries a lot of guilt about that. Afterwards she gave me a lot of autonomy with my hair”.

The practical elements of wearing your hair natural also appealed to Cara: “I used to spend a whole weekend in the hairdressers getting my braids. Its exciting to try out new products that work for my natural hair, but its also a learning curve. Every day I’m conscious of how my afro looks.” Admitting that she is on a path of discovery with her hair is important in understanding how little we know about non-European hair types. “People forget themselves when they see afro textured hair and feel they have a license to touch it.” The lack of understanding around afro hair projects it as a point of fascination, or as Cara describes it: “fetishisation”.

Women’s hair is highly sexualised, and Cara explained that she

Photo: @ PxHere

was “often fetishised” because of her hair. On discussing hair with an ex-partner, she said “I asked him what he would think if I shaved it all off. He said he wouldn’t like it, but could not explain why”.

According to Cara, hair “is bound up with femininity and sexuality.

To put it blatantly, people have a lot more internalised homophobia than they think”. The symbolic importance we place on hair as an outward signifier of identity is clear. As a black woman, how you wear your hair is always a political statement; one that you can rarely win. “You’re either seen as ashamed of your culture or not professional or beautiful”.

Navigating hair politics is undeniably difficult for black women.

However you decide to wear your hair, undesired responses will follow. “I want to make it clear that I would never judge another girl for not wearing her hair natural. I know how scary it is, but I also know how liberating styles like braids can be”. For Cara, hair is as much about personal preference and practicality as it is a cultural statement.

The backside of Instagram: Why our Monday motivators are all the same

Instagram is full of fitness related accounts, but how damaging is ‘fitspiration’? Emma Price looks at the wealth of misinformation spread by influencers, and the impact it has on both mental and physical health Emma Price Contributor We are a generation fixated on absorbing information and images, digesting them to reconfigure ourselves – to produce the best version. The fitness industry has harnessed Instagram as its platform for projecting all types of information, products, and motivational quotes. What it’s lacking, is integrity.

Let’s first focus on the fitness ‘influencers’, the Twitter-tick certified social media role models. On the outside: a rush of positive affirmations and inspirational captions. Lurking beneath: a dark toxicity, a trip-wire for young, impressionable people to become trapped in a state of comparison. Not to mention being caught in the onslaught of often dangerous information. Numerous studies have found Instagram to be the most detrimental social media site for young people’s mental health. Even more so when it comes to to body dissatisfaction.

A 2015 study conducted by Tiggemann and Zaccardo compared how women felt after viewing either ‘fitspiration’ images or travel photos. The results concluded that those exposed to the images of people working out or posing experienced lower self-esteem.

I spoke with a current student, Elise Stockdale, who highlighted the way Instagram has had negative effects on her own mental health: “Instagram is so worryingly addictive that it’s not just something you can put down. It was all consuming, I was stuck at that awkward age where being perfect is all that mattered. I don’t have a particularly feminine shape, so seeing all these perfectly posed photos made me feel pretty crap about myself”.

As levels of self-esteem fall, the opportunity for influencers to capitalise on their follower’s insecurities rises. In one fell swoop young people go from image and lifestyle consumers, to products, plans and ‘detox’ juice buyers.

Photo: Pixabay @ Pexels

After following fitness bloggers for years, I started to see trends and similarities across their Instagram accounts. The recent ‘booty’ obsession has sexualised the fitness industry, and Instagram is whispering at the door to be a soft porn site. These idolised body images validate any information that captions the photo. The girl with the best behind must know what she’s doing, right?

Wrong. Genetics doesn’t inherently mean knowledge. Yet, unfortunately many young people become susceptible to believe online advice by those with the best bodies.

I asked strength coach Geoff M. Wiseman (Instagram: @strengthcoachcardiff), who holds an impressive portfolio of diplomas, certificates, and advanced qualifications, and who is also well-known on Instagram for his personal training with Carys Gray (@busybeecarys), for his opinion: “Social media influencers and chip shop PT’s [personal trainers] are destroying the industry and are just in it for a bit of quick cash. The population seem to have gone from the following ‘to be popular I must be skinny’ to, ‘to be popular I must look like someone else or have a butt’”.

With many students low on funds, recruiting a qualified PT to help with their fitness goals is out of the question. I asked Geoff on other ways young people can make sure the advice they’re getting is useful and legitimate: “Don’t be a sheep. Don’t follow someone because of sexual appeal. When you hear something, check it. Fad systems like diet pills, Skinny Coffee, Slimming World are just looking at dragging money from you. [Nutrition] is dependent to the individual and their goal”. He also offered his knowledge to anyone with questions about health and fitness on his social media.

With no sign of social media trends dying any time soon, I offer my own piece of advice. If an app leaves you feeling worse about yourself after a five-minute scroll: delete it. Eat and exercise for the best version of yourself, and don’t take everything you see online at face value.

30 Sport Ronnie O’Sullivan makes 15th 147 break at “hellhole venue” “I didn’t even fancy potting that black to be honest with you, I was feeling it” James Gill Head Sport Editor Ron n ie O’Sulliva n achieved h is 15 th ma x i mu m break in the s econd rou nd of the E ngl i s h Op en again st A lla n Taylor in a comfortable 4-0 w i n.

Talking to Eu rosport O’Sul livan said : “I felt s orry for Al lan out there be cau s e you cou ld s ee he wa s st rugg ling, he’s a lot be tte r pl ayer th an th at, I th in k the condition s and ju st be ing on the TV table got to h im a bit . I got a bit fort u n ate e a rl ier on , I miss ed q u ite a few balls. We b oth d id a nd my bad was a bit be tte r t ha n h is b ad .” “ F rom ab out 40-odd I wa s i n bits, I was twitch ing a l l over the gaff. My back a rm was like a bit of fis h , f l apping all over the ga ff a nd then they’ve all gone quie t to watch the m a x, a nd I thought th at’s the worst th ing you ca n do, just carry on play ing, m a ke s ome nois e, do s ometh ing . ” “ When it went too q u ie t

you fe lt the pre s su re i s on you eve n more. I d id n’ t eve n fa ncy potting t h at black to be hone st w it h you , I wa s fe e ling it. ” The Ope n took pl ace at the K 2 L e isu re Ce nt re in C rawley, a ve nue he de s c ribe d a few d ays pr ior a s a “ he llhole” th at “s me lt of u r ine. ” “ W h at t hey s hou ld do is h ire the whole back of the ve nue rat he r th a n h ave the s nooker p ar t a nd the n you h ave to wal k th roug h the bowling g re e n to the pre s s con fe re nce.” “ W he n I wa s wal k i ng th roug h the re ye ste rd ay Pe te r E bdon wa s wal k i ng th roug h a nd one old b oy s houte d , ‘C a n you stop wa lk ing wh ile I ’ m t r y i ng to play bowls. ’ Pe te r looke d a rou nd be caus e he thoug ht he wa s j ok ing but he wa s re a lly s e rious and he we nt ‘ I ’ m going to st ar t wa lk ing th roug h when you a re playing s nooke r. ’ ” “ I j u st thoug ht a top playe r s hou ld not be su bj e c te d to one old g uy who’s re a lly, re a lly a ng r y.”

Michael Schumacher’s son, Mick, crowned F3 champion The 19-year looks as if he could follow in his father’s footsteps as his secures a first-ever championship win Harry Deacon Sport Reporter Cou ld the f utu re of Formu la One b e in the ha nds of a hou s e hold na me? Mick S chu m ache r, the s on of Mich ael, wou ld certain ly like to hope s o a fter ru n n ing away with the Formu la 3 title th is yea r. Mick f in ishe d the s e a s on on 365 p oints, 57 clear of the ne a re st competition , win n ing the ch ampion sh ip with a race to sp are — th is is i nclud ing an impre s s ive eight race v ictorie s a nd 14 pod iu m fin ishe s.

S c h u m a c h e r ’ s domin ance, e sp e c ia lly i n t he latter h alf of the s e a s on , evoke s memor ie s of the brilliance h is fat her brought to the track b ack in the 19 9 0 s.

Mick S chu macher is fol lowing in the footste ps of his dad who won the F 3 C h ampion sh ip in 19 9 0 which p aved the way for hi s F1 debut for Jord a n in 1991.

A lthough the F3 cha mpion is s omewh at of a n outsider, with space s sti l l u p for grabs at Toro Ross o, Force Ind ia, a nd Wi l l iams, he cou ld be l i ni ng u p on the F1 g r id i n the fore s eeable futu re.

S ome of the most h ig hprofile n a me s in t he spor t a ll bega n in t he s ing le -s e ate rs, includ i ng L ewis H a m ilton , Nico Hü lke n be rg , a nd Esteb an Ocon . It will be Ocon’s story th at will in spi re S chu m ache r the most , with the Fre nch m an h aving race d in F3 as re ce ntly a s 20 14 .

Ru mou rs h ad b e e n c irc u lating th at Toro Ros s o we re look ing to poach S chu m ache r to race for the m in 2 019 but the s e we re q u a s he d by the te a m ch ie f, He mu lt M a rko, who s a id : “ he is not on ou r l i st a nd we h ave [m ade] no contac t at a ll with h im .”

Me a nwh ile, off t he race track , the cond it ion of S chu m ache r ’s fat he r M ich ae l h a s be e n ke pt re lative ly s e c re t s i nce a s k iing acc ide nt i n 20 13 — he is c u rrent ly re h a bilitating at home in G e neva . W h ile h i s fathe r ’s re cove r y proce s s continue s M ick is e n su r ing th at t he S chu m ache r n a me is st i l l pre s e nt in the world of motor racing and who k nows, pe rh aps h is tale nt will go on to su r p as s eve n h is fathe r ’s re cord 7 C h a mpion s h ip win s.

ISSUE 6 / 22nd October 2018 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Victory at the Shanghai Masters: Djokovic’s resurgence

Photo: Carine06 @ Flickr

Novak Djokovic has reversed his miserable start to 2018, securing his fourth title of the year in China Sam Honey Deputy Sport Editor Novak D jokov ic re -af f i r me d h i s st at u s as one of t he game’s ve r y b e st as he blew away B or n a Ćor ić to w i n his fou r t h S h ang h ai M aste rs c row n .

T he 3 1-ye ar old , who h as won t he tou r n ament t h re e t i me s i n fou r ye ars b e twe e n 2 01 2 and 2 01 5, to ok 97 m i nute s to w rap u p t he m atch , wh ich e nde d 6-3 6- 4 . It lo oke d as t houg h it cou ld h ave b e e n a clos e comp e t it ion , w it h h i s Cro at i an opp one nt Ćor ić b e at i ng Roge r Fe de re r — t he sp or t ’s most succe s s f u l pl aye r of a ll t i me — to re ach t he f i n al . Ćor ić’s prev iou s b e st f i n i s h at a G rand S l am wa s at t h i s ye ar ’s US O p e n , whe re he b owe d out to Jua n M ar t í n de l Pot ro i n t he q u ar te r- f i n al s. T he world No. 19 was al s o note d for an i mpre s s ive s how i ng at t h i s ye a r’s Dav i s Cu p, but i n S h ang h ai picke d u p ju st fou r p o i nt s on D jokov ic’s s e r ve i n t he e nt i re ty of t he f i rst s e t .

He t he n s aw h i s s e r ve broke n i n t he f i rst game of t he s e cond s e t , and b at t le d t h re e ch ampion s h ip p o i nt s w it h t he s core at 5 -3 i n t he s e cond s e t , b e fore eve nt u a lly b ow i ng out .

He h ad , howeve r, re cove re d f rom 3 - 0 dow n e arl ie r in t he s e t to br i ng t he s core to 3 -2 .

In t he dou ble s, B r it ai n’s Jam ie Mu r ray and p ar t ner B r u no S o are s we re b e ate n i n t he f i n al s as t hey lost out to Lu kasz Ku b ot and M arce lo Me lo 6- 4 6-2 .

University rowing club starts year with gold

While D j okov ic extended his run of st ra ight v ictorie s to 18 , including his US O p en t it le, Ć orić w ill st ill b e plea s ed w it h his run in C hina . By reaching t he f ina l, he is now ra nked at No. 13 in t he world, t he f irst t ime he ha s ever broken into t he top 15. The S erbia n ha s a ls o moved up in t he ra nkings, hav ing overt a ken Federer to reach t he No. 2 sp ot .

This come s a s t he late st achievement in a wonderf ul yea r for t he 14 -t ime G ra nd Sla m C ha mpion, in which he picked up his fourt h Wim bledon crow n in addit ion to his t riumph in New York. He w ill now have his eye s f irm ly s et on topping t he ra nkings, w it h Ra fael Nada l sp a rking concern a mong his fa ns by pulling out of t he C hine s e sp ect acle w it h a knee pro blem .

D j okov ic’s re surgence ha s b een driven by a n unprecedented upt urn in fort une s. F rom hav ing fa llen out of t he top 20 a f ter his ex it to Ma rco C ecchinato in t he la st eight at Rola nd G a rros, to clinching two G ra nd Sla m s in under two mont hs a nd b ecom ing t he f irst ever player to w in a ll nine Ma sters 10 0 0 tourna ment s w it h his succe s s at t he C incinnat i Ma sters in August .

He is now emerging a s t he dom ina nt force in t he sp ort , a s t he re st of t he ‘ big four’ face q ue st ions: Nada l a nd Murray have b ot h st ruggled w it h f it ne ss t his yea r, while ret irement f ina lly s eem s to b e on t he horizon for Roger Federer.

It s eem s t he 31-yea r old S erb could now clos e out his f ina l few yea rs on court w it h a n a rray of f urt her G ra nd Sla m v ictorie s.

UoM’s rowing team get off to a winning despite unfavorable weather conditions Mia Gair Sub-editor O n S at u rd ay 1 3 t h O c to b e r, t he Un ive rs ity B o at club st ar te d of f it s rac i ng s e as on w i n n i ng fou r gold s at the Age c rof t He ad row i ng race.

Wit h 2 0mph w i nd s, t he re we re fe ars t h at t he race, wh ich r u n s t h roug h t he S pi n n i ng f ie ld s and D e an sgate are a of M anche ste r and f i n i s he s out s ide T he L ow ry and Imp e r i al War Mu s e u m Nor t h i n S al ford , wou ld not ge t of f t he g rou nd . D e spite t h i s, t he M anche ste r s e nior me n’s and wome n’s te am s ploug he d on regard le s s.

T he f i rst rowe r of t he d ay was Fe l i x Ru m me l who brave d t he we at he r to w i n t he f i rst gold of t he d ay in t he me n’s s i ng le eve nt . S hor t ly af te r, Ros a T homp s on and E me l i a Cole jo i ne d Fe l i x on t he me d al t able t ak i ng home a s e cond gold i n t he wome n’s dou ble eve nt .

D e spite rac i ng al re ady t h at mor n i ng , Fe l i x raced

aga in a longside F ra ncis Heylen in t he men’s double event , t a king home t he t hird gold of t he day a nd m a int a ining t he Univers ity’s w inning st rea k.

Next up wa s t he men’s coxed four, who to ok home t he fourt h a nd f ina l gold of t he day. Wit h Alex Dav ie s, Mat t hew L ay ton, Ha rry Da lry m aple, Gha z n Kha n, a nd cox Ruby Jorda n racing aga inst s evera l crews, including a s econd Ma nche ster Univers ity b o at , to w in t heir race.

Regret t a bly, t he weat her got t he b et ter of t he event , w it h t he re st of t he race s hav ing to b e ca ncelled due to t he cours e b ecom ing da ngerous for b ot h comp et itors a nd m a rs ha ls, mea ning t hat m a ny of t he s enior women’s crews to m is s out on t heir f irst race a f ter a long sum mer of f.

However, t he club hop e s t hat b ot h t he women a nd t he men’s crews, a s well a s t he new nov ice tea m s, w ill have a not her cha nce to te st t heir st rengt hs w it h t he BUC S race s b eginning s o on.

ISSUE 6 / 22nd October 2018 WWW.MANCUNION.COM

Sport 31 UEFA Nations League Round-up: England

As the Nation League returns for matchday 2 and 3, England faced two tough away games against Croatia and Spain Sam Honey Deputy Sports Editor E ng land failed to ga in a vita l t hre e p oints in thei r hu nt to top Nation s L eague Grou p 4 , a s t hey were f ru strated by C roatia i n i ntern ation al compe tition for the s econd time in th re e mont h s.

A slow-mov ing ga me d id n’ t s ee it s first attempt on ta rge t unti l the 37th minute whe n a clever du mmy by F ra n k fu r t’s Ante Rebic saw Ivan Pe ris ic fi re toward s Jordan P ick ford , who reacted qu ickly to tu rn t he shot away. Six m inute s l ate r, the Th ree Lion s ca me agoni singly clos e to ta k ing t he lead , as E ric Die r me t Jorda n Henders on’s cor ne r, t hundering h is heade r aga in st t he p ost, with C roatia n go a l keep er Domin ik L iva ković st ra nded.

The s econd-h alf sta rte d at a higher temp o, with Pe ris ic a l most catch ing out P ick ford from 18 yards. On 49 m inute s, capta in H a r r y Ka ne rat t le d t he crossbar with a he ade r, a s E ng la nd once aga in came clos e to op en ing the s coring . As S outhgate’s me n sta r te d to ge t on top in the m atch , M a rc u s Ra s h ford wa ste d two cle a r ch ance s in th ree m inute s. First, the M a nche ste r

Un ite d for ward at te mpte d to p oke home af te r a long b al l ove r t he top ; m i s c u i ng it , howeve r, t he 2 0-ye ar old s c u f fe d it , m ak i ng it e asy work for L ivakov ić to gat her.

T h re e m i nute s on , Ras h ford was pl aye d t h roug h on goa l

by Rahe e m S te rl i ng , af te r Kane worke d h ard to w i n the b al l b ack af te r a fai le d at t ack . Ras h ford te ste d t he ke e per

w it h t his e f fort , forcing t he D ina mo Z agreb keep er into a go o d s ave, a s he s eeks to e st a blish him s elf a s t he new no.1, follow ing Da nij el Sub a š ić’s ret irement in t he sum mer.

Af ter Ante Rebic wa s unlucky to not put his s ide a head, E ngla nd had a go a l right f ully disa llowed 15 m inute s f rom t ime when Ka ne wa s f lagged of fs ide. The int ro duct ion of B ouriss a D ort mund wonderkid Jadon Sancho added s ome excitement to t he closing st age s, but t he 18 -yea r old ha rdly had enough t ime to m a ke a n imp act , a s t he conte st s lowly f izzled out . A m atch played b ehind clos ed do ors a f ter UE FA sa nct ions for crowd t rouble, a n eerie at mosphere surrounded t he two tea m s a s t hey b ot h fa iled to hit b ack f rom t heir de feat s aga inst t he Sp a nish.

Wit h Jorda n Henders on a nd John Stone s b ot h picking up susp ensions for t he Sp a in ga me s t hrough b o okings, t he ga me w ill surely go dow n a s a wa sted opp ort unity for S out hgate.

Croatia 0-0 England

Friday 12th October, Stadion HNK, Rijeka E ngland failed to ga in a vita l th re e points in the ir hu nt to top Nation s L eague Grou p 4 , a s they we re fru strate d by Cro at i a i n i ntern ation al comp et ition for the s e cond time in thre e mont h s.

A slow-mov ing game d id n’ t s e e its first atte mpt on t arge t unti l the 37th minute whe n a cleve r du m my by F ran k f u r t ’s Ante Rebic saw Ivan Pe r is ic fire towa rd s Jord a n P ick ford , who reacted qu ickly to turn the s hot away. Six m inute s l ate r, t he Thre e Lion s came agon is ing ly clos e to ta k ing the le ad , as E r ic Die r met Jord an Hende rs on’s corne r, thu nde r ing h i s he ade r aga i nst the p ost, with C roatia n goa lke e pe r Dom in i k L ivakov ić st ra nded.

The s econd-half started at a higher tempo, with Perisic almost catchi ng out P ickford from 18 ya rd s. On 49 m inute s, capt ai n Ha rry Kane rattled the c ros s ba r with a he ade r, a s E ng l and once aga i n came clos e to ope n ing the s coring . As S outhgate’s me n st a rted to get on top in the m atch , M a rc u s Ra s h ford waste d two cle a r ch ance s in th re e m inute s. First, the M a nche ste r Un ite d forwa rd attempted to poke home a fte r a long ba ll ove r t he top ; mi s cu ing it, however, the 20 -ye a r old s c u ffe d it, m ak i ng it e asy

work for L ivakov ić to gat he r. T h re e m i nute s on, Ra s hford wa s pl aye d t h roug h on go al by Rahe e m S te rl i ng , af ter Ka ne worked h ard to w i n t he b al l b ack af te r a fai le d at t ack. Ra shford te sted t he ke e p e r w it h t h i s e f for t , forc i ng t he D i n amo Z agreb keep er i nto a go o d s ave, as he s e e ks to e st abl i s h h i ms elf a s t he new no. 1 , fol low i ng Dan ije l S u b aš ić’s re t i re me nt i n t he sum mer.

A f te r A nte Re bic was u n lucky to not put his s ide a head, E ng l and h ad a go al r ig ht f u l ly d i s al lowe d 15 m inute s f rom t i me whe n Kane was f l ag ge d of fs ide. T he int ro duct ion of B ou r i s s a D or t mu nd wonde rk id Jadon S ancho added s ome exc ite me nt to t he clos i ng st age s, but t he 1 8 -yea r old ha rdly had e noug h t i me to m ake an i mp ac t , as t he conte st s lowly f izzled out . A m atch pl aye d b e h i nd clos e d do ors af ter UE FA sa nct ions for c rowd t rou ble, an e e r ie at mosphe re su r rounded t he two te am s as t hey b ot h fai le d to h it b ack f rom t he ir de feat s aga inst t he S p an i s h . Wit h Jord an He nde rs on and John Stone s b ot h pick i ng u p su sp e n s ion s for t he S p ai n game s t hrough b o okings, t he game w i l l su re ly go dow n as a waste d opp ort unity for S outhgate.

Spain 2-3 England Monday 15th October, Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán Stadium, Seville E ngland gained a fa mou s vic tor y ove r a re su rge nt S p ai n i n S evi l le, as Raheem Ste rling s core d in a brace in one of t he T h re e Lions’s most memora ble first-h a lf pe r for m a nce s i n re ce nt me mor y.

A l argely u nch ange d sta rting X I s aw B e n C h ilwe l l ke e p h i s pl ace af ter impre ssing in C roatia in Fr id ay’s ga me, wh i le H ar r y Wi nks started in midf ie ld de spite fa iling to n a il dow n a pl ace i n t he Totten h am side s o fa r th is s e a s on . They faced a st rong S pa ni s h side th at include d the like s of M a rcos A lon s o, T h i ago Alcá ntara, S ergio Bu sq ue ts a nd M a rco As e n s io.

P redictably, the hosts controlle d much of the pl ay, and i n the fi rst h alf, E ngland we re ofte n re s ig ne d to ke e ping a care f u l de fe nsive structu re a nd wa iting to fe e d off a ny m i st ake s made by the 2010 world ch a mpion s. T he away s ide howeve r, exe mplified the kind of composu re th at S outhgate i s s o ke e n to demand of h is you ng s q u ad , a s the ope ne r g rew out of a de l ightf u l 17-p ass move, th at s aw P ick ford’s 40-yard p as s ta ke the Sp an ish mid fie ld out of the ga me, be fore Har r y Kane excha nged p ass e s with M a rc u s Ra s h ford , who fe d Rahe e m S terl i ng, the Man . City forwa rd , e nd ing a ru n of 2 7 inte r n at ion al ga me s without a goal by r if ling into the top corne r.

The s econd was almost a ca rbon copy of the op e ne r, as P ickford once again picke d out h is s ide’s capta in , who fe d Ma rcus Rash ford , who s lotte d home. T he th ird a r r ive d ju st 7 mi nute s be fore h alf-time, a s Ros s B a rk ley picke d out Kane w ith a clever ch ip to catch the Spa n is h back four n appi ng , the Totten h am strike r s q u a r ing it for Ste rling to t ap i n and e ffe ct ively end the ga me be fore the 40 -m inute m ark . It was the devastating moveme nt of the front th re e th at e ne rg i s e d an E ngl a nd side with ju st 1 playe r ove r the age of 2 5 in t he e leve n .

It was Lu is E n rique’s s ide th at bega n the s e cond p e r io d t he

most p os it ive ly, de spite t he s core l i ne, and i n form Paco Alcácer ros e br i l l i ant ly to pu l l one b ack two m i nute s f rom t he hour, h av i ng come of f t he b e nch . E ng l and’s ove rcon fidence wa s t hen ex p os e d , as P ick ford’s cleve r fo otwork ne arly cost his side a go al , as he was pick p o cke te d by Ro d r igo, t he Everton m a n ne e d i ng to go to g rou nd to w i n t he b al l b ack . T his led to Sp a nish c r ie s for a p e n alty, as t hey lo oke d to put pre ssure on t heir opp one nt s. M arcos A lon s o ros e to d ive r t a header aga inst t he b ar at t he st ar t of an 8 - m i nute i nju r y t i me p e r io d b e fore S ergio Ramos once agai n c ut t he de f ic it as he he ade d in w it h v irt ua lly t he l ast k ick of t he game.

W h i le v ic tor y i n t h i s f i xt u re was e s s e nt i al to keeping t he race for top sp ot al ive i n G rou p 4 , it w i l l b e t he m a nner of t he p e r for m ance t h at w i l l ple as e S out hgate more t ha n a ny t hing els e.

T he you nge st T h re e L ion s st ar t i ng X I s i nce t he late 1950 s, t his was a te am t h at o oze d con f ide nce and cal m ne s s aga inst one of t he world’s top i nte r n at ion al s ide s. H ar r y Wi n ks cont rolled t he m id f ie ld b at t le w it h h i s br i l l i ant sp ac i al awarene ss a longs ide Ros s B ark ley, wh i le Jo e G ome z lo oke d n at u ral next to Ha rry M ag u i re, who m ade a re m arkable 1 1 cle arance s t hroughout t he 90 m i nute s. T he w i n , and i n p ar t ic u l ar f i rst 4 5 m inute s wa s a cle ar e ndors e me nt of S out hgate’s cont i nue d b elie f in giv ing ch ance s to you ng pl aye rs. Eve n i n t he clos i ng st age s a nd w it h h i s s ide u nde r pre s su re, t he 4 8 -ye ar old cho os e to ha nd a debut to Che l s e a’s Nat h an ie l Ch ab ol ah .

A f te r Mond ay’s w i n , E ng l and can st i l l top t he group but mu st hop e for t he S p an i s h to d rop p o i nt s agai nst C ro at ia , a s ide t hey b e at 6- 0 i n S e pte m b e r. Conve rs e ly, E ng l a nd could st ill b e re legate d and d rop i nto t he B L e ag ue, s hou ld C ro at ia w in t heir game agai n st S p ai n and t he n d raw at We m bley in t he group’s f i n al f i xt u re.

Photo: Lineup Builder @ Chosen 11

Women-only motorsport series created

James Gill writes on the introduction of the female driver-only motorsport series, and the mixed reactions it has sparked, as some see it as well-deserved opportunity and others as affirming the barrier James Gill Head Sports Editor The new fem a le d r ive r-on ly motorsp or t s e rie s, the W s erie s, h a s be e n lau nche d am id cont roversy. The W S e r ie s will sta rt in 20 19 and hope s to h ave 20 of the world’s be st fe m a le d r ive rs competing over six race s for a $ 1. 5 m illion pr ize p ot .

The comp etition is f re e for d r ive rs to e nte r a nd the f i n al 2 0 w i l l b e chos en th roug h a n inte n s ive prog ra m th at w i l l te st the abilitie s of the ca nd id ate s. The ove ra ll winne r w i l l receive a th ird of the tota l prize pot, $ 5 0 0,0 0 0, to be us ed to break into compe tition s such a s Formul a 1 . “ W hat a sad day for motorsport, ” s a id M a n n , addi ng : “ Thos e with fu nding to he lp fe m a le race rs a re choos i ng to s egregate them as oppos e d to su pporting the m . I a m deeply d isapp ointe d to s e e such a h istoric ste p backward s take place in my life time. For the re cord , I sta nd WITH thos e who fe e l force d into th is a s the ir on ly opportu n ity to race. I sta nd AGA I NST thos e who are forci ng the above-mentione d race rs into th is pos it ion a s t heir on ly s olution to find the fu nd ing to race.”

O n the website for the W S e r ie s they state “ the re are no biological or hormon a l impe d ime nts” to a wome n’s a bi l ity to comp ete with the be st m a le F1 d rive rs, and that they “exp ect th at the be st g radu ate s from W S e rie s will b e able to compe te in For mu la 1 on leve l terms.” Th is b egs the q ue stion if the be st g radu ate s from the s erie s shou ld be a ble to compe te on leve l terms with the like s of L ewis H a m ilton or S e ba st i an Vettel then why is a wome n-on ly s e r ie s ne e de d? “ T h at ’s why we’ve chos en to c re ate wh at we hope will b e a susta i nable bu sine ss th at u s e s com me rc ia l spon s ors h ip to create a s erie s for wome n to race in , s ome of whom wou ld n’ t other wis e ge t a ch a nce to race at al l .”

M ichele Mouton , pre s ide nt of the FI A’s Wome n i n Motorsp ort Comm is s ion , is d is m is s ive of the W S e rie s. “One of the obj e c tive s of the com m is s ion i s

Inside Sport:

to he lp e n su re fe m ale s h ave e q u al opp or t u n it ie s to comp e te at t he h ig he st leve l of t he sp or t . We k now f rom ou r re ce nt d r ive r-as s e s s me nt prog ram me t hat t he re i s a p o ol of ve r y t ale nte d wome n d r ive rs who de s e r ve t he ch ance to do t h i s. As comp e t itors, t hey want to b e t he b e st and t he on ly way for t he m to b e nch m ark t he i r p e r for m ance i s to comp e te i n a m i xe d e nv i ron me nt , wh ich t hey are al re ady do i ng.

“ there a re no biolog ica l or hor mon a l i mp ed iments to a women’s a bi lity to comp ete w ith t he b e st ma le F 1 d r ivers” “W h i le t h i s new s e r ie s i s o bv iou s ly g iv i ng a n opp or t u n ity for wome n to s howcas e t he i r t alent i n a fe m ale - on ly e nv i ron me nt , ou r o bje c t ive i s to h ave more of t he m comp e t i ng along s ide me n and de mon st rat i ng t hey h ave t he s ame abi l ity and p ote nt i al to succe e d i n top - leve l F IA ch ampion s h ip s.”

S i nce t he f i rst F 1 s e r ie s i n 195 0 t he re h ave b e e n over 900 d r ive rs, of wh ich on ly two h ave b e e n women.

M ar i a Te re s a de F i l ippi s st ar te d t h re e race s i n 195 8 /9 and fe l low It al i an L e l l a L om b ard i comp e te d i n 12 race s b e twe e n 1974 and 1976, ye t de spite s eve ra l more fe m ale d r ive rs b e i ng on t he f r i nge of F 1 , none h ave m an age d to bre ak onto t he st ar t i ng g r id.

T h i s was not he lp e d by B e r n ie E ccle stone, for me r Ch ie f E xe c ut ive of t he For mu l a O ne G rou p, b e i ng d i s m i s s ive of

women driv ing in F 1 s ay ing t hat t hey “would not b e t a ken s erious ly”. He ha s a ls o s a id mult iple t ime s in interv iews t hat women “s hould b e dre ss ed in white like a ll t he ot her dome st ic applia nce s.” E ccle stone le f t his p os it ion in 20 17 a nd m a ny a re hop e f ul t hat t his could repre s ent a t urning p o int for fem a le involvement in t he sp ort .

Wit h t he recent news t hat 21-yea r-old Ann C a rra s co ha s b ecome t he f irst fem a le rider to w in a motorbike world cha mpions hip in t he World Sup ersp ort 30 0, it s eem s t hat t he only t hing holding women b ack f rom excelling in top motorsp ort comp et it ion is opp ort unity, not skill. S o do e s t he W S erie s of fer t hat opp ort unity? Whilst t here ha s b een a lot of crit icism , e sp ecia lly f rom prom inent fem a le drivers, t here ha s b een pra is e for t he comp et it ion to o.

Former F 1 driver Dav id C oult ha rd b elieve s t hat men a nd women could comp ete eq ua lly but t he current st ruct ure for f inding fem a le t a lent ha s “not worked”. He s a id “if you wa nt a f unda ment a l cha nge in t he outcome, you need a f unda ment a l cha nge in t he pro ce ss. W is a f unda ment a l cha nge in creat ing a n opp ort unity to bring t hrough fem a le t a lent to t he highe st p os sible level.”

Intere st ingly t his is not t he f irst t ime a women-only racing s erie s ha s b een at tempted. ITV pre s ented ‘Formula Wom a n’ to v iewers in 20 0 4 in a n at tempt to b o ost t he fem a le audience of t he sp ort a nd bring more women drivers to t he m aj or comp et it ions.

There wa s not a happy ending for t he s erie s a s t he m a in sp ons or, Ma zda , pulled out at t he end of t he f irst s ea s on a nd w it hin t hree yea rs it wa s a xed.

O nly t ime w ill tell what t he imp act of t his new comp et it ion w ill b e, but every fem a le drive t hat enters t he W S erie s w ill b e hoping to us e it a s a stepping stone to greater t hings. “As fem a le racers we a re racers f irst , a nd our gender come s s econd. We grew up drea m ing of w inning race s a nd w inning cha mpionship s, aga inst everyone – t he s a me a s every m a le racer do e s. We did not grow up drea m ing of b eing s egregated a nd w inning t he girl’s only cup.”

UoM rowing club win gold Shanghi Masters Schumacher F3 champion